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+AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME By Mike Myers MUSIC: timpani roll and dramatic sting NARRATOR In his last adventure, Austin Powers, a swinging spy from the Sixties, was unfrozen in the Nineties to battle his archenemy Dr. Evil. Austin foiled Dr. Evil's plan to send a nuclear warhead to the center of the earth and banished him into space forever. Or so he thought. EXT. HOTEL - NIGHT (ESTABLISHING SHOT FROM FIRST MOVIE) SUPER: THE FRENCH RIVIERA INT. HOTEL - HALLWAY Elegant double doors with a brass plaque reading "Honeymoon Suite." A "Do Not-Disturb" sign hangs from the handle. INT. HOTEL SUITE FROM THE FIRST MOVIE: Austin and Vanessa snuggle in bed. She plays with his chest hair. VANESSA I love you, Mr. Powers. AUSTIN And I love you, Mrs. Powers. SHOT TO MATCH EXISTING FOOTAGE: Austin gets out of bed. We see Vanessa putting on her robe from behind, and then EXISTING FOOTAGE: Austin and Vanessa kiss. VANESSA Let's go out on the terrace. It's a beautiful night, we can look at the stars. EXT. HOTEL BALCONY EXISTING FOOTAGE: Austin and Vanessa gaze at the stars. AUSTIN Look how beautiful the night sky is. VANESSA Isn't that the big dipper? AUSTIN Yeah, and that looks just like Uranus. VANESSA Austin! AUSTIN (sheepish) Well, you know. VANESSA Hey, I've never seen that big star before. AUSTIN Yeah, what is that? Austin pulls out his telescope and takes a look. AUSTIN'S POV - TELESCOPE EFFECT EXT. SPACE EXISTING SHOT: The Bob's Big Boy rocket. INT. DR. EVIL'S CAPSULE DR. EVIL This isn't over yet, Mr. Powers. I have one more trick up my sleeve, don't I Mr. Bigglesworth? The frozen Mr. Bigglesworth MEOWS. EXT. SPACE The Bob's Big Boy rocket. Suddenly, a hatch opens in Bob's rear end and Dr. Evil's silver egg capsule poops out. SFX: PLOOP! Capsule begins fiery re-entry to Earth INT. HOTEL ROOM Austin comes in and shuts the balcony door. AUSTIN Oh well, I guess it was nothing. A VANESSA DOUBLE crosses carrying a bouquet of flowers, which obscure her face. AUSTIN Care for some champagne? (pouring) Here's to monotony-- I mean, monogamy! Vanessa sits at the vanity with her back turned. AUSTIN Hello? Vanessa? What are you doing, luv? VANESSA (back turned) Just putting on my-- As Vanessa turns around she puts her hands up and PULLS OFF HER FACE revealing wires, transistors, and a speaker where her mouth should be. FEMBOT VANESSA (computer voice) MAKE-UP! AUSTIN (frightened) Vanessa, you're a Fembot! They fight. Midway through the fight, machine guns pop out of Vanessa's breasts. AUSTIN Machine gun jubblies, how did I miss those? VANESSA (robot voice) PERHAPS NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD TRY FOREPLAY. Her machine gun breasts FIRE, spraying the room in SLO-MO. Then they run out of ammo and CLICK, CLICK. Austin empties his gun into the robot, but to no avail. She rushes at him, he gives her a judo chop, also to no avail. Then Austin' notices a SELF-DESTRUCT switch and hits it. She starts to twitch, her head spins, and she EXPLODES. Fembot parts fly around the room. Austin sits on the bed, saddened. He holds Vanessa's hand, which has wires hanging out of it. On one of the fingers is her wedding ring. MUSIC: VERY SAD PIANO AUSTIN (very sad) I can't believe Vanessa, my bride, my one true love, the woman who taught me the beauty of sharing your whole life with another, the person who taught me the meaning of love, was a Fembot. How will I ever go on? (beat) Wait a tic! That means I'm single! Oh, behave! INT. LOBBY - HOTEL Rich European guests mill about the luxurious lobby. Suddenly, Austin dances through naked. Just as we are about to see his bits and pieces, a man lifts up his suitcase. AUSTIN Yeah, baby, I'm free! I'm naked and free! SEQUENCE CREDIT MUSIC: Soul Bassanova by QUINCY JONES PAN UP Austin's NAKED body as he walks down a boardwalk. Just as the camera reaches that most sensitive of areas, a credit appears STARRING MIKE MYERS. Austin gives a big 'who me?' and we FREEZE FRAME. EXT. BOARDWALK - FRENCH RIVERA European types stare and point. We see Austin from behind. His bottom half is blocked by a bicycle. The bicycle moves away. Just as Austin's bum is about to be revealed- A CREDIT APPEARS blocking it. Austin turns his head around to the camera and puts his hand to his mouth in an 'oh my!' take and we FREEZE FRAME. A MAN IN A RAINCOAT flashes Austin, his thingy blocked by a credit. Austin just laughs...crazy, man! Austin goes around a corner. A moment later he returns, followed by a NUDE MARCHING BAND. A SIGN on the left side of the screen reads "Warning! Nude Beach". Austin enters from the left. We see his naked, hairy torso from the waist up. Just as he is about to appear from behind the sign, a... CREDIT APPEARS MOVING LEFT TO RIGHT Blocking his penis lengthwise as he walks. NUDE BEACH - CREDIT SEQUENCE A girl sits on a blanket; a HORIZONTAL CREDIT blocks her bare chest. Austin lays on his back beside her, trying to be suave; A VERTICAL CREDIT appears. The wind blows away a kite, revealing a stark-naked girl. The credit "PRODUCTION DESIGN" blocks her chest; the credit "BY" blocks her you-know-what. Austin walks into frame; the "PRODUCTION DESIGNER'S NAME" disguises his growing interest. Austin joins a nude volleyball game in progress. CREDITS appear everywhere to block all possible combinations of nudity. People leap in all directions to make saves, causing CREDITS TO APPEAR at crazy angles. A pretty girl watches Austin lift weights. Her boobs are blocked by the "WRITTEN BY" credit. Austin lifts a dumbbell. The credit "MIKE MYERS" sticks out from his waist. Austin looks proud. A BUFF NAKED BODYBUILDER joins them. He lifts a much heavier weight. A much longer credit sticks out from his waist: "AND MICHAEL MCCULLERS". Austin pouts. Austin runs down the beach, his bum blocked by the credit "DIRECTED BY". He jumps on a trampoline and does the splits in mid-air: FREEZE FRAME AND PAN AROUND LIKE IN THE GAP "KHAKI SWING" AD. Austin smiles crazily, his penis blocked by "JAY ROACH." Austin does a super-duper double flip into his JAGUAR. AUSTIN Shaguar, baby, yeah! CU on the chrome script on the grill: it reads "Shaguar" where it would normally read "Jaguar". The car speeds off. FULL SCREEN TV JERRY SPRINGER SHOW On the stage we see a Klansman father and his Klansman son, a Nazi father and his Nazi son, and SCOTT EVIL all seated on a panel. Lower Third Chyron: "MY FATHER IS EVIL AND WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD" JERRY SPRINGER If you just joined us, today's topic is "my father is evil and wants to take over the world". Now, Bobby, you had something you wanted to share with your father before the break. BOBBY Dad, I know you're against race mixing and all that, but I met someone... KLANSMAN Don't say it! The crowd WHOOPS. BOBBY I met someone... and he's black. The crowd goes crazy. KLANSMAN He? The Klansman holds his hooded head in his hands. JERRY SPRINGER Please welcome Tim. A handsome Blair Underwood look-alike enters and hugs the Klansman's son. The crowd screams. JERRY MOVES TO SCOTT EVIL. JERRY SPRINGER Now Scott, tell us about your father. Share with us. SCOTT Well he's the head of an evil organization that has aspirations for world domination. JERRY SPRINGER And where is your father right now? SCOTT He's in outer space, like frozen in a giant egg and stuffed inside a Big Boy rocket with his cat, Mr. Bigglesworth. JERRY SPRINGER Really? Well, we have a surprise for you, Scott. Let's bring out SCOTT'S father, Dr Evil. Dr Evil enters. Lower Third Chyron: "WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD" DR. EVIL Hello Scott, I'm back. SCOTT I can't believe you'd do this to me on national television! DR. EVIL They offered me a free makeover. JERRY SPRINGER Dr. Evil, we've seen a lot of the fathers here today open up to their sons, sons to the fathers. Is there anything you'd like to share? DR. EVIL Share? JERRY SPRINGER Yes, don't you have any secrets? DR. EVIL OK. I have a vestigial tail. Everyone is a little grossed out. DR. EVIL It's more of a nub, really. The spine just goes on a little longer than it should. Also, I've dabbled. I mean, perform fellatio once and you're a poet, twice and you're a homosexual. I remember once I was being fisted by Sebastian Cabot- but here's where the story gets interesting. He was lactose-intolerant. He could eat red meat all night long, but one sip of milk and it was gastric hell. And I remember we were caught in fragrance delicto by Henry Kissinger, and you can imagine my humiliation at having Hank hear me say, "Mr. French, no teeth." One of my greatest disappointments is that I never became a song and dance man. I could have been a quadruple threat, kind of like a despotic Ken Barry. Dancer, singer, actor, and I would possess nuclear weapons, the latter being the most threatening of the four. I once sat on a bus and tried to will myself a menstrual cycle. All I ended up with was a sense of failure and a mild neuralgia in my incisor teeth and perhaps a grudging respect for the weaker sex. I love toe cleavage. For the most part I distrust dogs. I slept in a horse once. It was quite roomy. On second thought, it was the Ritz. I named my left testicle 'piss' and my right testicle 'vinegar'. I wrote "It's Raining Men", or so the Christmas babies told me. Oh yes, I also made a Marzipan voodoo effigy of The Fonze while I was in coma after smoking some Peruvian prayer hash, but who at the end of the day can honestly say they haven't done that? The Springer audience is stunned, slack-jawed and for once quiet. KLANSMAN What are you, some kind of freak? SCOTT Shut up, jagoff! Studio audience whoops at this. KLANSMAN I'll kick your ass punk! Crowd goes crazy. DR. EVIL No one talks to my boy that way! Dr. Evil charges at Klansman and starts to bitch slap him. Security men, with headsets on, rush in to separate them. DR. EVIL I'm OK, I'm OK. There is a BEAT, then Dr. Evil CHARGES the guy again, knocking him down. DR. EVIL Come Scott, let's go to daddy's new evil lair. EXT. WORLD HEADQUARTERS BUILDING - DAY We pan up a modern office building. The camera reaches the top of the building and we see a giant STARBUCKS LOGO and the words: Starbucks World Headquarters. INT. STARBUCKS BOARD ROOM The penthouse boardroom is adorned with Starbucks paraphernalia: large logo, clear canisters full of beans, and a large world map with a little logo everywhere there is a Starbucks. Around a large table are Dr. Evil, Number Two (bandaged and lightly spotted with soot), Frau, Scott and a couple of NEW HENCHMEN. A Starbucks employee serves everyone steaming hot coffee products. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, as the legitimate frontman of your organization, I seized upon the opportunity to invest in a small Seattle-based coffee company several years ago. Today, Starbucks is a far- flung empire with 2000 outlets worldwide. DR. EVIL Oh good, Number Two, I do enjoy a good cuppa joe. NUMBER TWO If I may continue, I believe if we shift our resources away from world domination and focus on providing premium quality coffee drinks, we can increase our gross profits fivefold. Dr. Evil takes a sip of cappuccino, leaving a WHITE FROTHY MILK MUSTACHE on his upper lip. DR. EVIL Right. Perhaps you've confused me with someone who gives a shit. Might I remind you that I run the show here? I demand a little respect. NUMBER TWO (indicating Dr. Evil's milk mustache) Dr. Evil, I think you-- DR. EVIL Silence! I will not tolerate your insolence! Remember what happened last time. FLASHBACK (FOOTAGE FROM FIRST MOVIE) Number Two disappears backwards into the fiery pit. INT. STARBUCKS WORLD HEADQUARTERS Number Two smiles weakly, breaking into a sweat on his brow. NUMBER TWO May I add, I appreciate you reinstating me after our little... misunderstanding. DR. EVIL Frau Farbissina. Wie gehts is einen? We see Frau. She looks a little more 'masculine' than before. FRAU Zehr gut, Herr Doctor. DR. EVIL How are things? FRAU I have come to embrace the love that dare not speak it's name. To my right is my lover. We see a severe-looking German woman with one continuous eyebrow. FRAU Her name is Unibrau. I met her on the LPGA Tour. DR. EVIL Right on. Welcome, Unibrau. Dr. Evil takes another sip of cappuccino, making the frothy milk mustache even larger. FRAU Doctor, you have a 'milk mustache.' DR. EVIL (wiping it off, embarrassed) Oh, I know. I know. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, I'd like to introduce the Greek assassin, Oedipus. We see a swarthy Greek army guy. DR. EVIL Welcome to my private army, Oedipus. Excited? OEDIPUS I could give a shit. DR. EVIL Kiss your mother with that mouth? OEDIPUS Yes. DR. EVIL Of course you do. Dr Evil begins to press a button labelled "Oedipus" on his control panel, but Number Two interrupts. NUMBER TWO (clearing throat) Dr. Evil, as you know, the rate at which you liquidate henchmen far exceeds our ability to replace them. DR. EVIL I have so few pleasures left to me, Number Two. The key to life is to rotate your vices. One day it's executions, another day it's creamy French cheese. It's like frickin' heroin. NUMBER TWO Well, Dr. Evil, perhaps I have the answer. While you were frozen, we began a program to clone you. DR. EVIL Cool. NUMBER TWO We had a few glitches, but I think you'll be pleased with the results. FRAU (shouting) Send in the clone! MUSIC: dramatic sting We see the shadow of an approaching figure. The shadow looks like Dr. Evil, only much larger and scarier. NUMBER TWO He is identical to you in every way, except he is one-eighth your size. We see that the source of the shadow is a MINIATURE DR. EVIL, just like the creepy mini-Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau. He mimics Dr. Evil's mannerisms including holding his tiny pinky to his tiny mouth. DR. EVIL Breathtaking. I shall call him Mini- Me. (to clone) Mini-Me, you will sit to my right. Mini-Me sits down in a miniature version of Dr. Evil's command chair. DR. EVIL Come Mr. Bigglesworth! The bald Mr. Bigglesworth runs and jumps into Dr. Evil's lap. A bald MR. BIGGLESWORTH KITTEN jumps into Mini-Me's lap. DR. EVIL Mini-me, something to eat? (expectant pause) No? (pause) OK. (to room) Tired. Gentleman, I have a plan. As you know, the most powerful man in the world is the President of the United States. But he is just that- a man, subject to temptations of the flesh like any other man. Here's what we do: we make it seem that the President has had "extra-marital oral relations" with- and this is the kicker- DRAMATIC STING, SNAP ZOOM TO DR. EVIL. DR. EVIL With a White House intern! Dr. Evil gloats. So does Mini-Me. NUMBER TWO (clearing his throat) Uh-hem. DR. EVIL What, that already happened? Number Two nods. DR. EVIL This is ri-goddamn-diculous. Oh well, how about a frickin' time machine? Does the president have a time machine? Have I been scooped on that? NUMBER TWO No, not that I'm aware of. DR. EVIL Alright, time machine it is. As you know, every diabolical scheme I've hatched has been thwarted by Austin Powers. And why is that, ladies and gentlemen? SCOTT Because you never kill him when you get the chance and you're a dope? Mini-Me hops upon the table and tries to push the "Scott Evil" button on Dr. Evil's control panel. Frau SQUIRTS him with a water bottle. Mini-Me glares at Scott and GIVES HIM THE FINGER. DR. EVIL No, because Austin Powers has "mojo". NUMBER TWO Mojo? FRAU Yes, mojo. The mojo is the life force, the essence, the libido, the "right stuff". DR. EVIL It's what the French call a certain 'I don't know what.' SCOTT If you've got a time machine, why don't you just go back and kill Austin Powers when he's a baby or something? DR. EVIL No, no, no. NUMBER TWO (interrupting) Dr. Evil, wouldn't it be easier to use your knowledge of the future to play the stock market? We could literally make trillions. DR. EVIL (smug laugh to himself) Why make trillions when we could make... (pause) Billions? NUMBER TWO Excuse me? DR. EVIL Why think small is all I'm saying. SCOTT A trillion is more than a billion, numb-nuts. DR. EVIL Zip it. Unveil the time portal! A wall panel opens to reveal a Stargate-like wall of shimmering energy. DR. EVIL Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the time portal. As you know, Austin Powers was frozen in 1967. Therefore, I time travel to 1969, two years after he was frozen. Security will be lax and I'll strike when he is totally helpless. First, I take Austin Powers' mojo. Then I begin my domination of the world. SCOTT Can I come? DR. EVIL No, Scott, Daddy has a score to settle. Austin Powers is the snake to my mongoose, or the mongoose to my snake. Either way it's bad, I don't know animals. But I do know this: This time it's personal. Frau, Number 2, I'll see you both in 1969. Come, Mini-Me. Dr. Evil walks to the portal. Mini-Me follows, imitating him perfectly. They enter the portal. There is a FREEZE FRAME effect and they FADE AWAY, like in Star Trek. INT. DR. EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR - Dr. Evil and Mini-Me emerge on the other side of the portal into a NEW LAIR. It is a large hollowed-out volcano room dominated by chrome conduits and tasteful art pieces. A younger Frau sits with NUMBER TWO, now played by ROB LOWE in an eye-patch. DR. EVIL Ah, here we are Mini-Me, 1969. Number Two, you look very youthful and healthy. (turning to Frau) And Frau you look...right. As Dr. Evil walks to the center of the room, chairs rise from the floor. Everyone takes a seat, but Dr. Evil gets caught in the middle as chairs rise around him. He is frightened. One of the rising chairs hits him in the crotch. DR. EVIL OK, people, we now officially have a chair problem. If another one of these chairs hits me in the nuts, I'm gonna go postal. Mini-Me, I want you to meet Number Two. NUMBER TWO Hello there. Mini-me says nothing. DR. EVIL Mini-Me? Mini-me still says nothing. DR. EVIL Shy. Low blood sugar. (to room) Gentlemen, Phase Two is beginning. I have an operative inside the Ministry of Defense. By this time tomorrow, Austin Powers' mojo will be mine. Dr. Evil goes over and looks out the large window. DR. EVIL (maniacal laugh) Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! EXT. DR. EVIL'S TROPICAL ISLAND - We cut outside to see that window is in fact the left eye of a Mt. Rushmore-type depiction of Dr. Evil carved into the side of a volcano on a tropical island. DR. EVIL (V.O.) (maniacal laugh) Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! INT. MOD - CRYOGENIC FREEZING ROOM - We see Austin's FROZEN BODY in cryogenic storage. Above it, we see two digital clocks. One reads: CURRENT DATE: MAY 25, 1969, the other reads: DATE FROZEN: NOVEMBER 11, 1967. One of the SCOTS GUARDS, is an IMMENSELY FAT SCOTTISH SOLDIER (played by Mike Myers). BRITISH COLONEL We've had reports that there's a spy in the Ministry of Defense. The contents of this room are vital to the country. Be on special alert. FAT SOLDIER (thick Scottish accent) Those bastards will have to kill me before I let anything happen to this wee naked hairy popsicle, sir! BRITISH COLONEL Very good. And try and lose some weight for God's sake! They exchange salutes and the Colonel exits. FAT SOLDIER Yessir! (sotto after the Colonel) I outta smash your teeth out with a Toffee Hammer Mr. English Colonel Telling-Me-What-To-Do-And-Stealing- our-Oil-Refusing-To-Recognize- our- Scottish-Independence! The Fat Soldier begins to play the BAGPIPES, a white vapor comes out of them, filling the room. The other soldiers COLLAPSE, unconscious. He bores through the ice and pulls out a Sixties high-tech syringe type device with an LED graph on the side. He places it in Austin's navel. The LED meter goes from red to green, indicating FULL MOJO. EXT./INT. AUSTIN'S SHAGUAR - DRIVING - DAY Austin drives in MODERN TRAFFIC. He is drinking a STARBUCKS COFFEE and listening to the Jag's in-dash CD PLAYER. Suddenly Austin DROOPS. The car starts to sputter. The fuel gauge reads empty. AUSTIN Gor blimey, I'm on empty! That's funny, I just filled the Shaguar up this morning. Austin hits a button on the dashboard. BASIL EXPOSITION appears on the picture phone in the dash. BASIL EXPOSITION (on picture phone) Hello, I'm Basil Exposition, head of British Intelligence. AUSTIN You always are, Basil. Listen, the weirdest thing just happened, I've run out of petrol. BASIL EXPOSITION We'll send a man around immediately. How was your honeymoon? AUSTIN Vanessa tried to kill me, Basil. She was a Fembot! BASIL EXPOSITION Ah women, who can understand them? Moving on, let's discuss your new case. AUSTIN New case? Very shagadelic, Basil! BASIL EXPOSITION You'll be doing a photo shoot. We know that one of the models is an ex- KGB agent selling top secret material to the highest bidder. AUSTIN That sounds easy enough, you know what they say: all work and no shagging makes Austin a dull boy, man! INT. SKI LODGE Austin sets up his photo equipment. The room is decorated in classic Heffner- bear skin rugs, leather chairs, roaring fire. AUSTIN (looking around) Tres chic, baby. REG, the photo assistant, enters. REG Austin, the models are ready. AUSTIN Ta, Reg. Bless your cotton socks. Hey, Reg, do you have any hobbies? REG What? AUSTIN Hobbies, man! I for one enjoy making models! The models make their entrance. They are REAL SUPERMODELS, say CINDY CRAWFORD, REBECCA ROMAJIN and also one MODEL we don't know. SUPERMODELS (circling Austin) It's him! Oh my God! It's Austin Powers! Austin shoots a look to Reg like 'still got it, baby.' AUSTIN One at a time, girls. One. At. A. Time! CINDY Hi, I'm Cindy. I don't believe I've had the pleasure. AUSTIN Of course you haven't had "The Pleasure", we just met, baby, yeah! REBECCA How do you do, Austin? I'm Rebecca. (indicating the photo gear) Your equipment is quite impressive. AUSTIN Thank you. Your breasts are amazing. Austin comes to the unknown model. She is tall and angular. AUSTIN And what's your name, baby? MODEL (thick Russian accent) Ivana Humpalot. AUSTIN Excuse me? IVANA Ivana. Ivana Humpalot. AUSTIN And I vanna toilet made of solid gold but it's just not in the cards, now is it? Austin looks over the girls, trying to decide who is the spy. AUSTIN (V.O.) (inner monologue) Now, which one is the Russian spy? Cindy Crawford, Rebecca Romajin... or Ivana Humpalot? Think, man, think! Austin begins snapping pictures. The sequence is shot like a photo shoot, with freeze frames, etc. AUSTIN Alright, baby! Love it. Turn and pout for me baby! Smashing! Cindy gets on all fours. AUSTIN Great, darling. Give me some shoulder. Yes, yes, yes. (angry) No! No! FULL FRAME, cover of Vogue. Cindy with her head framed out. AUSTIN (to Rebecca) Show me love. Smashing! You're an animal. You're a tiger. Be a tiger, baby! You're great! You're Grrrrrr- eat! You're Tony, be corn flakes, baby, be frosted. Now be a lemur, baby! You're a ring-tailed lemur. Rebecca looks confused. REBECCA A lemur? AUSTIN A small mammal native to the African savannah. C'mon baby, you know. Like this! (imitating lemur) OK, predator coming! Now, burrow, burrow! You're a lemur. It's all you've got. (beat) I take it back. Be a tiger again. Smashing! FULL FRAME, Rebecca on the cover of National--Geographic. AUSTIN And... done! I'm spent! Austin throws his camera to Reg, who catches it. REG Hel-lo, you forgot about Ivana. AUSTIN I didn't forget, baby. Miss Humpalot and I are going to have a 'private session'. Reg shows the girls out as they PROTEST. Austin and Ivana are left alone. Austin CLAPS TWICE and the lights dim. He CLAPS again and the fire goes up. MUSIC: I'm Never Going To Fall in Love Again by BURT BACHARACH IVANA When did you get "The Clapper"? AUSTIN November, 1964, Dutch East Indies, shore leave. IVANA Are you cold, Mr. Powers? AUSTIN I once had a bad experience with frostbite. I had to dip my tadger into a brandy snifter. Ivana moves over to a chessboard set up nearby. IVANA Do you know how we keep warm in Russia? AUSTIN I can guess, baby. IVANA We play chess. AUSTIN I guessed wrong. IVANA It takes a keen intelligence to play chess. Of course, you know what they say about men with big brains, don't you? AUSTIN They wear large hats? IVANA No, they make better lovers. AUSTIN Wrong again. Ivana starts playing with the chess pieces sexily (like in The Thomas Crowne Affair). IVANA I assume you know how to play. She runs the bishop across her lips sexily. AUSTIN Of course. The... horsey... moves in an L shape. Austin tries to match her sexy moves and CHOKES on a piece. AUSTIN Let's stop playing games with each other... especially difficult ones. May I ask you a question, Miss Humpalot? IVANA Of course. AUSTIN Do I make you horny? Do I? Austin rolls around on the polar bear rug. IVANA I'll tell you anything you want to know, just make love to me. She pulls his shirt off, revealing his prodigious chest hair. IVANA You are hairy, like an animal! AUSTIN (growling and barking) Grrrr, baby. Austin takes the head of the bear skin rug. AUSTIN Grrrr. Ruf! Ruf! (covers the bear's eyes) Wait a tick, I don't want him watching me while I'm on the job! IVANA Make love to me, monkey man. AUSTIN Groovy, baby! We pan around the room, seeing all the stuffed and mounted wildlife who seem to be watching. Suddenly the camera stops. So does the music. IVANA (O.S.) What's the matter? CUT TO: MONTAGE - VARIOUS STOCK FOOTAGE A tall flower wilts and beds over. A souffle falls. A flag is lowered to half mast. A giant redwood falls in a forest. A hot air balloon deflates and falls. An actual scientific diagram of a penis in the refractory period. INT. LODGE AUSTIN (to camera) Crikey, I've lost my mojo. EXT. LONDON STREETS (STOCK FOOTAGE) An ambulance races through the streets, SIREN BLARING. EXT. MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SUPER: "MINISTRY OF DEFENSE" INT. MOD - HALLWAY Basil hurries through, pushing past TECHNICIANS and WORKERS. BASIL EXPOSITION Where is he? In here? INT. MOD - LAB Basil enters. Cross between a hospital room and a lab. Austin lies in bed hooked up to lots of monitoring equipment. BASIL EXPOSITION Austin, I came as soon as I heard. AUSTIN There must be some kind of mistake, Basil. Maybe I was drunk and I didn't know it. Austin holds his neck very stiffly. BASIL EXPOSITION What's wrong with your neck, Austin? AUSTIN (turning stiffly to face Basil) I took a Viagra and it got caught in my throat. I've had a stiff neck for hours. Basil, is it true? Have I lost my mojo? BASIL EXPOSITION We're going to run a few tests, Austin. Don't worry, old friend, we'll get to the bottom of this. INT. MRI MACHINE Austin is being loaded into one of those big scary MRI machines: the MOJONATOR 9000. The mojo meter reads VERY LOW. INT. MOD LAB MONTAGE (TIME-LAPSE): Technicians in white suits and masks transform the room into a love lair: A pair of Latex-gloved hands carefully puts a BURT BACHARACH record on a turntable. Examination lights are replaced with LAVA LAMPS. A tray is brought in with a videotape marked "SWEDISH EDUCATIONAL FILM." Finally, the transformation is complete. Austin lies in bed reading a vintage PLAYBOY. A CANDY STRIPE NURSE enters, very pretty, in a tight outfit. NURSE Excuse me, Mr. Powers, I need to give you a sponge bath before we begin the test. AUSTIN (not paying attention to her) Alright, miss, just let me finish this article on the Suez crisis. An ALARM goes off. Bright LIGHTS come on. Basil enters. AUSTIN What's going on? BASIL EXPOSITION Alright, everyone, we're done. AUSTIN But the test hasn't even started! BASIL EXPOSITION Agent Haggerty was the test, Austin. Not only were you actually reading an article in that Playboy, but a candy-stripe nurse offering to give you a sponge bath didn't so much as turn your head. AUSTIN Wait, I can explain, man! I was going to shag her but the article was so fascinating-- BASIL EXPOSITION I'm sorry, Austin, I'm afraid it's true: you've lost your mojo. Basil shows Austin the mojometer, which reads EMPTY. AUSTIN (crushed) Without my mojo, I'm useless to the Ministry and to Her Majesty. I think it's time to retire. BASIL EXPOSITION I'm afraid that's not possible, Austin. You see, Dr. Evil has returned. AUSTIN Again? BASIL EXPOSITION Again. INT. MOD - TIME-TRAVEL ROOM Austin and Basil ride on the back of a golf cart through the largest room you've ever seen in your life. BASIL EXPOSITION We have evidence that Dr. Evil has developed a time machine. Basil shows Austin altered photos of Dr. Evil with famous villains, such as Sadam, Nixon, and Donald Trump. BASIL EXPOSITION Our researcher noticed that these photos from the archives have changed. That means Dr. Evil is traveling back in time and creating alliances with each decade's most despised villains. Austin tries to read them and gets queasy. AUSTIN I can't read in the car. I get a bit vomy. Austin burps and swallows it. AUSTIN Got it. I almost gipped. BASIL EXPOSITION (V.O.) Our data indicates that Dr. Evil is in the year 1969. Luckily, we also have a time travel device. After years of research we've developed a machine that will transport you back to the Sixties. A bright overhead light comes on spotlighting a brand new VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE CONVERTIBLE, painted up psychedelic by Peter Max. AUSTIN But Basil, isn't that the new Volkswagen Beetle? BASIL EXPOSITION That's what they'd like you to believe. AUSTIN So, Basil, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, I could go look at my frozen self. But, if I'm still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the 90's and traveled back to the Sixties? (goes cross-eyed) Oh, no, I've gone cross-eyed. BASIL EXPOSITION (to camera) I suggest you don't worry about those things and just enjoy yourself. Austin gets into the car and turns it on. AUSTIN This is smashing Basil. I'll go back to the Sixties, recharge my mojo, defeat Dr. Evil and be back in time for tea. BASIL EXPOSITION Good luck, Austin. AUSTIN Luck has nothing to do with it, Basil. Austin steps on the gas. The car lurches in reverse and smashes some equipment. AUSTIN Sorry. (changing gears) Swinging Sixties, here I come, baby, yeah! The car takes off, heading for the wall. It DISAPPEARS, leaving flaming tread marks. FLASH CUT TO: EXT. STREET - LONDON - The Beetle time machine appears out of nowhere and screeches to a stop. A London HIPPIE smoking a hukka watches. He throws the hukka down. Austin hops out. AUSTIN I feel better already, man! Austin smiles and we see that his teeth are back to being TERRIBLE. He walks off as a crowd gathers around the car. EXT. PARK - LONDON Austin enters the park in high spirits. We PULL BACK to see that Austin is being watched through binoculars by a big ARYAN ASSASSIN. PULL BACK FURTHER to reveal a beautiful MYSTERIOUS WOMAN watching both of them. From this distance we can't tell who she is. A sign reads "BE-IN FOR PEACE". HIPPIES, MODS, and FREAKS of all descriptions dance to the music of a PSYCHEDELIC BAND. The band's name is on the drum kit: "MING TEA." AUSTIN Alright, baby, a swinging shin-dig! Austin gets into the dancing, quickly becoming the center of the scene. The lead singer of the band invites him on stage and hands him the microphone as the band starts a new song: "SEXUAL REVOLUTION." Austin begins singing and a choreographed musical number begins involving the outdoor crowd a la Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity or Hair. AUSTIN (singing) 'THERE'S A SEXUAL REVOLUTION, YOU CAN FEEL IT IN THE AIR. PEOPLE SHAGGING JUST LIKE WEASELS AND THEY JUST DON'T SEEM TO CARE. Hip-thrusting young MOD FREAKS Fosse-hump rhythmically. AUSTIN (singing) HEY, WATCH OUT SQUARES... YOU MAKES US BORED! THE PENIS IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD Austin does various groovy dance moves like THE ROCK 'EM SOCK 'EM ROBOT and THE HEAVYWEIGHT. AUSTIN (singing) THERE'S A SEXUAL REVOLUTION AND YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET PEOPLE SHAGGING IN THE CLUBS AND INSIDE A JUMBO JET Forty Austins appear in a KALEIDOSCOPE EFFECT. AUSTIN (singing) HEY SQUARE WORLD THE END IS NIGH. WHEN WE SAY HUMP YOU SAY 'HOW HIGH?' Three GROOVY CHICKS behind Austin suddenly have tambourines for the big finale. The assassin and the mysterious woman are both in the audience, keeping an eye on Austin. All we see of the woman are shots of her BOOTS, CLOTHES, and a FEMALE SYMBOL MEDALLION. AUSTIN (singing) SO GO MAKE LOVE OR MASTURBATE-- SEXUAL FREEDOM WILL NEVER BE OUT OF DAAAAAAAAAAATE! Austin holds the note an improbably long time, arms outstretched. The dancers crouch-walk towards the camera. EVERYONE (chanting) FREE-- LOVE! (louder) FREE-- LOVE! (louder) FREE-- LOVE! (shouting) IT'S THE SIXTIES! The SONG ENDS and all the dancers end up on one knee with their arms outstretched, panting. Austin breathes heavily and smiles smugly like Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance. We are TIGHT ON Austin's ass. PULL BACK to see that it is the MYSTERIOUS WOMAN who is watching Austin's ass. She SMILES behind the binoculars hiding her face. 37 EXT. CARNABY ST. Austin walks down the street looking at his new BEATLES ALBUM. Sitting in a parked Citroen watching him is the ASSASSIN. The Aryan assassin nods to a SHOE-SHINE on the street. The shoe-shine boy nods to a BUSINESS MAN in a Homburg. The business man nods to a BOBBY. The bobby nods to a WOMAN WITH A BABY CARRIAGE. The woman with a baby carriage nods to a MIME. The mime nods to a BLIND BEGGAR with a tin cup. The blind beggar nods to a CARPENTER on a roof. The carpenter FLASHES A LIGHT to an INDIAN CHIEF. The Indian Chief gives a SMOKE SIGNAL to a TELEGRAPH OPERATOR. The telegraph operator sends a signal to the BEEFEATER GUARD. The Beefeater salutes with his pike to a SEXY TICKET COLLECTOR on a double-decker bus. The sexy ticket collector signals a TAXI DRIVER. The taxi driver nods back to the assassin as he drives by. INT. CITROEN The assassin gets the signal and starts the car. The whole nodding sequence was a circular waste of time. EXT. STREET - VARIOUS ANGLES Austin walks along. Suddenly, he sees the Citroen coming at him. He dives out of the way and takes off running. He rounds a corner and pretends to be a COUPLE MAKING OUT against a wall by hugging himself. The assassin sees him and slams on the brakes. He raises his gun. Austin turns as he hears a car HONK. It's Austin's BEETLE CONVERTIBLE. The mysterious woman steps out. We see her in her entirety for the first time, and what a sight it is. She has long auburn hair and wears a tight racing suit, unzipped just enough to show the female symbol medallion. She is FELICITY SHAGWELL. MUSIC: FELICITY'S THEME FELICITY Care for a ride? AUSTIN That's my Beetle, baby. FELICITY It was your Beetle. Get in. Austin dives in as the assassin FIRES. The car speeds off. INT. BEETLE (REAR PROJECTION) Felicity drives expertly. FELICITY Austin Powers, I presume? AUSTIN Powers by name, Powers by reputation. FELICITY Felicity Shagwell, CIA. Shagwell by name, Shag-very-Well by reputation. AUSTIN (turning to camera) Crazy, baby! EXT. ROAD The Beetle zips along, and then-- the Citroen appears behind it. The assassin FIRES. INT. BEETLE Felicity turns around to look. FELICITY Grab the wheel, would you? Austin grabs the wheel and Felicity pulls a gun. She turns and FIRES out the window. EXT. ROAD The assassin's tire BLOWS. The car skids towards a Cliff and he jumps out as it goes over. EXT. CLIFF SEEN FROM THE OCEAN The car goes over and tumbles down the cliff, bouncing three times before it EXPLODES. EXT. CLIFF The assassin hangs on to a branch with one hand. He falls. ASSASSIN Ahhhhhhhh! EXT. CLIFF SEEN FROM THE OCEAN Same shot as the car: The assassin's body goes over and tumbles down the cliff, bouncing three times before it, too, EXPLODES. FELICITY Well, Austin, I think this time you may have met your match. AUSTIN Oh, I've beaten Dr. Evil before, and I'll beat him again. FELICITY I was talking about me. She smiles, turns, and walks away. INT. AUSTIN'S PAD The room is dark, with only a single spotlight providing illumination. Suddenly, Austin and Felicity rise on an elevator into the middle of the spotlight. AUSTIN Welcome to my shag pad, baby. Light floods the pad, revealing hanging basket chairs, Hi- fi, and Warhol silk screens of Austin. Austin blows DUST off a table. AUSTIN Care for something to drink? Austin hits a button and a bookcase revolves to reveal a wetbar. AUSTIN Or perhaps something to read? Austin walks seductively over to the real wetbar and hits a button. It revolves to reveal a bookcase. AUSTIN How about a hot cup of coffee? FELICITY Yes, I rather fancy a grind. AUSTIN Oh, Behave! Austin hits a button and an automatic coffee-pourer pours a cup. MUSIC: Girl from Impenema by JOBIM AUSTIN Would you like a... mas-sage? A sensssual mas-sage? Austin hits a button and a series of actions take place: the floor opens up to reveal a sunken bed; red gels slide into place over the lamps; a painting slides back to reveal a reel-to-reel; an end table revolves to reveal a selection of massage oils. Felicity lies on her stomach. Austin begins to massage her. AUSTIN How does that feel, baby? FELICITY Mmm, lower. AUSTIN (lowering his voice) HOW DOES THAT FEEL, BABY? They laugh. Austin continues to massage her. FELICITY Wait, something's itching me. She reaches behind her and unties the strap of her evening dress, revealing her naked back. FELICITY That's better. AUSTIN Crikey!!! Austin GULPS and accidentally spurts way too much oil on her. AUSTIN Sorry. Austin continues the back rub and Felicity stretches out on the bed. AUSTIN (talking to his crotch) Hello, anyone home? C'mon lads, do it for England. Austin takes a peak-- nothing. He is panicked. FELICITY Oh, that was so relaxing. Felicity stretches very sexily. AUSTIN Would you 'like to see my etchings? FELICITY (sexy) I think I'm ready for bed. She moves close to Austin. He slides to the other side of the bed. AUSTIN I'll get you some PJs. FELICITY No, I'm ready for bed. She moves over to him. He avoids her. AUSTIN Oh, you'll want to clean your teeth then. Austin holds up toothpaste and toothbrush. Felicity finally grabs him and pins him to the bed. FELICITY No, I want to have sex with you, Austin. AUSTIN Hello Vicar! FELICITY I've studied everything about you- your methods, your accomplishments, your preferences. You're the reason I became a spy. Now, I've waited two years to meet you, so I say we get busy making up for lost time. Austin sits up. AUSTIN (reflective) Felicity, I used to think that way, too, but I guess... I guess I've changed. Not to make a short story long, or to ramble on and on, or to keep talking in a repetitive manner ad infinitum until it becomes impossible to remember what I was talking about in the first place, but- where was I? MUSIC: SAD INSTRUMENTAL AUSTIN Oh yes. Felicity, I can't shag you. I've lost my mojo. FELICITY (obviously disappointed) Oh. AUSTIN I thought coming back to the Sixties would bring it back, but it hasn't. FELICITY Austin, don't worry. I know just the man to help you. He's my guru. Ringo recommended him and he's the best. AUSTIN I'll warm up the Jumbo Jet, baby! EXT. AUSTIN'S PSYCHEDELIC JUMBO JET Austin's plane in flight. EXT. INDIA - STOCK FOOTAGE EXT./INT. BEETLE Austin and Felicity drive against obvious rear screen projection of India. INT. ASHRAM It looks like a mosque, with incense, tapestries, and DISCIPLES. Austin and Felicity enter. MUSIC: SITAR FELICITY There he is. That's my guru. We see the GURU PITKA (played by Mike), an Indian man in a bright red sari. FELICITY Guru, I'd like you to meet Austin Powers. AUSTIN How are you baby? GURU PITKA My chakras are aligned and I am in a perfect state of equipoise. AUSTIN Good on ya. I don't know what that means but it sounds fab. FELICITY Guru, we need some advice. GURU PITKA Hold your horses and any other beasts- of burden. I must lead my disciples in meditation and then I will help you. The Guru walks to the front of the room and the disciples sink to their knees. DISCIPLES Ahhhhhh! GURU PITKA My name is the Guru Pitka. I am a spiritual teacher and I have combined many disparate disciplines into a unified movement of human potentiality and equipoise that I learned from my guru, the late Guru Shastri, a chaste man who died mysteriously of a disease that strangely had all the hallmarks of syphilis. He would say to me, Sparky, love is all, life is breath. DISCIPLES Ahhhhhh! GURU PITKA Now, perhaps you are wondering where I got the nickname Sparky. Well, when we were young we used to play a game called "Stinkmop". We would urinate into a bucket, dip a mop into it, and play tag. I did not care for "Stinkmop" and a very wise old man said to me 'oh lighten up, Sparky', and I don't know, the name kind of stuck. DISCIPLES Ahhhhhhhh... GURU PITKA Now, the reason I am a spiritualist instead of a therapist is that 'therapist' often becomes 'the rapist' and that will not help us attain potentiality. Now what is potentiality? It is the ability to achieve those goals that we wish to achieve for ourselves. People often say to me that they feel "nowhere", and I am going to change that to "Now here." The guru holds up a card which says "NOWHERE = NOW HERE!" DISCIPLES Ahhhhhhh... GURU PITKA And you have many assumptions about your goals, but when you "assume" You make an "ass" out of "u" and "me". Guru holds up a card which says "ASSUME = ASS - U - ME." DISCIPLES Ahhhhhhh.... GURU PITKA The being, or that which we call 'ourselves', is not the tinker. It is not the taughts. It is the Gap between the tinker and the taughts! We are not our mind, we are not our body, we are the Gap! Guru holds up a card that says "NOT TINKER, NOT TAUGHTS, BUT THE GAP" with the familiar Gap font. DISCIPLES Ahhhhh... GURU PITKA (rapid fire) The heart of the matter is that you are the heart of the matter. There is no "I" in "team". Beer before liquor, never sicker. Don't take a wooden nickel. If your pipe is short and your pump is weak, you better stand close or you'll piss on your feet. He who goes to bed with itchy bum wakes up with smelly finger. DISCIPLES Ahhhhh... GURU PITKA Finally, the path to spiritual awakening requires the death of ego. Leggo of my ego! Let us end with the mantra: Om Ay Vant Yu Uh... Mo Ay Vant Yu Uh... Mo Ay Vant Yu Hu. DISCIPLES (chanting) Om Ay Vant Yu Uh... Mo Ay Vant Yu Uh... Mo Ay Vant Yu Hu. The Guru takes a swig of Yoo-Hoo. GURU PITKA Go with God, and pay at the door please. The disciples file out. Austin and Felicity approach. GURU PITKA How can I help you? AUSTIN Guru, I'm having trouble performing. GURU PITKA What do you mean? AUSTIN You know- my bits and pieces are a bit sleepy. GURU PITKA I'm not understanding. AUSTIN I've forgotten the steps to the Mummy- Daddy dance. GURU PITKA Still not clear. AUSTIN My flag's at half mast and no one will salute it. GURU PITKA Sorry? AUSTIN My Willie don't work. GURU PITKA Why are you beating around the bush? AUSTIN That's my problem. GURU PITKA Ohhhhh, I get it. (beat) No, I don't get it. FELICITY He's impotent! AUSTIN Alright, easy. (to Guru) Felicity and I were all set for some hump Olympics and I couldn't bat for six. GURU PITKA Oh, yes, I see. AUSTIN You have no idea what I'm saying, do you? GURU PITKA Not a word. AUSTIN Guru, I've lost my mojo. GURU PITKA Oh, mojo! You should have said so. Well, you've lost your mojo because your chakras are misaligned. You have lost love. AUSTIN Lost love? Oh, you mean Vanessa? FELICITY Who's Vanessa? AUSTIN She was an evil robot minion of Dr. Evil. I couldn't have loved her. GURU PITKA Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, buddy. You will only get your mojo back when you surround yourself with love. AUSTIN Oh, I get what you're saying now! He's talking about free love, baby! Tune in, turn on, and drop out! GURU PITKA I am talking about true love. You must stay and study until you are worthy. AUSTIN No way, man. The only way to surround yourself with love is to throw a swinging shin-dig! Yeah, baby, yeah! INT. DR.EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR Dr. Evil and Frau are interrupted by the man we now know as FAT BASTARD. He is foul-mouthed, and when he swears he is bleeped. DR. EVIL Well done, Fat Bastard. May I have the mojo? FAT BASTARD First things first, where's your shitter? I've gotta bleepin, turtle head pokin' out. DR. EVIL (disgusted) Right. Charming. Fat Bastard- you don't mind me calling you Fat Bastard do you? FAT BASTARD I've got a lot of demons kickin' around in my noggin, but weight issues ain't one of them. DR. EVIL Alright, Fatty- FAT BASTARD The name is Fat Bastard! I'm the incorrect weight for my height and I was born out of wedlock, hence the moniker Fat Bastard. Hey, I'm not kiddin'. I've got a crap on deck that could choke a donkey. DR. EVIL Fat Bastard, the mojo? FAT BASTARD Where's my (bleeping) money? DR. EVIL A gentlemen never discusses money. FAT BASTARD Fine, you can take your (bleep)in' money and shove it up your (bleep), you stupid (bleeping) prick! While you're at it you can suck my greasy, two-toned (bleep)! DR. EVIL (pause) Vulgarity is no substitute for wit. FAT BASTARD (Bleep) you! DR. EVIL Right. Bring in the money. Dr. Evil PRIVATE ARMY SOLDIERS drive in a forklift loaded with gold bars. FAT BASTARD Alright, here it is. Fat Bastard slowly draws out the high-tech syringe full of MOJO. Dr. Evil is mesmerized. DR. EVIL Mini-Me, fetch. Mini-Me runs and snatches the mojo from Fat Bastard and gives it to Dr. Evil, who caresses it and places it on a SPECIALLY PREPARED PEDESTAL. NUMBER TWO enters. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, I have some bad news. Austin Powers is back in the Sixties. One of our best assassins spotted him but he got away. DR. EVIL This is ri-goddamn-diculous, we have his mojo. NUMBER TWO There is another. Felicity Shagwell, CIA. Suddenly, Scott Evil enters through TIME PORTAL. DR. EVIL Scott, what are you doing here? SCOTT I don't know, I was sitting around watching the tube and The Courtship of Eddie's Father came on Nick at Nite, you know, and I was just listening to that theme song-- (hums/sings the theme) Anyway it made me think that maybe we could try and work things out. You know, you are my Dad and I need you. DR. EVIL You had your chance, Scott. I already have someone created in my image. He's evil, he wants to take over the world, and he fits easily into most overhead storage bins. (looking around) Has anyone seen Mini-Me? (calling out) Mini-Me! Mini-Mouse? Mini-Driver? Hello! Mini Pearl? Can we put a frickin' bell on him or something? Scott, very hurt, sits back in his chair and sulks. Dr. Evil hits a button and a model moon and a model earth descend. DR. EVIL Gentlemen, phase three. We place a giant laser on the moon. Let me demonstrate. (beat) Where's my laser? Dr. Evil looks around and sees Mini-Me gnawing on the model laser. Dr. Evil takes it from his mouth DR. EVIL Mini-Me, don't chew my laser. (to room) Not feeling well. He has an ear infection, but tit's OK. (pause) No? Nothing? (back to model) Anyway, the laser is powerful enough to destroy every city on the planet at will. We'll turn the moon into what I like to call a "Death Star". Scott SNICKERS. DR. EVIL What? SCOTT (snickering again) Nothing Darth. DR. EVIL What did you call me? SCOTT Nothing. (pretends to sneeze) Rip-off! DR. EVIL (unsure) Bless you? Anyways, since my "death star" laser was invented by the noted Cambridge physicist, Dr. Parsons. I thought we'd name it in his honor-- the Alan Parsons Project. Scott SNICKERS again. DR. EVIL What now? SCOTT The Alan Parsons Project was a progressive rock band from 1982. Why don't you just name it Operation Wang Chung, ass? DR. EVIL (indicating laser) When you get your own evil empire, you can call it whatever you want. Gentlemen, allow me to demonstrate the awesome lethality of the Alan Parsons Project. Fire the laser! INSERT SHOT: A giant laser beam smashes down through the roof of the White House, causing it to explode. Everyone is shocked by the laser's power. NUMBER TWO My God, Dr. Evil, you destroyed the Wihite House with no warning! DR. EVIL Actually, that was just footage from the 1996 blockbuster motion Picture Independence Day, but it would be a lot like that. What do you think, Scott? SCOTT Yeah, Codename: Thompson Twins was really impressive. DR. EVIL Shhhh! SCOTT I'm nineteen, I don't- DR. EVIL Shh! Shh-Shh. Shh-Shhhhhh-Shh. Shh- shh! It's Morse code. (reading imaginary paper) Let me decipher... it says 'shhhhh!' SCOTT You are so lame- DR. EVIL (like Electric Company) Ssssss...huuuuuh...Shhhhh! NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, what are we going to do about Powers? DR. EVIL Fat Bastard, in addition to being extremely rotund, you're a vicious killer. Take care of it. FAT BASTARD It'll be my pleasure. DR. EVIL It's an easy job. Without his mojo, Powers will be...powerless? INT. AUSTIN'S PAD - NIGHT A party, packed with dancing freaks of every stripe, is in full swing. A girl dances in an oversized birdcage. AUSTIN This shag-in is gonna blow your mind, baby, yeah! The party sequence is shot like Laugh-In. Very fast cuts to the music. Austin sees a VERY PREGNANT WOMAN drinking a martini and smoking. He gently lifts her drink and cigarette away from her. PREGNANT WOMAN Hey! AUSTIN You'll thank me later, baby. Another angle. Austin and Felicity dancing. AUSTIN (noticing someone) Hey! Ricardo Monteblan, how are you? We see RICARDO MONTEBLAN -smoking a hukka on a round chair. RICARDO Hello, Austin! Balls, said the queen and the king laughed because he had too. AUSTIN (to camera) Crazy, man! FELICITY Let's split up and scope the scene. AUSTIN Don't do anything I wouldn't do- at least not without me. Felicity slaps Austin on the butt as he walks off. AUSTIN Oh, behave! CUT TO: Austin at the bar with an exotic-looking mod chick. AUSTIN (to chick) You're very exotic, baby. Do you have a little English in you? CHICK No. AUSTIN Would you like to? CUT TO: An Alan Zeus-type very gay guy. ALAN ZEUS GUY (rolling his eyes) This is ridiculous! CUT TO: A LONDON COP and Felicity are on hanging chairs. LONDON COP Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz? FELICITY No, but I bet it really hurts. CUT TO: A GUY IN A RAINCOAT on a tricycle, shot undercranked, rides through the party and falls over. CUT TO: Austin pops into frame with a book that says "AUSTIN POWERS SEXY DICTIONARY". AUSTIN The Austin Powers Sexy Dictionary defines an Eskimo hooker as a frosty prosty. CUT TO: An eskimo at the bar in a fur parka. ESKIMO (to camera) I don't get it. CUT TO: The camera pans up Felicity's cool hip-huggers, which are very tight. AUSTIN Those are skin tight. How do you get into those pants, baby? FELICITY Well you can start by buying me a drink. Austin does a spit take. CUT TO: Felicity with a VIKING. VIKING You were great last night. By the way, I'm Thor. FELICITY You're Thor? I'm tho thor I can hardly thit. CUT TO: Austin is wearing a silly spiked German helmet like in Hogan's Heroes. AUSTIN (German accent) Hello, I am Baron Von Firstinbed. Last night I had German-Chinese food. An hour later I was hungry- for power. CUT TO: ZEUS GUY Oh puh-leez, why don't you take a handful of F-off pills? CUT TO: AUSTIN Did you hear about the contortionist who was engaged to be married? FELICITY Yeah, I heard she broke it off. CUT TO: Film running backwards of Austin doing a spit take. CUT TO: ARTIE JOHNSON in German helmet behind a plant. ARTIE JOHNSON Verrrrry interesting- but shtupid! CUT TO: Austin takes his glasses off to clean them. We see his POV, which is totally fuzzy. He looks over and sees what appears to be a NUDE GIRL- two round globes and dark triangle. Austin puts his glasses on and looks again. It is actually a girl in a flesh-colored dress. In between her and Austin were two COMPLETELY BALD MEN and a triangular martini glass filled with a Cosmopolitan. CUT TO: Cut to Austin and Felicity together again. FELICITY Look at that. She points to where Fat Bastard and his companion are standing. AUSTIN That's not a pretty sight. Who is he? FELICITY Until recently he worked security for the MOD, but we think he might be a double agent, possibly for Dr. Evil. AUSTIN How do you know? FELICITY We've noticed that his lifestyle has changed dramatically. He's made a lot of cash purchases, he's hanging out with foxes half his age, and he's becomes quite a fixture on the London party circuit. AUSTIN Who's the girl? FELICITY I don't know, but it looks like he's splitting. Fat Bastard exits. FELICITY I'll follow him. You see what you can get out of the girl. We'll rendezvous later. Felicity follows Fat Bastard out the door. Austin makes his way over to the girl. AUSTIN Hello, hello. GIRL Hello, Mr. Powers. Fab party. AUSTIN Who are you today, baby? GIRL Robin. Robin Swallows. AUSTIN Swallows? That's an interesting name. Are you English? ROBIN SWALLOWS German, actually. My maiden name is Spitz. AUSTIN Well which is it, baby, Spitz or Swallows? Either way, it's a pleasure. ROBIN SWALLOWS The pleasure is mine. She extends her hand. Austin takes it and shakes. As he shakes, her cleavage undulates like jello. Austin is transfixed and keeps shaking far too long. AUSTIN Charmed, I'm sure. (still shaking, her breasts jiggle) How do you do? (still shaking, jiggling) Yes, quite. (shakes, jiggles) I always enjoy meeting new people. (shakes, jiggles) How's your mum? Good. (shakes, jiggles) I love shaking hands. Austin. is shaking her hand so vigorously that she is in danger of popping out of her dress. AUSTIN (snapping out of it) So, who was your friend? ROBIN SWALLOWS His name is Fat Bastard. AUSTIN It suits him. ROBIN SWALLOWS He's my lover. Austin is grossed out. AUSTIN OK. Would you happen to know if he's in business with a man named Mr. Evil? ROBIN SWALLOWS I don't know anyone named Dr. Evil. AUSTIN Really? I said Mister Evil. Austin does a smug take. AUSTIN Something to drink? Would you like a Mister Pepper? ROBIN SWALLOWS Yes, I'd love a Doctor Pepper. AUSTIN Really? I said Mister Pepper. Austin does another smug take. Robin grabs Austin and pulls him close. ROBIN SWALLOWS You're a groovy boy, I'd like to strap you on sometime. AUSTIN Oh, behave! CUT TO: ALAN ZEUS-TYPE GUY IN LIMBO ALAN ZEUS TYPE Meanwhile... BACK TO: EXT. FISH AND CHIPS STAND - NIGHT Literally a window in a wall. Fat Bastard is placing his order. FAT BASTARD ...and I'll have a fried-prawn sandwich, with extra mayonnaise, two whole chickens, a kidney pie, a toad in the hole, bubble and squeak, bangers and mash, 3 orders of fish and chips, and... a Fresca. No ice. We pan to see Felicity beside him. FELICITY I love a man with a large appetite. FAT BASTARD And I love a woman with big (bleeps), so let's shut up and get to (bleep)ing. Felicity swallows hard and forces a smile. INT. AUSTIN'S PAD - NIGHT AUSTIN Can I ask you a question? ROBIN SWALLOWS Yes. AUSTIN Thank you. Beat. ROBIN SWALLOWS Well, what's the question? AUSTIN Oh, yes. Would you like to shag? Would you? ROBIN SWALLOWS I'd love to, Mr. Powers, just come right... over... here. Robin moves Austin into place as they dance. AUSTIN You're a bit of alright. Just then, Austin looks into her eyes and sees the REFLECTION OF AN ASSASSIN (Oedipus) about to throw a knife. Just as he throws it, Austin spins Robin Swallows around and USES HER AS A SHIELD. She takes the knife squarely in the back. ROBIN SWALLOWS (strained) Oedipus... use the revolver. Oedipus pulls out a pistol and begins FIRING. Austin continues to use Robin AS A SHIELD. She takes six hits. Oedipus runs out of bullets. ROBIN SWALLOWS (strained) Oedipus... use the machine gun. Oedipus pulls out a machine gun and FIRES. In a Robert Rodriquez- like flurry of events, Austin dodges while still USING HER AS A SHIELD. Oedipus throws down his gun and charges Austin. Austin uses Robin's body to block Oedipus's head butt, but his momentum pushes all three of them through a PLATE GLASS WINDOW of his second story loft. IN MID-AIR As they fall, Austin turns Robin around so that she is between him and the ground. EXT. OUTSIDE AUSTINIS FLAT They land with a THUD. Robin cushions Austin's fall. Oedipus is dead on the pavement. ROBIN SWALLOWS Oedipus, Oedipus... AUSTIN Sorry baby, too late. He's as dead as vaudeville. ROBIN SWALLOWS You can't win, Powers. Dr. Evil has your mojo and it's only a matter of time before he kills you and takes over the world. (weak) Tell Fat Bastard I'll miss him... CUT TO: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT Felicity is in bed, naked under the sheets, smoking a cigarette. We hear strange sounds offstage. We pan over to reveal she's IN BED WITH A NAKED FAT BASTARD! He is eating a huge turkey leg, his face covered in food. FAT BASTARD I always get (bleep)in' hungry after I get my end away! FELICITY I never would have thought that a man of such tremendous girth could be such a, um, creative and sensuous lover! FAT BASTARD You want some chicken? I have more! He rolls over to reveal his HUGE NAKED ASS. Felicity takes a homing device out of her purse, looks around for a place to plant it. She sees his enormous butt cleavage and realizes that there's only one place for the thing to go. ANGLE on FAT BASTARD'S face. He is delighted. FAT BASTARD Frisky are we? Alright lets have another go! She is horrified. INT. DR. EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR - MAIN ROOM Dr. Evil at his table with Frau, Scott, and Number Two. DR. EVIL Get me the President of the United States. The PRESIDENT appears on Dr. Evil's video screen with his ADVISORS behind him. INT. OVAL OFFICE (SPLIT SCREEN) PRESIDENT Dr. Evil, what do you want? DR. EVIL Not what I want Mr. President, but I will receive. In 12 hours I will destroy Washington, DC with a giant laser. Dr. Evil reveals a giant laser. Mini-Me is humping it like a dog. DR. EVIL OK, Mini-Me, why don't you and the laser get a frickin' room. Honestly. (to President) I will destroy another major city every hour- that is, unless you pay me- SNAP ZOOM DR. EVIL One hundred billion dollars! The President and his advisors LAUGH. PRESIDENT Dr. Evil that's more than the entire federal budget for 1969. DR. EVIL Don't play games with me. The capitol will disappear if I don't receive SNAP ZOOM DR. EVIL One hundred billion dollars! His advisors LAUGH. PRESIDENT That much money simply doesn't exist. I don't think l00 billion is even a number. It's like saying I want a kajillion bajillion dollars. His advisors LAUGH. DR. EVIL Come on, Mr. President... SNAP ZOOM: DR. EVIL "Show me the money!" Dr. Evil looks around smugly. No one laughs. PRESIDENT What? SNAP ZOOM: DR. EVIL "Show me the money!" He looks around again, expectantly. PRESIDENT I'm sorry, I don't understand. DR. EVIL You know, kwan? Show me the money? No? Nothing? SCOTT It's 1969. That movie won't come out for another 30 years, ass. They don't know what you're talking about. DR. EVIL Right. OK, see if you understand this: give me the money or I'm going to blow you to frickin' bits, OK? The President and his advisors MURMUR. PRESIDENT But- DR. EVIL (making 'stop' gesture) Talk to the hand! Dr. Evil signs off. DR. EVIL (to Scott) I did love that, though. Cuba Gooding Jr. was outstanding. Oscar speech, very touching. Scott looks at him with disgust. DR.EVIL Okay, everybody clear the room! Everyone leaves and he walks over to a panel bearing his logo. He presses a button, the panel opens up to reveal... A SECRET SHRINE TO AUSTIN POWERS! In it we see a huge full-length photo of Austin Powers, and various magazine covers. He presses a button and an Austin wig descends from the ceiling landing perfectly on his bald head. A backless mockup of Austin's suit rises from the floor. He puts on a pair of glasses. He has become Austin Powers. Dr. Evil cautiously tastes the mojo. DR. EVIL Yeah, baby. Very shagedelic. (beat) This isn't working. I don't feel anything. We PUSH IN towards Dr. Evil's head. FLASH CUT TO: DR. EVIL ANIMATED SEQUENCE A Yellow Submarine-like depiction of Dr. Evil. Zoom in on his head which explodes into 30 other small Dr. Evil heads which rain on a Peter Max-ian valley of flowers. The flowers sprout the word "EVIL'. A psychedelic flying Austin head with spirals in the glasses smashes the flowers, changing the words from "EVIL" to "VILE" and to "LIVE" and then to "LOVE". Turn-of-the-century fat cat capitalists on stilts with teeth coming out of their stomachs drop penis rockets that have the word "GREED" written on the shaft, smashing the "LOVE" flowers into "IRELO" which sprouts into "YELLOW" which turns into submarines, which becomes yellow penises of huge, goose- stepping Dr. Evils, each of them peeing, creating a rain of urine that falls on the Peter Max-ian valley of a hundred Austin Powers citizens. They each open an umbrella that says "LOVE TRIUMPHS OVER LUST". The urine turns into a stream that flows into the mouth of a huge head of Dr. Evil. FLASH CUT BACK TO: INT. DR. EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR - AUSTIN SHRINE Pull back from Dr. Evil's head. He looks dazed and confused. Just then, Number Two re-enters the room, catching Dr. Evil with all his Austin paraphernalia. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, one last thing. I-- oh. DR. EVIL I was just... right. Would it kill you to frickin' knock? EXT./INT. CARNABY STREET - DAY Austin and Felicity walk along the street. FELICITY Austin, tell me about the Nineties. AUSTIN You know I can't tell you details about the future, baby, it could alter history. FELICITY Not details, just what it's like. You know, what's the scene? Where's it at? AUSTIN There've been a lot of advances in the Nineties, baby. The economy is stable, people take better care of their health concern for the environment is on the rise and, um, let's see, there's an entire television channel dedicated to golf. FELICITY Sounds awful. AUSTIN It's not so bad once you get used to it. The Nineties are about responsibility. You know, having respect for yourself and other people. I even got married. FELICITY You? Married? What about the sexual revolution? AUSTIN Well, it turns out there were some casualties, baby. Don't you think you'll ever get married? FELICITY No, not until I get a little more 'experience' under my belt. AUSTIN Oh, behave! Suddenly Austin notices something outside and puts his hand to his mouth in fear. AUSTIN (wide-eyed) Oh my God! Felicity is immediately on her guard. She pulls her gun. FELICITY (looking around) What is it! Is it Fat Bastard? AUSTIN No, written here on my hand, see? Austin turns his hand around to show her. He has written 'oh my God' on his hand with the pen. AUSTIN Says 'Oh my God!' They laugh. FELICITY Austin, look. Austin and Felicity duck into a CAMERA SHOP and come out an instant later with SUPER-8 CAMERAS. They run down the street filming each other. AUSTIN AND FELICITY - SUPER-8 MONTAGE This is a Richard Lester-like sequence shot on grainy film from Austin and Felicity's POVs. There's lots of SPEEDED UP stuff and POPPING IN AND OUT of frame like the MONKEES TV show. BACK ON THE STREET AUSTIN Felicity, I haven't had this much fun since I worked undercover in Amsterdam-- '66 I think it was. FELICITY 1965, actually. You posed as a Dutch cheese expert to stop Dr. Evil from poisoning the world's water supply. Austin is impressed. FELICITY I've studied your file, Austin. I want to be a trailblazer, just like you. The Seventies are right around the corner. It's going to be a glorious time for fashion and music and technology-- it won't be long before every flying car has its own 8-track. Austin starts to say something, then bites his tongue. FELICITY The CIA has always been a boy's club until now. Well move over, this chick's taking over. AUSTIN (hoarse) Very impressive. FELICITY Austin, your voice! AUSTIN Yes, I think I'm coming down with something. Austin and Felicity stop at an ICE CREAM MAN with his pushcart. AUSTIN I'll get some ice cream. Would you like some? FELICITY No thanks. AUSTIN (hoarse, to ice cream man) Could I have two scoops of Vanilla, please? ICE CREAM MAN Right away, governor. Would you like chocolate syrup? AUSTIN (hoarse) Yes, please. ICE CREAM MAN Will you have any whipped cream? AUSTIN (hoarse) I will, thank you. ICE CR@ MAN Candy sprinkles? AUSTIN (hoarse) Yes please. ICE CREAM MAN Crushed nuts? AUSTIN No, laryngitis. ICE CREAM MAN Here's your change, sir. Oh, and Austin-- We cut back to the ICE CREAM MAN to see him pulling off a very fake beard. It is BASIL (though it was clearly another actor before). AUSTIN (now with phlegmy throat) Basil! BASIL EXPOSITION Hello, Austin. What's wrong with your voice? AUSTIN (still phlegmy throat) I just had ice cream. Listen to me, I have dairy throat. "Mary had a little lamb and it was always gruntin'. She tied it to a five bar gate and kicked it's little- BASIL EXPOSITION (Interrupting) Austin! Things are heating up, so I thought it best to contact you in disguise. Felicity, your plan worked. You and Austin track Fat Bastard back to Dr. Evil. AUSTIN But how can we track Fat Bastard? FELICITY I planted a homing device on him last night. BASIL EXPOSITION Yes, and we're starting to pick up the signal now. Basil hands Felicity a tracking device that BEEPS. AUSTIN How did you get close enough to plant a homing device? FELICITY I shagged him, I shagged him rotten. Austin and Basil are confused and grossed out at the same time. AUSTIN You... him? Just like that? FELICITY Yes, Austin, we needed that information. BASIL EXPOSITION Well, thanks to your effort, Felicity, we now know that- AUSTIN (interrupting, to Felicity) Did you use an elaborate set of pulleys? A block and tackle? BASIL EXPOSITION Anyway, you two follow the signal back to Dr. Evil's headquarters and then- AUSTIN (interrupting, to Felicity) I just can't get my head around it, baby. You're so small and he's so ... not small. The sheer mechanics of it are mindboggling! BASIL EXPOSITION Never mind, Austin, you two have work to do. You must find Dr. Evil. INT. BEETLE We hear the BEEP-BEEP of the tracking screen built into the dash. AUSTIN I got it! A Chinese basket with a counter-weighted ballast. That's how you did it, right? FELICITY Austin, it almost sounds like you're jealous. AUSTIN Who, me? That's not possible, baby! (beat, to himself) is it? Just then a-car pulls beside them. Two Dr. Evil Private Army guys pull machine guns and start SHOOTING. AUSTIN Get down! Felicity ducks. Austin reaches back and pulls ROBIN SWALLOWS from the back seat and USES HER AS A SHIELD. FELICITY We're obviously on the right track. (re: tracking screen) It looks like Fat Bastard is-on an island in the middle of the ocean. EXT. DR. EVIL'S ISLANDNIGHT We hear the BEEP-BEEP of the tracking screen. EXT. BEACH - DR. EVIL'S ISLAND - NIGHT The Beetle comes from under the water and lands on the beach. We still hear the BEEP-BEEP. EXT. TENT - WOODS - NIGHT Austin and Felicity have set up a tent with a view of the Dr. Evil Mt. Rushmore face. Austin is looking at the mountain through a pair of binoculars which hang around his neck. AUSTIN According to the readings, Dr. Evil's headquarters is over the next ridge. FELICITY Can I have a look? AUSTIN Sure. Austin hands her the binoculars. Unfortunately the strap is still around his neck, pulling his face into her cleavage. FELICITY Question is, how do we get in? AUSTIN (muffled) Mmmmmmm...mmmmm... FELICITY Austin, did you hear me? AUSTIN I seem to be stuck in your dirty pillows. FELICITY Where are the topographical maps that Basil drew up? AUSTIN I think they're in the tent. He and Felicity enter the tent. A LIGHT is on inside casting shadows of Austin and Felicity on the side of the tent. From the outside it appears the shadow Austin is leaning over with his back to-the shadow Felicity, who appears to have her hands up his butt. AUSTIN (V.O.) Have you got it out yet? FELICITY (V.O.) Good Lord, Austin, what sort of things do you put in there? The shadow Felicity appears to be tugging a string of sausage links from his ass. AUSTIN (V.O.) Oh, anything that catches my fancy. FELICITY (V.O.) How do you manage to fit it all in? AUSTIN (V.O.) Oh, it stretches to fit. The shadow Felicity appears to pull a tennis racket out of Austin's ass. AUSTIN (V.O.) Are you almost done? I can't hold it much longer. INT. TENT We see that Austin is leaned over holding part of the tent. Felicity is rummaging through a duffel bag across the tent. FELICITY Here we go, one hammer. It's amazing how much this duffel bag will hold. INT. DR. EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR We see Dr. Evil playing a piano. We pan to see Mini-Me on top of the piano, himself playing a miniature baby grand. DR. EVIL (singing) 'WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US? JUST A SLOB LIKE ONE OF US?' We see that Number Two and Frau are the audience. They applaud. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, that was fantastic, but I do have some bad news. Powers' is on the island. DR. EVIL How tedious. NUMBER TWO Don't worry, Dr. Evil, we can get to him by using the girl. DR. EVIL Really? NUMBER TWO I have the perfect weapon. Frau? FRAU (shouting) Bring in the He-Bots! MUSIC: It's Rainina Men by THE WEATHERGIRLS Three HE-BOTS enter in unison. They are robotic studs in Logan's Run type outfits. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, may I present the He-Bots. What kind of woman could resist these perfect specimens of masculinity? Their clothes are stylish, their posture is ramrod straight, and their buttocks are tight, like tigers. And, each He-Bot is armed with a secret weapon. ANGLE ON THE FIRST HE-BOT. A nozzle flips up from his codpiece and white smoke pours out. NUMBER TWO (O.S.) Poison gas... ANGLE ON THE SECOND HE-BOT. A gun barrel flips out form his crotch and FIRES machine-gun style. NUMBER TWO (O.S.) Machine gun... ANGLE ON THE THIRD HE-BOT. A nozzle flips up from his crotch and yellow liquid drizzles out onto the floor, where it smokes. NUMBER TWO (O.S.) And deadly acid. Dr. Evil is disgusted by the last one. DR. EVIL Right. I object to the last one on aesthetic grounds, but I don't care how you get Powers, just bring him to me. (to Mini-Me) Ready Mini-Me? A one and a two and... (singing) ME, AND MY SHA-DOW STROLLING DOWN THE A-VA- (rapidly) WASN'T A STREET, WASN'T A ROAD WASN'T A BOULEVARD (dancing in step) ME, AND MY SHA- OW ALL ALONE AND FEE- LING... MINI-ME (voice unnaturally low) BLUE! EXT. TENT We see the shadows again. It now looks like Felicity is putting things into Austin's ass. FELICITY (V.O.) Do you want everything to go back in? AUSTIN (V.O.) Yes. Listen, Felicity, about Fat Bastard- FELICITY (V.O.) It's my job, Austin. You of all people should understand that. Marakesh, 1962. Rome, 1964. Tokyo, 1966. I know your record backwards and forwards. You've had more sex on the job than a Swedish stewardess. The shadow Felicity tries to cram the tennis racket into what appears to be Austin's ass. AUSTIN (V.O.) You're right, Felicity, I can't deny it. But the world changed, and I changed too. Pull back to reveal that THE HE-BOTS are watching. Felicity shoves the tennis racket extra hard. Austin stands up rapidly. AUSTIN (V.O.) Ow! (beat) My back hurts. FELICITY (V.O.) Are you OK? AUSTIN (V.O.) I'm fine, just keeping packing. The He-Bots shrug their shoulders and march towards the tent. INT. DR. EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR - 60'S Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard, Scott, Number Two and Frau are seated. FAT BASTARD Christ Almighty, it smells terrible in here. DR. EVIL It's the volcanic sulphurous emissions. We've put up some air fresheners. FAT BASTARD Great, now it smells like someone took a shite in a pine tree. NUMBER TWO Dr. Evil, the laser has been loaded into the rocket. You're ready for launch. DR. EVIL I'm just waiting to taunt my nemesis. I have so few pleasures, you know. Austin and Felicity are brought in at gunpoint by Private Army Men. DR. EVIL Ah, Mr. Powers, Ms. Shagwell, welcome to my hollowed-out volcano. AUSTIN We meet again, Dr. Evil. DR. EVIL Yes, the only reason I'm keeping you alive is so you can feel the agony of watching my plan unfold. AUSTIN Dr. Evil your plan will never-- Austin trails off as he spots his MOJO in the beaker behind Dr. Evil. DR. EVIL Oh, is that yours? AUSTIN My mojo! DR. EVIL You know what they say: finders keepers, loser weepers. FELICITY Dr. Evil, do you like real estate? DR. EVIL Of course. Why? Felicity kicks Dr. Evil in the balls. FELICITY Now you've got a couple of achers. DR. EVIL Oww! My stomach hurts! AUSTIN (wincing) I don't care if he is evil, you don't give a man a shot in the pills. It's just not cricket, baby. DR. EVIL Take them away. The guards lead Austin and Felicity away. SCOTT She just hoofed you in the sack and you're going to leave them alone in a jail cell with one inept guard? They'll escape, dipshit. You do this every time! DR. EVIL You're going the right way for a smacked bottom, young man. SCOTT You don't own me! DR. EVIL I do actually. (pulling out paper) It's complicated. Usually it's illegal but this buddy of mine... but I digress. Fat Bastard, I'm leaving you in charge. I'm going up the moon to hold the world ransom with my giant laser, I shouldn't be long. FAT BASTARD What about Powers? DR. EVIL He's tucked away safely in his cell. He's harmless without that mojo. Guard it with your life. (to Number Two) Number Two, begin the countdown. The area around Dr. Evil's command chair, including the time portal behind it, is enclosed by a circular door, becoming part of the rocket. Steam begins billowing, etc. NUMBER TWO Five, four, three... EXT. VOLCANO ISLAND (CHEAP BLUE SCREEN) NUMBER TWO (V.O.) Two, one, liftoff! The rocket lifts off from the volcano into the night sky. EXT. NIGHT SKY (CHEAP BLUE SCREEN) The rocket in flight. FULL SCREEN - NORAD TRACKING SCREEN The rocket enters the screen. It has the silhouette of a flying penis. INT. TRACKING ROOM OPERATOR Colonel, you better have a look at this radar. COLONEL What is it, son? OPERATOR I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant-- CUT TO: INT. COCKPIT - JET PILOT Dick! CO-PILOT Yes? PILOT Take a look out of starboard. CO-PILOT Oh my God, it looks like a huge-- EXT. WOODS MAN Pecker! WOMAN Where? He raises his binoculars. MAN Over there. A rare red-billed woodpecker! (looks over with binoculars) What sort of bird is that? Oh goodness, it's not a bird, it's- CUT TO: EXT. ARMY BASE SERGEANT Privates! We have reports of an Unidentified Flying Object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with- EXT. BASEBALL DIAMOND UMPIRE Two balls! No strikes. (looking up) What is that? It looks just like an enormous-- CUT BACK TO: INT. RADAR ROOM COLONEL Johnson! RADAR OPERATOR Yes, sir? COLONEL Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this. INT. JAIL CELL Austin and Felicity are in a bare cell with cement walls. The huge metal door has a window with bars in it. FELICITY How are we going to get out of here? AUSTIN Why don't you just shag Fat Bastard again? FELICITY (exploding) Austin, that is it! I don't know what happened to you in the Nineties, but I'm still here, in the Sixties, and I still swing! Don't try to lay your hang-ups on me just because you lost your mojo! That one hurts. AUSTIN Ouch, baby, very ouch. I'm wounded. FELICITY I'm sorry, Austin, that was a cheap shot. AUSTIN No, baby, you're right. I was wrong to judge you. I guess I am... jealous. FELICITY But the Austin Powers I knew was wild and crazy and free. He could never be jealous. AUSTIN That Austin is gone. I've changed. I knew someone, not long ago, a very special woman. She taught me that life isn't about jumping into the sack with whoever comes along, it's about caring and responsibility. And while it is true she turned out to be an evil robot minion of Dr. Evil, I suppose I really did... love her. FELICITY Was that your wife? AUSTIN Yes, Vanessa. Felicity is touched. FELICITY Listen, Austin, I can't pretend to understand everything you've gone through, but I trust you. I'll make you a deal: if we get out of here alive, I'll give monogamy a try. AUSTIN With me? FELICITY Yes, silly. AUSTIN Groovy, baby! They kiss. FELICITY We need to lure the guard inside and get his key. AUSTIN Alright, what if I pretend to be desperately ill with food poisoning? The guard, drawn by my cries of pain, will come to investigate. Meanwhile, you dig a pit and line it with makeshift punji sticks made from sharpened toothbrushes. The guard falls in, Bob's your uncle, and we've got the key. What do you think? FELICITY That might work, but how about this? Felicity charges towards the window in the door, ripping open her blouse as she goes, showing her breasts to the guard. We, however, can't see them. FELICITY (giving a wolf whistle) What do you think of these, my man? INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE CELL The guard is mesmerized by Felicity. GUARD Mommy... He unlocks the door and enters. INT. JAIL CELL The guard enters an apparently empty cell. We see that Austin is wedged spread-eagle above the door, ready to pounce. FELICITY (seductive, to guard) It's very hot in here, don't you think? The guard follows her into the cell. FELICITY (irritated) It's very hot in here, don't you think? The guard advances on her. FELICITY (breaking cover) Austin! AUSTIN (from above) I'm very firmly wedged. FELICITY If you want something done... She PUNCHES the guard right in the face and he collapses. AUSTIN Almost... got it! Austin falls flat on his face with a THUMP and pops back up. AUSTIN Let's go get my mojo! INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE It is a stark, steel girder and glass structure. Dr. Evil is trying to look dignified but he is FLOATING AWAY. He grabs at the railing of his chair as his feet float up. DR. EVIL Has anyone seen my gravity booties? Honestly, all I wanted was a frickin' moon base. Hello, we're on the moon, no gravity? (calling out) Mini-Me? Are you alright? ANGLE ON THE TOP OF THE ROOM. Mini-Me is stuck to the top of the ceiling along with a lot of DEBRIS. DR. EVIL My frickin' mascot is stuck to the ceiling, OK? Not good. Papa not happy. A couple of henchmen place BOOTS on Dr. Evil. He drops to the floor. DR. EVIL (looking up) Somebody get the stick. Hold on, Mini-Me. (into microphone) Begin laser- He's interrupted by terrible FEEDBACK. Dr. Evil taps and blows on the mic. DR. EVIL (into microphone). Begin- Worse FEEDBACK. He holds it farther away. DR. EVIL (into mic) Begin laser ignition sequence. The laser's coils begin to glow RED. DR. EVIL Lunar alignment in 6 hours. FULL FRAME - LUNAR TRACKING MODEL A NORAD-type screen showing the current position of the moon and where it needs to be before the laser can fire. INT. DR. EVIL'S VOLCANO LAIR - MAIN ROOM Austin and Felicity run into the Main Room. It is strangely dark and quiet. FELICITY Where's your mojo, Austin? AUSTIN I'm not sure. MUSIC: It's Raining Men by THE WEATHERGIRLS Suddenly, the lights dim. The three He-Bots descend from the ceiling on trapezes and acrobatic rings, their muscles rippling. AUSTIN Watch out, baby, He-Bots! The He-Bots flip off their trapezes and land in unison, like a perfect Olympic dismount. Their crotch nozzles flip up one by one. AUSTIN I can't fight them without my mojo. FELICITY Who said anything about fighting? MUSIC: seductive music Felicity does a very seductive dance, with hip thrusts and bumps and grinds. The He-Bots EXPLODE, succumbing to her mojo. AUSTIN Smashing, Felicity, you were making me very horny, man! Extremely randy, indeed! FAT BASTARD (O.S.) C'mon, give the lads a show. Take of your top. Put 'em on the glass! Make 'em bounce. Let's have a look at your tits. Austin and Felicity turn to see Fat Bastard lurking in the background. AUSTIN Fat Bastard! FAT BASTARD Looking for this, Mr. Powers? Fat Bastard, holds the beaker and is flanked by a dozen private army men. AUSTIN Give me back my mojo, Fat Bastard! FAT BASTARD I give the orders, (bleep) for brains. Guards, take them back to their cells. Guards approach. FELICITY Hold on, let me ask you one question. FAT BASTARD Alright, I guess I owe you that much for a night of carnal ecstasy. Austin is grossed out. FELICITY Are you happy? FAT BASTARD What kind of stupid ass question is that? I'm (bleep)in' rich and I'm up to my tits in clean stinky. FELICITY You didn't answer my question, are you happy? FAT BASTARD It's about my girth isn't it? Sure I could lose a few pounds, but I could shiva git! FELICITY Are you happy? FAT BASTARD Of course I'm not happy. Look at me, I'm a big fat slob. I've got bigger titties than you do! I've got more (bleep)in' chins than a Chinese phone book. I've got more crack cheese than a (bleep)in' dairy. I've nay seen ma willie in two years. That's enough time to declare it legally deed! I can't stop eating. I eat because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because I eat. (starts to cry) I'm caught in a cycle and there's no escape! AUSTIN Maybe inside that Fat Bastard there's a thin bastard, trying to get out FAT BASTARD Maybe there's big crap inside me trying to get out, jack-ass! Enough of your (bleep)in' new age aphorisms. Listen, I've run the gamut of self- help books. "Food isn't love", right, but how do you get it from the page to the (bleep)in' fork? I'm so weak, I hate myself. I'm for shite. Here, take the mojo. Fat Bastard hands over the mojo. FAT BASTARD I appreciate you trying to reach me, no one can do it for me, I know this now. There's a hole in my soul that food won't fill. This is the beginning of a new me. I'm gonna go to the gym everyday. If you'll excuse me, there's someone I have to get in touch with and forgive... myself. (pause) Sorry. I farted. (pause) It's a long road ahead. EXT. BEACH - DR. EVIL'S ISLAND - DAY Austin and Felicity run up to the Beetle. AUSTIN Hold on, I have something very important to do. Austin drinks the mojo. FELICITY How do you feel? AUSTIN Sound as a pound, my spuds are boiling. Fancy a shag? FELICITY Austin, we don't have time. AUSTIN C'mon, luv, let's hop on the good foot and do the bad thing! FELICITY Dr. Evil's taken his laser to the moon. The world is in danger. AUSTIN Right, the moon. I think I know someone who can give us a lift. EXT. CAPE CANAVERAL - APOLLO ROCKET (STOCK FOOTAGE) The Apollo ready for lift-off. NEWSCASTER (V.O.) There's been some sort of delay in the launch of Apollo 11, Walter, but we understand that America's first manned mission to the moon will be blasting off shortly. INT. CAPSULE Pan across Austin in a spacesuit, then Felicity in her spacesuit, then CAMEO ASTRONAUT in his space suit. They are surrounded by hundreds of gauges, buttons and meters. AUSTIN Gor blimey, you'd have to be a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out. ASTRONAUT I am a rocket scientist. A technician closes the hatch and the countdown begins. MISSION COMMANDER (V.O.) We will have lift-off in T minus 10 seconds... 9... 8... etc. AUSTIN Felicity, if you get frightened, just hold my hand. EXT. CAPE CANAVERAL (STOCK FOOTAGE) The rocket lifts off. MISSION COMMANDER (V.O.) We have lift-off! Apollo 11 has cleared the tower and is heading for a rendezvous with the moon. INT. APOLLO CAPSULE The G-forces during lift-off are incredible. Austin's face is pulled into a contorted mask which bares his teeth. His hair sticks straight up and his glasses are twisted. Austin is terrified. He clutches Felicity's hand, then grabs on to the astronaut beside him. Felicity, however, loves it. FELICITY (yelling) Yaaaaa-hoooo! EXT. SPACE - APOLLO ROCKET (STOCK FOOTAGE) The stages separate. INT. NASA CONTROL ROOM Basil sits at the console with NASA technicians. BASIL EXPOSITION Austin, you have achieved lunar orbit. How was that lift-off? INT. CAPSULE - APOLLO ROCKET (INTERCUT) AUSTIN To be honest it was terrifying. It felt like sitting on top of a bomb. As I punched through the atmosphere, I said 'Oh my God!' and I soiled myself. BASIL EXPOSITION Happens all the time in that situation. AUSTIN No, I mean I soiled myself just now when I said oh 'my God!' FELICITY Basil, it was amazing! BASIL EXPOSITION Prepare for moon landing. We only have one hour until Dr. Evil fires the laser! EXT. MOON LANDING (STOCK FOOTAGE) The lunar module settles on the moon. AUSTIN (V.O.) Mission control, the swinger has landed. EXT. LUNAR MODULE - SURFACE OF THE MOON Austin and Felicity step out in their spacesuits. AUSTIN This is one small step for man, but a giant step for shagging. Can you imagine it, baby, weightless? The permutations are mind-boggling. FELICITY Naughty boy! Austin plants a UNION JACK on the moon. AUSTIN God Save the Queen. INT. NASA CONTROL ROOM The MISSION COMMANDER shakes his head. MISSION COMMANDER The Queen? This is an American show, goddammit. Let's roll that footage we shot last week in the studio. INT. 1960'S AMERICAN HOME (STOCK FOOTAGE) A family gathers around the TV, watching Neil Armstrong's 'real' moon landing. INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE Dr. Evil walks all the way around a TUBULAR HALLWAY-- up the walls, across the ceiling upside down, and back again, settling into his chair. It is like that shot in 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY. DR. EVIL Position the laser. The laser shifts into place. An ALARM goes off and LIGHTS FLASH. ANNOUNCER (V.O.) WARNING, LASER CALIBRATION! DR. EVIL Get me the President. THE SCREEN FLICKERS ON: DR. EVIL Mr. President, your time is up. This is your last chance to pay 100 billion dollars or see Washington DC destroyed. ANNOUNCER (V.O.) WARNING, LASER CALIBRATION! The ALARM continues to blare. INT. OVAL OFFICE (SPLIT SCREEN) The President at his desk. PRESIDENT What? I can't hear you. DR. EVIL Pay me 100 billion dollars or see Washington DC destroyed! The ALARM BLARES. PRESIDENT I'm sorry, I just can't hear you. DR. EVIL (louder) How about now? PRESIDENT Better. DR. EVIL The Capital will be destroyed- The ALARM BLARES. PRESIDENT Sorry! I just can't- I think it's that alarm. DR. EVIL Could someone shut off that frickin' alarm? I'm trying to hold the free world hostage here. Honestly. (shouting) WILL DESTROY WASHINGTON DC UNLESS YOU PAY ME- The ALARM SHUTS OFF but Dr. Evil is still shouting. DR. EVIL (shouting) 100 BILLION DOLLARS! His yelling startles even himself. PRESIDENT Please Dr. Evil, be reasonable. That's more money than is in the entire Federal Treasury! DR. EVIL Oh well, I guess you have one minute to- "show me the money"! PRESIDENT I still don't know what that means. I can't show you the money because we don't have the money. DR. EVIL Then I suppose you're up shit's crick without a paddle. INT. NASA CONTROL ROOM A white room with a bank of old-fashioned computers and a tracking screen. Basil, several GENERALS, and other VIPs look anxiously over the shoulder of the MISSION CONTROL SPECIALISTS. BASIL EXPOSITION Gentlemen, Austin has landed on the moon. We'll soon know whether he has succeeded or whether the world will be destroyed! INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE - HALLWAY Austin and Felicity enter through a hatch and step out of their spacesuits. FELICITY Let's find Dr. Evil. Suddenly, Austin notices something. AUSTIN Shhh... He points. We see a profile through a sheet of frosted glass. It is Dr. Evil's distinctive profile, with a machine gun. Austin takes careful aim and FIRES. We see the SHADOW take the hit, and fall. FELICITY Austin, you've done it! You got Dr. Evil! AUSTIN Of course I did, baby, I got my mojo working overtime. FELICITY Austin, I'm going ahead. Cover my rear! AUSTIN Oh, behave! Felicity runs ahead. Austin runs over to where the shadow came from. He sees that it was not Dr. Evil, but MINI-ME, carrying a little gun. Austin is ashamed. AUSTIN Poor little bugger. He's so small, he's like a dog or something. Austin chokes back a tear. AUSTIN Poor little bugger. (realizing) Felicity, be careful! Dr. Evil is still alive! Felicity? Austin runs after her. INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE - MAIN ROOM Austin rounds the corner and comes upon Dr. Evil. AUSTIN (holding his gun on Dr. Evil) Alright, slap-head, turn around. Slowly. DR. EVIL Aren't you forgetting something? A wall panel in the main chamber revolves, revealing FELICITY, enclosed in a glass tube. AUSTIN Felicity! (to Dr. Evil) What have you done to her? DR. EVIL Don't worry, she's not dead... yet. Brightly colored GAS starts to fill the glass chamber. FELICITY (muffled through glass) Don't worry about me Austin. You've got to save the world! DR. EVIL It looks like you have a choice, Powers: save the world, or save your girlfriend. Austin is torn. He looks back and forth between Felicity and the laser which is on the other side of the room. AUSTIN I've got my mojo back, man, I can do both. DR. EVIL We'll see. Fire the laser! The woman manning the laser's joystick begins to MOVE IT. Austin leaps across the room and reaches her just in time. AUSTIN Hands off my joystick, baby. He wrestles with her a moment and then KNOCKS IT ASKEW. EXT. SPACE The laser beam hits the Big Boy Rocket in the crotch and Big Boy's eyes cross in pain. INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE - MAIN ROOM DR. EVIL Damn you, Powers! Dr. Evil hits a SELF-DESTRUCT button. An ALARM blares. ANNOUNCER (V.O.) Warning! Self-destruct sequence initiated! The base is rocked by EXPLOSIONS. AUSTIN See, Dr. Evil I told you I could do both. DR. EVIL Perhaps you spoke too soon. Austin looks over. Felicity has slumped over in the tube. AUSTIN Noooooo! Austin BANGS on the glass with his fists. AUSTIN Felicity! Felicity. Wake up! Wake up! Please God, don't take her away. It is too late. Dr. Evil runs through the TIME PORTAL and gets away. AUSTIN Felicity, you have to understand, I thought I had my mojo back. This isn't fair. Austin looks up to the heavens. We see a quick-- FLASHBACK - MONTAGE of moments they shared, Austin making her laugh, their first kiss, of Felicity being her beautiful and free-spirited self. A tear runs down his cheek. Austin presses his face against the glass as if trying to reach her. AUSTIN I love you, Felicity! I know I couldn't say it before, but I really do love you! (enraged) Dr. Evil, I'll kill him! Austin starts to chase him, but THREE PRIVATE ARMY MEN block his path. Austin is like an animal. He charges toward the first soldier, RIPS HIS HEART OUT, and takes a bite out of it. Then Austin turns to the second soldier and RIPS HIS SPINE OUT like in Mortal Kombat. The soldier slumps to the ground. The last soldier is terrified. Austin swings both fists simultaneously, crushing the guy's head which EXPLODES LIKE A PUMPKIN. Austin runs over to the TIME PORTAL set for "75 BC". He runs through. CUT TO: INT. ROMAN VILLA - 75 BC An orgy is taking place. Dr. Evil is in a toga with a laurel with two YOUNG ROMAN MEN feeding him grapes. DR. EVIL You make love to your wife out of duty, your mistress for pleasure, and a Roman boy for ecstasy. (noticing Austin) Shit. He runs away as Austin appears through the TIME PORTAL. Austin follows Dr. Evil into another TIME PORTAL marked "1975". EXT. VENTURA BOULEVARD - Austin emerges from the TIME PORTAL to see Dr. Evil getting into a car. Austin waves his hands and a 1974 RED FORD TORINO with a white stripe pulls over. AUSTIN I have to commandeer this vehicle. (noticing) Hey, aren't you Hutch? VOICE (O.S.) No. We see PAUL MICHAEL GLASER (STARSKY). PAUL MICHAEL GLASER I'm Starsky. DAVID SOUL I'm Hutch. Austin jumps in and the Torino speeds off. Dr. Evil's car disappears into a car wash which is a TIME PORTAL. The Torino follows. A sign at the car wash reads: "1911" CUT TO: EXT. DECK OF THE TITANIC - Passengers in period garb walk past a lifesaver with "Titanic" stenciled above it. Dr. Evil enters through a portal with Austin hot on his heels. CAPTAIN (O.S.) Iceberg, dead ahead! Suddenly the ship tilts at a radical angle. LEONARDO DICAPRIO, KATE WINSLET, and JAMES CAMERON slide by. JAMES CAMERON I'm king of the world! Dr. Evil and Austin slide backwards into the TIME PORTAL they just came from. CUT TO: EXT. LONDON STREET - DAY - Dr. Evil runs into the street with Austin chasing him. In SLO-MO Austin dives for a ridiculously long time, and TACKLES Dr. Evil, pinning him. AUSTIN I'm going to kill you, you bastard! DR. EVIL (breathing heavily) Before you do that, know this: Austin, I am... your... father. MUSIC: DRAMATIC STING AUSTIN Really? DR. EVIL No. I can't back that up. I was just grasping at straws. I had nothing. But isn't it interesting, Mr. Powers, you really have become a product of the Nineties. AUSTIN How so? DR. EVIL You're more interested in your job as glorified policeman than you are in love. You won the battle, but I won the war. Love means nothing, you've proved it. AUSTIN I didn't think that Felicity was going to die, man. DR. EVIL What a cowardly response. I'm disappointed really. You have the power to go back in time and save her, but it means letting me go. Austin looks over and sees a TIME PORTAL. Through it he can glimpse the lair, and Felicity. DR. EVIL Well, Mr. Powers, which is it going to be? Me or the girl? AUSTIN Felicity! Austin runs through. CUT TO: INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE - 60'S We see the scene from a moment ago. Felicity is in the glass tube and the BRIGHTLY COLORED GAS is starting to fill it. DR. EVIL It looks like you have a choice: save the world, or save your girlfriend. AUSTIN I choose love, baby. Austin runs over to the glass tube and SMASHES HIS FIST through it. The glass SHATTERS and Austin pulls Felicity out. She gasps for air. AUSTIN Felicity, I love you. FELICITY (breathless) But I thought- AUSTIN That was another place and another time, baby. Austin kisses her for a long time. She starts to twitch. She struggles. She hits him in the head and he finally stops kissing her. FELICITY (gasping) Can't. Breathe. AUSTIN Sorry, baby, I got a little over- stimulated. DR. EVIL Fire the laser! AUSTIN What do we do? FELICITY Use your mojo! AUSTIN I don't have it! FELICITY Trust me, you do! Austin turns and gives a 'who me?' look over his bottom. The woman arming the laser stumbles backwards into the directional control just as it FIRES. EXT. SPACE The Big Boy Rocket spins to avoid the laser as it passes harmlessly by. INT. NASA CONTROL ROOM Jubilation. BASIL EXPOSITION He did it, he saved the world! (calming down) Of course, I thought he might. INT. DR, EVILIS MOON BASE - MAIN ROOM FELICITY Austin, you did it! They embrace. AUSTIN Uh-oh. (beat) I think I just got my mojo back. Really. FELICITY Austin, you had it all along. No one can take your, mojo away from you! DR. EVIL Good-bye, Mr. Powers, for the last time. Dr. Evil hits the SELF-DESTRUCT button and climbs aboard the rocket, which blasts off. EXT. SPACE (CHEAP BLUE SCREEN EFFECT) Dr. Evil's escape rocket in flight. FULL SCREEN - RADAR Dr. Evil's rocket enters the screen. It has the silhouette of a flying penis. INT. RADAR ROOM RADAR OPERATOR Sir, you better have a look at this radar. COLONEL What is it? RADAR OPERATOR don't know, sir. It's hard to describe. It's... it's- CUT TO: INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE DOCTOR Just a little prick! The kid CRIES. DOCTOR All done! (out the window) Good lord, what is that? If I didn't know better I'd say it's a- CUT TO: INT. CHINESE COMMUNIST CLASSROOM CHINESE TEACHER Wang! One of the STUDENTS, dressed in a green Mao suit and clutching a red book is caught looking out the window. CHINESE TEACHER Pay attention! CHINESE STUDENT I'm sorry, Comrade Teacher. (pointing out window) was distracted by that enormous flying- EXT. BEACH RACHEL HUNTER Rod? ROD STEWART Yes, Rachel? RACHEL HUNTER (pointing to sky) What's that? ROD STEWART (looking up) It looks like a giant- CUT TO: INT. CLASSROOM OLD LADY TEACHER Penis! (pointing to her chart) The male reproductive organ. Also known as tallywhackers, wankers, schlongs, or-- CUT TO: INT. NASA CONTROL BASIL EXPOSITION Peters! CAPTAIN PETERS Yes, sir? BASIL EXPOSITION Any word from Austin? CAPTAIN PETERS We've picked up his signal, but the lunar base seems to self-destructing. BASIL EXPOSITION (on microphone) Austin, if you can hear me, use the time portal! There's no time to get to the lunar module! Use the time portal! INT. DR. EVIL'S MOON BASE Austin stumbles. Felicity looks at him. FELICITY Austin, you have to get to the time portal! AUSTIN Come with me, Felicity! It's the only way out! FELICITY Austin, will I fit in the Nineties? AUSTIN If I did, anyone can. Let's go, baby! The TIME PORTAL is fifty feet away. Austin and Felicity run towards it. In the foreground, are a stack of conveniently placed barrels. As they run behind the barrels, an obvious AUSTIN STUNT DOUBLE and an obvious FELICITY STUNT DOUBLE emerge in their place. The stunt doubles grab a winch hanging above them and cross over to the TIME PORTAL in a dramatic series of acrobatic flips and stunts. The stunt doubles run behind another conveniently placed pile of barrels. Austin and Felicity emerge in their place and run through the TIME PORTAL. The TIME PORTAL reads "1999". FADE TO BLACK: INT. AUSTIN'S PAD - 1999 - DAY It is the most up-to-date modern apartment you've ever seen in your life. There is a large screen TV, a DVD player etc. Movers move in tasteful modern furniture and various other accouterments of moving. Felicity puts a CD on an old style turntable. SFX: SCREEEECH!! FELICITY Sorry! AUSTIN Don't worry baby it takes some getting used to. Let me ask you Felicity, do you feel any side effects from the time travel? Felicity smiles broadly, revealing that she now has TERRIBLE TEETH like Austin's. FELICITY I'm as healthy as a horse. AUSTIN I love you, Felicity. FELICITY And I love you. AUSTIN Do you want to get married? FELICITY Absolutely not. AUSTIN Thank God. They kiss. FADE TO BLACK. THE END
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+                       AUTHORS ANONYMOUS                          Written by                       David Congalton                                                       July 14 2012                                                            REVISED                                      FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY    FADE IN:1   EXT. FITZGERALD/GRAHAM APARTMENT -- HOLLYWOOD - DAY                  North Hayworth Avenue, off Sunset Boulevard. A quiet, tree-    lined residential street. Note the small apartment complex    set back from the curb.    CAPTION: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA    Our narrator is HENRY OBERT (O-BURT)(30).                           HENRY (V.O.)               This is where where F. Scott               Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940.    INSERT ARCHIVAL PHOTOS of Fitzgerald.   His work.   His life.                           HENRY (V.O.) (CONT'D)               Fitzgerald was one of the truly great               American writers of the 20th century.               Tender is the Night. The Last Tycoon.               This Side of Paradise. And, of course,               my favorite, The Great Gatsby. But               Fitzgerald ended up out here. Writing               movies that never got made. Drinking               too much. Alienating people. Losing               his way.2   EXT.   FITZGERALD/GRAHAM APARTMENT -- SIDEWALK - DAY                 Henry stands on the sidewalk. Full of promise and hope.    Wears a pizza delivery outfit as he stares at the apartment,    more with reverence than curiosity.    CAPTION: HENRY OBERT                           HENRY (V.O.)               I stop by here sometimes--out of               respect. Fitzgerald had this amazing               gift.3   EXT. FITZGERALD/GRAHAM APARTMENT -- SIDEWALK - CONTINUOUS            Henry crosses the street--heading for his parked Honda.     He    unlocks the car. Swings open the back door.                           HENRY (V.O.)               But he wasted it. He wasted his               talent.    Henry yanks a MAGNETIC SIGN out of the back seat and slaps    it on the outside of the driver's door: PIZZA STARZ. One    last glance at the fabled apartment complex.                                                                 2.                          HENRY (V.O.) (CONT'D)              When I sell my novel, I won't make              his mistakes.4   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- LIVING ROOM - DAY                    The man (40's) and woman (30's) sit on the couch in their    tastefully-decorated San Fernando Valley home. Expensive    taste in clothes. Her cleavage a bit too obvious. Both    seem a little uncomfortable. Uncertain.    CAPTION: DR. ALAN & COLETTE MOONEY    They look off to the side, speaking to someone off-camera.                          ALAN              We thought this was going to be a              reality series.                          COLETTE              You know, like the Kardashians.    They listen.    Here comes the bad news.                          ALAN              Oh. Really? A documentary? This              is going to be a documentary about              our writing group?                          COLETTE              The whole group. Not just us, right?              Not that it should be just about              us...    Nervous laugh.                            ALAN              No.    They look at each other: A documentary? They try to mask    their disappointment.                          COLETTE              So this is going to be like--like              what I saw the other night on cable?              About bees mating.                          ALAN              Or that, um, that one about the              Holocaust.    Colette nods, remembering.                          ALAN (CONT'D)              Pretty...Pretty--                                                               3.                             COLETTE              --Powerful.                           ALAN              Powerful.   Yes. Powerful.                          COLETTE              We love documentaries.                             ALAN              We do.    They look at each other again: What have we gotten into?                          COLETTE (V.O.)              Natasha, the Russian peasant, dressed              oh-so-slowly...5   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - EVENING               A POSTER BOARD SIGN--someone went to Kinko's--is posted    prominently reading: QUIET, PLEASE--WRITERS AT WORK.                          COLETTE (V.O.)                  (Reading)              ...consumed totally, completely,              absolutely, by endless thoughts of              Yuri fondling her breast, his other              hand groping her womanhood, knowing...    They sit around the dining room table. Colette, convinced    she's the next Amy Tan, reads aloud from her TYPED PAGES.    The others all have copies in front of them. We recognize    Henry, the frog waiting to become a prince, making copious    notes and Alan, oh-so-proud, hanging on every word. Beaming.    Three others round out the group:    Younger MAN (early 30s). Unshaven. Always thinks he's the    coolest guy in any room. Can't avoid glances at the camera.    CAPTION: WILLIAM BRUCE    The OLDEST MEMBER of the group (over 60) sits with his arms    folded as he listens, shifting in his chair. Captain Grumpy.    CAPTION: JOHN K. BUTZIN    Finally, the young (mid-to-late 20s), angelic, WOMAN listening    intently, the one who probably stopped to rescue a cat on    her way here.    CAPTION: HANNAH RINALDI                                                                  4.                          COLETTE (CONT'D)              ...Any second that she might explode,              her chastity spraying across the              ceiling...Spraying across the ceiling              like passionate graffiti. Natasha              never thought such a moment possible.              "Have I satisfied you, Natasha?"              Yuri had inquired after their fourth              round of vodka-soaked lovemaking.              "Nyet, Not yet," Natasha stated,              exhausted, but grateful.    Awkward silence around the table as Colette removes her    reading glasses and waits. Alan clears his throat, looking    cheerful.                           ALAN              Well?   Comments?6   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                       6    Henry's sparse studio apartment. Minimal furniture. His laptop    is set up on an old door, stretched across some blue plastic    crates.    There are BOOKS piled everywhere. All sorts of books. And    PAPER -- pieces of paper, including letters and cards and    printed emails, dozens of them, are taped throughout the    small apartment.    We are introduced to Henry the writer: pondering over his    battered laptop, pacing up and down the floor, checking his    nearly empty refrigerator, stretched out on his Goodwill    couch, watching TV.    Finally, inspiration. Henry rushes to his desk and taps out    a sentence or two on his computer, feeling proud for his    accomplishment.                          HENRY (V.O.)              I graduated from the University of              Illinois. English major. Taught              high school for a couple years, but              hated it. Moved out here to be a              writer.7   EXT. HOUSE - DAY/NIGHT                                             7    As Henry's voice over continues, we see him in uniform with    pizza in hand at the front door of a house. Rings doorbell.                          HENRY (V.O.)              I work two jobs. Delivering pizzas              and cleaning carpets. Good jobs for              a writer.                                                                   5.8    INT. HOUSE - DAY/NIGHT                                             8     Henry cleaning the carpets as the heavily-tattooed MOTORCYCLE     DUDE points to a dirty spot: Over here.                           HENRY (V.O.)               You meet lots of interesting people.9    INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                       9     Henry points to the letters on the wall. C.U. picks up on     phrases like "We regret to inform you," or "Sorry, but this     story isn't right for us," or "The Baxter Agency currently     isn't accepting new clients."                           HENRY (V.O.)               I have two unpublished novels.               Working on my third, Pizza to Go.               These are my rejection letters.               Rejected by agents. Rejected by               publishers. When you think about               it, it's pretty amazing how many               ways people can reject you.10   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - NIGHT               10     Henry, John, Alan, Colette, Hannah, and William sit around     the table. Impressive buffet of cold cuts, cheeses, and     shrimp has been set out.                           HENRY (V.O.)               Our writing group meets every Tuesday               night. Mostly at Alan and Colette's.               Sometimes we rotate.     John helps himself to some shrimp.   Then helps himself to     some more.                           HENRY (V.O.) (CONT'D)               I love coming to the group. Everyone               always has such constructive feedback.               It's like we're all in this together.                           HANNAH               I really like the way Yuri is               developing, Colette.                              COLETTE               You do?                           JOHN               Well, if you ask John K. Butzin...     Can't help looking at the camera. Making sure it's on him.                                                              6.                      JOHN (CONT'D)          You're still going to have to explain          why this Natasha dame goes AWOL on          her husband. Still kinda iffy to          me.Another glance at the camera: Did you get that?                      ALAN          I was bothered by that, too. Why          would Natasha betray a reliable,          dependable husband for a washed-up          young punk?All eyes on Colette.    She shifts in her chair.   Uncomfortable.                       COLETTE          Oh.   Well...um...um...An uneasy silence. Colette is blocked--nowhere to gocreatively. Her face tightens up. Bites her lip.                      COLETTE (CONT'D)          Oh God. I've been rewriting and          rewriting and rewriting and--                         ALAN          Poodles.     It's OK.                      COLETTE          No. It's not OK. I still can't          explain Natasha's motive. What's          the use? I'm not a writer.William to the rescue.                      WILLIAM          Whoa. Whoa. Time out. The dude's          good in bed. Trust me, that's all          the motive she needs.                      JOHN          Roger that. Torpedo Chapter Three.          Blow it up. Get the focus back on          this broad--Natasha.                      HENRY          --Yes. I was thinking the same thing.                       HANNAH          Make it clear that Natasha wants to          be closer...Colette makes notes furiously, nodding in agreement.                                                                   7.                            HENRY (V.O.)                Writing can be such a solitary                existence, so it's good to have this                outlet where you can meet other                writers and exchange ideas. Here it                really is all for one and one for                all.11   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - NIGHT               11     Later that evening.    Meeting is over.     Alan, Colette, Hannah, Henry, William, and John are all     standing up now. William stretches. John reaches for more     shrimp. Friendly banter. Laughter.                            COLETTE                Who wants coffee?     Everybody does.    William taps Henry on the shoulder.                             WILLIAM                Lend me ten bucks? I'm having cash                flow issues.                             HENRY                Sure.                            WILLIAM                Thanks, bro'. You're the best.12   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                       12     Henry sits at his desk, staring at the blank computer. Lost     in thought. Emphasis on lost.                            HENRY (V.O.)                This new novel Pizza to Go is about                Scott, a pizza delivery guy in LA.                He comes across some interesting                characters. I like what I have so                far, but it's only a hundred pages                and I'm stuck...13   INT.   HENRY'S APARTMENT - LATER - DAY                             13     Henry stands in front of the mirror in his apartment, wearing     the Pizza Starz hat and shirt. Ready for work.                            HENRY (V.O.)                ...Haven't written a word in the                last two weeks. Not one. Hannah                teases me about having writer's block.                                                                   8.14   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - NIGHT               14     FLASHBACK to the last group meeting. Focus on Hannah. Her     smile. Her warmth. She listens and comments. Actively     engaged in the conversation.                           HENRY (V.O.)               ...I keep thinking about her. She's               all I think about. Really would               like to ask her out.15   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT - DAY                                      15     Hannah reaches for a pair of READING GLASSES and slips them     on. Talks to someone O.S.                           HANNAH               What do you think? On or off? Do               they make me look smarter? I need a               new pair.     She takes the glasses off. Puts them back on. Off again.     Debating. Hannah prepares herself with a series of quick     breaths and waves her hands in the air. Then she stares     directly into the camera.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               Hi. I'm originally from Prescott,               Arizona. Followed my mom out here               about four years ago. That's her               back there.     Camera picks up a wisp of a WOMAN (over 50)in the background,     waving, with an equally pleasant smile.     CAPTION: MAUREEN RINALDI                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               My parents are divorced. Not her               fault.16   INT. RESTAURANT #1 - DAY                                           16     William favors jeans and faded tweed jacket. Sits in the     corner of a Valley restaurant, nursing a cup of coffee and     talks to the camera.                           WILLIAM               What do you want to know about me?               I'm 27. Single. A virgin.     He flashes that wicked, seductive smile.                                                                  9.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               Just kidding. I'm actually 28.               Hometown is Modesto, California, A               sprawling junk heap of a town without               a soul. Why did I come to LA? Um,               because I knew you were here and               that you'd loan me a hundred bucks               if I needed it. Right?     WAITRESS #1 refills his coffee cup. Her reward is that smile.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               Thanks, babe.     She walks away.   William admires the view.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               I already got her number. Maybe I'll               text her. Maybe I won't.     Eyes back towards the camera.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               So 'bout that hundred bucks? What               d'ya think?     A hint of desperation in his voice.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               OK. What about fifty? C'mon, bro'.               Support the arts.17   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT -- DAY                                    17     Hannah continues talking to the camera.   Maureen still in     background.                           HANNAH               I've always had this knack for telling               stories. Ever since I was a kid.                           MAUREEN               She's a natural.                           HANNAH               Moved here. Took a couple writing               classes. Decided to go for it.               24/7. Total dedication to my craft.               The writing always comes first. My               latest effort is called Sleeping on               the Moon. It's about rejection. And               pain. Not really about the moon               itself. More of a...                                                                  10.     She searches for the word that escapes her. Maureen to the     rescue.                           MAUREEN               Metaphor.                           HANNAH               Right.18   INT. RESTAURANT #1 - DAY                                           18     William continues talking to the camera.                           WILLIAM               So. LA? I'm here because of Bukowski.               Charles Bukowski. Greatest writer               ever. Period.     INSERT ARCHIVAL PHOTOS of Charles Bukowski.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               LA is his town, man. If I'm gonna               be a writer, then I have to walk in               Bukowski's shoes. Experience and               capture the plight of the working               class.     He waves to WAITRESS #1.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               I like the people in the group. But               they can't write worth shit. But,               man, Hannah is something. She's the               only reason I keep going. Not because               I'm learning anything. Hell, no. I               just think she's hot.19   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT -- DAY                                     19     Hannah leans forward towards the camera, as if to hear better.                           HANNAH               My favorite writer? Favorite writer.               Favorite writer...     Hannah goes blank. The smile disappears as her face goes     into noticeable contortions. This is worse than Final     Jeopardy. She turns quiet, squirming.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               Favorite. Wow. Hard to say. I've               studied Composition more than actual               Literature. Gee. I know Maureen               enjoys Jane...                                                               11.     Searching for a last name, Hannah looks back to Maureen for     help.                              MAUREEN               Jane Austen.                           HANNAH               That's the one. I hear she's good.               But my favorite writer? Let me think               about that a bit, OK?     Short beat. Hannah lowers her voice, almost a loud     confessional whisper.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               I didn't go to college.20   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                   20     John is holding court at his mobile home, showcasing the     finest in furniture from Sears. John stuffs his home with     various MILITARY ARTIFACTS--photos, equipment, books. He's     got it all. John talks to the camera.                           JOHN               Everything John K. Butzin knows               about writing comes down to two simple               words: Tom Clancy. Yes, sir. Tom               Clancy. The man's a genius. Does               his research. All those nitty-gritty               technical details. Now that's writing!               John K. Butzin has one agent very               interested in Roaring Lion. And a               publisher up in Oxnard is looking at               it as we speak. Plus a certain               cousin's best friend has a neighbor               who has an in with Clint Eastwood,               so Hollywood might be calling soon.               Don't know how the other members of               the writing group will handle all               this success by one person. They               better not be pussies.21   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- LIVING ROOM - DAY              21     Alan and Colette remain on the couch. Talking to the camera.     All smiles. Much more comfortable with the camera.                           ALAN               Well, I'm an optometrist in Glendale.                           COLETTE               And I write full-time.                                                                 12.                           ALAN               Our last name's Mooney. You could               call us Mooneys. We get that joke               all the time.     The couple giggle at the joke. Forced.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Which writer do I admire? Hmmm. How               about John Grisham? Look at all               that money he's made! Just teasing,               John. We know you deserved every               dime, but, hey, John, could you spread               it around a bit, pal?                           COLETTE               Alan likes to tease.     She gives her husband an affectionate squeeze.                           ALAN               Colette, here, is the real writer.               I'm more of an idea guy. I come up               with great ideas, but don't always               follow through. I'll show you.     He picks up his mini-digital Olympus RECORDER off the coffee     table. Thinks for a second.                           ALAN (CONT'D)                   (To recorder)               Idea for romantic novel.     Alan catches himself.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               No. Make that, idea for romantic               ebook.     He winks at the camera--showing he's hip to the jargon.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Possible movie option, too: Frovers.               They couldn't be friends. They               couldn't be lovers. So they became               Frovers.     Satisfied, Alan turns off the recorder.22   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                       22     Colette opens the sliding glass door and steps out into a     beautiful garden area. Quiet and private. Camera follows     her over to a solitary BENCH.                                                                 13.                            COLETTE                This is where I come for inspiration.                I believe a writer must have quiet                and solitude. I'll meditate. Write                in my journal. Set out my creative                path for the day. This is my Walden                Pond.     Colette sits down on the bench. Takes in the environment.                            COLETTE (CONT'D)                Favorite author? I'd have to say                Joan Didion. Her writing sends                shivers down my spine. Though Joyce                Carol Oates has been known to bring                me to actual orgasm.23   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                       23     Colette sits on her bench, reading a BOOK. C.U. reveals     that it is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Colette appears to     be getting into the story just a bit too much.24   EXT.   COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                     24     POOL GUY and GARDENER hear Colette's sensual cries drifting     over the hedge. What the hell? They exchange puzzled looks.25   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                       25     Back to the present. Camera picks up a FRAMED PHOTO OF OPRAH     from a corner of the bench. Holds it up for camera.                            COLETTE                Oh, this? I keep Oprah out here for                luck. She's done so much to help                writers. I know I'm going to be on                her television show one day. I just                know it.     Colette can already see the moment in her mind. Short beat.     Then she looks off-camera--listening to someone.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)                What? Oprah doesn't have a TV show                anymore? Really? Since when?     Short beat as she hears the answer.                            COLETTE (CONT'D)                Oh...     Short beat as she tries to cover.                                                                    14.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               I knew that. I did. I-I knew.26   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                       26     Henry stands in front of his mirror. Checks his appearance.     Again. Talks to the camera.                           HENRY               Tonight's the night. I'm going to               ask Hannah out.     Henry becomes lost in thought.   Regroups.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               It's time. I like her. She likes me--               I think. I've got to take action.               Still stuck on Page 100. So I'm               asking Hannah out on a date tonight.               It'll be great. And I'll put this               writer's block behind me.     Checks his appearance one last time in the mirror.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               Wish me luck.27   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                 27     Alan sits in his favorite chair, talking directly to the     camera.                           ALAN               I'm the group leader. After all,               getting together was my idea. They're               all my patients. That's how we met.               First one published gets a free eye               exam.     Alan cackles a bit too hard at that joke.    He listens to a     question being asked.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Why did I form the group? To help               Colette. Oh, I certainly enjoy the               creative process, but Colette?               Writing is her dream. I'd do anything               for her because...because she's my               dream. So there you have it.     Alan reaches for his tape recorder.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Possible names for future characters.                           (MORE)                                                                 15.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Anthony Gilmore. No, wait. Make               that Anthony T. Gilmore. Much               better. Slate McCoy. Fletcher Peck.               Fiona Foxx. And...a man known simply               as Banjo.     Satisfied, Alan turns off the recorder.28   INT. RESTAURANT #1 - NIGHT                                        28     Place is empty. Alan, Colette, William, John, and Henry     gather around the center table.     The WRITERS AT WORK poster is propped up against a nearby     empty chair. Hard not to notice the EMPTY CHAIR at the table.     Hannah is missing.     Waitress #1 pours coffee all around. Henry fidgets in his     chair, focused on the empty chair.                           JOHN                   (To William)               How come we never chow down at your               place?                           WILLIAM               This is my place. Close to the working               people.     John rolls his eyes.                           HENRY               Where's Hannah? Anyone know?     Nobody responds. Alan checks his watch.                           ALAN               Time to get started.                           HENRY               Shouldn't we wait for Hannah?                           WILLIAM               Let's go, people. I'm ready to read.                           ALAN               William's right. We'll start. She'll               show up.     William starts passing out pages. Henry eyes the empty chair.     Colette looks over William's pages. There are only three.     She has a puzzled look.                                                               16.                           COLETTE               William, aren't these the same pages               you read last time?                           WILLIAM               Nope, they're different.                           JOHN               They look the same.                           WILLIAM               They're different. I changed a word.                             HENRY               One word?                             COLETTE               That's it?                           WILLIAM               Writing is rewriting, Colette.               Bukowski said, "Write five words.               Rewrite seven."                           HENRY               No. Dorothy Parker said that.                             JOHN               One word?    Jesus H. Christ.                           WILLIAM               It's my creative vision, John.                           ALAN                   (Jumping in)               Which we are here to support. This               is William's decision.                           WILLIAM               Let me just read. See if you can               pick out the word. Tell me if it's               better, or worse.                           JOHN                   (Muttering)               One goddamn word.     Henry continues staring at the empty chair.29   INT. RESTAURANT #1 - NIGHT                                      29     The evening meeting is winding to an end. John stands up to     stretch. Alan slides papers into his leather satchel.     HANNAH'S CHAIR remains empty. Henry remains concerned.                                                             17.                      HENRY          I wonder what happened to Hannah.                      ALAN          It's not like her to miss.The mystery is quickly solved. Front door opens. In rushesHannah, dashing directly towards the others, looking harried.                       HANNAH          I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for missing          the meeting.                      JOHN          What happened? Your car break down?                      ALAN          You oversleep?                      COLETTE          Maureen. Is Maureen OK?                     WILLIAM          People. C'mon. Look at her. That          glow. Hannah met a guy. She got          laid.Hannah gives William a playful smack on the back.                      HANNAH          As a matter of fact, I did meet a          guy.                      WILLIAM          Told ya.                      HANNAH          His name's Brian.Check out Henry. He looks absolutely horrified. No!Hannah takes a deep breath and flashes a smile the size ofthe Grand Canyon.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          He's my new agent!She remembers the camera.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)              (Directly to camera)          An agent. I've got an agent!Surprise and silence. The writers look at each other andthen back at Hannah. Not quite sure how to react.                                                                 18.     Stunned as Hannah turns her attention back to the group.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                That writing class I took? Well,                for the final project, I turned in                the first chapter of Sleeping on the                Moon. I guess the teacher liked it.                Then he gave it to his friend who's                an agent. Brian. He called. Had to                see me right away. Brian wants to                sign me.                            WILLIAM                Bet Brian wants more than that.     Playful smack from Colette to William on the shoulder: Behave.                            COLETTE                That's so great, Hannah.                            JOHN                I salute you, young lady.     And he does.                             ALAN                Yes.   Fantastic. Fanntasstic.     Henry takes it all in quietly, unable to speak.     Alan bounces up and gives Hannah a big hug as the others     immediately start peppering her with questions.30   INT.   RESTAURANT #1 - NIGHT                                      30     Colette, Alan, John, William and Henry encircle a beaming     Hannah as Waitress #1 snaps their PHOTO.31   INT. RESTAURANT #1 - NIGHT                                        31     Alan pops the drugstore CHAMPAGNE and pours into the cheap     plastic cups, as Colette passes them around to Hannah, Henry,     John, and William.                            ALAN                    (Raising cup)                To Hannah!     Everyone clinks their cups together.                            HANNAH                Thank you. But I just want to remind                everyone that we're all in this                together. I couldn't have come this                far without the group.                                                                19.                           ALAN                   (Smiling)               All for one . . . .     But our camera picks up on the individual writers and     something is amiss. Everything seems a beat off. People     appear happy, but a little subdued. The joy seems a bit too     forced.                           HANNAH               I'm merely the first one to get               signed. But we're all going to have               an agent soon.                           JOHN               Well, as a matter of fact, there's               an agent in Santa Monica very               interested in John K. Butzin. He's               reading the manuscript as we speak.     The others let John's remark pass without comment.   William     taps Henry on the shoulder.                           WILLIAM                   (Lower voice)               Hey, can you lend me ten bucks?     Henry is still a bit dazed by this unexpected turn of events.                            HENRY               Sure.                           WILLIAM               Thanks, bro'. You're the best.     Henry's eyes can't leave Hannah.32   EXT. RESTAURANT #1 - NIGHT                                       32     The front door to the restaurant swings open and the writing     group members tumble out into the evening. Alan carries his     WRITERS AT WORK sign.     William makes a move towards Hannah, but the the ever-     protective Henry grabs her gently by her elbow, cutting     William off. They start walking in one direction. William     and John head out in the other. Meanwhile, Alan and Colette     wave enthusiastically to Hannah.                           ALAN               Congratulations again, Hannah!                            COLETTE               Yes, yes.   Way to go, Hannah!                                                                 20.                           HANNAH                   (Calling back)               Thank you! 'Night.     Alan and Colette continue to smile and wave until Hannah is     out of ear shot.                           ALAN               Well, Hannah's got an agent.     Short beat.                           COLETTE               She must have slept with him.                           ALAN               Of course she did.33   EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT                                          33     Henry and Hannah arrive at her car. She unlocks the front     door of her clunker-of-a-Ford as Henry waits.                           HENRY               I'm so proud of you, Hannah.                           HANNAH               Your turn will come, Henry. You're a               better writer than I am. So much               better. You went to college.     Hannah looks directly into the camera, pointing to Henry.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               He's a great writer. Henry Obert. I               knew him when.     Henry, clearly embarrassed, puts his hand up to block the     camera. Tries to change the subject.                           HENRY               Listen. Maybe some afternoon we               could go for a drive. There are               some special places I'd like to show               you.                           HANNAH               Sure. I can't believe I've lived out               here four years and haven't seen --     She stops in mid-sentence.   A light goes on in her head.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               Oh, my.                                                                  21.                           HENRY               What?                           HANNAH               Four years. It's been four years               since I moved here. And now I have               an agent. It's the number four again.               My lucky number. I should have known               this was going to happen.                           HENRY               There is no one more deserving.     Hannah rewards Henry's praise with a peck on the lips.    And     a warm hug.     Hannah steps in her car, starts it up and rolls down the     window.                           HANNAH               I'm going to dedicate my novel to               you.     A final wave and Henry watches as she disappears into the     night. He sighs.34   INT. MONTAGE OF SHOTS - DAY                                        34     A series of shots featuring the writers writing--or, at least,     trying: Alan pauses between eye appointments to record an     idea.     William continues scribbling at the restaurant, this time     eyeing WAITRESS #2.     Hannah, sitting cross-legged on her bed, types away on her     laptop computer.     Colette sits on her private bench, seeking inspiration.     John sits at his keyboard. Vintage black-and-white war movie     plays on the TV. John appears more interested in the movie.     Henry stares at his laptop. The screen is blank. Henry     surrenders yet again and flips off the computer.35   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                       35     Henry, sitting in his studio apartment, wears his pizza     delivery outfit. Ready for work. Talks to the camera.                           HENRY               I'm happy for Hannah.                           (MORE)                                                                  22.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               Still, her getting an agent sort of               ruins my plans, doesn't it? I mean,               Hannah has an agent. I don't. That               won't work for dating. I can't ask               her out until I get an agent.     Henry gestures at a PHOTOGRAPH taped to the wall among his     rejection letters.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               That's Richard Benedict. He's written               seven novels. Fantastic writer.     INSERT ARCHIVAL PHOTOS of Richard Benedict.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               The Fitzgerald of his generation.               Richard Benedict made me want to be               a writer.36   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- LIVING ROOM - DAY                 36     Colette dressed in a leotard, practices basic yoga on a mat     in her living room. Chanting. Overly dramatic, as always.     Takes a break and talks to the camera.                           COLETTE               My novel is called Nyet, Not Yet.               It's about a Russian woman who comes               to this country in search of love.               It was inspired by a story I heard               from one of my massage clients, Yuri.               Yes, it's true--I used to do massage.               In fact, that's how I met Alan, though               I certainly didn't give him the kind               of massage he really wanted. At least               not the first time.     Colette allows herself a slight smile at the memory.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               I will get an agent. It comes down               to this: if Hannah can get an agent,               I can get an agent. After all, I am               a graduate of Mills College.37   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT - DAY                                      37     Plopped down in her rocking chair, Hannah talks to someone     O.S. Maureen goes about her day in the background.                                                          23.                      HANNAH          Have I thought of my favorite author          yet? No. Not yet. There are so          many, you know?The deep breaths and waving of hands begin again. Here comesthat smile as she looks directly into the camera.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          So. I am somewhat superstitious.          Yes. Guilty. I'm drawn to the number          4. I was born at exactly 4:04 p.m.          on April 4th. 4-4-4-4. That wasn't          an accident. No way.She's dead serious.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          Certain things I've learned to avoid.          Black cats. Cracked mirrors. Oh.          And the number 13 especially. I hate          the number 13. Hate it.Conversation interrupted by RINGING DOORBELL. Hannah frownsat the interruption as Maureen scurries to the door and opensit, revealing Colette hiding behind a HUGE GIFT BASKET. Shebreezes in. Takes over. Over the top.                      COLETTE          Hi...Hi...Hello everyone. I was          just in the neighborhood and--Colette freezes when she notices the camera.                      COLETTE (CONT'D)          Oh, Hannah. I'm so sorry. I didn't          know they'd be here--Yeah, right. Hannah springs up. Follows Colette as she setsthe basket down for all to admire.                        HANNAH          Colette.    What a lovely surprise!Hugs all around between Hannah and Maureen and Colette.Hannah looks blown away by the gift basket.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          My, what's this?                      COLETTE          Oh. It's nothing. I just had to          say "Congratulations" to my new          favorite author.                                                            24.Hannah is truly touched.    Maureen notices a CARD attached tothe basket.                      MAUREEN              (Reading)          "For Poodles...Now may we have sex          again? Love, Alan."What? Embarrassed, Colette snatches the card from Maureen.Hannah is more focused on the gift. Doesn't really hear.                      HANNAH          So sweet of you, Colette.                         COLETTE          My pleasure.     Say, Hannah...about          your agent?Hannah looks over at Colette: What?                      COLETTE (CONT'D)          Is he--Is he taking on new clients?                       HANNAH          Gee.   I don't really know.Colette blurts out without thinking.                      COLETTE          Think you could ask?Awkward situation for Hannah.      How best to respond?                         HANNAH          I guess so.     Maybe.                      COLETTE          Because if he is...                       HANNAH          Let's talk about this at group          meeting, OK?                      COLETTE          Oh. Of course. Of course.          Absolutely.Long beat. Conversation over. The three women wait for oneanother to speak. Colette checks her watch.                         COLETTE (CONT'D)          Well...A hug for both Maureen and Hannah.                                                                 25.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               I've got to go. Talk soon. By the               way, everything in the basket--gluten               free!     A final wave to the camera and Colette disappears.                           MAUREEN               Colette Mooney. My, that woman is               something else.     A light goes off in Hannah's head.                           HANNAH                   (To herself; counting                    on her fingers)               Colette Mooney. C-o-l-e-t-t-e M-o-o-               n-e...     She can't finish the count. The ugly truth is staring her in     the face.                             HANNAH (CONT'D)               13 letters.    Oh, dear...     Hannah and Maureen exchange concerned looks.38   INT. ALAN'S OFFICE   DAY                                          38     Hannah and Henry sit together in the reception area. Alan     breezes in, ever-smiling, greeting both enthusiastically.39   INT. ALAN'S OFFICE - DAY                                          39     Rows of EYE GLASSES on display as Alan guides Hannah over to     the fitting table. Henry tags along.                           HANNAH               Thanks for seeing me today, Alan.                           ALAN               No problemo. Let's get you some new               eye wear.                           HANNAH               Something that makes me look smart.                           HENRY               You're already smart, Hannah.     Hannah gives Henry's hand a playful squeeze: Thank you.     Alan and Hannah sit down opposite from each other. Henry     pulls up a chair to the side. Alan selects a pair. Puts them     on Hannah.                                                              26.                         ALAN          How about...Hannah shrugs her blase reaction.                         HANNAH          Mmmmmmm.Alan removes the brown-colored frames.   Studies them for asecond. Then -- inspiration arrives.                       ALAN          Excuse me.   One sec.He reaches inside his coat pocket for his RECORDER. Speaksinto it.                      ALAN (CONT'D)          Ah. Name for character. Alexander          Brown. Wears brown-colored glasses.                      HANNAH          Of course he would.Henry nods, agreeing. Satisfied, Alan puts the recorderaway and reaches for another pair of glasses.                      ALAN          You know this great idea for a novel          hit me this morning. It's called          Unleashed.Alan tries the second pair on Hannah. She checks herself inthe mirror. Then she shows Henry. They both shake their head:No. It is a funny moment between friends. They laugh as Alanreaches for pair #3.                      ALAN (CONT'D)          It's about a dog who becomes human          for 24 hours in order to rescue his          kidnapped owner. I love this idea,          Hannah.                      HANNAH          Could be a winner.Alan puts the third pair of glasses on Hannah. She checksherself in the mirror, finally liking what she sees. Shelooks over towards Henry.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          What do you think?Poor Henry. She does look good. He's falling even harder forher by the moment.                                                               27.                           HENRY               You look great, Hannah.     Hannah can't decide. She studies herself in the mirror as     Henry studies her. Henry reaches for his ANDROID and snaps     a photo of her. Alan brings them back to real time.                           ALAN               Question: You think your agent might               be interested in this idea? Does he               have a dog?                           HANNAH                   (Evading)               Oh. I don't know--                           ALAN               How about a cat? It could be a cat.                            HANNAH               Um. Sure.   Probably could be.                           ALAN               Think about mentioning it to your               agent, OK? Unleashed. Dog -- or cat --               becomes human.     Alan beams with pride at his imagination on display. Hannah     fidgets. Avoids Alan. Henry jumps in to save the moment.                           HENRY               I'll help you develop the idea, Alan.     Alan looks pleased. Hannah looks grateful.40   INT. RESTAURANT #1 - DAY                                        40     The TWO MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN (CUSTOMER #1 AND CUSTOMER #2) sit     across from each other in the nearly-deserted restaurant.     Body language suggests an intense, passionate, personal chat.                           WILLIAM (V.O.)               A writer has to hear everything. On               the streets. In the restaurants.     But something's amiss. Customer #1 stops abruptly, glancing     at the table next to them: William has suddenly materialized.     Sitting with a cup of coffee and a legal pad, scribbling.                           WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)               My dialogue has to be real so I'm               everywhere. Standing behind you at               the checkout stand.                                                             28.Customer #1 resumes conversation, but looks sharply back atWilliam. His head is tilted towards them. Listening.                      WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          Peeing next to you at the urinal. I          watch. I listen.Customer #1 says something to Customer #2. Looks back atWilliam. His head is still cocked as he makes notes.                      WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          Writing down scraps of conversation.Customer #1 grows more agitated. Customer #2 tries to calmher down. Finally, Customer #1 shoots up and marches overto William, her finger jabbing in the air towards thenotebook. William shrugs, playing dumb.                      WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          That's right. I eavesdrop.Customer #1 reaches down and grabs the notebook from William.He tries to stop her, but too late.                      WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          How else do you accurately capture          the misery of the human condition?She reads the page and shows it to Cutomer #2 who reads thenotes and is equally shocked.                      WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          Now Bukowski says "An intellectual          says a simple thing in a hard way."The two women start yelling at William. He keeps shaking hishead. Customer #1 tears the page into shreds.                       WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          "An artist says a hard thing in a          simple way."Waitress #2 comes over. The women talk to her and she startsyelling at William. Customer #1 poking her finger in hischest. Escalates to a push. The COOK comes out and startsyelling at William.                      WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)          Gotta love it. That's me. Simple.          Real.Surrounded by yelling people, William breaks through thecircle and moves towards the door. The BUS BOY yells, too.                                                                  29.                            WILLIAM (V.O.) (CONT'D)               Powerful.   An artist.41   EXT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                      41     John grins for the camera. The reason why sits next to him     in the matching LAWN CHAIRS.     The WOMAN is clearly younger than John. Plainly dressed in a     faded sweat shirt. Little makeup. Nervous in front of the     camera, but she looks more at us than she does at John. He     can't keep his eyes off her.     CAPTION: SIGRID HAGENGUTH                           JOHN               Meet someone very s-p-e-c-i-e-l.               Here with us today all the way from...     Coaxing Sigrid to finish the thought.                            SIGRID               Germany.                           JOHN               Oh! That accent! Found her    working               at the hardware store. Went   in for a               drill bit. Came out with a    prime               candidate for Mrs. John K.    Butzin.42   INT. HARDWARE STORE - DAY                                          42     Watch Sigrid work. Hard. Uber hard. Stocking shelves. Running     cash register. Consulting HER BOSS -- an older man.     Assisting customers. Moving boxes. Always wearing a red     employee vest. She does speak with a thick accent. Sincere,     if naive.                           SIGRID                   (Starts speaking                    German. Stops. In                    English)               Apologies. American only. I come               from Dusseldorf, yes? Came to this               great country 90 years ago -- no, 90               days ago. Apologies. Took job in               store as cleaning lady. Promoted to               cashier. Now assistant, assistant               manager.43   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                      43     Sigrid stands next to a wall display. Everything and anything     to do with the U.S. is hanging on this wall: Magazine covers     of Obama. A U.S. flag. Burger King logo. Photo of Jay Leno.                                                                  30.     N.Y. Yankees pennant. Whatever comes to mind for the U.S.     seems to be taped, tacked, glued or whatever to that wall.                            SIGRID                This my 'Wall of America' tribute,                yes? To my new country. And in the                center, of course, the three men I                admire most in America.     First we see the FRAMED PHOTO of a certain business mogul.                              SIGRID (CONT'D)                Herr Trump.    Very rich. Very famous.                Very sexy.     Then we move on to the second PHOTO of a certain TV celebrity.                            SIGRID (CONT'D)                Herr Simon Cowell. Very rich. Very                famous. Very sexy.     Move on to the third PHOTO.     Hey, we know this person:                            SIGRID (CONT'D)                Ja. My special guy. Herr Bootzin.                About to become very rich. Very                famous. Already very sexy.                    (Beat)                Then maybe Sigrid Hagenguth becomes                Mrs. John K. Bootzin, ja?44   EXT.   COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                      44     Colette sits. Focused on the WHITE ENVELOPE in one hand.     Alan sits next to her, squeezing her other hand. Photo of     Oprah on the other side.                            COLETTE                I know this is a rejection letter.                I can't open this. I can't be                rejected today. I take rejection so                personally.                            ALAN                I bet it's good news.     She opens the envelope. Peeks inside. No letter. Just the     SMALLEST POST-IT NOTE flutters out on to the ground. Colette     picks it up.                            COLETTE                "Sorry. Not interested." I knew it.                How can such a big rejection come                from such a small piece of paper?                                                                  31.     Colette folds the Post-It Note in half--and then in quarters.     Holding it in her hand, she begins to chant. Alan holds on     to her hand and pats her on the back. Good husband.45   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT - DAY                                      45     Hannah and Maureen watch with interest and obvious     appreciation as Henry, dutifully wearing his uniform, cleans     their living room carpet.     Open PIZZA STARZ ÕBOX on the breakfast bar. Looks like Henry     has brought dinner, as well. Hannah's iPhone goes off. As a     courtesy, Henry stops the machine.                           HANNAH                   (On phone)               Hello? Yes. Oh, hi, Brian.               (LISTENING) Really? (LISTENING) Oh               my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!     Hannah starts jumping up and down like a little girl while     Maureen and Henry look on in bewildered anticipation.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)                   (On phone)               Oh my god!                           MAUREEN               What's he saying?                           HANNAH               He sold my novel.                            HENRY               What?                           HANNAH                   (Nodding excitedly)               Brian sold Sleeping on the Moon!     Now Maureen starts jumping up and down. Henry can't hide his     surprise.                            MAUREEN               Oh my god!   Oh my god!                           HANNAH                   (On telephone)               Yes, Brian. I will. Thank you.               Thank you. Thank you. I will.               Promise. Thank you!     Hannah turns off her iPhone. Mother and daughter can't     believe the news. Jumping up and down. Warm embrace.                                                                32.     In turn, they both embrace Henry, who also shares the     genuine, sincere moment.                           HENRY               You did it, Hannah!   You did it!                           MAUREEN               I'm so proud of you, dear!                            HANNAH               Thank you.     Another embrace between mother and daughter.   This could go     on all night.                           HENRY               We need to tell the group!     The smile disappears from Hannah's face.                           HANNAH               The group. Oh, dear. The group. No,               no, I can't tell them about this.                            HENRY               Why not?                            HANNAH               Oh.     She looks to Maureen for support.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               It will seem like I'm bragging or               something. I mean I'm the one with               an agent. Now this. It could be               too much, too soon, don't you think?     Henry understands.   He wants to help.                           HENRY               Suppose I tell them? They could hear               the news from me.     Hannah lights up at the suggestion. She goes to Henry and     gives him a tight hug. So very tight. Blesses him with another     friendly peck on the lips.                           HANNAH               Thank you, my friend. I can always               depend on you, can't I?46   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                    46     John talks to the camera.                                                                  33.                           JOHN               That's great for Hannah, her little               book deal, and all. But John K.               Butzin has some news to announce, as               well.     John holds up a BROCHURE.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               I've just inked a deal with U R the               Publisher, a reputable company based               in New Delhi. They publish 5000 titles               internationally every year. Paying               'em two hundred dollars and they're               going to format and publish my novel               Roaring Lion. I've waited for this               moment forever. Finally, a Butzin               is going to be a published author.     A voice drifts in from another room.                           SIGRID (O.S.)               Yoo-hoo. Mr. Published-Author-to-Be.               Sigrid would like you to come in for               personal, private autograph. Please.               Please.     John gulps. Then he remembers the camera.    Makes a "cut"     motion with his finger across the neck.47   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                     47     Henry's turn to host the group meeting. Alan, William,     Colette, and John share the lumpy couch and the folding metal     chairs. Open PIZZA STARZ BOXES in the background.     Everyone is enjoying a single slice of pizza off a paper     plate--except for John, who is inhaling two pieces at once.     The mood is somber. Quiet.                           WILLIAM               Hannah's just lucky. That's all.     John tries to agree, but his mouth is too stuffed with pizza.     Cheap FLOWERS from Ralph's and BALLOONS in full display on     the coffee table. Henry stands--listening--by the front     door.                           HENRY               Here she comes!     Henry opens the door. Hannah floats in.     The serious expressions suddenly, magically, turn to broad     smiles. Henry is the first to offer a hug.                                                            34.Alan, William, Colette, John give her a standing ovation.Hannah notices the balloons and flowers.                        HANNAH          Ohhhhhh.    For me? You shouldn't have.                      WILLIAM          Way to go, Ms. Published Author!Everyone gets a hug from Hannah. William gives Hannah anextra long hug.                      ALAN          We're all jealous, Hannah. Just          teasing.                       COLETTE          No.   Seriously. We're all jealous.Nervous laughter around the room.                      HANNAH          You're all making too much of a          spectacle here.                      HENRY          When will your book come out, Hannah?                        HANNAH          A year.    Takes about a year.                      WILLIAM          So how much did you get?                      ALAN          Don't ask her that.                      WILLIAM              (Shrugging)          Why not? How much did you get?                      HANNAH          I did OK. Leave it at that. What's          important is that I owe this success          to all of you. I would be lost without          this writing group.                      JOHN              (Louder than normal)          I don't know if anyone heard.All eyes turn to John, still inhaling pizza.                                                               35.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               But U.R. the Publisher has agreed to               publish Roaring Lion by John K.               Butzin.     Puzzled looks are the reaction.                           ALAN               U.R. the Publisher?                           HENRY               They self-publish. E-books. Print on               Demand.                           JOHN               That's right, Obert. But I'll have               my book in two weeks. None of this               B.S. waiting around. John K. Butzin               will be a published author. And be               published first.                           HANNAH                   (Ever-diplomatic)               Well, John. Congratulations.     She leans over and gives him the briefest of hugs. There are     other congratulatory murmurs coming from the group.                           ALAN               My, two published authors in the               group. The rest of us are going to               have to catch up.48   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                  48     The meeting gets down to business. Alan, Colette, Henry,     William and Hannah, wearing her new glasses, listen as John     reads from Roaring Lion.                           JOHN                   (Reading)               Gunner stared out over the bleak               horizon, seeing one dead Viet Cong               after another lay scattered on the               bloody hillside. He had won this               time, but Gunner knew Charlie would               be back in the morning. By god, he               would be ready. So would his M60               General Purpose Machine Gun and Mark               2 Fragmentation/Hand Rifle Grenade.     John finishes and sits back in his chair, quite pleased with     himself.                                                            36.                      ALAN          OK, John. Nicely done. Let's get          some feedback.Henry, as always, has been making notes.                       HENRY          Well.   In terms of the characters--                       JOHN               (Jumping in)          --Hold on, Obert. I wanna hear from          her.John points towards Hannah.                      ALAN          We'll hear from everybody.                      JOHN          I don't want to hear from everybody.          She has a book coming out. John K.          Butzin has a book coming out. I want          to hear from Hannah, author to author.                      WILLIAM          Oh, screw you.                      ALAN          This is really going against the          spirit of the group, John. Everyone's          opinion is valid.                      JOHN          Hers is more valid. What'd you think,          Hannah? Tell me.Hannah struggles to speak. Clearly uncomfortable.                       HANNAH          I-I . . .The words freeze in her mouth. Awkward silence. Finally.                      WILLIAM              (Standing up)          Going outside for a smoke.William thunders away from the group. Colette watches himgo.                      COLETTE          I'll go talk to him.Colette follows, calling after William.                                                                  37.                           ALAN               Let's take a fifteen minute break,               shall we?     Embarrassed, Hannah excuses herself. Henry trails along after     her, leaving a muttering John and calm Alan alone. Alan     reaches for his recorder. Talks into it.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Ahhh, idea for Michael Crichton-type               novel. Members of Antarctic research               station attacked by mutant penguins.     Satisfied, Alan turns off the recorder while John reaches     for more pizza.49   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                        49     Colette is back on her bench. Standing behind her is a     mysterious MAN (Over 40) who favors black clothes and dark     shades.     CAPTION: DR. XIROMAN                           COLETTE               I want you to meet someone special.               This is my spiritual adviser. Doctor               Xiroman has taken a vow of silence               for one full year to protest climate               change. What an amazing man. Dr.               Xiroman is going to cleanse the air               of all this rejection.     Camera goes to Dr. Xiroman. Somber, expressionless. Does he     even have a pulse?     Dr. Xiroman walks over to small fire pit and meditates as he     places his hands over the rising flames. Colette begins a     New Age chant for added support.50   INT. RESTAURANT #2 - DAY                                           50     THREE YOUNG MEN in the corner booth. Jeans and baseball caps.     Very animated conversation. Loud, punctuated by laughter.     They think they're the only people in the joint. The WAITRESS--     EUDORA (20's)--with the purple streaks in her hair and     matching purple glasses, refills their cups.     William sits alone at the counter, impossible to hide his     disdain. He talks to the camera with the three men in the     background.                           WILLIAM               See those jokers back there?                           (MORE)                                                                38.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               They "write" for TV. Town's full of               them. Creative vultures. Anything               for a paycheck. Fade in. Fade out.               C.S.I. 24. Who Wants to Suck My --     William scoffs as the disdain drips from his mouth.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               Gimme a break. Television. Telecrap.               They've sold their souls to the devil.               For what? A house in Malibu? A tennis               court?     William glances over his shoulder, shaking his head in     disgust. Another table catches his eye. TWO ATTRACTIVE WOMEN     engage in friendly banter over coffee. William stares them     down, making friendly eye contact.     The woman facing him returns eye contact. She smiles.   William     smiles, watching them as he continues.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               That will never be me. I will never               compromise my vision for financial               gain. I'd rather borrow money from               friends than sell out for a quick               dollar.     The two women stand up. William is stoked. This is too easy.     But the women instead go to the three TV writers. Immediately     invited to sit down with them.     William can't believe it.   What the...                           HENRY (V.O.)               "...Gatsby had an extraordinary gift               for hope, a romantic readiness...51   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                      51     Henry reads from The Great Gatsby.                           HENRY               "...such as I have never found in               any other person and which it is not               likely I shall ever find again..."     Henry is always moved whenever he reads Fitzgerald.   Putting     down the book, he talks to the camera.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               You know, the year before he died,               F.                           (MORE)                                                               39.                            HENRY (CONT'D)                Scott Fitzgerald made a grand total                of $13.13 in royalties from his                writing. I guess Hannah's right                about 13 being unlucky.     A question is asked O.S. Henry listens.                            HENRY (CONT'D)                Sure. Sure. I know that. Gatsby                does end tragically. But that's                fiction. Hannah...She's real. Our                story will have a happy ending.     Pause.   Henry rethinks.                             HENRY (CONT'D)                Maybe.   Maybe a happy ending.     His confidence flies out the door.                            HENRY (CONT'D)                Hope. Hope we have a happy ending.                Fingers crossed.52   INT. ALAN & COLETTE'S HOUSE -- LIVING ROOM - DAY                52     Alan and Colette hold court on their living room couch,     talking to the camera.                            ALAN                There's been one rule in this house.                Whatever Colette wants, Colette gets.                            COLETTE                Thank you, Alan.     They look at each other adoringly.   Real or fake?                            ALAN                She wants a Mercedes? No problem.                Credit cards? How many? Her own                business? Done. An agent?     Colette eats it up.                            ALAN (CONT'D)                Call it karma or serendipity or                kismet. Whatever. But it just so                happens that very well-known literary                agent David Keller--                            COLETTE                    (Interrupting)                --Very well-known. He's so known.                                                                  40.                           ALAN               Exactly. Well, guess who is coming               in tomorrow to see Dr. Alan Mooney               for an eye examination and new               glasses?     Colette starts squealing in anticipation. Alan nods with     confidence and flashes a "thumbs up."                           COLETTE               I love you, Poodles.                           ALAN               Love you more, Poodles.53   INT. ALAN'S OFFICE - DAY                                           53     The casually dressed MAN (40's) sits in the waiting area for     Alan Mooney, spending time on his iPhone, conducting business     as he waits.     CAPTION: DAVID KELLER     He doesn't have to wait long. Alan personally comes out     into the waiting area to fetch him. Big grin. Hand extended.                           ALAN               Dr. Alan Mooney.     David, caught off guard by the doctor's sudden appearance,     winds up his phone conversation.                           DAVID                   (on phone)               Let me call you back.     David stands up.                           DAVID (CONT'D)               David Keller.     They shake hands.                           ALAN               I know. Big fan. Big fan.     David can't help but notice the camera.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Oh, that. They're doing a little               documentary about my writing group.                             DAVID               Really?                                                                  41.                           ALAN               Just act natural.     Lowering his voice.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               It was supposed to be a reality               series.54   INT. ALAN'S OFFICE -- EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                       54     Standard examination room. Alan guides David into the chair.                           ALAN               Great. Let's start out with a basic               eye examination.     Alan flips a couple SWITCHES. Eye reading CHART appears on     the wall. Alan turns off the lights.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               OK, David. See if you can read that               first line for me, please.                         DAVID                 (Reading)               X7K6AC                           ALAN               Very good, David. Would you like to               try for what's behind Door Number               Three? Try this one, please.     Alan brings up a different line on the screen.                         DAVID                 (Reading)               E2PH8S                           ALAN               20/25. Looking good, David. But               anyone can identify simple letters               and numbers. Let's see how you do               reading a more challenging text.     Alan brings up a different page. Several paragraphs on a     printed page.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               See that?                           DAVID               Yes.                                                             42.                      ALAN          Good. Read me the first paragraph,          please.                      DAVID              (Reading; monotone)          Natasha, the Russian peasant, dressed          oh-so-slowly, consumed totally,          completely, absolutely, by endless          thoughts of Yuri.                      ALAN          Oh. Very nice. Very nice. Now the          next paragraph, please.David looks rather puzzled, but complies.                      DAVID              (Reading; monotone)          "I never, ever thought I could feel          this way," Natasha said excitedly.          "Nor could I," Yuri said happily,          his body dripping with enormous beads          of sweat.                      ALAN          Man. Wow. Gee. Isn't that great          writing? My wife Colette wrote that.          The patients just love reading her          stuff. It's from her new novel,          Nyet, Not Yet.A loud KNOCK on the examination room door. David is saved bythe bell.                      ALAN (CONT'D)          My, I wonder who that could be.He walks over to the door, opens it and feigns surprise tosee Colette. She moves right in.                       COLETTE          Hi, honey.   So sorry to intrude.                      ALAN          Colette? Gee, this is an incredible          coincidence. We were just talking          about you. And here you are!Colette is locked like a laser beam on David Keller.                      COLETTE              (Gushing)          Hello.                                                                43.                           ALAN               Oh, where are my manners? Colette,               this is David Keller. David, this is               my wife, Colette Mooney. The writer.                           DAVID               Hi.                           COLETTE               Pleasure to meet you, David.                            ALAN               Actually, Colette wrote this beautiful               prose you've been reading, David.               Honey, I can't believe this               coincidence.                           COLETTE               Well, I was just dropping off--                           ALAN                   (Overlapping)               Oh, of course. Thanks for bringing               it by. Say, honey, David's been               reading that first page of yours.               You don't happen to have any more of               that opening chapter, do you?     Colette thinks for a second.                           COLETTE               As a matter of fact, I think I do. I               think I do.     Colette searches her large PURSE and produces a manila folder.                           ALAN               Say, how about that?     Colette hands the manila folder to David, who accepts it     reluctantly. He's been had.                           DAVID               How about that?55   INT. ALAN'S OFFICE -- EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                     55     Colette sits in the chair, Alan stands behind her, massaging     her shoulders. Both share that smirk of satisfaction.                           COLETTE               That went very well.                           ALAN               Oh, yes, Poodles.    Very.                                                                  44.                           COLETTE               Though David Keller did seem in a               hurry to leave.                           ALAN               The sooner he can begin reading.     Colette buys that.    Of course.                           COLETTE               I bet he calls tomorrow with an offer.                           ALAN               I bet he calls tonight.     Alan's left hand starts to slide down towards Colette's chest.     She doesn't notice--her mind is elsewhere.56   EXT. OUTSIDE ALAN'S OFFICE - DAY                                   56     DAVID takes Colette's pages and tosses them in city TRASH     CAN, muttering to himself as he walks away.                           COLETTE (V.O.)                   (Overlapping Alan)               I did it.                           ALAN (V.O.)                   (Overlapping Colette)               We did it.57   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT - DAY                                      57     Hannah sits cross-legged on her living room floor, wearing     her new glasses, reading typed pages. Henry sits close to     her. Not too close. Waiting. Hannah finishes. Impressed.                              HANNAH               Henry.     This is good.   So good.                              HENRY               Really?     Hannah nods.   Really.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               But I've only got 100 pages.      Can't               seem to move forward.                           HANNAH               I'm dying to know more about Scott               and Christy. What great characters.                                                                  45.                           HENRY               Yeah. Sure wish I knew what was going               to happen with them.     Hannah gives Henry a friendly tap on the knee for     encouragement.                           HANNAH               You'll figure it out, Henry. It'll               pass. Focus on your writing. No               distractions. The writing comes first.     Henry lets it sink in.   Changes the subject.                           HENRY               Say, um, remember I offered to drive               you around and show you a couple               special places?58   EXT. RICHARD BENEDICT HOME - DAY                                   58     The imposing house screams success.     Henry and Hannah sit in     Henry's parked car, taking it in.                           HANNAH               Who lives here?                           HENRY               Richard Benedict.                            HANNAH               Oh.   That writer you like?                           HENRY               Like? No. It's much more than that.               Wow. He...He...     Henry struggles to put it into words.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               ...Reading Richard Benedict...made               me want to be a better writer. He's               that good, Hannah.                           HANNAH               Can't say I've read his stuff.     Nice               house, though.59   EXT. FITZGERALD/GRAHAM HOME - DAY                                  59     Henry and Hannah stand on the sidewalk in front of the North     Hayworth home. Henry seems barely able to contain his     excitement.                                                          46.                         HENRY          Here we are.Hannah stares blankly at the house.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          North Hayworth Avenue. Hollywood,          California.Hannah smiles politely, but it's clear she doesn't recognizethe house.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          Big clue time. Sheila Graham.Still nothing registers with Hannah.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          OK. Give up? Writer Sheila Graham          lived here. Fitzgerald was her lover.          This is where he died on December          21, 1940.Hannah lets it all sink in.                      HANNAH          Fitzgerald? He's the one who shot          himself, right?                      HENRY          No. Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald.          He wrote The Great Gatsby.The name doesn't register with Hannah.                      HENRY (CONT'D)              (Reciting from heart)          Gatsby believed in the green light,          the orgiastic future that year by          year recedes before us. It eluded us          then, but that's--                      HANNAH              (Interjecting)          I've never read it.Henry can't hide his surprise.                         HENRY          What?Hannah stops, cognizant of the ever-present camera.                                                           47.                      HANNAH              (To camera)          Could you turn that off for a few          minutes, please?                      HENRY          You know they can't. What's wrong?Hannah hesitates.   Counts to three. Lowers her voice.                      HANNAH          I've never read The Great Gatsby.                      HENRY          You're kidding.                      HANNAH          Henry. I never went to college.          I've heard of Hemingway. A little.          Fitzgerald. Somewhere. But I don't          have your education. Your smarts. I          haven't read all these great novels.          My stories come from my heart.Henry lets it all sink in.    Hannah looks at the house.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          Tell me about the book.                      HENRY          Gatsby is about social position and          the American Dream and . . .Henry stops. Rethinks his explanation.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          Actually, it's quite simple. Boy          meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy          moves heaven and earth to win the          girl back.                      HANNAH          And it's your favorite?Henry nods with his heart.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          So how does it end? Does boy get the          girl?Long beat. Then Henry reaches into the back seat of his carfor his KNAPSACK. Puts it on his lap, unzips it. Pulls outhis personal copy of Gatsby.                                                                  48.                           HENRY               Here. Take my copy.     He hands the well-read book to Hannah.                           HENRY (CONT'D)               Now you can find out for yourself.60   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                      60     John is on the telephone, clutching a copy of Roaring Lion.     He does not look happy.                           JOHN                   (On telephone)               Yes. I'm still holding. Where are               you again? New Dehli? Oh.     John stares at his book, shaking his head. Waits for a few     seconds.     Sigrid is in the background, doing light housekeeping, trying     not to listen, but obviously can't avoid it.                           JOHN (CONT'D)                   (On telephone)               Butzin. John K. Butzin. Right. That's               me. Roaring Lion. Yes. Well, I               have a copy of my book you sent, but               there must be some mistake...Well,               you put a dog on the cover. Not a               lion like we agreed.     John holds the book up for the camera to catch the     unmistakable dog barking on the front cover.                           JOHN (CONT'D)                   (On telephone)               Plus the back cover is written in               Chinese. Chinese...Yes, I know               Chinese when I see it. One of those               Chinese assault rifles almost cost               me an eye at Hamburger Hill...     John listens--trying to remain calm.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               I seem to be missing pages 1-0-7 to               1-1-2...Yes, I'm sure. And what in               blazes is this Chapter Eight?     Sigrid keeps cleaning.   Stoic expression.                                                                    49.                           JOHN (CONT'D)                   (On telephone)               This Chapter Eight isn't mine. It's               about hormone replacement for women.               Do you think John K. Butzin would               write that? Must be from another               goddamn book. So what the hell you               going to do about this? You, sir,               are dealing with a decorated veteran--               a combat veteran--of the United States               Army.     John waits for an explanation.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               Yes. I'll hold.     John looks again at his book in disbelief. Then he remembers     the camera. Forces a faint smile.                           JOHN (CONT'D)                   (To camera)               Minor details. That's all. All that               truly matters is that John K. Butzin               is finally a published author.     But catch Sigrid's expression. She is quiet.     More than a     little concerned at what she is hearing.61   INT. RESTAURANT #2 - DAY                                             61     Henry and Hannah at a table, sharing coffee. Eudora the     waitress swings by with a refill, hair purple as ever. Hannah     thumbs through her copy of Gatsby, looking interested. And     pleased. Eudora notices the book.                             EUDORA               Great book.    Classic.     Henry nods in agreement.   Eudora moves on.                           HANNAH               Oh, I needed this break. Thank you,               Henry.                           HENRY               You're welcome.                           HANNAH               It's just that I'm starting to feel               the pressure, you know? There is so               much riding on this first book.                                                                 50.                           HENRY               Don't be silly. Sleeping on the               Moon will hit the bestseller list.               You'll be the toast of the literary               world. And I'll come over to Beverly               Hills and deliver a pizza to you.                           HANNAH               Beverly Hills, ah...                             HENRY               Definitely.62   EXT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT / CITY STREET - DAY                       62     Parked on the street in front of Hannah's apartment. Henry     and Hannah, this mutual admiration society, stand by the     car. Hannah still has her copy of Gatsby. Short beat.                           HANNAH               What a dear, sweet friend you are.     Hannah graces Henry with another hug. Another quick peck on     the lips. But wait--Henry wants more. He kisses her back.     More than a peck. Too much more. Hannah, surprised, pulls     back--her hand on his chest: Stop.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                   (Gently)               No distractions. The writing comes               first, 'kay?     Henry nods reluctantly: Understood. One last hug from Hannah     before she heads for her front door, smiling back over her     shoulder at Henry. Henry watches her leave, knowing that     this was absolutely, positively, the best day of his life.63   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT -- LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                    63     The writing group meets. Hannah, Henry, John, William, Alan     and Colette sit around the living room, pages in front of     them.     WRITERS AT WORK sign on display.     Maureen, trying not to be in the way, goes from writer to     writer, carrying a large TRAY OF VEGGIES.                            ALAN               Alright.   Whose turn is it to read?               Henry?     All eyes on Henry. He shifts uncomfortably in his chair.                                                          51.                      HENRY          Oh. Um. Someone else go. I don't          have anything new ready tonight.Concerned looks all around.                      COLETTE          It's been weeks, Henry.                       HENRY          I know.   Still can't focus.                      JOHN          Don't be a pussy, Obert. Get writing.          Complete the mission.                      HANNAH          Writer's block can be very serious,          John.John scoffs in disbelief. Maureen offers William some veggies.He helps himself and checks out Maureen as she moves on toAlan.                      WILLIAM          What's so hard, bro'? I mean, you've          got Scott and Christy. Two friends.          Tell their story.                      HENRY          That's the problem. I think the          story's changing.                       ALAN          Changing?   How so?                      HENRY          Lately I'm feeling something much          deeper, much richer. Scott and          Christy, um, growing closer.The other group members appear puzzled.                      COLETTE          Christy's a beautiful, wealthy author          in Beverly Hills. How close can they          get?                      HENRY          Follow me. Something happens.          Christy has an epiphany. She-She          realizes her feelings run much deeper          now for Scott.                                                               52.Henry does everything he can not to look at Hannah. Shortbeat.                        WILLIAM          Nah.    Don't buy it.                      JOHN          They're friends. Why muck it up?          Don't put 'em in the same foxhole.                      COLETTE          Is this Scott wanting to go beyond          the friendship? There's no way          Christy would suggest it. What do          you think, Hannah?                      ALAN          Yes. Hannah, what do you think?All eyes go back to Hannah.     She does not want to answer.                      HANNAH          Gee, I-I guess...I really never          thought of them that way.                        HENRY          Never?Hannah shakes her head.   Chooses her words carefully.                      HANNAH          No. It's always been a friendship.Henry takes a moment.   Thinking.                      HENRY          You don't see anything possibly          happening between them?                        HANNAH          No.    Friends. Nothing more.                        WILLIAM          Exactly.                      HANNAH          I'd be uncomfortable with any changes          in the relationship.Message received. All eyes on Henry. Defeated.                      HENRY          OK. Thanks, everyone. I'll try to          have something on paper next time.                                                                  53.                           JOHN               Remember, Obert. Complete the mission.64   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT -- LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                     64     Meeting over. Writing group starts breaking up. William     leans in close by Hannah.                           WILLIAM                   (Lowered voice)               Got a sec?     William motions Hannah over to the corner of the living room,     away from the others. She follows, looking puzzled. Henry     watches with curiosity. William starts speaking to Hannah in     hushed tones, trying not to let anyone else overhear the     conversation.                           HANNAH               How much?     More hushed tones from William. Hannah shakes her head.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               But if I loaned you money, then I               wouldn't have it.                           WILLIAM               Hey, I just figured, you know. You               got that big advance. Help out a               fellow writer. I'm good for it,               Hannah.                           HANNAH               Sorry. It's bad luck to loan money.                           WILLIAM               OK, then, just give it to me.     Henry makes a point of moving in and standing directly by     Hannah, staring William down. Henry and Hannah make eye     contact. Henry looks to her: Are we OK? Hannah looks away.     Colette comes up next to William.                           COLETTE               How much do you need?     William looks surprised.65   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                      65     John sits in his comfortable chair. Sigrid is nearby, at the     computer. John talks to the camera.                                                                 54.                           JOHN               This is a big moment. Roaring Lion               has been posted on Amazon.com. Now               all books. Your fiction. Your               nonfiction. They're ranked on Amazon               by sales. Obviously everyone wants               to be number one. They say a book               is selling well on Amazon if it's in               the top 5000. Time to run it up the               flag pole. Sigrid?     Nervous, Sigrid takes a deep breath and taps away on the     computer keys. She waits, focused intently on the screen.                           SIGRID                   (Reading slowly aloud)               2,472,899 . . .     Silence. Long silence as it all sinks in. John seems suddenly     uncomfortable. Sigrid types away on the computer keys again.     Reads off the screen.                             SIGRID (CONT'D)               Tom Clancy.    32.     John discovers a new interest in the ceiling.66   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT - DAY                                     66     Hannah plops in her chair, upscale SHOPPING BAGS at her feet.     Maureen hovers in the background.                           HANNAH               How am I doing? OK. Sort of. Brian               called. Looks like there's real               interest in movie rights for Sleeping               on the Moon. Yeah, thanks.     Heavy sigh.   Not excited in the least. Matter-of-fact.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               But I don't dare say anything to the               group. They find out I've got a               movie deal--I don't know. I'm sensing               enough jealousy as it is, you know?               Could be awkward if they found out.               It's a real--what's that word?                             MAUREEN               Conundrum.                             HANNAH               That's it.    I'm in one.                                                                  55.67   EXT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - NIGHT                                     67     WRITERS AT WORK poster taped to the front door.68   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - NIGHT                                     68     Full meeting of the writing group, all crammed around the     dining table. Henry and Hannah sit apart.     A single BOWL OF PRETZELS has been placed before them. Hannah     reads from her typed pages. Alan, William, Colette, and Henry     hang on her every word.     John is half-listening at best, more interested in the     MAGAZINE he's thumbing through.     William REACHES UNDER THE TABLE and gently squeezes Colette's     hand. Surprised, she pulls her hand away.                           HANNAH                   (Reading; with feeling)               "Please come home, Michael." "Why               would you want to marry me, Kyra? I               barely graduated high school."               "Michael, I don't care about some               silly college degree. You're the               most intelligent person I've ever               known. You are my shining star."     Then Colette puts it back and squeezes William's hand. It's     his turn to be surprised.     Hannah slides off her new reading glasses, waiting for someone     to react. The room falls silent. Alan steps in.                            ALAN               OK.   Comments. Anyone?     No response. Group members look at the pages.      At each other.     No one steps forward.                           HANNAH               I value your feedback.    We're all in               this together, right?     Nobody bites.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               Colette--Did the new scene work for               you?     Colette seems thrown by the direct question.                                                          56.                      COLETTE          Oh...Gee...Hannah. What? I mean,          you're being published. This is          being published.                      HANNAH          But my editor wants rewrites.      Am I          on track?Colette punts.   Alan jumps in to save his wife.                      ALAN          Of course you are, Hannah.                      WILLIAM          You got the deal. You got the check.          First one to be published.John CLEARS HIS THROAT rather loudly: What about me, butthead?William ignores him.                      ALAN          I think what I'm hearing from the          group is...is...you're fine. We all          love it. Nothing here to critique.          You don't need us--well, it's not          that you don't need us, but, you          know...Alan's voice trails off before he can dig himself any deeper.More silence as Hannah wrestles with this unexpected reaction.Finally looks to Henry for help.                      HANNAH          What do you think, Henry?All eyes on Henry. He hesitates.   Then --                      HENRY          Yes. Actually, it is really good,          but there are a couple things--little          things--I'd point out. For example--                      JOHN          Holy Douglas MacArthur --All eyes on John. Finally holds up magazine to reveal thathe's been reading VARIETY.                      JOHN (CONT'D)              (Reading)          "Hollywood decides to go sleeping on          the moon.                      (MORE)                                                                  57.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               First-time scribe Hannah Rinaldi,               repped by Brian Barkley of SoHo,               scores six-figure movie deal. Ink is               still fresh, but Barkley boasts keen               interest by..."     John keeps reading. Various reactions, mostly muted, around     the table. Can Hannah's face turn any redder?69   INT. MONTAGE OF SHOTS - NIGHT                                      69     Members of the writing group struggle to deal with Hannah's     latest success:     Alan and Colette sit on their living room couch together,     wearing matching pajamas, staring straight ahead like zombies.     His tape recorder sits on the coffee table. Alan reaches     for it. She grabs it from his hand and throws it.     William sits at the counter of Restaurant #2, drumming his     fingers on the legal pad, half-heartedly trying to write.     WAITRESS #3 pours him some more coffee, trying to make eye     contact with him. William ignores her.     John sits in front of his computer screen, but he can't     concentrate. Gives up. Shuts down computer. Flips on TV.     Another war movie.     Henry stares absent-mindedly at his wall of rejection letters.     Hannah sits at her computer--the only one actually working     at the moment--but she stops long enough to take a deep,     deep sigh. A lot weighs on her mind.70   EXT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DRIVEWAY - DAY                    70     Alan arrives home. Steps out of his Lexus. Whistling. Happy-     go-lucky. Pauses in the driveway to record another idea.                           ALAN               Idea for novel. Perhaps screenplay.               The Amazing Doctor Eckleburg. An eye               doctor turned crime fighter. Ladies               man.71   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- LIVING ROOM - DAY                 71     Alan sails through the front door. His smile disappears.     William is plopped on the living room couch. Shirt half     unbuttoned. Smoking. He freezes mid-puff.                           ALAN               William?                                                                58.                               WILLIAM                Hey.   Alan.     SOUND OF SHOWER AND COLETTE SINGING OFF-KEY echoes throughout     the house. Alan turns quiet as he makes the connection.                            WILLIAM (CONT'D)                Just, um. Just stopped by to...read                some pages for Colette. Yeah.     There are no pages on the coffee table in front of William.72   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - MOMENTS LATER                            72     Alan steps outside. Somber. Focused. Acts like the     Terminator in his scanning of the area. Man on a mission.     What is he looking for? He finds it almost immediately,     zeroing in on Colette's bench. Alan marches over and grabs     Colette's prized framed photo of Oprah. Clutching it in his     hand, Alan looks at Oprah's smiling face, then back towards     the house. Then he takes the frame and smashes it down on     the ground as hard as he can. Next he jumps up and down on     the smashed frame multiple times. Not satisfied, Alan bends     down, picks up the photo and rips it to shreds with his hands.     There. That felt good.     Pool Guy and Gardener have witnessed the whole scene.    What     the hell? They exchange puzzled looks.73   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                     73     Henry talks to the camera.                            HENRY                Hannah's avoiding me. She doesn't                respond to emails or voice messages.                She's "busy." Always an excuse.74   INT.   HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                   74     Henry talks to the camera--his concern unmistakable.                            HENRY                Things have definitely changed between                us. I did get to go to her place                for dinner last night.75   INT. HANNAH'S APARTMENT - EVENING                                75     A spruced-up Henry sits down for dinner.   All smiles.                            HENRY (V.O.)                Hannah wasn't there. She was in New                York with her publisher. But Maureen                and I had a lovely time.                                                                59.     Maureen passes Henry more vegetables.76   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                      76     Colette sits on her private bench. Note the NEW PHOTO OF     OPRAH in a new frame. Colette talks to the camera.                           COLETTE               Yes. You noticed. I replaced the               photo. I may be replacing other               things around here soon...I was just               using William...for research.     She holds up THREE MORE LETTERS.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               Speaking of rejection...three more               letters saying Nyet, including one               from David Keller. I should have               offered him a massage. How much               more rejection can I take?     Colette stares at the letters, focusing on remaining strong.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)                   (Reciting)               "We keep going back, stronger, not               weaker, because we will not allow--     Her voice cracks.   She stops.   Fighting for composure                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               --Rejection to beat us down--     Colette's frustration is boiling into anger as she struggles     to keep it under control.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               --It will only strengthen our resolve.               To be successful there is no other               way." Mr. Henry D. Thoreau.     Short beat.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               Rejection sucks.77   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                      77     Smoke rises from the fire pit, burning what's left of the     letters. Colette sits cross-legged, devoting her full energy     to chanting and beating her hands on a small DRUM.     It isn't enough today. Watch as Colette's solemn chant     dissolves into tears of frustration.                                                                  60.     Dr. Xiroman places a comforting hand on her shoulder, trying     to calm Colette down.78   EXT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                      78     Sitting outside in the cheap lawn chairs with Sigrid, John     addresses the camera. He cleans up pretty good.                           JOHN               This is going to be a great day for               John K. Butzin. Yes, sir. First               official book signing.     Sigrid holds up a copy of Roaring Lion. The dog on the cover     has had an image of a lion slapped over it. Sigrid beams     with pride.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               Ready and raring to go. Of course,               it would have been better to do this               in an actual bookstore, but, hell,               they're dropping faster than Charlie               at Dak To. Not to worry. Since Sigrid               works at the hardware store, they're               going to let her favorite author               sign a few books there.                           SIGRID               More than a few books. Many, many               books, Ja?                           JOHN               Ja, my Strudel. Many books.79   EXT. HARDWARE STORE - DAY                                          79     SIGNS in front window announcing hammers, ladders, paint on     sale. Also a handwritten PIECE OF PAPER taped to the window     with masking tape, announcing AUTHOR SIGNING.80   INT. HARDWARE STORE - DAY                                          80     John sits at his card table in the corner. Alone. A stack of     books sit piled in front of him. CUSTOMERS walk all around,     ignoring John completely. John tries to stay relaxed, smiling     and nodding at people, not being too forceful.     Sigrid, wearing her little red work vest and glasses, stands     off to the side, beaming with pride. She hurries over to a     cash register, takes the telephone out of her surprised boss'     hand, and jumps on the store's PA SYSTEM, blasting throughout     the store.                                                                61.                           SIGRID                   (On PA system)               Attention shoppers. Famous author,               Mr. John K. Bootzin, signing new               best seller. Up front of store.               John K. Bootzin. Also, special               today in plumbing department.               Ballcocks. Two for one. All               customers guaranteed will be               satisfied. Ja.81   INT. HARDWARE STORE -- DAY                                       81     The PILE OF BOOKS seems untouched.82   INT. HARDWARE STORE - DAY                                        82     Still no takers.    Sigrid comes over to console him.                           JOHN               Sorry, Strudel. Seem to be shooting               blanks today.     John looks past Sigrid. His face brightens. A smiling Alan     has arrived, flanked by Colette, Henry and Hannah. Hannah     holds a cupcake. Alan has a bottle of champagne and some     plastic cups. But there is no touching, no direct     interaction, between Colette and Alan.                             ALAN               Author!    Author!     John stands up.    Clearly touched.                           JOHN               Hey-Hey. The cavalry's arrived.               Look who's here.                           SIGRID               Hello, everyone!                           HANNAH               Wouldn't miss your signing, John.     Hannah presents John with the cupcake and leans in for a     friendly peck on the cheek. Colette aims her cell phone     camera at John.                              COLETTE               Smile, John!     John half-smiles in response. Henry reaches over and shakes     his hand.                                                                   62.                           HENRY               Congratulations, John.                           JOHN               Thanks, Obert. Where's the Bukowski               wannabe?     Awkward silence as the group members exchange puzzled looks.                           HANNAH               William said he'd meet us here.                              JOHN               What a turd.     Never liked that punk               anyway.                           ALAN               Maybe he's still at our house.                              COLETTE               Maybe he is.     Maybe I should go see.                           ALAN               Maybe you should.     What's that about? Henry studies John's book.       Flips to the     back cover. Surprised.                           HENRY               This is in Chinese.     All eyes on John. Squirming, he looks over to Sigrid: Help     me. She thinks for a second.                           SIGRID               International edition!     John nods convincingly in agreement.                           ALL                   (Except John and Sigrid)               Oh...83   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                       83     Sigrid sits alone on the couch as John floats in and out of     camera, humming to himself, dancing like Fred Astaire. John     is happy. Sigrid seems more subdued. Marked contrast.     John addresses the camera.                           JOHN               Know what the hardware store manager               said? He said today was their most               successful book signing. Ever.                                                               63.     A question is asked.    John listens.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               This was their first book signing?               Oh.     Think, John.   Think.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               Well, John K. Butzin set the bar               pretty high for the next writer, let               me tell ya. That's right: 1-2-3-4-5-               6-7-8-9-10-11. Eleven books sold.     Sigrid clears her throat and flashes ten fingers in the air.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               Oh, that's right, Strudel. You               borrowed one at the store to help               prop open the side door. I forgot.                             SIGRID               Ja...                           JOHN               Ten books. But there are now at               least ten homes in California where               folks have books by Melville.               Hemingway. Clancy. And now Butzin.               It's a humbling thought.     John goes back to his routine. Sigrid offers up a supportive     smile, but she doesn't seem quite as impressed.84   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - NIGHT            84     Alan sits at the writers' table. Alone. Talks to the camera     in whispered tones.                           ALAN               I've made an important decision as               group leader. I've decided to ask               William to leave the group. Now it               has absolutely nothing to do with               that incident at our house. It has               nothing to do with the fact that I'm               now sleeping in the guest room. But               let's face it--the kid's a slacker.               No contribution to the group. Zero.               Zip. Nada. I'm sure he'll be fine               with it.                                                                 64.85   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - NIGHT              85     William kicks his CHAIR over. Alan, Colette, John, Henry and     Hannah sit calmly around the table. Henry and Hannah apart.                           ALAN               There's no need to get so upset.                           WILLIAM               Fine. I was going to quit anyway.               Leave this bunch of losers.     William makes eye contact with Colette: You too? She looks     away: Sorry. Only fuels William more. He points to Alan.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               Christ. You and your stupid recorder.               And your stupid ideas. And your stupid               character names.     William clenches his fist and pretends it's a microphone.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               Name for character. Bobby Blow Me.               Gimme a break.     Alan sits stone-faced.    William turns to John.                           WILLIAM (CONT'D)               And G.I. Joe over here with that               piece-of-crap, self-published tripe.               Who are you kidding?     Flustered, John starts to stand up.    Alan grabs John's arm,     pulls him back down.                           ALAN               Just ignore him.     William continues on his rant with Colette.                           WILLIAM               Colette, Colette, my pet. News Flash               for you: Oprah's not calling--unless               she needs a massage. Get real!                            JOHN               Oprah?   She's not on TV anymore.                              COLETTE               I know that.      William turns his attention to Henry.                                                          65.                        WILLIAM           The great Henry O. Man, you got the           gift, bro'. But your head is up           your ass over poor, sweet, successful           Hannah here.Hannah and Henry avoid looking at each other as William smilesat Hannah.                       WILLIAM (CONT'D)           Hannah. Hannah. Hannah. We could           have been so hot together. I'm just           as good a writer as you are, but you           sure look better in a skirt --                       HENRY               (Voice rising)           That's enough.                       WILLIAM           I don't need any of you. I don't           need any of your pointless, pedestrian           feedback. I'm a writer.                       JOHN           You've got goddamn three pages.                       WILLIAM           They're a great three pages! You           just don't appreciate my dedication.                       HANNAH           You're a pretend writer, William.Silence.   William is surprised that Hannah speaks out.                       HENRY           She's right. You act the part. You           like the lifestyle. You hit on women.           You quote Bukowski. But Bukowski did           the work. Each and every day he           wrote. That's your problem, William.           You don't do the work.                       WILLIAM           I don't do the work? Man, that sounds           frickin' hilarious coming from you.           When's the last time you wrote           anything?That hits a nerve. William and Henry stare each other down.Enough. William flips off the group with his middle finger.Mumbling, grumbling under his breath, he starts to leave.Pauses at the WRITERS AT WORK sign. Picks it up.                                                                 66.                           ALAN               Not the sign!     Too late. William RIPS it in two. And a second time for     good measure. Throwing the pieces on the ground. Stomps out     of the house, slamming the front door.     The group turns quiet for a long beat. Everyone calming down.     Alan takes control again -- eyes still darting over to what's     left of his beloved sign.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Let's move on. Next item. Richard               Benedict is going to be doing a               signing at Wordsmith next week.     Alan looks directly at Henry.                           ALAN (CONT'D)               Who wants to go?86   INT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                              86     Large bookstore. Long line. Why? Because Richard Benedict     is in the building, doing a signing of his new novel The     Pineapple Man.     Hannah, Henry, Alan, and Colette stand in line together,     waiting. Colette is holding one copy of the BOOK. Hannah     has one. Henry has one.     Alan reaches inside his coat pocket for his RECORDER. Snaps     it on.                           ALAN               Idea for novel. Jealous husband               murders his tramp-of-a-wife and buries               her chopped-up body in the back yard.     Colette pretends not to hear. Line inches forward. Alan cranes     his neck to see what's happening.                           HENRY                   (To himself)               Mr. Benedict, I just want to thank               you. No. You've inspired my writing--               No. Hi. I'm Henry. I just think you're               the greatest...     Colette puts a friendly hand on Henry's shoulder.                           COLETTE               Let me tell you something, Henry.                                                                67.     Henry looks to her, expecting words of comfort.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               One day, I'll have a signing like               this.     Colette looks around, already imagining the event.87   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                    87     John is bent over his PRINTER, jiggling the front end, trying     to open it. Tapping it on the side. No luck.                           JOHN               Nope. Not going to see Richard               whatever-his-name-is. John K.               Butzin, author, doesn't need to stand               in line anymore. No, sir. This soon-               to-be best-selling writer is spending               every minute, every dollar, on               promoting Roaring Lion.     Try as he might, John can't open up his printer. Sigrid     appears. Leans in. Effortlessly opens up the printer. Takes     the cartridge from John. Snaps it in. Shuts the lid. Done.     John grunts his thanks.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               Strudel, check my sales ranking again.     Sigrid steps to the computer and taps a couple keys. Stares     at the screen.                           SIGRID                   (Reading out loud)               1,644,973 . . .     Not quite the hoped-for response. Turns quiet inside the     mobile home. John clears his throat.                           JOHN               Wow. Look how far I've moved up               already.     Sigrid types again. Reads off the screen.                           SIGRID               John Grisham. 12.     Forget about John for the moment. Watch Sigrid as her eyes     dart around--from the screen, to John in the chair, out the     window. Back again. This is the moment. Sigrid gets it     now: John K. Butzin is not the author he pretends to be.     Very quiet in the mobile home.                                                                  68.88   INT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                               88     The AUTHOR (50's) sits at the signing table, obliging, but     not outgoing, grunting hello to people and smiling (somewhat)     for photos as he signs BOOKS. He is not here by choice today.     CAPTION: RICHARD BENEDICT     The young CLERK hovers nearby, assisting with books and trying     to keep the line moving.     Henry is first, followed by Alan and Colette, then Hannah.     Henry clutches his copy. Good luck trying to rip it from     his hands. The four get nearer to Benedict.                           ALAN               He's older than I thought.                           HANNAH               I've never seen him before.                           HENRY                   (To himself)               Pleasure to meet you. No. Honor to               meet you. He She They is my favorite               novel.     Closer...Closer...Closer they get to the table. Richard signs     away. Henry seems transfixed by him. Now it's his turn to     have his book signed.                           CLERK               Next, please.     The moment has arrived. Henry stands directly in front of     Richard Benedict. Henry seems nervous. Too nervous to speak.     Richard looks up and for the slightest, milli-second their     eyes meet.     At that exact moment, RICHARD'S CELL PHONE GOES OFF. He     answers.                           RICHARD                   (On phone)               What?!     Henry stands there, unable to move, staring at Richard while     he speaks on the phone.                              CLERK                      (To Henry)               Sir?     No response.   Alan nudges Henry. No good.                                                            69.                      CLERK (CONT'D)          Sir? We need to keep the line moving.          Sir?Alan intervenes. He takes Henry's copy of the novel and slidesit over to Benedict. Benedict scribbles his name quickly andslides it back with no eye contact, yelling on the phone.                      RICHARD              (On phone)          Absolutely not! I'll sue that bastard          first...Alan grabs the book and gives it back to Henry, nudging himagain.                      ALAN          We need to move, Henry.Alan and Colette slide their book over to Richard.                      COLETTE          Hi there.Richard looks up at her for a split second and decides toignore her. Another scribbled signature as he remains onthe phone.Colette takes the book, trying not to look hurt. Alan grabsHenry and they leave the area. Hannah is next up. She putsher book down on the table.                      RICHARD              (On phone)          Damn it! That simply won't--Richard glances up. Sees Hannah standing there. He stops inmid-sentence. Smiles.                      RICHARD (CONT'D)          Hi.                      HANNAH          Hello.Richard hangs up the phone.The two start chatting. Camera goes over to the shell-shockedHenry, still clutching his book, watching as Hannah andRichard carry on. Henry is so disconcerted by what he seesthat he fails to notice Eudora, still with purple hair andmatching glasses, the very next person in line behind Hannah,waving at him.                                                               70.89   EXT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                            89     Outside bookstore. After the signing. Alan and Colette walk     ahead. Henry and Hannah follow. Colette, Henry and Hannah     each carry book bags.                           HENRY               So what did he say?                            HANNAH               Who?                           HENRY               Who!?!? Richard Benedict. You know,               the guy who just held up the line               for five minutes talking to you?                           ALAN                   (Over his shoulder)               Ten. It was closer to ten minutes.                           HANNAH               I don't know. We just talked.                           HENRY               He sure liked you.                           HANNAH               We just talked, Henry. I mentioned               my book. He started asking about it.               Writer to writer. No big deal.                           HENRY               No big deal? Talking to Richard               Benedict. No big deal!     Colette keeps walking. Biting her lip. Very quiet.                           ALAN               You gave him your phone number.                           HANNAH               Look, a guy like that reads more               books in a week than I ever have.               Why would he bother call--     Just then, Hannah's iPhone goes off. She answers. The other     three stop in their tracks.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)                   (On telephone)               Hello? Who? Richard? Oh. Richard.               Hi.                                                          71.                      COLETTE          Unbelievable.Henry inches closer to Hannah, forcing Hannah to move back,creating an uneasy dance between the two. She turns herback on Henry.                      HANNAH              (On telephone)          Coffee? Oh, God. I don't know,          Richard. I really appreciate the          invitation, but--She listens. Her face is anguished. Finally --                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          This isn't a good time. Call me later.          Yes. I'll think about it. Yes. Bye.Hannah turns off her phone. Alan, Colette, Henry stand there,gaping jaws wide open.                      ALAN          Amazing.                      COLETTE          This isn't fair. This just isn't          fair.                      HANNAH          What?                      COLETTE          First, you get an agent. Then you          sell your book. Then the big movie          deal.                      ALAN          Please don't.                      COLETTE          No. This isn't fair. And now Richard          Benedict wants to have coffee with          you? All this is happening to you.          And only you. Isn't there anything --          I don't know--some kind of cosmic          creative crumb for the rest of us to          nibble on?                      HANNAH          I don't like what you're suggesting,          Colette. You know how hard I work.          How devoted I am. And I have been          totally supportive of your writing.          I've encouraged you all along.                                                                  72.                           COLETTE               You wouldn't introduce me to your               agent.                           HANNAH               Brian didn't want to meet you. I               asked.                           ALAN               Hannah has earned her success.                           COLETTE               Butt out Mr. Idea Man.                           ALAN               Hannah is a writer. She devotes               herself one hundred percent to               writing. Not one hundred percent to               sleeping with writers.     Henry steps in.    Finally.                           HENRY               Why don't you two just go on ahead?                           COLETTE               It's not fair that she be the only               one.                                HENRY               Go.                             ALAN               C'mon.    Let's go.     Colette marches off in a huff; Alan in pursuit. She looks     over her shoulder, shouting back at Hannah.                                COLETTE               13! 13!    13!     13!90   EXT. CITY BENCH - DAY                                              90     Henry and Hannah sit on opposite ends of the bench. Hannah     looks distraught, lost in thought, simmering.     Henry knows to keep his distance. Waits.91   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                        91     Colette looks frazzled. Pondering. Plotting. She finally     notices the camera.                                                                   73.                           COLETTE               I know. I'm a shit for exploding at               Hannah, aren't I?     Runs her hands through her hair.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               Poor, sweet, superstitious, everybody-               loves-Hannah.     Starts massaging forehead--trying to reduce stress.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               If she can succeed, so can I. "We               were born to succeed, not to fail."     Hears a question O.S.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               Who said that? I don't know.               Somebody famous. Somebody with an               agent.     Now come the deep breaths.      More stress control.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               I can't accomplish anything without               an agent. They won't come to me.               Fine. I'll go to them. I'll make it               happen.92   EXT. CITY BENCH - DAY                                               92     Hannah and Henry remain on the bench.      Hannah takes a breath     and finally breaks her silence.                           HANNAH               Your writer's block?                             HENRY               Yeah.                           HANNAH               It's because your focus is always on               everything else. Gatsby. Fitzgerald.               Me.     Whoa. Henry isn't about to argue.                           HANNAH (CONT'D)               Listen to me, Henry Obert. Your               writing must come first. Take this               passion you have. Put it on the page.               Forget everything else. All you're               doing is wasting...                                                                 74.     Hannah continues the lecture, speaking from the heart.                           HENRY (V.O.)               She's right. But I know what's really               happening here. Hannah's telling me               she has every intention of talking               to Richard Benedict. She has every               intention of seeing him.93   INT. HARDWARE STORE - DAY                                         93     There. On the discount table up by the cash register lies a     pile of Roaring Lion books under another handmade SIGN: 50%     OFF! Sigrid stares at the pile of unwanted books in quiet     contemplation. Heavy sigh.     Sigrid glances up. Her boss watches her from the cash     register with a certain longing. He smiles. Sigrid returns     the smile.     Back to business. Sigrid pulls a wad of DOLLAR BILLS from     her hip pocket. Counts quickly. Then picks up John's books,     one by one.94   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                     94     John looks like the proverbial kid in a candy store.   In     total shock as he clutches a handful of TWENTIES.                           JOHN               Wow! All the books sold at the               hardware store?                            SIGRID               Ja.   Every one.     John claps his hands together. There is a certain spring in     his feet.                           JOHN               Didn't I tell you, Strudel?   Write               it and they will read.     John can't contain his enthusiasm as he paces the mobile     home, his mind racing. Sigrid is more composed.                           JOHN (CONT'D)               Get some more copies down there.               Maybe do another signing. Yeah.               No. Time for a real tour. Fresno.               Bakersfield. Stockton. Call a few               bookstores. Let 'em know John K.               Butzin is coming. Lock and load.                                                                 75.     And he's off, leaving the frame, already planning his big     adventure, leaving Sigrid alone.     Facing the camera, she nods slightly. Then offers us a small     wave.                             SIGRID               Bye.   Bye.95   INT. LOIS PIPER AGENCY - DAY                                      95     The small reception area for The Lois Piper Agency. Tastefully     decorated. PHONES constantly chirping.     The young MALE ASSISTANT behind the counter, obviously paid     to be patient, points to the framed sign on the counter, in     large letters: NO UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS WILL BE ACCEPTED.     Colette and Dr. Xiroman will not be deterred. She holds a     thick MANILA ENVELOPE.                            COLETTE               I have to see Ms. Piper. We just               need five minutes. 1-2-3-4-5 minutes               of her time.     The assistant points back to the sign.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)               Can you just please stick your head               in her office, tell her that Colette               Mooney is here. I know she's busy,               but she'll certainly want to see my               manuscript.     The assistant ignores her.                           COLETTE (CONT'D)                   (Flustered)               I'm a graduate of Mills College.     Behind them, coming from the inner office, we hear LOIS PIPER     YELLING.                           LOIS (O.S.)               If I have to read one more vampire               story, I swear I'll drive a stake               through my own goddamn heart.     MANUSCRIPT comes flying out of her office. Loose pages     splatter everywhere in the main office. Lois Piper quickly     follows. Older. Tired. Needs a drink. Now.     CAPTION: LOIS PIPER                                                               76.                           LOIS (CONT'D)               Vampires! Zombies! Harry Potter               knock-offs! People writing about               their dogs! Just shoot me now!     It is at that moment when Lois first notices the camera.     Caught off-guard. What the hell??? Colette cranes her neck     over the assistant.                            COLETTE               Ms. Piper?   Ms. Piper?     Lois turns her attention to Colette. Who are you? Then--     magically--Lois changes. A big smile replaces the scowl.     She marches towards Colette, who is clearly not expecting a     warm reception.     Lois walks right past Colette and instead warmly shakes hands     with Dr. Xiroman.                           LOIS               Dr. Xiroman. I can't believe you're               here. How lovely to see you again.     Dr. Xiroman nods his head in greeting.                           LOIS (CONT'D)               Just in the neighborhood? Please               come in for a minute.     Another glance at the camera. Then, taking Dr. Xiroman by     the elbow, Lois guides him back towards her office, completely     snubbing a bewildered Colette.                           LOIS (CONT'D)               My family talks about you all the               time. You were so helpful to my               sister. She's doing much better.     Colette stands there helplessly, watching her future walk     away. The assistant points in their direction: Get in there!96   INT. PIPER OFFICE - DAY                                          96     Lois plops down behind her desk. Stacks of MANUSCRIPTS cover     her desk. Dr. Xiroman sits quietly in one chair. Colette     sits next to him.                           LOIS                   (Sighing; Distraught)               Look at my desk, Dr. Xiroman. Look               at all this. Do you know what it is?               Crap. It's all crap. Crap. Crap.               Crap. I hate my job. I hate my life.                                                          77.Dr. Xiroman nods: I understand.                      LOIS (CONT'D)          Know what I feel like doing?She looks at the camera.                      LOIS (CONT'D)          Come in closer. I want you to get          this. Closer. C'mon. More. Closer.Satisfied, Lois takes her free hand and SHOVES ALL THEMANUSCRIPTS off her desk, sending them flying on the floor.                        LOIS (CONT'D)          Wheeeeee!Colette looks aghast.   Lois seems free at last.                      LOIS (CONT'D)          That was so...liberating. I haven't          felt this good since that night in          Paris with Salman Rushdie.Lois growls like a tiger at the memory.                      LOIS (CONT'D)          I envy you, Dr. Xiroman. Know that?          Look at your life. Your work. You          helped my sister. You've helped so          many people. You have such a positive          message to share.The camera picks up on Lois as the light goes on, the wheelsstart turning in her head.                      LOIS (CONT'D)          Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a          minute. A positive message to share.          Helping people. That's it!                      COLETTE              (Confused)          What?                      LOIS          Of course. Dr. Xiroman, you should          write a book. This could be a whole          series.                        COLETTE          But--                                                                  78.                           LOIS               --It's perfect! Television. Your               own blog. Personal appearances.                            COLETTE               But--     Dr. Xiroman has no reaction. Colette can't believe what she     is hearing.                           LOIS               Getting from Xiro to One by Doctor               Xiroman. Oh, I like that.                            COLETTE               But--                           LOIS               --In fact, as long as you're here               today, why don't we just get you               under contract? I know just who to               call in New York.                            COLETTE               But--But.   What about me?     Lois shoots her a look: What about you? Colette backs down--     not wanting to spoil the moment. Lois yells for her assistant.     Finally a slight smile crosses Dr. Xiroman's face.97   INT. PIPER OFFICE - DAY                                            97     Dr. Xiroman beams as he signs the standard agency contract     so quickly drawn up for him. Lois and her Assistant appear     equally excited.     COLETTE fidgets off to the side. Then Lois hands her the pen     and points her towards the contract.                           COLETTE (V.O.)               Co-Authors. Actually I'll be listed               as junior author. It's not exactly               what I wanted, but at least now I               finally have an agent. And a book               deal.98   INT. PIPER OFFICE - DAY                                            98     Lois and the Assistant wave goodbye as Colette and Dr.     Xiroman leave.                           COLETTE (V.O.)               My novel will have to wait a while               longer. Nyet, Colette. Not Yet. But               soon.                                                                   79.99    EXT. RESIDENTIAL STREET - NIGHT                                    99      Henry delivers another pizza. Pockets the money as he walks      back to his car, whistling. Checks his delivery list. Stares      at the next address in sudden disbelief.                              HENRY                Shit!100   EXT. RICHARD BENEDICT'S HOUSE - NIGHT                              100      Henry stands in the doorway, glumly clutching the PIZZA BOX.      Hesitates. Finally rings doorbell. Pause. Followed by LOUD      LAUGHTER. Door swings open. Richard stands there, wearing      only his jeans. His hair is a mess.                            RICHARD                You're late, Pizza Boy.      Richard finally notices the camera.                              RICHARD (CONT'D)                What the --                            HENRY                    (Overlapping)                They're with me. Your total comes to                nineteen dollars and sixty-five cents.      Richard pulls a crumpled twenty from his jean pocket. He      hands it to Henry. Then reconsiders, calling inside.                            RICHARD                Babe, I need a single.      No response.                            RICHARD (CONT'D)                C'mon, babe. Got a dollar for Pizza                Boy?                              WOMAN'S VOICE                Coming!      Richard gives a last glance to the camera. He's got better      things to do. Off he goes.      Short beat. Hannah comes to the door wearing Richard's shirt      and little else, carrying a single dollar bill.                              HANNAH                Here you--      Her words freeze up as she recognizes Henry. Henry and Hannah      lock eyes for a long beat. Poor kid. This is the moment.                                                          80.Reality smacks him in the face. Hard.Hannah starts to hand Henry the money. He puts his hands up:No thanks. Hannah doesn't press. Henry can't hold back anylonger.                      HENRY          No distractions. The writing comes          first.                      HANNAH          He's making me a better writer.                        HENRY          Yeah.    I bet he is.Quietly seething, Henry nods towards the camera.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          How much better are you, Hannah?          Show us. Who wrote Slaughterhouse          Five? D'ya know?                        HANNAH          Henry.    Don't.                      HENRY          No, No. This could be quite          educational. How about Native Son?          Catch-22?                      HANNAH          Why isn't it enough that I'm your          friend?                      HENRY          Lord of the Flies? Portnoy's          Complaint? Do you know any author?          Harry Potter--You must know Harry          Potter.                      HANNAH          Why isn't it enough that I believe          in your writing?                      HENRY          --Sophie's Choice? Anything published          in the English language.                      HANNAH          --That I believe in you?                      HENRY          You didn't read Gatsby, did you?          Never even opened it, I bet.                                                                 81.      Enough.                              HANNAH                I'm not--      She hesitates.   Not for long.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                I'm not the one delivering pizzas                for a living.      Score one for Hannah.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                I'm not the one wasting my talent.                You've read all those books, sure,                but my book is being published. Is                yours?      Henry has no comeback. Hannah stares him down. The dollar      bill drops from her hand on to the ground. She retreats      back inside the house, firmly closing the front door, leaving      Henry alone.      Only then do we notice the number of the house: 4441.101   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                   101      We've never seen Henry like this. He rips down all his Richard      Benedict photos from the wall. Collects all his Benedict      books. Stuffs everything in a CARDBOARD BOX. Next he turns      his attention to all the rejection letters on the wall. Lot      of rejection. Gives them a long look. Then he snaps up the      photo of Hannah from near his computer. He takes the photo      and tacks it dead center in the middle of all his rejection      letters.      Henry stares at the photo, oblivious to the camera, consumed      by Hannah's radiant smile. His latest, and most painful,      rejection. It's over.      Henry understands what must be done. He goes over to his      desk. Sits down at his laptop. One last glance over at      Hannah's photo as he turns the computer on.      He contemplates for a second. Then begins typing.102   INT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                    102      Sigrid's Wall of America has been taken down. A few nail      holes and tape marks are all that remain--except for the      single PHOTO of John still hanging in the center.                                                                   82.103   EXT. JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                      103      Back to the two lawn chairs--with one prime difference.      Sigrid's chair is empty. John sits by himself. This is a      softer, more reflective, John talking to the camera.                             JOHN                 Well, Strudel shipped out.      A side glance to the empty chair.                             JOHN (CONT'D)                 Oh, she wanted to stay, but... I                 didn't have time for a relationship.                 Not with my book selling like it is.                 She, well, she became collateral                 damage. Hated to end it. What a                 dame. I mean...Sigrid. She had the                 smarts of my first wife. The body                 of my second wife. Thank god she                 wasn't anything like my third wife.                 I did the right thing. Yes, sir.      Good acting, John. He looks back to the empty chair. Can't      avoid reaching over and giving the arm rest a little love      tap.104   INT.   JOHN'S MOBILE HOME - DAY                                    104      John packs COPIES OF HIS BOOK ever-so-carefully into an old      standard issue military DUFFEL BAG.                             JOHN (V.O.)                 What matters now is that the Roaring                 Lion book tour is about to begin.                 Can't wait to hit the road and meet                 the good people of this nation.                 Good American people.      John gazes over at his photo on the wall. Salutes himself.105   INT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE -- DINING ROOM - NIGHT               105      Meeting of the writing group. Not yet started. John, Alan,      and Hannah sit around the table. No refreshments being      served. No small talk. Everyone is quiet.      Hannah looks fantastic. More makeup. Nicer clothes. Fidgets      in her chair. Seems anxious. Stares at her new KINDLE.      FRONT DOOR opens and closes. FOOTSTEPS approaching. It's      Henry. Looks determined. Man on a mission. Carries a satchel.                             HENRY                 Sorry I'm late.                                                            83.John grunts something. Hannah remains quiet. Avoids eyecontact with Henry. Henry reaches into his satchel and pullsout stapled, typed pages. Multiple copies. Hands one toeach of the three group members. Puts another down whereColette will sit.                      JOHN          Wutch you got here, Obert?                       HENRY          New pages.   I'm ready to read.                      ALAN          Way to go, Henry.Even Hannah looks surprised. She and Alan thumb through theircopies. John sniffs at the front page. Henry slides in acrossfrom Hannah. Looks satisfied. FRONT DOOR opens again. MOREFOOTSTEPS. Colette arrives with Dr. Xiroman in tow. Xiroman?The others exchange puzzled glances.                       JOHN          Christ.   What's he doing here?                      COLETTE          I've invited Doctor Xiroman to join          our writing group.                      ALAN          You must be joking, Colette.                      COLETTE          I am not joking. And, as a matter          of fact, I'll have all of you know          that the doctor and I are soon to be          published authors. We've signed with          The Lois Piper Agency.Colette stands there, waiting for the applause andcongratulations, but all she receives is stunned silence.                      HENRY          You can't do this.                      COLETTE          Why not? With William gone, we have          an opening.                      ALAN          Henry's right. We all have to agree          on new members.                      COLETTE          I don't care about your silly rules.                                                                84.                      ALAN          I am the leader of the group--                      COLETTE          --Oh, please. Alan.                      ALAN              (Voice rising)          I am the leader of the group.                      COLETTE          And Dr. Xiroman is my co-author and          he is joining "the group."                         ALAN          He is not.                         COLETTE          He is.                         ALAN          Is not.                         COLETTE          Is.                         ALAN          Is n--Hannah can't take it any longer. She throws up her hands.                      HANNAH              (Yelling)          STOP!The room turns quiet. All eyes on Hannah. She composesherself.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)          I'm leaving.Surprise all around.    Hannah avoids looking at Henry.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          It's time. Richard is going to mentor          me. Today's the 22nd. Two plus two          equals four and we all know four's...Her voice trails off.    Why bother explaining.   Just do it.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          Anyway, I'm quitting.There. She said it. Hannah looks so relieved. She's done.Indignant, Colette stares her up and down.                                                            85.Points to Dr.    Xiroman.                      COLETTE          Well, in this case one plus one equals          one very successful writing team. I          can't believe you, Hannah. You're          doing this just to upstage our news          about landing an agent.                        ALAN          Stop it...                      COLETTE          No, this is what it's all about.          The spotlight always has to be on          Little Miss Sunshine. Her agent. Her          book deal. Her movie deal.John shoots to his feet.                      JOHN          News flash for you all. John K.          Butzin is also saying Sayonara.          Heading off on my international book          tour.                      HENRY          International?                      JOHN          Damn straight. Tijuana.              (Beat)          I'm done with you pussies.John snatches up his folder and marches out of the house.Silence. Colette starts to sit down at the table--motionsfor Xiroman to join her. Final straw for Alan. Staresdirectly at Colette.                        ALAN          Get out.    Now.Colette can't believe what she's hearing.                      ALAN (CONT'D)          As the leader of this writing group,          I've determined your actions are          contrary to our stated purpose. Get          out.                      COLETTE          You can't kick me out.    I live here.She's right.    Alan considers his options.                                                               86.                       ALAN          Fine.   Then go to your room.Points to Xiroman.                      ALAN (CONT'D)          And take him with you. Won't be the          first guy.Alan means business.   Colette stands up straight.   Gathersup her materials.                      COLETTE          We'll certainly have plenty to discuss          in therapy.                      ALAN          Go by yourself. I'm done.                     COLETTE          Oh. Just like always--Alan finishes          first.She grabs Dr. Xiroman's arm.                      COLETTE (CONT'D)          Come, Dr. Xiroman. I'm looking forward          to working with a real doctor. On          our new book.Colette and Dr. Xiroman disappear. Frustrated, Alan takes adeep breath. Reaches inside his coat pocket for his recorder.Turns it on.                      ALAN          Idea for novel.Alan hesitates. Thinks for a second. Turns off the recorder.Slides it across the table to Henry.                      ALAN (CONT'D)          Here. Take it. Maybe you can use          some of my ideas in your novel.Alan flashes a "thumbs up" sign to Henry and to Hannah.    Hestarts to leave, but remembers the camera.                      ALAN (CONT'D)              (To camera)          This was supposed to be a reality          series.That's off his chest. Alan leaves Henry and Hannah alone atthe table. Awkward silence.                                                                  87.      He stands up. Calmly puts his typed pages back in his      satchel. Leaves Alan's recorder on the table, walks away      without looking back.                              HANNAH                Henry . . .      Don't waste your breath. He's gone.106   INT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                              106      Hannah's book release party. Great turnout. Her professional      PHOTO adorns a POSTER announcing the publication of Sleeping      on the Moon. Boy, Hannah looks terrific in that photo.      Richard hovers around the makeshift bar, drink in hand.      Maureen, looking radiant, accepts the congratulations of      well-wishers. TABLE prominently centered has piles of Hannah's      novel, waiting to be signed.      Hannah talks to the camera, looking especially radiant. This      is her day and she is more than ready for her close-up.      Totally different in wardrobe and appearance.                            HANNAH                Exciting, isn't it? I'm so nervous.                I don't know half these people. Most                of them are Richard's friends.      Hannah waves to Richard. He waves back. Hannah glances around      the room, as if looking for someone in particular.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                Nobody's showed up from my old writing                group. Not one. Probably shouldn't                be surprised. Haven't really heard                from anyone in months.      She is asked a question.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                Favorite writer? You keep asking me                that. Too funny. Sorry. Still can't                think of one.107   INT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                              107      Hannah sits behind the table, signing books. Maureen stands      behind her helping to orchestrate the line of people.      Hannah acts very gracious. Signing a book, smiling and      chatting up the guests. She seems at ease. Everything is      going her way. She looks past the line. Her eyes light up      and she jumps to her feet.                                                             88.                         HANNAH          Oh my God!Hannah bolts from the table, cuts through the line and findsHenry standing alone.                         HENRY          Hi, Hannah.                      HANNAH          Henry. Ohhhhh. Thank you. Thank          you. Thank you so much for coming.Hannah throws her arms around Henry, giving him a longheartfelt hug, almost smothering the poor guy--not that hecomplains. She lets go and gives Henry a friendly once-over.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          You're the only one from the group          who showed up.Still awkward for them to be around each other.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          I can't believe you remembered my          signing.                      HENRY          Well, pretty hard to miss that article          about you in People magazine. Just          wanted to say hi. And congratulations.Maureen comes up behind Hannah. Beams at Henry, and waves.                      MAUREEN          Hello, Henry.              (To Hannah)          Hannah, come back. Your public awaits.                      HENRY          Go on. They need you.                         HANNAH          Please stay.                       HENRY          Can't.   Sorry.                         HANNAH          Oh.                      HENRY          Yeah. Hot date. You know. Can't keep          her waiting. A flight attendant.                                                             89.                      HANNAH              (Buying the obvious               lie)          A flight attendant?Henry nods.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)          Well, then.     Guess you can't stay.                         HENRY          Sorry.                       HANNAH          One sec.   Wait here.Hannah runs back to the signing table, pulls out a book andscribbles something inside. She brings the book back over toHenry.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          This is for you.                       HENRY              (Protesting)          Hannah . . .                         HANNAH          Take it.Henry accepts the book. Hannah gives him another long hug.                      HANNAH (CONT'D)          Do you want to say hello to Richard?                      HENRY          No. No, thanks.                      HANNAH          C'mon. It will take just a minute.                       HENRY          I can't.   Really.                      MAUREEN          Dear, sweet Hannah. Please!                         HANNAH          Just say hi.Henry tries to back away. Hannah leans forward, grabs hishand and tugs him in the other direction.                      HENRY          I've really got to --                                                                   90.                             HANNAH                Oh, c'mon.   You'll --      Then -- BAM, Henry, not looking where he's going, slams into      Richard accidentally, spilling Richard's drink all over the      author. Horrified looks all around.108   EXT. OUTSIDE BOOKSTORE - DAY                                       108      Outside the bookstore, Henry stands on the sidewalk, talking      to the camera as he clutches Hannah's book.                            HENRY                Well, I did it. I showed up to                Hannah's signing. I congratulated                her. I supported her, writer to                writer. And I finally got introduced                to Richard Benedict--formally. Sort                of.      Henry opens up his copy of Hannah's novel. He turns quiet,      obviously moved. He holds the book up for the camera to      see.                           HENRY (CONT'D)                Look. Hannah dedicated her novel to                me. Just like she promised.      Right beneath the printed dedication For Henry Obert, Hannah      has written, For Henry, My Forever Friend xoxoxo Hannah.      Henry studies the book for a second. Snaps it shut.109   INT. KELLER OFFICE - DAY                                           109      Literary agent David Keller being interviewed for the camera      in his office. Stacks of MANUSCRIPTS on his desk. David      pulls one out.                            DAVID                This is why I love LA. True story.                This guy delivers a pizza to my house                one night. Then the very next week,                my wife has someone come in and clean                the carpets. Guess what? Same guy.                Small world, isn't it? So we get                talking. He tells me his name's                Henry. He's a writer. He's just                finished a manuscript. Offers us a                discount on the carpets if I'll read                ten pages. I like that thinking.                So I read ten pages. Wow. I want to                read ten more. Before I know it,                I've read the entire book.                            (MORE)                                                                   91.                            DAVID (CONT'D)                Just loved it. Fresh voice.                Interesting characters. And that                ending.      David thumbs through the manuscript.                            DAVID (CONT'D)                The washed-up, impotent novelist                getting gunned down by Scott, the                jealous, underemployed, pizza delivery                man. This kid nailed it. It's on the                page, know what I mean? So I intend                to sign Mr. Henry Obert and get Pizza                to Go out there. I predict a best                seller. Probably a movie, too.                I'll call him with the good news. Or                maybe I'll just order a pizza.110   INT. HENRY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                       110      Henry taking down the rejection letters from his walls and      packing them in a cardboard BOX.                            HENRY (V.O.)                David Keller did call me. One week                later, he sold Pizza to Go to a New                York publisher. They decided to                rename it A Slice of LA. I did it.                I sold my novel.      Henry puts the last of the rejection letters away. Finally,      he picks up a FRAMED PHOTO. INSERT shows the six members of      the writing group from happier times--the photo snapped in      the restaurant. Full of hope and promise.                            HENRY (V.O.) (CONT'D)                I miss the Tuesday night group.                They made me a better writer. They                taught me how to handle rejection.      Henry lingers on the photo before packing it away, as well.111   INT. RESTAURANT #2 - DAY                                           111      Mostly empty. Henry sits at a booth, alone, a new copy of      Gatsby in his hands. He talks to the camera. CUP OF COFFEE      in front of him.                            HENRY                Hannah was right. The writing must                always come first. Everything else                waits. Everything. That's what I                did finally. Finished my novel.                            (MORE)                                                          92.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          Sold it. Now? Now I'm open. Ready          for whatever--WAITRESS stops by the table, refilling Henry's cup. Thensetting the pot on the table, she reaches over and snatchesthe copy of Gatsby.Surprised, Henry glances up.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          --happens next...It's her again. That young waitress with purple streaks inher hair and matching purple glasses thumbs through the book.Henry finally checks out her name tag: Eudora.Clutching the book, Eudora recites from memory:                      EUDORA          Gatsby believed in the green light,          the orgiastic future that year by          year recedes before us. It eluded us          then, but that's no matter--                      HENRY              (Surprised)          --Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch          out our arms further...Eudora nods. Henry is amazed.                      HENRY (CONT'D)          You know Fitzgerald?                      EUDORA          Not intimately. He died here, you          know.                      HENRY          December 21, 1940.                      EUDORA          I go by there sometimes.                      HENRY          The place on Hayworth.                      EUDORA          Is that weird. That I do that?                      HENRY          No. No. Not at all.Eudora smiles, glad for the positive reinforcement.                                                                  93.                            EUDORA                OK. Good. Because, you know, I don't                want people to think I'm weird.                            HENRY                Of course not. Do you write?                            EUDORA                Kinda, sort of. But I'm thinking of                joining a writing group.      Henry bites his tongue.   Eudora nods towards the camera.                            EUDORA (CONT'D)                So what's this? Some kind of reality                show, or something?      Henry smiles. The two continue their idle chatter.      CARD: EPILOGUE112   EXT. MOBILE HOME PARK, PHOENIX -- DAY                             112      Caption reads: PHOENIX, ARIZONA.                            JOHN (V.O.)                After a very successful book tour,                John K. Butzin heard the Grand Canyon                State calling. This is home now.113   EXT. MOBILE HOME PARK (ARIZONA) -- DAY                            113      John's trailer. COSTUMED CHILDREN knock on the door while      holding their trick or treat bags.                            JOHN (V.O.)                Real God-fearing Americans live here.                Good people. Not those La La pussies.      John opens the front door.                            CHILDREN                Trick or Treat!      John responds by dropping a BOOK in the first bag.                            JOHN                Look at this treat you get. A copy                of Roaring Lion by John K. Butzin.                Happy Halloween.      The children are dumbfounded. John moves on to the next child.                                                                  94.114   INT. RESTAURANT #2 - DAY                                          114      William is back at the counter, looking as scruffy as ever.      Off to the side stands a GEEKY KID, gripping a FLIP PHONE      aimed directly at William. William talks to our camera.                              WILLIAM                  C'mon. Admit it. You missed me.                  It wasn't as interesting once I left,                  right?      He winks.   The Kid doesn't move.                              WILLIAM (CONT'D)                  I knew the group wouldn't last without                  me. No way. Losers.      He nods towards his companion.                              WILLIAM (CONT'D)                  Him? Oh. It's my new project. A                  reality TV show based on my life.                  You know...women I meet...thoughts                  that pop into my head. Kid follows                  me all around. 24/7. Actually I got                  the idea from you guys. Same concept--                  just better characters.      A question is asked.                              WILLIAM (CONT'D)                  Which network? Um, well...it's                  a...it's P-P-A...Pasadena Public                  Access. Oh, people watch. Yeah.                  We're on right after that pet psychic.      A waitress's HAND reaches in and refills William's coffee      cup. He likes what he sees.                              WILLIAM (CONT'D)                  Thanks, babe.      He looks over to Geeky Kid.                              WILLIAM (CONT'D)                  Get a close-up on her. Nice and                  tight.      William will never change.                              WILLIAM (CONT'D)                  And, hey, Kid. Lend me five bucks.                  I want to leave an extra special                  tip.                                                                   95.115   INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY (LOS ANGELES) -- DAY                           115      TWO POSTERS ON EASEL in the hallway. First poster announcing:                            ALAN (V.O.)                After I sent Colette packing, I was                ready for a new chapter in my life...      SATURDAY'S ADULT EDUCATION CLASSES.      PUPPET MAKING meets in Room 22, and QUILTING is in Room 24.      WRITING 20/20 is in Room 26.      And DOG OBEDIENCE is out in the courtyard, but we already      know that--the loud sound of BARKING DOGS and PEOPLE YELLING      "SIT" is heard in the background.      Second poster is a new version of QUIET, PLEASE--WRITERS AT      WORK.                            ALAN (V.O.) (CONT'D)                I found it teaching Adult Ed. "Writing                20/20" is the class. Helping writers                to see. Inspired by my new self-                published e-book of the same title.116   INT. SCHOOL CLASSROOM - DAY                                        116      STUDENTS scattered around the classroom. All adult. Ethnic      and demographic mix. Listening attentively. Taking notes.      The DOGS continue barking outside.      Alan stands in front of the class. Beaming. Excited, He CLAPS      his hands once.                            ALAN                OK. You've got ten seconds. Write                down the name of your character.                First name that pops into mind. C'mon.                Tell me your character.      Students think for a second. Start scribbling a name.                            ALAN (CONT'D)                1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-9.5-9.75-10 seconds.                OK. Pass your names up front here.                Let's see what you came up with.      Students hand their papers forward. Alan starts collecting      them.                            ALAN (CONT'D)                The right name is so important for                your character. OK. What do we have?                                                                  96.      He looks at the first piece of paper.                            ALAN (CONT'D)                Here's one I haven't heard. Heywood                Ja-Jabloom???      That's not it.   Alan tries again.                            ALAN (CONT'D)                Or is it Jablom? Maybe Jablowme.                Heywood Jablowme?      Laughter and guffaws from the students.    Alan looks puzzled.                            ALAN (CONT'D)                What's so funny? Heywood Jablowme?                Am I missing something? Heywood                Jablowme?      The students continue to laugh. Poor Alan.117   EXT. ALAN AND COLETTE'S HOUSE - DAY                               117      Catch the FOR SALE sign posted on the front lawn.118   EXT. COLETTE'S GARDEN - DAY                                       118      Colette engages in intense meditation on her bench. The garden      around her is now dead.                            COLETTE (V.O.)                Dr. Xiroman and I wrote our book. It                actually did fairly well.      INSERT BOOK. Title in large letters: Getting from Xiro to      One by Dr. Xiroman in equally large letters. At the bottom      of the book, in very tiny letters, reads With Colette Mooney.                            COLETTE (V.O.) (CONT'D)                Dr. Phil turned us down. But we had                a lovely time on Anderson.      INSERT PHOTO of smiling Anderson Cooper.                            COLETTE (CONT'D)                Anderson actually wanted us back,                but Dr. Xiroman and Lois Piper started                dating. They eloped to Vegas last                month. Off on a world cruise.      INSERT PHOTO of Dr. Xiroman and Lois being married in Vegas      by ELVIS.                                                                  97.                            COLETTE (CONT'D)                So in less than a year, I've lost my                husband, my co-author, and my agent.                But I still have Nyet, Not Yet. And                I will find an agent to sell my novel.                Look. I bought an ad in the trades.      Colette reaches for her reading glasses and shares the ad      copy with us, reading aloud:                            COLETTE (CONT'D)                "The magic fingers that just typed                the publishing world's next best                selling novel are now waiting to                provide free massage to interested                literary agents. Experienced.                Sensitive. Discreet. Memorable. No                Junior Agents, please."      Looking quite pleased with herself, Colette lets the copy      fall away.                            COLETTE (CONT'D)                It's how I met my last husband. I                think it can work again. No worries.                After all, I am a graduate of --      Her iPhone starts playing music, signaling a phone call.      Colette smiles in knowing satisfaction--publication is just      a touch away119   EXT. MOVIE SET -- DAY                                             119      The MOVIE CREW, on location, scurries about, trying to line      up their next shot.                            HANNAH (V.O.)                Welcome to Sleeping on the Moon: The                Movie! It's so exciting!120   EXT. MOVIE SET -- DAY                                             120      Hannah, looking good, sits in a chair, a BOOK on her lap.      She is talking to the camera. CREW in the background.                            HANNAH                Let's see. My book ended up on the                best sellers list. Stopping at Number                13.      She crinkles her nose in obvious disappointment.                            HANNAH (CONT'D)                Then Richard left me.                            (MORE)                                                             98.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             I'm sure the two were connected. No             loss. Such an ego. But guess what?             I've gone back to school!To underscore the point, she holds up a the book--it's TheGreat Gatsby.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             Look what I'm reading for class.             Isn't that pretty, you know, what do             they call it? What's that word?She hears an answer.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             Ironic. That's it. Pretty ironic.             But I'm going to get my degree.             Then I'll be smart. Really smart.Short beat                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             You know how you kept asking me that             question. Who's my favorite writer?Short beat.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             Turns out I do have one. Mr. Henry             Obert. He's become a great writer.             A published author.She smiles.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             I knew him when.She likes her answer.    But then hesitates.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             Probably shouldn't tell him I said             that, 'kay?She winks.                         HANNAH (CONT'D)             Keep it between us.Goodbye Hannah.    Good luck.                                                                   99.121   EXT. FITZGERALD/GRAHAM HOME -- HOLLYWOOD - DAY                     121                            HENRY (V.O.)                Well, my novel finally came out.                Seems to be doing OK.122   EXT. FITZGERALD/GRAHAM HOME/SIDEWALK -- DAY                        122      Henry looks more confident. More poised. Better clothes.      The frog has become the prince.      He glances back at the building.                            HENRY                You know Fitzgerald said that all                good writing is swimming under water                and holding your breath. He was right.                But after all I've been through, I                think I'm finally ready to exhale.      He looks at his watch.                            HENRY (CONT'D)                Oops. I'm late. Gotta go.123   EXT. BOOKSTORE -- DAY                                              123      SHOPPERS coming in and out of the store. POSTER in front      window announces book signing for Henry Obert, author of      Slice of LA.      Right next to BANNER announcing GOING OUT OF BUSINESS. And      next to the banner--a YOUNG MAN leans up against the wall,      waiting, passing time reading his KINDLE.124   INT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                               124      We jump to the woman clutching FOUR COPIES of Henry's novel.      Wait a minute--we recognize those trendy glasses. It's Eudora,      a rather pregnant Eudora.                            EUDORA                    (Laughing)                Yes, I'm totally busted. I'm buying                four copies of A Slice of LA. One                for each member of my writing group.                Also because I think Henry Wayne                Obert is the greatest new writer of                the decade! Sexiest, too!      Eudora is having way too much fun.                            EUDORA (CONT'D)                OK. So he's my husband. I'm biased.                But I still think the kid can write.                                                                  100.125   INT. BOOKSTORE - DAY                                               125      Henry sits at the table in the bookstore, graciously and      happily signing copies of his book for the SHORT LINE OF      PEOPLE waiting.      This is his moment, the one that brought him all the way      from Illinois. He has arrived. As a person. As a writer.      Henry looks up. Eudora is nestled comfortably in a nearby      leather chair, reading away. She looks up.      They make eye contact. Her smile is all the encouragement      Henry needs. All that he will ever need.      He reaches for the next book to sign.                                                          FADE OUT:
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+                                    AUTUMN IN NEW YORK                                      Screenplay by                                     Allison Burnett                                      Shooting Draft                                                                      2000                               FADE IN:               EXT. CENTRAL PARK -- SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON               A COUPLE moves down a walkway, deep in subdued conversation.                All around them trees explode with autumn color. Birds sing.                Their path is dappled with leafy shadow.               To their left, on the sunny meadow, TEENAGERS throw saucers                and footballs, smoke cigarettes and joints, drink beer and                soda, savoring the waning hours of summer.               CLOSER ON THE COUPLE               He is WILLS KEANE, late 40's to early 50's, strikingly                handsome, impeccably dressed, and supremely poised. At first                glance he has the proud glow of a hedonist who in the war                against time has been the undisputed victor.               Only a closer look hints at the toll of battle. His shoulders                strain under the weight of so much repetition. His eyes are                touched by regret. The lines in his face reveal an emerging                disenchantment not so much with the world as with himself.               Walking at his side is a WOMAN, 30, attractive and bright.                Her name is unimportant because so many have come before her                and, if the past prevails, so many will come after.               She listens intently, as Wills finishes speaking --                                     WILLS                         -- and I could have waited to tell                          you, but I wanted to leave no room                          for misunderstanding.                                     WOMAN                         Well, you certainly didn't.               EXT. ANOTHER CENTRAL PARK WALKWAY -- LATER               Still talking quietly, they pass into a more secluded area                of the park--                                     WOMAN                         No, I see how you could feel this                          way. Of course I do. It's human. But                          what I don't get is why you'd want                          to announce it so quickly. I mean,                          we just met. Feelings change. You                          don't even know me.                                     WILLS                         Yes, I do.               She is amused by his confidence --                                     WOMAN                         Oh, really?                                     WILLS                         The minute I laid eyes on you. It's                          the saddest thing about getting older.                          You know people so quickly. I even                          knew you'd end up hating me.                                     WOMAN                         Well, you're wrong. I don't.                                     WILLS                              (with a weary smile)                         Give it time.               She laughs. Then he stops. He hears something. She stops.                She hears it, too. It's a GIRL'S VOICE. He casually turns                and looks, squinting into the sun.               He takes a few steps and there, between trees, he sees TWO                DOZEN PEOPLE sitting on the grass and on folding chairs --                most are middle-aged or older with a distinctly intellectual-               bohemian look to them.               Standing and addressing them is CHARLOTTE FIELDING, 19, fair,                willowy, pale, lovely in an unconventional way. She wears an                eccentric hat and a vintage dress. Her bearing is upright,                her gaze warm and intelligent, her voice rich with emotion --                                     CHARLOTTE                         -- and for weeks I sat by her bed                          and cried. I told her I loved her                          and I begged her not to leave me.                          All I could think about was what I'd                          lose if she died. And then one                          night... she was in really bad pain...                          I stopped thinking about myself for                          a second and I thought about her.                              (fighting tears)                         I stopped crying. I said goodbye.                          And in less than an hour Ella was                          gone.               The woman whispers in Wills' ear --                                     WOMAN                         It's so sad.               But Wills ignores her. He watches Charlotte with keen                interest, touched by the depth and sincerity of her emotion.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I really think it's possible to hold                          a person back... cry them back...                          from dying. That's what I did to                          Ella and I'll never do it to anyone                          else again.                              (softly)                         I hope no one ever does it to me.               She looks out at the group, many of whom are crying. A tear                runs down her cheek. She smiles and wipes it away.               The woman, seeing Wills' interest in the girl, whispers --                                     WOMAN                         So what do you know about her?               He knows a great deal. Or at least he thinks he does. But                his answer is nonchalant --                                     WILLS                         That she's just a kid.               He takes the woman gently by the elbow and guides her away.                He steals one last look back.               Charlotte, returning to where she was sitting, notices Wills.                Their eyes meet and a charge passes between them.               Meanwhile an OLD MAN has risen from his chair --                                     OLD MAN                         I met Ella at City College in 1938...               Wills slowly turns and walks away.               MUSIC AND TITLES IN:               EXT. MANHATTAN SUBWAY STOP -- AUTUMN DUSK               A SWARM OF PEDESTRIANS ascends the steps to the bustling                street.               FIND CHARLOTTE amid the swarm, struggling with a load of                BOXES and SHOPPING BAGS, carrying an antique, wood-and-wire                DRESSMAKER'S MANNEQUIN.               She wears a peasant dress with a cycle jacket, a backpack,                and another eccentric hat.               EXT. WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK -- DUSK               Charlotte makes her way down the leaf-strewn pathway. Wheeling                the mannequin by the neck, she passes NYU STUDENTS smoking,                laughing, and chatting on their way to class.               EXT. WEST VILLAGE AVENUE -- DUSK               Charlotte hauls the mannequin down the block. A YOUNG MAN                offers her assistance, but she politely and firmly refuses.               EXT. WEST VILLAGE STREET -- DUSK               Charlotte wearily hauls the mannequin across the cobblestone                street, over the curb, and up to the stoop of a charming but                slightly dilapidated BROWNSTONE.               INT. BROWNSTONE FOYER -- DUSK               Charlotte opens the door into the darkness. She hits a light                switch and nothing happens. She flips it back and forth --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Shit.               She dumps her boxes and bags, then wheels in the mannequin.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Dolly! The bulb burned out!               MUSIC AND TITLES OUT:               INT. BROWNSTONE LIVING ROOM -- SAME               EIGHT SILHOUETTES are crouched in the dark room. The mantel                is draped with a HAPPY BIRTHDAY BANNER. The coffee table is                stacked with WRAPPED GIFTS.               INT. FOYER -- SAME               Charlotte looks suspiciously at the living room door --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Dolly?               She tiptoes through the darkness and lays her ear against                it.               INT. LIVING ROOM -- SAME               We hear chuckles and whispers of anticipation. An older                woman's raspy, boozy voice growls --                                     RASPY VOICE                         My ass hurts.               A few people chuckle, but they're quickly hushed. The DOOR                KNOB TURNS and the DOOR OPENS. Everyone leaps up in a blaze                of light --                                     ALL                         SURPRISE!               The MANNEQUIN bursts into the room, teetering crazily, wearing                CHARLOTTE'S JACKET, BACKPACK, and HAT.               Everyone FLINCHES and SCREAMS. Amid a chorus of laughter,                Charlotte enters. Grinning, she wags a facetious finger --                                     CHARLOTTE                         See? Surprises suck!               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- NIGHT               An antique clock ticks crisply on the dresser. Wills stands                before a mahogany mirror, buttoning a freshly laundered white                shirt.               Lying on the cradle bed, half-wrapped in a sheet, naked but                for a string of pearls, is TANYA, 35, raven-haired, much too                thin. She smokes a cigarette.                                     TANYA                         Oh, Wills, please, not again. It's                          our third date and we're already in                          a rut.                                     WILLS                         But I thought you loved it.               She stretches with her cigarette but before she can make it                to the ashtray, her ASH FALLS on a New York magazine.               On the cover is a PHOTOGRAPH OF WILLS standing next to a                YOUNG CHEF in a fashionable restaurant. The caption reads:                "The Prodigal Son Returns."                                     TANYA                         Oh, I do -- except for the fact that                          there isn't a single thing on the                          menu I can eat.                                     WILLS                              (with a chuckle)                         Sure, there is; there's just very                          little you're willing to digest.               He slips in a cuff link. She affects a breezy indifference --                                     TANYA                         Fine then. We'll go, I'll get big,                          fat, and horrible, and it'll serve                          you right.               Wills slips on a silk tie --                                     WILLS                         No, it won't. Because it takes at                          least a few weeks to get fat and by                          then you won't even be speaking to                          me.                                     TANYA                              (curiously)                         Why do you say that?               He stops tying his tie and stares at her in the mirror --                                     WILLS                         Because we have no future. All I can                          offer you is this... what we have                          right now... nothing more                          meaningful... until it ends.               He goes back to tying his tie, then adds softly --                                     WILLS                         I could have waited to tell you, but                          I wanted to leave no room for                          misunderstanding.               She stares at him, speechless.               INT. RESTAURANT -- THAT NIGHT               Its decor is exquisitely tasteful, its ambiance warm and                convivial. The night is in full swing. Most of the tables                are taken and the bar is packed.               EXT. UPPER EAST SIDE -- SAME               From amid the RUSH OF TRAFFIC, a TAXI breaks free and glides                to the curb in front of the RESTAURANT.               Its facade is windowless. Only a small brass plaque on the                grey marble reveals that this is ELYSIUM.               Wills and ERIKO, 30's, Japanese, aloof and stunning, emerge                from the taxi, elegantly dressed, and move to the front door.               INT. ELYSIUM -- CONTINUOUS               TWO TIPSY DEBUTANTES pass Wills and Eriko as they enter. One                recognizes Wills and smiles flirtatiously.               Wills stops and helps Eriko off with her jacket. JESUS, 30,                the dashing Cuban-American maitre d', superbly discreet,                approaches --                                     JESUS                         Good evening, Mr. Keane. Will you be                          dining with us tonight?                                     WILLS                         We certainly will. Table seven, Jesus,                          if it's available.                                     JESUS                         Yes, sir.               Wills hands Eriko's jacket to MELISSA, 20, the hat check                girl --                                     WILLS                         How are you, Melissa?                                     MELISSA                              (blushing)                         Fine, Mr. Keane.               CELIA, mid-20's, the chipper, blonde Midwestern hostess,                arrives, wearing a stunned, glassy smile.                                     WILLS                         Good evening, Celia. And how --                                     CELIA                              (with forced cheeriness)                         Just dandy, sir, thanks!                                     JESUS                         Table seven.                                     CELIA                         This way, please.               Celia, barely making eye contact with Eriko, walks quickly                away. Wills is amused and a little confused by Celia's                behavior. He lays a hand on Eriko's back --                                     WILLS                         I'll be right with you.               Eriko nods and follows Celia.               Wills moves to the reservation stand where his best friend                and the restaurant's manager, JOHN VOLPE, 40, a brilliant,                dapper, tough as nails Brooklynite stands, listening to                someone on the telephone.               Wills lays a hand on his shoulder and mutters into his ear --                                     WILLS                         How's it going?                                     JOHN                              (covering the phone)                         Chaos.                                     WILLS                         The house specialty.                                     JOHN                         Easy for you to say, ya prick.                          Waltzin' in here like you own the                          joint.               Wills laughs and takes a look into the bar. John gestures                with his head in Eriko's direction --                                     JOHN                         So who's the new potential ex-wife?                          I thought you were still wastin'                          time with Tanya-von-What's-her-name.                                     WILLS                         We wisely agreed to cut our losses.               Wills exits into the bar. John smiles and shakes his head.               FOLLOW WILLS, as he glides along the bar. CUSTOMERS and STAFF                greet him warmly.               As he enters the main dining room, DINERS spot him --                sprinkled among them are CELEBRITIES from every walk of city                life. Wills greets them, stopping to shake their hands and                kiss their cheeks.               Suddenly, Celia, the hostess, red-faced, blocks his path --                                     CELIA                         Look, I have no right to say this,                          okay? And you can fire me if you                          want, but in the six weeks we've                          been open you've brought in six                          different women -- tonight makes                          seven -- and it's really starting to                          get to me.                                     WILLS                         In what way?                                     CELIA                         I have to greet them! It's like                          working at a dog shelter! I'm afraid                          to learn their names or even smile                          at them because I know any minute                          they could be put down!                                     WILLS                         I assure you it's an absolutely                          painless procedure.               Shocked, she can't help but sputter a laugh --                                     CELIA                         It is?                                     WILLS                         Sure.                              (beat)                         Especially for me.               They both laugh. He moves closer, lowers his voice, and speaks                with warm sincerity --                                     WILLS                         Actually, I appreciate your concern,                          Celia. The truth is I'm a little                          worried myself.                                     CELIA                         Seriously?                                     WILLS                         Seriously. I've been trying to do                          better.                              (uneasily)                         But... you know how it is... old                          habits die hard.                                     CELIA                         So I'm not fired?                                     WILLS                         Nope. In fact, John's been looking                          for an assistant. Tell him you've                          just been promoted.               Wills smiles, pats her in the shoulder, and moves on. She                can't believe it.               A WAITER carrying a BIRTHDAY CAKE -- blazing with candles                and decorated with a WOMAN'S HAT made of MERINGUE LATTICEWORK --                passes by on his way to the REAR DINING ROOM.               From inside, VOICES begin to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Wills, his                curiosity piqued, follows.               INT. REAR DINING ROOM -- CONTINUOUS               The waiter sets down the cake at the center of a round table.                There's a CHEER and APPLAUSE as the song ends. Wills cannot                see whose birthday it is because the waiter blocks his view.               Just as Wills is about to exit the room, the waiter steps                away. Wills glances over and sees the birthday girl. At first                he can't place her, but then he does, and his face softens                and brightens.               It's Charlotte. She wears a black velvet dress and a                wonderfully eccentric hat. Her eyes glow in the candlelight.                Through the chorus of voices, urging her to make a wish, she                cries out --                                     CHARLOTTE                         You guys! Let me think!                              (concentrating)                         Okay. Okay.               Charlotte blows hard, and, with a little more effort than                you might expect, extinguishes the candles. Everyone APPLAUDS                and CHEERS.               To Charlotte's right sits SIMON LORING, late 20's, English,                sardonic, adoring. He gestures at her CHEST and says --                                     SIMON                         Watch carefully, everyone -- they                          ought to begin emerging any moment                          now.               Everyone laughs. Charlotte playfully slaps him --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Very funny! Actually, any moment now                          you're gonna turn straight and fall                          at my feet.                                     SIMON                         Oh, darling, you know I would if I                          could.               Charlotte's best friend, SHANNON HARRIS, 19, a spoiled but                big-hearted redhead, drowning in curls, mutters --                                     SHANNON                         The only time he falls at your feet                          now is when he wants to borrow your                          Prada loafers.               More laughter.               BACK TO WILLS. He considers approaching Charlotte, but then                he looks back and sees Eriko sitting alone at their table,                idly stabbing at her drink with a straw.               Regretting his rudeness, he takes a step toward her, but                then hears --                                     WOMAN'S VOICE                         Is that Wills Keane?               He turns and sees DOLORES TALBOT, 70, blonde wig, spindly                frame, weathered skin, large, sad eyes. She holds a mixed                drink --                                     WOMAN                         It sure as hell is and he hasn't                          changed a bit!                                     WILLS                         I'm sorry, do I --                                     WOMAN                         You little fool, it's Dolores Talbot.                          Dolly!               His smile shows uneasy surprise --                                     WILLS                         My God, it is.                                     DOLLY                         Yeah, I know, time's kicked my ass                          but good. Come on, Romeo, let's bury                          the hatchet. Give me a hug. Careful                          of the cocktail.               As he hugs Dolores, he can't help but look over at Charlotte                again.                                     DOLLY                         So what the hell're you doin' around                          here? Last I heard you were out in                          earthquake country blowin' the family                          fortune.                                     WILLS                         Actually, I doubled it.                                     DOLLY                         Good for you!               ON CHARLOTTE. She looks over. Her view is such that she sees                Wills but not Dolores.               A faint blush creeps into Charlotte's cheeks. She pretends                to listen as Shannon tells a story --                                     SHANNON                         -- and you know how bouncer's get.                          He's like, "That's the worst fake                          I.D. I've ever seen." And I'm like,                          "Yeah? Well, you have the worst dread-                         extensions!" And then just when --               Noticing Charlotte's distraction, Simon whispers calmly to                her --                                     SIMON                         Are you feeling all right? You look                          positively green.               Charlotte speaks under her breath without moving her lips --                                     CHARLOTTE                         He's here. And he's staring at me                          again.                                     SHANNON                         No way!               Both Shannon and Simon turn to look, but like lightning                Charlotte grabs them both --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Don't!                              (to Simon)                         Wait a few seconds, then go to the                          bathroom.                                     SIMON                         How will I know him?                                     CHARLOTTE                         He's beautiful. And much older.                                     SIMON                         Really?                              (getting up)                         If he's rich you might have a fight                          on your hands.               Charlotte watches furtively as Simon rises from his chair                and walks over. As he passes Wills, he flashes him a seductive                smile. Wills is confused by it.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Okay, look.               Shannon swivels her head and throws an aloof, vacant stare                in Wills' direction. Then she looks back at Charlotte, mouth                agape --                                     SHANNON                         He's as old as my dad!               Charlotte laughs.               BACK ON WILLS. He does his best to be attentive as Dolores                exhales a plume of smoke into his face --                                     DOLLY                         Sure, L.A.'s okay if you're a cactus                          or a lizard, but if you're a New                          Englander, your soul dries up and                          blows away like a god damn leaf.                                     WILLS                         It only took me twenty years to come                          to my senses.                                     DOLLY                         So what're you doin' now? You owned                          some restaurants out there, didn't                          you?               ON CHARLOTTE. She sits listening to Shannon --                                     SHANNON                         And so, after all that, we pay our                          cover, we get in, and it's totally                          heinous! Nothing but losers and --               Charlotte looks over and pales, her eyes widening --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh, shit.                                     SHANNON                         What?               Dolores walks up, hauling Wills by the arm --                                     DOLLY                         Kids! I want you to meet an old chum                          of mine, the owner of this fine                          establishment -- Wills Keane!               The table greets him. Wills, slightly self-conscious, looks                at everyone but Charlotte.                                     DOLLY                         And that over there's the birthday                          girl -- my granddaughter, Charlotte.               The news hits Wills hard. But he does his best to hide it.                He musters a casual smile --                                     WILLS                         Not Katie and Jay's daughter?                                     DOLLY                         You bet. She got her height from her                          dad. But her talent's all Katie's.               Dolores indicates the hat that Charlotte's wearing --                                     DOLLY                         Made it herself from scratch. That                          one, too.                              (to Shannon)                         Honey, show 'im.               Shannon makes an elaborate comic show of modeling the hat                she's wearing. The table laughs.               Wills levels his gaze at Charlotte --                                     WILLS                         Impressive.               Try as she might to accept the compliment with grace,                Charlotte can't help but grin.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Thanks.               The WINE STEWARD stands at a station on which sit TWO BOTTLES                OF CHAMPAGNE on ice. He reaches for one. Wills stops him --                                     WILLS                         I think we can do better than that.               The steward, understanding, nods and departs, taking the                champagne with him.                                     WILLS                         Happy birthday, Charlotte.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Thanks.                                     SHANNON                              (under her breath)                         Twenty years old and never been...                                     CHARLOTTE                              (laughing)                         Shut up!               Amused, he flashes Charlotte his most dazzling smile.                                     WILLS                         I'll let you get back to your                          celebration.                              (kissing Dolly's cheek)                         A pleasure to see you again.                                     DOLLY                         Same here.               Wills turns to exit. Simon, returning to his seat, murmurs                seductively to Wills as he passes by --                                     SIMON                         Leaving so soon?               Wills looks at him, confused again, then continues on. As                Simon sits, he mutters to Charlotte --                                     SIMON                         Be still my beating heart.                              (beat)                         Or is that your heart?                                     SHANNON                              (whisper to Charlotte)                         You're not really into him, are you?               Charlotte turns to Dolores who has just sat down.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey, Dolly, how do you know him?                                     DOLLY                              (uneasily)                         From Newport. Old friend of your                          mom's.               Dolores eats a sloppy forkful of birthday cake.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               EXT. WINDOW -- ESTABLISHING -- MORNING               A gentle breeze tickles a white lace curtain. A PHONE RINGS.               INT. BROWNSTONE KITCHEN -- SAME               Charlotte, standing in the small antiquated kitchen, wearing                flannel pajamas, tenses when she hears the PHONE RINGING                UPSTAIRS. She snatches an apple from a bowl and dashes out                of the room.               FOLLOW CHARLOTTE running through the DINING ROOM... into the                LIVING ROOM... into the FOYER... and up a DARK STAIRCASE.               INT. CHARLOTTE'S BEDROOM -- MORNING               A startling clash of childhood, adolescence, and womanhood.                Everything from stuffed animals to posters of pop icons to                volumes of great literature.               THE PHONE RINGS AGAIN               Charlotte bangs in, flings herself on the bed, and grabs the                phone --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Okay, bitch, I'm ready!               INTERCUT WITH:               INT. WILLS' ROOFTOP TERRACE -- MORNING               Wills sits in his woolen robe, holding a portable phone.                Amused, he smiles into the morning sun --                                     WILLS                         For what?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh my God, I'm so sorry! Wait. Who                          is this?                                     WILLS                         Wills Keane.               Her heart stops. She sits up slowly, her body tensed.                                     WILLS                         Who did you think it was?                                     CHARLOTTE                         My friend Simon, actually. He always                          calls me the morning after to sort                          of... you know... sum everything up.                                     WILLS                         And how would you sum it up,                          Charlotte? Turning twenty.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Kinda cool, kinda creepy. Anyway,                          you wanna speak to my grandmother?                                     WILLS                              (with a chuckle)                         I don't think so.               OLIVIA, 30's, Wills' Jamaican cook and housekeeper, enters.                Plump, handsome, and perpetually amused, she carries a tray                laden with continental breakfast and a New York Times. Wills                mouths a greeting. She smiles back and sets the tray on a                table.                                     WILLS                         I called because I'm going to be                          attending a benefit... a black-and-                         white ball.... and I'd like you to                          design a hat... for my date.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Really? Wow. Sounds fun. Okay.                                     WILLS                         It's a gift. I don't have her                          measurements, but she's about your                          size. What're you, a six?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh.                                     WILLS                         Good -- then let's assume your hat                          size is also the same.                                     CHARLOTTE                         But that doesn't necessarily --                                     WILLS                         It's a risk we'll just have to take.               Charlotte runs over to her sewing table, looking for a pen                and paper. She finds paper, but no pen --                                     WILLS                         Her dress is a sheath... sleeveless,                          black. The hat must, of course, be                          black or white or both.               She finds a pen but it doesn't work. She grabs an eyeliner                and uses that --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Any particular style?                                     WILLS                              (sipping his coffee)                         No, just plenty of it. How long will                          it take?                                     CHARLOTTE                         A week or two.                                     WILLS                         You have till Thursday. I'll need it                          here by seven o'clock. I'm at the                          Pembroke on Central Park West and                          76th.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh. Wow. Okay.                                     WILLS                         What's your fee?                                     CHARLOTTE                              (faltering)                         I don't really have one. I usually                          just make them for friends.                                     WILLS                         How's five hundred dollars?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Really? Wow.                                     WILLS                         Charlotte?               His tone has abruptly shifted; it's intimately hushed. It                both daunts and excites her --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Yeah?                                     WILLS                         You say "wow" a lot.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I know.                                     WILLS                         It has to stop. You're a woman now.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I know.                                     WILLS                         Bye.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Bye.               She clicks off the phone, wilts into a swoon on the bed, and                breaks out laughing.               Wills, still holding the receiver, stares dreamily into the                middle distance.               He snaps to when Olivia enters. Her accent is as much Queens                as it is Caribbean --                                     OLIVIA                         See, now you got me worried.                                     WILLS                         What do you mean?                                     OLIVIA                         You slept alone last night. You must                          be sick or somethin'. You want me to                          call a doctor?                                     WILLS                         Thank you, no, I'm fine.               She throws him a sly, sidelong glance, then exits. Wills                laughs and contentedly sips his coffee.               FROM THE NEXT SCENE, we hear the sound of SQUEALING, LAUGHING,                SHOUTING CHILDREN.               INT. FAO SCHWARZ -- NIGHT               Surrounded by swarming PARENTS and KIDS, Wills stands with                John, the manager of Elysium, and his wife, SARAH VOLPE, 30,                who, gazing out of frame, keeps a watchful eye on their kids --                                     JOHN                         Save it, pal! Don't even bother! I                          may not have gone to a fancy school                          like Bendover --                                     WILLS                              (to Sarah)                         That would be Andover.                                     SARAH                         Sure, if his folks could have afforded                          it.                                     JOHN                         -- but when Wills Keane comps three                          bottles of Dom to a twenty-year-old                          girl, then tells me he did it 'cause                          he likes the kid's grandma, I smell                          a rat!                                     SARAH                              (looking around)                         Oh, is that what that is? I figured                          there was a dirty diaper somewhere.                                     WILLS                              (lightly)                         Okay, I admit it, she interests me.                                     JOHN                              (turning to Sarah)                         He's gonna do it! I don't believe                          it! He moved us back here for nothing!                                     SARAH                         So much for that turned leaf.                                     WILLS                              (amused)                         Come on, you're overreacting.                                     JOHN                         Is that what you think? Buddy, since                          we hit town, I have done nothin' but                          cut you slack! Every week a new woman                          on your arm and I didn't say a word.                          Why? 'Cause I figured at least they're                          in the right demographic. Maybe by                          accident you'll trip over something                          substantial. But this little girl?                          Best she could be is Miss Right's                          daughter!                                     WILLS                              (uneasily)                         I know. It's just that there's                          something about her. She's special...                          and I just thought --                                     SARAH                         "She's young. She's hot. I'm on the                          verge of menopause. Why not go for                          it?"               Wills and Sarah meet eyes.                                     WILLS                         There wouldn't be much point in lying                          to you, would there?               Sarah shakes her head.                                     KIDS' VOICES                         Mommy, Daddy, look, look!               MOLLY and CARLA, the Volpes' five-year-old TWIN DAUGHTERS                run up, beaming, each carrying a huge stuffed animal.                                     JOHN                         Hey, they're bigger than you are!               John scoops both his daughters up in his arms and kisses                them repeatedly.               Wills watches, his eyes filling with a vague, wistful envy.                He sees Sarah staring at him. She smiles sympathetically.               INT. BROWNSTONE LIVING ROOM -- AFTERNOON               The furniture is antique and dark. The white walls are tinged                with yellow from years of cigarettes. In one corner, the                paint has chipped off the ceiling in a jagged plate.               Dolores sits on a worn-out leather arm chair, smoking, sipping                a cocktail, watching a DAYTIME TALK SHOW.               In the background, we see Charlotte working in the ADJOINING                DINING ROOM which she has turned into a lovely sewing room.               CLOSER ON CHARLOTTE. She builds her hat on a HAT BLOCK -- a                wooden mannequin head. Strewn all around her are the materials                of her hatmaking -- bolts of cloth, hat blocks, a sewing                table.               Shannon, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, lies on the floor,                eating M+M's and drinking diet soda, while heavily marking                up a text book with a YELLOW HIGHLIGHTER.               Charlotte stops and rubs her eyes, then she glances down at                Shannon and smiles --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why don't you mark what isn't                          important? That way you'll save ink.                                     SHANNON                         Why don't you sew your mouth to my                          butt? That way you'll stop annoying                          me.               They both laugh. Overhearing, Dolores croaks facetiously --                                     DOLLY                         Now, now, if you two kids can't play                          nice --               Shannon rolls over onto her back --                                     SHANNON                         God, I hate school.               Charlotte pins a strip of black lace to the hat --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh, come on, just last week, you                          said you were on a roll. You loved                          it!                                     SHANNON                         Well, now I'm on the rag and I hate                          it.               Charlotte chuckles and sets the half-finished hat on her                head. Still seated, she wheels her work chair over to a mirror --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I think you're incredibly lucky. I'd                          love to be going to college.               Shannon rolls over and looks at her. Suddenly her expression                is inexplicably solemn --                                     SHANNON                         Am I the most spoiled brat in the                          world or what?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Spoiled brats don't even ask questions                          like that.                              (re: the hat)                         What do you think?               She models the hat. Tears well in Shannon's eyes and she                says without even a hint of irony or sentimentality --                                     SHANNON                         That you're the most beautiful person                          in the entire world.               Charlotte smiles, looks away, and, trying not to cry, fusses                with the hat.               EXT. CENTRAL PARK WEST -- NIGHT               A cold autumn rain falls. The Irish doorman, MICHAEL, 60's,                melancholy, stoop-shouldered, smokes a cigarette, looking up                at the unburdening sky.               A LIMOUSINE pulls up. The passenger window glides down --                                     DRIVER                         Mikey! How ya doin'?                                     DOORMAN                         A bit early, aren't you?                                     DRIVER                         Hey, in this soup, better safe than                          sorry, you know what I mean?               RUNNING FOOTSTEPS approach. Michael looks. The driver looks,                too.               It's Charlotte, dressed in tattered jeans, a light rain coat,                and sneakers, dashing at breakneck speed down the street,                carrying something in a GARBAGE BAG.                                     CHARLOTTE                         KEANE!               She runs right past Michael --               INT. ELEVATOR -- NIGHT               Michael works the shiny brass controls. Charlotte, winded,                hair dripping wet, watches the numbers tick by overhead.                Michael smiles at her with paternal fondness --                                     MICHAEL                         He's goin' to a fancy party tonight.               Charlotte, nonplused by his lack of discretion, smiles                politely --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh, really?               INT. WILLS' PENTHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER               The elevator doors open.                                     MICHAEL                         Watch your step, Miss.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Thank you.               She emerges, moves to Wills' door, and waits for the elevator                to close. When it does, she hurries back to a table over                which hangs a GILDED MIRROR.               She takes a LOVELY OLD HAT BOX out of the garbage bag and                ditches the bag under the table. Then she quickly checks                herself in the glass.               She doesn't like what she sees. She pokes at her sopping                hair and squeezes it, but it's hopeless. Remembering the                time, she hurries back to the door, takes a deep breath, and                rings the bell.               She waits. And waits. Then she hears footsteps approaching.                She realizes she's left the hat box on the table.               She rushes over and grabs it, just in time to get back to                the door when it OPENS.               Olivia, the housekeeper, steps out, wearing her coat and                carrying her purse. Her voice is low and gentle --                                     OLIVIA                         He's waitin' for you, Miss Fieldin'.               They exchange cordial smiles. Charlotte enters.               INT. WILLS' APARTMENT -- CONTINUOUS               Charlotte steps into a dim hallway lined with oil paintings,                carpeted with a Persian runner, and lighted by three antique                sconces. She walks slowly, terribly self-conscious.               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- CONTINUOUS               The room is vast, furnished with antiques, decorated with                the same masculine good taste. Charlotte enters timidly,                then hears --                                     WILLS                         What happened?               She looks and sees Wills standing, back turned, before a                broad set of high windows. City lights glimmer in the                distance; beneath them lies the vast gloom of Central Park.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I couldn't get a cab, so I took the                          subway... only it was an express and                          it didn't stop at --                                     WILLS                         You realize, don't you, that you're                          a full eighteen minutes late?                                     CHARLOTTE                         I know... I'm so sorry... I --               Wills turns around. A magnificent figure -- expertly tailored                tux, every hair in place, freshly manicured. And then he                offers her an amused, reassuring smile --                                     WILLS                         Charlotte, relax. What's the point                          of being a beautiful young woman if                          it isn't to keep your admirers                          waiting? In fact, you disappoint me:                          I was looking forward to at least                          another half hour of suspense.               Flattered, her face brightens --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I could leave and come back.                                     WILLS                         Nope, too late. Anyway, I want to                          see the hat.               He walks over to her. Smiling, she sets down the box, unties                the ribbon, and gingerly removes the hat. It's sublimely                simple and elegant. She looks at him with hope. His face                betrays nothing --                                     WILLS                         Try it on.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I can't. I'm soaked.                                     WILLS                         It's all right.               Charlotte, a little confused, carefully sets the hat on her                head. She steps to a wall mirror, pulls the veil down, and                sets it at the correct angle.               Wills appears behind her and shares the reflection. She feels                his presence, hears his breathing. They speak in hushed tones --                                     WILLS                         It's perfect. It's like a tiny                          sculpture.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I wanted it to be a tiny poem.               She smiles. Their eyes meet in the glass.                                     WILLS                         If only I had some use for it.                              (off her look)                         My date canceled a few hours ago.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why?                                     WILLS                         I don't know. She was vague. Would                          you... like to come in her place?               Charlotte can't believe it. She smiles at his reflection.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Like this?                                     WILLS                         The outfit I bought her is hanging                          in the guest room closet.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (anxiously)                         It's okay? Are you sure?                                     WILLS                              (amused)                         Of course.               He gestures toward the half-open door on other side of the                room. Charlotte turns and, biting her lip, looks at the door,                then back at Wills, then back at the door.               INT. GRAND BALLROOM, PLAZA HOTEL -- NIGHT               A spectacular affair is in full swing, a benefit for the                METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART attended by FIVE HUNDRED GUESTS                from HIGH SOCIETY dressed only in black and white.               A LARGE BAND plays -- everything from waltzes to jazz to                swing. Chandeliers glisten. Guests, sitting in ornate boxes,                look down on the marble dance floor where a WALTZ is in                progress.               FIND WILLS AND CHARLOTTE, dancing together. Charlotte looks                sophisticated and beautiful beyond measure, wearing a                sleeveless black sheath with a fake fur wrap, and, of course,                her hat.                                     WILLS                         Nonsense. You're very good. Where                          did you learn?                                     CHARLOTTE                         From Ella. The woman whose memorial                          you crashed.                                     WILLS                         So you did see me there.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh. And the next time I saw you,                          you were on the cover of New York                          magazine. And I had to pick a place                          for my birthday. So...               It takes a few beats for Wills to put it together. He smiles,                realizing that her presence at Elysium wasn't a coincidence.                She smiles back, sweetly, coyly.               ON THE PERIMETER, FIND TWO RICH WOMEN, 40's, too thin, too                lifted, watching Wills and Charlotte waltz.               They stand with LISA, 23, unassuming, fair-haired, simply                dressed.                                     RICH WOMAN #1                         Of course he moved back. I mean,                          he'd already seduced every A- and B-                         list actress in town. What was left                          for him?               Pause. Lisa looks at her, feigning naivety.                                     LISA                         The C-list?                                     RICH WOMAN #2                         Exactly.                                     RICH WOMAN #1                         But if what I hear is true and he's                          shopping for a bride, I can tell you                          one thing -- he's barking up the                          wrong tree there.                                     LISA                         Why do you say that?                                     RICH WOMAN #1                              (with an icy smile)                         Good wives are rarely found up cherry                          trees.               The women share a laugh. Lisa, slightly discomposed, looks                back at Wills and Charlotte.               INT. GRAND BALLROOM -- LATER               Wills and Charlotte slow dance to a romantic ballad. Wills                seems entranced by her easy manner of expression --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I met Ella in the fourth grade. She                          was my teacher at the Little Red                          School House. We stayed friends after                          she retired. She taught me how to                          cook and sew... speak Italian...                          basically enjoy life, have fun --                          that's what she was best at... even                          when she knew she was dying.                              (pause)                         The most important thing she did was                          introduce me to poetry. She believed                          it was the highest form of art and                          that everything we say and do should                          aspire to it.               Wills is uncomfortable for a moment, then ventures quietly --                                     WILLS                         It sounds as though, in a way, she                          took your mom's place...                                     CHARLOTTE                         My mom and my dad's. After they died,                          Dolly was so devastated she pretty                          much gave up on everything. It was                          like if something that tragic could                          happen, there was no way she was                          ever gonna care about anyone else                          ever again. Including herself. She                          wasn't a horrible parent... she didn't                          abuse me or anything... she just                          ignored me. She was more like a weird                          landlady than a grandmother.               Charlotte smiles sadly. Her eyes glisten in the light.                                     WILLS                         I'm sure she did the best she could.                                     CHARLOTTE                         For a long time I kinda thought that,                          too, and I made excuses for her, but                          now I don't. I was seven years old                          and I needed her and she wasn't there.               Silence as Wills somberly reflects. Finally, he speaks --                                     WILLS                         I remember when I heard the news                          about your parents. You know how                          after a crash they print a long list                          of names in the newspaper? Well, I                          grew up outside Boston, so I naturally                          started to scan the list. But                          casually, not expecting to --               Suddenly, a SWING SONG starts. Wills smiles at the ironic                change of mood, then turns to escort Charlotte away --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh, no, come on! I love this stuff!                          Don't you? Didn't you grow up on it?                                     WILLS                         How old do you think I am?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Ancient!               Holding his hand, she starts moving to the music. Wills laughs --                                     WILLS                         I have no idea what to do!                                     CHARLOTTE                         Have fun!               She flings her wrap onto a chair and keeps dancing. Wills,                charmed senseless, finally surrenders.               A SEQUENCE BEGINS during which we see WILLS and CHARLOTTE                having an inordinately good time. Wills maintains a modicum                of reserve; Charlotte is joyful and entirely unembarrassed.               CERTAIN GUESTS NOTICE THEM. The reactions to their pairing                runs from confusion to disgust to amusement.               But no one watches them more carefully than Lisa.               Finally, in the middle of a song, Wills and Charlotte make                their way off the floor, winded and laughing. Wills heads                off to the bar. Charlotte turns around and watches the other                dancers.               Then we notice Lisa standing next to her. They smile at each                other. Lisa offers her a cocktail napkin. Charlotte takes it                and wipes off her brow.               They speak above the music --                                     LISA                         I had to come. I work at the Met.                          What's your excuse?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Sort of a date.                                     LISA                         With Wills Keane, right?                                     CHARLOTTE                         You know him?                                     LISA                         Just by reputation.                                     CHARLOTTE                         A major womanizer, right?                                     LISA                         That's what they say.                              (beat)                         I'm Lisa.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Charlotte Fielding.               They shake hands. Lisa looks away and sees Wills making his                way toward them with two glasses of punch.               Coolly covering, Lisa beats a hasty retreat --                                     LISA                         Anyway, I should keep mingling. But                          it was nice to meet you.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Same here.               Lisa smiles politely and walks away.               Wills walks up, watching Lisa melt into the crowd. His brow                is furrowed. He's wondering if his eyes have deceived him.                He hands Charlotte a punch --                                     WILLS                         Who was that?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Lisa something.               The name hits home. Wills is flustered, but then he covers                as best he can and lifts his glass --                                     WILLS                              (lifting his glass)                         Here's to --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Us.               Wills smiles slowly and they toast.               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT               The room is empty. There's laughter in the distance. The                front door opens and shuts. We hear Wills and Charlotte,                both a little tipsy, advancing down the hall toward us --                                     CHARLOTTE                         God, you talk like you're a hundred                          and sixteen!                                     WILLS                         That's usually how I feel. But not                          tonight. Tonight I feel sixteen...                          just sixteen... and three-quarters.               Wills crosses to the bar and from a small refrigerator pulls                out a BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE already sitting in an ice bucket.                                     WILLS                         Champagne?                                     CHARLOTTE                         He asked nonchalantly.               Wills laughs, then opens the bottle as he picks up his                previous train of thought --                                     WILLS                         You see, Charlotte, the way you know                          you're getting older is that you                          start to notice patterns. People                          start falling into types. Pretty                          soon you know a person before you've                          even been introduced. And if it's a                          woman, before the romance even starts,                          a whisper in your head tells you                          exactly what it is and how long it's                          going to last. And the saddest, the                          most tedious, part of all is that                          that little voice is almost always                          right.                              (popping the cork)                         Now, what I like about you -- and I                          think that's actually what inspired                          this little lecture -- is that I                          find you completely unprecedented...                          and, therefore, wholly unpredictable.                                     CHARLOTTE                         God, it must be a relief.                                     WILLS                              (confused)                         What?                                     CHARLOTTE                         To finally deliver that speech to a                          woman and actually have it apply to                          her.                                     WILLS                         Now wait a minute.                                     CHARLOTTE                         No, because coincidentally I am all                          those things you just said. And more.               Wills chuckles, shaking his head, charmed but a little                unsettled.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I'm a "unique". At least that's what                          my yoga teacher says. He says there                          are very few uniques in the world                          and I'm one of them.                                     WILLS                         Well, he's a wise man.               He hands her a glass of champagne.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You, on the other hand, are what                          he'd call a "typical."                                     WILLS                         Oh, really?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh. And I can prove it. Want me                          to? Come here.               Wills moves a few steps closer.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Closer.               Wills walks even closer, until they are just a few feet apart.                                     CHARLOTTE                         No, come on, really close.               Wills can't believe his good luck. He nears her until their                faces are almost touching.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Perfect. Now watch very carefully.               She rises on tiptoe and puts her mouth just inches from his.               Their breathing mingles. Wills seems almost dizzied by it.               And then, very slowly, he kisses her.               She does not kiss back.               Finally, he pulls away, staring blankly, breathing hard, not                sure what to say.               Charlotte whispers --                                     CHARLOTTE                         See? You're a typical.                              (pause)                         And for what you just did, most girls                          my age would slap your face. Or ask                          to be put in a cab.                              (pause)                         Lucky for you, I'm a unique.               She smiles, then kisses him deeply on the mouth. Her arms                wrap around his neck.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- NIGHT               Cloaked in deep shadow, set off against a rainy window pane,                we see Wills, his shirt off, on top of Charlotte whose blouse                is open. He passionately kisses her neck and mouth.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- MORNING               The room is bathed in golden light. Charlotte lies naked                under the covers asleep on her stomach. Her brow is tense                and one of her hands is slightly clenched.               ANGLE ON WILLS, standing in the doorway, watching her, his                face a portrait of conflicted thoughts.               Finally, she stirs. Smiling and squinting into the sun, she                gets up on one arm and looks at him, standing there in the                doorway --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Boy, do you look guilty.               EXT. WILLS' TERRACE -- LATER               Charlotte happily wolfs down her continental breakfast. Wills                sits across from her, watching and worrying.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Didn't anyone ever teach you that                          it's bad manners to stare at a girl                          when she's eating like a pig?               Wills chuckles, then his smile fades and he clears his throat.                                     WILLS                         Listen --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-oh. Here it comes.                                     WILLS                         That's right, because, look, I could                          put this off, but I genuinely like                          you. So I want to be clear... right                          now... from the start, so there's no                          chance for misunderstanding later.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Okay.                                     WILLS                         What I want to say you is.... well...                          that all I can offer you is this...                          what we have right now... nothing                          more substantial... just this...                          until it ends.               She looks at him. Lowers her fork. He adds almost reluctantly --                                     WILLS                         The truth is, we have no future                          together.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I know. I'm dying.               Wills' face reddens slightly. He shifts uneasily in his chair.                A suggestion of a smile plays along his features --                                     WILLS                         What... what do you mean?                                     CHARLOTTE                         What I said. Nobody thought I'd even                          last this long.               Wills stares at her blankly, not knowing what to think or                say.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I could have put off telling you,                          but I genuinely like you, so I wanted                          to be clear... you know, right from                          the start.               Olivia enters, takes her orange juice glass and leaves a                full one.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Thanks, Olivia!               Charlotte gulps down the juice. Wills watches, his mind                reeling.               INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE -- DAY               Wills sits across from a large desk, beneath a wall of framed                certificates and diplomas. The door opens and DR. PAUL SIBLEY,                60, African-American, dour and forbidding, enters --                                     SIBLEY                         Mr. Keane? Dr. Sibley.               Wills jerks to his feet and they shake hands --                                     WILLS                         Thank you so much for taking the                          time.                                     SIBLEY                         It's my job, sir. Please, sit down.               He walks around the desk. Sibley is all business, but his                brusqueness masks genuine regret --                                     SIBLEY                         Now, Mr. Keane, on the phone you                          referred to Charlotte's condition as                          cancer. That isn't strictly accurate.                          Neuroblastoma is a soft tissue                          malignancy, but it isn't cancer --                          although it sometimes can be just as                          aggressive.                              (sitting)                         It's most common in children. In                          young adults, the condition is                          extremely rare. In Charlotte's case,                          the tumor is located in her chest.                          It's growing rapidly and has proved                          resistant to both irradiation and                          chemotherapy. And because of its                          proximity to her aorta, surgery is                          out of the question.                                     WILLS                         So then what treatment is she getting?                                     SIBLEY                         At present? Nothing.               Wills shifts uneasily in his chair.                                     SIBLEY                         Eventually she'll be treated for                          pain. In the end, surgery could become                          an option, but her chances of survival                          would be slim. Right now Charlotte's                          against it. She's signed a directive                          forbidding any sort of heroic                          intervention.               A silence settles between them. Sibley opens a folder on his                desk.                                     SIBLEY                         There's more here if you're                          interested, but it won't mean much                          to you.               Wills shakes his head and rises from his chair. He turns to                the door, then turns back to the doctor --                                     WILLS                         How long?                                     SIBLEY                         Optimistically? A year.               EXT. ST. VINCENT'S HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM -- LATER               Wearing her tattered jeans from the night before, Charlotte                sits on the couch doing the New York Times crossword. Wills                emerges, walking slowly, pensively, as though in a trance.               Charlotte looks up and masks her anxiety with a grin --                                     CHARLOTTE                         A real charmer, isn't he?               Wills doesn't react. He keeps walking toward her. Unsettled,                she holds up the puzzle.                                     CHARLOTTE                         How are you on Cambodian money units?               Wills keeps advancing.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Are you okay, old man? You look kinda                          woozy.                              (jokingly calling out)                         Is there a doctor in the house?               Ignoring her, Wills sits down, takes her in his arms, and                embraces her. At first she resists, but slowly she surrenders                and hugs him back.               INT. TAXI -- AFTERNOON               As the cab bounces down a cobblestone Village street, Wills                and Charlotte stare straight ahead, each following the                tortuous path of his own thoughts.               Slowly, Charlotte steals a sidelong look at him. His face is                tense, ashen, and unreadable --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey.               Wills slowly turns his head. She smiles sweetly --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Look on the bright side: if I weren't                          sick, there's no way we could hang                          out together.                              (off his look)                         I'm serious. You'd be scared of                          hurting me and I'd be scared you                          were just using me for my perfect                          young body.               He can't help but smile. Encouraged, she moves closer --                                     CHARLOTTE                         And then our friends would say we                          were just into each other for weird                          psychological reasons. You know,                          because I'm looking for a daddy                          substitute and you're looking for                          someone you can feel superior to so                          you won't have to confront how scared                          you are of real intimacy -- and, of                          course, they'd be right and eventually                          we'd break up.                              (beat)                         But since I'm so sick it doesn't                          really matter what deep-seated                          weirdness has brought us together                          because there's no way we can possibly                          screw each other over... or up...                          because that takes time. And I don't                          have much left.               The cab comes to a stop in front of her brownstone. She smiles                archly, savoring the irony --                                     CHARLOTTE                         So considering everything, don't you                          think we should just sort of chill                          out, forget I'm sick, and enjoy what                          we have... right now... no strings...                          just this... until it ends? 'Cause                          that's really all I have to offer.               Wills grimly appreciates the irony.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Think about it, okay? But not too                          hard.               She kisses his cheek and jumps out of the cab. She skips up                the steps of the brownstone, then immediately turns around                and runs back down to the open window.               She leans in and mutters sexily --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Last night was so incredibly hot.                              (beat)                         By the way -- it was my first time.                          And I picked you for the job. I hope                          you're flattered.               Wills is shocked. She turns and runs back upstairs. She sticks                in the key, then turns and waves at Wills before banging                open the door with her hip.                                     DRIVER                         Okay, pal, where to?               Wills hasn't moved a muscle.               FROM THE NEXT SCENE, we hear the pop of FLASHBULBS and the                whirr of SHUTTERS --               INT. DOWNTOWN LOFT -- NIGHT               YOUNG FASHION MODELS OF EVERY RACE strut down a runway,                modeling a new line of WOMEN'S URBAN CASUAL WEAR.               FIND CHARLOTTE, ignoring the show, pushing through the crowd,                hurrying toward the side of the stage. She speaks to a GUARD                at the entrance and he lets her pass.               INT. BACKSTAGE -- MOMENTS LATER               Charlotte searches amid the chaos of models dressing and                undressing. Finally, she spots them.               FIND SIMON AND SHANNON styling a BLACK FEMALE MODEL in a                tank top and fatigues.               He applies a finishing touch, adjusting the tilt of the                model's baseball cap. Shannon, lacing the girl's boots, works                as Simon's assistant.               EXT. SOHO STREET -- NIGHT               The threesome, in high spirits, bangs open a fire door.                Shannon is beside herself, frantically half-screaming --                                     SHANNON                         I don't believe it! I don't believe                          it!                                     SIMON                         I think what Miss Harris is trying                          to say, is that you've strained her                          credulity.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Really? Better put some ice on that.               Shannon lifts a hand to high-five her --                                     SHANNON                         Girlfriend, you are so incredibly                          cool!                                     SIMON                         So I've been told.               Simon high-fives her instead. The girls laugh.                                     SHANNON                         Okay, now tell us everything! Don't                          leave anything out!               FROM THE NEXT SCENE, we hear --                                     JOHN'S VOICE                         Okay, then what happened?               INT. ELYSIUM -- LATE AFTERNOON               The restaurant is empty. John stands behind the bar, taking                an inventory of the liquor. In the background, TWO BUSSERS                mop up. Wills sits on a bar stool, nursing a mineral water --                                     WILLS                         Not much. I took her home and she                          pointed out an irony -- that fate                          was now offering us the very same                          thing that just this morning I'd                          told her was all I could offer her:                          a relationship with no future.                                     JOHN                              (chuckling)                         A kid figured that out?                                     WILLS                         She's not a kid! That's what I've                          been trying to tell you. Nothing's                          lost on her. I'm the kid. She... I                          don't know what the hell she is...                              (muttering)                         But I do know what she was.               John looks at him curiously. Wills glances over his shoulder                at the bussers, then leans in close --                                     WILLS                         A virgin.                                     JOHN                         What?               The busboys turn their heads.                                     WILLS                         I had no idea. That's the only reason                          she had her party here, so she could                          lure me into doing the honors.                                     JOHN                              (grinning)                         She used you, pal.                                     WILLS                         I know.                                     JOHN                         The hangman got hanged. How's it                          feel?                                     WILLS                         Embarrassing.               John laughs. Wills settles into a brooding silence. John                goes back to work --                                     JOHN                         So what now?                                     WILLS                         I end it.                                     JOHN                         How come?                                     WILLS                         What, you're endorsing this now?               John, continuing his work, smiles sweetly --                                     JOHN                         I don't know, when you talk about                          her, you're not such an arrogant son                          of a bitch. You get all whiny and                          stupid. I like that.                                     WILLS                         Thanks.                                     JOHN                         And since I don't see you gettin'                          serious with any of your other                          victims, I figure why not spend a                          little time together?               Pause.                                     WILLS                         Because she's dying.                                     JOHN                         I got bad news for you, brother, so                          are you.               Wills stares at him thoughtfully.               EXT. BROWNSTONE STOOP -- DAY               Wills stands stiffly at the door, holding a bouquet of                flowers. He stares at his own reflection in the porthole                window. He straightens his hair, tugs at the collar of his                cashmere jacket.               Footsteps approach. The door opens and there's Dolores, bleary-               eyed and disheveled. She smiles sourly --                                     DOLLY                         Well, well.               INT. BROWNSTONE FOYER -- CONTINUOUS               Through the dark prism of Dolores' inhospitable wariness, we                catch glimpses of the high-society hostess she once was --                                     DOLLY                         She'll be right down. She's upstairs,                          gildin' the lily.                              (shouting up the stairs)                         HE'S HERE!                              (wryly)                         Do come in.               They move through a doorway --               INT. BROWNSTONE LIVING ROOM -- CONTINUOUS               Wills is surprised by the room's run-down state.                                     DOLLY                         Excuse the mess. My maid died fourteen                          years ago and it's been simply                          impossible to replace her. She did                          windows and spoke English.               She chuckles to herself. Wills hands her the flowers.                                     WILLS                         For you.                                     DOLLY                         Well, aren't they loverly.               She casually drops them into an EMPTY BLENDER at the bar.                                     DOLLY                         Care for a cocktail?                                     WILLS                         No, thanks.               INT. CHARLOTTE'S BEDROOM -- SAME               Simon lounges on the bed. Charlotte stands before a full-               length mirror, trying on a dress.                                     SIMON                         It really is uncanny. I tell you, in                          that dress you're the spitting image                          of Michel Simon.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (flattered)                         Who's she?                                     SIMON                         A French character actor, long dead,                          who was not only hideous and fat,                          but quite male.                                     CHARLOTTE                         So that would be a "no."               Simon nods. Charlotte takes off the dress.               INT. BROWNSTONE LIVING ROOM -- SAME               Wills looks around the room. Dolores splashes her drink with                vodka --                                     DOLLY                         What can I say? Time's a thief. One                          day you're rich as an Arab, the next                          you're lucky if you can afford a god                          damn can of pistachio nuts.               Wills wanders over to the mantel where FAMILY PHOTOS sit in                tarnished antique silver frames. He picks up a photograph of                a YOUNG GIRL in TENNIS WHITES -- it's Charlotte's mother,                Katie.               Wills' face is suffused with tenderness as he studies it.                Dolores walks over and looks --                                     DOLLY                         How about that, huh? That was the                          summer you two --                                     WILLS                         I know.                                     DOLLY                         Who'd have guessed what time had in                          store for her, huh? Look at that                          smile.               Eyes moistening, Dolores crosses to her armchair. Her tone                is slightly bitter --                                     DOLLY                         Then again, time loves some people.                          Like you, for instance. Oh, time's                          just wild about you.               She plops down unsteadily and reaches for her cigarettes --                                     DOLLY                         Just as handsome and charming as                          ever. And still up to the same old                          tricks.               Wills sets the photo back on the mantel --                                     WILLS                         What do you mean?                                     DOLLY                         First time you came to pick up Katie,                          you brought me flowers. Just like                          those.                              (to herself)                         Flower the mother; then deflower the                          daughter. But Katie was too smart                          for you...                                     WILLS                         Dolly, look --                                     DOLLY                              (abruptly)                         Aw, why the hell don't you leave her                          alone? Christ, she's sick!               But before Wills can answer, they hear footsteps on the                stairs. Neither moves.               Charlotte enters, wearing a peasant dress and felt hat,                looking pretty, pale, and excited.               Wills and Dolores slowly turn. They smile at her, then                exchange a quick glance. Charlotte catches it and becomes                self-conscious --                                     CHARLOTTE                         What? What's wrong?                                     DOLLY                         You look like your mom is all.               Charlotte looks to Wills to see if that's, indeed, what he                was thinking. He nods his agreement. She is pleased.               EXT. GREENWICH VILLAGE STREET -- MINUTES LATER               Charlotte, full of energy, hauls Wills down the block by the                hand.                                     WILLS                         What do you mean, you knew?                                     CHARLOTTE                         I did! I just didn't think it would                          take so long!                                     WILLS                         Two days is long?                                     CHARLOTTE                         It is when you're sitting by the                          phone. You wanna know how I knew?                                     WILLS                         You're psychic?                                     CHARLOTTE                         I am, but no -- it's because of my                          birthday wish.                                     WILLS                         But we hadn't even been introduced                          yet.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I know, but I wished that whatever                          happened... you know, with my                          illness... I'd go out with a bang.                          Nothing heavy. No violins. No                          melodrama. Just fun. A total                          adventure!               Charlotte jumps off the curb.                                     WILLS                         CAREFUL!               He yanks her back just as a TAXI, horn blaring, SPEEDS PAST,                nearly hitting her.               For a moment, they both stand there, hearts pounding,                breathing hard. Then Charlotte looks back at him and grins --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Wow, it's getting exciting already.               EXT. WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK -- AFTERNOON               Under a perfect blue sky, the park swarms with autumn                celebrants. Charlotte and Wills move together down a walkway.               Half-joyously and half comically, Charlotte addresses the                heavens with grand theatricality --                                     CHARLOTTE                         "Lord, I do fear                          Thou'st made the world too beautiful                          this year!                          My soul is all but out of me, -- let                          fall                          No burning leaf; prithee, let no                          bird call!"                                     WILLS                         We could go to a museum.                                     CHARLOTTE                         No, that would be a thing! I don't                          want to do any thing today. I want                          to do no thing all day.                                     WILLS                         Nothing at all?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh. No thing at all.                                     WILLS                         So a movie is out.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Way out!                                     WILLS                         Ice cream at the Plaza? High tea at                          the Palace?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Both out.                                     WILLS                         What about shopping?               She considers for a few moments --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Possible.                                     WILLS                         It's not a thing?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Only when I have money.               EXT. FIFTH AVENUE IN THE 50'S -- AFTERNOON               The sidewalk swarms with pedestrians. Wills and Charlotte                emerge empty-handed from the revolving door of a department                store --                                     WILLS                         But all I gave you was champagne.                          That's not a proper birthday present.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I agree, and I promise I'll let you                          give me something else, but not today.                                     WILLS                         When?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Soon. But I'm warning you, it's not                          going to be anything material.                                     WILLS                         Why not?                              (then solemnly)                         Oh, I see... because you're sick.                          Because --                                     CHARLOTTE                         That's right, but we're not gonna                          talk about that.                                     WILLS                         How come?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Because it's my rule.                                     WILLS                         Any particular reason?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Yeah, because everybody always wants                          to talk about miracles, or about                          some genius quack-doctor, or their                          friend's friend who went into                          remission eating nothing but sunflower                          seeds. It's boring and pointless.                                     WILLS                         Are you sure? I mean, there are                          specialists who --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Don't start, okay?                              (abruptly)                         Now what I would enjoy is taking you                          shopping. For clothes. I'm serious.                          It's quality not quantity, you know.               INT. BARNEY'S MEN'S DEPARTMENT -- AFTERNOON               Wills sits in a chair while Charlotte looks through silk                scarves --                                     CHARLOTTE                         At work you should look perfect, but                          in everyday life you need to delight                          in disorder more. Don't you know? "A                          sweet disorder in the dress kindles                          in clothes a wantonness."                                     WILLS                         I think that goes without saying.                                     CHARLOTTE                         It was true when that poem was written                          three hundred years ago and it's                          true today. Wouldn't it be fun to                          look wanton occasionally?                                     WILLS                         It's been a lifelong dream of mine.                          But will a scarf do it?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Totally. Accessories rule. But we                          have to be careful. I don't want you                          looking too young. Nothing's worse                          than an old guy trying to look young.                                     WILLS                         Good advice. I'll remember that for                          when I get old.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You know what I meant.                                     WILLS                         That I'm old.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh.               INT. BARNEY'S LOBBY -- LATER               Wills walks a little self-consciously. He wears around his                shoulders a sloppily draped wrinkly silk scarf.               He walks past OTHER SHOPPERS. Among a GROUP OF WOMEN walking                past him FIND CHARLOTTE who subtly checks him out as though                he were a stranger.               As she passes by, she gives him a sexy look, then, not very                subtly, she spins around to look at his ass.               Finally, she breaks character, runs after him, and throws                her arms around his neck from behind.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Perfectly imperfect!               Laughing, he holds her hands and hauls her on his back to                the door.               INT. ITALIAN RESTAURANT -- NIGHT               Wills and Charlotte are in the middle of a candlelight dinner.                Wills refills her wine glass --                                     WILLS                         I don't know why, but for some odd                          reason, I feel absolutely compelled                          to tell you the truth about this...                          even at the risk of --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey, you're giving me the creeps.                          Just spit it out.               Wills holds his breath for a moment, then exhales and says                it --                                     WILLS                         I never had a date for the benefit.                          My plan from the beginning was for                          you to come with me.               Charlotte sets down her wine glass as she pieces it together --                                     CHARLOTTE                         So I made the hat for myself?                              (He nods.)                         And you bought that dress for me?                              (He nods.)                         And you did all this just so you                          could sleep with me?                              (He nods.)                         Why? I mean, why me?               Wills settles himself, then, meeting her eyes, speaks softly --                                     WILLS                         The eulogy you gave at Ella's service                          was so... impressive. You spoke about                          her death... about loss... in a way                          that I could never have done. You                          understood life emotionally in a way                          that I didn't. Whatever that                          understanding was, I wanted to get                          close to it.                                     CHARLOTTE                         And sex seemed like the best way to                          do it.                                     WILLS                         And the most enjoyable, yeah.               Charlotte sips her wine and considers. Then she sets down                her glass --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Well, first of all, let me say, you                          have great taste because that little                          Dolce & Gabbana was to die for.                                     WILLS                         Thanks.                                     CHARLOTTE                         And, second, don't ever lie to me                          again.                                     WILLS                         All right.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Seriously. There isn't a lie in the                          whole world I'd rather hear than the                          truth.               Wills stares at her solemnly. Her expression just as somber,                she lifts a hand and points to her lips. He leans forward to                kiss her.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- NIGHT               Wills and Charlotte, kissing deeply, tumble fully clothed                onto the bed. As their passion builds, Wills reaches for the                bedside lamp.               Charlotte watches curiously, thoughtfully, as he pulls the                cord, plunging the room into UTTER DARKNESS.               MUSIC UP: A SEQUENCE BEGINS               -- Savoring the last sunny days of autumn, Wills and Charlotte                walk across the green of Central Park, which swarms with                happy, healthy teenagers.               -- At night, Wills and John and his wife Sarah sit in box                seats at Yankee Stadium watching the play-offs. Bernie                Williams hits a colossal shot. The crowd jumps to its feet.                As the ball flies over the right field wall, we see that                Charlotte sits next to Wills, munching a hotdog, her nose                buried in a book, utterly uninterested.               -- In Elysium's kitchen, Wills watches on as Charlotte,                wearing an apron over her clothes, prepares bisque under the                approving eye of the CHEF. She quickly and expertly pours a                cup of cream and a cup of broth into a large blender. Then                she dumps in lobster meat and adds some saffron. Just when                she, with a dramatic flourish, is about to hit the start                button, Wills INTERRUPTS and puts the lid on the blender.               -- One morning, Charlotte sits up in bed doing the Sunday                New York Times crossword puzzle. Olivia sits on the chair                next to the bed, chatting and laughing with her. Wills enters,                carrying a silver tray laden with breakfast. Olivia looks up                and gestures haughtily for him to set it down, as though he                were the housekeeper.               -- At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wills and Charlotte                wander amid the shadows of Egyptian ruins.               MUSIC OUT.               INT. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM LOBBY -- LATER               Flipping through a stack of postcards he has just purchased,                Wills waits for Charlotte to come out of the ladies room.               He idly glances up as a STREAM OF TOURISTS moves past. He is                about to look away when his eye catches someone.               It is Lisa, the young woman who spoke to Charlotte at the                benefit. Around her neck she wears a chain bearing a Met                employee photograph I.D. She carries a take-out coffee.               Wills FOLLOWS HER, agitated and curious.               He sees her pass through a set of glass doors into the Watson                Research Library.               He hurries over to the doors just in time to see her disappear                behind a bank of card catalogues.               Wills notices a sign at the door that forbids entry to the                public. He hesitates, then enters.               He speaks to the first person he sees -- a ROTUND FEMALE                LIBRARIAN IN HER 60'S. He stops and asks a question about                Lisa. She nods.               Wills is shaken by the answer. He stares into the middle                distance, wondering what to do, his mind racing.               The librarian, a little nervous now, reminds him that he is                not allowed in the library. He snaps to, thanks her, and                moves away.               But then he stops, takes out a BUSINESS CARD, and returns to                the librarian. He is about to hand it to her, but then he                thinks better of it.               Flustered, he thanks her again and exits. The librarian looks                after him, confused and a little apprehensive.               INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY -- SAME               Wills sees Charlotte at the end of the hall looking around                for him. When she spots him, her face brightens. She calls                out facetiously as she walks to him --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I thought I told you to wait right                          there!                                     WILLS                         I got restless.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Well, I hope you didn't talk to                          anybody!                                     WILLS                         Not a soul.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- NIGHT               Wills and Charlotte stand, disrobing in the near-total                darkness. They converse in whispers, between kisses --                                     CHARLOTTE                         You know what would scare me right                          now?                                     WILLS                         What?               Charlotte moves slowly through the darkness.                                     CHARLOTTE                         This.               She yanks a cord by the window. The BLIND OPENS and the room                is flooded with MOONLIGHT. The room is still dark, but she                is far more clearly visible.               Her dress is unbuttoned down the front. She walks back to                him and stops about five feet away.               She releases the last buttons on her dress, then slides it                off her shoulders to the floor. She wears only her underwear.                She crosses her arms over her breasts, and smiles --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Have I told you my latest motto?                                     WILLS                         No.                                     CHARLOTTE                         If it's scary, do it.                                     WILLS                         I'm not sure I like that motto.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I'm not sure that matters.               She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then slips off her                underwear. She drops her arms to her side.               She stands before him entirely naked.               Her self-consciousness is excruciating but she is determined                to endure it. Finally, she opens her eyes and smiles with a                hint of pride.               Wills' eyes widen as he takes her in. He crosses to her and                lays his hands on her hips. He kisses her neck.               As their breathing quickens, she begins to unbutton his shirt                and pull it free of his pants.               He takes hold of her hands, stopping her, and starts to ease                her toward the bed. She resists. Wills falters and she                realizes something.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh my God.                                     WILLS                         What?                                     CHARLOTTE                         You're scared, too.               From his expression, she knows she is right.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Your turn.               For the first time since we've met him, Wills is utterly at                a loss. But he sees that Charlotte has no intention of backing                down.               He begins to undress. His hands are uncertain as he untucks                his shirt and unbuckles his belt. When he is finished                undressing, he turns to face her, his arms at his side.               Although we cannot see him in the moonlight and shadows,                Charlotte can. She looks down at his naked body and studies                it. He stares back with shy wariness.               Then she breaks into a crooked grin --                                     CHARLOTTE                         What's the matter, old man? Can't                          afford a gym?                                     WILLS                         That's it!               Laughing, he grabs her wrists and throws her on the bed. She                dissolves into paroxysms of laughter.               INT. WILLS BEDROOM -- LATER               Wills and Charlotte make love. As their passion builds,                Charlotte is suddenly stabbed with a pain in her chest.               She grabs his back, her face twists. She holds her breath,                not wanting to reveal the incident to Wills. She closes her                eyes and exhales as the pain subsides.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- LATER               Wills and Charlotte lie in bed with the blinds open and the                city glimmering in the distance.               Charlotte's head rests on his chest. Eyes closed, he brushes                his hand along her face as though he were a blind man                committing every detail to memory.               Charlotte's voice, almost inaudible, drifts up through the                dark --                                     CHARLOTTE                         "Counting the beats,                          Counting the slow heart beats,                          The bleeding to death of time                          In slow heart beats,                          Wakeful they lie."               Wills, half-asleep, murmurs deeply --                                     WILLS                         So many words in that wonderful head                          of yours...                                     CHARLOTTE                         If I could give you anything in the                          whole world, that's what it would                          be.                                     WILLS                         Words?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Poetry.               They lie in silence.               EXT. CENTRAL PARK WEST -- LATE AFTERNOON               Dusk falls on the park. Charlotte, red-cheeked and happy,                carrying shopping bags, walks into a brisk autumn breeze.               She smiles at a BUNCH OF SCHOOL KIDS, dressed in HALLOWEEN                COSTUMES, being led on their trick or treating.               INT. ELYSIUM REAR OFFICE -- AFTERNOON               Wills sits at a desk, reading the newspaper. John, inspecting                a KING HENRY VIII COSTUME on a hanger, shouts into the                telephone --                                     JOHN                         Oh no, your boy made it! At ten                          minutes before close! All night I                          got a card announcing a halibut                          special, only I got no halibut! Now                          it's Sunday and I got three dozen                          cats lickin' their chops in the alley!                          Tony, I don't wanna hear it! I don't                          wanna hear it! I don't wanna -- MAN,                          GO TO HELL!               He slams down the phone. His face is beet red. Wills looks                up calmly from his paper --                                     WILLS                         Are you familiar with the phrase,                          "You can catch more flies with honey                          than with vinegar?"                                     JOHN                         Are you familiar with the phrase,                          "Mind your own god damn business?"                                     WILLS                         Sure, it's from Poor Richard's                          Almanac. But the last time I checked --                                     JOHN                         No, your business is to smile, make                          friends, and get rich! My business                          is the business.               John heads out, then stops abruptly and looks back. His tone                is suddenly calm and curious --                                     JOHN                         What're you doin' here, anyway? You                          got a girl. Go home. Carve a pumpkin.                                     WILLS                         We can't spend every waking moment                          together.               John looks at him strangely, with a hint of suspicion --                                     JOHN                         Why not?                              (pause)                         No, seriously. Why not?               Wills has no answer. John moves closer when Celia, his new                assistant, enters cheerily --                                     CELIA                         Special delivery!               She tosses him a paper bag; he catches it.                                     WILLS                         No trouble?                                     CELIA                         None.               Wills removes a PAIR OF RED PLASTIC HORNS. John shakes his                head with disbelief.                                     JOHN                         Every year. You got no imagination.                                     WILLS                         It's a classic. A little spirit gum                          and voila!               He holds the horns up to his forehead.                                     WILLS                         -- young women are rendered helpless.                                     CELIA                         It's true. I see a guy with horns                          growing out of his head and my knees                          go weak.                                     WILLS                         Of course -- it's biological.               They share a laugh. A flirtatious charge passes between them.                She blushes slightly and exits. John looks suspiciously at                Wills.                                     JOHN                         What's goin' on?                                     WILLS                         What do you mean?                                     JOHN                         At home.               Wills smiles at him as though he were insane --                                     WILLS                         Nothing. Honestly. We're having a                          lot of fun. We're very happy.               From the next scene, we hear Charlotte laughing --                                     CHARLOTTE'S VOICE                         Don't come in! Don't!               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- AFTERNOON               A fire burns in the fireplace. Still wearing his coat, wills                stands by the mantel, sorting through a stack of mail --                                     WILLS                         I'm not even tempted!                                     CHARLOTTE'S VOICE                              (from another room)                         I'll be right out!               Olivia enters with a steamy mug --                                     OLIVIA                         You like hot cider?                                     WILLS                         Sure, thanks.               She carefully takes his coat off him as he sips the cider --                                     WILLS                         Mmmm.                                     OLIVIA                         Charlotte made it. I just poured it                          in the cup.               She exits. As Wills sips the drink, he sits on the leather                sofa and continues to glance through his mail.               Suddenly, shocked, he stops on a letter. He sets his mug                down. He hears Charlotte making noise in the next room. He                opens the letter and begins to read.               His eyes dart down the page, but he quickly sees that the                letter is not friendly. His face shows disappointment.               He hears footsteps in the hall. He folds the letter up, slips                it back into its envelope, and jams it in his back pocket.               Charlotte enters and throws her hands out to her side --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Ta-da!               She stands before him, dressed in a WHITE SPINSTERLY VICTORIAN                OUTFIT with braids coiled at her ears. Wills smiles with                appreciation --                                     WILLS                         Incredible.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Don't I look just like her?                                     WILLS                         Absolutely incredible.               Pause.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You have no idea who I am.                                     WILLS                         Give me a hint.                                     CHARLOTTE                         "Hope is the thing with feathers                          that perches in the soul."                                     WILLS                         Was that the hint?                                     CHARLOTTE                         You dummy! Emily Dickinson! Only the                          greatest American female poet ever!               She hugs and kisses him --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uncultured swine.                                     WILLS                         The truth is out. I've lost you                          forever.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Wanna bet?               She lays her head on his chest, smiling contentedly. A subtle                shadow of apprehension passes over Wills' features. Eyes                closed, she asks --                                     CHARLOTTE                         When do I get to see your costume?               EXT. BROOKLYN BROWNSTONE -- ESTABLISHING -- NIGHT               A cardboard ghost hangs on the door. A Jack-o'-lantern grins                in the window. A HALLOWEEN PARTY is in full swing.               INT. BROOKLYN LIVING ROOM -- SAME               John's wife, Sarah, dressed as QUEEN ELIZABETH, walks through                the crowd, picking up empty glasses and bottles.               As she moves among COSTUMED GUESTS and their CHILDREN, we                notice a few of Elysium's customers and staff, including                Celia, dressed as GLINDA, talking to the maitre d', Jesus,                dressed as a COWBOY --                                     JESUS                         No, I think we make a great couple.                          A good witch and a bad hombre. That                          could make for some very interesting                          sex.               Celia laughs.               INT. BROOKLYN KITCHEN -- CONTINUOUS               Wills stands off to the side, wearing his devil's horns,                sipping a drink, watching an EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY bob for                apples, while other BOYS and GIRLS cheer him on.               John, wearing his king costume, supervises, as the boy, wildly                sputtering, struggles to bite into a renegade Granny Smith.                                     JOHN                         O, Ricky, chill out! You're gonna                          get snot in the water!               The boy laughs even harder. John facetiously grabs his collar --                                     JOHN                         That's it -- outta the pool!               The boy, choking with laughter, plunges his face into the                water again. Sarah enters and calls out over the din --                                     SARAH                         Where're the girls? I thought you                          were tucking them in!                                     JOHN                         We got a volunteer!               Sarah, smiling curiously, heads to the back stairwell.               She sees Wills standing there. Watching the kids, his eyes                are filled with the same sort of wistful yearning that she                noticed at the toy store --               She gives him an affectionate poke in the stomach as she                passes by and disappears upstairs.               Finally, the boy grabs the apple in his teeth and lifts his                soaked head to the cheers of his friends.               Then he grabs it out of his mouth and begins taking big bites                out of it until he uncovers a SILVER DOLLAR.               Wills laughs at the kids' excitement. A moment later a WOMAN'S                GLOVED HANDS cover his eyes.                                     WOMAN                         Guess who?               Wills feels her LONG GLOVES.                                     WILLS                         Wonder Woman?                                     WOMAN                         No.                                     WILLS                         Batgirl?                                     WOMAN                         I'll give you a hint. You dumped me.                                     WILLS                         Princess Di?               She laughs and playfully strangles him.                                     WILLS                         Wendy?               He turns and sees that it's the woman from the film's opening,                dressed as HOLLY GOLIGHTLY.                                     WILLS                         Yup, I'd know that throttle anywhere!               INT. BROOKLYN SECOND-FLOOR HALLWAY -- SAME               Sarah stops silently at an AJAR DOOR and looks inside.                Charlotte sits on a bed between the twin girls who are nestled                up against her --                                     MOLLY                         Just one more.                                     CARLA                         Please?                                     CHARLOTTE                         All right, but this is the last last                          one!               She clears her throat and settles herself. The twins listen                with rapt attention as she recites from memory, slowly as                though it were a suspenseful bedtime story --                                     CHARLOTTE                         "Because I could not stop for Death,                          He kindly stopped for me;                          The carriage held but just ourselves                          And Immortality.                          We slowly drove, he knew no haste,                          And I had put away                          My labor, and my leisure too,                          For his civility."               Charlotte looks up and sees Sarah, who face is beaming with                affection. They share a smile and Charlotte keeps reciting --                                     CHARLOTTE                         "We passed the school where children                          played                          At wrestling in a ring;                          We passed the fields of grazing grain,                          We passed the setting sun."               Sarah eases the door shut and steps away.               INT. BROOKLYN LIVING ROOM -- HOUR LATER               THE CAMERA makes a CIRCUIT of the THINNING CROWD. Sarah blows                out candles, dumps ash trays, and collects empties.               Charlotte, rubbing a knuckle into her sleepy eye, descends                the stairs. She sees Celia talking to Jesus, and walks over                to them --                                     CELIA                         Sweet dreams?                                     CHARLOTTE                         I had no idea I was so tired.                                     SARAH                              (from across the room)                         They're down?                                     CHARLOTTE                         And out.                              (looking around)                         Where's Lucifer?                                     JESUS                              (jokingly)                         Last time I saw him, he was in the                          kitchen going pretty heavily with                          Holly Golightly.                                     CELIA                         Hey, no gossip! Holly's a valued                          customer.               Charlotte pretends to be fighting mad --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Lemme at 'er!                                     JESUS                         Hell hath no fury like a recluse                          scorned.               Charlotte laughs and heads to the kitchen.               INT. BROOKLYN KITCHEN -- SAME               John wipes down the table which is littered with bits of                apple.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey, shouldn't one of your minions                          be doing that?                                     JOHN                         You know, in my day, you bobbed for                          the apple, and, sure, maybe there                          was a nickel inside it and that was                          sweet -- but you ate the god damn                          apple! These little animals grab the                          coin and they're out the door!                                     CHARLOTTE                         -- off to buy crack!                                     JOHN                         Exactly my point.               They share a laugh.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Seen Beelzebub around?                                     JOHN                         The Prince of Darkness?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh.                                     JOHN                         Yeah, he went upstairs.               Charlotte is puzzled.               INT. BROOKLYN SECOND-FLOOR HALLWAY -- LATER               Charlotte walks down the hall, opening doors and glancing                inside. She opens a bathroom and THREE CATS dash out.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Shit.               She gets to the end of the hall and is about to give up.                When she hears FOOTSTEPS.               She walks around the corner and sees a NARROW STAIRCASE                leading to the third floor.               At the dark at the top of the stairs Wills and Wendy appear.                Charlotte smiles --                                     CHARLOTTE                         You lost your horns.                                     WILLS                         Hey, looking for me?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-huh.                                     WILLS                         We were checking out the roof. John's                          got quite a set-up.               They arrive at the bottom of the stairs.                                     WILLS                         Wendy, this is Charlotte Fielding.                          Charlotte -- my friend Wendy Lister.               They smile and shake hands. Charlotte looks at them both                carefully for any sign of uneasiness. There is none.                                     WENDY                         Actually, I saw you at that memorial                          service in Connecticut. Your eulogy                          was beautiful.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Thank you.                                     WENDY                              (re: her outfit)                         Betsy Ross, right?                                     CHARLOTTE                         You guessed it.               Wills smiles and rubs his hands together --                                     WILLS                         Is the party over?               EXT. BROOKLYN BRIDGE -- NIGHT               A TOWN CAR speeds toward Manhattan.               INT. TOWN CAR -- SAME               Wills and Charlotte stare straight ahead, each lost in                thought. The lights of the city illuminate their faces in                eerie flashes.               Finally, Wills glances over and smiles --                                     WILLS                         I have a strange feeling that you're                          upset with me.                                     CHARLOTTE                         No, I was just wondering if you had                          sex with that woman.                                     WILLS                         Ever?                                     CHARLOTTE                         No, the answer to that's pretty                          obvious. I meant tonight. On the                          roof.               Wills breaks into a grin --                                     WILLS                         You're not serious.               Wills laughs to himself, then glances up and sees the                reflection of the driver's amused eyes in the rearview mirror.                Wills smiles back at Charlotte --                                     WILLS                         Of course not. Why would I want to                          do something like that?                                     CHARLOTTE                         That's what I was wondering. I                          thought, "We're so happy he'd have                          no reason to do it. And if he did do                          it, he'd at least look guilty,                          wouldn't he? But he doesn't. He looks                          more relaxed than before the party                          started."                                     WILLS                         Well, there you have it.                                     CHARLOTTE                         But then I thought, "He's a womanizer --                          that's what they say." Funny word,                          huh? Sounds like some sorta machine.                          "And how do you get to be a womanizer?                          Obviously by sleeping with lots of                          different women for no good reason                          and being really good at lying about                          it."                                     WILLS                         Sure, except that --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Let me finish.               Again, Wills looks up at the driver's eyes in the mirror.                They seem more serious now.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Anyway, there's something about being                          sick right here --               She touches her own chest. Her voice trembles slightly --                                     CHARLOTTE                         -- that has made me acutely aware of                          my heart. Nothing corny -- I mean,                          literally... I feel every beat. I                          know how sensitive it is. It reacts                          to everything.               She turns in her seat and lifts an OPEN PALM.                                     CHARLOTTE                         If you're lying to me, I'll know it.                              (beat)                         Did you have sex with Wendy on the                          roof?               He smiles at her as though he were indulging a child. She                looks him deeply in the eye and opens a button of his shirt.               She slips her palm inside, over his heart.               Still smiling, he doesn't move a muscle.               Their eyes are locked.               Ever so slowly, her face crumples and tears appear in her                eyes. She shakes her head --                                     CHARLOTTE                         My God... oh my God.               She slides away from him, drops her face into her hands, and                begins to cry. Wills looks down, then glances up at the                rearview mirror.               Illuminated in flashes, the driver's eyes have taken on an                ominous, unblinking quality as though they were the outward                embodiment of his own conscience.               Wills looks out the window. When he finally speaks, his voice                is calm and a little cold --                                     WILLS                         Look, I never pretended to be anything                          other than --                                     CHARLOTTE                              (a piteous cry)                         You hate yourself so much!               Wills is stunned. He looks out the window, speechless, his                eyes small and frightened.               EXT. CHARLOTTE'S BROWNSTONE -- NIGHT               The town car is stopped at the curb, motor running, lights                on.               INT. TOWN CAR -- SAME               Charlotte and Wills sit in silence --                                     WILLS                         This was all a mistake. Right from                          the start. All of it. I'm a grown                          man and you're a child.                              (beat)                         Anyway, you have better things to do                          with your last -- With your time                          than spend it with me.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (distantly)                         What about you? Do you have anything                          better?               Wills has no answer. Charlotte slowly gets out of the car.                She leans back in, her eyes narrow with disdain --                                     CHARLOTTE                         You know, maybe you're right. Maybe                          this is the best time to end it.                          Because I was actually starting to                          love you, Wills, and that's the last                          thing I ever wanted.               She shuts the door.               INT. BROWNSTONE FOYER -- NIGHT               As Charlotte enters, we hear Wills' cab pull away. She moves                to the stairs and sees a LIGHT shining beneath the living                room door.               INT. BROWNSTONE LIVING ROOM -- SAME               Dolores sits watching an old movie, her eyes dulled by a                cataract of boozy fatigue. The door opens. She looks up and                sees Charlotte in costume.                                     DOLLY                         Well, if it ain't the Belle of                          Amherst.               Charlotte smiles feebly and plops down on the cracked leather                ottoman. She looks blankly at the TV. She sniffles and wipes                a hand across her nose. Dolores glances over, then back at                the set.                                     DOLLY                         Seen that face before.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You have?                                     DOLLY                         And for the same god damn reason.               Charlotte is confused, but then puts it together --                                     CHARLOTTE                         But you said Wills and my Mom were                          just friends.                                     DOLLY                         Sure, but she was nuts about him.                          The only reason she didn't sleep                          with him is 'cause she was                          sentimental. And smart. She wanted a                          ring first.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why didn't he give her one?                                     DOLLY                         'Cause he knocked up little Millie                          Tyler instead. In Newport. At Bailey's                          Beach. During the Labor Day clam                          bake.               She chuckles grimly, coughs, and sips her drink.                                     DOLLY                         Millie was your mom's best friend                          from Nightingale. You had to hand it                          to him. He sure knew how to make a                          point.               She coughs again. Charlotte struggles to make sense of it                all.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why did he do that?                                     DOLLY                         Aw, who the hell knows? 'Cause the                          moon was full. 'Cause life's short.                          'Cause he's Wills Keane. I'll tell                          you a little secret -- after that,                          your Mom hated his guts, but your                          dad never made her smile like he                          did.                              (pause)                         'Course your dad never made her cry                          like that either.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (softly)                         Why didn't you tell me any of this                          before?                                     DOLLY                         Oh, I dunno...                                     CHARLOTTE                         You never talk to me! You never try                          to help me!               Dolores' eyes grow nervous. She swallows hard.                                     DOLLY                         Christ, look at me. I'm gonna tell                          you what to do?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Yes! You're my family. You're supposed                          to take care of me.                                     DOLLY                         Aw, you wouldn't listen. That's the                          thing about people -- they just do                          what they want from the day they're                          born till the day they die.               She realizes her poor choice of words. She looks over and                their eyes collide. Charlotte begins to cry --                                     CHARLOTTE                         No, that's you, Dolly! People who                          have given up don't listen to other                          people! People who want to die close                          off! That's not me! I wanted your                          help! I wanted to learn!               Charlotte drops her head dejectedly.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Anything... anything you would ever                          have told me, I would have listened                          to! I promise.                                     DOLLY                              (fighting tears)                         Aw, come on, honey. I can throw a                          party and I can mix a gimlet. After                          that, what the fuck do I know?               She rises, gives Charlotte a nervous, awkward pat on the                shoulder, then crosses over to the bar.               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT               Wills stands in the center of the room, looking around                blankly. He disappears into the bedroom.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- CONTINUOUS               Wills enters and sees some of Charlotte's clothes folded                neatly on the bed. A LITERARY ANTHOLOGY lies open, showing a                DRAWING OF EMILY DICKINSON.               He grabs the clothes and the book and puts them in a SHOPPING                BAG that she has left on the floor.               Then he walks into the bathroom. We see him gathering BEAUTY                PRODUCTS off the sink. He walks back in and sets them into                the shopping bag.               He looks around and spots a nearly completed crossword puzzle                sitting folded on the dresser. He drops that in the shopping                bag, too, then sets it by the door.               He feels a draft and spots an OPEN WINDOW. As he crosses to                it, he notices something on his pillow. A blank ENVELOPE. He                picks it up and rips it open.               It's a HALLOWEEN CARD of a grinning JACK-O-LANTERN. He opens                it and inside is handwritten:               The scariest night of the year and only one thing haunts me:                that we might never have met.               All my love,                XXX Charlotte.               Wills lowers the card and heaves a deep breath. His jaw tight,                he walks over and drops the card into the shopping bag.               INT. BROWNSTONE FOYER -- SAME               Charlotte emerges from the living room and shuts the door                behind her. She climbs the stairs to her solitary bedroom.                                                             FADE TO BLACK:               FADE IN:               EXT. UPPER EAST SIDE -- NIGHT               From amid the RUSH OF TRAFFIC, a TAXI CAB breaks free and                glides to the curb in front of Elysium.               Wills emerges with PATTY, 35, bosomy, bright-eyed, pitched a                little too loudly. Wills seems stiff and tentative, a shadow                of his former self.               INT. ELYSIUM -- CONTINUOUS               AN ELDERLY COUPLE passes them as they enter. Wills stops at                the coat check and helps Patty with her coat. She admires                the decor --                                     PATTY                         Oh, Wills, it's beautiful!               Although his spirits are low, he is effortlessly cordial --                                     WILLS                         Thank you. It was designed by a team                          from --                                     PATTY                         So functional! Is that stainless                          steel?                                     WILLS                         Actually, no, it's velvet.               She furrows her brow, squints, then laughs.                                     PATTY                         Oh, my God, it is!               Wills hands Patty's coat to Melissa, the hat check girl, and                asks under his breath --                                     WILLS                         How are you?               Looking at Patty, Melissa asks with deep sympathy --                                     MELISSA                         How are you, sir?               Before Wills can respond, Patty takes his arm --                                     PATTY                         Well, if the food's even half as                          good as the moldings I'm in for a                          very special treat.               Jesus is surprised to see that Wills is not with Charlotte --                                     JESUS                         Uhhh, good evening, Mr. Keane. Will                          you be dining with us?                                     WILLS                         Yes, Jesus. Table seven, if it's                          available.                                     JESUS                         Certainly, sir.               Celia approaches, equally surprised not to see Charlotte --                                     WILLS                         Hello, Celia.                                     CELIA                              (sincerely)                         How are you this evening, sir?                                     WILLS                         I've been worse.                                     CELIA                              (under her breath)                         Are you sure?               The NEW HOSTESS, Celia's replacement, arrives.                                     JESUS                         Table Seven.                                     NEW HOSTESS                         This way, please.                                     WILLS                              (to Patty)                         Order a drink. I'll be right with                          you.               Patty follows Celia. Wills moves to the reservation stand                where John stands, stone-faced, flipping through the                reservation book --                                     JOHN                         Where the hell you been?                                     WILLS                         Splendid, how are you?                                     JOHN                         Where's Charlotte?                                     WILLS                         Deliveries on time?                                     JOHN                         Who's the broad? She looks like a                          Holiday-Inn hooker from Ohio.                                     WILLS                         Keep up the good work!               Wills walks away.               INT. DOWNTOWN BAR -- NIGHT               Dark, smoky, and boisterous. FIND CHARLOTTE, standing with                Simon. She looks around disgustedly and shouts above the                roar --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Okay, I'm chugging Scotch, gagging                          on smoke, and losing my hearing! Now                          why is this so good for me again?!                                     SIMON                         That's just it! The great spiritual                          benefit in leaving one's room is                          that it reminds one of how odious it                          is to leave one's room!               ACROSS THE ROOM               FOLLOW SHANNON, coming out of the ladies' room. She makes                her way through the crowd--                                     SHANNON                         Excuse me! Excuse me! Sorry! Excuse                          me!                                     BOY'S VOICE                         No problem!               She looks up and can't believe her eyes.               BACK TO CHARLOTTE AND SIMON               Simon, shouting above the music, speaks with difficulty --                                     SIMON                         There's one thing you don't know                          about Mr. Keane and his adultery and                          as painful as it is I feel that I                          should tell you!                                     CHARLOTTE                              (alarmed)                         What? What is it!                                     SIMON                         That woman on the roof? That was no                          ex-girlfriend! In fact, no woman at                          all. It was I, Simon Loring, master                          of disguise! Willsy and I have moved                          in together!               Charlotte laughs and slaps him. Shannon approaches hauling                by the hand ERIC BALES, 24, small, beautiful, long-haired,                glasses.                                     SHANNON                         Look what I found!               Charlotte can't believe it either --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Eric! Wow!                                     ERIC                         Hey, Char!               They hug and kiss with some slight awkwardness, then shout                above the music --                                     CHARLOTTE                         God, long time no see! One night we                          show up to rent Eraserhead and you're                          just gone!                                     ERIC                         Sorry about that!                                     SHANNON                         It was such a drag! You know, having                          to actually start paying to rent                          movies!                                     ERIC                         I bet!                                     CHARLOTTE                         What's up? Ralph said you moved to                          Rockland County!                                     ERIC                         Yeah, I got a job working for my                          mom's new boyfriend!                                     CHARLOTTE                         What does he do?                                     ERIC                         He sells pot!                                     SHANNON                         Cool!                                     ERIC                         Not really. I was a driver! I got                          laid off when he got busted. He's                          awaiting trial!                                     CHARLOTTE                         So what're you doing now?                                     ERIC                         Same thing pretty much. Only for                          Domino's!               Charlotte laughs.                                     SHANNON                         Whoa, I don't believe it!                              (to Eric)                         She hasn't laughed in like a week!               Eric smiles quizzically at Charlotte, wondering why.               INT. ELYSIUM -- NIGHT               Wills sits listening to Patty talk --                                     PATTY                         -- so everybody on the conference                          call starts introducing themselves.                          Ned Lewey, Paris Office. Takashi                          Matsuo, Tokyo Office. Whoever, the                          London Office. And then someone says,                          "Will the architect from the New                          York office please identify himself."                          And I pipe up and say, "Well, guys,                          I'm not a him or an architect. I'm                          Patty Strauss and I'm head of East                          Coast marketing." And there's like                          total silence. It was hysterical!               Wills smiles feebly. He looks away and sees John holding the                TELEPHONE, urgently signaling to him. Alarmed, Wills jumps                up --                                     WILLS                         I'm sorry, would you excuse me?                                     PATTY                         Of course.               AT THE RESERVATION STAND               Wills, fearing the worst, hurries to John --                                     WILLS                         Who is it?                                     JOHN                         Nobody!               John slams down the phone, grabs him by the arm, hauls him                through the reception area and out the door. Patty watches,                confused.               EXT. ELYSIUM -- CONTINUOUS               John walks quickly down the block, still hauling Wills --                                     JOHN                         Last time I checked I was your best                          friend!                                     WILLS                         So?                                     JOHN                         So after the party, no thank you! I                          call you three times -- no call back!                          And for six days you don't even eat                          at your own god damn restaurant!                          What am I supposed to think? Huh?! I                          was ready to call the morgue!                                     WILLS                         Relax, I'm alive.                                     JOHN                         Well, you sure don't look it!               EXT. ANOTHER BLOCK -- MINUTE LATER               John walks as quickly as he can with Wills struggling to                keep up --                                     JOHN                         I'll tell you why it's my concern!                          Because I had a god damn swimming                          pool! An ocean view! A fabulous lemon                          tree hangin' right over my Jacuzzi!                          And I gave it up for you, brother!                          Back to a life of concrete and dirt                          and sirens just so you could get                          your shit together!               EXT. ANOTHER BLOCK -- MINUTES LATER               John, walking a little more slowly now, cannot believe his                ears --                                     JOHN                         On my roof? You gotta be kiddin'!                          Not on my green chair! Tell me it                          wasn't on the green chair.               Wills winces.                                     JOHN                         Oh, great. Now how am I gonna clean                          that?               EXT. ANOTHER BLOCK -- MINUTE LATER               John walks slowly now, backward, listening to an anxious                Wills --                                     WILLS                         Look, it doesn't matter that she's                          sick -- she's still a kid and there's                          no way we should be together. It's                          unhealthy... it's... it's                          inappropriate...                                     JOHN                              (with disgust)                         What the hell is that? Some sorta                          shrink talk?                                     WILLS                         Look, if she were just fun... just                          some sort of diversion... maybe I                          could justify it. But the worst part                          is that it's becoming more. Much                          more. It's embarrassing how much I                          like her. She gets to me. She affects                          me...               He stops and leans back against a building. He looks around,                avoiding eye contact with John, as tears rise into his eyes.                                     WILLS                         And she's gonna be gone and... I'm                          not sure I can... I mean... I already                          think about her all the time...                              (fighting tears)                         Her smile kills me... and the                          thought... that it'll be gone...                          forever... that I'll never see her                          again... I don't know... I can't --                          I don't think I'm that strong, Johnny.                          It's too much. I'd rather have it be                          over... over now. I'll start missing                          her now.               Wills is still unable to look at him. John speaks softly --                                     JOHN                         Buddy, I hate to break it to you,                          but in the real world... where I                          live... there're only two kindsa                          love stories. Boy loses girl and                          girl loses boy. That's all there is.                          Somebody always gets left behind.                          You try to avoid that, you'll end up                          an old man toastin' yourself with                          egg nog in the mirror on Christmas                          Eve. You'll end up dying in your own                          arms.               Wills lifts his frightened eyes. John pats him on the cheek.               EXT. HIGH-RISE APARTMENT BUILDING -- NIGHT               Wills stands with Patty in the driveway in front of the glass                lobby. He is distracted and terribly anxious. She looks as                though she expects, at the very least, a kiss --                                     PATTY                         Thank you so much. I had such a great                          time.                                     WILLS                         Good. I'm... I'm glad.                                     PATTY                         Didn't you?                                     WILLS                         Patty, I... I want to be honest with                          you... right now, from the start...                          so there's no room for                          misunderstanding. I didn't have a                          good time, but it's nothing personal.                          I just split up with someone and                          rather than admit to myself how much                          I miss her, I asked you out instead.                          And it's unfair. If I feel sad I                          should just feel sad and not try to                          use you... and your body... as some                          sort of painkiller, right?                              (beat)                         Anyway, I think you're a warm and                          engaging woman and I wish you all                          the best.               Relieved to have unburdened himself of the truth, he shakes                her hand. Patty, utterly baffled, doesn't know what hit her.               EXT. WILLS' BUILDING -- LATER               The doorman Michael, smoking a cigarette, sees Wills walk                up, his expression pensive.                                     MICHAEL                         Mr. Keane --                                     WILLS                         Good night, Michael.                                     MICHAEL                         You've got a visitor.               Wills stops and turns --                                     WILLS                         Who?                                     MICHAEL                         She's been waitin' almost an hour.                          In the lobby.                              (off Wills' look)                         A little surprise for ya.               He winks. Wills realizes that it's Charlotte. It must be. He                smiles and hurries inside.               INT. WILLS' LOBBY -- CONTINUOUS               Wills bursts in and freezes. A WOMAN stands across the way,                studying an oil painting. She turns quickly. It's LISA. She                sees his excited expression fall. Beneath her rather composed                facade, Lisa is a chaos of conflicting emotions --                                     LISA                         Sorry to disappoint you.                                     WILLS                         No, no. Not at all. You surprised                          me, that's all. I didn't expect to                          see you... not here... not after                          your letter.                                     LISA                         Well, I didn't expect you to show up                          at my job.                                     WILLS                         I followed you in. I wasn't even                          sure it was you. All I have is an                          old snapshot.                                     LISA                         My boss thought you were a stalker.                                     WILLS                         I didn't mean to run off like that.                                     LISA                         But you did.               An awkward silence.                                     LISA                         So you got my letter. What'd you do?                          Freak out? Burn it?                                     WILLS                         I saved it.                                     LISA                         I was just blowing off some steam,                          okay? I think I have the right.                                     WILLS                         So do I. Look, why don't we go                          upstairs.                                     LISA                              (uneasily)                         No. I didn't plan to come. Peter...                          my husband... he agrees. He thinks                          it's a futile exercise. But it turns                          out I'm pregnant. Just a few months,                          but --                                     WILLS                         Lisa -- Congratulations. That's                          wonderful.               His sincerity stops her. She softens slightly, mustering a                tiny smile --                                     LISA                         Thanks. Anyway, I guess it made me                          want to meet you. I've been a little                          sentimental about parent-hood.                                     WILLS                         Is that what you consider me?                                     LISA                         In a lousy absentee sorta way, sure.               Pause.                                     WILLS                         How's your mom?                                     LISA                         Great. Nuts. She moved to Costa Rica                          last summer.                                     WILLS                         Why?                                     LISA                         A guy, what else? He owns a charter                          airline and wears sunglasses indoors.                          I think he might be a gunrunner.               Wills chuckles. For the first time, Lisa relaxes enough to                take him in.                                     LISA                         You know, you're much better looking                          in person than in photographs. I                          always assumed Mom was exaggerating,                          but she wasn't.                                     WILLS                         Thanks. You're not bad looking                          yourself.               Lisa smiles, and, much to her embarrassment, tears come to                her eyes. She shakes her head at how absurd she is, treasuring                kind words from a father she doesn't know.                                     LISA                         Anyway... I should go...                                     WILLS                         Already?                                     LISA                         I really just wanted to meet you                          and... maybe... I don't know...                                     WILLS                              (gently)                         What is it? Tell me.               She sniffles and looks away --                                     LISA                         Nothing earth-shattering. Maybe just                          to hear you say you were sorry.               Silence.                                     WILLS                         I am. I'm very sorry.               She stares at him long and hard, waiting for some more                palpable sign of remorse. It isn't forthcoming. Finally, she                nods.                                     LISA                         Okay. Thanks.               She turns and walks away. His voice stops her --                                     WILLS                         Can I call you?               She turns around, hesitates for a moment, then nods. She                continues to the door. But then she stops and turns --                                     LISA                         Before... when you came in... who                          did you think I was?                                     WILLS                         A friend.                                     LISA                         You must like her an awful lot.               She smiles simply and heads for the door. When she is gone,                Wells slowly walks back toward the elevators, but then                abruptly stops in his tracks, deliberating...               EXT. VILLAGE -- DAWN               THE CAMERA CRANES DOWN SLOWLY from a view of the sun rising                in the EASTERN SKY to a TAXI gliding over to the curb in                front of...               CHARLOTTE'S BROWNSTONE -- DAWN               Charlotte, looking tired and a little pale, pays the driver                and emerges from the taxi. She makes her way up the steps.               INT. BROWNSTONE -- CONTINUOUS               Looking down from the second-floor landing, we see Charlotte                enter and walk up the stairs toward us.               As she reaches the landing, she feels a STABBING PAIN IN HER                CHEST and stops walking. Wincing, she waits for the pain to                subside.               INT. CHARLOTTE'S BEDROOM -- CONTINUOUS               Charlotte enters wearily, drops her purse on the floor, then                turns and GASPS.               Wills lies sprawled in an armchair fully dressed, sound                asleep.               Charlotte is offended by the intrusion. She hurries over to                awaken him. But then she stops. Her face softens slightly.               She studies his face... touches his cheek with the back of                her hand... traces the lines at his eyes with a fingertip..                smooths back a wisp of hair.               Finally, snapping to, steeling herself, she jostles him --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey.               Wills wakes with a violent start. When he sees her, he drops                his head back. He closes his eyes again and murmurs sleepily --                                     WILLS                         Where were you? I was worried.                                     CHARLOTTE                         So worried you fell asleep. What're                          you doing here?                                     WILLS                         I've missed you. You have no idea                          how much.               She crosses coldly to her closet and, half-shutting the door,                blocking his view, starts to undress.                                     CHARLOTTE                         How'd you get in?               He sits up, rubbing his eyes in the morning light.                                     WILLS                         Dolly. We watched TV. She fell asleep.                          What time is it?                                     CHARLOTTE                         I didn't know I had a curfew.                                     WILLS                         Where were you?                                     CHARLOTTE                         None of your business. So what is                          it? What do you want?               Wills sits forward, more alert now. He exhales heavily and                begins:                                     WILLS                         To tell you that you were right. I                          do hate myself. But not so much that                          I can't see how stupid and despicable                          and --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Cowardly.                                     WILLS                         And cowardly what I did was. And                          even though there's no excuse for                          it, I want you to forgive me.               She turns and looks at him. She feels herself relenting. She                turns away and continues undressing --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why should I?                                     WILLS                         Because, for better or worse, I'm                          falling in love with you, and the                          thought of our not being together is                          unbearable to me.               She stops, then glances at him with a flash of pain and                longing. Determined not to surrender to her feelings, she                crosses to the bed and throws open the covers.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Let's sleep.               She crawls into bed.                                     CHARLOTTE                         In the morning, we'll talk about                          what a gigantic asshole you are.               Wills, relieved, crosses to the bed and begins to undress.                He asks casually --                                     WILLS                         So where were you?                                     CHARLOTTE                         With Shannon and Simon and Eric.                                     WILLS                         Who's Eric?                                     CHARLOTTE                         An old friend who used to work at                          Blockbuster.                                     WILLS                         What'd you guys do?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Talked and drank. Simon and Shannon                          finally went home. Eric and I hung                          out.               Thinking nothing of it, Wills nods. He slips into bed. Her                back is to him. He drapes an arm around her and pulls her a                little closer.               He smiles contentedly and closes his eyes. But then something                occurs to him. He opens his eyes --                                     WILLS                         Hung out where?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Stop. We'll talk about it tomorrow.                                     WILLS                         Fine.               He closes his eyes again. A few beats later, they open.                                     WILLS                         Talk about what? Is there something                          to talk about? What happened?               Charlotte, eyes still closed, breaks into a sly, amused smile.               EXT. CENTRAL PARK WEST -- DAY               Wills and Charlotte, collars turned up against the brisk                wind, walk together. Charlotte wears a backpack. Wills tries                desperately to appear casual --                                     WILLS                         No, honestly, I think I have a right                          to know.                                     CHARLOTTE                         And I honestly think I have a right                          not to tell you.                                     WILLS                         You're being unreasonable.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You're being nosy.               EXT. CENTRAL PARK -- DAY               They move down a winding walkway beneath barren trees --                                     WILLS                         You know, in this day and age it's                          not so outrageous a request. I mean,                          I don't know this kid. I don't know                          where he's been.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (laughing incredulously)                         You're worried about where he's been?                          Give me a break!               EXT. WOLLMAN RINK -- DAY               Wills watches as Charlotte laces up her figure skates --                                     WILLS                         It requires balance and I have lousy                          balance, okay?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh, come on, what's the worst that                          can happen?                              (beat)                         Well, I guess you could break a hip.                                     WILLS                         Look, I'm not in a sporting mood!                                     CHARLOTTE                         How come?                                     WILLS                         I'm jealous, okay?! Is that what you                          want to hear? Are you satisfied now?               She burst out laughing --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Not even close!               EXT. WOLLMAN RINK -- DAY               Wills paces the bleachers, furious, while Charlotte skates                nearby --                                     WILLS                         All I want is a simple answer and                          you're torturing me! And I resent                          it! It's cruel and juvenile! And I --                                     CHARLOTTE                              (exploding)                         HEY!               Her anger startles him. She skates over quickly and skids to                an abrupt stop --                                     CHARLOTTE                         It's not! It's adult! It's revenge!                          And if you think it's bad not knowing                          what I did -- well, it's even worse                          knowing exactly what you did!               She turns and skates away.               EXT. WOLLMAN RINK -- AFTERNOON               Wills sits on the bleachers, miserably brooding, while                Charlotte gracefully glides by, laughing and chatting with                THREE YOUNG MALE SKATERS whom she's just met.               EXT. CENTRAL PARK -- NIGHTFALL               They walk together in silence. Wills is sullen. Finally,                Charlotte takes his hand and speaks gently but firmly --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Do me a favor, okay? Never ask me                          again what happened with Eric. Just                          accept the fact that you'll never,                          ever know. And if that hurts, then                          think about it next time you want to                          cheat on somebody.               Wills reflects.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- NIGHT               Charlotte and Wills are little more than silhouettes, lying                entwined in the rich darkness, conversing in whispers:                                     WILLS                         I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm                          not. I slept with every one of them.                          Really. Look through Dolly's old                          photo albums... or any movie                          magazine... visit Aspen at Christmas.                          I was on a mission. And until recently                          I really didn't think I had a problem.                          Or if I did, it was definitely the                          most pleasurable one I could imagine.                                     CHARLOTTE                         What changed?                                     WILLS                         My house in Malibu burned to the                          ground.               Charlotte laughs. Wills smiles with sad irony.                                     WILLS                         I know, it sounds funny. But it must                          have triggered something because the                          next thing I knew I couldn't sleep.                          I'd lie awake at night absolutely                          terrified. Like a kid left alone in                          the dark.                                     CHARLOTTE                         What were you scared of?                                     WILLS                         How quickly time was passing and how                          adolescent I still felt. How                          meaningless all my choices seemed.                          How lonely I was. So I liquidated my                          portfolio, sold my businesses, and                          moved back here. To start over, settle                          down, start acting my age.                              (beat)                         You were supposed to be my one last                          dalliance with youth.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Well, for your sake, I hope I am.               He thinks for a moment, then smiles, and kisses her brow.               INT. MACDONALD'S -- DAY               Wills sits with John, Sarah, and the twins at a plastic table                overrun with food, wrappers, and squashed condiment tubes.                Sarah speaks to Wills --                                     SARAH                         Judge you? Why would I? Screw the                          age difference -- I like the new                          you! Before Charlotte came along, do                          you have any idea how hard it was to                          get you to sit down for a Happy Meal?               Wills and John laugh. Molly, one of the twins, chimes in --                                     MOLLY                         Uncle Wills, how come you don't get                          married?                                     JOHN                         Yeah, how come, Uncle Wills?                                     WILLS                         I want to, Carla, but --                                     MOLLY                         I'm not Carla! I'm Molly!                                     WILLS                         Well, Molly, I just haven't met the                          right woman yet.                                     CARLA                         What about Charlotte? She's funny-                         pretty.                                     SARAH                              (aside to Wills)                         It means funny and pretty. It's their                          highest compliment.                                     WILLS                         I agree.                              (rising from the table)                         She's also demanding.                                     JOHN                         Where're you goin'?                                     WILLS                         She's decided she wants her birthday                          present today.               Wills gives both of the little girls hugs and kisses.                                     JOHN                         But that was last month.                                     WILLS                         The Dom didn't count. This is her                          real present. She chose it herself                          and it's not material.                                     JOHN                         Now you got me curious.                                     SARAH                         Yeah, what is it?               Wills shakes his head and smiles, reluctant to answer.               From the next scene we hear the sound of TWO DOZEN PEOPLE                BREATHING FURIOUSLY.               INT. STUDIO -- AFTERNOON               On a slightly elevated stage, HARI SINGH, 35, an American                Sikh wearing a white robe and turban, sits in the lotus                position before a lighted candle, softly instructing the                crowded class --                                     HARI                         Okay... breath of fire... now inhale                          deeply... hold the breath... let                          your heart lotus blossom... feel the                          energy rise... and exhale. Good. Now                          peacock pose.               Hari rolls forward, digs his elbows into his midsection, and                pops up so that he is parallel to the floor with his legs                still crossed.               ANGLE ON THE CLASS, all moving into the pose. In the center                of the class are Wills and Charlotte, wearing sweats. His                arms shaking, Wills is clearly in pain. He mutters --                                     WILLS                         When does the enlightenment start?                                     CHARLOTTE                         When you realize that I'm God.               Wills laughs. A moment later, Charlotte winces and falls out                of the pose onto the mat. Hari looks over, confused --                                     HARI                         Are you all right?               Charlotte sits up quickly, smiling --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Yeah. No big deal. Cramp in the old                          fifth shakra!               She glances over at Wills. He sees that she's scared to death.                He helps her to her feet, speaking softly in her ear --                                     WILLS                         Don't worry. You're gonna be okay.               She nods. They move toward the door. But after a few steps,                her eyes flutter, her body goes limp, and she slams down on                the mat, UNCONSCIOUS.               INT. SPEEDING AMBULANCE -- AFTERNOON               Charlotte lies on a stretcher near Wills and a PARAMEDIC --                                     CHARLOTTE                         It's no big deal. I just                          hyperventilated. Really.               But then she gasps as she's hit by a stab of pain. Wills                throws a grave look at the medic and squeezes her hand more                tightly.               EXT. ST. VINCENT'S HOSPITAL -- ESTABLISHING -- NIGHT               The building is brightly illuminated against the night sky.               INT. ST. VINCENT'S WAITING ROOM -- NIGHT               Wills sits, anxiously struggling with a half-finished                crossword puzzle. He hears the click of a lighter. A GRUBBY                LITTLE MAN standing by the coffee machine lights a generic                cigarette.                                     WILLS                         Excuse me... do you have an extra                          one of those?                                     LITTLE MAN                              (eyes narrowing)                         You a smoker?                                     WILLS                         Not for years.                                     LITTLE MAN                         Well, hell, if I'm gonna be the one                          to get you goin' again.               Pause.                                     WILLS                         Thanks.                                     LITTLE MAN                         Don't mention it.               Wills looks up and sees Dr. Sibley standing in the doorway.               INT. TELEMETRY FLOOR CORRIDOR -- NIGHT               Sibley walks Wills down the hallway --                                     SIBLEY                         The repeat MRI and CAT scan do show                          interval progression.                                     WILLS                              (uncertainly)                         Which means the tumor's grown?                                     SIBLEY                         Yes. Yes, it has. Considerably. As                          for her loss of consciousness, one                          explanation is a disturbance in her                          heart's electrical function. We'll                          be monitoring her overnight for any                          arrhythmias. If we find something,                          we'll treat it. Unfortunately, the                          more likely explanation is that the                          tumor has begun to obstruct the                          outflow of her heart. If that's the                          case, there's little we can do. We                          could be speaking in terms of weeks                          not months.               They arrive at Charlotte's room.                                     SIBLEY                         When she returns home, we'll want                          her to stay active, but don't let                          her overexert herself.                              (off Wills' nod)                         Don't stay long. She's been sedated.               INT. CHARLOTTE'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- SAME               Charlotte lies in the bed with her eyes closed. An EKG monitor                bleeps steadily in the corner. An IV drip hangs by her bed.               Wills enters and sits down at her bedside. He touches her                hand. She opens her eyes and smiles drowsily --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey.               Wills is terribly anxious. His speech is accelerated                                     WILLS                         Are you all right? You're okay? How                          do you feel?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Stoned.                                     WILLS                         I'll let you rest. I should. You'll                          sleep and then --                                     CHARLOTTE                              (touching his hand)                         Shhh.               He nods and inhales deeply. His heart is racing. She murmurs --                                     CHARLOTTE                         You still owe me a birthday present.                                     WILLS                         I do not.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Just 'cause I fainted is no excuse                          for you to bail on your peacock pose.               She smiles sleepily. Wills lifts a hand to her mouth and                whispers:                                     WILLS                         It ought to be illegal.                                     CHARLOTTE                         What?                                     WILLS                         Your smile. It's too pretty.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I've ruined you for other women.                                     WILLS                         You have.                                     CHARLOTTE                         All part of my master plan.                              (beat)                         Do you wanna hear a story... a bedtime                          story?                                     WILLS                         Shouldn't I be telling you one?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Once upon a time, there was a woman                          on a ship crossing the Atlantic and                          her little boy got sick. Very sick.                          And she said whoever saves my boy's                          life... I'll name my next baby after                          them. Well, they got into port and                          they rushed her son to St. Vincent's                          hospital... to here... and they saved                          his life. And so the mother named                          her next baby Edna St. Vincent Millay.                              (beat)                         And Edna grew up to be, as I am sure                          you know, the second greatest female                          poet in American history.                                     WILLS                         The first would be Emily Dickinson.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You're a quick learner -- I like                          that about you...                              (half to herself)                         "It may be, when my heart is dull,                          Having attained its girth,                          I shall not find so beautiful                          The meagre shapes of earth,                          Nor linger in the rain to mark                          The small of tansy through the dark."               Her eyes drift shut --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I am so pretentious...               Wills laughs, then clears his throat, and looks suddenly                serious --                                     WILLS                         Charlotte, listen, I --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Uh-oh. Heavy, heavy...                                     WILLS                         I just think --                                     CHARLOTTE                         No. No violins. I'm fine. Go home...                          sleep...               He considers for a moment, then, tears welling in his eyes,                he lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it.               INT. BROWNSTONE LIVING ROOM -- AFTERNOON               Wills sits across from Simon who strokes Shannon's back as                she weeps --                                     SHANNON                         It just didn't seem real and now                          that it is, I hate it! It's so unfair!               Dolores, sitting in her armchair, mutters as though by rote --                                     DOLLY                         Fare is what you pay on the train to                          Jersey. Fair is the place that smells                          like manure where, if you're real                          lucky, you win a blue ribbon for                          your home-made pickles. Fair is a                          sky without a cloud and a face with                          a mark. Fare is food. What fair isn't                          is everything else.                                     SIMON                         Well, I think I speak for all of us                          when I say that we've heard quite                          enough from Dolores.               Dolores chuckles. Simon continues to Wills --                                     SIMON                         Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I                          believe what you're saying is that                          while the end may be in sight, it                          has not yet arrived.                                     WILLS                         That's right. The tumor's begun to                          interfere with the function of her                          heart, but she --                                     SIMON                         Then why exactly have you called us                          here?               Wills falters, looking at him incredulously.                                     SIMON                         I cut short a lunch date, Shannon's                          missing her low-impact aerobics class,                          and Dolores has delayed the start of                          her happy hour -- surely you must                          have had good reason.                                     WILLS                         I thought Charlotte's health might                          be of some interest you.                                     SIMON                         It is. You could have told me all                          about it on the telephone.                                     WILLS                         I also thought it might be a good                          idea if we discussed ways to make                          her as comfortable as possible for                          the --                                     SIMON                         Charlotte loathes comfortable. I                          never sought to bore her with comfort                          while she was well, why should I                          start now that she's sick?               Wills stares at Simon, his face ashen and full of contempt --                                     WILLS                         Tell me, are you really so cold? Or                          is it just a pose that you've                          cultivated?                                     SIMON                         It's a pose that I've cultivated.                              (beat)                         I chose it, as a sort of smoke screen,                          some time after attending my twentieth                          funeral in as many months.               Pause.                                     WILLS                         I'm sorry.                                     SIMON                         It's quite all right. But, honestly,                          it shocks me how often you people                          forget. Our phone books have as many                          numbers crossed out as written in.                          So that while death is certainly as                          painful to us as it is to you, we do                          not find it nearly so...                          extraordinary.                              (beat)                         Don't misunderstand me. I adore                          Charlotte and when she dies, I                          would... were it not already in that                          state... cry my heart dry.               Shannon looks at Simon and burst into tears again. Simon                holds her even closer, rubbing her back.               MUSIC UP:               EXT. MANHATTAN STREET -- NIGHTFALL               Wills emerges from Charlotte's brownstone, hails a cab, then                decides against it.               EXT. CITY STREETS -- NIGHTFALL               Head down, eyes desolate, Wills walks uptown. The roaring                traffic, dense crowds, blaring music, flashing neon -- the                great welter of urban life is entirely lost on him.               He can think only of Charlotte.               EXT. HELL'S KITCHEN -- NIGHT               Wills walks down a dark block, his jacket open to the cold                night wind, his cheeks and ears burned red.               INT. HELL'S KITCHEN WALK-UP FOYER -- NIGHT               Wills enters, checks the tenant list, then presses a buzzer.                He speaks into the intercom and a moment later is buzzed up.               INT. WALK-UP STAIRWELL -- NIGHT               FOLLOW WILLS, running up the stairs. He arrives at a door,                cold and gasping for breath. He hears footsteps.               THE DOOR OPENS, but we do not see who is there.               MUSIC OUT:               INT. WALK-UP LIVING ROOM -- LATER               Wills paces, speaking desperately to someone. He seems on                the verge of a total nervous collapse --                                     WILLS                         She's in the hospital now. She doesn't                          have long. Weeks maybe and -- She...                          Anyway, I have something to ask you.                          A favor. I have no right to ask. I                          know. I'd do it myself, but I can't.                          I'm too... I'm...               He takes a deep breath to keep himself from crying.               ANGLE ON LISA, his daughter, sitting on the couch, listening,                her face unreadable --                                     LISA                         What is it?                                     WILLS                         I want you to find a surgeon. Dr.                          Sibley told me... Charlotte's doctor                          told me... he said at some point,                          when it's hopeless, surgery could be                          an option. Heroic surgery, he called                          it. I want to make sure that when                          the time comes a hero is performing                          that heroic surgery. Do you                          understand? You'll have to make calls.                          I'll get names. Sibley will give me                          names.                              (fighting tears)                         I'm sorry to ask you... I have no                          right. But, you see, she doesn't                          want it... this surgery... I'll have                          to convince her. So no one can know...                          for now. And I trust you. You're my                          only family and I...                              (beat)                         You have every right to refuse me.                          After what I did. You were a child...                          and you needed me... and I was nowhere                          to be found. There's no excuse for                          that. I'm so terribly sorry!               Silence.                                     LISA                         I'd be happy to do it.               Wills, stunned, deeply grateful, allows himself a breath.                                     LISA                         Dad, I'm really sorry she's sick.                                     WILLS                              (almost inaudible)                         I am, too. So sorry. I should be the                          one. It should be me.               Lisa, flooded with compassion, wants to go to him, comfort                him, but she stays where she is.                                                             FADE TO BLACK:               FADE IN:               EXT. CARL SCHURZ PARK -- LATE AFTERNOON               The darkening sky is swept with a brisk wintry breeze. Shadows                descend from the trees and towering rocks. AN OLD MAN sits                on a bench, reading a newspaper. A NANNY pushes a baby                carriage past.               Wills and Charlotte walk together, bundled up again the cold.                Charlotte walks backward, her breath shooting out into the                cold air like smoke --                                     CHARLOTTE                         You never talk about my mother.                              (beat)                         Talk about her.                                     WILLS                         What do you want to know?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Everything. All I remember is that                          she smelled like vanilla, loved to                          read to me, and was really good at                          cutting up fruit. I couldn't believe                          she didn't cut her fingers off.                                     WILLS                         Well, I remember a little more than                          that. Let's see... she was blonde...                          about your height --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I've seen pictures, dummy.                                     WILLS                         Oh, okay. She... always ate her ice                          cream with a fork -- how's that?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Much better.                                     WILLS                         And she wrote great letters, but                          couldn't spell at all.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Neither can I.                                     WILLS                         She was a McGovern Democrat but also                          an incredible snob. She loved                          blueberries. She had the world's                          worst backhand. Her favorite singer                          was Stephen Stills.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Who?                                     WILLS                         Never mind. She was afraid of sharks.                          And, considering the times, she was                          pretty square. She only tried drugs                          once -- a lifeguard gave her a hash                          brownie and she threw it up all over                          him.               Charlotte laughs.                                     WILLS                         And she laughed just like that. And                          she bit her fingernails. And she                          couldn't tell a joke.                              (beat)                         In short, she was a unique.               Charlotte smiles happily.               EXT. EAST RIVER ESPLANADE -- MINUTES LATER               Wills and Charlotte lean down on the railing, watching the                water purl and eddy around Randall's Island.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Did you know she was in love with                          you?                                     WILLS                         She told me.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Were you in love with her?                                     WILLS                         Yes.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why? Because she was the only girl                          in Rhode Island who wouldn't sleep                          with you?                                     WILLS                         That's how she got my attention;                          it's not why I fell in love with                          her.                              (beat)                         I fell in love with her because she                          charmed me senseless day and night                          for an entire summer.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Then why did you screw her best friend                          on Labor Day?               Wills looks at her darkly. She smiles and shrugs --                                     CHARLOTTE                         It's just a question.               Wills sighs and looks away, reflecting --                                     WILLS                         I have no idea. The summer was over.                          Your mom was going back to Smith. I                          was moving down here to work on Wall                          Street. It was our last day together.                          She was crying. She told me, for the                          first time, that she loved me. I                          said I loved her, too. I promised to                          call and visit. A few hours later I                          was in a cabana with Millie.                              (beat)                         When Millie told me she was pregnant                          and that she wanted to marry me, I                          escaped to L.A... and I never saw                          her or your mom again.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (wryly)                         Well done.                                     WILLS                         I think it's part of the reason I                          never came back.                                     CHARLOTTE                         But why're you like that? What is                          it? I mean, you weren't born that                          way.                                     WILLS                         I might as well have been. For as                          long as I can remember, I've always                          run off at the first sign of a woman                          wanting anything from me... relying                          on me in any way.               She considers for a moment --                                     CHARLOTTE                         But I want everything from you, Wills.                          I rely on you in every way.                                     WILLS                         I know.                                     CHARLOTTE                         So the only reason you don't dump me                          is because I'm sick? Because you                          know that it's all going to be over,                          anyway?                                     WILLS                         Maybe. But it doesn't feel that way.                              (beat)                         It feels as though I'm not afraid                          anymore.               She looks at him and smiles. He puts an arm around her and                draws her close.               INT. TAXI -- AFTERNOON               Wills looks out the window, his arm draped around Charlotte                who lies nestled against him, eyes closed.               He suddenly sees something. He thinks. Checks his watch. His                eyes ignite and he calls out excitedly to the driver --                                     WILLS                         Driver! Quick! Pull over here! Right                          here!               Charlotte, a little sleepy, comes to. She looks out the window                and her face softens with happiness.               EXT. THE BRICK CHURCH, 92ND AND PARK -- SAME               On the steps of the old church a CHOIR sings Christmas carols.                All around them, a LARGE CROWD sings along.               Wills and Charlotte get out of the cab. His arm around her,                Wills pulls her into the crowd. They join the carol. Wills                sings well. Charlotte is tone deaf.               In between lines of the song, she calls out --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I didn't know you could sing!                                     WILLS                         I didn't know you couldn't!               She laughs and continues to sing.               THE CAROLS ENDS to cheers and applause. THE CHOIRMASTER steps                forward to a microphone --                                     CHOIRMASTER                         Well, you all know what time it is!                                     CHARLOTTE                              (confused to Wills)                         No, I don't. Do you?               He grins. The choirmaster nods at someone in the distance.                Then holds up a hand, fingers spread, and begins to count                down. The crowd joins in --                                     CHOIRMASTER AND CROWD                         TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE,                          FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE!               At that instant, ALL THE WHITE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS on the trees                of the median from 96th Street to 44th Street POP ON                SIMULTANEOUSLY -- an enchanted fairy-tale spectacle.               The crowd and the choir cheer and clap, cars honk their horns.                Charlotte's eyes are filled with happy wonder.                                     CHOIRMASTER                         HAPPY HOLIDAYS!               As another carol begins, Wills wraps his arms around Charlotte                and kisses her. He pulls away, looks deeply into her eyes,                and whispers with passionate sincerity --                                     WILLS                         I love you, Charlotte.               For an instant, her eyes flare as though she were surprised.                Then her eyes fill with tears. She tries to speak but she is                choked by a sob.               She buries her face in his chest and cries. Wills smiles                with warm, almost paternal, indulgence. He strokes her hair.                She hugs him as though she'll never let go.               INT. ELYSIUM -- NIGHT               The restaurant is packed. John, overwhelmed by the crowd                waiting for tables, glances angrily away when he hears the                phone ringing and no one answering it.               INT. ELYSIUM KITCHEN -- SAME               Amid the Pandemonium, Wills watches as Charlotte teases HENRY,                30, the young chef, as he lays the beet garnishes on a fish                entree.                                     CHARLOTTE                         You call that a rose? It looks more                          like a hand grenade!                                     HENRY                         Mr. Keane, you get her outta here                          or, I swear to God, I'm gonna                          butterfly and stuff her!                                     WILLS                         I'll add it to the specials list.                                     CHARLOTTE                              (laughing)                         No way! I'm too pricey!               The door bangs open. John enters, looking angry --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hello, Sunshine!                                     JOHN                         You seen Celia?                                     WILLS                         What's the matter?                                     JOHN                         The matter is I got a half-hour wait                          and no help up front! You got a call                          on Two!               INT. ELYSIUM OFFICE -- SAME               Wills enters, picks up the phone, and hits a flashing button--                                     WILLS                         Wills Keane.               INT. LISA'S LIVING ROOM -- EVENING               Lisa's face is flushed with excitement --                                     LISA                         I've got him!               EXT. WILLS' BUILDING -- MORNING               A TOWN CAR is parked out front. Michael, the doorman, chats                with the driver.                                     LISA (V.O.)                         His name's Tom Grandy. Harvard                          undergrad. Columbia Medical School.                          He's at the Cleveland Clinic. I know,                          I know. But don't laugh. It's one of                          the best in the world.               Wills exits the building and gets into the car.               EXT. QUEENS -- MORNING               The town car speeds down the expressway.                                     LISA (V.O.)                         He did his residency at the Brigham                          in Boston... his cardiac surgery                          training at Cleveland.               EXT. LA GUARDIA AIRPORT -- MORNING               Wills walks quickly through the terminal.                                     LISA (V.O.)                         He was so good they kept him on and                          within three years he was chief of                          the program.               EXT. CLEVELAND CLINIC -- DAY               Wills gets out of a taxi and heads inside --                                     LISA (V.O.)                         He travels a lot. Spends lots of                          time lecturing. I got you an                          appointment tomorrow at twelve-thirty.                          Don't be late. He only has fifteen                          minutes.               INT. CLEVELAND CLINIC CORRIDOR -- DAY               TOM GRANDY, 35, long-hair, small beard, loose-limbed, wearing                scrubs, saunters down the hall, wearing a vaguely goofy smile.                Wills watches him approach with some apprehension.                                     LISA (V.O.)                         The surgeon that recommended him                          said, and these are his words not                          mine, "Don't let his appearance fool                          you. He's brilliant and has balls                          the size of your head."               INT. GRANDY'S OFFICE -- SAME               Wills listens to Dr. Grandy who speaks casually, more like a                benign hippie than a renowned surgeon. Charlotte's X-rays                hang between them in an illuminated view box --                                     GRANDY                         Listen, I'm not gonna bullshit you.                          If she were a baby, she'd have a                          decent chance, 'cause these sorts of                          tumors can regress like crazy, but                          she's twenty and... I don't know,                          man... I've never seen anything like                          it.                              (pointing at the X-                              ray)                         I mean, look! It's wrapped around                          her vital structures like an octopus!                              (sitting)                         You know, just once I'd like to get                          sent something simple. A "cabbage,"                          a valve replacement. Even a good old-                         fashioned transplant. But it doesn't                          happen anymore. It's the downside of                          being good at my job.                                     WILLS                         Good? They say there's no one better.                                     GRANDY                         I don't know. I'm like most people.                          I do the best I can.                                     WILLS                         Can your best save her?                                     GRANDY                         Probably not.               INT. CLEVELAND CLINIC CORRIDOR -- LATER               Grandy and Wills walk together --                                     GRANDY                         In these sorts of cases, it's best                          if she signs a consent.                                     WILLS                              (covering)                         No problem.                                     GRANDY                         Good.                              (stopping at the main                               entrance)                         The last time Charlotte passed out,                          she regained consciousness almost                          immediately. The next time or the                          time after, she won't. When that                          happens, call me.                              (handing him a card)                         Here's my service. They'll reach me                          no matter where I am. In the meantime,                          I'll coordinate with Dr. Sibley.                                     WILLS                         I can't thank you enough.               Grandy smiles and pats him on the shoulder.                                     GRANDY                         I haven't done anything yet.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- NIGHT               Wills sits up, wearing glasses, reading a book. Charlotte                enters from the bathroom wearing a flannel night shirt --                                     CHARLOTTE                         By the way -- where were you today?                                     WILLS                         What do you mean?                                     CHARLOTTE                         When you called I assumed you were                          at the restaurant, but when I called                          back later, Jesus said you hadn't                          been in all day.                                     WILLS                         I was in Montclair, New Jersey.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Why?                                     WILLS                              (playfully vague)                         An opportunity.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Oh, really? Sexual or professional?                                     WILLS                         I was considering opening a                          restaurant. But the rents are too                          high.               He smiles at her. And she smiles back.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- MORNING               Charlotte lies asleep with her head on his chest. She opens                her eyes. The room seems strange. It's the light.               She rises up and turns around. Her eyes narrow with curiosity.                She crawls out of bed and runs to the window and looks out.               She can't believe her eyes. Central Park is blanketed by                deep snow and more is falling. She calls out gaily --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Hey! How do you feel about Christmas?                                     WILLS                              (sleepily)                         Bah humbug...               She runs back, laughing, and jumps on the bed, rousting him.               MUSIC UP:               A SEQUENCE BEGINS showing Charlotte and Wills during a day                of holiday shopping. The deep snow has slowed the city to a                crawl but filled everyone with good spirits.               Charlotte and Wills move from store to store; they buy                wreaths, garlands, ornaments, candles, and, finally, a                CHRISTMAS TREE and STAND.               Wills starts to lug the tree, but when it's obvious that                it's too much for him, Charlotte spots a GROUP OF KIDS                spilling out of a record store.               The next thing we know the kids are lined up, carrying the                tree over their heads like a battalion of ants.               Wills and the kids load the tree into the freight elevator                and squeeze in. There's no room for Charlotte. She'll take                the lobby elevator.               MUSIC OUT:               INT. LOBBY ELEVATOR -- AFTERNOON               Charlotte, carrying shopping bags, ascends in silence with                Michael. She has no interest in chatting. He, as ever, does.                                     MICHAEL                         Will you and Mister Keane be goin'                          away for the holidays?                                     CHARLOTTE                         I doubt it.                                     MICHAEL                         I've seen so little of America. I                          don't care for airplanes, you see,                          and I have so little time to travel.                              (beat)                         Did Mister Keane enjoy his trip then?                                     CHARLOTTE                         What trip?                                     MICHAEL                         Why, just yesterday.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I wouldn't really call that a trip.                                     MICHAEL                         Perhaps not. But I've never been to                          Ohio myself. They say parts of it                          are quite lovely.               Charlotte goes pale. The elevator stops and he opens the                door.               INT. WILLS' FOYER -- CONTINUOUS               Charlotte steps out right into the kids who are roughhousing                and laughing. Each holds a five-dollar bill --                                     MICHAEL                              (calling out)                         All right, you little hellions! Get                          in here!               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER               Charlotte wanders in. The tree stands erect. Wills, on all                fours, tightens the screws on the stand. He crawls to his                feet and studies it.                                     WILLS                         Straight?               Then he sees her grave expression and freezes.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I thought we had a deal.                                     WILLS                         I'm sure we do. About what?                                     CHARLOTTE                         Lying.                              (beat)                         You were in Ohio yesterday.               Wills stares at her for a moment, then explains without                apology --                                     WILLS                         I met with a heart specialist. He's                          willing to operate.               For an instant she is surprised, but then her indignation                takes over --                                     CHARLOTTE                         But you know I don't want that! You                          know I've signed papers that --                                     WILLS                         Well, maybe I want it.                                     CHARLOTTE                         It isn't your decision!                                     WILLS                         Of course not, but if you'll hear me                          out --                                     CHARLOTTE                         No! I told you right from the start                          how I felt and you went behind my                          back! You lied and --                                     WILLS                              (exploding)                         Oh, Christ, knock it off! You're                          such a god damn saint, so above it                          all, but you're scared to death! You                          do want to live! And if you were as                          honest as you say you are you'd let                          the doctors do whatever they can to                          help you!               Her face shuts like a trap. She walks toward the bedroom                door --                                     CHARLOTTE                         I won't give people hope when there                          isn't any.                                     WILLS                         Why not?! Maybe we want hope! Or                          maybe we just need to know that we                          did everything we could! Maybe I                          need to know that... if I'm going to                          be able to live... to go on without...                          without --               Suddenly, a sob catches in his throat. Charlotte, on her way                to the bedroom, stops and slowly turns around.               She speaks matter-of-factly, without judgment or feeling.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Now I know why you hurt so many women.                          Because you always knew if you held                          on to one of them, you'd never let                          go.               She turns and exits coldly to the bedroom. Wills sinks into                an armchair.               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- LATER               In grey afternoon shadows, Charlotte lies on her side, fully                clothed under the covers, with her eyes open, thinking. She                hears something and looks back.               Wills stands in the lighted doorway.               She gestures for him to come. He walks over and lies down                next to her. She turns her back to him, so that he's spooning                her, but she takes hold of his hand, pressing it against her                chest and squeezing it like a doll.               For a long time, they lie in silence. Finally, she murmurs                almost inaudibly --                                     CHARLOTTE                         When we met, I was so lonely. But I                          didn't even know it. I'd been alone                          so long.. almost forever...                                     WILLS                         So had I.                                     CHARLOTTE                         But now we have each other.                              (beginning to cry)                         Oh, what would I do, Wills? What                          would I do if you weren't here? Where                          would I be?               Fighting his emotions, determined to stay strong for her, he                holds her close.                                     WILLS                         You don't ever have to worry about                          that.                                     CHARLOTTE                         I'll do whatever I have to! I'll                          tear up the papers! Whatever you                          want! Tell the doctor! Because... I                          really do want... I don't want to                          leave you!               The dam breaks and she is wracked by sobs. Wills closes his                eyes, holds her even tighter, and rocks her in his arms.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. WILLS' BEDROOM -- THAT EVENING               Charlotte, still fully clothed, lies sound asleep. She slowly                awakens and sees that Wills is gone. She gets up on one elbow --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Wills?!               She waits, hears hurried steps, then Wills sticks his head                in --                                     WILLS                         Yeah?                                     CHARLOTTE                         How long was I asleep?                                     WILLS                         A couple of hours.                                     CHARLOTTE                         Wow. And I'm still tired.                                     WILLS                         That's all right. Relax.               Charlotte senses something odd in his tone. Her eyes narrow                with suspicion.                                     CHARLOTTE                         What're you doing in there?                                     WILLS                         Nothing.               She laughs and starts to get up --                                     CHARLOTTE                         Liar!                                     WILLS                         Don't! Don't move! Just one more                          minute!               He closes the door.               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- SAME               Wills runs back into the room. The tree is fully decorated                now. He dashes back and adjust some lights along the base.                                     CHARLOTTE'S VOICE                              (from the bedroom)                         What're you doing?!               He runs over, inserts the plug and the TREE LIGHTS UP with                LITTLE WHITE LIGHTS, but for the STAR AT THE TOP.                                     CHARLOTTE'S VOICE                         Oh no! You didn't!                                     WILLS                         You were just going to tire yourself                          out!               He grabs a chair and fiddles with the bulb inside the star.                                     CHARLOTTE'S VOICE                         This I've gotta see!                                     WILLS                         Just hold on!               THE STAR LIGHTS UP. He jumps down and puts the chair away.                Then he runs over and dims the lights --                                     WILLS                         Finishing touches!               He runs over and adjusts a garland. He runs back to the dimmer                and adjusts it again --                                     WILLS                         Almost!               He runs back to the bedroom door and flings it open.                                     WILLS                         Voila!               He looks into the room and freezes in the doorway. He backs                up a step, then, crying out, lunges into the room.               MUSIC UP:               EXT. WILLS' BUILDING -- NIGHT               Charlotte, lying unconscious on a stretcher, wearing an oxygen                mask, is rushed into a waiting ambulance. Wills, beside                himself with panic, is gently barred by a MEDIC from jumping                in with her.               INT. NEW HAVEN HOSPITAL LECTURE HALL -- NIGHT               In the reflection of a projected slide, a hand offers a                CELLULAR PHONE to Dr. Grandy, standing at a lectern in front                of a group of doctors. He stops his lecture and takes the                call.               EXT. MANHATTAN STREET -- NIGHT               The ambulance rushes, light flashing, sirens wailing,                downtown.               INT. ST. VINCENT'S HOSPITAL -- NIGHT               Charlotte's stretcher is rushed into the emergency room at                the same time that Wills' cab pulls up.               EXT. NEW HAVEN HOSPITAL HELIPORT -- NIGHT               Grandy is rushed into a MEDICAL HELICOPTER.               INT. CORONARY CARE UNIT WAITING ROOM -- NIGHT               Wills looks up and sees Dolores and Shannon arrive.               EXT. SKY -- NIGHT               Grandy's helicopter speeds toward the City.               INT. CORONARY CARE UNIT WAITING ROOM -- NIGHT               Wills comforts Shannon. Dolores looks up and sees Simon                standing in the doorway. Then a CORONARY CARE NURSE appears.                She asks to speak to Wills.               INT. MEDICAL HELICOPTER -- NIGHT               Grandy looks out the window as the helicopter swoops down                toward the lights of lower Manhattan.               INT. CORONARY CARE UNIT PRE-OP -- NIGHT               Charlotte lies, semi-conscious, on a gurney. Wills appears                in the doorway with the nurse.               EXT. ST. VINCENT'S HOSPITAL HELIPORT -- NIGHT               The helicopter lands and Grandy jumps out.               MUSIC OUT:               INT. CORONARY CARE UNIT PRE-OP -- NIGHT               Wills sits down next to Charlotte's bed. He touches her hand.                Her eyes open then close again. Her breathing is heavy and                labored.               Wills pushes a lock of hair off her brow, then whispers,                half to himself --                                     WILLS                         Time cannot break the bird's wing                          from the bird. Bird and wing together                          Go down, one feather. No thing that                          ever flew, not the lark, not you,                          Can die as others do.               Charlotte's eyes open dreamily. She shows a faint smile at                the poem and murmurs almost inaudibly --                                     CHARLOTTE                         What have I done to you?                                     WILLS                         Ruined me for other women.                                     CHARLOTTE                         No... I saved you for them...               Her eyes close. Wills takes her hand and presses it to his                cheek.                                     MALE VOICE                         Is she type 'n' cross for six units?!                                     NURSE'S VOICE                         Yes, Doctor.               Wills turns around and sees Grandy standing in the doorway.                                     GRANDY                         What're we waiting for?                                     PRE-OP NURSE                         Just you, Doctor!                                     GRANDY                         Then let's move!               The NURSE rushes over to the gurney and in an instant                Charlotte is gone -- wheeled with a bang through SWINGING                DOORS into the operating room corridor.               MUSIC UP:               INT. CORONARY CARE UNIT WAITING ROOM -- NIGHT               Everyone is there now -- John, Sarah, Celia, Simon, Dolores,                and Shannon. Wills enters silently. He walks to the new                arrivals and greets each one with an embrace.               INT. CORONARY CARE OPERATING ROOM -- NIGHT               Charlotte lies on the table. Grandy's eyes, visible above                his mask, are fiercely focused on his work.               INT. CORONARY CARE UNIT WAITING ROOM -- NIGHT               Shannon lies with her head in Sarah's lap.               Dolores, ignoring the sign, smokes a cigarette.               John and Celia sit side-by-side in silence.               Wills stands at the window. He looks over and see Simon                standing close by. Simon looks at him, his eyes sad but eerily                calm. Wills shakes his head --                                     WILLS                         It happened so quickly. We'd just                          talked about the surgery. She agreed                          to it. But I thought there'd be time.                                     SIMON                         I've had friends who weren't expected                          to last till morning who lived another                          seven years. Another ran a marathon                          and died the next weekend. It's all                          so terribly random the way life                          actually works. I take nothing for                          granted.               A light enters Wills' eye. He smiles as he remembers --                                     WILLS                         You know, it's funny, the first time                          I saw her, I --               But then Wills hears something. He turns and there's Grandy                at the end of the long hall, walking toward the waiting room.               Simon looks and sees him, too.               Wills looks at Simon with alarm. It's impossible. How could                Grandy be finished so soon? Wills looks back at Grandy.               SLOW-MOTION               Grandy moves with long strides down the corridor.               One by one, as they notice, Charlotte's loved ones react to                the sight of Grandy.               Shannon rises from Sarah's lap, looks at the doctor, then                covers her face with her fists, holding her breath.               Dolores crushes out her cigarette, her expression falling.               Celia touches John's back as he rises and walks over to Wills.               Simon's face turns to stone.               John reaches for Wills, but Wills advances a few steps toward                the corridor, almost defiantly, his eyes riveted to Grandy.               Grandy's head is down.               Then, ever so slowly, Grandy lifts his head and in one                decisive move YANKS OFF HIS SURGICAL MASK and THROWS IT                AGAINST THE WALL.               CLOSE ON WILLS' FACE as he realizes.               His mouth opens wide as though to cry out, but no sound comes.               INT. WILLS' LIVING ROOM -- DAWN               Wills stands in the center of the room wearing his overcoat.                He is pale, exhausted, his face expressionless.               John stands, also wearing his coat, in the hall archway,                unsure whether he should stay or leave.               Wills looks at the Christmas tree, whose lights still burn.                He slowly walks over and pulls the cord from the wall.               The lights go out.                                                             FADE TO BLACK:               FADE IN:               EXT. CENTRAL PARK -- SPRING AFTERNOON               A COUPLE walks down the same walkway. They are deep in subdued                conversation. All around them spring is in full glory. Melted                snow. Trees exploding with green. Birds singing.               The man is Wills Keane, but he has markedly changed. His                dress is not so impeccable, his hair has gone grey at the                temples. His face, though still beautiful, has gracefully                turned the corner into middle age.               Walking at his side is his daughter, Lisa, now well along in                her pregnancy --                                     LISA                         Actually, to be honest, Peter's more                          than a little freaked. I mean, how                          could he not be? He's twenty-six.                          His first child. A baby girl, no                          less. Nothing really prepares you                          for it.                                     WILLS                         I guess not.                                     LISA                         He said it's the first time since we                          got married that he's actually                          realized what marriage is. That it's                          forever. That he can't just pick up                          and run away to Nepal or something                          if we have a fight. That he's part                          of the cycle of things now. That                          he's gonna die some day. That it's                          the next generation's turn to take                          the stage.               EXT. ANOTHER CENTRAL PARK WALKWAY -- LATER               Wills and Lisa walk together in silence, enjoying the perfect                afternoon. Then Lisa smiles crookedly and slaps his shoulder --                                     LISA                         So what about you, Mr. Keane? You                          ready to be a grandpa?               Wills looks over at the spot where he first saw Charlotte.               He smiles with wistful confidence then, a little awkwardly,                puts his arm around his daughter.               She is surprised at first. But then slowly, trustingly, she                rests her head on his shoulder.               And they walk.                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
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+                                                                       AVATAR                                                                              Written by                                              James Cameron                                                            THE SOUND OF DRUMS, from a great distance, growing louder.                    FADE IN:                    WE ARE FLYING through mist, a dimly glimpsed forest below.                                         VOICE (V.O.)                     When I was lying there in the VA                     hospital, with a big hole blown through                     the middle of my life, I started having                     these dreams of flying.                    We are very low over the forest now, gliding fast, the drums          BUILDING to a PEAK --                                         VOICE (V.O.)                     Sooner or later though, you always have                     to wake up...                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. CITY - NIGHT                    A SCREECH OF BRAKES as a vehicle WIPES FRAME, revealing --                    JAKE SULLY, a scarred and scruffy combat vet, sitting in a          beat up carbon-fiber wheelchair. At 22, his eyes are          hardened by the wisdom and wariness of one who has endured          pain beyond his years.                    Jake stares upward at the levels of the city. MAGLEV TRAINS          WHOOSH overhead on elevated tracks, against a sky of garish          advertizing.                                         JAKE (V.O.)                     They can fix a spinal, if you've got the                     money. But not on vet benefits, not in                     this economy.                    The traffic light changes and Jake pushes forward with the          crowd, pumping the wheels of his chair. Most of the people          wear FILTER MASKS to protect them from the toxic air. In a          LONG LENS STACK it is a marching torrent of anonymous,          isolated souls.                    INT. JAKE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                    The room is a tiny CUBICLE, prison cell meets 747 bathroom.          Narrow cot, wall-screen droning away in the B.G. --                                         PERKY NEWSCASTER                     The Bengal tiger, extinct for over a                     century, is making a comeback. These                     cloned tiger cubs at the Beijing Zoo                     are...                                                                                 2.                                        Jake laboriously pulls his pants off -- rocking to one side,          pushing the fabric down past his hip, then rocking to the          other, and so on.                    His legs are white and atrophied. Utterly useless. But his          arms are tattooed and powerfully muscled. A "Born Loser"          tattoo prominent on his shoulder.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    I became a Marine for the hardship. To                    be hammered on the anvil of life. I told                    myself I could pass any test a man can                    pass.                    Jake struggles with his pants a long time.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. ROWDY BAR -- NIGHT                    Not the kind of place you'd bring your mom.                    We find Jake near the pool table, BALANCING his chair, front          wheels off the ground, while holding a tequila shot on his          forehead. ONLOOKERS, including some other disabled vets,          CLAP and WHOOP.                    Jake grabs the glass, SLAMS down the shot as they cheer.                    A WALL-SIZED SCREEN filled with the World Cup game -- men          RUNNING on antelope legs.                    CU JAKE, watching what he can't have.    Expression stony.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Let's get it straight up front. I don't                    want your pity. I know the world's a                    cold-ass bitch.                    Jake's eyes shift   -- HIS POV, seeing the bar through gaps in          the crowd. A MAN    on a barstool SLAPS the WOMAN he's with.          Hard. She cowers    but he's got her arm, shouting, raising his          fist. An eternal    tableau. People look away.                    CU JAKE -- not looking away.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    You want a fair deal, you're on the wrong                    planet. The strong prey on the weak.                    TIGHT ON JAKE'S HAND as he starts pushing the wheel of his          chair.                    TRACKING WITH HIM as he rolls forward.                                                                                  3.                                                            JAKE (V.O.)                    It's just the way things are.   And nobody                    does a damn thing.                    Jake stops, unnoticed, next to the bullying man. He leans          down and grabs one leg of the man's barstool -- and YANKS.                    The chair flips.   The guy goes down HARD and --                    JAKE hurls himself from the wheelchair, toppling on the guy,          getting a grip on him like a pit bull and PUNCHING the crap          out of him, right there on the floor.                    THE BOUNCER jumps in, trying to drag him off and it goes into          SLOW MOTION, everybody yelling and pulling...                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    All I ever wanted in my sorry-ass life                    was a single thing worth fighting for.                                                                   CUT TO:                    EXT. ALLEY BEHIND BAR -- NIGHT                    THE BOUNCER hurls Jake out the door, sending him SPRAWLING on          the pavement. A moment later, his chair CRASHES down on him,          banging across the alley, landing in the trash.                    Jake struggles to rise on one elbow. He's bleeding and          bruised, but still crazed and ready to fight.                                        JAKE                    I hope you realize you've just lost a                    customer!                    He collapses onto his back, panting.                                        JAKE                        (to himself)                    Candy ass bitch.                    He stares upwards at the levels of the city. MAGTRAINS ROAR          overhead. It starts to RAIN. He just lies there, blinking --          then shouts jauntily to no one in particular --                                        JAKE                    If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin'!                    CAMERA PULLS BACK high and wide, as Jake lies spread-eagled          amongst the trash, getting drenched.                    TWO LONG SHADOWS enter FRAME, coming to rest across him.                                                                                 4.                                        Jake sees two pairs of SHINY SHOES stop next to him.   He          squints up at --                    TWO MEN. Matching suits. Their features unremarkable and          blandly threatening in the way of FBI agents and auditors.                                        AGENT 1                    Are you Jake Sully?                                          JAKE                    Step off.    You're ruinin' my good mood.                                        AGENT 2                    It's about your brother.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. MUNICIPAL CREMATORIUM - NIGHT                    DOWN-ANGLE on a large rectangular cardboard box. HANDS ENTER          FRAME, pulling open the top to reveal a DEAD MAN'S FACE. He          looks EXACTLY like a clean-shaven version of Jake. His          IDENTICAL TWIN -- TOMMY.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    The strong prey on the weak. A guy with                    a knife took all Tommy would ever be, for                    the paper in his wallet.                    WIDER, showing Jake and the two agents in a high tech          CREMATORIUM -- a row of stainless steel furnaces. Jake          stares down at his own face.                                        JAKE                    Jesus, Tommy.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    The Suits' concern was touching.                                        AGENT 1                    Your brother represented a significant                    investment. We'd like to talk to you                    about taking over his contract.                    The ATTENDANT closes the box and seals it with a tape          dispenser, like it's a package for shipping. The cardboard          coffin is rolled into the furnace.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    The egghead and the jarhead.   Tommy was                    the scientist, not me. He was the one                    who wanted to get shot light years out                    into space to find the answers.                                                                                 5.                                        PUSHING IN ON JAKE as he watches, bathed in orange light.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Me -- I was just another dumb grunt                    gettin' sent someplace I was gonna                    regret.                    INSIDE THE FURNACE the burners quickly eat away the          cardboard; TOMMY'S FACE is, for a moment, wreathed in flame          but not touched by it, as we --                                                             DISSOLVE TO:                    JAKE'S FACE, in icy darkness. CLOSE ON his eyes -- they OPEN          suddenly, and he takes a sharp breath.                    JAKE'S POV -- the inside of a metal coffin. A SERVO WHINE          and we are moving, emerging into a large chamber --                    INT. CRYO VAULT                    JAKE'S POV -- A TECH in medical scrubs FLOATS WEIGHTLESSLY          toward us. Wherever we are, we're not on Earth.                    Jake squints as the lights flicker on, revealing --                    WIDE SHOT -- the multi-tiered CRYO VAULT. Hundreds of CRYO-          CAPSULES are opening like morgue drawers, as med techs pull          themselves about in ZERO-G, tending to their patients.                                        JAKE                        (a hoarse whisper)                    Are we there?                                        MED TECH                    We're there, Sunshine.                    TIME CUT -- SCORES OF PEOPLE emerge from their cryo-capsules          in ZERO-G. Pale spirits of the dead rising from rows of open          coffins.                    The MED TECH floats among them, using his announcement voice.                                        MED TECH                    People, you have been in cryo for five                    years, nine months and twenty two days.                    You will be hungry, you will be weak. If                    you feel nausea, please use the sacks                    provided for your convenience. The staff                    thanks you in advance.                                                                                  6.                                        FOLLOWING JAKE as he pushes away from his capsule, gliding to          the LOCKERS across the aisle, his paralyzed legs not an          impediment in weightlessness.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. SPACE                    Against the cold infinity   of stars glides an INTERSTELLAR          SPACECRAFT -- ISV VENTURE   STAR. As it moves past like an          endless train, we realize   this thing is ENORMOUS -- over half          a mile long. PAN WITH IT    180 to REVEAL --                    A GAS-GIANT PLANET called POLYPHEMUS, ringed with dozens of          moons which cast beauty-mark shadows on its vast face.                    The ISV diminishes away from us toward the largest MOON-- a          blue and surprisingly Earth-like world called PANDORA. The          ship dwindles to a speck against the BLUE MOON.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. PANDORA ORBIT                    ISV Venture Star drifts above a spectacular vista -- the          sapphire seas and unfamiliar continents of Pandora.                    CLOSE ON ISV -- two massive "VALKYRIE" SHUTTLES are mated to          a DOCKING NODE. One of them separates from the starship and          moves away, its thrusters FIRING in short bursts.                    As the shuttle moves away, descending toward Pandora, we hear          the sound of DRUMS, building, louder and louder until we--                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - TWILIGHT                    FLYING OVER A LANDSCAPE of massive cliffs and towering mesas          carpeted in rainforest. Great scarves of cloud swirl around          the mesa tops. A primeval landscape, vast and forbidding.                    The trees are alien, the color too cyan. There are          waterfalls, rivers, and distant flocks of WINGED CREATURES.                    Suddenly the carpet of virgin rainforest gives way to --                    AN OPEN-PIT MINE. A lifeless crater -- as if a giant cookie-          cutter took a chunk out of the world. Down among the          terraces are EXCAVATORS and TRUCKS the size of three story          buildings.                    And beyond the mine is the HUMAN COLONY --                                                                                 7.                                        EXT. HELL'S GATE - TWILIGHT                    HELL'S GATE is a cluster of squat concrete and steel          structures surrounded by chain-link FENCE 10 meters high,          topped with razor wire.                    At the corners are towers with automated SENTRY GUNS          swiveling on servo mounts.                    Visible beyond the gun towers, the VALKYRIE SHUTTLE roars in          across the treetops. VECTORING NOZZLES change angle,          bringing the ship to a SLOW HOVER.                    EXT. RAIN FOREST - TWILIGHT                    Through a screen of jungle canopy, we see the VALKYRIE          thunder overhead. Camera TILTS with it until leaves block          the view.                    A BLUE INHUMAN HAND reaches INTO SHOT, parting the foliage to          reveal the shuttle hover-taxiing across the compound.                    REVERSE -- ECU of two intense, cat-like golden EYES watching.                    INT./EXT. SHUTTLE                    The CREW CHIEF stomps down the aisle yelling --                                        CREW CHIEF                    Exopacks on!                    Passengers don their EXO-PACK breathing gear with practiced          moves. Everybody except JAKE, who's turning his this way and          that trying to figure out the straps.                                        CREW CHIEF                    Remember people, you lose your mask                    you're unconscious in 20 seconds and                    you're dead in four minutes. Let's nobody                    be dead today, it looks bad on my report.                    The crew chief stops by Jake long enough to bark --                                        CREW CHIEF                    Exopack on, let's go!                    BENEATH THE SHUTTLE air blasts outward for a hundred meter          radius as it settles onto its landing gear.                    INSIDE everybody is queued up in the aisles, with duffles          ready. Rows of tense, expectant faces in breathing masks --          and we DIP DOWN to find Jake, wheelchair putting him at the          level of everyone else's WAISTS.                                                                                  8.                                        THE CARGO RAMP OPENS with a hydraulic whine.                                        CREW CHIEF                    Go directly into the base! Do not stop!                    Go straight inside!                    HAND-HELD, running with the arriving colonists who double          time down the ramp. They jog across the exposed apron toward          a walkway covered in CHAINLINK which leads to the complex.                    Inside the chain-link tunnel are a couple of SEC-OPS          TROOPERS, CORPORAL LYLE WAINFLEET and PRIVATE FIKE. Sec-Ops          is the colony's private security force. These guys are laid          back, hardened, and haggard.                                        WAINFLEET                    Look at all that new meat.                    THEIR POV -- Jake rolls down the ramp.                                        FIKE                    Check it out, man.    Meals on wheels.                                        WAINFLEET                    That is just wrong.                    Jake, pumping his chair, looks around as --                    A huge TRACTOR, taller than a house, ROARS past on muddy          wheels. He notices something sticking in the tires --          ARROWS. The neolithic weapons are jarring amid all the          advanced technology.                    Beyond the tractor, two VTOL vehicles take off. Armored and          heavily armed, they are AT-99 "SCORPION" GUNSHIPS.                    MITSUBISHI MK-6 AMPSUITS -- human operated walking machines 4          meters tall -- patrol the perimeter. They are heavily          armored, and armed with a huge rotary cannon called a GAU-90.                    Beyond the outer fence stands a black wall of forest hundreds          of feet high.   A SENTRY GUN OPENS FIRE from a tower. TRACERS          light up the twilight. A shadowy SHAPE SHRIEKS and drops off          the fence. It is an armed camp in a state of siege.                    WAINFLEET and Fike give Jake and his chair the hairy eyeball          as he approaches.                                        JAKE                    What're you two limpdicks starin' at?                    As Jake rolls past, SOMETHING SWOOPS down behind him and --                                                                                    9.                                        K-KRASH! SMASHES against the chain-link right next to his          head.                    A vicious AERIAL PREDATOR a meter across gnashes glass fangs          against the steel. It STABS at him through the chain link          with a tail ending in a glistening stiletto. A STINGBAT.                    WAINFLEET casually BLASTS IT with his PISTOL.   It drops off          the fence, tail still lashing.                                        WAINFLEET                    Seen a lotta guys leave this place in a                    wheelchair. Never seen anybody show up                    in one.                    Jake stares at the gnashing fangs of the dying alien.                    ON A WALKWAY of the OPS CENTER, seen from above, a UNIFORMED          FIGURE grips the railing, watching Jake pump his chair          through the tunnel below.                    The hair is clipped short. The scalp is etched by long          parallel SCARS where some Pandoran denizen's claws raked          across it. The bare arms, below tightly rolled sleeves, seem          hewn out of some hard tropical wood. Criss-crossed by scars.                    The MAN raises his masked face to look at the sky.    He eyes          are an icy steel gray.                    HIS POV -- the mighty POLYPHEMUS seems to fill the sky,          beyond the clouds.                                        MAN (V.O.)                    You are not in Kansas any more...                                                                    CUT TO:                    INT. COMMISSARY - TWILIGHT                    THE MAN from the balcony -- COLONEL MILES QUARITCH -- is the          HEAD OF SECURITY for the Hell's Gate colony. A hundred new          arrivals watch raptly as he paces like a panther across the          front of the large cafeteria. He stops, stance wide.                    Without his mask, we see that Quaritch's features are rugged          and handsome, except for the SCAR, which runs from scalp to          jaw down one side of his face. On one hip he carries a very          large PISTOL.                                        QUARITCH                    ... You are on Pandora, ladies and                    gentlemen. Respect that fact every second                    of every day.                                                                                 10.                                        JAKE ROLLS IN, watching from the back.                    COLONEL QUARITCH raises his hand and points out the window,          toward the dark treeline.                                        QUARITCH                    Out beyond that fence every living thing                    that crawls, flies or squats in the mud                    wants to kill you and eat your eyes for                    jujubees.                    The room gets very quiet.                                        QUARITCH                    We have an indigenous population of                    humanoids here called the Na'vi. They're                    fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin                    which can stop your heart in one minute.                    We operate -- we live -- at a constant                    threat condition yellow.                    PAN ACROSS the solid faces of miners, Cat-machine drivers,          engineers, geologists, as they take that in.                                         QUARITCH                    As head of security, it's my job to keep                    you alive.    I will not succeed --                        (pausing for effect)                    -- not with all of you. If you wish to                    survive, you need a strong mental                    attitude, you need to follow procedure...                    PUSH IN ON JAKE, watching as the briefing continues.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Nothing like an old-school safety brief                    to put your mind at ease.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. CORRIDOR                    People are roaming in both directions, looking for rooms,          lugging duffels and cases.                    An eager young XENOANTHROPOLOGIST, staggering under an          overpacked duffel, runs to catch up to Jake.                                        NORM                    Hey, you're Jake right? Tom's brother?                    You look just like him.                        (off Jake's wary look)                    Sorry, I'm Norm Spellman, I went through                    avatar training with him.                                                                                   11.                                        Norm offers his hand and Jake shakes it.                                        NORM                    He was a great guy -- funny.     It was a                    big shock to all of us.                                         JAKE                    Yeah.                    Jake pumps the wheels of his chair, rolling on.       Norm walks          with him.                                        NORM                    And duh! -- obviously you look like him.                    I mean, if you weren't genetically                    identical, you wouldn't be taking over                    his avatar.                                        JAKE                    That's why I'm here.                                        NORM                    So -- you want to go check it out?                                                                      CUT TO:                    INT. BIO-LAB - DAY                    JAKE AND NORM enter the BIO-LAB -- a large lab complex with          many adjoining rooms.                                        MAX                    Me and Norm were out here to drive these                    remotely controlled bodies called                    avatars. They're grown from human DNA                    mixed with DNA from the natives here.                    A scientist, DOCTOR MAX CULLIMORE, is supervising the          uncrating of two SHIPPING CONTAINERS. The nearer has the          sides removed, revealing -- a ceiling-height acrylic TANK.                    Norm stops to stare, and Jake rolls past him as if drawn by          some unseen force, toward --                    THE AMNIO TANK. There is a FIGURE floating lanquidly inside,          which looks like a man. A very large, very blue, man.                    Blood circulates through a synthetic UMBILICAL in the          abdomen. As the figure turns in the amniotic fluid, we see          that it has a lemur-like TAIL. The skin is cyan-blue. Long          black hair drifts, graceful as seaweed.                                         JAKE                    Damn.   They got big.                                                                                 12.                                                            NORM                    Yeah, they mature on the trip out.                        (to Max)                    So the proprioceptive sims worked pretty                    well.                                        MAX                    Yeah, they've got great muscle tone. Give                    us a few hours, you guys can take them                    for a spin.                    THE FIGURE'S sleeping face turns toward us, and the features          are -- despite feline ears and a long feral snout --          definitely JAKE'S.                                        JAKE                    It looks like him.                                        NORM                    No, it looks like you.   This is your                    avatar now, Jake.                    ON JAKE, mesmerized as he stares into the tank.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    The idea is -- every driver is matched to                    his own avatar --                    STEREOCAM VIDEO SHOT OF JAKE -- facing the camera, talking          directly to the lens. JAKE'S VOICE-OVER up until now has          been part of this VIDEOLOG.                                         JAKE                    -- so their nervous systems are in tune.                    Or something. Which is why they offered                    me this gig, because I can link with                    Tommy's avatar, which was insanely                    expensive.                        (looking off camera)                    Is this right? I just say whatever in                    these videologs?                    WIDER, showing Norm working nearby with Max.                                        NORM                    Yeah. You just need to get in the habit                    of documenting everything -- what you                    see, what you feel -- it's all part of                    the science. Good science starts with                    good observation.                                                                               13.                                                            JAKE                    Right.                        (to camera)                    So, whatever. Here I am. Doing science.                        (looks around)                    Never been in a lab before.                                        MAX                    Log off. It's time to meet your boss for                    the next five years.                    He leads Jake and Norm through the short corridor to the --                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. LINK ROOM - DUSK                    The LINK ROOM contains a dozen PSIONIC LINK UNITS, which look          like coffins crossed with MRI scanners.                                        NORM                    Grace Augustine is a legend. She's the                    head of the Avatar Program, and she wrote                    the book -- I mean literally wrote the                    book -- on Pandoran botany.                                        MAX                        (low, over his shoulder)                    That's because she likes plants better                    than people.                    DR. GRACE AUGUSTINE sits up in her link, stretching and          cracking her neck after a long session. She's fifty, with a          strong face and fiercely intelligent eyes.                                        GRACE                        (YELLING)                    Who's got my goddamn cigarette?!                    A TECH scurries to bring it to her, already lit.   Around here          they jump when Grace barks.                    Grace stands, scowling, as Jake, Norm and Max approach.                                        MAX                    And here she is, Cinderella back from the                    ball. Grace, I'd like you to meet Norm                    Spellman and Ja --                                        GRACE                    Norm. I hear good things about you.                    How's your Na'vi?                                                                              14.                                                            NORM                        (Na'vi, subtitled)                    May the All Mother smile upon our first                    meeting.                    Grace nods approvingly, taking a drag on her cigarette.                                        GRACE                        (SUBTITLED)                    Not bad. You sound a little formal.                                        NORM                        (SUBTITLED)                    There is still much to learn.                    Jake waits while they ignore him, chattering in fluent Na'vi.                                        MAX                    Uh, Grace, this is Jake S----                                        GRACE                        (turning to Jake)                    Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, and I                    don't need you. I need your brother.                        (to Max)                    You know -- the PhD who trained three                    years for this mission.                                        JAKE                    He's dead. I know it's a big                    inconvenience to everyone.                                        GRACE                    How much lab training have you had?   Ever                    run a gas chromatograph?                                           JAKE                    No.                                        GRACE                    Any actual lab work at all?                                        JAKE                    High school chemistry.   But I ditched.                    Grace wheels on Max.                                        GRACE                    You see? You see? They're pissing on us                    without even the courtesy of calling it                    rain.                        (turning away)                    I'm going to Selfridge.                                                                               15.                                        She shoves past Jake.                                        MAX                    Grace, that's not a good idea.                    But she's already out the door and clomping down the          corridor. Max turns to Jake with a pained look.                                        MAX                    Here, tomorrow, oh eight hundred.   Try to                    use big words.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. OPS CENTER - DUSK                    It looks like an air-traffic control tower, with lots of          screens and bay windows showing the whole complex.                    ADMINISTRATOR PARKER SELFRIDGE takes a ball from a newly          opened case of TITLEISTS and sets it on the floor. Selfridge          is young, charismatic, focused. Some would say ruthless.                    He assumes the stance and lines up his putt, toward a          practice cup across the control room floor. He glances up as          Grace strides toward him.                                        GRACE                    Parker, I used to think it was benign                    neglect, but now I see you're                    intentionally screwing us.                                         SELFRIDGE                    Grace.   You know I enjoy our little                    talks.                                        GRACE                    I need a research assistant, not some                    jarhead dropout.                    Selfridge looks down and hits the ball.                    Grace kicks the practice cup aside, and the ball rolls past.          Selfridge looks at her with a sigh.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Actually, we got lucky with him.                                         GRACE                    Lucky?   How is this in any way lucky?                    As Selfridge saunters over to retrieve the ball --                                                                              16.                                                            SELFRIDGE                    Well -- lucky your guy had a twin                    brother, and lucky the brother wasn't an                    oral hygienist or something. A Marine we                    can use. I'm assigning him to your team                    as security escort.                                        GRACE                    The last thing I need is another trigger                    happy asshole out there!                                        SELFRIDGE                    Look, you're supposed to be winning the                    hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't                    that the whole point of your little                    puppet show? If you look like them, if                    you talk like them, they'll trust you?                    Selfridge crosses to his office, behind a glass wall nearby.          Grace follows.                                        SELFRIDGE                    But after -- how many years? -- relations                    with the indigenous are only getting                    worse.                                        GRACE                    That tends to happen when you use machine                    guns on them.                    On Selfridge's desk is a magnetic base, and hovering in mid-          air, in the invisible field, is a lump of METALLIC ROCK.          Pure UNOBTANIUM. He grabs it and holds it up between thumb          and forefinger, in front of Grace's eyes.                                         SELFRIDGE                    This is why we're here. Unobtanium.                    Because this little gray rock sells for                    twenty million a kilo. No other reason.                    This is what pays for the party. And                    it's what pays for your science.                    Comprendo?                    He places it back in the magnetic field.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Those savages are threatening our whole                    operation. We're on the brink of war and                    you're supposed to be finding a                    diplomatic solution. So use what you've                    got and get me some results.                                                                 CUT TO:                                                                                   17.                                        INT. LINK ROOM - DAY                    NEXT MORNING, GRACE, NORM and JAKE approach their link units.                    Jake glances through a PRESSURE WINDOW. In an adjoining          chamber (the AMBIENT ROOM) JAKE'S AVATAR lies on a gurney,          breathing slowly in PANDORAN AIR. NORM'S AVATAR is on a          second gurney. Both are attended by med techs in exo-masks.                    Norm slips into his LINK CHAIR, expertly donning biometric          sensors.                                        GRACE                    How much link time have you logged?                                        NORM                    Five hundred and twenty hours.                    Grace looks pointedly at Jake.                                        JAKE                    Like -- an hour.                                        GRACE                    Tell me you're joking.                    Grace opens the hood of Jake's link unit. Jake starts          hauling himself across from his wheelchair. She reaches to          help him but --                                         JAKE                    Don't!   I got this.                    Grace steps back, hands raised.    He drags himself into the          unit.                                         GRACE                    So you just figured you'd come out here                    to the most hostile environment known to                    man, with no training of any kind, and                    see how it went? What was going through                    your head?                    He meets her eyes with a defiant glare.                                        JAKE                    Maybe I was just tired of doctors telling                    me what I couldn't do.                    Grace watches him laboriously pull his inert legs into the          link chair by hand.                                                                                 18.                                        Jake settles into the warm fluid gel packs lining the unit.          It seems to enfold him. Grace adjusts his biometric sensors,          then lowers the UPPER CLAMSHELL --                                        GRACE                    Relax and let your mind go blank.    That                    shouldn't be hard for you.                                        JAKE                    Kiss the darkest part of my lily white --                    But the SLAMMING HOOD muffles the rest.                                        MAX                    Initiate link.                    The LINK TECH touches some controls.                    ON A LARGE MONITOR a 3D SCAN of Jake's brain appears.          Regions of activity flow with complex shifting colors.                                        MAX                    That's a gorgeous brain.     Nice activity.                                         GRACE                    Go figure.                        (walking away)                    Alright, I'm going in.                                        TECH                    Phase-lock at forty percent.    He's in                    transition.                    Max watches a display showing the avatar's nervous system          aligning with Jake's -- two ghostly networks of light          merging.                                           MAX                    That's it.     Find your way home.                    ECU JAKE, inside the link unit. His eyes move under the          lids, like a dreamer in REM sleep as --                    INSIDE JAKE'S MIND -- radiant streamers coalesce into a          pulsing TUNNEL OF LIGHT and --                    THE SCREEN FLARES WHITE -- ZZZWHAP! -- resolving into an          overexposed, out-of-focus image -- two BLURRY FACES wearing          masks, looking down.                    ECU JAKE'S AVATAR -- two very intense eyes FILL FRAME, the          pupils contracting. Golden irises pulse with life.                                                                                 19.                                                             MAX                    He's in.                                         TECH                    Phase-lock ninety nine percent. The link                    is stable.                    Blinking, Jake slowly sits up on the gurney. He looks down          at his AVATAR BODY, touching his chest with one hand.                                        MAX                    Take it slow, Jake. We need to check                    your motor control. Try touching your                    fingertips together --                    But Jake isn't listening. He's staring at his legs.     He          eases them off the gurney and --                    HIS BLUE FEET touch the concrete floor, taking his weight.                    JAKE STANDS, feeling the strength in his legs.    His          expression is child-like with wonder.                    HIS POV -- looking down at the med techs, who seem the size          of children next to his 9' tall frame.                    He sees something like a blue tentacle curl across his arm          and he JERKS AROUND in alarm. HIS TAIL.                    As he turns to see it, the tail sweeps instruments off a          table with a crash. Jake laughs and grins at Max.                                        MED TECH                    Easy, Jake, I need you to sit down --                    But Jake takes a step, then another. The wires to the bio-          monitors pull taut, and he yanks them off his chest.                                        MAX                    Jake! Wait, we have to run some tests --                    But Jake pushes past the protesting med techs, toward the          door and --                    EXT. AVATAR COMPOUND - DAY                    Jake emerges, blinking in the morning sun. He finds himself          in the AVATAR COMPOUND -- a living and training area.                    Nearby, a couple of AVATARS are playing one-on-one in front          of a (non-regulation height) basketball net. Others go about          their daily activities around the compound.                                                                                 20.                                        Jake flexes his legs -- JUMPS -- and lands a little          unsteadily, but his expression is joyful.                    He takes a few steps and breaks into a RUN. People are          calling to him, somehwere, but he doesn't hear them -- he's          running. RUNNING!                    He finds himself in the COMPOUND GARDEN, and stops amid          neatly tended rows of ALIEN PLANTS. He looks down, wiggling          his toes in the warm soil. Then inhales deeply -- revelling          in the alien smells -- earth, plants, the nearby forest. He          looks at his bare footprint in the soil of an alien world.                                        GRACE (O.S.)                    Hey Marine!                    Jake turns at the familiar voice to see --                    A statuesque FEMALE AVATAR walking toward him. AVATAR GRACE          is magnificent, with panther thighs, flat muscular stomach          and firm athlete's breasts. She wears shorts and a T-shirt.          In human years she would be about 35.                                          JAKE                    Grace?                                        GRACE                    Well who'd you expect, numbnuts?   Think                    fast!                    She throws him a piece of Pandoran fruit, which he catches.                                        GRACE                    Motor control is looking good.                    Jake bites into the fruit, the juice running down his chin.                                        NORM (O.S.)                    Hey, check it out.                    Jake turns to see NORM'S AVATAR posing like a bodybuilder --          chest shot, back shot, bi's.                                        NORM                    I am a living god.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. MINE PIT - DAY                    A WIDE SHOT of the terraced crater of the UNOBTANIUM MINE.    A          quiet beat, then --                                                                               21.                                        K-WHOOOOM! The entire face of one terrace is blown skyward          in a chain of EXPLOSIONS. The "shot" blasts hundreds of tons          of rock loose.                    LONG LENS ANGLES of enormous WHEEL-LOADERS shovelling up ore-          rich rock and dropping it into DUMP TRUCKS.                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    A wall of steel FILLS FRAME. The DOZER BLADE crushes          everything in its path, reducing trees to kindling.                    WIDER, showing the CLEAR-CUTTING operation near the mine, as          a road is cut through the jungle. Remotely operated DOZERS          three stories tall rip into the tree-line.                    One of the dozers has rotating SLASH-CUTTER, a vicious          spinning head, mounted on a hydraulic arm, that hogs through          the enormous tree trunks in a spray of wood-shrapnel.                    The heavy machines are escorted by AMPSUITS. COLONEL          QUARITCH, on foot, leads a squad of troopers wearing          breathing masks and carrying almighty big AUTOMATIC WEAPONS.                    A BANSHEE -- a fearsome aerial predator -- HURTLES from          above, diving toward them on wings 3 meters across. We get a          glimpse of glassy fangs before --                    P-P-POOM! Quaritch cranks off three rapid SHOTS with his          massive sidearm, and the creature drops with a SHRIEK.                    It crashes near them and Quaritch FIRES two more well placed          rounds. The newbies stare at the thing's barracuda teeth.                                        QUARITCH                    For you pogues, this is a banshee. A                    small one. See, they like it when I                    bring fresh meat out here. And this                    clearcutting really stirs up the hornet's                    nest. So keep your head on a swivel. If                    it moves, shoot it. If you're not sure                    it's moving -- shoot it! If it looks like                    a bunch of flowers you want to take home                    to Sally Rottencrotch -- SHOOT IT!                    What're you gonna do?                                        TROOPERS                    Shoot it, sir!                                        QUARITCH                    Outstanding. Let's roll.                                                                                22.                                        Quaritch leads his squad into the gloom of the forest, his          eyes scanning. Flanking the squad, LYLE WAINFLEET drives an          AMPSUIT, his massive feet CRASHING through the underbrush.                    As his gaze comes down, he sees something ahead of him on the          trail -- an intricate TOTEM of woven sticks, bones and          feathers hanging across the trail like an orb-weaver's web.                    He tears it down with the barrel of his rifle, and stomps it          into the mud as he moves on.                    INT. AVATAR LONGHOUSE - DUSK                    Jake sits on a wooden bed in a long hut of tropical-style          construction -- beamed ceiling, open sides covered by screen.                    Around him the other avatars are bedding down for the night,          pulling insect netting around their cots. In one hand, Jake          holds the end of his long braided QUEUE of hair.                    CLOSE ON the queue -- the ends of the hair writhe slowly with          their own life, like tendrils of a sea creature.                                        JAKE                    That's kinda freaky.                    GRACE switches off the overheads.                                        GRACE                    Lights out amigos.     See ya' at dinner.                    Jake sits in the twilight, listening to the SCREECHES and          HOOTS from the forest. Finally he lies down, CLOSING HIS          EYES and --                    INT. LINK ROOM - NIGHT                    ECU HUMAN JAKE -- his eyes OPEN.                    Jake blinks, disoriented, as Max opens the upper clamshell of          his link unit.                    In the next chair Grace sits up, yawning and cracking her          neck as the scared tech runs to her with a lit cigarette.                                        GRACE                        (looking down)                    Damn. Same old sack a' bones.                    JAKE struggles with the dead weight of his legs as he hauls          himself out of the unit.                                                                   CUT TO                                                                              23.                                        INT. COMMISSARY - EARLY MORNING                    JAKE sits with GRACE, NORM and the other avatar "drivers",          while around them miners, troopers and other base personnel          wolf their breakfasts. Grace is engaged in a heated          conversation with another SCIENTIST.                    Jake, isolated from the conversations around him, notices --                    PILOT TRUDY CHACON approaching, dressed in her flight suit.          She's a rock-hard former Marine with thousands of flight          hours out in the badlands.                                         TRUDY                    Sully -- Colonel wants to see you in the                    Armor Bay.                    Jake gives Norm a puzzled glance and pivots from the table.          He wheels away, led by Trudy.                    TIGHT ON GRACE, scowling as she watches him go.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. ARMOR BAY - MORNING                    JAKE AND TRUDY enter the ARMOR BAY, passing TILT-ROTORS under          repair. There are the heavily armed SCORPIONS as well as          several SA-2 SAMSON work-horses outfitted with door guns and          rocket pods.                                        JAKE                    You guys're packing some heavy ordinance.                                         TRUDY                    Yeah, `cause we're not the only thing                    flyin' around out there. Or the biggest.                    I'm gonna need you on a door gun, I'm a                    man short.                                        JAKE                    Yeah, no problem.                    She extends her fist and he taps it with his.                                        TRUDY                    See ya on the flight-line, zero nine.                        (she points)                    He's down there.                    Jake rolls his chair along the central gallery of the Armor          Bay, passing rows of AMPSUITS standing in service racks.          Techs clamber over the `suits, loading ordinance with cranes          and lifts.                                                                                24.                                        At the end of the row is a makeshift GYM area.   QUARITCH is          bench-pressing massive plates.                                        QUARITCH                    This low gravity makes you soft.                        (pushing the last rep)                    You get soft, Pandora will shit you out                    dead with zero warning.                    Quaritch racks the bar and sits up, sweating but not winded.                                        QUARITCH                    I pulled your record, Corporal. Venezuela                    -- that was some mean bush. Nothing like                    this here, though. You got heart kid,                    coming out here.                                        JAKE                    I figured -- just another hellhole.                    Quaritch chuckles appreciatively, claps him on the shoulder.          The CHIEF MECHANIC yells from the nearest AMPSUIT --                                        MECHANIC                    That servo's in, Colonel, if you want to                    try it.                    Quaritch crosses to the `suit, with Jake following.                                        QUARITCH                    I was in First Recon a few years ahead of                    you. More than a few. Two tours in                    Nigeria, not a scratch. I come out here                    and --                    He points to his scarred face.                                        QUARITCH                    They could fix this if I rotated back.                    But you know what? I kinda like it.                    Reminds me every day what's out there.                    Besides, I can't leave --                    He looks out, as if he can see through the wall to the tree-          line.                                        QUARITCH                    This is my war, here.                    Quaritch climbs the `suit and reaches into the cockpit,          throwing some switches. The `suit's gas-turbine spools up          with a rising WHINE.                                                                                 25.                                                            QUARITCH                    The avatar program is a joke -- buncha                    limpdick scientists. But we have a                    unique opportunity here, you and I. A                    recon Marine in an avatar body could get                    me the intel I need, on the ground, right                    in the hostiles' camp.                    The WHINE is now a roaring WHOOSH as the `suit trembles with          power. The air boils above the exhaust vents.                    Quaritch reaches in and operates the controls, flexing one          huge hand. He nods to the waiting mechanic --                                        QUARITCH                    Looks good.                        (to Jake)                    I need you to learn about these savages,                    gain their trust. Find out how I can                    force their cooperation, or hit `em hard                    if they don't. Maybe you can keep some                    of my boys from going home like you. Or                    bagged-and-tagged.                                        JAKE                        (NODDING)                    That sounds real good, Colonel.   So -- am                    I still with Augustine?                                        QUARITCH                    On paper. You walk like one of her                    science pukes, you quack like one, but                    you report to me. Can you do that for                    me?                    Jake nods. Quaritch brings the `suit to life. He steps          forward and pivots smoothly.                    He balances the two ton machine on one foot while sweeping          the arms in strong, graceful arcs. Jake realizes he is doing          a WU-SHOO KATA. A flawless display of strength and control.          He's impressive, and Jake is impressed. Quaritch is the kind          of man he respects -- focused, hard. Determined.                                        QUARITCH                    Look, son -- I take care of my own. Get                    me what I need, I'll see you get your                    legs back when you rotate home. Your real                    legs.                    He raises the `suit's hand, and slams the canopy shut like          the visor of a helmet. Jake watches Quaritch walk past, huge          feet CLANGING -- KUNG! KUNG! KUNG!                                                                                26.                                        INT. BIO LAB - DAY                    GRACE is on the move, gulping coffee, in a hurry to get their          FIRST SORTIE started. She hands a clipboard to MAX.                                        GRACE                    Start calibrating. We're on the flight                    line in ten minutes.                    Max nods and jogs ahead toward the LINK ROOM. JAKE and NORM          fall in with Grace as they enter the CONNECTING CORRIDOR.                                        GRACE                    What did Atilla want?                                        JAKE                    Just Marines comparin' tattoos.                                        GRACE                        (not buying it)                    Yeah. Well, listen to me, Marine --                    She stops, turning to drill him with a look.                                        GRACE                    -- you're driving an avatar, now.     That                    means you're in my world, got it?                                         JAKE                    Got it.                    She turns and enters the LINK ROOM.                    INT. LINK ROOM                    Grace crosses to the controls of Jake's LINK UNIT. As the          others catch up --                                        GRACE                    That son of a bitch has screwed up this                    program enough. All this --                        (indicating link room)                    -- exists so we can go out there and                    build a bridge of trust to these people,                    who could teach us so much. But thanks                    to Quaritch and his thugs the Na'vi won't                    even talk to us anymore.                                        JAKE                    Then how's this supposed to work?                                                                               27.                                                            GRACE                    We have a new face.                        (turning to Norm)                    You're fluent, you've studied the                    culture. You're non-threatening. The                    ones we know best -- the Omaticaya clan --                    may give you a chance. Maybe you can get                    them back to the table before things go                    tits-up for good.                                        NORM                    This is failing as a pep talk.                    Jake hauls himself across from wheelchair to link.                                        JAKE                    How do we contact them?                                        GRACE                    We don't. They contact us. If they see                    us taking our samples, treating the                    forest with respect --                        (pointedly to Jake)                    Not trampling everything in sight --                    they may reach out to us.                                        JAKE                    Or they may skin us and make a drum.                    Jake lies back, lowering the sensor array over his body.                                        GRACE                    Just keep your mouth shut and let Norm do                    the talking.                    She closes his clamshell, HARD, and we --                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. RAIN FOREST / AERIAL - DAY                    FLYING over a carpet of rainforest, past sheer cliffs and          cloud-wreathed mesas. TRUDY'S SAMSON TILT-ROTOR chases its          shadow across the treetops. Though big as a Blackhawk, it is          tiny in the vast primeval landscape.                    ANGLE THROUGH the open side doors of the Samson. Trooper          WAINFLEET, in exo-mask and body armor, leans on his door gun,          scanning for aerial predators.                    In avatar form JAKE, GRACE and NORM watch the forest          unrolling beneath them, the wind blasting their clothes.          Jake mans the other door gun, his feet propped on the skids.                                                                                 28.                                        TRUDY flies from a pressurized cockpit. She banks to follow a          shallow river.                                        TRUDY (INTERCOM)                    Sturmbeest herd, one o'clock.                    Norm grins and points, excitedly. Jake looks in time to see--          A herd of STURMBEEST -- massive six-legged creatures          reminiscent of buffalo -- thundering across the river.                                         GRACE                    Looks like a bull, six cows and some                    juveniles.                                        NORM                    The bull has the red on the dorsal armor?                    Grace nods approvingly.                    TIME CUT -- Hundreds of purple winged creatures take flight          from a lake, startled by the Samson. They skim the water          above their own reflections. TETRAPTERONS.                    TIME CUT -- the ground drops away as the Samson flies over a          WATERFALL hundreds of feet high. Trudy banks hard, rolling          in on the gorge below like it's a gun-run.                    Wainfleet WHOOPS while Norm looks like he's about to puke.                                           WAINFLEET                    Yo Chacon!     Get some!                    Jake grins into the airstream.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. CLEARING - DAY                    A small meadow among towering trees. The fern-like "grass"          is beaten down in waves by the rotor-wash as the Samson          settles to the ground.                    Jake pulls the massive door gun off its pintle mount and          hefts it like an assault rifle.                    He and Wainfleet leap out to secure the LZ, scanning the tree-          line warily, weapons aimed.                    Grace jogs forward to the cockpit, motioning Trudy to shut          down. Trudy kills the Samson's TURBINES.                    Grace, towering over Wainfleet, motions him to hang back.                                                                              29.                                                            GRACE                    Stay with the ship.                        (for Jake)                    One idiot with a gun's enough.                                        WAINFLEET                    Whatever you say, Doc.                    Jake takes point as they enter the jungle.                                        WAINFLEET                        (LAUGHING)                    Ya'll have fun out there.                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    The forest engulfs JAKE, GRACE and NORM in cyan gloom. The          shadows are alive with the CHITTERING sounds of unseen alien          wildlife.                    TRACKING WITH JAKE as he moves through the foliage, hyper-          alert -- looking around like a tourist in Hell.A monkey-like          PROLEMURIS leaping from limb to limb overhead, flashing          through the sunlight streaming down in shafts.                    A PLANT with swaying tendrils which reach toward Jake as he          passes.                    This forest is more alive than any on Earth, with plants that          react and move like animals. Jake white-knuckles his rifle          as if every shadow conceals razor-fanged death.                                        GRACE                    Relax, Marine. You're making me nervous.                    She pushes ahead of him on the trail, forcing him to lower          his muzzle as he follows her. Grace moves nimbly on the          path, seemingly unconcerned.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. FOREST/ GLEN                    WIDE SHOT as the party moves between the huge trees, tiny as          ants. The trail has gotten steeper, the going tougher.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. SCHOOL RUINS - DAY                    They enter a clearing with an OVERGROWN BUILDING made of          timbers cut from the local trees, with a thatch roof. It is          covered with vines as the jungle reclaims it.                                                                               30.                                                            NORM                    How will they know we're here?                                        GRACE                    I'm sure they're watching us right now.                    Norm gulps. Jake looks behind him as they approach the          school, feeling unseen eyes.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. SCHOOL RUINS                    TRACKING WITH JAKE'S BOOTS as he steps among dried leaves and          a few moldering CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Floorboards CREAK.                                        GRACE (O.S.)                    The kids were so bright, so eager to                    learn... they picked up English faster                    than I could teach it to them.                    WIDER as Jake explores the room. Grace and Norm are selecting          INSTRUMENTS from storage cases on a wooden table.                                        GRACE                    Bring the soil probe -- right there,                    yellow case.                    Jake looks up at a RUSTLING among the dark rafters. Roosting          STINGBATS eye him warily, fluttering their wings.                    Grace picks up a moldering copy of "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss          from the floor and puts it back on a shelf.                                         GRACE                        (WISTFULLY)                    The stingbats knock them off. I guess I                    always hope somebody will come back and                    read them.                                        NORM                    Why don't they come back?                                        GRACE                        (GRIMLY)                    The Na'vi learned as much about us as                    they needed to know.                    Jake sees something, and approaches the blackboard -- reaches          out to touch a pattern of holes blasted into the slate.          Unmistakably BULLET HOLES.                                                                                 31.                                                            JAKE                        (turning to her)                    What happened here?                                        GRACE                        (SHARPLY)                    Are you going to help with this gear?                    We've got a lot to do.                    She turns away.   Jake watches her as he jams equipment into          his pack.                                                                     CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    CLOSE ON Grace's blue hand gently brushing away soil,          exposing a tangle of ROOT TENDRILS.                                        GRACE                    See, right here where the roots of the                    two trees interact.                    WIDER -- GRACE and NORM crouch among enormous octopoidal          roots. She takes a tiny sample using a needle-like probe.          Norm uses a digital DEVICE to scan the roots.                    JAKE, bored, scouts ahead a few meters.                    He comes to a GLADE filled with shoulder-high SPIRAL PLANTS          called HELICORADIANS.                    He BRUSHES one and SHTOONK! -- it SUCKS DOWN into a tube in          the ground so quickly it seems to simply vanish.                    Curious, Jake touches another -- SHTOONK! And another --          like popping balloons after a party. SHTOONK! SHTOONK!          SHTOONK!                    A chain reaction begins and the whole colony pulls down into          the ground, REVEALING --                    A HAMMERHEAD TITANOTHERE. Like a six-legged rhinoceros, but          twice that size. Its massive, low-slung head has projections          of bone giving it the look of a hammerhead shark.                    Its baleful eyes lock onto him.   Jake raises his rifle.                    Grace, alerted by the creature's SNORTS, runs to where she          can see the tableau. She presses her THROAT MIKE.                                        GRACE                    Don't shoot. You'll piss it off.                                                                                 32.                                        The bull HAMMERHEAD bellows and lowers its 3 meter wide          sledgehammer of a skull.                                        JAKE                    It's already pissed off!                                        GRACE                    Jake, that armor's too thick. Trust me.                    Jake starts to back away.   The hammerhead bellows again,          pawing the earth.                                        GRACE                    It's a territorial threat display. Do not                    run, or he'll charge.                                        JAKE                    What do I do?                                        GRACE                    Hold your ground!                    The hammerhead SLASHES its head sideways, splintering          saplings. It bellows again, lowers its head and CHARGES --                    Jake SCREAMS at the top of his lungs, spreads his arms wide          and runs straight at the thing.                    It STOPS abruptly, with an oversized BLEAT.                    ON JAKE -- amazed the gambit worked.                                         JAKE                    Oh yeah!   Who's bad?! That's right.                    SOMETHING rises up behind him out of focus --                    A THANATOR. The most awesome land predator the universe has          ever conceived This thing could eat a T-rex and have the          Alien for desert.                    It is a black six-limbed panther from Hell, with an armored          head and massive distensible jaws.                    JAKE, unaware of the advancing thanator, is still bracing the          hammerhead --                                        JAKE                    That's what I'm talkin' about, bitch!                    The bull wheels around, TRUMPETING in fear, and CRASHES away          through splintering undergrowth.                                                                                 33.                                                            JAKE                    That's right motherf--                    A guttural SNARL behind him. Jake spins in time to see --                    THREE TONS of rippling thanator LAUNCH over him, landing          between him and the hammerhead. The ground shakes.                    The thanator emits an earsplitting ROAR, enraged that the          hammerhead got away. It twists on itself, turning to face          Jake, and bares its fangs with a lethal HISS.                                        JAKE                    What about this one?       Run, don't run?                    What?                                           GRACE                    Run.     Definitely RUN!                    Jake BOLTS as --                    The thanator LEAPS after him and --                    Jake launches himself between two large trunks, forcing the          beast to claw its way around to the side while --                    Jake scrambles up -- around -- over a tangle of roots and --                    SK-RASH!! CLAWS SLASH the air behind him, EXPLODING bark off          a trunk as --                    JAKE wills himself forward in a frenzy. With rippling muscle          the beast is airborne again, blacking out the sun but --                    JAKE dives under a massive root system, and --                    CRASH! Kindling rains around him as the beast tears into the          root-trunks above him. Claws SLASH down next to him as he          rolls and crawls --                    Glistening jaws SMASH and SNAP against the barrier trunks,          sending chunks of wood flying. It's spittle sprays across          Jake, jaws inches away as --                    He rolls onto his back, and FIRES his AR point blank but the          rifle is SNATCHED out of his hands. The beast SCREECHES an          ungodly WAIL of pain and rage and -- RIPS the ENTIRE TRUNK          away. Jake scrambles to escape but --                    GLISTENING JAWS lunge downward, SNAP SHUT and --                    The creature rips Jake out of the tree, shaking him like a          junkyard dog with a rabbit, only --                                                                                 34.                                        It has him by the BACKPACK, so Jake unlatches it and --                    He FLIES FREE as the thanator crushes the pack with its          teeth. Giving Jake a moment to sprint away, but --                    With a hideous BELLOW the thanator crashes after him,          splintering trees.                    JAKE RUNS in a blur, dodging between trunks as a glistening          black tornado shreds the forest behind him and --                    He sees WATER ahead and DIVES OUTWARD with all his might --                    The thanator's jaws SNAP SHUT inches behind him as he flies          out into open space and --                    JAKE SPLASHES down into a swiftly moving river.                    The thanator LEAPS DOWN AFTER HIM, pursuing from rock to          rock, its claws swiping like a grizzly fishing for salmon.                    Jake ducks under as -- FWHOOSH! -- black claws SLASH past          his face amid turbulent bubbles.                    A WATERFALL ahead. Jake is swept over the falls, with the          thanator SWIPING at him from a rock, just MISSING and --                    Jake disappears down the throat of the thundering cataract.                    EXT. RIVER BELOW FALLS - DAY                    The water boils below the cataract. Jake's head bursts          through the surface, and he gasps for breath.                    He is carried along by the current, but manages to grab a          limb on a fallen tree. He weakly pulls himself up, and just          lies there gasping on the trunk.                    Above him, on the cliff, the THANATOR BELLOWS, a roar which          echoes across the jungle.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    JAKE, wet and bruised, crouches under a screen of giant          leaves.   He hacks manically at the end of a cut sapling with          his knife, forming a crude but sharp tip.                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    TRACKING with Jake as he walks through the forest like it's a          minefield, carrying his SPEAR white-knuckled. He is freaked          and hyper-alert.                                                                                  35.                                        The trees here are a hundred meters high, blocking out the          sky. A few pencil beams of sunlight filter down into the          cyan gloom.                    POV FROM ABOVE -- looking down through leaves we watch Jake          move warily through the forest.                    ECU -- TWO GOLDEN EYES, bright in the shadows.                    DOWNANGLE as Jake passes under a tree limb. Invisible to          him, draped on the limb like a leopard, is a striking NA'VI          GIRL. She watches, only her eyes moving.                    She is lithe as a cat, with a long neck, muscular shoulders,          and nubile breasts. And she is devastatingly beautiful --          for a girl with a tail. In human age she would be 18. Her          name is NEYTIRI(nay-Tee-ree).                    Jake passes less than 2 meters beneath her, oblivious.                    NEYTIRI rises soundlessly. In one fluid, sinuous movement          she NOCKS an arrow to her BOW and DRAWS, aiming RIGHT AT          JAKE. Utterly silent.                    Below her Jake is totally unaware of the arrow aimed at his          THROAT.                    ON NEYTIRI as she follows him with the bow, muscles tensing          for the shot --                    -- and SOMETHING drifts down in front of her, F.G.    She          hesitates.                    RACK FOCUS to the tip of the arrow -- where a single          WOODSPRITE floats down to land on the arrow-head.Like a          dandelion seed, but larger, the WOODSPRITE waves its silky          CILIA, feather light, as it balances on the deadly point. It          glows faintly in the dark shadows.                    NEYTIRI frowns, puzzled, and LOWERS her bow slowly.   The          woodsprite WHIRLS away into the gloom.                                                                      CUT TO:                    INT./EXT. SAMSON - SUNSET                    GRACE and NORM peer down into the shadowed forest as TRUDY          banks in a search pattern.                                        TRUDY (INTERCOM)                    I'm going to have to call it, guys. We're                    not allowed to run night ops. Colonel's                    orders.                                                                                  36.                                        Grace looks to the west.    The sun setting behind alien trees.                                        GRACE                    Shit.                                        TRUDY                    Sorry, Doc. He's just gonna have to hang                    on `till morning.                                        GRACE                    He's not going to make it till morning.                    Grace stares into the dark forest as the Samson banks hard,          thundering away toward the setting sun.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - NIGHT                    LONG LENS-- POLYPHEMUS. The giant planet rises behind the          black trees.                    Jake's got a new problem. He sees shapes moving with liquid          grace in the NIGHT shadows behind him. He is being stalked by          a pack of VIPERWOLVES.                    Jake catches only glimpses -- a glint of eyes, a slinking          black movement -- then nothing. Darkness.                    TIME CUT -- TIGHT ON Jake's hands as he knots his T-shirt          around the butt end of the spear.                    ANGLE ON THICK SAP trickling down a tree-trunk. Jake jams          the makeshift torch into the sap, soaking the shirt with it.                    A WATERPROOF MATCH from his survival kit lights the torch.                    The torch creates a pool of light surrounded by pulsing,          leaping shadows. Jake turns warily as he moves along the          trail.                    Behind him are several pairs of reflective green EYES.          Another pair flanking him beside the trail. Black-on-black          SHAPES which seem to flow like liquid.                    He looks up -- sees one cross a limb overhead.   Another on          his opposite flank.                    Then a hideous sound, like a hyena's psychotic LAUGH.                    The VIPERWOLVES can run like a dog and climb like a monkey.          They are hunting Jake from the ground and the trees.                                                                                 37.                                        JAKE RUNS by torch-light, on the edge of panic. He reaches a          steep banked stream and -- without thinking -- runs across it          on a horizontal trunk --                    -- and STOPS DEAD on the other side. The torch illuminates          GREEN EYES cutting ahead of him across the trail. The          viperwolves have him encircled.                    The psychotic BARKS become more intense as they signal each          other, getting excited. ONE MAKES A RUN at him, angling on          his legs from behind but --                    JAKE WHIRLS, jamming the torch in its face.   It yips and goes          past, but ANOTHER moves in --                    He jabs it with the business end of the spear and it SNARLS,          retreating, baring its fangs.                    Now half a dozen are circling him in the open, and he sees          what he's up against.   The VIPERWOLVES are six-limbed with          shiny chitinous skin, their paws leathery BLACK HANDS.          Intelligent eyes. Glistening black teeth in dead white gums.                    Jake realizes that he is making his final stand.   He whirls          the torch in an arc, keeping them at bay --                    And feels a rush of adrenaline. It goes through him like a          lightning bolt and the fear is gone.                                        JAKE                        (SCREAMING)                    I don't have all goddamn night! Come on!                    Come on!                    With snarls and a blur of motion THEY ATTACK.                    Jake CRACKS the spear down on one, then SPINS as --                    ANOTHER LEAPS at him and he plants the spear in it, striking          true, but --                    Its momentum wrenches it from his hands, and the torch goes          flying. Left in semi-darkness, Jake draws his KNIFE as--                    A WOLF LUNGES, sinking its teeth into his arm. He YELLS in          pain and fury, SLASHING with the knife which --                    CUTS deep into the beast's shoulder and it lets go.                    JAKE SPRINTS, trying to escape, but a snarling viperwolf          leaps, GRABBING him by the ankle with its fore-hand. Jake          tears away, sprawling, SCRAMBLING to get up as --                                                                                 38.                                        THREE WOLVES charge at once.     The nearest LEAPS at his throat          just as --                    THUNK!! -- an ARROW appears in its chest.                    The wolf lands on him, already a dead weight.    He pushes it          off in time to see --                    A BLUE AMAZON emerge from the trees, nock another arrow, draw          and FIRE in one fluid motion. AN UNEARTHLY YOWL as another          wolf falls.                    NEYTIRI LEAPS right over Jake, and CRACKS her bow down on the          skull of a circling wolf.                    ANOTHER SPRINGS at her and she drops under its weight, but          rolls, coming up on top of it with a knife in her hand.                    Her knife FLASHES down, buried to the hilt in its chest.                    SNARLING, a wounded wolf attacks Jake, and he KICKS it away,          but --                    It SPINS and leaps back onto him, and Jake barely catches its          throat in time to keep the SNAPPING JAWS away from his face.                    MEANWHILE Neytiri swings her bow in a big arc, CRACKING IT          across the heads and shoulders of two remaining wolves.                                        NEYTIRI                    Rrreeyaaah! Hyaaaah!!                    The wolves slink and circle, yelping as the bow whistles past          them. Finally they break and run, with Neytiri chasing and--                    They bound away through the foliage as she SHOUTS after them--                                           NEYTIRI                    Raaaarrrr!                    Jake has his adversary pinned and is choking it with all his          weight. Finally it stops thrashing. Panting, he releases it          and looks up at --                    NEYTIRI. Her tail LASHES as she scans the forest, listening          to the fading YELPS of the wolves. Satisfied the attack is          over, she turns.                    She regards him coldly for a second, then walks past him.          Neytiri picks up the torch and extinguishes it in a stream.                                        JAKE                    Wait, don't --                                                                                 39.                                        Jake blinks around at the darkness -- realizing he can still          see. In fact, with the blinding torchlight gone, the forest          is transformed.                    The jungle has come alive with BIOLUMINESCENCE -- spots and          patterns, ghosts and galaxies of blue-green light.                    Jake scrambles to recover his spear.   Neytiri kneels beside --                    A DYING WOLF. It's CRIES are pitiful. It paws the air,          trying to raise its head. She pulls her KNIFE from its          chest.                                        NEYTIRI                        (in Na'vi)                    Forgive me, my brother.                    She cuts its throat, ending the pitiful cries. She touches          its head gently, regarding it with sadness.                    Neytiri wipes the knife and returns it to the sheath at her          waist. She crosses to another slain wolf and kneels, pulling          the arrow from its heart.                                        JAKE                    Look, um, I know you probably don't                    understand this. But -- thanks. Thank                    you. I owe you.                    Neytiri ignores him, assuming a prayer posture over the dead          animal.                                        NEYTIRI                        (in Na'vi)                    Forgive me. May your spirit run with the                    Great Mother.                                        JAKE                    I would have been screwed if you hadn't                    come along --                    She rises and walks away without looking at Jake.                                        JAKE                    Hey, wait. Wait!   Where you goin'?                    He crashes through some plants, catching up to her.                                        JAKE                    Slow down a second will you. I just want                    to thank you for killing those --                    He makes the mistake of grasping her shoulder and --                                                                               40.                                        WHACK! She WALLOPS him upside the head with her bow in a          fierce backhand swing, laying him out flat.                    He looks up to see a FURY standing over him. A Fury who          speaks English -- accented, halting, angry English.                                        NEYTIRI                    Don't thank! You don't thank for this!                    This is sad. Very sad, only.                                        JAKE                    Okay, I'm sorry.    Whatever I did -- I'm                    sorry.                    She gestures at the bodies of the viperwolves.                                        NEYTIRI                    All this is your fault! They did not need                    to die.                                        JAKE                    They attacked me.   How'm I the bad guy                    HERE--                    She silences him with the tip of her bow at his throat.                                        NEYTIRI                    Your fault! You are like a baby, making                    noise, don't know what to do. You should                    not come here, all of you! You only come                    and make problems. Only.                    Jake gets up, slowly, facing her.                                        JAKE                    Okay, fine, you love your little forest                    friends. So why not just let them kill                    my ass? What's the thinking?                    CU Neytiri -- looking away. Finally, reluctantly, her eyes          MEET HIS for the first time -- a riveting gaze with those big          gold orbs.                                        NEYTIRI                    Why save you?                                        JAKE                    Yes, why save me?                                        NEYTIRI                    You have a strong heart.   No fear.                    She leans closer --                                                                                 41.                                                            NEYTIRI                    But stupid! Ignorant like a child!                    She turns away, stalking off, but Jake goes after her.                    TRACKING WITH Neytiri as she climbs nimbly along a huge ROOT.                    WIDER as she trots with perfect balance along the root, which          forms an elevated walkway.                    Jake runs to catch up, realizing suddenly that he is far          above the forest floor. Throughout the following they move          through a GLOWING PHANTASMAGORICAL FOREST.                                        JAKE                    If I'm so ignorant, maybe you should                    teach me.                                        NEYTIRI                    Sky people can not learn.   You do not                    See.                    She leaps to another elevated root.   Jake follows, surprised          that he made it.                                         JAKE                    Whooaa.                    He runs to catch up with her easy jogging pace.                                        JAKE                    Then teach me to "see."                    She stops and he almost runs into her.                                        NEYTIRI                    No one can teach you to See.                    Then she turns and trots on.                    EXT. GORGE - NIGHT                    They run across the elevated root of an enormous tree -- a          horizontal trunk big as an oak.                    WIDE SHOT as they cross a DEEP GORGE. A waterfall shimmers          silver in the Polyphemus-light. Vines hang down a hundred          feet into the gorge, and among them swoop stingbats and other          night flyers.                                        JAKE                    Hey, slow down. Look, I think we just                    got off on the wrong foot and --                                                                                 42.                                        Jake looks down, suddenly aware of the height.                                        JAKE                    --you just have to get to know me. I'm                    Jake. Jake Sull--                    A vine catches his spear and spins him off balance.   He drops          the spear and almost falls off the root.                                        JAKE                    Whooaaa -- shit!                    Neytiri catches him with one hand, gripping his bicep. He          watches the spear cartwheel down to splash in the river.                    She pulls him upright. Shouts at him in English and Na'vi.                                        JAKE                    I need your help.                                        NEYTIRI                    You should not be here.                                        JAKE                    So take me with you.                                        NEYTIRI                    No. You go back.                    DOWN ANGLE FROM FAR ABOVE -- several WOODSPRITES float down          through the trees. FOLLOW THEM as they descend silently          toward Jake and Neytiri.                    NEYTIRI, sensing a presence, looks up to see --                    The WOODSPRITES, PULSING with purpose, float right towards          Jake. They dance gently around his shoulders and head.                                        JAKE                        (off her amazed look)                    What?                    More woodsprites gather around him.   Several ALIGHT on him.                    Jake holds still, knowing he should be afraid -- but somehow          he's not. He spreads his arms. More sprites come, landing          all over his arms, hands, body.                                        JAKE                    What are they?                    CU NEYTIRI -- reacting with a mixture of wonder and dread.                                                                                 43.                                                            NEYTIRI                    Atokirina'. Seeds of the Great Tree --                    very pure spirits.                    Jake -- now a pulsing, glowing, fluttering MASS OF LIGHT --          moves one hand slowly, not wanting to break the spell. He          studies one of the sprites dancing on his palm until --                    -- WHOOSSHH! the woodsprites whirl up and away, scattering          into the darkness.                                        JAKE                    What was that all about?                    Neytiri seems shaken.   She seizes his hand and pulls him          after her.                                        NEYTIRI                    Come!                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - NIGHT                    TRACKING WITH JAKE as he gazes about him in growing wonder.          He touches leaves as he passes, watching the bioluminescence          shiver through them.                    Jake looks down as -- they cross a bed of purple MOSS which          reacts to the pressure of their footsteps. Rings of green          light, like ripples on a pond, expand outward from each          footfall. Exploding rings of light where his feet touch          down. Dream-like, surreal beauty.                    WIDE ON THEM as they run over a large root, across a mirror-          like POOL at the base of a WATERFALL.                    Jake follows Neytiri, running along a raised root-trunk.                                        JAKE                    What's your name?                    JAKE hears WHOOSH-WHOOSH and snaps a look as a BOLO flies at          him, spinning end for end and --                    SHWHAP!! -- tangles around his legs.   He topples off the root          and crashes into the foliage below.                    JAKE untangles himself, getting up to run just as --                    SEVERAL NA'VI RIDERS thunder toward him. They are riding          DIREHORSES -- six-legged, armor-skinned alien Clydesdales.                                                                                 44.                              We see that the riders' QUEUES are connected to the horses'          long moth-like antennae -- a neural-link with which they can          command the horse, leaving hands free for weapons.                    The riders aim bows and spears at Jake as they approach. Jake          turns to bolt, but --                    NA'VI HUNTERS melt out of the shadows, weapons aimed --          blocking his retreat.                    Neytiri drops to the ground next to Jake and confronts the          LEAD RIDER. She shouts sharply in Na'vi --                                        NEYTIRI                        (SUBTITLED)                    Tsu'tey, what are you doing?! He is my                    captive!                    TSU'TEY(tsu-Tay)is young and powerfully built, with sculpted          features and a proud jawline, piercing eyes. Tsu'tey swings          off his mount with fluid grace.                                        TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    These demons are forbidden here. I will                    kill this one as a lesson to the others!                    Tsu'tey draws his bow but Neytiri leaps between him and Jake,          confronting him warrior to warrior.                                        NEYTIRI                        (SUBTITLED)                    Stop! There has been a sign. This is a                    matter for the Tsahik.                    Tsu'tey clenches his jaw with frustration -- frustration with          her as much as the situation. He turns and angrily remounts          his direhorse, barking a command to the HUNTERS.                                         TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    Bring him.                    They grab Jake and haul him to his feet. Encircled by spears          and bows, he is shoved forward along the trail, as Tsu'tey          and the others ride ahead.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. HOMETREE - NIGHT                    JAKE is hauled roughly toward Neytiri's village, which is          sheltered inside one of the GREAT TREES. HOMETREE is 250          meters tall, with a trunk four times the diameter of the          largest Sequoia, and a base of massive mangrove-pillars.                                                                                45.                                        TSU'TEY rides inside the columns at the base of Hometree,          shouting an ululating WARNING.                    Jake is force-marched through the pillars into --                    INT. COMMONS/HOMETREE - NIGHT                    An open CENTRAL AREA. The villagers gather to see the          arriving hunt party. We see the people of the tribe --          mothers with babies, old women, young hunters.                    They gawk at the alien, expressions ranging from curiosity to          outright hostility. The huge eyes of the children follow          him.                    Jake is amazed at the size of HOMETREE inside. By the light          of the COOK-FIRES he can see up into a vast cylindrical          gallery -- a living cathedral.                    Clear membranes -- sturmbeest bladders -- filled with          fluttering bio-luminescent insects, act as area lighting.                    The central space is dominated by the SKULL of some enormous          creature, mounted with much embellishment on a TOTEM.          Standing in front of this, awaiting their approach, is --                    EYTUKAN (AY-too-kahn), the Clan Leader. Eytukan has deeply          chiselled features and a long chest mantle of THANATOR CLAWS.          His normally stern features are clouded further by anger.                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Why do you bring this creature here?                    Neytiri addresses Eytukan in Na'vi.                                        NEYTIRI                        (SUBTITLED)                    I was going to kill him, but there was a                    sign from Eywa.                    He glowers at her as he responds, pointing at Jake.                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    I have said no dreamwalker will come                    here, to offend our home! His alien                    smell fills my nose                    Neytiri stands her ground, answering in a respectful but not          submissive tone.                                                                                 46.                                                            NEYTIRI                        (SUBTITLED)                    Father, many atokirina came to this                    alien.                                        JAKE                    What's going on?                                        NEYTIRI                    My father is deciding whether to kill                    you.                                        JAKE                    Your father!?                        (to Eytukan)                    Uh, good to meet you, sir.                    Jake steps forward, offering his hand, and the hunters JUMP          to restrain him, shouting. But they all FREEZE as --                    A commanding FEMALE VOICE echoes through the chamber.                                         MO'AT                        (NA'VI)                    Step back!                    Everybody looks up.                    MO'AT (MOH-aht) stands on the second level, looking down.          She is a severe woman in her 50's. Her bearing is haughty,          her expression friendly as a hanging-judge. Her outfit is          elaborate, denoting her rank as CLAN MATRIARCH.                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    I will look at this alien.                    There is an expectant hush as Mo'at descends the helical core          of Hometree, a kind of natural spiral staircase.                                        NEYTIRI                    That is Mother. She is Tsahik -- the one                    who interprets the will of Eywa.                                        JAKE                    Who's Eywa?                    Neytiri kneels before her like an acolyte as Mo'at passes.                    The villagers stare silently as the Matriarch circles slowly          around Jake, examining his tail and the end of his queue.                                                                               47.                                                            MO'AT                        (thick accent)                    What are you called?                                        JAKE                    Jake Sully.                    She produces a long THORN between her fingertips. With a          flourish she strikes his chest.                    Jake flinches. RED BLOOD wells up and Mo'at rubs some          between her fingertips. She tastes it.                                        MO'AT                    Why did you come to us?                                        JAKE                    I came to learn.                                        MO'AT                    We have tried to teach other Sky People.                    It is hard to fill a cup which is already                    full.                                        JAKE                    My cup is empty, trust me. Just ask                    Doctor Augustine. I'm no scientist.                                        MO'AT                    What are you?                                        JAKE                    I don't know. I was a Marine -- uh, a                    warrior. Of the Jarhead clan.                                        TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    A warrior! I could kill him easily!                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    No! This is the first warrior                    dreamwalker we have seen. We need to                    learn more about him.                                        JAKE                    What's going on?   What are they saying?                                        MO'AT                        (to Neytiri, subtitled)                    Daughter. You will teach him our way, to                    speak and walk as we do.                                                                               48.                                        NEYTIRI looks shocked, then angry.                                        NEYTIRI                        (SUBTITLED)                    Why me? That's not fair!     I only--                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    It is decided!                    Neytiri subsides, turning to glare at Jake.                                        MO'AT                        (to Jake)                    My daughter will teach you our ways.                    Learn well, Jakesully. We will see if                    your insanity can be cured.                    She turns to Neytiri, her expression stern --                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    He is your responsibility.                    Neytiri nods, accepting, but she's not a happy camper.   She          grabs Jake's arm and pulls him roughly away.                                        JAKE                    So it's all good, right?   You and me --                                        NEYTIRI                    Do not speak.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. SECOND LEVEL/HOMETREE                    LATER, Neytiri leads Jake up the spiral to the SECOND LEVEL.          He now wears only a ratty LOINCLOTH. His wounds are bound          with plant-fiber bandages.                    THE ENTIRE CLAN is squatting at dinner in a huge circle. They          stop talking and turn to gaze at Jake as he enters the          circle.                                        JAKE                    Don't get up.                    Neytiri crosses the circle to the cook pit and returns with          several large leaves heaped with food. She kneels next to          Jake, placing the food in front of him almost DEFIANTLY.                                        JAKE                    You never told me your name.                                                                                 49.                                                            NEYTIRI                    Neytiri te Ckaha Mo'at'ite.                                        JAKE                    Okay, again, a whole lot slower.                                        NEYTIRI                        (exaggerated slowness)                    Neytiri. Nay-TEE-ree.                    Jake knows she's baiting him.   He smiles in response.                                        JAKE                    Nay-TEE-ree. That's nice. Nay-TEE-ree.                    ACROSS THE CIRCLE, Tsu'tey, Mo'at and Eytukan sit together,          glancing up occasionally from their food to the stranger.                                        TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    These aliens try to look like people, but                    they can't.                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    He seems dim to me.   And his eyes are too                    small.                    NEYTIRI motions for Jake to take portions from the serving          leaves onto his own leaf.                                        JAKE                    Your mom likes me.    I can tell.                    MO'AT, watching Jake and Neytiri, leans over to Eytukan.                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    Neytiri will test this "warrior." Hey may                    learn nothing -- but we will learn much.                                        EYTUKAN                    You speak truth. We must understand                    these Sky People if we are to drive them                    out.                    Jake munches on a white shrimp-like thing.                                        JAKE                    These rock. What are they?                                        NEYTIRI                    Teylu. You call beetle larvae.                                                                                 50.                                        Jake blanches. She heaps some more onto his leaf -- a          CHALLENGE -- and Jake meets her eyes, takes a handful, and          starts munching enthusiastically.                                        JAKE                    That's some damn fine teylu. That's like                    grandma's teylu.                    CU TSU'TEY, warily eyeing Jake --                                        TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    I say she will kill him.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. THIRD LEVEL - NIGHT                    The sleeping level -- families nesting in groups on woven          hammocks the size of trampolines. The hunters sleep along          SPOKES joining the inner trunk to the tree's outer shell.                    Jake lies awake in a hammock, people rustling in the darkness          around him. Neytiri is nearby, curled up like a little girl.          She stares at him for a moment, then closes her eyes.                    Jake watches the glowing bugs fluttering inside a night-          light, a pulse of life energy. A strange peace spreads          through him. He closes his eyes and --                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. LINK ROOM - NIGHT                    GRACE is over JAKE in the Link, SLAPPING him, as Max and NORM          hover.                                        GRACE                    Come on back, kid, that's it.                                        JAKE                    Wha --? Oh.                    He looks around, blinking.   Reality crashing in.                                        GRACE                    Damn, you were dug in like a tick.                        (she helps him sit up)                    Is the avatar safe?                                        JAKE                        (huge grin)                    Yeah, Doc -- and you are not going to                    believe where I am.                                                                 CUT TO:                                                                                 51.                                        INT. COMMISSARY - MORNING                    BREAKFAST the next day. The other drivers lean forward,          hanging on Grace's re-telling of the tale.                                        GRACE                    -- so the kid's out there one night and                    he's got the Queen Bitch herself offering                    him the spare room and the car keys.                    Unbelievable.                                        JAKE                    It's not something you can teach.                    Some of the other scientists clap Jake on the shoulders in          congratulation.                                        MAX                    That's awesome, Jake.                    NORM chomps his bacon, fuming.                                         GRACE                         (to Jake, getting serious)                    For reasons I cannot fathom, the                    Omaticaya have chosen you. God help us                    all.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. OPS CENTER - MORNING                    JAKE has reported to SELFRIDGE and QUARITCH. Quaritch turns          from gazing out at the wall of forest, displaying a feral          grin.                                        QUARITCH                    Jarhead clan?                        (he laughs)                    And that worked?                                        JAKE                        (GRINNING)                    Yeah. They want to study me.   See if I                    can learn to be one of them.                                        QUARITCH                    That's how you seize the initiative. I                    wish I had ten more like you.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Look, Sully -- find out what these blue                    monkeys want.                              (MORE)                                                                                 52.                                        SELFRIDGE (cont'd)                    We try to give them medicine and                    education. Roads! But no -- they like                    mud. I wouldn't care except --                    Selfridge turns to a large 3D GRAPHIC DISPLAY, pointing. A          road runs from Hell's Gate to a proposed new mine miles away.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Their damn village is sitting right over                    the richest unobtanium deposit for a                    hundred klicks in any direction. Which                    sucks -- for them -- because they need to                    relocate.                                        JAKE                        (taking that in)                    Does Augustine know about this?                                        SELFRIDGE                    Yeah, she does, and she's on the next                    ship back if she tries to cock-block me                    on it.                                        JAKE                    So -- who talks them into moving?                                        QUARITCH                        (TURNING)                    Guess.                                        JAKE                    What if they won't go?                                        QUARITCH                        (ICY)                    I'm betting they will.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Killing the indigenous looks bad, but                    there's one thing shareholders hate more                    than bad press -- and that's a bad                    quarterly statement. Find me a carrot to                    get them to move, or it's going to have                    to be all stick.                    Jake is shaken by the enormity of this new responsibility.                                        QUARITCH                    You got three months.    That's when the                    dozers get there.                                           JAKE                    I'm on it.                                                                 CUT TO:                                                                               53.                                        INT. BIO LAB - MORNING                    JAKE pumps his chair across the lab, flanked by GRACE and          NORM. Grace holds STEREO STILL PICTURES in front of him, one          at a time -- images of clan members she has shot over the          years -- a kind of flash card drill.                                        JAKE                    Tsu'tey.                        (next photo)                    Mo'at.                        (next photo)                    Eytukan.                                        GRACE                    He's the clan leader --                        (indicating Mo'at)                    -- but she's the spiritual leader.   Like                    a shaman.                    INT. LINK ROOM                    The dialogue is continuous as they enter.                                        JAKE                    Got it. So who's this Eywa?                                        NORM                    Who's Eywa? Oh, only their deity. The                    Great Mother. The goddess made up of all                    living things. You'd know that if you                    had any training whatsoever.                    He hauls himself from wheelchair to Link.                                        JAKE                    Who's got a date with the chief's                    daughter?                                        GRACE                    Knock it off. Jesus, it's like                    kindergarten around here.                    As Jake settles into the soft embrace of the link, Grace          inputs commands at the control station.                                        GRACE                    Neytiri was my best student. She and her                    sister Silwanin. Just amazing girls.                                        JAKE                    I didn't meet the sister.                                                                                 54.                                                            GRACE                        (QUIETLY)                    No, she's dead.                        (turning to him)                    Okay, let's go -- village life starts                    early.                                        MAX                    Link is ready.                    Grace lowers the bio-sensor array over Jake's chest.                                        GRACE                    Don't do anything unusually stupid.                    She closes the clamshell and we --                    INT. HOMETREE/ THIRD LEVEL - DAY                    CU JAKE'S AVATAR, blinking awake, staring up at --                    HOMETREE, like a gothic cathedral overhead.   Sunlight streams          down through gaps in the towering vault.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. COMMONS - DAY                    JAKE walks among the villagers, who go about their daily          tasks.                    -- young girls sit together, weaving and SINGING.    They look          up as he passes, then go back to work.                    --two men clean the fish they've caught.                    -- a young mother pounds seeds into meal, while nursing an          infant.                    --children chase each other and climb like monkeys. One bold          LITTLE GIRL runs up to Jake, stops -- staring -- then shrieks          with laughter as she runs back to her playmates.                    GRINNING, Jake turns to see NEYTIRI cantering toward him on a          DIREHORSE. She leads a second horse, an old sway-backed          MARE. His grin drops.                    EXT. RIVER NEAR HOMETREE - DAY                    JAKE nervously grips the surcingle of the mare. Neytiri holds          its nose-ring while Jake clumsily mounts.                    Jake bends one of its ANTENNAE down to the tip of his queue.          He hesitantly touches them together and --                                                                                 55.                                        TIGHT SHOT -- the tendrils INTERWEAVE.                    Jake's PUPILS DILATE and his mouth drops open. The horse's          eyes also go wide and it HONKS nervously. Neytiri touches her          fingertips to the neural interface.                                        NEYTIRI                    This is shahaylu -- the bond. Feel her                    heartbeat, her breath. Feel her strong                    legs.                    Jake closes his eyes, nodding.   One with the horse.                    TSU'TEY and another young hunter come out of the forest          leading TWO DIREHORSES. The magnificent animals drink from          the edge of the pool. Tsu'tey watches Jake's riding lesson          with disdain.                                        NEYTIRI                    You may tell her what to do --                        (she touches her head)                    -- inside. For now, say where to go.                                         JAKE                    Forward.                    The horse LAUNCHES into a GALLOP. Jake flops around, with no          idea how to sit the animal, and is promptly THROWN OFF. He          lands painfully in the mud.                    He gets up, brushing mud off knees and ass, as Neytiri leads          the horse back to him.                                         NEYTIRI                    Again.                    SERIES OF JUMP CUTS -- Jake falls off the horse in various          ways, seemingly landing harder each time.                    ON JAKE, face down in the mud of the riverbank. He painfully          rises to hands and knees. Which is when he sees --                    TSU'TEY and another HUNTER thundering across the shallow          river on their direhorses. Spray blasts up from their          hooves.                    Jake stands, covered in mud, as Tsu'tey stops his horse next          to him, looking down with disdain.                                        TSU'TEY                    You should go away.                                                                                 56.                                                            JAKE                        (to Neytiri)                    I knew this guy could speak English.                    Tsu'tey turns to Neytiri, who is leading the old mare back.                                         TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    This alien will learn nothing.   A rock                    Sees more.                    She sighs in agreement. Tsu'tey and the other hunter wheel          their horses around and THUNDER OFF into the woods.                    NEYTIRI gestures to Jake's horse.                                         NEYTIRI                    Again.                                                                 CUT TO:                    OPS CENTER - NIGHT                    Grouped around a table are JAKE, COLONEL QUARITCH, SELFRIDGE          and few ENGINEERS and OFFICERS. Jake is talking them through          plans he's made of Hometree's inner structure.                                        JAKE                    You've got outer columns, then a                    secondary ring here, and an inner ring.                    Then a core structure, it's like a                    spiral, that's how they move up and down.                                        QUARITCH                    I'm going to need accurate scans of all                    these columns.                                        JAKE                    Roger that.                    ANGLE ON MAX, at the stairwell. He's been watching Jake          talking rapidly to Quaritch, but can't hear him. Frowning,          he backs away, down the stairs.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. BIO LAB - DAY                    JAKE, GRACE and NORM are packing science gear and supplies.                                        GRACE                    I'm not about to let Quaritch and                    Selfridge micro-manage this thing.                        (she looks pointedly at Jake)                    We're going up into the mountains.                              (MORE)                                                                                 57.                                        GRACE (cont'd)                    There's a mobile link up at Site 26 that                    we can work out of.                                        NORM                    The Hallelujah Mountains?                                        GRACE                    That's right.                                        NORM                    Yesssss!                        (off Jake's look)                    The legendary Floating Mountains of                    Pandora? Heard of them?                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - AERIAL - DAY                    A SAMSON THUNDERS over the rainforest, climbing into the mist-          shrouded mountains.                    In the SEALED COCKPIT, Norm is up front, sitting left seat so          Trudy can talk him through the flight controls. Jake and          Grace are behind them, in the jump-seats.                    Grace and Norm's UNCONSCIOUS AVATARS ride in the open back          compartment.                                        TRUDY                    It only takes tiny inputs.   Here, put                    your hand on the cyclic --                    She points to the stick between her knees. Norm hesitantly          reaches over and rests his hand on hers.                                        TRUDY                    Feel how small the moves are? You barely                    have to think it, and the aircraft                    reacts.                    ON NORM -- reacting to tiny inputs from the hot lady-pilot.                    THE SAMSON is dwarfed by enormous ARCHES OF ROCK.                                        GRACE                    See these magnetic formations.   We're                    getting close.                                        TRUDY                    Yeah we are. Look at my instruments.                    On the dash, many of the displays are fritzing out.                                                                                 58.                                                            GRACE                    Yup. We're in the flux vortex.                    AHEAD, a cloud bank parts, revealing --                    THE HALLELUJAH MOUNTAINS.   Right in front of them.                                        NORM                    Oh. My. God.                    Jake leans forward between the seatbacks for a good look out          the front canopy.                    JAKE'S POV -- enormous islands of rock are hovering a half          mile above the ground. They are overgrown with rainforest,          and straggly beards of vines hang down beneath them.          Waterfalls stream down the sides and dissolve into spray at          the bottom.                    ON JAKE, staring in amazement.   It is both awe-inspiring and          disturbing.                    Trudy turns, grinning at Jake.                                        TRUDY                    You should see your face.                    WIDE AERIAL -- the Samson is tiny as it approaches the          floating islands of rock. An archipelago among the clouds,          they cast great shadows over the forested slopes below.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Yeah, so what does hold them up? Grace                    explained it to me -- some kind of maglev                    effect because unobtanium is a                    superconductor, or something. At least                    somebody understands it. Just not me.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. SITE 26 - DAY                    A remote RESEARCH STATION -- TWO SHACKS and a few clusters of          instruments perched on a promontory near the Hallelujah          Mountains. The shacks are AIRLIFT MODULES the size of buses.                    THE SAMSON LANDS, beating the grass with its rotor-wash. The          humans hop out, wearing MASKS.                    They move toward the Shack, taking in the spectacular          panorama.                                                                  CUT TO:                                                                              59.                                        INT. SHACK - DAY                    NORM and TRUDY assist JAKE with his chair as they cycle in          through the AIRLOCK. GRACE is already inside, starting the          GENNY. She turns on the lights and equipment.                    There are 4 bunks, a clutter of science gear, and -- through          a short connecting corridor -- THREE LINK UNITS in the second          module.                    As Grace powers up the Link equipment, Jake stops to look at          STEREO STILL PICTURES which are taped and tacked up around          her workstation.                    CLOSE ON PICTURES -- Grace posing at the school with various          grinning children. There is one of her with two lanky girls,          a younger Neytiri and an older girl who looks much like her.                                        GRACE                    Jake, take number two, it's the least                    glitchy. Norm, I need you to operate                    Jake's link.                    Norm glares at Jake as he passes.                                        JAKE                    Hey. You got a problem?                    Norm turns to Grace, his frustration boiling over.                                        NORM                    I trained three years for this mission.                    I speak the language fluently.                        (he points at Jake)                    He falls off the frickin' turnip truck                    and all of a sudden he's cultural                    ambassador!?                                        GRACE                    It's not our choice, Norm.                    He glowers at Jake.                                        NORM                    Yeah, well I didn't come out here to wash                    the dishes while you're on some                    interspecies booty call.                    He stalks off.                                        GRACE                    He can't go far.                                                                                60.                                        She points to Jake's link.                                        GRACE                    Let's get you in.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT./EXT. HOMETREE - BANSHEE EYRIE                    LOOKING DOWN the central shaft of Hometree, 80 meters to the          ground. Villagers are ant-like.                    Jake tries to keep up with Neytiri as she leaps up the core          trunk like a lemur. He climbs the last section, arriving out          of breath beside her. She leads him OUTSIDE, onto --                    A large branch. Through gaps in the foliage Jake can see          other Great Trees scattered across the landscape, like          enormous umbrellas above the rainforest.                    NEYTIRI strides out across the branch toward some kind of          STRUCTURE -- a WEB made of thick woven fiber. DARK SHAPES          clinging to it stir with a leathery RUSTLING SOUND.                    Neytiri makes a series of TRILLS and CLICKS. One of the          shapes MOVES toward them, emerging into a shaft of sunlight.                    A huge MOUNTAIN BANSHEE. Much larger than the forest          banshees, this thing is taller than a Na'vi with a 10 meter          wingspan. A leathery FWHOOP, like the crack of sails, as it          alights on the branch right in front of her.                                           JAKE                    Holy shit.                                        NEYTIRI                    Do not look in her eye.                    Neytiri feeds it a large scrap of meat, which it SNATCHES and          gulps down. She murmurs to it and strokes its NECK.                    It lets out a signature SHRIEK, and some of the others in the          shadows nearby answer.                    Neytiri flip-catches her queue and gently connects it to the          Banshee's ANTENNA. It shivers and stretches its wings as the          neural connection is made.                                        NEYTIRI                    Ikran is not horse. Once shahaylu is                    made, ikran will fly with only one Hunter                    in the whole life.                    She climbs smoothly onto the animal's back.                                                                                 61.                                                            NEYTIRI                    To become taronyu -- Hunter -- you must                    choose your own ikran. And he must choose                    you.                                           JAKE                    When?                                        NEYTIRI                    When you are ready.                    The BANSHEE shivers with anticipation.                                           NEYTIRI                    Heeyaaahh!                    Jake ducks as the great wings EXPLODE OPEN and the banshee          DROPS off the branch. It swoops down across the forest          canopy, banks hard, lets out a CRY and beats its wings in a          power climb.                    Completing the bank, Neytiri directs the banshee into a close          SWOOPING FLYBY, and Jake instinctively ducks.                    ON NEYTIRI -- flying in perfect fusion with her winged mount,          the rainforest rolling beneath her.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. SHACK - NIGHT/EXT                    STEREO VIDEO-LOG IMAGE -- Jake has just switched on the          camera. He looks tired.                                        JAKE                    Do I have to do this?   I need some rack.                    GRACE, behind him, looks up from her MICROSCOPE, scowling.                                        GRACE                    No -- now, when it's fresh.                                        JAKE                    Yeah, yeah.                        (to camera)                    The days are starting to blur together.                    The language is a bitch, but I figure                    it's like field-stripping a weapon.                    Repetition.                    THIS THROWS US INTO A TEACHING MONTAGE:                    JAKE AND NEYTIRI kneel together inside Hometree. Neytiri          touches her lips with her fingertips.                                                                                 62.                                                               JAKE                    Seyri.                    She touches her nose, her ears, her eyes in quick sequence.                                        JAKE                    Ontu, mikyun, nari.                    NEYTIRI stands next to him, correcting his position as he          draws a longbow.                    BARKING commands, she SMACKS him on the shoulder, then the          elbow, repositioning him roughly.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Neytiri thinks I'm some kind of retard.                    HUMAN JAKE emerges from the LINK to see --                    TRUDY and NORM caught IN THE ACT on Norm's bunk. Norm blushes          and Trudy waves, pulling the blanket over their heads.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Norm's attitude has improved lately.                    NORM works with JAKE at the small table in the SHACK kitchen.                                           NORM                    Thank you?                                           JAKE                    Ireiyo.                    Norm comically exaggerates the pronunciation.                                        NORM                    Irrrreiyo. Irrrreiyo.   You've gotta roll                    the R, r-r-r-oll it.                    Norm makes Jake repeat the word, getting more frustrated.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    It's good he's back on board, but he                    thinks I'm a retard too.                    TRACKING WITH JAKE'S FEET as he runs over rocks, leaping onto          a thick root, running on across the rough bark.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    My feet are getting tougher.   I can run                    farther every day.                                                                                 63.                                        Neytiri leads him along a massive root, and soon they are          running 30 meters above the ground.                    He sprints with her through the trees, trying to keep up.          She CLIMBS and LEAPS with the ease of a spider monkey.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    I have to trust my body to know what to                    do. With Neytiri it's learn fast or die.                    Neytiri LEAPS off into space, falling, falling until --                    She catches an enormous palm leaf and, gripping it, allows          its DROOP to slow her fall. She lets go, plummeting, and          catches another.                    JAKE FOLLOWS in a leap of faith. THE CAMERA PLUNGES with          him, from leaf to leaf, down and down in a dizzying kinetic          rush.                    He drops down from the last leaf, landing next to her on a          game trail. He is exhilarated to still be alive.                    Neytiri is surprised -- that he followed.   That he lived.                    TIGHT ON HUMAN JAKE, in the shack. Thinking as he looks at          the pictures of Grace with the laughing kids at the school.                    IN THE COMMONS -- AVATAR NORM formally greets MO'AT. The          Matriarch looks on as GRACE kneels to hug children she knows.          Grace's eyes sparkle as she chats with them in Na'vi.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    I sweet-talked Mo'at into giving Norm and                    Grace a hall pass. Now Grace even makes                    me coffee before link every morning.                    Grace looks up to see Neytiri approaching. It is an awkward          moment between them. Grace makes the formal gesture of          greeting.                                        GRACE                        (Na'vi, subtitled)                    I See you, Neytiri Mo'at'ite.                                        NEYTIRI                    I See you, Doctor Grace Augustine.                    ANOTHER DAY -- NEYTIRI kneels on a game trail, pointing out          the tracks in the mud to Jake. She touches the edges of the          plants around her, and sniffs the air.                                                                                64.                                                            JAKE (V.O.)                    I'm learning to read the trails, the                    tracks at the water-hole, the tiniest                    scents and sounds.                    JAKE AND NEYTIRI watch through a screen of leaves as --                    A HERD of huge, armored STURMBEEST walks through the shallows          of a lake. In the middle of the herd, the babies are          sheltered from predators among their parents' legs.                    One of the BULLS trumpets, and a flock of TETRAPTERONS takes          flight, an explosion of purple wings.                    Jake stares at the strange and wild alien tableau.                    ANOTHER PLACE -- NEYTIRI STANDS utterly still, except for her          ears, which move with a life of their own. Her eyes are          closed. She speaks very softly to Jake --                                        NEYTIRI                    When you hear nothing, you will hear                    everything. When you see nothing, you                    will See everything.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Sometimes I have no idea what she's                    talking about.                    Jake and Neytiri creep quietly, stalking a large male          HEXAPEDE -- a six legged deer-like creature.                    Jake expertly nocks an arrow and draws his bow as Neytiri          watches. He takes a bead on the hexapede -- tracks it for a          beat with the drawn bow, then RELAXES his arm. Zen archery.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    It's been a month and I'm still not                    allowed to make a kill. She says the                    forest hasn't given permission.                    OMIITED                    NEYTIRI and JAKE crawl through the undergrowth.   She points          and he parts some leaves to see --                    A MOTHER VIPERWOLF bringing meat to her cubs, which frisk          around her legs. She licks their faces.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    There's a lot of crap like that. She's                    always going on about the flow of energy--                    the spirits of the animals and what not --                                                                                  65.                                        VIDEO-LOG IMAGE -- HUMAN JAKE talks into the lens.    He's          changing -- un-shaven, cheeks hollow. Pale.                                         JAKE                        (SMIRKING)                    I just hope this treehugger shit isn't on                    the final.                    Visible behind him, Grace is hunched over her samples.                                        GRACE                        (without looking up)                    This isn't just about eye-hand                    coordination out there. You need to                    listen to what she says. Try to see the                    forest through their eyes.                                        JAKE                    Excuse me -- this is my video-log here,                    okay?                    NEYTIRI AND JAKE move through the NIGHT FOREST, surrounded by          galaxies of shimmering bioluminescence. They move          gracefully, soundlessly -- two forest spirits.                    CU JAKE -- the pupils of his cat eyes dilated. The night          forest floods his brain with its million bio-sources.                    NIGHT SHOT, from overhead -- Jake and Neytiri bow-fishing          from a dugout canoe over huge glowing ANEMONES at the bottom          of a pool.                    A large fish swims silhouetted against the pastel glow.      ZAP!          Jake drills it. He holds up the fish, triumphantly.                    ANOTHER DAY -- Neytiri stands close behind Jake, adjusting          his position as he draws his bow. Only now her hands are          GENTLE as they move on his arms, his shoulders.                    Aware of her touch, Jake's focus is broken.   Their eyes meet,          and she pulls away quickly.                    NIGHT -- they enter a CLEARING filled with chest-high ferns.          Neytiri signals him to move slowly. They approach a creature          on one of the ferns. An ugly, stick-like LIZARD-THING          perched on a frond. As he approaches --                    SNAP! A long spine whips in a circle, unfurling a          bioluminescent membrane -- a disk a meter across, opening          like a Chinese fan. It FLIES OFF, a living Frisbee.                    THE FAN LIZARD FLOATS across the clearing.                                                                                  66.                                        Neytiri plunges among the ferns with a SHARP CRY. An          EXPLOSION OF COLOR as dozens of FAN LIZARDS take flight.                    Grinning widely, she hops around like a little girl, until          they are all flying. And for the first time, she is          unguarded and joyful, totally herself with him.                    INSIDE THE LINK -- Jake's eyes open in the darkness. He          doesn't know where he is. He weakly pushes open the lid,          blinking at the light.                                         JAKE (V.O.)                    Everything is backwards now. Like out                    there is the true world, and in here is                    the dream.                    TIGHT ON AVATAR JAKE silently drawing his bow, his eyes          focused in intense concentration. A beat -- the arrow flies.                    JAKE PULLS the arrow from the twitching body of a hexapede.          He dispatches it with his knife.                    He speaks haltingly, but with feeling, in Na'vi.                                        JAKE                        (NA'VI)                    I See you Brother, and thank you. Your                    spirit goes with Eywa, your body stays                    behind to become part of the People.                    NEYTIRI watches with approval.                                        NEYTIRI                    A clean kill. You are ready.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. SHACK - NIGHT                    Lying in the link, Jake looks exhausted, pale, thin.   Norm          helps Grace get him to his chair.                                        GRACE                    You're still losing weight.   Here --                    She hands him a microwaved burrito. He looks at the now alien          food. Bites into it without enthusiasm.                                        JAKE                    I made a kill today. We ate it.   I know                    where that meal came from.                                                                               67.                                                             GRACE                    Other body. You need to take care of                    this body.                                           JAKE                    Yeah yeah.                                        GRACE                    Jake, I'm serious -- you look like crap.                    You're burning too hard.                    Jake takes the cigarette out of her mouth and stubs it out.                                        JAKE                    Get rid of this shit, then you can                    lecture me.                                        GRACE                    I'm telling you, as your boss and someone                    who might even consider being a friend                    someday, to take some down time.                                        JAKE                    Not now. Tomorrow we leave for Iknimaya.                    GRACE walks past Jake, starts making herself coffee.                                        GRACE                    Yeah -- you're gonna go ride a banshee.                    Or die trying.                                        JAKE                    That's right, Grace. This is what I've                    been working for.                                        GRACE                    And this is your check up from the neck                    up, Marine. You're getting in way too                    deep.                        (she turns away)                    Trust me, I learned the hard way.                    Jake scans the pictures tacked up around Grace's workstation.                                        JAKE                    What did happen at the school?                    GRACE looks up from making coffee.   Her eyes track across the          pictures of the laughing children.   Finally --                                                                               68.                                                            GRACE                    Neytiri's sister -- Sylwanin -- stopped                    coming to school. She was angry about                    the clear-cutting.                    GRACE sips her coffee, grimaces at the taste.                                        GRACE                    One day, she and a couple of other young                    hunters came running in, all painted up --                    they'd set a bulldozer on fire -- I guess                    they thought I could protect them.                    GRACE'S voice stays oddly CALM as he tells this terrible          story, while getting MILK out of the refrigerator.                                        GRACE                    The troopers pursued them to the                    schoolhouse.                    MACRO as she pours the milk -- her hand is SHAKING.                                        GRACE                    They killed Sylwanin in the doorway.                    Right in front of Neytiri. Then shot the                    others.                        (MILDLY)                    I got most of the kids out, before they                    shot me.                                        JAKE                    Jesus.                                        GRACE                    Yeah.                    Jake realizes that Grace is on the verge of tears and          desperately trying to hide it.                                        GRACE                    A scientist stays objective -- we can not                    be ruled by emotion. But I poured ten                    years of my life into that school. They                    called me sa'atenuk. Mother.                        (turning to him)                    That kind of pain reaches back through                    the link.                    GRACE sits down at the table, looks intently at Jake.                                        GRACE                    It's a job. Learn what you can -- but                    don't get attached.                                                                                 69.                                        GRACE looks at him with real PAIN in her eyes.                                        GRACE                    It's not our world, Jake.   And we can't                    stop what's coming.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. MOUNTAIN TRAIL - DAY                    TSU'TEY leads three direhorse riders up the trail -- two          TEENAGE HUNTERS and JAKE, who's riding well enough to keep          up. The horses' hooves CLOP right next to a sheer drop into a          misty canyon.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Iknimaya translates roughly as stairway                    to heaven. It's the test every young                    hunter has to pass.                    TSU'TEY signals a stop.                    UP-SLOPE AHEAD is an astounding formation. Thick vine-like          trees have trapped large FLOATING BOULDERS of UNOBTANIUM in          their gnarled grip.                    A hundred meters above them more boulders are WOVEN into the          twisted vine-trunks. This is some sort of freak natural          occurrence -- like the mythical beanstalk, going up into the          clouds.                    There is a THUNDERING ROAR, like an artillery barrage, and          the ground SHAKES. Jake looks around at --                    One of the FLOATING MOUNTAINS grinding against the flank of a          nearby mesa. A huge rockfall is set loose. The mountain is          drifting toward them, filling half the sky.                    The Hunters dismount.                    JAKE looks up at the beanstalk going into the clouds. He          turns to Tsu'tey, who is checking the young hunters' gear.                                        JAKE                    We doin' this?                    Jake leaps to catch up as Tsu'tey and the hunters swarm up          the base of the beanstalk.                                                                  CUT TO:                                                                                 70.                                        EXT. BEANSTALK - DAY                    200 METERS up the BEANSTALK, the hunters nimbly climb along          the vine-trunks. They clamber over one of the unobtanium          BOULDERS which is lifting this incredible tree.                    JAKE looks down -- the massive trunk dwindles to the size of          a licorice stick. A chunk breaks off a boulder as he climbs          over it -- it floats upward.                    They reach the upper branches of the beanstalk. Above them,          the craggy underbelly of MONS Veritatis looms. Spray from          one of the waterfalls hits them.                    Some of the HANGING VINES are brushing over the upper          branches of the beanstalk with a crackling hiss.                    One by one the hunters grab onto vines as they pass.                    Jake shrugs and leaps to a passing vine, his feet dangling          over nothingness. They climb toward the floating islands          above.                    EXT. MONS VERITATIS - DAY                    TINY FIGURES cross a causeway of vines connecting a small          island of unobtanium to the main mass of Mons Veritatis.                    WIDE SHOT looking down a rock face bigger than Half Dome --          the sheer side of Mons Veritatis.                    Banshees circle next to the cliffs, flashing in shafts of          sunlight. Waterfalls dissolve into nothingness below.                    EXT. GROTTO/BANSHEE ROOKERY - DAY                    A waterfall THUNDERS down into the void like a faucet of the          gods. Jake looks down the sheer cliff at the world far below          -- a view from Olympus.                    A SHRIEK and the THWAP THWAP of leathery wings -- NEYTIRI'S          BANSHEE swoops in to perch at the edge of the grotto. She          dismounts and, like a falconer, covers its eyes with a woven          HOOD. It waits, docile, as --                    She joins Jake and the hunter party. Tsu'tey leads them          through the cave until they emerge onto a CLIFF FACE. And          Jake sees --                    The BANSHEE ROOKERY. HUNDREDS of banshees huddle on rock out-          croppings as far as the eye can see. They cling to the walls          with the fore-claws on their wings, or perch on ledges.                                                                                 71.                                                            TSU'TEY                    Jakesully will go first.                    Tsu'tey smirks at Jake, a challenge in his eyes. The two          teenage Hunters are scared but trying to act tough.                    Tsu'tey scowls when Neytiri leads Jake out onto the ledge.                                        NEYTIRI                        (WHISPERING)                    Now you choose your ikran. This you must                    feel -- inside. If he also chooses you,                    move quick, like I showed. You will have                    one chance.                                        JAKE                    How will I know if he chooses me?                                        NEYTIRI                    He will try to kill you.                                        JAKE                    Outstanding.                    Out of sight of Tsu'tey, Neytiri takes his hand and squeezes          it. Jake feels a rush of emotion, but she breaks away like          it didn't happen. He is on his own, on the ledge with --                    The BANSHEES. They eye him as he approaches. Several SHRIEK          and take flight. Others flap their wings and yawn, showing          rows of fangs, in a threat display.                    Jake unrolls a weighted leather strap, like a one-ended BOLO.                    A LARGE MALE spreads enormous wings, SHRIEKS, and glares          straight at him.                    Jake looks directly into its eyes -- and strides toward it.                                        JAKE                    Let's dance.                    The challenged banshee HISSES and leaps at him, jaws wide as--                    Jake times the lunge, swinging the bolo, feinting and then          slipping aside as the banshee's jaws miss him, SNAPPING SHUT.                    Jake WHAPS the bolo across its snout. The weighted thong          whips twice around its long jaws, tying them shut. A MUFFLED          SCREAM and it SLASHES at his stomach with razor talons but --                                                                                72.                                        Jake is already leaping, over the talons and tackling the          banshee around the neck. It topples on its side, and he          SWARMS IT -- arms around its thrashing head.                    Jake grabs its whip-like antenna and brings it toward his          queue but --                    The bony head SLAMS sideways, and BAM! -- clocks him right in          the face, almost knocking him out and --                    IT WRITHES, flinging him to the ground. He slides on the          rock and almost goes over the edge as --                    NEYTIRI gasps. Tsu'tey laughs and yells mockingly.                    The bolo is coming loose as the creature shakes its head, way          pissed off now, but --                    Jake scrambles up and leaps straight at it. Claws rake his          leg but he gets his arms around its head and CLAMPS DOWN          HARD. They flop to the ground and he scrambles on top,          pinning it and --                    Grabs its whipping antenna, locks it under his arm, and jams          the end of his queue into it. They FUSE together and --                    The banshee stops struggling. It lies there panting.   They          are locked together, literally eye to eye.                                        JAKE                    That's right! You're mine.                    ECU BANSHEE -- the pupil like a deep black well.                    Jake relaxes his grip and slowly, warily, slides his leg over          the creature's back.                    Neytiri runs to him.                                        NEYTIRI                    First flight seals the bond. You cannot                    wait.                    Jake sits astride the creature, feeling its power.   He grips          a hank of the beast's main, and --                                        JAKE                    Heeeyyyaaaah!                    THWAP! THWAP! The banshee is off like a shot. Jake SCREAMS          as they PLUMMET off the cliff -- the banshee WAILS and --                                                                                73.                                        They fall together, spiralling out of control, and he is          almost tossed lose. The thing is SQUAWKING and SHRIEKING so          much he can't think.                                         JAKE                     Shut the hell up!!                    It does.                                            JAKE                     Level out!     Fly straight!                    It levels out. Jake cocks his head, only thinking "bank left"          and the animal complies. He settles the banshee into an easy          loping beat of its huge wings, while he catches his breath.                    NEYTIRI'S BANSHEE falls into formation with him.   She signals          "follow me" and DIVES.                    Jake guides his banshee clumsily after her. Neytiri's          banshee moves with precise movements of its wingtips, while          Jake's wobbles and dips, almost falling out of the sky.                    THE CAMERA SWOOPS after them as Neytiri leads an arcing DIVE          around the flank of Mons Veritatis. The scenery is stunning.          They pass waterfalls and swoop between hanging vines.                    Neytiri leads Jake in a sharp bank, skimming close to the          cliffs. They punch through streamers of cloud and emerge          into sunlight.                    Jake is getting the hang of it. He jinks left, then right,          then dives, tucking himself tight against the animal's back.          He's reckless, fearless. Half in control and LOVING IT.                    Neytiri dives next to him as he lets out a long WHOOP of joy.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT./EXT. GROTTO/MONS VERITATIS - DAY                    FLIGHT MONTAGE:                    NEYTIRI squats with Jake, using her hands to explain flight          principles like one fighter pilot to another.                    LOOKING DOWN a sheer cliff. SWOOOSH! Jake and Neytiri dive          their mounts STRAIGHT DOWN PAST CAMERA, pulling out and          soaring into a series of aerobatic turns.                                         JAKE (V.O.)                     I may not be much of a horse guy.   But I                     was born to do this.                                                                                74.                                        THEY FLY in close formation with TSU'TEY and the young          HUNTERS, 5 banshees flashing through scarves of mist.                    ANOTHER DAY. Jake dives, playing hide and seek with Neytiri          among the clouds. They are wild and free in a wild world.          She grins and banks hard, diving -- catch me if you can. He          DIVES after her.                    IN THE GROTTO, by firelight, JAKE'S BANSHEE snaps at a piece          of meat which he playfully pulls back. He's teaching it to          take the food more slowly. He strokes its long head.                    TSU'TEY is nearby with the young hunters.   He eyes Jake with          frustrated hostility.                    ANOTHER DAY -- Jake and Neytiri fly abreast, soaring easily.          She points and Jake sees --                    A BIZARRE GEOLOGICAL FORMATION. Arches of magnetic rock form          rainbows of stone above a deep CALDERA. In the center of the          caldera is a single, enormous WILLOW TREE, gnarled and          ancient. This, we will be told, is THE WELL OF SOULS.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. RIDGE                    JAKE flies with Neytiri along a forested ridge. She is          teaching him to hunt from his banshee. They carry their bows          at the ready, scanning below them for prey.                    A HUGE SHADOW covers him and Neytiri SHOUTS a warning.   Jake          looks up to see --                    A LEONOPTERYX in a delta-dive, whistling straight at him.                    Like a banshee, only several times larger, it is the king          predator of the air: the GREAT LEONOPTERYX.   Striped          scarlet, yellow and black, with a midnight blue crested head          -- it is both gorgeous and terrifying.                    The hunter has become the prey. JAKE snap-rolls and dives          toward the forest canopy. He plummets into the gloom as --                    K-CRASH -- the leonopteryx tears through foliage, following          him down, both diving like missiles and --                    JAKE yanks into a hair-pin bank, right through a gap between          two huge branches --                    Forcing the leonopteryx to brake with a loud FWOOSH of wings.          It banks away with a frustrated SHRIEK. Two flaps of its          mighty wings and it is gone, back above the canopy.                                                                              75.                                        CLOSE ON THE LEONOPTERYX, as its fanged mouth opens in a          bloodcurdling SCREECH which echoes among the mountains. The          lord of its domain.                    ON JAKE, shaken. Neytiri flies up, her expression the Na'vi          equivalent of Oh my God. A beat -- they both crack up.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. SHACK - NIGHT                    Jake ponders images Grace has called up at her workstation--          science graphics of the Leonopteryx. Trudy and Norm are          crowded around as well.                                        GRACE                    The Great Leonopteryx is the apex aerial                    predator. Not only rare, but the                    sightings tend not to get reported.                    Trudy makes a clicking motion with her thumb.                                        TRUDY                    There usually isn't time to key the mike.                                        JAKE                    The People call it Toruk.                                        NORM                        (TRANSLATING)                    Last Shadow.                                        JAKE                    Last one you ever see.                                        TRUDY                    I saw one take out a gunship once --                    WHAM! Total frickin' yard sale. Ate the                    crew like peanuts.                    TIME CUT -- Grace is scanning through images and Jake stops          her on one -- a 3D aerial shot of the strange arched          formation.                                           JAKE                    That's it.                                        GRACE                    Vitraya Ramunong -- The Well of Souls.                    It's their most sacred place.                    She moves the virtual camera, and we seem to fly around the          Well of Souls, catching only a glimpse of the interior.                                                                                76.                                                            GRACE                    Something big is going on in there,                    biologically. I'd die to get samples, but                    outsiders are strictly forbidden.                    TIME CUT -- Jake looks through the pressure window at HUMAN          GRACE and NORM outside. Wearing masks, they are taking          readings from some time-series experiments Grace has set up.                    As TRUDY watches, JAKE works fast to download Grace's images          of the Well of Souls onto a memory chip.                                        TRUDY                    They're coming back.                    Jake pulls the chip, then hesitates. Torn by what he is          doing.                                        TRUDY                    If you don't give him something, he's                    gonna shut us down.                    He hands her the chip and she slips it into a pocket of her          flight-suit just as Grace and Norm enter from the airlock.                                           JAKE                    Hey, guys.                                                                    CUT TO:                    INT. HOMETREE - NIGHT                    JAKE STARES up at the TOTEM SKULL, which we now recognize as          that of a GREAT LEONOPTERYX. NEYTIRI watches as he reaches          up to touch the tall indigo crest.                                        NEYTIRI                    My grandfather's grandfather was Toruk                    Macto -- Rider of Last Shadow. Toruk                    chose him. It has only happened five                    times since the time of the First Songs.                                        JAKE                    That's a long time.                    Neytiri takes his hand, because that's what the Na'vi do when          they're telling you something important.                                        NEYTIRI                    Toruk Macto was mighty -- he brought the                    clans together in a time of great sorrow.                    All Na'vi people know this story.                                                                                 77.                                        PUSH IN SLOWLY on the skull totem, then --                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RIVER BED - DAY                    JAKE, NEYTIRI and other FLYING HUNTERS swoop low above a HERD          OF STURMBEEST -- a rapids of thundering muscle. Dust rises          from this living river like steam from a python's back.                    TRACKING WITH the herd. A HUNTER appears in FG, astride a          direhorse at full gallop. The sight is breathtaking. He          hurls a 3 meter spear and one of the sturmbeest CRASHES down,          flipping twice from momentum.                    JAKE ROLLS IN like a fighter jet, his banshee screaming. He          draws and fires his bow. The arrow strikes true, in the          plexus between the armored shoulders and --                    THE BEAST crashes to the ground. Skids to a stop in a cloud          of dust.                    NEYTIRI swoops in next to Jake, arms raised and grinning          wolfishly.                    CU TSU'TEY, banking around Jake's kill.   Jake looks up, and          Tsu'tey SALUTES in grudging admiration.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. COMMONS/HOMETREE - NIGHT                    The central space is lit by a BONFIRE, around which the HUNT          FESTIVAL is in full swing. Wild dancing. People gnawing on          massive sturmbeest ribs. A bowl of some kava-like intoxicant          is passed around.                    NEYTIRI dances in a flowing costume as the BANSHEE SPIRIT.          NORM is dancing seductively with his own tail.                    JAKE, surrounded by young hunters, acts out the leonopteryx          attack with his hands. The leaping fire-light plays across          the eye sockets of the TORUK SKULL, bringing it to life. It          seems to watch Jake.                    TSU'TEY squats next to Jake, the usual scowl on his face.                    Jake braces himself -- and Tsu'tey holds up the KAVA BOWL,          offering it to him. A challenge or an olive branch?                    Jake takes a long, hearty drink as some of the young hunters          hoot and clap hands in a fast rhythm.                                                                                 78.                                                             GRACE                    Watch that stuff.   It'll knock you into                    next week.                    Jake offers the bowl back to Tsu'tey.   They lock eyes.          Tsu'tey drinks.                    LATER -- AN EMPTY BOWL drops, landing on a pile of empty          bowls near the fire.                    WIDER ON JAKE and TSU'TEY, sitting amid the rowdy hunters.          Tsu'tey looks a little blearily at Jake. Finally, he GRINS.                                        TSU'TEY                    I thought -- enough drink -- you would                    not be so ugly.                                        JAKE                    Sorry.                    Tsu'tey looks deep into the fire.                                        TSU'TEY                    Your warriors -- hide inside machines --                    fight from far away.                        (he looks at Jake)                    I did not think a sky person could be                    brave.                    Before Jake can answer, NEYTIRI'S lithe shape runs through          the circle of silhouetted dancers toward them. She takes          Jake by the hand and pulls him up --                                        NEYTIRI                    You must dance! It is the way.                    TSU'TEY watches as she leads him away, his face darkening --          the moment of connection to Jake lost to anger.                    The hunters WHOOP and CHEER as Jake joins the circle of          dancers.                    Jake takes Grace's hand and pulls her up, protesting.                    JAKE lets the DRUMS and CHANTING flow through him. He lets          himself go, dancing from the inside, channeling the primal          energy.                    GRACE is rocking out, grinning. We see the young girl, so          repressed, who lives within her.                    Jake and Neytiri flow amongst the dancers, but they are          looking only at each other.                                                                               79.                                        A couple of the young girls watching from outside the circle          are giggling and talking about them. Mo'at and EYTUKAN          follow their look, seeing the obvious connection.                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    We cannot let this seed grow. Her path is                    with Tsu'tey.                    ON JAKE, dancing with abandon to the primal beat, eyes locked          with Neytiri.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    WIDE VISTA -- mist blowing through the treetops as the          morning sun burns it away. A spectacular panorama of a vast,          primeval land.                    UP ANGLE TRACKING among the trees, the sunlight shafting down          like light in a cathedral.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    It's hard to put in words the deep                    connection the People have to the forest.                    HIGH IN THE BRANCHES of a tree, Jake watches as Neytiri          gently bends a large pitcher-like flower toward her, sipping          nectar which is sweet and thick as honey. An incredibly          sensuous image.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    They see a network of energy that flows                    through all living things. They know that                    all energy is only borrowed--                    MACRO SHOT of a purple flower, beaded with raindrops.   A blue          hand picks the flower.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    -- and one day you have to give it back.                    LOOKING DOWN into a hole dug among tree roots. The body of          an old Omaticaya WOMAN lies curled there like an unborn baby          in the womb of the earth. The purple flower is gently placed          on her body, joining flowers, totems and beads.                    Mo'at recites a prayer as Neytiri, acting as acolyte, places          a WOODSPRITE, a seed of the Great Tree, on the body.                    Earth is poured over the LENS and we CUT TO --                                                                                 80.                                        JAKE WAKING UP in the Link. DARK as a coffin. He pushes the          lid off, letting in light, and lies there. He looks pale and          haggard, with a scraggly beard.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    Hard to believe it's only been three                    months.                    JAKE SITS in front of the video log camera, late at night. It          is many log entries later. He has lost a lot of weight. He          looks like a junkie watching a test pattern.                                        JAKE                        (to the lens)                    I can barely remember my old life. I'm                    not sure who I am anymore.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. COMPOUND - DAY                    Under a sky of thunderheads, the forest is a dark wall beyond          the fence. SELFRIDGE, wearing an exopack, TEES UP while GRACE          and JAKE approach from the direction of the Ops Center.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Good of you to stop by. How's it going                    out there? Our blue friends all packed                    up yet?                    Selfridge swings his DRIVER with good form.                                        SELFRIDGE                    See, I keep hooking it.   It's the damn                    pack.                    THE BALL drops into the mud just past a marker which reads          220. A TROOPER walks over to retrieve it.                                        SELFRIDGE                    The low gravity and the high air density                    cancel out so --                                        JAKE                    You called us back to report -- you want                    to hear it or not?                                          SELFRIDGE                    Go ahead.                                        GRACE                    Jake is making incredible progress, years                    worth in just a few months. But -- we                    need more time.                                                                              81.                                                            SELFRIDGE                    Not what I was hoping to hear.                    It starts to rain. Selfridge calmly pulls an umbrella from          his golf bag and snaps it open.                                        GRACE                    Parker, it's their ancestral home.                    They've lived there since before human                    history began. You can spare them a few                    more weeks.                                        SELFRIDGE                    This thing is inevitable. What does it                    matter when it happens? I'm sorry, Dr.                    Augustine. You're out of time.                    He leaves them standing there to get drenched.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. ARMOR BAY                    A break table, under a harsh overhead light. Quaritch pulls          up a chair, turns it around, and sits astride it facing Jake.          He studies Jake's pale, sunken face. The scraggly beard.                                        QUARITCH                    You're not gettin' lost in the woods, are                    you son?                    Jake can't meet his eyes.                                        QUARITCH                    Your last report was two weeks ago. I'm                    starting to doubt your resolve. From what                    I see, it's time to terminate this                    mission.                    Jake eyes flare with alarm.                                          JAKE                    No.    I can do this.                                        QUARITCH                    Look, you've given me plenty of usable                    intel. Like this "Well of Souls" place --                    I've got them by the balls with that,                    when it turns into a shit-fight. Which it                    will.                    Jake feels hollow inside, knowing what he's done.                                                                                82.                                                            QUARITCH                    So you'll get your legs back, like I                    promised.                        (puts his hand on Jake's                         SHOULDER)                    It's time to come in.                    Jake ponders this. Isn't this what he was doing all this for?                                        JAKE                    I've gotta finish this thing. There's                    one more test -- the Dream Hunt. It's the                    final stage of becoming a man. Then I'm                    one of them. They'll trust what I say...                    It's hard for him to even form these words --                                        JAKE                    ... and I can negotiate the terms of                    their relocation.                                        QUARITCH                    Then you need to get it done, Corporal.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. HALLELUJAH MOUNTAINS - NIGHT                    Strange horizontal LIGHTNING branches through the floating          mountains, twisted by the magnetic fields. The sky is black          and heavy with clouds.                    INT. SHACK KITCHEN - NIGHT                    Jake is gulping black coffee like a tequila shot, looking          pretty STRUNG OUT. GRACE is smoking furiously.                                        GRACE                    Jake, I can't allow this.   You're just                    not strong enough.                                        JAKE                    It's the last door -- I'm going through                    it. You can help me or get out of the                    way.                    Jake pushes past her toward the corridor --                                        GRACE                        (grabbing him)                    Will you listen to me? Sometimes the                    Na'vi themselves die in these vision                    quests. The venom takes you to the edge                    of death.                              (MORE)                                                                                  83.                                        GRACE (cont'd)                    And the psychoactive alkaloid in the worm-                    - we have no idea what that'll do in an                    avatar brain.                    Jake breaks free and wheels away, down the corridor.                    GRACE follows JAKE as he crosses to the Link. A sheet of          LIGHTNING flashes across the sky outside.                    Norm is initializing the Link.                                        NORM                    Calibrating. Thirty seconds.                    She puts her hands on his shoulders.                                        GRACE                    No matter what you prove out there-- you                    are still in here.                        (shaking him)                    Right here.                                        JAKE                    I have to go all the way -- become one of                    THEM--                                        GRACE                        (FURIOUSLY)                    Goddammit, Jake, you can never be one of                    them!                    Norm looks up, startled at the VEHEMENCE in GRACE' voice.                                        GRACE                    Our life out there takes millions of                    dollars of machinery to sustain. You                    visit -- and you leave.                    During this, Jake pulls himself from his wheelchair, levering          himself into the Link, hauling his useless legs inside.                                        GRACE                        (SOFTENING)                    You can never truly be with her.                    Jake stops, pinioned by the truth.   He seems suddenly very          lost.                                        JAKE                    You know why I'm here? Because Quaritch                    sent me.                                        NORM                    What?                                                                                84.                                                            JAKE                    That's right -- to embed with the                    Omaticaya. To find out how to screw them                    out of their home. By deceit or by                    force, he didn't care. And if it turned                    out to be force, then how best to do it.                    Norm is in shock.   But Grace is eerily calm.                                        GRACE                    And what about now, Jake?                                        JAKE                    I'm not that guy any more.                    Grace nods.   She's been on his journey every step of the way.                                         GRACE                    I know.                                        JAKE                    But if I tell Quaritch the truth, he                    yanks me out -- I never see her again.                    And if I tell her the truth, the clan                    throws me out -- that's if they don't cut                    my heart out and show it to me.                    Jake looks hopelessly at the two of them.   In his own perfect          Hell.                                        NORM                    They won't understand what you've done.                                        JAKE                    They don't even have a word for "lie" --                    they had to learn it from us.                    Grace sees he is on the verge of tears.   Lost and alone,          between worlds.                                        GRACE                    I know. I taught it to them.                                        JAKE                        (PLEADING)                    Grace. I've gotta go.   They're waiting.                                        NORM                    Link is ready.                    Grace stops him as he tries to close the lid.                                                                                85.                                                           GRACE                    Jake. You can't carry this burden much                    longer.                                        JAKE                        (smiling wanly)                    It's okay. Mo'at says an alien mind                    probably can't survive the Dream Hunt                    anyway.                    Grace closes the lid. It feels like closing a coffin. She          watches his psionic patterns aligning to his avatar,          somewhere out in the night.                                        GRACE                        (to Norm)                    Prep my link. I'm going in.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. COMMONS/HOMETREE - NIGHT                    JAKE SITS, eyes closed, as Neytiri and another young hunter          paint his face and body in preparation for uniltaron -- the          Dream Hunt.                                        NEYTIRI                    When your Spirit Animal comes, you will                    know.                    Their eyes meet with emotion neither can conceal any longer.                    TIME CUT. GRACE stands with the crowd at the ramp to          HOMETREE'S LOWEST LEVEL. Jake barely sees her as he goes down          the spiral. She tries to follow, but is barred by a hunter.                    BELOW, seemingly in the womb of the earth, Jake walks slowly          into the center of a tight circle of seated elders and          hunters. An ELDER is slowly rapping a large WATER DRUM.                    TIME CUT -- MO'AT purifies him with smoke from burning herbs,          CHANTING in a low monotone. Jake, squatting, washes the          smoke over himself with his palms.                    MACRO - MO'AT'S FINGERS unwrap a piece of wood riddled with          holes. She catches the end of a glowing purple WORM, and          draws it out of the wood.                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    Oh wise worm, eater of the Sacred Tree --                    bless this worthy Hunter with a true                    vision.                                                                                 86.                                        MO'AT places the worm on Jake's out-stretched TONGUE. It          twists on itself, lighting his mouth before he closes it. She          indicates he should chew. He does.                    MACRO -- AN EARTHEN JAR is opened. EYTUKAN removes a          writhing black ARACHNOID, the Pandoran equivalent of a          scorpion.                    He places it against the back of Jake's neck and presses. The          insect drives its stinger into Jake's skin and --                    Jake grimaces. Mo'at and Eytukan step back, leaving Jake          alone in the circle.                    Neytiri watches intently, joining in the low chant.                    SLOW DOLLY IN on Jake. His eyes OPEN. He looks around at the          faces -- they seem to TRANSFORM, becoming threatening.                    Jake looks down at the palms of his hands.                    JAKE'S POV -- his hands recede, his whole body, the ground          and --                    INSTANTLY the circle of Na'vi recedes, as if to a distant          horizon, leaving vast ground in between. SPACE is utterly          distorted, and SOUND as well -- echoing, THUNDEROUS.                    ECU JAKE -- pupils DILATED black. He looks around and --                    The onlookers are gone, replaced by a ring of glowing trees,          which seem miles high. The whole image is bathed in spectral          radiance. Jake looks down --                    JAKE'S POV -- his body and hands transforming -- fingers          stretching into tendrils, legs becoming roots which spread          outward across the ground, a thousand glowing dendrites which          connect to the roots of the trees and --                    CUT TO REALITY -- Jake is on his hands and knees, PUKING in          the dirt. He contorts, crying out in agony as the venom          contracts his muscles but --                    IN HIS VISION Jake stands serene on a FLOATING MOUNTAIN          CLIFF. A GREAT BLACK SHADOW covers him, the unmistakable X          silhouette of a diving LEONOPTERYX. The LAST SHADOW.                    CAMERA SCREAMS down on him as the shadow grows larger -- WE          RUSH into his face, into the blackness of his pupil which          FILLS THE UNIVERSE and --                                                                                 87.                                        REAL JAKE writhes in the dirt, his back arched as his muscles          seize. He foams and thrashes, his eyes rolled back in his          head, while inside --                    TIME ITSELF HAS ACCELERATED -- clouds scream around the          mountain tops, mist boils through the forest. He feels the          wind of time blowing through him as --                    REAL JAKE claws the ground, moaning, staring blindly while --                    INSIDE, IN POV he FLIES over the landscape of Pandora --                    --but the forest is BLASTED. Fires flicker among trees that          are BURNED black and lifeless in a smoky twilight.                    A great WINGED SHADOW is cast below, rippling over the          devastated ground. AVATAR JAKE looks down at the shadow.          Realizes HE is casting it, and we RUSH IN to his PUPIL and --                    PULL BACK from the eye of a GREAT LEONOPTERYX, flying lordly          and terrible over the land. It lets out an almighty SHRIEK          which seems to echo to eternity and --                    SLAM CUT to Jake, on his back, GASPING -- back in his body.          He weakly rolls up to one elbow and looks around the room.                                        MO'AT                    It is finished.                    Neytiri's face is flooded with relief.   The faces of the clan          elders look at Jake expectantly.                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Did your Spirit Animal come?                    Jake looks from Eytukan to Mo'at, Tsu'tey and the elders. How          can he tell them what he has seen?                    Mo'at puts her splayed fingers against his face, seeming to          peer into his troubled soul.                                        MO'AT                        (to Jake)                    Something has come.                        (to the others, subtitled)                    It will take time for the meaning to be                    clear.                    She steps back, and Eytukan motions for Jake to stand. He          gets up, weakly.                                                                                 88.                                        OUTSIDE THE ENCLOSURE -- Eytukan emerges with Jake and the          others. The entire clan is gathered, waiting to hear what          has happened. Jake looks up at the Leonopteryx Skull Totem,          which seems to stare down at him.                    GRACE watches, her eyes brimming. Proud. Relieved. Amazed.                    Eytukan places both hands on Jake's chest and holds them          there.                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    You are now a son of the Omaticaya.   You                    are part of the People.                    All the members of the clan press forward, crowding around          and putting their hands on Jake's shoulders, back, chest --          hands upon hands, until he is connected to everyone.                                                             DISSOLVE TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - NIGHT                    JAKE and NEYTIRI run silhouetted in the night. Behind them          waterfalls cascade down in the silvery light. POLYPHEMUS          RISES behind the trees.                    NEYTIRI DIVES from a rock, slicing into a mirror of water.          Jake follows her and --                    UNDERWATER, they swim over glowing ANEMONES.                    They seem to float in a cosmic dance above a luminous garden          of waving shapes. Tiny purple fish swirl around them.                    Their hands come together, fingers twining, as they float          weightlessly, as if between worlds.                                                             DISSOLVE TO:                    EXT. WILLOW GLADE                    Laughing, they run together into a stand of WILLOWS. Their          trunks are as gnarled as bonsai. Long faintly glowing          tendrils hang straight down in pastel curtains.                    Underfoot, a bed of moss glows faintly. It REACTS to their          footsteps with expanding rings of light.                    It is an exquisitely beautiful spot.                    The willows stir, responding to their presence. She holds up          her hands, letting the TENDRILS caress her.                                                                                 89.                                                            NEYTIRI                    This is a place for prayers to be heard.                    And sometimes answered.                    Jake puts out his hands and the tendrils play over his          fingers, his palms, his forearms. His eyes go wide. We hear          the WHISPERING of ancient Na'vi VOICES.                                        JAKE                    It's like -- a sound you feel.                                        NEYTIRI                    We call this utraya mokri -- the Tree of                    Voices. The voices of our ancestors, who                    live within Eywa.                    A few WOODSPRITES circle around them, some alighting on their          shoulders and arms.                    They stand, very close together now. Her eyes are intense,          almost luminous. He feels drawn into them.                    But she pulls back a little.                                        NEYTIRI                    You are Omaticaya now. You may make your                    own bow from the wood of Hometree.                        (she looks away)                    And you may choose a woman.                    The Amazon warrior trying so hard to sound casual.   Jake          suppresses a smile.                                        NEYTIRI                    We have many fine women. Ninat is the                    best singer --                                        JAKE                    I don't want Ninat.                                        NEYTIRI                    There is Beyral -- she is a good hunter --                    Jake puts his fingers on her lips to stop her.                                        JAKE                    I've already chosen. But this woman must                    also choose me.                    She takes his hands and their fingers intertwine, moving          gently over each other.                                                                                 90.                                                            NEYTIRI                    She already has.                    He puts his face close to hers. She rubs her cheek against          his. He kisses her on the mouth. They explore each other.                    Then she pulls back, eyes sparkling.                                        NEYTIRI                    Kissing is very good. But we have                    something better.                    She pulls him down until they are kneeling, facing each other          on the faintly glowing moss.                    Neytiri takes the end of her queue and raises it. Jake does          the same, with trembling anticipation. The tendrils at the          ends move with a life of their own, straining to be joined.                    MACRO SHOT -- The tendrils INTERTWINE with gentle          undulations.                    JAKE rocks with the direct contact between his nervous system          and hers. The ultimate intimacy.                    They come together into a kiss and sink down on the bed of          moss, and ripples of light spread out around them.                    THE WILLOWS sway, without wind, and the night is alive with          pulsing energy as we DISSOLVE TO --                    LATER. She is collapsed across his chest.     Spent.   He          strokes her face tenderly.                                        JAKE                    Neytiri, you know my real body is far                    away, sleeping.                    She raises up, placing her fingertips to his chest --                                        NEYTIRI                    This body is real.                        (she touches his forehead)                    This spirit is real.                    Her eyes are luminous, honest, infinitely deep.                                        NEYTIRI                    When I was first your teacher, I hated                    all Sky People. But you have also taught                    me.                        (WHISPERING)                    Spirit is all that matters.                                                                                 91.                                        She lays her head down, against his chest, listening to his          heartbeat.                                        NEYTIRI                    I am with you now, Jake. We are mated for                    life.                                           JAKE                    We are?                                        NEYTIRI                    Yes. It is our way.                        (INNOCENTLY)                    Oh. I forgot to tell?                    He rouses up, making her look at him.                                        JAKE                    Really, we are?                                           NEYTIRI                    We are.                    Jake considers this.                                        JAKE                    It's cool. I'm there.                    He lays his head down, and her arms enfold him, sheltering          him as he sleeps.                    INT. SHACK - NIGHT                    Jake's eyes open in the darkness. He just lies there,          thinking. In his coffin. In another world.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. WILLOW GLADE - DAWN                    DAWN BREAKS in the sacred glade. Shafts of orange morning          light. Jake and Neytiri asleep in each others' arms. Maxfield          Parrish painting. But then --                    THE ROAR OF ENGINES. Neytiri awakens with a start. The          SPLINTERING, CRACKLING of forest being crushed under enormous          treads gets louder.                    SHE WATCHES in growing horror as the BLADE of a bulldozer          becomes a dark wall behind the sheltering ring of willows.          She shakes Jake, shouting at him in Na'vi to wake up.                                                                                 92.                                                            NEYTIRI                    Jake! Wake up! Where ever you are, come                    back to me now. Jake!                    INT. SHACK - DAWN                    HUMAN JAKE is in a hurry to get back to the link. GRACE,          still groggy, chases him with coffee and microwaved eggs.                                        GRACE                    Here -- eat this. I'd hate to have to                    force-feed a cripple.                    She slams the lid shut before he can enter and sticks the          plate under his nose.                                        GRACE                        (GRINNING)                    She's not going anywhere.                    He sighs heavily and starts wolfing the eggs.                    EXT. WILLOW GLADE - DAWN                    Neytiri SCREAMS as --                    The willows begin to fall before the blade, to be ground          under the treads. AVATAR JAKE is directly in the path. She          tries to lift him, but he is too heavy. She is screaming at          him, frantically trying to wake him, as --                    INT. SHACK - DAWN                    Jake adjusts himself in the link chair. He hands Grace the          empty plate.                                        GRACE                    And when was the last time you took a                    shower? Jesus, Marine.                    Jake pushes her hands away and pulls the lid down.                    EXT. WILLOW GLADE                    AVATAR JAKE wakes up to see --                    NEYTIRI dragging him, screaming.   He leaps up as --                    THE DOZER pushes inexorably into the glade, splintering the          trees, plowing the earth before it.                    JAKE RUNS into the path of the bulldozer, waving his arms.                                                                                 93.                                                              JAKE                    Hey!    Heeeey! Stop! Stop!                    He positions himself where the camera-eyes of the robotic          juggernaut will see him.                    INT. OPS CENTER - DAY                    CLOSE ON MONITOR -- Jake shouts but there's no sound feed.                    WIDER as the TRACTOR OPERATOR sees him and pulls back on the          remote throttles. He yells to his SUPERVISOR.                                        OPERATOR                    Hey, I got one of the natives blockin' my                    blade here.                    This attracts the attention of Selfridge, who comes over to          the workstation.                    ON THE SCREEN -- Jake, in his Omaticaya loincloth and          ceremonial body paint, is unrecognizable.                                        SUPERVISOR                        (to Selfridge)                    What do we do?                                        SELFRIDGE                    Roll on. He'll move. These people have                    to learn that we don't stop.                    TIGHT ON THROTTLES as the operator pushes them forward.                    ON THE SCREEN Jake stumbles back, tripping, disappears below          the blade for a second -- reappears, running to the side.                    EXT. WILLOW GLADE                    JAKE grabs a rock and LEAPS onto the dozer.   He climbs          quickly to the CAMERA MAST.                    SMASH! The rock crashes into the lens of the camera. Jake          beats the rock furiously against it, pounding it to junk.                    INT. OPS CENTER                    CLOSE ON MONITOR -- as Jake's demonic face is replaced by          noise.                                           OPERATOR                    I'm blind.                    He pulls back on the throttles.                                                                                 94.                                        EXT. WILLOW GLADE                    THE JUGGERNAUT grinds to a stop. But the ROAR of engines          continues because --                    MORE DOZERS and TRACTORS advance nearby, crushing the forest          before them. Trees are slashed down by the PLASMA CUTTERS.          Terrified animals flee before the onslaught.                    POWERSUITS and TROOPERS stride through the ravaged forest,          blasting anything that moves. A trooper sees Jake on the          dozer. He rips off a BURST and --                    Rounds CLANG into metal as Jake dives off the machine. He          grabs Neytiri and they run into concealing foliage. From          behind a screen of leaves, they watch as --                    THE DOZERS advance, obliterating the sacred site, leaving          only mud and wood splinters in their path.                    CU NEYTIRI, stunned by the nightmarish, unfathomable          wrongness of it. She sobs as the willows die.                    INT. OPS CENTER                    MINUTES LATER, the operator is playing back the CAMERA'S FEED          for Quaritch and the others.                                        QUARITCH                    Freeze it, right -- there.                    ON MONITOR -- the image expands, until Jake's face is clear,          frozen in an animal snarl.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Son of a bitch!                    PUSH IN ON QUARITCH as his jaw clenches in cold fury.                    He turns and strides toward the door, shouting to his WATCH          COMMANDER as he passes.                                        QUARITCH                    Get me a pilot!                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. COMMONS/HOMETREE - DAY                    A RAIDING PARTY of hunters, their bodies painted, raise          weapons overhead. AVATAR GRACE watches with growing alarm.                                                                                  95.                                                            EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Tsu'tey will lead the war party!                    Tsu'tey steps forward, face full of hate, raising a war cry          among the hunters.                                        GRACE                        (SUBTITLED)                    Please -- this will only make it worse --                                        TSU'TEY                    You do not speak here!                    JAKE and NEYTIRI cross the commons toward them. Jake feels          all eyes turn toward him. He takes her arm, stopping her.                                        JAKE                        (to Neytiri, low)                    Okay, listen. There's something I have to                    tell you. It's gonna be hard. I just                    need you to --                    He sees TSU'TEY striding toward them, his face a mask of          fury.                                         TSU'TEY                    You!                    Tsu'tey walks right up and SLAMS Jake in the chest with both          hands. It is so unexpected, that Jake topples on his ass.                                        TSU'TEY                    You mated with this woman?!                                         GRACE                    Oh shit.                    Jake stands. He reaches out for Neytiri.   She goes to him,          clutching his hand.                                        MO'AT                    Is this true?                                        NEYTIRI                        (SUBTITLED)                    We are mated before Eywa. It is done.                    Tsu'tey turns to Mo'at and Eytukan, his face anguished.                                                                                 96.                                                            TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    Neytiri was promised to me! Everything is                    changing. Everything is being destroyed!                    Tsu'tey points at Jake, his pain shifting to rage.                                        TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    These aliens kill everything they touch,                    like poison.                                        MO'AT                    Neytiri! If you choose this path, you can                    never be Tsahik. Your life will be                    wasted.                    Neytiri looks at her mother -- sees the grief in her eyes.                                        NEYTIRI                    I have chosen.                    Tsu'tey draws his knife and --                                           TSU'TEY                    Yeeeeeaaa!                    LUNGES AT JAKE, who's ready this time -- he sidesteps,          blocking the knife, and elbows Tsu'tey HARD in the face.                    Tsu'tey reels back, nose bleeding. He starts forward on a          second attack but --                    Eytukan grabs his arm and spins him around.                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Stop! This is not a proper challenge.                    Tsu'tey glares at Jake while sheathing his knife.                                        TSU'TEY                    I challenge you.                                        GRACE                    Jake, don't --                                           JAKE                    I accept.                                                                 CUT TO:                                                                                 97.                                        INT./EXT. SAMSON - DAY                    QUARITCH rides left seat as Trudy pilots through the          mountains. She glances at him, then toggles the aircom.                                           TRUDY                       Loveshack this is Samson One Six inbound                       hot to your pos. I have Colonel Quaritch                       with me and --                    But Quaritch SLAMS the switch, cutting her off.                                           QUARITCH                       Did I tell you to announce us?                                           TRUDY                       Sorry sir, it's procedure.                    INT. SHACK                    Norm punches buttons on the comms console.                                           NORM                       Samson One Six?   Trudy?                           (no answer)                       Crap.                    He looks helplessly at Jake and Grace's link units -- no way          to warn them.                    INT. HOMETREE - DAY                    TSU'TEY AND JAKE square off. Each holds a long, solid staff.          The entire clan crowds around them in a circle.                                           GRACE                       What the hell are you doing?                                           JAKE                       It's the only way to get him to goddamn                       listen.                    TSU'TEY LEAPS at Jake with a sharp cry and Jake parries with          his staff. The staves CLACK off each other as the two          combatants LEAP, DUCK and STRIKE furiously.                    Tsu'tey sweeps Jake off his feet with a roundhouse hit to the          ankles, but --                    Jake ROLLS out of it and catches Tsu'tey in the belly with          the blunt end.                                                                                      98.                                        EXT. SITE 26 - DAY                    TRUDY'S SAMSON lands. QUARITCH and a posse of troopers jump          down and rush the Shack.                    INT. COMMONS                    TSU'TEY wades in with a series of short, sharp blows. Jake          swings with equal fury. Both fighting from the heart.                    The staves whistle through the air, and CLACK together like          gunshots. Jake presses hard, and Tsu'tey staggers back,          stumbling as --                    Jake lands a SOLID HIT, dropping him to his knees, just as --                    INT. SHACK                    THE INNER DOOR bangs open and QUARITCH stomps toward Grace's          Link controls.                                           NORM                       Hey, hang on, you can't interrupt a link                       in progress, it's dangerous -- wait!                    Quaritch shoves him aside and SMACKS his fist down on the          POWER switch. Grace's unit goes dead and --                    INT. COMMONS                    AVATAR GRACE'S eyes roll back and she keels over.       NEYTIRI          barely catches her before she hits the ground.                    JAKE parries as Tsu'tey swings but then --                    Jake's eyes go blank just as -- K-RACK! Tsu'tey puts one          alongside his head. Jake sprawls, completely inert. Tsu'tey          pokes him with his staff, then raises it and lets out a          piercing VICTORY CRY.                    INT. SHACK - DAY                    JAKE SLAMS OPEN the Link, amped from the fight, furious --                                           JAKE                       Are you out of your goddamn mind?!                                           QUARITCH                       You crossed a line.                    Quaritch PUNCHES HIM HARD. Jake flops back, dazed. The          troopers yank him out and ZIP-TIE his wrists.                                                                                 99.                                        INT. COMMONS                    TSU'TEY draws his KNIFE, and bends down, grabbing Jake by the          hair.                                        TSU'TEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    This is a demon in a false body. It                    should not live.                    He puts his knife to Jake's throat but --                    NEYTIRI BLIND-SIDES him at full tilt. Tsu'tey sprawls, rolls,          comes up to see --                    Neytiri crouched like a lioness over Jake, her KNIFE and          teeth bared, her ears flattened. She SNARLS with primal          fury.                    Tsu'tey stands panting. He pushes through the crowd and walks          away, calling for his hunters.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. OPS CENTER - DUSK                    TIGHT ON MONITOR -- showing JAKE'S AVATAR FACE on the dozer          camera, as he pounds a rock into the lens. The shot FREEZES          on Jake's ANIMAL SNARL.                    WIDER -- HUMAN JAKE sits, bruised and bleeding, watching          himself on the monitor. GRACE and NORM stand nearby, rubbing          their wrists where the zip-ties bit in. SELFRIDGE and          QUARITCH watch with disdain.                                        QUARITCH                    You let me down, son. You got a little                    local pussy and completely forgot what                    team you play for.                    Jake meets his gaze with a defiant glare.                                        GRACE                    Parker, listen, there may still be time                    to --                                        QUARITCH                    Shut your fucking hole!                    Grace is momentarily stunned by Quaritch's fury. But she          meets it with her own intensity, not backing down an inch.                                                                             100.                                                            GRACE                    Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot                    me?                        (to Selfridge)                    You need to muzzle your dog!                                        SELFRIDGE                    Can we just take this down a couple                    notches, please.                                        JAKE                        (to Quaritch)                    You say you want to keep your people                    alive. Start by listening to her.                    Jake nods to Grace to continue.                                        GRACE                        (to Selfridge)                    This is bad, Parker. Those trees were                    sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you                    can't imagine.                                        SELFRIDGE                    You know what? You throw a stick in the                    air around here it falls on some sacred                    fern.                                        GRACE                    I'm not talking about pagan voodoo here --                    I'm talking about something real and                    measurable in the biology of the forest.                                        SELFRIDGE                        (FRUSTRATED)                    Which is what exactly?                    Grace's nerve fails. A rush of conflicting emotions -- the          need to act, to do something, colliding with her scientific          rigor.                                        GRACE                        (to Jake)                    I can't do this. How am I supposed to                    reduce years of work to a sound bite for                    the illiterate?                                        JAKE                    Just tell him what you know in your                    heart.                    She turns to Parker, steeling herself.                                                                             101.                                                            GRACE                    Alright, look -- I don't have the answers                    yet, I'm just now starting to even frame                    the questions. What we think we know --                    is that there's some kind of                    electrochemical communication between the                    roots of the trees. Like the synapses                    between neurons. Each tree has ten to the                    fourth connections to the trees around                    it, and there are ten to the twelfth                    trees on Pandora --                                        SELFRIDGE                    That's a lot I'm guessing.                                         GRACE                    That's more connections than the human                    brain. You get it? It's a network -- a                    global network. And the Na'vi can access                    it -- they can upload and download data --                    memories -- at sites like the one you                    destroyed.                                        SELFRIDGE                    What the hell have you people been                    smoking out there? They're just.                    Goddamn. Trees.                                        GRACE                    You need to wake up, Parker. The wealth                    of this world isn't in the ground -- it's                    all around us. The Na'vi know that, and                    they're fighting to defend it. If you                    want to share this world with them, you                    need to understand them.                                         QUARITCH                    We understand them just fine.   Thanks to                    Jake here.                    Jake shares a look of alarm with Grace as Quaritch selects a          NEW CLIP on the main monitor --                    TIGHT ON MONITOR -- VIDEO-LOG IMAGE of Jake, looking haggard          and borderline deranged, rambling in a late-night monologue.                                        JAKE (RECORDED)                    They're not going to give up their home --                    they're not gonna make a deal. For what?                    Lite beer and shopping channel? There's                    nothing we have that they want. We're a                    horror to them. We're the monsters from                    space.                                                                             102.                                        JAKE watches with a growing dread as his words condemn the          people he has grown to love.                                        JAKE (RECORDED)                    They're never going to leave Hometree.                    Quaritch FREEZES the recording.                                        QUARITCH                    Since a deal can't be made -- it gets                    real simple.                        (to Jake, icily)                    So thanks. I'm getting all emotional.    I                    might just give you a big wet kiss.                                        GRACE                    Parker, we have to talk, like rational                    people.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Well, I'd cherish that, but unfortunately                    you're out of here on the next shuttle.                    All of you. I'm shutting down the Avatar                    Program, effective now.                    ON JAKE, GRACE AND NORM, speechless.                                                       SLOW DISSOLVE TO:                    A WALL OF FIRE. Silhouettes of direhorse riders cross in SLOW          MOTION, spears and bows held high.                    INT. OPS CENTER - MORNING                    MONITOR SCREEN IMAGE -- WAINFLEET pans a camera across the          smoldering hulks of BURNED DOZERS. The toppled remains of a          charred ampsuit. Dead troopers bristling with arrows.                                        WAINFLEET                    They hit with banshees first. Set the                    ampsuit on fire. Driver's toast.                    Quaritch and Selfridge look on grimly.                                        QUARITCH                    The rest of the squad?                                        WAINFLEET                    Six bodies -- that's all of `em. And the                    equipment is totalled.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Christ.                                                                               103.                                        INT. SELFRIDGE'S OFFICE - DAY                    Selfridge is stares soberly as Quaritch outlines the plan.                                        QUARITCH                    I can do it with minimal casualties to                    the indigenous. We'll clear them out                    with gas first. It'll be humane. More or                    less.                    Selfridge sighs and rubs his face.                                        QUARITCH                    Hey, don't go limp on me now. This is                    exactly the incident we needed.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Alright, let's pull the trigger.                                                                    CUT TO:                    INT. BIO LAB                    MAX and the lab staff are glumly packing files and equipment,          under the watchful eye of armed SEC-OPS TROOPERS. JAKE,          GRACE, NORM stare bleakly at each other.                                        GRACE                    They bulldozed a sacred site on purpose,                    to trigger a response. They're                    fabricating this war to get what they                    want.                                        NORM                    I can't believe that.                                         JAKE                    Yup. That's how it's done. When people                    are sitting on shit you want, you make                    them your enemy. Then you're justified in                    taking it.                    TRUDY RUNS into the lab, breathless. She's wearing full          flight gear and carrying her helmet.                                        TRUDY                    Sec-ops is rolling the gunships.   They're                    gonna hit Hometree!                                          JAKE                    When?                                          TRUDY                    Now.    We're spooling up now! I gotta go.                                                                              104.                                                            GRACE                    My God.                    Jake pumps furiously toward the door, Grace following.                    INT. OPS CENTER - DAY                    SELFRIDGE surveys the airfield, where crews swarm over the          gunships, loading ordnance. He turns as JAKE and GRACE          charge toward him.                                        GRACE                    Parker, wait. Stop! These are people                    you're about to --                                        SELFRIDGE                    They're fly-bitten savages who live in a                    tree! Look around -- I don't know about                    you but I see a lot of trees. They can                    move.                                        GRACE                    For God's sake, there are children in                    there. Babies!                                        JAKE                    Look Selfridge, you don't want this kind                    of blood on your hands. Let me try to                    talk them out. They trust me.                    ON SELFRIDGE, considering this.                                                                   CUT TO:                    INT. LINK ROOM                    SELFRIDGE and an escort of armed TROOPERS accompany Jake and          Grace to the links. The two enter their units, as NORM and          MAX prep the system.                                        SELFRIDGE                    You've got one hour. Unless you want                    your girlfriend in there when the axe                    comes down, you get them to evacuate. One                    hour.                    Jake lowers the upper clamshell. Norm starts the sequence.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. COMMONS -DAY                    The entire clan is gathered, with Eytukan and Mo'at          presiding. Jake looks around, feeling the gaze of the People          upon him. He steels himself, and speaks in clear Na'vi --                                                                            105.                                                            JAKE                        (SUBTITLED)                    Eytukan, I have something to say, to                    everyone.                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Speak, Jakesully.                                        JAKE                        (SUBTITLED)                    A great evil is upon us. The Sky People                    are coming to destroy Hometree. They                    will be here soon.                    A murmur of fear and anger goes through the crowd.                                        JAKE                        (SUBTITLED)                    You have to leave, or you will die.                                        MO'AT                    Are you certain of this?                                        JAKE                    They sent me here to learn your ways. So                    one day I could bring this message, and                    you would believe it.                                        NEYTIRI                    What are you saying, Jake? You knew this                    would happen?                    He is unable to meet her eyes.                                        JAKE                    Yes.                        (ANGUISHED)                    At first it was just orders. Then                    everything changed. I fell in love--                    with the forest, with the Omaticaya                    People --                        (he looks at her)                    -- with you. And by then, how could I                    tell you?                    Neytiri can barely breathe. She is shaking with the enormity          of it, her voice cracking with rage and pain --                                        NEYTIRI                    I trusted you, Jake!                                                                             106.                                                            JAKE                    Neytiri. Please, I only wanted to --                                        NEYTIRI                    You will never be one of the People!                    NEVER!                    TSU'TEY yells to his HUNTERS --                                         TSUTEY                        (SUBTITLED)                    Bind them.                    They grab Jake, who doesn't resist. Others seize Grace.          Both are driven to their knees, and their arms bound.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    SCORPION GUNSHIPS darken the sky as they come over the tops          of the trees. At the head of the formation is one much          larger ship, a monster 150 feet long -- the GENERAL DYNAMICS          C-21 DRAGON GUNSHIP.                    Quaritch, next to the pilot of the Dragon, surveys the world          below like Napoleon astride his horse.                    EXT. HOMETREE                    JAKE and GRACE are lashed to posts at the front entrance to          Hometree. The People look up as --                    THE DRAGON and its escort of GUNSHIPS arrive over the trees.          The DOWN-BLAST from their rotors creates a maelstrom of          flying leaves and debris.                    IN THE DRAGON COCKPIT Quaritch watches a targeting screen --          a telescopic image of Jake and Grace tied to posts.                                        QUARITCH                    Well, I'd say diplomacy has failed.                    TSU'TEY and another HUNTER hold knives to the throats of the          two avatars, glaring defiantly at the gunships.                                        QUARITCH                    I think they mean to cut their throats if                    we don't back off. Make sure you get a                    nice close-up of that. I can tack it onto                    the after-action report.                    JAKE YELLS to Neytiri, Tsu'tey, the others gathered nearby --                                                                                107.                                                            JAKE                    You have to get out of Hometree! Run to                    the forest! Please, I'm begging you!                    EYTUKAN scowls at Jake, then GRABS TSU'TEY and yells --                                        EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Take the ikran! Attack from above!                    Tsu'tey grabs some hunters and runs up the roots of Hometree.                    IN THE COCKPIT Quaritch grows impatient.                                        QUARITCH                    Alright, let's get this done. Give me                    forty millimeter gas rounds, right in the                    front door.                                         GUNNER                    Roger.   CS forties. Going hot.                                         QUARITCH                    Fire.                    On the Dragon's stub-wings the 40mm ROCKET LAUNCHERS open up          with a BARRAGE of leaping fire which FLASHES down and --                    K-WHOOM!K-WHOOM!K-WHOOM! -- the inside of Hometree ERUPTS          with multiple EXPLOSIONS of TEARGAS.                    THE GAS rolls across the confused villagers. They begin to          cough and gag.                    Eytukan and the remaining HUNTERS bravely fire at the          gunships with their longbows.                    IN THE DRAGON'S COCKPIT, Quaritch laughs as arrows CLINK          against the armored windows.                    AMID CLOUDS of teargas, the Omaticaya run, stumble, collapse.                                        EYTUKAN                        (yelling/subtitled)                    Everybody outside! Go to the Forest.                    The villagers pour out of Hometree. Everyone is yelling.          Piercing SCREAMS in the boiling gas.                    JAKE, eyes streaming, struggles with his bindings.                    KA-WHOOM! An INCENDIARY ROUND explodes inside the Commons.          FLAMES ROAR through the base of Hometree.                                                                               108.                                        INSIDE HOMETREE it is a burning smoky HELL. Flames roar up          the inside like a chimney. STRAGGLERS scramble outside,          coughing and dragging wounded with them.                    High up in the trunk, TSU'TEY and his hunters leap rapidly          from spoke to spoke, climbing barely ahead of the fireball.                    OUTSIDE the fire is driven by the rotor-wash toward JAKE and          GRACE who are still bound tightly to the posts.                    Out of the smoke, MO'AT appears in front of Jake.    She raises          a KNIFE and --                    SLASHES DOWNWARD. Jake looks down, surprised, to see his          bonds falling away. He meets her eyes, which are filled with          horror, but also something else. Call it faith.                                        MO'AT                    You are one of us.   Help us!                    Jake takes the knife and cuts Grace free.                                        JAKE                    We've gotta move!    He's gonna blow the                    columns.                    As Grace realizes what he means, he grabs her and they RUN.          Around them the Omaticaya flee in horror and confusion.                    IN THE COCKPIT, Quaritch watches as the Omaticaya stream away          from the Great Tree, running along roots and branches.                                        QUARITCH                    That's how you scatter the roaches. Okay,                    switch missiles. Give me H-E's at the                    base of the west columns.                                        PILOTS (V.O.)                    Copy, switching missiles.                    IN TRUDY'S SAMSON -- she hears the other pilots acknowledging          Quaritch's order.                                          TRUDY                    Screw it.                    She takes her finger OFF the fire-control and pulls her          aircraft out of formation.                    PUSHING IN ON QUARITCH, the Hometree reflecting in his          glasses.                                                                                109.                                                            QUARITCH                    Bring it down.                    MISSILES stream down from the DRAGON and the other gunships          and --                    The base of Hometree VANISHES in a chain of HIGH-EXPLOSIVE          BLASTS. The massive PILLARS fragment into matchsticks, and --                    The Omaticaya watch in horror as --                    HOMETREE GROANS and starts to MOVE.                    In a cacophony of cracking, splintering roots, the mighty          tree TOPPLES with agonizing slowness.                    AT THE BANSHEE EYRIE, TSU'TEY and the other hunters spur          their mounts into flight. They swoop among the branches as          the tree, the one fixed thing in their lives, MOVES.                    It CRASHES DOWN through the forest canopy, crushing the          lesser trees in its path, FALLING PONDEROUSLY.                    HOMETREE hits the ground like the end of the world, raising a          great cloud of dust and pulverized debris.                    IN THE DRAGON cockpit, Quaritch surveys the destruction.                                        QUARITCH                    Nice work people. Alright, let's light                    it up.                    INCENDIARIES launch from the gunships, EXPLODING into gouts          of FIRE in the debris of Hometree.                    THE GUNSHIPS fan the flames through the trees like a fire-          storm. The Omaticaya retreat as a WALL OF FIRE advances.                    JAKE SEARCHES for Neytiri amid swirling smoke and sparks.                                         JAKE                    Neytiri!   Neytiri!                    GRACE is gathering crying CHILDREN, and herding them away          from the fire-storm.                    NEYTIRI stumbles through the burning wreckage at the edge of          the INFERNO. She sees --                    EYTUKAN. A large shard of wood is driven through him like a          spear. He recognizes her as she kneels over him.                                                                                110.                                                            EYTUKAN                        (SUBTITLED)                    Daughter -- take my bow. Protect the                    People.                    In his last living moment he places his bow in her hands.                    She collapses over him, her face crumpling in grief.                    JAKE reels out of the smoke.    Kneels next to her.                                        JAKE                    I'm sorry --                    She shoves him away and stands, screaming at him as tears          stream down her face.                                         NEYTIRI                    Get away from me, Jake. Go away! Never                    come back!                    Jake stumbles back as she slumps down by her father's body.          Sparks and smoke swirl around him. He watches as --                    NETYIRI kneels, grieving. Slumped over, clutching her          stomach. Keening like an animal.                    SLOW MOTION -- Jake staggers lost and alone through the          burning forest. Utterly shattered. Eyes vacant.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    I was a warrior who dreamed he could                    bring peace. Sooner or later though, you                    always have to wake up...                    INT. LINK ROOM                    SELFRIDGE watches a video feed of the destruction on one of          the monitors. Max and NORM stare in shock.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Pull the plug.                    A TROOPER crosses to the console and grabs the handle of the          MASTER BREAKER --                    EXT. RAINFOREST                    The strings are cut. Jake flops to the ground, limp.                    Elsewhere in the smoky Hell, Grace slumps unconscious. The          crying kids pull at her. Mo'at, leading a group of          Omaticaya, comes upon the scene.                                                                               111.                                        She grabs the kids and pulls them away, leaving Grace's          avatar helpless in the path of the flames. She hesitates,          then --                                         MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    Bring her.                    INT. LINK ROOM                    BLACKNESS. Then the top clamshell of Jake's unit is yanked          upward, and troopers grab him, zip-tie his wrists as we --                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DUSK                    ON A HILLSIDE -- a grieving Neytiri stands with Mo'at and the          Omaticaya refugees. Two hunters pull Grace's avatar on a          travois.                    They watch as the flames burn like a funeral pyre below. A          great pall of smoke darkens the landscape.                                                             DISSOLVE TO:                    INT. LOCK-UP - NIGHT                    Jake, Grace, and Norm are in a common holding cell. They          sit, staring in silence. Too wired to sleep, too emotionally          drained to move.                                        GRACE                    They never wanted us to succeed.                    AT THE DESK OUTSIDE, the lone TROOPER looks up as --                    TRUDY approaches along the corridor, pushing a stainless          steel trolley.                                        TRUDY                    Personally I think steak's too good for                    these traitors.                                        GUARD                    They get steak?    That's bullshit. Let me                    see that --                    The guard bends to look into the hot cart and   --                    THE MUZZLE of Trudy's pistol presses behind his ear.                                                                               112.                                                            TRUDY                    Oops.                        (shoving him down)                    All the way down, pendejo.                    She WHISTLES and MAX trots around the corner.                    Trudy binds the guard with one of his own zip-ties as Max          grabs his KEY CARD and runs to the cell. Swipes the card.          The door is rolling open when --                    ANOTHER TROOPER rounds the corner. Trudy takes him down with          a sharp BLOW to the windpipe and a THAI KNEE to the ribs.                    Meanwhile the first TROOPER is getting up, but Max CLOCKS him          heartily with a coffee urn. He goes down and stays down.                                        MAX                    That was unexpectedly satisfying.                    Trudy plants a kiss on Norm as he runs out of the cell.                                        NORM                    Baby, you rock.                    Jake wheels out, grabbing the sidearm from the fallen trooper          as Trudy binds his wrists.                                        JAKE                        (to Max and Trudy)                    Thanks.                    Jake faces his motley group, chambering a round.                                        JAKE                    So what do you say?    Time for a                    revolution?                                          GRACE                    I'm free.                    Trudy grins and taps his fist.                                          JAKE                    Come on.                                                                    CUT TO:                    INT. UTILIDOR                    In the utility corridor under the base, Jake pumps the chair          furiously, as the others jog. They reach an AIRLOCK and start          donning EXOPACKS.                                                                                  113.                                                              JAKE                          (to Trudy)                      Get your ship fired up.                    Trudy nods. She grabs Norm and enters the airlock.     Jake          turns to Max.                                          JAKE                      Stay here. I need somebody on the inside                      I can trust.                    Max nods.   Jake grips his hand tightly.                                                                   CUT TO:                    EXT. AIRFIELD - NIGHT                    IN THE SAMSON, Norm is helping Trudy race through the          preflight checks as the turbines spool up. A LIGHT hits          them.                    An armored TROOPER approaches, aiming his AR at them.                                          TROOPER                      I need you to shut down and step out of                      the vehicle! Now!                    JAKE rolls up behind him, aiming his pistol.                                          JAKE                      Take it nice and easy, troop.                    The trooper turns, sees the gun.                                           JAKE                      On the ground, face down. Hands behind                      your head.                    The trooper hesitates.                                          GRACE                      Do what he goddamn says!                    He does. Norm jumps down and grabs the trooper's rifle and          side-arm, covering him, while Grace helps Jake from chair to          the back bay of the chopper. She throws his chair in, and          jumps in herself.                                          JAKE                      Go! Go! Go!                                                                               114.                                        INT. OPS CENTER - NIGHT                    QUARITCH, watching a monitor, sees what's happening down at          the airfield. He slams his palm down on an ALARM BUTTON.                    He draws his PISTOL.   Strides toward the EMERGENCY DOOR. He          undogs it.                    EXT. OPS CENTER/AIRFIELD - NIGHT                    HOLDING HIS BREATH Quaritch yanks the hatch open and strides          onto the outer landing. Inside people scramble for MASKS.                    THE SAMSON lifts off in a blast of rotor-wash just as --                    QUARITCH OPENS FIRE and --                    ROUNDS rake the ship. Trudy banks hard, using the bottom to          shield them. Bullets WHACK into the ship as she climbs-out          over the tree-line.                    Jake's fist pumps the air exultantly.                                        JAKE                    Oh yeah, baby!                                        GRACE                    Aaahh, crap. Not again.                    He looks over at Grace and freezes. She is looking down at a          BLOODY HAND. She clutches her abdomen, covering the          spreading stain. Looks at Jake, wide-eyed.                                        GRACE                    This is gonna ruin my whole day.                                        JAKE                    Hang on, Grace.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. SHACK / SITE 26 - NIGHT                    NORM'S AVATAR, with an AR slung over his shoulder, stands on          the roof of the LINK MODULE. He gives a thumbs up signal.          The lift cable goes taut and --                    The shack LIFTS OFF THE GROUND.                    Trudy's Samson beats the grass of the mountain meadow,          straining to lift the module on a long-line sling. The shack          sways as Trudy banks across forested slopes and heads deeper          into the HALLELUJAH MOUNTAINS.                                                                              115.                                        INT. SAMSON CABIN - NIGHT                    Outside the windows, clouds and cliffs pass by, lit by          Polyphemus.                    Jake is yanking stuff out of the Samson's trauma bag, while          Grace lies curled across two back seats, hugging her blood-          soaked abdomen. She is pale and shocky.                    Trudy is flying on visual only, by the light of Polyphemus.          Her instruments are showing gibberish.                                        TRUDY                    Well, at least they won't be able to                    track us up here. Not this deep in the                    vortex.                                        JAKE                    It's strongest at the Well of Souls,                    right?                                         TRUDY                    Yeah.                                        JAKE                    Good, `cause that's where we're going.                                         TRUDY                    Copy.                    He gives Grace an ampule of morphine for the pain.                                        JAKE                    I'm gonna get you some help, Grace.                                        GRACE                    Forget it, it doesn't matter.                    Jake grabs her shoulders.                                         JAKE                    No!   The People can help you. I know it.                                                                   CUT TO:                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS - AERIAL - DAWN                    Dawn light paints the massive ARCHES of magnetic rock above          the Well of Souls.                    Tiny as an insect, the SAMSON passes.                                                                               116.                                                            JAKE (V.O.)                    The Well of Souls. The heart of the                    forest. I knew the People would go                    there.                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS - DAWN                    The WELL OF SOULS is a deep caldera 100 meters across. It is          ringed with enormous WILLOWS whose roots seem to pour down          the sheer rock walls like candle wax.                    AT THE BOTTOM, in a natural amphitheater, the Omaticaya          refugees are clustered around a central rock outcropping          which forms a kind of dais and altar.                    Shafts of dawn light reach to the bottom of the grotto,          lighting a single willow -- the MOTHER TREE. Ancient and          gnarled, it grows in the center of the rock.                    Its ROOTS spread down to the grotto floor, where they merge          with the roots of the willows ringing the Well -- forming a          braided mat resembling the surface of a brain.                    Mo'at stands on the dais, leading them in a CHANT.                                        MO'AT                        (SUBTITLED)                    Wise ancestors who live within Eywa,                    guide us. Give us a sign.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. FOREST CLEARING   - DAWN                    The shack descends from the sky like a gift from the gods.          It bumps to the ground.                                                                 CUT TO:                    INT. SHACK -- DAY                    Grace lies, comatose, in her open link. Trudy gives Jake a          look that says "not much time." Jake feels Grace's cold          forehead, then crosses to his own link.                    As Trudy helps him in, Norm rapidly preps the system.                                        NORM                        (LOW)                    Tsu'tey is Olo'eyctan now. He's not                    going to let you get near that place.                                        JAKE                    I've gotta try, Norm.                                                                                117.                                        Jake pulls the clamshell down and we --                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. RUINS OF HOMETREE - DAY                    CU JAKE'S AVATAR -- HIS EYES OPEN. He sits up. The forest is          silent, shrouded in smoke that the sun can't penetrate. The          animals have fled. Ash blows on the wind.                                            JAKE (V.O.)                       Outcast. Betrayer. Alien. To ever face                       them again, I was gonna have to change                       the rules.                    DISSOLVE -- JAKE reaches the top of a rise. The forest          beyond is utterly DEVASTATED. The trees burned and fallen.          Small fires still flicker across a landscape in Hell.                    JAKE stares. It is his vision, made real. He stumbles          through the dark wasteland, sparks and ash swirling around          him.                    A SCREECH.    Jake looks up as --                    HIS BANSHEE -- bonded for life -- flaps down to a landing in          front of him. He steps to it, and strokes its head. It          nudges his chest like a horse.                                           JAKE (V.O.)                       Sometimes your whole life boils down to                       one insane move.                                           JAKE                       Come on, boy. Time to fly.                    OMIITED                    EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY                    THE GREAT LEONOPTERYX glides effortlessly along the ridge          where Jake and Neytiri first encountered him.                    It scans for prey below, its magnificent indigo-crested head          cocking left, then right.                                           JAKE (V.O.)                       The way I had it figured, Toruk is the                       baddest cat in the sky. Nothing attacks                       him. So why would he ever look up?                    FROM ABOVE -- THE SMALL SHADOW of Jake's banshee falls across          the back of the mighty Toruk.                                                                              118.                                                            JAKE (V.O.)                    But that was just a theory.                    JAKE DIVES and WE RUSH DOWN toward the great beast and our          own shadow then --                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS - LATE AFTERNOON                    The Omaticaya people lift their voices in a SONG filled with          tragic loss and yearning for deliverance.                    CLOSE ON NEYTIRI, singing. A SHADOW CROSSES HER FACE.   She          looks up, and her eyes go wide as --                    A TERRIBLE CRY echoes, turning all eyes skyward.   AN ENORMOUS          SHADOW covers the crowd as --                    TORUK comes out of the sun, beating its huge wings to slow          its descent. Its crimson and black wings, backlit by the          sun, seem to glow from within.                    The People CRY OUT in alarm and scatter as the dreaded beast          alights in their midst. And that's when they see --                    JAKE, riding high on its shoulders, plugged-in to its          antenna. It folds its wings and stands calmly amid the          paralyzed Na'vi.                    Toruk lowers its body. They stare in awe as Jake dismounts          and strokes the magnificent animal's flank.                    NEYTIRI, TSU'TEY and MO'AT watch in stunned amazement as the          legendary Rider of Last Shadow walks toward them.                                        NEYTIRI                        (breathing the words)                    Toruk Macto.                    Neytiri raises her arms.                                        NEYTIRI                        (SHOUTING)                    Toruk Macto!                    ON THE FACES of the Omaticaya -- new hope dawning in their          eyes. WHISPERS flow among them, the words REPEATED --                                        CROWD                    Toruk Macto... Toruk Macto...                                                                                119.                                        Jake walks through the crowd, straight to Neytiri at the foot          of the dais. He looks into her enormous eyes, and the          emotion between them is powerful and pure.                                           NEYTIRI                    I See you.                                         JAKE                        (a hoarse whisper)                    I See you.                    Neytiri's eyes brim with tears.                                        NEYTIRI                    I was afraid Jake -- for my people. I'm                    not any more.                    Jake takes Neytiri's hand and climbs the steps of the dais.                    MO'AT steps back in awe as he approaches. He turns to          Tsu'tey, who stares at him with fear and incomprehension.          Jake plays to the rapt crowd as he says --                                        JAKE                        (SUBTITLED)                    Tsu'tey of the Rongloa, son of Ateyo. I                    stand before you, ready to serve the                    People.                        (then just for Tsu'tey)                    You are Olo'eyctan, and you are the best                    warrior. I can't do this without you.                    Tsu'tey struggles with his emotions. Finally --                                        TSU'TEY                    I will fly with you.                                           JAKE                    Ireiyo.                    JAKE turns to the MATRIARCH.                                        JAKE                    Grace is dying.     I beg the help of the                    Great Mother.                                        MO'AT                    Bring her, Jakesully.                    TIME CUT -- AVATAR JAKE carries Grace's HUMAN BODY, lightly          in his arms like a child. Jake walks through the crowd to          the dais, followed by NORM, who carries GRACE'S AVATAR.                                                                             120.                                                            JAKE                    Look where we are, Grace.                    Her eyes flutter open. She looks up wonderingly at the Mother          Tree.                                        GRACE                        (with a wan smile)                    I need to take some samples.                    Mo'at directs them to lay both bodies among the roots on the          altar-rock.                    Mo'at touches Jake's shoulder and he steps back.                                        MO'AT                        (QUIETLY)                    The Great Mother may choose to save all                    that she is --                    Mo'at's hand indicates Grace's AVATAR --                                        MO'AT                    -- in this body.                    CU JAKE, realizing the enormity of what she's saying.                                        JAKE                    Is that possible?                                        MO'AT                    Possible, yes. She must pass through the                    Eye of Eywa -- and return. But Jakesully--                    she is very weak.                    Jake kneels next to Grace, taking her tiny human hand in his          avatar hand.                                        JAKE                    Hang on, they're gonna fix you up.                    Grace is barely conscious.    She grips his hand.                                        GRACE                    I -- always held back. But you gave them                    your heart. I'm proud of you, Jake.                    Jake feels his throat close with emotion.                    Grace's eyes blaze with intensity though her voice is faint.                                                                               121.                                                               GRACE                    Help them.     You do whatever it takes. You                    hear me?                                           JAKE                    I will.                    TIME CUT -- MO'AT stands in a kind of trance amongst the          tendrils of the Mother Tree.                    NEYTIRI and the other acolytes dance hypnotically. All the          Omaticaya sway and chant to the rhythm of the drums.                    MACRO SHOT -- fine, hairlike THREADS have emerged from the          roots and are gently spreading over Grace's HUMAN skin.                    JAKE, still holding her hand, watches her body being fused to          the root-floor by a thousand connections.                    GRACE'S AVATAR is gently connected by the same questing ROOT-          CILIA-- they entwine with the QUEUE and spread over the body.                    The grotto is dark except for the spectral GLOW of the          willows. The CHANT continues, hypnotically. MO'AT, on her          knees beneath the Mother Tree, writhes her arms in the trance          state. Her eyes are rolled back, showing only WHITE.                    GRACE GASPS and her eyes SNAP OPEN. Her expression is AMAZED,          as if seeing something so beautiful it can never be          explained.                    ON HER HAND -- GRIPPING Jake's convulsively, as she tries to          anchor herself to this world for a few more seconds --                                        GRACE                    I'm with her Jake --                        (an amazed whisper)                    -- she's real --                    Grace SHUDDERS, as pain shoots through her. BLOOD seeps          through the silken white root-cilia growing across her          abdomen. Drowning WHITE in shocking CRIMSON.                    She exhales a last shuddering breath -- and goes STILL.                                           JAKE                    Grace!                    He sees the roots falling away from her human body.                    JAKE TURNS hopefully toward her AVATAR -- but the roots are          falling away from it as well. It sleeps -- VACANT.                                                                                 122.                                        MO'AT stops the chant. She crosses to Jake and kneels with          him, touching his shoulder.                                        MO'AT                    Her wounds were too great, there was not                    enough time. She is with Eywa now.                    NEYTIRI removes Grace's mask and gently closes her eyes.                    Jake stands slowly, barely holding it together.                    NEYTIRI comes to him and he sees the despair and hope          conflicting on her face --                    -- and he raises his head.   TURNS to face TSU'TEY and the          CROWD.                                        JAKE                    With your permission, I will Speak now.                    You would honor me by translating.                    Tsu'tey gestures assent, and they face the clan together.                    JAKE SPEAKS, the pain of Grace's death in the passion and          fury of his voice. Tsu'tey TRANSLATES beside him.                                        JAKE                    The Sky People have sent a message that                    they can take whatever they want, and no                    one can stop them. But we will send them                    a message. Ride out, as fast as the wind                    can carry you, tell the other clans to                    come. Tell them Toruk Macto calls to                    them. Fly now with me brothers and                    sisters! Fly! And we will show the Sky                    People that this is our land!                    TSU'TEY finishes with a bloodcurdling war-cry, and the entire          CLAN responds, their shouts echoing across the forest.                    JAKE takes Neytiri's hand and runs to the leonopteryx.   He          vaults onto its back and pulls her up behind him.                    THE HUNTERS run to their banshees, mounting quickly. Jake's          leonopteryx rises on mighty wings into the night sky. With a          thunder of wings, the banshees take off after it.                    LONG LENS -- POLYPHEMUS. Across its face, the banshees rise          like a swarm of bats. Groups of riders peel off in different          directions.                                                                  CUT TO:                                                                              123.                                        EXT. CLAN GATHERING - NIGHT                    JAKE and NEYTIRI stand before the gathered members of ANOTHER          CLAN. Jake speaks as she translates. We don't hear the          words.                    TRACK ACROSS the faces of the clan, a sea of eyes in          flickering fire-light.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    We rode out to the four winds. To the                    horse clans of the plain, to the ikran                    people of the mountains. When Toruk                    Macto called them, they came.                    VARIOUS ANGLES -- SLOW MOTION as riders vault onto their          armored direhorses. Banshee riders raise spears and bows,          spurring their mounts to leap skyward.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS - DAWN                    With a WHOOSH and the crack of mighty wings, JAKE RETURNS.          Jake and Neytiri alight from his legendary mount.                    Around them HUNDREDS OF BANSHEES are landing.   A gathering of          eagles.                    FROM ABOVE we can see hundreds of Na'vi streaming down into          the Well of Souls and many hundreds more camped in the forest          above it.                    DIREHORSE RIDERS are arriving along many trails.                    BANSHEE RIDERS circle and swoop, darkening the sky above the          grotto.                    JAKE, standing next to the Leonopteryx, watches his army          gathering.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. COMMISSARY - DAY                    It's standing room only as all base personnel are crowded          into the dining hall. A portable 3D GRAPHICS PROJECTOR has          been set up, and the lights are down. QUARITCH stands in          front of the display image -- a classic pre-mission briefing.                                        QUARITCH                    People, you are fighting for survival.                    There's an aboriginal horde out there                    massing for an attack. First slide.                                                                                124.                                        The display shows an overhead image of the Well of Souls.    It          looks like Woodstock in the jungle.                                        QUARITCH                    These orbital images show the hostiles'                    numbers have gone from a couple of                    hundred to over two thousand in one day,                    and more are pouring in. By next week it                    could be twenty thousand. Then they'll be                    overrunning our perimeter here. We can't                    wait. Our only security lies in pre-                    emptive attack. We will fight terror                    with terror.                    TRACKING ACROSS the grim faces of the miners and troopers.          Fear transforming to hatred in their eyes.                                        QUARITCH                    Next slide. This mountain stronghold is                    supposedly protected by their deity.                    When we destroy it, we will blast a                    crater in their racial memory so deep                    they won't come within a thousand klicks                    of this place.                                                                    CUT TO:                    INT. ARMOR BAY - DAY                    TROOPERS issue automatic weapons and magazines to a long line          of mine workers. The miners lock and load like the red-          blooded redneck NRA supporters they are.                    BLASTING TECHS are setting radio-detonated primer charges          into two-ton stacks of EXPLOSIVE COMPOUND. The stacks are          band-strapped together on pallets.                    TRACKING WITH SELFRIDGE, staring around him in growing dismay          as he walks through the full-scale mobilization.                    He approaches Quaritch, who is barking orders amid a hive of          activity around the ampsuits.                                        SELFRIDGE                    This thing is completely out of control!                    Quaritch ignores him, turning away to focus on ordnance          loading.                                        SELFRIDGE                    Listen to me! I am not authorizing you to                    turn the mine-workers local into a                    freakin' militia!                                                                               125.                                                            QUARITCH                    I declared threat condition red. That                    puts all on-world assets under my                    command.                                        SELFRIDGE                    You think you can pull this palace coup                    shit on me?! I can have your ass with                    one call --                    Quaritch grabs him and PINS him against the side of an          ampsuit.                                        QUARITCH                    You're a long way from Earth.                    Selfridge is paralyzed. Physical force -- against him?          Quaritch releases him and walks away.                                        QUARITCH                        (to his men)                    Get him out of here.                    Several troopers converge on Selfridge.                                        SELFRIDGE                    You touch me you're so fired.                    He pushes through them and they escort him toward the door.                                                                  CUT TO:                    INT. SHACK - DAY                    HUMAN JAKE, NORM and TRUDY are gathered around the comms          monitor, talking to MAX.                                        MAX                    I don't know how secure this channel is.                                           JAKE                    Talk fast.                                        MAX                    It's crazy here, Jake. It's full                    mobilization. They're rigging the                    shuttles as bombers. They've made up                    these big pallets of mine explosives.                    It's for some kind of shock and awe                    campaign.                                        TRUDY                    Frickin' daisycutters.                                                                                 126.                                                               NORM                    Holy shit.                                        JAKE                        (to Max)                    Can you talk to Selfridge? Maybe we can                    cut some kinda deal before this thing                    goes all the way.                                        MAX                    No, Quaritch has taken over. He's                    rolling and there's no stopping him.                                           JAKE                    When?                                        MAX                    Oh six hundred tomorrow.                    Jake takes that in.                                           JAKE                    Thanks.                    Max signs off.                                        NORM                    We're screwed.                                        TRUDY                    You know he's gonna commit those bombers                    straight to the Well of Souls.                                        JAKE                    That's right. Because I gave it to him                    on a plate.                                        TRUDY                    We both did.                                        NORM                    If he takes out the Well of Souls -- it's                    over. It's their main line to Eywa, to                    their ancestors -- it'll destroy them.                                        JAKE                    Then I guess we better stop him.                    Jake looks like he's about to collapse.   He's gaunt, eyes          deeply shadowed, hands shaking.                                        TRUDY                    You need to get some rack.                                                                                127.                                        He grabs a packet of freeze-dried crystals and pours them          directly into his mouth, chewing them up.                                        JAKE                    Gonna have to settle for coffee.                                                                 CUT TO:                    EXT. BATTLE CAMP - DUSK                    TRACKING through the warrior camp above the Well of Souls.          Hundreds of hunters from many clans prepare their weapons.                    Hunters paint the wings of their banshees like war ponies.          DIREHORSES are painted and ornamented with totemic streamers.                    The Na'vi paint and pierce themselves. Dance. Bathe in the          smoke of cleansing herbs -- RITUAL PURIFICATION. HUGE DRUMS          are beaten. A dark primeval energy. They are psyching          themselves up for battle.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    I was a warrior who dreamed he could                    bring peace. But there was only one                    thing I was ever really good at. Ooh-rah.                    TIME CUT -- Jake, Neytiri a group of banshee riders squat          around an animal skin on which he has drawn the silhouette of          a Scorpion gunship -- like a hunt totem.                                        JAKE                        (Na'vi/subtitled)                    Strike here and here.                    Jake splats red dye at the centers of the circles symbolizing          the rotors. The Na'vi absorb the lesson eagerly, like kids.                    He sees TRUDY approaching and breaks off. Neytiri stays with          the hunters, talking about what they've learned.                                        TRUDY                        (LOW)                    You know our chances suck.                                        JAKE                    Yeah.                                        TRUDY                    Going up against gunships with bows and                    arrows...                                        JAKE                    What's your point?                                                                                128.                                                            TRUDY                        (NODDING)                    Right.                    She taps his fist and walks away toward her SAMSON.                                                                   CUT TO:                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS - NIGHT                    The cook-fires of the battle camp FLICKER like a          constellation around the edge of the Well of Souls as --                    JAKE slips down into the darkened, empty amphitheater.                    He moves to the MOTHER TREE -- gnarled, ancient, MAJESTIC.          The roots spread in all directions, like the center of the          world.                    Jake steps forward. The willow-like tendrils SWAY toward          him, moving in a breeze that isn't there.                                        JAKE                    I've never done this in my life.                    He squats at the base of the tree.                                        JAKE                    And I'm probably just talking to a tree                    right now. But if you're there -- I need                    to give you a heads up.                    He looks up into the tree. The hanging tendrils undulate          softly. It's easy to imagine a presence.                                        JAKE                    If Grace is there with you -- look in her                    memories -- she can show you the world we                    come from. There's no green there. They                    killed their Mother, and they're gonna do                    the same thing here.                    FROM UP IN THE TREE, looking down.   WOODSPRITES float in          silence, moving around aimlessly.                                        JAKE                    More Sky People are gonna come. They're                    gonna come like a rain that never ends --                    Neytiri approaches silently behind him, listening.                                        JAKE                    -- until they've covered the world.                    Unless we stop them.                              (MORE)                                                                                129.                                        JAKE (cont'd)                    Look, you chose me for somethin'. And                    I'll stand and fight, you know I will.                    But I could use a little help here.                    Jake senses Neytiri and turns.                                        NEYTIRI                    Our Great Mother does not take sides.                    She protects only the balance of life.                    She comes to him, intertwining her long fingers with his.                                        JAKE                    It was worth a try.                    They lean in, foreheads touching, bodies pressed together.          Holding each other -- in this, the last moment of peace.                                                                  CUT TO:                    TIGHT ON a turbine as it starts to turn. Its RISING WHINE          carries over --                    A SERIES OF RHYTHMIC CUTS:                    MAGAZINES are slammed into automatic weapons. AMMO BELTS are          fed into rotary cannons. MISSILES are attached to gunship          stub-wings.                    TIGHT ON BLUE HANDS sharpening wooden arrows.   Stringing          bows. Cinching direhorse harnesses.                    TROOPERS DROP into ampsuit cockpits. PILOTS close gunship          canopies. TROOPERS run up shuttle ramps.                    LONG LENS STACK, tight and abstract on gunships as they rise          in a swarm amid boiling turbine exhaust and blasting rotor          wash.                    EXT. RAINFOREST/ AERIAL - DAWN                    WIDE SHOT -- TILTROTORS fill the sky. Deadly armored beetles.                    The DRAGON leads the formation, flanked by SCORPIONS. Behind          that is a wave of SAMSONS, and last, the two enormous          VALKYRIE shuttles, packed with troops and ampsuits.                    INSIDE THE DRAGON, Quaritch surveys his armada as they skim          over the tree tops.                    THEY SWEEP toward the Hallelujah mountains in a thundering          wave.                                                                               130.                                        EXT. MOUNTAINS/ AERIAL - DAWN                    SQUADRONS OF BANSHEES darken the sky in waves, led by a          single GREAT LEONOPTERYX. Jake sits astride his mount,          flanked by Neytiri and Tsu'tey on their banshees.                    EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAWN                    THE DRAGON DESCENDS on final approach to a large clearing --          the LZ. The Samsons flair and touch down, disgorging troops,          while the gunships hover protectively.                    THE VALKYRIES blast the ground with their powerful lift jets.          They land. The ramps drop. Troopers pour out, weapons          leveled, advancing in a cordon.                    UP ANGLE as AMPSUITS descend from the Dragon on cables.          Their massive feet smash down, and they march forward,          leading the army into the forest.                    LYLE WAINFLEET, walking point in his hydraulic suit, scans          his cockpit screens. He sees movement on the FLIR display --          ghostly THERMAL SIGNATURES.                                        WAINFLEET                    Contact. Two hundred meters.                    A chilling SOUND echoes through the forest -- the ululating          WAR CRIES of untold Na'vi. The troopers, look around,          spooked. They can't tell where the sound is coming from.                    Then they feel it -- the GROUND ITSELF SHAKING.    They grip          their weapons, bracing themselves as --                    THREE HUNDRED NA'VI HORSEMEN charge through the forest at a          full gallop, their hooves POUNDING the earth. It is an          awesome sight.                    NORM SPELLMAN rides with the Na'vi hunters, carrying an          assault rifle.                    THE NA'VI CHARGE thunders toward the human line.   The hunters          raise their bows as --                    THE AMPSUITS raise their GAU-90's.                    ON THE THERMAL IMAGERS target-cursors track the ghost riders.                                        QUARITCH                    Fire for effect.                    The entire line of troopers opens fire. TRACERS riddle the          jungle, blasting foliage into confetti.                                                                                131.                                        CHARGING DIREHORSES crash down, flipping over. Riders are          flung off. The withering fire continues, and the ranks are          decimated as --                    RIDERS LAUNCH their arrows at a full gallop. A few hit their          marks among the troopers. NORM FIRES his AR on full auto.                    TWO CHARGING DIREHORSES have a heavy log slung between them          like a battering ram. At a full gallop they hit an ampsuit,          FLIPPING IT onto its back with a blown-out canopy. Victory          is short lived as the two riders are cut down.                    NORM'S HORSE is hit by tracer fire. He is flung off as the          creature cartwheels. He hits hard, scrambling for cover as --                    A WARRIOR HURLS his spear a moment before his horse is cut          down. It SLAMS through an ampsuit's canopy but --                    THE MERCILESS FIRE continues. Horses rear and collapse.          Riders pivot their mounts to flee and --                    THE THERMAL SCREENS show the remaining ghost riders          scattering.                    LYLE signals and the line advances, firing sporadically at          moving targets.                    OVERHEAD, NA'VI HUNTERS stream through the trees, running          along the branches.                    As the troopers advance into bow range, the NA'VI open fire          and --                    TROOPERS SPROUT ARROWS in throat, legs, masks -- the targets          Jake taught them, but --                    THE FIRING LINE aims upward, tracking the THERMAL TARGETS.          TRACERS rip through the foliage and --                    NA'VI FALL while others retreat as bark and wood is blasted          off the limbs beneath their feet.                    NORM sprints frantically through the woods, shouting into his          HANDSET --                                         NORM                    Jake!   Jake! We're falling back!                    SURVIVING NA'VI flee the horrific onslaught.   It is a total          rout.                    IN THE DRAGON, Quaritch catches glimpses of the figures          streaming through the forest below.                                                                                132.                                                            QUARITCH                    Blue team, switch forties.   Fire at will.                    Led by the Dragon, the gunships FIRE streamers of 40mm          ROCKETS ahead of them. The jungle EXPLODES with HE bursts.          Circular SHOCK WAVES flash outward through the jungle --                    STROBOSCOPIC GLIMPSES of terrified horses rearing, Na'vi          leaping, as the jungle rocks with the concussive onslaught.                    HUNTERS LOOK UP as a dark shape hovers overhead. The          downblast of the VALKYRIE'S lift jets shreds the forest.                    INSIDE THE SHUTTLE'S cargo bay, a row of DAISYCUTTERS are          lined up. Troopers roll the first pallet down the ramp.                    THE PALLET falls into the jungle below and --                    BA-WHOOOOOM! -- an enormous high-explosive blast rips a huge          hole in the forest. A white concussion wave flashes out          across the ground for hundreds of meters in all directions.                    AT GROUND LEVEL it is an apocalypse. Running Na'vi are          blasted out of existence by fire and shock waves.                    IN THE CARGO BAY the troopers WHOOP and high-five.                                           TROOPERS                    Yeah baby!     Get some!                    GROUND TROOPS ADVANCE, firing flamethrowers, AR's and GAU-          90's.                    EXT. FLOATING MOUNTAINS - AERIAL                    Quaritch's fleet flies into the shadow of the Mountain of          Truth.                                        QUARITCH                    Blue team, stay with the ground units.                    Red team, with me. We're punching for                    the main target.                    Quaritch glances up to see --                    A squadron of WINGED SHAPES, diving out of the morning glare          like birds of prey.                    CLOSE ON JAKE, rushing straight down, SCREAMING a war cry as          he leads the charge and --                    SCORES OF BANSHEES SLAM into the gunships and Samsons like          falcons hitting fat turkeys. The air battle is joined.                                                                                133.                                        JAKE'S GREAT LEONOPTERYX flairs into its signature crimson X          shape just before --                    K-WHAM!! -- it knocks a Scorpion tumbling. It coils around          the gunship, slashing furiously as they spin together. JAKE          can barely hang onto the gyrating creature.                    The pilot of the Scorpion sees nothing but jaws slamming into          his canopy.   Jake releases the gunship and it careens into a          CLIFF, tearing off one rotor -- then plummets into the trees.          There is a satisfying FIREBALL.                    SCORPIONS fall out of formation to pursue individual banshee          riders, FIRING cannons and rockets.                    JAKE BANKS as the cliff face next to him explodes with          cannon rounds. SCREAMING down on him is another Scorpion.                    JAKE tucks and dives along the cliff, feeling the rounds          splitting the air around him and --                    The Scorpions bank after the furiously jinking banshees as          they head for cover among the floating mountains, or dive          down into the trees.                    DOOR GUNNERS in a SAMSON are shooting down banshees like          Messerschmidts from a B-17 as --                    WE FOLLOW TSU'TEY'S BANSHEE in a full delta dive. He swoops          in from its blind spot and --                    THE GUNNERS SWIVEL too late as Tsu'tey flashes past them,          SHOOTING ARROWS with deadly accuracy.                    A SCORPION gunship dives after a banshee. It fires an air-to-          air missile and the banshee vanishes in an EXPLOSION.                    WIDE SHOT as thirty ships and hundreds of banshees wheel and          dive, like the Battle of Britain. Banshees are hit by guns          and missiles, falling out of the sky. The occasional trail of          smoke and fire marks the demise of a tilt-rotor.                    IN THE CENTER the Dragon is pouring out hellacious fire --          tracer rounds from multiple turrets and missiles from the          stub-wing pods.                    NEYTIRI BANKS hard as TRACERS flash past her.   A Scorpion is          right on her ass as --                    SHE ROLLS inverted and dives under the edge of Mons          Veritatis, then rolls out, zig-zagging through the dangling          vines but --                                                                               134.                                        THE GUNSHIP stays on her. It rips through the vines, and          tracers FLASH toward us as --                    SHE JINKS the banshee around a thundering waterfall but --                    HER PURSUER explodes right through the curtain of water. It          launches an air-to-air missile. NEYTIRI jinks hard, diving.          The missile hits a rock outcropping, pummeling her with the          shock wave.                    THE GUNSHIP follows her through a narrow slit between Mons          Veritatis and a smaller floating island. They run this slot          rolled up on their sides and --                    THE SCORPION GUNNER locks up Neytiri for a missile shot but --                    A SHADOW crosses his canopy. Out of the sun comes a crimson          demon, shrieking over the roar of the turbines, and --                    K-WHAMMM!! The leonopteryx SLAMS the gunship, driving it          downward in a dive. The leonopteryx lashes at it with claws          and teeth as they fall together out of control.                    Jake kicks the gunship loose and it falls like a brick,          breaking its back on a rocky promontory and EXPLODING.                    FLYING WITH A SAMSON as a SECOND SAMSON falls in beside it.          This one has its pilot door off, and the PILOT is wearing a          breathing mask. The door gunners wave at --                    TRUDY, her expression grim behind her mask. She holds the          cyclic stick between her knees while she RAKES the other ship          with BURSTS from an AR in her lap.                    The pilot slumps over and the craft tumbles out of control.                                        TRUDY                    You're not the only ones with guns, you                    pricks.                    NEYTIRI JINKS her banshee hard, an enemy Samson right behind          her. The pilot is a hotdog, following her down into the          trees, under the canopy.                    They slalom among the trunks at high speed. The gunners hang          half out the doors, firing. Bark and leaves explode around          Neytiri as she zig-zags through the jungle.                    THE BANSHEE dives under a huge tree limb, and the pilot          follows. He looks up at the last second, catching a glimpse          of blue-skinned figures.                    THE HUNTERS drop a net of woven vines behind Neytiri and --                                                                               135.                                        The SAMSON hits it hard. The net fouls the ship, FLIPPING IT          backwards. It crashes upside down to the forest floor.          KABOOM!!                    NEYTIRI'S BANSHEE is hit by GROUND-FIRE. It folds up like a          broken kite, crashing down through branches and --                    SHE SLAMS into the ground, stunned.                    IN THE DRAGON Quaritch looks ahead, seeing the WELL OF SOULS.          He taps the pilot and points --                                        QUARITCH                    There it is.                        (into his headset)                    Valkyrie One, this is Dragon. Target is                    in sight.                    IN THE CARGO BAY of Valkyrie One, the troopers ready their          deadly loads.                                        TROOPER                    Target in sight.                    CIRCLING ABOVE, Tsu'tey falls in beside Jake, who talks to          him by AIRCOM HEADSET.                                        JAKE                    We have to stop the shuttles, no matter                    what it takes.                    TSU'TEY nods. He signals, gathering other hunters, who fall          in with him as he dives. Jake rolls in after them but --                    A GUNSHIP drops in behind him and he is forced to evade as --                    TSU'TEY LEADS the attack on the first shuttle. Hunters jink          and weave through WITHERING FIRE from the escort ships.                    GUNNERS with jerry-rigged gun mounts ride the broad backs of          the shuttles, picking off banshees who get past the escort.                    TSU'TEY is RAKED by a burst from the dorsal gunners. His          mount crumples, plummeting with a dying scream and --                    WE SPIRAL DOWN with him, the forest rushing up and --                    A BLINDING BLIZZARD of green as he tears downward, catching          at leaves and vines. He SLAMS to the ground, badly injured.                    NEARBY, ampsuits and troopers advance across the forest          floor, firing their cannons and flamethrowers. The GAU-90s          rip the forest to shreds.                                                                               136.                                        Norm, firing as he retreats, is HIT. He collapses, his avatar          body mortally wounded as --                    HYDRAULIC FEET approach, passing the bodies of direhorses and          Na'vi hunters. Norm painfully tries to load another          magazine, panting in fear and pain as --                    AN AMPSUIT stomps up.    Aims its cannon point blank. B-BLAM!                    INT. SHACK                    The top of Norm's LINK bangs open. He reels out, collapsing          onto the floor, clutching himself as if he can still feel the          pain of death.                    He sits, huddled, shivering -- crazed.                    EXT. RAINFOREST                    TSU'TEY lies gasping, mortally injured. He looks up,          grimacing, as an ampsuit looms over him.                    LYLE WAINFLEET reaches down and grabs Tsu'tey by his queue,          lifting him painfully.                                           WAINFLEET                       I hear this is worse than death for you,                       chief.                    WAINFLEET cuts Tsu'tey's queue off near the base. TSU'TEY          SCREAMS in agony, his nervous system exploding on overload.          Grinning, Lyle holds up the queue -- Tsu'tey's only          connection to the world-consciousness which is his life.                    NEYTIRI -- bleeding, bruised -- staggers amid burning          wreckage. AMPSUIT footsteps approach and she crouches behind          a tree. Troopers are seconds from seeing her as --                    NEYTIRI knocks an arrow to HER FATHER'S BOW, and readies          herself for a last kamikaze shot when --                    THE TROOPER on the far right of the firing line sees          something on his screens.                                           TROOPER                       Right flank -- something's coming!   It's                       all lit up out there.                    The troopers become aware of the GROUND SHAKING. A slow          building thunderous ROAR and --                    AN AMPSUIT comes FLYING out of the trees, cartwheeling past          them, and the SHAKING BUILDS --                                                                                137.                                        EXT. WELL OF SOULS                    Mo'at opens her eyes in sudden realization as --                    EXT. FOREST                    The troopers pivot to face --                    A WALL OF CHARGING HAMMERHEADS CRASHING out of the foliage in          a shower of broken branches as --                    THE TROOPERS open fire but -- the stampede drives over them          like a wave. Tree-trunk feet shatter the ampsuit cockpits.          Troopers are crushed or asphyxiated.                    NEARBY the foot-soldiers see LIVING SHADOWS flow out of the          gloom as --                    VIPERWOLVES race among them with flashing jaws. The troopers          FIRE wildly as they go down, hitting each other as much as          their attackers.                    The survivors break and run as more viperwolves bound out of          the shadows.                    JAKE BANKS, watching as HUNDREDS of rider-less WILD BANSHEES          converge on Quaritch's ships. They literally darken the sky.                                        JAKE                    What the hell -- ?                    The wild banshees wheel among the ships, ripping into them.                    ON JAKE -- slowly getting it.   EYWA is in the fight.                                        JAKE                    WHOO-HOOOO!                    A GUNNER fires from the door of a Samson. There is a CRASH          and the head of a BANSHEE lunges in the open door, jerking          him out. Other banshees tear at the pilot's windshield.                    NEYTIRI watches in awe as the ground troops scatter in          disarray. The viperwolves flash past her, ignoring her.                    She senses something and turns slowly to see --                    A THANATOR emerging from the smoke behind her. A glistening          black demon. She stands paralyzed before its stygian gaze--                    -- and the thanator lowers itself, until its head is just          above the ground. It holds that position -- waiting.                                                                              138.                                        Trembling, she approaches the waiting demon.                    EXT. FOREST                    A smoky hell. Fires burn all around. The troopers are          disorganized, falling back. Shooting at shadows. Panicked          yelling fills the comm freq.                    WAINFLEET and another AMPSUIT are charging together through          the smoky gloom.                                        WAINFLEET                    A and C squads -- rally at my pos.   I                    want --                        (screaming on the comm)                    Who's screaming God damn it?!                                        TROOPER (ON RADIO)                    We gotta get outta here! Whoever's in                    charge, call for extraction!                                        WAINFLEET                    Shutup you crybabies!                    SOMETHING slams into the other `suit, tackling it OUT OF          FRAME. Wainfleet whirls to see his squad-mate missing. He          moves through a screen of foliage to reveal --                    The AMPSUIT -- ripped open. Driver gone. Blood inside the          cockpit. He WHIRLS at a sound in time to see --                    A THANATOR LEAPING straight at him -- WAINFLEET raises his          cannon but--                    WHAM!! It's on him, slamming him to the ground. The cannon          goes flying. He's face to face with its nightmare jaws,          right outside his canopy--                    On its back is NEYTIRI, and it's a toss up which one looks          more pissed off. The thanator rears back, muscles rippling          as it poises to strike and --                    K-KRAAACKK! Slams its teeth right through his canopy.          Wainfleet's SCREAM is brief.                    Neytiri's demon mount rears up and its triumphant ROAR echoes          through the forest.                    INT. CORRIDOR                    Max runs down the hall, leading the other scientists.   He's          yelling into an AIRCOM HANDSET --                                                                             139.                                                               MAX                       Rogue One, Rogue One, this is Max.   Tell                       Jake we are in motion.                           (to the scientists)                       Get in there. Barricade the door!                    INT. LINK ROOM                    The door is hurled open and the SCIENTISTS charge in.                    Science geeks barricade the door as AVATAR-DRIVERS scramble          into their link units, pulling the clamshells down.                    INT. CORRIDOR                    Max checks the door is secure from his side then runs down a          connecting corridor.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. SHACK                    HUMAN NORM emerges from the airlock, wearing breathing gear          and carrying an AR. He stumbles, dazed, toward the battle.                    EXT. MOUNTAINS/ AERIAL                    JAKE SIGNALS and a formation of hunters rolls in, diving at          the lead shuttle, which is already besieged by winged          creatures.                    THE CARGO RAMP is the scene of a pitched battle. Na'vi          hunters hurl themselves off their mounts in waves,          overwhelming the troopers.                    HUNTERS are shot, falling out of the ship, as others fly in.          They shoot arrows and spears from the end of the ramp, and          troopers fall back deeper into the fuselage.                    The panicked CREW CHIEF slams a switch and the ramp begins to          close, a second before he is cut down by a spear.                    JAKE'S LEONOPTERYX plummets at the shuttle from behind. He          swoops down, flairs to reduce speed, rolls off his mount and          lands, tumbling on the shuttle's broad back as --                    GUNNERS try to swing their guns toward him but he RAKES them          with his AR, still running forward and --                    JAKE PULLS two grenades from his battle harness, yanking the          pins out with his teeth. He hurls them down the intakes of          the VTOL turbofans as --                    HIS LEONOPTERYX BANKS in a tight arc back toward him and --                                                                                140.                                        HE SPRINTS ON as the grenades EXPLODE, shattering the          turbines, which riddle the fuselage with shrapnel and --                    JAKE LEAPS INTO SPACE, landing on the back of his mount and          reconnecting. They flap away, gaining altitude as fire          BLASTS out of the bottom of the shuttle.                    ON THE FLIGHT DECK, the pilot feels the ship dropping.                                         PILOT                     Mains to a hundred percent!   Get me                     airspeed!                    The pilot and copilot slam the throttle levers forward and --                    The FUSION ENGINES BLAZE, thrusting the shuttle forward.    It          still falls, its remaining lift fans screaming, until --                    IT'S CLIPPING the tree tops when it gets enough translational          lift to fly and --                    THE PILOT PULLS back on the stick, lifting the nose.                                         PILOT                     We're good!                    BEHIND HIM, a surviving Na'vi hunter runs forward and --                    THOONK!   ARROWHEADS sprout from the pilots' necks and chests.                    THE SHUTTLE CLIMBS out of control, at full acceleration. It          SLAMS into the underside of MONS Veritatis. It EXPLODES, and          hundreds of tons of flaming debris drop back into the forest.                    ON THE FLIGHT DECK of the other SHUTTLE, the pilots watch the          wreckage falling.                                         PILOT                     Valkyrie Two is breaking off. And if any                     of ya'll want to get off this piece of                     shit planet, you better cover our ass,                     `cause we're the only way back to orbit.                                         GUNSHIP PILOT                     Roger that.                    FROM THE DRAGON COCKPIT Quaritch watches the shuttle bank          away, with most of the remaining gunships following.                                         QUARITCH                     Get back here you worthless pukes!                                                                               141.                                                            PILOT                    Are we breaking off?                    Quaritch draws his pistol.                                        QUARITCH                    What do you think?                    He is over the edge-- no logic in his brain now.   Only death.                    INT. OPS CENTER/CORRIDOR                    Techs and troopers crowd around consoles, listening to all          the yelling and confusion as they try to plot the          disintegrating battle.                                        SELFRIDGE                        (in growing alarm)                    What the hell is going on out there?                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST                    Regular troopers and volunteers FLEE through the jungle,          scrambling to board SAMSONS as they touch down.                    INT. DRAGON COCKPIT                    The pilot listens to comms from Hell's Gate.                                        PILOT                    Sir, all ground units are falling back to                    the LZ.                    Quaritch's jaw clenches.                                        QUARITCH                    Stay on target.                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS                    Mo'at LOOKS UP as the DRAGON appears over the trees like the          shadow of Death. Around her, the Na'vi mothers clutch their          children to them. We see AKWEY'S BOY among them.                    INT. DRAGON COCKPIT                    Quaritch sets the target cursor on the MOTHER TREE and what          we recognize is the ghostly figure of Mo'at.                                        QUARITCH                    Switch missiles. Arm all pods.                                                                                142.                                                              PILOT                      Arming.                                          QUARITCH                      Let's see what these blue bastards do                      when I bitch-slap their goddess.                    EXT. MOUNTAINS/ AERIAL                    JAKE'S LEONOPTERYX drops toward the Dragon like a Mig 29.     He          pulls out, skimming over the ship. Uncoupling, he rolls          backward off his mount and --                    JAKE HITS, skidding, on the hull of the Dragon. He rolls to          his feet, already running as --                    QUARITCH sees the leonopteryx WHOOSH overhead and flap away          with no rider. He snap-looks aft to see --                    JAKE SPRINTING along the spine of the ship, yanking two          grenades from his battle-harness, pulling the pins with his          teeth, then --                    QUARITCH's hand shoots out and SLAMS the pilot's CYCLIC STICK          hard over. THE DRAGON lurches sideways, rolling sharply with          a ROAR of protesting rotors and --                    JAKE IS FLUNG off his feet. The grenades miss the TURBINE          INTAKES. One bounces off the ship. The other lodges against          a cowling and --                    JAKE SLIDES OFF the ship, falling as -- K-BLAM! The grenade          blows a two meter hole in the hull --                    WHOOOSHH!   Pandoran air swirls inside.                                          QUARITCH                          (to the pilot)                      Put your mask on.                    Quaritch leaps out of his seat, heading aft as --                    JAKE GRABS the edge of a weapons pod, his feet dangling over          open space.                    HOLDING HIS BREATH, Quaritch blows a RESCUE HATCH and leans          outside. Jake sees him aim his massive PISTOL.                    K-WHAM! K-WHAM! Rounds clang next to Jake's head. He LETS GO,          plummeting into the trees --                    Jake plunges through jungle canopy. He catches a HUGE LEAF,          as Neytiri taught him -- it bends down, breaking his fall --                                                                               143.                                        HE LETS GO, dropping again only to catch ANOTHER LEAF, and          then another, and --                    WE RUSH DOWN with him through this green blur.   Jake drops to          the ground in a feral crouch. Unhurt.                                        JAKE                        (into his headset)                    Quaritch is gonna take out the Well of                    Souls! He's got a clear shot. Hit him,                    anybody that can! Do it now!                    IN HER SAMSON Trudy Chacon is all business.                                        TRUDY                    On it.                    SHE BANKS hard, pulling g's, coming around on the Dragon.          She pours on the coal and the Samson leaps forward, straight          at the WARSHIP.                    QUARITCH, DRILLS a stream of tracers at her, tearing through          her canopy, ripping chunks off her fuselage.                    IN THE JUNGLE BELOW, Norm watches her kamikaze run --                                        NORM                    No!                                        TRUDY                        (clipped, pilot-like)                    Norm, I love you.                    TRUDY DIVES, raking through treetops and then, at the last          instant, YANKS BACK on the stick and --                    THE SAMSON leaps straight up and -- K-KRASH!! SHEARS OFF THE          COCKPIT of the Dragon as --                    QUARITCH THROWS HIMSELF aft along the aisle and --                    TRUDY'S SAMSON disintegrates, the wreckage burning as it          tumbles into the jungle.                    MILES QUARITCH grips the bulkhead as he stares out the open          front of the fuselage. Wind howls through wreckage where the          pilot used to be. The forest rushes up to meet him and --                    THE DRAGON CRASHES through splintering trees, IMPACTING in a          lake with a WHITE BLAST of water.                                                                                144.                                        EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    Norm takes a few steps and drops to his knees.    Imploded by          grief.                    INT. OPS CENTER/ HELL'S GATE                    ON THE PLOTTING DISPLAY as Quaritch's TRANSPONDER ICON          disappears.                                          TROOPER                      Dragon is down. It's off the board.                                          SELFRIDGE                      What do you mean, off the board?!                    Selfridge is stunned.    Suddenly the ROAR of an ENGINE makes          them all look up.                    OUTSIDE THE WINDOW, MAX sits in the cab of an enormous SLASH-          CUTTER. Max flips Selfridge the bird and pushes a lever          forward --                                           SELFRIDGE                      Oh shit.                    Selfridge DIVES as --                    K-RASHHHHH! The SPINNING TEETH of the SLASH-CUTTER tear          through the window in a blast of glass and lethal air. Alarms          go off. The technicians dive for cover in a blizzard of          glass and shredded debris.                    The slash-cutter head pulls back, and AVATARS SCRAMBLE          through the gaping hole into the Ops Center --                    The TROOPERS look up to see blue giants aiming weapons down          at them. The battle is over in seconds. The avatars are          holding the Ops Center.                    Selfridge lies there gasping, in his emergency mask.   In          shock. How could this be happening?                                                                   CUT TO:                    EXT. LAKE                    THE DRAGON lies half submerged. Out of the water FG, a shape          rises -- a AMPSUIT. Inside -- MILES QUARITCH, his face          bloody, his eyes burning.                    He slogs out of the water, covered with mud, then strides          into the forest.                                                                                145.                                        QUARITCH'S AMPSUIT THUDS relentlessly through the jungle.    He          sees something through the foliage ahead -- the SHACK.                    INSIDE THE SHACK Jake is oblivious under the link. Through a          window we see Quaritch's AMPSUIT step into the clearing.                    QUARITCH levels his GAU-90 at the shack. His finger goes to          the firing button--                    WHAM!! A six-legged BLACK DEMON tackles him.                    Quaritch pivots as he falls, FIRING the cannon. It misses          Neytiri by inches. He grapples with the THANATOR as its          razor claws SCREECH over his metal armor.                    THE TITANS twist and struggle. QUARITCH UNLEASHES a long          burst from the cannon. Rounds tear into the creature, which          SHRIEKS but --                    NEYTIRI wills it to SMASH the cannon hard against a rock,          tearing it loose from the `suit's hand but --                    Quaritch SLAMS the thanator back against a tree-trunk, almost          crushing Neytiri.                    CLOSE ON one hydraulic hand, as it draws the `suit's KNIFE          and --                    QUARITCH TWISTS violently, ramming the knife up under the          thanator's chest armor. The creature ROARS and Quaritch flips          on top of it, stabbing.                    QUARITCH STABS DOWN AGAIN. The thanator slumps, pinning          Neytiri's legs under its great bulk. She is trapped.                    Quaritch looks down at Neytiri. She glares back at him,          panting, scared but defiant.                                        JAKE (O.S.)                    It's all over Quaritch --                    Quaritch turns, seeing Jake DROPPING from a tree limb. The          `suit rises slowly, knife glinting in the morning sun.                                        QUARITCH                    Nothing's over while I'm breathing.                                        JAKE                    Kinda hoped you'd say that.                    QUARITCH SURGES forward. JAKE closes fast, snatching up the          broken CANNON as --                                                                                146.                                        Quaritch SLASHES DOWN with the knife and Jake parries,          blocking it with the cannon. He CLOSES faster than the suit          can move and --                    K-CRACK! -- SLAMS the end of the cannon into the canopy,          crazing it with a web of cracks as QUARITCH SLICES air with          the huge knife. Jake ducks, coming up to meet the next slash          and --                    SMASHES the knife hand with the cannon once -- twice -- again          -- in a furious attack -- knocking the knife flying.                    QUARITCH catches him with the other arm, hurling him away.          Jake rolls just before --                    THUDDD! -- the massive foot stomps down where he just was. He          scrambles up as Quaritch CHARGES and --                    JAKE DUCKS another round-house, LEAPING forward to smash the          canopy again -- then again -- until it is WHITE with cracks.          Quaritch manages to GRAB the cannon barrel but --                    INSIDE THE COCKPIT, he sees nothing but the sun on the          shattered glass. HE HURLS the cannon blindly, but Jake ducks.          The massive cylinder cartwheels toward the shack and --                    FROM INSIDE we see it CRASH against pressure window, crazing          it but not penetrating. Jake's link sits just inside.                    INSIDE THE COCKPIT, Quaritch yanks a yellow handle and --                    P-FOOM! -- the canopy BLOWS OFF, flying through the air.          Quaritch can see again. He dons his breathing mask. Bends to          pick up his KNIFE.                    NEARBY NEYTIRI struggles furiously, trying to get her legs          free from underneath three tons of thanator.                    QUARITCH, panting, glowers at Jake.                                        QUARITCH                    How does it feel to betray your own race?                    Then, inexplicably, he TURNS.   Walks away.                    FROM INSIDE the shack, we see him charge straight toward us          and --                    CRASH! -- he puts his hydraulic fist right through the          window. He is reaching inside for the Link when --                    JAKE HITS in a flying tackle with every ounce of force he          has, knocking the ampsuit sideways and --                                                                                147.                                        JAKE REACHES around the suit, grabbing Quaritch's shoulder          and, yanks him forward HARD, SMASHING his face into the edge          of the cockpit but --                    QUARITCH flings him off with a sweep of his arm, and Jake          slams to the ground.                    INSIDE THE LINK Jake is holding his breath as the toxic          Pandoran air swirls in. GAS ALARMS SHRIEK.                    NEYTIRI shoves with one free leg, desperately trying to pull          her other leg out.                    THE AMPSUIT charges, the knife flashing down and --                    JAKE just manages to catch it in both hands, but the force of          the attack drives him to his knees as --                    QUARITCH pushes the knife down inexorably, until Jake is          pinned against a rock, the blade now inches from his throat.                    INSIDE THE LINK Jake is straining to stay conscious, to stay          connected as --                    THE KNIFE reaches his throat as --                    THWAP! AN ARROW APPEARS in Quaritch's chest.   He looks up.                    NEYTIRI STANDS -- a FURY released. A classic archer figure,          she NOCKS another arrow. Then draws and releases smoothly.                    TH-WHAP! The machine TOPPLES off Jake and lies still.                    QUARITCH STARES at the two arrows in his chest. He touches          the feathers of the ancient weapon, then -- with an ironic          laugh -- he dies.                    NEYTIRI runs up, another arrow nocked, bow drawn. Seeing          Quaritch, she lowers her father's bow.                    JAKE sees her, then goes limp, his eyes rolling back, and --                    INT. SHACK                    HUMAN JAKE EXPLODES out of the Link, slamming to the floor          where he gags for breath. With his last strength, he claws          toward an emergency breathing mask -- across the room.                    He scrambles toward it, on the edge of unconsciousness.                    NEYTIRI VAULTS through the shattered window, landing in the          debris like a cat. She GRABS the mask and flashes to Jake's          side -- puts the mask over his face and --                                                                              148.                                        JAKE drags in breath after breath. He looks up at Neytiri,          studying him as she holds him -- seeing his human body for          the first time.                    Jake touches her face, his pale human hand against the blue          of her skin. There eyes meet across the glass of the mask --          together, separate. Worldless.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    MO'AT tends to the mortally wounded TSU'TEY as AVATAR JAKE          arrives with Neytiri. Mo'at has bound his wounds, but by her          expression, it is clear he cannot be saved.                    Jake kneels and Tsu'tey opens his eyes.   Through a haze of          pain, he recognizes Jake.                                        TSU'TEY                        (NA'VI)                    I See you, Jakesully.                                        JAKE                    I See you, Tsu'tey te Rongloa Ateyitan.                                        TSU'TEY                    Are the people safe?                                        JAKE                    They're safe.                    Tsu'tey weakly clutches his severed queue.                                         TSU'TEY                    I can never ride again, or bond with my                    woman -- or hear the voice of Eywa. I can                    not lead the People. You will lead them,                    Jakesully.                                        JAKE                    No. I'm not officer material.                                        TSU'TEY                    It is decided. Now do the duty of                    Olo'eyctan. Set my spirit free.                                        JAKE                    I'm not killing you.                                        TSU'TEY                    I am already dead.                                                                               149.                                                            JAKE                    No.                                        TSU'TEY                    It is the way. And it is good. I will be                    remembered --                    Tsu'tey's voice is weak, but thick with emotion.                                        TSU'TEY                    -- I fought with Toruk Macto, we were                    brothers -- and he was my last shadow.                    TSU'TEY'S HAND clasps with Jake's in a fierce grip. Jake          draws his knife.                    TSU'TEY'S POV -- Jake leans forward, blocking the sun.          HIS SHADOW falls across Tsu'tey.                                        JAKE                        (NA'VI)                    Forgive me, my Brother. Go now to the                    Mother Spirit.                    By his movement, we know that he has ended Tsu'tey's pain.          Jake's eyes well with tears as he continues reciting the          prayer for the dead, and his Na'vi words carry over as we --                                                             DISSOLVE TO:                    EXT. HELL'S GATE -DAY                    Na'vi ride direhorses among the abandoned machines of Hell's          Gate.                    Banshees roost on the roofs of the modules, and stingbats          flutter about, unimpeded. The SENTRY GUNS are silent, and          the GATES are open to the forest.                                        JAKE (V.O.)                    A few chose to stay. Fewer were chosen.                    Max, Norm, and a few of the avatars hold AR's as the          personnel of Hell's Gate file up the cargo ramp of the          remaining shuttle. The evicted humans are sullen and angry,          like POW's.                    JAKE and NEYTIRI stand together, watching the departure of          the Sky People.                    PARKER SELFRIDGE shuffles up the ramp. His eyes -- the eyes          of a lost soul -- meet JAKE'S. He disappears into the ship.                                                                 CUT TO:                                                                              150.                                        EXT. SPACE                    ISV VENTURE STAR hangs suspended against the dark side of          PANDORA. The ISV's antimatter engines BLAZE to life and it          accelerates out of orbit.                    What remains IN FRAME is a virgin, primeval world. Spanning          the black continents is a vast reticulated lace-work of          BIOLUMINESCENCE -- a ghostly WEB connecting all of Pandora.                                                                  CUT TO:                    EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY                    The sun's rays shaft down through the layers of canopy.                                           JAKE (V.O.)                       The forest will heal, and so will the                       hearts of the People. New life keeps the                       energy flowing, like the breath of the                       world.                    NEYTIRI, obviously pregnant, is bow-fishing in the shallows.          Children jump and squeal with laughter in the river.                                           JAKE (V.O.)                       This is my last videolog.                    INT. LINK ROOM                    VIDEO IMAGE -- Jake sits in a chair, talking straight TO          CAMERA. He is thin, pale. He looks around the high tech room.                                           JAKE                       The science guys will keep the lights on,                       here. But I won't miss this place.                    EXT. WELL OF SOULS - NIGHT                    THE WILLOWS glow softly. The entire Omaticaya clan is          gathered, seated in a prayer circle around the Mother Tree.                                           JAKE (V.O.)                       I better wrap this up. There's a funeral                       tonight, and I don't want to be late. It                       was someone very close to me.                    WIDE SHOT, moving in across the concentric rings of people,          all plugged-in and softly chanting. MOVING toward the          center, over the figure of Mo'at, to hover above --                    NEYTIRI, kneeling beside two FIGURES on the dais --                                                                               151.                                        JAKE and his AVATAR lie head to head. Human Jake is wearing          an exomask. Both figures are still, hands folded, covered in          translucent silken shrouds of ROOT-CILIA.                    CAMERA CLOSES IN as Neytiri removes the mask from Jake's          human face. She gently closes his dead eyes with her          fingertips. Then bends and kisses him.                    MOVE INTO CU on AVATAR JAKE as Neytiri's hand comes into          frame, stroking his cheek. TIGHTENING slowly to--                    ECU JAKE'S EYES. Hold a beat, then --                    They open.                                                            CUT TO BLACK           
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+                                    THE AVENGERS                                     Written by                                    Joss Whedon                                                                                                             "And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's          mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a          common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born--to fight the          foes no single superhero could withstand! Through the years,          their roster has prospered, changing many times, but their glory          has never been denied! Heed the call, then--for now, the Avengers          Assemble!"          BURNING BLUE FLAMES. A smoky cube shape emerges - THE TESSERACT.          Filling the screen with BLACKNESS.                          CUT TO:          EXT. THRONE ROOM, SPACE ≠ NIGHT          Kneeling behind a THRONE, a CLOTHED, ARMORED FIGURE known as THE          OTHER, bows.           THE OTHER (V.O.)           The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a           little world. A human world. They would           wield its power,...                          CUT TO:          THE OTHER faces a HORNED SHAPED SHADOW. LOKI. Loki is handed the          CHITAURI SCEPTER, a long golden handle, fitted with a blue gem          encircled with silver blades.           THE OTHER (V.O.)           But our ally knows its workings as they           never will. He is ready to lead. And           our force, our Chitauri, will follow.          HIGH WIDE ON: TENS OF THOUSANDS of CHITAURI stand ready in a          seething mass of neat rows and columns....the ground simply          QUAKES.           THE OTHER (V.O.)           The world will be his. The universe           yours. And the humans, what can they do           but burn?                          CUT TO:          EXT. S.H.I.E.L.D. PROJECT P.E.G.A.S.U.S FACILITY ≠ NIGHT          Out in the NEW MEXICO desert, a remote research facility is in a          state of panic. It's an evacuation. A SWOOPING helicopter flies          in.          CHAOS. Men in suits run around like in the typical `we have to          leave' fashion. Soldiers on foot jump onto Humvees, accelerating          the hell out of there. A VOICE bellows from hidden loudspeakers.          EXT. HELICOPTER PAD ≠ CONTINUOUS          Standing a few yards from the landing pad, A Fed in a suit with          badass shades, peers at the helicopter as it lands. This is          SHIELD AGENT PHIL COULSON.          Walking out of the helicopter is SHIELD AGENT MARIA HILL, SEXY,          FIERCE AND DETERMINED. Following her, SHIELD DIRECTOR NICK FURY          climbs out. Hill and Fury approach Agent Coulson.                          NICK FURY           How bad is it?                       AGENT PHIL COULSON           That's the problem, sir. We don't know.          INT. FACILITY FLOOR ≠ NIGHT          Agent Coulson leads Hill and Fury through the radiation section          of the facility. Hundreds of technicians and other staff run          around, taking only the essentials.                       AGENT PHIL COULSON           Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from           the Tesseract four hours ago.                          NICK FURY           NASA didn't authorize Selvig to test           phase.                        AGENT PHIL COULSON           He wasn't testing it, he wasn't even in           the room. Spontaneous advancement.                        AGENT MARIA HILL           It just turned itself on?                          NICK FURY           What are the energy levels now?                        AGENT PHIL COULSON           Climbing. When Selvig couldn't shut it           down, we ordered the evac.                          NICK FURY           How long to get everyone out?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Campus should be clear in the next half           hour.                          NICK FURY           Do better.          CONTINUOUSLY HEADING DOWN TO RADIATION FACILITY FLOOR                         AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir, evacuation may be futile.                          NICK FURY           We should tell them to go back to           sleep?                         AGENT MARIA HILL           If we can't control the Tesseract's           energy, there may not be a minimum safe           distance.                          NICK FURY           I need you to make sure that PHASE 2           prototypes are shipped out.                          AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir, is that really a priority right           now?                          NICK FURY           Until such time as the world ends, we           will act as though it intends to spin           on. Clear out the tech below. Every           piece of PHASE 2 on a truck and gone.                          AGENT MARIA HILL           Yes, sir.           (to standing agents)           With me.          INT. NASA SPACE RADIATION FACILITY, VACUUM CHAMBER ≠ CONTINUOUS          Fury enters the lab facility where the Tesseract is being held          by a COMPACT MUON SOLENOID COIL CHAMBER.                          NICK FURY           Talk to me, doctor.          DR. ERIK SELVIG emerges from behind the CMS machine, concerned.          The Tesseract is glowing unusually brighter and flare rings          shoot out at random.                          SELVIG           Director.                          NICK FURY           Is there anything we know for certain?                          SELVIG           Tesseract is misbehaving.                          NICK FURY           Is that supposed to be funny?                          SELVIG           No, it's not funny at all. The           Tesseract is not only active,           she's...misbehaving.                          NICK FURY           How soon until you pull the plug?                          SELVIG           She's an energy source. If we turn off           the power, she turns it back on. If she           reaches peak level...                          NICK FURY           We've prepared for this, doctor.           Harnessing energy from space.                          SELVIG           We don't have the harness. Our           calculations are far from complete. Now           she's throwing off interference,           radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels           of gamma radiation.                          NICK FURY           That can be harmful. Where's Barton?                          SELVIG           The Hawk? Up in his nest, as usual.          We see CLINT BARTON, dressed in black tactical gear, is up on          the railings watching them below, Fury calls Barton on his          earpiece.                          NICK FURY           Agent Barton, report.          BARTON rappels down from the catwalk. Walks up to Fury. They          both walk around the facility in a discreet manner.                          NICK FURY           I gave you this detail so you could           keep a close eye on things.                          CLINT BARTON           Well, I see better from a distance.                          NICK FURY           Are you seeing anything that might set           this thing off?                          NASA SCIENTIST                          (TO SELVIG)           Doctor, it's spiking again.                          CLINT BARTON           No one's come or gone. It's oven is           clean. No contacts, no I.M.'s. If there           was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at           this end.                          NICK FURY           At this end?                          CLINT BARTON           Yeah, the cube is a doorway to the           other end of space, right? The doors           open from both sides.          DR. SELVIG clacks away at the keyboard and sees on the          monitoring his worst nightmares. Suddenly- the Tesseract          THUNDERS and SHAKES the entire facility. Big enough where both          Agents Hill and Coulson can feel and they're at different ends          of the facility.          The flaring rings and glow of the cube spout out brighter and          louder, like a boiling pot of water. The Tesseract's energy          builds up into a BEAM much like the Bifrost Bridge, which HITS          at the end of a platform that is wired to the CMS device. The          great maelstrom beam FIRES the TESSERACT energy. The beam then          forms a VORTEX, which then opens up a PORTAL.          A BLACK HOLE IS CREATED. From the portal, the blackness of          SPACE, beautiful and mysterious, strewn with a billion stars          appears and a GUST of BLUE ENERGY CLOUDS fill the room, blinding          everyone.          The Tesseract's energy forms into a cloud that reaches to the          top the facility's vacuum chamber ceiling. It's abnormally          quiet. Then... HEAVY BREATHING is heard from the platform.          SHIELD GUARDS slowly approach, weapons in hands. A figure is          kneeling on the platform, smoke coming off it. It's LOKI.          Smiling in his mischievous manner, he raises his head. The smile          dies down. He looks deep into the eyes of Fury, Barton and          Selvig. He stands up, holing the scepter.                          NICK FURY           Sir, please put down the spear!          Loki looks at his spear then suddenly points it at where Fury          and Barton are standing and SHOOTS OUT A BLUE EXPLODING LIGHT          TOWARDS THEM. BARTON TACKLES Fury and they both barely miss          Loki's fired shot.          ALL HELL BREAKS. Machine gun fire is shot at Loki, but the          bullets bounce off him like a boss. Loki jumps high from the          platform and ATTACKS those firing at him.          In the blink of an eye, Loki takes down several guards with his          KNIVES and ENERGY BLASTS from the scepter. He stops and waits to          see who will attack him next. Honestly, the whole lab has almost          gone to shit.          Barton tries to stand up. Loki quickly walks towards him. Barton          raises his gun, but Loki grabs Barton's hand.                          LOKI           You have heart.          Loki points the head of his spear at Barton's head. Barton's          eyes suddenly glow BLACK. The ability to control Barton's mind          is now in Loki's hand. Barton puts his piece away and stands          straight.          As Loki is busy using his abilities to control the minds of          several S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, Fury takes the Tesseract,          placing it back into its case and tries to leave the lab.Then...                          LOKI           Please don't. I still need that.                          NICK FURY                          (TURNING)           This doesn't have to get any messier.                          LOKI           Of course it does. I've come too far           for anything else. I am Loki of Asgard,           and I am burdened with glorious           purpose.                          SELVIG           Loki? Brother of Thor?                          NICK FURY           We have no quarrel with your people.                          LOKI           An ant has no quarrel with a boot.                          NICK FURY           You planning to step on us?                          LOKI           I come with glad tidings, of a world           made free.                          NICK FURY           Free from what?                          LOKI           Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie.           Once you accept that, in your heart...          Like a gunslinger, Loki turns to face Selvig who's          standingbehind him and places his spear against Selvig's heart.          Selvig's eyes glow BLACK.                          LOKI           You will know peace.                          NICK FURY           Yeah, you say peace, I kind of think           you mean the other thing.          From the vacuum chamber ceiling, Tesseract's energy cloud          RAPIDLY builds into what may be an implosion.                          CLINT BARTON           Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This           place is about to blow. Drop a hundred           feet of rock on us. He means to bury           us.                          NICK FURY           Like The Pharaohs of Odin.                          SELVIG           He's right. The portal is collapsing in           on itself. You got maybe two minutes           before this goes critical.                          LOKI           Well, then...          Loki, looking at Barton, who doesn't even hesitate, SHOOTS FURY          WHO FALLS TO THE GROUND. Barton grabs the case containing the          Tesseract and leaves the lab with Loki, Selvig and the other          S.H.I.E.L.D personnel Loki is controlling.          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S BUNKER, ENTRANCE OF EXITING TUNNEL ≠ NIGHT          Loki, Barton, Selvig and the other S.H.I.E.L.D personnel are in          the parking lot of the facility, quickly gathering certain          weapons. Agent Hill watches in confusion, referring to Loki.                          CLINT BARTON           (pointing to the Loki team)           Need these vehicles.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Who's that?                          CLINT BARTON           He didn't tell me.          Agent Hill looks suspiciously at them as they get into the truck          and turns to leave, as she's walking away...                          NICK FURY           (through the walkie talkie)           Hill, do you copy?!          Loki and Barton SHARPLY look at Agent Hill.          BACK AT THE LAB          Fury is sitting up, pulling out the bullet, breathing heavily.                          NICK FURY           Barton is...          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S BUNKER ≠ NIGHT          Suddenly, Hill turns to SHOOT AT BARTON, but Barton is already          POINTING HIS GUN at her and starts SHOOTING, he moves the          driver's seat of the truck and DRIVES OFF as Hill keeps          shooting.          BACK AT THE LAB          Fury is holding his side, running.                          NICK FURY           He's got the Tesseract! Track it down!          The energy is really brewing a fucking shit storm from the          vacuum chamber ceiling.          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S BUNKER/TUNNEL ≠ NIGHT          Agent Hill SLIPS into a JEEP and follows after Barton's          truck.Loki's trucks SCREECH across the tunnel. Several SHIELD          trucks pull up to them. A drive-by shooting ensues.          Loki, who stands on top of the bed of the truck, uses his          scepter and EMITS energy blasts, flipping over SHIELD trucks.          They get in, the cars roar out after them. Agent Hill puts          herself at a distance.          INT. FACILITY FLOOR ≠ NIGHT          Fury races out of the hallway, avoiding falling pipes. The          entire facility is now in a full earthquake.          INT. FACILITY FLOOR, ELSEWHERE ≠ CONTINUOUS          Agent Coulson and several SHIELD agents fall down the steps,          dropping SILVER CASES of information. They attempt to grab them,          but...           AGENT PHIL COULSON           No! Leave it!          They run out of there like a bat from hell.          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S TUNNEL ≠ NIGHT          Agent Hill's JEEP ROARS out of a side of Barton's truck and          pulls up alongside them on the left. She goes way ahead and          pulls her brake, swerving into a 360, facing Barton's truck and          driving in reverse.          Barton's ARMS reach out the open window and OPENS FIRE. Agent          Hill figures `fuck it' and SHOOTS her windshield OPENING FIRE on          Barton.          EXT. VAN ≠ NIGHT          Agent Coulson jumps into a SHIELD VAN. On his walkie:           AGENT PHIL COULSON           You're clear, sir! You need to go!          EXT. HELICOPTER PAD ≠ CONTINUOUS          Fury BOLTS out of the facility and jumps into a helicopter. The          surface of the pad gives way, PLUNGING the helicopter through          the surface. But Fury's chopper BARELY makes it out.          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S TUNNEL ≠ NIGHT          Still in a chase and drive-by sequence, Barton's pushes the          pedal harder, which causes Agent Hill's JEEP to WOBBLE out and          put her back behind.          INT. RADIATION FACILITY, VACUUM CHAMBER ≠ NIGHT          The Tesseract's energy cloud now SHRINKS into a SMALL BALL OF          WHITE LIGHT. Then...          A CLOUD OF BLUE LIGHT CONSUMES THE ENTIRE FACILITY AND PARTS OF          THE DESERT. Fury watches from below, a RAPID build-up into what          may be an implosion. Several miles away, Agent Coulson's van          feels a JOLT of the Tesseract's BLASTWAVE. THE ENTIRE FACILITY          SWALLOWS INTO ITSELF-- A TERRIFYING, UNIMAGINABLE IMPLOSION.          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S TUNNEL ≠ NIGHT          The BLASTWAVE of the Tesseract causes the tunnel to cave it.          Like an ocean wave, blinding crumbles of falling rock, fall onto          Agent Hill's JEEP, leaving her NEARLY trapped under this blanket          of rock.          On the Barton's truck, they escape the tunnel and drive into the          desert landscape. Fury's helicopter ROARS over Barton's truck.          Loki looks up.          From the chopper's door, it slides open and Fury stands there,          holding a gun, SHOOTING at Barton's, giving an honoring image of          JULES WINNFIELD.          Loki looks at Fury and in a fit of RAGE, points his scepter          SHOOTS OUT THE BLUE LIGHT. The chopper CATCHES on fire, GOING          DOWN in a FIERY BALL. Fury, like the boss he is, JUMPS OUT and          touches down onto the desert floor. The chopper BARRELS along          the ground.          Fury, coming back to his senses, FIRES at Loki, but they're          toofar and too late. Loki looks back, smiling. Fury stands          there, MIND REELING. Then...           AGENT PHIL COULSON                          (WALKIE TALKIE)           Director? Director Fury, do you copy?                          NICK FURY           The Tesseract is with the hostile           force. I have men down. Hill?          INT. P.E.G.A.S.U.S TUNNEL ≠ NIGHT          Agent Hill climbs out her JEEP, which is sandwiched in, but          luckily, not her.           AGENT MARIA HILL           A lot of men still under, don't know           how many survivors.          EXT. DESERT ≠ NIGHT                          NICK FURY           Sound the general call. I want every           living soul not working rescue looking           for that brief case.           AGENT MARIA HILL                          (WALKIE TALKIE)           Roger that.                          NICK FURY           Coulson, get back to base. This is a           LEVEL SEVEN. As of right now, we are at           war.          A beat.           AGENT PHIL COULSON                          (WALKIE TALKIE)           What do we do?          Fury stands there. Thinking. He looks up. On his face is sign of          hope.                         THE AVENGERS          EXT. RUSSIA, SOLENSKI PLAZA, 3RD FLOOR ≠ NIGHT          Out in the outskirts, near a railroad, a still in construction          building is being occupied by GEORGI LUCHKOV, a LARGE, RUSSIAN          GENERAL along with his THUGS.          TALL THUG is in the middle of a brutal beating on NATASHA          ROMANOFF, a SLEWING, FOXY, UNBELIEVABLY SEXY SPY. He BACKHANDS          NATASHA'S face. She feels the pain, but does not breakdown.          LUCHKOV, smiling, walks up to her. Dialogue is in RUSSIAN.                          LUCHKOV           This is not how I wanted the evening to           go.                          NATASHA           I know how you wanted this evening to           go. Believe me, this is better.                          LUCHKOV           I'd like to know why they sent you to           carry out a carrier, a stained glass           and other random items.          TALL THUG rocks her chair back, balancing her off the edge of an          open floor. Natasha is now scared.                          NATASHA           I thought General Soholob was in charge           of the export business.                          LUCHKOV           Soholob? Your reputation is quite a           progression. THE FAMOUS BLACK WIDOW.           Nothing but a pretty face.                          NATASHA           You really think I'm pretty?          LUCHKOV slowly walks over to a table filled with tools. He picks          up a pair of pliers. TALL THUG opens up her mouth wide open.                          LUCHKOV           We do not need the Lermontov to           transfer the tanks. Tell him, well,...                          (IN ENGLISH)           You may have to write it down.          Suddenly, WEASELLY THUG'S cell rings. Confused, he answers.                          WEASELLY THUG           Ya?           (looks at LUCHKOV)           It's for you.          LUCHKOV takes the phone, pissed.                          LUCHKOV           Who the hell is...           AGENT PHIL COULSON           You're at 114 Solenski Plaza, 3rd floor.           We have an F22 exactly 8 miles out. Put           the woman on the phone or I will blow           up the block before you can make the           lobby.          HOLY SHIT. LUCHKOV places the cell phone against Natasha's ear          seeing how she's tied to a chair with her hands tied behind her          back.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           We need you to come in.                          NATASHA           Are you kidding? I'm working!           AGENT PHIL COULSON           This takes precedence.                          NATASHA           I'm in the middle of an interrogation           and this moron is giving me everything.                          LUCHKOV           I don't give everything.          Natasha gives him a look.                          NATASHA           Look, you can't pull me out of this           right now.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Natasha. Barton's been compromised.          A beat.                          NATASHA           Let me put you on hold.          She nods to LUCHKOV. As Luchkov comes to take the phone off her,          Natasha HITS him with her leg and HEADBUUTS him. Like a spider,          she stands up elegantly and starts ATTACKING TALL THUG by          KICKBOXING him in the face.          Still tied, she ROLLS over WEASELLY THUG after she trips him.          She then STOMPS on TALL THUG foot with peg of the chair, then          KNOCKS HIM OUT WITH HER HEAD.          Yeah, during all this Coulson is still waiting on the line. She          then FLIPS over and FALLS down hard on WEASELLY THUG, BREAKING          THE CHAIR. She sees TALL THUG stand.          Giving her momentum, she runs at him DROP KICKING him, FALLS          DOWN and FLIPS right back up and WRAPS HER LEGS AROUND HIS NECK          AND KNOCKS HIM OUT COLD.          She grabs LUCHKOV, wraps his leg around with a hanging chain and          drops him down the open floor, dangling. She picks up the phone          and her heels, like a boss.                          NATASHA           Where's Barton now?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           We don't know.                          NATASHA           But he's alive.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           We think so. I'll brief you on           everything when you get back. But           first, we need you to talk to the big           guy.                          NATASHA           Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me           about as far as he can throw me.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           No, I've got Stark. You get the big           guy.                          NATASHA           Bozhe moi.          EXT. INDIAN SLUM ≠ NIGHT          A LITTLE GIRL runs through the crowd, trying to force a way          through.          INT. SHACK ≠ NIGHT          A tiny shack. The LITTLE GIRL runs up the steps, only to be          stopped by an attending woman. Then, the LITTLE GIRL spots him.          BRUCE BANNER, their LOCAL doctor.                          ATTENDING WOMAN           What are doing here?! Get out! You           shouldn't be here!                          LITTLE GIRL           I have to see the doctor! It's my           father!                          BANNER           Calm down. What's wrong?                          LITTLE GIRL           My father...          Banner looks behind him seeing how the girl is staring at a few          people, lying down, looking very sick.                          BANNER           Is he like them?          The LITTLE GIRL holds out all the money she has in the world.                          LITTLE GIRL           Please.          EXT. SLUMS ≠ CONTINUOUS          Banner and the LITTLE GIRL hastily run nearly to the edge of          town. The LITTLE GIRL gets ahead of herself. Banner spots local          government car, he turns around, blocking any view of him.          EXT/INT. LITTLE GIRL'S SHACK ≠ NIGHT          Banner quickly follows the LITTLE GIRL inside her house. As he          walks in, the LITTLE GIRL ESCAPES THROUGH THE WINDOW. Banner is          left standing there like a dumbass.                          BANNER           Should have got paid up front, Banner.          Natasha then appears from behind the curtains. Banner turns          around, quietly.                          NATASHA           You know, for a man who's supposed to           be avoiding stress, you picked a hell           of a place to settle.                          BANNER           Avoiding stress isn't the secret.                          NATASHA           Then, what is it? Yoga?                          BANNER           You brought me to the edge of the city,           smart. I uh... assume the whole place           is surrounded?                          NATASHA           Just you and me.                          BANNER           And your actress buddy, is she a spy           too? Do they start that young?                          NATASHA           I did.                          BANNER           Who are you?                          NATASHA           Natasha Romanoff.                          BANNER           Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanoff?           Because that's not gonna work out for           everyone.                          NATASHA           No. No. Of course not. I'm here on           behalf of SHIELD.                          BANNER           SHIELD. How did they find me?                          NATASHA           We never lost you, doctor. We've kept           our distance, even helped keep some           other interested parties off your           scent.                          BANNER           Why?                          NATASHA           Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now I           need you to come in.                          BANNER           What if I said no?                          NATASHA           I'll persuade you.                          BANNER           And what if the... other guy says no?                          NATASHA           You've been more than a year without an           incident. I don't think you wanna break           that streak.                          BANNER           I don't always get what I want.                          NATASHA           Doctor, we're facing a potential global           catastrophe.                          BANNER           Well, those I actively try to avoid.                          NATASHA           This is the Tesseract. It has the           potential energy to wipe out the           planet.          She shows him a photo of the Tesseract on her cell phone. Banner          takes a closer look.                          BANNER           What does Fury want me to do? Swallow           it?                          NATASHA           Well, he wants you to find it. It's           been taken. It emits a gamma signature           that's too weak for us to trace.           There's no one that knows gamma           radiation like you do. If there was,           that's where I'd be.                          BANNER           So Fury isn't after the monster?                          NATASHA           Not that he's told me.                          BANNER           And he tells you everything?                          NATASHA           Talk to Fury, he needs you on this.                          BANNER           He needs me in a cage?                          NATASHA           No one's gonna put you in a...                          BANNER           STOP LYING TO ME!          The THUNDEROUS TONE in is voice makes Natasha QUICKLY grab her          gun and point it at him, but something is now OFF in the          atmosphere. Banner stands straight up, smiling.                          BANNER           I'm sorry, that was mean. I just wanted           to see what you'd do. Why don't we do           this the easy way, where you don't use           that, and the other guy doesn't make a           mess? Okay? Natasha...          Natasha, still wary, doesn't lower her gun. She lowers her gun          and speaks into her earpiece.                          NATASHA           Stand down. We're good here.          EXT. OUTSIDE THE LITTLE GIRL'S SHACK ≠ NIGHT          Amazingly, DOZENS OF SHIELD AGENTS are surrounding the shack          outside.          INT. LITTLE GIRL'S SHACK ≠ NIGHT          Banner looks at Natasha, charming a smile at her.                          BANNER           Just you and me?          Natasha fidgets now that she exposed her guard down.          INT. SHIELD ANALYTICAL ROOM ≠ NIGHT          Fury is facing several LARGE MONITORS as he as a conference with          members of the WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           This is out of line, Director. You're           dealing with forces you can't control.                          NICK FURY           You ever been in a war, Councilman? In           a firefight? Did you feel an           overabundance of control?           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           You saying that this Asgard has           declared war on our planet?                          NICK FURY           Not Asgard. Loki.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #2           He can't be working alone. What about           the other one? His brother.                          NICK FURY           Our intelligence says, Thor is not a           hostile. But he's worlds away, we can't           depend on him to help. It's up to us.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           Which is why you should be focusing on           phase 2, it was designed for exactly...                          NICK FURY           PHASE 2 isn't ready, our enemy is. We           need a response team.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           The Avengers Initiative was shut down.                          NICK FURY           This isn't about The Avengers.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           We're running the world's greatest           covert security network and you're           gonna leave the fate of human race to a           handful of freaks.                          NICK FURY           I'm not leaving anything to anyone. We           need a response team. These people           maybe isolated, unbalanced even, but I           believe with the right push they can be           exactly what we need.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #2           You believe?           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           War isn't won by sentiment, Director.                          NICK FURY           No, it's won by soldiers.          INT. BROOKLYN GYM ≠ NIGHT          Somewhere in an old, almost WWII-esque boxing gym, STEVE ROGERS,          a man out of time, THE FIRST AVENGER, FUCKIN' CAPTAIN AMERICA is          PUMMELING a punching bag. With every swing, it's like a memory          he's trying to fight off and repress.          EXT. HYDRA BASE ≠ DAY (FLASHBACK)          Captain America is running through the forest, dodging mortars,          gunfire and the Tesseract's energy firearms.           STEVE (V.O.)           There's not enough time! I gotta put           her in the water!          INT. BROOKLYN GYM ≠ NIGHT          Steve's rage keeps building as he punches the bag. It gets          harder...          INT. HORTEN H.XVIII, RED SKULL'S SHIP ≠ DAY (FLASHBACK)          Steve places his COMPASS with an image of PEGGY CARTER. The time          is here for him to crash the plane.          INT. BROOKLYN GYM ≠ NIGHT          Steve closes his eyes. Goes at the bag harder.           PEGGY (V.O.)           You won't be alone.          INT. HORTEN H.XVIII, RED SKULL'S SHIP ≠ DAY (FLASHBACK)          The RED SKULL picks up the TESSERACT.          INT. BROOKLYN GYM ≠ NIGHT          Steve opens his eyes and fuckin' tears the bag as the last          memory kicks in. I don't think he can physically stop...           SHIELD SCIENTIST (V.O.)           Oh my god!          INT. PROJECT P.E.G.A.S.U.S, ANTARCTICA ≠ DAY (FLASHBACK)          A half frozen Steve Roger is lying down on a medical slab. Two          SHIELD SCIENTISTS run over hi-tech devices to see if his vitals          are up. And it seems...                          SHIELD SCIENTIST           This guy is still alive!          INT. BROOKLYN GYM ≠ NIGHT          Steve FUCKING tears the bag open, off its chain, spilling out          the sand. He stands, breathing hard, letting out 70 years of          over repressed feeling.          After taking a few breathers, Steve picks up another punching          bag, which is laying next another DOZEN BAGS. He hooks the bag          up and starts punching again. Fury walks in.                          NICK FURY           Trouble sleeping?                          STEVE           I slept for seventy years, sir. I think           I've had my fill.                          NICK FURY           Then you should be out, celebrating,           seeing the world.          Steve stops punching and walks over to the bench, unraveling the          tape off his hands. He sits down.                          STEVE           I went under, the world was at war, I           wake up, they say we won. They didn't           say what we lost.                          NICK FURY           We've made some mistakes along the way.           Some very recently.                          STEVE           You here with a mission, sir?                          NICK FURY           I am.                          STEVE           Trying to get me back in the world?                          NICK FURY           Trying to save it.          Fury hands Steve a file on the Tesseract, along with other files          on HYDRA'S projects.                          STEVE           Hydra's secret weapon.                          NICK FURY           Howard Stark fished that out of the           ocean when he was looking for you. He           thought what we think, the Tesseract           could be the key to unlimited           sustainable energy. That's something           the world sorely needs.                          STEVE           Who took it from you?                          NICK FURY           He's called Loki. He's not from around           here. There's a lot we'll have to bring           you up to speed on if you're in. The           world has gotten even stranger than you           already know.                          STEVE           At this point, I doubt anything would           surprise me.                          NICK FURY           Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a           debriefing package waiting for you back           at your apartment.          Steve turns and picks up a punching bag. Starts walking out of          the gym.                          NICK FURY           Is there anything you can tell us about           the Tesseract that we ought to know           now?                          STEVE           You should have left it in the ocean.          INT. OCEAN ≠ NIGHT          Out in the Atlantic Ocean, TONY STARK, in his IRON MAN suit, is          cutting a PIPELINE TRANSPORT with a laser cutter coming from his          hand. He then places a STARK ENERGY REACTOR. It lights up. IRON          MAN rockets out of the water and flies towards STARK TOWER.                          TONY           You're good on this end. The rest is up           to you.                          PEPPER POTTS           (on the other line)           You disconnected the transition lines?           Are we off the grid?          INSIDE THE SUIT -- PEPPER APPEARS ON HIS HUD MONITOR.                          TONY           Stark Tower is about to become a beacon           of self-sustaining clean energy.                          PEPPER           Wow. So maybe our reactor takes over           and it actually works?                          TONY           I assume. Light her up.          As IRON MAN flies to the STARK TOWER BUILDING, the power is          switched on and the STARK sign LIGHTS UP.                          PEPPER           How does it look?                          TONY           Like Christmas, but with more... me.                          PEPPER           Gotta go wider on the public awareness           campaign. You need to do some press. I           can do some more tomorrow. I'm working           on the zoning for the next billboards.                          TONY           Pepper, you're killing me. Remember?           Enjoy the moment.                          PEPPER           Then get in here and I will.          TONY arrives at his skyscraper penthouse and is in the process          of taking off his IRON MAN suit through a hi-tech gauntlet of          gadgets.                          JARVIS           Sir, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the           line.                          TONY           I'm not in. I'm actually out.                          JARVIS           Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting.                          TONY           Close the line Jarvis. I got a date.          INT. TONY'S PENTHOUSE ≠ NIGHT          PEPPER POTTS stares up at the monitors of the reactor device.                          PEPPER           Levels are holding steady... I think.                          TONY           Of course they are, I was directly           involved. Which brings me to my next           question: how does it feel to be a           genius?                          PEPPER           Well, ha, I really wouldn't know now,           would I?                          TONY           What do you mean? All this came from           you.                          PEPPER           No. All this came from that.          Points to the energy in his chest plate.                          TONY           Give yourself some credit, please.           Stark Tower is your baby. Give           yourself... twelve percent of the           credit.                          PEPPER           Twelve percent?                          TONY           An argument can be made for fifteen.                          PEPPER           Twelve percent? For my baby?                          TONY           Well, I did do all the heavy lifting.           Literally, I lifted the heavy things.           And sorry, but the security snafu? That           was on you.                          PEPPER           Oooooh.                          TONY           My private elevator...                          PEPPER           You mean OUR elevator?                          TONY           ...was teeming with sweaty workmen. I'm           going to pay for that comment about           percentages in some subtle way later,           aren't I?          Pepper pours herself and Tony a glass of champagne.                          PEPPER           Not gonna be that subtle.                          TONY           I'll tell you what. Next building's           gonna say 'Potts' on the tower.                          PEPPER           On the lease.                          TONY           ...Call your mom, can you bunk over?                          JARVIS           Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my           protocols are being overwritten.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Stark, we need to talk. Tony picks up           his phone and looks into it at Coulson.                          TONY           You have reached the life model decoy           of Tony Stark, please leave a message.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           This is urgent.                          TONY           Then leave it urgently.          At that moment the elevator door opens and Coulson appears.                          TONY           Security breach.                          (TO PEPPER)           That's on you.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Mr. Stark.                          PEPPER           Phil! Come in.                          TONY           Phil? Uh, his first name is Agent.                          PEPPER           Come on in, we're celebrating.                          TONY           Which is why he can't stay.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           We need you to look this over.           (he holds out a file towards                          STARK)           Soon as possible.                          TONY           I don't like being handed things.                          PEPPER           That's alright, `cause I love to be           handed things. So, let's trade.          She passes her glass of champagne to Coulson and takes the file          from him, then takes her champagne glass back from Coulson and          passes the file over to Stark.                          PEPPER           Thank you.                          TONY           Official consulting hours are between           eight and five every other Thursday.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           This isn't a consultation.                          PEPPER           Is this about The Avengers? Which I...I           know nothing about.                          TONY           The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I           thought. And I didn't even qualify.                          PEPPER           I didn't know that either.                          TONY           Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-           obsessed, don't play well with others.                          PEPPER           That I did know.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           This isn't about personality profiles           anymore.                          TONY           Whatever. Miss Potts, got a minute?          Pepper walks over to Tony who places the files into his own          databases.                          TONY           You know, I thought we were having a           moment.                          PEPPER           I was having twelve percent of a           moment. This seems serious, Phil's           pretty shaken.                          TONY           How did you notice? Why is he Phil?                          PEPPER           What is all of this?                          TONY           This is, uh...          Tony EXPANDS his arms and different profiles appear in          holographic form floating in the air in front of Tony and          Pepper.                          TONY           This.          Screens appear of CAPTAIN AMERICA IN ACTION, the HULK ROARING AS          HE ATTACKS THE ARMY AT CULVER UNIVERSITY, THOR FIGHTING THE          DESTROYER and another is of Loki and the Tesseract, to which          Stark and Pepper look on in awe.                          PEPPER           I'm going to take the jet to D.C.           tonight.                          TONY           Tomorrow.                          PEPPER           You've got homework. You've got a lot           of homework.                          TONY           Well, what if I didn't?                          PEPPER           If you didn't?                          TONY           Yeah.                          PEPPER           You mean if you finished?           (Stark nods his head)           Well, um...then...          She whispers something in his ear. Tony GASPS. Coulson looks          away in embarrassment.                          TONY           Square deal. It's the last date.          Pepper kisses him.                          PEPPER           Work hard.          As Pepper leaves with Agent Coulson, Tony grabs the Tesseract in          holograph form, worried.          INT. QUINJET ≠ DAY          Inside the QUINJET, Steve is sitting down, holding a TABLET,          watching the footage of the Hulk's attack on the Army at Culver          University.                          PILOT           We're about forty minutes out from           base, sir.          Agent Coulson stands up from his seat and walks over to Steve.                          STEVE           So, this Doctor Banner was trying to           replicate the serum that was used on           me?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           A lot of people were. You were the           world's first superhero. Banner thought           gamma radiation might hold the key to           unlocking Erskine's original formula.          The Hulk roars with fury as he slams a jeep apart.                          STEVE           Didn't really go his way, did it?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Not so much. When he's not that thing           though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking.          Steve looks confused.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           He's like a smart person. I gotta say,           it's an honor to meet you, officially.          Steve smiles at Coulson.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           I sort of met you, I mean, I watched           you while you were sleeping.          Steve looks down. He stands up, closes his laptop and walks to          the side with Coulson following.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           I mean, I was... I was present while           you were unconscious from the ice. You           know, it's really, it's just a... just           a huge honor to have you on board.                          STEVE           Well, I hope I'm the man for the job.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Oh, you are. Absolutely. Uh... we've           made some modifications to the uniform.           I had a little design input.                          STEVE           The uniform? Aren't the stars and           stripes a little... old fashioned?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           With everything that's happening, the           things that are about to come to light,           people might just need a little old           fashioned.          Steve takes in Coulson's sentiment.          INT. UNDERGROUND LAB ≠ DAY          Several soldiers under Loki's mind control run around, preparing          to infiltrate whatever Loki has planned. Loki sits down,          watching Selvig work with a CMS device. Loki meditates, until...          EXT. THRONE ROOM ≠ NIGHT          ...the scepter materializes him back into the throne room of THE          OTHER, fully armed in his horned helmet and armor. THE OTHER          appears from the steps.                          THE OTHER           The Chitauri grow restless.                          LOKI           Let them go at themselves. I will lead           them into glorious battle.                          THE OTHER           Battle? Against the meager might of           Earth?                          LOKI           Glorious, not lengthy. If your force is           as formidable as you claim.                          THE OTHER           You question us? You question HIM? He,           who put the scepter in your hand, who           gave you ancient knowledge and new           purpose when you were cast out,           defeated?                          LOKI           I was a king! The rightful king of           Asgard! Betrayed!                          THE OTHER           Your ambition is little, born of           childish need. We look beyond the Earth           to greater worlds the Tesseract will           unveil.                          LOKI           You don't have the Tesseract yet.          THE OTHER runs over to attack him, but stops as Loki points his          scepter.                          LOKI           I don't threaten, but until I open the           doors, until your force is mine to           command, you are but words.                          THE OTHER           You will have your war, Asgardian. If           you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from           us, there will be no realm, no barren           moon, no crevice where he can't find           you. You think you know pain? He will           make you long for something as sweet as           pain.          THE OTHER places his hand on Loki's head and transports him back          to Earth. Loki looks around, menacing.          EXT. HELICARRIER LANDING STRIP ≠ DAY          The QUINJET lands down a MASSIVE BATTLESHIP known as the          HELICARRIER. It has two runways. One with direct access to a          hangar at the rear is aligned along the spine of the vessel.          Agent Coulson and Steve walk down the ramp, meeting up with          Natasha.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Agent Romanoff. Captain Rogers.                          STEVE           Ma'am?                          NATASHA           Hi.                          (TO COULSON)           They need you on the bridge. Face time.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           See you there.          Agent Coulson walks away leaving Steve with Natasha, walking          towards the railing of the ship.                          NATASHA           There was quite the buzz around here,           finding you in the ice. I thought           Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you           to sign his Captain America trading           cards yet?                          STEVE           Trading cards?                          NATASHA           They're vintage, he's very proud.          Without realizing, Banner doesn't notice them walking as he          isnervous as hell. He moves around as people keep walking in          hisway.                          STEVE           Dr. Banner.          Steve walks up to Banner and shakes his hands.                          BANNER           Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be           coming.                          STEVE           Word is you can find the cube.                          BANNER           Is that the only word on me?                          STEVE           Only word I care about.                          BANNER           (takes in the sentiment)           Must be strange for you, all of this.                          STEVE           Well, this is actually kind of           familiar.                          NATASHA           Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in           a minute. It's gonna get a little hard           to breath.          Suddenly the HELICARRIER starts SHAKING as it prepares to fly          "sail."                          STEVE           Is this is a submarine?                          BANNER           Really? They wanted me in a submerged           pressurized metal container?          They both move closer to the edge of the HELICARRIER. FOUR HUGE          LIFT FANS MOUNTED ON THE SIDES STARTS TO LIFT INTO THE AIR IN          VTOL FLIGHT. Steve watches in AWE as Banner smiles.                          BANNER           OH, NO. THIS IS MUCH WORSE.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          The doors part and we enter THE BRIDGE OF THE SHIP ≠ a flurry of          activity ≠ dozens of agents sit in front of their VIEWSCREENS.          Agent Hill shouts her instructs to leave. Turns to NICK FURY,          who is at the command chair.           AGENT MARIA HILL           We're at lock, sir.                          NICK FURY           Good. Let's vanish.          EXT. SKY          The HELICARRIER rises high into the heavens. Suddenly, the          entire ship is covered in reflecting mirrors, which then          camouflages in the sky.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ CONTINUOUS          Steve and Banner walk through the glorious, gleaming bridge,          taking his position at the SCIENCE CONSOLE.                          NICK FURY           Gentlemen.          Steve gives Fury 10 bucks, referring to his earlier statement          about never being surprised again. Fury walks over Banner and          extends his hand. Banner, reluctantly shakes it.                          NICK FURY           Doctor, thank you for coming.                          BANNER           Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how           long am I staying?                          NICK FURY           Once we get our hands on the Tesseract,           you're in the clear.                          BANNER           Where are you with that?          Nick Fury turns to Agent Coulson to explain, while Natasha          Romanoff eyes an image of Clint Barton on a computer screen.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           We're sweeping every wirelessly           accessible camera on the planet.           Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected           to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for           us.                          NATASHA           That's still not gonna find them in           time.                          BANNER           You have to narrow the field. How many           spectrometers do you have access to?                          NICK FURY           How many are there?                          BANNER           Call every lab you know, tell them to           put the spectrometers on the roof and           calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll           rough out a tracking algorithm based on           cluster recognition. At least we could           rule out a few places. Do you have           somewhere for me to work?                          NICK FURY           Agent Romanoff, would you show           Dr.Banner to his laboratory, please.          Natasha nods and walks off, leading Banner down the hall.                          NATASHA           You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all           the toys.          INT. UNDERGROUND LAB, VACUUM ROOM ≠ DAY          Selvig and several scientists work around the CMS device.          Bartonwalks in, holding a tablet.                          SELVIG           Put it over there!                          (TO BARTON)           Where did you find all these people?                          CLINT BARTON           SHIELD has not shortage of enemies,           Doctor.          He holds up a screen showing information on IRIDIUM.                          CLINT BARTON           Is this the stuff you need?                          SELVIG           Yeah, iridium. It's found in           meteorites, it forms anti-protons. It's           very hard to get hold of.                          CLINT BARTON           Especially if SHIELD knows you need it.                          SELVIG           Well, I didn't know!           (sees Loki coming)           Hey! The Tesseract is showing me so           much. It's more than just knowledge,           it's... truth.                          LOKI           I know. What did it show you, Agent           Barton?                          CLINT BARTON           My next target.                          LOKI           Tell me what you need.                          CLINT BARTON           I'll need a distraction.           (grabs his bow)           And an eyeball.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ NIGHT          As they are waiting to locate Loki using satellite facial          recognition, Coulson and Steve stand side by side, waiting.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           I mean, if it's not too much trouble.                          STEVE           No, no. It's fine.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           It's a vintage set. It took me a couple           of years to collect them all. Near           mint, slight foxing around the edges,           but...           AGENT JASPER SITWELL           We got a hit. Sixty-seven percent           match. Weight, cross match, seventy-           nine percent.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Location?           AGENT JASPER SITWELL           Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse.           He's not exactly hiding.                          NICK FURY           Captain, you're up.          Steve nods. Leaves.          EXT. STUTTGART MUSEUM ≠ NIGHT          Loki standing in front of the museum, dressed in 21st century          attire and with the scepter, disguised as a cane, walks up to          the entrance of the gala.          INT. STUTTGART GALA ≠ NIGHT          Inside, a lavished gala with an orchestra playing, is          interrupted as the HEAD DOCTOR walks up to the mic.          INT. HELICARRIER, STEVE'S LOCKER ≠ NIGHT          Steve walks into his own locker room. As he approaches to the          steel cabinet, the doors already reveal the updated CAPTAIN          AMERICA UNIFORM, along with the famous SHIELD. He stands in          silence.          EXT. STUTTGART MUSEUM ≠ NIGHT          Outside the museum, GERMAN GUARDS stand in their positions. One          of them is standing on top of the roof, scoping. He then hears a          THWACK!          He looks down. One of his guards is shot with an ARROW. He          raises his gun. He is shot dead by an arrow. Falls down. Barton          and his CREW arrive at the doors of the locked science building.          Barton looks at the retinal scanner. He pulls out a SHIELD eye          scanner instrument.          INT. STUTTGART GALA ≠ NIGHT          Loki looks from above the museum and descends down to where the          HEAD DOCTOR is. As he makes it down and near the stage, he FLIPS          his cane the other end. The guard there notices him, pulls out          his gun, but Loki CLUBS his head in. CHAOS ERUPTS.          Guests begin to leave the museum. Loki grabs the doctor and          flips him over onto a marble table of the mythological creatures          BILCHSTEIM. Loki pulls out an OPTICAL TORTURE DEVICE. He PLUNGES          down the doctor's eye. The doctor TWISTS in pain.          EXT. STUTTGART MUSEUM ≠ NIGHT          Suddenly, from Barton's instrument, a holographic eye of the          head doctor appears and the image of the doctor appears on          screen.          The doors to the facility open. Barton walks in and finds in a          cabinet, a glass thermos with a cylinder of iridium.          EXT. STUTTGART GALA ≠ NIGHT          As the crowd runs away, Loki slowly walks out and materializes          in his gold armor and helmet. The POLICE arrive and with no          hesitation, he BLASTS the cars, FLIPPING them over and over.                          LOKI           Kneel before me.          The crowd ignores him. Another LOKI appears, blocking the crowd.          Loki after Loki appears, they all grin as they raise their          spears, encircling the crowd.                          LOKI           I said. KNEEL!!!          Everyone becomes quiet and kneels in front him. Loki embracing          his arms out, smiling.                          LOKI           Is not this simpler? Is this not your           natural state? It's the unspoken truth           of humanity, that you crave           subjugation. The bright lure of freedom           diminishes your life's joy in a mad           scramble for power, for identity. You           were made to be ruled. In the end, you           will always kneel.          As the words resonate to the kneeling crowd, an ELDER GERMAN MAN          refuses to kneel and stands, heroic.           ELDER GERMAN MAN           Not to men like you.                          LOKI           There are no men like me.           ELDER GERMAN MAN           There are always men like you.                          LOKI           Look to your elder, people. Let him be           an example.          Loki is about to execute him with his scepter as the light GLOWS          blue. Just as the ENERGY BEAM shoots out, FUCKING CAPTAIN          AMERICA arrives! He dives in just in time and BLOCKS the blast          with his SHIELD, knocking down Loki on his ass.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           You know, the last time I was in           Germany and saw a man standing above           everybody else, we ended up           disagreeing.                          LOKI                          (STANDING UP)           The soldier. A man out of time.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           I'm not the one who's out of time.          From above Cap, the QUINJET arrives. A machine gun is pointed          towards Loki.                          NATASHA           Loki, drop the weapon and stand down.          Like greased lighting, Loki sends a BLAST of blue at the          QUINJET. Natasha MANEUVERS it just in time, giving Cap the time          to throw his shield at Loki. They both begin to DUKE IT OUT.          Loki FLINGS Cap to the ground. Cap then throws his shield, but          Loki SWATS it way. Cap, using all the moves of a boxer, is          KNOCKED down by Loki. Standing over him, he points the scepter's          tip on his helmet.                          LOKI           Kneel.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Not today!          Cap FLIPS and KNOCKS him out with his leg. Loki grabs him and          FLIPS him over.          INT. QUINJET ≠ NIGHT                          NATASHA           The guy's all over the place.          Suddenly, AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill" overdrives the QUINJET'S          speakers.                          IRON MAN           Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?          Both Cap and Loki look up at the sky. Tony flies over in his          IRON MAN suit and blasts Loki right back to the ground. IRON MAN          touches down. He stands up and pulls out every piece of weaponry          the suit has.                          IRON MAN           Make your move, Reindeer Games.          Loki puts up his hands and surrenders. His armor materializes          away.                          IRON MAN           Good move.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Mr. Stark.                          IRON MAN           Captain.          INT. QUINJET ≠ NIGHT          Natasha watches the skies. THUNDER. Coming out of nowhere. Fury          speaks over her headset.           NICK FURY (V.O.)           Said anything?                          NATASHA           Not a word.           NICK FURY (V.O.)           Just get him here. We're low on time.          With Loki tied up and cuffed to his seat, Tony and Steve watch          from a distance, whispering.                          STEVE           I don't like it.                          TONY           What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?                          STEVE           I don't remember it being ever that           easy. This guy packs a wallop.                          TONY           Still, you are pretty spry, for an           older fellow. What's your thing?           Pilates?                          STEVE           What?                          TONY           It's like calisthenics. You might have           missed a couple things, you know, doing           time as a Capsicle.          Steve looks at Tony, finally meeting his ego match.                          STEVE           Fury didn't tell me he was calling you           in.                          TONY           Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury           doesn't tell you.          THUNDER and LIGHTNING nearly hit the jet, making it shake          violently.                          NATASHA           Where's this coming from?          Thunder RUMBLES overhead. Loki stares out the window intently.                          STEVE           What's the matter? Scared of a little           lightning?                          LOKI           I'm not overly fond of what follows.          What the fuck? OUTSIDE THE JET A BLINDING LIGHT hits the jet.          Not a light. A King.          THE MIGHTY THOR. Thor OPENS the ramp and grabs Loki by the          throat and flies out. Steve and Tony are left dumbstruck. Tony          puts the IRON MAN helmet on.                          IRON MAN           Now there's that guy.                          NATASHA           Another Asgardian?                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Think the guy's a friendly?                          IRON MAN           Doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or           kills him, the Tesseract's lost.          Tony turns and gets ready to jump off the jet to chase after          Thor.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Stark, we need a plan of attack!                          IRON MAN           I have a plan. Attack.          IRON MAN jumps out of the jet and chases after Thor. Cap grabs a          parachute to follow.                          NATASHA           I'd sit this one out, Cap.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           I don't see how I can.                          NATASHA           These guys come from legends, they're           basically gods.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           There's only one God, ma'am. And I'm           pretty sure he doesn't dress like that.          Cap JUMPS OUT of the jet.          EXT. MOUNTAIN LEDGE ≠ NIGHT          Somewhere out in the European mountains, Thor throws Loki into          the side of the mountain. He raises the mighty hammer, MJ÷LNIR.          He looks down at his brother, who he thought to be dead and is          angry to see him alive in this fashion.                          THOR           Where is the Tesseract?                          LOKI                          (LAUGHS)           I missed you too.                          THOR           Do I look to be in a gaming mood?!                          LOKI           Oh, you should thank me. With the           Bifrost gone how much dark energy did           the Allfather have to muster to conjure           you here? Your precious Earth.          Thor drops MJ÷LNIR, causing the mountain to quake. He picks up          Loki. His brother.          Although Thor is pissed for what he has done, a family is          everything to a man or god.                          THOR           I thought you dead.                          LOKI           Did you mourn?                          THOR           We all did. Our father...                          LOKI           Your father. He did tell you my true           parentage, did he not?          Thor lets go Loki, who walks away from Thor, causing an even          bigger wedge between them.                          THOR           We were raised together, we played           together, we fought together. Do you           remember none of that?                          LOKI                          (TURNS AROUND)           I remember a shadow. Living in the           shade of your greatness. I remember you           tossing me into an abyss. I was and           should be king!                          THOR           So you take the world I love as           recompense for your imagined slights.           No, the Earth is under my protection,           Loki.                          LOKI                          (LAUGHS)           And you're doing a marvelous job with           that. The humans slaughter each other           in droves, while you idly threat. I           mean to rule them. And why should I           not?                          THOR           You think yourself above them.                          LOKI           Well, yes.                          THOR           Then you miss the truth of ruling,           brother. Throne would suit you ill.          Angrily, Loki shoves his brother to the side. He walks back up          to the ledge. Turns around.                          LOKI           I've seen worlds you've never known           about! I have grown, Odinson, in my           exile! I have seen the true power of           the Tesseract, and when I wield it...                          THOR           Who showed you this power? Who controls           the would-be-king?                          LOKI           I am a king!                          THOR           Not here! You give up the Tesseract!           You give up this poisonous dream! You           come home.                          LOKI           I don't have it. You need the cube to           bring me home, but I've sent it off I           know not where.          Mjˆlnir flies back to his grasp.                          THOR           You listen well, brother. I...          THOR IS KNOCKED OFF THE MOUNTAIN BY IRON MAN WHO TACKLES HIM IN          MID-FLIGHT.                          LOKI           I'm listening.          EXT. FOREST ≠ CONTINUOUS          THOR and IRON MAN CRASH into the forest. Thor rolls himself up.          IRON MAN is still standing, but keeps his distance. The helmet          opens up.                          THOR           Do not touch me again!                          TONY           Then don't take my stuff.                          THOR           You have no idea what you're dealing           with.                          TONY           Shakespeare in the park? Doth mother           know you weareth her drapes?                          THOR           This is beyond you, metal man. Loki           will face Asgardian justice!                          TONY           He gives up the Cube, he's all yours.           Until then, stay out of my way...           tourist.          The IRON MAN helmet clamps up and he walks away. In one quick          move, Thor pulls Mjˆlnir, throws it, and KNOCKS IRON MAN clear          across into a tree.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           Okay.          From the mountain side, Loki watches in amusement. Thor raises          his hand. Mjˆlnir flies back to his hand. Thor SWINGS the          hammer, summoning a ray of energy.          IRON MAN stands up and from his HAND BOOSTERS, a BLAST of ENERGY          KNOCKS the MIGHTY AVENGER on his ass. IRON MAN flies back up and          knocks Thor into a tree. Right back at you, bitch!          Thor, kneeling on the ground, pulls Mjˆlnir to his hand, raises          it to the skies and pulls in LIGHTING and THUNDER! Thor points          the hammer at IRON MAN and the outpouring of bolts lighting          increases in intensity. IRON MAN falls back.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          JARVIS           Power at 400% capacity.                          TONY           How about that?          IRON MAN FIRES AWAY FROM HIS HAND BOOSTERS, pushing Thor to his          knees. Like two gunslingers ready to draw, both Thor and IRON          MAN fly towards each other and meet in the middle and ascend up.          EXT. SKY ≠ NIGHT          The two battle. IRON MAN grasps THOR, elbowing him and SMASHING          him into the side of a mountain.          THOR LEAPS off the mountain and takes IRON MAN with him.          EXT. FOREST ≠ CONTINUOUS          THOR and IRON MAN crash right back down, smashing down every          tree possible. IRON MAN YANKS Thor right up. Thor grabs both          HANDS BOOSTERS and begins to CRUSH them. Tony quickly CHARGES as          much energy as he can and SHOOTS ENERGY in Thor's face.          Thor FALLS back, losing his stance. IRON MAN HEADBUTTS Thor,          with his gold-titanium alloy helmet. Thor... HEADBUTTS him with          his fuckin' head and actually sends IRON MAN across the forest.          IRON MAN boosters up and flies back at Thor, grabbing him by the          arm and cape and SWINGS him into another tree. Thor looks up,          ready. Thor runs with all his patience out the window. IRON MAN          SWINGS and MISSES, giving Thor the momentum to grab him, lift          him and SMASH him down hard.          Thor summons back Mjˆlnir to his hand. Just as he's about to put          the hammer down, IRON MAN uses his HAND BOOSTERS to SKID across          the ground and trip Thor over. Standing up, Thor looks for him,          but from behind him, IRON MAN CRASHES into his back. Thor stands          facing IRON MAN. Ready to pounce...          CAPTAIN AMERICA'S shield RICOCHETS off both Thor and IRON MAN,          stopping them. They look up and see CAPTAIN AMERICA standing on          top of a fallen tree with the shield back in hand.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Hey! That's enough!           (comes down; looks at Thor)           Now, I don't know what you plan on           doing here.                          THOR           I've come here to put an end to Loki's           schemes!                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Then prove it! Put the hammer down.                          IRON MAN           Um, yeah, no! Bad call! He loves his           hammer!          THOR BACKHANDS IRON MAN LIKE A PIMP WITH MJ÷LNIR.          Thor, losing all tolerance with this SENTENTIAL OF LIBERTY,          raises the hammer.                          THOR                          (TO CAP)           You want me to put the hammer down?          THOR LEAPS HIGH INTO THE AIR, RAISING THAT FUCKING HAMMER.          CAPTAIN AMERICA CROUCHES DOWN and HOLDS UP HIS SHIELD. THOR          brings that hammer down onto the shield and a MASSIVE IMPLOSION          OF LIGHT reacts to the vibranium shield creating a MASSIVE          SHOCKWAVE THAT BLOWS UP ANYTHING STANDING WITHIN A MILE.          IRON MAN stands up, looking around like `holy shit.' Lying right          next to him is Cap, who never takes his eye off Thor. Thor looks          at both men.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Are we done here?          THOR, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRON MAN STAND THERE.          INT. HELICARRIER HALLWAY ≠ NIGHT          DOZENS of SHIELD POLICE escort Loki, who is in handcuffs,          smiling. As they pass the HELICARRIER LAB, Banner stops working          on the CHITAURI SCEPTER and looks up. Loki eyes him as he walks,          nodding and smiling. BANNER rubs his head.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ NIGHT          Loki is now free from his cuffs and is contained in a LARGE          GLASS CELL held by HYDRAULIC RIGS. Fury walks up the control          panel of the cell.                          NICK FURY           In case it's unclear. You try to           escape. You so much as scratch that           glass.          Fury presses a button which OPENS UP a HATCH underneath Loki's          cell. Loki peers as much as he can from the glass.          Without seeing, the sounds of GUSTING WIND would make man shit          his pants. Not a god, though.                          NICK FURY           Thirty thousand feet, straight down in           a steel trap. You get how that works?!          Fury closes the hatch. Points at Loki.                          NICK FURY           Ant.          Then points at the button which would drop Loki into the steel          trap.                          NICK FURY           Boot.                          LOKI                          (SMIRKING)           It's an impressive cage. Not built, I           think, for me.                          NICK FURY           Built for something a lot stronger than           you.                          LOKI           Oh, I've heard.          Loki looks into the camera.          INT. BRIEFING ROOM ≠ CONTINUOUS          The others watch on the monitor Loki getting interrogated.          Banner looks at the monitor, intently.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ CONTINUOUS                          LOKI           The mindless beast, makes play he's           still a man. How desperate are you,           that you call upon such lost creatures           to defend you?                          NICK FURY           How desperate am I? You threaten my           world with war. You steal a force you           can't hope to control.                          (MORE)           NICK FURY (CONT'D)           You talk about peace and you kill           `cause it's fun. You have made me very           desperate. You might not be glad that           you did.                          LOKI           Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To           have the Tesseract, to have power,           unlimited power. And for what? A warm           light for all mankind to share, and           then to be reminded what real power is.                          NICK FURY                          (SMILING)           Well, you let me know if Real Power           wants a magazine or something.          Fury walks off leaving Loki in his glass cell. Loki looks back          at the camera, smirking.          INT. BRIEFING ROOM ≠ CONTINUOUS          Steve watches until the monitor goes black. Thor, who didn't          even look, just listened, stands there, torn apart. They all          just stand there in stunned SILENCE. Finally --                          BANNER           He really grows on you, doesn't he?                          STEVE           Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor,           what's his play?                          THOR                          (COMING TOO)           He has an army called the Chitauri.           They're not of Asgard or any world           known. He means to lead them against           your people. They will win him the           earth. In return, I suspect, for the           Tesseract.                          STEVE                          (SERIOUSLY)           An army? From outer space?                          BANNER          So he's building another portal. That's          what he needs Erik Selvig for.                          THOR          Selvig?                          BANNER          He's an astrophysicist.                          THOR          He's a friend.                          NATASHA          Loki has him under some kind of spell,          along with one of ours.                          STEVE          I wanna know why Loki let us take him.          He's not leading an army from here.                          BANNER          I don't think we should be focusing on          Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of          cats, you could smell crazy on him.                          THOR          Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond          reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's          my brother.                          NATASHA          He killed eighty people in two days.                          THOR          He's adopted.                          BANNER          Iridium, what did they need the Iridium          for?                          TONY          It's a stabilizing agent.           (walks in with Coulson; to                          COULSON)          I'll fly you there. Keep the love          alive. Means the portal won't collapse          on itself, like it did at SHIELD.                          TONY (CONT'D)                          (TO THOR)           No hard feelings, Point Break. You've           got a mean swing.           (referring to the Iridium)           Also, it means the portal can open as           wide, and stay open as long, as Loki           wants.                          (TO CREW)           Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top           sails. That man is playing GALAGA!           Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did.           (covering his eye, looks                          AROUND)           How does Fury do this?           AGENT MARIA HILL           He turns.          Tony looks around the monitors and places a BUTTON SIZE HACKING          IMPLANT under Fury's desk, without anyone noticing.                          TONY           Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest           of the raw materials, Agent Barton can           get his hands on pretty easily. Only           major component he still needs is a           power source. A high energy density,           something to kick start the cube.           AGENT MARIA HILL           When did you become an expert in           thermonuclear astrophysics?                          TONY           Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes,           the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the           only one who did the reading?                          STEVE           Does Loki need any particular kind of           power source?                          BANNER           He's got to heat the cube to a           hundredand twenty million Kelvin just           to break through the Coulomb barrier.                          TONY           Unless, Selvig has figured out how to           stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.                          BANNER           Well, if he could do that he could           achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor           on the planet.                          TONY           Finally, someone who speaks English.                          STEVE           Is that what just happened?          Tony and Banner shake hands. A glimmer in their eyes shines as          the mutual respect for each other shows.                          TONY           It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner.           You're work on anti-electron collisions           is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of           the way you lose control and turn into           an enormous green rage monster.                          BANNER                          (LOOKS DOWN)           Thanks.                          NICK FURY                          (WALKING IN)           Dr. Banner is only here to track the           cube. I was hoping you might join him.                          STEVE           Let's start with that stick of his. It           may be magical, but it works an awful           lot like a HYDRA weapon.                          NICK FURY           I don't know about that, but it is           powered by the cube. And I'd like to           know how Loki used it to turn two of           the sharpest men I know into his           personal flying monkeys.                          THOR           Monkeys? I do not understand.                          STEVE           I do! I understood that reference.          Tony rolls his eyes, while Cap looks proud of himself.                          TONY           Shall we play, doctor?                          BANNER           Let's play some.          As Banner and Tony walk out, the GALAGA PLAYER turns ever so          discreetly, watches as everyone else disperses and goes back to          playing.          INT. BANNER'S LAB - NIGHT (LATER)          Banner continuously scans with a gamma ray detection scanner on          the scepter for radiation.          Tony looks at his monitors, shifting and solving as many          algorithms and equations.                          BANNER           The gamma readings are definitely           consistent with Selvig's reports on the           Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to           process.                          TONY           If we bypass their mainframe and direct           a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can           clock this around six hundred           teraflops.                          BANNER           All I packed was a tooth brush.                          TONY                          (SMILES)           You know, you should come by STARK           TOWERS sometime. Top ten floors, all           R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land.                          BANNER           Thanks, but the last time I was in New           York I kind of broke...Harlem.                          TONY           Well, I promise a stress free           environment. No tension. No surprises.          Suddenly, Tony pokes Banner with a MINIATURE ELECTRICAL PROD.          Steve walks in on them, pissed at Tony.                          BANNER           OW!          Tony looks at Banner closely.                          TONY           Nothing?                          STEVE                          (TO BANNER)           Hey! Are you nuts?                          TONY           You really have got a lid on it,           haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow           jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?                          STEVE           Is everything a joke to you?                          TONY           Funny things are.                          STEVE           Threatening the safety of everyone on           this ship isn't funny. No offense,           doctor.                          BANNER           No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come           aboard if I couldn't handle pointy           things.                          TONY           You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to           strut.                          STEVE           And you need to focus on the problem,           Mr. Stark.                          TONY           You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us           and why now? Why not before? What isn't           he telling us? I can't do the equation           unless I have all the variables.                          STEVE           You think Fury's hiding something?                          TONY           He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His           secrets have secrets.           (points to Banner)           It's bugging him too, isn't it?                          BANNER           (bobbling the words)           Uh...I just wanna finish my work here           and...                          STEVE           Doctor?          A beat.                          BANNER           'A warm light for all mankind, Loki's           jab at Fury about the cube.                          STEVE           I heard it.                          BANNER           (pointing at Tony)           Well, I think that was meant for you.           Even if Barton didn't post that all           over the news.                          STEVE           The Stark Tower? That big ugly           (Tony gives him a look)           ...building in New York?                          BANNER          It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-          sustaining energy source. That building          will run itself for what, a year?                          TONY          That's just the prototype. I'm kind of          the only name in clean energy right          now.                          BANNER           (referring to Tony)          So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on          the Tesseract project? I mean, what are          they doing in the energy business in          the first place?                          TONY          I should probably look into that once          my decryption programmer finishes          breaking into all of SHIELD's secure          files.                          STEVE           (taken by that)          I'm sorry, did you say...?                          TONY          Jarvis has been running it since I hit          the bridge. In a few hours we'll know          every dirty secret SHIELD has ever          tried to hide.           (holds out a bag of blueberries)          Blueberry?                          STEVE          Yet you're confused about why they          didn't want you around?                          TONY          An intelligence organization that fears          intelligence? Historically, not          possible.                          STEVE           I think Loki's trying to wind us up.           This is a man who means to start a war,           and if don't stay focused, he'll           succeed. We have orders, we should           follow them.                          TONY           Following is not really my style.                          STEVE                          (SMILING)           And you're all about style, aren't you?                          TONY           (a nerve hit)           Of the people in this room, which one           is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B.           not of use?                          BANNER           Steve, tell me none of this smells a           little funky to you?          Steve takes in the possibility, but as an obedient soldier,          shakes it off.                          STEVE           Just find the cube.          Steve walks out of the lab. Still torn apart by the possibility,          he walks away, towards the HULL of the ship.          BACK IN THE LAB                          TONY           That's the guy my dad never shut up           about? Wondering if they shouldn't have           kept him on ice.                          BANNER           The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does           have the jump on us.                          TONY           What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit.                          TONY (CONT'D)           It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm           gonna be there when it does.                          BANNER           And I'll read all about it.                          TONY           Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up like           the rest of us.                          BANNER           Ah, see. I don't get a suit of armor.           I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a           nightmare.                          TONY           You know, I've got a cluster of           shrapnel, trying every second to crawl           its way into my heart.           (points at the MINI-ARC           REACTOR in his chest)           This stops it. This little circle of           light. It's part of me now, not just           armor. It's a... terrible privilege.                          BANNER           But you can control it.                          TONY           Because I learned how.                          BANNER           It's different.          Banner tries to read the computer screen, but Tony slides the          data aside with his finger so the two can see face-to-face.                          TONY           Hey, I've read all about your accident.           That much gamma exposure should have           killed you.                          BANNER           So you're saying that the Hulk... the           other guy... saved my life?                          (MORE)                          BANNER (CONT'D)           That's nice. It's a nice sentiment.           Saved it for what?                          TONY                          (A BEAT)           I guess we'll find out.          Banner and Stark get back to work at their respective computers.                          BANNER           You might not like that.                          TONY           You just might.          INT. HULL HANGAR, SECURE STORAGE 10-C ≠ NIGHT          Steve, with all his MIGHT, slides the HEAVY IRON door and          STEALTHILY walks in. SECURE STORAGE 10-C is a large warehouse,          filled with METAL CRATES stacked.          Steve looks up, seeing another level. He LEAPS up high and holds          onto the catwalk railing. Steve continues to move forward.          INT. VAN ≠ NIGHT          Inside this particular van, Selvig and a few other SOLDIERS are          driving inside a long tunnel. With the CMS device inside, Selvig          carefully picks up the small cylinder shape IRIDIUM with metal          prongs and lightly places it a SLOT within the CMS. THE CMS          ACCEPTS IT. Selvig looks at it, devilishly smiling.          INT. BRIEFING ROOM ≠ NIGHT          On a SHIELD monitor is a photo and record of JANE FOSTER. Thor          looks at her, remembering. With him is Agent Coulson.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           As soon as Loki took the doctor we           moved Jane Foster. We've got an           excellent observatory in Traunsee. She           was asked to consult there very           suddenly yesterday. Handsome fee,           private plane, very remote. She'll be           safe.                          THOR           Thank you. It's no accident Loki taking           Erik Selvig. I dread what he plans for           him once he's done. Erik is a good man.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           He talks about you a lot. You changed           his life. You changed everything around           here.                          THOR           They were better as they were. We           pretend on Asgard that we're more           advanced, but we...we come here           battling like BILCHSTEIM.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Like what?                          THOR           BILCHSTEIM? You know; huge, scaly, big           antlers. You don't have those?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Don't think so.                          THOR           They are repulsive, and they trample           everything in their path.          Thor walks over to the side of the ship and looks out the          window, lamenting about what has happened and what may come.                          THOR           When I first came to earth, Loki's rage           followed me here and your people paid           the price. And now again. In my youth I           courted war.           NICK FURY (O.S.)           War hasn't started yet.                          (WALKING IN)           You think you can make Loki tell us           what the Tesseract is?                          THOR           I do not know. Loki's mind is far           afield, it's not just power he craves,           it's vengeance upon me. There's no pain           that would prize his need from him.                          NICK FURY           A lot of guys think that, until the           pain stops.                          THOR           What are you asking me to do?                          NICK FURY           I'm asking. What are you prepared to           do?                          THOR           Loki is a prisoner.                          NICK FURY           Then why do I feel like he's the only           person on this boat that wants to be           here?          Thor doesn't answer.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ NIGHT          Loki walks back and forth inside his glass cell. Suddenly, he          stops.                          LOKI           There's not many people that can sneak           up on me.           (turns to see NATASHA                          STANDING THERE)                          NATASHA           But you figured I'd come.                          LOKI           After. After whatever tortures Fury can           concoct, you would appear as a friend,           as a balm. And I would cooperate.                          NATASHA          I wanna know what you've done to Agent          Barton.                          LOKI          I'd say I've expanded his mind.                          NATASHA          And once you've won. Once you're king          of the mountain. What happens to his          mind?                          LOKI          Is this love, Agent Romanoff?                          NATASHA          Love is for children. I owe him a debt.                          LOKI                          (SITTING DOWN)          Tell me.                          NATASHA           (she pulls up a chair as                          WELL)          Before I worked for SHIELD, I          uh...well, I made a name for myself. I          have a very specific skillset. I didn't          care who I used it for, or on. I got on          SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Agent          Barton was sent to kill me, he made a          different call.                          LOKI          And what will you do if I vow to spare          him?                          NATASHA          Not let you out.                          LOKI                          (LAUGHS)          Ah, no. But I like this. Your world in          the balance, and you bargain for one          man?                          NATASHA           Regimes fall every day. I tend not to           weep over that, I'm Russian... or was.                          LOKI           What is it you want?                          NATASHA           It's really not that complicated. I've           got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe           it out.                          LOKI           Can you? Can you wipe out that much           red? DRAKOV'S daughter? S√O PAULO? THE           HOSPITAL FIRE? Barton told me           everything. Your ledger is dripping,           it's gushing red, and you think saving           a man no more virtuous than yourself           will change anything?                          (STANDING; ANGRY)           This is the basest sentimentality. This           is a child at prayer... PATHETIC!                         INTERCUTS          - Tony and Banner continuously work at their monitors.           LOKI (V.O.)           You lie and kill in the service of           liars and killers.          - Agent Hill checks every VIEWSCREEN in the bridge. Fury          oversees.           LOKI (V.O.)           You pretend to be separate, to have           your own code, something that makes up           for the horrors. But they are a part of           you, and they will never go away!          - Steve opens a STEEL crate. Angry, he looks behind him and          looks back into the crate. THE CRATE IS FILLED WITH AN ARRAY OF          HYDRA WEAPONS.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ NIGHT          Loki SLAMS his cell, making Natasha FLINCH.                          LOKI           I won't touch Barton. Not until I make           him kill you! Slowly. Intimately. In           every way he knows you fear! And when           he'll wake just long enough to see his           good work, and when he screams, I'll           split his skull! This is my bargain,           you mewling quim!          NATASHA turns around, walks away from Loki, disgusted.                          NATASHA                          (QUIETLY; DISTRAUGHT)           You're a monster.                          LOKI                          (LAUGHS)           No, you brought the monster.                          NATASHA           (turns back around; poised)           So, Banner... that's your play.                          LOKI                          (STAGGERED)           What?                          NATASHA                          (ON EARPIECE)           Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep           Banner in the lab, I'm on my way. Send           Thor as well.                          (TO LOKI)           Thank you for your cooperation.          Natasha quickly walks out, leaving Loki frozen.          INT. BANNER'S LAB ≠ MORNING          Fury walks in SURPRISED to see Tony and Banner stop working on          the scepter.                          NICK FURY                          (ANGRY)           What are you doing, Mr. Stark?                          TONY           Uh...kind of been wondering the same           thing about you.                          NICK FURY           You're supposed to be locating the           Tesseract.                          BANNER           We are. The model's locked and we're           sweeping for the signature now. When we           get a hit, we'll have the location           within half a mile.                          TONY           And you'll get your cube back, no muss,           no fuss.           (suddenly his monitor show a           collection of SECRET FILES)           What is PHASE 2?          Suddenly, Steve drops a HYDRA ASSAULT RIFLE on the table causing          Fury, Banner and Tony to turn around. Cap looks pissed.                          STEVE           PHASE 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make           weapons.                          (TO TONY)           Sorry, the computer was moving a little           slow.                          NICK FURY           (trying to explain)           Rogers, we gathered everything related           to the Tesseract. This does not mean           that we're...                          TONY           I'm sorry, Nick.          Tony moves the computer screen towards Fury which shows plans of          THE WEAPONS.                          TONY           What were you lying?                          STEVE           I was wrong, director. The world hasn't           changed a bit.          At that moment, Thor and Natasha walk into the lab. Natasha          keeps her eyes right on Banner. Banner looks at her, PISSED.                          BANNER           Did you know about this?                          NATASHA           You wanna think about removing yourself           from this environment, doctor?                          BANNER           I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well           removed.                          NATASHA           Loki's manipulating you.                          BANNER           And you've been doing what exactly?                          NATASHA           You didn't come here because I bat my           eyelashes at you.                          BANNER           Yes, and I'm not leaving because           suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd           like to know why SHIELD is using the           Tesseract to build weapons of mass           destruction.                          NICK FURY           Because of him.           (pointing at Thor)                          THOR                          (STUNNED)           Me?                          NICK FURY          Last year earth had a visitor from          another planet who had a grudge match          that leveled a small town. We learned          that not only are we not alone, but we          are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.                          THOR          My people want nothing but peace with          your planet.                          NICK FURY          But you're not the only people out          there, are you? And, you're not the          only threat. The world's filling up          with people who can't be matched, they          can't be controlled.                          STEVE          Like you controlled the cube?                          THOR          You're work with the Tesseract is what          drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is          the signal to all the realms that the          earth is ready for a higher form of          war.                          STEVE          A higher form?                          NICK FURY          You forced our hand. We had to come up          with something.                          TONY          Nuclear deterrent. `Cause that always          calms everything right down.                          NICK FURY          Remind me again how you made your          fortune, Stark?                          STEVE TONY          I'm sure if he still made Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is          weapons, Stark would be neck this now about me?          deep... I'm sorry, isn't THOR          everything?           I thought humans were more           evolved than this.                          NICK FURY           Excuse me, did WE come to YOUR planet           and blow stuff up?                          THOR           Did you always give your champions such           mistrust?                          NATASHA BANNER          Are you all really that Captain America is on          naive? S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threat potential          threats? watch list?                          TONY STEVE           (to Steve) I swear to God, Stark, one          You're on that list? Are you more crack...          above or below angry bees?          Threatening! I feel          threatened!          As the "team" argues, they don't realize the BLUE GEM on Loki's          scepter is glowing brightly.          INT. AIRCRAFT CARRIER ≠ DAY          Outside the HELICARRIER, a lone carrier slowly hovers over the          ship.           SHIELD BASE VOICE           661 Bravo, please relay your pass code.           What is your hull, over?                          BARTON           Arms to ammunition, over.          Inside, BARTON and his crew suit up and arm themselves. Barton          pulls out his hi-tech bow and arrows.          INT. BANNER'S LAB ≠ MORNING          Back in the lab, the egos of these people keeping rubbing off          each other and at any moment, the shit will hit the fan.                          THOR           You speak of control, yet you court           chaos.                          BANNER           It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what           are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a           chemical mixture that makes chaos.           We're... we're a time-bomb.                          NICK FURY           You need to step away.                          TONY           (puts his arm around Steve)           Why shouldn't the guy let off a little           steam?                          STEVE           (pushes Tony off)           You know damn well why! Back off!                          TONY           (comes face-to-face with Cap)           Oh, I'm starting to want you to make           me.                          STEVE           Big man in a suit of armor. Take that           off, what are you?                          TONY           Genius, billionaire, playboy,           philanthropist.                          STEVE           I know guys with none of that worth ten           of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage.                          (MORE)                          STEVE (CONT'D)           The only thing you really fight for is           yourself. You're not the guy to make           the sacrifice play, to lay down on a           wire and let the other guy crawl over           you.                          TONY           I think I would just cut the wire.                          STEVE                          (SMILING)           Always a way out... You know, you may           not be a threat, but you better stop           pretending to be a hero.                          TONY           (that did it)           A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat,           Rogers. Everything special about you           came out of a bottle!          OUTSIDE THE HELICARRIER          The ramp of the carrier opens. The carrier maneuvers next to one          of the large turbine engines. Barton stands at the base, holding          out his bow. He pulls out a GRENADE TIPPED ARROW. He points          right at the engine.          Then...Barton moves his AIM and points the arrow about a hundred          feet from the engine. He releases. The arrow flies out,but then          SHARPLY heads for the engine. The arrow is punctured onto the          engine. It has a visible timer which is COUNTING DOWN.          INT. BANNER'S LAB ≠ MORNING          Back in the lab, Steve puffs up his chest at Tony, who just          stands there, unmoving.                          STEVE           Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds.          Thor laughs at them.                          THOR           You people are so petty... and tiny.          Tony rubs his head. Moves away from Cap.                          BANNER           Yeah, this is a tee...                          NICK FURY           Agent Romanoff, would you escort           Dr.Banner back to his...                          BANNER           Where? You rented my room.                          NICK FURY           The cell was just in case...                          BANNER           In case you needed to kill me, but you           can't! I know! I tried!                          (A BEAT)           I got low. I didn't see an end, so I           put a bullet in my mouth and the other           guy spit it out! So I moved on. I           focused on helping other people. I was           good, until you dragged me back into           this freak show and put everyone here           at risk!          Banner slowly gets upset as he looks at Romanoff, who gets          unnerved.                          BANNER           You wanna know my secret, Agent           Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay           calm?          BLACK WIDOW and Fury have their hands down to grab their guns.                          STEVE           Doctor Banner... put down the scepter.          BANNER LOOKS DOWN AND IS SHOCKED TO SEE HE'S HOLDING LOKI'S          SCEPTER. The computer beeps. They all turn to it.                          TONY           Got it.          Banner puts down the scepter and walks over to the computer.                          BANNER           Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my           little party trick after all.                          THOR           Located the Tesseract?                          TONY           I can get there faster.                          STEVE           Look, all of us...                          THOR           The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no           human is a match for it.          Tony turns to leave, but Steve stops him.                          STEVE           You're not going alone!                          TONY           You gonna stop me?                          STEVE           Put on the suit, let's find out.                          TONY           I'm not afraid to hit an old man.                          STEVE           Put on the suit.          At that moment Banner who's looking at the monitor notices          something about the Tesseract.                          BANNER           Oh, my God!          OUTSIDE THE HELICARRIER          Barton PULLS THE TRIGGER ON HIS BOW. The arrow then EXPLODES THE          ENGINE RIGHT OFF THE HELICARRIER!          INT. BANNER'S LAB ≠ MORNING          Everyone is thrown in every direction. Steve, Fury, Thor and          Tony are thrown across while Natasha and Banner is down in the          lower equipment room. Steve looks up at Tony.                          STEVE           Put on the suit!                          TONY           Yep!          Steve helps Tony up and out of the lab. Fury sits up, clutching          his ribs. He puts on his EARPIECE.                          NICK FURY           Hill?!          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          PANDEMONIUM ERUPTS. Emergency alarms set off, fire extinguishers          activate near surrounding fires and every agent is in a spinning          scramble for their positions and armaments. Agent Hill keeps the          bridge as calm as possible.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Turn up that engine! Number 3 engine is           down! Can we get a run in?           (runs over to GALAGA PLAYER)           Talk to me.                          GALAGA PLAYER           (points to monitor)           Turbine's loose. Mostly intact, but           it's impossible to get out there and           make repairs while we're in the air.           AGENT MARIA HILL           We lose one more engine, we won't be.           Somebody's got to get inside and patch           that engine.          INT. BANNER'S LAB ≠ MORNING                          NICK FURY           Stark! You copy that?!           TONY (V.O.)           I'm on it!                          NICK FURY           Coulson! Initiate official lock down in           the detention section then get to the           armory! Move out!          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Agent Coulson runs out of the bridge.          INT. LOWER EQUIPMENT ROOM, CARRIER ≠ MORNING          Natasha looks over to Banner, who is breathing heavy, having          landed hard. He is gripping the grated floor to maintain          control, but his eyes are green, his face intense.                          NATASHA (CONT'D)           (quietly, to herself)           I'm okay. We're okay, right?          EXT. HELICARRIER DECK ≠ DAY          Barton leads his men into the air ducts of the ship. They rappel          down into a corridor.                          BARTON           Get that engine down! Detention! Get           him through the dark! Come with me.          Two of his men follow him. They head towards the bridge.          EXT. ND HALLWAY, CARRIER ≠ MORNING          Tony and Cap run through a dim, debris filled hall.                          TONY           Find engine three. I'll meet you there.          Cap peels off as Tony approaches a tech room. Inside, Tony's          IRON MAN suit stands waiting, lit above in all its glory.          INT. LOWER EQUIPMENT ROOM, CARRIER ≠ CONTINUOUS          ON BANNER'S FACE in the dim light as he struggles to suppress          the rage, but his face is growing, changing slowly.          Natasha is pulling herself painfully free, talking to Banner...                          NATASHA           Doctor... Bruce, you gotta fight it.           This is just what Loki wants. We're           gonna be okay. Listen to me.          Two approaching SHIELD soldiers arrive to check on her. She          furiously WAVES them away. They bolt out of there.                          NATASHA           We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on           my life I will get you out of this, you           will walk away, and never...                          BANNER           Your life?          His voice has the change in it -- the bitter amusement is          morphing to a growled threat. Another explosion rocks the          carrier -- and he turns to look at her, transforming just as the          lights go out.                          NATASHA                          (PLEADING)           Bruce.          Banner suddenly starts transforming into the HULK and gives          Natasha one last knowing look. Natasha STRUGGLES FREE of the          rubble. She stops.          The HULK, sensing her, turns his head and puts on a face of a          disturb monster. Natasha JOLTS up the stairs with the HULK          chasing after her. Natasha maneuvers like a black widow should.          She rolls under a turbine, starts to crawl within the maze of          pipes. The HULK pulls them out from above the catwalk.          Natasha falls through under the catwalks and quickly and          stealthily escapes. The HULK lets out a ROAR OF RAGE unlike          anything. PRIMAL. Not human.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ DAY          Loki looks up, smiling mischievously.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Fury RUNS in and sees the chaos has increased even more than          before. The HELMSMAN is in complete disarray.                          NICK FURY           Bring the carrier inwards and head           south. Take us to the water.                          HELMSMAN           Why water? Navigations recalibrated           after the engine failure.                          NICK FURY           Is the sun coming up?!                          HELMSMAN           Yes, sir.                          NICK FURY           Then put it on the left! Get us over           water! One more turbine goes down and           we drop.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          CAPTAIN AMERICA, pushing with all his strength the door to          portside, sees SHIELD tech in full oxygen masks shoot fire          extinguishers and cover from sparks -- largely unable to do          anything.          Engine 3 is totally dead. A LARGE CHUNK of the port side in TORN          OFF.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Stark, I'm here!                          TONY           Good. See what we got.          Tony flies in his IRON MAN suit and gets close to the damaged          engine.          INSIDE THE SUIT          Tony observes within his viewscreen at the damaged engine and          its layouts.                          TONY           I gotta get this super conducting           cooling system back online before I can           access the rotors and work on           dislodging the debris.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          IRON MAN begins PULLING on the stuck rotors. Looks over atSteve.                          IRON MAN           I need you to get to that engine           control panel and tell me which relays           are in overload position.          IRON MAN flies into giant cooling conductors. CAPTAIN AMERICA          JUMPS over to the other side of the broken railing. CAPTAIN          AMERICA gets himself to the control panel and opens it up. For a          man who grew up as a YANK, what the fuck is this!                          IRON MAN           What's it look like in there?                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           It seems to run on some form of           electricity.                          IRON MAN           Well, you're not wrong.          INT. LOWER EQUIPMENT ROOM, CARRIER ≠ DAY          Natasha continuously crawls under the catwalk. She stops.          Then...BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The room vibrates. Rhythmically.          Natasha pulls out her gun and slowly walks out onto the catwalk          and spins.          ...and then a ROAR. THE HULK. Natasha FIRES a shot into a liquid          nitrogen pipe that hits the hulk in face. The HULK SMASHES THE          SHIT OUT OF IT. Natasha begins to run through the maze of          corridors. The sound the monster is coming.          Finally, she reaches and a long corridor. As she runs, behind          her, the HULK TEARS up the hallway, coming at her.          Natasha turns to see, but the HULK SLAPS her into the wall,          SMASHING INTO THE GROUND.          The HULK marks his territory. Natasha looks up. A fear she has          never felt begins to seep out. The HULK raises his hand and IS          KNOCKED OFF HIS FEET BY THOR WHO TACKLES HIM INTO the next room.          INT. HELICARRIER AIRCRAFT PORT ≠ CONTINUOUS          Both Thor and HULK roll across the floor. Every person runs the          hell out. Thor looks up at this magnificent beast. The HULK          stands up and moving like a boxer, wants Thor to make his move.          The HULK makes his move.          SWING AND A MISS. Thor swings his massive hand and almost knocks          HULK off his feet. HULK keeps swinging and missing, pissing him          off. Finally, he brings down his arm, but Thor grabs it and          wraps around it.                          THOR           We are not your enemies, Banner! Try to           think!          HULK lifts his arm up, to Thor's surprise, and he SENDS HIM          FLYING AS HE PUNCHES THOR'S FACE WITH HIS FIST.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          IRON MAN continuously BLASTS broken debris off the turbine          engine. It's bad, but still fixable.           CAPTAIN AMERICA (V.O.)           The relays are intact. What's our next           move?                          TONY           Even if I clear the rotors, this thing           won't re-engage without a jump. I'm           gonna have to get in there and push.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Well if that thing gets up to speed,           you'll get shredded!                          TONY           Then stay in the control unit and           reverse polarity long enough to           disengage mag...                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Speak English!                          TONY           See that red lever? It'll slow the           rotors down long enough for me to get           out. Stand by it, wait for my word.          CAPTAIN AMERICA looks over at the other side where he was. He          sees the red lever and JUMPS towards it.          INT. HELICARRIER AIRCRAFT PORT ≠ DAY          Thor CRASHES into another stack of crates. As he raises his          head, he feels something on his lips. BLOOD. As he swipes it          off, the ROAR of the HULK is not too far. Thor extends his hand          out.          The ROAR gets LOUDER and CLOSER. Thor focuses. His hand strains          toward mid-air. His eyes tight in concentration. The HULK runs          right at him. At the last second, MJ÷LNIR flies into his hand          and Thor UPPERCUTS HULK, WHO CRASHES INTO A FIGHTER JET.          HULK stands up, shaking his head like `what the fuck just          happened.' He SHAKES it off and ANGRILY rips off the TAIL of the          jet, TORQUES HIS BODY LIKE A GREEK DISCUS THROWER AND... HURLS          THE MASSIVE PLATE AT THOR.          Thor SLIDES and DUCKS under the tail. Jumping up, he throws          Mjˆlnir with all his strength, knocking the HULK head over          heels. HULK falls down, hammer in hand. HE tries to lift it, but          can't. Mjˆlnir rests atop his hand.          Struggle as he may, HULK wraps his hand around the hammer. The          hammer doesn't move. To no avail -- he strains with all his          might, SCREAMS from the effort, BELLOWING.          Thor jumps up again, KNEEING HULK in the face. Thor grabs his          hammer, jumps on him, using the hammer as a lock for his          CHOKEHOLD. Hulk tries to pull him off.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Fury and Agent Hill look over their monitors.                          NICK FURY           We need a full evac on the lower hangar           bay.          Agent Hill nods. She leaves to exit out, but a SLIDING GRENADE          appears.           AGENT MARIA HILL           GRENADE!          The grenade goes off, sending her down the steps. Fury FIRES a          shot at the open entrance. He moves over behind the side of the          entrance. A handful of Barton's men enter. Watchful, ready,          waiting... Fury steps out, his GUN drawn.          A SHOOT OUT and HAND-TO-HAND ensues, but Fury is unable to stop          one of them, which is why he is shot in the head by Agent Hill,          who looks hot and sexy holding her gun.          INT. HELICARRIER ARMORY SECTION ≠ DAY          Agent Coulson walks up the armory door. He places his head into          a FACIAL RECOGNITION SCANNER. Walks into the room.           AGENT JASPER SITWELL (V.O.)           We got perimeter breach! Hostiles are           in SHIELD gear. Hold on to every           junction.          INT. HELICARRIER AIRCRAFT PORT ≠ DAY          HULK CRASHES from under the floor, sending Thor on his ass. HULK          grabs him by the neck.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          A gunfight opens up. AGENTS exchange fire with brutally          efficient tactical soldiers.           AGENT JASPER SITWELL (V.O.)           Sir, the HULK and Thor are in shuttle           levels 2, 3 and 4!           AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir, the Hulk will tear this place           apart!                          NICK FURY           Get his attention.           AGENT MARIA HILL           (on her EARPIECE)           Escort 606, proceed to 270 MAIN           SHUTTLE! Don't get too close.           ESCORT 606 PILOT (V.O.)           Copy.          EXT. SKY ≠ DAY          ESCORT 606'S jet BANKS to the right, heading towards the          shuttle.          EXT. OUTSIDE SHUTTLE          ESCORT 606 PILOT slowly makes his way in. sees the action going          between Thor and the HULK.                          ESCORT 606 PILOT           Target acquired. Target engaged.           (pulls the trigger; fires           guns at HULK)          A SHOWER OF BULLETS SPRAYS THE HULK EVERYWHERE. Thor ducks for          cover. The HULK turns around, letting out his PRIMAL ROAR. He          jumps up, TAKES A RUNNING START AND LEAPS...          ESCORT 606 PILOT LOOKS LIKE HE TOOK A SHIT.                          ESCORT 606 PILOT           TARGET ANGRY! TARGET ANGRY!          HULK LANDS ON THE JET'S NOSE. THE JET SPINS WILDLY. As the HULK          tears it apart, ESCORT 606 PILOT pulls his ejection seat, but          HOLD THE FUCKIN' DOOR!          THE HULK CATCHES HIM, WAVES HIM AROUND AND THEN THROWS HIM AWAY.          ESCORT 606 PILOT pulls his parachute. THE JET EXPLODES. THE HULK          PLUMMETS TO EARTH, ROARING HIS SWAN SONG.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          IRON MAN laser cuts a big piece of broken metal. He then JUMPS          on it, relieving the rotors.          On the other side, BARTON'S men enter the port side. CAPTAIN          AMERICA looks down, pondering if they are help. Evidently not as          they begin SHOOTING at him and throwing grenades.          CAPTAIN AMERICA jumps to the other railing and down with          Barton's men. He begins to TAKE THEM DOWN, even goes as far as          throwing one off. A few more enter, FIRING.          CAPTAIN AMERICA grabs a NOVESKE RIFLEWORKS DIPLOMAT (big word          for big fuckin' gun) and jumps back up to his position, firing          down at them.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          The gunfight has gone down, but more of Barton's men enter and          are taken by Fury, who is confused as to why they keep coming.                          NICK FURY           They are not getting through here, so           what the hell...          Suddenly, Barton LOOSES an arrow down to the bridge and EXPLODES          critical spots. Barton releases a multi-tipped arrow towards          Fury, but instead hits his command desk, right above a USB          OUTLETS.          Fury FIRES at Barton, but is already gone. The arrow then self-          activates and inserts itself into the outlets, hacking every          single monitor and main frame. The hacking causes Engine 1 to          shut off. Suddenly, the HELICARRIER begins to DANGEROUSLY TILT          to one side.           AGENT JASPER SITWELL (O.S.)           Sir, we've lost all power in Engine 1.                          NICK FURY           It's Barton. He took out our systems.           He's headed for the detention level.           Does anybody copy?          INT. LOWER EQUIPMENT ROOM, CARRIER- DAY          Still shaken by the HULK ordeal, Natasha sits there, rocking          back and forth, after crying for a while. Summoning back all her          coolness, she touches her EARPIECE.                          NATASHA           This is Agent Romanoff. I copy.          Natasha SPRINGS up and runs for Barton.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          IRON MAN begins to push the rotor using BOOSTERS from his boots.           NICK FURY (V.O.)           Stark, we're losing altitude.                          IRON MAN           Yeah. Noticed.          The rotors start propelling faster and faster as IRON MAN'S          BOOSTERS get more and more bright.          On the other side, CAPTAIN AMERICA continuously shoots at          Barton's men. Blinking at the wrong moment, CAPTAIN AMERICA          loses the upper hand and SLIDES off the railing, but grabs onto          a LOOSE CABLE.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ DAY          Thor runs into the detention section where he finds Loki,          escaping.                          THOR           NO!          Thor CHARGES at his brother. Loki walks up to him and CROUCHES          down to attack. THOR ONLY GOES THROUGH HIM. The false Loki          dissipates into nothingness. THE REAL LOKI comes out from behind          the cell door, which closes on THOR, locking him up. Loki          smiles.                          LOKI           Are you ever not going to fall for           that?          INT. LOWER EQUIPMENT ROOM, CARRIER ≠ DAY          Barton walks alone down the catwalk. In a lightning fast move,          Barton nocks an arrow, and points it at NATASHA. A hand-to-hand          fight ensues. Natasha CRAWLS her way around Barton, making          Barton to drop his bow, but pulls out a KNIFE on her.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ DAY          Thor, in a fit of anger, SLAMS MJ÷LNIR onto the glass cell. To          his surprise, the cell door only CRACKS, but violently SHAKES          the ship. Loki stands there in caution, as does his GUARDING          SOLDIER.                          LOKI           (smiles; walks over to the                          CONTROL PANEL)           The humans think us immortal. Should we           test that?          Suddenly, GUARDING SOLDIER falls down like a tree. AGENT COULSON          stands there, holding PHASE 2 WEAPON PROTOTYPE.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Move away, please.          Loki moves away from the switch.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           You like this? We started working on           the prototype after you sent THE           DESTROYER. Even I don't know what it           does. Do you wanna find out?          A LOUD GASP. AGENT COULSON IS IMPALED THROUGH THE HEART. THE          REAL LOKI STANDS BEHIND COULSON.                          THOR           Nooo!          Loki sends Agent Coulson against the wall. Agent Coulson slumps          down, breathing fast. Loki makes his way to the control switch.          He gives his brother one last look. Thor looks at him, hopeful.          Loki opens the HATCH. Thor still hopes. LOKI HITS THE BUTTON AND          DROPS THOR OUT OF THE SHIP.          INT. LOWER EQUIPMENT ROOM, CARRIER ≠ DAY          Barton and Natasha continue attacking each other. Natasha          KICKBOXES Barton's face. Feeling that, Barton takes a SWING at          her, but she grabs his arm, TWISTING it. BARTON WRITHES IN PAIN.          Using his other arm, he tosses the knife over and begins to          SLASH at Natasha. She dodges every move, but finds herself in a          LOCK HOLD with him. As he forces the knife down, she BITES his          wrist. Barton lets go of the knife.          Natasha WRAPS her legs around his neck, FLIPS him over and arm          LOCKS him. She SLAMS his head into a pipes rail. Barton goes          down, hard. He looks up her, almost coming to his real senses.                          BARTON           Natasha...          Natasha COLDCOCKS him. Barton is out.          EXT. SKY          Thor, trapped in the glass cage, BOUNCES off the JUMBLING cell          pod. As it draws closer to land, Thor tries to swing at glass,          but misses. Land draws closer.          In a final attempt before crashing, Thor positions himself onto          the glass door and LEAPFROGS just as the cage is about to hit          the ground. The cell CRASHES into the shore as Thor crashes out          into the meadow.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ DAY          Loki has no remorse as he looks down. He closes the hatch and          proceeds to leave. A WEAK VOICE.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           You're gonna lose.                          LOKI                          (TURNING)           Am I?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           It's in your nature.                          LOKI           Your heroes are scattered, your           floating fortress falls from the           sky...where is my disadvantage?           AGENT PHIL COULSON           You lack conviction.                          LOKI           I don't think I...          AGENT COULSON SHOOTS LOKI WITH HIS PHASE 2 WEAPON PROTOTYPE,          CAUSING LOKI TO BE BLOWN THROUGH THE WALL BEHIND HIM.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           So that's what it does.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Back in the bridge, Fury sees on his VIEWSCREEN that the hatch          has been open. Knowing Agent Coulson was sent there, he goes to.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          IRON MAN continuously SPINS Engine 3, giving it all he has. THE          ROTORS ARE PROPELLING PROPERLY AND FAST. The HELICARRIER LEVELS          itself.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           Cap, I need the lever!           STEVE (V.O.)           I need a minute here!                          TONY           Lever. Now!          Tony lets go of the rotors. They spin by themselves. Tony is          then caught in one. He is now fucked. IRON MAN slips into the          rotors, getting chewed up.          EXT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          CAPTAIN AMERICA CLIMBS up the loose cable and reaches the          railing.          BARTON'S MAN opens fire once more. CAPTAIN AMERICA pulls himself          up and finally PULLS the lever.          A VENT opens up from Engine 3. IRON MAN falls out, but the suit          heavily damaged, hardly keeping him up. IRON MAN heads for Cap.          BARTON'S MAN turns his AIM to IRON MAN, who TACKLES him into the          wall. IRON MAN rolls over, tired. Cap lets out a sigh of relief.          OUTSIDE THE HELICARRIER          The carrier that brought Barton and his team now leaves, taking          Loki and his scepter. The carrier flies into the distance.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ DAY          Fury runs in finding Agent Coulson still alive, barely.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           Sorry, boss. They got rabbited.                          NICK FURY           Just stay awake. EYES ON ME!           AGENT PHIL COULSON           No. I'm clocked out here.                          NICK FURY           Not an option.           AGENT PHIL COULSON           It's okay, boss. This was never going           to work... if they didn't have           something... to...          Agent Coulson looks away. Sighs his last breath. Nick Fury looks          on grimly at Coulson. The medical team arrives.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY           NICK FURY (V.O.)           Agent Coulson is down.          Agent Hill is being treated for a gash on her head, listens on          her headset, standing up.           SHIELD AGENT (V.O.)           Paramedics are on their way.           NICK FURY (V.O.)           They're here.          INT. HELICARRIER PORT SIDE ≠ DAY          Steve and Tony listen in as well.           NICK FURY (V.O.)           They called it.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ LATER          Fury gathers Tony and Steve back into the briefing room everyone          there has a look as if in a daze. A look of numb shock is shown          on their devastated faces.                          NICK FURY           These were in Phil Coulson's jacket.           Guess he never did get you to sign           them.          Fury throws Coulson's CAPTAIN AMERICA TRADING CARDS on the table          towards Steve. Steve picks them up, STAINED WITH BLOOD.                          NICK FURY           We're dead in the air up here. Our           communications, location of the cube,           Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you.           Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that           coming.                          (A BEAT)           Yes, we were going to build an arsenal           with the Tesseract. I never put all my           chips on that number though, because I           was playing something even riskier.           There was an idea, Stark knows this,           called THE AVENGERS INITIATIVE. The           idea was to bring together a group of           remarkable people, see if they could           become something more. See if they           could work together when we needed them           to, to fight the battles that we never           could. Phil Coulson died still           believing in that idea, in heroes.          Tony gets up and walks off, not wanting to hear it anymore.                          NICK FURY           Well, it's an old fashioned notion.          EXT. MEADOW ≠ DAY          Thor walks out far into the meadow. He looks down. MJ÷LNIR.          INT. ABANDONED BUILDING ≠ DAY          Banner wakes up, in human form. He looks around and sees he is          IN A PILE OF RUBBLE and looks up at the OPEN CEILING HE CRASHED          IN. AND IS COMPLETELY NAKED. A SECURITY GUARD stands there,          amazed.                          SECURITY GUARD           You fell out of the sky.                          BANNER                          (COMING TO)           Did I hurt anybody?                          SECURITY GUARD           There's nobody around here to get hurt.           You did scare the hell out of some           pigeons though.                          BANNER           Lucky.                          SECURITY GUARD           Or just good aim. You were awake when           you fell.                          BANNER           You saw?                          SECURITY GUARD           The whole thing, right through the           ceiling. Big and green and buck ass           nude. Here...          He throws Banner a pair of big pants. Banner pulls on his pants.                          SECURITY GUARD           I didn't think those would fit you           until you shrunk down to a regular size           fella.                          BANNER           Thank you.          A beat.                          SECURITY GUARD           Are you an alien?                          BANNER           What?                          SECURITY GUARD           From outer space, an alien?                          BANNER           No.                          SECURITY GUARD           Well then, son, you've got a condition.          INT. HELICARRIER MEDICAL ROOM ≠ DAY          Barton is strapped down. Natasha watches over him as Barton          tries to shake off Loki's mind control.                          NATASHA           Clint, you're gonna be alright.                          CLINT BARTON           You know that? Is that what you know? I           got...I gotta go in though. I gotta           flush him out.                          NATASHA           We don't have that long, it's gonna           take time.                          CLINT BARTON           I don't understand. Have you ever had           someone take your brain and play? Pull           you out and send something else in? Do           you know what it's like to be unmade?                          NATASHA          You know that I do.                          CLINT BARTON          Why am I back? How did you get him out?                          NATASHA          Cognitive recalibration. I hit you          really hard in the head.                          CLINT BARTON          Thanks.           (Natasha unfastens the                          RESTRAINTS)          Tasha, how many agents?                          NATASHA          Don't. Don't do that to yourself,          Clint. This is Loki. This is monsters          and magic and nothing we were ever          trained for.                          CLINT BARTON          Loki, he got away?                          NATASHA          Yeah. I don't suppose you know where?                          CLINT BARTON          I didn't need to know. I didn't ask.          He's gonna make his play soon though.          Today.                          NATASHA          We gotta stop him.                          CLINT BARTON          Yeah? Who's we?                          NATASHA          I don't know. Whoever's left.                          CLINT BARTON          Well, if I put an arrow in Loki's          eyesocket, I'd sleep better I suppose.                          NATASHA          Now you sound like you.          Natasha sits next to her partner and friend.                          CLINT BARTON           But you don't. You're a spy, not a           soldier. Now you want to wade into a           war. Why? What did Loki do to you?                          NATASHA           He didn't, I just...                          (SHE PAUSES)                          CLINT BARTON           Natasha.                          NATASHA           I've been compromised. I got red in my           ledger. I'd like to wipe it out.          INT. HELICARRIER DETENTION SECTION ≠ DAY          Tony look at the empty cell container. He stands not saying a          word. Steve walks in.                          STEVE           Was he married?                          TONY           No. There was a uh...cellist, I think.                          STEVE           I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man.                          TONY           He was an idiot.                          STEVE           Why? For believing?                          TONY           For taking on Loki alone.                          STEVE           He was doing his job.                          TONY           He was out of his league. He should           have waited. He should have...                          STEVE          Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony.                          TONY                          (WALKS AWAY)          Right. How did that work for him?                          STEVE          Is this the first time you've lost a          soldier?                          TONY           (turns around sharply)          WE ARE NOT SOLDIERS! I am not marching          to Fury's fife!                          STEVE          Neither am I! He's got the same blood          on his hands as Loki does. Right now          we've got to put that aside and get          this done. Now Loki needs a power          source, if we can put together a          list...                          TONY           (looking at the blood stained                          WALL)          He made it personal.                          STEVE          That's not the point.                          TONY          That is the point. That's Loki's point.          He hit us all right where we live. Why?                          STEVE          To tear us apart.                          TONY          He had to conquer his greed, but he          knows he has to take us out to win,          right? That's what he wants. He wants          to beat us and he wants to be seen          doing it. He wants an audience.                          STEVE           Right, I caught his act at Stuttengard.                          TONY           Yeah. That's just a preview, this is           opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva.           He wants flowers, he wants parades, he           wants a monument built in the skies           with his name plastered...                          (PAUSE)           Sonofabitch!          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Selvig works around the CMS device that has already been set-          upon the rooftop of Tony's tower.          INT. HELICARRIER MEDICAL ROOM ≠ DAY          Steve walks in full uniform. Natasha looks at him, unprepared.                          STEVE           Time to go.                          NATASHA           Go where?                          STEVE           I'll tell you on the way. Can you fly           one of those jets?          Barton walks out of the restroom. Looks at Cap.                          CLINT BARTON           I can.          Steve looks at Natasha and she nods her head to confirm Barton's          on their side.                          STEVE           You got a suit?                          CLINT BARTON           Yeah.                          STEVE           Then suit up.                         MONTAGE          - KRAKAKABOOM! A blinding BOLT OF LIGHTNING strikes down from          above, colliding on MJ÷LNIR. The explosion is massive. THE          MIGHTY THOR.          - CAPTAIN AMERICA pulls on his HELMET and SHIELD.          - Tony WELDS his IRON MAN helmet. LIGHT slips down over IRON          MAN's eye holes.          - BLACK WIDOW attaches a GLOVE GAUNTLET with her rounds on her          wrist. A BLUE LIGHT CHARGES.          - HAWKEYE slips on his QUIVER of arrows.          EXT/INT. QUINJET ≠ DAY          Cap, Widow and Hawkeye walk towards and into the QUINJET. A          YOUNG SHIELD PILOT looks and stands in their way.           YOUNG SHIELD PILOT           You are not authorized to be here...                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Son... just don't.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Fury looks the window of the ship, contemplating. Agent Hill          walks up to him, knowing.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir.                          NICK FURY           Agent Hill?           AGENT MARIA HILL           Those cards, they were in Coulson's           locker, not in his jacket.                          NICK FURY           They needed the push.           (holding Coulson's cards)          A LOUD NOISE SCREECHES. Fury looks out to see IRON MAN flying          off as well as the QUINJET.                          NICK FURY           They found it. Get our communications           back up, whatever you have to do. I           want eyes on everything.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Yes, sir.          EXT. NEW YORK CITY SKYLINE - STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          IRON MAN arrives at STARK TOWER where Selvig, ACTIVATES the CMS          device, holding the Tesseract.                          JARVIS           Sir, I took off the arc reactor. The           device is already self-sustained.                          TONY           Shut it down, Dr. Selvig.                          SELVIG           It's too late! It can't stop now. He           wants to show us something! A new           universe.                          IRON MAN           Okay.          IRON MAN aims his hands toward the CMS and FIRES. The energy          from his boosters SHATTERS with a deafening CRACK! Selvig falls          backwards. DOWN BELOW, CITIZENS OF NEW YORK look up at STARK          TOWER. IRON MAN stares in disbelief at the CMS ... unharmed.                          JARVIS           The barrier is pure energy. It's           unbreachable. The Mark VII is not ready           to be deployed.                          TONY           Skip the spinning rims. We're on the           clock.          TONY lands his SUIT and goes through the gauntlet and unsuits          him. LOKI looks up at him, smiling. They proceed to walk into          the penthouse.          INT. STARK PENTHOUSE ≠ DAY          Loki walks in, holding the scepter. Tony casually walks down the          steps, towards the bar.                          LOKI           Please tell me you're going to appeal           to my humanity.                          TONY           Uh...actually, I'm planning to threaten           you.                          LOKI           You should have left your armor on for           that.                          TONY           Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage.           You've got the blue stick of destiny.           Would you like a drink?                          LOKI           Stalling me won't change anything.                          TONY           No, no, no! Threatening. No drink? You           sure? I'm having one.                          LOKI           The CHITAURI are coming, nothing will           change that. What have I to fear?                          TONY           THE AVENGERS.           (Loki looks at him, confused)           It's what we call ourselves, sort of           like a team. `EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES'           type of thing.                          LOKI           Yes, I've met them.                          TONY                          (SMILING)           Yeah, takes us a while to get any           traction, I'll give you that one.                          TONY (CONT'D)           But, let's do a head count here. Your           brother, the demi-God; a super soldier,           a living legend who kind of lives up to           the legend; a man with breath-taking           anger management issues; a couple of           master assassins, and you, big fella,           you've managed to piss off every single           one of them.                          LOKI           That was the plan.                          TONY           Not a great plan. When they come, and           they will, they'll come for you.          From underneath the bar table, Tony pulls on COLANTOTTE          BRACELETS, a honing device.                          LOKI           I have an army.                          TONY           We have a HULK.                          LOKI           I thought the beast had wandered off.                          TONY           You're missing the point. There's no           throne, there is no version of this,           where you come out on top. Maybe your           army comes and maybe it's too much for           us, but it's all on you. Because if we           can't protect the Earth, you can be           damned well sure we'll avenge it.                          LOKI           (slowly walks up to him;           raising the scepter)           How will your friends have time for           me,when they're so busy fighting you?          Loki TAPS Tony on the chest with his scepter. PING! Nothing.          Confused, Loki tires again. PING! NOTHING.                          LOKI           It should work.                          TONY           Well, performance issues. You know?          In anger, Loki GRABS Tony by the throat and FLINGS him across          the room.                          TONY           Jarvis. Anytime now.          Loki grabs Tony by the throat again.                          LOKI           You will all fall before me.          LOKI THROWS TONY OUT THE WINDOW. Tony FREEFALLS down the tower.          From behind Loki, an elevator opens and a RED POD SHOOTS out.          The pod LASER SIGNALS the COLANTOTTE BRACELETS on Tony. The POD          begins to TRANSFORM into the MARK VII suit.          It LATCHES onto Tony. IRON MAN. The suit FLIES up before he hits          the ground or the gazing people. Loki looks up, angry.                          IRON MAN           And there's one other person you pissed           off! His name was Phil.          Loki raises the scepter. IRON MAN FIRES at Loki, sending him on          his ass.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Selvig looks up at the sky. The Tesseract's energy BEAMS into          the sky. The beam then forms a VORTEX, which then opens up          ANOTHER PORTAL.          EXT. VASTNESS OF SPACE          A hole in space rips open, and from it, the CHITAURI ARMY SPILLS          out in FLYING CHARIOTS, carrying ENERGY RIFLES with a bayonet on          the end.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           Right. Army.          IRON MAN flies up towards the portal. From his shoulders, a          miniature multiple rocket launcher, pops out and FIRES. Like the          JERICHO MISSILE, several targets are taken down unlike no          missile. It's useless. THOUSANDS OF CHITAURI FLY OUT. IRON MAN          flies towards the city.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          The CHITAURI UNLEASH. New Yorkers fill the streets, staring at          the fire fight in the distance. BOOM!!! The CHITAURI unleashes          BLASTS as it goes, blowing up cars, setting storefronts aflame.          AN EXPLOSION RIPS OUT THE WINDOWS OF THE TOP CORNER OF          BUILDINGS. FLAME AND STONE RAIN DOWN. A DOMINO-EFFECT OF          EXPLOSIONS RIPPLING ACROSS THE BRIDGE.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Loki walks onto the balcony as the SOUNDS of the CHITAURI rings          out. He admires his soon to be kingdom. THOR LANDS ON THE TOWER.          Loki turns to his ENEMY.                          THOR           Loki! Turn off the Tesseract or I'll           destroy it!                          LOKI           You can't. There is no stopping it.           There is only the war!                          THOR           So be it.          Loki and Thor rush at each other. They and their weapons          collide. The two battle -- Loki unleashing another pent-up rage          and jealousy, Thor having no choice but to defend himself.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          SOLDIERS AND COPS have taken positions covering the streets.          They see from the sky, IRON MAN leading a trail of CHITAURI          towards his tower.          EXT. SKY ≠ DAY          The QUINJET BOOMS into the city.           BLACK WIDOW (V.O.)           Stark, we're heading north east.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          IRON MAN           What, did you stop for drive-thru?           Swing up PARK, I'm gonna lay 'em out           for you.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          IRON MAN BANKS around his tower. Sees Thor and Loki still going          at it. IRON MAN SWOOPS down the street, causing a CHITAURI to          crash.          Flying up, IRON MAN puts the following CHITAURI in view of the          QUINJET. BLACK WIDOW takes out machine gun and FIRES at the          CHITAURI.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          JARVIS           Sir, we have more incoming.                          TONY           Fine. Let's keep them occupied.          IRON MAN heads back to the portal.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Thor and Loki battle savagely. Loki fires ENERGY from the          scepter, sending Thor sliding across the floor.          INT. QUINJET ≠ DAY          HAWKEYE looks out to his left window, finding a target.                          HAWKEYE           Yeah.                          BLACK WIDOW           See them.          HAWKEYE BANKS the jet towards STARK TOWER. Aims the MINIGUN at          Loki. Loki AIMS the scepter at the QUINJET and FIRES A BLAST OF          ENERGY. Thor gets to his feet, TACKLING Loki down hard.          THE QUINJET is soon caught on fire. HAWKEYE maneuvers one wing          of the jet. They SPIN and SLOW. DROPPING OUT OF THE AIR AS IT          PASSES OVER SKYSCRAPERS. Then... they SLAM into the street.          INT. QUINJET ≠ DAY          With everyone okay, HAWKEYE and BLACK WIDOW unfasten their          seatbelts and open the ramp. CAPTAIN AMERICA runs down, followed          by HAWKEYE and BLACK WIDOW. Each one has their respected weapons          in hand.          EXT. FOUR WAY STREET ≠ DAY          The TRIO arrives in the middle of a four-way street. Suddenly,          the city LURCHES to a stop. A DEEP, PRIMAL RAGE BELLOWS OUT.          With that roar, a SHADOW comes over them.          EXT. VASTNESS OF SPACE          From the portal, a FUCKING CHITAURI LEVIATHAN FLIES OUT!          Carrying hundreds of SOLDIERS, the CHITAURI LEVIATHAN PASSES          OVER the TRIO.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          They look up, out of their element. From both sides, CHITAURI          SOLDIERS CLING OFF and attach themselves to the sides of the          buildings, sliding down. Some CRASH into these buildings and          begin FIRING from their ENERGY RIFLES at innocent people.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Stark, are you seeing this?          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           I'm seeing, still working on believing.           Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?           CAPTAIN AMERICA (V.O.)           Banner?                          TONY           Just keep me posted. Jarvis, find me a           soft spot.          IRON MAN quietly flies behind and parallel with the CHITAURI          LEVIATHAN.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Thor holds down Loki's face straight ahead, forcing him to watch          the city falling to ash.                          THOR           Look at this! Look around you! You           think this madness will end with your           rule?                          LOKI           (tries to look away)           It's too late. It's too late to stopit.                          THOR           No. We can. Together.          Loki looks at his brother, showing a sign of hope. Then... Loki          stabs Thor with a small knife. Thor keels over.                          LOKI           Sentiment.          Thor gets up, KICKS Loki and lifts him into the air. Thor then          SLAMS him down, hard. Loki, bleeding, rolls over the edge. Thor          looks down. LOKI IS RIDING ON A FLYING CHARIOT. DOZENS of          CHITAURI follow his lead.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          The TRIO runs behind upside taxis. They look up and see Loki          taking his band down the street and FIRES at the street IN A          CHAIN OF EXPLOSIONS. SMASHING CARS AND HURLING PEOPLE AS IT GOES          IT GOES OFF IN ONE FINAL CONFLAGRATION.          TERRIFIED PEOPLE running from Loki, looking over their          shoulders, coming straight at us. CAPTAIN AMERICA looks down the          bridge.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Those people need assistance down           there.          CHITAURI SOLDIERS that have landed near them and begin FIRING at          them. BLACK WIDOW pulls both pistols and FIRES. Turns to Cap.                          BLACK WIDOW           We got this. It's good. Go!                          CAPTAIN AMERICA                          (AT HAWKEYE)           You think you can hold them off?                          HAWKEYE           Captain.           (pulls a trigger on his bow;           a narrow is mechanically                          CHOSEN)           It would be my genuine pleasure.          HAWKEYE shoots an ARROW into the creature's head, gaining a few          seconds for CAPTAIN AMERICA as he falls down the bridge,          followed by an EXPLOSION.          Cap races over to the plaza, jumping over dozens of EXPLODING          cars. THE FIRST AVENGER RUNS LIKE A FUCKING CHEETAH.          HAWKEYE runs over a bus full of people. From the windows, SMALL          CHILDREN are held by their parents for HAWKEYE to pull them out          to safety. He runs over to the jammed door and JERKILY opens it.          People begin to run out.          BLACK WIDOW empties out her CLIPS. HAWKEYE fires ARROWS into the          ranks of the CHITAURI, hitting his mark each time he shoots.                          BLACK WIDOW           Just like BUDAPEST all over again!                          HAWKEYE           You and I remember Budapest           verydifferently.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          The COPS continuously fire at the flying chariots. It's pretty          pointless. A YOUNG COP runs over to his POLICE SERGEANT.                          YOUNG COP           We need to get out! They gotta bring           the National Guard!                          POLICE SERGEANT           National Guard? Does the army know           what's happening here?                          YOUNG COP           Do we?          CAPTAIN AMERICA jumps in front of them. They look up at this          ridiculous looking man.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           I need men in these buildings. There           are people inside that can run into the           line of fire. You take them through the           basement or through the subway. You           keep them off the streets. I need a           perimeter as far back as 39th.                          POLICE SERGEANT           Why the hell should I take orders from           you?          Suddenly, an EXPLOSION comes up from behind Cap. An ENERGY BLAST          is blocked by his SHIELD. TWO CHITAURI SOLDIERS attack. The cops          watch in shock as CAPTAIN AMERICA FIGHTS them off with ease. The          Sergeant turns to his officer.                          POLICE SERGEANT           I need men in those buildings, lead the           people down and away from the streets.           I need a perimeter as far back as 39th.          EXT. SKY LINE ≠ DAY          IRON MAN swerves around a building and faces the CHITAURI          LEVIATHAN. He pulls out his miniature multiple rocket launcher          and FIRES. The CHITAURI LEVIATHAN ROARS in annoyance. The          CHITAURI LEVIATHAN turns to him.                          IRON MAN                          (TO JARVIS)           We got his attention. What the hell is           step two?!          IRON MAN flies away.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          HAWKEYE TRIPS a CHITAURI SOLDIER and RAMS an arrow down its          throat. BLACK WIDOW gets her hands on an ENERGY RIFLE and          STICKFIGHTS the hell out of them.          CAPTAIN AMERICA joins back in and using his SHIELD, SWAPS and          WHACKS oncoming CHITAURI SOLDIERS. It's all too much on them,          until...          Lightning strikes down from the sky, channeling the blast,          firing the electricity out at the CHITAURI SOLDIERS around them.          They're blasted back in a massive shockwave. The CHITAURI          SOLDIERS convulse, drop dead to the ground. THOR TOUCHES DOWN.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           What's the story upstairs?                          THOR           The powers surrounding the cube is           impenetrable.           IRON MAN (V.O.)           Thor is right. We gotta deal with these           guys.                          BLACK WIDOW           How do we do this?                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           As a team.                          THOR           I have unfinished business with Loki.                          HAWKEYE           Yeah, get in line.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Save it. Loki's gonna keep this fight           focused on us and that's what we need.           Without him these things could run           wild. We got Stark up top, he's gonna           need us...          Just then, BANNER ARRIVES ON A SMALL MOTORBIKE. Getting off, he          looks around the city.                          BANNER           So, this all seems horrible.                          BLACK WIDOW           I've seen worse.                          BANNER           Sorry.                          BLACK WIDOW           No. We could use a little worse.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Stark? We got him.           IRON MAN (V.O.)           Banner?                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Just like you said.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing           the party to you.          IRON MAN comes out from behind a building. The CHITAURI          LEVIATHAN follows, impatiently.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          The rest of the AVENGERS look up, getting ready and standing          still.                          BLACK WIDOW           I... I don't see how that's a party...          IRON MAN SWOOPS down the street. The CHITAURI LEVIATHAN also          swoops down, BARRELING down the street like a FREIGHT TRAIN that          keeps building and building its intensity.Banner looks behind.          Cap looks at him. Banner begins to walk towards the monster.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Dr. Banner. Now might be a really good           time for you to get angry.                          BANNER           That's my secret, Captain. I'm always           angry.          Banner's body starts to swell and stretch and harden. GREEN          SHOOTS THROUGH HIS BODY. THE HULK.          Aaaannndddd.........SSSMMMAAASSSHHH!!!! HULK POPS the CHITAURI          LEVIATHAN IN THE NOSE. THE CREATURE FLIPS OVER A 360.          IRON MAN, in mid-flight, extends his arm out and a ROCKET, ready          to shoot. IRON MAN FIRES -- the rocket hits a SOFT SPOT ≠ LARGE          CHITAURI LEVIATHAN are BLOWN COMPLETELY AWAY. Real pain from the          CHITAURI LEVIATHAN. Other pieces of meat CATCH FIRE and          withdraw... SIZZLE as they hit the pavement. CAPTAIN AMERICA          raises his SHIELD to block them.          From above and on the buildings, the CHITAURI ARMY watches in          horror as a group of EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES FIND THEMSELVES          UNITED AGAINST A COMMON THREAT. TO FIGHT THE FOES NO SINGLE          SUPER HERO COULD WITHSTAND! THE AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!          EXT. SKY ≠ DAY          Loki watches below, motionless.                          LOKI           Send the rest.          EXT. VASTNESS OF SPACE          From the portal, THOUSANDS MORE OF CHITAURI SOLDIERS AND EVEN          MORE CHITAURI LEVIATHANS FLY OUT!          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          THE AVENGERS look up. Way out of their fucking element.                          BLACK WIDOW           Guys.                          IRON MAN           Call it, Cap.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Alright, listen up. Until we can close           that portal up there, we're gonna use           containment. Barton, I want you on that           roof, eyes on everything. Call out           patterns and strays. Stark, you got the           perimeter. Anything gets more than           three blocks out, you turn it back or           your turn it to ash.                          HAWKEYE           Wanna give me a lift?                          IRON MAN           Right. Better clench up, LEGOLAS.          IRON MAN lifts HAWKEYE up to the building.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck           that portal. Slow them down. You've got           the lightning. Light the bastards up.           (Thor flies up; to Natasha)           You and me, we stay here on the ground,           keep the fighting here. And Hulk.SMASH.          THE HULK SMILES A MOST MAGNIFICENT GRIN AND LEAPS, SOARING HIGH          UP INTO THE NEAREST BUILDING, HULK RUNS UP THE WALL HITS SEVERAL          CHITAURI SOLDIERS, SNAPPING IN HALF.          HE DIVES TOWARDS A BUILDING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET,          THROWING THE DEAD CHITAURI SOLDIERS TOWARDS OTHER SOLDIERS. The          CHITAURI SOLDIERS fire at him. THE HULK BACKHANDS THEM, SEIZES          THEM AND WITH RAW POWER, THROWS THEM DOWN.          IN HIS MOST POWERFUL LEAP YET, THE HULK FLIES UP AND IS IN THE          MIDDLE OF A FLYING CHARIOT TRAFFIC JAM, TO WHICH HE SMACKS THEM          OUT OF ALTITUDE.          EXT. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING ≠ DAY          Thor grabs onto the tower. Raises MJ÷LNIR and KRAKAKABOOM! A          BLINDING BOLT OF LIGHTNING strikes down from above, colliding on          MJ÷LNIR. THOR AIMS THIS MASSIVE SHOCKWAVE TOWARDS THE PORTAL.          THOR CHANNELS THE BLAST AND FIRES THE ELECTRICITY OUT AT THE          CHITAURI SOLDIERS FLYING OUT OF THE PORTAL. THEY'RE BLASTED BACK          IN A MASSIVE SHOCKWAVE. THE CHITAURI SOLDIERS CONVULSE, DROP          DEAD TO THE GROUND. HE EVEN RIPS THE SHIT OUT OF A CHITAURI          LEVIATHAN, WHICH THEN FUCKING EXPLODES.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Back in the bridge, Fury sees on his VIEWSCREEN the destruction          going on in NEW YORK. Agent Hill walks up to him.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir. The council is on.          OH SHIT. Fury presses his screen.          EXT. ROOFTOP BUILDING ≠ DAY          Atop the rooftop, HAWKEYE fires ARROWS into the streaming flow          of the CHITAURI RIDERS, hitting his mark each time. Hell, heeven          AIMS his bow behind him, WITHOUT LOOKING and releases the arrow,          EXPLODING a RIDER.                          HAWKEYE           Stark. You got a lot of strings           sticking to your tail.                          IRON MAN           Just try and keep them off the streets.                          HAWKEYE           Well, they can't bank worth a damn.           Find a tight corner.                          IRON MAN           I will roger that.          IRON MAN does so and leads towards TIGHT CORNERS and in          HAWKEYE'S view, who fires arrow upon and arrow, EXPLODING the          CHITAURI RIDERS. IRON MAN keeps leading CHITAURI RIDERS UNDER          TUNNELS, THROUGH OPEN PARKING GARAGES. He looks back. None left.          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           Nice call. What else you got?           HAWKEYE (V.O.)           Well, Thor's taking on a squadron down           on 6th.                          TONY           And he didn't invite me?          EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - CONFERENCE ROOM ≠ DAY          We are looking INTO a conference room where office workers sit          around a table. But the NOISE has caught one worker's eye, then          another, and soon they are all rising, stepping to the window,          mesmerized by what lies beyond.          WORKERS' POVA CHITAURI LEVIATHAN SWIMS right in front of them.          EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - CONFERENCE ROOM ≠ DAY          Suddenly, another NOISE catches the worker's attention. THE HULK          CRASHES THROUGH THEIR FLOOR. SLASHES HIS THROUGH THE ROOM,          POUNDING AWAY AND JUMPS OUT ONTO THE JAW OF THE CHITAURI          LEVIATHAN. THE CHITAURI LEVIATHAN BEGINS TO HEAD DOWN, TRYING TO          WAVE OFF THE HULK.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          BLACK WIDOW, using the ENERGY RIFLE, is taken off her feet by a          CHITAURI SOLDIER. She TIRESOMELY takes it down by cutting its          throat. She grabs the ENERGY RIFLE, turns to attack. Cap stands          there, holding his SHIELD. She slumps back, tired.                          BLACK WIDOW           Captain, none of this is gonna mean a           damn thing if we don't close that           portal.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Our biggest guns couldn't touch it.                          BLACK WIDOW           Well, maybe it's not about guns.           (gestures the flying                          CHARIOTS)                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           You wanna get up there, you're gonna           need a ride.                          BLACK WIDOW           I got a ride. I could use a lift           though.          BLACK WIDOW backs up giving herself a running start. Cap lifts          and angles his SHIELD.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Are you sure about this?                          BLACK WIDOW           Yeah. It's gonna be fun.          BLACK WIDOW RUNS AT CAPTAIN AMERICA. BLACK WIDOW DOES A PARKOUR          MOVE, USING HER FEET TO RUN UP THE CAR AND JUMPS UP ON CAP'S          SHIELD, WHO GIVES HER A BOOST WITH THE SHIELD. SHE GRABS ONTO A          FLYING CHARIOT.          [Note: The following sequence will take us through the action in          one extended shot.]          - BLACK WIDOW climbs onto the chariot and CUTS the turret          shooter's linkage to it. She then JUMPS on the rider and STICKS          her knives into his nervous system. She gets him to BANK over a          building.          - IRON MAN arrives and SHOOTS any other CHITAURI RIDERS          following her. He makes his way down to CAPTAIN AMERICA, who          fights off more CHITAURI SOLDIERS. IRON MAN points his HAND          BOOSTERS at his SHIELD. The energy comes off and Cap uses it as          a REFLECTION BEAM and takes down nearby CHITAURI.          - From above them, HAWKEYE sends down remaining arrows. He sends          one across the street, taking down a CHITAURI RIDER following          IRON MAN.          - Finally, we have THOR and HULK fight on top the back of the          CHITAURI LEVIATHAN, tearing apart and fighting SOLDIERS. HULK          BREAKS OFF A MASSIVE PIECE OF ARMOR AND SLAMS IT DOWN ONTO THE          SPINE OF THE CHITAURI LEVIATHAN. Summoning all his strength he,          THOR RAISES, DRAWING LIGHTNING TO IT FROM ALL SIDES, AND BRINGS          IT DOWN WITH A FINAL, TERRIBLE BLOW--          INT. HISTORY MUSEUM ≠ DAY          The CHITAURI LEVIATHAN CRASHES into a history museum. DEAD. THOR          and HULK stand on the BACK of the CHITAURI LEVIATHAN after          bringing it down. They stand still, admiring. HULK PUNCHES THOR          WITH HIS ENORMOUS HAND. THOR GOES FLYING. HULK SMIRKS.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          SELVIG WAKES UP FROM LOKI MIND CONTROL. He looks around,          confused where he is. He looks up at the sky, amazed.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          Several HUMVEES aim their MOUNTED .50 Cal guns into the sky,          FIRING and HITTING CHITAURI RIDERS. CAPTAIN AMERICA fights off a          SOLDIER who is pinning him down with its energy rifle. Cap          BREAKS ITS LEG. He stands up, pickingup his SHILED.                          HAWKEYE           Captain, the bank on 42ndpast MADISON,           they caught a lot of civilians there.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           I'm on it.          INT. 42NDBANK ≠ DAY          Dozens of civilians are gathered in bank. Tension and          uncertainty surround them. THREE CHITAURI SOLDIERS oversee them,          pointing their weapons at them. One of them charges a BOMB. It          BEEPS.          CAPTAIN AMERICA jumps through the window and throws his SHIELD          at the CHITAURI BOMBER. The TWO CHITAURI SOLDIERS aim their          rifles, but Cap heads for cover under a desk, which he KICKS at          them.          CAPTAIN AMERICA jumps over the desk, HEADLOCKS A SOLDIER, while          BACKHANDING another one over the railing. The crowd moves away.          A CHITAURI SOLDIER attacks him from behind and RIPS OFF HIS          HELMET. The bomb is beeping faster.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Everyone! Clear out!          CAPTAIN AMERICA flips over the SOLDIER, grabs his SHIELD and          just as the BOMB is about to GO OFF, CHITAURI BOMBER dives for,          trying to stop it, but it GOES OFF, sending CAPTAIN AMERICA          through the window, landing very hard on a car. The civilians          look up from below. They're okay.          EXT. OUTSIDE THE BANK ≠ CONTINUOUS          Cap gets off the car, looks around the city. Destroyed. The          police and firemen arrive, pulling out those civilians he saved.          A WAITRESS looks back, thankful.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Back in the bridge, Fury sees on his VIEWSCREEN the WORLD          SECURITY COUNCIL.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #2           Director Fury, the council has made a           decision.                          NICK FURY           I recognize the council has made a           decision, but given that it's a stupid           ass decision, I've elected to ignore           it.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           Director, you're closer than any of           oursubs, you scramble that jet...                          NICK FURY           That is the island of Manhattan,           Councilman. Until I'm certain my team           can't hold it, I will not order a           nuclear strike against a civilian           population.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           If we don't hold them in the air, we           lose everything.                          NICK FURY           I send that bird out, we already have.          Fury shuts off his viewscreen.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          BLACK WIDOW, still driving the chariot with the RIDER, is hit at          her side. She looks about, wondering whose ENERGY FIRE it was          she looks behind.                          BLACK WIDOW           Oh. You.          LOKI FOLLOWS IN HOT PURSUIT. They RACE DOWNWARD, trailing          between buildings. They RACE MADLY, driving and dodging.          EXT. ROOFTOP BUILDING ≠ DAY          HAWKEYE looks at BLACK WIDOW, astonished.                          HAWKEYE           Nat, what are you doing?           BLACK WIDOW (V.O.)           Uh... a little help!          HAWKEYE pulls the trigger twice, nocks an arrow, and points it          at Loki, smiling.                          HAWKEYE           I've got him.          FIRES. THE ARROW STREAKS DOWN THE CITY, STRAIGHT AT THE LOKI'S          HEAD...          SNATCH! LIKE A CAT, LOKI GRABS THE ARROW STRAIGHT OUT OF THE          AIR...LOOKS STRAIGHT AT HAWKEYE, SMILING...          BBOOOOMMM!!! THE ARROW EXPLODES IN LOKI'S FACE, CRASHING INTO          THE STARK PENTHOUSE PAD.          BLACK WIDOW looks down and building her momentum, she JUMPS of          the chariot, lands on top of STARK TOWER, rolling herself to the          edge.          EXT/INT. STARK PENTHOUSE ≠ DAY          As Loki looks up, shocked at what just happened, THE HULK IS          LEAPING UP AND KICKS LOKI, HURTLING TOWARDS THE GLASS WINDOW. He          COLLAPSES as he hits the wall. THE HULK jumps in, ready to          attack. Loki ROLLS himself up in a flurry of broken glass,          STANDING UP TO THE HULK.                          LOKI           ENOUGH! YOU ARE, ALL OF YOU ARE BENEATH           ME! I AM A GOD, YOU DULL CREATURE, AND           I WILL NOT BE BULLIED...          HULK GRABS LOKI BY THE LEGS AND SMASHES HIM AGAINST THE FLOOR          REPEATEDLY AND FINALLY THROWS HIM ASIDE TO THE GROUND,          FLATTENING LOKI.                          HULK           PUNY GOD.          LOKI WHIMPERS IN PAIN.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          BLACK WIDOW walks up the CMS machine. Selvig, slumped down,          weakened, looks at her desperately. The Tesseract's energy is          firing towards the portal, gaining in strength, at the surge of          energy moving through the sky.                          BLACK WIDOW           Doctor.                          SELVIG           Loki's scepter, the energy...the           Tesseract can't fight. You can't           protect against yourself.                          BLACK WIDOW           It's not your fault. You didn't know           what you were doing.                          SELVIG           Well, actually I think I did. I built           in a safety to cut the power source.                          BLACK WIDOW           Loki's scepter.                          SELVIG           It might be able to close the portal.           (Selvig looks down. He sees a                          GOLD GLEAM)           And I'm looking right at it.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          THOR rides on top of chariot, SMACKING SEVERAL RIDERS with the          hammer. As Thor takes the reins, a CHITAURI LEVIATHAN crashes          through a building, knocking him down to where Cap is, fighting          off SOLDIERS.          IRON MAN flies right next to the CHITAURI LEVIATHAN and aims his          LASER BOOSTER at it. Nothing.                          JARVIS           Sir, we will lose power before you cut           through that shell.          IRON MAN flies up ahead, facing the oncoming monster.                          IRON MAN           JARVIS. You ever hear the tale of           Jonah?                          JARVIS           I wouldn't consider him a role model.          IRON MAN FLIES TOWARDS THE CHITAURI LEVIATHAN, UNLEASHING EVERY          ARSENAL ON THE SUIT. The CHITAURI LEVIATHAN opens its mouth.          IRON MAN flies in and BURSTS out the other end, making the          CHITAURI LEVIATHAN collapse. IRON MAN rolls down the street. The          wind is knocked out of him. He looks up with an overwhelming          sigh as a SMALL BAND of CHITAURI SOLDIERS rush towards him,          holding out their rifles.          EXT. ROOFTOP BUILDING ≠ DAY          HAWKEYE turns to fire HIS LAST ARROW. Using his bow as a staff,          he knocks some CHITAURI SOLDIERS, before yanking his last arrow          off the dead body a CHITAURI SOLDIERS.          HAWKEYE nocks his arrow, DIVES DOWN THE BUILDING and FIRES his          GRAPPLING ARROW up into the side of building. Falling down,          HAWKEYE finds the MOMENTUM and SWINGS himself into a building          and CANNONBALLS in.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          The HULK holds CHITAURI SOLDIERS by the face and SLAMS them          down. More keep coming. HULK looks up. HUNDREDS OF RIDERS HOVER          OVER HIM. Then... they begin to fire ENERGY BLASTS. HULK TAKES          THEM LIKE HE'S RUNNING THROUGH A LIGHT RAIN. BLOCKING THE STREAM          OF STREAKING BLASTS, AS THOUGH SWATTING AT BEES.          EXT. HELICARRIER DECK ≠ DAY          A lone pilot sits in his cockpit, listening.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #2           DIRECTOR FURY is no longer in command.           Override order, 7 ALPHA 11.                          7 ALPHA 11 PILOT           7 ALPHA 11, confirmed. Prepare to           takeoff.          He ignites his engine.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Back in the bridge, Agent Hill sees on her SCREEN 7 ALPHA 11          preparing to leave.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir, we have a bird in motion! Anyone           on the deck, we have a rogue bird! We           need to shut it down! Repeat! Take off           is not authorized!          EXT. HELICARRIER DECK ≠ DAY          NICK FURY RUNS OUT TO THE DECK, HOLDING A FUCKING AIRTRONIC RPG-          7. He takes AIM and FIRES, HITTING the TAIL END of the jet. The          jet SKIDS OFF towards the edge. PILOT UNHARMED.          Suddenly, another 7 ALPHA 11 JET FLIES off. Fury stands there,          knowing he can't do anything about it.                          NICK FURY           Stark, you hearing me? We have a           missile headed straight for the city.           IRON MAN (V.O.)           How long?                          NICK FURY           Three minutes, at best. Stay low and           wipe out the missile.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          IRON MAN fights off as many CHITAURI SOLDIERS as he sustain.                          IRON MAN           Jarvis, put everything we got into the           thrusters!                          JARVIS           I just did.          IRON MAN leaves the streets and flies up into the sky.          EXT. SKY ≠ DAY          7 ALPHA 11 arrives outside the city. He flips the switch to          press the button. He presses it. THE MISSILE IS FLYING OUT TO          MANHATTAN.                          7 ALPHA 11           Destination is in 2 minutes, 30 seconds           mark.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THOR BATTLE, SIDE TO SIDE. Cap and Thor both          throw their respected weapons. Thor catches MJ÷LNIR, but as Cap          turns, an ENERGY BLAST strikes him down hard. Thor runs over to          a broken car, swings the hammer and flips the car over and over          on its side, crushing a few CHITAURI SOLDIERS.          Cap tries to get up. Thor helps him back to his feet. Cap raises          his SHIELD back up.                          THOR           You ready for another bout?                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           What? You gettin' sleepy?          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Selvig, back in scientist mode, CLACKS away at his laptop.          Henods. BLACK WIDOW grabs Loki's scepter, slowly breaks into the          FORCE FIELD, almost touching the Tesseract.                          BLACK WIDOW           I can close it! Can anybody hear me? I           can shut the portal down!          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Do it!           IRON MAN (V.O.)           No, wait!                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           Stark, these things are still coming!          INSIDE THE SUIT                          TONY           I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow           in less than a minute. And I know just           where to put it.          EXT. SKY ≠ DAY          IRON MAN catches up, now comes at the missile from behind. The          missile speeds on. IRON MAN grabs it from behind, gripping it          tightly.          With a mighty effort, he wrenches the rocket off its course.          Steering it from behind, he accelerates quickly, flying straight          up into sky, towards the portal.          INSIDE THE SUIT           CAPTAIN AMERICA (V.O.)           Stark, you know that's a one-way trip?                          TONY                          (TO JARVIS)           Save the rest for return, J.                          JARVIS           Sir. Shall I call Miss Potts?                          IRON MAN           You might as well.          INT. STARK JET ≠ DAY          PEPPER, along with her crew, watches on T.V., in horror, the          destruction in NEW YORK. On the table, her cell is VIBRATING,          with Tony's picture on it.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Back in the bridge, every single agent holds their breath as          they too watch IRON MAN fly up into the portal.          EXT. SKY ≠ DAY          IRON MAN climbs higher and higher over the city, gaining speed,          suddenly flings himself through the portal. Communications die.          The suit begins to freeze. Tony looks in horror.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Every single agent CHEERS. Fury smiles. He tries to communicate          with Tony. NOTHING.          EXT. SPACE          We then see Tony's horror. AN ARMADA. The black sky is filled          with what must be ninety ships in a vague cluster. Most of them          hang still in the air. Some move swimmingly about.          IRON MAN lets go of the missile. It whistles off into the          blackness as IRON MAN IDLY falls back down the portal's opening.          The missile reaches the MAIN SHIP. The MAIN SHIP IMPLODES,          causing the entire ARMADA to burst into a supernova, creating a          spectacular heavenly display.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          Suddenly, all of the CHITAURI SOLDIERS and CHITAURI LEVIATHANS          KEEL OVER and begin to SHAKE, then stop. They all fall over. THE          AVENGERS look up at their CONSULTANT, not sure if he'll make it          through.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Still holding the scepter in hand, BLACK WIDOW shifts around,          waiting.                          BLACK WIDOW           Come on, Stark...          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY          Thor and Cap see the supernova coming towards them. Thor nods to          Cap.                          CAPTAIN AMERICA           (to BLACK WIDOW)           Close it.          EXT. STARK TOWER ≠ DAY          Without hesitating, BLACK WIDOW pulls the scepter out, the          TESSERACT turns off its energy beam. The PORTAL QUICKLY CLOSES.          A SMALL FIGURE is hurled backwards into the open now closed          portal. IRON MAN. Plummeting to the earth.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY                          CAPTAIN AMERICA                          (SMILING)           Son of a gun!          TIGHT ON IRON MAN: He keeps falling. And falling. And falling.          EXT. MANHATTAN ≠ DAY                          THOR           He's not slowing down.          Thor swings Mjˆlnir around. Just as Thor flies up, THE HULK          SNAGS IRON MAN OUT OF THE AIR, BOTH CRASHING AND SLIDING DOWN A          BUILDING.          EXT. BRIDGE STREET ≠ DAY          HULK throws IRON MAN off him. Thor and Cap run over to him. Thor          RIPS off Tony's helmet. He appears to be dead. They stand around          not sure. Then... THE HULK YELLS IN FURY. THE NOISE STARTLES          TONY AWAKE.                          TONY           What the hell? What just happened?           Please tell me nobody kissed me?                          CAPTAIN AMERICA                          (A BEAT)           We won.                          TONY           Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys.           Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's           just take a day. Have you ever tried           shawarma? There's a shawarma joint           about two blocks from here. I don't           know what it is, but I wanna try it.                          THOR           (looking up at Stark Tower)           We're not finished yet.          A beat.                          TONY           And then shawarma after.          INT. STARK PENTHOUSE ≠ DAY          Loki crawls onto the stair, looking like a piece of shit rag          doll. He takes a few breathers, senses someone is behind him. He          turns TO FIND THE AVENGERS STARING AT HIM, PISSED.                          LOKI           If it's all the same to you. I'll have           that drink.          THE HULK SNORTS AT HIM.          WEEKS LATER.          INT. SHIELD ANALYTICAL ROOM ≠ DAY          In TV news montage about THE AVENGERS, we see various reports of          what happened. Some people agree that the avengers did good,          protecting the city. Others believe it was their cause.           OLD MAN (STAN LEE)           Superheroes? In New York? Give me a           break!                          SENATOR BOYNTON           These so called heroes have to be held           responsible for the destruction done to           the city. This was their fight. Where           are they now?                          WAITRESS           What? That this was somehow their           fault? Captain America saved my life.           Wherever he is, wherever any of them           are, I just wanna say thank you.          EXT. CENTRAL PARK ≠ DAY          The Avengers take Thor and Loki, who is handcuffed and muzzled,          to a blocked area. Thor shakes hands with his team and gives          Selvig a hug. Tony opens the Tesseract's case.          Banner takes it out and places inside a glass tube, held by          Thor. Thor gives Loki the other end, who reluctantly takes it.          The Asgardians leap into the energy beam. GONE.          Then, one-by-one, the group splinters off, strolling into          different directions. Banner climbs in with Tony in his          sportscar. Steve rides away in his Harley. Natasha and Clint          climb back into SHIELD cars. They all part. For now.          INT. SHIELD ANALYTICAL ROOM ≠ DAY          Fury is facing once more members of the WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #3           Where are the Avengers?                          NICK FURY           I'm not currently tracking their           whereabouts. I'd say they've earned a           leave of absence.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #2           And the Tesseract?                          NICK FURY           The Tesseract is where it belongs: out           of our reach.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           That's not your call.                          NICK FURY           I didn't make it. I just didn't argue           with the god that did.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           So you let him take it and the war           criminal, Loki, who should be answering           for his crimes?                          NICK FURY           Oh, I think he will be.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           I don't think you understand what           you've started. Letting the Avengers           loose on this world. They're dangerous.                          NICK FURY           They surely are. And the whole world           knows it. Every world knows it.           WORLD SECURITY COUNCIL #1           Was that the point of all this? A           statement?                          NICK FURY           A promise.          Fury walks out, towards the bridge.          INT. HELICARRIER BRIDGE ≠ DAY          Fury and Agent Hill walk together, toward the window looking out          into the world.                         AGENT MARIA HILL           Sir, how does it work now? They've gone           their separate ways, some pretty           extremely far. We get into a situation           like this again, what happens then?                          NICK FURY           They'll come back.           AGENT MARIA HILL           You really sure about that?                          NICK FURY           I am.           AGENT MARIA HILL           Why?                          NICK FURY           Because we'll need them to.          Agent Hill turns around. Fury looks out, smiling.          INT. STARK PENTHOUSE ≠ DAY          TONY AND PEPPER UNVEIL A NEW DESIGN FOR STARK TOWER. CAMERA          PULLS OUT, showing the letters for "STARK TOWER" have been blown          away, and all that remains is a giant A.                                                                            THE END                          
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+THE AVENGERS Screenplay by Don Macpherson June 21, 19951 BLUE SKY WITH CLOUDS PAN DOWN to reveal:2 EXT - SALTFLATS - DAY A flat horizon, stretching to infinity. A 360 degree pan reveals: nothing. Deserted, no hiding places. No animals, no humans, no objects. Except in mid distance --3 RED PHONE BOX brightly painted, traditional, comforting, belongs in a village green. Perfectly ordinary -- except for its location. Silence. Only the wind over the plain. Except -- The PHONE RINGS. RING-RING ... a mellow, old-fashioned tone. We wait for someone to answer it. But of course nothing and nobody for miles. Except --4 IN DISTANCE a CAR ENGINE ... A puff of smoke on the horizon ... VA-VA-VOOM of high geared acceleration, as INTO VIEW ZOOM! --5 CAR speeding like a bullet. Driven at maximum, breakneck speed, 125 mph. A petite open top '65 Lotus Elan, all streamlined curves, full throttle, it nears the phone box, and -- SCREECHES to a halt. Dust clears, ENGINE NOISE FADES. From the seat, hops --6 KINKY BOOT in black leather. Buckled. Strap at ankle. Crunching into the ground. PAN UP TO:7 BEAUTIFUL WOMAN late 20's. In CLOSEUPS of -- Tight black leather catsuit. A flash of auburn hair. Black leather like a second skin. Smoothed over legs, thighs. Buckled at wrists, straps at ankles, zips -- Pulled up over flesh. This is EMMA PEEL, scientist. Sexual, invulnerable, cool. Very cool. She locks up at clouds in the sky. Then steps across to the phone box. Picks up the phone. EMMA How now brown cow ... (pause) The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain ... (pause) The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy -- From the receiver, an irritated official voice. VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Password affirmative. Thank you, Doctor. Emma puts down receiver. Hangs a cardboard outside the phone box. Then presses button bakelite box. A second's wait. A coin from the slot. Then a HUM as --8 INSIDE PHONE BOX the floor lowers automatically. Emma disappears. Hanging outside the box, a notice now reads "Out of Order." Next to the call box we notice a sign: an arrow pointing into the desert: "London 84 miles."9 INT. LABORATORY underground. Emma descends on the lift platform; steps into a research lab in retro hi tech. Walks past assistants, down long pink and orange steel corridors, Werner von Braun goes disco. Nears a door, marked: "Prospero Project -- Authorized Personnel Only." Logo with lightning emerging from a cloud.10 FROM AIRLOCK DOOR A man enters, older. In matching leather suit: like an astronaut. Early 40's, handsome, charismatic, with swept-back silver-black hair. His name tag: DR. PETER PEEL. PETER Ready, darling? Peter fixes her name tag: DR. EMMA PEEL; runs a finger down over her breast. She smiles. EMMA Ready as I'll ever be ... Mutual erotic, intellectual attraction. Peter takes her hand and they walk down:11 LONG CORRIDOR air-lock doors: a series of sealed chambers inside a hitech Labyrinth -- A man joins them. A shyer, bespectacled, less handsome version of Peter. On his name tag: DR. VALENTINE PEEL -- brother and partner. In b.g., a countdown starts, ECHOING thru the lab VALENTINE Atmospheric pressure checked, antenna ready... Thermal chamber ready ... Compression module set ... Temperature control on course between one and one forty ... Water turbulence steady ... PETER Anything else? Valentine smiles, shrugs -- VALENTINE Good luck ... Peter ... Emma. EMMA Thanks, Valentine ... Emma gives him a quick peck on the cheek. A shy look from Valentine at Emma. Peter senses PETER Just a minute, darling. My brother's a worry wart. I better have a word ... Valentine -- Peter takes Valentine over to one side. Emma checks gauges and dials. Behind her a conversation. Peter returns. He takes a ring from his finger --12 CLOSEUP - DIAMOND GEM on a gold ring.13 BACK TO SCENE He slips it onto her finger. PETER Something to remember me by. Peter smiles. The remark strikes Emma as curious. But no time to query. She smiles back. He gives her a kiss -- PETER (checks his watch) See you in an hour ... EMMA One sunny day ... The countdown ECHOES around them as they separate.14 IN DISTANCE Valentine watches her.15 INT. LAB CHAMBER Inside a bed of ice, Emma is lowered by hydraulic machine into a steel radioactive thermal chamber, glowing eerily blue The effect is very cold. Frozen. Numb. Like a sci-fi Sleeping Beauty, beauty entombed and sealed in a glass coffin. Plunged down into a vault. Opposite her -- In another glass coffin, Peter Peel, is lowered down.16 FROM EMMA'S POV The sound of their HEARTBEATS. Their BREATHING. BLEEP and PULSE OF ELECTRONICS. Thru glass and leather. Like cerebral sex. Technological, erotic. Peter winks at her -- Emma locks longingly at him, as --17 UP IN CONTROL ROOM Valentine watches behind glass. Like a kid excluded from a bedroom. He attends to dials. And to his female assistant -- VALENTINE (thrilled) Readings still normal ... The assistant smiles oddly. FOCUS ON -- An insignia tattooed on her neck: "X404." A replicant. They monitor screens. A DULL HUM.18 EXT. SALTFLATS - DAY A weather antenna emerges from the ground: an enigmatic phallic silver blob, like a Koons sculpture. The sun glints off it ...19 DOWN BELOW A temperature gauge rises. The ice is infused with pulsating colors: purple -- blue -- green -- red. Starts to heatup as if -- It soaks up temperature: from cold to hot in instants.20 CLOSEUP - WHITE GLOVED HAND ON DIAL "CUMULUS COLLECTOR." The graphs accelerate, but over the dull HUM -- a MURMUR, a BREATH. As Emma's HEARTBEAT rises The gloved hand turns up the dial, past a red danger mark. Suddenly a BLIP. Something wrong.21 DOWN IN HIS VAULT Peter Peel's "coffin" starts to overheat. Peter reacts -- PETER (intercom cutting out) Losing control -- malfunction in thermal chamber -- for Christ's -- Emm --!22 IN CONTROL ROOM Needles push off the dials, as -- The ice swells: strange mix of colors, absorbing heat and energy in clusters of molten metal ... steam and sparks ignite ... Valentine's eyes widen in alarm ... COUNTDOWN (V.O.) Five -- four -- three -- two -- one ... Three -- two -- one ... (repeating) Three -- two -- one ...23 INSIDE COFFIN Peter's glass cracks The emergency light goes on -- the ALARM sounds -- lab assistants running ...24 IN HER COFFIN Emma realizes; looks to Peter --25 EXT. SALTFLATS - DAY The "Koons" antenna is drawing a strange purple cloud towards it, from otherwise blue sky ... siphoning the purple atmosphere down itself into26 INT. CONTROL ROOM - CONTINUOUS ACTION Thru the air ducts the purple cloud starts to billow ... Panic stations! Valentine looks aghast at the graphs: all systems fucked, over the intercom -- VALENTINE Emma, Peter, get out! It's going to explode! FROM Valentine's anguished face TO Emma's face, as VALENTINE Emma ...27 FROM HER VAULT Emma undoes the straps, clambers out of her pod28 ANGLE (IN DREAMLIKE SLOW MOTION) Emma clambers onto her husband's pod -- in a sequence eternally replayed for her as a nightmare --29 BACK TO SCENE VALENTINE Get out! Leave him -- ! Emma!30 RAPID INTERCUTS The purple smoke enveloping Peter's pod, soft caresses -- Peter struggling within, looking at Emma -- EMMA Peter! Her leatherclad limbs straddled over his glass coffin. Her HEARTBEAT sounds ... She grabs, claws on glass -- Her fist draws back, blam! blam! blam! three deadly blows, Emma SMASHES the pod cover, it -- Cracks -- splinters -- not breaking -- obscuring his face inside like a spider's web, as behind her VALENTINE Don't wait for him -- he's not -- Breathless, blood smeared on glass, Emma's gashed fist bleeds thru torn leather glove -- twisted mass of flesh and glass -- GROWLING sound growing as:31 ABOVE GROUND The voluminous purple cloud being sucked by the antenna...!32 CLOSEUP ON EMMA'S DIAMOND RING gleaming thru a tear of blood as she pounds the glass --33 BACK TO SCENE PETER (faint) Emma ... Emma ... As a GROWLING sound grows till BOOM! An EXPLOSION rocks the vault -- flames burst out -- sound and vision separate -- Emma hears explosion as a slow moving tear thru her psyche. A trauma.34 ANGLE (IN EXTREME SLOW MOTION) The blast flings Emma back thru space, flying unconscious as if in a dream, floating backwards in -- A milky way op-art swirl of glass and steel fragments, now -- out of control, weightless, powerless, as -- The background of sealed doors, white corridors all vanish. A spinning, black void opens up behind her, as her eyes shut, head falls back -- An orgasmic, dream of near-death, as a CRASH OF MUSIC BEGINS a hip new version of the "AVENGERS" THEME TUNE -- CREDITS SEQUENCE.35 SERIES OF SHOTS In stark silhouette The swishing of a bowler hat spinning thru space An umbrella tossed in the air, flicked like a deadly weapon -- A rich velvety feel, key colors black/white/red. Dandyish and erotic followed by blasts of violence, dreamy op-art puzzles and psychedelic patterns over -- A sensuous BLACK, background -- slowly revealed to be a woman's leather-clad body -- In silhouette -- A bowler hatted man, Steed, a catsuited woman Emma. Flashes of: hair -- eye -- a red rose -- in bloom -- petals folding and unfolding, then tightly shut. A thorned stem, sharp to the touch -- FROM black and white INTO color -- leather Background metamorphosing into black and white of a chessboard as ... A medieval knight moves around its queen in a formal dance -- A fetishistic attention to detail: leather catsuit, swish of legs, boots ... hair tossed back - - red nails over black ... creamy white skin ... zips ... A silhouetted man in bowler hat in Savile Row suit -- old Etonian knotted tie -- umbrella stabs like a sword -- Umbrella with knotted stems of a rose furling round -- then a tear, gash -- rose cut and tossed into -- His lapel. Until, at the end: together in silhouette. Bowler hat thrown, skimming, swishing thru air, until -- Now only a single HEARTBEAT ... BA-BOOM ... BA-BOOM ... Then -- PISTOL SHOTS OVER as:36 INT. EMMA'S BEDROOM - PRE-DAWN A gasp as Emma wakes abruptly from her nightmare, years later, startled by the shots, naked beneath satin sheets. Her HEARTBEAT FADES as she looks around her Klaus Oldenberg room, vinyl comforter, satin sheets. A toss of her hair. Looks more mature. Sexual, haunted. Mrs. Emma Peel -- widow. Same every night. Next to the clock, a framed photo of her dead husband, Peter Peel. From outside ANOTHER SHOT ... Emma flings on a satin robe, goes to the window and sees --37 HER POV a CAR zooooming past, its bowler-hatted driver racing thru early morning streets. The damn thing BACKFIRES again ...38 BACK TO SCENE Emma frowns, annoyed.39 EXT. STREETS - DAWN Zoom! The sleek, sporty black Jaguar SS100 burns down deserted streets. Inside is a bowler-hatted man -- JOHN STEED, late 30's. Handsome English gent, roguish looks, dandy's clothes. A Beau Brummel figure in a Savile Row suit, velvet collar, embroidered waistcoat. A debonair Etonian, Steed oozes charm, wit and - when he chooses to -- hard-edged, steely menace. He drives through --40 LONDON (1999) This is 'Avengersland': a parallel world painted by Rene Magritte, forever England. Bright pinks, greens and reds, an imperial city in final decadent bloom. White stucco buildings. Regency style in candy colors. A surreally 90's city like a hipper, edgier version of the 60's preserved in aspic, where -- Over the RADIO, a plummy voice: ANNOUNCER (V.O.) (filtered) ... The War Office today approved military expenditure for the nation's new defense alert system. A spokesman said he would raise the matter at the forthcoming World Council of Ministers, but that a state of vigilance was still necessary in the uncertain climate. As Steed turns into a mews, we realize that in this kinky, pop world, ordinary life does not intrude. No traffic. No extras. Nothing to spoil the view. As the radio continues with a weather forecast, Steed --41 EXT. STEED'S GARAGE - DAWN Steed's car enters his garage -- Door closes as --42 INT. STEED'S FLAT - DAWN but the curtains are still drawn so the place is dark. A large bachelor's den. Dark wood, leather armchairs ... Steed enters his library from a concealed door -- Titles on wine and birdwatching. He clicks the door, goes to his drinks cabinet. Pours a brandy. Hears a noise ... Instantly on guard. In his glass, sees a shadowy reflection move. Steed peers 'round a corner. Sees a silhouetted figure stand over his desk -- a burglar? Steed sneaks up behind -- raises his umbrella, and -- Crack! Brings the umbrella down -- on the suspect's head. Who manages to dodge, swivel 'round, and -- Bam! Delivers an expert blow to Steed's stomach. A rapid exchange of blows. Steed recoils, about to jab the umbrella, when -- His assailant about to deliver a kick to his crotch -- Steed covers the area -- bam! a spiked heel hits his bowler -- as the curtains are drawn back, light floods in -- they freeze. Steed knows his opponent: a lethal blonde in red leather. STEED Brenda -- ?43 FROM ABOVE HIM a voice -- MOTHER (O.S.) Steed -- ?!44 BACK TO SCENE Steed swivels 'round to face -- upside down -- a man hanging like a bat from the ceiling inches before him -- Pommaded hair, fat, dandyish: MOTHER, head of secret services; hands of extendable metal hooks. And BRENDA, his beautiful leather-clad bodyguard. Who smiles seductively. STEED Mother. I thought you were burglars. MOTHER Brenda and I thought we'd drop in. Mother suits action to the word, drops into his wheelchair. BRENDA See how you're getting on ... STEED Something in the wind? Mother wheels himself from the study. Taps a barometer. It whirls around. MOTHER Weather's turning nasty. STEED You didn't come to talk about the weather, surely. MOTHER Oh yes I did. I want you to meet somebody. (off Steed's look) I expect you'll like her. Brenda coolly files her nails. A flash of jealousy. STEED 'Her'?45 INT. EMMA'S FLAT (PRIMROSE HILL) - DAY A groovy penthouse (a Lichtenstein come to life?). Bach PIANO MUSIC floats in the air. Hands gliding over keys, Emma Peel plays with virtuoso skill. On the piano, a framed picture of her late husband. And a photo of Emma between Peter and Valentine. A KNOCK. Emma gets up, goes to the door. The MUSIC KEEPS PLAYING, keys jumping up and down automatically, as --46 AT DOOR Emma flicks open a large automated eye. Peers thru. Opens47 IN CORRIDOR A MESSENGER (distinctive outfit) hands over a package tied in a bow. MESSENGER Dr. Peel? EMMA Thank you ... Emma shuts the door. Unties the bow, opens up Finds an embossed card: EMMA (reads) 'Please answer the Telephone.' Emma looks: The phone sits there. Just then ... RING-RING. Emma goes over, picks up the phone. A recorded message, an upper-class woman's voice: WOMAN (V.O.) (filtered) Boodles Club, the Mall, 2:30 p.m. Mr. John Steed ... Boodles Club, the Mall, 2:30 p.m. Mr. John Steed ... BEEP. The phone goes dead. Emma opens up the case. Unveils a brace of kippers. Puzzled, she holds up a fish. EMMA Kippers ...?48 EXT. BOODLE-S CLUB (PALL MALL) - DAY Near the Mall, outside white stucco buildings, a Lotus Elan pulls up and parks as a car conveniently leaves, cutting off another angry CAR. HONK! A dash clock says 2:15. Out gets -- -- Emma Peel, different attire. She climbs steps. On a brass plaque, "Boodles Gentlemen's Club." She goes in, passing -- -- an astonished uniformed commissionaire.49 INT. BOODLES' LOBBY - CONTINUOUS ACTION A PORTER approaches her, equally surprised. PORTER May I help you, madam ... EMMA Mr. John Steed, please. PORTER I'm afraid that's impossible. EMMA Impossible? The Porter points to a notice: "No non-members. No animals. No women." PORTER You are female? EMMA As you see. PORTER Then you can't come in. EMMA I have an appointment. PORTER No women. Not in Boodles. Not since 1922. EMMA Really -- what happened in 1922? Bored, Emma breezes past, already inside the hall. Old mahogany, portraits of dead politicians, leather chairs. A male enclave. The Porter rushes up to restrain her. Hardly missing a step, Emma lays a gentle hand on his shoulder -- finds the nerve ends. The Porter winces and -- EMMA Thank you so much. I can find Mr. Steed myself ... -- collapses on the ground in agony. Emma ignores him. Pushes thru double doors, upstairs, statues of naked bronze warriors frown down on her, into50 INT. BOODLES - TURKISH BATHS - DAY Thru a cloud of steam in an oriental room Steed sits naked save for a towel. He hears a disturbance, thru the mist, sees -- Emma before him. Automatically, Steed dons his bowler and tips it in her direction. STEED Doctor Peel, I presume? EMMA And you must be Steed. Please don't get up. He doesn't. HISSING STEAM between them as they study. STEED I was about to throw in the towel. EMMA I had a spot of bother at the door. STEED I shouldn't wonder. Not a woman inside Boodles since -- EMMA 1922. Why the kippers? STEED Red herring would have been too obvious, don't you think? EMMA (looks around) So what was all this -- some sort of test? STEED Congratulations, you've penetrated a bastion of male privilege. I guessed you weren't a stickler for Tradition, doctor. EMMA Whereas you are. STEED Dyed in the wool. But I can admire someone who doesn't play by the rules. EMMA Rules are made to be broken. STEED Not by me. Play by the rules, Doctor, or the game is nothing. EMMA And just what is the game? STEED I say, this is all terribly formal. Must I go an calling you Dr. Peel? EMMA (re: the steamroom) Under the circumstances, you may call me Mrs. Peel. STEED Much better. EMMA And now that we've settled the matter of honorifics, will you kindly explain why you wished me to meet you? STEED I didn't. Mother did. EMMA Mother? Steed steps closer, smiling. STEED I expect you'll like him. Off Emma's reaction --51 EXT. THAMES RIVER (NEAR WHITEHALL) - DAY CAR ROAR OVER. Down the embankment Parliament and Big Ben in b.g., the sleek Jaguar zooms at 60mph. Steed dodges traffic -- Wearing racing goggles, windscreen down -- Executes a nifty maneuver, swerves on a zebra crossing, scatters pedestrians, HONKING his HORN. Beside him, Emma is cool as a cucumber. Steed turns charmingly. STEED Tea time -- four o'clock. Mustn't be late. (beat) A word of warning. Don't take the macaroon. Mother's favorite. Steed swerves down a narrow alleyway, into a secret car park entrance by the riverbank. He pulls up before a sign: RIVER THAMES WATER AUTHORITY No Admittance At a control barrier Steed inserts a card. Emma sees a light flash up: "Security -- Top Priority Clearance Only." The barrier lifts. She looks again at Steed, reappraising him as Big Ben approaches four. The car disappears in darkness ...52 LARGE WINDOW CURTAIN opens, revealing water! We are beneath the Thames -- garbage and fish float past a window of reinforced glass. An original Campbell's tomato soup can floats down as we WIDEN to reveal ...53 INT. SECRET SERVICE HQ - UNDERWATER - DAY Mother in his wheelchair, pulling the curtain cord. MOTHER That's better. I much prefer a womb with view, don't you, Mrs. Peel? A delicate CLOCK on the mantel CHIMES FOUR. Mother wheels himself forward and hooks onto the kettle. MOTHER Shall I be mother? He pours, presiding like a fat spider at the center of a subterranean web, known as The Ministry: a vast bureaucracy in a labyrinth of tunnels. Catches Emma's wandering lock MOTHER I expect you're wondering where you are. An atmosphere of a gentleman's club reigns in the subterranean bureau -- Emma takes her tea ... EMMA Don't tell me: You're the shadow secret service. You're so hushhush, even the legit secret service knows nothing about it. Am I right? Bodyguard Brenda, a glam leather Moneypenny, wheels a trolley brimming with fancies over to Emma and Steed. MOTHER Close. We're so hush-hush, even we know nothing about it. (before Emma can make sense of this) Now let's see, there's coconut cake, date and walnut; I recommend the rum baba ... EMMA Hmmm ... MOTHER Looks like rain, Steed... STEED ... Showers followed by sunny periods. EMMA (looks up from trolley) We're not here to talk about the weather, surely. MOTHER Oh, yes we are. BRENDA (to Emma, cunning) Macaroon? Emma hesitates; takes a cake. About to take a bite, when -- Mother switches off lights. A screen drops, covering the water window as the mood changes from coziness to terror -- an ancient PROJECTOR RATTLES on ...54 IN DARKNESS Emma watches on the wall, an official Ministry film of macabre death tableaux in the English countryside: MOTHER We've had a series of bizarre weather reports. We kept them hush-hush and sent agents into the field for data. Case number one: April 14, 3:35 P.M., Special Agent Simkins investigating mysterious fires in corn circles. A field outside the village of Little Snoring, one of the hottest days of the year. Trapped by a sudden blizzard. Found frozen to death in a giant ice cube -- like a mammoth in perma-frost. (the picture changes) Case two: Pilot Raymond Shaw, May 6, 11:28 A.M. Took off from a deserted airstrip near Stoke Poges, investigating bizarre atmospheric reports. A freak rainstorm downed him. Knocked unconscious by a flying fish, falling from 15,000 feet. Twenty-five inches of rain in eight minutes, over an area the size of a cricket pitch ... (the picture changes) ... Case three: June 2, 5:43 P.M. Defense Chief Major Courtnay. Remains discovered in a turnip field near Ashby de la Zouche. Our boffins recorded a sudden blast of heat. Scorched earth, temperature of 1000 degrees. Spontaneous combustion. Not much of him left ... CLICK. The lights go back on. Emma notices - a new arrival a tall, striking OLDER WOMAN; dark glasses. MOTHER My number two. Special assignments. She's -- EMMA Let me guess -- 'Father'? FATHER (OLDER WOMAN) All happy families here, Mrs. Peel. Father's dark glasses turn to Emma like a hawk. Runs her fingers over Emma's face. Gets the outline. Emma realizes -- EMMA You're -- Blind ... Father smiles. FATHER God, you're quick. MOTHER Have a look at these, Mrs. Peel -- He passes 'round a box of evidence related to the screen events: Steed investigates a pair of black shoes and bowler; Emma, a fish. The shoes have agent Simkins' name in them ... STEED Ah ... From Trubshaw's. My shoemaker. EMMA (unimpressed) A kipper. Or a red herring? What were they investigating? FATHER A series of bizarre shifts in local weather patterns ... STEED Global warming? FATHER Jungle plants in the Arctic? A lush English village transformed overnight into African scrubland? Blizzards in summer? EMMA How curious ... MOTHER Something strange is happening. And whoever knows about it doesn't want us to find out. FATHER (to Steed) Your mission is simple. Find out how and why these agents died. EMMA I'm no spy -- where do I fit in? MOTHER Your research into climate engineering was state-of-the-art. Your experiments could have revolutionized our knowledge of global warming -- had they succeeded. We need your expertise. STEED Perhaps I'd better start calling you doctor again, Mrs. Peel -- Emma hesitates, unsure for the first time ... EMMA I'm not sure I'm ready to return to work. I've been out of action for some time. I'll consider your proposal. She gets up, ready to go. FATHER One moment, Mrs. Peel. There's another special reason we wanted you to join our happy family; rather curious, actually ... Mother hits the lights. He flicks the video into slow-mo. File thru image clarification, identikit sketches. MOTHER Eye witness reports. Strangers in the area. One description tallied in all three places. Recognize her? Emma locks. On the screen comes -- Emma Peel. Steed reacts. EMMA Me, isn't it? Emma stares at the screen: incredible. Like a twin sister. FATHER Think of it as special assignment, Mrs. Peel. With a twist. You're our chief suspect. EMMA You're saying I have no choice. MOTHER Father will be your controller. Steed here will show you the ropes. EMMA (very arch) Ropes?55 INT. SECRET SERVICE HQ SHOOTING GALLERY A life-size target of a man with blank face, bowler hat and umbrella, flips up, and -- BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Is riddled with holes byEmma, who works at reloading as56 HIGH ABOVE IN ONE-WAY MIRRORED GALLERY looking on, Mother with Steed. STEED Think she really killed those agents? MOTHER She may not know. Theory goes she may be very ill. STEED Amnesia? MOTHER Possibly. Split personality ... STEED Insane ... ? MOTHER Who knows? If Dr. Darling is right, you should watch out. STEED Why? MOTHER She may try to kill you.57 IN SHOOTING GALLERY Emma swiftly turns, aims, and -- BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! FIRES with dead-eye precision. All on target. Steed reacts. Ulp. STEED Perhaps I ought to talk with Dr. Darling.58 INT. SECRET SERVICE HQ PSY OPS ROOM A gallery of portraits of Emma Peel projected on the wall based on Warhol's Jackie (1964) -- Poignant, inscrutable, fascinating, iconic -- blown up, dissected, analyzed. The swirling newspaper dots cover Mother and Steed like bubbles from a light show. As DR. DARLING, head of the Ministry's Psychological Operations (Psy Ops) -- a kind of spy version of Timothy Leary, briefs them. In his thick dark glasses and beard, Darling's obsessive interest in Emma adds a sinister air. DR. DARLING One key point: Mrs. Peel is a widow: she's obsessively devoted to the memory of her husband the scientist Peter Peel. You may find her a little ... remote. Images of Peter Peel on the wall. Of Emma with him. DR. DARLING They were a team. Met at Cambridge. Working on a top secret research mission into weather conditions, code name The Prospero Project, when Peel died. Steed looks meaningfully at Mother. MOTHER Something went wrong. System malfunction. Explosion. Mrs. Peel had a narrow escape. Suspected sabotage. Nothing proven. File still open. STEED How come you took so much interest in her, Dr. Darling? DR. DARLING Her husband was one of ours. STEED (eyes Peel's photo, then Mother) Peel? Did she know? MOTHER Still doesn't. Better safe than sorry. She was in a dangerous game, Steed. High stakes. She may prove to be a risk. If she is, there's only one solution. Termination. STEED Anyone particular in mind? MOTHER You. OFF Steed's reaction. CLASHING BLADES OVER ...59 INT. SECRET SERVICE FENCING SALON Steed and Emma (new outfit), cross swords. Like everything else she does, Emma is a champion. Steed is hard put. Both fence attached to cables -- very high-tech dueling ... Steed is in white; Emma (natch), in black ... yin and yang ... STEED You're a lady of hidden talents, Mrs. Peel ... Tic-tac ... EMMA I've no intention of hiding them ... Tic-tac ... STEED Scientist ... (tic-tac) ... marksman ... (tic-tac) ... swordsman ... (tic-tac) ... To what do you attribute your overachievements? Fast swordplay. Tic-tac-tic-tac-tic. Steed's good, too. EMMA My father always wanted a boy. STEED Really? I fail to see the connection. EMMA I had a feeling you would. Touche! She lunges; her foil tips right into the heart on Steed's chest. BUZZ! Steed removes his mask; holds her foil tip. STEED I take your point. Emma takes off her mask. EMMA Do you? STEED Yes indeed. I need protection.60 EXT. SIGN - DAY "Trubshaw's of Jermyn Street, since 1756." Steed's Jag parked in front -- of course there's a space. Getting out EMMA I thought we were on our way. STEED Oh, absolutely, but Trubshaw's a man worth meeting. No point setting out half shod. EMMA (dry) Or half cocked.61 CLOSEUP - TRUBSHAW slips Steed's hand-made shoes an. The "lasts" shapes of shoes beside him -- bear Steed's name. STEED I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Trubshaw. TRUBSHAW (significantly) Very good, Mr. Steed. WIDEN to reveal:62 INT. TRUBSHAW'S GENTLEMEN'S SHOP - DAY A bull moose's antlers. A horned rhino. A Leopard. A tiger. Then next to them, in a wall of hunting trophies Emma paces impatiently beneath them. Shop assistants attend in tails and wing-collars, very old school tie. Steed emerges helped into a new flashy waistcoat ... EMMA (gags at the waistcoat) Steed, we really must be -- STEED (relishing his shoes) Ahh. Perfect fit. The luxury of a hand-made shoe. As unique as a face or a fingerprint. Or should I say DNA?63 BEHIND DISPLAY Eyes watching Emma and Steed rise ... EMMA You can but I wish you wouldn't ... STEED Thank you, Trubshaw ... A youngish man -- in black polo neck, Beatle-cut mop, pauting lips, smart suit, druggy high-pitched giggle. BAILEY, a cocky, cool psychopath. He watches Steed and Emma leave ... ... and saunters after them ... CAR ROAR OVER.64 EXT. LONDON STREETS - DAY as the Jag races through them, heading for the country. EMMA (V.O.) That place is so absurd, so out of date ... STEED (V.O.) Do you really think so? Another car follows them ... as they pass Buckingham Palace, now painted pink and guarded by female grenadiers ...65 SIGN reading: "Scotland" with an arrow, as Steed and Emma zoom past in the Jag ... STEED (V.O.) Press that button, would you? Tea?66 CLOSEUP - SPECIAL DASHBOARD COMPARTMENT opens, revealing a tea service: a samovar of tea, feeding into a pre-warmed pot, pouring into two china cups ... WIDEN to reveal:67 INT. JAG - DAY Emma, reacts, pours from the samovar ... STEED Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt your flow of oratory ... Steed's JAG BACKFIRES again as at the beginning ... EMMA You know what I mean. This car -- and you. Nobody walks around like that. Milk? STEED Not all Tradition is bad, Mrs. Peel. No thank you. She hands over a cup. EMMA But why? What's the point? STEED A Gentleman has to have a code. This is part of mine. A uniform. Think of it as my suit of shining armor. EMMA And I suppose you're the knight. STEED The most unpredictable piece on the board. And always ready to protect his queen. EMMA That's predictable. When I find a queen in need of protection I'll let you know. Steed looks in the mirror. Behind them, a car. Tailing? STEED I'm hoping you will. He puts his foot down. Zoom ...68 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - DAY Towards picturesque Scotland. The JAG ROARS by - then the other car ...69 INT. JAG - DAY Emma consults a list, reads -- EMMA Sir August Merryweather ... why are we seeing him first? STEED As per mother's instructions. EMMA Do we always follow Mother's instructions? STEED For a man in my position -- EMMA Just what is your position, if you don't mind my asking. How did a stuffed shirt like you get into this line of work? STEED (smiles) They call me in when they've reached a dead end. Freelance. Like yourself. EMMA I have no choice. Why should you risk your life? STEED After our fencing match, I was rather hoping you would do the risking. More tea? EMMA No thanks. STEED I meant me. Emma takes in Steed's evasive answers. Sighing, she pours.70 EXT. HIGHLANDS - DAY The Jag winds around Loch Ness, followed by the car. STEED (V.O.) According to Mother, Sir August owns half of the Highlands. A millionaire. Former head of Special Projects at the Ministry. Now ... EMMA (V.O.) An eccentric recluse?71 INT. JAG - DAY STEED Not so much eccentric. More barking mad. He has a wife called June. And a daughter somewhere -- Julie. EMMA June, July ... August? STEED The family does seem to be somewhat meteorologically inclined. EMMA Any other vices? STEED All of a piece, really. A fanatical weatherman. Chairman of BROLLY. (off her look) British Royal Organisation For Lasting Liquid Years. Thinks British weather has been tampered with by ... aliens. Emma takes this in. EMMA So ... I distract him while you snoop around? How? STEED Small talk. Try the weather.72 EXT. HUGE COUNTRY HOUSE - DAY Steed and Emma speed up to the huge open main gates Signs: "Private: No Admittance." Guards in hunting gear and plus fours, with loaded rifles. They start up the drive ... Several peacocks on the lawn fan open their beautiful tails. One of them, a mechanical peacock whose thousand eyes CLICK with the WHIR of a CAMERA ... The other car pulls in behind. Inside, reveal Bailey watching them.73 INT. MANOR HOUSE CORRIDOR - DAY On a tartan carpet, a SCOTTIE BARKS furiously at a set of EXPIRING BAGPIPES on the floor. PAN UP to reveal: A BUTLER leading Emma down the corridor -- -- where she admires the eccentric fixtures, pausing to note a large teddy bear outfit with tartan trimmings instead of the usual suit of armor. EMMA Original ... BUTLER This way, miss ... EMMA Missus ... He opens the double doors, admitting Emma into74 INT. A LARGE ROOM of semi-tropical climate. Jungle plants, parakeets, snakes. Walls lined with display cabinets and bell jars: stuffed birds, butterflies, spiders. A thermometer reads: 100 degrees with high humidity. The Butler leaves. Emma fans herself. Nobody in the roam. But hears a sound of RAINFALL from a smoked glass conservatory. EMMA Sir August ... ? Sir August ... ? VOICE (O.S.) Eh? In here! Emma follows the SOUND, steps cautiously forward.75 INT. CONSERVATORY beneath a sprinkler system of torrential rain, an old man splashes in bizarre rubber togs. Emma stays cool. EMMA I've come to apply for membership in Brolly -- SIR AUGUST (shouts above the tempest) You don't get rain like you used to in England. A good shower that's the ticket. Stiffens resolve, puckers the spirit, quells the namby-pamby in a man. SIR AUGUST steps out of the shower and wind machine. A belted rubber macintosh, flippers, goggles. He starts to disrobe, the NOISE DIES DOWN -- EMMA I so agree. How did you acquire a taste for it? SIR AUGUST Out in India. So character-forming for the British. Not the heat. Good Lord, no. The rain, dash it. A good monsoon. Fifteen inches overnight. A whole week of lovely rain. I remember one summer in Jaipur ... Sir August removes his goggles, recognizes her. SIR AUGUST You EMMA Have we met? SIR AUGUST You mean you don't recall?? Before Emma can reply, the door opens... SIR AUGUST Ah, Lady June ... Emma's attention switches to LADY JUNE, a buxom lady in a sou'wester and galoshes, who wheels in a tray of scones. LADY JUNE Dear August. Loves his showers. Like a baby. (beat) Scones, Mrs. Peel? EMMA Thank you, Lady -- June ... Emma sees Sir August gazing wistfully out of the window, which is rapidly darkening ... SIR AUGUST Ah, beautiful. Just as he promised. EMMA Promised? Who promised? SIR AUGUST There, look! Emma looks, sees rain start to pitter-patter on the windows. Emma exchanges looks with June as the rain starts pouring. SIR AUGUST Imagine being caught out in a blow like that!76 EXT. MOORLAND - DAY THUNDER and lightning -- Steed is caught out in it; puts up his umbrella; wanders over the brow of a hill, past a big sign: "No Trespassers." Rains more. And more. Turns to a tempest, as -- STEED I say, this is a bit much. Lashed by rain ' Steed carries on to the brow of the hill. He looks over, peers through the mist at -- A deep purple cloud. Mushrooming towards him. Steed can't escape it. It envelops him. Starts to blink. Cough. Footsteps less sure. Surrounded by thick purple haze Steed stumbles and falls Down a hill. Tumbles to the bottom. He knocks his head on a rock. Steed blinks, shakes his head. Eyes refocus. He sees77 UNDULATING SAND DUNES Sun shining down on yellow sand, a barren vista. Dead trees. Suddenly Steed's in the Sahara. A heat haze shimmers. Steed blinks, thinks he's dreaming when he sees ...78 IN DISTANCE - RED PHONE BOX Steed heads towards it. The PHONE BOX seems further away. Like an optical illusion. Then hears RINGING. Steed still bowler-hatted. Overcoat. Perspiring. Takes off bowler, wipes brow. Adjusts rose in buttonhole. It wilts. He arrives at the phone box. Opens the door. Steed picks up the RINGING PHONE, listens to -- A SCRATCHY ORCHESTRAL RECORDING of "The Merry Widow." STEED 'The Merry Widow'...? Over the MUSIC, a strange -- VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) ... Hello ... Hello? ... Who the hell...? Who is this? ... You must leave the test area. I repeat, leave the area ... Help is on the way ... CLICK. The line goes dead. Steed is baffled. Steps out, sees --79 ON HORIZON a shimmering heat haze. A figure on a camel moving towards them. Steed watches amazed, as the camel pads closer ... The mirage arrives. The rider dismounts. A woman in yashmak and veils. She draws closer. Drops the veils to reveal -- Emma Peel. In her black leather catsuit. .STEED Mrs. Peel. Good of you to drop by. And I see you're wearing your - riding outfit? Emma moves closer. Steed smiles at her. Emma closer and -- chop! -- gives a kung-fu jab to the throat, a kick to the balls, a jab to the stomach. As Steed lies on the ground -- STEED Manners, Mrs. Peel. Emma takes out a .38 GUN, points at his heart, FIRES -- BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! FOUR SHOTS --80 EMMA'S POV -- The bullets strike his chest. Round his heart. Steed slumps back on the sands. Eyes close ...81 EMMA moves over him. Drops a small toy snowshaker into his curled fingers. Blows a good bye kiss.82 STEED'S POV 82 The sun. Clouds roll by. The camel peers down at him. FADE TO BLACK. Sound of CLACKING ... FADE IN:83 INT. SECRET SERVICE HOSPITAL - DAY A hospital ward. Empty apart from one bed. A nurse (Brenda in her red leather), her spiked heels clacking on the floor, brings over a cup of tea to Steed in a hospital bed. Who wakes, surprised to see Emma. Peering over him. Very nonchalant. Eating his grapes. STEED Ah, Brenda ... (as she leaves) Mrs. Peel? EMMA You should be dead. How do you feel? STEED (eyes her) Strange. EMMA You were very lucky. Four shots to the heart. I found you after I slipped away from Sir August. Mother brought you here. Not me you should thank. STEED I wasn't about to. EMMA I mean your man Trubshaw. Your bullet-proof waistcoat. I thought you were just overdressed. STEED I might say the same.84 FROM GALLERY Mother with Dr. Darling taking notes. Emma looks up at them. Drops to a whisper. But they both are wearing headphones. EMMA Mother and Dr. Darling have me under observation. They think I tried to kill you. STEED Why should they think that? EMMA You told them. You said I arrived on a camel, shot you four times. Left you for dead. STEED Frankly that's how I remember it. EMMA But that's absurd. I may not be over-fond of you, Steed, but it's not my style. STEED Perhaps your memory plays tricks, Mrs. Peel. EMMA (conceding) That's possible. Sir August was convinced he'd met me before. But I'd never met him. Another odd thing. When it rained, he said it was just as someone had promised. STEED Did he say who? EMMA No. But he must know. Incidentally, my double left you with this. Emma shows Steed the toy snow scene. A winter wonderland snow scene. He looks puzzlingly at it. On its underneath. "The Wonderland Corporation," followed by -- STEED An invitation. To a 'formal picnic'...? EMMA Did you say formal? I must dress.85 EXT. LONDON STREET - NIGHT The sporty Jag pulls up outside a tall, swanky building. Steed gets out, opens her door. Irritated, Emma steps out of the car, clad in her leather suit --86 CLOSEUP OF HER HEEL hitting the street. PAN UP TO Steed, admiring -- STEED I must say, you look more your old self -- EMMA You mean my other self ... STEED Either way ... may I ask: why you dress in that fashion? EMMA I should have thought that was obvious ... (off his smirk) I'm in mourning. She moves off. Stay on his poker face. STEED I can't wait to see afternoon. He joins her; they survey the building. EMMA Where's the picnic? They look up to --87 INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - NIGHT A boardroom suite, overlooking London. Lights twinkling -- Around a conference table. Twelve TEDDY BEARS. Each six feet tall. Ridiculous and sinister. In pink, turquoise, brown, black, white, green. Furry, giant paws and ears, swivel eyes. One teddy sports a familiar tartan ... On the table, children's party food: jellies, hundreds and thousands, birthday cakes. And wrapped presents before each. Each bear has a name-badge: Bobby, Bobo, Bruno, Bibi, Betty, Binky etc. pinned to their fur. A children's tune, "THE TEDDY BEAR'S PICNIC," plays. Followed by - a gavel rapping order. A distinctively chilling voice, eerily familiar and seductive, which ECHOES through our story -- VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Ladies, gentlemen and bears ... The teddy bears look round. Can't hear who's talking. VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Today is history. The first day of the future. I welcome you to the first general meeting of the Wonderland Corporation, now allied with our colleagues from Brolly ... Murmurs of congratulations amongst the bears ... VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) You have all given time, money and expertise to achieve our goal. But we are reaching a new phase of our operation. From today, many of you will no longer be needed. I have to warn you ... Dismay from the teddy bears. As a CUCKOO CLOCK RINGS OUT, VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) A cuckoo. The first sign of spring, and ... A cuckoo in our nest. Our organization is no longer secret. Agents are investigating us. Their names are John Steed and Emma Peel. I believe we have a traitor among us ... perhaps more than one ... Uproar from the teddy bears. Shouts of "Who?" (*PS: One of the Teddys is a giant rabbit who seems especially alarmed). VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) That remains to be seen. When we find the traitors, they will be dealt with severely. TEDDY BEAR #l These agents. Where are they? VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Here. In this building. By our estimate, they will enter this room in thirty-five point five seconds precisely ... Panic. The bears scramble to go, bumping into each other. VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) I am sorry the party is over. But we shall meet again. To each of you a gift. A token of my appreciation. In front of the teddy bears, each one receives a present wrapped up in paper with a pink and silver bow. The tartan teddy opens his up: A snow scene. Anxious moans.88 INT. BUILDING - NIGHT UP and inside fire staircase, Emma and Steed run up -- Open the door to the conference room. The CUCKOO RINGS on their entry. To FIND an empty room. Only the party detritus plus little teddy bears sitting where formerly the big ones sat; the teddy bear picnic MUSIC PLAYING again OVER ... One snow shaker left. Steed picks it up: Inside it:89 TINY EMMA PEEL in black leather. STEED (O.S.) For you, Mrs. Peel.90 BACK TO SCENE Emma stares at it. Turns it over: an address. EMMA Another invitation. 38 Marlborough Terrace ...91 INT. EMBASSY (BELGRAVIA) - NIGHT Inside number 38, a deserted Eastern bloc embassy. A dilapidated hammer and sickle tapestry in tatters. Old spy techno-junk lies discarded in elegant living rooms. Steed and Emma open the door, rush inside. They search for clues. A cigar left in an ashtray. Steed picks it up with distaste. Then moves over to the wine rack, picks up a vintage bottle of champagne -- STEED (admiringly) Hm ... A Veuve-Cliquot '56 ... (then puzzled) But he bites the end of his Monte Cristos ... ? (frowning) Clearly, we're dealing with a maniac. Meanwhile, Emma goes into the --92 NEXT ROOM - EMMA'S POV where she sees a blob of BUBBLING GUNK, like radioactive chewing gum. A few pieces of charred clothing tell us this was once a man in a teddy bear outfit.93 BACK TO SCENE Steed enters behind her, examines the gunk. STEED Colonel Crabtree. International Satellite Systems. Formerly of the Ministry. EMMA How on earth can you tell? Steed holds up the inside of a battered shoe: the name. STEED Elementary, Mrs. Peel. Trubshaw isn't the only shoemaker still practicing his trade ... EMMA Very good, Steed ... A MEWLING SOUND. EMMA What's that? Leaving Steed to ponder the remains, Emma goes into94 ANOTHER ROOM Dark. Switches on the light. And gasps.95 STEED looks up as Emma emerges with - A Leopard cub. Steed raises his brolly. STEED What on earth? EMMA Any ideas? STEED Well, he was a fellow of the Royal Zoological Society ... EMMA Is that written in his shoe? STEED (smug) Common knowledge, Mrs. Peel ... EMMA (shrugs) She had this in her mouth. There, there... Cooing to the cub, Emma tosses to Steed -- another snowshaker. Inside -- another address: 84 Cadogan Place. STEED Not again. There's got to be another. way to go about this.96 EXT. CADOGAN PLACE APARTMENT BUILDING (KNIGHTSBRIDGE) - NIGHT Down a sheer wall Emma Peel abseils with rope and crampons. Before gliding through an open French window --97 INT. KNIGHTSBRIDGE FLAT - NIGHT Emma investigates. Nobody there. She looks 'round. Military memorabilia. Busts of Napoleon and Charlemagne. Looks inside drawers. Desks. Meanwhile --98 INT. STEED'S JAG - NIGHT Steed feeds a carton of milk to the leopard, who is a handful ... licking, pawing him ... STEED Now, now ... (sings) 'I can't give you anything but love, baby...'99 INT. KNIGHTSBRIDGE FLAT - NIGHT Emma searching ...100 OUTSIDE FLAT DOOR 100 a key in lock. Door opens. Silence.101 INSIDE - EMMA finds a snowshaker. About to look underneath. Hears a NOISE. Looks up, in front of her in the mirror, sees -A giant teddy behind her. Ready to strike -- Emma swivels 'round, a fluid balletic motion, and -- Bam! A kick to the teddy's stomach. Then off balance, Emma hurls him over her shoulder, darts in to pin the teddy to the ground as -- The teddy grabs Emma's legs, flings her off balance. She falls. Teddy grabs a military sabre from the wall, and Woosh! Slices through air at Emma's head. She ducks. The sabre skims her hair. Emma grabs another sabre; the fight is on! Emma counterattacks. Slashes with the sabre and the teddy's head goes flying off! Jesus. The torso stands unsteadily. Emma's eyes widen as: A man's head emerges from the teddy torso. Emma's so surprised, he can slug her ... Emma's out.102 INT. STEED'S JAG - NIGHT so is Steed and the Leopard -- both asleep. A little milk dribbles down Steed's chin ...103 INT. KNIGHTSBRIDGE FLAT - NIGHT The man goes to the other room. Starts to take off the rest of his teddy costume. Throws clothes into a suitcase. The PHONE. Terrified, the Man picks it up ... The voice ... VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Naughty teddy ... MAN No! You can't ... VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Ask not for whom the telephone rings, it rings for thee ... MAN But I've got rid of her. She's ... VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Go to the window ... To the window. Teddy moves to the open window. Sudden PAIN. LIGHTNING. Teddy looks up in terror as a purple cloud releases another BOLT. Direct hit. The teddy slumps to the ground. Soggy, waterlogged, very dead. Kinda like the other guy ...104 IN OTHER ROOM Meanwhile Emma wakes up. Turns the corner. Towards the other room, sees dead Teddy. Reads the label on his suitcase ... EMMA Major D'Arcy ... ?105 OVER HER SHOULDER from the window behind her like a spider on glass appears another "Emma" -- -- let's call her Bad Emma -- coming straight for Emma. She makes a NOISE. Emma turns just in time to see. EMMA Well, well. If it isn't me ... Emma starts towards her double, who hesitates, then turns, leaping out the window ... she wears the same black catsuit. The real Emma rushes, follows her "double" Clambers outside to rappel up the line to106 EXT. ROOFTOPS - NIGHT Emma looks. Beneath a starlit sky criss-crossed by wires, a rooftop maze of buildings, flanked by giant gargoyles -- goblins, lions, griffins -- over twinkling lights ... Emma searches the roof -- no sign, only shadows. Then turns a corner to see -- Above the city, fairy lights on the rooftops of Harrods, lit by a million bulbs ... giant neon signs ... Several floors below, Emma sees the streets. A twinge of vertigo. Then she looks up, hears a NOISE -- From:107 BEHIND GARGOYLE she sees her "double" run. Emma gives chase. Hot pursuit. Over rooftops. 'Round wires. PAST neon signs high over the city ... Emma follows. Gains on the "double," who -- Pushes faster. Gliding between rooftop buildings. Dodging, weaving. But Emma gains more. Sleek limbs, muscular, perfect body machine, until --108 EMMA'S POV as she sees her "double" leap over a yawning chasm. And stumble on the other side for a footing.109 BACK TO SCENE as Emma's adrenaline surges. She cannot stop, she -- Jumps! Hangs in the air. Limbs pushing out for the edge. And only just, she lands perfectly, gaining, closing, until --110 ON NEXT ROOFTOP Emma gains up close. A final burst of acceleration. Then without warning, her "double" -- Turns, Emma catches up, and -- Wham! Wham! A kick -- a chop to Emma's body - double scissorkick -- Emma reacts swiftly, surges into overdrive -- In a lightning-fast kung fu duel -- CRACK OF BONE -- CRUNCH OF BLOWS -- a flurry of kicks as Emma -- Lands on her back. The "double" attacks. Emma retaliates -- Kicks up her leg -- flings the "double" over her head she lands awkwardly -- a METALLIC CRUNCH in a blow to her head -- but picks herself up without pausing And vanishes into the rooftop maze.111 AGAINST SKYLINE Emma stands. Looks. She's lost her "double." She stands alone, silhouetted against the night sky. Caught in the moonlight. Above sparks of neon. Daunting, muscular, poised for action, as -- Ears listening to distant noises. SWOOSHING TRAFFIC. FLUTTER of BIRD WING. HUM of WIND through wires. Then an AUDIBLE SNAP --112 EMMA'S POV - HIGH ANGLE above her a SPAM as a STEEL CABLE WIRE of an aerial is snapped. Slowly wound tightly 'round, bent back, coiled, ready to spring --113 BACK TO SCENE - EMMA looks 'round. Sees nothing, hears the sound of the WHIPLASH coming seconds before -- Through the air --114 EMMA'S POV a flashing line like a bolt of lightning, but cannot move quickly enough as --115 BACK TO SCENE as a cable wire whips across, coils 'round Emma, lashing her tight, crushing air from her, as the wire -- Sweeps Emma off her feet, whiplashes her back like a spring, hoists her and dangles her over the city. She looks down. A long way. Emma grabs hold of the wire, which pulls her back. She drops down to the rooftop ... Slithers down the roof. Slips --116 OVER LEDGE Emma hangs on with fingertips. Overlooking city with 100-foot neon sign above her:117 ADVERTISEMENT for "Wonderland Weather" with: a repeated loop of a 100-foot high bikini-clad "Emma" throwing head back in holiday fun -- Sign: "COMING SOON -- THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF WONDERLAND WEATHER."118 BACK TO SCENE Emma hangs on, looks up, stares at "herself." The surreal repetition of the loop. Overlooking the whole city. Dizzy, Emma threatens to pass out. Just when from --119 ABOVE HER an unseen hand from Bad Emma winds down -- Another CABLE for her to hold. It uncoils down past the windows, telltale SPARKS flare up as it hits metal -- Emma tries to grab for it. Misses, then grabs hold, and -- a LIVE CABLE -- a thousand VOLTS surge through her body -- -- A shock, Emma plummets DOWN TO --120 STRIPED AWNING on a lower ledge. She hangs precariously. Catching her breath. About to redouble her efforts. When beside her from a --121 BALCONY WINDOW an umbrella extended. Steed reaches out, reels Emma in. They are back in Teddy's flat ... Emma collapses in Steed's arms. He helps her up -- hands her a phone. STEED For you, Mrs. Peel. EMMA Thanks ... (dry) I see what you mean about letting me do the risking ... Hello? It's Sir August. SIR AUGUST (V.O.) (filtered) Mrs. Peel ... Come quickly. Brolly's been betrayed! I'll tell you everything ... The weather's getting worse and worse ... they're after me ... coming for me ... come quickly! CLICK. EMMA Sir August...? (to Steed) What now? STEED Ask Mother. Sound OVER: RING-RING.122 INT. MANOR HOUSE (SCOTLAND) - DAY Sir August gripped with terror, stares at the PHONE. The scotty DOG BARKS. Finally, Sir August answers. SIR AUGUST Mrs. Peel -- ? VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Ask not for whom the telephone rings ... SIR AUGUST No, please! I beg you ... VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Walk over to the window ... SIR AUGUST Let it be rain, please let it be -- VOICE (V.O.) (filtered) Stay by the window. By the window. Mesmerized, Sir August goes to the window. Looks -- Lady June arrives, too late.123 OUTSIDE a purple cloud of cyclone-force rages towards him. A luminous glow. Then a LIGHTNING STRIKE. And -- BOOM! An EXPLOSION BLASTS the WINDOWS. A WIND rushes in ... FATHER (V.O.) Emergency alert ...124 EXT. WHITEHALL STREETS - DAY PAST obscure imperial statues a tiny micro Messerschmidt bubble car tootles down deserted streets. FATHER (V.O.) A cyclone hit Banffshire last night. Completely unpredicted ...125 INSIDE CAR EMMA Where's Mother? FATHER Mobile HQ. In a blue funk. Can't take chances. I'm looking after things while he's hiding out ... Father drives like a maniac. She senses their unease. FATHER You're probably wondering how I can drive 'blind.' Simple. A new prototype from the boys in X division. Micro-sensors in the system read signals and road information. Converts the info into miles per hour. Ultra-sensitive. Ultra-smart. Father jumps a red light. CARS SCREECH together in a huge pile-up. Not that smart. Steed holds onto his hat. STEED We know one thing. That suspect was not Mrs. Peel. FATHER So you say ... EMMA You don't believe him? FATHER It's Mother you have to convince. He's very agitated. Wait here. Father SCREECHES to a halt on Holland Park Avenue Steed and Emma get out. Father takes off ... EMMA But STEED Don't bother. Here's a bus ... A red London number 22 bus drives up. As it arrives, in a conductor's cap is -- the bodyguard, Brenda. BRENDA Fares, please,126 INT. BUS - DAY Steed and Emma board the bus. Destination: Not In Service. They pay Brenda, the conductor. Go upstairs.127 UPSTAIRS is Mother's temporary mobile HQ. He squats in a corner. Metal hooks on electronic panels. Now paranoid. Suspicious. All the upper windows have been blacked out. MOTHER Welcome to mobile H.Q. Weather's turning quite nasty. Sir August was blown to smithereens. Along with half of Banffshire. The Ministry's worried. EMMA He tried to warn us ... STEED We had a lead to Wonderland Weather but we got there too late. Someone tipped them off ... MOTHER Too late anyway. Today's escapade was only for starters. This is no ordinary weather. It's manmade. A kind of weather bomb. STEED Impossible. EMMA Not quite. This is my field. STEED Is there anything that isn't? EMMA (ignores) The Prospero Project was started by my husband. It was an early attempt to solve the problems of global warming. In theory, climate engineering is entirely feasible. We thought of injecting a chemical cocktail into the atmosphere by laser and satellite. A 'quick fix'... STEED Filling in mother nature's blind spots ... ? EMMA Exactly. There'd been earlier attempts to pump carbon dioxide into deep sea. Propane gas mostly. In small quantities it captures chlorine. Protects the ozone layer. But it proved impractical. Too bulky ... STEED But if someone miniaturized the process... EMMA That's what we were working on. STEED Sounds as if someone's hijacked your research. MOTHER Would it be possible to use it for military purposes? EMMA Directed by laser. Bounced by satellite. Quite possible. STEED Where would they aim for? Mother thinks, gets out of his wheelchair; takes a turn about the bus, sits down again. No one pays any attention. MOTHER London. The World Council of Ministers meets soon on global defence. If you can control the weather, you control the world. EMMA After the cold war ... STEED The hot and cold war ... Sign "Grand Opening Soon." WIDEN to reveal ...128 EXT. WONDERLAND WEATHER OFFICES - DAY Steed looks around, picks the lock ... hi-tech style ...129 INT. WONDERLAND WEATHER OFFICES - DAY A kind of space-age travel agency. Steed enters. At the reception desk, the receptionist has her back turned. Steed sneaks in, moves behind a screen, overhears -- A man -- Bailey -- giving orders to the receptionist BAILEY New orders. The penultimate phase. Now fully operational ... Steed moves away from them, pushes a set of double doors open, arrives inside --130 INT. WONDERLAND OFFICE - DISPLAY - DAY A long corridor surrounded by a presentation of -- Virtual reality weather: clouds, sunny vistas, lush meadows, desert. And slogans: "Be natural. Act natural. Think natural. The natural beauty of Wonderland Weather." Steed reacts; the model is the same as Emma on the big neon sign near Harrods ... Steed finds a desk. Inspects papers. Sees a postcard of a large stately home. He pockets it. Then looks 'round to see -- Bailey before him. We recognize him as the young dandy trailing Steed. Neither gives away the other. BAILEY We're not yet open for business, I'm afraid. STEED Shame. I was recommended. By a friend. BAILEY Really? STEED Sir August Merryweather? I was looking for something relaxing. Say, a Tuscan hillside in June? BAILEY Normally, we'd be eager to oblige -- STEED Seriously? BAILEY Of course. Natural weather delivered to your door on demand. Down your phoneline. For limited periods. STEED You don't say. How real does it feel? BAILEY As real as you wish. Hot or cold. Humid or dry. Anything you like. Within reason. STEED There are limits? BAILEY The technology is brand new. Soon it will be more powerful. We anticipate a huge demand. Leave us your number. We'll be in touch. STEED No need. I'll call again. Steed raises his bowler. Bailey watches him go.131 EXT. WONDERLAND OFFICES - STREET - DAY Steed emerges, stares at his postcard -- the stately home and: "Headquarters, Wonderland Weather, Ltd." as -- EMMA (V.O.) My car. I'll drive.132 EXT. COUNTRY ROADS - DAY Emma's LOTUS ELAN WHIZZES BY... STEED (V.O.) A day in the country ...133 INT. LOTUS - DAY EMMA Three agents killed by bad weather... STEED ... And by you, Mrs. Peel ... EMMA (ignores) Then a mad millionaire. Head of a secret defense establishment. A group of eccentrics obsessed by weather ... STEED ... And by you, Mrs. Peel. Everything points to you. No sisters? No undiscovered twin? EMMA Not that I know of. Explanation? STEED According to Dr. Darling, you're a psychopathic personality with schizophrenic delusions, suffering from recurring amnesia based on traumatic repression, leading to outbursts of anti-social and violent behavior. Q.E.D. Steed lets it sink in. Emma looks a little hurt. EMMA Is that what you think? STEED Oh, well ... (beat) Just my type, Mrs. Peel.134 EXT. COUNTRY LANES - SEVERAL ANGLES - DAY The Lotus races 'round blind corners. Hairpin bends. Across a train at a level crossing, which just misses them --135 INT. LOTUS - DAY Emma sees Steed hold on for dear life. She smirks -- STEED Do you always drive this fast? EMMA Have I trespassed on a male prerogative? (before his reply) We're being followed. I saw him at Trubshaw's ... Steed looks into the mirror, sees a car behind them. Pulling up, trying to catch up. Emma glances in the mirror, and -- EMMA Hold on ... Puts foot down. ZOOM. Extra ACCELERATION. Steed's head pinned back to his seat. Emma's hair tossed in the wind.136 EXT. COUNTRY LANES - DAY The Lotus twisting and turning. The car behind always catches up. Emma tries to shake it. Gears up. Mach force. Over crossroads. Shaking 'round corners, as ...137 BEND before Emma pushes foot down. Further ACCELERATION. The car behind struggles to keep up. Emma coasts ahead, turns a corner -- And suddenly sees in front of her --138 HUGE TRUCK crossing directly in their path! STEED Turn!139 EMMA swerves, plunging the car into a haystack, where it is completely hidden as --140 TRUCK clears in time for the following car, which keeps going.141 ON HAYSTACK as Steed emerges, brushing off straw. An old lady on a bicycle with a basket appears ... OLD LADY Are you alright, young man? STEED I think so, thank you so much ... A SQUEAL of TIRES as - The following car swerves back, stops and Bailey emerges, gun drawn as Steed and the Old Lady react ... BAILEY (relishing) Reach for the sky, pardner. Steed raises his hands. OLD LADY Oh, dear -- To Steed's surprise, she pulls an Uzi from her basket and BANGBANGBANGBANG -- ! SPRAYS BULLETS into Bailey, who crumples, gun spinning along the tarmac. Cute and sweetlooking, the Old Lady is unfazed. OLD LADY Cocky little bastard. I hope he was a baddy. STEED I feel sure of it. OLD LADY I'm Alice. Mother said you'd be on your way. Mrs. Peel with you? STEED (looks around) She was ... They start pulling away hay from the haystack ... OLD LADY You with Mother or Father? STEED Both, actually. OLD LADY Good. Glad to see they're together at last. They don't get along. Promotion. Top job. Most unfair. Quite a fuss at the Ministry. STEED (not paying attention) You don't say. (mumbles) Like looking for a needle in a ...142 INSIDE HAYSTACK Coughing. Then Emma, sputtering straw as Steed's face appears. He tries to conceal his relief at seeing her. STEED What, Lady Disdain? Are you yet breathing? EMMA Barely. STEED You will let me know if you find that queen who's in need of protection, won't you? He pulls her out. She's annoyed.143 OUTSIDE HAYSTACK Emma brushes herself off; pulls off a piece of straw. EMMA (holding it ruefully) This must be the last straw. STEED (takes one off her back) Here's the one that broke the camel's back. EMMA Someone didn't want us to get to the party. STEED I expect we'll have to gatecrash. OLD LADY I may be able to help you.144 EXT. STATELY HOME FROM POSTCARD - DAY comes to life. Steed, Emma and the Old Lady survey ... STEED (checks postcard) Wonderland Weather Ltd. OLD LADY This way ...145 EXT. HALLUCINOGEN HALL - GROTTO AND MAZE - DAY On a lawn, a peacock flares its thousand eye tail. A MECHANICAL CLICK, its eyes conceal hidden cameras, recording Emma, Steed and the Old Lady, who've landed inside the walled grounds. They move stealthily forward, unaware ... OLD LADY Over here ... The Old Lady waves them on. They enter a tunnel into146 MAZE Tall hedges surround Steed and Emma and the Old Lady on all sides. They follow the path, slopes , round, curves, turns into hairpin bends and U-turns. At first intrigued ... Then perplexed. Emma leads the way, Steed following. The Old Lady slips OUT OF VIEW. Steed stops to pick a rose, puts it in his lapel. Emma rushes ahead. EMMA Aha ... Yes ... It's clear now. A trapezoid shape, dictated by twin diagonal paths and a single curving path. A late Seventeenth Century design, originally for King William of Orange, copied... Ah ... Steed sees Emma slip 'round a corner. He pursues her. Glimpses her. Then loses her. Another glimpse. Sees her thru hedges, then seemingly -- Thru the other side of the hedge. In two places at once. STEED ... Mrs. Peel? I think I'm seeing double again. Out of sight, Emma rushes on. Around her, the hedges grow taller. She seems to grow smaller. Emma begins to realize things are not what they seem. As she pushes her way thru --147 FROM ABOVE the maze as a formal patter-n. Three tiny figures dart round. DISSOLVE THRU TO:148 INT. HALLUCINOGEN HALL - CONTROL ROOM - DAY A pattern on a screen. The lines of the maze reformulated as abstract lines. Steed, Emma and the Old Lady as three flashing dots. Someone, somewhere is watching them. Laughter, then a familiar voice -- VOICE (O.S.) Now this is more like it ...149 EXT. MAZE - DAY Steed searches for an exit.150 ANOTHER PART OF MAZE Emma sees a statue of a Butler. Which springs to life. Summons Emma. She follows down a path strewn with leaves. As Emma steps on the leaves, she -- Falls down -- a giant rabbit hole.151 INT. RABBIT HOLE Emma spins through darkness, like Alice in Wonderland ... EMMA Steed ... ! STEED (V.O.) Mrs. Peel ... ?152 EXT. MAZE - DAY The identical face of Emma on a marble statue, as -- Steed studies the classical statue ... STEED Mrs. Peel ... ? Steed hears a noise, turns to see -- Emma walking towards him. She picks the rose from his lapel, slowly coils an arm around his neck. Pulls Steed towards her, closes her eyes -- kisses him full an the mouth. STEED Mrs. Peel ... ! (more kiss) Mrs. Peel ... The kiss ends. Steed recovers his composure, lips coated with her lipstick. His tongue traces his lips; smarts ... STEED Your lipstick ... Poison. He goes dizzy. Steed collapses to the ground.153 INT. HALLUCINOGEN HALL - DAY Inside the house, a grand hall. Deserted. A cobweb hangs from ceiling. A velvet curtain tattered and torn. Emma. A CUCKOO CLOCK RINGS the hour. Ahead, the real Emma sees -- A giant staircase. There on the stairs -- a glass eye. She picks it up. Puts it in a pocket. Emma goes --154 UPSTAIRS Sees a series of family portraits an the staircase. One of herself in ornate aristocratic regalia.155 LONG CORRIDOR UPSTAIRS Rooms on either side. Emma goes down the hall, pushes doors.156 INSIDE ROOMS A mad child's collections of ... toys... rocking horses ... train sets ... ventriloquists' dummies... and ... Butterflies ... scarabs ... beetles ... glass eyes, staring at her from the blackness ... Then Emma turns into a whole room of ... Snow shakers ... A wall of them in glass cabinets like insect specimens or fossils. Emma picks up one snow scene. She shakes it.157 EXT. HOUSE as if in response, a storm gathers. Shadowy clouds roll in.158 IN MAZE A drop of rain starts to fall. Steed's eyes flicker open. STEED (re: rain) Not again. He rises, looks down, reacts -- Alice, the Old Lady, lies near him in the maze, her neck snapped... Steed kneels, next to her in the rain OLD LADY It's a trap. Tell Mother, beware. Tell Father. She dies in his arms. Wind picks up, too. Steed looks about, frowning with discouragement --159 INT. HALLUCINOGEN HALL PLAYROOM - DAY THUNDER and lightning outside. Inside the room of snow shakers, a CHILDHOOD TUNE PLAYS. Emma shakes the snow scene. The weather seems to grow darker.160 FROM BEHIND Emma hears the unmistakable chilling voice: VOICE (V.O.) I wouldn't shake that too hard. The weather might turn nasty. From the shadows ... a man. A silhouette. Behind a distorting lens. His shape and face unclear. Emma puts down the shaker. EMMA Quite a collection. VOICE (V.O.) If nature gives a man a collector's mind, it doesn't matter what he collects. Butterflies. Old China. Penny farthings. A true collector grows more obsessive as the years pass. Outside the big window the weather is turning nasty ... EMMA Your voice -- it's so familiar ... VOICE (V.O.) We have met ... From the shadows, a man moves out, revealing: Peter Peel, Emma's husband! THUNDER. EMMA Peter ... ? Instinctively Emma moves towards him. A long pause. EMMA I must be dreaming ... Emma pulls back. Before she can turn, Peter takes her hand, places it over his heart. BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM, BA-BOOM ... PETER Listen... Very much alive. Peter touches her hand. Emma looks into his eyes. Intrigued but alarmed, disbelief. Peter raises her hand to his lips. PETER Darling, it's me... Emma shudders, battles with herself. EMMA Peter ... Emma is tempted, yet filled with terror.161 CLOSEUP - EMMA'S EYES Inside her pupil -- FLASH CUTS TO:162 MEMORY FLASHES His face as he kissed her -- his ring on her finger -the visor cracking -- the glass obscuring his face.163 BACK TO SCENE EMMA Impossible ... how? Peter smiles disarmingly. As if the answer was obvious. PETER For you ... all for you ... Peter comes over, folds her in his arms. Takes her head between his hands. Emma leans over to him, about to kiss him, both closing their eyes, until -- Lips parted. Before they kiss, Emma pulls back -- PETER Don't be afraid, darling. She turns, runs to the door. Like a trapped bird. She tries the door -- locked. Another door -- locked. A window -- locked. PETER Don't run away. I forgive you, Emma. I know you left me. But I still love you. Do you still have my ring? I need it. Peter grabs hold of Emma. She pulls away. Emma sees his face before her, pleading with her. Seductive yet nightmarish. As if hallucinating, Emma runs away, towards -- The big window overlooking the gardens. She runs, leaps, and in SLOW MOTION -- Crashes thru the GLASS, shards and splinters SHATTERING all 'round her, as she --164 EXT. HALLUCINOGEN HALL - WINDOW - DAY somersaults through the window down to the ground. Lands with a THUD on the wet ground. Looks up to see -- Steed above her, the STORM RAGING. EMMA Steed! She struggles to her feet, comes towards him, upset. STEED Oh, no. First time, shame on you. Third time, shame on me. He slugs her and the SCREEN GOES BLACK. DR. DARLING (V.O.) Diagnosis confirmed. Mrs. Peel is suffering from delusions and hallucinations. An extreme personality disorder. She imagines her husband Peter Peel has come back to her ... CLOSE ON Emma's face. DR. DARLING (V.O.) A classic syndrome, to overcome her subconscious guilt at her other crimes. We've attached her to the dreamscape machine. We'll soon see what her unconscious looks like... Emma's eyes flicker... Steed comes INTO FOCUS, sitting by Emma's bed. This time he's eating her grapes ... Emma looks around ... Everything blurs. A STEADY PULSE DRONE. Tugs at leather straps. No use. WIDEN to reveal Emma strapped to a special couch -- Her head surrounded by a plastic dome, terminals and wires leading out into a Dreamscape machine. Drowsy, disoriented. EMMA Where am I? STEED The Winslow Home for Retired Lepidoptorists. I'm so sorry I struck you, Mrs. Peel. Please forgive me. I thought you were someone else ... EMMA Was I? STEED (no smile) I expect that's for you to know and me to find out ... EMMA It was Peter -- I saw him ... Drugged, Emma's eyes drop. FOCUS CHANGES TO --165 ABOVE HER A giant spiral HYPNODISC WHIRRS, creating trippy black and white zig zag op-art effects a la Bridget Riley. She blinks. DISSOLVE TO:166 SAME SCENE - LATER Steed is gone. Dr. Darling leans over her. Emma stares at the hypnodisc. Closes her eyes.167 EXTREME CLOSEUP ON HER EYES Thousand REMs per sec -- a tiny chip next to her eyes, transmitting out via wires to --168 UP ON WALL A "Dreamscape" apparatus like a liquid TV screen flicks thru random images from Emma's unconscious. Peter Peel -- Teddy Bears -- post card views -- childhood snaps --169 BESIDE "BED" Dr. Darling furls his hand over Emma's, his fingers resting upon her ring. During the interrogation, he soothingly strokes her hand -- tries to remove the ring without arousing her suspicion. Pulls gently on it.170 UP IN GALLERY In his wheelchair, Mother sits beside Steed. MOTHER This man -- did you see him? STEED No. Her husband, she says. Alice tried to warn us. A trap. Tell Mother beware. Tell Father That's all.171 BY COUCH Dr. Darling leans forward to interrogate Emma.172 FROM HER POV He looks and sounds sinister. From a corner of her eye, she sees -- a clip of keys hanging from his pocket.173 BACK TO SCENE DR. DARLING I want you to say the first thing that comes into your head when I say these words. Do you understand ... ? (as she nods) Blue ... EMMA ... bottle ... DR. DARLING Red ... EMMA ... head ... DR. DARLING White ... EMMA Knight ... DR. DARLING Black... EMMA ... death ... DR. DARLING Love... EMMA ... death ... Steed watching, listening ... DR. DARLING Flower ... EMMA ... power ... The exchange speeds up. Unknown to Dr. Darling, Emma picks his keys; unlocks her straps. DR. DARLING Nature ... EMMA ... preserve... DR. DARLING Secret ... EMMA ... love... DR. DARLING Hope... EMMA ... love ... DR. DARLING Fear ... EMMA ... love ... DR. DARLING Peter ... As Emma talks, the "Dreamscape" plucks images from her unconscious in trippy psychedelic rush: faces -- colors -- patterns flash past. EMMA ... Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers how many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Peel -- ?174 CLOSEUP - EMMA Quietly unclicks a lock. She stops in mid-gabble. EMMA How long have I been here? DR. DARLING Three days. Emma unlocks her straps. Sits Up. Woozy. EMMA Do you get paid by the hour? Dr. Darling is shocked, indignant. Emma rips wires from her body. The "Dreamscape" machine winds down. Up in the gallery -- BAM -- ! Mother bashes his metal cane on the railings MOTHER (filtered) You are here under observation, Mrs. Peel. You must answer Dr. Darling's questions Pushes Dr. Darling aside. EMMA I resign. MOTHER (filtered) You need treatment, Mrs. Peel. You can't resign. EMMA Watch me. Emma staggers. Mother looks at Steed. Who snaps himself out of staring at the hypnodisc. Emma heads for the airlock door marked: "ANTI-GRAVITY CHAMBER -- NO ADMITTANCE" MOTHER Don't open that, Mrs. Peel! Fat chance ... she goes in ...175 INT. ANTI-GRAVITY CHAMBER Emma floats in the air, as Mother, Dr. Darling and Steed all follow. And float helplessly, turning around madly. Trying to gain on Emma. Mother's wheelchair, Steed's umbrella and bowler, all tumble thru the air as Steed tries to reach the "OFF" switch EMMA (echoing) What are you trying to do to me? MOTHER (flailing) We want to help...! EMMA I thought I was a widow. My husband ... the only man I ever loved ... is dead. For the rest of my life I have to live with that. MOTHER The death of Peter Peel was a great loss. To us all ... EMMA To you ... ? Mother looks at Emma. He's let the cat out the bag. Steed finds the "OFF" switch. They all tumble to the floor, Mother landing perfectly in his wheelchair, Steed effortlessly catching his hat and umbrella. He moves to Mother -- STEED I think you owe Mrs. Peel an explanation ... Steed stares Mother out. Who delivers his revelations. MOTHER Peter Peel was a first class agent. A senior operative. 'X' department Special operations. He was engaged in top secret research. Top priority. Government approved. EMMA The Institute ... the funding ... MOTHER A cover ... for us. (beat) I'm sorry... A turning moment for Emma. A life lived on a lie. EMMA So all that time. Our work, our research was for you ... for this? And the accident -- DARLING It was no accident. EMMA The official investigation ... MOTHER ... was written by me. (beat) It was sabotage, Mrs. Peel. Deadly serious, Emma walks over to him. EMMA Who? MOTHER Quite frankly ... it could have been you. Silence. Emma looks away, shocked. Steed intervenes STEED You're accusing Mrs. Peel of killing her own husband? MOTHER Her husband suspected someone very close to the operation. On the day he died, he was setting a test. To prove to himself -- to us that his wife was beyond suspicion. He had to be certain. He said he was going to give Mrs. Peel something ... Emma keeps staring at Mother, fingers her diamond ring. MOTHER ... I want you to remember. Did Peter give you anything on-that day?176 CLOSEUP - EMMA touches her ring.177 BACK TO SCENE Emma looks up at Mother. A barefaced lie. EMMA No. Steed notices Emma touch her ring nervously. DR. DARLING He said if it vanished, he'd know it was ... you who betrayed him. He took a huge risk. The ultimate test. EMMA So I'm still ... MOTHER Under suspicion. Everyone died in the explosion, Mrs. Peel. You were the only survivor ... Mother waits. Emma turns round. Looks fiercely at him. Mother shifts uneasily as Emma walks past him to the airlock. MOTHER This is an official matter, Mrs. Peel. No need to take it personally. Where are you going? EMMA To find out who killed my husband. MOTHER The doors and walls are monitored, Mrs. Peel. This is a very secure establishment. EMMA So am I. Emma pushes open the doors. Walks out. Down a corridor. Dr. Darling grabs Mother, as he exits with Steed -- DR. DARLING She must remain here. She's highly dangerous.178 IN HALL - CONTINUOUS ACTION Mother exits with Steed; they watch Emma going ... MOTHER Pity. I was growing fond of Mrs. Peel. Unfortunately -- STEED Guilty until proven innocent? MOTHER Mother and Father know best. Mother wheels himself off. Then stops; over his shoulder: MOTHER Something quick. Nothing too ... messy. ON Steed. CAR ROAR over as --179 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE CLINIC - DAY Emma drives a hot-wired Morris Minor out the open gates of the manor house, past a sign which reads: "WINSLOW HOME FOR RETIRED LEPIDOPTORISTS" (Butterfly logo) In the b.g., a couple of old-timers race around with butterfly nets as Steed's jag pulls past them in hot pursuit.180 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - DAY Emma speeds down lanes ... Followed at a safe distance by Steed in his SS100.181 INT. STEED'S JAG - DAY Steed looks: a bleep on his radar screen tracks the --182 CLOSEUP - CONCEALED MICRO-BUG - INTERCUT on Emma's shoulder as she drives ...183 EXT. LANES - DAY The cars whiz past ...184 INT. STEED'S JAG - DAY Keeping an eye on his radar and the road, Steed switches on the radio. The weather forecast: RADIO ANNOUNCER (V.O.) (filtered) '... Sunny intervals leading to sudden storms and gale warnings for all areas. (as he frowns) ... Outbursts of rain, scattered hailstorms and freezing fog greeted the World Council of Ministers as they arrived in London for their conference ...' Emma drives into a churchyard. Steed follows her ...185 INT. COUNTRY CHURCH - DAY A medieval country church. Sunlight streams through stained glass, illumining Emma as Steed watches her lay -- A red rose by an altar tomb: an ornate mausoleum two hands clasped in a pose of eternal sleep: Peter Peel. Emma pauses, as in the b.g., choirboys sing hymn practice. Steed watches Emma move away, toward the door. He drops a hymn book. Emma swivels round -- sees Steed. EMMA You followed me. STEED Orders. EMMA To kill me? STEED (fractional pause) Nothing personal. Emma smiles. Then turns, and -- Runs! Steed follows Emma through a door to --186 INT. CHURCH BELL TOWER - DAY Steed enters, glimpses -- Emma above. He follows her. Hears her footsteps. Trip- trapping up the spiral staircase. Steed listens, follows.187 UP BELLTOWER From below, Steed hears a BELL RING. A FLUTTER of BIRDS. As debris falls down -- Steed runs up stairs, reaches --188 EXT. BELLTOWER TOP - DAY BELL still RINGING. At the top, a sheer drop. Steed edges closer to the ledge. Looks. A long way down. From behind -- EMMA A long way down. Steed swivels. Sees Emma blocking his path. Cool menace. Steed steps away from the edge, Emma circles him. STEED Careful. You might fall. Emma steps to the edge. Steed freezes. Emma locks down. Feet resting on the ledge. Rocking to and fro ... EMMA I could save you the trouble. STEED No trouble. EMMA Because you always obey orders ... STEED Always. (pause) Except ... Steed nears her. Emma pushes herself right to the edge. EMMA Yes ... ? STEED ... when I don't. It comes down to one thing, Mrs. Peel. Trust. Steed reaches out for her. Holds out his hand. EMMA And do you trust me? STEED I could be convinced, if ... I knew who poisoned me in the maze. That kiss ... EMMA It wasn't me; you have my word. Steed snatches her from the edge, holds her in his arms. STEED I need proof. Emma thinks. Looks at him. Deadly serious. Their eyes lock. She hesitates, then pecks him on the cheek. STEED It was longer. On the lips. Emma hesitates. Then a kiss on the lips. Longer. But not much. Steed grabs her hand, pulls her back. STEED Much longer. Approximately ... fifteen seconds. Emma harumphs, exasperated. Moves closer to him. EMMA ... Ready? Steed nods. Emma leans forward. A full kiss. At first reticent ... Emma looks at her watch. Counts seconds ... EMMA ... Four ... seven ... ni-... Then ... forgets. Warmer, more relenting. Edging towards passionate. They stay embracing for fifteen seconds ... EMMA (aroused) Mmm ... what are you doing? STEED Keeping a stiff upper lip? EMMA Is that all? The kiss continues couple of seconds longer. Before Emma withdraws. With an effort, she regains her composure. A long silence. EMMA So I'm in the clear? Steed savors the kiss. No reply. His smile says it all. EMMA But you did suspect me. STEED Not for a moment. EMMA You're playing games. STEED Aren't we all, Mrs. Peel? EMMA I thought you played by the rules. STEED I thought you didn't. EMMA I'm playing to win. STEED Winning isn't everything. EMMA Please don't tell me it's how you play the game. STEED (smiles; stands aside) After you -- Mrs. Peel ... Steed motions down the stairs. It's close to the edge. EMMA No, after you. STEED (back to square one) You don't trust me? EMMA As far as you trust me. Emma motions. Steed goes down, passes close to the edge, and swivels round nervously. Emma reads his thoughts. EMMA When it happens, Steed, you'll be the first to know ... With this comforting thought, Steed descends first.189 EXT. CHURCH TOWER - DAY As Steed and Emma exit from the tower, they see -- A tranquil village scene. Choirboys walk out from the church. Nearby in the deserted village street. A red PHONE BOX. Which ... RING-RING ... Starts to RING. EMMA Who could that be? A ROLL of THUNDER. Steed looks up: a clear sky. He's puzzled. Suddenly suspicious. As Emma moves to the phone. STEED No -- don't answer it ... He pulls her back. Emma looks at him. STEED That's it. The phones trigger the explosions -- RING-RING ... Another ROLL of THUNDER. Steed connects the two as -- an angelic CHOIRBOY walks towards the phone ... RING-RING ... A LOUDER ROLL of THUNDER. As the Choirboy nears the PHONE, Steed shouts -- STEED Don't -- don't answer it -- !190 CLOSEUP - PHONE RING-RING -- the PHONE in the f.g. as the choirboy closes in, opens the door --191 INSIDE PHONE BOX The door shuts. Noise muffled. The Choirboy can't hear Steed and Emma's shouted warnings, as he lifts his hand up, and --192 OUTSIDE Steed sees him reach out, warns the vicar and choirboys. STEED Get down -- get down -- it's going to explode -- ! Steed and Emma, all the choirboys hit the dirt, as193 INSIDE PHONE BOX The Choirboy grabs the phone, and lifts it up, and Silence. No explosion. A few seconds pass. Steed and everyone are down on the ground. As they see --194 FROM PHONE BOX -- the Choirboy leaves the phone hanging. He gets out, scans the crowd. Then walks calmly over to Steed, who's still prone. CHOIRBOY It's your mother. The vicar and choirboys look on sympathetically, as -- Steed dusts himself off. Emma and everyone gets up. Steed goes to the phone box, takes the call. STEED Mother? How did you find me? His expression changes as he listens. Emma goes to the phone box as Steed rings off. He emerges from the box. STEED I told Mother I took care of you. EMMA You lied. STEED I equivocated. But you're not their big worry at present. It's Dr. Darling: he's disappeared ... OFF Emma's reaction to this news --195 INT. HALLUCINOGEN HALL - DAY Inside the upper room, in front of a mirror -- With his back turned to us. Dr. Darling holds something in his hand, and waits as --196 DOWN LONG HALL Bad "Emma" walks over. She stands in front of him. Blank expression. Dr. Darling hardly even looks up. With her hair up, we recognize on her neck a tattoo: Z424. DR. DARLING We are in the final phase. I shall require you to be especially obedient. There must be no failures.197 CLOSEUP - IN HIS HANDS - SNOWSHAKER which he grips tightly. As --198 IN MIRROR a metamorphosis. His features melt and bubble, a mask of plastic surgery and it's slipping around like Michael Jackson's face under kleig lights. He adjusts it, then ... Shakes the snowshaker ...199 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - DAY THUNDER as the sky darkens -- PAN DOWN to reveal: Steed's Jag, zooming through country lanes. Rain starts.200 INT. JAG - DAY Steed driving, winces with the drizzle. STEED Drat. Someone wants to implicate you in this affair, Mrs. Peel. Any idea who? EMMA No idea who. No idea why ... STEED (thinks) Teddy bears, cuckoo clocks, toys All children's things ... EMMA ... Or grown-ups, who still like to be children. STEED Quite. Any childhood friends? Enemies? EMMA Not to speak of. Peter and I were both loners. There was nobody. Steed thinks; sighs. STEED Very well. I have a friend who might be of assistance. He's at the Ministry. We'd better be careful. EMMA I'm a wanted woman, I know ...201 INT. MINISTRY CORRIDORS - DAY Through a door marked "Information & Counter Espionage" -- -- walks Steed with another man in identical clothes: dapper Savile Row suit, umbrella and bowler. Which is Emma Peel, in disguise. Steed furtively checks passers-by. STEED His name's Jones. 'Invisible' Jones. EMMA Why's he called 'Invisible'? STEED You'll find out. At a door marked "Information -- Col. I. Jones." Steed knocks, opens the door for her. EMMA Aren't you coming? STEED I'll catch you up. Don't worry; he's expecting you. Emma goes in as Steed walks down the corridor.202 INT. MINISTRY OFFICE - DAY A room full of archives and files. Emma walks through tall corridors, stacks of cabinets full of old paper. Dusty, musty and mildewing. Long forgotten. Nobody there. Suddenly Emma hears -- FOOTSTEPS. She follows them. Round stacks, round corners. The FOOTSTEPS get LOUDER. She's closing in. The FOOTSTEPS get LOUDER, until up ahead of her -- A filing cabinet drawer opens up. On its own. Emma watches as a file pops up, floats through air. The drawer slams shut. Still nobody there. Emma follows the file to a -- Desk. Emma watches as -- the chair swivels round. The file pages open up. Then the phone lifts up by itself, a voice: INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Tell Miss Proudfoot, no calls. (beat) Colonel Jones at your service, Mrs. Peel. Just a moment -- Emma looks ahead of her. To the chair. As -- A desk drawer opens up, a pipe is whisked through the air, a match is struck. The pipe lights; smoke belches forth. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Talk to the pipe, Mrs. Peel. That usually helps. Don't worry about me being invisible. Other than that I'm perfectly normal. EMMA I see. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Or rather, you don't. Learnt the tricks in camouflage. Till this accident made a prang of things. How can I help you, Mrs. Peel?203 INT. MINISTRY - ANOTHER OFFICE Steed on the phone. STEED I say, Trubshaw, Steed here ... Barometer's falling fast. Mrs. Peel and I find ourselves in need of foul weather gear. (beat) Yes, I'd say gentlemen's snuff for starters. And then --204 INT. INVISIBLE JONES' OFFICE File pages flip through the air as Jones goes through them. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Ah, here we are. Steed asked me to play a hunch: Valentine Peel. EMMA Peter's brother? But -- INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Half-brother to be precise. Emma is surprised. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Now let's see ... Eton, Cambridge ... research into robotics and plastics. Overtaken by Peter's work on the physics of climate change ... EMMA I know all this. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Do you also know that during your final experiment, your halfbrother- in-law was under surveillance? EMMA Surveillance? By whom? INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Father. She gave him an 'all clear' after a security test by Dr. Darling. EMMA Who's now vanished. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Makes two of us. EMMA Are you suggesting that Dr. Darling and Valentine were somehow in this together? But that's absurd. Steed enters behind them on the run -- STEED We must hurry, Mrs. Peel ... EMMA Hurry? What for? I'm just now -- STEED You didn't tell her? INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) (testy) I was getting to it. EMMA Getting to what? INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) The World Council of Ministers meets tomorrow to convene the new global defense initiative -- EMMA I fail to see -- STEED There's a reception this evening. Colonel Jones thinks it advisable we attend. EMMA Have we been invited? INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) (poker-voiced) Under the circumstances Mother didn't see fit, but I think I can get you in ... EMMA (surveys her male outfit) Well, I can't possibly go like this. STEED I had a feeling. That's why we're in a hurry ... Steed proffers an arm to Emma. STEED May I have the honor, Mrs. Peel? She decides, takes his arm. EMMA You may, Mr. Steed. The A-team is born. Steed and Emma tip their hats to Jones.205 EXT. LONDON STREETS - SEVERAL ANGLES - NIGHT Troops rushing in to take up defense positions. Searchlights pierce the cloudy sky. A protective ring of hardware surrounds the hall.206 INT. MOTHER'S 22 BUS (AKA INSIDE MOBILE HQ) - NIGHT At the controls, Brenda looks on. She hands a bag of jelly babies to Mother. Who picks out his favorites, as he gives a briefing to Father and others, sitting in passenger seats -- ORDERS BARKED OUTSIDE as -- MOTHER Inside that hall are some of the Most powerful figures in the world. Tight security. Our only option. FATHER I'll see to it personally. Brenda glances over at Father's imperturbable face. As --207 EXT. PALACE (WESTMINSTER) - NIGHT Wind picking up. Outside the grand palace hall for the reception of the World Council of Ministers, guards stand on duty. Barriers, flashing lights. Nobody gets past, except --208 INT. PALACE (WESTMINSTER) - NIGHT Up in the gallery, Steed and Emma enter through a secret passage behind a painting. He with bowler and umbrella. She in black leather and boots. They find themselves in a niche and freeze, very close to one another. Steed sniff s ... STEED What's that you're wearing? EMMA It's called Black Leather. STEED Intoxicating. Here, have one of these. He fumbles with a bulging jacket pocket EMMA What is it? STEED Limpet bomb. Small, very compact. From Trubshaw's. EMMA (hocks it on belt) When all this is over, we simply must get you out of that suit. STEED You first. EMMA Shall we? She leads the way through marble halls, arched galleries, red velvet carpets, glittering chandeliers. From the hall, a SPEECH ECHOES: MINISTER (V.O.) ... In the uncertain climate that threatens this global initiative, no magic umbrella can shield us. Steed checks out his own. MINISTER (V.O.) Only our own vigilance. Security and stability are our watchwords. APPLAUSE. Steed pauses, offers Emma a small silver box. Inside... EMMA Trubshaw again? What now? STEED Snuff. (off Emma's lock) I must insist you try some. Steed takes some; Emma follows his example. Weird. Does it make you high? They walk on, open doors to --209 INT. PALACE HALLWAY - NIGHT An empty gallery. Steed and Emma peer down at a --210 MARBLE HALLWAY A black and white floor. Butlers move across like surreal chess pieces. Otherwise, empty. A chamber ensemble plays "The Merry Widow" waltz, which floats through empty halls. STEED They're playing your song, Mrs. Peel. EMMA (annoyed) 'The Merry Widow?' I might have known. Where's the reception? They move cautiously forward as211 EXT. LONDON STREETS - NIGHT Outside, snow begins to fall. Trees and buildings shimmer under a light layer of white. A Christmassy glow -- Even troops play with snowflakes, until --212 SEVERAL ANGLES The wind rises. The snow falls harder.213 INT. PALACE - NIGHT Down in the hallway, Steed and Emma search for the Ministers. They head down a corridor, then hear a NOISE. They hide behind pillers. As -- Butlers walk past in military file, carrying elaborate displays of lobster and meats. Steed steals -- A chicken leg. Nibbles on it. Suddenly another door opens -- Emma hides. Steed looks up to see -- Father "staring" at him. STEED Oh, hello ... FATHER We want Mrs. Peel. STEED Dead, I'm afraid. Emma in hiding, listens as -- FATHER (O.S.) You disobeyed an order, Steed. Mrs. Peel is dangerous; she cannot be trusted. Emma looks out the window behind her; eyes widen ... back to -- STEED (O.S.) I think she can. (beat) Can you? Emma is deeply affected by Steed's choice. Father's face, meantime, has turned to stone. FATHER I shall summon security. She turns, almost walks into the door as she slips away. Emma returns as the ALARM is raised -- STEED Bad news. Father's looking for you. Where are those bloody ministers? EMMA Have a look at this. She leads him to the window: sure enough -- heavy snow. Steed reacts, eyes wide. STEED It's almost May, for heaven sake.214 EXT. LONDON STREETS - NIGHT The blizzard rages through streets -- Now impassable. Snow drifts block roads. White mountains of snow start to climb up shop fronts. And amid the sky -- Filled with snowflakes, up round the roofs, a purple cloud descends on unsuspecting troops --215 INT. PALACE - NIGHT Steed returns, rushes across the marble halls -- To Emma. But up ahead, sees --216 STEED'S POV - FROM WINDOWS A purple fog seeping into the hallway, billowing through the corridors as --217 INT. PALACE ANTEROOM - NIGHT Inside an anteroom, like a Roman arena -- marble pillars, red carpet, golden walls, ceiling murals -- The World Council ministers assemble: slick pin-striped suits or African robes, Chinese Mao-suits, Indian Nehru-jackets, all distinguished men and women, surrounded by -- Fussing officials, minor dignitaries, and butlers, bowing and weaving a web of diplomatic protocol, interrupted by --218 CENTER OF HALL The sight of Emma Peel in black leather. She strides into the room. Picks a glass of champagne from a passing butler. All stare, Emma raises her glass -- EMMA Gentlemen, ladies. Forgive the breach of protocol. An emergency -- From the hallway -- BOOM -- ! The door bursts open, Emma is blown over by the blast as the purple cloud races inside.219 SEVERAL ANGLES as the smoke furls around the ministers, they choke, fall. From the doors -- Steed leaps in, gives Emma another snort of snuff -- STEED Quick --it'll protect you -- Emma inhales. Now immune to the gas, Steed and Emma hear -- CRASH -- ! They see -- through thick cloud -a mysterious man in a white lab coat, wearing a gas mask, leading a group of butlers, all in gas masks -- heads like black flies -- in formation round the ministers, helpless on the floor. A kidnapping -- The man and butlers haul away several ministers, and -- Escape from the rear doors. The butlers form a guard to protect the man. Steed and Emma run after them. More butlers pursue.220 EXT. PALACE - NIGHT As troops roll helplessly in the snow-covered purple haze, the butlers load the ministers onto waiting choppers as --221 INT. MOTHER'S HQ - CONTINUOUS ACTION Mother, Brenda, et al choke on purple smoke in the bus ...222 INT. PALACE HALLWAY - NIGHT Behind pillars, Steed and Emma hide as -- Butlers in gas masks patrol the halls. A butler passes them without noticing. They try to emerge. But another patrols -- Steed trips the butler with his umbrella, then chops him down on the ground. He rises but Emma kicks him into as -- Behind them Steed sees the lab-coated man escape up the stairs, protected by a posse of butlers. He shouts -- STEED After him, Mrs. Peel! A whole posse of butlers then advances. Steed faces them. STEED Go -- ! Emma hesitates. Then turns, heads for an ornate dual shaft elevator. She bangs the button, gets inside, doors shut, as the BULLETS from MACHINE-GUNNING gas masked butlers strike the brass door as -- Steed whips his rapier from his umbrella and duels with the butlers. To give Emma time, he uses every trick and prop at his disposal, plus, brute force to -- Kick, chop, punch, and impale them into submission, as --223 EXT. ELEVATOR (UPPER FLOORS) - CONTINUOUS ACTION The posse of butlers fan out on to keep pace with Emma. They head upstairs, pressing elevator "CALL" buttons on every floor, as --224 INSIDE ELEVATOR Emma waits inside. Until she reaches --225 EXT. ELEVATOR (2ND FLOOR) - CONTINUOUS ACTION Doors open. A HAIL of BULLETS hit the lift as Emma hides to one side until the doors close.226 INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS ACTION Emma sighs with relief. COOL HUM as the ELEVATOR rises.227 ON STAIRS - MEANWHILE Steed gaining on the butlers, heading for the stairs, as --228 INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS ACTION At the next floor, the doors open -- Two butlers rush inside. BLAM -- ! Emma cuts one in the throat with an elbow punch, then -- Punches -- kicks -- stabs the other butler, a more brutish type, who recovers enough to grab Emma by the throat. She chokes, breaks his stranglehold, swerves him round, gains a nelson hold on his arms and throat -- And a knee in his back in time for -- PING! The BELL RINGS at -- 3rd floor where -- Emma spins her captive butler round, in time to face -- Whooomph! a blast of fire from -- A flamethrower launched in the hall. Aaargh -- ! The butler gets fried, but --229 EXT. ELEVATOR (3RD FLOOR) - CONTINUOUS ACTION Shields Emma from the worst of the blast. She hurls him clear of the doors, which --230 INT. ELEVATORS - CONTINUOS ACTION Slam shut. COOL HUM ...231 EXT. PALACE MAIN FLOOR - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed continues his one-sided duel with the other butlers, skewering madly, trying to get upstairs to help Emma...232 INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS ACTION Up Emma goes. Looks for an escape route. Bangs on the walls. No trap doors. No secret panels. The "floor" light flickers between floors. Waiting, until ...233 EXT. ELEVATOR (4TH FLOOR) - CONTINUOUS ACTION The doors open. A grenade is hurled inside the doors, it rolls to one corner, Emma dives to the other side, then -- Scrambles for the grenade. Picks it up. It slips out of her hands. Scrambles more. It slips out ... Just beyond the elevator doors. Which start to shut. Emma leans out a foot, kicks the grenade towards the butlers, and -- As her elevator doors close -- BOOM -- ! It EXPLODES among the butlers, one of whom -- Rushes to --234 ELEVATOR (5TH FLOOR) - CONTINUOUS ACTION Where he waits for the elevator. Removes pin. Grenade ready. The light PINGS. Doors open. About to throw it inside, when --235 BUTLER'S POV No Emma.236 BACK TO SCENE The butler hesitates. Looks inside. Still no Emma? He wonders what to do, and -- The doors shut; he jams his foot. The doors open again. He moves in --237 INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS ACTION -- and looks round. Nobody there. Until, as we -- PULL BACK UP to reveal -- FROM ABOVE, spread-eagled like an X on the elevator roof, limbs flexed against the walls is -- Emma, who -- drops down and -- Scissors the butler's head between her legs. The grenade rolls free ... Emma twists around, grabs his ears, and -- Sits on his face. Buries his head in her crotch. A muffled sound from the guy, until -- Emma scissor kicks, breaking his neck. She drags --238 EXT. ELEVATOR (67H FLOOR) - CONTINUOUS ACTION His head out. Leaving his neck between the doors. So as she leaps out, heads up for the stairs, the elevators doors. SLAM! And -- BOOM! His GRENADE rocks the elevator, which239 INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT - ABOVE AND BELOW - CONTINUOUS ACTION Breaks from its ropes, and -- Plummets down the elevator shaft, shaking the building as it crashes --240 INT. PALACE STAIRS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Everything shakes with the impact of the elevator as Steed battles his way up, step by step, throwing gas-masked butlers over his shoulder as he struggles...241 INT. PALACE ATTIC - NIGHT Up the winding staircase, at the top, a skylight, which -- Flips open. The man leaps out, throwing back inside a smoke grenade, and locks the skylight. As the grenade --242 INT. NARROW STAIRCASE BOOM! explodes in the narrow staircase, fills it with purple smoke. Emma rushes thru smoke, choking. She gets to the skylight, tries to open it -- locked. A moment's panic. Then Emma -- punches a hole in the glass, flicks the switch, flips the skylight up, and -- Emerges into the night air. Snowflakes tumble around her.243 EXT. ROOFTOP - HELIPAD - NIGHT Blades whirling. Amid the blizzard, the man ready to escape in a super-fab streamlined whirly chopper ... Another assassin attacks Emma, pins her on her back, overlooking the city. Stands up before her -- Emma held back over gargoyle, over now snow white city ... Knees assassin in balls. Flicks him backwards ... As his body hurtles down into the snow-covered streets, Emma rushes forward. But too late: sees -- The chopper -- about to take off.244 FROM INSIDE CHOPPER The gas-masked MAN in the white lab coat: MAN Goodbye, Mrs. Peel!245 EXT. ROOFTOP The chopper rises slowly. Emma looks. A fifteen foot leap ... Impossible.246 FROM INSIDE CHOPPER A farewell wave from the gas-masked man.247 CLOSEUP - EMMA contemplating the jump, beneath falling snowflakes, as the distance grows.248 EMMA'S POV The rope/chain ladder coils into the chopper's belly.249 INT. CHOPPER - NIGHT Above London rooftops, after dark -- The man (still wears gas mask) the Pilot, CO-PILOT and a Butler (ditto). From the chopper, a giddy look down thru a glass command module. A fairy tale, snow white city. OVER the RADIO, interference. A changing of stations. Then a CRACKLY broadcast of "The Merry Widow." As the WALTZ serenades them high above the city -- a KNOCKING from outside on the door -- Surprised reactions. The Butler opens the door, sees -- Emma hanging onto the helicopter struts. The Butler is too dumbstruck to say anything. EMMA (shouts, re: the gas mask) Anyone ever tell you you look like a housefly? Emma grabs his epauletted shoulder, yanks him up, flicks him out -- The Butler is jerked out -- flies into the open air. Emma watches him fall ... EMMA Anyone else need a lift? The white-coated Man moves forward, but Emma is out, slamming the door, still clinging ... MAN (to Pilot; intercom) Can't you throw her off? The Pilot nods, works controls, the chopper dips as -- Blam -- ! a kinky leather boot crashes -- Into the Pilot's face as Emma kicks in the GLASS from the front of the chopper, SMASHES so the Pilots can't see -- a sudden rush of cold air -- The INSTRUMENT PANELS WHIRR round as the Pilots struggle for control -- VOICE (V.O.) (intercom) Where'd she go?250 EXT. CHOPPER TOP - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT with the blades whirling directly over her head, Emma crawls over the top of the chopper and lets herself down the other side as London's lights twinkle beneath ... As the Co-Pilot pokes his head out of the cockpit -- Emma grabs him with one hand, hoists him up into the air -- The Co-Pilot dangles over the city. Grabs Emma. Slithers back onto the cockpit. Pistol whips her. Emma crunches back onto the metal. Blades whirring close! The co-Pilot peers into her eyes from inside the gas mask -- CO-PILOT Happy landings, Mrs. Peel. He raises his hand, ready to hit her again, Emma yanks him up, where his head get sliced off by the blades -- body and head fall away separately ... As Emma reacts, her legs are grabbed from below and the white-coated Man pulls her down the side of the chopper -- Emma falls, but manages a flying handhold, hangs onto the chain wire below the chopper. As --251 EXT. WIDE ANGLE - NIGHT The Pilot and his passenger zoom at low level over buildings. Trying to dislodge Emma ...252 THEIR POV Thru the blizzard, zooming down streets, landmark buildings looming up topped in snow, feet up ... shinnying up the chain wire ... "THE MERRY WIDOW WALTZ," no longer heard as old record or ensemble arrangement but enormous, for FULL ORCHESTRA ...253 CLOSEUP - EMMA grimly hoists herself up along the struts again, hand over hand, coming up to the cockpit from behind --254 BACK TO SCENE With a sudden movement, she yanks the Pilot out from behind and he goes flying towards eternity on his own. The chopper out of control as the white-coated Man is left to fly it himself ...255 IN NIGHT AIR "THE MERRY WIDOW" BOOMS, the chopper lurches, spinning round -- up and down, over spiraling corkscrews, an insane waltz ...256 INT. CHOPPER - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT The white-coated Man gets control ...257 EXT. CHOPPER - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT Zig-zags down a narrow street, trying to smash Emma into sides of windows.258 SEVERAL ANGLES as Emma bounces of buildings, holding on for dear life ...259 EXT. WIDE ANGLE OVER THAMES - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT The chopper dips down, dragging Emma through icy water ... Up ahead ... Tower Bridge ... twin peaks ... a firework display going on ... rockets and lights in the sky thru snowflakes ... Emma sees the bridge coming, reaches down and --260 CLOSEUP SHOT Detaches her pocket limpet bomb and lobs it into the chopper cockpit.261 HER POV The bridge looms up, chopper rising to cross it as Emma leaps onto the bridge!262 INT. CHOPPER - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT The Man sees the bomb ... Also flings himself onto the bridge as -- Against b.g. of the fireworks display --263 WIDE ANGLE - TOWER BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT BOOM! -- the CHOPPER EXPLODES. Ball of flames. The crowd roars in appreciation ... great fireworks!264 EXT. TOP OF TOWER BRIDGE WALKWAY - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT Emma picks herself up, sees the Man in the white lab coat and runs for him. He runs too -- towards --265 ANOTHER CHOPPER which unloads a rope ladder as Emma puts on every ounce of steam ... The Man reaches for the dangling ladder -- but --266 CLOSEUP - ON HIS FOOT stuck, wedged between narrow battlements.267 BACK TO SCENE The Man looks at his shoe, at Emma charging towards him, at the rope ladder. He pulls his foot out of his shoe and grabs the ladder, sailing off in the second chopper, leaving Emma panting behind. She's soaked, frozen, gasping for breath, bending over, when she sees --268 CLOSEUP - SHOE Emma pulls it from its wedge, looks at the inside: -- "Trubshaw's of Jermyn Street." STEED (V.O.) I thought it was Cinderella who lost her slipper ...269 INT. TRUBSHAW'S - DAWN On Jermyn Street, snow lies waist high. BLARING SIRENS. Searchlights. PA announcements urge citizens to stay indoors ... PULL BACK to reveal a fire glows, a CLOCK TICKS calmly. Emma sits with her shoe, surrounded by a pile of shoes. Steed & Trubshaw beside her. EMMA This time the shoe's on the other foot. You said a hand-made shoe was as good as a photo-fit or D.N.A.? Well, all we have to do is find the shoe that fits ... TRUBSHAW It should be easy. A Trubshaw client has his shoes delivered personally. The Ministry should be able to confirm our delivery. STEED I'll be back ... EMMA Where are you going? STEED Laying in supplies, Mrs. Peel weather may get very nasty and I've no umbrella ... EMMA You needn't bother. I can't drag you further into this. After all, I am still the chief suspect. STEED No bother. Mother and Father think I've joined you. I might as well. EMMA But -- STEED (comes back) Oh, and by the way, I think it's about time you got rid of that chip on your shoulder. EMMA If you'd been through what I have, you wouldn't -- Steed reaches and pulls off the micro-bug from her shoulder. STEED A microtag. One of Mother's little toys. There you are. Free at last. He tips his bowler off her surprised reaction.270 INT. TRUBSHAW'S BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS ACTION An armory. Steed stands before racks of umbrellas, displayed like ceremonial swords -- ivory handles, duck handles, you name it ... Steed hefts a few, as picky as a Samurai ...271 UPSTAIRS - HOURS LATER Emma surrounded by a mountain of shoes. Triumphantly, she holds up a pair of shoe lasts. EMMA Prince Charming, I presume. Your name is ...272 CLOSE ON WORN PAPER LABEL with the name: DARLING. EMMA Oh my God ...273 INT. TRUBSHAW'S - DOWNSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed selects his umbrella and we FOLLOW UP TO:274 INT. TRUBSHAW'S - UPSTAIRS - DAY He sees only Trubshaw. STEED Where's Mrs. Peel? TRUBSHAW She just left, sir. In a hurry. STEED What? TRUBSHAW She said you'd understand.275 ON STEED Worried. VOICE (V.O.) Ah, here we are ...276 CLOSEUP - PIP PUFFING IN MID-AIR WIDEN to reveal:277 INT. MINISTRY ARCHIVES - DAY Inside the archives, among leather volumes. A file goes through the air, passed to Emma ... As she reads. A map is opened across a desk from her. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) 'X' marks the spot. The shoes were delivered to ... an island in Hyde Park. Surrounded by the Serpentine. On the site of a former Ministry installation... EMMA ... and now? INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Privately owned by ... EMMA Let me guess: Wonderland Weather. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Very good, Mrs. Peel ... EMMA I shall need a small plane. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) You're not venturing alone, surely. EMMA I'm going to find out who killed my husband. Will you take these documents to Steed? INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) Of course.278 ON EMMA EMMA Tell him I said ... goodbye.279 INT. SECRET SERVICE HQ - DAY below the Thames as at the beginning. In darkest paranoia, Mother lies at the heart of his Labyrinth. Controls around him flash emergency. Panic. Cakes piled up beside him, uneaten. Beside him, Father. Brenda hands a phone. BRENDA Steed for you. Mother grabs the phone, furious. MOTHER Where's Mrs. Peel? He signals frantically for Father to trace the call, but being blind, Father just sitsthere. STEED (V.O.) (filtered) I was hoping you could tell me. MOTHER You're getting yourself into terrible trouble, my son. Weather's turning very nasty -- and so am I. STEED (V.O.) (filtered) I'm going to follow up on a hunch of my own. If I'm right, Mrs. Peel is innocent and you have a mole. MOTHER (grabs mirror; searches his face) Where? STEED (V.O.) (filtered) In your operation. MOTHER I'm warning you for the last time, Steed: whoever's behind all this, looks like Mrs. Peel, walks like Mrs. Peel and kills like Mrs. Peel. CLICK. The line goes dead.280 CLOSE ON MOTHER Furious. MOTHER Steed?? (to Father) Find Mrs. Peel. Brenda smiles at the thought. Father rises, grim.281 EXT. SKY - DAY Through mist, an ultralight plane zooms down -- From the plane, Emma leaps in parachute ... Down, down, down through the mist ... Over parkland, the parachute floats down ... To an island in the middle of the Serpentine river.282 EXT. ISLAND (HYDE PARK) - DAY Emma lands, buries her parachute. Walks towards a thick jungle, then a stream. Emma hops across on water lilies until she reaches land again. Where a peacock fans its tail of a thousand eyes. A CLICK of CAMERAS. In the midst of the jungle, Emma sees --283 HER POV A red phone box. Emma frowns in recognition; goes inside. Picks up the phone. Presses "Button B", and -- The floor goes down. Emma goes down with it, into --284 INT. HYDE PARK UNDERGROUND HQ Formerly a Ministry installation. The "elevator" stops. Remembering, as from a dream, Emma steps out into --285 LONG DARK CORRIDOR A GUARD patrols. Emma pushes herself against a wall. The wall gives way to flip round, and Emma swivels into --286 INT. TOTALLY DARK CHAMBER The door locks behind. Alone, Emma stands warily. From nowhere, a chilling, disembodied voice. Intimate. Seductive. VOICE (V.O.) Congratulations, Mrs. Peel. You have been a worthy opponent. You have tracked us down. You are within an ace of winning. EMMA This isn't a game. VOICE (V.O.) Quite right, but we still make the rules. EMMA Rules are made to be broken. VOICE (V.O.) People, too. EMMA Then who wins? VOICE You and I. Together. But first you must confront your greatest enemy. Who could that be, Mrs. Peel? The answer is obvious ... Suddenly lights! Emma is in a hall of mirrors. VOICE (V.O.) Yourself. In every direction Emma turns, a thousand reflections of herself stare back at her, splintered into fragments as Emma spins, freaked and confused by the multiple images. Emma turns into herself -- only herself drapes arms around her and kisses her on the lips. Bad Emma -- whose eyes stare into Emma's startled ones as Emma pulls her mouth away, staggers back; realizes too late. The hallucinogenic lip poison. Emma crumples to her knees as --287 EMMA'S POV Sees "herself" above her, before she -- falls unconscious.288 EXT. COUNTRY ROADS - DAY Steed's Jag races, skids in bad weather.289 INT. CAR Behind the wheel Steed, his face grim, concentrates on the slippery road. On the seat next to him the snow shaker with little Emma inside -- DISSOLVE TO:290 INT. UNDERGROUND H.Q. As if in a dream, Emma awakes captive inside a bizarre cage: A life size snow shaker. Emma "swims" in viscous air, suspended like a mermaid. Thru glass she sees -- A face peering in: Father. FATHER (filtered) Emma in Wonderland. Welcome, Mrs. Peel. (filtered) We've been expecting you. We hope you'll enjoy your stay with us. Decontamination is almost complete. EMMA Decontamination -- ? FATHER And you've a new wardrobe. He does want you to look attractive. (beat ) He tells me you're very beautiful. Emma pounds the glass in frustration. FATHER Relax, Mrs. Peel. We're hundreds of feet below ground. The Ministry made it impregnable. No one can save you.291 EXT. SPIRES OF ETON COLLEGE - EVENING as Steed drives towards it ...292 INT. UNDERGROUND HQ - DINING ROOM Bathed in candlelight. A romantic supper for two ... A door opens, admitting -- Emma. Dressed, coiffed, super-glamorous. She locks around, sees another door. In search of escape she hastens to open it, only to reveal -- A giant rabbit -- the one we saw at the Teddy Bear meeting. Emma gasps in surprise, moves back into the room as he advances, removing the head -- it's Dr. Darling!!! DR. DARLING Emma, my dear. How lovely you look. He steps out of the rest of his costume ... EMMA Would that I could say the Same. DR. DARLING Ah, but you haven't see the real me. Watch closely ... He pulls at his face, which bubbles and collapses as he walks towards her -- Emma's horrified expression, eyes widening as -- Dr. Darling turns into ... Peter! EMMA Peter ... PETER Darling Emma -- EMMA It was you ... all the time? PETER Not really. Not quite. I'm afraid you still don't see ... Again he claws at his face, pulling, twisting ... Emma winces at the sight, her eyes popping out of her head. It's Valentine! TEACHER (V.O.) Valentine Peel ...293 EXT. ETON COLLEGE - EVENING beneath Gothic turrets pupils in top hats and tails. OLD TEACHER (V.O.) Yes, I remember him quite well ... PULL BACK THROUGH windows to reveal: Steed and an OLD TEACHER in the beautiful library. OLD TEACHER This is where he used to spend his days. We have an old photograph somewhere ... He's flipping through yearbooks, then shows Steed --294 CLOSEUP - PHOTO of Valentine Peel on stage, in wizard's garb. Made up as an old man ...295 BACK TO SCENE TEACHER Absolute wizard with makeup. His favorite roll from Shakespeare. Prospero ... STEED 'The Prospero Project...' TEACHER ... From The Tempest. A banished duke, ousted by his brother, marooned on a magic island. Who controlled the weather.296 CLOSEUP - STEED grim. STEED 'O Brave New World that hath such people in it.'297 BACK TO DINNER TABLE Emma frozen, sinks into a chair, staring ... EMMA You. VALENTINE Darling Emma -- yes, we: the true genius behind the Prospero Project ... He walks around the dinner table as he talks ... EMMA But you died -- in the explosion ...298 FLASHBACK - CLOSE ON HAND IN WHITE GLOVE Twisting the dial. PAN UP the arm to reveal Valentine. VALENTINE (V.O.) Oh, no. I arranged the explosion.299 BACK TO PRESENT VALENTINE A slight miscalculation -- my face was burned beyond recognition. Fortunately my research into plastics came in handy ... EMMA (stunned) Dr. Darling, Peter ... all you ... VALENTINE An unholy trinity ... EMMA (stands) You killed my husband. VALENTINE For starters. Of course I had to kill the Teddy Bears, as well ... EMMA Too many cooks -- VALENTINE Spoil the majority shareholders. In Wonderland Weather. I planned everything, even the Ministry recruiting you ... EMMA But I found you. All the clues led me here ... VALENTINE Of course. I planned that, too. EMMA But -- why? VALENTINE You disappoint me, Emma. Can't you guess? (moves toward her) For you. It was all for you ... EMMA (cold) 'Our revels now are ended.' VALENTINE Oh, no, Emma. They've only just begun ...300 INT. INVISIBLE JONES' OFFICE - NIGHT The phone hangs in the air -- with the smoking pipe. INVISIBLE JONES (V.O.) The shoes were delivered to an island in the Serpentine - former Ministry installation ... she said to tell you goodbye. What?301 CLOSEUP - STEED IN RED PHONEBOX (SOMEWHERE) - NIGHT STEED I said it's not goodbye yet. Listen, I'm going to need some help. In a hurry ...302 INT. HYDE PARK UNDERGROUND - DINING ROOM VALENTINE (indicates supper) Think of this as your second wedding feast ... EMMA I'm already married ... VALENTINE Come, come, you're a widow -- a most attractive widow. Now I think of it, we'll need a bridesmaid. Here. He pushes a button. Bad Emma enters. Tattooed Z424. Unmistakably hostile. VALENTINE My latest model. A compound of plastics and sensor chips. A big improvement on the old X404s. The poor thing is quite fond of me. Emma, say hello to Emma. BAD EMMA HISSES, a strange mix of STATIC and FEEDBACK. VALENTINE You know, I believe she's actually jealous. EMMA Valentine, listen to me ... VALENTINE Right, bridesmaid. Now what have I left out? Oh, yes, I know: the ring. EMMA (covers her hand) Ring? He stands very near her -- she's terrified -- then: VALENTINE How silly of me -- let me make you comfortable first ... As he advances, ZOOM IN EXTREME CLOSEUP Emma's eye DISSOLVE TO:303 INT. ISLAND (HYDE PARK) - NIGHT Another ball, WIDEN to reveal, from the lake, an odd eight foot high plastic ball emerges -- The ball lands on the shore. From the inside, a zip peels away the plastic layer to reveal -- Steed, like an urban dandy in suit and bowler. A rose in his lapel. He steps out, and, poking with his umbrella -- Deflates the inflatable plastic submarine. Steed heads off -- CAMERA EYES the peacock swivel towards him, as he heads into the jungle where he sees the --304 RED PHONEBOX Steed picks up the phone. Presses all the buttons until he hits "Button B." As the floor lowers, his eyes widen in surprise ...305 SARCOPHAGUS carved in Emma's likeness. Lowered from the ceiling hydraulically into --306 INT. VALENTINE'S HIGH-TECH TORTURE CHAMBER - CONTINUOUS ACTION as Valentine descends spiral steps to join it. Valentine opens the coffin to reveal Emma strapped within. VALENTINE That's better. I say, isn't this where you came in? It's impenetrable, by the way ... EMMA You're mad. VALENTINE Entirely. On the other hand (he advances towards her, smiling) Mad people get things done. Let me show you --307 INT. UNDERGROUND H.Q. - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed stealing down a corridor and -- hides, as a posse of guards rushes past, alerted by the peacock cameras. He waits till they pass, then reaches out his umbrella, and -- Nabs Father around the neck who was feeling her way after them. Brings her down. FATHER Steed STEED How did you guess? FATHER You reek of Mrs. Peel's Black Leather ... STEED It was you who gave Valentine Peel his security clearance ... you're the mole who betrayed the Ministry. FATHER Mother betrayed me. She was going to replace me with a younger Father. Errand boy that's all I was. 'Find Steed...' STEED Well, you found me. Have a sniff of this, why don't you? Careful, the scent can be overpowering ... Holding Father securely, Steed forces her nose into his rose boutonniere, squeezes the rubber tube, sprays a Mist. Father passes out. Steed rises, locks around. Sees -- A grille and removes it, climbs in and replaces it before the guards return. He turns and --308 INT. DUCTS - CONTINUOUS ACTION crawls forward through a mass of wires and plumbing -- until he hears a VOICE -- VALENTINE'S. Steed reaches another grille, through which he can see --309 INT. TORTURE CHAMBER Emma's coffin, standing on end, like the Iron Maiden faces a wall of TV monitors as Valentine explains. VALENTINE People expect weather to be free. They're used to it. I call that a denial of freedom. No freedom of choice. An abuse of human rights. They buy water, electricity, gas. Why shouldn't they be able to buy their own weather if they want to? If they have a little incentive ... Emma reacts -- also Steed (unseen) behind her. EMMA Such as? VALENTINE Destruction of their local weather systems. I can zap a thousand Chernobyls into the air. EMMA The result would be ... VALENTINE Chaos. Transport paralysis. Crop failure. Economic disaster. Frostbite or sunburn ... on a massive scale. You've seen a few samples... EMMA Then what's stopping you? VALENTINE One very small thing. A diamond 'cyclone' chip. A thousand times more information on a fraction of the size. If I possess that, my powers would be unlimited. My dear half-brother was developing it. But he suspected sabotage. He gave the chip to ... you, 'Mrs.' Peel. I want you. But also your ring. Valentine takes her by the hand. Kisses --310 CLOSEUP - HER RINGA diamond. In the light, a patterned imprint. ZOOM IN -- a complex fractal equation of circuits.311 BACK TO SCENE VALENTINE The missing piece of the jigsaw. I tried to get you to give it to me as Peter; I tried to steal it from you as Dr. Darling. As myself I'll be a bit less subtle. (he slips it off her finger; holds it up) With this ring my plan will be complete. EMMA How Wagnerian ... Do you mean to say you've waited all these years because you couldn't create a chip on your own? That would have amused Peter. VALENTINE Speaking of Peter, there's more good news: You won't even have to change your last name. You'll always be Mrs. Peel. EMMA What are my choices? VALENTINE Choices? EMMA I'll never marry you. Valentine is philosophical. He spins the sarcophagus on an axis, lying it flat -- Emma lying in her coffin as he looks down at her -- VALENTINE One out of two isn't bad. I'll keep you alive, darling Emma. In a year or five, you may change your mind. If you're still in it. Valentine presses a button. From the ceiling -- a surgical laser. Moves down to within inches of her face. VALENTINE This little toy gave me back my face. It can replace yours. What do you think? Medusa? Madame Defarge? Maggie Thatcher? He marks an imaginary line round Emma's face. An ALARM BELL RINGS. Emma reacts. FATHER (V.O.) Dr. Darling, this is Father. We have an intruder. I repeat -- Valentine switches off the PA. VALENTINE Ah. That will be Steed. He followed you. Please excuse me. I have work to do. My most spectacular performance. A ballet of clouds. It was made for you. I want to give you a heart, Emma. I want all of London to see it. And now with this ... (flourishes ring) They will. (leans close) And for an encore: the biggest cyclone in history will wipe the City from the face of the earth. (winks) Shape of things to come, my darling. He stuffs a gag into Emma's mouth and closes the coffin on her muffled protests. Darkness. Immediately, Steed tries to force his way through the grille. No such luck. STEED Blast. What to do? Mrs. Peel! He doesn't dare say her name too loud -- and there's no telling if she could hear him in that thing, anyway. He turns around in the tunnel -- heads the other way.312 EXT. SKY OVER LONDON - NIGHT Moonlight night. Dark clouds approach like an army, spreading shadows.313 INSIDE CLOUDS MOISTURE SPITS and CRACKLES, static energy waiting to explode ... In the sky -- clouds join together like a genie from a lamp, forming -- over the city -- a strange dark sensuous figure, half human, half dreamlike. That stalks the city....314 INT. DUCTS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed crawling. A rat runs over him ... STEED The things I do for England ... Pitch dark, then -- Emma's coffin is opened and we see Bad Emma, looking down. Bad Emma stares at her human double -- Emma: who looks imploringly at her to undo the gag. Bad Emma removes it, she -- Runs a finger down Emma's body, inside a hole torn in the leather -- warm human flesh. Blood. Her flesh. Her blood. Fascinated. EMMA You must let me go ... Bad Emma listens. Gently lays her head on Emma's breast, listens to -- the HEARTBEAT. Ba-boom. Ba-boom ... EMMA Don't you understand? If he has me, he'll have no use for you ... he'll destroy you ... The words jolt Bad Emma back, remembering her mission. She goes to the laser, aims it at Emma's face! EMMA No... Bad Emma hesitates, looks strangely human as --315 ANOTHER PART OF UNDERGROUND H.Q. The grille pops off and Steed emerges where the guards are waiting for him -- STEED Oh, dear. No escape. He takes off his bowler -- deftly removes a strip from its brim, aims it at the guards, and -- Hurls it ...316 CLOSEUP - BOWLER (IN FLIGHT) A glinting razor's edge, which -- Swoosh -- ! Slices into the closest guard before returning, like a boomerang to Steed. He taps twice hard steel as ...317 OTHER GUARDS run towards him, Steed swivels gracefully and - slams the bowler in their faces, a sartorial knuckleduster -- wham -- ! One drops -- Bam -- ! The other collapses, slump to the ground. Steed stoops down, picks up his hat, sees -- A dent in its steel top. For the first time, Steed loses his cool. Genuine rage. STEED Someone's going to pay for this. Stepping over the nearest body, Steed moves on his way, as --318 CLOSEUP - VALENTINE places a ring inside a control module filled with identical-looking diamond chips ... WIDEN to reveal ...319 INT. CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT Masses of dials and switches. ( Off to one side, on a wall, a rack of rapiers ... ) Valentine hits a switch ... VALENTINE Start the countdown. Action stations. Five minutes ... The countdown starts, red digitals going backwards -- Colorized computer screens map out hostile weather fronts. A COMPUTERIZED VOICE STARTS to COUNT. The CLOCK TICKS. Father enters behind him. FATHER Congratulations. The clouds are on course ... VALENTINE To explode. London will be ashes. FATHER Not yet! They haven't heard our terms ... ! Father tries to hit the switch. Valentine yanks her off. VALENTINE Are you insane? Stop the program and you activate the auto-destruct! FATHER But all those people -- ! Valentine strikes her hard -- VALENTINE My cloud ballet! My cyclone! Father slides to the floor. Valentine ignores her. Concentrates on the control panel red lights, as --320 EXT. PARLIAMENT SQUARE - NIGHT Up in the sky, more white clouds -- Darken into boiling black. They move and billow. Bubbling with gases and energy Swirling with motion, a life of their own. FROM river, a scarlet fog floats upwards. It gains mass and weight, slowly forming as it rolls --321 THROUGH CITY STREETS then RISES ABOVE them -- into a weird pulsating red shape. A love heart.322 CLOSEUP - DIGITAL READOUTS Whirling backwards ...323 INT. MOTHER'S UNDERWATER HQ - CONTINUOUS ACTION Mother at the controls. RINGS the ALARM. Panic stations as -- SIRENS BLARE. WARNINGS RING OUT OVER TV and RADIO -- MOTHER Dense cloud formation moving south- west. On course for the center of the city. A fog floating in from the river. The prediction is ... unstable chemical reaction. Enforce the curfew ... Emergency stand by ... !324 EXT. SKY OVER BUCKINGHAM PALACE - NIGHT Bad storm clouds advance over London ... black and furious.325 OVER CITY - SEVERAL ANGLES As shadows in a whirl of chemical matter. An airborne CYCLONE of BELCHING static ELECTRICITY. The black shape now -- Forming a sensuous female shape. Like a dream wisp of ... Emma Peel with an hourglass figure. While --326 FROM RIVER The heart-shaped cloud seems to -- move towards the black genie shape -- trying to connect, to form the cyclone ...327 EXT. LONDON STREETS - SEVERAL ANGLES - NIGHT Action stations. AIR RAID SIRENS ... Like a re-run Blitz. Streets now eerily empty and dark. Through deserted streets -- Troops race to positions in gas masks. Searchlights illuminate clouds. Worried faces watch the skies, as --328 CLOSEUP - DIGITAL NUMBERS Fly ...329 INT. HI-TECH TORTURE CHAMBER - DAY Chaos on all TV monitors as ... Valentine hastens down the spiral steps and opens Emma's coffin. What will he find?? Emma's there, still gagged. Looks asleep. VALENTINE My dear. (pulls the gag: kisses her) I wouldn't want you to miss the grand finale ... Emma opens her eyes. Valentine looks down at her, until -- a tell-tale sign: Z424. Bad Emma is unmistakable. He strikes her -- yanks her out of the coffin. VALENTINE Find her. Kill her ... He races back upstairs as ...330 INT. UNDERGROUND HYDE PARK - HQ CATWALKS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Emma makes her way through the labyrinthine superstructure of the place, crawling high on a girder over some BURBLING LIQUID below. She hears NOISE IN the DISTANCE. Suddenly --331 INT. UNDERGROUND HQ - STEED - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed battles more guards! No time to lose. Wham -- ! Bam -- ! Now moving with deadly earnest, Steed downs all oncomers, closing in on --332 INT. UNDERGROUND CONTROL ROOM - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed rushes in, BOLTS the AIRLOCK behind. Pounding on door. He sees the timer racing backwards -- stands over the controls, trying to figure out how to stop the program. Looks for the chip -- amongst all the rest it's like trying to find a contact lens inwater.333 FLOOR-LEVEL HATCH opens behind. Valentine emerges, drops the HATCH COVER with a THUD. Steed whirls. VALENTINE John Steed. STEED Valentine Peel. I see you've gone back to using your original face. VALENTINE The last one you'll ever see. STEED Perish the thought. Valentine fulls forth a rapier from the wall. VALENTINE Did they tell you at Eton that I was fencing champion, too? Steed unsheathes his umbrella, revealing ditto. STEED They said you were a very naughty boy. The fight is on as the numbers grow smaller!334 SEVERAL ANGLES VALENTINE You're better than I expected. STEED I was at Harrow ... VALENTINE But did they teach you this? Valentine whacks the blade off Steed's umbrella handle. Laughs. A diminished phallic symbol. Steed, dumbfounded. Valentine advances towards Steed -- Who points the umbrella at him. STEED Bang-bang ... you're dead. VALENTINE You wish. He moves to close in, when ...335 CLOSEUP - FLASH OF LIGHT from the muzzle, as a BULLET ZIPS out, and --336 VALENTINE recoils. Blood streams from his shoulder. He looks up, devastated. Steed blows smoke away from the muzzle. STEED One shot -- for emergencies. VALENTINE (clutches wound) That's not playing by the rules. STEED (echoes Emma!) Rules are made to be broken. VALENTINE (pulls his own gun) If you say so. STEED I do. He FIRES again. To the heart. Valentine spins to the floor. VALENTINE You said ... one shot. STEED Did I? My mistake. Steed turns to the console, tries to figure out how to stop the countdown, when behind the hatch opens again, revealing Emma. Valentine pulls her up, grabs her as hostage -- VALENTINE I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Steed turns. STEED Mrs. Peel -- ! Valentine has Emma, a knife to her throat, stands over the hatch. VALENTINE Bullet-proof waistcoats -- just the thing. I get mine from Trubshaw's. We'll be off now, won't we, darling? (to Steed) We wouldn't want to miss the fireworks. Figure it out if you can, Steed ...337 DOWN HATCH Valentine drags Emma, bolting the hatch.338 ON STEED He's torn briefly, but there are thousands of lives at stake; Steed goes to the control module and starts pulling out chips, looking ...339 EXT. LONDON - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT The biggest cyclone you've ever seen starts slowly whirling above the city, gathering momentum ...340 NUMBERS going down, down, down, as ...341 INT. CATWALKS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Valentine drags Emma backwards ...342 EXT. LONDON - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT The cyclone picking up force ...343 CLOSEUP - STEED'S HANDS pull up a chip. The red numbers freeze. WIDEN to reveal...344 INT. CONTROL ROOM - CONTINUOUS ACTION The SIRENS CEASE. Steed allows himself a smile of relief.345 EXT. LONDON - CONTINUOUS ACTION - NIGHT The giant cyclone begins to break apart ...346 SEVERAL ANGLES - DYING STORM347 CLOSEUP - RELIEVED FACES Troops pulling off gas masks as ...348 INT. CONTROL ROOM - ON SCREENS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed sees the breakup of the cyclone ... Then -- behind him -- an ominous CLICK-CLICKING as the PROGRAM reconfigures. A DIFFERENT ALARM BUZZER SOUNDS and the words: "AUTO-DESTRUCT, 3 MINUTES" start flashing ... A different set of numbers start running backwards ... STEED You must be joking ...349 EXT. CATWALKS - CONTINUOUS ACTION Valentine, dragging Emma, reacts to the new ALARMS. VALENTINE Fool ... In his hesitation, Emma suddenly makes her move. A struggle -- Emma takes a bad fall down a landing below. Ugly THUD. Dead. STEED That will do. He's materialized across the girder from Valentine. Who pulls his revolver. VALENTINE Aren't you forgetting about something? STEED You are, and it's behind you. VALENTINE Come, come. You don't really expect me to fall for -- Bad Emma's arms go 'round Valentine in a lethal embrace. VALENTINE Let go, you ... idiot ... Uh uh. She holds him in a vice-like grip. Hugging Valentine. STEED I think she really likes you ... Where's Mrs. Peel? VALENTINE Ugh ... As the life is squeezed out of him, Bad Emma finally smiles. Cradled together, she chokes Valentine, who gasps for breath, as -- One last desperate move on his part and Bad Emma tumbles backwards, Valentine locked in her arms in a dying embrace. They fall into the mists and liquid below. Steed almost falls himself as he grabs a beam for support. Looks down, sees ...350 EMMA Dead. STEED Emma! He has said her name. He scrambles down to her body. Emma lying sprawled out on the ground. Steed picks up her limp body in his arms like "Sleeping Beauty." His eyes fill with tears. He lays her down. STEED Emma ... He produces Peter's ring.351 CLOSEUP - RING Slips it onto her finger and ...352 BACK TO SCENE Kisses her. A chaste kiss on the lips. But with the force and passion of a lover. He closes his eyes, looks away in grief. The ALARM STILL SOUNDS but Steed doesn't give a damn. Behind, Emma opens her eyes. As if revived by the kiss. Or the ring. Looks up at him. EMMA Steed? Steed looks back at her -- surprise, delight. STEED Mrs. Peel? EMMA What kept you? STEED The plot. (realizing) Hello, we must be going ...353 CLOSEUP - AUTO-DESTRUCT NUMBERS Racing backwards as ...354 SEVERAL ANGLES Steed pulls Emma through the catwalks and corridors of Valentine's Labyrinth ...355 MORE NUMBERS racing to zero, nothing to stop them ...356 INT. TORTURE CHAMBER - CONTINUOUS ACTION Steed and Emma race in -- she sees the sarcophagus. EMMA Quick! Emma scrambles in and Steed leaps on top of her, bringing down the lid as ...357 SEVERAL ANGLES 3-2-1 -- and a BLAST like a nuclear EXPLOSION -- as the Underground HQ is fragmented to smithereens -- Emma's " coffin" goes flying ... as the SCREEN WHITES OUT.358 EXT. ALBERT BRIDGE - NIGHT Beneath the clear moonlight, all bulbs on -- like Xmas.359 BELOW it floats the coffin -- which opens, revealing ... Steed and Emma, squashed together, gasping for breath. STEED 'The owl and the pussycat went to sea -' EMMA '... in a beautiful pea green boat...' STEED A fine night, Mrs. Peel ... EMMA Still a bit chilly ... STEED English weather. You know, after all we've been through, I should say we deserve a long holiday ... EMMA Have you any place in mind? STEED As a matter of fact I have ... The coffin drifts downstream in the moonlight. SLOW DISSOLVE TO:360 EXT. SIBERIAN ICE FIELDS - DAY 360 A few weeks later. Across snowy wastes, a pack of Huskies drag a sled behind them, WHIP CRACKED by a -- Frozen fur-clad Siberian peasant. As he turns a corner, dogs stumble from ice and snow into --361 SAND The peasant stops, stares.362 AHEAD OF HIM Sun beats down. A tropical beach. A warm sea. A butler, Trubshaw. POPS a CHAMPAGNE CORK. From a tent, he brings two glasses down the beach to363 TWO DIVAN-STYLE DECK CHAIRS Where Steed and Emma toast in the sun. Steed in a smoking jacket, Emma in a bikini. EMMA I don't recall Siberia being this warm, Steed. STEED It's the latest thing, Mrs. Peel. EMMA Our little paradise -- just made for two? STEED (looks; frowns) Not quite. On cue from the water, Mother emerges, snorkeling in his wheelchair contraption -- with Brenda. He waves to -- STEED Our chaperon. EMMA Pity your mother came, too ... Steed seems peeved that his chance to be alone with EMMA is spoiled. Trubshaw pours glasses of champagne. STEED Still a little warm, Trubshaw. Is this the '28? A little more ice, I think ... Trubshaw trots off dutifully. A large ice bucket appears. Mother moves in. Absorbed by Emma, now his new protegee. MOTHER About your next assignment, Mrs. Peel ... EMMA Next assignment? Steed gives his champagne to the Siberian peasant. He presses a switch -- an umbrella shoots up between them, opens up, twirls. PULL BACK to reveal the strip of beach, like a tiny bubble of tropical weather. Against a Siberian b.g. of snow. As we WIDEN we REVEAL a giant glass bubble, hearing -- EMMA (V.O.) Ah ... sun tan lotion. Any shops nearby? STEED (V.O.) Must be. Trubshaw's busy. I'll send Mother ... PULL BACK to reveal no shop for miles around. MOTHER (V.O.) Ahem. As I was saying, perhaps another macaroon ... EMMA (V.O.) Thank you, Steed. STEED (V.O.) Thank you, Mrs. Peel. Behind the umbrella -- LAUGHTER. CHINK of GLASSES. FADE OUT. THE END
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+L'avventura (The Adventure)script byMichelangelo AntonioniElio BartoliniTonino Guerratranslated byLouis BriganteIt is the afternoon of a summer's day. Anna, a twenty-five-year-old brunette, comes out from the entrance of a stately building and walks along a pathway that leads up to a dirt road. She is in a great hurry and becomes a little annoyed and surprised at seeing her father, a meticulously dressed and elderly gentleman, standing near the curb busily talking to his chauffeur in front of a black British car. 				ANNA		So, there you are... I've been upstairs looking 		all over for you... There is a moment of silence during which Anna's father deliberately ignores her presence. She stares at him intently, trying to determine his mood and wondering how she is going to tell him what she has to say before she leaves. Finally, he turns around and faces her. 				FATHER 		Oh, I thought you were already on the high 		seas. Anna is barely able to control her temper, but realizing that the discussion is about to take the usual sarcastic turn, she immediately checks herself. 				ANNA		No, not yet, Dad. Her father fixes her with a long ironic look. Conscious of his daughter's haste, he is apparently trying his best to detain her. 				FATHER 		Isn't it fashionable any more to put on a 		sailor's cap with the name of the yacht? 				ANNA 		No, Dad, it isn't. There is another moment of silence. Meanwhile, a car has pulled up on the other side of the road. It is Claudia, a twenty-four-year-old blonde and a friend of Anna's. Both she and the driver get out of the car and remain discreetly in the background, waiting for the conversation to end. Anna's father resumes speaking, after a cursory nod to Claudia who, in turn, responds with a polite but half-hearted smile. 				FATHER 		And how long will you be away? 				ANNA 		Four or five days.				FATHER 			(resignedly) 		Oh, very well. I'll just spend the weekend 		alone by myself and take a little rest. I 		should be used to it by now. Anna glares at him furiously but still manages to restrain herself. 				ANNA 		Used to what?				FATHER 		To the fact of my retirement, not only as a 		diplomat but also as a father.				ANNA 			(protestingly and with a 			 deep sense of compassion) 		But how could you say such a thing? 				FATHER 		Because it's true. After thirty years -- not 		having ever spoken the truth to anyone, I 		should at least allow myself to do so with my 		own daughter. 				ANNA 		And have you any other truths to tell me? 				FATHER 		You already know what they are.				ANNA 		You mean Sandro, don't you?  Well, I beg of 		you, please, spare me that. Goodbye, Dad. She kisses him on the cheek but the father remains unmoved. It is obvious that he still has something else he wants to say to her. In fact, after gazing upon his daughter with a certain amount of pity, he finally does say it. 				FATHER 		That type will never marry you, my child.Anna has a difficult time restraining herself but manages somehow to keep calm as she answers. 				ANNA 		Up until now, Dad, I've been the one who hasn't 		wanted to marry him.				FATHER 		It's the same thing. Goodbye, dear. He now returns the kiss his daughter had given him a short while ago. Then, without once turning around, he heads slowly towards the entrance of the house, as Claudia comes into the foreground.Anna, still very tense and upset over the scene with her father, gets into the car. Claudia follows after her, as the driver puts her suitcase into the trunk. 				CLAUDIA 		Have you been waiting long? You'll have to 		excuse me. Anna doesn't answer. She merely pats Claudia's hand. The car takes off, as Anna's maid, standing to one side of the road, waves a warm goodbye. Claudia responds by waving back, but Anna doesn't even look around. Instead, she turns to the driver and says: 				ANNA 		Please hurry, Alvaro. We're late. The car speeds ahead along the dusty road, across a verdant strip of land, until it reaches the archway of a stone-wall fence around which it turns and disappears. It is seen again emerging from behind a cement wall and continues racing swiftly onward over a road that runs between two high walls. There is no sign of traffic. Only silence. It is an ancient road, and a very elegant one. Claudia looks at it admiringly. Anna continues to remain wrapped up within herself. The car now makes another turn, heading into a small, narrow road flanked on each side by gardens of patrician villas. Suddenly, it emerges on a drab, modern street amid the kind of traffic typical of any modern town.Finally the car enters the street where Sandro lives and pulls up in front of a small but very fashionable palazzo. Anna and Claudia get out. And as the driver starts to remove the suitcases from the trunk, Claudia turns to Anna and says: 				CLAUDIA 		I'll wait for you here. Anna starts to walk across the street and is about to enter a building. Surprised, Claudia calls out to her: 				CLAUDIA 		But where are you going? 				ANNA 		I'm thirsty.				CLAUDIA 		If I had a man waiting for me for half an hour 		and whom I hadn't seen for a month ... All of a sudden, Anna stops. She is pensive, almost sullen. 				ANNA 		You know, I could just as well go without 		seeing him today.				CLAUDIA 		What! After giving us such a run around... Claudia stops, smiles, and jokingly tries to laugh it off. 				CLAUDIA 		I see... so it's farewell to the yacht...and 		farewell to the cruise... Anna pays no heed to Claudia's teasing comments but follows her own original line of thought. 				ANNA 		You know, it's terrible to be far away from one 		another. Really, it's difficult to keep an 		affair going when one is here and the other is 		somewhere else. But, at the same time...it's 		comforting.  Because it gives you a chance to 		consider what you want and how you want it...		but when he's right there before you all the 		time... well, he's right there...			(Then, with a sense 			 of exasperation) 		Oh, let's go back.... Claudia notices Sandro leaning out of the window from his apartment on the first floor of the building. He is looking at them attentively. He is a young man of thirty-five. His shirt is unbuttoned and the tie around his neck is unknotted. Realizing that he has been spotted, he smiles and waves a cheerful hello. 				SANDRO 		I'll be right down. As if seized by a sudden powerful impulse, Anna heads straight towards the of the building. Claudia looks at her with astonishment, and watches her disappear into the doorway. Then she looks up again at the window. But Sandro is no longer there. ***Sandro's apartment is extremely small. Although it contains many books, it has the atmosphere of a place that is very seldom lived in. Sandro has just finished knotting his tie. He closes his suitcase and heads toward the door. He turns back, however, to pick up a towel fallen from the bed. He takes the towel into the bathroom. Then he goes to the door again, opens it, and sees Anna. She appears a little anxious. Without giving Sandro a chance to say a word, she enters the apartment, closing the door behind her. Sandro puts down his suitcase and is about to embrace her, but Anna steps aside and begins staring at him with an intense look upon her face. Taking him all in with her eyes, she examines his suit, his hands, his legs, his shoes. Then her gaze moves back up to his face which she proceeds to scrutinize. Sandro is unable to understand her behavior, so he shrugs and jokingly exclaims: 				SANDRO 		Would you like to see my profile? He snaps himself into profile, then turns, slowly, in the manner of a store window mannequin. Anna continues to stare at him. This time she peers directly into his eyes. Sandro is no longer amused. 				SANDRO 		Well, what is it? Finally, Anna puts an end to her staring, and taking Sandro by the hand she leads him around the room. She stops in front of a mirror and looks at herself. The expression on her face becomes taut, determined. She starts unbuttoning her dress as she continues looking at herself in the mirror. Sandro comes up close to her shoulders, caresses her hair, and whispers softly into her ear. 				SANDRO 		But your friend is waiting downstairs. 				ANNA 		She'll wait. Anna turns around and presses herself up against him with such a violent passion that Sandro is somewhat dismayed. But only for an instant. Soon they are feverishly kissing each other, and it is almost with a sense of sheer animal pleasure that Sandro abandons himself. ***Meanwhile, left alone, Claudia is pacing back and forth outside in front of the building. She is bored and obviously tired of waiting. Then, as she is about to cross over to the other side of the street, she sees Sandro and Anna coming out of the doorway. The expression on Anna's face hasn't changed -- she appears sad and gloomy. But Claudia doesn't take note of it; she is too busy fuming over Anna's lack of consideration, eager to let them both understand that she is sick and tired of waiting around. As Sandro opens the window of the car, which is pointed towards Milan, he says to Claudia: 				SANDRO 		I have a feeling that you're not used to being 		alone. 				CLAUDIA 			(glancing first at Sandro 			 and then at Anna)		That seems to apply to you also... Meanwhile, the driver has taken Anna's suitcase out of the black car and puts it into Sandro's. Claudia picks up her own suitcase and is about to do the same but Sandro intervenes and takes it from her. 				SANDRO 		Don't be so humble.				CLAUDIA 		How should I be ... arrogant? 				SANDRO 		But of course... arrogant, haughty... Hasn't 		Anna ever told you? While this exchange was going on, Anna has already climbed into Sandro's car. Sandro follows and takes his place at the wheel; Claudia gets in alongside him. The car takes off at high speed. ***Heading south along a state highway, Sandro's car is traveling at high speed over a straight open road. It is twilight and as the evening shadows begin to fall, the surrounding countryside is bathed in an aura of mystery.Inside the car Anna, Claudia and Sandro sit in complete silence. Anna is deeply absorbed in her own thoughts. Claudia is looking out of the window, enthralled by the dark beauty of the landscape. Another car draws up alongside of Sandro's and is about to pass him. But Sandro steps on the accelerator and pulls ahead with a tremendous burst of speed. The other car lags behind and then turns off at a crossroad. However, Sandro makes no attempt to slow down. In fact, spurred on by what has now become a definitely hostile atmosphere, he drives even faster.As Sandro suddenly switches on the headlights, the violent glare that polarizes the roadside cuts off Claudia's view. She turns to Sandro with a look of disappointment 				CLAUDIA 		It was lovelier before. To please her, Sandro turns the headlights off and once again the countryside is covered by a veil of thick but romantic shadows. 				SANDRO 		Like this? Now Claudia again peers out at the landscape -- but only for an instant. Sandro abruptly turns the headlights on again, revealing a sharp curve in the road up ahead, only about a hundred yards away. He quickly shifts into lower gear, and the car swerves slightly. The sudden shift from fourth to third gear causes the motor to emit a sound that resembles a cry. The car races swiftly towards the curve, getting closer and closer. But at such high speed it appears impossible the car will be able to make the turn. Further up ahead, where the curve fades, there is a stone wall that runs along the side of the road. At this point, even Anna is attentive, her eyes wide open. Both she and Claudia are petrified and terror-stricken as the curve and the wall loom closer and closer. Fifty yards, forty, ten. All of a sudden, the headlights illuminate a large gap in the wall about three or four yards away, just on the other side of a small ditch that separates the road from the wall itself. There seems to be no other choice. With a frightening leap -- and going well over fifty miles an hour -- the car barely makes it over the ditch and right through the opening in the wall. The car comes to a sudden halt, but skids along on the muddy ground of an empty lot until it finally stops near the door of a small farmhouse in front of an old man. He is seated on a bench and has been observing the entire scene without budging an inch. There is a brief pause -- silence. Then Sandro comes out of the car followed by Claudia and Anna. Claudia is visibly shaken. She leans up against the building for support, as though in search of something solid and dependable. She is also unnerved by the feeling that she is responsible for what has just happened. 				CLAUDIA 		It's all my fault! But instead of reproaching her, Sandro turns to the old man and excuses himself for having broken into his property. Imperturbably, the old man looks up at him and says: 				OLD MAN		And who do you think made that hole over there? Even before he has a chance to be surprised at the old man's remark, Sandro becomes aware that Anna is laughing. It is not the hysterical laugh that normally might be expected after such a close call. It is, instead a pure and simple laugh, almost a happy one, and leaves both Sandro and Claudia plainly baffled. 				CLAUDIA 		There's nothing much to laugh at. 				SANDRO 		And that's what I say, too. We could have all 		been killed. Anna looks at them as she continues to laugh. 				ANNA 		I'm sorry ... but I can't help laughing... ***On a calm sea, amid the Aeolian Isles, just off the coast of Sicily, a motor yacht is moving quietly and smoothly over the water. It is heading directly towards a small island that appears like a huge rock jutting up from the sea, sharply silhouetted against the sky, about a hundred yards away. A few sea gulls are lazily wheeling around up above.Aboard the yacht, a sailor is at the helm, peacefully smoking his pipe, while another peers out over the water as he munches on a sandwich. It is almost noon. Raimondo, a deeply bronzed young man in his thirties, is lying outstretched in the sun on top of the cabin. Towards the prow, lying flat on her stomach upon a small rubber mat, is Claudia. Her arms are dangling over the side of the boat, catching the cool, fine spray of water splashing gently against the prow. Corrado comes out of the cabin. He sits down on a bench near the stern after placing a cushion under himself so as not to soil his suit, which is white and of an elegance that is slightly out of style. Corrado has a sensitive face, with a look that is both sharp and intelligent. In age, he is closer to his fifties than his forties. Following directly behind him is Giulia, one of those impossible women who are so terribly sweet and coy and yet so demanding of attention. The pose she strikes as she looks out over the water, and the saccharine tone of voice in which she speaks, are precisely characteristic of her nature. 				GIULIA 		It's as smooth and slick as oil. 				CORRADO 		I detest comparisons made with oil. Anna also appears on deck, looks around and, noticing Claudia, goes over and lies down beside her. Claudia rolls over on her back to embrace all that wonderful sun but her outstretched arm comes in contact with Anna, who smiles and joins her in a friendly embrace. 				CLAUDIA 		Did you sleep well?				ANNA 		Yes, fairly well. But I went to bed last night 		planning to do some thinking about a number of 		things ... instead, I fell asleep.				CLAUDIA 		I didn't know one could sleep so well on a 		yacht. It lulls you ... Their conversation is suddenly interrupted by Sandro's voice shouting "Hello." He comes up to them and gives Anna a warm hug, then nods hello to Claudia. He is in a jaunty mood. Stretching himself out on the deck, he opens a picture magazine he had brought with him and starts to read. But Anna places her hand over the page he is looking at and says to him: 				ANNA 		It would be better for you to get some sun.Sandro closes the magazine and throws it overboard. The pages come apart in the water. Some of them are quickly swept under by the waves, while others float and slowly drift away: white specks upon which a few sea gulls converge emitting their guttural cries. As Sandro stretches himself out in the sun, Anna looks upon him with tenderness. She is about to embrace him but stops midway, and then finally changes her mind. Instead, she proceeds to stare at him with a profoundly troubled expression. Then, momentarily dismissing her anxiety, she cuddles up close to him in an effort to provoke his affection. Sandro responds, but only with a fleeting kiss. Seeing them together like this, Claudia gets up and moves away to the far side of the prow. Sandro and Anna remain as they are until they are suddenly enveloped by a dark shadow. Sandro opens his eyes and sits up. Anna does the same. The rocky island is now quite close, almost directly upon them. It is larger than it previously appeared and casts a long, dark shadow over the yacht. The water beneath the overhanging cliffs is extremely clear and almost motionless. Sandro rises to his feet and shouts out to everybody aboard. 				SANDRO 		Shall we go for a swim? 				CLAUDIA 		Oh, no... please... not here.  It looks too 		dangerous. The yacht proceeds to encircle the island. Up ahead, another island comes into view. It is smaller, brighter, and less foreboding. Corrado gets up and comes over to the prow to join Sandro, Anna and Claudia. He is immediately followed by Giulia, who peers intently at the landscape. 				GIULIA 		At one time the Aeolian isles were all 		volcanoes. 				CORRADO 		You must know your third grade geography book 		inside out. Giulia looks at him resentfully and abashed. Claudia points to an island which they have just passed. 				CLAUDIA 		What is that one over there called? 				CORRADO 		That must be Basiluzzo. 				CLAUDIA 		Sounds like the name of a fish -- merluzzo, 		basiluzzo... Corrado then points to an even smaller island which they are now approaching. 				CORRADO 		Now that one is Lisca Bianca. Anna, who had been absorbed all the while in contemplating the landscape, though still preoccupied with certain personal thoughts of her own, suddenly unfastens her thin dress. Stripping down to her bathing suit, she turns to the group and exclaims with a note of exasperation: 				ANNA 		Oh, my goodness... All that yapping just for a 		little swim. She then goes to the edge of the boat, which has slowed down somewhat, and before Sandro has a chance to call out to her, she dives into the water. 				SANDRO 		Anna! Once in the water, Anna starts swimming towards the island. The sailor at the helm slows the boat even more so as to keep it within Anna's range. Raimondo, meanwhile, has gotten his skin-diving equipment ready; around his waist he is tightening a belt to which a long knife is attached. The yacht continues to slow down. Sandro now dives into the water and starts swimming towards Anna. Claudia and Giulia are removing their clothes and they too get ready to go into the water. But Claudia is afraid to dive in while the boat is still in motion, so she turns to the sailor and shouts: 				CLAUDIA 		Stop ... stop the boat! The motor is turned off and the yacht soon comes to a halt. A sailor places a ladder over the side of the boat. Claudia goes down the ladder, easing herself into the water. She moves away from the side of the yacht by swimming backwards. Giulia follows her down the ladder but stops on the last rung. 				GIULIA 		How's the water? Sandro looks up and, pointing to the rocks at the highest part of the island, answers her. 				SANDRO 		Let's see you dive from the top of those rocks, 		Giulia. That would be really sensational.  Come 		on, Giulia ... your life is much too 		circumscribed. 				GIULIA 		What has everybody got against me this morning? From inside the cabin, a feminine voice is heard shouting: 				PATRIZIA 		Raimondo! Solicitously, Raimondo goes over to the door of the cabin, from which Patrizia emerges wrapped in a filmy nightgown. She is a woman of great elegance, somewhere in her thirties. 				PATRIZIA 		Why have we stopped?				RAIMONDO			(kissing her hand) 		Lady Patrizia! Then, holding her by the hand, Raimondo leads her towards the prow, where Corrado greets her and likewise kisses her hand. 				CORRADO 		Aren't you going in for a swim, Patrizia? 				PATRIZIA 		What makes you think I would even dream of such 		a thing? Raimondo, why don't you go in for a 		dip? She turns around to look at Raimondo and becomes somewhat startled to see him all rigged out in his diving equipment, complete with mask, spear-gun, etc. 				PATRIZIA 		Raimondo... Do you enjoy fishing underwater? 				RAIMONDO 		I detest it. But, after all, what can you do...		It's the latest...and I try my best to adapt 		myself. He dives in. As soon as he hits the water, he starts shivering and exclaims: 				RAIMONDO 		Who ever said that man was originally a 		creature of the sea! Then, lowering the mask over his face, he begins to submerge. On deck, Patrizia peers out over the sea and covering her eyes to shade them from the sun, remarks: 				PATRIZIA 		I have never understood the islands. With all 		that water around them, poor things ... ***Out on the water, Sandro and Anna are almost at a standstill, keeping  themselves afloat with only the slightest movement of their arms. Sandro is laughing and joking as though all this purely physical enjoyment of sun and water has freed him of all other cares. Anna tries to emulate him but is notentirely successful. Every now and then, her face becomes clouded with that same worried expression. 				ANNA 		When do you have to go back?				SANDRO		I don't know... It depends on Ettore... He's 		now in the process of negotiating for a 		contract here in Sicily...				ANNA 		Then how come you're not with him? 				SANDRO 		What a question... Because I want to be with 		you, naturally. I hope he doesn't close the 		deal so he'll leave me alone at least for a few 		days... Isn't this water wonderful! He is lying on his back in the water, with his eyes closed, his face to the sun, cradled in the gentle movement of the waves. Anna looks at him, then after a moment of silence, she says: 				ANNA 		I'd like to find a place where I can get some		peace and rest, maybe around here somewhere. 		I'd like to try...				SANDRO 		What could be more restful than this?...			(He opens his eyes and 			 is upright in the water) 		Excuse me, what is it that you want to try? Instead of answering him, Anna starts swimming rapidly out to sea. Sandro tries to hold her back but because she swims much faster, he gives up and finds himself alongside of Giulia.  				GIULIA			 (referring to Anna) 		Where is she going? 				SANDRO 		Ask her. Giulia is not much of a swimmer; she bobs up and down in the water, doing a crawl, and it seems she is always on the verge of going under. Still, she manages to stay afloat, enjoying herself like a little child. Slightly off to one side, Raimondo is exploring the depths, with his spear-gun in hand, ready to shoot. He seems to be chasing a fish that is apparently trying to elude him. But the water is so clear that it would be difficult even for a fish to hide. In fact, only a moment later, Raimondo takes aim with his spear-gun, pulls the trigger and the little harpoon shoots out. Then, with a great splash, he swims off in hasty pursuit of the fish. A rubber raft, piloted by one of the crew and bearing Corrado ashore, comes passing through the swimming area. The sailor is carrying on a conversation with Corrado. 				SAILOR 		I've always worked on pleasure boats... even 		though it's more tiring. 				CORRADO 		Why?				SAILOR 		Because the owners never seem to have any fixed 		hours. For example, last night we kept right on 		sailing... We didn't even have a chance to get 		some sleep. Still, I like it better. The raft passes alongside of Sandro, and Corrado calls out to him: 				CORRADO 		I'm going ashore to take a look around the 		island. There are some ruins up there... 				SANDRO 		There too... 				CORRADO 		Well, we're still in Italy, you know! The raft continues on its way towards shore. A little distance away, Claudia is floating on her back, basking in the sun, with her eyes closed -- almost motionless. Her arms are outstretched and only the very slightest movement of her fingers in the water is sufficient to keep her afloat. Suddenly, her hand comes in contact with something viscous... which seems to be a fish that has shot up to the surface of the water. At first, Claudia merely withdraws her hand without bothering to see what it is, but since it persists in following her, she opens her eyes and notices something moving right next to her. Frightened, she lets out a tiny yelp. At that very moment, directly behind the fish, Raimondo's rubber fins appear above the water, and she realizes that it is Raimondo himself. He removes his mask and breaks out into a hearty laugh as Claudia playfully splashes some water into his face.Observing them from a few yards away is Anna. Having returned from her swim out in the open sea, she was about to join Claudia. But Claudia, involved now in chasing after Raimondo, doesn't notice her. Meanwhile, Raimondo, outdistancing Claudia, finds himself alongside of Sandro. 				SANDRO 		What kind of a fish is that? 				RAIMONDO 		It's a cernia. 				SANDRO 		My God, it's enormous. Claudia, having given up trying to catch Raimondo, swims up alongside of Giulia, who is busy observing Corrado disembark on a little strip of beach that stands out distinctly white against the dark rocks. Claudia is in a playful mood. She dives underwater, grabs hold of Giulia's leg, comes up, and then dives under once again. Giulia, caught up in the spirit of all this playfulness, drops her concern with Corrado and joins in with the fun and merriment.Suddenly there is a loud shriek, then Anna's voice is heard screaming: 				ANNA 		A shark!... A shark! They all turn around to look at her. Anna is swimming furiously towards the boat. Then, immediately, the booming voice of the sailor aboard the yacht sounds out: 				SAILOR 		Don't move,  lady... Stay where you are... 		Stop! Everybody keep still. But Sandro ignores the warning and starts swimming out towards Anna like a demon. Raimondo, who was about to climb aboard the yacht, grasps his spear-gun firmly in his hand, hurls himself back into the water, and also starts to swim in Anna's direction. Claudia is stricken with fear, and holds on tight to Giulia. Anna has stopped swimming and is cautiously looking around to see if anything comes up out of the water. Then, she looks up and seeing Sandro and Raimondo approaching, she shouts: 				ANNA 		Stay away! They both stop. Then, Raimondo hurriedly dons his mask and disappears under water while Sandro again starts swimming out towards Anna. Sandro comes up alongside her. 				SANDRO 		Anna... But Anna doesn't say a word. Instead, they both swim silently back to the yacht, where Claudia and Giulia are already climbing aboard. Patrizia comes out of the cabin to see what is happening.They all lean over the side of the boat, looking down into the water, expecting the shark at any moment to come into view. But the water remains unruffled, the seaweed below is clearly visible, waving like so many fans. Even the rocks at the bottom can be seen with all sorts of small-gilled fish darting about. A mysterious, fascinating world and yet, because of what happened, one that arouses fear. Everyone aboard is silent. Until Anna and Sandro, followed by Raimondo, finally arrive and climb aboard. Sandro immediately takes Anna to her cabin, and the others follow, making various comments.  				CLAUDIA 			(to Anna)		But how did you become aware of it? Did it 		touch you? Anna doesn't answer but continues on ahead amid the overlapping remarks. 				GIULIA 		I would have died. 								PATRIZIA		... and how ugly they are ... with all those teeth...				CORRADO 			(shouting from the shore) 		What happened? 				GIULIA 			(shouting from the prow) 		There's a shark in the area. Don't move from 		where you are! 				CORRADO 		Who's moving? ***Inside the cabin, which is partitioned into separate rooms, the general layout is neat and orderly, with a number of prints decorating the walls. Sandro and Anna, followed by Claudia, enter from the outside deck and cross over into Anna's room. It is extremely small, with two cots on one side and a long curtain that partially conceals a bureau from which several dresses are seen hanging.Anna is soaking wet in her bathing suit and her hair is all knotted into  clusters that hang down over her face. Without bothering to dry herself, she crouches down on the cot and, assisted by Claudia, wraps a blanket around her body. Sandro and Claudia look at her with great concern. A member of the crew enters carrying a tray on which there is a half-filled glass of liquor, which Sandro takes and offers to Anna. 				SANDRO 		Here, drink some cognac. Anna positively refuses it, and the sailor leaves as Sandro sets the glass down on a shelf. Looking up at both Sandro and Claudia, Anna appears pleased with their solicitude. 				ANNA 		It's nothing... really. Let's go back... It's 		all over now. A pause and then an instant later, she begins shivering under the blanket. 				ANNA 		Only, I'd like to change. I'm a little cold. Leaving Anna and Claudia alone on their own, Sandro turns and goes outside the cabin where the others are still congregated, busy chattering. Among the remarks exchanged, one that is distinctly heard is Patrizia's. 				PATRIZIA 		But where did the shark go to? As soon as Sandro closes the door to the cabin, Anna is suddenly and completely changed. She gets up from the cot, goes over to the curtain and draws it aside, revealing an array of feminine attire. Wondering which dress to choose, she finally selects two and tosses them on the cot. 				ANNA 		Which one shall I wear?				CLAUDIA			(picking up one of the two dresses)		This one is gorgeous.				ANNA 		Then why don't you try it on? As Anna begins to dry herself with a large bath towel, Claudia slips on the dress and looks at herself in the mirror with a coquettish expression on her face. 				ANNA 		It looks better on you than it does on me... 		You keep it. Anna is removing her bathing suit as she continues talking to Claudia with a tone and manner that reveal a sense of excitement mixed with one of amusement. 				ANNA 		You know, that thing about the shark was all a 		joke. Claudia looks at her as though dumbfounded, as though she had never known her before. She is obviously piqued and angry, but more with herself than with Anna. 				CLAUDIA 		There's the difference between you and me: you 		know how to put over certain things, and I 		don't. Sometimes I envy you. Anna is all dressed and ready. She opens the door and steps outside, as Claudia follows behind. ***Out on the deck, Sandro, Patrizia, Raimondo and Giulia are looking over the side of the boat, watching the sailor as he approaches the yacht with a rubberized raft.  Giulia, with her usual air of affectation, looks down at the water splashing up against the raft and asks the sailor: 				GIULIA 		But aren't you afraid?				SAILOR 		Ma'am, sharks never attack anybody. Anyway, the		raft is dark, and they wouldn't be able to see 		it.				PATRIZIA 		So, it is true that they're blind... Anna appears at the door of the cabin and Sandro rushes over to meet her, a little surprised to find her looking so cheerful, as though the incident that had just taken place were completely forgotten. 				SANDRO 		How are you?				ANNA 		Fine. Can't you see so yourself? Anna goes over to the edge of the boat and stands at the head of the little stairway leading down to the water. 				ANNA 		I have an urge to put my feet on some land. 		Aren't you coming? As she starts to go down the steps, Sandro quickly comes over to her. 				SANDRO 		Anna... Maybe it would be better to wait a 		while.				ANNA 		Wait for what?				PATRIZIA 		Well, with a shark running loose around the 		place, I for one won't get aboard that raft! 		They'll have to catch it first. I want to see 		it right here before my feet, dead or alive. 				CLAUDIA 		Better dead. But Anna has already stepped aboard the raft, and Sandro follows her. Giulia has her eyes fixed on the beach where Corrado in his white suit is waiting for them. Her desire to join him is greater than her fear of the shark, so she looks down at the sailor and asks: 				GIULIA 		Will the three of us fit?				SAILOR 		Sure, sure. There's plenty of room. Patrizia, instead, turns around and heads back to the cabin. And Raimondo follows her shortly after. Giulia descends into the raft and, as it moves away from the boat with a slight pitch, she lets out a few hysterical shrieks. Anna laughs and then shouts out to Claudia: 				ANNA 		Claudia, aren't you coming?				CLAUDIA 		I'm certainly not going to swim across. 							ANNA 		We'll send the raft back to you.				GIULIA 		And bring some cushions when you come, and a 		towel... Claudia nods assent, and remains there looking over the side and watching the water splash against the boat. Suddenly, she looks up at the sky and realizes that the sun has disappeared. Actually, it is hidden behind a cloud, and over on the horizon a group of other clouds have accumulated.The sailor left aboard the yacht is now signaling the other sailor on the raft who, having deposited Sandro, Anna and Giulia on the beach, is returning to pick up Claudia. He sounds the depths with his oar and then shouts up: 				SAILOR 		Okay. Come ahead, come ahead. The sailor aboard the yacht goes over to Claudia and says: 				SAILOR 		I'm taking the boat right up to the shore, and		we'll let you get off from the gangplank as 		soon as we get there. Then he disappears inside and soon the yacht starts moving towards the shore. Claudia peers out over the landscape; the islands are sharply silhouetted against the sea and sky, the volcano on Stromboli smokes feebly, and in the distance a ship passes by. Claudia is plainly enchanted by the view. Then she collects her thoughts and slowly heads towards the cabin. ***Patrizia, seated at a small table inside the cabin, is busy working on a complicated jigsaw puzzle, which, once completed, is supposed to represent a typically classical scene. One by one, she selects the various pieces of cardboard and inserts them in their rightful places. Simultaneously, she is munching on some crackers spread with jam, and a piece of cold fruit. Beside her is Raimondo.  He is staring at Patrizia with such an intense expression that she becomes thoroughly annoyed and says to him, as she continues working at her puzzle: 				PATRIZIA 		What do you want, Raimondo? Do you want me? A 		few years ago, maybe... but now... And, then, 		at this hour of the day! Coming down the steps that lead into the cabin, Claudia overhears the end of the conversation, and decides to withdraw. But Patrizia sees her and calls her back. 				PATRIZIA 		Come, Claudia, do come in... There's no 		romance going on here. Claudia enters. Raimondo continues to stare at Patrizia, particularly at her legs. Patrizia becomes aware that Raimondo is staring at her, and with a condescending gesture, she lifts her skirt a little higher to make him see better. 				PATRIZIA 		There, have you seen enough now? Are you 		satisfied? Raimondo nods yes. Claudia is amused by their behavior but also a little surprised.Patrizia calmly resumes her game and Raimondo again begins to stare at her. This time, at her breasts. And again Patrizia becomes conscious of the fact that he is staring at her. She assumes a bored attitude and looks up at the ceiling in a gesture of quiet forbearance. Raimondo reaches out with his hand and gently caresses Patrizia's breast. Claudia looks on in amazement. Raimondo withdraws his hand. 				PATRIZIA			(regretfully) 		Now, tell the truth, aren't you a bit 		disappointed?... But I already told you... 				RAIMONDO 		If women's breasts were colored, yours would be 		blue... Patrizia laughs at Raimondo's remark and looks at him sympathetically. Then she turns to Claudia. 				PATRIZIA 		Tell me, Claudia, what do you think of Raimondo? 				CLAUDIA 		I would say he's pretty depraved. 				PATRIZIA 		Oh no; quite the contrary. He's really just a 		child.				RAIMONDO 		Patrizia, don't start in again... I would 		rather be called depraved. Unless you happen to 		love children.				PATRIZIA 		You know, I don't love anybody. 				RAIMONDO			(angrily)		I know, dammit, I know! 			(turning to Claudia) 		And just think -- if there ever was a woman so 		right, so perfectly cut out for all kinds of 		dissipations, degradations, infidelities... 		of.. . of... of debaucheries, it's her. Well, 		anyway, she's faithful. Faithful out of 		laziness... of unwillingness. Raimondo has such a disgruntled look on his face that Patrizia laughs. 				PATRIZIA 		He amuses me. I don't know of anything more 		amusing. Outside of this jigsaw puzzle. Don't 		you find it so, Claudia?				CLAUDIA 		One would have to be in love with somebody to 		know that.				PATRIZIA 		Have you ever been in love?				CLAUDIA 		Not really... It's suffocating in here... Shall 		we go out? Claudia leaves the cabin and goes up to the deck. Patrizia returns to her game, and Raimondo continues to stare at her. ***Along a narrow strip of beach on the island of Lisca Bianca, Sandro, Anna, Corrado and Giulia are waiting for Claudia to come ashore. There are some patches of vegetation growing here and there, but by and large the island is one huge rock with rugged cliffs which descend perpendicularly to the water. Jutting promontories give the place a sense of raw, primitive beauty. Seeing Anna and Sandro climbing a short distance up along the rocks to find a comfortable place where they can lie down and stretch themselves, Corrado remarks: 				CORRADO 		If any of you get into your bathing suits 		again, you can be sure we won't be seeing one 		another for the rest of the year. I just can't 		stand seeing anybody in the city after having 		seen them naked on the beach. The yacht finally has arrived and the gangplank is laid out between the boat and the shore. Claudia descends and as she wades ashore she stops, bends over to dip her hand in the water, and with a tone of voice resembling that of a mother speaking to its newborn child, she pretends she is speaking with someone or something in the water. 				CLAUDIA 		Oh, how sweet... What a dear little darling! They all turn around to look at her, wondering to whom or what she is referring. 				GIULIA 		Who are you talking to? 				CLAUDIA 		To the shark. They all break out into a laugh, and Claudia continues her comic bit as she playfully pretends to lose her balance on the slippery pebbles along the shore. Corrado looks at her somewhat surprised, as though up until now he had never seen her comport herself with such a lively sense of humor and wit. 				CORRADO 		Say, Claudia, wouldn't you like to climb up 		with me and take a look over there? 				CLAUDIA 		At what?				CORRADO 		At the ruins. They're very ancient, you know. Out of the entire group, Claudia is perhaps the only one who really has the desire to explore, to see, and to generally take advantage of whatever the cruise has to offer. 				CLAUDIA 		That sounds like a good idea. But why don't we 		all go together? Though Claudia's suggestion is heard by all, none of them make a move. Relaxing so comfortably in the sun as they are, it seems the last thing they would want to do is to climb up the rocky slopes. So Claudia starts to go up on her own, following Corrado who is already under way. But Giulia immediately comes up to him and, squeezing his arm to emphasize her plea, whispers to him: 				GIULIA 		Please, I beg of you, stay here. Giulia's plea is expressed with such a pitiful sense of humility that Claudia is immediately taken aback, although she does not fully understand its motive. 				CORRADO 			(noticing Claudia's hesitancy)		Well? 				CLAUDIA 		Well, what?				CORRADO 		Have you decided?				CLAUDIA 		All I said was that it sounds like a good idea. Disappointed and rather irritated, Corrado turns back, while Claudia looks around for a place on the rocks where she can comfortably set herself down. Giulia, in turn, approaches Corrado. 				GIULIA 		Why didn't you ask me to go with you? 				CORRADO 		Do you know why? Because if you saw those ruins 		I'm sure you would have said they were very, 		very beautiful. You always say "how beautiful" 		to everything -- whether it's the sea, or a 		baby, or a cat! You have such a sensitive 		little heart that it throbs for anything. 				CORRADO 			(ironically)		But Corrado...  If something is beautiful why 		shouldn't one say so?				GIULIA			(referring to Corrado)		He never misses a chance to humiliate me, to		let me know that he doesn't care about me any 		more.				CORRADO 		Giulia, that remark is not worthy of our twelve 		years of honest concubinage. I repeat, once and 		for all, and publicly, that I admire you. Does 		that please you? 				CLAUDIA 			(under her breath to 			 Anna and Sandro)		Twelve years ... But why haven't they married? 				SANDRO			(with a faint smile)		And why haven't they left each other?				CLAUDIA 		I'm beginning to have my doubts. It couldn't be 		that they're in love?				SANDRO 		Could be. They're the kind of people who are 		capable of anything. Sandro suddenly grabs Anna around the waist and pulls her to him. His action is so unexpected that even Anna is astonished. But Giulia's voice is heard again. 				GIULIA			(to Corrado)		The trouble with you is that nobody can speak 		to you, that's all.				SANDRO			(placatingly)		Giulia, don't you understand that the more 		involved you become with people, the more 		difficult it is to speak with them? 				GIULIA 		You men are all so dreadful!				SANDRO 		I know we are. But as the years go by, we 		become even worse. Isn't that so, Corrado? 				CORRADO 		I hope so. Breaking the nervous tension that has spread itself throughout the group, a seaman appears with a small basket of frozen peaches brought from the yacht. Claudia runs to the basket, picks up a peach and quickly bites into it. 				CLAUDIA 		How wonderful!				CORRADO 		That's Patrizia's way of letting us know she's 		with us. Claudia takes another peach from the basket and gives it to Corrado. 				CLAUDIA 		I think you're very sweet, Corrado. 				CORRADO 		More so than the shark? 				CLAUDIA 		There's no comparison.				CORRADO 		Then why don't we go up and see the ruins?***Anna and Sandro have left the group and are ensconced further up among the rocks, on a grassy slope overlooking the beach. 				ANNA 		Sandro... A month is too long a time. I have 		become used to being without you.				SANDRO 		You'll get over it soon. It's the usual anxiety. 				ANNA 		A little more so this time.				SANDRO 		So, it will just take you a little longer to 		get over it.				ANNA 			(angrily)		But I think we should talk about it. Or are you 		fully convinced that we too won't understand 		each other?				SANDRO 		There will be plenty of time to talk about it		later.  We'll  get married  soon.  That way 		we'll have more time...				ANNA 		In this case, getting married means nothing. 		Aren't we already the same as being married? 		And Corrado and Giulia -- aren't they already 		the same as being married?				SANDRO 		But why rattle your brains by arguing and 		talking... Believe me, Anna, words never help 		at all. They only serve to confuse. I love you, 		Anna. Isn't I that enough?				ANNA 		No. It's not enough... I told you before that I 		would like to get away for a while and be alone. 				SANDRO 		But you just said that a month was too... 				ANNA 			(interrupting)		I mean, to stay away longer -- two months... a 		year... three years... Yes, I know, it sounds 		absurd. And I feel awful. The very idea of 		losing you makes me want to die... And yet... 		I... I just don't have the same feeling for you 		any more. 				SANDRO 		And what about yesterday... at my house... 		didn't you have any feeling for me, even then? 				ANNA 			(angrily)		There you go... Must you always spoil 		everything! She turns and walks away in a rage. Sandro breathes a deep sigh, as though the scene had exhausted him, then stretches himself on the ground, his face turned skyward, his eyes shut tight. ***The sky over the island of Lisca Bianca is completely filled with clouds. It is early afternoon, the atmosphere has darkened, and occasional sounds of thunder are heard in the distance.Sandro is asleep with his arms folded under his head. Further below, Claudia, Corrado and Giulia are also taking a nap. Gradually, however, with the sound of thunder, they become aroused. 				GIULIA 		Looks like the weather is changing. 				CORRADO 		Please, Giulia; must you always emphasize the 		obvious? I can see for myself that the weather 		is changing. Corrado rises and looks around lazily, listening to what appears to be the sound of a motor boat and which seems to be coming from the other side of the island. Claudia, spotting a sailor approaching, also rises. 				SAILOR 		We'll have to get going. Claudia turns around, looks up, and sees Sandro asleep by himself.                                 				CLAUDIA 		And where's Anna? 			(then, turning to the sailor)		Isn't she on the yacht? 				SAILOR 		I don't know... you see... we were taking a 		little nap... ***Out on the yacht, Patrizia is completing her puzzle. Only a few pieces are missing but the area to be filled in is a very difficult one. Raimondo, who has grown impatient over Patrizia's long and tedious concentration, exclaims: 				RAIMONDO 		You've made some mistake there with the 		bushes... that's why you can't finish it.				PATRIZIA 		Take it easy, Raimondo. Why are you getting so 		impatient? Claudia's voice is heard, calling out from the shore. 				CLAUDIA 		Patrizia! ... Patrizia raises her eyes and gives a quick, casual glance at the porthole. Raimondo immediately takes the hint that she would like him to get up and see what Claudia wants. So he goes out to the deck where he sees Claudia calling from the shore. 				CLAUDIA 		Is Anna there? 				RAIMONDO 		I don't think so. He goes over to the cabin, and looking through the portholes, calls out Anna's name. But there is no answer, so he returns to the side of the boat and shouts back. 				RAIMONDO 		She's not here. ***Meanwhile, on the beach, Sandro is also looking for Anna, disturbed and amazed that she is not in sight. 				SANDRO			(angrily, to himself)		This is the kind of behavior that drives me 		crazy!Down at the shore, Giulia is getting ready to step on the gangplank and go aboard the yacht but, anxious about Anna's whereabouts, she changes her mind and turns back. Claudia, also deeply concerned, decides to remain and look around for herself. She turns and starts climbing up towards the rock in an opposite direction than that taken by Sandro, who has now reached the top. The search is fruitless; there seems to be no trace of Anna. But Sandro continues to explore the area, stopping every now and then to call out Anna's name. Then, looking down over the slope, he notices Claudia, Giulia and Corrado coming towards him. 				SANDRO 		Did you find her? None of them answer but it is clear from the worried expressions on their faces that they too have found no trace of Anna. Still they continue the search, each going off in different directions. Claudia, walking over land covered with large white rocks and clumps of dry brush, spots something moving behind one of the bushes. Anxiously, she starts to walk up closer. Suddenly the branches begin to move and a stray lamb emerges. Surprised, but also somewhat relaxed, she turns around and calls out to Corrado, who is following her only a short distance away. 				CLAUDIA 		It's a lamb! Corrado looks at her without answering, then stops and notices further up ahead a jumbled pile of rocks which he feels might very well be the ruins he had previously intended to explore. He is about to head towards them but suddenly realizes that Giulia is following directly behind him. He quickly changes his direction in an effort to avoid her.Sandro comes upon a small stone hut that leans up against a high section of rock. As he starts to approach it, another stray lamb appears, as if from nowhere, and runs off, frightened by Sandro's approach. He tries to open the door to the hut but finds it locked. As he looks around the area, uncertain as to his next move, he sees Claudia and Corrado coming towards him. 				CLAUDIA 		Find anything? 				SANDRO 		No.				CORRADO 		Perhaps she's taking a swim somewhere... Though no less concerned over Anna's disappearance than any of the others, Corrado attempts to lighten the tension by feigning a calm and sensible attitude. Taking note of the stone hut before him, he observes it carefully and remarks:				CORRADO 		It's really a fact -- there's nothing new under 		the sun. Now, look here. Look at this 		structure... a kind of natural shelter. Sandro, 		that's how you should design your houses.				SANDRO 		Me?... I no longer have any interest in 		building... And, then, where can you find 		boulders of rock like this in Milan? Claudia comes up close to the hut and tries to peer through the tiny window but inside it is so dark that nothing can be seen. Suddenly, she finds a small piece of bread on the ledge of the window. She picks it up and starts examining it. Then, realizing the bread is still fairly fresh, exclaims: 				CLAUDIA 		Somebody must live here!				CORRADO 			(after examining the bread himself)		But Anna wouldn't be staying with the kind of 		people who live here. The discussion is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of one of the sailors who has come up from the shore. 				SAILOR 		We had better get started. The storm may 		break any minute now.				CLAUDIA			(angrily)		What do you mean! What about Anna?				SANDRO 			(to the seaman)		Tell Lady Patrizia that we can't leave now. In 		fact, we'll have to make a tour around the 		island...				SAILOR 		Wouldn't it be better if you told that to the 		Lady yourself. I can't assume the 		responsibility for keeping the boat here. 		There's no place to tie it up... And then, 		you know, it's got a flat bottom, and if the 		sea gets a little too rough...				SANDRO 			(angrily)		That doesn't make any difference! If we have to 		stay, we'll stay! ***Aboard the yacht, which is circling the island, Sandro, Patrizia, Raimondo and one of the sailors are peering out over the side, scrutinizing the banks and rocky slopes in hope of finding some trace of Anna. The jagged cliffs appear enormously tall and ominous, harboring tiny grottoes in which someone could easily hide. 				PATRIZIA 		Perhaps she wasn't feeling well... Maybe a 		cramp or something...				SANDRO 		Anna is an excellent swimmer. Even with a 		cramp, she would have managed to reach shore 		somehow.				PATRIZIA 		But you have to  consider all possibilities, 		Sandro. Incensed by her remark, which he considers to be absurd, Sandro moves away from Patrizia and goes towards the stern of the boat where he notices Corrado signaling to them from a remote section of the beach. 				CORRADO			(calling out)		There are some footprints around here... But he stops in the middle of the statement, and throws up his arms to indicate that the discovery is really of little significance. So he proceeds to climb back up along the pathway from which he descended, and the yacht continues on its way. 				SANDRO 			(calling from the stern, excitedly)		Patrizia! Both Patrizia and Raimondo come rushing over to the stern and look towards where Sandro is pointing at something dark and obscure afloat on the water up ahead. 				RAIMONDO			(to the sailor)		Mario...Steer the boat that way. The yacht heads in the direction of the black object in the water, but as they come up close, they realize it is nothing more than some wooden piece of furniture. The turn has taken the boat slightly away from Lisca Bianca and they now find themselves closer to the little island of Basiluzzo. 				SAILOR 		Shall I turn back?				SANDRO 		No. Now that we're here, let's have a look 		around Basiluzzo. 			(then turning to Patrizia) 		When we were swimming, she swam out in that 		direction. 				SAILOR 		It won't be easy to find a place to go ashore. ***The first shadows of evening begin to fall over the island of Lisca Bianca. The sky is now even gloomier, streaked with flashes of lightning. Rumbling sounds of thunder are heard in the distance. The entire group is once again reunited on the beach, and the impending storm has heightened their fears and anxiety. They are cold, restless, and exhausted, but profoundly moved and shaken by the reality of Anna's strange disappearance. 				SANDRO 		Let's try to be practical about this. The best 		thing to do is for all of you to go to the 		closest island that has a police station, or 		something, and report the disappearance. I'll 		remain here... because... well, I don't know, 		but it seems to me that something may turn up. 		Anyway, I just don't feel like leaving. 				CORRADO 		Then let's get started... It's senseless to 		waste any more time.				PATRIZIA			(to the sailor)		How long will it take to go there and come 		back?				SAILOR 		If there's a police station at Panarea, it 		should take us a couple of hours. But if we 		have to go to Lipari, it will take much longer. 		Then it also depends on how rough the sea is. Giulia is about to get on her way but she stops and turns around to look for Corrado, who notices her looking at him. 				CORRADO 		I'll stay here also. 				GIULIA			(alarmed)		But why?... What if it starts to rain? 				CORRADO 		If it rains, I'll buy myself an umbrella. Claudia, who has remained to one side, wrapped up in her own thoughts, doesn't make a move to leave. Sandro and Corrado look at her in surprise.				CORRADO 			(to Claudia, understandingly)		Claudia, I know how you feel, but there are 		already two of us staying... 				SANDRO 		I'll go even further and say that her presence 		here -- I don't want to sound offensive -- could 		be a great hindrance. Ignoring Sandro's remark, Claudia turns and determinedly heads towards the interior of the island. Meanwhile, Patrizia and Giulia have gone aboard the yacht. 				GIULIA			(calling to Corrado 			 from the boat)		Do you want some blankets? ... and something 		to eat? Corrado makes an irritated gesture signifying no, then together with Sandro starts climbing up the rocky slope towards the stone hut. As they meet up with Claudia midway, the first drops of rain start to fall and it is clear that the storm is on the verge of breaking. The three of them reach the door of the hut and Corrado tries to pull it open, but the lock resists. Then Sandro comes to his aid, and placing their shoulders up against the wooden door, they finally manage to force it open.***Inside the hut it is pitch black. Sandro strikes a match and finds a kerosene lamp on a nearby table. He lights it and the room is suddenly illuminated, revealing a miserable interior with a few broken chairs, several empty boxes, a shovel and a few other utensils. Over to one side is a small pile of straw suggesting a makeshift bed. 				CLAUDIA 		As far as I'm concerned, I think she's alive... 		Why, even this morning... that business about 		the shark... it wasn't at all true.				SANDRO 		And why do you tell us this only now? 				CLAUDIA 		I... I don't know... I didn't think it was 		worthwhile... She was laughing over it... 				CORRADO 		Really! Still, it remains to be seen why she 		invented a shark. What was her purpose in that? 				CLAUDIA 			(indicating Sandro)		Maybe you'd better ask him.				CORRADO			(to Sandro)		What were you and Anna arguing about?... 		Excuse me for being so indiscreet, but this is 		serious...				SANDRO 		Nothing but the usual argument... The only 		thing was -- if I remember correctly -- that 		she said she had a need to be alone.				CLAUDIA 		And how do you explain that? Ignoring the question, Sandro begins pacing back and forth across the room. The silence is broken only by the sound of the rain outside which is now coming down harder and harder. Suddenly, footsteps are heard approaching the hut. Sandro, Claudia and Corrado quickly turn around and face the door, their faces clearly revealing the expectation that it might be Anna. Finally the door begins to open and an old man appears, carrying a sack in his hand. 				SANDRO 		Are you the owner of this place? 				OLD MAN 		No. The owners are in Australia. 				SANDRO 		But where did you come from? 				OLD MAN 		From Panarea. Why?				CORRADO 		Ah, then it was you... I heard a boat leaving 		here at two o'clock today...				OLD MAN 			(scratching his head)		It must have been around four or five... 				CORRADO 		In the afternoon? 				OLD MAN 		No... in the morning. Why? What's happened?				SANDRO 		Nothing... nothing at all!				CLAUDIA 		But why don't you tell him? 			(then turning to the old man) 		A girl who was with us has disappeared. 				OLD MAN 		What do you mean... disappeared?  Was she 		drowned?				CLAUDIA 		No, she didn't drown... She just disappeared, 		and nobody knows where. 				SANDRO 		And I suppose it's my fault... Why don't you 		tell him that too. That's what you believe, 		isn't it? 				CLAUDIA 		Rather than being so occupied with my thoughts, 		you would have been better off trying to 		understand what Anna was thinking.				OLD MAN 		Have you searched in back of the house to see 		if she might have fallen off that cliff? Last 		month that's what happened to one of my 		sheep... I looked all over for it all day long 		and it wasn't until late at night that I heard 		it bleating... It had been there the whole 		day... and was almost dead. Claudia suddenly jumps up and runs out of the hut and into the dark, calling out desperately. 				CLAUDIA 		Anna! . . . Anna! But her cries are lost in the sound of the storm. Drenched by the rain, her shoes full of mud, her dress soaked, she stops, as Corrado, who had followed after her, grabs hold of her arm and leads her back to the hut. 				CORRADO 		Come, Claudia...come back inside. ***It is early morning inside the hut, and the flame of the kerosene lamp has dwindled down to a tiny, flickering light. Claudia awakens with a bewildered look upon her face, wondering where she is and how she comes to be there. She notices Corrado dozing on an empty box in a corner of the room, then realizing that Sandro and the old man are no longer there, she gets up and goes out the door.Outside, everything is covered by a thick haze, which is gradually beginning to lift. Sandro, who is standing a short distance away from the hut, hears Claudia approaching and turns around to greet her. 				SANDRO 		Are you feeling better?				CLAUDIA 			(nodding yes)		I'm sorry about last night. Please forgive me.				SANDRO 		You're very fond of Anna, aren't you? 				CLAUDIA 		Yes, very much so.				SANDRO 		Has she ever spoken to you about me? 					CLAUDIA 		Occasionally, but always with affection. 				SANDRO 		And yet, she seemed to feel that our love for 		her -- mine, yours, even her father's, in a 		certain sense -- weren't enough for her, or 		didn't mean much to her. 				CLAUDIA 		I know. I keep asking myself what I could have 		done to prevent all this from happening. There is a pause, then suddenly they both hear the sound of a motor growing louder and louder. They look out over the shore but the haze is so heavy that it is impossible for them to determine the source. Then, seeing the old man coming up the path, Sandro impulsively runs towards him and seizes him by the collar. 				SANDRO 		Whose boat is that? 				OLD MAN			(astonished)		What boat?				SANDRO 		Just a moment ago... didn't you hear the sound 		of a motor?				OLD MAN 		At this time of the year there are so many 		boats...				SANDRO 		And how come you're up so early? 				OLD MAN 		Early? Is four in the morning early for you? Sandro is visibly deflated by the old man's casualness, and he decides to abandon his questioning. He turns away from him and looks up to see Claudia walking slowly towards the top of the cliffs, directly behind the hut where the night before the old man had said Anna might have fallen. She looks down over the side and quickly withdraws, almost in fear of being sucked down into the swirling waters below. She turns away and starts walking towards the interior part of the island. In the rocky hollows around her, she notices small accumulations of yesterday's rain and, scooping up some of the water from one of these rocks, she rinses her face. As she gets up again, Sandro is there, standing directly before her. Claudia is almost startled. They continue to gaze at one another in silence. Then Claudia abruptly turns away and heads towards a higher point of land. A moment later, Sandro joins her again and once more they find themselves staring into each other's eyes, almost embarrassed by their own behavior, yet unable to control it.The wailing siren of a police boat resounds through the air like a shrill lament. Only then do Sandro and Claudia detach themselves from their trance-like state, from the sudden compulsion of being drawn towards each other. Through the haze, they notice a landing taking place down at the shore. Realizing it is their friends returning with the police, they both start descending the slope to greet them.Stepping ashore are Patrizia, Giulia and Raimondo, followed by a Marshal of the carabinieri and two police agents. As Sandro and Claudia come rushing down over the rocks, Claudia suddenly stops and lags behind so as not to arrive on the beach simultaneously with Sandro.Meanwhile, Corrado has already gone down to the shore and as he goes out to meet them, Patrizia, Giulia and Raimondo anxiously look to him as though expecting some good news. But Corrado remains silent, then throws out his arms in a gesture of despair. 				GIULIA 		How did you spend the night?... In that hut?...		And what did you have to eat? 				CORRADO 		What do you think?				GIULIA 		We, too, you know. It was disastrous. First at 		Panarea, where there weren't any boats... then 		at Lipari, where everybody was asleep... And 		the phone call to Rome...				PATRIZIA 		We had to notify her father. 				CORRADO 		Yes, that was a very good idea.				PATRIZIA 		He'll be here sometime today. 			(then turning to Sandro who 			 has just arrived on the scene) 		I also phoned my house in Milan... but Ettore 		had already left.				MARSHAL			(to Sandro) 		Anything new develop? 				SANDRO 		Unfortunately, no.				MARSHAL		Very well. First of all, I'll have them search 		the waters around the island. I brought two 		frogmen with me... Meanwhile, we'll take a look 		up around here.				SANDRO 		Look, Marshal, with those deep crevasses, 		you'll need some rope and ladders... 				MARSHAL		Don't worry, we've got everything. 				SANDRO 		Another thing; there's an old man who lives 		here on the island...				MARSHAL			(interrupting)		I know, I know. One thing at a time.  The Marshal starts climbing up towards the interior of the island, with Sandro following behind. As Claudia sees them coming in her direction, she moves away to a lower section of the island to avoid coming in contact with Sandro. Peering over a precipice, she sees the frogmen below, and watches them slide into the clear water like two enormous fish.Sandro and the Marshal have arrived on the edge of the same precipice, where two men are lowering a rope ladder into the depths. Moving up further to watch the operations, Sandro becomes aware of Claudia standing alone just a short distance away. He heads towards her but she tries to avoid looking at him. Sandro, however, is unable to take his eyes from her and continues walking in her direction. But seeing Patrizia and Raimondo approaching, he suddenly stops. A small stone, accidentally loosened from the ground, rolls along the path and comes to a halt directly in front of Claudia, almost like a message. She picks it up, looks at it, then throws it away. Sandro moves away and heads back to the edge of the precipice.Patrizia and Raimondo join Claudia. Raimondo, who is carrying a box of crackers in his hand, offers them to both Claudia and Patrizia. 				PATRIZIA 		No, who wants crackers... Why don't you go and 		have some coffee made instead?Meanwhile, Sandro has arrived at the edge of the precipice where he finds Giulia and Corrado. They are looking down at one of the carabinieri who is dangling from a long rope over the side of the rock, exploring the crevasses where a body might have fallen from the precipice above. The Marshal leans over to see if anything has been discovered. 				CARABINIERE			(calling up to the Marshal)		Nothing here! The Marshal turns around in disgust and looks at Corrado who is frankly sick and tired of the whole operation. 				CORRADO		Don't look at me like that, Marshal...  I had 		nothing to do with it.				PATRIZIA 			(referring to the frogmen below)		Let's hope they don't find her... If they do, 		they would find her dead. All of a sudden, Claudia breaks out into tears. Patrizia doesn't say a word. She just lets Claudia cry, knowing it will do her good. Sandro comes over and as soon as Claudia sees him there, she stops crying, and avoids looking up at him. 				SANDRO 		Listen, Patrizia... The Marshal says there's a 		current that passes by here and ends up at 		another island... I don't know which... He 		wants to send one of his men over to have a 		look... One never knows... Do you mind if I ask 		Raimondo to go with him? 				PATRIZIA 		I don't see why I should mind.				CLAUDIA			(to Sandro)		I think that you might go and have a look 		yourself.				SANDRO 		Yes, maybe that is better. He turns and starts heading down towards the beach. 				PATRIZIA			(to Claudia)		What amazes me, is Sandro. He seems so calm.				CLAUDIA			(rising)		Calm?... He doesn't seem so to me... He was 		awake all night. One of the frogmen emerges with an ancient vase in his hand, evidently found in the depths below. Raimondo, who has just arrived with a thermos of hot coffee, puts it down and goes over to the frogman to fetch the vase. 				RAIMONDO			(to the frogman)		What is it?				FROGMAN		An ancient vase. There's a buried city under 		here. It's full of this stuff. Raimondo takes the vase and shows it to Patrizia and Claudia. It is an extremely beautiful amphora, in terra cotta, with a figured design around it. Patrizia and Claudia momentarily drop their thoughts to examine it. Then Corrado, who had observed the scene, comes over, followed immediately by Giulia. 				PATRIZIA			(ironically)		Come on, Corrado, tell us what century it 		belongs to. Corrado smiles, then comes closer to examine it. Claudia also kneels down to look at it. A moment later she feels a presence at her side, and even without turning around she knows it is Sandro. Taking advantage of the discovery that was made, he purposely has returned to join the group in order to be near Claudia. They both now feel between them the warmth of that contact, and for a brief moment, succumb once again to that sudden sense of wonderment which they already had experienced at dawn. 				GIULIA 		Corrado, why don't you ask them to give it to 		us as a gift?				CORRADO 		Really! So that you can stuff it with your 		geraniums.				PATRIZIA			(to Sandro)		But aren't you supposed to be on your way? Claudia, stricken with dismay, immediately detaches herself from Sandro, who replies with a certain sense of embarrassment. 				SANDRO 		Yes... I'm going... I'm going now. ***A patrol boat is anchored off the cliff of a small island where the current running through the surrounding waters comes to an end. Sandro is leaning against the wall of a dilapidated building, which is constructed right on that part of the rock where the sea close by discharges all kinds of refuse. Four or five islanders are busy scouring through the accumulated rubbish. They are taciturn, poorly dressed people who every now and then come to blows over the possession of some article washed ashore by the waves. Sandro is watching them, feeling distraught and melancholy. One of the carabinieri who had accompanied him is walking up and down beside an elderly gentleman who is obviously one of the local gentry. 				SANDRO 			(to the carabiniere)		It's already two hours... What are we going to 		do?				CARABINIERE		It takes about twenty to twenty-two hours for 		the current to reach here from Lisca Bianca. 				ELDERLY GENTLEMAN		And sometimes even twenty-four... depending on 		the wind...				CARABINIERE 		If the girl disappeared yesterday afternoon, 		we'll have to wait at least until three or four 		o'clock. Sandro looks at them without commenting, then turns and walks away towards the center of the village. The houses and shops around the square are very plain and shabby. Sandro spots a barber shop and, fingering his day-old beard, enters for a shave.Shortly thereafter, a clamor of voices is heard outside and Sandro comes dashing out of the shop. Seeing the islanders fighting and arguing about something drawn up from the sea, he runs over to find out what it is.  As hearrives on the scene, two policemen step out of the confusion dragging a large crate, which they carry over to the door of a nearby shack, amid the protests of the islanders who are still arguing and shouting among themselves. 				VOICES		It belongs to me... We found it... 				GENTLEMAN		Back... Stand back! The two policemen set the crate down and lift the lid. It is full of cigarettes. 				CARABINIERE			(to the islanders)		You see? It contains cigarettes. We'll have to 		confiscate it. The islanders react violently, shouting out all sorts of epithets. But the policemen manage to restrain them and soon the commotion is quieted down. 				CARABINIERE			(to Sandro)		These people are contemptible. They have no 		sense of dignity at all. 				SANDRO 			(referring to the crate)		And you say that came from Lisca Bianca?				CARABINIERE		It couldn't have come from anywhere else. At 		least, somewhere from that vicinity... But I 		really can't understand it. Contraband 		cigarettes on that island! It's the first time 		that ever happened.				SANDRO 		Look... I'd like to get back to Lisca Bianca. 				CARABINIERE		But how could we...at a time like this when we 		just... well, let's at least first have a look		around the other islands. Could be that 		something might turn up there.				SANDRO 			(impatiently)		But even here we were supposed to find who 		knows what... And all we bring back with us is 		a crate of cigarettes.				CARABINIERE			(shrugging his shoulders)		As you wish. ***At Lisca Bianca, a helicopter is hovering above the island and preparing to land. Waiting for it to descend are Claudia, the old man, the Marshal and Anna's father, just arrived from the mainland.				MARSHAL			 (to the old man)		... Is it also true that you saw no boat around		here at Lisca between yesterday and this 		morning?				OLD MAN		How many times do I have to tell you, Marshal, 		that I was at Panarea.				MARSHAL		I believe you, I believe you... But I'm also 		certain that you're hiding something from me. I 		can see it written all over your face... And 		you know that I have never liked your face. And 		if you want to know something, that gentleman 		over there...			(indicating Anna's father)		...who's a very important person... doesn't 		like it either. So, just keep that in mind. 		I'll talk to you later. The Marshal moves away from the old man and goes over towards Anna's father who is watching the helicopter come down. 				ANNA'S FATHER  		I presume by this method that you'll be able to 		uncover some new clue, either a handkerchief or 		an article of clothing... In other words, 		something which your men have not been able to 		find as yet. 				MARSHAL		Without any doubt, sir. If anything belonging 		to the girl who has run away is still here on 		this island...				ANNA'S FATHER  			(resentfully)		Allow me to inform you that my daughter is not 		a fugitive.				MARSHAL		I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to put it that 		way. But, you must understand, sir, that I...				ANNA'S FATHER  		I understand very well. Only I don't want any 		rash assumptions to be made. One of the carabinieri appears with Anna's valise which he sets down on the ground. 				MARSHAL		Here's her valise, sir. The helicopter is now a few feet above the ground, and everyone steps aside to allow it room to land. The rush of wind from the propeller sends up a cloud of dust, and finally the helicopter touches down. The propeller stops, the door opens, and out comes two large bloodhounds accompanied by a police attendant. He immediately says something to the dogs in German which suddenly creates an atmosphere of resentment among the group assembled there.Anna's father goes to his daughter's valise, bends down, but doesn't dare to touch it. 				CLAUDIA 		Do you want me to open it? 				ANNA'S FATHER  		Yes, please. Claudia opens the valise and starts pulling out several dresses, a few intimate garments, and several other items of clothing. As she continues rummaging, she suddenly comes upon two books, Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night and a copy of the Bible, which she hands to Anna's father who, in turn, examines them with great care and deliberation. 				ANNA'S FATHER  		This looks to me like a good sign. Don't you 		think so? As far as I'm concerned, anyone who 		reads the Bible could not have committed an act 		of impropriety. Why... as a matter of fact, I 		remember when I was in China, many years ago, I 		happened to be involved in a similar situation, 		concerning an English woman, the wife of 		Ambassador Shafford, a good friend of mine. 		There, too, we found a Bible... And I said at 		the time that whatever had happened, that clue 		alone had definitely ruled out the possibility 		of... suicide. Why, it was logical, I said, 		that whoever reads the Bible believes in God 		and therefore...			(then, turning to Claudia in an 			 almost supplicating tone of voice) 		No? You don't believe it? Well, as a matter of 		fact, I was right... The woman was found two 		days later. It was a case of amnesia.				MARSHAL		Sir, if you have no objections, may we start 		the search? Anna's father turns around to look at the bloodhounds who are already sniffing the air for a scent and anxious to get on with the hunt. Then he throws a quick glance at his daughter's valise once more, and with an air of disgust and irritation, walks off in a huff, followed by Claudia. 				ATTENDANT			(to the Marshal)		Get everybody out of the way...				MARSHAL		Okay. I'll send them down to that part of the 		beach over there... After they all have left the area, the attendant leads the two bloodhounds over to Anna's valise, instructs them to pick up the scent, then takes them up to the very top of the island, where he subsequently unties them from his leash and sets them off.Claudia and Anna's father arrive on the beach where Patrizia, Giulia, Corrado, Raimondo and one of the sailors are seated on a pile of rocks.As the dogs begin running in different directions over the island, trying to track down the scent from Anna's valise, the entire group remains silent, awaiting the outcome of the search. Suddenly, the bloodhounds come racing down the slope, heading directly towards the beach where they are gathered, apparently hot on the trail of some familiar scent. To everybody's amazement, the dogs stop in front of Claudia, jumping excitedly and barking at her as though they had found their prey. Claudia is nonplussed and almost petrified with fear. She turns around and sees the others all staring at her. But she cannot understand why they are looking at her that way nor why the dogs have stopped right in front of her. Then, as if struck by a sudden flash of memory, she touches her dress and cries out: 				CLAUDIA 		It's because of this... The dress... It's 		because of this dress. Anna gave it to me 		yesterday, right after the swim. Completely relieved, Claudia smiles and bends over to pet the dogs, as the attendant comes up to them and ties the leash back on to their necks. Then he leads them away and heads once again upthe slope towards the top of the island. Anna's father seems almost disillusioned by the negative results of the search. Corrado also feels dissatisfied, and addressing himself to the Marshal, says: 				CORRADO 		And what are we going to do now? 				MARSHAL		We'll try again.				PATRIZIA 		But is it really necessary? Those two 		beasts... How absurd! Meanwhile, the patrol boat has returned and is pulling ashore. Giulia is the first one to notice its arrival and she calls out to the others that Sandro is back. Then she goes over to where Anna's father is standing. 				GIULIA 		Sandro's here.				ANNA'S FATHER 			(coldly)		I don't know him. 				GIULIA 		It seems to me that at a moment like this... 				ANNA'S FATHER  		I don't want to know him.  By this time, Sandro has come ashore, followed by the carabiniere, and immediately goes up to Claudia. 				SANDRO 		Claudia, listen ... Claudia. But Claudia hardly looks at him, and seeing Corrado approaching, she moves away from Sandro. 				CORRADO 			(to Sandro)		I didn't think you'd be back so early.				CARABINIERE			(interrupting)		We didn't check the other islands, so...				CORRADO 		And why didn't you go there?				CARABINIERE			(referring to Sandro)		He wanted to come back. The sailors have unloaded the crate of cigarettes from the patrol boat and the Marshal is getting all the details from the carabiniere. 				MARSHAL		Up until now those smugglers were operating 		only around the Palermo area. This will be a 		nice surprise for the Lieutenant in Milazzo... 		Call up headquarters. Bring them up to date and 		have them give you instructions on what to do 		with this crate.				CORRADO 		So... the boat we saw yesterday afternoon might 		have also been that of these smugglers. Could it 		be possible, then, that Anna...?				MARSHAL			(evading Corrado's question 			 and pursuing his own thoughts)		I wonder where they could have unloaded the 		stuff ... Maybe right here at Lisca. 				CORRADO 		I was saying... it might even be possible that 		Anna had left with them.				MARSHAL		But for what reason would she have wanted to go 		away?				CORRADO 		Listen, Marshal... As for there being reasons 		for going away, anyone of us might have three 		thousand of them. So you can assume that she 		had them. What I want to know, is it possible 		that the smugglers might have taken her aboard? 				MARSHAL		I think it's possible.				A SAILOR 			(calling from the patrol boat)		Marshal!... Headquarters is calling. They have 		an important message. 				MARSHAL		What is it about?				SAILOR 		They've stopped a suspicious-looking boat a 		few miles from here... yesterday afternoon. The 		crew has been taken to Milazzo for questioning. The Marshal takes off for the patrol boat, and Corrado goes over to Anna's father. 				CORRADO 		Did you hear that? What do you plan on doing?				ANNA'S FATHER 			(resignedly) 		We are in the hands of God. 				SANDRO 		That's true...But in the meantime, as far as 		I'm concerned, it's absolutely necessary to go 		to Milazzo. 			(directly to Anna's father)		I know that you have no desire to meet me, and 		I shall take pains not to impose myself upon 		you. But, besides you, I am the closest person 		to your daughter...				ANNA'S FATHER  		However that may be, at this moment my daughter 		has more need of her father than of you. 				SANDRO 		Pardon me for being so frank, but there are 		certain things that a father -- especially a 		father like you --cannot understand. So don't 		be stubborn. I'm coming with you. As soon as he finishes saying this, Sandro turns around and looks at Claudia, as though he had just now realized that she was there listening to him. Claudia goes to the gangplank and boards the yacht, disappearing into the cabin. Having followed her with his gaze, Sandro then turns to Patrizia. 				SANDRO 		Patrizia, what are you going to do? 				PATRIZIA 		What do you want us to do? I don't know 		myself... But we'll do something. 				SANDRO 		I'll go and get my valise. Sandro goes aboard the yacht and enters the cabin. On the way to his room he meets Claudia who has just changed clothes and is about to return ashore. They stare at each other for a moment without saying anything. But the intensity in Claudia's look, mixed with fear and desire, is so overpowering that Sandro takes her in his arms and kisses her. Claudia immediately releases herself from his embrace, but for the moment it lasted, the kiss was full and  passionate.  Then she turns and goes out on deck. Sandro remains there, momentarily stunned, then picks up his valise and returns ashore.As Claudia, followed by Sandro, steps back on the beach, she is met by Patrizia. 				PATRIZIA 		We've decided to go to Montaldo's place. In 		fact, Ettore should already be there.				SANDRO  			(intervening)		Good. Then I'll meet you there. He says this primarily for Claudia's sake, hoping to catch her eye. But she keeps her head bowed low, and doesn't look up. After a moment of hesitation, Sandro turns away and heads towards the small motorboat in which Anna's father arrived from the mainland. And without saying another word, he climbs aboard. Patrizia places her arm around Claudia's waist and together they start walking towards the yacht. But upon reaching the foot of the gangplank, Claudia stops. 				CLAUDIA 		I'm going with the patrol boat to make a tour 		around the islands. 				PATRIZIA 		To do what?				CLAUDIA 		I just can't leave without first searching 		those islands, one by one.				PATRIZIA 		But aren't you tired? I can just about manage 		to stand on my feet! 			(then turning around to look 			 for Raimondo, she calls out) 		Raimondo! 				RAIMONDO 		Here I am, Patrizia. I'm always here. 				PATRIZIA 		Claudia isn't coming with us. Will you please 		take care of her luggage? Thanks. Raimondo goes aboard the yacht and returns with Claudia's valise. He consigns it to one of the carabinieri who, in turn, takes it aboard the patrol boat. Claudia follows him aboard. The Marshal comes out of the radio room, steps ashore, then joins Sandro and Anna's father on the motorboat, while Patrizia, Giulia, Corrado and Raimondo go aboard the yacht. ***In the seaport town of Milazzo, on the Sicilian mainland, Sandro and Anna's father are seated in an office at police headquarters.  The sailors picked up on a charge of carrying contraband are being questioned by the police Lieutenant. 				SAILOR 		No, sir, Lieutenant, we weren't even able to 		drop anchor once ... the sea was too rough. The Lieutenant motions for the sailor to come up to the desk, then points to a sheet of paper in front of him. 				LIEUTENANT		Okay. Just sign here. 			(turning to a guard 			 standing at the door) 		Have the next one come in. He's the last, 		isn't he? Another sailor enters and timidly approaches the Lieutenant's desk. He is rather young, and his face is completely bronzed by the sun.  				LIEUTENANT		They tell me you have a lot of trouble at home. 		Is that right? 				YOUNG SAILOR 		Yes, sir. My sister is sick... and my 		father, too.				LIEUTENANT		So that's why you've turned to smuggling, eh? 		You need the money. Now, I can help you. I can 		see that you get some assistance from the 		government. But first there's a little 		formality we've got to take care of. Just a 		few questions and then we can all go to 		lunch... Your friend tells me you dropped 		anchor three times... The sailor starts, as though taken by surprise, then quickly answers. 				YOUNG SAILOR 		Yes, sir. Three times.				LIEUTENANT			(to Sandro and Anna's father)		Now, we're getting somewhere! They're beginning 		to contradict each other. 			(then, facing the sailor again) 		Now look here, your friend just swore to me 		that you weren't able to do any fishing at all 		because the sea was too rough... And what about 		the other boat? 				YOUNG SAILOR 		What other boat?				LIEUTENANT		Now look, my men saw it and they also saw you 		men throwing those crates overboard. What have 		you got to say about that?				YOUNG SAILOR 			(stuttering) 		I ... I ... wasn't feeling well ... I.. I was 		sleeping... I don't know anything ... I ... 		I'm all mixed up and ... Sandro is unable to control himself any longer. He gets up, walks over to the sailor and yells in his face. 				SANDRO 		But what are you saying?... What are you 		saying? The Lieutenant motions to Sandro to be quiet, then calmly rises from his desk and continues. 				LIEUTENANT		Now look here, I'm ready to forget the whole 		thing: the cigarettes, the contraband --		everything. If you would only tell me... you or 		your friends... whether the girl was aboard 		your boat and how far she went. They all remain silent. The Lieutenant motions to the guard who then leads the sailors out of the office. 				LIEUTENANT			(to Anna's father)		Just as I thought. Even if you caught them in 		the act, they'd deny it. They always deny 		everything. And then, in this case, if they 		were to admit having had the girl aboard, it 		would mean they'd be admitting to the charge 		of carrying contraband. Oh, it's easy to say: 		talk! But if they did talk, the following 		morning you'd find them cold dead in front of 		their doorstep.				ANNA'S FATHER  		I think it would be worth my while to take a 		run over to Palermo. The Chief of Police there 		is a very good friend of mine and I'm sure 		he'll do whatever he can. I feel we're wasting 		our time here... Excuse me, Lieutenant. I hope 		we see each other again under better 		circumstances. And thanks for everything. Bidding goodbye to the Lieutenant, Anna's father leaves, without looking at Sandro. A moment later, Sandro folds the newspaper he was reading, tucks it under his arm, and starts heading towards the door. 				LIEUTENANT		At any rate, we'll continue investigating. I 		know that headquarters has sent out an alarm to 		all areas...				SANDRO			(showing the newspaper 			 to the Lieutenant)		Tell me, Lieutenant, do you happen to know this 		F.Z. who wrote this article here? The Lieutenant takes a look at the paper which carries a two-column story headed: DISAPPEARANCE OF A ROMAN TOURIST AT LISCA BIANCA. 				LIEUTENANT		That's Francesco Zuria. He's the news 		correspondent.				SANDRO 		Where can we locate him? Don't you think that 		by offering a reward to anyone who can give us 		some information...				LIEUTENANT		Zuria is in Messina. You might try him. Shall 		we phone him? From the opposite end of the corridor through which Sandro and the Lieutenant are walking, appears the Sergeant who was in charge of the patrol boat on which Claudia toured the islands in search of Anna. After saluting his superior, the Sergeant says: 				SERGEANT		Have you any instructions for me, Lieutenant? 		May I return to Lipari?				LIEUTENANT		Yes. With whom did you leave the crate of 		cigarettes?				SERGEANT		I left it at the warehouse. The Sergeant again salutes his superior, then continues on his way along the corridor. Sandro abruptly turns around and follows after him. 				SANDRO 		Pardon me, Sergeant, but when did you get back?				SERGEANT		About two hours ago.				SANDRO 		And the young lady who was with you? 				SERGEANT		I don't know... She said she had to catch a 		train. Sandro remains a while, absorbed in his thoughts, then hurriedly leaves the building, and heads towards the station. ***On her way to the waiting room of the station, Claudia purchases a newspaper, then goes over to an empty bench and sits down. Turning to the local news section, she suddenly comes upon the article announcing Anna's disappearance.A moment later, Sandro appears at the door. Claudia looks up at him but doesn't say a word. He walks over and sits down beside her. 				SANDRO 		Where are you going?... To Montaldo's? 				CLAUDIA 		Yes.				SANDRO 		Then I'll go with you. There is a moment of silence, then Claudia shows him the newspaper article. 				CLAUDIA 		Have you read it?... They're asking for anyone 		with information to get in touch with them. 				SANDRO 		Yes. I had also thought of going there to talk 		with them...				CLAUDIA 		Yes, you should go. 				SANDRO 		But then when will we see each other? Claudia looks at him imploringly, intent on making him understand, without having to tell him outright, that it is not a question of their seeing each other. Sandro, of course, does realize and suddenly springs to his feet and nervously begins pacing back and forth across the waiting room. Claudia, in turn, also rises and goes over to him. 				CLAUDIA 		I know it's difficult. But if you go on like 		this it will become even more difficult. The bell announcing the train's arrival is sounded. Sandro turns around and faces Claudia, almost with a sense of helpless despair. 				CLAUDIA 		Please, don't look so solemn... And don't wait 		for the train to come in. But Sandro doesn't move. And again Claudia insists, imploring him not to stay, although she realizes full well that this may mean a final goodbye. 				CLAUDIA 		Please, please leave. I don't want to look out 		of the window and wave to you with a 		handkerchief. Sandro still doesn't move, and is about to say something, but Claudia looks at him so pleadingly and with such a determined expression, that he finally succumbs and starts walking towards the exit behind the train tracks.The train has just pulled into the station. The platform is completely empty and Claudia is the only one to board the train. She climbs up the steps and the door is closed behind her. A second later, she appears at the window, looks out briefly, then disappears into her compartment. The station master raises the signal for the engine to start, a short whistle is heard, and soon the train gets under way.Sandro dashes out across the tracks, swings open one of the doors, and boards the train as it picks up speed and pulls away from the station.Claudia is seated in a corner near the window, looking out. She appears completely relaxed and totally drained of energy, fatigued after so much tension. After a few seconds, she turns around and is abruptly startled to see Sandro standing nearby in the corridor. He comes over to her compartment and takes a seat directly opposite to hers. Claudia is absolutely furious. 				CLAUDIA 		Go ahead, now say something! I want to know 		just what it is we have to say to each other. Sandro remains silent, waiting for Claudia to settle down and calm herself. But she continues to reproach him. 				CLAUDIA 		Sandro, I don't want you to come with me, I 		don't want to see you... How can I make it 		clear to you?...Why did you come?				SANDRO 		I don't know why. I just couldn't help it. 				CLAUDIA 		But sooner or later we've got to end this 		relationship. And it's better to do it right 		now. 				SANDRO 		I have no desire to sacrifice myself... It's 		idiotic to sacrifice oneself... Why?... For 		whom? If Anna were here I might understand your 		scruples. But she's not...				CLAUDIA 			(deeply wounded)		Oh, Sandro... 				SANDRO 		I'm sorry. I didn't want to sound cynical. But 		isn't it better to look things squarely in the 		eye?				CLAUDIA 		For me they are exactly as they were when we 		met three days ago -- just three days ago...		don't you realize? And you and Anna... No, I 		guess they aren't like that any more. My God, 		is it possible to forget in such a short time, 		for things to change so quickly? 				SANDRO 		It takes even less.				CLAUDIA 		But it's so sad. So terribly sad. I'm not used 		to it, I'm not ready for it... You know... I 		have never been so upset in my life. Sandro, 		why don't you help me? 				SANDRO 		I think the only way to help ourselves, Claudia, 		is for us to be together.				CLAUDIA 		No, I'm sure it won't. Move over there. Let's 		make believe nothing happened. And when we get 		to the next station, get off. 				SANDRO 		And what about you?				CLAUDIA 		Me... I... I... Please leave me alone. Suddenly, she stands up and goes into the corridor. The car is of an old type -- one half is first class, the other second. Claudia stops in front of a second-class compartment from which the sound of two voices is heard. One is that of a woman -- sweet, very delicate and very feminine; the other is that of a man with a Sicilian accent. Sandro joins Claudia. Standing there together they hear the conversation. 				WOMAN'S VOICE  		I work there but I'm really a stranger. 				MAN'S VOICE  		I tell you this acquaintance of mine knows you 		and she has often spoken to me about you.				WOMAN'S VOICE  		And who is she? Does she work in Catania? 				MAN'S VOICE  		Yes, she takes care of the garden. 				WOMAN'S VOICE  		Then it's impossible for her to know me. In the 		villa where I'm at, we have a male gardener. 				MAN'S VOICE  		So? That's logical. You see, both being 		gardeners, they spoke about you to one another. 				WOMAN'S VOICE  		And what did they say about me? 				MAN'S VOICE  		They told me that you were a very nice girl, 		that you always mind your business... In other 		words, things of that sort. There is a moment of silence. Then, the sound of music is heard coming from the compartment. Claudia and Sandro look at one another with a smile on their faces. Then Claudia leans over to peek into the compartment. The woman is young; she has thick, wavy brown hair.  He is one of those typical seducers from the provinces, with black hair. There is a tiny radio between them. Sandro also takes a peek into the compartment. Then they withdraw as the two resume their conversation. 				WOMAN'S VOICE  		We have a radio like this, too. 				MAN'S VOICE  		No, not like this one.				WOMAN'S VOICE  		And why wouldn't we have one like this?				MAN'S VOICE  		Because this is a Chinese radio. Another pause. Sandro takes hold of Claudia's hand and presses it. She doesn't resist, but allows him to do it. 				WOMAN'S VOICE  		Certainly a radio this small is very practical. 		It's especially useful for... I don't know... 		for traveling.				MAN'S VOICE  		But for you, what comes first: music or love? Claudia presses up close to Sandro, amused and, at the same time, obviously moved. 				WOMAN'S VOICE  		Music, of course. To get a sweetheart, one has 		to look around, but to get a radio, all you 		have to do is buy one.				MAN'S VOICE  		Ah, no... For me, love comes first. I'm a man, 		and I know what's what: first love, and then 		music. Claudia laughs but she is still very upset. All of a sudden, she starts and looks out the little window. The train is coming into a station and is beginning to slow down. Claudia grabs Sandro by the sleeve and pulls him through the corridor. Sandro tries to resist. 				SANDRO 		Claudia, listen to me...				CLAUDIA 		No, Sandro, please... I ask you as a favor... She continues to drag him through the corridor, until they finally reach the platform. Then she opens the door. They are both highly emotional. Claudia is almost hysterical. 				CLAUDIA 		Promise that you won't try to look for me... 		you shouldn't try to look for me any more... 				SANDRO 		But why, Claudia?... Why? Sandro tries to grab her in his arms, but Claudia pushes him away, almost with a sense of violence, as though she were afraid she might change her mind once in his arms. In the meantime, the train has come to a stop in the station. Sandro pauses to look at Claudia once more. 				SANDRO 		Even if you chase me away, I... Claudia, let's 		not wait any longer... After, it will be too 		late ... Come with me. Claudia is visibly battling with herself. Then, in one last moment of decision, she pushes Sandro towards the door and goes back into the car. Once on the ground, Sandro walks back and forth along the platform to see if he can find Claudia, hoping she might look out the window to wave goodbye. But she doesn't appear. The train starts to move, as Sandro desperately tries to catch a glimpse of Claudia. But she is not to be seen. Sandro starts running along the platform, but the train is now going too fast. He stops -- angry, disappointed and upset. ***At the entrance-way of a luxurious villa, Claudia, who has just arrived, is greeted by the Princess. She is an elderly woman, rather ordinary in appearance but very aristocratic in taste and manner. 				PRINCESS  		Did you have a good trip? It is such a 		magnificent day! I am very happy that Sicily is 		able to give you so warm a welcome. And you do 		deserve it. You're such a lovely blonde. Come, 		my dear. Claudia smiles, and follows the Princess into the garden. 				PRINCESS  		And where are you from? 				CLAUDIA 		From Rome.				PRINCESS		Oh, how nice! So, you're from Rome... And would 		you happen to know of some intelligent 		clergyman in Rome who might be willing to come 		here and stay with us? We have our own private 		little chapel... It is a masterpiece, with 		seventeenth-century frescoes... and the 		remains of all our dead ancestors, a wonderful 		collection... He would find it very convenient 		there, and could say his own masses. Then he 		would have to spend a little time with my 		husband, who never sees anyone, to keep him 		occupied.				CLAUDIA 		An intelligent clergyman, Princess? But I 		think the intelligent clergymen of today have 		so many other things to do.				PRINCESS 		Well, perhaps one with a little physical 		handicap. One who is slightly lame, for 		example. In the meantime, they have arrived at a shady alcove where, seated in various wicker lounge chairs, are Patrizia, Giulia and a young man dressed in simple, casual clothes. The first one to notice Claudia and to greet her with warm cordiality, is Giulia. 				GIULIA 		Well, finally! We were beginning to get worried 		about you, too. Claudia plunks herself down in one of the lounge chairs next to Patrizia. The young man rises and bows slightly. 				PATRIZIA 		But where did you finally end up? 				CLAUDIA 		It was futile. We went all over. There is a moment of silence; the thought of Anna returns to weigh on the group. Claudia pours herself an orange drink from a pitcher on the table beside her. 				CLAUDIA 			(referring to Anna) 		But why does she do these things? 			(she takes a sip from 			 her glass, then rises) 		I can't stand it any more. She takes a few steps, looks around at the villa, and at the other end of the alcove sees Corrado and Ettore saying goodbye to a pair of elderly gentlemen. 				GIULIA 			(to Corrado and Ettore)		But how can you carry on a discussion in this 		heat?				CORRADO 		When one approaches fifty, my dear, he is 		affected only by the cold.				ETTORE			(noticing Claudia)		And who is this? 				PATRIZIA 		This is Claudia, Anna's friend...			(to Claudia) 		You've never met my husband, have you? Ettore immediately recalls Claudia's name from a previous conversation that was apparently held before she arrived. 				ETTORE  		By the way, have you phoned him? 				CORRADO 		You mean Sandro? I told you already. He's not 		in. At least he's not at the hotel.				ETTORE  		Now look what has to go and happen... At a time 		when I'll be needing him. How can we discuss 		things when we lack dates and figures?... 				PATRIZIA 		But didn't he say he was coming here... Now, with all this talk about Sandro, the sense of relaxation Claudia had felt upon her arrival, has changed into a feeling of anxiety that becomes more and more noticeable.				ETTORE  		Well, what are you all waiting for? Send a car 		out to get him. He can't be more than a couple 		of hundred miles away...				GIULIA 		To me, the fact that hasn't shown up is a good 		sign. Do you want to bet that he's found Anna? 				ETTORE  		Maybe. But do you know that forty thousand 		persons a year disappear in Italy without 		leaving a single trace behind them. Forty 		thousand! Almost as much as the entire 		population of San Siro... Raimondo, will you go 		and see if you can locate Sandro? 				RAIMONDO 		Okay. A gong announcing lunch resounds throughout the garden. 				PATRIZIA 		First let the poor thing have something to eat. 				ETTORE  		It wouldn't really do you any harm to skip a 		meal.				PRINCESS  		I've never met this Sandro. What kind of a 		person is he?... He couldn't have done her in 		himself, by any chance?				ETTORE			(breaking out into a loud laugh)		Sandro?... Oh, sure... I can see Sandro calling		Anna over to him and saying: Listen, Anna, I 		intend to get rid of you, but since it's so 		painful and complicated... and besides, I 		don't happen to have a gun on me... why don't 		you do me a favor and get rid of yourself on 		your own... There is a moment of complete, dead silence, during which the same disturbing thought flashes across the minds of all those who are present like a sudden revelation. 				GIULIA 		My God, how could we joke over something like 		that! We should be ashamed of ourselves. 				PRINCESS 			(rising)		Come on, let's go. They all get up except Claudia. She is left so completely shaken by the conversation, by the thought, that it seems she no longer has the strength to move. Giulia, after giving Corrado a defiant look, turns and smiles at the young man who had stopped to wait for her. 				GIULIA			(to Claudia, referring 			 to the young man)		Goffredo is the Princess' nephew. He's 		eighteen years old, the lucky boy. And, what do 		you know -- he paints. 				GOFFREDO 		Anybody can hold a brush in his hand. All you 		need is to buy some oils and start painting. 		Even Rembrandt did the same. Giulia laughs with a strange sense of excitement, then takes Goffredo by the arm and leaves. Claudia remains alone. She watches the group heading towards the house,  Giulia holding tight to  Goffredo, Ettore  to Patrizia. Their voices are heard, somewhat unclear. 				ETTORE  		But... where is the Prince?... Is he well? 				PRINCESS  		The last time I saw him, the day before 		yesterday, it seemed he was well.				ETTORE  		Princess, why don't you sell this villa? I 		would turn it into a lovely psychiatric clinic. 				PRINCESS  		It's a little like that already.Finally, even Claudia starts moving, slowly, behind the others; but she is still very much upset. ***A crowd of people that keeps growing and growing from one moment to the next, is gathered in one of the main streets of Messina, in front of a men's store with its shutters half-shut. The local police are unable to control the flow of traffic, which has been blocked as a result of the crowd. The cars are packed close to one another, raising a great din with their horns. The throng is composed chiefly of young men pushing and climbing over each other to get near the shop to see inside. Sandro tries to make his way through the crowd in an attempt to get up close himself, but the confusion is so great that he finds the going very difficult. Remarks and comments are heard above the noise. 				FIRST YOUNG MAN		Who is it, Sophia Loren? 				SECOND YOUNG MAN		Oh, no! It's some model from Turin with a 		low-cut dress.				OTHER VOICES		It's Queen Saroya... I saw her... So, who 		could it be?				THIRD YOUNG MAN		They've torn her dress... She's almost nude... 		She ran into the shop to hide herself... A police siren is heard from afar, then before long it fills the air and dominates every other sound.  An Alfa Romeo pulls up, followed by a police wagon full of policemen. Both vehicles maneuver their way through the crowd like snakes through a jungle, and stop right in front of the shop. Sandro takes advantage of the opening created by the two cars and thus finds himself a few steps away from the door. Bending over in order to see through the small space left open by the half-drawn shutters, he notices several newspapermen and photographers. 				SANDRO			(to one of the newspapermen) 		Which one of you is Zuria?				NEWSPAPERMAN		He's inside. Meanwhile, the policemen have come out of the wagon and arrive at the door of the shop, with the Chief of Police leading the way. One of them raises the shutter, and the crowd, which has backed away slightly at the insistence of the police, begins pressing forward threateningly. Soon pandemonium breaks loose. In the confusion, Sandro manages to get inside the store along with the policemen and two photographers. The shutter is again lowered, just a few inches behind him. Standing in the middle of the shop is a most charming and provocative young brunette with tight-fitting pants and a blouse that is open almost from the neck to the waist. She is wearing nothing under her blouse, so that with every movement of her body, one cannot help catching a glimpse of her naked breasts. As the policemen come forward, she receives them with a smile. Sandro asks one of the journalists standing nearby if he can tell him which one of them is Zuria.  The journalist points to a man who is only a few steps away -- a man not very old but who has a ravaged face, and whose hair is almost completely white. 				SANDRO 		Zuria?				ZURIA  		Yes. Until proven otherwise. 				SANDRO 		I would like to ask you something. 				ZURIA  		Wait a moment. Can't you see I'm busy? Everybody is gathered around the Chief of Police and the girl. The store clerks are looking at her admiringly. The manager, most upset, is explaining the situation to the Chief of Police. 				MANAGER		I phoned you, Chief, because, in view of the 		situation... I thought it best... The girl interrupts him. She has a very self-satisfied look on her face. 				GIRL		I came down here to buy a foulard... Suddenly 		I realized that little by little, directly 		behind me, I was being followed by so many 		men, and more and more of them kept coming. 				CHIEF OF POLICE		Well, I should think so... Dressed like that.				GIRL		But I have always gone around like this, 		everywhere in the world. Nothing like this has 		ever happened to me before. Zuria turns to Sandro and clears his throat. Outside, the crowd becomes very noisy. 				ZURIA			(to the girl) 		How old are you?				GIRL		Nineteen. My name is Gloria Perkins. I'm 		married and a writer by profession. I write in 		a trance, almost always in contact with people 		who are dead. Tolstoi, for example, or 		Shakespeare. But the movies also interest me. Zuria nods to Sandro as if to say: now watch this. 				ZURIA  		How do you find the men of Messina? Are you 		shocked by their warm display of friendliness? 				GIRL		No, why should I be shocked? We're in Italy, 		not Finland.				ZURIA  		And how were you received in Palermo? The girl turns around and looks down at Zuria with contempt, but she manages to remain calm. 				GIRL		In Palermo I was with my husband. Now I'm 		going to Capri to write an article for the 		Tourist Office. Zuria clears his throat again and whispers to Sandro. 				ZURIA  		She did exactly the same thing in Palermo. 				CHIEF OF POLICE			(to the girl) 		If you want to go back to your hotel... we're 		ready to escort you.                   				GIRL		Oh, yes, thank you...  Photographer snaps a flash photo. The girl immediately strikes a pose. Other flashes follow. The clerks ask for her autograph. One of the policemen raises the shutter; the girl comes forward smiling, and is greeted with a certain kind of roar from the crowd. The group leaves the shop. Sandro and Zuria also come out. The girl, ushered out by the policemen, climbs into the Alfa Romeo. The guard holds the crowd back. There are more camera flashes. More smiles from the pretty stranger. Finally the car pulls out, followed by the police wagon. Sandro and Zuria watch the car disappear through the crowd, which starts to disperse. The din, however, is still enormous, due to the unsnarling of the traffic jam. 				ZURIA  		Do you like her? Sandro shrugs his shoulders, somewhat surprised by the journalist's question. 				ZURIA  		She costs a hundred thousand lire. 				SANDRO 		You're kidding!				ZURIA  		No, I'm not. Why do you think she does all 		this? It's one of the many ways she can put 		herself on display. When you bait the trap, the 		mouse will snap. To tell you the truth,  if it 		wasn't for the fact that one hundred thousand 		lire represents my whole month's salary, well...		But you had something you wanted to ask me? Sandro is still looking at the journalist with a sense of incredulity, almost as if he felt Zuria's conversation was something out of this world. But he is brought back to reality by Zuria's last remark, which is made as the journalist starts walking at a very hurried pace. 				SANDRO 		I read one of your articles regarding the 		disappearance of a girl. I'm that girl's fiancÇ.				ZURIA  		Oh... I'm sorry I have to rush but I've got to 		write a story about this thing that just 		happened... Tell me exactly how it all turned 		out.				SANDRO 			(impatiently)		Now listen, if I had any information, I 		wouldn't have come here to ask you. But I see 		that you, too, lack any information ... The journalist casts a sidewards glance at Sandro. He is a bitter and sarcastic man, one who is completely absorbed with his own little problems and his own daily routine. But for this very reason he is quite capable of taking any kind of insult, either big or small. 				ZURIA  		As a matter of fact, I've already had several 		phone calls on that article. One said they had 		seen the missing girl in an automobile 		somewhere in Rome. Another one said they saw 		her on the pier talking with some strange 		sailors... Could be she secretly left the 		island by boat... 				SANDRO 		Is that possible?				ZURIA  		Who knows?... Another one has it that she 		entered a store in Troina. This information 		comes from the storekeeper himself who stated 		that such and such a girl had bought I don't 		know what in his store... at Troina.				SANDRO 		Is that far from here?				ZURIA  		About fifty miles or so. If you want, I'll give 		you the name of the storekeeper. 				SANDRO 		Yes... of course... But you should also print 		that in your paper... But right away, tomorrow 		morning... It's the local Palermo paper, isn't 		it?... I mean, it's widely read...				ZURIA  		Yes, but why do you think our readers would be		interested in such news now? Even if I sent it, 		the editors wouldn't print it.				SANDRO 		You really must do me this one favor. 				ZURIA  		Pardon me, but why must I do you a favor? 							SANDRO 		Then let's call it a business proposition. 		Something to round out your salary. The journalist clears his throat without answering. Then he grabs Sandro by the arm and takes him back to the other side of the street where a few people, left over from the crowd, are still discussing the incident that just took place as they gradually drift away from the scene. The traffic is now back to normal. ***At the Princess' villa, Claudia is in her room, applying some fresh make-up in front of a small dressing table. Although she appears thoroughly engrossed in all the minute details of her make-up, nevertheless, she seems considerably  interested in any sound that comes through her window.The rumble of a motor is heard. Claudia runs to the window and looks out into the garden. A dark car pulls up in front of the service entrance. A uniformed chauffeur gets out of the car and enters the house carrying a package under his arm. There is an obvious look of disappointment on Claudia's face. She is about to return to the dressing table when she notices, there in the garden, Giulia heading towards the house accompanied by the young Prince, Goffredo. Claudia is profoundly shocked by Giulia's behavior as she laughs, jokes, bends over to pick up some flowers, and skips along unashamedly.In the meantime, Patrizia has entered the room with two wigs, one of which she is wearing and the other in her hand. She also has on a cocktail dress, but one that is more elaborate than Claudia's. Patrizia immediately goes up to the mirror of the dressing table and, while she finishes arranging the wig on her head, says to her friend: 				PATRIZIA 		Are you ready? I'm not. That's all we needed -- 		a cocktail party... The vitality some people 		have irritates me! 			(indicating the wig on her head)		How does it look? Claudia, who has meanwhile tried on the other wig and is looking at herself in the mirror, turns around to Patrizia. 				CLAUDIA			(ironically)		It's divine! 				PATRIZIA 		You say that just to flatter me. 				CLAUDIA 		Do you consider that a compliment? 				PATRIZIA 		No. The two of them burst out laughing and together they leave the room. Then after a few steps through the corridor, they separate with a friendly gesture towards each other. Patrizia goes into her room while Claudia prepares to descend the wide stairway. Coming up the same stairway are Giulia and the young Prince, Goffredo.  There is something of an embarrassing moment between them. Then Giulia, aware of Claudia's presence, detaches herself from Goffredo and, as they reach the top of the stairs, she comes over to Claudia and takes her by the wrist in order to confide with her more intimately. 				GIULIA 		He wants to show me his paintings. He won't 		let go  of me  anymore.  Poor thing, he must 		have a crush on me... She laughs with an obvious sense of amusement, but she is also tickled by her own vanity. Claudia looks at her without knowing what to say to her. 				GIULIA 			(even more excited)		Please, you come too... 				CLAUDIA 		But for what reason should I come there? 				GIULIA 		Please, do come... Don't leave me alone with 		him. He's capable of... I don't know... Have 		you noticed his eyes? Claudia resigns herself to escorting Giulia to the floor up above. The very top of the stairway leads to an attic, where Goffredo is leaning over the railing, looking down. 				GOFFREDO  		Giulia... 				GIULIA 		Here I am. Seeing the two of them arriving together, the young Prince feels disappointed. But he knows he has to cover his intentions with a show of good manners. When the two women reach the top of the stairs, he bows to Claudia in a most respectful fashion. Then he leads them down a low and narrow corridor to a door they pass through. The attic is bright and spacious, with slanted roof, and two huge windows. It is filled with paintings, easels, canvases, brushes and oils. As soon as Giulia enters the studio, she moves away from Claudia and attaches herself to the young Prince who is setting up one of his paintings on an easel beside one of the windows. Claudia looks around the room with a sense of indifference. Going over to the window, she looks out and sees a vast panorama of the countryside. Giulia looks at the painting with a certain amount of surprise. It is a picture of a nude woman; a shapely figure, slightly plump, in the manner of Renoir. 				GIULIA 		Claudia, come and see. It's a nude. Claudia is looking through the paintings that lean up against the wall face backwards. She turns one around: a nude woman. A second: another nude woman. A third: the same. 				CLAUDIA 		They're all nudes, if I'm not mistaken. 				GIULIA 			(to Goffredo)		But why all nudes?				GOFFREDO  		Because there is no landscape as beautiful as a 		woman.				GIULIA 		And where do you find the models? 				GOFFREDO  		Oh, there are as many as one wants. 				GIULIA 			(turning to Claudia)		I thought the model was something obsolete 		nowadays. Didn't you, Claudia? Claudia goes back to look out the window: a group of flying birds swoops down to land directly under the roof. The birds settle themselves in a little nest directly in front of the window. Claudia bends over to get a better look and is actually able to see the little nest, as she hears behind her the exchange of remarks between Giulia and the young Prince. 				GOFFREDO  		It's strange how anxious women are to display 		themselves. It's almost a natural inclination. 				GIULIA 		But how could they pose like that? I couldn't. 				GOFFREDO  			(with a grave, youthful sensuality)		Why don't you try?				GIULIA 		Me... Goffredo, you're mad! 			(turning to Claudia) 		He's mad.				CLAUDIA 		Not really. Claudia moves away from the window, and continues to look at Giulia and Goffredo with a deep sense of amazement. Giulia is euphoric, kittenish and trembling with excitement. Goffredo is firm, resolute and serious. 				GIULIA 		Don't you ever paint men?				GOFFREDO  		Answer me, why don't you try posing? I'll paint 		you a beautiful portrait.				GIULIA 		But why me?... Ask Claudia, she's much more 		beautiful than me.				GOFFREDO  			(insistent)		But I want to paint you. You appeal to me more.				GIULIA 			(timidly)		I appeal to you more? Giulia glances over at Claudia, who is still preoccupied looking out of the window, then screws up her courage and boldly advances towards Goffredo, making her intentions clearly understood. Goffredo immediately responds to her invitation and draws himself close up against her. There is a moment of hesitation, then a kiss -- awkward but passionately violent. Giulia, on her part, is completely shameless. Claudia turns around exactly at that moment when the two of them are caught up in a feverish embrace. She looks at them, completely dumbfounded, then takes a few steps forward as though she doesn't believe her own eyes. 				CLAUDIA			(almost unconsciously) 		Giulia! Giulia quickly turns around, her face is flushed with excitement but also with an expression that seems somewhat triumphant. Before anybody has a chance to say anything, she heads towards the door, swings it open and stands firmly on the threshold,  obviously intent on telling Claudia to leave. In fact, Claudia doesn't wait to be told but immediately walks out into the hallway. 				GIULIA 		And tell Corrado, too, that I'm here... if he 		wants me. You can also tell him that my tiny 		little heart is beating like mad, and that at 		this moment, it's the only thing that interests 		me. Is that clear? 				CLAUDIA 		It couldn't be any clearer. Giulia takes a few steps backward into the room, and seeing Claudia still there looking at her strangely, exclaims: 				GIULIA 		Now what do I have to do to be left in peace? 				CLAUDIA 		I think all you have to do, Giulia, is to close 		the door. And with a violent bang that leaves Claudia startled, Giulia slams the door shut. Claudia remains standing there for a moment, still very much amazed. But she is aroused from her stupor by the sound of a car pulling into the courtyard. Then she rapidly starts descending the stairs. Claudia has reached the hallway leading out to the garden and is anxiously waiting there, looking at the car that has just arrived. But she is not able to distinguish exactly who it is, and her view is also blocked by Ettore and Corrado who have just come out of the house and are now standing in front of the car. So she walks out to the garden and joins the group. A certain look of disappointment spreads over her face as she sees only Raimondo come out of the car. Evidently, Sandro has not been located. 				RAIMONDO 		He's not at the hotel... and he probably wasn't 		even in Milazzo. The room clerk said he rented 		a car... Claudia moves away from the group, as though she has heard enough. She goes over to lean against an enormous vase standing there on the side. Her hands are trembling. In back of her she hears the sounds of the others' voices but cannot distinguish what they are saying. Then Patrizia arrives and calls out Claudia's name. But she has to repeat it a second time before Claudia realizes she is being called. 				PATRIZIA 		Claudia... Let's go. Claudia turns around but doesn't move. Another car pulls up, driven by the same chauffeur who had evidently picked her up the other day, and in which the Princess is already seated. 				CLAUDIA 		I'm not coming.				PATRIZIA 		But then why did you bother changing? Patrizia remains puzzled for a moment as though searching for a motive behind Claudia's sudden decision, then discreetly turns away without insisting and goes over to the car. In the meantime, Giulia and Goffredo have come out through the hallway and head towards one of the two cars. Corrado looks at them with a cold and critical stare, then with a deliberate intent to prick Giulia's feelings, he says: 				CORRADO 		Giulia is like Oscar Wilde; give her the 		superfluous and she will do without the 		essential. Ettore breaks out into a laugh as he helps Patrizia into the car. 				ETTORE  		That's him; he'd die if he didn't have somebody 		to quote. He comes up with quotations like that 		even at a board of directors meeting... Claudia watches them getting into the car. She is beside herself, completely wrapped up in her own thoughts. ***In the rear of a general store, on the outskirts of a small Sicilian town, a woman is seated at the window. She is very young, thin and irascible. Up front, her husband is speaking with Sandro, and as she listens attentively to what he is saying, a sarcastic smile spreads over her face. 				HUSBAND  		Be patient, I can't remember everything. 				SANDRO			(indicating the newspaper article)		But it even says what she bought: a bar of soap! 		So there's no point in making believe you can't 		remember. After waiting a few seconds to give her husband a chance to explain himself, the wife jumps up from where she is sitting, comes over to Sandro and yanks the paper from his hands. Then she starts reading the article in a jerky manner typical of one who is not too literate. 				WIFE  		"A young female stranger, whose description 		corresponds with that of the missing girl, came 		into my store..." She suddenly stops reading and turns toward Sandro. 				WIFE  		She came and then she left. With him. But this 		one won't admit it. 			(turning upon her husband furiously) 		You think I wasn't aware of it... The husband, a young man, tries to keep calm and carry on the conversation in a logical, persuasive manner. 				HUSBAND  		But if I was carrying on with the girl, why 		would I want to give any of this information to 		the newspaper?				WIFE  		That's what I'd like to know myself.				HUSBAND  		Fine, that makes two of us who want to know. In 		fact, three, with him. He indicates Sandro.  Then, seeing a fat, luscious female customer enter the store, he turns to her and continues:				HUSBAND  		Ah, Lady Amalia, would you be interested in 		knowing why I told the newspapers about a 		certain girl who came here the other day and 		then disappeared? The woman, anxious to learn about any new bit of gossip, becomes immediately interested. 				LADY AMALIA		Disappeared? Who is she? ... Where? When?				HUSBAND  		And that makes four. Anybody else?... Sandro, a little sick and tired of the whole matter, and wanting to put an end to what has by now become farcical, intervenes. 				SANDRO 		You have to be precise. Did this girl enter 		your store or didn't she? 				WIFE			(shouting)		Yes!				SANDRO 			(ignoring her)		Was she blonde or brunette? 				HUSBAND			(calmly)		Brunette. 				WIFE			(contradicting him)		Blonde. 				SANDRO 		How was she dressed?				HUSBAND  		I don't quite remember. Seems to me she wore a 		black dress.				WIFE			(intervening sarcastically)		He doesn't look at dresses, he looks at what's 		under them. The husband turns around and looks at his wife menacingly. 				SANDRO 		Pardon me, but has anyone else been here asking 		about this girl?				HUSBAND  		No ... I don't think so. 				SANDRO 		Thanks. ***Sandro leaves the store. He walks a few steps along the pavement, then sits down at a small outside table of a nearby cafÇ. He looks out over the square: a small Sicilian town, quiet and still in the hot afternoon sun. Every now and then, he glances up at the country road that winds around the town, as though he were waiting for someone.A few moments later, in fact, a car comes into view and slows down as it reaches the square. The driver looks out for a place in which to park. Sandro rises to his feet. The car comes to a stop a few steps away from him. The driver rushes out of the car to open the door for the person inside: it is Claudia. Sandro immediately goes over to meet her, looking at her somewhat amazed. Not only does he see her more elegantly dressed than he has ever seen her before, wearing a smartly tailored polka-dot suit, but also as an entirely new person, as someone whose beauty he has discovered for the first time. For a moment they continue staring at each other, without even bothering to say hello. 				CLAUDIA 		Any news?				SANDRO 		Yes... but it's all so conflicting... However, 		there is some slight indication... Claudia drops her gaze, relieved by even that slight note of hope. Then she looks up at him again, as though inspired by another sudden thought: something which must have lingered in her mind from one of the Princess' humorous quips. Then, the owner of the general store appears on the scene. After having dealt his nagging wife a crushing verbal blow, he turns to Sandro, but not without first glancing at Claudia, for whom it soon becomes evident he has really come out on the street. 				HUSBAND  		Listen... In the paper they forgot to say that 		as soon as the girl left here she took the bus 		to Noto. The bus leaves from the square, over 		there. I saw her clearly... I came to the door 		to see her off... She was a beautiful girl. 		Lovely pair of legs! While speaking, he continues to keep an eye on Claudia with the look of one who thinks his gaze is loaded with irresistible masculinity. All of a sudden, he pulls out a package of Nazionali cigarettes from his pocket and offers one to Claudia. She looks at him dumbfounded, then automatically declines with a shake of her head. In turn, he lights up a cigarette, inhaling the smoke voluptuously. Meanwhile, his wife has come upon the scene and looks at him suspiciously. Then, with a sad, wistful voice, she turns to Claudia. 				WIFE  		You're from Rome, aren't you? I knew right away 		because I'm from Viterbo... He was a soldier 		there and so...			(indicating her husband, and			 then quickly continuing) 		I don't like it very much, here. 				HUSBAND			(interrupting)		Then why don't you go back? His wife turns and looks at him hatefully, exactly in the same manner he had looked at her. 				CLAUDIA 		How long have you been married? 				WIFE  		Three months.Claudia and Sandro look at each other. There is a moment of embarrassment, then Sandro breaks the silence.				SANDRO 		Well... Thanks for the information. They exchange goodbyes, then Claudia and Sandro move away from the store and head towards Claudia's car. Suddenly, Sandro takes Claudia by the hand. 				SANDRO 		It's better if we present a happy picture, no? Claudia is about to withdraw her hand but she is taken aback by Sandro's phrase, which also fills her with a warm and tender feeling after the squalid situation with the young storekeeper and his wife. Now Sandro opens the door of the car, looks at Claudia as if to ask her consent for what he is about to do, and since Claudia says nothing but just stands there trying to figure outwhich one of the feelings struggling within her will win, he removes Claudia's valise and closes the door. 				SANDRO 			(to the driver)		Tell the Signora Patrizia that we are 		continuing the search...and that the Signorina 		Claudia will manage to survive somehow... The driver bows slightly, then he climbs into the car and departs. Sandro and Claudia remain there, watching the car disappear out of view. Now Sandro turns to look at Claudia, and smiles at her. Claudia is visibly upset. She doesn't smile back but merely turns away and heads towards Sandro's car. ***Claudia is intent on looking at Sandro who is doing the driving. The car is traveling on a country road but Claudia shows no interest in the landscape. She continues to stare at Sandro as if she wants to know his most secret thoughts. Suddenly, feeling himself being stared at, Sandro turns towards Claudia. She quickly drops her gaze. Then Sandro turns his eyes back to the road, and Claudia looks up at him again.From a bend in the road up ahead, preceded by the loud and penetrating blast of a horn, the bus mentioned earlier by the storekeeper appears. Sandro barely manages to stop the car in time off to one side of the road. He gets out and places himself in the middle of the road where he starts signaling for the bus to stop. With a loud screech of its brakes, the bus comes to a stop almost directly in front of him. The bus driver opens the window and leans out. 				DRIVER		Did your car break down? 				SANDRO 		No. I only want some information. Meanwhile, the driver's assistant gets down from the bus and the passengers lean out of the windows.  Claudia has also gotten out of the car and appears on the scene. 				SANDRO 		We're searching for a girl of about 		twenty-five... Seems she boarded this bus two 			days ago, in the afternoon... You should 		remember her because she was a stranger around 		here... The driver gets down from the bus and comes over to Sandro, scratching his head. 				DRIVER		She was a little nervous... dark-haired ... with 		a kerchief around her head? He turns to his assistant for verification, who, in turn, searches his memory and then adds: 				ASSISTANT		Two days ago... wasn't there that midwife on 		the bus, too? Sure, that's right, and she was 		talking to some young woman ...				SANDRO 		Can you tell me where she got off? 				ASSISTANT		All I can tell you is that the midwife is from 		X... 				SANDRO 		Okay, thanks. Sandro turns and goes back to his car while the others climb back on the bus which begins to leave. Claudia and Sandro remain standing near the car, watching the bus disappear. Then Claudia turns and looks out over the fields. She sees a dry riverbed filled with stones that sparkle in the sun, beside it a high rocky bank. Sandro stands next to her and she becomes vividly aware of his presence. As she glances at him, he turns around, then she quickly starts up a conversation as though she were anxious not to have any romantic mood develop between them. 				CLAUDIA 		My God ... Let's hope it was her. Then, still feeling Sandro's eyes fixed upon her, she turns and starts  heading towards the car.  Sandro catches up with her and takes her hand. Before they climb into the car they look at each other intensely. A moment later, the car takes off at full speed. ***In a courtyard of the midwife's house, Sandro and Claudia are questioning a middle-aged woman. 				MIDWIFE  		I only exchanged a few casual words with her, 		as one would ordinarily do on a public bus... 				SANDRO 		And do you remember where she got off? 				MIDWIFE  		Well...probably at the last stop, which is Noto.				CLAUDIA 		After that, you didn't see her anymore? The woman pauses for a few seconds and looks at Claudia as though she had detected some hidden motive behind the question. And when she resumes speaking, what she has to say is in sharp contrast to the way she says it. They are words of protest but spoken condescendingly, almost sweetly, yet leaving no doubt as to their meaning. 				MIDWIFE  		What are you trying to insinuate, young lady?		Why should I have seen her again? I don't do 		anything that's illegitimate.				CLAUDIA 		Oh, no... What are you saying? I'm not 		insinuating anything...				MIDWIFE  		And furthermore, my dear young lady... because 		you really are a dear, you know ...if the story 		of that girl is merely a pretext, let us say, 		to get in touch with her, then I feel it is my 		duty to warn her. These things are very, very 		dangerous, especially in a neighborhood like 		this where people occupy themselves more with 		other people's affairs than their own. Seeing Claudia being put into an uncomfortable position, Sandro, who had been following the midwife's discussion with a cagey attitude, intervenes. 				SANDRO 		Then you should also be able to tell me where a 		young girl might stay in Noto; are there any 		hotels or rooming houses?				MIDWIFE  		There's the Trinacria Hotel... or the Regina, 		near the municipal building. As for rooming 		houses, I don't know...				SANDRO 		Thank you.				MIDWIFE  		Don't mention it... Pleased to be of service 		any time. Claudia starts moving hurriedly out of the courtyard, followed by Sandro. ***Sandro's car is speeding across a harsh, sun-baked landscape, bypassing long lines of peasants returning from the fields: the women seated on donkeys, the men on foot. The more fortunate among them have horse drawn carts. Claudia is looking at the surrounding countryside and spies an iron bridge that is all rusty and obviously no longer in use. 				CLAUDIA 		Look at that bridge! Who knows why they even 		bothered to make it... The car continues onward, passing an abandoned factory, then a railroad station, also abandoned, its tracks covered by weeds, the ticket office haphazardly boarded up with old wooden planks. 				CLAUDIA 		Look at that: a factory... a station... and 		look at those tracks, all full of weeds... But 		why? Sandro shrugs his shoulders and continues driving without saying a word. Up ahead a small town comes into view, with monotonous rows of newly constructed homes lined up along the side of the road. The car enters the town and stops. Sandro gets out and goes over to a fountain nearby, but the fountain is dry. Somewhat surprised, he begins to look around. And only then do Sandro and Claudia become aware that the silence around them is an unnatural one, that the doors and the windows of all the houses in the town are tightly shut. There is no sign of life anywhere, except for the weeds growing between the cracks in the walls, invading and suffocating everything in sight. Claudia gets out of the car, joins Sandro, and together they start walking along the streets. The sun beats furiously down upon the crumbling houses, upon the church, upon the useless monument in the square on which a dedication is inscribed: "To The Agricultural Worker." Sandro looks around in absolute silence. Claudia is also  silent, somewhat  dismayed. Instinctively, she presses up close to Sandro who leads her to a shady spot where the ground is overgrown with weeds. Sandro and Claudia are lying next to each other on the grass. Sandro appears calm but is actually looking at Claudia as though he were about to embrace her with his eyes. Then he takes her hand. Claudia offers no resistance; in fact, she entwines her fingers around his, almost with a sense of desperation. Sandro tries to kiss her. She makes a feeble attempt to resist, looks around, and sees the deserted town, the barren fields, the crumbling, sun-baked walls. She turns and looks at Sandro again, and now it is she who kisses him. When they break apart, they stretch themselves out upon the grass. Sandro kisses her violently, again and again and again... ***The early twilight shadows are beginning to fall. The sky is still clear but the sun is fading. There is a deep silence and the air is absolutely still. In a certain sense, Sandro's car, standing there in the middle of the deserted street, is the only thing alive in that desolate town.Huddled close to each other, Claudia and Sandro are asleep on the grass. Lazily, Claudia awakens, and then Sandro also opens his eyes. They are both somewhat disheveled. 				CLAUDIA			(faintly audible)		It's late... We should be going. Little by little, she leaves behind the drowsiness of her deep and peaceful sleep, purring languorously in a typically feminine fashion. Sandro smiles and gently embraces her. A moment later, Claudia releases herself from Sandro's arms, sits up and realizes that the countryside and the town itself are as black and motionless as death. A cold shiver runs down her back and she quickly comes to her feet. 				CLAUDIA 		Let's get out of here, fast... This is not a 		town, it's a cemetery.				SANDRO 		Who knows why they all left... Claudia starts to move but her legs are still numb from her sound sleep and she hobbles along comically, laughing at the same time. Sandro also gets up and finds that his legs are cramped. Hobbling and laughing himself, he follows Claudia towards the car. But the car, baked by the sun, is like an oven. They both make boisterous and playful exclamations, then another embrace, another kiss. Finally, they climb into the car and drive off with a loud roar that echoes up and down the abandoned town. ***Sandro and Claudia arrive in the town of Noto and pull up on the opposite side of the street from the Trinacria Hotel. As they climb out of the car, Claudia turns to Sandro: 				CLAUDIA 		Sandro ... maybe it's best that you go in alone. 				SANDRO 		Are you joking?				CLAUDIA 		Don't think that I want to save myself from any 		embarrassment, from the awkwardness of meeting 		Anna... It's not that; it's that you can say 		certain things easier if you're alone. Please, 		Sandro, do try to understand me... It would 		look like I was trying to influence you, to 		force you, to control you... and that makes me 		feel uncomfortable... Sandro agrees by a nod of his head and indicates that he understands very well. Nevertheless, he doesn't move. Several agonizing moments go by in which they both remain silent and still, looking at the hotel across the way. Then, tossing away his cigarette, Sandro finally walks off and goes into the hotel.Left alone, Claudia strolls along for a few steps. She sees a letter box up against a building and deposits a postcard she had been carrying with her. She remains there for a moment, watching a parade of ants crawling along the wall, ending up who knows where. They come and go, scurrying up and down in vast numbers, incredibly busy. Then Claudia turns away and starts pacing back and forth, stopping from time to time behind townspeople who mill about in the streets; she pays them no heed. Several young men pass by and turn around to look at her. They are obviously the town's dandies. Circling around her, they exchange suggestive comments to one another. Even among the women Claudia arouses a certain curiosity. But she remains totally unaware of it; such is the intensity with which she concentrates her gaze upon the hotel entrance. Suddenly the sound of a shutter being lowered directly behind her causes her to start and turn around. It is a shop being closed. Other shops, further down the street, are also closing for the day. The people in the streets begin thinning out and it is not long before Claudia is left entirely by herself. In that total solitude, the doorway of the hotel emerges like the mouth of some dark and fearful cavern, so much so that Claudia is unable to keep her eyes fixed upon that spot. She turns her head away, but her attention is immediately drawn back again. From the darkness of the hotel's hallway, she spies Sandro coming out. Claudia doesn't wait to see if he is alone or not, for she has only one thought in mind: not to let herself be seen. But she doesn't know what to do since there is practically no one else in the streets and all the shops are closed. Then she notices a tobacco shop still open and she quickly dashes into it. She goes up to the counter as she opens her purse and starts looking for some change. 				CLAUDIA 		Some cigarettes, please... Do you have any?...		Nazionali with filters ... Her hands tremble as she searches for the money. Finally, she pays the  storekeeper and immediately lights up a cigarette. Suddenly, she wheels about, having heard Sandro enter. He is alone. Throwing away his cigarette, he comes up to her, all nervous and excited, and they both step out into the street. As soon as she is outside, Claudia leans up against the wall as if she has no strength left. She lets her cigarette fall to the ground and shuts her eyes. 				SANDRO 		What is it, Claudia?				CLAUDIA 		Oh, Sandro... I'm so ashamed of myself, so 		ashamed...I tried to hide myself...I feel so 		small... I hate myself ...				SANDRO 		Does it please you to say such things? 				CLAUDIA 		Oh no... It doesn't please me at all... 				SANDRO 		Then why do you say them? 				CLAUDIA 		Because what I'm doing is so ugly ... Because 		if you told me right now: "Claudia, I love 		you," I would believe you...    Sandro is about to say the phrase, somewhat jokingly in the hope that it might calm her, but also with a certain amount of seriousness. But as soon as he opens his mouth to say "Claudia," she places her hand over his lips. 				CLAUDIA 		No... Because then I'd force you to swear it, 		I'd force you to tell me an infinite amount of 		things... and that wouldn't be right, it 		couldn't be right... It would be absurd.Sandro tries to calm her with an embrace. 				SANDRO 		Good. It's better if it were absurd. That would 		mean nothing much can be done about it.				CLAUDIA 		But just think -- the very same things you had		said to her who knows how many times... maybe 		even just before we left, while I was waiting 		outside your place...				SANDRO 		So, even if I did say them, I was sincere with 		her, as I am now with you.Moved by Sandro's remark, Claudia lifts her head and looks deeply into his eyes. The statement reveals him as being someone quite different from the person she had imagined him to be, and at the same time, it opens up for her a new way of looking at things. Shaking his head, and with much tenderness, he says: 				SANDRO 		I have never seen a woman like you, who needs 		to see everything so clearly. At the sound of a man's voice coming from behind him, Sandro turns and sees a gentleman with two large packages under his arms, pointing to a bell-cord dangling on the side of a door nearby.         				MAN		Excuse me, but would you mind pulling that cord 		for me? Sandro pulls the bell-cord and the sound of a bell is heard inside. 				MAN		Thank you. The door opens and the gentleman quickly steps inside. Sandro looks up at the building. 				SANDRO 		At one time, all these houses were convents. He takes Claudia by the arm and pulls her away towards the square, then looks attentively around the area. Bathed in the soft twilight, the buildings and the churches bordering the square reveal themselves in all their beauty. Sandro and Claudia climb up the steps of a church building and from there gaze at the scene. Gradually he allows himself to be overcome with enthusiasm. 				SANDRO 		Look! What a fantastic scene! What movement, 		what disorder! They were very much concerned 		with scenographic effects... an extraordinary 		sense of liberty... There is a moment of silence during which he continues to look at the scene before him. Then, giving voice to a sincere thought, he exclaims: 				SANDRO 		Really, I've got to stop this business with 		Ettore... I would like to go back and start 		working on my own projects again. You know, I 		had many ideas... 				CLAUDIA 		And why did you drop them?				SANDRO 		Once they gave me a job to draw up an estimate 		for the construction of a school. It took me 		only a day and a half to finish it, and I got 		paid six million lire. Ever since then I've 		been doing estimates for other people's 		designs. Claudia looks at him as if she were about to render judgment, and Sandro becomes aware of it. 				SANDRO 		Why are you looking at me like that? 				CLAUDIA 		I'm sure you'd be able to design some very 		lovely things.				SANDRO 		I don't know about that. And then, who's 		interested in beautiful things nowadays? The last words are spoken with a deep sense of sadness, Sandro avoiding Claudia's glance. He laughs to himself and for a while remains silent. He takes another look up at the dark outlines of the buildings, then turns to Claudia. 				SANDRO 		Claudia, let's get married? 				CLAUDIA 			(astonished) 		What! Get married?				SANDRO 		Yes. We'll get married. You and I. What do you 		say?				CLAUDIA 		What do I say? What can I say? No. At least, 		not yet. I don't know... I can't even think of 		it... at a time like this... Oh, but why did 		you have to ask me? 				SANDRO 		You look at me as though I had said something 		foolish...				CLAUDIA 		And are you sure you want to marry me? Are you 		really sure...that you want to marry... me? 				SANDRO 		That's why I asked you...				CLAUDIA 		So... Oh, how I wish that everything were so 		much simpler... that people could just come 		together by the color of their hair or the size 		of their shoes. What size shoe do you wear? 		Size 9. That's a very lovely size. But I'm 		sorry, I wear size 8. Sandro smiles and playfully ruffles Claudia's hair. She also smiles, then slowly they both head towards the hotel. ***It is morning inside the Hotel Trinacria.  Claudia has just had breakfast in her room and is almost finished dressing. It is a rather large room, set out with old pieces of furniture. The place is in a state of disarray, and the door leading into Sandro's room is wide open. Because of the general disorder, Claudia is unable to find her stockings. But instead of being angered by this, she appears quite jovial and laughs gaily. As she continues to look for her stockings, Sandro appears in the doorway. 				SANDRO 		Are you ready? Claudia comes up to Sandro and gazes upon him with a look of adoration. 				CLAUDIA 			(ironically)		But why am I so infatuated with you?				SANDRO 			(smiling)		Hurry up now, or it'll begin to get hot 		outside...				CLAUDIA 		Yes, yes, yes, yes... Right away... She starts looking hurriedly around the room again but is still unable to locate her stockings. Suddenly, up from the street comes the sound of music. It is a popular tune, wild and rhythmic, emanating from a publicity truck as part of some local advertising stunt. Claudia is overtaken by the music and cannot resist the temptation to do a little dance for Sandro. Little by little, she starts swaying back and forth to the music. Then, kicking off her shoes, she begins to dance around the room in her bare feet. Sandro looks at her, amused but also somewhat impatient. 				SANDRO 			(leaving)		Okay. I understand. See you later. Claudia rushes up to the door, and feigning an exaggerated attitude of despair, says: 				CLAUDIA 		And you leave me here all alone... in this 		hotel room... 				SANDRO 		As soon as you're ready, you can come down and 		catch up with me. I'll be waiting for you right 		outside on the square. Claudia is in a playful mood and she is anxious to demonstrate her exuberance. 				CLAUDIA 			(teasingly)		Very well. But you must first tell me that when 		you go out without me it's like going out 		without one of your legs. Go ahead, have a look 		around the town all by yourself, but you'll 		have to hobble along on only one leg. And you 		must also tell me that you are filled with a 		great desire to embrace my shadow on the 		walls... Then you must tell me...			(suddenly her tone of voice 			 changes and she becomes 			 quite serious) 		You must tell me that you love me. Sandro replies with the same good-natured tolerance with which he had been watching Claudia as she danced her coquettish dance. 				SANDRO 		But you know it already. Why must I tell you? 				CLAUDIA 		So, you wonder why? Without waiting for him to answer, she goes back towards the center of the room and once again starts looking around for her stockings. Sandro begins to leave. 				SANDRO 		Then I'll see you later. 				CLAUDIA 		Okay. In a few minutes. Sandro goes out the door. Claudia finally locates her stockings and proceeds to finish dressing. ***Sandro comes out of the hotel and crosses over to the sunny square. He starts strolling down along a street which leads to a baroque church that opens up to a wide flight of stone steps. Beyond these steps is a small dead-end street that runs up against the faáade of a large and magnificent old building. A few feet away from the faáade, seated on a bench in the shade, is an old coachman whose horse is standing beside him with its head deep in a sack of hay.Sandro goes down the flight of steps and approaches the door of the old building which is closed. He rings the bell but there is no answer. Then he notices a time schedule posted on the door indicating visiting hours. After glancing at it, he walks over to the seated coachman. 				SANDRO 		It's closed. Isn't there any custodian or 		caretaker inside? 				COACHMAN		 	(apathetically)		Nobody there.				SANDRO 		But it says it's open from 9:30 to 10:30., and 		it's ten o'clock now...  That's a fine way to 		greet tourists.				COACHMAN		Tourists? Last year a few Frenchmen came here 		and they all walked around in their bathing		suits. So they were made to understand that it 		was better if they didn't come at all. Sandro shakes his head and is about to say something but he sees the door opening and a man appears.  Sandro goes over to him. 				SANDRO 		Are you the custodian?				CUSTODIAN		Yes, come right in. Sandro enters and finds himself inside a large courtyard of noteworthy architectural design, though somewhat in a state of decay. The custodian goes on his way and Sandro walks further into the courtyard where two young men are studying the architecture. On hearing Sandro's footsteps, they turn around for a moment, then resume their observation. They are, in fact, young architectural students busily engaged in taking notes and copying certain architectural details. They do this with an extraordinary interest, almost with a sense of religious zeal. Sandro continues to stroll through the courtyard. His footsteps are the only sounds to be heard disturbing the otherwise absolute silence. The two young students exchange words between each other but they speak in faint whispers, almost as though they were inside a church. Sandro gazes up at the arcades, the columns, the windows. He is obviously filled with a painful sense of regret, resentful and bitter. He turns to look at the two young students who are deep in their studies and ignore his presence. But he is unable to ignore them; they plainly annoy him. In a certain sense, they humiliate him. He turns away and heads towards the exit, walking on the tip of his toes so as not to make any noise. Then he goes out, quietly closing the door behind him. ***In the hotel lobby, a maid is cleaning and dusting, and at the same time, singing little snatches from a popular romantic tune. The hotel manager, who is busy writing something in the register behind the desk, looks up and says: 				HOTEL MANAGER		Go ahead, keep right on singing... Disappointed, the maid immediately stops singing, and the manager resumes writing. But she quickly looks up again as she hears footsteps coming down the stairs. It is Claudia. 				HOTEL MANAGER			(to Claudia)		Excuse me for interfering, but I've heard about 		that girl... Here in this place one gets to 		know about everything... That girl you're 		looking for... Why don't you try asking at the 		youth hostel in Pergusa? Almost all the young 		girls traveling through here end up there. Claudia is immediately interested to hear this bit of news and is about to ask for additional information. But she is suddenly distracted by Sandro who enters the lobby at that very moment. 				CLAUDIA 		I was just coming out to meet you. How come 		you're back so soon? Sandro doesn't answer but merely shrugs his shoulders. Then he takes Claudia by the arm and gently leads her towards the stairway. He has a worried expression on his face and remains absolutely silent as he starts climbing the stairs. As they walk through the corridor, Claudia looks at him anxiously, wondering what is wrong. 				CLAUDIA 		Sandro ...What's the matter? 				SANDRO 		Nothing. He opens the door to his room and ushers Claudia in. As soon as he enters, he takes off his jacket and throws it on a chair. Then he walks over to the window and closes the shutters. Then, without saying a word, he turns to Claudia, grabs her in his arms and squeezes her. Claudia smiles, and playfully yells "Ouch!" Then he goes to kiss her but Claudia tries to resist but doesn't succeed. This little struggle stimulates Sandro and is enough to make him forget all reserve. He drags Claudia on to the bed and forces her to lie down.				CLAUDIA 		No, Sandro... Please... 				SANDRO 		Why?				CLAUDIA 		No reason why... But Sandro hugs her and kisses her again. This time, Claudia lets herself be kissed. 				CLAUDIA 		What's the matter with you? Sandro only responds by kissing her again. Then Claudia yields. Sandro is angry and excited, as though he wanted to take his resentment out on Claudia. 				CLAUDIA 		Sandro, wait a moment, just one moment... You 		seem like an entirely different person ... 				SANDRO 		And aren't you pleased?... That way you'll have 		a new kind of adventure. Wounded, Claudia pushes him away with all her might, and exclaims: 				CLAUDIA 		What are you saying?				SANDRO 		I was only joking, really... Can't I make a 		joke? And now you've got to tell me why you 		don't want to.				CLAUDIA 		Oh, Sandro... I want everything you do. But... She stops short, then turns aside and reaches out to touch his jacket on the chair, looking into the pockets, not with curiosity but with a sense of love. Sandro grabs her by the shoulders and forces her to turn around. 				SANDRO 		But what? Claudia remains silent, then gets up from the bed, and in a subdued tone of voice, says: 				CLAUDIA 		Did the hotel manager speak to you about that 		place nearby?				SANDRO 		Yes, she started to but I didn't feel like 		staying to listen to what she had to say. If we 		had to listen to everybody...				CLAUDIA 		No, Sandro... We should go. Besides, we 		haven't been in touch with anybody. Not even 		with Anna's father. We should have at least 		sent a wire or telephoned... let's be fair, he 		must be feeling awfully lonely.				SANDRO 		I don't doubt it. But at a time like this we're 		the least suitable persons to be with him. And 		as far as telephoning him... Who knows where he 		is? There is a moment of silence, then Claudia starts heading towards the door. 				CLAUDIA 		Come, let's go. Pack your things, and I'll get 		mine ready too. ***It is evening. Sandro's car is pulling into the town of Taormina on its way to the San Domenico. It comes to a small square and passes by a group of men and women seated on the steps of an ancient ruin. They are dressed in evening clothes and are laughing and giggling. The car turns into the street of the  San Domenico and stops in front of the hotel. A porter immediately comes out and opens the door. Claudia and Sandro get out and head towards the small courtyard that leads into the foyer.The lobby is full of activity and alive with people dressed in formal attire. Claudia is clearly intrigued by everything she sees: the surroundings, the people, etc. Sandro approaches the reception desk as Claudia walks slightly ahead, anxious to see what is going on. The sound of music is heard coming from one of the halls at the other end of the lobby. There is obviously a party underway: further on, through a glass partition, couples are seen dancing. Suddenly, Claudia stops. Directly up ahead, she notices Patrizia. As soon as she see Claudia, Patrizia comes to greet her, smiling. 				PATRIZIA 		Well, I'm looking for somebody else and who do 		I find but you. Claudia smiles and they both kiss each other on the cheek. 				CLAUDIA 		How are you? Instead of answering, Patrizia takes Claudia by the hand and leads her over to a bench along the side of the wall and sits down. Claudia remains standing, somewhat annoyed by the crowd of people around her. 				CLAUDIA 		Shouldn't we try to find a quieter place? 				PATRIZIA 		Quieter? Oh, yes, of course. Patrizia rises and leads Claudia out to a terrace that overlooks the entire bay which is dotted with lights. Claudia takes in the view but her attention is still focused on Patrizia. She waits from one moment to the next to have questions thrown at her, but Patrizia remains silent. So Claudia turns around and looks at her as though to say: Come on, say what you have to say and let's get it over with. But Patrizia smiles at her sweetly and only murmurs: 				PATRIZIA 		You look so wonderfully tanned. Claudia feels relieved and presses Patrizia's hand, almost with a sense of renewed friendship. Sandro appears from behind the glass partition and comes out on the terrace to greet Patrizia. 				PATRIZIA 		And here's Sandro. 			(he kisses her hand)		Why don't you two go upstairs and change? 				SANDRO 		Yes, we will. They leave the terrace and go through one of the halls towards the corridor that leads to the rooms. Claudia walks ahead, with Patrizia and Sandro following slightly behind. The hall is still packed with people. 				PATRIZIA 		Did you manage to find good rooms? 				SANDRO 		They didn't seem too good.				PATRIZIA 		You should have told Ettore. He always manages 		to get what he wants.				SANDRO 		Ettore must be fed up with me by now. 				PATRIZIA 		Oh, no, not at all. And then you know very well 		that he'll forgive you anything; just as long 		as you admit to him that you're a worse driver 		than he is... Claudia looks at Sandro, assured by Patrizia's reply. She remains thoughtful for a moment, then asks Patrizia: 				CLAUDIA 		How do you manage to put up with all this 		confusion? You always said people bore you. 				PATRIZIA 		You shouldn't always take me seriously. 		Actually, I'm used to it by now. First my 		mother and now my husband; both of them are 		like dynamos. 				SANDRO 		Your mother?				PATRIZIA 		Yes, even I had a mother. She was part 		Austrian, but she was still my mother. My 		childhood was like a tennis match; they 		bounced me back and forth, here and there...				CLAUDIA 		My childhood, instead, was a very sensible one.				PATRIZIA 		What do you mean by sensible? 				CLAUDIA 		It means being without money. Patrizia and Sandro burst out laughing, and Sandro reaches out and ruffles Claudia's hair. They have arrived in front of a room that is situated on the ground floor, and are greeted by a hotel clerk who is waiting for them with keys in hand. The door is already open and Claudia is about to enter. 				PATRIZIA 		See you soon, then. Sandro nods yes and Claudia waves so long, as Patrizia takes her leave. Claudia enters the room behind the clerk, and Sandro follows. Claudia stops in the middle of the room, as the clerk goes through his various duties with professional exactitude: he turns on the lights, draws the window curtains, checks to see if there are enough hangers in the wardrobe, then finally opensthe door to the adjoining room, into which he disappears. All his movements seem completely automatic. 				SANDRO 			(commenting under his breath)		You see? Just like a robot. Then Sandro enters the adjoining room, where the clerk has in the meantime turned on all the lamps and performed all the other little duties. Sandro starts to undo his tie. Claudia remains standing in the middle of the room, listening to all of Sandro's movements in the other room. A knock is heard at the door of Sandro's room and Sandro is heard saying: 				SANDRO 		Come in. A few seconds later, the porter also enters Claudia's room with her baggage. She opens the valise and starts taking out her nightgown and other necessities. Her gestures are slow and imprecise because fatigue has overcome her. Several moments pass, and Sandro appears at the door in his pajamas. 				CLAUDIA 		Sandro, listen... Try not to get yourself too 		involved tomorrow.				SANDRO 		Aren't you going to change?				CLAUDIA 		You said you wanted to quit working for Ettore. Sandro shrugs his shoulders without, apparently, giving much thought to Claudia's statement. He goes into the bathroom saying: 				SANDRO 		Sure, that's what I said... The sound of the shower running is heard. 				SANDRO 		Wow, it's ice cold... Claudia goes up to the door adjoining the two rooms and stops at the doorway of the bathroom that is situated between the two rooms. 				CLAUDIA 		Sandro, I'm not coming down. 				SANDRO 		Why?				CLAUDIA 		I'm too sleepy.				SANDRO 		Sleep is something one must learn to overcome. 		I learned how to do it when I was a child. I 		never slept. And I had friends who even slept 		less than I did. The one who went to bed first, 		paid a penalty. And we really didn't do 		anything. After seeing a movie, we'd go to a 		cafe and discuss things for a while... then 		we'd sit down on a bench somewhere... listen to 		some drunkard... watch them putting up posters 		or manifestoes...or look at the sheep passing 		by... or go for a stroll around the market 		place... Or else we'd go and wake up some girl 		in the neighborhood by standing in front of her 		window and calling out her name... Claudia has been listening to Sandro with her head leaning against the door jamb, her eyes closed. As soon as Sandro stops, she goes back to her bed and starts undressing. Sandro comes out of the bathroom, wearing a bathrobe, and going over to Claudia, says in an affectionate tone: 				SANDRO 		You're that sleepy, eh? What time do expect to 		get up tomorrow? 				CLAUDIA 		Late, very late. Claudia disappears into her bathroom, and Sandro returns to his room. After a while, his voice is heard. 				SANDRO 		Did you know that when I was a boy I wanted to 		be a diplomat? Can you imagine that! Me, a 		diplomat? It's strange but I never thought I'd 		be rich. I saw myself living in a rooming house, 		full of geniuses... Claudia has slipped into her nightgown and returned to her room. Sandro is heard clearing his throat, and then continuing. 				SANDRO 		Instead, I have two apartments, one in Rome and 		one in Milan. As far as genius goes, it's a 		habit I've never formed. What do you think of 		that? Sandro reappears at the doorway, already half dressed. Claudia slides into bed and stretches herself out under the covers. 				CLAUDIA 		I look at things differently... But maybe it's 		best we talk about it some other time. Do you 		mind turning off that light over there? Sandro turns out the lamp on the table while Claudia closes the main switch. The room is enveloped in darkness. Sandro approaches the bed and bends over Claudia to kiss her. 				SANDRO 		Good night, my love.				CLAUDIA 		Good night. Tell me that you love me. 				SANDRO 		I love you.				CLAUDIA 		Tell me once more. 				SANDRO 		I don't love you. 				CLAUDIA 			(smiling) 		I deserve it. Sandro goes towards the door, then turns and smiles. 				SANDRO 		That's not true. I love you. He returns to his room, closing the door behind him. He seems somewhat meditative, as though the little discourse he has just delivered has in some way touched him deeply. He also seems a little sad. Then he puts on his tie and jacket, lights up a cigarette, and goes to the door. ***Sandro comes out of his room and walks along through the corridors, heading towards the reception halls down at the other end. Other persons are walking up and down the corridor in both directions. Sandro's attention is attracted by the figure of a woman who is coming his way at a rather quick pace. She is wrapped in a tight-fitting evening dress that emphasizes the various harmonious parts of her body. Sandro looks at her. He seems to recognize her but isn't quite sure who it is. The girl passes alongside of him and apparently she too has the same impression, for she gives him a look that lasts much longer than it normally would between two complete  strangers. She stops in front of a door but before entering, she casts another glance at Sandro, who suddenly recalls that she is the same woman who had almost provoked a riot in the streets of Messina and who was forced to take refuge in a men's shop. There is a moment of hesitation, then the girl opens the door and disappears into the room. Sandro continues on ahead until he reaches the bar, which is still very crowded. Evening clothes of all kinds. Shiny silks. Jewels dangling from wrists, necks and ears that are either white or bronzed by the sun. Shoes of silver or lustrous black. Headdresses of many women -- high, cropped or short and bobbed. Men with hair well groomed but also frequently mussed. A vast, tumultuous wave of people, all wealthy and respectable, talking, laughing and carrying on as though the whole wide world was right there and everybody in it was like them. Snatches of witticisms. Faces of passing people. Hands reaching out for glasses. The expressions on the face of the barman, smiling and indifferent. The sad, sullen face of the cloakroom attendant. The dumbfounded look on the face of a thirteen-year-old elevator boy.Sandro feels very much at home in this milieu. One thinks so little, forgets so easily. And things are so conveniently ignored, beginning with one's own self. Sandro moves through the crowd, here and there. Standing next to the orchestra is a girl in black pants, singing strange songs in a soft, suggestive voice. Sandro encounters Ettore. As soon as he sees Sandro, Ettore comes over and places an arm around his shoulder, almost in the form of an embrace. 				ETTORE  		Well, finally... Come, I'll introduce you to my 		friends.				SANDRO 		I want to take a look around first... I'll join 		you later.				ETTORE  		Say, I hope it's understood that starting 		tomorrow morning, I'll need to have you around. 		If you don't give me some figures to work with, 		how can I proceed? Sandro agrees with a nod of his head. But he is thoughtful and somewhat saddened. As Ettore returns to his friends with whom he had been speaking and laughing, Sandro looks at him almost with a sense of rage.Then he goes back to the bar and orders something to drink. He is not aware that the girl from Messina is just a few yards away and is watching him. She is extremely tanned, extremely voluptuous, and extremely beautiful.Sandro moves away from the bar with the glass in his hand. He passes in front of a semi-dark room and takes a peek inside: a television set is turned on but nobody is watching it. Sandro is restless. He comes to a terrace and stops to look down at the illuminated docks below. The headlights of cars passing by fan out across the road that runs along the shore of the sea. With an angry gesture, Sandro finishes his drink, gulping the whiskey down in one fast swallow. He squeezes the empty glass in his hand as though he had wanted to crush it. ***The early rays of dawn are faintly seen coming through a window at the far end of the corridor. Claudia comes rushing out of her room and runs over to Patrizia's door. She knocks, then without waiting for a response, she enters. 				CLAUDIA 		Patrizia... Patrizia ... Where's Ettore? 				PATRIZIA 		I imagine he must be inside sleeping. 				CLAUDIA 		Would you please see if Sandro is with him? 		He's not in his room. I'm sorry to disturb you. Patrizia gets up out of bed and goes into the adjoining room. 				PATRIZIA 		Ettore... 				ETTORE  		What is it?				PATRIZIA 		Nothing, nothing  at all. I was just looking 		for Sandro.				ETTORE  		And you expect to find him in here? Go and ask 		Claudia. 				PATRIZIA 		Yes, yes, of course. She returns to her room. 				CLAUDIA 		Patrizia, I'm afraid.				PATRIZIA 		More or less, we are all afraid. Especially at 		night.				CLAUDIA 		I'm afraid that Anna has come back. I feel 		she's back, and that they're together.				PATRIZIA 		But what's gotten into you?... We would have 		known. Sandro must be out in the garden 		somewhere, taking a breath of fresh air, or 		watching the break of dawn. It would be a lovely 		surprise indeed if he turned out to be the 		sentimental type. Claudia sinks down into a chair, weak and exhausted. 				PATRIZIA 		Now, listen. For God's sake, try not to let 		yourself become obsessed with that idea. Go to 		your room and get back into bed.				CLAUDIA 		Just several days ago, the thought of Anna 		being dead would have made me sick. And now, I 		don't even cry, I'm afraid she might be alive. 		Everything is becoming so damned simple and 		easy, even to deprive one's self of pain and 		suffering. 				PATRIZIA 		You should never wish to get melodramatic over 		anything.				CLAUDIA 		Yes, you're right. I'm sick and tired of being 		like that. Claudia gets up and leaves the room. She continues walking down along the corridor, checking here and there. But the hotel is deserted. There are still a few lights  on in  the reception hall but not enough to illuminate the place adequately. Finally, she reaches the main hall and stops. The only signs of last night's party is a certain disorder in the placement of the armchairs and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. Even the main hall seems completely deserted. But all of a sudden, Claudia becomes aware of something moving on a sofa at the far end of the room. She takes a few steps, walking silently over the thick carpet, so as to get a better look. There seems to be a slight movement among what appears to be a jumbled pile of male and female clothes, partly hidden from view by the back of the sofa. Claudia goes up still closer because she is not able to see clearly what or who it is. Only that she has the impression of having seen that suit before... A man's suit. She is now able to distinguish what it is: a couple embracing and kissing.Claudia approaches still closer. She is now just a few steps away. Little by little, as she advances, her face takes on such a painful look of astonishment that she appears almost petrified. She hesitates and bumps up against a little table that makes a small noise. The couple on the sofa come out of their embrace and look up. The man is Sandro; the woman is the girl from Messina. Sandro looks at Claudia as though he were filled with terror. The girl, instead, seems quite amused. Claudia remains for a moment, staring at them as if she can't believe her own eyes, and is incapable of making any move. Then, she abruptly turns away and starts running. She runs through the main hall, the reception room, the courtyard, and out into the street. There is not a soul to be seen. No sound. The day is breaking clear and serene.Claudia comes over to a bench with its paint all peeling off, but she doesn't sit down. Transfixed, and with her eyes almost wide open, she stares out at the sea, and at the waves which are also a mystery unto themselves. Footsteps are heard approaching from behind, but Claudia doesn't even bother to turn. It seems that nothing could distract her from that painful state of shock which is written all over her face. A young laborer in overalls, carrying a small bundle under his arm, passes by, glancing at her with a look of curiosity. He walks a few paces ahead, then turns around to look at her again as though she were some kind of strange creature.The sound of footsteps dies down in the distance, and everything is silent once more. There is only the gentle lapping of the waves as they roll up against the shore. Claudia is completely oblivious to the scene. Several birds swoop down emitting their small cries. A sudden but almost imperceptible sea breeze ripples Claudia's hair.Other footsteps are heard approaching: slow, heavy. Claudia is still not stirred from her thoughtful, trance-like state. The footsteps come to a halt directly behind her. It is Sandro. He appears thoroughly crestfallen. He doesn't even have enough courage to look at Claudia. His face is worn and disfigured, like that of a tired old man. And he lets himself fall limp onto the bench. They both remain completely motionless, without looking at each other. And detached: Claudia standing, Sandro seated. Behind them, the skeleton of cement. Further off, the sea.Gradually, Claudia turns her head towards Sandro. Her eyes are filled with tears. She looks down upon him as though he were something that greatly pained her. She moves up closer to the bench. Sandro doesn't budge an inch. Claudia reaches out to him with her hand, then slowly, gently, and with an overwhelming sense of desperation, she caresses his hair.   
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+ AWAKENINGS    Scree nplay by   Steven 2ai11IanBased on t he Book by    Olive r Sac ks                        OCTOBER 2, 1989                                         (BLUE)                        REV .10/1 3/89                        REV.1 0/16/ 89   (PINK)                        REV.1 0/25/ 89   (YELLOW)                        REV.1 1/6/8 9    (GREEN)                        REV.1 1/10/ 89   (GOLDENROD                        REV .11/1 4/89   (SALMON)                        REV .11/1 6/89   (LAVENDER)                        REV .11/2 2/89   (CHERRY)                        REV .12/4 /89    (WHITE)                        REV.1 2/5/8 9    (BLUE)                        REV.1 2/12/ 89   (PINK)                        REV .12/ 13/89   (YELLOW)                        REV. 1,2/15/89   (GREEN) 1. A dusty deserted street - saloon, livery stable, sunset. Only there is something unsettling about it all. The colors are too muted and the angles not quite in perspective. Pullingslowly back eventually reveals the edges of a narrow woodenpicture frame ...INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT - 1930Drifting away from the painting and slowly across a room.Across Venetian blinds, open, letting in moonlight, acrossintricate handmade wooden models, dime novels and comic books,across the arm of a metronome gently slapping back and forth,and settling finally on a small hand writing slowly anddeliberately, over and over, in synchronization, it seems, tothe rhythm of the metronome, the word, " L E O N A R D . "2.   INT. DINING ROOM - MORNING - 1930The pendulum of a clock. An adult hand placing a bowl ofcereal on a table. Leonard, ten or eleven, waits a moment forthe adult to leave, grasps his spoon, and manipulates it frombowl to mouth in time with the soft regular rhythm of theclock.3.   EXT. STREET - NEW YORK - MORNING - 1930                      3.Schoolbooks slung over their shoulders, Leonard and another boyhis age, a classmate, move along a street.All around them are "visual rhythms" - lines in the sidewalk,the even placement of trees, the sunlight breaking through thebranches above them - and somewhere unseen, the rhythmicpounding of an elevator train.As they climb a fence, a pocket watch, Leonard's, falls to theground.                                                                  4.4.   INT. CLASSROOM - DAY - 1930An adult hand chalking the words of a poem on a blackboard.Children at desks dutifully transcribing the lesson.All but one. Leonard. Whose hands are trembling slightly andwhose paper is blank. There is a noticeable lack of rhythms.A cold silence. The broken watch rests on his desk.The boy from the train, glancing at Leonard, begins gentlytapping the end of his pen against his desk. Leonard, "guided"by the cadence of his friend's tapping, begins to write.(o   The teacher's hand at the blackboard hesitates. Distracted by     4.     the rhythmic noise, he traces it to the offender and silences     him with a look.                            \      '     Without the rhythm, and without, apparently, inner natural     rhythms to replace it, Leonard's hand begins dragging the pen     across the paper, forming vague scrawl, each word less defined     than the last, until they begin melding together into what     resembles nothing so much as a child's rendering of ocean     waves.     The teacher resumes chalking on the board. The boy from the     train begins tapping his pen again, and, "guided" again by the     rhythm, Leonard is able to give definition to the "ocean     waves," to form recognizable letters.and words.     The teacher hesitates again and glares at the boy making the     irritating noise. The boy stops tapping and Leonard's writing     again becomes formless.                                                                       5.     5. INT. CLASSROOM.- LATER - DAY - 1930     The finished poem on the blackboard. The sounds of children at     play on the schoolyard. The teacher, alone in the classroom,o    at his desk grading the penmanship lesson.     He circles offending errors on the last page of the last     composition book. He scribbles a grade opposite the student's     name in a grade book. He notices the absence of a grade in     Leonard's column.                         .     Leonard's desk. The teacher locates the missing composition     book buried under textbooks. He takes it back to his own desk,     opens it, and stares curiously at the last lesson, the poem, or     rather Leonard's illegible representation of it.     He considers earlier lessons in the book. He begins to see in     the script a pattern of deterioration. He reaches the last     entry again and stares at the few recognizable words drowning     In "the waves."                                   <                                                                       6     6.   INT. LEONARD'S BEDROOM - DAY - 1930 - WINTER     The painting on the wall. The intricate wooden models and dime     novels. The Venetian blinds, closed, shutting out sunlight.     Voices, barely audible, from somewhere else in the house:                          BOY'S VOICE                When can I see him?                          WOMAN'S VOICE                When he's well.                                       REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)   Pg.36.C0NT.              BOY'S VOICE                              6.CONT,           When will he be well?After a moment --                     WOMAN'S VOICE           I don't know.-- and the sound of a door closing.A small twisted hand lifts a slat of the Venetian blindsrevealing the snow-patched street below. Leonard's friend,crossing it, glances back . . . then disappears around a corner.And the small gnarled hand lets the slat slide down,extinguishing the single ray of light.                                             FADE TO BLACK6A.   EXT. BAINBRIDGE -HOSPITAL - THE. BRONX - DAY - 1970 .        6ATight on the face of a man (SAYER), late thirties, glasses,staring up at the face of a building, imposing in itsinstitutional dullness.6B.    INT. LOBBY - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                               6B.A dim, sleepy cavern of a lobby. No one but a switchboardoperator thumbing through a magazine. Echoing footsteps reachher station and she glances up and at the man from outside.                                   i                     OPERATOR           Yes?7.    INT. ADMINISTRATION OFFICE - BAINBRIDGE - DAYHe seems uncomfortable. Perhaps it's the suit. Or the place.Or the situation. Or the hard straight-backed chair he's in.When he does finally speak, it's with great sincerity --                     SAYER           When you say people ... you mean           living people,                 .Behind an old oak desk, the hospital's Director glances overto its Chief of Medicine, Dr. Kaufman, with a look that seemsto wonder, As opposed to what?                     DIRECTOR           Living people, yes.   Patients.                                   REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)        Pg.4 7.C0NT.                                                    7.  There's some mistake. And Sayer's chair begins to feel more *uncomfortable. He tries to clear up the confusion -                                                                      *                      SAYER          I ' m here for the research                                 *          position . . . in your neurology                            *          lab.                     DIRECTOR          Neurology lab?He doesn't laugh at Sayer, just at the thought of it.                    DIRECTOR          We have an x-ray room.Sayer tries to share the Director's amusement with a good- *natured smile, but doesn't really understand it. Kaufman seems *to have less time for this, and in plain English, unadorned -  *                    KAUFMAN         - The-position-ds-Staff-^Neurologist.            .Sayer looks like a man who's just learned that everything he *knows about the world is wrong.         f                     DIRECTOR                (pause)          A doctor ... doctor.The Director refers to stapled sheets of paper in his hands,Sayer's resume.                     DIRECTOR          The Camel Institute. Tell me                                *          about that, anything with patients                          *          there? Or . . .                                             *                     SAYER                (burying it)          Earthworms.The Director isn't sure he heard right.                    DIRECTOR          Sorry?                               ,                                               >                     SAYER          It was an immense project. "          I was trying to extract a decigram          of myelin from four tons of          earthworms.                                        REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)         Pg.5     7.C0NT.              DIRECTOR                                          7.                      (pause)                Really.                         SAYER               I was on it for five years.               I was the only one who really               believed in it. The rest of them               said it couldn't be done.                         t                           KAUFMAN               It can't.                         SAYER               Well, I know that now.       I proved               it.    The director offers a slow tentative nod before consulting the    resume again.                         DIRECTOR               Maybe before. At Saint Thomas.                    (Sayer is already                     shaking his head no)               All research. Earth - ?                          SAYER               Pigs brains . . . they∑re quite               similar to human brains.                         DIRECTOR                    (hopefully)               Are they?                           SAYER               Oh, yes . . . three years.    As the Director retreats back to the resume, hoping against    hope of finding in it something germane, Sayer glances away to    a window. He wishes he were outside it. He has no business    being here. He should leave.                         SAYER               Excuse me, I made a mistake coming               here. Clearly you're looking for               someone with more of a clinical               background.    He stands up to leave. Kaufman stands to see him out.      But the       *    director keeps searching the resume.Q                                        REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)        Pg.67.C0NT.              SAYER                                      .    7.           I've taken enough of your time.           You must have a hundred applicants           more suitable.                     KAUFMAN           Thanks anyway.                     DIRECTOR           Back in medical school ...Kaufman shoots the Director a look that says, No, we're notthat desperate.                      DIRECTOR           I mean, you couldn't have           graduated without some clinical           experience. .Sayer hesitates. And eventually manages sort of a shrug and an od .,            v'                     DIRECTOR           Well, there we are, doctor.Kaufman can't believe it, but is sent back a look that says,We have no choice. The Director gets up out of his chair, and,smiling broadly, extends his hand to Sayer. Which unsettlesSayer. Which in turn unsettles the Director.                     DIRECTOR                (not far from                 v                 begging)           You do want the job, don't you?Sayer isn't so sure.   He thinks about it long and hard . . .8.   INT. CORRIDOR   - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                                8.Moving along a corridor crowded "with patients, some ambulatory,some in wheelchairs, "living people" living with profoundneurological disease.                     ANTHONY O.S.           Spent much time in chronic           hospitals, doctor?A patient approaches, and, passing Sayer and the orderly who'sescorting him (ANTHONY), offers -                     FEMALE PATIENT 1           Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello . . .                                   REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)               pg.78.C0NT.               ANTHONY                                          8.                 (to Sayer)           You'd remember.                     SAYER           I guess not.As they pass an old patient in a wheelchair -                      ANTHONY           Hey, how you doing?                 (calling to someone                  down the hall)           Dr. Sullivan.Staying on the old patient, he eventually manages, too late -                     OLD PATIENT           Fn ...           ieDown the hall in an alcove, Dr. Sullivan glances up longsufferingly from-a.patient~with'.an .Ouij a-board who !.s mumbling,          *complaining, unintelligibly. Anthony and Sayer arrrive.                     ANTHONY           Dr. Sullivan, this is Dr. Sayer;                     ' ': : '                      '   -'. There's a kind a "deadness" in Sullivan's eyes and voice; he'sbeen here too long.                     SULLIVAN          Not the neurologist, that'd be           asking too much. You're not the           neurologist.                     SAYER           I think I am.Sayer extends his hand. Instead of shaking it -                     SULLIVAN           Well, come on, Anthony, get him a           coat for Christ's sake.- Sullivan thrusts his clipboard into Sayer's hand.9.   OMITTED                                                                9.10. INT. DAYROOM (A) - DAY                                              10.A woman in a wheelchair uttering high-pitched screams (FEMALEPATIENT 2 ) . Sayer in a lab coat trying to calm her.                                  REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)        Pg.710.CONT.            SAYER                .                    10.          They're just pencils, pens.He tries to prove it to her by removing one of them from thepocket of his white coat. Screaming louder at the sight of it,she tries to protect her face with her hands like a boxer beingbeaten senseless.                                        v11.   INT. DAYROOM (B) - DAY                                  11.A man in his sixties confronts Sayer with an announcement in aloud commanding voice -                       MALE PATIENT 1           X was born in I911f in           Kinasbridae, New York. I came           here in July of 1955. Prior to           July of 1955. I resided a£ the           Brooklyn Psychiatric Centerf           Brooklyn. New York. Prior to           thatP I was a person. And you.           sir.- i Who the* hell >are.*v.ou?       .12.   INT. DAYROOM (C) - DAY                                     12.Stepping around a wheelchair, Sayer finds in it an elderlywoman, nicely dressed, her hair done-up, a ribbon in it.Glancing at the chart in his hand -                     SAYER           Mrs. Cohen?                     MRS. COHEN           He∑s here?She smiles, glances around. Sayer hesitates, uncertain who shemeans.                      SAYER           I 'm here.                 (pause)           To examine you.                      MRS. COHEN           Oh, no, I ' m leaving today. My           son's coming to take me home.(6   Confused, Sayer tries to find a discharge form among the papers     on the clipboard. Unsuccessful, he excuses himself from her     and crosses the room to a nurse.                           SAYER                 Excuse me. Mrs. Cohen's son.                 He's coming today?                           NURSE 1                 I wouldn't bet on it, he hasn't                 for twenty years.     The nurse turns away. Sayer crosses slowly back to Mrs. Cohen,     trying to find the words to tell her. He doesn't have to; his     discomfort does it. Her hand slowly reaches up and pulls the     ribbon from her hair.     13.    OMITTED                                    .                                                   v     14.    INT. EXAMINATION ROOM/OFFICE- LATER - DAY     Silence. Institutional beige walls. Glass cabinets, locked,     containing medical instruments. A metal examination table with     leather straps.     Sayer alone at one of three old desks in the large room, still     unsettled from the experience with Mrs. Cohen. Eventually, he     gets up, crosses to a window and tries to open it.     It's jammed shut, painted shut perhaps, but finally gives way,     sliding up. He lets the air from outside wash over his face as     he stares out absently at children on an elementary school     playground beyond a debris-strewn field.                           MISS COSTELLO O.S.                      (a matter of fact)                 It gets easier.     Sayer turns to the voice, to Miss Costello, the hospital's head     nurse, a veteran of this place, a woman who has seen it all.     She's standing in the doorway.                           MISS COSTELLO                 You don't think it will, but it                 does.     A moment and she A urns and leaves.                      t     14A.   EXT. TENEMENT (LUCY'S) - ESTABLISH - DAY15.    INT. TENEMENT - NEW YORK.- DAY                                  1The needle of a Victrola clawing at the endless music-lessinner bands of a 78 . . .                                .*       .Cold eggs and toast and prescription medicine on a kitchenettetable. A puddle of coffee on the floor. Ceramic shards, abroken cup. .An old woman on her knees, eyes closed, arms tangled in analuminum walker, limp and stiff at once somehow, like the limbsof a discarded marionette. Beyond her, beyond a threshold, ashuttered living room. Furniture from another era and theclutter of a lifetime.A shadowy figure in a wicker wheelchair near the Victrola.Another old woman, with spindly limbs, profoundly afflicted andpreposterously still. The back of her head is flat and bald,the result of lying supine upon it for much of several decades.On her passive face rest round wire-rim glasses. Insane orretarded and unaware of the dead woman, she mumbles, justbarely audibly, a melody.                     SAYER'S VOICE           Can you hear me?                 .                                                                      1616.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM/OFFICE - BAINBRIDGE - DAYDistant music of children's laughter. Perhaps real, emanatingfrom outside; perhaps imagined, remembered, playing in a remoteregion of the woman's damaged mind. Arrested of all movement,she stares, transfixed, at the blades of a fan.                      SAYER'S VOICE           Do you know where you are?                 (nothing back)           Do you remember being brought           here?                 (nothing back)           Do you know what has happened?If she does, she gives no indication. No word or gesture. Nochange of expression on her mask of a face. She is elsewhere(or nowhere), cut adrift by her illness, living in a privateworld (or hell).                    SAYER'S VOICE          Can you hear me?Sayer, wearing a white lab coat, tries to read her eyes.Behind thick lenses, uncleaned for weeks or months, the eyesare inscrutable.                                         .   ∑∑                                        REV. 12/5/89 (BLUE)       Pg.-lO16.CONT.                                                            16.Sayer reaches to her face and carefully pulls the glasses fromit. He cleans them with a flap of his lab coat -- they areloose, bent out of shape*-- and gently slides the temples backover her ears.He turns away from her and types at a manual Underwood. Theform in the machine, at the top, reads -- BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL /ADMISSIONS / CONSULTATION REQUEST / NEUROLOGY. Sayer types ina lower section headed -- FINDINGS / DIAGNOSIS.He turns back in his chair to find the woman doubled-over inher wheelchair, one arm very close to the floor, the handclutching the glasses. She is not moving, but she has moved.That, or she is dead.Sayer rights her, takes the glasses from her hand and slipsthem back onto her face. He studies her for a moment, and forthat moment remains as still, as entranced, as her.He takes the glasses from her face again and sets them on thefloor. He waits. She doesn't retrieve them. He picks them upand holds them out to her. She doesn't move to take them. Helets go of them and she lunges forward, catching them theinstant before they hit the floor. Sayer just stares.                       SAYER´S VOICE            Her name is Lucy Fishman . . .                                                              r16B.    INT. CORRIDOR OUTSIDE EXAMINATION ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON   16B.Dr. Kaufman, the hospital's Chief of Medicine, notices a numberof patients lined up in their wheelchairs as he passes them onhis way into Sayer's examination room -                        SAYER'S VOICE            She was found by neighbors with                               *            her sister, several days after the ,            sister had died . . .17.    INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON                       17.The same room as before. The same woman. All that has changedis the light. It's late afternoon.                      SAYER (CONT'D)           According to the neighbors,                                    *           she's never set foot outside her                               *           apartment, has no other living                                 *           relatives, and has always been the                             *           way she is now - without any                                   *           comprehension or response.                                     *Kaufman tries to feign interest. He glances to the others         1Sayer has summoned to the room -- two other doctors, Tyler andSullivan, and Miss Costello.                       SAYER          And yet . . .Without any warning whatsoever Sayer tosses a tennis ball ather. Her hand suddenly jerks up out of her lap and catches it.And stays there, stiff, still.Sayer is delighted but the expression on Kaufman's face is thatof one who has long ago learned and tired of simple cardtricks. Dismissing the phenomenon --∑                       DR. KAUFMAN          A reflex.                    SAYER          If she batted it away I might call          that a reflex. She doesn't bat it          away, she catches it.                    DR. KAUFMAN -        It's still a reflex.         ..∑.    :        ∑ ∑' .∑ " .'                     SAYER          I'm sorry, if you were right I'd          agree with you.Kaufman, understandably, takes some offense at the comment.Sayer, however, is unaware that he has caused any.                     SAYER          It's as if . . . having lost all          will of her own on which to act,          she borrows the will of the ball.Awkward silence.    Eventually--                     DR. TYLER          The "will of the ball?"                       .Sayer nods. Kaufman and the other doctors concur with glancesthat the theory and theorist are absurd.                       DR. SULLIVAN          Excuse me.Sullivan has better things to do and leaves the room.   So doesTyler. Kaufman and Miss Costello remain.                                 DR. KAUFMAN                                 .       I                            (hopefully)                      You're trying to make a good                      impression. That's it, isn't it?                      You're still settling in.           Sayer isn't sure if he should agree or not.   He does neither.                                DR. KAUFMAN                      Miss Costello, you'll see that Dr.                      Saver's patients waiting out there                      are rescheduled for tomorrow?                                  MISS COSTELLO                      Yes, sir.                                 DR. KAUFMAN                      Good night.           Sayer watches Kaufman leave. So does Miss Costello. Lucy,           looking less like a woman than a Diane Arbus photograph of one,           doesn't.           18.   EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - LATE AFTERNOONC'\      Sayer climbs into his Toyota and, as he buckles his seat belt, -*©     recites in a mumble to himself --                                    SAYER                      One . . .                                                  .                                                     *                              (he turns the key)                      Two . . .                              (puts on sunglasses)                      Three . . .                              (releases the brake)                      Four . . .                              (shifts out of                                'park')                                               .                      Five.           Just as he's depressing the accelerator, someone raps on his           window. He slams on the brakes. Miss Costello's face appears           at the window. Recovering, Sayer rolls it down.                                SAYER                     What'd I forget?                               MISS COSTELLO                     I just wanted to say to you I                     preferred your explanation.    ()   It's unclear whether he knows what she's referring to.r                         MISS COSTELLO               And that I'll look after things               for you until you've "settled in."               Good night, doctor.    She leaves. He stares blankly out after her, then at his    dashboard. To it eventually, quietly --                            SAYER               Thank you . . .    He glances to his rear view mirror and can see her walking away    toward her car. To the reflection --                          SAYER               Thank you very much.    18A. EXT. SAMMY'S FISH GROTTO - ESTABLISH - NIGHT             18A.    19.   INT. SAMMY'S GROTTO, CITY ISLAND, THE BRONX - NIGHT     19.    Sayer at a table eating dinner alone. He should've brought    along something to read. He glances at the little "Catch of    the Day" notice on his table for the tenth time, then absently    in at an eel in a fish tank, which seems to be peering back out    at him.                          SIDNEY V.O.               I am not mad ... not mad . . .    20.   EXT. SCHOOLYARD & BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL - DAY                 20.    A tether ball dangling from a rope, resting against a pole.    The chains of a swing. Pigeons scavenging scraps on the    asphalt of the elementary school playground, deserted.∑                          SIDNEY V.O.               I know the difference between what               is real and what is not . . .    Beyond a chain-link fence, across the field, on the roof of one    of Bainbridge's brick buildings, peering down from the edge of    it, coat over his smock, hat on his head, an elderly man.    21.   INT. SIDNEY'S DAYROOM - DAY                                   21.    Tight on the elderly man's face.                         SIDNEY               The voice was real.                                     REV.12/12/89 (PINK)      Pg.1421.C0NT.                                                          21.Sayer nods in agreement though he is not altogether as certainof tne claim. They are in a ward crowded with many patientswho are mad, obviously and irretrievably so.                     SAYER           What did the voice say?                     SIDNEY           "Mr. Titch, get your coat and hat,           go up to the roof and jump off."                     SAYER           Did you recognize it as belonging           to a person? Or was it just a           voice?Sidney considers Sayer suspiciously ... then smiles slyly.        *                                                                       *                     SIDNEY           You don't deny it was you.                                  *                      SAYER                                                                       *           Me?Sayer is taken aback. As is Sidney. One of them, and Sidneybelieves he knows which, is lying or crazy.                  ' ' ∑ * SAYER '        .            I do deny it. It wasn't me.           It wasn't real.                 (pause)           We've only just now met, sir.       ªSidney, suddenly completely disoriented, withdraws.                       SIDNEY           If that's true . . . I'm in a           predicament.22.   INT. STAFF CAFETERIA - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                    22.Sayer in line with Drs. Tyler and Sullivan, both younger than      *himself. He seems distracted, Sayer, lost in the color of thebeets on his tray. Or a thought.Like George telling Lenny again about the rabbits:                     DR. SULLIVAN                                                                       *           We'd be high up - 40th, 50th           floor, nice midtown view - suite                            *           of offices, carpeted, good-looking                          *           receptionist -                                              *                                            REV.12/12/89 (PINK)        Pg.15         22.CONT.            DR. TYLER                                    22fp\    ∑        Aquarium in the waiting room,\_J)               George.                          ,                               DR. SULLIVAN                   We could have all that ... but                   we'd miss all this. We'd miss        the                   wards.                               DR. TYLER                   The smell of them.                               DR. SULLIVAN                   We'd miss this place -                         (this cafeteria)                   We'd miss this . . .                         (the plate of mush as                          it's set down onto                          his tray)                   Whatever this is.        .                             SAYER                   Ye ....                     s        Sayer glances up at them, having paid attention to nothing        they've said, and nods at some other thought.               .        '    SAYER                   Yes . . .    ,'        He leaves his tray where he stands, and heads out of the        cafeteria.                                 v        23.   INT. SIDNEY'S DAYROOM - DAY                                23.        Sayer back with Sidney.                              SAYER                   Did you see me when-1 "spoke?"       Sidney thinks about it, tries to remember, to summon back the       moment in question, to picture it exactly as it happened, or       didn't happen.                             SIDNEY                   No.                              SAYER                   You see me now though.                             SIDNEY                   Yes.                             REV.12/12/89 (PINK)               Pg.l523.CONT,                       (continuity only)Sidney turns to a patient, an elderly woman in a wheelchairbeside him. Her state resembles that of Lucy's, that is, sheappears to have no awareness of Sidney, Sayer, or anything elsein her environment. It is only now, in fact, as Sidney spoonssoup into her mouth, careful not to spill any, that Sayernotices her.                                        CONTINUED:sr^                                                   SAY    ER(y--\                         I   f    it    ha p   pe n s     ag a   in ,     M r. Ti t ch , I v_y                          w   an   ty    ou     to l     oo k     a ro u   nd . If yo u                              d   on   't    act    u al l   y se     e me     , i f yo u o n ly                              h   ea   rm    e,     you      c an     be s     u re th a t I ' m                              n   ot    re   a l,    a nd     y ou     c an     i g no re m e.         Sa ye r sm il es , pl ea se d w it h hi s so lu ti on .                                          SID NE Y                              U nle ss you us e th e P .A. sy ste m.         S a ye r' s sm il e fa de s. Si d ne y is s ti ll i n a pr ed ic a me nt a nd         Sa ye r has n' t t he a nsw er .         2 4.          INT . NUR SE S' ST AT ION - D AY                                                                          24                                                                                                                             ;         Sa ye r di al s th e ho sp it a l op er at or .                                          S AY E R                              Mai nten ance, plea se.         W ai     ti n g t   o be        co n ne ct e d, he n o ti c es a n ot h er " s ta t         ue " ( BE R T) .         W ha     t's un     se t t    l i n g a b ou t t h i s o n e, a pa r t f r om t he          ma n ' s g h os t -         l ik     e ap p e   ar a n    ce , i s th e an g le o f h i s w he e l ch a i r.              I t ' s l i ke a nP~ -\    ask      e w p ai   n ti n    g, a s i f w ho e ve r w as wh e el in g i t s im             p ly le t g o o f\TS?    the       c h ai r   and       t h i s i s wh e r e i t a n d i t s c a r g o h a p p        e n e d to c o m e        *to       r est,     faci      n g th e wal l.         N   ot       wa nt i ng    to l o se th e c al l , Sa y er mo ve s t o wa r               d th   e p at i    en t ,         k   ee   p   ing the       r e c e i ve r t o h i s e a r . At f u l l e x t e n          sion     of th     e         c   or   d   , un f or t   un at e ly , h e' s s t il l t wo pa ce s s h or t             .R     e ac hi n   g b ac k         w   it   h    the arm       w it h th e ph o ne , he g ai n s d i st a n ce               a nd   tu r n s    the         w   he   e   lc ha i r q   ui ck l y j us t a s h is c a ll co nn e ct s .                                            SA Y ER                              Yes. Hi. I need                      a lock installed                              on th e d oo r to th                e E as t Win g roo f.                              A b ig l oc k . T he                s oo n e r t he                              better.                                    ( pa us e )                              I'm sor ry, th is i                 s D r. Say er. .                                    (p au se )                              I'm sorry, form . .                 .        H e s c ri b b le s a n um b e r o n t h e b a ck o f h is h an d an d h a n gs u p.                               He        wa nd e rs ov er to th e " st a tu e" ag a in .                                           S AY E R                              H ow ar e y ou ?        No re s p on s e w h at s o ev e r . Sa y e r m a na g es h is p en i nt o t h e m a n 's        ha nd an d s ea r ch e s hi s p o ck et s f o r pa p er .                                                           REV. 10/13/89   p. 17      He glances around. Sees an orderly reading a newspaper.(P\   Borrows a section, returns with it, slides it under the pen and       waits. The man doesn't write. Doesn't move.      Sayer takes the pen back, returns it to his coat pocket,      hesitates, pulls it out again, holds it out . . . and lets it go.      The man, lightning quick, catches it.      25.   INT. ANOT HE R DAYRO OM ( B) - L ATE R - DAY                           2 5.      Another man rigid as stone (FRANK). This one peering up at a      television set with a horizontal hold problem.      Sayer drags a chair over, stands       on it, adjusts the set,      corrects it, gets a picture . . .      but the man's "attention"      slowly drifts away. Sayer "read       justs" it, gets the jumping      horizontal lines again, and the       man's vacant eyes return.      26.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - LATER - DAY                                . 26.      Another dayroom crowded with patients, one of which stands      before a table, absolutely motionless, on thin bird-like legs.      It is Lucy, the one who caught/the tennis ball. The movement      of nurses and other patients only accentuates her stillness.       Sayer considers her from all      angles as    one considers an       abstract art piece that baff     les but in   trigues. Unlike the      others, she's on her feet. A      nd unlike    the others, she seems,      to Sayer, to have been headed      somewhere    before turning to stone      again.                                   - ."        ª      He decides that her destination was the drinking fountain      across the room. And that it's the table, like a barrier, that      has arrested her progress. He moves the table.      In what appears to be slow motion, she takes a tiny step. And      another. And another before encountering and being "blocked"      by an empty wheelchair. She stops.      Sayer moves the wheelchair and all other obstacles out of her      path. She continues and eventually makes it halfway to the      fountain before mysteriously stopping again.      Sayer studies the puzzle ... there are no longer any barriers      in her way, but she's not moving. Defeated, he goes to the      fountain himself, fills a paper cup, and takes it to her.      Across the room, a man in a wheelchair, another "ghost"      (LEONARD), stares through eyes which seem more dead than alive.      "At" Sayer.    27.   INT. FILE ROOM, BAINBRIDGE - DAY                            27o   An admission form, yellowed and brittle with age --                    BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL / ADMISSIONS                           STATE OF NEW YORK    A typed date / AUGUST 2, 1929. The admitting physician's name.    The patient's name. And age / 15. An identification number    and ward assignment number.    As Sayer pulls the folder and closes the drawer of one of    several filing cabinets lining the walls of a claustrophobic    room, Miss Costello slides open another, locates a particular    folder in it and in the folder another admitting form -- The    date / MAY 7, 1932. Names and numbers.    Another drawer. Sayer pulling another folder. Another    admission form ~ Date / DECEMBER 12, 1930. Age of the patient    / 22.                                                                      28    28.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - DAY    The files spread out on a table. Sayer and Miss Costello    leafing through them.                    .                                             .    Sayer considers one's original admission forms. He scans    bodies of text and finds a diagnosis -- ATYPICAL SCHIZOPHRENIA.    He sets it aside and picks up another.                         MISS COSTELLO               "Atypical Hysteria," this one.    Sayer nods to himself and keeps reading his. He eventually    finds in its text -- ATYPICAL RABIES. He flips to the end of    the file. "No change since last examination" it reads. He    turns the page. "No change, no therapy recommended." He turns    the page, the last entry. "No change." The date, "11/9/44."                         SAYER              There must be more recent files we              missed somehow. "Part Twos" to              their medical histories.                    (Miss Costello is                     shaking head 'no.')              In some other filing cabinet              somewhere.                 . ..                          MISS COSTELLO              NO.o                                                                 REV. 10/13/89   p.19            29.   EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - EVENING                               29.(>~s,       Sayer and Miss Costello walking to their cars.                                 SAYER                      One would think that after a point                      enough atypical somethings would                      amount to a typical something.                      But a typical "what?"            Miss Costello, no doubt, has less of an idea than Sayer what            the "what" could be.                                 MISS COSTELLO        ,            Doctor . . . would you like      to g e t a                       cup of coffee somewhere?                            (pause)                      Tea?                                  SAYER                       Ah . . . normally I'd say yes . . .                       only I've made other plans . . .            She nods quickly.    She seems, strangely, relieved.                                 MISS COSTELLO                       Some other time.                                  SAYER                       Yes.                                 MISS COSTELLO                                                             ,                       Good night.                                 SAYER                       Good night.            They veer apart to their respective cars.            30.   INT. SAMMY'S GROTTO, CITY ISLAND - NIGHT                              30.            The tiny gree/i eyes in the head of the eel staring out at            refracted light and shadow. Sayer, alone at the same table as            before, finished with his meal.                                                                                              i                                WAITER                      Tea, right?                 ∑                                                  /                                                  ∑                                   SAYER                      P e s . '...-∑                       lae            The waiter leaves. Sayer glances back into the fish tank at            the eel behind the rock, its rock, its home.                                                                                (RE V. 10 /1 6/ 89) Pin k      _ p. 2 0       31.    EXT. CITY ISLAND - LATER - NIGHT                                                                   31.fpl        Sayer strolling down a dark side street. He reaches a snail        wooden house near the water and climbs three steps to the        porch. He gets the front door opened and bends to pick up mail        (including a few book parcels from antiquarian shops) just     *        inside the threshold.                                            *        32.    OMITTED                                                                                           32.                                                                                                          i        33.    INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - DINING ROOM - LATER - NIGHT                                                  33.       Tight on (Ernst Heckle) drawings of primitive life forms.                                                   *       Sayer, in his dining room, leafs through the old first edition,                                             *       pleased it has arrived, intrigued by its pictures. The parcel                                               *       paper lies beside it on the table.                                                                          *        34.    INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER - NIGHT                                                  34.       Fingers on the keys of a baby grand piano that seems out of       scale with Sayer's small living room. Wrapped in a robe, he       plays a melody.fcuJ   All around him lay packing boxes, some empty, many not. The*^^    books are out at least - many of a medical nature, many others        on nature itself,, botany, many first editions - two and three        deep on shelves, on the floor, on tables, stacked on the couch -        and chairs almost like figures of people.t       35.     INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER - NIGHT                                                  35.       A lamp, on, in the living room. Sayer asleep on the couch, an       open book and reading glasses resting on his chest.       His eyes blink open. Not at a noise. At a thought.       36.     INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - BAINBRIDGE - LATER - NIGHT                                              36.       A n i g h t ja n i to r w i th a p a i l -o n -w h e e l s a n d a m o p m o v e s p a s t       da r k e n e d o ffi c e s.   H e p a u s e s a t o n e , th e fi l e r o o m , l i g h t u n d e r       i ts d o o r , a n d o p e n s i t.                        .                   -..                  *                                 JANITOR                       I'm sorry, doctor. I thought                       someone left the lights on.Q                                           REV.,12/5/89 (BLUE)       Pg.2 36'.CONT.                                                         36.  Glancing up from files strewn across the table, Sayer shares a  discovery with the janitor -                        SAYER           They all survived encephalitis           years before they came here. In           the 1920' s .He taps a finger at the files - the patients' medical historiesprior to admission - forms listing childhood diseases andailments. The janitor, having no idea of course what he means,retreats with his pail and mop, closing the door.36A. EXT. MEDICAL LIBRARY, NEW YORK - ESTABLISH - DAY            36A.37.   INT. MEDICAL LIBRARY, NEW YORK - DAY                         37.Sayer displays what he has written on the back of his hand to                                                                         *an assistant librarian: NEJM 4-6-35.                      SAYER           The New England Journal of           Medicine, April 6th, 1935.                                    *38.   INT. MEDICAL LIBRARY - LATER - DAY    .                      38.A microfilm machine. Sayer manipulating its levers andeventually finding what he's after, an article titled:ENCEPHALITIS LETHARGICA, TEN YEARS LATER.Accompanying the text are grainy black and white photographstaken in an old operating theatre. An anatomical skeleton, adoctor in a white coat, subjects-- men, women and childrenwith haunting eyes.39.   EXT. RESIDENTIAL GARDEN, NEW YORK - DAY                      39.Close on the doctor from the photographs - ancient and ill.                     OLD DOCTOR                (philosophically                 detached)          Pus and pain, that's the final                                *          reward. Pus and pain and          obscurity.He's in a small unkept rose garden. With Sayer.                         *No te: To g et c lear anc e fr om t he N ew En gla nd Jo urn al of *Medicine, we must indicate that it is a weekly publication, *which is why the "6th" has been added.                             *                    OLD DOCTOR                .          I believe you when you say some          still live. But I can assure you          they're medically irrelevant. As          they were thirty years ago when I          fought to get my work published.He smiles at a thought, at once wistful and bitter.                    OLD DOCTOR          That's the problem with a unique          disease. Once it no longer rages,          I'm telling you, it becomes very          unfashionable.         .He buries his face into his mask, manages to get some deepbreaths into his lungs and shakes his head at Sayer.                     OLD DOCTOR          What would I be without this          thing? A man with a1 shred of          dignity le_ft.                    SAYER          Should I get your nurse?                    OLD DOCTOR           God forbid, no.He lights a cigarette, coughs and puts it out.                    OLD DOCTOR          How many have you found there?                    SAYER          Five. So far. I think there may          be more.The old doctor nods. He has the torn look of someone remindedof an unfaithful lover just when he'd managed to forget abouther. He wants and doesn't want to know how they're doing.Finally --                    OLD DOCTOR          How are they?                   SAYER         As you described them. As they         were back then. As "insubstantial         as ghosts." Only I guess most of         them were children then.                     OLD DOCTOR          Yes.   Children who fell asleep.o   40.   INT. OLD DOCTOR'S STUDY - DAY                               40    Boxes of ancient history have been dragged out of storage, the    emphysema-plagued doctor's post-encephalitic research, files    and photographs and cans of 16mm film.                         OLD DOCTOR               Most died during the acute stage               of the illness, during a sleep so               deep they couldn't be roused. A               sleep that in most cases lasted               several months.    The doctors, in the dark, watch forty year old footage    projected onto a screen by a pre-World War II Bell & Howell -    a motionless man in a chair, his head thrust back, mouth gaping    open, arms suspended out from an emaciated torso as if from    invisible strings.                        OLD DOCTOR              Those who survived, who awoke,              seemed fine, as though nothing had              happened. Years went by - five,              ten, fifteen - before anyone              suspected they were not well. .              They were not.    A doctor, this doctor decades younger, appears beside the    subject on the screen and lowers the man's arms.                        OLD DOCTOR              I began to see them in the early              1930's - old people brought in by              their children, young people              brought in by their parents - all              of them complaining they weren't              "themselves" anymore. They'd              grown distant, aloof, anti-social,              they daydreamed at the dinner              table. I referred them to              psychiatrists.    The man on the screen disappears and is replaced by a seal-    shaped woman in whom a hundred strange diseases seem to reside.    They conspire against her, torment and harass her, force her to    perform incessant and meaningless actions with her hands, to    paw her chin, to flutter, to adjust glasses that aren't there.                                             REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)       Pg.24     40.CONT.                  DOCTOR                                    40                                0<                                ID                Before long they were being                referred back to me. They could                no longer dress themselves or feed                themselves. They could no longer                speak in most cases. Families                went mad. People who were                normal, were now . . .        *                      (searches for the                       word)                . . . elsewhere ...    The woman on the screen is replaced by a young man, a teenager,    who seems composed less of flesh than wax, a wax figure with    real eyes.                         SAYER              What must it be like to be them?    On the screen, the young man's eyes, entranced, gaze upward as    if trying hard to remember something. Or trying hard to forget    it.                         SAYER              What are they thinking?       .                           OLD DOCTOR0               They're not. The virus didn't   :                spare the higher faculties.                           SAYER                      (hopefully)                We know that for a fact.                                OLD DOCTOR                Yes.                                SAYER                Bec use . . .                   a                                                        4    Sayer waits for the old doctor to tell him the reasons, the    data, to support the merciful truth. But he doesn't seem to    possess it any more than Sayer does. Long silence before:                          OLD DOCTOR                Because the alternative is                unthinkable.    40A. INT. DAYROOM (C) - DAY                     '                 40A.    The hand of a stone-like woman catches the tennis ball while    the rest of her remains absolutely still. Sayer gestures to    Anthony, Okay, and the orderly wheels her out of the crowded    room.4OB. INT. WARD 5 DAYROOM - DAY                   ∑                4OBThe hand of an otherwise still-life man snaps to catch theball. Sayer nods to an orderly who wheels him out past youngerpatients, Ward 5's residents.                                  i40C. INT. CORRIDOR - DAY                                          40CThe ball glances off the face of a nan who turns in hiswheelchair and glares at Sayer.                     SAYER           Sorry.                                      .                                                                   4141.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - LATER - DAYSayer has assembled them all, the fourteen or fifteen he hasdecided are post-encephalitics, and wanders among them like anaturalist in a garden of stone.He lifts an arm of one particularly remote male patient.   Itremains suspended, doll-like.He tries to follow the trajectory of another's gaze.   It leads only to blank space.He considers another who appears "deeply involved" in someminute and curious activity with his twisted hands, a kind oftearing, shredding motion.                     .                       vAcross the room, paying no attention to Sayer, are Sidney andLolly. He's gently brushing her hair.Sayer manages a pen into the hand of another woman and she"draws" a kind a kind of circular shape that spirals in onitself until it reaches a "vanishing point" in the center.42.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - DAY                         42.The results of standard perception tests scotch-taped to a wallof the examination room.Sayer and Miss Costello, like visitors to a museum, considereach for a moment before moving onto the next.Printed in the left column of each are a circle, square,triangle and daisy. In the right are the post-encephalitics'failed "attempts" to copy them.                                              REV. 10/13/83   p.26Sayer keeps coming back to one in particular. Unlike theothers which, if you use your imagination, vaguely correspondsomewhat positionally to the pre-printed shapes, this one bearsno resemblance. This patient has instead scrawled over theshapes, seemingly violently.Miss Costello joins Sayer and ponders it along with him.Eventually, as if to excuse it and its maker--                     MISS COSTELLO           It's different.                      SAYER           Quite.   It's quite bad.Sayer keeps studying it.                    SAYER               (more to himself)          Did he fail to understand? Or was          he unwilling to fail?He isn't really asking her to answer, which is fine with hersince she doubts equally both hypotheses.                    SAYER          Could he be saying, "I can't draw          a triangle, don't make me"?               (before she can                respond:)          Could it be willfully bad?She doesn't say it but it's clear she thinks Sayer is readingfar too much into the "badness" of the patient's scrawl. Tohimself -                    SAYER          Which one is this?He leans closer to see the typed name . . .43.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY                                      43.The painting of the Western town from the prologue - saloon,livery stable, sunset. Below it, in his wheelchair, Leonard.His face is unlined and passive, like a mask. His body isstill, like the dead.                    SAYER'S VOICE          >|           v          Does he ever speak to you?Leonard's mother, a woman of seventy or so, is combing herson's hair, being careful to get the part straight.                                              REV. 10/13/89 p.27                     MRS. LOWE           Of course not. Not in words.                     SAYER           He speaks to you in other ways.           How do you mean?                     MRS. LOWE   i           You don't have children.                     SAYER           No. ,                     MRS. LOWE           If you did you'd know.Finished with his hair, she wheels him from the sleeping ward         *and into the -43A.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - CONTINUOUS - DAY                     43ASayer, trailing after Mrs. Lowe and her sonr becomesmomentarily distracted by Lucy, the most recently arrived post-encephalitic, the one he tried unsuccessfully to coax to thedrinking fountain. She is there again, "stuck" at the samepoint, angled toward the fountain but unable to reach it.Sayer brings her a cup of water and rejoins Mrs. Lowe.       -                     SAYER           I'd like to examine him again-if           that's all right with you.                     MRS. LOWE                              ,           He did well.                     SAYER           In a sense.                     MRS. LOWE           He's very clever. Aren't you,           Leonard.                    .Sayer shows her the perception test "drawing** Leonard made.                     SAYER           Does this mean anything to you?                     MRS. LOWE                          .                (more to Leonard)                               ;∑          It's very good.                                       '∑                                                                 .She glances back to Sayer who nods uncertainly. She recognizes.the look on his face; she's seen it before on the faces of moredoctors than she cares to remember.                 '         f                                                REV. 10/13/89 p.28                      MRS. LOWE                 (becoming impatient                  with him)           Well it's abstract, isn't it.Sayer can't bring himself to agree with her.                     MRS. LOWE           That's the problem with all you           doctors, you have no imagination.           Everything has to be real to you.No longer having any use for him, she pointedly ignores him.                                                                         *Taking the hint, Sayer's wanders off, past Lucy, looking like astatue, holding the paper cup he brought her.43B. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING (MRS. LOWE'S) - ESTABLISH - NIGHT    43B.44.   INT. MRS. LOWE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                               44The door opens from the inside revealing Sayer in streetclothes. Judging from the look on Mrs. Lowe's face, he hasarrived unannounced.                     SAYER                  .           I want to know more about him.44A. INT. MRS. LOWE'S APARTMENT - LEONARD'S BEDROOM - NIGHT          44A.An old photograph. A sixth grade class picture from 1930?,Moving slowly across the young faces to Leonard, eleven, at theend of a row.                     MRS. LOWE 0.8.           Something was wrong, they said,           with his hands. He couldn't write           anymore, he couldn't do the work,           I should take him out of school,           they said. He was eleven.They're in Leonard's old bedroom, Sayer and Mrs. Lowe. Exceptfor the Western painting that's missing, nothing has changed init in thirty years.                                                    CONTINUED:                                     REV. 10/13/89   p.28A          MRS. LOWEHe slowly got worse. He'd betalking, suddenly he'd come to astop. After a few seconds he'dfinish what he was saying likenothing happened, but thesestandstills got longer. Sometimeshe'd call to me and I'd come inand find him at his desk in atrance. An hour, two hours. Thenhe'd be okay again.                                    CONTINUED:Sayer glances around the room.    It's been preserved, like ashrine.                     MRS. LOWE           One day I came hone from work and           found him in his bed, his arm like           this, reaching.                (pause)           "What do you want, Leonard?"She pictures the moment in her mind, and waits, it seems, forthe young Leonard to speak, to tell her what it is he wants.Finally she lowers her arm and shrugs.                     MR.S LOWE           He never spoke again. It was like           he'd disappeared. I took him to           Bainbridge later that year.           November fourteenth, 1937.           He was twenty.Sayer glances away from her to the room itself again.                     SAYER           What'd he do with himself, Mrs.           Lowe, those nine years he stayed           in this room?She smiles to herself, proudly it seems.                      MRS. LOWE           He read.                        y45.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                   45Leonard's face in shadow. Wires emerging from his scalp. Asluggish EEG pattern.A blinding flash from a strobe.suddenly lights up the room.The pupils of Leonard's eyes shrink, but his EEG remainsstuporously slow.45A. EXT. RESEARCH LAB, NEW YORK - ESTABLISH - DAY              45A.46.   INT. RESEARCH LAB - DAY                                    46A monkey flipping switches on a panel built into a laboratoryroom, searching for a sequence.In an observation booth, years of collected data - charts andgraphs, EEG's and notes.There, Dr. Mann, a contemporary of Sayer's, stares at Sayer      Aycuriously. Eventually he manages --                    MANN          When you say you're working with          people, you don't mean living          people.                               (                    SAYER          Living people, yes. Patients.Mann just stares. He's a scientist, they both are, and theidea of Sayer working with living people, rather than expiredones laid out on the pathology table, is inconceivable to him.                    MANN               (fearing the answer)          Where?                     SAYER          It's in The Bronx. It's a poor          private chronic hospital called          M ou nt --                    MANN               (appalled)           Oh, Malcolm, Malcolm, come back,           come on. You're a benchman,          you're no clinician, why would you          lower yourself?Sayer hasn't an answer for him.           ª∑                    SAYER          How's Hank?                    MANN          How's Hank? He's great, he's          brilliant, look at him.Sayer glances away to Hank the monkey, watches him. Mannstudies Sayer, chagrined and incredulous.                    MANN          A physician? You?He slaps him angrily across the shoulders with some papers.The monkey completes a complex sequence which opens a chamberrevealing an electric train. The animal jumps and hoots withwild glee. Sayer reaches out and presses the button on thestop watch dangling from Mann's neck.                     SAYER           Subtract two seconds off his          time. 47. OMITTED                                                         4748.   INT. RESEARCH LAB - LATER - DAY                                48Rats in cages, wired up, manipulating elaborate series ofladders and pulleys, traversing catwalks, or ratwalks, leadingto glucose rewards.While Mann, with something less than great enthusiasm,considers an EEG Sayer has brought, his monkey drags toys overto Sayer and tries to engage him in play. One of the toys isan Ouija Board.                      MANN                (to, Sayer)          Don't look at me like that. It's          for his alphabet lessons.                (to the monkey)          We're busy, Hank, go play          solitaire.The monkey obediently goes off in search of a deck of cards.Gesturing at patterns on the EEG --                    MANN           Asleep. First stage normal.           Second a little dull. Normal          RM...          EHe shrugs, lays out a second EEG, and gestures at patterns onit --                     MANN          Awake. Slightly erratic. No more          so than a lot of people walking          the streets of New York.                (shrugs again)          I give up, what's wrong with him?                      SAYER          You have them backwards. This is          him awake . . .                (points to one EEG;                 then the other)          This is him asleep.           .-," -           .                            ^       ∑Mann thinks Sayer is kidding. He isn't.                    MANN          This is him awake? This is him          asleep?Sayer nods. Mann tries, without success, to make some sort ofsense out of that.                    MANN          What are you saying? When he's          awake, what, he's dreaming?                     SAYER          When there's any brain activity at          all, which is infrequent, yes.          Dreaming or hallucinating.                      MANN          And when he's asleep . . . ?                     SAYER          When he's asleep he manages to          create a kind of reality. What we          might call reality.                     MANN          That's what you think these say?                     SAYER          1 don't know.Mann studies the "waking" EEC     He points to its one and onlylarge electrical peak.                     ;                    MANN          What's this peak? Strobe?                    SAYER          No. This is the strobe.Sayer indicates a flat section of the pattern where there isscribbled in pencil a small "s."                       SAYER          This . . .  ,               (the large peak,                   marked with an "L")                /          . . . is me saying his name to him.Mann stares rather dumbly at Sayer. Then at Hank the monkey onthe floor dealing solitaire.49. INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                  49Tight on Leonard. Something blurs past him but his eyes don'tfollow it. Pulling back, the object blurs by again from theother direction.Tight on Sayer. The thing blurs past his face. His eyes don'tfollow it either. Pulling back, it blurs again.                                               REV. 10.13/89 p.33A circle of patients in wheelchairs. The post-encephaliticsreunited. "Waking" just long enough to catch and release theobject, a small beach ball.Leonard and Sayer, on opposite sides of the circle, ignoringthe ball and the other patients. He's reached a dead end,Sayer, right where he began, his only "accomplishment,"this, ball-catching patients.50.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                                   50.Sayer alone in the examination room, tired, at its windowstaring blankly out.His perspective: The empty lot below littered with abandonedcouches, refrigerators, rusting automobile carcasses.And beyond the lot, the elementary school playground. Laughingchildren on swings and slides. Jumping rope. Batting tetherballs. Playing hopscotch.Moving slowly in on one of the hopscotch games. On a girltossing a bean bag into a square. Jumping over it and into thenext square. Turning and jumping back. Balancing on one foot.Retrieving the bean bag and tossing it down again. Into thenext square of the tile pattern chalked on the asphalt.51.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                  51.From above, patients in wheelchairs dot the black and whitecheckerboard linoleum-tile floor like chess pieces. Thepattern is regular to a point but then breaks up -- isinterrupted by an area of solid white, where a wall once stood-- before being restored. It forms a kind of narrow "sea," thewhite area, on either side of which lies "land."At floor level Sayer and Miss Costello, on their hands andknees, are "blacking in" the missing tiles with shoe polish,"bridging" the gap between the two checkerboards. The retardedpatients around them ignore them. The ward nurses pretend to. 'Completing the pattern Sayer glances across the room toLeonard. He seems to be "watching." His mother, nearby, idlythumbing through a magazine as she brings Leonard up to date onneighborhood news, isn't.                                     ∑t,   .Sayer crosses to Lucy. Lifts her gently out of her chair.Points her in the direction of the drinking fountain.She begins to move. To step slowly over each tile. Shereaches the "bridge" and hesitates. Then crosses it.                                                REV. 10/13/89   p.34Sayer doesn't know whether to applaud or cry. He does neither,burying his emotions behind a professional mask instead, andwatches as Lucy, "delivered" to the other side, free now, letsthe regularity of the pattern guide her toward the fountain.She nears it. She is almost there. Then she is. there. Butdoesn't drink. Doesn't stop. She continues past it . . .To a window, the window bevond the drinking fountain whichSayer hadn't noticed before, had no reason to notice, had noneed to notice, with a broken pane allowing a view to theoutside.She stares out at the traffic below, in hopes no doubt offiguring out where she is.And Sayer's eyes, behind which exhilaration and horror rise up,shift from her to Miss Costello, and then to Leonard, in whosemask of a face Sayer thinks he sees a faint glimmer.These people are alive inside.                                                                       5252.   INT. DAYROOM (B) - DAYA soap opera on a portable black and white TV in a narrowpassageway of a nurses' station. Beyond.it, beyond a glasspartition, a crowded idle dayroom.Miss Costello crosses into and out of view and reappearsmoments later next to the TV. She switches it off and turns toface the three RNs who were watching it. In their defense --                                            V                     NURSE           The patients have all been given           their morning medication.                     MISS COSTELLO           Good. Dr. Sayer was hoping you'd           have some free time.She hands a book to the nurse who spoke (MARGARET), a firstedition worn /rom many readings. Margaret glances from it tothe other nurses and back to Miss Costello.53.   INT. DAYROOM (B) - LATER - DAY                                   53The nurse holds the book like it's something quite foreign toher. She finds the beginning of the first chapter, clears herthroat, and reads --                       MARGARET           "Call me . . . Ish-ma-el . . .She glances up at her audience: three blank-faced post-          ,55encephalitics. Miss Costello, who is nearby, nods to her tocontinue. She clears her throat again, and, feeling like afool, reads --                       MARGARET           "Some years ago, never mind how           long precisely, having little or           no money in my purse, and nothing           particular to interest me on           shore, I thought I would sail           about a little and see the watery           part of the world . . . "Miss Costello leaves.                                                                     5454.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAYLeonard's head locked on his shoulders at an improbable anglethat forces his entranced gaze upward to a point well aboveSayer.                     SAYER           Can you hear me, Leonard? I want           to hear you speak your name. :            .               - Sayer waits . . . but Leonard remains mute.55.   INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - MORNING   "                               55Tight on Sayer pulling record albums from his extensiveclassical collection.56.   INT. DAYROOM (D) - DAY                                         56An.old box-style phonograph. The kind whose top is also adetachable speaker.An orderly, Fernando, dusts it off, rigs it, takes the recordMiss Costello holds out to him, gets it spinning, and sets theneedle down.Opera music. For the "enjoyment" of two more post-encephalitics. The eyes of one narrow slightly, almostimperceptibly.                         -.                                        -                                                                 i57.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                                    57The keys of Sayer's old manual Underwood typewriter. AndLeonard's claw of a hand hanging over them like one of thoseunmanageable penny arcade cranes.                                                    REV. 10/2/85                         SAYER                                              57           L . . . Leonard . . . L . . .Leonard's hand remains still, suspended above the keys, forwhat seems an eternity.58.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                         58.Under Miss Costello's supervision, maintenance men remove thegratings from the windows and washhthe panes.      INT.- DAYROOM (D) - DAY                                              59.59.30's jazz music. The orderly from before with "his" two post-encephalitics. Each has a tray of cafeteria food, but only oneis eating, and mechanically at that.         <                       FERNANDO            . . . not just any music, it has to           be the right, music for them. Jazz           does nothing for Bert. Only Rose.                  (pause)           It's like they're only moved by           music that moves them. I'm that                       '*''-           w ay .                       SAYER                  (intrigued)            Yes, so am I.                       >The moment Fernando takes the record off, Rose stops eating,stops moving. The orderly puts on Mozart and waits. Neitherpatient moves.                      FERNANDO           I haven't found anything that           moves Bert yet.59A. INT. CORRIDOR - DAY                                           '     59A.A " no r ma l" pa t ie nt wi t h m ul t ip le sc l er os is h as ma na g ed tointe rcep t S ayer on hi s w ay some wher e el se, his ar ms f ull wit han 8mm camera and tripod and screen.                    j MS WOMAN           I don't interest you like those           other people, those ones with that           disease.                      SAYER           That's not true.                                                REV. 10/2/89                     MS WOMAN           I wish I had something like that.           SSmething that would interest you           instead of this stupid boring MS.60.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                                  6Leonard in his wheelchair, absolutely motionless. Sayer behindthe lens of the 8mm camera on the tripod. Drs. Tyler andSullivan, at the doorway, watch with some amusement.60A. INT. DAYROOM (A) - DAY                                       60AMiss Costello wheels the man who shreds invisible things to awindow and places a piece of toast from a tray into his hands.He tears at it, the crumbs sailing out onto a landing, and aflock of pigeons swoops up.61.   INT. DAYROOM (C) - DAY                                      61Three post-encephalitics with cards in their hands and the bestpoker faces you ever saw.                :                     MARGARET           They'll sit there all day like           that if I let them. I have to           play the first card.                                         >Sayer watches her pull a card from one of their hands and placeit on the table. All three "wake" and begin throwing downcards, one after another.                     SAYER           Is it a real game I wonder?                     MARGARET           If it is, I don't know it. Maybe           it's three different games.                       SAYER                  (delighted)           Yes.                                                                   6262.   OMITTED                               ,63.   INT. CORRIDOR / DAYROOM (B) - DAY                            6Sayer moving past "normal" patients lined up in the hall likeplanes on tarmac. Suddenly, from a dayroom, booms the openingbass line of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady."                                                          (WHITE) REV. 12/4/89         P. 3863.CONT.                      .. ..                   ,,    .     ,,        ´            63.Sa ye r pe er s cu ri ou sl y i nt o th e    ro om . B er t is ea ti ng a ndAn tho ny is g rin nin g. He see s S         aye r i n t he d oor way an d s endshim a s elf -sa tis fied th umb s-u p        s ign.64.    INT . DAY ROOM (C) - DAY                                                           64.Mi ss C os te ll o si tt in g wi t h a po st -e nc ep ha li ti c m an . (F RA NK )                            M IS S COS TE LLO                Ther e's so met hin g el se tha t                r eaches th em.She t ouc he s the m an' s ha nd, h old s it , a nd hi s he ad sl owl y tu rnsto fa ce her.                           M ISS CO STE LLO                Human cont act.Sh e pu ll s hi m ge nt ly t o h is if ee t an d wa lk s wi t h hi m a fe wsteps.                                                                                   .                             M IS S CO ST EL LO                H e ca n' t wa lk w it ho ut m e . I f I                let go -                                 ;                       (to the patient)                I won't let go of you' -                       (to Sayer)                - if I let go , he 'll fa ll. H e'll                wa lk wit h me an ywh ere .They wa lk a f ew more st eps an d t ears be gin to fo rm i n M issCoste llo's eyes .                           M IS S CO ST EL LO                It's like the ball . . . only it's                my wi ll he's bo rro win g.Sa ye r, to o, is m ov ed. But a s he wa tch es M iss C ost el lo an d herp at ie nt w al k aw ay , hi s e xp re ss io n ch an ge s; s om e th in g sh e ha ssa id o r do ne h as s tr uc k a c ho rd , or u nl oc ke d a d oo r:Close on their hands . . .65.    OM IT TE D    -                                                                    65.66.    IN T. BAI NBRI DGE - NIG HT                                                        66.                                                             -Em pt y cor ri dor .     E cho in g f oo ts tep s.67.    IN T. LEO NARD 'S WAR D - NI GHT                                                   67.Le o na r d .   T uc k ed i n b u t " a wa k e. " St a r in g a t th e ce i li n g .                                            REV. 10/13/89   p.39                       SAYER O.S.           Leonard?68.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - LATER - NIGHT                               68.In a far corner of the darkened ward, in a pool of lamp light,two silhouetted figures. Sayer and Leonard. Sleeping patientsall around them.Sayer carefully, awkwardly, places   his hand on Leonard's.After a moment, the contact brings   the useless appendage "tolife." As it slowly turns over and   grasps the doctor's hand, aglimmer of life seems to appear in   Leonard's eyes as well.Sayer, unfamiliar, it seems, with the feeling the contactproduces in him, nonetheless places his other hand on Leonard'sother. Soon it too turns and holds onto Sayer's.The doctor draws both of Leonard's hands toward him and setsthem down on the pointer of an Ouija Board.                     SAYER           I'll begin moving the pointer           toward the "L." For "Leonard."           Once I feel you beginning to move           it, I'll stop and you'll take .           over. Do you understand? Leonard, of course, cannot say whether he does or not. Thelook on his face is "thoughtful." The look on Sayer's, hopefuland foolish.                       SAYER           I'm beginning . . .The pointer begins to slowly move past stars and moons.Judging from Sayer's expression he begins to feel Leonard'smovement of it and, presumably, stops his own.                      SAYER          Yes, good . . .The pointer moves across the letters, but passes the "L"without stopping. It stops on the "R."                    SAYER          No. No, I didn't make myself          clear. My fault. I . . .     .The pointer begins moving again, "interrupting" Sayer.      Itpasses the "L" again, reaches the "I" and stops.                                                                       ..                      SAYER                                      '    ".,           No. No, I . . .                                  .     .                                                REV. 10/13/89   p.40 But the pointer is moving again.      It stops on the "L."                      SAYER            Yes. Yes. That's what I meant. .            "L." Good. Now the "E." It begins moving again. But not to the "E." To the nK," where it hesitates briefly before moving again.                        SAYER                   (realizing, to                    himself)            . . . you're spelling something            el e . . .              sKeeping one hand on the moving pointer, Sayer fumbles a penfrom his shirt pocket and scribbles on his lab coat whatLeonard has and is continuing to "write":            RILKESPA69.    INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - NIGHTSayer alone in the examining room, standing over his desk.           Thelab coat is on it. And on it is scrawled:             RILKESPANTHERILKEHe has to study it only a moment before he sees the meaning ofit; he quickly scratches out the last four letters,and adds aslash between the "S" and the "P," so that it reads:             R I L K E s/p A N T H E R     BmBJUP*69A. EXT. PUBLIC LIBRARY. - ESTABLISH - DAY                                6970.    INT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - DAY                      '                    7 A card catalogue.   Cards flipping by, stopping on one that.reads:      831 R Rilke, Rainer Maria            German poet and fiction>fwriter;            1875-1926; Collected Poems            tr. fr. German by --71.    INT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - LATER - DAY                  .     .,         7Moving slowly in on Sayer at one of the library tables with a V            .book.        ,                                         ∑..                                                   REV. 10/13/89 p."                                                        (continuity onxy;                      SAYER'S VOICE           "His gaze from staring through the           bars has grown so weary that it           can take in nothing more . . .      INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY72.                                                                      72.Moving slowly into the Western painting.                      SAYER'S VOICE           "For him it is as though there           were a thousand bars, and behind           the thousand bars, no world . . .72A. EXT. BRONX ZOO - DAY                                               72A.Moving in on a panther, limbs weakened, spirit broken, slowlypacing back and forth before the bars of a small cage.                       SAYER V.O.           "As he paces in cramped circles,           over and over, his powerful           strides are like a ritual dance           around a center where a great will            stands paralyzed . . . Moving slowly away from Sayer watching, moving high above him;the place is virtually deserted.73.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY                                          73.Moving slowly in on Leonard as, in bed, flannel pajamas, as hismother diapers him for the night.                      SAYER V.O.           "At times the curtains of the eye           lift without a sound . . .Moving slowly< in on Sayer, unseen in a doorway, staring atLeonard, at the look of contentment on his face. Or is it alook of impotent rage?                         SAYER V.O.           ".    . . and a shape enters, '.slips           thr   ough the tightened silence of           the    shoulders, reaches the heart           and    dies .i."                         .            ...                                              FADE TO BLACK   . '''.'                                            REV. 10/13/89 p.41A                                                 (continuity only)73A. EXT. AUDITORIUM - NEW YORK - AFTERNOON                       73A.Professional and    professorial types filing in past a placard,an enlargement of    an article from the Journal of Neurochemistrytitled: LEVADOPA     IN THE TREATMENT OF PARKINSONISM. Below it:A DISCUSSION WITH    MARTIN S. THOMAS, PH.D.There's excitement (and jealousy) in the air.74.   INT. AUDITORIUM - AFTERNOON                                74An anatomical skeleton dangling from a metal stand.                     NEUROCHEMIST           There's an ordinary medicine with           which we are all familiar. An           everyday medicine of stubbed toes           and bunions and boils.A man at a podium in a modern version of the 1920's basementoperating theatre.                                                             ∑                                                     ,                    NEUROCHEMIST          And then there is another kind.          A medicine that holds out to the          afflicted the promise of restored          life.He glances to a point above his listeners, and an overheadprojector splashes a diagram of molecular structure (and thesilhouette of a raised hand) onto a screen. The neurochemisttraces the shadow to its maker in the audience.                     SAYER           Thank you. Yes. Yes, I'm very           much interested in your work with           this drug. I'm curious if . . .                     NEUROCHEMIST           Doctor ...?                      SAYER                 (pause)           Sayer. I'm curious if you . . .                    NEUROCHEMIST          After I'm through, Dr. Sayer.      If          you wouldn't mind.Sayer glances around the auditorium. Everyone's looking athim. He grasps the offending hand and holds it in his lap withthe other.75.   INT. AUDITORIUM LOBBY - LATER - AFTERNOON                  75,Refreshments on tables. Sayer, uncomfortable in his suit,wandering around the crowded room with a glass of wine. Heapproaches its hub of activity, the neurochemist surrounded byseveral impressed colleagues, but can't manage to get closeenough to speak with him.76.   INT. MEN'S ROOM, AUDITORIUM - LATER - AFTERNOON             7The neurochemist walks in and crosses to the urinals. A momentlater, he hears the door opening, and footsteps, and thennothing, until --                       SAYER O.S.           Do you   think it's possible that           simple   Parkinsonian tremor taken           to its   furthest extreme could           appear   as no tremor at all?When no one answers, the chemist glances over his shoulder.Sayer is there, quite alone, looking at him.                     NEUROCHEMIST           Are you speaking to me?Sayer is. And really wants to know the answer. The chemistzips up and moves to the sinks to wash his hands.                    SAYER          If jail the compulsions in the          Parkinson's patient were somehow                                         .          accelerated -               (demonstrating what                he means)          - the hands, the shaking, the          tics, the head bobbing, the          quickening speech -               (he's become a mass       ª                of tics and                accelerated speech)          - might they not cave in on          themselves and, in effect, turn          the person into stone?He comes to a abrupt stop, his eyes transfixed like a post-encephalitic's, staring. The chemist slowly dries his handswith a paper towel.                    NEUROCHEMIST          Dr. Sayer, yes?               (Sayer nods)          I'm a chemist, doctor. I leave it          to you guys to do the damage.He drops the paper towel into the trash and leaves77.   EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - MORNING                 77Emerging from his car with some papers, Dr. Kaufman is ambushedby Sayer.                                                  ..                                          REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)    Pg.77.CONT.              SAYER                                       77.           Did you have a chance to look at           any of the -.                       KAUFMAN           Freud believed in miracles.           Prescribing cocaine like it was           candy . . .Sayer has to hurry to keep up with his supervisor as he headstoward the hospital.                     KAUFMAN           We all believed in the "miracle"           of Cortisone until our patients           went psychotic on it. Now it's           L-Dopa.He hands over the papers - xeroxed articles from medicaljournals and newspapers which Sayer gave him to read - andkeeps going, Sayer straggling a few steps back.                     SAYER           With all due respect, I think it's           rather too soon to say that.                                             :                     KAUFMAN           With all due "respect," it's           rather way too soon. Let the           chemists do the damage.The gap between them widens as Sayer slows. He expected thissort of reaction from Kaufman, but had hoped for another.Kaufman disappears into the building.77A. INT. KAUFMAN'S OFFICE - LATER - MORNING                       77AThe stack of papers drops onto Kaufman's desk. The one on topreads, NEW DRUG LETS SHAKING PALSY PATIENTS EAT JELL-O.                     SAYER           Did you read the case - the           husband who came home to find his           wife singing. She hadn't felt           like singing in years.Kaufman, on the phone, glances to Sayer long-sufferingly, letshim wait while he finishes with his call, and eventually setsdown the receiver.                                                 REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)     Pg.           77A.CONT.             KAUFMAN                                   77A.                       I read them all. Soberly. All                       thirty cases had mild Parkinson's.                       Your Parkies - if that's what they                       are - haven't moved for decades.                       You know better than to make a                       leap like that, you want to                       believe there's a connection, that                       doesn't mean there is one.                                 SAYER                       What I believe, what I know, is                       that these people are alive                       inside.                                 KAUFMAN                       How do you know? Because they                       catch tennis balls?                                    SAYER                       I know it.           Sayer doesn't elaborate, but his tone is resolute. And it has           the intended effect on Kaufman, causing him to consider the           possibility that Sayer could, somehow, know it as a fact.                                   KAUFMANr..iiJi!                And what if this drug were to                        kill them?                                SAYER -                           (right back)              >                     And what if this drug were to                     cure them?           Somewhere behind Kaufman's eyes Sayer can see, he thinks, a           change, or reminiscence, long ago, long buried, of things he           once believed or wanted to believe.                                  KAUFMAN                       How many did you think I ' d let you                       put on it?                                   SAYER                       All of them ... some of them ...                       one of them . . .                                KAUFMAN                       One. With the family's consent.                       Signed.           Sayer tries to hide his elation and turns to leave before           Kaufman changes his mind.                                        REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)       Pg.46    77A.CONT.                KAUFMAN                                 77A.                Sayer -    Sayer turns. He was almost to the door. He had almost made            *    it out.                          KAUFMAN                That "immense" project of yours.                The myelin? The worms? When that                failed, what was the reaction of                your lab supervisor?                                  ∑    Sayer thinks about lying, but senses Kaufman knows the answer         *    already and just wants to hear him say it. So he does:                          SAYER                He asked me to leave.   .    Kaufman nods like, Just checking. And -                             KAUFMAN                     .                Good luck.    Sayer leaves.    78.   INT. MRS. LOWE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                          78.                                               :    A standard consent form and pen on a kitchenette table. Two    coffee cups. One used tea bag.                           SAYER                People with ordinary Parkinson's                Disease sometimes complain that                they've "lost their grace . . . "                      (he picks up a cup                       with a shaking hand)                They have to think about the                things we just do . . .                      (with great "trouble"                       he sets it down)                It has to do with a chemical in                the midbrain, or rather the lack                of it, called dopamine. L-Dopa                replenishes this dopamine, making                it possible for these patients                to move more naturally.    He picks up the cup again, gracefully, and sets it down.                          MRS. LOWE                Leonard has Parkinson's Disease?Q                                    REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)78.CONT.              SAYER           No. No, his symptoms ... are           like Parkinsons ... and then again           they're not.She doesn't understand what he means; there's no reason why sheshould.                      MRS. LOWE                 (pause)           Then what will this medicine dp.           for him?                     SAYER           I don't know what it'll do for           him, if anything.                     MRS. LOWE           What do you think it will do?                     SAYER           I don't know.                      MRS. LOWE           What db< you hope it will do?                                                   REV. 10/13/89   p.47                          SAYER                I hope it'll bring him back from                wherever he is.(O                         MRS. LOWE                To what?                           SAYER                To the world.                           MRS. LOWE                      (pause)                What's here for him after all                these years?       '                          SAYER                You are here.     She ponders that and the enormity of the whole situation, all     the while staring at the consent form.                                                                          79     79.   INT. PHARMACY, BAINBRIDGE - DAY     The hospital pharmacy, a subterranean structure built into the     basement, cluttered from floor to ceiling with medicines.     Ray, the pharmacist, dips into a bag of powder. He spoons some     out onto a scale and looks to Sayer to tell him the dosage.                          SAYER                I have no idea. What do you say                we ease into it with ... what, ª      .                fifty milligrams?     Ray begins to measure five milligrams.                          SAYER                Let's say a hundred.     Ray shrugs; it's okay with him. He knifes at the powder,     removing all but 100 milligrams.     80.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                   80     Leonard, sphinx-like in his wheelchair, his mother by his side.     Sayer, stirring the L-Dopa into a paper cup of orange juice.     Miss Costello, in the doorway, watching. Sayer hands the glass     to Mrs. Lowe.                                  v     (NOTE: Consult w/Sacks on this; may need the contents of a '          *     capsule emptied into the cup)  -             '-'                                                          RSV. 10/13/89   p.48                               SAYER                     Leonard? Your mother's going to                     give you some juice. There's                     medicine in it which is why it may                     taste more bitter than usual.          Sayer glances to Mrs. Lowe. It's as if they've rehearsed it          all. She holds the glass to her son's lips and gradually          drains the liquid down his throat.          Nothing immediately happens, of course, but they all, with the          exception of Leonard, look as if they expect it to. Mrs. Lowe          hands the empty glass back to Sayer.          And they all wait.          81.   INT. THE PHARMACY, LATER - DAY                                   81.          Ray measuring out another 100 milligram dose.                                RAY                    Maybe the acid in the orange juice,                     neutralized it.                                SAYER                    Or maybe it's not enough.                                    .                *                           ∑^∑∑,-N    . Ray tosses Sayer a look that says, "don't push it." Sayer\0     " n od s .             ∑      ."'∑          "                                SAYER                     I'll try it in milk.          82.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT                                      82.          An empty milk glass on a night table. "          Leonard, in his wheelchair, in pajamas, still and silent under             *          the painting of the boat.          His mother, Sayer and Miss Costello watch and wait while around            *          them nurses atid orderlies hoist other patients into bed.          83.   INT. THE PHARMACY - DAY                                          83.          Ray scrapes powder from the scale into a pharmaceutical funnel          which takes it down onto a miniature glass dish. Handing the          dis h to Say er --     ;                                RAY                     Five hundred milligrams.                                              REV. 10/13/89 p.4984.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                   84.Another empty milk glass. Leonard, stoic, or     so it seems, inhis wheelchair. His mother and Sayer and Miss     Costello waitingfor a movement, a change of expression, a sign    of any kind thatsomething is happening inside him. But there's   nothing . . .85.   INT. BAINBRIDGE - NIGHT                                        85.A corridor. Mrs. Lowe is leaving.    Sayer is with her, seeing *her to the door.                     SAYER           I'll call if there's any change.                     MRS. LOWE           Yes.Neither really knows what else to say except for good night.She leaves.86.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT                                    86.Sayer and Miss Costello lift Leonard out of his wheelchair andinto his bed.                     MISS COSTELLO           I'm going home too. If you need           me . ∑ *                     SAYER           Yes, I'll call.They nod "good night" atT each other and Miss Costello leaves.Sayer slumps into Leonard's wheelchair. lAnd waits.87.   INT. THE PHARMACY - NIGHT                                      87.Ray has gonejhome, too. Sayer, alone in the pharmacy, measuresout 1000 milligrams, ten times the original dose.88.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT                                    88.Sayer at Leonard's bedside, holding the glass to Leonard'slips, draining the liquid into him, all of it.89.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - LATER - NIGHT      .                   8Sayer asleep in the wheelchair. He stirs. Wakes. And takes amoment to remind himself where he is. And why. His eyesnarrow, uncomprehending.Leonard's bed is empty.                                                                   990.   INT. DAYROOM - LATER - NIGHTA claw of a hand dragging a crayon across a sheet of paper.Tight on Sayer, framed in a doorway, as still and silent andentranced as a post-encephalitic.His perspective of the dayroom -- deserted except for a figure,a patient, Leonard, hunched over the table.As Sayer crosses toward him, Leonard's head slowly rises.Sayer sits opposite him and they consider each other in silencefor several moments.Leonard struggles to speak, to form words. They come out in ahalting cadence, flat, without inflection, and are only barely .recognizable as words:                   .                     LEONARD           It's quiet.                        SAYER           It's late.    Everyone's asleep∑>                     LEONARD           I'm not asleep?                     SAYER          No.   You're awake.Though he nods, it's unclear whether Leonard realizes howsignificant that is. Sayer gestures at the piece of paperbeneath Leonard's hands.                        SAYER          May I?Sayer draws the paper across the table. It's covered with whatseems imponderable hieroglyphic-like scrawl. But there isorder in the chaos. Letters. Leonard's name.                        LEONARD          Me.91.    INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAWN                                 91Alone in the room, Leonard moves slowly around it, feelingthings: the smoothness of the cabinet glass/ the warmth thrownby a desk lamp, water from the cooler splashing onto his hand.                       SAYER O.S.            Leonard?Leonard turns to Sayer's voice with an expression of child-like       ,wonder on his face.                      SAYER            Your mother is here.She appears in the doorway of the room. She's done her hair,her face, she's put on a nice dress, yet she remains unpreparedfor this reunion. She can do nothing but stare at her "infantson" who is now, "suddenly," a man.As he slowly crosses toward her, she is struck by the fact shemust look u£ in order to meet his eyes. He reaches her.Reaches out to her. And she embraces him.92.    INT. CORRIDOR - MORNING                                     .92.                                             : A corridor crowded with patients in wheelchairs with nowhere togo and nothing much to do.                      MISS COSTELLO            My name is Elizabeth. It's a ª            pleasure to meet you.Leonard, standing, reaches for her hand and struggles topronounce her name correctly. Fighting to keep from crying infront of him, Miss Costello glances to Sayer and Mrs. Lowe.                                                                    93.9.3.   INT. ANOTHER CORRIDOR - MORNINGMiss Costello, flanked by Sayer and Mrs. Lowe, watches asLeonard extends his hand to the "card playing nurse."                     MARGARET           How do you do, sir? My name is           Margaret.                       LEONARD           Margaret.o   94.   INT. ANOTHER CORRIDOR - MORNING                              9    Margaret has joined the "tour, group" and introduces Leonard to    the "music orderly." They shake hands.                         LEONARD               Fernando. How are you?                         FERNANDO               Great, man. How're you?                         LEONARD               Great, too.                                                                       9    95.   INT. THE PHARMACY - MORNING    Fernando is along for the ride and watches Leonard shaking Ray    the pharmacist's hand.                         RAY               How do you do, Mr. Lowe?                            LEONARD                                 !               Good, sir.                                                                      95    95A. INT. CAFETERIA KITCHEN -MORNING    The cooks and kitchen workers around Leonard and his entourage,    shaking his hand.                                             >.                .    96. INT. STAFF CAFETERIA - LATER - DAY                            9    A tray of truly awful cafeteria food. The group, minus Sayer    and Miss Costello, watches Leonard dip a fork into some mush-    like concoction and manipulate it, with difficulty, to and into    his mouth. He seems amazed by its flavor.                         LEONARD               It's delicious.                         FERNANDO               I wouldn't go that far, Len.    Sayer and Miss Costello, at another table, glance over to the    others who are all laughing. Sayer smiles.                         MISS COSTELLO               I don't think I could deal with               losing 3D years of my life. I                can't even imagine it.                                             REV. 10/13/89 p.53Sayer's smile fades. The possibility that Leonard might nothave realized the extent of the passage of time had not, until this moment, occurred to him. He stares blankly at Miss Costello.                     MISS COSTELLO           He does realize it, doesn't he?Sayer nods uncertainly.                       SAYER           He must.                                                                  97.97.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - DAY                (NOTE: CONSULT SACKS ON THIS SCENE:)Sayer demonstrates a clapping motion. Leonard repeats it moreslowly but with decent motor control.                       SAYER           Splendid.Sayer makes a note. They are alone in the examination roomwhich, like most of the hospital, has little in it to indicatethat it is not the 1930's.                     SAYER           Can I see you walk the length of           the room?                        *Leonard walks slowly across the room past the perception testsand notes and Polaroids cluttering the wall. Coming back, hepauses. He's looking at a picture of himself taped there.Sayer watches him slowly reach his hands to his face to feelhis features. He stares at the photograph of himself, tryingto comprehend that which cannot be comprehended.He's not younjg anymore.                                                                  98.98.   OMITTED99.   INT. LEONARD'S WARD - NIGHT                                 99.Sayer and Mrs. Lowe at Leonard's bedside.                                                                  RE V. 10 /1 3/ 89   p .54                                 L EO N AR D                 I ' m af r ai d to cl os e m y ey e s . . . If(y\              I close my eyes . . .      He hesitates, as if saying it may make the fear more real.                           SAYER                 . . . you'll sleep. And when you                 wake up in the morning, it will be                 the next morning. I promise.      Sayer's smile tries to assure them both that it will happen      just that way. He excuses himself, leaving Leonard with his      mother, joins Miss Costello by the door and glances back. Mrs.      Lowe is stroking Leonard's head as she hums a lullaby.      100.   INT. ROOM ADJACENT TO EXAMINATION ROOM - MORNING                             100.      Sayer comes in with some books, sets them on Miss Costello's      desk and crosses to a closet.                           SAYER                 I didn't sleep, did you?                           MISS COSTELLO                 Does it look like it?                   .      Sayer hangs up his jacket and slips into a lab coat.                           SAYER                 Do you know if Leonard's awake?                                                             v      She smiles and points toward the adjoining examination room.      101.   INT. THE EXAMINATION ROOM - MORNING                                              101.      Showered and shaved and groomed and bright-eyed, Leonard sits      listening to his own heartbeat with Sayer's stethoscope.      Coming in --                    i      SAYER                 Good morning.                          LEONARD                Good morning.     .      His speech is still rather flat, halting.,                           SAYER                 Been waiting for me long?                              LEONARD                Yes.                                                      REV. 10/13/89 p.55      Sayer smiles.    He hands Leonard the books.   History books. An      almanac.                           SAYER                Some things have happened while                you've been away. I thought you'd                be interested.      Leonard opens one carefully, reverently, and begins reading      from it to himself.                           SAYER                 You don't have to read them now,                 Leonard. They're yours. At your                 leisure.      Leonard closes the book but holds onto it and the others like      they're gold.                          LEONARD                I used to read quite a lot.                                                                  .                Before.                          SAYER i                Yes, I know.      .                           LEONARD                Thank you for these.            i                       .      Sayer nods that he's welcome.                           SAYER                Have you thought about what you'd                like to do today?                           LEONARD                Everything.                           SAYER                      (smiles)                I'm not sure I can arrange that.                            LEONARD                Try.      Sayer smiles again. For a man who just yesterday learned he      has been cheated out of the greater"- part of his life, Leonard      seems to have recovered extraordinarily.                          SAYER                Let's approach it this way. What              . ".  x             do you think you'd like to do                    .1J              first?                                       ..∑                                             REV. 10/13/89 p.55A                                             (continuity only)                    LEONARD          I'd like to go outside.101A. EXT. BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL - DAY                              101ASayer and Leonard emerge from the hospital and move under treesalong a path toward the parking lot. At a point, the doctorrealizes his patient is no longer at his side; he's severalsteps back, feeling the sunshine on his skin.      102.   EXT. PARKING LOT, BAINBRIDGE - MORNING                      102(p\      Though it is only a Toyota, its dashboard, to Leonard,      resembles something out of Jules Verne. He allows Sayer to      buckle his seatbelt for him and watches with fascination as      Sayer performs the "complex" preparatory sequence necessary,      apparently, to make the car go.      The car pulls away. Above, framed in a second story window of      one of the buildings, stands a lone figure looking out --      Leonard's mother.      103.   INT. SAYER'S CAR - MOVING - MORNING                         103      Tight on the radio. Sayer switches it on. To Leonard's      amazement, classical music fills the interior      and CONTINUES OVER:      104.   EXT. THE BRONX - MOVING SHOTS - MORNING                     104      Billboards advertising color televisions and electric shavers.      Buses which have grown over the decades to a behemoth scale.      "Ultra-modern" housing projects and gas stations.      "Futuristic" cars.      Leonard cannot imagine a more enthralling re-introduction to      the world and stares at it all with wonder. Everywhere he      looks there is something "extraordinary."                           LEONARD                 What a wonderful place The Bronx                 has become.      The music CONTINUES OVER:                        ''   '                           *      105.   INT/EXT. NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDENS - DAY                   105      A rose.       ,      Leonard puts his face close to it to appreciate its fragrance.      He touches its petals gently, explores them, and is quietly      astonished by the tactile sensation.      Sayer watches. He, too, can appreciate wonders of the real      world, especially those of a botanical nature, but not with, the      purity or intensity Leonard can.      Pulling back reveals them in the middle of a vast garden of      countless thousands of roses.106.   INT. SAYER'S CAR - MOVING - DAY                            106Leonard turns the radio dial from the classical station toanother playing a very different kind of music, and listens toit bemused but intrigued. It's John Lennon singing "A DAY INTHE LIFE"and it CONTINUES OVER:107.   EXT. PARK - THE BRONX - LATER - DAY                        107Children playing flag-football on an expanse of grass. Dogsrunning around, nannies with prams, lovers.A disk, a frisbee, falls at Leonard's feet. He retrieves itbut has no idea what it is or what to do with it. Sayerdemonstrates the wrist action with an invisible one. Leonarddoesn't get it. Sayer takes it from him and flings itpathetically not halfway back to its owners.The music CONTINUES OVER:108.   EXT. STREET CORNER JOINT - THE BRONX - LATER - DAY        108.Leonard watches with interest a Carvel ice cream machine. Heand Sayer are handed cones and Leonard's attention moves to agirl wearing an unbelievably short skirt.Her boyfriend stares at Leonard. Sayer tries to pull hischarge's attention elsewhere. Leonard, finally, glances away,up, to a sound overhead.The music CONTINUES OVER:                                                                  109109.   EXT. KENNEDY AIRPORT - DAYA 747 roaring down a runway. At the edge of it, it lifts offand thunders over Sayer and Leonard and the parked Toyota.Exhilerated, Leonard waves.The music CONTINUES OVER:110.   OMITTED                                                    110111.   EXT. THE BRONX / CITY ISLAND - DAY                         111An expressway. The Toyota traveling at "astounding" speed,passing a sign that reads CITY ISLAND.                                               R!V. 10/13/89   p.58    Boats and fish markets and lush vegetation. Paradise compared    to the Bronx. The Toyota turns down a side road near the water         t    and into the driveway of Sayer's small wooden house.w   '.∑.                     .         '    And the mus ic ends.    112.   INT. SAYER'S KITCHEN / DINING ROOM - DAY                       112.    Tea bags steeping in a pot on a cluttered kitchen counter.    Sayer, exhausted from the day, hunts in vain through packing    boxes on the floor for crackers, cookies, something he can    offer his guest.    He keeps glancing in at Leonard, who's wandering around the    dining room, navigating around packing boxes, to browse at the    spines of books. Noticing Sayer watching -                          LEONARD               You just moved here.                         SAYER               Yeah. Well, five years ago.                                 ,    Sayer shrugs, disappears into the kitchen a moment . . . before            ;    peeking back in to see what Leonard is looking at now: a small             i    framed photograph of a boy with a toy sailboat and a forlorn    expression posed in front of a curtain; the boat obviously a    photography studio prop.                           LEONARD               Your son?                         SAYER               Me, actually.                                       '      ,,"                     t                          LEONARD                     (looking closely at                              '                      the photograph)               You seem uncomfortable.                          SAYER               I probably was.    Sayer disappears into the kitchen again. And a moment later                                                                               .    glances back in around the door frame at Leonard who has moved    over to an old sideboard on which several pairs of glasses are    neatly arranged.                   ∑                                       /∑                         SAYER               Each has a specific purpose.                                                   REV. 10/13/89   p.59    As Leonard considers each pair of glasses ...                          SAYER               Those are my normal interior               glasses. And spare pair. Those,               I wear outside. Two pairs, in               case I los.e one. Those, those are               my daytime reading glasses. And               spare. Those are for close work.               For fine print. Those are my               nighttime reading glasses -    Leonard's examining the frames of this last pair closely.                         SAYER               That's heavy-gauge metal so when I               fall asleep and roll over on them               I don't wreck them. They're               indestructible.    Leonard returns the indestructible ones to their proper place    and considers them all together.                         SAYER               As long as I pretty much know               ahead of time what I'll be looking '               at, it works out, I don't have to               carry all five pairs around.                         LEONARD               What if you just want to go for a               walk?                          SAYER                     (pause)               Walks are a problem. Walks are               the hardest thing. You just never               know.    He's absolutely serious, like a man plagued for years by an    imponderable dilemma. He retreats back into his kitchen before    reappearing again with the pot of tea, two mismatched cups and    some saltine% on a tray.                         SAYER               I hope you'll forgive the               inelegant presentation. I don't               entertain much.       ∑/∑       .                                                                          113.    113.   INT. SAYER'S LIVING ROOM - DAY    They've cleared places on the sofa and chair and sit thereQ   sipping their tea.       *                                                  REV. 10/13/89 p.60                      SAYER           I can date my interest in science           precisely, actually. I'd been                                   *           sent off to boarding school - a           place perhaps not quite as           Dickensian as I remember it - when           I happened to come across the           periodic table of elements.                 (smiles at the                  thought)           I memorized it. Which I admit was           a rather precocious thing for a           seven year old to do. And I           remember feeling . . . not so much a           sense of accomplishment . . . as           comfort. The halogens were what           they were. The alkali metals were           what they were. Each element had           its place, and nothing could                                    *           change that. They were secure, no                               *           matter what.                                                    * Leonard nods, perhaps more out of politeness than                      * understanding. Sayer nods too, feeling, perhaps, a little             * exposed.                     LEONARD                                           :           You're not married.* It seems to Sayer a non sequitor.                                        *                      SAYER           No.He smiles. Sips his tea. Silence except for the ticking of a           *clock somewhere. Then, very matter of factly -                       SAYER           I'm not terribly good with people.           I like them. I wish I could say I           had more than a rudimentary           understanding of them.                 (pause)           Maybe if they were less           unpredictable . . .He shrugs. Silence again.                     LEONARD           Eleanor would disagree with you.                                *Sayer stares at him blankly. He doesn't seem to know who"Eleanor11 is.                                .                            *                                                        REV.10/13/89    p.61                                 SAYER-~                   Eleanor?^r *                           LEONARD                     Miss Costello.                                SAYER                     Oh, yes, of course.                           (uneasy)                     She's spoken to you about me?          Leonard nods. Sayer can't imagine why, nor what she might have          said. Fearing the worst --                               SAYER                     What'd she say?                               LEONARD           '                     That you're a kind man. That you                     care very much for people.          Sayer shifts in his chair uncomfortably.                                a.                               LEONARD                     But you meant normal people.          Sayer seems at a loss as to how to respond.   The accompanying/til**)    silence grows awkward.                                 7                               SAYER                     We should be getting back.          Sayer crosses over to the sideboard, to the pairs of glasses,          stares at them for several moments, and picks up two pairs.          114.   OMITTED                                                       114          114A. EXT. PARKING LOT - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                        114A.          Climbing out of his car, Kaufman sees Sayer striding toward          him. He glances to the sky, Kaufman, to God, and silently          complains to Him.                     '4          115.   INT. STAFF CAFETERIA, BAINBRIDGE - LATER - DAY                115          Cafeteria workers carting serving trays back to the kitchen.          Nurses and orderlies and office workers at tables with finished'          meals and cups of coffee. They seem unaware of Drs. Sayer and          Kaufman at a table near the door.                               KAUFMANz^                   When you say expensive, what are                     we talking about?<D                        SAYER               To put them all on the dosage Mr.               Lowe is on . . . about twenty               thousand dollars.     Kaufman stares at Sayer aghast. He knew L-Dopa was expensive,     but not that expensive. He manages to recover somewhat.                         KAUFMAN               That would be for how long?                         SAYER               About a month.                          KAUFMAN               A month?     Sayer nods. Kaufman glances away.   Stares blankly at faces at     other tables. Back to Sayer.                          KAUFMAN               I can't go before the board with               that. I could . . .     He laughs to himself at the futility of it.                         SAYER               I was thinking of speaking to the               patrons.                         KAUFMAN               The few patrons this hospital has               give what they can.                         SAYER               Well, we'd have to convince them               to give more than they*re               accustomed to giving.     He hadn't intended as impudent a tone as that which came out.     More calmly ~                           SAYER                Perhaps if they saw Mr. Lowe.     . .;. ∑∑ -; '     ..'∑' ' : '. :..;. .,.-, '    ∑'    "'    ∑ ∑' ∑:                           KAUFMAN                I think you overestimate the               effect Mr. Lowe has on people.               We're talking about money here.     Kaufman sips at his coffee and slowly becomes aware   of the     silence around them. No one is talking. He glances    up as Miss     Costello walks by setting something on the table in   front of     him. She leaves the cafeteria without a word.CD   Kaufman glances down. She has left a Bainbridge payroll check )\cz>     made out in her name. Kaufman turns it over. She has endorsed     it back to Bainbridge Hospital.     Fernando walks by and    out, leaving his salary check on the     table. Then Ray, the    pharmacist, leaving his. Then the nurse     who reluctantly read    "Moby Dick" to the patients. Then a     cafeteria worker. A     secretary. A clerk. A janitor.     The cafeteria is soon empty, except for Sayer and Kaufman.     Long silence.     116.   INT. BOARD ROOM - NIGHT                                    116     8mm film of Leonard before L-Dopa -- a wide shot of him     absolutely motionless in his wheelchair.                            SAYER O.S.                There was extreme rigidity of the                axial musculature . . . only vague                available motion in the neck . . .                no voluntary movement in the                limbs . . .     A tight shot of Leonard's entranced face appears on the screen.                          SAYER O.S.                Perhaps most striking was the                profound facial masking -- which                we now know should not have been                confused with apathy.         *     Tight on Sayer, the light from the projector flickering on his     face.                         SAYER               Virtually aphonic, Mr. Lowe could               articulate no words, but rather               only, with considerable effort, an               occasional noise, a kind of,               "h .. . "                A                                      ∑     In the darkness sit Kaufman, the rest of the Board of     Directors, some elderly patrons of the hospital, and, near     Sayer, Miss Costello. She hands him a scribbled note.     "Less scientific" it reads.                     SAYER          Isolated circumstances -- the          mention of his name, notes of          particular pieces of music, the          touch of another human being --          managed on occasion to briefly          summon him, but these awakenings          were rare and transient, lasting          only a moment or two.Sayer glances to Miss Costello.   She nods, "Good, that'sbetter."                      SAYER          The rest of the time he remained          in a profoundly eventless place ~          deprived of all sense of history          and happening and self --          encysted, cocooned, enveloped in          this metaphorical if not          physiological equivalent of sleep          . . . or death.Tight on the screen, on Leonard, as he was. Looking more likea photograph of a man than a motion picture of one.                    SAYER          This was his condition when first          seen by me in a remote bay of this          hospital. And the quality of his          life for the last 30 years.The "before picture" of Leonard on the screen is replaced withthe "after" -- his eyes alert, his hands exploring a deskmicrophone. He glances up and off at something.                      LEONARD (FILM)          Now?                    SAYER'S VOICE          Whenever you're ready.                     LEONARD (FILM)          My name is Leonard Lowe. It has          been explained to me that I have          been away for . . . quite some          time . . .He seems to withdraw, to wrestle with the thought, to try tosomehow come to terms with it, to somehow resolve it. He nodsas he finds within himself some source of strength and looksdirectly at the camera.                      LEONARD (FILM)          I'm back.117.   INT. BOARD ROOM, LATER - NIGHT                            117The lights are on, the screen rolled up, the board members andpatrons visibly moved, almost shaken, and silent.Eventually one of the patrons, an old woman, reaches into herpurse for her checkbook and a pen. Another patron, an elderlyman, pulls a checkbook and pen from an inside jacket pocket.Another already has hers out in front of her ...Sayer and Miss Costello exchange a glance. The room isabsolutely silent, except for the muted scratch of pens onpaper.                                                                 118.118.   INT. THE PHARMACY - DAYThe raw L-Dopa powder, 20,000 dollars worth, has arrived. Itsits on a pharmacy counter in large clear bags. Sayer and Raypeer between racks of medicine at two teenage girls and twovery old men chatting in a corner of the pharmacy.                     RAY           They're volunteers from the   :           neighborhood.                        SAYER           Wonderful.                                             v                   119.119.   OMITTED120.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                              120.Several empty medicine paper-cups. The "garden of stone,"reassembled. Sayer knows better than to sit and wait, thatnothing is going to immediately happen, but he sits and waitsanyway. As does Miss Costello. As does Leonard and hismother.121.   INT. STAFF ROOM - NIGHT               .                   121Sayer asleep on a couch that's too short for him. MissCostello asleep on another.                        VOICE           Dr. Sayer?Sayer wakes to find a night nurse standing over him.                     SAYER           What is it?                                                                            ry                                               (continuity only)121. CONT.                                                             121.                       NIGHT NURSE             It's a miracle.121A. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT                                            121A.                                                                   iThey move along a silent corridor that seems to stretch outforever -- the doctor, the two nurses -- carrying themselvesprofessionally, with sobriety and restraint. But as they nearthe ward, as they're joined by others, other nurses, orderlies,their steps and hearts quicken. They break into a trot.                                                                           122.122.     INT. LEONARD'S WARD - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHTThey appear at the threshold, Sayer, Miss Costello, the nightnurse, the others, and peer into the darkened room:In the quiet, in the shadows, in the moonlight filtering inthrough the windows, the post-encephalitics are emerging fromtheir "cocoons," rising from the "dead" like Lazarus from theearth, reborn.Moving slowly past the beds: A figure rediscovering thefeeling of her skin; another, the sound of his breath; another,'the beating of her heart.A figure still asleep . . . wakes. And for the first time innearly half a century sees herself in the world.Tight on Sayer, on the look of awe on his face as he stares atthe scene going on in the darkened ward. His glance findsLeonard who is sitting up in his bed, smiling.123.     INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                      123,Tight on Lucy's face, deep in thought, lost in thought. Afterseveral moments of silence, she speaks -.,:, ∑     . :... .        ,.LUCY    V    .   .∑       *   .-..        .             . . . I just had the strapgest            dream . . .A cacophony   of off-screen voices - from a radio, thetelevision,   and the awakened post-encephalitics themselves -rises up as   another woman, Miriam, moves past Lucy's face. Wefollow her,   as does a nurse with a blood pressure guage onwheels.                                    ,                                                  11/ b/ aa) tireen   Pg123.CONT.             NURSE                                           12            Miriam, please, I - (have to            check your blood pressure - )                      MIRIAM                 (interrupting)            I've been sitting for 25 years,            you missed your chance.Miriam and the nurse trailing after her pass in front of a man *with no English (Josef) trying to explain something to a coupleof orderlies. One to the other -   .                      ORDERLY 1            You're Italian, he's Italian,            what's the problem?                      ORDERLY 2            I was born here - X don't speak ∑            Italian.Nearby, another man. This one does speak English -                      BERT            I want a steak, rare. I want            mashed potatoes and gravy, string            beans, a slice of pie and a   '            chocolate phosphate.Anthony turns away with the tray he just brought in - broth,jello and juice - and carries it away, passing the "cardplaying nurse," Margaret.                      ANTHONY            I think I prefer them the other            way.Having settled on Margaret: she smiles, glances to "her"patient, Rose, who, staring at her reflection in a hand mirror,tugs at her grey hair.                      ROSE            And some dye. Black.                      MARGARET                 (jotting down the                  request)            Black, are you sure?                       ROSE            And some clothes . . . my. clothes.                                                                    i.1/ b/´y)Green       Pg.123.CONT.                                          -                                      123Sh e p ull s at he r f ade d s hape les s d res s w ith gre at dis dai n.                        ROSE              Who put me in this?A be wi ld er ed m an o n st if f l eg s (F RA NK ) wa lk s by . Fo ll ow in gh im , we c at c h a gl i m ps e of a D u tc h wo m an i n a wh e el c h ai r , w i t ha nurse -                         MAG DA              ... t he garden er, he mus t prune              the fruit trees ... the roses . . .              I think he's forget . . .- be f or e se t t li n g o n M i s s C o st e ll o wi t h a ma n wh o se e ms l os t ina w or ld o f hi s ow n, h is he ad n od di ng s li gh tl y t o mu si c fr om a nunseen radio.                           M I SS C OS TE LL O              Ca n you s pe ak to me , Ro lan do ?              Ro lan do, it' s M iss Co ste llo. C an              yo u u nde rsta nd me?Ap p a r e nt l y n ot . A fi g u r e bl u r s pa s t . An d a m om e n t la t e r ,an oth er, t he nu rse w ith t he pr ess ure g auge , sti ll tr ail ingaf te r Mi ri am. T he c ame ra f ol low s th em -                         NUR SE              Miriam ... Miriam . . .- befor e set tling on a man , Des mond, doin g a soft- shoe.Le on ar d, a nd a f ew o th e rs , wa tc h. Fr an k bl ur s b y ag ai n, p as se sa w oman , Fra ncis, sort of l ost, seat ed Wi th a nurse :                           F RANCIS              . . . I was aware of things, but              no thi ng mea nt a nyt hin g, the re w as              no connection to me.                     (vagu e recollec tion:)              There was a war . . .                     (pailse)              ... or two . . .Mi ss C os te ll o no ti ce s F ra nk , st an di ng n ea rb y, lo ok in g pu zz le d.                              M IS S C OS T EL LO              F r a nk ? A r e y o u al l r i gh t ?                           FRANK                       <              M y wi fe a nd s on .     A re th ey w el l?                                               xu/ os > vaU.bL>£NKUD           Pg.6123.CONT.                                                          123.Hiss Costello finds herself at a loss for a moment . . .                    MISS COSTELLO          We'll find them for you.     We'll          track them down.Lucy again, Sayer still at her side.                     LUCY          . . . I called to my sister, but she          couldn't hear me. No one could          hear me. I was alone . . .                (pause)          And then I woke up.She smiles. Sayer tries to. He hesitates ... but finallycan't help asking her -                                                ∑                    SAYER          Lucy, what year is it?                    LUCY          What year is it? You don't know?He shakes his head 'no.' She glances around the place, thenleans close to him and whispers -                     LUCY           ∑26.                     MIRIAM O.S.          DoctorI   Doctor!                                      .                                          *                                ,Sayer turns to the urgent voice, concerned, and sees Miriamflanked by a large group of staff from other parts of thehospital gathered at the threshold of the room.                    MIRIAM          I walked all the way over there.          And back. What a perfect day.The group at the doorway applauds, and it CARRIES OVER:123A. OMITTED                                              123A.123B. INT- CORRIDOR - SAME TIME - DAY                      123B. *The corridor, and the sound of a woman's voice, very faint,   .*from somewhere unseen:                                           *                     PAULA O.S.          " . . . Like crowds storming the                                       *          Bastille ...                                                           *124.-128.    OMITTED                                           124.-12129.   INT.'POST-ENCEPHALITIC DAYROOM - CONTINUED - MORNING      129.Sidney bursts into the room out of breath and scans the facesof the awakened post-encephalitics and staff. He spots Sayer,seated with a woman, her back to him and the door. She slowlyturns to look over her shoulder and, seeing Sidney, smiles.                      LOLLY            Hi, Sidney.There's a kind of hush. Conversations, activities cease.Everyone is looking at Sidney. Not knowing what else to say,he manages a hesitant --                           SIDNEY            Hi.        iHe smiles and crosses toward her, but by the time he reachesher the smile has disappeared. Something troubling hasoccurred to him. He glances to Sayer and whispers --                         SIDNEY            Is it real . . . or . . .                      SAYER              :            As real as real can be.                                         CONTINUED:                                                                  f<j123B.CONT.                              ,                      123BLeonard, moving along the corridor with Saver's camera andtripod (or looking for something to read at the magazine table)slows and listens:                      PAULA O.S.             . . . the Mighty Mets stormed           11           their locker room shortly after           nine o'clock on their night to           remember -He moves toward the voice, traces it to a crafts area, where ayoung woman is reading from the sports page to an older mantied to his wheelchair.Though it's doubtful the man is even aware of her presence, shereads to him as if her were, and in the process, draws Leonardinto the sound of her words until there are no sounds but herwords:                     PAULA           "Released from bondage and           ridicule after seven destitute           seasons, they raised the roof of           Shea Stadium - while their fans           attempted to dismantle it - in one           of the loudest, wildest victory           celebrations in baseball     :           history - "         ._The reverie is suddenly shattered, the real sounds of thehospital rising back up, as Sidney, wild with excitement, bangsthrough the far doors of the corridor. He sprints past thecrafts area, past Leonard, runs the entire length of thecorridor, and -                                                             124-12124-128.   OMITTED129.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - CONTINUED - DAY                    1Sidney bursts into the room out of breath and scans the facesof the awakened post-encephalitics and staff. He spots Sayer,seated with a woman, her back to him and the door. She slowlyturns to look over her shoulder and, seeing Sidney, smiles.                     LOLLY           Hi, Sidney.There's a kind of hush. Conversations, activities cease.Everyone is looking at Sidney. Not knowing what else to say,he manages a hesitant --                     SIDNEY           Hi.                                                . x x / x u / o ; I V a U i i U & e mU U   J r* g ª       129.CONT.                                                                             129       He smiles and crosses toward her, but by the time he reaches       her the smile has disappeared. Something troubling has       occurred to him. He looks to Sayer and whispers --                               SIDNEY                   Is it real ... or . . .                             SAYER                   As real as real can be.       Sidney lowers himself to his knees before Lolly and, weeping                                                                                                 *       quietly, rests his head on her lap. She strokes his head.                                                   FADE TO BLACK       130.   INT. CORRIDOR - ANOTHER DAY                                                      13       Sidney and Lolly emerge from the dayroom, followed by the other       post-encephalitics. They're all wearing suits and dresses and       walk with purpose past wheelchair-bound patients with       "uninteresting" diseases.       As they wait for the elevator, Leonard wanders slightly down       the corridor to see if the girl is there again reading in the       crafts area. The chair she was in is empty.       130A. INT. ELEVATOR & CORRIDOR - MOMENTS LATER - DAY                                  130       The elevator door slides open revealing them. Paula, inside,       hesitates: the sight is almost surreal. >As they crowd in, she       wedges out, and down the hall, Leonard watching after her.                             ANTHONY                   Len - come on.       Leonard steps into the elevator, the last one in.       131.   EXT. BAINBRIDGE -SAME DAY                                                        13       They're going on a field trip. As they're escorted onto an       idling hospital bus, Leonard, outside it, tries to reason with       his mother:                             MRS. LOWE                   Sidney's going.                              LEONARD                   He's a patient, Mom.A3                            MRS. LOWE                              MRS. LOWEC -j               He's not the same kind of patient.                                                         XX / XU /O y / V aU J jU K NK U D    P        131.CONT.                           .                                                13                               LEONARD                    He's still a patient.       You're not                    a patient.                              MRS. LOWE                    I'm your mother.        Inside the bus, Miriam, anxious to leave, leans over the driver        to honk the horn. Leonard kisses his mother on the cheek and        turns away.                             MRS. LOWE                  Wait a minute.                        (he turns back)                  What on earth have you done to                  your hair?        He's parted it, apparently, on the "wrong" side. She pulls a        comb from her purse, recombs it "correctly," straightens his        jacket lapels and steps back.                          '                              MRS. LOWE                    There.                              LEONARD                    There's your bus.                .        The public bus, behind her, coming down the street. As she        hurries to the corner, Sayer climbs down off the hospital bus.                              SAYER                    Ready?                                                                                         *                            LEONARD                  I've decided not to go.        He waves to his mother. Sayer stares at him.                              LEONARD                    I'm staying here.                              SAYER                    Why? What's wrong?                             LEONARD                    Nothing. Wave.        He waves again to his mother; she's boarding the public bus.        Sayer does as he's told, waves too. Impatient, Miriam honks        the horn again.                              MIRIAM'(_J)               Let's go, already.131.C0NT.                                .                        131As the public bus pulls away, Leonard pats Sayer on theshoulder.                     LEONARD           I'll see you later, have a good           time.He climbs the hospital steps and disappears inside, Sayerstaring after him. Miriam honks the horn again, and he climbsaboard. The doors hiss shut and driver turns to him.                       BUS DRIVER           Where to?Sayer suddenly realizes he has no idea "where to." He glancesover his shoulder at the expectant faces of the patients, alldressed up with nowhere to go. It's up to him . . .His face brightens; he's thought of a good place.                                                                  132132.   INT. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY - NEW YORK - DAYMoving slowly toward a herd of still and silent elephants in acavernous, darkened room.As a nun counts the heads of parochial school children filingpast the huge beasts, Miss Costello counts the heads of thepost-encephalitics.Both come up short and glance frantically around.                      NUN                    v                 (calling)           William?                      MISS COSTELLO                (calling)           Dr. Sayer?132A. INT. ANOTHER ROOM - NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM - DAY          132A.A lifeless polar bear in a diorama "stares" out at Sayer who'speering in, intrigued. Miss Costello appears at his side.                    MISS COSTELLO          It's very hard to keep everyone          together, doctor.                    SAYER          Has someone wandered off?                       MISS COSTELLO          You.                                             (REV.11/10/89)GOLDENROD       Pg.        132A.CONT.                                                           1.,->,     She leads him away by the arm.CO                                                          .          .        133.   INT. SIDNEY'S DAYROOM - SAME DAY                             13        A dayroom thick with inactivity. And the voice:                              PAULA O.S.                   "From the sleek skyscrapers                   of Wall Street where a tickertape                   blizzard filled the sky . . .        From the doorway, from a distance, Leonard watches Paula across        the room with her father, reading to him again from the        newspaper:                              PAULA                   " . . . to the undistinguished                   bars of a hundred neighborhoods,                   New York yesterday went pleasantly                   mad over the World Champion                   Mets . . .                                                        '   ∑        133A. INT. PATIENTS' CAFETERIA - LATER - DAY                       133        Paula moving along the serving line with a tray. Leonard, next        in line, moving along with his tray, a little too close. He        steals a glance.                             PAULA                   You following me?               *        Startled and embarrassed, Leonard withdraws.                              PAULA                   I'm kidding. I'm sorry. I saw                   you upstairs . . . just now.        Leonard nods without looking at her.                             PAULA                   Visiting someone?                              LEONARD                   No.                                 ∑                              PAULA                   You work here.                              LEONARD                   I live here.                                         (REV.11/10/89)GOLDENROD   Pg.75133A.CONT.                                    .                     133                        PAULA                   (pause)             You're a patient?He admits it with a nod, lags back again, and eventually dares       *another glance at her.                       PAULA             You don't look like a patient.                       LEONARD                  (pause)             I don't?She smiles and shakes her head 'no.1                                                                    134.134.   INT. PATIENTS' CAFETERIA- LATER - DAYLeonard and Paula at a table. At other tables are patients whodo look like patients.                       PAULA             I don't know if he knows I             visit him or not. I don't know             that he knows who I am. My mother             doesn't think so. She doesn't;             come around any more--                        LEONARD                   (pause)             But you do.                        PAULA             Sometimes I think I see something.                          *             I think I see a change. And for a                           *             second, I see him like he was . . .                         *She smiles at the memory of her father like he was . . . but then   *it's gone and her smile fades.                       PAULA             Does that make any sense?A slow nod from him . . .                                  ∑             *                       LEONARD                                                  s             Yes.                                              ∑         *His tone is that of someone speaking of a fact, rather than          *offering an opinion. She studies him . . . and eventually:           *                       PAULA             Why are you here?                                                (REV.11/10/89)GOLDENROD           Pg         134.CONT.         He doesn't know how to begin to explain it to her.                              LEONARD                         (pause)'                   I receive medication.,        She waits for more, but it doesn't come.           Only a smile.                              LEONARD,                   I'm okay now.    *           -                                   '         135.   OMITTED                                                               1         136.   INT. NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM - ANOTHER ROOM - DAY                  13,   .   The post-encephalitics filing past still figures in African ∑,        ceremonial costumes and masks.                                                                            s                              NUN O.S.                                          '"'                         (calling)                    William?                               MISS COSTELLO O.S.                         (calling)                    Dr. Sayer?         136A. INT. ANOTHER ROOM - NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM - DAY                  136         A working display of a tide pool. Anthony's reflection joins         Sayer's in the glass.                              SAYER                    I've always loved tide pools,                    haven't you?         Anthony doesn't answer. He seems troubled.                              SAYER                    What is it?                              ANTHONY                    You chose this place?                         (Sayer nods)                    Why?                              SAYER                         (pause)                        ,                    I come here all the time.                              ANTHONY                    Why?                                               (REV.11/10/89)GOLDENROD    Pg.        136A.CONT.                              .        Sayer glances away, sees Miss Costello coming.      She looks a        little irritated. As she arrives -ti^                          SAYER                   Miss Costello, I think Anthony                   thinks they're bored.        He says it like, Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?                               MISS COSTELLO                   They are.        Sayer, taken aback, glances back to Anthony, whose look says,        There you go.                               SAYER                   I ' d thought about the opera house.                   Do you think they'd prefer that?                             ANTHONY                   The opera house?                             SAYER                   The Botanical Gardens?        Anthony looks to Miss Costello and rolls his eyes.                               SAYERy5?.               Well, where else is there?        137.   INT. ROSELAND - LATE AFTERNOON        Roseland's Big Band belting out "That Old Black Magic."        On the dancefloor, the post-encephalitics dance with one        another amidst "normal" middle-aged and older couples, all        having a great time.        At the bar, Sayer tries to get the attention of a young        bartender busy mixing drinks. Watching, it slowly dawns on        Rose that something is "wrong" here. More to herself -                             ROSE                   It's legal again?                              MISS COSTELLO                         (pause)                   For some time now.        Rose is delighted; she can hardly believe it.      She gets the        bartender's attention. -( )                       ROSE                  A Rob Roy on the rocks.P                137.CONT.                              .               The young bartender has to think a moment. Rose turns back to                watch the action on the dance floor. Gesturing to Rose, Miss                 Costello whispers to the bartender -                                    MISS COSTELLO                          A Shirley Temple.               138.   INT. LOBBY, BAINBRIDGE - LATE AFTERNOON               Leonard and Paula crossing toward the front doors. She's just               chatting but he's taking it seriously.                                    PAULA                          Things happen, people are late.                                    LEONARD                          They won't be angry.                                    PAULA                          Oh, they'll be angry. What're                          they going to do, fire me?               He doesn't realize she's not asking him. He has to shrug that               he doesn't know.    ,                               PAULA      _          :    (U*T                  I'll just take the graveyard.               Her look to him says, Right? He has no idea what she means,               but finally nods in agreement.                                      LEONARD                          Okay.           ]               They're almost to the doors.      She offers her hand to him.                                       PAULA                                  (pause)                          Bye.               He shakes the hand gently, lets it go.                                      LEONARD                         Bye.                                   PAULA                         Thanks for talking to me.            ∑               She steps away toward the door.                                      LEONARD                          He knows.                                                 (REV.11/10/89)GOLDENROD    Pg.7           138.CONT.                                                        138           She glances back at him.     She's not sure what he means.                        ∑         LEONARD                       Your father. He knows you visit                       him.            Whether he's saying it just to be nice doesn't matter to her.            It's what she wants to believe. She smiles gratefully.       *                                PAULA                      I'll see you.            She leaves.                                                                           138A.            138A. OMITTED           ∑ 139.   INT. ROSELAND - LATER - EVENING                         139.            The band in the middle of "You Hade Me Love You."            At the bar -                                 ROSE                       Is he betrothed, do you know?           Miss Costello doesn't know who she could possibly mean. She  ,-       follows her sightline to the opposite wall, to a chair, to           Sayer sitting alone.                                 MISS COSTELLO                       Not that I know of. I kind of                       doubt it.           Rose gets up and crosses toward Sayer. Seeing her coming, he           smiles ... but the smile slowly begins to fade as she sings to           him:                                 ROSE                      You made me love you                      I didn't want to do it               ∑                      I didn't want to do it . . .           Singing as she does it, she pulls him out of his chair.           Embarrassed, he resists, but she finally gets on the dance           floor. Never more mortified in his life (it seems as if           everyone is watching) he "dances . . . "           And the band finishes the song.             '' (")                                    (REV.11/10/89)GOLDENROD   . Pg.76                                     (continuity only)                                                                 . 14140.   OMITTED 141. INT.- CORRIDOR & LEONARD'S WARD                             14Returning from their night out, happy and satisfied, the post-encephalitics come down a quiet corridor, trailed by theirchaperons.Passing the examination room, Sayer hears faint typing, andslows.142.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHT              14Sayer steps into the room to find a figure hunched over histypewriter in a pool of lamplight. Glancing over to the door,the figure is revealed to be Leonard.                                         CONTINUED:                                                                  142                     LEONARD                                      "          Everybody have a good time?Leonard doesn't wait for the answer, returns to his typing.Sayer comes closer.                     SAYER           What are you doing?He peers over Leonard's shoulder to read what he's typing, anda slow smile crosses his face.                       SAYER V.O.           "One - typewriters and writing           supplies in all dayrooms at all           times . . .                                                                  143143.   INT. BOARD ROOM - DAYDrifting slowly across the faces of Kaufman, the director andthe other board members as Sayer reads to them from atypewritten sheet of paper --                      SAYER                  ;           " . . . Two - music and dance           classes for those patients who           desire them. Three - technical           courses for those who wish to           learn a trade. Four - patients'           grievance committees. Five - the           same food in the patients'           cafeteria as in the staff's. Six           . . . " and I happen to think this is           an excellent idea, "the           establishment of a permanent           hospital library. And "Seven -           televisions that work."Sayer sets the paper down on the table --                     SAYER           "Respectfully, Leonard Lowe."-- and listens to the silence.    It's a long one.144.   INT. BASEMENT - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                          144.Rumbling furnaces. The boiler room. Exposed conduit and pipesand ducts on the ceiling like tangled roots of an enormousmetal tree.                                                   (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY      Pg           144.CONT.                                                          I          A subterranean corridor. Deserted except for Sayer and Leonard    <D    moving along it. Past the boiler room. The pipes and ducts          above them.          145.   INT. BASEMENT OPERATING THEATRE - DAY                       1          A dusty anatomical skeleton shrouded in fdarkness is suddenly          illuminated as Sayer yanks down a sheet covering a high window.          Yanking down another, a second shaft of light falls on old          discarded surgical tables and equipment.          Brain surgeries were once routinely performed here back in a          time when they held out hope for docile patients and dociled          the rest. Used only for storage now, its floor and tiers of          observation benches! are covered with boxes and files and broken          furniture.          Leonard stares in at the eerie room and listens to the distant,         muted drone of the furnaces. He feels as though he's been here,    .   before. Maybe he has, long ago. Quietly ~                               LEONARD                     What is this place?                               SAYER                     It's your library.          Sayer pulls down another sheet and more light spills in.                                SAYER                     It'll take some fixing up     ª                     obviously. A thorough cleaning                     to begin with. Some desks. Books                ∑                     of course.          Leonard's glance slowly moves across the dim room, settling          finally on Sayer, who's smiling.                               SAYER                     They agreed to find the money for                     it. And to my suggestion that you                     oversee it and select the books.                               LEONARD                     Me?         146.    INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                14          Fingers on the keys of a piano, Sayer's baby grand, moved here     ∑    from his house. Rolando, oblivious to the world, at it playing     )   a simple yet emotional melody.                                    (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY   Pg.7                                    "(continuity only)                                               *     *146.CONT.                      RAY            He's still hasn't talked?                      MISS COSTELLO            We think he got sick before he            learned how to talk.                                             CONTINUED:'                                          (REV.11/14/89)Salmon   Pg.79146.CONT.                                                        146.Listening to the music a moment more, she corrects herself:             *                     MISS COSTELLO          To talk with words.Close on two nurses, across the room.                     NURSE 1          She's the daughter of the nephew          of a Dutch archduke. She's          royalty.She's referring to Magda, who glances over as if sensingthey're talking about her. They drop their voices:                      BETH                               ∑           He's dead, this duke?                      NURSE 1           He's been dead a hundred years.                      BETH           Then forget it, I'm not curtsying.Lucy, wearing "stylish" new glasses, smiles as Sayer listens toher heartbeat through a stethoscope. Satisfied with it, hemakes a notation in her chart.                    SAYER          Can I have your hand?                      LUCY                 \          Yes, you can have my hand.                (she holds it out                 to him)          Take me away from this place.                           .He smiles uneasily.                    SAYER          I'm your doctor, Lucy.                     LUCY          You're my Prince Charming.Close on hands rapidly dealing 3-Card Monte. The cardseventually settle, and the hand of someone else hesitates overthem before gingerly tapping one. As it's turned over:                     ORDERLY          There it is. The orderly snaps his finger in triumph. The 3-Card Montedealer, a dextrous encephalitic, shrugs.                                         (REV.11/14/89)Salmon    Pg.80                                                  i 146.CONT.                                        .              146.                     LUIS                                                 *          Another tough break for me.                                     *The orderly reaches to rake another dollar into his pile.                 *There's a nice watch on the wrist. Luis smiles to himself.                *                       MARGARET O.S.                                      *             I don't know how to say this,                                *             Miriam, so I ' m just going to say                           *             it.Miriam waits, but Margaret doesn't immediately say it.                    *                        MARGARET             Your husband?                                                *                   (Miriam nods)                                          *             He was granted a divorce from                                *             you in 1953.                                         ,       *Margaret almost grimaces, anticipating hysteria. Instead, a               *slow smile crosses Miriam's face.                                         *                          MIRIAM                                          *             Thank God.                                                   *Pliers, tin snips and a pile of found objects on a table.                 *Josef is there, fashioning strange and beautiful toys from the            *junk.                                                                     *                          NURSE 2                                         *             Francis?                                                     *                                                  tFrancis turns to find the nurse standing with a 20 year old               *girl who's holding a toddler by the hand.                                 *                        NURSE 2                                           *             Your daughter.                                               *Francis smiles at the toddler, mistaking her for the daughter.            *                          DAUGHTER                                        *             Hi, mom.                                                     *Francis' glance comes up to meet the 20 year old's, shifts down       *to the toddler again, comes back up.                                   *                          FRANCIS                                         *             Of course . . .                      '                       *From across the room, Frank watches Francis hug her "actual               *daughter," glances to Rose who has been reunited with a few old       * girlfriends, to Desmond with his son and daughter-in-law and             * their teenage kids, and to Sidney and Lolly in a corner.                 *                                             (REV.11/14/89)Salmon   Pg.80A    146.CONT.                                                        146.o                          ANTHONY                How's it going, Frank?    Frank glances blankly at Anthony and another orderly, who are    hanging out nearby with Bert, passing around a Road & Track    magazine.                          FRANK                How's it "going?"                          ANTHONY                How do you feel?                           FRANK                How do I feel?                      (pause)                My parents are dead. My wife is       I                in an institution. My son has                disappeared ... "Out West"                somewhere.                      (pause)                I feel old and I feel swindled,                that's how I feel.    Anthony glances at the others with a why-did-I-ask kind of    look. Frank wanders away.                     ,      BERT                 He is old.    So is Bert, though he doesn't feel it. As far as he's    concerned, he's still twenty years old. He glances back at the    magazine.                          ANTHONY                Pontiac Firebird, 350 engine, now                there's a car, Bert.                             BERT                Firebird . . .    He likes the sound of it.       Tight on the picture in the    magazine.    Rough sketches and balsa wood models of the operating theatre-      *    proposed library on a table. Leonard working on them.                          PAULA                Hi, Leonard.    Leonard glances up from his work. His mother glances up from    her magazine. One of them is delighted to see the girl.                                     (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY          Pg.81146A.    INT. OPERATING THEATRE / LIBRARY - LATER - DAY            14 6A.The anatomical skeleton being dragged across the flpor like thelifeless thing that it is.                      MOVER 1            Excuse me, ma'am.                  .                                               .Paula steps aside as the guy goes past her and Leonard with therattling bones.                        LEONARD            . . . bookcases there . . . there . . .            take some of these benches out . . .            maybe have a ramp over here . . .He's not exactly sure where everything is going to go, but he'sproud of it. Gesturing to the operating lamp hovering fromabove like a giant spider                      LEONARD            I'm going to get rid of this            thing.The thing is so unbelievably macabre they have to grimace.Another mover comes past dollying out old: operating equipment.                      MOVER 2            Excuse me, ma'am*                                                                     147.147.    OMITTED148.    INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                                  148.Mrs. Lowe, slowly pacing.        *             MRS. LOWE            He never talked about girls            before. He certainly never had            anything to d£ with them.She casts around trying to come to terms with it.                      MRS. LOWE            It's a bit ridiculous all this            girl business, don't you think? A            grown man like him?She looks to Sayer for confirmation.        Sayer manages a nod.                      MRS. LOWE            You know what he said? I should            take a vacation. I should go away            for a few days and "relax."                                       (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY      Pg.82                                        (continuity only)                                                                       148 148.CONT.              SAYER             Maybe you should.                   (she shoots him a                    look)             I'm sure he meant you deserve a             vacation. Which you do.                        MRS. LOWE          ^             I can't leave him alone in this             place. He'd die without me.Sayer "agrees" with a sympathetic nod, but suspects it is shewho would die if she left. She resumes pacing, and mutters toherself the bitter-tasting word:                           MRS. LOWE             Girls . . .149.   INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                 149.Sayer in bed, asleep with a book on his chest and hisindestructible reading glasses on his face. The phone rings.He groans and gropes for it, puts the receiver to his ear.                           SAYER               :             Hello?                       LEONARD'S VOICE             I think we should organize a             speaking tour.Sayer, more asleep than awake, can't be sure that what he'shearing, who he's hearing, is real.                           SAYER             Leonard?                                                                   i150.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - SAME TIME - NIGHT                  150.Leonard, wide awake, alone in the room. He's seated at Sayer'sdesk with Sayer's office phone to his ear.                       LEONARD             I think it's important. I think             it's important some things were             said.                       SAYER'S VOICE             What kind of things?                                            CONTINUED:                             LEONARD                   Things that matter. Things that                   have happened to me. Things I've                   cone to understand. Things.        151.   INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - CONTINUED - NIGHT                   151        Sayer is gradually coining to. He glances at his clock. It's        like three o'clock in the morning.                             SAYER                   Where are you calling from?                             LEONARD'S VOICE                   Your office.                             SAYER                      i                   It's very late, Leonard.                             LEONARD'S VOICE                   Is it?        Sayer nods to himself that it is. That fact and that Leonard        has apparently felt compelled to call him to discuss "things"        concerns him.                          :                            SAYER                  Stay there. I'm coming over.                              LEONARD'S VOICE                  Good.                          *        Dial tone. Sayer listens to it a moment before slowly setting        the receiver back on its cradle.        152.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - LATER - NIGHT                    152        Dressed haphazardly, hair messed up, eyes still a little        unfocussed, Sayer resembles more a patient than doctor. Clean        and alert, Leonard appears rather more "doctor-like."                          ;                                 N                            LEONARD                  Read a newspaper, people have                  forgotten what life is all about.                  They've forgotten what it is to be                  alive. They need to be reminded.                  They need to be reminded what they                  have, what they can lose, what I                  feel, this, the, the, the . . .<( ")        His mind seems to be racing ahead of his mouth's ability to                      LEONARD           . . . the joy, the freedom, the           spaciousness of life, the gift of           life. This is what they've           forgotten. This is what they need           to remember. This is what we'll           tell them.Leonard waits for a reaction to his idea, his "Gospel Accordingto L-Dopa" lecture tour. Sayer can manage only an uncertainnod.153.   INT . THE PHAR MACY - DA Y    >                            153.Amidst the thousands of bottles and jars of medicines, Sayerwonders out loud to Ray --                     SAYER           I don't know if it's liberation or           mania or love.                      RAY           With me?- I never know. ∑                      SAYER           What he says is absolutely true.           We don't really live.               . (pause)           Does that mean there's something           wrong with him or us?The balance of the pharmaceutical scale wavers like the swordof Damocles.                       SAYER & RAY           Us.                                                                  154.154.   OMITTED155.   OMITTED                                                    155.156.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - NIGHT                             156A night janitor with a cleaning cart peers into the darkenedroom at Leonard standing at a window looking out.                     JANITOR     .           Mr. Lowe?                (Leonard glances                 over)           Are you all right?                       LEONARD           Yeah.                                           REV. 12/12/89 (PINK)          Pg.85      156.CONT.                                     .               156.     The janitor wheels his cart back down the corridor. Leonard       stares back out the window, at what lies beyond the grounds of *       the hospital . . . the glittering lights of the Manhattan *     skyline.                                                                157-158.     157-158. OMITTED     159.   INT. BOARD ROOM - DAY                ,                            159.     Drifting slowly across the faces of the board members again,     and across Sayer -                            LEONARD O.S.                I ' m thankful to everyone in this                                  *                room . . . I was dead, and you                                      *                brought me back ...                                                 *     - and reaching Leonard, standing at the head of the table.                 *                           LEONARD               I ' m thankful, but what I need now               isn't here.                  .    .   .   .     Silence. And, eventually, since no one else asks it:                           KAUFMAN               Where is it?                      :                           LEONARD ∑                There.     Kaufman and Sayer and the others follow Leonard's gesture to *     the windows.                           KAUFMAN                                                                                    *                Mr. Lowe, I ' m sorry, I ' m afraid I                don't understand. What is it                                        *                you want now?                                                       *                           LEONARD                The simplest thing.                           KAUFMAN                      (somehow doubting it                       will be simple)                And what is that?                          LEONARD                I want to know that I'm free                to go for a walk, if I feel like                it. Like any normal person.     The board members glance among themselves.         They seem relieved.{V   That is a simple request.                                        REV. 12/12/89 (PINK)          Pg.8     159.CONT.             KAUFMAN                                    159.<D               You're free to go for a walk.                            LEONARD                 I am?                       (Kaufman's shrug says                        "of course")                 Alone?     Now there's a pause. And Leonard's hand makes a gesture to his *     face, to his brow. He ignores it (or is unaware of it).        *                           KAUFMAN                 What difference does that make?                            LEONARD                       (pause)                 I think you know.                           KAUFMAN                 I don't know. Tell me.                            LEONARD                       (right back)                 It makes all the difference.     He brushes at his brow again. Sayer studies him, or rather the     tic itself as it repeats.                           LEONARD          -                            *                 You didn't wake a thing, you woke                       *                 a person. I ' m a person.     ª                         *                            PSYCHIATRIST                 Mr. Lowe? I wonder . . . are you                 at all aware of the unconscious                 hostility you're exhibiting                 towards us right now?                                   *     Kaufman glances over to the psychiatrist, weary. The look on *     Leonard's face is complete innocence; and his tone completely *     without innuendo -                           LEONARD                 How could I be aware of something                 that's unconscious?              *     Sayer smiles to himself. So does Kaufman. The psychiatrist *     doesn't.                                                  **                            KAUFMAN                 I 'm curious . . . I can tell this is                 important to you but I ' m not sure                 why. What would you do if you                 went out?                                     REV.12/12/89 (PINK)            Pg.86A     159.CONT.               LEONARD                                  159.                 I don't know, what would you do                 if you were me?                             KAUFMAN                        (his patience                         straining)                 I ' m hot you. Enlighten me.                             LEONARD                 I ' d walk around. I ' d talk to                 people, I ' d look at things. I' d                 decide whether I wanted to go this                 way, or that way, or keep going                 straight. I ' d do the things you                 do everyday and take for granted.     Long silence. Then:                           KAUFMAN                 I'll tell you what, we'll take it                 under consideration. We'll let                 you know.                                                                      160.^   160.   INT. PATIENTS' CAFETERIA - DAY     Leonard at a table. Waiting. Sayer appears. Sits.                            LEONARD                 Yeah, I was aware of it.     ∑                       (the tic)                 I was nervous. It's nothing.                 What'd they say?                           SAYER                 They said it's a dangerous place                 out there. They said they can't                 be held responsible for what might                 happen to you out there. They                 said no.     Leonard nods, sips his coffee, seems to take the decision in     stride.                           LEONARD                 And what did you say?                           SAYER                 They don't have to listen to me.                           LEONARD                 Did you agree with them?                       SAYER                  (pause)           Yes.Leonard nods again, philosophically it seems.                       SAYER           I ' m not sure we're out of the           woods yet, Leonard. I'm not sure           this is nothing.                  (the tic)           I have to be sure you're well.           There'll be time enough -Leonard gets up out of his chair --                       LEONARD           Bye.-- and turns to leave.                     SAYER           Leonard ...Leonard ignores him and walks out --      :                                                                  161161.   INT. CORRIDOR - MOMENTS LATER - DAYLeonard striding down a corridor.    Sayer hurrying* after him.                     SAYER           Where are you going?                     LEONARD           For a walk.                        SAYER           Leonard . . .Leonard ignores him.                        SAYER           Leonard . . .Leonard disappears around a corner. Sayer veers off to ahospital phone and picks it up. Into it -                      SAYER           This is Dr. Sayer . . .                                      (REV. 11/22/89) CHERRY       Pg.8.8162.   INT. CORRIDORS / LOBBY - DAY                                  162.Faces of patients in wheelchairs blur as Leonard runs pastthem. In another corridor faces blur as orderlies rush pastthem. In another corridor faces blur as Sayer runs.Leonard reaches the lobby just ahead of the orderlies. Theytry to be gentle with him but when he fights to free himself itit gets out of control. Sayer appears.                     SAYER           Let go of him.The orderlies don't know what to do. They're just trying torestrain Leonard but he's making it almost impossible.                      SAYER           Leonard, stop fighting.He keeps fighting. He can see the outside through the glassdoors, so close, so far.                      SAYER           Let ao of him.                                      .They pull him back, away from the doors, into the corridor                         -wbehind them.         .163.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                                   163.                                                                            *Tight on Sayer, staring at the floor, despondent.                     MRS. LOWE O.S.           I don't understand it, he was           never any trouble before.Kaufman, too, is there, and Miss Costello. Kaufman watches            *Sayer.                     MRS. LOWE          He was quiet: and polite and          respectful. He never demanded          anything. He was never          disobedient.                    SAYER          He was catatonic, Mrs. Lowe.He seems to say it more for Kaufman's benefit; regardless, shedoesn't care for his tone.                    MRS. LOWE          I'm speaking of when he was a boy.                                          (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY        163.CONT.                SAYER                                        163fT~\                Of course.                               MRS. LOWE                          (to Kaufman)                    He was always nice-minded when he                    was a boy.                    ^       Kaufman nods, studies Sayer.                              MRS. LOWE                    I don't know who that is up there.                    I don't think he knows.                         (to Sayer)                    You've turned Leonard into                    something he is not.                                                                        ,. 164       164.   INT. WARD 5 STAIRWELL & CORRIDOR - DAY       Coming up a flight of stairs, 1930's music can be heard.          ,,       Reaching a caged landing the orderly escorting Sayer unlocks*       door, leads him along a short corridor to another door and       unlocks that one.  *    165.   INT. WARD 5 DAYROOM - CONTINUOUS - DAY                          165       An old black and white musical blaring from a television bolted       to the ceiling. Young male patients, subdued with Thorazine,       vacantly staring at it.                   >       Sayer comes in, finds Leonard in one of the chairs, and kneels       to gain some confidentiality. Leonard cranes slightly to see       around him, to see the television.                               SAYER                    This is a mistake. It's wrong                    and it's cruel and it should never                    have happened like this - but you                    have to understand - nothing quite                    like this has happened before, no                    one knows what to do . . . Leonard,                    please don't ignore me.       Leonard condescends a look to him. A moment and Sayer smiles       at a thought:                        ,                              SAYER                    I wish you could just walk out                    like that. I wish it were that                    simple.                                    (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY            Pgª9 165.CONT.                LEONARD           /                       165.                    is.                                               . Sayer's smile fades. Leonard glances back to the set. Tight  on the screen: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers dancing.                                                                    166.166.   EXT. BAINBRIDGE HOSPITAL - NIGHT *Light glows in only a few of the windows.In one, on the third floor, the examination room, a figure in        .*silhouette (Sayer), stares out.In another, on the fifth floor, a second figure in silhouette(Leonard), behind bars, slowly paces.166A. INT. WARD 5 DAYROOH - DAY                                  166A.The blaring TV again. Suddenly the picture goes dark.Leonard, who turned it off, climbs down off a chair and facesthe "somnambulant" men who were "watching."Moving along their chairs he considers each much as Sayerconsidered the post-encephalitic "garden of stone." Reaching one stretched out across three chairs, asleep, Leonard gently nudges him.                                         .                          LEONARD             Wake up.167-163. OMITTED                                                167-169169A-. INT. ELEVATOR & CORRIDOR                                 169A.The elevator door slides open revealing an orderly with several *trays of untouched food on a cart. Kaufman steps in and thedoor slides shut. Descending:                     ORDERLY          I guess they're not hungry.Kaufman nods distractedly, not really listening. The orderlybegins whistling a tune to himself. Kaufman glances over long-sufferingly, quieting him. The door slides open, and the youngman wheels the cart past Kaufman. Finally:                     ~                          KAUFMAN             Who?                          ORDERLY             Ward 5.The door slides shut.                                              (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY           , Pg(7~)   170.    OMITTED                                                       170        171.   INT. WARD 5 DAYROOM - DAY                                     171       Leonard paces before the entire Ward 5 population, gathered       like the blind and the sick under a revivalist's tent.                              LEONARD                   It isn't us that's defective,                   it's them. We're not in crisis,                   they are. We've been through the                   worst that can happen to a person                   and survived it. They haven't.                   They fear it. And they hide from                   their fear by hiding us, because                   they know, they know . . .       The men wa it for the rest, but L eonard loses his tra in of       t ho ugh t. F ru str at ed, h is t ics r es urf ac e and ela bor at e. H e       seems unaware of them. To one of the men:                             .                             LEONARD                  How long have you been here?            *                        (the man shrugs)                  You don't know? A month, a year?               .sj^                  (he doesn't know)(^7             Whv are you here?       He doesn't know that, either. To another patient:                            LEONARD                -                  How do you feel being locked up?                             WARD 5 PATIENT                   I don't like it.                            LEONARD                  You don't like it? Aren't you an                  animal?                            WARD 5 PATIENT                  I'm no animal.                            LEONARD                  Then why are you in a cage?       The man's getting agitated . . . they all are. Leonard stops       pacing, faces them, and almost whispers:                                LEONARD                  Anger . . .                                     REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)           Pg.9171.CONT.                                                             171.Silence ... and suddenly, loudly, exploding:                     LEONARD           That's what you feel ... anger!The men erupt in a burst of noisy approval; they cone alive.Tight on Kaufman on the other side of the "cage," watching.And, over the din -                      SAYER V.O.           He's lived for thirty years in           abjection and defeat . . .                                                                     172.172.   INT.' KAUFMAN'S OFFICE - NIGHTSayer and Kaufman alone in the room, arguing -                     SAYER           - He's lived for thirty years           without the ability to release his           anger -                     KAUFMAN           - So have the others -                     SAYER           I happen to think his behavior's                      .           more natural than theirs -                     KAUFMAN              t           Really - and his tics and           paranoia? They're more natural - ;                      SAYER           He's in that place.                     KAUFMAN           Oh, is that it -                     SAYER           We wake him up, then lock him up,                 ª           that's not "paranoia," that's a           fact.                     KAUFMAN           I've got 20 psychotics up there,           "doctor," refusing to eat. They           have no idea whv they're refusing           to eat. How long should I let           that go (on) -                      SAYER           He knows why, hs. wants out.                                              REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)       Pg.9CD   172.CONT.             KAUFMAN                                        172.                 Hell, so do I.     Kaufman suddenly looks weary, as if all his years in this place     have finally, at this moment, caught up with him. Eventually,     calmly, evenly -                            KAUFMAN                 Mr. Lowe is not the Messiah of                 Ward 5, he's a man in trouble. He                 wasn't "resurrected," he was                 administered a drug - by. you -                 that's fallen somewhat short of                 its "miraculous" reputation -                            SAYER      .                 The others are fine, they show no                 signs of -                           KAUFMAN                 He's been OQ it longer!     Sayer has no rejoinder. A silence before:                           KAUFMAN              .                  I sympathize with him. I've                  tried to accommodate him. But                       .                  I will not let him endanger the                 health of other patients.     He's resolute; it feels like a threat, or ultimatum. Trying t     remain calm, Sayer changes tacks -                           SAYER                 I'll talk to him, I'll      explain t he                 problem. He'll listen       to (m e) -                      (Kaufman has to                       laugh)                 Without the drug, he's    dead.     Th e sta teme nt do esn 't hav e qui te the p owe r Saye r may h av     hoped. At least not on Kaufman. His eyes seem to go dead . .     and then the slightest, slightest shrug.     173/174.    INT. WARD 5 DAYROOM - DAY                            173/174     Sayer enters the dayroom and is immediately intercepted by     three young male patients.                            SAYER                  Excuse me.                                    REV.12/13/89 (YELLOW)      Pg.93173/174CONT.                        (continuity only)       173/174.The patients stand their ground forming a kind of human barrierwhich Sayer cannot get past.                       SAYER          Excuse me.                    WARD 5 PATIENT          We can't allow it.Leonard, across the room, pacing slowly, glances over.                    LEONARD          He's all right.Leonard's "bodyguards" step aside. Sayer crosses to Leonardand is greeted in a tone precisely that of master to servant,very courteous yet unmistalcably condescending:                    LEONARD          How are you today?                    SAYER          I'm all right, how are you?                    LEONARD          Never better.A strange gesture, a tic, appears and repeats.                    SAYER          And these gentlemen?                                         ª                                        "CONTINUED:                                          (REV'.'11/22/89) CHERRY    Pg.9    173/174.CONT.       LEONARD                                     173/17               These gentlemen protect me.    I               wish I didn't need them.                       SAYER             Someone wants to hurt you?                   (no answer)             Who?    Leonard glances at Sayer with a slight knowing smile.                                                                       '.                                                                        .                       LEONARD             That's the thing, isn't it, you             never know who. Someone I least             expect, I expect. Look at             history.                       SAYER             Every patient in this ward thinks             there's a plot against him,             Leonard.                        LEONARD             Yeah, well they're mistaken,             they're crazy.                                    j                 ..                                                                           *    The smile that appears this time on Leonard's face is as insane    as anything Sayer's ever seen. He hesitates. Then:                       SAYER             Something's wrong.                        LEONARD             Hey, buddy.                                     .                       SAYER                                               *             The drug's not working. These are                             *             side-effects and they're consuming                            *             you, and if we don't do -                                     *                       LEONARD             Hey, I appreciate you coming to             see me, I have some things to do.Leonard abruptly extends his hand; it's a little twisted.              *Sayer doesn't so much shake the hand as hold onto it.                       SAYER           Look at yourself, Leonard.rLeonard tries to pull his hand away, but Sayer's grasp is               *stronger.                       SAYER             Look at yourself -                                     (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY          Pg.95 173/174.CONT.        LEONARD                                    173/174.                 (erupting)           Look at vou.Leonard yanks his hand free of Sayer's, and, in a torrent:                      LEONARD            *           Disease took mjs out of the           world, I fought to come back, I           failed for 30 years but at least I           fought, look at you.But Sayer is looking at him, moving back and forth against thebars on a window, panther-like. He retaliates:                      SAYER           The medicine can be taken away.                               .'           That can be done. You. can wake up                             "           in the morning and it won't be           there.The remarks seem to have no effect on Leonard. He seems not to 'have heard them. But as Sayer takes a step closer, Leonard, *without warning, lunges.                                        *Sayer stumbles back and his glasses fall to the floor. He . 'scrambles to his feet, leaving them, and backs away from     *                                                             *Leonard's bodyguards who are slowly coming toward.him.Orderlies get the cage unlocked and hustle Sayer out. As it *slams shut again, he glances back in at Leonard, and hardly *                                                       ,    *recognizes him.174A. EXT. SAYERªS HOUSE - NIGHT (ALREADY SHOT)                  174A.    *Beyond the porch windows, Sayer can be seen slowly pacing the *narrow width of his living room. Opera music blares           *and CONTINUES OVER:                                                   .*                       0                                                                          *175.   INT. WARD 5 - LATER - NIGHT                                175.Moving slowly past the sleeping forms of Ward 5 inhabitants.And reaching and settling on a bed that's empty.The opera music CONTINUES OVER:176.   INT. SAYER´S HOUSE - LATER - NIGHT                         176.The record spinning. And Sayer at his desk, just sitting, his"close work" glasses resting on a page of Ernst Heckle.                                                 (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY         Pg.            176.CONT.                                                           1/T~-\       The opera music CONTINUES OVER:                                     ∑            177. INT. WARD 5 - LATER - NIGHT                                  177            Test pattern on the television. Leonard, in a chair, blankly            staring. His eyes are drawn to something glimmering on the            floor across the room. Saver's shattered glasses.            The opera music CONTINUES OVER:        *            178.   INT. SAYER'S HOUSE - LATER - NIGHT (ALREADY SHOT)       178.            Alone in his room, perched on his bed, Sayer pathetically            cleans his remaining pairs- of glasses.            The opera music CONTINUES OVER:            178A. INT. WARD 5 - LATER - NIGHT                               178A.            The shards of the lenses layed out on a table.            Leonard picks one up, and, turning it over to consider it, sees             that it has already cut his finger.             He doesn't set it down.            178B. INT. STAIRWELL - DAWN                 ,                   178B.            A metallic dang interrupts the music and echoes into silence.            Footsteps. Sayer appears, and slowly climbs up through the            caged stairwell. He reaches a landing' and unlocks a door.            179.   INT. WARD 5 - MOMENTS LATER - DAWN                         179.            Sayer steps into room and quietly crosses it. He peers in at            sleeping figures, and at the one empty bed.                                LEONARD O.S.                      How are the others?            Sayer turns to the voice, to Leonard, a ticcing figure in            shadow hunched in a corner of the dayroom.                                 SAYER                      Scared.                                           (REV.11/22/89)CHERRY   Pg.                                            (continuity only)    179-.CONT.              LEONARD                                179                       (pause)                 They should be.                            SAYER                       (pause)                 They want you back. I want you                 back.                         *                                           CONTINUED:&                                         .REV. 12/5/89 (BLUE)       Pg.98 179.CONT.                                                           179.Leonard remains in the shadows.   Eventually -                    LEONARD          I want to be back.180.  INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY                                      180.                        i                           '*Sayer has called together the ward staff, the other patients,Kaufman and Ray.                      SAYER          He's aware of his appearance.          He's less concerned with it than          he is with the effect it may have           on the rest of us.                                       .He waits for the patients to acknowledge they understand. Theynod.                    SAYER          We'll be working with his dosage.          He's aware of this, too, and says          he's prepared for it. He wants us.          to be prepared for it.                      ANTHONY             :          Hey, Len.                                             .The patients glance away to the threshold of the room. MissCostello and Mrs. Lowe are escorting Leonard slowly in.Anthony comes over, shakes his hand.     ,                    ANTHONY          Welcome back.                      LEONARD          Thanks.The others come over, shake his hand and pat him on the back,             *but all a little too gently, too concerned, like he mightbreak. Leonard manages a smile.                     LEONARD          I' m all right.The others nod quickly in agreement. And the room falls into               *silence.                   LEONARD                       .         Only it's too quiet in here.                                             REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)         Pg.9     18OA.    INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - NIGHT                            18OA.CO   Anthony at the piano, playing, singing; the others echoing the     refrains -                            ANTHONY                  "You build me up, Buttercup,                           "                   Only to let me down ... "   v     It's like    a cocktail party - everybody dressed up, some     singing,    some milling around talking. Leonard tries to enjoy     it, too,    struggling to contain,, to hide from the others, the     tics that    are trying to "come out."                            LEONARD V.O.                 . . . I keep acquiring new ones like                 a junk collector . . .     181-182.    OMITTED                                            181-182.     183.    INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY                                 183.     Through the lens of the 8mm camera -     The blackboard. Chalked on it: LEONARD LOWE - 750 MGS.     In front of it, Leonard seated in a chair, his hands performing      repertoires of tics. He seems wholly unbothered by them.                            LEONARD (CONT'D)                 . . . some are new . . . some are      *                 elaborations . . . some are counter-                 tics. They don't bother me. What                 bothers me is that I know they                 shouldn't be there . . .     One of his hands makes a movement to his ear, to his pants, to     his ear again, like some bizarre genuflection.                             LEONARD                 This is new . . .                                                            ∑   '     1 8 4 . OMITTED                                                     184.     185.    INT. BATHROOM - DAY                                         185.     Alone in the bathroom, Leonard struggles to get toothpaste onto     a toothbrush with two tremoring "disobedient" hands. It's a     monumental struggle.     185A.   INT. PHARMACY - DAY                                        185A.     The counterweight of a pharmaceutical scale being slid by hand     from 750 to 500 mgs.                                        RE V. 12/ 5/ 8 9 ( B LUE)       Pg . 1186-188. OMITTED                                                    186-188.189.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - DAY          *                          189.The other patients at tables, painting.Leonard at another table, with the sketches of his library. On                                                                               *one showing the placement of tables and desks, he writes theletters, " F L O W " before getting "stuck."                        LEONARD V.O.                 (flat)          There's no sense of time. It's           like being caught between mirrors           . . . or echoes . . .Tight on his face, his eyes, transfixed.                     LEONARD V.O.            Something has to happen ...A cockroach runs across the paper and Leonard's eyes "wake up"and his hand finishes the word, " F L O W E R S "190.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY           .                          190.Sayer and Leonard watching film of him eating from a bowl ofsoup. The hand with the spoon freezes midway to his mouth.                     LEONARD (CONT'D)           It's not that it feels bad, it's,           nothing, I feel nothing. Like I'm           nothing. Like I ' m dead.191.   INT. PHARMACY - DAY                                              191.The counterweight sliding up from 500 to 625 mgs.                                                                       192. *192.   INT. OPERATING THEATRE - NIGHTThough the junk has been cleared and some of the railings                      *ripped out, the place is still grim, unpainted. Wood scraps                    *and workmen's tools lay around. There's a wheelchair ramp,                     *half-built, not yet in place.                                                  *                     LEONARD           I feel good when I ' m working. I           feel good in here.                                           ∑      * In this room. They're alone in it, he and Sayer, by a table- * saw that's cluttered with the original hospital blueprints and *Leonard's plans and notes.                                                         REV; 12/5/89 (BLUE).       Pg.lCD             192.CONT.              LEONARD                                       U 92 .                           The book list is coming along.                                       SAYER                           I ' d love to see it.                                       LEONARD                           It's here somewhere . . .               As he hunts for it amidst all the notes, his hands and head               begin shaking. The hands seize on some other papers and, hard               as he tries, he can't make himself let go of them. The pages               crumple.                                     SAYER                           It's all right, I'll see it some                           other -                                              i               He's interrupted as Leonard suddenly goes into an severe               oculogyric crisis, his head thrusting back -                                     LEONARD                           Get the camera get the camera get     ∑                     the camera get the camera -.f ' ´ >!ª '                    INT. OPERATING THEATRE - NIGHT                                  193.\S~P          ig2,               8mm film of Leonard, in a chair in the middle of the room              , where, thirty years earlier, patients had been filmed. His               head still back, his eyes darting, his mouth spitting out               words -                                     LEONARD (FILM)                          I-I-I-I-I--                                      SAYER O.S. (FILM)                           - I can't do this - I'm turning                           the camera off -                       ,                                      LEONARD                           No - no - no - no - watch - watch                           - watch - watch -                                      SAYER O.S. (FILM)                           - I have to help you -                                     LEONARD                           - learn - learn - learn - learn -                           learn - learn - learn -                                             REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)   . Pg.1193A.    INT. PHARMACY - DAY                                       193A.L-Dopa powder, falling like snow onto the scale; and thecounter-weight balancing precariously at 575 mgs.194.     INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - DAY   (WAS SC. 186)                194.The chalkboard: Name and dosage (575 MGS). And Leonard signingon it, clearly, without trouble, "Leonard Lowe."                      SAYER            Good.Leonard sits. He seems fine. Suddenly his hand jerks up andcatches the tennis ball Sayer has thrown.                      SAYER            Good.The ball, without warning, comes back. Sayer lunges at it, butmisses. It hits his wrist and rolls across the floor.                       SAYER            Well, I wasn't ready, was I. Leonard smiles. Sayer smiles. They're both so relieved, they can hardly believe it. It seems they're out of the woods, thatthey've found the "middle ground."Tight on Leonard's pharmaceutical chart on the desk. Sayer'shand comes in and boldly underlines the, dosage - 575 MGS.195.    INT. LEONARD'S WARD - DAY                                   195.Leonard buttons his shirt, then picks up the bow tie he alwayswears when he's seeing Paula. He looks well, he feels good,the only sign of illness some fine motor skill trouble.                     MRS. LOWE                      .           Here, let me.                     LEONARD           No, I can do it.She watches him try to get the tie on by himself, and castsaround, feeling, perhaps, without a purpose. Eventually, moreto herself than to him:                      MRS. LOWE           What you see in that girl . . .                 (she trails off)           I don't get it.                                                   REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)   Pg.10     195.CONT.              LEONARD                                     195.(D                     (to himself)                 She's normal.                             MRS. LOWE                 What?                       (no answer)                 You're not talking to yourself*                 again.                             LEONARD                 Yeah.                           MRS. LOWE                 You shouldn't do that, you know.                             LEONARD                 I know.     She watches him struggle with the tie a moment more. Finally,        *     she can't bear it any longer, and reaches to do it for him.          *                           MRS. LOWE                 You're taking forever, it's hard                              *                 to watch. .   -.                                              *                             LEONARD                  I can get it.                                                *                            MRS. LOWE                                                                               *                 No, you can't.                                                       >      ∑                           LEONARD                 I can, get away from me.              .,                      *     He pushes her hand away and turns his back to her. She can't         *     believe it. Silence. Then, to herself, in a murmur -                      *                             MRS. LOWE                 . . . thirty years . . . for what . . .                       *                 thirty years . . . gone . . .                                 *     The tie comes off in Leonard's hand, which begins shaking            *     uncontrollably. JUMP CUT TO:     196.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - LATER - DAY                        196.     The trembling has escalated into a full-blown crisis. The     staff and other patients can't ignore this one. Sayer wedges     past them and into the room, and crosses quickly to Leonard and     his mother, both hysterical. All trying to speak at once:            *                           SAYER                 What happened?                                                   REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)                       Pg.1       196.CONT.                LEONARD                                                    196.                     . . . I'm ungrateful . . . I'm                   ungrateful . . .                              MRS. LOWE                   I said a terrible thing . . .                               LEONARD                   ... she, she, she, she ...      Hi s a rm lash es out , s end ing the mo del of the li bra ry cra shin g               *      to the floor.                              SAYER                         (to Mrs. Lowe)                   What happened?                                LEONARD                   ... she devoted her life to me . . .                   she'd have a life if it weren't                                     p-                   for me . . .                               MRS. LOWE                   . . . I said the most terrible                   thing . . .                                LEONARD                   . . . I ' m ungrateful . . . I'm                   ungrateful . . .                               >      Hi s m othe r t rie s t o c omfo rt him , t o h old him , t ear s c omin g t o         *      her eyes, too.                                LEONARD                   I'm sorry . . . I'm so sorry . . .                                MRS. LOWE                   I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . .      F ran k, kne eli ng t o t he flo or, gat her s t he pie ces of the br oke n            *      library model.      196A.   (NOW SC. 196C)                                                               196A.      196B.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - LATER - DAY                                         196B.      Moving slowly ac ross Jose f's work t able wher e he and F rank are .                   *      rebuilding the library model.                              LUCY'S VOICE,,                 There's a song at twilight                                          ,6                       When the lights are low  J                                                 REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)                                                                Pg.10       196B.CONT.                                               196B.       H er voice C ONTINUES t he verse O VER: Rose, her sad stra nge       china doll face.                           ROSE                 You'd never know it now, but I                 used to be so pretty, Dr. Sayer,                 even you would've thought so.                           SAYER                 I do think so.       She shakes her head 'no.1   She knows what she looks like.                           MAGDA O.S.                 What if he's just had enough                 of it?       Sayer glances to Magda, nearby with a group of other patients,       some of them looking off toward the sunroom where Leonard,       alone, at a window, stares out.                           FRANCIS                 What if it's just a matter of                 time for all of us?                             SAYER                                               :                 There's no reason to think                 any of this will happen to you.                 You're individuals. And you're                 all well.                       (pause)                 Aren't you?       Most nod, but it's without great conviction.                            BERT                 He's the strongest of us.       Close on Lucy/ across the room with Miss Costello, finishing       the song:                            LUCY                 Comes love's old song                    Comes love's old sweet song . . .       Her voice trails into silence.                            MISS COSTELLO                 That was lovely.                  '.                           LUCY ,               I learned that song a long, long(\_y             time ago.                                                     REV .12/5 /89 ( BLUE )          Pg.1     196B.CONT.                                                                       196o    Sh e gla nc es ac ro ss to t he su nro om , to Le ona rd , sti ll at t he    w in do w, u na wa re , or s o i t se em s, o f he r an d th e o th er s.                              LUCY                I know what year it is . .      .                I ju st ca n' t i ma gin e be i ng o lde r                th an tw e nt y- t wo , I h a veno                e xper ience at i t.                       (pause)                I know it's not 1926 . . .         I just                need it to be.    196C . I NT. PH ARM ACY - N IGH T                                                196C    Drifting across Leonard's dosage schedules, minute milligram    changes leading to vanishing point of health, across the scale,-    with nothing on it, and reaching, finally, Sayer, alone in the    room, surrounded by racks of medicine and no solution.                                                                              They    He glances up. Mrs. Lowe has appeared in the doorway,    consider each other for a long moment before:                           MRS. LOWE                When my son was born healthy,                I never asked why. Why was I sp                lucky, what did I do to deserve                this perfect child, this                perfect life? -    Silence. Her face toughens.                          MRS. LOWE                But when he got sick, you can bet                I asked why. I demanded to know                why. Why was this happening?    Silence. Then with an almost philosophical shrug:                         MRS. LOWE               There was nothing I could do               about it. There was no one I               could go to and say, "Stop this,               please stop this, can't you see               my son is in pain?"                         SAYER               He's fighting, Mrs -                         MRS. LOWE               He's losing.o                                         REV.12/5/89 (BLUE)   Pg.196C.CONT.                                                196C.Sayer almost recoils, as if from a slap. Silence. Then:          *                       MRS. LOWE           The truth is . . . I wouldn't mind           if he lost . . .                  (long pause)           I know you can't understand how I           could say such a thing . . .   <KThe look that crosses her face holds him responsible for all               *that has happened. In a tone that condemns him for it -                    *                     MRS. LOWE           But we were happy before.197.   INT. LEONARD'S DAYROOM - NIGHT                                    197.Leonard, alone at a table with a book. He glances up as Sayersits opposite him, then down again at the book.                      LEONARD           I can't read anymore. The words           are written too slow. I keep           going back to the beginning, to           the beginning, and trying . . .He turns back to the beginning, tries      again, his eyes movingtoo quickly across the lines, "ahead"      of the words. His handsand head begin shaking out of control      and it' s' all he can do toclose the book.                     LEONARD          I've let the others down.                      SAYER         ∑ You have not.                   ( LEONARD          I've let you down.                     SAYER          You have not.                       LEONARD          I'm grotesque . . . grotesque . . .          grotesque . . .                    SAYER          Leonard, I won't sit here and          listen to you talk about yourself          like this --                    LEONARD          Look at me.                                                REV.1,2/5/89 (BLUE)       Pg.lO7         ,\          -                                                      ∑                     19 7.^      197.CONT.       He is a man consumed by illness. With a voice that is flat and\f) w*    limbs that are bent and hands that are twisted and a grimace         that can only hint at the great depth of the despair he is         suffering.                             LEONARD                   Look at me and tell me I am not.                              SAYER                   You are not.        It's over and Leonard knows it. And though he won't admit it,        so does Sayer. Leonard barely gets the words out -ª-                                LEONARD                   This . . . isn't . . . me.        198.   INT. BATHROOM - MORNING                                     198.        Standing before a mirror above a sink, Leonard struggles to        part his hair straight. He's wearing his best clothes, those        he wears when he's seeing Paula, but they seem to drape        awkwardly.        199.   INT. PATIENTS' CAFETERIA - DAY                             199.        He may not have looked like a patient when Paula first met him,        but he does now. It's all she can do to not break down in        front of him.                               >                                                 CONTINUED:                                                         REV. 10/2/89                            PAULA               .. I worked . . . I had friends(p             over . . . I went dancing . . . that's               about it . . .     Leonard, ticcing, nods, smiles through his grimace, imagining     those things.                         PAULA               I know, I should do something with                my life.          ∑                          LEONARD               Like what? Those are great               things. I've never done any of               those things.                           PAULA               You will.     Leonard shakes his nead 'no.'                          LEONARD               They'll never let me out of this               place. They shouldn't.     They consider each other for several moments -- the one, young      and healthy; the other, old and ill.                         LEONARD               I'm not well. I feel well inside               when I see you. I wish you could               see what's inside. Instead of               this.                          PAULA               I can see it.     Silence. As much as Leonard wants to say "I love you," he     knows he cannot, that it would be ludicrous. Instead:                           LEONARD               Goodbye.                          ∑     He ho lds out o ne of his sh aking han ds to her. S he reach es to     it, places her hand on it, holds it, and the shaking slowly,     slowly, slowly begins to subside.     She lifts him gently out of his wheelchair and leads him away    *     from the table. She arranges his arms in such a way that he is     sort of holding her and begins to slowly dance with him.                                                                        (REV. 10/16/89) Pink p. 10      199. CONT.                                                 .                             199.     Some patients glance      up from their       food.        Ser   vers glance upCO   f rom their work . All     watc h wi th a    sort o    f    re   verie the coup le     dancing without music     . They watch        as Leo   n   ard   's tics gradually     disappear. They watc      h as he finds      a sens    e    of    grace and ease,     as he borrows her gra     ce and ease.        They w   a   tch    him become,     simply, a man dancing      with a woman     .     From somewhere, perhaps imagined, there is music, a quiet     melody played on a piano.     200.   INT.* DAYROOM - SAME DAY                                                          200     Rolando's hands on the keys of the piano, playing the melody.     (NOTE: Hay want to shoot front end of this scene again without     Rol ando to l eave op en the opt ion of usi ng the sam e s core Ra ndy     writes for Lucy's walk to the window - SC. 51.)     L eonar d, r eturn ing f rom t he ca fete ria, walks slow ly in to t he                   *     room. He's bent, his arms at strange angles like the limbs of     a diseased tree, his legs managing each step only with great     concentration.     He nears the center of the room, the area of inconsistent tiles     which Sayer and Miss Costello long ago conformed with shoe      polish. Some of the black has worn off, and as Leonard reaches                            *      i t, h e f in ds hi ms elf t hro wn b y t he ir re gu lar it y. He t rie s to             *      step over to "the other side,11 but his feet or legs or mind     will not do it.     Everyone in the room except Rolando becomes acutely aware of     the problem, of the struggle, of Leonard fighting with all his     will, and nothing but it, to "cross over."     H e-cro sses the "barr ier." And, wit h sur er bu t sti ll di ffic ult     steps, passes -the drinking fountain.     Tig ht o n th e wi ndow . Le onar d res ts h is gn arle d ha nd on the     frame as he p eers down at Paula wal king away from the hosp ital.     She glances back briefly before disappearing around a corner.     Rolando's musdc CONTINUES OVER:     201.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - NIGHT                                                     201.     The original 8mm film of Leonard, h'is eyes alert, his hands     exploring the microphone.                                       .                  ∑ ,, >"∑>;> ' ∑ ∑                           ∑.'∑∑∑':'∑∑."∑∑                      . . LEONARD (FILM)                        ∑                 NOW?      ∑       .∑∑                                                  ∑v : .                                                                                          ...                          ∑ .. ∑ '                                       ∑   *          ∑..∑                                                                                         .  .' '                        .f     SAYER S VOICE (FILM)                                     '                          .            "       ;:                                                                                      "'∑ :                 Whenever youfre ready.                                          .        ;                                                                         OQ                            L EONARD (FILM )      .(T~^\             My name is Leonard Lowe. It has                  been explained to me that I have                  been away for quite some time.        Tight on Sayer,- alone in the darkened room, watching the        footage, watching Leonard wrestling with the thought.                              LEONARD (FILM)                  I'm back.        Light moves across the screen. Someone has entered. Miss        Costello. She exchanges a long glance with Sayer before they        both look back to the screen.                            LEONARD (FILM)                  I thought it was a dream at first.        Silence except for the sound of the projector.   Then -                            SAYER'S VOICE (FILM)                  When did you realize it wasn't?        Leonard thinks back, trying to recall the exact moment he        realized he was "alive.n Finally --                            LEONARD (FILM)                  When I spoke and you understood                  me.        One tear snakes down Saver's cheek. The film cuts to silent        footage of Leonard, soon after his awakening, combing his hair        and delighting in the fact that he cjan comb it.        Quietly, without looking at Miss Costello --                            SAYER                  You told him I was a kind man ...                       (long pause)                  It's kind to give life only to                  take it away?        There is self-loathing in his voice. On the screen, Leonard's        trying to operate an electric shaver that seems alive.                             MISS COSTELLO                  It's given and taken away from                  all of us.        On screen, Leonard buttons buttons on his shirt and glances up        smiling, proud. Tight on sayer in the dark room, the projector        light flickering behind him. More to himself --                            SAYER                  Why doesn't that comfort me?                                                                                              3                     MISS COSTELLO                (quietly)          Because you are kind.                (pause)          And because he's your friend.On screen, Leonard is beckoning to someone unseen. No oneappears but he keeps beckoning. Finally Sayer, embarrassed andcamera shy, appears. Though there is no sound, it is clear heasks, "What?" Leonard turns the doctor so that he is facingthe camera, and points. Sayer again asks, "What?" "There,"Leonard says. "Where?" Sayer demands. Finally, Sayerlooks directly, curiously, into the camera.Rolando's music CONTINUES OVER:                                           )202.    INT. DAYROOM - NIGHT                                                                 20Through a window, autumn leaves on trees.And the school yard beyond the field, quiet, deserted.Pulling back, panes of glass. Across the walls of the dayroom.Drawings and water colors, of people and: places.To the arm of the metronome slapping back and forth.And a twisted hand, a pen grasped awkwardly in it, writingexcruciatingly slowly, and just barely legibly:              & ´ ´ * c # * * * O ª * * r i ' ´ ´ * A ∑ * ∑ x\ ∑ ∑ ∑Th e ha nd , an d th e mu si c, un fi ni sh ed , st op .T he han d i s s till , t he arm is sti ll, th e h ead is sti ll,L eo na rd 's e ye s ar e "s ti ll . "O nl y th e me tr on om e mo v es , ge nt ly s la pp in g.D r if t in g s lo w ly a w ay fr om Le o na rd , h i s fa c e, hi s b od y , hi sbe in g, "a sl e ep " . . . ac r os s t he e mp t y ro o m . . . a n d sl ow l y to w ar dthe window . . ... . w he re it is no w s no win g . . .         v,                          ∑                                              . . . long sil ence bef ore . . .                                                                           O                              LEONARD O.S.                                                                           */T\                It's winter.         His voice is flat, inflectionless. His eyes, with little life         behind them, staring at the falling snow. He's in a         wheelchair.                                SAYER O.S.                   Yes.                             LEONARD                   Am I speaking?                                SAYER O.S.                   Yes.         Leonard's eyes drift to a chair, his mother's chair, the one         she has used for thirty years. It's empty.                             SAYER O.S.                   Your mother is well. She's home.                   She visits you on Sundays.         Leonard slowly nods.    Somehow he knows that.                             LEONARD                :f ~^               She's living her own life.                             SAYER O.S.                     ,                   She's trying to.         Leonard's eyes drift again, across to silent ghost-like figures         in wheelchairs, the post-encephalitics, all of them, "asleep"         again.                             SAYER O.S.                   They fought, as you did, with                   great courage. They were strong.         Leonard looks down at his hands and feels one with the other.         He looks back at the "sleeping" patients, not comprehending why         they cannot do the same.                             LEONARD                   I'm stronger?         Sayer is finally revealed seated beside him. He doesn't         answer. Leonard's hands slowly reach to his face and feel its         features.                             LEONARD    ,x             I'm here, aren't I?&    His glance finds the tray beside Sayer, the paper medicine cup     and empty juice cup on it. He must be back on the medication     again. He looks back to Sayer, who's looking toward the    window, to the falling snow. Eventually -                         SAYER               Do you think you can walk?i    203.   INT. CORRIDOR - DAY                                          203    A doctor in a lab coat, one Sayer long ago imparted his "will    of the ball" theory to, emerges from a ward.                            FERNANDO O.S.               Dr. Tyler?    The doctor turns.    Fernando is walking toward him.                         FERNANDO               You got a minute?                         DR. TYLER                    (not really)               What is it?Fernando arrives, leans against the corridor wall, and sort ofmumbles --∑                          FERNANDO               You know that woman in Ward 7 . . .               Grace, uh ... what's her last name               ... Grace ...                          DR. TYLER                    (annoyed)               Does it matter, Fernando?Sayer and Leonard walk slowly past, behind Tyler.          Fernando'seyes briefly meet Sayer's.                           FERNANDO               . . . no . . . I guess not . . .204.       INT. ANOTHER CORRIDOR, - DAY                                 204Another doctor emerges from another ward.                       ∑                                                *                     MARGARET O.S.          Dr. Sullivan?                     DR. SULLIVAN                (turning)          Yeah?                                              REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)             Pg.114                                                                                   204            204 CONT.            Sayer and Leonard approach. Margaret has positioned herself,            like Anthony, against the wall, and, pointing out something on            a clipboard to Dr. Sullivan, glances up briefly as Sayer and    T~^\(   i--J   Leonard pass.            205.   INT. CORRIDOR / LOBBY - DAY                                    205.           Sayer and Leonard approaching the lobby. As they enter, the           switchboard operator glances up, notices them, and glances back           down without a word.           They approach the front doors.      They are almost there.   From           behind them, loudly --                                 MISS COSTELLO O.S.                       Dr. Kaufman?                                    KAUFMAN O.S.                       Dr. Sayer?           Sayer and Leonard stop just short of the doors. They glance           back and see- Kaufman -and,v-several* steps .behind..him, looking           distraught, Miss Costello. She has failed.                                    SAYER                       Yes?           The two doctors stare at one another for several moments.           Clearly Kaufman knows what is happening. Clearly Sayer knows           he knows. Eventually --                                 KAUFMAN               ,                       Put a coat on him for Christ's                       sake.                          ∑           He turns around, walks past Miss Costello and down the corridor-           from which he came. Miss Costello relaxes, turns around and           walks away down the corridor.           Sayer and Leonard turn and walk outside.           206.    INT. DAYROOM - SAME TIME - DAY                                 206.           Though Rolando is not playing, cannot play, the piano, he can           hear it, distant, like an echo, as a nurse wheels him toward           the windows. Other nurses and orderlies are wheeling Rose,           Frank, Bert, and Lucy and the others there. Sidney is wheeling           Lolly.           They all "peer" out. They all "see" down below, standing           across the street, Sayer and Leonard.                                         REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)       Pg.115                                                                        207     207.   EXT. BAINBRIDGE - SAME TIME - DAYCO   Sayer drapes his coat around Leonard. Neither speaks.     Neither quite knows what to say. Eventually, Sayer holds out a     hand for Leonard to shake. Leonard stares at it for a long     moment, then awkwardly embraces Sayer.     208.   INT. DAYROOM - SAME TIME - DAY                              208     The others "watch" Sayer cross back to the hospital. They     "watch" Leonard staring after him. He glances down the street,     Leonard, glances down the street the other way. He seems     uncertain which way to go . . .     He walks away.     209.   INT. SUBWAY - EVENING                                       209     Rhythmic pounding.   Metal wheels over metal tracks.     Leonard feels things.inside his coat pockets. He,pulls from     one several capsules of L-Dopa in a clear plastic bag; and from     the other, a wad of money wrapped in paper on which is typed     his name and "Bainbridge Hospital, Bronx." He stuffs it     all back into his pocket and glances up. :      The train is crowded. Everyone seems to be hiding behind a     newspaper or the veil of a glazed look; everyone but Leonard     and the eleven year old boy seated next to him with his mother.     They're taking everything in, Leonard and1 the boy - the rumbl     of the train, the overhead lights flashing off and on again,     the mounting excitement they both feel.     The boy glances up at Leonard, and, like a secret -                          BOY ON TRAIN                     (a whisper)                We're going to the city.                           LEONARD .                      (a whisper back)           .                Me, too.                                        '     210.   INT. SUBWAY STATION - N.Y. - NIGHT                          210     Underground tunnels. People climbing stairs. Leonard climbing     with them. Under exposed pipes and ducts. Along passageways.     Through an exit turnstile. Up more stairs. And finally -                                      REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)              Pg.116                                        (continuity only)        211.    EXT. NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT                                 2 1..                                                                            1        Leonard, emerging from down below, reaches the street. People        jostle past him but he doesn't move. He stares in wonder at        what lies before him . . . lights, skyscrapers, Christmas        decorations, taxis, noise, people . . . life.        211A.   INT. EXAMINATION ROOM - SAME TIME - NIGHT                211A.        An oppressive silence. The oppressive institutional room.        Sayer, alone in it, at his desk in the corner.                              MISS COSTELLO O.S.                    Good night.        Sayer glances up, sees Miss Costello in the doorway to the        corridor.                              SAYER                    Good night.    i        She leaves. He-stays. iPuts.a -folder in.a.drawer* Straightens        things on the desk. Looks for something more to do. Clearly        there's nothing more to do.        He gets up. Wanders slowly around the room. Past the medical         instruments in the glass cases, the tripod and projector, along         tne waii covered with taped and tacked data, notes, Polaroids.        Buried in it he sees Leonard's original perception test, and        alongside it, the first Polaroid of him . . .        Sayer abruptly moves to the window, yanks at it, but it's        jammed shut again. Below he can see Miss Costello crossing        toward her car. He fights with the window, finally frees it,        slides it open and yells out loudly -                               SAYER                    Eleanor.        She turns to the voice. He turns from the window.        Tight on the glasses left on his desk.        211B.   EXT. PARKING LOT, BAINBRIDGE - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHT    211B.        He hurries out of the building and across the lot. Winded, he        reaches her.                             MISS COSTELLO                   What's wrong?Q                                                 R EV. 12/ 15/ 89 (GRE EN)           Pg.1 17        211B.C0NT.                                                                         211        He h old s h is han d up wh ile he tr ies to cat ch his bre ath . She        s ta re s a t him , co nce rn ed pe rh aps s ome th in g h as ha pp en ed to        Leonard.                                      SAYER                     Nothing ...                             (he casts around)                     No , I was wo nde rin g . .. W hat ar e                     y o u d o i n g ? Y o u pr o b a b l y h a v e                     plans . . . or . . .                                 M ISS C OSTE LLO                     No, I ' m just -                                SA YER                     Because I was wondering . . .                     m aybe ... you h ave n o pla ns .. .?                                MIS S COS TELL O                     I ha ve no -                                  S AY ER                     Because -I -was -wondering, ..maybe . . .           .                     you'd . . . we . . . could . . .                            (grasping for an                             idea)                     I do n' t kn ow , go g et a c up    .                     o f cof fee somew here ... t ogeth er                     ∑ ∑ ∑ or ∑∑∑        O r wh at - s ep er at el y? H e t ra il s of f, p er ha ps w is h in g he        h adn't com e out at a ll.                                SAYER                     ... Maybe we could just . . . go                     for a walk ... ?        He shrugs. That's the best he can do. A slow, slow smile        crosses her face.                                MISS COSTELLO                     I 'd be delighted.        212.   EXT. NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT                                            .    212.        A mechanical dog crosses Leonard's path wagging its tail.        Unlike everyone else, he stops to admire it. He's enchanted by        it. He smiles at the peddler and the "litter of pups" moving        around his feet.                               LEONARD,                    They're so life-like.    (                                    REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)        Pg.118212.CONT.             PEDDLER                                      212.            And only five bucks, can you            believe it?213.   INT/EXT. TAXI/STREETS - NIGHT                               213.In the back of a taxi, Leonard stares out the window,mesmerized by all he sees. The driver glances back in the rearview mirror.                      HECTOR            How 'bout those Jets?Leonard glances at the rear view mirror and finds in it thedriver's eyes.                       LEONARD            I like them.Leonard glances out the window, a little puzzled, to the sky,to see if there's one flying overhead.                       HECTOR            Broadway Joe.The driver glances back to see what Leonard thinks of that.              *Leonard nods uncertainly.                         LEONARD            Yeah.As they rattle along, Leonard peers back but the window atthings going by, and absently pets the mechanical dog in hislap. Eventually -                      HECTOR            You∑re not from here.                      LEONARD            I am. I was born here.     But.I've            been away a long time.                         HECTOR            Where?                         LEONARD            The Bronx.Hector has to laugh, but it's cut short by the blare of his *horn as he slams it in response to another cab sliding into his *lane.214-217.    OMITTED                                            214-217.                              REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)             Pg.119218.   INT/EXT. TAXI/STREET - NEW YORK - NIGHT                     218.The meter clicks over and into double digits.    The taxi isparked across the street from a diner.                     HECTOR           I don't mind sitting here if you           don't, but to what end are we           sitting here?Leonard watches a waitress in the diner, Paula, chatting withsome young customers. His hand moves to and onto the car doorhandle, but then hesitates opening it. Paula is getting hercoat and leaving with her friends. They have ice skates.                                                                   219.219.   EXT. ROCKEFELLER CENTER - NIGHTPrometheus stealing fire from heaven, dwarfed by the Christmastree that towers over him. Figures glide past the statue.Skaters on the ice rink.It's magical.- At *least´ as-seen, through .Leonard's eyes. Fromthe promenade he watches the skaters gliding gracefully overthe ice. Hector appears at his side.                      HECTOR                 :           I ' m sorry to bother you, Len, I           just thought you should know this           is adding up, you know?Without taking his eyes from the skaters below, Leonard digsinto his coat pocket and hands Hector a clump of money,hundreds of dollars. Embarrassed -                     HECTOR           I didn't mean that, just -                      LEONARD           I don't need it, you keep it.Hector puts the money back in Leonard's coat. Leonard findsPaula among the skaters, isolates her from them, and watchesher glide around the rink. A fine mist of snow is falling,veiling her.                    HECTOR          Beautiful, isn't it.                    LEONARD          Unforgettable.                                               REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)        Pg.120           219.CONT.                                                         219´ ^       A blur of faces, of people on the promenade, from Paula's/'"~J~      perspective. Though it is impossible, she thinks for a momentWj       she sees Leonard's among them. She arcs and glances back up           again, but the man who resembled Leonard is gone.           220.   INT. TAXI - NIGHT                                          220.           The cab rattling down another street.                                LEONARD                      You have children, Hector?           Hector takes a photograph from his chauffeur's permit plate and           hands it back. A boy, five, healthy and happy.                                 LEONARD                      He's lovely.                                HECTOR                      I thank God for him every day.                      Every single day.           Leonard begins to weep softly. Once Hector notices, he slows           the car, pulls to the curb, and studies Leonard in the rear           view mirror. Has this man lost a child? The taxi engine          idles.                                     :r--                          '    ,\%           221.   EXT. NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT                                 221.           The cab, empty, parked in front of an apartment building in a           working class neighborhood.           222.   INT. HECTOR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                             222           The mechanical dog on a bathroom sink. Leonard staring at his           reflection in a mirror. And at his hands. It's happening.           He's falling apart.          HALLWAY. Leonard at a bedroom door. Peering in at Hector's          sleeping son. He steps quietly into the room and places the          mechanical dog on the pillow beside the boy's head.          THE LIVING ROOM. A small Christmas tree. Hector and his wife          sitting on cheap furniture with cups of egg nog. Leonard          emerges from the hallway.                                  '                *                               LEONARD                    I have to be leaving.                          (having trouble with                            the words)                     I want to th-ank you. You've been                     very kind to me.                               REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)               Pg.121222.CONT.                                         .           .     222.Hector and his wife are both thinking the same thing:      thisman's not well and they shouldn't let him go.                    HECTOR          Leave? You're our guest, we got          dinner coming. We're having          something to eat.His wife agrees with a couple of words in Spanish as she gets              *up and crosses toward the kitchen.    .                     HECTOR          Stay with us.                     LEONARD          I can't.And he can't explain why. He takes the crumpled wad of money               *(and paper) from his coat pocket and tries to give it to Hectoragain.                     HECTOR          Hey -                     LEONARD          It has no value to me, believe    ;          me.                    HECTOR          I don't want it.                    LEONARD          It's for your son. It's for him.Hector doesn't take it but doesn't say anything more about itwhen Leonard sets it down on the coffee table.                    HECTOR          At least let me give you a lift          wherever you're going.                     LEONARD          No, I think I ' d like to walk.       .                (to Hector's wife)          Thank you.She nods, Your welcome, from the doorway of the kitchen.Leonard offers his hand to Hector to shake.                    HECTOR          What's wrong with you, Len?                                    REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)    Pg.122222.CONT.              LEONARD                                       222                  (pause)            This is good, what you've got            here.                       HECTOR            I know that.Leonard smiles; the man does know it, and appreciates it.                       LEONARD            Bye.223.    EXT. NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT                                 223.Descending from a fire escape strung with a single strandof Christmas lights . . . down to the street below, to Leonard,moving along the sidewalk, noticing:A young couple, bundled up, hurrying down the stairs of abasement apartment, fumbling with keys;A Christmas tree too large for the doorway of an anotherapartment across the street, being tugged at by someone inside,unseen. >Leonard smiles. His gait and tics, and especially the smile,make him look insane. He passes a shop window with very simpleornamentation as the proprietor inside switches out the lights,and continues on, and into the darkness of the street ahead.224.    EXT. EAST RIVER - NIGHT                    -               224.Black water. The river. The drone of engines and syncopatedrhythms of wheels of unseen cars.Leonard, at the river's edge, stares into the water. His handcomes out of his pocket holding the bag of L-Dopa capsules, andhe lets it fall in. It floats for a moment before a force frombelow, like a hand, pulls it under.224A.   EXT. EAST RIVER - DAWN                                    224A.Leonard on a bench. Behind him, across an empty field, bumshuddled over a barrel fire warming their hands.                       SAYER O.S.            Leonard?Sayer's face appears against a pastel dawn sky. Leonard glances up at him. Behind them, in the distance, Hector stands outside his parked cab. Sayer sits. Long silence . . .                                                  REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)   Pg.123                                                   (continuity only)        224A.CONT.                 SAYER                                    224A.                     I' m sorry.                                   LEONARD                     What for?        He smiles crookedly, then looks out across the water again.                                LEONARD                     Isn't that something . . .        Sayer looks out. The morning colors are mirroring off the        water like paint on glass. They both watch. The colors are        deepening right before their eyes. Long, long silence        before . . .                               LEONARD                     Can you take me home?        Sayer helps him up. And as they move slowly toward the waiting        taxi. Hector opens the rear door. The only sound is the hiss        of tires, the -rhythm of wheels, .until -                               LEONARD V.O.                     When I was a boy I felt myself                     being carried away by illness like                     a swimmer sucked out by the tide.        Drifting slowly out across the water and the Brooklyn Bridge        stretching out across it.                                 LEONARD V.O.                      I feel it again, only this time                     I've been somewhere. I vent to a                J                     place and felt things I never                     dreamed of. I went to a place and                      felt hope and fear and hatred and                      love, I glimpsed life . . .        225.   INT. LEONARD'S LIBRARY - BAINBRIDGE - DAY                    225.        Drifting slowly across the faces of patients reading in        Leonard's library, and settling finally tight on him, "asleep."                               LEONARD V.O.                     It's good, life.        Spines of books on shelves lining the walls. And Paula's face,        considering the titles. [--\                           SAYER O.S.;( __  lJ                 I t doesn't matter wh ich one.   '                 They'r e all his favorites .r                                              REV.12/15/89 (GREEN)      Pg.124                                               (continuity only)            225.CONT.                                                      225           She pulls one of the books down at random and crosses the     ,           library with Sayer, passing patients - including the woman with           multiple sclerosis - readiny at tables with flowers on them.                                SAYER O.S.                     Leonard?           He's in a wheelchair, behind an oak desk on which rests, among           other things, the Ouija board. His eyes open but do not appear           to comprehend the doctor's presence or his surroundings. His           expression is absolutely "expressionless."                                SAYER                     I ' m sorry to wake you, but there's                     someone here to see you.           Leonard remains still. "Asleep." And there's a long silence           broken only by the sound of pages being turned. And then, from           Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop" --                                PAULA                           (reading)                     "Night is generally my time for                     walking. In the summer, I often                     leave home early in the morning                     and roam about fields and lanes.:    ' "^             all day. Or even escape for                     days or weeks together . . .           Leonard is unable to acknowledge in any way that he recognizes           the words or her voice . . . but he does. And as she reads,           the words become alive and the walls recede ...                                   PAULA                     "But saving in the country, I                     seldom go out until after dark,                     though Heaven be thanked, I love                     its light and feel the                     cheerfulness it sheds upon the                     earth as much as any creature                     living . . . "           And he is moving into the light.
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+                                                                                 BABEL                                                                   Written by                                            Guillermo Arriaga                                                                                         (April 9, 2005)                                        1   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- MORNING                        Day breaks. Hassan (50) arrives at a solitary house made of              adobe, in the southern deserts of Morocco, carrying a satchel              and a large bundle wrapped in cloth.                        He walks past a corral made out of branches, where several              goats bleat, and knocks on the front door.                    2   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- CONTINUOUS                        Abdullah (40), opens.                                              HASSAN                            (In Arabic)                        Good morning Abdullah... I brought                        you this...                        He holds up the bundle.                    3   INT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                        Abdullah's family is inside the house. There is a room, a              small table and a simple kitchen. Yasira (38) is roasting              some goat meat assisted by Yamil (16) and Zora (17), her              daughters.                        Abdullah and his sons, Yussef (13) and Ahmed (14), are sitting              on the floor around the small table, looking at a well-              conserved .270 caliber Winchester 60 rifle.                                              HASSAN                            (To Abdullah)                        It's almost new.                        He takes out several boxes of cartridges from his satchel.                                              HASSAN (CONT'D)                        Three hundred cartridges...                        He opens a box and shows them one of the golden bullets.                                              HASSAN (CONT'D)                        The hunter who gave it to me said                        you can hit up to three kilometers                        away.                                              ABDULLAH                        How much do you want for everything?                                              HASSAN                        One thousand dirhams.                                                                                     2.                                              ABDULLAH                        One thousand dirhams? I'll give you                        one thousand and a goat.                        Abdullah and Hassan exchange a look and Hassan smiles.                    4   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- DAY                        Hassan and Abdullah's family are behind the house. Hassan              stands with the rifle in front of a rock some twenty yards              away and he turns toward Abdullah.                                              HASSAN                        With this rifle, your sons will be                        able to kill plenty of jackals.                        He aims at the rock and pulls the trigger without holding              the rifle properly. It is clear that he doesn't know how to              fire a weapon, and the shot cracks loudly. The rifle kicks              and hits him roughly in the shoulder. The bullet flies far              wide of the rock. The women laugh nervously.                        Rubbing his shoulder, Hassan turns to Abdullah.                                              HASSAN (CONT'D)                        Let one of your sons shoot.                        Abdullah looks at his boys and points at the younger one.                                              ABDULLAH                        Let Yussef shoot.                        When Hassan is about to hand Yussef the rifle, Ahmed cuts              him off, upset.                                              AHMED                        I want to shoot first.                        Father and son exchange an angry glance. Hassan, without              realizing it, turns and gives the rifle to Ahmed. The boy              grabs the gun: it is heavier than he thought.                                              HASSAN                        Look, load it like this.                        Hassan opens the chamber, inserts the bullet and then closes              it. Once it is loaded, he points at the safety.                                              HASSAN (CONT'D)                        This is the safety. Push it in when                        you're ready.                        Ahmed nods. Unsure of himself, he raises the rifle and,              almost without aiming, fires. The shot kicks up dust far              from the rock. His sisters laugh.                                                                                      3.                                              HASSAN (CONT'D)                        If he doesn't hit the jackals, at                        least he'll scare the shit out of                        them.                        Ahmed lowers the rifle. His father grabs it and gives it to              Yussef enthusiastically.                                                ABDULLAH                        Your turn.                        Yussef grabs the rifle and loads it confidently. He lifts              the rifle with ease and takes his time aiming. He seems              innately skilled at the maneuver. He shoots and the bullet              hits just below the rock.                        Abdullah celebrates the shot and mockingly turns to Hassan.                                              ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                        Now this kid shoots a hell of a lot                        better than you.                    5   EXT. GOAT CORRAL -- LATER                        Yussef takes one of the goats out, ties and ropes it and              gives it to Hassan. Abdullah supervises. Yasira approaches              and gives Abdullah a bag.                                                YASIRA                        Your lunch.                        Abdullah takes it and turns to his sons.                                              ABDULLAH                        You better kill at least three                        jackals.                                              HASSAN                        And make sure no one sees you with                        the rifle, hide it if you see someone                        approach you.                        Ahmed nods.   Abdullah and Hassan go on their way.                    6   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- LATER                        Yasira and Yamil are far from the house, cleaning some              goatskins stretched out on some branches.                        Ahmed, with the rifle in his hands, opens the corral gate              and enters to herd them out. He calls his brother.                                              AHMED                        Yussef, Yussef...                                                                                       4.                    7    EXT. SIDE WALL, YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- CONTINUOUS                         Yussef is squatting on the other side of the house, spying               through a crack, breathing excitedly.                    8    INT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- CONTINUOUS                         Zora is inside, undressing. She has a long body and her               cinnamon skin is soft and clean. Every now and then she               aims a complicit glance at the crack through which Yussef is               spying.                                                  AHMED (O.S.)                         Yussef...                         Zora turns around toward where the voice is coming from.                    9    EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Yussef is still spying.    Ahmed approaches.                                               AHMED                         What are you doing?                         Yussef turns around and signals for him to lower his voice.                                               AHMED (CONT'D)                         I told you not to spy on her again.                         Yussef pays no attention and keeps spying. Ahmed pulls him               by the shoulder and makes him lose his balance. Yussef falls               on his ass.                                               AHMED (CONT'D)                         I said don't spy on her.                         Yussef gets up and dusts himself off.                                               YUSSEF                         What the hell do you care?                                               AHMED                         Come on, let's go.                         He turns around and leaves.                    10   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                         The goats graze. Yussef and Ahmed watch them sitting on the               side of a hill. They look hot and bored. They both throw               stones at a small rusty can. Yussef throws one and misses.               Ahmed throws his and does. He draws a line in the ground.                                                  AHMED                         Five to two.                         A jackal is stalking the goats.    Yussef spots it.                                                                                      5.                                               YUSSEF                         There's a jackal over there.                         Ahmed raises his head but cannot see it. Yussef points at               it, but Ahmed still cannot locate it. Yussef despairs.                                                 YUSSEF (CONT'D)                         Over there.                         Ahmed finally spots it. He loads the rifle, but when he is               about to aim, the rifle fires. The shot hits amidst the               goats, lifting up a small cloud of dust.                                               YUSSEF (CONT'D)                         What are you doing, you idiot?                         The jackal flees, terrified, while the goats scamper in               different directions.                    11   EXT. DESERT -- LATER                         Both brothers are sitting under a tree, eating bread and               drinking water from a goatskin canteen.                                               YUSSEF                         Zora doesn't mind.                         Ahmed keeps eating without turning to look at his brother.                                               AHMED                         She doesn't, but I do.                                               YUSSEF                         This is between her and me.                                               AHMED                         You're both pigs. Next time I'm                         going to tell my dad.                                               YUSSEF                         Stay out of this.                                                AHMED                         If you want me to stay out of it,                         don't do it.                         Yussef gets annoyed, stand up and leaves.                    12   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                         The brothers are sitting apart from each other.   Ahmed guards               the goats with the rifle on his lap.                         After a while, Yussef goes to sit behind a large rock. He               makes sure his brother isn't watching and he pulls his pants               down to start masturbating.                                                                                  6.                    When he is at his most concentrated, a shot rings out and          startles him. He quickly pulls his pants up and another          shot rings out. Yussef gets up to see what his brother is          doing.                    Ahmed is aiming the rifle at a rock some two hundred yards          away. He fires a third time.                    Yussef runs up to him.                                          YUSSEF                    What are you doing?                    Ahmed doesn't pay attention, and focuses on the rock in the          distance.                                          AHMED                    Hassan said that it could hit things                    three kilometers away, but it can't                    even reach that rock over there.                                          YUSSEF                    That's because you don't know how to                    shoot. Give me the rifle.                    Ahmed looks at his brother defiantly, then hands the rifle          over. Yussef aims and fires. The shot echoes through the          vast desert; the frightened goats scamper a few yards away.                                          AHMED                    See, it can't reach it.                                          YUSSEF                    Give me another bullet.                    Yussef aims and fires. The bullet hits the rock and kicks          up a lot of whitish dust.                                             YUSSEF (CONT'D)                    See.                                          AHMED                    Yeah, but that's not three kilometers.                    Ahmed remains pensive and suddenly starts climbing to the          top of the hill. Once at the top, he looks around for a          moment and then calls his brother.                                          AHMED (CONT'D)                    Yussef, come here.                    Yussef climbs the slope. Ahmed signals a road that in the          distance cuts across the great desert plain, and points out          a traffic sign that indicates a curve ahead.                                                                                  7.                                          AHMED (CONT'D)                    I bet you the bullet can't hit that                    far away.                    Ahmed loads the rifle and aims at the sign.    He fires and          nothing.                                          AHMED (CONT'D)                    These fucking bullets aren't any                    good.                                          YUSSEF                    You're not aiming right.                    Yussef points at a yellow car driving along the road.                                          YUSSEF (CONT'D)                    What'll you give me if I hit that                    car?                                            AHMED                    I'll shoot.                    Ahmed reloads. The empty cartridge falls to the ground. He          fires again - the car keeps going. Yussef asks for the rifle.                                            AHMED (CONT'D)                    You see?    Nothing happens.                                          YUSSEF                    Let me shoot.                    He also drops the used cartridge on the ground, reloads and          shoots the traffic sign. He fires and nothing.                                            AHMED                    I told you.    Hassan's a liar.                    A bus approaches.    Ahmed points at it.                                          AHMED (CONT'D)                    Shoot at that one...                    Yussef loads the rifle parsimoniously, shuts the chamber,          raises the weapon, aims and fires.                    The bus drives on.    Ahmed turns to his brother.                                          AHMED (CONT'D)                    See: nothing.                    The bus drives on another three hundred yards and suddenly          stops in the middle of the road.                                                                                       8.                    13   INT. T.V. ROOM, L.A. HOUSE -- NIGHT                         Amelia (54), a maternal, Mexican woman with a pleasant face,               is playing Monopoly with Debbie (4) and Mike (5). They are               both typically American kids.                                               AMELIA                             (In Spanish)                         I won...                                                 MIKE                         No, I won.                         The phone rings and Amelia goes to answer it.                                               AMELIA                             (In English)                         Yes... yes sir... yes sir, Mrs. Rachel                         told me...I'm very sorry. How is                         Mrs. Susan?... No sir, don't worry...                         Amelia turns to Mike.                                               AMELIA (CONT'D)                         Your dad is calling.                         Mike runs to the phone and grabs it.                                                MIKE                         Hi dad... dad, guess what? Today, at                         school, they brought some baby                         chickens...I held one in my hand. He                         was really little and he was all                         warm...                             (A beat)                         Dad, are you ok?...And Mariana wanted                         to take one home, but the teacher                         didn't let her...                    14   INT. CHILDREN'S ROOM, L.A. HOUSE -- NIGHT                         Amelia is putting Debbie and Mike to sleep.   They are both               lying in bed. Amelia sits next to them.                                               AMELIA                             (In Spanish)                         Did you brush your teeth?                         Mike shows her his teeth so she can see he did.                                               MIKE                         Will you tell us a story?                                               AMELIA                         One and then you're going to sleep.                         Both children nod.                                                                       9.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                        (Her entire story in                         Spanish)                    Once there was a hawk who wanted to                    fly higher than everyone else. He                    trained every day and hunted little                    birds so he could eat them and be                    strong.                                             MIKE                    Pajaritos?     Little birds?                                          AMELIA                    Of course, that's what hawks eat.                    So, one day the hawk flew so, so                    high that it crashed into an airplane.                    It fainted and started to fall. And                    when it was about to hit the ground,                    all the birds flew toward him and                    saved him.                                          DEBBIE                    They saved him?                                          AMELIA                    Yes, and when the hawk was healthy                    again he went to talk to the birds                    and said: I want to thank you for                    saving me, but I can't change and                    I'm going to keep hunting you. The                    little birds answered: we don't care                    that you hunt us, because that's who                    you are. But we will always save                    you, because that's who we are.                    The children are silent.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                        (In English)                    Did you like it?                                             DEBBIE                    No.                    Amelia moves to turn out the light.                                             DEBBIE (CONT'D)                    Leave it on.                    Amelia stands still beside the switch.                                          AMELIA                    Quedamos en que se iban a dormir con                    la luz apagada.                                          DEBBIE                    But I'm scared.                                                                                      10.                                               AMELIA                         No pasa nada.                                               DEBBIE                         I'm scared that what happened to Pat                         is gonna happen to me.                         Amelia sits down next to her and caresses her.                                               AMELIA                         A ti no te va a pasar eso...                                               DEBBIE                         Pat died while she was sleeping.                                               AMELIA                         That only happens to some babies                         when they're really little.                                               MIKE                         Then why did daddy get so angry at                         mommy?                                               AMELIA                         He wasn't angry, he was just very                         sad.                                               DEBBIE                         He left.                         Amelia doesn't know what else to say. She pats Debbie's head.                                               AMELIA                         Go to sleep. I'll sit here with you,                         but you can't talk anymore.                         They both nod and snuggle under their blankets. Amelia watches               them silently.                    15   INT. AMELIA'S ROOM, L.A. HOUSE -- DAY                         Amelia (54) sleeps. The sun is just starting to rise. A               phone rings distantly. Amelia awakes. She sits up, listens               intently and hears the ringing.                         She grabs a robe from a chair beside her, puts it on and               gets up to answer the phone.                    16   INT. KITCHEN, L.A. HOUSE -- CONTINUOUS                         Amelia enters the kitchen and answers a wall phone.                                               AMELIA                         Yes...                                                                                     11.                                               RICHARD (O.S.)                         Amelia, it's Richard. We're going to                         have to be here a few more days here                         in Morocco than we expected and Rachel                         wasn't able to find anyone to take                         care of the kids.                                               AMELIA                         Your sister-in-law promised me to                         find someone.                                               RICHARD (O.S.)                         Amelia, this is very serious.                         Amelia looks worried.                                               AMELIA                         It's because... I told Mrs. Jones                         three months ago that today is my                         son's wedding.                                                RICHARD (O.S.)                         Amelia, this is an emergency. Cancel                         your son's wedding. I'll pay for                         another one.                                               AMELIA                         Sir, everything is ready. Can't anyone                         come take care of the kids? It's                         just one day.                                               RICHARD (O.S.)                         We need you, Amelia... hold on.                         Richard stops talking. We hear voices in the background.                                               RICHARD (O.S.) (CONT'D)                         Amelia, we're really counting on                         you. I have to go. Goodbye.                         He hangs up.   Amelia stares into empty space.                    17   INT. KITCHEN, L.A. HOUSE -- DAY                         Debbie (4) and Mike (5) are having breakfast while Amelia               leans on the sink and looks at them, overwhelmed.                                               AMELIA                             (To Debbie, in Spanish)                         Do you want another quesadilla?                                                 DEBBIE                         Mhh.                         Amelia turns around to warm up a tortilla. Mike stops eating               his cereal and looks at her.                                                                                    12.                                               MIKE                         How many little birds did the hawk                         eat?                         Amelia turns around and sees Mike, who is truly worried.                                                AMELIA                             (In English)                         None, because he started to like                         quesadillas.                         Amelia strokes his hair. A car horn honks. Amelia looks               out and sees a school bus parked outside the house.                                               DEBBIE                         Is the bus here?                                               AMELIA                             (In Spanish)                         Yes, but today you're not going to                         school.                                                 DEBBIE                         Why?                                               AMELIA                         We have things to do.                         Amelia turns around and walks out to the street. Through               the door we can see her saying something to the bus driver.               The school bus leaves and Amelia walks back into the house.                    18   INT. T.V. ROOM, L.A. HOUSE -- DAY                         Debbie and Mike are watching cartoons while Amelia talks on               the phone.                                               AMELIA                             (Both in Spanish)                         I just want you to take of them for                         today.                                               WOMAN (O.S.)                         I can't, Mrs. Black is home.                                               AMELIA                         And she won't go out?                                               WOMAN (O.S.)                         No, I don't think so.                                                 AMELIA                         Ok, thanks.    I'll call you tomorrow.                         She hangs up and remains pensive.                                                                                      13.                    19   EXT. STREET, LOS ANGELES -- DAY                         Amelia and the kids walk down a street in Santa Monica.                    20   EXT. LUCIA'S HOUSE, LOS ANGELES -- DAY                         Amelia and the kids are standing in front of a house, talking               with Lucia (22), who is dressed in a black and white uniform.                                               LUCIA                             (Both in Spanish)                         I can't Amelia.                                               AMELIA                         Please, it's my son's wedding. I                         helped you out with that thing with                         your boyfriend.                                               LUCIA                         I really can't.                                               AMELIA                         Just for the day, Lucia.   I'll be                         back for them tonight.                                               LUCIA                         And what do I tell Mrs. Black?                                               AMELIA                         Tell her they're your nephews.                         Lucia looks down at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed children.                                               LUCIA                         Yeah right, they look just like                         me...with this gringa look I have.                    21   INT. CHILDREN'S ROOM, L.A. HOUSE -- DAY                         Amelia is packing the children's clothes in a small suitcase.               Debbie and Mike, curious, watch her.                                               MIKE                         Are we going to see your house?                                               AMELIA                         Yes, you're going to see my house.                                                MIKE                         Is it far?                                               AMELIA                             (In Spanish)                         Not very.                                                                                   14.                    22   EXT. LOS ANGELES HOUSE -- DAY                         A run-down '88 Ford Pinto parks in front of the house and               honks its horn. The front door opens and Amelia walks out,               carrying the small suitcase, with the two kids.                         Santiago (24), a young Mexican with light eyes.                                               SANTIAGO                             (Both in Spanish)                         Good morning Aunt Amelia.                                               AMELIA                         Good morning.                         Santiago, surprised, looks at the children.                                               SANTIAGO                         Are they coming?                                               AMELIA                         I couldn't find anyone to leave them                         with. Their parents aren't coming                         back today.                                               SANTIAGO                         Why bring them, they're just going                         to make trouble.                                               AMELIA                         They're good kids.                                               SANTIAGO                         I know a woman who can take care of                         them.                                               AMELIA                         Santiago, I have to take them. I                         can't leave them with just anybody.                                               SANTIAGO                         What if you lose your job?                                               AMELIA                         Come on, don't tempt the fates.                         Amelia opens the door for the children to get in.                    23   EXT. CASBAH TAMNOUGALT, MOROCCO-- DAY                         Richard (45), tall, thin, weathered, and Susan (38), good-               looking, with an athletic body, visit the impressive Casbah               with a group of American, French and English tourists. Most               of them are old, with a few couples in their forties or               fifties.                                                                                   15.                         Anwar (30), a man with a kind face, is the tour guide showing               them around.                                               ANWAR                             (In English, with an                              Arabic accent)                         The Berbers built these kasbahs.                         They made them like forts and here                         they would reside after finishing                         their caravans.                         Richard listens attentively.   Susan looks hot.                                               RICHARD                         This place is beautiful, don't you                         think?                                               SUSAN                             (not very                              enthusiastically)                         Yeah, yeah it's very pretty...                         Anwar walks toward one end of the aisles and calls the group.                                                ANWAR                         Now, I'd like to show you the                         materials that were used to build                         the walls...                         The herd moves docile toward Anwar's voice.                    24   EXT. SMALL EATERY, MOROCCAN DESERT -- LATER                         The group of tourists spread about a small eatery with open               air tables on a dusty terrace. A bus is parked behind them.                         At a table, on one end of the terrace with views to a cluster               of mountains, Richard and Susan look through some menus.               Richard seems at ease in this place. Susan appears to be               bothered by the dust and otherness.                         A waiter brings a plate and some cutlery.                                               WAITER                             (in broken English)                         You want to order?                                               RICHARD                         I'll have a chicken cous-cous and a                         Coke, please.                                               SUSAN                         What do you have that doesn't have                         fat in it?                                               WAITER                         Everything is delicious.                                                                                16.                    Susan reads the menu again.                                          SUSAN                    I'll have the fried eggplant and a                    diet Coke.                                          WAITER                    We don't have diet Coke.                                          SUSAN                    Then a regular Coke.                    The waiter smiles and goes to place the order. Susan takes          out a small bottle with antibacterial gel, cleans her hands          and then starts wiping the plate and the cutlery thoroughly.                    Richard looks at the mountain range through a pair of          binoculars. He spots a hawk flying over the plains.                                          RICHARD                    Look, look: a hawk.                    Richard follows the hawk with his binoculars for a few seconds          and then puts them down.                                          RICHARD (CONT'D)                    This country is incredible.                    Susan remains silent and then turns to look at him.                                          SUSAN                    Richard, why did we come here?                                          RICHARD                    What d'you mean why? I thought you                    would like it.                                          SUSAN                    Really: why are we here?                    Richard knows that Susan's answer implies something else.                                          RICHARD                    To forget everything, to be alone.                    Susan, sardonically gestures toward the other tourists with          her chin.                                          SUSAN                    Alone?                    Richard sighs in disappointment. The waiter arrives with          the Cokes and the food, which does not look particularly          appetizing. He leaves everything on the table and goes.                    Richard is about to pour his drink when Susan stops him.                                                                                    17.                                               SUSAN (CONT'D)                         Throw out the ice.                                               RICHARD                         The Coke is warm.                                               SUSAN                         Yeah, but you don't know what kind                         of water is in there.                         She grabs Richard's glass and tosses out the ice. Then she               does the same thing with hers. They are quiet for a moment.                                               RICHARD                         Why can't you ever relax.    You're                         always stressed.                                               SUSAN                         You're the one stressing me out.                         You're why I can't relax.                                               RICHARD                         You could if you tried.                                               SUSAN                         Tried? Don't you think I tried?                                               RICHARD                         You're never going to forgive me,                         are you?                                               SUSAN                         Do you even know what I'm talking                         about?                                               RICHARD                         Susan, please; we didn't come all                         this way just to argue.                         Susan gets angry and faces him.                                               SUSAN                         Oh, we didn't? Then when are we                         supposed to "argue"? Or are you                         planning on running away again?                         Richard sighs, defeated. They stop speaking and sit looking               at the mountains.                    25   EXT. BUS -- MOMENTS LATER                         The tourists crowd around to board the bus. Some boys in               rags approach to sell them trinkets.                                               BOYS                         Stilo...stilo...                                                                                      18.                         Some of the tourists buy them. They come to Susan, who               becomes instantly uncomfortable. She gestures with her hand               to say they have no money, but the kids insist.                                               BOYS (CONT'D)                         Stilo...stilo...                                               SUSAN                         I don't have any money... I don't                         have any...                         Richard takes off his binoculars and gives them to the               youngest of the boys (7), who receives them with wide eyes.                                               RICHARD                         Here.                                               SUSAN                         What are you doing?                         Richard just gets in the bus. Susan stares at the boy with               the binoculars for a moment and then gets in.                    26   INT. BUS -- LATER                         Susan sits next to the window, in the middle of the bus.               She looks hurt and sad. Richard walks over and sits next to               her.                         The bus starts. Through the window, Richard can still see               the boy with the binoculars. He smiles until he sees an older               boy snatch the binoculars away and push the little boy.                         The bus drives away, but Richard can't take his eyes off the               scene. The older boy walks away with the binoculars.                    27   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                         The bus drives down a straight road that divides the desert.                    28   INT. BUS -- MOMENTS LATER                         The bus drives on. Some of the old men sleep. Susan leans               her head against the window and watches the landscape scroll               past. Richard sits beside her silently.                         Susan holds out her hand and takes Richard's, as a sign of               reconciliation. He holds hers and caresses it.                         Susan gets comfortable to try to sleep. She closes her eyes               when suddenly something smashes the window and Susan collapses               forward.                         Richard turns to look at the punctured glass and then Susan.                                               RICHARD                         Susan, what's wrong?                                                                                     19.                         Susan doesn't answer, limp on her seat.                                               RICHARD (CONT'D)                         What happened?                         Richard lifts her up and when he does he sees a thread of               blood run down her neck. Richard yells at the driver.                                               RICHARD (CONT'D)                         Stop the bus, stop, my wife's been                         hurt.                    29   INT. VOLLEYBALL COURT -- DAY                         In an indoor volleyball court with bleachers, several Japanese               girls play volleyball. They all compete intensely for the               point. There is excitement, but everything occurs quietly.                         A player jumps and spikes the ball. Chieko (16), tall,               beautiful, with strands of hair painted purple, volleys the               ball back up. It reaches one of her teammates who sets up               another to spike it.                         Chieko's team wins the point. The referee, instead of               whistling, lifts up a red flag.                         The players congratulate each other silently, in sign               language. The only sound we can here is the parents' clapping               as they watch the game from the stands.                         Chieko's team serves. Again, the game is heated. A rival               player spikes the ball, and it is barely out of bounds.               However, the referee, with his red flag, calls the point.                         Chieko is upset and goes to argue with him.                                               CHIEKO                             (In sign language)                         The ball was out.                                               REFEREE                             (In sign language)                         No, it was good.                         Chieko gestures violently.   One of her teammates goes to               calm her down.                                                TEAMMATE                         Let it go.                         Chieko breaks loose and approaches the referee.                                               CHIEKO                         That was out.                                               REFEREE                         It was on the line.                                                                                      20.                                               CHIEKO                         You're not just deaf, you're blind.                                                  REFEREE                         You're out.                         Chieko is furious.   She starts to make obscene gestures.                                               CHIEKO                         You're an asshole.                         The coach walks onto the court. He holds her to calm her               down and then takes her away. Despite Chieko's violent               reaction, everything is still silent. From the bleachers,               Yasujiro (47), Chieko's father, dressed in a nice suit with               the tie undone, with a sad pride about him, disapproves of               his daughter's actions.                    30   INT. LOCKER ROOM, VOLLEYBALL COURT -- DAY                         Chieko sits on a bench in her underwear. She looks aggravated               and absorbed in her own thoughts. Her other teammates get               dressed. Two of them walk past wrapped in towels, freshly               showered, and stand in front of her. They talk to each other               in sign language.                                               TEAMMATE 1                         You shouldn't have lost your temper.                         We lost the game.                                               CHIEKO                         It wasn't my fault, it was the ref.                                               TEAMMATE 2                         If you hadn't been thrown out, we                         would've won the game.                         Chieko, angry, gets up and starts to rummage through her               locker. Her teammate walks over and gets her attention.                                               TEAMMATE 1                         Why are you in a bad mood?                         Chieko doesn't answer.    Teammate 2 approaches.                                               TEAMMATE 2                         She's always in a bad mood because                         nobody's fucked her yet.                         She caps this with an obscene gesture that bothers Chieko.                                               CHIEKO                         I'm gonna fuck your dad to get rid                         of my mood.                         Teammate 1 laughs, amused. Teammate 2 gives Chieko a scornful               look. Chieko smiles sardonically.                                                                                      21.                    31   INT. YASUJIRO'S CAR -- DAY                         Yasujiro drives while Chieko looks at the swarming Tokyo               streets. She is wearing a skirt revealing of her long               volleyball legs.                         Her fathers speaks to her in sign language.                                               YASUJIRO                         What do you want to eat?                                               CHIEKO                         I said I'd meet my friends from the                         team at Eve's.                                               YASUJIRO                         Weren't we going to have lunch                         together?                                               CHIEKO                         Dad, I told you I was going to eat                         with them, but you never pay attention                         to me.                         Yasujiro shakes his head in disapproval.                                               CHIEKO (CONT'D)                         My mother always paid attention to                         me.                                               YASUJIRO                         Why do you want to fight?                         They don't say anything else.   The traffic is chaotic.                                               YASUJIRO (CONT'D)                         I miss your mother too.                         Chieko just looks at him.                                               YASUJIRO (CONT'D)                         I'm doing what I can, sweetie.                         They don't say anything else.   The traffic is chaos.                    32   EXT. STREET, TOKYO -- DAY                         Yasujiro parks his car and Chieko gets out.                                               YASUJIRO                             (in sign language)                         Don't forget you have the dentist at                         four.                         Chieko looks annoyed, and blows her father a kiss goodbye.               As she is about to get out of the car, Yasujiro grabs her               arm. She turns to look at him.                                                                                      22.                                               YASUJIRO (CONT'D)                             (In sign language)                         I love you very much.                         They exchange a glance.   She nods, closes the door and leaves.                    33   INT. EVE'S -- DAY                         Eve's is a restaurant full of t.v.'s, noise, video games.               There is smoke, and people talking everywhere. Chieko moves               through the crowd. A hostess intercepts her.                                               HOSTESS                         Do you have a table?                         Chieko doesn't manage to read her lips. The hostess, smiling,               awaits an answer. Chieko waits, expectant, for the hostess               to repeat herself.                                               HOSTESS (CONT'D)                         Do you have a table?                         Chieko nods and points at her group of girlfriends, who are               sitting on the barstools next to the bar.                         The hostess smiles another stupid smile and lets Chieko by.               Further off, her friends spot her and make silly faces.                         Chieko laughs, walks over to them. They are all dressed the               same: short skirts, tight t-shirts. Some of them have               piercings in their nose, lips and ears. They all exude               hormones in their silence.                         Chieko goes to talk to them in sign language.                                               CHIEKO                         Why all the way in the corner?                         Mitsu, with a good body, not very tall and with violet               highlights in her hair, points at a pair of tables where a               group of young men are drinking beer.                                               MITSU                         Because of the view.                         Chieko turns around and stares at one of them wearing a Milan               jersey. Their eyes meet. Chieko keeps her eyes on him, and               the boy finally turns away.                                               MITSU (CONT'D)                         Do you like him?                         Chieko nods without taking her eyes off him.                                                                                      23.                    34   INT. EVE'S -- DAY                         Chieko, Mitsu and another of their friends are playing a               pinball game that makes noises whenever the ball hits a wall.               The young man in the Milan jersey approaches Chieko.                                               YOUNG MAN                         Hello.                         Neither Chieko, nor her friends answer. The guy turns to               look at one of his friends, who signals for him to insist.                                               YOUNG MAN (CONT'D)                         Can I play with you?                         Chieko, obviously, cannot hear him. She keeps playing.               Suddenly, Mitsu notices the young man's presence and taps               Chieko on the shoulder. Chieko turns around and is surprised.                         The young man turns to look toward his friends as he speaks.                                               YOUNG MAN (CONT'D)                         Do you want to come have a drink?                         Chieko gets frustrated; she cannot read his lips. He stops               looking at his friends and awaits an answer, but all he sees               is three silent girls staring at him stupefied.                         Chieko talks to Mitsu in sign language.                                               CHIEKO                         Tell him I couldn't read his lips.                         The young man, upon seeing them communicate, is caught off               guard. He turns around and walks toward his friends without               saying a word.                    35   INT. BATHROOM, EVE'S -- DAY                         Chieko leans on the sink while Mitsu pees in one of the               stalls. Chieko is noticeably upset.                         Mitsu walks out of the stall, fixing her skirt.   She sees               Chieko is distressed.                                               MITSU                             (In sign language)                         What's the matter?                                               CHIEKO                             (In sign language)                         They look at us like we're monsters.                                               MITSU                         Oh, come off it.                                                                                        24.                         Chieko is at a loss for words. Mitsu stares at her: it looks               like another one of many tantrums.                         Chieko hikes up her skirt and starts to pull down her panties.                                               MITSU (CONT'D)                         What are you doing?                                               CHIEKO                         Now they're going to meet the real                         hairy monster.                         She makes the gesture of sticking her finger up a hole, then               goes to the toilet, throws her panties in and flushes. She               turns to look at Mitsu defiantly, who cannot help but laugh.                    36   INT. EVE'S -- DAY                         Chieko sits on one of the restaurant's benches. Before her               is a new group of young men. Mitsu and Chieko exchange a               look. Provocatively, Chieko crosses her legs slowly revealing               her pussy.                         One of the young men seems to notice, and is stunned. Chieko               smiles and does it again. He watches Chieko again and               discretely turns to one of his friends to tell him.                         Chieko turns her back to him and faces the bar.    She looks               over at Mitsu, who shakes her head, amused.                         A beeper rings on Chieko's skirt. She picks it up and reads:               "Don't forget your appointment with the dentist. Papa."                         She puts the beeper away and turns toward Mitsu.                                               CHIEKO                         I'll see you later at my place.                         She mischievously turns toward the table where the young man               was, and as she gets off the bench she spreads her legs wide               open, flashing him shamelessly.                         She struts out.                    37   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                         Ahmed and Yussef run full speed, herding their goats as they               go. Some of them get left behind and Yussef hurries back to               them. As they climb a hill, he slips and falls, rolls               downhill and drops the rifle, which slides a few meters away.                         Ahmed runs to help him. Yussef gets up, covered in dust and               with a scratch on his forehead. Ahmed picks up the rifle.                                               AHMED                         Hurry up, man, hurry...                                                                                     25.                         Ahmed runs off, hands flailing, to herd the straggling sheep.               Yussef follows him, limping.                    38   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- LATER                         The brothers make it back home. Agitated, they put the goats               back into their corral. Zora walks out and approaches them.                                               ZORA                         What's wrong?                         Yussef, busy closing the corral gate, pays no attention.               Ahmed, breathing agitatedly, doesn't answer.                                               ZORA (CONT'D)                         I asked you what's wrong.                         Ahmed, full of adrenaline, glances angrily at her.                                               AHMED                         What do you care, whore?                         Yussef gets in the way.                                               YUSSEF                         Don't talk to her like that.                         Yussef steps up to defend her, but Ahmed spins around and               goes into the house. Yussef turns to Zora.                                               YUSSEF (CONT'D)                         Something we ate make us sick so we                         came back.                         Without another word, Yussef also goes into the house.                    39   INT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- LATER                         Yussef and Ahmed are sitting on their mats, looking at each               other, pale, scared and quiet. Yasira walks in to see them,               followed by her daughters. She turns to Ahmed.                                               YASIRA                         What are you doing here?                         Ahmed, livid, cannot answer.                                               YUSSEF                         Something we ate gave us a stomach                         ache.                         Yasira stares harshly at Ahmed.                                                YASIRA                         And is that why you're insulting                         your sister?                                                                                     26.                         Ahmed looks at Zora, then Yussef, and then is silent.                                               YUSSEF                         We were feeling really ill.                         Yasira points toward the corral.                                               YASIRA                         The goats are going to feel even                         worse if they don't eat. Take them                         out again.                                               AHMED                         Our stomach really hurts.                                               YASIRA                         Then start jerking the meat.                         Yasira walks out.    Yussef and Zora exchange a look.                    40   INT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Yussef and Ahmed are jerking a couple of young goats with               very sharp knives. They set the thin strips on newspaper.                         They look nervous.    They talk in whispers.                                               AHMED                         D'you think something happened?                                               YUSSEF                         I don't know.                                               AHMED                         People were screaming.                         They are silent for a long while.                                               AHMED (CONT'D)                         It was your fault.                         Yussef stares at him in disbelief.                                                YUSSEF                         It was both our faults. We both                         shot.                             (A beat)                         Swear to me you'll never say anything.                         Ahmed won't answer. Yussef looks around the room to make               sure nobody is listening to them.                                                  YUSSEF (CONT'D)                         Swear.     Nobody, never.                         Ahmed remains pensive.    He sighs and answers.                                                                                      27.                                                AHMED                         I swear.   Nobody.                    41   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- EVENING                         The brothers are hanging the strips of meat on ropes to dry               them in the sun.                         An old Valiant packed with seven men parks in front of the               house and Abdullah gets out. He raises his hand to say               goodbye.                                               ABDULLAH                         Thank you, I'll see you tomorrow.                         The driver also raises his hand and then drives off.   Abdullah               turns to Yussef.                                               ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                         Tell your mother to prepare dinner.                         Abdullah turns towards the house. Yussef comes out running               towards a little field below the house. Yasira is plowing               with a manual plow.                                               YUSSEF                         Mother, mother, father says he wants                         to have dinner now.                    42   INT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- EVENING                         Abdullah and his children sit at the small table while the               women prepare the food. A column of smoke rises from the               fire where they are roasting goat meat and toasting bread.                         Yamil, the youngest of the daughters, sets some bread on the               table. Abdullah takes it, tears some off and starts to eat.               He turns to Yussef.                                               ABDULLAH                         Did you kill any jackals?                                               YUSSEF                         We shot at them, but didn't hit them.                                               ABDULLAH                         You have to kill them. If not they're                         going to eat all the goats.                         Yasira sets the strips of goat meat on the table. Abdullah               serves himself some. His children wait until he's done to               serve themselves.                                               YASIRA                         Why are you home so late?                         Abdullah starts talking with his mouth full.                                                                                     28.                                               ABDULLAH                         They closed the road, and we had to                         take the long way around.                             (He swallows)                         Apparently some terrorists killed an                         American tourist.                         Ahmed and Yussef shoot each other a nervous glance.                                                  YASIRA                         An American?                                               ABDULLAH                         Yes, the terrorists attacked a tour                         bus on the road.                                               YASIRA                         But there aren't any terrorists here.                         Abdullah finishes his mouthful. He wipes himself with his               sleeve. Ahmed doesn't even dare raise his eyes.                                               ABDULLAH                         You never know.                         Yussef, nervous, looks up.                                               YUSSEF                         And how do you know the American                         died?                                               ABDULLAH                         That's what they were saying. The                         police are looking for the culprits.                         Yussef and Ahmed again exchange a furtive glance.                    43   INT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- NIGHT                         Night. An oil lamp in a Nescafe jar lights the house. The               family sleeps in the only two rooms in the house. One of               them is the parents room, the other the children's.                         We hear a goat bleating in the darkness. Abdullah's snoring.               Yasira's breathing. The crunching of wood in the night cold.                         Neither Yussef, nor Ahmed can sleep.   They both look at each               other, anxious.                    44   EXT. BORDER CROSSING -- DAY                         Santiago's car crosses the border between San Diego and               Tijuana. They drive through a green light at the crossing,               easily entering Mexico without being stopped by three Mexican               customs officials.                                                                                   29.                    45   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- DAY                         Debbie and Mike stare through the windows, amazed at the new               world they are entering: other people, other architecture,               other colors, other noises.                         Santiago turns towards them while he's driving.                                               SANTIAGO                         See how easy it is to get into                         paradise?                                               DEBBIE                         Is this Mexico?                                               AMELIA                             (In Spanish)                         Yes, this is Mexico.                                               MIKE                         My mom told us Mexico is really                         dangerous.                         Santiago turns toward the kids.                                               SANTIAGO                             (In Spanish)                         Yes, it's full of Mexicans.                         Amelia and Santiago look at each other and smile.                    46   EXT. TIJUANA -- DAY                         They drive through Tijuana.                    47   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- DAY                         Mike and Debbie continue to gaze awestruck through the               windows. Santiago turns to them.                                               SANTIAGO                             (In Spanish)                         Are you hungry?                         They both nod.                                               SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                         Do you like popsicles?                         Santiago pulls over next to some stalls, and the street               vendors run out to offer them their products.                    48   EXT. PARK, TIJUANA -- DAY                         The children eat their popsicles as they walk through the               endless aisles of stalls, past the vendors and their incessant               banter.                                                                                       30.                                               MIKE                         What's this flavor called?                         Santiago answers before Amelia.                                               SANTIAGO                             (In Spanish)                         Cajeta... it's called cajeta.                                               MIKE                             (Mispronouncing)                         Cayeto...                         Santiago laughs.                                               SANTIAGO                         No, cajeta... cajeta...                                                MIKE                         Cajeto, cajeta... It's the best thing                         I've ever tasted in my life.                             (A beat)                         Can I buy some for my mom? She's                         gonna love them.                         Amelia smiles and nods.                    49   EXT. TIJUANA -- DAY                         The car drives out of the city and gets on a highway.   The               desert rises in all its magnitude and severity.                    50   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- DAY                         Santiago parks the car next to a junkyard.   Amelia and Debbie               run out and hide behind a fence.                         Debbie pulls her underpants down to pee.   Troubled, she looks               at the mound of destroyed cars.                                               DEBBIE                         Are they crashed cars?                                               AMELIA                         Yes...                                               DEBBIE                         Did lots of people die?                                               AMELIA                         I guess so...                                               DEBBIE                         I don't like Mexico.                                                                                        31.                    51   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- DAY                         They drive down the highway and then turn onto a path. They               drive down the path at high speed, lifting up clouds of dust.                    52   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                         They arrive at a dusty hamlet in the middle of the desert; a               few houses, no more than twenty, some adorned with               multicolored paper.                         Several crates of soda are stacked up against a makeshift               shed built out of yucca fronds. A group of musicians who               play NorteÒa music are setting up their instruments.                         There are various pickup trucks and smuggled cars parked               around the hamlet. The guests are wearing their best: fresh               shirts, big buckles, almost new boots.                         Santiago parks. Amelia gets out first.     A group of people               sees her and comes over to greet her.                                               COMADRE 1                             (All in Spanish)                         Hey, so you finally made it.                         Amelia smiles.   Her friends notices Mike and Debbie.                                               COMADRE 1 (CONT'D)                         You brought them?                         Amelia nods. Luis (24), Amelia's son, a typical NorteÒo               cowboy with long sideburns and moustache, his face tanned               from days under the sun, wearing a pistachio-colored tuxedo               with a cloth flower in the lapel, greets Amelia with a kiss.                                               LUIS                         Hi mom, how're you doing?                         She looks him up and down.                                               AMELIA                         Son, you look like Pedro Infante.                                               COMADRE 1                         More like Luis Miguel.                                               AMELIA                         Where's the bride?                                               LUIS                         She's not here yet.                                               AMELIA                         What d'you mean she's not here yet?                                                                                      32.                                               LUIS                         Well, she ain't here.                         Mike and Debbie, struck dumb by the language and the               strangers, hide behind Amelia, who introduces them to Luis.                                               AMELIA                         Look son, these are Mike and Debbie,                         the kids I take care of.                         Luis holds his hand out ceremoniously.                                               LUIS                         Pleased to meet you Mike.                         Santiago calls out to some kids who are running around.                                                SANTIAGO                         Psst.   Lucio, come here.                         Lucio (10), the oldest of the gang, approaches.   Santiago               gestures toward the two American kids.                                               SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                         These are Mike and Debbie. Keep an                         eye on them for me.                         Lucio gives them a scornful glance and calls them over half-               heartedly.                                               LUCIO                         Come with me.                         With her hand, Amelia signals to the kids that it's ok to go               with him. Shyly, Debbie and Mike follow.                    53   INT. ROOM, HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                         Amelia is in a room with her two daughters standing in front               of a peeling and broken mirror putting on her violet gown.               One of her daughters helps her and pulls the zipper all the               way up.                                               DAUGHTER 1                             (All in Spanish)                         Oh ma, I don't know how you did it                         but it zipped up perfectly.                                               AMELIA                         And it's been 15 years since I last                         wore this dress.                                               DAUGHTER 1                         You haven't changed a bit, ma.                                                                                      33.                                               AMELIA                         Working, dear, working, that's what                         keeps one young.                         The two sisters realize that the dress has a hole just below               the seat, exchange looks and smile, which doesn't please               Amelia.                                               AMELIA (CONT'D)                         What are you guys laughing about?                                               DAUGHTER 2                         Nothing ma, nothing.                         Amelia looks at them suspiciously, turns around and leaves               the room with her dress elegantly torn.                    54   EXT. DESERT ROAD, MOROCCO -- DAY                         The bus is in the middle of the road.                         Several of the tourists are hiding under their seats,               frightened. The driver, still ducking, looks toward the               mountains to try to piece together what happened.                         Richard holds Susan against his shoulder, blood gushing from               her neck. Her eyes are open and staring at a fading world.                         Richard takes Susan from under her armpits and carefully               lays her down on the aisle. Anwar runs over to help.                                               RICHARD                         Take it easy honey, take it easy.                         Anwar takes his shirt off - left only in his undershirt -               and puts it under Susan's neck.                                               SUSAN                             (mumbling senselessly)                         I'm ok... I'm ok...                         Susan breathes in, and every time she does, blood flows from               her wound. Richard turns toward the other passengers.                                               RICHARD                         Is anybody a doctor?                         Nobody answers.   Richard starts to lose his cool.                                               RICHARD (CONT'D)                         Please: a doctor.                         The pensioners don't answer; they are too scared. Richard               opens Susan's purse and sees a cell phone. He turns it on               and tries to call, but there is no signal. He turns to Anwar.                                                                                      34.                                               RICHARD (CONT'D)                         Where's the nearest hospital?                                                ANWAR                         It's far away, about four hours.                             (a beat)                         There's a clinic that's a little                         closer, about an hour and a half to                         the south. By bus it'll take us about                         two hours and a half though.                                               RICHARD                         Does that takes away from Marrakesh?                                               ANWAR                         Yes, but it's the closest thing we've                         got.                         Richard runs down the aisle and gets out of the bus.                    55   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- DAY                         No cars drive by. The road is almost deserted. In the               distance, a run-down Renault approaches. Richard stands in               the road to stop it.                         The car brakes and Richard runs toward the driver: an old               peasant traveling with his eight year-old grandson.                                               RICHARD                         I need your help. We were attacked.                                               OLD MAN                             (In Arabic)                         I don't understand...                         Richard grows desperate.                                               RICHARD                         Help... hospital...                                               OLD MAN                             (In Arabic)                         I don't understand you sir.                         Richard sees that Anwar and the bus driver have gotten out               of the bus and he starts shouting at them for help.                                               RICHARD                         Tell him we need his help.                         With the distraction, the old man drives off. Richard watches               helplessly as they drive away and he grabs Anwar by the arm.                                               RICHARD (CONT'D)                         Let's take her to the clinic.                                                                                      35.                    56   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- DAY                         The bus makes a U-turn and drives away at full speed.                    57   INT. BUS -- DAY                         The bus rattles along. Richard huddles over Susan, trying to               stop the blood flowing from her neck. Barth, an old man starts               shouting.                                               BARTH                         Marrakech isn't this way. They're                         going to shoot at us again.                                               RICHARD                         We've got to get her to a hospital.                                               BARTH                         They're going to kill us all. Turn                         back... turn the bus around...                         Richard gets exasperated at the old man's screaming.                                               RICHARD                         Shut up, god damn it!                         Barth shuts up and the bus drives on.                    58   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- DAY                         The bus bounces its way down the straight highway.                    59   INT. BUS -- DAY                         The passengers sit quietly. As the ride gets bumpier, Susan               starts to cry out in pain.                                               SUSAN                         It hurts, it hurts...                         Richard tries to calm her down.                                               RICHARD                         Easy, sweetie, easy...                                               SUSAN                         It hurts... it hurts so much...                         Richard turns her around and sees her shoulder has been               shattered. She won't stop shouting. A pool of blood starts               trickling down the aisle.                                               RICHARD                             (A Anwar)                         Isn't there anywhere else we can                         take her?                                                                                     36.                                               ANWAR                         We can take her to my town. It's                         near here and there's a doctor. In                         the meantime we can call Erfourd for                         an ambulance.                         Richard turns to look at Susan, who is writhing in pain.                                                  RICHARD                         Ok.                                                ANWAR                             (To the driver, in                              Arabic)                         Make a right onto the next road.                         Richard and Anwar exchange a glance.                    60   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- DAY                         The bus leaves the main road and turns into a dirt road.                    61   INT. BUS -- DAY                         The bus' poor suspension gives the passengers a jolt.    Richard               tries to protect Susan's head.                    62   EXT. HAMLET -- DAY                         The bus pulls into a small group of houses. Several children               run beside the bus, chasing it. Some gaunt dogs get out of               the way to let the bus by.                    63   EXT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         The bus pulls up in front of a modest house.                    64   INT. BUS -- DAY                         Richard raises his head and sees the desolate environs.                                                  RICHARD                         Are we here?                                               ANWAR                         Yes sir, this is my house.                         Richard tries to carry Susan, but she screams in pain.                                               RICHARD                         Easy, darling, easy...                         He slips his hands under her and lifts her up.                                               SUSAN                         Don't touch me there.                                                                                   37.                         Richard moves his hand, which is covered in blood. As he               carries her, he turns into the aisle while Anwar and one of               the passengers try to help him.                    65   EXT. HAMLET -- DAY                         Richard carries her into the house through a crowd of curious               children.                    66   INT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Anwar leads Richard down the hallways amidst Susan's screams.                    67   EXT. PATIO, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         They walk through a dusty patio and Anwar points at some               stairs. Richard climbs them with difficulty and Anwar opens               the door to a room.                                               ANWAR                         Here... here...                    68   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         An old woman (87), Anwar's grandmother, who has centuries of               desert in her expression, lets them in and points at a rug               on the floor.                                               ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                             (In Arabic)                         Put her there...                         Richard understands and softly lays Susan on the rug. Susan               looks around horrified: adobe walls, dirt floor: the epitome               of the third world.                                               RICHARD                         I need to call an ambulance and                         contact my embassy.                                               ANWAR                         If you have the number of the embassy,                         I can go call.                         Obviously, Richard does not have it.                                               RICHARD                         I need to make a phone call.                                               ANWAR                         Of course, come with me.                         They get ready to leave and Susan starts imploring.                                               SUSAN                         Don't leave me here alone...                                                                                     38.                                               RICHARD                         Don't worry, I'll be right back.                         Susan looks desperate. To set Richard somewhat at ease,               Anwar points at his Grandmother.                                               ANWAR                         She can take care of her.                         Richard leans over Susan.                                               RICHARD                         You're going to be ok.                         Anwar kneels down next to her, takes a cloth and improvises               a tourniquet that he adjusts near her shoulder. He turns               towards the grandmother.                                               ANWAR                             (In Arabic)                         Hold and release the tourniquet every                         once in a while.                         The grandmother nods. She sees the swarm of kids looking               into the place and she shoos them away.                                               ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                             (In Arabic)                         Get out of here... out...                         The kids obey, except for one or two who take one last look               before they go. Susan's terrified eyes watch Anwar and Richard               leave the room.                    69   EXT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         The bus is still parked in front of the house. As soon as               Richard walks out, the pensioners approach him.                                               DOUGLAS                         How is your wife?                                               RICHARD                         Bad. Very bad.                         Tom (51), a fat English passenger, faces him.                                               TOM                         Get her outta there and let's go.                                               RICHARD                         And where should I take her?                                               TOM                         In Egypt, in a town like this, they                         slit thirty German tourists' throats.                         They might do the same to us.                                                                              39.                    Anwar listens and intervenes.                                          ANWAR                    No, not here.                                          TOM                        (Aggressively)                    What do you know? We have to get                    out of here as soon as possible.                    Lilly (79), an old woman, approaches.                                          LILLY                    It's very hot, sir, and the driver                    turned off the air conditioning.                    I'm feeling sick.                                          RICHARD                    You can't leave us here.                    James (82), Lilly's husband, steps forward.                                          JAMES                    What's the use in staying?                                          RICHARD                    In case I need the bus.                                          JAMES                    They can go drop us off and then                    come back for you.                    Douglas (75), a tall old man with good posture, interjects.                                          DOUGLAS                    I'll stay with you if you need me.                    Elyse (73), his wife, scolds him.                                          ELYSE                    And why would you stay?                                             RICHARD                    Please wait.     Let me try to deal                    with this.                                          TOM                    We're not going to risk our lives,                    so hurry.                    Douglas looks defiantly at Tom.                                          DOUGLAS                    You do what you have to do, we'll                    wait.                                                                                      40.                    70   EXT. HAMLET -- DAY                         Richard and Anwar walk down the streets of the small hamlet               before the people's inquisitive gaze. They arrive at a               general store with all sorts of roots and grains displayed               outside. Anwar walks over to the owner.                                               ANWAR                             (in Arabic)                         We need your phone.     I'll pay for                         the call.                    71   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Susan is lying on the floor, desolate. It seems as if the               pain is diminishing. The grandmother leans over her and softly               caresses her with her dirty, wrinkled hands. This startles               Susan.                                               ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                             (In Arabic)                         How do you feel?                         Susan is a little bit uncomfortable with her this close.                                               SUSAN                         Can I have some water?                         The old woman doesn't seem to understand. She grabs a basket               of dates and offers them to her. Susan shakes her head.                                                  SUSAN (CONT'D)                         No, water...                         With her hand, Susan mimes drinking a glass of water. The               old woman seems to understand. She pours some water from a               jar, leans over her and helps her drink in small sips.                                                  SUSAN (CONT'D)                         Thanks.                         The grandmother bows her head as if to say "your welcome."                                               SUSAN (CONT'D)                         Where's my husband?                         The old woman just smiles. Susan makes a gesture of               desperation. The grandmother leans over her, unfurls her               index finger and points at her heart.                                               ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                             (In Arabic)                         Trust in god.                         Susan keeps looking at her as she slowly gets up and goes to               sit in a chair.                                                                                  41.                    72   INT. GENERAL STORE -- DAY                         Richard is in a small cubicle dialing on an old cream-colored               rotary phone while Anwar waits discretely in a corner. Dozens               of people watch from outside. Richard turns to look at them               while the call connects.                                               RICHARD                         Yes... Rachel? It's Richard...                                               RACHEL (O.S.)                         øAre you still in Moroccco?                                               RICHARD                         Yes, we're still in Morocco...Rachel,                         there was an accident, your sister                         was shot...                                               RACHEL (O.S.)                             (Surprised)                         What? Who shot her?                                               RICHARD                         I don't know... We were shot at from                         some hills.                                                RACHEL                         Is she ok?                                               RICHARD                         She was hit in her neck and shoulder.                         Rachel, she's not doing well... I                         need you to tell the embassy as soon                         as possible... wait... and call                         Mark...                                               RACHEL (O.S.)                         Where are you?                         He turns to Anwar.                                               RICHARD                         Anwar, where are we?                                               ANWAR                         In Tazarine, three hours southwest                         of Erfoud.                                               RICHARD                         Were in Tazarine, T-a-z-a-r-I-n-e                         Three hours southwest of Erfoud...                         in the desert... it's a town...                         there's no hospital... There's nothing                         here at all...                                               RACHEL (O.S.)                         Where are you calling me from?                                                                                      42.                                               RICHARD                         From a shop. Rachel, this is urgent...                         urgent... call the embassy... They                         have to help us... call James too...                                               RACHEL (O.S.)                         Why did they shoot her?                                               RICHARD                         I don't know... Rachel, you're                         sister's badly hurt... do you                         understand? Call for help... now...                         He hangs up. As soon as he does, he turns to Anwar.                                               RICHARD (CONT'D)                         Call an ambulance...                                               ANWAR                         I'll call Erfoud so they send one                         over.                         Anwar, clumsy and stressed at Richard's desperation, takes               the phone and starts dialing.                                               RICHARD                         And find a doctor...                         As he finishes dialing, Anwar turns to Richard.                                               ANWAR                         They've already gone to look for                         him.                    73   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Richard returns to the room. Susan, weak, lies with her               eyes open. The grandmother is tending to the wound, which               won't stop bleeding. She gets up and goes to Anwar.                                               ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                             (in Arabic)                         Anwar, bring me some water.                    74   EXT. PATIO, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Anwar goes out to the patio and fetches a metal basin full               of soil. He goes to a well, scoops out some water with a               gourd and washes out the basin.                         Anwar is walking back when he is stopped by Mohammed, his               brother, a fat man (32) with curly hair and a tanned face.                                               MOHAMMED                             (the entire dialogue                              in Arabic)                         Why did you bring them here?                                                                                     43.                         Anwar doesn't pay attention to him and keeps walking toward               the room. His brother catches up to him.                                               MOHAMMED (CONT'D)                         You should have consulted with us.                         Anwar stops and looks at him fixedly.                                               ANWAR                         She's hurt, we had to take care of                         her.                                               MOHAMMED                         In town they're saying she was shot                         by terrorists. Do you know what                         they're going to do to us when they                         find out she's here?                                               ANWAR                         Don't be paranoid and go help find                         the doctor.                         Anwar pays no more attention to him and carries the basin               into the room.                    75   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Susan is lying down. A small pool of blood has collected               under her neck. She looks restless. She whispers weakly.                                               SUSAN                         Get me out of here... please...                                               RICHARD                         I'm going to as soon as I can. I've                         already called Rachel; she's going                         to tell the embassy.                                               SUSAN                         I told you we shouldn't have come.                         Just then Anwar enters. The grandmother takes the basin and               sets it in a corner. She gets some pieces of cloth and starts               to soak them.                                               RICHARD                         How long until the ambulance gets                         here?                                               ANWAR                         About an hour and a half. It's coming                         from Alnif.                                               RICHARD                         That much? Isn't there anyone here                         who could take her?                                                                               44.                    Anwar shakes his head.                                          RICHARD (CONT'D)                    We've got to get her out of here.                    There's no one to tend to her.                                           ANWAR                    My brother already called a doctor,                    he's coming.                    Richard is going to say something, but holds back.   His          despair and confusion are evident.                                          ANWAR (CONT'D)                    Trust my grandmother; she knows a                    lot about remedies.                    The grandmother wrings out the rags and puts them on a table.          She takes some herbs, a fistful of earth from the floor and          she tosses them into the basin. She stirs it and pulls out          a clump of mud which she lays out on one of the pieces of          cloth.                    Susan looks horrified at the dirt. The grandmother leans          over her and tries to clean the wound with the other moistened          rags. Susan resists.                                          ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                        (In Arabic)                    I have to clean you.                                          ANWAR                        (To Susan)                    Miss, my grandmother is going to                    help you.                    The grandmother finishes cleaning her with the damp cloths          and grabs the clump of mud. She tries to put it on the wound,          but Susan flinches.                                          SUSAN                    No, not that.                                          ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                        (In Arabic)                    It will stop the bleeding.                                          SUSAN                    No, no... not that...                    Richard intervenes.                                          RICHARD                        (To Anwar)                    Let's wait for the doctor.                                                                                      45.                    76   EXT. HAMLET -- DAY                         Two old men walk through the streets.                    77   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Mohammed walks into the room and calls him.                                               MOHAMMED                             (In Arabic)                         The sheik and the moukadem are here.                    78   EXT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         The two men walk past the tourists and head inside without               knocking or asking for permission.                    79   EXT. PATIO, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Richard and Anwar have walked out into the patio to wait for               them. The sheik approaches.                                               SHEIK                             (In Arabic)                         Allah be with you.                                               ANWAR                             (In Arabic)                         Allah be with you.                         He turns to Richard and speaks to him in very bad French.                                               SHEIK                             (In bad French)                         I am Atallah the sheik and this is                         Walid, the moukadem. I'm very sorry                         about your wife.                                               RICHARD                         I don't understand French.                                               ANWAR                         He says he is very sorry about your                         wife.                         Richard thanks him with a nod.                                               SHEIK                             (To Anwar, in Arabic)                         Tell him that I want to ask him some                         questions.                                               ANWAR                             (To Richard)                         Can he ask you some questions?                         Richard nods.   The sheik continues in Arabic.                                                                   46.                                          SHEIK                        (In Arabic)                    Do you have any enemies in this                    country?                                          ANWAR                    He asks if you have any enemies in                    this country.                    Richard shakes his head.                                          RICHARD                    Of course not.                                          SHEIK                        (In Arabic)                    Then why were you shot at?                                          ANWAR                    Why did you come to Morocco?                                          RICHARD                    Vacation.                                          ANWAR                        (In Arabic)                    He has no idea.                                          SHEIK                        (In Arabic)                    What does he do for a living?                                          ANWAR                    What do you do for a living?                                          RICHARD                    I'm a magazine editor.                                          ANWAR                        (In Arabic)                    He edits magazines.                                          SHEIK                        (In Arabic)                    Anti-muslim magazines?                                          ANWAR                    Anti-muslim magazines?                                          RICHARD                    No, magazine magazines.                                          ANWAR                        (In Arabic)                    No, normal magazines.                                                                                      47.                                               RICHARD                         Tell him we need to get my wife out                         of here. Ask him if the ambulance is                         on its way.                                               ANWAR                             (In Arabic)                         He wants to get his wife out of here.                         He wants to know if the ambulance is                         on its way.                                               SHEIK                             (In Arabic)                         Tell him the federal police are in                         charge of this, that they are going                         to send the ambulance.                                               ANWAR                         He says the federal police are already                         in charge, that they are going to                         send the ambulance.                         The sheik looks at the house.                                               SHEIK                             (In Arabic)                         Hey, did your cousin finally end up                         getting married?                                               ANWAR                             (In Arabic)                         Yep, she's married, she doesn't live                         here anymore.                         Richard, anxious, questions Anwar.                                               RICHARD                         What did he say?                                               ANWAR                         He gives you his blessing.                                                RICHARD                         Thank you.                         The sheik and the moukadem turn and exit the house.                    80   INT. DENTIST'S OFFICE -- DAY                         Chieko is sitting in the reception area, waiting her turn.               There is a woman with a twelve year-old son listening to a               walkman and an old couple.                         The receptionist (50) will not stop talking to the old lady.                                                                                      48.                                               RECEPTIONIST                         My niece sells these creams. And                         just look at my skin now. I'm going                         to turn fifty-two and look, almost                         no wrinkles...                         The woman continues her banal chatter. Chieko observes her               grotesque mouth. She then looks at the old man's bored face,               the old woman's feigned interest, the mother's annoyed               expression, and the boy, who rocks his head to the music.                         A man walks out and the receptionist gestures at Chieko and               points toward the door.                    81   INT. DENTIST'S OFFICE -- DAY                         The dentist (47) - tall and, unlike the receptionist, with               impeccable skin covering his hardened, attractive face -               examines Chieko's mouth. His face comes very close to hers               as he looks at her, making her nervous. The fat receptionist               walks in without knocking.                                               RECEPTIONIST                         Here are the sterilized drill bits.                         The dentist looks up at her. She leaves the drill bits on a               table and leaves. The dentist turns back to Chieko and speaks               face to face with her so she can read his lips.                                                DENTIST                         I-think-you-have-two-cavities-in-                         your-molars.                         She smiles. The dentist moves closer to Chieko's mouth again;               she cannot stop looking at him.                         Suddenly, Chieko licks his cheek. He is surprised, but               continues his checkup. She licks him again, this time on the               lips. He pulls away, flustered.                                               DENTIST (CONT'D)                         What are you doing?                         She grabs his hand, puts it on her inner thigh and rubs it               against her pubis.                         He, confused, tries to pull his hand away, but she prevents               him from doing so. The scene starts to turn slightly               grotesque. After a slight struggle, he pulls his hand back.                                               DENTIST (CONT'D)                         What's the matter with you?                         She grabs his hand again and, again, pulls it toward her               pubis. He gets angry and moves back. The fat woman enters               again without knocking, sees they are agitated and, without               a word, walks out and closes the door.                                                                                       49.                         The dentist turns toward Chieko.                                                 DENTIST (CONT'D)                           Get out.                         She shakes her head. She is excited, anxious, scared,               fragile. He pulls her by her wrist out of the chair.                                                 DENTIST (CONT'D)                           Get out right now.                         He walks to the door and opens it. Just before she walks               out, Chieko draws out a slight smile, which is almost a grin.                    82   EXT. TOKYO STREETS -- DAY                         Chieko walks down crowded Tokyo streets.   She walks with a               lost gaze, unsettled.                    83   EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING, TOKYO -- DAY                         Chieko arrives at an upper class apartment complex. The               architecture is cutting edge, but impersonal and cold.                    84   INT. LOBBY, TOKYO APARTMENT BUILDING -- DAY                         Chieko enters the lobby. Beside the doorman are two men               dressed in suits: Kenji (31) and Hamano (50). The janitor               gestures at Chieko with his chin. The men walk over toward               her and cut her off.                                                 HAMANO                           Are you Yasujiro Wataya's daughter?                         Chieko doesn't manage to read his lips. She is silent. The               doorman notices the situation, walks out from behind his               small desk and shouts at the men.                                                 DOORMAN                           She's deaf mute. Face her when you                           speak so she can read your lips.                         Kenji and Hamano are disconcerted. Hamano stands squarely               in front of her and speaks slowly, emphasizing every word.                                                 HAMANO                           Are-you-Yasujiro-Wataya's-daughter?                         She nods.                                                 HAMANO (CONT'D)                           We-are-sargeants-Kenji-Mamiya-and-                           Hamano-Kanoo-of-the-Tokyo-police.                           We-need-to-find-your-father.                         She pulls out a pen and a piece of paper from her bag.   She               scrawls a few lines and hands them over.                                                                                       50.                         Hamano reads it and turns his face toward hers.                                               HAMANO (CONT'D)                         No, he didn't do anything wrong. We                         just want to talk to him. Do you                         know where he is?                         She shrugs her shoulders. Kenji gives her his card. Upon               receiving it, Chieko turns to look at him. Their eyes meet               and she looks down. She then looks up again, blushing.                                               KENJI                         Tell him to call us. And don't be                         scared, we're not going to do anything                         bad to him.                                                HAMANO                         Thank you.                         Chieko can't stop staring at Kenji. The two cops leave.    As               soon as they do, Chieko heads toward the elevator.                    85   INT. CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- DAY                         Chieko walks into the apartment. It is a large apartment,               elegantly furnished. Although decoration is scant, some               hunting trophies stand out: a scimitar-horned Oryx, sheep,               and others. There are also photographs of Yasujiro hunting.                         A wall is dedicated to family photos. Among them is a picture               of Chieko as a little girl with her father and her mother.                         Chieko sees a note on the table at the entrance. She puts               the policeman's card down and picks up a note from her father               that says: "I waited until five and you didn't make it.               I've got a meeting and I'll be back late. I left you some               soup and some chicken for dinner. Kisses. Papa."                    86   INT. CHIEKO'S ROOM -- DAY                         Chieko sits in front of a mute T.V., channel surfing.   She               stops at a fashion show, then some cartoons.                         Suddenly, on a news program, we see the photographs of Ahmed               and Yussef. Chieko looks at them for a moment and then               changes the channel. She is watching T.V. when a red bulb,               set between a yellow bulb and a blue one, starts to light up               insistently as the doorbell rings.                         Chieko notices and shuts off the T.V.                    87   INT. LIVING ROOM, CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- DAY                         Chieko opens the door and Mitsu walks in. They greet each               other with a handshake where they end up touching their index               fingers to each other's hearts.                                                                                      51.                                               MITSU                         Are you ready?                                               CHIEKO                         Yeah, I'm just going to get my bag.                         Chieko goes to get her bag. Mitsu sees the policeman's card               on the entrance table and looks at it. Chieko comes back               and Mitsu asks her about it in sign language.                                               MITSU                         The cops came again?                                              CHIEKO                         Yeah. They hadn't come in nine                         months. But these were different                         cops.                                               MITSU                         Did they come to ask about your                         mothers' death?                                               CHIEKO                         No, but they're probably going to                         ask my dad about the same things.                                               MITSU                         They're just not convinced, are they?                         Chieko shakes her head, remains pensive and then smiles.                                               CHIEKO                         Believe it or not, I liked one of                         the cops.                         Chieko puts Kenji's card in her purse.                                               MITSU                         Did you put on some panties?                         Chieko smiles, lifts up her skirt and exposes her naked pubis.               Mitsu lifts hers up as well and is also without panties.               They laugh and leave the apartment.                    88   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                         Dawn. The desert is a rose plain softly lit by the sun's               first rays. Yussef and Ahmed are digging a hole with their               bare hands. Once they're finished, they clean up around the               hole and mark it with three stones.                    89   EXT. HIGHWAY, DESERT -- MORNING                         Alarid (40), a federal cop, tall, in an impeccable uniform               with numerous rank badges, stands on the highway examining               the site of the shot with the old man who was driving.                                                                                   52.                         In the distance we can see a police checkpoint stopping some               cars and, after checking them, letting them go.                                                ALARID                             (To the old man, the                              entire dialogue in                              Arabic)                         Are you sure it was here?                                               OLD MAN                         Sure. I drive down this road every                         day. The American tried to stop me                         right here.                         He stands more or less where Richard tried to stop him.                                               OLD MAN (CONT'D)                         I was scared. He was covered in                         blood and I was coming from picking                         up my grandson from his work.                                               ALARID                         Where was the bus?                         The old man points some twenty yards behind him.                                                 OLD MAN                         Over there.                         Alarid walks toward where the old man said and looks out at               the mountains. Some of his men are visible at the tops.               Alarid talks to them by radio.                                               ALARID                         Look further to the right.                         We can see some men exploring the terrain.                                               ALARID (CONT'D)                             (To the old man)                         Why did you wait so long to contact                         the police?                                               OLD MAN                         I had to drive my grandson home.                         The radio crackles.                                               POLICEMAN VOICE                         Captain Alarid, Captain Alarid... We                         found the cartridges.                    90   EXT. MOUNTAIN RANGE -- MORNING                         Alarid squats, scrutinizing the four empty cartridges lying               on the earth. One of his men approaches and Alarid signals               with his hand for him to stop immediately.                                                                                      53.                                               ALARID                         Stop right there...                         The man remains motionless. Alarid follows the prints that               lead away from the cartridges. He reaches the mess of goat               hoof-prints. He picks up a ball of shit and feels it.                                               ALARID (CONT'D)                         They're from around here. Find out                         who has a .270 caliber rifle.                    91   EXT. DESERT -- MORNING                         Yussef and Ahmed walk back home, lost in their own thoughts.               Suddenly a jackal trots out and stares at them. Yussef picks               up a rock and throws it. The jackal runs off.                    92   EXT. HASSAN'S HOUSE -- MORNING                         Hassan and his wife are listening to the radio and playing               cards at a table placed outside the house. As they play,               Hassan whittles a stake with a small knife.                         Hassan's wife lowers her hand and Hassan follows.                                                  HASSAN                         I won...                         His wife pushes two chips from her pile toward him. In the               distance, several trucks approach, kicking up a dust cloud.               Hassan's wife gets up to better see them.                                               WIFE                         Are you expecting anyone?                         Hassan stands up and watches the vehicles come closer.                                                  HASSAN                         No.                         Five trucks pull up in a semicircle around the house. A               dozen police officers get out armed and aim at Hassan and               his wife.                         Alarid gets out and stands next to his car door.                                               ALARID                         Hassan Ibrahim?                         Hassan paralyzed by fear, answers in a broken voice.                                                  HASSAN                         Yes.                         One of the police officers approaches him aiming directly at               his head, while another one aims at his wife.                                                                                      54.                                               POLICE OFFICER                         Drop your weapon.                         Hassan lifts up his knife and shows it to them.                                               HASSAN                         It's not a weapon, it's my knife.                                               POLICE OFFICER                         Drop it, now...                         Hassan drops the knife in the dust.                                               POLICE OFFICER (CONT'D)                         Get down on the floor... face down...                         Hassan and his wife look at each other before they obey.                                               HASSAN                         What did we do?                         The cop readies himself to fire, and Hassan drops to the               ground. His wife follows and also lies on her stomach.                    93   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Abdullah takes two goats out of the corral, ties a rope to               their neck and drags them over to a rock. The goats bleat               desperately trying to break free.                         Abdullah turns to look at his children.                                                ABDULLAH                         Hold them.                         Yussef and Ahmed hold their legs.   Abdullah pulls out a knife               and slits the goat's throat.                    94   EXT. HASSAN'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Hassan lies on the floor, cuffed, with a broken mouth,               surrounded by cops. Alarid is carrying out the interrogation,               squatting next to Hassan's face.                                               ALARID                         Why did you shoot at the bus?                                               HASSAN                         I didn't shoot at anyone.                                               ALARID                         Then who, you idiot?                         Hassan remains silent and turns to look at his wife who is               sitting on a chair, cuffed, a few yards away.                                                                                       55.                                               HASSAN                         It wasn't me.                         Alarid punches him in the face.                                               ALARID                         That was your rifle.                                               HASSAN                         No, not anymore, I sold it today.                                                ALARID                         Oh yeah?   To who?                    95   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- LATER                         Abdullah gives Yussef and Ahmed some goat skins.                                               ABDULLAH                         Take these goat skins to Naguib and                         see if he wants to buy them.                         The two brothers bundle up the skins, tie them up with some               cord and they leave down the path away from the house.                    96   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                         As they climb a hill, they encounter a convoy of Moroccan               police trucks. They are terrified. The vehicles screech to               a dramatic halt before them, lifting up much dust.                         Alarid opens the passenger window.                                               ALARID                         Hey, do you know where Abdullah Adboum                         lives?                         Ahmed and Yussef exchange a glance.   Yussef nods.                                                YUSSEF                         Yes.                         Ahmed gets very nervous.   Yussef points the wrong way with               an air of certainty.                                               YUSSEF (CONT'D)                         Over there, you have to cross those                         mountains.                                               ALARID                         They told us he lived around here.                                               YUSSEF                         No, we just live here with our mother.                         Abdullah lives over there.                         Alarid scrutinizes the brothers' faces.                                                                                        56.                                               ALARID                         If you're lying to me I'm going to                         come back and cut your balls off.                         Ahmed breathes nervously.    Yussef continues in cold blood.                                               YUSSEF                         You can come back whenever you like.                         Alarid smiles and gestures at the driver with his head that               they should go on. The police vehicles drive off in the               direction Yussef pointed them in.                    97   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- DAY                         Ahmed and Yussef run home. Their mother and sisters are               milking some goats into a tin bucket. When they fill, Abdullah               empties the milk out into a barrel.                                               AHMED                         Papa... papa...                         Abdullah puts the bucket down on the floor and turns to look               at his kids, who stop before him, panting, exhilarated.                                               ABDULLAH                         What happened?                         Ahmed can barely control his gasping.                                               AHMED                         The police... they're looking for                         you...                                                  ABDULLAH                         Me?    Why?                                               YUSSEF                         No, they're not looking for you...                         they're looking for us...                                                  ABDULLAH                         You?    Why?                                               YUSSEF                         Because of what happened to the                         tourist...                         Yasira and her two daughters stop milking and approach.               Abdullah can't seem to understand what their talking about.                                               ABDULLAH                         What tourist?                                               AHMED                         The American... Yussef killed her...                                                                                      57.                                               YUSSEF                         That's not true, we both did.                                               YASIRA                         What are you saying?                         Ahmed fires his words out.                                               AHMED                         Yussef started shooting at the cars                         because Hassan said that the bullet                         could go really far...                                                YUSSEF                         That's a lie, you started shooting                         at the cars.                                               AHMED                         Yes, but you killed her.                         Abdullah loses his patience and grabs Ahmed by the shoulders.                                               ABDULLAH                         What the hell are you talking about?                         Ahmed looks at his father straight in the eyes.                                               AHMED                         Yussef killed the American and he                         spies on Zora naked and Zora lets                         him watch her...                         Abdullah turns toward Zora.   In his mind, everything is               confusion.                                               ABDULLAH                         What is your brother talking about?                                               ZORA                         That's bullshit.                                               AHMED                         It's not bullshit; she's a whore and                         my brother spies on her...                         As soon as the words leave Ahmed's mouth, Yussef decks him               and leaves him sprawled on the dust.                         Ahmed shoots right back up and runs at Yussef kicking, until               they're both entangled in the fight and end up rolling on               the ground. Abdullah tries to get between them.                    98   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                         Debbie and Mike are almost like spectators at a soccer match               between the other kids, as they play in the dirt with an               orange plastic ball.                                                                                         58.                          Nobody passes to them.    Mike just runs from side to side                without saying a word.    Frustrated, Debbie just watches.                    99    INT. HOUSE, HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                           nside the house, Amelia is checking on the food.                                                AMELIA                              (All in Spanish)                          How many pots of rice did you make?                                                   DAUGHTER 1                          I made two.                          Amelia looks out the window and sees the vast amount of guests                that have arrived and which have transformed the hamlet into                a large parking lot of trucks, horses, carts, etc.                                                AMELIA                          Too many people have come, that's                          not going to be enough. Make two                          more pots.                          She turns to another of her daughters.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                          And you Maria Eugenia, warm up more                          tortillas.                          She sees Santiago walk past the window.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                          Santiago... please go kill another                          six chickens, or there won't be enough                          food.                          Santiago stops and looks through the window.                                                   SANTIAGO                          Sure thing.                          Out back, Santiago sees a car arrive.    A priest steps out.                    100   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                          Luis is standing under a shack drinking beer with some                friends. Amelia, worried, approaches him.                                                AMELIA                              (Both in Spanish)                          Luis, the priest is here and Patricia                          hasn't arrived. Where is she?                                                   LUIS                          No idea.                                                                                       59.                                                AMELIA                          Fifteen minutes left before the                          wedding and you have no idea?                                                LUIS                          What if she doesn't want to get                          married? Shut up and come help me                          look for her.                    101   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                          Santiago arrives at where the children are playing.   He calls                out to them.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In Spanish)                          Who wants to help me with the                          chickens?                          Everyone raises their hand and go toward him. Mike and Debbie                stand still without knowing what to do. Santiago calls them.                                                SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                          Mike and Debbie. Come with me.                    102   EXT. CHICKEN COOP -- DAY                          The chickens walk around a rustic chicken coop made with                wire mesh and mesquite posts. Santiago opens the door to                the coop and lets the kids in, Mike and Debbie among them.                Once inside, Santiago tells them to catch the chickens.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In Spanish)                          I'll give ten pesos to the first one                          of you who catches a chicken.                          The kids start chasing the chickens, which scamper as soon                as they feel hands trying to grab them.                          At first, Mike and Debbie don't know what to do, but they                are soon amused and run to catch them. After a while, Debbie                catches one and holds it up.                          Santiago applauds her.                                                SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                          Debbie is the winner. Now we need                          another five.                          The kids get back to their game of catching chickens.                    103   EXT. DESERT ROAD -- DAY                          Santiago's car drives down the road, with a terrible sun                beating down on it.                                                                                      60.                    104   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- DAY                          Luis drives while Amelia looks out the window.                                                AMELIA                              (Both in Spanish)                          Did you get into a fight with                          Patricia?                                                LUIS                          No, not at all.                                                AMELIA                          I didn't bust my hump to pay for                          this wedding for Patricia not to                          show. So she's either coming or                          she's coming.                    105   EXT. CHICKEN COOP -- DAY                          Santiago has several chickens tied up. One of the kids                catches the last one and hands it to Santiago.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In Spanish)                          Ready. Now who's going to help me?                          Several children raise their hands. Mike and Debbie raise                theirs as well, excited. Santiago picks Mike.                                                SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                          Let's see, Mike, you can help me.                          Proud, Mike walks toward Santiago and stands next to him.                Santiago unties a chicken and gives it to Mike.                                                SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                          Hold it tight, like this.                          He shows him how to hold it. Mike grabs it and holds it                between his arms, smiling, oblivious to what will happen.                Santiago grabs the chicken by the head and pulls it off.                          The chicken starts to shake, spurting blood everywhere.                Mike, stunned, lets the animal fall to the ground and the                chicken starts its mad race.                          The Mexican kids start screaming excitedly, chasing the                headless chicken. Nobody notices that Debbie and Mike,                completely shocked, are about to cry.                    106   EXT. PATRICIA'S HOUSE -- DAY                          They arrive at the bride's house. A car adorned with ribbons                is parked outside. There is no one to be seen.                                                                                      61.                    107   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- DAY                          Luis honks the horn.   Nobody shows.                                                AMELIA                          I'm going to see if they're inside.                    108   EXT. PATRICIA'S HOUSE -- DAY                          As Amelia gets out, Patricia's mother appears, upset.                                                AMELIA                          What's the matter?                                                MOTHER                          Patricia's not feeling well.                    109   EXT. CHICKEN COOP -- DAY                          Santiago and the other kids are plucking the chicken's                feathers. Mike and Debbie stare, horrified.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In Spanish)                          Aren't you going to help?                          Mike and Debbie shake their heads.                                                 SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                          Why?                                                MIKE                          It's not good to kill animals.                          Santiago smiles to himself.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In English)                          Have you ever been to Kentucky Fried                          Chicken?                          They both nod.                                                SANTIAGO (CONT'D)                          What? Did you think that Colonel                          Sanders kept them as pets?                          He hands Mike a headless chicken, and he slowly starts to                pluck it.                    110   INT. PATRICIA'S ROOM -- DAY                          Patricia, in her bridal dress and clearly six months pregnant,                is sitting on her bed with her hands around her belly, with                her mother, father and entire family around her.                                                                                       62.                                                PATRICIA                              (Both in Spanish)                          My belly's been hard since the                          morning.                                                AMELIA                          That happens when you're nervous.                                                MADRE                          D'you think the baby's coming?                                                AMELIA                          There's no way the baby's coming;                          she's only six months pregnant.                                                PATRICIA                          But my belly feels hard, really hard.                                                AMELIA                          D'you want to get married?                                                 PATRICIA                          Yes.                                                AMELIA                          Well, let's go then.                                                MADRE                          And what if the baby comes out?                                                AMELIA                          Well, we'll have the wedding and                          baptize the kid while we're at it.                    111   EXT. HAMLET -- DAY                          A bearded man (50) on an old bicycle rides down the hamlet's                narrow streets. He is carrying a briefcase on the bike.                          He is escorted by dozens of children.                    112   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Susan is lying on the floor, moaning softly. Flies hover                around the pool of blood under her neck. Richard, worried,                strokes her hair.                          The grandmother brings them a pot of tea with two cups and                sets them on the floor beside them.                                                 RICHARD                          Thank you.                          The grandmother goes to sit in a chair. Mohammed walks in                and whispers something to him. Anwar turns to Richard.                                                                                     63.                                                ANWAR                          The doctor's here.                    113   EXT. PATIO, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          The doctor walks across the patio, through the tumult of                children and before the scrutiny of two police officers.                    114   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          The doctor enters the room.                                                DOCTOR                              (In Arabic)                          Allah be with you.                                                ANWAR'S GRANDMOTHER                              (In Arabic)                          Allah be with you.                          Richard just bows his head slightly. The doctor walks over                to Susan, shoos the flies away and examines the wound. She                looks at him, anxious.                                                DOCTOR                              (In Arabic)                          The bullet didn't hit her spine or                          split her jugular. But it did shatter                          her clavicle and she could bleed to                          death.                          Anwar looks worried.                                                RICHARD                          What did he say?                                                ANWAR                          He says she will be fine.                                                RICHARD                          Stop lying to me god damn it, and                          tell me what the fuck he said!                          The doctor addresses Richard in terrible English.                                                DOCTOR                          Hospital... need hospital...                                                RICHARD                          Yes, we know that. What can you do                          in the meantime?                                                DOCTOR                              (In Arabic, to Anwar)                          Tell him I have to stitch up the                          wound to stop the bleeding.                                                                              64.                    Anwar draws close to Richard and whispers.                                          ANWAR                    He has to sew up her wounds.                    Susan turns to look at them, suspicious.                                          SUSAN                    What did he say?                    Richard gets nervous.                                          RICHARD                    You need some stitches.                                          SUSAN                    What do you mean stitches?                    The doctor opens his kit and takes out a rudimentary needle          and thread. He gets ready to sew. Richard questions him,          also in whispers.                                          RICHARD                    You're not going to give her any                    anesthetic?                    The doctor and Anwar exchange a look.                                          ANWAR                        (To Richard)                    No, he doesn't use anesthetic.                                          RICHARD                    What kind of doctor is he?                    Anwar answers naively, in a low voice.                                          ANWAR                    He's a veterinarian, but he is good.                    Richard looks at him, surprised and angry.                                          RICHARD                    He can't take care of her.                                          SUSAN                    Richard, he might infect the wound...                    Richard can't answer as he focuses on what the doctor says.                                          DOCTOR                        (In Arabic)                    Tell him that if I don't stitch up                    her wound she may bleed to death.                                                                                  65.                                          ANWAR                    If he doesn't sew up the wound, she                    may bleed to death.                                          DOCTOR                        (In Arabic, to Anwar)                    And tell him her clavicle is broken.                    We have to fasten a splint to it.                                          ANWAR                    He says she has a broken bone and he                    has to put a splint on it.                    Richard remains pensive for a moment. He looks at Susan,          then at the doctor and assents tentatively.                                          DOCTOR                        (In Arabic)                    We're going to have to hold her down.                    He mimes holding her down with his hands. Richard leans over          Susan, who weakly languishes on the rug.                                          RICHARD                    Honey, this is going to hurt a little.                    She stares at him. Richard turns to Anwar and signals that          he can begin. Anwar holds her hands. Susan, stupefied, to          Richard.                                          SUSAN                    Richard, don't let him...                    The doctor lifts Susan's neck and starts to stitch.    She          howls in pain and tries to move away.                    Anwar and Richard hold Susan down.    The doctor sticks the          needle in again.                    Susan shakes her head from side to side trying to pull away.                                          SUSAN (CONT'D)                    Don't let him, don't let him.                                          RICHARD                    Calm down... calm down... Susan,                    they have to sew you up... relax...                    Richard holds her head to keep her still. She resists.                                          SUSAN                    No, no...no..                                          RICHARD                    Honey, please try to relax...                                                                                    66.                          The doctor rubs alcohol on the wound and starts to stitch.                She moans in pain. Richard puts a rag in her mouth, on which                she bites down.                    115   EXT. TINY SHOP -- DAY                          Mohammed sits outside with three friends drinking coffee.                From where they are we see the bus and the American tourists.                A battery powered radio plays Moroccan music and commercials                in the background.                                                MOHAMMED                          I don't understand why Anwar brought                          them here.                                                FRIEND 1                          Well he spends all his time with                          them, what do you expect.                                                FRIEND 2                          The woman is hurt, he had to help                          her.                                                 MOHAMMED                          Yeah?   And when have they helped us?                                                FRIEND 1                          I liked one of those tourists.                                                 FRIEND 2                          Really?   They're all skin and bones.                          Suddenly Mohammed focuses on the radio.                                                MOHAMMED                          Shh... sh... listen.                          The friends are quiet.                                                NEWSCASTER (V.O.)                          Today, near Tazarine, there was an                          incident where an American was shot...                          One of the friends interrupts.                                                FRIEND 3                          Hey look, it's the story.                                                FRIEND 2                          They said Tazarine, did you hear?                          We were on the radio...                                                MOHAMMED                          Shh, shut up.                                                                                    67.                                                NEWSCASTER (V.O.)                          Although authorities say it could                          have been a foiled robbery, the                          American government claims they are                          certain it was a terrorist attack.                          Minister Hassef Hazal has said that                          in our country, terrorist cells have                          been eradicated, that Morocco is a                          peaceful country and that one act of                          vulgar banditry followed by                          superficial evaluations such as the                          U.S. intends to place upon it cannot                          ruin the image, the economy and the                          pacifist reputation of our country.                          American Ambassador Ken Jones,                          however, insists that it was a                          terrorist attack on American citizens,                          that it merits a full investigation,                          and that the guilty should be                          punished. So far, the attack has not                          been attributed to any known terrorist                          organizations...                          Mohammed shouts.                                                MOHAMMED                          I fucking told Anwar, I told him he                          was only going to get us in trouble...                          he never comes and when he does he                          always brings trouble...god damn                          it...                                                 FRIEND 1                          Are the Americans going to invade                          our country?                                                MOHAMMED                          I don't know.                    116   INT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Susan lies on the floor with her neck shoddily stitched and                a splint on her shoulder made out of a few sticks and some                dirty bandages. She moans in pain and mumbles curses.                                                SUSAN                          I hate you... I hate you...                          She tries to stand, but the doctor impedes it.                                                DOCTOR                              (To Anwar in Arabic)                          Tell her not to move; the bullet's                          still inside.                                                                                       68.                                                ANWAR                              (To Susan)                          Don't move, miss. The bullet is still                          inside you.                                                SUSAN                          I don't give a shit...                                                RICHARD                          My love, don't move.                                                SUSAN                          I want to call the kids.                                                RICHARD                          You can't move, calm down.                                                SUSAN                          I want to talk to them.                                                RICHARD                          You can't; there's only one phone in                          town. I'll call them later.                          She seems obsessed by the idea.                                                SUSAN                          I want to talk to them...                          She tries to stand again. As they struggle, the grandmother                takes out a hash pipe form a drawer and lights it. She gives                it two drags and squats next to Susan.                          She shows her how to smoke it and hands it over. The old                woman's serenity is such that Susan acquiesces. She takes                four drags and slowly starts to relax.                          Susan smokes another three times, relaxes and closes her                eyes. The old woman goes to get the clump of mud and starts                to spread it on Susan's neck. Susan does not protest.                Richard watches the scene in awe.                    117   EXT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          The bus is still parked outside Anwar's house. Some of the                passengers sit leaning against the wall, scrutinized by some                of the town's children and women who have offered them tea                and dates.                    118   INT. BUS -- DAY                          The driver sits in the driver's seat and stares out at the                desolate landscape through the windshield.                          Several of the tourists nap in their seats. One of them, a                French tourist, Robert (70), starts to breathe with                difficulty. Jane (65), his wife, is alarmed.                                                                                69.                                          JANE                        (In French)                    Are you ok?                    Robert nods, but it is clear that he is not.    Jane shouts at          the driver.                                          JANE (CONT'D)                        (In French)                    Could you please turn on the air                    conditioning?                    The driver shakes his head regretfully.                                          DRIVER                        (In broken French)                    No air condition, no gasoline near.                    I'm sorry.                    Robert inhales, he can barely breathe.                                          JANE                        (In French)                    My husband is feeling ill.     You have                    to turn it on.                                          DRIVER                        (In French)                    No possible. No gasoline near.      I'm                    sorry.                                          LILLY                        (In French)                    Please, it's too hot.   We can get                    dehydrated.                                          DRIVER                        (In French)                    I'm really sorry, forgive me, but                    gasoline finish with air conditioner.                    Tom turns to Jane.                                          TOM                    What is he saying?                                          JANE                    That he can't turn on the air                    conditioning, that it's not possible.                    Tom stands up and goes to yell at the driver.                                           TOM                    Fuck you.   We're gettin' out of here.                                                                                         70.                    119   EXT. PATIO, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Tom resolutely walks up the stairs followed by James.                    120   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Richard is looking out the window while Susan, relaxed,                sleeps. Tom and James walk in making noise.                                                TOM                          We've gotta talk to you.                          Richard, with his index finger, signals for him to shut up                and points at Susan. He gestures for them to leave the room.                    121   EXT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Tom, James and others are gathered by the door.                                                TOM                          We're leaving.                                                RICHARD                          You can't leave us like this.                                                TOM                          There are old people here and the                          heat is getting to them.                                                RICHARD                          At least wait until an ambulance                          comes.                                                TOM                          One man almost fainted in the bus                          and there's a woman who needs to get                          back in time to take her medication.                          Richard turns to Anwar.                                                RICHARD                          Is there anyone around here who can                          take them in?                                                TOM                          It's not about that.                                                LILLY                          Sir, we can't wait anymore.                          Walter an English man, one of the older men,    defends him.                                                WALTER                          We can't leave him here alone.                                                TOM                          Well let him come, then.                                                                                         71.                                                DOUGLAS                          His wife is in no condition to ride                          a bus.                                                TOM                          And lots of other people aren't in                          any condition to keep waiting, can't                          you see?                                                RICHARD                          Just wait, the ambulance should be                          here any minute now.                                                TOM                          We're giving you an hour... one                          hour...                          Richard breathes, relieved.                    122   EXT. STREET, TOKYO -- DAY                          Chieko walks down the street with Mitsu. They are good-                looking and attract attention. They know this and look back                out of the corners of their eyes.                    123   EXT. PARK, TOKYO -- DAY                          They arrive at a park with a playground: swings, see-saws,                slides. Several of their deaf-mute volleyball friends are                there.                          With them are two young men with hair dyed blond. One of                them, Takeshi (18), has an earring, and the other, Haruki                (19), has several tattoos.                          Mitsu and Chieko greet them in sign language.    Chieko asks                the slightly chubby Kumiko who they are.                                                KUMIKO                          They're my cousins.                          Chieko turns to look at them, curious. Haruki, the guy with                tattoos, exchanges a look with her. Chieko suddenly feels                intimidated and looks down.                                                CHIEKO                          Is he deaf-mute like us?                                                KUMIKO                          No, but he understands some.                          Haruki seems to understand what they're saying and leans in                to whisper something to Takeshi, his brother. They both                laugh.                          Haruki approaches Chieko and talks to her face to face so                she can read his lips.                                                                                           72.                                                HARUKI                          What's your name?                          Chieko and her friend smile.    Chieko takes out her notebook                and pen and writes her name.    Haruki reads it out loud.                                                   HARUKI (CONT'D)                          Chieko?                          Chieko nods.                                                HARUKI (CONT'D)                          My name's Haruki.                          Chieko nods, trying to show she's understood. Haruki takes                out a flask and holds it out to her. Chieko opens it and                smells it. Haruki stands in front of her.                                                   HARUKI (CONT'D)                          It's whisky.                          Chieko smiles and gives a long swig.       Mitsu asks for some                and also gives it a long drink.                                                HARUKI (CONT'D)                          Do the cops come around here?                                                MITSU                              (Gutturally)                          Sometimes.                          Haruki takes out some ecstasy and gives it to them. Mitsu                and Chieko look at each other and down the pills with a gulp                of whisky.                    124   EXT. PARK, TOKYO -- LATER                          Half-drunk and rushing from the pills, Chieko, her friends,                and Haruki and Takeshi, play on the swings and see-saw.                They laugh at almost anything. Haruki and Chieko are on the                see-saw and every time Chieko rises, Haruki looks at her                bush. Chieko knows this sometimes opens her legs even more                so he can look to his heart's content. Hormones float in                the air.                          Mitsu also takes advantage of the occasion. She flirts with                Haruki whenever she can. Haruki looks happy to be the object                of their attention.                          Takeshi, who has started to make out with one of Chieko's                friends, turns to the group and speaks slowly.                                                TAKESHI                          Why- don't- we- go- to- Montana?                                                                                       73.                    125   INT. TAXI, TOKYO -- EVENING                          Night begins to fall. Haruki sits between Mitsu and Chieko.                He strokes Chieko's knee with his hand; she seems turned on.                    126   EXT. NIGHTCLUB STRIP, TOKYO -- NIGHT                          The taxi parks outside the Montana. Chieko, Mitsu and Haruki                get out of the car and meet with the others at the door.                    127   INT. HALLWAY, NIGHTCLUB -- NIGHT                          They enter. The music, the light, the crowd, it is almost                hallucinatory. For Chieko, it is a silent concert of movement                and chaos.                          She and her friends push their way through the place. Haruki                grabs Chieko by the hand, pulls her toward the floor and                starts dancing. Chieko looks at the other dancers' rhythm                and follows. She slowly manages to follow.                          The other deaf-mutes also dance. Some do better than others,                lost in the sea of lights and people.                          For Chieko, the dance turns into something hypnotic. She                dances with her eyes closed, concentrated on her own rhythm.                          When she opens her eyes, she sees that Mitsu, a little drunk,                is grinding against Haruki, feeling him up.                          Chieko seems annoyed by this and goes to defend her territory.                She starts dancing next to Haruki, but she is constantly                interrupted by the surrounding crowd.                          The struggle between Chieko and Mitsu is a little bit                ridiculous. It is finally resolved when Mitsu takes Haruki                by the face and starts to kiss him. Chieko doesn't know what                to do. Mitsu and Haruki start to make out intensely.                          Suddenly Chieko is left standing in the middle of the club,                motionless, while her friends dance awkwardly and Mitsu and                Haruki are having the time of their lives. Chieko, defeated                by her friend, decides to leave. Mitsu spots her out of the                corner of her eye and waves goodbye. Chieko smiles back and                walks away from her friends as they dance.                    128   INT. LOBBY, TOKYO APARTMENT BUILDING -- NIGHT                          Chieko enters her building and goes straight to the doorman.                                                DOORMAN                          Good evening, how may I help you?                          Chieko takes out a piece of paper and a pen from her purse                and writes a note. She gives it to the doorman together                with Kenji's card. He reads it carefully, and when he's                done he turns to her.                                                                                      74.                                                DOORMAN (CONT'D)                          Very well miss, I'll call him now.                          The doorman picks up a cordless phone and dials.                                                DOORMAN (CONT'D)                          Lieutenant Kenji Mamiya, please?                          There is a pause. The doorman gestures to Chieko that the                lieutenant will answer in a moment.                                                DOORMAN (CONT'D)                          Lieutenant? Yes, look, I'm with the                          deaf-mute girl you saw in the                          afternoon, and she asked me to call                          you... Yes, her... She says she needs                          to talk to you, alone... about her                          father... If it's possible, in her                          apartment, tonight.                          Chieko watches attentively.                    129   EXT. YUSSEF AND AHMED'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Yussef and Ahmed are sitting against the wall of the house.                Yussef's lip is split. Ahmed's nose is bleeding.                          Abdullah paces desperately, while his wife and daughters                watch the scene, silent. Abdullah stops to look at Yussef.                                                ABDULLAH                          Why did you do this?                          They don't answer.   Abdullah leans over and slaps Ahmed.                                                ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                          Answer me, god damn it!                          Ahmed won't answer and he turns to Yussef again.                                                YUSSEF                          We were testing the rifle.                          Abdullah turns and gives Yussef a powerful slap, which he                endures with silent dignity.                                                ABDULLAH                          Are you idiots? You killed a woman,                              (He turns to Zora)                          And you, you got naked so your brother                          would see you?                                                AHMED                          Yes, she got naked lots of times.    I                          saw how Yussef spied on her.                                                                                       75.                                                ZORA                          That's not true.                          Abdullah turns to Yussef.                                                ABDULLAH                          Is it true or not?                          Yussef is silent. Abdullah walks two steps forward and slaps                Zora. He looks furious, scared, indignant.                                                ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                          Why did you do this to us?                          He can barely hold in his tears. Zora brings her hand to                her face tearily. Abdullah turns to Ahmed.                                                ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                          Where's the rifle?                    130   EXT. HASSAN'S HOUSE -- DAY                          A cop interrogates Hassan. His face is badly bruised and                his hands are cuffed behind his back.                                                COP                          What organization gave you the weapon?                                                HASSAN                          I've told you it wasn't an                          organization; I got it from a hunter.                                                   COP                          What hunter?                                                HASSAN                          A Japanese hunter gave it to me many                          years ago. I've got a picture inside.                          She can get it.                          He turns to look at his wife. She has also been beaten and                is guarded by two cops. The interrogating cop authorizes                her. She walks in and comes out with a photograph of Hassan                with Yasujiro, posing with the scimitar-horned oryx. He hands                it over and the cop examines it.                                                HASSAN (CONT'D)                          He's holding the rifle he gave me.                    131   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          Yussef and Ahmed dig up the rifle and the bullets in front                of their parents and sisters.                          Abdullah grabs the rifle, dusts it off and puts the bullets                in his bag. He turns to Yasira.                                                                                      76.                                                ABDULLAH                          We're going to hide out at Naguib's                          house. If the cops come, tell them                          we went south.                          With the rifle in hand, Abdullah runs off, followed by Yussef                and Ahmed. The women watch them get lost on the horizon.                    132   EXT. HASSAN'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Alarid's truck parks in front of Hassan's house again. Hassan                is still cuffed and being interrogated. Furious, Alarid gets                out of the truck and goes toward him.                                                 ALARID                          This Abdullah doesn't live where you                          said he did.                          He walks over to kick him. The wife intervenes from where                she is, some ten yards away.                                                WIFE                          They live where he said they do.                          Alarid turns to her.                                                ALARID                          You're going to take us.                          With a gesture, he orders his subordinates to put her in the                truck. She obeys, docile.                                                ALARID (CONT'D)                          And if they're not there, I'll cut                          your tongue out and I'll kill your                          husband.                    133   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          The Moroccan police trucks drive down the dusty roads.    The                landscape is harsh and barren.                    134   INT. POLICE TRUCK -- DAY                          Hassan's wife gives directions.                                                WIFE                          Make a right here.                          Alarid, with his hand, signals the driver to follow her                directions.                          Suddenly, in the distance, over the hills, she signals three                tiny dots running up a slope.                                                   WIFE (CONT'D)                          That's them.                                                                                       77.                                                ALARID                              (To the driver)                          Stop...                          The trucks stop and Alarid takes out his binoculars.                    135   P.O.V. ALARID'S BINOCULARS -- CONTINUOUS                          In the distance, we can still see Abdullah, Yussef and Ahmed                run across the hills. Abdullah is clearly carrying the rifle.                    136   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          Alarid quickly gets out.                                                ALARID                          There they are.                          All the cops get out with their high powered rifles.                    137   EXT. DESERT HILLS -- DAY                          Abdullah and his sons run full speed.   Yussef sees the trucks                in the distance.                                                YUSSEF                          The police, the police...                          They run up a hill to try to lose them, but shots start to                ring out.                                                YUSSEF (CONT'D)                          They're shooting at us.                          Abdullah stands before his sons and lifts up the rifle as a                sign of surrender. The shots cease for a few seconds, but                they suddenly start again.                                                 ABDULLAH                          Get down.   Run.                          The three shepherds run, huddling as low as they can. More                shots. They desperately climb between the rocks. Bullets                whiz past everywhere.                          Abdullah makes one last attempt at surrender. He lifts up                the rifle again, sets it on the ground and backs away. But                the gesture is in vain, as the bullets still rush past.                          They begin to run again when Ahmed is hit in one of his                calves. He collapses and rolls downhill. Abdullah hurries                to rescue him and drags him behind a rock.                          Ahmed won't stop screaming from the pain.                                                AHMED                          They shot me, they shot me...                                                                                      78.                          Yussef dives on his belly and snakes his way through the                rocks. He gets the rifle, loads it and aims at the trucks.                          He shoots without hitting anything.    Abdullah turns to him.                                                ABDULLAH                          Don't shoot, don't shoot!                          Yussef doesn't pay attention.    He loads again and aims.                    138   P.O.V. RIFLE SIGHTS -- DAY                          Yussef aims carefully. He picks out one of the cops who has                been shooting barely protected by one of the trucks' fenders.                Yussef shoots and the policeman collapses.                    139   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- LATER                          The religious ceremony has ended and everyone throws rice at                the bride and groom. Debbie and Mike enjoy doing it.                          Several cowboys, among them Santiago, have gone to their                trucks and are loudly honking their horns.                          Music begins to blare.                    140   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- DAY                          The band plays various NorteÒo songs. Everyone waits for                the music to start. After a while a couple starts to timidly                dance. Then another, and another, until the dance floor                becomes a sway of heads moving to the same rhythm.                          Amelia dances with Mike and Debbie with Santiago; both Amelia                and Santiago show them a few steps.                                                SANTIAGO                              (To Debbie, in Spanish)                          Like this, look...                          He kicks his heel back, then forward. Debbie watches,                entertained. Jacinto (55), overweight and with a good-natured                face, moves closer to Amelia and watches her dance for a                while, she notices and stops, embarrassed.                                                 JACINTO                               (Both in Spanish)                          Amelia, will you let me dance with                          you?                          Amelia remains unperturbed, without answering him.                                                JACINTO (CONT'D)                          I've been asking you for a dance for                          30 years. Does it really cost you                          that much?                                                                                        79.                          Amelia stares at him.                                                AMELIA                          I don't think your wife would have                          liked that.                                                JACINTO                          C'mon Amelia, she's been dead for 10                          years.                          Amelia looks around and then turns to him.                                                AMELIA                          Okay, just one.                          Jacinto chivalrously takes her by the waist and they begin                to dance. Santiago watches them, amused, and continues to                dance with Mike and Debbie.                          Jacinto draws Amelia closer and they kiss gently.                    141   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- NIGHT                          Beer starts to flow and some of the guests get overbearing.                There is a small scuffle at the edge of the dance floor, but                order is soon restored.                          The guitarist in the band stops the music.                                                GUITAR PLAYER                              (All in Spanish)                          Now, Luis and Patricia, come forward.                          Everyone makes way for the bride and groom.                                                GUITAR PLAYER (CONT'D)                          We-want-cake, we-want-cake...                          The audience and the band sing the little cake song. A giant,                tacky wedding cake, covered in cream, arrives. The bride                grabs the knife and gets ready to cut it.                                                GUITAR PLAYER (CONT'D)                          Take- a- bite, take- a- bite...                          The bride gives into the ritual. She tries to take a bite                out of the cake without using her hands and someone pushes                her face into the cream. Debbie and Mike laugh.                          A cowboy pulls out a gun and, festively, fires.   Debbie is                frightened and goes to hide behind Amelia.                                                AMELIA                          Don't worry, it's ok.                          The man puts the gun away and walks back onto the dance floor                as if nothing had happened.                                                                                    80.                          Luis asks the band to stop the music for a little bit and he                takes the microphone.                                                LUIS                          Good evening everyone... Hey... I                          want to say something. Love came                          today, it came here all pretty...                              (he taps his heart)                          It's kind of like a little mouse is                          crawling inside of me. Because that's                          what love is, it's like your insides                          get all twisted into knots... and                          that, baby, is what you've taught                          me. And because you've shown me, I                          want to tell everyone that hopefully                          love will get inside them                          too...because it feels so good,                          really...Thanks a lot and keep havin'                          a good time...                          Everybody applauds and Luis steps down from the dais, proud                of his speech. He goes to Amelia and gives her a very long                and loving hug.                    142   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- NIGHT                          Night has fallen. The music plays full blast. Everyone                dances, people start to make out, the drunk collapse.                          Patricia breathes regularly with her hands on her belly.                Luis drinks beer beside her while he watches the guests dance.                Debbie falls asleep on Amelia's lap while Mike watches the                party, overwhelmed.                                                MIKE                          When are my parents getting back?                          The question catches Amelia off guard.                                                AMELIA                          Pronto...muy pronto...                                                MIKE                          They told me they were coming back                          today.                                                AMELIA                          Se quedaron m·s rato.                          The answer seem to makes Mike anxious.                                                MIKE                          My dad's coming back with my mom.                                                AMELIA                          Yes. Yes he is.                                                                                      81.                                                MIKE                          I don't want him to leave again.                                                  AMELIA                          He won't.                          He starts crying.                                                  MIKE                          I miss Pat.                          Amelia embraces him and kisses his head.                                                AMELIA                          Yo tambiÈn hijito, yo tambiÈn.                          The boy, tired and sleepy, leans his head on Amelia.                    143   EXT. HAMLET "LOS LOBOS" -- NIGHT                          Santiago, a little bit drunk, and Amelia, carrying Debbie                who has passed out, say goodbye to Luis and Patricia. Sleepy,                Mike leans on the hood of the car.                                                LUIS                              (All in Spanish)                          Stay the night.                                                AMELIA                          I can't. I have to take these kids                          home and it's almost dawn.                                                LUIS                          But Santiago's pretty drunk.                                                SANTIAGO                          Drunk my ass. I'm fine. I'll go                          and come back in an hour.                                                PATRICIA                          Stay for another while, the party's                          just getting started.                                                AMELIA                          I wish, but these kids have to go to                          school.                          Santiago opens the door for Amelia, who carefully sets Debbie                on the back seat. Mike gets in and as soon as he does he                nestles in to go to sleep.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                          See you soon, son.                          Luis and Amelia hug each other.    Then Amelia hugs her daughter-                in-law.                                                                                       82.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                          Congratulations, dear.                              (She points at her                               belly)                          Take care of my grandson 'cause I'm                          dying to be a grandmother.                          She gives her a kiss and gets in the car.   Luis turns to                Santiago.                                                LUIS                          You sure you're not too drunk?                                                SANTIAGO                          Drunk my ass. I'm fine.     I'll be                          back soon.                          Santiago stumbles to the driver's side and opens the door.                    144   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- NIGHT                          The night spreads over the highway that cuts across the                desert. Santiago's car drives along, illuminating the cacti.                    145   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- NIGHT                          Santiago drives the car, nodding off every now and then. In                the back, Debbie and Mike have surrendered to sleep. Santiago                jerks the wheel.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Hey... be careful...                          Santiago corrects the vehicles trajectory and goes back to                his careless driving.                    146   EXT. BORDER CROSSING -- NIGHT                          Santiago decides to cross through Mesa de Otay. Since it's                nighttime, there are very few cars. They drive across the                bridge and stop before the immigration officer.                    147   EXT. IMMIGRATION STALL, BORDER CROSSING -- CONTINUOUS                          The officer walks up to the window.                                                OFFICER                          Your papers...                          Santiago and Amelia take out their passports and their Green                cards. The officer compares the documents to their faces                again and again.                                                OFFICER (CONT'D)                          Where you comin' from?                                                                                83.                                          SANTIAGO                        (In bad English)                    From a wedding.                    The officer looks through the window and sees Debbie and          Mike sleeping in the back.                                          OFFICER                    Who are they?                    Santiago rushes to answer.                                          SANTIAGO                    They're her nephews.                    Amelia freezes at Santiago's answer.    The officer won't stop          looking at the children.                                          OFFICER                    They don't look like you.                                          AMELIA                        (bewildered)                    I'm in charge of them.                                          OFFICER                    Do you have their passports?                    Amelia takes out their American passports and shows them to          the cop. He looks them over very carefully. Santiago starts          to get nervous.                                          SANTIAGO                    Is there a problem?                    The officer turns to look at them suspiciously.    He obviously          smells the alcohol.                                          OFFICER                    Should there be one?                    Santiago shakes his head.    Debbie wakes up and looks at the          officer sleepily.                                            DEBBIE                    Hi.                                          OFFICER                    Hey there, sweetie.                    Debbie rubs her eyes.                                          OFFICER (CONT'D)                    Tell me, is this lady your aunty?                    Debbie innocently shakes her head.                                                                                      84.                                                DEBBIE                          No, she's not my aunty.                          The officer stares at them harshly. He says something                incomprehensible over his radio and asks Santiago.                                                OFFICER                          Are you drunk?                                                 SANTIAGO                          Me, sir?   No.                                                OFFICER                          Get out of the car.                                                SANTIAGO                          Why, officer?                                                OFFICER                          I'm countin' to three...                          He brings his hand to his gun.                    148   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- NIGHT                          Nervous, Santiago glances ahead and looks at the border                crossing through his rear-view mirror. He puts the car in                reverse and accelerates, trying to escape back to Mexico,                but he crashes into an arriving car.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          What are you doing?                    149   EXT. IMMIGRATION DESK, BORDER CROSSING -- NIGHT                          The immigration officers take out their guns and run to stop                him. Santiago sees that the road ahead is clear and he drives                away full speed, barely swerving around some customs officers                who are searching another vehicle.                          The officer shouts urgently.                                                OFFICER                          They've kidnapped some kids...                          He starts a police chase.                    150   EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY -- NIGHT                          Santiago's car drives full speed down the highway.   He                sometimes looks as if he is going to lose control.                    151   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- NIGHT                          Santiago drives madly. Frightened, Amelia holds onto the                dashboard. Debbie and Mike start to cry.                                                                                      85.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In Spanish)                          See, I told you you shouldn't have                          brought them. I told you. I told                          you..                          A trailer drives slowly. Santiago decides to drive around                it blindly, and almost drives off the other side of the road.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Santiago, stop acting crazy and stop                          the car... Santiago, stop...                          Santiago ignores her, concentrated on his driving. He looks                through the rear-view mirror. There is nobody behind him,                only the dark highway. Santiago steps on the gas.                          Amelia tries to comfort the kids.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                              (In English)                          Everything's all right sweeties...                          The children won't stop crying, terrified by the speed.                Through one of his mirrors, Santiago sees two patrol cars                following him with their turrets flashing.                                                SANTIAGO                              (In Spanish)                          Fucking asshole gringo mother-fuckers,                          here they come...                          Santiago accelerates. The car seems to be out of control.                The children scream. Amelia tries to stop Santiago.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Stop... Stop...                          Santiago reaches a path and heads toward it.                    152   EXT. DESERT PATH -- NIGHT                          The car drives quickly down the path, raising up a cloud of                dust. The patrol cars are no longer visible.                          The car drives on for a mile and then stops.                    153   INT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- NIGHT                          Santiago turns to Amelia.                                                SANTIAGO                              (Their entire dialogue                               in Spanish)                          Get out...                                                                                       86.                          Amelia looks at the dark desert surrounding them.                                                AMELIA                          Are you crazy? Where?                                                SANTIAGO                          Get out. I'll lose these bastards                          and then I'll come back for you.                                                AMELIA                          Santiago, calm down...                                                SANTIAGO                          Aunt Amelia, they're going to get                          us, get out god damn it...                    154   EXT. SANTIAGO'S CAR -- NIGHT                          Amelia gets out and opens the door for the kids.                                                AMELIA                              (In English)                          Come with me, dears.                          The kids get out and Amelia holds their hand.   Santiago closes                the doors and drives off in a cloud of dust.                          They start to walk through the darkness. Amelia leads the                way, avoiding cacti and thorny branches. The go on like                this for a long stretch. The children are quiet and scared.                          Amelia goes toward the highway and realizes the patrol cars                have turned into the path. She runs into the desert with                the kids. She can barely see with the light of the early                dawn. The three frequently trip on thorny plants.                                                DEBBIE                          I want to go home now.                                                MIKE                          Me too.                          Both of them, scared, start to cry.                                                AMELIA                              (In English)                          Don't cry. We're going home now.                          She looks back worried at where the patrol cars were; they                are approaching quickly. Then she turns to where Santiago                ran. The headlights are soon lost on the horizon.                          Amelia holds them by the hand and pulls them as she runs.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                              (In Spanish)                          Let's go.                                                                                       87.                          She leads them further and further away from the path, snaking                through the brush. The patrol cars come even closer. Amelia                ducks and hides behind one of the bushes.                                                   AMELIA (CONT'D)                          Get down.                          The children hide with her. The patrol cars tear past her,                some five hundred yards away, chasing after Santiago.                          We suddenly hear sirens. Then, the sound of doors slamming                and unintelligible voices over a loudspeaker.                                                POLICE OFFICER (O.S.)                          Do not get out of the car...don't                          get out...wait...stop...stop...don't                          run...                          After a few seconds, we hear distant gunshots, three, four.                Amelia listens, frozen.                    155   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- AFTERNOON                          Dusk. Susan sleeps and Richard looks at the vast desert                through the window. Anwar, sitting on a chair, with a fan                clears away the flies hovering around Susan. We can hear the                call to prayer and Anwar prostrates himself toward Mecca.                          Richard observes Anwar's prayer and then looks at Susan who                moans in her sleep.                    156   INT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- AFTERNOON                          Richard and Anwar are sitting in silence while Susan lies                unconsciously on the floor.                          YamilÈ (9), a beautiful girl with large brown eyes, enters                carrying a tray with cookies and tea. She greets Richard                with a nod and offers him tea.                          Richard takes the tea.                                                   RICHARD                          Thank you.                          The girl gets up to offer tea to Anwar, who takes it.                                                ANWAR                              (In Arabic)                          Thank you, YamilÈ.                          YamilÈ smiles and leaves the room.                                                RICHARD                          Is that your daughter?                                                                                       88.                                                ANWAR                          The fourth of eight.                                                RICHARD                          Eight?                          Anwar affirms, smiling.                                                ANWAR                          Do you have kids?                          Richard takes out his wallet and pulls out a photo of him,                Susan, Mike and Debbie. He shows it to him.                          Anwar takes it and looks at it.                                                ANWAR (CONT'D)                          Just two?                                                RICHARD                          Three...                              (He remains pensive)                          Yes, just two.                                                ANWAR                          You should have more.                          Anwar returns the photo. Richard looks at it for a moment                before putting it back into his wallet.                                                RICHARD                          What about you? How many wives do                          you have?                                                ANWAR                              (Smiling)                          I can only afford one.                                                RICHARD                          And is this where you live?                                                ANWAR                          No, this is where my family lives. I                          live in Marrakesh. But I come whenever                          I can...                          They exchange a look. We hear a car engine.                    157   EXT. STREET, HAMLET -- AFTERNOON                          An old, run-down Peugeot driven by a policeman pulls up in                front of the house. The policeman gets out. The tourists,                leaning on the wall, get up to see what's happening.                          Mohammed comes out to talk to him.                                                                                    89.                                                MOHAMMED                              (in Arabic)                          What happened?                                                POLICEMAN                              (In Arabic)                          I need to talk to the American.                          Tom interrogates Mohammed.                                                TOM                          What did he say?                                                MOHAMMED                          No English...                    158   EXT. PATIO, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- AFTERNOON                          The policeman, Anwar and Richard are chatting in the patio.                                                RICHARD                              (To Anwar)                          When did he find out?                                                ANWAR                              (In Arabic)                          When did you know?                                                POLICEMAN                              (In Arabic)                          A while ago... they said the ambulance                          isn't coming anymore.                                                ANWAR                          A while ago... he says the ambulance                          broke down.                                                RICHARD                          What? Tell him to call another one.                          He has to get another one.                                                ANWAR                              (In Arabic, to the                               Policeman)                          He wants you to call another                          ambulance.                                                POLICEMAN                              (In Arabic)                          You know there isn't another one.                                                ANWAR                              (To Richard)                          There isn't another ambulance.                                                                               90.                                          RICHARD                    What the hell do you mean there isn't                    another ambulance? You've got to get                    her out of here...                    He faces the police officer.                                          RICHARD (CONT'D)                    She can't stay here or she'll die.                    Call another fucking ambulance...                    The policeman cannot understand and remains expressionless.                                           RICHARD (CONT'D)                    Come on, move... call another                    ambulance...                                          ANWAR                        (In Arabic)                    He asks how we're going to get the                    woman out of here.                                          POLICEMAN                        (In Arabic)                    Tell him that they told me that his                    embassy is going to deal with it.                                          ANWAR                    He says your embassy will deal with                    the matter.                    Richard now shouts at Anwar.                                          RICHARD                    How the fuck are they going to deal                    with it? It's your shitty fucking                    country's responsibility.                                          POLICEMAN                        (In Arabic)                    The Americans want to send one of                    their helicopters but I think there                    are some problems.                    Anwar mulls over his answer.   He seems to want to lie again.                                          ANWAR                    They're going to try to send a                    helicopter.                                          RICHARD                        (incredulous)                    A helicopter?... Let's get out of                    here...                    He starts walking. Anwar catches up to him.                                                                               91.                                          ANWAR                    Where?                    Richard turns to him, desperate.                                          RICHARD                    I need to make a phone call.                    They turn towards the exit leaving the cop behind, who doesn't          seem to understand. Tom and James take advantage of the          situation to go talk to Richard.                                          TOM                    We can't stay here any longer. It's                    going to get dark soon. Lots of                    people aren't feeling well and its                    dangerous to stay here.                    Richard explodes and pushes Tom.                                          RICHARD                    Stop fucking with me.                                          TOM                    Don't you dare push me.                                          RICHARD                    Oh no?                    He pushes him again, angrily.                                          TOM                    What are you doing, you stupid fuck?                                          RICHARD                    Leave asshole.                    Tom shoves him.                                          TOM                    Fuck you.                    Richard becomes furious and loses it, hitting him over and          over again. Some of the tourists get involved. James manages          to grab him with Anwar.                                          JAMES                    Hey, take it easy.                                          RICHARD                    I'm fed up with that asshole.                    James pulls him away while other tourists pull Tom away.                                          JAMES                    Try to calm down.                                                                                    92.                                                RICHARD                          Calm down? My wife is dying up there.                                                JAMES                          Come with us.                                                RICHARD                          Where the fuck do you want me to                          take her?                                                JAMES                          Try to understand, many of them can't                          go on. Tell me, honestly, is there                          any point in us staying?                          Richard threatens him.                                                RICHARD                          You leave and I'll kill you...                          James is going to say something, but Richard turns around                and walks away as he is about to say something. Anwar follows.                    159   INT. GENERAL STORE -- EVENING                          Richard is in the phone booth with telephone in hand. A                woman's voice answers.                                                   RACHEL (O.S.)                          Hello...                                                RICHARD                          Rachel... What's going on? Nobody's                          come... Who have you talked to... we                          need help...she's dying...                                                RACHEL (O.S.)                          What d'you mean dying?                                                RICHARD                          She's very weak, please, you've got                          to do something.                                                RACHEL (O.S.)                          Mark, your business partner, already                          called someone in the Secretary of                          State, they're going to help you...                                                 RICHARD                          You can't just make these stupid                          fucking calls, you've got to do                          something...                                                RACHEL (O.S.)                          Richard calm down, we're doing                          everything we can.                                                                               93.                                          RICHARD                    How the fuck do you expect me to                    calm down? Susan is dying...                                          RACHEL (O.S.)                    I'm flying over there tonight.                                          RICHARD                    There's no time. I need to get Susan                    out of here now! Put Mark on the                    phone...                                          RACHEL (O.S.)                    I don't know if I can find him.                                          RICHARD                    God damn it, connect the fucking                    call.                    A few seconds go by. Desperate, Richard looks at the town as          it goes about its daily business, oblivious to his tragedy.                                          MARK (O.S.)                    Richard, it's Mark.                                          RICHARD                    Mark, help me... Susan is dying and                    there are no ambulances, there's no                    hospital, there's nothing.                                          MARK (O.S.)                    Richard, the news is all over the                    place. They're going to go help you,                    soon, but there have been some                    political problems that are being                    resolved.                                          RICHARD                    I don't give a shit about political                    problems... Do something, now,                    please...                    Through the window, Richard, astonished, watches the bus          drive away, kicking up dust as it disappears in the distance.                                          RICHARD (CONT'D)                    Son of a bitch...                    He throws the phone away and runs after the bus. We hear          Mark's desperate voice over the receiver.                                           MARK (O.S.)                    Richard... what happened? Richard,                    answer me...                                                                                          94.                    160   EXT. HAMLET -- EVENING                          Richard runs after the bus as it drives away down the side                streets.                                                  RICHARD                            Stop... Stop... Stop you mother-                            fuckers stop...                          The bus vanishes into the distance. Richard picks up a stone                and hurls it impotently.                    161   INT. CHIEKO'S ROOM -- NIGHT                          Chieko is in her room, sitting on her bed, staring into space.                The doorbell light goes on. She remains motionless for a                few moments. The light goes on again. Chieko breathes in                and goes to open the door.                    162   INT. ENTRANCE TO CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                          Chieko opens the door and runs into Kenji, who greets her as                if she were just anybody.                                                   KENJI                            Hello.                          She bows.                                                  KENJI (CONT'D)                            They told me you wanted to talk to                            me.                          Chieko, who has been unable to read his lips, asks him with                her hands that he speak slowly and face her. Kenji is                embarrassed by his tactlessness and tries to be more                considerate.                                                  KENJI (CONT'D)                            I'm sorry. Is there something you                            wanted to tell me?                          Chieko nods and asks him in with her hand. Kenji takes off                his shoes and leaves them at the door. Chieko leads him to                the living room and with a gesture asks if he wants anything                to drink.                                                  KENJI (CONT'D)                            Do you have tea?                          Chieko nods and goes into the kitchen. Kenji glances over                the apartment. Chieko comes back from the kitchen holding a                strange gadget which she puts on the living room table. A                small bulb lights. Kenji just watches her.                          Chieko gestures for him to sit down.     Kenji and Chieko sit                across from each other.                                                                                    95.                          Chieko takes out her notebook and pen, writes something down                and hands it over to Kenji. Kenji reads, seems surprised                and reads again slowly.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          "My father had nothing to do with my                          mother's death," what's this?                          Chieko is disconcerted at the question. She takes her                notebook and starts writing. Kenji reads and turns to her.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          Your father was asleep when she jumped                          off the balcony?                          She nods. She gets up, asks Kenji to go with her and walks                toward the balcony.                    163   EXT. BALCONY, CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                          She opens the door to the balcony and points at the void:                it's over twelve floors. Kenji looks over; the distance is                dizzying. Chieko writes in her notebook and shows him the                piece of paper.                                                KENJI                          You saw her jump?                          She nods and writes again.    She looks perturbed.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          You've already told the other                          officers?                          She nods again.   Kenji holds her by her arms.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          I don't know what you're talking                          about.                          Chieko remains motionless for a few seconds. She scrawls in                her notebook "Then why do you want to talk to my father?"                Kenji reads and then turns to her.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          It's about a hunting rifle in his                          name.                          The red bulb on the gadget starts to blink. Chieko spots it                from the balcony and signals to Kenji that she has to go to                the kitchen. She runs off.                    164   INT. LIVING ROOM, CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                          Kenji stands and looks at the photographs of Yasujiro hunting                all over the world: with a kudu in Africa, a black bear in                Kamchatka, Hassan and the Oryx in Morocco.                                                                                 96.                    Chieko comes back with a cup of steaming tea.                                          KENJI                    Does your father still hunt?                    She shakes her head.   She writes something and hands it over.                                          KENJI (CONT'D)                    There was an incident with a rifle                    in your father's name. That's why                    we want to talk to him.                    The news weighs on Chieko; she looks away. The sounds of          Tokyo come in through the living room: its car horns, its          voices.                    Suddenly a rush of wind comes in. Chieko sees the balcony          doors are open and goes to close them. She then comes back          to the living room and sits down, dejected.                    Kenji sits down beside her and leaves the tea on the table.          He doesn't know what to do and looks uncomfortable.                    She picks up the notebook and writes.    Kenji reads.                                          KENJI (CONT'D)                    No, your father isn't going to jail.                    We just need to talk to him.                    There is a long silence. Chieko seems immersed in a remote,          inaccessible world. Kenji turns his face to hers so that          she can read his lips.                                          KENJI (CONT'D)                    I have to go now. Thank you.                    Chieko grabs his arm and shakes her head, urging him to stay.          They exchange a look for an instant and Kenji insists.                                          KENJI (CONT'D)                    I have to go.                    He gets up to leave. Chieko signals for him to wait for a          moment and goes to her room.                    Kenji stands in the middle of the room, waiting.    Chieko          comes back completely naked. Her skin bristles.                    She walks toward him, breathing through her mouth. Kenji is          disconcerted when he sees the quiet teenager approach. She          walks all the way up to Kenji and when she is about to take          another step, he holds her back with both hands.                                          KENJI (CONT'D)                    What are you doing?                                                                                         97.                          She doesn't pay attention, breaks free and stands a few inches                away from him. She is almost panting. She holds out her                hand and caresses Kenji's ear. He stands there, immobile,                without taking his eyes off Chieko's.                          She takes his hand and puts it on one of her breasts. Kenji                strokes her breast and then pulls his hand away. She grabs                it again and puts it back on.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          No, no, no... this is wrong.                          Kenji looks turned on and confused: Chieko is beautiful, but                he knows he cannot go on and takes his hand away.                                                   KENJI (CONT'D)                          No, I can't.     You're just a girl.                          She walks up to his face and licks it.    He is confused.                                                KENJI (CONT'D)                          Enough, please.                          He grabs her by her arms and moves her away. She grabs the                sleeve of his jacket and pulls him back. She hugs him and                suddenly Chieko starts crying, disconsolate.                          Kenji, bewildered, first does nothing, but upon seeing                Chieko's despair, holds her. She buries her face in his                shoulder. Her nakedness becomes increasingly fragile.                    165   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          Abdullah, afraid, watches his son shoot. The police have                stopped firing and run for cover. Yussef loads the rifle                again and aims carefully. He shoots and, in the distance,                we can see one of the headlights on a police truck shatter.                          Abdullah shouts at Yussef desperately.                                                ABDULLAH                          Yussef, stop shooting!                          Furious, Yussef loads the rifle again and starts shooting at                the cops. Ahmed won't stop screaming from the pain. Confused,                Abdullah doesn't know if he should console his wounded son                or stop the enraged Yussef.                          In the distance, the cops reorganize.    We hear the faraway                shots of Alarid giving orders.                                                ALARID                          Move that truck... god damn it...                          One of the cops gets onto a truck and uses it as a parapet.                Yussef aims again, but this time the policemen are well                covered. Abdullah drags himself all the way to Yussef.                                                                               98.                                          ABDULLAH                    Give me that rifle...                    Yussef turns to his father.                                          YUSSEF                    They're going to kill us.                                          ABDULLAH                    Give me that rifle.                    He tries to wrest it away, but Yussef resists. The struggle          and Abdullah finally pulls it away. When Yussef tries to          snatch it back, the police fire a round of shots and the two          barely have time to hide.                    The air is thick with gunshots. Yussef and Abdullah,          terrified, stick to the stones. The bullets strike very          close to them, and they can't even raise their heads.                    Ahmed won't stop complaining.    Abdullah shouts at him.                                          ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                    Ahmed, don't move.                    The gunshots rain down for over a minute. When they stop,          Abdullah turns to look at Ahmed, who is lying motionless on          the rocks with bullet in his back.                                           ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                    Ahmed!   Ahmed!                    Oblivious of the police, he gets up and runs toward him.          Motionless, Ahmed just moans. With every breath, his shirt          grows bloodier.                                           ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                    Ahmed!   Ahmed!                    He rolls Ahmed over and lays his head on his lap. Abdullah          cannot stop crying. Yussef, ducking, runs toward his brother.          Abdullah laments nervously.                                          ABDULLAH (CONT'D)                    Don't die, don't die.                    Yussef is shocked upon seeing his dead brother. He stands          up and, without caring whether anyone fires at him or not,          he raises the rifle up in the air for the police to see that          he is not aiming, and starts to break it against the rocks.                    When he's finished breaking it he opens his arms and walks          toward the police. One of them policemen looks at him through          a pair of binoculars. Alarid interrogates him.                                          ALARID                    What's happening?                                                                                 99.                                          POLICE OFFICER                    A boy is walking this way.                                             ALARID                    Is he armed?                    The officer takes a careful look.                                          POLICE OFFICER                    It doesn't look like it.                                          ALARID                    What are the others doing?                    The officer watches Abdullah carrying his wounded son.                                          POLICE OFFICER                    A man is holding somebody injured.                                          ALARID                    Is the other one still walking this                    way?                                             POLICE OFFICER                    Yes.                    Alarid turns to the other officers.                                             ALARID                    Aim.                    The police aim and hold Yussef in their sights. He keeps          walking resolutely toward his aggressors. He is crying          softly, keeping his arms open.                    Yussef walks until his is 10 meters away from the police and          he kneels with his arms open.                                          YUSSEF                    I killed the American, I was the                    only one who shot at you...                    Cautious, the police still aim at his chest. Yussef proceeds          with his confession, babbling it through his nerves, his          pain and his attempt to control his sobbing.                                          YUSSEF (CONT'D)                    They did nothing... nothing...                    He turns to his father and his brother and points at them.                                          YUSSEF (CONT'D)                    Kill me, but save my brother, he did                    nothing... nothing...                    Alarid moves in, aiming at him with a rifle.    Behind him are          five other cops, also ready to shoot.                                                                                      100.                                                ALARID                          On the ground...                          Yussef does not obey.                                                YUSSEF                          Save my brother...                                                ALARID                          On the ground...                          Yussef turns his face toward Alarid looks him in the eye.                                                YUSSEF                          Save my brother... please...                          He lies on the floor, crying. Alarid puts his gun down and                looks at him: his enemy is a disconsolate child. Then he                looks up at Abdullah who is screaming his lamentations. He                turns to one of his subordinates.                                                ALARID                          Go help them.                          One of the officers goes to help Abdullah and Ahmed.     Yussef                lies on the floor, crying.                    166   EXT. DESERT -- NIGHT                          The sun rises.   Amelia and the children keep walking.    They                sweat.                                                MIKE                          I can't walk anymore.                                                AMELIA                          We have to keep walking.                                                MIKE                          Why is the air so hot?                          Amelia stops and tries to distract them.                                                AMELIA                              (the entire dialogue                               in English)                          Because coyotes and snakes and quails                          have already breathed that air.                          Mike remains pensive.                                                MIKE                          We're breathing the same air animals                          breathe?                                                  AMELIA                          Yes.                                                                                       101.                                                MIKE                          And it doesn't rot?                                                AMELIA                          No, it doesn't rot.   We all breathe                          this air.                    167   EXT. DESERT -- MORNING                          Dawn. The three walk through the desert.      Debbie walks                mechanically, tired and exhausted.                                                DEBBIE                          I can't anymore. I'm thirsty.                                                   MIKE                          So am I.                          Amelia looks around her: no sign of civilization.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Just a little further and we'll go                          look for water.                    168   EXT. DESERT -- LATER                          Amelia lumbers heavily, carrying Debbie asleep on her arm.                Mike drags his feet a few yards behind.                          They walk for a long stretch through the thorny brush until                they reach a small mound where a leafy mesquite grows.                          Amelia lays a limp Debbie down on the ground and sits on the                mound of earth.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          We're going to rest here for a while.                                                MIKE                          What if there are snakes?                                                AMELIA                          No, there aren't any.   Come, lie                          down.                          The boy, exhausted and docile, obeys and lies on her chest.                Amelia leans against the trunk with Debbie on her legs. The                children sleep while Amelia, nodding off, tries to keep watch.                    169   EXT. DESERT -- LATER                          It is well into the morning. Amelia and the children sleep                deeply. There is a noise and Amelia opens her eyes. She                sees a border patrol truck driving around near them.                                                                               102.                    Looking through the branches, she spies on the truck and          watches another one join it. Mike awakes and sits up.                                          MIKE                    What happening?                    Amelia ducks and lays Mike face down.    The two trucks slowly          approach.                                          AMELIA                        (To Mike, in a low                         voice, in Spanish)                    Stay still.                    A truck drives by about eighty yards away and then passes.          The other one cuts diagonally across its path and then gets          lost in the desert.                    Amelia gets up and shakes off the dust. She looks out of          place, wearing her best clothes torn by the bramble. She          makes sure the trucks are leaving.                                          MIKE                    Why are we hiding if we didn't do                    anything wrong?                                          AMELIA                        (In English)                    Because they think we did something                    wrong.                                          MIKE                    That's not true: you're bad.                    Amelia freezes upon hearing the boy's words.                                          AMELIA                    No, sweetie, I'm not bad.     I just                    did something stupid.                    She pulls him toward her and hugs him tenderly.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                        (In Spanish)                    I love you very much, sweetie.                    Amelia turns and tries to wake Debbie.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                        (In English)                    Debbie, we've got to go.                    The girl opens her eyes, but doesn't answer.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                    Debbie, sweetheart, wake up.                                                                                     103.                          She closes her eyes again. Amelia notices her lips are dry                and her breath is irregular: she is visibly dehydrated.                          Upon seeing that she doesn't react, Amelia looks for the                trucks: they're far away.                    170   EXT. DESERT -- LATER                          Amelia carries Debbie in her arms under the burning sun,                following a cattle trail. Mike walk behind, pale, sweaty.                Amelia looks to the horizon: there is no sign of the trucks.                    171   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          They are still walking. Amelia can barely go on. She stops                to rest. She is sweating copiously. Mike also looks weak.                    172   EXT. DESERT -- LATER                          The heat is strong and Amelia is beaten. She looks for the                shade of a cluster of mesquites and lays Debbie down. Then                she turns to Mike.                                                AMELIA                          Sweetie, I'm going to go look for                          help. Stay here and don't move.                                                MIKE                          I'm not staying here alone.                                                AMELIA                          Honey, you have to take care of                          Debbie.                                                MIKE                          I'm going with you.                          Mike looks at her with imploring eyes.   Amelia caresses him.                                                AMELIA                          I won't be long. I promise.                    173   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          Amelia desperately looks through the desert.   She also looks                dehydrated. She drifts.                    174   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          Amelia drags her feet as she walks.   She can go no further.                    175   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          Amelia sees a small hillock and climbs it with difficulty.                She surveys the environs from the top. In the distance she                sees a Border Patrol truck driving down a path.                                                                                104.                    With great effort, Amelia runs down the hill.                                          AMELIA                        (In Spanish)                    Stop, stop...                    The truck doesn't stop. Amelia keeps running, flailing her          arms and screaming wildly.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                    Sir... sir... stop...                    The truck stops and backs up.   Amelia keeps going, tripping          over stones.                    John (29), a thoroughly Mexican officer, gets out and she          runs up, panting, to him.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                    Please help me.                    John stares at her suspiciously.                                          AMELIA (CONT'D)                    I have to go get two kids I left                    behind in the desert.                    John looks at her suspiciously.                                          JOHN                        (In Spanish, with a                         terrible accent)                    Are they illegal immigrants?                                          AMELIA                    No, they're American.                                          JOHN                    When did you cross?                                          AMELIA                        (In English)                    I didn't cross, I live here.   Please,                    help me find these kids.                    John keeps staring at her.   He points to a mesquite.                                          JOHN                    Stand there and don't move.                    Amelia obeys. John goes back to the vehicle, opens the door          and sits down and grabs the radio.                                          JOHN (CONT'D)                    Attention base, I have a 4533...I                    have the suspect.                                                                                     105.                          Amelia doesn't manage to hear what the radio says. She looks                attentively at what the agent is doing. John stops and runs                back to her.                                                JOHN (CONT'D)                          You're under arrest. Turn around                          and put your hands behind your head.                          Amelia despairs.                                                AMELIA                          I left those kids in the desert, I                          swear.                          John pushes her forcefully against the truck.                                                JOHN                          Turn around, now.                          She turns around with her hands over her head.    John handcuffs                her and leads her to the vehicle.                    176   INT. BORDER PATROL VEHICLE -- DAY                          Amelia, cuffed, and John, drive down a path in the desert.                                                JOHN                          Which way are they?                          Amelia studies the terrain.    She points at some mesquites in                the distance.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Over there.                    177   EXT. DESERT -- DAY                          The truck parks and they both get out.                                                JOHN                          Where are they?                          Amelia explores the landscape, anguished.                                                AMELIA                          They must be around here.                          Another border patrol truck arrives and pulls up next to                them. Eliseo (34), looks out the window.                                                ELISEO                          What happened?                                                JOHN                          This lady said they were here, but                          there's nobody.                                                                                     106.                                                 ELISEO                               (In Spanish)                          Ma'am, you're not lying to us, are                          you?                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          I swear they're around here somewhere.                          She sees another cluster of mesquites and points toward them.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                          They must be over that way.                    178   EXT. CLUSTER OF MESQUITES -- DAY                          They arrive at the cluster. The two trucks park and the                three get out. She is still cuffed. A helicopter hovers                above them.                          They walk around: nothing.                                                JOHN                          There's nobody here.                                                AMELIA                              (To Eliseo, in Spanish)                          I left them about a kilometer in                          from the road.                                                ELISEO                              (In Spanish)                          Which road?                          She doesn't know what to say.    John grabs her by the arm and                drags her toward the vehicle.                                                JOHN                          I don't believe you.                          Amelia looks at him desperately.                                                AMELIA                              (In English)                          I swear they're around here.                          John is not affected.   He keeps pulling her.                                                ELISEO                              (In English)                          John, wait, maybe she's telling the                          truth.                                                JOHN                          Maybe she's not, let's go.                                                                                      107.                                                AMELIA                          Please sir, believe me.                          John pays no attention.   She turns to Eliseo.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                              (In Spanish)                          I swear, they're lost, they're going                          to die. I have to find them.                          John keeps pulling her. He puts her in the truck and closes                the door before Eliseo's passive gaze.                                                AMELIA (CONT'D)                              (In English)                          Please no... please...                    179   INT. ROOM, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- AFTERNOON                          Night begins to fall. From the window we can hear the noises                of the town: voices, goats bleating, camels moaning, music                from a radio.                          Susan wakes from her slumber and turns to Richard, who is                leaning on a wall, tired, sweaty, with his eyes closed.                                                 SUSAN                          Richard.                                                RICHARD                          What do you need?                                                SUSAN                          Richard... if I die, take care of                          the kids. Especially Mike, he really                          needs you.                                                RICHARD                          You're not going to die. You can't                          die. You just can't.                                                SUSAN                          Don't ever leave them again.                                                RICHARD                          No, I'm not going to leave them and                          don't you even think about leaving                          me, because I'll kill you like                          nobody's killed you before.                          She smiles.   He caresses her.                                                SUSAN                          I peed my pants.                                                 RICHARD                          What?                                                                                  108.                                          SUSAN                    I couldn't hold it in and I peed.                    Richard touches between her legs and feels the moisture.                                          RICHARD                    I'm going to tell Mike on you, so                    you never scold him again.                    They both laugh.   She grimaces in pain when she does.                                          SUSAN                    I need to pee again.                                          RICHARD                        (To Anwar)                    Do you have a pot I can borrow?                    Anwar looks in a corner and hands it over.                                          RICHARD (CONT'D)                        (To Anwar)                    Can you leave us alone for a moment?                    The grandmother and Anwar exit.                                          RICHARD (CONT'D)                    Come, try it like this.                    He lifts up her dress, pulls down her underpants and sets          the basin under her. She puts her arm around him to pull          herself up, but can't move her right arm.                                           SUSAN                    I can't.                    They laugh.   He kisses her.   We start to hear the stream.                                           SUSAN (CONT'D)                    Now I can.                    While she pees, they kiss painfully.    She starts to cry.                                          RICHARD                    Forgive me my love. When Pat died I                    didn't know what to do, the pain                    drove me crazy... I was scared, that's                    why I left... forgive me.                                          SUSAN                    I was scared too... when I saw Pat                    lying still in his crib...                    Her voice breaks up and she can barely go on.                                                                                   109.                                                SUSAN (CONT'D)                          It wasn't my fault, it wasn't... I                          couldn't do anything for him...                                                RICHARD                          No, it wasn't your fault. I was                          wrong...                          He strokes her head.                                                 RICHARD (CONT'D)                          Shhh... it wasn't your fault my love,                          it wasn't anybody's fault... Pat                          just left...                              (A beat)                          Forgive me, please.                                                SUSAN                          Forgive me for not forgiving you.                          Richard hugs her and starts to laugh.                                                RICHARD                          You missed; you got my leg.                          They both laugh, and as they do, the blanket covering Susan's                wound slips off. Richard sees her swollen, bruised arm. He                touches it.                                                RICHARD (CONT'D)                          Does it hurt?                                                SUSAN                          So much... so much...                          Richard looks worried and leaves the room.                    180   EXT. STAIRS, ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          He walks out onto the stairs and calls Anwar.                                                RICHARD                          Anwar...Anwar...                          Anwar runs into the room.                                                ANWAR                          What happened?                                                RICHARD                          We've got to get her out of here.                          Where's the clinic?                                                ANWAR                          In Alnif, an hour and a half away                          from here.                                                                                   110.                                                RICHARD                          Can you get us a car we can take her                          in?                          Anwar remains pensive for a moment and then nods.                    181   INT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Richard is squatting next to Susan.                                                RICHARD                          My love... I'm going to get you out                          of here.   We're going to try to                          take you to a clinic an hour and a                          half away from here. Do you think                          you can make it?                          She thinks for a moment and then nods.                                                SUSAN                          Yeah.                                                RICHARD                          I need you to be strong. Really                          strong.                          Susan sighs: the effort required seems as if it will be too                much, but she nods again. Richard hugs and kisses her.                    182   EXT. ANWAR'S HOUSE -- DAY                          Richard and the vet carry Susan out on a wheelbarrow. It is                very difficult to move her. She is clearly in pain and groans                quietly.                          Outside the house is the policeman with his Peugeot. Anwar                is talking to him.                          Richard and the vet carry Susan all the way to the car.                Richard stands before the policeman he humiliated earlier.                                                RICHARD                          Thank you for lending us the car.                          Anwar translates.                                                 ANWAR                               (In Arabic)                          He thanks you for lending us the                          car.                          The policeman nods kindly.                          Dozens of girls and boys and a few adults stare at the scene.                          Gingerly, Richard, Anwar and the vet lift her into the car                and softly lay her on the back seat.                                                                                     111.                          Even so, she screams in pain.                                                SUSAN                          Ahhh... Ahhh...                          Richard holds her hand and squeezes it.                                                RICHARD                          Sweetie, you've got to hold on.                          Richard gets into the car, and as they're about to drive                off, the shopkeeper runs up to them.                                                TENDERO                              (In Arabic)                          Stop... Stop...                          The shopkeeper catches up to them.                                                TENDERO (CONT'D)                              (In Arabic)                          They're calling from the American                          Embassy.                    183   INT. GENERAL STORE -- AFTERNOON                          Richard walks into the cubicle.    The phone is off the hook                and Richard answers.                                                RICHARD                          Hello...                                                SECRETARY (O.S.)                          Just a moment, I'm going to put you                          through to ambassador Ken Clifford.                          Richard awaits. In the corner of the room, he sees a goat's                head covered with flies.                                                KEN                          Hello, Richard Jones?                                                RICHARD                          Yes, speaking.                                                KEN (O.S.)                          I'm very sorry about what happened                          to your wife, but you can be sure                          that the culprits will be punished.                                                RICHARD                          My wife is dying. She's in urgent                          need of medical attention.                                                KEN (O.S.)                          We're working on it...                                                                                    112.                          Richard interrupts angrily.                                                RICHARD                          We've been here for five hours.                          What the fuck are you waiting for?                                                 KEN (O.S.)                          The Moroccan government won't let us                          use their airspace. They refused to                          acknowledge that this was an act of                          terrorism...                                                RICHARD                          I can't wait anymore... I'm taking                          my wife to a clinic in Tinerhir right                          now...                                                KEN (O.S.)                          Stay put... we've settled the matter.                          A helicopter should arrive soon...                                                RICHARD                          We can't wait any longer.                                                KEN (O.S.)                          The helicopter is on its way. Don't                          move.                                                RICHARD                          My wife is in critical condition.                          How long is the chopper going to                          take?                                                KEN (O.S.)                          Soon... it'll be there soon... Be                          patient, it won't be long.                    184   INT. INTERROGATION ROOM, POLICE HEADQUARTERS -- EVENING                          Amelia sits in a room painted white. An American, his hair                slicked back, dressed in a shirt and tie, sits before her.                                                POLICE OFFICER                              (In Spanish)                          Is your full name Amelia Gloria Jord·n                          Susilla?                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Yes sir.                                                POLICE OFFICER                          Do you understand English?                                                AMELIA                              (In English)                          Yes sir.                                                                             113.                                          POLICE OFFICER                        (In English)                    Ma'am, it was a miracle that we found                    those kids. I don't know how you                    could leave them alone in the desert.                                          AMELIA                    I had to look for help.                                           POLICE OFFICER                    Your reckless behavior endangered                    their lives.                    Amelia stops arguing.   She looks worried.                                          AMELIA                    How are they?                                          POLICE OFFICER                    That's none of your business, ma'am.                    The man's words hurt Amelia, who looks away to avoid crying.                                          POLICE OFFICER (CONT'D)                    You've committed serious crimes.                                          AMELIA                    I just took the kids to my son's                    wedding.                                          POLICE OFFICER                    No ma'am, you did not just do that.                    You took them to another country                    without their parents' permission                    and you put them in danger.                                          AMELIA                    Sir, I raised these kids since they                    were born. I take care of them day                    and night. I feed them breakfast,                    lunch and dinner. I play with them.                    Mike and Debbie are like my own                    children.                                          POLICE OFFICER                        (sternly)                    But they are not your kids, ma'am.                                          AMELIA                    What about my nephew, Santiago?                                          POLICE OFFICER                    I don't have any information on him.                    Amelia looks destitute.                                                                                    114.                                                POLICE OFFICER (CONT'D)                          We located the parents in Morocco.                          They're very angry, but they've                          decided not to raise charges.                          Amelia exhales, relieved.   The policeman leans toward her.                                                POLICE OFFICER (CONT'D)                          Nevertheless, the government of the                          United States has deemed you were                          seriously breaking the law and has                          decided to immediately and                          definitively deport you.                          Amelia loses her breath.                                                AMELIA                          I've been living here for fifteen                          years. My things are here, I rent a                          house, I made my life here.                                                POLICE OFFICER                          You should've thought of that                          beforehand.                                                AMELIA                          I want to talk to a lawyer.                                                POLICE OFFICER                          If you attempt to take this to court,                          I assure you you will end up in jail.                          If you want my advice, accept the                          deportation and never come back.                    185   EXT. BORDER CROSSING -- EVENING                          A bus parks in front of the border. Several border patrol                agents have formed a wall for the illegal immigrants to pass                directly through.                          The illegal immigrants get out and walk toward Mexico.   As                Amelia crosses, she keeps looking back.                    186   EXT. BORDER CROSSING, MEXICO -- EVENING                          The illegal immigrants cross into Mexico, where they disband                into small groups. Amelia walks alone. Before she walks                away she turns to one of the other deported Mexicans.                                                AMELIA                              (In Spanish)                          Do you have a cigarette?                          He acquiesces. He rummages through his pant pockets and                pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He offers one to Amelia, who                takes it. He also pulls out some matches and lights one.                                                                                    115.                                                   AMELIA (CONT'D)                          Thank you.                    187   EXT. STREET, TIJUANA -- EVENING                          Amelia smokes, drifting. After a while she sits on a sidewalk                and leans on a post. She looks into the street at the people                passing by and starts crying softly.                          A dusty and battered pick up truck arrives. Inside are her                son and her comadre. Her son steps down and hugs her in                silence as she cries. Her comadre observes them from a                distance.                    188   EXT. HAMLET -- EVENING                          The truck is parked in front of Anwar's house. Richard and                Susan wait in the back while the boy, Anwar and the vet lean                on the hood.                          Suddenly a helicopter with American insignia flies over them                and goes to land in an empty lot.                          Anwar looks up and watches the helicopter descend. The                helicopter kicks up a cloud of dust before the stunned gaze                of dozens of children. Some camels are frightened. Some                starving dogs bark at it.                    189   EXT. TOWN -- EVENING                          They carry Susan to the helicopter in a stretcher. They                load her in carefully. Richard follows her through the wind                generated by the helicopter. Anwar catches up to them to say                goodbye.                                                ANWAR                          Good luck, mister...                                                RICHARD                          Thank you for everything.                          Richard gives Anwar a hug which he responds to affectionately.                Richard takes out his wallet and holds out three hundred-                dollar bills, which Anwar rejects.                                                ANWAR                          No sir, no... Allah be with you.                          They look each other in the eye and then Richard gets into                the chopper. It takes off.                    190   EXT. DESERT -- EVENING                          The helicopter silently flies over the Moroccan desert.                                                                                     116.                    191   EXT. PARKING LOT, MOROCCAN HOSPITAL -- EVENING                          The hospital's perimeter is guarded by dozens of soldiers.                The security is impressive. A group of doctors and nurses                with a stretcher wait in the parking lot. Several journalists                and cameras observe.                          Ken and his entourage await the helicopter's landing. The                helicopter approaches. The cameramen hurry to position                themselves for a better shot.                          A reporter speaks to the camera.                                                REPORTER                          In this helicopter is Susan Jones,                          an American mother of two who was                          seriously injured in a terrorist                          attack. It appears fundamentalist                          organizations planned the attack...                          The helicopter settles softly in the parking lot. It is                immediately surrounded by several Moroccan soldiers. The                doctors on the ground prepare the stretcher.                          Ken walks hurriedly toward the chopper, guarding himself                from the wind.                          Susan is immediately placed on the stretcher and quickly                taken to the emergency room. Richard follows close behind                until his is intercepted by Ken.                                                KEN                          Mr. Jones, I'm Ken Clifford,                          Ambassador to the United States.                          Richard keeps running behind the stretcher.   Ken stops him.                                                KEN (CONT'D)                          A first rate medical team is going                          to tend to her, but if you want we                          can take her to a hospital in Italy                          as soon as she's stable...                                                   RICHARD                          Thank you...                                                KEN                          There are lots of reporters waiting.                          Is there anything you want to say to                          the press? A statement against                          terrorism?                          Richard looks at him as if he doesn't know what he's talking                about.                                                                                      117.                                                RICHARD                          The last thing I'm worried about                          right now is the fucking press.                          He pulls away from Ken and follows Susan toward the E.R.                    192   INT. HALLWAY, E.R., MOROCCAN HOSPITAL -- NIGHT                          Several Moroccan doctors are examining Susan.    Richard                observes worriedly from a window.                          One of the doctors comes out.                                                 MOROCCAN DOCTOR                              (In good English)                          We're going to have to operate                          immediately.                                                RICHARD                          Is she going to be ok?                                                MOROCCAN DOCTOR                          It's probable. We're going to try to                          save her arm.   She's been bleeding                          internally, and there's been some                          clotting so there's a high risk of                          gangrene.                                                 RICHARD                              (insistently, as if                               he hadn't heard the                               doctor)                          But she's going to be ok?                          The Moroccan doctor puts his hand on Richard's shoulder and                thinks about his answer.                                                MOROCCAN DOCTOR                          Yes, she's going to be ok.                          The doctor leaves and Richard goes back to looking at his                wife through the glass.                          The doctors are still prepping her.   Richard walks in.                    193   INT. EMERGENCY ROOM -- NIGHT                          He stands next to Susan, who is unconscious. He looks at a                doctor and she moves to one side. Richard leans over and                kisses her.                          He walks away and the nurses start to wheel her to the O.R.                    194   INT. HALLWAY, MOROCCAN HOSPITAL -- NIGHT                          Richard is talking on the phone from an office.                                                                              118.                                           RICHARD                    Amelia?                                           AMELIA (O.S.)                    Yes sir.                                          RICHARD                    How is everything?                                          AMELIA (O.S.)                    Ok sir, Mrs. Rachel told me. I'm                    very sorry. How is Mrs. Susan?                                          RICHARD                    They're going to operate now...                    Amelia... take good care of the kids,                    and don't tell them anything...                                          AMELIA (O.S.)                    No sir, don't worry.                                          RICHARD                    Put Mike on please.                    A few seconds pass and Mike answers.   This is the phone call          from the beginning.                                           MIKE (O.S.)                    Hi dad.                                          RICHARD                    Hey sweetie, how are you?                                          MIKE (O.S.)                    Dad, guess what? Today, at school,                    they brought some baby chickens.                                           RICHARD                    Oh really?                                          MIKE (O.S.)                    I held one in my hand. He was really                    little and he was all warm.                    Richard starts to cry for the first time.                                          MIKE (O.S.) (CONT'D)                    Dad, are you ok?                    Richard tries to hold back his sobbing.                                          RICHARD                    Yeah, I'm ok. Everything's fine.                    The boy keeps talking while Richard cries.                                                                                    119.                                                MIKE (O.S.)                          And Mariana wanted to take one home,                          but the teacher didn't let her...                    195   INT. CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                          Chieko, naked, sits in an armchair, again submerged in the                remote world of her silence. Before her, Kenji observes her                nakedness, her sadness, her pained beauty.                          For a while they remain motionless. She seems to return                from the long journey to herself and turns to look at him.                Their eyes meet. There are still tears in Chieko's eyes.                They hold each other's gaze until Chieko gets up, gets her                notebook, scribbles down some words and gives them to him.                          Kenji reads them and looks at her.                                                KENJI                          You don't have to apologize for                          anything.                          She sits down beside him. They look at each other again for                a few, long seconds. Chieko takes his hand, strokes it for a                moment, kisses it, sucks one of his fingers and then puts it                back in its place.                          She grabs her notebook and starts writing a long note. It                takes her almost a minute to do so. Kenji, nervous because                of her proximity, watches her write feverishly.                          Chieko finishes writing, folds the note and hands it to Kenji.                Kenji starts unfolding it, but Chieko stops him. She takes                it away from him, folds it again and puts it in his breast                pocket. She signals for him to read it later.                          Kenji gets up to go. She stands next to him. Her nakedness                contrasts with Kenji's toughness. He bows his head to say                goodbye and she moves aside for him to pass. Kenji walks                past her as she watches.                          Kenji reaches the door. He opens it and turns to look at                Chieko again, who has been left in the middle of the hall.                He bows his head again and leaves.                          Chieko watches him leave and closes her eyes painfully.                    196   INT. ELEVATOR, CHIEKO'S BUILDING -- NIGHT                          Kenji rides the elevator down, touched, barely able to contain                his emotion. The elevator doors open and he walks out.                    197   INT. LOBBY, TOKYO APARTMENT BUILDING -- NIGHT                          Kenji walks past the doorman.                                                                               120.                                            KENJI                    Good night.                    He keeps walking. On the other end of the lobby, at the          parking lot entrance, Yasujiro walks in.                    The doorman calls Kenji as he is about to leave.                                          DOORMAN                    Officer... officer...                    Kenji stops.   Beside him is Yasujiro.                                          DOORMAN (CONT'D)                    This is the man you were looking                    for.                    Kenji approaches him while the doorman discretely moves away          to leave them alone in the lobby.                                          KENJI                    Good evening, I'm lieutenant Mamiya.                                          YASUJIRO                    Good evening, how can I help you?                                          KENJI                    Sir, there was an incident and...                    Yasujiro looks at him attentively. Kenji, still moved by          Chieko, looks distracted, confused.                                           KENJI (CONT'D)                    I don't mean to bother you, but...                        (a beat)                    Do you own a .270 caliber Winchester                    70 rifle with the registration                    number...                    Kenji looks through his pockets, takes out a small notebook          and looks up the missing number.                                            KENJI (CONT'D)                    UK-9023?                                          YASUJIRO                    I don't remember the license, but I                    did have a rifle like the one you                    described.                                          KENJI                    Is it true that you gave it to a Mr.                    Hassan Ibrahim, who lives in southern                    Morocco?                                          YASUJIRO                    Hassan Ibrahim?                                                                              121.                                          KENJI                    He says he was your guide in a hunt.                                          YASUJIRO                    Hassan? Of course. He was a very                    good guide and I gave him the rifle.                    Hassan is a very kind man. Did                    anything happen?                                          KENJI                    There was an attempted murder with                    that rifle, and the Moroccan police                    want to confirm it's not off the                    black market.                                           YASUJIRO                    No, I gave it to him.                        (a beat)                    Is Hassan ok?                                          KENJI                    I don't know.                    Yasujiro remains silent for a moment.                                          YASUJIRO                    Am I legally involved?                                          KENJI                    Not for the moment. You may have to                    go testify for your friend.                                          YASUJIRO                    Can I leave now?                                            KENJI                    Good night.                    They both bow to say goodbye. Yasujiro walks toward the          elevator. Kenji calls out to him.                                            KENJI (CONT'D)                    Excuse me.                    Kenji approaches and Yasujiro awaits, expectant.                                          KENJI (CONT'D)                    Your daughter told me about your                    wife on the balcony. I'm very sorry.                                          YASUJIRO                    What balcony?                                          KENJI                    About how your wife killed herself                    by jumping off the balcony.                                                                                     122.                                                YASUJIRO                          My wife never jumped off a balcony.                          She shot herself in the head. My                          daughter was the first to find her.                          Kenji is left speechless.                                                YASUJIRO (CONT'D)                          I've explained it to the police                          several times. Don't bother us with                          that anymore, please.                                                KENJI                          I'm very sorry sir, we won't bother                          you anymore. Good night.                          He turns around and leaves the building.                    198   EXT. TOKYO STREETS -- NIGHT                          Kenji walks down the streets immersed in his thoughts.                    199   INT. BAR -- NIGHT                          Kenji sits in a half-empty bar.   He turns to the bartender.                                                KENJI                          Another whisky.                          The T.V. has been turned on to a Japanese newscast. Kenji                takes out Chieko's note, reads it and, as soon as he is done,                closes his eyes. He looks around. Everybody seems to be                immersed in a world far from his own.                          A reporter appears on T.V.                                                REPORTER                          Susan Jones, the American woman                          wounded in an attack in Morocco ten                          days ago, left the hospital today,                          heading to the United States...                          Susan appears on screen in a wheelchair pushed by a male                nurse and followed by Richard.                          The bartender leans over to Kenji.                                                BARTENDER                          Do you want something to eat?    I                          could make you a sandwich.                                                KENJI                          No thank you.                          When he looks back at the news, the story has changed.   Kenji                drinks his whisky parsimoniously.                                                                                   123.                    200   INT. ELEVATOR, CHIEKO'S BUILDING -- NIGHT                          Yasujiro rides the elevator up, lost in thought.                    201   EXT. BALCONY, CHIEKO'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                          From the balcony, naked, Chieko observes the city stretching                before her.                          Yasujiro walks in and encounters his daughter completely                naked. There are still traces of Chieko's tears in her eyes.                          Yasujiro is affected when he sees his daughter like this,                but says nothing. He slowly walks toward her. Chieko looks                hurt, but whole.                          Yasujiro stands beside her. They look at each other. Chieko                holds out her hand and takes his. Chieko squeezes. She looks                at the city and then looks at her father's eyes.                          He strokes her hair and they both stand on the balcony, with                the massive city sprawling under them.           
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+                                     "BACHELOR PARTY"                                      Screenplay by                                 Neal Israel & Pat Proft                                         Story by                                        Bob Israel                                   SHOOTING DRAFT (1984)                               FADE IN:               EXT. ST. ANN'S SCHOOL - DAY               CAMERA PANS a group of freshly-scrubbed, innocent children,                obediently standing in line, like recruits for the Holy                Crusade. PULL BACK to REVEAL they are wearing the gray                blazers, striped ties and navy slacks of St. Luke's School.                They are waiting patiently at the curbside in front of the                statue of the school's sainted namesake. One of the fifth                grade BOYS pokes the KID next to him with his elbow. The                other Kid is about to retaliate when SISTER MARY FRANCIS, a                stern-faced nun, appears behind them, grabbing them both                firmly by the shoulders.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                         Make one more move and you'll both                          be staying late for the rest of the                          week.                                     THE BOYS                              (softly; in unison)                         Sorry, Sister Mary Francis.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                         I didn't hear you.                                     THE BOYS                              (louder)                         Sorry, Sister Mary Francis.               Sister Mary Francis checks her watch. She scowls and looks                out past the parking lot gate.               Suddenly we HEAR the SOUND of an ENGINE roaring at full                throttle. There is a SCREECHING of BRAKES, followed by the                loud GRINDING of GEARS. It sounds like the Indy 500 is taking                place around the corner.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                              (used to this)                         Step away from the curb, children.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Zooming through the parking lot gates is a large yellow school                bus. It practically takes the last turn on just two wheels.                The bus driver quickly slams on the brakes, leaving ten feet                of rubber behind him as the bus comes to an ear-splitting                halt right in front of them. The front door immediately swings                open and RICK STAHL, the driver, hops out. Rick is the life                of the party, even when there isn't any party going on.               While chronologically older than the St. Luke students, the                only thing that sets him apart from them is that he has a                driver's license. Rick figures he'll live up to his                capabilities and get serious in his next life... This                incarnation's strictly for laughs. Sister Mary Francis steps                up to him.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                         You're late again, Rick.                                     RICK                         I know, Sister, but I have a very                          good excuse.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                         There can be no excuse for tardiness.                                     RICK                         You're absolutely right. I should                          never have stopped to save that                          drowning infant. I'm just weak,                          Sister; I'm so weak.               He starts sobbing softly into his hands.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                         All right, stop that... Children, on                          the bus.               The kids obediently file past Rick, who makes like he is                drying his tears with his handkerchief.                                     RICK                         Sister, do you ever get lonely after                          vespers? If you do, why don't you                          give me a call. I'm in the book.                                     SISTER MARY FRANCIS                              (smiling despite                               herself)                         Get going, Rick... you're late enough                          as it is.                                     RICK                         Right... Think it over.               He hops on the bus, closes the door and gently backs the bus                out of the parking lot.               INT. BUS - DAY               As soon as the bus is out of sight of the school, all hell                breaks loose. The formally well-mannered children are acting                like normal kids... hitting each other over the heads with                books, running up and down the aisles, screaming at the top                of their lungs.               ANGLE - RICK               He removes the St. Christopher statue from the dashboard,                revealing a hulaing Hawaiian girl in a grass skirt. He watches                the madness behind him in his rearview mirror, picks up the                P.A. microphone and rationally attempts to restore order.                                     RICK                              (over mike)                         If you don't all calm down I'm gonna                          drive this thing over a cliff.               The kids pay no attention to him.                                     RICK                              (continuing;                               philosophically)                         Ah... youth.               EXT. THE BUS               Rick's bus pulls up to a light and another school bus filled                with kids (from a public school) pulls up alongside of it.                The other DRIVER gives Rick a competitive smirk and guns his                engine. Rick counters by gunning his.               INT. THE BUS               All the kids start screaming "Race... race." "Wipe 'em out."                "Go for it." Etc. Some of the kids even start taking out                money and start betting one another on the race's outcome.               ANGLE - RICK               as he readies for action.               EXT. THE BUSES               The light turns green and they're off. Or as off as two lunky                school buses filled with kids can be.               WIDE SHOT - ANOTHER STREET               The two buses come zooming down the street.               INT. RICK'S BUS               The kids are screaming at Rick to go faster. One of the little                boys looks nauseous as he clutches the seat in front of him.               EXT. THE STREET - LOW ANGLE               The buses squeeze down a narrow street, neck and neck with                one another.               INT. THE BUS               The kids are all yelling words of encouragement to Rick, who                is hunched over in his seat, driving with the determination                of Andy Granitelli. The nauseous kid is now turning a pale                shade of green. He moves to an open window, straining to                control the inevitable.               EXT. THE BUSES               They race down a steep hill.               INT. THE BUS               The nauseous kid can't hold it any longer.               EXT. THE OTHER BUS               Something hits with a splat against the windshield that                resembles Campbell's Chunky Vegetable Soup.               INT. THE OTHER BUS               The other Driver turns on the windshield. It only makes it                worse.               EXT. THE STREET               Rick's bus pulls out in front, accompanied by the cheering                of his passengers. Suddenly a stop light looms ahead. Rick                puts on his brakes. Both buses stop just in time.               INT. RICK'S BUS               Rick's kids are all piled in a clump right behind him in the                front of the bus. Although disheveled, the kids still manage                a victorious cheer.               PHOTOGRAPHER'S POV               We're LOOKING THROUGH the camera lens. We SEE a cute one-               year-old baby boy. He's sitting on a cuddly blanket. We HEAR                the VOICE of Jay O'Neill. He is a baby photographer at Sears.                                     O'NEILL (O.S.)                         Okay, Timmy... hold that smile...                          and watch the birdie.               He takes the picture and we SEE the camera flash.                                     O'NEILL (O.S.)                         There.               O'NEILL               We see he has his camera and backdrop set up in the camera                department behind a velour curtain which blacks out the rest                of the store. He's conservatively dressed in a suit, vest                and tie. He looks like he could be a Young Republican. But                under those Sears clothes is a man a little off center. Rick's                best friend. Need we say more? He takes the film out of the                camera. The matronly mother is in the process of gathering                up her baby.                                     O'NEILL                         These should be in the mail to you                          by next Friday.               She smiles and exits.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         Next.               A beautiful -- and we're talking gorgeous -- WOMAN enters.                Her clothes hug every curve of her body. She has her baby in                her arms. O'Neill immediately wants her, and now. His eyes                settle onto her full breasts. These he likes.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         Whoa. Look at those babies.               She gets this innuendo and loves it.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         How are we doing? My name is O'Neill.                          And you are...?                                     WOMAN                         Klupner.                              (teasing)                         Mrs. Klupner.                                     O'NEILL                         Mrs.?                                     WOMAN                         I'm separated.                                     O'NEILL                         Then there is a God. Why don't we                          take that baby picture.               He takes the baby. He has a hard time taking his eyes off                her breasts. He places the baby on the blanket.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         If I were you, I'd breast feed until                          I was 17 or 18.                              (gets behind camera;                               sizing up the shot)                         Tell ya what...               O'NEILL'S POV THROUGH CAMERA               We SEE the baby sitting on the blanket.                                     O'NEILL (O.S.)                         Why don't you lean into the picture                          with your child?               She coyly leans INTO FRAME.                                     O'NEILL (O.S.)                              (continuing)                         A-huh. A little more... good!               She is totally blocking her baby out of the picture.               O'NEILL               He gets out from behind the camera.                                     O'NEILL                         I'm getting one heck of a glare off                          your dress there. Could you undo a                          few buttons?                                     WOMAN                              (seductively)                         Of course.               She starts to unbutton her blouse. O'Neill looks into his                camera.               O'NEILL'S POV THROUGH LENS               We SEE the Woman finish her last button.                                     O'NEILL (O.S.)                         Now lean in a little more... more...                          more...               As she complies, her breasts all but spill out of her dress.                                     O'NEILL (O.S.)                              (continuing)                         Hold that pose.               O'NEILL               He runs from behind the camera and poses with the woman.               THROUGH CAMERA LENS               We SEE a QUICK SERIES of camera flashes. Each pose finds him                near her breasts. He has them on his head. He's cheek to                breast. Etc.               RICK               enters and witnesses the photo session. He immediately jumps                into the shots.               THROUGH CAMERA LENS               Rick joins the craziness. After several beats, the Woman                gets bored and EXITS the FRAME.               THE WOMAN               As Rick and O'Neill continue mugging like two 12-year-olds                in a photo booth, the Woman takes her child and exits. A few                beats pass and the guys notice they're alone.                                     O'NEILL                         Where'd she go?                                     RICK                         She probably had sex scheduled for                          12:30. O'Neill, let's pick up the                          guys for a drink... I have major                          news to announce.               O'Neill crosses to his camera and takes out the film.                                     O'NEILL                         Okay... be right with ya.               RICK               He picks up some photographs of today's work.               INSERT - PHOTOS               Each one has a different mother in several seductive poses.                Their babies are barely visible, if at all.                                     RICK (O.S.)                         Pictures a family will cherish                          forever.               EXT. CHULO'S AUTO SHOP - DAY               Rick's school bus pulls into the yard of the auto shop.                Several Chicanos are working on various cars. Rick and O'Neill                hop out.                                     RICK                         Hey, Chulo, where are you, man?               ANGLE - LATE-MODEL CAR               We SEE a very large pair of shoes sticking out from under                the chassis. Slowly, a large, bear-like body rolls out and                we catch our first glimpse of CHULO. A happy-go-lucky mechanic                of Mexican ancestry.                                     CHULO                         Hey, you guys, what's going on?                                     RICK                         We're going for a little liquid                          refreshment.                                     CHULO                         Great. I'll go with you. Wait a                          second. Hey, Raul! Move that car,                          will you?               A SMALL MECHANIC with an eye patch gets into a car behind                them as we DOLLY WITH the guys THROUGH the lot.                                     CHULO                              (continuing)                         Roberto, you finished fixing that                          lighter yet?               Another MECHANIC sticks his face out of another car and shakes                his head. Just then Raul, the eye-patched worker, whizzes by                behind the guys, driving the car in a zig-zag pattern right                into traffic.                                     CHULO                              (continuing; to Rick)                         I'm glad you guys came by... What's                          the occasion?                                     O'NEILL                         Rick's got an important announcement                          to make.                                     CHULO                         Yeah. What is it?                                     RICK                         I've decided not to run for President.                                     CHULO                         Too bad, man, that blows my chance                          to be Ambassador to France.               Behind them we can SEE Roberto fiddling with the lighter.                Suddenly flames leap out of the car, blowing Roberto ten                feet into the air.               ANGLE               The guys all start to pile into the bus. Nearby another                employee is washing down the garage with a hose.               Chulo turns to another mechanic, who has his head under the                hood of a car.                                     CHULO                         Manuel, be sure and finish up the                          electrical system on that Chevy.               Manuel waves at Chulo, who turns, hops on the bus. Rick starts                it up and starts to drive away. Just as the bus CLEARS FRAME,                we SEE Manuel connect two wires together at the same moment                the guy with the hose washes down the area around his feet.                Manuel lights up like a Christmas tree, screaming in pain.                There is a beat, and then Robert falls INTO FRAME, still                holding the cigarette lighter, and the car Raul is driving                enters the lot and smashes into the side of the garage.               INT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY               A sign on an office door says "CONCERT TICKET AGENCY." From                inside we HEAR someone TALKING loudly on the phone. Chulo,                Rick and O'Neill open the door and go inside. On the walls                in the cramped office there are rock 'n' roll concert posters                advertising rock bands like Men At Work, The Clash and Barry                Manilow. Behind a cluttered desk we FIND a little man with a                thin mustache and horn-rimmed glasses. This is GARY MELNITZ,                wheeler-dealer, entrepreneur and coward. Gary yells a lot,                which is a definite overcompensation for his size and                inability to deal with the opposite sex.                                     GARY                              (yelling; into phone)                         Screw you... Screw that... Don't                          jerk me around. You promised me 1500                          seats for the Police Concert... 1500,                          not fifteen!... Screw that... Screw                          you -- Screw Sting.                              (hangs up and sees                               the guys standing                               there)                         Hi, guys.                                     RICK                         Gary, you're quite an animal.                                     GARY                         Screw you...               The PHONE RINGS.                                     GARY                              (continuing; into                               phone)                         Hello, Concert tickets... What? Pat                          Benitar has a yeast infection? She's                          cancelling? Screw her. You know what                          this is gonna cost me?...                              (he hangs up)                         Okay. Let's go.               He gets up and they start for the door. Just then the PHONE                RINGS. Gary picks it up.                                     GARY                              (annoyed)                         Screw you... That's crap... Suck                          my...                              (softly)                         Oh, Mom, I didn't know it was you...                          eggs and milk... Okay, I won't forget.               He hangs up the phone and they start for the door again.                                     GARY                         Let's go.                                     RICK                         Isn't he incredible, gets along with                          everybody.                                     CHULO                         Yeah, he's really got his thing                          together.                                     GARY                         Oh, eat me!               The guys all laugh and exit.               INT. HARBORSIDE INN - DAY               It's a quiet restaurant near a Marina. A lot of business-               people in suits are eating.               TWO MALE CUSTOMERS               CUSTOMER ONE calls for a waiter.                                     CUSTOMER ONE                         Waiter.               The WAITER approaches them from OUT OF FRAME.                                     CUSTOMER ONE                         We'd like to order now.               ANOTHER ANGLE               We see their waiter, RYKO, a blond, tanned, muscular beach                bum who has definitely stayed out in the sun too long.                                     RYKO                         How you guys doin'... Could you                          believe how overcast it was this                          morning? Bad day for sailin', waves                          are too rough and...                                     CUSTOMER                              (annoyed)                         You can skip the small craft warnings.                          We're in a hurry.                                     RYKO                         No prob, bud... Here's today's                          dealie...               He holds up a blackboard with the day's menu.                                     RYKO                         We got... uh, veal... ah... veal...                              (to customer)                         What's this word?                                     CUSTOMER ONE                         Parmisan.                                     RYKO                         Yeah right. I always want to say                          Paramisian when I see that. We looked                          at them under the jigamabob in biology                          once. Little squirmy, creepy things                          that live in your intestine and...                                     CUSTOMER                         Please... We have an appointment in                          a half hour...                                     RYKO                         Wow, sounds stressful. What do you                          guys do for a living?                                     CUSTOMER ONE                         We're lawyers.                                     RYKO                         Whoa... You got to go to school for                          that or what?                                     CUSTOMER                              (he's had enough)                         Look, forget the specials. We'll                          take three hamburgers.                                     RYKO                         Okay, great... Any of you guys got a                          pencil by any chance?               One of the customers shrugs and hands him a pen.                                     RYKO                              (impressed)                         All right, a Bic... How 'bout a piece                          of paper?               Ryko's customers look totally disgusted as Ryko's short                attention span is interrupted by something he sees O.S.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Rick and the guys appear in the bar.                                     RICK                         Ryko. Come on!               They all disappear into the bar area.                                     RYKO                         Be right there.                              (to customers)                         Nice rappin' with you guys.                          Unfortunately I'm outta here. Someone                          else will have to help you.                              (calling off)                         Skip!               The customers are pleased to get rid of Ryko. SKIP enters.                He's a clone of Ryko.                                     SKIP                         Like um... What's the deal, you guys                          gonna order?               The customers give each other a "Here we go again" look               ANGLE - THE GUYS               They're laughing uproariously and carrying on as Ryko comes                over and sits down.                                     RYKO                         Hi pals.               The guys acknowledge him.                                     GARY                         Okay... We're all here. Rick, what's                          the big announcement?               ANGLE - RICK                                     RICK                         All right, gentlemen, I'm not gonna                          sugar-coat this thing. I've known                          you guys since grade school, so I'm                          gonna give it to you straight from                          the hip... right from the shoulder...                          without beating around the bush...                          Nothing fancy, just the plain, hard                          facts... tell it like it is.                                     CHULO                         Man, you're losing your audience.                                     RICK                         Okay... This is it... I'm getting                          married.                                     O'NEILL                         What?                                     CHULO                         You're kidding.                                     GARY                         I don't believe it.                                     RYKO                         Fuck me!                                     RICK                         Yes, gentlemen. Saturday after next,                          I lose my amateur standing and turn                          pro.                                     CHULO                         Hey, man, congratulations!               Chulo gets up and gives Rick a big bear hug... The other                guys shake his hand.                                     GARY                         Wait a minute. You been living with                          Debbie! Why do you want to get                          married?                                     RICK                         Because I love her. What can I tell                          you?                                     RYKO                         You sure? This means no more partying.                                     RICK                         No more raping and pillaging, either.                          You'll have to carry on without me.                                     GARY                         Next Saturday... That's just two                          more weeks to live.                                     O'NEILL                         Hold it... As long as you're gonna                          go through with this, the least we                          can do is make sure you go out in                          style.                                     CHULO                              (warming to this)                         Yeah, man. Let's throw a bachelor                          party with drugs, booze and broads.                                     O'NEILL                         Yeah. Right. All the things that                          make life worth living.                                     RICK                         Sounds swell... I'm really touched.                          And my getting married's not gonna                          change a thing between me and my                          pals. We're still gonna go bowling                          on Tuesdays, play cards on Fridays                          and wear women's clothes on Sunday                          night. I love you guys... I always                          will.                                     GARY                         Let's have a toast.               The guys all raise their glasses.                                     O'NEILL                         To Rick.                                     GARY                         To us.                                     CHULO                         To girls with big pairs.                                     ALL THE GUYS                         Yeah, right on, etc.               As they down their drinks, we:                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. THE JEAN MACHINE - DAY               We SEE a couple of very contemporary looking 15-year-olds                going into a very "now" clothing store -- like Fred Segal's...                When the door opens, loud ROCK 'N ROLL MUSIC blasts out.               INT. THE JEAN MACHINE - DAY               Inside the store we see all the sales clerks grooving                narcissistically to the music like they're at a disco. The                cashier, PHOEBE, has devoted her life to following the current                trends and fads no matter how inane they may be. Today she's                in a reggae mode, her hair wound into tight dreadlocks, as                she sways lost in the ozone to the music. A CUSTOMER                approaches her with a purchase.                                     CUSTOMER                         I'd like to pay for these.                                     PHOEBE                         Huh... What... Oh sure, wait till                          this song is over.               She floats off again...               One of the young MALE CUSTOMERS approaches an attractive                salesgirl. This is DEBBIE THOMERSON, Rick's intended. She                seems to be the only sane employee in the place because she's                actually working, putting clothes on the racks. This                impression of sanity fits her, as she is level-headed, and                has a clear sense of herself. She can also take a joke, thus                her engagement to Rick.                                     CUSTOMER                         Excuse me, where can I try on these                          pants?                                     DEBBIE                         Right over here.               She leads the Customer to the try-on booths. The Customer                enters one. We SEE that the saloon-style doors of the booths                have been hung too high, so as he takes off his pants, his                underwear is exposed to the world. We PULL BACK, REVEALING                other people in other booths, their bare asses clearly in                sight. No one in the store seems to care, however, as they                are much too busy dancing.               The front door opens and BOBBIE, a very sultry and earthy-               looking girl with long, dark hair, pushes inside. She is                O'Neill's girl and Debbie's best friend... She's also someone                who would party every night if given half a chance.                                     BOBBIE                              (excited)                         Debbie... I don't believe it. I'm so                          excited.                                     DEBBIE                         Bobbie, what are you talking about?                                     BOBBIE                         O'Neill just tole me. It's sooo                          great... I don't believe it.               Phoebe crosses to them.                                     PHOEBE                         What's happening?                                     BOBBIE                         Debbie's marrying Rick.                                     PHOEBE                         ...Really?                                     DEBBIE                         Yes, it's true.                                     PHOEBE                         Ohmygod.               The girls screech and jump around, hugging each other in                sheer joy. A MALE CUSTOMER, moved by this outpouring of                affection, moves over and gets in the middle of the girls,                enjoying every moment of being hugged by three women at once.                                     DEBBIE                              (to Customer; realizing)                         Would you get out of here.               Reluctantly the guy retreats back to the Calvin Klein jeans                rack.                                     BOBBIE                         Does Cole know about this?                                     PHOEBE                         Really -- you went with him for two                          years.                                     DEBBIE                         He still thinks I'm going with him.                          I'm going to break the news to him                          tomorrow.                                     BOBBIE                         He's not gonna be happy. And your                          parents can't be too thrilled either.                                     DEBBIE                         No. As far as they're concerned the                          only good Rick is a dead Rick. But I                          don't care... it's my decision.                                     PHOEBE                              (oblivious)                         I'm totally blown away. You're getting                          married. It seems like only yesterday                          I showed you how to have oral sex.                                     BOBBIE                         Deb, I want to throw you a shower.                                     DEBBIE                         Oh, that's really sweet. I'd love                          that.                                     PHOEBE                         We'll invite all the girls.                                     BOBBIE                         I don't believe it... Mrs. Rick Stahl.               The girls all start to scream and carry on all over again.               INT. RICK AND DEBBIE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Rick is cooking dinner in the cramped combination kitchen /                living room. He has about five dishes going at once as he                dashes from stove to refrigerator. He grabs some hamburger                meat, rolls it into a ball, then slaps it on the counter. He                then takes a steam iron and presses it on the patty.               Debbie comes in the front door and crosses to him and hugs                him tightly, kissing him sweetly.                                     DEBBIE                              (between kisses)                         God, you're a slob.                                     RICK                         But a fabulous cook.                                     DEBBIE                         What are we having?                                     RICK                         It's either meatloaf, Swiss steak or                          charred flesh. I won't know till                          it's finished.                                     DEBBIE                              (looking at the stove)                         I think your dinner's burning.               Rick crosses to the stove. A small fire is coming out of one                of the frying pans. He douses it with water.                                     RICK                         Don't worry... it's supposed to do                          this.                                     DEBBIE                              (setting the table)                         Want to hear something great? Bobbie                          and Phoebe are throwing me a shower.                          It's really gonna be fun.                                     RICK                         Not as much fun as the bachelor party                          the guys are throwing for me.                                     DEBBIE                         You're going to have a bachelor party?                                     RICK                         Of course. I'm a traditional guy...                          It's a traditional event.                              (he brings all the                               food to the table)                         Well, what do you think?                                     DEBBIE                         It looks awful.                                     RICK                         Yes, but looks are deceiving...                              (takes a bite)                         Not in this case, however.                                     DEBBIE                         Are you going to have women at your                          party?                                     RICK                         No, sweetheart, it's a stag party.                          Does stay home.                                     DEBBIE                         I'm not talking about does. I'm                          talking about hookers.                                     RICK                         Oh, those. Why do you ask?                                     DEBBIE                         Because from what I've heard, it's a                          tradition and you're a traditional                          guy.               Rick grabs her; starts kissing her passionately on the neck.                                     RICK                         Deb, you is my woman now. I is yo                          man. No painted lady ever gonna come                          between us.                                     DEB                         I need you to promise.                                     RICK                         Okay, you got it. I got a way we can                          seal the deal -- what'd you say?               He grabs her. They kiss and slide down onto the table,                knocking the dishes to the floor.               EXT. BEL AIR-TYPE ESTATE - DAY               Through the iron gates of an impressive-looking estate comes                Debbie in her convertible VW Rabbit. She pulls up behind a                new Porsche 911 and a Jeep, all decked out with rifles, nets                and other hunting equipment. As she walks down the path toward                the house, she sees something off in the distance that                startles her.               DEBBIE'S POV               A large brown grizzly bear appears to be entering the side                door of the house.               ANGLE - DEBBIE                                     DEBBIE                              (calling O.S.)                         Cole?... Cole!               DEBBIE'S POV               The "Bear" turns around. We SEE that the bear is, in fact,                dead. It is being carried by a tall, handsome HUNTER. He                waves to Debbie and indicates for her to follow him inside.               INT. COLE'S SMOKEHOUSE - DAY               Debbie opens a rustic-looking door and peers in.                                     DEBBIE                         Cole?                                     COLE (O.S.)                         Over here, Deb... in the Smokehouse.               CAMERA PANS WITH Debbie as she enters the room. She passes                several trophies, guns and stuffed animal heads hanging from                the wall. She makes her way past some sections of an                undetermined animal's anatomy hanging from hooks suspended                from the ceiling. Finally we see COLE WHITTIER, a Steve Garvey                look-alike... rugged all-American, and heir to the Whittier                Plastic Wrap fortune. Despite his jockish good looks and                outward arrogance, there's something in his manner that is                definitely unsavory.               As Debbie approaches him we SEE that he is butchering some                unfortunate friend of the forest on the table in front of                him. (NOTE: For the squeamish, all of this is done OUT OF                FRAME. The only thing we should HEAR are the delightful SOUNDS                of TAXIDERMY.)                                     COLE                         Hi, Deb. Just got back from the                          mountains.                              (as he cuts in with a                               surgeon's skill)                         Isn't this a beauty?... It's gonna                          look great in the den.               Debbie tries her best not to look down at what he's doing.                                     DEBBIE                         Cole, we've got to talk.                                     COLE                         Finally realized Rick's a jerk, huh?                                     DEBBIE                         No, Cole, I...                                     COLE                              (lifting an organ of                               some sort O.S.)                         It's all right, I forgive you. I'm                          not the vengeful type. We'll forget                          what happened. Why don't we take a                          trip together? Maybe kill a few lions                          in Kenya over Christmas.                                     DEBBIE                         Cole, listen to me... I've got to                          tell you...                                     COLE                         You know, when you dumped me for                          that wimp, I thought, Cole, she'll                          be back. God wants the two of you to                          be together, and sure enough...                                     DEBBIE                         Cole, I'm marrying Rick.                                     COLE                              (confused)                         You're marrying him? Then why are                          you coming back to me?                                     DEBBIE                         I'm not. I just thought I should                          tell you myself before you heard it                          somewhere else.               Cole stops what he is doing for a beat and just stares at                Debbie intensely. Then he returns to his work with a renewed                enthusiasm, chopping, slashing and slicing.                                     COLE                         You know how that makes me feel,                          Deb? Wanta know how that makes me                          feel?                              (softly)                         Angry, Deb.                              (a little louder)                         Yesss, that's the word, angry. But                          if he makes you happy, you go right                          ahead. I want you to be happy, Deb.                              (a little nuts)                         No matter what, no matter how angry                          it makes me, no matter how much it                          hurts. Be happy, Deb. Be oh, so very,                          very happy.                                     DEBBIE                         Cole, I'm sorry, I...                                     COLE                         That's all right, Deb. Go be happy                          and smile a lot, Deb. Do it for me.                                     DEBBIE                              (uncomfortable)                         I'm going now, Cole.                                     COLE                         I understand, Deb. 'Bye... be happy.               Debbie exits and we PUSH IN ON Cole. Something on his face                says, "Hi! I'm really out of my mind."               INT. DR. STAN STAHL'S OFFICE - DAY               DR. STAN is Rick's older brother and a proctologist. Although                he's only in his early thirties, he thinks and acts like                someone in their early 70's. A little on the pompous side,                Stan is never without his pipe.                                     STAN                         Okay, Rick, hold out your arm.               He crosses to a sterile container and takes out a syringe.                                     RICK                         You wouldn't hurt your own brother,                          would you?                              (looking at the needle                               cautiously)                         I changed my mind. I don't need a                          blood test. The marriage is off. I --               Just then, Stan sticks the needle in his arm.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         You always were sneaky, Stan, very                          sneaky.                                     STAN                         Rick, marriage will be good for you.                          It's done wonders for me.                                     RICK                         True, you're a lot handsomer now.                          Don't you have enough blood already?                                     STAN                              (without much                               conviction)                         You won't miss a thing about being                          single... The wild parties, the                          different girls every night, running                          around like a maniac... God, I miss                          that.                                     RICK                         Stan, you're depressing me... Hey, I                          didn't know you were going to fill                          'er up. Just take a couple of gallons,                          okay?               Stan removes the needle and hands Rick a cotton ball.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         That's an even trade... a cotton                          ball for all my blood.                                     STAN                              (returning to this                               world)                         Okay, Rick, all finished. I can't                          wait for that bachelor party... I                          need the action.               CAMERA FOLLOWS them as they go out into the hall.                                     STAN                              (continuing)                         Don't say anything to my wife about                          it.               They pass an open examining room. Stan's wife, TINA, is also                a doctor and is examining an old man. She's not as tiny as                her name suggests. In face, she's more like over-sized.                                     RICK                         Hi, Tina.               Rick moves to hug her and he notices that Tina has her finger                up the old guy's ass.                                     TINA                              (looking up)                         Rick...                              (to PATIENT)                         Mr. Goldsmith, this is my brother-in-                         law. He's getting married.                                     PATIENT                              (without turning around)                         Congratulations.               Tina turns to a NURSE.                                     TINA                         Nurse, will you take over?               The nurse shrugs and sticks her finger up the patient's rear                end as Tina hugs Rick.                                     TINA                              (continuing)                         I'm so happy for you.               Rick hugs her, uneasily trying to make sure her right hand                doesn't come anywhere near his face.               EXT. DEBBIE'S PARENTS' HOUSE - BACKYARD - DAY               Debbie and Rick and her MOM and DAD are having a frustrating                game of tennis behind her parents' plush home. Mr. Thomerson                is a stockily-built guy in his fifties who prides himself on                being tough and competitive. His wife loves to shop. As far                as she's concerned, appearances are everything. Neither of                them likes Rick's appearance or anything else about their                future son-in-law. Mr. Thomerson slams the ball to Rick;                Rick slams the ball back and drives it over the fence, out                of the court.                                     RICK                         Oops!                                     MR. THOMERSON                              (frustrated)                         All right, who serves?                                     DEBBIE                         You do, Daddy.               Mr. Thomerson serves the ball to Debbie, who hits it over                the net to her mother, who hits it to Rick, who slams it                over the fence, out of the court. Mr. Thomerson does not                look pleased.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Rick, hit the ball easier, son. You                          don't have to kill it.                                     RICK                         Can't I just maim it a little?                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         Er... perhaps we ought to stop now.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         No. Let's at least finish the set.               Rick starts humming the "ABC Wide World of Sports" theme                loudly. Mr. T. gives him a disgusted look and serves the                ball. Rick smashes the ball and sends it over the fence, out                of the court.               EXT. THE THOMERSON'S NEIGHBORS' BACKYARD - DAY               A middle-aged COUPLE are sitting on some lawn furniture trying                to read the newspaper. A tennis ball comes down from the sky                and hits the guy squarely on the top of the head. PULL OUT                to REVEAL that they're surrounded by dozens of tennis balls.                                     MAN                         One of these days I'm gonna burn                          Thomerson's court to the ground.               EXT. THE THOMERSON'S - MEDIUM SHOT - DAY               Rick and Mr. Thomerson are having a heart to heart chat over                some lemonade in front of the tennis court.                                     RICK                         Well, I have to admit my game's a                          little rusty, but I love polo. It's                          unrelenting, a constant challenge to                          the senses. Really a beautiful                          experience.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Rick, I want to cut through the b.s.                                     RICK                         I'd love that.                                     MR. THOMERSON                              (sitting on his anger)                         Good. I think you're an asshole. No,                          let me correct that, an immature                          asshole. Which is fine, except you're                          marrying my daughter and I'm afraid                          my grandchildren are going to be                          little assholes.                                     RICK                         Mr. Thomerson, I...                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Let me finish. Debbie's an adult.                          She can do what she wants. But if                          you want your marriage to last, you're                          going to have to change some things                          about yourself. If I may make some                          suggestions...                                     RICK                         Feel free.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         First, you're a slob. You have to                          dress for success. Second, your                          outlook on life...               As Mr. Thomerson drones on, Rick shifts uncomfortably in his                chair, focusing his attention on Debbie, her mother and her                older, cynical cousin, ILENE, who are sitting nearby on the                rear patio.               ANGLE - DEBBIE, MRS. THOMERSON AND ILENE                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         I'm using the same caterer for the                          shower I had for our Christmas party                          last year.                                     DEBBIE                         Great, Mom.                                     ILENE                         If I were you, I'd worry less about                          the shower and more about Rick's                          bachelor party.                                     DEBBIE                         Ilene, why would I want to do that?                          I trust Rick.                                     ILENE                         Of course you do. I trusted my ex,                          Mel, too. Cousin, I can only talk                          from experience. What do you think                          they do at these parties, have tea                          and play scrabble?                                     DEBBIE                         Ilene, Rick promised...                                     ILENE                         Debbie, don't be naive. Men are pigs.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                              (trying to change the                               subject)                         Girls, why don't we go inside for                          lunch.                              (calling to Mr. T)                         Boys, would you mind bringing in                          that lemonade?               ANGLE - MR. THOMERSON AND RICK                                     MR. THOMERSON                         In a second...                              (to Rick)                         And you're irresponsible. Show some                          initiative, try to better yourself,                          stop showing off, actions speak louder                          than words.                                     RICK                         Well, sir, that's quite a list. But                          you're absolutely right. And if I                          work hard at it, I think I can be a                          totally changed person by the time                          we finish lunch...               Mr. Thomerson rolls his eyes, knowing he's been wasting his                breath. He grabs the pitcher of lemonade and Rick grabs the                tray, which is filled with fresh lemons. They get up at the                same time and collide, sending the lemonade all over Mr. T.,                and the lemons bounding over the fence.               EXT. THOMERSON'S NEIGHBORS' HOUSE               The Neighbor we saw before is reading his paper when an                avalanche of lemons comes flying at him, joining the tennis                balls on the lawn.                                     NEIGHBOR                         I hate those people... I really do.               INT. THOMERSON HOUSE - DAY               The Thomersons, Rick, Debbie and Ilene are just finishing                lunch. The DOORBELL RINGS. Mr. Thomerson gets up to answer                it. Standing there is Cole, wearing his tennis shorts.                                     COLE                         Hi, everybody. Am I late?                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Not at all. We're just finishing                          lunch.               Cole crosses to the table and kisses Mrs. T's hand gallantly.                                     COLE                         Good to see you, Mrs. Thomerson.                          Hello, Debbie.               He turns to Rick.                                     COLE                              (continuing)                         And...                                     RICK                         Bond... James Bond.               Cole gives him a quick look of contempt and exits with Mr.                T.                                     MR. THOMERSON (O.S.)                         So, Cole, you been practicing your                          game?                                     COLE (O.S.)                         Sure have...                                     DEBBIE                         Why is Cole here?                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         You know your father enjoys his                          company.                                     RICK                         Much the way Hitler enjoyed hanging                          out with Mussolini.               EXT. THOMERSON TENNIS COURT - DAY               Mr. T. and Cole are having a fast-paced game.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Nice shot.                                     COLE                         Thank you, sir.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         I know you're as unhappy as I am                          about Debbie's marriage to Rick.                                     COLE                         Yes, sir, I am.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Cole, I don't want you to give up on                          her.                                     COLE                         I've tried to change her mind.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         It's not her mind you need to change.                          It's Disneyland head in there.                                     COLE                         But how can I do that?                                     MR. THOMERSON                         If it were me, I'd reason with him                          first. Then, if that failed...                              (with malice)                         ...I'd take more persuasive action.               Mr. T. drills a wicked forehand shot straight at Cole, who                swings at it and misses.                                     COLE                              (conspiratorily)                         Thanks for the advise, sir.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Keep me informed.               PUSH IN ON Cole. This is a man with a plan...               EXT. PARK ON A BLUFF - DAY               The bluff overlooks the ocean. It's a beautiful spot. Just                the right setting for an outdoor wedding. Some folding chairs                have been set up and a canvas canopy.               Gathered for the rehearsal are Gary, Ryko, Chulo, O'Neill                who is with Bobbie, Debbie's mother and Mr. Thomerson, Phoebe,                Ilene, Tina, Stan, a gray-haired priest. FATHER FALWELL and,                of course, Rick and Debbie. Everyone is admiring this                picturesque setting. Everyone but Mr. Thomerson. He's very                underjoyed at the sight of Rick and his friends. Mr. and                Mrs. Thomerson are standing with Father Falwell. They are                watching Rick holding Debbie.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         The thought of that person marrying                          my daughter makes me want to upchuck.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         You can tell a man by his friends.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         They're not such a bad bunch.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         No?                              (he points off)                         That's his best man peeing on a tree.               ANOTHER ANGLE               In the b.g. we SEE O'Neill's back TO US. He is definitely                relieving himself on a weeping willow. The wind begins to                pick up.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         If everyone would take their                          positions...               Everyone takes their places for the wedding procession. The                wind now takes this time to blow with much greater force. As                Father Falwell opens his Bible, the wind rips the pages out                of the Holy Book. They blow to the four corners of the Earth.                                     FATHER FALWELL                              (continuing)                         Oh, dear. Well, let's begin. And...               He hums the Wedding March. Chulo hums along. His humming is                a driving Jimi Hendrix-like guitar lick that all but drowns                out Father's humming.               FATHER FALWELL               He's orchestrating the proceedings.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         Flower Girls... Now Rick...                              (he gestures for him                               to start down the                               aisle)                         Good... Debbie and Mr. Thomerson.               As he gestures for them to make their walk to him, a gust of                wind lifts up Father's cassock, exposing his bare ass. He                quickly grabs his cassock and covers himself.               RICK               He begins to walk toward the priest. Suddenly, out of nowhere,                Cole appears at his side.                                     RICK                         Cole. Don't you know it's bad luck                          to see the groom before the wedding?                                     COLE                         I want Debbie.                                     RICK                         Cole...                                     COLE                         You dump her and I'll give you cash.                                     RICK                         What's Debbie's blue book value right                          now?                                     COLE                         Five thousand dollars.                                     RICK                         No.               They are now standing near Father Falwell. Debbie is                approaching them with Mr. Thomerson. Mr. T. shoots Cole a                signal to up the ante.                                     COLE                         Seventy-five hundred.                                     RICK                         Not interested.                                     COLE                         Okay, ten thousand plus a G.E. toaster                          oven, a Litton microwave, a                          Cuisinart...                                     RICK                         I'm marrying Debbie.                                     COLE                         Michelin tires... brand new. A set                          of Sears Best metric tools...                                     RICK                              (to O'Neill)                         What is this person's story here?                                     O'NEILL                         The way I see it, the big lug is in                          love and he's got a lot of major                          appliances lying around.               Debbie and Mr. T. have joined Rick.                                     DEBBIE                         Cole, what are you doing here?                                     MR. THOMERSON                         He's just trying to save you from                          making a mistake.                              (to Rick)                         A big mistake.                                     RICK                         Thanks, Dad.                              (to Cole)                         Cole, go away.                                     COLE                         He's gonna hurt you, Debbie. He'll                          never be true to you the way I would.                                     RICK                         Thank you. We'll all keep that in                          mind. 'Bye now.               Cole turns red with anger.                                     COLE                              (pissed)                         Rick, me and you aren't through yet.               He runs off.                                     RICK                              (a la talk show host)                         Ladies and gentlemen, Cole Whittier.                          Let's hear it for him -- a funny,                          funny guy. We love ya, babe.               The wind suddenly picks up. A storm is coming in off the                sea. Father Falwell's cassock blows up again. It starts to                rain and hail. Everyone runs for cover but Rick and O'Neill.                                     RICK                              (to O'Neill)                         You think the gods are telling me                          something?               INT. RICK AND DEBBIE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Rick is snuggled cozily on his side of the bed, fast asleep.                Debbie is staring anxiously at the ceiling. After a couple                of beats, she tugs at Rick's shoulder.                                     RICK                              (drowsy)                         Huh? Wha...                                     DEBBIE                         I can't sleep.                                     RICK                         Oh... I got something for that.               He groggily reaches into the nightstand, pulls out a hammer.                He raises it as if to hit Debbie over the head.                                     DEBBIE                         Stop fooling around... I need to                          talk.                                     RICK                         What's the matter?                                     DEBBIE                         I don't know... I just feel scared.                                     RICK                              (he sits up)                         About what?                                     DEBBIE                         The wedding, my parents, your family,                          our friends, my job, the future, our                          relationship, the caterers, my gown,                          your tuxedo, our honeymoon, the                          apartment, my shower, your bachelor                          party...                                     RICK                         I think the only think you've left                          out are our relations with the Soviet                          Union. Sweetheart, everything's gonna                          be all right.                                     DEBBIE                         Before or After I have my nervous                          breakfown?                                     RICK                         C'mere.               He starts to gently rub her shoulders. She breathes deeply,                trying to let go.                                     DEBBIE                         That feels so great.                                     RICK                         Good...                                     DEBBIE                         Um... that's very relaxing.                                     RICK                         Now, I want you to lie down and drift                          off to slumberland.               He slowly lowers her to her pillow and tucks the covers in                around her.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Close your eyes... that's it...                          There's nothing to worry about... I                          love you... I'm a great guy...                              (yawning)                         In two days you're gonna be Mrs.                          Great Guy.               He yawns again and turns off the light on the night table.                There is a beat of silence in the dark. We PUSH IN ON their                faces, which are faintly illuminated by a street light outside                the open window. Both of them have their eyes wide open as                they stare at the ceiling in fearful anticipation of the                next day.               INT. AIRPORT - DAY               The guys (except Gary) are walking through the busy airport.                                     RYKO                         You sure Gary's got this whole party                          deal together?                                     CHULO                         Yeah, man, he's got us a great room                          at the hotel and lots of chicks.                                     RYKO                         I hope so. Hundred bucks apiece is a                          lot of dinero.                                     CHULO                         What time are we supposed to get to                          the hotel?                                     O'NEILL                         Don't worry, Chulo, the party's not                          gonna start without you. We got plenty                          of time.                                     STAN                         I can't wait to see old Larry...                          It's been five years.                                     RICK                         At least.               ANGLE - THE EXIT RAMP               People are streaming out of the plane. Finally the last person                exits.                                     O'NEILL                         Where the hell is he?                                     RICK                         Knowing Larry, he probably missed                          the flight.                                     STAN                         There he is... Hey, Larry!                                     LARRY                              (talking very slowly)                         Guys... guys... guys...                                     RICK                         'Ludes... 'ludes... 'ludes.               Larry floats toward them and stops in front of them. He stares                at them strangely, looking from face to face.                                     LARRY                         God, I love you guys.               To the guys' surprise, he goes around hugging each one of                them.                                     LARRY                              (continuing)                         This makes me so happy.               They start walking toward the baggage claim area.                                     O'NEILL                         So, Larry, how have you been?                                     LARRY                         Just in love with everybody. It's                          really a beautiful planet. I love                          you, Rick. I love you guys. I love                          everybody.                                     RICK                         So how's your wife?               Larry stops walking and immediately breaks down.                                     LARRY                         I hate her. I hate her guts, the                          bitch.                                     O'NEILL                         Larry, you and your wife got problems?                                     LARRY                         I don't want to talk about it. I                          love you guys. I love my friends.               Larry reaches into his pocket, takes out a Quaalude.                                     LARRY                              (continuing)                         You want to share it?                                     RICK                         Naw, two on a Quaalude... bad luck.                                     LARRY                         Right.               He pops it in his mouth.               EXT. TERMINAL               The guys exit the Baggage Area. Rick is pushing Larry who is                sprawled out on top of his bags in a luggage cart.                                     LARRY                         My marriage is the worst. All crap.                          A big pile of shit.                                     RICK                         Maybe your marriage should lay off                          grains for a while.                                     LARRY                         She hates me. It's over. You'll see,                          as soon as you get married, everything                          changes. You sure you want to go                          through with it, man?                                     RICK                              (his interest peaked)                         What do you mean, it changes?               Before Larry can answer they reach the bus where Debbie is                waiting for them.                                     DEBBIE                              (hugging Larry)                         Larry, how are you?                                     LARRY                         Hi, Debbie, congratulations. Hey, do                          you know where there's a pharmacy                          around here so I can get a                          prescription filled?                                     RICK                         Come on, get him on the bus.               As a couple of the guys pick Larry up and carry him into the                bus we                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BUS - DUSK               Rick is driving the bus with Debbie sitting next to him in                the driver's seat. The guys sit in the row of seats behind                them.                                     RICK                         Well... twenty-four more hours to go                          and tonight we'll share with our                          friends and loved ones the joys of                          those last moments of singleness.                                     DEBBIE                         You better not have too much joy.                                     RICK                         Wouldn't think of it. Because                          tomorrow...                              (starts singing)                         We're going to the chapel and we're...                                     DEBBIE                              (singing)                         Gonna get married...               ANGLE - THE GUYS               They start to join in the song in a little less than perfect                harmony.                                     EVERYBODY                         Going to the chapel and we're gonna                          get married.                                     DEBBIE                         Gee, I really love you...                                     RICK                         And we're gonna get ma-a-a-ried.                                     EVERYBODY                              (whooping it up)                         Going to the chapel of love.                                     RICK                         Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.               EXT. BUS               The bus zooms down the street.                                     EVERYBODY (V.O.)                         Going to the chapel of love.               EXT. THOMERSON'S - DUSK               Rick's bus comes up to the driveway in front of the house                and stops.               INT. RICK'S BUS - DUSK                                     RICK                         This is it, lady. Last stop.                                     DEBBIE                         Can't I just go with you guys?                                     RICK                         Sorry, we got men's business to do.                          It's no place for a lady.               He opens the door, picks Debbie up and carries her out to                the sidewalk.                                     DEBBIE                         Remember, you promised... no screwing                          around.                                     RICK                         Did I promise that? I don't remember                          that...                                     DEBBIE                         You're really pissing me off.               She grabs Rick and wraps her arm around him in a playful                headlock.                                     RICK                         Okay, I promise... I swear on my                          mother's grave.                                     DEBBIE                         Your mother's not dead.                                     RICK                         Well, if I go back on my word, I'll                          kill her.               Debbie lets go of his neck.                                     DEBBIE                         Have a good time. Don't make it too                          late.                                     RICK                         Anything you say, ma'am. Have a fun                          shower. Use soap.                                     DEBBIE                         I love you.               They kiss, and the guys whistle in the background. Then Debbie                starts toward the house and Rick hops back into the bus. He                gets into the seat and sits there for a moment, watching                Debbie with a guilty look as she goes into the house.                                     O'NEILL                              (to Rick)                         What's the matter?                                     RICK                              (snapping out of it)                         Nothing... Let's get crazy!                                     RYKO                         All right!                                     CHULO                         When do the girls get to the party?                                     O'NEILL                         Don't worry, Gary's taking care of                          that now.               The guys holler and whoop it up as Rick puts the bus in gear                and takes off down the street.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. GRIMY STREET CORNER - EVENING               JUMBO, a well-dressed behemoth in a sky blue suit and                widebrimmed hat, is standing on a street corner talking to                Gary.                                     GARY                         So we want your best girls, the cream                          of your crop.                                     JUMBO                         Let's see your bread.               Gary takes out a roll of bills, which Jumbo grabs and quickly                counts.                                     JUMBO                              (continuing)                         Okay, I got just what you're looking                          for.                              (calling off)                         Margot... Darlene...               Two shapely HOOKERS in tight-fitting clothes come up to them.                                     GARY                         They'll do just fine. Hiya, girls.                          Look, after the orgy, maybe we could                          have coffee.               The girls look at him with "Is he for real?" in their eyes.                                     JUMBO                         Shorty, where's the party?               Gary takes some slips of paper out of his pocket and hands                Jumbo one.                                     GARY                         Park View Hotel, Room 1002.                                     JUMBO                         They'll be up there in a half hour.                                     GARY                         Okay. Nice to meet you both.               Gary turns, almost collides with a garbage can, and starts                walking down the street. He passes a parked Porsche. After a                beat, Cole Whittier sticks his head up and watches Gary walk                off. Then he hops out of his car and approaches Jumbo and                the girls.                                     COLE                         Hi. I must have just missed my friend.                          He hired you for a bachelor party.                                     JUMBO                         At the Park View Hotel, Room 1002.                          What about it.               Cole's face lights up. This is the information he needed.                                     COLE                         Yeah. Right.                              (takes out piece of                               paper)                         This is the new address. We changed                          our minds and decided to send the                          girls over to his house instead.               He takes out a fifty-dollar bill.                                     COLE                              (continuing)                         And here's a fifty... I want this to                          be a surprise, so you never saw me,                          okay?                                     JUMBO                              (pocketing the money)                         No problem.               Cole smiles happily as he slithers back to his car.                                     COLE                              (to himself)                         Now she'll see what kind of jackoff                          he is.               ANGLE - HOTEL               A parking VALET crosses to the bus as Rick hands him the                keys.                                     RICK                         Be careful with it. It's a rental.               The guys hop out with the enthusiasm of a home team that's                just won the state championship. They race in the front door.                A banner over the door reads: "WELCOME MISS MOOSEHEAD BEER                PAGEANT."               INT. HOTEL LOBBY - NIGHT               This is a pretty plush place. The kind of hotel that prides                itself on its classy image. The guys are totally unaware of                the sedate atmosphere in the lobby as they go screaming toward                the elevators.                                     O'NEILL                              (to some dignified                               guests)                         We who are about to go ape shit salute                          you.                                     RYKO                         All right, I'm stoked!               Just as they are about to get into the elevator, a hand comes                INTO FRAME and holds the door so it will not close.               WIDEN TO INCLUDE the MANAGER. All their carrying-on stops                when the guys see him staring grimly at them. If he wasn't a                hotel manager, he'd be a mortician. He has a constant                expression on his face that suggests he's constantly sucking                lemons.                                     MANAGER                         Just where do you guys think you                          are?                                     O'NEILL                         The Library of Congress?                                     CHULO                         Detroit?                                     LARRY                         Beyond the sun?                                     RICK                         Are any of those right?                                     MANAGER                         This is the Park View Hotel. I'm the                          Hotel Manager. Are you looking for                          someone?                                     RICK                         Yes, you. We're looking for our                          room... 1002.               Rick takes out his key.                                     MANAGER                         It's on the tenth floor.                                     RICK                         What do you know, they moved it.                          Catch you later.               The door starts to close and the guys start yelling.                                     MANAGER                         Keep your voices down. This is a                          respectable establishment. We don't                          go for any funny business here. Just                          then a GUY with a Moosehead Beer hat                          and TWO GUYS in a moose costume pass                          him and enter the elevator with the                          boys.                                     RICK                         I see what you mean... You're a                          beautiful guy. And you're doing a                          damn good job.               The door slams shut before the Manager can say anything else.               INT. THE THOMERSON'S - NIGHT               Several of Debbie's friends have arrived and are chatting                amiably in the living room. Phoebe is dipping potato chips                into a bowl that says "Muffy" on it.                                     PHOEBE                         Do you have any more of this dip,                          Mrs. Thomerson? It's really excellent.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         You just ate Purina Cat Chow.                                     PHOEBE                         Gross me out...               Debbie comes into the living room and sits next to Bobbie.                                     DEBBIE                              (concerned)                         What do you think's gonna go on at                          the guys' party?                                     BOBBIE                         They'll probably get drunk, and watch                          dirty movies. But don't worry about                          the dirty movies.                                     DEBBIE                         What do you mean?                                     BOBBIE                         I forgot to tell you. Yesterday I                          found a bunch of pornos in the back                          seat of O'Neill's car.                                     DEBBIE                         You're kidding.                                     BOBBIE                         Nah. Everything's cool... I took                          care of 'em.                              (starts to giggle)               EXT. HOTEL HALLWAY - NIGHT               Rick, Ryko, O'Neill, Chulo, Larry and Stan are walking down                the hallway, looking for their room.                                     O'NEILL                         1004, 1003...                              (spots the room)                         Aha! 1002.               The guys give out a hearty cheer as they huddle around the                door. O'Neill grabs the doorknob. He takes his time, playing                up the moment.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         And now...               The guys lean forward, anticipating the opening of the gates                of heaven.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         ...to our honored guest Rick, and                          his life-long friends, I say...                              (turns the doorknob)                         ...gentlemen, start your boners.               He flings open the door and everyone but he and Rick burst                into the room.               INT. HOTEL SUITE - NIGHT               The guys all but dive into the room. It is a two-room suite                with living room/kitcheonette and separate bedroom. The room                has been decorated with balloons. A sign reads: "Happy                Bachelor Party!" It looks far from professionally decorated.                Chulo frantically checks out the rooms.                                     RYKO                         Bitchin' place.               He hangs a chin-up bar in a doorway and starts to chin                himself.                                     O'NEILL                         I did the balloons myself.               He takes a prophylactic out of a Trojan carton. He blows it                up. On closer examination, we SEE all the balloons are                inflated prophylactics.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Chulo returns from his search of the rooms.                                     CHULO                              (crazed)                         Where's the women, man? We gotta                          have women.                                     O'NEILL                         Chulo, one thing at a time.                                     CHULO                         Sex is my one thing. I'm good at it.                                     STAN                         What's first?                                     O'NEILL                         A bit of a warm-up.               He threads a film projector.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         We'll spend an hour with "Nymphos                          Without Pants"...                                     RICK                         Olivier's in that, right?                                     O'NEILL                         Then it's on to the real thing.                                     GUYS                              (cheering)                         All right!               Ryko flips off the lights as O'Neill puts the projector into                forward and the title flashes on a movie screen. All the                guys yell in anticipation.               HOME MOVIE SCREEN               We SEE a man stepping out of a shower. He puts on his robe                and exits the bathroom. To his surprise and to the delight                of our guys, two young, beautiful Nordic looking women,                dressed in micro-minis and see-through blouses stand waiting                for him.                                     CHULO (O.S.)                         They're Danish, I know it. I'm crazy                          for Danes.               RYKO AND CHULO               sit watching the screen.                                     RYKO                              (to Chulo)                         Denmark makes great Nautilus                          equipment.                                     CHULO                         I'd like to jerk and press those                          babies.               RICK AND O'NEILL                                     RICK                              (to O'Neill)                         And I thought we wouldn't have any                          meaningful conversation.               ON SCREEN               The man takes off his robe. The girls start to seductively                undress.                                     GUYS (O.S.)                              (excitedly)                         All right, yeah, yeah, yeah...               Suddenly an abrupt jump cut. The girls are undressed and                lying on top of the man. Our guys are seriously let down.               GUYS                                     EVERYONE                              (disappointed)                         Awwww...               O'NEILL               He can't figure it out.               ON THE SCREEN               As the women kiss the man from his head slowly down his chest,                past his navel and heading south...               GUYS               Their eyes start to widen like a child in a Keene painting.                                     GUYS                         Yes, go, go, yes, go...               ON THE SCREEN               Another abrupt jump cut spliced together with what looks                like a band-aid, and the girls are sitting on the side of                the bed. The man is recovering from the best sex he's ever                encountered.               GUYS                                     GUYS                              (disappointed)                         Awwwwww...               Rick turns to a shocked O'Neill.                                     RICK                         Excuse me, but this is as arousing                          as a stroll through the Vatican.                                     O'NEILL                         This isn't right.               GUYS' POV               They watch the screen. The two women seem to be taking a                liking to each other. They begin to fall onto the bed and                entwine.                                     GUYS                         Please, yes, do it, yes, yes, oh                          yes...               A jump cut and they are dressing. Stan can't take it anymore.                He jumps to his feet.                                     STAN                         Where are the dirty parts? I'm a                          doctor. I can see these things.                                     CHULO                         What a waste of two women.               O'Neill rises abruptly.                                     O'NEILL                         I don't get it, but at least Gary's                          got the real stuff coming up here in                          a few minutes.                                     CHULO                              (in ecstasy)                         Women!               Everyone cheers.               INT. THOMERSON HOUSE               The girls are having a great time. The front DOORBELL RINGS.                Mrs. Thomerson answers it. Standing in the doorway is Tina                Stahl, Stan's wife; she's late for the shower. Behind her                are two obvious hookers: Margot and Darlene. Tina doesn't                know either of the girls.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         Yes?               Before Tina can speak, Margot speaks up. She's reading from                the piece of paper Cole gave her.                                     MARGOT                              (through heavy gum                               chewing)                         Yeah, hi. Look, is this...               INSERT - PIECE OF PAPER               Margot reads the address.                                     MARGOT (O.S.)                         838 North Franek Avenue?               BACK TO SCENE                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         Yes.                                     MARGOT                         We're here.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         How nice.                                     TINA                         I'm Tina Stahl.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         Of course. Stan's wife... Everyone                          come in.               REVERSE ANGLE - THE STREET               Cole sits in his car and watches happily as the hookers go                inside.               INT. THOMERSON'S LIVING ROOM               Debbie spots Tina. She is oblivious to the two hookers.                                     DEBBIE                         Tina!               They give each other a big hug. The hookers watch closely.                Debbie leads Tina to the other women.                                     DEBBIE                              (continuing)                         You know everyone here, don't you?                                     TINA                         Yes.               The girls hug and give big hellos. Meanwhile, Margot and                Darlene have come to the conclusion they've been hired for a                kinky scene.                                     MARGOT                         One of these, huh?                                     DARLENE                         Looks that way.                                     MARGOT                         Buck's a buck.               They start to unbutton their coats.               Tina hands Debbie her present.                                     DEBBIE                         It's so heavy.               She sits and the girls gather around as she starts to open                the gift.               Phoebe happens to look off and is stunned by what she sees.                The others are curious at what she is looking at and they                too stare O.S., stunned to silence.               MARGOT AND DARLENE               dressed in leather and mesh stockings. Margot carries a whip.                Darlene is holding a phallic electrical device.                                     DARLENE                              (business-like)                         Is there an empty outlet in here?               Debbie unconsciously points to a nearby wall. Margot and                Darlene stand amidst the girls. Darlene plugs in her device.                She and Margot start to embrace and fondle one another. The                girls watch in stony silence. Dumbfounded at what they see.                Margot and Darlene start to sink to the floor, OUT OF OUR                SIGHT. Before they disappear, we see Margot take out her gum                and park it on an end table. Now OUT OF SIGHT, the girls                watch for a beat. Then we hear the WHIRRING of Darlene's                implement. Our girls screech in horror and hold onto one                another in a protective clump.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               The guys are sitting around drinking, eating and looking                generally bored. Chulo sits in front of the TV, glumly                watching an old "I Love Lucy" re-run.                                     CHULO                         If I was Ricky Ricardo I would beat                          the shit out of that chick.                                     LARRY                              (totally ripped,                               staring at the black                               and white image)                         Wow! The colors are sooo beautiful.               Chulo gives him a strange look.                                     RYKO                              (opening a beer,                               reading the label)                         Isn't there any beer that's not                          imported? All this stuff's from St.                          Louis.                                     RICK                              (calling to imaginary                               person O.S.)                         Bartender, round of brains for my                          friend here.               Gary enters the room. He's all smiles. Confident he's done a                great job arranging for the entertainment.                                     GARY                         How's it going, guys?               Everyone crowds around him like children greeting Daddy.                Looking for candy hidden in his coat.                                     EVERYONE                         Where's the girls? Where's the girls?               Rick pushes them away from Gary like a referee separating                two fighters.                                     RICK                         Give the guy air. Everyone to a                          neutral corner.                                     GARY                         What's going on?                                     CHULO                         Nothing. We got no women.                                     GARY                         Screw you.                                     RICK                         It's true.                                     GARY                         This place should have been wall to                          wall tits by now.                                     RICK                              (to O'Neill)                         Guy paints a beautiful picture.                                     GARY                         I'm going to see what the hell                          happened.                                     RICK                         Looks like the only one who got                          screwed here was you.                                     GARY                         Screw that.               He exits out the door.                                     O'NEILL                         So, what do you guys think of the                          party so far?               The guys toss sandwiches and empty beer cans at him.                                     RICK                              (putting his arm around                               O'Neill)                         Well, I think you've done a damn                          fine job.               Everyone pelts Rick and O'Neill with more junk.               Suddenly the door bursts open. The guys look up and are                surprised to see Cole enter.                                     COLE                         Rick, I want to talk to you.                                     RICK                         Ah, Cole.                              (turns to the others)                         I don't remember ordering an asshole                          from room service.               Cole enters, closing the door behind him.                                     COLE                         I don't want any trouble.                                     RICK                         Oh, come on, just a little.                                     COLE                         I'm ready to make you another deal.                                     RICK                              (mock excitement)                         Ooh, be still, my heart.                                     COLE                              (points out window)                         See that down there? That's my most                          prized possession. My new Porsche.               RICK'S POV               Cole's Porsche parked in the hotel parking lot.                                     RICK (O.S.)                         Very nice...               BACK TO SCENE               Rick gestures to Chulo to look out the window.                                     RICK                              (his voice tells us                               he has something in                               mind)                         Isn't that a great car, Chulo?               Chulo gets Rick's drift.                                     CHULO                         Yeah... real nice. Ah, excuse me.                          I'll be right back.               He starts to exit. Before he does, he grabs a hanger out of                the closet.                                     COLE                         Great car.                                     RICK                         The best.                                     COLE                         I love that car.                                     RICK                         I'm very happy for you two.               They back away from the window.                                     COLE                         I'll trade you my Porsche for Debbie.                          An even swap.                                     RICK                              (surprised)                         The car for Debbie?                                     COLE                              (getting a little                               excitable)                         I mean it. The car is yours. Dump                          Debbie.                                     RICK                         Gee, guys, what should I do? The car                          or Debbie?               All the guys treat this as if it's "Let's Make A Deal". They                take sides, yelling out, "Take the car," "Keep Debbie." Over                the din we hear a befuddled Rick.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         What a decision here.               He walks over to the window. Cole follows closely. He's trying                to convince Rick to take the car.                                     COLE                         Low mileage... Handles like a dream.                                     RICK                         So does Debbie.               EXT. HOTEL PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Chulo is using the hanger to jimmy the car lock on Cole's                Porsche. He's successful. He jumps into the car and drives                off.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               Rick and Cole are at the window. The guys are still trying                to convince Rick on his decision.                                     COLE                         I got the car only two months ago --                          it's got --               As he looks out the window we see with him that his car is                gone.                                     COLE                              (continuing)                         Shit, shit, shit, shit. My car's                          gone!                                     RICK                         Maybe it had something to do.                                     COLE                         Shit!               He charges out of the room.                                     O'NEILL                         Odd. He's only been gone a few seconds                          and I already miss him.               EXT. STREET CORNER - NIGHT               Gary spots Jumbo on the same grimy street corner. He's pimping                for one of his ladies and makes a sale to an anxious young                Marine as Gary approaches him.                                     GARY                         Jumbo, where the hell are the women?                                     JUMBO                         What are you talking about, asshole?                                     GARY                         Your whores never showed up.                                     JUMBO                         They left an hour ago, pink nuts.                                     GARY                         Screw you!               Jumbo has had enough. He backs Gary against a wall and pulls                a knife on him.                                     JUMBO                              (irritated; a lot)                         That's it, prick lips.                                     GARY                         What are you...                                     JUMBO                         I've had it, numb nuts... How much                          money you got?                                     GARY                         Why?                                     JUMBO                         Because I'm pissed off. Now give me                          your cash.               Gary hurriedly digs into his pockets and gives Jumbo his                money.                                     GARY                         This is bad public relations. I was                          planning to do a lot of business                          with you. But now I'm going to have                          to go elsewhere.                                     JUMBO                              (mock sincerity)                         Hey. I'm sorry. You want girls. I'll                          give you girls.               He snaps his fingers and TWO of his LADIES come forward.                                     JUMBO                              (continuing; to girls)                         Give him the works.                                     GARY                         That's more like it.               The girls walk over to Gary and proceed to beat the crap out                of him.               EXT. CHIPPENDALE'S - NIGHT               It is a garish nightclub. A large lighted billboard proclaims                "ALL MALE... ALL NUDE." Two cars pull into the parking lot.                Debbie and all of her shower guests get out.                                     DEBBIE                         Are you sure this is a good idea?                                     ILENE                         Look, you heard what those hookers                          said. They were supposed to go to a                          bachelor party.                                     DEBBIE                         That doesn't mean it was Rick's party.                                     ILENE                         Debbie, men are pigs -- if they can                          have women, we can have men.                                     BOBBIE                              (agreeing)                         Yeah.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                              (reluctantly)                         I don't know about this.                                     DEBBIE                         C'mon, Mother, it'll be fun.               The girls giggle as they enter the place, with Mrs. Thomerson                following reluctantly behind.               INT. CHIPPENDALE'S - NIGHT                                     PHOEBE                         Look at that guy. What a hunk.                                     BOBBIE                         Check out the other guy's buns.                                     TINA                         Let's sit over here.               They head for some empty tables. Debbie notices her mother                is still standing transfixed by the MAN on display on stage.                Debbie grabs her by the shoulder.                                     DEBBIE                         C'mon, Mom.               On the way to the table they pass MICHAEL, the bartender,                who looks at them and immediately recognizes Debbie. Finding                this interesting, he picks up a phone and dials.                                     MICHAEL                              (softly; into phone)                         Yes... is there a Rick Stahl                          registered there?               INT. HOTEL SUITE               Gary, beaten up, his clothes ripped, stands amidst the guys.                                     RICK                         Hookers beat you up?                                     GARY                         Yes.                                     RICK                         I didn't know you were into that.                                     CHULO                         How could you be so stupid. I'm gonna                          kill you.                                     GARY                         Go ahead, but if you want women, we                          need more money.                                     RYKO                         This just isn't righteous.                                     GARY                              (angered)                         Screw you... Do me a favor, join                          this decade, will ya, pal!                                     RICK                              (as if he's working a                               fundraiser)                         Hey, now, our buddy needs help. Come                          on, dig into those pockets. Help                          this man.                              (puts his arm around                               Gary)                         Help this person help others get                          laid. Give till it hurts. He needs                          you.               The guys take out money. Larry stands and digs into his pocket                for his wallet. Along with the wallet comes dozens of pills.                The PHONE RINGS.                                     RICK                         And there's our first pledge coming                          in --               Rick picks up the receiver.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Hello. End Horniness Telethon. Yeah.                          Michael... how you doing?               INT. CHIPPENDALE'S - MICHAEL               He's standing behind the bar.                                     MICHAEL                         I'm working... Right. At                          Chippendale's. Guess what. Debbie                          and her friends just walked in.               INT. HOTEL SUITE                                     RICK                              (surprised)                         Really? That's very interesting.                              (he brightens)                         I'll tell you what... stay there and                          we'll be right down. I want to check                          this out.               He hangs up the phone. Gary, meantime, has collected his                money.                                     GARY                         I'll be back with women.                                     STAN                         I might as well have left my genitals                          at home, the good they're doing me                          here.                                     CHULO                              (calling after Gary)                         Hurry back.               Gary exits.                                     RICK                              (it's obvious he has                               something in mind)                         While we're waiting for Gar, why                          don't we all go for a little fresh                          air.                                     RYKO                         Where we going?                                     RICK                         Out.               The guys start toward the door.                                     LARRY                              (zonked and depressed)                         Guys, I think I'd rather stay here.                                     RICK                         C'mon, Larry. Be good for you.                                     LARRY                         I just want to be alone.                                     RICK                         All right. Now, there's milk and                          cookies in the refrigerator. Go to                          bed right after "Falcon Crest."               As Larry slumps on the couch, the guys exit.               EXT. HOTEL               Rick and the guys exit the hotel. As they exit, Mr. Thomerson                enters. Both parties are oblivious to the other's presence.               INT. HOTEL               Mr. Thomerson is greeted by a Moosehead Beer EXECUTIVE who                is wearing a straw hat that says "Moosehead Beer."                                     EXECUTIVE                         Ed, we're so glad you could come                          over at the last minute and judge                          our little beauty pageant.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         My pleasure, Al... Always happy to                          help out in a pinch...                              (looking around)                         Excuse me. I better call my service...                          tell them where I am.               He enters a phone booth and starts to dial.                                     MR. THOMERSON                              (to executive, covering                               mouthpiece)                         I had to get out of the house anyway                          tonight. The wife is throwing a bridal                          shower for my daughter.                              (into phone)                         This is Ed Thomerson. Please transfer                          my calls to...                              (reading number off                               phone)                         220-1892. Right.               He crosses with executive toward the ballroom.                                     EXECUTIVE                         Congratulations on your daughter's                          wedding. Who's she marrying?                                     MR. THOMERSON                         A real turd.                                     EXECUTIVE                              (at a loss for words)                         Well... hope she'll be very happy.               They exit into ballroom.               INT. CHIPPENDALE'S KITCHEN - NIGHT               Amidst the kitchen activities we SEE Rick, O'Neill, Ryko,                Stan, and Michael.                                     RICK                         So will your friend Nick do it?                                     MICHAEL                         He'll do anything for money.                                     RICK                         I love his attitude.                              (calling off)                         They still out there?               STAN               He's peeking through the kitchen door. We SEE Debbie and the                shower girls whooping it up at a ringside table. Stan turns                back to Rick.                                     STAN                         Breathing heavy at ringside.               He joins the other guys.                                     RICK                              (a la Long John Silver)                         So, they want action, eh? Are you                          with me, me hardies?               The guys shout approval as NICK, one of the male dancers,                enters carrying a tray of food. Nick is a muscled hunk.                                     MICHAEL                         Guys, this is Chippendale's star                          attraction, Nicholas Carter... better                          known as Nick the Dick.                                     RYKO                         Nick the what?               Nick drops his pants. Since he's being SHOT only from the                WAIST UP, we can't see what the guys see.                                     NICK                              (proudly)                         The Dick.                                     ALL OUR GUYS                              (astonished at this                               O.S. sight)                         Jesus Christ!                                     RICK                         Let's get this thing going. Tray,                          please.               Nick holds the tray waist high. Rick arranges the food.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Looks good. Can I have the bun,                          Michael?               Michael hands Rick a hot dog bun. Rick places it on the tray.                He turns to Nick.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         And now, Nick... or is it Mr. Dick?                                     NICK                         Nick.                                     RICK                         Nick, if you would be so kind...               NICK               He holds the tray with one hand. With the other he reaches                OUT OF FRAME. In a nutshell, what he does is place his honker                in the hot dog bun. As he slaps his business into the bun,                we HEAR a solid THUMP.                                     RICK                         Nick, the rest is all yours.                                     NICK                              (excusing himself)                         Gentlemen.               He exits. As he does, our guys crowd around and peek through                the kitchen door.               NICK               We FOLLOW him as he approaches the girls' table.                                     NICK                         If you ladies would like to serve                          yourselves...               The girls grab their orders. Mrs. T. is last. Hers is the                hot dog. She points to it.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         Is this the foot long?                                     NICK                         And then some.               Mrs. T. grabs the hot dog. It won't come off the tray. She                yanks harder. Nick drops the tray and Mrs. T. finally comes                to realize what she is pulling on. She screams in terror.                Because of sheer fright, she can't seem to drop Nick's schlong                from her grip. The rest of our ladies look to see Mrs. T. 's                hot dog. They scream in shock. Debbie spits out her                marguerita, hitting Phoebe in the face.               OUR GUYS               They are busting a gut watching the girls' reactions.                                     ILENE                         She looks up just in time to see the                          guys close the kitchen door.               MRS. T               still frozen in a state of shock. The girls try to pry her                hands off.               EXT. STREET CORNER               Several HOOKERS are standing around. Gary approaches them.                                     GARY                         Ladies... come here.                                     HOOKER                         Talk to the pimp.               She gestures to a MAN with his back TO US.                                     GARY                         Let's talk.               The PIMP turns around and we SEE he is the stereotypical                pimp. One big difference: he's an Indian straight from the                streets of Calcutta. He's soft-spoken and ever smiling and                he still hasn't quite mastered English.                                     RAJAH                              (oh-so-heavy Indian                               accent)                         What can I be doing for you?                                     GARY                         You're a pimp?                                     RAJAH                         I'm telling you I am, Joe.                                     GARY                         I want women.                                     RAJAH                         That I got. Very good women. They                          sit on your face, anything you want.                                     GARY                         I'll take some.                                     RAJAH                         Big problem now. Soon they go to                          customers.                                     GARY                         I need them for a bachelor party at                          the Park View Hotel.                                     RAJAH                         You are being in luck. Customers in                          same hotel. I let you have them at                          cut-rate price for 45 minutes.                                     GARY                         Sold. 45 minutes. No problem.                                     RAJAH                         Not one minute longer or Milt will                          come for you.                                     GARY                         Milt?               ANOTHER ANGLE               MILT joins them. Milt is a massive hulk. A bearded exbiker.                He could have come out of an MX silo. A menacing mountain of                a man decked out in a cowboy hat.                                     RAJAH                         This being Milt.               Milt casually takes off his hat and immediately sticks his                face through a nearby window, smashing it to pieces. He pulls                his head out, smiles and puts his hat back on.                                     RAJAH                              (continuing)                         Girls back in 45 minutes or Milt                          cuts your balls off. Fair enough?                          Shake!               Gary extends his hand and they shake.                                     GARY                              (to himself as he                               walks to his car)                         I just bet my balls and shook on it.               EXT. HOTEL - NIGHT               The guys are piling back out of the bus into the hotel. The                Manager watches them suspiciously.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               Rick, O'Neill, Ryko and Stan come back into the room.                                     RICK                              (concerned; calling                               O.S.)                         Larry! Yo, Larry.               Rick crosses to the bathroom door, opens it and goes in.               RICK'S POV               Larry is on his knees on the side of the tub with his head                submerged fully under several inches of water.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         What are you doing?               Larry comes out of the water. He gasps for breath and speaks.                                     LARRY                         I'm killing myself.               He takes a deep breath and submerges his head again. Rick                unplugs the tub and it begins to drain.                                     RICK                         Larry... you've got to lighten up.                          You and the wife can work it out.               The water has drained from the tub, leaving Larry high and                dry. He lifts his head out of the tub. In his state, he's                unaware that the water is gone. He gasps for air as Rick                holds him up.                                     RICK                         Lar... sometimes when people are mad                          they say things they don't mean.                                     LARRY                         No, she hates me... I want to end                          everything here... now.               Larry takes a deep breath and plunges his head into the tub.                His head hits the waterless tub bottom with a loud THUD. He                goes limp from the concussion. His body drapes into the tub,                head first.                                     RICK                         You okay?                                     LARRY                         Yeah, I guess so.                                     RICK                         Really?                                     LARRY                         Yeah. I see you're right. C'mon,                          let's party.               Larry gets up and exits the room. PUSH IN ON Rick. He looks                after Larry, concerned.                                     RICK                              (to himself)                         He ain't all right.               ANGLE - THE LOBBY               Cole sits in a phone booth holding the receiver impatiently.               ANGLE WIDENS TO REVEAL THE ADJOINING PHONE BOOTH               The receiver is off the hook. After a beat, Mr. T. crosses                to the phone. Cole does not see him, and vice versa.                                     MR. T                         Hello?                                     COLE                         Mr. Thomerson.                                     MR. T                         Yes, son, did you find out where the                          bachelor party is?                                     COLE                         Yes I did.                                     MR. T                         Fine. How's everything going?                                     COLE                         Not so good. He wouldn't listen to                          reason. He stole my car... my                          Porsche... I can't find it anywhere...                                     MR. THOMERSON                         So, he's playing hard ball. Well,                          two can play that game.                              (yelling)                         Go after him. Stop at nothing. You                          hear me?                                     COLE                         What? I'm sorry, sir, I can't hear                          you.               Looking over into the next booth, he sees Thomerson's back.                                     COLE                              (continuing)                         Some fat slob in the next booth is                          making a lot of noise.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Well, tell the asshole to shut up.                                     COLE                         Right.                              (calling off)                         Hey, shut up. Okay, sir.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Sorry, I can't hear you. Some pin                          head's yelling...                              (yelling O.S.)                         Shut up, I'm talking here.                              (into phone)                         Now look, I want you to go back and                          I don't care what you do. Stop that                          marriage.               He slams the phone down and EXITS SCREEN RIGHT. Cole starts                to exit left when he spots Chulo getting into the elevator.                                     CHULO                         Hey, man, your car's looking good.                                     COLE                              (crazed)                         Where is it?                                     CHULO                         Out front.               The elevator doors slam shut. Cole races out into the street.               EXT. HOTEL               Cole comes bursting out into the street. We can tell by his                shocked expression he doesn't like what he sees.                                     COLE                         Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.               CAMERA PANS as he charges to his Porsche. His pride and joy                has now, thanks to Chulo, been customized into a Chicano                special. It's chopped and channeled; dingleberries rim the                back window, flames have been painted on the rear fender; a                chain steering wheel, fuzzy dashboard, dice hanging from the                mirror. A real East L.A. beauty.               ANGLE - COLE               He's snapped -- totally flipped. He turns and yells up to                the hotel:                                     COLE                              (screaming)                         Rick... Rick... Goddamn it.               INT. HOTEL SUITE - ANGLE - RICK               He's standing near the window.                                     RICK                         Gee. I think that's for me.               He looks out the window and sees Cole standing next to his                transformed Porsche.                                     COLE                         Rick... Debbie is mine. She'll always                          be.                                     RICK                              (yelling back)                         Cole, when was the last time you had                          a lobotomy?                                     COLE                              (furious)                         You've had it. I'm gonna get you.               ANGLE - THE STREET               Cole hops in his car and drives off, blowing his HORN at                oncoming traffic. The HORN PLAYS "LA CUCURACHA." Cole slams                his fist on the steering wheel in disgust.               INT. HOTEL SUITE                                     RICK                              (to guys)                         Don't you love it when old friends                          stop by?                                     O'NEILL                              (to Rick)                         Hey, I'm starved... Let's go get                          something to eat. We'll bring back                          food for everybody.                                     RICK                         I'm not really hungry.                                     O'NEILL                         C'mon. I insist.               He grabs Rick by the arm and leads him out of the room.               INT. HOTEL RESTAURANT               Rick is finishing giving the food order to a WAITER. In the                b.g. we SEE O'Neill talking to a BELLHOP. The Bellhop is                pointing to a table. O'Neill thanks him and slips him some                money.                                     RICK                         ...couple more on rye. Lots of                          fries... and a burger and diet soda.               Waiter acknowledges he's got it and exits. O'Neill joins                Rick.                                     O'NEILL                         Let's sit down.               O'Neill leads Rick to the table the Bellhop pointed out.                They sit down. Immediately O'Neill takes some cash from his                pocket and holds it under the table.               ANGLE UNDER THE TABLE               Huddled underneath the table, hidden by the tablecloth, is a                HOOKER. Her specialty is coming right up. She grabs the bills                from O'Neill's hand. She tucks the money in her cleavage and                turns her talents to Rick. She unzips his fly.               RICK               He reacts to the ZIP SOUND.                                     RICK                         What the hell is that?                                     O'NEILL                         My gift to you.                                     RICK                         Under the table!                                     O'NEILL                         The best table in the house.               The Hooker has begun to do what she does best. And Rick loves                it.                                     RICK                         ...I think we can skip the wine list.                          Oh, gee...               FATHER FALWELL               enters the restaurant. He spots Rick and O'Neill and crosses                to them.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         Boys, good evening to you.               Rick tries to maintain his dignity. But from under the table                a blue ribbon job is being applied to his fun zone.                                     O'NEILL                         Father Falwell, good evening.               Falwell shakes Rick's hand. Rick hangs on for dear life.                Pumping the hand up and down at a faster and faster rate.                                     RICK                         Father... Oh, yes... yes... yesssss...                          Oh, yesssssss!               Falwell pries his hand loose.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         So, Rick, soon you will be a married                          man. How does it feel?                                     RICK                         Innnnnn-credible!                                     FATHER FALWELL                         Well, nice seeing you both.               Rick's excitement heightens as the Hooker pulls out all stops.                                     RICK                         Ooooooooh, Jesus, Oh God, God, God,                          God, Oh Jesus, Jeeeesussss...               Father Falwell looks on rather perplexed. Rick sees Falwell's                puzzled look.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         I was just saying grace.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         How nice.                                     O'NEILL                         You done?               Before Rick can speak we HEAR a VOICE from under the table.                                     HOOKER (O.S.)                         Not yet.               Rick's hand EXITS FRAME and zips up his pants. Then Rick and                O'Neill get up.                                     RICK                         Father, would you like to take our                          table?               O'Neill can't believe what Rick is about to do.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         Yes. Thank you.               He sits in Rick's spot. Rick leans on the table to say his                final farewell to the priest. He takes this moment to get                some money out of his pocket and hold it under the table.               UNDER THE TABLE               The Hooker grabs the money.               BACK TO SCENE                                     RICK                         I think you'll enjoy this table.                                     O'NEILL                         So long, Father.               He and Rick, suppressing a laugh, exit. Father Falwell picks                up the menu. We HEAR the ZIP SOUND. Father perks up. He                doesn't know what the hell is happening.               O'Neill turns to Rick as they're leaving the coffee shop.                                     O'NEILL                         I don't get it. Why didn't you go                          for it just now?                                     RICK                         I don't know. Maybe it's because I                          love Debbie or maybe it's hard for                          me to get off in a place that smells                          like egg salad. I'm not sure.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               Rick and O'Neill enter the suite. No one is there.                                     RICK                         Where the hell is everybody?               Everyone jumps out from their hiding places. With our guys                is Gary and his team of FIVE PROSTITUTES.                                     GARY                         Surprise!                              (gesturing to the                               girls)                         The team bus just pulled in.                                     STAN                         Hookers. It's a party!                                     RICK                         All right!               One of our hookers, KELLEY, gets everyone's attention.                                     KELLEY                         Who's first, guys?               Everyone acts as if they're in grade school. They raise their                hands; they come on like kids trying to get the teacher's                attention.                                     GUYS                         Oh, me... me... me!                                     O'NEILL                         Wait. The guest of honor should be                          first.                                     RICK                         Nah, that's okay. My brother has to                          look up old people's asses all day                          long. Let's give him a break.                                     STAN                         Right. Give me the will to live. Let                          me go first.                                     O'NEILL                         A moving plea. Okay, Doc, you lead                          off. I'll screw clean up.               Everyone cheers Stan's good fortune. Kelley takes Stan by                the hand and leads him into the bedroom. Gary turns on a                record and everyone starts dancing. Larry is laying out drugs                on a table. They consist of lines of coke and various happy                time pills of all colors and shapes. Rick takes a look at                the layout.                                     RICK                         How thoughtful. A drug smorgasbord.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Chulo enters. He sees the party has taken off.                                     CHULO                         I have returned!               He spots a sweet-faced young hooker, LAVERNE. She is prancing                around in her bra and underwear. Chulo wants her.                                     CHULO                              (continuing; points                               to her)                         You! Mine!               Laverne is frightened of Chulo. Mainly because he's coming                at her like a sex-starved buffalo. Chulo goes after her.                Scared, she runs around the room, then out the door. Chulo                gives chase.                                     RICK                              (to O'Neill)                         Chulo's got such a nice, light touch                          with women.               INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR               Laverne runs down the hall, closely pursued by Chulo. An all-               female NEW WAVE BAND comes to the door. O'Neill greets them.                                     O'NEILL                         Terrific. You made it... You can set                          up over there...               As they enter we go to --               INT. CORRIDOR               Chulo is on the heels of Laverne. She bursts through a door                to excape him.               INT. STAGE               Laverne finds herself on the stage of a beauty pageant, still                in her bra and panties. FIVE other LADIES are dressed in                their bathing suits. Chulo stops short of running on stage.                Laverne, seeking the safety of the moment, stands in line                with the contestants.               ANGLE ON MR. THOMERSON AND OTHER JUDGES               They like what they see.                                     MR. THOMERSON                              (to another)                         Great bathing suit.                                     EXECUTIVE                              (indicating Laverne)                         I think I screwed that one once.               INT. THOMERSON'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Debbie and the shower guests are all in a state of undress.                We WATCH as they put on dresses and heavy makeup. Mrs.                Thomerson is still freaked out over her meeting with Nick                the Dick.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         I had his weiner right in my hands.                                     ILENE                         I told you. Men are pigs... I saw                          them standing there.                                     PHOEBE                         What a gross thing to do... gawd!                                     ILENE                         I bet right now Rick and his pals...                              (she spits disdainfully)                         ...are knee deep in whores.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         A strange wang right in my palm.                                     DEBBIE                         Ilene, we don't really know that.                                     BOBBIE                         That's what we're going to find out...                                     DEBBIE                         I feel like I'm spying on Rick.                                     ILENE                         Good. That's just what we're doing.                                     TINA                         I'll kill Stan if I find out he's                          been screwing around.               Ilene shoves socks in her bra to enhance her cleavage and                defiantly slaps on her new dress.                                     ILENE                         Brett, are you with us?                                     MRS. THOMERSON                              (coming out of her                               fog)                         Yeah, sure... I was eye to eye with                          an unfamiliar pud.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               The party is taking off. The all-girl band is going ape shit.                The guys are dancing with the hookers. They're all moving in                unison, to a gyrating New Wave dance step and singing along                with the MUSIC.               ANGLE - RYKO               He's wearing gravity boots, hanging upside down, entwined                around one of the hookers. They're hanging there, making out                like crazy. Gary passes by.                                     RYKO                         Hey, Gary, spot me.               ANGLE - BEDROOM DOOR               Stan comes out of the bedroom. He's disheveled, but looks                very happy. He crosses to Rick.                                     STAN                         Thanks a lot, that was the best.                          You're next.                                     RICK                         Nah, not yet. Look, you're my older                          brother. I need some advice here.                          What's the deal with marriage? What                          can I expect?                                     STAN                         Well, the first month it's great.                          The second month things calm down a                          little. By the third month you're                          looking through your old girlfriends'                          phone numbers; by the fourth month                          you're numb; by the fifth month,                          hopefully the football season starts.                                     RICK                         Thanks, Stan, you've been a lot of                          help.               Stan pats Rick on the back and dives into the festivities.               ANGLE - GARY               He spots someone across the room. It's like Tony spotting                Maria for the first time in "West Side Story." As in a DREAM                SEQUENCE, ALL SOUNDS STOP. Two pinspots hit them. She turns                and sees him. She smiles. Both are madly in love. Like two                pieces of metal attracted to the same magnet, they walk toward                each other.                                     GARY                         Hi.                                     SHE                         Hello.               They take each other by the hand. They walk into the bedroom                and close the door behind them.               The New Wave dance briefly continues, then comes to an end.               ANOTHER ANGLE - THE HOTEL ROOM               O'Neill grabs Ryko (who is just coming down from his gravity                bar) and Stan, who is wearing a pair of women's underwear on                his head.                                     O'NEILL                         You guys better get going. It's                          getting late.                                     STAN                         Oh, right.               Ryko and Stan cross to the door and exit. As they do, four                or five pretty GIRLS are passing by in the hallway.                                     GIRL                         Is there a party going on in there                          or something?                                     RYKO                         Yeah. It's great. Go on in.               The girls cross inside.                                     STAN                         My God. Fresh meat. Let's hurry back.               INT. BATHROOM - TIGHT ON LARRY               There is a pained, tragic and extremely stoned out look on                his face as he sighs deeply and then summons up his courage.                WIDEN as he looks down at his right wrist.               He heaves another deep sigh and brings an electric razor                INTO FRAME. He turns it on and runs it over his wrist. Of                course, nothing happens. Just then Rick enters.                                     RICK                         What the hell are you doing?                                     LARRY                         I'm trying to slash my wrists.                                     RICK                         You're trying to kill yourself with                          an electric razor?                                     LARRY                         I couldn't find any razor blades.                                     RICK                         Well, this is terrific. Now you're                          gonna have wrists that are smooth                          and kissable. Just go out there.                          Forget about everything and laugh it                          up.                                     LARRY                              (suddenly laughs like                               a crazy man)                         Ha, ha, ha.                                     RICK                         No, have fun first. Then laugh. Now,                          forget about marriage for a while.                          Go party.               As he shoves Larry out, Gary enters the bathroom. His                expression tells us he's had the best sex of his life.                                     RICK                         Gary, how we doing, big stallion?                                     GARY                         Rick, I really think I'm in love.                                     RICK                         This is cause for celebration. She'll                          probably charge half price for sex                          from now on.               Rick exits as Gary dreamily crosses to the mirror.                                     GARY                              (into mirror)                         This time it's real. She's wonderful.               Gary's "woman" enters and closes the door. Their eyes meet.                Gary takes her hand and kisses it gently. She turns away,                then lifts up the toilet seat, lifts up her dress and proceeds                to pee. She is a man. Gary is stunned. His jaw drops open.                Gary's dream girl/guy finishes his business. He drops his                dress and turns to Gary.                                     SHE                         The name's Tim. I'm always available.               He blows a kiss and starts to leave, but turns back.                                     SHE/TIM                         By the way... I also do engine work                          on BMW's. 'Bye.               Tim exits. Gary feels filthy. He rips open the cabinet, takes                out tooth paste and toothbrush and vigorously brushes his                teeth. He rips off his clothes and jumps in the shower and                scrubs as if he's scraping barnacles off a hull of a tugboat.               EXT. STABLES - NIGHT               Ryko and Stan drive up to a country stable. They get out of                the car and open a barn door. Both are pleased at what they                see.                                     RYKO                         All right.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Standing there is a donkey, eating straw.               EXT. HOTEL - NIGHT               Cole drives up in his Chulo-customized Porsche. He gets out,                then reaches back into the car and takes out a crossbow (the                heavy duty metal kind hunters use). He looks up menacingly                at the hotel and spots the room where the party is going on.                He sees another hotel across the way. He gets an idea and                enters the other hotel.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               The party is going full blast. Some other girls and a couple                of guys (hotel guests) enter the room and are quickly swept                up in the spirit of the party. O'Neill approaches Rick.                                     O'NEILL                         Rick, I'm concerned.                                     RICK                         About what?                                     O'NEILL                         This is your bachelor party. You                          haven't had sex with anyone yet.                                     RICK                              (trying to joke his                               way out of it)                         Get a few drinks into me, we'll dance                          and see what happens.                                     O'NEILL                         I got something you can't resist. I                          have a friend, Tracey. She wants to                          meet you. She loves to please.                                     RICK                         Oooooo.                                     O'NEILL                              (indicating the bedroom)                         Right in there, pal.                                     RICK                         If I'm not out in a half hour, send                          for the paramedics.                                     O'NEILL                         That's the old Rick!               Rick enters the bedroom.               INT. BEDROOM               It's dark, but for a lamp on the nightstand which is on. In                one corner of the room we SEE the figure of a woman.                                     RICK                         Hellooo!               Tracey walks toward Rick. The light illuminates her. What we                see is truly the most beautiful woman on earth. She is totally                nude. A vision that would make any man screw and ask questions                later.                                     RICK                              (to himself;                               overwhelmed by her)                         Eat my chair!                                     TRACEY                         Take me... please.               Rick instinctively makes a move toward her. He decides to go                for it.               RICK'S POV - TRACEY               Just then a strange thing happens to Tracey's face. It                transforms into Debbies.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Rick stops dead in his tracks. He can't believe it. Debbie's                face is now on Tracey's body.                                     TRACEY/DEBBIE                         You promised me, Rick. You promised                          you wouldn't make love to anyone                          else.               Rick is shaken by this. He shakes his head and wipes at his                eyes. Debbie's face is gone. He moves toward Tracey again.               TRACEY               Her face transforms into Sister Mary Francis.                                     TRACEY/SISTER MARY FRANCIS                         Don't go back on your word, Rick. Be                          true; be strong.               Sister Mary Francis's face disappears.               ANOTHER ANGLE                                     RICK                         I can't do it.               TRACEY               Her face becomes Stan's.                                     TRACEY/STAN                         You nuts? Look at me, I'm beautiful!               Stan's face turns back to Tracey's.               ANOTHER ANGLE               All the kids from his bus are gathered around Tracey. They're                egging him on.                                     KIDS                         Do it! Come on! Put her away! Go for                          it!               Debbie's face appears on Tracey's.                                     TRACEY/DEBBIE                              (pleading)                         Don't Rick.               Debbie's face disappears. Rick can't take it anymore.                                     RICK                         I can't do it. I love Debbie.               He runs out of the room, leaving a very confused Tracey in                his wake.               INT. HOTEL ROOM               O'Neill is waiting outside the bedroom door as Rick comes                out.                                     O'NEILL                         How'd it go?                                     RICK                         Put it to you this way -- you're                          gonna have to pry her out of the bed                          with a spatula, mister.                                     O'NEILL                         I'm proud of you, lad.               Rick crosses to the bar area as O'Neill watches him go,                beaming.               INT. HOTEL ROOM ACROSS THE STREET - NIGHT               Cole enters the room. He runs to the window.               COLE'S POV               His window is right opposite the window in the hotel of Rick's                party.               COLE               He's pleased. Very pleased. He places an arrow into his                crossbow.               COLE'S POV               He's looking down his sights. Rick is the target... and an                easy one at that, for at this very moment Rick is crossing                past the window.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               The door opens and in walks Rajah, the Indian pimp. He looks                pissed. He's looking for Gary.                                     RAJAH                              (angry)                         Am looking for this dunghead who                          took my women... He is being liar to                          me. 45 minutes way over.               COLE'S POV               He has Rick right where he wants him.               CROSSBOW TRIGGER               Cole's finger squeezes off a shot.               RICK               Luckily he starts to dance with a female guest. This takes                him out of line of the arrow.               HOTEL SUITE WINDOW               The arrow zooms through the open window.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               Rajah is standing by the door. The arrow zips through the                room, misses everyone and lodges in the wall inches from                Rajah's head. He looks at the arrow and realizes he almost                was killed.                                     RAJAH                              (frightened)                         Holy Dung is this thing! I sic Milt                          on you. He get back bitches. Me? I                          haul ass.               He runs out of the room. Rick and O'Neill watch Rajah exit,                confused.                                     RICK                         Who was that?                                     O'NEILL                         I don't know.                                     RICK                              (looking at arrow)                         What's this?                                     O'NEILL                         Got me.               Just then another arrow comes zipping through the room,                lodging in a chair inches from Rick.                                     RICK                              (to new arrow)                         How 'bout this?                                     O'NEILL                         Still drawing a blank.               They turn in the direction the arrow came from and look out                the window. They spot Cole loading his bow in the room across                the way.                                     RICK                         He look familiar?                                     O'NEILL                         Very.                                     RICK                         C'mon. Get the hookers in a circle.                          We better put Cochise out of business.               They start for the door as we go to --               INT. BACKSTAGE OF BEAUTY PAGEANT               Chulo is waiting outside a door that says "Dressing Room."                Several of the beauty contestants race out wearing formal                gowns. Laverne follows them, wearing a very tight black dress.                Chulo approaches her.                                     LAVERNE                         Stay away from me.                                     CHULO                         I'm not gonna hassle you... Don't                          worry. You look beautiful.                                     LAVERNE                              (nervous)                         Think so? I borrowed it from one of                          the girls. I don't look too fat?                                     CHULO                         You're an angel... A madonna.               Laverne is moved by this. Before she can respond a Stage                Manager takes her by the arm and pushes her on stage.                                     STAGE MANAGER                         You're on.               Chulo watches Laverne enter the stage to hearty applause.               ANGLE - THE AUDIENCE               Mr. Thomerson and the other Judges sit in the front row making                notes.               MEDIUM SHOT - THE STAGE               The girls are lined up on pedestals as the MC approaches                Laverne                                     MC                         All right, here is your question,                          Miss... Er...               He looks through his cards hurriedly and is unable to find                Laverne's.                                     LAVERNE                         Rivas.                                     MC                         Miss Rivas... Yes... How would you                          solve our country's present economic                          problems?                                     LAVERNE                         Who, me?                                     MC                         Yes.                                     LAVERNE                         That's a good question. From the way                          I understand it, according to supply                          side economics, when supply exceeds                          demand, recession is the result.                          That's why I think we should control                          the credit markets and increase the                          prime rate. That way, the consumer                          price index will stabilize and we                          will have economic recovery.               ANGLE - THE CROWD               They break into spontaneous applause.               ANGLE - CHULO               He is totally blown away.               ANGLE - LAVERNE               She smiles broadly at the applause and walks off stage. Chulo                moves alongside her.                                     CHULO                         How'd you know all that stuff? You're                          a real brain.                                     LAVERNE                         Nah, I used to fuck a librarian.               Chulo looks at her with awe and respect as she exits into                the dressing room.                                     CHULO                         Wow!               INT. HOTEL LOBBY - NIGHT               Debbie, her mother and the girls enter the lobby. They                approach the Hotel Manager, who is standing behind the front                desk. They are dressed garishly, like hookers. Debbie has on                a cheap blonde wig and mini skirt. The Manager looks at them                the way one would look at an approaching plague.                                     DEBBIE                         I don't believe we're doing this.               The Manager crosses to them.                                     MANAGER                         Can I help you, ladies?                                     DEBBIE                         Yes, we're looking for the Stahl                          party.                                     MANAGER                         Room 1002.               The girls turn and start toward the elevator. Mrs. Thomerson,                who is wearing the kind of push-up bra that makes her tits                look like the Black Hills, smiles at the Manager seductively.                He smiles back, then catches himself.                                     MANAGER                              (to Bellboy)                         Those guys are asking for it.               The girls cross to the elevator. Ilene pushes the button and                the doors swing open. They get inside and just before the                doors close, a huge behemoth of a man joins them inside. He                turns and faces CAMERA. It's Milt, Rajah's beefy helper. He                doesn't look happy as he eyes the girls. They look back at                him uncomfortably as the doors slam shut.               INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR               The elevator door opens. Milt has all the girls by the collar                and hustles them down the hall.                                     ILENE                         You're making a big mistake.                                     MILT                         Shut up. You still got another job                          to do here.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         What kind of job? I'm a housewife.                                     DEBBIE                         Quiet, Mother.               Milt stops at a door and kicks it with his foot. The door                opens a crack at first, then swings open wide, revealing six                middle-aged Japanese business MEN in their underwear. They                smile wide at the girls, obviously thrilled with the quality                of the merchandise delivered to them. Milt shoves them into                the room.                                     MILT                         Get in there.               He slams the door shut and exits.               INT. JAPANESE GUYS' ROOM               The guys start to move toward our panicked girls. They speak                to each other in Japanese (with English subtitles)                                     JAPANESE ONE                         Nice looking quim, huh, Bob?                                     JAPANESE TWO                         Yeah, you know me, Ray, I've always                          been a sucker for redheads.                                     JAPANESE FOUR                         Hubba-hubba.                                     BOBBIE                         Let's get out of here, girls.               They turn toward the door. One of the Japanese races over                and gets there first, slamming and bolting the door shut.                                     DEBBIE                         Guys, take it easy. Guys.               The girls run around the room in a panic with the Japanese                chasing them in very hot pursuit.               EXT. COLE'S ROOM               Rick, O'Neill and Tracey quietly approach Cole's door. Tracey                is dressed in a see-through negligee.                                     RICK                         This is it.                              (he positions Tracey                               outside the door)                         Go get 'im.               He and O'Neill duck around the hallway corner, out of sight.               INT. COLE'S ROOM               He is at the window, holding his crossbow. He is frantically                searching the bachelor party across the way for any sign of                Rick.                                     COLE                         Where the hell is he?               He hears a KNOCK on the DOOR. Cole quickly hides his crossbow                under the bed and answers the door.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Tracey stands in the open door. Cole's jaw drops open. He                has never seen anything as lovely.                                     COLE                         Yeah?                                     TRACEY                         Make love to me... please.               She walks into the room. Cole closes the door.               INT. CORRIDOR OUTSIDE COLE'S DOOR               Rick and O'Neill run up to the door. They listen closely. We                HEAR the SOUND of Cole's SHIRT being RIPPED off, the buttons                flying around the room, then the SOUND of his pant ZIPPER                being undone.                                     RICK                         T minus... 3... 2... 1. We have                          ignition.               e and O'Neill burst into the room and close the door.                                     COLE (O.S.)                         Hey!               INT. COLE'S ROOM               O'Neill is tying the end of a sheet around the bed post. We                SEE the bed is minus its sheets and blankets.                                     O'NEILL                         All set here.               ANOTHER ANGLE               The guys have tied the sheets and blankets together and made                a rope. The other end is tied around Cole's chest. And that's                all Cole is wearing; he's nude.                                     COLE                         You guys are never going to get away                          with this.               Rick stuffs Cole's underwear in his mouth to gag him.                                     RICK                         We're just going to keep you in a                          safe place until after the party.               He and O'Neill lift Cole up and put him out the window. They                hang onto the sheet/blanket rope and lower him slowly outside.               EXT. HOTEL               We SEE Cole being lowered from the window.               CLOSER ON COLE               He's struggling, but can do nothing about his predicament.                He looks down.               COLE'S POV               The hotel parking lot is ten stories below.               COLE               He looks up to the guys.               RICK AND O'NEILL               They look down at him from the window above.                                     RICK                         Now, don't get into any trouble.                                     O'NEILL                         Take care.                                     RICK & O'NEILL                         Byeeeee!               They duck inside the window.               INT. COLE'S ROOM               Rick, O'Neill and Tracey exit the room.                                     RICK                              (to Tracey)                         Don't you wish you were a guy so you                          could have fun like this?               COLE               He's scared to death.               INT. COLE'S ROOM               We SEE that Cole's weight is pulling the bed to the window.               COLE               He's slowly lowering down the side of the building.               INT. ANOTHER HOTEL ROOM               A YOUNG COUPLE enters the room. They are very much in love.                He gives her a kiss and closes the door.                                     MAN                         Why don't you get comfortable?               She smiles coyly and starts to undress. He crosses to the                closed blinds.                                     MAN                              (continuing)                         There's a wonderful moon out tonight.               He opens the blinds, revealing Cole's ass pressed up against                the window.               WOMAN               She screams, horrified.               INT. JAPANESE BUSINESSMEN'S ROOM               The girls are being hotly pursued by the Japanese men.                                     JAPANESE/RAY                              (subtitled)                         Hey, Bob, this beats the shit out of                          sushi, doesn't it?               INT. COLE'S ROOM               The bed moves right up against the wall under the window. We                SEE the end tied to the bed post is beginning to untie.               COLE               He's panicked.               INT. COLE'S ROOM               The knot unties.               COLE               He falls OUT OF FRAME. The "rope" trailing behind.               INT. CAR               The young couple from the room are seated in his sportscar.                He's cranking open the sun roof.                                     MAN                         Babe, I didn't know anything about                          that.               The sun roof opens. Suddenly Cole's ass sticks through it.                The Woman freaks out again.               EXT. SPORTSCAR               We SEE a groggy Cole sitting in the sun roof. The Man in the                car is trying to calm down his lady.               INT. BANQUET ROOM - BACKSTAGE               Chulo and Laverne are standing in the wings while in the                b.g. we can SEE the MC singing the Moosehead Beer jingle.                Then:                                     MC                         All right, can we have our five                          finalists, please.                                     CHULO                         Good luck, Laverne.               Laverne and the five finalists go out on stage.               ANGLE - MR. THOMERSON               He gives an envelope to the MC.                                     MC                         Thank you, Mr. Thomerson. Well, the                          judges have made their decision, and                          this year's Miss Moosehead Beer is...               ANGLE - THE GIRLS               They are all nervous, especially Laverne.                                     MC                         Laverne Rivas.               Laverne squeals with delight and hugs the MC as he puts the                bejeweled crown on her head. Then the MC leads her to the                microphone.                                     LAVERNE                              (teary-eyed)                         I can't believe it. This is the                          happiest day of my life, and I owe                          it all to him.               She points O.S. to Chulo, Chulo, with tears in his eyes,                comes out on stage and, in a surge of emotion, picks Laverne                up off her feet and hugs her passionately.               ANGLE - THE JUDGES                                     JUDGE                         I know I've had that girl.                                     MR. THOMERSON                              (looking at Chulo)                         And I know that guy from somewhere,                          too.               The other judge looks at Mr. Thomerson suspiciously.               EXT. HOTEL - NIGHT               CAMERA PUSHES IN TO a car in the parking lot which is towing                a U-Haul trailer behind it. The car stops and turns off its                lights.               INT. CAR               Stan and O'Neill sit in the car looking at the hotel.                                     STAN                         How the hell are we supposed to get                          this donkey inside?                                     RYKO                         I don't know.                                     STAN                         What? I thought you told me you had                          it all figured out.                                     RYKO                         Maybe I did... I don't remember.                                     STAN                              (through clenched                               teeth)                         I'd love to get you in an operating                          room. Just once.               ANGLE - HOTEL ENTRANCE               Just then the "Moose" from the beauty pageant steps outside                the hotel for a smoke.               The guy in front removes the head, takes a drag of his                cigarette and passes it to the guy bringing up the rear.                After a beat, smoke steams out the rear end of the costume.               ANGLE - THE GUYS IN THE CAR               They both have the same idea. They stroll out of the car and                approach the two men in the moose suit. We can't hear what                they're saying, but we can SEE the bills Stan is taking out                of his pocket. Ryko grabs the moosehead and runs over to the                trailer with it.               INT. HOTEL LOBBY - A FEW MINUTES LATER               The door opens and Stan and Ryko enter pulling the "Moose"                by a rope.                                     RYKO                         Can you believe how perfect it fits?                                     STAN                         Yeah. Who'd have thought they'd both                          be a size 138 regular.               Just then Rick and O'Neill saunter into the lobby.                                     O'NEILL                         Hey, you guys...                                     RICK                         Who's your friend?                                     STAN                              (keeping it a surprise)                         Oh... it's... er... the guys from                          the beer convention. We're bringing                          them to the party.                                     RICK                         Great.                              (to moose)                         I was wondering, how do you guys go                          to the bathroom in that thing?               At that moment he HEARS a SPLAT hit the ground. The guys                look down and see a large, shiny clump of shiny brown                excrement nestled in the shag carpet.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Say no more.               The Manager crosses to them.                                     MANAGER                         I don't know which one of you did                          this, but you're not going anywhere                          till you clean up this disgusting                          mess.                                     O'NEILL                              (resigned)                         Anybody got a paper towel or a shovel                          or something?               All the guests turn away in disgust. Stan takes out a                handkerchief and hands it to Rick, who closes his eyes and                picks up the warm little bundle. The Manager turns and walks                off in a huff. On the way back to the elevator, Rick checks                to see no one is watching and places the handkerchief's                contents on the front desk, just OUT OF FRAME. Smiling                contentedly, the guys lead the reluctant "moose" into the                elevator. The doors slam shut.               ANGLE AT THE DESK               The Manager is just finishing checking in a couple from out                of town.                                     MANAGER                         I'll have the boy take your bags up.               He goes to hit the bell and to his surprise, his hand comes                down on something soft and mushy. The look on his face tells                us what it is. It's the "gift" Rick left behind.                                     MANAGER                              (to couple)                         Excuse me. I seem to have a hand                          full of potty.               Revolted, he races into a room marked "MEN."               ANGLE - BALLROOM DOORS               The doors open and several people from the Moosehead beauty                pageant come out. Mr. Thomerson is one of them.                                     EXECUTIVE                         Thanks for helping us out, Ed. We                          appreciate it.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Any time, Al.               Mr. T. crosses to the door just as Cole comes running in,                slightly dazed, wrapped in the tattered remnants of the sheet                that held him suspended out the window. They both are shocked                to see one another.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Cole, my God, boy, what are you doing                          here? What happened?                                     COLE                              (nearly hysterical)                         The bachelor party's upstairs. They                          made me get naked. They hung me from                          the window so high up it was so scary                          I fell down...                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Take hold of yourself. What room are                          they in?                                     COLE                         1002.                                      MR. THOMERSON                         All right, I'll go up there and take                          care of this myself.                              (disgusted)                         You look awful, son. Go find yourself                          some clothes.                                     COLE                         Yes, sir.               With a determined look, Thomerson crosses to the elevator,                as Cole runs into the hotel gift shop.               INT. HOTEL SUITE - NIGHT               Rick, Ryko, Stan, O'Neill enter with the "moose."                                     RICK                         Hi, guys. We brought back a friend.                                     LARRY                         It's Bullwinkle.                                     O'NEILL                         Gentlemen... Ladies... For your                          viewing pleasure, meet Mike the                          Magical Sexual Mule.               O'Neill lifts the head off the moose costume, revealing a                real burro. The burro shows all his teeth as burros are apt                to do when excited. O'Neill and Stan zip off the rest of his                costume, revealing a well-endowed beast.                                     RICK                              (surprised)                         How about this, a Trojan donkey.                                     O'NEILL                         And here's Mike's partner, in more                          ways than one. A gal who doesn't                          think happiness ends with primates.                          The very lovely, Miss Desiree...               DESIREE, an erotic, tall woman wearing a leather face mask,                comes out of the bedroom carrying a long whip. Desiree puts                Ravel's "Bolero" on the PHONOGRAPH; then she starts to sway                her hips sensuously in front of the animal.               ANGLE - THE PARTY GUESTS               They all scream and holler approval.               ANGLE - DESIREE               She rubs up against the donkey, shaking her backside against                the animal's.                                     RICK                         Swell. She's gonna pin her tail on                          the donkey.               Now all eyes are on Desiree as she does an erotic striptease.               ANGLE - THE DONKEY               It is getting bored and a little hungry. It bends its head                to the left and spots the table with food on it. It bends                over and starts munching on some cole slaw.               ANGLE - DESIREE               To the catcalls of the partygoers, Desiree is getting all                worked up, stripping down to a G-string.               THE DONKEY               It's had enough cole slaw. Now it sniffs at Larry's drug                smorgasbord and then starts to chomp on a few pills. Next it                sticks its head into the lines of coke and snorts them up in                one gigantic sniff.               ANGLE - DESIREE               She lets her long, flowing hair hang down over her breasts.                Then she takes a mattress and sets it on the floor. She rolls                on it and sways her hips sensuously on her knees.               ANGLE - HER AUDIENCE               Rick can't believe he's seeing this. The other guys are                screaming at the top of their lungs. Even Larry seems spell-               bound.               ANGLE - THE DONKEY               It doesn't look so hot as it finishes off every drug on the                table.               ANGLE - DESIREE               She moves over to the donkey, hits him on the side gently                with her whip, then pulls him over to her mattress. The                donkey's blood-shot eyes are the size of saucers. Once again                he shows his teeth in a kind of shit-eating grin. Desiree                drops to the mattress and beckons the animal to her. Mike                the Donkey obediently does as he's told, moving to her in a                trance-like, very turned-on state.                                     DESIREE                         C'mon, Mike... Come to Mama.               The Donkey takes another step forward, and then suddenly                rears up on his hind legs, snorting. He starts bucking wildly.                The crowd moves out of his way as the animal goes berserk                for a few seconds, then without warning collapses in a heap                on the floor.               Everyone goes rushing up to it.               Chulo and Laverne enter the room, followed by several of the                other contestants and others from the beauty pageant.                                     CHULO                              (excited)                         Hey, you guys, I'm getting married.                              (to Laverne)                         We're gonna make lots of kids.               He looks over and sees everyone gathered around Mike.                                     CHULO                         What the hell happened?               Gary shushes him. We PUSH IN ON Dr. Stan, who is listening                for signs of life in the animal's chest. Finally Stan stands                up somberly.                                     STAN                         Drug overdose.                                     DESIREE                         You mean it's...                                     STAN                         Afraid so. I did everything I could.                                     LARRY                         It's my fault. He's dead because...                          I left those drugs...                                     RICK                         It's really not all your fault. I                          was talking to Mike earlier and he                          had a lot of problems. Personal                          things, you know. Made some bad                          investments. At least now he's                          peaceful...                                     O'NEILL                         C'mon, we gotta get this thing out                          of here.               O'Neil places the moosehead on the donkey as Rick, Gary,                Chulo and Stan pull the donkey out into the hall like                pallbearers at a funeral.               INT. HALLWAY               Mr. Thomerson, who's been standing at the door, takes this                time to sneak into the suite right behind them.               INT. RICK'S SUITE               Mr. Thomerson can't believe the goings-on. People are making                out, drinking and dancing. He hides in a corner to watch                undercover.               ANGLE IN CORRIDOR               The guys shove the donkey onto the elevator and the doors                snap shut.               INT. HOTEL LOBBY                                     MANAGER                              (on phone)                         Yes... I see... Of course we don't                          allow that sort of thing here, ma'am.                          No... Well, I'm sorry the noise woke                          you. I'll take care of it right away.               He hangs up and crosses to the elevator.                                     MANAGER                         I've had enough of this.               Just then the elevator door swings open. The donkey falls                out into the lobby. The Manager screams in terror, as do                several of the hotel guests.                                     MANAGER                              (continuing)                         That's it. I'm calling the cops.               INT. HOTEL SUITE - NIGHT               Some more uninvited guests come drifting into the room.                                     RICK                         Welcome, welcome, one and all.                                     MR. THOMERSON (O.S.)                         Rick!                                     RICK                              (recognizing the voice)                         Oh, no!               He turns and spots Mr. Thomerson as he makes his way through                the party.                                     RICK                         Christ... it's Mr. Laughs.               Mr. Thomerson goes nose to nose with Rick.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         This is it. You're through. When                          Debbie hears about this she'll never                          see you again. Now I'm calling the                          cops to break up this sex orgy...                          And toss your ass in jail!               He turns away and walks OUT OF FRAME. O'Neill crosses to                Rick.                                     O'NEILL                         What are you going to do about it?                                     RICK                              (defeated)                         What can I do? I'm dead. Debbie's                          going to go crazy and end the whole                          thing.                                     O'NEILL                         I'll stop him... You stall him.               ANOTHER ANGLE               Mr. Thomerson is heading for the phone in the bedroom.                                     RICK                         Mr. Thomerson!               Thomerson stops and turns to Rick.                                     RICK                              (continuing; dramatic)                         Please, no. Don't ruin my life.                          Please!               He drops to his knees and hugs Thomerson's legs. The party                stops and everyone watches.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         It's not me. I was brought up on the                          wrong side of the tracks. A victim                          of my environment...               INT. HOTEL BEDROOM - O'NEILL AND LARRY               Larry is handing O'Neill a plastic bag filled with white                powder.                                     O'NEILL                         Is that all the coke in the place?                                     LARRY                         That's it.                                     O'NEILL                         Good.               O'Neill unscrews the mouthpiece off the phone. He pours the                bag of cocaine into the phone. He then screws the mouthpiece                back on over this mound of powder. Satisfied with his work,                he exits the bedroom.               INT. SUITE - MAIN ROOM               Thomerson is trying to free himself from Rick's grasp as                Rick continues with his "hard luck" story.                                     RICK                         My poor old mammy had to take in                          laundry. My pappy had to work 20                          hours a day at the Pez Factory.               ANOTHER ANGLE               O'Neill gestures to Rick that everything's ready. Rick                immediately jumps to his feet.                                     RICK                         The end.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         No sob story is going to change my                          mind.               Mr. Thomerson pushes O'Neill aside and enters the bedroom.                                     O'NEILL                         The phone's all yours.               Mr. Thomerson, in the bedroom, picks up the receiver. As he                does so, a cloud of cocaine falls out of the mouthpiece. He                screams at Rick, gesturing with the phone in his hand as he                dials. Each move produces a large cloud of powder, which                causes him to sniffle slightly.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         I never liked you. I've never liked                          any of your friends. I've hated you                          from the first time I saw you. And                          now you are out of my life. You are                          out of my life!               He starts to react from inhaling the powder. He puts the                receiver to his ear. He takes a deep breath and tries to                dial another number. A large cloud of coke flies up his nose.                He's stunned. He takes another deep drag. He's hooked. He                forgets all about dialing. He jams the receiver against his                nose and takes deep drag after deep drag.               Desiree, still wearing her leather mask, crosses to him and                sits down next to him on the bed. He gives her a big, wide                smile.               O'Neill closes the door.                                     O'NEILL                         Reach out and snort someone.                                     RICK                         I'm saved. Let's party!               Everyone starts to whoop it up again.               INT. JAPANESE SUITE               It's still a standoff between the girls and the horny                Japanese.                                     DEBBIE                         Let's give them what they want.                                     PHOEBE                         What?               Debbie opens the bedroom door and motions for the Japanese                to file in.                                     DEBBIE                         Let's go. Everyone inside.               The Japanese immediately put two and two together and get                orgy. These are some happy fellas as they enter the bedroom.                                     BOBBIE                         Deb, we're pretending to be hookers.                                     DEBBIE                              (herding in the last                               Japanese)                         Right in here. The big show starts                          in one minute.               The Japanese man enters the room. Debbie slams the door shut                behind him.                                     DEBBIE                         Let's go.                                     ILENE                         Look, girls -- I'll stay behind and                          hold them off. The rest of you break                          for it!                                     DEBBIE                         Ilene, are you crazy?                                     ILENE                         I know what I'm doing... Go!               The girls run out the door.               INT. JAPANESE BEDROOM               Ilene smiles. She has what she wants. She walks into the                bedroom, surrounded by panting Japanese.                                     ILENE                         Gentlemen, the gods have answered                          your prayers... Bonzai!               She takes a running leap and dives on top of the Japanese.               INT. CORRIDOR               Debbie and the ladies run to an elevator. Debbie presses the                "down" button.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         I hope Ilene's all right.                                     DEBBIE                         I hope those guys are all right.               The elevator door opens, revealing the donkey lying flat on                his back. His stiff legs point skyward. The girls see him                and scream. They run down the hall to the stairway. On the                way Debbie notices she's passing Room 1002. She HEARS the                party SOUNDS inside.               She heads for the room angrily. This is a lady out to even a                score.               INT. HOTEL SUITE               As Debbie opens the door, her father walks by with Desiree                on his arm. Neither sees the other. Debbie enters the room.                She is surprised by the masses of humanity rubbing shoulders                with one another in the room.               O'Neill looks over from the other side of the room and spots                her. He isn't fooled for a minute by her wig and mini skirt.                He runs over to Rick.                                     O'NEILL                         Guess who's here? Another surprise                          guest.                                     RICK                         Who?                                     O'NEILL                         Debbie.                                     RICK                         My Debbie?                                     O'NEILL                         What's with her costume?               O'Neill points and Rick sees Debbie. She doesn't see them.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         I don't know... Go up to her, make                          like you don't know her and send her                          into the other bedroom.                                     O'NEILL                         You got it.               O'Neill crosses to Debbie.                                     O'NEILL                              (continuing)                         Hi, baby. You're new here. I don't                          think the groom's had you yet, has                          he?               PUSH IN ON Debbie. She's pissed.                                     DEBBIE                         No, not yet. Where is he?               INT. BEDROOM               Rick opens the door from the bathroom. The lights are turned                off and from the flashing illumination of a neon sign outside                the window we can MAKE OUT the outline of Debbie's body on                the bed.                                     RICK                         I can't see anything.               Debbie, in a disguised Southern accent, speaks out.                                     DEBBIE                         Don't turn on the lights, sugar.                              (seductively)                         I'll lead you around.                                     RICK                         How wonderful. A seeing eye hooker.                                     DEBBIE                         Why don't you get undressed.               Rick starts to undress. While undressing, he takes on the                persona of Mr. Rodgers. He sings Rodgers' opening theme in                that same sappy, child-like manner of his.                                     RICK                              (singing)                         It's a lovely day in the neighborhood.                          It's a lovely day, it's a beauty,                          would you be mine, could you be mine.                              (he's now stripped                               down to his underwear)                         ...Please won't you be my neighbor.                              (as Mr. Rodgers)                         Hi... Hi there... Today we're going                          to learn about anatomy...               He jumps on top of her and starts mauling her passionately.                Debbie snaps on the lights. She throws off her wig and she                and Rick come face to face.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Debbie... you're a hooker! I can't                          believe it!               She all but jumps out of bed.                                     DEBBIE                         I can't trust you!                                     RICK                         C'mon, I knew it was you.                                     DEBBIE                              (holding back tears)                         Rick, you're lying!               As Rick protests, she throws on her blouse and runs out of                the room. Rick charges after her.               INT. HOTEL SUITE - MAIN ROOM               The place is wall to wall people.               ANGLE - DEBBIE               She tries to make her way to the exit, but her path is slowed                by all the happy revelers.                                     DEBBIE                              (yelling over the                               din; furious)                         Let go of me!                                     RICK                              (yelling back)                         Debbie, I'm telling you, I didn't do                          anything, hardly.                                     DEBBIE                         The marriage is off. Now you can                          screw around with your friends for                          the rest of your life.                                     RICK                         I don't want that. I want to be with                          you.                                     DEBBIE                         And I want to be with someone who                          understands the meaning of the word                          commitment.                                     RICK                         I am committed. I love you.               Just then Desiree and Mr. Thomerson cross THROUGH FRAME.                She's leading him around by the silver chain, which is now                attached to his neck. She's also carrying a leather whip.                                     DEBBIE                         I don't believe you.                                     RICK                         You don't believe me? Okay, fine.               Rick gets up on the sofa and yells loudly over the din.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         People! Can I have your attention...                          people!               Everyone stops what they're doing and looks up.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         I want to ask you all a question.                          Have I had sex with anybody in this                          room tonight?               There's a negative response from the crowd.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Are you sure?               Everyone responds positively.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         Thank you.               All the guests go back to partying. Rick drops off the sofa                and faces Debbie.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         See? And these are not just ordinary                          party-goers -- there are professionals                          in this crowd -- I didn't want any                          of them. You... You're what I want.                          Understand?                                     DEBBIE                              (melted)                         Yes...                                     RICK                         Great. Now, what do you want to do                          about it?                                     DEBBIE                              (sexy)                         Let's get naked.                                     RICK                         You're on.               She takes him by the hand and crosses into the other bedroom.               INT. OTHER BEDROOM               Rick and Debbie enter. To their surprise they find a man                wearing a leather mask tied to the bed and happily licking                Desiree's boots, which she dangles in front of him. She also                holds a whip over his head. Despite the mask, there is                something very familiar about his face, and the white powder                encrusted all over his nose.               Debbie picks up on this immediately.                                     DEBBIE                              (shocked)                         Daddy?               Sure enough, Mr. Thomerson looks up and grimaces, knowing                he's been caught with his bondage down. He tries to say                something, but the boot in his mouth prevents anything                intelligent from coming out.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Ebbie. Ger... umph... lable...                                     RICK                         Of course, sir. That explains it.                          Leather is a very good source of                          vitamin E.               INT. SUITE - MAIN ROOM               The party has reached fever pitch. Suddenly police SIRENS                pierce through the party sounds. Everyone freezes. We HEAR                the Hotel Manager BEATING on the DOOR with his fists.               INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR               The Manager is pounding on the door. By his side are several                UNIFORMED POLICE.                                     MANAGER                         You're all under arrest. Open up!               INT. HOTEL SUITE                                     RICK                              (to everyone in the                               room)                         Your attention, please. May I be the                          first to say, It's a raid!               Everyone starts to panic and run for the doors.                                     RICK                              (continuing)                         I'm glad no one is panicking.               He snaps up his clothes from the bedroom.               INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR                                     MANAGER                              (to Police)                         Break it in, boys!               The cops rear back for a run at the door. At that moment the                hotel door opens up and the cops and the Manager are trampled                by Rick, Debbie, Mr. Thomerson, Rick's gang, other guests                and assorted hookers. They run down the stairs. The cops                pick themselves up and give chase. The Manager looks inside                the room and is devastated by what he sees... Hiroshima looked                better after the A-bomb.               INT. HOTEL LOBBY               We SEE the police have collared Bobbie, Phoebe, Mrs. Thomerson                and the other ladies of the shower as hooker suspects. Our                bachelor party mob now charges down the stairs and out the                hotel doors.               The cops grab Mr. Thomerson as he tries to get out, and they                throw him in line with the others. Unfortunately for him,                he's standing next to Mrs. Thomerson.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         Ed! What are you doing here?               Before he can answer, Mrs. Thomerson checks out his shocking                leather outfit.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                              (angry)                         Ed... you're kinky!                                     MR. THOMERSON                         The phone made me do it!                                     MRS. THOMERSON                              (shocked)                         You've been having strange sex...!                                     MR. THOMERSON                         No, Brett, I...                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         It's all right...                              (proudly)                         So have I.               He is totally blown away by this as the cops lead them out                of the room.                                     MRS. THOMERSON                         I've seen another man's diddly.               EXT. HOTEL - MORNING               Our people pile out of the hotel. Rick, Debbie and all Rick's                friends run down the street.               Suddenly a Porsche pulls up between Rick and Debbie. It's                Cole. He reaches over and pulls Debbie into the car with                him. She screams.                                     RICK                         Cole, what the hell are you doing?                                     COLE                         She's mine!               He drives off.                                     RICK                         He's kidnapped her! Everyone into                          the bus!               They all board the bus.               EXT. CITY STREET               As Cole rounds a corner, a tire comes loose and rolls off                the car -- thanks to Chulo's shoddy workmanship.               INT. PORSCHE                                     COLE                         Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.               He looks to the rear and sees Rick's bus not far behind them.                Suddenly he spots something O.S. He grabs Debbie and runs                OUT OF FRAME.               EXT. CITY STREET               A city maintenance truck is driving slowly down the center                of the street. A man in the back of the truck is leisurely                placing orange cones in the center line of the road.               Cole, with Debbie in tow, grabs the truck's DRIVER and hauls                him out of his seat. He then places Debbie inside the truck                and him at the wheel. He peels out. Our man with the cones                in the back is unaware of what has happened. He keeps placing                the cones on the street. However, now the truck is hitting                speeds in the upper 70's. The man's leisure pace speeds up.                He rapidly places cones on the road at break-neck speed.               INT. RICK'S BUS               Rick, is plowing into the cones and knocking them all over.               MAINTENANCE TRUCK               Our man with the cones is almost completely exhausted.               EXT. HIGHWAY               Rick is in pursuit, knocking over cones. He's almost caught                up with Cole.               EXT. STREET               The vehicles reach the top of the hill. Cole grabs a sharp                left and pulls into a movie theater parking lot. The maneuver                loses Rick for a second. Rick jams on the brakes and doubles                back into the parking lot.               EXT. MOVIE THEATER PARKING LOT               Cole pulls up with a SCREECH in front of the theater. He                grabs Debbie and jumps out of the truck. He drags her into                the theater entrance.               Rick brings his bus to a stop and he and the gang pour out                of the bus.                                     COLE                         He and Debbie stand outside the                          theater, which is a multi-plex cinema.                          Fourteen movie theaters under one                          roof. Prominent is a sign which reads:                          "24 HOUR 3D FESTIVAL!" Cole drags                          Debbie into one of the theaters. The                          gang runs up to the theaters.                                     RICK                         Fan out and look for them.               They all go running into various theaters.               ANGLE - RYKO               He approaches a theater and sees the title of the movie                playing inside.                                     RYKO                         Aw, I've seen this one already.               Rick chooses a theater and goes inside.               INT. MOVIE THEATER               The patrons are wearing their 3D glasses, watching the action                on the screen. On the movie screen we SEE a man and a woman                arguing. Cole and Debbie enter the theater. They run down to                the front of the screen, heading for an exit. Rick enters.                He gives chase and catches up with Cole.               He takes a swing at Cole and Cole swings back. Behind them                on the screen a man has come to the rescue of the woman.               A fight starts in the movie, also. The patrons sit calmly                watching the action. Miraculously, Rick's fight with Cole is                in perfect sync with the actors in the movie. Rick hits Cole                with a punch that sends him backwards into several movie                patrons. The patrons are impressed by the realism of the                film's special effects. Cole throws a punch. Rick ducks. The                punch hits a MAN in the front row in the mouth.                                     MAN                              (to LADY next to him)                         Gee, what a realistic effect.                                     WOMAN                         Yeah, like you're in the movie with                          them.               Rick climbs over several rows and continues to pummel Cole.                Cole grabs a woman's purse and begins to hit Rick with it.                Cole runs out of the aisle as Rick climbs over people and                dives onto Cole, knocking him to the aisle.                                     PATRON                              (to his date)                         Best 3D I've ever seen.               As the movie ends, Rick has Cole by the collar and is dragging                him out of the theater.               INT. MALL OUTSIDE THEATER               Rick exits the theater with Cole. He tosses Cole to Chulo.                Debbie comes running behind Rick.                                     RICK                              (to Debbie)                         Are you okay?                                     DEBBIE                         Yeah.                                     RICK                         This has been quite a night. Here's                          a thought. Why don't we go home and                          give our private parts a workout?                                     DEBBIE                              (hugging him)                         You're so romantic...               The Patrons are exiting. All of them are very up and excited                by their 3D experience.                                     WOMAN                         Absolutely amazing.               A Man who has taken a punch and has had his jacket ripped to                shreds doesn't seem pleased.                                     MAN                         I've seen better.               EXT. BLUFF - DAY               It's another gorgeous day on the bluff overlooking the ocean.                Just right for Rick and Debbie's wedding. We SEE the wedding                in progress. The area is adorned with flowers.               The many guests are seated and taken in the moment. Among                these are Tracey, Desiree and Gary's she-man, who waves to                Gary as he stands with the other ushers, Chulo, Ryko and                Larry. Chulo is choked up and trying to hide his tears. He                looks over at Laverne, who smiles to him.                                     CHULO                              (to Ryko)                         Hey, man, don't forget my bachelor                          party's next Friday night.                                     GARY                         I'll get the hookers.                                     RYKO                         No way.               Nearby stand the maids of honor, Bobbie, Phoebie and Ilene,                who blows a kiss to her date, Ray (one of the Japanese                businessmen).               The Thomersons sit in the front row. Neither of them is                cherishing this moment.                                     MR. THOMERSON                              (sotto; to Mrs.                               Thomerson)                         We'll have morons for grandkids.                              (resigned to the fact)                         But... at least we'll have grandkids.               They sort of smile at each other at the thought.               Father Falwell is almost through with the ceremony. A car                pulls up in the b.g. Exiting the car is Stan and a WOMAN.                O'Neill, the best man, sees the car. He pokes Rick. He                indicates to Rick someone has arrived.               STAN               We SEE the man in the car is Stan. He ushers the lady in the                car to Larry. He's surprised at who she is: his wife.                                     LARRY                         Sue!                                     SUE                         Hi, honey.                                     LARRY                         How'd you get here?                                     SUE                         Rick called me.               Larry looks to Rick and gives him a warm smile and a wave.                Rick acknowledges Larry.                                     LARRY                         Why don't we go someplace and talk.               They walk off.               FATHER FALWELL                                     FATHER FALWELL                         Now, before I pronounce you man and                          wife, the groom wishes to recite his                          vow to Debbie. Richard.                                     THOMERSONS                         They fear the worst.                                     MR. THOMERSON                         Oh, God Almighty.               RICK               He turns to Debbie. He waits a beat and begins.                                     RICK                         Cheese. I love you more than cheese.                          And I love cheese a lot.                                     THOMERSONS                         They hide their faces in their hands.                          Off in the distance a storm is coming                          in fast over the ocean. The wind                          begins to pick up. Undaunted, Rick                          continues his soliloquy.                                     RICK                         In fact, more than dairy products in                          general. I love dairy. My love is                          cream. Pour me on the cereal of your                          life...               Now it starts to rain.               FATHER FALWELL               He wants this to end. He calls softly to Rick, trying to get                his attention.                                     FATHER FALWELL                         Rick. Rick. Hey...               People begin to scurry for cover. In the b.g., under a tree,                we SEE Larry and his wife huddled in each other's arms. From                the way they look, they have worked things out.               RICK                                     RICK                         I think this song pretty much sums                          up the way I feel at this moment.               He begins to sing the theme from "The Flintstones" with all                the gusto of Jack Jones.               Father Falwell has had enough.                                     FATHER FALWELL                              (rapid fire)                         I now pronounce you man and wife.                          Goodbye.               He blesses them lightning fast and springs for his car.               THE SCENE               CREDITS ROLL as Rick continues to sing in the driving rain.                Debbie joins in on the chorus. She loves her man.               Everyone has run for the safety of their cars. Everyone but                the Thomersons, who sit and look on bewildered.                                     RICK AND DEBBIE                         "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones                          They're a prehistoric family From                          the town of Bedrock They're a page                          right out of history..."                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
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+                    THE BACK-UP PLAN                       Written by                      Kate Angelo                                          August 30th, 2007INT. EXAM ROOM - DAYWe're not exactly sure where we are. And we're not exactlysure who's talking. All we know is that we are looking at afoot. One bare foot with chipped red polish.                    ZOE (V.O.)          I can't believe I didn't get a          pedicure for this. How          embarrassing. Look at that...The toes open and then curl down as if trying to hide.                    ZOE (V.O.)(CONT'D)          What's wrong with me? If I were          with a real guy doing this, I          would've gotten a pedicure. And a          wax. I'm pathetic.The CAMERA PANS to the other foot, which is also chipped.                    ZOE (V.O.) (CONT'D)          Fuck, that one's even worse. And          when did my toes get so fat? No          wonder I'm alone. I'm a fat-toed          animal.Zoe lets out a sigh.    She speaks out-loud now.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Sorry I didn't get a pedicure.                       DR. HARRIS          What?DR. HARRIS (mid-fifties, jovial) looks up from between Zoe'sknees, the light on his head flashing right in Zoe's eyes.                    ZOE          My toes...sorry.                    DR. HARRIS          I'm not looking at your toes.                     ZOE          Right.   Duh.Dr. Harris stands and takes off his gloves.                       DR. HARRIS          All done.                                                           2.                       ZOE          That's it?And now, for the first time, we see ZOE. Despite the papergown and worried look on her face, she's a late-30-something,girl-next-door type. She could be your best friend.                    DR. HARRIS          I'll elevate your legs for ten          minutes and then you're good to go.He sets a kitchen timer and then pushes a button to raise herlegs. We hear the loud TICK TOCK of the timer.                    ZOE          This is the first time I've heard          that ticking clock sound and it          doesn't freak me out.                     DR. HARRIS          Good.   Just relax.                    ZOE          I can't, I'm totally freaking out.                    DR. HARRIS          Everything's going to be great. I          have a feeling you and...              (checks empty syringe)          Number CRM-101404 are going to make          beautiful babies together.Zoe smiles.   Maybe he's right.   Yeah...of course he's right.                    BOBBY (V.O.)          Number CRM-101404? Are you high?INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - DAYTITLE UP: FOUR WEEKS AGOBOBBY, 39 (but says he's 33,) gay and gorgeous, opens a fileand points to a piece of paper.                    BOBBY          Says here he has red hair and          freckles.                    ZOE          And glasses, too.                    BOBBY          And why are we picking him?                                                 3.                    ZOE          Because he's honest.                       BOBBY          He's ugly.Zoe points to a stack of potential donors.                    ZOE          You think they're all telling the          truth? If they're so smart and          good looking, why are they beating          off into a cup?                    BOBBY          Have you ever fucked a guy with red          hair and freckles?                    ZOE          No, and I won't have to.                     BOBBY          But what about your kid? No one's          going to want to fuck your kid.              (beat)          That came out wrong.                    ZOE          Yeah...it's a good thing you're not          going to be the father.INT. WAVERLY INN   - NIGHTTITLE UP: EIGHT WEEKS AGOBobby spits out a mouthful of Sauvignon Blanc.                      BOBBY          What?    I can't be the father!                    ZOE          Come on, we don't have to have sex.                    BOBBY          Oh, Jesus, I didn't even think          about that. Rewind, rewind,          rewind...                    ZOE          You're one of my best friends.          Don't you want to help me?                                                           4.                    BOBBY          Yeah, but...that's too much. I'll          walk your dog, tell you when you          look fat, be honest about your          eyebrows...                    ZOE          Just a few sperm. Big deal. You          waste billions of them every night.                    BOBBY          You know I flee at the slightest          chance of intimacy. Do you see          these bags under my eyes? Ricardo          slept over last night, and he          wanted to hold me. I actually had          to fake a seizure.                       ZOE          Forget it.     Forget the whole thing.Zoe sighs and puts her head in her hands.                     MONA (V.O.)          Forget the whole thing.    It's just          a phase...INT. MONA'S APARTMENT - NIGHTTITLE UP: TWELVE WEEKS AGO.Zoe and MONA, Zoe's age but looks much older, sit at thekitchen table.                    MONA          You don't want kids.    Trust me.                    ZOE          Easy for you to say.    You have          four.                    MONA          Yeah, and it's awful.Three CHILDREN run through the kitchen yelling and screaming.A beat later, a TODDLER runs after them crying.                    MONA (CONT'D)          They've ruined my life.                       ZOE          Come on...                                                   5.                    MONA          Have you seen my vagina?Zoe shakes her head.                    MONA (CONT'D)          Do you want to?Zoe shakes her head again.                    MONA (CONT'D)          I would do that for you. To prove          to you that you don't want to have          kids, I will show you my vagina.                    ZOE          I don't want to see your vagina.    I          want a baby. My own baby.                    MONA          Is it possible you're just a little          lonely? You know, you haven't met          the right guy and--                    ZOE          It's not about a guy. I don't need          a guy. I don't even think I want a          guy at this point. I've dated a          hundred guys in the last five          years, and not one of them is even          close to being the one. How long          am I supposed to wait?                    MONA          You never know. He could be right          around the corner.                    ZOE          Well, then he's late. And I hate          people who are late. And what if          he's not right around the corner?          What if he's miles away?Zoe shakes her head.   She becomes very serious.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          I want to have a baby. And time is          running out. I hear a clock          ticking every time I close my eyes.          I need it to stop.We hear a loud DING.                                                            6.INT. EXAM ROOM - DAYZoe opens her eyes. We're back in the exam room.      She looksat the timer, which just hit zero. She smiles.                        ZOE          Ding.Then a tear forms in the corner of her eye. She wipes itaway. She wipes a tear from the other eye. Happy tears.Then she looks at her legs high above her on the table.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          How the fuck am I supposed to get          down from here?INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE HALLWAY - LATERZoe walks down the hall with her legs pressed firmlytogether, moving only from the knees down. Dr. Harrispasses.                    DR. HARRIS          You don't have to walk like that.                        ZOE          Oh.   Okay.Zoe separates her legs an inch.     And then closes them.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Should we hug? We might have just          made a baby together.INT. WAITING ROOM - MOMENTS LATERZoe walks through the waiting room with her legs stillpressed together. She sees two PREGNANT WOMAN, touches herown stomach and smiles. She finally feels part of thisexclusive baby club.                        ZOE          Hi.                        PREGNANT WOMEN          Hi.INT. ELEVATOR - DAYZoe enters the elevator where there is a WOMAN holding aBABY. Zoe smiles at them. Another member of the club...                                                            7.                      ZOE          Hi.                      WOMAN          Hi.The elevator descends. Zoe continues to stare at the babywith a big smile. She stares for an uncomfortably long time.                    WOMAN (CONT'D)          You're starting to freak me out.                      ZOE          Sorry.Zoe looks down.    After a beat, she sneaks another look.                      WOMAN          Stop it.EXT. MADISON AVENUE - DAYIt's POURING outside. The kind of rain that turns umbrellasinside out. NEW YORKERS run for cover with newspapers overtheir heads.Despite the rain, Zoe skips out of the building with herhands in the air and twirls around. Realizing that she'sspread her legs too far apart, she snaps them back together.A WOMAN pushing a baby stroller covered in plastic runs by.                      ZOE          Hi!Zoe looks uptown for a cab. Nope. Nothing. She starts towalk, still keeping her legs firmly pressed together. Sherounds the corner towards the subway station and then,miraculously, spies a cab.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          Taxi!She runs (little steps) across the street.INT. TAXI - MOMENTS LATERZoe closes the door behind her.                    ZOE          Hallelujah!                                                          8.As soon as the word comes out of her mouth, she noticessomeone entering the cab from the other side.This is STAN, early 40s, but looks more like a college kid --faded jeans, t-shirt, cute, messy hair.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Uh...excuse me. This is my cab.                    STAN          You own it?                    ZOE          No, but I'm about to rent it.                    STAN          Actually, if we're being technical,          you kind of stole it.                    ZOE          I don't think so.                    STAN          If you see someone about to get in          a cab, you can't just run in from          the other side and say it's yours.                    ZOE          I didn't see you.                    STAN          I saw you see me.                    ZOE              (to the cabbie)          Sir, who saw you first?The CABBIE picks up his paper and starts to read.                    STAN          Maybe you're not from around here,          but there's a code. It's like war,          even though it's brutal and bloody,          there are still certain rules we--                     ZOE          Fine.   Forget it.   I'll get out.Zoe grabs the door handle and then turns back.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          But not because you're right, but          because I am in a terrific mood,          and you are ruining it.                                                          9.                     STAN          No.   I'll get out.They each get out.EXT. TAXI - CONTINUOUSZoe and Stan stand on opposite sides of the taxi in thePOURING RAIN. Zoe crosses her arms.                       ZOE          Now what?                    STAN          I don't know. You tell me.That question is answered by the cabbie, who now peels out.                     ZOE          What? Where's he going?!              (waving her hands, then)          Come back!They both stand there with a taxi's width between them.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Well, that was stupid. Why'd you          get out, you, stupid-head?                     STAN          You said you were in a great mood          and I was ruining it. I felt bad.              (then)          Did you just call me stupid-head?Zoe storms off with her little steps.INT. 68TH STREET SUBWAY STATION - DAYStan and Zoe each swipe their Metrocards at the same time.They enter the subway platform which is jam packed with allthe other NEW YORKERS who are shit-out-of-luck in the cabdepartment. Rain droplets drip from the ceiling above.                       ZOE          Oh, man...                    STAN          How's your great mood now?                                                           10.INT. 6 TRAIN - DAYA packed subway car. Zoe and Stan are back-to-back, pushedtogether by the crowd. Zoe tries to read her paper.                    STAN          How `bout now?                    ZOE          Please stop talking to me.INT. UNION SQUARE SUBWAY STATION - DAYZoe and Stan walk up the stairs a few feet apart from eachother. Zoe does her best to ignore the obvious.                    STAN          So, why are you in such a good mood          anyway?They reach the top of the stairs. The rain has stopped, andthe sun is just starting to peek through. Everything is wetand has a magical quality.                    ZOE          Not that it's any of your business,          but...good things are happening to          me.Stan is moved by this.   What a thing to say.                    STAN          That's nice. I hope it continues.                    ZOE          Thanks. Well, have a nice life.          Try not to steal any more cabs.                    STAN          You do the same.They nod and separate.INT. HUDSON PETS - DAYHudson Pets is a small but quaint West Village pet storefilled with dogs, cats and a few rabbits.Zoe enters. Her dog, NUTS, a raggedy, pug-like dog with hindlegs in a WHEELCHAIR, bounds/wheels towards her, barking.                                                         11.                    ZOE          Hey, Nutsy. How's it going?She gives Nuts a good scratch. JALISA, mid-30s, Latinahottie, and Bobby run from the back.                    BOBBY          Oh, my God, you're glowing.              (to Jalisa)          She's glowing, right?                     JALISA          Glowing.   Tell us everything.                    BOBBY          Everything.                    ZOE          There's not much to tell.                    BOBBY          You just got shot up with a wad of          red-headed-freckle sperm. There's          something to tell.                    JALISA          He had red hair and freckles?                    BOBBY          I tried to talk her out of it.                    JALISA          Why'd you do that, Mami?                    BOBBY              (to Jalisa)          I know, right?                       JALISA          Red pubes.     Eek...                    ZOE          I'm never going to see his pubes!                    BOBBY          You'll see your kid's pubes.                    ZOE          I doubt it.                    BOBBY          But you'll know they're there.                                                          12.                    ZOE          What is wrong with you?                    JALISA          So, what happened?    Come on...                    ZOE          I lay down, put my feet up, five          minutes later it was over. I          barely felt a thing.                    BOBBY          Sounds like Ricardo.                    JALISA          Tell me about it, Papi.Bobby and Jalisa high five.    Bobby then turns to Zoe.                    BOBBY          So...what happens now?                    ZOE          Now, we wait.                    BOBBY          That's no fun, I want to know if          I'm going to be a fairy godmother.                    ZOE          We'll just have to wait and see.Zoe smiles and heads for the back.EXT. HUDSON PETS - NIGHTThe lights in the pet store go dark.   Moments later, Zoe,Bobby, Jalisa and Nuts exit.                    BOBBY          Come on, Zoe, one drink. You can          have an O'Dhouls or something.                    JALISA          We'll go to the piano bar and get          Bobby to sing some Ace of Base.                    BOBBY          Forget it, she's not coming. I can          tell by the dull look on her face.                      ZOE          Love you.                                                         13.They all hug.   Bobby and Jalisa walk away arm-in-arm,singing.                    BOBBY/JALISA          I saw the sign and it opened up my          eyes, I saw the sign...Zoe turns to lock up.   While her back is turned, Stan appearsfrom the shadows.                     STAN          Hi.                     ZOE          Aahhh!Zoe screams and drops the keys. Nuts, overexcited by Zoe'sreaction, starts to run/wheel in circles and then tips over.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          You scared the hell out of me!                     STAN          Oh, wow.   Is he...okay?Nuts is still on the ground, his wheels spinning.   Zoe setshim upright.                    ZOE          What are you doing here?                    STAN          I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare          you. Or hurt your dog. Don't          worry, I'm not a stalker.                    ZOE          How'd you know I worked here?                    STAN          I followed you after the subway.              (thinks, then)          That sounds a little stalkery, huh?                     ZOE          Yeah.                     STAN          I just really wanted to see you          again. Almost like I had to see          you again. Can I walk you home?              (then)          Is it me or does everything I say          make me sound more like a stalker?                                                        14.Zoe allows a small smile.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Can I just give you my card? Here.          Take my card. I'm not a freak.          Really. I sell cheese.This hangs out there for a beat.                    ZOE          Cheese?                    STAN          Yeah. My family has a goat farm.          We make cheese. You like cheese?                    ZOE          I guess. I've never really thought          about it.                     STAN          Little Goat. Maybe you've seen us          at the Farmer's market? Come by          sometime and you can taste my          cheese.              (then)          Okay, I'm going to go. This has          not gone as planned.Stan smiles meekly and then turns to go.                    ZOE          Bye.Stan lifts his hand to wave but doesn't even turn around.Clearly, he feels like an idiot. Zoe watches him go.EXT. WEST VILLAGE BROWNSTONE - MORNINGEstablishing shot of a cute brownstone with window boxes anda front stoop. We TILT UP to the third floor window.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - MORNINGZoe is asleep with the morning sun on her face. Nuts isbeside her, his two little, lame legs hanging off the pillow.Zoe opens her eyes.After a beat, she gets up and walks to the mirror. She liftsup her pajama top and looks at her stomach, sticking it outas far as it will go. It's flat as a board.                                                        15.INT. CAROL'S APARTMENT - DAYSeven WOMEN sit around the cramped living room of this small,East Village apartment. At least one woman is nursing achild that looks entirely too old to still be nursing.This is the SINGLE MOTHERS BY CHOICE Support Group. CAROL,40's, short hair, tank top and no bra, is the leader.                    CAROL          Everyone, please say hello to Zoe.                       EVERYONE          Hi, Zoe.                    CAROL          Welcome to Single Mother's By          Choice. As the name suggests, we          are all single mothers by choice.          Some of us have adopted, some          conceived with a donor, every story          is different, but with the same          common denominator. We wanted to          have a child, and we didn't need a          partner to make it happen.The women smile and nod. They are a proud, no-nonsense,somewhat masculine bunch. LORI, pregnant with a buzz cut,turns to Zoe.                    LORI          Are you a doer or a tryer?                       ZOE          Excuse me?                    LORI          Are you already a single mother or          are you trying to become one?                     ZOE          Oh, I guess I'm trying. I was just          inseminated a few days ago.              (then)          Inseminated...makes me feel like a          cow or something.                     CAROL          Well, when we don't have partners          with penises, we do what we've got          to do, right?              (then)          So, tell us a little bit about          yourself.                                                       16.                    ZOE          Okay. Let's see...um, I own a pet          store on Hudson Street. Dogs,          cats, rabbits...no birds, they          creep me out. Before that, I          worked for Google, which I          completely hated. One day, I          decided life was too short, and,          against my accountant's advice, I          quit Google, cashed out and bought          the pet store. Now I'm really          happy on the work front, but I          still haven't found, you know, the          one.                     CAROL          Ah, yes.   The elusive "one."                    ZOE          I always imagined I'd be married          with kids by now, but it doesn't          look like it's going to happen that          way. So, time for Plan B.                    CAROL          Society tells us we're supposed to          find that special person to make us          happy and complete. But guess          what...you have to create your own          happiness. You don't need someone          to complete you, some...man. You          already are complete.                    LORI          Amen, sister.                    CAROL          If you want to have a baby, we here          at Single Mothers By Choice can be          your partners. We will be your          emotional rocks.Zoe looks around at her new "partners." There's SARA, theone nursing the toddler. And TABITHA, a tall women with aneven taller afro and a nose ring. BRIDGET, a young girlcovered in tatoos. And several more...                    CAROL (CONT'D)          From inception to college          graduation and everything in          between. We're here for each          other.Sara smiles and nods at her nursing child.                                                        17.                    SARA          Dakota was actually born right here          in this very room. Right where          you're sitting, actually.                    ZOE              (uncomfortable)          Really? Right here?      Imagine that.                    SARA          Best day of my life.                    ZOE          And how old is she now?Dakota looks up from the breast.                       DAKOTA          I'm three.INT. LE PAIN QUOTIDIEN - DAYZoe and Mona are sitting by the window sharing a plate ofpastries and a pot of coffee.                    MONA          Why did you join a support group of          unattractive, militant lesbians          when you have me?                    ZOE          Because you're really not that          supportive.                       MONA          Sure I am.                    ZOE          You just told me that if I breast-          feed "my girls" will end up looking          like empty tube socks.                    MONA          I'm just being honest. And don't          even get me started on what          childbirth does to your bladder.                    ZOE          What does it do to your bladder?Mona cracks up and then stops abruptly.                                                      18.                    MONA          I just peed a little bit.                    ZOE          I don't think I'm pregnant. The          doctor says it will probably take          several tries. Something about          frozen sperm being lazy.                     MONA          Good.   Take your time.Zoe takes a sip of coffee and looks out the window.                    ZOE          So, should I call this guy?   Do you          think that would be weird?                    MONA          Do I think it's weird that you're          pursuing someone at the exact          moment in time that you might be          most unavailable? No. Because          that's what you do. You sabotage.                    ZOE              (ignoring her)          He works at the Farmer's market.          And it's right around the corner.          Are you thinking what I'm thinking?                    MONA          I look fat and old?                      ZOE          No.                      MONA          Then, no.                    ZOE          Let's go spy on him. Come on. It          will be fun. Like high school.                    MONA          I can't.              (checks watch)          This twenty minute breakfast          concludes my "me" time for the          week. More proof that you should          not have kids.                                                          19.EXT. FARMER'S MARKET - DAYThe Farmer's Market is crowded with people. We hear thesounds of a bluegrass band playing somewhere nearby.Zoe spies the LITTLE GOAT sign. But Stan is not there.    Shelooks around the neighboring stalls for him, but no luck.                      ZOE          Oh, well.She walks towards 14th street. We see the bluegrass band onthe steps by the subway station. It's not a big band, just afew guys with an open banjo case and a sign that reads, "TheOrganics." The country twang of the music is in sharpcontrast with the tall buildings all around.As she gets closer, she notices that Stan is in the band.He's playing banjo.Zoe quickly ducks into the nearest food stall, OLIVIA'SBERRIES. OLIVIA, mid-twenties, natural beauty, approaches.                    OLIVIA          Can I help you?                    ZOE              (distracted)          No, I'm fine.Zoe watches Stan. She mindlessly starts eating someblueberries out of the display pint. Olivia sees that Zoe islooking at Stan.                    OLIVIA          Tasty, huh?Zoe nods and takes another berry.                    OLIVIA (CONT'D)          All ripe and juicy. And firm, too.          Bet you could just eat him up in          one bite, right?Zoe now turns, confused.                      ZOE          What?                    OLIVIA          And don't look now, but he's coming          this way.                                                            20.Olivia winks and moves off. Zoe turns back and is now face-to-face with Stan, who's smiling from ear-to-ear, his banjoslung over his shoulder.                     STAN          A-ha! I didn't scare you away          after all.                     ZOE               (trying to be casual)          I was just in the neighborhood. I          thought I'd come by and get some          blueberries. I'm going to make a          pie.                    STAN          I love blueberry pie.Stan takes two pints of blueberries and hands them to Zoe.                    ZOE          I'm confused. I thought you made          cheese or something.                    STAN          What makes you think I don't?                    ZOE          I don't know, you're over there          playing the banjo.                    STAN          Can't someone do both?                    ZOE          Honestly, I didn't know anyone did          either.Olivia returns.                    OLIVIA          Aren't you going to introduce me to          your new friend?                    STAN          Nope.              (to Zoe)          Come on. Let me show you around.Stan puts his arm around Zoe and leads her away.   Oliviawatches them go with her arms crossed.                                                        21.EXT. THE LITTLE GOAT CHEESE STAND - LATERStan walks Zoe through his cheese stand.                    STAN          This is our basic chevre, probably          our best seller. The cheese that          started it all, as they say. Then          over here we have our surface-          ripened cheeses. These are the          aged/raw milk cheeses.              (realizing)          This is really boring, huh?                    ZOE          No, not at all.                    STAN          It's like you're in a foreign          country and the only thing to watch          on tv is a documentary on cheese.          You don't want to watch it, but          somehow you can't stop...                    ZOE              (laughing)          I think it's interesting.    Really.                    STAN          All right, you asked for it...              (boring voice)          The aged/raw milk cheeses are made          from raw milk and then aged for          four to six months. Sometimes          more. Sometimes less. Usually          more. Depends on the cheese.                     FRED          Stop.   You're killing me.FRED, early twenties, white guy with Rasta-type dreads, looksup from behind the counter.                     STAN          Fred, Zoe, Zoe, Fred.              (then)          She's the one I followed from the          subway the other day like a total          psychopath.                    FRED          Right...I heard about you.                                                       22.                    ZOE          I don't know whether to be          flattered or terrified.                       FRED          Be afraid.                    STAN          Don't scare her away.   I'm trying          to redeem myself.                    FRED          Then you should put down the banjo.          You look like a doofus.                    STAN          Doofus?              (then, to Zoe)          Do you think I look like a doofus?                    ZOE          I don't really know what a doofus          looks like.Fred points to Stan.                    STAN          Okay. If I put the banjo down, can          I take you to lunch or something?                    ZOE          I should really get back to work.                    STAN          Come on, say the word and we can          have a six-course tasting menu at          Union Square Cafe. I know the          chef.                    ZOE          That sounds nice, but, I should          probably go.                    STAN          Well, can I call you?Zoe smiles.INT. HUDSON PETS - DAYZoe enters the pet store with two big bags of vegetables. Assoon as she steps foot in the store, Bobby and Jalisa accosther.                                     23.          BOBBYOkay, spill it.          JALISAWho is he? What does he do?    Howdo we know him?          ZOEWhat are you talking about?          JALISAStan from the Farmer's Market?He's called twice already.           ZOEReally?          BOBBYIs he a farmer? Because that's notokay.           ZOENo.   He makes cheese.          BOBBYHe's a pilgrim?           ZOEI don't know what he is. He's cuteand different and plays the banjo.    (then)I think I like him.          BOBBYWhat about the, you know, bun inthe oven?          ZOEI really doubt I'm pregnant.          JALISAYou want to be pregnant. You don'twant to be pregnant. I'm confused.           ZOEI want to be pregnant. Of course Iwant to be pregnant. I mean, I puta lot of thought into this, right?    (then)So what did Stan say?          BOBBYHe says to name any restaurant youwant to go to.          (MORE)                                                        24.                     BOBBY (CONT'D)          He'll be there with bells on.              (then)          He didn't say the "bells on" part.          I added that. Sounds a little too          gay, though, so I take it back.EXT. 8TH STREET - NIGHTZoe walks down 8th street. This is the first time we've seenher really pulled together, and she looks hot. She turnsinto the restaurant she's chosen for the big date.INT. GRAY'S PAPAYA HOT DOGS - NIGHTZoe and Stan stand at the counter with an array of hot dogsin front of them. Stan looks at the hot dogs skeptically.                    STAN          We could have gone anywhere.                    ZOE          Just take a bite.   You'll see.                    STAN          Per Se, Jean Georges, Nobu...                    ZOE          Gray's Papaya.   Cheers.She clinks his dog and then they each take a bite.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Good, right?Stan nods, covering his mouth because the bite is so big.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          You've lived here your whole life          and never been to Gray's Papaya.          What's wrong with you?                    STAN          I actually haven't lived here my          whole life. We moved out of the          city when my parents bought the          farm....not died, but actually          bought a farm and moved upstate.                    ZOE          That must have been a nice place to          grow up. On a farm.                                                         25.                    STAN          What about your family?                     ZOE          It's just me and my grandmother.          She lives in a retirement community          in Queens.              (an awkward beat)          My parents died when I was young.                    STAN          I'm so sorry.There is a long silence.   They both stare at the hot dogs.                    STAN (CONT'D)          I don't know what to say now.    I've          made it all awkward and sad.                     ZOE          It's okay.              (then)          My dad was kind of a bad guy,          anyway.                     STAN          Shit.   I'm so sorry, Zoe.                    ZOE          No, come on, we'll get all this          stuff out of the way so we never          have to talk about it again. Let's          ask all the awkward, get-to-know-          you questions right now.                     STAN          Okay.   Good idea.                    ZOE          Let's see...are you religious?                     STAN          Nope.   What about you?                     ZOE          No.                    STAN          Have you ever been married?                     ZOE          No.                                                         26.                      STAN            Aren't you sick of going to            weddings?                      ZOE            If I have to listen to one more            couple write their own vows...                      STAN            I hate when they write their own            vows!They clasp hands. Not in a high-fivey way, but in aconnected, we have so much in common way. Their hands staytogether, feeling the charge between them.                      STAN (CONT'D)            What about kids?Zoe feels the blood rush to her cheeks.   Like everyone theremust now be looking at her.                      ZOE            What about them?                      STAN            Well, do you want them?                       ZOE            Yeah.   I want kids.She pulls her hand away. This has all gotten suddenly real.She looks at Stan, almost afraid to ask the next question.                       ZOE (CONT'D)            Do you?                       STAN            Yeah.   Absolutely.Zoe nods.   Slowly, she starts to breathe again.EXT. PERRY STREET - NIGHTThey are now walking home together, arm-in-arm.                      ZOE            Okay, first kiss...                      STAN            Jen Salzer. Seventh grade. She            wore a head-gear. What about you?                                                           27.                    ZOE          Summer camp. I think his name was--Stan interrupts by kissing her. And it's a great kiss. Fullof promises and answers. They linger there for a moment...                    ZOE (CONT'D)          That was way better.                    STAN          When can I see you again?Zoe feels her heart jump.    She kisses him again.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - DAYZoe is lying in bed with Nuts on the pillow next to her.    Thesun is shining and they are both waking up.She gets up and goes to the mirror. She lifts up hernightgown and looks at her stomach, this time with a slightlook of concern on her face.INT. EQUINOX - DAYZoe and Mona are side-by-side on the elliptical machines.Zoe is going very fast, while Mona is barely moving at all.                    ZOE          What if I'm pregnant?                    MONA          Then you'll get fat and hormonal          and I'll say, "I told you so."                     ZOE          But what if this could go somewhere          with Stan? Like, really go          somewhere.                    MONA          Then it will work out perfectly.                    ZOE          What do you mean?                    MONA          Because just when you really like          him, you'll break up because you're          pregnant and then you never have to          put yourself out there and possibly          get hurt. That's your dream.                                                        28.                    ZOE              (thinks, then)          I'm not pregnant.She gets off the machine.INT. EQUINOX STEAM ROOM - DAYWe are in a foggy steam room with Zoe, Mona and a few otherWOMEN.                    MONA          So, when are you seeing him again?                     ZOE          Tonight.                    MONA          Well, don't have sex with him.          That's the last thing we need. You          get knocked up and we'll have no          idea who the father is.A few women look over.                    MONA (CONT'D)          And then we'll have to do a          paternity test. Is it the cheese          farmer or the red-pubed bandit?More women look over.                    ZOE          I'm not going to have sex with him          tonight. It's too soon.              (for the women's benefit)          I'm not a slut.                    MONA          Well, bring condoms, just in case.              (thinks, then)          And a pregnancy test.                    ZOE          Very funny.                    MONA          I'm not joking.All of the women are now staring at Zoe.                    ZOE          I'm really not a slut.                                                              29.INT. ZOE'S BEDROOM - NIGHTZoe sits on the bed, holding a pregnancy test in her hands.Nuts is beside her. He looks up at her.                    ZOE          There's no way, right?INT. ZOE'S BATHEROOM - NIGHTZoe pees on the stick.   Nuts is beside her, watching with hishead tilted.                    ZOE          Stop looking at me like that.   I'm          not pregnant.Zoe finishes peeing and looks at the test.   Nothing yet.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Come on, come on, come on...We hear the doorbell RING.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          Shit.Zoe looks down at the test. Still nothing.      We wait andwatch the test. The doorbell RINGS again.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          Shit!A faint PLUS SIGN is forming.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Shitshitshitshit...The plus sign then turns BRIGHT PINK. Zoe's heart stops.There it is. Plain as day. Pregnant.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          No, shit.Zoe stands.   Looks at herself in the mirror.   And then...                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Holy fucking shit!                                                        30.INT. TAXI - NIGHTManhattan fades into the distance, as they drive over theBrooklyn Bridge. Zoe cracks the window.                      STAN            Are you feeling okay?Zoe nods.   Her face looks pale.                      STAN (CONT'D)            Good, because this should really            be a culinary adventure. This is            an underground restaurant that            moves from apartment to apartment,            depending on the chef.Zoe nods again. Hasn't heard a word he's said. She rollsthe window all the way down and hangs her head out.                        STAN (CONT'D)            And some of the guys from the band            will be there. So, we might get a            little jam going. Sounds fun,            right?                 (then)            Zoe?Zoe's POV. Headlights from passing cars whiz by, and thewind swirls her hair into her face. Brooklyn approaches likea bad dream.INT. UNDERGROUND RESTAURANT/SMALL APARTMENT - NIGHTStan walks down a long table filled with appetizers. He ismaking a plate for each of them. Zoe trails behind, beads ofsweat on her forehead.                      STAN            And this looks like a mache salad            with grapes and feta.He takes some for each of them.                      STAN (CONT'D)            And this, oh this must be white            beans and lamb's tongue. You've            got to have some of this. Etienne            is famous for his lamb's tongue.Olivia approaches.                                                          31.                    OLIVIA          Hey, stranger.                    STAN          Oh, hey, Olivia.   You remember Zoe.                    OLIVIA          Right. How'd that blueberry pie          turn out?                      ZOE          What?                    OLIVIA          You bought blueberries from me?          Said you were going to make a pie?                    ZOE          Um, can you excuse me for a second?Zoe hurries off.   Olivia watches her go.   Eyes narrowing.                    OLIVIA          No way she knows how to bake a pie.INT. UNDERGROUND RESTAURANT/SMALL APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATERZoe hovers by the window, whispering into the phone.                    ZOE          I'm pregnant.                     BOBBY (O.S.)          What?!   Where are you? I'm on my          way.                      ZOE          Brooklyn.                    BOBBY (O.S.)          Where's that?Zoe hangs up the phone.INT. UNDERGROUND RESTAURANT/SMALL APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATERZoe is now on the phone with Mona.                    MONA (O.S.)          Don't panic. Could be a false          positive. Take another test.                                                          32.                    ZOE          I can't. I'm at some underground          foodie party in Brooklyn. Where am          I gonna--Out the window and across the street, we see a drugstore.INT. DRUGSTORE - NIGHTZoe runs down the aisle and empties one, two, three...whatthe fuck, every pregnancy test into her basket.Her cell phone RINGS.    It's Bobby.   She picks it up.                    BOBBY (O.S.)          Okay, I'm looking at a subway map.          Which way is Brooklyn?She hangs up again.INT. UNDERGROUND RESTAURANT/SMALL APARTMENT - NIGHTZoe hurries through the living room, a packed drugstore baghidden under her arm. Stan comes up behind her.                    STAN          Where have you been?Zoe jumps and accidentally drops the bag. The tests spillout onto the floor. She quickly scoops everything back in.                     ZOE          Sorry.   You scared me.                    STAN          Did you just go to the store?                    ZOE          Yeah, I had a little emergency. I          have a, a, um...corn, and I needed          to get those little...corn pads.                       STAN          Corn pads?                    ZOE          I know, it's gross. Do you know          where the bathroom is?Zoe walks off leaving him to ponder.                                                        33.                    STAN          What's a corn pad?INT. BATHROOM - NIGHTZoe pees on eight sticks at once.                      ZOE          Corn pad?    What the hell is wrong          with you?Someone KNOCKS on the door.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          Corn pad.    Jesus Christ.The knocking turns to an angry BANGING.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Relax! I'll be out in...              (checks box)          Three to five minutes.Zoe holds up the tests. One by one, the little windows allshow PLUS SIGNS and CHECK MARKS and DOUBLE HASH MARKS.INT. UNDERGROUND RESTAURANT/SMALL APARTMENT - NIGHTZoe exits the bathroom with a wide-eyed, terrified look onher face. By the bar, she sees a PREGNANT WOMAN sipping aglass of wine. She rushes over.                    ZOE          Excuse me, are you allowed to drink          when you're...Zoe makes hand motions at her belly, but can't say the word.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          You know...More hand gestures.                    PREGNANT WOMAN          Pregnant?              (off Zoe's nod)          My doctor says one glass is--Zoe doesn't wait for her to finish. She rushes the bar,pours a glass of wine and downs it like a frat boy funnelinga beer.                                                         34.Outside, we hear a banjo and guitar tuning up.EXT. BACK PATIO - SAMEStan, JERRY and SCOOTER are just starting to play. A smallcrowd gathers round. Stan starts to sing an old tune called"Sweet Little Miss Blue Eyes."                    STAN          Who makes me forget all the other          girls I met, sweet, little Miss          Blue Eyes. Who's sweeter to me,          than she really ought to be, sweet          little Miss Blue Eyes.Zoe appears at the door to the patio.   Stan smiles at herwhile he sings.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Who's gonna start takin' care of my          heart, she makes me realize. And          it's lucky for me and I really want          to be with...              (winks at Zoe)          sweet, little Miss--Stan's POV as Zoe covers her mouth with two hands and boltsfor the bathroom, puking.                       STAN (CONT'D)          Blue eyes?INT. BATHROOM - NIGHTZoe's head is in the toilet. Just when we think she's done,she pukes again. Finally, she lifts her head.                       ZOE          Ohhhhhhhh.She spies an unused pregnancy test on the floor.  One thatmust have dropped. Maybe this will be the one with theanswer she's looking for. She sits back on the toilet,mustering up all of her focus to pee again. She closes hereyes.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Please, God...But she can't pee.   She tries and tries.                                                         35.                     ZOE (CONT'D)          Water, water everywhere, but not a          drop to...She doubles over and pukes between her knees.   When she'sdone, she holds up the test.CU of the stick, which has no pee on it but is covered invomit. Slowly the test reveals a PLUS SIGN.                       ZOE (CONT'D)          Fuck me.EXT. PERRY STREET - NIGHTStan and Zoe walk towards Zoe's brownstone. Stan ispractically holding her up. Zoe stumbles along.                    STAN          My singing made you vomit.                      ZOE          No.    It's not that.                    STAN          Sure, we were a little out of tune,          but...                    ZOE          I really don't feel well.                    STAN          Is it your corns?    Hurts to walk?ANGLE on Carol, from Single Mother's By Choice, approaching.Zoe's face pales.                       CAROL          Zoe?                       ZOE          Wow.   Hi.    Hey, there...                    CAROL          Where have you been?    You haven't          been coming to any--                    ZOE              (cutting her off)          Right. I know. I've been so busy.          Next one, I'm there. For sure.              (then, awkward)          This is my friend, Stan.                                                         36.                     STAN          Hi.                    CAROL              (eyeing Stan suspiciously)          Hello. Are you two--                     ZOE          Late. Yes. We are. We really          are.               (pushing Stan along)          I'll see you at the meeting. Bye.They walk on.   Stan looks at Zoe.                    STAN          An old...boyfriend?                    ZOE          Her name is Carol. We're on          a...committee together.They reach Zoe's front stoop.   Zoe peers over Stan's shoulderto make sure Carol's gone.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          All right. I have to go to bed          now. I'll call you, okay?                     STAN          Okay.              (then)          Hey, I was thinking, if you don't          have any plans this weekend, maybe          you'd like to come up to the farm          and get away for a few days.                    ZOE          I'll call you tomorrow.          Something's not agreeing with me.                    STAN          Was it the lamb's tongue?Zoe runs inside holding her hand over her mouth.   Stan standsthere for a beat. He calls after her.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Okay, well...this weekend.   Think          about it.                                                         37.INT. ZOE'S BEDROOM - NIGHTZoe lies in bed. Nuts sleeps beside her. Zoe stares out thewindow at a flickering street lamp, her face full of fear.                    ZOE          What the hell have I done?EXT. SHADYBROOK RETIREMENT COMMUNITY - DAYEstablishing shot of a retirement compound in Queens.INT. SHADYBROOK LOBBY - DAYThe lobby is well-appointed and cheery. A young STAFF worksbehind a front desk area. Were it not for a scattering ofPEOPLE IN WHEELCHAIRS, you might think we were at a Ramada.Zoe walks by the front desk.   ANNIE, an employee, looks up.                     ANNIE          Hi, Zoe.   You look fantastic.                    ZOE          I don't know how that's possible.                    ANNIE          Something's different. Did you get          highlights or a spray tan? Your          face looks like it's...                    ZOE          Please don't say glowing.                     ANNIE          Yes!   Exactly!EXT. SHADYBROOK COURTYARD - LATERThere is a small group of WOMEN speed walking around thecourtyard. They are fully decked out in jogging suits,visors and nose shields. The ringleader is NANA, 83, fit andfabulous.On the sidelines is ARTHUR, 87, with his walker and big grin,as he watches the ladies exercise.                    ZOE          Morning, Arthur.                                                        38.                    ARTHUR          Hello, my dear!He struggles to get up.                    ZOE          No, no, no, don't get up.                    ARTHUR          Good, because I can't get up. Came          to see my lovely fiance? She's          looking fine today, let me tell          you. Fine.Nana rounds the bend and waves enthusiastically.                      ZOE          Hi, Nana.                    NANA          One more mile to go. Do you have a          minute? Talk to Arthur.Zoe looks at Arthur who's now watching Nana's ass, nodding.                    ARTHUR          That's what I'm talking about.          Work it.Horrified, Zoe quickly runs after Nana.EXT. SHADYBROOK COURTYARD - LATERZoe is now speed walking with the ladies. She mimics thesame strong arm movements and heel-toe foot action.                    NANA          Do you want a nose guard?   I have          an extra.                    ZOE          No, I'm fine.                    SHIRLEY          Are you sure? Ethel Silverbeck          just had another carcinoma removed          from her nose.                    ZOE              (to Nana)          I kind of need to talk to you.          Alone.                                                           39.Nana gives her friends a nod, and they fall back severalpaces. Zoe waits for them to be out of earshot.                    NANA          Don't worry, they can't hear          anything anyway.                    ZOE          I'm pregnant.                    NANA              (can't hear her)          What?                    ZOE          I'm pregnant.                       NANA          What?                    ZOE          I'm pregnant.                    NANA          I can't hear you, darling.                    SHIRLEY          Jesus, Judy, she's pregnant.   Turn          your hearing aide up.Zoe closes her eyes.    Nightmare.INT. NANA'S ROOM - LATERNana hands Zoe a cup of tea.   Zoe's eyes well with tears.                    ZOE          What am I going to do?                    NANA          I'm confused. Isn't this what you          wanted? You bought sperm and were          inseminated by your doctor. This          isn't what we would call an          accident.                    ZOE          But now it's all happening so fast.          Did I really think this through?                                       40.          NANAWe talked about it for months. Yousaid it was what you wanted morethan anything in the world.          ZOEBut this guy, he's...special.   It'sall going to fall apart now.          NANAWhat makes him so special?          ZOEI don't know. He's very...real.And funny. And different. Theother guys I've been with all hadtheir briefcases and their five-year plans and their secretariesthey were fucking. Stan doesn'thave a five-year plan. I don'teven know if he has a plan.          NANAWhat about a secretary?           ZOESome kid named Fred.    (then)I like him, Nana.          NANAWell, if he's the right one, he'llstay.          ZOEDo you really think so?          NANAGosh, I don't know. I hoped thatwould be enough to appease you.          ZOEShould I still visit him for theweekend? Or should I just vanishand hope he forgets I ever existed.          NANADon't be silly. Go up there forthe weekend. Spend some time withhim and see what he's really like.           ZOEYeah.   You're right.                                                            41.                    NANA          You might find out he's a total          douchebag and then the whole thing          is moot.Zoe looks at Nana.   Douchebag?INT. CAR - DAYZoe is in the car. We are CLOSE on her as she talks rapidlyand a bit maniacally.                    ZOE          Okay, so we'll just hope that he's          a douchebag. Could happen, right?WIDEN to reveal Nuts in the passenger seat.      He's yawning.                       ZOE (CONT'D)          I'm sorry.     Am I keeping you up?Nuts closes his eyes and lays down.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          My whole life is falling apart and          you can't keep your bug-eyes open?              (yawning)          Thanks. Now I'm yawning. But why          am I so tired? I slept nine hours.              (thinks, then)          And I'm starving, too. What the          hell is going on?Zoe sees a gas station and jams on the breaks.INT. GAS STATION MINI MART - DAYZoe pours a massive cup of coffee. One of those gas stationBig Gulp cups. Even the TRUCKER next to her chooses asmaller cup. Then, a look crosses her face.                    ZOE          Am I even allowed to drink coffee?The trucker looks at her.    She looks at him.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Do you know anything about being          pregnant?                                                          42.EXT. CAR - LATERZoe's car is now parked on the side of a highway in themiddle of nowhere.INT. CAR - SAMEZoe is sound asleep with her head back and her mouth open. Asmall, empty coffee cup in her hand, crumpled candy barwrappers on the floor, and an almost empty bag of Cheetos isin her lap.Her cell phone RINGS. Zoe doesn't move. After the thirdring, she lifts her head and looks around. It takes her afew moments to realize what's happened. She looks at thelittle coffee cup.                    ZOE          Thanks a lot, decaf.She picks up the phone.                    STAN (O.S.)          Where are you?Zoe looks around.                    ZOE          I have no idea.EXT. LITTLE GOAT FARM - DAYZoe bumps along the winding driveway of this idyllic HudsonRiver farm. There are red barns in the distance and greenpastures filled with goats and sheep. The house is an oldcarriage house with a rusty weather-vane on top.Zoe parks the car and takes in the whole scene. Stan opensthe front door, with a huge smile on his face. Zoe sighs.                    ZOE          He's so not a douchebag.INT. HOUSE - MOMENTS LATERThey enter the front door.    Zoe takes in the charmingcarriage house.                    ZOE          I can't believe you live here.          This is ridiculous.                                                         43.                    STAN          I just come on weekends. My          parents really live here.                     ZOE          Oh.   Where are they now?                    STAN          In the kitchen.Zoe stops short.                    ZOE          Wait, they're here? Now? Is this          a "meet the parents" kind of thing?          I wasn't prepared for this.                    STAN          No. Not at all.    I mean, you'll          meet them, but--                     ZOE          When you said come up for the          weekend, I assumed it was just us.              (then)          I think I need to lay down.INT. STAN'S BEDROM - MOMENTS LATERZoe lies in the small bed with the covers pulled up to herchin. Stan stands above her with an odd look on his face.                    STAN          Are you hung-over or something?                    ZOE          I'm just...not myself. Give me ten          minutes. A ten-minute power nap          and I'm good. I need to regroup.                     STAN          Are you sure you're okay?              (then)          Zoe? Hello?But she's already out.   Stan gives her a little poke.INT. KITCHEN - DAYStan enters the kitchen. His parents, JOAN and EDWARD lookup expectantly, as if about to meet their new daughter-in-law.                                                           44.                     EDWARD          Oh.   It's just you.                    STAN          She's taking a nap.                     JOAN          A nap?   Now? She just got here.                    STAN          Mom, I need you to not be          judgemental, okay. I like this          girl a lot.                    JOAN          How can I be judgemental?    We          haven't even met her yet.We hear a SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK coming down the hall.                    JOAN (CONT'D)          What the heck is that?The SQUEAKING continues and then all eyes turn as Nuts rollsinto the kitchen and stops. He tilts his head.                     STAN          Oh.   This is Nuts.Joan and Edward take in the raggedy/wheelchair-bound dog andthen look at Stan. Stan shoots his mom a look.                    JOAN          Who's judging?!INT. STAN'S BEDROOM - LATERIt's now dark. Zoe is asleep in the exact same position.Suddenly, we hear a loud GRUMBLE. Her eyes open.                    ZOE          What was that?We hear the GRUMBLE again.    It's her stomach.   She puts herhands over it.                     ZOE (CONT'D)          Whoa.Zoe gets out of bed and goes right for the Cheetos. The bagis empty. She smears her hand on the inside of the bag andthen licks the orange cheese from her fingers.                                                         45.INT. HALLWAY - MOMENTS LATERZoe peeks out of the bedroom and looks both ways.                    ZOE              (whispering)          Stan?No one in sight.   She waits a beat and then whispers louder.                       ZOE (CONT'D)          Stan!INT. KITCHEN - NIGHTZoe peers her head into the empty kitchen.   Nuts is with her.                      ZOE          Stan?    Hello?Zoe stands there unsure of what to do next. Then we hear herstomach GROWL again. Her eyes turn to the stove. Somethingsmells out of this world. She tiptoes over and opens thepot. It's beef stew.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Oh, my God.She makes sure the coast is clear and then looks for a spoon.She can't find one. She spies a loaf of white bread. Grabsa piece, folds it and then scoops up a heaping bite of stewand devours it.                    ZOE (CONT'D)              (mouth full)          Oh, my God.She replaces the lid on the pot. And now she just standsthere. And stands there some more.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Oh, who am I kidding?She quickly takes two slices of bread and goes back in. Thistime, she uses one piece of bread as a ladle and then theother to turn it into a sandwich. She takes a huge bite.                       ZOE (CONT'D)          Oh.   My.    God.Stew dribbles down her chin. She takes a third piece ofbread to wipe her face and then takes a bite of that one.                                                              46.Nuts starts to whine and beg. Zoe uses her bread-ladle totoss some stew on the floor for him. It lands with plop.And now Joan enters. Zoe and Nuts turn, their mouthsbursting. Joan doesn't quite know what to do. All she knowsis she's supposed to be open-minded.                      JOAN            Would you like a plate?Zoe shakes her head no.     Wow.   This is embarrassing.                        JOAN (CONT'D)            A napkin?Zoe nods her head. Joan gives her one. Zoe holds it overher mouth as she tries in vain to swallow this inhuman bite.                        JOAN (CONT'D)            I'm Joan.Zoe nods.   Still can't swallow the bite.                      JOAN (CONT'D)            And you must be Zoe.Zoe nods again. She tries to shake Joan's hand. It's thebest she can do. Unfortunately, her fingers are fluorescentorange from the Cheetos powder. Joan pulls her hand back.INT. DINING ROOM - LATERThe dining room is warm and lovely. There's faded wallpaperand an old stagecoach lamp serving as a chandelier. Despitethe inviting room, Zoe looks very uncomfortable.                      EDWARD            The stew is delicious, honey.                      STAN            Yeah, Mom, it's awesome.                      EDWARD                (to Zoe)            Have you ever in your life had stew            like this? Come on, be honest.Zoe looks at Joan.      Joan smiles.    It will be their secret.                        ZOE            Uh...no.    Never.                                                       47.INT. LIVING ROOM - LATERThey are having coffee and dessert in the living room.Things seem more comfortable now. Zoe actually looks likeshe might be enjoying herself. Nuts sits beside her.                      JOAN            So are all the animals in your pet            store...differently abled?                       ZOE            Oh, you can say paralyzed. He            doesn't mind.                (then)            No, our pets are all in great            shape. Purebreads mostly, but not            from puppy mills.                      JOAN            Those puppy mills are terrible.    I            read about them in the paper.                      ZOE            Well, that's actually how I ended            up with Nuts. I bought him from            this pet store near my house. Six            months later, I had thousands of            dollars in vet bills and had to put            him in a wheelchair.                      EDWARD            You should have sued that place.                      ZOE            I thought about it, but what was            that really going to do? They were            still going to sell inbred dogs.            So...I took the money I made when I            left Google and just bought the            place figuring I would do better.                      STAN            You worked for Google?Zoe nods.                      STAN (CONT'D)            How could I not know that?                      ZOE            You never asked.                                                        48.                    STAN          And you made a lot of money and          then bought a pet store?Stan puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze.                    STAN (CONT'D)          I love that.                    ZOE          It's been fun. Beats brand          management, that's for sure.                    JOAN              (to Edward)          That sounds like us, honey.                     EDWARD          It's true.              (to Zoe)          When we bought this farm we just          wanted to make cheese because we          couldn't find anything we liked in          the stores. And now, twenty years          later, here we are...                    JOAN          Sometimes in life you just have to          take matters into your own hands.          Make things happen your own way,          you know?Zoe forces a smile.   If only they knew.EXT. LITTLE GOAT FARM - NIGHTThe moon is full and fireflies dot the air as Zoe and Stanwalk the grounds of the farm.Nuts trots/rolls ahead of them in a different wheelchair.This one is more rugged, with mountain-bike-type wheels.                    STAN          I can't believe that Nuts has an          off-road wheelchair.                    ZOE          He's got one for snow, too.      With          little skis on the bottom.Stan smiles and shakes his head.                                               49.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          What?                    STAN          You're really something.                    ZOE          Are you making fun of me?   Do you          think I spoil him?                    STAN          No, I really think you're amazing.          I mean, that story you told          tonight. You just quit your whole          professional life because of this          little dog? Started your own          business, just like that?Zoe shrugs.                    STAN (CONT'D)          You're very...unique.                    ZOE          Well, you're a dime a dozen. I          can't tell you how many banjo          playing, cheese makers I've been          with.                    STAN          I keep waiting for the other shoe          to drop. Like, how can you be so          perfect? Why are you even still          single? I can't believe no one's          snatched you up by now.                    ZOE          I drive them all away, I guess.                    STAN          Yeah, right.Stan takes her in his arms.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Look, I know this is all going          fast...the time we're spending          together, meeting my parents and          everything...but, I'm okay with          that. I want it to go fast.                    ZOE          It is going fast.                                                         50.                    STAN          But isn't that okay? Aren't we old          enough to skip all the bullshit?          What are we waiting for? I...want          to be with you.Zoe opens her mouth. She's got to tell him.    Before thisgoes any further, she has to tell him.                    ZOE          Stan.                    STAN          Come on. There's something I want          to show you.INT. CHEESE CAVE - NIGHTIt's floor to ceiling wooden shelves all filled with cheese.Stan ceremoniously unwraps a wheel.                    ZOE          What is it?                    STAN          It's cheese.                    ZOE          I can see that.                    STAN          It's a new kind of goat's milk          we're using. I've been developing          the recipe, and now it needs to          age. It'll be ready for market in          several months.              (then, excited)          Want to know what it's called?                    ZOE          Okay.                    STAN          Zoe.                    ZOE          You named a piece of cheese after          me?                    STAN          Not just one piece. The whole          line. This will forever in history          be known as the Zoe.                    (MORE)                                                        51.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Unless, of course, it tastes like          shit, and then we'll just scrap it.              (with a wink)          But that'll never happen.                    ZOE          How do you know?                    STAN          Because it's going to be fantastic.          Sweet and sassy and very complex.          Why do you think I'm calling it          Zoe?                    ZOE          No one's ever named a piece of          cheese after me before.Zoe stares at the cheese for a long time.                    STAN          You're kind of hard to read right          now. You're either seriously          flattered or totally repulsed.Zoe smiles.                    STAN (CONT'D)          What?                    ZOE          I want to kiss you right now, but          it really smells like cheese in          here.EXT. DAIRY - MOMENTS LATERThe door to the dairy kicks open and Stan carries Zoe out.Her legs are around his waist and they are making out likecrazy.INT. HOUSE - MOMENTS LATERStan carries Zoe up the stairs. They are tripping andkissing and now tearing at each other's clothes.INT. STAN'S BEDROOM - NIGHTStan throws Zoe on the bed and then peels off his shirt. Hisbody looks amazing in the shadowy moonlight. Zoe lies there,looking at him before he jumps on top of her.                                                          52.                    ZOE              (under her breath)          You're such a douchebag.                     STAN          What?Zoe shakes her head and then melts into him.                                                DISSOLVE TO:INT. STAN'S ROOM - LATERThey are now on their backs staring at the ceiling.    Theylook happy and worn outTheir P.O.V. Those little glow-in-the-dark star stickers areall over the ceiling. There's barely any glow left.Stan lets out a big sigh as he looks at the "stars"...                    STAN          That was amazing. I mean, like,          totally and exceptionally, over-the-          top, amazing.Zoe turns to him.   Takes a deep breath.                     ZOE          Stan.                     STAN          Yeah.                    ZOE          There's something I really have to          tell you.                    STAN          There's something I have to tell          you, too.Now Stan turns to her.     They are face-to-face.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Can I go first? `Cause if we're          going to say the same thing, I want          to say it first.                    ZOE          We're not going to say the same          thing.                                                            53.                    STAN          Well, let me go, because this is          really embarrassing, and I just          have to say it.                      ZOE          Okay.                     STAN          I've dated a lot of women. I mean,          not tons, but a lot. And, the          thing is, I've never...been in love          before. I've never even told          anyone I love them before. Because          I just never felt it. But from the          day we met, from the first time our          backs accidentally touched in the          subway, I feel this, this...              (he shakes his head)          Maybe this is too much to say right          now, but...I love you, Zoe. I          really do.Stan finishes.    He looks at her and smiles.   Zoe just staresat him.                    STAN (CONT'D)          In my mind, you were supposed to          say, I love you, too.Instead, Zoe covers her mouth and runs to the bathroom.     Abeat later, we hear her vomit.INT. STAN'S BATHROOM - MOMENTS LATERZoe is at the sink, furiously brushing her teeth.    Stanenters.                      STAN          Zoe?He looks at her.   Sees the tears in her eyes.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Why are you crying? Everything's          perfect.                      ZOE          It's not.                    STAN          Sure it is.                                                 54.Zoe takes a deep breath.                         STAN (CONT'D)            What?                      ZOE            I'm pregnant.                      STAN            Uh, I'm pretty sure it doesn't            happen that fast.Zoe shakes her head.                      ZOE            I just found out.                      STAN            Pregnant? As in you're going to            have a baby?Zoe nods.                      STAN (CONT'D)            I don't understand.                       ZOE            I know.   It's hard to explain.                      STAN            Well, who's it?                      ZOE            I don't know.                         STAN            What?                      ZOE            I don't know who the father is. I            kind of know him. I just don't            know his name exactly. It was sort            of anonymous.                         STAN            Anonymous?                      ZOE            He's a donor. From a sperm bank.                      STAN            Seriously, what the fuck are you            talking about? Sperm bank? What?                                                    55.                    ZOE          I know, this is so fucked up.                    STAN          When did all of this happen?                    ZOE          The day we met. That same day.          And I didn't tell you because I          didn't think there was any way I          could be pregnant.                       STAN          But...why?                    ZOE          Because supposedly with frozen          sperm it takes a few tries and...                    STAN          No, why would you do this?                    ZOE          Because I wanted a baby. And I'm          almost forty, and I never met the          right guy. I was afraid if I          waited any longer it would all pass          me by, and I'd miss my chance.Stan just looks at her.       Speechless.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          I didn't know you. I would have          never done it if--                    STAN          I just told you I loved you.                    ZOE          Well....do you not now?                    STAN          You're pregnant.                    ZOE          Don't say it like that.                    STAN          You're pregnant.                     ZOE          Yes.   I'm pregnant.      I'm pregnant!                                                            56.                    STAN          I tell you I'm in love with you and          you tell me your pregnant with some          stranger's child?                    ZOE          Don't say it like that.     You make          it sound dirty.                    STAN          I'm sorry. I...I'm stunned. I          don't know what to say. What the          fuck am I supposed to say?! This          is great fucking news?          Congratulations?! Why did you wait          so long to tell me?                    ZOE          Because I'm freaking out, okay! I          didn't know what to do. I made          this big decision to do this and          then I met you--                    STAN          Well, what am I supposed to do now?          This isn't how it was supposed to          be. This isn't what--                    ZOE          I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? Life          isn't perfect. It's not all neat          and tidy like your perfect family          and your perfect farm and your          bluegrass band. It's messy. It's          fucked up. This is real life,          okay? I'm sorry to break it to          you.They both stand there.    After the raised voices, the silencefeels more pronounced.                       ZOE (CONT'D)          I'm sorry.                     STAN          Sorry?   What's sorry going to do?Stan walks out. Zoe stands there.     And stands there.   Andthen she starts to cry.INT. STAN'S BEDROOM - LATERZoe lies in bed awake.    Nuts is beside her.    They are alone.                                                           57.EXT. LITTLE GOAT FARM - DAYIt's daybreak at the farm. FARM HANDS move herds of goatsfrom one pasture to another.INT. GUEST ROOM - MORNINGStan lies awake in a small guest room.   Joan enters and isstartled to find him in there.                     JOAN          Oh, I thought you were in your          room. Sorry.              (then)          Everything okay?Stan doesn't answer.   Joan sits on the corner of the bed.                    JOAN (CONT'D)          Well, she seems really terrific.          Dad and I both think so. She's          smart and poised and...Next door, we hear Zoe puking again. Joan stops.   Then,wanting to seem open-minded, continues.                    JOAN (CONT'D)          And warm and gracious...Another very LOUD HURL.                    JOAN (CONT'D)          And pretty and...Another HURL.    Joan looks at Stan.                    JOAN (CONT'D)          What the hell's going on in there?                    STAN          She's pregnant.                    JOAN          Oh, dear God.We hear the toilet FLUSH.INT. CAR - DAYZoe sits in the passenger seat with the key in the ignition.Stan leans against the car. They are both quiet.                                                          58.                    ZOE          I don't know what to say.Neither does Stan, who says nothing.    He runs his foot backand forth in the gravel.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          I guess I'd given up on meeting          someone like you, and I did what I          thought was best.Stan still doesn't say anything.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          But, for what it's worth...I love          you, too.She puts the car in gear and pulls out.    Stan watches her go.His hands in his pockets.EXT. MONA'S APARTMENT - NIGHTZoe stands in the hallway of Mona's apartment building.   Abeat later, Mona opens the door and holds out her arms.                       MONA          Come here.Zoe walks slowly into her embrace. They stand like this fora long time. Just holding each other. Until Mona's threekids run out with wiffle-ball bats and chase each other downthe hall. A beat later, the toddler runs after them crying.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - DAYZoe lies in bed with Nuts. She opens her eyes and stares atthe ceiling. Then, with a sigh, she gets up and does hermorning ritual.She pulls up her nightgown and sticks out her stomach.    Forthe first time, we actually see a little bump.INT. EXAM ROOM - DAYZoe lies on the table with a paper gown over her lap. Shelooks down at her feet in the stirrups. Sadly, we notice aperfect pedicure.Dr. Harris comes in with a big smile.                                                             59.                    DR. HARRIS          Congratulations! What luck to get          pregnant on the first try, huh?          And with frozen sperm, too. So,          how are we feeling?                    ZOE              (unconvincing)          Okay.                    DR. HARRIS          You sure about that?                    ZOE          It's been hard. I don't know if I          was really prepared for this.                    DR. HARRIS          Well, your hormones aren't helping,          and going through this without a          partner must be difficult.Dr. Harries readies the ultrasound wand and inserts thedevice. He turns the monitor so that Zoe can see.                    DR. HARRIS (CONT'D)          Well, the good news is everything          looks great. You are now eight          weeks pregnant, which is an          important milestone. With a little          luck, we should be able to see a          heartbeat today.On the screen we see a small flickering dot.    Dr. Harrissmiles.                       ZOE          That's it?     That's...my baby?Saying these words out loud for the first time hits Zoe.Tears fill her eyes.                     ZOE (CONT'D)          Hi, Baby.              (then)          Is it okay? Is it healthy?                    DR. HARRIS          Everything's just...              (makes a face, then)          Wait, a minute...                     ZOE          What?   Wait a minute, what?                                                         60.                    DR. HARRIS          Well...I see another heartbeat.                    ZOE              (freaking out)          It has two hearts?                    DR. HARRIS          No...but you have two babies.Zoe's mouth falls open.NT. CAROL'S APARTMENT - DAYWe're back at Single Women By Choice. The women are sittingon the floor. Sara is still nursing Dakota. Zoe has herhead in her hands.                     CAROL          Twins!   That's fantastic!Zoe bursts into tears.                    LORI          Why are you crying?   That's so          lucky.                     ZOE          Yup.   That's me.   Lucky, lucky, me.The women are sensing the sarcasm, but not getting it.                    CAROL          Are you okay? Is it a financial          concern? There are many programs--                     ZOE          No. I'm fairly loaded, actually.          Used to work for Google.               (blows nose)          I'm sorry. This is hard for me. I          don't know if I can talk about it          yet.                     CAROL          Take your time. When you feel like          sharing, we're here for you. We're          all sisters here.               (then, to the group)          Let's give Zoe some space. When          she's ready to talk, we're ready to          listen. Deep, cleansing breaths,          Zoe.                                                        61.Carol takes a deep breath and then lets it out.                    CAROL (CONT'D)          Now, in the meantime, does anyone          else have anything they want to          discuss? Problems? Concerns?Tabitha, the tall woman with the nose ring, raises her hand.                    TABITHA          I'm having a hard time. Luca keeps          asking why he doesn't have a daddy,          and I just don't know what--                    ZOE              (blurting out)          There's this guy. His name is          Stan. And he's fantastic.                       CAROL          I knew it!                    TABITHA          Uh...wasn't I just speaking?                    CAROL          I knew you were with that guy!                       SARA          What guy?                    LORI          Zoe, this group is called Single          Mother's By Choice.                     ZOE          I know.   I'm sorry--                    TABITHA          Um, excuse me. What about Luca?          He's been really, really sad.                    ZOE              (floodgates opening)          Have you ever met a guy and you get          butterflies and you think this is          the kind of man who could take care          of me forever? The kind of guy who          makes you re-examine everything?          Like, maybe I can be a stay-at-home          mom and be barefoot and pregnant.The women stare blankly at Zoe.                                                        62.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          He actually lives on a farm! Plays          the banjo! Maybe I could learn to          sew and take care of the animals.          Like Laura Ingalls.Even Dakota stops nursing and looks over at that one.EXT. CAROL'S APARTMENT - LATERThe women file out. No one dares look at Zoe. It's veryawkward, although Zoe seems unaware. She turns to Carol.                    ZOE          Carol, thank you. This has been          really helpful. Just getting it          all out and being with other women          who--                     CAROL          I'm going to have to ask you not to          come back.                     ZOE          What?   Why?                     CAROL          I don't think we can help you, and,          quite frankly, you're against          everything we stand for.                    ZOE          But, I thought we were all sisters.                     CAROL          No.  Not you.              (then)          Do you know how long it took me to          conceive? Five years. I had three          miscarriages and spent every last          dime on in-vitro. And Dana? The          woman with the short hair?                       ZOE          Which one?                    CAROL          The one with the really short hair?                     ZOE          Yeah, that doesn't really narrow it          down much.                                                           63.                        CAROL            She   just flew to Memphis to watch            her   baby being born. Seconds after            the   birth, the birth mother changed            her   mind and refused to give it up.Zoe's face changes.     She starts to get it.                      CAROL (CONT'D)            So, as you can see, we are really            dedicated and choosing to be single            mothers, and you seem to be in a            slightly different place. You're            carrying two healthy babies, and            you have no idea how lucky you are.                      ZOE                (after a beat)            You're right.                      CAROL            I like you, Zoe. We all like you.            But you kind of need to figure out            where you are.Zoe nods.EXT. SHADYBROOK RETIREMENT COMMUNITY - DAYZoe and Nana are walking the loop around the courtyard. Zoelooks terrible. Like she hasn't slept in days. Theycomplete a lap. Arthur gives them the double thumbs up sign.                      NANA            That man is obsessed with my ass.                       ZOE            I know.   It's kind of upsetting.                      NANA            He wants to take me on a cruise so            that we can finally tie the knot.            But, I don't know. What's the            hurry?                      ZOE            You've been engaged for nine years.                      NANA            No reason to rush into anything.Nana looks over at Zoe.     She sees the bags under her eyes.                                                           64.                    NANA (CONT'D)          You look terrible, dear.                    ZOE          Thanks.                    NANA          You must really love him, huh?                    ZOE          I guess I do.                    NANA          Honey, I'm sure he's wonderful, and          I'm sure he loves you, too. But,          you have put him in a really          awkward position. Having a baby is          a big adjustment for any couple.          And you're not married. And he's          not the father. And you've only          been together a little while. And          now you're having twins. And--                    ZOE          Please stop.                    NANA          I'm just saying, if he actually          wanted to stay with you right now,          he'd be the greatest man in the          world, and, quite frankly, I don't          think any man is that great.They complete another lap around the courtyard.   Arthursmiles at them and then "raises the roof."                    NANA (CONT'D)          Arthur's just about the best man I          know, and look at him. He's a          fucking idiot.EXT. LITTLE GOAT FARM - DAYStan leans against the fence looking at the goats. He hasthe beginnings of a beard growing. The scruff makes him lookolder. Thinner.Joan approaches and stands next to him for a bit.                    JOAN          You know, people thought we were          crazy when we bought this farm.                    (MORE)                                                            65.                       JOAN (CONT'D)             All of our friends in New York,             they thought we'd lost our minds.Stan nods.    We get the feeling he's heard this before.                       JOAN (CONT'D)             I guess I'm saying that you may             have envisioned your life going one             way, but the reality is, it could             go a totally different direction.             You just have to be open to it.Stan watches a nearby goat coaxing her baby to nurse.      Heshrugs.                       STAN             Having a baby with someone I barely             know, someone else's baby...it's             just not how I pictured it.                       JOAN             I used to work on Wall Street. Now             I wear boots covered in goat shit.             This isn't how I pictured it,             either. But guess what...I'm             happy.She gives him a sympathetic hug and walks away.INT. STAN'S BEDROM - NIGHTStan lies in bed looking up at the "stars." There's evenless glow now than last time. He sighs and then turns overto try and sleep.ANGLE ON Nuts' off-road wheelchair in the corner of the room.Stan looks at it and can't help but smile.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - DAYZoe and Nuts lie in the bed. They are looking at each otheron the pillow. Zoe scratches behind his ears.Zoe goes to the mirror and does her usual. The bump isgrowing. For the first time, we see a smile.INT. CAROL'S APARTMENT - DAYThe Single Mother's By Choice women are sitting in theirusual circle. Lori is passing around a list.                                                        66.                    LORI          Make sure you put your numbers          down. I want to have everyone's          number handy in case I go into          labor early.Zoe enters.   All eyes turn.    She waves sheepishly.                      ZOE          Hi, guys.No one knows what to say.                      CAROL          Hi, Zoe.                    ZOE          I just wanted to apologize. I'm          sorry I got into a relationship and          wasn't honest with you guys, and          I'm sorry I interrupted you,          Tabitha. I hope Luca is doing          better.                      TABITHA          Thanks.                     ZOE              (to Carol)          And I've thought a lot about what          you said, about how lucky I am. I          got into this whole situation          because I wanted to have a baby.          And, somehow, I lost sight of that.              (then)          Anyway, I need partners in this,          and I hope you'll take me back.Lori smiles and hands her the piece of paper.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          What's this?                    LORI          It's a phone tree. I'm due next          month, but my midwife thinks I may          go sooner. I want everyone to be          there. Are you in?Zoe smiles.                      ZOE          I'm in.                                                           67.EXT. HUDSON STREET - DAYZoe has her head held high and her cute belly pushed out asfar as it will go.A WOMAN with a double stroller approaches.   Zoe smiles.                    ZOE          Hi.                    WOMAN          Hi.                    TWIN TODDLERS          Hi./Hi.Zoe walks on. She sees her reflection in a store window andsmiles. She looks like an actual pregnant person now. Asshe is walking and smiling to herself, we hear a familiarvoice.                    STAN          Hi.Her P.O.V. Stan appears next to her in the reflection.     Fora brief second, they look like a family.Zoe turns. They both stop. Unsure of whether to hug orwhat. They just stand there.                    ZOE          Hi.                    STAN          Hi.                    ZOE          You said that already.                    STAN          You...look great.Zoe touches her belly.    Proud but protective.                    STAN (CONT'D)          How are you feeling?                    ZOE          Okay.                    STAN          Good.A long silence.                                                        68.                      ZOE            You have a beard.                      STAN            Yeah, it's awful isn't it.                      ZOE            No.                       STAN            Don't lie.                (then)            Did I tell you how pretty you look?Zoe nods.   Another silence.                      STAN (CONT'D)            I miss you.A group of SCHOOL KIDS, lost in their own conversations, pushup the block, separating Zoe and Stan for a moment. Thisseparation makes the moment all the more tense.                      ZOE            I miss you, too.                      STAN            This whole time we've been apart,            I've been trying to figure out what            it is about you that I love so            much. And I think that it's that a            lot of people talk about doing            things, but you actually do them.            You're really kind of daring. How            you quit your job and took over a            pet store all because some asshole            sold you a lame dog. You came and            found me at the Farmer's Market            even though the night before I            acted like a total stalker...Zoe smiles at the memory.      Stan continues.                      STAN (CONT'D)            And now you're pregnant. Because            you wanted to have a baby and            didn't think you could wait any            longer. Well, that's just the same            kind of thing. It's...brave. And            I can't love you for being that way            but then walk away for the same            reason.Stan takes her hands.                                                          69.                    STAN (CONT'D)          I love you. I've been waiting my          whole life for you. And I can't          let one little baby get in the way          of that. I just...can't.                    ZOE          There's something I need to tell          you.                       STAN          Okay.                    ZOE          It's big. And you're allowed to          take all of this back when I tell          you.                       STAN          What.                    ZOE          It's not just one baby....I'm          having twins.Stan looks at her. Is she joking? Her look says no. Hetakes a beat. And then, even though it's not a joke, hestarts to laugh. A little laugh at first and then a big one.And then, Zoe starts laughing too.   The whole thing is justso ridiculous.                    STAN          This is insane.INT. ZOE'S BEDROOM - NIGHTIt's late. Zoe and Stan are naked in bed, lying face toface. Stan puts his hand on her stomach. He feels thelittle bump, new since he's last been with her.                    STAN          Do you feel any kicking?                       ZOE          Sometimes.                    STAN          What does it feel like?                    ZOE          Like butterflies.                                                                 70.Stan smiles. He likes this image. He runs his hand over herbelly. Zoe moves in closer. Touches his cheek.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Are you really sure you want to do          this?                       STAN          Yeah.     I'm really sure.They look at each other for a long time. Finally, Zoe closesher eyes and settles in for sleep, with Stan watching her asshe dozes off.INT. EXAM - ROOMCU of a MONITOR where we see two distinct baby shapesfloating head-to-toe.Dr. Harris holds the ultrasound wand to her belly. Standoesn't say anything. He looks on in total amazement.                    ZOE          Are you okay?                    STAN          They're so...perfect.      They look          like real babies.                    DR. HARRIS          Would you like to know the sexes?They look at each other.      Zoe smiles.   Stan shrugs.   Zoenods. Stan does, too.                       ZOE          Yes.     Tell us.                    DR. HARRIS          You're having two healthy little          girls.Stan gets tears in his eyes.                       STAN          Two girls?                       ZOE          Two girls.                    DR. HARRIS          Congratulations.                                                         71.EXT. MADISON AVENUE - DAYStan and Zoe walk down Madison Avenue. All of the other NEWYORKERS are on some kind of mission -- shopping, rushing tomeetings, or fighting for cabs.But Zoe and Stan just walk slowly hand-in-hand. Every sooften looking at each other and just smiling or laughing.Then, suddenly, Stan picks her up in the middle of thestreet.                       STAN          Two girls!A WOMAN with a BABY in a Baby Bjorn passes by.   Stan smiles.Now he's part of this exclusive club.                       STAN (CONT'D)          Hi.                       WOMAN          Hi.INT. UNION SQUARE CAFE - NIGHTWe PAN past several small plates of food on a table.   A cheftells us what delectable items we are looking at.                    CHEF          Here we have a yellowtail sashimi          with ponzu sauce and pea shoots.          This is carpaccio with shaved white          truffles. And, finally, an          heirloom tomato salad with fresh          Buratta flown in from Italy this          morning.                    STAN          Thanks, Sam. It looks incredible.Sam tops off their champagne and exits.   Stan picks up hisfork and starts eating. Zoe does not.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Aren't you hungry?                    ZOE          I can't eat any of this.                       STAN          Why not?                                                           72.                    ZOE              (pointing to each dish)          Raw. Raw. Unpasteurized.              (re: champagne)          Alcohol.                    STAN          Let me get Sam back. He'll make          you anything you want.                    ZOE          I don't want to hurt his feelings.          You go ahead. I'm fine.                    STAN          Well, what are you going to eat?INT. MCDONALD'S - NIGHTThe CASHIER reads back Zoe's order.                    CASHIER          Big Mac, Quarter Pounder with          cheese, four large fries, and a six          piece chicken McNuggets?                     ZOE          Make that an eight, no, ten-piece          McNuggets.              (to Stan)          You'll have some, right?                    STAN          No.                    ZOE              (back to the cashier)          Ten-piece. Someone will eat them.Stan stands behind Zoe with an incredulous look on his face.INT. ZOE'S BEDROOM - NIGHTZoe and Stan lie in bed, each reading a copy of "What toExpect when You're Expecting."Zoe has the McNuggets box on her chest. She dips each nuggetin three different sauces and then takes a bite. Stanwatches with a mixture of amusement and revulsion.                                                        73.                    ZOE              (re: book)          Have you gotten to page 79 yet?                    STAN          No. I stopped reading when you          ripped out one of my pages and used          it as a napkin.                    ZOE          Says here many women in the second          trimester experience an increased          sexual appetite.                     STAN          Really?Zoe smiles and then slowly triple dunks another McNugget.She takes a seductive bite.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Are you coming on to me? It's kind          of hard to tell right now.                     ZOE          Yeah.   I'm coming on to you.Zoe throws the McNuggets on the floor and climbs on top ofhim. She puts his hands on her body and then starts to kisshim voraciously. After a beat, Stan stops.                     ZOE (CONT'D)          What?                    STAN          You have chicken in your hair.INT. EQUINOX GYM - DAYZoe and Mona are on the elliptical machines. Zoe is goingvery fast, while Mona is barely going at all.                    MONA          Why are you even working out? This          is the one time in your life you're          allowed to let it go.                    ZOE          Because look at me. I just keep          getting bigger and bigger.                                                          74.                    MONA          Well, yeah. That's kind of how it          goes.                    ZOE          I'm afraid I'm going to scare him          away. I'm like one of those giant          bouncy castles. Soon I'm going to          take over the whole back yard.                     MONA          Come on.   He loves you for you.                    ZOE          I'm just getting kind of freaked          out by everything. He asked me to          go to this wedding with him. What          kind of first impression am I going          to make on all of his friends?                    MONA          Well, you're knocked up with some          stranger's twins. So, already          you're not exactly...                    ZOE          Not helping.                    MONA          Do you have anything to wear at          least?INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - NIGHTStan, dressed in a tux, sits on Zoe's bed.    He turns to thecloset.                    STAN          Everything okay in there?A cocktail dress FLIES out and hits him in the head.                    STAN (CONT'D)          Never mind.He waits a few beats.   Another dress FLIES out.                    ZOE (O.S.)          This SUCKS!!!                    STAN          Honey, whatever you wear is fine.                                                           75.                    ZOE (O.S.)          I don't have anything to wear!          That's the problem.Another dress sails through the air.                       ZOE (CONT'D)          Fuuuuuuck!                    STAN          You always look great. I've never          seen you not look great.Stan goes to the closet. Zoe is pulling on a long blackdress. She tries to smush her boobs down into the top.                    STAN (CONT'D)          That's perfect. You look hot.                      ZOE          Really?    You think?Zoe turns to reveal the back.     The two sides of the zipperare ten inches apart.                    STAN          Do you have a shawl or something?Zoe bursts into tears.EXT. PERRY STREET - LATERA cab pulls up in front of Zoe's brownstone. Stan opens thedoor for Zoe who is now wearing a long silver dress. Whileit's certainly hugging every curve and bump, it looks great.                    STAN          You look smokin'.                    ZOE          Thanks, honey.Zoe pauses in front of the open taxi door.                       STAN          Let's go.     We're super late.She tries to bend at the waist, but the dress is too tight.Then she tries to go in butt first and swing her legs around,but again, the dress is too tight.                       ZOE          Hmmmm...                                                           76.                    STAN          Why don't you sort of go in...head          first and then turn around.Zoe leans her head in and then has no other choice but to liedown sideways on the seat. Stan tries not to laugh.                    ZOE          Shut up and push me.                      STAN          Push you?                    ZOE          Just do it.Stan pushes her legs, and Zoe disappears inside the cab.INT. TAXI - CONTINUOUSZoe lies down straight across the seats like a board.                    ZOE          I hate everyone.She sucks in her breath and tries to sit up. As soon as shebends at the waist, we hear a horrific RIP. She bursts intotears again.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - LATERWe PAN over the coffee table. There's a pint of melty Benand Jerry's, a roll of cookie dough (half eaten,) US Weekly,and The National Enquirer.Zoe and Bobby lie on the floor looking at the ceiling.                    ZOE          Do you think he's telling everyone          why I didn't go? I'm too much of a          fat-ass walrus to go to the          wedding?                    BOBBY          You're not a fat ass walrus.          You're pregnant.Zoe eyes well up with tears again.                    BOBBY (CONT'D)          Why are you crying? So what?   You          missed a stupid wedding.                    (MORE)                                               77.                    BOBBY (CONT'D)          You got to have girls' night with          me. This is way more fun.                    ZOE          I don't know. I'm just so          emotional lately. It's the          hormones.                    BOBBY          You can't help it. Being pregnant          sucks. You're emotional, and          irrational, and you get back fat.                    ZOE          I have back fat?                     BOBBY          No.  I'm just kidding.              (then)          Okay, yes. You have back fat.Zoe feels her back.                    ZOE          How's Stan going to stay with me          through this? I'm disgusting.                    BOBBY          We'll go shopping tomorrow. We'll          get some hip maternity clothes...          whatever that means.                    ZOE          Look at me, Bobby.                      BOBBY          What?                    ZOE              (pinching back fat)          Look at me. What do you see?                    BOBBY          I see the most amazingly wonderful          person I know.Zoe smiles.   Tears come to her eyes again.                    BOBBY (CONT'D)          With back fat.                                                        78.INT. PUCK BUILDING - NIGHTStan leans against the bar with a beer in hand. He iswatching all of the Farmer's Market girls and his co-worker,Fred, on the dance floor. Everyone looks drunk and happy.Olivia stumbles towards him with an empty glass of champagne.                    OLIVIA          Why aren't you dancing?                    STAN          I'm just about to go.    It's late.                    OLIVIA          Come on, one dance.The spaghetti strap of her dress falls over her shoulder.Stan notices. She steps in closer.                    OLIVIA (CONT'D)          For old time's sake.                    STAN          I have a girlfriend, Olivia.                    OLIVIA          Never stopped you before.She tries to kiss him.    Stan steps away.                    STAN          It's serious this time.Olivia pulls back, surprised.INT. ZOE'S BEDROOM - LATERZoe is asleep in the bed. Her bump looks very cute under thecovers. Stan quietly gets ready for bed. She turns to him,half asleep.                    ZOE          How was it?                    STAN          Boring.                    ZOE          Good.Stan gets in bed next to her.   Zoe scoots into him.                                      79.          ZOE (CONT'D)I miss my old ass.             STANExcuse me?          ZOEIt was one of my best features.          STANYou know what's weird?   I neverknew your old ass.          ZOEIt's kind of like this ass but wayhotter.          STANI also don't know what you reallylike to eat and what's just acraving, or when you start laughinghysterically and then crying andyou say, this isn't me, if that'strue because I don't really knowthe real you. All I know is thepregnant you.          ZOEThat is weird.          STANOr like how you're horny all thetime? Is that you? Or is thatpregnant you?           ZOE    (lying)That's me.          STANWhen all of this is over, who willyou be?          ZOEHopefully, myself again.          STANBut...who is that?                                                           80.INT. ZOE'S BEDROOM - LATERThe clock by the bed says 2:30 a.m. Stan is snoringslightly. Nuts is on the pillow beside him. Zoe's side isempty.INT. ZOE'S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUSZoe sits on the floor of the living room sifting through abox of photographs.We FOLLOW her back into the bedroom and onto the bed. AsStan slowly opens his eyes, she holds up a photograph.His P.O.V.    It's a picture of a woman's ass.                       ZOE             This is my old ass.Stan blinks a few times.      His eyes adjusting.                       STAN             Why do you have a picture of your             ass?                       ZOE             My college boyfriend took it. So,             I guess in fairness, my ass doesn't             look exactly like this anymore, but             it's pretty close. It's held up.                       STAN             It's a nice ass.                       ZOE             You said you don't know the real             me, so I thought I'd show you.She picks up another photograph. This one is of Zoe attwelve and at her most awkward -- short hair, braces andacne.                       ZOE (CONT'D)             This is me in seventh grade.Stan props himself up in one elbow.                       STAN             Wow.                       ZOE             I know.                                                        81.                    STAN          You look like Anthony Michael Hall.                     ZOE          This period, as horrible as it was,          made me who I am. I think every          person should go through a          hideously ugly phase. It builds          character.              (then)          It also taught me that I should          never, under any circumstances,          have short hair and a perm again.She picks up another picture. It's Zoe in a bathing cap andSpeedo. She's holding up a yellow ribbon and has her armaround Nana.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          This   is one of my favorites because          look   how happy I am. I don't even          know   what place yellow is, but I'm          sure   it's not good.                    STAN          Fifth place.                    ZOE          But I still look super happy,          right? That's all because of Nana.          Whatever I did, she thought it was          the best.The next picture is a Halloween shot of Bobby, Mona and Zoe.Bobby is all in green, Zoe is all in yellow and Mona is inregular clothes.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          These are my best friends, Bobby          and Mona. Mona and I met in high          school and Bobby passed out on my          couch in college and never left.          You haven't met them yet because          they might scare you away.                    STAN          Why are you dressed like that?                    ZOE          Halloween. We were supposed to be          a traffic light but Mona bagged out          at the last minute and so Bobby and          I just look like idiots. That's          typical Mona, by the way.                                                        82.Zoe puts the picture down and picks up another. It's a womanin a hospital bed. She's giving the thumbs up sign.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          This is my mom.Stan takes the picture and studies it.                    STAN          You look just like her.                    ZOE          This is the last picture of her          that I have. She lived for a few          more years, but we never took any          pictures because she didn't want us          to remember her like that. I was          eight when she died.                    STAN          I...can't imagine.                    ZOE          She had a great laugh. And really          soft hands. She used to rub my          back before I went to sleep.Zoe puts the picture on the bedside table, propping it upnext to her clock.                    STAN          Do you have any pictures of your          dad?Zoe doesn't say anything.                    STAN (CONT'D)          I'm sorry. If you don't want to          talk about it...                    ZOE          My mother was in a coma for two          years before the end. That's when          my dad left her.                      STAN          Oh.                    ZOE          So...that's when he died.    To us,          anyway.                      STAN          God, Zoe.    I'm so sorry.                                                         83.                    ZOE              (after a beat)          It's okay. It was an important          lesson. That's when I realized          that nothing lasts forever.This sad statement hangs in the air for a few moments.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          So, that's my story. That's the          real me.                    STAN          Things can last forever, you know.                    ZOE          Not for me they can't.Stan takes her hand, and they stay like that for a while.Just holding hands on the floor of her moonlit room.Finally, the silence is broken by the telephone RINGING.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          That's weird.INT. LORI'S APARTMENT BUILDING LOBBY - NIGHTZoe and Stan enter the lobby of an old building in Tribeca.                    STAN          I'm confused. Why did you say you          would come witness this birth in          the first place?                    ZOE          I don't know. Seemed like a good          idea at the time. I was trying to          get back in their good graces. Go          home. I'll meet you there. I          don't want them to see you anyway.                    STAN          It's four in the morning. I'm not          letting you walk home alone.                    ZOE          Fine. I'll just pop in, show my          face and leave. Ten minutes, tops.                                                          84.INT. LORI'S APARTMENT - NIGHTThere are candles everywhere and a table of food and drinks.Kind of like a birthing cocktail party. Zoe eats a brownie.Carol approaches with Lori, who is wearing a caftan andrubbing her large stomach. They all hug.                      CAROL            Zoe, it's so nice of you to come,            especially at this crazy hour.                      LORI            You're really one of us now.                      ZOE            Are you sure you're in labor?            You're so calm.                      LORI            Oh, I'm sure.                      ZOE            Well, I just wanted to come and say            a quick hi and good luck.                      LORI            You're not staying?                      CAROL            You have to stay. Lori wants us            all to be together for this.                      ZOE            Well, I really want to be here            but...um, the truth is...actually            I've been wanting to tell you guys            for a while but, the truth is...Lori drops her head on Zoe's shoulder and lets out a giantMOAN. It's long and it's awkward.                      CAROL                (whispering)            She's having a contraction.Zoe nods.   This is weird.   Lori breathes through it.                       LORI            Okay.   What was it you were saying?                      ZOE            I'm back with Stan.                                                          85.                      LORI          Stan who?                    CAROL          The farmer?                    ZOE          Actually, he makes cheese. He          named a cheese after me. Isn't          that romantic? Sort of?              (off their blank stares)          Well, anyway, I'm not technically a          single mother by choice anymore.          So, if you want me to leave right          now, I totally understand. I'll          just walk out the door and--                    LORI          No, I really want you to stay.                      ZOE                (bummed)          Oh.                    CAROL          Listen, Zoe, if you're happy, we're          happy. We'd love to meet him.          Bring him to group any time.                    ZOE          Well, actually, he's downstairs, so          I should probably get back to--                     LORI          Great.   Invite him up.                    ZOE          Oh, no, no, no...                    LORI          I'm not shy. I've been through          this before. It's quite beautiful,          really.Zoe stands there trying to come up with another excuse.After a few moments, it's clear that she cannot.INT. LORI'S APARTMENT BUILDING LOBBY - MOMENTS LATERStan looks up from the Hunan Lotus take-out menu he's beenreading to pass the time.                                                       86.                       STAN          Excuse me?                    ZOE          Just a few minutes.                    STAN          I don't know, Zoe.                    ZOE          You have to come up. They begged          me. And truthfully, I'm kind of          scared of them. Please?INT. LORI'S APARTMENT - LATERZoe and Stan hover over the dessert table. They both eatbrownies and keep their eyes down. Sara is next to themnursing Dakota.                    STAN          This is weird.                    ZOE          Good brownies, though. This one          has peanut butter in it.Carol walks by with a little DRUM, which she bangsrhythmically.                    CAROL          Come on everybody, it's time.          She's getting into the water.                       STAN          The what?                    CAROL          Oh, it's a water birth.   Didn't Zoe          tell you?Carol starts banging the drum again and moves off.                    STAN          What's a water birth?                    ZOE          I don't know. But just so we're          clear, this...              (re. the whole scene)          Is not the real me.                                                          87.                    STAN          I'll wait here.Zoe grabs another brownie and exits.INT. LORI'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHTIn the middle of this very small, very cramped living room isan inflatable baby pool. And in this baby pool is Lori, whois now naked and pushing.Zoe watches, horrified, the brownie still in her hand.    Carolis beside her, playing the drum and chanting.                    CAROL          Hi-ya-ya-hi-ya-ya-hi-ya-hi-ya-ya.                    ZOE              (eyes wide)          Wow. Wow. Wow.                    CAROL          I know. It's amazing how the body          can open up like that.Zoe covers her mouth. It looks like she is going to throwup. She stumbles for the door.                    ZOE          I'm just going to get some air.          I'm feeling a little...                    LORI          Don't move, Zoe, you're my focal          point.Lori then GRUNTS through another big contraction.                    MIDWIFE          Push, Lori. Push.While Lori's eyes are closed, Zoe tries to sneak out.    Carolchases after, still beating the drum.                    CAROL          You can't leave.   You're her focal          point.                    ZOE          Can't she use someone else?                                                            88.                    CAROL          She's in labor. You want to argue          with her now?                                               DISSOLVE TO:INT. LORI'S LIVING ROOM - LATERCarol beats the drum faster now. Some of the other SingleMothers by Choicers join her in the chant.                    CAROL          Hi-ya-ya-hi-ya-ya-hi-ya-hi-ya-ya.Lori lets out a SCREAM as Tabitha and the MIDWIFE pull herlegs back. Zoe watches with both hands over her mouth.                     ZOE          Oh, Jesus.              (then)          What is...that?                    CAROL          Sssshh. It's perfectly natural.          Sometimes the bowels just let go.              (then, back to chanting)          Hi-ya-ya-hi-ya-ya-hi-ya-hi-ya-ya.The midwife fishes out the poop with a plastic bag.   Zoeturns away, gagging. She drops her brownie.                    LORI              (yelling)          Don't move, Zoe, I need you!          You're my focal point.                    ZOE          What does that even mean?Zoe turns back.   Her face white as a sheet.   Lori lets outanother WAIL.                    LORI          I need to turn over.    Please!                    JESSIE          Do it, Lori. We're here for you.          We're all here for you.Carol beats the drum faster as Lori gets on all fours. Themidwife lifts Lori's leg up to the side.   Lori lets out aloud, WHALE-LIKE MOAN.                                                         89.                    CAROL              (excited)          Here comes the head.Lori's moan turns into a DONKEY-LIKE BRAY.                    JESSIE          We can see the head, Lori.                    CAROL          There's so much hair!                    ZOE              (woozy, afraid)          I don't think that's the baby's          hair.                    LORI          I want to see the head. Get me a          mirror. It's in the bedroom.                    ZOE          I'll get it.Zoe makes a desperate attempt to run from the room.                    LORI          GOD DAMN IT ZOE, DON'T MOVE!!!!INT. LORI'S FOYER - SAMEOut in the foyer, Stan is paralyzed.   Next to him is Dakota,who is crying.Through the hallway mirror, he can see what's going on in theliving room: a hefty woman on all fours in a dirty inflatableswimming pool with a hairy head coming out of a hairy vag.                    CAROL (O.S.)          Stan, get the mirror!INT. LORI'S LIVING ROOM - MOMENTS LATERStan, walks backwards with his head down, holding a mirror.                       STAN          Excuse me.     Hello. I'm Stan.          Excuse me.     Hi. I'm Stan.Carol grabs the mirror and holds it under Lori. Lori liftsher leg like a dog taking a piss and then starts to cry.                                                           90.                    LORI          Look at all that wet, curly hair.Stan steals a look, starts to dry heave and rushes to Zoe.                    STAN              (freaking out)          Let's get the hell out of here.                     ZOE          I can't.   I'm her focal point.                    STAN          What does that mean?                    ZOE          I don't know.Suddenly, we hear a huge SCREAM.Zoe and Stan turn just in time to see the baby emerge andplop into the water.CU of the baby in the dirty water still attached to theumbilical cord.CU of Zoe and Stan's horrified faces.Zoe's eyes roll back and we:                                              FADE TO BLACK.OVER BLACK we hear silence. Blessed silence. No drums. Nochants. No screams. Nothing. Until, we hear the SPLASH.INT. LORI'S LIVING ROOM - MOMENTS LATERWe are CLOSE on Zoe's face.    She opens her eyes.   Blinks afew times.                    STAN          Are you okay?                    ZOE          I don't know. Why am I wet?WIDEN to reveal that Zoe is lying in the inflatable pool.Her eyes go from side to side. The horror of the situationbecoming clear. A spongy, purple thing floats by.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          What is that?                                                         91.                    STAN              (afraid)          I think it's the placenta.Zoe's eyes roll back again and we...                                             FADE TO BLACK.EXT. 14TH STREET - DAY14th street is just coming to life as the FARMERS start tounload their wares.Zoe and Stan head up the street slowly, wearily, likesoldiers back from battle.                   ZOE          Wow. We really shouldn't have seen          that.                    STAN          No.                    ZOE          I did mention that I barely know          those people, right?                    STAN          Like forty times.                    ZOE          I feel the need to say it again.They turn into the Farmer's Market.ANGLE ON Fred unloading cheese from the back of the LittleGoat truck. Stan and Zoe slowly walk towards him.                    STAN          It won't be like that for us.                    ZOE          How do you know?                    STAN          Well, for starters, you wax.ANGLE ON Olivia crossing from her berry stand to the cheesestand with a blueberry pie. She is about to place the pie onStan's table when she looks up and sees Stan and Zoe.                    OLIVIA          Oh, hi.                                                         92.                       STAN          Hi.              (awkward beat, then)          You remember Zoe.                       OLIVIA          Right, hi.And then Olivia notices Zoe's pregnant belly.                       OLIVIA (CONT'D)          Wow.                 (then, to Stan)          Wow.At the same time, Zoe notices the post-it on the pie.   Itsays, SORRY ABOUT LAST NIGHT.                    ZOE          What is that supposed to mean?                    OLIVIA          It's nothing.Olivia crumples the post-it and turns to Stan.                    OLIVIA (CONT'D)              (re. Zoe's pregnant belly)          I had no idea it was that serious.                    STAN          I told you it was serious.                    ZOE              (interrupting)          What the hell does, "sorry about          last night" mean?                    OLIVIA          It's stupid. I was drunk and...                    STAN          It was nothing.                    ZOE          What was nothing?Olivia turns back to Stan, flabbergasted.                    OLIVIA          You're having a baby? I didn't          know you'd been together that long.                                                        93.                    STAN          Well, they're not mine...but, yeah,          we're having a baby. Two actually.On Zoe's look of shock we...                                                  CUT TO:EXT. FARMER'S MARKET - MOMENTS LATERThe fruits and vegetables and flowers become a blur as Zoeruns out of the Farmer's Market. Stan chases after her.                    STAN          Nothing happened.                    ZOE          Get away from me.Stan runs in front of her, forcing her to stop.                    STAN          Nothing happened!                    ZOE          You said, "they're not mine."                    STAN          I didn't mean to say it.                    ZOE          How could you say that?                    STAN          I don't know. I was flustered.                       ZOE          Flustered?                    STAN          I'm sorry, I'm not exactly thinking          straight. I've been up all night          watching Orca give birth!                    ZOE              (incredulous)          "They're not mine?"                     STAN               (at a loss )          Well, I mean...technically, they're          not.                                                          94.The minute he says this, he wishes he could take it back.Zoe just looks at him. She shakes her head.                    ZOE          You know, all this time you're          trying to figure out who the real          me is, but who the fuck are you?                     STAN          Zoe.She runs to a nearby cab and slams the door.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - DAYZoe enters the apartment and slams the door behind her. Sheruns to the couch and collapses in tears. Nuts wheels overand stands beside her.INT. LE PAIN QUOTIDIEN - DAYZoe and Mona are at their usual table.    Zoe looks like shehasn't slept.                    MONA          Do you really think something          happened with the berry girl?    They          both said nothing happened.                    ZOE          Well, are they going to come out          and tell me? And that's not even          the point. He said, the babies          weren't his. And if he says that,          he thinks that. And if he thinks          that, he's not really committed.                    MONA          So, now you run?                    ZOE          Why should I stick around for the          end of the story when I know what          it's going to be?Mona says nothing.   She looks like she might say somethingand then doesn't.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          What? If you want to say          something, say it.                                                    95.                    MONA          Do you know the end of the story?          Can't you just give him the benefit          of the doubt? He seems like such a          good guy.                    ZOE          You haven't even met him.                    MONA          Yeah, and don't think I don't know          the reason for that. You were          never going to see this through,          Zoe. Never. It was doomed before          it began. Just like all of your          relationships. You get out before          you get hurt.                    ZOE          You don't think I'm hurt right now?                    MONA          Every man is not your father. When          are you going to realize that?                    ZOE          You don't know what you're talking          about.                    MONA          I've known you for thirty years. I          know you don't trust people. You          and your grandmother, both. She's          been engaged to Arthur for how long          now?                    ZOE          Leave Nana out of this.                    MONA          She's never going to marry him.          Just like you'd never marry Stan.          No wonder you ended up with a sperm          donor. He'll never let you down.          It's your ideal boyfriend.Zoe's face changes.    She looks incredibly hurt.                    ZOE          I used a donor because I wanted a          baby.                       MONA          I'm sorry.     I went too far.                                                            96.                    ZOE          Because I wanted to have a family.          Because Nana is the only one I've          got and she's eighty-four years          old. And then it will just be me.          So, yeah, you went a little too          far.Zoe leaves Mona at the table.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - MORNINGZoe and Nuts lie on the pillow together.    Zoe scratchesbehind his ears.                    ZOE          Guess it's just you and me again.Nuts licks her face. She gets out of bed and goes to checkher belly in the mirror. It's actually getting kind of huge.EXT. ZOE'S BROWNSTONE - DAYZoe walks down the steps. Stan is waiting for her on thesidewalk. His hands in his pockets.                       ZOE          What.                    STAN          It's Thursday. We have a doctor's          appointment.                    ZOE          There is no "we", Stan.                    STAN          Come on, I didn't mean to say it,          and that's not how I feel.Zoe shakes her head.                    ZOE          I made a mistake trusting you.                    STAN          Don't say that.     That's not true.                    ZOE          You're not good for me. You made          me think I needed you, and I don't.                                                         97.                    STAN          So that's it? Because of one          stupid, asinine thing that I said,          it's all over? This is how it          ends?                     ZOE          Yes.  This is how it ends.              (then)          I don't know why you're so          surprised. I told you, nothing          lasts forever.Zoe gives him a matter-of-fact shrug and walks off.INT. DR. HARRIS' OFFICE - DAYDr. Harris moves the ultrasound wand over Zoe's belly.   Zoeholds up her shirt and watches the monitor.                    DR. HARRIS          Things look great.                      ZOE          Good.                    DR. HARRIS          So, I'll see you back in two weeks,          and we'll start checking to see if          the babies are dropping.                    ZOE          It's hard to believe we're in the          home stretch.Dr. Harris helps Zoe sit up.                    DR. HARRIS          Now's the time I start discussing a          birthing plan with my patients. Do          you want me to wait until next time          when Stan's here?                      ZOE          Oh.    Uh, no. He won't be here.                    DR. HARRIS          He's out of town or something?                      ZOE          No.    He's just...out.                                                          98.                     DR. HARRIS          Oh.   I'm sorry to hear that.                    ZOE          It's back to just you and me now.          We've come full circle.                    DR. HARRIS          Well, don't you want anyone with          you in the delivery room? You          know, like a birthing partner?INT. SHADYBROOK COURTYARD - DAYZoe and Nana are speed-walking.    Nana stops, excited.                       NANA          Me?                     ZOE          Yeah.   Is that okay?                       NANA          Of course.                     ZOE          Good.   `Cause you're all I've got.                    NANA          What do I have to do?                    ZOE          I don't know. It will be a          c-section, so, basically, just          stand there and try not to faint.                    NANA          I can do that.                    ZOE          Thanks, Nana. It means a lot to me          that you'll be there.                    NANA          Are you kidding me? I've been          waiting my whole life for this.They pass Arthur, who is in his usual spot, but instead ofleering at Nana, he's in his chair with his head back andeyes closed.                    ZOE          Holy shit, is he dead?                                                     99.                       NANA          Sleeping.                    ZOE          How can you tell?                    NANA          He's been like that all morning.    I          wore him out last night.                     ZOE          Wow.   I did not need to know that.                    NANA          We were celebrating.              (with a smile)          We finally set a date.Zoe stops dead in her tracks.                       ZOE          Excuse me?INT. SHADYBROOK DINING ROOM - DAYNana walks Zoe through the Shadybrook dining room.                    NANA          So, we'll put the band here and the          dance floor right here.                    ZOE          I can't believe you're getting          married. What made you change your          mind?                    NANA          All of a sudden it just hit me,          what am I waiting for? I love him.          He loves me. What am I so afraid          of?                     ZOE          Wow.   This is...really big news.                    NANA          You don't seem happy.                    ZOE          No, I am. It's just...it just          makes my situation seem all the          more tragic. You're getting          married and here I am...                                                        100.Her voice trails off.                      NANA          Zoe.                    ZOE          Don't worry. I'm fine.    I'm really          happy for you.                    NANA          I'm worried about you, honey.                      ZOE          I'm fine.                    NANA          I just don't want you to make the          same mistakes I made. I've been          alone for over thirty years now,          and that's too long. Sometimes in          life you have to forgive and move          on.                    ZOE          Are you talking about my father or          Stan?                    NANA          Both, baby.INT. ZOE'S APARTMENT - DAYZoe has her box of photographs.   She pulls out a picture fromthe very bottom.                    NANA (V.O.)          Because if you don't learn how to          forgive, you will always be stuck          in the past.The photo is Zoe at age four and a man who looks so much likeher, that it can only be her father.After a long beat, she puts it on her bedside table, next tothe one of her mother. The two pictures, side-by-side makeup a family. Zoe and her father in one shot and her motherfrom the hospital bed giving the thumbs up sign in the other.Over this image, we hear a quartet playing WEDDING MUSIC.                                                        101.INT. CHURCH - DAYThe music takes us into the church and there we find Nana,lovely in her wedding gown, and Arthur, dashing in hismorning suit, standing at the alter holding hands. Both havetears in their eyes. Arthur lifts her veil and gives her thesweetest kiss.ANGLE ON Zoe and Bobby in the first pew, passing ahandkerchief back and forth.INT. SHADYBROOK REC ROOM - LATERBobby leans against the piano singing a beautiful renditionof "What a Wonderful World."Nana and Arthur are alone on the dance floor.   It's theirfirst dance as husband and wife.                    BOBBY              (singing)          I see trees of green, red roses          too. I see them bloom for me and          you...Zoe watches, her hands on her belly.   Mona stands beside her.                    MONA          This song always makes me cry.                     ZOE          Me, too.                    MONA          Is it happy or sad? The words are          happy but the song is so sad.                    ZOE          I guess it's both.   Happy and sad.                    BOBBY              (singing)          I see skies of blue and clouds of          white. The bright blessed day, the          dark and sacred night...                    MONA          I'm sorry about the things I said.                     ZOE          I know.                                                       102.                    MONA          It was really shitty of me.                    ZOE          It was. Especially because you          were right.Mona takes Zoe's hand.                    BOBBY              (singing)          And I think to myself...what a          wonderful world...                    ZOE          I don't want to be alone forever,          Mona.                    MONA          Then don't be.EXT. FARMER'S MARKET - DAYStan stares off into space. His beard is back.   A CUSTOMERsurveys the different cheeses on the table.                    CUSTOMER          Is this new? The Zoe?                    STAN          Yeah. This is the first week it's          been out.                    CUSTOMER          Can I have a sample?     What's it          like?                    STAN          It's...very stubborn, overly          suspicious and distrustful of men.The customer looks up at Stan.                    CUSTOMER          Huh?INT. SHADYBROOK REC ROOM - LATERBobby pulls Zoe onto the dance floor.                    BOBBY          Come on, you old maid.                                                       103.                       ZOE          No.                    BOBBY          Dance with me. One dance.                       ZOE          Forget it.                    BOBBY          Fine. But it doesn't mean that I          won't dance with you.                       ZOE          What?Bobby starts dancing. But really dancing. Justin Timberlakestyle. Zoe smiles at the absurdity and then tries to walkaway. But Bobby won't let her escape. He blocks her pathand keeps dancing. This time turning around and shaking hisass triple-time, like Beyonce.                       BOBBY          Haaaaaay.                    ZOE          Go away, you freak.A crowd of old people gather round. They start clapping,thinking this is some kind of young person's dance routine.                    BOBBY          Smack it, Bitch.Bobby takes Zoe's hand and smacks his ass with it.                    BOBBY (CONT'D)          You know you love it. Uh-huh.          That's right. Smack it.The old people do the same. Trying to learn the hip newdance the kids are doing. Several octogenarian couplessmacking each other's asses.While this is happening, a weird look crosses Zoe's face.Bobby jumps up and turns around to face Zoe. But when helands on the ground, his feet slide out from under him and hehits the floor.                    BOBBY (CONT'D)          What the hell?An OLD MAN in the crowd looks down at the puddle.                                                         104.                    OLD MAN          Damn it. Not again.              (then, checks pants)          Nope. Not me.A few other old people look down and check themselves.   Atwhich point, Zoe looks down and realizes.                    ZOE          I think my water just broke.EXT. SHADYBROOK RETIREMENT HOME - DAYThe whole retirement community is outside throwing rice asZoe, Bobby, Mona, Nana and Arthur try to figure out thelogistics of the trip to the hospital.                    ZOE          I'll drive.                    NANA          You're in labor.   You can't drive.                    ARTHUR          I'll drive.                     NANA          You don't have a car or a license.              (then, to Bobby)          You drive.                    BOBBY          We're in Queens. I don't even know          what side of the road they drive on          here.                    ZOE          Will someone please just drive me          to the fucking hospital?All of a sudden, a white ROLLS ROYCE pulls up.   Mona's at thewheel. She leans out and waves.                    MONA          This was my surprise for after the          wedding, but let's hit it.                    BOBBY          This works.They all pile in.                                                       105.And then the car pulls off, revealing a sign that says, JUSTMARRIED...FINALLY! "Ensure" cans tied to strings bump alongbehind them.INT. ROLLS ROYCE - LATERThings are a bit frantic in the car.                    NANA          Are you okay? Remember to breathe.          Breathe in, breathe out, breathe          in.Mona looks at Zoe in the rearview and does Lamaze breaths.                    MONA          Hee-hee, hoo-hoo, hee-hee.                    NANA              (joining in)          Hoo-hoo. Hee-hee...                     MONA/NANA          Hoo-hoo.   Hee-hee...                    ZOE          Please stop. It's getting really          breathy in here. I'm fine.                    BOBBY          What about me? I have amniotic          fluid on my Gucci tux.ANGLE on the mini bar, which is fully stocked.                    ARTHUR          Who needs a drink?Everyone (including Zoe) raises their hands.INT. LENOX HILL HOSPITAL - DAYZoe is being wheeled into Labor and Delivery with the gang intow. Bobby still has a glass of champagne in his hand. Nanagrabs the glass and swigs it.                    NANA              (whispering)          Bobby...                     BOBBY          What?                                                         106.                    NANA          I don't know if I can do this.                       BOBBY          What?!                    NANA          I can't go in with her.                    BOBBY          Well, I certainly can't do it.   I          don't do vaginas.They look at Arthur, who struggles to keep up with hiswalker.                    ARTHUR          Don't look at me.Nana starts to hyperventilate.                    NANA          Help me, Bobby.                    BOBBY          Nana, pull yourself together. This          is the biggest moment of Zoe's          life, and you can't let her down.          I'd slap you right now, but I'm          afraid your teeth would fly out.INT. LABOR AND DELIVERY ROOM - DAYZoe is now alone in a room wearing a hospital gown.                    ZOE          Hee-hee, hoo-hoo, hee-hee, hoo-hee. Bobby enters, all sweetness and light.                       BOBBY          Hey, girl.     How ya doing?                       ZOE          Okay.                    BOBBY          Good.              (smiles, then)          So, I really don't want you to          worry, but Nana just passed out at          the nurse's station and is now down          in the ER getting stitches.                                                        107.                       ZOE          What???                    BOBBY          Everything's under control. Good          thing we're at the hospital, right?Zoe jumps out of bed.                    ZOE          Where is she?                    BOBBY          Get back in bed. All is well.          Arthur's with her. Now, on to          bigger and better...who do you want          to be your birthing partner? Your          choices are me or Mona.Zoe starts to cry.                    BOBBY (CONT'D)          I know. They're shitty choices.          Do you want me to call your scary          lesbian friends from your group?                    ZOE          I don't know.                    BOBBY          We're going to get through this,          okay? You just have to really          think about it. Who do you want          with you in the delivery room?Zoe wipes her tears.                     BOBBY (CONT'D)          Who is the one person you want by          your side?EXT. 77TH STREET - DAYZoe runs down the street with a blanket over her hospitalgown.                       ZOE          Taxi!INT. TAXI - MOMENTS LATERZoe jumps in.   The cabbie looks at her in the rearview mirror                                                       108.                    CABBIE          You're not an escaped mental          patient, are you?                       ZOE          Kind of.EXT. 14TH STREET - DAYZoe runs across 14th street. The blanket flaps behind herlike a cape. She looks like a hugely pregnant super-hero.And suddenly, she has to slow down and then stop completelyfor a contraction. She leans against a parked van to steadyherself.                     ZOE          Ow.   Son of a bitch, that hurts.                    OLIVIA          Are you okay?Out of the corner of her eye, Zoe sees an enormous strawberryon the side of the van. And then next to it, she seesOlivia.                    OLIVIA (CONT'D)          Are you in labor?As soon as the contraction ends...                       ZOE          Fuck off.Zoe takes off again.    Olivia watches her go.EXT. FARMER'S MARKET - LATERZoe runs through the market looking for Stan.ANGLE ON Stan's truck, where Stan and Fred are unloadingcheese.                       ZOE          Stan!Fred turns around and sees Zoe running. All belly and boobsbouncing towards him. Her gown starting falling off.                    FRED          Whoa. I've had nightmares that          started like this.                                                      109.                      ZOE          Stan!Stan turns.                      STAN          Zoe?                      ZOE          Stan!                    STAN          Are you okay? Don't run!                    ZOE          I can't help it!She keeps running towards him. He now runs towards her.They finally meet. Zoe is out of breath and can barely talk.                    STAN          Are you all right?                    ZOE              (panting)          Great. I'm great.                    STAN          Why are you in a hospital gown?                    ZOE          I'm in labor.                     STAN          What?   What the hell are you doing          here?                      ZOE          It's you.                      STAN          What?                      ZOE          Nana's my birthing partner, but she          passed out and needed stitches, and          Bobby asked me who I most wanted          with me, and...it's you. It's only          you.               (then)          I don't want to be alone anymore.          I love you. You don't know how          much I love you.                                                          110.Stan doesn't know what to say.   He's literally speechless.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          More than anything in the world, I          love you.                    STAN          I've been in love with you since          the moment you stole my cab.Zoe bends over, holding her stomach.   A contraction.                    ZOE          Hee-hee, hoo-hoo, it was my cab,          hee-hee, hoo-hoo.The contraction ends. Zoe can finally smile again.      Stanlaughs and throws his arms around her.                      ZOE (CONT'D)          Ow.   Ow.   Ow.                     STAN          I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I just          love you. I love you so much.              (then)          Let's get the hell out of here.                    ZOE          Yeah. I think I really need to go          to the hospital now.They kiss again. And then pull apart and look at each other.Stan has tears in his eyes.                    STAN          Let's go have our babies.People clap and cheer as they hurry out of the Farmer'sMarket. Even Olivia, watching from a distance, can't helpbut applaud the big moment.INT. OPERATING ROOM - DAYSome fantastic song that makes us want to cry is playing...We are CLOSE on Zoe's face. She is smiling.    She does notlook scared. And she does not look alone.WIDEN to reveal Stan by her side.                                                        111.And we PULL BACK and above the operating table and see Dr.Harris performing the C-section. He pulls out the babies oneby one.We FOLLOW the babies as they get swaddled tight and handedback to Zoe and Stan.Zoe and Stan look at the little girls and then at each other.They are both in tears. Even Dr. Harris can't help but cry.INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHTIt's night.   Zoe is asleep.She opens her eyes and takes a moment to figure out where sheis. She turns to the side and finds Stan sleeping next toher, curled up against her in the tiny hospital bed.To the side of the bed are two bassinets.   Each baby sleepingsoundly in a little pink hat.And in the next bed is Nana, asleep with a bandage on herforehead.EXT. 6TH AVENUE - DAYNuts trots/rolls down the sidewalk wearing a sweater thatsays, "I'M A BIG BROTHER."We TILT up and see Zoe and Stan strolling arm in arm, eachwith a Baby Bjorn with a rosy-cheeked baby girl in it. Bothgirls have flaming red hair.A woman pushing a stroller passes by.   She smiles at Zoe andStan. They smile back.                     WOMAN          Hi.                     ZOE          Hi.                     STAN          Hi.INT. GRAY'S PAPAYA HOT DOGS - DAYThey are now at the counter with hot dogs in front of them.                    ZOE          Who knew you were such a romantic.                                                112.                     STAN          Well, it's the anniversary of our          first date. Where else would I          take you?              (then)          Cheers.They clink dogs and each take a bite.                    STAN (CONT'D)          What a year, huh?                    ZOE          Incredible. Wouldn't change a          thing. Well, except for the part          where you dumped me.                    STAN          And the part where you dumped me.              (to the babies)          Girls...Mommy and Daddy were          stupid.The babies smile and coo.                    ZOE              (baby-talk)          Yes, we were. Yes, we were.                    STAN          The first time we held hands was in          here. It started out as a high-          five, but then I strategically          turned into a hand-hold.                    ZOE          How do you remember that?                    STAN          We both agreed that we were totally          sick of weddings and hated when          people wrote their own vows.                    ZOE          That's right. I remember that.                    STAN          So...I hope you won't hold it          against me.                    ZOE          What?                                                         113.Nana and Arthur come through the door smiling.    Zoe looks atthem, confused.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          What are you doing here?And then Bobby comes through the door.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          Bobby?And then Mona.                    ZOE (CONT'D)          What's happening?And Joan and Edward. And Jalisa. And Fred. And Carol, Loriand Sara with Dakota planted on her breast. And a priest.And we...                                                DISSOLVE TO:INT. GRAY'S PAPAYA HOT DOGS - LATERZoe and Stan, still wearing the Baby Bjorns, stand face toface in front of the guests and the priest.                    STAN          I promise to love you even though          you still eat chicken McNuggets in          bed. I promise to name cheeses          after all of our children no matter          how embarrassed they are by it. I          promise to always check out your          ass when you walk away, and I          promise to love you more tomorrow          than I do today, which doesn't even          seem impossible...And slowly, the sound of Stan's voice fades out and the soundof Louis Armstrong's voice fades in...And we watch Zoe's face as she realizes that there are somethings that really will last forever.                                           FADE TO BLACK.                    THE END
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+                                      Rev.   06/20/94   (Pink)                                      Rev.   06/21/94   (Yellow)                                      Rev.   06/22/94   (Green)                                      Rev.   06/23/94   (Goldenrod)                                      Rev.   06/23/94   (PM) (Buff)                                      Rev.   06/24/94   (Salmon)                                      Rev.   06/24/94   PM (Cherry)                BAD BOYS                        Revised Draft                             by                       DOUG RICHARDSONProperty of:Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films          REVISED DRAFT (Blue)500 S. Bunea Vista St.Burbank, CA 91521                            June 20, 1994                            BAD BOYS    FADE IN:1   EXT. MIAMI LANDSCAPE - NIGHT                                   1    The sun might be down, but the city is baking. Waves of    heat ascend into the sky while an unmarked van navigates    ACROSS the SCREEN.2   INT. UNMARKED VAN - IN MOTION - NIGHT                          2    The driver is EDDIE DOMINGUEZ. And riding in the passen-    ger seat is a man dressed in black, called FOUCHET. He    looks to the rear.                             FOUCHET               What's taking so long back there?                                                  CUT TO:    REAR    Where the rest of the gang waits.      NOAH, KUNI, FERGUSON,    and CASPER. All dressed in black      like Fouchet, except    for ANDY. He stands and shows off      his Miami PD uniform.    His English is poor, yet he's got     a big, happy-to-be-    along grin on his face.                             ANDY               How do I look? Like the real               thing, yeah?                             FOUCHET               Step back and lemme get a good               look at you.    CLOSE SHOT - REAR VIEW MIRROR    THROUGH which Eddie can watch the action. Andy steps    further to the rear, almost to the door, facing the    front.                             FOUCHET               Tell me again about your               assignment, Andrew?                             ANDY               I'm the decoy.                             FOUCHET               Right you are.    Over the seat Fouchet reveals a SHOTGUN.     BOOM!                                                              2.3    EXT. VAN IN MOTION                                            3     Andy's body is blown through the rear doors as the van     turns a corner.4    INT. VAN - FOUCHET                                            4     He dials 911 on his cellular phone.     Fouchet sounds     distressed.                            FOUCHET              Please help! I just saw a              policeman shot! Send help.              Hurry! I'm at the corner of...5    EXT. NEAR DOWNTOWN - VAN - NIGHT                              5     A stream of PD CARS haul past, lights blazing and SIRENS     on full.6    EXT. COLONY HOTEL (SOUTH BEACH) - NIGHT                       6     Crowds moving up and down Ocean Blvd. Beautiful people     walking. Beautiful people watching. MUSIC BLENDS from     nightclub to nightclub. A POLICE RADIO, holstered to the     hip of a street cop. It CRACKLES with:                            POLICE RADIO (V.O.)              Report of an officer down. Be              advised, all units. Corner of              Lennox and Taylor.     Slipping by the street cop: Intro MARCUS BURNETT and     MIKE LOWREY. They shimmy through the hotel doors.A7   INT. COLONY HOTEL - NIGHT                                     A7     Where the buffed DESK MANAGER gets off the phone to     greet the effeminate pair.                              LOWREY              Good evening.    I'm Mike --                            BURNETT              -- And I'm Marcus.                            LOWREY              We're lookin' for a couple of our              Latin friends who checked in a              little while ago. You might              remember them?                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                           3.A7   CONTINUED:                                                  A7                            BURNETT              No chest hair. And packin'.                             DESK MANAGER              I'm sorry.   But our guest list is              private.                            LOWREY              Oh, didn't they say? There's              going to be party! It's              B.Y.O.B.O. --                     (leans in close)              The B.O. stands for baby oil.                            BURNETT              Maybe you can come. Get off after              you get off?     All three of them laugh.                            DESK MANAGER              Well, now that you mention it.              They were kinda cute. Suite 202.7    INT. COLONY HOTEL - STAIRWELL - NIGHT                       7     Lowrey and Burnett clip on their shields and unholster     their guns. The posing is over. This is business.A8   INT. COLONY HOTEL - SUITE 202 - NIGHT                       A8     On the table are two briefcases. Each opened. One     containing cocaine. The other, cash. A pistol next     to each.     REVEAL the dealers. Two young Dominicans seated across     from the TV, getting high, drinking beer and laughing out     loud at the Spanish language version of Time Traxx.     Then --     BANG! The door's kicked in and Lowrey's first through.     Burnett on backup.                             LOWREY              Police!   On the floor!     But the dealers split, rolling out of their chairs.   One     goes left and the other, right.                                               CUT TO:                                                           4.B8   BEDROOM                                                      B8     Lowrey tackles the first dealer to the floor. A LATINA     girl screams. Lowrey unfortunately looks and takes a     hard fist across the ear from the dealer. Angered,     Lowrey swings his pistol up underneath the perp's jaw     and knocks him through the bathroom door. Lowrey cuffs     him to the sink. Meanwhile... Back to:8    LIVING ROOM                                                  8     Burnett's in trouble. He's still got his gun in hand.     But the other dealer has him pinned underneath the legs     of a chair.                              BURNETT                Lowrey!     Burnett stomps the bad guy's instep. The guy buckles.     Burnett rolls away and stands in front of a window, just     in time to see the angry Dominican heading straight for     him.A9   EXT. COLONY HOTEL - CONTINUOUS ACTION                        A9     Burnett   and the other dealer come crashing out onto the     balcony,   then over onto an awning, rolling off onto some     occupied   cafe tables. Patrons scatter. Uniformed cops     move in   to assist.9    LOWREY                                                       9     appears soon after, walking down the hotel steps, leading     the Latina in his cuffs, and wearing his jacket.                              BURNETT                       (scraped, bruised,                        pissed)                Nice backup.                              LOWREY                What?     We TILT UP as POLICE HELICOPTER flies overhead.10   EXT. MIAMI BEACH SKYLINE - TITLE SEQUENCE - NIGHT            10     As OPENING TITLES RUN and MUSIC POUNDS -- we FLY OVER the     causeways, waterways and hotels that line the beach.     Something is happening in the balmy city as we CRUISE     downtown and ZERO IN ON...                                                          5.11   EXT. MIAMI'S OLDEST POLICE STATION (DOWNTOWN) - NIGHT       11     The HELICOPTER ROARS low over the rooftops toward the     causeway bridge.12   EXT. POLICE STATION - ROOFTOP - FOUCHET - NIGHT             12     As the helicopter passes over, he appears  from behind a     large exhaust port. Casper, Ferguson, and   Noah behind     him, all wearing high-tech miner's helmets  with built-in     radio headsets, and an array of high-tech  tools.                              FOUCHET              It's time.     The team crosses the roof to a huge air conditioning     unit. They climb inside, carrying a six-foot-long metal     case and what looks like a black scuba tank.13   INT. AIR UNIT/SHAFTS                                        13     Though it's windy and cramped in here, at least it's     cool. From a prone position, Fouchet puts on his night     vision goggles and reveals a palm top computer. Quickly     he scrolls through the labyrinthine schematics loaded     onto the unit. TILT DOWN to see the various ducts.     Endless. Bottomless. But clearly, Fouchet's a man who     knows his way.14   INT. POLICE STATION - SERIES OF SHOTS - NIGHT               14     Seemingly empty.   From squad rooms to locker rooms to     booking.15   INT. EVIDENCE ROOM - GUARD STATION                          15     OFFICER BILL O'FEE, 50s, reads a magazine and drinks     coffee. Video monitors in front of him show the     different lockers inside the evidence room. We see one     room with stacks upon stacks of heroin.16   IN AIR UNIT                                                 16     The team, attached to cables, slide into the building's     guts and disappear. STATIC CRACKLES:                               FOUCHET              We're in.     Start the video.                                                              6.17   EXT. POLICE STATION - ALLEY - NIGHT                           17     Kuni finds the conduit he's looking for, splices it,     cuts into it with a Makita battery-powered circular saw,     then attaches a handheld high-8 video machine and starts     the video feed. The unit is strapped to the conduit.18   INT. GUARD STATION - NIGHT                                    18     The MONITORS FLUTTER, then STABILIZE.    Turning the page,     O'Fee sugars his coffee.19   INT. TRASH CHUTE ROOM - NIGHT                                 19     An air vent smashes to the floor.    Two guys pull the     metal case inside the room.20   INT. EVIDENCE ROOM - HEROIN LOCKER - NIGHT                    20     BANG! Another air conditioning vent grate crashes to     the floor. Their headlights blazing, two men clamber     into the cavernous room, Fouchet along with Casper. This     is the special Drug Holding Room: The lock cuts like     butter and the steel door is yanked open. One hundred     million dollars in heroin. Each kilo brick is stamped     with a distinctive octopus logo.                            FOUCHET                     (into mic)              Where's Deputy Dog?                            FERGUSON (V.O.)                     (over radio mic)              He made us.                            FOUCHET              Then do him, now!21   GUARD STATION                                                 21     Sure enough.    As O'Fee stands from his desk --                                                  CUT TO:22   VENT ABOVE                                                    22     Where Ferguson is waiting with an air-powered tranquil-     izer gun. He cuts loose a silent round that strikes     O'Fee at the base of the neck. O'Fee stops. But before     he can think to reach back at what hit him, his knees     buckle and he drops to the linoleum. Out cold.                                                            7.23   INT. POLICE STATION - QUICK SHOTS - FERGUSON - NIGHT        23     One by one he moves backwards through the various levels     of locks, torching each to look as if they'd entered the     evidence room from inside the PD station.     Meanwhile --24   TRACH CHUTE ROOM                                            24     Noah removes what looks like a flattened bobsled with     large urethane wheels from the metal case and places it     inside the air shaft.     Ferguson attaches the black "scuba tank," labeled     "NITROUS OXIDE," to a valve. This is connected to a     metal-cased cable system that is piston-gunned into the     floor.                                               CUT BACK TO:25   HEROIN LOCKER                                               25     Fouchet and Casper moving the stacks of heroin, placing     them in the air duct on the bobsled. Once they're done,     we hear RADIO GARBLE, then the sled is cabled to the con-     traption. A button is pushed -- and the sled is pulled     at breakneck speed through the duct.26   EXT. POLICE STATION ALLEY - NIGHT                           26     Bag after bag drops down the trash chute and tumbles into     an open-roofed van where the last of the gang, Eddie     Dominguez, waits with the ENGINE RUNNING.27   IN AIR DUCT                                                 27     The sled rockets by again -- WHOOSH -- loaded with more     bags.28   INT. HEROIN LOCKER                                          28     Casper and Fouchet throw the last of their gear down the     chute and ride the sled out.29   EXT./INT. VAN - POLICE STATION - ALLEY                      29     One! Two! Three! Four! They all land atop the bags.     Eddie GUNS the VAN, which rolls up the ramp and out the     garage.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                            8.29   CONTINUED:                                                  29                            FOUCHET (O.S.)              Haul ass!30   EXT. POLICE STATION - ALLEY - NIGHT                         30     On the ledge the tape runs out and RECORDER EXPLODES.     Pieces scatter.31   EXT. STREET - NIGHT                                         31     The van drives off into the golden sunrise of Miami.     TITLES END.32   EXT. LUXURY HIGH-RISE (COCONUT GROVE) - MORNING             32     One of those expensive condo buildings on Brickell Avenue     with a circular driveway and a uniformed doorman.33   INT. CONDO - MORNING                                        33     CAMERA TRACKS THROUGH expensive and trendy bachelor's     lair. State-of-the-art everything, gorgeous artwork.     Spectacular view.     CAMERA STALLS ON -- a perma-plaqued newspaper clipping     with a photo depiction of Lowrey and Burnett in front of     a giant pile of black heroin, thumbs up to the camera.     The headline reads: MIAMI PD RECORDS RECORD HEROIN BUST.34   INT. LOWREY'S BEDROOM - MORNING                             34     Where Lowrey wakes up in a king-sized bed. The pain on     his face and empty, scattered bottles tell us he's     nursing a world-class hangover. He sits up, carefully,     holds his aching head. Hearing BREATHING, Lowrey lifts     the sheet next to him.     REVEAL THE LATINA     The one from the Colony Hotel. He drops the sheet back     over her head, reaches over to his nightstand and grabs     an industrial-sized bottle of Excedrin. Empty. He opens     the nightstand drawer, extracts another bottle. Empty.     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                9.35   INT. BATHROOM                                               35     All marble and brass. Lowrey opens up his medicine     cabinet. Locating a new bottle of aspirin... he suddenly     realizes that the SHOWER is RUNNING. Confused, he pulls     open the shower curtain slightly. From the back, it's an     incredible body, then she turns around and it's --     THE LATINA     Yes.   The very same as the one he just saw in bed.    What?                               LATINA TWIN               'Morning.     Lowrey closes the curtain on her. Frowns at this     impossibility. He steps back into the doorway and peers     over at his bed. Yep, same face. Twins?                             LOWREY                      (shaking his head)               Oh man...     He tears open the bottle of aspirin.    Chug-a-lugs.36   INT. BURNETT HOUSE - BEDROOM - MORNING                      36     Burnett and his young wife, THERESA, are jarred awake by     the CLOCK RADIO BLARING on the night stand. Theresa     gropes for RADIO, shuts it OFF. Burnett playfully gropes     for her.                             THERESA               Marcus, what are you doing?                             BURNETT               We're always saying we should               spend more quality time together.               Well, I got the time... and you               got the quality...     She laughs.   He kisses her.                             BURNETT               I can remember when we used to               do it every morning.                             THERESA               That was how we got a three               bedroom house filled with little               Burnetts.     She crawls from bed.                             BURNETT               Been over a week since I've had               some quality time!     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                             10.37   INT. BURNETT'S KITCHEN - MORNING                          37     Pandemonium. There's the two-and-a-half-year-old,     MEGAN, who's taking bites of food and spitting it back     out, looking at it, then putting it back in. Six-year-     old JILL, who is playing refrigerator magnet games on the     fridge. And Marcus in the middle of it all, deftly side-     stepping his eight-year-old boy, QUINCY, who appears on     roller blades whizzing through with a hockey stick and     ball. He body-checks Jill against the ice box.                            JILL              Mom, Quincy pushed me.                            QUINCY              Uncle Mike showed me that move.                            THERESA              Quincy, never-you-mind. And take              those things off in the house!              Jill, stop with the book and eat              your breakfast.                     (then, exasperated)              Marcus, why do I always have to              discipline the kids? You play              bad cop for a second.     Alongside the kitchen screen door we see Lowrey's PORSCHE     ROAR to a stop in the driveway.                            BURNETT              Kids, knock it off... or your              momma's gonna whoop your butts!     Theresa laughs in spite of herself as the kids continue     to fight. Into this craziness enters Mike Lowrey...                            LOWREY              Ah, family life. Reminds me              why I stay single.                             JILL & QUINCY              Uncle Mike!   Uncle Mike!                             LOWREY              Hiya, kids.   Mornin', Theresa.     Lowrey pecks Theresa on the cheek.   She recoils.                            THERESA              Don't kiss me, Lowrey. I don't              know where those lips were last              night.                                                (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            11.37   CONTINUED:   (2)                                            37                            QUINCY              Tell us some stories, Uncle Mike.              You know, the one about the              stewardess?                            THERESA              Don't go tellin' my son about              your sleazy sex life?                            LOWREY              I promise, Theresa. I only tell              your husband about my sleazy              sex life.     The TELEPHONE RINGS.                            THERESA              I don't want him knowing about it              either! Gives him ideas.                     (answers the phone)              Hello? Oh, sure. Which one of              them do you want?     Lowrey accepts the phone from Theresa and talks.                            LOWREY              You're live with Lowrey.                     (listens for a                      long beat)              'Scuse me, Captain. I think you              mean to say, 'Get the fuck down              here, please?'     Burnett automatically pulls on his jacket, hugs the     children as Lowrey hangs up.                            THERESA              Not so fast. You were going to              take the kids to school today,              remember, hon? I have a job              interview...     Lowrey rolls his eyes.38   EXT. BURNETT'S HOUSE - MORNING                              38     Burnett's following Lowrey and the kids out his front     door when his neighbor, DICK, accosts him from across     the hedge.                                                (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          12.38    CONTINUED:                                                38                             DICK               Hey, Marcus. Did you know we got               busted into again last night? When               are you gonna do something about this?                             BURNETT               Hey, Dick. How many times I gotta               tell you? I don't work robbery.               I'm in Narcotics.      Meanwhile, Lowrey's holding the car door open as the kids      pile into the jump seat in the back.                             LOWREY               Don't get your sticky fingers all               over my windows... and keep your               feet off the seats, I just had the               leather conditioned.      The kids ignore him, gleefully continuing to squirm      around. Before Burnett can get into the car, Theresa      runs out.                             THERESA               Marcus... I need you to stop at               Save-More on the way home and pick               up exactly what's on the list.      She hands Burnett a long list.                              BURNETT               Oh, baby.   Damn.      Lowrey shakes his head.A39   EXT. MIAMI P.D. - DAY                                     A39      Lowrey and Burnett pull up in Porsche.B39   INT POLICE STATION - HALLWAY - DAY                        B39      Lowrey and Burnett walking.                                BURNETT               Twins?                             LOWREY               If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'. Her               sister came down and posted the               girl's bail. And later? Man,               talk about special effects.                             BURNETT               What special effects?     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                         A12A.39   INT. NARCOTICS SQUAD ROOM - CONTINUOUS ACTION           39                            LOWREY              Tell you later -- Mornin',              Francine. Where's the smile?                                               (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/20/94                                12A.39   CONTINUED:                                                39     FRANCINE, a civilian employee of the narcotics unit.     She's got pictures of her children parked around her     computer desktop. And though dowdy would be a     compliment, she's usually got a pleasant smile for     the boys. Except today...                            FRANCINE              Evidence room. Howard's waiting              for you.                            BURNETT              Your kids are lookin' sharp,              Francine.     She smiles.40   INT. EVIDENCE ROOM - DAY                                  40     Burnett and Lowrey know there's big problems when, at the     bottom of the stairwell, the first thing they see is a     yellow police tape and fingerprint team dusting a torched     lock. Problem is, the building is nothing but cops and     it looks as if the entire department is stomping all over     the evidence room.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                         13.40   CONTINUED:                                                 40     INTRO - SANCHEZ AND RUIZ                            SANCHEZ              Let's see. There's Sleepy, Grumpy,              Sneezy, Happy, Bashful... Now,              who could we be missin'?                            RUIZ              Could it be... Dopey?     Both laugh hysterically, while:                            LOWREY              If it ain't the leftovers from              Miami Vice. Fashion casualties,              lost somewhere in the eighties.                            BURNETT              And the women really go for that.              Really, they do.     As Burnett and Lowrey duck the tape, they note a very     groggy O'Fee over in the corner being attended by a     paramedic team. He's still out cold. An oh shit look     passes between the two partners.41   INT. HEROIN LOCKER - DAY                                   41     Another torched lock noted as Burnett and Lowrey enter     with Sanchez an Ruiz behind them. The room is emptied.     Captain HOWARD appears. He's short, has a military     haircut, and has a minor Napoleon complex and a major in     paranoia.                            HOWARD              Nice of you to roll in. And              nothing particular is going on              around here except, maybe, your              dope is gone. That's right. The              biggest dope bust in the history              of this department up and walked              out of this locker, along with              maybe my job and the two of yours              if we don't get the shit back.                            BURNETT              This can't be happening.                                                (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                              14.41   CONTINUED:                                                 41                            HOWARD              So here's what we're gonna do.              Since it was originally your              case, you two guys are on point.              Sanchez and Ruiz, you back them              up with whatever they need.     Groans all around.                            LOWREY              So I guess we should start with              the C.I.s and the perps from the              original case. But hell if I              know any dope dealers with the              balls to pull this off. They're              either dead or in the lock-up              pending trial.                               BURNETT              How's O'Fee?                            SINCLAIR (O.S.)              Oh, he'll be just fine.     From the side appears a cigar-chewing Internal Affairs     suit named SINCLAIR. He circles close to Burnett and     Lowrey, waving his cigar as he speaks.                            HOWARD              Name's Sinclair. Internal              Affairs. He's our new proctologist.                            SINCLAIR              You see, what's got me confused              is, why risk leaving a witness?              Why not kill O'Fee instead?                            BURNETT              Because maybe this guy knows if              you kill a cop the whole              department'll get up his ass              hard and fast.                            SINCLAIR              And who knows that better than              anybody else? Cops.                            BURNETT              You're not sayin' this was an              inside job. Cops wouldn't pull              this shit.                                                 (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                              15.41   CONTINUED:   (2)                                           41                            SINCLAIR              Not just cops. Narcotic cops.              For example, the S.N.D. You've              got access. You've got              wherewithall. And most              importantly, you've got the              connections. Who else would know              how to unload a hundred million              dollars worth of heroin?                            LOWREY              Hey, fuck you and your cheap, off-              the-rack suit.                            HOWARD              Enough. I.A.'s in it and there's              nothing we can do about it. If              any of this leaks, the shit's              gonna hit our biggest fan.              Remember him? The mayor? He              created us and you can bet your              jobs, boys, he'll rip us into              little cop pieces. I figure we              got seventy-two hours to find the              dope and keep our jobs.                            LOWREY              Nothing like a little old-fashioned              incentive.     CLOSE ON BURNETT     He walks to the center of the room and kneels to those     four bolt holes in the floor. He fingers the paraffin     filler, then looks above to the air conditioning grate.                            BURNETT              What about the air conditioning?                            HOWARD              So what about it?                            BURNETT                     (to Lowrey)              What do you think?                            LOWREY              I think you should go ahead,              crawl up and give it a good              look.                               BURNETT              Why me?                                                 (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                    15A.41   CONTINUED:   (3)                              41                            LOWREY              For one, it was your idea. Two,              while my suit's fresh, you're              dressed for the occasion.                            BURNETT              Don't say nothin' about my              clothes. I paid for these.                               LOWREY              And I don't?                            BURNETT              Not on a cop's salary.                                                         16.42   INT. HEROIN LOCKER - INSIDE SHAFT - BURNETT                42     Burnett crawls up with some help from Lowrey below,     stalling the oscillating fan with his cuffs and crawling     through. The first thing Burnett notices are the track     marks from the bobsled cutting through a coating of dust.                             LOWREY              Anything?                            BURNETT              Yeah. I got some weird track              marks in here.     Then Burnett notes a manufacturing stamp at the joint.     It reads: ORONA AIR CONTITIONING SYSTEMS, INC.43   INT. HEROIN LOCKER ROOM - ON HOWARD                        43     Who appears from below, framed in the vent shaft.                            HOWARD              Nice and cool up there, Burnett?              Comfy? Maybe there's a new career              for you in building maintenance.44   INT. SQUAD ROOM - DAY                                      44     Lowrey and Burnett with their desks opposite each other.     The CAMERA CIRCLES while they lay the arm on some     informants.                            BURNETT              There's gonna be a lotta cash              when the dope hits the street.              We want you to put the word out              through your bank and hustle the              account.  You help us, maybe we              can see about getting those R.T.C.              auditors off your ass.                            LOWREY              Listen, Cedras. You and I both              know you're the number one importer              for the Simona Brothers. And I'm              tellin' you there's a buttload of              H on the move and someone's gonna              wanna stick their dick in it. So              it better not be yours. You hear              something? You call us. You hear              nada? You better get the fuck              outta town.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             17.45    INT. UNMARKED CAR - DAY                                      45      Lowrey's driving, no seatbelt, doing his usual speed-      weaving. Burnett's hanging onto the handle above the      door.                             BURNETT               Not a fucking lead. So now that               we've done the obvious, we need               a shortcut.                              LOWREY               Okay.   So we talk to Max.                             BURNETT               Huh uh. Not this time. I'm               tired of you working pussy into               everything we do.                             LOWREY               You got a better idea?A46   EXT. CONGRESS GYM - ESTABLISHING - DAY                       A46      Lowrey and Burnett arrive in the unmarked car.46    INT. CONGRESS GYM - DAY                                      46      Once-colorful stucco, fading and crumbling. Scrappy      Cuban fighters spar and work out on the aging equipment      while, at the same time, a remarkable amount of amazing-      looking women work out on weight bags, shadow box with      trainers. Curves and sweat, any way you look.      BURNETT AND LOWREY      enter. And while Lowrey cruises amongst the sweaty flesh      as if it were a day in the park, Burnett lags. Maybe he      has been married too long.      CLOSE ON MAX LOGAN      she's doing sit-ups on an incline bench.     She notices      Lowrey.                              MAX               Hi, Mike.   You come to work-out?                             LOWREY               Raincheck, darlin'. Gotta talk.               Anyplace we can go?                                                   (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            18.46   CONTINUED:                                                  46                            MAX              Equipment room. Hiya, Marcus.              How's your wife?                             BURNETT              Huh?                            MAX              That's what I thought.47   INT. EQUIPMENT ROOM - DAY                                   47     This room isn't enclosed. It's walled by wire mesh.     Private enough, though. Max shuts the door.                            LOWREY              Sorry to come around only when              I need something.                            MAX              Forget about it. I owe you the              rest of my life, Mike.     Lowrey just gives her an "oh please" look.                            MAX              Don't be lookin' at me like I'm              getting all sentimental.                            LOWREY              Hey, I didn't open my mouth.              Listen, there's some major, major              ill shit happening down at the              P.D. Lotta heroin involved. There's              gonna be a lotta cash involved, too.              Gonna be some happy motherfuckers              around that wanna party.                            MAX              So you want me to check around?                            LOWREY              Just make a coupla calls. See what's              what. Don't be doin' no wild shit.              Just call me if you hear something.48   INT. BOXING GYM - DAY                                       48     Burnett is surrounded by beautiful, sweaty women. One of     them is a fabulous BLACK WOMAN with legs so long and     toned, they're not just legs, they're weapons. Burnett     can't help but stare.                                                  (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                           19.48   CONTINUED:                                                 48                            BLACK WOMAN              Who's Max's friend?                             BURNETT              A cop.                              BLACK WOMAN              Oooh.    I love cops.     The other girls are suddenly interested, too.   Burnett     swallows and...                            BURNETT              You know? I'm a cop. I shot              somebody just last week. Didn't              kill him, just shot him in the              ass.     Stone cold looks from them all. They walk away with     Burnett giving a "what did I say" look. Lowrey appears.                            LOWREY              You know, that was really smooth.              Think you could do that again?                     (as they start                      walking)              Ohh. I'll tell you, when the wife              gets meaner, the grass gets greener.                            BURNETT              Green ain't the color I was              thinkin' of. More of a coco puff.              Just real shiny, thick...49   EXT. BOXING GYM                                            49     As they head toward their car, Burnett's BEEPER SOUNDS.     He switches it OFF.                            BURNETT              Damn! The woman's got fuckin'              radar on my ass. Sensed me              lookin' at another woman. Bet              she wants me to pick up Huggies              'stead of those baby Garanimals              that they wear.                            LOWREY              I don't think anybody could be              that married.     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            19A.50   INT. UNMARKED POLICE CAR - IN MOTION - DAY                 50     Burnett drives cautiously while both he and Lowrey bob     to Ice-T's "COP KILLER." They get a kick out of the     song.                            LOWREY                     (complies)              Miami's the perfect town for you,              Burnett. You drive like a one-              hundred-seven-year-old lady with              her turn signal on.                            BURNETT              And I plan on living to be old              just like 'em. Rubbin' Ben Gay              on my joints and everythin'.     An old guy passes them even though his car is pulling     an Airstream camper behind it. Lowrey can't believe it.                            LOWREY              You gonna let every old              motherfucker pass you? Or just              the ones with big-ass trailers              draggin' behind? A-c-c-el-er-ate.                            BURNETT              I don't have a death wish like              you. I  got a family that counts              on me.  A mortgage to pay. And              I'm not sayin' it's me, but most              of the guys in the station think              you're some rich kid playin' cop.                            LOWREY              Who said that?     Burnett mumbles an answer.                            LOWREY              If somebody's talking about me, I              wanna know... Man, I'm so sick of              this. I don't apologize for              nothing I do. I get up early and              take it to the max every day. I'm              always the first guy through the              door. And the last guy to leave a              crime scene. So fuck 'em all. I              could give a shit what those boot              lickin', brown-nosin', ass kissin'              motherfuckers think of Mike Lowrey.     What can Burnett say to all that, but...                                                  (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          20.50   CONTINUED:                                                50                            BURNETT              I love you, man.     He lets loose a big grin.                            LOWREY              Oh, fuck you, Marcus.     The RADIO CRACKLES.                            DISPATCHER (V.O.)                     (over radio)              Two-one? I got that address for              you on the air conditioning              company. Oh, and Theresa called,              she added something to your grocer              list: Muppets toothpaste. Bubble              gum flavor. She says Quincy              doesn't like mint.     Lowrey rolls his eyes, glances at Burnett, who's     embarrassed.                           LOWREY              Yeah. Roger that. Gimme the              address.                            DISPATCHER (V.O.)              Orona's been working out of his              house. He's at...51   EXT. KEY BISCAYNE ESTATE - ESTABLISHING - DAY             51     Burnett and Lowrey step from their unmarked car and     start up the steps to this stony, estate-sized house.                            LOWREY              The air conditioning business              has been good to Orona.     Lowrey rings the bell.   They wait.   No answer.                            BURNETT              Well, we can leave a note or we              can break and enter --                            LOWREY              Wait. Hear that? I thought I              heard Orona beating his wife.     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                              21.52   INT. ESTATE - REAR DOOR                                       52     Lowrey kicks the door in.                              LOWREY              Uh oh.    No alarm.                              BURNETT              Aw, man.    Did you cut one?                              LOWREY              No, man.    Musta been you.                               BURNETT              Not me.     Lowrey and Burnett look at each other and draw guns.                               LOWREY AND BURNETT              Dead guy.53   INT. ORONA'S DEN - DAY                                        53     The door is unlocked and swings open easily to reveal     Lowrey and Burnett in an instant, repulsed reaction to     Orona's body which sits upright in his office chair, the     body grotesque and bloated.                               LOWREY              Now what?     A sickened Burnett goes over to the body, speaking to     Orona as if he were alive.                            BURNETT              Where are the drugs?                     (no answer)              Where... are... the... drugs?                     (shrugs)              He ain't sayin' nothin'. He must              be guilty of somethin'.     Meanwhile, Lowrey's got   no problem with the dead body.     He tries opening a desk   drawer, but Orona's rigor mortis-     stiffened knee is in the   way. So Lowrey gives it a shove     and the chair swivels.    Orona's dead arm sweeps the lamp     off the desk.                            BURNETT              Whoa. Watch where you're swinging              them dead arms, Orona. You're              gonna fuck up your own crime              scene.                                                    (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             22.53   CONTINUED:                                                   53     Lowrey braves the body and gingerly pokes around his     pockets.                              BURNETT                Watch what you touch.   That's                evidence.                              BURNETT                Not touching. Browsing... Mr. Orona.                You've got the right to remain                silent. Anything you say'll                surprise the shit out of us.                             BURNETT                Anything?                              LOWREY                       (finds small notepad)                Jai-Alai. Dog track. Lotta                bookies. Phone numbers.                              BURNETT                Lemme guess. Guy does the air                conditioning contract for the P.D.                He'd have the plans.                              LOWREY                He trades the plans for his paper                and gets popped by the perps.                              BURNETT                Works for me. Now can we go?                I'm gonna puke.54   EXT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - SUNSET                             54     A Palm Beach styled antique.55   INT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - SUNSET                             55     As antique as the exterior. Well-tended. Lots of potted     ferns amongst rattan and craftsman era furniture.     Enter --     LOIS     Matronly, in her flowered dress and bare feet, she     carries a tea tray toward the kitchen. Max is following.                                                 (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          23.55   CONTINUED:   (A1)                                         55                            MAX              Please, Lois. Make some calls.              That's all. I'm looking for a              party with fresh cash.                            LOIS              I'm not doing any favors for              Mike Lowrey.                            MAX              Then call it a favor for me.              Please?                            LOIS              Okay, then. I'll make the calls.              But you have to talk to Julie.                            MAX              I'll talk to her but she's not              into it.                            LOIS              All you have to say is that              she'll be getting paid for what              she already does for free.                                                (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                                 24.55    CONTINUED:                                                    55                             MAX               And she'll say, 'There's one big               difference. I do it for fun. I               don't ever have to blow anyone I               don't like.'                                                   CUT TO:56    FRONT DOOR                                                    56      It swings open to reveal JULIE MOTT, 24, just as      beautiful as Max and dressed to be undressed. She drops      one of those big, model's shoulder bags to the floor and      gazes curiously back at Lois and Max. Her ears are      burning.                              JULIE               Okay.   So what'd I miss?A57   EXT. BILTMORE HOTEL (MIAMI BEACH) - MAGIC HOUR                A57      The hotel bustles with activity.     Cabs pull up.   Doormen.      Bellhops. Rich people.57    EXT. BILTMORE HOTEL - COURTYARD - DUSK                        57      As Max and Julie walk through...                                MAX               George?                             JULIE               Bad moods after a bad round of               golf... I had blonde hair, then.                             MAX               What about Ronny?                                JULIE               Sex addict.     Coke addict.               Redhead.                             MAX               You were a redhead?                             JULIE               Only for two days. It wasn't               even a phase.                                MAX               Okay.   Mark.                                                   (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                       25.57   CONTINUED:                                          57                            JULIE              Oooh. Bad loser and bad, bad              blonde. Farrah, frosted kinda              big bad blonde. Oooh.     Max laughs.                            JULIE              But that's my point. I remember              my hair phases more than I              remember the men.                     (playful, sarcastic)              So, a party in a Biltmore Hotel              suite? Yeah, that'll really rock.                            MAX              It's a favor for a friend. If it              sucks after a half-hour, we'll              split and head to South Beach.                               JULIE              A favor?                            MAX              You know, my friend Mike Lowrey.                            JULIE                     (rolls her eyes)              Mike Lowrey. Not again. Will you              just have sex with the man and get              it over with.                            MAX              He's just a friend.                               JULIE              Yeah, right.     You're in love.                            MAX              It's never gonna happen. I'm              great at turning lovers into              friends. But turning friends              into lovers, I can't do.                            JULIE              Well, I don't date cops. They              never have enough money and              they're always too tired to              screw.                            MAX              Well, I've told you before, my              Mike isn't like that. If I were              in real trouble, Mike Lowrey is              the only person I'd call.     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                                 25A.58   OMITTED                                                       5859   INT. BILTMORE HOTEL - AL CAPONE'S SUITE - DUSK                59     Upon arrival, the door is opened to Max and Julie by     Eddie Dominguez, instantly recognizeable from the heist.     Eddie's pouring champagne into a glass.                             EDDIE               Max, my little carina. It's               been a long time. And who's               your friend?                              MAX               Eddie.   Julie.     Julie sizes him up.    Good taste.   His suit.   Bad taste.     His personality.                             EDDIE               Come on, Julie. Come in, Max.               Welcome to the Al Capone suite.     Thev're stepped into a grand, opulent suite. High     arched ceilings. Magnificent antique furniture. Killer     view. No party guests.                             EDDIE               I'm not kidding. Capone had               the place fixed up with secret               passages and hidden stairways.               Can you dig it? People were               actually killed within these               walls.     He's moved behind them and reveals a concealed staircase     that rises into darkness.     CLOSE ON JULIE     Not happy. Stuck at the Biltmore with a Scarface     wannabe. She looks over at Max. Let's get outta here.                              JULIE               Excuse me?   I need to use the               bathroom.     Julie crosses to the bathroom.                             EDDIE               Wow, Maxi. I thought you dropped               off the edge of the earth and died.               Either that or you moved to               California.                                                  (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                           25B.59   CONTINUED:   (A1)                                      59                            MAX              So, Eddie. Looks like we're              way too early. How's about we              come back later?                                              (CONTINUED)                                                          26.59   CONTINUED:                                                 59                            EDDIE              No. Don't go yet. We can              party. Just us three. Look at              what Eddie's got to play with.     From underneath the couch Eddie reveals a single key of     heroin. Max tries to hide the recognition that she just     hit paydirt on the very first try.60   INT. BATHROOM - JULIE                                      60     Where she's silently cursing Max for getting her into     this lame-ass party when she hears MUFFLED VOICES outside     the bathroom. Instinctively, Julie peers through the     louvered shades.61   JULIE'S POV - THROUGH SHADES                               61     She sees Eddie opening the door to Fouchet.   Casper and     Noah follow him inside.                                               CUT BACK TO:62   INT. AL CAPONE SUITE                                       62     Eddie is instantly nervous in the presence of Fouchet.                            FOUCHET              Who's the girl, Eddie?                            EDDIE              Just a hooker --                            MAX              My name's Max.                     (outstretched hand)              I'm just a friend.                            FOUCHET              I could use a friend who looks              like you. Turn around. Lemme              get a good look.     Max tries to size this man, then chooses to submit. She     does her best model's turn. Slowly giving him a view of     the rear when --     Fouchet draws a PISTOL -- BAM BAM!!     Max tumbles forward and CRASHES through a GLASS TABLE.                                                            27.63   INT. BATHROOM - JULIE                                         63     Instant horror. Julie saw Max killed and retreats to     the opposite side of the bathroom in total fright.                                                 CUT BACK TO:64   INT. CAPONE SUITE                                             64     Now, Fouchet swings the gun onto Eddie.                             FOUCHET               You're a fucking idiot. Hookers               talk. Now, is that my dope?                             EDDIE                      (freaked)               Our dope... That was the deal,               yeah? Right. Until we got the               money --     BAM!   Fouchet SHOOTS Eddie in the knee.   Eddie screams!                             EDDIE               You fucker... fucker fucker               fucker!!!                             FOUCHET               I have four more days until I               make the deal. When it's done               you get your money. Now, what               part don't you understand?                              EDDIE               Hey, man.   You need me.                             FOUCHET               I don't need anybody. I got three               little angels looking over my               shoulder.     REVERSE SHOT - EDDIE'S CHAIR     Fouchet UNLOADS THREE MORE SHOTS.    BAM BAM BAM!!!   Blood     spatters onto Casper.                            CASPER               Aw, man. You got blood on my               new suit.                             FOUCHET               Ever hear of dry cleaning? Now,               shut the fuck up, check for the               rest of my dope.                                                         28.65   INT. BATHROOM - JULIE                                      65     Half-panicked, half-trying to keep her head. There's no     way out of the bathroom. All she can do is switch off     the light. And now she sees Casper's shadow as he     approaches.     CLOSE ON DOORKNOB     As it turns. Julie suddenly reaches for it and pulls     open the door with a surge. Casper stumbles in, his     face hitting the hard tile with a crunch.66   INT. CAPONE SUITE - JULIE                                  66     Making her move, she hauls as fast as she can across the     room. Aiming for that secret fireplace door.     FOUCHET     Wheels with his PISTOL, unloads the clip. BULLETS are     catching up, ripping up the couch and the rest of the     suite. Julie dives right into the secret door.67   INT. SECRET PASSAGEWAY - SAME TIME                         67     Dark. Twisting. We MOVE WITH Julie as she races through     it, heart in her throat. She comes upon some old metal     stairs, a sliver of light at the top, and clambers up...68   EXT. BELL TOWER - NIGHT                                    68     High atop the Biltmore, this is where the passageway     leads out to. A door flies open and Julie appears.     Panicked. Wind whipping all around her. A bird flies     by, startling her. Hearing the APPROACHING THUGS, Julie     sprints as best she can across the Spanish-tiled roof.     Turns to see --69   EXT. BELL TOWER - NIGHT                                    69     Noah and Casper appear in the Bell Tower. Noah scans     the roof, takes aim and FIRES, but he's too far away --     and Julie disappears behind a rise in the roof.70   EXT. BILTMORE - ROOFTOP - JULIE - NIGHT                    70     She steps towards the edge of the roof. Quickly peers     over. A huge swimming pool, five stories down.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                          29.70   CONTINUED:                                                 70     She weighs the options.   Jump or die.     NOAH AND CASPER     As they try running across the harsh-tiled roof...                            CASPER              Now look. My fuckin' shoes.      My              fuckin' Italian shoes!     Then Julie prays silently, takes a running start and     leaps from the roof. SLOW-MOTION as Julie flies through     the air like some glamorous angel.71   EXT. BILTMORE POOL - UNDERWATER - NIGHT                    71     as Julie breaks the surface with a huge splash. The     water swirls as her aching body struggles to the surface.72   EXT. BILTMORE POOL - SURFACE - NIGHT                       72     Julie breaks water like a dolphin, gasping for breath.     She's dazed and confused, but alive -- for the moment.73   INT. AL CAPONE SUITE - NIGHT                               73     Fouchet reaches down and picks up Max's purse, then     flicks it across the room to the defeated pair of Casper     and Noah.                            FOUCHET              She's a hooker. Find out who              she works for. Find out where              she lives.74   EXT. BILTMORE HOTEL - HALF-HOUR LATER                      74     Several police cars, an ambulance and a coroner's van     are now parked in front, the lobby awash in strobing     red and blue lights. CAMERA PANS PAST the crime scene     personnel to find Burnett and Lowrey pulling up to the     scene. They get out and thread their way through the     growing chaos.75   INT. BILTMORE - AL CAPONE SUITE - NIGHT                    75     The place is a mess. Homicide detectives are already on     the scene, drawing chalk circles around casings on the     floor.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                           30.75   CONTINUED:                                                  75     On the far side of the commotion, the two bodies have     been photographed and are covered. Chief Howard is     conferring with a technician who's dusting for prints.     BURNETT AND LOWREY     enter.     But Sanchez and Ruiz are already on the scene.                             RUIZ               You guys watch where you're walking               or you'll fuck up the crime scene.                             BURNETT               Looks like you're already doing               that.     Burnett's quick to point out the trail of bloody foot-     prints Ruiz just tracked across the carpet.     CLOSE ON CHAMPAGNE GLASS     Which Julie left on the fireplace mantel. Lowrey's quick     to note the two separate shades of lipstick.                             HOWARD               Two dead. A hood registered as               Eddie Dominguez and some Jane               Doe. But the table over there's               covered in high-grade dope. Sound               familiar?                                LOWREY               I think we    got us a witness.               Over here    I got two different               shades of    lipstick on one               champagne    glass.     Meanwhile --     BURNETT     He drops the sheet on Eddie's body, then moves over to     Max's. He doesn't know it's her until --                               BURNETT               Jesus, no...                               LOWREY               Whatcha got?                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                            31.75   CONTINUED:   (2)                                             75     Burnett drops the sheet, turns and puts a protective     shoulder between Lowrey and the body.                               LOWREY              What?     Who is it?     Lowrey instintively pushes past his partner and kneels     at the body. He pulls back the sheet. Right now he     could kill the shooter, then himself. In that order.     Lowrey's eyes well up.                            LOWREY              I shoulda told you to be careful.76   INT. BILTMORE HOTEL - LOBBY - NIGHT                          76     The elevator doors open and out step Burnett and Lowrey     into a lobby full of cops. Lowrey goes straight to the     front desk.                            LOWREY              Eddie Dominguez. I want his              phone calls.     He flashes a badge.                            HOTEL CLERK              You pay the bill you can see              his phone calls.                               LOWREY              I'm sorry.     Maybe I wasn't polite              enough.     With a flashing right jab, Lowrey pops the snooty Clerk.     After the Clerk finds his feet, eyes peering over the     counter...                            BURNETT              I wouldn't fuck with him right              now.77   EXT. BILTMORE HOTEL - NIGHT                                  77     Walking down the steps toward their car, Lowrey passes     the phone sheet off to Burnett.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                            32.77   CONTINUED:                                                   77                             LOWREY               Three calls to Lois Fields.               I'm going to stop by her place               and tell her a bedtime story.               You can catch a ride with Howard.     Lowrey jumps in the car.                             BURNETT               Uh oh... Alright, you check out               Lois, then check in --78   INT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - MASTER SUITE - NIGHT               78     Replete with balcony and billowy curtains, the old-styled     madame LOIS FIELDS sits up on her bed covered in pillows     and exotic stuffed animals. She thumbs an old, leather-     bound looseleaf binder full of modeling photos and     resumes.                             LOIS FIELDS               I'm sorry, Jimmy. But you can't               have her. Shelly only models and               that's all... That's right. Like               I always say, some girls do, some               girls don't, and the rest you               can't afford --                      (line cuts out)               Hello? Jimmy... Jimmy?     Suddenly, the power is cut.79   INT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - FRONT DOOR - NIGHT                 79     CRASH!   The front DOOR breaks down.   Noah appears.80   EXT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - NIGHT                              80     Lowrey parks the Porsche.81   INT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - NIGHT                              81     The door is open and the deadbolt looks smashed with     something heavy like a sledgehammer. Lowrey pulls a     radio with one hand and his pistol with the other.                                                 (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                               33.81   CONTINUED:                                                  81                            LOWREY                     (into mic)              This is twenty-one two. I'm              gonna need back-up at 614 Reach              Road.     Lowrey eases inside the darkness of the doorway. He     checks the lights, but the power is off. Slipping the     radio into his coat pocket, he returns with a mini-     flashlight and begins to clear a path, doorway by     doorway, then moving up a wide stairwell.82   INT. MIAMI PD - SQUAD ROOM - NIGHT                          82     Howard is sitting at the edge of the desk while Burnett     is on the phone with Theresa.                            HOWARD              Did you check parole? How about              F.B.I. or D.E.A.? They're              supposed to be compliant with our              requests? And where the hell's              Lowrey?                            BURNETT                     (hand over phone)              Following this Lois Fields lead.              I just paged him.                           HOWARD              The madame? What's it with this              guy? It's always girls, girls,              girls.                            BURNETT                     (as Theresa screams)              No, Theresa... No, he wasn't              talking about you.83   INT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - UPSTAIRS - NIGHT                  83     MOVING THROUGH the doors of the master suite where a light     breeze blows through balcony of sheer curtains, Lowrey     turns ever-so-slowly with his flashlight following a beat     behind. The beam comes to rest on a bludgeoned body     laying on the bed amongst huge pillows and exotic stuffed     animals. The telephone cord is wrapped around her neck.     Lowrey's closer inspection reveals --                                                  (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                  34.83   CONTINUED:                                                      83     LOIS'S CLIENT BOOK     Where an obvious page   and photo have been ripped out.     Julie's. Lowrey goes    for the phone. Picks it up with     his handkerchief. No    dial tone. So he drops the     receiver and heads out   of the room. But just as he     reaches the doorway --     Suddenly -- Lowrey's BEEPER SOUNDS.     He jumps.    Reaches down to switch it off when --     From out of those billowing curtains -- Noah!     Sledgehammer in hand, he swings at Lowrey, who instinc-     tively blocks and ducks as the hammer misses and crushes     the bannister railing. It gives under Lowrey's weight,     who reaches over and traps the sledgehammer, only to find     one of Noah's hammy fists battering him behind the ear     until --     The rail finally gives way.     Lowrey falls and crashes onto a Craftsman table covered     in antique picture frames. It collapses underneath him.     Then --     CLOSE ON LOWREY'S RADIO     Laying next to him.    It SQUAWKS LOUDLY...                               BACK-UP COPS (V.O.)                        (over radio)                 Pulling up now, twenty-one-two.                 Give us your twenty in the                 residence... twenty-one-two. Do                 you copy. Twenty-one-two...     The CAMERA LIFTS to reveal that Noah has vanished.84   INT. MIAMI PD - SQUAD ROOM - NIGHT                              84     Howard can't believe his ears.       Is every cop's wife such     a pain in the...                               BURNETT                 Theresa, I know it was my idea. I                 know I was the one who wanted a                 little quality time.  It's just                 that this can't wait.  Can't I                 just wake you up when I get home?                                                    (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                               35.84   CONTINUED:                                                   84     Lowrey's PHONE RINGS.    But Howard's close so he picks it     up.                            HOWARD              It's about fuckin' time.                     (answers)              Howard here.     INTERCUT WITH:85   INT. JULIE'S APARTMENT - JULIE                               85     This small place is a typical, party girl pit  stop. Very     little furniture, but closets overflowing with  clothes.     Magazines, beer bottles, unmade bed. Wet and   frightened,     Julie scurries around with a cordless phone at  her ear,     locking all the doors and windows.                            JULIE              I need to talk to Detective Lowrey!                            HOWARD              He's not here. How can I help you?                            JULIE              You can get me Detective Lowrey!                            HOWARD              This isn't another paternity              case, is it?                               JULIE              No.     It's another murder case.                            HOWARD              Did this happen at the Biltmore              Hotel?                            JULIE              Listen! I just saw my best friend              murdered. I'm soaking wet. I'm              alone, I'm scared and I'll only              talk to Mike Lowrey!                            HOWARD              Don't hang up. Lemme find him.                     (hand over phone)              Page Lowrey. Find out where he              is!                               BURNETT              Theresa.     I gotta go.     Burnett hangs up and redials Lowrey's pager.     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                             35A.86   EXT. LOIS FIELD'S MANOR - NIGHT                            86     Lowrey, battered and barely conscious, is loaded into an     ambulance. His BEEPER SOUNDS.87   INT. JULIE'S APARTMENT - JULIE                             87     She's so frustrated she's about to hang up.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                         36.87   CONTINUED:                                                 87                            JULIE              I don't want to come downtown! I              don't want police protection! If              you can't gimme Detective Lowrey              I'm just gonna blow town!     INTERCUT WITH:88   INT. SQUAD ROOM - HOWARD AND BURNETT                       88                            HOWARD              Don't leave town. Please, and              don't hang up. I've got Lowrey              right here. He just walked in.                     (holds the phone                      to Burnett)              Be Lowrey.                            BURNETT              I can't be Lowrey.                            HOWARD              Shut up and listen! She'll only              talk to Lowrey. She says she's              our witness. That means she's our              only link to the dope, not to              mention my pension plan, so get on              the phone.     Burnett accepts the phone. Hand over the receiver, he     does a quick Lowrey impression that starts as lame and     ends pretty damn convincing.                            BURNETT              Yo, you are live with Lowrey...                     (then into phone)              Yo, you're live with Lowrey.89   EXT. RESIDENTIAL STREET - NIGHT                            89     Burnett's Volvo turns onto the block. He pulls over on     the opposite side of the street and parks, his car     blending in with others in the residential neighborhood.     He gets out, crosses to the lobby of her building.90   EXT. JULIE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                             90     Burnett knocks on the door.                                                (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                               37.90   CONTINUED:                                                     90     He notices his gold wedding band, hastily removes it.     Just as he drops it into his jacket pocket --                              JULIE (O.S.)              Who's there?                              BURNETT              Mike Lowrey.     INTERCUT WITH:91   INT. JULIE'S APARTMENT                                         91     She stands on the other side of the door with a baseball     bat, cocked and ready to fly.                            JULIE              How do I know it's Detective              Lowrey?                            BURNETT              ... 'Cuz I'm Mike Lowrey.      I'm a              cop. Wanna see my badge?                            JULIE              Yes! I wanna see it now! I'm              not letting you through the fucking              door until I do. Hold it up to              the peephole!     Burnett shows his shield.    Holds it up to the peephole.                            JULIE              Anybody can get one of those.                            BURNETT                     (annoyed)              Hey, lady. You called me,              remember...? 'On the mike with              Mike.'     After a beat, the door swings ajar.92   INT. JULIE'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS ACTION                     92     But as Burnett enters the house, all he notices are that     two DOGS start YAPPING HYSTERICALLY. He can't see her.     But she can see him. From behind the door, she comes out     swinging a bat. Burnett ducks and Julie smashes the hat     stand instead.                                                     (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                             37A.92   CONTINUED:                                                 92                            BURNETT              What the fuck was that for?                            JULIE              You're not Mike Lowrey!                            BURNETT              What do you mean I'm not Mike              Lowrey? You never even met              him! Me.                            JULIE              The way Max described you was              different.                            BURNETT              I'm undercover.     She doesn't believe him and swings the bat.                              BURNETT              Okay.    I'm way undercover.                             JULIE              Prove it!                            BURNETT              I knew her from way back. From              time to time, you know... We'd get              together. Mess around, you know?                             JULIE              Wrong.     Julie swings for real, nearly taking Burnett's head off.                            BURNETT              Okay. Okay. So I exaggerated.              It's a man thing.     She swings again, but he's had enough, he moves quickly,     catching the bat with his hand and ripping it away from     her.                            BURNETT              You know what? You don't wanna              believe me? That's fine with me!              Go it alone.     Burnett heads toward the open door.     Julie's veneer drops     as she shrinks to the floor.                                                  (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                               38.92   CONTINUED:   (2)                                               92                            JULIE              I saw it all... I watched him              shoot her. Like she was nothing.                     (trying to hold                      it together)              Please shut the door.                            BURNETT              You don't got any more golf clubs              or bats, do you? Nothin' that you              can swing at me, do you?     She shakes her head.     He carefully steps forward.                            BURNETT              Then lemme introduce myself. I'm              Mike Lowrey. And I'm here to help              you.                            JULIE              You're not what I expected.                            BURNETT              Yeah, well neither are you.      You              swing like Barry Bonds.     Burnett nods and crosses over to help Julie to her feet.                            BURNETT              Alright. Look here, I need to              know if you've called anybody.              Or if you told anybody else where              you are?                               JULIE              No.   Nobody.                               BURNETT              Good.     You got a back door?     Julie nods, scoops up one of her dogs and grabbing     another modeling bag off the table.                            JULIE              Where are we going?                     (as she stuffs                      the dog into                      the tote)              Duke!                                                     (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                                39.92   CONTINUED:    (3)                                                92                               BURNETT                 Protective custody.                               JULIE                        (pulls away)                 Whoa! Fuck that. I'll only deal                 with you. Otherwise, I'll take                 my chances.     Burnett's getting a "not again" look on his face when --     KUH-BOOM!     A SHOTGUN BLAST blows the front door open.       Clutching the     bag, Julie races around the living room.                                 BURNETT                 Let's go!                                JULIE                 Luke?!   Where's my other dog?!                                 BURNETT                 Fuck the dog!     Burnett sees the second dog cowering in the corner.       So     he lunges over, scoops the dog up.                                                     CUT TO:93   OMITTED                                                          9394   FRONT DOOR                                                       94     As the remaining parts are kicked in from the outside.     It's Casper, Noah and Kuni!     BURNETT AND JULIE     Racing through the apartment toward the back door,     Burnett wheels with the GUN and FIRES just as Kuni rounds     a corner with the SHOTGUN. The room ERUPTS with plaster     spray and NOISE. Julie shrieks, and Burnett shoves her     through the back door, then spins and FIRES. Kuni     tumbles and dies from multiple hits.95   EXT. JULIE'S BACK DOOR - CONTINUOUS ACTION                       95     Julie leads him down a metal stairway.        BULLETS RICOCHET     left and right.                                                     (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                            40.A96   EXT. ALLEY BESIDE JULIE'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS ACTION     A96      FOLLOW Burnett and Julie as they race through the grungy      alley to his station wagon --96    EXT. OUTDOOR CAFE - CONTINUOUS ACTION                       96      The cafe is between Julie's front door and the Volvo.      Casper appears, FIRING his GUN. People scatter and      scream. BULLETS RIP all about.                                                  CUT TO:      VOLVO      Burnett STARTS the ENGINE and lurches out into the      street.97    NOAH'S POV                                                  97      The plates on Burnett's Volvo.98    INT. VOLVO - IN MOTION                                      98      One DOG starts to BARK.                             BURNETT               Fine time to bark. Where were you               when they were comin' up the walk?                      (beat)               Shit. Bet they got a look at my               license plates. If you saw him               again, would you remember the guy               who shot Max?                             JULIE               All I remember is one of them had               really bad hair. Where are we               going?                             BURNETT               I told you, I'm putting you into               protective custody...                             JULIE                      (cuts him off)               No way. Listen, no offense, but I               don't trust anybody.                              BURNETT               Yeah.   I noticed.                                                  (CONTINUED)     BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                        40A.98   CONTINUED:   (A1)                                      98                            JULIE              Believe me, it's not a new thing.              Especially when my life is at              stake. I read the newspaper you              know, people disappear all the              time.                            BURNETT                     (exasperated again)              Fine. So what do you want to do?              Where will you feel safe?                            JULIE              I didn't really think about it.              I guess it's your place or a plane              ticket. Your place is cheaper.              So you choose.                            BURNETT              My place? Okay, good.   No, wait.              My place is wrong.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                            42.98    CONTINUED:                                                  98                             JULIE               Wrong?                             BURNETT               I mean right. As in good. My               place is good. We'll go there               first.                      (confirms)               My place.99    EXT. LOWREY'S BUILDING - NIGHT                              99      Burnett's Volvo pulls into the circular driveway of      Oceanview Terrace.100   INT. VOLVO - CONTINUOUS ACTION                              100                             BURNETT               Wait here.101   INT. LOBBY - NIGHT                                          101      Burnett walks over to CHET, the doorman, a shifty little      guy who's always got his hand out. He's sitting on a      folding chair reading Penthouse Forum.                             CHET               Detective Burnett... Mr. Lowrey is               out...                             BURNETT               He told me I could use the place               tonight...                             CHET               Didn't mention it to me.      Chet holds out his hand. Burnett slips him ten. Chet      sneaks a peek over at the car, sees Julie putting on      lipstick.                              CHET               Say.   How's that Mrs. Burnett?      Burnett realizes this is going to cost him more. Gives      him another ten. But for Chet it's still not enough.                             CHET               Your children good? Mr. Lowrey               says you got a regular baby               factory goin' over there.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                             43.101   CONTINUED:                                                   101                             BURNETT                      (all his money)               Here. And if that's not enough,               I'm gonna run you in for extortion.                             CHET               Now that I think about it, Mr.               Lowrey did mention something               about giving you the key.102   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - NIGHT                                  102      The door opens, Burnett gropes awkwardly in the dark      for the light switch. Finally finds it.                             BURNETT               I forgot I had those switches moved.               Welcome to Casa del Lowrey.      Julie enters, looking left and right, cautious but      impressed by the stylish digs.                             JULIE               Nice... very nice. All this on a               cop's salary?                             BURNETT               I uh... I invest.                             JULIE               Right. What was your last pick?               A horse in the number two race at               Pimlico? Or did a bookie give you               an inside tip.      CLOSE ON WINE RACK      Which Julie runs her hands across labels.   All French.                             BURNETT               -- My father invests... Listen.               You must be tired --                             JULIE               I'll ask you this only   once, Mike.               Are you on the take?    And if you               say no and I discover   you're lying               to me, I'll walk. Are    we clear?                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                         44.102   CONTINUED:                                               102                             BURNETT               Fair enough. I'm not on the take.               Satisfied? Good. So... why don't               you make yourself at home? Here's               the T.V. remote. Watch yourself               some 'Gilligan's Island' reruns or               somethin'.      Hits "ON" button. Instead of TV, the room immediately      becomes a seduction den: lights dim, romantic music.                             BURNETT               Heh -- all these damn things look               alike.                      (switches it off)               Well, gotta run... There's probably               a couple of good steaks in the               fridge for the dogs. Help yourself               to whatever.                      (starts to go)               I'll check on you in the morning.                             JULIE               Where are you going?                             BURNETT               Uh, back to the P.D. I got               paperwork back on my desk to go               through that's about this high.                      (to his armpits)               And now there's you, so that makes               it this high.      To his neck.                             JULIE               You mean, you're going to leave me               alone? In your place. With all               your stuff?                             BURNETT               Why shouldn't I? Are you a thief               or a vandal?                             JULIE               Of course not. And I'm not a call               girl, either.                               BURNETT               I didn't ask.                             JULIE               I know you didn't. I just thought               you should know.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                             45.102   CONTINUED:   (2)                                             102                             BURNETT               Okay. Important lesson. Julie's               not a call girl. Can I go now?                             JULIE               Just one more thing.      Julie steps forward and wraps her arms around Burnett.      It's a one-way hug. Uncomfortable, Burnett doesn't      reciprocate other than a palsy pat on the back.                              JULIE               Thank you.   For everything.                             BURNETT               Don't mention it.      Burnett tries to break toward the door when the PHONE      RINGS. Burnett stares at the phone, not knowing what      to do.                             JULIE               Aren't you going to --                             LOWREY'S MACHINE (V.O.)               Hi. You're live with Lowrey.               Leave it at the beep.      The PHONE BEEPS.                             YVETTE (V.O.)               Miiike... it's Yvette... I know I               told you I don't date cops. And I               know I told you I wouldn't sleep               with a man I wasn't going to marry.               But I've been thinking -- and I               remember when you said thinking was               a dangerous thing -- so I started               feeling... well, lonely. Remember               when you gave me that key --      Burnett charges over and shuts OFF the MACHINE.                             BURNETT               It's uh... It's uh...                             JULIE               You don't have to explain.      Finally, they've reached consensus.     Burnett grins and      is out the door.                             BURNETT               Lock the door. Don't open it for               anybody.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                              46.103   INT. LOBBY - NIGHT                                            103      As Burnett is racing back through to the car, he sees      Chet behind the desk and stops.                             BURNETT               Listen, Chet. The girl? She's a               witness. I'm gonna be gone for               about an hour. Do me a favor.               Keep your eye out, okay?                             CHET               You know, Mr. Burnett. I'm getting               off in just a few minutes, so... I               could watch the door if you like.               You know. In a chair. I could               just sit in it. Outside the door               like cops do when they're guarding               shit.                             BURNETT               Just keep an eye out.      Heads for the door.                             CHET               Yeah, I was gonna be a cop, you               know? Just didn't work out. You               know? Politics.104   INT. BURNETT HALLWAY                                          104      As Doris storms toward her bedroom, Burnett trails her,      apologetically --                             DORIS               Don't you 'Honey Baby' me --                             BURNETT               -- I swear, baby, it's nothing.               I was on the job --      As she gets to the bedroom, Doris wheels around --                             DORIS               And you just happened to lose               your wedding ring -- 'on the               job?!'      He looks down at his ringless finger --                                BURNETT               No!   No!    I got it right here...                                                     (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          46A.104   CONTINUED:                                              104      He hastily fishes into his jacket pocket, but too late --      Doris slams the door in his face, LOCKS it.      OFF Burnett's pained expression --105   INT. MIAMI PD - HALLWAY - DAY                           105      Burnett and Lowrey on the move.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                          47.105   CONTINUED:                                                 105                             BURNETT               If you were a real partner, instead               of some no-backup, hot doggin',               car chasin', skirt sniffin'               motherfucker, I would be gettin'               down to business with my wife               instead of stuck in this situation.                              LOWREY               Yeah.   Thanks for the get-well card.106   INT. POLICE BASKETBALL GYM                                 106      Howard is in sweats, awkwardly shooting free throws as      his morning workout. Parked on either side of the hoop,      Lowrey and Burnett patiently retrieve each missed ball      and send it back to him.                             BURNETT               Chief. I tried to set   the girl               up with a sketch artist  but she               won't. I tried to get   her to come               in and look at the mug  books and               she won't come in.                             HOWARD               She'll only deal with Mike Lowrey.      He tosses a brick.                             BURNETT               That's right. So let her deal               with the real Mike Lowrey! Who,               I might add, shoulda been there to               take the call instead of runnin'               off like a hot dog without any               backup.      Howard fires another missed shot. He's so bad, it's all      Burnett and Lowrey can do to keep from spiking the ball.                             LOWREY               Hey. I'm not the one who left a               strange hooker alone in my               apartment. You know, she's               probably on the street sellin'               all my shit as we speak.                             BURNETT               I had to stash her somewhere!               She's scared shitless... just               like her dogs.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                           48.106   CONTINUED:                                                 106                             LOWREY               Dogs, too? I got Persian rugs,               man. I'm going home... explain               the whole thing, take her to the               Motel Six, she'll understand...                             HOWARD               Not a good idea.                      (brick)               Until she I.D.s the shotters, he's               Mike Lowrey. Could take a coupla               hours. Could take all day. You               got a computer with a modem?                               BURNETT               Big computer.    Expensive --                             LOWREY               Yeah, I got a computer and you               shouldn't touch it. It took me               weeks to get it set up the way I               want it and I don't want amateurs               messing with it.                             HOWARD                      (brick number four)               Burnett. I'll have Francine give               you the user code for the computer               files and you can run pictures for               the girl on Lowrey's super duper               computer.                             BURNETT               So what about me? I can't    tell my               wife I'm shacked up with a   female               witness! Besides, I think    they               made my car last night... I   gotta               stay close to home, just in   case.                            HOWARD               Easy. Lowrey moves into your               house. And you're on special               assignment.      Another brick.                              LOWREY               No way!   I'm not living in that               zoo.                             BURNETT               My house ain't no zoo!                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             49.106   CONTINUED:   (2)                                             106                             HOWARD               Enough! You're him, he's you!               Until she makes the shooters and               we get the dope back, I don't               care what you have to do, just               make it work!      Lowrey and Burnett feel hammered by Howard. Upon      retrieving his final brick, Lowrey passes to Burnett,      who feeds back Lowrey with a heel kick to the rim.      And Lowrey slams the ball home. They exit with Howard      simply staring.107   INT. BURNETT BEDROOM - DAY                                   107      Burnett's tossing some things into an overnight bag.      Theresa watches him, concerned.                             THERESA               You never had to go to Cleveland               on police business before.                             BURNETT               Cleveland's where they collared the               dealer. And that's where I gotta               go to testify.                             THERESA               But what about us? The               neighborhood's had all break-ins.               I won't feel safe if you're --                             BURNETT               Honey. I wouldn't go if I didn't               have the most trustworthy man I               know to look after my family...                              THERESA               Oh, no,   Not Lowrey. Not in my               house.                             BURNETT               Yes, Lowrey. I trust him with my               life and, I most certainly trust               him with yours.                             THERESA               Why don't they send him to Cleveland?                             BURNETT               Baby. It's a Federal subpoena.               I'm the witness. I'm the one who               has to testify. Case closed. I'm               the one going to Cleveland.               Lowrey's staying here.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                               50.108   EXT. BURNETT HOUSE                                          108      Theresa stands at the door with arms crossed. Meanwhile,      Burnett throws his bag in the trunk of the Porsche. He      and Lowrey trade car keys, the Porsche for the Volvo.                              BURNETT                Don't forget to put Snail Guard on                my lawn.                              LOWREY                Just leave Cleveland the way you                found it.      Burnett climbs in, waves out the window.                              BURNETT                Bye-bye, Theresa. Be good, kids.      Lowrey joins Theresa on the porch.    Mockingly he puts his      arm around her and waves.                              THERESA                Why's he taking your car?                              LOWREY                       (seething)                He's dropping it off at the                mechanic on the way to the                airport. The engine  needs an                overhaul... or will by the time                he gets there.      The Porsche heads down the block with a GRINDING of      GEARS. Lowrey winces and heads for the Volvo when      Theresa gets in his way.                              THERESA                Where you think you're going? I                got a list here of things that                Marcus was supposed --                              LOWREY                -- that Marcus was supposed to do.                That's right. Marcus. Not Mike.                'Cuz Mike's a cop on a case with                no time to waste.      Lowrey's in the Volvo and pulling away as fast as he can.109   OMITTED                                                     109&                                                                 &110                                                               110      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/20/94                             51.111   EXT. BOATYARD - ESTABLISHING - DAY                        111      One of Miami's famous canals, derelict ships are docked      and rusting. One such ship, an old freighter called the      Mariana.112   INT. FREIGHTER - LAB - DAY                                112      CAMERA FOLLOWS Noah THROUGH a maze of tight corners      and stairwells INTO a single, massive hold converted      into a drug-processing lab. Huge, bakery-sized mixing      BOWLS CHUG on one side of the room while lab workers form      the doughy, cut heroin into pizza-sized forms, and shovel      them into tractor ovens on the other side of the room.      When the pies come out, more lab assistants re-form the      pies into keys.      ON FOUCHET      He's dealing with his 26-year-old chemist named ELLIOT.                             FOUCHET               Okay. Explain it to me, Elliot.               Why are we behind?                             ELLIOT               The cutting agent is highly               volatile. You can't cook it like               you would a pizza. I had to gear               the ovens down to half-speed.                             FOUCHET               We already accounted for that,               Elliot. It's in our fucking               timetable. So what else?      Elliot is uncomfortable. He looks back at WALLY, his      stoned-looking assistant, before forging ahead.                             ELLIOT               There's too much moisture down               here. The pies are taking longer               to cook than we originally               planned.                              WALLY               Yeah.   It's totally fucked.                             FOUCHET               You.  Shut up.                      (back to Elliot)               Now, listen, you little pussy.               We're not making pizza.                             (MORE)                                                 (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                            52.112   CONTINUED:                                                  112                              FOUCHET (CONT'D)                We're making money. I gave you a                deadline. If you succeed, you're                a millionaire. If you fail,                you're a fuckin' corpse. And so                help me God, Elliot. If you give                me a fuckin' ulcer, I'll dig up                your dead mother and fuck her with                your severed dick, do you                understand? Christ --                       (calls out)                Noah?! Bring me something for my                stomach! A fuckin' Snapple or                somethin'.113   OMITTED                                                     113114   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - DAY                                   114      Burnett enters and instantly those DOGS of hers are      YAPPING.                              BURNETT                Shut up before I step on you...                Julie?      He drops his bags and heads into bedroom where...115   INT. BATHROOM - CONTINUOUS ACTION                           115      Julie's fresh from a shower, towel about her and drying      her hair.                               BURNETT (O.S.)                Julie!                              JULIE                That you, Mike?                                BURNETT (O.S.)                Yeah.    It's me. Mike.                              JULIE                At least your timing's good.                Can you bring me the lotion on                the nightstand?      Burnett enters.    Julie has a towel wrapped around her      body.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                           52A.115   CONTINUED:                                                 115                              JULIE               Thanks.   So I was thinking...      Julie, obviously free with her body, suddenly drops the      towel and starts applying lotion. Burnett averts his      eyes, turning around a full one-eighty, but finds himself      facing a mirror. Oops. Looks left, another shiny      surface.   Shit.                             BURNETT                      (to himself)               Crazy fuckin' woman.      He steps from the bathroom and stands outside the door.                             JULIE               The guy who killed Max. Now, he               was looking for the heroin that               Eddie stole from him... Max went               to the party as a favor to you.               You're a dope cop, right?                             BURNETT               Special Narcotics Division.                             JULIE               So this isn't about Max's death               at all. It's about dope.                             BURNETT               We find the dope, we find our               shooter, too.                             JULIE               There's some powder in there, too.               Can you hand that to me?                      (waits for an                       answer)               Mike? Mike?      Burnett has disappeared into...                                                  TIME CUT TO:116   INT. BEDROOM CLOSET                                        116      Burnett is going through Lowrey's extensive and meticu-      lously coordinated wardrobe, shaking his way all the way      through.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                            53.116   CONTINUED:                                                  116                             BURNETT               Man, when this is over, I'm gonna               get me somethin' better than               quality time. It's gonna be me'n               Theresa on a boat --                             JULIE (O.S.)               Mike? I borrowed a T-shirt and               some boxer shorts until we can               somehow get back over to my               place to pick up some clothes.117   INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS ACTION                            117      Burnett exits the closet to find Julie   brushing out her      wet hair, wearing nothing but what she   described, a T-      shirt and pair of Lowrey's boxers tied   up with a shoe      string. This ensemble never looked so    good.                             BURNETT               Mug shots. We got mug shots to               look at. 'Scuse me, I gotta hook               into the P.D. computer.      He heads out of the bedroom.                             JULIE               Hey, Mike. Who's the guy in all               the pictures?      Burnett turns. And there behind Julie is a wall full of      photos that he's never, ever noticed. Nearly all of      Lowrey. All ego.                             BURNETT               That guy? Well, that's Marcus               Burnett, my partner.      Burnett gets closer and must look around until he finds      the singular photo of the two of them. It's in a shitty      frame, too.                             BURNETT               There's the two of us, see?     Me'n'...                      (gestures to photos)               ... My partner.                             JULIE               Listen, Mike. I've known a lotta               guys. And I've seen a good number               of their bedrooms, okay? But I've               never seen... I mean, look at it.               It's like a shrine to him.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 PM                          54.117   CONTINUED:                                                 117                             BURNETT               Yeah. Okay. Sure, I can see how               it looks that way... But you see...               you see... It's uh... a cop thing.                      (then it comes)               That's because I've put a picture               up there for every time Marcus has               saved my life.                             JULIE               Saved your life?                             BURNETT               I save his life. He saves mine. He's               got the same thing in his house.               Pictures of me. More, even. Good               family man, that Marcus.                             JULIE               Okay, but Mike. This is like a               lot of pictures. I mean, this               isn't something by the bedstand.               This is a whole wall... And I know               Max said you were just friends.               That's why I was thinking,               maybe... you could be... gay.      Burnett reacts, then recovers with...                             BURNETT               Me? Gay?   Are you outta your               mind?                             JULIE               I didn't mean to offend you.                             BURNETT               It's a good thing that I'm secure               in my manhood to see that you don't               mean that. You know how many women               I've had in that waterbed? Check the               waves as they go by. Count 'em.                      (turns back to                       living room)               Now, mug shots?118   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - NIGHT                                118      Burnett and Julie are sitting at the computer looking at      mug shots dialed in from the police database. She      fiddles with, but does not eat her salad, while stealing      sideways glances from the computer screen to the nasty,      bologna sandwich Burnett is eating.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                           55.118   CONTINUED:                                                 118                             BURNETT               The shooter said four days until               he makes the deal. What else               did he say?                             JULIE               Somethin' weird. Sounded like               three angels... He wasn't worried               because he had three little angels               on his shoulders tellin' him               something. I didn't get the rest.                      (back to the mug                       shots)               I'm getting tired of looking at               ugly people.                             BURNETT               Just a few more and we can take               another break.                             JULIE               I don't wanna take a break. Then               we'd have to talk and I got               nothing to say to a cannibal.                            BURNETT               A what?                             JULIE               That was a living, breathing               consciousness. It felt joy.               Sadness. Maybe it even had a               name.                             BURNETT               What had a name.                             JULIE               That flesh you're shoveling               into your mouth.                             BURNETT                      (stops chewing)               It's just bologna.                             JULIE               It was alive. Some farmer  fed it.               Got it to trust him. Then  blew               its brains out, dumped it in a               cement mixer with a ton of               carcinogens and now you're   eating               it.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                             56.118   CONTINUED:    (2)                                            118      Burnett never looked at it that way.     He starts to put it      down.                              JULIE                No. At least finish it so I                won't have to look at it.                       (back to the                        screen)                Let's look at some more ugly                people.      ANGLE - COMPUTER SCREEN      It's a photo of Noah along with his extensive rap sheet.                             JULIE                Wait. Hold it. Go back...                That's him! That's one of 'em.                                BURNETT                You sure?      Julie nods.    She's certain.119   OMITTED                                                      119120   INT. BURNETT HOUSE - DEN - NIGHT                             120      Lowrey is on the phone.                              LOWREY                Captain Howard, please.    It's                Lowrey.                                MEGAN (O.S.)                Uncle Mike --      Lowrey looks down to find little Megan pulling at his leg.      She shows a picture book.                              MEGAN                But I have to go now!121   INT. BATHROOM - LOWREY AND MEGAN                             121      Lowrey is standing just outside, portable phone in hand.      He's trying to keep his voice low.                                                   (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94                                57.121   CONTINUED:                                                   121                              LOWREY                I just talked to Marcus. The                girl just I.D.'d one of the                shooters --                                MEGAN                Uncle Mike!                              LOWREY                Okay... Hang on, Cappy.                       (starts reading                        from the book)                This is Prudence and she has to                go potty. This is a potty.                Everyone has to poop and when they                do they use the potty.                       (turns page)                Mommies poop.                       (turns page)                Daddies poop.                       (turns page)                Captain Howard poops. Even                doggies poop.122   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - NIGHT                                  122      Burnett is cleaning up dog shit    from one of Lowrey's      Persian rugs. The stain won't     come out. So Burnett      tries a can that he's grabbed.     It foams. Julie appears      with a pile of clean laundry in    hand.                              BURNETT                Your dog took a shit.                              JULIE                And you used Pledge to clean it                up?                              BURNETT                       (looks at can)                Lemon Pledge.                              JULIE                Well, that makes a big difference.                You just varnished that into the                fabric. I'm sure it works great.      Burnett doesn't quite know what    to do with the wad of      dog poop in paper towels still    in his hand. Julie      snatches it from him and heads    for the bathroom. Burnett      follows. He suddenly realizes     that the clean clothes are      his.                                                   (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94                            58.122   CONTINUED:                                               122                             BURNETT               You cleaned my clothes?                             JULIE               I just threw them in with mine.                             BURNETT               You cleaned my clothes?      He's all appreciative until he notices something dis-      turbing. A shirt of his has a large bleached area on it.                                BURNETT               What's this??                             JULIE                      (shyly)               I had a little accident.                             BURNETT               This is my favorite shirt.   My               lucky shirt.                                JULIE               Sorry.      As Burnett starts to walk away...                             JULIE               Listen, Mike. I don't have any of               my clothes. I wanna go back to my               place to get some.                             BURNETT               Not going to happen.                             JULIE               I need apparel. That and I need               some food that's something more               than a cold, slab of fear.                                BURNETT               Slab of fear?                             JULIE               All you got in the place are               frozen steaks.                             BURNETT               Alright. I left my wallet at the               office so I'll give you some cash               tomorrow.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94                              59.123   OMITTED                                                    123124   INT. KIDS' BEDROOM - NIGHT                                 124      Quincy and Jill are rapt as Lowrey does a quick security      sweep, checking closets and window locks as he tells a      bedtime story.                              LOWREY (O.S.)                ... so your daddy and I are                trapped in this crack house in                Little Havana. These dudes were                real mean mothers... and they                start coming at us with knives...                Now I'm scared, thinkin' I'm out                for the count when in comes your                daddy like a Miami hurricane --      THERESA      Standing in the doorway.   Hands on her hips.                              LOWREY                Oh, hi, Theresa. Just tellin' the                kids about --                              THERESA                Thank you, but I'll tuck the kids                in. Say good night to Uncle Mike.                              QUINCY                But we want to hear the rest of                the story...      Theresa silences Quincy with a look.   Sensing his cue,      Lowrey kisses the kids.                              LOWREY                G'night, gang.                              QUINCY AND JILL                G'night, Uncle Mike.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                             60.125   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                  125      Lowrey is seated on the couch, loading clips and dressing      his weapon on the coffee table. As he pours a Coke,      Theresa appears at the bottom of the stairwell.                             THERESA               If you were my husband, I'd               poison that.                             LOWREY               If you were my wife I'd drink it.                             THERESA               Twelve years I'm married, Michael.               And I never let Marcus bring his               work home.                             LOWREY               Just a harmless bedtime story.               Thought the kids deserved to               know about the hero they have               for a dad.                             THERESA               We don't need any violence in               this household and we certainly               don't need any more heroes.               What we need is a father and               a husband.                             LOWREY               Husband? Theresa. He's your               personal errand boy. You beep               the poor S.O.B. every hour on               the Goddamn hour? And why is               it always about some useless               bullshit that can wait until               later. I mean, the guy's gotta               job to do.                             THERESA               You wanna know why I page him?               Because until that phone rings,               I don't know whether he's dead               or alive. And lemme tell you.               Those three minutes I'm waiting               for him to call back? Those are               the hardest three minutes for a               cop's wife.                             LOWREY                      (toasts with the Coke)               Touche, Theresa.                                                 (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                               61.125    CONTINUED:                                                  125                               THERESA                 Sheets and pillows are in the                 hope chest. I'll see you in                 the morning.126    OMITTED                                                     126A127   EXT. BURNETT HOUSE - NIGHT                                  A127       Noah's car is parked down the block.127    INT. NOAH'S CAR - CASPER AND NOAH - NIGHT                   127       With night vision goggles they glass the house.128    INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - NIGHT                                 128       The CAMERA STARTS ON a beautiful SHOT of Julie sleeping       in the bedroom, then PULLS BACK AND SWIVELS to reveal       Burnett on the couch. Gun laid across his chest. He       lays awake while Luke and Duke sniff at his feet.129    EXT. POLICE HEADQUARTERS - DAY                              129       Lowrey unhappily pulls into the parking lot driving       Burnett's dilapidated Volvo. Ruiz and Sanchez, walking       from the cars, spot him and laugh as he climbs out of       the wreck.                               SANCHEZ                 Ooh, mean machine, Lowrey...                               LOWREY                 You should recognize trunk. It's                 the one you came to America in.                               RUIZ                 You don't come from Cuba by car,                 asshole.       Lowrey walks by his own cherished Porsche on the way in.130    OMITTED                                                     130131    INT. POLICE STATION - HALLWAY - DAY                         131       Lowrey and Burnett on a roll.                                                    (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                 62.131   CONTINUED:                                                    131                             BURNETT               I'm tellin' you, I've      had it with               this witness. I wanna       go home and               get back to my life as      it was. I               got married so I could      stop lyin'.                             LOWREY               Oh, please. Big fucking deal.               You know what I had to do? I               drove your kids to school this               morning. Your son forgot his               homework. So I had to drive him               all the way back in that junker of               yours --                      (as if looking at                       Burnett for the                       first time)               What's that you're wearin'? Is               that my new silk shirt? Is that               my shirt?                             BURNETT               Yeah. I know, it's a little big               on me. But cool. I figure, what               about it? If I'm gonna be Mike,               might as well dress like Mike!                      (singing)               I wanna be, I wanna be like Mike.               Swish.      Lowrey's BEEPER SOUNDS.    He checks out the number.                              LOWREY               Ugh.   I gotta call the wife.                                BURNETT               The wife?      Lowrey finds the nearest phone and dials.      Burnett is      thinking Theresa?                             LOWREY               Yeah, what's up, baby. Uh-huh.                      (pulls out notepad)               Yeah. Okay. What else? You want               me do what?      Lowrey glances over at Burnett who's clearly loving the      fact that it's Lowrey's turn at errand boy. So Lowrey...                                                    (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 (PM)                        62A.131    CONTINUED:   (2)                                          131                              LOWREY                Mmm. Uh-huh. Hectic down here.                I'll be in, nine. Nine-thirty.                The kids alright? How's that                potty thing? Yeah? Okay.                Alright.       Lowrey turns to block the phone, depressing the switch,       but acting as if he's still on with Theresa.                              LOWREY                Say, why don't you rent a movie or                somethin'? Uh-huh.                       (teasing laugh)                You're so silly.       Burnett's burning now.                               LOWREY                So, baby.   What you wearin'?                              BURNETT                Gimme that phone.                       (grabs it)                Hello, Theresa? Theresa!                              LOWREY                Man, it's off. It was a joke.                              BURNETT                Hey, man. Don't mess with me!                That's the mother of my children.                Don't break up a happy home.A132   INT. SAVE-MORE DRUGS - MORNING (Formerly Sc. 207)         A132       Lowrey is annoyed. He holds the list Theresa just gave       him as they walk down the aisle.                              LOWREY                Marcus, this is crazy. We are                five minutes away from picking                up this asshole and returning                to our lives. And we're here                doin' this shit. Where the fuck                is it?                             BURNETT                Hey. Don't ask me to find it for                you. You're the expert on my                wife.                                                  (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 (PM)                         62B.A132   CONTINUED:                                                A132                              LOWREY                You know, this is like some really                bizarre shit that you're on right                now. Your wife asked me to do                this, and I'm doin' it. Besides,                I'm you, remember?                              BURNETT                You don't even know where you're                going. You're in the wrong aisle.       Lowrey follows Burnett to the next aisle, where Burnett       gestures to the wall of feminine hygiene products.                              BURNETT                You think you know what Theresa                needs, man, but I do this every                month.                       (challenges)                Just look for 'Fresh Days.'       Lowrey moves ahead.   There's too much to look at.                              LOWREY                You're unbalanced. Listen, I                read the parole jacket on this                guy Noah. Armed robbery.                Attempted murder. He's a violent                offender somethin' like nine                times. Sweet guy. Not a single                drug bust on his sheet.                              BURNETT                So? He's a new recruit. Keep                looking, will ya? 'Fresh Days.'                              LOWREY                You know, it is a damn shame she                makes you buy this stuff.                              BURNETT                Hey, this what husband's do.                              LOWREY                Terrible fuckin' job.                       (examining shelves)                It's like shaving cream.                They're all the same. Fresh.                Free. Confident. Secure.                       (grabs a box)                Super wide? What the fuck? We're                takin' this one.                                                   (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 (PM)                        62C.A132   CONTINUED:   (2)                                        A132       Burnett snatches Lowrey's box and puts it back on the       shelf.                              BURNETT                Hey, man, look! You're not even                reading. These are panty liners,                okay?       A woman chooses this moment to walk by.                              BURNETT                That's a whole 'nother category                of thing! Man, for a guy that                spends all his time chasing                pussy, you sure don't know much                about the woo woo.                       (beat)                Here it is. Fresh Days. You                pay for it.                                                            63.132   EXT. GRUNGY TRAILER PARK - DAY                              132      Burnett and Lowrey park and pop the trunk.    Inside are      guns and uniforms.                             BURNETT               What are we gonna be today? Postal               Inspectors or Water and Power?                             LOWREY               Water and Power.133   EXT. TRAILER - DAY                                          133      Approaching are Burnett and Lowrey, but now they're      dressed in shorts and T-shirts with bright orange vests      and caps reading "Water and Power." And as Lowrey knocks      on the door.      CLOSE ON HEAVY LINK CHAIN      Wrapped around a pink refrigerator.    It moves.                             BURNETT               What do you think the chain's for?                             LOWREY               I dunno. Maybe some kind of               hurricane anchor.      They knock again.    The chain jerks slightly.                             BURNETT               Well, the anchor just moved.      Both turn and look. And the chain is moving. At first,      it simply sways back and forth, then it pulls taut and      the FRIDGE JOLTS! A deep, GUTTURAL NOISE sounds. From      around the corner, a shadow grows large. Lowrey and      Burnett instinctively withdraw their guns and aim just as      a LION rounds the corner, teeth bared, claws tearing at      the deck.      The door swings open.      Burnett pushes Lowrey inside just as the big cat lunges.134   INT. TRAILER - DAY                                          134      Lowrey and Burnett are holding the door against the      GROWLING LION.                                                   (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/21/94                               64.134   CONTINUED:                                                  134                                WOMAN (O.S.)               Who are you?!      Lowrey and Burnett heave, then turn. They're equally      shocked to find a huge, three-hundred-pound WOMAN in      nothing but her underwear.                             BURNETT               AAAAAAAAAAA-Animal Control!                             WOMAN               But your uniforms say Water and               Power!                             LOWREY               We're undercover! Now, we're               lookin' for the owner of that               animal.                             WOMAN               Listen. The cat don't belong to               me. It belong to my brother. And               I don't know where he is.                             BURNETT               That's too bad. Because his               lion's tied to your trailer. So               you gotta move the beast. Or move               the trailer.                             WOMAN               Move the trailer? Move it to               where?                             LOWREY               Everglades. Only part of South               Florida that's zoned for Wild               Kingdom shit. 'Course, the crocks               down there'll probably eat your               brother's cat.                             WOMAN               But he loves that lion! Raised               him from a little kitty!                             BURNETT               Well, little kitty's gonna be               gator bait 'less you suddenly               remember where your brother is.      By the look on her face, her memory is coming back.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94                                64A.135   EXT. LOWREY'S BUILDING - AFTERNOON                         135      Lowrey and Burnett pull up in the unmarked police car.      Chet is there to help with the door.                             CHET                      (to each of them)               'Morning, Mr. Lowrey. 'Morning,               Mr. Lowrey.      Burnett grabs Lowrey and yanks him toward the elevators.136   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - CONTINUOUS ACTION                    136      Keys in the door and Burnett and Lowrey enter the      apartment. Julie's DOGS run up to them, YAPPING.                             BURNETT               It's me, Julie...      Julie enters from the bedroom, dressed in something hot      with the tag still hanging from a sleeve.                             JULIE               I'll be ready in just a minute.               I thought I'd have you tell --      She stalls at the sight of Lowrey, a little spark of      interest passes between them.                             JULIE               Hi. I'm Julie. You must be               Marcus.                      (hand outstretched)               I recognize you from all the               photographs. Nice to meet you.                      (turns around for                       Burnett)               What do you think?                              LOWREY               Very nice.   The occasion?                             JULIE               He said we were going to a club               tonight.                             BURNETT               Yes. We were going to a club.     As               in me and my partner.                                                 (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94                            65.136   CONTINUED:                                               136                              JULIE               Oh,  that's fuckin' swell! And you               call  this protective custody? I'm               here  all day. I'm alone and scared.               And  all I got to protect me is Chet               the  doorman --                             LOWREY               What's that on the rug?    Looks               like... a stain?      Teeth grit.                             JULIE               It was my babies, Luke and Duke.               They get nervous in new               surroundings. I offered to pay               for the cleaning, but Mike               wouldn't hear of it --      Lowrey spots rings from glasses on the table.                             LOWREY               And have you ever heard of a new               invention called the 'coaster'?      As he tries buffing the table with his sleeve.      CLOSE ON JULIE      She might be catching on here.                             JULIE               Marcus, you act like it's your               place.                                BURNETT               What?                             LOWREY               No. It's not my place. My wife.               She's a designer. She decorated               the whole place at a discount just               for Mike. And when she hears about               how he's been taking care of --                      (glares witheringly                       at dogs)               Off the couch!      Lowrey chases the dogs into the bedroom. One of the dogs      runs out with a Cole Hahn loafer in his mouth. They both      follow him into the bedroom.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94                              66.137   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - LIVING ROOM                          137      Where the lock on the front door turns. The door opens.      A mysterious WOMAN in an overcoat, sunglasses and spiked      heels enters.                                WOMAN               Mike?      The Woman strips off the overcoat -- under which she's      breathtakingly naked, save for a garter belt and      stockings. She drapes the coat over the nearest chair.                             WOMAN               I'm feeling really nasty right               now.      Burnett is first to appear from the bedroom -- and his      expression goes off the charts. Startled, the woman      shrugs back into her coat.                             WOMAN               Who the hell are you?      Burnett charges her, instantly ushering her to the door.                             BURNETT               How did you get in here?      Julie and Lowrey return from the bedroom.                                WOMAN               I have a key.     But, Mike...                             BURNETT                      (whispers)               Maybe you should call first next               time. What's your name?                                WOMAN               Yvette!                             BURNETT               You don't quit stalking me,               Yvette, I'm gonna place your ass               under arrest! -- 'Bye!      Burnett slams the door. She's SCREAMING on the other      side, POUNDING the door with her fists, and cursing in      mad Spanish. Finally she stomps off down the hall.                             LOWREY               'The hell's going on out here??                                                  (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            67.137    CONTINUED:                                                  137                               BURNETT                 Just that crazy Yvette, stalking                 me again.       Lowrey could kill.                              LOWREY                 Yvette!? You didn't just send                 away Yvette?                               BURNETT                 That woman's into some weird shit.       Julie's confused, to say the least.                               JULIE                        (to Burnett)                 So, Mike. Any other spontaneous                 naked women with keys, that we                 should know about?                               BURNETT                 We, as in Marcus and I, are going                 to Club Hell. We're gonna nail                 this Noah guy and get him to give                 up Max's shooter. Anyone got a                 problem with that?                               JULIE                 I feel safer now.       She turns and exits back into the bedroom. Burnett's       about to follow when Lowrey swings him outside the door-       way and gets into his face.                               LOWREY                 You are ruining my life!                               BURNETT                 Yeah, well this case is messin'                 with mine, too.138    OMITTED                                                     138A139   EXT. CLUB HELL - NIGHT                                      A139       The ultimate Miami night scene. A long line of local and       Hip and cool couples are waiting. Lowrey and Burnett       appear at the front of the line, coolly flashing their       badges to a hipster couple.                                                    (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          68.A139   CONTINUED:                                                A139                              BURNETT                Hey, man. Got some bad news.                Your car got busted into. There's                some uniformed boys in the parking                lot wanting to ask you some                questions.       Pissed and panicked, the hipster pair head for the       parking lot, while Lowery and Burnett take their place       near the front of the line.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                69.139   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - NIGHT                                  139      Julie, still dressed for the evening, paces back and      forth. Frustrated, she rips the tag from her dress, and      sits back down at the computer. She plays with the      keyboard and Noah's mug shot pops back into view. She      stares at it a little too intently. Images flash in      front of her, the sights and sounds of Max's death      replaying itself in her mind.      Snapping out of it, determined, she gathers her bag and      exits.140   INT. CLUB HELL - NIGHT                                       140      Hip. Hard rock. Crowded. Sexy. Burnett and Lowrey      on cruise control, this club massed with people.141   INT. CLUB HELL - OFFICE - NIGHT                              141      High above the room, Fouchet looks out upon the dance      floor with both Noah, Casper, and Ferguson behind him.                             FOUCHET               My three little angels told me I'd               get a visit from the cops tonight               and there they are.                      (turns and orders)               When they split up, we'll drop               the tall one and get the other               one to lead us to the girl.142   INT. CLUB HELL - NIGHT                                       142      Lowrey and Burnett move to the bar.   There's a huge      fishtank behind it.                             LOWREY               I say we split the room in half.               Make our own moves. Hook back up               at the bar in twenty minutes.                             BURNETT               Sounds good to me.      Lowrey moves off and Burnett turns to the female      BARTENDER.                             BURNETT               Gin and tonic...                      (smiling, with                       Lowrey's platinum                       card)               ... And add twenty for yourself.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          70.143   EXT. CLUB HELL VALET - LATER                               143      Julie pulls up in Lowrey's Porsche. Before the valet      can get to the door, she's opening Lowrey's glove box.      In it there's a pistol. Julie mulls it over before      removing it and stuffing it in her purse.144   INT. CLUB HELL - NIGHT                                     144      Lowrey meets Burnett back at the bar.                               LOWREY               Anything?                             BURNETT               Bartender says he works here. But               she hasn't seen him all night.                      (finishing his                       drink)               I gotta make a pitstop.145   INT. CLUB HELL - MEN'S ROOM - NIGHT                        145      And, believe it or not, the other side of the fishtank      behind the bar. Burnett's at the urinal, blissfully      relieving himself when Casper appears at his side.      There's that awkward men-don't-talk-at-the-urinal moment      until Burnett leans over...                                BURNETT               Oh, man.     Budweiser...                               CASPER               Excuse me?                             BURNETT               Musta drank about a million               Budweisers tonight, waitin' for my               ol' friend Noah to show. Wouldn't               know him, would ya? Guy practically               raised me up from nothin'.                              CASPER               Sorry.   Never heard of him.                               BURNETT               Too bad.      Burnett shrugs, zips and reaches to flush when --                                                (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                               71.145   CONTINUED:                                                      145      CLOSE ON GARBAGE BAG      Which Casper wraps around Burnett's head.       Burnett gags.                                 CASPER                 Okay, hardon!    Tell me where the                 girl is!      Casper slams Burnett into the mirror. Burnett struggles,      reaching for anything, he comes up with the towel dis-      penser, rips it from the wall and starts pounding over      Casper's head.146   INT. BAR                                                        146      Lowrey sips on a beer, totally unaware of what's      happening on the other side of the fishtank.147   INT. MEN'S ROOM                                                 147      Burnett rips the bag off his head, reaches for his gun.      But Casper's there, lunging into him and lifting him up      and into the fishtank.148   INT. BAR - LOWREY                                               148      He's been watching the  fish in the tank, but turns back      toward the bar just at  the moment of Burnett's impact.      The tank cracks on the  bathroom side and water begins      draining, unbeknownst  to Lowrey.149   OMITTED                                                         149&                                                                     &150                                                                   150151   INT. MEN'S ROOM - BURNETT AND CASPER                            151      Burnett's gun lays amongst the flapping carp and sea-      weed on the floor. Both Burnett and Casper go sliding      across the wet floor and into a stall -- both reaching      for the gun. Burnett's there a second too late.      Casper's got the gun. He swings it onto Burnett and      squeezes the trigger. But nothing happens. Burnett      in turn, grabs Casper's ears and hammers the big guy's      head into the toilet until he falls unconscious. Burnett      picks up his gun.                                                      (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             72.151    CONTINUED:                                                   151                              BURNETT                Next time, learn how to work the                safety with your punk ass.                       (as he cuffs Casper                         to toilet)                Now where's my no good, no back-up                partner?       Through the busted fishtank, Burnett catches sight of       Lowrey, standing at the bar and making conversation with       one of the club beauties.A152   INT. CLUB HELL - OPPOSITE BAR                                A152       Ferguson and Noah split wide and start their move on       Lowrey.152    LOWREY AT BAR                                                152       He sees Julie charging across the dance floor.   She's       heading right for him.153    INT. CLUB HELL OFFICE - FOUCHET                              153       He's watching Ferguson and Noah moving in for the kill       when Fouchet's POV SHIFTS from the dance floor TO Julie.       CLOSE ON FOUCHET       as he recognizes Julie. There's an instant "oh fuck"       look on his face as he realizes that the rules have       changed.154    INT. CLUB HELL - DANCE FLOOR                                 154       Lowrey meets Julie halfway. He's got her by the arm and       is shouting over the loud music.                              LOWREY                What the hell are you doing here?                              JULIE                The guy who killed Max.   I remember                something he said!                                                 (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            73.154   CONTINUED:                                                   154                             LOWREY                      (starts moving her                       toward exit)               Well, whatever he said, you               remember to tell me later.      SPLIT SHOTS - NOAH AND FERGUSON      Each moving through the crowd toward Lowrey and Julie.      Guns with silencers held tight to their sides.      ON JULIE AND LOWREY                             JULIE               Three little angels! The guy who               killed Max said 'three little --      Julie sees Noah and freezes.                             LOWREY               The music's too loud.    What you               say about angels?      Noah closes the gap.    Through the crowd he draws down on      Lowrey.155   INT. CLUB OFFICE - NIGHT                                     155      He pounds on the window.                             FOUCHET               Forget the cop. Kill the girl!156   INT. CLUB DANCE FLOOR                                        156      Julie pulls the gun from her purse, shuts her eyes and      starts FIRING wildly.      BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM!      The gun bucks and each shot goes wildly high.   Noah dives      for the floor.157   INT. CLUB OFFICE - FOUCHET                                   157      He hits the deck as the WINDOW is SHATTERED by a random      bullet.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          74.158   INT. CLUB DANCE FLOOR - BACK TO SCENE                      158      The room clears around Julie. Noah is back on his feet,      once again with the gun. But...      LOWREY      Launches himself off a nearby table, soars over the      frightened crowd and comes crashing down upon Noah.      Both Lowrey and Noah tumble to the floor. Noah's gun      skitters into the crowd. Noah chases for it, but can't      find it. But --      FERGUSON'S      got a clear shot at Julie. He raises his gun, only to      find Burnett's pistol at his ear.                              BURNETT                Don't even think about it.                       (realizes)                Julie?                                                CUT TO:      JULIE      as she grabs Lowrey.                              JULIE                That's him!                              LOWREY                No shit!      Meanwhile, Noah's on his feet and hauling ass out of the      club.159   BURNETT AND FERGUSON                                       159      Burnett sees that Noah's on the run. So he cold-cocks      Ferguson with the butt of his pistol and joins the chase.160   OMITTED                                                    160&                                                                &161                                                              161      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            75.162   EXT. CLUB HELL - LOWREY, BURNETT, AND JULIE - NIGHT         162      Appear at the door, charging down the steps toward the      valet and commandering a Taurus that just pulled up.      All three dive in. Burnett behind the wheel.                                LOWREY               Lemme drive!                                BURNETT               I'm driving.     Buckle up.      Burnett hits the gas, the CAR SCREAMS around in a tight      circle just as -- SLAM! -- Noah's sedan backs wildly      across the road and crunches them. Noah throws a SHOTGUN      over the back seat of his car and FIRES through the rear      window. BLAM! Everybody ducks. Safety glass flies      before Noah shifts gears and drives on.163   EXT. MIAMI STREET - NOAH'S CAR - NIGHT                      163      Noah's already up to 70 MPH, races through a yellow      light, hangs a left. As the light turns red --164   INT. UNMARKED CAR - NIGHT                                   164                             LOWREY               You're gonna drive through that,               aren't you?      Burnett does, hauling through the light. Meanwhile,      Lowrey has the bubble light in hand, reaches out the      window to stick it on the roof, but it simply slides off.      He reels it back in the car and hands it off to Julie.                                LOWREY               Hold that.165   INT. NOAH'S CAR - NIGHT                                     165      Noah is waving a SHOTGUN out the back -- FIRES --166   INT. UNMARKED CAR - NIGHT                                   166      rocks as one HEADLIGHT EXPLODES --                             LOWREY               C'mon, lemme drive --                             BURNETT               Do I backseat drive when you're               tailing a hitman?       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             76.A167   EXT. GAS STATION AT ROAD DIVIDE - NIGHT                      A167       Both speeding cars, side by side. Then Noah cranks the       wheel and slams the Taurus, sending it to the left of       the divider. But --       NOAH       His wheels catch the island and the snaps, and rolls       right into --       CLOSED GAS STATION       Noah's car clips the pumps. A geyser of gasoline sprays       into the sky. Noah recovers from the roll. Throws his       weight into the jammed door. It opens on the second       shove.       CLOSE ON OVERHEAD CAR LIGHT       which ignites automatically.       WIDE SHOT - GAS STATION       It erupts in flames.                                                  CUT TO:B167   EXT. MIAMI STREET - GAS STATION - BURNETT, LOWREY AND        B167       JULIE       Just getting out of the car as the station blows.    They       shield themselves against the explosion.                              BURNETT                There goes our only lead to the                dope. We better call Howard.                             JULIE                That's it. That's it.   You're                both crazy.       Julie takes a few steps away before she decides to give       them the other barrel.                              JULIE                Protect and serve. Sound familiar?                Isn't that what you're supposed to                do? 'Cuz I'd like to know whose                butt you're protecting.                                                  (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                           77.B167   CONTINUED:                                                 B167                              LOWREY                I think we protected your                uninvited butt pretty good back                there.                              JULIE                All you care about is getting your                dope back. No, that's not all,                you care about getting it back in                a way that shows how fucking macho                and tough you are. It's all some                big testosterone contest. Well,                fuck that.       As Julie walks in one direction, Burnett blows off in the       other.                 BURNETT                           LOWREY       No more. Fuck this. I'm               Chill, I'll handle it.       not goin' with it... No, I'm                (starts after       out. I'm out. Somethin's                     Julie)       wrong with her. Crazy woman!          Julie! Just wait a                                             minute!       Burnett keeps moving and grousing while Lowrey chases       Julie down and snags her by the arm.                              LOWREY                Hey, hey. Just relax!                       (looks for words)                Okay. It's true this whole thing                started with missing drugs. But                somebody I cared about. A lot.                She got killed. And I'm not gonna                lay down until this guy is dead                or put away... And I promise you,                we'll take care of you.                              JULIE                That's what I'm afraid of.       Once again, Julie pulls away. But Lowrey's got her       tight... and close. He digs deep.                              LOWREY                Hey. What do I gotta say?     I                need you, okay?                       (then for real)                I need you.       Magic words.   Julie's swayed, despite herself.                                                  (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             78.B167   CONTINUED:   (2)                                             B167                               JULIE                 Do they teach charm at the                 academy?                              LOWREY                 Nah. Some smooth shit I got on                 my own.       He puts his arm around her and they walk back.C167   EXT. GAS STATION - AFTERMATH - NIGHT                         C167       Police units surround  -- flashing lights. Julie is       shaken, waiting in the  back of a police unit. Meanwhile,       Ruiz and Sanchez join  Burnett and Lowrey at the trunk of       the toasted car. The   fire crew crowbars open the lid.       The trunk gives way to  a ghastly, toxic smell. Everyone       gags.                                BURNETT                 Jesus.   What kinda shit was in                 there?                               LOWREY                 Smells like some kinda chemical.                               BURNETT                 We'll get a sample and drop it                 back at the lab. Meanwhile, why                 don't you two go on back to Club                 Hell and see what you can dig up                 on these bad guys.167    OMITTED                                                      167thru                                                                thru180                                                                 180A181   INT. BURNETT HOUSE - UPSTAIRS - NIGHT                        A181       As Lowrey is checking the upstairs, he finds himself       staring in on the sleeping kids.                                 LOWREY                 One day, bro.    Gotta get yourself                 some of them.       Lowrey hears SOBBING. He gently shuts the kids' door       and heads down the hall to the:       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            79.B181   MASTER BEDROOM                                              B181       Where Theresa sits amongst boxes of new clothes.   Lowrey       gives a polite rap on the door.                               LOWREY                Hey, hey.   That's not cryin' I                hear.                              THERESA                       (wipes tears)                Oh, it's nothing... I just bought                some clothes. It's been so long                since I bought anything nice...                I just wanted something to wear                for Marcus when he got home. But                nothing looks right...                       (starts crying                        again)                He's slipping away from me, Mike.                I can feel it.                              LOWREY                       (sits next to her)                Theresa. Listen to me. Nobody's                slipping away from you. Especially                not Marcus. You can take my word                on that... As for the clothes...       Lowrey pulls a random item out of a box.   It's hideous.                              LOWREY                Okay. Just a minor fashion                faux paux. Those cappuccinos                at lunch can do that to you...                See what else we got here.181    INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - NIGHT                                 181       Burnett is preparing the couch with a pillow and blanket       when he sniffs at the air. Something foul. Burnett       lowers his nose to the cushions. The smell gets worse.182    INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - BEDROOM - NIGHT                       182       Burnett crawls into the bed, fully clothed. This is       awkward. Julie calls out from the bathroom.                              JULIE (O.S.)                I'm really sorry about the dog                pee. They must be traumatized by                the new surroundings. I'll pay                for new cushions.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            80.182   CONTINUED:                                                  182                             BURNETT               That's perfectly alright --      Julie suddenly flops on the bed, wearing a gorgeous      nightgown.                              JULIE               So, Mike.   Can I ask you something?                             BURNETT               Sure.                             JULIE               Do you always come to bed with your               clothes on? Or just when there's               a woman in it?                             BURNETT               I'm on protective duty. And I               want you to feel... protected.               So I'm dressed and ready. It's               okay. I've done it before.                             JULIE               Really. You think Marcus would               wear clothes to bed while on               protective duty?                             BURNETT               Sure he would. It's a cop thing.                             JULIE               Oh, I definitely have a cop thing,               too.                             BURNETT               You do?                             JULIE               Well Marcus. He's very   something               ... sexy. And the way I   came in               tonight, he was throwing  everybody               this way and that and he  took               control.                             BURNETT               Well, I drove.                              JULIE               I know.   You drove well.                             BURNETT               I shot the gas tank on the car.                                                 (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            80A.182   CONTINUED:   (2)                                         182                             JULIE               That's right, you did. And it was               exciting... But Marcus...                      (bites her lip)               Something about him... His wife.               What's her name?                              BURNETT               Theresa.   Why?                             JULIE               I'll bet Theresa is takin' care of               business right now.                             BURNETT               What's that supposed to mean?                             JULIE               You know, relieve his tension. A               woman'll do anything to keep a man               like that. You know what I mean?               Tonight... made me a little bit               horny, I guess. I think, maybe.               It was the car chase. Or the guns               and everything. I've never shot a               gun before. Maybe it's the steel               or something. I'm feeling a               little... funny.                               BURNETT               Funny?                               JULIE               I don't know.    Do you feel a               little funny?                             BURNETT               Yeah... I feel a little funny.                             JULIE               Not that kind of funny.                             BURNETT               What kind of funny?                             JULIE               You know...                      (rubs him)               Funny.                             BURNETT               I gotta call Marcus.      Burnett's out of bed like a shot and headed for the      living room.       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             80B.183    OMITTED                                                   183A184   INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT                               A184       Lowrey is admiring his work.                                 LOWREY                 That's right.    Turn around.       Theresa turns, looking transformed in the outfit put       together by Lowery.                               THERESA                 You think he'll like it? I                 mean, I want him to, you know,                 want to...       The PHONE RINGS. Lowrey is talking and picking up the       phone at the same time.                               LOWREY                 Want to? Baby. Someone I know's                 gonna burn you right to the ground.                 Get ready!                        (then, into phone)                 You're on the mic with Mike...                 Hello?184    INT. LOWREY'S LIVING ROOM                                 184       CAMERA is TIGHT ON Burnett's face. He's angry as he       stares at the phone. His worst fears have been       confirmed. He hangs up.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                               81.185   INT. LOWREY'S LIVING ROOM                                   185      An angry Burnett, pulling on a jacket, he throws some      clothes at Julie.                             JULIE               Usually the guy throws me out               after he fucks me.                             BURNETT               I'm different. I'm a cop.     And               now I gotta kill a guy.186   INT. BURNETT HOUSE - NIGHT                                  186      From the top of the stairs we see and hear...                             KIDS               G'night, Uncle Mike.                              THERESA               Yeah.   Good night, Uncle Mike.                             LOWREY               G'night, everybody.      Lowrey's at the window. Parked just down the street      is the same sedan. He goes for the phone and dials.      Waits for an answer.                             LOWREY               Hey, Sanchez. It's me Lowrey...               Yeah? Same to you, pal. But               listen. I got something you'll               want a piece of.187   INT. PORSCHE (BURNETT'S NEIGHBORHOOD) - NIGHT               187      GRINDING GEARS, Burnett stops around the corner from his      house. He turns OFF the IGNITION and turns to Julie.                             BURNETT               I got some jewelry for you.      Before Julie can respond, Burnett's cuffing her to the      steering wheel.                            JULIE               You prick! First you don't want               me. Then you drag me out...                            (MORE)                                                   (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                             82.187   CONTINUED:                                                 187                             JULIE (CONT'D)                      (then she gets                       it)               Oh, wait. I get it. You're one               of those post-adolescent assholes               who didn't get any car sex in               high school --                             BURNETT               Just shut the fuck up. I won't be               long. Try and keep out of sight.      Burnett's out of the car with the keys. Julie yanks on      the handcuffs, then goes for the glove box. But this      time it's empty.188   INT. SEDAN - FERGUSON AND CASPER - NIGHT                   188      Casper spots Burnett nearing the house.                             CASPER               There's our guy. Watch him.189   INT. BURNETT LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                           189      Lowrey climbs under blanket on sofa, the back of which      faces the window. Exhausted, he turns off light and      closes his eyes. A beat. Burnett's face pops up      furtively in window, his nose pressed against the glass,      looking for evidence of adultery. He can't see Lowrey      asleep on the couch. His head drops below the window      frame, only to reappear in another window. Seeing      nothing, he moves on.190   EXT. BURNETT HOUSE - NIGHT                                 190      Burnett skulks into the side yard.191   EXT. THERESA'S BEDROOM WINDOW - BURNETT'S POV              191      The light in Theresa's bedroom is on. He sees her sil-      houette against the curtain getting undressed.192   EXT. SIDE YARD - BURNETT                                   192      He climbs the trellis to second story; boosts himself      onto ledge, inches along. Stops to peer into a window      when the ledge under his feet crumbles and...                                                 (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                             83.192    CONTINUED:                                                 192       BURNETT       falls. Landing flat on his back on the awning. His eyes       close with a look that says "saved." But then as he       moves. Something CREAKS.A193   OMITTED                                                    A193thru                                                              thruC193                                                              C193193    INT. THERESA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                             193       Theresa hears SOMETHING and runs to the door and calls       out.                                 THERESA                 Mike!       In a heartbeat, Lowrey charges into Theresa's room in his       underwear.                               LOWREY                 What's the matter?                               THERESA                 I heard a noise... I think                 someone's outside...A194   EXT. AWNING - BURNETT                                      A194       Seemingly stuck, once again, he attempts to move.       Another, even LOUDER CREAK, then --       AWNING       gives way. And Burnett crashes loudly into the garbage       cans underneath. Lids and cans go every which way.B194   EXT. DRIVEWAY - NIGHT                                      B194       A lid rolls down and into the street.C194   INT./EXT. CASPER'S CAR - NIGHT                             C194       Casper and Ferguson look curiously as the lid rolls into       the street.194    EXT. UNDER AWNING - BURNETT - NIGHT                        194       He crawls to his feet and as he looks up at the damage       he's done --      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                84.195   EXT. THERESA'S BEDROOM WINDOW - BURNETT'S POV                195      He sees Lowrey in his underwear and Theresa in her night-      gown as they part the curtains and look out.196   EXT. SIDE YARD - BURNETT                                     196      In the bushes.   He assumes the worst.197   INT. THERESA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                               197                             LOWREY               Go into the kids' room, turn the               lights out and wait there until               I come get you.198   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                     198      Lowrey takes gun from holster, slams in clip.199   EXT. FRONT YARD - NIGHT                                      199      Lowrey switches off the porch lights as he exits house,      gun ready. Without warning, Burnett leaps from the      bushes onto Lowrey's back.      LOWREY'S GUN      Tumbles into the flower bed. Lowrey reels with     an elbow,      dropping Burnett to the lawn. But Burnett rolls     and      clips Lowrey's legs. Lowrey falls. Crawls for      his gun.      Gets hold of it, turns and is ready to fire when    --      CAR      drives past.   The headlights, revealing Burnett.                              LOWREY               Marcus!   What the fuck --                             BURNETT               ... You doin' Theresa?    Theresa!                              LOWREY               What?   Me and Theresa?                             BURNETT               I hope you used protection...               'cause I don't want a fourth kid               that looks like you!                                                    (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/20/94                               84A.199   CONTINUED:                                               199      Lowrey hauls back and belts him. Burnett tears into      Lowrey and the two roll around on the lawn.200   INT. SEDAN - FERGUSON AND CASPER                         200      They can't believe their eyes.                             FERGUSON               Wanna explain what this shit's               about?201   EXT. FRONT LAWN - BURNETT AND LOWREY                     201                             LOWREY               This whole deal has turned you               stupid. You're seeing things               that aren't there.                                                (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                85.201   CONTINUED:                                                   201                             BURNETT                      (picks up a snail)               And I suppose this isn't here?               You were going to put Snail Guard               on the lawn, remember?                              THERESA (O.S.)               Mike?   Are you okay!                             LOWREY               I'm fine, Theresa!                      (whispers)               Will you get the hell out of here               before she sees you! You're               supposed to be in Cleveland.                             BURNETT               Yeah, I wouldn't want to spoil               your little arrangement!                             LOWREY               And where's Julie? You didn't               leave her again.                             BURNETT               She's in the car. Got her cuffed               to the steering wheel.      Lowrey could kill now. He's on his feet, grabbing      Burnett by the collar and shoving him up against the      front door.                             LOWREY                      (through grit teeth)               Now, listen to me. Look over my               right shoulder. What do you see               ... I said look!                             BURNETT                      (looks)               Late model Ford. Two occupants.                             LOWREY               Good. So who do you think's in               there? Ed McMahon come to tell               us we're sweepstakes winners?                              BURNETT               Okay.   What are we doing about it?                             LOWREY               We're doing nothing. I've got it               handled. In the meantime, you               better get back to where you               belong before I shoot you myself.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                                86.201    CONTINUED:   (2)                                               201       Lowrey holds and watches Burnett run off to the Porsche,       keeping the sedan in his periphery the entire time.                                                   CUT TO:202    EXT. STREET - PORSCHE - NIGHT                                  202       It pulls out and drives right past the sedan.    Julie       in full, animated view.203    INT. SEDAN - FERGUSON AND CASPER                               203       Casper sees the girl.                               CASPER                Sonofabitch!   There's the girl!       But just as they start the car.    KUH-THUNK -- the       CAR lurches.                              FERGUSON                What the fuck?204    EXT. BURNETT'S STREET - NIGHT                                  204       A tow truck has pulled up to the sedan and hooked it.       Sanchez operates the winch and Ruiz GUNS the ENGINE.                               SANCHEZ                Let's go!       The tow truck hauls away Ferguson and Casper stuck in       the sedan.                                                   CUT TO:A205   EXT. BURNETTT HOUSE - FRONT YARD - LOWREY                      A205       On the front lawn. Satisfied grin on his face, he       returns to the house.205    EXT. ORANGE BOWL STADIUM - NIGHT                               205       The tow truck wheels into the stadium and stops.       Ferguson and Casper try to make their break, but the       scene suddenly ignites as the Orange Bowl lights go on.       Squad cars and about ten cops surround with guns and       batons. Ruiz and Sanchez step from the tow truck.                                                   (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            87.205    CONTINUED:                                                      205                               RUIZ                 This oughta teach you not to fuck                 with a cop's family.       Then the lights go out.206    INT. LOWREY BUILDING - LOBBY - NIGHT                            206       Burnett enters with Julie in tow. He looks defeated,       grass stains on his clothes, mussed hair. And here comes       Chet.                               CHET                 'Evening, Mr. Lowrey. May I have                 a word with you?                        (pulls him aside)                 I was thinking that... maybe I                 could see your gun. See, we                 don't allow guns up in the                 apartments. Mr. Lowrey usually                 checks his, here, at the desk                 with me... You want me to check                 yours?       Burnett pulls his gun. But doesn't hand it to Chet.        He       sticks it in Chet's face.                                CHET                 Oh, okay.   It's just an option.       Burnett grabs Julie's hand and heads for the elevators.A207   INT. NARCOTICS DIVISION - SQUAD ROOM - DAY                      A207       A cigar-smoking Sinclair supervises the lock-down of the       Special Narcotics Unit. Desks are being locked by IA       suits.       BURNETT AND LOWREY       enter.   Just as file cabinets are hand-trucked by them.                                BURNETT                 Hey.   What's goin' on here?                               LOWREY                 Wait a minute. That's my desk!       Lowrey's going to make a move on Sinclair when Howard       appears.                                                    (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             88.A207   CONTINUED:                                                   A207                              HOWARD                Yeah, yeah. It's exactly how it                looks. I.A.'s shutting us down.                We're all being reassigned until                their investigation is over. In                here.       Howard pushes them into --       HOWARD'S OFFICE       Where Ruiz and Sanchez wait with one of last night's       Henchmen. His face is horribly bruised.                              SANCHEZ                He says he wants his lawyer.                              RUIZ                Yeah, but we told him we were                desperate men without no fuckin'                jobs, so...                       (prods the guy)                So?                              HENCHMAN                Okay. All I know is his name.                Foo-shay, I think. Got this                heavy French accent. The word                was he offs drug dealers. And                there was quick cash for whoever                had the balls enough to hook up                with him. I swear, man, watchin'                your house was my first gig for                the guy.       Burnett stands over the Henchman and lifts his defeated       chin to face him. Burnett has it in him to give the guy       one more hard whack for good measure, but that bruised       face proves punishment enough.                             BURNETT                Yeah. I guess you're tellin'                the truth.                              HOWARD                I also got the lab report from                the stuff you picked up in Noah's                trunk.       He hands it off.                                                   (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             88A.A207   CONTINUED:   (2)                                          A207                               LOWREY                        (reading)                 Insert substance... Highly                 volatile drying agent? The                 greedy motherfucker! He's cutting                 the dope.                               BURNETT                 Yeah, but Julie told me his ship                 comes in on Friday? You wanna                 tell me who can cut a hundred                 mil worth a dope in five days?                 You'd need whole lotta time cards                 to make that kinda date.                               LOWREY                 Or one really smart sonofabitch.                                  HOWARD                 We're    in the shit, boys. And                 there    ain't gonna be any more time                 cards    for this unit unless somebody                 pulls    a miracle out of their ass.B207   EXT. UNMARKED CAR OUTSIDE TIRE EMPORIUM - DAY             B207       Julie's handcuffed to the steering wheel again, semi-       draped in the front seat. She can't believe it.                               JULIE                 I'm getting really tired of this                 shit!207    OMITTED                                                   207A208   INT. TIRE EMPORIUM - DAY                                  A208       This is a yawning, tire graveyard for used and crude       tires.       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 (PM)                         89.B208   INT. TIRE EMPORIUM - OFFICE - DAY                          B208       Two old codgers are trading stories in front of JOJO, a       white boy with rasta dreadlocks.                               BURNETT                Hey, Jojo.       Through the office window, Jojo sees Burnett and sud-       denly bolts out the rear door and runs smack dab into       Lowrey, who body checks him back up against the office       door.                              LOWREY                Good runnin' into you, Jojo.208    INT. TIRE EMPORIUM - BATHROOM - DAY                        208       Now Burnett has pushed Jojo up onto the sink.   Lowrey       hangs back, vibrating with anticipation.                              BURNETT                Hey, calm down. A little rap,                that's all. We're lookin' for                someone who can step on a                shitload of heroin. And do it                real fast, and real well.                We're lookin' for a pro.                              JOJO                I'm in the rubber business now.                              BURNETT                We're not playin' around with                you, Jojo. You know what we                want.                              JOJO                I'm tellin' you straight up,                like a straight fuckin' arrow,                okay? I'm straight as a board.                I'm so straight it's fuckin'                sick.                              BURNETT                Now there's a lotta dope, Jojo.                Who can cut it quick?                              JOJO                You mean, cut it... cut it up,                yeah. I don't know anything about                anything.       Lowrey's had it.   He pulls his gun and pushes in.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 (PM)                          90.208   CONTINUED:                                                  208                                JOJO               Hey, man.     I can't believe you're               puttin' a    gun on me. You're a cop.               I turn you    into 'Hard Copy,' man.               Put you on    the T.V. set.                             BURNETT               What are you doin', man?      As Burnett tries to intercede, they talk over each other.               LOWREY                           BURNETT       We don't got time for            Mike. Chill with that.       this. Jojo, I'm gonna            No. Don't do it! This       kill you, man. I've got          is illegal! He's just       fifteen bullets and I'm          a white ganja-smokin'       gonna fill your rasta            motherfucker. He ain't       ass fulla some hot               worth it.       shit...         (reaches behind his          back)       Wait. Wait.       Burnett pushes in one last time and tries to talk Lowrey       back. Lowrey acts like he lost it. He pulls another       gun and points it at Burnett.               LOWREY                           BURNETT       Back up. I'm gonna bust          Right on. Jojo, you're       your fuckin' ass too.            on your own.          (then, back to                   (as he walks away)           Jojo)                        I'm sorry for you, Jojo.       Talk to me. Tell me what         I was on your side. I'll       I want to know. I'll do          just be over here. I       you man, say it. Come on.        don't want no skull                                        fragments or brain shit                                        on me. When that shit                                        flies, it don't wash off.      CLOSE ON JOJO      scared shitless.   He's gonna die.   These are some crazy      motherfuckers.                             BURNETT                      (chimes in again)               Remember, partner. He's no good               to us if you splatter his ass.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/23/94 (PM)                91.208   CONTINUED:   (2)                                  208                             JOJO               Okay, okay. I definitely don't               know for sure. But I know a               little for sure. Three guys...               well, two guys and one of them's               dead. Crazy rocket-scientist,               Einstein fuckin' guy. Got some               rich mommy and daddy. Tell you               where he's at.                             LOWREY                      (holsters guns)               Man, it's a good thing you got               your memory workin'. Cuz that               dead man paperwork is a bitch.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             91A.209   EXT. UPPER CLASS NEIGHBORHOOD (CORAL GABLES) - NIGHT         209      Staked out around the corner are Burnett and Lowrey.      Each is clearly tired of the other. The silence is      deadly until Julie breaks the silence.                             JULIE               So where's the coffee and donuts?                                BURNETT               What?                             JULIE               I thought that was the usual menu               when cops were on stakeout. A               little caffeine for the heart.               Some sugar-coated dough fried in               day old grease.                             LOWREY               Man. Will you get off this?               You're making me sick.                             JULIE               Oh, I'm sorry, Marcus. All     these               hours on the case, you must    miss               Theresa's home cooking.                      (near Lowrey's ear)               Bet last night she fixed you    up               something yummy and left it    in               the microwave for you.      Burnett starts to steam.                              LOWREY               Yeah.   Somethin' yummy.                             JULIE               I imagine there was something               yummy waiting for you when you               finally made it to bed --                             BURNETT                      (wheels)               Listen, lady --      But Burnett's face    ignites with headlights at their      rear. Doors open.      Lowrey checks the rear-view mirror.      He sees two private    security cops named DE SOUZA and      TOWNE. They split     and approach either side of the      unmarked sedan.                                LOWREY               Oh, man.     It's the fuckin' pretend               police.                                                    (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             92.209   CONTINUED:                                                   209                             BURNETT               Be nice. After tomorrow we might               need 'em for a job reference.      Lowrey rolls down his driver's window in time to hear...                             TOWNE               Well, what do we have back here?               Looks like we got us two pimps               and a hooker.                             DE SOUZA               Hey, fellahs. Maybe if she does               us both we'll let you leave with               your pride intact.                             LOWREY               Excuse me. One moment.                      (rolls up the window)               Let's fuck with these bozos.      Burnett nods his approval.   Lowrey lowers the window.                             LOWREY               Now, where were we?                             TOWNE               Outta the car. Hands where we can               see 'em. Feet spread.      Both hobby cops open the doors for Lowrey and Burnett      respectively. Looks pass between them as they step out      and assume the positions. And Towne starts by frisking      Burnett's shoulders.                             BURNETT               Oh, that's not how you frisk a               potential lawbreaker. You gotta               start at the waistband. See if               he's carrying a piece.      Towne stalls a beat, then self-consciously goes to      Burnett's waistband where he feels a --                             TOWNE               Gun!      Both hobby cops instantly withdraw, their own pieces      drawn and leveled on Burnett and Lowrey.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                          93.209   CONTINUED:   (2)                                          209                             LOWREY               Whoah. You better watch it,               fellahs!                      (very slowly)               You know, it would be very bad               if you shot and killed two               helpless pimps and a call girl...               But it would be even worse if you               shot two policemen and their               witness on a stakeout.      Looks pass between the hobby cops.                             LOWREY                      (slowly turns)               Now I'm reaching slowly for my               shield... very slowly... here it               comes... just about got it...                      (reveals his badge)               Ooh, look at that. It's a               detective's shield! All gold and               shiny. A smart fellah wouldn't               fuck with somebody who had one of               these in his pocket. So... Let's               see. I guess that makes us               policemen. And you...                             BURNETT               Not.      He shows his shield. Both hobby cops lower their guns,      unsure about what's next. Burnett moves in.                             BURNETT               Now, some rent-a-cops have               licenses to carry weapons,  where               others do not. Which might   you               be? You wouldn't happen to   have               those permits handy, would  you?      From the looks on the hobby cops' faces, Julie can see      that they don't.                             JULIE               Guess we know the answer to that               one.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                  94.210   EXT. UPPER CLASS NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHT (LATER)                  210      De Souza and Towne lay face down and cuffed on the      pavement while the CAMERA LIFTS BACK TO the car.                             BURNETT               I bet you miss your wife, kids...               I bet you miss them a whole lot.                             LOWREY               I don't worry. They're in good               hands.211   INT. BURNETT'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                             211      Theresa gives a peek out the window.       There's another      suspicious car on the street.212   EXT. BURNETT'S STREET - UNMARKED CAR - NIGHT                   212      Sanchez and Ruiz are on protective duty in front of      Burnett's house.                             SANCHEZ               Are you kidding, man? Desi was               the brains behind the whole               operation. That's why they               called their company Desilu.               Desi was first. Lucy second.               Get it? Desi-Lu?213   INT. LOWREY AND BURNETT'S CAR - DAWN                           213      Coral Gables stakeout. Julie's passed out and, once      again, sleeping in the rear of the car. In the glow of      the faltering streetlights and the approaching dawn,      she couldn't look more beautiful. And from his post in      the driver's seat, he's looking at her with a longing      that goes well beyond lust. Then Burnett breaks the      silence.                                BURNETT               Two o'clock.     The red Civic.214   EXT. ELLIOT'S HOUSE - BURNETT'S POV - TELEPHOTO ANGLE          214      FROM STAKEOUT CAR - DAWN      Elliot shutting the door to his little red Civic,      jangling keys as he's hurrying up the walk to the front      door. He looks like he hasn't slept or showered in days.                                                            95.215   INT. STAKEOUT CAR - DAWN                                    215                             BURNETT               Let's just hope he didn't come               home for a nap.                                                TIME CUT TO:216   EXT. ELLIOT'S HOUSE - MORNING                               216      Elliot exits the house in a hurry. Hair wet from a      shower and fresh change of clothes. He fumbles with the      keys to his Civic, gets in and drives.217   INT. STAKEOUT CAR - MORNING                                 217                             LOWREY               I'm on him.                      (to Julie)               Hey, buckle up back there.                             JULIE               Wha...?      Lowrey has the keys in the ignition and is stomping on      the gas.218   EXT. MIAMI STREETS - MORNING                                218      Tailing scene as Lowrey and Burnett tail Elliot through      morning traffic.219   EXT. BOAT YARD - MORNING                                    219      Lowrey and Burnett's unmarked sedan stops about two      hundred yards from the freighter.220   EXT. BOAT YARD - DRUG FREIGHTER - TELEPHOTO POV -           220      MORNING      Elliot's out of the car in a flash and crawling aboard      the ship. But as he disappears, Casper appears with his      own pair of binoculars.221   INT. STAKEOUT CAR (BOATYARD) - MORNING                      221                             BURNETT               They've made us. Let's move.      Lowrey FLOORS it.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                               96.222   INT. LOWREY AND BURNETT'S CAR - EN ROUTE - MORNING          222      Lowrey's driving in his typical, pedal to the metal      style while Burnett talks on the radio.                            BURNETT               Yeah. Tell Howard to assemble               the troops. We just made the               dope lab. We'll be at the P.D.               in one hour.                             JULIE               So what am I gonna do?                             LOWREY               You're gonna keep your sweet ass               nice and quiet back at my place.                                JULIE               What?                                LOWREY               Mike's place.     I said Mike's.      Lowrey rolls his eyes.    He can't wait for this to end.223   INT. BURNETT KITCHEN - MORNING                              223      Typical pandemonium. Theresa is making/serving breakfast      while the TV BLARES. Quincy is channel surfing on the      TV when he comes up with the news footage of the      explosion, followed by more footage of Lowrey, Julie, and      Burnett at the scene.                             QUINCY               Hey, it's Dad and Uncle Mike.                             NEWS ANCHOR (V.O.)               In our continuing report on police               violence, the most recent incident               involving two Miami P.D. officers               remains unexplained by department               spokesmen. This high-speed chase               was captured two nights ago by               our Live Copter 9 news team. And               while the driver was killed, both               police officers involved in the               incident seemed to escape without               injury.                             THERESA               Kids, you go over to the               neighbors' house. I'll be right               back.                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                              97.223   CONTINUED:                                                 223                             JULIE               Where you going?                             THERESA               Mommy's going to Cleveland.224   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - LOWREY, BURNETT, AND JULIE - DAY     224      Bang, they're through the door.   Grubby and tired from      the all-night stakeout.225   INT. LOBBY - MORNING                                       225      Theresa enters building, ignores Chet and heads straight      for bank of elevators.                             CHET               Lady, all visitors must be               announced.                             THERESA               Announce this!      In a motherly flash, she's got Chet by the ear and she's      dragging him over to the elevator. He yowls the whole      way until he sticks his master pass-card in the elevator      lock. Theresa lets  go.226   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - DAY                                  226      Julie is framed in the bedroom doorway, somewhat sadly      watching Burnett and Lowrey scramble to get ready for      the bust.                             JULIE               So, I guess when you get back, it's               gonna be over.                             LOWREY               That's the plan... So, Mike. Loan               some of those ass kicking clothes.                             BURNETT               Third drawer down.                      (as doorbell rings)               Hey, Julie. Do me a favor and see               who that is.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                98.227   INT. CONDO - LIVING ROOM - DAY                               227      Julie looks through the peephole, then opens the door.      And there's Theresa. Julie's hip.                             JULIE               Which one do you want?     The tall               one or the short one?                             THERESA               Oh, I got plenty in me to kill 'em               both. But it's the short one I'm               gonna divorce.      She pushes past.                                JULIE               Thought so.      Julie watches Theresa charge headlong into --228   INT. CONDO - BEDROOM - DAY                                   228      Burnett's stripped to his pants and T-shirt. While      Lowrey's down to his white boxer shorts. He's talking      and wiping down his gun with a rag.                             LOWREY               Man, I can't wait to see the look               on Howard's face when we tell               him...                      (seeing Theresa)               Holy shit! Hi, Theresa... honey.                             THERESA               Save your crap, Mike.                                LOWREY               Mike what?     What'd he do?                                BURNETT               Theresa.     It's not how it looks.                             THERESA               It ain't Cleveland, neither.                             LOWREY               Where's Julie?      Lowrey pushes past Theresa into --229   INT. CONDO - LIVING ROOM - DAY                               229      Where Julie is gone!    The front door is wide open.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            99.230   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - ELEVATORS - DAY                       230      Julie's inside. She hits the close door button.    But      Lowrey's there to catch it.                              LOWREY                Julie. We wanted to tell you...                I especially wanted to tell you --                              JULIE                You think I didn't know? God, you                are so stupid! And to think I let                you use me like you did, Max.                Why?                             LOWREY                Julie --                              JULIE                Wait. I know why. Because you                said you needed me. Jesus, who's                the stupid one now?                              LOWREY                We still need you.      He reaches for her.                             JULIE                Fuck you!      Julie slams a fist into Lowrey's face. The elevator      doors shut. Then Burnett comes hauling down the      corridor with Theresa at his heels. He pounds the      elevator button.                              THERESA                You stayed away from home just one                night too many, Marcus.                              BURNETT                Theresa. She's a material witness!                It was orders!231   INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - LOBBY - DAY                           231      The elevator doors open and Julie makes for exit. She      sees a cab parked outside, slips back on her spiked heel      and starts to run for it when --      FOUCHET      enters, with Casper and Ferguson to either side.                                                (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            99A.231   CONTINUED:   (A1)                                          231      They sweep into the lobby, stalling just inside the      doorway when they realize that their target is right      there in front of them, frozen like a deer caught in the      proberbial headlights.      To the right and left, people at the mailboxes. Chet      on the phone behind the desk. But he's looking at      Julie. Then...                             FOUCHET               Grab her.      But the doors to the second elevator open.                                                   (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                100.231   CONTINUED:                                                  231      Burnett and Lowrey step out in time to see Julie      looking to them and the bad guys about to make their      move.      WIDE SHOT FROM ABOVE      Fouchet and his henchmen LEFT. Burnett and Lowrey to      the RIGHT. And Julie in the MIDDLE. Fouchet is the      first one to draw down.                                 LOWREY                  Julie!   Drop now!      Pandemonium.      GUNS drawn and BLAZING. All three villains, plus Burnett      and Lowrey, diving and FIRING.      PEOPLE IN LOBBY      Scream and duck for cover.     Smoke and plaster fill the      air.      BURNETT      Pushes Theresa back into the elevator, making her lay on      the floor as BULLETS CUT above.      LOWREY      Slips behind a pillar as BULLETS WHIZ past.      JULIE      On floor.    In the middle.   Crawling for cover when --      FOUCHET      With balls the size of Pennsylvania. Two GUNS in hand,      walks forward with barrels fixed and FIRING. Clips out      on one, tosses the gun aside, then, with his free hand,      reaches down and grabs Julie by the hair and lifts her      until she stands.                                FOUCHET                  Let's go!                                                   (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/22/94                                101.231    CONTINUED:   (2)                                          231       With a gun in her side, he backs away and shoves her       through the exit. Casper and Ferguson follow.       LOWREY       Swings around the pillar, gun leveled and running after       them.                                 LOWREY                Julie!!!!       Meanwhile --232    INT. LOWREY LOBBY - ELEVATOR - BURNETT AND THERESA        232       Into the open elevator, Burnett slides his gun over to       her.                              BURNETT                Go upstairs. And don't let anybody                in but me... Do it!       Burnett presses the close door button. The doors close       just as Theresa reaches for him, calling --                              THERESA                Marcus, I love you.233    EXT. LOWREY'S CONDO - DAY                                 233       Fouchet shoves Julie into a waiting car. All three bad       guys pile in and the CAR PEELS RUBBER just as Lowrey       makes the doorway. Lowrey doesn't stop. He doesn't       even wait for traffic. In nothing but his underwear,       he appears from the building, turns the corner out the       door, launches into traffic like a shot, spinning off       bumpers, chasing Fouchet's car on foot.A234   EXT./INT. FOUCHET'S CAR (INTERSECTION) - DAY              A234       Fouchet's car slides into the intersection and stalled       traffic. To the right: a footbridge. The car swings a       hard right.234    EXT. FOOTBRIDGE                                           234       Where a male nurse pushing an old man in a wheelchair are       in the way. SLAM! The nurse tumbles up and into       Fouchet's windshield.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                          102.234   CONTINUED:                                               234      WHEELCHAIR      Empty and spinning.235   EXT. OTHER END OF FOOTBRIDGE                             235      Metal pylons imbedded in concrete.                             FOUCHET               Out of the car!      The doors fly open and all three are out in the middle      of the stalled traffic, Julie being drug along with      them. The gang cuts down an alley.236   EXT. ALLEY - LOWREY                                      236      Turns the corner, running up over car roofs and hoods.      He lowers his gun and tries to draw a bead on Fouchet      and the gang. They've got Julie and now they're running.237   EXT. ALLEY - BURNETT                                     237      Appears behind Lowrey. Lowrey waves him in another      direction. Burnett hauls one way. Lowrey the other.238   INT. BEAUTY SALON - DAY                                  238      MUZAK. Old ladies getting their hair blued and curled      when -- BANG! Fouchet and the gang enter. Curlers fly.      Screams!      LOWREY      enters. He dives to the floor as Casper stops and FIRES.      BULLETS RIP through the salon walls and mirrors. Lowrey      ends up under an old lady's dress.239   EXT. OCEAN BLVD. (SOUTH BEACH)                           239      Exiting the beauty salon and stumbling through a      crowded cafe runs Fouchet and the gang, mauling their      way through tables and patrons. Lowrey, only moments      behind, pushing his way through the same path.                                                            103.240   EXT. INTERSECTION                                          240      Fouchet stops right in the middle. Picks the first      car that's headed for him. Levels a GUN on a taxi cab      and FIRES two quick rounds -- BAM BAM!! The driver of      the car instantly slumps. Ferguson's seen this before.      He's around to the driver's side of the car, pulling the      dead man out and leaving him on the street. Casper and      Fouchet shove Julie inside and they're off again.241   EXT. INTERSECTION                                          241      But here comes Burnett. Crossing traffic. He's got no      gun. So he jumps aboard Fouchet's car just as it gets      into gear. The WHEELS SPIN. The CAR LURCHES ahead.242   INSIDE CAB                                                 242      Ferguson aims his pistol upward. He's about to fire      into the roof when Julie shoves him. GUNSHOTS RING      out sideways.243   EXT./INT. CAB                                              243      BULLETS RIP to either side of Burnett. Then Fouchet      stomps on the brake and Burnett tumbles forward and      onto the pavement.      CLOSE ON BURNETT      He rolls, makes it to one knee.   But his other leg      gives way.      FOUCHET      He sees his chance and GUNS the ENGINE. The cab barrels      at Burnett, who's stuck in the middle of the boulevard,      about to become instant roadkill.      Then --244   EXT. STREET                                                244      From out of nowhere, here comes Lowrey. Dashing out      across the boulevard and snatching his partner from the      deadly grille of the cab.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                             104.244   CONTINUED:                                                244      TAXI CAB      hauls on by. Leaving Burnett and Lowrey in a heap of      their own, both trying to catch their breath.                               LOWREY                 Don't ever say I wasn't there for                 you.245   EXT. MIAMI PD - MOTORPOOL - DAY                           245      TAC teams and uniform cops swarm around their cars.      All waiting as Burnett and Lowrey arrive in their      unmarked car. Howard approaches.                               HOWARD                 It's about fuckin' time.                               BURNETT                 We lost the girl.                               HOWARD                 But you found the dope, right?                 So let's go get it back.      A bicycle BELL RINGS. Heads turn. And here comes a      BOY on his bike, serpentining his way through the maze      of cars and cops until he gets to Lowrey, Burnett, and      Howard.                               BOY                 Which one of you's Lowrey?   I got                 somethin' for him.                               LOWREY                 At least I'm me again.                        (hand out)                 I'm Lowrey.      From his back pocket, the boy extracts a cellular flip      PHONE. He hands it to Lowrey. He presses the power      button and, almost instantly, it RINGS.                                LOWREY                         (presses send)                 Yeah.   This is Lowrey.246   INT. FREIGHTER - DOPE LAB - DAY                           246      While dope is lifted and loaded from the open hold,      Fouchet is revealed at the other end of the cellular      call.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                           105.246   CONTINUED:                                                 246                             FOUCHET               I have something for you to listen               to.      Fouchet lifts his PISTOL and FIRES a single shot.   BAM!      INTERCUT WITH --247   EXT. MIAMI PD - MOTORPOOL - LOWREY                         247      He jolts at the sound of GUNFIRE.248   INT. FREIGHTER - DOPE LAB - FOUCHET                        248      Where the CAMERA SWISH PANS ACROSS TO a very dead Elliot.                             FOUCHET               That bullet just killed the               chemist. Now, I have but four               hours left to make my deal. Fuck               with my timetable and the next               bullet kills the girl.      Julie is gagged and sitting on the floor, scared      shitless.249   EXT. MIAMI PD - MOTORPOOL - LOWREY                         249      He's in a vice.    Duty or the girl.   Then --                             LOWREY               You twisted motherfucker...                      (then...)               Jojo, you sonofabitch. When I get               my hands on you, I swear, I'm gonna               kill you.                      (hangs up)               The snitch who tipped us to the               dope lab? Turns out to be a               bogus address.                             BURNETT               Bogus address?                             HOWARD               How's this? I'll kill the little               prick for you. That's cuz you're               already dead.                      (waves at the                       troops)               Okay, you guys. Put 'em back in               the lockers.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                            106.249   CONTINUED:                                                249      En masse, all the cops act as if the wind had been      knocked from their sails.250   INT. LOW-DOWN BAR - DAY                                   250      Empty, save for the daytime regulars at the bar and      Burnett and Lowrey in a rear booth.                             BURNETT               How'd he know we were gearing up               to go? It's like he's known all               along where we're gonna be and               when.                             LOWREY               You know that once he sells the               dope, he's gonna kill her just               like he did Max.                             BURNETT               Three little angels. Julie kept               talking about his three little               angels.      A barkeeper appears with two beers.   Burnett automati-      cally reaches for his wallet.      CLOSE ON BURNETT'S WALLET      Where out pops a picture of his three children.                             LOWREY               If she dies, I'm done with it.               The whole cop thing.                             BURNETT                      (looking at his                       kids)               Three little angels.251   INT. SQUAD ROOM - DAY                                     251      Francine is at her file desk. Looking pretty much the      same as always. Same smile. Same easy manner. Then      the CAMERA REVOLVES AROUND her and SETTLES ON those      pictures on her desk. Her three little boys --      including the one in uniform. The CAMERA TILTS TO --      LOWREY AND BURNETT      standing over her desk.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                             107.251   CONTINUED:                                                251      Neither of them smiling.                             FRANCINE               Hey, fellahs. What's the joke.                      (as she gets nothing                       back)               Really. I want to know.      Soon, though, the facade fades.   Francine knows she's      been caught.252   INT. LADIES' ROOM - DAY                                   252      Burnett holds the door while Lowrey holds Francine.      She's broken, crying, and giving up the ghost of her      past.                             FRANCINE               It was a birthday party... You               know, after hours. Just the               civilian staff... We were drinking.               And everybody. They all had boy               friends or their husbands.                             LOWREY               So you were alone?                             FRANCINE               He was so nice to me. He said I               was beautiful, too. I guess I               wanted to believe him...                      (then ashamed,                       starting to shake)               He took some horrible pictures of               me. I don't remember any of it.               I'd had too much to drink. I               wondered if he'd drugged me.               Later... he threatened to show               them to my boys... my little               angels. Said he'd pin the               pictures up on the grade school               bulletin boards for all their               classmates to see if I didn't do               what he wanted.                             BURNETT               He wanted someone inside the P.D.?                             FRANCINE               At first, it was about drug busts.               Dealers under surveillance.                             (MORE)                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                          108.252   CONTINUED:                                                 252                             FRANCINE (CONT'D)               He'd steal from them before we               could make the case. And then when               the department gave the air               conditioning to Mr. Orona...                             BURNETT               Anything you can tell us about him?                             FRANCINE               What do you say about someone who               rips off drug dealers? A man               like that ain't scared of nobody.               Not the police. Not you guys.               Nobody.                      (beat)               He's the scariest man I ever met.                             LOWREY               Yeah. But does he still trust               what you tell him?253   EXT. BOATYARD - DAY                                        253      Fouchet is supervising the loading of the dope onto three      canvas-backed, military-styled trucks when his CELLULAR      PHONE RINGS. He answers.                              FOUCHET               Yes?254   INT. HOWARD'S OFFICE - DAY                                 254      Francine is on the phone with Howard on another      extension.                             FRANCINE               I have some more information for               you, Mr. Fouchet.255   EXT. FLORIDA POWER PLANT (MIAMI) - DAY                     255      A Florida Power van.   Inside...256   INT. ELECTRONICS SURVEILLANCE VAN - DAY                    256      Burnett and Lowrey wearing headsets, listening in on the      conversation between Fouchet and Francine.      INTERCUT WITH:                                                           109.257   EXT. BOAT YARD - DRUG FREIGHTER - FOUCHET                 257      He's surprised to hear from Francine.                             FOUCHET               Yes, Francine... What is it?                             FRANCINE               Miami P.D.'s called in the D.E.A.               task force. They know the deal's               going down in just two hours. So               they've deployed agents to every               point of entry, airports, marinas,               etc...                              FOUCHET               Is that all?                              FRANCINE               Yes.                             FOUCHET               I'm very pleased, Francine.               You're the best pet I've ever               had.      He hangs up.258   INT. SURVEILLANCE VAN                                     258      Back in the van Lowrey turns to Sanchez.                             SANCHEZ               Got him! Ma Bell says as long as               he keeps his cellular phone turned               on, we can track him.                             BURNETT               Call Howard. Tell him we're gonna               need lotsa back-up.259   EXT. HELICOPTER SHOT POV - FLYING OVER DOPE CONVOY        259      Three trucks making their way through Miami.260   INT. REAR CABIN OF MIDDLE DOPE TRUCK                      260      Ferguson is seated and staring across at Julie. Across      his lap is a shotgun. She may be bruised and abused.      But she's still got some bite.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                             110.260   CONTINUED:                                                  260                             JULIE               I forget the formula. Big gun,               big dick? No. Little gun, big               dick? No. Big gun, little dick?               Yeah. Yeah. I think that's it.261   INT. FORWARD TRUCK - FOUCHET                                261      The CAMERA ZEROES IN ON his cellular phone.    The power      light is green.262   INT. SURVEILLANCE VAN - DAY                                 262      Sanchez gives the update.                             SANCHEZ               They're turning north onto the               Orange Highway.                             BURNETT               We can make better time if we cut               across the Biscayne Bridge.263   EXT. BISCAYNE BRIDGE - DAY                                  263      The van cuts across traffic, barely making the ramp which      swirls up onto the bridge.264   EXT. ORANGE COAST HIGHWAY NORTH - DAY                       264      The dope convoy rolls OVER the CAMERA.                                                   CUT TO:265   EXT. ORANGE COAST HIGHWAY NORTH - HELICOPTER POV SHOT -     265      DAY      As the convoy makes a right turn off the highway onto an      old tar and gravel track.266   EXT. ORANGE CITY AIRFIELD - CLOSE ON SIGN:    ORANGE CITY   266      AIRFIELD      The trucks roll toward an old airport which consists of a      small, pilot's terminal and four or so hangars spread out      over the ten acre site.                                                            111.267   EXT. HANGAR 3 - DAY                                        267      Two henchmen for the buyer open the yawning doors of this      massive, five-story hangar to reveal a C-123 cargo      aircraft. The convoy of trucks enters.268   EXT. ORANGE HIGHWAY - DAY                                  268      The surveillance van is parked at the side of the road.269   INT. SURVEILLANCE VAN - DAY                                269      THROUGH a floor-mounted SPOTTING SCOPE we see the last of      the trucks roll into Hangar 3 and two of the buyer's      henchmen shut the doors.                               BURNETT                 That's it. That's where they're                 making the deal.      Burnett swivels the spotting scope.270   EXT. ORANGE CITY AIRFIELD - SCOPE'S POV                    270      PANNING LEFT AND RIGHT ACROSS the landscape of tall reeds      and distant buildings. Finally he STALLS ON a garbage      truck and its four-man crew rolling dumpsters.271   INT. HANGAR 3 - DAY                                        271      Fouchet shakes  hands with the BUYER. Upon which time one      forklift begins  to drive pallets full of cash from the      open cargo door  of the aircraft while another drives      pallets full of  dope.                               BUYER                 Three hundred million and very,                 very fresh. Too much to count,                 eh?      ON JULIE      As Casper pulls her from the rear of a truck and      handcuffs her to the door of a cab.                               BUYER                 Who's the bimbo?                               FOUCHET                 Simply part of another                 transaction.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                          112.271   CONTINUED:                                                 271      The operation moves swiftly. Dope pallets for cash      pallets. Smooth, just like the original heist. Two fuel      trucks are moved in to gas up the aircraft.272   EXT. AIRFIELD - DAY                                        272      Rounding the corner from Hangar 3 -- here comes the      garbage truck. CLOSER INSPECTION REVEALS Ruiz and      Sanchez at the helm with both Lowrey and Burnett hanging      from the sides. All of them wear dirty white jumpsuits      and protective masks.273   EXT. HANGAR 3 - DAY                                        273      The two Buyer's henchmen stiffen at the sight of the      oncoming truck. Their hands slip inside their coats to      MP5-Ks slung under their armpits. But --274   EXT. HANGAR 3 - GARBAGE TRUCK - DAY                        274      It veers and swings over toward two nearby dumpsters.      With Sanchez keeping a wary eye on the two bad guys and      Ruiz to operate the hydraulics, Burnett and Lowrey drop      from the truck and do their best working-for-the-city      amble over to the dumpster. Business as usual. They      wheel it over and position it in front of the two lifting      forks where the garbage appears to be expertly lifted and      dumped into the truck.      CLOSE ON DUMPSTER      As it lowers, the gearing seems to get hung up. The      hydraulics' arms won't work, leaving the dumpster stuck      in the air.      RUIZ AND SANCHEZ      Begin speaking Spanish, one blaming the other for this      fiasco. Angry words. Finally, Ruiz has had enough.       He      tosses down his gloves and hat and begins stomping off    as      if he's just quit his stinking job. He's headed right     for      the henchmen, his mouth moving and spewing and moving    and      spewing. The henchmen look to each other, not knowing      what to think. Ready for anything when --      CLICK CLICK -- GUNS COCKING.      Both Burnett and Lowrey are right behind the henchmen with      guns at the base of their necks.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                            113.274   CONTINUED:                                                 274                             BURNETT               Mouths shut, feet moving.    Now,               walk.275   EXT. HANGAR #3 - ANGLE ON DUMPSTER                         275      As it lifts once again to the air, this time dumping the      two henchmen into the truck.      ANGLE - HIGH ABOVE TRUCK      As the human garbage is deposited.276   INT. HANGAR 3 - C-123 - DAY                                276      The Buyer buckles himself into the pilot's seat of the C-      123. His crew shuts the cargo hatches and he gives a      pleased salute to Fouchet. The ENGINES TURN OVER and the      propellers move. Meanwhile --277   INT. HANGAR 3 - TRUCK ENGINES                              277      START. Loaded with cash, they're ready to go.   Fouchet      gives the signal to open the doors.      CASPER AND FERGUSON      Move to open the doors. They give a good shove.   Still      nothing. So they bang and shout.                            CASPER               Hey! Wake up out there!     Open               it up!278   EXT. HANGAR 3 - DAY                                        278      One of the dumpsters is parked in front of the doors.   No      exit.279   INT. HANGAR 3 - DAY                                        279      Just as Casper and Ferguson give a helpless look to      Fouchet...                                                            114.280   INT. HANGAR 3 - ANGLE ACROSS HANGAR - DAY                280      The garbage truck barrels through the rear wall,      instantly colliding with the left wing section of      aircraft. The wheel assembly buckles and the aircraft      twists onto one wing. Fuel spills.281   INT. C-123 (HANGAR 3) - ON BUYER                         281      Tossed from his seat and thrown across throttle.   The      ENGINE ROARS!282   INT. HANGAR - ONE CANVAS-BACKED TRUCK                    282      The tarpaulin rips and a pallet of cash busts open.      Money swirls inside the hangar.283   INT./EXT. C-123 - CARGO DOORS                            283      Open.   Henchmen ready to kill.   Then --284   FROM EMPTY DUMPSTER                                      284      Pop up Burnett and Lowrey. MP5-Ks in hand. They BLAZE      the cargo doors and CUT DOWN the rest of the Buyer's      henchmen.      CASPER AND FERGUSON      charge.   GUNS BLASTING.      BULLETS      RIP across the dumpster, moving up into the truck cab.      Ruiz and Sanchez dive and roll to either side.      Meanwhile, the sparks ignite the spilled fuel.                              LOWREY                Move it or lose it!      Burnett and Lowrey climb from the dumpster and run.      Casper and Ferguson have a clear shot. They level and      aim, but...      KUH-WHOOM!      The FUEL TANK on the aircraft EXPLODES. The truck drivers      dive for cover. Charging for the open hole in the wall.                                                            115.285   INT. AIRCRAFT (HANGAR 3)                                     285      Inside the aircraft the precious dope catches fire.286   INT. HANGAR 3 - ON CASPER AND FERGUSON                       286      Looking through the flames. Shielding their eyes.     Ruiz      and Sanchez appear from behind.                                SANCHEZ               Remember us?      The two bad guys turn with their guns. The flames      igniting their already battered faces. But they don't      turn fast enough. Both cops FIRE in unison. Ferguson      and Casper fall. PULL BACK --287   INT. HANGAR 3 - WIDE ANGLE                                   287      One aircraft ENGINE still ROARING. The money swirling      and burning, falling from the roof like a fiery rain.      And --288   INT. HANGAR 3 - LOWREY AND BURNETT                           288      Easing through the wreckage, ever-so-cautious.                                LOWREY               Julie!                                JULIE (O.S.)               Michael!      Her VOICE ECHOES.                                                CUT TO:289   INT. HANGAR 3 - FOUCHET                                      289      He's handcuffed himself to Julie, dragging her deeper      and deeper into the hangar. The smoke is getting thicker      and swirling with the burning cash.290   INT. HANGAR 3 - BURNETT AND LOWREY                           290      Signals between the two. They split wider.   Moving      toward those locked doors.291   INT. HANGAR 3 - BACK ON FOUCHET                              291      At the locked doors. He shoves against them in a futile      rage. Julie begins to choke on the fumes.                                                             116.292   INT. HANGAR 3 - SEPARATE SHOTS - BURNETT AND LOWREY          292      Each placing their faces against their own sleeves.    The      smoke is thicker, swirling in waves.293   INT. HANGAR - DOORS - FOUCHET                                293      Shoving the doors.   Pushing and pushing.    Then --294   FROM HAIL OF SMOKE AND BURNING CASH                          294      Appear Lowrey and Burnett. Twenty yards apart and      closing. Guns carefully aimed. Fouchet pulls Julie      close.                              FOUCHET                I was going to fuck her, then                kill her. Now it looks like I'm                only going to do the latter.                              LOWREY                Either we O.D. on the air or                the whole place blows. We're                dying anyway.                              BURNETT                Let her go and you'll walk. You                can keep the dope and the money.                       (coughs)                Just the girl and we all get out                of here.                              FOUCHET                What if I don't have the key.                              JULIE                He threw it in the --                              FOUCHET                       (yanks her)                Shut up! It's gone. She's dead.                Unless you move aside.      Burnett eases further right. Gun carefully aimed. His      eyes are stinging. Lowrey goes left. But he's lowering      his gun.      FOUCHET      Pulls Julie closer. Gun at her head. Looking to      Burnett. While Lowrey is nodding to Julie. Nodding      for her to --                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              117.294   CONTINUED:                                                  294                               LOWREY                Drop, Julie!      She drops.    Burnett has a clear shot when --295   HANGAR DOORS                                                295      Swing wide and way, way open. Blinding light. NOISE.      HELICOPTERS. And about fifty cops at the ready. Rounds      chambered. Rifles leveled.296   QUICK SHOTS                                                 296      Fouchet, Julie, Lowrey, Burnett. All with the same idea.      They bolt for daylight as fast as they can go because --297   HANGAR                                                      297      EXPLODES in such a concussion it knocks all four of them      to the dirt. The hangar crumbles.298   EXT. HANGAR - CLOSE ON BURNETT                              298      As he looks back on the conflagration.                              BURNETT                Sanchez and Ruiz...      Then --      FOUCHET WITH JULIE      He yanks her back up onto her feet, wild-eyed.   He's      still got the gun on her.                              LOWREY                       (hands up for all                        the cops to see)                Don't shoot!!! Hold your fire!!!      FOUCHET      Twisting Julie for all to see.    The cops' rifle sights,      all glinting in the sun.                              FOUCHET                I'll kill the girl!!!                                                  (CONTINUED)      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                            118.298   CONTINUED:                                                 298      Fouchet raises Julie's hand high in the air to show all      of them the handcuffs when -- KA-POW! -- a SHOT RINGS      OUT.      CLOSE ON CUFFS      The link is snapped in two by the bullet.    Julie falls      to the ground. While --      BURNETT AND LOWREY      UNLOAD their CLIPS in a CRESCENDO of GUNFIRE.    Fouchet      crumples in a heap.                                                  CUT TO:299   EXT. HANGAR - HOWARD                                       299      The eye behind the smoking sniper rifle.    He reveals a      pleasured smile.                               HOWARD               Swish.      Then he turns to Sinclair, who stands only feet away.                             HOWARD               Investigate that, asshole.300   EXT. HANGAR - JULIE                                        300      She finds her feet and runs to Lowrey. Right into his      arms. He holds her tight, but she winces from a nasty      cut on her shoulder.                                JULIE               Ow.     This shit really hurts.                             LOWREY               Stick around. I'll give you a               bullet to bite.      Finally --      SANCHEZ AND RUIZ      They appear.   Alive and well. Big grins, helping Burnett      to his feet.   Brushing him off.                             BURNETT               Hey, hey...                      (then with a smile)               Let's go get our jobs back.      BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                             119.301   EXT. BURNETT HOUSE - DAY                                     301      The front door opens and all the little Burnetts come      screaming out...                              BURNETT KIDS                Daddy Daddy Daddy the hero!!!      ... into the arms of their father.     He gathers them all      into one big hug.                                BURNETT                Daddy's home!      Behind Burnett appear Lowrey and Julie, arm in arm.      The kids run to...                              BURNETT KIDS                Uncle Mike, Uncle Mike.      Then...                                BURNETT                Baby!      Theresa framed in the front doorway, looking smashing in      the outfit Lowrey picked out for her. Burnett ambles up      the walk into her arms. They hug and kiss, Theresa      tossing a wink Lowrey's way.                              LOWREY                Manana, partner. Peace. Okay,                kids. Pile in. And watch the                leather and windows this time?                              JULIE                You got a real way with kids,                Lowrey.                              LOWREY                You see anybody complaining?                                BURNETT                Hey.    Where are the kids goin'?                              THERESA                Didn't you know? We got us a new                babysitter.      She kisses him.                                BURNETT                You mean...                              THERESA                It's quality time, Marcus.                                                    (CONTINUED)       BAD BOYS - Rev. 6/24/94 PM                              120.301    CONTINUED:                                                 301       Burnett shuts the door ON the CAMERA.    The screen GOES       TO BLACK. Then UNDER CREDITS:302    OMITTED                                                    302thru                                                              thru304                                                               304305    INT. LOWREY'S CONDO - BATHROOM - NIGHT                     305       Little Megan is on the potty.   She catches Lowrey as       he passes.                                MEGAN (V.O.)                 Uncle Mike.   I did it!                                THE END
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+                                   BAD COUNTRY                                                        (aka WHISKEY BAY)                                                           Written by                                                       Jonathan Hirschbein                                                                                                                  MAY 2012                          TEXT OVER BLACK: "Before all else, be armed"                                                  - Niccolo Machiavelli            FADE IN:            LANDSCAPES            A rusted Chevy El Camino drives against dissolving Louisiana            landscapes - broad, barren, pounded by the rain.            I/E. EL CAMINO, TRAVELING - DUSK            Occasional oncoming headlights illuminate the driver's face:            Tense, course features, thick beard... He's BUD CARTER, 31.            AN INTERSTATE SIGN PASSES ON THE RIGHT: "WHISKEY BAY"            Bud pulls onto a dirt road, into a TRAILER PARK and stops.            INT. DOUBLE-WIDE TRAILER - DUSK            TITLE IN: Denham Springs, Louisiana. 1983.            We're staring at three sacks of sample unmounted EMERALDS,            set on a filthy counter.                                SOUTHERN MAN'S VOICE O.S.                      Now these here are Brazilian, from Bahia.                      Deep cuts. Damn good. These is India,                      paler, but also good. And this is                      Columbia. From them limestone caves up in                      Muzo.            WIDEN to reveal NADY GRACE, 35. A tattooed man with thinning            hair, leading Bud through the sale...                                GRACE                      Now them first two, you gonna get your                      money's worth.                          (re: COLUMBIA EMERALDS)                      This one here's more expensive, but                      that's 'cause there ain't a nigger flaw                      in one of 'em. They hard as steel and                      emerald green as emerald green fuckin'                      comes. Lookit that.                                BUD                      That's nice.                                GRACE                      That's the real McCoy. That's what that                      is.                                BUD                      Tell you what... Bag 'em all. The                      market's got a hard-on for this shit.                                GRACE                      I hear that.                          (across the room)                      Jake, get on it.            ACROSS THE ROOM are two other men -- JAKE and DOUG. Ex-cons            at a table, riffing through Bud's cash.            A CURTAIN YANKS BACK and RAY WHEELER, 29, enters. Dope-thin,            bloodshot eyes. He looks at Bud. Bud looks at him... Ray            clicks on the TV and opens a beer.             TV IN: Evening news. The storm outside alters the reception.                                NEWSCASTER                      ...And today, thirty-one year old Gary                      Plauche pleaded innocent by reason of                      insanity, to charges of second-degree                      murder in the slaying of accused sex                      offender, Jeffrey Doucett.            Bud watches Ray empty a gram of coke onto the bar. Using a            credit card, Ray starts chopping lines. The SOUND continues            throughout the scene...                                 NEWSCASTER (TV)                      ...District Court Judge Frank Salia,                      scheduled the trial one year to the day                      after Doucett was first arrested.            Grace hefts a lock box to the counter, removes a drawer of            emeralds. Bud SEES packed carelessly underneath, uncut            DIAMONDS.                                BUD                      What do you got there? Diamonds?                                GRACE                      That's thirty grand. Out the door. You                      interested?                                BUD                      Ain't got the scratch right now. But I am                      interested.            And the volume of the TV now becomes more apparent...                                NEWSCASTER O.S.                      ...As a result of numerous threats made                      weeks ago, tight security surrounded the                      courthouse. However, missing from today's                      hearing, was the arresting officer.            Bud has been tuning out the TV distraction... until that last            statement. He sneaks a look.                                NEWSCASTER                      From East Baton Rouge Sheriff's office...            A wave of static scrambles the picture. When it clears...                                NEWSCASTER O.S.                      ...Police Lieutenant, Bud Carter.            Bud is stunned. HIS OWN FACE APPEARS ON THE SCREEN. A younger            photo of Bud, clean shaven - DRESSED IN POLICE UNIFORM.            EXT. TRAILER PARK - SAME             Rain pours. A beat-up PLUMBER'S VAN is parked in the distance.            INT. GRACE'S TRAILER - SAME             TV IN: Signal wavers. It's archive footage of Baton Rouge            Airport. A prisoner, JEFFREY DOUCETT, escorted by police.                                NEWSCASTER                      Doucett was being extradited to Baton                      Rouge.            Ray does a line of coke, keeps chopping. Watches the TV.            Grace is bagging emeralds.            Jake and Doug count cash.            Bud keeps the TV in sight. Quick glances. Mind racing.            TV IN: The procession moves past a row of pay phones. At one            phone, a discreet figure, GARY PLAUCHE, turns...                                NEWSCASTER                      The victim's father, Gary Plauche, stood                      waiting at the terminal. As Doucett                      walked by, Plauche turned, raised a                      handgun...and fired.            Bud's vision is suddenly obscured when Grace steps forward            with the emeralds in a satchel.                                GRACE                      Here you go. Fifteen three-karat blues.                      Wholesale. Twenty large.            Sudden GUNSHOTS and SCREAMS on the TV. Everyone turns...            TV IN: Jeffrey Doucett lies dead as POLICE wrestle Gary            Plauche to the ground amid chaos.                                NEWSCASTER                      Lieutenant Carter was unavailable for                      comment.            TIGHT ON RAY'S EYES, intense, watching the footage.             As Bud stuffs the satchel in his coat, WE SEE what Ray            sees...            TV IN: Bud, POLICE BADGE AROUND HIS NECK, arresting Plauche.            ON RAY, slow burn realization as he looks from the tv to Bud.            And again. EYES LOCK, THEY BOTH KNOW.                                RAY                      Motherfucker, he's a cop.            Bud yanks a .45.            And everything happens at once.            A SUDDEN GUNSHOT and Jake FIRES again.            Wood splinters as Bud FIRES back.            Jake is HIT in the throat. A SECOND SHOT in the forehead - he            SLAMS against the window, cracking it...            INT. PLUMBER'S VAN - SAME             Among surveillance equipment, sits Bud's crew: TODD SHEPARD,            DAVID MARANDINO and DALE COBB.            Gunshots ECHO.                                SHEPARD                      Fuck! Go! Go!            Marandino, behind the wheel, SLAMS his foot on the gas.            INT. GRACE'S TRAILER - SAME             A SHOT ZIPS across Bud's back; he SPINS off the table.            On his knees, Doug is firing a .32. BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM.            Bud FIRES a burst through Doug's chest, dropping him.            A HOLE EXPLODES beside Bud's head -- Grace FIRING a .45 -- as            Ray SCREAMS and runs out the door.            EXT. TRAILER PARK, VAN - SAME             Marandino winds through gears, as Ray hits the yard            running...             POV THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD: Marandino swings the wheel hard,            SLAMS INTO RAY -- launching him through trash bins, into the            mud.            Cobb jumps from the van and pounds Ray into handcuffs.            Simultaneously, Shepard sprints for the trailer door...            EXT. GRACE'S TRAILER PARK - SAME             Grace explodes from the back door, bolting across the yard.            I/E. GRACE'S TRAILER - SAME             Bud scrambles on the floor of the demolished trailer. .45            held tight, he runs out after Grace.            ACROSS THE YARD            the chase rages.             MOVING WITH GRACE            as he jumps a link fence, lands and trips into a roll of            chicken wire. His sleeve catches, rips as he pulls free...            MOVING WITH BUD            at a searing pace. He slips in the mud. Staggers up. SEES            Grace disappear in the shadows.            Grace throws himself against the side of a power unit. Eyes            darting. Wheezing hard... Tries to slow his breath. Then            turns the corner...            GRACE'S POV: A SHOVEL swings from around the corner, WHAM!!!            The blow sends Grace sailing back. He SLAMS on the ground,            with a blood-covered broken face. As he tries to get up...            Bud's gun is there. And like that, it stops.            INT. SOUTHDOWN'S BAR - AFTER HOURS            At a table, the METRO SQUAD: Bud, Shepard, Marandino, Cobb            are drinking. A bartender (SHERRY) is wiping down glasses...                                COBB                      Think I broke a knuckle on that guy's                      tooth.                                SHEPARD                      He only had one tooth.                                COBB                      Well I got it, didn't I?                                MARANDINO                          (to the bartender)                      Another round, Sherry.                                SHERRY                      Comin' up.            Bud blows smoke, distant from the others.                                MARANDINO                      Bud, we all supposed to be celebratin'.                      'Been workin' this case for months. And                      you ain't said shit.                                BUD                      They had a lot of weight. Too much.                                COBB                      It's a ring. Organized burglary.                                 BUD                      You saw them guys. You think that half                      ass crew was organized?                                MARANDINO                          (laughs)                      They shit their pants in unison.                                COBB                      What are you gettin' after, Bud?                                SHEPARD                      You think it was someone else's score.             Sherry arrives with shots of whiskey, moves on.                                BUD                      I think its a part of somethin' bigger.            Bud takes his shot.                                BUD                      Tomorrow morning we put our friends under                      the lamp. If they know this "someone                      else", we'll know him too.            EXT. EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH JAIL - ESTABLISH - NEXT DAY            A dark, stone monolith off the 110 highway.            INT. OBSERVATION ROOM, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH JAIL - DAY            Bud smokes, standing with Shepard in semi-darkness. They're            looking through a two-way mirror into an INTERROGATION ROOM,            where Cobb interviews Ray Wheeler.                                RAY                      I told you... I keep tellin' you... I                      don't know nothin'. That's it.                                COBB                      That's not it. We've been here all                      morning. We'll stay here all night.            Bud paces to a neighboring INTERROGATION ROOM where Marandino            is questioning Grace (bruised face, swollen, broken nose).                                MARANDINO                      The stones you were fencin' belonged to                      an Amsec wall safe in "Kay's Jewelers".                      The rest from a vault in Bocage. Both                      owners can verify their belongings, and                      have.                           (beat)                      Who you fencin' for?                                GRACE                      Man, I ain't sayin' fuckin' shit.                                MARANDINO                      Then your name's on a dozen other jobs,                      just like it.                                GRACE                      That's bullshit.                                MARANDINO                      No, that's a promise.            Bud, sipping coffee, paces back to Ray's interview...                                COBB                      We got a series of burglaries in the                      area. All over the last six months. All                      still open. You don't talk, it's on you.                                RAY                      Well I ain't got nothin' to do with that.                                COBB                      Any idea who does?                                RAY                      No! Okay? Fuck no.            Bud sets down his coffee, calm.            INT. GRACE'S INTERROGATION ROOM            Marandino sits across from Grace, clearly frustrated.                                MARANDINO                      ...Answer the question.                                GRACE                          (exploding)                      MAN FUCK THIS! AND FUCK YOU! Y'ALL CREW'S                      JUST FAGGOTS IN MATCHING JACKETS!            The door blasts open. Bud charges in, throws Grace against            the wall, then slams his face onto the table, pushing down.                                BUD                      Try this. I know you're too fuckin' dumb                      to be any more than a courier. I know                      you're coverin' for someone else. NOW                      TELL ME WHO THAT SOMEONE IS!                                GRACE                      I ain't a rat!                                BUD                      YOU AIN'T A RAT?!            Bud twists his broken nose. Grace SCREAMS.                                MARANDINO                      Easy, Bud. Go easy.                                GRACE                          (to Marandino)                      STOP THIS SHIT! STOP HIM!            Marandino puts a hand on Bud's shoulder; Bud shoves him off.                                BUD                      LOCK THE DOOR!            Marandino locks it. Bud turns Grace's nose even harder,            nearly rips it off his face.                                BUD                      I'll teach you what commitment is... I'll                      throw you in an eight by nine and have                      you fucked in the ass by every inmate in                      the state of Louisiana-- AND THAT'S THE                      REST OF YOUR LIFE!            Grace, spitting blood now. Choking. Bud twists. Bone cracks.                                BUD                      GIVE ME A NAME!                                GRACE                          (hacking)                      He's from Whiskey Bay--!                                BUD                      --GIVE ME A NAME!!            EXT. CLAYTON STREET - NIGHT            Raining.            An unmarked chevy is staked down the block from a tract home.                                BUD V.O.                      Jesse Wheeler. Thirty-one.            INT. CHEVY - NIGHT            Bud's in the front seat, looking through a file. Shepard at            the wheel. Coffee cups and junk food litter the dash.                                BUD                      Two tours in 'Nam. '69 and '71. He's a                      jump marine. Weapons trained, explosives.                          (turns the page)                      Seven and a half out of a twelve year                      stint for federal robbery. Two in Angola.                      A year in DeQuincy. Three in El Reno with                      a transfer to Lewisburg. Then Marion with                      a brief stopover in Leavenworth. Released                      from Oxford, 1981.                                SHEPARD                      Jacket's the size of the bible.            Through the windshield, across the street, a tract home            they're watching.                                BUD                      His stay at Marion, they kept him in "H"                      block.                                SHEPARD                      H block? That's home to forty top murder                      one inmates...                                BUD                      Yeah, life sentences. Jesse only had                      twelve years.            Bud likes it.                                BUD                      He ain't just woodwork.                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            Night passes and the dawn arrives...            EXT. WHEELER'S HOUSE - DAWN            Front door opens and the shadowy figure of JESSE WHEELER,            whose face we cannot see, emerges.                                SHEPARD                          (waking Bud)                      Target's out.            Jesse fires up his '74 battered green PICK-UP TRUCK. He backs            from the driveway and proceeds down the street.                                BUD                          (into radio)                      Alright. Give him room.            Bud's car starts and we move off with them...                                BUD                          (into radio)                      We're mobile.            EXT. STREETS - MINUTES LATER            In the rain, Bud and Shepard tail Jesse from a distance.            They pass an alley where a waiting BUICK falls in behind the            Chevy; Marandino and Cobb are inside.            INT. CHEVY - CONTINUOUS - THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD:            We see the truck slowing, angling into a TEXACO STATION.                                SHEPARD                      He's turnin' off.                                BUD                      Let's take him in the car.                          (into radio)                      Wait'll he's stopped. Watch your                      backgrounds.            INT. JESSE'S PICK UP - MOMENTS LATER            Jesse stops at a pump. Suddenly, Bud appears at the window            and jams a SHOTGUN against Jesse's head.                                BUD                      Don't move. You motherfuck, I'll blow                      your head clean off.            Reflecting in the side-view: Bud's BADGE swings from his            neck. Jesse's eyes resign to relief. Bud SEES this...                                BUD                      Shut the car off slowly.            With several law enforcement shotguns now leveled at him from            all directions, Jesse turns off his engine.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. JESSE WHEELER'S HOUSE - MORNING            Bud, Shepard, Cobb and Marandino, vests and shotguns, move in            unison around the house.            Bud and Cobb stay to the shadows, down a side yard...            Shepard, Marandino reach the front door. Locked. A tv plays            quietly inside. No one in the windows.             Shepard signals to Marandino...            INT. JESSE WHEELER'S HOUSE            THE FRONT DOOR IS KICKED DOWN. Shepard and Marandino spill            in, guns ready...                                SHEPARD                      POLICE! WARRANT!            A pregnant woman in the kitchen... LYNN WHEELER, 30s. She            SCREAMS, curses. Hurling dirty dishes fly like frisbees.                                 LYNN                      GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!                                MARANDINO                      MA'AM, CALM DOWN! CALM DOWN!                                SHEPARD                      WE GOT A WARRANT!                                LYNN                          (more dishes)                      FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!            Lynn suddenly gasps agitatedly, sinks to the floor. A GUSH OF            FLUID soaks through her dress.                                 LYNN                      Help... My baby...my baby...            Bud and Cobb enter from a back door, hurry towards Lynn. Bud            lowers Lynn to the floor.                                BUD                          (to Cobb)                      CALL AN AMBULANCE! NOW!            BEDROOM - TIME CUT            A door slams open to reveal...            A NAZI IRON EAGLE BATTLE FLAG. Draped across the far wall.            Windows taped over. Walls painted black.            Military surplus on every shelf and surface. Helmets.            Uniforms. Body armor. Bayonets.            Bud in the doorway. Shepard joins him.                                BUD                      Toss everything.                                                           SMASH CUT TO:            Several COPS(now on scene) ransack the house. Ripping open            cabinets, drawers, tossing everything to the floor...            GARAGE            Cobb flips a switch. A lamp illuminates a workbench.                                COBB                      Alright, I want everything seized!            Cabinets, lockers and tool boxes slam open. Cops stop cold,            blown away by what they see: GUNS. Everywhere.            LIVING ROOM            COP #1 feels behind a couch. He finds a .38, then a COLT .25            below a chair cushion.            BATHROOM            COP #2 removes the toilet's basin cover. With a pen, he            removes a dripping .357.            KITCHEN            Several STATE TROOPERS lead Jesse in, cuff him to a table.            ATTIC            Floor peels back. Flashlights illuminate: AMMUNITION BOXES.            ASSAULT RIFLES. GRENADES. BONDS and COUNTERFEIT PLATES.                                MARANDINO                      Motherfucker's got a general store.            LIVING ROOM            Cops talk excitedly over one another. Shepard leans over a            mounted A.C. He finds a string and very slowly pulls up a            ziploc bag filled with DIAMONDS.                                SHEPARD                      God damn...there's some weight.            KITCHEN            Bud takes a seat at the table...            For the first time, we get a good look at Jesse Wheeler: Cold            eyes. Handlebar mustache. Covered in tats. With a            boilermaker's build, he looks what he is... DANGEROUS.                                BUD                      I'm Detective Lieutenant Bud Carter, of                      the East Baton Rouge Parish Precinct.                          (smiles)                      So how you like Baton Rouge?            Jesse's stare drifts to Bud. It's deadly.            Cabinets slam open and closed. Dishes hit the floor.                                JESSE                      What happened to my wife?                                BUD                      Water broke. She's en route to the                      hospital.            COP #3 is searching the refrigerator. Jesse watches as if            he's seen something we haven't... Cop #3 moves on...            Jesse sees Bud's eyes. They connect with his own...            Bud opens the fridge. He scans condiments then stops. From            inside a bag of HOT DOG BUNS, several sealed VIALS.                                BUD                      This is new.            Bud examines a vial's label: "CYANIDE."                                BUD                      What's the cyanide for, Jesse?                                JESSE                      Extracting impurities.            Bud, right with him, grins.                                BUD                      Impurities from what?            Jesse, calm. Deadpan.                                BUD                      You're in a bad situation here, pal.                                JESSE                      I'll make bond.            Bud looks in Jesse's eyes and believes it.            BEDROOM            Shepard, searching the room. Drawers, cabinets. Then leans            down to peer under the bed...             ...stops, stunned when he SEES: a row of live Goex charges in            packing, boldly marked: EXPLOSIVES                                SHEPARD                          (top of his lungs)                      OUT! EVERYONE OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT!            INT. CAPTAIN'S OFFICE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DAY            MIKE BRADDOCK (40s), Captain of Detectives, enters his            office. Bud tows, carrying files.                                BRADDOCK                      What more do you want? You got a two time                      felon on multiple counts. You got                      robbery, B&E, you got an all-you-can-eat                      felony fuckin' possession. All on top of                      an organized burglary ring.                                                               INTERCUT:            INT. PROCESSING ROOM, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY            ON A CAMERA FLASH. Mug shots of Jesse's front and profile.                                BRADDOCK V.O.                      The man's in custody, Bud. Fucked for                      life. It's finished.            Jesse's inked fingers are rolled onto an exemplar sheet.            INT. CAPTAIN'S OFFICE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DAY                                BUD                      There's more, I know it.            Bud slaps a file on Braddock's desk, to a crime scene photo:            An Asian JUDGE sits dead in the front seat of his car.                                BUD                      Remember him? Ten months ago, a judge                      gets popped with a .357. Well I got a                      Ruger from Wheeler's toilet and rushed it                      through ballistics.                                BRADDOCK                      And?                                BUD                      It's a solid match! Dead on.                                 BRADDOCK                      There's a dozen ways Wheeler could've got                      that burner. It don't prove a thing.                                 BUD                          (drops another file)                      A stack of bonds taken from the home of a                      Baptist Minister...             The crime photo: A black MINISTER and wife shot in bed.                                BUD                      Murdered. He and his wife. Looked like a                      robbery gone to shit then; I want it                      opened back up.            INT. ANTE ROOM, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY            A nude Jesse steps before a DOCTOR and gets a cursory exam.                                BUD V.O.                      I still got tests pending. More guns.                      More cases. This guy ain't crazy, Mike.                      He's a ticket to somethin' big. Somethin'                      happening now.            INT. CAPTAIN'S OFFICE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DAY            Meanwhile...                                BRADDOCK                      So who's backin' him?                                BUD                      I don't know; I do know they'll post his                      bond. That's why I need a price they                      can't come up with overnight.            Braddock listens. Bud keeps it on track...                                BUD                      I'm right about this, Mike.                          (leans close)                      When a guy's lookin' at two hundred years                      and he ain't upset... It's like when your                      wife is accusing you of fuckin' the                      neighbor, but she don't know you're                      fuckin' her sister too. You're pretty                      calm about it, right?            Braddock smiles slightly.                                BUD                      It's 'cause we hit the wrong nerve. The                      guns, the other shit, the time... He can                      have that conversation. And he is. And he                      ain't upset. He's makin' eye contact,                      'cause we're fallin' short.                          (the bottom line)                      This guy knows things. He knows where                      bodies are.            Braddock, thinks; Then--                                BRADDOCK                      I'll bounce it up to the D.A.            Bud grins, SLAMS his hand on the desk.            INT. HOLDING AREA, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DUSK            Two GUARDS escort Jesse. He's bound in chains, orange scrubs.             INT. HOLDING CELL            End of the hall. A BLACK PRISONER waits, arms slung over the            crossbars with a cigarette. Jesse is brought forth.            A Guard unlocks the cell. The Black Prisoner steps back,            joining TWO OTHERS: All black, looming in the darkness.            Jesse steps in. Guards unlock his shackles. Chains hit the            floor. Behind him, the bars slam home.            SILENCE...LONG, DRAWN SILENCE. THEN:                                JESSE                      My name is Jesse Wheeler... I'm now in                      charge of this cell. Any y'all don't like                      it, step your black ass forward, line up.            A MOMENT. Cued by Jesse's challenge, each of the prisoners            slowly rise, vehemently approaching...                                                          CUT ABRUPT TO:            INT. BUD'S HOUSE - NIGHT            And the phone RINGS...                                BUD                          (answers)                      Yeah...                                 MALE VOICE (OVER)                      Bud? Charlie Bowers.            WIDEN. Bud's house is sparsely furnished. Books on firearms            and police work in stacks. As he reaches for a file...                                BUD                          (into phone)                      Charlie... You had an inmate in '75,                      named Jesse Wheeler.                                                               INTERCUT:            INT. OFFICE, MARION PENITENTIARY, ILLINOIS - NIGHT            CHARLIE BOWERS, on an official phone. At Jesse's name, he's            DEAD QUIET...                                BUD                      Charlie, you there?                                CHARLIE                      What's your interest in this guy, Bud?                                BUD                      Well, we got him on weapons and burglary.                      But I got a feelin' there's more.                                CHARLIE                      Damn straight, a lot more. Race riots.                      Smuggling. Extorting a guard. I had a few                      run-ins with him myself.                                BUD                      What else?            INT. BEDROOM, BUD'S HOUSE - PRE DAWN            Bud lies in bed, wide awake. The PHONE CONVERSATION carries            over...                                CHARLIE V.O.                      You could say this is where he peaked.            KITCHEN - DAWN            Coffee pours into a mug. Then a shot of Irish Whiskey.                                CHARLIE V.O.                      He's a white supremacist. The worst kind,                      if there is one.            Bud, dressed now. The table is covered with various reports            and photos from Jesse's file. BUD'S EYES guide us through...                                CHARLIE V.O.                      Came in on armed robbery and assault...            Bud picks up a photo: Jesse's Angola mug shot, age 23.                                CHARLIE V.O.                      But word in the system said, he's a                      contract killer for the Aryan                      Brotherhood.            Photos of Jesse's tattoos: SUN-WHEEL on the shoulder; HELL            HOUNDS around the biceps, THOR'S ELAPID covering his back.                                CHARLIE V.O.                      In here, the guy became an organizer...            INT. BUD'S CAR, TRAVELING - MORNING            Bud's face goes in and out of light and shadow.                                CHARLIE V.O.                      Controlling hits and movements inside the                      system. Prison to prison. State to state.            INT. LOWER FLOOR, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - MORNING            Bud is walking with MURPHY, captain of the guards...                                CHARLIE V.O.                      Between the Aryan Brotherhood and Neo                      Nazis, he unified the front...            Bud and Murphy descend steps to a grim CORRIDOR.                                CHARLIE V.O.                      All them prison gangs in the world...                      Black Panthers, Mexican Mafia, forget it.                      The AB is deadly as it gets. And Jesse                      Wheeler was their ring leader.            The PHONE CONVERSATION fades out... Presently:                                BUD                      So what the fuck happened?                                MURPHY                      Processing ain't open till morning. We                      threw him in holding last night. 'Fore we                      even turn around, it's like we're back in                      the fuckin' Alamo.                                BUD                      He attack the guards?                                MURPHY                      Guards are fine. But he took on three                      niggers like they stole from him.            Murphy stops outside a solid steel door.                                MURPHY                      I'll tell you somethin', Bud. After it                      happened, our block was the quietest it'd                      ever been. Wish we had ten just like him.                                BUD                      Open the door.            INT. ISOLATION CELL - CONTINUOUS            Bud enters. Murphy shuts the door and a series of locks BOLT.            We're in a stone closet. No bed or sink. No light.                                BUD                      Heard you refused a public defender.            Jesse's bruised face moves through shadow.                                BUD                      At the gas station...When you were                      arrested, I put a gun to your head.                         You expected someone else.                                JESSE                      You don't look like cops.                                BUD                      And your house? Guns. Mass supply tells                      me, intent to sell. Cyanide in the                      fridge, explosives...tells me you're                      scared.            Jesse's eyes emerge from the dark. Bud, looking right at him.                                BUD                      I know who you are.                                JESSE                      If you knew that much, you wouldn't be in                      here alone.            Bud smiles and walks to the door.                                BUD                      One more thing, pal. I saw the judge this                      morning.                          (grins)                      There is no bond.            HOLD on Jesse.            Bud BANGS on the door. Locks UNLATCH. The door opens and Bud            steps calmly out to the hall...            The door shuts with a BOOM, locking Jesse in. And the nail in            the coffin resonates.                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            EXT. GREYHOUND STATION - LATE NIGHT            Dim and desolate.            INT. LOBBY, GREYHOUND STATION - LATE NIGHT            Grace buys a ticket, crosses the lobby to the men's room.            INT. MEN'S ROOM            Grace at the sink. He pats running water on his damaged face            and straightens the bandage.             A TOILET FLUSHES            the stall door opens and a man emerges. Lean and fierce, like            an electric charge... CATFISH STANTON, 30.            Grace FREEZES at the sight of Catfish, tightening his belt.            Lets the water run...                                CATFISH                      Grace? That you?                                GRACE                      Hey there, Catfish...            Catfish steps close, reaches a hand to Grace's face.                                CATFISH                      'The hell happened?            Grace flinches. Catfish pauses, then SNIFFS his hand.                                CATFISH                          (smiles)                      Oh... Excuse me.            Catfish steps to the sink. Begins washing his hands.                                CATFISH                      So where you off to?                                GRACE                      Goin' to visit my mother. She's real                      sick.                                CATFISH                      That's too bad. So you'll be gone a long                      time then.                                GRACE                      Yeah...            Another MAN suddenly enters. Large and imposing, neck tattoos            ...BUZZ MCKINNON, 32.                                GRACE                          (swallows hard)                      Buzz.            Catfish turns off the water. THE BATHROOM IS SUFFOCATED WITH            SILENCE.                                GRACE                      What can I do y'all for?                                CATFISH                      How come the Wheeler brothers, is locked                      up? And you ain't?                                GRACE                      Wheeler brothers is locked up? I don't                      know nothin' about that.             Catfish GRINS. It's harsh. Blood curdling.                                CATFISH                      I heard different.                                GRACE                      Well there ain't no "different" to hear,                      Catfish. 'Cause I ain't talked to neither                      of 'em.                                CATFISH                      But you did talk to someone.            Buzz moves. Grace turns to look...            ...In a blink, Catfish's gun comes up: ONE QUICK POP. A .45            with a thick, barrel silencer. The mirror shatters. Grace's            knees hit the floor. His head hits the sink, HOLDS. As blood            runs from one small hole.            Catfish straightens up in the next mirror. Tucks his shirt.            Grace's body sags to the floor. Catfish and Buzz walk out.            INT. EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY            LOUD BUZZER. Two GUARDS #1 and #2 march Jesse down the tier.            On his left, PRISONERS in cells, TURN, STARE and WHISPER.             Jesse arrives at a cell.                                GUARD #1                          (calls out)                      Open ninety-six!            BARS slide back. Jesse walks in. His CELL-MATE steps            cautiously from the shadows...             IT'S RAY. Pale and nervous. Jesse stands over him. The            brothers' eyes connect. And there's a moment...                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. EXERCISE YARD, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY            High stone walls topped with concertina wire. Looming guard            towers. Thick FOG blankets the yard filled with CONVICTS.            Jesse takes hold of a metal bar, lifts it from a bench press.            He does two reps. The weights BANG down and Jesse sits up.                                RAY O.S.                      This place is bad...            Ray adds weight to the already excessive amount. He sweats as            he talks nervously over Jesse's shoulder...                                 RAY                      There's eyes everywhere. Like I got a                      sign on my back, Jesse, they all think I                      talked.            Jesse scans numerous WHITE CONS watching the Wheeler brothers.                                RAY                      Just the other day... some spic fish got                      hit with a weight. Ten other cons, they                      beat him and stabbed him till there                      weren't nothin' left. And the guards let                      it happen.            Ray fastens the safety collars and Jesse leans back.                                RAY                      His brains were on the wall, Jesse. Like                      somebody painted 'em.            Jesse does another set. Weights BANG down. He slowly sits up.                                JESSE                      They come at you?                                RAY                      Not yet... But it's in the mail. I can                      feel it fuckin' coming.            Ray shoots a look at a group of ARYAN BROTHERS across the            yard. CZAPP, their "leader," and ROACH. Jesse turns. Czapp            looks at him. Eyes meet. Jesse leans back.            The press shakes as Jesse does a last set. His red strained            face as the bar lands with a CRASH.            INT. YARD CORRIDOR, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY,            LATER             A long line of prisoners are filing back through the gate.            Ray, behind Jesse. Says low:                                RAY                      Hey, Jesse...                           (silence)                      Sorry I put you back here. I never meant--                                JESSE                          (turns)                      "Sorry", Raymond...? You ain't sorry.                          (pause)                      I took you into my home. I tried to clean                      you up. And you steal from me...? You                      take my fuckin' diamonds?                           (dead to rights)                      'Cause of you, I missed the birth of my                      son.             Ray swallows hard. Nothing he can say.            INT. METRO OFFICE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DAY            CLOSE ON numerous files of ARYAN GANG MEMBERS. Arrest sheets,            paperwork and photos.                                BUD O.S.                      Alright, let's work this...                          (beat)                      In prison, Wheeler is credited for the                      expansion of the Brotherhood. When                      Federal split up members, they had to                      reorganize. So they tattooed their blood                      types and serial numbers on one another.                                COBB O.S.                      Recede and multiply.                                BUD O.S.                      Exactly...            REVEAL NOW Bud and Shepard with Cobb and Marandino around a            table, used as a converted eating area.                                 BUD                      Put 'em in prison, they get stronger.                      Everywhere you send one, they recruit in                      numbers. Within five years, their numbers                      were over ten thousand.                                MARANDINO                      Wheeler directed all that, huh?            Shepard is flipping through a worn, thick file.                                BUD                      What do you got there, Shep'?                                SHEPARD                      Interpol wired us files on three known                      Aryan leaders in the state of Louisiana:                      Edgar Bingham. Harold Kay. And this                      man... Lucian Adams.            He opens the file, revealing mugshots of LUCIAN ADAMS, 51.            Dark eyes. Sharp, gun metal features.                                 SHEPARD                      High priest of the Aryan National Party.                      His "ministry" of Christian Identity and                      Paramilitary Order has stood for over a                      decade. Check this out...            Shepard pulls an old, faded surveillance photo: (Long shot)            Lucian talking to a young Jesse outside a compound.                                SHEPARD                      Wheeler was just seventeen when he met                      Lucian at the Patriotic Congress.                                MARANDINO                      No shit.                                SHEPARD                      Today, Lucian's one hell of an                      entrepreneur. Owns surplus stores.                      Demolition. A piping business. Got trucks                      runnin' all across the God damn country.            Bud's been quiet; says now:                                BUD                      Stay focused. Get back to Wheeler... I                      need an angle.                                COBB                      For what? If Wheeler ever flipped, news                      would spread like wildfire. The AB's                      gonna know about it. They'd gonna know                      about it nationally.                          (re: his coffee)                      Pass the sugar.            Marandino does.                                BUD                      That's if he was a surface informant. I                      don't want him to testify. I want to keep                      him on the street.                          (to the group)                      Look, this guy's been in it a long time.                      He's up to his elbows; wants to shake his                      hands free. I can feel it.                                MARANDINO                      Braddock ain't gonna go for this.                                BUD                      I'll handle that.            Everyone looks to Bud.                                BUD                      We got one chance here. 'Cause if this                      falls short... Jesse Wheeler's worth more                      dead than alive.            INT. CAFETERIA, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - EVENING            A sea of tables divided by race as far as the eye can see.              Jesse and Ray, trays in hand, find an island of ARYAN            PRISONERS. They quickly part to make room for Jesse to sit.            Suddenly Czapp and Roach arrive with their trays and abruptly            sit across from the Wheeler brothers.                                CZAPP                      How you doin', Ray?                          (off Ray's look)                      We was just over there wonderin' why you                      ain't got the courtesy to introduce us to                      your kin.                                RAY                      I was gonna.                                CZAPP                          (grins)                      I'm sure you was.            Czapp locks on Jesse, who calmly eats, not looking up.                                CZAPP                      Jesse Wheeler. Heard of you...                                ROACH                      Fuckin-A, heard a lot.                                CZAPP                      Name's Czapp... You can call me,                      "Bossman."                          (beat)                      I kept an eye on your brother the past                      few days for you. Ain't that right, Ray?                                RAY                          (low)                      Yeah...                                JESSE                      My brother ain't none of your business.                                CZAPP                      Ain't none of my business, "Bossman." And                      everything in this fuckin' place is my                      business.            Ray nervously glances down at several Aryans watching...                                CZAPP                          (to Jesse)                      Listen to me, you sonofabitch. I'm gonna                      make one God damn thing God damn clear.                      Your reputation is smoke. Whatever they                      say you is or once was, I don't give a                      flyin' fuck. 'Cause it's my say-so now.                      And your fuckin' brother's up for grabs.            Czapp looks away from Jesse and shouts down the table:                                CZAPP                      Y'all got that?!            Suddenly Jesse SPRINGS. A headbutt EXPLODES Czapp's nose and            throws him back.            Czapp's head hits linoleum, echoing with a CRACK!! He lies            still. Bloodied and unconscious.                                ROACH                          (stumbles away, shocked)                      Fuck...            A DEAFENING SILENCE SPREADS OVER THE CAFETERIA.            Jesse calmly resumes eating. Czapp's blood covers his face.            SUDDENLY AN ALARM BLARES. GUARDS pour in, led by Murphy.            INMATES HIT THE DECK, arms behind their heads. All except            Jesse, who continues to eat.                                MURPHY                      WHEELER!!! Stand the fuck up! Hands                      behind your head!             Jesse rises.                                MURPHY                      Hands behind your head! Get on the                      fuckin' floor!            Jesse puts his hands behind his head, but does not kneel.            Restraints are slammed on Jesse's wrists. And we...                                                           CUT TO BLACK.            INT. ISOLATION, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - LATE NIGHT            The door unlocks and drags open. Jesse turns, blinking            painfully into the light ...Sees an imposing DUTY GUARD.                                DUTY GUARD                      Phone call.            INT. GUARD STATION            Jesse is led in. Duty Guard hits an extension button on a            desk phone and offers the receiver...            Jesse doesn't move.                                DUTY GUARD                      It's a secure line.            Duty Guard walks out. Alone now, Jesse picks up the line...                                JESSE                          (into phone)                      Yeah.            A low, whiskey voice is HEARD over the line: LUCIAN ADAMS.                                LUCIAN V.O.                      Been a long time...            Jesse shuts his eyes. There's a moment before he opens them.                                LUCIAN V.O.                      Read about the arrest, Jesse. There's a                      lot of heat on this one.                                JESSE                      I don't want my brother touched.                                LUCIAN V.O.                          (laughs faintly)                      I ain't callin' about your brother. I'm                      callin' about you...            Jesse turns SLOW to find the Duty Guard watching him from the            hall. Lights a cigarette, stares.                                LUCIAN V.O.                      You should have come to me sooner, Jesse.                      None of this would have happened.                                JESSE                      I'm askin' you, Lucian. My brother ain't                      a problem.                                LUCIAN V.O.                      Your brother's a fuck up.            And Jesse's quiet... Dead quiet...                                LUCIAN V.O.                      And Jesse... We may know what you can do.                      But you know what we can do. Understand?            Jesse hesitates, then Lucian hangs up. DIAL TONE.            INT. BRADDOCK'S OFFICE - LATE NIGHT            Room strewn with piles of casework. Bud, agitated, paces.            Braddock, behind a desk.                                 BRADDOCK                      You're reachin', Bud. The leverage ain't                      there.                                BUD                      It's there. It's gotta cook a little                      longer, that's all.                                BRADDOCK                      Jesse won't so much as blink at doin'                      life. The fuckin' guy didn't rise in the                      ranks 'cause he skirts under pressure.                          (beat)                      There's no deal to be had.                                BUD                      C'mon, Mike, you know what's goin' on.                      Ray Wheeler compromised Jesse. By that,                      he compromised the Brotherhood. Don't                      tell me there ain't no fuckin' leverage.            Bud pours himself a cup of coffee.                                BRADDOCK                      We need somethin' more.                                BUD                      Well we ain't sleepin' till we find it.            INT. VISITOR'S GATE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY            Lynn, dark pouches under her eyes, goes through security            check. INFANT SON in her arms.            VISITING AREA            Wives, girlfriends and lawyers talk to prisoners.            TABLE            Lynn, dark pouches under her eyes, holding their son, across            from Jesse...                                LYNN                      Life. You know how fuckin' long that is,                      Jesse?            Lynn's hands are shaking.                                LYNN                      So what am I supposed to do? Wait? Run?                          (upset)                      Your friends are comin' by the house.                      Askin' questions, hangin' around. Waitin'                      for the God damn phone to ring.            Jesse is silent.                                LYNN                      You said we were done with this. That                      they were out of our lives.            The baby begins to CRY.                                LYNN                      We have no money, Jesse. Which means we                      have no fucking food. ...Say something,                      would you?                                JESSE                      It's gonna be okay.                                LYNN                      I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my life...            The baby WAILING now.                                LYNN                          (quietly crying)                      ...For our baby.            TIGHT ON JESSE, for the first time, appearing powerless.            As Lynn wipes tears, trembling in her seat, Jesse looks away            from his son, and glances up...            Behind a glass partition outlying the room, a MAN is watching            them...            BUD. Stark still. Fixing Jesse with a hard stare.            INT. PROPERTY ROOM, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - LATER            A CLERK passes Lynn her belongings through chain link. She            wipes her eyes, holding the baby.            The back bay doors open. Bud enters. Sleepless, wrinkled            clothes.                                BUD                      Lynn Wheeler. We haven't been properly                      introduced. I'm Detective Bud Carter.                                LYNN                      I know who you are.                                BUD                      You have a ride home?                                LYNN                      We took the bus.            Bud peels a few bills from a fold, puts it on the counter.                                BUD                      Take a cab.            Bud lays his card atop the bills, looks at Lynn.                                BUD                      'You need anything...anything at all. Be                      sure to call me.            They look at each other. She pulls her baby close. There's an            unspoken moment. And Bud walks away...             Lynn waits till Bud is out of view. Then takes the money. And            the card.            INT. CELLBLOCK, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DAY            A Guard buzzes Jesse through.            PRISONERS line the tier. Smoking cigarettes. Looking out.            Jesse walks past, enters...            HIS CELL            ...where Ray sleeps in shadow on the bottom bunk.            Jesse pulls a Polaroid from his pocket: His infant son. He            gazes at the photo for a beat, then brings it to Ray...                                JESSE                      Ray...            No response. Jesse nudges his brother's shoulder.                                 JESSE                      Raymond, take a look.            Jesse rolls him over. Ray is limp. A filthy SYRINGE imbedded            his arm. Jaw slack. Eyes wide and vacant.            THE PHOTO FLUTTERS FROM JESSE'S HAND TO THE FLOOR...            Jesse lowers, pulling Ray to his arms. He shuts his eyes.            Teeth clench. And as Jesse feels the bile rising, his massive            frame begins to shake... Then we realize, he's crying...                                                                TIME CUT:            EXT. LOADING DOCK, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON - DUSK            Pouring rain. Ray's corpse is loaded onto an ambulance.            INT. JESSE'S CELL - DUSK            Jesse sits in shadow. Alone. And it's still...                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            AFTER HOURS            Jesse sleeps. Hand under the pillow. When there's a sound...            His eyes SNAP OPEN to discover the silhouettes of SIX MEN,            rushing into his cell...            A LOADED SOCK swings out from Jesse's pillow, slams MAN #1 in            the jaw with a CRACK!!            On his feet, Jesse whips the sock around and whacks MAN #2's            head against the concrete wall. He slumps down unconscious.            A BLUNT OBJECT is rammed into Jesse's sternum. Another shot            bangs his neck. The sock drops and a PADLOCK clatters out.            With a final burst of energy, Jesse turns, SCREAMS and rushes            MAN #3. Man #3 slams into the cell bars. CLANG!! Lights out.            The remaining three Men attack. A series of blows rain down            and Jesse sinks into their grip.            HALL LIGHTS BUMP ON: NOW WE SEE, THESE "MEN" ARE GUARDS.            More GUARDS pour in, led by Murphy. They yank Jesse from his            cell and take him down the tier.            Guards toss the cell in a thorough search. Mattress            overturns. Shelves crash.            INT. TIER            PRISONERS move to their bars, SHOUTING and JEERING as Jesse            is wrestled down the STAIRS to...            THE LOWER TIER            Jesse thrashes violently as the Guards slam him through a            door into...            A TUNNEL            between cell blocks. The ROAR of prisoners recedes as Jesse's            dragged into darkness getting darker.            A DOOR SLAMS OPEN...            INT. READY ROOM, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRISON            ...THERE'S A FLASH OF LIGHT. We're in a windowless room.            And Bud pouring coffee for two...                                BUD                      Want a cup of coffee?            Jesse is handcuffed to the table. Guards are breathing hard.                                JESSE                      MOTHERFUCKER! This how you do things?                                BUD                      Yeah... When I want to talk to someone,                      without giving the impression he's                      cooperatin'.            Jesse pauses, caught by Bud's tactics. The Guards file out            and shut the door.            Jesse's eyes are fierce and watching Bud's every movement as            he hands him a coffee, then takes a seat...                                BUD                      You got a problem.                                JESSE                      Yeah, what's that?                                BUD                      To start with, you're lookin' at two                      hundred years.                                JESSE                      I've done the time. I'll do it again.                                BUD                      I know you can do it. But can your                      family?            Jesse's face is tense. Unyielding.                                BUD                      Your brother's dead, Jesse. As we're                      sittin' here now, he's on a slab at St.                      Gabriel's Morgue. The coroner's callin'                      it, "suicide". You and I both know that's                      a load of shit.                          (beat)                      You do the time-- sure. And you never see                      your kid. 'Cept in here. You can recruit                      him. Your wife...plans...everything...                      Gone.                          (beat)                      'Less you talk...to me.            Jesse silent, a dark internal pause. He meets Bud's eyes            across the table; then...                                JESSE                      Do you hate?                                BUD                      What?            Jesse's sudden directness has caught Bud off-guard.                                JESSE                      Who do you hate the most? Blacks you                      throw in prison?                                BUD                      ...I dislike what they represent in the                      system. Not as a whole.            And Jesse begins to consciously or unconsciously "preach."                                JESSE                      And you believe that by overthrowin'                      Aryan nationalism and integratin'                      races...polluted creeds, with us...You                      believe you're solvin' somethin'?                                BUD                      I believe we survive by integrating                      safety. Understanding hate, and how to                      stop it.                                JESSE                      It ain't evil to fight it. It's evil to                      tolerate it.                          (leans in)                      Maybe you forget that, to justify what                      you do for a living...                                BUD                      Are we still in prison, or we back at the                      compound, havin' mass?                                JESSE                      You don't get it.                                BUD                      No, don't dictate to me what put you in                      here, or question my intentions with your                      overcooked revolution!                          (beat)                      'Fact, I think you wanted out 'fore I                      even got to you! That's why you distanced                      yourself. That's why you're out there                      crackin' safes. Lookin' to live a life                      that ain't AB.                                JESSE                      In who I am, there's pressure! I work for                      you, I won't need a lawyer, I'll need a                      priest! My outside finance is gone... My                      wife and son, their heads wind up                      somewhere their bodies ain't! So tell me,                      why the fuck should I get involved with                      you?!                                BUD                      How about personal warranty?                                JESSE                      Warranty?!                                BUD                      Yeah, that's right! You've been a part of                      the problem so long, you've forgotten                      what the fuck that is!                          (boaring in)                      "Finance..." Your wife came here on a bus                      to see you. I sent her home in a cab. Is                      that your outside fuckin' finance?!            Beat. Jesse, taken back.                                BUD                      Let me give you a little insight, pal. As                      to what I know... And what you think you                      know.            Bud flips open a file and shoves a series of grainy B&W            SURVEILLANCE PHOTOS in front of Jesse.                                BUD                      This is today...            Photo #1: Outside Jesse's House. A distressed Lynn and the            baby being led into a car by Catfish.                                  BUD                      Is that your house? That's your wife,                      right? Who's this guy?            Photo #2: Tight-shot of Catfish.                                BUD                          (off Jesse's look)                      Know where he's takin' them? Takin' your                      family? I got a pretty good fuckin' idea.            Photo #3: An anonymous duplex. Catfish escorting Lynn and the            baby inside, past several surly Aryans looking on.            Jesse finally averts his eyes...                                 BUD                      Look at your wife, Jesse. Look at her                      face. And your son. They look safe to                      you?                            (a moment)                      I'm all you've got! I'm all your family's                      got! And the longer you're in here,                      they're up for grabs.              ON JESSE. The wheels turning. Burning. THE CAMERA MOVES IN...                                BUD                      So either you let that happen... Or I get                      the judge to allow bond. This never sees                      trial. And you work for me.             And that's where it hangs...                                                                  BLACK.                                JUDGE V.O.                      Jesse Wheeler. Please rise...            FADE IN:            INT. COURTROOM, BATON ROUGE - DAY            Jesse rises, wearing a suit. JUDGE PONDER, at the bench,            presides over this arraignment hearing:                                JUDGE PONDER                      You stand accused of forty counts of                      burglary, twenty nine counts of felony                      theft, possession of illegal firearms,                      possession or dealing in unregistered                      weapons, possession of a controlled                      substance, manufacture and possession of                      incendiary devices, and seventeen counts                      of receiving stolen goods... How do you                      plead?            CUT TO DANIEL KIERSEY, 40s, sharp, confident, expensively            dressed. Jesse's attorney, rising:                                KIERSEY                      Not guilty, Your Honor.                                JUDGE PONDER                      Let's hear the arguments for bail.            The DISTRICT ATTORNEY rises from his seat:                                DISTRICT ATTORNEY                      Your honor, this man is an habitual felon                      as well as a flight risk. Our office has                      overwhelming evidence that Mr. Wheeler is                      not only guilty, but also a serious                      threat to the community. The State                      recommends that bail be denied.                                KIERSEY                      Your honor, my client deserves a                      reasonable bail. He has every intention                      of appearing and answering to all these                      false charges. In addition, he is the                      sole provider for his wife and newborn                      child, who would suffer undo hardship if                      this man were incarcerated.            CUT TO Judge Ponder:                                JUDGE PONDER                      Bond is set at one million.            THE GAVEL BANGS DOWN. Kiersey shakes Jesse's hand. Smiles:                                KIERSEY                      Congratulations.            REVEAL BUD -- seated in back, watching the proceedings.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. BEDROOM, JESSE'S HOUSE - PRE DAWN            Lynn, asleep in bed...             INT. HALLWAY            Jesse stands, holding his son, quietly comforting him. When            Jesse turns, WE SEE a .45 tucked in his back.            AND THE PHONE RINGS...                                JESSE                          (answers)                      Yeah...            STATIC; he listens, then:                                JESSE                          (into phone)                      Okay.            EXT. BACKYARD, JESSE'S HOUSE - PRE DAWN            Jesse steps through his fence into deep WOODS, to find a CAR            waiting idyll on a dirt road.             INT. CAR - PRE DAWN            A HEAVY-SET MAN at the wheel. Jesse gets in as the headlights            spin on and the car pulls away...             EXT. SHIPYARD - PRE DAWN            Dark. Eerie and desolate. The car arrives. Jesse steps out            and disappears into the shadows of a towering crane.            On the jetty, a nondescript MAN stands alone against the calm            Mississippi. His back is to us.             Jesse approaches, stands quietly beside him.                                MAN'S VOICE                      How's your family?            We realize now...It's Bud.                                JESSE                      Let's get somethin' straight. I ain't                      here 'cause I'm scared. I done what I                      did, 'cause certain people crossed the                      line. They didn't keep their word.                                BUD                      Well my word counts.            They stand together, facing the liquid horizon...                                  BUD                      I want a body, Jesse.                                JESSE                      How many you want?            Bud finally looks at Jesse.            EXT. BORROW PITS - DAWN             A swamp area used as a mud retrieval source for the levy.            Amite River. FOG OBSCURES NEARLY EVERYTHING.            Jesse slowly emerges... Then Bud and Metro, on all sides, MAG-            LIGHTS, FLAK JACKETS and SHOTGUNS. A DUFFEL BAG of SHOVELS.            The sounds of the swamp are terrifying. Herons and bobcats.            Boots hitting water. The buzz of a million mosquitos.            SUDDENLY A RUSHING SOUND -- An ALLIGATOR shoves off the mire.                                COBB                      'The fuck is that?            Cobb's light catches the tail whipping into the swamp.                                BUD                      Yard dog. Relax.                                SHEPARD                      Where's this motherfucker taking us?            Jesse suddenly STOPS. LISTENS. BREATHES. Bud and Metro stare.                                JESSE                          (directly to Bud)                      Dig here.            Metro exchanges looks, ANXIOUS. Bud nods "okay".                                                                TIMECUT:            EXT. JESSE'S BORROW PIT            Metro engulfed in fog. Picks and shovels rise and fall.                                MARANDINO                      Bud! We hit something!            Bud excitedly descends the pit to scrape gravel from metal.                                BUD                      Clear it off! Come on, find the edges!            Jesse watches as a pair of STEEL DRUMS emerge.            INT. STATE POLICE AUTOPSY ROOM - MID MORNING            The "cold room". Bud and Braddock watch as two PATHOLOGISTS            hose down the drums. The stench is horrible.                                BRADDOCK                      How long they been down there?                                BUD                      Jesse tells me six months.                                BRADDOCK                      Six months? Bud, they're biodegraded by                      now. Fuckin' worm food.                                BUD                      We'll get an ID. Remember, we got the guy                      who put 'em there.            BLOW TORCHES ROAR as Pathologists burn through the drums.            Sparks fly. The lids CRASH. Swamp water floods out... And            immersed within: two sore-covered, DECOMPOSING BODIES.            The room recoils from the fumes.            INT. KITCHEN, JESSE'S HOUSE - DAY            Lynn is putting dishes away. The baby nearby, sleeps quietly            in a swing. Lynn gazes out the window...            EXT. DRIVEWAY, JESSE'S HOUSE            Jesse is under the hood of his truck, fixing the engine...            When a '71 Mustang, white-on-white, roars up the street.             Jesse glances over as the car pulls alongside the driveway.              It's CATFISH, at the wheel. A wolfish grin.                                CATFISH                      'Bout time to get a new truck there,                      Jesse.            Jesse tightens a nut with a torque wrench, says nothing.                                CATFISH                      Good to see you out. A free man now.                                JESSE                      What's goin' on, 'Fish?                                CATFISH                      On a Sunday drive, that's all. The good                      Lord ridin' shotgun, through another                      glorious Louisiana mornin'.            Jesse EYES his .45 atop the engine block, within reach.                                 CATFISH                      Say, Jesse... Lucian's askin' about you.                      Fact, a lot of people are.              Jesse stays on the engine, never turns around.                                JESSE                      You tell him I'll come by.                                CATFISH                          (no longer smiling)                      That's good. I'll see you real soon then.            As Catfish drives away... We HEAR a series of photos being            taken at high-speed. FREEZE FRAME to BLACK & WHITE.            PULL BACK to a distant CONSTRUCTION TRAILER. Bud with a long            lens camera, triggers snapshots.             INT. DINER - DAY            Greasy spoon, soul food joint. Trucker and labor patrons.            Bud walks in, perplexed to find Braddock sitting with               MARTIN FITCH (30), Deputy Chief of Staff for US Attorney            General. Pressed suit. Young face. Out of his element.                                BUD                      Hey, Mike.                                BRADDOCK                      Bud, this is Special Agent, Martin Fitch.                      He's down from Washington. With the                      Attorney General.                                FITCH                      Martin. Just call me Martin.            Fitch offers his hand, smiles. Bud shakes.                                BRADDOCK                      Martin's gonna be soliciting Jesse's case                      for a Federal sponsor.                                BUD                      How long you been with the Attorney                      General, Fitch?                                FITCH                      Just over a year.            Bud looks at Braddock.                                FITCH                      I want to assure you my education and                      experience is more than adequate to                      handle a case of this potential.                                BUD                      Is that right...            Fitch's smile drops as Bud stares him down.                                BRADDOCK                      Why don't we get to the particulars?                                FITCH                      Right. Alright.                          (clears throat)                      To get Jesse a federal sponsor, we need                      something substantial. A bait. In the                      Justice Department, we have this mission                      statement... We decide who the target is,                      what's the threat assessment, the cost                      value, over what time table it's gonna                      take place... Which target do we go after                      first. We don't want to miss a big target                      hitting a smaller target, you understand?                                BUD                      No.                                FITCH                      Well, exposing bodies has limitations.                      Those people are dead. We can't retrieve                      their lives.            Bud blinks.                                BRADDOCK                      He means there might not be enough to                      back Jesse.                                BUD                      Keep him on the street without                      protection, he winds up dead.                                FITCH                      What I'm saying is, we need fresh leads.                      He'll need to present something that                      separates him from those we're going to                      arrest. If Jesse can't offer something                      continuous... I'm afraid we can't be of                      much help.            Bud stares at Fitch.             A WAITRESS in her 50s approaches.                                 WAITRESS                      Ready to order?                                FITCH                          (cuts in)                      Yes. I'll take a garden salad. Roquefort                      on the side.                                WAITRESS                      You'll take what?                                FITCH                          (curt)                      It's a dressing.                                 WAITRESS                      Well...we got ranch, thousand island and                      oil. Which one you want?            Bud's chair SCRAPES back as he stands, stares hard at Fitch:                                BUD                      Lost my appetite.            And walks out.            EXT. PARKING LOT OUTSIDE DINER - DAY            Bud stalks out to his car. Braddock follows, agitated. They            say nothing till they reach the car.                                BUD                      I set this up. Me and Jesse. If the Feds                      want to help, that's fine. But not him.                                BRADDOCK                      What do you mean, "me and Jesse?" He's                      not your partner, Bud. This case is                      beyond our capacity. It requires                      resources we don't have.            Bud unlocks the car. They stand, talking across the roof.                                BUD                      They ain't takin' us serious, Mike. They                      send us some kid with a year under his                      belt?! He don't even know what state he's                      in... You want him in charge?!                                BRADDOCK                      You're God damn right I do! You're out on                      a limb on this already, Bud! It's my job                      to make sure you get back!                                BUD                      This is bullshit.                                BRADDOCK                      That may be. What it ain't, is open for                      discussion.            Braddock walks away. Bud simmers a moment, gets in his car.            INT. A ROOM - FOLLOWING MORNING            A bare room; nothing to tell us where we are. Jesse's on a            stool. He runs his fingers down his mustache, grits his teeth.                                JESSE                      Y'all wanna talk about crime? Well I                      could tell y'all things. Names.                      Locations. What boat is movin' what                      drugs, which one is guns. Who's gonna get                      cut up and why. ...But what I got to know                      is, if 'n when I do this... If I wear                      your dog collar... Y'all gonna do what's                      right by me and keep my head from gettin'                      shot the fuck off? 'Cause the truth is,                      you need me. You ain't got enough cops                      with enough sense or enough time, to                      clear them crimes that already been                      committed and will be.                          (pause)                      Y'all need me... I got the devil's                      address.            REVERSE: We're in a HOTEL SUITE.            Shades down. Full of AGENTS: FBI, ATF, DEA, SECRET SERVICE.            Law enforcement everywhere. On the furniture, against the            wall, sitting on the floor. Staring at Jesse in silence.            Bud stands by the door with Braddock. And Fitch steps            forward, laughs nervously...                                FITCH                      Okay, great... Thanks. Thank you, Jesse,                      for that. And thank you, everyone for                      attending...                          (tight)                      Uh, we all know why we're here. To solve                      a matter of custody--                                FBI #1                      We'll protect you and your family, Jesse.                          (to the room)                      It's a federal matter, gentlemen. Those                      bodies were transported over state lines.            An ATF AGENT #1 imposes:                                ATF #1                      Not so fast. Ammunition, grenades? This                      man's house was a factory, for Christ's                      sake. ATF is taking this.                                DEA                      Those murders were drug related. DEA's                      got to do follow ups.                                SECRET SERVICE                      He was printing counterfeit money.                       That's Secret Service.            ARGUING ENSUES, Agents' voices step over one another. Fitch            tries to take control. Jesse's been silent, until...                                JESSE                      There's a hit list.            Fitch hears this. He turns, loudly to the room...                                FITCH                      Wait! Wait a minute, quiet! Everyone                      quiet!            And EVERYTHING stops. Fitch moves to Jesse:                                FITCH                      A what?                                JESSE                      A hit list. There's much as twelve. Might                      be one or two less now, I ain't sure.                      Some could've already been gotten.                                BUD                          (to Braddock)                      Now we're talkin'.            FBI #2 approaches Jesse...                                FBI #2                      Why these twelve, Jesse?                                JESSE                      Different reasons. It ain't so much why                      or what they done that matters. Pick any                      one of 'em off that list, AB puts you on                      salary.            Everyone is suddenly interested. Bud sees this.                                JESSE                      And you, sir, if I ain't mistaken...                      You're Mr. Nokes, right?            Agents part, revealing JOHN NOKES(50s), black, an emminent             figurehead in a plush suit. Surprised to be pointed out...                                JESSE                      First U.S. Attorney, John Nokes?                                NOKES                      That's right.                                JESSE                      Well, last time I seen it...you was                      number two on that list.            It's quiet. Nokes thinks. Then LAUGHS and approaches Jesse.                                NOKES                      Can you fill us in on the rest of those                      names, Jesse?                                JESSE                      Yes, I can. But there's something I gotta                      make clear 'fore that happens.                                NOKES                      What's that?                                JESSE                      I've listened to you, Mr. Nokes. And I've                      listened to these suits here, on who's                      gonna take me in...                          (beat)                      I will die, go to hell and take all y'all                      cocksuckers with me, if he--                          (motions to Bud)                      --tells me to.                          (beat)                      I want y'all to know that.            Jesse is explosive under the low projection delivery and a            CHILL falls over the room.                                NOKES                          (to Bud)                      How's that fly by you, Lieutenant?            Bud simply nods.                                NOKES                      I'll sponsor him. Jesse's welfare will                      come out of our budget. Anyone has                      pending cases or leads for Jesse, see me.                      I'll loan him out.            Jesse stares at Nokes. As the meeting settles back to a            comfortable level...                                NOKES                      And, Jesse... I'm a little pissed I'm                      number two on that list. Who the fuck is                      number one?            The room erupts with LAUGHTER. Everyone except Bud and Jesse.                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            EXT. GRAND COUTEAU - DAY            Jesse's truck moves over an old wooden bridge through            sweeping fields that stretch to a vast, wooded area.            EXT. FRONT GATES, PRIVATE PROPERTY - DAY            Jesse stops at a long drive protected by locked iron gates.            A surveillance camera zooms in. Jesse looks up. A second            camera pans on Jesse, staring...            MOVE IN as crackling, electronic pixels FILL THE FRAME and...                                                                  CUT TO:            INT. GUARD STATION - SAME            A BANK OF MONITORS showing Jesse at the gates. A GUARD sits            in shadow, hits a button: We see the gates unlock and open.            INT. JESSE'S TRUCK            pulls down the private road.            Shafts of light mottle then burst, REVEALING an elegant            VICTORIAN HOME.             Jesse parks -- walks up the porch, where Catfish is relaxing,            shoulder holster, revolver. And Buzz, cleaning a pistol.                                BUZZ                      Jesse.            Jesse nods, eyes Catfish.                                JESSE                      I'm here to see Lucian.            Catfish grinds out his cigarette, gets to his feet.                                CATFISH                      He's busy right now; You can come in and                      wait.            INT. LUCIAN ADAMS' OFFICE - DAY            CLOSE ON: A SNIFTER            as Louis XIII pours to the rim. From elsewhere in the room:                                MALE VOICE                      This operation of your's has become big                      business. You need relationships now more                      than ever...            THE VOICE belongs to RICHARD MORRIS, 40s. He sits in a            leather chair, facing Lucian Adams, who's face we cannot see.             Seated next to Morris, is Daniel Kiersey.                                MORRIS                      ...We've done business successfully                      before, Mr. Adams. But it's a larger                      scope now. I'm here today because I want                      to represent you exclusively. You need                      someone lobbying at a state level, as                      well as in Washington. My organization                      can provide both. We've got contacts that                      you don't have and other people can't                      get. Now, I'm aware that you have                      multiple businesses... However you need                      one go-to guy, so that all your ventures                      stay coordinated and all transactions and                      contracts are realized. I am that person,                      Mr. Adams. That's what I do.            LUCIAN'S HAND lifts the cognac out of frame, drinks.                                KIERSEY                      What's this going to cost us?                                MORRIS                      As a retainer, I want an advance of three                      hundred-fifty thousand, along with ten                      percent of whatever economic benefit I                      bring to this organization.                                KIERSEY                      Three-fifty? C'mon, Dick. That's out of                      line.                                MORRIS                      If you want a quality global economic                      plan, that's what you pay for--                                 LUCIAN O.S.                      We'll give you two, Mr. Morris...That's                      what it's worth.            Morris goes suddenly silent, looks across at Lucian.                                LUCIAN O.S.                      The advance is a drop in the bucket. The                      real money is the percentage. It's in                      your interest to see it my way.            Morris stares across the desk, several tense moments. Then:                                MORRIS                      You've got a deal.            INT. LIVING ROOM, LUCIAN ADAMS' HOUSE - DAY            Morris emerges from the office. He glances at Jesse, then            shrugs on his coat and leaves...             Jesse looks back at the office doorway. FOLLOW Jesse in...            INT. LUCIAN ADAM'S OFFICE            ...past Kiersey, behind a massive desk in this impeccable            room, we finally SEE LUCIAN ADAMS.            Jesse is not invited to sit.                                LUCIAN                          (to Kiersey)                      Give us a minute.            Kiersey walks out and shuts the door...             ON LUCIAN            he crosses slowly to a credenza, selects a clean shirt.                                LUCIAN                      You have a son now, right?                                JESSE                      Yeah...            As he removes the shirt he's wearing, REVEAL tattoos: BLACK            SUN on his back. GERMAN RUNES, SS BOLTS, HRUNGNIR'S HEART.            And around his stomach, a belt of NORSE GODS with the words,            "INVISIBLE EMPIRE." Prison tats, dark and aged.                                LUCIAN                      What'd you name him?                                JESSE                      I named him Ray.            Lucian, no emotion, puts on a pressed dress shirt, fastens            cuff-links.                                LUCIAN                          (over his shoulder)                      Heard the cops smacked you around inside.                                JESSE                      'Wasn't too bad.            Lucian checks his hair.                                LUCIAN                      You've been a busy man, Jesse. More ways                      than one.                                JESSE                      Looks like you done just fine without me.                      Business rollin' through the door.            And Lucian finally turns; looks at Jesse, eyes measuring...                                LUCIAN                      Last I saw you, you asked for time. Time                      to raise a family.                      Time to straighten things out.                           (pause)                      I gave you that time... Then safe jobs                      start poppin' up. Lafayette. New Orleans.                      Clinton. Baton Rouge. All over. The boys,                      they think it's niggers, gone widespread                      on a hunt for pig's feet. But they all                      professional. Burn jobs. Hot-weld oxygen.                      Laid out, burned, laid back, perfect.                          (locked on Jesse)                      I knew right then and there, only a white                      respectable burglar could've done this.            Jesse smiles slightly. They know each other well...            ...When Lucian's smile suddenly drops. There's a flash of            controlled anger across his face; and WE FEEL a curtain of            tension fall heavily on the room.                                LUCIAN                      Jesse... With all the work you been                      doin': Diamonds. Emeralds. A dozen safe                      jobs, behind my back...                          (predatory)                      Where's the tribute to the greater cause?            Jesse he pulls from his pocket, a tiny pouch. Sets it on the            desk...            He pours the contents into Lucian's palm: DIAMONDS and            EMERALDS.                                JESSE                      Like I said, I just needed time.            Lucian approaches the desk, opens the pouch: DIAMONDS and            EMERALDS... A slow smile spreads across his face.                                LUCIAN                      Well, even prophets stumble once in a                      while.            Lucian embraces Jesse. Tight. Then, softly in his ear:                                LUCIAN                      It's a shame about your brother.            As they part, their eyes meet. Something passes between            them...            I/E. JESSE'S TRUCK, TRAVELING - BACK ROAD - NIGHT            Jesse at the wheel, glances nervously in the rearview. Lynn            in the passenger seat, baby in her lap. They're driving under            the cover of darkness...                                 LYNN                      I don't understand. Why do we have to                      leave the state? You're not tellin' me                      something. You're not tellin' me a lot.                                JESSE                      It ain't safe here no more. You wanted                      out? This is out.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. PRIVATE AIRSTRIP - NIGHT            Marandino looks through BINOCULARS: As an electric fence            slides back. Jesse's truck approaches, drives through.            EXT. RUNWAY - NIGHT            A twin-engine PLANE idylls. Lines of blue lights, strobe like            rivers, air traffic above... And Bud, leaning against a            nearby car with Shepard and Cobb.            Jesse helps Lynn and the baby from his truck. Together, they            walk toward the plane...            Bud, watching from a distance, nods to Lynn.            OUTSIDE THE PLANE            Jesse and Lynn stare at each other. She's crying as he pulls            her close, one arm around the baby. He says something to them            we cannot hear...            Then with the baby, Lynn boards her plane. An AGENT shuts the            door. The engine SCREAMS to life, taking off...            Jesse turns to shield his face. Lights STROBE and BLAST...            Then, ABRUPT DARKNESS AND SILENCE...             ON JESSE            now alone on the tarmac. Bud approaches; then...                                JESSE                      Lucian took the stones. Talked about                      jobs. High-end, boxcar.                                BUD                      Your family's safe now.                          (beat)                      Let's go to work.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. JEWELRY STORE BASEMENT - NIGHT            Several AB SOLDIERS stand watch as Jesse pushes a heavy, 10"            drill through a jeweler's vault door... Jesse throws tumbler            and relock mechanisms aside, reaches in... jewels, gems.            EXT. PARKING LOT - BETWEEN CARS - NIGHT            Bud and Jesse parked next to each other, trading info.            E/I. VARIOUS HIDEOUTS - NIGHT            AB counterfeiting bills... Printing press and metal plates...            Hands stain bills with coffee grounds and cigarettes, then            industrial dryers... Jesse at a table behind tall stacks of            cash, inspecting, approving...            INT. UNDERGROUND GARAGE - NIGHT            Bud with Jesse. Info, names and written amounts.            INSERTS: HANDS file serial numbers off guns... HANDS building            silencers... loading guns in suitcases below false bottoms...            EXT. PAY PHONES - NIGHT            Jesse on the line... Bud on the other end, taking notes...            INT. GARAGE - NIGHT            AB Soldiers unload crates from trucks, "Chrysler Corp."...            "Remington Firearms"... Antique furniture... Machinery...            INSERT: A MONEY MACHINE counts large denominations of cash.            EXT. BELOW AN OVERPASS - NIGHT            Parked under the interstate. Bud looks over Jesse's info.            EXT. NEW ORLEANS PORT - NIGHT            A large fishing boat arrives. Numerous Fisherman load marlin            onto refrigerated trucks... Catfish, Buzz, numerous AB start            up the trucks... Jesse hands the Head Fisherman a canvas bag            of cash...             PULL BACK to reveal Shepard, Cobb and Marandino on the roof            of a neighboring port, snapping photos. Taking notes.            E/I. ISOLATED BARN - NIGHT            Trucks arrive. AB bring the marlin inside... Atop a crate,            Jesse slices a marlin open, revealing kilos of cocaine. More            marlins are cut. More cocaine.            INT. METRO OFFICE - DAY            Bud on the typewriter, hammering out Jesse's contacts and            movements. Files piling on his desk.            INT. METRO OFFICE - NIGHT            An organizational chart, as Bud pins AB mug shots, arrest            sheets and surveillance photos wall to wall.            Bud steps back, observes. His case building. Getting huge.                                                         MONTAGE OUT/TO:            EXT. BACK PATIO, LUCIAN'S HOUSE - DAY            Wood secluded. Lucian, Jesse and Kiersey sit around a table.                                KIERSEY                      There's a variety of matters to discuss                      today, gentlemen. Eddie Moran's trial                      starts next week. One of the jurors                      reached out. He's asking six thousand up                      front plus a job at four hundred a week.                      That guarantees a hung jury with a push                      for an acquittal.                                  LUCIAN                      Three hundred. Give him a no-show at the                      trucking firm.                                KIERSEY                          (as he writes)                      Construction on the building Morris                      brought us, in south-east Florida, is                      complete. Every unit sold. We should see                      revenues of one point four million over                      our original projections.             Lucian lights a cigar, smoke curls from his lips.                                KIERSEY                      Lastly, our "friends" from the Middle                      East. They put a final offer on the                      table. They'll fund our operation in                      Louisiana if we agree to act on their                      behalf. Political targets mostly, on the                      basis of our approval...                          (beat)                      I advise we do a test case. Perhaps a                      sample of their resources.                                LUCIAN                      "Final offer?" Demands...                           (beat)                      Close the deal. We'll cook the cash for                      it. By the time they realize, we'll have                      our return.                          (laughs to Jesse)                      You believe they're travelin' all the way                      to Louisiana just to get fuckin' robbed?                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. LUCIAN'S BACK YARD - LATER            Jesse and Lucian walk together through green, expansive            countryside. A pair of Arabian mares graze nearby.                                LUCIAN                      I want you runnin' point on this one...                                  JESSE                      I'll be honest, I was hopin' for                      somethin' bigger.                                LUCIAN                      What do you got in mind?                                JESSE                      How 'bout a few of them heads off the                      list?                                LUCIAN                      We got guys for that now. Catfish, Buzz.                      What do you want to go back to that for?                                JESSE                      The money's worth twice this. Bring back                      a head it's fifteen grand; Bring a heart,                      it's thirty, right?            Lucian looks at Jesse, who feels Lucian's scrutiny.                                LUCIAN                      Tell you what. Do this other thing we got                      lined up...                          (beat)                      Then I'll give you that taste.            EXT. HENDERSON INDUSTRIAL ZONE - ESTABLISH - NIGHT            Dark, factory skyline. Burnt out cars sit before a WAREHOUSE.            INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT            HEADQUARTERS for the Baton Rouge operation. A beehive of            government activity. TECHNICIANS listen to tapes... PHONES            ring off the hook... Bud and Fitch going over the case:                                FITCH                      There's pressure from Washington. They                      send compliments for Jesse's work. But                      our primary concern is that list. I need                      names we can protect.                                BUD                      We know that, Fitch. He's workin' on it.                                FITCH                      If Jesse can just get a direct order...                      from Lucian to him, on a wire--                                BUD                      --A wire?! He just went back to work, you                      want him to wear a fuckin' wire?                          (beat)                      Put a tap on that God damn lawyer's                      phone, that's what you should do.                                FITCH                      He's an attorney, Carter. Anything we get                      would be inadmissable.                                BUD                      It's information, Fitch.             Fitch, annoyed, but staying on track.                                FITCH                      Bud. We need Jesse to engage Lucian on                      the record. Otherwise it's just hearsay.                      He's disconnected from everything, like a                      ghost.             Bud, cooling his heels. As the phones RING and RING...                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            A violent rainfall.            AERIAL SHOT swooping along the HIGHWAY, then rising above the            deep woods to reveal a TRUCK STOP ahead.            EXT. TRUCK STOP - NIGHT            Closed for construction. A VAN arrives. A blinking barricade            is pulled back, allowing entrance...            Generators light the scene: A group of SHIITE MUSLIMS wait by            a pair of idle FREIGHT TRUCKS. A crew of five AB SOLDIERS            exit the van: Jesse, Catfish and Buzz among them.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. LUMBER STORAGE, TRUCK STOP - NIGHT            The door to one Freight truck rolls to the top, revealing a            converted ASSAULT WEAPONRY SHOWCASE.            Below covered scaffolding, both crews stand. Guns bulge            through their coats. No talking. No sudden movement.             Shiites watch Jesse and Catfish examine the merchandise: SEMI            AUTOMATICS, SHOTGUNS, CARBINES, SUB-MACHINE GUNS...            Everyone looks at each other. Jesse acknowledges worth.            Catfish pulls a large CANVAS BAG from the van, filled with            cash. As he carries it toward a bench, a large Shiite (OMAR)            reaches for the bag before Catfish can set it down...             ...Both men hold tight. Neither letting go. And there's a            moment.                                JESSE                          (low)                      Catfish.            Catfish and Omar are eye-to-eye. Then, Catfish lets go with a            smile:                                CATFISH                      Go 'head. Count it.            The Shiite leader, NASEEM, sees the strife.                                NASEEM                      There a problem?                                JESSE                      No problem. Money's all there.            Omar hands the bag to Naseem. The count starts. Both crews            watch closely...              ...All except Catfish, fixated on Omar, who stares back.                                CATFISH                      'The fuck you lookin' at...?            The count stops. Naseem looks to Omar. Questions in Arabic go            back and forth. The pressure getting to the group...                                JESSE                          (low)                      Catfish, would you shut the fuck up? This                      ain't the time.                                NASEEM                          (to Catfish)                      Yes, listen to your boss.                                CATFISH                      What?! What fuckin' "boss?" You best                      watch your ass, sand nigger.                                  NASEEM                      Piece of shit--!            Everyone reaches for their guns. Threats SHOUTED in Arabic            and English.                                JESSE                      Take it easy! Take it easy!             SUDDENLY ARC LIGHTS BEHIND A DISTANT BARRIER IGNITE, flooding            the scene. Everyone turns.                                A VOICE                          (over a loud speaker)                      ATF! THE PERIMETER'S SURROUNDED!            Omar reaches for the bag of cash...            BLAM! Catfish FIRES, point blank, shooting Omar in the face.            And World War III erupts.            AB's FIRE. Shiites RETURN FIRE. From several stakeout            locations, ATF AGENTS deploy and OPEN FIRE.            Jesse is grazed in the shoulder, slips, staggers-runs.            SHIITE #1 FIRES THREE SHOT BURSTS at AB #1, who's blown            apart. A generator and ATF #1 collapse.            ATF #2 and #3 with pump shotguns OPEN UP on the AB's van.            Naseem, over a Mercedes roof, FIRES A BURST at ATF, then            swings onto AB #2 and FIRES, killing him. Naseem jumps into            the Mercedes, yells at the DRIVER to go.            Buzz RAPID FIRES, hits Shiite #1 in the back. Shiite #1 is            spun around and Buzz shoots him in the head.            Catfish FIRES into the lot... Hitting SHIITE #2.            IN THE MERCEDES, Driver floors it. ATF re-emerges, kneels and            PUMPS SHOTS into the Mercedes.            Jesse has taken off, past the lumber storage. Catfish and            Buzz follow, breaking for the Freight truck.            IN THE MERCEDES, Driver is blown apart by ATF. The car            CRASHES into a dumpster, knocking Naseem out.            Jesse, Catfish and Buzz jump into the Freight. ATF FIRES.            WINDOWS EXPLODE. SHIITE #3, trying to climb in is shot down.            Jesse, behind the wheel... BURNS rubber pulling out of the            stop, over and through a scaffold, collapsing it.            The Freight truck draws everyone's FIRE. Jesse pilots it            through the CHAOS. Scaffold DRAGGING behind. Sparks fly.            JESSE'S POV: Where he's going. An opening in the            construction, leads back to the HIGHWAY and ONCOMING TRAFFIC.            ATF CARS speeds in, the opposite way...            AS THE VEHICLES PASS: JESSE AND ATF            lock eyes. And the Freight makes the highway, scattering            traffic, to the sound of ongoing GUNFIRE...                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. DESOLATE FIELD - LATE NIGHT            The moon hangs low as Jesse parks the Freight truck among            tall grass, where a vacant BREAD TRUCK is waiting.                                                                TIMECUT:            As Catfish exits the truck...            ...Jesse takes Catfish's gun, grabs him by the neck and SLAMS            him against the cab. FACE TO FACE.                                JESSE                      You're a piece of work, Catfish.            Buzz grabs at Jesse; Jesse HURLS him to the ground.                                CATFISH                      Them niggers crossed the line...I had to                      burn 'em--                                JESSE                      --You had to keep your mouth shut! On a                      job, you don't do fuckin' shit 'less I                      say!                                CATFISH                      'The fuck off me--!            Jesse slams him back again. HOLDS his throat.                                JESSE                          (low, deadly)                      Fuck me up again, you hear me? I'll leave                      you where I find you. Got that?            PAUSE. Catfish glares, then concedes.                                 JESSE                      Unload the fuckin' truck.            Jesse starts moving crates from the Freight onto the bread            truck. Catfish and Buzz watch for a moment, then join.            INT. FBI WAREHOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Televisions broadcast news coverage of the shoot-out. AGENTS            work, uncomfortable, as Bud and Fitch argue. Explosive...                                FITCH                      Keep your voice down! This was out of my                      control!                                BUD                      I'm telling you, your agents best pull                      their shit together! Who the hell y'all                      trying to protect?!                                FITCH                      Look, Carter. This is a joint task force                      with multiple agendas, that run up the                      chain of command through me. Intel came                      forth at the eleventh hour that Naseem                      Kazuri - an international arms dealer -                      would be present at this meet. ATF was                      tasked to observe and report.                                 BUD                      That ain't what they did--!                                FITCH                      --No! Because your informant--                                BUD                      My informant, that's right!--                                FITCH                      --Your informant and his psychopath crew                      greased half our political interests --                      over a bag of fake cash! You weren't                      informed, so what?                                BUD                      Well I better be informed! 'Cause this                      ain't fallin' short! Now, any of y'all                      got a collaborative agenda in the works?                      I want to see it. These other agencies,                      what time-lines they lookin' at? What                      deadlines and why?                                FITCH                      Above your pay-grade--                                BUD                          (overlapping)                      And is there a purposeful lack of                      communication between competing agencies,                      who are right now charting future                      mistakes, as we fuckin' speak?!                                FITCH                      That's not your concern, Carter!            Braddock suddenly arrives, steps into the room...                                BUD                      We're not talkin' about me!!                                BRADDOCK                      Bud!                                BUD                          (spins)                      What?!                                BRADDOCK                      You're over-involved here.            And Bud's taken off stride. Braddock looks Bud right in the            eyes, so there's no doubt...                                BRADDOCK                      I'll handle this.            Bud, red with anger, walks out.             Braddock watches him go. Fitch comes over, relieved...                                FITCH                      Thanks for coming down, Mike. He's been                      berating my agents for the last hour.            Braddock pours a cup of coffee.                                FITCH                      We're trying to band-aid a situation                      here, and frankly, Carter's preference                      for thug tactics isn't helping. It'll all                      be in my report...                                BRADDOCK                          (interrupts)                      "Isn't helping?"            A big mistake. Now Braddock turns on Fitch, zeroing in...                                BRADDOCK                      "Isn't helping?" Let's not miss what                      happened here, Fitch. We work for the                      same cause doesn't mean we work for you.                      What are you gonna do now? Send Jesse                      back out? Earn his trust? Bud Carter                      delivered the biggest informant in the                      history of this state to your lap, and                      you and the people you work for are gonna                      let it go to shit.                          (beat)                      You can expect that will be in my report.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. STEEL MILL - PRE DAWN            STEELWORKERS warped in heat waves swing ingots into troughs.            The seven story furnace is deafening.            ENTRY AREA            Lucian is met by Kiersey. They walk together through glassed            in hallways to a closed office door.             Lucian keys in, REVEALING a disheveled Morris seated in a            chair with two large AB Soldiers on either side.            INT. STEEL MILL OFFICE - PRE DAWN            Lucian shuts the door and sits before an ill at ease Morris.                                MORRIS                      Look. I had no previous knowledge of any                      business with Muslims. So if stealing me                      here in the middle of the night, is some                      kind of accusation--                                LUCIAN                      I'm not accusing you, Mr. Morris. But I                      do find it interesting that right about                      the time I employ you, my operation                      starts having problems.                                MORRIS                      Yes, but--                                LUCIAN                      That is interesting...isn't it?            Morris swallows hard as Lucian stares intensely.                                LUCIAN                      I want to know if this was an isolated                      incident. If the ATF impeding on my work                      is the result of a deeper threat.                                MORRIS                      What are you suggesting?                                LUCIAN                      I'm suggesting you contact your friends                      in Washington.                                MORRIS                      With all due respect, Mr. Adams, that's                      not what I was retained for.                                LUCIAN                      Well now it is.                                MORRIS                      That sort of information requires                      clearance I don't have. If I start                      sniffing around, people are going to ask                      questions.                                LUCIAN                      I'm asking questions, Mr. Morris. And I'm                      getting impatient.            Morris gets stone quiet. Lucian hands him a phone.                                LUCIAN                      You don't leave here till I get answers.            And like that, this conversation is over.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. LIQUOR STORE + PHONE BOOTH - DAWN            Off a deserted street. A DENSE FOG resides, far as the eye            can see. And Jesse, in a PHONE BOOTH, drops a dime and            dials...                                LYNN V.O.                          (clearly asleep)                      Hello...                                JESSE                      It's me.                                LYNN V.O.                      You okay?                          (off Jesse's silence)                      Honey, you alright?                                JESSE                      I'm okay. Just need to hear your voice.                      How's little Ray...?                                LYNN V.O.                      I'll put him on.            SILENCE for a moment...then a quiet baby's voice.                                 LYNN V.O.                      It's daddy on the phone, say hello.            Emotion rises to Jesse's face. He holds it in, barely.            ANGLE: DOWN THE STREET             a lone CAR is parked in the shadows, fog rolling past...             ...Jesse sees it, can't see who's inside it.                                 LYNN V.O.                      Jesse?            He hangs up.             A LONG MOMENT... Jesse stands there, watching the car... He            slowly makes his way toward the back of the store, where his            truck is parked. Pulse pounding, he tries the door...it's            locked. Eyeing the car, he unlocks his truck.               THERE'S SUDDEN MOVEMENT. Jesse spins. And out of the darkness            -- steps Bud -- ready to pounce...                                 BUD                      Where the hell you been?                          (Jesse's look)                      Two days missin', you broke protocol.                      Three, and you're a flight risk.                      Agents'll hunt your ass down.                                JESSE                          (anger spiking, pacing)                      I can't keep doin' this. I can't fuckin'                      breathe. Even the shadows got eyes.                                    BUD                      This is the job. If I don't hear from                      you, I can't protect you.                                   JESSE                          (in his face)                      Protect me?! I about got my head fuckin'                      shot off, 'cause your guys was                      "protecting" me!                                BUD                      Those ain't my guys!                                JESSE                      I don't give a fuck-- I don't want your                      protection! I want out!                                BUD                      There is no "out." Not for either of us.                      Not till it's done...                          (low, definitive)                      Get me that list.            Jesse STARES -- a malevolence in his eyes that freezes Bud to            the spot. Then, Jesse climbs in his truck and drives off.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. BRADDOCK'S OFFICE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT -            DAWN            Bud pacing; Braddock sits at his desk.                                BUD                      I'm losin' him, Mike...                                BRADDOCK                      Just relax. We gotta let things settle,                      that's all.                                 BUD                      It ain't gonna settle, it's gonna blow. I                      can feel it.                                  BRADDOCK                      What do you want me to do?                                BUD                      Push 'em back.                                 BRADDOCK                      Who?                                BUD                      The Feds. All these suits, fuckin'                      outsiders. Everyone. Get me some room.                      Some time to reel this thing in.                                 BRADDOCK                      I'll talk to Nokes. 'See what I can do.                                                                  BLACK.            INT. OFFICE, STEEL MILL - DAY             Morris (a nervous wreck, unshaven) sits across from Lucian.            Kiersey at an adjacent table.                                MORRIS                      There's an investigation underway, funded                      by the U.S. Attorney. And you're the                      target.            Morris opens his briefcase and hands over a pair of dossiers.                                MORRIS                      They're receiving assistance from both                      the ATF and FBI, who are stationed right                      here in Henderson.                                LUCIAN                          (pause)                      How long they been active?                                MORRIS                      My sources tell me three months.            Lucian puts on his reading glasses, opens a dossier.                                LUCIAN                      Three months...            Lucian peruses surveillance photos: Images of AB activity            goes by in a blur. Lucian's eyes absorbing, rigid, unerring.                                 KIERSEY                          (reading)                      This is U.S. Attorney John Nokes, at the                      helm. He's been after us for years.                                LUCIAN                      Who they got for a mouthpiece?                                MORRIS                      A "mouthpiece"?                                LUCIAN                      Who's the rat in the woodpile? Who the                      fuck's giving 'em information?                                MORRIS                      I couldn't dig that deep. But it's                      someone close.                          (pause)                      I suggest you gentlemen disband.                      Immediately.            Kiersey, foraging through reports. Page after page. Each            minutely detailed.                                KIERSEY                      Lucian...                                LUCIAN                      Yeah.                                KIERSEY                      The investigation's local point is a                      detective out of East Baton Rouge.                          (beat)                      His name's Bud Carter.            ON LUCIAN. Thinking...Thinking...            INT. JESSE'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Jesse, alone in the dark, seated on the couch... There's a            SOUND outside...                                                                  CUT TO:            Jesse moves soundlessly through the house, gun ready, toward            the back door.            JESSE'S POV: as the door opens slow, HE/WE SEE ON THE PORCH:             LUCIAN            seated comfortably in a chair...                                 LUCIAN                      Couldn't sleep.            Jesse looks to the darkness. Dogwood trees. Thick growth.            EERIE SILENCE...                                JESSE                      Got somethin' on your mind?                                 LUCIAN                          (without looking at him)                      There's been an adjustment to the list,                      Jesse...            Jesse's silent. YOU CAN CUT THE TENSION WITH A KNIFE...                                LUCIAN                      We got this...heathen. A whore of an                      Irishman...down in Baton Rouge.                      He's protected. Got a lot of guys around                      him. That's why it pays. That's why                      nobody wants the job... That's why we're                      here talkin'.                                JESSE                      Who is it?            Lucian sets a photo on the table, face down with an address            written on back.             Jesse flips over the photo: It's Bud, in uniform.                                 LUCIAN                      This cop... he's got a mouthpiece...                      somewhere. Ain't yet figured out who.                      In the meantime, shut him down.            ON JESSE, a frozen moment. He forces out the words:                                JESSE                      It's done.            With that, Lucian gets up and leaves, disappearing into            darkness.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. JESSE'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Jesse climbs into his truck and pulls out to the street...                                                                  CUT TO:            JESSE'S TRUCK heading up the INTERSTATE, crossing into EAST            BATON ROUGE, then driving through dark RESIDENTIAL STREETS of            Bud's neighborhood...            I/E. JESSE'S TRUCK - LATE NIGHT            He pulls to the curb, parks. Jesse racks a MOSSBERG SG, loads            it with solid shot, then lays the gun on his lap.             THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD: Bud's house in the distance.            And Jesse sits there, several moments...WAITS...BREATHES...            Then he exits the truck...            EXT. BUD'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Jesse moves -- fast, soundless -- toward the house. With his            shotgun, scales the fence, as we--                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. DOWN THE STREET, BY JESSE'S TRUCK - MOMENTS LATER            A VAN arrives, stops. No headlights, two hundred yards from            the house. INSIDE THE VAN: Catfish and Buzz. Several AB            SOLDIERS in back, armed to the teeth.                                BUZZ                      That's his truck.                                CATFISH                          (nods)                      Let's see what he does.            The motor ticks and ticks and...            EXT. SIDE YARD, BUD'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            It's dark, quiet; but the muted glow of a tv in the living            room. JESSE MOVES IN SHADOW, shotgun leading... He stops.            LISTENS...             WE HEAR THE SOUND OF HARD WATER FROM A SINK OFF-SCREEN            ...Jesse moves toward it...            INT. CATFISH'S VAN - LATE NIGHT            Catfish, Buzz, the soldiers watching Bud's house intently.                                CATFISH                      The fuck's takin' so long?                           (beat)                      I would've shot that pig dead already...                      'made a pulled-pork sandwich.                                BUZZ                      Give him a minute. That's a cop, lives                      there.                                 CATFISH                          (checks his watch)                      I'll give him two.            Catfish, loading his gun, as--            EXT. YARD, BUD'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Through a window, WE SEE Bud washing dishes. Then, slipping            INTO FRAME...            JESSE            watching him. Pulse pounding, his mind on overdrive, trying            to untangle identity and consequence... Then...            He taps the window, and Bud looks up...                                                                 CUT TO:            THE BACK DOOR            Bud opens it:                                BUD                      Jesse. 'The hell you doin' here?                                JESSE                      You been made, Bud. We gotta skin out.                                                                BACK TO:            INT. CATFISH'S VAN - LATE NIGHT            Catfish, anxious now, racking his gun again and again.                                CATFISH                      Somethin's wrong...                                 BUZZ                      Relax, Catfish. You said two minutes.                                CATFISH                      Fuck you, man! This don't feel right.                                BUZZ                      Just give it a second.                           (to soldiers in back)                      A few more seconds, right guys?            Catfish, breathing hard, bent on bloodshed...                                CATFISH                      Let's kill 'em both. Let's do it now,                      right now, let's go--                                BUZZ                      Catfish--                                CATFISH                          (erupts)                      LET'S GO!!!            INT. BUD'S HOUSE, LIVING ROOM - LATE NIGHT             Bud quickly dials the phone --                                SHEPARD V.O.                          (over phone, answers)                      Yeah.                                BUD                          (into phone)                      Hey. Meet me at the office in ten                      minutes. Cobb and Marandino too.                                SHEPARD V.O.                          (over phone)                      Why, what's up?                                BUD                          (into phone)                      I'll explain later. Just get there. Now.            QUICK CUTS as Bud hangs up, shoves a .38 in his waistband.            Slams a clip and holsters a 9MM.                                BUD                          (to Jesse)                      Let's hit it.            Bud and Jesse start for the door...            INT. CATFISH'S VAN - LATE NIGHT             AB Soldiers loading their guns.             CATFISH            starts the engine; POV THRU THE WINDSHIELD: Jesse and Bud,            leaving the house.                                CATFISH                      That's them! Together, you see?!                                BUZZ                      I see 'em--                                CATFISH                      You see?! They're fuckin' dead!            EXT. BUD'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Jesse hurries down the lawn. Bud to his Chevy.            SUDDENLY THE SOUND OF TIRES BURN... CATFISH'S VAN SEARS DOWN            THE STREET...            ...THE DOOR SLIDES OPEN AS AB SOLDIERS OPEN FIRE FROM SUB            MACHINE GUNS.             Jesse drops behind a neighbor's sedan.            Bud dives behind the Chevy. ROUNDS SLAM through sheet metal,            interior, and out the other end.             AB Soldiers exit the van, spread and keep FIRING. Jesse's            sedan takes hits. WINDOWS AND TIRES EXPLODE.             Bud and Jesse aim over their roofs. Take and RETURN FIRE.             Catfish emerges, kneels and pumps SHOTS into Bud's Chevy.            The WINDSHIELD is BLOWN APART -- Shattered glass covers Bud.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. SHEPARD'S CAR, TRAVELING - LATE NIGHT             Shepard at the wheel. We hear dispatch on the police scanner:                                DISPATCHER V.O.                          (filter)                      All units: 10-17 in progress. 1825                      Hyacinth. Multiple shots fired--                                SHEPARD                      What the fuck?                                DISPATCHER V.O.                      --Units please respond...            Shepard hits the BRAKES, peels a hard U-turn and SLAMS the            gas toward Bud's house...                                                                BACK TO:            EXT. BUD'S HOUSE - LATE NIGHT            Buzz rounds the van and OPENS FIRE.            Jesse and Bud cover. Their eyes connect. Bud signals towards            the house. Jesse nods...            ...then lays cover fire with the Mossberg. AB #3 is spun and            thrown.             Bud, under fire and firing back, races back into the house.            Jesse keeps FIRING.            I/E. BUD'S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS            Bud YANKS an M-16 from the closet and slams the door.            OUTSIDE            Jesse, on his knees, pulls a secondary .45 from his waistband            and fires over the hood of the sedan.            CATFISH FIRES HIS SHOTGUN AND JESSE'S HAND EXPLODES IN HALF.                                JESSE                          (crumbles hard)                      Fuck!            Jesse hits the dirt, WRIST PUMPING BLOOD.            AB #4 and #5 move in for the kill, when out of nowhere --            SHEPARD'S CAR SPEEDS ON SCENE -- His door kicks out; SHEPARD            PUMPS SHOTS, EXCHANGING.            Buzz comes up from behind, aims -- BULLETS FLASH AND PUNCH            THROUGH SHEPARD.            INSIDE THE HOUSE             Bud swings the M-16 through the glass and BLASTS AWAY,            killing AB #4, as Jesse staggers toward the house, holding            his wrist...            ...and DIVES inside, then kicks the door shut.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. BUD'S HOUSE - SAME            Catfish, Buzz and AB Soldiers flank the house.            INT. BUD'S HOUSE - SAME            On the floor, Jesse rips out his belt, a tourniquet around            the armpit. He holds it with his teeth and ties his arm.            Bud reloads and slides Jesse a .357 Python. Jesse takes it up            with his good hand.            Suddenly in the darkness beyond, MUZZLE FLASHES DISCHARGE.            THREE TRIPLE-AUGHT ROUNDS EXPLODE. Bud ducks, scrambles, as            rounds splinter the wall.             A BACK KITCHEN DOOR is bashed open and AB #5 steps in,            BLAZING SHOTS.            Bud lets fly -- FIRING. Big bore rounds punch through AB #5.            His insides hit the wall.             WE NOW HEAR DISTANT POLICE SIRENS APPROACHING...            EXT. BUD'S HOUSE + STREET - SAME            A LONG-HAIRED AB on the lawn fires dozens of shots from an              M-1.            Catfish and Bud exchange CROSSFIRE as...            ...Buzz starts up the van and Catfish jumps in, followed by            Long-Hair...            I/E. BUD'S HOUSE + STREET            Bud runs out to the street, M-16 FIRING at the fleeing van.            Bullets shatter the back window as the van speeds around the            corner through garbage cans and a residential fence...            ON BUD            standing there. He turns, and STOPS when he SEES...            SHEPARD            inert, bullet-ridden.                                BUD                      Shepard!                          (runs over)                      No...            Bud holds his partner, horrified. Around them, bodies on the            lawn. Disabled vehicles. Doom overlays the property.                                                                TIMECUT:            EXT. BUD'S HOUSE - MINUTES LATER            Pandemonium as the street is clogged with POLICE VEHICLES and            MEDIC UNITS. Braddock arrives with Cobb and Marandino.            Bud moves alongside a PARAMEDIC wheeling a gurneyed Jesse,            with a pressure bandage and splint, onto an ambulance.                                BUD                          (turns to Braddock)                      We run 'em now, Mike. Right fuckin' now!                                BRADDOCK                          (nods)                      What do you need?                                                               SMASH TO:            E/I. LUCIAN'S HOUSE - FRONT DOOR - PRE DAWN            A huge BATTERING RAM knocks it right off the hinges. SWAT,            Bud rush in with rifles...            ...Room by room. Everyone clears. The house is empty.                                SWAT #1                      Nothing.            E/I. STEEL MILL - PRE DAWN            SWAT TEAMS have secured the premises. Two HELICOPTERS sweep            the grounds via SPOTLIGHT. A manhunt for Lucian Adams.            INSIDE, Cobb on his radio:                                 COBB                      No one here, Bud...            INT. LUCIAN'S HOUSE - PRE DAWN            Bud listens on his radios as SWAT OFFICERS file out of the            vacant house.                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Empty.             Bud stands there, infuriated...                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. TRAUMA CENTER, OUR LADY OF THE LAKE HOSPITAL - DAWN            Jesse, unconscious in bed, with IV lines re-infusing plasma.            Bud is with a DOCTOR, who washes his hands in a sink...                                DOCTOR                      His bleeding's under control. There's                      tissue damage. Projectile fragmentation                      in the right forearm. We have most of it                      removed. Two fingers are gone. A portion                      of the palm. There's no chance of                      reconstruction.                          (Bud's silence)                      I'll be monitoring his vitals.            Doctor walks away. Bud turns as a NURSE dims the lights and            pulls the curtains, obscuring Jesse...            I/E. OUR LADY OF THE LAKE HOSPITAL - DAWN            Bud, absorbed, walks past crowded emergency room activity...            OUTSIDE            Braddock is waiting.                                 BRADDOCK                          (stares for a moment)                      You have to let go now.            Bud says nothing.                                BRADDOCK                      It's over.                                BUD                      It's not.                                BRADDOCK                          (in his eyes)                      The cover's blown. Lucian's gone. There                      ain't nothin' left on this one.            Bud, hearing it. Feeling every bit of it.                                BRADDOCK                      Get to a safe-house, Bud.                           (hands Bud a set of keys)                      'Squad car over there is your's.            Braddock walks off. Bud watches him go.            INT. SQUAD CAR, TRAVELING - DAWN            Bud drives in dark silence. As the hospital recedes, Bud            pulls a flask from his coat, takes a drink...                                                                  BLACK.            FADE IN:            Sunlight rises through a gap in the dark sky.             EXT. CEMETARY - MORNING - DAYS LATER            SHEPARD'S FUNERAL. UNIFORMED POLICEMEN saluting as a PRIEST            gives the eulogy.             BUD             at the gravesite, with Braddock, Cobb and Marandino. A salute            is FIRED with rifles.            LATER            Bud stands alone. Dry-eyed, vacant stare.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. EAST BATON ROUGE STREETS - DAY            Flashbulbs burst rapid-fire as coroner crews and police            secure a crime scene: Richard Morris sits dead at the wheel            of his car, a plastic bag over his head filled with blood.              IN THE FOREGROUND, lit by police lights, is Bud and Cobb.                                COBB                      ...His cranium was smashed with a lead                      pipe. Then the plastic bag. He choked to                      death while it filled up with blood.                                BUD                      Got I.D.?                                COBB                      'Name's Richard Morris. He's a top dog                      lawyer-lobbyist out of Washington.            Cobb proffers Morris' wallet. Bud sifts through cards --            Several businesses, out of state -- Then stops cold at one:            "Daniel J. Kiersey, Attorney at Law"                                 BUD                      Put a tap on that line.                                COBB                      Braddock ain't gonna like it.                                BUD                      Do it.            Braddock arrives on scene. Disturbed expression:                                BRADDOCK                      Bud. I just got off with Nokes.                                 BUD                      And?                                BRADDOCK                      We got a problem.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. SUBACUTE CARE, REHABILITATION WARD - AFTERNOON            A PARTITIONER bandages Jesse's swollen and stitched hand. Two            fingers and thumb remain.            There's a KNOCK O.S.            Jesse looks up to see Bud enter from the hallway.                                BUD                      Give us a minute, Doc.            Partitioner exits. Jesse, raw nerves raked. Looks to Bud.                                 JESSE                      Where you been?                                                             CROSS WITH:            EXT. GROCERY STORE - AUSTIN, TEXAS - DAY - FLASHBACK             Lynn emerges from the grocery, looking sad and prematurely            aged. Her baby in the cart, tucked between bags of food.             FBI #3 (TOM) helps Lynn and the baby into an Unmarked Car.            INT. FBI UNMARKED CAR, TRAVELING            Lynn sits in back with the baby. Tom, at the wheel.                                TOM                      Anything else while we're out, Mrs.                      Wheeler?                                LYNN                      No thank you.            THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD: FLASHING CONSTRUCTION LIGHTS come            into view. A DETOUR. And a team of LABORERS at work.                                                                 BACK TO:            INT. SUBACUTE CARE, REHABILITATION WARD - AFTERNOON                                JESSE                      There's a dozen cops comin' in and outta                      this place. No one's sayin' shit. 'The                      hell's goin' on?            Bud stares intently, waits for his cue, can't find it...            INT. FBI UNMARKED CAR - FLASHBACK            LABORER #1 steps INTO FRAME with a STOP SIGN.                                LABORER #1                          (approaches Tom's window)                      Wait here a moment, sir.            A crane moves past, hoisting steel. Tom IDLES the engine.            Then:                                LABORER #1                          (gestures)                      Thanks for waiting. Go ahead.            Tom drives onward, glancing in the REARVIEW: at Laborer #1            watching them pull away, receding in the distance...            INT. SUBACUTE CARE, REHABILITATION WARD - AFTERNOON                                JESSE                      Get me out of here, Bud. I want to see my                      family.            Bud, the pit in his stomach widening, struggles to say:                                BUD                      There is no family.            INT. FBI UNMARKED CAR - FLASHBACK             Tom - calm and alert - looks to his right - SEES a child's            BICYCLE parked on the sidewalk. A BACKPACK affixed to the            handlebars...             EXPLODES            A MASSIVE GOEX BLAST IN TWO DIRECTIONS. HITS THE CAR'S REAR            DOOR, CUTTING STEEL.              WINDSHIELDS OF PARKED CARS SHATTER. NEIGHBORHOOD HOMES. THE            CAR IS BLOWN SIDEWAYS AND WRAPS AROUND A LIGHT POST.             THE CAR'S FRONT DOOR DROPS OPEN AND TOM CRAWLS OUT. CHARRED.            BURNING. LAST GASP OF LIFE.            EXT. ANOTHER RESIDENTIAL STREET - MOMENTS LATER            A CARGO VAN pulls up and parks. The Labor Team abandons it,            dumping gloves and outer clothing into plastic bags,            REVEALING: A CREW OF AB SOLDIERS LEAD BY CATFISH.             The bags go in the back of a waiting SUBURBAN. Catfish takes            the wheel. The crew climbs in, drives away.                                                                 BACK TO:            INT. SUBACUTE CARE, REHABILITATION WARD - AFTERNOON            ON JESSE. Absorbing this. His face begins to tremble. Eyes            press shut. They fill with moisture as he looks away.            HOLD ON BUD. Quiet. Struggling to hide his own emotion.                                 BUD                      I'm sorry...            And he walks out.            INT. HALLWAY, REHABILITATION WARD            MOVING WITH BUD, as he heads for the exit. Under harsh            fluorescents...                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. SOUTHDOWN'S BAR - NIGHT            Pouring rain.            It's a madhouse outside. A crowd is gathered around a police            action in progress. MEDICS are tending to the broken nose of            a bartender (PETE) in his 30s. METRO COP #1 stands by.             A car pulls up and Cobb gets out with Marandino. They            approach the bartender.                                BARTENDER                          (to Metro #1)                      He's out of his mind. 'Asked him to slow                      down; and he punched me in the face.            Cobb and Marandino approach.                                COBB                          (to bartender)                      Hey, Pete. You alright?                                BARTENDER                      I'm alright. The bar ain't.                                 MARANDINO                          (to Metro #1)                      We'll smooth it out. Clear the street.            Cobb and Marandino start toward the bar.            INT. SOUTHDOWN'S BAR - NIGHT            The place is A MESS. Chairs broken, tables overturned. Music            BLARES on the jukebox. And empty except Bud... three sheets            to the wind, drunk. Pacing the ruins with his 9MM in hand...                                BUD                      Y'all fuck with me? Huh? You want to fuck                      with me?            Cobb and Marandino peer in the doorway to see Bud, shouting            and threatening a vacant chair.                                COBB                      Jesus Christ.            Bud flips another table. Continues talking to the chair as if            someone were in it.                                 BUD                      'Look at me when I talk to you.                          (aims his 9MM)                      You try and kill me? You like killin'                      women and kids?            Bud holsters his gun and beats the shit out of the chair.                                COBB O.S.                      Bud...            Bud spins, glass-eyed and red-faced. His wavering vision can            barely make out Cobb and Marandino approaching...                                MARANDINO                      Easy, Bud... Easy...                                  COBB                      We got you here, Bud... It's just us.                      Hear me?            Bud stands his ground, tries to keep his balance...                                COBB                      Let's go home...            There's a long moment. Bud stares at his crew, gone. Then            he's suddenly overwhelmed with emotion...            INT. REHABILITATION WARD - MORNING            Two FBI AGENTS #4 and #5 walk together down this sterile            corridor. They stop outside Jesse's closed door. A uniformed            POLICE OFFICER is posted there, reading a newspaper.                                 FBI #4                      We're here to escort Mr. Wheeler.                                POLICE OFFICER                          (holds up a chart)                      Sign this.            FBI #4 signs the chart. The two agents enter...            INT. JESSE'S ROOM            Jesse's bed is empty. The window open. Curtains billowing.                                FBI #4                      Check the bathroom.            FBI #5 opens the bathroom door. Empty. Both Agents hurry to            the window, SEE OUTSIDE: A large TREE six feet out from the            ledge and a broken branch at street level. A seemingly            impossible escape route.                                FBI #4 (CONT'D)                      Sonofabitch. This guy's crazy.            INT. FBI WAREHOUSE - MORNING            A badly hung-over Bud sits with Braddock, Fitch and numerous            agents around a conference table.             NOKES            walks the room, says to all:                                NOKES                      This is an atrocity, gentlemen.                      Incompetence at it's highest level. I                      gave you my name. My resources. My                      trust...Carte blanche. And now this                      handsome face of mine...can't step foot                      in Washington, for fear of being laughed                      off the Hill.            Nokes circles behind Bud...                                NOKES                      Now, I'd love to point to Local on this.                      But truth is, they've carried their                      weight. We are federally fucked...                           (looks right at Fitch)                      Because Federal fucked up.            Fitch wipes sweat, swallows hard.                                NOKES                      So. Best idea wins, gentlemen. Chain of                      command? Point of procedure? I don't give                      a fuck. That's out the window, just like                      our informant...                           (beat)                      I want Jesse Wheeler found.                                                                  CUT TO:            INT. HALLWAY, FEDERAL BUILDING            As everyone files out. Braddock says low to Bud:                                BRADDOCK                      You smell like a fuckin' distillery, Bud.                      Clean up... 'find your boy.            ON BUD. Tired eyes. Everything else, and now this...            INT. STORAGE GARAGE - DAY             A metal door rises up. Jesse, in silhouette, steps in.            A BARE BULB comes to light. Mottled with fly excrement.            Jesse unlocks and opens several SAMSONITE SUITCASES. Stacked            in grey packing foam are rows and rows of GUNS.            Jesse hefts his choices. Checking line and breach: A 12 Gauge            Shotgun. A Colt .357 Magnum. A Remington sawed-off with            pistol grip. Les Baer Tactical .45. Glock Semi-auto 9MM. Buck            Knife. Duct tape. 5-Gallon gas cans. He loads up a gym bag.            Jesse pulls scissors from a grooming kit and stands before a            grimy mirror. He cuts off his hair. Then using clippers,            shaves his scalp and mustache.             Jesse yanks a tarp off a '75 beat-up Chrysler. Pops the            trunk. Throws in the gym bag. Then drives away.                                                                  CUT TO:            EXT. BAYOU GHOULA - NIGHT            A lone, dilapidated HOUSE BOAT sits heavily in the bayou.            Lights on inside. Dense FOG overlays.            INT. HOUSE BOAT - NIGHT            Long-Hair on the couch, watching tv, drinking liquor. SPEED            METAL MUSIC blasts from a stereo somewhere.            There's a METALLIC BANG O.S.            Long-Hair looks up.            The screen door rattles. Long-Hair grabs an aluminum bat,            slowly approaching...                                LONG-HAIR                      Who's there?            Sudden surprise as the screen SNAPS OFF and a SILHOUETTE            breaks the glass, opens it.                                LONG-HAIR                      What the fuck?!            Long-Hair RUSHES for the door as THE BUTT OF A 12-GAUGE SLAMS            DOWN LIKE A TOMAHAWK.            Long-Hair collapses with a shattered knee and muted scream.            Jesse steps in, racking the gauge with one hand, takes aim on            the helpless Long-Hair writhing on the floor.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. HOUSE BOAT - NIGHT            The front lights go out. A terrible darkness.            INT. HALLWAY, HOUSE BOAT - NIGHT            A door flies open. Jesse, eyes darting, pushes Long-Hair in.            Bandaged hand clamped to the collar. Shotgun at the neck.            They move down a dark hallway. SPEED METAL throbs, growing            LOUDER... Long-Hair, gash gushing, leg crunches with each            step... They turn another hallway... Light spills from under            a door, shadows behind it... Jesse edges Long-Hair forward,            reaches the doorway, creeps through...            INT. BEDROOM            The door swings wide on the room, REVEALING: Buzz, on the            bed, furiously fucking a dark-haired HOOKER, over a bureau.            As Long-Hair rounds the corner... Buzz looks up, SEES Jesse.            Dives for a gun. CHROME FLASHES. Everything EXPLODES at once.               The WALL DETONATES and Buzz goes down. Shocked. Choking.            Blood juts from his side. He tries to get up. Can't.            The HOOKER SCREAMS and cowers terrified in the corner.            Jesse pumps, aims through the haze and fires again. Stereo            explodes. MUSIC CUTS OUT, plunging us into silence.            Jesse tosses clothes to the Hooker.                                JESSE                      Get out.            The Hooker does.            INT. BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER            Two chairs. Buzz and Long-Hair back to back. Hands and feet            tied. Blood spigoting. Jesse circles them with the shotgun.            The boat rocks gently.                                JESSE                      We got some shit to discuss.            Buzz, to Jesse, unintimidated:                                BUZZ                      Ain't got nothin' to say to you, Wheeler.                                LONG-HAIR                          (top of his lungs)                      I need a doctor! I need a fuckin' doctor!            In one motion, Jesse racks the shotgun, thrusts the barrel to            Long-Hair's chin AND BLOWS HIS HEAD OFF.            Buzz screams, REARS UP, chair collapses beneath him, DRAGGING            a dead Long-Hair along the floor, still tied together.                                BUZZ                      FUCK! FUCK! OH, FUCK!                                JESSE                      House call.            Jesse YANKS Buzz up. His chair rocks upright, into place.                                JESSE                      Where's Lucian?!                                BUZZ                      I don't know!            Jesse punctuates, shotgun butt against Buzz's head. Neck            snaps. Teeth rattle.                                BUZZ                      NO ONE KNOWS WHERE LUCIAN IS! NO ONE                      KNOWS-            Jesse strikes again, connects. Buzz goes down in a heap, eyes            swollen purple slits. His skull gushing red.                                BUZZ                      ...fuck...            Jesse steps over Buzz, pins the shotgun to his jaw.                                JESSE                      Who killed my family?                                BUZZ                      Ah shit, man!            Jesse shifts his aim an inch, pulls the trigger. SHOT REVERBS            HARD. Buzz SCREAMS, hysteria.                                 JESSE                          (racks another shell)                      WHO KILLED 'EM?! CATFISH?!                                BUZZ                      CATFISH, YES, YEAH! FUCKIN' CATFISH!            Jesse puts down the shotgun. Pulls from his gym bag, two CANS            OF GASOLINE, one of which, he splashes over Buzz's face.                                BUZZ                          (flinches)                      The fuck is that?                          (sniffs, realizes)                      WAIT, WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'?!            Jesse pours the rest over Buzz and the lifeless Long-Hair.                                BUZZ                          (thrashing)                      NO! NO, NO, NO, DON'T!! DON'T!!            As Buzz pleads for his life, Jesse unloads the shotgun, dead            aim...FIRES.            THE MUZZLE FLASH. GASOLINE IGNITES. BUZZ GOES UP IN FLAMES.            Instantly, a FIRE ERUPTS. Buzz and Long-Hair's corpses BURN.            Jesse empties the other can of gas, FEEDING THE FLAMES. THE            FIRE SPREADS. BURNING THE WALLS. THE FLOOR AND CEILING.            Jesse stands there, the heat reflects the intensity in his            face. For a moment, it's a vision in hell.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. HOUSE BOAT, BAYOU GHOULA - PRE DAWN            Engulfed in flames. SIRENS and LIGHTS as FIRE TRUCKS and FIRE            BOATS douse the burning boat with hard water.            Among a crowd of SPECTATORS, the shaken Hooker is being            questioned by Marandino.            Bud and Cobb stand apart.                                 COBB                      We've had a tap on Kiersey's line forty                      eight hours now. It's clean. Whatever's                      he's up to, Bud, it ain't comin' through                      the front door.               Bud starts leaving the scene. Suddenly FITCH and two AGENTS            barge forward.                                FITCH                      Carter! We need to talk.                                 BUD                      Get out of my way, Fitch.                                FITCH                          (following Bud)                      This is my investigation. Jesse's cowboy                      bullshit is not how it's done!                                BUD                      While your agents build their cases and                      set for court, he'll erase the debt owed                      to all of you. Overnight.                                FITCH                      So you're implying I should thank him?            Bud shakes his head in disgust, keeps walking...                                FITCH                      Look, Carter, whether we like it or not,                      you and I have to work together on this.                      We entice Jesse back. I'll get him full                      protection, if he agrees to testify.                                 BUD                      That'll never happen.                                FITCH                      Why the hell not?!                                BUD                          (turns)                      'Cause it's over, Fitch. It's done. He                      has nothing. Why do you think he lit that                      fire? To plant a flag. To let us know he                      doesn't need our protection. Doesn't want                      it. He would've just left 'em for dead.                                FITCH                      For God sakes, listen to me! I'm not                      taking the fall for this! The plan is--                                BUD                      No, the truth is, Fitch, you ain't got                      balls big enough to relate to this guy.                      If you had listened to me, we wouldn't be                      in this situation. Jesse wouldn't be in                      this situation. And you wouldn't be                      askin' stupid fuckin' questions!                          (walking away)                      I'll bring him in myself. Just keep your                      agents off my ass.            Bud storms off.                                                                  BLACK.            FADE IN:            EXT. WHISKEY BAY (BLEACH BYPASS) - DAWN - IMAGINATION            Lynn stumbles through the woods, holding her baby. Scared.            Lost. Their skin bleached-out. Eyes hollow. Like apparitions.            We're in a dream. A sadistic enhancement.                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            JESSE'S EYES            His family's image dissolves inside them.            WIDEN to reveal Jesse before a cracked mirror in a SERVICE            STATION BATHROOM. Perspiring, he re-bandages his hand as            blood swirls down the drain.             INT. CORRIDOR, COURTHOUSE - MORNING            An expensively dressed Kiersey emerges from a courtroom,            flanked by a pair of well dressed AIDES.                                KIERSEY                      Get back to the office. Follow up on the                      Arthur Bierce case. I need names and                      numbers on my desk by three pm.            The Aides scurry down another corridor, as Kiersey exits the            building through the glass front doors...            INT. UNDERGROUND PARKING GARAGE - MORNING            Kiersey moves to a parked Cadillac pops the trunk and sets            his briefcase inside, when...            A RUSHING POV FROM BEHIND: Slams the trunk on Kiersey's hands.            Kiersey SCREAMS, drops to his knees. His wrists wedged in the            trunk. And standing over him...is Bud.                                KIERSEY                      OH, CHRIST! JESUS CHRIST! MY HANDS!                                BUD                      You know who I am?                                KIERSEY                      OPEN THE TRUNK! PLEASE! OPEN THE TRUNK!            Bud kicks him in the stomach, doubles him over.                                BUD                      You know who the fuck I am?!                                KIERSEY                      YES!                                BUD                      Who's Richard Morris?! Why was he killed?            No answer. Bud pounds on the trunk. Kiersey CRIES OUT.                                BUD                      I'll break every fuckin' bone you got.                      Start talkin'.                                KIERSEY                          (hyperventilating)                      I can't-- I can't--            Bud slams both fists on the trunk. All his weight.                                BUD                          (off Kiersey's SCREAM)                      Can't what?! What can't you do?!            Bud, enraged, kicks Kiersey's ribs in. Again.                                BUD                      You piece of shit, talk!                                KIERSEY                          (hysterical)                      He made Jesse...The investigation...                      Everything...                                BUD                      His family?                                KIERSEY                      Everything! After that, he was just a                      loose end!            Bud opens the trunk. Kiersey crumbles to the ground, shaking.                                BUD                      Where's Lucian Adams?                                KIERSEY                      I don't know!            Bud jams a foot in Kiersey's neck. Grabs his hands and bends.            We HEAR bones snap.                                BUD                      Lucian's goin' down. You either go down                      together, or you give him to me.                                KIERSEY                          (a mile a minute)                      I never talk to him directly! I swear,                      they page me--             Bud roughly searches Kiersey.                                KIERSEY                      --Every night at five, for a six o'clock                      call! They page from different numbers!            Bud finds a PAGER on Kiersey's slacks, yanks it off. Then            leans down with a smile, venomous:                                BUD                      You're a dead man, Kiersey.            Bud storms off. Kiersey on the ground, a trembling mess.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CATFISH'S HIDEOUT - DAY            Catfish does a rail of meth off the counter.            He lights a cigarette and sits down in a re-upholstered lazy            boy where a TATTOO ARTIST is setting up...             Catfish proffers his forearm, displaying a row of notches            (kills). And Tattoo Artist begins to outline two more...                                TATTOO ARTIST                      'Bout out of room, Catfish. You best                      start collectin' scalps.            Catfish smugs. Drags on his cigarette...            WHEN A SUDDEN GUNSHOT SPRAYS CATFISH WITH BLOOD. Tattoo            Artist drops dead on the floor.                                CATFISH                          (looks up)                      What the fuck?!            Jesse, standing over Catfish. A .45 comes down twice fast            with a CRACK! Catfish is knocked cold.            INT. BUD'S CAR - DAY            Bud, on police radio, driving high-speed.                                BUD                      What do you got?                                                                INTERCUT:            INT. METRO OFFICE - SAME            Bud's VOICE over speaker phone. Marandino on the line with a            sheaf of paperwork. Cobb enters.                                MARANDINO                      He's in the French Quarter. All numbers                      paging Kiersey between five and six p.m.,                      the last seventy-two hours, are pay                      phones within a three mile radius.                                BUD                      Alright.                                COBB                      Bud, you gotta talk to Braddock. He's                      lookin' for you, he's fuckin' pissed.                                 BUD                      Hold him off. I'll square it with him                      when I get to the Quarter.             Bud punches the gas, traveling 90 mph.            INT. CATFISH'S HIDEOUT - DAY            CATFISH'S EYES blink awake - pinpoint dilated. WIDEN TO            REVEAL he's stripped to his boxers, tied to the lazy-boy.            And Jesse is seated beside him.                                JESSE                      I'm gonna ask questions...             Jesse rolls a tattoo tray of various HARDWARE towards him:            Needles. Rusted pliers. An electric tattoo drill.                                JESSE                      When I'm satisfied with your answers, I'm                      gonna kill you. How long it takes and how                      much blood you want to spill...that's up                      to you.            Catfish grins. A wide, Amphetamine smile.                                CATFISH                      What do you want to know? Want to hear                      about your brother? How we had him shot                      up with strychnine? How he died slow                      death?            Without warning, Jesse grabs the PLIERS. A flash of movement,            and there's a TERRIBLE SCREAM AS CATFISH'S FRONT TOOTH IS            RIPPED OUT. He bucks violently in his chair.            Jesse jams the DRILL into Catfish's gums, high speed. BLOOD            SPRAYS. Loud, electric pain and Catfish CRIES OUT IN TERROR.            Jesse sets down the drill, deadpan.                                CATFISH                      OH, YOU SONOFABITCH!!!                                JESSE                      Four days ago, my wife and son were                      killed.                          (pause)                      I hear you took the contract?            Catfish smiles. Lips quivering with hate.                                CATFISH                      Forty-four pounds, Miznay-Schardin. Like                      you taught me. Fuck yeah, I took it. Blew                      your bitch and kid sky high.            Jesse grabs the pliers, YANKS another tooth. Catfish HOWLS.                                CATFISH                      MOTHERFUCKER!!!            BLOOD SPEWS as the drill digs in. Catfish SCREAMS. Jesse            tosses teeth on the tray.                                CATFISH                          (thrashing wildly)                      OH, YOU'RE GONNA DIE! YOU'RE GONNA                      FUCKIN' DIE!            Jesse grabs Catfish's rapidly swelling jaw and yanks hard.                                JESSE                      Where's Lucian?            Jesse TIGHTENS his grip. Vice-like. Blood fills Catfish's            mouth. He gurgles, then SPITS in Jesse's face...             ...FLASHES OF STEEL and two more teeth rip out at the root.            Catfish SCREAMS then passes out. Jesse slaps him awake.                                JESSE                      Where's he hidin' out?            Catfish, last ounce of spite, cracks a blackened grin:                                 CATFISH                      Get fucked.            THE DRILL STRIKES. Bone deep. Gum line splays open. Teeth            crack and split. Catfish SCREAMS UNCONTROLLABLY. Blacks out.            Jesse stops. A brief reprieve. He gets up and looks around            the apartment. SEES: Magazines. A few revolvers. Empty liquor            bottles. Meth on the counter. And on the stove:              A HYPODERMIC NEEDLE. Beside a pie tin, speed base boiling.              Jesse stares. He lowers the syringe into the tin, plunger up,            drawing fluid...            ...then very deliberately sticks Catfish's arm with the tip            of the needle, pops a cc.              Catfish bolts awake, EYES WIDE. A long, wet WHEEZE.                                JESSE                      Where's Lucian?            Catfish's head lulls. Jesse grabs him by the hair. Leans in.                                JESSE                      Where's Lucian?                                CATFISH                          (barely audible)                      New Orleans...                                JESSE                      New Orleans. Where in New Orleans?                                CATFISH                      New Orleans...            Jesse looks Catfish dead in the eyes. And death is there...            Begging.                                JESSE                          (softly)                      I believe you.            With that, Jesse pushes the plunger down...ever...so...slowly.            Blood burps and bubbles from Catfish's throat. Lungs convulse            and spasm. Eye go wide then roll back. A suicide dose.                                                                  CUT TO:            JESSE'S CAR racing up I-10, along the roaring Mississippi,            toward a blood red horizon of a Louisiana sundown.            EXT. FRENCH QUARTER, NEW ORLEANS - ESTABLISH - DUSK            Cars line crowded streets in the heart of New Orleans.             I/E. BUD'S CAR - LOWER FRENCH QUARTER - DUSK            TIGHT ON A DASHBOARD CLOCK: 5:04 p.m.            Bud, waiting, parked outside a POLICE PRECINCT in the Lower            French Quarter. Kiersey's pager on the dash. Waiting. Then:            THE PAGER BUZZES.            Bud grabs it, hurries out to a nearby pay-phone. Dials...                                 BUD                          (into phone)                      It's Bud. I got a number.                                                                INTERCUT:            INT. COMPUTER LAB, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DUSK            Cobb on a database, phone cradled...                                BUD V.O.                      504-767-8092                                COBB                          (types, searches)                      Governor Nicholls Wharf. Between St. Ann                      and Toulouse. You're a half mile south.                                BUD                      Get your ass down here.            Bud slams down the phone. Jumps in his car. Hits the gas.            EXT. GOVERNOR NICHOLLS WHARF - DUSK            A busy promenade near the down river end of the Mississippi.            Bud waits low in his car, parked in a distant lot. Through            the windshield, WE SEE the subject of his surveillance...            A PAY-PHONE            on a crowded sidewalk. Faces pass. A Man in a JACKET arrives            at the phone. He waits. Checks his watch...            ...Bud checks his clock: 6:10            The "Jacket" picks up the phone and dials...            KIERSEY'S PAGER GOES OFF.                                 BUD                      Here we go.            Jacket waits. No call. Walks away. Bud FOLLOWS on foot...            EXT. FRENCH MARKET - DUSK            A sprawling swirl of humanity, live jazz and bars. The Jacket            passes through. Twenty feet back, Bud keeps pace...              ANOTHER PHONE BOOTH            Jacket enters. Pumps coins into the PAY-PHONE. Dials...                                 RECEPTIONIST V.O.                          (recording)                      You've reached the law offices of Daniel                      J. Kiersey--            Jacket hangs up. More coins. Another number...                                KIERSEY'S VOICE V.O.                          (recording)                      Hello, you've reached the Kiersey                      residence. No one's home right now--            Jacket hangs up. Exits east onto BARRACKS STREET. Glances            over his shoulder, then ahead, as Bud rounds the corner...            EXT. DECATUR AVENUE            Jacket crosses into a LIQUOR STORE.             Bud stalls at the corner, casing the street. Takes everything            in. He reaches for his cigarettes, finds a crumpled back.            Then crosses the street to...            A NEWSSTAND            outside the liquor store. Bud buys cigarettes and a newspaper.            He opens the paper, glances at the headlines. At the same            time, peers into the LIQUOR STORE WINDOW...             ...The Jacket walks toward the back of the store and out a            door to an ALLEY.            Bud heads south on Decatur. Lights a cigarette, as he passes            various stores on the block. A private two-story building            with blacked out windows at the far end: "TIBEDAUX'S TAVERN".            Bud turns into...             EXT. A COBBLESTONE ALLEY            Lined with boutiques on one side. Back of Tibedaux's on the            other. A cargo gate is up and MEN are hoisting crates into a            truck...              The Jacket is there, talking to them:                                JACKET                      Should've been on the road twenty minutes                      ago. Hurry it up.             Bud pauses at a DRESS SHOP. Stares into the storefront glass,            reflecting the Jacket and Men...               Jacket walks off. Bud flicks his cigarette, enters...            INT. THE DRESS SHOP            ...and peers out the window, watching the Jacket leave the            alley and enter a FRENCH COLONIAL.            INT. FRENCH COLONIAL, LOBBY - DUSK            A SECURITY GUARD behind a desk. As Jacket walks in...                                 SECURITY GUARD                      What's goin' on, Jack?            Jacket moves through a warren of CORRIDORS. Hardened MEN            shuttle in and out of private offices. Plates on the doors:            "Material Management." "Plating & Metal". "Demolition"...              Jacket knocks on a door. Opens it to...            INT. PRIVATE OFFICE            A bulked-out man at his desk... MILLS. Looks up as Jacket            enters:                                MILLS                      Talk to me.                                JACKET                      Got nothin' to tell. Kiersey didn't call.                                  MILLS                      Try his office?                                JACKET                      'Ain't there. His home neither.            Mills picks up the desk-phone. Dials...                                MILLS                          (into phone)                      It's Mills. I need sweepers through Baton                      Rouge. Find Daniel Kiersey.                          (then to Jacket)                      Keep pagin' him.            EXT. DECATUR AVE + ESPLANADE - DUSK            Jacket exits the Colonial and enters a corner CAFE. INSIDE,            WE SEE Jacket move to a pay-phone and dial...            INT. LOW-RENT HOTEL ROOM - DUSK            ON KIERSEY'S PAGER, as it BUZZES again.            REVEAL: BUD            now seated at the window of this second-story room, using            BINOCULARS to case the surrounding perimeter.                                 BUD                      C'mon. Show me somethin'.            POV THROUGH BINOCULARS: as the night comes alive. Trucks pull            to and from the alley. Patrons valet and enter Tibedaux's.                                                                  CUT TO:            INT. EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DUSK            Braddock, walking down the hall with two POLICEMEN, unlocks a            heavy door and enters...            A HOLDING ROOM            ...where Kiersey waits. Pale skin, beaded in sweat. Both            hands in casts.                                BRADDOCK                      Mr. Kiersey. I'm Captain Mike Braddock.                      How can I help you?                                KIERSEY                      Detective Bud Carter is out of control!                                BRADDOCK                          (corrects him)                      Detective "Lieutenant." Now how can I                      help you?            Kiersey, a shaky breath.                                KIERSEY                      How long till you make an arrest in your                      investigation of Lucian Adams?            Braddock, just stares.                                KIERSEY                      I'm willing to provide you with documents                      and information to secure his conviction.                                BRADDOCK                      Why?                                KIERSEY                      Why do you think? I'm afraid for my life.                          (and the hammer)                      I'll confirm whatever Jesse Wheeler's                      given you.            EXT. FRENCH QUARTER - NIGHT             AERIAL SHOT: LOOKING DOWN as a TOWN CAR circles the block.                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Got a possible here.            EXT. CAFE, DECATUR AVE - NIGHT            The TOWN CAR passes slow... REVEAL NOW: MARANDINO, staked,            having dinner outside the cafe. Crowded tables around him.                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Town Car. Black. Second time around.            MOVING WITH THE TOWN CAR, as it turns onto ESPLANADE AVENUE            and parks before the Colonial.            REVEAL NOW: COBB, in a nondescript VAN. Parked a quarter            block off Esplanade. He triggers photos through tinted glass.            STILL PHOTOS CLICK -- the Town Car doors open. Two AB            SOLDIERS step out. Bulges where their holsters are. Then a            third man from in back: A boss, HAROLD KAY, 50s.                                COBB                          (into radio)                      Bud, you see this?            INT. HOTEL - NIGHT            BUD'S POV THROUGH BINOCULARS: Kay escorted into the Colonial.            I/E. COBB'S VAN - NIGHT            Parked on Chartres Avenue. Covering the alley. With            binoculars, he can SEE the high point of the Colonial.             And we see now, Bud has this place surrounded.                                COBB                          (as a light goes on, into                           radio)                      They're on the second floor.            INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT            Bud grabs the phone. Dials...                                                               INTERCUT:            INT. CAPTAIN'S OFFICE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT            Braddock on the line:                                BUD V.O.                          (over phone)                      It's Bud...                                BRADDOCK                      You better have something fuckin' good.                                BUD                      I'm in the French Quarter. Sittin' on AB                      activity.                                 BRADDOCK                      Lucian?                                BUD                      Don't know yet. I got Harold Kay so far.            Braddock looks to the AB ORGANIZATIONAL CHART on the wall.            MUG SHOT of HAROLD KAY atop one branch of AB SOLDIERS.                                BUD                      Looks like they own the God damn block.                                 BRADDOCK                      Well I got Kiersey just walked in. Two                      fractured wrists and scared as all hell.                                BUD                      I can explain--                                BRADDOCK                      He wants to make a deal, Bud. I can keep                      Nokes in the dark twenty-four hours, but                      that's it.            Cobb's VOICE comes over the radio:                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Bud, we got movement.                                 BUD                          (into phone)                      Hold on, Mike.            Bud cradles the phone, picks up the radio:                                BUD                          (into radio)                      Go ahead...            I/E. COBB'S VAN - NIGHT            OUT THE BACK WINDSHIELD: A LINCOLN arrives at the cafe. Car            doors open...            COBB CLICKS PHOTOS -- another boss emerges, EDGAR BINGHAM,            flanked by two more AB SOLDIERS.                                COBB                          (into radio)                      Holy shit.            INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT            BUD'S POV THROUGH BINOCULARS: Kay and Mills exit the            Colonial. Bingham and Kay shake hands.                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      It's cookin', Bud. It's cookin' fast.                                BUD                          (into phone)                      Mike, I've got Edgar Bingham now. Just                      showed with two of his crew, for a sit                      down with Kay.            INTERCUT: BRADDOCK            he scans the AB CHART again. MUG SHOT of HAROLD BINGHAM atop            another branch of AB SOLDIERS.            EXT. DECATUR AVENUE - NIGHT            Bingham, Kay, Mills and two Soldiers start toward the CAFE.                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Marandino, they comin' your way.            Marandino looks up from his table, to find this crew of men            walking right for him. Marandino stares. A frozen moment...             INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT            Bud throws down his binoculars and takes up a .50 CALIBER            BURROWS RIFLE, lays an eye on the SCOPE.            BUD'S POV THROUGH THE SCOPE (MAGNIFIED): the cross-hairs find            Kay and Bingham moving toward Marandino...                                BUD                          (into radio)                      Got 'em.            EXT. CAFE - NIGHT            The crew of men getting closer now, a few yards away...            Marandino - heart racing - slides his Browning 9MM out and            slips it onto the table, below his napkin, aims...            ...When the crew abruptly turns and enters the cafe.            Marandino exhales relief...            INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT                                MARANDINO V.O.                          (radio filter)                      They're inside.            Bud sits back. Then:             KIERSEY'S PAGER BUZZES AGAIN. (The cafe number)                                BUD                          (grabs phone, to Braddock)                      Mike, I need Kiersey to place a call.                      Five minutes, or this opportunity's gone.                                 BRADDOCK                          (into phone)                      Give me the number...            INT. CAFE - NIGHT - MINUTES LATER            Bingham, Kay and Mills at a booth, sipping coffee. Two            Soldiers guard the front and back doors.             Mills looks at Jacket, who waits by the pay-phone. Both            noticeably on edge. Finally --            The PAY-PHONE RINGS.                                MILLS                          (to Kay + Bingham)                      Excuse me.            He gets up, walks toward the phone. When Jacket answers,            Mills takes the receiver from him.                                 MILLS                          (into phone)                      Yeah...            INT. HALLWAY PHONE, EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT            A nervous Kiersey on the line. Braddock, Policemen nearby.                                MILLS V.O.                          (over phone)                      We've been pagin' you over two hours.                      Where the fuck you been?                                KIERSEY                      I apologize. I've been tooth and nail                      with the D.A., in court, all day.                                MILLS V.O.                      Everything good?                                KIERSEY                      Everything's fine. Just lay low. Regular                      time tomorrow.               Mills hangs up.            Kiersey turns. Pale. To Braddock:                                 KIERSEY                      Now get me protection.            INT. CAFE - NIGHT            Mills returns to the booth. Kay and Bingham look at him.                                BINGHAM                      So?                                MILLS                      All good. Let's eat.            EXT. CAFE - NIGHT            Marandino watches as Bingham, Kay and Mills pull their coats            on and exit the cafe...                                 MARANDINO                          (into transmitter)                      Call went down.            INT. HOTEL - NIGHT            BUD'S POV THROUGH THE SCOPE: watching as Bingham, Kay and            Mills enter Tibedaux's Tavern.                                MARANDINO V.O.                          (filter)                      Entering Tibedaux's Tavern...            INT. TIBEDAUX'S TAVERN - NIGHT            A busy nightclub crowded wall-to-wall with PATRONS.            FOLLOW Kay, Bingham and Mills, passing tables, greeting            "connected" types... and through a far door into a back room.             EXT. CHARTRES + ESPLANADE - NIGHT            FOLLOW Marandino as he walks down the street, knocks on the            back of the Van.             INT. COBB'S VAN - NIGHT            Cobb, now dressed in evening attire, throws open the door and            Marandino climbs in. They exchange transmitter for headset            and Cobb leaves the van for the street...            EXT. TIBEDAUX'S - NIGHT            Cobb approaches the front door, where a pair of large DOORMEN            stand.                                DOORMAN #1                      Can we help you?                                COBB                      Just lookin' for a drink and a bite to                      eat.                                DOORMAN #1                      Think you'll find what you're lookin' for                      across the street.                            (gestures)                      Try the cafe.            Cobb stares at both Doormen #1 and #2, immovable forces.                                 COBB                      Alright. Thanks.            INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT            BUD'S POV THROUGH BINOCULARS: Cobb leaves Tibedaux's and            positions himself at an outdoor table in the cafe.                                COBB V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Negative at Tibedaux's. Can't walk in.                      What's our move?                                BUD                          (into radio)                      We wait.                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            EXT. STREETS - NIGHT TO LATE NIGHT - TIME LAPSE            SHOTS OF COBB AND MARANDINO            waiting. Patrons empty out. Cars drive away.                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            INT. HOTEL + CAFE - LATE NIGHT            SHOTS OF BUD            He waits. And waits. And nothing happens. Finally:                                MARANDINO V.O.                          (radio filter)                      I've got movement. Back alley...            INT. VAN - LATE NIGHT            POV THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD: Back of Tibedaux's. A BALCONY            GUARD emerges with a rifle, posts.                                BUD V.O.                          (radio filter)                      Talk to me.                                MARANDINO                          (into radio)                      I've got a man on the south balcony.                      Armed.            The door below opens and a second GUARD steps out, posts.                                MARANDINO                          (into radio)                      Second man at the door now. Street level.                      Possibly armed.            SUDDENLY HEADLIGHTS FLOOD MARANDINO'S REAR WINDSHIELD.            Marandino ducks, a reflex action.            EXT. DECATUR            Lights from a CADILLAC and a GRAND MARQUIS appear and come            down the street - past Cobb - SLOWLY. Blacked out windows...            INT. COBB'S CAR            POV THROUGH WINDSHIELD: as the cars turn into the alley...                                MARANDINO                          (into radio)                      A Cadillac and a Grand Marquis, just                      pulled in the alley.            ...and stop behind Tibedaux's.             Passenger doors of both cars open, two AB SOLDIERS emerge.            They open the rear door of the Cadillac and shadow the man            they're escorting: LUCIAN.            Balcony Guard looks on as Door Guard allows Lucian and his            Soldiers to enter the building.                                MARANDINO                          (tense, into radio)                      Bud... we got Lucian Adams...            INT. HOTEL ROOM - LATE NIGHT            Bud, pulse building to a boil.                                BUD                          (into radio)                      Hold position. Give me a head count.                                 MARANDINO V.O.                          (filter)                      Two men flanking. Drivers have not left                      the cars. Initial perps still on post.                      Lucian's entering the building...            Bud pulls on a KEVLAR VEST, holsters a .45. Extra clips on            the waistband. Checks a loaded PUMP SG.            Ready.            INT. VAN - LATE NIGHT            Marandino, fastens on a vest, loads a 12-Gauge, locks.            Suddenly, through the side window... A LONE FIGURE, IN A            QUARTER TRENCH, MOVES PAST. It happens in a flash.            Marandino LOOKS, SEES only a quick profile as the Figure cuts            between parked cars and walks across the street...                                 MARANDINO                          (into radio)                      I need eyes on a single, white male                      crossing Esplanade. Possible intent...            EXT. CAFE - LATE NIGHT            Cobb looks over his shoulder, SEES the Figure 75 yards away,            moving briskly across Esplanade...            We still can't see his face.            INT. HOTEL ROOM - LATE NIGHT             Bud grabs the rifle, eye on the scope, aims out the window.             POV THROUGH THE SCOPE: as the CROSS-HAIRS find the Figure            walking. SEE the BODY. Then the FACE... IT'S JESSE.             ON BUD, spinning now.                                BUD                          (beat, into radio)                      It's Jesse...                                COBB V.O.                          (quickly, radio filter)                      He's heading toward the alley, Bud. We                      take him down?            BUD'S POV THROUGH THE SCOPE: THE CROSS-HAIRS FIXED ON JESSE'S            HEAD - TRACKING - RACK FOCUS... This decision... He HAS to            decide... And he does:                                BUD                      Let him go.                                COBB V.O.                      What?!                                 BUD                          (firm)                      Let him go.                                COBB V.O.                      Bud, that's crazy! Jesse goes in first,                      he's gonna blow this whole thing. We                      can't let that happen.                                 BUD                          (intense, into radio)                      That's exactly what we're gonna do! We                      got no way inside. Let Jesse go in hard                      and draw fire. He pushes Lucian out to                      us. Stand the fuck down. I'm on my way.            Bud throws down the rifle, grabs the pump SG, runs out the            door...            INT. VAN - LATE NIGHT            Marandino, sweeps the alley with his binoculars. No Jesse.                                MARANDINO                          (into radio)                      I don't see him. I got nothin'...            POV THROUGH BINOCULARS: (PAN UP) to the balcony. MUZZLE            FLASHES SUDDENLY IGNITE. Balcony Guard is shot dead.                                 MARANDINO                      Fuck!             JESSE STRIDES INTO VIEW. Draws a silenced Tactical .45 and            FIRES, putting TWO HARD ROUNDS into Door Guard. Both DRIVERS            get out. Jesse pivots, HAMMERS two rounds to their heads.            They drop cold. It happens in seconds.                                MARANDINO                          (into radio)                      Shots fired! Shots fired!             INT. HOTEL HALLWAY - LATE NIGHT            Bud, charging through a FIRE EXIT, bounding down steps...                                MARANDINO V.O.                          (over radio)                      Jesse hit four men! What do you want me                      to do?!                                BUD                          (into radio)                      Call it in! Local and SWAT! Get the place                      surrounded!            EXT. ALLEY + TIBEDAUX'S - LATE NIGHT            Jesse slaps a clay plastique with a DETONATOR onto Tibedaux's            back door, then covers.              There's a loud EXPLOSION as the DOOR BLOWS OPEN.            INT. TIBEDAUX'S             FOLLOW JESSE through billowing smoke, into...            A LONG HALLWAY            as he pulls a REMINGTON SAWED-OFF, slung on a strap, to his            left hand, .45 to his right.            Mid-hall, AB #6 looks over, freezes.              JESSE'S SHOTGUN ROARS, REVERBERATING DOWN THE HALL, AND TWO            HOLES ARE BLOWN INTO AB #6.            INT. BACK ROOM            Lucian with Kay and Bingham. They HEAR the explosion.            Exchange looks.            INT. HALLWAY            Jesse steps over the dead AB #6 without breaking stride.            Comes to a door. Kicks it in...             INT. PAYROLL OFFICE            ...And Mills FIRES a gun, burning Jesse's ear -- Blood pours            down his neck -- and Jesse's Tactical FIRES.            Mills is HIT IN THE THROAT. He falls into a chair. And his            eyes - at the fierce face of death - are filled with Jesse,            who FIRES TWO ROUNDS. One to the head. That fast.               INT. BACK ROOM            Two AB SOLDIERS #7 and #8 hurry in. Lucian, Kay and Bingham            stand up.                                 AB #7                      Let's go. We're gettin' you out of here.            All three bosses draw GUNS. Lock and load.             INT. CAFE - LATE NIGHT            Outside, the sound of gunfire is heard. Jacket turns to the            BARKEEP. Alarmed:                                JACKET                      Give me that fuckin' shotgun!            Barkeep lays a shotgun on the bar. Jacket reaches. When...                                COBB                          (boaring in, 9MM aimed)                      POLICE! TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF THE GUN! STEP                      FUCKIN' BACK!!            Jacket looks at Cobb. Steps back. Hands in the air.            EXT. MOTEL + STREET - SAME            Bud bursts outside, full throttle. Shouts into the radio:                                BUD                      Jam the alley! No one goes in or out!            EXT. STREET + ALLEYS AROUND TIBEDAUX'S - SAME            Marandino hits the gas. TIRES SCREECH as he slides sideways            and secures the mouth of the alley. Door kicks out. 12-gauge            levels.            EXT. FRONT OF TIBEDAUX'S + DECATUR AVE            Doorman #1, HEARING the commotion turns...            ...SEES INSIDE THE CAFE, Cobb cuffing Jacket and Barkeep.            Doorman #1 draws a Para-Ordnance .45, FIRES. A VOLLEY OF            SHOTS SLAM INTO THE CAFE.              Cobb can't make it through INCOMING FIRE and covers.            Remaining PATRONS SCREAM, drop under tables.              Doorman #1 KEEPS FIRING, advancing towards the Cafe, when--            BOOM! A SHOTGUN BLAST takes his head off -- REVEALING BUD --            behind him, running toward Tibedaux's.              I/E. TIBEDAUX'S, DOWNSTAIRS            PATRONS stampede for the door. Lucian, Bingham and Kay with            AB #7 and #8 follow...            OUTSIDE TO THE STREET            ...and Bud is coming right for them.            CLOSE ON LUCIAN. The shock of seeing Bud.             Lucian FIRES.            Bud kneels and PUMPS SHOTS - hits AB #7 and #8 - killing them.            Lucian, Kay, Bingham flee back inside.            INT. TIBEDAUX'S, MAINTENANCE ROOM            Jesse yanks off the cover of the main electric panel. He rips            out incoming lines and FIRES into the lighting circuit.                                                                  CUT TO:            VARIOUS ROOMS INSIDE TIBEDAUX'S            Fluorescent units explode, plunging us into DARKNESS. Arcs            SPUTTER and FLARE, the corridors now strobe-lit.             EXT. TIBEDAUX'S - SAME            Cobb runs out of the cafe, pushing through civilians.                                 COBB                      Down! Get down!            Bud pursues Lucian...                                BUD                      Stay on the door! I'm goin' in!            INT. TIBEDAUX'S            Bud enters-            Split-second and DOORMAN #2 OPENS FIRE from the waiter's            entrance.            Bud drops and FIRES BACK. Doorman #2 goes down. Bud runs            across overturned tables and up a STAIRWELL...            INT. DOWNSTAIRS, TIBEDAUX'S            Jesse emerges. AB #9 steps out, FIRES. The bullet hits            Jesse's vest, knocking him backwards.            Jesse levels the sawed-off. FIRES. AB #9 falls in a heap.            Jesse rises, keeps moving...            INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAYS, ROOMS - TIBEDAUX'S            MOVING WITH BUD entering, KICKING down doors, sweeping rooms            with his shotgun... No sign of Lucian.            INT. DOWNSTAIRS, BACK ROOMS            Jesse is coming...             ...and the SLAUGHTER BUILDS.             He throws open a door to a BAR AREA.              AB #10 and #11 FIRE SMGs WILDLY, running from the room. Jesse            UNLOADS the sawed-off. MISSING. Plaster throws and crumbles.            A GUNSHOT rips through Jesse's left arm. The sawed-off drops            to his side. Jesse turns - EDGAR BINGHAM is FIRING a SERVICE            REVOLVER - SHOTS MISS as Jesse dives behind the bar.            HAROLD KAY is moving down the stairwell. FIRING an Automatic            wildly. Bottles and glasses explode.            Bingham keeps firing. Mirrors SHATTER.            BEHIND THE BAR            bullets splinter wood, Jesse slams another magazine into the            .45. Above him, strays catch lights, glass filaments EXPLODE.             INT. UPSTAIRS, HALLWAYS + ROOMS            Bud KICKS down a door. AB #12 charges out. Grabs for Bud...            who breaks the grab, pulls AB #12's neck down, slams his knee            into his forehead twice, knocked cold. Grabs his gun.                A HALLWAY DOOR SWINGS OPEN            AB #13 emerges, HAMMERING GUNSHOTS. Bud covers. SHOTS BLOW            HOLES in the wall.            A SECOND DOOR OPENS            ...and AB #14 steps out, draws. Bud throws him in the way of            CROSS-FIRE. AB #13 takes AB #14's SHOTS.             Bud aims past. FIRES ONCE.            AB #14 is hit dead center and drops like an oak.            Both men dead. That fast, and Bud is on the move...             EXT. ALLEY, TIBEDAUX'S - CONTINUOUS            AB #10 and #11 run out and swing their SMGs, FIRING onto the            alley and KILLING MARANDINO... Then charging to the front--            COBB FIRES. AB #10 is BLOWN APART, as AB #11 FIRES back,            hitting Cobb in the vest. His ribs broken, he sits down            stunned.                                COBB                           (into radio)                      I'm hit. I'm fuckin' hit.            AB #11 running past as several BLACK AND WHITES now arrive.            TAKE AND RETURN FIRE -- AB #11 is shot dead.            Police shouting. Civilians running, as...            INT. BACK BAR AREA, DOWNSTAIRS            GUNFIGHT ENSUES.             Jesse rises over the bar, FIRING BURSTS into Kay, who tumbles            down the stairwell like a rag doll.             Bingham shoots Jesse in the hip. He staggers, then falls and            rolls to his back...             Bingham rounds the bar just as Jesse, somehow, lifts the .45            and FIRES two slugs into Bingham's chest.            Bingham collapses on top of Jesse. The .45 hits the floor.            Both men, bleeding profusely, thrash along the floor...            INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY            Bud, racing toward a stairwell, LEAPS down a flight, turns,            and RUNS down another.             INT. BACK BAR AREA            Jesse, trapped under the heavy Bingham, pulls the buck knife            from his holster and sinks it into Bingham's kidney. TWISTS.            Blood POOLS. Bingham MOANS...            ...Jesse rolls the big man over, hoists himself high and            impales Bingham through the throat. Dead.            Jesse exhales, struggles up...rising to his feet...            BLAM! - A SUDDEN GUNSHOT            out of nowhere. JESSE COLLAPSES, A BUNDLE OF TWITCHING            NERVES, BLOOD POOLING FAST OUT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD...            ...AND LUCIAN STANDS OVER HIM, HIS .357 SMOKING.            Lucian turns slow. Toward a cracked MIRROR. Suddenly...            IN THE REFLECTION: BUD EXPLODES DOWN THE STAIRS, AND SLAMS            INTO LUCIAN WITH THE IMPACT OF A TRUCK. BOTH HIT THE FLOOR.             Lucian points his gun at Bud's head, who reaches for the            trigger guard, shifts the barrel an inch -- A ROUND GOES OFF,            BLOWING THROUGH BUD'S SHOULDER -- HE YELLS OUT, HOOKS HIS            FINGER IN THE TRIGGER, STOPPING THE NEXT SHOT.            Bud flips Lucian over, rips the gun away. Lucian tries to            break free. Bud grabs him - smashes the gun over and over            against Lucian's face.            Lucian's head BOUNCES. Eyes roll, then right.            Lucian quarter rolls, then CRACKS a forearm into Bud's head.            Again, and Bud is knocked back with a gash over his eye.             Lucian REARS BACK and KICKS HARD into Bud's sternum.            Lucian scrambles. Bud tackles him into a table, which goes            down. A chair breaks. Bud lands a thunderous hook and            Lucian's nose shatters. Another and his cheekbone caves.            Lucian drops like a rock. Tries to crawl under another table.            IN A MANIACAL RAGE, Bud flips the table and stomps down on            Lucian with furious blows that come one after another.            Lucian tries to cover up. BUD IS ALL OVER HIM. Grabs Lucian            by the throat and presses down.            Lucian, fighting to breathe, digs his nails into Bud's face,            tearing skin.             Bud's face twists with hate as he chokes the life out of him.            Lucian's eyes BULGE...His mouth stretches WIDE...clutching at            Bud's fingers, trying to pull away...            Bud SNORTS, tightens his grip... bearing down... And at the            last moment, the cop in him reemerges...            Bud lets go.            Lucian rolls to his side and coughs up a thick ribbon of            blood and vomit. Bud slams on restraints.            Bud staggers to his feet...breathing hard...Spots Jesse on            the floor...And he slows...            Jesse lies in shadow. Perfectly still. We cannot see his face.            Only the dark pool of blood around him.            Lucian passes out.                                BUD                          (into radio)                      I got him... I got Lucian.            SLOWLY PULL AWAY AND TRACK OVER THE MASSACRE...            ...as POLICE come in...over bodies and blood and guns, and up            the stairs and out a broken window, to the CROWDS in the            street held back by POLICE, past flashing lights and            emergency vehicles...             ...to where life goes on in New Orleans.                                                           DIP TO BLACK.            FADE IN:            EXT. EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DAYS LATER            The sun is out. The sky above is clear.            INT. EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH PRECINCT - DAY            ON BUD, as he leads Lucian through the bowels of city lock-up.             Lucian - in prison garbs, haggard, dark bruises - looks up as            they pass a two-way mirror of an INTERROGATION ROOM, SEES...            KIERSEY            ...seated, making statements to Shepard, who is taking notes.            Stacks of Jesse's reports surround them.            Bud walks Lucian past, into...            INT. INTERROGATION ROOM #2            ...and Lucian sits at a table. Bud across from him. Silence            hangs, several moments.             ON BUD                                                                         starting again, knowing... There's something bigger. A slow            smile spreads...                                BUD                      Want a cup of coffee?                                                         THE END 
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+                                  BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK                                       Written by                             Don McGuire and Millard Kaufman                                    Based on the story                                    "Bad Day At Hondo"                                    by Howard Breslin                                                             SHOOTING DRAFT                               FADE IN BEFORE MAIN TITLE               BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK               ESTABLISHING SHOT - BLACK ROCK - PART OF TOWN: FOCAL POINT:                RAILROAD STATION               abandoned, in an extreme state of dilapidation. The structure                is blistered by the resolute sun, the roof is weather-warped.                Dry rot and mildew wage a relentless battle against the                foundation. Between the building and the tracks is a long,                somewhat narrow platform, its floorboards twisted by time,                termites and the elements. The match-board overhang of the                building, throwing some little shade to a portion of the                platform, sags and bellies. From the overhang is appended a                rectangular panel on which, in flaky paint, the town is                identified:               BLACK ROCK               One of the broken wires holding the panel is longer than the                other, cocking the sign irregularly.               The railroad tracks reach endlessly into the horizon. Past                the town on each side stretches the ocean-like prairie, with                sand dunes rising and falling monotonously, shouldering each                other toward infinity. The morning sun lays over this                wasteland of the American Southwest, a gigantic yellow bruise                from which heat waves like bloodshot arteries spread                themselves over the poisoned sky.               A small shack stands next to the station, separated from it                by a narrow alleyway and leaning toward the larger building,                as if for support. The words POSTAL TELEGRAPH are arced across                its dusty vitrine. An old straight-backed chair, reinforced                with twisted wire, is tilted against the north-west corner                of the shack. In it is Mr. Hastings, the postal telegraph                agent, a man of middle years and exorbitant mediocrity. He                sits there spinelessly, fingering a wart on his receding                chin and, once in a while, for variety, rubbing a knuckle                under his watery nose.               FULL SHOT - BLACK ROCK               The town is minute, dismal and forgotten, crouching in                isolation where the single line of railroad track intersects                a secondary dirt road. The twin strips of steel glisten in                the fierce sunlight, fencing the dreary plain from the false                fronts of the town. In b.g. is the bluff of a black stony                mountain. Against this ancient mass the houses of Black Rock's                single street*** (See map, P.2A) are scanty in number and                insignificant in architecture, a conglomerate paint-peeled                modern trussed together with rusty nails and battered tin                strips torn from signs.               The town and the terrain surrounding it have, if nothing                else, the quality of inertia and immutibility -- nothing                moves, not even an insect; nothing breathes, not even the                wind. Town and terrain seem to be trapped, caught and held                forever in the sullen, abrasive earth.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               STRAIGHT SHOT - STREAMLINER               jarring in its power as it ramrods across the desert, its                diesel engines pounding. Its horn "WONKS" twice, blasting                the shatterable air.               FULL SHOT - BLACK ROCK - ANOTHER ANGLE               Nothing is changed, nothing is altered. But look close and                you will see a small shallow current of wind sweeping lazily                across the dirt and dust of the single street. HOLD for a                beat, then MAIN TITLE appears. Between the ensuing credits                INTERCUT a series of sharp LONG SHOTS. The composition of                each shot has that hard, sun-beaten texture of American                primitive painting -- pressurized in its simplicity -- best                exemplified, perhaps, by the work of Grant Wood.               EXT. SAM'S SANITARY BAR AND GRILL - ANGLE ON DOC VELIE               assayer and notary public, mortician to the citizens of Black                Rock who have departed to a better place, and veterinarian                to its lesser animals. An elderly, somewhat untidy gentleman,                he sits nonchalantly on a chair outside the Bar & Grill.                Idling with him are three or four other loafers, among them                Sam, the middle-aged proprietor of the restaurant. Doc glances                casually at his watch; no one else moves. The hot wind                continues listlessly down the empty street.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. GARAGE - LIZ BROOKS               A tall, attractive girl of twenty in dungarees and cotton                shirt. She stands just outside the open barn-like door of                the garage, staring, from the compulsive force of habit, at                the endlessly receding tracks. The sultry wind, its gustiness                slightly increased, blows through her fine dark hair.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. PORCH OF HOTEL - COLEY TRIMBLE AND HECTOR DAVID               two enormous men. HECTOR is tall, and there is about him a                nasty, raw-boned tautness; COLEY is more the anthropoid type --                long thick arms and a round, iron casing of a belly. They                glance down the street, watching incuriously a dust devil                swirling in the wind.               Now the CAMERA has completed its probe of the town and its                denizens. MAIN TITLE and CREDITS are completed...               CLOSE SHOT - MR. HASTINGS               still spineless in his chair, the chair still tilted against                the shack. From o.s. and far away, we hear the horn of the                streamliner -- two long "WONKS", a short and a long (engine                whistle signal for approach to bridge crossing). Hastings                straightens up ever so slightly as he reacts to the oncoming                train.               STRAIGHT SHOT - STREAMLINER               moving at tremendous speed.               BRIDGE               with train barrelling toward it. The horn BLASTS -- three                short WONKS (engine whistle signal for stopping at next                station).               CLOSE SHOT - HASTINGS               getting jerkily to his feet, as though charged by a galvanic                current. The uncharacteristic speed of his movements throws                the tilted chair to the station platform. He raises an arm                to shield his watery eyes from the sun...                                     HASTINGS                              (almost inaudible, as                               if to himself)                         Stopping...?               SHOT - TRAIN               heading toward CAMERA, churning across the desert like a                juggernaut. It PANS past CAMERA in a blur of speed. CAMERA                SWINGS UP on a level with the great iron wheels as the brakes                are applied. The wheels shriek agonizingly against the rails,                kicking up cinders and a wild flurry of dust. She cuts speed,                brakes hissing, and starts to slow down.               LONG SHOT MAIN STREET - BLACK ROCK               SHOOTING from rear of town, toward the railroad tracks. The                townspeople step out, frowning, cautious, disturbed. The                secure ritual of the train passing through, never stopping,                has somehow, for some unknown reason, been violated.               CLOSE SHOT - DOC VELIE               as his mouth tightens. His air of placidity vanishes, leaving                his features disturbed.               CLOSE SHOT - LIZ BROOKS               Her fine young face stiffens almost imperceptibly. Her eyes                are coated with a vague emptiness. She seems confused as she                halfturns toward the hotel.               REVERSE SHOT - WHAT SHE SEES               Coley Trimble and Hector David, standing on the porch of the                hotel. They seem tense, responding variously to what might                be fear. Coley's nostrils flare, his flat ugly mouth                compresses. He looks profoundly serious. Hector wipes a glob                of dusty sweat from the socket of an eye and blinks rapidly.               CLOSE SHOT - HASTINGS               as he stands in surprise, nervously alert, watching the train                as it comes to a complete stop. His jaw droops with the                slackness of fear.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. STATION PLATFORM               with the train stationary before it. A sleek steel door of a                pullman clangs open. A colored porter carrying a suitcase                walks down the wrought-iron steps. He is stately, gray-haired                and lean, with the almost finical tidiness travelers associate                with trainmen. The man behind him is big-shouldered, a granite-               like wedge of a man with calm, piercing eyes. There is about                him an air of monumental dependability and quiet humor, but                his eyes are those of a man who has lately lived in somber                familiarity with pain. His left arm hangs from his shoulder                with that lifeless rigidity of paralysis, while the hand is                hidden in his pocket.               ANOTHER ANGLE - MACREEDY AND PORTER               The porter puts the suitcase on the platform. In the distance                the town and its people are seen staring silently,                motionlessly. The big man glances toward them. He smiles a                sad, distasteful greeting to the town, its wretched dust.                its mean, modest buildings. The porter disappears into the                train as the conductor enters scene. He turns slowly,                following Macreedy's gaze...                                     CONDUCTOR                              (softly, staring at                               the towns people)                         Man. They look woebegone and far                          away.                                     MACREEDY                              (looking around)                         I'll only be here twenty-four hours.                                     CONDUCTOR                         In a place like this, it could be a                          lifetime.                              (turning to face                               Macreedy)                         Good luck, Mr. Macreedy.               Macreedy nods his thanks. The conductor signals the engineer                (o.s.) and steps on the train. The diesel's claxon blasts                the torrid air ominously. The train slowly, smoothly, begins                to move, picking up speed. The cars slip past until, quite                suddenly, the Streamliner is gone. For a moment Macreedy                watches it. Then, quite unconsciously, he takes a package of                cigarettes from his left hand pocket, taps the last one free                of the pack, sticks it between his lips and, crumpling the                empty pack, drops it beside the tracks. He takes a cardboard                book of matches, flicks it open, bends a match in half with                agile fingers, and with a sure frictional motion scrapes the                head against the sandpaper guard. The match flares, the                cigarette is lit. Macreedy inhales, exhales deeply, and turns                to pick up his suitcase. Then he sees Hastings, who walks                slowly, almost painfully, to him. His Adam's apple grapples                protestingly with his collar. After a moment he controls it                sufficiently to talk...                                     HASTINGS                         You for Black Rock?                                     MACREEDY                              (easily)                         That's right.                                     HASTINGS                              (uneasily)                         There must be some mistake. I'm                          Hastings, the telegraph agent. Nobody                          told me the train was stopping.                                     MACREEDY                              (with a ghost of a                               grin)                         They didn't?                                     HASTINGS                              (upset)                         I just said they didn't, and they                          ought to. What I -- want to know,                          why didn't they?                                     MACREEDY                              (shrugging)                         Probably didn't think it was                          important.                                     HASTINGS                         Important?! It's the first time the                          streamliner stopped here in four                          years.                              (swallowing nervously)                         You being met? You visiting folks or                          something? I mean, whatd'ya want?                                     MACREEDY                         I want to go to Adobe Flat. Any cabs                          available?                                     HASTINGS                              (as if he hadn't heard                               right; as if he wanted                               everyone in town to                               know)                         Adobe Flat?!                              (he gulps, recovers                               slightly)                         No cabs.                                     MACREEDY                         Where's the hotel?               Hastings looks at him blankly. The thousand-yard stare of a                hypnotic glazes his features.                                     MACREEDY                              (patiently)                         I asked where's the hotel?               Hastings points.                                     MACREEDY                         Thanks.               With his suitcase, he cuts across a weedy path, running into                Black Rock's single street. For a moment, Hastings stares                after him; then he breaks hurriedly, entering telegraph                agent's shack.               INT. POSTAL TELEGRAPH OFFICE               as Hastings, fumbling, picks up the phone...                                     HASTINGS                              (into mouthpiece)                         Hello, Pete? Now, listen...               REVERSE SHOT - MAIN STREET - BLACK ROCK               SHOOTING down the street as Macreedy slowly walks toward the                hotel. Not a person has moved, each eye is glued on the                stranger.               The hollow rasp of Macreedy's tread on the wooden platform                of the "pavement" seems shatteringly loud in the enveloping                silence...               CLOSE SHOT - LIZ               as she follows the man's movement.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               CLOSE ANGLE - ON MACREEDY               as he walks along. He feels the eyes of everyone following                him, glaring at him. He halts, looks around. The townspeople                continue to eye him brazenly, yet with an almost animal                incuriosity. He grins and walks on past a cluster of five or                six RFD mail boxes and a road sign [1], its paint peeling,                its face punctured by three or four bullets from a drunk's                pistol long ago.               SHOT - MACREEDY               heading toward the hotel. In b.g. is a relatively small farm                equipment yard compressed between a general store (which                Macreedy has just passed) and the hotel just ahead. In the                yard are a few tractors, and among them huddles a tiny office.                It is empty; the front window is thick with dust. On it,                etched by an anonymous, childish finger, is a skull and                crossbones. Running diagonally across is the printed legend:               T.J. HATES J.S.               Macreedy notes the inscription with a sort of wry bemusement.                He walks on, reaching the facade of the weather-beaten hotel.                A gust of wind swirls down the street, momentarily engulfing                Macreedy and the entire area in a sudden eddying whirlpool.                As it subsides...               ANOTHER ANGLE - MACREEDY               As he peers through the dust toward the dingy hotel. It has                a narrow stoop and outsize bay windows on each side. Macreedy                mounts the hotel steps. At the top of the steps Coley Trimble                and Hector David watch him silently. Hector is large and                leanly muscular, yet Coley looms over him like a battleship.                He is a gross behemoth of a man, with sharp flinty eyes the                size of glistening pinpoints and a slack, oversized jaw.                Both men wear modern Western work clothes, but there is one                incongruous accessory which Hector affects. Around his thick                wrist is a watch with a large flat face and an elaborately                tooled leather strap -- a cheap reproduction of one of those                expensive Swiss timepieces which, among many distinguished                accomplishments, tells the day of the week, the month of the                year, the phase of the moon, etc., etc.                                     MACREEDY                              (slowing up)                         'Afternoon.               No reaction from Hector.                                     COLEY                              (blocking doorway)                         Anything I can do for you?                                     MACREEDY                         You run this hotel?                                     COLEY                         No.                                     MACREEDY                              (pleasantly)                         Then there's nothing you can do for                          me.               He brushes past Coley and enters.                                     HECTOR                              (turning to Coley)                         Find Smith!               Coley nods and heads down the street. Hector enters the hotel.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. HOTEL               It is a typical small town hotel, but crummier, with a tiny                lobby. Macreedy is waiting at the empty desk as Hector strolls                in, flopping his enormous bulk into a nicked and mothy chair.                He picks up a newspaper, but his eyes remain on Macreedy.                Macreedy waits patiently for the absent clerk. For a moment,                he studies the open registration ledger; his eyes rove from                the ink-splotched blotter up over the desk to one of those                World War II banners, the imitation silk now stained and                faded. It depicts a shrieking eagle rampant, clutching The                Flag in a claw. Under it, the legend:                                   "GOD BLESS AMERICA"               Near it, a tacky placard proclaims:               DO ALL THE GOOD YOU CAN,                BY ALL THE MEANS YOU CAN,                IN ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN,                AT ALL THE TIMES YOU CAN,                TO ALL THE PEOPLE YOU CAN,                AS LONG AS EVER YOU CAN.               Feeling the eyes of Hector on him, Macreedy turns. Hector                meets his gaze with bland, insolent interest. Now a young                man (his name is PETE) comes out of a small room behind the                registration desk and walks up to it. There is a softness                about his regular features, a certain indefinable sugariness                about his mouth. He seems tight-lipped, for lorn and uneasy                as he faces Macreedy across the counter.                                     MACREEDY                              (pleasantly)                         I'd like a room.                                     PETE                         All filled up.                                     MACREEDY                              (a beat)                         Got any idea where I might --                                     PETE                              (stiffly, shaking his                               head)                         This is 1945, mister. There's been a                          war on.               Macreedy looks at the young man with impeccable tolerance.                Without shifting his gaze, he slowly lets fall his small                suitcase. It thuds softly on the frayed carpet.                                     MACREEDY                         I thought it ended a couple of months                          ago.                                     PETE                         Yeah, but the O.P.A. lingers on.               Macreedy looks down at the open ledger on the desk before                him. The clerk reaches out to close it. Gently, yet firmly,                Macreedy stops him, reopening the big book. He studies it, a                finger straying unconsciously inside his collar. He [...] on                it to relieve the starchy stiffness.               Pete begins to fidget...                                     PETE                         You don't know about the O.P.A...                                     MACREEDY                              (without looking up)                         Tell me.                                     PETE                         Well, for establishments with less'n                          fifty rooms hotel keepers got to                          report regularly about...               His voice fades desperately.                                     PETE                         ...about tenants and... and...                          registration...                              (drawing himself up)                         There are penalties imposed...               Again his voice trails off.                                     MACREEDY                              (eyes still on the                               ledger)                         You seem to have lots of vacancies.                                     PETE                              (uncomfortable)                         Well... as I said...               Macreedy leans over the counter to a rack of keys. He runs                his splayed fingers over the key rack as...                                     MACREEDY                         Lots of vacancies.                                     PETE                         They're everyone of 'em locked up.                          Some are show rooms...                                     MACREEDY                         Yes...?                                     PETE                              (with touching                               sincerity)                         ...for cattle buyers, feed salesmen.                          The others -- they're spoken for,                          rented to cowboys, ranch hands...                              (Macreedy listens                               respectfully)                         They pay by the month. For when they                          come into town. We provide for their                          every wish and comfort.                              (weakly)                         You understand...?                                     MACREEDY                         Not really. But while I'm pondering                          it, get a room ready. Just for                          tonight.                              (picking key from                               rack at random)                         This one.               Pete opens his mouth but no sound comes out. [...] at Hector.               CLOSE SHOT - HECTOR               glowering at Pete.               TWO SHOT - MACREEDY AND PETE               as Macreedy signs the ledger.                                     MACREEDY                              (signing)                         Sure could use a bath. Where is it?               He picks up the key.                                     PETE                         Head of the stairs.               Macreedy nods, reaches for the bag at his feet. Then he                hesitates, looks at Hector.                                     MACREEDY                         I don't know just why you're                          interested -- but the name's Macreedy.                          I'm...                              (grins)                         It's all in the ledger.                                     HECTOR                              (slowly, his eyes                               glued to Macreedy's                               stiff arm)                         You look like you need a hand.               Macreedy says nothing. The wales along his face harden. He                picks up his bag and climbs the stairs. As he disappears,                Hector lumbers to the desk and grabs the ledger.                                     HECTOR                              (reading aloud)                         John J. Macreedy. From Los Angeles.                              (looking up)                         I wanna know everything he does,                          Pete. Check every call -- any mail.                                     PETE                              (nodding)                         And in the meantime...?                                     HECTOR                              (grinning harshly)                         In the meantime, I'll crowd him a                          little...                              (looking up the stairs)                         ...see if he's got any iron in his                          blood...               As Pete bites his lower lip thoughtfully,                                                                  DISSOLVE:               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. BATHROOM - DAY - MACREEDY               in a new bathrobe, before a cracked, discolored mirror. He                draws a safety razor down his face, completing his shave;                then he wipes a hand over the mirror, which clouds with steam                almost as fast as he can clear it. o.s., the SOUND of bath                water gurgling down the tub drain. He runs a tentative finger                inside the collar of his robe, pulling loose a price tag. He                drops it carefully into a wastebasket. He turns on the faucet                at the sink to rinse his shaving brush. The rusty pipes cough                and rumble, roaring as a trickle of water arrives while the                drain sucks loudly at its departure. He dries the razor,                turns off the faucet and exits.               INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR - ANGLE ON MACREEDY                As he walks down the dark, narrow hall. He wears the bathrobe                and slippers; a large towel is draped over his head, like a                prize fighter. He stops outside a door, pushes the towel                from his head to his neck and puts his hand on the knob. He                is about to insert the key when he tenses. Slowly, silently,                he turns the knob and throws open the door.               INT. HOTEL ROOM               Next to the door, in the corner of the small, sparsely                furnished room is Macreedy's suitcase, open, its contents                askew and scattered over the dusty floor. On the bed sprawls                Hector David, his gigantic body straining the springs. He                lies on his back, hands clasped easily under his head, thick                legs crossed, his Stetson tilted over his low forehead. He                is completely unconcerned by Macreedy's entrance. For a moment                Macreedy stares at him. Then...                                     MACREEDY                              (slightly amused)                         I think you have the wrong room.                                     HECTOR                              (not budging)                         You think so?               Slowly, his eyes still on Macreedy, Hector takes off his                elaborate wrist watch and slides it gently into his pants                pocket.                                     HECTOR                         What else you got on your mind?               Macreedy pauses and takes in the situation. He refuses to be                baited.                                     MACREEDY                         Nothing, I guess.                                     HECTOR                         If you had a mind, boy, you'd of                          heard what Pete downstairs said. He                          said these here rooms are for us                          cowboys. For our every wish and                          comfort.                                     MACREEDY                         And this, I guess, is yours?                                     HECTOR                         When I'm in town. And I'm in town,                          as any fool can see. You see that,                          don't you, boy?                                     MACREEDY                         I guess I do. Would you mind very                          much if I sort of...                              (he gestures toward                               his suitcase and                               clothing)                         ...clean up this mess and get another                          room?                                     HECTOR                         Not at all. But if you want this                          room real bad...                              (he raises his enormous                               bulk to a sitting                               position, rubbing                               the knuckles of one                               big fist with the                               palm of his other                               hand)                         ...we could maybe settle your claim                          without all this talk.                              (no answer from                               Macreedy)                         If a man don't claim what's rightfully                          his'n, he's nuthin'. What do you                          think?                                     MACREEDY                         I guess so.                                     HECTOR                         You guess so. But still you ain't                          claimin' this room?                                     MACREEDY                         I guess not.                                     HECTOR                         You're all the time guessin', boy.                          Don't you ever know anything?                                     MACREEDY                         One thing I know. Since I got off                          the train, I've been needled. Why?                                     HECTOR                              (after a beat, slowly)                         I guess I don't rightly know.               For a moment their eyes lock. Then Macreedy goes to his                suitcase and throws his clothes in it. As he goes out the                door...                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. HOTEL LOBBY - DAY - FULL SHOT - SAM AND THE LOAFERS               They sit around, each with his own thoughts. They are                generally stolid; only Sam seems nervous. He looks up eagerly                as Doc Velie enters the lobby. As he joins Sam...               Sam walks light for a big man, Doc.                                     DOC                              (straight)                         Who?                                     SAM                              (irritated)                         You know who!                              (Doc grins impishly;                               Sam's anger subsides)                         What do you think, Doc?                                     DOC                         Why ask me? He's no salesman, that's                          sure.                              (again the impish                               grin)                         Unless he's peddling dynamite.                                     SAM                              (squirming visibly)                         Maybe he's a cop, or something...                                     DOC                         Ever see a cop with a stiff arm?                                     SAM                              (squinting thoughtfully)                         Maybe his arm's all right. Maybe                          he's just holding tight to something                          in his pocket...                                     DOC                              (scoffing)                         Like what? A pistol? A stick of T-N-                         T?                              (gleefully)                         To blow up this whole mangy, miserable                          town!                              (with sudden, almost                               naive, seriousness)                         Why are you so interested, Sam?                                     SAM                         Who, me?                                     DOC                         I mean, if I was that interested...                              (his eyes look up                               toward the hotel                               stairs o.s.)                         ...I'd ask him.               Sam follows Doc's gaze...               REVERSE SHOT - WHAT THEY SEE 35X1               Macreedy walks down the stairs. Pete looks up from the desk.                He is about to dart behind the partition when...                                     MACREEDY                         Hey! Hold it!               He walks to the desk, smiling at Pete. In b.g., Doc, Sam and                the loafers watch.                                     MACREEDY                         Got any cigarettes?               Pete studies him, then bends under the counter, coming up                with a pack. Doc leaves Sam and is slowly walking toward the                stranger, eyeing him curiously.                                     PETE                         This is all.               Macreedy throws the money on the desk and opens the pack,                dexterously using the fingers of his left hand.                                     PETE                         How long you staying?                                     MACREEDY                         In my new room, you mean?                              (flatly)                         I'm staying.                                     PETE                         I mean, in the hotel.                                     MACREEDY                         Just about twenty-four hours.                              (sharply)                         Why?                                     PETE                              (flustered)                         I... I was just askin'.                                     MACREEDY                              (evenly)                         Why? You expecting a convention?                                     PETE                              (doggedly)                         I was just askin'.               Macreedy looks at him, inhales deeply on his cigarette then,                as he slowly lets the smoke out, removes the cigarette and                looks at it.                                     MACREEDY                         Stale.               Now Doc is at the desk not far from Macreedy. Macreedy starts                out, then turns to Pete.                                     MACREEDY                         Where can I rent a car?                                     PETE                         I don't know.               Macreedy smiles and sighs tiredly. Then...                                     MACREEDY                              (as to a child)                         Let's put it this way -- if I had a                          car and if I wanted to put gas in                          it, where would I go?                                     PETE                              (refusing to cooperate)                         But you don't have a car.                                     DOC                              (to Macreedy)                         You might try the garage at the end                          of the street.               Macreedy pauses, looking at Doc, who blandly returns his                stare.                                     MACREEDY                         Thanks.               Doc nods. Macreedy smiles and walks toward the door; Pete,                Doc et al watching him. He goes out.               EXT. STREET               As Macreedy walks down hotel steps, a station wagon pulls up                just before him. Tied with a rope to the right front fender                is a magnificent eight-point buck. A stain of dry blood weaves                an uneven course down his glossy flank from an unmistakable                bullet hole in his shoulder. Two men get out of the car; one                of them is Coley Trimble. He sees Macreedy coming toward                him. He stands motionless in the center of the narrow                pavement, picking at his nose with the detachment of a child.                The other man is broad and excessively masculine as he swings                out from behind the wheel. He walks around the car, joining                Coley at the curb. Macreedy comes on. The man with Coley                looks at the stranger with colossal indifference, as                expressionless as the soil of Black Rock. His handsome face,                under a dusty hunting cap, is taut and hard and wind-shaven.                Next to Coley he stands motionless, except for the wisp of                smoke from a black Cuban cigarette between his thin lips. In                b.g., the loafers who had been ensconced in the hotel lobby                move out the door and stand on the porch. They watch Macreedy,                Coley and Reno Smith, the handsome, taut-faced man. Silence                soems to settle over everything. It is Macreedy who breaks                it...                                     MACREEDY                              (grinning wearily at                               Coley)                         Here we go again.               Gently he walks around Coley and Reno Smith and continues                down the street. Coley's eyes follow him. Smith goes up the                steps of the hotel and enters the lobby. Coley quickly follows                him. The loafers on the porch go back inside.               INT. HOTEL LOBBY               The loafers resume their familiar places as Smith walks                briskly to the clerk's desk. Pete, in anticipation, opens                the hotel register, places it before Smith                                     PETE                              (deferentially,                               gesturing toward the                               open register)                         That's all I know about him, Mr.                          Smith.               Smith doesn't answer; he looks up thoughtfully. His eyes                harden almost imperceptibly as he sees Coley, across the                narrow room, looking out the window after Macreedy.                                     SMITH                              (to Coley's back)                         Sit down.                                     COLEY                              (spinning to face him)                         I was only...                                     SMITH                              (interrupting)                         Sit down.               Coley sits in the nearest chair. Beyond Smith, still resting                easily against the high counter of Pete's desk, the gigantic                figure of Hector appears at the top of the stairs. He comes                down and joins Smith.                                     HECTOR                              (after a pause)                         Pretty cool guy.                                     SMITH                         Doesn't push easy?                                     HECTOR                              (frowning)                         That's it -- that's just it. He pushes                          too easy. Maybe we oughtta...               He hesitates as Doc Velie sidles amiably into earshot.                                     SMITH                         What do you want, Doc?                                     DOC                         Nothing.                              (archly)                         I was just wondering what all you                          people were worrying about.                              (Smith looks at him                               coldly)                         Not that I have the slightest idea.                                     SMITH                         You wonder too much, and you talk                          too much.                              (pauses)                         It's a bad parlay, Doc.                                     DOC                         I hold no truck with silence.                              (impishly)                         I got nothing to hide.                                     HECTOR                              (suddenly towering                               over Doc)                         What're you tryin' to say?                                     DOC                         Nothing, man. It's just, you worry                          about the stranger only if you look                          at him...                              (slowly)                         ...from a certain aspect.                                     SMITH                         How do you look at him, Doc?                                     DOC                              (firmly)                         With the innocence of a fresh-laid                          egg.                                     SMITH                              (after a pause)                         Keep it up, Doc. Be funny. Make bad                          jokes.                              (he starts to walk                               toward the window,                               Doc and Hector                               following him)                         And some day I'll have Coley wash                          out your mouth with lye.               Smith looks thoughtfully out the window.               REVERSE SHOT - WHAT HE SEES               Macreedy, down the end of the block, saunters easily up to                Liz's garage.               EXT. LIZ'S GARAGE - FULL SHOT               The garage, without a door, opens on the street. Against the                front of the building is parked a battered bicycle. On one                of the barnlike walls a boy of nine is drawing laboriously                with a piece of chalk. He puts the last flourish to a skull                and crossbones identical with that seen earlier on the window                of the equipment yard office. Macreedy stops a few feet from                him, waiting until the boy prints "T.J.". As he steps back                to admire his handiwork...                                     MACREEDY                         Hi, T.J.               T.J. nods. He approaches the wall, raising his chalk.                                     MACREEDY                         This your garage?                                     T.J.                         Nope.                                     MACREEDY                              (a beat)                         Where's the man it belongs to?                                     T.J.                         Ain't a man.               He pauses. As Macreedy opens his mouth to interrogate                further...                                     T.J.                         Lady runs this garage.               Again a pause. T.J. has just completed the final letter of                the word "HATES". And again as Macreedy opens his mouth...                                     T.J.                         She's not here.                                     MACREEDY                         Where'd she go?                                     T.J.                              (shrugging)                         I dunno. Somewhere.                                     MACREEDY                         When will she be back?                                     T.J.                         I dunno. Sometime.               Again the pause. T.J. steps back, having completed his work,                which, of course, broadcasts the fact that "T.J. HATES J.S.".                And again as Macreedy begins to speak...                                     T.J.                         In about ten minutes.                                     MACREEDY                              (with a grin)                         Thanks.               T.J. turns, pulls the bike away from the building, completes                a fastidious "pony express" and peddles furiously out of                scene.               EXT. STREET - FULL SHOT               as Macreedy, after a moment's hesitation, starts down it.                From the far end, at the telegraph agent's shack, a figure                starts running toward Macreedy. It is Hastings. INTERCUT                between the two men. Hastings, in his concentration, doesn't                see the stranger until he is almost upon him. He slows down,                suddenly, awkwardly, to a self-conscious walk. Macreedy grins                at him, passes on, shaking his head speculatively. Hastings,                with a parting glance, gallops up the hotel steps.               INT. HOTEL LOBBY - FULL SHOT               Smith, Coley, Hector, Pete, Doc, Sam et al are still in                evidence. Smith is in a tight little group at the desk with                Coley, Hector and Pete. Doc has taken a position at the                window, looking out. Hastings bursts in and half-runs to                Smith...               ANGLE FAVORING SMITH AND HASTINGS                as the excited telegraph agent speaks.                                     HASTINGS                         I called the Circle T. He ain't got                          business there -- not if they don't                          know him. Right, Mr. Smith?               Smith ignores him, thinking. Hastings breathes heavily.                Finally...                                     SMITH                              (to Hastings)                         Send a wire to Nick Gandi in Los                          Angeles. Tell him to find out all he                          can about John J. Macreedy. Tell him                          I want to know fast. Sign my name.               Hastings nods, scribbling on a pad.                                     HASTINGS                         What was that?                                     SMITH                         Nick Gandi. G-A-N-D-I. Care of the                          Blake Hotel.               Hastings nods and hurriedly exits.                                     COLEY                              (after a beat)                         Who's Gandi?               Smith looks at Coley, trying to decide if the question in                any way challenges his authority. He concludes not...                                     SMITH                         He's a private detective.                              (beat)                         I drive to L.A. now and then.                                     HECTOR                              (slightly worried)                         He'll get us the dope?                                     SMITH                         He'll get us anything, for twenty                          bucks a day and expenses.                              (Hector frowns)                         Hector, you worry too fast and too                          easy.                                     HECTOR                         It's just, I don't like it.                                     COLEY                         Maybe he's just passing through.                                     HECTOR                         Don't bet on it. He can only mean                          trouble.                                     SMITH                              (smiles faintly)                         Hector, you're jumpy as a stall horse.                                     HECTOR                              (doggedly)                         We oughtta see him... talk to him.                                     SMITH                              (quietly)                         About what?                              (Hector doesn't answer)                         What'll we talk to him about? The                          birds, the bees? The weather? The                          crops?                              (pauses)                         You tried -- where'd it get you?                                     HECTOR                              (uncomfortably)                         I only thought...                                     SMITH                         Sure. You only thought.                                     COLEY                              (after a beat)                         What do we do?                                     SMITH                         What do you do? You wait. Like Pete                          here. Right, Pete?               Pete nods, his brow furrowed uncomfortably in a frown.                                     SMITH                         That's all you do. But while you                          wait... I talk to him.               At this point the brittle silence is cracked by...                                     DOC                              (o.s.)                         Hey!               Smith and those around him look off in the direction of Doc.               DOC VELIE - AT THE WINDOW               peering out. He turns in the direction of Smith and the                others.                                     DOC                         Now what do you know?                              (beaming)                         Mr. Macreedy seems to be heading for                          the jail.                              (impishly)                         Now what do you suppose he'd want to                          see the Sheriff about?               Smith goes to the window, edging Doc to one side with a                shoulder. He looks out grimly.               REVERSE SHOT - WHAT HE SEES               Macreedy, down the street, cuts up the steps of the jail.               BACK TO SCENE               Smith staring out the window with a frown. Doc watching him                out of the corner of his eye, a bemused expression crossing                his puckish features.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. JAIL               ANGLE on Macreedy as he enters the jail. It is small and                dirty, with only a tired desk, two chairs and the usual police                posters on the wall. One side leads to the cell block and                Macreedy heads for it.               ANGLE from interior of cell block comprising two cells, both                of which are open. A man is asleep in the lower bunk of the                front cell. The keys are in the lock. Macreedy shakes his                head and starts to close the creaking cell door. Sheriff TIM                HORN, the man in the bunk, lifts his head, blinking his bleary                eyes. He is in terrible shape.                                     TIM                         Hold it, friend.               He manages to crawl off the bunk and out toward Macreedy.                                     TIM                              (grinning)                         I ain't hankerin' to get locked in                          my own jail.                                     MACREEDY                         Sorry. I thought you were a guest.                                     TIM                         As it happens, I'm the host.               He walks out of the cell, Macreedy following him into the                office.               SHOT - OF THE TWO               Tim breaks out a bottle of booze, starts to take a snort,                then stops, offers it to Macreedy.                                     TIM                         Snort?                                     MACREEDY                         No, thanks.                                     TIM                         Don't blame you. It's awful.               He takes a belt that would incapacitate half the county. He                finishes, smacks his lips, lays the bottle down, and falls                into a chair. He looks up at Macreedy.                                     TIM                              (suddenly mean)                         What're you lookin' at?                                     MACREEDY                              (easy)                         You tell me.                                     TIM                              (after a beat, relaxing)                         I ain't always this bad -- just that                          last night me and my pal Doc Velie,                          we did a little celebratin'. At least                          I did.                                     MACREEDY                         What were you celebrating?                                     TIM                              (shrugs)                         You name it.                              (studies Macreedy)                         What do you want?                                     MACREEDY                         My name's Macreedy. I came in on the                          Streamliner.               Tim studies him, trying to focus.                                     TIM                         You what?                                     MACREEDY                         I said I came in...                                     TIM                              (interrupting)                         You ain't from around here. Up Tucson                          way -- Phoenix? Mesa? You ain't                          sellin' cattle nor seed nor nothin'                          like that?                                     MACREEDY                         No.                              (sighs, then distinctly                               as to a child)                         All I want from you is a little                          information. I've got to get to a                          place called Adobe Flat.                                     TIM                              (reacts; then, tight-                              lipped)                         This ain't no information bureau.               Macreedy starts to say something, then stops. Reconsidering...                                     MACREEDY                         One thing about Black Rock --                          everybody's polite. Makes for gracious                          living.                                     TIM                         Nobody asked you here.                                     MACREEDY                         How do you know?                              (he moves toward the                               door, with a rueful                               grin)                                     TIM                              (starting after him)                         What about Adobe Flat?                                     MACREEDY                         I'm looking for a man named Komako.               The Sheriff reaches for his bottle. In his haste he drops                it. Macreedy's hand moves quickly, catching the bottle before                it hits the floor.                                     MACREEDY                         Almost a disaster.                                     TIM                              (sinking back in his                               chair)                         A fate worse'n death.                              (he takes the bottle                               from Macreedy)                         You move fast for a crip... for a                          big man.               For a moment heavy silence. Finally...                                     MACREEDY                         What about Komako?                                     TIM                              (slowly)                         If there's no further questions...               Macreedy grins harshly and exits. Tim watches him go, then                slowly reaches for the bottle. He pauses, looks at his shaking                hand. Then he withdraws it and just sits in the chair staring                blindly ahead, seeing nothing.               EXT. STREET               Frowning, deep in thought, Macreedy walks down the dusty                street. As he reaches the hotel...                                     SMITH                              (o.s.)                         Mr. Macreedy.               Macreedy stops, looks toward Smith as he walks out to meet                him.                                     MACREEDY                         That's the friendliest word I've                          heard since I got here.               As Smith joins him, he walks on. Smith falls in step beside                him. GO WITH THEM.                                     SMITH                              (grins boyishly)                         My name is Smith. I own the Triple-                         Bar ranch.                              (holds out his hand;                               Macreedy shakes it)                         I want to apologize for some of the                          folks in town.                                     MACREEDY                         They act like they're sitting on a                          keg.                                     SMITH                         A keg...? Of what?                                     MACREEDY                         I don't know. Maybe diamonds. Maybe                          gunpowder.                                     SMITH                              (disarmingly)                         No. Nothing like that. We're a little                          suspicious of strangers is all.                          Hangover from the old days. The old                          West.                                     MACREEDY                         I thought the tradition of the old                          West was hospitality.                                     SMITH                              (with a sincere smile)                         I'm trying to be hospitable, Mr.                          Macreedy.                              (boyishly pushes his                               dusty cap back on                               his head)                         Going to be around for a while?                                     MACREEDY                         Could be.                                     SMITH                         How would you like to go hunting                          tomorrow? I'd be proud to have you                          as my guest.                                     MACREEDY                         Thanks, but I'm afraid not.                                     SMITH                              (with admirable candor)                         You mean, because of your arm?                              (slaps Macreedy's                               shoulder in a                               friendly,                               understanding gesture)                         I knew a man once, lost an arm in a                          threshing accident. Used to hunt all                          the time.                              (almost too blandly)                         But he was quite a man. He...                              (pauses; then, with                               discreet and charming                               gravity)                         I'm sorry. I... What I mean is -- if                          there's anything I can do while you're                          around...                                     MACREEDY                         I'm looking for...                              (sighs)                         Never mind. Thanks, anyway.                                     SMITH                              (quietly)                         You're looking for what, Mr. Macreedy?                                     MACREEDY                              (eyeing him)                         A man named Komako.                                     SMITH                              (no hesitation)                         Komako -- Sure, I remember him --                          Japanese farmer. Never had a chance.                                     MACREEDY                         No?                                     SMITH                         He got here in '41 -- just before                          Pearl Harbor. Three months later he                          was shipped to one of those relocation                          centers.                              (shaking his head)                         Tough.                                     MACREEDY                         Which one did he go to?                                     SMITH                         Who knows?                                     MACREEDY                         You think maybe if I wrote him, the                          letter would be forwarded?                                     SMITH                         I'm sure it would. Write your letter.                          I'll see it gets out tonight.                                     MACREEDY                         It wouldn't be too much trouble?                                     SMITH                         No trouble at all.                                     MACREEDY                         Funny. Because I think it would be a                          great deal of trouble for you. It's                          been a great deal of trouble for me.               At this point they are in front of...               EXT. LIZ'S GARAGE               Macreedy stops, as does Smith. He looks keenly at Smith as                he takes from his inner jacket pocket a half-dozen letters...                                     MACREEDY                         I wrote these letters to Komako.                          They weren't forwarded. They were                          returned -- address unknown.                              (he smiles grimly at                               Smith)                         So I guess there's nothing you can                          do for me, after all.               Smith opens his mouth to reply when the NOISE of a jeep o.s.                interrupts him. The jeep comes INTO SHOT. Liz Brooks, at the                wheel, cuts the engine and jumps out. Smith ambles silently                to a wall and leans against it. Liz reaches behind the                driver's seat and hoists, with both hands and some effort, a                five-gallon drum of axle grease from the floor of the jeep.                As she rests it on the rear fender...                                     MACREEDY                              (going to her)                         Need a little help?               The girl looks at Smith, who has made no attempt to help                her.                                     LIZ                         I can manage.               She lifts the drum to the ground.                                     MACREEDY                         Well, I need a little help.                              (she looks at him                               questioningly)                         I'd like to rent your jeep.                                     LIZ                         It'll be two dollars an hour, gas                          extra, and ten dollars for my time.                                     SMITH                              (to Liz)                         Aren't you going to ask him where he                          wants to go?               Liz looks from Smith to Macreedy, puzzled.                                     SMITH                         He wants to go to Adobe Flat.               Liz hesitates. Macreedy notes her confusion as her eyes seek                Smith's for instructions. Quickly he moves in...                                     MACREEDY                         The road's marked?                                     LIZ                              (nodding)                         Yeah. It's about six -- seven miles                          down...                                     MACREEDY                         Then I won't need your time.               Macreedy hands her a bill. She fumbles with it, not knowing                what else to do. Her eyes drift to Macreedy's stiff arm...                                     LIZ                              (uneasily)                         I thought you might... need a little                          help.                                     MACREEDY                         I can manage.               He steps toward the jeep as...                                     SMITH                         Liz. Do you have a license to rent                          cars? You could get into trouble.                                     MACREEDY                         It's all right. I won't mention it                          to the Sheriff.               He steps into jeep and, with one hand expertly manipulating                the controls, drives off.               MED. SHOT - SMITH AND LIZ               Smith turns his attention to the girl...                                     SMITH                              (slowly)                         You shouldn't have done that.                                     LIZ                         I thought it would be better if he                          went out there and got done with it.                              (Smith looks at her                               sharply)                         I mean, what could he find out?               For a moment Smith doesn't answer. Instead, with a half frown,                he lifts the bill Macreedy had given her from Liz's hand.                                     SMITH                              (as he studies it)                         This is liable to be the hardest ten                          dollars you ever earned in your life.               He crumples it, pokes the wad in her hand and walks off down                the street as...                                                            QUICK DISSOLVE:               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. JAIL - FULL SHOT - DAY               Tim sits in his chair, still staring sightlessly at the                whiskey bottle. Smith enters. He looks from Tim to the bottle                on the table, then back to Tim.                                     SMITH                              (after a beat,                               disinterestedly)                         What did he want -- the stranger?                                     TIM                              (abstractedly)                         He asked about Komako.                              (looking up at Smith)                         You think he'll kick up a storm?                                     SMITH                              (easily)                         A storm? About what?                                     TIM                         I don't know. All I know, I don't                          want trouble around here.                              (pauses awkwardly,                               then)                         Never again.                                     SMITH                         Trouble? You don't know anything                          about Komako, now do you, Tim?                                     TIM                         I do not. That's the point.                                     SMITH                         The point is, what you don't know                          can't hurt you.                                     TIM                         Maybe there's something I ought to                          know. Maybe I ought to ask you...                          before the stranger comes back and                          starts breathing down my neck.                                     SMITH                              (a faint smile)                         Tim, you're a lost ball in the high                          weeds. I told you a long time ago,                          nothing happened for you to worry                          about.                                     TIM                              (stands up, facing                               Smith)                         Thing is, I do worry. Maybe I ain't                          much else, but I'm sure a worrier.                              (beat, then with soft                               emphasis)                         And I'm still the law.                                     SMITH                         Then do your job, Tim.                                     TIM                         What is my job, Mr. Smith? Maybe I'd                          better find out before Macreedy does                          it for me.                                     SMITH                              (evenly)                         Macreedy'll do nothing, Tim. And                          neither will you.                                     TIM                         Suppose I decide to try?                                     SMITH                         That would be dangerous. You got the                          body of a hippo, Tim, but the brain                          of a rabbit. Don't overtax it.               He stares harshly at the Sheriff. Tim tries unsuccessfully                to meet his gaze. Then, slowly, he sits down.                                     TIM                              (lowering his eyes,                               mumbling)                         Yes, Mr. Smith.               Smith slowly walks behind Tim's chair and silently,                patronizingly pats the Sheriff's slack shoulder...               INT. TELEGRAPH AGENT'S OFFICE - FULL SHOT               Hastings is sitting at his desk. The telegraph ticker starts                to splutter. Hastings rushes to it. He listens, and starts                to scribble. Then he gulps nervously, a confused expression                on his face. As the telegraph key stops as suddenly as it                had begun, Hastings jumps up frantically and, holding the                sheet of paper, runs out of the shack.               EXT. STREET               as he runs toward hotel.               EXT. HOTEL - LONG SHOT                with Doc, Sam, Coley, Hector and Pete on the porch. Hastings                runs up the steps, pausing momentarily. His jaws move, but                CAMERA is too far away to pick up his obvious question. Coley                gestures toward the jail; then Hastings turns and runs down                the steps followed by Doc et al.               EXT. STREET - FULL SHOT               Hastings runs down the street toward the jail followed by                Doc et al.               EXT. JAIL               as Hastings runs up the steps with a hobnailed clatter. Smith                comes out to investigate, followed by Tim. Doc, et al are                congregated at the foot of the steps. Hastings slaps the                sheet of paper in front of Smith. Utter quiet. Everyone stares                at Smith, waiting for a reaction -- everyone except Tim, who                stares straight ahead, seeing nothing, and Doc, whose eyes                are locked sympathetically on Tim. Smith finishes reading                the wire. His face is expressionless. After a moment...                                     HECTOR                              (to Smith)                         From L.A.?               Smith doesn't answer but...                                     HASTINGS                         Yeah! From that private detective!                                     HECTOR                              (to Smith)                         What does he say? Who is this guy?                                     HASTINGS                         Never heard of him, that's what he                          says! He checked and there's no John                          J. Macreedy. No listing -- no record --                          no information. Nothing.                                     PETE                              (quietly, after a                               beat, to Smith)                         Where does that leave us?                                     COLEY                         I'll tell you where...                                     SMITH                         Shut up!               He folds the message carefully, puts it in his pocket.                Abruptly Tim turns and disappears inside his office. Smith,                with some restraint, walks down the steps to the street.               MOVING SHOT - SMITH               as he takes Coley's arm, and Pete's. The trio moves away,                taking a position perhaps 15 feet from Doc. Hector, Sam and                Hastings move toward them.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS - SMITH, COLEY AND PETE               In b.g. at a respectful distance are Hector, Sam and Hastings.                SHOOT parallel to tracks, which disappear far into the                horizon.               The following dialogue is delivered in an undertone...                                     SMITH                              (turning to Coley)                         Now, Coley...?                                     COLEY                              (takes a breath, then)                         I think Macreedy's a nothing. A                          nobody.                                     SMITH                         Is he?                                     COLEY                         So there's nothing to worry about.                                     SMITH                         Isn't there?                              (a beat)                         You got brains, you have.                                     COLEY                              (squirming)                         But what can he find out? That Komako                          was...?                              (Smith glares at him)                         Suppose he finds out?                                     SMITH                         A nobody like Macreedy can raise a                          pretty big stink. The point is...                          who would miss a nobody like Macreedy                          if he just, say, disappeared? Who,                          Coley?               Coley is terribly preoccupied, balances himself, like a child,                on a steel rail.                                     SMITH                              (exasperated)                         Coley!                                     COLEY                              (galvanized from the                               rail)                         Huh?                                     PETE                         Why don't we wait...                                     SMITH                         Wait for what?                                     PETE                         I mean, maybe he won't find anything.                          Maybe he'll just go away.                                     SMITH                         Not Macreedy. I know those maimed                          guys. Their minds get twisted. They                          put on hair shirts and act like                          martyrs. They're all of 'em do-                         gooders, trouble makers, freaks.                                     PETE                         But there's no danger yet. Let's                          wait and see.                                     SMITH                              (interrupting,                               appealing to Coley                               as an equal)                         No danger, he says. This guy's like                          a carrier of small pox. Since he                          arrives, there's been a fever in                          this town, an infection. And it's                          spreading.                              (he glances from Coley                               to Pete)                         Hastings has been in a sick sweat,                          running around, shooting off his                          face. Doc, for the first time in                          four years, gets snotty with me.                          Liz...                              (to Pete)                         ...your own sister -- acts like a                          fool.                                     PETE                              (hotly)                         She's just a kid.                                     SMITH                              (scoffing)                         Kid! She must have strained every                          muscle in her head to get so stupid!                          Renting him a jeep! And Tim -- Tim,                          the rum-dum. Tim suddenly decides                          he's gotta act like a Sheriff.                              (to Coley, gesturing                               at Pete)                         And he says what's the danger.               Brittle silence for a moment. Then...                                     SMITH                              (easily)                         Of course, if you want to take the                          chance...               Pete doesn't answer.                                     COLEY                              (grimly)                         Not me.                                     SMITH                         All right, then...                                     PETE                         It's not all right! You're so mighty                          quick to kill -- he's not an animal!                                     SMITH                              (to Coley, with mock                               surprise)                         Well, listen to little spitfire...                              (turning slowly on                               Pete)                         You sniveling toad! I'm saving your                          neck! If I don't, who will?                                     PETE                              (squirming)                         All I said...                                     SMITH                         Who will?! Doc? Tim? Your sister,                          with the rocks in her head?               Pete is silent.                                     SMITH                         One thing about your sister -- she's                          got twice the guts you have. You're                          only fit for running away.                                     COLEY                         It's too late for that.                              (belligerently, slowly,                               at Pete)                         He's in this, and he ain't running                          no place.               There is a long, electric silence. Pete is defeated.                                     SMITH                              (finally)                         All right, then...               He pauses for emphasis. Then, as he starts to talk again...               INT. JAIL               Tim stands facing the wall, shoulders hunched, suffering.                Doc comes in and watches him silently, Tim turns, facing                Doc, turns again to concentrate on a faded newspaper                photograph framed and hanging on the wall.               ANOTHER ANGLE - TIM               SHOOTING over his shoulder. Focal point: the "photograph".                It shows a widly grinning, moderately alert and healthy Tim                of perhaps five years ago. He is wearing, proudly, his badge                of office, and behind him, mildly interested in the                proceedings, is Reno Smith, his erstwhile sponsor. The heading                on the photo reads: DEPUTY SHERIFF NAMED FOR BLACK ROCK.               MED. SHOT - TIM AND DOC               Tim takes the photo off the wall and, holding it, turns to                face Doc...                                     TIM                         Let Smith find himself a new boy. I                          can't take it another day.                              (pauses, looks at Doc)                         If you're a sheriff, they gotta                          respect you, otherwise you can't do                          your job.                              (shakes his head)                         They just laugh.                                     DOC                         I don't laugh, Tim.                                     TIM                         Why don't you?                                     DOC                         Cut it out, Tim.                                     TIM                         You should!                                     DOC                         In the name of well-adjusted manhood,                          snap out of it. You're going to get                          a complex or something.                                     TIM                         Four years ago if I'd of done my                          job... if I'd of checked up and found                          out what happened. But I didn't!                          Just like Smith figured.                                     DOC                         What could you have found out? They                          told you a story. You had to believe                          it.                                     TIM                         Do you believe it?               Doc squirms but doesn't answer.                                     TIM                         Do you know what happened?                                     DOC                         I don't know.                              (ironically)                         I lead a quiet, contemplative life.                                     TIM                         Me, I didn't even try to find out.                              (a beat)                         Don't you understand?                              (he taps the badge on                               his chest)                         When you wear that badge, you're the                          Law. And when something happens,                          against the Law, you're supposed to                          do something about it. It's your                          job.                              (simply)                         Me... I did nothin'. And that's what's                          eatin' me. What kind of prescription                          you got for that?                                     DOC                         I don't know. I've never been able                          to find one for myself.               Tim takes off his badge and throws it on the desk.                                     DOC                         Only one thing -- don't quit, Tim.                                     TIM                         Why not?                                     DOC                         Maybe this feller Macreedy has the                          prescription.               They look at each other. Slowly Tim picks up his badge and                pins it back on.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. DESERT ROAD               An old marker, jutting on an angle at the side of the road,                reads: ADOBE FLAT. Beneath it an arrow points ahead. Macreedy                steers the jeep up the narrow, rutted trail between a serious                of enormous boulders.               ANOTHER ANGLE               as he drives to the far end of the boulders, reaching a flat                piece of land completely surrounded by rocks. Beyond the                rocks is what remains of a burned-out ranch house, and an                abandoned well.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               MED. SHOT - MACREEDY               in the wreckage. The remains of an iron bed. The burned-out                shell of a pick-up truck. Part of a stove. A morass of                bottles, all sizes and shapes, some of them broken. Macreedy                halts momentarily beside the well. Reaching out he touches                the warped sun-beaten boards that cover the mouth. He removes                one, and, picking up a pebble, drops it through the opening.                There is a long beat and then, from far, far below we HEAR a                faint PLUNK (o.s.). He replaces the board and walks to a                broken wall. He touches the burned out frame of a picture.                The frame falls to the ground, leaving an un-scorched square                on the surface of the wall. He goes past a solitary standing                stone chimney. Suddenly he halts, arrested by something among                the rubble, the rottenness and the ashes.               REVERSE ANGLE - WHAT HE SEES               Surrounded by the seared and blackened earth is a rectangular                patch of lovely wild flowers.               BACK TO MACREEDY               studying the brightly colored flowers. His face is lined in                thought. He stoops, gathers a few buds in his hand. He                examines them, his brow furrowed. As he slowly twirls a flower                between thumb and forefinger, CAMERA PANS from Macreedy in a                long slow arc, taking in miles and miles of barren wasteland.                CAMERA RISES, TILTING UPWARD to a cliff far away and shielded                from Macreedy's view by the intervening rocks and ridges.               EXTREME LONG SHOT - CLIFF                and on it the outline of an automobile.               MED. SHOT - THE CAR                empty. It is parked on a narrow dirt road. On one side of                the road the cliff falls abruptly to the valley far below;                on the other, the steep, shaly outcropping continues to rise.                For a moment CAMERA HOLDS on the car. Then it PANS SLOWLY                upward about fifty feet, HOLDING this time on...               PINNACLE OF CLIFF                where a man is looking off toward Adobe Flat through a pair                of high-powered glasses. The man is Coley Trimble.               ADOBE WELLS - MACREEDY               Grimly he walks toward the jeep, still holding the wild                flowers. Now he pockets them, jumps into the vehicle and                drives off.               THE CLIFF - COLEY               continues to train his glasses on Macreedy far below in the                moving jeep.               THE JEEP - MACREEDY               driving steadily over rough, rocky terrain.               COLEY               climbs down from the pinnacle of the cliff and enters a big,                powerful '36 Packard sedan.               MACREEDY               shifts to low gear as the jeep presses into hilly country.               COLEY - IN HIS CAR               turns on the ignition.               MACREEDY - IN THE JEEP               as it winds along a road with the cliff rising on one side                and falling off steeply on the other. He rounds a curve,                passes an insignificant side road, drives on.               THE SIDE ROAD               The car with Coley at the wheel pulls out, follows Macreedy.               INTERCUT between the two cars, with the distance between                them constantly diminishing.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. - FLAT ROAD               a straightaway, cutting through rocky outcroppings on both                sides. Macreedy's jeep roars by, pursued by the gaining                Packard.               CLOSE SHOT - MACREEDY IN JEEP - (PROCESS)               For the first time he is aware that he is being followed,                and that the man at the wheel of the big Packard is Coley.               SHOT - PACKARD               picking up tremendous speed.               EXT. - ROAD BED               proceeding over a series of turns, inclines, declivities                (according to location terrain). Engines roar, brakes whinny,                tires scream, skidding on the turns.               ANOTHER ANGLE - ROAD BED                as Coley overtakes Macreedy. He steers the big car within a                foot or two of the jeep. The terrain has steepened; on the                right there is nothing between the road and the valley floor                far below but a few inches of soft shoulder.               As Macreedy pulls wide on a razor turn, Coley tries to come                inside him. Macreedy, fighting for control of the veering                jeep, succeeds in cutting him off.               CURVE IN ROAD               In the approach, Coley cuts sharp into the jeep. The jeep                seems to roll with the blow, then leaps ahead, maneuvering                the turn.               CLOSE SHOT COLEY IN CAR (PROCESS)               Coley is flustered, his face blood-shot with fury. He seems                to generate an atmosphere of vicious, cruel craziness; the                wild smile across his mouth is almost sensual, obscene. He                floorboards the Packard. Like some monstrous battering ram,                the heavy car smashes into the jeep's rear bumper, kicking                the smaller vehicle jerkily ahead. Coley floorboards the gas                pedal, again. Each time he slams into the jeep with sickening                force, with the brutal abrasion of metal pounding metal.               CLOSE SHOT - MACREEDY - (PROCESS)               With one arm he works frantically to keep his under-sized                car on the twisty road. He sees ahead a precipitous cliff                falling off on an impossibly sharp curve. He makes a                decision...               Just ahead the gradient is comparatively gradual, however                steep by normal standards. He swings the jeep off the road,                onto the declivity. The car plunges downward, miraculously                upright. Macreedy jockeys it to a whirring, shuddering halt                in the soft sand at the bottom of a draw.               Macreedy turns slightly and looks up the mountain-side with                the road at its summit...               WHAT HE SEES: EXTREME LONG SHOT - COLEY               standing at the edge of the road, peering down at him. In                b.g., the Packard. Coley turns emphatically, gets into car,                drives off.               BACK TO MACREEDY               His face is caked with the sweat of his exertions and dust                kicked up by the grinding wheels. He exhales heavily and                runs a shaky hand across the side of his head. He becomes                aware suddenly of a NOISE, a trickling, an unmistakable tinkle                as of running water. He frowns, opens the jeep door...               MEDIUM SHOT - JEEP                as Macreedy unlatches the hood and throws it open. The NOISE                continues. Macreedy examines the engine and finds the                difficulty...               INSERT - ENGINE                focal point: the nut joining the gas line with the carburetor                has worked loose in the jouncing the car has taken. With his                hand Macreedy screws it tight.               MEDIUM SHOT - JEEP                as Macreedy lowers the hood, re-enters jeep. He turns on                ignition. The engine fires. As he drives slowly out of the                ravine...                                                                  DISSOLVE:               EXT. BLACK ROCK - MAIN STREET CLOSE SHOT - HECTOR                his long face even more horsey than usual, with half an apple                in his mouth. He stands in front of the grocery store, with                the baskets of fruit on the sidewalk. He looks up, stops                crunching.               CLOSE SHOT - SAM                at the window of the Bar & Grill, cleaning an ear with a                toothpick. He looks out. The toothpick is motionless.               CLOSE SHOT - HASTINGS                fidgeting outside his shack. He looks up. His Adam's apple                turns completely over.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               REVERSE SHOT - WHAT THEY SEE               Macreedy slowly driving the jeep toward Liz's garage. He                looks neither to the right nor left.               GROUP SHOT - FAVORING SMITH AND COLEY               Standing on the porch of the hotel, watching. Smith's face                compresses, and his eyes swivel to rest on Coley's with cold,                contemptuous anger. Coley licks his lips uneasily. Smith                turns and enters the hotel. Coley meekly follows.               FULL SHOT - MACREEDY               He brakes the jeep before the garage. No one is there. He                parks the vehicle, gets out and heads down the street.               EXT. HOTEL               Macreedy is about to go up the steps when he sees Coley's                car at the curb. Both right fenders are creased. An ugly,                jagged break has split the front bumper almost in half, one                part angling crazily toward the sky, the other drooping in                the dust of the road. Smith and Coley come out of the hotel.                They stand on the porch, watching Macreedy as he in turn                watches the car. They exchange a glance. Smith nods, so...                                     COLEY                         Well, if it's not Macreedy - the                          world's champion road hog.               He walks down the steps to the street, joining Macreedy.                Smith remains on the porch.                                     MACREEDY                         Yeah. It's a small world.                                     COLEY                         But such an unfriendly one. Now why                          did you want to crowd me off the                          road?                                     MACREEDY                              (with a slow grin)                         I'm kind of sorry if I've incurred                          your displeasure.                                     COLEY                         Look what you did to my car.                                     MACREEDY                         If there's anything I can do to make                          up for it...                                     COLEY                         You ought to be careful, man -- all                          that one-arm driving.                                     MACREEDY                         I'd be glad to pay the damages.                                     COLEY                         It's a threat to life and limb.                                     MACREEDY                         Fortunately no one was hurt.                                     COLEY                         You could get yourself killed that                          way -- nosin' all over the                          countryside.                                     MACREEDY                         That's the real danger, I can see                          that.                                     COLEY                         Why that's pretty smart of you. How                          long you intend to keep it up?                                     MACREEDY                         I'm getting out of here, right now.               He walks up the steps, past Smith, and into the hotel. Coley                glances up at Smith, grinning with self-satisfaction, like a                small boy who has carried out perfectly the instructions of                his teacher.               INT. HOTEL               The lobby empty except for Pete behind the desk. Macreedy                goes to him. Pete seems elaborately occupied arranging and                re-arranging a few file cards. Smith enters the lobby. He                stands in b.g. watching Macreedy and the desk clerk.                                     MACREEDY                              (to Pete)                         Still expecting that convention?                                     PETE                              (looking up)                         What...?                                     MACREEDY                         If you're expecting any extra cowboys,                          my room is available.                                     PETE                         You're checking out?                                     MACREEDY                              (nodding)                         Is there a train through here tonight?                                     PETE                         Nothing till tomorrow morning. The                          streamliner.                                     MACREEDY                         I know that. How about freights?                              (Pete shakes his head)                         Milk train?                                     PETE                         Tomorrow. After the streamliner.                                     MACREEDY                         Busses?                                     PETE                         Closest stop is Sand City -- thirty-                         two miles away.                              (a beat)                         You're in such a hurry, you should                          have never got off here.                                     MACREEDY                         I'm inclined to agree with you.               He turns, walks toward porch. Pete looks at Smith. Smith's                eyes follow Macreedy.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. LIZ'S GARAGE - FULL SHOT               In the gloom of the lube pit, Liz's mechanic, a dirty old                man, is draining the oil out of the crankcase of the car on                the rack. The girl stands beside the pit, silently watching                the old man. Now she pauses, looks o.s. toward the open garage                doors...               WHAT SHE SEES - MACREEDY                entering the scene, stopping to look at Liz's jeep parked in                front of the wide doors. He turns his eyes vaguely in the                direction of Liz, but he doesn't see her in the shadows behind                the car on the rack, He advances a step, pausing...                                     MACREEDY                         Anybody home?               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               EXT. LUBE PIT - LIZ               She does not answer. Instead, she silently twists the                crankcase petcock, stopping the flow of oil. She watches                Macreedy closely.               INT. GARAGE               Macreedy again shifts his eyes to the jeep, then, with                decision, he goes to a work bench, opening the drawers and                rummaging among the contents.                                     LIZ                              (o.s.)                         If you're looking for the jeep key...               Macreedy turns as Liz comes toward him. She gestures toward                the open drawers.                                     LIZ                         ...it's not there...               Macreedy waits for her to go on. She doesn't. She stands                there, staring at him.                                     MACREEDY                              (after a beat)                         In that case, where do you suggest I                          look?               She turns, walks back toward the lube pit.                                     LIZ                              (over her shoulders)                         The jeep's not for rent.                                     MACREEDY                         It was, just a few hours ago.                                     LIZ                              (flatly)                         Things change.                                     MACREEDY                              (with grim amusement)                         Sure. And Smith is the kid who changes                          'em.               She doesn't answer. Macreedy goes to her.                                     MACREEDY                         Miss Brooks.                              (softly)                         What's the matter with this town of                          yours?                                     LIZ                         Nothing. It's none of your concern.                                     MACREEDY                         Then why are they all so concerned                          about me?                                     LIZ                         Am I concerned?                                     MACREEDY                         No, you're not. But...                                     LIZ                         But what?                                     MACREEDY                              (easily)                         But it strikes me you're a little                          too unconcerned. So unconcerned you                          won't even rent me a jeep.                                     LIZ                              (flaring)                         I don't run a taxi service. I don't                          have a license.                                     MACREEDY                         I wish others in this town were as                          scrupulously devoted to law and order                          as you are.                                     LIZ                              (hotly)                         Why don't you lay off! If you don't                          like it here, go back where you came                          from!                                     MACREEDY                         Funny thing. They try to kill me,                          and you feel persecuted.                                     LIZ                         I don't want to get involved.                                     MACREEDY                         Involved in what?                                     LIZ                              (retreating)                         Whatever you're up to. Whatever                          happens, I've got to go on living                          here. These people are my neighbors,                          my friends.                                     MACREEDY                         All of them?                                     LIZ                              (slowly)                         This is my town, Mr. Macreedy, like                          it or not. Whatever happened here,                          it was long ago, now it's... it's...                                     MACREEDY                              (evenly)                         Dead and buried?                              (a beat)                         Whatever did happen, you don't seem                          to like it. Why do you stick around?                                     LIZ                              (after a beat)                         Because of my brother. Pete. He'd                          never leave.                                     MACREEDY                         Didn't you ever think of going without                          him. You're sort of independent and                          he's... he's...                                     LIZ                         Weak. I know. That's why I couldn't                          leave him.                                     MACREEDY                              (softly)                         What did your brother do?                                     LIZ                         He... I...                              (flaring again)                         What do you care? What do you care                          about Black Rock?                                     MACREEDY                         Nothing much. Only, there're not                          many places like this in America --                          but even one is too many. Because I                          think something sort of bad happened                          here.                              (frowning)                         Something I can't find the handle                          to...                                     LIZ                         You just think so. You don't know.                                     MACREEDY                         This much I know -- the rule of law                          has been suspended in this town. The                          gorillas have taken over.                                     LIZ                         You're a fine one to talk! You come                          in here, sneaking around, trying to                          steal the key to my jeep.                                     MACREEDY                         I kind of had a notion that was the                          only way I could get it.               She opens her mouth to answer, but she doesn't know what to                say.                                     MACREEDY                              (simply)                         Was I wrong, Miss Brooks?               He waits as she tries to answer, and again she can't. For a                moment he watches her struggle in anguished silence with                herself. Then he turns and goes out.               EXT. MAIN STREET - MACREEDY               walks thoughtfully down street. He comes abreast of hotel.               EXT. PORCH OF HOTEL               where Smith is still sitting. For a moment he watches Macreedy                speculatively, then...                                     SMITH                              (calling)                         Mr. Macreedy.                              (reasonably, as                               Macreedy turns toward                               him)                         I'd like to ask you a few questions...                          as long as you're around...                                     MACREEDY                              (walking up steps)                         I'm around all right.               He stands facing Smith on the porch, then...                                     MACREEDY                              (with just a touch of                               wryness)                         You probably know that Miss Brooks                          is no longer in the car rental                          business?                                     SMITH                              (solemnly)                         Good. I wouldn't want to see that                          girl get into trouble...                                     MACREEDY                         You wouldn't?                                     SMITH                         ...what with rental permits, gas                          rationing... you know what I mean.                                     MACREEDY                         Sure. I admire your sturdy sense of                          responsibility.                                     SMITH                              (dismissively)                         It's just, a girl like that has a                          future.                                     MACREEDY                         Let's talk about my future.                                     SMITH                              (almost slyly)                         Do you have the time?                                     MACREEDY                         I don't seem to be going any place.               He takes the other chair.                                     SMITH                              (after a pause)                         I hear you handle a jeep real well.                                     MACREEDY                         I have a way with jeeps. A certain                          familiarity.                                     SMITH                         I think I understand. You're an Army                          man.                              (looking at Macreedy's                               stiff arm)                         Where'd you get it?                                     MACREEDY                         Italy.                                     SMITH                              (sincerely)                         Tough. I tried to get in myself, the                          day after those rats bombed Pearl                          Harbor.                                     MACREEDY                         What stopped you?                                     SMITH                         The physical. They wouldn't take me.                          The morning after Pearl, I was the                          first man in line at Marine recruiting                          in Sand City. And they wouldn't take                          me.                                     MACREEDY                              (flatly)                         Tough.                                     SMITH                         What do you do in Los Angeles, Mr.                          Macreedy?                                     MACREEDY                         I'm retired.                                     SMITH                         You're a pretty young man...                                     MACREEDY                         You might say I was forced into                          retirement.                                     SMITH                         What were you looking for in Adobe                          Flat?                                     MACREEDY                         Komako, like I told you. Like you                          told me, he wasn't there.               Smith laughs quietly.                                     MACREEDY                         What's so funny?                                     SMITH                         Nothing. It's just -- I don't believe                          you. I believe a man is as big as                          what he seeks. I believe you're a                          big man, Mr. Macreedy.                                     MACREEDY                         Flattery will get you nowhere.                                     SMITH                         Why would a man like you be looking                          for a lousy Jap farmer?                                     MACREEDY                         Maybe I'm not so big.                                     SMITH                         Yes, you are.                              (a beat; looking hard                               at Macreedy)                         I believe that a man is as big as                          the things that make him mad. Nobody                          around here has been big enough to                          make you mad.                                     MACREEDY                         What makes you mad, Mr. Smith?                                     SMITH                         Me...? Nothing in particular.                                     MACREEDY                              (bemused)                         I see. You're a big man, too. Only...                              (calmly)                         ...the Japanese make you mad...                                     SMITH                         That's different. After the sneak                          attack on Pearl Harbor... after                          Bataan...                                     MACREEDY                         ...and Komako made you mad.                                     SMITH                         It's the same thing.                              (scoffing)                         Loyal Japanese-Americans -- that's a                          laugh. They're mad dogs. Look at                          Corregidor, the death march.                                     MACREEDY                         What did Komako have to do with                          Corregidor?                                     SMITH                         Wasn't he a Jap? Look, Macreedy,                          there's a law in this county against                          shooting dogs. But if I see a mad                          dog loose, I don't wait for him to                          bite me.                              (exhales sharply,                               shaking his head                               with irritation)                         I swear, you're beginning to make me                          mad.                                     MACREEDY                              (calmly)                         All strangers do.                                     SMITH                         Not all. Some of 'em. When they come                          here snooping.                                     MACREEDY                         Snooping for what?                                     SMITH                         I mean, outsiders coming around,                          looking for something.                                     MACREEDY                              (pressing)                         For what?                                     SMITH                         I don't know. People are always                          looking for something in this part                          of the West. To the historian, it's                          the "Old West." To the book writers,                          it's the "Wild West." To the                          businessmen, it's the "Undeveloped                          West." They all say we're backward                          and poor, and I guess we are.                              (snorts)                         We don't even have enough water.                              (a beat)                         But this place, to us, is our West.                              (heatedly)                         I just wish they'd leave us alone.                                     MACREEDY                         Leave you alone to do what?                                     SMITH                              (coldly)                         I don't know what you mean.                                     MACREEDY                         What happened to Komako?                                     SMITH                         He went away, I told you. Shortly                          after he left, a bunch of kids got                          fooling around out his place. They                          burned it down. It was one of those                          things -- you know how kids are.               Macreedy laughs quietly.                                     SMITH                         What's funny?                                     MACREEDY                         Nothing. Only -- I don't believe                          you. Any more than I believed you                          about the letters.                                     SMITH                              (smiling)                         You don't seem to believe anything I                          say.                                     MACREEDY                              (vaguely)                         Yes, I do -- about businessmen, for                          instance. I think a businessman would                          be interested in Adobe Flat.                                     SMITH                         Why?                                     MACREEDY                         All that land lying fallow. Could be                          put to some use. Like a graveyard.                              (Smith opens his mouth                               to speak but Macreedy                               goes on)                         A historian might be interested,                          too. Because of the strange customs                          around here, such as burying cattle...                                     SMITH                         Burying cattle...?                                     MACREEDY                              (calmly)                         Something's buried out there.               He takes the wild flowers from his pocket, holding them in                front of Smith.                                     MACREEDY                         See these wild flowers? That means a                          grave. I've seen it overseas. I figure                          it isn't a man's grave or someone                          would have marked it. Sort of a                          mystery, isn't it?                                     SMITH                         Sort of. Maybe you can figure it                          out.               Macreedy gets up, half turns to Smith.                                     MACREEDY                         Maybe.               He starts down the steps.                                     SMITH                         Why not give it a whirl?                              (Macreedy turns)                         It'll help you pass the time...                              (continued;                               meaningfully)                         ...for a while.                                     MACREEDY                         Not interested. I got other things                          to do.               He turns and walks down the street.               EXT. MAIN STREET - MACREEDY               headed towards Doc's establishment. The building, which serves                Doc as home, office and laboratory, has centered on a pane                of glass:               T.R. VELIE, JR. UNDERTAKER AND VETERINARY               And in the lower right hand corner:               ASSAYER NOTARY PUBLIC               A few of the peeled gold and black letters are completely                missing.               The building is separated from the structure next to it by                an alleyway. Filling the narrow passage is Hector David, his                long massive body wedged against the wall like an unkempt                monument. His little pig eyes meet Macreedy's. Hector spits                in the dust with bland insolence.               EXT. DOC'S OFFICE - MACREEDY               walks up the steps and enters.               INT. DOC'S OFFICE               Dark and shadowy. At the far end of a hallway an insipid                light bulb burns. Macreedy goes toward it, entering...               INT. DOC'S LAB               devoted to the care and preservation of the Dear Departed.                In the center of the room is a long rectangular slab stained                with the juices of those unfortunates who have had occasion                to rest thereon. The walls are lined with rickety bookcases                jammed, not with volumes, but with the jugs and jars, the                chemicals and unguents of Doc's multiple callings. In a corner                three or four neat pine boxes are stacked one on the other.               Doc sits at a cluttered desk feeding a large bowl of goldfish                and sipping a glass of milk. He looks up as Macreedy enters.                                     DOC                         Hi. Pull up a chair.                                     MACREEDY                              (nodding)                         Can I use your phone?                                     DOC                         Help yourself.                              (chuckles)                         You know, you're one of the few people                          who's ever been back here I can say                          that to.               Macreedy reaches for the phone book.                                     DOC                         It's 4-2-4.                                     MACREEDY                              (pausing)                         What's 4-2-4?                                     DOC                         If I've got you pegged -- and I think                          I have -- you're calling the State                          Police. But if I was you -- and I'm                          purely glad I'm not -- I'd look it                          up myself.                              (emphatically)                         I wouldn't trust anybody around here,                          including me.               Macreedy thinks it over and comes to a swift decision. He                checks the phone book. Then, picking up phone...                                     MACREEDY                              (to Doc)                         Thanks.                              (into receiver)                         4-2-4.               INT. TELEPHONE OPERATOR'S OFFICE               a cubbyhole behind the hotel clerk's desk in the lobby. At                the switchboard is Pete, and above him tacked on the wall is                the sign:               SMILE                                     PETE                              (into phone)                         4-2-4...?                              (he looks up)               CAMERA PULLS BACK revealing Smith standing beside him. The                two men exchange a nod.                                     PETE                              (into phone)                         Lines 're busy.                              (he clicks off the                               instrument)               INT. DOC'S LAB               Macreedy slowly puts down the phone. Doc sips his milk, all                the while staring queasily over the glass at Macreedy. He                puts it down, his gaze still fixed on the stranger...                                     DOC                              (sing-song)                         I know -- don't tell me -- lines all                          busy. They'll be busy all day.                                     MACREEDY                              (after a beat,                               grimacing)                         Don't look at me like that.                                     DOC                         Like what?                                     MACREEDY                         Like I'm a potential customer.                                     DOC                         Everybody is -- and I get 'em coming                          and going.               He goes to a topographic map hanging on the wall -- a large,                impressive map -- faded, fly-blown and divided into sections.                                     DOC                              (gesturing toward it)                         First I sell 'em a piece of land.                          Think they farm it? Nope. They dig                          for gold.               He moves to photograph beside the map on the wall -- a large,                impressive photograph of a placer mine in operation.                                     DOC                         They rip off the top soil of ten                          winding hills. They sprint in here,                          fog-heaved with excitement, lugging                          nuggets, big and bright and shiny.               He moves to his desk, picks up a glistening blob of stone,                resting next to an assayer's scales, and examines it...                                     DOC                              (rhetorically)                         Is it gold?               He bangs the rock down next to the scales.                                     DOC                         It is not! Do they quit? They do                          not!               He moves to a third illustration -- a colored reproduction,                large and impressive -- of acres upon green acres of produce                in bloom; the kind of picture Southern Pacific places above                its calendars.                                     DOC                              (with theatrical                               gesture toward                               reproduction)                         Then they decide to farm. Farm! In                          country so dry you have to prime a                          man before he can spit, and before                          you can say "Fat Sam" they're stalled,                          stranded and starving. They get weevil-                         brained and buttsprung...               He moves to the coffins piled in a corner and runs his hand                down the smooth pine sides with loving tenderness.                                     DOC                              (simply)                         So I bury 'em.                              (a beat, as he rejoins                               Macreedy in the center                               of the room)                         But why should I bore you with my                          triumphs?                                     MACREEDY                         Yeah. I've got a problem of my own.               Doc nods; he points vaguely toward the street...                                     DOC                              (like an old testament                               prophet)                         They're going to kill you with no                          hard feelings.                                     MACREEDY                              (nastily)                         And you'll just sit on your hands                          and let them.                                     DOC                         Don't get waspish with me, young                          feller.                                     MACREEDY                         Sorry.                                     DOC                         I feel for you, but I'm consumed                          with apathy. Why should I mix in?                                     MACREEDY                         To save a life.                                     DOC                         I got enough trouble saving my own.                              (he refills his glass                               from a milk bottle                               on the desk)                         I try to live right and drink my                          orange juice every day. But mostly I                          try to mind my own business. Which                          is something I'd advise you to do.                                     MACREEDY                         It's a little late for that...                                     DOC                         You can still get out of town. And                          you'd better get out like a whisper.                                     MACREEDY                         How can I?                                     DOC                              (taking a key ring                               from his pocket)                         I got sort of a limousine at your                          disposal.                                     MACREEDY                         Where is it?                                     DOC                              (tossing him the key)                         Out back.               Macreedy snares the key and walks out. Doc gets up to follow                him.               EXT. REAR OF DOC'S OFFICE               An old-fashioned hearse, with plate glass sides and elaborate                lead candelabra -- Doc's "limousine" -- is parked a few steps                from the door. Macreedy climbs in behind the wheel as Doc                comes out and stands on the small back porch.               Macreedy turns on the ignition switch. His foot kicks over                the starter, but the spark doesn't catch. He tries again,                then again. He pauses, frowns, as Doc comes down from the                porch and joins him.                                     MACREEDY                              (concentrating on the                               dashboard)                         Won't start.                                     DOC                              (nervously, to Macreedy)                         Something wrong?                                     MACREEDY                         Just won't start...               Again he presses the ignition switch. Nothing. And suddenly,                in b.g., the great bulk of Hector David looms up, leaning                against the porch pillar at the corner of the alleyway. His                expression is almost dreamy. For a moment he stands there                while Macreedy toys with the ignition and the sick engine                wheezes and grinds. Then he ambles up to the hearse...                                     HECTOR                              (gratuitously)                         Could be the wirin'. Why don't you                          look under the hood?                                     MACREEDY                         For that I thank you.                              (pause)                         How much time you think I've got                          before...?                                     DOC                         They'll wait at least till dark.                              (angrily)                         They'd be afraid to see each other's                          faces.                                     MACREEDY                              (slapping Doc's                               shoulder lightly)                         Well, so long, Doc. I can't say it's                          been charming but...                                     DOC                         Where are you going?                                     MACREEDY                         I don't know. But I'm going on foot.                                     DOC                         That's no good. You stray ten yards                          off Main Street, and you'll be stone,                          cold dead.                              (offers Macreedy a                               cigarette)                         That's the situation, in a nut.               Macreedy takes the cigarette, lighting a match with one hand.                He puts the fire to Doc's smoke and then lights his own. He                inhales, exhales, thinking. Finally...               Macreedy gets out of the car. Hector has already opened the                hood. Doc peers nervously over his shoulder. As they study                the engine, Hector's horsey face appears behind them. He                gestures toward the engine.               INSERT - THE ENGINE               Focal point: a hopeless snarl of ignition wires.               BACK TO SCENE                                     HECTOR                         It's the wirin', like I said. Now                          wasn't that a good guess?               Slowly he takes off his wrist watch and puts it in his pants                pocket.                                     MACREEDY                              (quietly)                         It can be fixed.               Ignoring Hector, he bends over the engine, controlling his                obvious awareness that Hector has fouled up the ignition.                                     HECTOR                         Easy. Unless, of course, this here                          wire...                              (reaching inside the                               hood, pointing)                         ...got broke or something.                                     DOC                              (suddenly, heatedly,                               turning on Hector)                         Do the nice little things, like keep                          your big fat nose out of my business.               Hector's eyes go hard. He reaches out suddenly, one great                hand closing over the distributor cap. He yanks, ripping the                feed wires out of their sockets.                                     HECTOR                              (triumphantly, holding                               up the wires)                         Yep. It's the wirin'.               Still gripping the wires, he walks off. Doc simmers down. He                turns to face Macreedy, who hasn't moved. Now Macreedy slowly                lowers the hood of the car.                                     DOC                              (softly, after a beat)                         I'm sorry, son. You got to admit, I                          tried.                                     MACREEDY                              (as if to himself)                         Maybe...                                     DOC                         Maybe what?                                     MACREEDY                         If I can't get out of town, maybe I                          can get the state cops in.                                     DOC                              (irritably)                         You tried the phone, didn't you? You                          know what happened, don't you?                                     MACREEDY                         There's another way. I'll be seeing                          you, Doc.               He walks off. Doc looks after him grimly.                                     DOC                              (calling)                         I hope you'll be seeing me.                                                            QUICK DISSOLVE:               INT. TELEGRAPH AGENT'S OFFICE               Macreedy stands at the high counter, writing on a Postal                Telegraph blank. Behind the counter, watching him nervously,                is Hastings. At the agent's elbow is a big pitcher with dew                on the glass. It holds a pale liquid and a chunk of ice. His                eyes on Macreedy, Hastings refills a glass tumbler. He takes                a gulp as Macreedy puts down the pencil and pushes the message                toward him. Now Hastings puts down his glass, picks up the                form and scans it hurriedly. He looks at Macreedy, eyes glazed                with anxiety...                                     HASTINGS                         You notifyin' the state po-lice?                                     MACREEDY                              (putting a bill on                               the counter)                         That's what it says.               Hastings again refills his glass, slopping the liquid over                on the counter. He picks up the glass, hesitates, offers it                awkwardly to Macreedy.                                     HASTINGS                              (plaintively)                         Lemonade?               Macreedy shakes his head. No.                                     HASTINGS                              (mopping his forehead)                         It's hot as Billy-be-durned.               He drinks, puts down the glass. Macreedy pushes the bill                across the counter toward him. Hastings picks it up gingerly                then pauses...                                     HASTINGS                         Don't you like lemonade?                                     MACREEDY                         I never thought much about it.                                     HASTINGS                         It don't have the muzzle velocity of                          some other drinks drunk around here,                          but it's good for what ails you.                                     MACREEDY                              (after a beat)                         What ails you, Mr. Hastings?                                     HASTINGS                         Me...?                                     MACREEDY                         Why are you so upset about...                              (points)                         ...this wire?                                     HASTINGS                         Me...?                                     MACREEDY                         Are you afraid, Mr. Hastings?                                     HASTINGS                         Me...?                              (a beat, then softly)                         I guess I am.                              (awkwardly he puts                               Macreedy's bill back                               on the counter)                         But what's the use talkin'...?                              (with grudging respect)                         You don't know what it's like, being                          scared.                                     MACREEDY                              (not unsympathetically)                         You want me to describe the symptoms?                          Right this minute I'm scared half to                          death.                                     HASTINGS                              (simply)                         You should be.                                     MACREEDY                         Yeah. But not of the state police.                                     HASTINGS                              (stonily)                         Neither am I.                                     MACREEDY                         Then what are you afraid of? The                          grave at Adobe Flat? A grave nobody                          marked, nobody knows anything about.                                     HASTINGS                         That ain't it, either.                                     MACREEDY                         Is it Smith?                              (no answer)                         Is it?!                                     HASTINGS                              (squirming)                         Look, Mr. Macreedy. I'm just a good                          neighbor...                                     MACREEDY                         To Smith you are. How about to Komako?                                     HASTINGS                              (meeting Macreedy's                               eyes)                         I never seen Komako in my life.                          Honest.                                     MACREEDY                              (again pushes the                               bill toward Hastings)                         Then send that wire, and bring me                          the answer. You'll do that, won't                          you?                                     HASTINGS                              (pauses, then worriedly                               picking up the bill)                         Yes, sir.               Macreedy turns and walks out. Hastings stands sweating,                staring hard at the message in his hand as...                                                            QUICK DISSOLVE:               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               INT. SAM'S BAR & GRILL               A few loafers are at the bar, draped bonelessly on high                stools. There is the usual array of bottles and glasses                aligned before a cracked, discolored mirror. In the corner                is a jukebox. Along the opposite wall is a line of low stools                facing a counter covered with oil-cloth thumb-tacked in place.                Behind it is a greasy hot plate and a couple of soiled                displays -- breakfast food, soft drinks, etc. At the grill                counter is Sam, cleaning his finger-nails with a toothpick.                At the bar, engaged in a worrisome conversation, are four                loafers, FRANKLIN KROOL, WALT MURTRY, RON BENTHAM and STERLING                LENARD.                                     KROOL                         I tell you, I won't have anything to                          do with it.                                     MURTRY                              (nodding emphatically)                         Live and let live, that's what I                          say.                                     BENTHAM                              (frowning)                         I don't know. I just don't know.                                     LENARD                              (to Bentham)                         You gonna brood about it? Or you                          want another beer?                                     BENTHAM                         A beer, I guess. Only...               He looks up, and something makes him hesitate...               WHAT HE SEES -- EXT. BAR & GRILL - MACREEDY                stopping in front of the restaurant. On the window large,                rough capital letters in water paint proclaim:               SAM'S SANITARY BAR & GRILL               Macreedy pauses, shrugs and then enters.               INT. BAR & GRILL               Sam is still working on his finger nails. He evidences little                interest in the stranger, but at the bar in b.g. the loafers                stiffen. Macreedy takes a stool in front of Sam.                                     SAM                         What'll you have?                                     MACREEDY                         What have you got?                                     SAM                         Chili wit' beans.                                     MACREEDY                         Anything else?                                     SAM                         Chili wit'out beans.               Macreedy winces.                                     SAM                         You don't like the taste, that's                          what they make ketchup for.                                     MACREEDY                         In that case, I'll have it. And a                          cup of coffee.               The door of the Bar & Grill opens. Smith and Coley enter.                They walk to Macreedy, stopping just a few feet behind him.                                     COLEY                              (to Macreedy, with                               menacing friendliness)                         You still around? I thought you didn't                          like this place.                                     MACREEDY                              (pleasantly)                         Going to, or coming from?                                     COLEY                         Staying put.                                     MACREEDY                         No comment.               He turns again as Sam plops an unseasonable mess of chili in                front of him.                                     COLEY                              (to Smith, gesturing                               a thumb toward                               Macreedy)                         No comment, he says. No comment, and                          all the time he's got my chair.               Macreedy smiles tiredly. He half turns toward Coley.                                     MACREEDY                         I always seem to be taking somebody's                          place around here.               He gets up, with his chili, and sits down three stools away.                Coley straddles the stool Macreedy has vacated. He squirms                on it, his movements exaggerated. Now he spins to face Smith.                                     COLEY                         This seat ain't comfortable.                                     MACREEDY                         I was afraid of that.                                     COLEY                         I think I'd like the seat you're on.                                     SMITH                              (to Macreedy, mildly)                         He's as changeable as a prairie fire.                                     MACREEDY                              (to Coley)                         Suppose you tell me where to sit.               Coley opens his mouth but, realizing he has been                outmaneuvered, closes it again. The loafers in b.g. are                silent, watching. Sam, seemingly oblivious to Coley's pressure                on Macreedy, places a bottle of ketchup in front of the                stranger. Coley gets up slowly and walks stiff-legged to                Macreedy. He takes the bottle of ketchup and, without removing                the cap, upends it over Macreedy's plate. The cap is drowned                in a deluge of ketchup which overflows the plate and runs                onto the counter.                                     COLEY                              (to Macreedy)                         I hope that ain't too much.                                     MACREEDY                              (to Smith, gesturing                               toward Coley)                         Your friend's a very [...] fellow.                                     SMITH                              (nodding)                         Sort of unpredictable, too. Got a                          temper like a rattlesnake.                                     COLEY                         That's me all over. I'm half hoss,                          half alligator. Mess with me, I'll                          kick a lung outta you. What do you                          think of that?                                     MACREEDY                         No comment.                                     COLEY                         Talking to you is like pulling teeth.                          You wear me out.                              (loudly, after a beat)                         You're a yellow-bellied Jap lover.                          Am I right or wrong?                                     MACREEDY                         You're not only wrong -- you're wrong                          at the top of your voice.                                     COLEY                         You don't like my voice?                                     MACREEDY                              (again turning to                               Smith)                         I think your friend's trying to start                          something.                                     SMITH                         Now why-ever would he want to do                          that?                                     MACREEDY                         I don't know. Maybe he figures, needle                          me enough and I'll crack. Maybe I'll                          even fight back. Then he or Hector --                          your other ape -- would beat me to                          death and cop a plea of self-defense.                                     SMITH                         I don't think that'll be necessary.                          You're so scared now you'll probably                          drown in your own sweat.                                     COLEY                         Before that happens, couldn't I pick                          a fight with you if I tied one hand                          behind me...?               Macreedy rises to go out. As he passes Coley, Coley takes                his limp left arm and spins him slowly but firmly around.                The two men face each other.                                     COLEY                         If I tied both hands...?               Macreedy shakes free of Coley's grasp. Coley lunges. His big                right fist streaks toward Macreedy's face. Macreedy ducks,                weaving with the punch. He grabs Coley's belt, twisting                Coley's body. The momentum of the swing throws Coley off                balance. As he goes past Macreedy, the stranger tugs at his                belt, twisting him to one side. He plants his left foot firmly                on the toes of Coley's left boot, for a split second anchoring                Coley in place. He chops the under side of his open hand in                a short, vicious arc that lands solidly under Coley's ear.                With the same motion, he brings the heel of his hand hard                against and slightly under the tip of Coley's nose. The                cartilage shatters. Blood spills down his face. Following                through, Macreedy's elbow smashes beneath Coley's cheekbone.                Macreedy's arm goes past the astonished, wind-burned face,                finding Coley's right wrist. He jerks the wrist out and                backward. It snaps. Coley whimpers, his face twisted in pain                and perplexity. His body lolls forward. Macreedy steps back.                He raises his right shoulder a few inches. His bent right                arm drives up like a piston attached to the shoulder's lift.                Fist and arm seem all one rigid piece with only the limber                shoulder giving them motion. The fist strikes Coley's face,                covering for a moment one side of his chin and a corner of                his mouth between cheekbone and jawbone. Coley shuts his                eyes and falls unconscious.               Smith, a puzzled expression on his face, watches Coley fall.                He takes half a step toward him. Macreedy looks at Smith.                Smith stops. Macreedy's face is wooden, with a trace of                sullenness around the hard lines of his mouth. Working                methodically, Macreedy frisks Coley. He takes from a pocket                a long, ugly knife. He snaps the spring and the four-inch                blade leaps into place. He looks at the knife in his hand                and then at Smith. He smiles gently, even dreamily.                                     MACREEDY                              (to Smith)                         Wouldn't it be easier if you just                          waited till I turned my back?                              (looking toward the                               loafers at the bar,                               then back at Smith)                         Or are there too many witnesses                          present?               Macreedy walks slowly toward him, holding the knife. The are                only three feet apart. Smith's hand goes to a pocket, closes                inside over the outline of a pistol. Sam glances from Macreedy                to Smith to the unconscious Coley. He sidles toward the door                and runs out fast. (NOTE: From this point to end of scene                INTERCUT from Macreedy and Smith to exploit the reactions of                the loafers at the bar.)                                     SMITH                              (with effortless                               ferocity)                         You're still in trouble.                                     MACREEDY                         So are you.                              (Smith snorts)                         Whatever happens -- you're lost.                                     SMITH                         You got things a bit twisted...                                     MACREEDY                         You killed Komako. Sooner or later                          you'll go up for it. Not because you                          killed him -- in this town you                          probably could have gotten away with                          it -- but because you didn't even                          have the guts to do it alone. You                          put your trust in guys like him...                              (gesturing toward the                               unconscious Coley)                         ...and Hector -- they're not the                          most dependable of God's creatures.                          Sooner or later they'll get the idea                          you're playing them for saps. What'll                          you do then -- peel them off, one by                          one? And in the meantime if any one                          of them breaks, you'll go down hard.                          Because they got something on you.                          Something to use when things get                          tough.               With a quick motion, he tosses the knife to Smith. Smith                catches it.                                     MACREEDY                         And they're getting tougher every                          minute.               He walks past Smith and goes out the door. Self-consciously                holding the knife, Smith turns to face the loafers at the                bar. They say nothing; they stare at him, through him, like                a panel of ghouls. The door opens, admitting Sam and Doc,                who carries his little black medical bag. Doc looks at Coley.                                     DOC                              (softly, full of awe)                         Man... man-oh-man.               He goes to Coley, bending down over him. Smith has remained                motionless as a monument. Now he doubles shut the knife in                his hand. He pockets it, and without even glancing at Coley,                turns quickly and goes out.                                                            QUICK DISSOLVE:               INT. HOTEL LOBBY               Doc sits deep in the battered upholstery of one of the chairs.                He stares fiercely across the room at Smith who is on the                couch, reading a neatly folded newspaper. Behind him at the                clerk's desk, Pete is fitfully involved in a game of                solitaire. At the foot of the stairs Hector is pouring change                into a slot machine. It whines, grinds, and clicks with                rhythmic monotony, but it never seems to pay off. In the                chair nearest Doc is Tim, with one of his boots off. He works                hard and with some concentration, removing the other. Then                he places them neatly at the foot of his chair. He wiggles                his toes -- watching them with some interest.               The wheeze and whir of the slot machine stops. The sudden                silence turns the eyes of the men toward Hector and the one-               arm bandit. They follow his gaze up the steps.               STAIRWAY - MACREEDY               walks down, carrying his suitcase. He goes to Pete at the                clerk's desk.                                     MACREEDY                         Anything for me?                                     PETE                         Nothing.                                     MACREEDY                         Any message -- a telegram?                                     PETE                              (returning to his                               cards)                         Nothing.               As Macreedy turns from the desk, Doc joins him.                                     DOC                              (to Macreedy, shrilly,                               gruffly)                         In case you're interested, Coley'll                          live.                              (glaring at Smith and                               Hector)                         I'm truly sorry to say.               Smith coolly continues to read his paper. It is Hector who                turns toward Doc...                                     HECTOR                              (to Doc, jerking a                               fat hand toward                               Macreedy)                         Your friend's pretty tough.                                     DOC                         Yeah. He's wicked. He defends himself                          when he's attacked.               Macreedy ignores the exchange of words. He walks across the                frayed carpet to the nearest chair and drops into it. Doc,                who has followed him, stands looking down at Macreedy for a                long moment. Then...                                     DOC                              (with some irritation)                         Well...? You going to just sit here                          and let time run out?                                     MACREEDY                         I'm waiting for a wire. From the                          state cops.                                     DOC                         You sent it through Hastings?                              (an audible sigh)                         Just don't expect an answer, if that's                          the way you sent it.                                     MACREEDY                              (looking toward the                               door)                         No?                              (he rises)               Doc follows his gaze as Hastings enters the lobby and looks                around. He sees Macreedy coming toward him. He walks rigidly                in an arc past Macreedy to Smith. He holds out a Postal                Telegraph form. Smith puts down his paper and takes it.                Macreedy, followed by Doc, goes over to Smith. Tim in his                stockinged feet joins them.               Smith scans the message. He looks up to meet Macreedy's gaze.                Smith rises. Hector swaggers over from the slot machine.                Hastings slips around the back of the couch, protected by                the barricade of Hector's great body.                                     MACREEDY                              (evenly, to Smith)                         I think that's for me.                              (he takes the message                               from Smith's hand                               and quickly glances                               at it. Looking up at                               Hastings)                         Where's the answer?               Hastings is silent. A brittle expression of bemusement crosses                Smith's features.                                     SMITH                         You expect an answer -- to a wire                          that's never sent?               Macreedy's mouth compresses in a harsh grin.                                     SMITH                         What's so funny?                                     MACREEDY                         Nothing. Just a thought --                              (his eyes turn to                               Hastings. Hastings                               wilts)                         -- a thought dazzling in its purity...               Macreedy takes a step toward Hastings. The telegraph agent                bounces away.                                     MACREEDY                              (slowly)                         You're in a jam, Hastings. You gave                          my telegram to Smith.                                     DOC                              (excitedly)                         You warty wretch! That's a federal                          offense!                                     MACREEDY                              (to Smith)                         You're in deep, too.                              (grins hard)                         Like I said, it's getting tougher                          and tougher.                              (to Tim)                         Sheriff, you'd better do something                          about this.               Tim hesitates, blinking his eyes worriedly, shifting from                one stockinged foot to the other. Smith watches him insolently                as he takes the message from Macreedy and gestures with it                vaguely...                                     TIM                              (to Smith)                         I reckon that's right, Mr. Smith...                                     HECTOR                         Don't be a jerk, Tim.                                     TIM                              (to Smith, seriously)                         Divulging information -- there's a                          law...                                     SMITH                         Tim, you're pathetic.                                     TIM                              (doggedly)                         Could be. But I'm still Sheriff.                                     SMITH                         That's the point. You're not Sheriff                          any more. You just lost a job, you're                          so pathetic.               He reaches out, clawing the badge from Tim's chest. He jabs                it on Hector's vest.                                     SMITH                              (to Hector)                         All right, Sheriff. Take over.                                     DOC                         You can't do that!                                     SMITH                         Can't I? I put him in office. Now I                          take him out.               Hector moves his elephantine bulk within inches of Macreedy...                                     HECTOR                         Now. You want to register a complaint?               Macreedy doesn't answer. Hector takes the message from Tim's                limp hand and tears it into little pieces.                                     HECTOR                         To register a complaint, boy, you've                          got to have evidence. You got                          evidence?               Macreedy doesn't answer.                                     HECTOR                         You got a big mouth, boy, makin'                          accusations, disturbin' the peace.                          There's laws in this county protectin'                          innocent folks from big mouths. Why,                          I'd just hate to...                                     SMITH                              (interrupting)                         Hector...                              (wearily)                         Come on, Hector.               He walks out, the new Sheriff strutting beside him, with                Hastings in their wake. For a moment Macreedy, Doc and Tim                stand in the center of the lobby. Pete eyes them non-               committally and goes back to his solitaire. He glances up                now and then, moving the cards with a purposeful sort of                slowness, as of a more natural swiftness restrained by his                preoccupation with the three men in the lobby.               Macreedy is deep in thought. Abstractedly he tugs at his                collar and then repeats the ritual of lighting a cigarette.                Tim's shoulders are slumped. Humiliation has corroded him,                flesh and soul. Even Doc is momentarily subdued; he too,                feels degraded, unclean. Macreedy looks from one to the other                of the good, ineffectual companions that circumstance has so                haphazardly tossed his way. He takes a few steps to his                suitcase, Doc and Tim trailing him; Doc, for want of something                better to do; Tim, out of his deep, inexpressible need for                support. Macreedy takes an untapped bottle of whiskey from                his bag. He thumbs the cork loose and holds the bottle out                to Tim. Tim takes a drink.               The light on the clerk's desk goes on, and we are aware that                day has gone and that night is falling. The pressing, fierce                light has drained from the lobby, leaving a shadowy, silvery                dreariness. The shadows have lengthened and the silver has                tarnished with the darkness.                                     DOC                              (hopefully)                         It's all right, Tim. We're not licked                          yet.                                     TIM                              (numbly)                         Ain't we? I am.                                     DOC                         There comes a time, Tim, when a man's                          just got to do something.                                     TIM                         Not me. I'm useless, and I know it.                                     DOC                              (imploring)                         No man is useless, if he's got a                          friend...               Pete comes out from behind the desk, walking from one lamp                in the lobby to another, turning them on.                                     DOC                         I'm your friend, Tim.                                     TIM                         Then let me alone.               He hands Doc the whiskey bottle.                                     DOC                              (jabbing at Macreedy                               with a thumb)                         He's going to need you before the                          night is over.               He downs a snort, then looks at Pete, who approaches them.                                     DOC                              (contemptuously)                         And all the useful men are on the                          other side.               As Pete turns on the lamp behind Doc, he reacts ever so                slightly to Doc's words. His almost imperceptible grimace is                not lost on Macreedy. Macreedy watches the young man as he                continues to light the lamps...                                     TIM                              (angrily)                         Lemme alone, I tell ya!               Doc slams the whiskey bottle down on a nearby table.                                     DOC                         I can't let you alone! I can't let                          myself alone! Don't you understand                          that?                              (he turns from Tim to                               Pete, who is unable                               to shake his gaze.                               Then, sadly, fiercely)                         Four years ago something terrible                          happened here. We did nothing about                          it. Nothing. The whole town fell                          into a sort of settled melancholy,                          and the people in it closed their                          eyes and held their tongues and failed                          the test with a whimper.               Self-consciously Pete has backed off until now he leans                against the outside of the clerk's desk. But he still can't                shut his ears to what Doc is saying...                                     DOC                         Now something terrible is going to                          happen again, and in a way we're                          lucky because we've been given a                          second chance. And this time I won't                          close my eyes, I won't hold my tongue,                          and if I'm needed I won't fail.                              (almost harshly, again                               facing Tim)                         And neither will you!               Tim sighs, running a thick hand over his forehead...                                     TIM                         I got such a headache, I'm bewildered.                          I hurt all over.                                     MACREEDY                         I know --                              (unconsciously his                               right arm strays to                               massage the paralyzed                               left)                         -- pain is bewildering. I came here                          bewildered, full of self-pity, afraid                          to fight back.                              (gesturing with his                               hand to Pete)                         And then your friend Smith tried to                          kill me.                              (the muscles around                               Pete's mouth tighten)                         Funny, how a man clings to the earth                          when he feels there's a chance he                          may never see it again.                                     DOC                         There's a difference between clinging                          to the earth...                              (eyeing Tim almost                               contemptuously)                         ...and crawling on it. You going to                          stand by and watch forever?                                     TIM                              (flatly)                         I ain't gonna watch, and I ain't                          gonna get into it, either.               There is a moment of crashing silence. Then...                                     TIM                         I'm gettin' out. I'm sorry, Mr.                          Macreedy.               Slowly he lumbers out of the lobby. Doc watches him go. Again                the benumbing silence, cut finally, unexpectedly by...                                     PETE                              (to Doc)                         You'd be smart to get out, too.                                     DOC                              (angrily turning to                               Pete)                         There's too many smart guys around                          here. I'm glad I'm a dummy.                                     PETE                         You're a troublesome dummy. You're                          liable to end up on your own slab...                                     DOC                              (heatedly)                         I expect to be in a lot more trouble                          before I die...                                     PETE                         Go home, Doc.                              (he jerks his head                               toward Macreedy, and                               with mock bravado...)                         He's all washed up.                                     MACREEDY                              (grinning harshly at                               him)                         You think so?               His right hand closes over the neck of the whiskey bottle on                the end table. Abstractedly fingering it, he walks with tense,                deliberate steps toward Pete at the desk.                                     MACREEDY                         I was washed up when I got off that                          train...               He continues to advance inexorably toward Pete.                                     PETE                              (flatly)                         You shouldn' of got off.                                     MACREEDY                         Had to. I had one last duty to perform                          before I resigned from the human                          race.                                     DOC                              (quizzically)                         I thought you were going to Los                          Angeles, that hot-bed of pomp and                          vanity. Is that resigning from the                          human race?                                     MACREEDY                              (shrugging)                         L.A.'s a good jumping off place --                          for the Islands, for Mexico, Central                          America.                                     DOC                         Why?                                     MACREEDY                              (again shrugs)                         I don't know. I was looking for a                          place to get lost, I guess.                                     DOC                         Why?                                     MACREEDY                              (slapping his paralyzed                               arm with the whisky                               bottle)                         Because of this. I thought I'd never                          be able to function again.                              (turning to Pete)                         Thanks to your friend Smith, I found                          I was wrong.               He is now within a couple of yards of Pete.                                     PETE                              (drily)                         Sure. You're a man of action.                                     MACREEDY                              (slowly)                         I know your problem.                              (with mounting vigor)                         You'd like me to die quickly, without                          wasting too much of your time...                              (Pete opens his mouth                               to say something,                               but Macreedy presses                               on)                         ...or silently, without making you                          feel too uncomfortable... or                          thankfully, without making your                          memories of the occasion too                          unpleasant.               For a moment Pete stares at Macreedy, terribly disturbed by                the incisiveness of Macreedy's analysis. Then...                                     PETE                              (bitterly)                         My memories are so pleasant as it                          is...               In sudden frustration, Pete grabs the deck of cards on the                clerk's desk and slams them down hard. They scatter. He turns,                stares blankly [...] between Doc and Macreedy.                                     MACREEDY                              (quietly pressing his                               advantage)                         What happened, Pete?               Pete doesn't answer.                                     DOC                         Are you going to tell him -- or you                          want me to?                              (beat)                         Smith owns Adobe Flat. He leased it                          to Komako -- thought he had cheated                          him, thought Komako could never even                          run stock without water. There was                          never any water on Adobe Flat. Komako                          dug a well, by hand. He must have                          went down one hundred and fifty feet.                                     PETE                         He got water, plenty. Smith was pretty                          sore. He didn't like Japs anyway.                                     DOC                         That's an understatement.                                     PETE                         The day after Pearl Harbor, Smith                          went to Sand City.                                     MACREEDY                              (interrupting)                         I know. To enlist. He was turned                          down.                                     PETE                         He was sore when he got back. About                          ten o'clock he started drinking.                                     MACREEDY                         Ten o'clock in the morning.                                     PETE                         Yeah. Hector joined him, and Coley.                          Then Sam, and about nine p.m. -- me.                          We were all drunk -- patriotic drunk.                          We went out to Komako's for a little                          fun, I guess -- scare him a little.                                     MACREEDY                         Did you know him?                                     PETE                         We'd seen him around some, but none                          of us knew him. When he heard us                          coming, he locked the door. Smith                          started a fire. The Jap came running                          out. His clothes were burning. Smith                          shot him. I didn't even know Smith                          had a gun.                                     MACREEDY                         Then you all got scared, buried him,                          kept quiet.               Pete nods helplessly, bowing his head. Macreedy sighs, looks                down at the bottle in his hand, slowly puts it on the table...                                     MACREEDY                              (softly)                         Did Komako have any family besides                          his son Joe?                                     DOC                              (puzzled)                         His son...? Nobody around here knew                          he had a son.                                     MACREEDY                         He had one. But he's dead, too. He's                          buried in Italy.                                     DOC                         What are you doing here, Mr. Macreedy?                                     MACREEDY                         Joe Komako died in Italy, saving my                          life. They gave him a medal. I came                          here to give it to his father.               Silence. Doc, realizing the enormity of Macreedy's admission,                frowns, rubs a hand across his tired eyes. Pete looks at                Macreedy for a long, shocked moment. He shivers.                                     PETE                              (awfully)                         God forgive me...               He takes the bottle from the table and shakily pours a shot                glass of liquor. As he raises it to his mouth...                                     MACREEDY                              (to Pete, harshly                               guttural)                         It'll take a lot of whiskey to wash                          out your guts...               Pete is motionless, holding the glass inches from his lips,                hypnotized by Macreedy's voice, as hard and as cold as his                eyes...                                     MACREEDY                         ...And it will never help -- not                          even a barrel full washes away murder!               Macreedy's hand shoots out, in a short, inexorable arc,                smashing his palm across the shot glass. The whiskey bursts                in a spray, the glass flies halfway across the room,                shattering as it lands against something solid. Pete is                stunned, Doc perplexed, at Macreedy's violence. They stare                at him...               Macreedy's eyes are murky. The creases between the brows                over his nose are deep. His nostrils move in and out with                his breathing. Pete and Doc regard him with growing                uneasiness. Rage comes into Macreedy's face, turning it a                painful red.                                     MACREEDY                         But maybe I'm wrong. Go on -- drink.                              (scornfully)                         What else is left for you?!                              (mounting anger)                         You're as dead as Komako, only you                          don't know it!                              (roaring)                         You also don't know that it's not                          enough to feel guilty. It's not enough                          to confess. It's not enough to say,                          "Forgive me, I've done wrong."                                     DOC                         Take it easy, Macreedy. Sit down.                                     MACREEDY                              (turning on him)                         Sit down?! Or would you rather have                          me kneel, to beg his pardon for                          raising a touchy subject?               Pete squirms under Macreedy's relentless attack.                                     PETE                              (shaking his head)                         You don't have to remind me. I've                          never forgotten...                                     MACREEDY                         Well, that's mighty noble of you.                          You feel ashamed -- that's noble,                          too.                              (in mounting crescendo)                         And four years from now you'll                          probably be sitting here telling                          somebody else you haven't forgotten                          me. That's progress -- you'll still                          be ashamed but I'll be dead.               Macreedy grabs the bottle, shoving it across the table toward                Pete.                                     MACREEDY                         Go on, have your drink.                              (with exorbitant scorn)                         You need it.               Pete pushes the bottle aside, too ravaged by Macreedy's words                and his own thoughts to drink. He shakes his head grimly and                then, with sudden decision, goes to the switchboard and plugs                in a line.                                     DOC                              (leaning over counter,                               staring at him)                         What are you doing?                                     PETE                              (into phone, ignoring                               Doc)                         Hello, Liz. Now listen... I... 'm                          getting Macreedy out of town...               ANOTHER ANGLE - MACREEDY AND DOC               as they exchange a glance. Doc takes a long, deep breath of                relief. Macreedy frowns thoughtfully. He strains to listen                to Liz, but all he (and we) can hear is the staccato jumble                of her words over the wire.               WIDER ANGLE - FAVORING PETE               he cuts Liz short...                                     PETE                              (into phone)                         I don't care about Smith! Let him                          try to kill me -- I might as well be                          dead as...               Again Liz's voice incoherent over the phone, and again...                                     PETE                              (into phone,                               interrupting)                         Liz, Liz... There's not much of me                          left any more, but however little it                          is I won't waste it!                              (again Liz's voice                               briefly; then...)                         I'm telling you because we need your                          help.                              (again Liz's voice)                         ...No matter about the past -- you've                          got to do this! You'd be saving two                          lives, Liz. Macreedy's, and mine.                              (again Liz answers                               and...)                         All right. Yeah... I've told him                          everything.               Slowly he replaces the phone on the switch-board. He comes                around from behind the desk, joining Macreedy and Doc.                                     PETE                              (flatly)                         She'll be here in five minutes.                                     MACREEDY                         Thanks, Pete. Thanks very much.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. HOTEL LOBBY - PETE, HECTOR AND DOC - NIGHT               Pete and Doc are nervously alert, drained of energy, waiting.                Hector is downright bored. He toys with his pistol, squinting                at it, twirling the barrel. Finding neither interest nor                pleasure in the piece, he jams it back in his holster and                strolls with exaggerated surety out on the porch.               EXT. PORCH - NIGHT               The congregation of loafers look up as Hector emerges. Imbued                with his own bullying importance, he draws the pistol,                maneuvers an extravagant pinwheel and a few other gaudy                tricks. Then he sighs as boredom again takes over. He walks                down the steps to catch a bit of air.               INT. LOBBY - DOC AND PETE               The disappearance of Hector (o.s.) down the street galvanizes                them into action. They hurry out of the lobby toward the                back of the hotel.               EXT. ALLEY - BEHIND HOTEL - NIGHT               Vague in the pallid light escaping through a few back windows.                The hotel's rear door is tightly shut. Around the far corner                of the street (extreme b.g.) comes the gangling body of Hector                David. He walks toward CAMERA. Perhaps twenty-five yards                away he stops to rest against a fence like a leaning tower.               CLOSE SHOT - HECTOR               His hand goes to a pocket and comes out with a crumpled half                pack of cigarettes. Suddenly the movement is arrested;                something at the other end of the street captures his bleak                attention.               WHAT HE SEES               A jeep, headlights off, slowly turns the corner, pulls up to                the curb and parks.               BACK TO SCENE - HECTOR               pockets his cigarettes and starts slowly for the jeep, a                quizzical frown on his horsy face. He approaches the back                door of the hotel, oblivious to it as he continues toward                the jeep.               INT. REAR HALLWAY OF HOTEL - NIGHT               At the far end b.g., toward the lobby, a single unshaded                light bulb burns dully. A slight figure stands in f.g. To                one side is a narrow U-shaped alcove blanketed in heavy                shadows. The features of the man in the hall and the slim                lines of his body blend vaguely in the darkness. With enormous                care, he turns a knob and opens the door leading to the alley                behind the hotel. Light thrown by the back windows reveals                that the figure is Pete. The same pallid light from the alley,                glancing across the alcove, momentarily illuminates it. Glued                as close to the recessed wall as is humanly possible is Doc.                He is partially shielded by one of those hotel hose wheels                around which an old fire hose is wound. The heavy brass nozzle                of the hose hangs from the end.               Doc grips a twelve-inch length of lead pipe. Pete swallows                nervously and peers outside, first to the right, then to the                left. His eyes glaze with fear, and his jaw tightens with                tension.               EXT. ALLEY - ANOTHER ANGLE - FAVORING PETE               as he stares at Hector walking toward the jeep.                                     PETE                              (controlling his                               jangled nerves)                         Hector!               Hector stops, turns to face Pete. He hesitates, then...                                     HECTOR                         Hmmmm?               Then, with a final glance at the jeep, Hector lumbers to                Pete, who disappears inside the hallway.               INT. REAR HALLWAY               as Hector enters and stops. Pete quickly closes the door                behind him and walks toward the lobby, attempting to draw                Hector toward the black alcove center screen b.g. But Hector                is not to be sucked in. He glares at Pete, waiting. (NOTE:                The following dialogue is delivered sotto voce.)                                     HECTOR                         What you want?                                     PETE                         He's still in his room. Macreedy, I                          mean.                                     HECTOR                         So...? You want me to tuck him in?                                     PETE                         I thought maybe you wanted to tell                          Smith.                                     HECTOR                              (explaining something                               he feels Pete already                               knows)                         Smith said he'd be here at midnight.                          He don't want to be disturbed.               He jams a cigarette in his mouth. Pete watches him frantically                as he searches his pockets for a match. He can't find one.                                     HECTOR                         You got a match?                                     PETE                         Come on. I got some in the lobby.               He starts to turn. Hector's pig eyes are slits of suspicion.                Before Pete can move, Hector reaches out, hooking two heavy                fingers inside a pocket of Pete's shirt. Slowly Hector's                expression changes to one of insidious cunning. His fingers                come out of Pete's pocket, and between them is a paper book                of matches.                                     HECTOR                         I thought you didn't have a match.               Pete is unable to answer. He is scared to death.               INT. ALCOVE - DOC               sweating with frustration. Hector is six feet away, and armed --                too far away for Doc to risk an attack with his lead pipe.                Doc looks around vaguely, wildly, for another weapon. A                fraction of an inch from his nose is the hose wheel. For a                split second he hesitates. Then slowly, with infinite care,                he tightens the heavy brass nozzle and begins to unwind the                hose.               INT. REAR HALLWAY               Now Hector is alert. He studies Pete's twitching face.                Elaborately he tears a match from the pack and scratches it.                It takes fire, cupped in the rampart of his big hands. It                lights up the hall, and as Hector looks around he sees                something through a mirror -- over his shoulder and six feet                away Doc materializes out of the shadows of the alcove. As                Hector whirls, going for his gun, Doc swings the hose with                sudden deadly aim. It uncoils like a snake, and the brass                nozzle crashes with a mighty thud across Hector's skull.                Hector groans. He sinks unconscious to the floor. Doc stands                there, paralyzed by his action. Pete tears toward the lobby.               INT. LOBBY               as Pete rushes in. He moves directly to the desk, leans over                and presses the buzzer behind the desk three times. He turns                and runs back toward the rear of the building.               INT. REAR STAIRS               as Macreedy barrels down. He pauses briefly in the hall as                he sees Doc still standing with the hose and the nozzle                dangling like a pendulum from his hand. Their eyes lock                briefly in understanding...                                     MACREEDY                              (with a half smile)                         I'll never forgive you, Doc...                              (he gestures toward                               Hector, out cold)                         ...for depriving me of that pleasure.               He heads toward the alley.               EXT. ALLEY                as Macreedy rushes out. He pauses, looking quickly right,                then left. He sees a jeep parked at the curb far down the                street. He runs toward it. The jeep, its headlights off,                starts for him. He swings onto the moving vehicle, falling                heavily into the seat beside Liz Brooks. He slumps there,                breathing heavily as the jeep, with a grinding of gears,                cuts through the night, picking up speed.               INT. REAR HALLWAY                as Pete joins Doc. Silently, motionlessly, the two men stare                for a long moment at Hector -- particularly at the pistol                lying beside him. Then they look at each other, and the same                thought seems to flash in their minds...                                                            QUICK DISSOLVE:               EXT. ROAD - MACREEDY AND LIZ                as they speed down the long empty ribbon of road. Liz drives                hard. Macreedy turns in the bucket seat, looking back toward                Black Rock.                                     LIZ                         Sorry I can't get more out of this                          heap.               Macreedy does not answer.                                     LIZ                              (with a burst of                               irritation)                         We could make better time with a dog                          team.                                     MACREEDY                              (calmly)                         You're doing the best you can.                              (a beat)                         Aren't you, Liz?                                     LIZ                         Don't expect too much from me.                                     MACREEDY                              (dryly)                         Don't worry, I won't.                                     LIZ                              (quickly)                         I mean, people have always expected                          things from me. You know why? Because                          I'm pretty. Well, that's not enough.               MED. SHOT - JEEP               with Liz and Macreedy as she cuts sharply into a crossroad.                She drives skillfully over the knotty road which is little                more than a trail. Her lovely features are distorted with                her discontent and the ache for attention. After a moment                she gives voice to her fantasy...                                     LIZ                              (softly)                         Maybe I could have been something --                          a model, or something.                              (glancing at him)                         You don't believe that.                                     MACREEDY                         Yes I do.                                     LIZ                         Well, I don't, really. I'm a dime a                          dozen.                                     MACREEDY                         That I don't believe.                                     LIZ                         I'm too little and too late.                                     MACREEDY                         It's never too late.                                     LIZ                         I lack the muscle.                                     MACREEDY                              (frowning)                         Why is muscle so important?                                     LIZ                              (cynically)                         Oh, you're the brainy type.                              (harshly)                         Did it take brains to rough up Coley?                          Whatever you did to Hector, you didn't                          do it with brains. How'd you get                          Pete to change his mind?                                     MACREEDY                         Not with muscle.                                     LIZ                         And not with brains, either. He's a                          pushover for a muscle man.                                     MACREEDY                         I'm beginning' to think it runs in                          the family.                              (looking at her hard)                         You think strength is in the width                          of a man's shoulders.               He does not catch the glance she darts him; his extreme                awareness is anchored not to the girl at his side but to the                terrain ahead.                                     LIZ                         I'd sure have liked to see you tangle                          with Reno Smith.                                     MACREEDY                         He wasn't around when I left... Maybe                          I will yet.               His eyes strain to sweep the country -- each boulder, each                outcropping, each stunted tree. But substance and shadow are                blurred and fuzzy in the dark night, black on black.               OUT               Sequence omitted from original script.               ANOTHER ANGLE - JEEP               with Macreedy and Liz as it winds to the far end of the                boulders on a trail that drops off into a flat basin. Solid                forms loom up in the darkness; they are unrecognizable, yet                Macreedy senses some tense familiarity with the terrain...                He frowns. Suddenly Liz brakes the jeep -- so sharply Macreedy                lurches forward in the seat.                                     MACREEDY                              (alert, expectant)                         What's this?                                     LIZ                              (vamping nervously)                         We need water...                              (she turns off engine,                               pulling ignition key                               from its lock)                         ...radiator's overheating.               She moves away from Macreedy to get out of the jeep. He                reaches across quickly, gripping her arm. She turns to face                him, disturbed by his hardness of jaw and eye...                                     LIZ                         Leggo! Leggo of me!               Suddenly they are hit by a blinding pair of headlights like                [...] The beams cut jaggedly through the night, throwing                into sharp immediate relief the lava rocks, the broken                windmill, the gutted house, the litter-strewn, unmarked grave                at Adobe Flat.               Liz throws away the ignition key. Macreedy bails out of the                jeep, still holding the girl.               CLOSE TWO SHOT - LIZ AND MACREEDY               as they fall to the earth. Macreedy pins her down. Then in                quick succession, four emphatically loud SHOTS from a rifle                squirt into the shale around them.                                     MACREEDY                              (harshly, through his                               teeth)                         You're stupid, Liz. You're a fool.                          If he finishes me, he's got to finish                          you.               He looks up blindly into the headlights glaring from the                granitic high ground some 60 yards away. His grip on the                girl's shoulder is like a steel trap. He pushes her down                beside Komako's grave, hugging the side of the jeep as a                SHOT rips the gravel at their feet. Pulling the girl with                him, he takes cover in the slight concavity of the grave.                The jeep is between them and the headlights -- between them                and the source of the gunfire. Liz struggles to break away.                Suddenly bullets kick up a storm around him. A bullet smashes                into the flowers, exploding tiny cruel fragments of dirt                into Macreedy's face. He gasps in pain, releasing Liz. He                rubs his eyes as if to convince himself that he is not blind.                Liz breaks from the grave. Now, five yards from Macreedy...                                      LIZ                              (calling toward the                               headlights)                         Smitty! Smitty!                                     SMITH'S VOICE                              (o.s.)                         I'm here, honey. Just head for the                          car.               Liz half turns, facing Macreedy with a vicious smile...                                     LIZ                              (an almost bantering                               voice)                         So long, Macreedy.               She starts toward the headlights.               GO WITH LIZ               She reaches the foot of the rocky ridge, with the two enormous                eyes on top. She begins to climb, up... up...                                     SMITH                              (o.s.)                         Just a few more steps, honey.               She is almost at the top; a vertically sheer rock about five                feet high separates her from it. She looks up at Smith,                towering over her at the edge of the precipice. He holds his                rifle almost languorously.                                     LIZ                              (breathlessly)                         Get him! Get him now!                                     SMITH                              (easily)                         First things first, honey.               The girl is frightened by the menace in Smith's voice.                                     LIZ                              (unsure, reaching out                               her hand)                         Help me up, Smitty.                                     SMITH                         You were going to help me, Liz.                              (she looks at him                               quizzically)                         I still need your help.                                     LIZ                              (confused)                         I did what you said...                                     SMITH                         You two started out in a car. That's                          the way you'll end up. Over a cliff,                          burning.                              (she tries to interrupt                               him, but he goes                               on...)                         You can blame that on Macreedy, too.                          He said I had too many witnesses.                                     LIZ                              (dry whisper)                         But why me? Why start with me?                                     SMITH                         I got to start with somebody.               He brings the rifle down, aiming almost casually at Liz. Her                eyes go wide. She steps back, spins around, running crazily                down the steep incline.                                     LIZ                              (yelling wildly)                         Macreedy! Macreedy!               A SHOT rings out. She falls forward, rolling slowly down the                embankment. She lies there. Blood trickles from the corner                of her pretty mouth. A rattling noise rises from deep in her                throat, and then subsides.               In the silence the outline of Reno Smith emerges. Holding                his rifle at the ready, his silhouette illuminated sharply                in the twin beams of light, he climbs down the side of the                cliff. He looks toward the jeep and Macreedy, not once at                the girl at his feet.                                     LIZ                              (sadly, almost                               reproachfully)                         You shouldn't have done that...               Smith pays no attention to her. He advances inexorably with                rifle held at his hip. He fires at Macreedy.               EXT. GRAVE               Macreedy wipes the last of the fragments from his eyes. His                face is still streaked with dirt and shale. He turns,                searching for something, anything, to fight back with. Then                he remembers... Stiffening, his body set, his eyes narrow,                he moves purposefully toward the front of the jeep and crawls                under it. Again Smith opens up on him. Bullet after bullet                pours into the confined space, nicking the wall, ricocheting                off the jeep with a frightening, fluttery, wheezing sound.                The firing stops again and in the silence we HEAR a familiar                TRICKLE, as in running water...               EXT. RANCH - SMITH               re-loads his rifle. Stiffly, he starts slowly down over the                rocks toward his unarmed victim...               MACREEDY               He has unscrewed the nut and unconnected the gas line with                the carburator. A spurt of gasoline is running out. With a                quick motion he picks up an empty whisky bottle from the                litter-strewn earth. He fills it with gasoline, quickly screws                the nut back on. Now he sweeps his necktie free of his collar.                Holding it with his teeth, he tears the felt lining free                from its silk face. He twists half the lining inside the                bottle, knotting the other end securely around the bottle's                neck, leaving a long strand dangling.               EXT. RANCH - CLOSE SHOT - SMITH               moving rigidly toward the hole. He stops, levels his rifle,                fires.               EXT. GRAVE - MACREEDY               pinned down in the direct line of fire. The burst of the                rifle stops.               EXT. RANCH - SMITH               not more than twenty-five yards away, advancing carefully,                rifle at the ready.               EXT. GRAVE - MACREEDY                lights a match, placing the flame to the dangling end of the                tie. It catches. He flings himself to his feet and with the                same motion whips the fiery bottle like a football, hard and                straight toward Smith. Smith fires once, fast and wild. The                bottle crashes against the rocks at his feet and bursts with                a shattering explosion. Smith screams as the razor-sharp                slivers rip his flesh. In a puff of flame, his clothes ignite.                He drops the rifle and goes down, squirming frantically on                the black ashy ground.               EXT. RANCH - FULL SHOT                favoring Macreedy as he tears out of the hole. He hurls                himself at Smith. Wooden-faced, almost dreamy-eyed, he shovels                the ashy dirt over Smith's prone chest, putting out the fire.                Smith struggles halfway to his feet. Macreedy grabs his                shoulder, helping him up. Smith looks at Macreedy through                eyes bleary with fear and pain and shock.                                     SMITH                              (through his teeth)                         Go ahead -- kill me. Now.                                     MACREEDY                         I'd like to kill you now, but you                          caused too much pain to die quickly.                              (a beat)                         You'll be tried in a court of law.                          You'll be convicted by a jury. Then                          you'll die.               He drives his right fist against Smith's chin. Smith's head                snaps back as far as it can go and then wobbles to rest on                his chest. He collapses. Macreedy blows out his breath hard.                He staggers to Liz. As he bends over her...                                                                  DISSOLVE:               EXT. BLACK ROCK - DAY (DAWN)               Liz's jeep, driven by Macreedy, rolls slowly down the empty                main street of the sleeping town. Behind him, under a tarp,                the body of the girl lies lifeless across the seat. On the                seat beside him is Smith's rifle, the balance a few inches                from Macreedy's elbow. On the right front fender of the jeep                Smith sits precariously, his shirt scorched and ragged. He                wears a sullen expression of pained indifference.               In b.g., as the jeep passes, isolated lights go on, first in                Doc's house, then in two or three others. Macreedy is                oblivious to them.               EXT. JAIL - CLOSE SHOT - A MAN               almost completely hidden, looks out grimly from a corner of                the jail window. Protruding through the bars, swiveling to                follow the progress of the jeep down the street, is the long,                ugly muzzle of a rifle.               EXT. MAIN STREET - JEEP                as Macreedy pulls up to the curb in front of the jail and                cuts the ignition. He grabs the rifle, and steps around to                Smith.                                     MACREEDY                              (tonelessly, prodding                               Smith off the fender                               with his rifle)                         Hands behind your head.               Smith complies.               EXT. JAIL               as Macreedy marches Smith up the steps. The jail door opens.                A man emerges, wearing a Mackinaw over his vest and carrying                a rifle. It is Tim. For a moment Macreedy eyes him in silence.                His gun finger tightens on the rifle in his hand. Tim's rifle,                too, is at the ready...                                     MACREEDY                              (after a beat)                         Am I going to have trouble with you?                                     TIM                         Nope. But I sure thought the situation                          was going to be like reversed. I                          thought I was going to have trouble...                              (nodding sharply in                               Smith's direction)                         ...with him. I'll take care of him.                                     MACREEDY                              (still hesitating)                         Just as you took care of his buddies?                                     TIM                         Just as I took care of his buddies.                          Me, an' Doc, and Pete...               The SOUND of running feet padding along the dirt road                increases on SOUND TRACK. Macreedy turns slightly, to see                Doc huffing toward him. The older man climbs the jail steps                and comes to an abrupt halt, his eyes going from one to the                other of the two men in the stand-off.                                     DOC                              (to Macreedy)                         It's all right, Macreedy...               He pulls Tim's Mackinaw to one side, revealing the silver-               plated star pinned at the breast.                                     DOC                         Old Tim here's got his badge back.               Macreedy swings his rifle from Tim to Smith. Tim lowers his,                stepping to one side, allowing Smith, covered by Macreedy,                to enter the jail. He goes in, Doc following. Pete sits                silently at Tim's desk.               INT. JAIL               In one of the two cells are Coley and Hector. In the other,                Sam and Hastings.                                     MACREEDY                              (looking around)                         Well. The gang is all here.                                     TIM                         I thought I'd take one last whack at                          my job. Even if Smith killed me for                          it.                                     MACREEDY                              (jerking his head                               toward Smith)                         Put him in with Hastings.               Tim turns his key in the cell door. Macreedy tiredly goes to                Pete at the desk.                                     MACREEDY                         Your sister's outside, Pete.               Pete rises. Macreedy halts him momentarily, gripping his                arm...                                     MACREEDY                              (flatly)                         She's dead.               Pete walks dazedly out the door. Tim grabs Smith's shoulder                and propels him roughly through the cell door. He slams it                hard. As the clatter of the iron door reverberates harshly...                                                                  DISSOLVE:               EXT. HOTEL - BLACK ROCK - DAY               The townspeople, with Doc f.g., are gathered silently in the                street, staring sadly, dumbly at the hotel before them. Doc                wears a dark business suit, neat and conservative. The door                opens (o.s.) and the people look up, their eyes lighting                with expectancy.               WHAT THEY SEE               Macreedy comes out of the door, carrying his suitcase. For a                moment he pauses, looking at the uplifted faces of the people                in the street. In the distance we HEAR the horn of a stream-               liner. Macreedy goes down the steps, skirts the watching                crowd and heads for the railroad station. Almost immediately                Doc falls in step with him. The townspeople, still silent,                trail after them               MOVING SHOT - MACREEDY AND DOC               in f.g., the townspeople behind them. In b.g., as we pass,                we see the main street just as we saw it when Macreedy entered                town a few short hours ago.                                     MACREEDY                              (walking, after a                               beat, to Doc)                         Tim knows where to find me if I'm                          needed.               Doc nods. He blinks and frowns...                                     MACREEDY                         What's on your mind, Doc?                                     DOC                         Nothing. Only... about that medal.                          Can we have it?                                     MACREEDY                         "We...?" Can who have it?                                     DOC                         We.                              (indicating the                               townspeople, with a                               vague wave of his                               hand)                         Us.                                     MACREEDY                         Why?                                     DOC                         Well, we need it, I guess. It's                          something we can maybe build on.                          This town is wrecked, just as bad as                          if it was bombed out. Maybe it can                          come back...                                     MACREEDY                         Some towns come back. Some don't. It                          depends on the people.               A NOISE o.s. attracts Macreedy's attention. He turns, as do                Doc and the townsmen.               WHAT THEY SEE               In front of the jail, each of them handcuffed, are Smith,                Coley, Hector, Sam and Hastings. Tim and four cops escort                them to two State Police cars which are parked beside Tim's                old sedan and another car (presumably belonging to a member                of the press). The newspaperman (WITHOUT A PRESS CARD IN HIS                HAT) stands to one side with Pete. Pete as well as Tim have                changed clothes; they look clean and trim. Coley has his arm                in a sling. Hector's hat hides the bandage on his head.               BACK TO SCENE               Macreedy resumes walking toward the abandoned station, with                Doc at his side and the people behind him. The train pulls                in.                                     DOC                              (still pressing)                         That medal would help.               Macreedy is silent. He walks on, to the platform. He pauses,                looking at the people silently in his wake and then at Doc.                He takes a black velvet-covered box from his pocket -- the                box containing the medal -- looks at it, and slowly hands it                to Doc.                                     DOC                         Thanks, Macreedy. Thanks for                          everything.               Macreedy turns and exits from SHOT. The people look after                him.               EXT. PLATFORM               as Macreedy boards the train.               EXT. STREET               The cars in front of the jail U-turn and start off with the                prisoners. The people move silently toward the train.               EXT. TRAIN               Macreedy is at the passageway. Slowly the train moves out.               INT. PASSAGEWAY OF TRAIN               Macreedy and a conductor stand at the doorway. The town is                seen behind them and the people standing there. In the                distance, Tim's car recedes.                                     CONDUCTOR                              (curiously)                         What's the excitement? What happened?                                     MACREEDY                         A shooting.                                     CONDUCTOR                         I knew it was something. First time                          a streamliner stopped here in four                          years.                                     MACREEDY                         Second time.               He walks into the train.               LONG SHOT - TRAIN               gathering speed, diminishing, far, far into the horizon.                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END               NOTES               Note from page [9]: (1) The sign should be of whatever type                is feasible and compatible to terrain, emphasizing the                remoteness of Black Rock. It should list three cities with                arrows pointing in the proper directions:               SAND CITY 32 MILES                PHOENIX 156 MILES
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+                               BAD DREAMS                               Written by                   Andrew Fleming & Steven E. de Souza    FADE IN:1   EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - SUNSET                                         1    A serene landscape, mist collecting as the red ball of a sun    dips behind the mountains.    In the middle of a field stands a bare-chested man facing the    sunset. He is HARRIS, forty-ish, greying but handsome, and    very fit. His hands are outstretched as if embracing an    invisible entity. He seems filled with some sort of    transcendental power. Now, an air of fulfillment and resolve    settles over him. He turns and walks away from us. CAMERA    ADJUSTS and reveals--2   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - LONG SHOT - SUNSET                             2    Once the home of Victorian Gentry, a few seasons of amateur    repair work have not compensated for decades of neglect. But    now as Harris walks towards it, the fading daylight and long    shadows turn it into a fantasy castle. MUSIC ECHOES faintly    from within; it's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly. If    the music didn't place the era for us, the battered VW    MINIBUS parked outside the house does; it's covered with    flower paintings, slogans, and the ubiquitous peace sign.    As Harris approaches the house, a dozen or so YOUNG PEOPLE    rush to greet him and embrace him. Extending his arms out to    enclose them all, he goes inside.3   INT. COMMON ROOM - SUNSET                                         3    This was probably a stately parlor in its day. There is a    funky assembly of odd handmade furniture. There are muslin    curtains on the windows, crude paintings, and quilts covering    ripped chairs and couches. Despite the squalor, there is a    neatness to the place. Now, the CAMERA begins to ROAM    through the room and down the hallways lined with fading    wallpaper.                        VOICES                  (various)              --where did she go...? ... was              here a moment ago... Cynthia, come              on, honey, we need you... Cynthia,              come out, come out wherever you              are... the sun's going down, we're              losing the moment...!                        (MORE)                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                2.    CONTINUED:             VOICES(CONT'D)                 Hey, mellow out, we got ten                 minutes, I like, checked the                 almanac, okay...? Ready or not,                 here we come...    All these comments are made in relaxed and good natured    tones. Finally the CAMERA PANS OVER to a little storage    alcove beneath the servant's stairway. A HAND reaches in and    opens the door, and inside we SEE cartons, antique toys...    and then CYNTHIA, a pretty 13 year old girl who wears funky    clothing and a haunted, nervous expression.                            VOICES (CONT'D)                 ...There you are, you naughty girl!                 You almost made us lose the                 sunset... Come on, honey, time's                 wasting...    She shrinks back from the HANDS that are pulling her up and    out, but they prevail, and she's up and on unsteady feet.    The CAMERA stays with her as she's led back down the hallway.                           CYNTHIA                     (faintly)                 No, please... I... I really don't                 want to do this... Can't I just                 wait for you..? I--I'm not sure                 about this--    A SET OF HANDS moves in, separates Cynthia from the others.4   NEW ANGLE                                                        4    Revealing VICTOR, a handsome youth a few years older than    Cynthia.                           VICTOR                 Easy, Cyn, easy. You don't want to                 do this, that's okay... right,                 Harris?    The VOICES stop as everyone awaits an answer. CAMERA PANS    across the common room, to the end we haven't seen yet.    In the center of the room is a big cistern or font. As we    watch, Harris has just DUNKED someone in it. The person    steps out, laughing, sloshing in amber liquid. Standing    around are other people, some already dripping wet, others    awaiting their turns. Some are clothed and wet, others in    varying degrees of undress. It all seems slightly off,    slightly eerie, despite their smiles and cheer. Harris    splashes himself with the amber liquid from the tub, pushes    his hair back.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                              3.    CONTINUED: (2)                            HARRIS                 No, Victor, it's not okay. Here                 at Unity House, some things have to                 be done...                     (slight smile)                 ...in Unity. This is one of them.    He WADES CLOSER to the CAMERA, within reach of Cynthia,    Victor and the others. Smiles again. It's the kind of a    smile that inspires trust.                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 Cynthia, do you trust me?    She nods immediately.                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 And have I ever lied to you?    She shakes her head. He GESTURES. The people around Cynthia    begin to GET INTO the tub. Some remove their clothing;    others get in clothes and all. Toddlers and infants are held    by their parents and playfully splashed.                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 Then I say to you now... to all of                 you now... that this will be the                 Ultimate Joining... of man and                 woman... parent and child...                 humanity and Godhead.    He looks at Victor, who reluctantly lets Cynthia's hand go,    gets in. Now only Cynthia remains.                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 Cynthia. Come. There is no shame                 in this. No crime. No sin. Just                 the final break with the old                 world... As night falls, we start                 a new day... a day of Unity.                     (a command, but warm)                 Come to me... my lovechild.5   ON CYNTHIA                                                     5    His last words melt her remaining resistance. Moving like a    sleepwalker, she steps into the tub, wades forward. Then she    stops, looks down at the fluid lapping at her jeans... runs    her hand through it. Her eyes widen.                                                               4.6   EXT. HOUSE - LONG SHOT                                             6    The sun almost gone now, red light reflecting on the gabled    windows. Even the battered VW van looks good in this    setting. It's beautiful.                            CYNTHIA'S VOICE              No!   No...                         HARRIS' VOICE              Cynthia, come back! We can't do it              without you... We must have unity,              my lovechild... Unity, now and              through eternity... Cynthia, you              cannot run... You belong to us              forever--!    Pause. The faint SOUNDS of SPLASHING and then FOOTSTEPS    skittering on tired wooden floors... and then--    --UNITY HOUSE EXPLODES!7   EXPLOSION - ANOTHER ANGLE                                          7    WINDOWS blow out. Splintered BEAMS propeller through the    air. The VW camper on the lawn ROCKS with the shock wave.    Then a SECOND EXPLOSION blows the Victorian cupolas and    widow's walk off the roof. From somewhere in the distance we    HEAR SIRENS...                                               CUT TO:8   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - NIGHT                                           8    FIRE is CONSUMING what's left of the building. Rescue    workers and firefighters are running back and forth.9   INSPECTOR WASSERMAN                                                9    A plainclothes detective, he NODS to some uniforms, steps    around some debris to move closer to the scene. He puts his    collar up against the SPRAY which leaks from firehose    connections. Seeing one of his men, he SHOUTS over the din.                        WASSERMAN              What have we got?                        POLICEMAN              Twenty-four bodies, Inspector.              Maybe more.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                 5.     CONTINUED:     As he says this, both men watch as firefighters carry out a     SCORCHED AND BLACKENED CORPSE that looks like a 3,000 year     old mummy.10   CORPSE - CLOSER                                                  10     It's set down on the ground beside other blackened bodies     partially covered by tarps. As the body is set down it     CRUNCHES, and a piece BREAKS OFF.11   BACK TO SCENE                                                    11     Wasserman blanches, wipes his mouth.                            WASSERMAN                  Cause of fire?                            OFFICER                  Some kind of explosion... gas main,                  methane, too soon to tell. God                  only knows.                            WASSERMAN                  Let's hope He doesn't keep it to                  Himself.                            A VOICE                  We got one! We got a survivor! Get                  a stretcher and oxygen over here,                  STAT!     Wasserman and the cop run up the slope with the others.12   RUINS - CLOSER                                                   12     Medics run around the parked VW, which drips water and     chemical foam. Rescue workers move a FALLEN BEAM and pull a     soot-blackened form out of a hole. As the CAMERA PUSHES     closer, we see that it is Cynthia. Her clothes are torn and     singed, and she is unconscious, but as they work on her we     see that she is largely unharmed.                            VOICES                      (busy, frantic)                  Make room, make room! Get that                  airway in! I got a pulse, whoa,                  it's faint... Talk about lucky,                  she musta fallen in the basement...                  First and second degree burns...                  Come on people, move your asses!                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                               6.     CONTINUED: (2)     Wasserman tries to keep up as they carry her on a stretcher     towards an ambulance, put her inside. It ROARS AWAY, SIREN     WAILING. MUSIC COMES UP AND OVER-- it's MAGIC CARPET RIDE by     Steppenwolf.                         NEWSCASTER'S VOICE                   (filtered)               --Authorities continue to               investigate yesterday's mysterious               explosion and fire at Unity House,               the controversial New Age commune               headed by self-styled Guru Adrian               Harris. 32 people died in the               blaze. Thirteen year old Cynthia               Weston, the fire's only survivor,               remains in guarded but stable               condition at County General. In               national news, newspaper heiress               Patricia Hearst was abducted from               her Bay area apartment shortly               before dawn today... A communique               from the so-called "Symbionese               Liberation Army" demanded that...                                              CUT TO:13   INT. HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM - NIGHT                              13     The doors CRASH ASIDE as Cynthia is rushed in on a gurney.     The CEILING LIGHTS flicker past us as they move her into the     emergency room.                         VOICES               Blood pressure 90 over 30, we're               losing her... Where's that cart?               CLEAR! CLEAR! Okay, it's               climbing... Watch the EEG...               Brain activity, shit, damn low...     We begin a SERIES OF DISSOLVES, including:          A) WASSERMAN, who appears first in his clothes          from the fire, then two other wardrobe changes;          B) HOSPITAL PERSONNEL, at first the harried and          rushed emergency staff, and then the more blase          regular doctors and nurses;          C) VARIOUS MEDICAL EQUIPMENT, as a series of          DIAGNOSTIC TESTS are run on Cynthia--                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                7.     CONTINUED:          D) CYNTHIA, first in her fire-scorched clothing,          then as it is cut away, and then in several          HOSPITAL GOWNS, first white, then green, then          blue...          E) A SERIES OF HOSPITAL ROOMS AND LABS;          P) HOSPITAL CHARTS AND FILES, with ever-changing          DATES;                            VOICES (CONT'D)                      (over this)                  No sign of physical damage but                  neurological functions still                  depressed... Sorry, Inspector, no                  changes... Patient comatose after                  14 days... Brain scan shows minor                  irregularities; pupil function                  within normal range... Still no                  sign of consciousness... Still                  comatose after 21 days ... Sorry,                  Inspector, we'll call you if                  there's any progress... Still                  comatose after 42 days... Patient                  moved out of intensive care....     As the MONTAGE CONTINUES, TITLES BEGIN. Now we HEAR VARIOUS     NEWS BROADCASTS which come UP AND OVER, fading IN AND OUT     with the medical VOICES. (If desired, TV NEWSCASTS might be     seen as well on a hospital room's set.)                            VARIOUS NEWSCASTERS' VOICES                      (filtered, in and out,                       intermittently audible)                  ...The mother of Martin Luther King                  Junior was assassinated today while                  she played the organ in her son's                  church... interrupt to bring this                  bulletin... Richard Milhous Nixon                  has resigned as President of the                  United States... As the Marine                  guards hold back the crowds, the                  last helicopters took off from the                  roof of the Embassy in Saigon...                  Bicentennial festivities begin                  today in Philadelphia...14   MONTAGE - CONTINUED                                                14     We SEE Cynthia in her bad, always in the same near-fetal     position. The only changes are the occasionally different     hues of her blankets and the varying length of her hair.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                               8.      CONTINUED: (2)                          NEWSCASTERS                --leak at the Three Mile Island                facility... 73 Americans remain                hostage in the Teheran Embassy...                Ronald Reagan has been elected 40th                President... renewed fighting in                the Middle East... assailant shot                John Lennon at point blank range...                President Reagan has been shot! He                is in guarded condition at... The                Pope has been shot! He was rushed                by ambulance to... President Anwar                Sadat has been assassinated...14A   BERRISFORD - IN MONTAGE                                         14A      We SEE several SHOTS of this man, first as a white-coated      RESIDENT in his late 30's, walking past Cynthia's hospital      doorway, and then stopping, curious, and looking in on her...      and then in--14B   OTHER SHOTS - BERRISFORD                                        14B      as (with changing wardrobe and increasing status) he checks      in on the girl's unaltered condition as months and years      continue to click by:                          NEWSCASTERS(CONT'D)                ...the Korean airliner was shot                down by a Soviet jet, killing all                269 people aboard... invasion of                the island Nation of Grenada...                Prime Minister Indira Ghandi was                assassinated by members of her own                bodyguard... the PLO hijackers                shot the wheelchair-bound American                and threw his body overboard...                Space Shuttle Challenger exploded                moments after launch... renewed                fighting today in the Middle                East... President Corazon Aquino                asked the soldiers to lay down                their arms... Senator Gary Hart                withdrew from the race... Fawn                Hall... Lieutenant Colonel Oliver                North... Contrascam                Investigation... PTL scandal...                munitions train severed the lag of                a protester at the... renewed                fighting in the Middle East...                                               DISSOLVE TO:                                                               9.15   INT. HOSPITAL NURSE'S STATION - DAY                             15     The HEAD NURSE looks up, smiles at a YOUNG FLOOR NURSE as she     walks past. From somewhere we HEAR a Springsteen song on the     radio.                         HEAD NURSE               Debbie. What happened to your               windsurfing lesson?                         YOUNG NURSE               No wind. I changed shifts with               Nancy.                   (picking up charts)               Well... time to weed the vegetable               patch.     We FOLLOW the young nurse as she goes into--16   CYNTHIA'S ROOM                                                  16     Bored, the nurse goes to the foot of the bad, checks the     chart there. She moves past MONITORING EQUIPMENT which shows     only subtle movement. As she begins to take Cynthia's blood     pressure, CAMERA CONTINUES ON INTO THE BED and we see     Cynthia,     She is now a fully grown young woman in her late 20's.   She     is curled up in a fetal ball.17   THE YOUNG NURSE                                                 17     finishes her work and then gathers some bottles from the side     table. She goes to the door and then REACTS to a SOUND.     She looks around, puzzled. Meanwhile, we SEE (and she     DOESN'T) that there is INCREASED ACTIVITY on the monitors.                         CYNTHIA                   (faint, weak)               No... no... it's wrong...               someone... please help...                         YOUNG NURSE               Holy shit...     Stunned, the nurse DROPS the bottles with a CRASH.     Recovering her composure, she darts back to the bed, watches     flabbergasted as Cynthia continues to STIR, her arms weakly     battling half-realized fears.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                10.     CONTINUED:     The young nurse hits an ALARM, grabs Cynthia's arms to     prevent her from pitching out of the bed, and then DOCTORS     and NURSES are scrambling all over the room, and as the DIN     RISES we                                                 CUT TO:18   INT. HOSPITAL PRESS CONFERENCE - DAY                                18     FLASHBULBS pop and the HOSPITAL SPOKESMAN grins clumsily,     famous for fifteen minutes.     There's eight or nine reporters here, all of them wishing     they were on bigger stories.                            SPOKESMAN                      (in mid speech)                  Twelve years, two months...   nine                  days.                            FIRST REPORTER                  Is that like a world record for a                  coma or something?                            SPOKESMAN                  Actually, no. The longest one on                  record is 37 years.     The first reporter closes a notebook, leaves.                            SECOND REPORTER                  Does she remember anything about                  the fire at Universe House?19   NEW ANGLE - SHOWING THE BACK OF THE ROOM                            19     Lieutenant (nÈe Inspector) Wasserman is there.    He's grayer,     paunchier, but the raincoat is the same one.                            SPOKESMAN'S VOICE                      (correcting)                  Unity House. No, she appears to                  have no memory of the accident                  itself or the days leading up to                  it. It's not uncommon after                  serious trauma.                            THIRD REPORTER                  What happens to her now? Have her                  family or friends been notified?                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                  11.     CONTINUED:                            SPOKESMAN                  We stopped looking for any family                  ton years ago.. Right now we"re                  planning to transfer Cynthia to Dr.                  S.A. Berrisford's Neuropsychiatric                  Clinic. It's right here on our                  grounds, and Dr. Berrisford is                  familiar with both the                  neuromuscular problems a patient                  like this will encounter as well as                  the inevitable mental readjustment                  that will be required. Thank you.     The reporters filter out.     Wasserman is already gone.                                                   CUT TO:20   FOOT                                                                  20     as it is clumsily set down...    another FOOT slides forward.21   INT. THERAPY ROOM - WIDER                                             21     Cynthia is standing inside a set of parallel bars. She's     pale, weak looking. A PHYSICAL THERAPIST is at her elbow,     egging her on.                            THERAPIST                  Good... Very good... Come on,                  just a few more steps...     Cynthia blinks, as if just processing the therapist's word     takes some adjustment.                            CYNTHIA                      (weary)                  I... I can't... I have to rest...                            BERRISFORD'S VOICE                  Young lady, you've had fifteen                  years of rest.     CAMERA ADJUSTS to show DR. BERRISFORD. In his 50's,     avuncular, he wears half-framed glasses and a sweater vest     under his medical coat. Two pieces of tissue paper mark his     razor's passage on his neck.                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                           12.CONTINUED:                       BERRISFORD (CONT'D)             Now walk to the end of that             platform, or you won't got any             chocolate ice cream.Something about Berrisford's mock-stern tone bores in onCynthia, gets a reaction. She gropes for an answer.                       CYNTHIA                 (finally)             I... I hate chocolate ice cream.                       BERRISFORD             Then walk to the end of the             platform, or I'll shove an entire             gallon down your throat.Cynthia's eyes crinkle with confusion. And then, ah, shegets it! A joke, the first one in over a decade. SheSMILES, and it's a beautiful smile. Setting her jaw, shemakes a renewed effort and reaches the and of the platform.The therapist and Berrisford both move quickly to catch herand set her down in a wheelchair.                       BERRISFORD                 (to the therapist)              That'll be all.Berrisford begins wheeling Cynthia along. They leave thetherapy room, go down a corridor. (Note: Passage as perlocation.) As they go by other patients and staff, there's ageneral BUZZ as people whisper about Cynthia.                        CYNTHIA                 (peering at Berrisford)             Am I supposed to know you or             something?                       BERRISFORD             I've looked in on you from time to             time... but that's hardly an             introduction. You've been             transferred into my care, Cynthia.             I*m Doctor S. A. Berrisford,             Consulting Chief of Neuropsychiatry             and head of the Berrisford Clinic.                       CYNTHIA                 (fumbling it)              C-consulting Cheev-- Chief of--                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                               13.     CONTINUED: (2)                         BERRISFORD               Oh, forget all that.   Just call me               what my staff does.                         CYNTHIA               What's that?                         BERRISFORD               God.     Cynthia LAUGHS. She likes this man's directness, the way he     doesn't condescend to her.22   INT./EXT. SUN DECK OR DAY ROOM - DAY                               22     Berrisford parks her and site down across from her.                         CYNTHIA               What... what kind of doctor did               you say you were?     Berrisford notices one of the tissues on his neck.    Scowls,     flicks it away.                         BERRISFORD               Obviously, I'm not a surgeon.                   (as she laughs)               I'm a psychiatrist.                         CYNTHIA                   (puzzled)               Why do I need a psychiatrist?                          BERRISFORD               Cynthia, you've been out of touch               with reality for over ten years.               Your recovery goes beyond your               muscle tone... You have to ease               into life... into interacting with               other people again. Into a world               that's changed so much that               sometimes I get confused by it.                   (taking out an appointment                    book)               Now, my assistant Dr. Goldman has a               group therapy session every day...               I'm putting you down for it,               starting tomorrow...                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                 14.     CONTINUED:                            CYNTHIA                      (unsure)                  Group therapy? But--                            WASSERMAN'S VOICE                  Dr. Berrisford?23   NEW ANGLE                                                         23     Revealing Wasserman.    He shows his badge to the doctor.                            WASSERMAN                  I'm Lieutenant Wasserman. I left a                  message with your secretary...?                            BERRISFORD                      (rising, meeting him                       halfway)                  And I left one with your desk                  sergeant.                      (a hard whisper)                  I told you this would have to wait.                  You shouldn't even be here--24   FAVORING CYNTHIA                                                  24     She can't help but listen as they continue in lowered tones.                            WASSERMAN                  I've waited fifteen years. That's                  long enough. Now I want to speak                  with Miss Weston.                            BERRISFORD                  Miss Weston is still recovering and                  is in no condition for a prolonged                  interrogation.                            WASSERMAN                      (tight smile)                  Then don't prolong it. I'll be                  brief with her, I'll be gentle with                  her--                            BERRISFORD                  I'll let you know when she's ready--                            CYNTHIA                  E--excuse me...                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                15.     CONTINUED: (2)25   ANGLE                                                            25     They turn and look at her.                         CYNTHIA (CONT'D)               Doctor Berrisford, what's this all               about...? This man wants to talk               to me...?     Berrisford starts to answer, but Wasserman rushes in.                         WASSERMAN                   (quietly, slowly, as if to                    a child)               That's right, Miss Weston. I just               have a few easy, simple questions.                   (patient, phony smile)               About you... and about Unity House.     Cynthia looks at him strangely, turns to Berrisford.                         CYNTHIA                   (sotto)               Why is he talking like that? Is he               one of your patients?     Wasserman burns.   Berrisford LAUGHS.                         BERRISFORD               Lieutenant Wasserman is a police               officer. And the word "patience"               isn't part of his vocabulary.     Wasserman scowls, not enjoying being the butt of a joke.    He     resumes his normal tons, which is far from diplomatic.                         WASSERMAN               Miss Weston. What's the last thing               you remember before...                         CYNTHIA               --Before the accident?   Nothing.                         WASSERMAN               Then how do you know it was an               accident?                         BERRISFORD               Lieutenant!                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                            16.CONTINUED: (3)                    CYNTHIA          I remember... a beautiful sunset.          Harris, smiling at me...                    WASSERMAN              (writing)           Harris, he was the leader?Cynthia's eyes are far away.    The memories come back...   thewords are slow, but vivid.                    CYNTHIA          Leader, founder... chief cook and          bottlewasher...              (smiling)          Executive in charge of Dreaming.          We were all together... all          working to make a now world...          That last night, there was a...              (brow furrowing)          Gathering... a... a sort of...          baptism... And then...She winces, rubs her eyes.                    CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          I'm sorry, that's all I can see.                    WASSERMAN          Miss Weston. This "Unity House"...          was it a cult?                       CYNTHIA          I'm sorry.     I don't understand the          question.                    BERRISFORD          A "cult," Cynthia. A syndrome of          society you have been fortunate          enough to miss. They're popular          with impressionable people, the          penny press...              (pause)          ...and lazy policemen who like to          blame them for crimes they can't          solve.Wasserman closes his notebook, gives Berrisford a cold stare.                    WASSERMAN          I was there that night, Doctor. I          watched them stack those bodies...                    (MORE)                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                                17.     CONTINUED: (4)      WASSERMAN(CONT'D)               men, women, children. They looked               like 2,000 year old mummies. They               broke apart like 2,000 year old               mummies.     Cynthia gasps.                         WASSERMAN (CONT'D)               If it was an accident... fine. If               it wasn't... the person               responsible could still be out               there.                   (pause)               And he's probably as interested in               Miss Weston's memory as I am.     He turns, nods to Cynthia.                         WASSERMAN (CONT'D)               Feel better.     He goes out.   Cynthia's breath comes in short gasps.   Finally     she calms.                         CYNTHIA               I don't like that man.                         BERRISFORD               That makes two of us.     He sits beside her again.                         BERRISFORD (CONT'D)               But as long as you're here...                   (smiling)               I can keep him away.     CAMERA TIGHTENS on Cynthia as she considers this...                                               CUT TO:26   INT. MEETING ROOM - DAY                                           26     The room is cheery, commands a view of the city. A VIDEO     CAMERA sits unobtrusively in one corner. Six people sit in     chairs in various stages of interest and/or boredom.     They are MIRIAM, an attractive woman in her forties, who     chain-smokes designer cigarettes;     CONNIE, smiling, chipper;                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                           18.CONTINUED:ED, overweight, friendly;LANA, pale, worried looking;and GILDA, tiny, frightened, withdrawn. She sits with feetpulled up on her chair, arms wrapped around her knees.CAMERA ADJUSTS to show Cynthia driving her electricwheelchair into the room and into a place in the circle.RALPH stands. Long-haired, with the staccato delivery of astand-up comic, he smiles.                       RALPH             Well, now that we're all here, we             can begin. Cynthia, I'm Dr.             Goldman, and I'd like to welcome             you to our little group. I don't             know how much my colleague Dr.             Berrisford has told you about my             methods. I have my detractors...             but I have my successes, too!             We're going to get you out of your             depression... We're going to got             you out of your neurosises...             We're going to got you out of that             hideous hospital robe and into a             flimsy revealing negligee--one with             the little holes here? I can see             us now on a desert island... You,             me, a portable waterbed--As Cynthia's eyes widen, DR. ALAN GOLDMAN comes into theroom, sighs with weary familiarity at Ralph's antics.(Actually, Alan doesn't look much more like a doctor thanRalph.)                       ALAN             Ralph, sit down and cut out the             shit, okay?                       RALPH             Dr. Goldman, I was on the verge of             a major breakthrough, and you blew             it!                       ALAN             Ralph?                 (when he sits)             Cynthia. I'm Doctor Goldman--at             least, last time I checked...                       (MORE)                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                     19.CONTINUED: (2)      ALAN(CONT'D)          and I doubt if my welcome can equal          Ralph's, but I'll try. This is the          Borderline Personality Group. And          you are now a card-carrying member.                    CYNTHIA          What's a borderline personality?                    MIRIAM          Don't ask him. He's making this up          as he goes along.                    ALAN          A borderline personality is one          that can't be accurately placed on          the Neurosis-Psychosis arc. As a          personality syndrome it encompasses          identity crises, chemical          addictions, emotionalism, anxiety-                    RALPH              (standing, SCREAMING like               Sam Kinison)          You forgot VIOLENT MOOD SWINGS!He sits, smiles sweetly.                    CONNIE          He also forgot suicidal tendencies.          But, as one whose previous          reincarnations stretch back to          Ancient Atlantis, well, suicide is          meaningless anyway.                    ED          And don't forgot binge eating.              (pause)          Gourmet binge eating.                    MIRIAM              (sweetly, to Cynthia)          I told you he was making this up.                    ALAN          If everyone is finished--                    LANA              (breaking in)          They're not finished, Dr. Goldman,          they won't be finished until they          have her feeling as miserable and          pathetic and confused as they are.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                    20.CONTINUED: (3)                    CYNTHIA          I am confused--                     LANA          See?              (to the group)          I hope you're all happy--                    CYNTHIA          Dr. Goldman, I... I don't really          know what I'm doing here. I          mean... I don't think I meet your          description of a Borderline          Personality--                    RALPH          Give yourself some time, Cynthia.          We'll help you work on it.                    CYNTHIA          --and I don't really know what I'm          doing here.                    ALAN          Didn't Dr. Berrisford explain?                    CYNTHIA          He said he thought that this would          help me... fit into the 80's.Miriam CRACKS UP.                     MIRIAM          Honey, you want to fit into the          80's, you're already two divorces,          one condo and a yeast infection          behind. Why don't you just catch          up with the 70's and move to          Cleveland?                    ALAN          If I can offer a more practical          suggestion... Why don't you talk,          Cynthia?                     CYNTHIA          Talk...?                    ALAN          About something close to you.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                       21.CONTINUED: (4)                     MIRIAM           Stop beating around the fucking           bush, Goldman! Just come out and           ask her!                     LANA               (to Miriam)           Do you have to be so crude?                     MIRIAM           Come on, Cynthia. Dish out the           dirt. Tell us all about Unity           House.               (gesturing a marquee)           The last gasp of the Age of           Aquarius. Building a better world           through... what? Chemistry? Good           vibrations? Tie-dying your undies?                     CYNTHIA           I'm sorry to disappoint you. I           don't have those kinds of stories.                     RALPH           Back off, Miriam. Cynthia, just           tell us about the orgies.                     CYNTHIA           Ralph, I'm going to bore you.She thinks for a minute, starts to speak. She's hesitant atfirst, and then the old memories come forward. She'ssincere, earnest... captivating.                     CYNTHIA (CONT'D)           What we felt... what we           believed... was that if people           could become selfless enough, if           they could free themselves from           their egos, they would experience           a... togetherness. A... oneness.           A Unity. That's where the name           came from. We had a dream about a           perfect society based on trust. On           love. On totally committed           togetherness. We weren't trying to           change the whole world. We were           just trying to change each other.Pause.   Everyone is affected by her sincerity.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              22.     CONTINUED: (5)                           RALPH                     (acting out)                 Bullshit.                            GILDA                 No.27   NEW ANGLE                                                         27     AS everyone turns, astonished. Gilda gets out of her chair,     slowly walks towards Cynthia. Takes her hand. And smiles.                           GILDA (CONT'D)                 It's beautiful. It didn't matter                 if it worked. All that mattered                 was... you tried.                           CYNTHIA                     (touched)                  Exactly!                                               CUT TO:28   INT. BERRISFORD'S OFFICE - NIGHT                                  28     WIDEN from a TV SCREEN which shown the above moment.   As the     group session CONTINUES UNDER, CAMERA PANS to reveal     Berrisford and Alan watching the tape.                           ALAN                 Gilda hasn't said three words in                 three weeks. And now, Cynthia                 comes in with this love, peace and                 Woodstock routine and... presto.                 Am I missing something, or what?                           BERRISFORD                 She's espousing a total belief                 system. A kind of holistic healing                 matrix not unlike the dynamic                 energy shift model. Isn't that                 interesting? They're adopting it,                 embracing it.                           ALAN                 Too bad we can't follow through on                 this.                            BERRISFORD                 Why not?                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                23.     CONTINUED:                            ALAN                  Dr. Berrisford, the people in this                  group... some of them are deeply                  disturbed. Cynthia doesn't belong                  with them-- an experiment for one                  session, fine, but in the long run--                            BERRISFORD                  Alan. We've opened primary                  channels of communication. You've                  opened them, Alan. Let's not rush                  to throw away our progress.                  Neuroses are hardly contagious. A                  few weeks in the group won't hurt                  Cynthia. With luck, she'll                  overcome her memory trauma. That                  would mean progress... not to                  Mention getting Lieutenant                  Wasserman off my back. In the                  meantime...     He stands, puts his hand on the younger man's shoulder.                            BERRISFORD (CONT'D)                  She seems to like you. See if you                  can get her to open up, and let's                  press on.                      (pause)                  With a united front?                            ALAN                  A united front.   Sure.     Satisfied, Berrisford smiles, goes out the door.     Alan sighs,     and looks at Cynthia's image on the screen.                                                CUT TO:29   INT. PHYSICAL THERAPY ROOM - DAY                                   29     Patients in different stages of fitness use the equipment,     some with supervision, others on their own. HETTIE,     Berrisford's chief nurse--a Selma Diamond type--comes in with     a tray of medication in paper cups. She works her way over     to where30   CYNTHIA                                                            30     is doing log lifts on a bench. She's in a leotard and leg     warmers, and there's real color in her face for the first     time.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                            24.CONTINUED:                       HETTIE             Drop down to first gear, honey.             It's Miller time.She fumbles on her tray for the cup marked "Weston," handsthe pills to Cynthia along with a cup of juice.                       CYNTHIA             What are these? Vitamins?                       HETTIE             Beauty secrets from the orient.             Look what they've done for me.Cynthia laughs, takes the pills. Hettie moves over to Ralph,who's just finished doing bench presses.                       HETTIE             Ralph, you in a cooperative mood,             or do I have to tie you up again?                       RALPH             Promises, promises.He takes the pills she gives him, smiles.      She just looks athim, taps his mouth.                        HETTIE             Open.Of course the pills are still under his tongue. Hettie giveshim a shot in the solar plexus and he GULPS. Hettie handshim the juice.                       HETTIE (CONT'D)             Next time I hit lower.She moves on to other patients.     Ralph moves over to Cynthia.                       RALPH             She's crazy about me.                 (watching Cynthia's                  workout)             You're coming along. A regular             Rocky.                        CYNTHIA             Rocky?   The flying squirrel?                       RALPH              Rocky the fighting Stallone.                 (on her blank look)                       (MORE)                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                            25.CONTINUED: (2)      RALPH(CONT'D)          I keep forgetting you just left the          Twilight Zone. Hey, why don't you          come up to my room, and I'll bring          you up to date. I've got a VHS          VCR, a CD, and MTV.                    CYNTHIA          You're making this up...      aren't          you?He just grins. She slips down to the floor, does somestretching exercises.                    CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          Sounds like a complicated world.          How do you handle it?                    RALPH          Well, whenever it gets to be too          much, I just let all of the          negative stuff out of my body.                    CYNTHIA          You mean with meditation, yoga,          what?                    RALPH          Nah. I just make a little hole and          let it all escape.He pulls open his shirt. On his chest and arms are dozens ofscars in neat little rows.Cynthia swallows, stunned.      Nonplussed, Ralph buttons backup.                    RALPH (CONT'D)          Uh-uh, here comes the assistant          Ayatollah. See ya.As Ralph exits, Cynthia looks around, puzzled.                    CYNTHIA          "Ay-a-toll-ah..?"Then she sees Alan.                    ALAN          Buy you some lunch?                      CYNTHIA          Sure.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                              26.     CONTINUED: (3)     He starts to help her up.   She pushes him off gets up with a     theatrical hop.                         ALAN               I'm impressed.     They walk out of the therapy room.                         CYNTHIA               Impressed enough to call me a cab?                         ALAN               I'm not sure I follow you.                         CYNTHIA               I've been talking to Ralph. He               told me about his... personal               therapy program.                   (as Alan winces)               And I've been watching the               others... Dr. Goldman, they belong               here. I don't.31   INT. CORRIDOR - DAY                                              31     They pass Lana and Miriam who are swallowing medication from     Hettie's tray. The two women patients wave at Cynthia, who     smiles.                         ALAN                   (as they walk)               Please, call me Alan. Doctor               Goldman is my father...                   (thinking)               ...and my grandfather. I think my               first baby toy was a stethoscope--                         CYNTHIA               You're changing the subject...                   (trying it out)               --Alan. I'm feeling stronger. I'm               getting used to things like VC               esses and MCDs. I want to leave.                         ALAN                   (carefully)               Your parents died when you were a               child. We haven't been able to               locate any relatives.     He stops at the elevator doors, hits the button.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                    27.     CONTINUED:                            ALAN (CONT'D)                  Where would you go?                            CYNTHIA                  I guess I'd just look up some of                  the old hands from Unity House...                  crash with them for a while...                      (thinking)                  ...do people still say "crash"--?                             ALAN                  Cynthia...                      (gently)                  There aren't any old hands left.                  The fire that injured you...? It                  took everyone also with it.                  They're all gone.     Cynthia reacts as if struck...    has to loan against the wall     to catch her breath.                             CYNTHIA                  I knew there were deaths...   but...                  everybody?                            ALAN                  I'm afraid so. Look, Cynthia...                  I'm not saying this to upset you,                  but the sooner you realize that                  that whole phase of your life is                  over, and move on, the better off                  you're going to be. Why don't you                  bring this into the open... talk                  about it in group? Oh, here's our                  ride.     Saying this, he turns as an elevator OPENS.      It's pretty     crowded. He holds the door for her.                            CYNTHIA                      (confused)                  Talk about it...?     Seeing he's waiting, she straightens, moves into the     elevator.32   INT. ELEVATOR - DAY                                                  32                            ALAN                  Could somebody hit one?   Thanks.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                           28.CONTINUED:                       CYNTHIA                 (to him)             "Talk about it in group." Is that             the answer to everything around             here?The doors CLOSE. Everyone huddles in the compact spacesilently, politely. The elevator heaves into movement.     ItHUMS as it whisks down the shaft.The overhead fluorescent light in the car is weak.    Itflickers off and on momentarily.                       ALAN             Nobody ever said it would be easy.             And it works for a lot of people.                        CYNTHIA                 (gently)             It's not working for Ralph... or             his chest.                 (pleading tone)             Can't you at least transfer me...             get me in a group of people with             problems a little more like mine--                       ALAN             Cynthia, we don't have a lot of             patients who've been in a coma for             over a decade!The light gets weaker. Finally it just goes out.     There is ageneral SIGH of annoyance from the passengers.The light FLICKERS on every few seconds giving off the effectof a strobe light.                       A PASSENGER             You'd think with what they charge             here they could pay their electric             billsLAUGHTER.                       CYNTHIA             Relax. They're probably giving             shock therapy.                 (for Alan's benefit)             "It works for most people".More LAUGHTER. Then Cynthia is RIVETED by the sight ofsomething across the elevator.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                   29.     CONTINUED: (2)     In the LIGHT of the next strobe like FLASH, we see HARRIS!     He is staring at Cynthia.33   ON CYNTHIA                                                            33     Staggered, disbelievingly, she moves behind Alan, looks over     to the far corner again.     Another FLASH. Harris is gone. Suddenly the ELEVATOR JERKS     TO A HALT, but the doors DON'T OPEN. Passengers GROAN,     annoyed.                            PASSENGER                  Oh, great--     The emergency BELL starts sounding. Cynthia, still confused,     gets shoved against the back wall as the passengers busy     themselves pushing buttons.     Cynthia bumps into the man next to her.        She looks up at him.     FLASH.   It is Harris.     FLASH. Harris reaches out to Cynthia. She CRIES OUT, jerks     away, slamming into Alan, falling to the floor.                            PASSENGER (CONT'D)                  Jesus, lady, relax! We're on the                  ground floor--                            CYNTHIA                  Let me out! Let me out--!     FLASH. Cynthia is on the floor. She raises her head.     Someone is on the floor right across from her.     FLASH.   It's Harris.    His face is burned and skeletal.     He     GRINS.                            HARRIS                  Unity, Cynthia...   Now and forever!     He has no eyelids or lips. Cynthia SCREAMS, struggles to her     feet, knocking over another passenger. Now it's chaos in     here.                            CYNTHIA                  Let me out, let me out!   Alan,                  help, help--!                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                30.     CONTINUED: (3)                         HARRIS               Cynthia, you cannot run...      You               belong to us Forever--!34   ALAN                                                                34     Struggles across the crowded elevator, catches her in his     arms.                            ALAN               Cynthia..?     The elevator doors suddenly OPEN.35   INT. FIRST FLOOR CORRIDOR - DAY                                     35     Cynthia literally TUMBLES out of the elevator, staggers along     the wall, holding herself up. Alan runs out to aid her. The     passengers get off the elevator, looking at her oddly. A     CUSTODIAN runs up and turns off the alarm.                         ALAN               Cynthia, what happened--?                            CYNTHIA               It's him!     It's him!   He's alive--                         ALAN               Who's alive?                         CYNTHIA                   (pointing)               He's alive! Right over--     She stops. The elevator is open and empty. The passengers     watch her, some concerned, some voyeuristic. Now they drift     away.                         CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                   (weakly)                --there...     Alan just stares at her.                                                 CUT TO:36   INT. BERRISFORD'S OFFICE - NIGHT                                    36     Berrisford sits, listens intently to Alan.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                        31.CONTINUED:                       ALAN             --hallucination, flashback, I don't             know what to call it-                       BERRISFORD             How about psychotic episode?                       ALAN             No, no, she doesn't fit the             pattern--                       BERRISFORD             Addictive personalities can be             borderline. You know that--                       ALAN                 (patiently)             She has no history of drug abuse--                       BERRISFORD             There's other kinds of addictions.                 (standing, pensive)             we see it in these fringe religious             groups... these instant creeds             with pseudo-Messianic delusions.             You've heard how she talks about             Unity House? Perhaps that's her             drug. Perhaps she's going through             a--withdrawal of sorts. Her memory             lapses about Unity House are             equally symptomatic... There's             some violent turmoil under that             pretty little facade.                       ALAN                 (skeptical)             You put her in the Borderline Group             and she became one?                       BERRISFORD             No.CAMERA TIGHTENS ON HIM.                       BERRISFORD (CONT'D)             I believe she went into that coma             a disturbed young lady. Fifteen             years later... nothing has             changed.                                              CUT TO:                                                              32.37   INT. ENTRANCE - BERRISFORD CLINIC WING - NIGHT                  37     We can read the name on the locked security door (albeit     backwards.) A SECURITY GUARD watches a basketball game on a     portable set.38   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                     38     This is not the room we saw when she was comatose, but a     brighter, more residential arrangement. Cynthia sits on the     bed, watches as Hettie counts out pills for her. Cynthia     swallows them, hesitates at a red one.                         CYNTHIA               This one's new.                         HETTIE               It'll help you sleep.                   (explaining)               Sort of a post-elevator cocktail?     Cynthia scowls, takes it. Hettie goes out. Cynthia lies     down on the bed, stiff. Turns over once or twice. Sighing,     she picks up the TV remote, shakes her head at the myriad     buttons. Finally she finds the right one, CLICKS IT.39   TV - HER P.O.V.                                                 39     She's come in on the middle of a group therapy scene from THE     BOB NEWHART SHOW. (NOTE: Or maybe THE SNAKE PIT or SHOCK     CORRIDOR?)40   BACK TO SCENE                                                   40     She watches until she realizes what it is, then CLICKS it     off.41   INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - NIGHT                                   41     Hettie leans over the security guard's desk. The guard     GROANS in frustration an the basketball game ends.                         HETTIE                   (extending her hand)               Pay up. Twenty bucks.     Neither notices a DARK FIGURE passing by close to the CAMERA.                                                               33.42   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                     42     Cynthia lies restlessly in her bed. She hears footsteps     coming closer. They stop at her door. She looks over.     There is a SHADOW moving in the crack under the door.   The     doorknob TURNS. Cynthia sits up.                         CYNTHIA               Who's there?     She reaches for the button to call the nurse, but then the     door is OPEN, and the figure stands there silhouetted.                         FIGURE                   (whisper)               Cynthia?     The figure comes forward. Cynthia backs off the other side     of the bed and turns on a light.     It is Victor, the boy we remember from the opening scene.     The years have been kind to him. He stands there, the dim     light spilling on his Army field jacket and bell-bottomed     jeans.                          VICTOR               Cynthia?   It's me.   Victor.                         CYNTHIA                   (amazed)               Vic? Oh, my God--     She practically leaps across the room, hugs him with all her     strength.                         VICTOR               Look at you.                   (marveling)               Little Cyn.                   (impressed)               Not so little anymore.                         CYNTHIA               Vic, this is just... fantastic,               it's the most incredible...                   (hesitating)               But... how can you be here?                          VICTOR               Yeah.   It is after visiting hours--                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                              34.     CONTINUED:                            CYNTHIA                  I mean... they said that...      that                  everybody died.                            VICTOR                      (smiling)                  Do I look like a ghost to you?                            CYNTHIA                      (rapid-fire)                  How did you survive? How did you                  find me? Is anyone else--                            VICTOR                  Whoa, whoa. It's a long story...                      (looking around)                  Let me tell it somewhere else. I                  feel like I'm in, like, the                  Pentagon or something.     Cynthia grins, grabs a light jacket.                            CYNTHIA                  Then let's go AWOL.43   INT. HALLWAY                                                   43     Victor peeks out the door. An orderly passes, then     disappears. Victor and Cynthia tiptoe out, sprint down the     corridor to a stairwell marked "EXIT", and they are gone.44   EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT                                       44     Victor takes her hand, and they run towards a battered VW     van. We recognize it and its slogans.                             CYNTHIA                  Zeke!   You've still got Zeke!     She runs her hand along the dusty side lovingly, and then     they hop inside.45   ON THE REAR LICENSE PLATE                                      45     Rusted, dated 1973.     The van DRIVES AWAY.                                                    CUT TO:                                                               35.46   EXT. VICTOR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                   46     It's a tacky but cozy building, circa 1958. "Zeke" pulls up,     rattling to a coughing halt. They get out, head up the     steps.47   INT. VICTOR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                   47     They come in, turning on lights. It's a dingy couple of     rooms, but lush with its variety of objects. Everything     looks like it came from the Age of Aquarius: beanbag     furniture, paper "Tiffany" shades on hanging lights,     blacklight posters, hanging macrame planters.     Cynthia loves the room and everything in it. But she is     particularly drawn to a canvas on an easel in the far corner.48   PAINTING - HER POV                                                48     It's of her, sitting serenely in a meadow, the Unity House     perched prominently on a hill in the distance. (In the     doorway, the bare-chested FIGURE of a man may--or may not--be     barely visible.) Cynthia's clothes in the painting are the     ones she wore in the opening scene.     But her face is that of today's Cynthia.49   BACK TO SCENE                                                     49                         VICTOR               I... did it by memory. I tried to               imagine... what you'd... look               like today. Guess I came pretty               close.                         CYNTHIA               It's beautiful. More beautiful               than I ever was.                         VICTOR                   (softly)               Then you need a new mirror.     she smiles, flattered.    Suddenly a CAT jumps up on a crate.                         VICTOR (CONT'D)               That's Chairman Meow.     Cynthia picks him up.    Victor takes out a bottle of tequila     and two glasses.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                36.     CONTINUED:                            CYNTHIA                  You still haven't told me how you                  lived. I really can't remember                  anything about the... accident.                            VICTOR                  It wasn't an accident.     She stiffens.    His eyes are far away.                            VICTOR (CONT'D)                  A lot of people back then, they                  hated Unity House. Hated Harris                  and his dreams... dreams of                  peace... of oneness. That hate                  fed negative energy into the cosmic                  vortex... Something bad was bound                  to happen. That hate was so                  strong... so envious of what we                  had...     He has SQUEEZED the shot glass in his hand so hard that it     EXPLODES. Cynthia JUMPS, and that's when he notices it.                             VICTOR (CONT'D)                      (very normal)                  Oh, fuck--                            CYNTHIA                  You've cut yourself--     She comes over, binds his hand with a dishcloth.     He holds     onto her.                            VICTOR                  I guess talking about the past can                  be a little dangerous.     He pours a shot into the remaining glass.                            VICTOR (CONT'D)                  Let's drink to the present.                      (pause)                  To us.     He SIPS.   Passes the glass to her.50   CYNTHIA                                                            50     She hesitates...    smiles.   Drinks.     There is a drop of blood in the glass.     She doesn't see it.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                37.     CONTINUED: (2)                           CYNTHIA               To us.51   BACK TO SCENE                                                      51                         VICTOR                   (quietly)               To... Unity.     He pulls her close. They KISS... she seems to malt in his     grasp. The cat jumps down. Slowly they kiss and touch each     other. They stop and stare into each other's eyes.     He moves his hand over her shoulders, neck, through her hair.     She is completely his.                                                 DISSOLVE TO:52   INT. BEDROOM - LATER THAT NIGHT                                    52     Half a dozen candles illuminate the room.     Cynthia and Victor are making love. Not violent, but slow,     passionate, dreamlike. They are completely enjoying each     other. The satisfaction seems spiritual. They stare into     each other's eyes the entire time. They are lost.     Gradually Victor's rhythm builds. As his momentum increases,     as the ecstasy nears, Cynthia accelerates too. Heaving,     gasping, they are approaching a beautiful climax.     But just when it seems Victor is on the verge, the very     threshold, he stops and JUMPS violently out of bed.                           VICTOR               Oh Jesus!                           CYNTHIA               Victor?     Victor paces around the room, practically bouncing off the     walls.                         VICTOR               Oh, my God. I can't believe it.               What a great idea...! Too amazing!               Too amazing!                         CYNTHIA               Is something wrong?                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                        38.CONTINUED:                       VICTOR             Not wrong, Cynthia...right! The             most right thing in the world!He goes to his closet and pulls out a shoe box. He holds itwith a coy expression, like a kid hiding a frog. Cynthia'sannoyance with the break in mood fades in light of hisexuberance. Their tone with each other remains loving,kidding.                       CYNTHIA             Are you going to tell me your             little secret, or should I just got             dressed?                       VICTOR             I'm sorry, Cyn, but I just got the             most incredible idea. It's             absolutely beautiful! Do you want             to know what it is?                          CYNTHIA                    (exasperated)             Yes!He sits on the bad.                       VICTOR             I was just thinking about what we             were doing here together...                       CYNTHIA             I should hope so...                       VICTOR             Wouldn't it be incredible if, right             at the perfect moment right when             we're coming, if we did it?                          CYNTHIA             Did what?                       VICTOR             What we were meant to do, of             course.                       CYNTHIA                 (puzzled)             ...meant to do...?                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                        39.CONTINUED: (2)                    VICTOR          That sunset. That last night.      At          Unity House. Remember?                       CYNTHIA          No...     No, Victor, I don't...                    VICTOR              (distant)          They all got to go. You and me...          we got left behind... while they          went on.              (chuckling)          Guess that's why they say life          ain't fair. Well...He opens the box.    Inside it are TWO PISTOLS.                    VICTOR (CONT'D)          --we can fix that.                    CYNTHIA              (stiffening)          My God, Victor! Put those away--He ignores her, checks the cylinder on the revolver, the clipon the automatic.                    VICTOR          This is so great! I mean, I've          been living with all this shit,          thinking about you, searching...          going nowhere. And you, hell, you          don't fit in with Ralph and Miriam,          those other flakes... Berrisford          and Goldman, they're a waste of          time--                    CYNTHIA          H-how do you know about them? I          never--He SLAMS the clip home, CLOSES the cylinder.                    VICTOR          Yeah. We had the answers, way back          then. Unity. Unity, now and          forever. Cynthia, this is our          second chance!She shrinks away from him on the bed. He bounces closer likea kid at a pajama party, holds out one of the pistols.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                        40.CONTINUED: (3)                    VICTOR (CONT'D)          Okay, you do me, and I'll do you--          but wait until I say go! Hey, get          rid of the sheet... Let me see          that grown up body...He grins, puts the gun to her head and gets an top of her.                    CYNTHIA          No, Vic. Please.       Please!   I don't          want to do this!                    VICTOR          Yes, you do. You know you do.                     CYNTHIA          No!He's holding her down.   He's getting into it.                    VICTOR          Oh, Cynthia, it's so beautiful.                    CYNTHIA          God, God, no--                    VICTOR          We're on the edge of space and          time.He spreads her legs under the sheets. She's strugglingagainst him, but it's no use. He's too strong. He's comingcloser.                    VICTOR (CONT'D)          Oh, good... good... ummm...          ummm...              (continuing)          Cynthia, it's happening. Put the          gun to my head.                    CYNTHIA          Jesus, Vic, no!                    VICTOR          Yeah, oh yeah...     oh, YEAH--A SHOT sounds.   She SCREAMS--                                             CUT TO:                                                                 41.53   INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT                                                53     Cynthia BOLTS up out of bed.                            CYNTHIA               No!     The candles are out.    Victor isn't in the room.     Cynthia, drenched with sweat, slowly catches her breath.      She     looks around, confused.                            CYNTHIA (CONT'D)               Vic?     She goes into the other room.54   INT. LIVING ROOM                                                    54     No Vic. It is dark except for a FIRE in the fireplace. The     flames REFLECT oddly on the slick surface of the oil painting     of Unity House.                            CYNTHIA               Vic?     She checks in the kitchen. Nothing.       She looks back in the     bedroom. The apartment is empty.     She's just calming when--MEEOW! The CAT LEAPS out of     nowhere, startling her, and then running out of sight.     She swallows. Very nervous now, she sits on the couch and     starts pulling on her jeans and shoes. The CAMERA MOVES     AROUND her, revealing the entire apartment. We see EVERY     ANGLE. It is completely quiet and still. The CAMERA SETTLES     at one ANGLE on Cynthia. A shadow behind her MOVES.                         VICTOR               Where are you going?     Cynthia JUMPS from fright.                         CYNTHIA               Jesus, Vic. I thought you... left.                           VICTOR               Me?    Leave you all alone?     He pulls her into his arms.      She hesitates.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                42.     CONTINUED:                             CYNTHIA                  Vic?   Vic, are you... happy?                            VICTOR                  That...                      (kissing her)                  ...has to be..                      (kissing again)                  ...the stupidest question I ever                  heard...     He keeps kissing, caressing.                            CYNTHIA                  I mean... with... life.   With...                  being alive.     He looks at her oddly.                            VICTOR                  What are you talking about?                            CYNTHIA                      (relaxing)                  Never mind... I had this...                  bizarre dream...                            VICTOR                  Welcome to reality.     He touches her soft face. He runs his hands down her neck.     They kiss again, she now completely without reservation.     Their embrace is so all-encompassing that, when she opens her     eyes, it's only then that she SEES55   CLOSER                                                             55     She is kissing a BURNED AND SCARRED FACE WITH ONLY CLUMPS OF     PUPPY BLACK MUSCLE HANGING ON THE BONE. It is Harris' face,     the face we saw in the elevator. Cynthia GASPS, fumbles     backwards off of the sofa.                            VICTOR (CONT'D)                  What's the matter?     She looks back up at him.     He's Victor again, normal again.                             VICTOR (CONT'D)                  Cynthia?     She knocks over a tequila bottle. It's spilled all over the     floor. She is speechless. He picks the bottle up.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                 43.     CONTINUED: (2)                         VICTOR (CONT'D)               Why did you pull away?                           CYNTHIA               I...    I think I'd better go.                           VICTOR               Why?     She's over by the door.    Victor comes and presses against it     so she can't get out.                         CYNTHIA               Please let me out.                         VICTOR               I don't understand...    What did I               do?                        CYNTHIA               Nothing. It's not you, it...     it's               me. I just want to go.                         VICTOR               You know, maybe you belong in that               clinic, because this, this is               crazy! We were having a good time--                   (on her look)               I'm sorry. Look, what we were               feeling... it was special.     She softens--                         VICTOR (CONT'D)               --it was Unity.                   (distantly)               Unity, Now and through Eternity...               Cynthia, you cannot run...     That does it.    Pale, she scrabbles at the doorknob, opens it,     runs out.                          VICTOR (CONT'D)               You cannot run... You belong to us               Forever--!56   EXT. STREET - NIGHT                                                 56     She runs out of the building, past "Zeke."      She looks back.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                44.     CONTINUED:57   THE APARTMENT--HER POV                                            57     Victor is in the window waving, firelight dancing behind him.     The reflection on the glass makes the painting on the wall     look totally aflame.     ETHEREAL SITAR MUSIC UP OVER THE FOLLOWING SEQUENCE:58   EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT                                              58     Cynthia has her thumb out as the cars whizz by.     One stops.59   INT. CAR - NIGHT                                                  59     A sweaty-looking DRIVER eyes Cynthia.   She just looks off,     depressed and afraid.60   EXT. PARKING LOT - DAWN                                           60     She gets out of the car and goes in the main entrance.61   INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - DAWN                                      61     She makes her way to her room looking tired, distraught.62   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - DAY                                         62     She lies on her bed, exhausted, trying to sleep.     She can't.     She gets out of bad.63   INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - DAY                                       63     She's looking for an office. She goes in one marked Dr.     Goldman. He looks up from his coffee, sees her ashen     expression... pulls out a chair. Listens as the words     tumble out. His expression changes... to skepticism... and     then, as she breaks down SOBBING, to concern. He holds     her... thinks...     ...reaches for his car keys.                                               CUT TO:                                                                   45.64   INT. ALAN'S CAR - DAY                                               64     They are travelling along the highway.      Cynthia POINTS.   He     turns onto another street.65   EXT. VICTOR'S APARTMENT - DAY                                       65     They pull up in front, park.     Go inside.     CAMERA LINGERS long enough for us to notice a puddle from an     OIL LEAK exactly where "Zeke" was parked.     THE MUSIC FADES OUT.66   INT. APARTMENT CORRIDOR - DAY                                       66     The MANAGER, a fat woman in a muumuu, waddles ahead of them,     a huge keychain CLINKING with each of her steps.                         MANAGER               Apartment 2-B, right?     Alan looks at Cynthia.                            CYNTHIA               Right.                         MANAGER               2B or not 2B, that is the question.     She chuckles at her own wit, arrives at the door.      Opens it.67   INT. APARTMENT - DAY                                                67     They step inside. The place is completely bare.       No     furniture. Nothing. Cynthia is stunned.                            CYNTHIA               B..but...     it... it's empty!                         MANAGER               Of course it is. I     don't show               rented apartments.     Anyway, what               you see is what you    get... one               bedroom, gas range,    yadda yadda               yadda.                         (MORE)                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                             46.     CONTINUED:             MANAGER(CONT'D)                  Supposed to be six months minimum,                  but you seem like nice kids, so if                  you want a month to month, we can                  work it out.                            CYNTHIA                  This... this is impossible...                  Alan, I was here... He was here-     Cynthia is staggering around the room, looking everywhere.     She stares long and hard at a DUST-FREE rectangle where the     painting...     ...might have been.                            ALAN                      (to the manager)                  How long has this place been                  vacant?                            MANAGER                  'Bout six weeks. Couple a                  deadbeats... their damn kids tore                  the hell out of it, too--                            CYNTHIA                  Alan, I don't care what she says,                  this is it! Look, look--                      (pointing)                  There's a double-door closet in                  there on the left.     Alan goes in.68   INT. BEDROOM - DAY                                               68     Alan looks and sees the closet as she described it.69   INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY                                           69                            CYNTHIA                      (as he comes back out)                  Well?                            ALAN                  Cynthia, a double closet isn't                  exactly a positive I.D.--                            MANAGER                  What are you two talking about? You                  wanna rent, or what?                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                47.     CONTINUED:     Cynthia looks around, suddenly points to a stain on the rug,     triumphant.                            CYNTHIA                  There! There, look--that's where I                  spilled the tequila...                      (on her knees, desperate)                  See? See? It's still wet!                             MANAGER                      (apologetic)                  Hon, I think that's from the                  ceiling...     CAMERA TILTS UP. There is, indeed, a corresponding damp spot     directly above the one on the rug. As we WATCH a DRIP plops     down.                            MANAGER (CONT'D)                  ...damn plumber was supposed to fix                  it last week.                      (smiling)                  So! We in business?                                                 CUT TO:70   INT. BERRISFORD'S OFFICE - DAY                                      70     Wasserman SLAMS his hand down on the desk, furious. Cynthia     JUMPS, squeezes Alan's hand. Berrisford sits quietly, leans     forward and picks up the pan holder Wasserman has displaced.                            WASSERMAN                  Twelve hours! You wait twelve                  hours to tell me about this? Am I                  supposed to be grateful for your                  civic-mindedness? I told you the                  Unity House case was still open--                      (pointing at Cynthia)                  --and she's the only lead. You                  should have called me the minute                  you found out--                            BERRISFORD                      (calmly)                  Found out what? Lieutenant, if I                  called the police every time one of                  my patients experienced a fantasy                  or a delusion, you'd have to move                  in here--                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                         48.CONTINUED:                       CYNTHIA                 (sharp, stepping forward)             It was not a delusion! Victor             Lunes was here--                       BERRISFORD             The security guard didn't see             anyone--                       CYNTHIA             Then the security guard needs             glasses! Alan, tell them--                       ALAN                 (on the spot)             The apartment did match her general             description--                       WASSERMAN             --a one bedroom flat with a beige             rug... that's rather... generic.                       CYNTHIA             --Victor isn't generic--                       WASSERMAN             Victor is dead! Dead for fifteen             years--                       CYNTHIA             --you've seen his body?                       WASSERMAN             --it was burned beyond recognition--             but there was I.D.--                       CYNTHIA             I knew it--I knew it-                       ALAN             Cynthia. Look... we've all done             it... tumbled out of bed positive             that we've just lived something             that was only a dream--                       CYNTHIA                 (firmly)             Damn it, it wasn't a dream--I was             out there--                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                           49.CONTINUED: (2)                    WASSERMAN          No one's denying you flow the coop,          Miss Weston... You wanna prove the          rest? Lemme get a policewoman to          stand by while a gynecologist          checks out your plumbing. We'll          see soon enough if your ghost left          a calling card--Cynthia hauls off and gives Wasserman a tremendous SLAP.                    CYNTHIA          You bastard.She goes to the door, looks at the doctors.                     CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          You...              (searching)          --experts!She goes out, SLAMS the door.    Wasserman rubs his jaw, checkshis mouth.                    BERRISFORD          Wonderful! Wonderful! I've been          waiting and waiting for her to          finally show real anger--real          emotion! This could be a          breakthrough!              (sincere)          Thank you, Lieutenant.Wasserman holds a filling in his fingertips.                     WASSERMAN          Hey.   Anytime.                                           CUT TO:INT. THERAPY ROOM - DAYCAMERA PANS past a row of PILLOWS. We WIDEN, see that eachmember of the group has a big pillow in front of them.                    ALAN          Okay. First off, we're all going          to feel a little silly and maybe          look a little silly...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              50.      CONTINUED:                             RALPH                       (a la Groucho)                   Especially in that shirt you're                   wearing, Goldman...70A   NEW ANGLE - FAVORING CYNTHIA                                    70A      She sits, looking very distracted. As Alan continues      speaking, he occasionally looks at her, but--to her relief--      deliberately doesn't single her out.                             ALAN                       (amused, but pushing on)                   --but this technique works, and                   we're going to release some of our                   hidden aggression. Who's going to                   go first? Lana?                             LANA                       (pause)                   How many helpless goose had to die                   to fill those stupid pillows?                             ALAN                       (as everyone groans)                   None, Lana. They're polyester.                   Ed? Want to start?                             ED                   Nah. Let's talk about the geese                   again. Nice fat ones, with all the                   trimmings--                             ALAN                   All right, how about if we all                   start together and eliminate the                   wimp factor. Come on.      He starts POUNDING his pillow with a steady beat. Gradually,      self-consciously, the others JOIN in except for Cynthia.                             ALAN (CONT'D)                       (standing, walking around                        the circle)                   Okay. What are we feeling?                             CONNIE                       (as she pounds)                   We used to do something like this                   in the royal palace in Atlantis.                   But we used bags of dried kelp.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                               51.      CONTINUED: (2)                          RALPH                Your brain is a bag of dried kelp--                          ALAN                    (chiding)                Ralph. Miriam?                          MIRIAM                    (pounding)                I'm pretending this is my first                husband... No, maybe my third...                    (grinning)                Can I have a baseball bat?                          ALAN                Please, people, let's work at being                serious.      He moves behind Cynthia, who's still unmoving.   Leans close,      whispers.                          ALAN (CONT'D)                I know you had a rough night.   But                you have to participate.      She sighs, starts to pound the pillow. At first she's very      distracted, but then she gets into an unconscious rhythm...70B   GROUP - QUICK SHOTS                                             70B      All of them are finally and legitimately exorcising personal      demons.                          ALAN (CONT'D)                Okay, that's better. Now let's                hear some emotion. Let it out.                yell! Scream!      Miriam gives a very theatrical scream. There's some      laughter, but others try, too. Gilda begins to give little      angry yelps. Ralph is really punching some ancient enemy.      Connie does a respectable if modest SCREAM. Ed SNARLS with      more anger than we'd expect.70B   CYNTHIA                                                         70B      begins hitting the pillow with growing strength. Her eyes      are far away. She begins to BREATHE HEAVILY. CAMERA      TIGHTENS ON HER. She closes her eyes. When she opens them,      she REACTS TO--                                                                  52.75    INT. UNITY HOUSE COMMON ROOM - NIGHT                                75      The scene in exactly like the first time we saw this room      with one difference: the hospital Group Therapy crowd sits in      the room. They are oblivious to the change around them. Now      their pounding gradually UNIFIES, becomes a background voodoo-      like DRUMMING.      Cynthia is speechless. She looks at then in amazement, but      none of them notice her. Suddenly she sees75A   HARRIS                                                             75A      He's across from her, SMILING.    Again, he sleeks back his      hair in that amber liquid.                           HARRIS                 You failed me, Cynthia...   You                 failed all of us...      Harris holds a wooden match. With it he presses back a      fingernail. It snaps off and bleeds. Harris watches      Cynthia.                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 We were supposed to be together...                 in this world... and in the next...      CAMERA WIDENS to take in the cistern of liquid.    We SEE the      dripping wet Unity members.                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 It was going to be perfect, all of                 us taking the same journey... You                 shouldn't have run. You made us                 wait for you while you slept...                 all those years.      He presses back another nail SNAP. CAMERA WIDENS FURTHER.      Now we see something we didn't see before: a dozen or so      PLASTIC JERRY CANS marked "GASOLINE--DANGER--PLAMMABLE."                           HARRIS (CONT'D)                 The waiting time is over, my                 lovechild. It's time for you to                 join us. In Unity...      Another.   SNAP.   Hands and faces everywhere are soaked.   They      DRIP.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                              53.      CONTINUED:                               HARRIS (CONT'D)                   In death.    You know you want it.      SNAP.   Drip.75B   CYNTHIA                                                        75B      Her throat muscles constrict, but she can't speak. She looks      over at Alan, who seems not to see any of this. Now, eyes      widening in horror, Cynthia LOOKS DOWN and sees a POOL OF      GASOLINE SPREADING TOWARDS HER. It washes against the      pillow, her knees.75C   BACK TO SCENE                                                  75C                             HARRIS (CONT'D)                   You know we're your family...      SNAP.   Drip.                             HARRIS (CONT'D)                   ...You have no choice...      He takes the match and strikes it through the pile of nails.      The nails scatter.                             HARRIS (CONT'D)                   ...Come to us, Cynthia. It's time                   to die. Don't lot another take                   your place. Come to us... now.      The match is lit.    He throws it off.76    SLOW MOTION                                                     76      It FALLS through the air. Lands on the soaked carpet.   An      EXPLOSION of flames. They RUSH TOWARDS CYNTHIA--                             CYNTHIA                   NOOOOOOOOO--!      It is a blood-curdling and heart-stopping a scream as ever      heard.      There is a FLASH of light.                                                   CUT TO:                                                               54.77    INT. THERAPY ROOM - DAY                                            77      Cynthia's SCREAM trails off as she THROWS herself back from      the pillow.      The Unity House Members and Harris are all gone.      The group therapy people all turn to her in amazement.77A   MIRIAM                                                            77A      Open mouthed, she DROPS the match she's holding to light a      cigarette. It SIZZLES on the rug. Alan STOMPS it out,      rushes over to Cynthia, who SAGS in his arms,                                               CUT TO:77B   INT. ALAN'S OFFICE - DAY                                          77B      Cynthia sits in a crumpled sprawl in Alan's office. The room      is decorated in comforting tones, with Sierra Club posters      and outdoors-y souvenirs. The late afternoon sun steams in      through the partially closed blinds.      Alan sits beside Cynthia on the couch, concerned.   Berrisford      sucks on his pipe, makes notes.      Wasserman, rocking on the legs of his chair, jots in his own      little notebook.                          CYNTHIA                    (softly, tense)                ...They... they sang songs as they                stacked up the white containers...                they were... happy. Because it                was going to be their break with                the world... a world that didn't                understand them. I don't remember                if they took a vote or if Harris                just... decided. But they all                agreed. They were... happy...                smiling... laughing... crying from                happiness as he drenched them in                the gasoline...                          WASSERMAN                    (under his breath)                --Jesus--                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                              55.CONTINUED:                       CYNTHIA             Somehow, I... I knew it was             wrong... I ran... When he threw             the match, I was at the other end             of the hallway... There was a             flash... and a... like a wind, or             the hand of God--picked me up,             threw me... The ceiling fell in...             When I opened my eyes...                 (she looks up)             I was here.Hettie appears in the doorway, tray in hand, raises hereyebrows inquisitively at Alan. Alan nods immediately: Hell,yes. Hettie comes in, gives Cynthia her medication.Wasserman closes his book, looks thoughtful.                       ALAN                 (to Wasserman)             If that's what happened, why didn't             you find any evidence of arson?                       WASSERMAN             The plastic jerry cans would've             burned up before anything else...             We knew there'd been an             explosion... We just didn't know             how or why.Berrisford stands, approaches Wasserman as the police officercloses his book, moves to the doorway.                       BERRISFORD             Well. You must be pleased.             Closing a case after... what is it,             twelve years?                       WASSERMAN             Who says it's closed?The medical people look at him.      Cynthia's thoughts areelsewhere.                       ALAN             What's that supposed to mean?                       WASSERMAN             When the fairy princess here woke             up, she said she didn't remember             anything about 32 deaths. Now she             remembers they committed suicide...                       (MORE)                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               56.     CONTINUED: (2)      WASSERMAN(CONT'D)               but she, of course, was innocent.               Who knows what she'll remember               tomorrow? Running for help... or               pouring gasoline on the fire?     He goes out.                         HETTIE               That man's a candidate for shock               therapy... with a car battery               right to the cojones.                         CYNTHIA               No... he's right.     I am guilty.     They look at her, startled.                         CYNTHIA (CONT'D)               I'm guilty of lying... to Unity               House. I promised to be part of               it... Forever. They expected me               to keep my word.                   (pause)               They still do.     She stands, goes out. Alan and Hettie look worried.     Berrisford looks... unsurprised. He turns to Alan.                         BERRISFORD               Well, Alan. Still think she               doesn't belong in the group?     Alan just looks at him.                                                CUT TO:80   INT. LOCKER ROOM - DAY                                             80     Cynthia, in her bathrobe, wanders out of the shower in     between the dark, steamy rows of lockers. She passes Lana     and Miriam. Miriam is dressing, and Lana is putting on a     swimsuit.                         MIRIAM               Nothing like a hot shower, huh?     Cynthia doesn't hear or see them. She settles on the far end     of the bench. She sits there blankly. Lana nears, with     great trepidation.                          LANA               Cynthia?   Cynthia?   Are you okay?                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                               57.CONTINUED:Cynthia looks up.                         CYNTHIA             What?                       LANA             Are you all right?    After that             session today, I--                         CYNTHIA             I'm fine.Cynthia starts to dress, ignoring Lana.         Lana stands therefor a moment, very awkwardly.                       LANA             I think... you're a decent             person... not a... mean spirited             witch like some people...She thrown a look at Miriam, who just smiles pleasantly.                       LANA (CONT'D)             --and, well, if you need a friend             here...                       CYNTHIA                 (distant tone)             All my friends are dead.Rattled, Lana backs off, on the verge of tears, rushing pastMiriam, who has observed all this.                       MIRIAM             Lana, wait a minute, she didn't             mean it--shit.Miriam closes her locker and comes over to Cynthia.                       MIRIAM (CONT'D)             I know Lana's a mealy-mouthed             little prude, but she means well.             I probably pull her chain too             much... She's reaching out, like             all of us. Try and help her.                       CYNTHIA             I can't even help myself.Miriam looks at her, puzzled, then exits the locker room,heading back to the ward.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                  58.      CONTINUED: (2)      Beyond the lockers, through a doorway, we see Lana lowering      herself into the pool. Blue ripples line the wall beyond.                          DISTANT VOICES                    (echo affect)                Be cleansed!      The SOUND of the VOICES unnerves Cynthia.     She presses her      hands against her forehand in pain.      We are TIGHT ON Cynthia.    We hear SPLASHING.                          VOICE                Cleanse the heart of your mind.      A bright white light melts across Cynthia's face.     She looks      up. Something draws her forward.80A   CYNTHIA - SIDE ANGLE                                               80A      She begins walking, passing behind CLOTHES RACKS and LOCKERS.      Then, somehow, the SHADOWS of these things become the SHADOWS      of TREES, and then Cynthia is80B   ON A BROAD FIELD                                                   80B      which leads down to a POND. Twenty or so PEOPLE are gathered      at the edge of the water. We see the Unity House in the      distance.      Cynthia moves behind a tree to watch. Harris stands waist-      deep in the pond. The Unity House Members all sit or stand      on the shore. Harris holds his hands out in a gesture. A      girl comes forward through the group out into the water. It      is Cynthia, the younger Cynthia, with long hair in a braid.      She smiles at Harris as she nears him. He clutches her      hands. Behind the tree, Cynthia watches "herself," absorbed.      Harris looks into Cynthia's eyes.    He touches her face.                             HARRIS                Cynthia.     You are part of the                whole.      He grabs her by the back of the head and plunges her      violently under water.                          HARRIS (CONT'D)                Cleanse the heart of the mind!      He yanks her up.   She smiles exultantly.    He dunks her back      down.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                   59.      CONTINUED: (3)                          HARRIS (CONT'D)                Cleanse the soul of the self!      He yanks her up again, but it's not Cynthia. It's LANA.      Before she can catch her breath, she's plunged back down.80C   LANA - CLOSER                                                      80C      She's yanked up, but this time she's not in the pond, she's      in that gasoline-filled cistern!                          HARRIS (CONT'D)                Cleanse the spirit of the body!      He holds her under. She starts to move her arms around to      grab hold of something to pull herself up, but Harris is too      strong. She flails around desperately.80D   CYNTHIA                                                            80D      Alarmed, she moves forward--80E   WITH LANA - UNDER WATER                                            80E                          HARRIS (CONT'D)                    (distant)                Cleanse the spirit.      Lana's gasping, inhaling water, turning blue.    Harris is      possessed.                            HARRIS (CONT'D)                Cleanse.      Her movements slow.   Her eyes close.   She is completely      still.80F   HARRIS - CLOSE                                                     80F      He looks directly at Cynthia.                          HARRIS (CONT'D)                I warned you, Cynthia. I warned                you someone else would take your                place.80G   UNDER WATER AGAIN                                                  80G      His HAND withdraws from Lana. Her eyes OPEN. No life there.      SHE FLOATS UPWARDS. THE CAMERA BREAKS THE SURFACE OF THE      WATER WITH HER.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                60.      CONTINUED: (4)      We're in the clinic's swimming pool! On the edge of the      pool, Cynthia SCREAMS, drops to her knees in horror.80H   OTHER END OF BUILDING                                             80H      The clinic CUSTODIAN and some staff run into the room.80I   SWIMMING POOL - HIGH ANGLE                                        80I      Someone wades out to Lana's body, drags it to the concrete      deck, tries futilely to pump life back into it.      Across the pool, Cynthia flails at the people trying to help      her.                                                CUT TO:80J   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                       80J      TIGHT on Cynthia's arm as a clear liquid is injected into her      vein. We WIDEN, see Berrisford has injected her. Alan      watches, concerned.      Cynthia flails on the bed, already reacting to the sedative      qualities of the drug.                          CYNTHIA                --He killed her--he killed her                because I broke my word... He said                he'd take someone else, and he                did... She wanted my help... my                friendship... That's why... he                took her...      She's out cold. Behind the doctors, in the doorway, the      other clinic patients press close, curious. Hettie pushes      them out and down the hallway.                          HETTIE                Move it, people, this ain't a                sideshow... Get back to your                rooms...      Alan looks down at Cynthia with genuine concern.    But      Berrisford eyes her totally clinically.                          BERRISFORD                    (thinking aloud)                Fascinating.                          (MORE)                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                               61.     CONTINUED:             BERRISFORD(CONT'D)                  She's a textbook specimen from a                  collective environment, an                  immersion philosophy, run by an                  extremely manipulative figurehead                  with Messianic delusions. Unity                  House at its apex must have been a                  classic matrix of belief impression                  overlaid on collectivity--                      (exciting himself)                  That would indicate she's                  symptomatic of a hypothetical                  Borderline Personality syndrome                  among cult followers, all                  externalizing their anxiety!                      (turning)                  What do you think?     Alan looks at him disbelievingly.                            ALAN                      (exploding)                  I think she's fucking freaked out                  about Lana!                            BERRISFORD                      (a shrug)                  Possible.88   INT. HALLWAY - DAY                                                88     The patients file past the nurse's station, taking their meds     from Hettie. They look unsettled.                            ED                      (aside to Ralph)                  Did you see the swimming pool this                  morning? The cops are all over                  it... Fingerprints, photographs...                            RALPH                  Next they'll send in the fucking                  coast guard. Lot of good it'll do                  Lana.     HE SMASHES his fist on the counter, denting it.    Hettie looks     at him.                            HETTIE                  Ralph, we're gonna start billing                  you for these outbursts.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                              62.      CONTINUED:      Ralph just crumples his medication cup and throws it towards      her. She glares at him, doesn't say anything.88A   NEARBY                                                           88A      Cynthia and the other women from the group sit in a waiting      area. Connie sits in a sunbeam, looking ethereal. Gilda is      nearby, unmoving... tear stains on her cheeks.                             CONNIE                   Drowning isn't so bad... I                   remember when I died in Atlantis...                   It was like failing asleep. You                   know what's bad? Burning. When I                   was in the great Fire of London,                   well, let me tell you--      Hearing this, Cynthia chokes back a sob, jumps up and leaves      the room. Miriam whirls on Connie.                             MIRIAM                   Connie, I don't know about your                   previous lives, but in this one,                   you're a shithead.      She follows Cynthia.88B   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - DAY                                        88B      Cynthia is on the bad, crying. Miriam comes in, sits beside      her... Cynthia jumps at the weight on the bad, calms when      she sees who it is.                             MIRIAM                   Honey, you can't blame yourself.                   Lana was an unhappy girl.                   Sometimes unhappy girls do foolish                   things.                             CYNTHIA                   She didn't kill herself.      Cynthia sits up.                             CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                   It was Harris.                             MIRIAM                   Harris?                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                        63.CONTINUED:                       CYNTHIA             From Unity House. He comes to me,             Miriam. He talks to me. He             reminds me that I was supposed to             go with them that night--                       MIRIAM             Go with them--                       CYNTHIA             Through the fire. To the next             world. They waited while I was in             a coma... He told me that if I             didn't join him, he would take             someone also... and he did it,             Miriam, he did it!Miriam gets up, her face a mixture of sympathy... sympathyand something else. She lights a cigarette. Involuntarily,Cynthia FLINCHES at the spark.                        CYNTHIA (CONT'D)             You...   you don't believe me, do             you?                       MIRIAM             I believe that you believe it. And             I also believe that shooting you up             every time you get the heebie-             jeebies ain't gonna do shit for             your real problems. We gotta get             you out of here--get you to some             nice place at the beach or the             mountains where you can fight your             demons in your own way. Right?                       CYNTHIA             But I don't know anyone.   I don't             have any money.                       MIRIAM             You know me.                       CYNTHIA                 (skeptical)             And you have money, right?                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                             64.      CONTINUED: (2)88C   CLOSE ON MIRIAM                                                88C                          MIRIAM                Look. Despite popular opinion to                the contrary, I have not always                been the career borderline                psychotic neurotic that I am today.                Up until a coupla years ago I was a                writer, a reporter, a damn good one                too... Hell, I really kicked some                ass with that Selectric...      She seems lost in thought for a moment. Unconsciously, she      scratches her wrist... a wrist where we notice for the first      time a PURPLE SCAR across the veins.                          MIRIAM (CONT'D)                    (turning)                I was on the staff of a magazine...                Well, some people called it a rag,                but it was home: ME! Magazine. You                heard of it?                          CYNTHIA                    (shaking her head,                     diplomatic)                I was in a coma.                          MIRIAM                Oh, right. Well, when they took me                off to the funny farm, Saul--he's                the editor--he said I was always                welcome back. Maybe this is the                time. See, if I can go to him,                tell him your story, I could get a                big advance... I'd share it with                you, and we'd be set! I mean,                girl, your story has everything...                death, hospitalization, weird                rituals, maybe a little romance--                I've seen all those longing glances                between you and Goldman-                          CYNTHIA                What--!                          MIRIAM                --and now with poor Lana we got a                little mystery. Hell, you're not                an article, you're a goddamned mini-                series!                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                 65.     CONTINUED: (3)                          CYNTHIA               I...   I don't know...                         MIRIAM               Cynthia, let me be honest. This is               a great story, and it means a               second chance for me, so, okay,               there's some self interest here.               But I really think you need to tell               people about Unity House... about               the way decent ideas and dreams got               twisted into something sick and               poisonous. You owe it to the               world. You owe it to yourself.               It's your life, and you have to ask               yourself how you want to live it...                   (sharper)               --if you want to live it.     Cynthia turns, mind made up.                         CYNTHIA               Let's do it.                                               CUT TO,.92   INT. HALLWAY - DAY                                                 92     Cynthia walks along with Miriam towards the banks of     elevators.                         MIRIAM               I think I know a way to make a               phone call. We'll have you out of               here tonight.     Miriam suddenly stops, almost paralyzed with anxiety.                           MIRIAM (CONT'D)               Cynthia.    This is the right thing               to do.                         CYNTHIA               Of course it is.                            MIRIAM               Uh oh.     Mum's the word.     Alan is coming down the hallway towards them.   They move     towards the elevator.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                               66.CONTINUED:                       ALAN                 (nodding)             Ladies. Good to see you             socializing, Cynthia.                          CYNTHIA             Yes.                 (to Miriam)             See you later. And...     thanks.                          MIRIAM             Thank you.Miriam then gets into the elevator.         The doors remain open,Alan turns to Cynthia.                       ALAN             How are you feeling?                          CYNTHIA             Fine.                          ALAN             Good.He heads off in the opposite direction. Cynthia watches him.She turns back towards Miriam. Miriam is alone in theelevator except for one other person.Miriam smiles and waves.Cynthia smiles and waves.From behind Miriam, Harris, all burned and puffy, smiles andwaves.The elevator doors close.                          CYNTHIA             No!Alan whirls around.       Cynthia rushes to the elevator.                         CYNTHIA (CONT'D)             Miriam!    Stop!She bangs on the buttons. She pounds on the doors.          Everyonein the corridor turns to look.                          ALAN             Cynthia?                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                  67.     CONTINUED: (2)     He starts to approach.   She runs to a stairwell.93   INT. STAIRWELL                                                      93     Cynthia sprints down a flight.    She goes out onto94   INT. HALLWAY, ONE FLIGHT DOWN                                       94     Cynthia runs to the elevator and pounds on the button, but     the elevator car has already passed.                         CYNTHIA                   (yelling into the door)               Miriam, get out!     She races back to95   INT. STAIRWELL                                                      95     She flies down the steps.    We can hear ALAN tailing her.                          ALAN'S VOICE               Cynthia!     She swings around a turn into a flight and trips.     Suddenly     she's ROLLING DOWN A96   EXT. HILLSIDE - NIGHT                                               96     She SLAMS into a tree.   We see the Unity House in the     distance.                          VOICE               Cynthia!                         ANOTHER VOICE               She's trying to get away!     There are PEOPLE pounding through the brush all around her.     She gets up and runs along the path into the forest.                        VOICE               Cynthia! We want you to stay with               us! You mustn't be afraid!     She is in total panic, running blindly.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                             68.     CONTINUED:                            CYNTHIA                  Please, no.     Branches thrash her face. She can barely see where she is     going, but she comes to a halt when she reaches a dark     precipice, a cliff which seemingly has no bottom--just black     as night.     The people are getting nearer.                            FEMALE VOICE                  She's over here.     We see someone nearing through the brush.                            HARRIS                  No pain, Cynthia. There's no pain.                  Come with us. Share with us. Take                  my hand.     Cynthia looks down the cliff.                            ORDERLY'S VOICE                  Take my hand.     Cynthia backs away. She starts lowering herself down, trying     to get footing. Some rocks slide out.97   INT. STAIRWELL                                                  97                            ORDERLY                  Cynthia, take my hand.     The Orderly rushes to her, but she wavers dizzily and FALLS     down the half-flight. She's dazed, but she becomes alert     when she sees the orderly approaching. She picks herself up     and runs.98   INT. TENTH FLOOR CORRIDOR                                       98     She gets to the elevator. The door is just closing, but it     opens again against a purse--Miriam's purse. The elevator is     empty. Cynthia whips around looking for her. Orderlies and     nurses are moving towards her.     At the opposite and of the hallway, a window is broken.     Cynthia runs to it. There is a WOMAN'S SCREAM from the     street below. PEOPLE YELLING. Cynthia looks out and down.     We know what she sees.    She covers her face.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                     69.      CONTINUED:      An orderly takes hold of her. She is docile now, almost      weak. Alan runs up. He looks out the window. So does a      Nurse.                             ALAN                   Jesus.      The nurse crosses herself.    Cynthia is escorted away amid the      confusion.99    EXT. SKY - DAY                                                           99      The CAMERA IS MOVING FORWARD, TOWARDS the window.      It seemingly goes OUT THROUGH THE WINDOW.      The FRAME is filled with bright blue sky.      Silence, except for a slight BREEZE.      Someone is falling through the sky.       It is MIRIAM.      We see her CLOSER, flowing down, the wind rushing up round      her. She is happy.                              MIRIAM                   Cynthia, it's really quite                   beautiful.      The ground comes rushing up and we SLAM into it.      BLACK.                                                    FADE IN:99A   INT. THERAPY ROOM - NIGHT                                               99A      It's not a session.    It's a wake.   Cynthia sits, face half in      shadow.                             CYNTHIA                   They want us all now. They want us                   with them. Whether we like it or                   not, we're going,                             ALAN                   Cynthia, we're all upset by what's                   happened. But let's not get--                                                                (CONTINUED)                                                        70.CONTINUED:                       CYNTHIA             Harris promised us eternal bliss on             the other side when we're all             together.                       CONNIE             Eternal bliss....                       RALPH             Eternal bullshit--!                       CYNTHIA             Miriam was going to write a story             about me. He killed her because             she was going to help me got out of             here.                       ALAN             Cynthia, please...                       CYNTHIA             You're not listening to me! He             wants us all to die! He wants you             all with them, and it's because of             me!                 (sobbing)             It's all because of me...Berrisford addresses a pack of about thirty REPORTERS andPHOTOGRAPHERS and CAMERAMEN.                       FIRST REPORTER             Dr. Berrisford, what would you call             two suicides on your promises so             close together?                       BERRISFORD             I'd call it a tragic coincidence.             Unfortunately, Borderline             Personality Disorder is indicative             of a pre-existing disposition             towards suicidal tendencies.                       SECOND REPORTER             What about the commune girl? Has             she confirmed that the fire was             some sort of mass suicide?                       BERRISFORD             As that is a police matter, I am             not at liberty to comment on it.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                  71.      CONTINUED: (2)                          FIRST REPORTER                Speaking of the police, doctor,                isn't it true that they suspect                that the recent deaths may not have                been suicides at all?                          BERRISFORD                That's completely absurd.   Where do                you get this nonsense?                          FIRST REPORTER                    (a smug smile)                From Lieutenant Wasserman. He                confirmed to me that he's assigning                some of his officers to the                hospital grounds until further                notice.      Pandemonium as the other reporters seize this information.                          REPORTERS                    (rapid fire)                Doctor Berrisford, are you                cooperating with the police? Dr.                Berrisford, do your patients have a                history of violence?                          BERRISFORD                Ah... I have work to do.    No                further questions.      And--flustered for once--he leaves the room.                                                 CUT TO:107   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                        107      It is raining.   Cynthia sits in bed, in the dark.      We see the CHARRED AND BURNED HARRIS sitting across the room      in a shadow. Cynthia looks over at him.                          HARRIS                You're in pain, Cynthia.      He reaches up to his face, and peels off some skin.    It      CRACKLES and oozes. He peels off more.                          HARRIS (CONT'D)                Your pain is my pain. We share it                all, because we have our love.                          (MORE)                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                       72.      CONTINUED:             HARRIS(CONT'D)                   Our love will never die. Don't                   make me take another of your                   friends. Keep your promise,                   lovechild. Join me.      She stands, fumbles for the switch, knocks over a glass, and      turns on the light.      He is gone. As she stands there in shock, a HAND touches her      shoulder, spins her around. She GASPS--      It's Alan, who's just opened the door.        He looks at her,      worried.                             ALAN                   I didn't want you to be alone.      She sways, dizzy, sags in his arms.                             ALAN (CONT'D)                   Looks like I was right.                                                     CUT TO:108   INT. CONNIE'S ROOM - NIGHT                                             108      Connie is sitting on her bad. She takes her pills from      Hettie dutifully. Ed comes in.                             HETTIE                   What are you doing here?                             ED                   You know me at feeding time.      He takes his meds from her, smiling. CHEWS THEM loudly and      sloppily until she grimaces and goes out.      Then, the minute the door closes, Ed and Connie are in each      other's arms. They kiss like characters in a Harlequin      Romance.                             CONNIE                       (coming up for air)                   Why didn't you tell me before that                   you were a Prince of Ancient                   Atlantis?                             ED                   It slipped my mind ...    your                   Highness.                                                               (CONTINUED)                                                                 73.       CONTINUED:       She kisses him passionately again.    He breaks the clinch,       pulls her towards the door.                              ED (CONT'D)                    They'll have bed check soon.   I                    know a better place.109    INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                       109       Alan site on the counter across from Cynthia's bed.    He plays       with the hinged mirror on the wall.                              ALAN                    I don't know if you want to hear                    this or not, and frankly, I don't                    care.       As he toys with the mirror, we see a CANTED REFLECTION of       first Cynthia and then the hallway. A nurse passes by.109A   ON CYNTHIA                                                        109A       As she listens.                              ALAN (CONT'D)                    You are no more responsible for                    those deaths twelve hours ago than                    you are for the ones twelve years                    ago.       Something catches her eye.109B   IN THE MIRROR                                                     109B       Connie and Ed walk by.                              ALAN (CONT'D)                    Thinking otherwise is putting you                    in a self-replicating spiral of                    depression. And that puts me in a                    bind... What do I do, write more                    prescriptions? You need to face                    reality, not get medicated out of                    it...       Cynthia GASPS.    HARRIS HAS APPEARED IN THE MIRROR, following       Ed and Connie.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                  74.       CONTINUED:109C   BACK TO SCENE                                                      109C       Cynthia jumps up, heads for the door.    Alan catches her by       the wrist,                              ALAN (CONT'D)                    Damn it, Cynthia, you can't run                    away from this--                              CYNTHIA                    It's Harris--he's going to do                    something to Connie--to Ed--!       Alan SLAPS her.    She pales... tries to hit him back.                              ALAN                    Good! Get mad--get angry--but not                    at me--at these fantasies--!       She stands on rocky feet, unsure...112    INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                               112       Connie and Ed come to a door marked "Utility." Ed looks       around cautiously and opens the door, relieved that it's       still unlocked.113    INT. UTILITY ROOM - NIGHT                                          113       Once inside the small space, he kisses Connie. He pulls out       a pint flask of schnapps from his bathrobe pocket. He gives       her a swig.                              CONNIE                        (wistful)                    Nectar from the grapes of Atlantis!                              ED                    No fooling you.       He leads her back to a door that's labeled "DANGER:       Authorized Personnel Only." The lock is busted open.     They go       in.                                                               75.114   INT. TURBINE ROOM - NIGHT                                        114      There are metal grating steps leading up to a platform that      sits adjacent to a huge spinning turbine, its six-foot blades      WHIRRING at top speed. Air ducts lead in and out of the      space.      Connie is uplifted, frightened, exhilarated. Their clothes      and hair are blown around. They ascend the platform, and sit      across from each other. They each take a swig. They kiss      softly, spiritually.                          ED                I'm so happy.115   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                             115      The door to the utility room CLOSES.   It LOCKS.116   INT. TURBINE ROOM - NIGHT                                        116      Connie and Ed stare into each other's eyes.   They are lost.      The CAMERA MOVES IN AND OUT between and around them,      exploring the depth of their absorption. The CAMERA MOVES      TOWARDS the huge spinning turbine. Its SOUND builds to a      tremendous ROAR.      We see Connie and Ed through the door into the turbine room.      The door is pulled closed by someone or something. The knob      locks.117   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                      117      Cynthia keeps looking at the door, worried.                          ALAN                Miriam and Lana were both deeply                disturbed women. Miriam tried to                kill herself before. Lana was                obsessed with the morbid... You                heard her in the sessions. You                can't twist what they did into                something other than what it was.      Just then, all the lights go OUT.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                76.      CONTINUED:                                ALAN (CONT'D)                   Now what?      In the darkness, he stumbles towards the light, flicks it.      Nothing. The door OPENS. In the dim light of the hallway      emergency lamps, we SEE Cynthia go out.                             ALAN (CONT'D)                   Damn it, Cynthia, come back--!      Trying to follow, he COLLIDES With some furniture.                                ALAN (CONT'D)                   Shit--!118   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                            118      Darkness and confusion. Cynthia passes by the CAMERA. A      moment later Alan comes by, looking for her. Other patients      come out and wonder. Flashlights. A NURSE streams by.                             NURSE                   It's just overloaded circuits.                   Everyone, please go back into your                   room.      CAMERA ADJUSTS to show an elderly, skeletal custodian, EDGAR,      on the phone.                             EDGAR                   The turbine room upstairs? All                   right.                       (he hangs up)                   We'll set it straight in a minute.                   Somethin's caught in the turbine.                                NURSE                   Hurry.120   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                            120      Edgar comes up to the utility door, but it won't budge.                                EDGAR                   Goddammit.      He walks off.                                                                    77.121    INT. UTILITY TUNNEL - NIGHT                                           121       This is a low passageway between floors. Edgar has to stoop       under the ducts and pipes. He comes to a small hatchway in       the coiling above him marked "CAUTION: Turbine."       There is a latch which has to be pulled to release the       hatchway. Edgar pulls. It's stuck. He yanks with his frail       body. The latch barely moves.       A TRICKLE OF BLOOD streams out at the edge, but Edgar doesn't       see it.       Edgar yanks and pulls with all his might, groaning and       heaving. Finally he stops in frustration. He sits an a       duct, resting.       Just then the latch undoes itself. The hatchway slams open.       Edgar is showered with red lumpy fluid. He is coated with       it.                            EDGAR                  What the hell?       Edgar looks down. In the pool of red is a woman's shoe.       Puzzled, he bends down, picks it up. Something FALLS OUT OF       IT.121A   ON THE FLOOR                                                        121A       It is a SEVERED HUMAN FOOT.121B   ON EDGAR                                                            121B       as he reacts in shock, the spinning turbine begins to       SPLATTER DROPS OF BLOOD on him.                                                     CUT TO:122    INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                  122       Cynthia comes towards us.       Alan, further down the hall, sees       her.                               ALAN                  Cynthia--!       Cynthia turns, reacts...       and then reacts to--                                                               (CONTINUED)                                                                      78.       CONTINUED:                               CONNIE'S VOICE                    Cynthia.   Cynthia.                               CYNTHIA                    Connie?       She goes into another corridor. Alan hurries to catch up,       but then has to help a nurse with a frightened OLDER WOMAN.122A   ANOTHER CORRIDOR - WITH CYNTHIA                                      122A                               CONNIE'S VOICE                    Cynthia.       Cynthia moves down the hall a bit.       She looks up at the       coiling.123    ANGLE - THE AIR VENT                                                 123                              CONNIE'S VOICE (CONT'D)                    Cynthia, we're up here!       Down the hall further, another vent.                              ED'S VOICE                    Come with us, Cynthia!                              CONNIE'S VOICE                    You must join us, Cynthia!       Cynthia follows the voices. She is underneath another larger       vent with a fan spinning inside. Everyone in the hall       ignores her.                              HARRIS' VOICE                    Cynthia, you must reach out and                    embrace our love for you... You                    must reach out to me...       We see Harris now, behind the fan, in brief flashes of light,       burnt then normal, gazing down at Cynthia. He reaches       towards her.                              CYNTHIA                    Where are Connie and Ed?       His fingers ARE SLICED OFF BY THE FAN.       He takes no notice.                              HARRIS                    They're with us now.                                                              (CONTINUED)                                                                 79.       CONTINUED: (2)       We hear SPLASHING. Cynthia looks over. Gallons of blood and       solid matter pour out of the ceiling vents all down the hall.                           CYNTHIA                 Where are they?                     (she is frantic)                 Where are Connie and Ed?   Where are                 they?       Alan wonders at the pouring red, then he hears Cynthia       screaming. He runs down the hall to stop her.       The patients and nurses watch the blood pour in horror.       Cynthia is getting more and more hysterical.                           CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                 Where are Connie and Ed?       Alan corners her.                           ALAN                 It's all right--it's all right--       Suddenly, out of nowhere, a BL00D-COVERED BODY careens into       them, driving them apart!123A   ANGLE                                                           123A       It's Edgar, covered with blood, in a total state of shock.                           EDGAR                 --horrible--sweet Jesus--help me--       Alan struggles to restrain him.   Nurses run to help.123B   CYNTHIA                                                         123B       Huddles on the floor in a position not unlike the one from       her coma. She SOBS uncontrollably.                                                 CUT TO:123C   INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT                                           123C       Alan and an orderly escort Cynthia to her room. Alan comes       out, watches Edgar pass by in a wheelchair, raving. Ralph       and Gilda come up to Alan.                           RALPH                 What the fuck is going on?                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                   80.      CONTINUED:                             GILDA                   It's Ed and Connie.    They're dead,                   aren't they?      Alan looks at her.       How did the grapevine got it to her so      fast?                             ALAN                   Yes. We're not sure what                   happened... There was evidence                   that they were drinking... They                   fell into... the main turbine.                             RALPH                   Fuck... Look, Ed drank before.                   Lots of times. Didn't know that,                   did you? But he didn't usually                   decide to jump into a mix master,                   man!                             ALAN                   Ralph, as for your own safety, you                   are being given the most amount of                   protection possible.                             GILDA                   The police are powerless.    Ask                   Cynthia. She knows.                       (softly)                   Harris wants us all.      Ralph looks at Gilda with almost as much dismay as Alan.                             RALPH                   Jesus Fucking Christ!    I'm getting                   the hell out of here.      Ralph storms out.125   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                 125      As Ralph moves along, a paunchy POLICEMAN intercepts him.                               RALPH                   Now what?                             COP                   Lieutenant Wasserman assigned me to                   you. Where you go--                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                81.      CONTINUED:                             RALPH                   I get the picture. Try not to                   shoot me or your fat ass, okay?                                                 CUT TO:126   BERRISFORD'S SILENT IMAGE ON A VIDEO SCREEN                        126127   INT. CYNTHIA'S HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT                               127      The newscast continues silently on the TV in her room.    She      is getting dressed. She peaks out the door.128   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                               128      The Policeman assigned to her is down the hall a ways,      chatting with a nurse. Cynthia slips out and down the      corridor.      She waits for an elevator. When a door opens, she tries to      inconspicuously slip inside but she finds herself face to      face with Alan who in just getting out of the elevator. He      holds a grocery bag.                             ALAN                   Isn't this a coincidence?                             CYNTHIA                   I'm getting out of here.      He takes her arm and starts leading her back to her room.                             ALAN                   Believe it or not, this is the                   safest place for you to be. The                   police are here. There are doctors                   here. And I'm going to keep you                   company, all night. I even brought                   provisions.      He shows a variety of fast food.                              ALAN (CONT'D)                   Pure unadulterated junk. At this                   point, who cares about the                   chemicals?      She smiles slightly. He holds his arm out for her like a      swain escorting his date. She takes it in a similar spirit.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                   82.       CONTINUED:       The policeman comes out of Cynthia's room, looking for her in       alarm. He's instantly relieved to see her there with Alan.       Alan directs her inside. She goes. Alan gives the Policeman       a look.                              ALAN (CONT'D)                    Try harder next time.       He goes into her room, leaving the embarrassed cop behind.       Suddenly the LIGHTS RETURN with an eye-jarring FLASH. The       cop has his revolver halfway out of the holster before he       realizes what it is.128B   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                       128B       They both react   to the returned power with relief. Alan       takes the stuff   out of the bag: chips, dips, cookies, six-       packs of beer.    He offers some of the chips. She shakes her       head. The TV's    still on. Alan switches channels with the       sound muted.                              CYNTHIA                        (with frightening                         casualness)                    Connie and Ed aren't going to be                    the last.                              ALAN                    Yes, they are. Everyone's under                    protection. Nothing can happen.                                                  CUT TO:128C   CLOSE UP - A KNIFE                                                128C       pointing upwards. An outstretched hand SLAMS itself down,       the blade impaling through the palm. The hand squirms its       fingers a bit, then pulls off.130    INT. RALPH'S ROOM - NIGHT                                           130       He gets up clenching the perforated hand. He is very calm.       He closes the knife and puts it in a drawer.       Suddenly, violently, he kicks a trash bin.      Then he is calm       again.       Ralph's assigned Policeman pokes his head in the door.                              RALPH'S POLICEMAN                    Everything okay?                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                   83.      CONTINUED:      Ralph sticks his hand behind him.       He is very friendly, very      normal. He smiles.                             RALPH                   Yes, thank you, officer. Hey,                   lemme buy you a cup of coffee.                             RALPH'S POLICEMAN                       (shrugging)                   Sounds good to me.131   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                 131      Ralph comes out of his room. Ralph's policeman is beside      him. His hand bleeds, but goes unnoticed.132   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                          132      Alan lies back in front of the TV, eyes closed, SNORING.      Sympathetic, Cynthia slips the remote control from his      hand... then there is a KNOCK at the door. She goes there,      finds Ralph, who steps inside.                             RALPH                       (to his cop)                   Just a sec.                             CYNTHIA                   Ralph? What is it?                             RALPH                   Nothing. I just came to tell you--                       (smiling,                        conspiratorially)                   Everything's gonna be okay.                             CYNTHIA                   What's going to be okay?      He goes into the bathroom and rinses his blood-soaked hand.      Cynthia sees this.                             CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                   What happened to your hand?                             RALPH                   Don't worry. Everything's gonna be                   okay.                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                    84.      CONTINUED:                             CYNTHIA                   Ralph?      Cynthia is mystified.    He goes.133   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                133      Ralph walks off, his Policeman following.                             CYNTHIA                       (yelling down the hall)                   Ralph?134   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                         134      She comes in and pokes Alan awake.                             CYNTHIA                   Ralph was just here.   His hand                   was... all bloody.      They go to the door and they are immediately faced with      Hettie.                             HETTIE                   Dr. Goldman, have you seen Ralph?                             ALAN                   I was going to ask you the same                   thing.      She holds up a paper cup with a tablet in it.                             HETTIE                   He didn't take his four o'clock.                   If he misses this one, I'm gonna...      Alan takes the capsule, examines it.                             ALAN                   Shit! It's his tranquilizer! If he                   doesn't take this, he'll completely                   flip out--!      Alan and Cynthia run down the hall.     Cynthia's policeman      follows.                                                                    85.135   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                  135      Alan and Cynthia and the policeman scan for Ralph.                             CYNTHIA                Look.136   ANGLE - ON THE FLOOR                                                  136      Every five or six feet along in a line, there is a moderately-      sized droplet splatter of blood. They follow the droplets      along the hallway.      They follow the droplets through a set of double doors.137   INT. DARK, QUIET HALLWAY - NIGHT                                      137      Ralph walks along, his policeman trailing.        No one else is      around.                          RALPH'S POLICEMAN                Are you sure you know where you're                going?      Ralph stops suddenly and turns to him. Ralph smiles warmly.      Suddenly he hits the cop in the head using two fists.      The cop falls.138   INT. HALLWAY IN CLOSED SECTION OR HOSPITAL                            138      Alan and Cynthia's policeman move down the hall, following      the drops, scanning in doorways. Cynthia is just behind      them.      These hallways are unused.       Nobody around.                          ALAN                Was he behaving strangely?                          CYNTHIA                No more strangely than everybody                also in this place.                           CYNTHIA'S POLICEMAN                     (with walkie-talkie)                I can't get him. He must be shut                off.                                                              (CONTINUED)                                                                      86.      CONTINUED:      They pass an open freight elevator.       Cynthia looks in it and      stops.      There is a droplet of blood on the floor inside.                               CYNTHIA                   Hey.      A BLOODY HAND reaches out of the elevator covering her mouth      and pulls her inside.139   INT. FREIGHT ELEVATOR - NIGHT                                         139      Ralph holds her, slams the gate closed, and flips the switch.      The car moves down. Cynthia SCREAMS.140   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                  140      Alan and the policeman rush up just as the car disappears.                               ALAN                   Cynthia!141   INT. FREIGHT ELEVATOR - NIGHT                                         141      They descend.       She wipes blood from her face.   He looks      wired.                             CYNTHIA                   Ralph, we have to go and get your                   medication.      She slowly moves to the control panel. He watches her. Just      as she is about to reach the buttons, he violently pushes her      back.                               RALPH                   Relax.      He smiles.142   INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT                                                 142      The elevator comes down to a stop. Ralph throws the door      open. It is a huge dark space, a vast store room. Cynthia      won't come out. Ralph gestures politely.                                                              (CONTINUED)                                                            87.CONTINUED:                       CYNTHIA             Ralph, I'm not going out.    We have             to go back upstairs.Ralph grabs her firmly and pulls her out.                       CYNTHIA (CONT'D)             Ralph, please!                       RALPH             I have to talk to you.He leans in the elevator, opens the control panel and yankssome wires. Sparks fly. The HUM of the elevator motor dies.Cynthia is panicked.                       RALPH (CONT'D)             It's very, very, very, very, very             important that I talk to you.                       CYNTHIA             Ralph, you're not being yourself.             Can't you tell?                        RALPH             No!   This is the real me!He flies across the basement and, grabbing a chair, smashesthe control box for the electric cargo door, the only otherentrance.He darts up a storage aisle.      He rips a phone off the wall.                        RALPH (CONT'D)             I come down here a lot. It helps             me unwind.Cynthia can't see him. He wildly paces up and down thestorage aisles. Cynthia starts to cry.                       CYNTHIA             Ralph, please! How do we get out?                       RALPH             It's been said by better men than             me in better ways in better times--             there is no way out!She goes to a barred window.                        CYNTHIA             Help!                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                        88.CONTINUED: (2)Ralph goes into a rage. He pushes over a huge storage shelf.Everything spills and breaks. Amid the rubble a pile ofsurgical blades lies glinting in a pool of light.Ralph looks down at it.Cynthia sees him looking at it. She is afraid. He grabssome of the blades randomly and disappears. He is walkingcrazily up and down the storage aisles. Cynthia only catchesglimpses of him. He jumps up and breaks the individual LIGHTBULBS which hang on wires, providing the only illumination.The space grows DARKER. All the while, Ralph talks andtalks.                    RALPH          There are only a few chances for          real glory, and most people fuck it          up. Most people can't even find          the noses on their fucking faces.              (jump, BREAK)          You want an example? How about          EVERY FUCKING DOCTOR in this entire          hospital? Do you think I'm just          going to let myself slowly dissolve          into nothingness here?!              (jump, BREAK)          I'm talking about a glorious glory.          And everybody's trying to drag me          down!                    CYNTHIA          Ralph, please, they said you have          to take some pills.                    RALPH          Pills have got nothing to do with          it! You know what I'm talking          about!He jumps, smashes the last bulb.   She can't see him.                    CYNTHIA          No, I don't. I don't.                    RALPH          You do! Real glory, hallelujah!          The great big gig in the sky.          Don't play dumb, Cynthia.She sees him at the far and of the aisle. His shirt is off.There are deep, bleeding cuts all over his chest and stomach.He has blades clenched in both fists.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                            89.CONTINUED: (3)Cynthia is terrified.                    RALPH (CONT'D)          I think you know the word I'm          searching for.He starts making deep slashes on his arm.                    RALPH (CONT'D)          U, N, I, T, Y! Unity!                    CYNTHIA          Oh God, Ralph! No!                    RALPH          Yes, oh, yes! Eternal bliss!He stops and raises the scalpels to his chest.   He jabs themin and cuts open down to his stomach.                    CYNTHIA          Ralph, please, stop!He swats at the one remaining lamp. It flickers on and off.Ralph's eyes flutter. He FALLS. Cynthia rushes to him.                     CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          Ralph!He throws a scalpel at her.   It misses, but she is spatteredwith blood.                    RALPH              (fading)          Get back.Cynthia is crouched down, crying as she watches him.                    RALPH (CONT'D)          Join us, Cynthia.The light flickers off, then on.   A hand is on Cynthia'sshoulder. She looks up...it is Harris.                     HARRIS          Join us.The bulb DIES.   Blackness.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                90.      CONTINUED: (4)                           VOICES                Join us.                                                 CUT TO:144   INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT                                              144      Wasserman rushes in, raincoat over a pajama shirt and chino      slacks. Another POLICEMAN rushes to meet him.                          POLICEMAN                They're in the basement.   The                girl's alive.      They run on together.145   INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT                                              145      Lots of COPS, a few DOCTORS and ORDERLIES.    Alan is stopped      by a FEMALE COP.      He looks into the basement area and sees Ralph in a pool of      blood. A POLICE PHOTOGRAPHER is taking pictures of him.      Alan stares at Ralph.      Berrisford is with Cynthia and a nurse.    Cynthia is getting      an injection.      Wasserman comes over to Alan and Berrisford.                          WASSERMAN                You're running out of patients,                Doctors.                          ALAN                What did she say happened?                          WASSERMAN                She's having a little trouble with                reality--as usual.      A nurse and an orderly escorts Cynthia towards the elevator.                          CYNTHIA                    (to Alan)                Goodbye, Alan. Thanks for trying.                But it's time for me to go now.      Alan suddenly realizes what she means.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                        91.CONTINUED:                       ALAN             I have to go with her.    Where is             she being taken?                          BERRISFORD             Isolation.                       ALAN                 (stunned)             Isolation? Are you out of your             mind? That girl needs human             contact--connection--isolation is             the worst thing you can do--                       BERRISFORD             Dr. Goldman, I know you're fond of             the girl, but you're out of line.                       ALAN             Shit. You want her on the edge,             don't you... You want to play your             theory out to the end--                          BERRISFORD             Goldman!                       WASSERMAN                 (interested)             Theory? Anything I should know?                       BERRISFORD             It's an extraordinarily complex             situation, severe identity crisis             compounded with the multiple shock             of these deaths. She's reverting             to this total belief system from             the commune through an intermittent             psychosis that puts ideology above             her life itself--                       ALAN             Fuck ideology! Fuck you,             Berrisford! You can't use a human             being as a guinea pig--                 (to Wasserman)             You have to stop this. Call it             off--I'll--I'll sign her into             police custody if I can stay on as             her physician--                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              92.      CONTINUED: (2)                           BERRISFORD                Doctor Goldman. I believe your                tenure with my clinic has just come                to an end.                    (calling off)                Security? Would you please escort                Dr. Goldman off the premises?                                               CUT TO:146   INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT                                          146      Cynthia is escorted through the hospital by the nurse and      policeman. She moves without resistance, without emotion.      We hear CRICKETS. Cynthia hovers in a dreamlike calm. The      hospital is a blur as they move through it.      Objects pass in front of our view as we TRACK with her.      Cynthia, the nurse, and the policeman walk up the path to147   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DUSK                                        147      The imposing facade of the old Victorian with its warmly lit      windows looks inviting. The three make their way over the      lawn up the path towards the front porch. An evening BREEZE      is just coming up.      Cynthia looks around, absorbing the environment. The      policeman and the nurse say nothing. Cynthia turns to them.                          CYNTHIA                Would you like to come in?                          NURSE                No, thank you.      Cynthia steps inside.148   INT. ISOLATION ROOM - NIGHT                                    148      The door is closed. It is dark. A video camera hovers      above. We hear keys L0CKING a bolt. Cynthia stand there.                          VOICE                It's time, Cynthia.                                                               93.149    INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT                                          149       The nurse puts her keys in her pocket, looks at the       policeman, and goes.       The policeman stays.                                                CUT TO:149A   INT. BERRISFORD CLINIC - NEAR EXIT - NIGHT                     149A       Furious, carrying a carton of personal items, Alan storms       towards the exit. The security guard rises to intercept him.                           SECURITY GUARD                 --Excuse me, Dr. Goldman?                     (apologetic)                 I'm going to have to ask you for                 your key card.                     (apologetic)                 Dr. Berrisford's orders. I'm                 sorry.       Burning, Alan shifts his package, finds the card, flings it       down on the counter.                           ALAN                 Tell Berrisford he can use it for a                 bookmark. Maybe then he can find                 his dick without a road map.                           SECURITY GUARD                 We're gonna miss you around here,                 Dr. Goldman.       Alan manages a smile for the man, goes out.                                                CUT TO:152    A DIM, FUZZY VIDEO IMAGE                                       152       FOCUS DOWN until we realize it is Cynthia lying in her bed.       We are looking at her from directly above. We WIDEN, realize       that we're at a NURSE'S STATION, where Cynthia is monitored       along with other patients. We can see that she is talking.                                                               94.154    INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM                                             154       The only illumination comes from a small lamp near Cynthia's       bed. She seems comparatively alert.                             HARRIS' VOICE                   You were always the favorite.    We                   love you. Come with us.                             FEMALE UNITY MEMBER                   All of us together, that's all                   we've ever wanted, isn't it?                             CYNTHIA                   Why are you doing it to everybody                   else? Why don't you kill me?154A   ON HARRIS                                                      154A       His index finger is AFLAME.                             CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                   Why don't you kill me?       We see the whole room now. It's filled with Unity House       Members, all of them. They're sitting leaning, slumping       everywhere in the shadows. Among them are Connie and Ed.                             CONNIE                   You have to do it yourself, honey.                   When you didn't... he took us                   instead. But we're not mad. It's                   wonderful here.                             FEMALE UNITY MEMBER 2                   Death is like this really beautiful                   trip Cynthia. We just want to                   share                   it with you.       Lana and Miriam.                             LANA                   You mustn't be afraid, Cynthia.       Harris in playing with his burning finger.                             MIRIAM                   if I can do it, you can do it,                   honey.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                      95.      CONTINUED:                             CYNTHIA                   Why don't you kill me?157   INT. NURSE'S STATION - NIGHT                                          157      A NURSE notices Cynthia's movement on the screen.       She turns      the volume up.                             CYNTHIA (ON TV)                   Why don't you just kill me?!      The nurse gets up. Gilda is standing there.        She follows.      Gilda's policeman lurks nearby.                             GILDA'S POLICEMAN                   Hey.158   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                           158                             HARRIS                   You have to join us because you                   love us. You have to do it for                   yourself.      We hear the Nurse UNLOCKING the door.      A MALE UNITY MEMBER looks over at the door.       We seem him      momentarily burned.                             HARRIS (CONT'D)                   You have to do it for yourself--                       (smiling)                   --lovechild.      We see Harris momentarily burned.       He blows his finger out.                             CYNTHIA                   But I'm so scared.      The Nurse opens the door.    The room is empty except for      Cynthia on her bed.                             NURSE                   You want me to call the doctor,                   honey?      Cynthia says nothing.                             NURSE (CONT'D)                   Try to sleep, all right?                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                  96.      CONTINUED:      Gilda rushes in behind the Nurse, going to Cynthia.                             NURSE (CONT'D)                   Hey, get out of here!                             GILDA                       (frantic)                   I can do nothing for you now, but                   know this--the answer you seek is                   inside of you! It is inside you!      Gilda's Policeman comes in.                             NURSE                   Get her out of here!      He pulls at Gilda.                             GILDA                       (as she goes)                   Know yourself and you will be at                   peace! It is so!      The Nurse SLAMS the door closed.    Cynthia is alone.159   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                159      Gilda's policeman is on the phone.                             POLICEMAN                   Yeah, I'm taking her back to her                   room... Okay, bye.      He hangs up, looks around.    Gilda is gone.160   INT. HALLWAY - ELSEWHERE - NIGHT                                    160      We are FOLLOWING GILDA through the corridors back to her      room.161   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                                161      Gilda's policeman is still looking for her.      She's nowhere in      sight.164   INT. GILDA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                           164      Gilda comes in and lies down.                                                            (CONTINUED)                                                                   97.      CONTINUED:      Momentary silence.      A shaft of light hits Gilda as someone comes in the door.      Whoever it is nears Gilda. She is calm. She looks over.                             GILDA                   I know you'd come.      Silence.                             GILDA (CONT'D)                   But you're too late.      She holds up a bottle of tablets.       We fleetingly see the word      "poisonous."      The bottle SMASHES to the floor.                                                    CUT TO:170   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                           170171   TIGHT ON HER                                                          171      She looks like she's been crying.       She stares off into space.      Someone crosses in the shadows to the window.      The rubber edging is slit with a scalpel.                             CYNTHIA                   It feels good. I know this is                   right.                             HARRIS' VOICE                   That's right. You need our love.                   We need your love.      A shadowed hand pushes on the plexiglass.       The windowpane      plops onto the pavement below.      A breeze wafts in.      Cynthia gets out of bed and comes to the window. She looks      out onto the evening horizon, refreshed, fully experiencing      the moment.                                                              (CONTINUED)                                                                  98.       CONTINUED:                              CYNTHIA                    I know this is right.   We'll all be                    together.                                                   CUT TO:171A   EXT. HOSPITAL - NIGHT                                            171A       Alan comes out, still fuming. He walks along a ways and then       looks at the illuminated SIGN pointing out the way to the       "Berrisford Clinic." Alan stares at it, then in a sudden       release of fury, KICKS it, once, twice, and then he THROWS       his carton at it.       Calming, feeling like an idiot, he sighs.                              ALAN                    Brilliant. Do we feel better now?                    No. Yes. Maybe.       A thought strikes him.    He reaches into his shirt pocket,       takes out--171B   TRANQUILIZER - CL0SE                                             171B       --the one Hettie handed to Alan two long and bloody hours       ago.171C   BACK TO SCENE                                                    171C                              ALAN (CONT'D)                        (with a shrug)                    It's okay, officer. I'll write                    myself a prescription in the                    morning.       He swallows it, dry, with a loud GULP, Then he picks up his       papers and things, heads for the parking lot.171D   ALAN'S CAR - NIGHT                                               171D       PULLBACK as Alan unlocks it, his carton momentarily balanced       on the car roof. The door open, Alan gets in, puts his box       in the cluttered back seat. He SHIVERS from one of those       unexpected chills we all get, then puts the key in the       ignition, STARTS the engine, turns on the LIGHTS. Then he       looks up ahead and sees--                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                  99.       CONTINUED:171E   DR. BERRISFORD - HIS POV                                         171E       Briefcase in hand, crossing the parking lot up ahead, his       long shadow falling across a high retaining wall.171F   BACK TO SCENE                                                    171F       Alan sits, face unreadable.   He REVS the engine.   Faster.       Faster.       A strange smile crosses Alan's face.   He THROWS THE CAR INTO       GEAR.171G   BERRISFORD - CROSSING THE LOT                                    171G       He taken out his keys, approaches his car...   suddenly REACTS       as HEADLIGHTS BLIND HIM--171H   REVERSE ANGLE                                                    171H       Alan ROARS TOWARDS HIM, grinning behind the wheel--171I   BACK TO SCENE                                                    171I       Berrisford gasps, RUNS!171J   THE CHASE                                                        171J       Berrisford dodges in and out of cars, behind lamp posts.       Manic, Alan follows him relentlessly, skidding around turns,       SIDESWIPING as many cars as budget allows. Finally--171K   BERRISFORD                                                       171K       finds himself against a wall--as TIRES SKID in he SCREAMS--171L   INSIDE ALAN'S CAR                                                171L       He SLAMS Berrisford against the wall. Berrisford's body       SMACKS against the bricks, rebounds onto the windshield,       CRACKING IT.       Alan recoils from the impact, blood on his lips from his own       collision with the steering wheel. He looks at Berrisford,       squirming a foot away with the little life left in him.       Alan CACKLES, gives Berrisford the finger.       Then he throws the car into reverse.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                    100.       CONTINUED: (2)171M   REAR TIRES                                                            171M       SKIDDING BACKWARDS--171N   BERRISFORD                                                            171N       SLIDES off the car hood, hits the asphalt, his head CRACKING--171O   ALAN'S CAR                                                            171O       RUNS FORWARD AGAIN--171P   BERRISFORD - QUICK CUTS                                               171P       As the car GRINDS him into the ground, his wrist bones       SNAPPING, ribs CRUNCHING, body TWITCHING. Finally he is       STILL. An artery SQUIRTS fountain-like into the air.171Q   INSIDE THE CAR                                                        171Q       The blood hits the windshield.    Idly, distracted, Alan turns       on the windshield wipers...       Suddenly HARRIS sits up in the rear seat, a smile on the       burned and scarred face.                               HARRIS                    Good work, Dr. Goldman.   Now, it's                    your turn.       Skeletal hands GRAB Alan's throat.       He STRUGGLES.   KICKS--out       of the corner of his eye he sees-171R   FRONT OF CAR                                                          171R       Gasoline is flowing over the dented hood and through the       cracked windshield and over the dash and over Alan. More and       more comes.171S   BACK TO SCENE                                                         171S       Holding Alan with one hand, Harris leans forward, pulls out       the cigarette lighter! He holds the GLOWING TIP up in the       air.                              HARRIS (CONT'D)                    Need a light?       He presses the burning tip against Alan's gasoline soaked       CREEK. It SIZZLES--Alan SCREAMS--                                                                (CONTINUED)                                                                 101.       CONTINUED: (3)171T   CAR - LONG SHOT                                                  171T       It EXPLODES--                                                   CUT TO:171U   ALAN - IN HIS CAR                                                171U       He jerks his head up, face drenched in sweat. He's still in       his original parking space! He's never even started the car!       Gasping for air, still freaked, he opens the door, tumbles       out.171V   PARKING LOT                                                      171V       The box of his possessions is still on the roof of the car.       Alan sees this, staggers against the car, fights a wave of       nausea. Struggling to remain composed, he takes his pulse.       Feels his head. Suspicion crosses his face. Then his hand       moves to his shirt pocket.171W   FLASH CUT                                                        171W       of himself taking the pill by the clinic sign.171X   BACK TO THE PRESENT                                              171X       fingers down his throat. He HEAVES his guts out beside his       car... but when he straightens up, he's clear eyed and lucid.       He turns, runs like hell towards the clinic.171Y   INT.   CLINIC PHARMACY - NIGHT                                   171Y       RON, the pharmacist, looks up as Alan storms inside.                             RON                   Goldman, you look like shit--                             ALAN                       (pushing him aside)                   Show me the scrips for the therapy                   group--                             RON                   Come on, man, I can't do that--                   it's Berrisford's show all the way--       Ignoring him, Alan finds the files.                             ALAN                   Shit, this is all standard stuff--                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                         102.CONTINUED:                       RON             What do you expect?                       ALAN             Do you fill these prescriptions?                       RON             Nah, Berrisford does it. He comes             in every morning and sets up the             medication for the day--Hettie             takes it as she needs it--                        ALAN             Fuck!He turns, tries to open the glass case with the prearrangedtrays. It's locked. He grabs a paperweight, SMASHES THEGLASS.                        RON             Hey--!Alan pulls out the tray, scans it. He grabs Ron by thecollar, shoves the files into his face.                        ALAN             Read it.   Pesco, Ralph--                       RON             He's dead--                        ALAN             READ IT!   What's he down for?                       RON             Ah, Lithium--four times a day--Alan grabs the tray, holds up a pill.                       ALAN             Is that Lithium?                       RON             Fuck, no--that's Endoral--the             complete opposite--one of those,             even a normal person would flip             out--                       ALAN             Tell me about it--                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                               103.      CONTINUED: (2)      Alan looks at the tray and its compartments labeled for Lana,      Miriam, Ed... all the others. Alan GRABS them all.                          ALAN (CONT'D)                What's this? And this?      And this?                          RON                This is, uh, dextroamphetamine...                Christ, take one of these and you                can walk on the ceiling. Holy                mother. Methylphenidate! Don't                mass with that fucker. Clonodine!                Chlorapromazine! Preludin? Shit,                I didn't know they still made                that... Two of these and Mother                Teresa would turn into a maniac!      Alan in having convulsions of horror.181   FLASH CUTS - ON MIRIAM AND LANA -                                  181      they swallow medication.182   ON BERRISFORD -                                                    182      he pulls bottles off the pharmacy shelves.183   ON CONNIE AND ED -                                                 183      they swallow medication.184   ON BERRISFORD -                                                    184      he hands the bottles of medication to the pharmacy      administrator.185   ON NURSE WITH RALPH'S PRESCRIPTION -                               185      Alan grabs it away.186   ON BERRISFORD                                                      186      he injects Cynthia with medication.                          RON (CONT'D)                Tetrahydrocannabinol! Do you know                what that is? Liquid condensed                marijuana! Just thinking about                that stuff gets you wasted.      Alan runs out.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                104.      CONTINUED: (3)                          RON (CONT'D)                Hey, Goldman, come back here!                Who's gonna clean up this mess--?187   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                               187      Alan running faster.188   INT. NURSE'S STATION, ISOLATION WARD - NIGHT                       188      Hettie is standing smiling in the middle of the hall.     Alan      nears.                          HETTIE                You're not supposed to be here, Dr.                Goldman, are you?      Alan turns.   Two SECURITY GUARDS are coming.                          ALAN                Please, Hettie, I need your help.189   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                        189      She is at the window, facing out.                             VOICE                Now.190   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                               190      Alan rushes over to Cynthia's door and pounds furiously.                             ALAN                Cynthia!     Cynthia!      The two security guards start     running over. One of them has      his gun drawn. Alan wants to      run, but he sees there is no      way out. He sticks his hands      in the air. The guards are      upon him. They start leading      him away.                          NURSE                Sometimes doctors got personally                involved. I think it's a mistake.                You've got to keep professional.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                  105.      CONTINUED:                              HETTIE                   Get some rest, Goldman.   You look                   like shit.      He looks back at Hettie.    He sees a fire alarm.      Suddenly, he grabs one of the Guard's guns.       He dives against      the wall and pulls the fire alarm.      All of the Isolation Ward doors open.     BELLS and SIRENS go      off. Red lights FLASH on and off.                             HETTIE (CONT'D)                   Oh, no!      Alan runs from the guards, shooting but missing. He runs up      the hall in the opposite direction of Cynthia's room.      He hides in a doorway. They pass. He heads back up to      Cynthia's room. He grabs the cop's chair and runs into191   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                          191      He slams the door and rams the metal chair log into the bolt      latch to secure the door. SIRENS and BELLS continue. Alan      looks over. The room is dark, except for the red light      flashing on and off. Cynthia is crouched in the far corner      by the open window.      We can see that the room is otherwise empty of anybody.                             CYNTHIA                   Get out of here. I want to do it!                             ALAN                       (going to her)                   No. Cynthia, please. I'm not                   going to be able to come back, but                   you have to listen! Berrisford's                   been tampering with the medication                   for everybody in the group--that's                   why they've been committing                   suicide--he's been making them                   crazy--                             CYNTHIA                   But Harris comes to me...   He                   speaks to me--                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                  106.       CONTINUED:                              ALAN                    A drug induced psychotic state is                    very suggestible. All we've                    hearing for days is "Harris,                    Harris,"... so that's what we all                    saw... That's what I saw when I                    took Ralph's pill! It's all part                    of Berrisford's plan--he has this                    fucked-up theory about how you                    still think you're part of the                    Unity House, and the only way he                    can prove it is if you want to kill                    yourself!       Behind Alan, the dark shape of Berrisford emerges from       outside the window. It is climbing inside from the ledge.                              ALAN (CONT'D)                    Do you hear me?! He's going to                    want you to kill yourself! He's                    recreating the whole thing for you!                    But you can't listen to him!       Cynthia is getting hysterical.      Berrisford stands behind Alan       with a scalpel.                              BERRISFORD                    Dr. Goldman.       Alan turns around.       Berrisford bashes him in the head, neatly slicing off some       skin. Alan flies against the wall.       The gun is knocked away.       Alan writhes a little, then dips into unconsciousness,       Cynthia is a basket case.     She looks at Alan.                               CYNTHIA                    No...   no... no...       Berrisford comes to her and starts giving her an injection.       She calms herself.     She looks at him dreamily.191A   CYNTHIA'S POV                                                       191A       She sees Harris gazing at her lovingly.                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                107.      CONTINUED: (2)                          HARRIS                Only one thing matters.      She touches his face.                             CYNTHIA                Our love.     We'll be together.   All                of us.      Berrisford taken Alan's gun.192   INT. CYNTHIA'S ROOM - A FEW MINUTES LATER                        192      Alan comes to. The ALARMS and BELLS are still ringing.      Cynthia and Berrisford are gone.                             ALAN                Shit!193   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                             193      The corridors are run amuck with isolation patients (the      worst kind) all escaped from their rooms. Alan runs out of      Cynthia's room. He is surrounded by bizarre-looking people      screaming, singing, dancing, praying.      Hettie is by the stairway helping Isolation patients exit.                          HETTIE                One at a time! No pushing!      Please                do not use the elevator!      Alan is frantically looking for Cynthia and Berrisford,      checking everywhere, pushing open doors.      The security guards are at the far end of the hallway.    Alan      goes to Hettie.                          ALAN                Where's Berrisford?                          HETTIE                This is your fault! These goddamn                doors won't re-lock!                          ALAN                    (furious )                Where is he? He's going to kill                Cynthia! Tell me where he is!                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                  108.      CONTINUED:                             HETTIE                   I haven't seen him!      The guards see Alan.      They come after him.   He runs.      Alan scans every room. He slams into patients. The guards      aren't far behind. Alan turns a corner, passing a door      marked "NOT AN EXIT: ROOF ACCESS." It is ajar. He goes in      without the guards seeing him.194   INT. STAIRWAY - NIGHT                                                 194      It is dark, but the red lights FLASH. He runs up several      flights. The landings face onto the outside with a railing,      open, no glass.      He turns a corner.      Cynthia is there.      She in perched on the outside of the railing, a serene      expression on her face, the wind blowing her frail white      gown.      Alan freezes.      He moves towards her slowly, hands      outstretched.                             ALAN                       (soothingly)                   Cynthia, take my hand... Just                   relax... Think about what you're                   doing... Stay calm... I want you                   to take my hand...      She watches him blankly.      She turns to someone behind Alan.                             CYNTHIA                   It's so beautiful.      Alan turns. There on the stair above is Berrisford, his face      dancing in the flashing red light.                             ALAN                       (to Berrisford)                   You piece of shit!      Cynthia lets go.      Alan reaches out.                              ALAN (CONT'D)                   No!                                                              (CONTINUED)                                                                109.      CONTINUED:195   FALLING                                                            195      It is a dizzying spiral. We hear the WIND RUSHING up as we      go FASTER AND FASTER down. We SLAM into the ground.      CYNTHIA'S HEAD hits rock.196   ON HER FACE                                                        196      She is still. Blood drips out her nose and mouth. She is      dead. We HOLD ON HER until gradually bright light pours in      over her. The CAMERA LIFTS UP revealing197   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                             197      Cynthia rises and walks towards the house through a field in      the foreground.      She walks up the porch.198   INT. UNITY HOUSE ENTRANCE - DAY                                    198      She opens the door. Everything is clean and fresh.      Flowers.      Light. Birds CHIRPING.      Harris is at the far and of the hall. There is an intense      white light behind him. He is smiling beatifically. Cynthia      goes towards him. As she nears him, she reaches out her      hands. He does too. They clasp.                              ALAN'S VOICE                   Cynthia!      Suddenly she FALLS.      She drops and dangles in the night air against199   EXT. HOSPITAL BUILDING - NIGHT                                     199      She is unconscious.     She swings twelve stories above the      pavement.      The CAMERA FOLLOWS UP her arm to her hand grasped tightly by      Alan's hand. We CONTINUE UP TO Alan.                              ALAN                   Cynthia! Open your eyes!   Open                   your eyes!                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                         110.CONTINUED:He is over the railing holding on with his other hand.Cynthia is coming to.                       ALAN (CONT'D)             Pull up! Pull yourself up so I can             got a grip on you!                          CYNTHIA             Let me go.                          ALAN             No!                          CYNTHIA             Let me go.     I saw it.   It's             beautiful.                       ALAN             You didn't see shit!       Hold on!                       BERRISFORD             Eternal bliss.                        CYNTHIA             Yes!   I want to go!    Let me go!                       BERRISFORD                 (coming forward)             Let her go. She needs it.                       ALAN             No! Cynthia, Harris doesn't exist!             He's dead! Look at who that is!             Look at him! Look!Cynthia looks at Berrisford deliriously.He CHANGES from Berrisford to Harris with each FLASH.    Hecomes to the railing where Alan is holding on.Almost politely, he tries to undo Alan's grip.                       ALAN (CONT'D)             Goddamn you! Goddamn you!Alan's grip on Cynthia slips down to her fingers.                       BERRISFORD             Let her go. Let her go and I'll             forget your disobedience.                       (MORE)                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                       111.CONTINUED: (2)       BERRISFORD(CONT'D)          You can stay one with me in the          psychosis and cult behavior study.          We'll publish our findings          together--                    ALAN          Publish this, asshole!Alan SWINGS one leg up, KICKS Berrisford in the groin.Berrisford HOWLS and suddenly his calm demeanor cracks.Snarling like an animal, he stomps, claws and even bites atAlan's hand.                    ALAN (CONT'D)              (to Cynthia)          Don't you hear him? He's trying to          bribe me--but I'm not letting go!          I'll go with you, but I'm not          letting go!Berrisford sees the discarded gun... picks it up. He aimsunsteadily... SHOOTS. Alan yanks himself out of the way.Berrisford misses. Berrisford moves closer. Raises the g=barrel at point black range towards Alan's hand.                    ALAN (CONT'D)          Cynthia, help us! Help us both!                    BERRISFORD          You'll be with them, Dr. Goldman,          Be happy.                    ALAN          No!                    CYNTHIA          S...stop it... Stop it!Berrisford SHOOTS. One of Alan's finger joints is BLOWNAWAY. He SCREAMS, his grip loosens, and he SLIDES down therailing. Berrisford moves several yards to stay close...begins to POUND on Alan's mutilated hand.                    ALAN          Cynthia, don't let him kill you!          Don't let him do this!                    CYNTHIA          Unity... It... it's my destiny...          I've fought it too long. Right or          wrong... my death has a purpose...          It will close the book. End the          story.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                         112.CONTINUED: (3)                    ALAN          Your life has a purpose... to          bring joy and happiness! You're          part of my life now. That's an          unfinished story, too...She looks at Berrisford viciously pounding on Alan's hand.                       CYNTHIA          Let me up.     Stop it.She starts to climb up, but she can't.                       CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          Let me up!                    BERRISFORD          I'm afraid it's too late for that.Alan's grip on her slips down to two fingers. They CRACK.She yells from the pain. She swings in the breeze.Alan is weakening.   He is losing consciousness.   He knows heis about to die.                    GUARD          Dr. Berrisford?Suddenly Berrisford freezes.He is paralyzed at the sight of one of the guards coming upthe stairs. Berrisford backs away glaring.Alan GROANS.   The guard rushes over.                    GUARD (CONT'D)          Jesus              (Yelling down the stairs)          Gomez, get up here!The other guard appears.They start helping Alan up by Pulling his arm. As they helphim up, Berrisford, in a state of shock, backs further up thewall. He leans against the wall and puts the gun to hishead. He trembles. He pulls the trigger.CLICK.CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. Out of bullets. The others are toobusy to be noticing what he in doing. Just as they pullCynthia to the edge, she looks up to see:                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                               113.      CONTINUED: (4)      Berrisford coming to the railing, and jumping, calmly.      Silently.                             GUARD (CONT'D)                Holy shit.      Cynthia numbly watches him fall.    Then she in pulled up and      over...                                                 CUT TO:200   INT. HALLWAY - OVERHEAD - NIGHT                                 200      Cynthia is plopped over onto a gurney. Lights are passing      her. She is being whisked down a hallway. She is descending      into a haze of unconsciousness.                          DOCTOR'S VOICE                I need a detox prep! Stat!                          CYNTHIA                It was him...201   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                            201      Alan runs alongside the gurney with doctors and nurses. He      clutches bloody bandages to his hand, tries to hear Cynthia.                          ALAN                It's okay. It's over. It was                Berrisford. He killed them.                          CYNTHIA                Then all those other things...                Faces... voices? They were...      in                my head?                          ALAN                It was Berrisford. He shot you up                with hallucinogens. What he didn't                do, you imagined.      There is joy through her delirium. She is just able to clasp      hands with him briefly before she disappears behind a set of      double doors.202   EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY                                         202      A new station wagon whisks along the pretty road.                                                                  114.203   INT. STATION WAGON - DAY                                             203      Alan drives, Cynthia looks at a map.       They both look relaxed.      They both have bandaged hands.                          CYNTHIA                Go right if that's the interstate.                Yeah, it is.207   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                               207      Through the greenery are the charred and overgrown remains of      Unity House. A chiseled sign embedded into a tree verifies      it. Alan and Cynthia pull up, park. Cynthia gets out and      looks around. She goes to the front entrance. Alan follows      her in.208   INT. FRONT ROOM - DAY                                                208      A mere skeleton of what it was. Daylight pours in through      the faded, burnt slats of wood. Patches of woods have      sprouted up. Cynthia wanders in and marvels at it all. Only      piles of charcoal signify where furniture was.      Alan meanders in from the other and of the house.                          ALAN                Victorian. Looks like it was a                nice house once.                           CYNTHIA                Yes. I guess appearances can be                deceiving.      She moves out upstairs.       He follows her up onto the risky-      looking steps.209   ON THE LANDING                                                       209      She reaches a point at the top that looks out over the meadow      and pond. She looks out. Alan joins her. Cynthia takes in      the view contentedly.                             CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                It's dead.     It's really dead...                             ALAN                What?                                                             (CONTINUED)                                                                   115.       CONTINUED:       She gestures to the house around them.                                 CYNTHIA                    It's over.       Alan smiles. He pulls her close to him. They look into each       other's eyes. Neither of them is completely at ease with the       other, but there is honest affection. They hug, then kiss.210    EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                                210       It looks almost tranquil.       MUSIC UP.                                                     CUT TO:210A   INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - DAY                                       210A       Wasserman walks along, accompanied by a uniformed officer.       They go into-201B   INT. BERRISFORD'S HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY                              201B       where the doctor is in a bed, one leg and one arm in       traction. He's talking to his LAWYER as the police officers       enter.                              LAWYER                        (in mid-speech)                    --letters of support could have an                    influence on the court... You                    know, from your peers--?                              BERRISFORD                        (cutting him off)                    I have no peers.                        (turning)                    Hello, Lieutenant.                        (smiling)                    Forgive me for not getting up.                              WASSERMAN                    Real funny, Doctor. Try this for                    laughs: As soon as you're                    ambulatory, you're going in front                    of a Grand Jury, and you're going                    to be charged with six counts of                    obstruction of justice and two                    counts of assault.                              (MORE)                                                               (CONTINUED)                                                         116.CONTINUED:             WASSERMAN(CONT'D)             Then it gets choice: five counts of             murder in the first degree, one             count of murder in the second             degree. Add the civil liability to             all that, and you're going to have             plenty of time to write that book.                       BERRISFORD             Well. I don't agree with your             definition of justice, but I             suppose I obstructed it... All in             the name of science, of course--                       LAWYER                 (appalled)             Doctor Berrisford--                       BERRISFORD                 (hushing him)             --but as to murder, well,             Lieutenant, I beg to differ. I             didn't kill anyone. Why would I?             I'm only interested in knowledge.             Cynthia is a unique girl--the             product of an environment and a             philosophy unrivaled in its purity.             I wanted to understand the depth of             her commitment, the link between             psychosis and total immersion             philosophies, the dark terra             incognita of the human psyche--                       WASSERMAN                 (fed up)             Hey, go chow on a Latin dictionary,             okay? You can bullshit all you             want, but how do you account for             six bodies?                       BERRISFORD             Clearly some unknown variable was a             factor.                       WASSERMAN             Yeah? Well, if you didn't kill off             the therapy group, who did?                       BERRISFORD             Lieutenant, I'll put it in terms             even a policeman can understand.He smiles, shrugs the best he can in his plaster cast.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                   117.      CONTINUED: (2)                            BERRISFORD (CONT'D)                  It beats the fuck out of me.                                                    CUT TO:213   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY TRACKING IN                                  213214   INT.   UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                            214      Cynthia and Alan are still in each other's arms.        Cynthia      pulls away.                            ALAN                  What's the matter?                            CYNTHIA                  I was just thinking about Gilda.                  Somehow, she knew. She kept                  talking about "him," but I didn't                  know what she meant. She said the                  answer was inside me. Why would                  she say that?      Alan doesn't have an answer.     She sighs.                              ALAN                  Let's go.                            CYNTHIA                  You go down. I'll be out in a                  minute. I just want to... bury                  some memories.                              ALAN                  You sure?      She nods.   He goes.      Cynthia gives a final look around at the deteriorated      structure and turns down the stairs.      She stands at the top of what remains of the stairs.      We FOLLOW HER DOWN. Just as she nears the bottom, the      TICKING of a clock is audible. It gets LOUDER. Cynthia      reaches the last stop and turns into                                                               118.215   INT. FOYER - NIGHT                                                215      We FOLLOW HER with a CONTINUOUS PAN. The foyer is new now,      completely untouched by fire, just as it was at the beginning      of the film. A candelabrum is lit.      Cynthia turns and we PAN BACK TO THE STAIRCASE. It is new,      unburnt. Two KIDS come scrambling down the stairs laughing.      The entranceway, the archway to the front room, the staircase      are all intact, just as we saw them in the opening scene.      CYNTHIA peers into the kitchen. Two WOMEN in work aprons are      kneading bread dough, chopping vegetables. They smile at      Cynthia.                           WOMAN 1                Cynthia!   Are you staying for                supper?      Cynthia is silent, wide-eyed, taking it all in.    She turns      towards the front door. Victor is coming in.                           VICTOR                Cynthia.   It's good.   Come in.      She in unable to resist.216   INT. FRONT ROOM - NIGHT                                           216      They walk in. The room is filled with people. There is a      fire in the hearth. Children play. Candles illuminate the      space. Unity Members smile and great her casually as she      passes them.      Miriam in talking with a BEARDED MAN intently.                          MIRIAM                Cynthia, I'm so glad you're here.      Ed and Connie are by the fireplace with some others.    They      smile at Cynthia knowingly.      Lana is sitting contentedly on the window seat reading with      some children.      Ralph is crouched with victor in a corner.    They are laughing      warmly.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                       119.CONTINUED:Gilda comes up to her. She is ebullient, happier, healthierlooking than we've ever seen her.                       GILDA             Cynthia, it's so wonderful here,             but we miss you terribly.Cynthia nears Harris. He smiles at her and kisses her.Everyone in the room turns to her. Harris holds up a shinyand sharp knife with ornamentation on the handle. Cynthiadoesn't see it yet.He puts the pointed tip against her chest.                       HARRIS             It's time, Cynthia.    It's finally             time, isn't it?                         EVERYONE             Yes.                       CYNTHIA                 (fighting the vision)             You don't exist.                       HARRIS             I wouldn't say that.                 (he touches her)             Go on. Take the knife.She can't escape his gaze.                        HARRIS (CONT'D)             Do it.   You know you want to.                       GILDA             You know you do, Cynthia.                       VICTOR             You'll see how beautiful it is.                         SOMEONE ELSE             You will.Cynthia clasps her hand around the knife at her chest, Harrislets go. She holds it there by herself, completelyhypnotized by his words, by his eyes.                       MIRIAM             Cynthia, we're only telling you             this because we love you.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                           120.CONTINUED: (2)                    HARRIS          Beautiful lovechild. All will be          in balance when you've joined us.          All will be right when daughter is          with father.                    SOMEONE          You're special, Cynthia.                    SOMEONE ELSE          Scared blood... daughter of the          father.Cynthia in mortified.                      CYNTHIA          I'm...?                    HARRIS          Now you remember.                      CYNTHIA          Yes...                    HARRIS          My own beautiful lovechild.          Everyone has proven their love to          me. Now you must.She is weak now.    She is about to do it.Her grasp tightens around the knife handle.      She's trembling.She takes a deep breath.                      CYNTHIA          No!She jams the knife into Harris' throat and pulls it out.                    CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          No I don't! I don't love you!      I          don't need you!She is crazed. She flies around the room brandishing theknife at everyone. They back off.                     CYNTHIA (CONT'D)          I never loved any of you! I hate          you! I hate you all! What you did          was wrong!                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               121.      CONTINUED: (3)      She swats the knife at them all. Victor's arm gets cut.      Gilda has to dive away from her. Cynthia is knocking over      lamps and chairs in her rage. She is crying hysterically.                          CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                It was WRONG! It was stupid!                          HARRIS                    (saddened)                Oh, Cynthia.                          CYNTHIA                I never needed you!    Any of you!      We are TIGHT ON CYNTHIA. She is winding down, crying with      her face buried in her arms.                          CYNTHIA (CONT'D)                I never did...      She is still.    Gradually, the silence fills with a quiet      BREEZE.                            ALAN                Cynthia?      She drops the knife. The knife is all rusty and corroded.      The floor is a charred mass.      Cynthia turns around.      Alan comes in the front door. The room is again its empty,      skeletal self, blackened and silent.      Cynthia is trembling.      She walks out of the room.                          ALAN (CONT'D)                Are you all right?                            CYNTHIA                Let's go.217   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                            217      She stands on the porch, holding onto a post, trying to calm      herself. Alan comes out. As he starts the car, a gust comes      up. The trees are thrashed around.      The WIND ECHOES through the house.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                122.      CONTINUED:      MUSIC UP SOFTLY, EERILY.      Cynthia descends the stairs.    The station wagon pulls up.      She gets inside.218   INT. STATION WAGON - DAY                                           218      They pull out. Slowly we see Cynthia collect herself.      A      sense of hope is evident.                             CYNTHIA                   It's going to be okay.   I'm going                   to be okay.219   EXT. ROAD - DAY                                                    219      The car speeds off trailing dust.      We see the UNITY HOUSE in the distance.     The winds kicks up      again.220   EXT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                             220      We are CLOSER. Branches and leaves are being tossed around      by violent gusts as we MOVE TOWARD the structure.      A teenage GIRL comes running up from the field behind.     She      is crying. She runs into the house. We FOLLOW HER.221   INT. UNITY HOUSE - DAY                                             221      She goes to a far corner and cries some more, angrily,      hopelessly.                             BOY                       (far off)                   Come on, where are you? I hope                   you're not in that house... You                   always got like this and make                   stupid threats that you don't mean!      The girl peeks out the corner of the window.222   ANGLE -                                                            222      The TEENAGE BOY is in the field beyond.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                             123.CONTINUED:                       BOY (CONT'D)             If you're not here on three, I'm             history. Permanently. One...             Two... Three! Fine. Good             riddance.THE GIRL backs away from the window, only more upset now.A hand touches her shoulder.      She whirls around.                       GIRL                 (startled)             Who are you?                         HARRIS             A friend.    You're upset.She nods.                       HARRIS (CONT'D)             What would you say if I could             promise you eternal bliss?                       GIRL             Eternal bliss? What do you mean?TRACKING IN on the old knife an the floor. It begins totransform from its rusty and corroded state into a new andshiny knife.MUSIC UP.A burned, skeletal hand reaches INTO FRAME and takes it.                                             CUT TO BLACK.                               THE END
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+                                     "BAD LIEUTENANT"                                            by                                Abel Ferrara and Zoe Lund                                         11/25/90                                       FIRST DRAFT                               This story takes place during a World Series between the                Mets and the A's. Canseco plays for Oakland, and Strawberry                is still with New York.                                         DAY ONE:                                   GAME THREE: LT WINS               EXT: EARLY MORNING - LT'S HOME - QUEENS               This typical QUEENS HOUSE is sandwiched between other                neighboring, nearly identical HOUSES.               The MORNING SOUNDS Of FAMILY BICKERING, LAWN MOWERS, and                SHOUTED GOOD-BYES are heard coming from many HOUSES on this                close-knit block. A NEW BABY can be heard BAWLING inside                LT'S HOUSE.               LT, hurried and harried, stumbles out his FRONT DOOR. He                heads for his CAR, parked askew in the DRIVEWAY.               LT is some 40 years old. His natural swagger makes up for                his lack of conventional good looks. He is obviously hung-               over.               LT squints, pained by the SUN. He fumbles with his SHADES,                puts them on.               LT's TWIN EIGHT YEAR-OLD SONS trundle out the FRONT DOOR of                the HOUSE, bickering as they run to catch up with their Daddy.                The hefty TWINS wear ill-fitting PAROCHIAL SCHOOL UNIFORMS.                Their oversize PAROCHIAL SCHOOL BRIEFCASES threaten to trip                them up.               LT's WIFE, BABE in arms, comes out to watch LT's lovely SEVEN                YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER head off toward her school on foot. Many                other members of LT's EXTENDED FAMILY hang out on the STOOP                and the LAWN.               As the TWINS cross the LAWN, the bickering turns physical.                They start whacking each other with the BRIEFCASES. The TWINS                pile into LT'S CAR.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: MORNING - LT'S CAR - EN ROUTE TO/AT PAROCHIAL SCHOOL               The CAR is obviously LT's home away from home. FOOD DEBRIS,                BEER CANS, VODKA BOTTLES and other garbage litter the                interior.               An impressive HAND-GUN is visible between the seats.               An old ICON of MOTHER MARY rides on the DASHBOARD.               As the TWINS get in, LT tries to hide the GUN and the illicit                detritus.               To little avail. The TWINS pay no mind to his machinations;                they have evidently seen it all before.               As LT drives the TWINS to SCHOOL, the three play wild rough-               house.               The CAR swerves crazily.                                     LT                         How many times are you gonna miss                          the bus? Huh? All the other kids can                          get up in the morning, but you guys                          wanna be driven around like the                          fucking President. I'm your goddamn                          chauffeur!                                     TWINS                              (each taking alternate,                               overlapping lines)                         Shit, man. It wasn't our fault! --                          You think Sis is so perfect, well,                          if she hadn't hogged the fucking                          bathroom, maybe we -- I thought Aunt                          Lu was dead! She was in there so                          long...                                     LT                         Shut up! Listen!               ON RADIO: Chatter about Mets winning last night's game. It                was the THIRD GAME straight that they've won so far. One                more game -- set for tomorrow afternoon -- and the Mets will                sweep the World Series. All listen.                                      TWIN                         They're gonna win the Series in four!                                     LT                         All the way with Strawberry!                                     TWINS                              (in unison)                         Strawberry!               The TWINS whoop and shout, celebrating LT's -- and their own --                favorite player.               They pass the PAROCHIAL SCHOOL BUS. It has stopped for a                moment taking on KIDS. LT cuts off the TWINS' tirade.                                     LT                         Shit, man -- there's your fucking                          bus I oughtta make you late! Make                          the nuns whack the shit outa ya both.               LT and the TWINS banter back and forth, poke each other and                box around. The apparent hostility of their words is balanced                by the laughter and gung-ho play of the rough-housing. The                TWINS yell cat-calls as they drive past a BLONDE PEDESTRIAN.                LT joins in.               ANGLE - Through the WINDSHIELD, the PAROCHIAL SCHOOL comes                into view. A CROWD of UNIFORMED KIDS is gathered outside.                SEVERAL NUNS turn the CROWD into two neat rows, and usher                the KIDS inside.               POV LT - THE NUNS                                     LT                         Get going.               The TWINS get out. Join the line of students entering the                SCHOOL.               The instant the KIDS have left the CAR -- LT takes out some                COKE. Snorts it. He takes his GUN out of hiding.               LT steers with his knees as he drives off toward the City.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: AFTERNOON - QUEENS - CRIME SCENE               ANGLE - A CAR WINDSHIELD. Blood-spattered and shot up. The                DEAD BODIES of TWO GIRLS are in the front seat.               LT gets out of his CAR and makes his way through the COPS                and GAWKERS.               The BET COP comes up to LT.                                     BET COP                         Two Black kids came up out of nowhere                          and shot those chicks. Then they                          laughed as they walked away. The                          Press is gonna call it the "Giggling                          Man Murders." I'll tell ya. What a                          world.               LT gives a cursory glance to the crime scene. A couple of                COPS greet him; LT keeps walking.               The BET COP digs his attitude.                                     BET COP                         But hey -- we make the best of it,                          man, don't we? Huh? How about them                          Mets!               FOLLOW LT - over to a GROUP of COPS. They greet him and                everyone immediately crams into a parked CAR. The CAR stays                parked for the duration of their meeting.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: AFTERNOON - UNMARKED COP CAR (PARKED) - QUEENS               Now that LT, the BET COP and the OTHER COPS are inside the                CAR, they can do business. LT pays several COPS their WINNINGS                for last night's game. CASH and congratulatory banter is                exchanged.               Now LT has to take their BETS for tomorrow afternoon's GAME,                the FOURTH GAME of the World Series. LT urges the COPS to                bet against the Mets.                                     LT                         No fucking way they're gonna do it                          in four games straight.                                     COP ONE                         You serious, man? I wanna go Mets                          all the way!                                     LT                         Go ahead, man.If you've got shit for                          brains. But if you wanna win the                          bucks, go with Oakland.                                     COP TWO                         I thought Strawberry was gonna --                                     LT                         I know that nigger like he's my                          brother. He ain't gonna let us off                          so easy. He'll make us sweat first.                          This game's going to Oakland. Not a                          doubt in my mind, man.               Silence. The COPS think about it for a moment.               BET COP speaks up first; hands LT some CASH. When he talks                to LT, his fawning posture is obvious.                                     BET COP                         I'm in. Here.               COP ONE SHRUGS his assent, gives CASH to LT. The OTHER COPS                follow his example, place their BETS on OAKLAND.               The COP BETS total $800 -- on OAKLAND. LT has obviously been                the bookie for this precinct for a long time. He takes care                of a lot of action and has these guy's faith.               LT nods a goodbye, quickly gets out of the CAR. The BET COP                and the OTHER COPS remain inside.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: AFTERNOON - PAY PHONE - MIDTOWN - 38TH STREET & 3RD                AVENUE               LT pulls up alone beside a PHONE BOOTH and phones in the                COPS' bets and his own to LITE. More than an anonymous                connection to the BOOKIE, LITE is obviously LT's old friend --                and a hustler just like himself.               LT shouts into the PHONE and holds it close to his ear. The                TRAFFIC NOISE is loud and irritating.                                     LT                              (into the phone)                         I got them all going for Oakland.                          With bullshit money. We'll cover the                          $800.                                     LITE                              (OC)                         All right. What are you gonna do?                                     LT                         I want 15 on the Mets.                                     LITE                              (OC)                         How about 7 1/2?               ACROSS THE STREET - TWO GUYS approach a BUSINESSMAN in a                raincoat and flash a KNIFE. The BUSINESSMAN gives up his                WALLET and his WATCH.               LT pays no mind to the robbery.                                     LT                         Hey, man. Don't give me that bullshit.                          Don't pussy-out on me. The Mets are                          a fucking lock. I wanna make some                          money.                                     LITE                         Are you sure?                                     LT                         Yeah. I'm sure.               LT hangs up the PHONE, heads back toward his parked CAR.               By this time, the BUSINESSMAN is running into the street,                waving his arms and screaming.                                     BUSINESSMAN                         Police! Police! Help me! Police!               LT enters his car, drives off.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: EVENING - CRACK CITY               LT arrives, leading a BUST. Lots of COPS. LT chases a handsome                young COKE DEALER, JC, cornering him a couple flights up a                staircase. Now they're alone and the phony pantomime is over.                                     LT                         Hey, man, gimme something cooked!               JC gives it to him with a PIPE. LT takes a drag of CRACK.                Then LT gives JC a large BAG of COKE, labelled "Exhibit A".                                     LT                         It's good shit. From when they busted                          those Columbians uptown. You can cut                          it in half.               JC nods, bemused by LT's manic behavior. JC, in contrast, is                mellow and in control. LT smokes; JC doesn't.               LT COUGHS and SMOKES as he shouts to COPS downstairs (OFF).                                     LT                         I got this guy. But there's someone                          across the street on the roof!               The COPS (OFF) rush out of the building.               JC watches LT smoking like a fiend.                                     JC                         That stuff'll kill you quick, man.                                     LT                         What the fuck are you? A drug                          counselor or a drug dealer? And you                          don't even do your own product! What                          kind of businessman are you?                                     JC                         The rich kind.                              (shakes his head)                         Jeez, man. The way you smoke that                          shit is suicide.                                     LT                         Fuck you.                              (takes a deep hit)                         Just give me back a little something                          for the road.               LT takes a handful of the COKE and puts it in a DOLLAR BILL;                pockets it.                                     JC                         See you in a coupla days. Have the                          cash ready.               JC splits, runs up the stairs.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: NIGHT - ARIANE'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM               Religious/hip artifacts abound. It's a nice, if messy                apartment.               However, it is definitely not large enough to merit the $3,500                that ARIANE quotes as her rent.               ARIANE is LT's mistress.               BOWTAY, her girlfriend, lounges on the COUCH. BOWTAY plays                the third when LT is in the mood for a menage a trois. She's                around a lot.               BOWTAY is already zonked out on something. Maybe LUDES.                                     ARIANE                         Got something good for us?               LT gives her the COKE. ARIANE takes some immediately. BOWTAY                sloppily partakes.               Before LT can even sit down, the GIRLS start bitching.                                     ARIANE                         I'm gonna need some bread, man. This                          ain't fair. I'm always here for you,                          and you can't even take decent care                          of me. My landlord is bitching like                          a motherfucker! You're two months                          behind on the rent, Lieutenant!                                     LT                         Didya ever think of moving to a                          cheaper apartment? $3,500 a month is                          crazy, man!                                     ARIANE                         It's nothing. This is New York, man...                              (beat)                         Oh -- I forgot. Bowtay needs some                          cash to buy her new acting headshots                          out of the developers. It's a good                          investment, man. She could make                          serious money!               ANGLE - BOWTAY on the COUCH. It's obvious that she's going                nowhere. And fast.                                     ARIANE                         We've been rehearsing a new monologue.                          From Shad's Saint Joan, you know?                          Bowtay does it wonderfully well.               LT breaks out more COKE and some GRASS.                                     LT                         All right, Bowtay. Show us your stuff.               ARIANE lifts BOWTAY to her feet. BOWTAY staggers into the                center of the room, then falls back down on her knees. It                happens to be appropriate for the scene.               BOWTAY begins to recite the monologue from the very end of                the play. "When will the world be ready to receive thy                saints?", etc.               BOWTAY messes up a line; ARIANE lashes her with a BELT.               BOWTAY doesn't move, continues reciting. ARIANE joins in                from time to time.               LT is turned on.               He begins KISSING ARIANE, then goes down onto the floor.               BOWTAY is there already.               Kinky trio sex scene.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATER THAT NIGHT - ARIANE'S APARTMENT - KITCHEN               It's evidently an hour or so later.               The KITCHEN is very bachelorette. No FOOD or COOKING                IMPLEMENTS in sight.               LT is messing around, looking for something to DRINK. He                opens the REFRIGERATOR.               POV LT - CU - The REFRIGERATOR is entirely empty, save for a                few suspect and peculiar items. There is nothing in liquid                form.               LT hears ARIANE calling to him from the LIVING ROOM.                                     ARIANE                              (OC - calling to LT)                         There's nothing!               It's clear from the SEX SOUNDS (OC), that ARIANE and BOWTAY                are still going at it.                                     ARIANE                              (OC - calling to LT)                         Go out and get some Diet Cokes.               LT obeys. He leaves the KITCHEN.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: NIGHT - ARIANE'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM               LT passes through the LIVING ROOM, putting on his CLOTHING                as he heads for the DOOR to OUTSIDE.               The GIRLS don't miss a sexual beat. They continue what is                now a menage a deux. They won't miss LT while he's gone.               LT splits. No good-byes.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT/INT: LATE NIGHT - KOREAN DELI               LT approaches the market where he intends to buy the DIET                COKES.               A display of FRESH FRUITS & VEGETABLES extends onto the                sidewalk.               LT notices a SQUAD CAR, parked in front of the MARKET. LT                picks up his pace.               Closer now, LT sees a YOUNG UNIFORMED COP outside, standing                with the KOREAN OWNER, an elderly man who doesn't speak much                English. The OWNER is agitated and out of breath. He argues                fiercely with TWO YOUNG BLACK KIDS.               A SQUAD CAR is parked in front of the MARKET.               LT gets an idea. He takes command.                                     LT                              (to Cop)                         What's going on?               The UNIFORMED COP is a timid rookie.                                     COP                         Uh, Lieutenant, Sir -- The owner                          says they stole cash from the                          register. He was chasing them down                          the block when I caught up with them.               The KOREAN OWNER is still agitated. He tries to give his                side of the story, mixing English and Korean. At the same                time --               The TWO BLACK KIDS plead their case. They try to drown out                the OWNER. It all gets rather noisy.                                     YOUNG BLACK KID                         We didn't do nothing, man !               LT shouts in the YOUNG BLACK KID'S FACE. It's shockingly                loud.                                     LT                         Shut the fuck up!               LT turns to the UNIFORMED COP.                                     LT                              (to Cop)                         Go get me a Bud. A High Boy. And                          make sure it's fucking cold.                              (indicates the                               situation at hand)                         I'll straighten this out.               The UNIFORMED COP looks at LT for a moment, then goes.               LT is now alone with the KOREAN OWNER and the TWO YOUNG BLACK                KIDS.               LT turns to the OWNER.                                     LT                         How much did they take?                                     KOREAN OWNER                         Five hundred dollars cash.               The TWO YOUNG BLACK KIDS continue protesting their innocence.                                     YOUNG BLACK KID                         We didn't --               LT whips out his GUN and shoots a deafening BLAST between                the TWO KIDS' heads.It almost takes off the left ear of one                and the right ear of the other.               The TWO YOUNG BLACK KIDS are stunned. Speechless.               The YOUNG UNIFORMED COP rushes out of the MARKET, GUN raised                in one hand, BEER CAN in the other. He's relieved that a cop                wasn't shot, but the whole situation makes him uneasy.               LT grabs the BEER, points to the KOREAN OWNER.                                     LT                              (orders the Cop)                         Take this guy down to the Precinct.                          I need to talk to him.               The OWNER protests wildly in Korean as the flustered COP                ushers him into a waiting SQUAD CAR. They drive off.               Now LT is alone with the TWO YOUNG BLACK KIDS.               LT takes the KIDS inside at gunpoint.               INT: The store appears to be deserted.                                     LT                         Gimme the money! Now!               The TWO YOUNG BLACK KIDS have regained some of their cool.               They are still belligerent.                                     YOUNG BLACK KID                         We told you, man. We didn't take no --               LT jams his GUN down the PANTS of one of the KIDS. At the                same time, he whips out his BADGE and thrusts it into the                other KID'S FACE.                                     LT                         Give me the fucking money, assholes!               They give LT the CASH. The KIDS stand there.                                     LT                         What the fuck are ya standing there                          for? Be gone!               The KIDS, stunned, split.               LT swaggers around the store, GUN in hand, drinking the BEER,                assessing the inventory with a proprietary air. He pretends                to SHOOT at various products. Plays around.               In the back aisle, LT aims his GUN at a BIG BOX of TOILET                PAPER.               While he holds the TOILET PAPER at bay, a THIRTEEN YEAR-OLD                KOREAN KID rises up from behind it, his hands up, terrified.               LT LAUGHS, then puts the GUN away.                                     LT                         Take over until your boss gets back.                          Gimme a 6 of Diet Cokes and a 6 of                          Budweiser.               On LT's smiling face, we --                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: DAWN - ARIANE'S APARTMENT               BOWTAY is curled up on the floor, asleep.               ARIANE is busy with a GOBLET, some TIN FOIL and other esoteric                stuff.               LT comes through the door with the SIX-PACK of DIET COKES                and the SIX-PACK of BUDWEISER.               He puts them down, takes a BEER for himself. ARIANE doesn't                turn around. She's busy preparing drugs.                                     ARIANE                         I got you a present. Better shit                          then you got, cop!               LT comes and looks over her shoulder. He sees --               A PILE of BROWN HEROIN on a TIN FOIL SHEET. ARIANE is                preparing the implements for "chasing the dragon."               BOWTAY rolls over, sprawls on the floor in an even sexier                position.               On her face, an expression of utter bliss.               LT abandons the BEER.                                     LT                         Brown Downtown... There hasn't been                          any smoking brown on the street in --                                     ARIANE                         Who said anything about the fucking                          street. I've got more connects than                          you have, Lieutenant...               ARIANE helps LT with the thin, TIN FOIL PIPE. She burns the                SMACK on the TIN FOIL SHEET for him so that he can manage to                inhale the PLUME OF SMOKE in time.               He gets a nice, deep hit.               ARIANE gracefully takes a hit of her own.               They are both very high, already. Beginning to NOD OUT.               ARIANE goes back to the IMPLEMENTS and prepares another hit.               This time she catches the SMOKE in a SHERRY GOBLET and LT                drinks it.               LT is very high now. A meditative, hallucinatory state.               ARIANE takes a DIET COKE and lies down on the BED.               She slowly sips soda through a straw. Her eyes are closed.               LT sits in an EASY CHAIR by the WINDOW.               LT NODS OUT while watching the SUNRISE. What we see appears                to be HIS DREAM. From the melting RED SUN, we --                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               EXT: DAWN (MEANWHILE) ó CHURCH/CONVENT                BLOOD! TWO KIDS are raping a NUN, attacking the SECOND NUN,                and shitting on the ALTAR. Going berserk. They steal PURPLE                ROBES and the CHALICE.               From the FIRST NUN, on her back on the altar, her robes ripped                open, a heart-rending pieta, we --                                                               HARD CUT TO:                                         DAY TWO:                               GAME FOUR: LT LOSES $15,000               INT: LATE AFTERNOON - LT'S HOME - QUEENS               ANGLE - CARTOONS on TV.               LT has overslept, out cold on the COUCH. A LITTLE GIRL sits                on the floor, two feet from the TV, watching CARTOONS. Various                other members of LT's over-extended FAMILY can be seen moving                around the house, going about their business.               A CARTOON EXPLOSION wakes LT. He jumps up in a panic.                                     LT                         Did I win? Shit! The game!               LT bounds off the COUCH, Still half-asleep, he crawls to the                TV, turns on GAME FOUR. The LITTLE GIRL starts CRYING.                                     LT                              (to background family                               members)                         What's the score? What's the fucking                          score?               An ANCIENT AUNT pokes her head into the LIVING ROOM.                                     ANCIENT AUNT                         I dunno...               She disappears again.                                     LT                              (to himself)                         Why me, man?               LT leans into the TV, transfixed, as --               ON TV: STRAWBERRY makes a fantastic catch of a Canseco drive                with runners on base. LT CHEERS.               DOORS SLAM (OFF). The TWINS have come home from school.               They burst into the LIVING ROOM, loud as Hell. Furious about                something they out-curse each other.                                     LT                              (to the Twins)                         Shut the fuck up! Did you see that?                                     TWINS                              (shrug - in unison)                         It's 7-0: Oakland.                              (single Twin)                         That nigger could have let it drop                          and gone home.               LT curses and stomps around. The TWINS mimic his every move.                All three are pissed. The rest of the FAMILY pays no mind.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: EVENING - LT'S CAR               LT is furious. He COKES UP. DRINKS heavily.               Tired of the SPORTS STATIONS, LT turns on 911. There is a                call for an uptown MURDER SCENE.                                                               HARD CUT TO:               EXT: NIGHT - 153RD/MARTIN LUTHER KING - CRIME SCENE               CU - A YOUNG BLACK DEALER, eyes open, shot dead.               LT drives up, sizes up the scene. It's fresh territory. He'll                milk it for what it's worth.               LT ignores his colleagues, the COPS ON THE SCENE. He knows                some of the DEALERS and STREET CHARACTERS on the sidelines.               He heads straight for them.               LT greets an impressively beautiful, six foot tall                TRANSVESTITE. He takes her aside.                                     LT                         Hey, Veronica baby, looking good!                          What's going down?               LT slips a HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL into VERONICA'S well-filled                BRA.                                     VERONICA                              (confidentially - to                               LT)                         Willie got shot by one of his boys.                              (giggles)                         But there's a ki under the back seat.                                     LT                         I'll put it in my trunk.               LT saunters up to the MURDER CAR, DEAD WILLIE still in the                front seat. LT is obviously berserk to get the KI, but he                can't show it. LT susses out the situation.               Around him, POLICE TECHNICIAN-TYPES are busy lifting                fingerprints and analyzing the CAR and WILLIE -- to no                apparent avail.               LT uses his Lieutenants' privilege to enter the MURDER CAR                and begin his own investigation.               TIRE TRACKS are discovered nearby. The OTHER COPS are                distracted.               LT takes his shot. He reaches for and finds the KI of COCAINE                under the BACK SEAT. LT slips it under his COAT and emerges                from the MURDER CAR.               Outside the MURDER CAR, LT makes to stand up. In the act, he --                DROPS the BAG of COKE!               LT is stunned. He can't believe the KI is actually in the                shitty, gutter water, in plain view of the other COPS.               The COPS spot the KILO of COKE. Even those COPS that were                far away, somehow know what has happened. They quickly gather                round the MURDER CAR, LT, and the KI.               The PLASTIC BAG filled with WHITE POWDER floats on the DEEP                PUDDLE.               LT is silent wrath incarnate.                                     LT                              (soft, sardonic)                         I guess he was a bigtime dealer...                              (beat)                         What d'ya know... A kilo of 'caine...               Among the gathered COPS, only a SERGEANT is not quite                convinced.                                     SERGEANT                         Where the fuck did that come from?               The other COPS ignore the query.               LT walks away.               LT has successfully covered himself, but he walks off cursing                and mumbling.               VERONICA is laughing demonstratively in the background.                                     LT                              (to himself)                         I can't fucking believe it...               LT is further away now from the scene of WILLIE'S murder and                his own debacle. LT overhears something. Cuts off his                muttering.               A group of COPS are talking about the big news from the early                morning.                                     COP A                         But I still can't fucking believe                          they'd rape a nun, man...               LT stops in his tracks. The erotic import of this conversation                has seized LT's imagination. He heads toward the cluster of                COPS, cuts in.                                     LT                              (to the Cops)                         What's this shit about a nun getting                          raped?                                     COP B                         Where the fuck have you been? It                          happened this morning, up at St.                          Dominiek's in Spanish Harlem. A coupla                          punks tore up the place and then                          gave it to the nuns but good.               The COPS turn away, continue to talk among themselves. LT                walks away.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: NIGHT - A CITY HOSPITAL PARKING LOT               LT pulls up. Parks near a group of OTHER COPS, waiting by                their CARS.               HOSPITAL fauna passes by in the background: DOCTORS, NURSES,                PATIENTS in all stages of recovery or relapse. The HOSPITAL                itself rises in the background. It looks like a prison.               LT leaves his CAR, heads for the GROUP of COPS. He joins                them, sits down on the HOOD of a nearby CAR. The COPS are                all DRINKING heavily.               Present are the BET COP, and several other FAMILIAR COPS                from previous scenes.                                     LT                         What's going on?                                     FIRST COP                         They raped a nun and tore up the                          church -- they even took a crap on                          the altar. Up in Spanish Harlem.                                     SECOND COP                         She was only seventeen...               A COP opens his TRUNK -- he has a BAR inside. The COPS,                including LT, respond enthusiastically. DRINK UP.                                     FIRST COP                         Who the fuck could do this?!                                     OLD IRISH COP                         The young nun's just a kid from                          Ireland. Imagine having to come here                          to have that happen!                                     SECOND COP                         Jesus... What's she gonna tell her                          mother?                                     OLD IRISH COP                         I'm gonna kill those motherfuckers.               The COPS keep DRINKING. All of them lounging around on or                beside the CARS.               LT watches quietly, taking it all in. As if following the                motto: "He who defines himself, confines himself."                                     THIRD COP                         The Church already put up a $50,000                          reward!                                     FIRST COP                         Well, one of us is gonna get it. I                          mean -- get them.               The FIRST COP raises a TOAST.                                     FIRST COP                         Here's to payback for the nuns!               The COPS all whoop and cheer.                                     SECOND COP                         Anyone got any leads, at all?                                     FIRST COP                         We got shit to go on. Only that list                          of inventory -- what they stole from                          the church.                                     THIRD COP                         Y'know they actually stole those                          wacky purple robes? And they took                          the chalice -- with the Host still                          inside!                                     SECOND COP                         What did they want with the Host?                                     THIRD COP                         They were hungry. I dunno. They didn't                          want to hock the Host, they wanted                          to hock that golden chalice.               COPS avoid each others' eyes. Competition has begun. No one                shares information, each after the reward for himself.               LT bursts out, swings into high gear.                                     LT                         Leave it to the Catholic Church,                          man. Girls get raped everyday, and                          now they're gonna pay 50 G just                          because these chicks wore penguin                          suits!               Some of the COPS laugh, others are offended.                                     OLD IRISH COP                              (to LT)                         What's your fucking problem?!                                     LT                         The Church is a racket.                                     OLD IRISH COP                         So what. Are you a Catholic?                                     LT                         Sure!                                     OLD IRISH COP                         Do you believe in God?               LT doesn't reply. He's thinking.               The BET COP and a couple of OTHER, FAMILIAR GAMBLER COPS                move in. They've got nothing on their minds but the World                Series.                                     BET COP                              (to LT)                         To Hell with this God stuff. How's                          that Strawberry? He does what ever                          you want him to, huh Lieutenant?                          Even strike out!                              (beat)                         I bet you won a shitload on Oakland.                          How much, huh?               LT comes down off the CAR HOOD. Now he has to feign pride in                his supposed big bet on OAKLAND.               LT has to convince the COPS to keep betting -- he can't afford                to pay them all off. Unfortunately, the COPS all think LT                just scored big, himself.                                     LT                         More than you did.                                     GAMBLER COP TWO                         Well, let's see some green!                                     LT                         If you know what's good for you,                          you'll keep staying on Oakland!                                     BET COP                         Oakland? Is that how you're going?               LT nods "yes." An outright lie.                                     LT                         Yeah. Sure. Don't you get it? The                          series has gotta last seven games.                          The last two did, didn't they? It's                          a racket. Do you have any idea how                          much money they make selling                          television-time for commercials during                          the series? Especially if it's a New                          York team? They won't close the gold                          mine after only four games. It'll                          last a full seven. Too many people                          wanna milk it for what it's worth.                          You'll see!                                     BET COP                         All right... I'm in. After all, you're                          the expert. Ain't that right, LT?               SEVERAL COPS, including some of the COPS who have been hanging                out in front of the HOSPITAL, go double or nothing on OAKLAND.                LT takes their BET MONEY -- $900.               One COP doesn't go along with the deal. LT painfully pays                him off.                                     LT                         You'll be sorry, man. But if you                          wanna be a sissy, here's your bread.               LT sits back on top of his CAR, DRINKING heavily. He toasts                STRAWBERRY. The others are uneasy. Why toast STRAWBERRY?                                     COP ONE                         Strawberry? I thought we were going                          with Oakland.                                     LT                         We are, man! That's the point! If                          the Mets win, it's thanks to                          Strawberry. If Oakland wins, it's                          thanks to Strawberry. Nothing can                          happen out there on the field that                          don't gotta do with Strawberry. So                          here's to Strawberry!               The others join in the TOAST, but are uneasy.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATE NIGHT - CORRIDORS OF A CITY HOSPITAL - HUNTING FOR                THE NUN               The HOSPITAL is an inferno. LT exploits his cop privileges;                shows his BADGE to the GUARDS.               He wants to get into the inner sanctum. Beyond where even                COPS were allowed to go. He wants to get to the NUN.               A sexy NURSE stops him.                                     NURSE                         Can I help you?               LT can't help but check her out and flirt.                                     LT                         I'm in charge of the investigation.                          Just checking security.                                     NURSE                              (Suspicious)                         Security?                                     LT                         Do you want those guys coming back?                          For the nun? Or for you?               The NURSE looks at him, unsure, then walks off down the                CORRIDOR.               LT continues his hunt.               He comes upon a DOOR that is plastered with "QUARANTINE"                SIGNS. One too many, perhaps. LT senses the NUN is inside.               He has to open the DOOR, but hopes he won't get a blast of                disease in his face. He CROSSES himself -- wearing a smirk,                but nonetheless. Going on instinct, LT opens the door a crack.               He's right. It's the NUN. He positions himself outside the                DOOR, keeping it open a few inches. He peeks inside without                being seen.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATE NIGHT - THE NUN'S HOSPITAL EXAMINING ROOM               From just outside the door, LT peep-toms on the NUN while                she is being examined. He sees her stark naked, laid out on                a table, her legs spread wide apart.               The DOCTORS, NURSES, COUNSELORS work on the NUN as if they                are automatons. They don't grasp either the humanity or the                trotitism of the scene. LT does. The image of The Alabaster                Nun turns him on no end. Yet there is also a deeper pathos                to the scene.               And the NUN is spectacularly beautiful. She doesn't speak.                Looks like a Pieta.               A DOCTOR in a WHITE-COAT reads the MEDICAL REPORT to a FEMALE                COP. The FEMALE COP writes down the details on a hard-backed                pad. As if it's a parking ticket.               The moving contrast between the words and the image seems to                be apparent to LT -- and the NUN -- alone.                                     DOCTOR                              (to Female Cop)                         They inserted a crucifix eleven                          centimeters into her vaginal aperture,                          breaking the hymen membrane. Then                          they pursued the same course with                          their natural organs of sexual                          penetration. They used a sharp object,                          probably a hunting knife with a curved                          blade, to carve a cross between her                          shoulder blades, entering the flesh                          an average of nearly one centimeter                          throughout the area of the wound.                          They --               Finally, as if she knew he was there all along, the NUN looks                up at where LT is hiding and boldly meets his eyes.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: VERY LATE NIGHT - ARIANE'S APARTMENT               LT has been there for some time. They are alone. They've                both been DRINKING and COKING.               LT is carrying on about the NUN. As he speaks about various                subjects, his tone changes radically. From contempt and                cynicism to profound reverence. From decadence -- to awe.                ARIANE, too, manages to switch from one attitude to the other.                                     LT                         Have you ever seen a naked nun? I                          tell you, man, I went to school with                          the nuns, I've seen hundreds since                          then and I've never even seen a nun's                          belly button, you understand? But                          this nun, let me tell you. What a                          beautiful lady...                              (snaps out of his awe)                         And where'd the Church get the 50 G                          in the first place? The fucking Church                          is the biggest scam going. You know                          what's the real killer? It costs                          $8,000 per kid for them to go to                          parochial school. I've got three                          kids in there already, with two on                          the way! Christ. That fucking reward                          is my money, man! But that's Church                          policy. The Pope is the world's                          biggest bookie. Makes people bet on                          their own salvation! Double or nothing                          on Heaven. You go to Hell -- then go                          to Hell. In the beginning was the                          Word, and the Word was bullshit.               ARIANE can't stop thinking about the rape.                                     ARIANE                         I can't get over what those guys did                          to her. I just can't.                                     LT                         They're alive, aren't they? Come on,                          man! Everyone's making such a fucking                          fuss, just because she's a nun. Just                          because she wears a penguin suit,                          the church puts up 50 G for the guys                          who dared to rape her. Do you think                          they'd put up a dime if you got raped?                          Of course not. Or even for your little                          sister? The virgin? Like shit they                          would.                                     ARIANE                         Susie's not a virgin anymore.                                     LT                         She's fucking nine years old! Jesus                          Christ.               ARIANE suddenly starts up.                                     ARIANE                         And the nun's not a virgin anymore,                          either. Will they make her leave the                          convent?               LT thinks for a moment.                                     LT                         Who knows? Who knows what their policy                          is.                              (sudden dreamy                               reverence)                         But I'll tell you, man, that nun...                          She was beautiful. Just beautiful...                          Tall... Real tall... I've never seen                          anything like it...               LT snaps out once again, grabs the TELEPHONE. He dials LITE.               He's not in. LT leaves ARIANE'S NUMBER on LIMELITE'S BEEPER.               Hangs up.                                     LT                              (to himself)                         Lite, man... Where the fuck are you?               ARIANE can't get the image of the rape out of her mind.                                     ARIANE                         It's horrible. They burned her breasts                          with cigarettes. Christ.                                     LT                         Yeah? At least she's alive! I see                          people get killed every day! Worse                          yet, tortured first and then killed!                          The nuns got off easy. Jeez. Cigarette                          burns. Everyone's all upset about                          fucking cigarette burns. I'll show                          you cigarette burns!               LT stubs out his CIGARETTE on the back of his hand. He does                the move with intensity and bravado.               ARIANE responds by calmly doing the same. But she does it                entirely impassively, and rubs the CIGARETTE into her flesh                longer than LT did.               ARIANE comes over to LT and starts kissing and licking his                CHEST.                                     ARIANE                         Do you believe in God? Do you believe                          that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?.               LT hesitates.               ARIANE kneels down in front of LT. As if in prayer.               She starts giving him head.               Before he can answer The Question, he is saved by the bell.                The PHONE RINGS. LT picks up immediately. It's LITE.               As LT speaks to LITE, ARIANE continues to give him head.                                     LT                              (to LITE; over the                               phone)                         Yeah, I know, I know all about it.                          Enough already about the fucking                          nuns. Yeah. Yeah. So just take the                          bet. Don't give me any hassles, man.                          Just put in my bet. 30 G's. Yeah.                          And I got $900 from the cops on                          Oakland. Yeah. Right. Strawberry's                          gonna knock em dead. Of course he                          is! You know that! Yeah. Yeah. Have                          faith, man! OK. Right.               LT hangs up, thinks ARIANE won't resurface the God Question.               ARIANE does, even as she gives him head. Every time she                speaks, she pulls away and it frustrates him. This dialectic                continues throughout the scene.                                     ARIANE                         Do you believe in God?               LT thinks about it, even as ARIANE gets him hotter and hotter.                                     LT                         The Church is a fucking racket. I                          know how they operate. I've been                          part of the racket since the first                          time some faggot priest spilt water                          on my head. My Aunt Lu says I was                          crying all the way through. Yeah, I                          know their game inside out. Now I'm                          free of it and I'm gonna stay that                          way.                                     ARIANE                         I'm not talking about the fucking                          Church. Fuck the Church. But tell                          me. Do you believe in God?                                     LT                         What's to believe?                                     ARIANE                         That Jesus Christ was the Son of God                          and he came to die for your sins.               LT can't respond. He's distracted by his own pleasure.               ARIANE does something OC that causes LT sudden pain.               LT cries out. Snaps to attention. Looks at ARIANE.                                     ARIANE                         Your sins, Lieutenant!                              (beat)                         And look around you! Where do you                          think all this shit came from?               ARIANE gives him head again. LT is more excited now than                before she hurt him.                                     LT                         People.                                     ARIANE                         You believe that man is the be-all                          and end-all?                                     LT                         Yeah.                                     ARIANE                         OK. OK. Fine. But -- do you believe                          in God?               As if in answer. LT begins to RECITE THE ACT OF CONTRITION                                     LT                         I believe in God the Father Almighty,                          Creator of Heaven and Earth...               This turns on ARIANE. She stops talking. Writhes and grapples                him.               LT is reaching climax. When describing Jesus rising again --               LT has an orgasm.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT INT: VERY LATE NIGHT - LT'S CAR               LT drives, DRUNK and fired-up. He has a BOTTLE of VODKA in                the CAR.               POV LT - A CAR with only one TAILLIGHT. A Cyclops in the                darkness. Under a STREETLIGHT, JERSEY PLATES are visible. So                are the two inebriated, leather-clad GIRLS inside. LT pulls                them over.               LT comes on to them. He's way out there. The GIRLS are                smashed.               LT notes their "Heavy Metal" CROSSES, and questions them.                                     LT                         You wouldn't put some religious trip                          on me, would you?                                     JERSEY GIRL                         Uh-uh... What?                                     LT                         Good. Show me your papers.               LT looks at their PAPERS. Points to the name to which the                CAR is registered.                                     LT                         Who's this person? It ain't you, and                          it ain't you, so who is it?                                     GIRL                         My Aunt.                                     LT                         So you took the car from you Aunt.                          Stole it. Am I right?                                     GIRL                         We were gonna give it back! We're on                          our way home, now!                                     LT                         Yeah, yeah.               LT gets into the CAR, looks around. He finds a BAG OF POT.               LT waves the POT in front of the GIRLS.                                     LT                         Now why don't I just call up your                          Aunt right now and tell her what's                          gone down. How about that?               The GIRLS are petrified.               LT grins. He takes out his own ROLLING PAPER, starts to ROLL                a JOINT with their POT.                                     LT                         Well, I'm sure we could arrange                          something... Unless you fancy a few                          days in jail...               He blackmails them into humiliating sex scenes. On a side                street off Eleventh Avenue, LT plays it out until dawn.                                                                    CUT TO:                                        DAY THREE:                               GAME FIVE: LT LOSES $30,000               EXT INT: DAWN - THE CHURCH/CONVENT               LT drives up erratically and parks his CAR in front of the                CHURCH/CONVENT.               LT stumbles into the CHURCH. Alone now, he notes various                aspects of the DESECRATION, but can't see much because he's                blind drunk.               The enormous, graphically bloody CRUCIFIX confronts him.               He collapses immediately into a PEW. Sleeps.               TIME PASSES                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: MORNING - CHURCH/CONVENT               LT wakes up. Ruckus all around him. The COPS are there in                force -- including some of the guys from the BAR, the UPTOWN                MURDER and the HOSPITAL PARKING LOT. They are privately                checking out the Scene of the Crime, looking for leads that                will give them an advantage. Everyone wants the TWO NUNS to                talk. The NUNS are in a circle of interrogators. At first,                LT can't even see them.               The ELDERLY NUN was attacked but not raped. They carved                crosses on her.               In the background, the questioning has already begun. The                interrogators become increasingly frustrated. It can be heard                in their voices. They want the reward, and -- despite a                certain constipated "respect" in their attitude -- the COPS                are willing to browbeat the NUNS to get it.               LT silently bums a COFFEE off a COP and staggers into the                ring.               LT hangs back in the crowd, staring at the YOUNG NUN as the                COPS interrogate both NUNS.                                     COP 1                         Can't you tell us anything? Sisters?                          Anything at all?               The ELDERLY NUN speaks up.                                     ELDERLY NUN                         They broke my glasses. I didn't see                          anything, but I did hear them. They                          were young. And there were two of                          them. They spoke Spanish. One of                          them was named Julio.               LT, on the sidelines, turns to an OLDER COP. LT mutters his                commentary                                     LT                              (to Older Cop)                         Julio. Great. There are 20,000 spics                          named "Julio".               The ELDERLY NUN lowers her head. Shamed.                                     ELDERLY NUN                         I would tell you more if I could. I                          am so sorry, Officers.               Now the COPS are magnetized by the YOUNG NUN. She does not                appear to need GLASSES. Evidently, she could give the COPS                what they want.                                     COP 2                         What about you, Sister? Won't you                          tell us anything?               LT watches the YOUNG NUN as --               POV LT - The YOUNG NUN smiles a quiet, intractable smile.               COP 2 is screaming mad, but tries to hide it.               LT has observed their interaction. Though he would have loved                to have heard some information from the YOUNG NUN, her                defiance gives him even more pleasure.               The MONSIGNOR comes forward to "translate" the NUNS' stubborn                silence. He is possessed by a conventional sort of ambition --                this is his big chance. He would like to be Cardinal some                day, but never will be. He enjoys the spotlight as he                pontificates.                                     MONSIGNOR                         Listen. One nun is nearly 80 years                          old. I'm not from this Church, of                          course, but I assume they'll be                          getting her a new pair of glasses.                          Apparently she's legally blind without                          them. The Sister who suffered a rape                          is just 17. She arrived from Ireland                          only a couple of months ago. This --                          event -- is just too much for them                          to take!               The MONSIGNOR clears his throat demonstratively, takes a                dicitous tone.                                     MONSIGNOR                         Listen. The Church would like to                          know who did it just as much as the                          NYPD. These arrant criminals broke                          the laws of man, and the laws of                          God. The Church wants nothing more                          than to see them behind bars. That's                          why we're offering the $50,000 reward                          to whomever brings them in. I'm sure                          our hero will be one of New York's                          Finest.               The YOUNG NUN shoots the MONSIGNOR an offended look.               It appears for a moment as if the YOUNG NUN makes eye contact                with LT. But he can't be sure.               LT leaves the crowd, disappears out the DOOR.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATE AFTERNOON - RUSH HOUR - LT'S CAR - 54TH STREET AT                FIFTH AVENUE               LT is driving through HEAVY TRAFFIC while listening to GAME                FIVE on the RADIO. He COKES UP. He mumbles to himself.               GAME FIVE is close, and features STRAWBERRY. As LT listens,                he reacts physically to the changing status of the game.               He drives crazy through the streets, pounds the ceiling.                He's so COKED, he's bouncing out of his skin. LT drinks VODKA                out of a PINT BOTTLE in his COAT.               STRAWBERRY overthrows a sacrifice fly from Canseco and the                A's WIN.               LT shoots out the CAR RADIO. LT LOSES! He's $30,000 down.                Covering himself, he puts the LIGHTS on top of his CAR. Turns                the SIREN on. Screaming CURSES, he drives through the streets,                careening like a madman. PEDESTRIANS run away in terror.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: AFTERNOON ó "WHITE" CHURCH ó HIS DAUGHTER'S FIRST                COMMUNION               CU ó LT'S EIGHT YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER takes the WAFER for the                first time.               LT is dressed to kill. Looks like a corpse.               He watches his DAUGHTER'S First Communion and is truly moved.               Remembers his own past.               While the rest of the attendant EXTENDED FAMILY, FRIENDS,                and SOME COPS enter the COMMUNION PARADE, LT stands alone at                the back of the CHURCH like an usher. He holds the COLLECTION                BASKET and quietly watches the whole scene.               LT, his betting friend who is not a cop comes up beside him.                                     LITE                         OK asshole. You owe thirty grand.                          Now what are you gonna do?                                     LT                         I wanna go double or nothing on the                          next game.                                     LITE                         Double or nothing? Are you fucking                          out of your mind?                                     LT                         I'm not gonna let that bastard take                          my money                                     LITE                         Take your money? This guy will blow                          up your house and everyone in it!                                     LT                              (stoic)                         There's just no way the Mets will                          lose this game. Gooden is pitching                          and Strawberry is ready to break                          out.               LITE looks his friend up and down as if he's lost his mind.                                     LITE                         Fuck Strawberry. You're gonna end up                          owing 60 G to a homicidal maniac!                                     LT                         That's my problem. Just put in my                          bet.               LITE gestures assent, but is not happy. He waits a moment,                looks around.               POV LITE - LT'S FRIENDS and FAMILY. LT'S DAUGHTER in her                COMMUNION DRESS.               From the pristine interior of the "WHITE CHURCH" we --                                                               HARD CUT TO:               INT: AFTERNOON ó THE CHURCH/CONVENT               The interior of the CHURCH/CONVENT is still desecrated. In                stark contrast to the "White Church" (above, Scene 22).               POLICE ROPES have cordoned off certain desecrated areas of                the CHURCH. In other places, MOPS and SLOPPY BUCKETS of SHIT-                WATER wait for someone to finish cleaning up.               LT appears to be entirely alone in the CHURCH. He is desperate                for clues. He searches for leads and perhaps, for something                else...               CU - He lights a CANDLE, gives a QUARTER --               Then LT lights his CRACKPIPE ever the FLAME.               Suddenly the NUN appears.               LT hides, watches as the NUN enters the CONFESSIONAL Once                she is ensconced inside, LT stealthly approaches the                CONFESSIONAL and from right outside -- a tantalizing proximity --                he listens as she confesses to the PRIEST. (This is an elderly                PRIEST with a striking, unusual voice. Not the MONSIGNOR                from the COPS' interrogation of the NUNS. Scene 20.)                                     NUN                         Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.                          It has been two days since my last                          confession. Father, my sin is a                          terrible sin. A sin of omission.                          There was another sin that happened                          at the same time, and in the same                          place, but my sin I think was graver                          stil.                                     PRIEST                         Sister, we all know what happened to                          you yesterday morning. I expected                          that you would want to speak to me                          about it. But you could have come to                          my office. Your being here, in the                          confessional, implies that you,                          Sister, have done something wrong.                          You haven't. I assure you. I feared                          you might have misplaced feelings of                          guilt. If you condemn yourself because                          you experienced feelings of...                          curiosity or even... pleasure, you                          mustn't --               The NUN LAUGHS. At first, it sounds like crying. But it is a                strange, low laughter.                                     NUN                         Father, if it was so trivial, so                          natural, so -- No. I have sinned.                          And you must listen if you are to                          prescribe an appropriate act of                          contrition, and to absolve me. Father,                          what would you do if you had but one                          day in which to use your arms to                          serve God?                                     PRIEST                         It's funny, you knew. But the first                          thing I think of is kneading the                          bread that I help bake for the soup                          kitchen. Maybe that's because my the                          muscles in my arms still hurt.                                     NUN                         I also thought of that bread, Father.                          And of that night six days ago when                          the Mother Superior died, and I kept                          the cool, damp cloth on her forehead                          freshly moist. Father, what would                          you do if you had but one day in                          which to use your legs to serve God?                                     PRIEST                         I think of running for help, and                          falling to my knees in prayer.                                     NUN                         As I have prayed day and night since                          the desecration of this church                          yesterday morning -- and my sin. You                          see, Father --                                     PRIEST                         Yes, Sister?                                     NUN                         Yesterday morning, God gave me but                          one chance to use something else to                          serve Him. Not my arms or my legs,                          but something I used for the first                          time, for the last time, and will                          never use again. My vagina.               Outside the CONFESSIONAL. LT reacts to the explicit word.                Shock. Titillation and fascination.                                     NUN                         Those boys, those sad, raging boys...                          They came to me as the needy do. And                          like many of the needy, they were                          rude. Like all the needy, they took.                          And like all the needy, they needed.                              (beat)                         Father. I knew them; They learn in                          our school. And play in our                          schoolyard. And they are good boys.                                     PRIEST                         You knew them?                              (beat)                         Who were they, Sister? Who are these                          boys? What are the names of these --                          good boys you knew?               Outside the CONFESSIONAL, LT stiffens. This could be the                clue he needs to solve the case.                                     NUN                         I could tell you their names now,                          and I know you'd be bound by a sacred                          vow to keep my secret. But I cannot                          tell you their names. For I, too, am                          bound. As I am bound now to confess                          my sins. So listen, Father Listen.                              (beat)                         I am a nun. What did I give those                          boys that they could not have found                          elsewhere? Nothing. Nothing at all.                          There were always two of us in the                          act. The act was half my own. It                          does not seem to me the act was half                          the act of a once of Christ.                              (beat)                         It is the lost chance that will remain                          on the ledger of my sins. Not the                          loss of my virginity. The rape forced                          upon me a choice. As a vessel of the                          spirit. I could have imbued my vagina                          with God. Or, I could have turned                          away from God and voided my body of                          spirit, so that all that was left                          for those boys was a lump of flesh.                          I chose the second path. The easier,                          path. The path of the material world.                          The path no nun has the right to                          take. And so, I sinned.                              (beat)                         My vagina spread, but spread no word.                          It opened, on nothingness. It gave                          nothing at all and left nothing                          behind. No trace of my act, yes my                          act. For I was there, too, remains                          in the landscape of God.               The NUN'S description of the RAPE is both a turn on for LT                and a matter of profound curiosity. Something divine. His                silent reactions embody both decadence and awe. This apparent                paradox can find unified expression in his character, though                at other moments it threatens to tear him apart. The tension                between the two polarities will propel him toward his destiny.                                     NUN                         Jesus turned water to wine. I ought                          to have turned bitter semen to fertile                          sperm -- hatred to love. And maybe                          to have saved their souls. They did                          not love me. I ought to have loved                          them. As Jesus loved those who reviled                          him. I ought to have surprised those                          boys. Instead, they surprised me,                          and got no surprise at all. No, they                          did not rape a nun. But a nun has                          been raped. And the nun must now                          atone for her sin. For a God-given                          part of her was wasted. A part which                          other women use for procreation, for                          conjugal fulfillment, for expressions                          of love. I had but one chance. And I                          did nothing but react in pain.                              (beat)                         When those boys placed their hands                          upon my breasts, they had nothing                          but an assortment of skin cells in                          their grasp. They ought to have felt,                          through me. The bosom of their                          Redeemer. When they lay on top of me                          and looked down into my eyes, they                          saw fear. They should have met the                          eyes of a lover, And felt the presence                          of the Prince of Peace...                              (beat)                         My vagina. I shall never have again.                          And never again shall I encounter                          two boys whose prayer was more                          legible, more poignant, more                          anguished. Two young men who threw                          themselves upon the altar and took                          me with them. And I did nothing for                          them. I can only hope that someone                          will.               LT can't help but start up. As if, telepathically, the NUN                knew he was there and cried out to him. Asked him to complete                her mission.               LT senses the confession is over. As the PRIEST begins to                speak again, LT snaps to and returns to his original hiding                place, near the CANDLES.               LT watches as the NUN exits the CONFESSIONAL, KNEELS, holds                her ROSARY BEADS, and begins to whisper the ACT OF CONTRITION --                what LT recited as ARIANE gave him head.               The NUN does penance. LT watches her, still hidden, and                transfixed.               Cut from THE NUN to --                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: EVENING - ARIANE'S APARTMENT               CU - LT fucking a NUN.               Its ARIANE.               This time LT doesn't rebel against the religious import of                these last days. Rather, he incorporates it into their sex.                He has dressed ARIANE as a NUN. Now it is silent pantomime                that expresses both decadence and awe.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATE NIGHT ó LT'S HOME ó QUEENS               FOLLOW LT as he walks through his home late at night. Each                room has several FAMILY MEMBERS in it, all asleep. Even the                TWINS sleep in tandem, on matching BUNK BEDS.               LT sits down in the KITCHEN. All is silent, peaceful.               A moment passes.               LT stands up and goes over to the REFRIGERATOR. He takes out                a CARTON OF MILK.               Sits back down. DRINKS the MILK.               LT calmly looks at what's on the KITCHEN TABLE.               A PILE OF BILLS, note attached from his WIFE: "Pay These."               A GROUP OF PHOTOS from the COMMUNION, already quickie                developed. They are spread out all over the TABLE.               A MORNING TABLOID NEWSPAPER, STRAWBERRY featured on the COVER.               LT finishes looking at the various artifacts of his life. He                sighs, leans back, appears to be -- dare we say it -- at                peace.               FADE TO BLACK;                                                               HARD CUT TO:                                        DAY FOUR:                                GAME SIX: LT LOSES $60,000               EXT: LATE AFTERNOON - SHEA STADIUM - THE SIX GAME OF THE                WORLD SERIES               The MASSIVE CROWD ROARS.               The STADIUM is decked out in the RED, WHITE, and BLUE BUNTING                signifying the WORLD SERIES. A ROW OF UNIFORMED COPS is in                the front row. Among them --               LT. He watches STRAWBERRY as --               With winning runs on, STRAWBERRY takes strike three, to lose                the game.               As STRAWBERRY walks off the field, he and LT face off.               One on one.               LT has lost the $60,000 bet. He knows how heavy this is.                That his life is new in danger.               The CROWD vents its rage. The deafening SOUND takes on a                sensuous rhythm and becomes DANCE MUSIC, as --               From EXTREME CU - the BLACK FACE OF STRAWBERRY, we --               FADE TO BLACK;                                                                FADE UP TO:               INT: EVENING - LIMELIGHT NIGHTCLUB               Half-nude DANCERS whirling in and out of sight, round and                round in the strobe-flashed darkness.               The DANCE MUSIC steals ones senses, makes conversation nearly                impossible. People communicate in pantomime.               LT pushes his way through the CROWD He cranes his neck,                desperately searching for someone. At last, he spots his                target.               POV LT - A RESIDENT COKE DEALER. His FACE is visible, floating                above the writhing crowd.               LT pursues him. Finally catches him.               They mime the deal. LT buys some COKE for immediate use.               LT does the COKE off his wrist as he moves through the CROWD.               LT trembles, frantic and manic-high, as he goes to his meeting                with LITE. LT plows his way through the CROWD, heading toward                the back of the club and the entrance to the V.I.P ROOM.               Even this state, when he sights ACQUAINTANCES. LT turns on                the charm and works the room.               LT nears the V.I.P. ROOM.               POV LT - The entrance to the V.I.P. ROOM is guarded by a                PURPLE VELVET ROPE and an effete DOORMAN.               When the DOORMAN sights LT, he lifts the ROPE, nods                respectfully at the habitual patron.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: EVENING - LIMELIGHT NIGHTCLUB - THE V.I.P. ROOM               LT arrives.               The V.I.P. ROOM is more laid-back, less populous than the                throng-filled cave outside. The MUSIC is muted here, and                more interesting.               PARTIERS sit at the BAR, or at COCKTAIL TABLES. CHIC WAITRONS                serve the clientele: HOTSHOT BOHEMIAN REGULARS, DRUG DEALERS                and HOPEFUL RICH ADDICTS. In the privacy of the V.I.P.ROOM,                drug use is hardly concealed.               LT sashays over to LITE'S table, sits down. LT has taken on                an attitude of false bravado. He greets LITE with a crazy                grin. LITE is grim, doesn't respond in kind. He's not amused.               LT orders a VODKA.                                     LITE                         Do you have the money?                                     LT                              (giggles)                         What money?                                     LITE                         Don't bullshit me.               LT keeps doing COKE off hs wrist, even as ne speaks to LITE.                LT can't seem to wipe the smile off his face.                                     LT                         I don't got it. Not tonight. You                          can't get blood from a stone.                                     LITE                         This psycho can.                                     LT                         Oooo... Big fucking scary guy. Just                          put $120,000 on tomorrow's game.                                     LITE                              (laughs in his face)                         You're a fucking joke, you know that?                              (turns grim)                         He's been waiting for the money since                          the fucking game ended. And I've                          been waiting here since -- forget                          it. Listen up. You're gonna get us                          both fucking killed. You know that!                                     LT                         Uh-uh. I'm gonna win. Just make sure                          the bet gets in.               A COCKTAIL WAITRESS delivers LT's VODKA. LT orders another                one, flirts with her -- she's gone in a flash. LT downs the                VODKA in one shot.                                     LITE                         You do know that he's gonna blow up                          your house, kill your wife and kids --                                     LT                         Good. I'll give him an extra 10 grand                          for his trouble. I hate that                          motherfucking house and --                                     LITE                         He's gonna kill you, man. Do you                          hear me, motherfucker? You. Dead.                          Get it?                                     LT                         I've been dodging bullets since I                          was fourteen. No one can kill me.                          I'm fucking blessed. I'm fucking                          Catholic.               This breaks LT up. He laughs until he cries. LITE watches                the spectacle. Falls silent. They sit quietly for a moment.               LT, impatient with the delivery of his second VODKA, takes a                bottle cut of his COAT and re-fills his GLASS. DRINKS it                down.               LITE tries changing the subject.                                     LITE                         How's the case going?                                     LT                         What case?                                     LITE                         The fucking rapists, man. The punks                          who raped that nun. The $50,000 reward                          from the Church! Remember?                                     LT                         Yeah. Sure. Yeah. We're on it bigtime.                          Lots of leads. You bet.                                     LITE                         That 50 G could help you --               LT looks as LITE as if he's crazy. He shakes his head. Sing-               songs at him as if trying to teach an impaired student.                                     LT                         The Mets are gonna win the Series.                          They're a lock.               A change comes over LT. He leans in, gets seriously excited.                LT is possessed by his memory of this afternoon's game.                                     LT                         Get this, man. I was at the game                          today. Face to fucking face with                          Strawberry! Jesus! I saw him                          strikeout. And you know what? He                          looked at me, and I looked at him,                          and he laughed and I laughed and it                          was like we were all alone in that                          whole stadium and only we understood                          that it was all a racket, that he                          struck out on purpose, and that he's                          saving it up for the Big One.                          Tomorrow. Today I understood for the                          very first time that --                                     LITE                         You've really got a problem.               LT shakes his head. Repeats himself in that sing-song,                didactic way.                                     LT                         -- that there was never any other                          way it could have gone.                              (beat)                         Never any other way. So you had better                          just put in my fucking bet. $120,000                          on the last game. The Big One. Come                          on! Are you a bookmaker, or fucking                          what?                                     LITE                         Here. Look I'll give you the psyho's                          number You call him yourself and                          tell him wnat you want.               LITE stands up. He writes the BOOKIE'S NUMBER on a MATCHBOOK                and gives it to LT.               LITE leans over and gives LT a final warning.                                     LITE                         You couldn't pay 60. You lose, you'll                          be in for 180. To a guy who kills                          people for nothing.               LT LAUGHS. He's already onto the next thing. He checks out                the GIRLS at the other TABLES.               LITE takes to go. Then decides to try once more to get LT's                attention.                                     LITE                         I was supposed to meet him at midnight                          with the 60. It's already 1:00 AM.                          Be careful. I mean it.               LT is still laughing as LITE leaves the V.I.P ROOM.               Before going out the door, LITE turns to look one more time                at his friend.               POV LITE - LT is engaged in a clumsy come-on. Oblivious. The                last thing LITE sees is LT grabbing a COCKTAIL WAITRESS' LEG                and falling out of his chair. LT LAUGHS all the way to the                FLOOR.               LITE lowers his head and exits.               LT gets up a moment later, brushes himself off, and swaggers                out of the V.I.P. ROOM.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: NIGHT - THE LIMELIGHT CLUB               LT is in the throng again. The MUSIC blasts, the PARTIERS                push and shove...               LT elbows his way through the crowd.               He makes moves on GIRLS. Banters with PATRONS. At the DOOR,                he hesitates before going out, dallies with the BOUNCER.               LT felt safe in the CLUB. New he's gotta go OUTSIDE. He's                shit-scared.                EXT. LT leaves the CLUB for the STREET, looking over his                shoulder all the way.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: NIGHT - STAIRWELL OF J.C.'S APARTMENT BUILDING               LT enters an APARTMENT BUILDING, faces a dark and sinister                staircase.               STRANGE NOISES come from the APARTMENTS ABOVE.               LT climbs. He hugs the wall, GUN at the ready. To LT, it                seems some gothic horror may await him at any turn.               On one landing, he comes upon a PIT-BULL. A GRANDMOTHER pulls                him back inside an APARTMENT by the LEASH.               On another landing, he sees a JUNKIE SHOOTING UP in the                shadows. On another landing, a BIG GUY comes barreling out                of his APARTMENT and down the stairs, almost bringing LT                down with him.               On another landing, a guy is taking out very PECULIAR GARBAGE.                It might be body parts to an active imagination. At last, he                reaches the DOOR to the APARTMENT for which he's been looking.                                                               HARD CUT TO:               INT: NIGHT - J.C.'S STRAIGHT PUERTO RICAN APARTMENT               A cheerful apartment. Quite different in atmosphere from the                STAIRWELL, above.               A large, multi-generation PUERTO RICAN FAMILY sits around                the dinner table, eating CHICKEN ON RICE AND BEANS. JC is at                the table.               RELIGIOUS ARTIFACTS abound.               A CODED KNOCK on the DOOR.               JC jumps up to answer it.               It's LT. (The hideous stairs led here.)               JC lets him in.                                     JC                         How are you doing, man?                                     LT                         Very good. Very good. The Mets are                          gonna win tomorrow.               JC notes LT's bizarre manner. Decides to humor his paranoid                catatonia.                                     JC                         I know. Here. Just a moment.               JC reaches into a bookcase, looking for something.               Meanwhile, LT looks around the room.               POV LT - A SHRINE is in the corner. CANDLES are lit before                PLASTER SAINTS, AFRICAN DEITIES, other icons abstruse and                exotic. A large "MADONNA AND CHILD", painted on black velvet,                hangs above the SHRINE. The MADONNA AND CHILD are BLACK.               LT takes this all in. JC startles him.               JC is holding a CIGAR BOX. He opens it. It's full of CASH.                JC hands it to LT.                                     JC                         This should be it. Oh, wait.                              (to an old woman at                               the table)                         Mamacita?               MAMACITA takes some VIALS of CRACK out of her APRON.               SMILES. JC takes them from her, give them to LT.                                     JC                         There. Now you've got your profit                          and more. You'll have more product                          day after tomorrow, right?                                     LT                              (very spaced)                         Uh - right. Sure. The Mets are gonna                          win tomorrow.                                     JC                         I know.                              (beat - looks at LT                               with concern)                         Take care of yourself, man, OK? Be                          cool.               LT nods, puts MAMACITA'S CRACK VIALS in his pocket. He notices                that --               POV LT - CU - The CIGAR BOX is inlaid with a CROSS, made of                costume jewels. Other strange symbols surround it. It could                be cursed -- or blessed.               LT turns to go. The DOOR closes behind him. He's gone.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: NIGHT - STREET NEAR ARIANE'S APARTMENT               LT walks through the streets on the way to ARIANE'S. He                carries the CIGAR BOX.               Suddenly, a SHOT rings out.               ZOOM IN ON - CU LT  Horror. Doubtless it was meant for him.                LT panics. Freezes. As in a dream, he cannot run.               POV LT - RAPID. ERRATIC. HAND HELD - LT looks for SNIPERS in                the anonymous dark WINDOWS on the anonymous darks walls that                create the mescarole canyon of the STREET.               LT is entirely alone. He is stock-still, victim of his own                terror.               Suddenly. LT can move. He takes out his GUN, presses himself                against the nearest WALL. From that position, he hears --               A BRASH FEMALE VOICE, coming from somewhere in the darkness.               It is almost as loud as the "SHOT".                                     BRASH FEMALE VOICE                              (OC)                         Hey motherfucker! Take that backfire                          up the ass!               LT can't believe that there is no "SNIPER", there was never                any SHOT. It was a BACKFIRE!               ANGLE - The CAR in question passes by. It HONKS, defiantly.               Evidently, it is the CAR that had BACKFIRED.                                     BRASH FEMALE VOICE                              (OC)                         Fuck you.               LT is still pressed against the wall, GUN at the ready. He                cannot be relieved. The terror is with him.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATE NIGHT - ARIANE'S APARTMENT               LT rushes in, triple bolts the DOOR behind him. He immediately                pulls the DRAPES.                                     LT                         Someone just took a shot at me...               Ariane laughs.                                     ARIANE                         Sure, baby Sure And you don't do                          cocaine, either.               LT turns on her. Adamant. Pleading with her to believe him.                                     LT                         It's not the drugs, Ariane, it's --                          it's someone who wants to kill me.                              (beat)                         You gotta believe me!                                     ARIANE                              (shrugs)                         Why?               ARIANE walks away, speaks with her back to LT.                                     LT                         Just kick back, baby. Make yourself                          at home.                              (suddenly pissed)                         But of course it won't be nobody's                          home, if you don't come through with                          the fucking rent!               LT lays his COAT down on the BED. Puts the CIGAR BOX of MONEY                under it.               LT sits down near the PHONE. He lights his CRACKPIPE with a                MATCH from the MATCHBOOK on which LITE wrote the BOOKIE'S                NUMBER. Then he tries to reach the BOOKIE. Some sort of wacky                Mob joint answers.                                     LT                         Hello? Is LARGE there?                                     MOB VOICE                              (OC)                         No.                                     LT                         Look, man. Lite gave ne this number.                          OK? Just take a message. Tell Large                          to fucking call me right away at 123-                         1234. Got it?                                     MOB VOICE                              (CO -- phony humble)                         Sure, I get it...                              (laughs)                                     LT                         I'm a good friend of Lite's, man.                          It's urgent that --               The MOB VOICE (CO) HANGS UP ON LT.               LT tries to strangle the PHONE.               LT REDIALS.               The line is BUSY.                                     LT                         Christ! Shit! I could kill them all                          with my bare hands.                                     ARIANE                         Who?                                     LT                         Those fucking Mob assholes.               LT makes the strangulation gesture again. ARIANE laughs at                him.                                     ARIANE                         C'mere. You got some good blow, right?                                     LT                         Yeah.                                     ARIANE                         Then c'mere. I got something for                          you.               ARIANE pulls out a pristine NEEDLE.  LT comes but flinches                at the sight.               Apparently BOWTAY overheard that drugs are on the way. BOWTAY                appears out of the KITCHEN.               BOWTAY sits down near by, awaiting her DOSE.               ARIANE starts preparing the DOSE. She's got all the                paraphernalia: SPOON. COTTON, a CANDLE FLAME, etc.                                     ARIANE                         First I'll put your Uptown in the                          spoon, then, to make it more exciting,                          I'm gonna add some Downtown. They                          call this thing a speedball, honey,                          but then you must know that...                              (beat -- she leans in)                         First time shooting up?                                     LT                         Nah...                                     ARIANE                         Sure it is. You're a virgin. Just                          like that nun. And I'm gonna rape                          you.               That decides it for LT. He sits down like a little boy and                lets ARIANE shoot him up with the potent mixture of COCAINE                and HEROIN.               ARIANE shoots up BOWTAY, next.               They do it on the BED, exploiting all possible erotic                connotations.               When LT rushes, he gets totally paranoid. Jumps at sounds,                sneaks to the WINDOW, hears noises that aren't there.               Then he flips, and becomes crazy-bold. Opens the DRAPES.                Sticks his head out the WINDOW, waves his GUN at specters.               Then he becomes shit-scared, again. His behavior is lunatic.               ARIANE LAUGHS at his antics.               Finally LT becomes wildly sensual. Revealing himself with                total abandon. Dances. In the midst of this --               The PHONE RINGS LT is seriously startled. Then he realizes                who it may be. He slowly answers the phone.               LT can hardly speak. He is NUDE, and communicating from                another world syllable by syllable.                                     LT                              (into the phone)                         Large?                                     LARGE                              (OC)                         All right, cop. I want my money.                                     LT                         It's still my money. If you want to                          have a chance at any part of it,                          shithead, you will take my $120,000                          and bet on tomorrow's game.                                     LARGE                              (OC)                         What about the money you owe me on                          yesterday's game?                                     LT                         Fuck yesterday's game. The World                          Series is seven games not six. Put                          in my bet.                                     LARGE                              (OC)                         Let me think about it.                                     LT                         There's nothing to think about. Either                          you put in my bet or you ain't getting                          nothing.               BIG SILENCE on the PHONE.                                     LARGE                              (CO -- lethal)                         Oh, really?                                     LT                         Yeah, really. I'm no fucking asshole,                          man. I'm a fucking cop!                                     LARGE                              (OC)                         OK, cop. I want you to give yourself                          and your friends on the force a                          message. Tell them I've got my own                          reasons to be very interested in                          whomever did the job on the nuns.                          I'll double the Church reward if you                          bring those punks direct to me. 100                          G cash. Get it?               LT absorbs this, then bursts out.                                     LT                         Fuck the nuns, man! I'm talking about                          Strawberry! Is the bet down?               LARGE takes a moment.                                     LARGE                              (OC)                         Here's the deal: You meet me tonight                          across from the Garden. 33rd & 8th.                          At the beginning of the Ninth Inning.                          We'll listen to the end of the game                          together. You bring your cash, I'll                          bring mine.                                     LT                         Yeah, sucker. You better be there!               LT HANGS UP, turns to ARIANE.                                     LT                         Can you believe the nerve of this                          fucking guy? He kills people for                          fun, and then, he puts up 100 G to                          bring in some guys who raped a nun.                          What a sick fuck. Man...                                     ARIANE                         Who?                                     LT                         A wiseguy. Paying 100 Grand for the                          rapists if I turn then over direct                          to him.               ARIANE'S eyes light up.                                     ARIANE                         But you could do it, baby. We could                          use the bread...                                     LT                         You mean you could use it.               ARIANE SHRUGS, waves his dig aside.               LT leaps up. He's on a manic roll. Conceives an insanely                captivating, impossible idea. As he speaks, he speeds more                and more until he seems to be reciting a rapid-fire tongue                twister perfect.                                     LT                         I got it, man! I will find those                          kids. And I'll get the 50 G from the                          Church! Then the kids'll go to jail.                         I'll be in charge, of course. After                          a little while, I'll break the fuckers                          out -- and I'll turn them in to                          shithead I was just talking to. And                          pick up his 100 G. No. I'll hit him                          up for 200 G. Or 250 G. l can do it --                          'cause I've got the kids. Then, of                          course, there's the 180 G I'm gonna                          pick up on the Game tonight -- when                          the Strawberries win!                                     ARIANE                         "The Strawberries"?                                     LT                         The Mets. So anyway, chalk up another                          180 G for the Game. Jesus Christ!                          That's almost half a million dollars.                          Ariane! Wait. That's not good enough,                          I'll ask the shithead for 280 G for                          the kids. Then it'll be a perfect                          500 thousand. Yeah. Perfect. 280 G                          for the kids. Yeah, it's good I                          prepared, or I wouldn't have thought                          to --               ARIANE has been grooving on it until now. She sees a problem                they've overlooked.                                     ARIANE                              (cuts in)                         How come all those guys who're looking                          to get 50 from the Church haven't                          come up with shit? You got some kinda                          inside track?                                     LT                              (nods -- dead serious)                         I'm a Catholic.               ARIANE LAUGHS, decides to go with it.               LT, out of breath from his tirade, lets the Downtown half of                his dose kick in but good.               He sits down in the same EASY CHAIR in which he nodded out                the morning of the desecration.               Nodding out, he stares out the same WINDOW. His eyes close.               As it was that morning only four days ago, the SUNRISE is                blood red.               As if it is LT'S DREAM, we --                                                                    CUT TO:                                        DAY FIVE:                     GAME SEVEN: LT GETS DOUBLE OR NOTHING: $120,000               INT: DAWN THROUGH HIGH NOON ó CHURCH/CONVENT               CU - The ALABASTER NUN. She is lying cross -- probably has                been all night.               VARIOUS ANGLES. The still-desecrated CHURCH in all its                enduring glory. Shafts of blood-red dawn-light. The NUN.               TIME PASSES.                VARIOUS ANGLES. Mid-morning; The NUN is still lying cross.               TIME PASSES.               VARIOUS ANGLES. High Noon. The NUN is still lying cross.               Suddenly --               LT appears in the doorway, a black silhouette against the                white light of noon. For a moment, he watches her from a                distance.               The NUN knows he is there. After a time, she gets up, goes                to the altar, kneels. As if waiting for him.               LT staggers down the center aisle. He's carrying the CIGAR                BOX.               LT joins the NUN, kneeling next to her at the altar.               ANGLE - The CHALICE is still missing.               They are all alone. At the ALTAR, before the CRUCIFIX, LT                confronts the NUN face to face. The NUN holds her ROSARY                BEADS.               LT finally speaks. He thinks she'll be turned on by his offer                of "help".                                     LT                         Listen to me, Sister, listen to me                          good. The other cops'll just put the                          guys through the system. They're                          juveniles. They'll walk! Get it? But                          I'll beat the system and do justice.                          Real justice. For you.               The NUN turns to run.                                     NUN                         I have already forgiven them.               LT is desperate. He lunges forward. Pleads with her.                                     LT                         Come on lady! They put out cigarettes                          on your tits, man! Get with the                          program! Don't you want them behind                          bars? Or away from the world for                          good? How could you forgive these                          motherfu -- excuse me. These guys.                          How could you? Deep down, don't you                          want them to pay for what they did                          to you? Don't you want the crime                          avenged?                                     NUN                         I have forgiven them.                                     LT                         Nun! These boys still have their                          weapons, Sister. Your forgiveness                          will leave blood in its wake. What                          if they do it to other nuns? Other                          virgins? Old women who die from the                          shock? Do you have the rights let                          these boys go free? Can you bear the                          burden. Sister?               The NUN turns to him, simple and pure, pure and simple.                                     NUN                         I have prayed for days, Lieutenant.                          I have prayed for the souls of the                          boys who raped me. And I have prayed                          for my own soul, too. I know what I                          must do. And I know what I must not                          do.                              (beat)                         But you -- you -- it is you who needs                          to pray. Now, why do you want to                          kill these boys? Why -- really?                                     LT                              (takes yet another                               tack)                         Look. Sister. No one has to get                          killed. We can solve this together.                          You and me -- as one. These boys are                          lost sheep. Both Catholic -- did you                          know that? And they're sick, Sister.                          With a stress of the mind and of the                          soul. They need help. Not just jail.                          Not just psychiatry. They need the                          help that only the Church can give.                          Please help me to help them. Help me                          find them before the others do. The                          night is full of evil men, chasing                          these boys with guns and clubs. We                          have charity and love on our side. I                          know that together, we could find                          them first, even in the dark...                                     NUN                         The good reasons are not always the                          real reasons. Talk to Jesus,                          Lieutenant. Pray.                              (beat)                         You do you believe in God -- don't                          you? That Jesus Christ died for your                          sins?               This blows him away. He has nothing to say to that.               The NUN has finished her morning prayers.               For a moment, she looks deep into LT's eyes.               Then she gets up and leaves LT alone in the CHURCH.               LT comes face to face with the mammoth CRUCIFIX. He is                transfixed.               POV - LT - JESUS on the CROSS.               Soon, LT hears a VOICE.               LT is not shocked or even surprised. He speaks to JESUS as                to someone he's known all his life.                                     JESUS                              (OC)                         I forgive you.                                     LT                         Me?                                     JESUS                              (OC)                         I forgive you.                                     LT                         You can't forgive me. After what                          I've done.                              (beat)                         I've fucked up bigtime. I've been                          bad. Real bad.                                     JESUS                         I forgive you.                                     LT                         Please. Please don't forgive me.                          I've always hated you for that.               POV LT - The CRUCIFIX takes on an hallucinatory radiance.                Taking that aura with him, JESUS comes down off the CROSS,                and moves toward LT, who is still kneeling at the ALTAR.                                     JESUS                         I forgive you.                                     LT                         Why? Why can't you hate me? Hate me!                          Please! Help me!                              (confused)                         Hate me! Help me! Hate me!                                     JESUS                         I forgive you.                                     LT                         Why? Jesus! Why me? Why can't I wash                          the ashes from my forehead, year                          after year after year? And why am I                          still drunk on your blood, the taste                          of your flesh on my tongue? Worst of                          all, why can't I feel the nails in                          my palms, the spear in my side, the                          crown of thorns round my head? Why                          do I have to know, over and over,                          that it was you. You who died; died                          for my sins! And that I will die for                          nothing. Why?               JESUS kneels down, knee to knee, face to face with LT.                                     JESUS                         I forgive you.                                     LT                         Why do I dream every night of the                          whore who brought you water on your                          road to death? And why have I never                          forgotten that if she, then I --               LT averts his eyes. When he looks up again --               JESUS is back on the CROSS. Inert, and yet --               LT rises, moves around the interior of the CHURCH. He                stumbles, struggles, pleads. Falls, rises, falls and rises                again -- as if wrestling with an invisible assailant.               He collapses in a corner.                                     LT                         Oh God, my God. it's goddamn good to                          be good. Forgive me. Father, for I                          have sinned. It's still goddamn good                          to be good.                                     JESUS                         I forgive you.               EPIPHANY. BLOODY CHRIST ON THE CROSS. HALLELUJAH!               In the aftermath of his revelation, he notices, cleanly, a                hunched, ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN carrying something toward the                ALTAR.               He staggers toward her. Yes. The ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN has the                CHALICE!               LT grabs the CHALICE. The ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN doesn't let                go.                                     LT                         The chalice. Tell me! Who gave it to                          you! Tell me where the fuck you got                          it! Take me there! Now!               At first, she doesn't speak at all. LT begins to CRY. Begs                her to tell him. Then he wields his PISTOL, repeats his plea.                Then breaks into TEARS.               She speaks at last.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         I can't tell you.               Gun in hand, LT gets down on his knees.                                     LT                         In the name of God, you must.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         My husband will give me Hell, Mister.                                     LT                         We've already got Hell, Sister.               She meets LT's eyes, seems to understand something. Calmly,                she tells him what he needs to know.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         It's very hard. He's a -- you're not                          a cop, are you?                                     LT                         No. Not a cop.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         My husband is a fence. He got this                          chalice from a couple of kids. Just                          yesterday, I think. I stole it out                          of his shop so as to return it to                          where it ought to be. It's a holy                          thing, you know. A holy thing.               The ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN lets go of the CHALICE. Now LT holds                ten CHALICE in his hands, alone. He speaks as if entranced.                                     LT                         A holy thing.                              (beat -- snaps to)                         Let's go.               Suddenly purposive, LT grabs the ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN by the                arm. Starts pulling her out of the CHURCH. He holds the                CHALICE with the other arm, picks up the CIGAR BOX on his                way out. Manages to carry both items.               When LT and the ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN reach the door to outside,                they both pause to GENUFLECT.               Then LT grabs her again and they rush out.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: AFTERNOON - BARRIO STREETS - EN ROUTE TO THE FENCE               LT walks the ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN swiftly through the streets                toward the FENCE'S SHOP.               He still holds the CHALICE and the CIGAR BOX.               PEOPLE watch them pass and make way. As if they realize that                something is happening -- on several levels at once. The                GAME has begun. It is on TV in every BAR and SHOP WINDOW. In                both English and Spanish. Slowly but surely, the Mets are                losing.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT: LATE AFTERNOON - THE FENCE'S SHOP               LT and the ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN enter the SHOP. LT is wielding                the CHALICE and the CIGAR BOX. He has true madness m his                eyes.               POV LT - The GAME is playing on a couple dozen TV's in the                FENCE'S SHOP' The Mets are still losing!               The FENCE, and elderly Black man, is sitting in one of many                EASY CHAIRS. He doesn't seem surprised to see his WIFE. Or                the CHALICE. Or LT! It's as if he expected them.                                     FENCE                         You took the chalice.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         Yes.                                     FENCE                         You brought it back to the Church.                          And then it made it's way back to                          me, again.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         Yes.               Thª FENCE bursts out LAUGHING.                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         Are you all right, honey?                                     FENCE                         I was gonna bring it back myself.               The ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN is obviously relieved.                                     FENCE                         Jesus, woman! What did you think?                          You thought I'd get mad like I did                          that time you took that set of pots                          and pans? That was twenty years ago.                          And how do you compare pots and pans                          and a chalice?               LT speaks up suddenly.                                     LT                         They both hold stuff you eat.               After a beat, the FENCE and his WIFE start LAUGHING. LT joins                in.                                     FENCE                              (to LT)                         So what are you doing here?                                     ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN                         He wants to know who brought in the                          chalice.                                     FENCE                         That's no mystery. Julio and Paolo                          brought it in,                              (beat)                         You don't want to hurt those boys,                          do you? I mean, they sure as Hell                          have got something coming, but it                          ain't what the Law wants to give                          them. You understand?                              (beat -- shakes his                               head)                         No. How could you understand.               The FENCE seems to study LT.               POV FENCE - LT. Wretched.               The FENCE thinks again.                                     FENCE                         Well -- maybe you do. But I don't                          know where those boys are at right                          now. You'll have to ask around. Those                          boys on the corner'll know. You'll                          have to get it out of them. But they                          know.               POV LT - Through the WINDOW of the FENCE'S SHOP, a busy DRUG                CORNER is visible.                                     LT                              (spaced)                         Thank you. And I'll make sure the                          chalice gets back where it belongs.               LT leaves. CHALICE in hand.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: LATE AFTERNOON - THE STREETS IN THE BARRIO - MONTAGE               LT stumbles through the streets, questioning people about                "JULIO and PAOLO". No one knows anything. LT stops people at                random, getting really desperate. He shows people the CHALICE,                asks them if they've seen it before. No one has.               LT plays both ADDICT and COP as it suits his needs. By now,                he looks more like a homeless man than anything else. But                none of his play-acting or lethal threats get him anywhere.               The GAME is everywhere, and the Mets are still losing.               Finally, LT approaches a hustling STREET DEALER. He cops.                The STREET DEALER is wearing a WALKMAN, so the deal goes                down in mime.               Now, LT speaks and wants to be heard.                                     LT                         Hey -- Have you seen Paolo or Julio                          around?               The STREET DEALER uses his WALKMAN and the resulting                "deafness" to excuse his total lack of response.               LT starts MOUTHING WORDS silently at the STREET DEALER. No                response. Then, he -- silently -- begins to shout.               The STREET DEALER's alarmed that he seemingly can't hear at                all above the WALKMAN music. He moves the WALKMAN away from                his ears but doesn't take it off.                                     STREET DEALER                         What the fuck you want.                                     LT                         You know, my Uncle used to wear a                          walkman all the time. The walkman                          looked just like yours. And you look                          something like my Uncle. But one day                          he was standing in a puddle -- the                          puddle locked just like that one --               LT points to a PUDDLE in which the STREET DEALER is now                Standing.                                     STREET DEALER                         And what?                                     LT                         And he got electrocuted.               The STREET DEALER tries to consider what this crazy guy has                just told him, but before the STREET DEALER can even react.                LT leans in on him, shows his GUN and then his BADGE.                                     LT                         Look -- I don't know you, and you                          don't know me, but I'm really in the                          mood to kill someone today and you                          are at the end of my gun.                              (beat)                         Have you ever had days like that?                          Yeah, you have, so now you understand                          where I'm coming from.                              (beat)                         Tell me! Where is Julio and Paolo ?               The STREET DEALER answers with absolute ease. That was all                it was about? No problem.                                     STREET DEALER                         They were at that abandoned building                          last night. Second floor. They're                          probably still there now. It's next                          to the old Convent. Downtown a ways.                          You know the place...               CU. LT - It hits him. The CRACKHOUSE where the kids hang out                has always been right next to the CHURCH/CONVENT where it an                began! It suddenly makes sense to him.               LT completes re transaction, pays the STREET DEALER for the                DRUG BAGS. He takes the CASH out of the CIGAR BOX, revealing                dozens of thousands of dollars.               The STREET DEALER stares at the wretched man with a box full                of cash.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT: EVENING - EN ROUTE TO THE CRACKHOUSE               LT, carrying the CHALICE and the CIGAR BOX, heads back                Downtown toward the CRACKHOUSE -- and the CHURCH/CONVENT.               In BARS, TV STORE WINDOWS, in snatches of strangers'                conversation, the FINAL GAME IS EVERYWHERE. The whole city                has stopped to watch it. LT is practically the only person                in the street.               Worst of all, the Mets are seriously behind. They are                definitely LOSING.               LT drags himself onward.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT INT: EVENING - THE CRACKHOUSE               LT busts in. Fires shots, collars the KIDS. The KIDS are                wearing the PURPLE ROBES from the CHURCH/CONVENT. They also                wear gold CROSSES. LT HANDCUFFS them.               The other CRACKHEADS race out.               There is even a TV in the CRACKHOUSE -- playing the GAME!                The SOUND is Off. The Mets keep losing. If anything will                force LT to kill/and or take the KIDS into custody, this                would seem to be it.                                     JULIO                         Who the fu--                                     LT                         Shut up. Let's watch the game.               LT sits down next to the KIDS. SMOKES with them, watches the                Game. LT must hold the PIPE for them, as they are HANDCUFFED.               LT gets them super-high, and himself likewise. He still holds                his GUN.               The KIDS go along with it. Taking it moment to moment.               All three, despite the situation, are heavily into the Game.                                     LT                         Strawberry...                                     PAOLO                         Yeah...               After a moment, LT gets up. The KIDS understand that they                must do the same.                                     LT                         Give me the robes.               The KIDS hand over the PURPLE ROBES and LT puts them on.                                     JULIO                         You're not a cop are you?                                     LT                         No.               LT exits. Taking the KIDS along. He carries the CHALICE and                the CIGAR BOX.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT INT: EVENING - LT'S CAR AND STREETS EN ROUTE TO RENDEZ-               VOUS               VARIOUS ANGLES - LT drives toward the fatal rendez-vous with                the BOOKIE. He is wearing the PURPLE ROBES from the                CHURCH/CONVENT and has the CHALICE and the CIGAR BOX.               LT has the KIDS handcuffed in the back seat. (The Scene                mirrors Scene 2. in which LT drove his own TWINS to school.)               The FINAL GAME (SEVEN) is on the RADIO. LT is listening, but                also not listening.               LT talks wildly about Jesus Christ. And about the misery                they pass in the street. He waves his GUN wildly, punctuating                his speech with potentially lethal gestures. He aims the GUN                at JULIO and PAULO, then at himself, then out the window,                then at the KIDS, again.                                     LT                         Jesus died for your sins, you                          motherfuckers! Not me. No. I didn't                          die for your sins. No, not me. Jesus                          went and did it.                              (beat)                         So why did you do what you did? If                          you want to live, tell me now,                          motherfuckers! Tell me now!               LT turns around and looks at JULIO and PAOLO, both of them                HANDCUFFED in the back seat.               POV LT - CU - JULIO and PAOLO both have TEARS running down                their cheeks. Silently.                                     LT                         I forgive you.               LT starts CRYING too, at the same time CURSING at the TRAFFIC.               He drives wildly toward the Port Authority Terminal.               The Mets are coming up from behind -- but it is a long shot.                LT doesn't seem to care. He stares into space.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT:/INT: EVENING - LTS CAR - THE PORT AUTHORITY TERMINAL               LT stops his CAR -- next to a BUS in an underground tunnel.                                     LT                         Get out.               The KIDS do. LT follows fast.               AT THE BUS: He makes them board at GUN POINT.                                     LT                         If you think you're not getting on                          this bus, you're dead wrong. No                          fucking way are you gonna miss this                          bus, man! You were probably the kind                          of kids who had your father drive                          you to school cause you couldn't                          catch the fucking bus. But no more,                          man. You're getting on this bus and                          you're taking it to the last fucking                          stop. So get on the fucking bus,                          man, 'cause you're life ain't worth                          shit in this town.               LT uncuffs them and the KIDS get on the BUS, dumbstruck.               LT hands JULIO the CIGAR BOX. His "salvation."               The KIDS don't even know what is inside. They take it.               LT gets back into his CAR, takes off.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT/INT: EVENING - LT'S CAR - AT 33RD STREET & 8TH AVENUE -                AT THE RENDEZ-VOUS WITH THE BOOKIE               EXT: LT PULLS UP AT THE APPOINTED SPOT. HE AWAITS THE                ARRIVAL OF THE BOOKIE.               INT: STRAWBERRY is up. The GAME can go either way. Suspense.               But not on the face of LT. He is dressed in the PURPLE ROBES,                the CHALICE beside him in the CAR.               The BOOKIE pulls up and -- without getting out of his CAR --                He SHOOTS LT in the head.               The BOOKIE speeds off. (We never saw him behind the dark                windows,} LT is dead in his CAR.               On the RADIO, the GAME is ending. STRAWBERRY hits a HOME RUN                and the -- Mets win, the CROWD ROARS.               END CREDITS.                                           FIN
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+                                       "BAD SANTA"                                            by                                Glenn Ficarra & John Requa                                       Revisions by                                  Ethan Coen & Joel Coen                                        Polish by                                      Terry Zwigoff                                     Dimension Films                        Production Draft - WHITE February 1, 2002                               FADE IN:               Snow flakes falling against a black sky.               CAMERA FOLLOWS THEM DOWNWARD TO REVEAL               EXT. MILWAUKEE BAR - NIGHT               It looks like a warm cozy place out of "It's A Wonderful                Life". The window is flocked with fake snow, and hung with                colorful Christmas lights, wreaths and ornaments.               CAMERA PUSHES SLOWLY IN                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. MILWAUKEE BAR - NIGHT               CAMERA CONTINUES MOVEMENT IN SAME DIRECTION                                       TITLES BEGIN               The barman, wiping down the counter, gives an occasional                semi-furtive glance toward the far end of the bar.               Other patrons chat near the bartender and also give occasional                glances toward the far end of the bar. It is early evening --                happy hour -- and the clientele is well-heeled and sociable.               A customer says something interrogative to the bartender,                who looks down the bar and shrugs.               REVERSE - CAMERA CONTINUES MOVEMENT (Notes the combination                of the HIGH ANGLE and the tilt of Santa's head keep his face                from being clearly revealed in this scene).               Sitting alone at the far end of the bar, given a wide berth                by the other customers, a man (WILLIE) stares morosely into                his drink. The drink is clearly not his first.               He wears a red velvet suit and red velvet hat with a white                pom-pom. He has shiny black boots with red velvet trim. His                long white beard is not real and is in fact pulled down below                his chin to facilitate drinking. It exposes heavy black                stubble.               Swaying slightly, he raises the drink to the vicinity of his                lips. Once it gets close he must navigate it in with some                effortful coordination. He takes a sip and sets the drink                carefully back down.               After another long, staring, morose beat, he starts weeping.               It is loud, dolorous, and unself-conscious.               EXT. ALLEYWAY BEHIND THE MILWAUKEE BAR - NIGHT               Santa staggers out the back door...               CAMERA FOLLOWS BEHIND HIM still hiding his face.               Santa gets about ten feet, then pauses and leans with one                hand against the alley wall, uses the other to hold his pom-               pom out of the way, and vomits.               Having vomited, and spit, he staggers off toward the street.               SUPERED TITLE OF THE MOVIE:                                        BAD SANTA               INT. SANTA ORIENTATION ROOM - DAY               An upbeat woman TRAINER presides over a half-dozen SANTAS                sitting at school desks. On the blackboard the Trainer is                writing out the sixth "Santa Commandment".                                 SANTA'S TEN COMMANDMENTS               1) No alcoholic beverages before or during your shift.               2) Know the names of your reindeer.               3) Do not smoke in your costume.               4) No swearing.               5) Absolutely no flirting.               6) Coax a smile from the child.               7)               8)               9)                                     TRAINER                              (as she writes)                         Coax... a... smile... from... the                          child.                              (turning to face them)                         Remember, parents don't want photos                          where their child isn't smiling.                          Some children may not want to smile.                          It is your job to coax a smile out                          of them. A good line to remember is:                         "Santa thinks everybody should be                          happy. Can you smile for Santa?" A                          camera can only copy a child's smile --                          it will take you to put it there.               As she talks we                                                                    CUT TO:               ANGLE FROM BEHIND               one of the Santas (WILLIE). His HAND reaches into a boot and                pulls out a pint of Smirnoff. We FOLLOW UP IN C.U. to see                this hand pour a few ounces into a can of Coke he holds behind                his desk.                                     TRAINER                         If the child will not smile, the                          Photo Elf will go ahead and take the                          picture anyway. Now, it is a good                          Santa's job to smile as well -- I                          know with the big white beard your                          smile will be partially hidden, so                          you must learn to smile with your                          eyes. They show warmth and can be                          very expressive.                                                                    CUT TO:               WILLIE'S FACE               as he finishes off the can of Coke to REVEAL: his eyes colder                than those of a dead fish.                                     TRAINER                         Remember you have been chosen for                          the starring role of Santa Claus.                          Your portrayal of this beloved                          character will have a major impact                          on every child you meet. Keep in                          mind at all times that to them, you                          aren't a man dressed up like Santa,                          you are Santa.                                                               CUT BACK TO:               WILLIE'S FACE. His expression reads: "Please kill me".               EXT. DOWNTOWN MILWAUKEE SHOPPING DISTRICT - NIGHT               Wintry night. Ray Coniff's "Jolly Ole Saint Nicholas" scores                views of the downtown blanketed in snow and decorated for                the holiday. It is Christmas Eve, and the sidewalks throng                with people rushing to do their last-minute shopping.               A MOTHER and her two absurdly bundled CHILDREN emerge from                the crowd.                                     MOTHER                         Hurry boys, we're gonna miss Santa!                          She drags them across the street                          toward the looming art-deco monolith                          that is the big-city department store.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - TOP FLOOR - NIGHT               Mother and children crest the escalator to emerge on the top                floor.                                     OLDER CHILD                         There!                The older child is pointing at a prop gate with a candy-cane                letter sign: TO SANTA'S WORKSHOP.               He runs and Mom shoos her younger child to join him.               The boys cross the threshold of the gate and their eyes filled                with wonder.               A winding path cuts through a flocked and candy-striped                forest, past a workshop filled with mannequin-elves busily                cobbling Christmas toys, and finally arriving at...               Santa, seated on his throne like a scarlet Messiah. The                younger child staggers forward to join the line of a hundred                other leaky-nosed worshippers awaiting an audience.               At the head of the line the next waiting child is escorted                to Santa's chair by a smiling tiny man (MARCUS) dressed as                an elf.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - MAIN FLOOR - NIGHT               An imitation BACK STREET BOYS quintet sings Christmas Carols.               Grown-ups busy themselves draining their wallets as a VOICE                comes over the intercom:                                     INTERCOM (V.O.)                         Attention shoppers: the store will                          be closing in five minutes. We hope                          tomorrow is a pleasant Christmas and                          thank you for shopping with us, your                          friends.               Purposeful haste eddies the crowd.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - SANTA'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT               C.U. PHOTO PRINTING OUT               The Photo Elf takes the digital photo and presents it to a                MOM.                                     PHOTO ELF                              (dutifully reciting                               his spiel)                         My, what a darling picture! Are you                          certain you only want the single?                          Additional photos come in handy as                          gifts for grandma and grandpa or a                          wonderful remembrance for friends.                                     MOM                         That's all right, I'll just take the                          single.               He takes her credit card as CAMERA MOVES OVER TO SANTA. On                his knee is a YOUNG BOY who whispers excitedly in his ear.                                     SANTA                              (disinterested)                         Uh-huh... yeah... done.               Young Boy climbs off and runs away, A BRATTY KID jumps up on                Santa's lap.                                     BRATTY KID                         I saw you in another mall.                                     SANTA                              (not even looking at                               him)                         Right... Good for you.                                     BRATTY KID                         You're not really Santa. If you were                          Santa you could do magic.                                     SANTA                              (looks at him)                         You want magic?               Santa pushes him off his lap and shoves him on his way.                                     SANTA                         There, I just made you disappear.               Santa turns to his Elf,                                     SANTA                         ...That it?               The Elf nods as he peels off a pointed prosthetic ear. Santa                pulls a fifth of Old Grandad from the cushions of his throne.                                     SANTA                         ...Thank fuckin' Christ.               He takes a swig.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - NIGHT - LATER               With the sound of closing circuits, banks of lights                systematically shut down in the various departments of the                now empty store.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - EXIT AREA - NIGHT               Downstairs the last of the store employees file out the door                past an old SECURITY GUARD. Eventually Santa emerges.                                     SECURITY GUARD                         Merry Christmas, Willie.                                     SANTA                         Up your ass.               The guard chuckles.                                     SECURITY GUARD                         Have it your way, Willie.                                     SANTA                         Don't tell me which way to have it.               The Security Guard heads for a panel near the doorway and                punches a key labeled ARM. An L.E.D. readout labeled "ARMING"                counts down from 30 seconds.               The guard exits the store, locks the door and heads home.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - SANTA'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT               A large Teddy bear sits under a Christmas tree.               Suddenly -ó it moves, bolting upright and sprinting from the                room.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - DOWNSTAIRS - NIGHT               The alarm continues to count down -- 15... 14...               The Teddy bear slides down the space between the railing of                the escalators. Landing on its feet, it barrels toward the                door.               10... 9...                The Teddy bear scrambles for the door, crashing into                everything in its path.               7... 6...                Running past a clothing display, it rips the arm off a                mannequin without breaking stride.               5... 4...                It skids to a stop at the base of the alarm box, too short                to reach the controls.               2...                It raises the mannequin arm, using the pointed finger on its                hand to press the "CANCEL" key on the keypad.               Mission accomplished, the teddy bear rips off its head to                reveal his true identity: Santa's Elf -- in civilian life                known as MARCUS SKIDMORE. He is covered in sweat and panting                like an asthmatic.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - SHIPPING AREA - NIGHT               A hasp flips open and Marcus swings the door wide to reveal                a beer-guzzling Santa-in-the-off-season known as WILLIE T.                SOKE. He finishes the beer, crushes the can and drops it to                his feet next to eight more empties.                                     WILLIE                         Ready.               Marcus sneers at him as he lumbers past:                                     MARCUS                         Jesus.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - SANTA'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT               Marcus and Willie tear open the prop presents on the workshop                set and remove several tools.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - NIGHT               Marcus reaches into jewelry cases and removes a few particular                items. He drops them into a stock cart then checks a typed                list before moving on.               Marcus pushes the cart through the store, gathering an odd                array of items that range from furs to gowns to shoes to                makeup.               INT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - BACK OFFICES - NIGHT               Marcus arrives outside a doorway and looks in to see Willie                manning a large water drill and putting it to work on the                store's vault.                                     MARCUS                         How's it goin'?                                     WILLIE                         I'm finished when I'm finished.                                     MARCUS                         I'm goin' downstairs...                              (referring to list)                         I need a melon-bailer and a loofah.               The drill suddenly revs higher, getting Willie's attention.                                     WILLIE                         Got it.               Marcus moves closer as Willie pulls back the drill on the                track. He places a screwdriver into the exposed lock assembly                and hits it with a sledgehammer.               Suddenly, the door swings open and bundled cash spills to                the floor. Both men are impressed.                                     MARCUS                         Fuck the loofah, let's go.               EXT. MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT STORE - SHIPPING DOCK - NIGHT                Marcus and Willie wheel out two carts and roll them through                the open doors of a waiting van. As they slam the doors --               INT. VAN - NIGHT               Willie settles on the rear bench as Marcus gets into the                passenger seat next to his Pillipina Mail-order wife of                several years, LOIS, who is dressed in expensively ugly                clothes, and whose mouth is ever down-turned in pruney                distaste.                                     LOIS                         Marcus, did you get the loofah?                                     MARCUS                         Drive.               EXT. DOWNTOWN MILWAUKEE STREET - NIGHT               The van speeds away through the Christmas Eve night and                disappears into the distance, like the down of a thistle.                                                                  FADE OUT:               CAMERA ROCKETS INTO C.U. of An alarm clock ringing with a                jolt.               INT. RATBAG APARTMENT - DAY               Willie, in bed, blearily wakes to the insistent alarm. He                tries to turn it off, but his fingers are still clotted with                sleep.               In a series of frustrated grunts and groans he becomes more                and more aggravated until, finally --                                     WILLIE                         FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!               He bolts out of bed and throws the clock into the wall.               He stoops for some beer bottle empties and hurls them at the                clock debris.                                     WILLIE                         Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!               One final scream and it's out of his system. He finds one                last bottle in his hand, half-full with a cigarette butt                floating in it.               He downs the beer and steps into the adjoining bathroom to                brush his teeth.               EXT. KEY BISCAYNE STREET - DAY               Willie, sipping a cup of coffee, meanders down the street                scratching his ass.               EXT. RESTAURANT - DAY               Willie's walk brings him to a fancy eatery at lunchtime. As                he passes, he casually snatches a handful of car keys from                the parking valet key-box and moves on.               As he rounds the corner into the lot he pushes on the various                key fobs, identifying various cars when their alarms chirp.               He seems dissatisfied until a brand new Cadillac chirps.               Willie gets in and drives off.               INT. CADILLAC - MOVING - DAY               Willie drives. He reaches over into the glove compartment                and pulls out the registration. He focuses on the car owner's                address.               INT. UPPER-CLASS HOME - HALLWAY - DAY               Willie, eating a corn dog, saunters down an opulent hallway,                a beer swinging in one hand.               INT. UPPER-CLASS HOME - BATHROOM - DAY                In long shot, through the open door of an extravagant marble                bathroom, we see Willie sitting on the toilet, leafing through                a magazine, beer bottle on the counter next to him. Pants                around his ankles.               INT. UPPER-CLASS HOME - BATHROOM - MINUTES LATER                Willie, standing by the toilet, finishes buckling his belt                and flips the flush lever.               Nothing happens; no whoosh of rushing water.               Willie, looking down into the toilet, gives the lever a couple                more clanking tries, and then grabs his beer and ambles off.               INT. UPPER-CLASS HOME - STUDY - DAY               Sucking on his beer, Willie paces the periphery of the room,                methodically knocking painting after painting off the walls.               INT. UPPER-CLASS HOME - MASTER BEDROOM - DAY               Willie arrives in the bedroom still knocking down paintings                until, finally, he exposes a wall safe.               A smile, and he pulls out a stethoscope.                                                                    CUT TO:               The safe door swings open to reveal stacks of cash.               INT. STRIP BAR - NIGHT               Willie scratches a lottery ticket. He's now wearing a Rolex                and some gaudy ring.                                     WILLIE                         Goddamn it!               He reaches for another one and we see that on the bartop in                front of him are neat stacks of lottery tickets as yet                unscratched, and an untidy jumble of scratched ones.               On the other side of the bar a MIDDLE-AGED STRIPPER vies for                his attention. Willie's ticket hits for $5.00.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah baby!               He tucks it into the Stripper's G-string, swigs a drink, and                resumes scratching.               INT. RATBAG APARTMENT - NIGHT               Willie and the Stripper stagger into his apartment, drunk.               As he passes his blinking answering machine:                                     WILLIE                         I got messages. Go wash yourself.                                     STRIPPER                         I'm a dancer, I sweat.                                     WILLIE                         Well you smell like a bum's nutsack.                                     STRIPPER                         Fuck you.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, yeah.               As she exits, he activates the machine.                                     VOICE (V.O.)                         Mr. Soke, this is Andrew Kaplan again                         from the collection agency -- BOOP!               Willie skips to the next message.                                     ANOTHER VOICE (V.O.)                         Willie, I don't care man, I'm not                          looking to blame anyone, but that                          diamond isn't a real stone, man. I                          took it to -- BOOP!               Willie skips to the next message.                                     WOMAN'S VOICE (V.O.)                         Uh, hello, this is Helen Axelrod --                          you ran into my car last week? Well                          I called State Farm but they have no                          record of any insurance policy for                          you and -- BOOP!               Willie skips to the next message.                                     MARCUS' VOICE (V.O.)                         Willie, it's Marcus. It's that time                          of year again. Pack your shit.                          Phoenix.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. PHOENIX, ARIZONA - DAY               To the chimey chords of "Sleigh Ride," we see Phoenix, Arizona                in MONTAGE / dressed for Christmas but sweltering under its                oppressive winter heat.               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - DAY               Through the heat ripples rising off the pavement two mirage-               like figures cross the infinite asphalt of the Saguaro Square                Mall parking lot -- Willie and Marcus in Santa and Elf                regalia, sweating and panting in the heat. Willie polishes                off a pint of Smirnoff's and flips it towards a nearby trash                can. It misses and breaks loudly on the pavement.                                     MARCUS                         Jesus Christ! Can you maybe keep it                          together for just ten minutes?!               He pulls some Tic Tacs out of his pocket.                                     MARCUS                         For crying out loud, chew a few of                          these... you drunken, fuckin'                          imbecile!               Anchoring the huge mall complex is the large and upscale                Chamberlain's Department Store.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MAIN FLOOR - DAY               Amid the bustle of holiday shopping, an angry heavy-set man                with a Grizzly Adams beard stomps away from the pursuing                store manager, Bob Chipeska.                                     CHIPESKA                         Harrison, please I Just let me                          explain. Financially, the --                                     HARRISON                         You get what you pay for, Chipeska!                          Five Christmases I've given my heart --                          my soul -- my love to these kids,                          and now what? Now you flip me for                          some stranger who'll do it for peanuts                          and happens to work with a real                          midget! Lemme tell you something:                          nobody cares! Nobody comes here for                          the elf, Santa's the attraction! I                          do Burl Ives songs; does this schmoe                          even play guitar?                                     CHIPESKA                         Harrison, it's not the money or the                          midget. Believe me, if it was, I --                          I don't think they like "midget". I                          think you're supposed to call them --                                     HARRISON                         Aw, forget it!               Harrison stomps away and right toward Marcus and Willie as                they enter the store.                                     HARRISON                         ...Hacks!               Willie and Marcus stop in their tracks and watch the burly                man storm out. Bob Chipeska watches with them.                                     CHIPESKA                         Hi. Bob Chipeska. I, please, I, uh --                          please don't listen to him. Great                          resume and photo by the way.                                     MARCUS                         Thanks... you know, we been at this                          a long time an' all, so we like to                          think we do a good job...               A Beautiful Girl wearing skin-tight pants walks by, catching                Willie's eye. He stares wantonly at her ass, off in his own                little world.                                     CHIPESKA                         You two are the best men for the                          job. Truly. So do not let his...                          unpleasantness affect your performance                          in any way.                                     MARCUS                         Oh no, we're fine, w --                                     WILLIE                              (irked, snapping out                               of his daydream)                         Performance?               Willie's reaction worries Marcus.                                     CHIPESKA                         Yea. Your performance... you know,                          the...                                     WILLIE                         Performance. Like sexual?                                     CHIPESKA                         Excuse me?                                     MARCUS                         Willie no, he --                                     WILLIE                         You saying there's something wrong                          with my gear?                                     MARCUS                         Willie...                                     CHIPESKA                         I'm sorry. Your gear?                                     WILLIE                         You know... fuck stick.                                     MARCUS                         OKAY! We're gonna head upstairs now.               Marcus shoves Willie, who stalks off. Marcus lingers to smooth                things over. He forces a grin and shakes his head.                                     MARCUS                         Such a card.                                     CHIPESKA                         He's not gonna say "fuck stick" in                          front of the children, is he?                                     MARCUS                         No, no, no. Joke. Adult joke. For                          us. Adults.               A long, long, long silence.                                     MARCUS                         ...Joke.               Another beat. Marcus pantomimes helpless laughter, noiselessly                throwing his head back and holding his gut as it heaves with                mirth.               He is instantly composed.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - DAY               On an upper floor of Chamberlain's the theme is "The Desert                as Winter Wonderland." Cacti and tumbleweeds are wrapped                with lights and flocked with snow, and a team of nine stuffed                burros are hitched to a sleigh. Rudolfo the Red Nosed Burro                is tended by several Santa's elf mannequins. One in cowboy                wear and another in a poncho and sombrero.               Again there is a line of waiting children. Marcus makes his                way through the line as kids gasp and cheer. He plays to the                crowd.                                     MARCUS                         Merry Christmas! Santa's coming!               Yayyyyyy! Marcus gets to the head of the line, ducks under                the velvet rope and goes behind the flimsy cardboard set.               Willie sits there morosely, head slumped, forearms on knees,                red velvet hanging limply from one hand.                                     MARCUS                         What the fuck you doing, "fuck stick"                          in front of the boss?                                     WILLIE                         I don't like that guy.               He takes a bottle from the floor by his feet and swigs off                it. Marcus stares at him.                                     MARCUS                         You don't like any guy. You think I                          can't find another portly motherfuck                          can run a water drill?               Willie just slumps there apologetically.                                     MARCUS                         Don't tempt my hand. You blow this                          and we're broke for the year. So                          stop acting like you know something                          because, pal of mine, you don't know                          squat. You're gum on my shoe.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, yeah.                                     MARCUS                         Now put on your fuckin' hat and get                          out there.               He grabs the hat, slams it into Willie's chest and, as Willie                rises, kicks him in the ass. Willie just takes it, shambling                off.                                     MARCUS (CONT'D                         ...And try to act professional. For                          Chrissake!               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - DAY               On the outskirts of the Saguaro Square Mall's parking lot a                city bus stops with a hiss. The doors swing open to reveal a                pathetic EIGHT-YEAR-OLD KID, overweight, snot-nosed, badly                dressed and probably smelling of pee.               As the kid nears the mall entrance he passes a group of older                children doing skateboard stunts. They notice him.                                     KID                         Loser!               One of them throws an empty can that hits him in the head.               The kid walks on, it seems without noticing.               The bullies, disheartened by the lack of reaction, go back                to their skateboarding.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - DAY               Marcus leads a LARGE HEAVYSET BOY over to the throne. The                boy eats a chocolate ice cream cone which is smeared all                over his mouth and T-shirt. Marcus lifts him with effort and                a groan onto Willie's lap.                                     WILLIE                         All right, wuddya want?                                     HEAVYSET BOY                         Nintendo Deer Hunter 3.                                     WILLIE                         Fine. Next.               The HEAVYSET BOY hops off onto Willie's foot by mistake.                                     WILLIE                         YOWWWCH! Watch the toenails willya?               Marcus puts a young girl on his lap. She looks up at him in                awe.                                     WILLIE                         ...Wuddya want?                                     LITTLE GIRL                         ...Santa?                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, c'mon, c'mon, wuddya want?                                     LITTLE GIRL                         Um... Barbie?                                     WILLIE                         Fine. Next.               Marcus puts another young boy on his lap.                                     WILLIE                         ...What do you want?                                     BOY                         Fraggle-stick car.                                     WILLIE                              (to himself)                         Fuck is that?                              (back to the kid)                         Fine, whatever, next.               No one is next.                                     WILLIE                         ...Next. Next!               Still nothing.                                     WILLIE                         ...Next, goddamnit! Let's move it                          along -- this is not the DMV!               Marcus walks over to the rope. The snot-nosed Kid is next in                line, frozen by fear. Marcus pulls on his hand.                                     MARCUS                         It's okay. C'mon.               The Kid stays put.                                     MARCUS                         What's your name?               The Kid shakes his head meekly.                                     MARCUS                         ...You can tell me...               No response.                                     MARCUS                         ...How about Santa? If you don't                          tell him, you won't get a present.               This penetrates the Kid's fear. He moves.                                     MARCUS                         ...That's right. Let's tell Santa.               Marcus leads the Kid up to the throne and places him on                Willie's lap.                                     WILLIE                         What do you want? C'mon, wuddya want?                          A snot rag?               The Kid just stares, motionless except for the flowing rivulet                of snot. Willie can't help but stare at it.                                     WILLIE                              (to himself)                         ...Another fuckin' mongoloid.                              (shouts)                         Marcus I get him outta here before                          he pisses on me.               Suddenly the Kid is moved to yank Willie's beard. He holds                it stretched below Willie's chin.                                     WILLIE                              (whispered to the kid)                         ...Let it go, you little bastard.                                     KID                         It's not real.                                     WILLIE                         It was real. The hair fell out when                          I got sick.                                     KID                         How'd you get sick?                                     WILLIE                         I loved a woman who wasn't clean.                                     KID                         Mrs. Santa?                                     WILLIE                         No, her sister.                              (whispers through                               clenched teeth)                         Let the fucking thing go.                                     KID                         What's it like at the North Pole?                                     WILLIE                         Like the suburbs.                                     KID                         Which one?                                     WILLIE                         Apache Junction. What the fuck do                          you care?               Willie shoves the Kid:                                     WILLIE                         Get the hell off my lap.               The Kid backs away, looking at him.                                     KID                         You are really Santa, right?                                     WILLIE                         No. No, I'm an accountant. I wear                          this as a fucking fashion thing.                                     KID                         Okay.               The Kid backs away in awe, never breaking his reverent stare.               As Marcus helps the next child onto Santa's lap Willie hisses                at him:                                     WILLIE                         Get that kid out of here, he's                          freaking me out.               EXT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - NIGHT               The Kid sits on a bench watching the entrance to                Chamberlain's. After a beat Willie and Marcus walk out in                costume and cross toward the parking lot.               The Kid follows from a safe distance.               EXT. SAGUARO MALL - PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Willie and Marcus walk across the huge empty parking lot,                followed at a great distance by the Kid.               They arrive at their cars -- Marcus' van and a beat-up old                Chrysler that is Willie's -- parked next to each other.               As the Kid creeps closer, he is able to hear their                conversation.               Willie motions to the Black Angus in the parking lot.                                     WILLIE                         I gotta get a drink on. See ya                          tomorrow.                                     MARCUS                         Just don't come in to work stinkin'                          of booze again.                                     WILLIE                         Don't worry about me. Get going,                          you'll be late for your Wizard of Oz                          Candy Bar Guild thing.                                     MARCUS                         Lollipop Guild, asshole. Jesus, two                          year olds flip me shit better'n you.                                     WILLIE                         You tryin' to say something to me?                                     MARCUS                              (pauses, then                               deliberately)                         Yeah. I'm gonna stick my whole fist                          up your ass.               INT. BLACK ANGUS BAR - NIGHT               A large faux rustic bar filled to capacity with loosened-tie                middle-management.               Crammed at the far end of the bar, Willie stands out like a                sore thumb in this thirty-ish crowd.               We follow his gaze all around the perimeter of the room until                it connects with the drunken, glowering face of a HINDUSTANI                TROUBLEMAKER, sitting right across from him, startling Willie                for a moment.               Willie regains his composure, then gives the guy a puzzled                look back, and amused by the guy's unflinching anger, raises                his glass in a toast to him as if to say, "whatever... cheers,                you nutcase", and turns back to his drink.               The man stands up and, never releasing his stare, moves right                up to Willie, two inches from his face. Willie looks up.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                              (Hindi accent)                         Listen here buddy, let me make                          yourself perfectly clear. We don't                          like your kind coming around here in                          your red silk and satin clothes with                          your hunger for same-sex                          relationships. Consider yourself                          warned.                                     WILLIE                         Well fu-uck you!                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         I know that's what you'd like to do!               Willie gears up for a swing.                                     WILLIE                         Up yours, yufff --               A hand grabs his arm.                                     VOICE (O.S.)                         Don't.               Willie follows the hand to find a mature but attractive                BARMAID (SUE), an outdoorsy western beauty. Her eyes and                Willie's lock -- a source of sardonic amusement for the                troublemaker.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         Oh saved by a woman, mister No-Pussy-                         Please man!               He stalks off.                                     SUE                         He ain't worth it, sugar. He got hit                          on last week. Didn't sit too well.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT!?               By the bathroom, the troublemaker is in another man's face:                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         ...This is not Flagstaff!                                     SUE                         Another Grandad, Santa?                                     WILLIE                         Yep.               She pours him another and slams it on the bar.                                     SUE                         Got a name?                                     WILLIE                         Oh yeah.               He pounds the drink.               She waits. Nothing else is forthcoming.                                     SUE                         What do you do? I mean, after the                          holidays?                                     WILLIE                         Nothing 'til March. Then I'm the                          Easter Bunny.                                     SUE                         ...Another?                                     WILLIE                         Why not. Buy you one?                                     SUE                         Why not.               She pours two. They both pound them back.               Her statement is a question:                                     SUE                         ...Not a big talker.                                     WILLIE                         Nah.                                     SUE                         Buy you one?                                     WILLIE                         Why not.               As she pours:                                     SUE                         You're pretty regular, for a Santa.               He shrugs:                                     WILLIE                         It's my job, no big deal. I'm an                          eating, drinking, shitting, fucking                          Santa Claus.                                     SUE                         Prove it.               Willie stares at her.                                     WILLIE                         Which?               INT. WILLIE'S CAR - PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Willie is on top of the barmaid, humping her, still in his                Santa suit. His pom-pom bobs in rhythm with his thrusts.                                     WILLIE                         Yes! Yes! Yes!                                     SUE                         Fuck me, Santa! Fuck me, Santa!               The hat is slipping askew. He reaches for it.                                     WILLIE                         At least lemme take off the hat!                                     SUE                         NO!               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - NIGHT                In the parking lot the barmaid finishes straightening her                clothes and touching up her lipstick in the rearview mirror.               Willie, leaning against his car, still in his Santa suit,                fires up a post-coital cigarette.                                     SUE                         I got a thing for Santa Claus, I                          don't know, I guess it's from early                          childhood.                                     WILLIE                              (taking a swig)                         Yeah, so's my thing for tits.                                     SUE                         Maybe because my parents were Jewish                          and never celebrated Christmas. Santa                          was sort of forbidden, you know?               She gets out of the car.                                     SUE                         I like you. Most of the people around                          here are pretty uptight. My name is                          Sue. Here's my number.               She hands him the slip of paper and ambles off, calling back                over her shoulder:                                     SUE                         ...Don't mothball that suit!               Willie, nodding understanding, turns to reach for his car                door and --                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         I AM NOT GAY!!               -- the accompanying PAN OVER brings in the screaming                homophobe.                                     WILLIE                         Whoa-Jesus! All right buddy, that's                          it...                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         Buddy? I said, I am not gay!                                     WILLIE                         Look, what's the problem pal, you go                          off your meds?               The man stares at him for a beat.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         ...Yes, but this isn't about that!                          You are queer as a ten dollar bill.                                     WILLIE                         Now you listen. My brother lost an                          arm fighting you people in Vietnam,                          so I want you to take a good hard                          look at this face...               Willie pulls back a fist.                                     WILLIE                         ...'cause it's the last fuckin' thing                          you're gonna see before I knock your                          head off and sh --               WHACK-WHACK-WHACK-WHACK-WHACK! The man surprises Willie with                a flurry of effective punches. In moments, Willie is on the                losing end of homosexual panic.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         Who is the bitch now, fat man?!                                     PIPING VOICE (O.S.)                         Leave Santa alone!               The Troublemaker stops and looks down to find the Kid beating                on his legs.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         Please little boy, I am doing this                          for all of us!               Willie gets a chance to regain composure. He wipes the blood                from his mouth, raises his fists and... promptly collapses.                                     TROUBLEMAKER                         I think he has finished his cruising                          for tonight, hm?               The Hindustani hothead wanders off. The Kid shuffles over to                the prone Willie.                                     WILLIE                         You.               INT. WILLIE'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT                The Kid sits in the front seat next to Willie who drives,                stewing.                                     WILLIE                         This one time I take you home.                                     KID                         Uh-huh.                                     WILLIE                         I'm not your fuckin' dada.                                     KID                         Uh-huh.                                     WILLIE                         It's not as if you helped out with                          that nut-job.                                     KID                         Uh-huh.                                     WILLIE                         And you're right there to grab his                          fuckin' balls.                                     KID                         Uh-huh.                                     WILLIE                         Right height.                                     KID                         Yeah.               Willie demonstrates with a sharp turn of his hand:                                     WILLIE                         Twist 'em.                                     KID                         Why do you need a car?                                     WILLIE                         ...Fuck you talkin' about?                                     KID                         This car.                                     WILLIE                         Whuh. Which turn is it?                                     KID                         Sage Terrace. Where's your sleigh?               Willie answers absently, his head slightly ducked and his                eyes darting side to side, checking for road signs:                                     WILLIE                         Repairs. In the shop.                                     KID                         Where're the reindeer?                                     WILLIE                         I stable 'em. Is it gonna be left or                          right?                                     KID                              (pointing left)                         That way. Where's the stable?                                     WILLIE                         Next to the shop.                                     KID                         How do they sleep?                                     WILLIE                         Who -- the reindeer? Standing up.                                     KID                         But the noise, how do they sleep?                                     WILLIE                         What noise?                                     KID                         From the shop.                                     WILLIE                         They, uh, they only work during the                          day.                                     KID                         I thought it was always night at the                          North Pole.                                     WILLIE                         Not now. Now it's always day.                                     KID                         Then how do they sleep?                                     WILLIE                         Well, they -- WILL YOU PUH-LEEEZ                          SHUT THE FUCK UP! HOW THE FUCK DO                          KNOW?! I'M GONNA -- Whoa! Sage                          Terrace!               He makes a hard left.                                     WILLIE                         ...What is it with you? Somebody                          drop you on your fucking head?                                     KID                         On my head?                                     WILLIE                         What, are they gonna drop you on                          somebody else's head?                                     KID                         How can they drop me onto my own                          head?                                     WILLIE                         Not onto your own h -- ARE YOU FUCKING                          WITH ME?               EXT. THE KID'S HOUSE - NIGHT               Willie escorts the Kid along a long walkway that leads to                the front door of a large, opulent, new-money Southwestern                home.               Willie admires the surroundings.                                     WILLIE                         Nice digs. Daddy home?                                     KID                         He's on a adventure 'sploring                          mountains. He been gone a long time.                                     WILLIE                         Exploring mountains? When's he coming                          back?                                     KID                         Next year.                                     WILLIE                         What about Mommy?                                     KID                         She lives in God's house with Jesus                          and Mary and the Ghost and the long-                         eared donkey and Joseph and the                          talking walnut.                                     WILLIE                         Who the fuck takes care of you then?                                     KID                         Granma.                                     WILLIE                              (hatching an idea)                         Really... What's her name?                                     KID                         Granma.               As the Kid lets himself in Willie pulls out a black ski mask                and puts it on his head like a stocking cap.                                     WILLIE                         Uh-huh. Is Granny spry?               He unrolls the mask to cover his face and takes out a                blackjack.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - NIGHT               Willie enters the foyer as the Kid walks into the adjoining                room. He approaches a figure in a La-Z-Boy watching TV.                                     KID                         Granma, Santa's here. Are you spry?               Grandma rises from her chair with the assistance of her walker                and begins to move toward Willie. She wears a bathrobe and                thick glasses and has another pair of glasses on a chain                around her neck.                                     GRANDMA                         Roger! You're home. Let me fix you                          some sandwiches.               He watches as the senile old woman innocently putters away.               He yanks off his mask and turns to the Kid.                                     WILLIE                         So you're tellin' me no one else is                          here?               The Kid shakes his head.                                     WILLIE                         ...No aunts, no uncles, no cousins?               The Kid shakes his head.                                     WILLIE                         ...Butler, security guard? Nothin'?                                     KID                         Nuh-uh.               This sinks in. Willie looks to the Kid.                                     WILLIE                         Daddy got a safe?               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - STUDY - NIGHT               The sound of a tumbler tripping and, suddenly, light sweeps                in as the safe door opens to reveal a smiling Willie with                his stethoscope in his ears.               In the foreground a few stacks of cash and a folio. Willie                reaches in.               Willie grabs the folio and flips through it. Insurance forms,                deeds, Social Security cards, birth certificates, etc., all                bear the name of the Kid's father, Roger Merman.               Nothing of value.               He puts the folio back, grabs the cash.                                     KID                         You need money to fix your sleigh?                                     WILLIE                         Huh? Yeah, whateverthefuck...                                     KID                         You want milk and cookies?               Willie bends down and faces the Kid with a smile.                                     WILLIE                         Daddy got a car?               EXT. THE KID'S HOUSE - NIGHT               At the cut a new Mercedes screeches through the frame and,                as we hear it recede, we are left looking at the kid, who                stands at the curb, waving happily.                                     KID                         Bye Santa!               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - SECURITY OFFICE - NIGHT               CLOSE-UP: the glowing ash of a cigarette burning down. The                inhale lasts as long as comic timing will allow -- about six                or seven seconds.               ANGLE ON:               A wiry, hard-bitten, sun-baked saddlebag of a man, GIN SLAGEL                sits behind his cluttered desk sucking on a filterless Pall                Mall. We can hear his in-taken breath rattling over and around                the phlegm, growths, and polyps that line his embattled                trachea. His words come out on an exhaled cloud chamber's                worth of smoke:                                     GIN                         "Fuck stick"?               Bob Chipeska sits opposite.                                     CHIPESKA                         Yes, I thought it was strange too,                          but you know, I, I, I, I, uh, I, his                          little friend promised he wouldn't                          say it in front of the children.                          Which is fine because, you know,                          urn, there's an adult world and a                          child's world and that's okay. I'm                          not a censor.                                     GIN                         Little friend?                                     CHIPESKA                         Yes, a, a, a dwarf. Or midget... a,                          a, I don't know what he's called                          exactly but... a little guy. Little.                          Billy Barty. God rest. But thin                          fingers. Not the fat sausage fingers.                                     GIN                         "Little people," that's what they                          like.                                     CHIPESKA                         Ah, yes, right.                                     GIN                         So "fuck stick," that's all?                                     CHIPESKA                         Well, no, there was something else...               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WOMEN'S BIG AND TALL - (EARLIER)                Chipeska walks by a cashier station carrying some paperwork                he's absorbed in, but hears some FAINT GROANS that make him                pause. Curious, he heads in the direction of the sounds.               They're coming from the dressing room area.               Chipeska curiously makes his way towards a corridor of                dressing rooms.                                     CHIPESKA (V.O.)                         ...A couple of days ago I was in                          Women's Big & Tall? --               A sign reads: "Three Times A Lady".               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - DRESSING ROOM AREA - (EARLIER)               He goes down a corridor of dressing rooms.                                     CHIPESKA (V.O.)                         and I heard these, urn, you know,                          these... noises.               The sound of throttling lust builds in volume. He follows                his ears until he arrives at a dressing room door. A Big or                Tall woman within screams with pleasure:                                     FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)                         Oh yeah! Oh yeah!                                     WILLIE'S VOICE (O.S.)                         Yeah! Yeah! You ain't gonna shit                          right for a week!               He looks underneath and spots black Santa boots with red                velvet pants around the ankles.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - SECURITY OFFICE - NIGHT               Bob Chipeska holds up one hand.                                     CHIPESKA                         Now don't get me wrong. I was against                          the Clinton impeachment. What a man                          does with his penis -- Oval Office,                          Women's Big & Tall -- it's not for                          the American people to say.                                     GIN                         Right.                                     CHIPESKA                         But when you're dealing with children,                          a tender sensibility, a position of                          trust -- then perhaps, someone who                          has screaming orgasms with large                          women --                                     GIN                         Mm.                                     CHIPESKA                         Though I can't fire him for that.                                     GIN                         No.                                     CHIPESKA                         Sizisra. They'd say.                                     GIN                         Sure.                                     CHIPESKA                         Not true. I am no siziat. But I can                          see the picket line now.                                     GIN                         Yeah, a big fuckin' fat one.                                     CHIPESKA                         They'd all say, If it had been a                          supermodel or, uh...                                     GIN                         Heeyeah. Unfair practices. A lot of                          special pleading. Bitch, bitch, bitch.                          Fuckin' broads.                                     CHIPESKA                         But -- I can't help it -- the guy                          makes me uneasy.                                     GIN                         Well sure. Santa fuckin' someone in                          the ass.                                     CHIPESKA                         So maybe there's something I could                          fire him for.                                     GIN                         Yeah. Yeah. I getcha.                                     CHIPESKA                         Do you? Do you think you could find                          something?                                     GIN                         Oh shit yeah. There's always                          something.               INT. SAGAURO SQUARE MALL - VIDEO ARCADE - NIGHT               POV through the arcade's window shows Willie talking in                pantomime to a young girl -- a very young girl -- at one of                the pinball machines. Willie has his hands out to either                side and is either demonstrating the kind of body English to                apply to the machine, or else is describing an elaborate                sexual encounter -- either recalled or prospective. The girl,                giggles.               A REVERSE shows Marcus halted at the arcade window staring                in with disbelief that gives way to jaw-grinding anger:                                     MARCUS                         ...Motherfucker... Oh, you lousy                          fucking motherfuck...               EXT. SAGOARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Willie and Marcus walk to their cars.                                     MARCUS                         That's just the kinda shit that's                          gonna get us pinched!                                     WILLIE                              (apologetic)                         She said she was eighteen.                                     MARCUS                         You promised no arcades! You said                          you'd only hustle Big & Tall!                                     WILLIE                         Ah, it's like shooting fish in a                          barrel -- there's no sport,                                     MARCUS                         How many times, you fuck? "The bigger                          the store, the bigger the take."                          Well, we can't work the big stores                          with your big fucking train wrecks!                                     WILLIE                              (pulling out his keys)                         You got some nerve you little shit                          ya! You my mom now?! You shat me out                          your womb, is that it? You gotta                          take care of me!? Well I can take                          care of myself and I don't need no                          lectures! I know how to keep a low                          profile!               BOOP-BOOP! Willie uses his key fob to deactivate the car                alarm to the Mercedes.                                     MARCUS                         What the fuck is this?!                                     WILLIE                         Mind your own fucking business.               Willie opens the door and an avalanche of beer bottle empties                tumbles out, rolling everywhere.                                     MARCUS                         You cocksucker!               Willie starts the engine and pulls out, and Marcus yells to                the receding car:                                     MARCUS                         ...EVER HEAR OF THE OPEN-BOTTLE LAW?!                              (then, to himself)                         -- You dumb Dipshit Motherfucker!               EXT. RESIDENCE MOTEL - NIGHT               Willie parks the Mercedes in the front of a rundown motel                complex. He walks past hookers and junkies until he gets to                his unit.               He pulls out his key and just as he's about to insert it in                the lock he sees a flashlight beam shining inside the window.               Surprised, he backs off cautiously and presses up against                the wall.               Someone inside is rifling the room.               Willie hisses at a nearby hooker:                                     WILLIE                         Opal, come here.               Opal looks at him with disdain.                                     OPAL                         Screw you, Willie -- last time I                          didn't shit right for a week.                                     WILLIE                         No, not that -- come here!               Reluctantly, she sidles over.                                     WILLIE                         Who the fuck's in my room, did you                          see someone go into my fuckin' room?                                     OPAL                         Yeah some guy askin' 'boutcha --                          looked like a cop.                                     WILLIE                         Ah fuck.               INT. MARCUS' APARTMENT - NIGHT               Marcus is on the phone with Willie.                                     MARCUS                         What guy?! You get a look at him?                                                                  INTERCUT:               EXT. RESIDENCE MOTEL - NIGHT               Willie is at a pay phone.                                     WILLIE                         No, I think it's a cop though. You                          think someone's onto us?                                     MARCUS                         Is there anything in the room?                          Anything professional?                                     WILLIE                         No. Clothes.                                     MARCUS                         Just ditch. You got anywhere to sack                          out for a while?               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - FOYER - NIGHT               The Kid swings the door open to Willie, who stands on the                stoop holding a small grip.                                     KID                         Santa!                                     WILLIE                         Yeah.                                     KID                         You're bringing my present early?                                     WILLIE                         NO.                                     KID                         But I never told you what I wanted.                                     WILLIE                         I said I didn't bring it, dipshit.                                     KID                         Okay. Good. I want a stuffed elephant.                          A pink one.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, well...               He brushes past the kid into the house, eyes darting this                way and that.                                     WILLIE                         ...wish in one hand and shit in the                          other, see which fills up faster.                                     KID                         Okay.               The Kid follows Willie like a puppy dog as Willie checks out                the house, bumping open doors, looking around.                                     WILLIE                         I'm gonna be staying here a while.                          Things are all fucked up at the North                          Pole. Mrs. Santa, she... she walked                          in on me fuckin' her sister. So I'm                          out on my fuckin' ass. She's taking                          half of everything... This'll do.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT               Willie has discovered the master bedroom, by appearances                long unused. He tosses his grip onto the double bed.                                     WILLIE                         ...I'm gonna crash here. You and me,                          like, you know, bachelors.                                     KID                         Do you and Mrs. Santa have kids?                                     WILLIE                         No. Thank the fuck Christ.                                     KID                         What about the elves?                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, well, them. They stay with                          Mrs. Santa. I get 'em on weekends.                          Run me a bath, will ya?                                     KID                         What about the reindeer?                                     WILLIE                              (pleading)                         Don't start with the fucking reindeer.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - MASTER BATHROOM - NIGHT               The Kid sits on a stool, hands on his knees, staring,                motionless.               Finally:                                     KID                         ...What're their names?               Willie lies in the tub, also motionless, a wet washcloth                over his face, fingers of one hand resting against a tumbler                filled with ice and amber liquid that sits on the edge of                the tub.               From under his washcloth:                                     WILLIE                         ...Who?                                     KID                         The elves.                                     WILLIE                              (to himself)                         Oh, fuck...                              (then, to the Kid)                         I -- I can't remember... Sneezy, and                          Dopey --                                     KID                         That's the Seven Dwarves.                                     WILLIE                         Shit, is that not...? I just -- fuck,                          I don't know, I'll just say, Hey,                          Bub -- Look, I...               He drags the washcloth off his face and looks at the kid.                                     WILLIE                         ...FUCK ME! I DON'T KNOW THIS FUCKING                          SHIT! WHY IS EVERYTHING A FUCKING                          TEST WITH YOU?!               The Kid looks at him, unperturbed.                                     KID                         -- How old are they?               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT                Willie staggers in, a towel around his waist, the empty rock                glass in one hand, a bottle tucked under the other arm, the                Kid trotting after.                                     KID                         You want cookies?                                     WILLIE                         No.                                     KID                         Warm milk?                                     WILLIE                         No.               Willie carefully, carefully puts glass and bottle down on                the nightstand and slowly raises both hands in a "Don't...                Move" gesture to keep them from flying off.                                     KID                         Should I fix you some sandwiches?                                     WILLIE                         What is with the fixing sandwiches?                          No.               Satisfied that the bottle and glass are not going anywhere,                Willie climbs unsteadily onto the bed and stares at the                ceiling.                                     KID                         Okay. You want anything else?                                     WILLIE                         No. As soon as the bed stops moving                          I'm going to sleep...                                     KID                         Okay.                                     WILLIE                         ...Wake me up... when the little                          hand is on the...               A long beat.               The ragged breath of drunken sleep.                                     KID                         Okay.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MAIN FLOOR - SCARF AREA - DAY               Marcus's wife Lois stands in front of a mirror, trying on a                cashmere scarf. Her look of pruney disapproval is in place,                as ever. She takes off the scarf and writes something in a                small spiral notebook...                                     SALESWOMAN                         Can I help you, ma'am?                                     LOIS                         Just looking.               Across the store, she spies the jewelry counter.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MAIN FLOOR - JEWELRY AREA - DAY               Lois stands looking intently down through the glass case in                pruney disapproval.                                     SALESMAN                         Help you with anything, ma'am?               Without bothering to look up:                                     LOIS                         Just looking.               As he drifts away she takes out her spiral notebook and makes                more notes.               INT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - FOOD COURT - NIGHT               Willie and Marcus nosh on food-court Gyros.                                     WILLIE                         Fuck me? Fuck you!                                     MARCUS                         You can't just take up with some                          kid! You don't know who's around,                          what they do!                                     WILLIE                         You got some nerve you little shit                          ya. You my mom now?! You shat me out                          your --                                     MARCUS                         You said that last night you stupid                          fuck!                                     WILLIE                         Ah, shit! Fuck you!               Lois appears with a salad on a tray and a look of pruney                disapproval. She sits next to Marcus and, in the way of old                couples comfortable with each other, he rests a hand on her                knee and continues to talk, ignoring her, while she picks                through her salad, ignoring him.                                     MARCUS                         You are by far the dumbest most                          pathetic piece of maggot-eaten shit                          that has ever slid from God's gilded                          ass! What if the kid has one of those                          fucking play-dates they have now?                                     WILLIE                         You shittin' me?! He doesn't have                          fucking friends! Not even an imaginary                          one! Unless he got ditched by him!                          He's just a fuckin' misfit! Lives                          with his grandma who sits drooling                          in front of the TV! Every once in a                          while she gets up to play soccer                          with her tits! What, she's gon' rat                          me out? She don't know her ass from                          last Tuesday!               Marcus thinks a moment.                                     MARCUS                         You fuck her?                                     WILLIE                         Jesus! Why is everything sex with                          you?                                     MARCUS                         With me? I fuck one person, I ain't                          out there serial fornicating, trying                          to float my liver! Drinkin' myself                          silly 'cause I can't stand what a                          piece of shit I am!               Lois, chewing on her salad, notices someone walking by with                a Chamberlain's bag. She glances in as the person passes                and, still chewing, gets out her notebook and jots something                down.                                     WILLIE                         What're you, fuckin' Sigmund Sawed-                         Off Freud? The shrunken fuckin'                          shrink?                                     MARCUS                         Yeah, that's right, shit-for-brains,                          talk about my height. Make it about                          something safe. 'Cause you're an                          emotional fucking cripple. Your soul                          is dog shit. Every single fuckin'                          thing about you is ugly.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah? Well... fuck you.               Marcus and Lois get up to leave.                                     MARCUS                         I've seen anal warts more attractive                          than you.               They walk off. Willie sits there for a moment. Goes back to                eating his hamburger. A WOMAN comes up with her TODDLER in                tow.                                     WOMAN                         Oh, look who's here Jimmy! It's Santa!                          Let's tell him what you want for                          Christmas.                                     WILLIE                              (shouting, food flying                               out of his mouth)                         I'M ON MY FUCKING LUNCH BREAK HERE!                                     WOMAN                              (putting her hands                               over the Toddler's                               ears)                         Are you insane?!! How dare you talk                          like that in front of a child! The                          management is going to hear about                          this... I'm going to have you fired!                                     WILLIE                         That's a threat? You think you can                          make my life any worse, you go ahead,                          be my fucking guest!               He throws his hamburger back down on his tray and storms                off, leaving the woman shocked.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                Willie and the Kid sit opposite each other over a game of                checkers. Willie scowls as the Kid thinks for an eternity                about his next move.               The silence is deafening. Endless.               Then... CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!                                     KID                         King me.               Willie stares at the board for a long beat.               He leaps up screaming and flings the board across the room.                                     WILLIE                         FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING CHEATER!               Willie throws checkers one by one against the wall,                punctuating each throw with an insult.                                     WILLIE                         Son of a BITCH! ...you LOUSY...                          STINKEN... ROTTEN... CHEATING... NO                          GOOD...               ANGLE ON Kid's face, unfazed, still smiling.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - KID'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Later. The kid lies in bed, sleeping peacefully.               Distant sounds of the slosh of water.               EXT. THE KID'S HOUSE - BACK YARD - NIGHT               Churning water.               The sloshing of water is now accompanied by a rhythmic                slapping sound.               Willie bangs Sue in the Jacuzzi. He is wearing his Santa                hat.                                     SUE                         YES! YES! YES SANTA YES!               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Two tall water glasses are set down on a sideboard.                                     WILLIE (O.S.)                         Refill?                                     SUE (O.S.)                         Mm.               A splash of orange juice is dolloped into each of the glasses,                and then both are filled to the top with vodka.               WIDER on the living room reveals Sue looking around. Her                speech -- and Willie's -- is somewhat impaired:                                     SUE                         Nice place you got. Needs a bit of a                          woman's touch, but it's really nice.                                     WILLIE                         It's okay. Just renting.               Sue accepts her refilled glass and sits on the sofa.                                     SUE                         Thanks... So how long will you --                          urn...               She reaches down to fish under her ass in the sofa cushion,                and pulls out a red checker. She dully inspects it.                                     SUE                         ...How long you gonna be here?                                     WILLIE                         Through the holidays.               Sue flips the checker away.                                     SUE                         So what's the thing, you like kids?                                     WILLIE                         Fuck no! Whaddya think I'm some kind                          of pervert?                                     SUE                         Wha? I'm talking about you being                          Santa.               He sways, looking at her.                                     WILLIE                         Oh. No, see, the thing is... I'm not                          really Santa.               Blearily she gazes back. After a moment:                                     SUE                         Oh.                              (pause)                         ...Well -- still -- I gotta thing                          for you anyway -- c'mere...               He leans down to kiss her.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - FOYER - NIGHT               The door opens to reveal Sue on her way out. Willie sways in                the foyer, a three-quarters-empty bottle of Old Grandad in                hand.                                     SUE                         So I'll see you soon I guess, right?                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, I'm gonna send you some flowers.                          Real good expensive ones.               He closes the door. He then tips back the bottle and polishes                it off with a series of quick gulps.               Ever so daintily, he puts the bottle down. A beat later --               WHAM! He faints dead away, hitting the floor like a felled                tree.                                                                  FADE OUT:               Faintly, distantly, a blood-curdling scream.               FADE IN:               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - FOYER/HALLWAY - MORNING               Willie wakes on the floor to the sound of the scream.                                     WILLIE                         Whuh...               He looks blearily up and immediately grabs his head, feeling                his hangover.               Following his ears he heads toward the hall. He passes                Grandma.                                     GRANDMA                         Roger! You're home! Let me fix you                          some sandwiches.               A bedroom door crashes open and the Kid emerges screaming                and runs right into Willie. He immediately caroms off and                goes screaming down the hall.                                     WILLIE                         What the...               He looks down at his T-shirt. There is a bloody palm-print                on his stomach.               He turns the corner to the hall, There is a row of fresh,                bloody palm-prints down one side of the hall. The Kid,                screaming, is just disappearing at the far end.               Willie follows.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - KITCHEN - MORNING               Willie enters.               The Kid is screaming, jumping up and down and clutching one                hand -- the bloody one -- with the other.                                     WILLIE                         What the fuck did you do?               He goes up and tries to yank the hand, which the hysterical                Kid yanks away.                                     WILLIE                         ...Lemme look at it. What the fuck                          happened?               As Willie drags him to the sink and runs water over the cut,                the Kid takes great gulping breaths and finally manages to                say:                                     KID                         ...I cut myself by mistake.               Willie grabs a vodka bottle standing open on the counter and                liberally pours some on the hand. The Kid shrieks.                                     WILLIE                         I forgot to tell ya, that'll sting.                          Okay now!               The Kid yanks his hand away and runs off screaming. Willie                is left alone in the middle of the kitchen.                                     WILLIE                         ...Well fuck.               He calls after the boy, sincerely trying to help:                                     WILLIE                         ...Don' t you want me to wrap it in                          a T-shirt or something?               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - MORNING               It is early morning and the parking lot is empty except for                Marcus' van. The Mercedes eventually pulls in, parking beside                him. Windows roll down. In the driver's seat, Marcus looks                up from his watch with a scowl.                                     MARCUS                         You're late.               VAN DOORS               Marcus throws open the back of the van, revealing the                components of the water drill in various prop gift boxes.               Willie wears a forbearing smile:                                     WILLIE                         Kids, lemmme tell ya...               He shakes his head and chuckles as Marcus tosses him an empty                red Santa sack.                                     WILLIE                         ...They'll run ya ragged.               Marcus stares.               EXT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - ENTRANCE - MORNING               Jesse, the security guard unlocks the door and opens up for                Willie and Marcus. They enter in costume. Willie lugs the                filled sack and seems to be straining.                                     JESSE                         Morning boys.                                     MARCUS                         Morning Jesse.                                     JESSE                              (to Willie)                         Ho! Ho! Ho!               Willie pants under the weight of his bag:                                     WILLIE                         Up your ass.               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - MORNING               As Willie and Marcus enter the store Gin Slagel drives by                their cars, carefully noting their tags.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - DAY               Willie drops the bag with a loud thud.                                     WILLIE                         GOD dammit!                                     MARCUS                         You tear your ball again?                                     WILLIE                         No, it's okay.               Together they unload the extremely heavy gifts.                                     MARCUS                         Let's do the other thing.               Willie follows Marcus behind the Wonderland backdrop. Marcus                points to an air duct in the ceiling.                                     MARCUS                         There.               Willie crouches and Marcus climbs on his shoulders.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - AIR DUCT - DAY               The duct pops open and Marcus climbs in, shimmying down to a                junction and continuing on.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - CUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICES - DAY               A long row of cubicles, each one occupied with Customer                Service Operators. As they work, the loud squeaks and popping                metal sounds of a dwarf crawling through a duct are heard                above them.               Each operator in succession notes the racket, looking up                curiously as the sounds pass overhead.               Suddenly, the sounds stop. Everyone returns to work.               Then...               SQUEAK! POP! SQUEAK! The sounds resume. The operators look                up again as the noises fade away.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - SURVEILLANCE ROOM - DAY               The sounds continue until Marcus' face appears at the ceiling                duct of an unmanned surveillance room.               He focuses on the wall of a hundred identical VCRs and squints                to see the brand name: SONY HVR-3200.               EXT. ELECTRONICS STORE - DAY               Lois exits an electronics store with a box slung under her                arm, her mouth turned down in pruney disapproval. She places                the box on the hood of her car and we see its printings SONY                HVR-3200.               She opens the box, fishes out the remote, then tosses the                box and VCR into a nearby trash can.               EXT. ARIZONA STATE PRISON - DAY               Gin Slagel walks through the main gate of the heavily                fortified penitentiary, leaving a huge trail of cigarette                smoke.               INT. PRISON - WAITING ROOM - DAY               Gin Slagel sits, smoking and waiting with family members and                lawyers. A guard enters and motions.                                     GUARD                         Alright Gin, come on.               INT. PRISON - VISITORS' ROOM - DAY               Gin sits down in one of the booths across from a middle-aged                prisoner.                                     PRISONER                         Who are you?                                     GIN                         Your name Roger Merman?                                     PRISONER                         Yes, but --                                     GIN                         Doing three-to-six for embezzlement?                                     PRISONER                         ...Many accounting questions are not                          cut-and-dried --                                     GIN                         You live at 41 Sage Terrace?                                     PRISONER                              (suddenly tense)                         Is it Granma? Is my son alright?                                     GIN                         They're fine. Do you have any house                          guests?               The man is bewildered:                                     PRISONER                         ...House guests?                                     GIN                         Thanks much for your time. God bless.               He gets up and walks away.                                     PRISONER                         ...Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - SECURITY OFFICE - DAY               Gin sits at his desk sucking in a Pall Mall filterless. Bob                Chipeska sits opposite. Finally Gin exhales like a                crematorium.                                     GIN                         Well, it's fucked.                                     CHIPESKA                              (hopeful)                         ...Yeah?                                     GIN                         Yeah. Fucked. Frankly.                                     CHIPESKA                         He's...                                     GIN                         Clean.                                     CHIPESKA                              (disappointed)                         Oh.                                     GIN                         As a fuckin' whistle.                                     CHIPESKA                         Nothing?                                     GIN                         No. Nothing. I mean, shit, he curses,                          yeah. But never around children.                                     CHIPESKA                         Oh.                                     GIN                         No criminal record, no parking tickets                          f'Christ's sake, no bad habits, even.                          Sex, yeah. But man is a sexual being.                                     CHIPESKA                         Yeah.                                     GIN                         Fuckin' Darwinian. Can't do shit                          about that, Jack.                                     CHIPESKA                         NO.                                     GIN                         Wouldn't want to.                                     CHIPESKA                         Yeah. No. Of course not. I'm not                          advocating celibacy.                                     GIN                         Hope not. End of the human fuckin'                          race.                                     CHIPESKA                         Yes.               Gin turns one palm up.                                     GIN                         Fucks large women. What can I say.               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - DAY               A bus clears frame, revealing the kid as he walks toward the                mall.                                     VOICES                         Loser! Dipshit!               CLANG! The kid is hit in the head with a can again. Again,                no reaction.               Someone in the group of frustrated bullies has a fresh idea:                                     VOICE                         Wedgie!               Cheering, the six bullies engulf the kid.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - DAY                Marcus and Willie go about the business of being a Santa-Elf                team. Willie sees off another child,                                     CHILD                         Pokemon.                                     WILLIE                         Done.                                     MARCUS                         Next!               Marcus heads to the velvet rope to find the Kid, mussed up                and dirty, the band of his underwear around his chest.                                     KID                         Santa here?                                     MARCUS                         Oh jeez.               Marcus unclips the rope and the Kid approaches Willie.                                     WILLIE                         Is that your underwear?                                     KID                         Part of it.                                     WILLIE                         Where's the rest? Never mind. What                          do you want?                                     KID                         I was thinking I wanted a purple                          stuffed elephant, not pink, but now                          I changed my mind.                                     WILLIE                         What.                                     KID                         Now I don't want an elephant at all.                          I want a gorilla named Davy for                          beating up the skateboard kids who                          pull on my underwear and he could                          take his orders from the talking                          walnut so it wouldn't be my bad thing.               Willie stares at him.                                     WILLIE                         ...You know when I was your age, I                          didn't need no fuckin' gorilla, and                          I wasn't any bigger than you. One                          day I came crying home to Dad because                          four kids had beat me up, and you                          know what he did?'                                     KID                         He make it all better?                                     WILLIE                         No. He kicked my ass. You know why?                                     KID                         You went bathroom on Mommy's dishes?                                     WILLIE                         What the fuck? No.                                     KID                         He try to teach you not to cry and                          be a man.                                     WILLIE                         Nope, it was because he was a mean,                          drunk son of a bitch. When he wasn't                          busy busting my ass, he was puttin'                          out cigarettes on my neck.                                     KID                         Uh-huh...                                     WILLIE                         The world's fuckin' unfair -- it                          don't give ya nothing. You can wish                          all you want but you gotta take what                          you need. Stand up for yourself...                          stop being such a pussy and kick                          those kids in the balls or something.                              (pause)                         Or don't, I don't give a shit. Just                          leave me the hell out of it.                                     KID                         'Kay. Thanks, Santa.                                     WILLIE                         Okay, go ahead...               He slaps the Kid paternally on the ass.                                     WILLIE                         ...Get the fuck outta here...                                     KID                         'Kay...               As the Kid putters away:                                     MARCUS                              (happy again)                         Time for the next lucky boy or girl                          to --               Marcus returns to the velvet rope to find Gin Slagel waiting                stone-faced.                                     MARCUS                         What gives? Where's the grandson?                                     GIN                         Open the rope there, Marcus.               Marcus, wary, hesitates but then lets him through. As they                walk toward Willie:                                     MARCUS                         I know you?                                     GIN                         Not yet.               Willie is irked by the arrival of an adult:                                     WILLIE                         Santa don't do grab-ass, cowboy.                                     GIN                         Act natural.                                     WILLIE                         Huh? What?               Gin sits on Willie's knee.                                     WILLIE                         ...What the fuck?!                                     GIN                         You are Willie Tugboat Soke and you                          are Marcus "The Prince" Skidmore. On                          Christmas Eve, you're gonna rob this                          store blind. What say we go somewhere                          private?               INT. BLACK ANGUS BAR - NIGHT               Willie, Marcus and Gin sit in a booth.                                     GIN                         Research, that's how. I'm a department                          store detective Sherlock, that's                          what I do. Seven cities in seven                          years. Pretty impressive. The stores                          change, your names change. You always                          get away clean. Yeah, pretty darn                          impressive. But let's face facts --                          you all are a couple of half-bucket                          small-timers. Because of your physical                          attributes you've found a niche. I                          respect that. But you've also been                          caught. By me. So this is the way                          how we gonna do things. I don't want                          to take over, I don't even want to                          change your scam. Whatever you guys                          do, it works. All I want is a taste.                          When the deed is done, we part ways.                          I buy a ranch in Havasu, you take                          your little medicine show back on                          the road.                                     MARCUS                              (sighs)                         How much?                                     GIN                         Half.               Willie bolts out of his chair and grabs Gin by the neck.                                     WILLIE                         Now you listen here, you --               Marcus pulls him off.                                     MARCUS                         Easy! Easy! Just back off, Willie. I                          can handle this.               After a hard stare Willie settles back into his seat. Marcus                turns his attention to Gin:                                     MARCUS                         Okay. Thirty percent. There's three                          of us. Thirty percent. That's fair.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         I meant thirty-three.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         And a third.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Thirty-five.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Forty.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Forty-two?                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Forty-two five.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Fooooooorty... eight.                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Forty-nine?                                     GIN                         Half.                                     MARCUS                         Well...               Marcus sighs.                                     MARCUS                         ...what's one point.                                     GIN                         Down the middle on the dough, and                          any merchandise you take I look over                          and cherry-pick.                                     MARCUS                         No! Money's one thing, but ó--                                     GIN                         It ain't Chinese menu, jagoff. I                          tell yea how the way it's gonna be.                          This is pricks ficks.               Gin leaves. Marcus and Willie stare at his retreating back                as they talk:                                     WILLIE                         ...Pricks ficks?                                     MARCUS                         Ah, he's a fuckin' moron.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, well I guess that's how you                          got the upper hand.                                     MARCUS                         Fuck you.                                     WILLIE                         Negotiating.                                     MARCUS                         Fuck you -- you don't like it, next                          year, fuck off. I can always get                          another box jockey.                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, and I can get another midget.               Marcus turns to Willie:                                     MARCUS                         Yeah? Where? You see us hangin' off                          of fuckin' trees? Like fuckin' crab                          apples? And even if we did, you'd                          never front your own racket. 'Cause                          you got no discipline and zero fuckin'                          initiative. You'd fall apart without                          me. You're just too fuckin' pathetic --                                     WILLIE                         Yeah, yeah.                                     MARCUS                         -- too fuckin' pathetic for words,                          you fuckin' loser. And you fuckin'                          know it.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - NIGHT               Willie drags his ass through the front door, dejected.                                     GRANDMA                         Roger! You're home. Let me fix you                          some sandwiches.               He stares at her. His gaze is far away. Finally, he seems to                rouse himself:                                     WILLIE                         Ah, fuck it.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - GARAGE - NIGHT               IN C.U. CAMERA MOVES ALONG               a hose snaking from an exhaust pipe to the driver's window                which is open just far enough to admit it.               In his Santa suit, Willie sits in the driver's seat of the                idling car, staring through the windshield.               After a long beat, we hear a door opening.               The kid stands in the doorway from the house. He looks at                Willie, motionless in the car.                                     KID                         ...Santa?               Willie's eyes do not leave the spot in space:                                     WILLIE                         Yeah.                                     KID                         What're you doing?                                     WILLIE                         Ah, nothin'.                                     KID                         You goin' to work today?                                     WILLIE                         Not really.                                     KID                         You just gonna sit there?                                     WILLIE                         Yeah. Lemme alone.               The Kid turns to go. Willie bestirs himself:                                     WILLIE                         -- Kid.                                     KID                         Yeah.               Willie beckons him.                                     WILLIE                         Later today, when the paramedics                          come and bag up Santa...               He displays an envelope.                                     WILLIE                         ...make sure the cops get this letter.                          It tells about all the bad things                          that -- that -- what the fuck happened                          to your eye?               The Kid's eye is indeed black and blue. He reaches self-               consciously up to it.                                     KID                         Umm...                                     WILLIE                         Well goddamnit...               EXT. HILL NEAR SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - DAY               We are pulling an eight-year-old child who rides his bicycle                along the sidewalk, looking off, struck by what he sees.               He slows and then comes to a stop having pulled even with a                group of other children gathered on the sidewalk also looking                off at the same spot. They stare for a good long beat,                expressions rather neutral. But the sight, whatever it is,                holds their attention.               Finally one in the foreground remarks:                                     KID                         I didn't know he did that.               Their POV: rather distant, on a grassy hill a man in a Santa                suit is pounding the shit out of the bullies. One of the                bullies throws a punch, but Santa grabs his fist and pushes                him down. Santa puts his foot on another bully's butt and                sends him flying. After more wrestling and flinging about,                the bullies wind up in a heap on the ground.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - LOCKER ROOM -DAY               Willie, a faraway look in his eye, sits on a bench near                Marcus, who is finishing putting on his elf outfit.                                     WILLIE                         I think I've turned a corner.                                     MARCUS                              (absent)                         Yeah? You fucking Petites now?               Willie, dreamy, refuses to take the bait:                                     WILLIE                         No no. No; I beat the crap out of                          some kids today -- but, you know,                          for a purpose. It really made me                          feel pretty good about myself --                          like I did something constructive                          for a change. Accomplished somethin'.               Marcus stares at him.                                     MARCUS                         ...You need many years of therapy.                          Many, many, many, many, many... many                          fucking years of therapy.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MAIN FLOOR - FURS - DAY               Lois, her face set in pruney disapproval, flips slowly through                a rack of furs.               A salesman approaches from behind her. She somehow senses                his presence; without bothering to look around she murmurs:                                     LOIS                         Just looking...               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - NIGHT               Willie and Sue come in, carrying a few bottles of liquor.               Willie closes the door, and freezes, realizing that something                is wrong.                                     WILLIE                         ...Hello?               Nothing.                                     WILLIE                         ...Granma?               He hears the TV and heads for the living room. Sue follows a                few steps behind.               Willie finds Grandma in her chair, not moving.                                     WILLIE                         Granma...               He strains through the dim light for any evidence of life.                                     WILLIE                         ...Oh jeez.               He lets out a sigh and leans in close to listen to her heart.                                     SUE                         Oh my God...                                     GRANDMA                         Roger!               Willie jumps and screams like a girl.                                     GRANDMA                         ...You're home. Let me fix you some                          sandwiches.               She gets up and heads for the kitchen as Willie tries to                compose himself.                                     WILLIE                              (holding his chest)                         No thanks.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - KID'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               The Kid sleeps. He is awakened by the sounds of stumbling                and CLANKING BOTTLES. He hears GIGGLING, more STUMBLING. He                gets up.               INT. THE'KID'S HOUSE - HALLWAY - NIGHT               The Kid discovers some clothes. Then some more. He follows                the trail of clothes towards the sounds coming from the Master                Bedroom.               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT               Facing the CAMERA, Willie's in his underpants and Santa hat                lying on the floor on top of Sue. He's gripping her panties                with his teeth -- stretching the elastic while he starts                pulling them down. Sue's giggling.               The bedroom door opens behind them and the Kid walks in. He                comes up and stands over them, a few steps behind Willie.               Willie freezes, panty elastic waistband still stretched out                in his teeth. He senses something, and his eyes look up from                under his Santa hat, his wolfish smile fades.               The Kid stands there, hands behind his back.                                     SUE                              (lifting her head up)                         Hello little boy.                                     KID                         Hello. Santa?                                     WILLIE                              (frozen; teeth still                               gripping panties)                         ...yes?                                     KID                         I know that Christmas Eve is in a                          couple days and you have to fly around                          and give presents to the world and                          after that you won't be around no                          more.                                     WILLIE                         ...Yes?                                     KID                         So I thought I'd give you your present                          now.               The Kid takes his hands from behind his back and extends a                small present in crudely taped-up wrapping paper.               This forces Willie to let go of the panties. They SNAP back.               He sits up. He takes the gift and opens it. Inside is a                roughly whittled crescent of brown wood.                                     WILLIE                              (mumble)                         What the fuck is it?                                     KID                         A wooden pickle.               Willie stares at it.                                     WILLIE                         Why'd you paint it brown?                                     KID                         Not paint. It's blood from when I                          cut my hand when I was making it for                          you.               Willie stares at it.                                     WILLIE                         ...Thanks.                                     KID                         You're welcome. Good night Santa.                          Good night Mrs. Santa's sister.               He leaves.               Willie still stares at the gift. Sue is looking where the                Kid exited.                                     SUE                         That was very nice. He's really a                          nice kid, isn't he?               She goes back to grabbing him passionately.               Willie has trouble speaking.                                     WILLIE                         Hold on a minute.                                     SUE                         What?                                     WILLIE                         Nothin'... it's just... I'm... well...                          I'm sorta... fucking... touched.               He looks from the wooden pickle up to Sue, his eyes brim,                and he starts weeping.                                     WILLIE                         ...I don't know if I can fuck...               Sue hugs him and strokes his hair.                                     SUE                         That's okay. That's okay.               Willie abjectly bawls:                                     WILLIE                         BABY, I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN FUCK!                                     SUE                         There, there... There, there...               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - KITCHEN - MORNING               Willie, hungover, half-dressed in his Santa outfit for work.               He fumbles in the refrigerator for some orange juice.               The Kid comes up behind him clutching a document.                                     KID                         SANTA!               Willie jumps with a start.                                     KID                         You wanna see my report card?               Willie takes the report card as he tries to compose himself.               He looks at it. All C's and one B.                                     KID                         Think I did good?               Willie's eyes drift back to the card and settle on COMMENTS.               They read, "Thurman has an active, inquiring mind. And no                friends."                                     WILLIE                         Who the fuck is Thurman? This is                          you? Your name's Thurman?                                     KID                         Yeah.                                     WILLIE                              (incredulous)                         Thurman Merman?!                                     KID                         Yeah.                                     WILLIE                         Jesus.                                     KID                              (back to the report                               card)                         You think I did good?               Willie does not want to engage.                                     WILLIE                         Whaddya you care what I think, anyway?                              (pause, relenting a                               bit)                         What do I fuckin' know? Better than                          I ever did. I never got any B's,                                     KID                         I thought maybe since at least I did                          good in school, you'll bring me a                          present this year. 'Cause last                          Christmas and the one before that                          you didn't bring no presents...               This is a lot for Willie to hear.                                     WILLIE                         Oh...                                     KID                         ...Even though I'm a dipshit loser.                                     WILLIE                              (a beat, then explodes)                         Jesus Fucking Christ, Kid! Why do                          talk about yourself like that? What                          the fuck is that about?! What's with                          you anyway? I ain't Fucking Santa                          Claus! Look at me, I am living fucking                          proof that there ain't no Santa Claus!               Pause.                                     KID                         I know there's no Santa. I just                          thought maybe you'd wanna give me a                          present 'cause we're friends.                                     WILLIE                         Oh...               An uncomfortable silence. Willie is most uncomfortable.                                     WILLIE                              (pause, then sincerely                               to the kid)                         Look, kicking the shit out of those                          kids, that's as generous as I can                          get.               The Kid just nods and doesn't say anything. Willie can't                take it.                                     WILLIE                         JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, I GOTTA GO TO                          WORK!               Willie runs out of the room very upset,               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - FOYER - MORNING               Willie grabs a bottle of whiskey off the counter and hurries                out, slamming the door.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - DAY               Marcus checks his watch impatiently as the endless line of                excited children and their parents impatiently murmurs.               The tension is suffocating Marcus. Finally, a gasp goes up                from the crowd.               Marcus looks up to see Willie, totally shit-faced. His costume                is half on, his undergarments are showing, and his hand                clutches the neck of a broken bottle.                                     MARCUS                         No.               Willie stumbles over a burro and falls into a pile of fake                snow. He rises to his feet and begins to pummel the statue.                                     WILLIE                         You fuckin' spic!               Children scream in horror as mothers cover their eyes.               Gin enters the Wonderland and takes in the spectacle.                                     GIN                         Sweet Jews for Jesus...               Willie finishes dispatching the burro and stumbles to his                Santa chair. Marcus stomps up to him.                                     MARCUS                         Holy motherfuck. What do you think                          you're doing?                                     WILLIE                              (sobbing)                         I pissed my pants!               Marcus pounces on him.                                     MARCUS                         You son of a bitch!               Gin pulls Marcus off.                                     GIN                         Alright, let's get him out of here.                          I'll go smooth this over with                          Chipeska. Food poisoning, something.               The two men face each other, their voices rising. Beyond                them we see the line of children staring at them.                                     MARCUS                         What do you mean, get him out of                          here?                                     GIN                         Take him to his car.                                     MARCUS                         In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a                          motherfuckin' dwarf. So unless you                          got a forklift handy, maybe you should                          lend a hand.                                     GIN                         That figures, you wantin' all kinds                          of set-asides and special treatment                          'cause of your handicap. You're all                          the same.                                     MARCUS                         Special treatment? I'm three fucking                          feet tall, asshole -- it's a matter                          of physics! Draw me a sketch how I                          get him to the car!               Gin notices the line of kids staring. He puts up a sign that                reads: "Santa Has Gone To Feed His Reindeer. He'll be back                soon".                                     GIN                         Bitch, bitch.                                     MARCUS                         Sketch it up, fuckin' moron. Fuckin'                          Leonardo da Vinci.                                     GIN                         What did you call me, thigh-high?                                     MARCUS                         I called you a fuckin' guinea Homo.                          From the fifteenth fuckin' century.                                     GIN                         I could stick you up my ass, smallfry.                                     MARCUS                         Yeah? You sure it ain't too sore                          from last night?                                     GIN                         You got some lip on you, midget.                                     MARCUS                         Well it was on your wife's pussy                          last night. Why don't you dust that                          thing once in a while. Asshole.               INT. MARCUS' VAN - PARKING LOT - DUSK               Marcus sits with Lois in the van staking out the door to                Chamberlain's, waiting for Gin to leave.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - DUSK               WILLIE sleeps it off behind a flimsy cardboard set.               INT. MARCUS' VAN - PARKING LOT - DUSK               Marcus and Lois continue their stake-out.               We see Gin exit the store and head for his car.                                     MARCUS                         There he is... that lousy,                          leatherfaced, dago motherfucker...               EXT. QUIET ROAD - NIGHT               Marcus stands by the side of his van. It's parked on the                shoulder with the hood up, jumper cables attached and hanging.                Lois is in the driver's seat.               Gin's Ford 4 X 4 speeds around the corner and Marcus flags                him down.               SCREEEEECH! Gin slams on the brakes, then backs up and pulls                over. He emerges from the 4 X 4 with road rage on full brew,                and strides over to the van.                                     GIN                         Jesus, Mother Mary and Joseph! What                          in the name of the holy lord Fuck is                          the problem now?                                     MARCUS                         Sorry, the van stalled. Give us a                          jump will ya?                                     GIN                         Well, I'll be dipped in dogshit!...                          What am I, your auto mechanic now?               He shakes his head in disgust. Grumbling, he goes back to                the 4 X 4 and drives it into position. He gets out and raises                the hood.               The two vehicles face each other nose-to-nose, several feet                apart as Gin opens the hood.                                     GIN                              (motions to his battery)                         Help yourself, small fry.               Marcus seems to have a little difficulty reaching the battery                terminals.                                     MARCUS                         It's hard for me to reach...               Gin grabs the cables from him. Marcus takes a few steps back.                                     GIN                         Jesus Christ, give me those!                                     MARCUS                         Thanks.               Gin attaches the cables.                                     GIN                              (then, to Lois)                         Alright, TRY IT!               Lois turns the key and the van starts right up. Gin takes                the cables off the van and closes the hood. He lights up a                Pall Mall.               Marcus signals to Lois. She puts the car into gear and stomps                her foot on the accelerator, squashing Gin between the two                vehicles.               ANGLE PROM INSIDE VAN (SLOW MOTION):               Gin's face as it's squooshed up against the van's windshield.               A cloud of cigarette smoke escapes his lips.               Lois continues to step on the gas, trying to crush him.               ANGLE ON: the tires spinning in the gravel.               Finally, she takes her foot off the gas. The van eases back.               Gin falls to the ground with a groan. Marcus steps up and                leans over him.                                     MARCUS                         Oh my, what a terrible accident!                                     LOIS                         Is he dead?                                     MARCUS                         No, but it looks like you broke most                          of his ribs.               Then, leaning down to Gin.                                     MARCUS                              (for Gin's benefit)                         I'd say maybe... fifty percent of                          them? Or do you think thirty percent?                                     LOIS                         I needed more of a running start --                          I couldn't build up any speed.               Marcus paces around trying to figure out what to do next.                                     MARCUS                              (shaking his head in                               dismay)                         Motherfuck!               He grabs the jumper cables still connected to Gin's 4 X 4                and clamps the other ends on Gin's ears. A small jolt and a                spark or two. Only a minor shock.                                     MARCUS                         Shit!               He grabs Gin's arm and with great effort drags him over a                few feet so that his head is positioned behind the front                tire of the van. Gin tries to crawl out of the way.               ANGLE ON: Gin's feet slipping on the gravel.                                     MARCUS                         Put it in reverse.               ANGLE ON: shift level moving into REVERSE.               ANGLE ON: Lois' foot stepping on the gas pedal.               WIDER: Lois drives backwards. There's a bump and the sound                of a dull POP.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - NEXT DAY               CLOSE-UP: A large bubble gum bubble pops.               Willie, in a self-medicated stupor, barely managing to hold                a wailing toddler on his lap. Bubble gum is all over the                Kid's face.                                     WILLIE                         'Tendo it is.               He passes the child off to Marcus, who holds it as Willie                gazes off and murmurs;                                     WILLIE                         ...Everything I touch turns to shit                          and dies.               Marcus, still holding the child, quickly glances around, and                then hisses into Willie's ear:                                     MARCUS                         What are you, drinking Sterno now?                          'Cause you're sounding like my Aunt                          Tilly right before she smeared her                          own shit on the bedroom walls and we                          had to lock her up and she spent the                          rest of her life with a shaved head                          and eating lunch through a tube up                          her nose...               Willie continues to stare, head swaying.                                     MARCUS                         ...You better be in shape by this                          evening, fat man. After tonight, I                          don't give a shit. But this is the                          time to reach deep down and suck it                          up.               Marcus hands the kid to his Mother. He smiles warmly.                                     MARCUS                         ...Lovely boy.               INT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - NIGHT               "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" plays as a buzzing throng of people                crams the mall.               One current in this sea of humanity flows into the bedecked                entrance of Chamberlain's Department Store.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - ENTRANCE - NIGHT               Jesse the security guard is at his post near the doors to                the parking lot. He smiles and waves farewell to departing                shoppers.                                     INTERCOM (V.O.)                         Attention shoppers, the store will                          be closing in five minutes. We wish                          you all a Merry Christmas, Happy                          Chanukah and a joyous Kwanza.               Behind Jesse, in Men's Wear, is Lois, wearing a frown of                pruney disapproval. Seeing that he's not looking, she                inexplicably nudges a table of sweaters a few feet over.               SQUEEEEEEEAK! The table makes a loud noise, but it's too                chaotic on the floor for anyone to notice. Satisfied with                her placement of the table, Lois heads out the door.               INT. CHAMBERAIN'S - WINTER WONDERLAND - NIGHT               Bleary-eyed Willie puts down a little girl and she happily                scampers off.                                     WILLIE                         Barbie it is...               Willie turns to Marcus.                                     WILLIE                         ...That it?               Marcus moves the backdrop to reveal the air vent.                                     MARCUS                         Let's go.               Willie cracks open an ampule of Amyl Nitrate and inhales                deeply. Marcus grimaces:                                     MARCUS                         ...Oh Christ.                                     WILLIE                              (red-faced, holding                               breath)                         Let's do it.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MAIN FLOOR - NIGHT               With the sound of closing circuits, banks of light                systematically shut down in the various departments of the                now empty.store.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - ENTRANCE - NIGHT               Exhausted employees file out of the store past Jesse.               Eventually Willie emerges.                                     JESSE                         Merry Christmas, Willie.                                     WILLIE                         Up your ass.               Jesse heads for the alarm panel near the doorway and punches                the key labeled ARM. An LED readout labeled ARMING counts                down from 30 seconds.               Jesse exits the store, locking the door and heading home.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - CUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICES - NIGHT               The cubicles are now empty and the office is still, but we                hear dwarf-shimmy in the ducts overhead.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S ENTRANCE - NIGHT               By the front door, the alarm continues to count down -- 25...                24...               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - AIR DUCT - NIGHT               Marcus arrives at the vent above the surveillance room. He                reaches in his pocket, pulls out the remote control Lois                bought, and aims it down into the room.               INT. CHAMBERLAN'S - SURVEILLANCE ROOM - NIGHT               The huge bank of VCRs powers down.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S ENTRANCE - NIGHT               ALARM BOX               19... 18...                INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - AIR DUCT - NIGHT               Marcus arrives at the precipice of a descending duct. He                snaps on a biking helmet and takes a deep breath.                                     MARCUS                         All right...               He dives down the duct.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - AIR DUCTS - NIGHT               We PAN and WHIP-PIVOT along the outside of several lengths                of ductwork, following the muffled SCREAM of a thousand                girlies echoing inside.               The ductwork dimples out along the bottom with the WUBBA                sound of flopping aluminum as Marcus's weight travels its                length; at turns, Marcus's inertial force makes one side of                the duct momentarily dent out.               We thus follow Marcus's progress as he slides, bumps,                ricochets and barrels through the department store.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MAIN FLOOR - ENTRANCE - NIGHT               As the alarm continues to count down, 12... 11... a distant               scream grows louder until --               -- in nearby Men's Wear, the vent in the 30-foot ceiling                bursts open and --               -- Marcus drops from the duct.               THUD! He lands on the table of sweaters placed by Lois.               In a split-second, he sits up and looks at the alarm box.               7... 6...               He hops off the table and pushes it toward the alarm box.               5... 4...                The far side of the table smashes into the wall beneath the                alarm box.               Marcus kicks out the collapsible legs on the near side, making                that edge of the table crash to the ground, creating a ramp.               He sprints away from the table spins, and runs back towards                it...               3... 2...                He runs up the ramp and --               1...                -- leaps and slaps the CANCEL button -- just in time.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - OFFICES - NIGHT               DING! Elevator doors open to reveal Willie and Marcus holding                sections of the disassembled water drill.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - ACCOUNTING OFFICE - NIGHT               The lights flicker on in the accounting office as Willie and                Marcus wheel the water drill over to the safe. Once they get                it there:                                     WILLIE                         Oh shit...                                     MARCUS                         What? What-What-WHAT-WHAT?                                     WILLIE                         It's a Kitnerboy Redoubt.                                     MARCUS                         So?               Willie stares at the safe.                                     WILLIE                         ...You know Andy Pitts?                                     MARCUS                         Yeah, Andy Pizzarelli?                                     WILLIE                         No, Andy Lapitski. Andy Pizzarelli                          is Andy Blue Balls.                                     MARCUS                         Huh-uh, since he got married they                          call him An -- WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING                          POINT?                                     WILLIE                         Andy Lapitski can get into anything.                          Anything. They say he's been in                          Margaret Thatcher's pussy.                                     MARCUS                         Yeah? YEAH?                                     WILLIE                         In the joint he told me that the                          Kitnerboy...               He nods at the safe.                                     WILLIE                         ...cannot be cracked.                                     MARCUS                         ARE YOU FUCKIN' SHITTIN' ME?! Are                          you tellin' me after I've propped                          you up and held you together and                          smiled for all those kids and danced                          for all those fucking housewives in                          a fucking lime-green fucking velvet                          elf costume YOU CANNOT GET IN THAT                          FUCKING SAFE? ARE YOU FUCKING TELLING                          ME THAT?               Willie continues to stare at the safe. He licks his lips.                                     WILLIE                         No... I'm saying it's gonna take me                          a minute.               INT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - MONTAGE - NIGHT               Willie stares at the safe while rubbing sandpaper to his                fingertips.               Meanwhile, Marcus emerges from a stockroom with a cart to                begin his shopping spree.               Willie applies a stethoscope to the safe, tapping with one                hand and listening intently.               Marcus starts in Ladies' Accessories, finding the cashmere                scarf.               Willie applies the drill to the safe.               Marcus makes his way through Lingerie.               Willie pulls back the drill. The bit is trashed, the safe is                completely unscathed.               Marcus is in Shoes picking out pumps for Lois.               Willie is in Home Improvement, flipping tools off the shelves                into a cart of his own.               Marcus is in Evening Wear, jumping to try to pull a stole                off a mannequin.               Willie batters a chisel into the seam of the safe door.               Marcus continues to leap at the mannequin.               Willie is atop the safe, swinging a sledgehammer at the lock.               Marcus swings at the mannequin's knees with a golf club.               Willie uses a plasma welder on the safe.               Marcus, having chopped down the mannequin, drags off its                stole.               Willie is back over the safe, battering it with the                sledgehammer, roaring with each swing.               Marcus is in Housewares pilfering crock pots.               Willie, sweating, drops the sledgehammer clanking to the                floor. Wiping his forehead, he circles the safe. When he                gets to the back of the safe he stops, thinks.               Marcus is in Home Entertainment grabbing a stereo.               Willie is hunched at the back of the safe, stethoscope to                its surface, giving exploratory taps with two knuckles.               Sound perspective through the stethoscope: hollow THUNKS                followed by an unnaturally loud and present CREEEEEEEEAK.               Willie reacts quizzically. After a considering moment he                rises. we can see, on the far side of the safe, its door as                it finishes creaking open.               Marcus enters the room. Willie looks at him.                                     WILLIE                         Piece of cake.               Marcus starts removing stacks of cash and loading them into                the Santa sack. Willie wipes sweat off his forehead.                                     WILLIE                         ...I'll be right back. I gotta grab                          one thing.               INT. CHAMBERLAN'S - TOY DEPT. - NIGHT               We are looking at a big, fuzzy, smiling, pink stuffed                elephant.               Willie's hand hesitates between this elephant and the one                behind, which is purple. We hear him muttering:                                     WILLIE                         Shit... which did he say?               The hand finally leaves with the purple elephant.               We hold for a long beat.               The hand reenters to put back the purple and take the pink.               Willie turns around holding the stuffed elephant.               Marcus and Lois are standing there presenting a grotesque                picture: Lois has a shopping cart filled with shoes, scarves,                jewels, a salad spinner, purses, a block of Ginsu knives, an                abdomen exerciser. She wears a pair of sunglasses from which                a price tag dangles, and a long ermine stole.               Next to her Marcus holds the Santa bag bulging with -- indeed,                sprouting -- cash.                                     WILLIE                         Well, I don't think that store dick                          is gonna want this.                                     MARCUS                         Store dick don't want shit.               Something in this picture makes Willie uneasy. He licks his                lips.                                     WILLIE                         Wuddya mean, fucking guy's greedier                          than...               He pauses, searching.                                     WILLIE                         ...greedier than fuck.               Marcus and Lois are statues, staring at him.                                     MARCUS                         Store dick dead. Store dick don't                          want shit.               A long silence.                                     MARCUS                         ...Fuck the fuckin' store dick.               Willie's tone is wooden:                                     WILLIE                         Dead, huh...               Again, he licks his lips.                                     WILLIE                         ...I didn't even know he was sick.               Marcus flicks his coat front away and pulls a .45 out of his                waistband.                                     MARCUS                         Willie. This has been a long time                          comin'.                                     WILLIE                         Uh-huh.                                     MARCUS                         Every year you're worse. Every year,                          less reliable. More booze. More                          bullshit. More butt-fucking.                                     WILLIE                         Sure. The three B'a.                                     MARCUS                         You gotta be able to rely, Willie.               He primes the gun. Willie murmurs, more in sadness than in                fear:                                     WILLIE                         You're monsters.               Marcus points the gun.                                     MARCUS                         Believe me, Willie: there's no joy                          in this for me.                                     WILLIE                         Oh, I don't mean layin' me out. I                          understand that. But just look at                          ya. All the shit... grabbin' all                          this shit -- do you really need all                          this junk? ...This is Christmas?               Marcus sneers:                                     MARCUS                         Oh please. Don't gimme that trite                          "commercialism" crap. This is what                          we do, Willie. We get the shit.                          Christmas time, we get the shit.                          Because we are men. And Lois. It is                          Christmas, Willie, and we are men,                          and Lois.               A silence.                                     LOIS                         ...Wuddya waitin' for, honey? Plug                          him.               Marcus sighs.                                     MARCUS                         Good-bye, Willie.               He aims. Willie squeezes his eyes shut.               From nowhere:                                     MEGAPHONE VOICE (O.S.)                         Drop the gun, munchkin!                                     MARCUS                         Huh? !               CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK -- the sound of many guns                priming.               Police everywhere.                                     MEGAPHONE VOICE                         And you, Santa! -- drop the elephant!               Willie stares. Marcus looks wildly around.                                     MARCUS                         ...Where did you come from?                                     CHIEF                         Tipped off.                                     WILLIE                         Shit!               CAMERA TRACKS IN ON HIS FACE               Willie slaps his forehead.                                     WILLIE                         ...Fuckin' kid!                                     CHIEF                         All three of you are in so much shit                          it's almost unbelievable.                                     LOIS                         Gevalt.                                     MARCUS                         Oh yeah? Well come'n get us, coppers!                          Ha-ha-ha-ha!               BANG! BANG! BANG!               His .45 roars.               The cops return fire.                                     WILLIE                         Fuck me...               He ducks, clutching the elephant to his chest, and scurries                behind a counter.                                     WILLIE                         ...fuck me fuck me fuck me...               Gunfire fills the air.               Exploding merchandise chases along the counter behind Willie                as the cops seek to put him down.               Under the gunfire we hear Marcus's maniacal laughter.               Willie reaches the end of the counter. A brief open space                separates him from a stairwell; he dashes across as gunfire                redoubles and plunges down the stairs.               EXT. CHAMBERLAIN'S - LOADING DOCK - NIGHT               Willie bursts out onto the loading dock still holding the                elephant. He dives into his Mercedes and peels out.               EXT. SAGUARO SQUARE MALL - PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Rounding the corner of the loading dock, Willie comes upon a                fleet of squad cars idling in the street. Cops yell, draw                their guns and fire as Willie clips a couple cars, skids and                slues, and finally is clear of the pack.               He roars up the road as policemen leap for their vehicles,                crank up their sirens and pursue.               INT. MERCEDES - MOVING - NIGHT               Willie drives, his jaw set, a desperate man in a Santa suit.               He glances up at the rearview which shows many flashing light                bars.                                     WILLIE                         ...It's Christmas... and the fucking                          kid is getting his present.               EXT. THE KID'S HOUSE - NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHT               Willie's car corners onto Sage Terrace on two wheels, slams                back down onto four, fishtails up to the kid's house and                squeals braking into its driveway.               The police vehicles, in hot pursuit, squeal, skid, and slew                around in a jumble at the foot of the lawn. Cops leap out of                their cars just as Willie jumps from his.                                     MEGAPHONE VOICE                         Halt, put your hands up!               Willie is sprinting up the walk toward the front door. His                voice echoes lone and weak after the boom of the megaphone:                                     WILLIE                         Up your ass!               He bounds up the stoop.                                     POLICE VOICE                         All right, boys -- nail him!               A ripple of gunfire.               At the top of the stoop, facing the door, Willie staggers,                rolls his eyes, and -- drops.               NEARBY WINDOW               Drawn by the noise, an adorable six-year-old in a nearby                house slides open his second-story bedroom window to look.               HIS HIGH POV:               Frozen in a semi-circle at the foot of the neighboring lawn,                an army of cops has guns trained on the felled Santa Claus,                who is sprawled on the neighbor's stoop, motionless. His                hand stretches toward the front door holding a fluffy pink                elephant un-delivered...               The six year old draws in his breath and SCREAMS.               He is joined by his equally adorable little brother and sister                who look, and SCREAM, with him.               Somewhere, a neighborhood dog barks.               A Cop looks up at the window and the three shrieking children.                                     COP                         Somebody put a zipper on those fuckin'                          kids!                                                                  FADE OUT:               INT. THE KID'S HOUSE - DAY               After a long beat, Willie's voice:                                     WILLIE (V.O.)                         Dear kid. I hope that you got my                          present and that there wasn't too                          much blood on it, although there was                          blood on the present you gave me                          which didn't keep me from enjoying                          it, so maybe the blood doesn't matter                          so much I guess.               We are FADING IN on a shelf in the Kid's bedroom where the                stuffed elephant sits, in a place of honor, its fur indeed                stiff and stained with dried blood. The Kid's bedroom is no                longer in disarray, things are neat and comfy. We PAN OFF of                it to find this letter, crudely handwritten, tacked up on a                little bulletin board.                                     WILLIE (V.O.)                         ...Anyway, just in case they took it                          as evidence I am also sending you a                          T-shirt. I hope it's the right size.                          I am healing up good and they tell                          me that I will soon be one hundred                          percent even with eight bullets dug                          out of me because they didn't hit                          any vital organs, just my liver which                          is fucked anyway, ha-ha-ha. Anyways...               Our CONTINUING PAN brings us to the open door of the bedroom                and we hear the sound of the TV in the living room. We TRACK                toward it.                                     WILLIE (V.O.)                         ...Thank you for giving that letter                          to the cops. I forgot I asked you to                          do it but it's a good thing you did                          or Santa's little helper would've                          plugged his ass. And now the cops                          know I wrote it, which is gonna keep                          my ass out of jail. That, plus                          everyone agreeing that the Phoenix                          police department shooting an unarmed                          Santa was even more fucked-up than                          Rodney King. The cops are treating                          me like fucking royalty now which is                          new in my experience. They are gonna                          make me a sensitivity counselor so                          that tragedies like this will never                          again embarrass the whole fucking                          department. Whatever.               Grandma is in the living room watching TV. We TRACK past her                towards the Jacuzzi area.                                     WILLIE                         ...As for my little helper, I am                          sorry to have to tell you that him                          and his prune-faced mail-order-wife                          are gonna be exploring mountains                          with your dad. I hope your dad doesn't                          go sucking shit from them like I                          did. Meanwhile, I told the cops you                          had no one to take the fuck care of                          you, so they set it up with Mrs.                          Santa's sister watching you till                          your Dad gets back in one year and                          three months. They made her a Guardian                          Pro-Temp or some such shit... anyway,                          she makes better money than bartending                          and seems to like you and your house                          and Jacuzzi.               Sue is in a towel, holding a highball as she climbs out of                the Jacuzzi. The Kid walks by her carrying a bucket. She                tousles his hair affectionately as he goes by. He's never                looked better.               WE TRACK TOWARDS THE FOYER. It's empty but the front door is                open. We TRACK towards it.               We go out the front door...                                     WILLIE (V.O.)                         ...So I'll be staying in Phoenix                          now, telling the police how screwed-                         up they are which is not a bad job                          as jobs go. They're supposed to let                          me out of this hospital room soon so                          I'll see you when I come over to                          fuck Mrs. Santa's sister in the                          Jacuzzi. Until then, don't take no                          shit from nobody. Least of all                          yourself. Anyways... see ya soon...               The Kid is dipping a toilet-bowl brush into a bucket of soapy                water on the front stoop.                                     WILLIE (V.O.)                         ...Santa.               As the Kid turns and hunkers down to scrub the dried blood                off the stoop, we see the back of his T-shirt. SHIT HAPPENS                WHEN YOU PARTY NAKED.                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
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+                                  BAD TEACHER                                  Written by                        Lee Eisenberg & Gene Stupnitsky                                                    June 6, 2008                                                  FADE IN:          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - DAY          To establish.          A school marquee with removable plastic letters reads,          "GOOD LUCK WITH FINALS!" A JANITOR opens the glass and          starts removing the letters.          INT. TEACHER'S LOUNGE - DAY          POP! A Champagne cork hits the ceiling.          TEACHERS who rarely get to drink at work, jockey for          position, holding out their plastic flutes. (Note:          female teachers outnumber male teachers 12:1.)          PRINCIPAL WALLY SNUR, 40s, balding, faces the teachers.          He has a habit of blinking hard before speaking.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Well, it's been another great year here          at JAMS. Who can forget Mr. Pinkus'          haunted classroom? Sandy, thank you.          SANDY PINKUS, 40s, sporting a ponytail, smiles, clearly          enjoying the small compliment.                         SANDY          I ain't afraid of no ghost.          The other teachers laugh.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Or the wild success of...          VOICE (O.C.)          Wally, can I just say one quick thing?          Wally turns to AMY SQUIRREL, late 20s, cute and          wholesome. Any trace of sexuality she might have is          wiped away by her adult pigtails. She treats students          and adults alike -- like students.                         AMY          Just wanted to remind everyone the school          day's not over. So let's keep the          drinking under control, hmm? That's it.          Back to you, Wally.          A bunch of teacher roll their eyes.                                                                                                                             PRINCIPAL SNUR          Thanks, Amy,          (then, back to his notes)          . Or the wild success of the book drive          for the women's prison sponsored by Ms.          Savicki's class?          A broad-shouldered teacher with spiky hair, MS. SAVICKI, nods.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          But now as the summer is upon us, it's          time to not only say goodbye to another          school year, but to also say goodbye to a          member of our faculty.                         (BEAT)          Elizabeth, can you come up here?          ELIZABETH HALSEY, mid 20s, pretty and petite, walks up to          the front. She sports an enormous diamond ring and dresses          slightly more cosmopolitan than the other teachers.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          You've only been with us for one short          year, but know that you'll always be a          part of the JAMS family.          Elizabeth gives Principal Snur an appreciative smile.          The Teachers lightly applaud.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          And we got you a little something.          Wally hands Elizabeth an envelope. She opens it and.          pulls out a gift card: BOSTON MARKET. $37.                         ELIZABETH          Almost forty dollars. Thank you!                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Why don't you say a couple words?                         ELIZABETH          Okay. Um... I'm not really good at this          type of thing so I'll make it quick. I          know I've only been here a year, but          there's so much I'm going to miss...          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          Elizabeth sits at her desk, cleaning it out. She's tossing          the few personal effects she has into a banker's box.                                                                                                              3.          ELIZABETH (V.0.)          My students, probably most of all.I'm not          saying they were little angels, butthey          were all there to learn and that'sthe          greatest gift a student can give a teacher.          Elizabeth's class is horsing around, enjoying the last          days of seventh grade.          A dim-looking BOY tentatively approaches her desk with          his yearbook in hand. He hands it to Elizabeth, who          considers what to write for a beat, then smiles as she          signs it.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          Elizabeth walks down the hall holding her box.          SIXTH, SEVENTH and EIGHTH graders all race past her,          running toward their summer vacation.          ELIZABETH (V.0.)          And I wish that I had gotten to know all of          you better, but between four classes and          planning a wedding, I had my hands full.          From the little I do know about you, I know          that our students are in good hands.          Elizabeth passes Amy's classroom, where she is carefully          removing inspirational posters from her walls and rolling          them into cardboard tubes.          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - DAY          Three middle school BURNOUTS are smoking weed in a          thicket on the outskirts of the school property.          ELIZABETH (V.0.)          And I can't believe it's all over. This          year flew by. And even though I'll never          teach again professionally, I've realized          that I don't need a blackboard and          classroom to set an example.          Elizabeth comes up behind them.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Hand it over.          The Burnouts' eyes all go wide and they freeze. One of          the burnouts hands her the joint.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Everything.          The kids look at each other and then pull out a bag with          a couple of joints. They hand it over to Elizabeth.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          This was a warning. Next time, I don't          call the principal. I call the cops.          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAY          Elizabeth walks to her brand new MERCEDES. She gets in,          pulls out a joint and lights it. She takes a huge TOKE,          and then PEELS out of the lot. She tosses her banker's          box out the window and extends her hand, giving the          school THE FINGER.          ELIZABETH (O.S.)          Woo-hoo!          A couple students look at her strangely.                         ANGLE ON          The dim-looking kid that had Elizabeth sign his yearbook.          He flips to the faculty section, and by the picture of          Elizabeth is her message: "YOU ARE ILLITERATE!"                         DIM-LOOKING KID          (struggling to read)          You are... Illit... Illit...          Elizabeth's car comes barrelling toward him and nearly          hits him.          She accelerates into the speed bumps, almost hitting the          JANITOR from the opening shot, who's changing the plastic          letters to read, "HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!"                         JANITOR          Slow down!          CHYRON: BAD TEACHER          EXT. TOWNHOUSE NIGHT          A Mercedes with the vanity plate "HIS" is parked in the          driveway of an upscale neighborhood. Elizabeth's matching          Mercedes pulls into the adjacent spot. Her license plate          reads "HERS."                                                                                                              INT. TOWNHOUSE - NIGHT          A bachelor pad. Top of the line electronics. Lots of          black leather furniture. Tacky, but expensive.          Elizabeth pours two glasses of wine and takes a long sip.                         ELIZABETH                         (CALLING)          Baby Doll?          MARK (O.S.)          Coming!          MARK, early 30s, exits the bedroom in his underwear.          He's shaved his head to avoid signs of early balding and          is also a full four inches shorter than Elizabeth.          Thankfully for him, he has money.                         MARK (CONT'D)                         (ANXIOUS)          Hey! That was a quick party.          Elizabeth kisses Mark on the top of his head and hands          him a glass.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah. You should have seen it. What a          joke.          She raises her glass for a toast. He raises his.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Here's to me never having to work again.          And I owe it all to you, Lover.          Elizabeth takes a big sip.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (FLIRTATIOUS)          So I made a reservation at Ruth's Chris,          and then I booked us a suite at the          Drake, and I thought we could finish the          night in "anal alley." Hmm?          Something drops in the bedroom. Mark, alarmed, turns          towards the door. Elizabeth brushes past him into --          INT. TOWNHOUSE - BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS          Elizabeth enters to find -- NOTHING. Mark follows her in.                                                                                                              Elizabeth looks around -- under the bed, in the closet,          behind the door.                         MARK          See? Nothing.          Just then, the wooden chest at the foot of the bed SNEEZES.          Elizabeth opens the latch to find SHEILA, 23, dressed only          in a thong, scrunched in the fetal position. She stands,          revealing LARGE FAKE BREASTS, and steps out of the chest.                         ELIZABETH                         (TO MARK)          Motherfucker!                         ELIZABETH          How could you do this to me?!          I'm sorry.                         ELIZABETH          You are buying me the biggest pair of          yellow diamond earrings they make! I'm          talking serious blood diamonds.          Sheila SNEEZES again.          Bless you.                         ELIZABETH                         (TO SHEILA)          Get out of my house, bitch!                         MARK          Don't talk to her like that.                         ELIZABETH          Excuse me?          I love her.          Mark puts his arm around Sheila. Elizabeth eyes Sheila's          large breasts.                         ELIZABETH          You love her? She's a hooker.                                                                                                                             MARK SHEILA          She's not a hooker. I dance.          Elizabeth takes a deep breath.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (SWEET)          Listen, Marky, you made a mistake.          You're human. I'm human. And this time          it was you. Maybe six months from now,          you'll walk in on me. I don't know, but          probably.          Sheila SNEEZES again.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Shut the fuck up.          (then, to Mark, sweet)          And. maybe I'm talking crazy, but I don't          want to throw away our life together over          something like this. We're getting          married! I'm willing to fight for us.                         MARK          I'm not. And you know why? Because          Sheila loves me -- and not just for my          money.          Sheila squeezes his shoulder.                         ELIZABETH          I'm sorry if I care that my future husband          can support me. We didn't all grow up          with a silver spoon in our mouths. You          can't even imagine what it's like going to          bed hungry, night after night.                         MARK          What are you talking about?! Both your          parents are CPAs.                         ELIZABETH          My parents worked their asses off to send          me to private school. Do you know what          it's like driving a Pontiac when everyone          else gets a Beemer the second they          menstruate? That shit stays with you.                         MARK          It's over, Elizabeth.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          For the record, there's a shitload of          things that I hate about you, but I still,          would've gotten married.          (beat, sweet)          Because I love you.                         MARK          (rolls his eyes)          I'm gonna need the ring back.          She grabs her bag and heads for the exit. Mark follows.                         ELIZABETH          You sad little troll! I hope you and          your hooker enjoy chlamydia together!                         MARK          Elizabeth. The ring.                         ELIZABETH          (not turning around)          I'm not even listening to you anymore.          She starts to open the door. He closes it.          The ring!                         ELIZABETH          Like I even want your gay-ass ring.          She tries pulling it off.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          It's not coming off. I'll go to the          jeweler's tomorrow.          Mark takes her hand and removes the ring with ease.          Elizabeth steps out into the night. The door SLAMS          behind her.          CHYRON: 3 MONTHS LATER          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAY          A red 1994 Grand Am with a cracked windshield peels into          the half-empty lot and screeches to a halt. The license          plate reads "HERS."                                                                                                              9.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          Elizabeth walks down the empty hall. It's possible a          person has never looked less happy to be anywhere.          FAINT SOFT ROCK plays from an open door. Something from          inside the classroom catches Elizabeth's eye.                         ELIZABETH          (under her breath)          You've gotta be shitting me.          TURN TO REVEAL                         AMY'S CLASSROOM          The room has been decorated to within an inch of its          life. Every surface is covered with posters like "Noted          African-Americans," or "Hispanic American Hall of Fame,"          or "Women Who Dared." A RED DELICIOUS APPLE has been          placed on each student's desk.          Amy, dressed casually in cargo shorts and texas, is trying          to hang a large "INTEGRITY" poster. She looks over, sees          Elizabeth staring at her, and immediately lights up.                         AMY          Elizabeth Halsey, as I live and breathe!                         ELIZABETH          Amy Squirrel.                         AMY          I know we barely got a chance to get to          know one another last year -- what with          you planning the wedding of the century          and me juggling all my extra-currics --          but I just want to say that I'm super          excited to be across-the-hall-mates.                         ELIZABETH          Okay.                         AMY          And I know you kinda skated by last year,          doing the bare minimum thing -- you were          kind of a lone wolf -- but now you're          back and I just know that you are going          to rededicate yourself to the task at --          Amy notices Elizabeth's bare hands.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Where's your beautiful ring?                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          My fiance and I broke it off. I found          him in bed with someone else.          Oh my gosh!                         ELIZABETH          It was another man.                         AMY                         (INCREDULOUS)          Shut the front door!          (motioning for a hug)          Somebody needs a hug.                         ELIZABETH          Somebody doesn't.                         AMY          Hm. Another time then.          Elizabeth takes an apple from a desk.                         ELIZABETH                         (RE APPLE)          These washed?                         AMY          Of course. I'd never serve a student          unwashed fruit.          CRUNCH. Elizabeth takes a huge bite out of the apple.                         ELIZABETH                         (MOUTHFUL)          I thought the teachers got the apples.                         AMY          Well, I think the students teach me at          least as'much as I teach them.                         ELIZABETH          Stupid.          Elizabeth tosses the mostly uneaten apple into the trash          and exits. It hits the rim and lands on the floor.          Okey-dokey.                                                                                                              INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          It's like an asylum -- nothing on the walls. Elizabeth          reads from a stack of US Weekly's and circles pictures of          CELEBRITY BREASTS. LYNN, late 30s, the kind of woman who          spends a lot of time on her internet dating profiles, but          rarely gets emailed, pokes her head in.                         LYNN          Oh sorry, am I interrupting?                         ELIZABETH          Um -- kinda.                         LYNN          Do you want to grab some lunch?                         ELIZABETH          I'm in the middle of something, Lynn.          My treat.                         ELIZABETH          Fine.          EXT. KFC - DAY          Elizabeth and Lynn sit at an outdoor table. Lynn picks at          a garden salad. Elizabeth is eating a bucket of chicken          and drinking a large drink. She pulls a bottle of cough          syrup from her purse and dumps it into her drink.                         LYNN          You have that thing going around, huh?                         ELIZABETH                         LYNN          Are you excited for tomorrow?                         ELIZABETH          Is tomorrow Saturday?                         LYNN          No, it's the first day of school.                         ELIZABETH          Wait, I thought I had a week to get my          class together.                                                                                                                             LYNN          Yeah, that was last week.                         ELIZABETH          (under her breath)          Fuck my ass.                         LYNN          If you hate teaching so much, why don't          you just get another job?                         ELIZABETH          And do what? Sell perfume at the mall?          Work at a day care center?          (slurps her big gulp)          You know, when I first got into teaching,          I thought I was doing it for all the          right reasons: short hours, summers off,          no accountability.                         LYNN          I love my summers. Fresh corn. Mmm.                         ELIZABETH          From now on, my full-time job will be          finding a guy who will take care of me --                         LYNN          Oh god, I pray for that --                         ELIZABETH          And that makes a shit ton of money and          doesn't ask too many questions.          (licking her fingers)          I spent most of my summer hanging out at          the bars near where the Bulls practice.          Had some fun, got some cool souvenirs that          I Ebayed, but those guys aren't looking to          settle down. And they all wear condoms.          And then they take the condoms with them.          That's how paranoid they are that a girl          will try and get pregnant. Like it's so          easy to get pregnant from a guy nutting          into a condom.                         LYNN          You're gonna find someone great.                         ELIZABETH          I've been thinking about it a lot. I mean,          I figure I'm like an 8, 8.5. But once I          get my new tits, I'll probably be a --                                                                                                              13.                         LYNN          You don't want to do that. You're          already so pretty.                         ELIZABETH          I know I'm hot, Lynn, but I don't stand a          chance against all those Barbies dolls          out there. Anna Nicole had it right, may          she rest in peace.          Lynn checks her watch.                         LYNN          We should finish up. Wally's doing that big          orientation for teachers in the auditorium.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, I'm not going to that.                         LYNN          But it's mandatory.                         ELIZABETH          ("I'm so scared")          Ooohhh...                         LYNN          Yeah, I probably won't go either. I          don't know I might. I'll probably go,          but just sit in the back. Maybe leave          early. Maybe stay till the end. Play it          by ear. Or just stay till the end.          Lynn takes both their, trays and dumps them.                         LYNN (CONT'D)          This was fun.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, it was alright. When you said you          were taking me to lunch, I kinda thought it          was going to be nicer, but this was okay.                         LYNN          Sorry.                         ELIZABETH          It's okay. You can get me next time.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - NIGHT          Not much character, not many furnishings.                                                                                                              Elizabeth is online looking at a PORN SITE. She stares          at the SCREEN and compares breasts to the ones in US          Weekly. She reaches for a bong and pulls a huge hit.          The front door opens and her roommate, KIRK, early 30s,          boarish and carrying a tattered backpack and a Big Gulp,          walks quickly past Elizabeth.                         ELIZABETH          Hey, Kirk, what do you think about me          with Jessica Simpson's tits?          He stares at her chest intently. She's not bothered by it.          Go bigger.          Kirk enters his bedroom and slams the door.                         ELIZABETH          Cool, yeah.          She glances at the clock: 3:14 AM.                          ELIZABETH (CONT'D)           (under her breath)          Fuck my ass.           INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT           Elizabeth is asleep. After a beat, the ALARM goes off.          She checks the clock: 5.:15. She groans.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          First day of school excitement. The bell RINGS, and like          rats, the KIDS scurry to their various classes. Before          long, the hallway is empty.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - MORNING          In one corner, CHASE, clearly at the top of the seventh          grade food chain, shows off a photo spread of herself          modelling in a "Western-Style" clothing catalogue.          GARRETT, 12, wearing grey, stained sweatpants and a grey          sweatshirt with block letters that read "GYMNASTICS,"          stares longingly at Chase from a few desks away.                                                                                                              15.                         CHASE          The photographer was, like, sooo nice.          He made me feel sooo comfortable.                         (THEN)          I might get flown to Kansas City for          their fashion week.                         GARRETT                         (RIVETED)          Oh my.          Chase and her friends turn to face Garrett, who's as          surprised as they are that he spoke.                         CHASE          Stalk much?          Garrett quickly turns away. Chase rolls her eyes. An          angry-looking kid, TRISTAN, wearing a MICHAEL VICK          JERSEY, turns to Garrett.                         TRISTAN                         (FAKE SNEEZING)          Faggot.                         GARRETT                         (EARNEST)          Bless you.                         TRISTAN          What'd you say to me?          Elizabeth, with large bags under her eyes, enters the          class. Tristan, on a dime, heads back to his seat.          The class immediately quiets down. SASHA, 12, dressed          like a paralegal, walks up to Elizabeth with a large          Tupperware tray.                         SASHA          Hi, I'm Sasha. It's a pleasure to meet          you.          (handing over tupperware)          My mother baked these for you.                         ELIZABETH          (not looking up)          Just leave them on the desk.          Sasha, confused, gently puts them down and stands there.          After a moment, Elizabeth looks up.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          You need something?                                                                                                              16.          - Sasha shakes her head and retreats to her desk at the          front of the class.                          ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Anyone here seen "Stand and Deliver?"          Show of hands.          (off their blank stares)          No one? Edward James Olmos? Wow.          Elizabeth takes a DVD from her bag. She points to two          KIDS in the front of the class.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          You and you, go grab the TV and roll it          up front.          (pointing to Sasha)          And you, go shut off the lights.          The two kids, SHAWN and SPENCER, roll the TV over. Sasha          shuts off the LIGHTS.                         SASHA          We're watching a movie on the first day?                         CHASE                         (TO ELIZABETH)          I think it's awesome. You rock.                         GARRETT          I agree with Chase.          Elizabeth pops in the DVD. "Stand and Deliver," starring          Edward James Olmos as a tough-as-nails calculus teacher          in an inner-city school begins. Elizabeth takes a bite          of one of Sasha's cookies and immediately spits it out.                         ELIZABETH          Ugh. Oatmeal raisin?          She pushes the Tupperware tray into the trash next to her          desk. Sasha looks on, sadly.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - CAFETERIA - DAY          Lunch is in full swing. Each clique has staked its own          territory. Several TEACHERS, Elizabeth and Amy among          them, are on lunch duty.                         ANGLE ON          GARRETT, sitting alone, writing in a journal. Tristan,          the bully, tosses a bowl of cole slaw at Garrett.                                                                                                                             TRISTAN          Incoming!          Direct hit. The cole slaw nails him in the shoulder.          Garrett picks some of the cole slaw off his shirt and          eats it. He continues writing. Amy races over to          Tristan and writes him up.          Elizabeth watches, bored, struggling to keep her eyes          open. Amy heads over to Elizabeth.                         AMY          Somebody's got a case of the sleepies.                         ELIZABETH                         AMY          Did you see what just happened?                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, that one kid hit the other kid with          the cole slaw.                         AMY          You weren't at the orientation the other          day, but we're doing something new this          year. It's very exciting. We're          splitting the cafeteria into quadrants.          Elizabeth yawns.                         AMY (CONT'D)          So, anyways, in order for the quadrant          system to work, it's vital that each          teacher maintain order within their          quadrant. Because it's really tough for          me as head lunch monitor -- or another          teacher -- to leave their quadrant to          discipline a kid in another quadrant. I          know it's a lot to take in. I'd be happy          to sit with-you after school and explain          all of the new guidelines.                         ELIZABETH          Tell you what. Why don't you send me a          memo, and if I have any questions, I'll          come to you.                         AMY          Okay, Elizabeth. Sounds like a plan,          Stan.                                                                                                              18.                         AMY (CONT'D)                         (TO ELIZABETH)          Oh, I meant to ask you. Did I hear that          you were showing a movie this morning?                         ELIZABETH          How do I know what you heard?                         AMY          Fair enough. Listen, I don't want to          tell you how to run your class, but maybe          it might be fun to do some ice-breakers.          Like "Telephone Charades" or "The String          Game." Or start doing practice questions          for the state test. It's never too soon          to start.                         ELIZABETH          Are we gonna have a problem, me and you?                         AMY          Oh, shishkebobs, no. If I gave you that          impression, I am so sorry. Actually, I          was really hoping that we could be more          than across-the-hall-mates.                         ELIZABETH          I don't know what you've heard, but I          don't munch box.                         AMY          No, of course not. I don't even know          what that is. I just meant friends.                         ELIZABETH          Like getting manicures and going shopping          on Sundays? Shit like that?                         AMY          Yes! Yes! And helping each other out.          Looking out for one another.                         ELIZABETH          That's cool. Tell you what, friend, I'm          gonna get going. Cover for me?          Elizabeth doesn't wait for an answer, walks off.                         AMY                         (NERVOUS)          But you can't leave. Lunch doesn't end          for another...          (looks at clock)                         (MORE)                                                                                                              19.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Seven minutes. Who's going to watch your          quadrant?          INT. AMY'S CLASSROOM - LATER          Empty. Elizabeth looks around and spots the "INTEGRITY"          poster on the wall. She walks over and studies it.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          Elizabeth walks down the hallway with the rolled up          poster. She. passes a man, obviously lost, looking at a          map. This is SCOTT, 30. Handsome in a wholesome way.          Elizabeth walks by as he looks up at her helplessly. She          turns on her heels. Fresh fish.                         ELIZABETH                         (VERY FRIENDLY)          Hi there. You look a little lost.                         SCOTT          Hi. Can you tell me where Room 124 is?                         ELIZABETH          I'll do you one better. I'll take you          there.                         SCOTT          Oh, you don't have to do that.                         ELIZABETH          Will you stop? It'd be my pleasure.                         SCOTT          Thanks! I feel like I've been walking          around in circles for the last fifteen          minutes.                         (EXTENDS HAND)          Scott Delacorte. I'm the new sub.                         ELIZABETH          Elizabeth Halsey, 7th Grade Language          Arts. Welcome, welcome.          They shake hands a beat too long. Elizabeth notices          Scott's VERY EXPENSIVE WATCH.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Helluva watch. What's that -- a Jaeger-          LeCoultre?                                                                                                                             SCOTT          Good eye!                         ELIZABETH          Thanks. I love men's watches. It's kind          of a hobby.                         SCOTT          It's a bummer knowing my watch could feed          a village for .a year, but my grandfather          designed it, so...                         ELIZABETH          Oh? Your grandfather designs watches?                         SCOTT          The family business. My mom's maiden          name is Jaeger.                         ELIZABETH          Shut up!                         SCOTT          My parents had a minor meltdown when I          decided to join the Peace Corps and          become a teacher. But they've been cool          about it.          Elizabeth smiles and they start walking down the hall.                          SCOTT (CONT'D)          Integrity.                         ELIZABETH                         SCOTT          (pointing to poster)..          The poster. "Integrity." What a great          message for the kids.                         ELIZABETH          That's why I got it.          They turn a corner. Garrett wheels his backpack past them.                         GARRETT          Hey, Ms. Halsey!                         ELIZABETH          Hey... dude...          She slaps him five. Scott notices, smiles.                                                                                                              21.                         SCOTT          Man, I can't wait for the day that I have          my own classroom.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah... So did you and your wife just          move to town?                         SCOTT          I'm not married.                         ELIZABETH          Me neither. I was engaged until I walked          in on my fiance cheating on me. With his          brother.                         SCOTT          That's horrible!                         (NOTICING)          Ooh, 124! This is me.                         ELIZABETH          Nice to meet you, Scott Delacourte.          Hopefully, we'll be seeing a lot of each          other.                         SCOTT                         (HALF-JOKING)          Only if a teacher gets sick. Great          meeting you, Elizabeth Halsey.          He heads into the room. Elizabeth cocks her head,          checking out his ass as the door closes.                         ELIZABETH                         (TO HERSELF)          Very nice meeting you.                         CLOSE ON          A PAIR OF PERFECT FAKE BREASTS. A hand cups them from          underneath.          Pull back to reveal DR. VOGEL, 40s, and his receptionist,          DANNI, probably in her 40s, with her shirt off. Elizabeth          watches, rapt.          DR. VOGEL          As you can see, the weight is evenly          distributed and there's minimal scarring.                         DANNI                         (TAH DAH)          Dr. Vogel.                                                                                                              DR. VOGEL          (holding out his hands)          "Best Hands in Chicago."                         ELIZABETH          DR. VOGEL          Absolutely. Take them for a spin.          Elizabeth reaches out, squeezes Danni's breasts.                         ELIZABETH          Wow. And the nipples are just... I love          them. I'll take two.          They all laugh. Elizabeth notices Dr. Vogel'.s watch.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Maurice Lacroix. That's a great watch.                         ELIZABETH                         (CURIOUS)          And how's that going?          DR. VOGEL          She's my rock.                         (THEN)          Alright, thanks, Danni.          Danni puts her bra and blouse back on and exits.          DR. VOGEL (CONT'D)          So, Elizabeth, have you given any thought          to size?                         ELIZABETH          I was thinking, you know, maybe a D.          DR. VOGEL          IJh huh, uh huh. I ,would say, though,          with your frame, you might consider          something smaller. A large B, maybe a C          cup. You'd be surprised how significant          those would look.                         ELIZABETH          Hmm. Yeah, I think I'll go with the D's,          really turn some heads.                                                                                                              23.          DR. VOGEL          You know, Elizabeth, breast enhancement's          not a cure-all. I just want to make sure          you have realistic expectations.                         ELIZABETH          Doctor, I lost my fiance to a woman with          monster fake tits. So now I need monster          fake tits so that I won't lose my next          fiance. Those are my expectations. Is          that realistic enough for you?          DR. VOGEL          Very good then.          INT. DR. VOGEL'S OFFICE - RECEPTION AREA - DAY          Elizabeth leans over the counter and grabs a mint from a          small bowl. Danni sits behind her desk wearing a headset.                         DANNI          So you'll be off your feet for about two          weeks... what works for you?                         ELIZABETH          Let's do December 19th. Start of winter          break.                         DANNI          The 19th it is. So the total is $9300          for the surgery plus one night stay at          our facility. How would you like to pay?          Elizabeth laughs. Danni laughs.                         ELIZABETH          That's absurd. What if I don't spend the          night at your facility?                         DANNI          The night's included in the price. Did          you not read our literature?                         ELIZABETH          No.          A MIDDLE-AGED DOCTOR walks by.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          (flirtatious, to doctor)          Hi...          (then, back to Danni)          Listen, I'm a teacher, not a drug dealer.                                                                                                              24.                         DANNI          We accept all major credit cards.                         ELIZABETH          My credit situation is complicated.                         DANNI          I'm sorry, but if you can't pay, I can't          schedule the appointment.                         (LEANING IN)          You know, there are less expensive          options. Have you looked into South          America?                         ELIZABETH          I'll be back.          Elizabeth dramatically scoops a handful of mints from the          bowl and storms out.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - NIGHT          Elizabeth, her cell phone cradled to her ear, pulls a          LEAN CUISINE out of a freezer STOCKED with them.                         ELIZABETH                         (ON PHONE)          Look, I just really need some money.          It's, for a surgery I need.          Elizabeth pokes holes in the Lean Cuisine with a knife          and turns on the microwave.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (ON PHONE)          Yes, as a matter of fact, it is about my          breasts, dad.                         (BEAT)          Sorry. Happy belated birthday. So, can you          wire me some money or not?          EXT. SUBURBAN HOME - NIGHT          Elizabeth walks up a driveway and looks around.                         ELIZABETH          (on phone, whispering)          So I won't beat around the bush, Grammy.          She pulls the kitchen knife from her bag and SLASHES the          back tire of a late-model CAMRY.                                                                                                              25.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          (on phone, whispering)          I'm dying and I need money for surgery.          Really? Nothing? Don't you get social          security or something?          Elizabeth goes around to another tire. Slash.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - LATER          Elizabeth is still on the phone. CLOSE ON her computer          screen. Her checking account balance: $45.66.                         ELIZABETH          (into phone, losing patience)          Listen, limpdick, you owe me for breaking          off the engagement. Do you know how          embarrassing that was?!                         (BEAT)          Lover, I don't want to fight. It's just          10000 dollars and it would really mean          the world to me. Lover? You there?          Elizabeth hurls her phone at the wall. It smashes.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Fucking Troll!          Kirk pokes his head out of his bedroom.                         KIRK          Did you call my name?                         ELIZABETH          No. I said 'fucking troll.'                         KIRK          Oh, I thought you said Kirk.          He turns and heads back in to his room.                         ELIZABETH          Hey, you got ten grand?                         KIRK          Nope.          Kirk closes his door. After a beat, he opens it.                         KIRK (CONT'D)          Also, I might be a little short on the          rent this month. Like, a lot short.                                                                                                              He closes his door. The microwave BEEPS. Dinner's ready.          INT. TEACHER'S LOUNGE - DAY          Elizabeth and Lynn speak in hushed voices in the corner          by a vending machine. Amy grades papers on a ratty-          looking couch. She glances up at Elizabeth and Lynn.                         LYNN          I don't know. That's a lot of money.                         ELIZABETH          I know. And I hate asking a friend for          money -- especially as good a friend as you.          This has its desired effect on Lynn.                         LYNN          Maybe I could sell that jewelry my          grandmother gave me?                         ELIZABETH          That turquoise crap? Blech. No one's          buying that.          (then, catching herself)          But it looks great on you.                         LYNN          Thanks. What about Mark?                         ELIZABETH          What type of person do you think I am?!          That assbag cheated on me. Did I ever          tell you that he has a mole on the tip of          his dick?                         ELIZABETH          I'm just trying to better myself. I          don't think that's asking for so much.          Amy walks over.                         AMY          'Scuse,me. Just gonna scooch in here.          She drops quarters into the vending machine, but doesn't          bother selecting an item. This was clearly her "in."          She turns to Elizabeth and Lynn.                                                                                                                             AMY (CONT'D)          Sooo... I know it's none of my business,          but I couldn't help but overhear your          conversation and I just want to say, that          you shouldn't change a thing. You should          be happy with the way you are.          That's true.                         ELIZABETH          Huh. Well, do you think mental retards          should be happy with the way they are?          Amy stammers.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Lynn, you teach them. What do you think?                         LYNN                         (CONSIDERING)          I've never asked them.                         AMY          I would never --                         ELIZABETH          We don't all have your tits, Squirrel.          So maybe you should think before you          interrupt a private conversation.                         AMY          I guess that's what you get for trying to          help...          Amy pushes the coin release on the vending machine and          takes back her change without getting a drink. Amy heads          back to the couch.                         ELIZABETH          That's right. Walk away.          (then, noticing)-          There he is!          Scott enters. All of the female teachers light up.          There he is!                         AMY          Well, look what the cat dragged in!                                                                                                                             SCOTT          I wish it was under better circumstances.          Stu Riley's car was vandalized last          night. Right in his driveway.                         AMY          Gang members, probably.                         SCOTT                         (QUIET RESIGNATION)          The public school system failed them.          Elizabeth and Amy nod vigorously.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          An empty hallway.          JOE CLARK (V.0.)          So forget about the way it used to be.          This is not a damn democracy! We are in          a state of emergency and my word is law!          There's only one boss around here, and          that's me. The HNIC.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          The class is watching "Lean on Me," with Morgan Freeman as          a tough-as-nails principal in an inner-city school. Amy's          "Integrity" Poster now hangs above the TV.          MR. O'MALLEY (ON TV)          HNIC?          MS. LEVIAS (ON TV)          Head Nigger In Charge.          The bell RINGS.                         ELIZABETH          We'll pick this up again tomorrow.          The students shuffle out. Garrett hustles after Chase.                         GARRETT          Quite a film, huh?          Chase gives him a weird look and then exits with her friends.          Sasha lingers by Elizabeth's desk.                                                                                                              29.                         ELIZABETH          (without looking up)          What.                         SASHA          I'm a student leader for the D.C. trip --                         ELIZABETH          Shocker.                         SASHA          And we're having our car wash this          weekend. If you're around, maybe we          could wash your car.                         ELIZABETH          I've got some Mexicans who already do it          for nothing.                         SASHA          It's for a good cause. This year, we're          trying to get some extra money so that we          can go on a Duck Tour!          She hands Elizabeth a flyer. Elizabeth glances at it.                         SASHA (CONT'D)                         (SHRUGS)          Last year's seventh grade raised $6000.                         ELIZABETH                         (SUDDENLY INTERESTED)          $6000?          INT. J.A.M.S. - ADMINISTRATION BULLPEN - DAY          Elizabeth walks past the SCHOOL SECRETARY toward the          Principal's office.                         SCHOOL SECRETARY          You can't go in there. He's with a          student.          Elizabeth ignores her, adjusts her blouse, and enters.          INT. J.A.M.S. - PRINCIPAL SNUR'S OFFICE - DAY          The office is decorated with a DOLPHIN motif. Figurines,          a picture of Principal Snur kissing a dolphin. Dolphin          calendars. This guy loves dolphins.          Principal Snur sits next to ARKADY, a small pale kid.                                                                                                              30.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          If you don't like to get wet, Arkady, you          could try using deodorant, anti-.          perspirant, maybe some cologne. I know a          lot of the older boys are wearing the          body spray.                         ARKADY                         (BROKEN ENGLISH)          Bodish spray.          Elizabeth enters and immediately recoils from the smell.                         ELIZABETH          Blugh!          Arkady and Principal Snur both look up. He holds up his          finger -- "one minute." Elizabeth notices his cheap          dolphin watch.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          So why don't you think about that and          I'll let your teachers know that you're          working on it?          Arkady nods and quickly exits.                         ELIZABETH          Sorry, I didn't realize you were in with          anyone.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          We were just finishing up. Elizabeth, I          actually meant to talk to you. Did I          hear that you were showing movies all          last week?                         ELIZABETH          Um... some clips, maybe. I think in a lot,          of ways, movies are the new books.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Huh.          Elizabeth tries a different tact. She picks up a dolphin-          shaped clock from the desk.                         ELIZABETH          Is this new? I love it! I think          dolphins are smarter than humans.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Me too! And if you like that, you'll          love this.                                                                                                              31.          Principal Snur pulls out an "Adopt-A-Dolphin"          certificate.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT`D)          He lives in the Cayman Islands.                         ELIZABETH          What a great story.          Principal Snur visibly relaxes. He's sitting across from          a kindred spirit.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          So what else is new?                         ELIZABETH          Actually, I was thinking that I want to          get more involved.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          What a nice surprise.                         ELIZABETH          Specifically, I thought I could supervise          the car wash.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Amy's been running it the last two years...                         ELIZABETH          She just does so much. It might be nice          to give her a little rest. Especially          that early on a Saturday.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          I'm so happy that you're dedicating          yourself and becoming a real member of          the JAMS family.                         ELIZABETH          It just feels so good to help.          MATCH CUT TO:          INT. J.A.M.S. - PRINCIPAL SNUR'S OFFICE - DAY          Amy stands in the door where Elizabeth was just standing.          Principal Snur is behind his desk.                         AMY          Elizabeth?! For the seventh grade          carwash? That's bonkers!                                                                                                              32.          Amy immediately regrets saying "bonkers."                         AMY (CONT'D)          I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blow my stack.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          I just thought it was nice to see some          other teachers step up.                         AMY          We raised over $6000 last year. That's a          record. Is this really the best time to          start experimenting?                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Amy, I see you taking on a.lot of          responsibility, what with directing          "Annie" and all your work with D.A.R.E.          I'd just hate to see you get overwhelmed          like you did in 2004.          She stares at him -- clearly, this is a touchy subject.                         AMY          Of course. Well, I should skedaddle.          Looks like someone needs to plan a          Saturday morning bike ride.          She turns on her heels and walks out.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - DAWN          Elizabeth is asleep. Her ALARM goes off. It's 5:45 AM.          She opens her eyes, sees the time, considers for a beat,          then hits SNOOZE. She closes her eyes. - After a beat,          the ALARM goes off again. She hits SNOOZE.          Quick Cuts. Elizabeth hits the snooze button EVERY NINE          MINUTES until 8:45. She stares at the clock.          EXT. TEACHER'S PARKING LOT - MORNING          Garrett stands at the school entrance, holding a giant          cardboard sign that reads "CAR WASH" as a few CARS pull in.          Chase, and the other popular girls, are dressed in          seventh-grade sexy -- they've tied off their shirts.          The BOYS run around spraying each other, but mostly          spraying Garrett. Garrett laughs, mistakenly thinking          that he's part of the fun.                                                                                                                             GARRETT          Oh, I'm gonna get you guys!          A couple of PARENT CHAPERONES stand in small clusters.          Tristan, the bully, cocks his arm and aims a soapy sponge          at Garrett.                         TRISTAN                         (NOTICING SOMETHING)          Whoa.          The CAMERA FOLLOWS Tristan's gaze. ELIZABETH steps out          of her car. She's wearing HIGH HEELS, DAISY DUKES and a          BIKINI TOP. She looks both spectacular and ridiculous.          A couple of PARENTS look over at Elizabeth, in shock.                         ELIZABETH          (calling to Parents)          Sorry I'm late.                         MOTHER          (to other PARENTS)          I'm going to say something about her          outfit.          The MOTHERS vigorously nod in agreement. A DAD pipes in.                         DAD          (staring hard at Elizabeth)          Well, if it helps raise money...          The other DADS vigorously nod in agreement.          BEGIN CAR WASH MONTAGE:          --Elizabeth holds the "Carwash" sign. A LINE of CARS          forms. An OLDER MAN in an immaculately clean CADILLAC,          rolls down his window and hands her money.          --Elizabeth washes in SLO MO, shakes out her hair as she          gets WET. The BOYS and their FATHERS stare at her.          --The GIRLS try to mimic Elizabeth's seductive behavior.          Their MOTHERS run over and pull them away.          --The Older Man in the Cadillac comes back to have his          car re-washed.                         END MONTAGE                                                                                                              34.          EXT. TEACHER'S PARKING LOT - LATER          The carwash is wrapping up. Elizabeth counts money at a          makeshift table and puts the earnings into a metal          lockbox. She glances around and then shoves a large          clump of cash into her DAISY DUKES.          VOICE (O.S.)          What are you doing?          Elizabeth looks up and sees Sasha hiding behind a TRUCK,          clearly spying.                         ELIZABETH          Nothing. Get out of here, Dummy.                         SASHA          Are you stealing our money?                         ELIZABETH          How dare you?! I'm here early on a          Saturday for you guys. And for the          record, nobody likes a tattle tale.                         SASHA          I haven't tattled. Yet.                         ELIZABETH          Good. Cause if you do, I'll deny it and          flunk your ass. How will that look on          your resume?                         SASHA                         (TEARS UP)          I didn't say I would say anything.                         ELIZABETH          Alright then. Now beat it. I've gotta          finish counting this money.          Sasha walks off. Elizabeth picks up a hose and sprays her.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          See you Monday!          Elizabeth waves to SASHA'S MOTHER, who eagerly waves          back.                         ANGLE ON          ANY, across the street, watching through binoculars.          She's straddling her bike and is wearing a helmet and a          sheen of recently-applied suntan lotion. She takes a sip          from her Camelbak, and pedals away.                                                                                                              35.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT          CLOSE ON a fish bowl with a crude sign that reads "New          Tits." Elizabeth drops in fistfuls of crumpled cash and          then writes in a notebook: $1300.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          Amy walks down the hall. She sees Principal Snur slip          into the bathroom. Amy walks up to the MEN'S FACULTY          BATHROOM door and waits. The BELL RINGS.                         AMY          Shishkebobs.          She hesitates a beat and then enters.          INT. J.A.M.S. - MEN'S FACULTY BATHROOM - DAY          Wally is in a stall reading a brochure for a DOLPHIN TOUR.                         PRINCIPAL:SNUR                         (TO HIMSELF)          Amazing.          AMY (O.S.)          Wally? Are you in here? It's Amy          Squirrel.          He instinctively covers himself with the brochure.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Amy? What are you doing? Get out!                         INTERCUT WITH:          Amy standing inside. She scrunches her nose at the smell.                         AMY          This'll just take a sec. I thought you          might want to know that Elizabeth Halsey          showed up at the carwash in a bikini top and          short-shorts. It was pretty racy stuff.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR                         (THRU STALL)          Can we talk about this later?                         AMY          (quoting some adage)          "Later we'll all die, said the gator to          the fly."                                                                                                              36.          Another TEACHER walks past Amy, looking confused. He          hesitates and then goes into an adjoining stall.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Look, Josh Gershman's dad called and said          that the carwash was a huge success. And          Lauren Rissman's dad called and said the          kids had a great time.                         AMY          I don't want to speak out of school, but          I happened to be pedalling by and saw her          get.pretty chummy with the money. ,And          remember, we barely know anything about          her. She was a real lone wolf last year.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Are you accusing Elizabeth of embezzling          from the seventh grade car wash?                         AMY          Something about this doesn't pass the          smell test, Wally.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Well, they raised over $7000, so whatever          she did worked. And next time you accuse          a fellow teacher of stealing, you better          be damn sure. We're done here.          Amy takes a deep breath. Her face is BEET RED.                         AMY          Thanks for the pep talk. Have a super          day, you two.          Amy exits. Immediately, there is an IMMENSE ERUPTION          from the other stall, followed by a sigh.          MALE TEACHER (O.S.)                         (IN STALL)          Christ... I thought she was never going          to leave.          INT. TEACHER'S LOUNGE - DAY          Sandy, the math teacher with the ponytail, sits at the          table grading papers. Another TEACHER dozes in the corner.                         ELIZABETH          (entering, very friendly)          Hey! Are those new Doc Marten's?                                                                                                              Sandy looks behind him at the dozing teacher. "Is she          talking to me?"          Guilty.                         ELIZABETH          How's Period 5?                         SANDY          Great, thanks for asking. We got a new          bassist and we finally got a regular gig,          which is nice because it's earned. It's          time to show the world that a bunch of          teachers can really rock out.                         ELIZABETH          Awesome!                         (THEN)          Hey, would you mind grabbing me my yogurt          from the fridge?          Sure thing.          Sandy goes to the fridge. Elizabeth pulls visine from          her bag, and as his head goes into the fridge, she          squirts the entire container into his coffee mug.                         SANDY (CONT'D)          You should come to one of our shows.          He hands her the yogurt.                         ELIZABETH          Oh, I can't.          Elizabeth exits. Sandy sadly takes a sip of his coffee.                         SANDY          I didn't even tell you the dates.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          Elizabeth's class is seated. They're staring at her,          waiting for her to begin.                         CHASE          Are we starting "School Ties" today?          Elizabeth holds up her finger while she finishes reading a          NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.                                                                                                              38.          The camera ANGLES to show that she is studying a picture          of a topless AFRICAN TRIBESWOMAN with large breasts.          After a beat, Elizabeth looks up.                         ELIZABETH          Alright, today, we're starting "School          Ties." Classic.          (then, pointing to a Student)          You, shut off the lights.          Elizabeth goes to the DVD player. There's a knock at the          door and the SCHOOL SECRETARY walks in holding a box.          She hands it to a confused Elizabeth.                         SCHOOL SECRETARY          Here it is. Good luck.                         ELIZABETH          Here what is?                         SCHOOL SECRETARY          It's the pre-test for the state          standardized test. It was in the memo.                         ELIZABETH          Oh, yes. In the memo.          The Secretary leaves. Elizabeth stares at the box.          Tristan and.a couple kids start making farting noises          with their hands.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Hey. Zip it. Zip your shit.                         (THEN)          Alright, look, we all know these tests          are gay --          Elizabeth turns to a student who COULD BE GAY.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Hey.          Elizabeth passes the box to the front of the class, where          the kids dutifully take Scan-trons and test booklets.          ELIZABETH.(CONT'D)          (then, reading)          According to this memo, I'm supposed to          give you forty-five minutes per section.          Blah blah blah. Clear your desks,          pencils out and -- begin!          Twenty-five pencils hit paper in unison.                                                                                                              39.          Elizabeth takes the TV and swivels it to face her desk.          She turns on the movie, turns down the volume (just a          little bit) and reclines.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - CAFETERIA - DAY          Chase and another popular girl strut across the          cafeteria, arm in arm. A THIRD POPULAR GIRL, saving a          table, waves them over.          Chase and her friend walk right past the girl like she          doesn't exist and take a seat with a bunch of other girls.          ELIZABETH (O.S.)                         (MARVELLING)          Little bitches.          TURN TO REVEAL          Elizabeth and Lynn on lunch duty.          The girl at the table starts BAWLING. Amy, also on duty,          races over to console her.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          What a phony.                         LYNN          Major phony. But she also cares a lot, too.                         (THEN)          So what's going on with your boobs?                         ELIZABETH          Shit. Shit is going on with my boobs. I'm          never gonna get married. I'm gonna die          broke. I should just blow my brains out.          (then, lighting up)          There he is!          Scott walks down the ramp and HIGH-FIVES a bunch of kids.          He gives them a big wave.                         LYNN          I love how his eyes sparkle when he smiles.                         ELIZABETH          I want to sit on his face.                         SCOTT          Hey, guys.                         ELIZABETH          You're really making a habit out of this.                                                                                                              40.                         SCOTT          Ha, yeah. Actually, Sandy Pinkus in the Math          department, I guess he got that stomach bug          that's been going around and I got the call.                         LYNN          I heard he pooped himself in first          period. A kid had to walk him to the          nurse.                         ELIZABETH          Lynn, would you mind grabbing me a milk?          Elizabeth gives her a "can you get out of here?" look.                         LYNN          Scott, do you want anything?                         SCOTT          I'm good, thanks for asking.          Lynn walks off.                         ELIZABETH          So, Scott --          Lynn comes back.                         LYNN          Sorry, what kind of milk do you want?          Skim? Whole? 2%? Chocolate?                         ELIZABETH          I don't know. Surprise me.                         LYNN          Okay, I'll get you skim. No, no, 2%.          Lynn walks off again.                         ELIZABETH          She's funny.          Elizabeth notices Amy looking at her as she continues to          console the girl. Elizabeth turns back to Scott.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          So, Scott, I was thinking, I would love to          hear about your experiences in the Peace          Corps. I love Haiti. Maybe we could go          grab a drink some night. Maybe tonight.                         SCOTT          Isn't it Back-to-School Night?                                                                                                              41.                         ELIZABETH          (news to her)          Yeah, Silly, I meant after.                         SCOTT          Cool! Let's get a group together.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, definitely! Or just the two of us.          Scott looks around, then lowers his voice.                         SCOTT          Oh. Um, listen, I'm really flattered.          You're one of the nicest people I've met          here. But... I'm actually seeing          someone.                         ELIZABETH          Oh?                         SCOTT          Yeah, we've been keeping it quiet.                         ELIZABETH          Because she's ugly?                         SCOTT          No. She's beautiful. She's great. She          really cares about the kids. It's          just... when you're dating a co-worker...                         ELIZABETH                         (REALIZING)          Squirrel?          Elizabeth whips around to see Amy, who's now sharing a          frozen yogurt with the formerly bawling girl. Amy looks          up, smiles and gives a thumbs up to Elizabeth and Scott,          signalling that everything's okay with the girl. Elizabeth          NOTICES Amy's LARGE BREASTS straining against her blouse.          She quietly seethes.                         SCOTT          Anyways, thanks again for asking me out.          I'm honored. And I'll take a raincheck          on that group date. See ya!          Scott crosses through the cafeteria. Lynn returns with a          four cartons of milk.                         LYNN          Here you go. I got you one of each.                                                                                                              42.          Lynn hands them to Elizabeth, who takes them, drops them          in the trash and storms off.          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - NIGHT          At night, under the stars, the SCHOOL looks peaceful, serene.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - NIGHT          Elizabeth is up front. She's staring,at the PARENTS.          They stare right back at her. It's awkwardly silent for          a beat too long.                         ELIZABETH          Hi, my name's Elizabeth Halsey.          Soooooo... Any questions?          Sasha's Mother eagerly raises her hand. Elizabeth points          to her.                         SASHA'S MOTHER          Hi, I'm Sasha's mother. We waved to each          other at the carwash. I'm a little          concerned with the importance you're          placing on movies. What about the state          test?          Elizabeth points to her sign on the wall -- "Don't          Question My Authority."                         ELIZABETH          That's exactly what I say to my students.          Listen, I'm a good teacher. And the school          hired me because I'm good at what I do.          (as the parents take this in)          And the reason your son loves my class is          because I inspire him. Movies are one          tool that I use. I also use other          multimedia techniques, which I'm not          going to get into right now. Look, I          could take you day by day through my          entire syllabus, but that's not how I do          things. I'm not one of these stuffy          teachers who's totally by the book. I          talk to the kids like they're little          adults. It's about mutual respect. So          that's my spiel, as the Jews say.                         (THEN)          Help yourselves to some delicious snacks          and drinks in the back. Class dismissed.          They head to the back of the class. ANGLE ON                                                                                                              A "refreshments" table. A lonely package of OREOS rests          against a PITCHER OF TAP WATER.          Elizabeth tries to sneak out the door, but is stopped by          a sharply dressed PARENT.                         PARENT #1          Excuse me, Ms. Halsey.                         (EXTENDING HAND)          I'm Chris' dad.          From Elizabeth's reaction, she clearly has no idea who          Chris is.                         ELIZABETH          Chris... Great kid -- and precocious.          You must be so proud.                         CHRIS' DAD          Oh, what a relief. I just wish his          grades would reflect it.                         ELIZABETH          If I know Chris, he'll get there.                         CHRIS' DAD          Listen, I know you have a full plate, but          if you could keep an eye on Chris, my          wife and I would really appreciate it.          Chris' dad shakes her hand. Elizabeth opens her hand,          sees a tightly folded HUNDRED DOLLAR bill. She looks          back up at Chris' dad.          CHRIS' DAD (CONT'D)                         (WINKING)          For supplies. Or whatever.          JUMP CUT TO:          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - MOMENTS LATER          Elizabeth stands with another set of parents. They're          eating Oreos and sipping water.                         ELIZABETH          You're Chase's parents? Great kid -- and          precocious. You must be so proud.          The parents beam.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          A student like that would benefit so much          from some extra attention.                         CHASE'S MOM          You think we should hire a tutor?          (then, to Chase's Dad)          I told you.                         ELIZABETH                         (CONSPIRATORIAL)          I'd be happy to do it myself. It's just          hard in a class of twenty-five.                         CHASE'S MOM          Oh, to be a teacher.                         ELIZABETH          It's just so hard, on my salary, having to          pay for my supplies, my fiance cheated on          me with his twin sister... and, unlike a          lot of these other teachers, all I truly          care about is helping your child learn.          And as their personal tutor, I guarantee a          full grade higher -- or your money back.          Chase's mom takes out her check book.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Make it out to "cash."          JUMP-.CUT TO:          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - LATER          Parents are leaving the class, ad-libbing "thank.you's."          Another SET OF PARENTS surreptitiously hand Elizabeth          some cash.          A Bohemian mother, MELODY, wearing a beret, lingers behind.                         MELODY          Excuse me, Ms. Halsey. I just wanted to          introduce myself. I'm Melody. Garrett's          mom.                         ELIZABETH                         (EYEING BERET)          Nice to meet you... Garrett's a great kid          -- and precocious. You must be so proud.                                                                                                              45.                         MELODY          Oh, you're referring to his poetry.          Thank you.                         ELIZABETH          You must be so proud.                         MELODY          I am. So so so so so proud. So proud.                         ELIZABETH          A kid like that, if I could just give some          more one on one time, he would just blossom.                         MELODY          I'm so happy to hear you say that.          would really benefit from that.                         ELIZABETH          Unfortunately, in a class of twenty-          five...                         MELODY          Ugh. Class sizes are ridiculous.                         ELIZABETH          And with the amount they pay teachers...                         MELODY          Thank god you love what you do.                         ELIZABETH          I guess what I'm getting at is, maybe you          could help out by giving me a little --          you know -- somethin somethin.          Elizabeth offers her hand, palm up. Melody stares back          at her blankly.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          It's just, it's really tough to teach the          way that I want to teach when there's so          little money. I mean, look at this place.                         MELODY          You know what I'm going to do for you?          Melody opens her pocketbook. Elizabeth smiles.                         MELODY (CONT'D)          I am going to start a letter-writing          campaign to the school board, to my          congressman, to the mayor -- and keep          writing until you get what you deserve.                                                                                                              She opens her date book and writes herself a note.                         MELODY (CONT'D)          And I'm writing myself a reminder!          Melody pulls Elizabeth into a warm hug.                         MELODY (CONT'D)          You are a saint.          Melody exits. Elizabeth is left in the classroom by          herself.                         ELIZABETH          So long, Crazy.          As Elizabeth pulls out the CASH she just made, we hear          the opening beats of COOLIO'S "GANGSTER'S PARADISE."                         CUT TO:          INT. J.A.M.S. - ADMINISTRATION BULLPEN - DAY          The SONG continues. Elizabeth pokes her head in. The          office is empty. She walks in, grabs the "Lost and          Found" box and exits.          INT. THRIFT STORE - DAY          The SONG continues. Elizabeth stands across from a          HIPPIE-LOOKING GIRL. The pile of "Lost and Found"          clothes are laid out on the counter. The Hippie Girl          hands Elizabeth some cash.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT          The SONG continues as Elizabeth throws more money in her          "New Tits" jar and enters a new amount into her notebook.          The new balance: $1473.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          "Gangster's Paradise" CONTINUES and we see that the class          is now watching "Dangerous Minds" with Michelle Pfeiffer          as a tough-as-nails teacher in an inner-city school.                                                                                                              INT. AMY'S CLASSROOM - SAME          The SONG continues as Amy, in her empty classroom, stands          against the adjoining wall, her ear pressed to it.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - ANOTHER DAY          The SONG continues. The class is still watching          "Dangerous Minds." There's some NOISE in the hall.          Elizabeth PAUSES the movie, STOPPING the song. She leans          into the hall.                         ELIZABETH          Enough with the commotion!          The hallway goes silent. She comes back in and UNPAUSES          the movie. The SONG comes back on.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          The SONG continues as the hallway fills with excited          kids, who race down the hall and talk animatedly with          friends. Elizabeth pushes through the center.          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAY          The SONG continues. Elizabeth sits in her car. She lights          a joint with the cigarette lighter and deeply inhales.          KNOCK KNOCK! The SONG abruptly ENDS.          Elizabeth jumps. She turns to her window, sees Sasha,          bundled in her winter coat, waving.                         ELIZABETH          (through the window)          What do you want?          Sasha motions for her to roll down the window. Elizabeth          doesn't.                         SASHA          Is that marijuana?                         ELIZABETH          It is. But it's medicinal. Doctor gave          it to me. Not that it's any of your          business.                                                                                                              48.                         SASHA          Oh, okay. Feel better.                         (THEN)          My mom and I made you holiday cookies. Here.          Sasha pulls out a tupperware container.                         ELIZABETH          (peering through window)          Are those oatmeal raisin?                         SASHA          Sugar.          Elizabeth considers, then manually rolls down the window          a crack. She grabs the container and quickly closes her          window. Elizabeth starts eating a cookie.                         ELIZABETH          You have anything to drink?          Sasha shakes her head.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Word to the wise: stop dressing like          you're running for congress.                         SASHA          I don't want to run for congress. I want          to be president.                         ELIZABETH          See? That's what I'm talking about.          Keep saying stuff like that, you're gonna          get punched. You really want to be          President or is that what your parents          tell to be?          Sasha shrugs.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          You don't have to decide right now. Who          knows? Maybe you wake up one day and          decide that you love giving massages and          you want to be a masseuse. Salary plus          tips. Think about it.                         SASHA          If I think about it, will I get extra          credit?                         ELIZABETH          (shakes her head)          Hopeless. Watch your feet.                                                                                                              49.          Elizabeth reverses. Sasha jumps away from the car.          Elizabeth peels out, passing the school marquee that          reads, "Happy Holidays, Jammers! See you in '09!"          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - DAY          Elizabeth rolls over. It's 3:40 PM. She yawns and gets          out of bed.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - DAY          QUICK CUTS. Elizabeth opens her refrigerator. Nothing          except ketchup packets, mustard packets and soy sauce          packets.          She reaches for her bong and tries lighting it. Once.          Twice. She shakes the lighter. No luck.          She carries the bong to the stove, turns on the stove,          and tries lighting it from there. No luck.                         ELIZABETH          Seriously?          EXT. LIQUOR STORE - AFTERNOON          Elizabeth walks up to the door. It's locked. She shakes          the door.                         ELIZABETH          Seriously?          She sees a HOMELESS GUY leaning against the storefront.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Why's the store closed?          The Homeless Guy looks at her strangely.                         HOMELESS GUY          It's Christmas.                         ELIZABETH          Seriously?          Elizabeth looks around. The streets are empty. Not a          person in sight.                         HOMELESS GUY          Merry Christmas!                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          Whatever.          (then, stops)          Hey, you got a lighter?                         HOMELESS GUY          I don't smoke. It's bad for you.          Elizabeth walks back to her car, empty-handed. A MINI-          VAN passes. Stops. Reverses..          The window rolls down. It's Garrett and his Mom.                         GARRETT          Ms. Halsey! Hey, it's me, Garrett!                         MELODY          Merry Christmas, Ms. Halsey!                         ELIZABETH                         MELODY          Having a nice Christmas?                         ELIZABETH                         MELODY          What are you doing the rest of the day?          Going to see your family?                         ELIZABETH                         (UNCONVINCING)          I'm probably going to meet up with some          people. We're having a big potluck, so...          Elizabeth-shuffles her feet.                         MELODY          Ms. Halsey.          (then, extremely maternal)          Elizabeth. Would you like to have          Christmas with us?                                                                                                              INT. GARRETT'S HOUSE - DINING ROOM - DAY          Cozy and unpretentious. Filled with crafts. Elizabeth sits          next to Melody and across from Garrett, who's wearing his          "Gymnastics" sweatshirt, and his TWO AUNTS, both divorced.          Elizabeth tears through a plate of Christmas cuisine.                         MELODY          This is a real treat for Garrett. He doesn't          have a lot of friends come by the house.                         ELIZABETH          I find that hard to believe.                         (CHECKS WATCH)          Listen, I hate to eat and run, but I've          gotta head over to the shelter.                         GARRETT          I thought we could play board games!                         AUNT #1          A shelter. That is so inspiring.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, I love helping bums.                         MELODY          Oh, but you have to wait for dessert. We          have a real treat.                         ELIZABETH          If it's cheesecake, I'll stay.                         MELODY          It's even better than cheesecake!                         (THEN)          Garrett, why don't you run and get some          of your new poetry?                         GARRETT          (feigning. embarrassment)          Oh god, no one wants to hear it. Oh god,          I'm so embarrassed!                         MELODY          Don't be shy, Marbles.          Garrett runs out of the room.                         ELIZABETH          If you're not really serving dessert, I'm          gonna have to get going.                                                                                                                             MELODY          One poem? If you like it, maybe you can          read it to your homeless friends.          INT. GARRETT'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER          Garrett stands in front of Elizabeth and his family. He          opens his journal, clears his throat, and begins.                         GARRETT          This is called "The Chase," by Garrett          Tiara.                         (READING)          XOXO /My love for you is XOXO/          Her hair is long and straight / Isn't it          great? / About her smile / That I would          walk a mile for / About her personality /          That makes me see the best in me / And at          night when we sleep / Our souls locked in          deep / So that when we sleep / We can          stop pretending / And embrace our          beautiful ending.          Melody applauds. The Aunts join in. Elizabeth claps,          then gets up to go. Garrett shakes them all off.                         ELIZABETH          She sits back down.                         GARRETT          We'll dance our dance / We'll revel in          romance perchance / One glance / One dance          / Because together we can achieve...          (really reaching for it)          Ba-lance... Thank you.          He closes his journal. Everyone applauds. Melody looks          to Elizabeth for a reaction.                         ELIZABETH          Junior likes to rhyme.                                                                                                              53.                         MELODY          Patty, Nancy, why don't you give me a          hand with dessert -- give them a chance          to talk about the poem.          The women exit, leaving Garrett and Elizabeth.                         ELIZABETH          So your poem's about that girl?                         GARRETT          Chase, yeah. You got the subtext.                         ELIZABETH          Can I give you some advice?                         GARRETT          Please.                         ELIZABETH          Number one, stop writing poetry. Two:          stop reading it. And three: don't set          your sights so high. I mean, she's          really hot. If I were you, I'd try for          that chubby girl that sits up front --          the one with the teeth?          Elizabeth puts her hands to show teeth going off in          different directions.                         GARRETT          But I like Chase.                         ELIZABETH          Not gonna happen. Look, I was that hot          girl. Hotter, even. And I never would          have gone out with a kid like you. And          I'm not saying that to be mean. I'm          saying it to be helpful.                         GARRETT          What do you know? You don't-even know          our names.                         ELIZABETH          I'll tell you what I know: a kid who          wears the same "Gymnastics" sweatshirt          three days a week isn't getting laid          until he's 26. That's what I know.                         GARRETT                         (EMOTIONAL)          This sweatshirt was my dad's. It's all          he left when he left.                                                                                                              54.                         ELIZABETH          Well, there's a reason he didn't pack it.                         GARRETT          (quiet, steely)          Fuck you.          Elizabeth pats Garrett on the shoulder.                         ELIZABETH          Good luck being a loser. Thank your mom          for dinner.          Elizabeth heads for the door.                         GARRETT          Happy New Year. Are you spending that          alone, too, or do you want my mom to          invite you over?          She gives him the finger over her shoulder and leaves.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          The students, many tanned, many with braids in their hair          from their winter vacations, silently stare at Elizabeth.          She looks haggard. She pulls out a bottle of cough syrup          and takes a long swig.          The kids look at each other, like "what is she doing?"          Elizabeth lets out a lame, fake cough.                         ELIZABETH          Shut up.          INT. WOMEN'S FACULTY BATHROOM - DAY          Elizabeth is-checking her makeup in the mirror. Lynn          enters. Her blouse has a healthy serving of vomit on it.                         LYNN          Hey, welcome back.                         ELIZABETH          What is that, vomit?          Lynn grabs some towels and blots at the stain..                         LYNN          Yeah, and a little blood. The kids had          too much sugar.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              55.                         LYNN (CONT'D)          Anyways, a bunch of us are going out          tonight to see Period 5 play. Do you          want to come?                         ELIZABETH          Ugh. No.          Elizabeth heads out. Lynn, still blotting, follows her.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS          Elizabeth and Lynn bump into Scott.                         SCOTT          Hey, guys. Are you coming to 'In          Cahoots' tonight? My band's doing a few          songs. Could be fun.                         ELIZABETH          Um, yes! That sounds like a party.          (then, to Lynn)          Lynn, do you want to come?                         LYNN          Yes.                         SCOTT          We'll all grab a drink!                         ELIZABETH          Great. I need to get drunk. I mean, not          drunk drunk. But a strong buzz. Still          be able to drive home.                         SCOTT          (high fives her)          Now we're cooking with grease!                         CUT TO:          EXT. IN CAHOOTS BAR & GRILL - NIGHT          We hear the familiar riff of Shawn Mullin's "Lullaby."                         CUT TO:          INT. IN CAHOOTS BAR & GRILL - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS          Scott, Sandy (with his hair down), a BALDING BASS PLAYER          with a yarmulke and a HEAVY-SET DRUMMER, are playing          their hearts out. This is PERIOD 5.                                                                                                              56.          Amy, and a couple other teachers are front and_center,          grooving to the music. Amy sways with her eyes closed.                         SANDY                         (SINGING)          Everything's gonna be alright /          rockabye...          Scott joins in, harmonizing.                         SCOTT          Rockabye, rockabye...                         SANDY SCOTT          Bye, bye... Bye, bye...                         ANGLE ON          Elizabeth and Lynn at the bar.                         LYNN          Aren't they terrific?          Elizabeth eye-fucks Scott. She catches his eye and he          quickly smiles before nervously turning his attention to          Amy. Elizabeth watches Amy dance in SLO M0, her BREASTS          bouncing up and down.                         ELIZABETH          (staring at Amy's breasts)          They're perfect.                         LYNN          You should hear some of their originals.          She turns to the bartender.                         ELIZABETH          Two more.          (then, to Lynn)          You want anything?                         LYNN          No thanks... You know, I was thinking          that if you still need that money, you          should.try and go for the bonus. Can't          hurt.                         ELIZABETH          What bonus?                         LYNN          For the state test.          (off Elizabeth's look)                         (MORE)                                                                                                              57.                         LYNN (CONT'D)          Whichever teacher has the highest scoring          class gets a bonus. We talk about it all          the time in the faculty meetings.                         ELIZABETH          How much?                         LYNN          $5700. Could be good, right?                         (THEN)          Let's dance!          Lynn runs out onto the dance floor and joins Amy.                         DRUMMER                         (COUNTING OFF)          1, 2, 3, 4...                         SANDY                         (SINGING "SMOOTH")          Man it's a hot one / like seven inches          from the midday sun...          Amy kicks her shoes off, and starts dancing. Lynn          follows suit.           Elizabeth throws back her drink and exits.                          CUT TO:          INT. J.A.M.S. - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAWN          The sun is breaking.          INT. AMY'S CAR - SAME          Amy listens to NPR as she pulls into the empty parking          lot. Suddenly, she SLAMS on her brakes.          ELIZABETH'S CAR is already there. Amy puts her car in          park and gets out. She walks over to Elizabeth's car and          feels the hood.                         AMY          Cold.          INT. J.A.M.S. - HALLWAY - MOMENTS LATER          The clicking of Amy's shoes ECHO through the empty hallway.          She stops, takes off her shoes. She pitter-patters down          the hall to Elizabeth's classroom and PEERS in.                                                                                                              58.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - SAME          Elizabeth is at the chalkboard, intently writing          questions. She senses something in her periphery and          looks over at her window. Nothing.          Elizabeth goes back to work.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - LATER          Elizabeth waits in the doorway impatiently as the kids          filter in. Garrett brings up the rear, rolling his          backpack into class.                         ELIZABETH                         (TO GARRETT)          Let's go, Sylvia Plath.          Garrett rolls his backpack over Elizabeth's shoe..          Elizabeth winces and glares at Garrett.          The rest of the class enters, stops, noticing WORK          PACKETS on each of their desks.                         CHASE                         (LOOKING AROUND)          Where's the TV?                         ELIZABETH                         (ALL BUSINESS)          Everyone, take your seats.          Shawn turns to Spencer.                         SHAWN          What do you think's going on?          Spencer shrugs.                         ELIZABETH          Come on, come on. We have a lot to cover          so sit down.          The class, still confused, quickly take their seats.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Alright then. Now. Open your To'Kill A          Mockingbird to page one.          The kids slowly take out their books. We HEAR the          distinct sound of twenty-five book spines cracking as          they're opened for the first time.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          (checking her notes)          Good. Now, who can tell me why Jem cries          when the hole in the tree is filled with          cement? Anyone?                         GARRETT          Because she's a cry baby.          The kids chuckle. Chase looks back at Garrett.                         ELIZABETH                         (TO GARRETT)          Get out.          Garrett clicks up the handle on his bag and heads for the          door.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          We're here to learn. Anyone else have a          problem with that? Good. So who has the          answer to my question?          Everyone looks down.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Nobody's read this book? It's on the          syllabus.                         SASHA          (raising hand and answering)          You never assigned it to us.                         ELIZABETH          Well, now I am. And we're having a quiz          tomorrow.          Panic.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          On the first hundred pages.          PANDEMONIUM.                         SASHA          You can't do that! I have band and jazz          band tonight!                         SHAWN          We haven't had homework all year!                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          Hey! Zip your shit! We've fallen          behind, and honestly, your practice tests          scores sucked balls -- which was          embarrassing to me both on a personal          level and as an educator.                         (BEAT)          Things are about to change. Recess is          over.          INT. ELIZABETH'S APARTMENT - NIGHT          Elizabeth reads To Kill a mockingbird and highlights like          crazy. She stops, takes a hit from her bong, and          continues.          Her roommate, Kirk, enters through the front door,          sipping from a Big Gulp.                         ELIZABETH          Did you get my Cool Ranch?          He tosses her a bag of chips.                         KIRK          You owe me two bucks..          Kirk walks into his room and closes the door.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          Elizabeth paces. She has a book of stickers in her hand.                         ELIZABETH          Okay, now, what is the significance of          the Mockingbird in the novel? What was          Harper Lee trying to tell us?          No one raises their hand.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (SURPRISINGLY SUPPORTIVE)          Come on, you guys know this.          This is as close to real teaching as we've seen from          Elizabeth. Sasha raises her hand. We see that she          already has two gold star stickers on her forehead.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          (rolls her eyes)          Anyone else?                                                                                                              Chase raises her hand.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         CHASE          It's a symbol for, um, equality?          Elizabeth puts a sticker on Chase's forehead.                         ELIZABETH          Okay, good. Can anyone add to what that          girl said?          JUMP CUT TO:          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - ANOTHER DAY          The desks have been arranged into a makeshift courtroom.          Spencer presides as the judge. Chase and Shawn are the          prosecutors. Garrett is dressed like Boo Radley. Tristan,          the bully, addresses the rest of the class -- the "jury."          Everyone is clearly into the exercise.          REVEAL Principal Snur, clad in a dolphin tie, watching from          the back of the class.                         TRISTAN          Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you've          heard the "facts," but come on, you know          me. I'm Atticus Finch, baby!          The class laughs.                         TRISTAN (CONT'D)          Come on, seriously. You're gonna side          with Chase and Shawn over me?                         ELIZABETH          Use examples from the book.                         SPENCER          It doesn't matter what race the defendant          is. You've just gotta look at the facts-.          Elizabeth nods in agreement. The bell RINGS.                         ELIZABETH          Good work today. And don't forget to          leave your closing statements on my desk.                                                                                                              The students all dutifully drop off their papers, placing          them in a neat stack next to other ungraded PAPERS.          Principal Snur exits, giving Elizabeth a thumbs up.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (CALLING AFTER)          Love the tie!          INT. TEACHER'S LOUNGE - DAY          Scott and Amy share a bag of trail mix. Sandy reads a          Jerry Garcia biography. Lynn grades. papers.                         AMY          So, you know how I hate to gossip, but I          heard that one of the custodians walked          in on Omar -- you know, that Arabic boy --          giving...                         (WHISPERS)          Oral sex to Matty Feldstein after swim          practice in the boy's locker room.                         SANDY          It just starts younger and younger.                         LYNN                         (EARNEST)          It's nice to finally see the Jews and the          Arabs getting along.          Elizabeth enters. Scott looks up and smiles.                         SCOTT          Hey, Ms. Halsey.                         AMY          Your shirt's mis-buttoned. Her shirt's          mis-buttoned.                         ELIZABETH                         (LOOKING DOWN)          Oh shit. Hold on.          Elizabeth turns away from them and starts rebuttoning.          Sandy tries to sneak a peek. Scott shoots him a dirty          look. Sandy gives an innocent shrug.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          (grabs yogurt from fridge)          I've just been such a mess the last few          days. Working myself to the bone.                                                                                                              63.                         AMY          Yeah, it's been quite a change.          SCOTT.          Well, I think it's great. Some teachers          just sail by, doing the bare minimum.          It's good to know there are still some          actual educators out there.          Elizabeth smiles for Scott, like, "You get me."                         ELIZABETH          Well, I should get going. Nice seeing          all of you.          Amy and Elizabeth smile thinly at one another. Elizabeth          squeezes Scott's shoulder as she exits. Amy notices.                         SCOTT                         (RE ELIZABETH)          What a good egg.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - AUDITORIUM - LATER          Amy and Sasha sit in the empty auditorium. Sasha is          dressed as LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, including the RED WIG."          Student STAGEHANDS construct a set.                         AMY          What else, Sasha?                         SASHA          I don't know. I told you about the car          wash money.                         AMY          I can't prove that. What else?                         SASHA          I think I've told you everything.                         AMY          And no more movies in class?                         SASHA          No, we're actually learning. Did you          know that Animal Farm isn't even really          about animals --                         AMY                         (SNAPPING)          Animal Farm?! That's not even on the          syllabus!                         (MORE)                                                                                                              64.                         AMY (CONT'D)          (then, collecting herself)          I know you're forgetting something. Do you          want extra credit on your diorama or not?                         SASHA          I want it! Let me think... Oh there          was... never mind.                         AMY          What?                         SASHA          It was okay. It was medicinal.                         AMY          Wait. Hold your horses. What was          medicinal?                         SASHA          Ms. Halsey was smoking in her car, but          she told me her doctor prescribed it.                         AMY                         (TO HERSELF)          Holy guacamole.                         CUT TO:          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          SLO MO. Two scary-looking GERMAN SHEPHERDS, their teeth          bared, pull two POLICE OFFICERS down the hall.                         POLICE OFFICER #1          (to German Shepherd, coaxing)          Come on, Axel, what do you smell, boy?          The Police Officers continue the search. They lead the          dogs up against lockers and knock on class doors.          Amy and Principal Snur watch from the end of the hallway.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR                         (TO AMY)          You better be right about this -- or I'm          going to be getting a lot of panicked          calls from parents.                         AMY          Trust me, Wally. My kids in D.A.R.E.          tell me everything and there are drugs in          this school. And not just the students.          Some of the female teachers.                                                                                                              65.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - THE NEXT DAY          The class is split up into mini-sections of four desks          each. The students are quietly and dutifully working.          As Elizabeth reads papers and grades them, we HEAR the          various student's voices.          TRISTAN (V.0.)          Atticus Finch is a good lawer because          he's a good person whose a layer.          Elizabeth looks at Tristan. As she writes, we HEAR --          ELIZABETH (V.0.)          Proofread.          JUMP CUT TO:          QUICK CUTS. Elizabeth grades another paper. She's          growing more agitated and is now feverishly writing.          ELIZABETH (V.0.) (CONT'D)          Wrong!!!          ELIZABETH (V.0.) (CONT'D)          Is this English?          ELIZABETH (V.0.) (CONT'D)          Are you fucking kidding me?          Elizabeth crosses out with one line, so it's          clearly visible beneath. From out in the hallway, we          HEAR the loud, aggressive BARKING of the DOGS. Tristan          runs to the door and peeks out.                         SPENCER          Whoa. Drug dogs. Cool.                         ELIZABETH          Sit down.          Elizabeth races to the window.                         ELIZABETH'S POV          The Police officers and the dogs enter the classroom next          to hers. Elizabeth glances back at her pocketbook.                          ELIZABETH (CONT'D)           (under her breath)          Balls.          She races back to her desk.                                                                                                              66.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D          Keep reading.          Elizabeth takes her seat and leans under her desk,          obscuring her from her class. She opens her pocketbook          and pulls out a CIGARETTE CASE. She pops it open and we          SEE three neatly rolled JOINTS.          Without hesitation, Elizabeth POPS the first one into her          mouth and starts chewing vigorously. As she. makes her          way through the second and then the third, the chewing          becomes slower and the BARKING becomes louder and louder.          Elizabeth starts CHOKING as the door opens and the Police          Officer and the German Shepherd enter, followed by          Principal Snur and Amy.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Elizabeth, sorry to bother you. This          will only take a second.          Elizabeth,. still choking, digs into her purse. She grabs          her cough syrup and takes a huge swig. Elizabeth wipes          her mouth, breathes normally.                         ELIZABETH          Sorry. I had something caught in my          throat.          The German Shepherd continues barking.                         POLICE OFFICER #1          What is it, Axel? Where is it, boy?          The Dog comes bounding at Elizabeth. Elizabeth's eyes go          wide. Amy licks her lips. The Dog sideswipes Elizabeth,          almost knocking her over, and jumps onto Garrett.                         GARRETT          Ahhh!!!          The'Police Officer starts rummaging through Garrett's bag          and pulls out an opened bag of CORN CHIPS.                         POLICE OFFICER #1          (holding up Corn Chips)          All clear. Dog must've responded to          these. Happens.          Elizabeth glares at Amy -- "I know you were behind this."          Amy glares back.          Principal Snur looks at Amy and shakes his head.                                                                                                                             AMY          (grasping at straws, to Garrett)          Even though that wasn't drugs, junk food          is still contraband. That's detention,          Buster.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Enough, Amy. I think it's time we call          off this witch-hunt.                         ELIZABETH          (pointedly to Amy)          Thank you, Principal Snur. Now if you'll          excuse me, my class has a state test to          prepare for.          Principal Snur, Amy and the Police Officer exit.          Elizabeth slumps down into her chair, and all at once,          the combination of WEED and COUGH SYRUP HITS HER.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Whoa.                         CHASE          Are you okay, Ms. Halsey?          Elizabeth takes a long beat before answering.                         ELIZABETH          Class dismissed.                         SASHA          But the bell didn't ring.                         ELIZABETH          Get out of my face.          (then, to Garrett)          And leave the corn chips.          The class uncertainly gathers their things and heads out.          From outside Elizabeth's window, we SEE the SCHOOL BUSSES          idling curbside. Elizabeth stares at the papers she          still needs to grade. The papers stare back at her.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          (to no one)          But first, a nap.                         DISSOLVE TO:                                                                                                              INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - NIGHT          Elizabeth is asleep at her desk. She wakes with a jolt.          A paper is stuck to her face.          She looks again at the stack of work, then at the pile of          things she's already corrected. There's FOUR.                         ELIZABETH          Balls!          She knocks the stack of ungraded papers to the ground.          After a beat, she collects herself, goes to pick the,          papers off the floor. As she starts tossing them into          the trash, something catches her eye: a PRACTICE TEST          MANUAL. And in the corner, an address:                         54 LAKEVIEW STREET          Peoria Il, 61602                          ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Huh.          Elizabeth tears off the corner and pockets it.          ELIZABETH (PRE-LAP) (CONT'D)          Hey, it's Elizabeth Halsey...          I/E. ELIZABETH'S CAR - DAY          Elizabeth is driving down the highway and smoking a joint.          ELIZABETH (V.0.)          Unfortunately, I can't make it in today.          My grandmother took a turn for the worse          and it looks like she's dead.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          The kids are laughing and engaged. TURN TO REVEAL SCOTT,          dressed in overalls and a straw hat with a piece of hay          in his mouth, animatedly teaching. He's holding a copy          of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."          ELIZABETH (V.0.)          Yeah. So I'm off to the funeral. Wish          me luck.                                                                                                              EXT. SIGMA NU - MOMENTS LATER          Elizabeth knocks on the door. A buff, shirtless guy in a          backwards hat opens it. He likes what he sees.                         FRAT GUY          Hi there.                         ELIZABETH          Is Tucker here?                         FRAT GUY                         (DISAPPOINTED)          Yeah, hold on. T-baaaaag! Someone's          here.          (then, back to Elizabeth)          So you coming to our "CEOs and Corporate          Ho's" party tonight?          Elizabeth just stares at the Frat Guy. He turns away.          Tucker, dressed identically to the Frat Guy but twenty          pounds overweight, hustles down the stairs. He has a          tattoo of intertwined teabags around his bicep.                         TUCKER          INT. SIGMA NU - TUCKER'S BEDROOM - DAY          Tucker sits on his bed. Elizabeth leans against a desk,          unwilling to sit down on anything in his disgusting room.          BOB MARLEY plays softly.                         TUCKER          Do you ever talk to my brother?                         ELIZABETH          No. He dumped me, remember?                         TUCKER          You and my brother always had the          histrionics.                         (THEN)          So, do you want to come to our party          tonight? "CEOs and Corporate Ho's?"          We're kinda light on Ho's.                         ELIZABETH          Like I told "Frat Guy #1," I'm not          interested.                                                                                                                             TUCKER          Then what's up?                         ELIZABETH          I need some date rape drugs.                         TUCKER          (hurt, defensive)          Two things. Number one: who do you think          I am? Yeah, I like to party and yeah,          I'm in an awesome frat, but that really          hurts. And two: they're not "date rape"          drugs. It's called GHB -- and it's for          weightlifting. It helps build mass,          okay? Why do you even want it?                         ELIZABETH                         (DEADPAN)          For lifting.                         (THEN)          I have money and I'm in a rush.          She takes out a wad of cash.                         TUCKER          That's all you needed to say. No need to          get all histrionic on me.          Tucker walks over to a chest, opens it, and takes out a          small lockbox. He unlocks it and takes out a small          bottle containing a clear liquid.                         TUCKER (CONT'D)          One capful makes you feel really good.          Two capfuls will knock her out for a          couple hours. You don't want to take any          more than two.          Elizabeth hands him some cash. He hands her the jar and          then gives her a big, warm hug.                         TUCKER (CONT'D)          Listen, I know you and my brother aren't          together anymore, but I still think of          you as a sister, okay?                         ELIZABETH          Get your hand off my ass.                         TUCKER          Sorry, didn't even know I put it down          there. Good luck with your lifting.                                                                                                              71.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CAR - DAY          As Elizabeth drives, we HEAR a phone RINGING.          WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)          I.S.A.T. How can I direct your call?          ELIZABETH (O.S.)          Hi, my name is Marjorie Goodman and I'm          calling from the Chicago Tribune. Who          could I speak to regarding allegations of          racial bias on your standardized tests?          A beat.          WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)          Please hold.          INT. T.G.I.FRIDAY'S - NIGHT          A portly, unkempt man in a cheap suit, CARL HALABI,          nervously walks through the hotel bar. He sees the back          of a WOMAN with a RED PERM.                         CARL          Marjorie?          "Marjorie" turns and we SEE that it's actually ELIZABETH,          wearing the "Little Orphan Annie" wig. She's sipping a          cocktail.                         ELIZABETH          You must be Carl.          His face lights up, excited to be in the company of such          an attractive woman. Elizabeth stands and extends her          hand. Carl notices Elizabeth's very short skirt.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Thanks for meeting me on such short          notice.          Elizabeth motions for him to sit down.                         CARL                         (NERVOUS)          You find the place alright? Good drive?                         ELIZABETH          Great drive. I love downstate Illinois.                         CARL          First time to Peoria?                                                                                                              72.                         ELIZABETH          Hmm mmm.                         CARL          A lot of people don't know this, but it's          the largest city on the Illinois River.                         ELIZABETH          Wow. I did not know that.                         CARL          Yup yup. And it was actually founded          before Chicago.                         ELIZABETH          Hello, Jeopardy! Have you ever          auditioned?                         CARL          (enjoying the compliment)          No. I should, I should. Definitely          thought about it.                         ELIZABETH          Listen, I'd love to sit here and chat          with you all night.                         CARL          Yeah...                         ELIZABETH          But I'm sure you're a very busy man, so          I'll get right down to it.                         (THEN)          I've spoken to various, um, black citizens          who are alleging that your tests are          biased towards white people and Orientals.                         CARL          (shakes head in frustration)          You can't use my name, okay?                         ELIZABETH          No problem.                         CARL          Like I told you on the phone, every couple          of years, we get calls from all over the          state with these cockamamie charges. You          should hear what they call me. And I'm          not a racist. I voted for Obama.          (motioning for her to write)          That, you can quote me on.                                                                                                              73.                         ELIZABETH          Oh, right.          Elizabeth takes out a notebook and pen and starts jotting          down notes.                         CARL          Look, Marjorie, I know my tests aren't          perfect. But what's the alternative? I'm          all for free thinking and creativity, but          how do you formulate an education budget          without hard numbers from one of my tests?                         ELIZABETH          You don't need to convince me. But you          know what would help, Carl? For me to          see one of this year's tests.                         CARL          No problem at all.          Elizabeth lights up.                         CARL (CONT'D)          I'll send you one the day after the          schools administer them.                         ELIZABETH          I'd really love to see it sooner. I'm on          a bit of a deadline.                         CARL          I wish I could, but unfortunately, you          need one of these bad boys.          Carl holds up a lanyard with a STATE ID CARD and some          keys attached.                         ELIZABETH          Ooh, you look like you're CIA. Listen, I          totally get it. Enough business for one night.                         (THEN)          I'm gonna have another drink before I hit          the road. What's your poison?                         CARL          My poison is the white devil. Wine.          White wine.                         ELIZABETH          Fantastic.          (then, to Bartender)          One white wine, one tequila sunrise, and          two shots of tequila.                                                                                                              74.          INT. T.G.I.FRIDAY'S - LATER          Carl is a little tipsy and slurring his words. Elizabeth          seems to be fine.                         CARL          You know, Marjorie, this is the best          night I've had in a longtime.                         ELIZABETH          Well, that makes two of us.          Elizabeth gives Carl "fuck me" eyes. He nervously sips          his drink.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          What turns you on, Carl?                         CARL          Everything.                         ELIZABETH          You know what turns me on, Carl?          He giggles nervously.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (WHISPERS)          Sex in an office. Getting fucked really,          really hard against a wooden desk.                         CARL                         (SWALLOWS)          Mine's metal.                         ELIZABETH          Even better.          INT. ILLINOIS STANDARDIZED TEST OFFICES - NIGHT          Carl flips on the fluorescent lights and they flicker on,          like dominoes across the ceiling. They enter his office          and Carl awkwardly leans against the metal desk.                         CARL          (gesturing, as promised)          So this is the desk.                         ELIZABETH          Do you have anything to drink?          Carl goes to a mini-fridge and pulls out an already          opened bottle of white wine.                                                                                                              75.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          White wine in the office. You're a bad          boy.          Carl pours a glass. Elizabeth swigs from the bottle.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Do you have any music?                         CARL          Um... I could put on some internet radio.          Carl goes to fiddle with his computer. Elizabeth quickly          reaches into her purse and pulls out the bottle of GHB.          She pours a little into Carl's wine. And then a little          bit more. As he turns around, she hands him the glass.                         ELIZABETH          A toast. To new friends.                         CARL          To new lovers.          CLINK. Carl downs his glass.                         CARL (CONT'D)                         (NERVOUS)          I'm gonna take off my shoes. Is that okay?                         ELIZABETH          Whatever, man. I'm gonna hit the lady's          room.                         CARL          K, first door on your right. Don't be          long.          Carl starts carefully clearing everything off of his desk.          INT. STANDARDIZED TEST OFFICES - BATHROOM - MOMENTS LATER          Elizabeth waits in the bathroom. Yawns. Checks her watch.          INT. STANDARDIZED TEST OFFICES - LATER          She walks back in. Carl looks woozy. The only thing          keeping him from passing out is the prospect of seeing          Elizabeth naked.                         CARL                         (SLURRING)          I wanna fug ya agains dis desk.                                                                                                              76.                         ELIZABETH          Easy, Cowboy.          Carl stumbles towards her. Elizabeth deftly moves around          the desk and exits into the bullpen.                         CARL          Marblorie!                         ELIZABETH          (as to a child)          Carl, I'm gonna need you to pass the fuck out.          Carl smiles as he feebly chases after her. He. stops at          the photocopier, steadies himself momentarily and then          passes out, STILL STANDING.          Elizabeth grabs the lanyard from Carl's neck and heads back          into his office. She goes over to the filing cabinets,          unlocks it with one of the keys, and starts rifling. She          pulls out a folder.          2009 ILLINOIS STANDARDIZED TEST                          ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          And bingo was his name-o.          She walks over to the photocopier and pushes Carl over. He          collapses on the ground -- out cold. She copies the test and          puts it back and grabs a stack of scantrons from a shelf.          She takes a post-it, scribbles something and sticks it to          his forehead. As Elizabeth exits, the camera PUSHES IN:          "You were AMAZING. Love, Marjorie."                         CUT TO:          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - MORNING          Elizabeth stares at the clock. 8:59... 8:59.                         ELIZABETH          Okay, go.          The students open their test books and start. Twenty-          five pencils hit paper in unison.                         DISSOLVE TO:          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - LATER          Elizabeth stares at the clock. 10:59... 10:59.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          Okay, pencils down.          A couple of groans. A couple of frantic moves to fill in          more scantron bubbles.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Come on, come on. It doesn't even          matter. Bring your tests up.          The students dutifully place their tests into a neat          stack on the corner of Elizabeth's desk and exit.          Elizabeth waits for all the kids to leave and then slides          all of the exams into the trash. She pulls out a match          and lights the exams on fire.          She then reaches into her bag and pulls out a new stack          of completed exams. She places the new exams into an          official-looking folder and exits.                         DISSOLVE TO:          CHYRON: 2 WEEKS LATER          Principal Snur is on stage. All the teachers sit in the          first few rows. Amy stands at her seat.                         AMY          If anyone has any information regarding          the whereabouts of the missing "Annie"          wig, please let me know ASAP. Because if          that wig isn't found, you can bet your          bottom dollar the "sun will not come out          tomorrow." Back to you, Wally.          Amy sits. Principal Snur addresses the teachers.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Thanks, Amy. Um, okay, I'm sure everyone          wants to go home, so I'll be quick.                         SANDY                         (PIPING UP)          Fourscore and seven years ago...          Scattered laughter. Elizabeth rolls her eyes.                                                                                                                             PRINCIPAL SNUR          (holding up file)          So I have here the results of the state          exam -- and I'm happy to announce that          John Adams Middle School had the fifth          highest scores in the state.          The Teachers applaud.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          And I want to single out one of our own,          who showed that with hard work and          dedication, one person can make a          difference. She makes me proud to be her          boss and she's now $5700 richer. With          the highest scores in the county -- yes,          you heard me right, in the county ---I          want everyone to please give a hand to --                         AMY          (to random teacher)          Oh boy, third year in a row. This is          starting to get embarrassing.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Elizabeth Halsey!          Elizabeth leans over to Amy, who's sitting beside her.                         ELIZABETH          This is unexpected.          All of the color drains from Amy's face as Elizabeth          stands and waves at the crowd.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          Teachers are exiting the auditorium. Scott catches up to          Elizabeth, who's marvelling at the bonus check.                         SCOTT          Hey, if it isn't Professor Smartypants.          Scott playfully punches her shoulder. Elizabeth          playfully punches him back.                         ELIZABETH                         (FLIRTY)          Better not mess with me. I'm a lot          stronger than I look.                                                                                                              79.                         SCOTT                         (LAUGHS)          So what are you gonna do with your new-          found riches?                         ELIZABETH          Something big. Maybe two big things.          Amy walks up and gives Elizabeth a big, fake hug.                         AMY          Hey! Ism so proud of you. If someone          told me at the beginning of the year that          you -- you! -- would get the bonus, I          would've said to whomever it was, 'you          must be joshing me.' And now, here we          are. Here we are.                         SCOTT          We should go out and celebrate.          (joking, to Elizabeth)          Your treat?                         AMY          What a good, fun idea. Unfortunately,          Scott and I have to go over the itinerary          for the D.C. trip. We're the chaperones.          We're going together.          (then, quiet to Elizabeth)          We're dating, so it'll also be romantic.          You're not dating anyone now, right?                         ELIZABETH          I've got my eye on someone, but he's          dating a major cunt.          (then, to Scott)          Pardon my French.                         SCOTT          No, she sounds terrible.                         ELIZABETH          She is.                         AMY          Well then. Scott, we should skedaddle.          Those itineraries won't schedule          themselves.          Amy and Scott head off. Scott turns around.                         SCOTT          Rain check on those drinks.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH                         (TO HERSELF)          You can bet on it.          INT. DR. VOGEL'S OFFICE - RECEPTION AREA - DAY          Danni, the receptionist, uncrumples a BALL OF CRUMPLED CASH          and counts it. Elizabeth taps her fingers impatiently.                         DANNI          Almost done. We don't normally deal with          cash here. At the doctor's office.          Elizabeth slides the bonus check across the desk.                         ELIZABETH          And this is endorsed. And the rest you          can put on these.          Elizabeth slides four credit cards across the desk. The          MIDDLE-AGED DOCTOR from earlier walks by.                         DANNI                         (TO ELIZABETH)          And when would you like to come in?                         ELIZABETH                         (TO DOCTOR)                         MIDDLE-AGED DOCTOR          Hi.          He goes into his office. Elizabeth turns back to Danni.                         DANNI          And when would you like to come in?                         ELIZABETH          Today. Tomorrow. As soon as possible.          Danni checks her calendar.                         DANNI          A week from tomorrow, then?                         ELIZABETH          Book it.          Danni slides Elizabeth a packet of literature.                                                                                                                             DANNI          We have a 48 hour cancellation policy.          Anything after that, you'll be charged          50% the cost of the surgery -- unless          there are extenuating circumstances.                         ELIZABETH          I wouldn't miss it for the world.          Elizabeth pulls her shirt away from her body and looks          down at her breasts.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          So long, suckers.          EXT. J.A.M.S. - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAWN          The lot is empty except for Elizabeth's car.          INT. AMY'S CLASSROOM - DAY          Elizabeth enters and pulls latex gloves from her bag.          She snaps them on. She takes a seat at Amy's desk and          pulls an apple from her bag.          Then she pulls out POISON IVY. She rubs the apple with          the poison ivy leaves and then carefully places it in the          center of the desk. Elizabeth smiles.          INT. AMY'S CLASSROOM - LATER          Amy's class is seated. Amy enters and heads for her desk.          She notices the apple and smiles at her class, touched.          Thank you.          The class stares back at her blankly.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Who did this?          No response from the class.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Oh come on. Nobody wants an extra          sticker on their all-star board?          Amy presses the apple to her ear.                                                                                                                             AMY (CONT'D)          (muppet voice, to apple)          Who brought you to me?          Amy places the apple up to her ear.                         AMY (CONT'D)                         (MUPPET VOICE)          What's that, Mr. Apple? You want me to          take a bite? Alrighty-roo.          Amy takes a bite of the apple and then addresses the class.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Enough horsin' around, let's get started.          JUMP CUT TO:          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAY          A LUXURY BUS idles curbside. Parents see off their kids.          Scott and Elizabeth are checking kids in. Principal Snur          walks up.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          All set?                         SCOTT          I think we're good.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Elizabeth, thanks again for hopping in          last minute. You really saved us.                         ELIZABETH          Is Amy going to be okay?                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          She'll be fine. But to be honest, I          think she was scaring some of the kids.                         ELIZABETH          I bet, I bet. Well, let her know she's          in my thoughts.                         ANGLE ON          Amy watching from outside her car. One side of her face          is completely blistered, scaly and red from the POISON          IVY. The kids have every reason to be scared by her.          She gets into her car and slams the door.                                                                                                                             AMY          (banging on steering wheel)          Fudge! Fudge! Fudge! Fuuuuuck--dge!          INT. LUXURY BUS - DAY          Kids sing BUS SONGS. Elizabeth and Scott sit up front.                         KIDS                         (SINGING)          Hey, Sasha!          Hey, Sasha!                         SASHA          I think I hear it again!                         KIDS          You're wanted on the telephone!                         SASHA                         (POINTING)          If it's not Chase, then I'm not home!          Chase rolls her eyes. Up front, Scott and Elizabeth sit          next to one another and share ipod buds.                         ELIZABETH          (nodding to the beat)          You guys are amazing. Period 5 is          definitely going to make it.          Scott smiles wide. Garrett walks up the aisle. He looks          at Elizabeth, then turns to Scott.                         GARRETT          Mr. Delacourte, do you think we could go          to the poetry museum?                         SCOTT          Oh, um, I don't know, Champ, um --          Scott looks to Elizabeth, like "please help."                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          (to Garrett, supersweet)          Oh, honey, I bet everyone would just love          to walk around and look at all the poetry          on the walls, but unfortunately, the          itinerary's really tight.                         GARRETT          Why are you talking like that?                         ELIZABETH          Just go sit down, sweetie.          Garrett gives her an annoyed look and then heads back to          his seat. Scott smiles at Elizabeth.                         SCOTT          Wow, you are such a natural.                         ELIZABETH          When you love what you do, it comes easy.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - NIGHT          A splotchy-faced Amy trudges down the hallway. She          passes Elizabeth's room, stops, walks back to the door          and peers in. She looks down the hallway -- it's empty.          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - CONTINUOUS          Amy rifles through Elizabeth's desk. She opens the top          drawer. Just pens and paper. She tries the bottom          drawer. Locked.          Shishkebabs!          INT. EMPTY HALLWAY - MOMENTS LATER          Amy drags ELIZABETH'S DESK across the hallway into her          room. It's a slow, difficult and loud process.          INT. EMPTY HALLWAY - LATER          Amy, sweating, now drags HER OWN DESK across the.hallway          into Elizabeth's room. She stops to catch her breath.                         CUT TO:                                                                                                              85.          INT. AMY'S CLASSROOM - THE NEXT DAY          Amy watches as the MAINTENANCE GUY sorts through his keys          and tries to unlocks the desk.                         AMY          (nervous, too loud)          I never lose my keys!                         MAINTENANCE GUY          What's wrong with your face?                         AMY          What's wrong with your face?!?!                         MAINTENANCE GUY          Just making conversation.          He finds the right key and opens the desk.          MAINTENANCE GUY (CONT'D)          All set.                         AMY          (buying it back)          Super! Thanks a bunch, Amos!          The Maintenance Man exits.          Amy immediately opens the desk and rummages through it.          She pulls out the "Annie" wig.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Busted.          She pulls out a test booklet. There's a piece ripped out          from the front page. Amy's eyes narrow. She runs to the          floor, where she has neat stacks of what used to be in          her desk. She finds her test booklet and compares the          two, clocking the I.S.A.T. address.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Looks like somebody's in big, big          trouble.          EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - DAY          To establish.          EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - SMITHSONIAN - DAY          Elizabeth and Scott stand with the kids in the lobby area.                                                                                                              86.                         SCOTT          Alright, guys, count-off.          The students begin their count-off.                         STUDENT #1          1.                         SASHA          2!                         STUDENT #3          3.                         TRISTAN          69.          He bumps knuckles with his friend.                         GARRETT          5.          As the students continue counting off, we                         CUT TO:          D.C. Montage:          --Elizabeth and Scott walk with the kids through          ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY. Elizabeth snaps her gum.          --Elizabeth, Scott and the kids follow a TOUR GUIDE          through the WHITE HOUSE. Elizabeth takes the gum from          her mouth and looks for a place to toss it. She doesn't          see a trash can and quickly sticks it to the bottom of an          antique table.          --Chase has Elizabeth take a "Charlie's Angels" posed          picture of her and her minions. Elizabeth takes the picture          before they're fully posed and hands the camera back.          END MONTAGE.          INT. ILLINOIS STANDARDIZED TEST OFFICES - DAY          Amy, her face still covered in the rash, sits across from          Carl Halabi, the administrator that Elizabeth roofied.          Carl is staring at a photo of Elizabeth.                         CARL          She changed her hair. Is Marjorie in          some kind of trouble?                                                                                                              87.                         AMY          I think you're the one that might be in          some kind of trouble! Did you or did you          not give her a copy of the state test?                         CARL          What?! No!                         (THEN)          All I did was give her a couple of quotes          ,for her article and that's it.                         AMY          What article?                         CARL          For the Tribune. She's a reporter there.          Right?          Amy's eyes go wide.                         CUT TO:          EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY          Amy's car ZOOMS past the camera.          INT. AMY'S CAR - DAY          Amy's drives, her hands at 10 and 2. CLOSE ON the           speedometer as the needle hovers between 55 and 56 mph.          EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - JEFFERSON MEMORIAL - DAY          The students take pictures. Garrett walks up to chase.                         GARRETT          Hey, you want me to take your picture?                         CHASE          No.                         GARRETT          Alright, well let me know. I've got my          camera and my battery's fully charged.          She turns away.                          GARRETT (CONT'D)          Awesome.                         ANGLE ON                                                                                                              88.          .Scott, who stares up at the memorial and looks choked up.          Elizabeth walks up behind him eating a fruit roll-up.                         ELIZABETH                         (OFFERING)          Fruit roll-up?                         SCOTT                         (RE JEFFERSON)          I'm so conflicted about this man. Did          you know that he had slaves?          Elizabeth tries to dislodge a piece of the fruit roll-up          from the back of her mouth with her tongue.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, everyone knows that.                         SCOTT          I just hate slavery so, so much. An          unquestionable evil. I hate it.          Elizabeth continues struggling with the fruit.                         ELIZABETH          Slavery's the worst.                         SCOTT          If I could go back in time and undo          slavery, I would.          Elizabeth gives him a sideways glance, like "no shit."                         ELIZABETH          You really hate slavery, huh?                         SCOTT          I hate it.          Elizabeth finally dislodges the chunk of fruit roll-up.                         ELIZABETH          (re fruit roll-up)          Got it.                         SCOTT          (staring straight ahead)          You get it.          Scott squeezes Elizabeth's shoulder.                         SCOTT (CONT'D)          Thanks for listening.                                                                                                              89.                         ELIZABETH          Hey, I want you to know you can talk to          me about anything. Slavery, the          Holocaust, relationships.          Scott smiles. Elizabeth smiles. They lock eyes -- a          moment.          INT. PRINCIPAL SNUR'S OFFICE - DAY          Principal Snur squeezes a dolphin-shaped stress ball that          chirps like a dolphin with every squeeze. Amy sits          across from him, trying to contain her glee.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          (shaking his head)          Test-tampering. Here? At J.A.M.S.?                         AMY          And like I said, she stole the wig. I          think we're dealing with a criminal          master-mind.                         (BEAT)          Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Wally.          You know how much we all like her.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          I know. It's a tragedy. But Amy, let's          keep this between us. The last thing we          need is a scandal on our hands.                         AMY          You betcha.          (gets up to go, turns)          You know what scares me the most? This          is just what we know. This could be the          tip of the iceberg. Who knows what else          she's capable of?          INT. RADISSON HOTEL - HALLWAY - NIGHT          The CAMERA is tight on a hotel room door. The faint          thumping of hotel sex can be heard.          INT. RADISSON HOTEL - SCOTT'S ROOM - NIGHT          Elizabeth and Scott are dry-humping, FULLY CLOTHED except          for their shoes and socks.                         SCOTT          Oh my gosh, your body feels so good.                                                                                                              90.                         ELIZABETH          Harder, harder.          Elizabeth tries pulling off her shirt. Scott pulls it          back down.                         SCOTT          Oh my gosh, I'm dry-humping the shit out          of you.                         ELIZABETH          Erg. Dry fuck the fuck out of me.                         SCOTT          Oh my gosh, I'm so close... I'm... pfft.          Ugh.          Scott rolls off of Elizabeth and exhales deeply. There's          a wet spot on his jeans.                         SCOTT (CONT'D)          That was a mistake.                         ELIZABETH          That was fast.                         SCOTT          I know, I'm sorry. But this isn't me. And I.          know this isn't you. I'm in love with Amy.                         ELIZABETH          But we're so good together. We both hate          slavery, we both love teaching. And call          me crazy, but I always imagined us          spending summers at your family's compound          in Hyannisport.                         SCOTT          I know. And you're awesome and you have a          huge heart and I love your empathy. It's          just, when I was dry-humping you, I couldn't          stop thinking about dry-humping Any.                         ELIZABETH          It's because of my tits, isn't it? Well,          I'm getting new ones in, like, two days.          Don't make a decision until you see them.                         SCOTT          Elizabeth, I think you're beautiful just          the way you are, even with your flat chest.          And I think Amy's beautiful. But I just          have to do what's right. I made Amy a          promise.                                                                                                              91.          Scott holds up his hand, showing off a PROMISE RING.                         ELIZABETH          What're you -- 13?          Elizabeth angrily gets up and pulls on her socks.                         SCOTT          Wait, Elizabeth. Don't go. Spend the night          here with me. You can sleep on the other bed.                         ELIZABETH                         (FAKE EXCITEMENT)          Ooh, like a slumber party? I'm leaving. And          for the record, your band sucks, asstard.          Elizabeth opens the room door and exits. She tries slamming          the door, but it's on a spring so it closes very, very slowly.          EXT. LINCOLN MEMORIAL - DAY          The kids listen to a TOUR GUIDE on the steps of the          memorial. Garrett sneaks furtive glances at Chase.          Elizabeth stands away from the group, on her cell.                         ELIZABETH                         (ON PHONE)          Wally. Why would I cheat? If I'm guilty          of anything, it's teaching too hard.          Great... I've got nothing to hide.          She ends the call.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Fuck!          Scott, wearing a Thomas Jefferson souvenir T-shirt, and          all of the students look over at Elizabeth.          ELIZABETH.(CONT'D)          What?!          The Tour Guide looks around uncertainly before continuing.                         TOUR GUIDE          And does anyone know what Abraham          Lincoln's nickname was?          Sasha's hand shoots up.                         SASHA          Honest Abe.                                                                                                              92.                         TOUR GUIDE          "Honest Abe", that's right. Because          Lincoln always said what was on his mind,          even if that meant being unpopular.          Abraham Lincoln always showed great          courage.          Garrett takes this in. He looks over at Chase and then,          after a beat, raises his hand.          TOUR GUIDE (CONT'D)          Yes?                         GARRETT          I love Chase Streeter-Rossi.          All eyes turn to Garrett. Chase looks mortified.                         TOUR GUIDE          Okay then. Any other questions?                         GARRETT          (presses, turns to Chase)          I love you, Chase. I've always loved          you. And even though you pretty much          stopped talking to me in fifth grade, I          don't care. I remember the Chase that          wrote me a card when my dad was          overweight and had to go to the hospital          because of his heart --                         SASHA          That was from the whole class.                         GARRETT          Shut up, Sasha, I'm talking about a          different card.                         (CONTINUING)          And then, a year later, when he left my          mom and moved in with his trainer, you          wrote me another card. What happened to          us? Remember when we had a sleepover in          the second grade and you wet your bed and          you were so embarrassed and you made me          promise not to ever tell anyone. Well, I          never did and I never will. I know we're          really young, but remember Romeo and          Juliet were only 13. A lot of people          don't know that. So there it is. My          heart on a sleeve.          (goes into rhyming verse)          Don't let me leave / Always believe /          A beat. Chase stares at Garrett.                                                                                                              93.                         CHASE          Gross.          Chase's friends all start laughing. The rest of the          class joins in. Garrett runs down the steps, away from          everyone.                         SCOTT          Alright, guys, let's settle down.          The Tour Guide looks around, uncertain.                         TOUR GUIDE                         (POINTING)          And these columns here are Doric columns.          Now let's move inside to see the interior          murals painted by Jules Guerin.          The Tour Guide leads the group inside. Elizabeth looks          back and sees Garrett on the steps, his head in his          hands. She rolls her eyes and walks down to him.                         ELIZABETH          Hey, Abe Lincoln, get up. Tour's not          over.                         GARRETT                         (UPSET)          She just laughed at me. Called me gross.                         ELIZABETH          You'll get over it. Get up.                         GARRETT          I'm not going back. Leave me alone!                         ELIZABETH          Now.                         GARRETT          No!          Garrett runs off.                         ELIZABETH          Hey, come back here you little --          Elizabeth starts running after him in heels. She          immediately breaks a heel.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         MOTHER --          She breaks the other heel.                                                                                                                              ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Fucker.          EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - DAY           The students stand by their bus. Scott addresses them.                         SCOTT          Who had a good time in D.C.?          The students let out a cheer.          SCOTT (cont'd) (CONT'D)          Who ate too many french fries at lunch?          The students let out another cheer.          SCOTT (cont'd) (CONT'D)          Alright, let's do our final count-off.                         STUDENT #1                         SASHA                         STUDENT #3                         TRISTAN          A beat.                         STUDENT #6          6.                         STUDENT #7          7.          ,SCOTT          Wait, wait. Where's 5? Who's 5?          Everyone looks around.                         SASHA          I think it's Garrett Tiara.                         SCOTT          Garrett! Garrett!          Nothing. Scott looks around, stricken.                                                                                                              SCOTT (cont'd) (CONT'D)          And where's Ms. Halsey?          Nothing.          SCOTT (cont'd) (CONT'D)          Alright, everyone on the bus!                         CUT TO:          EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - STREET - LATER          Elizabeth searches for Garrett.                         ELIZABETH          Garrett! Garrett!          Her cell phone RINGS. She checks the caller ID: "HOT          SCOTT." She puts the phone back in her purse.          INT. LUXURY BUS - LATER          The kids are getting restless. A lot of singing. A lot          of horsing around.                         KIDS                         (CHANTING)          Let's go home! Let's go home!          Scott sits up front by the driver. He's on his cell.                         SCOTT                         (FRANTIC )          I'm freaking out here. They've been          missing over two hours. I'm just a          substitute!          (then, to kids)          Shut up!!!          The chanting immediately stops.                         INTERCUT WITH:          INT. AMY'S APARTMENT - DAY          Amy, the phone cradled to her ear, leans back on her          couch. She's wearing splotches of calamine lotion over          her rash and her hair is pulled back. A TURTLE plods          across her kitchen table.                                                                                                              96.                         AMY                         (WHEELS SPINNING)          Oh my gosh. We just might have a Mary          Kay Letourneau situation on our hands.          Amy scratches the turtle's neck as it continues across          the table.                         SCOTT          I don't know. You think?                         AMY          I know. The woman's a criminal          mastermind.                         SCOTT          This is such a mess.                         AMY          What I need from you is to focus and get          our kids home safe. I'll take care of          everything here.                         SCOTT          Thanks, Amy. You're a lifesaver.                         AMY          It's what I do. Love you, Scooter.          She hangs up the phone and cockily kicks her feet onto          the table, accidentally knocking the turtle to the floor.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Oh boy.          EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - NIGHT          We're no longer in the tourist areas. A STRAY DOG walks          down the middle of the street. SIRENS WAIL. PROSTITUTES          hail Johns with catcalls. Elizabeth, still in her broken          heels, walks down the gritty street. -                         ELIZABETH                         (CALLING)          Garrett! Garrett!          Her phone RINGS. She checks the CALLER ID -- "HOT SCOTT."                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)                         (ANSWERING PHONE)          I'm looking for him! Stop fucking          calling me!                                                                                                              She powers her phone off and continues down the street.          She passes two PROSTITUTES.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Hey, guys. Hi. I'm looking for a young          kid, about 13. Really annoying, kind of          a cry baby. Have you seen him?                         PROSTITUTE #1          Fuck you.                         ELIZABETH          Fantastic.                         PROSTITUTE #2          You best step off, bitch, because this is          my block. This here's Poetry's block.                         ELIZABETH          Poetry?                         PROSTITUTE #1          Cause that's how she fuck.                         PROSTITUTE #2          I fuck like that. Lyrical.          Something occurs to Elizabeth. She smiles.                         ELIZABETH          Thank you, Poetry. And Poetry's friend.          Elizabeth walks off and sticks out her hand, trying to          hail a cab. She passes a bunch of HOMELESS MEN warming          up by a trash can fire.                         HOMELESS MAN #1          Won't get a cab in this neighborhood.          A CAR slows next to Elizabeth. A JOHN rolls down the          passenger window and leans out.                         JOHN          Hey, sweetheart. How much for a titty          fuck?                         ELIZABETH          I need a ride.                         JOHN          Oh yeah, I need a ride, too. Right          through those titties.                                                                                                                             ELIZABETH          No, I need a ride. Like you driving, and          me pointing mace at your face. I'll give          you ten bucks.                         JOHN                         (A BEAT)          This is weird. Twenty.          Elizabeth hops in.                         CUT TO:          EXT. J.A.M.S. - TEACHER'S PARKING LOT - NIGHT          MIDNIGHT. PARENTS are waiting. A few console Garrett's          mom, Melody. A few LOCAL NEWS VANS idle nearby.                         SPENCER'S MOM                         (TO MELODY)          He's gonna be alright. The police will          find him. I'm sure they're back at the          hotel. Probably just a mix-up.          The bus pulls up to the curb and stops. Scott steps off          first, clearly confused by the crowd and TV cameras.          Immediately, a reporter thrusts a mic into his face.                         REPORTER          What can you. tell us about the alleged          romance between Elizabeth Halsey and a 13          year old student?                         SCOTT                         (CONFUSED)          What?          The students step off and the Parents swarm them.                         PARENT #1          Oh baby, are you okay? Did she touch          you?          Sasha's parents engulf her in a hug.                         SASHA'S MOTHER          Oh Sasha!          (then, to Sasha's Dad)          You expect this stuff to happen in          Florida, not here.                                                                                                              EXT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - OFFICE OF THE POET LAUREATE - NIGHT          Garrett walks up to a drab building where he sees          Elizabeth on the curb waiting for him. There's a tiny          sign that reads "Office of the Poet Laureate."                         ELIZABETH          It's closed. Won't be open till morning.          Come on. Let's get back to the hotel.          I'm sure everyone's mad at you.          Garrett stands his ground.                         GARRETT          I'm not leaving without talking to the          poet laureate.                         ELIZABETH          Do you think that some Shel Silverstein          wannabe is going to tell you the meaning          of life?                         GARRETT          What do you care?                         ELIZABETH          I'm here, right?                         GARRETT          You have to be here. You're a teacher.                         ELIZABETH          Not for long. I'm getting fired for          cheating as soon as we get back.          Garrett takes a seat next to Elizabeth.                         GARRETT          So. you came looking for me on your own?                         ELIZABETH          Yup.          (holds up her shoes)          And you owe me a new pair of          Nanette Lepores.                         GARRETT          I just want to know what to say to Chase          to get her to like me.                         ELIZABETH          You know what you should do?                                                                                                              What?                         ELIZABETH          Just go out and sleep with as many girls,          as you possibly can. Get her out of your          head.                         GARRETT          They'll probably reject me, too.                         ELIZABETH          Yeah, probably. But life's about how you          deal with rejection. You can either hide          in a corner and cry or you can get          stronger every time. And I figure a kid          like you with not much going for him --          if he were to choose the latter -- might          end up becoming a pretty strong man.                         GARRETT                         (TOUCHED)          Thanks.                         ELIZABETH          Now come on, let's get out of here. I'm          freezing and Mr. Delacourte's probably          shitting a brick.                         GARRETT          I can't go back there. All the kids will          laugh at me.                         ELIZABETH          You seriously think they haven't been          laughing already?                         GARRETT          Maybe Chase is wondering where I am.                         ELIZABETH          Hate to break it to you, kid, but I don't          think anyone gives two shits where we are.          INT. PRINCIPAL SNUR'S OFFICE - NIGHT          Principal.Snur sits across from Garrett's mother, Melody,          who is beside herself. She is wearing a beret. A          DETECTIVE and Amy are standing behind the desk.          Principal Snur passes her a dolphin-shaped tissue box.                                                                                                                             DETECTIVE          What else can you tell us about Garrett          and Ms. Halsey's relationship?                         MELODY          It was strictly student/teacher.          Garrett's a gifted poet and Ms. Halsey          was trying to bring that out of him.          Amy snorts.                         DETECTIVE          Did they ever spend time outside of the          classroom?                         MELODY          Aside from Christmas at our house?          Absolutely not.          The Detective glances at the Principal, like "Oh boy."                         AMY          She used to give all the guys that look.          That sex look. You know --          Amy gives her version of a sexy look to the Detective.                         AMY (CONT'D)          She's a monster.                         DETECTIVE          Mrs. Tiara, I think we might need to          consider the possibility that Elizabeth          Halsey has abducted your son and that the          two of them are involved in a sexual          relationship.                         MELODY                         (INCONSOLABLE)          Marbles doesn't even have armpit hair!                         DETECTIVE          (quietly, to Principal Snur)          We should send out an Amber Alert. We          need to catch this Sicko.          TV NEWS FOOTAGE          A REPORTER talks to camera on the steps of J.A.M.S.          Other NEWS CREWS are in the bg.                                                                                                              102.                         REPORTER          A school official close to the scandal          confirms that in addition to her alleged          sexual relationship with the unnamed          seventh grader, Elizabeth Halsey has been          investigated for possible drug use,          standardized testing fraud, and the theft          of an "Annie" wig from a school          production.          The TV Report flashes an unflattering photo of ELIZABETH          with a BLURRED OUT GARRETT.          In front of the school, the Reporter turns to Principal Snur.                         REPORTER (CONT'D)          Can you comment on any of these allegations?                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          The superintendent will speak to the          press shortly, but for now, I'd just like          to say that I hope Ms. Halsey does the          right thing and brings back our student.          INT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - TRAIN STATION - NIGHT          Elizabeth buys two tickets. Garrett hovers beside her.                         ELIZABETH                         (TO GARRETT)          You're paying me back for this.          EXT. TOWNHOUSE - NIGHT          Elizabeth's ex-fiance, mark, stands with Sheila and talks          to a REPORTER.                         MARK          Am I shocked?          Mark starts laughing.                         SHEILA          She was always very cold to me.          JUMP CUT TO:          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - NIGHT          Chase is crying as she speaks to a DIFFERENT REPORTER.                                                                                                              103.                         CHASE          (wiping away tears)          Garrett sat diagonal from me in language          arts. He was always so supportive of my          modelling career.          JUMP CUT TO:          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - NIGHT          Lynn stands with a DIFFERENT REPORTER.                         LYNN                         (TEARY)          She's my best friend. She tells me          everything. We have lunch together!          JUMP CUT TO:          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - NIGHT          Tristan stands with a DIFFERENT REPORTER.                         TRISTAN          I've been telling him to hit that all          year. That's my boy!          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - NIGHT          Amy talks to a DIFFERENT REPORTER.                         AMY          (holding a candle)          "No child left behind." How ironic.          That a child was left behind. In          Washington, D.C. With a statutory          rapist.          JUMP CUT TO:          INT. AMTRAK TRAIN NIGHT          Elizabeth and Garrett are seated next to one another on          the darkened train. Garrett's asleep against the window,          Elizabeth is reading "In Style" with the overhead light.          Garrett stirs, rolls the other way and gently places his          head on Elizabeth's shoulder. She looks at him and then          shrugs her shoulder to get him off. His head falls back          on. She leaves it.                                                                                                              104.          I/E. TAXI - NIGHT          Elizabeth is asleep on Garrett's shoulder. Garrett is          pressed against the window, clearly uncomfortable. The          Taxi turns a corner and Garrett notices something.                         GARRETT          Hey, there's a bunch of people outside of          my house.          Elizabeth wakes up and looks up to see:          A CANDLELIGHT VIGIL, including Amy, Scott, Melody, and          many. of Garrett's classmates; a SEA OF TV CAMERAS; and          TWO POLICE CARS.                         ELIZABETH          What the fuck?          (then, to Garrett)          Did you steal something?          The taxi pulls up to the curb and Elizabeth and Garrett .exit.          CHAOS. They're immediately swarmed by everyone. The          Cops struggle to push past.                         MELODY                         (BESIDE HERSELF)          Marbles!!!          The reporters thrust mics in her face.                         REPORTER #1 REPORTER #2          How long have you been Why did you steal the          sleeping together? "Annie" wig?!           ELIZABETH ,          Just the once on the train. What?!          The Cops get through and smother Garrett in a police          blanket. A FEMALE COP roughly leads Elizabeth to one of          the squad cars.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          This is crazy! He's a kid.          Elizabeth is put into the back of squad car.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          I'm a good person! I don't fuck minors!          Elizabeth bangs on the window. Amy smiles and waves.                         CUT TO:                                                                                                              INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT          A Sergeant is leading Elizabeth to a phone.                         SERGEANT          You're quite the celebrity.                         ELIZABETH          You want an autograph?                         SERGEANT          You get one call.          Elizabeth picks up the phone. The Sergeant gives her          some space.                         ELIZABETH                         (INTO PHONE)          Hi, this is Elizabeth Halsey calling. I'm          calling to cancel my surgery for tomorrow.          Extenuating circumstances. Please, please          don't make me lose my deposit.          Elizabeth slams down the receiver.                         SERGEANT          If you need medical attention, we're          required to provide it.                         ELIZABETH          Just take me back to my cell.          INT. J.A.M.S. - PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE - DAY          Silence.          Elizabeth and her roommate, Kirk, who's now dressed in an          ill-fitting suit and has his hair combed, sit across from          Principal Snur and the SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT, a no-          nonsense woman in her 60s.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          Again, speaking on behalf of the whole          administration, I just want to apologize          for what happened. Clearly, there was a          miscommunication.                         ELIZABETH          Oh, you think?          Kirk puts his hand up to Elizabeth, like "I'll take care          of this."                                                                                                              106.                         KIRK          My client has been an upstanding member          of society her entire life. She has          spent time as an educator, she has                         VOLUNTEERED --                         ELIZABETH          More than once!                         KIRK          And she has touched the lives of those          around her -- until last night.          Elizabeth pulls Kirk into a lawyer/client huddle.                         ELIZABETH                         (WHISPERS)          You kind of sound like a pro.                         KIRK                         (WHISPERS)          Do you think they're going to find out          that I didn't pass the bar?                         ELIZABETH                         (WHISPERS)          You're doing great.          They break from their huddle.                         KIRK          Your administration jumped to          conclusions, set off a media fire-storm          and has humiliated one of its own. As          Ms. .Halsey's chief counsel, I've advised          her that we have an extremely strong case          of libel and that it's certainly within          her province to sue the district.                         SUPERINTENDENT          How do we make this go away?                         KIRK          Ms. Halsey is not a litigious woman. She          wants this whole matter to go away as          quickly and painlessly as possible.          Kirk slides a piece of paper across the desk.                         KIRK (CONT'D)          This is a list of our demands.          The Superintendent and Principal Snur scan the list.                                                                                                                             SUPERINTENDENT          You're kidding me.                         ELIZABETH          Don't answer right now. Let it marinate.          Oh, and I should mention that if this          goes to trial, I can cry on cue.          Elizabeth starts crying. Everybody looks at her, aghast.          And as quickly she started, she stops.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Now, if you'll all excuse me, I should be          heading to fifth period. I hate to be          tardy.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY          Elizabeth heads down the empty hallway. From the auditorium,          the faint sound of "Tomorrow, Tomorrow" from "Annie" can be          heard.          Amy steps out of the auditorium, humming along to the song.          She notices Elizabeth coming to her. Amy debates her options.                         AMY          Elizabeth! I was so worried. You gave          us quite a scare, you did.          Elizabeth doesn't acknowledge her and continues walking          toward Amy, only feet away now.                         AMY (CONT'D)          (attempting some levity)          Somebody's being a grumple--          BAM! Elizabeth punches Amy square in the nose. Amy drops          to her knees and grabs her nose, now squirting blood.                         AMY (CONT'D)          Elizabeth keeps walking and turns a corner. A BELL RINGS          and the hallway starts filling with STUDENTS.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (V.0.)          Well, it's been another great year at          JAMS...                                                                                                              108.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - GYM - DAY          QUICK CUTS. The year is winding down. Instead of gym,          kids are using the time to sign each other's yearbooks.          Chase walks up to Garrett with her yearbook, asks him to          sign it.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (V.0.)          Who can forget the exciting addition of a          climbing wall to the small gym...          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - AUDITORIUM - DAY          QUICK CUTS. It's class photo day. With each FLASH, we          SEE a different TEACHER with a different CLASS.          And finally AMY, with a bandage over her nose and two          black eyes, smiles widely alongside her CLASS.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (V.0.)          .Or the student/teacher spelling bee.          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - TEACHER'S LOUNGE - DAY          Much like the first scene of the movie. The teachers are          sipping plastic flutes of Champagne. Principal Snur is          up front. Elizabeth lingers in the back.                         PRINCIPAL SNUR          I think that was a huge s-u-c-c-a-s-s.          Polite laughter.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          But seriously... With summer around the          corner, it's time to not only say goodbye          to another school year, but to also say          goodbye to one of our own.          Elizabeth smiles.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          Amy Squirrel.          Amy, her face completely healed, steps forward, with a          pursed smile.          PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          After six short years of outstanding,          tireless work here, Amy is transferring          out of the district.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              PRINCIPAL SNUR (CONT'D)          I know she'll bring her love for learning          to her new students.          Sandy, the ponytailed teacher, pipes up.                         SANDY          Speech! Speech!                         AMY          Although leaving was a difficult          choice...          Amy looks over to Elizabeth, who motions for her to          continue.                         AMY (CONT'D)          When the superintendent personally asks          you to work at one of the worst schools          in the state, you say yes. I'm looking          forward to bringing my brand of zany          energy and lust -- not love, lust -- for          learning to the underprivileged students          at Malcolm X High. I welcome the          challenge.          The Teachers applaud, Scott the most enthusiastic.          Elizabeth steps up to Amy, who flinches.                         ELIZABETH          Here, I got you this.          Elizabeth hands Amy a poster tube. She.opens it and          unravels the "Integrity" poster that Elizabeth stole.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          And good luck. Somebody's gonna need it.          Elizabeth heads for the door. Scott catches up to her.                         SCOTT          Hey, Stranger.          (then, whispers)          Listen, now that Amy's transferring,          maybe the two of us could go grab a          drink.                         ELIZABETH                         SCOTT                                                                                                              Elizabeth walks out.                         CUT TO:          CHYRON: THREE MONTHS LATER          EXT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - TEACHER PARKING LOT - DAY          Elizabeth's 1994 Grand-Am pulls into her spot. And as           her bare leg steps out of the car, we          INT. JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY          The hallway is empty. We FOLLOW Elizabeth from behind,          and as she reaches for the door to her class, we          INT. ELIZABETH'S CLASSROOM - DAY          Quick cuts. From behind, we see Elizabeth place an APPLE          on each desk, just as Amy did earlier.          Elizabeth's walls are still bare, except for a framed          photo of Amy's class picture, with Amy's messed up face,          from the year before.          The bell RINGS.          Elizabeth turns and we now SEE that she has TASTEFUL FAKE          BREASTS.          Elizabeth walks to her door and opens it, watching the          students as they reconnect with friends and share stories          about summer camp.          She notices Sasha who is MASSAGING a BOY's shoulders.          bunch of other EIGHTH GRADE BOYS wait their turn.          EIGHTH GRADE BOY          Do me! Do me!          Sasha clearly enjoys the attention. Elizabeth smiles.          Garrett walks by, hand in hand with Chase. Trailing both          of them are identical rolling backpacks. He sees          Elizabeth and runs over.                         ELIZABETH          You and Chase, huh? She likes the          poetry?                                                                                                                             GARRETT          She likes that I'm kind of a celebrity.          But I'm cool with it. I'm the man around          here!                         ELIZABETH          Easy.                         GARRETT          Well, I should get going. See you          around, Ms. Halsey. Oh, and nice...          He points at her breasts.                         ELIZABETH                         (TOUCHED)          Thanks! You're the first student to          notice.          Garrett smiles and walks off. Lynn walks by. She's          cleaning another big stain from her shirt.                         LYNN          Elizabeth, hey! How was your summer?                         ELIZABETH          It was great. I met a doctor! Plastic          surgeon, actually. He's amazing.                         LYNN          He sounds amazing. How'd you meet him?          The internet?                         ELIZABETH          No, in recovery. And I looked like ass,          so I know it's real.                         LYNN          Sounds like a fairy tale.                         ELIZABETH          It is. Storybook. Well, not total          storybook. It's a little messy because          his wife filed for divorce last week, but          we're gonna get through that.                         (THEN)          So you want to grab lunch later?                         LYNN          Sure! My treat.                         ELIZABETH          No, you got it last time. We'll split it. 
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+BADLANDSby Terence MalickFinal VersionDialogue and ContinuityFADE ININT. BEDROOM The time is 1959. HOLLY SARGIS, the 15-year-old heroine, sits on her bed, petting her dog. The CAMERA DOLLIES BACK as she talks on VOICE OVER. HOLLY (v.o.)My mother died of pneumonia when I was just a kid. My father had kept their wedding cake in the freezer for ten whole years. After the funeral he gave it to the yardman... He tried to act cheerful, but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house. Then, one day, hoping to begin a new life away from the scene of all his memories, he moved us from Texas to Ft. Dupree, South Dakota.HOLD on FULL SHOT of bedroom. DISSOLVE TOEXT. ALLEYS AND STREETS - SERIES OF ANGLES - DAWN The streets and alleys of Ft. Dupree at dawn. On sound we hear the clucking of DOVES. A garbage truck appears. Details of the mechanisms at the back of the truck. NEW ANGLE KIT CARRUTHERS, the hero, a 25-year-old garbageman, kneels beside a dead dog. He inspects it briefly. then looks back at his friend and co-worker, CATO, a stocky man in his forties. KITI'll give you a dollar to eat this collie.Cato inspects the dog. CATOI'm not going to eat him for a dollar... I don't think he's a collie, either. Some kind of dog.They drive off. KITWatch your heads.NEW ANGLE The truck comes to a stop. Kit bangs on the driver's door. KITHey. Woody. Gimme a cigarette.WOODY waves him off. Kit shrugs to Cato. KITWoody wouldn't give me a cigarette. (pause) Ever notice he don't talk much?Cato agrees with this. They make a terrible racket, with no regard for the sleep of the neighbors. EXT. STREET Holly, whispering some rhyme to herself, twirls a baton in the middle of an empty street. HOLLY (v.o.)Little did I realize that what began in the alleys and back ways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana.EXT. ALLEY Kit tries to sell a passing BUM a pair of shoes. BUMNah. they wouldn't fit.KITHow do you know? You hadn't tried them on yet.BUMNah.KITGimme a dollar for them... Cost twenty new.The Bum walks off. Kit pitches the shoes to Cato. KITWhy don't you see if they fit you?Cato picks them up and looks at them. CLOSE ON TRASH CAN Kit is culling through a trash can, looking for valuables. reading other people's mail, etc. KIT (o.c.)This lady don't ever pay her bills. She's gonna get in trouble if she doesn't watch out.Cato, ignoring him, picks up a magazine that is lying in the grass. When the CAMERA returns to Kit, he has stripped off his apron. KITI throwed enough trash for today, Cato.... I'll see you In the morning.He slaps Cato on the back and walks off. Cato throws a mouldy loaf of bread at his back. CATOCatch!KITWhat do you mean?He throws the loaf back at Cato. EXT. ALLEYS Kit walks through the deserted alleys of the sleeping town... as the MAIN TITLES APPEAR. He balances a stolen mop on his finger; he stomps a can and looks around to see if anyone has spotted him at this. As the CREDITS end he sees Holly in front of her house twirling her baton. He crosses the street and introduces himself. EXT. FRONT LAWN KITHi, I'm Kit. I'm not keeping you from anything important, am I?HOLLYNo.KITWell, I was just messing around over there, thought I'd come over and say hello to you. (smiling) I'll try anything once. (pause) What's your name? I said mine.HOLLYHolly.KITListen, Holly. you want to take a walk with me?HOLLYWhat for?KITWell. I got some stuff to say. Guess I'm kind of lucky that way. Most people don't have anything on their minds, do they?Holly eyes him suspiciously. EXT. STREET They walk down the middle of the street. Holly has accepted his offer. KITOh, incidentally, my last name is Carruthers. Sounds a little too much like ìdruthers,î doesn't it?HOLLYIt's okay.KITWell, nobody asked me what I thought. They just hung it on me.Holly breaks the silence that follows. HOLLYYou still in school?KITNah, I got me a job.HOLLY (o.c.)Doing what? KITWell, I don't mind getting up early, so I got a job throwing garbage... I'm not in love with the stuff, okay.In the distance we hear Holly's FATHER calling her. She eases off. HOLLYThat's my father. I got to run.KITHey. wait a minute. When am I going to see you again?Holly isn't sure how to reply. HOLLYWell, I know what my daddy's going to say.KIT (o.c.)What?HOLLYCan I be honest?KITSure.HOLLYWell, that I shouldn't be seen with anybody that collects garbage.KIT (o.c.)He'll say that?HOLLYYeah.KIT (o.c.)Now what's he know about garbage, huh?HOLLYNothing.KIT (o.c.)There you go.HOLLYWell, I mean there's nothing he wants to know about it... I've got to run.She waves goodbye and runs off. Kit waves back. EXT. HOLLY'S BACK YARD Holly walks into the back yard, where her father is working. Half-painted signs lean against the garage. FATHERWho was that?HOLLYJust some boy.He throws some paint off his brush onto the ground. HOLLYIs that going to kill the grass?He flicks his brush teasingly at her feet. She retreats to a chair, giggling. HOLLYYou got some on my feet.FATHERWhat'd he want?HOLLYJust wanted to know if we needed any yardwork done... I said no, and for him not to bother us.INT. EMPLOYMENT AGENCY Kit is talking with a CLERK inside an employment agency. CLERK (o.c.)You ever held another job before?KITI used to throw trash for the City.CLERKYou lost that one?KITWouldn't be here if I hadn't.CLERKWhat kind of work do you think you would be qualified for? KITI can't think of anything at the moment... I'd like you to write me out a slip, though, proving I came down here.The Clerk leafs through his papers. CLERKWell, I think we could find you something... working cattle over at the pens.Kit sighs. KITWell. what the hell. Just hope there's a breeze.The Clerk gives him a slip of paper. EXT. FRONT PORCH OF HOLLY'S HOUSE Holly sees Kit approaching the house. HOLLY (v.o.)He was handsomer than anybody I'd ever met. He looked just like James Dean.She walks out the front door. KITHi.HOLLYWell, stop the world.KITQuit my job.HOLLYGreat.KITJust seemed like the right move... Whatcha doing?HOLLYSpanish.KIT (o.c.)How do you say "Quit my Job" in Spanish?HOLLYSomething mi trabajo.Kit offers her a cigarette, which she declines. KITYeah, well, I'm going to work as a cowboy now... Or thinking about it. It's a routine, like anything. What do you think?HOLLYI don't know.He pulls himself up onto the bannister beside her. KITWell, at least nobody could get on me about wearing these boots any more.She watches him intently. This makes him uncomfortable. KITYou want to go for a ride?HOLLYWell, I got homework.KIT (o.c.)Bring it along.His forwardness surprises her. EXT. DOWNTOWN STREET IN FT. DUPREE They are walking through the downtown area. Kit kicks a paper bag that someone has discarded on the sidewalk. KITSomebody dropped a bag on the sidewalk.She appears nervous about being seen alone with him. KITEverybody did that, the whole town'd be a mess ... Hi.He greets a passing stranger. KITYou're a redhead.HOLLYI know.KITAnybody ever call you "Red"?HOLLYYeah, but I don't like it.KITWhy not?HOLLYJust don't... I've got a headache.KITYeah?He steers her toward his car, a customized Mercury. As she gets in, he asks herKIT (o.c.)Can I come around and see you tomorrow?HOLLY (startled)Okay.EXT. FEEDLOT - SERIES OF ANGLES We see Kit at work at the feedlot. throwing hay to the cattle, feeding them pills, etc. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit went to work in the feedlot while I carried on with my studies. Little by little we fell in love... As I'd never been popular in school and didn't have a lot of personality, I was surprised that he took such a liking to me, especially when he could've had any other girl in town if he'd given it half a try.The MONTAGE includes a shot of Holly running toward Kit's car for some rendezvous. HOLLY (v.o.)He said that I was grand, though, that he wasn't interested in me for sex and that coming from him this was a compliment. Held never met a fifteen-year-old girl who behaved more like a grownup and wasn't giggly. He didn't care what anybody else thought. I looked good to him, and whatever I did was okay, and if I didn't have a lot to say, well, that was okay, too.EXT. TREE BESIDE RIVER Kit and Holly are sitting under a tree. playing cards on a blanket. Holly surveys the area. HOLLYWhat a nice place.KIT (absorbed in game)Yeah, the tree makes it nice.HOLLYAnd the flowers... Let's not pick them. They're so nice.KITIt's your play.SERIES OF ANGLES Holly's father paints a picture. using a stereopticon to help with his backgrounds. TRACK with Kit driving down a street in his Mercury. Holly sits watching football practice. HOLLY (v.o.)Of course I had to keep all this a secret from my dad. He would've had a fit, since Kit was ten years older than me and came from the wrong side of the tracks, so called. Our time with each other was limited and each lived for the precious hours when he or she could be with the other away from all the cares of the world.EXT. UNDERNEATH BLEACHERS Kit and Holly are necking underneath some bleachers. In the distance we hear the NOISE of the football practice. HOLLYMy stomach's growling.KITThere's an old Fudgesicle over there. You want it?HOLLYNo.Kit laughs, and starts her laughing, too. KITSomebody else is going to get it.HOLLYI don't care.KITKids eat that kind of stuff in Korea.At this her expression turns serious. SERIES OF ANGLES Kit in CLOSEUP at a fence in the feedlot, an intense look on his face. VARIOUS ANGLES of the cattle in their pens. They look numb and morose. TIGHT SHOT of Holly necking with Kit. HOLLY (v.o.)In the stench and slime of the feedlot, he'd remember how I looked the night before, how I ran my hand through his hair and traced the outline of his lips with my fingertip. He wanted to die with me, and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms.EXT. HOLLY'S BACK YARD TIGHT SHOT of Holly's pet catfish in a bowl. CUT TO WIDE SHOT of Holly with gloves on carrying the fish through the garden in back of her house. She looks around warily, then throws it out among the melons. HOLLY (v.o.)The whole time, the only thing I did wrong was throwing out my fish when he got sick. Later I got a new one, but this incident kept on bothering me and I turned to Kit.EXT. STREET Kit and Holly walk down a sidewalk in the residential part of town. Kit is consoling her about the fish. HOLLY (v.o.)I didn't mind telling Kit about stuff like this, cause strange things happened in his life, too, and some of the stuff he did was strange.EXT. FEEDLOT Kit steps on top of a dead cow, as though to convince himself that it is dead. HOLLY (v.o.)For instance,. he faked his signature whenever he used it, to keep other people from forging important papers with his name...INT. HOLLY'S BEDROOM - NIGHT The CAMERA DOLLIES BACK to reveal Kit lying in bed. His attitude suggests that this is a scene of her fantasy. HOLLY (v.o.)And as he lay in bed, in the middle of the night, he always heard a noise like somebody was holding a seashell against his ear. And sometimes he'd see me coming toward him in beautiful white robes, and I'd put my cold hand on his forehead.EXT. RIVERBANK Kit puts on his jacket and heads down a riverbank to the edge of the water. Holly comes into view, buttoning her blouse. HOLLYDid it go the way it 'uz supposed to?KITYeah.HOLLYIs that all there is to it?KITYeah.Her questions make him uncomfortable. HOLLYGosh, what was everybody talking about?KITDon't ask me.Silence. HOLLYWell. I'm glad it's over... For a while I was afraid I might die before it happened... Had a wreck, some deal like that.Kit points to an uprooted tree lying in the water a hundred feet away. KITYou see where that tree fell in the water?He climbs back up the bank. HOLLYYeah... The river must've washed the roots away... You don't care about anything I say, though.DISSOLVE TOEXT. NEIGHBORING AREA Holly walks down the bank of the river. Kit falls in behind her, carrying a large stone. The CAMERA DOLLIES with them. KITYou know what I think?HOLLYWhat?KITThat we should crunch our hands with this stone. That way we'd never forget what happened today.HOLLYBut it would hurt.KITWell, that's the point, stupid.She gives him a cold look. HOLLYDon't call me stupid.KITOkay, but I'm going to keep it for a souvenir...He throws it awav and picks up a smaller one. KITOr maybe one that's lighter.He walks over to the car. A bridge is visible in the distance. EXT. FIELD Kit releases a large red balloon into the evening sky. A small basket is fixed to the bottom of the balloon. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit made a solemn vow that he would always stand beside me and let nothing come between us. He wrote this out in writing, put the paper in a box with some of our little tokens and things, then sent it off in a balloon he'd found while on the garbage route. (pause) His heart was filled with longing as he watched it drift off. Something must've told him that we'd never live these days of happiness again, that they were gone forever.DISSOLVE TOEXT. CATTAILS Holly's dog bounds through a stand of cattails. Holly speaks angrily to her father, who walks toward the dog with a gun. We do not hear their voices, only music. He shoots the dog and Holly runs off in horror. HOLLY (v.o.)Then, sure enough, Dad found out I'd been running around behind his back. He was madder than I'd ever seen him. As punishment for deceiving him, he went and shot my dog.EXT. BRIDGE Holly's father drags a duffel bag out of his truck and dumps it over the side of a bridge, into a river. It goes under briefly, then bobs to the surface. The current takes it off. DISSOLVE TOEXT. MUSIC SCHOOL Holly sits in the second-story window of a music school. HOLLY (v.o.)He made me take extra music lessons every day after school and wait there till he came to pick me up. He said that if the piano didn't keep me off the streets. maybe the clarinet would.DISSOLVE TOEXT. BILLBOARD Kit approaches Holly's father, who is hard at work, painting a billboard along a deserted stretch of road. Kit is eating a peach. KITSure is pretty.FATHERWhat'd you come out here for?KITI wasn't aware there was any law against it.Kit sees that this kind of talk will not do. He is silent for a moment, then throws the peach away. KITYou know Holly... well. she means a lot to me, sir.Holly's father goes solemnly about his business. KITYou know, before I met her, nobody could ask me how I was doing with my girl. Matter of fact, I didn't really have one.FATHERIs that right?KITYeah.Kit walks off a few paces and leans against the father's truck. KITIt okay me leaning on your Willys here?Holly's father does not answer. KITListen. I got a lot of respect for her, sir. (pause) That's about as good a one as I know to tell you.FATHERWell, it's not good enough. (pause) Just what do you think would happen to her if she stuck around with you, Kit? Guy like you.KITShe'd get along okay. And if she didn't, well, she could take off, just take off, (and) I wouldn't mind... I'd always tell people I deserved it.Holly's father comes to his feet and fixes Kit in the eye. FATHERYou get out of here. I don't want you hanging around any more. You understand?He lets these words sink in, then returns to his seat. FATHER(shaking his head) You're something.Kit waves goodbye. KITTakes all kinds, sir.He walks to his car, looking back once. SERIES OF ANGLES LONG SHOT of father at work at billboard. Kit approaches Holly's house, collects the evening newspaper from the sidewalk, and knocks on the front door. Holly's father picks her up from a park outside the music school. Kit, when he gets no answer, enters the house. The jeep, with Holly and her father, rumbles down a residential street. INT. HOLLY'S HOUSE Kit is going through Holly's dresser, throwing her things into a suitcase. A pistol is visible in his back pocket. Suddenly, Holly's father appears in the dresser mirror, standing at the end of the hall outside the bedroom. Kit walks forward to greet him. The CAMERA DOLLIES with him. KITHi.FATHERWhat're you doing?KITI've got a gun here, sir. It's always a good idea to have one around.Kit draws the pistol. He is shaken, though he must have seen this coming. FATHERWhat do you think you're doing? Go on, get out of here.KITWell, I got it all planned... and I'm taking Holly off with me.He looks at Holly, who has appeared on the landing, uncertain what her reaction to all this will be. FATHEROkay, boy, I'm turning you over to the authorities.Kit steps forward as Holly's father starts down the stairs. KITWhat for?FATHERFor coming onto my property... With a gun.KITNo, you're not either.FATHER (o.c.)Yeah? Why not?KITCause I can't allow it.Holly's father stares at him for a moment, then continues down the stairs. Kit starts forward. KITHey... Hey, wait a minute.His shout arrests Holly's father at the bottom of the stairs. KITSuppose I shot you. How'd that be? Huh?Holly's father does not move. KITYou want to hear what it sounds like?He fires a shot into the stairs. The report is deafening in the enclosure of the stairwell. They exchange looks. Kit's breathing is heavy. INT. LIVING ROOM Holly's father turns and walks into the living room. Kit rushes down the stairs. Holly shouts his name. KITHey, where you going?He fires two shots into Holly's father, who slowly sinks to the floor. Kit unlimbers his shoulder. Holly rushes down the stairs to her father's side. HOLLYDaddy... This is Holly... Are you going to be okay?Her father does not respond. She looks back at Kit, who avoids her gaze. She gets to her feet and walks nto the kitchen. Kit follows her. INT. KITCHEN Kit closes the back door to the house. KITI came in the front.HOLLYHow bad off is he?KIT (o.c.)I can look and see.HOLLYWe better call the doctor... Listen. I'll say how it happened, part I saw.KIT (sighs)Well... I don't think that'd work.This startles Holly. INT. LIVING ROOM Kit touches the father's heart. KITHe don't need a doctor.He walks back into the kitchen. HOLLYAre you sure?KITYou don't believe me, see for yourself.Holly stares at her father. DISSOLVE TOEXT. HOLLY'S HOUSE - DUSK LOW ANGLE of Holly's house silhouetted against the evening sky. On sound the NOISE of CICADAS. INT. CELLAR Kit drags Holly's father into the cellar. sets him down gently, then eases out of the room, taking a discarded toaster with him. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT Kit comes up the steps from the cellar. Holly stands at the drainboard. KITI found a toaster.He sets down the toaster and walks over to Holly's side. KITListen, honey. I don't want to...She slaps him across the forehead. He walks into the now darkened living room, and sits down at the piano. After a moment Holly follows him. INT. LIVING ROOM ~ NIGHT Holly sits down on the sofa across from Kit. HOLLYListen, maybe we ought to tell somebody about this.KITYou said that once already... Too late now.HOLLYWhy?KITThey're not going to listen to me. You either. Are you kidding?A silence follows. HOLLYSuppose the neighbors heard the noise?KITWouldn't be funny... Listen, I'll be back in a while.He gets up and heads for the front door. KITOh... You want to call the police, that's fine. Just won't be so hot for me.There are tears in Holly's eyes now. They exchange looks as Kit opens the front door. Then he leaves. Holly settles back on the couch. EXT. HOLLY'S HOUSE - NIGHT The house by night. INT. HALLWAY AND BEDROOM - NIGHT Holly comes up the stairs, smoking a cigarette. She walks to her bedroom window. The CAMERA DOLLIES with her. Outside, under the street lamp, she can see two boys trading secrets. INT. TRAIN STATION - NIGHT Kit puts fifty cents into a gramophone booth. He clears his voice as the machine whirs Into operation. KITMy girl Holly and I have decided to kill ourselves, same way I did her dad. Big decision huh? Well, the reasons are obvious, and I don't have time to go into them right now... One thing, though... He was provoking me when I popped him. That's what it was like, a POP.Inserts of the booth's mechanisma light panel measuring off the seconds and the needle on the record. KITCourse nobody's coming out of this thing happy, especially not us. You can't deny we've had fun, though. Which is more than I can say for some.... Mmmm. that's the end of the message. I run out of things to say... Thank you.He gets these last words in just as his time is up. He gets the record and steps outside the booth, into the lobby of a train station. DISSOLVE TOINT. HOLLY'S LIVING ROOM - SERIES OF ANGLES - NIGHT Kit slams a ten-gallon can of gasoline down on the piano bench, opens it and begins pouring it out over the interior of the house, kicking aside everything that comes in his way. EXT. REAR OF HOUSE - NIGHT Holly comes out the screen door at the back of the house, carrying a suitcase and a painting. Kit appears with a lamp on an extension cord. He sets it down beside a victrola he has set up on a table outdoors. He puts the needle on the record he recorded earlier. Holly watches him as she retreats to the car. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit left a record playing over and over for the District Attorney to find. He was gambling for time.Kit unplugs the lamp, lights a book of matches and pitches them into a puddle of gas. The back porch of the house explodes into flame. Kit runs to the car with the lamp, caught off guard by the force of the flames. They drive off. INT./EXT HOUSE ON FIRE - SERIES OF ANGLES - NIGHT Various objects around the house burst into flamesa picture we saw on the stairs. some peacock feathers, a cantaloupe and a pomegranate left on the kitchen table, the living room, Holly's bedroom, the bed itself, a doll on the bed, an A&W Root Beer sign outside the house, a water can, flames swirling out the front of the house. Holly's father in CLOSEUP in the cellar, sheet music lifting off the piano. etc. At length the CAMERA PANS over the charred frame of Holly's bed. Outside a fireman moves with a flashlight through the embers of the house. INT. SCHOOL CORRIDOR Holly collects her books from a locker at her school and walks anxiously down a corridor towards the exit. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit made me get my books from school, so I wouldn't fall behind. We'd be starting a new life, he said. and we'd have to change our names. His would be James. Mine would be Priscilla. We'd hide out like spies, somewhere in the North, where people didn't ask a lot of questions.EXT. SCHOOL - DAWN Holly breaks into a run as she comes through the front door of the high school. Kit waits for her at the car. There is nobody else in sight. HOLLY (v.o.)I could of snuck out the back or hid in the boiler room, I suppose, but I sensed that my destiny now lay with Kit, for better or for worse, and that it was better to spend a week with one who loved me for what I was than years of loneliness.She gets into the car and they drive off. INT. MERCURY - DAWN Kit studies Holly for signs of her mood. KITHow you doing?HOLLY (neutrally)I'm fine. Kind of tired. KITYeah, me too.The car sails down a quiet street. DISSOLVE TOEXT. RIVER The CAMERA DOLLIES with a tree floating down a swollen river. Cottonwood trees cover the far bank. HOLLY (v.o.)We hid out In the wilderness,down by a river in a grove of cottonwoods. It being the flood season we built our house in the trees, with tamarisk walls and willows laid side by side to make a floor. There wasn't a plant in the forest that didn't come in handy.CLOSEUPS OF PLAIQTS - SERIES OF ANGLES Details of the cottonwoods, willow and tamarisk. Music continues under. EXT. TREEHOUSE - SERIES OF ANGLES Details of Kit and Holly building the treehouse. Kit pounds a log into place wi h a tomahawk; Holly scrapes the bark off a log with a piece of flint; Kit weaves tamarisk branches through the frame of the house. This MONTAGE ends with a PAN DOWN the four stories of the completed treehouse. HOLLY (v.o.)We planned a huge network of tunnels under the forest floor, and our first order of business every morning was to decide on a new password for the day. ow and then weld sneak out at night and steal a chicken or a bunch of corn or some melons from a melon patch... Mostly. though, we just lay on our backs and stared at the clouds and sometimes it was like being in a big marble hall. the way we talked in low voices and heard the tiniest sound.INT. TREEHOUSE The CAMERA PANS off Holly's painting, a Maxwell Parrish, onto Kit asleep with his pistol beside him. then onto Holly under a quilt with a box of shells beside her. Her hand quivers once. EXT. TREE TOPS Kit lifts an egg out of a bird's nest at the top of a tree. He drops it down to Holly, fifty feet below. HOLLY (v.o.)They hadn't found but one set of bones in the ashes of the house. so we knew they'd be looking for us. Kit made sure we'd be prepared.EXT. TRAIL - SERIES OF ANGLES Kit cuts a piece of twine that lies across a trail, whereupon a ball full of spikes comes swinging down out of the trees. with lethal force. Kit ducks out of the way. We next see Kit with a dew ag around his forehead, running laps through the woods as part of his training. He exhorts himself to greater effort. HOLLY (v.o.)He gave me lectures on how a gun works, how to take it apart and put it back together again. in case 1 had to carry on without him. He said that if the Devil came at me, I could shoot him with a gun.EXT. TAMARISK Holly struggles through the undergrowth witha yoke over her shoulders, carrying wood back to the teahouse. HOLLY (v.o.)One day, I carried thirty pounds of wood a distance of five miles. Another day, while hiding in the forest, I covered my eyes with makeup, to see how they'd come out.TIGHT ON HOLLY'S EYES Holly has made her eyes up with mascara. EXT. FRONT OF TREEHOUSE Kit and Holly dance the stroll to the sound of Mickey and Sylvia on their Zenith portable. Holly shows a better sense of rhythm than Kit. EXT. MUD FLAT BESIDE RIVER - DUSK Kit lifts a fish out of the river with a crude device like a lacrosse net. Holly sits on the bank In the b.g. The fish wriggles out of the net and falls back In the water. Kit struggles in vain to retrieve it. HOLLY (v.o.)We had our bad moments, like any couple. Kit accused me of only being along for the ride,while at times I wished he'd fall in the river and drown, so I could watch.Kit throws his net down in disgust, partly at Holly. KITTake a break. Red... Life of Riley, huh?Holly ignores him as he walks off down the flat. HOLLY (v.o.)Mostly. though. we got along fine and stayed in love.EXT. FRONT OF TREEHOUSE Holly, in curlers, walks over to where Kit is shaving. HOLLYOne of the chickens died last night.She pats a little water on her face, dries it with a burlap towel, picks up a hatchet and walks off into the forest to cut the morning's firewood. HOLLYI almost stepped on him.EXT. UPPER DECK Holly sits on the upper deck of the treehouse, reading Kon-Tiki aloud to Kit. HOLLY"The Kon-Tiki in motion was a little different from what it usually was in such conditions. We had become sensitive to changes in the rhythm of the logs. I thought at once of suction from the coast, which was drawing near, and was continually out on the deck and up the mast..."KITHe was nervous.Holly looks at him for a moment, trying to understand the meaning of this interruption, then resumesHOLLY"Time passed. At dawn, just before six, Torstein came hurrying down from the masthead. He could see a whole line of small palm-clad islands far ahead..."EXT. RIVER Holly walks down the edge of the river, fresh from her bath. wrapped in a white sheet. The river is raging, with white caps visible in places. EXT. FOREST A strange animal, not a deer or a horse, but like them, moves languidly through the thick of the forest. Holly puts down her binoculars, amazed. HOLLY (v.o.)I grew to love the forest. The cooing of the doves and the hum of dragonflies in the air made it always seem lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone...EXT. CROW'S NEST Kit sits in the crow's nest at the top of the treehouse, browsing through a copy of National Geographic. amused by what he sees, looking around to find somebody he can share it with. HOLLY (v.o.)When the leaves rustled overhead, it was like the spirits were whispering about all the little things that bothered 'em.TIGHT ON SLIDES An array of stereo slides is spread out on the leaves of the forest floor. Holly puts one in her stereopticon and studies it. Kit greets her as he walks by with a log over his shoulder. HOLLY (v.o.)One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter and who had only just so many years to live ...TIGHT ON SLIDES With each of her thoughts a slide appearsa canal in Brazil, a camel boy in front of the Great Pyramid. some cows standing in a fjord with a steamship in the distance, a mother with her child, a woman playing the piano as another woman looks on, a family on a lawn, a soldier in a wheatfield whispering something into his girlfriend's ear. HOLLY (v.o.)... It sent a chill down my spine, and I thoughtWhere would I be this very moment if Kit had never met me? ... Or killed anybody? This very moment... If my Mom had never met my Dad? If she'd of never died?... And what's the man I'll marry going to look like? What's he doing right this minute? ... Is he thinking about me now, by some coincidence, even though he doesn't know me? Does it show on his face?EXT. RIVER Kit is fishing with his crude net. He stops briefly to watch a truck passing down the highway In the distance, then goes back to work. This stretch of river seems dangerously close to civilization. HOLLY (v.o.)For days afterward I lived in dread. At times I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, but this never happened.Kit, frustrated draws his pistol from his back pocket and looks around for the fish that has been eluding him. He does not see, as we do, a MAN watching him from across the river. He fires at the fish. misses it and fires again. The Man across the river hesitates. then moves back into the undergrowth. DISSOLVE TOSERIES OF ANGLES - TREEHOUSE Holly is off somewhere in the forest. putting on lipstick. Kit sits on watch in the crowls nest, a pair of binoculars close at hand. On sound, over the music, we hear voices whispering to them. Kit sees a movement in the brush. A moment later a figure appears, a hunter, carrying a gun. Kit shouts a code word to Holly. She takes off running, as Kit clambers down the planks of the treehouse and collects his shotgun. He tells her to hide, runs through the woods and dives in a hole, under a cover of leaves. She jumps behind a log. Several shots of the still forest follow, then the hunters appear, a shoulder here. pant leg there. The music ends as one of them cocks his gun. They pass right over the hole where Kit is hiding. Kit rises up slowly, gives them a gentlemanly word of warning, then shoots all three in the back. He checks to see if anybody else is with them, then calls weakly out to Holly. KITHolly!Holly picks her way through the brush, back to the treehouse. EXT. TREEHOUSE They are packed up and ready to leave. Kit slams the trunk of the Mercury. KITGet in the car, Red.He takes a bird cage off the roof of the car and throws it away. KITWe don't need this.He climbs a ladder, looks In the cabin of the treehouse to see if they've left anything behind, then jumps down. He flips over the wicker hemisphere that covers their rooster. The rooster walks off, free. He surveys the woods, then looks back at Holly, who returns his look and gets in the car. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit felt bad about shooting those men in the backs. but he said they'd come in like that. and they would've played it as down and dirty as they could, and besides, held overheard them whispering about how they were only interested in the reward money. With lawmen it wouldtve been different. They were out there to get a job done and they deserved a fair chance. But not a bounty hunter.EXT. BADLANDS - SERIES OF ANGLES We see a flat expanse of the Badlands. The Mercury appears over the horizon and heads toward a solitary house. A man appears at the door of the house, Kit's friend, Cato. HOLLY (v.o.)We went to hide out with a friend of Kit's from the days of the garbage route.EXT. CATO'S HOUSE. Kit gets out of the car, takes a chicken from the back seat and walks over to face Cato. He keeps a safe distance. KITHow you doing, Cato?CATONot bad.Kit steps forward, rifle in hand, and offers Cato the chicken. KITTake that sombitch.Cato takes it, a wan smile on his face. KITWhat you been doing?CATORunning this place for a fella in town. Nothing much to speak of.KITWell, I don't notice us hustling trash, either.Kit walks over to inspect the interior of Cato's house. KITWhere'd you get them antlers?CATO (o.c.)They come with the house.He refers to a set of deer antlers, mounted over the door. Kit looks inside, then back at Cato. KITOh, Cato, I want you to meet my girl, Holly Sargis.Holly smiles and says hello. EXT. PICNIC TABLE They sit at a picnic table under a tree, having lunch. Holly is telling a joke at Kit's urging. HOLLYDid you hear the one about the guy in the nuthouse that went around naked, with only a hat and gloves on, and this nurse came up to him and said, "Hey, what... You can't walk around that way," and the guy says, "What's the matter? Nobody comes around here." Anyway, the nurse says, "What do you have the hat and gloves on for, then?" And the guy says, "Well, you never know."Cato bursts into laughter. KITIsn't that funny?Cato stops laughing. He wants to give Kit the right answer. CATOYeah, I guess.KIT (o.c.)She plays the clarinet, too.Holly smiles politely. HOLLYDon't you ever get bored around here?CATOSometimes. The other day, though, an old boy was plowing in the field over there, found some old Spanish coins.KIT(suspicious)That's what he told you, huh?CATO (o.c.)No, he showed me one.HOLLYWhat'd they look like?CATO (o.c.)Kind of round, like so... Gold. I'll show you if you want.Kit and Holly eye one another. Kit sees the chance to make a fortune here. He is careful to conceal his feelings, though. KITLet me finish my supper.Holly, big-eyed, bites into an apple. EXT. FIELD Kit, Holly and Cato walk out to the field where Cato heard the coins were found. Holly picks up a pot lid. KITWe're thinking of going down to Texas. Holly wants to visit some of her people down there, but after that I don't know... They say Mexico's nice.Cato stops. CATOKit... Maybe I'd better get a shovel.KITOkay.CATOI'll catch up with you.KITOkay.Kit walks out into the field to join Holly. Cato turns back. HOLLYI found a lid. It was laying on the ground over there.KITPut that down. It's dirty.Holly tosses the lid at him. He picks up some dirt clods and starts throwing them at her. She squeals and dodges. CATO watches them for a while, indecisive, then turns and runs. HOLLY (o.c.)Hey, you're throwing big ones!Suddenly, Kit spots Cato. KITCato!Cato jumps over a trough and comes to a stop in front of his truck, a water tanker. CATOThe shovel's in the truck.Kit raises his gun and shoots Cato through the belly. CATO falls, then gets to his feet and stumbles toward the front door of the house. Kit follows him for a while, then skips forward and opens the door for him. INT. BEDROOM Cato falls on his bed and rolls over to face Kit. Kit walks in calmly and picks up a photo on the bureau. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit never let on why he'd shot Cato. He said that just talking about it could bring us bad luck and that right now we needed all the luck we could get.Kit sets the photo down. KIT (o.c.)You never told me about her.He looks under the bed, then walks out the door. INT. LIVING ROOM Holly stands near a window. smoking a cigarette. Kit sets his rifle down and surveys the room, which is cluttered with odds and ends. KITLook at all this junk.HOLLYHow's he doing?KIT(shrugging)I got him in the stomach.Holly sits down. HOLLYIs he upset?KITHe didn't say anything to me about it.He takes a drag off her cigarette and gives it back to her. He leafs idly through a catalogue on the table, then walks over to look in the bedroom. KITBunch of junk.Inside the bedroom Cato is still conscious, but his breathing is heavy. Kit walks back to Holly's side. HOLLY is looking through the catalogue. KITHe stole that cage. I saw him doing it.Kit wants this to have been an execution, not a murder. KITWhatcha looking in there for? We can't afford any of that.HOLLY (defensive)Just looking.INT. BEDROOM As they bicker in the other room, Cato inspects his face in a mirror. KIT (o.c.)Why don't you go in there and keep him company for a while?Holly walks in the door. HOLLYHi.She sits down. HOLLYThat your spider in there? in that bottle?CATOYeah.HOLLYWhat do you feed him?CATOOh, flies... grasshoppers when I can catch 'em.HOLLYDoes he bite?CATOHe never bit me.We hear the sound of a car HORN in the distance. HOLLYturns and looks. EXT. CATO'S HOUSE A 1951 Studebaker approaches the house. There are two people inside, a BOY and a GIRL. Kit comes out the front door. The Boy and Girl get out, but seeing Kit, they wait by the car. BOYHi. where's Cato?KITWell, he's gone.BOYGone? ... Where?KITHe said not to tell.BOY (o.c.)Oh yeah?KITYeah, he said for you to give us a lift into town. You're the ones with the Studebaker, aren't you?The Boy hesitates a second, then starts for the house. BOYWell, I just need to pick up something in the house.Kit draws his gun. KITNo... You go in there, I'll have to kill you.BOYWhat's going on?KITCan't afford to take chances.The Girl is baffled. KIT (o.c.)Come on out of there, young lady.Kit waves them out into the neighboring field with him. KITLet's us step out in this field here.The Boy raises his hands. KITNah, skip that... I'm going to have to keep an eye on you, though.BOYOkay.KITYou don't mind?Holly steps out the front door and smiles at the girl. HOLLYHi.EXT. FIELD Holly and the girl walk through the field toward a storm cellar where the boys are waiting for them. The wind is blowing hard. GIRLWhat's going to happen to Jack and me?HOLLYYou have to ask Kit. He says frog, I jump.GIRLOkay.HOLLYWhat's your friend's name?GIRLJack.HOLLYYou love him?GIRLI don't know.Holly thinks about this for a moment. HOLLYI've got to stick by Kit... He feels trapped.GIRLYeah. I can imagine.HOLLYWell, I've felt that way, hadn't you?EXT. STORM CELLAR Kit guides the couple into the storm cellar. KITOkay, you two, down in the cellar.They head down the steps into the cellar, the Girl first. Kit stops the Boy for a moment. KITYou promise to stay down there for an hour?BOYYeah.KITYou expect me to believe that?He looks back at Holly, as though to ask whether he should. BOYYeah.Kit nods and waves the Boy down into the cellar. The Boy disappears. Kit shuts the door. KITI'm going to shut the door.Kit sticks a pin through the latch, hesitates, then fires two shots down through a seam into the cellar. He retreats to Holly's side. a little surprised at what he did. KITThink I got 'em?HOLLYI don't know.KITWell, I'm not going down there and look.He starts running away from the cellar. Holly follows him. A storm is gathering on the horizon. Kit offers Holly his hand as they run. but Holly does not see this. INT. CATO'S BEDROOM Cato lies motionless, on his bed. Holly steps forward and touches him with a yardstick, like a child touching a snake. HOLLY (v.o.)Suddenly, I was thrown into a state of shock...EXT. HOUSE AND BOX CAR Kit, rifle in hand, lumbers out a side door of the house with Cato over his shoulder. He steers for a nearby box car that evidently served Cato as a shed. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit was the most trigger happy person I'd ever met. He claimed that as long as you're playing for keeps and the law is coming at you, it's considered okay to shoot all witnesses. You had to take the consequences, though, and not whine about it later.Kit opens the doors of the box car. and dumps Cato inside. Before closing the doors he checks Cato's shoes. to see if they are the ones he gave him. Holly looks on from the side of the house, twenty yards away. HOLLYWe're in for it now... If they catch us.Kit looks cornered and defensive. Holly thinks for a moment. HOLLYWhat'd you put him in there for?KIT (shrugging)Just to keep him out of the sun.Kit heads out of sight around the rear of the box car. Holly goes back inside. Kit walks up and down the length of the box car, talking under his breath and throwing his rifle from hand to hand, in a state. DISSOLVE TOEXT. COUNTRY ROAD Kit and Holly travel down a country road in the Studebaker. HOLLY (v.o.)At this moment I didn't feel shame or fear, but just kind of blah, like when you're sitting there and all the water's run out of the bathtub.INT. CAR Kit, driving, turns to Holly. KITYou tired?HOLLYYeah.KITYeah, you look tired... Listen, honey. when all this is over, I'm going to sit down and buy you a big, thick steak.HOLLYI don't want a steak.KITWell, we'll see about that... Hey, lookie.He nods at a wrecked car lying in a ditch beside the road. KITThey're probably going to blame that on me, too, bastards.VIGILANTE MONTAGE - SERIES OF ANGLES - BLACK AND WHITE Various shots characterizing the Midwest's reaction to Kit and Hollya deserted street, law officers posing with their guns and ammunition, children walking from class under armed guard, a detective in a trench coat pointing at a pump, a woman calling in her children at dusk, a county official posing with the county records, the court reporter with a book of signatures, vigilantes signing up and being deputized, then riding through the streets of their town in the backs of pickups, a priest among them, etc. HOLLY (v.o.)The whole country was out looking for us, for who knew where Kit would strike next? Sidewalks were deserted. Stores closed their doors and drew their blinds. Posses and vigilante committees were set up from Texas to North Dakota. Children rode back and forth to school under heavy guard. A famous detective was brought in from Boston. He could find no clues ... My clarinet teacher said I probably wasn't responsible, but others said I was. Then, on Thursday, the Governor of Oklahoma sent out the National Guard to stand watch at the Federal Reserve Bank in Tulsa when word got out that Kit meant to rob it... It was like the Russians had invaded.EXT. RICH MAN'S HOUSE Kit and Holly approach a large Victorian mansion. Kit rings the bell. HOLLY (v.o.)We needed supplies, so we went to a rich man's house. Kit figured it'd be safer and quicker than shopping in the downtown... A maid came to the door.A MAID opens the door. KITHi, I come to check the meter. My tools are in here.He nods at the suitcase he is carrying. The Maid looks at Holly. KITOh, this Is Holly. She's from Texas.Kit winks at Holly. The Maid brushes her ears to indicate that she is deaf, then stands back to let them pass. HOLLY (v.o.)Later we found out she was deaf and we hadn't even known it.KITExcuse me.They enter the house. INT. LIVING ROOM Kit leads the others into the living room. The owner of the house, a RICH MAN, sits in a chair in the corner, reviewing some prints. At the sight of Kit he comes to his feet. KITHi.RICH MANYes?KITThis your place?RICH MANYes.Kit looks around, overwhelmed by the luxury of the mansion. KITSorry to barge in on you. Anybody else here besides you two?RICH MANNo.The Rich Man is wary. Kit nearly forgets to explain himself. KITGood deal... Oh, uh, we're on the run and we'd like to hang out here for a while. Couple of hours, maybe. How'd that be?RICH MANStay as long as you like.TIGHT ON MURAL The CAMERA PANS across a mural of some pastoral scene. INT. HOUSE - SERIES OF ANGLES Holly runs her finger around the lip of a crystal glass. It makes a soft chiming noise. Kit, sitting at the end of a table opposite her, picks up a dinner bell, rings it, then puts It down and regards her solemnly. KITNext time I ring that, it means time to clear out.Holly, in the next angle, has moved a bust off its pedestal onto the corner of a piano. She thinks better of this and restores the bust to its original position. Kit sniffs at a glass of sherry, then takes a picture off the mantel and studies it. Holly, at the other end of the room. tests the comforts of a chair. This done. she moves to another chair and tests it, too. She makes her hand limp. She watches it swing back and forth. Kit sits in the chair which the Rich Man occupied earlier. He has a thoughtful look on his face. There is a dictaphone on the table beside him. INT. HALLWAY Holly takes a cane out of the umbrella rack, looks around furtively, then steps out a side door of the house. EXT. LAWN Holly walks down the slope of the lawn. HOLLY (v.o.)I left Kit in the parlor and went for a stroll outside the house. The day was quiet and serene, but I didn't notice, for I was deep in thought, and not even thinking about how to slip off.Across the way she can see a long driveway, with a border of lush greenery and a sleepy cat standing in the sun. HOLLY (v.o.)The world was like a faraway planet to which I could never return... I thought what a fine place it was, full of things for people to look into and enjoy.INT. LIVING ROOM - TIGHT ON KIT Kit talks into the dictaphone, recording some advice for young people. KITListen to your parents and teachers. They got a line on most things, so don't treat them like enemies. There's always a chance you could learn something. (he pauses for a moment) Try to keep an open mind. Try to understand the viewpoint of others. Consider the minority opinion, but try to get along with the majority opinion once it's accepted. (again he pauses) Course Holly and I've had fun, even if it has been rushed, and... so far we're doing fine. hadn't got caught. (annoyed) Excuse the grammar.He sets down the dictaphone. puts out his cigarette and leans back in his chair, lost in reflection. INT. COVERED ROOM Holly enters the room where the Rich Man and his Maid have been put. The furniture and paintings are covered with sheets, suggesting that for some purpose, known only to the family, the room has been set aside. HOLLYHi... Kit's downstairs playing with the dictaphone... Sometimes he acts like there's something wrong with his bean.She leans against the window. behind the couch where the Rich Man is sitting. HOLLYHope nothing ever goes wrong with mine.RICH MANThink he's crazy, huh?HOLLYI don't know... He's kind of odd.She sits down beside the Rich Man. HOLLY (shyly)They claim I've got him wrapped around my little finger, but I never told him to shoot anybody.She looks the room over. HOLLYGosh, I like your house.RICH MANThank you.We hear the NOISE of a doorbell. INT. LIVING ROOM Kit puts down a copy of the Wall Street Journal and locates his pistol. He starts for the door, then remembers that he moved a picture from the mantel. He puts the picture back in place, checks the chamber of his pistol and leaves the room. EXT. FRONT OF HOUSE Kit opens the front door to find a VISITOR on the stoop. The Visitor carries a roll of blueprints under his arm. KITHi.VISITORHi... ah, Mister Scarborough here?KITYeah, but the thing about him, he's down with the flu. He's sick.VISITORReally?KITYeah. I'd invite you inside, except it's contagious. Don't want to start an epidemic.VISITORNo, of course not. It's only that he called last night and asked if I could come by.KITWell, he didn't have it last night.The Visitor is puzzled by Kit's presence in the house, and even more by his behavior. He takes out a note pad. KITWhat's that?VISITORWell, I'd like to leave a message, if that's okay.KITSure.The Visitor jots something down and hands the note to Kit. KITYou have to excuse me now. I have to go back inside. Bye.Kit closes the door. INT. STAIRWELL Kit hides the Visitor's note in a vase and bounds up the stairs to the first landing. KITWe're out of here, Tex.He turns back down the stairs. On a rack at the bottom he finds a hat and coat. He takes them with him. INT. COVERED ROOM Kit walks into the room where he left the Rich Man and his maid. He now carries a bag of groceries under his arm, KITHi, whatcha doing?RICH MANJust thinking.KITGood a way to kill time as any... She okay?He points to the Maid with his pistol. RICH MANYes.KITListen, ah ... We're going to take the Cadillac for a while. How'd that be?RICH MANFine.KITDon't worry, I won't let her drive.He means Holly. KIT (continuing)Oh, and here's a list of everything we borrowed. Car's on there, too.He gives the list to the Rich Man and signals the Maid to accompany them out. KITOkay, ma'am, let's go . . . come on.INT. HALLWAY Kit points the Rich Man and his Maid into a closet. KITYou're my friend, aren't you?RICH MANYes.KITOkay, no monkey business then.He locks the door of the closet once they are inside, starts off, then remembers something, takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his fingerprints off the door handle. KITGroceries.With this reminder he collects his bag of groceries and heads down the hall. EXT. FRONT PORCH Kit and Holly come out the front door. Holly wears a shawl over her head as a disguise, Kit wears the outfit he took off the Rich Man's coat rack. He carries his groceries, rifle and a silver trophy he stole from somewhere in the house. KITThat guy could sell that list I gave him as a sample of my handwriting.Holly starts off, KIT (continuing)Hey, why're you always walking ahead of me?HOLLYWell, why you always walking behind me?Kit grabs the seat of her pants. HOLLYDon't.KITAnybody ever done that to you before?HOLLYNo.KITPositive?HOLLYYes.KITGuess there's no way I'll ever know. For sure.They round a corner into the garden. EXT. BACKYARD They walk down the lawn toward the garage. We the TICKING OF SPRINKLERS off camera. KITThat guy must pay through the nose to keep this place up... Lawn, the gas and electric... Bagworms. Plus the upkeep on the cars... Yeah, you get a little money in your pocket, you think all your problems are solved. Well, let me tell you, they're not.They arrive at the Cadillac. Holly sets down her suitcase and waits for Kit to open the door for her. Kit, who has forgotten this propriety, hurries back and opens the door. He throws the suitcase in the back, goes around the front of the car and gets in. HOLLYI'd like to get out of here.KITSoon as I start the car... and fix my hat.He adjusts his hat, starts the car and they drive off, past a Rolls Royce Kit has declined in favor of the Cadillac. EXT. BADLANDS - EXTREME LONG SHOT The car races across the open prairie. HOLLY (v.o.)Fearing there'd be roadblocks on the highways, we took off across that area known as the Great Plains. Kit told me to enjoy the scenery, and I did.INT. CADILLAC Holly reads to Kit from a movie fan magazine. HOLLY"RumorPat Boone is seriously considering giving up his career so he can return to school full-time and complete his education. FactPat has told intimates that so long as things are going well for his career, it's the education that will have to take the back seat."KITI don't blame him.HOLLY"RumorFrank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth are in love... FactTrue, but not with each other."Kit chuckles at this, which pleases Holly. EXT. TELEPHONE POLES The Cadillac heads overland, along a line of telephone poles that stretches out clear to the horizon. HOLLY (v.o.)Through desert and mesa, across the endless miles of open range, we made our headlong way, steering by the telephone lines toward the mountains of Montana.DISSOLVE TOEXT. MOUNTAIN Heat waves rise off the land. A mountain is barely discernible in the distance. DISSOLVE TOEXT. BADLANDS The Cadillac races through a herd of cows, HOLLY (v.o.) Kit'd sometimes ram a cow, to save on ammo, and we'd cook it.CLOSE ON SALT GRASS Tight shot of a clump of salt grass. HOLLY (v.o.)Once we had to eat a bunch of salt grass. It tasted like cabbage.EXT. BADLANDS - DAWN THE CAMERA RISES over the Cadillac as it races down a deserted country road at dawn, EXT. PIPELINE WAYSTATION The Cadillac is stopped beside a pipeline waystation. Kit has tapped some gas off the head. HOLLY (v.o.)For gas we used the leakage from the valves of the pipelines we found along the way. Drip gas is what they call it in that part of the country.DISSOLVE TOEXT. BADLANDS The Cadillac roars through a stand of mesquite and disappears into the distance. HOLLY (v.o.)Little by little we approached the border. Kit was glad to leave South Dakota behind and cursed its name. He said that if the Communists ever dropped the atomic bomb, he wished they'd put it right in the middle of Rapid City.EXT. CAMPSITE They are camped out in the middle of the badlands. Kit cooks some meat over a fire, Holly, with a map under her arm, points into the distance. HOLLYThat's Montana over there.KITI never been to Montana... Acquaintance of mine has, but I hadn't... Never had any reason to.Holly sits down and looks at the map. HOLLYState bird's a meadowlark.EXT. PAN ACROSS BADLANDS The CAMERA PANS across the badlands. There Is not a tree or a bush in sight. It comes to rest on Kit, who carries his rifle over his shoulders the way James Dean did in "Giant". KIT'S P.O.V. - SERIES OF ANGLES Various sights of the prairiea distant mountain, a wild turkey, a lizard, a burst of lightening in a cloud on the horizon, a falcon. Kit takes all this in, then he turns back to the campsite. The sun is down, just barely, and the moon has risen behind him. Holly is heard over this last shot. HOLLY (v.o.)We lived in utter loneliness, neither here nor there. Kit said that solitude was a better word, cause it meant more exactly what I wanted to say. Whatever the expression, I told him we couldn't go on living this way.INT. CADILLAC Kit and Holly sit in the back seat of the Cadillac. They have been necking. Her hair is in curlers. KIT (responding to v.o.)Why not? I mean, I'm having fun... At least I'm not bitching.HOLLYWell, I feel kind of like an animal living out here. I mean, there's no place to bathe and... no place to get anything good to eat.KITWell, I'll catch you a big trout. Soon as we get to the mountains.He kisses her. She gives in reluctantly. After a while they break. KITEverybody loves trout.HOLLYI'm serious.They neck some more. then break again. Kit looks out one window, Holly out the other. EXT. DISTANT TRAIN A train moves slowly across the horizon. HOLLY (v.o.)In the distance I saw a train making its way silently across the plain, like the caravan in "The Adventures of Marco Polo." It was our first taste of civilization in days, and I asked Kit if we could have a closer look.EXT. KIT - WITH FOOTBALL Kit sets a football down on the ground, backs off a few steps, squats and shoots a hole through it with his pistol. To his surprise. it does not deflate. He moves closer and pounds it flat with the barrel of the pistol. HOLLY (v.o.)Before we left he shot a football that he considered excess baggage.TIGHT ON SUITCASE Kit is burying some things from Holly's suitcase in a bucketthe trophy he took from the mansion, her stereopticon slides, a doll, a spark plug, a pack of Camels, etc. HOLLY (v.o.)Afterwards he took and buried some of our things in a bucket. He said that nobody else would know where we'd put them, and that we'd come back someday, maybe, and they'd still be sitting here, just the same, but we'd be different. And if we never got back, well, somebody might dig them up a thousand years from now and wouldn't they wonder!EXT. BADLANDS The Cadillac speeds across the plains. A plume of dust stretches out behind it. EXT. RAIL TRESTLE Kit and Holly have parked the Cadillac under a rail trestle. A train is approaching. They hide beside the car. The train, a streamliner, roars overhead. When it has passed, Holly rushes up the grade to watch it disappear into the distance. Kit watches from the opposite end of the trestle. KITMaybe we should've tried to hop it.HOLLYIt was going too fast.KITI could've pulled the car up on the tracks, slowed it down some.HOLLY (o.c.)Yeah, then we'd be stuck here.KITWell, maybe we oughta be stuck here. I'm not saying that I know.He stoops down and picks up a Pepsi bottle. HOLLYYou're crazy.He climbs over the edge of the trestle, looks back at her oddly, then leaps down to the ground. Holly walks down to meet him. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit took the bottle and spun it around, leaving to fate which direction we should take.TIGHT ON BOTTLE Kit spins the bottle. EXT. BOTTOM OF TRESTLE The bottle comes to a stop. Kit inspects its position. He does not appear satisfied, though. KITWell, maybe the slope here is throwing it off some. We ought to find a more flat place.HOLLYHow about over here?Kit starts toward her, then changes his mind and heads back up the grade, to the tracks. The CAMERA DOLLIES and CRANES with him. KITNever mind. It doesn't matter... If I'm worth a damn, I'll pick the right direction. And if I'm not, well, I don't care. See what I mean?HOLLY (o.c.)No.KITWell, I shouldn't expect miracles, should I?He stops at the top of the grade and looks out across the Badlands. KITWe'll keep on heading for that mountain... Just remember I said it wasn't such a hot idea.DISSOLVE TOEXT. TRESTLE - DUSK The Cadillac pulls out from under the trestle and heads down a dusty road alongside the tracks. HOLLY (v.o.)We took off at sunset, on a line toward the mountains of Saskatchewan, for Kit a magical land beyond the reach of the law. He needed me now more than ever, but something had come between us. I'd stopped even paying attention to him. Instead, I sat in the car and read a map and spelled out entire sentences with my tongue on the roof of my mouth, where nobody could read them.DISSOLVE TOEXT. MOUNTAIN - DUSK The Cadillac beads off across the plains toward a distant mountain. HOLLY (v.o.)That night we moved closer to the border, and clear across the prairie, at the very edge of the horizon... EXT. REFINERY FIRES - NIGHT A refinery fire. HOLLY (v.o.)W could make out the gas fires of the refinery at Missoula, while to the south...EXT. CITY LIGHTS - NIGHT HOLLY (v.o.)... we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I'd ever seen.EXT. CADILLAC'S POV ON PRAIRIE The prairie rushes under the Cadillac's headlights. HOLLY (v.o.) I felt all kind of things looking at the lights of Cheyenne, but most important, I made up my mind to never again tag around with a hell-bent type, no matter how in love with him I was. Finally, I found the strength to tell Kit this. I pointed out that even If we got to the Far North, he still couldn't make a living.INT. CADILLAC - NIGHT Kit and Holly's faces are strangely lit by the dash lights. Holly is absorbed in her map. The radio is on. KIT(responding to v.o.) I could get a job with the Mounties. The Northwest Mounties ... Hell, I got all the qualifications. I can ride, shoot and... I don't mind the cold. Fact. I kind of like the cold.Holly looks up from the map. HOLLYWhat?KITNothing... I was just running off at the mouth... as usual.HOLLYI'm sorry. I wasn't listening.Holly lights a cigarette. KITI was just talking about going after a job... Hey. don't lip it.He reaches over and takes the cigarette out of her mouth. The CAMERA PANS to her with this gesture. HOLLYYou know... they'd probably ask to see your driver's license before they hired you.KIT (o.c.)Well. I'm not going to let that stop me.When the CAMERA PANS BACK to him, he is looking at her cigarette. KITYou smoke Pall Mall?HOLLYYeah.He is surprised to discover this. KITNah, you hadn't seen me when I'm going after something, honey. Tough?He cocks his head just thinking about it. She reaches for the radio to change the station. He pats her hand away. KITHey. don't touch that... Nat King Cole.EXT. BADLANDS - NIGHT They dance in the headlights to the tune of "A Blossom Fell" coming over the car radio. She is wearing the rich man's jacket. After a moment Kit whispers in her ear. KITBoy, if I could sing a song like that... I mean, if I could sing a song about the way I feel right now, it'd be a hit.They continue dancing. EXT. CADILLAC ON PLAINS - DAY Two shots of the Cadillac heading across the Badlands at dawn. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit knew the end was coming. He wondered if he'd hear the doctor pronounce him dead, or if he'd be able to read what the papers would say about him,the next day, from the other side. He dreaded the iea of being shot down alone, he said, without a girl to scream out his name.INT. CADILLAC - DAWN Holly yawns with fatigue. HOLLY (v.o.)Then, for an instant, the sight of the mountains in the dawn light got his hopes back up.Kit shakes his head with admiration and wonder. KITGod, what a sight... Tell me this, honey. What does a little Texas girl like yourself think of a sight like that?She turns to look at the mountains. EXT. MOUNTAINS - THEIR POV Mountains in the distance closer now than ever before. DISSOLVE TOEXT. OIL RIG The Cadillac drives up to an oil rig. Kit gets out of the car. KITLove this air.The ROUGHNECK in charge of the rig steps out of his trailer. It seems there is nobody else around. KITMorning... Say, you got any gas?ROUGHNECKMaybe.KITWell. I'm sorry. sir. but we've got to ask you for it.Holly walks over to inspect the rig. KIT (o.c.)See, we're about out... been driving all night. Actually, I don't even have time to explain it to you.ROUGHNECK (o.c.)Well, matter of fact, I don't have any.KITJust a second now. That's your truck. isn't it?He points to a truck linked to the front of the trailer. Holly looks idly around. Suddenly her expression changes, for what reason it is not clear. KIT (o.c.)You didn't walk out here.ROUGHNECK (o.c.)It's mine all right.KITWell, listen. I'm going to swap you my Cadillac.The Roughneck does not understand what Kit is up to. KITNow don't worry. You're getting a fair deal. Hell. what's the blue book value on this thing, Mildred?He slaps the hood of the Cadillac and looks to Holly. She is still preoccupied with whatever it is she has seen, though. ROUGHNECK (o.c.)Who are you?KITName is Carruthers. Believe I shoot people every now and then. Not that I deserve a medal.Holly signals Kit with a nod at the horizon. HOLLYKit!Kit looks up and sees a helicopter in the distance. He hesitates a moment, then draws his gun. KITOkay, friend. start running.ROUGHNECK (o.c.)Just gimme a chance.KITGit.Holly moves around the side of the rig and sits against a tire. Kit joins her. KITBoy. I had a feeling today was going to be the day... Helicopter.HOLLYYeah.KITHe's not coming to take us for a ride. either. Come on, let's make a run for the car.He starts off in the direction of the car, but Holly calls him back. HOLLYI don't want to.Kit looks at her. surprised. KITHave you got a better idea?HOLLYI just don't want to go.KITWhat?She shrugs. He stares at her for a moment, then bows his head and walks off a distance. KITWhat is wrong with you, huh?He kicks wildly at dust. KITWhat is the matter with you, huh!?Meanwhile, the helicopter continues its approach. Kit walks in closer to Holly. KITBoy, I don't know what to make of you. People like you.He kicks at the rigs then turns back to face her. KITYou want a second chance, then listen. Twelve noon the Grand Coulee Dam, New Year'ss Day. 1964. You meet me there... Now you got that?She nods, bewildered. The helicopter is landing. He grabs a discarded fender off the truck, hangs it over his arm like a shield and runs to the Cadillac, exchanging shots with a State Trooper who has arrived in the helicopter. The Trooper is hit and falls. Kit jumps in the car and roars off. Holly surrenders herself to the pilot of the helicopter and is taken off. EXT. GAS STATION Kit pulls into a gas station. He gets out of his car and drums on the roof. KITHey, anybody here?An ATTENDANT walks out the door. KITHi... Say,, you got any shells for a Savage, a .300 Savage?ATTENDANTNope.KITDamn. I pissed all mine away shooting up bottles... You want to fill her up for me? Please?The Attendant nods. Kit pulls Holly's suitcase out of the back seat and walks over to a trash can at the edge of the apron. Kit throws Holly's things methodically into the trash can. After a while he comes upon a book. He opens the book and looks through it, then turns to find the Attendant staring at him. As he gets to his feet. he nods at the trash can. KITIf you want any of that junk, it's yours.Meanwhile, a police car approaches the station. Kit sees it at about the same time the police see him. He throws his book in the car and roars out of the station. The police car goes into a bootlegger's turn and takes off after him. CHASE - SERIES OF ANGLES Kit heads down the highway. After a while he turns off onto a dirt road. The police keep up with him.. He flips on the radio and fires back at them. The dust is so heavy that they have a hard time just keeping track of him. He checks his own appearance and general demeanor in the rear view mirror, then swerves off the road onto the prairie. The police manage to keep up. Together they roar through a herd of cows and barb wire fence. The police car slams into Kit, trying to slow him down. Kit slams back into the police car. They return to the road. Kit makes a ninety-degree turn but the police car loses traction and rolls onto its side, then back onto four wheels again, stalled. Kit sees that he has lost them. He checks himself out in the mirror again, puts on the rich man's hat and skids to a stop. The police car gets back underway. During these last few moments Holly is heard on VOICE OVER. HOLLY (v.o.)Often I've wondered what was going through Kit's head before they got him and why he didn't make a run for it while he still had the chance. Did he figure theyld just catch up with him the next day? Was it despair? He claimed to having a flat tire, but the way he carried on about it, I suspect this is false.EXT. ROAD Kit shoots a hole in the tire of the Cadillac, then climbs up on the hood. We see how far behind the police are. He checks his pulse and jumps back down. He scurries around collecting rocks from the shoulder as the police approach from the distance. He makes a stack of the rocks to mark the site of his capture for posterity, finishing just as the police car skids to a stop. Kit throws up his hands and walks forward to meet them. Their guns are drawn. KITHi.SHERIFFHold it right there.KITI could've held off an army if I could've gotten behind a rock in the mountains.DEPUTY (o.c.)Oh yeah?KIT (nodding)Long as my ammo held out... Right there's where you caught me.He nods at the stack of rocks. The Sheriff frisks him as the Deputy covers. DEPUTYWe did it, Ray.KITYou better not leave that Cadillac sitting out here.The Sheriff takes out a pair of handcuffs. SHERIFFPut your hands in back of your head.The Sheriff claps the handcuffs on one of Kit's wrists. SHERIFFNow put the other one on yourself.Kit does as the Sheriff asks. The Deputy holsters his pistol and walks forward to inspect their prize. He and KIT exchange glances. DEPUTY (to Sheriff)Hell, he ain't no bigger than I am.The Sheriff sticks his pistol in Kit's ear and leads him off toward the police car. KITYou're going to give me a cauliflower ear, Sheriff.The Sheriff gives Kit a shove. DEPUTYHe should've thought about that before he got caught... Shouldn't he?The Deputy draws his pistol and fires a shot into the neighboring field. Kit is startled. The Deputy makes the same motion, this time without firing. DEPUTYHup!EXT. HIGHWAY The police car sails down an open stretch of highway. INT. POLICE CAR Kit thinks for a while, then turns to the Sheriff, who is driving. KITThink I'll take the juice?SHERIFFBeats me.The Deputy, fascinated, watches all this from the back seat. Kit turns to him. KITSay, what kind of rifle was that you were shooting at me?DEPUTYThirty aught six.KIT (o.c.)You ever had to open it up like that before?DEPUTYNope.Kit turns back around. KIT (reassuringly)Well, you boys have performed like a couple of heroes... And don't think I'm not going to pass it around when we get to town.The Sheriff lifts the hat off Kit's head and tosses it out the window. It rolls to a stop on the highway behind them. KITYou tossed my hat out the window.SHERIFF (o.c.)Wanta sue me?KITNo.DEPUTYKit... Kit, I've got a question for you.KITMmmmm.DEPUTYYou like people?KITThey're okay.DEPUTYThen why'd you do it?KITI don't know. Always wanted to be a criminal, I guess. Just not this big a one... Takes all kinds though.Kit gets a smile from the Deputy. The Deputy turns to the Sheriff. DEPUTYYou know who that sombitch looks like? (no reply) You know, don't you?Kit is anxious to hear the answer. SHERIFF (o.c.)No.DEPUTYI'll kiss your ass if he don't look like James Dean.Kit drops his eyes and turns away, deeply gratified by this remark. The Sheriff smiles at the Deputy in the rear mirror. The car roars past a freight train. INT. AIRPORT HANGAR Kit stands on the wing of a light plane, inside a large hangar at the local airport. He is shackled in a leather transfer vest. He takes souvenirs out of his pockets and tosses them out to a crowd of Montana State Troopers and National Guardsmen milling around on the tarmac ground below him. MECHANICHow you doing there, Kit?KIT (o.c.)Fine as can be expected. Just locked up, can't move.MECHANIC (o.c.)That's a nice little coat you got on there.KITYou think?... it's leather.He takes out his cigarette lighter. KITHey, now here's a real prize. I must've had this about ten years. Who's going to get it?VOICE (o.c.)Gimme that sombitch.KITThere you go.SECOND VOICE (o.c.)Where you from?KITSouth Dakota. Where you from?SECOND VOICE (o.c.)Here.KITWant a comb?He takes a comb out of his pocket and pitches it down to somebody. He ignores most of the questions coming at him. THIRD VOICE (o.c.)Joni James is from South Dakota.KITYeah, she got out of there, too.FOURTH VOICE (o.c.)You ever been to Kansas?FIFTH VOICE (o.c.)Hey, Kit. whot's your favorite singer?KITEddie Fisher. Who's yours?FIFTH VOICE (o.c.)Eddie Fisher.KITDamn! Want a pen?He pitches the man a ballpoint. The CAMERA MOVES BACK to a WIDE SHOT of the whole scene. SIXTH VOICE (o.c.)How old are you?KITDon't you read the papers?SIXTH VOICE (.o.c.)You ever been married?KITNo sir, I hadn't.EXT. HANGAR - SERIES OF ANGLES Various SHOTS of the National Guardsmen dozing on the pavement. playing cards beside the hangar, a little bored. Also a shot of Holly with the Sheriff and Deputy. SEVENTH VOICE (o.c.)Hey, Kit, you afraid of death?KIT (o.c.)I hadn't thought about it much.INT. HANGAR The Deputy walks up to Kit with some legal papers. KITHey, listen, Tom, I don't mean to tell you how to run your show here but these cuffs are pinching. What do you say now? DEPUTYI need to get your signature on some papers here, Kit.KITWell, I've got to read them first. Suppose I could get a Coke while I do?DEPUTYSure thing. Come on.He gives Kit the papers and leads him out of the hangar. Kit turns back to the crowd inside. KITYou boys keep out of trouble.GUARDSMANDon't worry about us.DEPUTYHolly's over here, Kit. if you want to see her.KITSure.EXT. POLICE CAR Holly leans against the fender of the police car. She wears handcuffs. Kit turns to a State Trooper who holds him by a tether. KITYou want to give me a little slack here?The Trooper pays out the slack. Kit leans against the car. He and Holly exchange looks. KITDon't worry now.. I'm going to get you off these charges... There's a whole lot of other boys out there. You're going to have a lot of fun.Holly looks down. KITBoy, we rang the bells, didn't we?Holly does not reply. KITI'll say one thing, though... That guy with the deaf maid? He's just lucky he's not dead, too.Holly does not appreciate the humor of this. Kit, chastened, turns serious. KITCourse it's too bad about your dad.HOLLYYeah.KITWe're going to have to sit down, and talk about that sometime.He looks up at the SOUND of an incoming plane. EXT. AIRPORT - SERIES OF ANGLES The plane that will take them back to South Dakota, a B-25, comes in for a landing. The mass of Troopers and National Guardsmen, with Kit and Holly, walks out to meet it. A jeep leads it down the taxiway. A civilian bystander points Kit and Holly out to a young boy he holds in his arms. EXT. PLANE Kit signs his extradition papers on the back of the Chief Trooper, gives them to the Deputy and shakes hands with the Chief. KITThank you very much, Chief Sims. Sorry if I caused you any inconvenience.CHIEFYou didn't cause me any trouble.KITThanks anyway.He turns to shake hands with the Deputy. The planets engines whir to life. DEPUTYWell, Kit...KITTom...DEPUTYGood luck to you.KITThanks.DEPUTYI mean it.KITI know you do. Good luck to you, too.TROOPERNow we go.The Trooper pulls him toward the plane. Kit calls Holly. KITCome on, Red.EXT. RUNWAY - SERIES OF ANGLES The props start turning. The crowd waves goodbye as the boarding door is closed. The wheels turn toward the sun. The Guardsmen race back to their trucks. A mailman carries off the mail bags he collected from the plane. The plane taxies down the runway and lifts into the air. HOLLY (v.o.)Kit and I were taken back to South Dakota. They kept him in solitary, so he didn't have a chance to get acquainted with the other inmates, though he was sure they'd like him, especially the murderers. Myself, I got off with probation and a lot of nasty looks. Later I married the son of the lawyer who defended me. (pause) Kit went to sleep in the courtroom while his confession was being read, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On a warm spring night, six months later, after donating his body to science, he did. With Holly's last words we CUT INSIDE the cabin of the plane. INT. CABIN Kit sits next to the Trooper at the back of the plane. Holly sits opposite them, with a Detective behind her. Kit's attention is fixed on the military hat in the Trooper's lap. KITSir... Where'd you get that hat?TROOPERState.KITBoy, I'd like to buy me one of those.The Trooper smiles. Holly looks up. TROOPERYou're quite an individual, Kit.KITThink they'll take that into consideration?The Trooper smiles and looks out the window. Kit looks to Holly, to see if she has taken this remark in the proper spirit. She smiles and looks out the window. EXT. CLOUDS - HOLLY'S POV - DUSK An unbroken sea of clouds stretches out before her. FADE OUT. END CREDITS OVER BLACK. THE END
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+				Bamboozled				by				Spike LeeBLACK SCREENWe HEAR the voice of MALCOLM X.				MALCOLM X (V.O.)			You've been hoodwinked.  You've			been had.  You've been took.			You've been led astray, run amok.			You've been bamboozled.His followers ROAR.CUT TO TITLE:"BAMBOOZLED"CUT TO CRAWL:WHITE LETTERS ON BLACKWE HEAR the VOICE of PIERRE DELACROIX.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Satire.  1a.  A literary work in			which human vice or folly is			ridiculed or attacked scornfully.			B.  The branch of literature that			composes such work.  2.  Irony,			derision or caustic wit used to			attack or expose folly, vice or			stupidity.INT. APARTMENT - MORNINGWE are in the living quarters of PIERRE DELACROIX.  Thewindows overlook the Brooklyn Promenade and the majesticlower Manhattan skyline.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Bonjour, my name is Pierre Delacroix.			I'm a television writer, also a			showrunner, a creative person.We see a tall figure move in and around the space.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			I'm one of those people responsible			for what you view on your idiot box.CLOSE ONMonogrammed cuff sleeve - the initials P.D.										2.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			The problem is not enough of you			have been watching.CLOSE ONMonogrammed shirt pocket - the initials P.D.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			With the onslaught of the internet,			video and interactive games, nine			hundred channels to choose from and			whatnot, our valued audience has			dramatically eroded.CLOSE ONRazor cuts a path through a white foam on a black face.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			To put it in much more simple			terms...Delacroix YELLS.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Like rats fleeing a sinking ship.CLOSE ONThe handsome face of Pierre Delacroix.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			People tuning out by the millions.Delacroix turns to the CAMERA and addresses US.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Which is not good.EXT. TENEMENT - LOWER EAST SIDE - MORNINGThe tenement building is boarded up, condemned, bombed out,but a home, a shelter nonetheless.INT. TENEMENT - MORNINGPeople to our surprise live in here.  It is a commune.  Thehomeless, people who have been left out, forgot about,written off, and don't matter.  The fringes of society.CHEEBA, a skinny Puerto Rican male, tries to wake aslumbering body under a mass of old newspapers.										3.				CHEEBA			Yo, let's get to it.  You don't			dance, we don't eat.  Simple as that.The mass begins to move.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			That's right.  We slow.  We blow.			We snooze.  We lose.INT. CNS TOWER - MORNINGMANRAY, a young African-American dread-lock male, and Cheebaare getting set up in front of the entrance to theCONTINENTAL NETWORK SYSTEM building.  CNS is one of thefledgling, upstart new networks, trying to battle with ABC,NBC, CBS, FOX, WB, and UPN.ANGLE ONEntrance.  Cheeba is putting the portable floor down on thesidewalk.  Manray sits on the curb, taking the sneakers offand putting on his tap shoes; bottle caps are on the solesof the shoes instead of real taps.				CHEEBA			Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.			I know everybody is in a hurry to			work, ready to begin another day in			this rat race.  But don't sleep us.			I'm Cheeba and I introduce to you			the world renown MANRAY, the man			with the educated feet.Manray takes a small bow.  A few, not many, people havestopped to look.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			As we continue our world wind tour,			we would like to give you a little			somethin', somethin' before you go			off to make that money.  I give you			Manray.CLOSE ONManray, who starts to do his thing, and when he starts doinghis thing attention must be paid.ANGLE ONCrowd, as Manray gets busy, people gather to watch.ANGLE ON										4.Delacroix, he is about to walk into the CNS building butstops to check out Manray.CLOSE ONManray, he pounds out some intricate steps and freezes atthe end of the move.ANGLE ONCrowd, who applaud as Cheeba unfolds a brown shopping bagand holds it out in front of them.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			Thank you very much but please			don't go without giving us some			cheddar, cheese, money.  We prefer			two's than fews.People are digging into their pockets.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			I would like to add that both of us			are homeless.  Not that it means			anything.A WOMAN is about to dump some change in the brown paper bag.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			I said homeless.  Ladies and			gentlemen.  Senorita, do you know			what that means?Cheeba looks at her and she quickly pulls out a 5-spot fromher purse and drops it into the bag.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			Muchos gracias.Cheeba works his way over to Delacroix.				DELACROIX			Good morning, Cheeba.				CHEEBA			Good morning to you, Mr. Delapot.				DELACROIX			De-la-croix.				CHEEBA			Y'know what I mean.  Got a gig yet			for Manray and I yet?										5.				DELACROIX			Not yet.Delacroix hands Cheeba a ten dollar bill.				CHEEBA			Gracias.Delacroix moves towards the revolving doors of CNS.				DELACROIX			Manray, Sloan says you're too			talented to be dancing on the street.				MANRAY			Well do something about it.INT. ELEVATOR - MORNINGDelacroix is the lone person of color in the elevator.INT. CNS - MORNINGDelacroix gets off the elevator, takes out his ID, slips itthrough the scanner and enters the reception area of CNS.				DELACROIX			Good morning, Marie.				MARIE			It's not gonna be a good morning			for you if you don't get into			Dunwitty's staff meeting.				DELACROIX			What staff meeting?				MARIE			The staff meeting that started 30			minutes ago.INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - MORNINGDelacroix walks, or better yet, slithers into the staffmeeting that is already in progress.  TWENTY WRITERS sitaround an oval table, all are Caucasian except Delacroix,again he's the lone person of color, the "fly in thebuttermilk."DUNWITTY, Senior V.P. of the Entertainment Division of CNSlooks at Delacroix and waits for him to sit down before hecontinues.										6.				DUNWITTY			Monsieur Delacroix, this very			important meeting commenced...Dunwitty looks at his Rolex Chronograph - Daytona Model.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			...exactly thirty-two minutes ago.				DUNWITTY			I'm sorry I'm late.				DUNWITTY			Do you know how much information			can be dispensed in one minute alone?				DELACROIX			I didn't find out about this very			important staff meeting until...Delacroix looks at his Jaeger-LeCoultre.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Four minutes ago.				DUNWITTY			So are you telling me everyone knew			about this get-together except you?				DELACROIX			I wasn't told about this until			Marie informed me as soon as I got			off the elevator.All eyes are on Delacroix and he feels it.				DUNWITTY			People, you can attempt to pull a			Rodman like our friend Delacroix,			but I guarantee you'll be sent			packing just like him.Dunwitty via remote turns off the lights and turns on anoverhead projector.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			These are the standings.  Read 'em			and weep.  As you can plainly see			the Continental Network System is			languishing.CLOSE ONRatings charts.										7.				DUNWITTY (O.S.) (CONT'D)			Look at 'em people.  We are BOOTY,			CA CA.  We are DOO-DOO.  Doo-doo on			a stick, if you will.CLOSE ONDunwitty.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			I do not like to be the laughing			stock of the broadcast industry.  I			have pride and people, you better			start getting some too.  These			numbers have to go up.Dunwitty turns on the lights.  JOAN, one of the writers,raises her hand.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			Question?				JOAN			So what do you want us to do?				DUNWITTY			What I want everyone to do is write			some material that is FUNNY.  The			junk you've been writing is about			as funny as a dead baby.  It's not			funny, it's not new.  It's not sexy.			It, it, it...CLOSE ONFish.				FISH			Sucks.ANGLE ONConference room.				DUNWITTY			SUCKS.  Thank you, Fish.  This			meeting is over but I want everyone			to seriously think about what I			said and how you can deliver.People scurry out.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			Monsieur Delacroix, in my office now.										8.INT. HALLWAY - MORNINGThe writers, beat down, come out of the conference room andmove past SLOAN HOPKINS, a highly attractive African-American "sistuh."Delacroix sees Sloan and holds her arm as they walk.  Hetalks under his breath.				SLOAN			How was it?				DELACROIX			Why didn't you tell me about this			staff meeting?				SLOAN			Nobody told me anything.				DELACROIX			What good are you if you don't tell			me stuff like this?				SLOAN			It wasn't my fault.  If I would			have known, I would have known.INT. DUNWITTY'S OFFICE - MORNINGDelacroix enters his corner office, which has huge actionphotos of ALI, JORDAN, GRIFFEY, TYSON, AARON and JABBAR onhis walls, it is also decorated with African art throughout.ANGLE ONOffice.  Dunwitty looks at the floor-to-ceiling windowsoverlooking mid-town Manhattan.				DUNWITTY			Do you know what C.P. Time is?				DELACROIX			C.P. Time is Colored People's Time.			The stereotypical belief that			Negroes are always late.  That			Negroes have no sense of time -			time except when it comes to music			or dance.They both laugh.				DUNWITTY			Let's sit down over there.										9.Dunwitty and Delacroix sit on the sofa.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			I'm sorry about my blowup but I			have to have a whipping boy every			meeting.				DELACROIX			I understand.  But again, in all			honesty I was not informed.				DUNWITTY			Forget it.  I believe you're my			most creative person I've got on			staff.  You're hip.  You know			what's happening.  I got some corny			white boys and girls writing for me.Delacroix doesn't join him in his laughter because hedoesn't know how to take that comment or where Dunwitty isheaded with it.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			I understand Black culture.  I grew			up around black people all my life.			If the truth be told I probably			know "niggers" better than you,			Monsieur Delacroix.  Please don't			get offended by my use of the			quote-unquote N word.  I got a			black wife and three bi-racial			children, so I feel I have a right			to use that word.  I don't give a			damn what Spike says, Tarantino is			right.  Nigger is just a word.  If			Dirty Ole Bastard can use it every			other word so can I.				DELACROIX			I would prefer you not use that			word in my presence.				DUNWITTY			NIGGER.  NIGGER.  NIGGER.  NIGGER.Delacroix pounces on top of Dunwitty like a cat on a mouseand gives him a quick BROOKLYN BEAT DOWN.				DELACROIX			Say it again.  C'mon, say it again.CLOSE ONDunwitty.  He's a bloody pulp.										  10.CLOSE ONDelacroix.He straightens his tie.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Who's a nigger now?POW.  This is a fantasy in Delacroix's mind.  We go BACK TOREALITY.  Everything's how we left it.				DUNWITTY			The material you've been creating			is too white bread.  White people			with black faces.  The Huxtable's,			Cosby, revolutionary.  But that's			dead.  We can't go down that road			again.				DELACROIX			I don't agree.  The Negro middle			class does exist, and it's rich			material for a dramatic series or			sitcom.				DUNWITTY			I'm telling you it's not.He goes to his desk, picks up Delacroix's scripts and startsthrowing them one by one against the window.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			The middle class black family moves			into a white suburban enclave.  The			middle class black family moves			into a small Southern town that is			run by the KKK.  The middle class			single black father raises his			teenage daughter.  The middle class			single black father raises his			teenage daughter.  The middle class			single black mother raises her			teenage son.  And so on and so			forth.  It's too clean, too			antiseptic...				DELACROIX			...to white?  I still feel all of			my scripts would make good shows.										  11.				DUNWITTY			Delacroix, wake up, brother man.			The reason why they didn't get			picked up was because nobody - and			I mean NOBODY - niggers and crackers			alike wants to see that junk.				DELACROIX			I've never been given a fair shot.				DUNWITTY			You got your head stuck up your ass			with your Harvard education and			your pretentious ways.  Brother			man, I'm blacker than you.  I'm			keepin' it real and you're frontin',			trying to be white.				DELACROIX			I'm an oreo, a sell out?  Because I			don't aspire to do HOMEBOYS FROM			OUT OF SPACE, SECRET DIARY OF			DESMOND PFEIFFER, A PJ's or some as			you might put it, some "nigger"			show?  I'm a Tom?  I'm whiter than			white and you're blacker than black?			Is that what you think?				DUNWITTY			That's exactly what I think.  I			want you to create something that			people want to see.  Let's be			honest, the majority of the people			in the country are deaf, dumb and			blind and I'm including 35 million			African-Americans.  You know and I			know "niggers" set the trend, set			the styles.  This is a golden			opportunity now.  These idiots have			to be led to the water.				DELACROIX			I'm not sure if I can deliver what			you want.				DUNWITTY			You will or you'll be back at BET			so quick you'll never know what hit			you.  I need a mid-season			replacement and pronto.  It will be			on the fast track.										  12.				DELACROIX			What is it you want from me?  Some			plantation follies?  Some sitcom			that takes place on a watermelon			patch?  Some show that follows four			nigger generations of junkies and			crackheads?  You want me to go back			to the ante bellum days?				DUNWITTY			Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  I want a show			that will make headlines, that will			have millions and millions of			households tuned in, glued to their			televisions every week.  I want			advertisers dying to buy on this			show.  I'm gonna squeeze this show			out of you if it kills you.EXT. TENEMENT - NIGHTWE SEE a street lamp, and coming out of it are some wires.WE FOLLOW the wires into a tenement building.The residents have tapped into a street light courtesy ofCON EDISON for power.INT. APARTMENT - NIGHTCheeba stands in front of the makeshift kitchen, whichincludes a hot plate, and prepares a gourmet meal of a tastySpanish dish.  The clean apartment is furnished with stuffpeople have thrown out that they picked up on the street.				MANRAY			I'm starvin' like Marvin.				CHEEBA			My world famous, famous world Arroz			con pollo will be ready very soon.				MANRAY			Hurry up, I wanna watch HBO.				CHEEBA			Did we get our bill yet?They both laugh.				MANRAY			I guess that will come with the			rent, gas, and Con Ed bills, too.										  13.				CHEEBA			Ahh, the luxuries of life.				MANRAY			Yo, check it.  This is good and all			that but one day soon I want to			have much Benjamins so I can have a			nice crib and pay all my bills.			You hear me.				CHEEBA			Chill, I'm the brains behind this			outfit.				MANRAY			And I'm the feet.				CHEEBA			Yo, you gotta show some patience.			You want me to snap my fingers and			presto chango - you're an overnight			sensation.  Son, there is no such			thing.				MANRAY			I'm tired of waiting.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NIGHTHe sits in front of a large flat-screen television, watchingthe Yankee game and eating his takeout Chinese food.  On topof the monitor, he has attached a sign that reads "FEED THEIDIOT BOX."INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENT - NIGHTShe sits in front of her television, hand on remote, flippingchannels and eating takeout Chinese food.INT. CHEEBA AND MANRAY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTThey both are devouring the chicken with rice, as they watchbootleg HBO.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NIGHTDelacroix sits at his desk, a ream of white bond paper infront of him, a box of number-two pencils and an electricpencil sharpener.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			I was never good at performing			under the gun.										  14.CLOSEPencil after pencil gets inserted and sharpened to a knifelike point.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Well, this wasn't a gun, it was a			bazooka and it was pressed dead			blank right against my dome.CLOSE ONDelacroix, staring at the blank ream of paper.  It is veryintimidating.CLOSE ONMonitor.  Bernie Williams is at the plate for the New YorkYankees.CLOSE ONSign atop monitor.  Again, it reads "FEED THE IDIOT BOX."INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENTShe too is blank.  A screen saver bobs and weaves on herlaptop.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENTDelacroix grabs a pencil and put it to paper.CLOSE ONPaper.  He doodles.INT. TENEMENT BUILDING - NIGHTManray screws out the bare light bulb which is the solesource of illumination and lays down onto his mattress onthe floor.INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENTSloan closes her laptop and jumps into her bed.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENTDelacroix is already in the bed, the lights are out.CLOSE ONDelacroix, who's wide awake.										  15.INT. TENEMENT BUILDING - NIGHTManray and Cheeba are both sound asleep.CLOSE ONCheeba, he has a sheet pulled over his head.CLOSE ONManray, who's sawing logs, snoring loudly.OFF-SCREEN, WE HEAR A RUCKUS, A BIG COMMOTION.  VOICESyelling.  Police sirens, cars and trucks.ANGLE ONApartment.  Cheeba and Manray run to the window and look out.THEIR POVThe street is filled with police cars, vans and wagons.Helicopters hover overhead with their searchlights on thebuilding.				CHEEBA			Oh snap!  It's a raid!Cheeba and Manray jump into their cloths.EXT. TENEMENT BUILDING - NIGHTCops in riot gear storm into the tenement.  A police chiefbarks over a speaker system.				POLICE CHIEF			Please evacuate this building.  All			of you are illegal residents of			this condemned building.  Please			leave immediately, by order of the			Mayor of New York City, Rudolph			Giuliani.INT. TENEMENT BUILDING - NIGHTStairwell.  It's bedlam.  The hundreds of SQUATTERS who havebeen living here all making a bad dash trying to flee theNYPD as they "bumrush the show."ANGLE ONFloor.  Cheeba and Manray try to push against the crowd.										  16.				CHEEBA			Not this way.  Out through the fire			escape.The COPS are running up the staircase.  People try to escapewith as many of their belongings that they can hold.				MANRAY			My tap shoes.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT				DELACROIX			EUREKA!!He jumps out of bed.INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENT				SLOAN			Oh my God!!!She too jumps out of bed.EXT. TENEMENT BUILDINGIt is a MADHOUSE, BEDLAM.  It's PANDEMONIUM.  The Squattersare being seized as soon as they come out of the tenement.Searchlights go back and forth, as the cops make theirarrests and fill the "Paddy" wagons.ANGLE ONStreet.  The Squatters are like ROACHES in a dark kitchen atnight, scrambling as the lights turn on.  Do you rememberthose old "RAID" commercials.  "Let's scram, IT'S RAID!!!"INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NIGHTThe phone rings.CUT TO SPLIT SCREENCU OF DELACROIX AND SLOANDelacroix picks it up.  They yell in unison.				DELACROIX			Manray!				SLOAN			Manray!										  17.				DELACROIX			How did you know?				SLOAN			It hit me like a ton of bricks.				DELACROIX			How can this be?  You and me at the			same time, the exact same thought.			It's scary.				SLOAN			The idea was out there in the			universe.  Now what?INT. TENEMENT BUILDING - NIGHTCheeba and Manray run down the fire escape and just elude agroup of cops.ANGLE ONFence.  They lay still as the Fuzz run past them.				MANRAY			We ran out without my shoes and the			floor.  I gotta get my stuff.  What			about our savings?				CHEEBA			Are you crazy?  The joint is			crawling with cops now.  You wanna			go to Rikers?  Go to the hoosegow?Manray looks at his friend, he knows he is right, at leastthis time.EXT. CNS BUILDING - EARLY MORNINGDelacroix and Sloan sip hot coffee as they stand in front oftheir office building.				DELACROIX			Manray was under our nose the whole			time.				SLOAN			Do you know how you will use him?				DELACROIX			Not yet, but this thing will never			get made.										  18.				SLOAN			You lost me.				DELACROIX			Dunwitty wants a Coon show.  And			that's what I'm going to give him,			it's going to be so racist, so			negative, he won't have the balls			to put it on the air.  Hence I'll			prove my point.				SLOAN			What point is that?				DELACROIX			The point being that him, the			networks don't want Black people on			television unless they are buffoons.				SLOAN			Sounds risky to me.				DELACROIX			You getting cold feet?				SLOAN			I'm in till the end.				DELACROIX			Good.  I'm going to need your			support.				SLOAN			Can't you just quit?  Walk away?				DELACROIX			And lose out on my money?  The only			way I get paid is if I get fired.			And that's what I intend to do.EXT. CNS BUILDING - NEW DAYIt is pouring rain and Delacroix and Sloan huddle under anumbrella.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Everything was going according to			plan.  I was working on the outline.			Dunwitty was off my back for now.CLOSE ONDelacroix.										  19.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			But there was a catch.  A big catch.CLOSE ONSloan.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Manray and Cheeba were nowhere to			be found.EXT. GRAND CENTRAL STATION - DAYManray and Cheeba are soaking wet.  They stand together in adoorway, trying to stay out of the elements.ANGLE ONStreet.  They run in the downpour.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			It was like they had disappeared			off the face of the earth.CLOSE ONCheeba.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			I had no contact numbers, no			address, no beeper.CLOSE ONManray.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			No nuthin', no clues...EXT. CNS BUILDING - NEXT MORNINGIt is a sunny and pleasant morning.  Again, Sloan andDelacroix hold vigil.				SLOAN			Maybe something happened to them.			Maybe they're lying in an alley			bleed to death.				DELACROIX			Manray better not be bleeding to			death.  I need him.  After we're			done he can do whatever he wants to			do, until then, he's ours.										  20.				SLOAN			You're beginning to sound like			Dunwitty.EXT. TENEMENT BUILDING - MORNINGManray and Cheeba stand across the street from their formerresidence.  All of the doors and windows have been boardedup and two cops stand watch.  They both look defeated, dirtyand hungry.INT. CNS LOBBY - NEXT DAYSloan gets off the elevator and sees a skirmish.  TWOSECURITY GUARDS are trying to escort Manray and Cheeba outof the building.				CHEEBA			His name is Delapoint.				SECURITY GUARD #1			WE have no one by that name.				CHEEBA			Delapot.  Dela-something.				SECURITY GUARD #2			De La Soul ain't here either.			Let's go.  Out.  Off the premises.Manray turns around and sees Sloan.				MANRAY			Sloan!  She knows us.The security guard stops.				SLOAN			It's alright.  They are associates			of Mr. Delacroix.				SECURITY GUARD #1			Sorry, Ms. Hopkins.  They both			walked in off the street without an			appointment.				SECURITY GUARD #2			Do you need an escort?				SLOAN			That won't be needed.										  21.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - DAYHe sits in front of his TV and watches a tape of the old"Amos 'n' Andy" show.  Sloan leads Manray and Cheeba in.				DELACROIX			Eureka!  Where've you been?He hugs them both.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Sloan and I have been looking all			over for you.				CHEEBA			You'd take no offense if we called			you DeLa for short?				DELACROIX			No offense.				CHEEBA			Manray needs a job.Delacroix smiles at Sloan.				MANRAY			We got evicted from our home.			We've both been on the streets for			the last week.				CHEEBA			We was coming to see you.				MANRAY			If it's not too much trouble could			you order us some food?				CHEEBA			We're starving.				DELACROIX			I apologize.  What would you like			to eat?  Anything you want.TIME CUTINT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - DAYA feast of McDonald's is taking place.  Cheeba and Manrayare stuffing Big Macs, Fish Deluxes and large french friesinto their mouths.  They were famished.										  22.				DELACROIX			I have this concept for a TV pilot.			There's no guarantee it will get			made but regardless, you'll still			make some money.				CHEEBA			How much?				DELACROIX			First things first.  I have to know			if Manray is up for this.				MANRAY			What do I have to do?				DELACROIX			Some tap dancing, some singing.				MANRAY			Where do I sign?				CHEEBA			What kind of show is this gonna be?				DELACROIX			Different.				MANRAY			How different?				DELACROIX			Trust me.  Of course I still have			to pitch it to my boss, but we'll			have an answer one way or the other.				MANRAY			DeLa, I'm aboard.  As long as I get			to hoof and get paid too!!!				DELACROIX			That's right.  Money turns the wheel.				CHEEBA			What about in the mean time?  Not			the in between time?				DELACROIX			You'll both get an advance and you			can stay with me.				MANRAY			Bet.										  23.				DELACROIX			I would like to change your name.				MANRAY			To what?				DELACROIX			You're now Mantan.				MANRAY			Mantan?  I don't even care as long			as I'm dancing.  Which reminds me,			I need some new kicks.EXT. BROADWAY - DAYManray holds two Capezio shopping bags of shoes as he walksnext to Sloan.				MANRAY			I never had a really real pair			before.				SLOAN			You've never had any formal			training, either?				MANRAY			Not a class, not a thing, just			picked stuff up by myself.				SLOAN			I wish I had your natural talent.			God only makes that visit once in a			while.				MANRAY			You sing and dance?				SLOAN			A little.  I just graduated from			NYU film school.  Cinema studies.				MANRAY			So what's up with you and DeLa?				SLOAN			What do you mean?				MANRAY			Are you and him kicking it?			Knocking boots.			Y'knowwhatI'mtalkin'bout.										  24.				SLOAN			No, we're not knocking boots.  I			got this internship while I still			was at NYU, DeLa was impressed with			my get up and go and hired me to be			his assistant.				MANRAY			I'm sure that was the only thing he			was impressed with.  You look			beautiful like that.				SLOAN			If that was suppose to be a			compliment, I thank you.				MANRAY			You're welcome.  You shouldn't give			up on performing.				SLOAN			Why do you say that?  You've never			seen me.				MANRAY			I think that would probably make			you the happiest.  When I'm hoofing,			I mean really doing my thing,			hitting it, nothing compares to			that feeling in the world.				SLOAN			I envy you.  That's the way I want			to feel about my work.EXT. HARLEM STREET - NIGHTSloan walks from the subway to her block.ANGLE ONStreet.  A huge black Chevy Suburban follows her, all thewindows are tinted jet black, you cannot see it all into it.She notices the vehicle and starts to walk faster.ANGLE ONCorner.  As Sloan tries to cross at the corner, the Suburbanpulls up in front of her, blocking her path.ANGLE ONSuburban.  A tall black man jumps out of the Chevy.  This isBIG BLACK.										  25.				BIG BLACK			Li'l Sister.ANGLE ONCorner.				SLOAN			You idiot.  You almost gave me a			massive coronary.				BIG BLACK			I didn't mean to scare you like that.				SLOAN			Well you did.				BIG BLACK			Give me some?				SLOAN			I'm not huggin' you in the middle			of the street.  You must be crazy,			Julius.				BIG BLACK			Whoa, hold up li'l sis'.  I done			told you 'bout that.  Julius ain't			my name, you better recognize			Hopkins was our slave name.  My			true name is...				SLOAN			I'm not callin you Big Black Africa.			Mommy and Daddy named you Julius.				BIG BLACK			BIG BLACK is the first name and			AFRICA is the last.He hugs her, she becomes lost in his huge arms and laughs.INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENT - NIGHTBig Black is rummaging through his sister's refrigerator.				BIG BLACK			Damn, Sis, you don't keep no food			up in here in dis' piece.				SLOAN			I order out mostly.  So what do I			owe this visit to?										  26.				BIG BLACK			My group we need some exposure.			Was wondering if you could hook a			brother up?				SLOAN			Hook you up?  The Mau-Mau's?  You			must be smoking.  Why in the world			would I want to hook up a bunch of			red, black and green flag-waving			pseudo revolutionairies?				BIG BLACK			So now I see where you're coming			from.  Just because we ain't			rapping about Gucci, Timberland,			Rolex, Benz, Cristal, ho's and			bitches, we're pseudo.				SLOAN			Who are you revolting against?				BIG BLACK			We're revolting against the powers			that be, that been enslaving the			minds and hearts of all people of			color.  And we won't stop rapping			till we bring about the overthrow			of the government of the U.S. of A.				SLOAN			Please.				BIG BLACK			If you were really down you would			get us together with that boss of			yours.  What's his name again?				SLOAN			Delacroix.				BIG BLACK			Yeah, him.				SLOAN			What makes you think he would write			a show about the Mau-Mau's.				BIG BLACK			C'mon, why not?  The Monkees had a			show.  Look at all that other junk			that's on TV.  We got underground			cult following.										  27.				SLOAN			You don't have the demographics.				BIG BLACK			So are you telling me that you			wouldn't even introduce me to			Delacroix or set up a meeting?  I'm			talking 'bout me, your only brother,			ya own flesh and blood, hook a			brother up, youknowwhatI'msayin'.				SLOAN			That'swhatI'msayin'.  I'm not			blowin' my young career, brother or			no brother, for you or anybody else.				BIG BLACK			There is a name, a term for your			kind, the likes of you.  Back in			slavery days, you would be			classified as a house nigga.				SLOAN			If you think I'm a house nigga then			that's your prerogative.  You got			your ways to affect change, I have			mine.  And I would appreciate it			very much if you took ya field			nigga ass out of my house.				BIG BLACK			My own sister throwin' me out.  I			hope to seeya later when you get ya			mind right.  Don't bother letting			me out.				SLOAN			That's mighty black of you.Big Black slams the door.INT. DUNWITTY'S OFFICE - MORNINGOne by one, the team enters the office and sits down on thesofa.				DUNWITTY			Delacroix, I'm glad you got your			mind right.				DELACROIX			It's right and tight.  Good morning,			let me introduce you to everybody.			You know my assistant, Sloan.										  28.				SLOAN			Hello.				DELACROIX			This is Cheeba.				CHEEBA			Nice to meet you.				DELACROIX			And this is Manray.				MANRAY			How do you do?				DUNWITTY			Good.  I like the names.  Very			theatrical.				DELACROIX			We're all happy to be here and I'm			going to paint a picture for you.				DUNWITTY			I'm wid it.				DELACROIX			I've done a lot of soul searching			and once again you are right.  In			my previous work it's been all			surface, superficial.  I have never			really dug deep.  Not anymore.  As			Mark Twain fully understood satire			is the way.  Race has always been a			hot button in this country's			history and it needs to be pushed			harder.  If we are ever to live			side by side in peace and harmony.			It's about promoting racial healing.				DUNWITTY			Go on.  Good so far.				DELACROIX			I know you're familiar with minstrel			shows.  They came about at the turn			of the 19th century.  It was a			variety show in which the talent			was in blackface - singing, dancing,			telling jokes, doing skits.			Dunwitty, I ask you when was the			last time there was a good variety			show on the air.  Carol Burnett?			HeeHaw?										  29.				DUNWITTY			Word!!!				DELACROIX			So let's take this great form, this			very American tradition of			entertainment into the 21st century,			into the new millennium.				DUNWITTY			The name of the show?				DELACROIX			It is called: MANTAN - THE NEW			MILLENNIUM MINSTREL SHOW.				DUNWITTY			I'm lovin' it.  You know how I know?			Because I'm getting a boner, my			Johnson is hard, no disrespect my			sister.Dunwitty starts walking around his office, pumping his first.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			I'm feelin' dis'!				DELACROIX			It will take a lot of courage and			backbone on the part of the CNS to			get this on the air.  In fact, I			would understand fully if the			subject matter is deemed too			risque, too controversial.				DUNWITTY			Don't worry about that, that's my			department.  Now who do we cast?			We need a star.  Can Whoopi sing or			dance?				DELACROIX			I don't know if Whoopi is the way			to go.				DUNWITTY			Are these our two stars, sitting			here in front of my nose?  Which			one is Mantan again?				MANTAN			That's me.										  30.				DELACROIX			And Cheeba is Sleep 'n' Eat.CLOSE ONCheeba.  A look of surprise is on his face.  Complete, uttersurprise.				DUNWITTY			That's a great handle.				DELACROIX			Mantan and Sleep 'n Eat.  Two real			coons.  I know we're way out there			but it's satire.				DUNWITTY			I want you take it there.  All the			way to the edge and back.Sloan looks at Delacroix with concern.				DELACROIX			Every week we follow the trials and			tribulations of two real coons -			Mantan and Sleep 'n Eat.  The Dusky			Duo.				DUNWITTY			What are there character traits?				DELACROIX			Ignorant, dullwitted, lazy, and			unlucky.				DUNWITTY			Exactly!				DELACROIX			Mantan is an uneducated Negro who			always by some stroke of			unbelievable stupidity makes his			best laid plans go haywire.				DUNWITTY			And Sleep 'n Eat is his comical			sidekick?				DELACROIX			Yep, you guessed it.				DUNWITTY			This could be bigger than "Amos and			Andy."										  31.				DELACROIX			Protest finally forced "Amos and			Andy" off the air.  Could stop us			from ever getting on.				DUNWITTY			Let'em try.  I will kill to make			this happen.Delacroix looks at Sloan.				DELACROIX			Negroes would be in an uproar.				DUNWITTY			So what.  We would just give the			NAACP a donation that would be the			end of that.  No such thing as bad			publicity.  So what.  Earlier you			said singing and dancing.				DELACROIX			Mantan right here is a gifted			hoofer.  He has educated feet.				DUNWITTY			Who are the other characters?				DELACROIX			Do we have characters?  How about			Honeycutt, Snowflake, Rastus,			Nigger, Jim, Sambo, Jungle Bunny,			and how could we forget Aunt Jemima.Dunwitty is dying with laughter.  He's the only one.				DUNWITTY			We gonna hit 'em wid da BOMB DICKEY			on dis' one.  What's the setting?				DELACROIX			In the projects.  Like Eddie			Murphy's "The PJ's."				DUNWITTY			Ya first bad move.  Projects been			done.  That's one of the problems			now, everything, movies, TV, are			set in the urban jungle, da hood.			That's so tired.  Mantan's			Millennium Minstrel Show should be			set on a plantation.  In Alabama.				(MORE)										  32.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			And every week these Alabama porch			monkeys will make us cry, make us			laugh, make us look at our own			humanity.  Make us feel good to be			alive.				DELACROIX			I don't know about that plantation			angle.				DUNWITTY			What are you talkin' 'bout?  It's			the move.  Stay wid me now.  We're			movin' fast.  What does everybody			else think about this?				SLOAN			We'd get a lot of mail.She laughs, it's a fake one at that.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Mr. Dunwitty, there wouldn't be			another show like it.				CHEEBA			I've always wanted to be on			television.				DUNWITTY			I like you.  Sleep 'n Eat.  That's			funny.  Mantan, how do you feel			about performing in black face?				MANTAN			As long as the hoofing is real,			that I can do my thing, I can			blacken up.  Let me hit it, beats			and rhythms, express myself.				DUNWITTY			Show me a little somethin' somethin'.Mantan starts to put on his new tap shoes.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			Delacroix, you dug deep, deeper			than deep.Mantan is ready.										  33.				MANTAN			I'm gonna give you just a taste.			My tap shoes are brand new.  I			haven't trained 'em yet.He starts to work out.				MANTAN (CONT'D)			Rhythms, rhythms, rhythms.  Beats,			beats, beats.  No Fred Astaire			here, baby.  Just rawness.Dunwitty clears his desk of everything, just knocks stuffflying onto the floor.  And Mantan taking the cue, jumps upon his desk and really starts hitting it.CLOSE ONDelacroix, as he watches his creation, it's not a happy face.CLOSE ONMantan, he's bringing it home.  With the final move, heleaps off the desk into the middle of the office, and FREEZES.ANGLE ONThe office.				DUNWITTY			That'swhatI'mtalkin''bout.			That'swhatI'mtalkin''bout!  He's			off the hiz-hook!				DELACROIX			We think so.				DUNWITTY			Sleep 'n Eat, what do you do?				CHEEBA			I play the straight man.  I do some			singing and dancing also.  I also			manage Mantan.				DUNWITTY			Oh you do so?				CHEEBA			I'm the man behind the man behind			the man.				DUNWITTY			You da man.										  34.				CHEEBA			No, you da man.				DUNWITTY			I'm gonna run upstairs with this.			If CNS doesn't want to do this,			somebody else will have da balls to			pull the trigger.  I want to thank			each and every one of you.  This is			great, Delacroix.  I'll get back to			you later today.EXT. STREET - DAYCheeba and Mantan are walking in midtown Manhattan.  Theyboth have a pep in their step, money in their pockets, and aroof over their heads.				CHEEBA			Life is beginning to look up.  It's			all good in da neighborhood.				MANTAN			You might be right.				CHEEBA			Why are you smiling so?His smile is a mile wide.				MANTAN			I'm not smiling.				CHEEBA			Naw, not you.  It can't be.  That			hottie Sloan Hopkins.				MANTAN			It's that bad, huh?  It's all over			my face.				CHEEBA			No shame in ya game.  She got ya			nostrils, ya chnoz is wide open.			Sloan's what we certified ladies'			men call low hanging fruit.				MANTAN			Certified ladies' man, huh?				CHEEBA			She's also moorish.										  35.				MANTAN			What's that?				CHEEBA			Moorish.  Ya get a little taste of			dat booty, ya wanna get some MORE.				MANTAN			Seconds and thirds, too.				CHEEBA			Sloan is all 'dat.  I try her.  I'm			a tri-sexual.				MANTAN			You'd try anything.  I got first			dibs.  You get ya own stuff.				CHEEBA			Naw, just jokin'.  That's you.			That's you.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NIGHTDelacroix sits with Manray and Cheeba in the living room.				DELACROIX			I want you to start using the name			Mantan and not Manray if you don't			mind.				MANRAY			Why?				DELACROIX			You have to start getting into your			character.				CHEEBA			At the risk of sounding ignorant...Cheeba turns quickly towards Manray.				CHEEBA (CONT'D)			...don't say a word but who is this			cat Mantan you keep talkin' 'bout?Delacroix hits the remote button.  The TV and VCR are powered.CLOSE ONTelevision.  We see MANTAN MORELAND in some obscure movie.										  36.				DELACROIX (O.S.)			This is Mantan Moreland.CLOSER ONTelevision.  Mantan reacts to seeing a ghost.				DELACROIX (O.S.) (CONT'D)			He was a clown, a buffoon but he			was funny.ANGLE ONLiving room.				CHEEBA			That ain't funny.				MANRAY			DeLa, I don't know 'bout this.				DELACROIX			Gentlemen, the show, our show will			be satirical.  You know what that			is, don't you?  Trust me on this one.				CHEEBA			We might need some mo' money behind			this.				DELACROIX			That can be done.				MANRAY			Mantan?				DELACROIX			Mantan!!INT. RECORDING STUDIO - NIGHTTHE MAU-MAU's in full effect, bob their heads to the funkytrack that blasts from the studio monitors.ANGLE ONStudio.  They pass around joints that look like they've beenon steroids and 64 ounce JUGULARS of DA BOMB MALT LIQUOR -liquid crack, the preferred alcoholic beverage of GHETTONEGROES.  All the members of the MAU-MAU's are AFRICANAMERICAN except one.  There is one Caucasian member.  Hegoes by the name 1/16th BLACK, the engineer tech-whiz kidcomputer geek.										  37.				1/16TH BLACK			Yo, Big Black, we needs a name for			this joint.				BIG BLACK			How 'bout...Big Black takes a long, long drag on a joint, then hequickly empties a 64 oz. in one swing without missing abeat, without missing a head nod.				BIG BLACK (CONT'D)			Black Iz Black?The whole group goes crazy with the title of the song.				DOUBLE BLACK			That's da bomb.				MO BLACK			That's gonna give me some			inspiration.				JO BLACK			Gonna make me get my flow on.				BIG BLACK			We should call dis da BLACK album.Everyone starts high-fiving each other.				SMOOTH BLACK			Yo, check it out.  We have never			conformed to none of the white			man's rules and regulations and			later for that ole slave owner			Webster.  Therefore I respectfully			submit BIG BLACK that we from now			on, hence forth and whatnot spell			BLACK: B-L-A-K, not B-L-A-C-K.				HARD BLACK			I feel dat.				1/16TH BLACK			B-L-A-K.  BLAK.  The darkest of all			colors, the opposite of white.  A			member of an African people.  But			check it out, here's where the grey			people try to get slick with their			trickery.  Listen to the full			connotations.  GLOOMY.  DEPRESSING.			EVIL.  WICKED.  ANGRY.  SULLEN.				(MORE)										  38.				1/16TH BLACK (CONT'D)			BLAK OUT.  BLAK LISTED.  BLAK BALL.			Need I say more.				BIG BLACK			B-L-A-K it is.INT. HOUSE - NIGHTA middle-aged African-American woman is working in thekitchen.  Delacroix sits at the kitchen table talking withher.  This is his MOM, ORCHID DOTHAN.Orchid puts a plate of food in front of her son.				ORCHID			You must think I'm some kind of fool.				DELACROIX			It looks delicious.				ORCHID			You hear me talkin' to you.  The			only time you come up here when			something is wrong.				DELACROIX			C'mon, Mommy, don't start with that			I'm an ungrateful son stuff.				ORCHID			I said no such thing.  All I said			is that something must be wrong.She sits down with him.				ORCHID (CONT'D)			How's the food?				DELACROIX			Can't beat it with a hammer.  Well,			since you asked, it looks like I			may have a new show, a pilot being			shot.				ORCHID			That's wonderful.  Isn't that what			you always wanted, a show of your			own?He talks between mouthfuls.										  39.				DELACROIX			It was.  It is.  But this is a			different kind of show.				ORCHID			If at first it's not what you want,			just work that much harder, Peerless.				DELACROIX			Mommy, please don't call me that.				ORCHID			Son, Peerless is your name.  Now			you might be one of these Hollywood			types, change your name and all			that but Peerless Dothan is on your			birth certificate.				DELACROIX			I know what's on my birth			certificate.  You heard from Daddy?				ORCHID			I guess he's still on the road.			What kind of show is this?  Are			they some Negroes in it without			being buffoons?				DELACROIX			To answer your question, there are			a lot of Negroes in it and what is			your definition of buffoons?				ORCHID			Peerless, I didn't raise a buffoon.			We have enough of those on			television already.				DELACROIX			Please let me know when you hear			from Daddy, get a number or			something.				ORCHID			I will.  And good luck with your			show.  I hope it's a huge success.			You've worked very hard.  You			deserve it.Delacroix gets up from his seat and hugs his mother.										  40.INT. RESTAURANT - NIGHTA celebration is going on as Delacroix, Sloan, Cheeba andMantan sit at a table.ANGLE ONTable.  Cheeba and Mantan are giddy.  Sloan looks atDelacroix who is visibly not happy.				SLOAN			You okay?				DELACROIX			I feel like somebody hit me upside			da head with a sledgehammer.				CHEEBA			DeLa - what's the matter with you.				MANTAN			You ain't happy about the green			light?				SLOAN			People show their happiness in a			lot of different ways.				MANTAN			Well, homeboy, looks like he's at a			funeral.				DELACROIX			I'm happy for all of us.  It's just			we have a great responsibility now.			The pressure is on.				MANTAN			Pressure?  DeLa, you don't know			what the hell real pressure is.			SHEEETT!!!  This is lightstuff.			Now when you scramblin' out on the			street in da January winter and the			hawk is talkin' to you with NO			money and NO prospects of money			anytime soon, now that there is			some pressure.				DELACROIX			I didn't mean it to sound like that.										  41.				MANTAN			That's the way it came out.  Let me			ask you one question.  Have you			ever been in want, in need your			entire privileged life?				DELACROIX			Now I'm privileged?!  Why?  Because			I didn't grow up on food stamps and			welfare?  Because I didn't call			home a cardboard box?  No, I never			ever went to bed hungry and I'm			proud of it, too.  Whoever told you			that living in poverty earns you			somekind of badge of honor flat out			lied to you.				MANTAN			The point I'm trying to make is			that this is a blessing.  It's			going to be fun doing this show and			we should all look at it that way.Delacroix gets up from the table and leaves.				CHEEBA			What's wrong with him?				MANTAN			Must be the pressure.Cheeba and Mantan laugh, give each other some dap.  A highlyattractive PUERTO RICAN female walks over to their table.This is JESSICA GRILLO.				JESSICA			Sorry I'm late.Cheeba and Mantan are in awe.				SLOAN			Hey, girl.  This is my best friend,			Jessica Grillo.  I invited her down			to celebrate with us.				CHEEBA			I'm Cheeba.				MANTAN			I'm Mantan.They both rise.										  42.				CHEEBA			Please, have a seat.				MANTAN			Sloan never told us she had friends			like you.				CHEEBA			In fact, we never knew she had any			friends period.				SLOAN			Later for you.				JESSICA			She has a lot of friends				CHEEBA			Male?				JESSICA			Yes.				MANTAN			A lot?				SLOAN			Enough.Sloan and Jessica laugh at the expense of these guys.				JESSICA			I propose a toast.She grabs an empty glass and pours herself some champagne.				JESSICA (CONT'D)			To the success of your show.  Good			luck.Everyone raises their glasses.  CLINK!				SLOAN			Excuse me.Sloan gets up from the table and takes after Delacroix.ANGLE ONSteps. Sloan catches up with Delacroix at the rest room area.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Wait here.										  43.She goes to the ladies' cubicle.CLOSE ONDelacroix.  He leans against the wall.ANGLE ONBathroom door.  Sloan comes out, grabs him inside.INT. LADIES' ROOM - NIGHTSloan locks the door.				SLOAN			What is your problem?				DELACROIX			My problem is MANTAN THE NEW			MILLENIUM MINSTREL SHOW.				SLOAN			Why did you even come up with that			shit if you didn't want it made?				DELACROIX			It was the principle.  Dunwitty had			to be enlightened.  I was making a			point.  I take pride in my work.			Plus, I already told you I wasn't			gonna walk away from my money.				SLOAN			Fuck da money.  Why do through all			this effort?  Why?  Are you looking			for love from Dunwitty?  For			respect?  Dunwitty and his likes			don't give a goddamn about you.  So			now what are you gonna do?Someone begins to pound on the bathroom door.				WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)			Will you please let me in?  I have			to use the toilet.				SLOAN			You're gonna have to hold it in			because we're not finished yet...She returns her attention to Delacroix.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			...QUIT then.										  44.				DELACROIX			Even if money wasn't an issue,			Dunwitty will still go ahead			without me and that could be more			dangerous.				SLOAN			What's the chances of MANTAN being			picked up?				DELACROIX			I wouldn't bet against it.  My			Negroidal ass is stuck between the			proverbial rock and a hard place.				SLOAN			Like I said, all this for some			twisted, distorted sense of			principal.  Dunwitty, he just			tolerates your Negroidal ass, he			doesn't respect it.The banging starts again.				MANAGER'S VOICE (O.S.)			Please open this bathroom door			immediately.  You are being very			inconsiderate.Sloan unlocks the door and they exit.ANGLE ONLadies' bathroom.  Sloan and Delacroix file past the strangelooks of the manager and FIVE WOMEN waiting to use thebathroom as they rush in.INT. DUNWITTY'S OFFICE - MORNING				DELACROIX			I strongly feel that a Negro should			direct this.  This kind of satire			is a high wire act in a gale storm.			One misstep and we're doing "Amos			and Andy."  Only a Negro will have			the sensitivity and cultural			awareness to navigate this dangerous			terrain.				DUNWITTY			To hire someone solely on their			ethnicity, gender or religion is			not right.  It's un-American.  I			will hire someone who is most			qualified for this particular job.										  45.				DELACROIX			I was hoping to perhaps direct some			episodes myself, if not the pilot			soon after.				DUNWITTY			I want a hot, young white director.			Maybe the kid, that pheenom who			just did that hot new sexy Madonna			video.				DELACROIX			You're telling me some white boy is			gonna direct this pilot?				DUNWITTY			I just want you to meet him.  Keep			an open mind.				DELACROIX			Besides, what does he know about			Negroes?				DUNWITTY			Probably nuthin', but that's why			it's such a sexy way to go.			Sometimes an outsider has a fresh			new outlook, a different unique			perspective.  A black director,			y'know what he's gonna do given the			subject matter?  With this kid, the			possibilities are endless.				DELACROIX			What are his qualifications besides			being a white male and directing a			hot new sexy freaky Madonna video?				DUNWITTY			If Spielburg can direct "The Color			Purple" and "Amistad", our whiz kid			can direct the Mantan pilot.				DELACROIX			That's exactly my point.  Has he			even directed actors before in			anything?				DUNWITTY			No!!!  Just meet the guy.  That's			all I'm asking.  Look, I'll even			let you choose your own musical			director.  You can have that.										  46.				DELACROIX			In the immortal words of Derrick			Coleman, WHOOOPDEEDAMNDOO!!!				DUNWITTY			Derrick Coleman, he possessed all			the talent in the world, coulda,			shoulda, been a great ballplayer			but alas D.C. didn't want it bad			enough.  Delacroix, do you want it?			Bad enough to kill for it?  Do you			want it that much.Delacroix stares at Dunwitty.INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - NEXT DAYDelacroix, followed by Sloan, enters the room full of writers.CLOSE ONDelacroixHe surveys the room.P.O.V. - DELACROIXAll of the writers are Caucasian - male and female.  Everysingle last one.ANGLE ONConference room.  Delacroix and Sloan sit down at the headof the long oval table.				DELACROIX			Good morning, for those of you who			don't know me, I'm Pierre Delacroix.			I'm running things and this here is			my assistant Sloan Hopkins.				SLOAN			Hello.				DELACROIX			I've never worked with any of you			and you've never worked with me so			we'll be starting from scratch.			I'm a fair person, a straight			shooter and I don't hold my tongue.			Everybody up in here should know I			had nothing to do with you being			hired.				(MORE)										  47.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			I would have preferred at least one			other Negro writer.  Any questions?			Comments?MONA raises her hand.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Yes, your name?				MONA			He, I'm Mona.				DELACROIX			Hi, Mona.				MONA			I perfectly understand where you're			coming from.  As a minority I can			relate to your struggle also.  But			I think you should give us all a			chance.  We want this pilot to be			successful just as much as you.			Please don't be so quick to judge			us based only on our whiteness.				DELACROIX			Oh, is that what I'm doing?BETH jumps in.				BETH			I think because of our background			we can bring a unique perspective			to Mantan.SETH pipes in also.				SETH			A fresh pair of eyes.  A new look,			insight, new angle that hasn't been			seen before.				DELACROIX			I've heard this somewhere before.David raises his hand.										  48.				DAVID			My name is David.  I do think it			would be better to have some			African-American writers but for			whatever reason they are not here.			I don't know if they couldn't find			any people with experience, they			wouldn't work for the pay or			refused to work for the show.  I			don't know and nobody in this room			probably knows either.  I'm looking			at this as a unique opportunity.			We all should.  I'm a damn good			writer and I'm ready to go to work.Everyone in the room applauds.  Sloan looks at Delacroix.FREEZE FRAME				DELACROIX (V.O.)			This thing was rigged, the deck was			stacked, the fix was in.  Could Don			King be near?  Good thing Sloan had			my back.  She's my rock.  This was			going to be a whole lot of work.UN-FREEZE FRAME				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			David, I appreciate your comments.			Anybody got an ideas?  Everybody			just talk out loud.				MONA			I've always liked the format of			Rowan and Martin's "LAUGH-IN."				ANNA			That could be cool.				KIRK			What about something like "The			Jeffersons?"  I grew up in Idaho so			that's how I got my understanding			of black people.  Through Sherman			Helmsley, LOUISSEE!!!.				DAVID			"Good Times" was better.  Kid Dy-no			mite!!!										  49.				AARON			You pole are going to far back for			me.  I think we have to go after a			hipper feel.  Like the stuff Eddie			Murphy used to do on "Saturday			Night Live."				PETER			Or Martin.  You go girl.				JEFF			What about the  black exploitation			films?  No one has ever tried			making that work on TV.				DAVID			And for reason.  Have you ever seen			"Scream Blacula, Scream?"				MONA			I think, and Delacroix will agree			with me, the politics of this show			have to be right.  We should always			be laughing with our characters,			not at them.CLOSE ONDelacroix, as the writers continue to ramble on, he letsthem jerk off.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			The mission was accomplished.  All			of these people left the room			thinking they would have real input.			I was writing this pilot alone,			myself, me.EXT. STREET - DAYA long line reaches down the block and around the corner.It's a "cattle call," open auditions for "Mantan."				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Now came the fun part, finding the			talented performers to cast in the			show.WE DOLLY past the hundreds and hundreds of unemployedAfrican American actors, many of them dressed in variouscostumes.										  50.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Everybody and their mother was			trying to get in, trying to be seen.			Trying to get their piece of the			rock.INT. REHEARSAL SPACE - DAYDelacroix sits in the first row with Sloan, RUTH, an AfricanAmerican casting director.  LEVI, the musical director, alsoblack, is on the stage at the piano.AUDITION MONTAGEWE SEE singers, magicians, dancers, acrobats, comedians,rappers.  Some good, most are terrible.  Many come out onstage dressed like mammies, Stepin' Fetchit, slaves, pimps,ho's, hustlers, and basketball players.  It is a cavalcadeof all the stereotypical roles one has seen.ANGLE ONSpace.  LULU, a spoken word artist, goes her rendition of"WAY DOWN ON THE SWANEE RIVER."				DELACROIX (V.O.)			This was amazing.  Who had told			these Negroes that this was what we			were looking for?  The same old			image, it damn for sure wasn't me.CLOSE ONLulu.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Were people this desperate to get			work?CLOSE ONDelacroix.  He interrupts Lulu.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Thanks, Ms. Lulu.				LULU			But I had several more poems.				DELACROIX			That's good.  We've seen enough.			We'll get back to you.Lulu scurries off stage.										  51.				RUTH (O.S.)			Next.The Mau-Mau's run onto the stage, yelling and screaming.They are all fired up, in fact several fire their 9mm's intothe ceiling.ANGLE - TWO SHOTDelacroix and Sloan.				SLOAN			This is the group I was telling you			about.				DELACROIX			Which one is your brother?				SLOAN			The big one.CLOSE ONRuth.				RUTH			Let's get started here.ANGLE ONSTAGEBig Black preens around on the stage.				BIG BLACK			The Mau-Mau's are up in dis place.			That's right, the Mau-Mau's.				DELACROIX (O.S.)			What's your name?				BIG BLACK			My righteous name is BIG BLACK.				DELACROIX (O.S.)			And what are the Mau-Mau's going to			do for us today?				BIG BLACK			We gonna drop some knowledge,			wisdom and understanding.  The Mau-			Mau's, we be scientists.  We drop			science.										  52.CLOSE ONSloan, who's trying to disappear.  If she sits any lowershe'll be under her seat.ON DELACROIX				DELACROIX			We're ready when you are.ON STAGE				BIG BLACK			Microphone check.  One.  Two.  One.			Two.  One.  Two.  Hold up.  I gots			to give my peeps some props.			Brothers introduce yourself.				DOUBLE BLACK			Yo, I'm Double Black.				BLACK BLACK			Check it, Black Black.				SMOOTH BLACK			I'm Smooth Black, the lover in dis'			piece.				HARD BLACK			Hard Black.				MO BLACK			He's Jo Black.				JO BLACK			And he's Mo Black.				1/16TH BLACK			I'm last but not least, you can			call me 1/16th Black.ON DELACROIX				DELACROIX			Good.  We're really blacked-oops,			backed up, so shall we begin?ON STAGE				BIG BLACK			Microphone check.  One.  Two.  One.			Two.  Yo, the name of this joint is			BLAK IZ BLAK.  Hit it.										  53.The booming track starts and the Mau-Mau's do their thing,bouncing all over the stage.  The lyrics about everythingthat is BLAK!!!ON DELACROIXA look of disbelief is on his face.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Needless to say, the Mau-Mau's did			not fit into our plans.ON SLOANShe's in shock, horrified.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			As I told Sloan, there's a black			sheep in every family.BACKSTAGE - LATER THAT DAYDelacroix is screaming at the top of his lungs.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Finland.  This is a travesty.  A			debacle.  A mockery.INT. LOBBYDunwitty approaches Delacroix in the lobby of the rehearsalspace.  He is with JUKKA, a young, very young blonde kid.				DUNWITTY			Delacroix.  This is the director I			was telling you about.  Jukka Laks.				JUKKA			So nice to meet you.				DELACROIX			Nice to meet you.  If you don't			mind me asking you - how old are you?				JUKKA			I just turned twenty.				DUNWITTY			I'm gonna leave you two creative			geniuses alone.				DELACROIX			Dunwitty, don't leave.										  54.Dunwitty is out.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Where are you from?				JUKKA			Helsinki, which is the capital of			Finland.				DELACROIX			Finland.				JUKKA			You know, Finlandia vodka?  Yes?				DELACROIX			Yes, I know.  Jukka, have you ever			seen a Negro person before?  Even			had a real conversation with a real			Negro before?				JUKKA			What's a Negro.INT. BACKSTAGEDelacroix continues to rant and rave.  Sloan is unsuccessfulin attempting to make him be quiet.				DELACROIX			A fiasco.  A disaster.  A boondoggle.			An abomination.INT. LOBBY				DELACROIX			Did you just ask me what's a Negro?			I'M A NEGRO!!!				JUKKA			Ahhh!!!  I never heard of that term			before.  I thought you were BLACK			of African-American.  No?				DELACROIX			Well before there was BLACK or			AFRICAN AMERICAN, there were			NEGROES.  I'M A NEGRO.				JUKKA			Thank you for correcting my			ignorance.  I'm looking forward to			working side by side with you.  I			feel we make a good team.										  55.				DELACROIX			How did you get this gig?				JUKKA			My visual style is very erotic,			sexy, how do you say - hot?				DELACROIX			This is a TV show, not a music video.				JUKKA			Then will you teach me what I need			to know.  Maybe we learn from each			other, if that's possible, no?INT. BACKSTAGE - MOMENTS LATER				DELACROIX			This is a travesty.  A debacle.				SLOAN			You've said that already.				DELACROIX			I'm gonna slit my wrists.  Cut my			throat.  For the love of Joseph.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - NEW DAYHe's sitting behind his desk, reading new "pink" revisionsof the "MANTAN" pilot.  He screams.				DELACROIX			For the love of Joseph and Mary.Delacroix bolts out from his office.INT. DUNWITTY'S OFFICE - DAYDelacroix charges in as Dunwitty and Jukka go over the same"pink" revisions.				DELACROIX			I will not be held responsible for			these revisions.  These changes are			not the way I want to go.  This is			an outrage.  This is a sham.  A			violation!				DUNWITTY			Calm down, please.				JUKKA			In Finland, when we get upset...										  56.				DELACROIX			I don't give a good goddamn about			Finland, Norway, Sweden or wherever			ya blond ass came from.				DUNWITTY			We just punched it up a bit.  Made			it funnier.				DELACROIX			Funnier to who and at who's expense?			Dunwitty, when Negroes start to run			amok, the boycotts, when the			demostrations commence, I'm giving			them your home address.  Let's see			how you like it when they picket			your lawn in Greenwich, Connecticut.				DUNWITTY			I seriously doubt that will ever			happen.  Didn't I tell you I know			your people better than you do.			But if by some miracle you're			correct, I'm gonna invite them			inside my house and we'll have a			sit down, discuss it like civil			human beings.INT. STUDIO - NIGHTMuch activity is going on.  People are moving to and fro.WE FOLLOW Delacroix and Sloan.EXT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOM - CONTINUOUSDelacroix knocks and they enter.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMMantan sits in front of his mirror.				DELACROIX			Just want to say good luck.				SLOAN			Break a leg.She gives Mantan a kiss on his cheek.				DELACROIX			Wait a minute.  Hold up.They all laugh.										  57.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Can I kiss you too?				MANTAN			Naw.  I'll take the zero.				DELACROIX			You feel good, not nervous?				MANTAN			I feel fine.				DELACROIX			Not nervous?  Relaxed?				MANTAN			Sloan, will you take your boss out			of here so I can get ready.EXT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTSloan and Delacroix enter the dressing room.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOM				SLEEP 'N EAT			How's the audience?				DELACROIX			Fired up.				SLOAN			How you feelin'?				SLEEP 'N EAT			Good.  I'm not sure about this			material.				DELACROIX			The material is fine.Sloan cuts a look at this liar.				SLEEP 'N EAT			You really think so?				DELACROIX			We're trying to do something new			here, some groundbreaking stuff.				SLEEP 'N EAT			It's the bone breaking stuff I'm			worried about.										  58.				SLOAN			Everything's gonna be alright.  You			and Mantan will be huge stars after			tonight.				SLEEP 'N EAT			You really think so?				DELACROIX			Your life will never be the same.				SLOAN			Let's leave the man in peace so he			can get ready.INT. BACKSTAGE				SLOAN			We both lied to him.				DELACROIX			What do you want me to say?				SLOAN			Just don't lie to me.INT. STAGE - NIGHTHONEYCUTT, a rotund, elder black man who is one of castmembers, is warming the audience up.ON AUDIENCEIt's very young and diverse.  They are laughing at the comicstylings of Honeycutt.INT. CONTROL BOOTH - NIGHTDelacroix and Sloan take their seats.				DELACROIX			Good luck, Jukka.  Do a good show.				JUKKA			Thank you very much.  I always try			my best.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMMantan is slowly getting dressed.  He puts on an old,tattered tails (tuxedo).										  59.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat is also getting dressed.  He wears a wornPullman Porter uniform with red hat to match.INT. CONTROL ROOM - NIGHTDunwitty with his black wife in hand, VERNA moves towardDelacroix and Sloan.				DUNWITTY			I want you to meet my lovely wife			Verna.  Honey, this is Pierre			Delacroix and Sloan Hopkins.				VERNA			Nice to meet you.				DELACROIX			Same here.				SLOAN			The pleasure is mine.				VERNA			My husband has been raving about			the awesome work you've done.  How			did you ever think of something			like this?  It's absolutely			brilliant.  Pure genius.				DELACROIX			I guess it was divine inspiration.				VERNA			Hope to see you both after the			taping.  Congrats in advance.ON CONTROL BOOTHVerna and Dunwitty go to the front of the control booth.TWO SHOTDelacroix and Sloan.				SLOAN			Divine inspiration?She laughs.				DELACROIX			I was trying to be nice.										  60.				SLOAN			I want to apologize about my			brother and the Mau-Mau's.  I			should not have imposed them on you.				DELACROIX			C'mon.  You were only doing what			family is supposed to be doing for			family.  You gave your brother a			shot.  That's all anybody can ask			for, an opportunity, a chance, a			shot.  He got his.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMMantan is in front of his dressing room mirror.ON MIRRORMantan looks, stares at his reflection.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat is staring at himself also.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMCLOSE ON MANTAN				SLOAN (V.O.)			We should blacken up like they did			it back in the day.  Keep the			ritual the same.Mantan puts some corks in a dish.				SLOAN (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Pour some alcohol on the corks,			then light it.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat strikes a match to his corks in a dish.CLOSE ON SLEEP 'N EATHe watches the cork burn.				SLOAN (V.O.)			Let them burnt to a crisp, and when			burnt out, mash them to a powder.										  61.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMMantan is mashing the corks.				SLOAN (V.O.)			Add water, mix to a thick paste.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat is mixing it all together.				SLOAN (V.O.)			And voila!  You have your blackface.INT. STAGE - NIGHTThe audience, which has become restless, starts a rhythmicclap.				SLOAN (V.O.)			Please put cocoa butter on your			face and hands...INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMON MANTAN'S HANDS				SLOAN (V.O.)			To protect your skin.He applies cocoa butter to his hands.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMON SLEEP 'N EAT'S FACEHe rubs cocoa butter all over his face.INT. STAGE - NIGHTCLOSE ON HANDSAudience hands are clapping faster.ON FEETThey're stomping.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMON MIRRORMantan blacks up his face.										  62.WE HEAR THE POUNDING OF THE FEET STOMPING AND THE HANDSCLAPPING.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMON MIRRORSleep 'N Eat blacks up also.				SLOAN (V.O.)			The final detail...INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMON LIPS				SLOAN (V.O.)			...are the lips.Mantan is applying lipstick.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMON LIPSSleep 'N Eat is puckering his lips as he too puts on thelipstick.				SLOAN (V.O.)			The redder the lipstick the better.			I suggest firetruck red.ON MIRRORFor the first time WE SEE SLEEP 'N EAT in FULL BLACK FACE.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Show...INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMON MIRRORMantan in FULL BLACK FACE.				MANTAN			...TIME!!!INT. STAGE - NIGHTThe audience is in an uproar when the lights go down.  Theyapplaud and they quiet as the CURTAIN GOES UP on a bucolicsetting.  It is a combination of WATERMELON PATCH and COTTONFIELD.										  63.ON STAGEFirst Sleep 'N Eat then Mantan shuffles onto the stage.				MANTAN			This is my best friend Sleep 'N Eat.				SLEEP 'N EAT			And this is my very best friend			Mantan.				BOTH			We're two real COONS!The audience lets out nervous laughter.  They don't knowwhat to think.				MANTAN			We both left the hustle and bustle			of Uptown, Harlem...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...the big apple, New York, New York.				MANTAN			To come back to our roots.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Our Alabamy Home.  Now we're			getting countrified.  We is Bama's.				MANTAN			No mo' "city slickers."  Ahh, can't			you smell the sweet aroma of the			ripe watermelons and high cotton?				SLEEP 'N EAT			Tell 'em what you mean Mistuh Mantan.				MANTAN			Well, thank you Mistuh Sleep 'N Eat.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Give or cousins some of dem educated			feets.Mantan begins to do a slow, steady step.				SLEEP 'N EAT (CONT'D)			Cousins, first, second, third and			distant, let's have Mantan take us			all the way back to a much more			simpler time.  A time wen men were			men, women were women, and Neggras			knew their place.										  64.The AUDIENCE is aghast.  Mantan has picked up the pace.He's tapping fast and furious.				MANTAN			Cousins, I want all of you to go to			your windows.  Go to your windows			and yell.  Yell, I'm tired of the			drugs, the crack babies born out of			wedlock to crackhead aids infested			parents.  I'm tired of the inflated			welfare rolls while good wholesome			Americans bring less and less of			their paycheck home every two weeks.			I'm tired, you're tired, we're all			tired of these so-called bible-			thumping God fearing, whore mongling			Professional athletes.  Aren't you			tired of these basketball-dunking,			football-running, hop-hip rapping			ebonic-speaking sex offenders who			got ten kids from ten different			Ho's?  I know I am and so is Sleep			'N Eat.				SLEEP 'N EAT			You tellin' the truth.				MANTAN			Go to your windows and yell out,			scream with all the life you can			muster up inside your assaulted,			bruised and battered bodies.  I'M			SICK AND TIRED OF NIGGERS AND I'M			NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!Mantan stops dancing and collapses.ON AUDIENCEThey're stunned.  They can't believe what they've heard,what they've seen.  What they've been witness to.ON YOUNG WHITE COUPLEThey look at the black people in the audience.ON YOUNG HIP-HOP BLACK MALEHe starts to clap slowly.ON AUDIENCESlowly more black people begin to applaud.  Slowly it sweepsup into the black people.										  65.The WHITE AUDIENCE, of course, has been waiting to see howtheir black brothers and sisters would react.  Now feelingcomfortable and safe, they too being to join the applause.ON AUDIENCEThe applause changes into laughter.  It is not nervouslaughter we hear, but straight out RIOTOUS LAUGHTER.ON BLACK AND WHITE FACESThe laughter is contagious.ON STAGEMantan starts to move, he's coming back from the dead.  Heslowly gets up from his prostate position as he HEARS:A WAYBACK ALABAMA JIG played by the house band, THE PORCHMONKEYS, led by musical director Levi.  Mantan is joined onstage by the other hoofers in the show: JUNGLE BUNNY,SNOWFLAKE, SAMBO, AUNT JEMIMA, RASTUS, NIGGER JIM, plusSLEEP 'N EAT.  Each take turn as it evolves into an elaborateDANCE NUMBER.  The hoofers and the band are also in blackface.ON AUDIENCEThey are rolling down the aisles.INT. CONTROL ROOM - NIGHTON DELACROIXDelacroix looks like he has seen a ghost.CLOSERHe buries his face in his hands.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NEXT NIGHTDelacroix is in the same position as the scene before.  Faceburied in his hands.ON PHONEIt rings and he picks it up.				DELACROIX			Hello?										  66.EXT. STREETS - NIGHTDunwitty drives his Mercedes Benz CL 600 Coupe.				DUNWITTY			Yo, DeLa, I just got the news from			the CNS brass.  They saw some clips			from the pilot and they're rushing			it onto the air.  Yo, we're a			midseason replacement, ordered 12			shows.  We're on in 3 weeks.  Didya			hear what I just said, Yo?ON DUNWITTY				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			They didn't even view a rough cut,			just some scenes we quickly cut			together.ON DELACROIX				DELACROIX			This has to be a big mistake.				DUNWITTY (O.S.)			The big mistake was my not believing			in your genius earlier.  From the			gitgo, from jump street.				DELACROIX			Hold on a sec, I got a call.HE CLICKS OVER.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Hello, Mommy, let me get rid of			this other call.INT. BENZ - CONTINUOUS				DELACROIX (O.S.)			I gots to go, it's my Moms.				DUNWITTY			I want to meet her one day, please			tell her the great news.  I'm OUT			like Vanilla Ice.INT. ORCHID'S HOUSE - NIGHTShe is on the phone with her son.										  67.				ORCHID			Peerless, your father called.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT				DELACROIX			I'll be right over.INT. STREET - NIGHTIt's a warm summer night.				MANTAN			So what's up with you?				SLOAN			What do you want to know?				MANTAN			The good stuff.				SLOAN			I'm an asthmatic.  Been one all my			life.  Can't go anywhere without an			inhaler.				MANTAN			What else?				SLOAN			Are you trying to rap to me?INT. ORCHID'S HOUSEDelacroix sits at the kitchen table.				ORCHID			He wants you to come and see him.				DELACROIX			He said that?				ORCHID			Yes he did.				DELACROIX			Where is he?				ORCHID			He's performing at some place			outside of Richmond, Virginia.				DELACROIX			I can't go all the way down south.										  68.				ORCHID			Richmond is not all the way down			south.				DELACROIX			I don't even know why you're still			concerned over him.  Daddy's not			with you.				ORCHID			Regardless, he still is your father.				DELACROIX			It's gonna be hard for me to get			away with the show taking off.				ORCHID			Even more reason to see him.  He'll			be overjoyed with your success.				DELACROIX			C'mon, Mommy.  Daddy hasn't been			impressed with anything I've ever			done.  From winning my fifth grade			Spelling Bee to the present.				ORCHID			Peerless, last time, go see your			father.EXT. PARK - NIGHTMantan and Sloan are sitting on a park bench, nothing isbeing said.  He sits up and starts to do a dance for her.To her.ON BENCHMantan is doing that "Mating" tap dance.				SLOAN			Are you trying to seduce me?He puts his index finger over his mouth - "Quiet."				SLOAN (CONT'D)			You think that's gonna work, huh?He quickly jumps up on the bench, does some intricate stepsthen pulls Sloan up from her sitting position.ON MANTAN AND SLOANThey kiss.										  69.EXT. I-95 SOUTH - MORNINGDelacroix is driving "down south."INT. CAR - CONTINUOUSDelacroix adjusts the mirror so he can see himself.  HESPEAKS TO US through the MIRROR				DELACROIX			I figured this was a good time to			get away.  Just jump in my ride and			go.  I always did my best thinking			when I was driving alone.  I needed			to think out clearly what I was			going to do with this MANTAN - THE			NEW MILLENNIUM MINSTREL SHOW.EXT. I-95 SOUTHDelacroix is driving on his way to "Ole Virginny."EXT. MAMA'S SUGAR SHAK - NIGHTDelacroix pulls up in the parking lot of a rinky-kink,funky, greasy BAR/CLUB/BAR-B-Q joint.CLOSE ON NEON SIGN"MAMA'S SUGAR SHAK" - most the letters do not light up,underneath it, "2-NITE - JUNEBUG."INT. MAMA'S SUGAR SHAKIt's loud as hell as Delacroix enters this smoky, darkestablishment.P.O.V. DELACROIXThis must be a big night in here because the PATRONS aredressed to the nines.  What's in style down here is a lotdifferent from what's happening en Nueva York.  Many of themen are dressed like PIMPS from 70's BLAXPLOITATION FILM,the ladies like HOOTCHIE MAMAS from "Luke" video.ON SUGAR SHAKDelacroix works himself through the crowded BAR/DISCO intoanother small room.ON COMEDY ROOMHe walks into a small space where his father JUNEBUG is onthe stage.										  70.ON JUNEBUGHe is a good-looking man, the only speckle of gray in hishair betrays his age.  As he walks around the small stagedoing his comedy stylings, he keeps a drink in one hand andsips it often.ON COMEDY ROOMDelacroix sits in the back so his father can't see him.ON DELACROIXHe looks around.P.O.V. DELACROIXIt's dead in here.  The room is nearly empty.ON TABLEA couple gets loud, arguing over something.ON JUNEBUG				JUNEBUG			'Cuse me.  Please.  Can you please			show me some respect.  I'm up here			trying to make a living.				MAN			Mind yo' business.				JUNEBUG			Don't make me have to come over			there and whoop you upside ya head.The sparse AUDIENCE laughs.				JUNEBUG (CONT'D)			Just messin' with ya.  But please			if you and your lady need to			discuss something, take it outside.			Thank you.He continues on with his show.ON TABLEDelacroix walks over to the fighting couple.										  71.				DELACROIX			Brother man, that's my father up			there and I drove a long way to see			him perform.  Please take this			fifty, go buy you and the young			lady some drinks in the club.The guy looks him up and down.				MAN			That's yo' Daddy?Delacroix nods.				MAN (CONT'D)			Don't need yo money for drinks.			Besides, she's drunk already.			C'mon, let's go.The guy grabs his friend by the wrist and drags her kickingand screaming out the room.CLOSE ON JUNEBUG				JUNEBUG			Don't bring your woman out if you			can't keep her in deep check.  If			my woman ever did something crazy			like that I'd put my size 12 dead			up in her ass.This gets the biggest laugh of the night.EXT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTDelacroix knocks.				JUNEBUG (O.S.)			What do you want?				DELACROIX			I want to speak with you.				JUNEBUG (O.S.)			Go away, unless you got my money.				DELACROIX			It's me, Peerless.INT. DRESSING ROOMHe enters into a closet, it's a makeshift dressing room.  Ayounger lady, much younger than Junebug - DOT - standsbehind him as she massages his neck.										  72.Junebug gets up from his chair, rushes to his son and theyembrace.				JUNEBUG			Son.  Good to seeya.  Good to seeya.				DELACROIX			It's been a long time.				JUNEBUG			Pull up a chair.  Oh, excuse me,			this is my lady DOT.				DELACROIX			Pleased to meet you.				DOT			Glad to meet you, too.  You are all			your father talks about.				DELACROIX			Is that so?				JUNEBUG			Honey, pour me and my son a drink.They both sit down as drinks are poured.				DOT			I'll leave you two alone.She kisses Junebug on the forehead before leaving.				JUNEBUG			Good woman.  I trained her right.				DELACROIX			Daddy, she's younger than me.				JUNEBUG			My game is still strong.  No Viagra			for me, don't need no chemicals.			Just my tonic.He holds up his drink and kills it in one gulp.				JUNEBUG (CONT'D)			Purely for medicinal purposes.				DELACROIX			I thought you had promised Mommy			you stopped.										  73.				JUNEBUG			I did.  I'm not an alcoholic.  I			just like to drink.				DELACROIX			How did you end up here?				JUNEBUG			How did I end up at the third rate			chittlin' circuit greasy hole in			the wall in West Hell, Virginny?			Is that what you're asking ya Daddy?Delacroix takes a sip of his drink.				DELACROIX			That's what I'm askin'.				JUNEBUG			Because I had too much pride.  Too			much integrity.  I wouldn't lick			nobody's butt.  Some material I			refused to do.				DELACROIX			Daddy, it can't be just because of			that.  There had to be other factors.Junebug pours himself another stiff one.				JUNEBUG			That's the only reason, period.			They only want one certain kind of			black comic.				DELACROIX			Another one of your conspiracies to			hold ya career back?				JUNEBUG			All I know is what happened to me.			All that other mess I just file			into the "life's too short" category.He downs another one.  Junebug drinks like a fish.				JUNEBUG (CONT'D)			Enough about me, what's happening			with you?				DELACROIX			The same old, same old.  Trying to			get my stuff through.										  74.				JUNEBUG			Dem white boys giving you a hard			time?				DELACROIX			Nuthin' I can't handle.				JUNEBUG			The truth is never let them seeya			sweat.  You do that, that's half			the battle.				DELACROIX			Where do you go from here?				JUNEBUG			Three nights Charleston, South			Carolina.				DELACROIX			I didn't mean that, in life.				JUNEBUG			In life?  I'ma keep on living,			having a good drink, got me a good			young woman, make a couple of			dollars and make people laugh.			Haven't I always tol' you all			nigga's are entertainers?  The			question is what are you gonna do,			Peerless?INT. HOTEL HALLWAY - NIGHTDelacroix and Dot are on either side of Junebug as they holdhim up.ON DOORDelacroix struggles to put the key in the door.INT. HOTEL ROOMThe door is kicked open as the trio comes in.  Junebug isdrunk as a skunk.				JUNEBUG			I'm not an alcoholic.  I just like			to drink.				DOT			We know that baby.										  75.				DELACROIX			Let's get him over to the bed.				JUNEBUG			Baby, you treat me so good.			Peerless, you're a good son, I love			you.  You never gave me no trouble.They lay him down on the bed.				DELACROIX			I love you too, Daddy.				JUNEBUG			Always keep 'em laughing.Dot takes off his shoes.  He's out like a light.  Gone.				DELACROIX			How long has my father been like			this?				DOT			Not that often.  He was excited to			see you.				DELACROIX			So he drank himself into a stuper?				DOT			The drinking is for the pain.  It			doesn't kill it, just dulls it.				DELACROIX			So what's up with you?				DOT			I was a hostess at this club, your			Daddy was performing and I had			never laughed so hard in my life.			He asked me to come with him.  I			quit my job and we've been together			ever since.Delacroix pulls out his billfold and gives Dot five crispnew model hundred dollar bills.				DELACROIX			Don't tell him it's from me or he			won't take it.				DOT			Your father is proud of you.										  76.				DELACROIX			He never showed it.				DOT			He did the best way he knew how,			Junebug is stubborn just like you.Delacroix kisses his sleeping father of the forehead.				DOT (CONT'D)			I'll take care of him.EXT. I-95 NORTH - NIGHTDelacroix is driving back home - up North.INT. CAR - CONTINUOUS				DELACROIX (V.O.)			My Daddy.  I'm not mad at him.  Not			at all.  Junebug was the reason I			got into this business in the first			place.CLOSER				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			And I thank him for that.  However,			it did me no good seeing him in			that state.  Daddy was a broken man.			He had been a strong man, with			conviction, integrity, principles			and look where it had gotten him.			I had to ask myself did I want to			end up where he was?OVERHEAD REAR VIEW MIRRORDelacroix adjusts the mirror so he can see himself, andSPEAK TO US.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			That was the last time I ever saw			my father.EXT. I-95 NORTHDelacroix's car flies past us.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTON MIRRORMantan starts to black up.										  77.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat also begins to black up.INT. STAGE - NIGHTHoneycutt stands in front of the festive young, mixedaudience.				HONEYCUTT			Everybody say Ho!				AUDIENCE			Ho!				HONEYCUTT			That'swhatI'mtalkin'bout!			That'swhatI'mtalkin'bout!  I want			to be the first to welcome you to			the second taping of Mantan - The			New Millennium Minstrel Show.Audience applauds.				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			My name is Honeycutt and I want to			try something different.  Can you			do this for me?ON AUDIENCE				AUDIENCE			Yeah!BACK ON HONEYCUTT				HONEYCUTT			I'm gonna start a chant and I want			y'all to follow me.  Let's make our			own 2 real coons know you're ready			to start the show.CLOSER				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			Let's go Niggers.  Then clap five			times like this.Honeycutt claps the cadence.										  78.				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			C'mon.  It's easy.  It's the same			thing y'all do out at the Yankee			game, no different 'cept we changing			one word.  Everybody go it?ON AUDIENCE				AUDIENCE			YEAH!CLOSER ON HONEYCUTT				HONEYCUTT			Alright.  Here we go.  Let's go			NIGGERS!  LET'S GO NIGGERS!CLOSE ON AUDIENCE				AUDIENCE			Let's go NIGGERS.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMON MIRRORMantan is finishing the black.				AUDIENCE (O.S.)			Let's go niggers!INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat is finishing his Black.				AUDIENCE (O.S.)			Let's go niggers!INT. STAGE - CONTINUOUS				HONEYCUTT			Louder.  They can't hear you.CLOSE ON YOUNG BLACK WOMAN				YOUNG BLACK WOMAN			LET'S GO NIGGERS!CLOSE ON YOUNG WHITE MALE				YOUNG WHITE MALE			LET'S GO NIGGERS!										  79.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMMantan is applying his FIRETRUCK RED lipstick.				AUDIENCE (O.S.)			LET'S GO NIGGERS!INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOMSleep 'N Eat's also applying lipstick.				AUDIENCE (O.S.)			LET'S GO NIGGERS!INT. STAGE - CONTINUOUSTheir CHANT is deafening.  The audience's hyped.				HONEYCUTT			You sound so good to me.  Ladies			and gentlemen, boys and girls,			without further adieu, let's			welcome youknowwhoI'mtalkin'about,			your two favorite coons, Da Dusky			Duo, our stars Mantan and Sleep 'N			Eat.The audience goes crazy as the curtain goes up and the houseband kicks in with the Mantan theme.ON STAGEThe setting is a chicken coop, live roosters and chickensmove freely about Mantan and Sleep 'N Eat.  They start rightinto their routine at a furious pace.				MANTAN			Y'know my lady Lucindy?				SLEEP 'N EAT			The one with da big...				MANTAN			Not her, the one with the little...				SLEEP 'N EAT			Oh her.				MANTAN			Tomorrow is her birthday and I want			to get her something really nice,			like a...										  80.				SLEEP 'N EAT			No, not that.  How 'bout...				MANTAN			She hates dem.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Too bad.  How 'bout a dress?				MANTAN			Sleep 'N Eat, one of dem slinky,			sexy, little foxy...				SLEEP 'N EAT			Mantan, way too short, too tight.			Get her one of dose...				MANTAN			...to big.  The in-between one, not			too tight, not too lose.				SLEEP 'N EAT			That'll work.  I just bought one			for myself.Mantan cocks his limp wrist.  The audience ROARS.				SLEEP 'N EAT (CONT'D)			Not for me, my woolly headed cotton			pickin' friend for...				MANTAN			I thought you got rid of...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...that was Vicki, her best friend.			Dat dress will cast ya round...				MANTAN			...dat's too much money.  I can't			'ford it.  I needs me a dress that			cost no mo' than...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...aconite get it dat cheap.				MANTAN			I'll buy her a less expensive			dress, so I can have some money			left over to take her out to dinner.				SLEEP 'N EAT			We should go out on a double date.										  81.				MANTAN			I heard ya lady is wild.				SLEEP 'N EAT			No.  That's her second cousin.			Who's married to Li'l Bit.				MANTAN			Oh, because on our first date, she			let me...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...no, she didn't...				MANTAN			...yes she did.				SLEEP 'N EAT			...I heard different, thought that			was...				MANTAN			...not that time...				SLEEP 'N EAT			So when are you comin' to pick us up?				MANTAN			Around...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...too early...				MANTAN			...then what about...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...too late, maybe around...				MANTAN			...perfect...				SLEEP 'N EAT			That's what I like about you and me.			We git along...				MANTAN			...like macaroni and cheese...				SLEEP 'N EAT			...like grits and butter...				MANTAN			...like fried and chicken...										  82.				SLEEP 'N EAT			...like sleep and eat.OFF-SCREEN we HEAR the VOICE of MASSA CHARLIE, he's theoverseer of this plantation.				MASSA CHARLIE (O.S.)			Who goes in there?				SLEEP 'N EAT			We'd better hide.				MANTAN			It's dat mean, evil overseer Massa			Charlie.They hide behind some boxes.				MASSA CHARLIE			I say who goes in there?				BOTH			There's nobody in here 'cept us			chickens.Massa Charlie enters the chicken coops with a SHOTGUNblazing.  Sleep 'N Eat and Mantan do a jig as they try toescape the buckshot.ON AUDIENCEThey're rolling down the aisles in hysterics.INT. CONTROL BOOTHEveryone in the booth is laughing uncontrollably.  ExceptDelacroix.  Even Sloan is dying.				DELACROIX			Who's side are you on?				SLOAN			I'm sorry, I can't help it.  It's			too funny.Delacroix starts to crack a smile.  He is definitely tryingto hold it in.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NIGHTHe sits in front of the television, which is off.										  83.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			It was the Day of Reckoning.  After			a massive advertising and publicity			campaign...CLOSERDelacroix stares at the blank screen.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			...the public would finally get a			chance to view Mantan.  I was			feelin' a little bit like Dr.			Frankenstein.INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENT - NIGHTSloan, Jessica, Mantan and Cheeba are gathered around thetelevision in the small studio apartment, jabbering away.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			What would their reaction be?  I			hadn't the foggiest.				SLOAN			Everybody shut up.ON TV SCREENWe see the OPENING of MANTAN - THE NEW MILLENNIUM MINSTRELSHOW.  It is in CLAYMATION.  Mantan and Sleep 'N Eat aredoing a "jig."  Their noses and lips are done in a grotesquecharacterization, BIG WIDE BEGROIDAL NOSES and JUICY REDSAUCER SOUP COOLING LIPS.				HONEYCUTT (V.O.)			Calling all my cousins, you're			about to take a trip down to Hang			'Em High Plantation, home of your			two favorite coons, Mantan and			Sleep 'N Eat.ON SLOAN, JESSICA, MANTAN, AND CHEEBAMantan isn't happy.				MANTAN			Why they gotta make my nose so big?				CHEEBA			Look at my lips.				JESSICA			I think it looks cute.										  84.ON SLOANShe can't believe her eyes.				HONEYCUTT (V.O.)			Mantan - The New Millennium Minstrel			Show is proudly sponsored by...ON TV SCREENDA BOMB PRODUCT SHOT AND LOGO				HONEYCUTT (V.O.) (CONT'D)			...Da Bomb.  We'll take you there.			And...CLOSER ON TV SCREENTIMMI HILLNIGGER PRODUCT SHOT AND LOGO				HONEYCUTT (V.O.) (CONT'D)			...Timmi Hillnigger.  Keep it			really real.ON HONEYCUTT				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			We will be right back with the			start of our show, but first, a			word from our proud sponsors.CUT TO COMMERCIAL #1EXT. STREET CORNER - ANY GHETTO, U.S.A. - DAYThe TRACK is BOOMING.  The fire hydrant is open on thissizzling day and practically butt naked "Playaz" and "Hoes"dance in the water.  Each one is guzzling from 64 ounceJUGULARS of DA BOMB which are in the shape of a bomb.ON HONEYCUTT AND CROWDHe's in the spot, he's the spokesperson.				HONEYCUTT			DA BOMB.  Yo.  It's 125% pure			pleasure MALT LIQUOR.				HOOCHIE #1			It's Da Bomb, Baby.				PLAYA #1			It's Da Bomb, Baby.										  85.ON CROWDNothing but butts and breasts gyrating.				HONEYCUTT (V.O.)			Clinical testing has found that			Viagra doesn't work on black			"johnson's."  That's why our			scientists developed Da Bomb for			you.  It makes you feel like a MAN			and it makes dem bitches feel like			Natural Women - I mean Ho's.				PLAYA #2			It makes my nature rise.				HOOCHIE #2			I want to get funked up.				HONEYCUTT			DA BOMB - 125% pure pleasure malt			liquor.Honeycutt takes a big swallow from his 64 oz. Jugular.  Twostatuesque ladies sandwich him, grinding up on Honeycutt.He takes the jugular from his lips.  As he speaks, flamescome out of his mouth.				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			Oooooo-weeee!!  Da Bomb makes me			wanna get my freak on.				TWO MO' HOOCHIES			Honeycutt, let's get our swerve on@CUT TO COMMERCIAL #2EXT. STREET CORNER - ANY GHETTO, U.S.A. - DAYA middled-aged Caucasian male, TIMMI HILLNIGGER, issurrounded by a mob deep of hard-looking PLAYAZ.				TIMMY HILLNIGGER			Yo, my name be Timmi Hillnigger.  I			was born and raised up in Strong			Island so you know I know about my			peeps, my niggaz in the git-toe.  I			design and own TIMMI HILLNIGGER			125% Authentic Git-Toe active wear.DAWG #1 steps forward.				DAWG #1			Hillnigger keeps it real.										  86.DAWG #2 steps forward also.				DAWG #2			Timmi's gots all da latest gear.				TIMMY HILLNIGGER			If you want to keep it really real,			never get out of the git-toe, stay			broke and continue to add to my			multibillion dollar corporation,			keep buyin' all my gear.  The Timmi			Hillnigger collection.  We keep it			so real we give you the bullet holes.Hoe #1 laying in a white thong on top of a white Rolls-Royce.				HOE #1			All my niggaz wear Hillnigger or			they don't wear a damn thing at all.			It's Git-toe Fabulous.EXT. THE WHITE HOUSE - NIGHTThe lights are on in the White House.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			I was sunk, dead.  My goose was			cooked.  The cat was in the bag and			the bag was in the river.INT. THE WHITE HOUSEPresident Clinton is seen behind a TV set laughing his headoff.INT. THE WHITE HOUSE - PRESS CONFERENCE - DAYThe President of the U.S. stands behind a podium and takesquestions from the press.				REPORTER			Did you watch MANTAN - THE NEW			MILLENNIUM MINSTREL SHOW last night?				PRESIDENT CLINTON			Yes I did and I can honestly say I			feel it promotes racial healing.INT. DUNWITTY'S OFFICE - MORNINGDunwitty, Delacroix and Sloan are joined by a young Caucasianwoman, MYRNA GOLDFARB.										  87.				DUNWITTY			I know all of you have seen the			overnight ratings.  Through the			roof.  But in this game you gotta			be one, two, three steps ahead.  I			introduce you to Myrna Goldfarb.			She's the best media consultant in			the biz.				MYRNA			First, I would like to say I love			the show.  It's very courageous.			My parents marched in Selma,			Alabama with Dr. King.				DELACROIX			Why are you here?				MYRNA			Good question, straight to the			point.  I like your style.  Because			of the content of the show we can			expect some spirited reactions.				DUNWITTY			Myrna is here to help us plan our			strategy.				MYRNA			The best defense is offense.				DELACROIX			I thought it was the other way			around.				MYRNA			You get my point.  I've mapped out			some strategies to help bolster our			position.				SLOAN			Which is?				MYRNA			That this is fun.  Nice wholesome			fun.				DUNWITTY			Goldfarb, run it down for them.										  88.				MYRNA			The Mantan Manifesto.  Catchy ain't			it?  Number One.  We gainfully			employ African Americans, in front			of and behind the cameras.  Two.			Let the audience decide.  Three.			Who put these critics in charge?			These so-called cultural police?			Four.  Who determines what is black?			Five.  Mantan is a satire.  Six.			If they can't take a joke, "F" 'em.				DUNWITTY			We all stick to this, it's smooth			sailing.				SLOAN			It sounds kinda simplistic to me.				MYRNA			I've done my research.				DELACROIX			These are black folks we're talkin'			about, not some lab mice in a cage.				MYRNA			Monsieur Delacroix, I got my PhD in			African-American studies from Yale,			so I do feel I'm qualified.				DUNWITTY			Let Myrna finish.				MYRNA			Thank you.  And always smile.				DELACROIX			Yeah, show dem pearly whites.She ignores him.				MYRNA			Wear Kente cloth, invoke the name			of Dr. Martin Luther King, use the			word "community" often when talking			about Mantan.  And finally our			biggest plus is you, Pierre			Delacroix.				DELACROIX			Me?										  89.				DUNWITTY			Yes you!				MYRNA			This show was created, conceived by			you, a non-threatening African-			American male.  Voila.  End of			argument.  It can't be racist			because you're black.				DELACROIX			I'm not black.  I'm a NEGRO!!!INT. CNS HALLWAY - POST MEETINGSloan and Delacroix are walking in the hallway.  They keepgetting interrupted by people who congratulate Delacroix onthe success of the show.				SLOAN			So you have your small victory, now			what?				DELACROIX			A small victory isn't that small			when you've been use to losing.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - MORNINGSloan hands Delacroix a wrapped gift.				DELACROIX			What is this?				SLOAN			A gift.				DELACROIX			For what?				SLOAN			No matter what you think, you did			come up with something unique.			Open it.Delacroix opens his gift.  It is one of those old cast ironBlack Collectibles.  This one is called "THE JOLLY NIGGERBANK," a head of a Negro, big lips, big nose, wide eyes.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Put a coin in the hand.He puts a quarter in the hand.										  90.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Watch this.She pushes the lever and the mouth opens, the quarter fliesin and his eyes go to the top of his head.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Read it on the back.Delacroix reads.				DELACROIX			The Jolly Nigger Bank.				SLOAN			This is authentic, not a repro,			circa turn of the century.				DELACROIX			Thanks.				SLOAN			I thought it was appropiate.				DELACROIX			Is that good or bad?				SLOAN			It's all good.  You got a hit show,			you're gonna need a bank.  Plus, I			love these old black collectibles.				DELACROIX			How so?				SLOAN			To me, it shows part of our history			in this country, a time when we			were considered inferior, sub-human.CLOSE ON JOLLY NIGGER BANKDelacroix puts another quarter in the hand and flips thelever.  The quarter flies into his mouth as his eyes roll tothe top of his head.INT. WLIB - DAYDelacroix is a guest on the GARY BYRD show.  WLIB is thenumber one black talk radio station in the nation.										  91.				GARY BYRD			Our guest today is Pierre Delacroix.			He is the creator of the highly			controversial TV show MANTAN.			Let's get right into it.  You have			been called by some in the community			a traitor, a sellout, an Uncle Tom.			Why does your show generate such			feelings?				DELACROIX			Because race has always been a			sensitive issue in this country.			Gary, I have no problem with people			disagreeing with the show, it's			when folks start trying to mess			with my inherent right as an			artist, that's when I get mad.  No			one, in any way, shape or form			should be censored.				GARY BYRD			No matter how sexist or racist the			material may be?				DELACROIX			Yes.  And I say yes because who is			to judge?  Who is to stand before			us and say this is righteous and			this is not?  Who?  Who can play God?				GARY BYRD			But the line has to be drawn.				DELACROIX			Don't you people get it?  We're in			the 21st Century.  Slavery was over			four hundred years ago.  All that			stuff people talked in the old			days, it's over.  Folks always			crying, white man this, white man			that.  Let's all grow up.				GARY BYRD			Are you trying to excuse our			Holocaust?				DELACROIX			Can I finish?  Thank you.  I had a			great Aunt, we called her Sister.			She went to her grave not believing			man had walked on the Moon.				(MORE)										  92.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			When I was a little kid, I would			argue with her, "it's on TV."  She			would answer "I don't care what's			on that idiot box.  No MAN is on			the MOON."  Well, there are a lot			of your Negroes just like my Aunt			Sister.  Face up to it.  The world			has changed and if you don't adapt,			change with it, you will be left			behind.  This show is a parody.			Are you telling me that nobody can			use some humor, have some laughs in			their lives?  Is that what you're			telling me?EXT. TIMES SQUARE - NIGHTMantan and Cheeba gaze skyward at a behemoth billboard fortheir show.  Some people recognize them and start asking forautographs and a crowd forms.ON MANTAN AND CHEEBAThey're enjoying the adulation.ANOTHER CORNERBig Black and the Mau-Mau's also look up at the 2 REAL COONSbillboard.  Their faces say they are not happy.CLOSE ON 2 REAL COONS BILLBOARD								  CUT TO:CLOSE ON AMERICAN FLAGIt blows majestically in the wind.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			When American people want something,			they want it now, they want it big.NEWSREEL FOOTAGEKids swinging in their hula hoops.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			They wanted the hula hoop...NEWSREEL FOOTAGEKids playing with their yo-yo's.										  93.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			They wanted their yo-yo's.NEWSREEL FOOTAGEA young girl petting her Pet Rock.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Who could ever forget those lovable			pet rocks.								  CUT TO:INT. TOYS "R" USParents are fighting over Beanie Babies.  It's a RUCKUS.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Beanie Babies...EXT. TIMES SQUARE - NIGHTMantan and Sleep 'N Eat are doing a tap dance on the GIANTDIAMONDVISION SCREEN.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Now the latest, hottest, newest			sensation across the nation was...CLOSE ON MANTAN AND SLEEP 'N EAT				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			BLACKFACE!!!BLACKFACE MONTAGEWe SEE AMERICANS - young, old, black and white in BLACKFACE.MANTAN and SLEEP 'N EAT are #1 and #2 in the best-sellingHalloween masks.  They fly out of the stores.  We SEE Mantanand Sleep 'N Eat THE DUSKY DUO Action Dolls, backpacks,lunch boxes, T-shirts, jackets, board games, watches, andCD-Rom video games.  Football players, wrestlers in blackface also.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			It was the rage.INT. RECORDING STUDIOBig Black stands behind 1/16th Black who sits in front of alaptop computer.										  94.				1/16TH BLACK			Big Black, I can't log on the			Mantan Website now, it's overloaded.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			The Mantan - The New Millennium			Minstrel Show at www.nigger.com was			getting 500,000 hits a day.				BIG BLACK			Keep trying.				1/16TH BLACK			I'm on it.INT. CAR DEALER - DAYA Mercedes-Benz salesman is showing Mantan all the newest,latest models.INT. JUSTINE'S RESTAURANT - NIGHTMantan and Cheeba sit at a big table with Puff Daddy, AndreHarrell, Russell Simmons and other assorted RAPPERS.Everyone is drinking that DOM P.  Buxom Hotties sit inbetween the BIG WILLIES.EXT. CNS BUILDING - DAYA group of protesters led by the REVEREND JESSE JACKSON andAL SHARPTON carry signs and banners objecting to Mantan.They're calling upon the FCC to pull the show off the airand for the boycotting of the show's two sponsors: TIMMIHILLNIGGER and DA BOMB MALT LIQUOR.ON PROTESTERSThe press is watching.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - DAYDelacroix has now decorated his entire office with BlackCollectibles Art.  WE SEE black jockey lawn pieces, banks,mammies, signs for products, etc.ON WINDOWDelacroix and Mantan are looking out the office window downon the protesters.				MANTAN			Why is Jess and Reverend Al down			there?										  95.				DELACROIX			So they can be on TV.				MANTAN			You sound like the media.				DELACROIX			This is nothing.  It will blow over			by tomorrow.				MANTAN			Same thing Giuliani said.				DELACROIX			Tomorrow it will be all about			cruelty to animals or some sex			scandal.  Besides, there is no such			thing as bad publicity.He hands Mantan a wrapped gift.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Rest your mind.  It's a little			somethin' something.Mantan opens it.  He pulls out an old pair of tap shoes.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Those were the last pair of tap			shoes worn by Bill "Bojangles"			Robinson.  In fact, he died with			them on.Mantan starts to laugh.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			No joke.  Serious.				MANTAN			Hope the same thing doesn't happen			to me.  That's some big shoes to			fill.				DELACROIX			In time.INT. RECORDING STUDIO - NIGHTThe Mau-Mau's are in meeting.  They all drink 64 ouncejugulars of Da Bomb, are all attired from head to toe inTIMMI HILLNIGGER Active Ghetto Wear and brandish their 9's.				BIG BLACK			That Tom, That Negro...										  96.				DOUBLE BLACK			...that handkerchief head...				BLACK BLACK			...dancing monkey...				1/16TH BLACK			...Benedict Arnold...				BIG BLACK			...that simpleton is holding back			the race.  They got rid of us and			keep those two buffoons, Mantan and			Sleep 'N Eat, y'knowwhatI'msayin'?				HARD BLACK			Yo, Big Black, Sleep 'N Eat ain't			even a nigger, y'knowwhatI'msayin'?				SMOOTH BLACK			He's Mexican, y'knowwhatI'msayin'?				MO BLACK			He's Dominican, y'knowwhatI'msayin'?				JO BLACK			He's Peter Rican,			y'knowwhatI'msayin'?				BIG BLACK			Same thing, y'knowwhatI'msayin',			y'knowwhatI'msayin'!				1/16TH BLACK			We know.  We know.  Yo, check it,			my black brothers, we can't let			this slide.  Not this injustice.			Nah, no way.  Dem' two real coons			iz ill.				BIG BLACK			1/16, tru' 'dat.  True 'dat.				DOUBLE BLACK			Let me gat him.				BIG BLACK			Nah, too easy, this has to be			symbolic, has to be on the world			stage.INT. MANTAN'S APARTMENT - CENTRAL PARK WEST - DAYMantan is showing Sloan his new residence.										  97.				SLOAN			This is a nice place.  It must have			cost a pretty penny.				MANTAN			Sloan, I got it like 'dat.				SLOAN			Oh you do, huh?				MANTAN			Just a little something' somethin'.				SLOAN			I hope you save a little somethin'			somethin'.				MANTAN			Gots no intention of ending up broke.				SLOAN			Y'know, at the beginnin' of the			century, African-American had to			perform in blackface.  You ever			heard of Bert Williams?  He was a			great artist.				MANTAN			No, before my time.				SLOAN			You don't read, do you?				MANTAN			Never read a book in my whole life.				SLOAN			Maybe you need to start.				MANTAN			Maybe I need to do a lot of things.				SLOAN			Bert Williams and the rest, they			had to black up.  They had no			choice.  They were considered			3/5ths of a human being.  Did you			know that's written in the			Constitution of the United States?										  98.				MANTAN			Why all of a sudden are you flippin'			on me?  This blackface thing was			part of the deal from the git-go.			Don't even try to play it like you			ain't a part of all this.  You down			with Delacroix.				SLOAN			I just don't want you and Cheeba to			get hurt.				MANTAN			We can look out for ourselves.INT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTSleep 'N Eat is applying his black face.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOMMantan also puts on his mask.INT. STAGECLOSE ON HONEYCUTT				HONEYCUTT			Let's have a warm nigger applause			for our two favorite coons, Mantan			and Sleep 'N Eat.  TWO REAL COONS!ON AUDIENCEThe entire audience is in BLACK FACE.  They applaud, yell,cheer wildly.  This is becoming a religious cult.ON STAGEThe curtain rises on Mantan and Sleep 'N Eat.  They are in acotton field.				MANTAN			I fell out of my bed last night.				SLEEP 'N EAT			You slept too near where you got in?				MANTAN			I slept too near where I fell out.				SLEEP 'N EAT			You expect the unexpected in			circumstances of that peculiarity.										  99.				MANTAN			Sleep 'N Eat, what's the matter			with you?  Using all dose ten			dollar words?				SLEEP 'N EAT			Mantan, it is possible that my			hyphenated sentences are entirely			too complex for all the intellect			contained in that diminutive coconut?				MANTAN			Hold on, you allegorical hypothesis.			Don't cross words with me.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Ain't Jemima on the pancake box?				MANTAN			Dat's yo Uncle Ben.  That reminds			me, I've seen a lot of troubles			lately.				SLEEP 'N EAT			How be dat?				MANTAN			I don't know who I am.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Well, I'll be an Alabama porch			monkey's uncle.				MANTAN			Years ago I married a widow who had			a grown-up daughter.  My daddy			visited us often, fell in love with			my stepdaughter and married her.			Thusly he became my son-in-law and			my stepdaughter became my mother			because she was my father's wife.			Soon after dis my wife gave birth			to a son, which of course was my			father's brother in-law and my			uncle, for he was the brother of my			step-mother.  My father's wife also			became the mother of a son.  He was			of course my brother and also my			grandchild for he was the son of my			daughter.  Accordingly, my wife was			my grandmother because she was my			mother's mother.				(MORE)										 100.				MANTAN (CONT'D)			Sleep 'N Eat, I was my wife's			husband and grandchild at one and			the same time.  And lo' and behold,			as the husband of a person's			grandmother is his grandfather, I			Mantan, became my own grandfather.				SLEEP 'N EAT			Mantan, dat sho' is a whopper.They both start to do the jig.INT. CONTROL BOOTHDelacroix is dying laughing.				DUNWITTY			You couldn't hold out any longer,			huh?ON SLOANShe looks at Delacroix, her face tells us she's not amusedat all.ON TV SCREENThe Dusky Duo is joined on the cotton patch by Snowflake,Rastus, Sambo, Nigga Jim, Jungle Bunny, Aunt Jemima, And thePorch Monkeys Band.				MANTAN			I feel a song a comin' on.				SLEEP 'N EAT			A song a comin' I feel.The Porch Monkeys kick in and Mantan sings.				MANTAN			I fell right dead in love/wid da			sweetest little dove/little LuLu			Snow from Tennessee/she made a			slave of me/an' from her I'se never			free/I'd do anything she'd ask me			to...Sleep 'N Eat takes over.										 101.				SLEEP 'N EAT			De money I did save/to dat yeller			gal I gave/for to keep till we was			wed/she told me dat nobody'd get			away dat cash/I'll take good care			of date, she said.Everybody joins in for the chorus.				PIKCANINNINIES			She's de cutest gal in all dis			world I know/If you met her you			would say it so/Oh, Lulu, Lulu,			ev'ry day I pines for you/no other			gal will do/All I've got is yours			for life, my little, my little			yaller Lou/A week ago dat Lou wid			anudder nigger flew/took ma money			too, all I had/She broke ma heart			in two/when I heard dat she had			flew/Do you wonder dat I feel so			bad?/She told me not to cry 'case			she didn't say good bye/but she'd			take care of dat red/and nobody			would get de cash away from			her/She'd keep her word to me she			said.INT. RECORDING STUDIO - NIGHTThe Mau-Mau clan surrounds the television monitor, howlingin disgust.				BIG BLACK			He gots to be did.				1/16TH BLACK			Did he gots to be.INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - DAYDelacroix is leading the meeting of the staff writers onMantan.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			To my astonishment, not only did			the people in TV land love us, but			also the critics._										 102.CLOSE ON DELACROIX				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Mantan was being hailed as			groundbreaking, barrier breaking,			also earth shaking.  I looked			forward to my awards.  Just			vindication for all my hard work,			all my talent that had been			previously overlooked.INT. THEATER - NIGHTDelacroix sits in tux amongst many stars.				ALEC BALDWIN			The winner for Best New Sitcom is...			The envelope please...A starlet hands him the envelope.				ALEC BALDWIN (CONT'D)			The winner is... Pierre Delacroix			for Mantan - The New Millennium			Minstrel Show!Delacroix jumps out og his chair and starts sobbing.  Twoushers have to help him to the stage.  He is overcome withemotion.  The audience is on their feet with a standingovation.  He hugs Alec Baldwin.				DELACROIX			Alec Baldwin, this is the very			first time we've ever met, you			don't know this, I'm your biggest			fan and I want you to have my Emmy.			It's for you, out of the deep			bowels of my heart - I don't			deserve this.  You take it.Alec Baldwin is shocked.  He grabs Delacroix in a bear hugand they both cry like babies.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			If I did that I'd be assured to			work forever.  Delacroix the			grateful Negro.INT. HOTEL BALLROOM - NIGHTDelacroix sits at a table in his lucky tux.				WOODY HARRELSON			The winner for Best Sit-Com is...										 103.Woody opens the envelope.				WOODY HARRELSON (CONT'D)			...Pierre Delacroix for Mantan.			Come on up and get your Golden Globe.Delacroix jumps out of his seat and sprints.  He gets downon the stage and starts to breakdance, even spinning on hishead.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			That routine would go over like			gangbusters.  I would be a dancing			fool, Hollywood's new favorite			Negro, move over Danny, Morgan,			Samuel L., move over Whoopi.INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - DAYDelacroix is finishing up the meeting.				DELACROIX			I had it all planned.  To the T.INT. DANCE STUDIO - DAYMantan is running rigorous rehearsal of The Pikaninnies.Over and over, repetition after repetition, Snowflake,Rastus, Sambo, Nigger Jim, Jungle Bunny and Aunt Jemima tryto do an intricate dance step.				MANTAN			I'm tired of you pickaninnies			messing up my choreography.  It			goes like this.Mantan does the step with ease.				MANTAN (CONT'D)			Try it again.The dancers do it once more.				MANTAN (CONT'D)			Better.Cheeba walks in.  Mantan checks him out.				MANTAN (CONT'D)			Let's take a ten minute break.They quickly file past Cheeba without saying a word.  Therehearsal space is just the two.										 104.				CHEEBA			I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.				MANTAN			What are you talkin' about?				CHEEBA			Jim Jones, y'know.  I'm not drinking			the Kool-Aid.				MANTAN			Meaning?				CHEEBA			I'm out.				MANTAN			Good.  I've got a broken back from			carrying you all these years anyway.				CHEEBA			So that's what you been doing?				MANTAN			Damn skippy.				CHEEBA			You're in this up till ya neck.				MANTAN			Don't shoot me, I'm just the piano			players.				CHEEBA			You can walk away.  We both can.				MANTAN			Yeah, that's easy for you to do.			You never had any talent.				CHEEBA			I'm so tired of you running that.			I always worked hard for you.  You			think I'm a leech, a kling-on, I			quit.Cheeba walks out.				MANTAN			I'm the star of Mantan, so you do			that.  Quit, walk away.  And don't			come crawling back, either.										 105.INT. LIMOUSINE - NIGHTMantan and Sloan ride in back.  He's still thinking aboutCheeba.				SLOAN			Why don't you call him?				MANTAN			For what?  He left.  Not me.EXT. APOLLO THEATRE - NIGHTThe limo drives past the World Famous Apollo Theatre inHarlem, a big crowd is in front.TIGHT ON THEATREIt READS: MANTAN THE MARVELOUSINT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTIt's an unruly, fired up crowd that can be heard all the wayback here.				SLOAN			You're sure this is a good idea.				MANTAN			My people love me.He kisses her, she doesn't resist.				SLOAN			I love you.After a long, deep kiss she gently pulls back.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			I'll be down front.  You better			start putting your face on.				MANTAN			Y'know what?				SLOAN			What?				MANTAN			You look beautiful like that.INT. APOLLO THEATRE - NIGHTSloan takes a seat down front.										 106.INT. DRESSING ROOMMantan, face already done, puts on the firetruck red lipstick.INT. APOLLO THEATRESloan is looking around this boisterous crowd when she seesON THE MAU-MAU'SIn one of the side boxes.ON BIG BLACKHe waves to his sister.ON SLOANShe knows her brother and his clan are up to no good as thehouse lights go black.ANGLE ON STAGEHoneycutt walks out on stage.  The audience goes crazy.				HONEYCUTT			Thank you so very much.  Show me			some love.He laughs.				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			Thank you.  My name is Honeycutt			and I want to welcome you to a very			special evening.  It's always great			coming back to the World Famous			Apollo Theatre.The audience applauds.				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			As everybody knows if you can make			it here on this stage in front of			the most discriminating audience in			the world you can make it anywhere.			Ladies and gentlemen, let's show			some real Uptown love for Mantan			The Marvelous!The curtain goes up and Mantan the Marvelous stands there,arms raised.  He starts to do his thing.										 107.ON MAU-MAU BOXLed by Big Black, they start shouting insults at Mantan.ON STAGEMantan is a pro, he doesn't stop.  In fact, this makes himdance harder and harder.ON SLOANShe leaves her seat and goes to stop her brother.ON STAGEMantan is moving and grooving.  The unrest in the audiencehas picked up.ON AUDIENCEThey start to "boo."  The tide has turned.  Encouraged, theMau-Mau's pick it up another notch.ON MANTANHe's human after all, and he does hear the boos.  Don't letthose athletes in the papers fool you.  You hear the boosand nobody, nobody except Dennis Rodman likes to be booed.Mantan is getting rattled.ON MAU-MAU'S BOXSloan rushes into the box and they are quiet.  They don'thave to say or shout a thing.  The rough Apollo crowd isdoing it all themselves.TWO SHOT ON SLOAN AND BIG BLACKThe sister and big brother look at each other.  There is nolove between them.				SLOAN			This doesn't change a thing.  I			will still love him.Big Black can't believe what he has just heard.ON STAGENow projectiles are raining down upon Mantan.  This hasturned into a RUCKUS, a BROUHAHA, a DONNYBROOK.  Honeycuttraces onto the stage to pull off the still tap dancingMantan as the Harlem natives BUMRUSH the stage.  THE WORMHAS TURNED.										 108.ON MAU-MAU'S BOXMantan, led by Honeycutt, runs for his life.ON MOBThey chase him.ON BACKSTAGE DOORMantan is hauling ass.EXT. BACKSTAGEThe door crashes open, Mantan rockets out into an open cardoor.ON CAR DOORThe door slams.EXT. STREET - NIGHTThe car spins away.INT. CAR - NIGHTDelacroix is behind the wheel.  This is the most shakenwe've seen Mantan to date.				DELACROIX			Pull ya self together.Mantan is distraught.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			What are you?  A man or a mouse?			Are you a punk?  Punking out on me?				MANTAN			No.				DELACROIX			You getting scared because some			people don't like what you are doing?				MANTAN			Yo, DeLa, they tried to lynch my			black ass up in dat piece.										 109.				DELACROIX			You've made it from the guttermost			to the uppermost.  Don't you know			you should never let them see you			sweat.  Y'knowwhatI'msayin'?				MANTAN			Yeah.				DELACROIX			And now is definitely not the time			to bitch up.EXT. HARLEM STREET - NIGHTDelacroix speeds away.INT. BET STUDIO - NIGHTMantan is on the BET show with host TAVIS SMILEY.				TAVIS SMILEY			Our guest tonight is the			extraordinary, talented performer,			Mantan.  Thanks for coming in.				MANTAN			Tavis, thank you for having me.				TAVIS SMILEY			Before we begin, I want to thank			you for coming on my show for your			first television interview.  You			could have chosen Mike Wallace,			Barbara Walters, Jane Pauley,			whatnot but you're here.				MANTAN			I'm more comfortable around my			people.				TAVIS SMILEY			Let's jump right into it.  Your			show has sparked a world of			controversy, provoked a tone of			dialogue.  How do you see all of			this?				MANTAN			Yo, Tavis, check it out.  This is			the two-one, the 21st century and			it's all about the money.  Like my			man Mase says, "it's all about the			Benjamins."										 110.				TAVIS SMILEY			Money and nothing else?				MANTAN			Money makes the world go round.  It			ain't no joke being poor.  I know			whatI'mtalkin''bout.			Y'knowwhatI'msayin'?  I've lived on			the street.  I've been homeless.			I've learned how to play the game,			work the game, be in the game.				TAVIS SMILEY			Is it inevitable that the game			plays you?				MANTAN			No if you go with the flow, Tavis.			That's what a lot of Negroes don't			understand.  Protesting isn't gonna			do a damn thing.  If people don't			like our satire in our number one			hit show then don't watch it.  Or			better yet write your own show.  Do			it better.				TAVIS SMILEY			Don't you feel that is a simplistic			retort?				MANTAN			I don't know what a retort is, but			it's simple.  Mantan - The New			Millennium Minstrel Show is			UNIVERSAL.  It's not just for			Negroes in Compton or 125th in			Harlem.  This is America.  Our			ancestors helped build this country,			we got a right, just like everybody			else.  I'm not gonna box myself in.			This show makes people think, and			they're laughing at the same time.				TAVIS SMILEY			I admit, that's a very hard thing			to do.  Quickly let's go to the			phones before we pay the bills and			hear from our proud sponsors, DA			BOMB.  125% PURE PLEASURE MALT			LIQUOR.  IT MAKES YOU WANNA GET YA			FREAK ON AND TIMMI HILLNIGGER.			125% AUTHENTIC GIT-TOE GEAR WHEN			YOU WANT TO BE GIT-TOED FABULOUS.				(MORE)										 111.				TAVIS SMILEY (CONT'D)			Our first caller is Big Black from			Brooklyn.  Go 'head.ON MANTAN				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			Microphone check, one, two.  One,			two.  Yo Tavis, I be lovin' yo show			but Mantan you is foul.  Why you			perpetrating?  You a sellout.				MANTAN			That's our opinion.				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			You're a traitor to the race.  A			tool for the Caucasoids.				MANTAN			Why?  Because I'm successful?			Because I don't use "Causcasoids"			as an excuse for not fulfilling my			dreams?				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			I ain't hearing all dat noise.  You			getting played and you don't even			know it.				TAVIS SMILEY			And Big Black from Brooklyn, what			do you do?				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			What do I do?				TAVIS SMILEY			What do you do?				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			I'm a revolutionary.				MANTAN			That's a job?				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			That's a full time job, especially			when sellouts like you are running			around, acting insane.				TAVIS SMILEY			That's enough.										 112.				BIG BLACK (O.S.)			And another thing, you better stay			away from my sister or you better...CLICK!!!				TAVIS SMILEY			Ladies and gentlemen, there is no			need to go there.  We can all agree			to disagree without making threats.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - NIGHTSloan turns off the TV.				DELACROIX			Why'd you do that?				SLOAN			I don't want to hear it.				DELACROIX			How long have you and Hambone been			hangin' out?				SLOAN			You're the one that put us together.			We're friends.				DELACROIX			That crazy brother of yours doesn't			think so.				SLOAN			He's just playing big brother.				DELACROIX			Oh, is he?  You getting jiggy with			Mantan?				SLOAN			Please don't go there.				DELACROIX			Dunwitty and I feel you've been			getting too close to him, getting			his mind all messed up.				SLOAN			I can't lie to him.  If he asks me			something, I tell him what I think.				DELACROIX			Do you have to be so damn forthright?										 113.				SLOAN			DeLa, you should try it sometime.			Come into the light.				DELACROIX			Light?				SLOAN			That which has been hidden in			darkness is now in the light.  This			bucket of blood.				DELACROIX			You can talk all that mumbo jumbo			if you want to but your hands are			much bloody.  I know where I made			my big mistake.  I have a general			rule, never get involved			romantically with somebody crazier			than you.CUT TO FLASHBACKINT. MIDTOWN HOTEL ROOM - DAYDelacroix and Sloan are taking off their clothes.				DELACROIX			This is crazy.				SLOAN			That's why it will be so much fun.They kiss, fall half undressed upon the motel bed.								  CUT BACK TO:INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - NIGHT				SLOAN			That was a mistake, but I don't			regret it.				DELACROIX			The first and only time.  A big			mistake.  I'm gonna have to ask you			not to see Mantan anymore.				SLOAN			Work related or otherwise?										 114.				DELACROIX			Otherwise.  I trust you know the			difference.  You're an intelligent			woman, finished at NYU.				SLOAN			DeLa, kiss my big black ass.				DELACROIX			And that's how you got me in the			first place.Sloan pulls a 3/4 inch cassette out of her bag and hands itto him.				SLOAN			I want you to please view this.  It			may save your Life.INT. MANTAN'S APARTMENT - DAYMantan and Delacroix are in the middle of a heated discussion.				DELACROIX			You shouldn't even be mad at me			over Sloan.				MANTAN			What you did is dead wrong.				DELACROIX			Oh, is it?  Buddy boy, in this			business if people don't produce,			they get fired.				MANTAN			Sloan is the hardest working person			I've ever met.				DELACROIX			Let me ask you a question, if I may.			How do you think she got the job in			the first place?  I don't mean to			burst your bubble, Mantan the			Marvelous, but Sloan is an			opportunity.				MANTAN			I don't believe it.				DELACROIX			Do I have to spell it out for you?			In fact, go ask Sloan yourself.										 115.INT. SLOAN'S STUDIO APARTMENT - DAYMantan is grilling Sloan.				MANTAN			How did you get this gig?				SLOAN			Worked my black ass off, first as			an intern, then worked my way up to			this position.				MANTAN			You leave something out?				SLOAN			After my internship expired, Dela			was impressed and offered me a			position as his assistant.				MANTAN			And?				SLOAN			And what?				MANTAN			Stop playing me Sloan.				SLOAN			Just ask me what you want to know.				MANTAN			Oh, you gonna make me say it.				SLOAN			Say what, Manray?				MANTAN			Did you ever sleep with DeLa?				SLOAN			We did it one time, only once.  It			had nothing to do with the job, it			was stupid.  Everything I've got			I've earned.				MANTAN			Aw, c'mon.				SLOAN			That's ancient history.  That has			nothing to do with you and I.										 116.				MANTAN			So you say.  Sloan, you wuz gonna			use me up just like you used Dela?			Work it to the top.  I never			imagined people in this biz could			flip on you like "IHOP."  I'm damn			happy DeLa fired ya ass.				SLOAN			Forget about me, are you a puppet			for DeLa?				MANTAN			Don't try to change to the subject.				SLOAN			Why don't you answer?				MANTAN			I know I won't be your puppet.				SLOAN			You can go now.				MANTAN			I wuz leaving anyway, for good.INT. RECORDING STUDIO - NIGHTAs usual, the clan is smoking and drinking DA BOMB, a thickmarijuana haze hangs over the studio.				1/16TH BLACK			Yo, I got da bomb plan.  We gonna			hook homeslice Mantan up nicely.He holds up a floppy disk.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - NIGHTDelacroix sits behind the desk.  He's bought even more BlackCollectibles, he's surrounded by them.ON DELACROIXHe dials the phone.				DELACROIX			Hello, Mommy, how are you?										 117.				ORCHID (O.S.)			I'm doing okay.  Been reading about			your show, it's all over everywhere.			I watched it's all over everywhere.			I watched it once.  I thought you			said there would be no buffoonery.				DELACROIX			You going to attack me too.  The			show is a hit.  Aren't you happy			for me?INT. ORCHID'S HOUSE				ORCHID			Of course I'm happy for you.			You've worked very hard for your			success.				DELACROIX (O.S.)			Yes I have, very hard.  Has Daddy			called?				ORCHID			No.ON DELACROIX				DELACROIX			Not at all?				ORCHID (O.S.)			You know how your Daddy is.				DELACROIX			If and when he calls, please don't			forget to ask him if he's seen			Mantan.				ORCHID (O.S.)			I won't forget.  When are you			coming up here to see your mother?				DELACROIX			Soon.Delacroix hangs up the phone.  He takes out some change fromhis pocket and puts a quarter in the hand of his JollyNigger Bank.TIGHT ON JNBDelacroix flips the lever and the quarter flies into theMOUTH as the EYES roll to the top of its HEAD.										 118.Delacroix does this several times.  CLOSEUPS of the BLACKCOLLECTIBLES in the office.CLOSER ON JNBDelacroix is staring at the JNB when its MOUTH OPENS, aquarter flies in and its EYES roll to the top of its HEAD.ON DELACROIXHe is incredulous.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			When I thought or imagined that my			favorite Jolly Nigger Bank, an			inanimate object, a piece of cold,			cast iron, was moving by itself...Delacroix slowly, carefully approaches the bank and picks itoff the table.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			...I knew I was getting paranoid.			Did I really see what I saw or was			I buggin'?ON JNBIt's stopped moving.INT. STAGE - NIGHTHoneycutt is warming up the crazed "Black Face"-wearingaudience.  He points to a YOUNG WHITE MALE, BOBBY				HONEYCUTT			Is you a nigga?				BOBBY			Hell yeah, I'm a nigga.The AUDIENCE CHEERS WILDLY.  Honeycutt points to an oldWHITE LADY, LOUISE, a senior citizen.				HONEYCUTT			Ma'am, is you a nigga?				LOUISE			Yesiree Bob, you darn tootin' I'm a			nigger.The AUDIENCE loses it as Honeycutt hugs Louise as if she's agrandmother.										 119.INT. MANTAN'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTMantan looks up at his makeup laid out before him on thecounter.TIGHT ON MANTANHe stares at himself in the dressing room mirror.  Mantancan't stand to BLACK UP anymore.INT. STAGE - NIGHTHoneycutt stands next to a young black couple TRE and STACY.				HONEYCUTT			Are you a nigger?				TRE			Yo!				HONEYCUTT			Are you a nigga?				STACY			Honeycutt, I'm a really real			niggress.Stacy gets a standing ovation.				HONEYCUTT			You.  You.  Him.  Her.  We're all			God's niggas.  Even the lost souls			who don't know it are niggas cuz			niggas is a beautiful thing.INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHTAs Mantan walks down the hallway WE NOTICE he is not dressedin his costume and he has no BLACK FACE on.EXT. SLEEP 'N EAT'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHTA Worker is painting over Sleep 'N Eat's name on the doorand replacing it with HONEYCUTT				MANTAN			They don't waste any time, do they?INT. CONTROL BOOTH - NIGHTThe phone rings next to Delacroix and he answers.										 120.				DELACROIX			Delacroix.  What?!  I'll be right			down.Dunwitty looks at him.INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHTDelacroix is met by BUNNING, the STAGE MANAGER.				BUNNING			You better talk to him.  He won't			listen to me.Delacroix walks over to Mantan who stands in a corner.				DELACROIX			Mantan, we got a show to tape.				MANTAN			My name is Manray, goddamnit.				DELACROIX			Kook and the Gang, it's Manray.			Let's do the taping.  You go back			to your dressing room, get dressed			and blacken up.				MANRAY			I'm not playin' myself no mo'.				DELACROIX			How you sound?				MANRAY			I won't do it anymore.				DELACROIX			Manray, I'm very sorry about ya boy			Cheeba and Sloan.  Believe me, it			gave me no joy pulling ya coattail			about her, just lookin' out for a			brother.  I feel you, all this			stuff happenin' at once but you			can't let if affect your work.  You			gotta be professional.				MANRAY			I'm always gonna be that.  But I			ain't doing no more buck dancing.				DELACROIX			No costume.  No blackface.										 121.				MANRAY			No.  No.Manray leads the way to the stage.				BUNNING			I should notify Dunwitty.				DELACROIX			And I should put my foot dead up in			yo' ass.				BUNNING			I won't be held responsible.INT. STAGE - NIGHTHoneycutt stands in front of the drawn curtain.				HONEYCUTT			We apologize for the holdup but			without further delay, ladies and			gentlemen, boys and girls, let's			give it up for Mantan.A THUNDEROUS ROAR FROM THE STUDIO AUDIENCE.				HONEYCUTT (CONT'D)			C'mon, don't be niggardly, give it			up.  Show Mantan some love.The CURTAIN RISES and MANRAY stands before them in hisregular street clothes and NO BLACK FACE.ON AUDIENCEThe THUNDEROUS ROAR is CUT OFF LIKE the LIGHTS, LIKE CONEDISON PULLS THE PLUG WHEN YOU DON'T PAY THE BILL.INT. CONTROL BOOTH - NIGHTDunwitty is HYSTERICAL.				DUNWITTY			Stop the tape.  Stop the tape.			Delacroix.  Get me Delacroix.INT. STAGE - NIGHTManray speaks to the silence._										 122.				MANRAY			Cousins, I want all of you to go to			your windows.  Go to your windows			and yell, scream with all the life			you can muster up inside your			assaulted, bruised amd battered			bodies.ON MANRAY				MANRAY			I'm sick and tired of being a			nigger and I'm not gonna take it			anymore.ON VARIOUS AUDIENCE MEMBERSBlack and white.  Male and female.  Young and old.  All inblack face.ON MANRAYHe collapses onto the stage and the AUDIENCE sits on theirhands.  Manray gets up and begins to dance.ON STAGEDunwitty runs to Bunning.				DUNWITTY			Drop the curtain.  Drop the curtain.Bunning drops the curtain.  Security rushes onto the stageand grabs Manray.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			Escort him out the building now!				MANRAY			I wasn't finished doing my dance.				DUNWITTY			But you are finished.  Done.			Nigga's like you are a dime a dozen.			I'm gonna slide Honeycutt right			into ya spot.  We won't miss a step.			Get him outta here.The security guards move Manray as Dunitty glares atDelacroix.  Honeycutt is all smiles, he's being bumped tothe top.				DUNWITTY (CONT'D)			DeLa, I'll deal with you next.										 123.EXT. BACKSTAGEThe security guards toss Manray out the stage door.  Manraylooks down the alley and it's empty except for a parked SUV.He picks himself up and does a joyous dance.  This isManray's dance of Freedom.ON STREETThe Big Black Chevy Suburban creeps down the alley to adancing Manray and comes to rest right in front of him.Manray tries to shield his eyes from the hi-beam headlights.				MANRAY			Whaddup?No one comes out.				MANRAY (CONT'D)			Whaddup?The doors open and the Mau-Mau's file out.				BIG BLACK			You truly are a dancing fool.				1/16TH BLACK			Yo Black, you looking for trouble.				MANRAY			Don't start none, won't be none.The Mau-Mau's are dying laughing.  Manray tries to walkthrough them.  They block him.  Manray attempts to climbover the suburban.  He's quickly nabbed, give a good oleBrooklyn Beatdown, then thrown into the rear of the vehicle.EXT. EMPTY BROOKLYN STREET - NIGHTThe Mau-Mau Mobile rolls up to an abandoned factory.ON CHEVY SUBURBANThe Mau-Mau's quickly carry Manray out from the back of thevehicle into the factory.INT. FACTORY - NIGHTManray sits, feet and hands tied, in the middle of acavernous space.  A digital video camera stands on a tripodin front of him.				BIG BLACK			You is one dead nigger.										 124.				MANRAY			What did I do?				BIG BLACK			What did you do?The Mau-Mau's laugh.				BIG BLACK (CONT'D)			Brothers, he asks what did he do?				DOUBLE BLACK			If you don't know there is nuthin'			we can do for you.				BIG BLACK			Nigga, you will be executed.ON MANRAYHis face says he can't believe this is happening.				MANRAY			For singing and dancing?				1/16TH BLACK			You will be done in front of the			world.				MO BLACK			The whole world will be watching.				1/16TH BLACK			Via the internet.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			The Mau-Mau's had come up with a			brilliant, sadistic plan to			broadcast Mantan's execution LIVE			over the internet.				1/16TH BLACK			We have pirated broadcasting			facilities.  No way we can be found			out.  We're in cyberspace.				JO BLACK			Nobody will find you till it's too			late.MONTAGEVarious newsrooms, computer screens, people running,shouting, yelling over phones.										 125.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			The Mau-Mau's sent anonymous e-mail			proclamations to the websites of			CNN, ABC, MSNBC and CBS.  It was an			invite to witness the Dance of			Death, 9 PM, prime time, tomorrow			night on a site to be designated at			a later date.INT. FBI HEADQUARTERS - NIGHTDelacroix and Cheeba are being interrogated in two adjoiningspaces.  WE ARE seeing them through the two-way mirrors.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			It's no joke getting grilled by the			FBI for five houts.Delacroix SCREAMS.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			I don't know anything.				FBI AGENT			We know you're involved in this			abduction.INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT				CHEEBA			You know more than me.  Why would I			do something like that to my best			friend?  Why?				FBI AGENT #2			You tell us.EXT. FBI HEADQUARTERS - NIGHTIt's a mob scene as the media frenzy heightens.  Delacroixand Cheeba try to fight their way through the print andbroadcast journalists trying to question them as they leaveFBI headquarters.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			Somehow, someway, somebody had			tipped the sharks off.  It was a			feeding frenzy.Delacroix and Cheeba start pushing people out of the way asthey get in to their waiting car.										 126.INT. X-FORCE WAR ROOM - NIGHTThere is a flurry of activity - people man phones, computersall HI-TECH.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			The X-Force was brought onto the			case.  When something involves the			internet, these are the people IBM,			XEROX, the CIA, FBI, even the US			Government go to.ON CLOCKIt reads "T-minus 19 HOURS 22 MINUTES."				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			It was a race against time.  The			Dance of Death.INT. CNS STUDIO - NIGHTDunwitty is taping a spot.				DUNWITTY			Hello, my name is Thomas Dunwitty.			I'm the Senior V.P. of the			entertainment division here at CNS.			I come to you with a heavy heart.INT. SLOAN'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUSShe's watching Dunwitty on TV.				DUNWITTY			This abduction is a cowardly, vile,			sinful and dastardly act and I			promise these creeps will be			prosecuted to the fullest extent of			the law.  This is an attack on your			American way of life...INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENTHe's watching the same.				DUNWITTY			We here at CNS are offering a			$100,000 cash award to any			information that leads to the safe			return home of our dear friend,			Mantan.										 127.INT. CNS STUDIOON DUNWITTY				DUNWITTY			Help us and in addition you will			get a guest-starring speaking role			on the next Mantan - The New			Millennium Minstrel Show, plus an			added bonus: a lifetime of Da Bomb			125% Malt Liquor.  Let's you get ya			"freak on", as well as a full			wardrobe of Timmi Hillnigger Active			Git Toe Wear.  Mantan, may God			bless you...INT. X-FORCE HEADQUARTERS - DAYDelacroix and Sloan hurry to stay with BARNETT, he's thecommander of the X-Force.				BARNETT			Let's go, time's wasting.INT. X-FORCE WAR ROOMThey follow Barnett into the war room.				BARNETT			They sent the notice out on an			anonymous remailer.				SLOAN			A what?				BARNETT			It's used to mask the origin of an			email, also the computer from which			it's sent.				DELACROIX			There oughta be a law...				BARNETT			Not yet, anyway, it's legal.  We			will find the source where it's			being broadcasted and hosted.			We'll get the people that			bushwhacked Mantan.				SLOAN			Before Manray is dead?										 128.				BARNETT			I can't answer that.ON CLOCKIt reads "6 HOURS 16 MINUTES."MONTAGEPolice squads, SWAT Teams are busting into the wrong homes,apartments, projects, hi-tech computer labs looking for theMau-Mau's.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			SWAT teams all up and down the East			Coast busted in on known dissidents			looking for Manray.  All the tips			called in, info gathered through			surveillance proved for naught.INT. X-FORCE WAR ROOM				BARNETT			The both of you should go home.  We			will keep you abreast.				SLOAN			This is looking like a needle in a			haystack.  It's hopeless.Delacroix holds Sloan as he leads her out.  She is havingdifficulty breathing with her asthma.				DELACROIX			Thank you for your help.				BARNETT			The X-Force always gets their man.INT. DELACROIX'S APARTMENT - NIGHTHe sits in front of his GIANT SCREEN, on the desk in frontof him is the 3/4 inch cassette Sloan gave him.  He picks itup and turns it on.				DELACROIX (V.O.)			It was ten o'clock and the Dance of			Death was about to commence.										 129.ON MONITOR				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Since a lot of people still didn't			have computers, the networks sought			a court order to carry it live,			taking the feed off the internet.			It was granted.  A life snuff			broadcast right into your living			room.ON DELACROIX				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			I had to give it to the Mau-Mau',			they definitely had a sense of			irony.  They chose www.nigger.com			as the website to pirate.INT. FACTORY - NIGHTThe Mau-Mau's ironically wear WHITE MASKS, they stand behindthe tied-up Mantan.  A device alters their voices.				BIG BLACK			We are LIVE on the cyberspace.			Whereas Mantan is a TOM...				BLACK BLACK			Whereas Mantan is a disgrace...				SMOOTH BLACK			Whereas Mantan is a head-scratching,			foot-shuffling Negro...				1/16TH BLACK			Whereas, whereas, where's the ass?The Mau-Mau's laugh.				BIG BLACK			Whereas Mantan the dancing fool,			you are condemned to death.				JO BLACK			The Dance of Death.1/16th Black unties Manray.MONTAGEWE SEE DELACROIX, SLOAN, CHEEBA WITH LOURDESE, DUNWITTY,JUNEBUG AND DOT, ORCHID, THE X-FORCE WATCHING THIS SPECTACLEON COMPUTERS OR TV SCREENS.										 130.ON COMPUTER SCREENWe see a CARTOON, Yosemite Sam is shooting at the feet ofBugs Bunny with his six-shooter in each hand.  Bugs Bunny isdoing a fast dance, dodging bullets.ON MONITORThe Mau-Mau's shoot at the feet of Manray.				BIG BLACK			Dance nigger.Manray taps.				SMOOTH BLACK			You got anything to say for yourself?				MANRAY			If you're gonna kill me, kill me.				SMOOTH BLACK			Don't worry.INT. SLOAN'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUSShe is having an asthma attack, it was brought on by theproceedings.  Sloan uses her inhaler.INT. FACTORY - NIGHTEach Mau-Mau has a 9mm and is firing it at the feet ofManray.  They scream "Faster!" and "Dance!" Manray ishoofing.  He's never tapped this fast, at this breakneckpace, ever.  But it's evident his dance is one of defiance.He's not dancing to stay alive.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUSHe screams at the monitor.				DELACROIX			Don't dance.  Don't do it.INT. FACTORYThe Mau-Mau's have noticed Manray's strong will, his prideand they don't like it.  They shoot even more at his feet.				BIG BLACK			You ain't Blak.				DOUBLE BLACK			Blak you ain't.										 131.				SMOOTH BLACK			You a Oreo.  Not Blak.  Not BLAK.The Mau-Mau's start to chant, "Blak, blak, blak."INT. SLOAN'S APARTMENTShe hears this and quickly picks up the phone to call theauthorities.INT. FACTORY				MANRAY			There is nothing you can do to me.			I'm wearing the taps of Bill			"Bojangles" Robinson.Manray is shot in one foot.  Then the other.				BIG BLACK			Let's seeya dance now, Mr. Bojangles.Manray somehow manages to right himself and starts to danceagain.  The Mau-Mau's can't believe it.ON MANRAYHe dances like his life depends on it.  Despite the fact hisfeet are a bloody mess.				BIG BLACK (CONT'D)			You ain' BLAK.He shoots Manray in the chest, the Mau-Mau's follow him andhe does a spastic last jig as the 9mm bullets riddle histwitching body.ON TV SCREENIt goes black.MONTAGEHelicopters fly through the night sky.  Cop cars and trucks,SWAT team vehicles are on the move.  SIRENS BLARE.INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICEDelacroix's head is on his desk.  He has been crying.  Oncue the Black Collectibles start to move.  The Jolly NiggerBank, Aunt Jemima's, Mammies, etc., they are animated forREAL.										 132.ON DELACROIXHis head pops up as he sees the objects.  He too is inBLACKFACE.  In a rage, he starts to throw them against thewall.				DELACROIX			Leave me alone.  Get away from me.			You spearchucker.  You black sambo.			You nigger pickaninny.  Fat Mammie.Delacroix has finally lost it.  He looks at the shambleshe's made of his office.EXT. FACTORY - CONTINUOUSThe Mau-Mau's come out of the factory high as a kite.  Eachhas a big fat joint or a 64 oz. of DA BOMB.  They're alsodoing a free-style rap about their execution.ON CHEVY SUBURBANThey get in when the squak of police walkie-talkie's clicks.				BIG BLACK			It's the man!What follows is a horrifying display of firepower.  All theMau-Mau's bodies are doing the Bonnie and Clyde SonnyCorleone Dance of Death as bullets tear into them and theSuburban.  Not one of them is able to get a shot off.  Theshooting stops.  The twitching stops.  All's quiet.  1/16thBlack comes out with his hands up.				1/16TH BLACK			Don't shoot!  Don't shoot!  I've			been held hostage.  They made me			part of them against my own free			will.  Don't shoot!The cops quickly pounce on 1/16th Black.				1/16TH BLACK (CONT'D)			I'm WHITE.  I'm WHITE!  Look at me,			I'm white!INT. DELACROIX'S OFFICEDelacroix is on the floor when the doorknob turns.  It'sSloan and she has a gun in one hand and her inhaler in theother.  She's wheezing like mad.				SLOAN			Get up and put that tape in.										 133.She points the gun at his head.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Do what I say.Delacroix takes the cassette tape off his desk and puts itin the 3/4 inch desk.				SLOAN (CONT'D)			Don't make me have to use this.				DELACROIX			I didn't think this was in your			studies at NYU.Delacroix hits the PLAY button.ON SCREENIMAGES.  HISTORY.  VISUALS.  Sloan has put together a tapeof the worst, most racist, stereotypical images from cinemaand TV over the last 100 years.  With these images there'salso a laugh-track.				SLOAN			Watch this.  This is what you			contributed to.  Because of you,			Manray is dead.  Mu brother's dead.			It's all because of you.Delacroix can't watch the monitor.				DELACROIX			I'm sorry.  I didn't know anyone			would get hurt.  I'm sorry, please			give me that gun before you hurt			yourself.  Give me the gun.He reaches for it.  BOOM!  Sloan screams.				SLOAN			I told you but you wouldn't listen.			You never listened to me.				DELACROIX			Give me the gun.She reluctantly hands it to him.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			Go, get out of here.  Go home.Sloan runs out.  Delacroix slumps to the floor, WIPES HERFINGERPRINTS off the revolver.										 134.ON DELACROIXHe looks at the monitor, the tape still playing.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			As I bled to death, as my very			precious life oozed out of me all I			could think of was that I never			made my father proud.  My mother			didn't count.ON SCREENWe see STEP 'N FETCHIT, MANTAN MORELAND and WILLIE BEST.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Everything I did, no matter how			great or small, was always			extraordinary to her.  With Daddy			it was a different ball game.  He			never saw me.  Pierre Delacroix.ON DELACROIXA pool of blood has formed around his dying body.				DELACROIX (V.O.) (CONT'D)			Now it was time to buy the farm,			for me to meet my maker.  Goodbye			cousins, and please tune in next			week for the Best of Mantan - The			New Millennium Minstrel Show.ON SCREENWe see MANTAN in BLACKFACE doing his BUCKDANCECLOSE ON DELACROIXHe looks at Mantan.				DELACROIX (CONT'D)			For the love of Joseph and Mary,			what have I done?  My God, what			have I done?!Delacroix slumps over dead.								  CUT TO:										 135.ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF MALCOLM X				MALCOLM X			You've been had.  You've been took.			You've been led astray.  Run amok.			You've been bamboozled.								  FADE TO BLACK.THE END.END CREDITS.
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+BARRY LYNDON A Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray February 18, 1973FADE IN:EXT. PARK - DAYBrief shot of duel. RODERICK (V.O.) My father, who was well-known to the best circles in this kingdom under the name of roaring Harry James, was killed in a duel, when I was fifteen years old.EXT. GARDEN - DAYMrs. James, talking with a suitor; Roderick, at adistance. RODERICK (V.O.) My mother, after her husband's death, and her retirement, lived in such a way as to defy slander. She refused all offers of marriage, declaring that she lived now for her son only, and for the memory of her departed saint.EXT. STREET - DAYMother and son walking together. RODERICK (V.O.) My mother was the most beautiful women of her day. But if she was proud of her beauty, to do her justice, she was still more proud of her son, and has said a thousand times to me that I was the handsomest fellow in the world.EXT. CHURCH - DAYMother and son entering church. RODERICK (V.O.) The good soul's pleasure was to dress me; and on Sundays and Holidays, I turned out in a velvet coat with a silver-hilted sword by my side, and a gold garter at my knee as fine as any lord in the land. As we walked to church on Sundays, even the most envious souls would allow that there was not a prettier pair in the kingdom.EXT. FIELD - DAYA picnic. The Dugan family. Roderick. RODERICK (V.O.) My uncle's family consisted of ten children, and one of them was the cause of all my early troubles; this was the belle of the family, my cousin, Miss Dorothy Dugan, by name.EXT. DUGAN MANOR HOUSE - DAYA sprawling run-down Irish manor house with large garden,stables, barn and farm.Idealized images of Dorothy. RODERICK (V.O.) Ah! That first affair, how well one remembers it! What a noble discovery it is that the boy makes when he finds himself actually and truly in love with some one! A lady who is skilled in dancing or singing never can perfect herself without a deal of study in private. So it is with the dear creatures who are skilled in coquetting. Dorothy, for instance, was always practicing, and she would take poor me to rehearse her accomplishments upon...Dorothy talking with the exciseman. RODERICK (V.O.) ... or the exciseman, when he came his rounds.Dorothy talking to the steward. RODERICK (V.O.) ... or the steward.Dorothy sitting under a tree with the curate, reading abook. RODERICK (V.O.) ... or the poor curate.Dorothy talking to the apothecary's lad. RODERICK (V.O.) ... or the young apothecary's lad from Dugan's Town whom I recollect beating once for that very reason.Roderick, fighting with apothecary's lad. RODERICK (V.O.) The torments of jealousy she made me endure were horrible.EXT. FIELD - DAYDorothy, like a greyhound released from days ofconfinement, and given the freedom of the fields at last,runs at top-speed, left and right, back and forth,returning every moment to Roderick.She runs and runs until she is out of breath, and thenlaughs at the astonishment which keeps Roderick motionlessand staring at her.After catching her breath, and wiping her forehead, shechallenges Roderick to a race. RODERICK I accept, but I insist on a wager. The loser must do whatever the winner pleases. DOROTHY Agreed. RODERICK Do you see the gate at the end of the field? The first to touch it will be the winner.They line up together and start on a count of three.Dorothy uses all her strength, but Roderick holds back,and Dorothy touches the gate five or six paces ahead ofhim. RODERICK (V.O.) I was certain to win, but I meant to lose to see what she would order me to do.Dorothy catches her breath, thinking of the penalty. Thenshe goes behind the trees and, a few second later, comesout and says: DOROTHY Your penalty is to find a cherry- colored ribbon which I have hidden somewhere on my person. You are free to look for it anywhere you will, and I will think very little of you if you do not find it.They sit down on the grass. Roderick searches herpockets, the fold of her short bodice and her skirt, thenher shoes; then he turns up her skirt, slowly andcircumspectly, as high as her garters, which she wearsupon the knee. He unfastens them and finds nothing; hedraws down her skirt and gropes under her armpits. Thetickling makes her laugh. RODERICK I feel the ribbon. DOROTHY Then you must get it.Roderick has to unlace her bodice and touch her prettybreasts, over which his hand must pass to reach it. DOROTHY Why are you shaking? RODERICK With pleasure at finding the ribbon.EXT. FIELD - DAYMilitary review. One hundred English troops, a fewmounted officers, a small military band, fifty localpeople.The Dugan family, Roderick and his mother, Captains Bestand Grogan.Roderick admires the troops in their splendid uniforms. RODERICK (V.O.) About this time, the United Kingdom was in a state of great excitement from the threat generally credited of a French invasion. The noblemen and people of condition in that and all other parts of the kingdom showed their loyalty by raising regiments of horse and foot to resist the invaders. How I envied them. The whole country was alive with war's alarums; the three kingdoms ringing with military music, while poor I was obliged to stay at home in my fustian jacket and sigh for fame in secret.INT. BALLROOM AT FENCIBLES - NIGHTDorothy and Roderick entering. RODERICK (V.O.) Once, the officers of the Kilwangen regiment gave a grand ball to which Dorothy persuaded my to take her.Several cuts depicting the evening.Dorothy ignores Roderick; dances, chats, laughs, drinkspunch, and finally, strolls outside with Captain Best.Roderick makes a half-hearted try at dancing with MissClancy. RODERICK (V.O.) I have endured torments in my life, but none like that. Some of the prettiest girls there offered to console me, for I was the best dancer in the room, but I was too wretched, and so remained alone all night in a state of agony. I did not care for drink, or know the dreadful comfort of it in those days; but I thought of killing myself and Dorothy, and most certainly of making away with Captain Best.EXT. FENCIBLES BALLROOM - DAWNThe guests leaving and saying their goodbyes. RODERICK (V.O.) At last, and at morning, the ball was over.EXT. ROAD - DAWNDorothy and Roderick on horseback together. DOROTHY Sure it's a bitter night, Roderick dear, and you'll catch cold without a handkerchief to your neck.To this sympathetic remark, from the pillion, the saddlemade no reply. DOROTHY Did you and Miss Clancy have a pleasant evening, Roderick? You were together, I saw, all night.To this, the saddle only replies by grinding his teeth,and giving a lash to Daisy. DOROTHY Oh! Mercy, you make Daisy rear and throw me, you careless creature, you.The pillion had by this got her arm around the saddle'swaist, and gave it the gentlest squeeze in the world. RODERICK I hate Miss Clancy, you know I do! And I only danced with her because -- because -- the person with whom I intended to dance chose to be engaged the whole night. DOROTHY I had not been in the room five minutes before I was engaged for every single set. RODERICK Were you obliged to dance five times with Captain Best, and then stroll out with him into the garden? DOROTHY I don't care a fig for Captain Best; he dances prettily to be sure, and is a pleasant rattle of a man. He looks well in his regimentals, too; and if he chose to ask me to dance, how could I refuse him? RODERICK But you refused me, Dorothy. DOROTHY Oh! I can dance with you any day, and to dance with your own cousin at a ball as if you could find no other partner. Besides, Roderick, Captain Best's a man, and you are only a boy, and you haven't a guinea in the world. RODERICK If ever I meet him again, you shall see which is the best man of the two. I'll fight him with sword or with pistol, captain as he is. DOROTHY But Captain Best is already known as a valiant soldier, and is famous as a man of fashion in London. It is mighty well of you to fight farmers' boys, but to fight an Englishman is a very different matter.Roderick falls silent.EXT. SMALL BRIDGE OVER A STREAM - DAWNThey come to an old, high bridge, over a stream,sufficiently deep and rocky. DOROTHY Suppose, now, Roderick, you, who are such a hero, was passing over the bridge and the enemy on the other side. RODERICK I'd draw my sword, and cut my way through them. DOROTHY What, with me on the pillion? Would you kill poor me? RODERICK Well, then, I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd jump Daisy into the river, and swim you both across, where no enemy could follow us. DOROTHY Jump twenty feet! You wouldn't dare to do any such thing on Daisy. There's the captain's horse, Black George, I've heard say that Captain Bes --She never finished the word for, maddened by the continualrecurrence of that odious monosyllable, Roderick shouts: RODERICK Hold tight to my waist!And, giving Daisy the spur, springs with Dorothy over theparapet, into the deeper water below.The horse's head sinks under, the girl screams as shesinks, and screams as she rises.Roderick lands her, half-fainting, on the shore.INT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - BEDROOM - DAYVarious cuts showing illness and convalescence.Roderick feverish: the doctor taking his pulse.Mother brings a tray of food. RODERICK (V.O.) I went home, and was ill speedily of a fever, which kept me to my bed for a week.Dorothy visiting him. RODERICK (V.O.) Dorothy visited me only once, but I quitted my couch still more violently in love than I had been ever before.EXT. DUGAN MANOR HOUSE - DAYThe air is fresh and bright, and the birds sing loudamidst the green trees. Roderick is elated, and springsdown the road, as brisk as a young fawn.He encounters an orderly whistling "Roast Beef of OldEngland," as he cleans down a cavalry horse. RODERICK Whose horse, fellow, is that? ORDERLY Feller, indeed! The horse belongs to my captain, and he's a better fellow nor you any day. RODERICK (V.O.) I did not stop to break his bones, as I would on another occasion, for a horrible suspicion had come across me, and I made for the garden as quickly as I could.Roderick see Captain Best and Dorothy pacing the pathtogether. Her arm is under his, and he is fondling andsqueezing her little hand which lies closely nestlingagainst his arm.Some distance beyond them is Captain Grogan, who is payingcourt to Dorothy's sister, Mysie. RODERICK (V.O.) The fact is that, during the week of my illness, no other than Captain Best was staying at Castle Dugan, and making love to Miss Dorothy in form. CAPTAIN BEST No, Dorothy, except for you and four others, I vow before all the gods, my heart had never felt the soft flame. DOROTHY Ah, you men, you men, John, your passion is not equal to ours. We are like -- like some plant I've read of -- we bear but one flower, and then we die! CAPTAIN BEST Do you mean you never felt an inclination for another? DOROTHY Never, my John, but for thee! How can you ask me such a question?Raising her hand to his lips. CAPTAIN BEST Darling Dorothea!Roderick rushes into view, drawing his little sword. RODERICK (V.O.) I pulled out a knot of cherry- colored ribbons, which she had given me out of her breast, and which somehow I always wore upon me, and flung them in Captain Best's face, and rushed out with my little sword drawn. RODERICK She's a liar -- she's a liar, Captain Best! Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you are a man!Roderick leaps at Captain Best, and collars him, whileDorothy makes the air echo with her screams.Captain Grogan and Mysie hasten up.Though Roderick is a full growth of six feet, he is smallby the side of the enormous English captain.Best turns very red at the attack upon him, and slips backclutching at his sword.Dorothy, in an agony of terror, flings herself round him,screaming: DOROTHY Captain Best, for Heaven's sake, spare the child -- he is but an infant. CAPTAIN BEST And ought to be whipped for his impudence, but never fear, Miss Dugan, I shall not touch him, your favorite is safe from me.So saying, he stoops down and picks up the bunch ofribbons, which Roderick had flung at Dorothy's feet, andhanding it to her, says in a sarcastic tone: CAPTAIN BEST When ladies make presents to gentlemen, it is time for other gentlemen to retire... DOROTHY Good heavens, Best! He is but a boy and don't signify any more than my parrot or lap-dog. Mayn't I give a bit of ribbon to my own cousin? RODERICK (roaring) I'm a man, and will prove it. CAPTAIN BEST You are perfectly welcome, miss, as many yards as you like. DOROTHY Monster! Your father was a tailor, and you are always thinking of the shop. But I'll have my revenge, I will! Roddy, will you see me insulted? RODERICK Indeed, Miss Dorothy, I intend to have his blood as sure as my name's Roderick. CAPTAIN BEST I'll send for the usher to cane you, little boy, but as for you, miss, I have the honor to wish you a good day.Best takes off his hat with much ceremony, and makes a lowbow, and is just walking off, when Michael, Roderick'scousin, comes up, whose ear has likewise been caught bythe scream. MICHAEL Hoity-toity! John Best, what's the matter here? CAPTAIN BEST I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Dugan. I have had enough of Miss Dugan here and your Irish ways. I ain't used to 'em, sir. MICHAEL (good-humoredly) Well, well! What is it? We'll make you used to our ways, or adopt English ones. CAPTAIN BEST It's not the English way, for ladies to have two lovers, and, so, Mr. Dugan, I'll thank you to pay me the sum you owe me, and I resign all claims to this young lady. If she has a fancy for school-boys, let her take 'em, sir. MICHAEL Pooh! Pooh! Best, you are joking. CAPTAIN BEST I never was more in earnest.Best exits. MICHAEL (in a towering rage) You -- you! Hang you for a meddling brat, your hand is in everybody's pie. What business had you to come brawling and quarreling here, with a gentleman who has fifteen hundred a-year?Michael runs after Best. DOROTHY (gasps) Oh, I shall die; I know I shall. I shall never leave this spot. CAPTAIN GROGAN (whisper to Dorothy) The Captain is gone.Dorothy, giving him an indignant look, jumps up and walkstowards the house. CAPTAIN GROGAN (in a soothing tone to Roderick) This is a pretty way to recommend yourself to the family. RODERICK (shouts after Michael) The man that marries Dorothy Dugan must first kill me -- do you mind that? MICHAEL (shouting back from a distance) Pooh, sir. Kill you -- flog you, you mean! I'll send for Nick the huntsman to do it. CAPTAIN GROGAN You are a gallant lad, and I like your spirit. But what Dugan says is true. It's a hard thing to give a lad counsel who is in such a far- gone state as you; but, believe me, I know the world, and if you will but follow my advice, you won't regret having taken it. Dorothy Dugan has not a penny; you are not a whit richer. And, my poor boy, don't you see -- though it's a hard matter to see -- that she's a flirt, and does not care a pin for you or Best either? RODERICK Dorothy might love me or not, as she likes, but Best will have to fight me before he marries her! CAPTAIN GROGAN Faith, I think you are a lad that's likely to keep your word.He looks hard at Roderick for a second to two, then hewalks away, humming a tune, looking back at Roderick as hegoes through the old gate out of the garden.When Grogan is gone, Roderick is quite alone, and heflings himself down on the bench where Dorothy had madebelieve to faint, and had left her handkerchief and theribbons and, taking them up, hides his face in them, andbursts into a passion of tears. RODERICK (V.O.) I must have sat for some hours bemoaning myself on the garden-bench, for the dinner-bell clanged as usual at three o'clock, which wakened me from my reverie.EXT. DUGAN MANOR HOUSE - DAYAs Roderick passes the courtyard, he sees the Captain'ssaddle still hanging up at the stable-door, and his odiousred-coated brute of a servant, swaggering with thescullion-girls and kitchen people. MAID The Englishman's still there, Master Roderick. He's there in the parlor. Go in, and don't let 'im browbeat you, Master Roderick.INT. DUGAN MANOR HOUSE - DINING ROOM - DAYRoderick enters and takes his place at the bottom of thebig table; the butler speedily brings him a cover. UNCLE Hello, Roddy, my boy! Up and well? That's right. AUNT He'd better be home with his mother. UNCLE Don't mind her. It's the cold goose she ate for breakfast -- didn't agree with her. Take a glass of spirits, Mrs. Dugan, to Roderick's health.It is evident that his uncle doesn't know of whathappened, but Michael, who is at dinner too, and Harry,and almost all the girls, look exceedingly black and thecaptain foolish; and Miss Dorothy, who is again by hisside, ready to cry. Captain Grogan sits smiling, andRoderick looks on as cold as stone.His uncle is in high good-humor. UNCLE Dorothy, divide that merry thought with the captain! See who'll be married first. Jack Best, my dear boy, never mind a clean glass for the claret, we're short of crystal at Castle Dugan; take Dorothy's and the wine will taste none the worse. Mrs. Dugan and ladies, if you please; this is a sort of toast that is drunk a great deal too seldom in my family, and you'll please to receive it with all the honors. Here's to Captain and Mrs. John Best, and long life to them. Kiss her, Jack, you rogue; for faith, you've got a treasure. RODERICK (spring up) His already?! HARRY Hold your tongue, you fool -- hold your tongue! RODERICK (shouting) He has already been slapped in the face this morning, Captain John Best; he's already been called a coward, Captain John Best; and this is the way I'll drink his health. Here's your health, Captain John Best.Roderick flings a glass of claret into his face. The nextmoment, he is under the table, tripped up by Harry, whohits him a violent cuff on the head; as he goes down, hehardly has time to hear the general screaming andscurrying that is taking place above him, being so fullyoccupied with kicks, and thumps and curses, with whichHarry is belaboring him. HARRY You fool! You great blundering marplot -- you silly beggarly brat -- (a thump at each) Hold your tongue!When Roderick gets up from under the table, the ladies areall gone; but he has the satisfaction of seeing thecaptain's nose is bleeding, as his is -- Best is cutacross the bridge, and his beauty spoiled forever. UNCLE In Heaven's name, what does all the row mean? Is the boy in fever again? HARRY (turning to his father) The fact is, sir, that the young monkey has fallen in love with Dorothy, and finding her and the captain mighty sweet in the garden today, he was for murdering Jack Best. CAPTAIN BEST (bristling up) And, I'll tell you what, Mr. Dugan, I've been insulted grossly in this house. I ain't at all satisfied with these here ways of going on. I'm an Englishman, I am, and a man of property; and I -- I -- HARRY If you're insulted, and not satisfied, remember there's two of us, Best.On which, the captain falls to washing his nose in water,and answering never a word. RODERICK (in dignified tone) Mr. Best may also have satisfaction any time he pleases, by calling on Roderick James, Esquire, of Jamesville.His uncle bursts out laughing, and in this laugh, CaptainGrogan joins. RODERICK Captain Grogan, I beg you to understand that, for my cousin Harry, who has been my best friend through life, I could put up with rough treatment from him; yet, even that sort of treatment I will bear from him no longer; and any other person who ventures on the like will not like the cost. Mr. Best knows that fact very well; and, if he's man, he'll know where to find me. UNCLE It is getting late, and your mother will be anxious about you. One of you had better go home with him. (turning to his sons) Or the lad may be playing more pranks. HARRY Both of us ride home with Best here. CAPTAIN BEST I'm not afraid of highwaymen. My man is armed, and so am I. HARRY You know the use of arms very well, Best, and no one can doubt your courage; but Michael and I will see you home for all that. UNCLE Why, you'll not be home till morning, boys. Kilwangan's a good ten miles from here. HARRY We'll sleep in Best's quarters. We're going to stop a week there. And, in another week, my boy.And here, Harry whispers something in the Captain's ear. CAPTAIN GROGAN I'll go home with the boy.EXT. ROAD - LATE DAYGrogan walks with Roderick. CAPTAIN GROGAN A pretty day's work of it you have made, Master Roderick. Knowing your uncle to be distressed for money, and try and break off a match which will bring fifteen hundred a-year into the family? Best has promised to pay off the four thousand pounds which is bothering your uncle so. He takes a girl without a penny -- a girl that has been flinging herself at the head of every man in these parts these ten years past, and missing them all, and a boy who ought to be attached to your uncle as to your father. RODERICK And so I am. CAPTAIN GROGAN And this is the return you make for his kindness! Didn't he harbor you in his house when your father died, and hasn't he given you and your mother, rent-free, your fine house of Jamesville yonder? RODERICK Mark this, come what will of it, I swear I will fight the man who pretends to the hand of Dorothy Dugan. I'll follow him if it's into the church, and meet him there. I'll have his blood, or he shall have mine. Will you take my message to him, and arrange the meeting? CAPTAIN GROGAN Well, if it must be, it must. For a young fellow, you are the most bloodthirsty I ever saw. No officer, bearing His Majesty's commission, can receive a glass of wine on his nose, without resenting it -- fight you must, and Best is a huge, strong fellow. RODERICK He'll give the better mark. I am not afraid of him. CAPTAIN GROGAN In faith, I believe you are not; for a lad I never saw more game in my life. Give me a kiss, my dear boy. You're after my own soul. As long as Jack Grogan lives, you shall never want a friend or a second.They embrace. RODERICK (V.O.) Poor fellow! He was shot six months afterwards, at Minden, and I lost thereby a kind friend. But we don't know what is in store for us, and that's a blessing.EXT. HOUSE - LATE DAYMother greeting Roderick and Captain Grogan. RODERICK (V.O.) In spite of my precautions to secrecy, I half-suspected that my mother knew all from the manner in which she embraced me on my arrival, and received our guest, Captain Grogan.His mother looks a little anxious and flushed and, everynow and then, gazes very hard into the Captain's face. RODERICK (V.O.) But she would not say a word about the quarrel, for she had a noble spirit, and would as lief have seen any one of her kindred hanged as shirking from the field of honor.INT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - RODERICK'S BEDROOM - DAYRoderick waking up. RODERICK (V.O.) I never slept sounder in my life, though I woke a little earlier than usual, and you may be sure my first thought was of the event of the day, for which I was fully prepared.Roderick at table with paper and ink. RODERICK (V.O.) And now I sat down and wrote a couple of letters; they might be the last, thought I, that I should ever write in my life.See him write: "Dearest Mother."INT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - KITCHEN - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) Then I went down to breakfast, where my mother was waiting for me, you may be sure. We did not say a single word about what was taking place.Roderick eats his breakfast with a good appetite; but inhelping himself to salt, spills it, on which his motherstarts up with a scream. MOTHER Thank God, it's fallen towards me!And then, her heart being too full, she leaves the room. RODERICK (V.O.) Ah! They have their faults, those mothers; but are there any other women like them?There is an elegant, silver-mounted sword that hangs onthe mantelpiece under the picture of Roderick's latefather.A pair of pistols hang on each side of the picture.Roderick takes down the sword and pistols, which arebright and well-oiled, and collects flints, balls andgunpowder.EXT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAYCaptain Grogan and Orderly arrive. RODERICK Have you taken my message to him? CAPTAIN GROGAN The meeting is arranged. Captain Best is waiting for you now. RODERICK My mare is saddled and ready; who's the captain's second? CAPTAIN GROGAN Your cousins go out with him.Roderick and Grogan, and the Orderly ride off. RODERICK (V.O.) I didn't take leave of Mrs. James. The curtains of her bedroom-windows were down, and they didn't move as we mounted and trotted off.EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAYThey ride their horses at a leisurely pace. CAPTAIN GROGAN That's a very handsome sword you have there. RODERICK It was with this sword that my late father, Harry James, God rest his soul, met Sir Huddelstone Fuddelstone, the Hampshire baronet, and was fatally run through the neck. He was quite in the wrong, having insulted Lady Fuddelstone, when in liquor, at the Brentford Assembly. But, like a gentleman, he scorned to apologize. CAPTAIN GROGAN And now you risk the same fate. If you are killed, your mother is all alone in the world. RODERICK I am Harry James' son, and will act as becomes my name and quality.EXT. FOREST CLEARING - DAYHarry, Michael and the Captain are already there. Best,flaming in red regimentals, a big a monster as ever led agrenadier company. The party are laughing together. RODERICK (to Captain Grogan) I hope to spoil this sport, and trust to see this sword of mine in that big bully's body. CAPTAIN GROGAN Oh, it's with pistols we fight. You are no match for Best with the sword. RODERICK I'll match any man with the sword. CAPTAIN GROGAN But swords are today impossible; Captain Best is -- is lame. He knocked his knee against the swinging park gate last night, as he was riding home, and can scarce move it now. RODERICK Not against Castle Dugan gate, that has been off the hinges these ten years. CAPTAIN GROGAN It must have been some other gate.They alight from their horses, and join and salute theother gentlemen. CAPTAIN GROGAN I have just explained to Mister James that Captain Best is lame, and that swords are impossible. HARRY Oh, yes! Dead lame.Harry comes up to shake Roderick by the hand, whileCaptain Best takes off his hat, and turns extremely red. HARRY And very lucky for you, Roderick, my boy. You were a dead man else, for he is a devil of a fellow -- isn't he, Grogan? CAPTAIN GROGAN A regular Turk. I never yet knew the man who stood to Captain Best. HARRY Hang the business. I hate it. I'm ashamed of it. Say you're sorry, Roderick. You can easily say that. CAPTAIN BEST If the young feller will go to Dublin, as proposed... RODERICK I'm not sorry -- I'll not apologize -- and I'll as soon go to Dublin as to hell!Grogan takes him aside. CAPTAIN GROGAN Look here, Roderick, my boy; this is silly business. The girl will marry Best, mark my words; and as sure as she does, you'll forget her. You are but a boy. Best is willing to consider you as such. Dublin's a fine place, and if you have a mind to take a ride thither and see the town for a month, here are twenty guineas at your service. Make Best an apology, and be off. RODERICK A man of honor dies, but never apologizes. I'll see the captain hanged before I apologize. HARRY (with a laugh to Grogan) There's nothing else for it. Take your ground, Grogan -- twelve paces, I suppose? CAPTAIN BEST (in a big voice) Ten, sir, and make them short ones, do you hear, Captain Grogan? HARRY Don't bully, Mr. Best. Here are the pistols. (with some emotion to Roderick) God bless you, my boy; and when I count three, fire. RODERICK This is not one of my pistols. HARRY They are all right, never fear. It's one of mine. Yours will serve, if they are needed, for the next round. CAPTAIN GROGAN Roderick, fire at his neck -- hit him there under the gorget; see how the fool shows himself open.Michael, who has not spoken a word, Harry, and the Captainretire to one side, and Harry gives the signal.It is slowly given, and Roderick has the leisure to coverhis man well.Captain Best changes color and trembles as the numbers aregiven.At "three" both pistols go off. Best gives a mosthorrible groan, staggers backwards and falls. THE SECONDS (crying out) He's down! He's down!Running towards him, Harry lifts him up -- Michael takeshis head. MICHAEL He's hit here, in the neck.Laying open his coat, blood is seen gurgling from underhis gorget. HARRY How is it with you?The unfortunate man does not answer, but when the supportof Harry's arm is withdrawn from his back, groans oncemore and falls backwards. MICHAEL (with a scowl) The young fellow has begun well. You had better ride off, young sir, before the police are up. They had wind of the business before we left Kilwangan. RODERICK Is he quite dead? MICHAEL Quite dead. CAPTAIN GROGAN Then the world's rid of a coward. It's all over with him, Roddy -- he doesn't stir.He gives the huge prostrate body a scornful kick with hisfoot. HARRY We are not cowards, Grogan, whatever he was! Let's get the boy off as quick as we may. Your man shall go for a cart, and take away the body of this unhappy gentleman. This has been a sad day's work for our family, Roderick James, and you have robbed us of fifteen-hundred a-year. RODERICK It was Dorothy did it.Roderick takes the ribbons she gave him out of hiswaistcoat, and the letter, and flings them down on thebody of Captain Best. RODERICK There! Take her those ribbons. She'll know what they mean; that's all that's left of her of two lovers she had and ruined. MICHAEL And now, in Heaven's name, get the youngster out of the way. HARRY I'll go with you.They mount up and gallop off.EXT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAYUpon seeing Roderick and Harry ride up, his mother, whohas been waiting outside, rushes to her son with wildscreams of joy. He dismounts, and she kisses and embraceshim. RODERICK (V.O.) I need not tell you how great was my mother's pride and exultation when she heard from Harry's lips the account of my behavior at the duel.INT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - PARLOR - DAYStill much excitement and hustle and bustle. HARRY The boy must go into hiding, for a short time anyway. Dublin is the best place for him to go, and there wait until matters are blown over. MOTHER Dublin? But the poor lad has never been away from home. He will be as safe here as in Dublin. HARRY I wish that were true, Auntie dear, but I'm afraid the bailiffs may already be on their way from Kilwangan.INT. RODERICK'S BEDROOM - DAYHis mother is rushing about and packing a valise. Harrysits on the bed. RODERICK (V.O.) Harry persisted in the necessity of instant departure, in which argument, as I was anxious to see the world, I must confess, I sided with him; and my mother was brought to see that, in our small house, in the midst of a village, escape would be impossible, and capture would be impossible to avoid.INT. MOTHER'S BEDROOM - DAYHis mother takes out a stocking from her escritoire, andgives Roderick twenty golden guineas. MOTHER (gravely) Roderick, my darling, my wild boy, I have forebodings that our separation is to be a long one. I spent most of all night consulting the cards regarding your fate in the duel, and all signs betoke a separation. Here is twenty guineas -- all that I have in the world -- and I want you to keep your father's sword and pistols, which you have known to use so like a man.EXT. MOTHER'S HOUSE - DAYRoderick's departure. RODERICK (V.O.) She hurried my departure now, though her heart, I know, was full, and almost in half-an-hour from my arrival at home, I was once more on the road again, with the wide world, as it were, before me.Roderick waves. His mother cries.EXT. HIGH ROAD TO DUBLIN - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) No lad of seventeen is very sad who has liberty for the first time, and twenty guineas in his pocket; and I rode away, thinking, I confess, not so much of the kind of mother left alone, and of the home behind me, as of tomorrow, and all the wonders it would bring.Roderick happily riding down the road. RODERICK (V.O.) I had no doubts of the future; thinking that a man of my person, parts, and courage, could make his way anywhere. So I rode on, singing to myself, or chatting with the passersby; and all the girls along the road said, "God save me, for a clever gentleman."Farm girls in the fields flirting with him. RODERICK (V.O.) As for thoughts of Dorothy Dugan, there seemed to be a gap of a half- a-score of years.EXT. ROAD TO DUBLIN - DAYA well-armed gentleman dressed in green, and a gold cord,with a patch on his eye, and riding a powerful mare, putshis horse alongside. ARMED GENTLEMAN Good day to you, young sir. RODERICK Good morning. ARMED GENTLEMAN Where are you bound for? RODERICK (after a long look at his companion) That is none of your business. ARMED GENTLEMAN Is your mother not afraid on account of the highwayman to let one so young as you travel? RODERICK (pulling out a pistol) Not at all, sir. I have a pair of good pistols that have already done execution, and are ready to do it again.At this, a pock-marked man coming up, the well-armedgentleman spurs into his bay mare, and leaves Roderick.EXT. ROAD TO DUBLIN - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) A little later on, as I rode towards Kilcullen, I saw a crowd of peasant people assembled round a one-horse chair, and my friend in green, as I thought, making off half-a-mile up the hill.A footman howls, at the top of his voice. FOOTMAN Stop thief!But the country fellows only laugh at his distress, andmake all sorts of jokes at the adventure which had justbefallen. COUNTRY FELLOW #1 Sure, you might have kept him off with your blunderbush! COUNTRY FELLOW #2 O the coward! To let the Captain bate you, and he only one eye! COUNTRY FELLOW #3 The next time my lady travels, she'd better leave you at home! RODERICK What is this noise, fellows?Roderick rides up amongst them, and seeing the lady in thecarriage, very pale and frightened, gives a slash of hiswhip, and bids the red-shanked ruffians keep off.Pulling off his hat, and bringing his mare up in a pranceto the chair-window. RODERICK What has happened, madam, to annoy your ladyship? MRS. O'REILLY Oh, I am grateful to you, sir. I am the wife of Captain O'Reilly hastening to join him at Dublin. My chair was stopped by a highwayman; this great oaf of a servant-man fell down on his knees, armed as he was, and though there were thirty people in the next field, working, when the ruffian attacked, not one of them would help but, on the contrary, wished him "good luck." COUNTRY FELLOW #1 Sure, he's the friend of the poor, and good luck to him. COUNTRY FELLOW #2 Was it any business of ours? RODERICK (shouting) Be off to your work, you pack of rascals, or you will have a good taste of my thong. (to Mrs. O'Reilly) Have you lost much? MRS. O'REILLY Everything -- my purse, containing upwards of a hundred guineas, my jewels, my snuff-boxes, watches. And all because this blundering coward fell to his knees... FOOTMAN Be fair, ma'am, them wasn't so much. Didn't he return you the thirteen pence in copper, and the watch, saying it was only pinchbeck? MRS. O'REILLY Don't be insolent, or I'll report you to the Captain. FOOTMAN Sorry, ma'am.He shuffles a few steps away and frowns in the directionthat the Captain has vanished. MRS. O'REILLY That fool didn't know what was the meaning of a hundred-pound bill, which was in the pocket-book that the fellow took from me. RODERICK I am riding to Dublin myself, and if your ladyship will allow me the honor of riding with you, I shall do my best to protect you from further mishap. MRS. O'REILLY But I shouldn't like to put you to such trouble, Mister...? RODERICK O'Higgins... Mohawk O'Higgins.EXT. ROADSIDE INN - DAYThey stop at the inn. RODERICK (very gallantly) As you have been robbed of your purse, may I have permission to lend your ladyship a couple of pieces to pay any expenses which you might incur before reaching your home? MRS. O'REILLY (smiling) That's very kind of you, Mr. O'Higgins.He gives her two gold pieces.INT. INN - DAYRoderick and Mrs. O'Reilly finishing their meal.We will hear dialogue underneath Roderick's voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) How different was her lively rattle to the vulgar wenches at Kilwangan assemblies. In every sentence, she mentioned a lord or a person of quality. To the lady's question about my birth and parentage, I replied that I was a young gentleman of large fortune, that I was going to Dublin for my studies, and that my mother allowed me five hundred per annum. MRS. O'REILLY You must be very cautious with regard to the company you should meet in Dublin, where rogues and adventurers of all countries abound. I hope you will do me the honor of accepting lodgings in my own house, where Captain O'Reilly will welcome with delight, my gallant young preserver.Paying the bill. RODERICK (V.O.) Perhaps had I been a little older in the world's experience, I should have begun to see that Madame O'Reilly was not the person of fashion she pretended to be; but, as it was, I took all her stories for truth, and, when the landlord brought the bill for dinner, paid it with the air of a lord. Indeed, she made no motion to produce the two pieces I had lent her.EXT. DUBLIN - STREET - NIGHTThey ride by. RODERICK (V.O.) And so we rode on slowly towards Dublin, into which city we made our entrance at nightfall. The rattle and splendor of the coaches, the flare of the linkboys, the number and magnificence of the houses, struck me with the greatest wonder; though I was careful to disguise this feeling.EXT. O'REILLY HOUSE - DUBLIN - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) We stopped at length at a house of rather mean appearance, and were let into a passage which had a great smell of supper and punch.INT. O'REILLY HOUSE - DINING ROOM - NIGHTCaptain O'Reilly, a stout red-faced man, without aperiwig, and in a rather tattered nightgown and cap.Roderick and Mrs. O'Reilly. CAPTAIN O'REILLY Mr. O'Higgins, I cannot say how grateful I am for your timely assistance to my wife. RODERICK I am only sorry that I was unable to prevent the villain from carrying off all her ladyship's money and pearls. CAPTAIN O'REILLY Mr. O'Higgins, we are in your debt, and rest assured, sir, you have friends in this house whenever you are in Dublin. (pours a glass) Mister O'Higgins, I wonder if I know your good father? RODERICK Which O'Higgins do you know? For I have never heard your name mentioned in my family. CAPTAIN O'REILLY Oh, I am thinking of the O'Higgins of Redmondstown. General O'Higgins was a close friend of my wife's dear father, Colonel Granby Somerset. RODERICK Ah -- I see. No, I'm afraid mine are the O'Higgins of Watertown. CAPTAIN O'REILLY I have heard of them.There are relics of some mutton-chops and onions on acracked dish before them. CAPTAIN O'REILLY My love, I wish I had known of your coming, for Bob Moriaty and I just finished the most delicious venison pasty, which His Grace the Lord Lieutenant, sent us, with a flash of sillery from his own cellar. You know the wine, my dear? But as bygones are bygones, and no help for them, what say ye to a fine lobster and a bottle of as good claret as any in Ireland? Betty, clear these things from the table, and make the mistress and our young friend welcome to our home.Captain O'Reilly searches his pockets for some money togive to Betty. CAPTAIN O'REILLY I'm sorry, Mr. O'Higgins, but I don't seem to have any small change. May I borrow a ten-penny piece to give to the girl? MRS. O'REILLY I have some money, my dear. Here, Betty, go to the fishmonger and bring back our supper, and mind you get the right change.She takes out one of the golden guineas Roderick gave toher.INT. DINNING ROOM - LATERThey are eating. RODERICK (V.O.) Our supper was seasoned, if not by any great elegance, at least by a plentiful store of anecdotes, concerning the highest personages of the city, with whom, according to himself, the captain lived on terms of the utmost intimacy. Not to be behind hand with him, I spoke of my own estates and property as if I was as rich as a duke.INT. O'REILLY HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHTThe couple wishing Roderick goodnight. RODERICK (V.O.) Had I been an English lad, the appearance of the chamber I occupied might, indeed, have aroused instantly my suspicion and distrust. But we are not particular in Ireland on the score of neatness, hence the disorder of my bed-chamber did not strike me so much.Broken door. RODERICK (V.O.) Was there a lock to the door, or a hasp to fasten it to?Dress lying over bed. RODERICK (V.O.) Though my counterpane was evidently a greased brocade dress of Mrs. O'Reilly.Cracked mirror. RODERICK (V.O.) And my cracked toilet-glass not much bigger than a half-crown, yet I was used to these sort of ways in Irish houses, and still thought myself to be in that of a man of fashion.Drawers, full of junk. RODERICK (V.O.) There was no lock to the drawers, which, when they did open, were full of my hostess' rouge-pots, shoes, stays, and rags.INT. BEDROOM - O'REILLY HOUSE - NIGHTIn the middle of the night, Mrs. O'Reilly comes toRoderick's room on a flimsy pretext, and in the course ofevents, he has his first woman.INT. COACH - DAYRoderick, Captain and Mrs. O'Reilly. CAPTAIN O'REILLY I needn't ask whether you had a comfortable bed. Young Fred Pimpleton slept in it for seven months, during which he did me the honor to stay with me, and if he was satisfied, I don't know who else wouldn't be.EXT. PROMENADE - PHOENIX PARK - DAYRoderick, Captain and Mrs. O'Reilly, their friends.Various cuts. RODERICK (V.O.) After breakfast, we drove out to Phoenix Park, where numbers of the young gentry were known to Mrs. O'Reilly, to all of whom she presented me in such a complimentary way that, before half an hour, I had got to be considered as a gentleman of great expectations and large property.INT. O'REILLY HOUSE - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) I had little notion then that I had got amongst a set of impostors -- that Captain O'Reilly was only an adventurer, and his lady a person of no credit. The fact was, a young man could hardly have fallen into worse hands than those in which I now found myself.An evening of gambling. RODERICK (V.O.) Their friends were always welcome on payment of a certain moderate sum for their dinner after which, you may be sure, that cards were not wanting, and that the company who played did not play for love merely.Various cuts of the characters present. RODERICK (V.O.) What could happen to a man but misfortune from associating with such company? And in a very, very short time I became their prey.Roderick loses two hundred guineas to Captain O'Reilly ina single hand.We see Captain O'Reilly cheat, but Roderick does not.He pays him the 18 gold guineas, remaining from the sumhis mother gave him. RODERICK I shall have to write out a note for the rest of it, Captain O'Reilly.EXT. STREET - OUTSIDE O'REILLY HOUSE - DAWNRoderick exits to the street. The sound of the gamblingcan still be heard in the street. He is soon joined byCouncillor Mulligan. COUNCILLOR MULLIGAN Master Roderick, you appear a young fellow of birth and fortune; let me whisper in your ear that you have fallen into very bad hands -- it's a regular gang of swindlers; and a gentleman of your rank and quality should never be seen in such company. The captain has been a gentleman's gentleman, and his lady of no higher rank. Go home, pack your valise, pay the little trifle you owe me, mount your mare, and ride back again to your parents -- it's the very best thing you can do.Roderick does not reply, and walks slowly away from himdown the street.INT. O'REILLY HOUSE - RODERICK'S BEDROOM - EARLY MORNINGRoderick enters. RODERICK (V.O.) Into a pretty nest of villains, indeed, was I plunged! When I returned to my bed-chamber, a few hours later, it seemed as if all my misfortunes were to break on me at once.Valise open, wardrobe lying on the ground, and Roderick'skeys in the possession of O'Reilly and his wife. CAPTAIN O'REILLY Whom have I been harboring in my house? Who are you, sirrah? RODERICK Sirrah! Sirrah, I am as good a gentleman as any in Ireland! CAPTAIN O'REILLY You're an impostor, young man, a schemer, a deceiver! RODERICK Repeat the words again, and I run you through the body. CAPTAIN O'REILLY Tut, tut! I can play at fencing as well as you, Mr. Roderick James. Ah! You change color, do you? Your secret is known, is it? You come like a viper into the bosom of innocent families; you represent yourself as the heir to my friends the O'Higgins of Castle O'Higgins; I introduce you to the nobility and gentry of this methropolis; I take you to my tradesmen, who give you credit. I accept your note for near two hundred pounds, and what do I find? A fraud.He holds up the name, Roderick James, printed on thelinen. CAPTAIN O'REILLY Not Master O'Higgins of Watertown, but Roderick James of the devil only knows where...Captain O'Reilly gathers up the linen clothes, silvertoilet articles, and the rest of Roderick's gear. RODERICK Hark ye, Mr. O'Reilly, I will tell you why I was obliged to alter my name, which is James and the best name in Ireland. I changed it, sir, because, on the day before I came to Dublin, I killed a man in deadly combat -- an Englishman, sir, and a Captain in His Majesty's service; and if you offer to let or hinder me in the slightest way, the same arm which destroyed him is ready to punish you.So saying, Roderick draws his sword like lightning, andgiving a "ha, ha!" and a stamp with his foot, lunges itwithin an inch of O'Reilly's heart, who starts back andturns deadly pale, while his wife, with a scream, flingsherself between them. MRS. O'REILLY Dearest Roderick -- be pacified. O'Reilly, you don't want the poor child's blood. Let him escape -- in Heaven's name, let him go. CAPTAIN O'REILLY (sulkily) He may go hang for me, and he's better be off quickly, for I shall go to the magistrate if I see him again.O'Reilly exits. His wife sits down on the bed and beginsto cry.EXT. DUBLIN STREET - DAYRoderick riding down the street, with his valise. RODERICK (V.O.) Where was now a home for the descendant of the James? I was expelled from Dublin by a persecution occasioned, I must confess, by my own imprudence. I had no time to wait and choose. No place of refuge to fly to.INT. ALE HOUSE - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) There was a score of recruiting parties in the town beating up for men to join our gallant armies in America and Germany.Roderick approaches a Captain and a Sergeant, who quicklymake him welcome. RODERICK I will tell you frankly, sir. I am a young gentleman in difficulties; I have killed an officer in a duel, and I am anxious to get out of the country. RODERICK (V.O.) But I needn't have troubled myself with any explanations; King George was in too much want of men to heed from whence they came -- and a fellow of my inches was always welcome. Indeed, I could not have chosen my time better. A transport was lying at Dunleary, waiting for a wind.EXT. BRITISH WARSHIP AT SEA - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) I never had a taste for any thing but genteel company, and hate all descriptions of low life. Hence my account of the society in which I at present found myself must of necessity be short. The reminiscences of the horrid black- hole of a place in which we soldiers were confined, of the wretched creatures with whom I was now forced to keep company, of the plowmen, poachers, pickpockets, who had taken refuge from poverty, or the law, as, in truth, I had done myself, is enough to make me ashamed even now.Roderick sits very disconsolately over a platter of rancidbacon and moldy biscuit, which is served to him at mess.When it comes to his turn to be helped to drink, he isserved, like the rest, with dirty tin noggin, containingsomewhat more than half a pint of rum and water. Thebeaker is so greasy and filthy that he cannot help turninground to the messman and saying: RODERICK Fellow, get me a glass!At which, all the wretches round him burst into a roar oflaughter, the very loudest among them being Mr. Toole, ared-haired monster of a man. MR. TOOLE Get the gentleman a towel for his hands, and serve him a basin of turtle-soup.Roars the monster, who is sitting, or rather squatting, onthe deck opposite him, and as he speaks, he suddenlyseizes Roderick's beaker of grog and empties it in midstof another burst of applause. LINK-BOY (whispers) If you want to vex him, ask him about his wife, the washerwoman, who bates him. RODERICK Is it a towel of your wife's washing, Mr. Toole? I'm told she wiped your face often with one. LINK-BOY (whispers) Ask him why he wouldn't see her yesterday, when she came to the ship. RODERICK (V.O.) And so I put to him some other foolish jokes about soapsuds, hen- pecking, and flat-irons, which set the man into a fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us.Roderick and Toole fight with cudgels. Roderick gives hima thump across his head which lays him lifeless on thefloor. RODERICK (V.O.) This victory over the cock of the vile dunghill obtained me respect among the wretches among whom I formed part.EXT. MILITARY DRILL FIELD - CUXHAVEN - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) Our passage was very favorable, and in two days we landed at Cuxhaven, and before I had been a month in the Electorate, I was transported into a tall and proper young soldier, and, having a natural aptitude for military exercise, was soon as accomplished at the drill as the oldest sergeant in the regiment.Various cuts.Roderick learning the soldierly arts, musket drill, manualof arms, bayonet, marching.EXT. MILITARY COURTYARD - CUXHAVEN - DAYThe Cuxhaven troops are drawn up to receive a newregiment, arrived from England.Roderick sees, marching at the head of his company, hisold friend, Captain Grogan, who gives him a wink. RODERICK (V.O.) Six weeks after we arrived in Cuxhaven, we were reinforced by Gales regiment of foot from England, and I promise you the sight of Grogan's face was most welcome to me, for it assured me that a friend was near me.INT. GROGAN'S QUARTERS - DAYRoderick and Grogan. RODERICK (V.O.) Grogan gave me a wink of recognition, but offered no public token of acquaintance and it was not until two days afterwards that he called me into his quarters, and then, shaking hands with me cordially, gave me news which I wanted, of my family. CAPTAIN GROGAN I had news of you in Dublin. Faith, you've begun early, like your father's son, but I think you could not do better than as you have done. But why did you not write home to your poor mother? She has sent half-a-dozen letters to you in Dublin. RODERICK I suppose she addressed them to me in my real name, by which I never thought to ask for them at the post office. CAPTAIN GROGAN We must write to her today, and you can tell her that you are safe and married to "Brown Bess."Roderick sighs when Grogan says the word "married," onwhich Grogan says with a laugh: CAPTAIN GROGAN I see you are thinking of a certain young lady at Duganstown. RODERICK Is Miss Dugan well? CAPTAIN GROGAN There's only six Miss Dugans now... poor Dorothy. RODERICK Good heavens! Whatever? Has she died of grief? CAPTAIN GROGAN She took on so at your going away that she was obliged to console herself with a husband. She is now Mrs. John Best. RODERICK Mrs. John Best! Was there another Mr. John Best?! CAPTAIN GROGAN No, the very same one, my boy. He recovered from his wound. The ball you hit him with was not likely to hurt him. It was only made of tow. Do you think the Dugans would let you kill fifteen hundred a-year out of the family? The plan of the duel was all arranged in order to get you out of the way, for the cowardly Englishman could never be brought to marry from fear of you. But hit him you certainly did, Roderick, and with a fine thick plugget of tow, and the fellow was so frightened that he was an hour in coming to. We told your mother the story afterwards, and a pretty scene she made. RODERICK The coward! CAPTAIN GROGAN He has paid off your uncle's mortgage. He gave Dorothy a coach- and-six. That coward of a fellow has been making of your uncle's family. Faith, the business was well done. Your cousins, Michael and Harry, never let him out of their sight, though he was for deserting to England, until the marriage was completed, and the happy couple off on their road to Dublin. Are you in want of cash, my boy? You may draw upon me, for I got a couple of hundred out of Master Best for my share and, while they last, you shall never want.EXT. VARIOUS LOCATIONS - BRITISH ON THE MARCH - DAYRoderick on the march. RODERICK (V.O.) Our regiment, which was quartered about Stade and Luneberg, speedily had got orders to march southwards towards the Rhine, where we would fight the famous battle of Minden. It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to explain the causes of the famous Seven Years' War in which Europe was engaged, and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a chapter than at the beginning, and so shall not trouble you with any personal disquisitions concerning the matter.Various cuts featuring Roderick; marching, cooking at openfires, gambling, resting in a farm yard, officers ridingby; shivering in his blanket.EXT. BATTLEFIELD OF MINDEN - BATTLE FRAGMENT - DAYRoderick and his company. RODERICK (V.O.) Were these memoirs not characterized by truth, I might easily make myself the hero of some strange and popular adventures.EXT. MINDEN - BATTLE FRAGMENTS - DAYOfficers ride by in smoke. Troops marching to the attack. RODERICK (V.O.) But I saw no one of the higher ranks that day than my colonel and a couple of orderly officers riding by in the smoke -- no one on our side, that is. A poor corporal is not generally invited into the company of commanders and the great.Roderick advancing. RODERICK (V.O.) But, in revenge, I saw, I promise you, some very good company on the French part, for their regiments of Lorraine and Royal Cravate were charging us all day; and in the sort of melee high and low are pretty equally received. I hate bragging, but I cannot help saying that I made a very close acquaintance with the colonel of the Cravates.Roderick firing his musket. He bayonets a French colonel,amidst shouts and curses. RODERICK (V.O.) And finished off a poor little ensign, so young, slender, and small, that a blow from my pigtail would have dispatched him.Roderick kills a French ensign with a blows from the buttof his musket. RODERICK (V.O.) And in the poor ensign's pocket found a purse of fourteen louis d'or, and a silver box of sugar- plums, of which the former present was very agreeable to me.Roderick taking money and the box of sugar-plums from theensign. RODERICK (V.O.) If people would tell their stories of battles in this simple way, I think the cause of truth would not suffer by it. All I know of this famous fight of Minden, except from books, is told here above.Captain Grogan is shot, cries out, and falls.A brother captain turns to Lieutenant Lakenham. CAPTAIN Grogan's down; Lakenham, there's your company. RODERICK (V.O.) That was all the epitaph my brave patron got.Roderick kneels above Grogan. CAPTAIN GROGAN I should have left you a hundred guineas, Roderick, but for a cursed run of ill-luck last night at faro.He gives Roderick a faint squeeze of the hand; and, as theword is given to advance, Roderick leaves him. RODERICK (V.O.) When we came back to our ground, which we presently did, he was lying still, but he was dead. Some of our people had already torn off his epaulets, and, no doubt, had rifled his purse.EXT. VARIOUS ROUGH RURAL LOCATIONS - DAYShort cuts to voice over.Roderick and British troops rape, pillage and burn. RODERICK (V.O.) After the death of my protector, Captain Grogan, I am forced to confess that I fell into the very worst of courses and company. In a foreign country, with the enemy before us, and the people continually under contribution from one side or the other, numberless irregularities were permitted to the troops. It is well for gentlemen to talk of the age of chivalry; but remember the starving brutes whom they lead -- men nursed in poverty, entirely ignorant, made to take pride in deeds of blood -- men who can have no amusement but in drunkenness, debauch, and plunder. It is with these shocking instruments that your great warriors and kings have been doing their murderous work in the world.EXT. BATTLEFIELD - WARBURG - BATTLE FRAGMENTS - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) The year in which George II died, our regiment had the honor to be present at the Battle of Warburg, where Prince Ferdinand once more completely defeated the Frenchmen.Lieutenant Lakenham is shot, falls, and cries for help. RODERICK (V.O.) During the action, my lieutenant, Mr. Lakenham, of Lakenham, was struck by a musket-ball in the side. He had shown no want of courage in this or any other occasion where he had been called upon to act against the French; but this was his first wound, and the young gentleman was exceedingly frightened by it. LAKENHAM Here, you, Roderick James. I will pay you five guineas if you will carry me into the town which is hard by those woods.Roderick and another man take him up in a cloak, and carryhim towards the nearby town of Warburg.EXT. A FARMHOUSE - GERMAN STREET - WARBURG - DAYIn order to get into the house, Roderick and the other manare obliged to fire into the locks with their pieces,which summons brings the inhabitants of the house to thedoor; a very pretty and black-eyed, young woman, and herold, half-blinded father.They are at first unwilling to accommodate the guest, butMr. Lakenham, speaking to them in German, and taking acouple of guineas out of a very full purse, speedilyconvinces the people that they have only to deal with aperson of honor.INT. WARBURG FARMHOUSE - BEDROOM - DAYThey carry Lieutenant Lakenham to bed and receive theirfive guineas. RODERICK (V.O.) We put the patient to bed, and he paid me the stipulated reward. A young surgeon, who desired nothing better than to take himself out of the fire of the musketry, came presently to dress the wound.In his German jargon, Roderick pays some deservedcompliments to the black-eyed beauty of Warburg, thinking,with no small envy, how comfortable it would be to bebilleted there.EXT. STREET - WARBURG - OUTSIDE THE FARMHOUSE - DAYHe starts back to the regiment, with his comrade, when theman interrupts his reverie by suggesting they divide thefive guineas. PRIVATE I should get half. RODERICK Your share is one guinea.Roderick gives him one guinea. PRIVATE He gave you five guineas, and I bloody well expect half. RODERICK Go to the devil.The private lifting his musket, hits Roderick a blow withthe butt-end of it, which sends him stunned to the ground,allowing his comrade to take the other four guineas fromhis pocket.Recovering his senses, Roderick bleeding, with a largewound in the head, has barely time to stagger back to thehouse where he had just left the lieutenant, when hefalls fainting at the door, just as the surgeon exits.INT. WARBURG FARMHOUSE - BEDROOM - DAYRoderick is carried by the surgeon and the black-eyedgirl, into another bed in the room where the Lieutenanthas been laid. LAKENHAM (languidly, in pain) Who are you putting into that bed? LISCHEN We have the Corporal, wounded, to you bringing. LAKENHAM A corporal? Turn him out. Schicken sie Herrn Koporal weg!INT. WARBURG FARMHOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT AND DAYLischen brings Roderick a refreshing drink; and, as hetakes it, he presses the kind hand that gave it to him;nor does this token of his gratitude seem unwelcome. RODERICK (V.O.) I found Lischen the tenderest of nurses. Whenever any delicacy was to be provided for the wounded lieutenant, a share was always sent to the bed opposite his, and to the avaricious man's no small annoyance.Lischen serving food.Various cuts, representing different days.Lakenham behaving as rottenly as Roderick describes: RODERICK (V.O.) Nor was I the only person in the house to whom the worthy gentleman was uncivil. He ordered the fair Lischen hither and thither, made impertinent love to her, abused her soups, quarreled with her omelettes, and grudged the money which was laid out for his maintenance, so that our hostess detested him as much as, I think, without vanity, as she regarded me.Roderick making lover to Lischen while Lieutenant Lakenhamsulks in the next bed. RODERICK (V.O.) For if truth must be told, I had made very deep love to her during my stay under her roof, as is always my way with women, of whatever age or degree of beauty. Do not think me very cruel and heartless, ladies; this heart of Lischen's was like many a town, which had been stormed and occupied several times before I came to invest it,Roderick sitting up in bed. Lischen has just served himhis supper.Enter a British officer, an aide who carries a notebook,and a surgeon. In a brief scene to be written, we learnthat a sudden movement on the part of the French requiresthe British army to follow them. The town is to beevacuated, except for some Prussian line-of-communicationtroops, whose surgeons are to visit the wounded in theplace; and, when they are well, they are to be drafted totheir regiments. RODERICK (V.O.) I began to reflect how pleasant my quarters were to me, and that I was much better here than crawling under an odious tent with a parcel of tipsy soldiers, or going the night- rounds, or rising long before daybreak for drill. I determined that I never would join mine again.EXT. VIEW OUT OF WARBURG FARMHOUSE WINDOW - DAYRoderick stands by the window, watching English troops andwagons leaving the town.INT. WARBURG FARMHOUSE - BEDROOM - DAYRoderick walks into Lakenham's room attired in his fullregimentals, and with his hat cocked over his left eye. RODERICK I'm promoted Lieutenant. I've come to take my leave of you. I intend to have your papers and purse. LAKENHAM You great scoundrel! You mutinous dog! What do you mean by dressing yourself in my regimentals? As sure as my name's Lakenham, when we get back to the regiment, I'll have your soul cut out of your body.With this, Roderick puts his hand under his pillow, atwhich Lakenham gives a scream that might have called thewhole garrison about his ears.Roderick threatens him with a knife at his throat. RODERICK Hark ye, sir! No more noise, or you are a dead man!Roderick, taking his handkerchief, binds it tight roundhis mouth, and, pulling forward the sleeves of his shirt,ties them in a knot together, and so leaves him, removingthe papers and the purse, and wishing him politely a goodday.EXT. WARBURG FARMHOUSE - STREET - DAYLischen, waiting outside the house, with a saddled horse,throws her arms around him, and makes the tenderest adieu.Roderick mounts his newly-purchased animal, waves his hatgallantly, and, prances away down the street.EXT. ROAD - DAYRoderick happily riding along a wooded country road,rounds a blind bend and sees suddenly before him, abouttwo hundred yards away, a company of Prussian infantryresting along the sides of the road, together with a dozenmounted dragoons.A quick calculation tells him that is is better to proceedthan to turn back, and he rides into their midst,approaching a group of officers.He presents himself as Lieutenant Lakenham and asks fordirections to join his regiment. He is told that he isriding in the wrong direction, and is shown a map.During the explanation, Captain Galgenstein approacheswith an open, smiling countenance, introduces himself, andsays he, too, is bound for the same place, and asks ifRoderick will honor him with his company.To avoid suspicion, Roderick readily accepts the offer,and the two men mount up, and ride off together.EXT. ROAD - GERMANY - DAYRoderick and Galgenstein riding together.Dialogue under voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) My companion treated me with great civility, and asked me a thousand questions about England, which I answered as best I might. But this best, I am bound to say, was bad enough. I knew nothing about England, and I invented a thousand stories which I told him; described the king and the ministers to him, said the British ambassador in Berlin was my uncle, and promised my acquaintance a letter of recommendation to him. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN What is your uncle's name? RODERICK (slowly) O'Grady. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN (with a laugh) Oh, yes, of course, Ambassador O'Grady...EXT. DESOLATE GERMAN ROAD - DAYRoderick and Captain Galgenstein. Their horses' headstogether, jogging on.They pass a party of recruits under the armed guard of ared-coated Hanoverian sergeant.He exchanges signs of recognition with CaptainGalgenstein. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN It hurts my feelings to be obliged to commune with such wretches, but the stern necessities of war demand men continually, and hence these recruiters whom you see market in human flesh. They get five-and- twenty thaler a man from our government for every man they bring in. For fine men -- for men like you. (he adds laughing) They would go as high as hundred.EXT. DESOLATE GERMAN INN - LATE AFTERNOONRoderick and Captain Galgenstein approach a very lonely-looking place. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN This is a very good inn. Shall we stop for dinner? RODERICK This may be a very good inn for Germany, but it would not pass in old Ireland. Corbach is only a league off, let us push on for Corbach. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Do you want to see the loveliest woman in Europe?Roderick smiles. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Ah! You sly rogue, I see that will influence you. RODERICK The place seems more a farm than an inn-yard. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN The people are great farmers, as well as inn-keepers.They enter by a great gate into a court, walled round, andat on end of which is the building, a dingy ruinous place.A couple of covered wagons are in the courtyard; theirhorses are littered under a shed hard by.Lounging about the place are some men, and a pair ofsergeants in the Prussian uniform, who both touch theirhats to the captain.The inn has something foreboding about it, and the menshut the great yard-gates as soon as they enter. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN (explaining the gate) Parties of French horsemen are about the country, and one cannot take too many precautions against such villains.The two sergeant take charge of the horses; the captainorders one of them to take Roderick's valise to hisbedroom.Roderick promises the sergeant a glass of schnapps for hispains.They enter into supper.INT. GERMAN INN - LATE AFTERNOONA dish of fried eggs and bacon is ordered from a hideousold wench that comes to serve them, in place of the lovelycreature which had been expected; and the captain,laughing, says: CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Well, our meal is a frugal one, but a soldier has many a time a worse.Taking off his hat, sword-belt, and gloves, with greatceremony, Galgenstein sits down to eat. Roderick puts hisweapons securely on the old chest of drawers where thecaptain's is laid.The hideous old woman brings in a pot of very sour wine,at which, and at her ugliness, Roderick feels aconsiderable ill-humor. RODERICK (when she leaves) Where's the beauty you promised me? CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN (laughing and looking hard at Roderick) It was my joke. I was tired, and did not care to go farther. There's not prettier woman here than that. If she won't suit your fancy, my friend, then you must wait awhile.This increases Roderick's ill-humor. RODERICK (sternly) Upon my word, sir, I think you have acted very coolly. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN I have acted as I think fit. RODERICK Sir, I'm a British officer. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN It's a lie! You're a deserter! You're an impostor, sir; Your lies and folly have confirmed this to me. You pretend to carry dispatches to a general who has been dead these ten months; you have an uncle who is an ambassador and whose name you don't know. Will you join and take the bounty, sir, or will you be given up? RODERICK Neither!Springing at him like a tiger.But, agile as he is, Galgenstein is equally on his guard.He takes two pistols out of his pockets, fires one off,and says, from the other end of the table where he standsdodging Roderick, as it were. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Advance a step, and I send this bullet into your brains!The door is flung open, and the two sergeants enter, armedwith musket and bayonet to aid their captain.The game is up. Roderick flings down a knife with whichhe had armed himself, for the old hag, on bringing in thewine, had removed his sword. RODERICK I volunteer.EXT. A ROAD - DAYPrussian troops on the march. Roderick is now one ofthem.Captain Galgenstein rides by. RODERICK (V.O.) At the close of the Seven Years' War, the Prussian army, so renowned for its disciplined valor, was officered and under-officered by native Prussians, it is true, but was composed for the most part of men hired or stolen, like myself, from almost every nation in Europe. The deserting to and fro was prodigious.EXT. A FIELD - DAYPrussian punishment gauntlet. RODERICK (V.O.) The life the private soldier led was a frightful one to any but the men of iron courage and endurance. The punishment was incessant.EXT. VARIOUS RURAL LOCATIONS - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) I was not near so unhappy, in spite of all, as I had been on my first enlisting in Ireland. At least, there will be no one of my acquaintance who will witness my shame, and that is the point which I have always cared for most.Rape, pillage and burn.Brief thematic repeat of British army version. RODERICK (V.O.) I reasoned with myself thus: "Now you are caught, there is no use in repining -- make the best of your situation, and get all the pleasure you can out of it. There are a thousand opportunities of plunder, offered to the soldier in war time, out of which he can get both pleasure and profit; make use of these, and be happy."EXT. BATTLEFIELD - FRAGMENTPrussians against Austrians, or French, or Saxons.Roderick fighting. RODERICK (V.O.) I do not intend to make a history of battles in the Prussian any more than in the English service. I did my duty in them as well as another, and there was not a braver, cleverer, handsomer, and, I must own, wickeder soldier in the Prussian army.EXT. BATTLEFIELD - ACTION - DAY RODERICK I had formed myself to the condition of the proper fighting beast; on a day of action, I was savage and happy.Roderick saves Captain Galgenstein's life.EXT. FIELD - DAYRoderick is decorated by Colonel Bulow for his heroism insaving Captain Galgenstein.Colonel Bulow gives Roderick two Frederic d'or in front ofthe regiment. COLONEL BULOW You are a gallant soldier, and have evidently come of good stock; but you are idle, dissolute, and unprincipled; you have done a deal of harm to the men; and, for all your talents and bravery, I am sure you will come to no good. RODERICK I hope Colonel Bulow is mistaken regarding my character. I have fallen into bad company, it is true; but I have only done as other soldiers have done; and, above all, I have never had a kind friend and protector before, to whom I might show that I was worthy of better things. The Colonel may say I am a ruined lad, and send me to the devil; but be sure of this, I would go to the devil to serve the regiment.Captain Galgenstein looks pleased with Roderick'sperformance.BERLIN - 1763 RODERICK (V.O.) Soon after the war ended, our regiment was garrisoned in the capital, the least dull, perhaps, of all the towns of Prussia; but that does not say much for its gaiety.INT. ANTE-ROOM - CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN'S OFFICE - DAYRoderick enters and approaches the Captain's sergeant. RODERICK Private Roderick James. First Hanoverian Guards. Captain Galgenstein sent for me. PRUSSIAN SERGEANT You may wait. RODERICK Thank you, sir.Roderick stands stiffly. We can make out the sound ofloud talking behind the closed door.Enter a private huffing and puffing. PRIVATE Sergeant, the wagon has arrived with the Captain's furniture, but the driver says he is not supposed to unload it. Is it possible for you to talk to him?Exit the sergeant, muttering. Roderick, now alone in theoffice, walks closer to the door so that he can hear whatis being said. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN (O.S.) Give him his discharge! Bon Dieu! You are a model of probity! You'll never succeed to my place, my dear nephew, if you are no wiser than you are just now. Make the fellow as useful to you as you please. You say he has a good manner and a frank countenance, that he can lie with assurance, and fight, you say, on a pinch. The scoundrel does not want for good qualities. As long as you have the regiment in terrorem over him, you can do as you like with him. Once let him loose, and the lad is likely to give you the slip. Keep on promising him; promise to make him a general, if you like. What the deuce do I care? There are spies enough to be had in this town without him.Roderick hears the sergeant returning and walks back tothe door.Then the office door opens, Captain Galgenstein looks out,sees Roderick, smiles and say: CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Good morning, Private James. Please come in. I should like you to meet my uncle, Herr Minister of Police Galgenstein. RODERICK How do you do, sir?The Minister nods. RODERICK (V.O.) The captain was the nephew and heir of the Minister of Police, Herr Galgenstein, a relationship which, no doubt, aided in the younger gentlemen's promotion. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Your loyalty to me and your service to the regiment has pleased me very well -- and now there is another occasion on which you may make yourself useful to us; if you succeed, depend on it, your reward will be your discharge from the army, and a bounty of 100 guineas. RODERICK What is the service, sir? CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN There is lately come to Berlin a gentleman in the service of the Empress Queen, who calls himself the Chevalier de Belle Fast, and wears the red riband and star of the pope's order of the Spur. He is made for good society, polished, obliging, a libertine, without prejudices, fond of women, of good food, of high play, prudent and discreet.The Captain smiles at Roderick. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN He speaks Italian and French indifferently; but we have some reason to fancy this Monsieur de Belle Fast is a native of your country of Ireland, and that he has come here as a spy.The Captain rises and begins to pace back and forth. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Naturally, your knowledge of English makes you an ideal choice to go into his service. Of course, you will not know a word of English; and if the Chevalier asks as to the particularity of your accent, say you are Hungarian. The servant who came with him will be turned away today, and the person to whom he has applied for a faithful fellow will recommend you.Roderick nods. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN You are a Hungarian; you served in the army, and left on account of weakness in the loins. He gambles a great deal, and wins. Do you know the cards well? RODERICK Only a very little, as soldiers do. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN I had thought you more expert. You must find out if the Chevalier cheats. He sees the English and Austrian envoys continually, and the young men of either ministry sup repeatedly at his house. Find out what they talk of, for how much each plays, especially if any of them play on parole. If you are able to, read his private letters, though about those which go to the post, you need not trouble yourself -- we look at them there. But never see him write a note without finding out to whom it goes, and by what channel or messenger. He sleeps with the keys of his dispatch-box with a string around his neck -- twenty frederics, if you get an impression of the keys. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN Does this assignment interest you? RODERICK Yes, Minister, I am interested in any work in which I can be of service to Captain Galgenstein.The Minister studies Roderick, coldly.EXT. CHEVALIER DE BELLE FAST'S HOUSE - BERLIN - DAYRoderick, now dressed in civilian clothes, admires abeautiful carriage, waiting at the door. Then he enters.INT. CHEVALIER DE BELLE FAST'S APARTMENT - DAY CHEVALIER You are the young man who M. de Seebach recommended? RODERICK Yes, sir. Here is my letter.Roderick bows, and hands him a letter from that gentleman,with which the Captain had taken care to provide him.As the Chevalier reads the letter, Roderick has theleisure to examine him.He is a man of sixty years of age, dressed superbly,wearing rings, diamonds and laces.One of his eyes is closed with a black patch, and he wearsa little white and red paint, and a pair of moustachios,which fall over his lip.The Chevalier is seated at a table near the window to readthe letter. CHEVALIER Your name is Lazlo Zilagyi? RODERICK Yes, sir. CHEVALIER You come highly recommended by Herr Seebach. RODERICK Herr Seebach was a very kind employer. CHEVALIER For whom else have you worked? RODERICK No one, sir. Before that I served in the army but had to leave due to weakness of the loins. CHEVALIER Who else can give me information about you? RODERICK Only the agency of servants.The Chevalier puts the letter down, looks at Roderick fora few seconds, and then smiles. CHEVALIER You will do. I will give you 30... a day. I do not provide your clothing; you will sleep at home, and you will be at my orders every morning at seven o'clock.He notices Roderick begin to tremble and look peculiar. CHEVALIER Is there something wrong?He goes up to Roderick. RODERICK (V.O.) It was very imprudent of me; but when I saw the splendor of his appearance, the nobleness of his manner, I felt it impossible to keep disguise with him. You, who have never been out of your country know little what it is to hear a friendly voice in captivity; and there's a many a man that will understand the cause of the burst of feeling which was about to take place.The Chevalier takes Roderick by the shoulder. RODERICK (as he speaks, bursting into tears) Sir, I have a confession to make. I am an Irishman, and my name is Roderick James. I was abducted into the Prussian army two years ago, and now I have been put into your service by my Captain and his uncle, the Minister of Police, to serve as a watch upon your actions, of which I am to give information to the same quarter. For this odious service, I have been promised my discharge, and a hundred guineas.Sobbing, Roderick falls into his arms. CHEVALIER The rascals! They think to catch me, do they? Why, young man, my chief conspiracy is a faro-bank. But the king is so jealous, that he will see a spy in every person who comes to his miserable capital, in the great sandy desert here.EXT. BERLIN - PARK - DAYRoderick and the Chevalier walking. RODERICK (V.O.) And I think he was as much affected as I was at thus finding one of his kindred; for he, too, was an exile from home, and a friendly voice, a look, brought the old country back to his memory again, and the old days of his boyhood. CHEVALIER I'd give five years of my life to see the old country again, the greenfields, and the river, and the old round tower, and the burying place.EXT. BERLIN - STREET - DAYRoderick and the Chevalier walking. CHEVALIER My lad, I have been in every service; and, between ourselves, owe money in every capital in Europe. I have been a rolling stone. Play -- play has been my ruin! That and beauty. The women have made a fool of me, my dear boy. I am a soft- hearted creature, and this minute, at sixty-two, have no more command of myself than when Peggy O'Dwyer made a fool of me at sixteen.EXT. BERLIN - LAKE WANNSEE - DAYRoderick and the Chevalier walking along the bank. CHEVALIER The cards are now my only livelihood. Sometimes I am in luck, and then I lay out my money in these trinkets you see. It's property, look you, and the only way I have found of keeping a little about me. When the luck goes against me, why, my dear, my diamonds go to the pawnbrokers and I wear paste. Do you understand the cards? RODERICK I can play as soldiers do, but have no great skill. CHEVALIER We will practice in the mornings, my boy, and I'll put you up to a thing or two worth knowing.INT. CHEVALIER'S ROOMS - BERLIN - DAYQuick cuts -- Roderick being taught the profession ofcards and the dice-box.EXT. GARDEN HOUSE - BERLIN - DAYRoderick, Minister Galgenstein, and Captain Galgenstein. RODERICK (V.O.) I carried my little reports to Captain Galgenstein at the Garden house outside the town where he gave me rendezvous. These reports, of course, were arranged between me and the Chevalier beforehand. I was instructed, and it is always the best way, to tell as much truth as my story would possible bear.Dialogue comes up from under voice over. RODERICK He goes to church regularly -- he is very religious, and after hearing mass comes home to breakfast. Then he takes an airing in his chariot till dinner, which is served at noon. After dinner, he writes his letters, if he has any letters to write; but he has very little to do in this way. His letters are to the Austrian envoy, with whom he corresponds, but who does not acknowledge him; and being written in English, or course, I look over his shoulder. He generally writes for money. He makes his party with Calsabigi, the lottery contractor, the Russian attaches, two from the English embassy, my lords Deuceace and Punter, who play a jeu d'enfer, and a few more. He wins often, but not always. Lord Deuceace is a very fine player. The Chevalier Elliott, the English Minister, sometimes comes, on which occasion the secretaries do not play.INT. CHEVALIER'S APARTMENTS - NIGHTThe Chevalier is at play against several gentlemen,including the Prince of Turbingen, while Roderick signalsthe cards. RODERICK (V.O.) It was agreed that I should keep my character of valet, that in the presence of strangers I should not know a word of English, that I should keep good lookout on the trumps when I was serving the champagne and punch about; and, having a remarkably fine eyesight, and a great natural aptitude, I was speedily able to give my dear benefactor much assistance against his opponents at the green table.Several cuts of playing and cheating to illustrate voiceover. RODERICK (V.O.) Simplicity was our secret. Everything successful is simple. If, for instance, I wiped the dust off a chair with my napkin, it was to show that the enemy was strong in diamonds; if I pushed it, he had an ace, king; if I said, "Punch or wine, my lord?" hearts was meant. If "Wine or punch?" clubs. If I blew my nose, it was to indicate that there was another confederate employed by the adversary; and then, I warrant you, some pretty trials of skill would take place. The Prince of Turbingen, although so young, had a very great skill and cleverness with the cards in every way; and it was only from hearing Ritter von Brandenburg, who came with him, yawn three times when the Chevalier had the ace of trumps, that I knew we were Greek to Greek, as it were.The Prince loses a big hand, and, in a fury, throws downhis cards. He stares at the table, then at the Chevalier. PRINCE Chevalier, though I cannot say how, I believe you have cheated me. CHEVALIER I deny your Grace's accusations, and beg you to say how you have been cheated? PRINCE (glaring at Roderick) I don't know. CHEVALIER Your Grace owes me seventy thousand frederics, which I have honorably won. PRINCE Chevalier, if you will have your money now, you must fight for it. If you will be patient, maybe I will pay you something another time. CHEVALIER Your Grace, if I am so tame as to take this, then I must give up an honorable and lucrative occupation. PRINCE I have said all there is to be said. I am at your disposal for whatever purposes you wish. Good night.He exits.EXT. GARDEN HOUSE - DAYRoderick, Captain Galgenstein and Minister Galgenstein. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN Was he cheated? RODERICK In so far as I can tell these things -- no. I believe the Chevalier won the money fairly. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN Hmm-mmmm. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN What are the Chevalier's intentions? RODERICK I am not sure. The Prince told him quite clearly that if he wished to have the money, he would have to fight for it. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN A meeting with the Prince of Turbingen is impossible. RODERICK The Prince left him only that choice.The Captain and the Minister walk a few steps away andspeak in whispers.Then they return to Roderick. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN Will you be able to return here tomorrow without arousing suspicion?INT. CHEVALIER'S APARTMENTS - DAY CHEVALIER Tell them I intend to demand satisfaction from the Prince. RODERICK But they will prevent a meeting at whatever the cost. CHEVALIER Have no fear. It will come out well for me. RODERICK I believe they will deport you. CHEVALIER I have faced that problem before. RODERICK But, if they send you away, then what is to become of me? CHEVALIER (with a smile) Make your mind easy, you shall not be left behind, I warrant you. Do take a last look at your barracks, make your mind easy, say a farewell to your friends in Berlin. The dear souls, how they will weep when they hear you are out of the country, and, out of it, you shall go. RODERICK But how, sir?EXT. GARDEN HOUSE - BERLIN - DAYRoderick, Captain Galgenstein and Minister Galgenstein. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN The King has determined to send the Chevalier out of the country. RODERICK When is he to go? CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Has he sent the challenge yet? RODERICK Not yet, but I believe he intends to. MINISTER GALGENSTEIN Then this must be done tomorrow. RODERICK What is to be done? CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN You say he drives after breakfast and before dinner. When he comes out to his carriage a couple of gendarmes will mount the box, and the coachman will get his orders to move on. RODERICK And his baggage? CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN Oh! That will be sent after him. I have a fancy to look into that red box which contains his papers, you say; and at noon, after parade, shall be at the inn. You will not say a word to any one there regarding the affair, and will wait for me at the Chevalier's rooms until my arrival. We must force that box. You are a clumsy hound, or you would have got the key long ago.EXT. CHEVALIER'S APARTMENTS - DAYAction as per voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) At ten o'clock the next morning, the carriage of the Chevalier de Belle Fast drew up as usual at the door of his hotel, and the Chevalier came down the stairs in his usual stately manner.Looking around and not finding his servant to open thedoor. CHEVALIER Where is my rascal, Lazlo? PRUSSIAN OFFICER (standing by the carriage) I will let down the steps for your honor.No sooner does the Chevalier enter than the officer jumpsin after him, another mounts the box by the coachman, andthe latter begins to drive. CHEVALIER Good gracious! What is this? PRUSSIAN OFFICER (touching his hat) You are going to drive to the frontier. CHEVALIER It is shameful -- infamous! I insist upon being put down at the Austrian ambassador's house. PRUSSIAN OFFICER I have orders to gag your honor if you cry out, and to give you this purse containing ten thousand frederics if you do not. CHEVALIER Ten thousand? But the scoundrel owes me seventy thousand. PRUSSIAN OFFICER Your honor must lower his voice. CHEVALIER (whispering) All Europe shall hear of this! PRUSSIAN OFFICER As you please.Both lapse into silence.EXT. ROAD - DAYThe coach drives by. Suddenly -- "boom," the alarm cannonbegins to roar.INT. COACH - DAY PRUSSIAN OFFICER Do not be alarmed. The alarm cannon only signals a deserter.Chevalier nods.EXT. ROAD - DAYThe coach drives by and action as described. RODERICK (V.O.) Hearing the sound of the alarm cannon, the common people came out along the road, with fowling-pieces and pitch-forks, in hopes to catch the truant. The gendarmes looked very anxious to be on the lookout for him too. The price of a deserter was fifty crowns to those who brought him in.EXT. SAXON CUSTOM-HOUSE - DAYThe black and white barriers came in view at last hard byBruck, and opposite them the green and yellow of Saxony.The Saxon custom-house officers came out. CHEVALIER I have no luggage. PRUSSIAN OFFICER The gentleman has nothing contraband.The Prussian officers, grinning, hand the Chevalier thepurse and take their leave of their prisoner with muchrespect.The Chevalier de Belle Fast gives them three frederic a-piece. CHEVALIER Gentlemen, I wish you a good day. Will you please go to the house from whence we set out this morning, and tell my man there to send my baggage on to Three Kings at Dresden? RODERICK (V.O.) Then ordering fresh horses, the Chevalier set off on his journey for that capital. I need not tell you that I was the Chevalier.INT. ROOM - HOTEL DES TROIS COURONNES - DAYRoderick reading a letter over his breakfast in bed. CHEVALIER (V.O.) From the Chevalier de Belle Fast to Roderick James, Esquire, Gentilhomme Anglais. At the Hotel des trois Couronnes, Dresden, Saxe. My dear Roderick -- This comes to you by a sure hand, no other than Mr. Lumpit, of the English mission, who is acquainted, as all Berlin will be directly, with our wonderful story. They only know half as yet; they only know that a deserter went off in my clothes, and all are in admiration of your cleverness and valor.INT. CHEVALIER'S ROOM - DAYAction as per description in letter. CHEVALIER (V.O.) As I lay in my bed two and a half hours after your departure, in comes your ex-captain, Galgenstein. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN (in his imperious Dutch manner) Roderick! Are you there?No answer. CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN The rogue is gone out.Action as per voice over. CHEVALIER (V.O.) Straightaway he makes for the red box where I keep my love letters, my glass eye which I used to wear, my two sets of Paris teeth, and my other private matters that you know of. He first tries a bunch of keys, but none of them fit the English lock. Then he takes out of his pocket a chisel and hammer, and falls to work like a professional burglar, actually bursting open the little box! Now was my time to act! I advance towards him armed with an immense water-jug. I come noiselessly up to him just as he has broken the box, and, with all my might, I deal him such a blow over the head as smashes the water-jug to bits, and sends the captain with a snort lifeless to the ground. Then I ring all the bells in the house; and shout, and swear, and scream, "Thieves! -- Thieves! -- Landlord! -- Murder! -- Fire!" until the whole household comes tumbling up the stairs. CHEVALIER Where is my servant? Who dares to rob me in open day? Look at the villain whom I find in the act of breaking my chest open! Send for the police, send for his Excellency the Austrian Minister! All Europe shall know of this insult! LANDLORD Dear heaven! We saw you go away three hours ago. CHEVALIER Me! Why, man, I have been in bed all morning. I am ill -- I have taken physic -- I have not left the house this morning! Where is that scoundrel, Lazlo? But, stop! Where are my clothes and wig? CHAMBERMAID I have it -- I have it! Lazlo is off in your honor's dress. CHEVALIER And my money -- my money! Where is my purse with forty-eight frederics in it? But we have one of the villains left, Officers, seize him. LANDLORD (more and more astonished) It's the young Herr Galgenstein. CHEVALIER What! A gentleman breaking open my trunk with hammer and chisel -- impossible! CHEVALIER (V.O.) Herr Galgenstein was returning to life by this time, with a swelling on his skull as big as a saucepan; and the officers carried him off, and, to make a long story short, poor Galgenstein is now on his way to Spandau; and his uncle, the Minister of Police Galgenstein, has brought me five hundred louis, with a humble request that I would leave Berlin forthwith, and hush up this painful matter.INT. GERMAN PALACE - BALLROOM - NIGHTRoderick, the Chevalier and the Duke of Wurttemberg. RODERICK (V.O.) The Chevalier de Belle Fast was in particularly good order with the Duke of Wurttemberg, whose court was, at this period, the most brilliant in all Europe.The Duke of Wurttemberg chatting with ballet dancers, whowill perform at the party. RODERICK (V.O.) He spent fabulous sums on the ballets and operas. All the ballerinas were pretty, and they all boasted that they had all at least once made their amorous sovereign happy.Roderick and the Chevalier kissing hands, hobnobbing withthe nobility, and dancing minuets. RODERICK (V.O.) There was not a party of the nobility to which the two Irish gentlemen were not invited, and admired, nor where we did not make the brave, the high-born and the beautiful talk to us. There was no man in Europe more gay in spirits, more splendid in personal accomplishment, than young Roderick James.EXT. GERMAN STREET - DAWNRoderick and the Chevalier in a comfortable coach, ontheir way home to bed, pass troops marching out on earlyparade.INT. COACH - DAWNRoderick sinks back into the comfortable cushion andyawns. RODERICK (V.O.) What a delightful life did we now lead! I knew I was born a gentleman, from the kindly way in which I took to the business, as business certainly it is.INT. BEDROOM - GERMANY - DAYRoderick in a tub, being washed by a servant. RODERICK (V.O.) For though it seems all pleasure, yet I assure any low-bred persons who may chance to read this, that we, their betters, have to work as well as they; though I did not rise until noon, yet had I not been up at play until long past midnight?INT. ANOTHER BEDROOM - GERMANY - DAYHis hair being done. RODERICK (V.O.) I came into it at once, and as if I had never done anything else all my life. I had a gentleman to wait upon me, a French friseur to dress my hair of a morning.INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHTA candle-lit supper. RODERICK (V.O.) I knew the taste of chocolate as by intuition almost, and could distinguish between the right Spanish and the French before I had been a week in my new position.INSERTS - JEWELRYAction and cuts as voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) I had rings on my fingers, watches in both my fobs, trinkets, and snuff-boxes, of all sorts, and each outvying the other in elegance.INT. RECEPTION ROOM - GERMANY - DAYAs described. RODERICK (V.O.) I had the finest natural taste for lace and china of any man I ever knew.EXT. STABLES - GERMANY - DAYBuying horses. RODERICK (V.O.) I could judge a horse as well as any dealer in Germany. I could not spell, but I could speak German and French cleverly.INT. DRESSING ROOM - GERMANY - DAYRoderick being fitted for clothes. RODERICK (V.O.) I had at least twelve suits of clothes; three richly embroidered with gold, two laced with silver; one of French grey, silver-laced and lined with chinchilla. I had damask morning robes, to which a peacock's tail is as sober as a Quaker's drab skirt.INT. ORANGERY - DAYAction as voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) I took lessons on the guitar, and sang French catches exquisitely. Where, in fact, was there a more accomplished gentleman than Roderick James?INT. GAMING ROOM - GERMANY - NIGHTAction as per voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) How have we had the best blood, and the brightest eyes, too, of Europe throbbing round the table as I and the Chevalier have held the cards and the bank against some terrible player, who was matching some thousands out of his millions against our all which was there on the baize!INT. GAMING ROOM - GERMANY - NIGHTRoderick dealing a faro bank. RODERICK (V.O.) Our principles were: play grandly, honorably. Be not, of course, cast down at losing; but, above all, be not eager at winning, as mean souls are.INT. GAMING ROOM - GERMANY - NIGHTAction as voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) When the Duke of Courland brought fourteen lackeys each with bags of florins, and challenged our bank to play against the sealed bags, what did we ask? CHEVALIER Sir, we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, or two hundred thousand at three months; if your highness' bags do not contain more than eight thousand, we will meet you.Playing. RODERICK (V.O.) And we did, and after eleven hours play, in which our bank was at one time reduced to two hundred and three ducats, we won seventeen thousand florins off him.Four crowned heads look on at the game, and an imperialprincess, when Roderick turns up the ace of hearts, burstsinto tears.INT. MASQUERADE BALL - NIGHTRoderick and a girl. RODERICK (V.O.) Nor need I mention my successes among the fairer portion of the creation. One of the most accomplished, the tallest, the most athletic, and the handsomest gentleman in Europe, as I was then, a young fellow of my figure could not fail of having advantages, which a person of my spirit knew very well how to us.INT. BOUDOIR - NIGHTMaking love to a masked lady. RODERICK (V.O.) Charming Schuvaloff.INT. COACH - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) Black-eyed Sczortarska.INT. BOUDOIR - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) Dark Valdez. RODERICK Do you expect me to believe that your lover brought you here tonight? VALDEZ Yes. He brought me in his carriage, and he will call for me at midnight. RODERICK And he doesn't care about me? VALDEZ He is only curious to know who you are. RODERICK If his love were like mine, he would not permit you to come here. VALDEZ He loves me, as I love you. RODERICK Will he wish to know the details of this night? VALDEZ He will believe that it will please me if he asks about it, and I shall tell him everything except some circumstances which might humiliate him.EXT. GARDEN - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) Tender Hegenheim.INT. BOUDOIR - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) Brilliant Langeac.Roderick takes from his portfolio a little jacket of veryfine transparent skin, eight inches long and closed at oneend, and which by way of a pouch string at its open end,has a narrow pink ribbon.He displays it to her, she looks at it, and laughs. LANGEAC I will put in on you myself.She puts it on, out of shot. LANGEAC There you are, dressed by my hand. It is nearly the same thing; but despite the fineness and transparency of the skin, the little fellow pleases me less well in costume. It seems that this covering degrades him, or degrades me -- one of the other. RODERICK Both, my angel. It was Love who invented these little jackets: for he had to ally himself with Precaution.INT. ROOM OFF A BALLROOM - NIGHTRoderick making love to the Countess von Trotha. Enterthe Count, in the uniform of a Colonel. COUNT I entered here, monsieur, at a bad moment for you; it seems that you love this lady. RODERICK Certainly, monseigneur, does not Your Excellency consider her worthy of love? COUNT Perfectly so; and what is more, I will tell you that I love her, and that I am not of a humor to put up with rivals. RODERICK Very well! Now that I know it, I will no longer love her. COUNT Then you yield to me. RODERICK On the instant. Everyone must yield to such a nobleman as you. COUNT Very well; but a man who yields takes to his legs. RODERICK That is a trifle strong. COUNT Take to your legs, low Irish dog.Roderick smiles at him. RODERICK Your Excellency has wantonly insulted me. That being so, I conclude that you hate me, Monseigneur, and that hence you would be glad to remove me from the number of the living. In this wish, I can and will satisfy Your Excellency.EXT. BEAUTIFUL GARDEN - EARLY MORNINGRoderick's sword duel with the Count.Details to be worked out.INT. BILLIARD ROOM - NIGHTRoderick watches the Chevalier play with a Prussianofficer, Lieutenant Dascher. RODERICK (V.O.) It was my unrivaled skill with sword and pistol, and readiness to use them, that maintained the reputation of the firm.Towards the end of the game, Dascher, seeing that he islosing, makes an unfair stroke, so obvious that the markertells him so to his face.Lieutenant Dascher, for whom the stroke wins the game,takes the money which is in the stake bag, and puts it inhis pocket, paying no attention to the marker'sadjurations, or to Roderick's.Roderick, who is without his sword, reaches for a billiardcue and swings it at Dascher's face.He wards off the blow with his arm, drawing his sword andruns at Roderick, who is unarmed.The marker, a sturdy young man, catches Dascher around thewaist and prevents murder. DASCHER I see that you are without your sword, but I believe you are a man of mettle. Will you give me satisfaction? RODERICK I shall be delighted; but you have lost and you must pay me the money before we meet, for, after all, you cannot pay me when you are dead. ANOTHER OFFICER I will undertake to pay you the 20 louis, but only tomorrow morning at the meeting.EXT. FIELD - DAYOn the field, there are six people waiting with Dascher,and his seconds. Dascher takes 20 louis from his pocketand hands them to Roderick, saying: DASCHER I may have been mistaken, but I mean to make you pay deadly for your brutality.Roderick takes the money and puts it in his purse with theutmost calm, making no reply to the other's boasting. RODERICK (privately) It is distasteful to kill a scoundrel -- that should be work for a hangman. CHEVALIER To risk one's life against such people is an imposition. RODERICK (laughs) I risk nothing, for I am certain to kill him. CHEVALIER Certain? RODERICK Perfectly certain, because I shall make him tremble.He takes his station between two trees, about four pacesapart, and draws a pair of dueling pistols. RODERICK You have only to pace yourself at ten paces difference, and fire first. The space between these two trees is the place where I choose to walk back and forth. You may walk too, if you wish, when it is my turn to fire.No one could have explained his intentions more clearly orspoken more calmly. DASCHER But we must decide who is to have the first shot. RODERICK There is no need of that. I never fire first; and, in any case, you have that right.Dascher places himself at the specified distance.Roderick walks slowly back and forth between the two treeswithout looking at him.Dascher takes aim and fires, missing. RODERICK (with the greatest composure) You missed me, sir. I was sure you would. Try again.The others think he is mad, and had expected some kind ofdiscussion between the parties, but not a bit of it.Dascher takes careful aim and fires a second shot, againmissing Roderick.Without a word, but in a firm and confident manner,Roderick fires his first shot into the air.Dascher looks amazed. Then, aiming at Dascher with hissecond pistol, he hits him in the center of the foreheadand stretches him out dead on the ground.EXT. ROAD - DAYRoderick and Chevalier traveling in their coach. RODERICK (V.O.) Thus is will be seen that our life, for all its splendor was one of extreme difficulty and danger, requiring high talents and courage for success, and sudden and unexpected departures.They meet a four-wheel carriage, drawn by two horses,carrying a master and a servant.The driver of the four-wheel carriage wants Roderick'sdriver to make way for him.Roderick's driver protests that if he does, he will upsethis master in the ditch, but the other insists.Roderick addresses the master, a handsome young man, andasks him to order his driver to make way for him. RODERICK I am posting, monsieur, and furthermore I am a foreigner. STRANGER Monsieur, here in Saxony, the post has no special right, and if you are a foreigner, you must admit that you have no greater claim than mine, since I am in my own country.At that, Roderick gets out and holding his drawn-swordtells the stranger to get out, or to make way for him.The stranger replies, with a smile, that he has no swordand that, in any case, he will not fight for such a sillyreason.He tells Roderick to get back in his chaise, and he makesway for him.INT. GAMING ROOM - NIGHTRoderick and the Chevalier running a faro bank when animportant lady suffers a huge loss. RODERICK (V.O.) The ladies were passionately fond of play, and hence would often arise no small trouble to us; for the truth most be told, that the ladies loved to play, but not to pay. The point of honor is not understood by the charming sex; and it was with the greatest difficulty that we could keep them from the table, could get their money if they lost or, if they paid, prevent them from using the most furious and extraordinary means of revenge.EXT. ROAD - DAWN RODERICK (V.O.) On this evening, the lady of high rank, after I had won a considerable sum in diamonds and pearls from her, sent her lover with a band of cut- throats to waylay me.Roderick and the Chevalier are sound asleep in theircarriage when they are awakened by a violent jolt, uponwhich the carriage overturns in the middle of the road.The Chevalier is underneath, and screams from the pain inhis right arm, which he thinks is broken.Their servant forces the door open to help them out,telling them that the two postilions have fled.Roderick easily gets out of the carriage through the door,which is above him, but the Chevalier, unable to movebecause of his disabled arm, has to be pulled out.His piercing shrieks make Roderick laugh, because of thestrange oaths with which he interlards his prayers.From the carriage, Roderick takes his dueling pistols,and sword.Roderick tells his servant to mount and to looking forarmed peasants in the vicinity; money in hand, he leaves.The Chevalier has lain down on the hard ground, groaningand in no condition to resist robbers.Roderick makes his own preparations to sell his fortuneand his life at the highest price.His carriage is close to the ditch, and he unhitches thehorses, tieing them to the wheels and the pole in acircle, and stations himself behind them with weapons.In this predicament, Roderick cannot help laughing at thepoor Chevalier, who is writhing like a dying dolphin on aseashore, and uttering the most pitiful execrations, whena mare, whose back was turned to him, take it into herempty head to empty her bladder on him. There is nothingto be done; he has to put up with the whole stinking rain,and to forgive Roderick's laughter, which he has not thestrength to hold in.The chill wind and the silence are suddenly broken by anattack, which is half-hearted and uncertain, by the lady'slover, and his hesitant band of six cut-throats.Some falter and run away as soon as Roderick fires hispistol.The leader and two heartier followers engage Roderick.During the fight, they mortally wound the helplessChevalier and two of them are killed.After they flee, Roderick kneels by the Chevalier, whoutters some appropriate last words, then dies.His servant finally arrives at full gallop, shouting atthe top of his voice, and followed by a band of peasants,each with his lantern, come to his rescue. There are tenor twelve of them, all armed with muskets, and all readyto obey his orders.EXT. SPA - HOTEL - DAYRoderick's carriage arrives. RODERICK (V.O.) After making suitable arrangements for the Chevalier's burial, in proper accord with his church, I traveled to Spa, which was now in season, alone, to continue my profession which formerly had the support of my friend and mentor.INT. GAMING ROOM - NIGHTCrowds surround Roderick. RODERICK (V.O.) I was by this time one of the best- known characters in Europe; and the fame of my exploits, my duels, my courage at play, would bring crowds round me in any public society where I appeared.INT. CASINO - NIGHTAttractive women alone, while men are at the gaming table. RODERICK (V.O.) The passion for play is stronger than the passion for gallantry; the gamester at Spa has neither time to stop to consider the merits of a woman, nor the courage to make sacrifices for her.EXT. GARDEN IN SPA - DAYThe Countess of Cosgrove walks beside her husband, SirWilliam Cosgrove, who is in a wheelchair. They areaccompanied by their young son, Lord Brookside, and twoservants. RODERICK (V.O.) In evoking the recollections of these days, I have nothing but pleasure. I would if I could say as much of a lady who will henceforth play a considerable part in the drama of my life -- I mean the Countess of Cosgrove, whose fatal acquaintance I made at Spa, very soon after the tragic events which caused me to quit Germany.Closer shot of the Countess. RODERICK (V.O.) Victoria, Countess of Cosgrove. A Countess and a Viscountess in her own right.Closer shot of Sir William Cosgrove. RODERICK (V.O.) She was the wife of her cousin, the Right Honorable Sir William Reginald Cosgrove, Knight of the Bath, and Minister to George II and George III of several of the smaller courts of Europe.Closer shot of young Lord Brookside, walking behind themin the care of his governor. RODERICK (V.O.) She was the mother to Viscount Brookside -- a melancholy, deserted, little boy, about whom his father was more than indifferent, and whom his mother never saw.INT. GAMING ROOM - NIGHTShots of Sir William Cosgrove being wheeled in, and atplay with Roderick, and some other gentlemen. RODERICK (V.O.) I made Sir William Cosgrove's acquaintance as usual at the play- table. One could not but admire the spirit and gallantry with which he pursued his favorite pastime; for, though worn out with gout and a myriad of diseases, a cripple wheeled about in a chair, and suffering pangs of agony, yet you would see him every morning, and every evening at his post behind the delightful green cloth. SIR WILLIAM Hang it, Mr. Roderick James, you have no more manners than a barber, and I think my black footman has been better educated than you; but you are a young fellow of originality and pluck, and I like you, sir. because you seem determined to go to the devil by a way of your own.Laughter at the table. RODERICK I am obliged to observe, Sir William Cosgrove, that since you are bound for the next world much sooner than I am, I will depend on you to get comfortable quarters arranged for me.Laughter. SIR WILLIAM Indeed, you are right, sir. Look at me. Marriage has added forty years to my life. I am dying, a worn-out cripple, at the age of fifty. When I took off Lady Cosgrove, there was no man of my years who looked so young as myself. Fool that I was! I had enough with my pensions, perfect freedom, the best society in Europe -- and I gave up all these, and married and was miserable. Take a warning from me, Mr. Roderick, and stick to the trumps. Do anything, but marry. RODERICK Would you have me spend my life all alone? SIR WILLIAM In truth, sir, yes, but, if you must marry, then marry a virtuous drudge. RODERICK (laughing) The milkmaid's daughter? SIR WILLIAM Well, why not a milkmaid's daughter? No man of sense need restrict himself or deny himself a single amusement for his wife's sake; on the contrary, if he selects the animal properly, he will choose such a one as shall be no bar to his pleasure, but a comfort in his hours of annoyance. For instance, I have got the gout; who tends me? A hired valet who robs me whenever he has the power. My wife never comes near me. What friend have I? None in the wide world. Men of the world, as you and I are, don't make friends, and we are fools for our pains.Polite laughter at the table. SIR WILLIAM My lady is a weak woman, but she is my mistress. She is a fool, but she has got the better of one of the best heads in Christendom. She is enormously rich, but somehow I have never been so poor, as since I married her. I thought to better myself, and she has made me miserable and killed me, and she will do as much for my successor when I'm gone.There is a reflective silence at the table. RODERICK Has her ladyship a very large income?This question causes Sir William to burst out into ayelling laugh, joined by the rest of the table, and makesRoderick blush not a little at his gaucherie.EXT. ORNAMENTAL GARDEN - SPA - NIGHTA beautiful scene, lit by the flambeaux, held by a dozenfootmen. A small orchestra, playing in a Temple of Love,some dancers, people gambling and lounging along a line oftrees.Roderick approaches the Countess. RODERICK (V.O.) Despite my friend's strong warning. I resolves to become acquainted with his lady. Sir William Cosgrove was dying. His widow would be a rich prize. Why should I not win her, and, with her, the means of making in the world that figure which my genius and inclination desired? When I determine, I look upon the thing as done. RODERICK Charming lady, tell me the truth and earn my gratitude. Have you a lover?The countess laughs. COUNTESS No. RODERICK Have you had one? COUNTESS Never. RODERICK But, for a time... a passing fancy? COUNTESS Not even that. RODERICK How can I believe that there is not a man who has inspired desires in you? COUNTESS Not one. RODERICK Have you not a man whom you value? COUNTESS That man has, perhaps, not yet been born. RODERICK What! You have not met a man worthy of your attention? COUNTESS Many worthy of attention; but valuing is something more. I could value only someone whom I loved. RODERICK Then you have never loved? Your heart is empty. COUNTESS Your word "empty" makes me laugh. Is it fortunate, or unfortunate? If it is fortunate, I congratulate myself. If it is unfortunate, I do not care, for I am not aware of it. RODERICK It is nonetheless a misfortune, and you will know it when you love. COUNTESS But if, when I love, I am unhappy, I will know that my empty heart was my good fortune. RODERICK That is true, but it seems to me impossible that you should be unhappy in love. COUNTESS It is only too possible. Love requires a mutual harmony which is difficult, and it is even more difficult to make it last. RODERICK I agree; but God put us on earth to take that risk. COUNTESS A man may need to do that, and find it amusing; but a girl is bound by other laws. RODERICK I believe you, and I see I must hasten to leave, for otherwise I shall become the unhappiest of men. COUNTESS How so? RODERICK By loving you, with no hope of possessing you.She laughs. COUNTESS You want my heart? RODERICK It is my only object. COUNTESS To make me wretched in two weeks. RODERICK To love you until death. To subscribe to all your commands. COUNTESS The amusing thing is that you deceive me without knowing, if it is true that you love me. RODERICK Deceiving someone without knowing it is something new for me. If I do not know it, I am innocent. COUNTESS But you deceive me nonetheless if I believe you, for it will not be in your power to love me when you love me no longer.Roderick laughs and kisses her. COUNTESS Be so good as to tell me with whom you think you are? RODERICK With a woman who is completely charming, be she a princess or a woman of the lowest condition, and who, regardless of her rank, will show me some kindness, tonight.She laughs. COUNTESS And if she does not choose to show you some kindness? RODERICK Then I will respectfully take leave of her. COUNTESS You will do as you please. It seems to me that such a matter can hardly be discussed until after people know each other. Do you not agree? RODERICK Yes -- but I am afraid of being deceived. COUNTESS Poor man. And, for that reason, you want to begin where people end? RODERICK I ask only a payment on account today -- after that, you will find me undemanding, obedient and discreet.She laughs. He kisses her again. They exit.EXT. ROAD - SPA - NIGHTCoach and four moves slowly along.INT. COACH - NIGHTThey kiss. She gently struggles as he tries to undo herdress. He stops. RODERICK Will we always leave it at this? COUNTESS Always, my dear one, never any further. Love is a child to be pacified with trifles. A full diet can only kill it. RODERICK I know better than you do. Love wants a more substantial fare, and if it is stubbornly withheld, it withers away. COUNTESS Our abstinence makes our love immortal. If I loved you a quarter of an hour ago, now I should love you even more. But I should love you less if you exhausted my joy by satisfying all my desires. RODERICK Let us give each other complete happiness, and let us be sure that as many times as we satisfy our desires, they will each time be born anew. COUNTESS My husband has convinced me of the contrary. RODERICK Sir William Cosgrove is a man who is dying, and yet I envy him more than any man in Christendom. He enjoys a privilege of which I am deprived. He may take you in his arms whenever he pleases, and no veil keeps his senses, his eyes, his soul from enjoying your beauty.She silences him with her fingertips. COUNTESS Shall I tell you something -- I believed what was called love came after the union -- and I was surprised when my husband, making me a woman, made me know it only by pain, unaccompanied by any pleasure. I saw that my imaginings had stood me in better stead. And so we became only friends, seldom sleeping together and arousing no curiosity in each other, yet on good terms for a while, as whenever he wanted me, I was at his service, but since the offering was not seasoned with love, he found it tasteless, and seldom demanded it. RODERICK O, my dearest love. Enough! I beg you. Stop believing in your experience. You have never known love. My very soul is leaving me! Catch it on your lips, and give me yours!They kiss ardently. RODERICK (V.O.) To make a long story short, her ladyship and I were in love six hours after we met; and after I once got into her ladyship's good graces, I found innumerable occasions to improve my intimacy, and was scarcely ever out of her company.EXT. COUNTESS' HOUSE - SPA - DUSKAction as per voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) I shall never forget the astonishment of Sir William Cosgrove when, on one summer evening, as he was issuing out to the play-table, in his sedan-chair, her ladyship's barouche and four came driving into the courtyard of the house which they inhabited and, in that carriage, by her ladyship's side, sat no other than "the vulgar Irish adventurer," as she was pleased to call me.Sir William makes the most courtly of bows and grins, andwaves his hat in as graceful a manner as his multiplicityof illness permits, and her ladyship and Roderick reply tothe salutation with the utmost politeness and elegance ontheir part.INT. RODERICK'S APARTMENT - SPA - NIGHTMaking ardent love. COUNTESS Without you, my dearest, I might have died without ever knowing love. Inexpressible love! God of nature! Bitterness than which nothing is sweeter, sweetness than which nothing is more bitter. Divine monster which can only be defined by paradoxes. RODERICK Let me give a thousand kisses to that heavenly mouth which has told me that I am happy. COUNTESS As soon as I saw you loved me, I was pleased, and I gave you every opportunity to fall more in love with me, being certain that, for my part, I would never love you. But after our first kiss, I found that I had no power over myself. I did not know that one kiss could matter so much. RODERICK (V.O.) We then spent an hour in the most eloquent silence except that, from time to time, her ladyship cried out: "Oh, my God. Is it true -- I am not dreaming?"INT. GAMING ROOM - NIGHTRoderick enters and approaches a table at which SirWilliam Cosgrove, who is drunk, is at play with severalother jovial fellows. RODERICK (V.O.) Sir William Cosgrove, with his complication of ills, was dying before us by inches. He was continually tinkered up by doctors, and, what with my usual luck, he might be restored to health and live I don't know how many years. If Cosgrove would not die, where was the use of my pursing his lady? But my fears were to prove groundless, for on that very night, patient nature would claim her account. SIR WILLIAM Good evening, Mr. James, have you done with my lady? RODERICK I beg your pardon? SIR WILLIAM Come, come, sir. I am a man who would rather be known as a cuckold than a fool. RODERICK I think, Sir William Cosgrove, you have had too much drink. Your chaplin, Mr. Hunt, has introduced me into the company of your lady to advise me on a religious matter, of which she is a considerable expert.Sir William Cosgrove greets this line with a yell oflaughter. His laugh is not jovial or agreeable, butrather painful and sardonic, and ends in a violent fit ofcoughing. SIR WILLIAM Gentlemen, see this amiable youth! He has been troubled by religious scruples, and has flown for refuge to my chaplin, Mr. Hunt, who has asked for advise from my wife, Lady Cosgrove, and between them both, they are confirming my ingenious young friend in his faith. Did you ever hear of such doctors and such a disciple? RODERICK Faith, sir, if I want to learn good principles, it's surely better I should apply for them to your lady, and your chaplin than to you? SIR WILLIAM (laughing, but pretty red) He wants to step into my shoes! He wants to step into my shoes!Roderick stares at him coldly. RODERICK Well, if my intentions are what you think they are -- if I do wish to step into your shoes, what then? I have no other intentions than you had yourself. Lady Cosgrove's wealth may be great, but am I not of a generous nature enough to use it worthily? Her rank is lofty, but not so lofty as my ambition. I will be sworn to muster just as much regard for my Lady Cosgrove as you ever showed her; and if I win her, and wear her when you are dead and gone, corbleu, knight, do you think that it will be the fear of your ghost will deter me? SIR WILLIAM Is it not a pleasure, gentlemen, for me, as I am drawing near the goal, to find my home such a happy one; my wife so fond of me, that she is even now thinking of appointing a successor? Isn't it a comfort to see her; like a prudent housewife, getting everything ready for her husband's departure? RODERICK I hope that you are not thinking of leaving us soon, knight? SIR WILLIAM Not so soon, my dear, as you may fancy perhaps. Why, man, I have been given over many times these four years, and there was always a candidate or two waiting to apply for the situation. Who knows how long I may keep you waiting. RODERICK Sir, let those laugh that win. SIR WILLIAM I am sorry for you Mr. James. I'm grieved to keep you or any gentleman waiting. Had you not better to arrange with my doctor or get the cook to flavor my omelette with arsenic? What are the odds, gentlemen, that I don't live to see Mr. James hang yet?There is laughter around the table, and Sir William startsdealing the cards. VOICE Dies at Spa, in the Kingdom of Belgium, the Right Honorable Sir William Cosgrove, Knight of the Bath, Member of Parliament for Cosgrove and Devonshire and many years His Majesty's representative at various European courts. He hath left behind him a name which is endeared to all his friends for his manifold virtues and talents, a reputation justly acquired in the service of His Majesty, and an inconsolable widow to deplore his loss.Sir Williams keels over dead.INT. CHURCH - DAYThe wedding of Roderick and the Countess. The service ispreformed by Reverend Hunt, her ladyship's chaplain. RODERICK (V.O.) A year from that day, on the fifteenth of May, in the year 1773, I had the honor and happiness to lead to the altar Victoria, Countess of Cosgrove, widow of the late Right Honorable Sir William Cosgrove, K.B. I had procured His Majesty's gracious permission to add the name of my lovely lady to my own, and, henceforward, assumed the title of James Cosgrove.EXT. A GARDEN - LONDON - DAYThe Wedding reception.Roderick and the Countess are approached by young LordBrookside, aged 12. COUNTESS My Lord Brookside, come and embrace your papa!Brookside walks slowly towards them, and shakes his fistin Roderick's face. BROOKSIDE He, my father! I would as soon call one of your ladyship's footmen, papa!Roderick laughs, as the Countess unsuccessfully tries toget the boy to shake hands. COUNTESS Lord Brookside, you have offended your father. BROOKSIDE Mother, you have offended my father. RODERICK (V.O.) It was a declaration of war to me, as I saw at once; though I declare I was willing enough to have lived with him on terms of friendliness. But as men serve me, I serve them. Who can blame me for my after- quarrels with this young reprobate, or lay upon my shoulders the evils which afterwards befell?EXT. ROAD - DAYThree carriages, each with four horses, proceed along thepicturesque track. RODERICK (V.O.) After we had received the congratulations of our friends in London -- I and Victoria set off to visit our country estate, Castle Hackton, where I had never as yet set foot.INT. CARRIAGE - DAYRoderick and his Lady. RODERICK (V.O.) The first days of a marriage are commonly very trying; and I have known couples, who lived together like turtle-doves for the rest of their lives, peck each other's eyes out almost during the honeymoon. I did not escape the common lot. In our journey westwards, my Lady Cosgrove chose to quarrel with me because I had pulled out a pipe of tobacco. Lady Cosgrove was a haughty woman, and I hate pride, and I promise you that, in this instant, I overcame this vice in her.Roderick blows smoke into the Countess' face. She isshocked into an apprehensive silence.INT. COACH - DAYYoung Lord Brookside with his governor, glowering andpetulant. A parrot, in a cage, on his lap.EXT. ROAD - DAYAs the carriages drive past, there is a band, floralarches, flags, church bells ringing. The parson and thefarmers assemble in their best by the roadside, and theschool-children and the laboring people are loud in their"hurrahs" for her ladyship.Roderick flings pennies among the cheering tenants, fromtwo bags of coppers, stored in the carriage for theoccasion.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYFifty, or so, servants have turned out to greet theirmistress, and their new master. The land steward, who isthe senior servant, introduces the others -- the clerk ofthe kitchen, clerk of the stables, head gardener, ladiesin waiting, butler, valet, chef, cook. RODERICK (V.O.) I had not arrived at the pitch of prosperity, and having, at thirty years of age, by my own merits and energy, raised myself to one of the highest social positions that any man in England could occupy, I determined to enjoy myself as becomes a man of quality for the remainder of my life.INT. STABLES - DAYRoderick and his beautiful horses.EXT. A STREAM - DAYRoderick and some companions fishing.EXT. FIELDS - DAYRoderick and his friends riding.EXT. FIELDS - DAYRoderick and friends shooting.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYRoderick having his portrait painted by a miniaturist. RODERICK (V.O.) But it was not meant for me to finish my life as a man of quality and position. Indeed, I am one of those born clever enough at gaining a fortune, but incapable of keeping one; for the qualities and energy, which lead a man to accept the first, are often the very causes of his ruin in the latter case; indeed, I know of no other reason for the misfortunes which finally befell me.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - COUNTESS' BEDROOM - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) At the end of the year, Lady Cosgrove presented me with a son; Patrick Cosgrove, I called him, in compliment to my royal ancestry, but what more had I to leave him than a noble name?EXT. COSGROVE HOUSE - LONDON - DAYTwo coaches pull up, and the Countess and Roderick exit.Servants remove their luggage and baby Patrick. RODERICK (V.O.) We spent the season in London at our house in Berkeley Square.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHTThe Countess alone and depressed. RODERICK (V.O.) Her ladyship and I lived, for a while, pretty separate when in London. She preferred quiet, or, to say the truth, I preferred it, being a great friend to a modest, tranquil behavior in woman and a taste for the domestic pleasures.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - LONDON - DAYSeveral cuts of the Countess, caring for the infant,Patrick. RODERICK (V.O.) Besides, she was a mother, and had great comfort in the dressing, educating, and dandling of our little Patrick for whose sake it was fit that she should give up the pleasures and frivolities of the world; so she left that part of the duty of every family of distinction to be performed by me.INT. THEATER LOBBY - NIGHTRoderick arriving with a party of friends, escorting abeautiful woman.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - LONDON - DAYCountess crying and having an argument with Roderick.Live dialogue under voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) Her ladyship's conversations with me were characterized by a stupid despair, or a silly blundering attempt at forced cheerfulness, still more disagreeable; hence, our intercourse was but trifling, and my temptations to carry her into the world or to remain in her society of necessity exceedingly small.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - DRAWING ROOM - LONDON - NIGHTA drunken Roderick rudely demands his lady to entertaintheir guests. She rushes from the room in tears.Dialogue starts scene, goes under for voice over, thenends scene. RODERICK (V.O.) She would try my temper, at home, too, in a thousand ways. When requested by me to entertain the company with conversation, wit, and learning, of which she was a mistress; or music, of which she was an accomplished performer, she would, as often as not, begin to cry, and leave the room. My company from this, of course, fancied I was a tyrant over her; whereas, I was only a severe and careful guardian of a silly, bad-tempered and weak- minded lady.EXT. PARK - DAYRoderick strolling arm-in-arm with his Countess. RODERICK (V.O.) Despite the utter distaste with which I now regarded Lady Cosgrove, and, although I took no particular pains to disguise my feelings in general, yet she was of such a mean spirit that she pursued me with her regard, and would kindle up at the smallest kind word I spoke to her.INT. COSGROVE STUDY - DAYRoderick and accountant. Her ladyship is signing variousdocuments, and orders for payment. RODERICK (V.O.) And, in these fits of love, she was the most easy creature in the world to be persuaded, and would have signed away her whole property, had it been possible. And, I must confess, it was with very little attention on my part that I could bring her into good humor, and, up to the very last day of our being together, would be reconciled to me, and fondle me, if I addressed her a single kind word. Such is female inconsistency.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - DAYRoderick and the Countess fighting about her refusal tosign some papers. Live dialogue under voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) She was luckily very fond of her youngest son, and through him I had a wholesome and effectual hold on her; for if in any of her tantrums or fits of haughtiness, she pretended to have the upper-hand, to assert her authority against mine, to refuse to sign such papers as I might think necessary for the distribution of our large and complicated property.Roderick picks up baby Patrick. RODERICK (V.O.) I would have Master Patrick carried off to Chiswick for a couple of days; and I warrant me his lady- mother could hold out no longer and would agree to anything I proposed.The Countess rushes to the window to see the child beingput into a carriage.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - DAYAnother quarrel. RODERICK (V.O.) Lady Cosgrove and I did not quarrel more than fashionable people do, and, for the first three years, I never struck my wife but when I was in liquor.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - DAYRoderick throws a knife at young Brookside. The knifedigs into an expensive antique chest, just missing theyoung Brookside's head. RODERICK (V.O.) When I flung the carving-knife at Brookside, I was drunk, as everybody present can testify, but as for having any systematic scheme against the poor lad, I can declare solemnly that, beyond merely hating him, I am guilty of no evil towards him.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - DAYThe Countess discovers Roderick making love to the child'snurse. RODERICK (V.O.) Do what one would to please her, my lady would never be happy or in good humor. And soon she added a mean, detestable jealousy to all her other faults, and would weep and wring her hands, and threaten to commit suicide, and I know not what.She screams and shouts something about suicide.Her son, Brookside, comes running in and consoles her. RODERICK (V.O.) Her death would have been no comfort to me, as I leave any person of common prudence to imagine; for that scoundrel of a young Brookside who was about to become my greatest plague and annoyance, would have inherited every penny of the property.INT. COSGROVE HOUSE - LONDON - RODERICK'S STUDY - DAYRoderick, bored and distracted, sits before a stack ofbills and papers, with his accountant. RODERICK (V.O.) Humble people envy us great men, and fancy that our lives are all pleasure. But the troubles of poverty, the rascality of agents, the quibbles of lawyers are endless. My life at this period seemed to consist of nothing but drafts of letters and money-brokers relative to the raising of money, and the insuring of Lady Cosgrove's life, and innumerable correspondence with upholsterers, decorators, cooks, horsekeepers, bailiffs, and stewards.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GARDENS - DAYVarious cuts.Birthday fete for Patrick who is now five years old.Gaily colored tents, ponies, a puppet show, expensivepresents. RODERICK (V.O.) My own dear boy, Patrick, was now five years old, and was the most polite and engaging child ever seen; it was a pleasure to treat him with kindness and distinction; the little fellow was the pink of fashion, beauty, and good breeding. In fact, he could not have been otherwise, with the care both his parents bestowed upon him, and the attentions which were lavished upon him in every way.Brookside and Roderick. RODERICK (V.O.) Whereas, young Brookside had grown to be a very nasty and disrespectful fellow indeed. In my company, he preserved the most rigid silence, and a haughty, scornful demeanor, which was so much the more disagreeable because there was nothing in his behavior I could actually take hold of to find fault with, although his whole conduct was insolent and supercilious to the highest degree.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - LIBRARY - DAYBrookside sitting alone reading a book. RODERICK (V.O.) In addition to this, the lad was fond of spending the chief part of his time occupied with the musty old books, which he took out of the library, and which I hate to see a young man of spirit pouring over.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYBrookside and the Countess. RODERICK (V.O.) The insubordination of that boy was dreadful. He used to quote passages of "Hamlet" to his mother, which made her very angry.Brookside quoting "Hamlet."The Countess begins to cry and leaves the room.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - RODERICK'S STUDYRoderick caning young Brookside. RODERICK (V.O.) As it is best to nip vice in the bud, and for a master of a family to exercise his authority in such a manner as that there may be no question about it, I took every opportunity of coming to close quarters with Master Brookside.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DINING ROOM - NIGHTMany guests around the table. RODERICK (V.O.) He always chose the days when company, or the clergy, or gentry of the neighborhood were present, to make violent, sarcastic, and insolent speeches.Brookside begins to fondle and caress Patrick. BROOKSIDE Dear child, what a pity it is I am not dead for your sake! The Cosgroves would then have a worthy representative, and enjoy all the benefits of the illustrious blood of the James' of Duganstown, would they not, Mr. James Cosgrove?INT. RODERICK'S STUDY - NIGHTRoderick caning Brookside again. The boy bears thepunishment without crying.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYRoderick's reunion with his mother.Present are the Countess, Patrick, Lord Brookside andothers.Mrs. James flings herself into her son's arms with ascream, and with transports of joy, which can only becomprehended by women who have held, in their arms, anonly child, after a twelve-year absence from him.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYRoderick and mother feeding Patrick.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GARDEN - DAYRoderick and mother playing with Patrick in the garden.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DINING ROOM - NIGHTMother at dinner with the family, in a strainedatmosphere.INT. PATRICK'S BEDROOM - NIGHTRoderick and his mother talk in whispers near the bed ofthe sleeping Patrick. MOTHER Ah, Roderick, it's a blessing to see that my darling boy has attained a position I always knew was his due, and for which I pinched myself to educate him. Little Patrick is a darling boy, and you live in great splendor, but how long will it last? Your lady-wife knows she has a treasure she couldn't have had, had she taken a duke to marry her, but if, one day, she should tire of my wild Roderick and his old-fashioned Irish ways, or if she should die, what future would there be for my son and grandson?INT. RODERICK'S STUDY - CASTLE HACKTON - NIGHTRoderick and his mother. MOTHER You have not a penny of your own, and cannot transact any business without the Countess' signature. Upon her death, the entire estate would go to young Brookside, who bears you little affection. You could be penniless tomorrow, and darling Patrick at the mercy of his stepbrother.INT. MOTHER'S ROOM - CASTLE HACKTON - NIGHTRoderick and his mother. MOTHER I shall tell you a secret -- I shall not rest until I see you Earl of Duganstown, and my grandson, a Lord Viscount.She smooths down Roderick's hair. MOTHER This head would become a coronet.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GARDEN - DAYRoderick and Mother slowly walking and talking. YoungPatrick, ahead of them sitting in a small cart, pulled bya lamb. MOTHER These things entail considerable expense, and you will need your lady's blessing, but the young boy forms the great bond of union between you and her ladyship, and there is no plan of ambition you could propose in which she would not join for the poor lad's benefit, and no expense she will not eagerly incur, if it might be any means be shown to tend to his advancement. You have important friends, and they can tell you how these things are done.INT. LONDON GAMING ROOM - NIGHTStanding away from the play tables, Roderick chats withLord West, a fat giant of a man. RODERICK (V.O.) And, to be sure, I did know someone who knew precisely how these things were done, and this was the distinguished solicitor and former Government Minister, Lord West, whose acquaintance I made, as I had so many others, at the gaming table. LORD WEST Do you happen to know Gustavus Adolphus, the thirteenth Earl of Crabs? RODERICK By name only. LORD WEST Well, sir, this nobleman is one of the gentlemen of His Majesty's closet, and one with whom our revered monarch is on terms of considerable intimacy. I should say you would be wise to fix upon this nobleman your chief reliance for the advancement of your claim to the Viscounty which you propose to get.INT. LONDON CLUB - DAYRoderick having lunch with Lord West and the Earl ofCrabs. RODERICK (V.O.) And for a five-hundred guinea fee, paid to his City law-firm, Lord West kindly arranged a meeting with that old scamp and swindler, Gustavus Adolphus, the thirteenth Earl of Crabs. EARL OF CRABS Mr. Cosgrove, when I take up a person, he or she is safe. There is no question about them any more. My friends are the best people. I don't mean the most virtuous, or, indeed, the least virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or the richest, or the best born, but the "best" -- in a word, people about whom there is no question. I cannot promise you how long it will take. You can appreciate it is not an easy matter. But any gentlemen with an estate, and ten-thousand a-year should have a peerage.INT. DRAWING ROOM - EARL OF CRABS - DAYRoderick being introduced to three noblemen, including theDuke of Rutland. RODERICK (V.O.) The striving after this peerage, I consider to have been one of the most unlucky dealings at this period. I made unheard of sacrifices to bring it about. I can tell you bribes were administered, and in high places too -- so near the royal person of His Majesty that you would be astonished were I to mention what great personages condescended to receive our loans.INT. DRAWING ROOM - NIGHTRoderick gives a beautiful diamond to a fat princess onher birthday. He is applauded by the other guests. RODERICK (V.O.) I lavished money here, and diamonds there.EXT. FARMLAND - DAYRoderick and the seller, riding over a prospectiveproperty. A broker shows them a survey map of theproperty. RODERICK (V.O.) I bought lands at ten times there value.INT. SALON - LONDON - NIGHTA musical evening. RODERICK (V.O.) I gave repeated entertainments to those friends to my claims who, being about the royal person, were likely to advance it.INT. STATELY HOME - DAYRoderick buying pictures. RODERICK (V.O.) I purchased pictures and articles of vertu at ruinous prices.EXT. RACES - DAYRoderick laughing and paying a bet. RODERICK (V.O.) I lost many a bet to the royal dukes, His Majesty's brothers.EXT. FIELD - DAYReviewing the company of troops.Roderick, the Earl of Crabs, the Countess, Patrick andBrookside, several princes and noblemen and the Duke ofRutland. RODERICK (V.O.) One of the main causes of expense which this ambition of mine entailed upon me was the fitting out and arming of a company of infantry from the Hackton estates, which I offered to my gracious sovereign for the campaign against the American rebels. These troops, superbly equipped and clothed, were embarked at Portsmouth in the year 1778.INT. ST. JAMES - RECEPTION ROOM - DAYGeorge III meeting people and stopping to talk toRoderick. Present also is the Duke of Rutland. RODERICK (V.O.) And the patriotism of the gentlemen who raised them was so acceptable at court that, on being presented by my Lord Crabs, His Majesty condescended to notice me particularly and said: GEORGE III That's right, Mr. Cosgrove, raise another company, and go with them, too!INT. COFFEE HOUSE - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) Crabs was really one of the most entertaining fellows in the world, and I took a sincere pleasure in his company, besides the interest and desire I had in cultivating the society of the most important personages of the realm.Roderick clumsily tries to engage in conversation with thefamed Dr. Johnson, on the subject of a book or play, ofthe day, and is rebuffed for his trouble. JOHNSON If I were you, Mr. Cosgrove, I should mind my horses and tailors and not trouble myself about letters.Laughter, Roderick bristles. RODERICK Dr. Johnson, I think you misbehave most grossly, treating my opinions with no more respect than those of a schoolboy. You fancy, sir, you know a great deal more than me, because you quote your "Aristotle" and "Plato," but can you tell me which horse will win at Epsom Downs next week? Can you shoot the ace of spades ten times without missing? If so, talk about Aristotle and Plato with me. BOSWELL (roars) Do you know who you're speaking to?! JOHNSON Hold your tongue, Mr. Boswell, I had no right to brag of my Greek, gentlemen, and he has answered me very well. RODERICK (pleased) Do you know ever a rhyme for Aristotle? GOLDSMITH (laughing) Port, if you please. JOHNSON Waiter, bring on of Captain James' rhymes for Aristotle. RODERICK (V.O.) And we had six rhymes for Aristotle before we left the coffee house that evening.INT. LONDON CLUB - NIGHT EARL OF CRABS Henri, this is Mr. James Cosgrove, who wishes to arrange a dinner party next week for sixty guests. HENRI I am at your service, Mr. Cosgrove. How much do you wish to spend? RODERICK As much as possible. HENRI As much as possible? RODERICK Yes, for I wish to entertain splendidly. HENRI All the same, you must name an amount. RODERICK It is entirely up to you. I want the best. EARL OF CRABS May I suggest five hundred guineas? RODERICK Will that be enough? HENRI Last month, the Duke of Suffolk spent no more. RODERICK All right, five hundred guineas.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - RODERICK'S STUDY - DAYRoderick is seated at a large table, stacked high withbills and letters; his accountant is seated next to him,aided by a bookkeeper. Roderick looks at each bill andhis accountant explains the charge. RODERICK (V.O.) The life I was leading was that of a happy man, but I was not happy.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - LONG GALLERY - DAYRoderick, walking with big strides, leads Brookside by hisear. Little Patrick runs alongside, pleading for hisbrother. PATRICK Papa, please don't flog Brookside today. It wasn't his fault -- really is wasn't.Roderick ignores him. RODERICK (V.O.) By now, young Brookside was of so wild, savage, and insubordinate a nature that I never had the least regard for him. As he grew up to be a man, his hatred for me assumed an intensity quite wicked to think of and which, I promise you, I returned with interest.He drags Brookside into his study, slamming the doorbehind him.INT. LIBRARY - DAYRoderick alone. Brookside enters with a pistol. BROOKSIDE (grinding his teeth) Look you now, Mister Roderick James, from this moment on, I will submit to no further chastisement from you! Do you understand that? RODERICK Give me that pistol. BROOKSIDE Take heed, Mister James. I will shoot you if you lay hands on me now, or ever again. Is that entirely clear to you, sir?Roderick stares hard at him, then he laughs and sits down. RODERICK (V.O.) I decided, at once, to give up that necessary part of his education. In truth, he then became the most violent, daring, disobedient, scapegrace, that ever caused an affectionate parent pain; he was certainly the most incorrigible.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - BROOKSIDE'S ROOM - DAYBrookside smashing a chair over the head of his governor,Reverend Hunt. RODERICK (V.O.) Twice or thrice, Reverend Hunt attempted to punish my Lord Brookside; but I promise you the rogue was too strong for him, and leveled the Oxford man to the ground with a chair, greatly to the delight of little Patrick, who cried out: "Bravo, Brooksy! Thump him, thump him!"EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GARDEN - DAYBrookside and Patrick. RODERICK (V.O.) With the child, Brookside was, strange to say, pretty tractable. He took a liking to the little fellow -- I like him the more, he said, because he was "half a Cosgrove."INT. CASTLE HACKTON - BALLROOM - NIGHT RODERICK (V.O.) Another day, it was Patrick's birthday, we were giving a grand ball and gala at Hackton, and it was time for my Patrick to make his appearance among us.There is a great crowding and tittering as the child comesin, led by his half-brother, who walks into the dancing-room in his stockinged feet, leading little Patrick by thehand, paddling about in the great shoes of the older. BROOKSIDE (very loudly) Don't you think he fits my shoes very well, Sir Richard Wargrave?Upon which, the company begins to look at each other andto titter, and his mother comes up to Lord Brookside withgreat dignity, seizes the child to her breast, and says: COUNTESS From the manner in which I love this child, my lord, you ought to know how I would have loved his elder brother, had he proved worthy of any mother's affection.Brookside is stunned by his mother's words. BROOKSIDE Madam, I have borne as long as mortal could endure the ill- treatment of the insolent Irish upstart, whom you have taken into your bed. It is not only the lowness of his birth, and the general brutality of his manners which disgusts me, but the shameful nature of his conduct towards your ladyship, his brutal and ungentlemanlike behavior, his open infidelity, his habits of extravagance, intoxication, his shameless robberies and swindling of my property and yours. It is these insults to you which shock and annoy me more than the ruffian's infamous conduct to myself. I would have stood by your ladyship, as I promised, but you seem to have taken latterly your husband's part; and, as I cannot personally chastise this low-bred ruffian, who, to our shame be it spoken, is the husband of my mother, and as I cannot bear to witness his treatment of you, and loathe his horrible society as if it were the plague, I am determined to quit my native country, at least during his detested life, or during my own.Bursting into tears, Lady Cosgrove leaves the room.Roderick loses control, and rushes at Brookside, knockingdown Lords, Dukes and Generals, left and right, who try tointerfere.The company is scandalizes by the entire incident.INT. LONDON CLUB - NIGHTAction as per voice over. Roderick is shunned. RODERICK (V.O.) If I had murdered my lord, I could scarcely have been received with more shameful obloquy and slander than now followed me in town and country. My friends fell away from me, and a legend arose of my cruelty to my stepson.INT. ST. JAMES - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) My reception at court was scarcely more cordial. On paying my respects to my sovereign at St. James, His Majesty pointedly asked me when I had news of Lord Brookside. On which I replied, with no ordinary presence of mind: RODERICK Sire, my Lord Brookside has set sail to fight the rebels against Your Majesty's crown in America. Does Your Majesty desire that I should send another company to aid him?The King stares at Roderick, turns on his heel and quicklyleaves the presence-chamber.Roderick is approached by the Duke of Rutland, who takeshim aside into an alcove. DUKE OF RUTLAND (speaking very quietly) Let me tell you, sir, that your conduct has been very odiously represented to the King, and has formed the subject of royal comment. The King has said, influenced by these representations, that you are the most disreputable man in the three kingdoms, and a dishonor to your name and country.Roderick begins to sputter. DUKE OF RUTLAND Hear me out, please. It has been intimated to His Majesty that you had raised the American Company for the sole purpose of getting the young Viscount to command it, and so get rid of him. And, further, that you had paid the very man in the company, who was ordered to dispatch him in the first general action. RODERICK Thus it is that my loyalty is rewarded, and my sacrifices in favor of my country viewed! DUKE OF RUTLAND As for your ambitious hopes regarding the Irish peerages, His Majesty has also let it be known that you have been led astray by that Lord Crabs, who likes to take money, but who has no more influence to get a coronet than to procure a Pope's tiara. And, if you have it in mind to call upon Lord Crabs, you will be disappointed. He left for the continent on Tuesday, and may be away for several months.INT. LORD WEST'S OFFICE - DAYRoderick and Lord West. RODERICK I insist upon being allowed to appear before His Majesty and clear myself of the imputations against me, to point out my services to the government, and to ask when the reward, that had been promised me, the title held by my ancestors, is again to be revived in my person.There is a sleepy coolness in the fat Lord West. He hearsRoderick with half-shut eyes. When he finishes hisviolent speech, which he has made striding about the room,Lord West opens one eye, smiles, and says: LORD WEST (gently) Have you done, Mr. Cosgrove? RODERICK Yes! LORD WEST Well, Mr. Cosgrove, I'll answer you point by point. The King is exceedingly averse to make peers, as you know. Your claim, as you call them, have been laid before him, and His Majesty's gracious reply was, that you were the most impudent man in his dominions, and merited a halter, rather than a coronet. As for withdrawing your support from us, you are perfectly welcome to carry yourself whithersoever you please. And, now, as I have a great deal of occupation, perhaps you will do me the favor to retire, or tell me if there is anything else in the world in which I can oblige you.So saying, Lord West raises his hand lazily to the bell,and bows Roderick out.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - RODERICK'S STUDY - DAYRoderick and his accountant going over the bills which hehas heaped on the table. RODERICK (V.O.) The news of His Majesty's disregard were not long in getting around, and, in a very short time, all the bills came down upon me together -- all the bills I had been contracting for the years of my marriage. I won't cite their amount; it was frightful. I was bound up in an inextricable toil of bills and debts, or mortgages and insurances, and all the horrible evils attendant upon them.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GROUNDS - DAYRoderick walking alone. RODERICK (V.O.) Was it my own want of style, or my want of a fortune? I know not. Now I was arrived at the height of my ambition, but both my skill and my luck seemed to be deserting me. Everything I touched, crumbled in my hands; every speculation I had, failed; every agent I trusted, deceived me. My income was saddled with hundreds of annuities, and thousands of lawyers' charges, and I felt the net drawing closer and closer around me, and no means to extricate myself from its toils. All my schemes had turned out failures.INT. LONDON GAMING CLUB - NIGHTRoderick at the gaming table. RODERICK (V.O.) My wife's moody despondency made my house and home not over-pleasant; hence, I was driven a good deal abroad, where as play was the fashion in every club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume my old habit, and to commence as an amateur those games at which I was once unrivaled in Europe.Roderick loses a large amount of money. RODERICK (V.O.) I had a run of ill-luck at play, and was forced to meet my losses by the most shameful sacrifices to the money-lenders, and was compelled to borrow largely upon my wife's annuities, ensuring her ladyship's life, which was the condition for every loan against her property.INT. LONDON OFFICE - INSURANCE BROKER - DAYRoderick and the broker. BROKER Your wife's life is as well known among the insurance societies in London, as any woman in Christendom, and, I'm sorry to say there is not one of them willing to place another policy against her ladyship's life. One of them even had the impudence to suggest that your treatment of the Countess did not render her life worth a year's purchase.EXT. STUD FARM - DAYRoderick buying a horse. RODERICK (V.O.) In the midst of my difficulties, I promised to buy a little horse for my dear little Patrick, which was to be a present for his eighth birthday, that was now coming on. I may have had my faults, but no man shall dare to say of me that I was not a good and tender father.Roderick admires the horse. RODERICK (V.O.) It was a beautiful little animal, and stood me in a good sum. I never regarded money for that dear child.EXT. ROAD - DAYThe horse kicks off one of the horse-boys who tries toride him. RODERICK (V.O.) But the horse was a bit wild, and he kicked off one of the horse-boys who rode him at first, and broke the lad's leg.EXT. ROAD - DAYRoderick riding the horse. The horse-boy lies in the backof a wagon. RODERICK (V.O.) But he was a beautiful animal and would make a fine horse for Patrick after he had a bit of breaking-in.EXT. ROAD - NEAR CASTLE HACKTON - DAYRoderick dismounts and gives the horse to one of thehorse-boys. RODERICK Timmy, take the injured lad to see the doctor, and then bring the horse to Doolan's farm, and tell him to break him in thoroughly. Tell him it's for little Patrick, and that I'll be over to see him next week. HORSE-BOY Yes, sir. RODERICK One more thing, and listen well, I don't want little Patrick to know where the horse is being kept. It's going to be surprise for his birthday.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYPatrick rushes out to greet his father. PATRICK Hello, papa!Roderick picks him up in his arms, and kisses him. PATRICK Did you buy the horse, papa? RODERICK Now, just have a little patience, my boy. Your birthday isn't until next week. PATRICK But I will have it on my birthday, won't I? RODERICK Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?He walks up the steps holding Patrick, who hugs and kisseshim. RODERICK (V.O.) My son, little Patrick Cosgrove, was a prince; his breeding and manners, even at his early age, showed him to be worthy of the two noble families from whom he was descended, and I don't know what high hopes I had for the boy, and indulged in a thousand fond anticipations as to his future success and figure in the world, but stern Fate had determined that I should leave none of my race behind me.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DINING ROOM - NIGHTRoderick is drunk. Patrick is brought in by his governor,Hunt, to say good night. His kisses his mother first,then approaches Roderick. PATRICK (kissing him) Good night, papa. RODERICK Good night, my little darling. PATRICK Papa? RODERICK Yes? PATRICK One of the boys in the stable told Nelly that you've already bought my horse, and that it's at Doolan's farm, where Mick the groom is breaking it in. Is that true, papa? RODERICK (angered) What the devil? What kind of fools do we have here? Pottle, who told the lad this story? HUNT I don't know, sir. PATRICK Then it's true! It's true! Oh, thank you, papa! Thank you!He hugs his father. COUNTESS Promise me, Patrick, that you will not ride the horse except in the company of your father. PATRICK (unconvincingly) I promise, mama. RODERICK I promise your lordship a good flogging if you even so much as go to Doolan's farm to see him. PATRICK Yes, papa.INT. RODERICK'S BEDROOM - DAYRoderick is awakened by his valet and Hunt, the governor. RODERICK Yes...? VALET I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but Mr. Hunt has something important to tell you. RODERICK Yes? HUNT I think Master Patrick has disobeyed your orders and stolen off to Doolan's farm. When I went to the lad's room this morning, his bed was empty. One of the cooks said she saw him go away before daybreak. He must have slipped through my room while I was asleep.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - STABLES - DAYRoderick, in a rage, taking a great horse-whip, gallopsoff after the child.EXT. ROAD - CASTLE HACKTON - DAYRoderick comes upon a sad procession of farmers, moaningand howling, the black horse led by the hand, and, on adoor that some of them carry, little Patrick. He lies inhis little boots and spurs, and his little coat of scarletand gold. His face is quite white, and he smiles as heholds a hand out to Roderick and says painfully: PATRICK You won't whip me, will you, papa?Roderick bursts out into tears in reply.INT. PATRICK'S BEDROOM - NIGHTSome doctors around the bed, Roderick and the Countessanxiously waiting upon them. RODERICK (V.O.) The doctors were called, but what does a doctor avail in a contest with the grim, invincible enemy? Such as came could only confirm our despair by their account of the poor child's case. His spine was injured, the lower half of him was dead when they laid him in bed at home. The rest did not last long, God help me! He remained yet for two days with us, and a sad comfort it was to think he was in no pain.INT. PATRICK'S BEDROOM - DAYRoderick, Countess and Patrick. PATRICK (weakly) Papa, I beg you and mama to pardon me for any acts of disobedience I have been guilty of towards you. COUNTESS (weeping) Oh, my little angel, you have done nothing for which you need pardon. PATRICK Where is Brooksy? I would like to see him. RODERICK Your bother is in America fighting the rebels. PATRICK Is he all right, papa? RODERICK Yes, he's fine. PATRICK Brooksy was better than you, papa, he used not to swear so, and he taught me many good things while you were away.Patrick takes a hand of his mother and of Roderick, ineach of his little clammy ones. PATRICK I beg you not to quarrel so, but to love each other, so that we might meet again in heaven where Brooksy told me quarrelsome people never go.His mother is much affected by these admonitions, andRoderick is too.Patrick gives Roderick a ring from his finger, and alocket to his mother.He says that these gifts are so that they will not forgethim. RODERICK (V.O.) At last, after two days, he died. There he lay, the hope of my family, the pride of my manhood, the link which kept me and my Lady Cosgrove together.EXT. CHURCH - GRAVEYARD - DAYFuneral. RODERICK (V.O.) I won't tell you with what splendor we buried him, but what avail are undertakers' feathers and heralds' trumpery.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - STABLE - DAYRoderick enters the stable and, after a few seconds, wehear a pistol shot. He exits rapidly, the smoking pistolstill in his hand.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - VARIOUS - DAY AND NIGHTThe Countess: Praying. Waking up screaming. Fits ofcrying. Severely depressed. RODERICK (V.O.) Lady Cosgrove, always vaporish and nervous, after our blessed boy's catastrophe, became more agitated than ever, and plunged into devotion with so much fervor that you would have fancied her almost distracted at times.Countess sees visions. RODERICK (V.O.) She imagined she saw visions. She said an angel from heaven told her that Patrick's death was a punishment to her for her neglect of her firstborn. Then she would declare that Brookside was dead.INT. RODERICK'S STUDY - DAYRoderick and his accountant. Bills, bills, bills. RODERICK (V.O.) By now, my financial affairs were near to ruin. I could not get a guinea from any money-dealer in London. Our rents were in the hands of receivers by this time, and it was as much as I could do to get enough money from the rascals to pay my wine-merchants their bills. Our property was hampered, and often as I applied to my lawyers and agents for money, would come a reply demanding money of me for debts and pretended claims which the rapacious rascals said they had on me.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYMother arrives. Roderick greets her. Servants unload herbags. RODERICK (V.O.) My mother was the only person who, in my misfortune, remained faithful to me -- indeed, she has always spoken of me in my true light, as a martyr to the rascality of others, and a victim of my own generous and confiding temper.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYMother supervising kitchen staff. RODERICK (V.O.) She was an invaluable person to me in my house, which would have been at rack and ruin before, but for her spirit of order and management and her excellent economy in the government of my rapidly dwindling household staff.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GARDEN - DAYRoderick and his mother. RODERICK (V.O.) If anything could have saved me from the consequences of villainy in others, it would have been the admirable prudence of that worthy creature.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DRAWING ROOM - NIGHTAction as per voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) She never went to bed until all the house was quiet and all the candles out; you may fancy that this was a matter of some difficulty with a man of my habits who had commonly a dozen of jovial fellows to drink with me every night, and who seldom, for my part, went to bed sober.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - RODERICK'S BEDROOM - NIGHTActions as per voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) Many and many a night, when I was unconscious of her attention, has that good soul pulled my boots off, and seen me laid by my servants snug in bed, and carried off the candle herself...INT. CASTLE HACKTON - RODERICK'S BEDROOM - DAYAction as per voice over. RODERICK (V.O.) ... and been the first in the morning, too, to bring me my drink of small beer. It was my mother's pride that I could drink more than any man in the country.INT. RODERICK'S STUDY - NIGHTRoderick and his mother holding a letter before a fire,which slowly brings out the writing in lemon juice betweenthe widely-spaced lines of directions to her milliner. RODERICK (V.O.) My mother discovered that always, before my lady-wife chose to write letters to her milliner, she had need of lemons to make her drink, as she said, and this fact, being mentioned to me, kind of set me a-thinking. RODERICK (reading letter aloud) "This day, three years ago, my last hope and pleasure in life was taken from me, and my dear child was called to Heaven. Where is his neglected brother, whom I suffered to grow up unheeded by my side, and whom the tyranny of the monster to whom I am united drove to exile, and, perhaps to death? I pray the child is still alive and safe. Charles Brookside! Come to the aide of a wretched mother, who acknowledges her crime, her coldness towards you, and now bitterly pays for her error! What sufferings, what humiliations have I had to endure! I am a prisoner in my own halls. I should fear poison, but then I know the wretch has a sordid interest in keeping me alive, and that my death would be the signal for his ruin. But I dare not stir without my odious, hideous, vulgar gaoler, the horrid Irish woman, who purses my every step. I am locked into my chamber at night, like a felon, and only suffered to leave it when ordered into the presence of my lord, to be present at his orgies with his boon-companions, and to hear his odious converse as he lapses into the disgusting madness of intoxication."INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DINING ROOM - NIGHTRoderick, and the Countess and mother, at a silent dinner. RODERICK (V.O.) It was not possible to recover the name for whom the note was intended, but it was clear that, to add to all my perplexities, three years after my poor child's death, my wife, whose vagaries of temper and wayward follies I had borne with for twelve years, wanted to leave me. I decided it best not to reveal to her ladyship our discovery, that we might still intercept and uncover further schemes with might be afoot.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - VARIOUS - DAY AND NIGHTA few cuts showing Mother keeping an eye on the Countess. RODERICK (V.O.) Yet I was bound to be on my guard that she should not give me the slip. Had she left me, I was ruined the next day. I set my mother to keep sharp watch over the moods of her ladyship, and you may be sure that her assistance and surveillance were invaluable to me. If I had paid twenty spies to watch her lady, I should not have been half so well served as by the disinterested care and watchfulness of my excellent mother.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - GARDENS - DAYRoderick walking with the Countess. RODERICK (V.O.) My Lady Cosgrove's relationship with me was a singular one. Her life was passed in a series of crack-brained sort of alternation between love and hatred for me. We would quarrel for a fortnight, then we should be friends for a month together sometimes. One day, I was joking her, and asking her whether she would take the water again, whether she had found another lover, and so forth. She suddenly burst out into tears, and, after a while, said to me: COUNTESS Roderick, you know well enough that I have never loved but you! Was I ever so wretched that a kind word from you did not make me happy? Ever so angry, but the least offer of good-will on your part did not bring me to your side? Did I not give a sufficient proof of my affection for you in bestowing one of the finest fortunes of England upon you? Have I repined or rebuked you for the way you have wasted it? No, I loved you too much and too fondly; I have always loved you. From the first moment I saw you, I saw your bad qualities, and trembled at your violence; but I could not help loving you. I married you, though I knew I was sealing my own fate in doing so, and in spite of reason and duty. What sacrifice do you want from me? I am ready to make any, so you will but love me, or, if not, that at least, you will gently us me.Roderick kisses her. RODERICK (V.O.) I was in a particularly good humor that day, and we had a sort of reconciliation.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - NIGHTRoderick and his mother. MOTHER Depend on it, artful hussy has some other scheme in her head now. RODERICK (V.O.) The old lady was right, and I swallowed the bait which her ladyship had prepared to entrap me as simply as any gudgeon takes a hook.EXT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYArrival of Mr. Newcombe, the money-broker. RODERICK (V.O.) I had hired a money-broker especially to find some means of my making a loan. After several months without success, it was with some considerable interest that I received his visit.INT. RODERICK'S STUDY - DAYRoderick and the money-broker, Mr. Newcombe. NEWCOMBE I have good news for you, Mr. Cosgrove. The firm of Bracegirdle and Chatwick, in the city of London, are prepared to lend you 20,000 pounds, pledged against your interest in the Edric mines. They will redeem the encumbrances against the property, which amount to some 10,000 pounds, and take a twenty- year working lease on the mines. They will lend you the 20,000 pounds against the lease income, which they will apply to the loan as it comes in, and they will make a charge of 18% per annum interest on the outstanding loan balance. RODERICK Mr. Newcombe, I have made some difficult loans during the past few years, at very onerous terms, but 18% a year interest seems very stiff indeed. NEWCOMBE Considering your financial circumstances, Mr. Cosgrove, it has been impossible to find anyone at all prepared to do any business with you. I think you may count yourself lucky to have this opportunity. But, obviously, if you would reject this offer, I shall keep trying to find a better one. RODERICK (after a pause) I am prepared to accept the terms, Mr. Newcombe. NEWCOMBE There are a few other points we should discuss. The loan agreement can only be executed by her ladyship's signature, and provided that Bracegirdle and Chatwick can be assured of her ladyship's freewill in giving her signature. RODERICK Provided that they can be assured of her ladyship's freewill? Are you serious? NEWCOMBE May I be quite frank with you? RODERICK Yes, of course. NEWCOMBE Mister Bracegirdle said to me that he had heard her ladyship lives in some fear of her life, and meditated a separation, in which case, she might later repudiate any documents signed by herself while in durance, and subject them, at any rate, to a doubtful and expensive litigation. They were quite insistent on this point, and said they must have absolute assurance of her ladyship's perfect freewill in the transaction before they would advance a shilling of their capital. RODERICK I see. NEWCOMBE When I asked them in what form they would accept her ladyship's assurances, they said that they were only prepared to accept them if her ladyship confirms her written consent by word of mouth, in their presence, at their counting-house in Birchin Lane, London. I requested they come here, and save her ladyship and yourself the inconvenience of the trip to London, but they declined, saying that they did not wish to incur the risk of a visit to Castle Hackton to negotiate, as they were aware of how other respectable parties, such as Messrs. Sharp and Salomon had been treated here.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYRoderick and his mother. MOTHER Depend on it, there is some artifice. When once you get into that wicked town, you are not safe. There are scores of writs out against you for debt. If you are taken in London, and thrown into prison, your case is hopeless. RODERICK Mother dear, we are now living off our own beef and mutton. We have to watch Lady Cosgrove within and the bailiffs without. There are certain situations in which people cannot dictate their own terms; and faith, we are so pressed now for money, that I would sign a bond with old Nick himself, if he would provide a good round sum. With this money, we can settle our principal debts and make a fresh start. MOTHER Roderick, you must listen to me. As soon as they have you in London, they will get the better of my poor innocent lad; and the first thing that I shall hear of you will be that you are in trouble. You will be a victim of your own generous and confiding nature.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - COUNTESS' BEDROOMRoderick and the Countess. COUNTESS Why go, Roderick? I am happy here, as long as you are kind to me, as you now are. We can't appear in London as we ought; the little money you will get will be spent, like all the rest has been. Let us stay here and be content.She takes his hand and kisses it.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - DAYMother and Roderick. MOTHER Humph! I believe she is at the bottom of it -- the wicked schemer.EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAYRoderick's carriage moving along. RODERICK (V.O.) We did not start in state, you may be sure. We did not let the country know we were going, or leave notice of adieu with our neighbors. The famous Mr. James Cosgrove and his noble wife traveled in a hack- chaise and pair.INT. COACH - DAYThe Countess lays her head on Roderick's shoulder andsmiles. RODERICK (V.O.) When a man is going to the devil, how easy and pleasant a journey it is! The thought of the money quite put me in a good humor, and my wife, as she lay on my shoulder in the post-chaise, going to London, said it was the happiest ride she had taken since our marriage.EXT. INN - DUSKThe carriage stops and they disembark. RODERICK (V.O.) One night we stayed at Reading.INT. INN - NIGHTRoderick and his wife at dinner. RODERICK (V.O.) My lady and I agreed that, with the money, we would go to France, and wait there for better times, and that night, over our supper, formed a score of plans both for pleasure and retrenchment. You would have thought it was Darby and Joan together over their supper.INT. BEDROOM - NIGHTRoderick and his wife making love. RODERICK (V.O.) O woman! Woman! When I recollect Lady Cosgrove's smiles and blandishments, how happy she seemed to be on that night! What an air of innocent confidence appeared in her behavior, and what affectionate names she called me! I am lost in wonder at the depth of her hypocrisy. Who can be surprised that an unsuspecting person like myself should have been a victim to such a consummate deceiver?EXT. GRAY'S INN OFFICE - DAYThe coach drives up. RODERICK (V.O.) We were in London at three o'clock, an half-an-hour before the time appointed.INT. STAIRCASE - DAYRoderick and the Countess looking for the office. RODERICK (V.O.) I easily found out Mr. Tapewell's apartment: a gloomy den it was, and in an unlucky hour, I entered it.They climb up dirty backstairs, lit by a feeble lamp, andthe dim sky of a dismal London afternoon.The Countess seems agitated and faint.When they get to the door, she stops in front of it. COUNTESS Roderick -- don't go in. I am sure there is danger. There's time yet, let us go back -- anywhere!The Countess has put herself before the door in atheatrical attitude and takes Roderick's hand.He pushes her away to one side. RODERICK Lady Cosgrove, you are an old fool. COUNTESS Old fool!She jumps at the bell, which is quickly answered by amoldy-looking gentleman in an unpowered wig. COUNTESS Say Lady Cosgrove is here!She stalks down the passage, muttering: "Old Fool."INT. MR. TAPEWELL'S OFFICE - DAYTapewell is in his musty room, surrounded by hisparchments and tin boxes.He advances and bows, begs her ladyship to be seated, andpoints towards a chair for Roderick, which he takes,rather wondering at the lawyer's insolence.The lawyer retreats to a side-door, saying he will be backin a moment.In the next moment, he reenters, bringing with him anotherlayer, six constables in red waist-coats, with bludgeonsand pistols, and Lord Brookside.Lady Cosgrove flings herself into the arms of her son,crying and whimpering and calling him her savior, herpreserver, her gallant knight.Then, turning to Roderick, she pours out a flood ofinvective which quite astonishes him. COUNTESS Oh fool as I am, I have outwitted the most crafty and treacherous monster under the sun. Yes, I was a fool when I married you, and gave up other and nobler hearts for your sake -- yes, I was a fool when I forgot my name and lineage to unite myself with a base-born adventurer -- a fool to bear, without repining, the most monstrous tyranny that ever woman suffered; to allow my property to be squandered; to see women as base and low-born as yourself... TAPEWELL For heaven's sake, be calm.Tapewell bounds back behind the constables, seeing athreatening look in Roderick's eye.The Countess continues in a strain of incoherent fury,screaming against Roderick, and against his mother, andalways beginning and ending the sentence with the word"fool." RODERICK You didn't tell all, my lady -- I said "old" fool. BROOKSIDE I have no doubt that you said and did, sir, everything that a blackguard could say or do. This lady is now safe under the protection of her relations and the law, and need fear your infamous persecutions no longer. RODERICK But you are not safe, and as sure as I am a man of honor, I will have your heart's blood. TAPEWELL Take down his words, constables; swear the peace against him. BROOKSIDE I would not sully my sword with the blood of such a ruffian. If the scoundrel remains in London another day, he will be seized as a common swindler. RODERICK Where's the man who will seize me?He draws his sword, placing his back to the door. RODERICK Let the scoundrel come! You -- you cowardly braggart, come first, if you have the soul of a man!The Countess and the bailiffs move away. TAPEWELL We are not going to seize you! My dear sir, we don't wish to seize you; we will give you a handsome sum to leave the country, only leave her ladyship in peace. BROOKSIDE And the country will be rid of such a villain.As Brookside says this, he backs into the next room.The lawyer follows him, leaving Roderick alone in thecompany of the constables who are all armed to the teeth. RODERICK (V.O.) I was no longer the man I was at twenty, when I should have charged the ruffians, sword in hand, and sent at least one of them to his account. I was broken in spirit, regularly caught in the toils, utterly baffled and beaten by that woman. Was she relenting at the door, when she paused and begged me to turn back? Had she not a lingering love for me still? Her conduct showed it, as I came to reflect on it. It was my only chance now left in the world, so I put down my sword upon the lawyers desk.Roderick puts his sword down on the lawyer's desk. RODERICK Gentlemen, I shall have no violence; you may tell Mr. Tapewell I am quite ready to speak with him when he is at leisure.Roderick sits down and folds his arms quite peaceably.EXT. COFFEE HOUSE - NEAR GRAY'S INN - DAYINT. RODERICK'S ROOM IN COFFEE HOUSE - DAY RODERICK (V.O.) I was instructed to take a lodging for the night in a coffee house near Gray's Inn, and anxiously expected a visit from Mr. Tapewell.Tapewell talking to Roderick. TAPEWELL I have been authorized by Lady Cosgrove and her advisors to pay you an annuity of 300 pounds a year, specifically on the condition of you remaining abroad out of the three kingdoms, and to be stopped on the instant of your return. I advise you to accept it without delay for you know, as well as I do, that your stay in London will infallibly plunge you in gaol, as there are innumerable writs taken out against you here and in the west of England, and that your credit is so blown upon that you could not hope to raise a shilling. I will leave you the night to consider this proposal, but if you refuse, the family will proceed against you in London, and have you arrested. If you accede, a quarter salary will be paid to you at any foreign port you should prefer. RODERICK Mr. Tapewell, I do not require a night to consider this proposal. What other choice has a poor, lonely and broken-hearted man? I shall take the annuity, and leave the country. MR. TAPEWELL I am very glad to hear that you have come to this decision, Mr. Cosgrove. I think you are very wise.There is a knock at the door and Roderick opens it.Brookside enters with four constables armed with pistols.The dialogue for this scene has to be written.Brookside has gone against the bargain, and has decided tohave Roderick arrested upon one of the many writs outagainst him for debt.Mr. Tapewell is surprised and complains weakly thatBrookside is acting in bad faith.Brookside brushes aside his objections.Roderick is defeated, and meekly sits down in a chair.The following lines are read over Roderick being shackledand led out of the room. NARRATOR Mr. James Cosgrove's personal narrative finishes here, for the hand of death interrupted the ingenious author soon after the period which this memoir was compiled, after he had lived nineteen years an inmate of the Fleet Prison, where the prison records state he died of delirium tremens.EXT. FLEET PRISON - DAYHis mother, now very old and hobbled with arthritis,enters the prison, carrying a basket on her arm. NARRATOR His faithful old mother joined him in his lonely exile, and had a bedroom in Fleet Market over the way. She would come and stay the whole day with him in prison working.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - COUNTESS' STUDYSigning a payment draft, the Countess sighs and gazes outof the large window. NARRATOR The Countess was never out of love with her husband, and, as long as she lived, James enjoyed his income of 300 pounds per year and was, perhaps, as happy in prison, as at any period of his existence.INT. CASTLE HACKTON - STUDY - DAYBrookside tearing up the payment draft presented to him byhis accountant. NARRATOR When her ladyship died, her son sternly cut off the annuity, devoting the sum to charities, which, he said, would make a nobler use of it than the scoundrel who had enjoyed it hitherto.INT. FLEET PRISON - DAYRoderick, now grey-haired, blacking boots. NARRATOR When the famous character lost his income, his spirit entirely failed. He was removed into the pauper's ward, where he was known to black boots for wealthier prisoners, and where he was detected in stealing a tobacco box.INT. FLEET PRISON - DAYRoderick and his mother. Action as per voice over. NARRATOR His mother attained a prodigious old age, and the inhabitants of the place in her time can record, with accuracy, the daily disputes which used to take place between mother and son, until the latter, from habits of intoxication, falling into a state of almost imbecility, was tended by his tough old parent as a baby almost, and would cry if deprived of his necessary glass of brandy.TITLE CARD It was in the reign of George III that the above-named personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now. FADE OUT. THE END
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+BARTON FINK Screenplay By Ethan Coen & Joel Coen FADE IN: ON BARTON FINK He is a bespectacled man in his thirties, hale but somewhat bookish. He stands, tuxedoed, in the wings of a theater, looking out at the stage, listening intently to end of a performance. In the shadows behind him an old stagehand leans against a flat, expressionlessly smoking a cigarette, one hand on a thick rope that hangs from the ceiling. The voices of the performing actors echo in from the offscreen stage: ACTOR I'm blowin' out of here, blowin' for good. I'm kissin' it all goodbye, these four stinkin' walls, the six flights up, the el that roars by at three A.M. like a castiron wind. Kiss 'em goodbye for me, Maury! I'll miss 'em – like hell I will! ACTRESS Dreaming again! ACTOR Not this time, Lil! I'm awake now, awake for the first time in years. Uncle Dave said it: Daylight is a dream if you've lived with your eyes closed. Well my eyes are open now! I see that choir, and I know they're dressed in rags! But we're part of that choir, both of us – yeah, and you, Maury, and Uncle Dave too! MAURY The sun's coming up, kid. They'll be hawking the fish down on Fulton Street. ACTOR Let 'em hawk. Let 'em sing their hearts out. MAURY That's it, kid. Take that ruined choir. Make it sing! ACTOR So long, Maury. MAURY So long. We hear a door open and close, then approaching footsteps. A tall, dark actor in a used tweed suit and carrying a beat-up valise passes in front of Barton: From offscreen stage: MAURY We'll hear from that kid. And I don't mean a postcard. The actor sets the valise down and then stands waiting int he shadows behind Barton. An older man in work clothes – not wardrobe – passes in front of Barton from the other direction, pauses at the edge of the stage and cups his hands to his mouth. OLDER MAN FISH! FRESH FISH! As the man walks back off the screen: LILY Let's spit on our hands and get to work. It's late, Maury. MAURY Not any more Lil... Barton mouths the last line in sync with the offscreen actor: MAURY ...It's early. With this the stagehand behind Barton furiously pulls the rope hand-over-hand and we hear thunderous applause and shouts of "Bravo!" As the stagehand finishes bringing the curtain down, somewhat muting the applause, the backstage actor trots out of frame toward the stage. The stagehand pulls on an adjacent rope, bringing the curtain back up and unmuting the applause. Barton Fink seems dazed. He has been joined by two other men, both dressed in tuxedos, both beaming toward the stage. BARTON'S POV Looking across a tenement set at the backs of the cast as the curtain rises on the enthusiastic house. The actors take their bows and the cry of "Author, Author" goes up from the crowd. The actors turn to smile at Barton in the wings. BARTON He hesitates, unable to take it all in. He is gently nudged toward the stage by the two tuxedoed gentlemen. As he exits toward the stage the applause is deafening. TRACKING SHOT Pushing a maitre 'd who looks back over his shoulder as he leads the way through the restaurant. MAITRE 'D Your table is ready, Monsieur Fink... several members of your party have already arrived... REVERSE Pulling Barton FINK Is Garland Stanford here? MAITRE 'D He called to say he'd be a few minutes late... Ah, here we are... TRACKING IN Toward a large semi-circular booth. Three guests, two me and a woman in evening wear, are rising and beaming at Barton. A fat middle-aged man, one of the tuxedoed gentlemen we saw backstage, is moving out to let Barton slide in. MAN Barton, Barton, so glad you could make it. You know Richard St. Claire... Barton nods and looks at the woman. MAN ...and Poppy Carnahan. We're drinking champagne, dear boy, in honor of the occasion. Have you seen the Herald? Barton looks sullenly at his champagne glass as the fat man fills it. BARTON Not yet. MAN Well, I don't want to embarrass you but Caven could hardly contain himself. But more important, Richard and Poppy here loved the play. POPPY Loved it! What power! RICHARD Yeah, it was a corker. BARTON Thanks, Richard, but I know for a fact the only fish you've ever seen were tacked to a the wall of the yacht club. RICHARD Ouch! MAN Bravo! Nevertheless, we were all devastated. POPPY Weeping! Copius tears! What did the Herald say? MAN I happen to have it with me. BARTON Please Derek – POPPY Do read it, do! DEREK "Bare Ruined Choirs: Triumph of the Common Man. The star of the Bare Ruined Choirs was not seen on the stage of the Belasco last night – though the thespians involved all acquitted themselves admirably. The find of the evening was the author of this drama about simple folk – fish mongers, in fact – whose brute struggle for existence cannot quite quell their longing for something higher. The playwright finds nobility in the most squalid corners and poetry in the most callused speech. A tough new voice in the American theater has arrived, and the owner of that voice is named... Barton Fink." BARTON They'll be wrapping fish in it in the morning so I guess it's not a total waste. POPPY Cynic! DEREK Well we can enjoy your success, Barton, even if you can't. BARTON Don't get me wrong – I'm glad it'll do well for you, Derek. DEREK Don't worry about me, dear boy – I want you to celebrate. BARTON All right, but I can't start listening to the critics, and I can't kid myself about my own work. A writer writes from his gut, and his gut tells him what's good and what's... merely adequate. POPPY Well I don't pretend to be a critic, but Lord, I have a gut, and it tells me it was simply marvelous. RICHARD And a charming gut it is. POPPY You dog! RICHARD (baying) Aaa-woooooooo! Barton turns to look for the source of an insistent jingling. We swish pan off him to find a busboy marching through the restaurant displaying a page sign, bell attached, with Barton's name on it. TRACKING IN TOWARD A BAR A distinguished fifty-year-old gentleman in evening clothes is nursing a martini, watching Barton approach. PULLING BARTON As he draws near. BARTON I thought you were going to join us. Jesus, Garland, you left me alone with those people. GARLAND Don't panic, I'll join you in a minute. What's you think of Richard and Poppy? Barton scowls BARTON The play was marvelous. She wept, copiously. Millions of dollars and no sense. Garland smiles, then draws Barton close. GARLAND We have to talk a little business. I've just been on the phone to Los Angeles. Barton, Capitol Pictures wants to put you under contract. They've offered you a thousand dollars a week. I think I can get them to go as high as two. BARTON To do what? GARLAND What do you do far a living? BARTON I'm not sure anymore. I guess I try to make a difference. GARLAND Fair enough. No pressure here, Barton, because I respect you, but let me point out a couple of things. One, here you make a difference to five hundred fifty people a night – if the show sells out. Eighty five million people go to the pictures every week. BARTON To see pap. GARLAND Yes, generally, to see pap. However, point number two: A brief tenure in Hollywood could support you through the writing of any number of plays. BARTON I don't know, Garland; my place is here right now. I feel I'm on the brink of success- GARLAND I'd say you're already enjoying some. Barton leans earnestly forward. BARTON No, Garland, don't you see? Not the kind of success where the critics fawn over you or the producers like Derek make a lot of money. No, a real success – the success we've been dreaming about – the creation of a new, living theater of, about, and for the common man! If I ran off to Hollywood now I'd be making money, going to parties, meeting the big shots, sure, but I'd be cutting myself off from the wellspring of that success, from the common man. He leans back and chuckles ruefully. BARTON ...I guess I'm sprouting off again. But I am certain of this, Garland: I'm capable of more good work. Maybe better work than I did in Choirs. It just doesn't seem to me that Los Angeles is the place to lead the life of mind. GARLAND Okay Barton, you're the artist, I'm just the ten percenter. You decide what you want and I'll make it happen. I'm only asking that your decision be informed by a little realism – if I can use that word and Hollywood in the same breath. Barton glumly lights a cigarette and gazes out across the floor. Garland studies him. GARLAND ...Look, they love you, kid – everybody does. You see Caven's review in the Herald? BARTON No, what did it say? GARLAND Take my copy. You're the toast of Broadway and you have the opportunity to redeem that for a little cash – strike that, a lot of cash. Garland looks at Barton for a reaction, but gets none. GARLAND ...The common man'll still be here when you get back. What the hell, they might even have one or two of 'em out in Hollywood. Absently: BARTON ...That's a rationalization, Garland. Garland smiles gently. GARLAND Barton, it was a joke. We hear a distant rumble. It builds slowly and we cut to: A GREAT WAVE Crushing against the Pacific shore. The roar of the surf slips away as we dissolve to: HOTEL LOBBY A high wide shot from the front door, looking down across wilting potted palms, brass cuspidors turning green, ratty wing chairs; the fading decor is deco-gone-to-seed. Amber light, afternoon turning to evening, slopes in from behind us, washing the derelict lobby with golden highlights. Barton Fink enters frame from beneath the camera and stops in the middle foreground to look across the lobby. We are framed on his back, his coat and hat. The lobby is empty. There is a suspended beat as Barton takes it in. Barton moves toward the front desk. THE REVERSE As Barton stops at the empty desk. He hits a small silver bell next to the register. Its ring-out goes on and on without losing volume. After a long beat there is a dull scuffle of shoes on stairs. Barton, puzzled, looks around the empty lobby, then down at the floor behind the front desk. A TRAP DOOR It swings open and a young man in a faded maroon uniform, holding a shoebrush and a shoe – not one of his own – climbs up from the basement. He closes the trap door, steps up to the desk and sticks his finger out to touch the small silver bell, finally muting it. The lobby is now silent again. CLERK Welcome to the Hotel Earle. May I help you, sir? BARTON I'm checking in. Barton Fink. The clerk flips through cards on the desk. CLERK F-I-N-K. Fink, Barton. That must be you, huh? BARTON Must be. CLERK Okay then, everything seems to be in order. Everything seems to be in order. He is turning to a register around for Barton to sign. CLERK ...Are you a tranz or a rez? BARTON Excuse me? CLERK Transient or resident? BARTON I don't know... I mean, I'll be here, uh, indefinitely. CLERK Rez. That'll be twenty-five fifty a week payable in advance. Checkout time is twelve sharp, only you can forget that on account you're a rez. If you need anything, anything at all, you dial zero on your personal in-room telephone and talk to me. My name is Chet. BARTON Well, I'm going to be working here, mostly at night; I'm a writer. Do you have room service? CLERK Kitchen closes at eight but I'm the night clerk. I can always ring out for sandwiches. The clerk is scribbling something on the back of an index card. CLERK ...Though we provide privacy for the residential guest, we are also a full service hotel including complimentary shoe shine. My name is Chet. He pushes a room key across the counter on top of the index card. Barton looks at the card. On it: "CHET!" Barton looks back up at the clerk. They regard each other for a beat. CLERK ...Okay BARTON Huh? The clerk. CLERK Okey-dokey, go ahead. BARTON What – CLERK Don't you wanna go to your room?! Barton stares at him. BARTON ...What number is it? The clerk stares back. CLERK ...Six-oh-five. I forgot to tell you. As Barton stoops to pick up his two small bags: CLERK ...Those your only bags? BARTON The others are being sent. The clerk leans over the desk to call after him: CLERK I'll keep an eye out for them. I'll keep my eyes peeled, Mr. Fink. Barton is walking to the elevator. ELEVATOR Barton enters and sets down his bags. An aged man with white stubble, wearing a greasy maroon uniform, sits on a stool facing the call panel. He does not acknowledge Barton's presence. After a beat: BARTON ...Six, please. The elevator man gets slowly to his feet. As he pushes the door closed: ELEVATOR MAN Next stop: Six. SIXTH-FLOOR HALLWAY Barton walks slowly toward us, examining the numbers on the doors. The long, straight hallway is carpeted with an old stained forest green carpet. The wallpaper shows faded yellowing palm trees. Barton sticks his key in the lock of a door midway down the hall. HIS ROOM As Barton enters. The room is small and cheaply furnished. There is a lumpy bed with a worn yellow coverlet, an old secretary table, and a wooden luggage stand. As Barton crosses the room we follow to reveal a sink and wash basin, a house telephone on a rickety night stand, and a window with yellowing sheers looking on an air shaft. Barton throws his valise onto the bed where it sinks, jittering. He shrugs off his jacket. Pips of sweat stand out on Barton's brow. The room is hot. He walks across the room, switches on an oscillating fan and struggles to throw open the window. After he strains at it for a moment, it slides open with a great wrenching sound. Barton picks up his Underwood and places it on the secretary table. He gives the machine a casually affectionate pat. Next to the typewriter are a few sheets of house stationary: "THE HOTEL EARLE: A DAY OR A LIFETIME." We pan up to a picture in a cheap wooden frame on the wall above the desk. A bathing beauty sits on the beach under a cobalt blue sky. One hand shields her eyes from the sun as she looks out at a crashing surf. The sound of the surf mixes up. BARTON Looking at the picture TRACKING IN ON THE PICTURE The surf mixes up louder. We hear a gull cry. The sound snaps off with the ring of a telephone. THE HOUSE PHONE On the nightstand next to the bed. With a groan of bedsprings Barton sits into frame and picks up the telephone. VOICE How d'ya like your room! BARTON ...Who is this? VOICE Chet! BARTON ...Who? VOICE Chet! From downstairs! Barton wearily rubs the bridge of his nose. VOICE ...How d'ya like your room! A PILLOW As Barton's head drops down into frame against it. He reaches over and turns off the bedside light. He lies back and closes his eyes. A long beat. We hear a faint hum, growing louder. Barton opens his eyes. HIS POV A naked, peeling ceiling. The hum – a mosquito, perhaps – stops. BARTON His eyes move this way and that. After a silent beat, he shuts them again. After another silent beat, we hear – muffled, probably from am adjacent room – a brief, dying laugh. It is sighing and weary, like the end of a laughing fit, almost a sob. Silence again. We hear the rising mosquito hum. FADE OUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE Barton Fink is ushered into a large, light office by an obsequious middle- aged man in a sagging suit. There are mosquito bites on Barton's face. REVERSE From behind a huge white desk, a burly man in an expensive suit gets to his feet and strides across the room. MAN Is that him?! Barton Fink?! Lemme put my arms around this guy! He bear-hugs Barton. MAN ...How the hell are ya? Good trip? He separates without waiting for an answer. MAN My name is Jack Lipnik. I run this dump. You know that – you read the papers. Lipnik is lumbering back to his desk. MAN Lou treating you all right? Got everything you need? What the hell's the matter with your face? What the hell's the matter with his face, Lou? BARTON It's not as bad as it looks; just a mosquito in my room – LIPNIK Place okay? To Lou: LIPNIK ...Where did we put him? BARTON I'm at the Earle. LIPNIK Never heard of it. Let's move him to the Grand, or the Wilshire, or hell, he can stay at my place. BARTON Thanks, but I wanted a place that was less... LIPNIK Less Hollywood? Sure, say it, it's not a dirty word. Sat whatever the hell you want. The writer is king here at Capitol Pictures. You don't believe me, take a look at your paycheck at the end of every week – that's what we think of the writer. (to Lou) ...so what kind of pictures does he like? LOU Mr. Fink hasn't given a preference, Mr. Lipnik. LIPNIK How's about it, Bart? BARTON To be honest, I don't go to the pictures much, Mr. Lipnik – LIPNIK That's okay, that's okay, that's okay – that's just fine. You probably just walked in here thinking that was going to be a handicap, thinking we wanted people who knew something about the medium, maybe even thinking there was all kind of technical mumbo- jumbo to learn. You were dead wrong. We're only interested in one thing: Can you tell a story, Bart? Can you make us laugh, can you make us cry, can you make us wanna break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay. The point is, I run this dump and I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo. Why do I run it? I've got horse-sense, goddamnit. Showmanship. And also, and I hope Lou told you this, I bigger and meaner than any other kike in this town. Did you tell him that, Lou? And I don't mean my dick's bigger than yours, it's not a sexual thing – although, you're the writer, you would know more about that. Coffee? BARTON ...Yes, thank you. LIPNIK Lou. Lou immediately rises and leaves. Lipnik's tone becomes confidential: LIPNIK ...He used to have shares in the company. An ownership interest. Got bought out in the twenties – muscled out according to some. Hell, according to me. So we keep him around, he's got a family. Poor schmuck. He's sensitive, don't mention the old days. Oh hell, say whatever you want. Look, barring a preference, Bart, we're gonna put you to work on a wrestling picture. Wallace Beery. I say this because they tell me you know the poetry of the street. That would rule out westerns, pirate pictures, screwball, Bible, Roman... He rises and starts pacing. LIPNIK But look, I'm not one of these guys thinks poetic has gotta be fruity. We're together on that, aren't we? I mean I'm from New York myself – well, Minsk if you wanna go way back, which we won't if you don't mind and I ain't askin'. Now people're gonna tell you, wrestling. Wallace Beery, it's a B picture. You tell them, bullshit. We don't make B pictures here at Capitol. Let's put a stop to that rumor right now. Lou enters with coffee. LIPNIK ...Thanks Lou. Join us. Join us. Talking about the Wallace Beery picture. LOU Excellent picture. LIPNIK We got a treatment on it yet? LOU No, not yet Jack. We just bought the story. Saturday Evening Post. LIPNIK Okay, the hell with the story. Wallace Beery is a wrestler. I wanna know his hopes, his dreams. Naturally, he'll have to get mixed up with a bad element. And a romantic interest. You know the drill. Romantic interest, or else a young kid. An orphan. What do you think, Lou? Wally a little too old for a romantic interest? Look at me, a writer in the room and I'm askin' Lou what the goddamn story should be! After a robust laugh, he beams at Barton. LIPNIK ...Well Bart, which is it? Orphan? Dame? BARTON ...Both maybe? There is a disappointed silence. Lipnik looks at Lou. Lou clears his throat. LOU ...Maybe we should do a treatment. LIPNIK Ah, hell, let Bart take a crack at it. He'll get into the swing of things or I don't know writers. Let's make it a dame, Bart, keep it simple. We don't gotta tackle the world our first time out. The important thing is we all have that Barton Fink feeling, but since you're Barton Fink I'm assuming you have it in spades. Seriously Bart, I like you. We're off to a good start. Dammit, if all our writers were like you I wouldn't have to get so goddamn involved. I'd like to see something by the end of the week. Lou is getting to his feet and signaling for Barton to do likewise. LIPNIK ...Heard about your show, by the way. My man in New York saw it. Tells me it was pretty damn powerful. Pretty damn moving. A little fruity, he said, but I guess you know what you're doing. Thank you for your heart. We need more heart in pictures. We're all expecting great things. TRACKING SHOT We are in the sixth-floor hallway of the Earle, late at night. A pair of shoes sits before each door. Faintly, from one of the rooms, we can hear the clack. clack. clack. of a typewriter. It grows louder as we track forward. EXTREME CLOSE SHOT – TYPEWRITER Close on the typing so that we see only each letter as it is typed, without context. One by one the letters clack on: a-u-d-i-b-l-e. After a short beat, a period strikes. BARTON Elbows on his desk, he looks down at what he has just written. He rolls the paper up a few lines, looks some more. THE PAGE It says: FADE IN: A TENEMENT BUILDING On Manhattan's Lower East Side. Early morning traffic is audible. BARTON After a beat he rolls the sheet back into place. EXTREME CLOSE SHOT The letter-strike area. It is lined up to the last period, which is struck over by a comma. The words "as is" are typed in and we cut back to – BARTON – as he continues typing. He stops after several more characters and looks. Silence. Breaking the silence, muffled laughter from an adjacent room. A man's laughter. It is weary, solitary, mirthless. Barton looks up at the wall directly in front of him. HIS POV The picture of the girl on the beach. BARTON Staring, as the end-of-the-tether laughing continues. Barton looks back down at his typewriter as if to resume work, but the sound is too insistent to ignore. WIDE SHOT The room, Barton sitting at his desk, staring at the wall. The laughter. Barton pushes his chair back, goes to the door, opens it and looks out. HIS POV The empty hallway, a pair of shoes before each door. At the end of the hall a dim red bulb burns over the door to the staircase, punctuating the sick yellow glow of the line of wall sconces. The laughter, though still faint, is more resonant in the empty hall. Perhaps its quality has changed, or perhaps simply because it is so insistent, the laughter now might be taken for weeping. Barton pauses, trying to interpret the sound. He slowly withdraws into his room. HIS ROOM Barton looks down at his typewriter for a beat. The laughter/weeping continues. He walks over to his bed, sits down and picks up the house phone. BARTON Hello... Chet? This is Barton Fink in room 605. Yes, there's uh, there's someone in the room next door to mine, 604, and he's uh... He's uh... making a lot of... noise. After a beat: BARTON ...Thank you. He cradles the phone. The laughter continues for a moment or two, then abruptly stops with the muffled sound of the telephone ringing next door. Barton looks at the wall. The muffled sound of a man talking. The sound of the earpiece being pronged. Muffled footsteps next door. The sound of the neighbor's door opening and shutting. Footsteps approaching the hall. A hard, present knock at Barton's door. Barton hesitates for a beat, then rises to go get the door. ON THE DOOR As Barton opens it. Standing in the hall is a large man – a very large man – in short sleeves, suspenders, and loosened tie. His face is slightly flushed, with the beginnings of sweat. MAN Did you... Somebody just complained... Hastily: BARTON No, I didn't – I mean, I did call down, not to complain exactly, I was just concerned that you might – not that it's my business, but that you might be in some kind of... distress. You see, I was trying to work, and it's, well, it was difficult – MAN Yeah. I'm damn sorry, if I bothered you. The damn walls here, well, I just apologize like hell... He sticks his hand out. MAN ...My name's Charlie Meadows. I guess we're neighbors... Without reaching for the hand. BARTON Barton Fink. Unfazed, Charlie Meadows unpockets a flask. CHARLIE Neighbor, I'd feel better about the damned inconvenience if you'd let me buy you a drink. BARTON That's all right, really, thank you. CHARLIE All right, hell, you trying to work and me carrying on in there. Look, the liquor's good, wuddya say? As he enters: CHARLIE ... You got a glass? It's the least I can do. BARTON Okay... a quick one, sure... He gets two glasses from the wash basin. Charlie sits down on the edge of the bed and uncorks his flask. CHARLIE Yeah, just a nip. I feel like hell, all the carryings-on next door. BARTON That's okay, I assure you. It's just that I was trying to work – CHARLIE What kind of work do you do, Barton, if you don't mind my asking? BARTON Well, I'm a writer, actually. CHARLIE You don't say. That's a tough racket. My hat's off to anyone who can make a go of it. Damned interesting work, I'd imagine. BARTON Can be. Not easy, but – CHARLIE Damned difficult, I'd imagine. As he hands Charlie a glass: BARTON And what's your line, Mr. Meadows? CHARLIE Hell no! Call me Charlie. Well Barton, you might say I sell peace of mind. Insurance is my game – door-to-door, human contact, still the only way to move merchandise. He fills a glass with whiskey and swaps it for the empty glass. CHARLIE ...In spite of what you might think from tonight, I'm pretty good at it. BARTON Doesn't surprise me at all. CHARLIE Hell yes. Because I believe in it. Fire, theft, and casualty are not things that only happen to other people – that's what I tell 'em. Writing doesn't work out, you might want to look into it. Providing for basic human need – a fella could do worse. BARTON Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. CHARLIE What kind of scribbler are you – newspaperman did you say? BARTON No, I'm actually writing for the pictures now – CHARLIE Pictures! Jesus! He guffaws. CHARLIE ...I'm sorry, brother, I was just sitting here thinking I was talking to some ambitious youngster, eager to make good. Hell, you've got it made! Writing for pictures! Beating out that competition! And me being patronizing! He gestures toward his face: CHARLIE ...Is the egg showing or what?! BARTON That's okay; actually I am just starting out in the movies – though I was pretty well established in New York, some renown there, CHARLIE Oh, it's an exciting time then. I'm not the best-read mug on the planet, so I guess it's no surprise I didn't recognize your name. Jesus, I feel like a heel. For the first time Barton smiles. BARTON That's okay, Charlie. I'm a playwright. My shows've only played New York. Last one got a hell of a write-up in the Herald. I guess that's why they wanted me here. CHARLIE Hell, why not? Everyone wants quality. What kind of venue, that is to say, thematically, uh... BARTON What do I write about? Charlie laughs. CHARLIE Caught me trying to be fancy! Yeah, that's it, Bart. BARTON Well, that's a good question. Strange as it may seem, Charlie, I guess I write about people like you. The average working stiff. The common man. CHARLIE Well ain't that a kick in the head! BARTON Yeah, I guess it is. But in a way, that's exactly the point. There's a few people in New York – hopefully our numbers are growing – who feel we have an opportunity now to forge something real out of everyday experience, create a theater for the masses that's based on a few simple truths – not on some shopworn abstractions about drama that doesn't hold true today, if they ever did... He gazes at Charlie. BARTON ...I don't guess this means much to you. CHARLIE Hell, I could tell you some stories– BARTON And that's the point, that we all have stories. The hopes and dreams of the common man are as noble as those of any king. It's the stuff of life – why shouldn't it be the stuff of theater? Goddamnit, why should that be a hard pill to swallow? Don't call it new theater, Charlie; call it real theater. Call it our theater. CHARLIE I can see you feel pretty strongly about it. BARTON Well, I don't mean to get up on my high horse, but why shouldn't we look at ourselves up there? Who cares about the Fifth Earl of Bastrop and Lady Higginbottom and – and – and who killed Nigel Grinch-Gibbons? CHARLIE I can feel my butt getting sore already. BARTON Exactly, Charlie! You understand what I'm saying – a lot more than some of these literary types. Because you're a real man! CHARLIE And I could tell you some stories – BARTON Sure you could! And yet many writers do everything in their power to insulate themselves from the common man – from where they live, from where they trade, from where they fight and love and converse and – and – and... so naturally their work suffers, and regresses into empty formalism and – well, I'm spouting off again, but to put it in your language, the theater becomes as phony as a three dollar bill. CHARLIE Yeah, I guess that's tragedy right there. BARTON Frequently played, seldom remarked. Charlie laughs. CHARLIE Whatever that means. Barton smiles with him. BARTON You're all right, Charlie. I'm glad you stopped by. I'm sorry if – well I know I sometimes run on. CHARLIE Hell no! Jesus, I'm the kind of guy, I'll let you know if I'm bored. I find it all pretty damned interesting. I'm the kind schmoe who's generally interested in the other guy's point of view. BARTON Well, we've got something in common then. Charlie is getting to his feet and walking to the door. CHARLIE Well Christ, if there's any way I can contribute, or help, or whatever– Barton chuckles and extends his hand. BARTON Sure, sure Charlie, you can help by just being yourself. CHARLIE Well, I can tell you some stories – He pumps Barton's hand, then turns and pauses in the doorway. CHARLIE ...And look, I'm sorry as hell about the interruption. Too much revelry late at night, you forget there are other people in the world. BARTON See you, Charlie. Charlie closes the door and is gone. Barton goes back to his desk and sits. Muffled, we can hear the door of the adjacent room opening and closing. Barton looks at the wall. HIS POV The bathing beauty. From offscreen we hear a sticky, adhesive-giving-way sound. BARTON He looks around to the opposite – bed – wall. HIS POV The wallpaper is lightly sheened with moisture from the heat. One swath of wallpaper is just finishing sagging away from the wall. About three feet of the wall, where it meets the ceiling, is exposed. The strip of wallpaper, its glue apparently melted, sags and nods above the bed. It glistens yellow, like a fleshy tropical flower. BACK TO BARTON He goes over to the bed and steps up onto it. He smooths the wallpaper back up against the wall. He looks at his hand. HIS HAND Sticky with tacky yellow wall sweat. He wipes it onto his shirt. We hear a faint mosquito hum. Barton looks around. FADE OUT A TYPEWRITER Whirring at high speed. The keys strike too quickly for us to make out the words. SLOW TRACK IN On Barton, sitting on a couch in an office anteroom, staring blankly. Distant phones ring. Barton's eyes are tired and bloodshot. HIS POV A gargoyle secretary sits typing a document. The office door opens in the background and a short middle- aged man in a dark suit emerges. To his secretary: EXECUTIVE I'm eating on the lot today – He notices Barton. EXECUTIVE ...Who's he? The secretary looks over from her typing to consult a slip of paper on her desk. SECRETARY Barton Fink, Mr. Geisler. GEISLER More please. BARTON I'm a writer, Mr. Geisler. Ted Okum said I should drop by morning to see you about the – GEISLER Ever act? BARTON ...Huh? No, I'm – GEISLER We need Indians for a Norman Steele western. BARTON I'm a writer. Ted O – GEISLER Think about it, Fink. Writers come and go; we always need Indians. BARTON I'm a writer. Ted Okum said you're producing this Wallace Beery picture I'm working on. GEISLER What!? Ted Okum doesn't know shit. They've assigned me enough pictures for a goddamn year. What Ted Okum doesn't know you could almost squeeze into the Hollywood Bowl. BARTON Then who should I talk to? Geisler gives a hostile stare. Without looking at her, he addresses the secretary: GEISLER Get me Lou Breeze. He perches on the edge of the desk, an open hand out toward the secretary, as he glares wordlessly at Barton. After a moment: SECRETARY Is he in for Mr. Geisler? She puts the phone in Geisler's hand. GEISLER Lou? How's Lipnik's ass smell this morning?... Yeah?... Yeah?... Okay, the reason I'm calling, I got a writer here, Fink, all screwy. Says I'm producing that Wallace Beery wrestling picture – what'm I, the goddamn janitor around here?... Yeah, well who'd you get that from?... Yeah, well tell Lipnik he can kiss my dimpled ass... Shit! No, alright... No, no, all right. Without looking he reaches the phone back. The secretary takes it and cradles it. GEISLER ...Okay kid, let's chow. COMMISSARY Barton and Geisler sit eating in a semicircular booth. Geisler speaks through a mouthful of food: GEISLER Don't worry about it. It's just a B picture. I bring it in on budget, they'll book it without even screening it. Life is too short. BARTON But Lipnik said he wanted to look at the script, see something by the end of the week. GEISLER Sure he did. And he forgot about it before your ass left his sofa. BARTON Okay. I'm just having trouble getting started. It's funny, I'm blocked up. I feel like I need some kind of indication of... what's expected – GEISLER Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a road map? Geisler chews on his cottage cheese and stares at Barton. GEISLER ...Look, you're confused? You need guidance? Talk to another writer. BARTON Who? Geisler rises and throws his napkin onto his plate. GEISLER Jesus, throw a rock in here, you'll hit one. And do me a favor, Fink: Throw it hard. COMMISSARY MEN'S ROOM Barton stands at a urinal. He stares at the wall in front of him as he pees. After a moment, he cocks his head, listening. We hear a throat clearing, as if by a tenor preparing for a difficult passage. It is followed by the gurgling ruch of vomit. Barton buttons his pants and turns to face the stalls. There is more businesslike throat clearing. Barton stoops. HIS POV We boom down to show the blue serge pants and well-polished shoes of the stall's kneeling occupant. A white handkerchief has been spread on the floor to protect the trouser knees. The toilet flushes. The man rises, picks up his handkerchief up off the floor and gives it a smart flap. BARTON He quickly straightens and goes to the sink. He starts washing his hands. We hear the stall door being unlatched. Barton glances over his shoulder. HIS POV The stall door opening. BARTON Quickly, self-consciously, he looks back down at his hands. HIS POV His hands writhing under the running water. We hear footsteps approaching. BARTON Forcing himself to look at his hands. We hear the man reach the adjacent sink and turn on the tap. Barton can't help glancing up. THE MAN A dapper little man in a neat blue serge suit. He has warm brown eyes, a patrician nose, and a salt-and-pepper mustache. He smiles pleasantly at Barton. BARTON He gives a nervous smile – more like a tic – and looks back down at his hands. We hear the man gargling water and spitting into the sink. After a moment, Barton looks up again. THE MAN Reacting to barton's look as he washes his hands. This time, a curt nod accompanies his pleasant smile. BARTON Looks back down, then up again. THE MAN Extends a dripping hand. MAN Bill Mayhew. Sorry about the odor. His speech is softly accented, from the South. BARTON Barton Fink. They shake, then return to their ablutions. We hold on Barton as we hear Mayhew's faucet being turned off and his foot-steps receding. For some reason, Barton's eyes are widening. BARTON ...Jesus. W.P.! The dapper little man stops and turns. MAYHEW I beg your pardon? BARTON W.P. Mayhew? The writer? MAYHEW Just Bill, please. Barton stands with his back to the sink, facing the little man, his hands dripping onto the floor. There is a short pause. Barton is strangely agitated, his voice halting but urgent. BARTON Bill!... Mayhew cocks his head with a politely patient smile. Finally Barton brings out: BARTON ...You're the finest novelist of our time. Mayhew leans against a stall. MAYHEW Why thank you, son, how kind. Bein' occupied here in the worship of Mammon, I haven't had the chance yet to see your play – He smiles at Barton's surprise. MAYHEW ...Yes, Mistuh Fink, some of the news reaches us in Hollywood. He is taking out a flask and unscrewing its lid. BARTON Sir, I'm flattered that you even recognize my name. My God, I had no idea you were in Hollywood. MAYHEW All of us undomesticated writers eventually make their way out here to the Great Salt Lick. Mebbe that's why I allus have such a powerful thrust. He clears his throat, takes a swig from the flask, and waves it at Barton. MAYHEW ...A little social lubricant, Mistuh Fink? BARTON It's still a little early for me. MAYHEW So be it. He knocks back some more. BARTON ...Bill, if I'm imposing you should say so, I know you're very busy – I just, uh... I just wonder if I could ask you a favor... That is to say, uh... have you ever written a wrestling picture? Mayhew eyes him appraisingly, and at length clears his throat. MAYHEW ...You are drippin', suh. Barton looks down at his hands, then pulls a rough brown paper towel from a dispenser. Mayhew sighs: MAYHEW ...Mistuh Fink, they have not invented a genre of picture that Bill Mayhew has not, at one time or othuh, been invited to essay. I have taken my stabs at the wrastlin' form, as I have stabbed at so many others, and with as little success. I gather that you are a fresh-man here, eager for an upperclassman's council. However, just at the moment... He waves his flask. MAYHEW ...I have drinkin' to do. Why don't you stop at my bungalow, which is numbah fifteen, later on this afternoon... He turns to leave. MAYHEW ...and we will discuss wrastlin' scenarios and other things lit'rary. THE NUMBER "15" We are close on brass numerals tacked up on a white door. Muted, from inside, we hear Mayhew's voice – enraged, bellowing. We hear things breaking. Softer, we hear a woman's voice, its tone placating. REVERSE TRACKING SLOWLY IN On Barton, standing in front of the door. The noise abates for a moment. We hear the woman's voice again. Barton hesitates, listening; he thinks, decides, knocks. With this the woman's voice stops, and Mayhew starts wailing again. The door cracks open. The woman looks as if she has been crying. WOMAN ...Can I help you? BARTON I'm sorry, I... My name is Fink... Uh, Bill asked me to drop by this afternoon. Is he in? WOMAN Mr. Mayhew is indisposed at the moment– From inside, we hear Mayhew's wail. MAYHEW HONEY!! WHERE'S M'HONEY!! The woman glances uncomfortably over her shoulder and steps outside, closing the door behind her. WOMAN Mr. Fink, I'm Audrey Taylor, Mr. Mayhew's personal secretary. I know this all must sound horrid. I really do apologize... Through the door Mayhew is still wailing piteously. BARTON Is, uh... Is he okay? AUDREY He will be... When he can't write, he drinks. MAYHEW WHERE ARE YOU, DAMMIT! WHERE'S M'HONEY!! She brushes a wisp of hair out of her eyes. AUDREY I am sorry, it's so embarassing. BARTON How about you? Will you be alright? AUDREY I'll be fine... Are you a writer, Mr Fink? BARTON Yes I am. I'm working on a wres – please call me Barton. Audrey reaches out and touches Barton's hand. AUDREY I'll tell Bill you dropped by. I'm sure he'll want to reschedule your appointment. BARTON Perhaps you and I could get together at some point also. –I'm sorry if that sounds abrupt. I just... I don't know anyone here in this town. Audrey smiles at him. AUDREY Perhaps the three of us, Mr. Fink. BARTON Please, Barton. AUDREY Barton. You see, Barton, I'm not just Bill's secretary – Bill and I are... I love. We- MAYHEW'S VOICE M'HONEY!! WHERE'S M'HONEY!! Audrey glances back as we hear the sound of shattering dishes and heavy footsteps. BARTON I see. AUDREY ...I know this must look... funny. BARTON No, no – Hurriedly: AUDREY We need each other. We give each other... the things we need – VOICE M'HONEY!!... bastard-ass sons of bitches... the water's lappin' up... M'HONEY!! AUDREY I'm sorry, Mr. Fink. Please don't judge us. Please... Flustered, she backs away and closes the door. CLOSE ON A SMALL WRAPPED PACKAGE Hand-printed on the package is the message: "Hope these will turn the trick, Mr. Fink. – Chet!" The wrapping is torn away and the small box is opened. Two thumbtacks are taken out. BARTON'S HOTEL ROOM Late at night. The swath of wallpaper behind the bed has sagged away from the wall again, and has been joined by the swath next to it. Barton enters frame and steps up onto the bed. He smooths up the first swath and pushes in a thumbtack near the top. EXTREME CLOSE SHOT On the tack. As Barton applies pressure to push it in, tacky yellow goo oozes out of the puncture hole and beads around the tack. ON BARTON Smoothing up the second swath. As he pushes in the second tack he pauses, listening. Muffled, through the wall, we can hear a woman moaning. After a motionless beat, Barton eases his ear against the wall. CLOSE ON BARTON As his ear meets the wall. The woman's moaning continues. We hear the creaking of bedsprings and her partner, incongruously giggling. Barton grimaces, gets down off the bed and crosses to the secretary, where he sits. He stares at the paper in the carriage. HIS POV The blank part of the page around the key-strike area, under the metal prongs that hold the paper down. We begin to hear moaning again. BACK TO BARTON Still looking; sweating. HIS POV Tracking in on the paper, losing the prongs from frame so that we are looking at the pure unblemished white of the page. The moaning is cut short by two sharp knocks. THE DOOR As it swings open. Charlie Meadows leans in, smiling. CHARLIE Howdy, neighbor. BARTON Charlie. How are you. CHARLIE Jesus, I hope I'm not interrupting you again. I heard you walking around in here. Figured I'd drop by. BARTON Yeah, come in Charlie. Hadn't really gotten started yet – what happened to your ear? – for Charle's left ear is plugged with cotton wadding. As he enters: CHARLIE Oh, yeah. An ear infection, chronic thing. Goes away for a while, but it always comes back. Gotta put cotton in it to staunch the flow of pus. Don't worry, it's not contagious. BARTON Seen a doctor? Charlie gives a dismissive wave. CHARLIE Ah, doctors. What's he gonna tell me? Can't trade my head in for a new one. BARTON No, I guess you're stuck with the one you've got. Have a seat. Charlie perches on the corner of the bed. CHARLIE Thanks, I'd invite you over to my place, but it's a goddamn mess. You married, Bart? BARTON Nope. CHARLIE I myself have yet to be lassoed. He takes his flask out. CHARLIE ...Got a sweetheart? BARTON No... I guess it's something about my work. I get so worked up over it, I don't know; I don't really have a lot of attention left over, so it would be a little unfair... CHARLIE Yeah, the ladies do ask for attention. In my experience, they pretend to give it, but it's generally a smoke- screen for demanding it back – with interest. How about family, Bart? How're you fixed in that department? Barton smiles. BARTON My folks live in Brooklyn, with my uncle. CHARLIE Mine have passed on. It's just the three of us now... He taps himself on the head, chuckling. CHARLIE ...What's the expression – me myself and I. BARTON Sure, that's tough, but in a sense, we're all alone in this world aren't we Charlie? I'm often surrounded by family and friends, but... He shrugs. CHARLIE Mm... You're no stranger to loneliness, then. I guess I got no beef; especially where the dames are concerned. In my line of work I get opportunities galore – always on the wing, you know what I'm saying. I could tell stories to curl your hair – but it looks like you've already heard 'em! He laughs at his reference to Barton's curly hair, and pulls a dog-eared photograph from his wallet. As he hands it to Barton: CHARLIE ...That's me in Kansas City, plying my trade. THE PHOTO Charlie smiles and waves with one foot up on the running board of a 1939 roadster. A battered leather briefcase dangles from one hand. CHARLIE ...It was taken by one of my policy holders. They're more than just customers to me, Barton. They really appreciate what I have to offer them. Ya see, her hubby was out of town at the time – BARTON You know, in a way, I envy you Charlie. Your daily routine – you know what's expected. You know the drill. My job is to plumb the depths, so to speak, dredge something up from inside, something honest. There's no road map for that territory... He looks from Charlie to the Underwood. BARTON ...and exploring it can be painful. The kind of pain most people don't know anything about. He looks back at Charlie. BARTON ...This must be boring you. CHARLIE Not at all. It's damned interesting. BARTON Yeah... He gives a sad chuckle. BARTON ...Probably sounds a little grand coming from someone who's writing a wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. CHARLIE Beery! You got no beef there! He's good. Hell of an actor – though, for my money, you can't beat Jack Oakie. A stitch, Oakie. Funny stuff, funny stuff. But don't get me wrong – Beery, a wrestling picture, that could be a pip. Wrestled some myself back in school. I guess you know the basic moves. BARTON Nope, never watched any. I'm not that interested in the act itself – CHARLIE Okay, but hell, you should know what it is. I can show you in about thirty seconds. He is getting down on his hands and knees. CHARLIE ...You're a little out of your weight class, but just for purposes of demonstration – BARTON That's all right, really – CHARLIE Not a bit of it, compadre! Easiest thing in the world! You just get down on your knees to my left, slap your right hand here... He indicated his own right bicep. CHARLIE ...and your left hand here. He indicated his left bicep. Barton hesitates. CHARLIE ...You can do it, champ! Barton complies. CHARLIE ...All right now, when I say "Ready... wrestle!" you try and pin me, and I try and pin you. That's the whole game. Got it? BARTON ...Yeah, okay. CHARLIE Ready... wrestle! With one clean move Charlie flips Barton onto his back, his head and shoulders hitting with a thump. Charlie pins Barton's shoulders with his own upper body. But before the move even seems completed Charlie is standing again, offering his hand down to Barton. CHARLIE Damn, there I go again. We're gonna wake the downstairs neighbors. I didn't hurt ya, did I? Barton seems dazed, but not put out. BARTON It's okay, it's okay. CHARLIE Well, that's all that wrestling is. Except usually there's more grunting and squirming before the pin. Well, it's your first time. And you're out of your weight class. Barton has propped himself up and is painfully massaging the back of his head. This registers on Charlie. CHARLIE ...Jesus, I did hurt you! He clomps hurriedly away. CHARLIE ...I'm just a big, clumsy lug. I sure do apologize. We hear water running, and Charlie reenters with a wet towel. Barton accepts the towel and presses it to his head. CHARLIE ...You sure you're okay? Barton gets to his feet. BARTON I'm fine, Charlie. Really I am. Actually, it's been helpful, but I guess I should get back to work. Charlie looks at him with some concern, then turns and heads for the door. CHARLIE Well, it wasn't fair of me to do that. I'm pretty well endowed physically. He opens the door. CHARLIE ...Don't feel bad, though. I wouldn't be much of a match for you at mental gymnastics. Gimme a holler if you need anything. The door closes. Barton crosses to the secretary and sits down, rubbing the back of his head. He rolls up the carriage and looks at the page in the typewriter. HIS POV The page. FADE IN: A TENEMENT BUILDING On Manhattan's Lower East Side. Early morning traffic is audible, as is the cry fishmongers. BACK TO BARTON He rubs the back of his head, wincing, as he stares at the page. His gaze drifts up. HIS POV The bathing beauty. BARTON Looking at the picture. He presses the heels of his hands against his ears. HIS POV The bathing beauty. Faint, but building, is the sound of the surf. BARTON Head cocked. The surf is mixing into another liquid sound. Barton looks sharply around. THE BATHROOM Barton enters. The sink, which Charlie apparently left running when he wet Barton's towel, is overflowing. Water spills onto the tile floor. Barton hurriedly shuts off the tap, rolls up one sleeve and reaches into the sink. As his hand emerges, holding something, we hear the unclogged sink gulp water. BARTON'S HAND Holding a dripping wad of cotton. BARTON After a brief, puzzled look he realizes where the cotton came from – and convulsively flips it away. FADE OUT FADE IN: ON THE TITLE PAGE OF A BOOK: "NEBUCHADNEZZAR BY W.P. Mayhew" A hand enters with pen to inscribe: "To Barton – May this little entertainment divert you in your sojourn among the Philistines. – Bill" The book is closed and picked up. WIDER As-thoomp!-the heavy volume is deposited across the table, in front of Barton, by Mayhew. Barton, Mayhew, and Audrey are seated around a picnic table. It is one of a few tables littering the lot of a small stucco open-air hamburger stand. It is peaceful early evening. The last of the sunlight slopes down through palm trees. Barton, Mayhew, and Audrey are the only customers at the stand. Mayhew's black Ford stands alone at the edge of the lot. Mayhew leans back in his chair. MAYHEW If I close m'eyes I can almost smell the live oak. AUDREY That's hamburger grease, Bill. MAYHEW Well, m'olfactory's turnin' womanish on me – lyin' and deceitful... His eyes still closed, he waves a limp hand gently in the breeze. MAYHEW ...Still, I must say. I haven't felt peace like this since the grand productive days. Don't you find it so, Barton? Ain't writin' peace? BARTON Well... actually, no Bill... Barton looks nervously at Audrey before continuing. BARTON ...No, I've always found that writing comes from a great inner pain. Maybe it's a pain that comes from a realization that one must do something for one's fellow man – to help somehow to ease his suffering. Maybe it's a personal pain. At any rate, I don't believe good work is possible without it. MAYHEW Mmm. Wal, me, I just enjoy maikn' things up. Yessir. Escape... It's when I can't write, can't escape m'self, that I want to tear m'head off and run screamin' down the street with m'balls in a fruitpickers pail. Mm... He sighs and reaches for a bottle of Wild Turkey. MAYHEW ...This'll sometimes help. AUDREY That doesn't help anything, Bill. BARTON That's true, Bill. I've never found it to help my writing. Mayhew is becoming testy: MAYHEW Your writing? Son, have you ever heard the story of Soloman's mammy- Audrey, anticipating, jumps hastily in. She taps the book on the table. AUDREY You should read this, Barton. I think it's Bill's finest, or among his finest anyway. Mayhew looks at her narrowly. MAYHEW So now I'm s'posed to roll over like an ol' bitch dog gettin' ger belly scratched. AUDREY Bill – BARTON Look, maybe it's none of my business, but a man with your talent – don't you think your first obligation would be to your gift? Shouldn't you be doing whatever you have to do to work again? MAYHEW And what would that be, son? BARTON I don't know exactly. But I do know what you're doing with that drink. You're cutting yourself off from your gift, and from me and Audrey, and from your fellow man, and from everything your art is about. MAYHEW No son, thisahere moonshine's got nothin' to do with shuttin' folks out. No, I'm usin' it to build somethin'. BARTON What's that? MAYHEW I'm buildin' a levee. Gulp by gulp, brick by brick. Raisin' up a levee to keep that ragin' river of manure from lappin' at m'door. AUDREY Maybe you better too, Barton. Before you get buried under his manure. Mayhew chuckles. MAYHEW M'honey pretends to be impatient with me, Barton, but she'll put up with anything. AUDREY Not anything, Bill. Don't test me. BARTON You're lucky she puts up with as much as she does. Mayhew is getting to his feet. MAYHEW Am I? Maybe to a schoolboy's eye. People who know about the human heart, though, mebbe they'd say, Bill over here, he gives his honey love, and she pays him back with pity – the basest coin there is. AUDREY Stop it, Bill! He wanders over to a corner of the lot between two palm trees, still clutching his bottle, his back to Barton and Audrey, and urinates into the grass. He is singing – loudly – "Old Black Joe." Audrey walks over to him. BARTON Watching her go. HIS POV Audrey touches Mayhew's elbow. He looks at her, stops singing, she murmurs something, and he bellows: MAYHEW The truth, m'honey, is a tart that does not bear scrutiny. She touches him again, murmuring, and he lashes out at her, knocking her to the ground. MAYHEW Breach my levee at your peril! BARTON He rises. AUDREY Coming back to Barton. MAYHEW Stumbling off down the dusty road, muttering to himself and waving his bottle of Wild Turkey. AUDREY Let him go. BARTON That son of a bitch... Don't get me wrong, he's a fine writer. He looks down the road. Mayhew is a small lone figure, weaving in the dust. MAYHEW I'll jus' walk on down to the Pacific, and from there I'll... improvise. BARTON Are you all right? We hear distant bellowing: MAYHEW Silent upon a hill in Darien! Audrey bursts into tears. Barton puts his arms around her and she leans into him. BARTON Audrey, you can't put up with this. Gradually, she collects herself, wiping her tears. AUDREY ...Oh Barton, I feel so... sorry for him! BARTON What?! He's a son of a bitch! AUDREY No, sometimes he just... well, he thinks about Estelle. His wife still lives in Fayettesville. She's... disturbed. BARTON Really?... He considers this for a moment, but his anger returns. BARTON ...Well that doesn't excuse his behavior. AUDREY He'll wander back when he's sober and apologize. He always does. BARTON Okay, but that doesn't excuse his – AUDREY Barton. Empathy requires... understanding. BARTON What. What don't I understand? Audrey gazes at him. MAYHEW He is very distant now, weaving but somehow dignified in his light summer suit. "Old Black Joe" floats back to us in the twilight. FADE OUT BARTON'S HOTEL ROOM From a high angle, booming down on Barton. The room is dark. Barton lies fully clothed, stretched out on the bed, asleep. The hum of the mosquito fades up in the stillness. Suddenly Barton slaps his cheek. His eyes open, but he remains still. The hum fades up again. Barton reaches over and turns on the bedside lamp. His eyes shift this way and that as he waits, listening. The hum fades down to silence. Barton's eyes shift. HIS POV The typewriter sits on the secretary, a piece of paper rolled halfway through the carriage. THE TYPEWRITER Barton enters frame and sits down in front of the typewriter. HIS POV Next to the typewriter are several crumpled pieces of paper. The page in the carriage reads: FADE IN: A TENEMENT HOTEL On the Lower East Side. We can faintly hear the cry of the fishmongers. It is too early for us to hear traffic; later, perhaps, we will. BACK TO BARTON Looking down at the page. CLOSE ON BARTON'S FEET Swinging in the legwell. One foot idly swings over to nudge a pair of nicely shined shoes from where they rest, under the secretary, into the legwell. We hear typing start. THE PAGE A new paragraph being started: "A large man..." BARTON'S FEET As he slides them into the shoes. THE PAGE "A large man in tights..." The typing stops. BARTON Looking quizzically at the page. What's wrong? HIS FEET Sliding back and forth – swimming – in his shoes, which are several sizes too large. We hear a knock at the door. BARTON He rises and answers the door. Charlie stands smiling in the doorway, holding a pair of nicely shined shoes. CHARLIE I hope these are your shoes. BARTON Hi, Charlie. CHARLIE Because that would mean they gave you mine. BARTON Yeah, as a matter of fact they did. Come on in. The two stocking-footed men go into the room and Barton reaches under the secretary for Charlie's shoes. CHARLIE Jesus, what a day I've had. Ever had one of those days? BARTON Seems like nothing but, lately. Chalrie perches on the edge of the bed. CHARLIE Jesus, what a day. Felt like I couldn't've sold ice water in the Sahara. Jesus. Okay, so you don't want insurance, so okay, that's your loss. But God, people can be rude. Feel like I have to talk to a normal person like just to restore a little of my... BARTON Well, my pleasure. I could use a little lift myself. CHARLIE A little lift, yeah... Smiling, he takes out his flask. CHARLIE ...Good thing they bottle it, huh pal? He takes a glass from the bedstand and, as he pours Barton a shot: CHARLIE ...Did I say rude? People can be goddamn cruel. Especially some of their housewives. Okay, so I've got a weight problem. That's my cross to bear. I dunno... BARTON Well it's... it's a defense mechanism. CHARLIE Defense against what? Insurance? Something they need? Something they should be thanking me for offering? A little peace of mind?... He shakes his head. CHARLIE ...Finally decided to knock off early, take your advice. Went to see a doctor about this. He indicates his ear, still stuffed with cotton. CHARLIE ...He told me it was an ear infection. Ten dollars, please. I said, hell, I told YOU my ear was infected. Why don't YOU give ME ten dollars? Well, THAT led to an argument... He gives a rueful chuckle. CHARLIE ...Listen to me belly-achin'. As if my problems amounted to a hill of beans. How goes the life of the mind? BARTON Well, it's been better. I can't seem to get going on this thing. That one idea, the one that lets you get started – I still haven't gotten it. Maybe I only had one idea in me – my play. Maybe once that was done, I was done being a writer. Christ, I feel like a fraud, sitting here staring at this paper. CHARLIE Those two love-birds next door drivin' you nuts? Barton looks at him curiously. BARTON How did you know about that? CHARLIE Know about it? I can practically see how they're doin' it. Brother, I wish I had a piece of that. BARTON Yeah, but – CHARLIE Seems like I hear everything that goes on in this dump. Pipes or somethin'. I'm just glad I don't have to ply MY trade in the wee-wee hours. He laughs. CHARLIE ...Ah, you'll lick this picture business, believe me. You've got a head on your shoulders. What is it they say? Where there's a head, there's a hope? BARTON Where there's life there's hope. Charlie laughs. CHARLIE That proves you really are a writer! Barton smiles. BARTON And there's hope for you too, Charlie. Tomorrow I bet you sell a half-dozen policies. CHARLIE Thanks, brother. But the fact is, I gotta pull up stakes temporarily. BARTON You're leaving? CHARLIE In a few days. Out to your stompin' grounds as a matter of fact – New York City. Things have gotten all balled up at the Head Office. BARTON I'm truly sorry to hear that, Charlie. I'll miss you. CHARLIE Well hell, buddy, don't pull a long face! This is still home for me – I keep my room, and I'll be back sooner or later... Barton rises and walks over to his writing table. CHARLIE ...And – mark my words – by the time I get back you're picture'll be finished. I know it. Barton scribbles on a notepad and turns to hand it to Charlie. BARTON New York can be pretty cruel to strangers, Charlie. If you need a home-cooked meal you just look up Morris and Lillian Fink. They live on Fulton Street with my uncle Dave. We hear a tacky, tearing sound. Barton looks toward the door. Charlie rises and walks over to the stand next to where Barton sits. The two staring men form an odd, motionless tableau – the slight, bespectacled man seated; the big man standing in a hunch with his hands on his thighs; their heads close together. THEIR POV A swath of wallpaper in the entryway has pulled away from the wall. It sags and nods. CHARLIE (off) Christ! THE TWO MEN Frozen, looking. CHARLIE ...Your room does that too? BARTON I guess the heat's sweating off the wallpaper. CHARLIE What a dump... He heads for the door and Barton follows. CHARLIE ...I guess it seems pathetic to a guy like you. BARTON Well... CHARLIE Well it's pathetic, isn't it? I mean to a guy from New York. BARTON What do you mean? CHARLIE This kind of heat. It's pathetic. BARTON Well, I guess you pick your poison. CHARLIE So they say. BARTON Don't pick up and leave without saying goodbye. CHARLIE Course not, compadre. You'll see me again. Barton closes the door. He goes back to the desk, sits, and stares at the typewriter. After a beat he tips back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling. We hear a loud thump. HIS POV The ceiling – a white, seamless space. As we track in the thumping continues – slowly, rhythmically, progressively louder – the effect, it seems, of odd doings upstairs. LOOKING DOWN ON BARTON From a high angle, tipped back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. We track slowly down toward him. The thumping continues, growing louder, sharper. HIS POV Moving in on the ceiling. We close in on an unblemished area and cease to have any sense of movement. With a blur something huge and dark sweeps across the frame to land with a deafening crash, and an instant later it is gone, having left a huge black "T" stamped into the white ceiling. We are pulling back from the white, past the metal prongs of the key-strike area on a typewriter. More letters appear rapid-fire, growing smaller as the pull back continues. The thumpimg becomes the clacking of the typewriter. BEN GEISLER Is emerging from his office. As he enters the secretary stops typing, glances down at a slip of paper, and murmurs tonelessly, without looking up: SECRETARY Barton Fink. GEISLER Yeah. Fink. Come in. The clack of the typewriter resumes as Barton rises. GEISLER'S OFFICE The two men enter. This office is considerably smaller than Lipnik's, done in grays and black. There are pictures on the wall of Geisler with various celebrities. Geisler sits behind his desk. GEISLER Wuddya got for me – what the hell happened to your face? BARTON Nothing. It's just a mosquito bite. GEISLER Like hell it is; there are no mosquitos in Los Angeles. Mosquitos breed in swamps – this is a desert town. Wuddya got for me? BARTON Well I... GEISLER On the Beery picture! Where are we? Wuddya got? BARTON Well, to tell you the truth, I'm having some trouble getting started– GEISLER Getting STARTED! Christ Jesus! Started?! You mean you don't have ANYthing?! BARTON Well not much. Geisler leaps to his feet and paces. GEISLER What do you think this is? HAMLET? GONE WITH THE WIND? RUGGLES OF RED GAP? It's a goddamn B picture! Big men in tights! You know the drill! BARTON I'm afraid I don't really understand that genre. maybe that's the prob- GEISLER Understand shit! I though you were gonna consult another writer on this! BARTON Well, I've talked to Bill Mayhew- GEISLER Bill Mayhew! Some help! The guy's a souse! BARTON He's a great writer – GEISLER A souse! BARTON You don't understand. He's in pain, because he can't write- GEISLER Souse! Souse! He manages to write his name on the back of his paycheck every week! BARTON But... I thought no one cared about this picture. GEISLER You thought! Where'd you get THAT from? You thought! I don't know what the hell you said to Lipnik, but the sonofabitch LIKES you! You understand that, Fink? He LIKES you! He's taken an interest. NEVER make Lipnik like you. NEVER! Some puzzlement shows through Barton's weariness. BARTON I don't understand- GEISLER Are you deaf, he LIKES you! He's taken an interest! What the hell did you say to him? BARTON I didn't say anything- GEISLER Well he's taken an interest! That means he'll make your life hell, which I could care less about, but since I drew the short straw to supervise this turkey, he's gonna be all over me too! Fat-assed sonofabitch called me yesterday to ask how it's going – don't worry, I covered for you. Told him you were making progress and we were all very excited. I told him it was great, so now MY ass is on the line. He wants you to tell him all about it tomorrow. BARTON I can't write anything by tomorrow. GEISLER Who said write? Jesus, Jack can't read. You gotta TELL it to him-tell him SOMEthing for Chrissake. BARTON Well what do I tell him? Geisler rubs a temple, studies Barton for a beat, then picks up a telephone. GEISLER Projection... As he waits, Geisler gives Barton a withering stare. It continues throughout the phone conversation. GEISLER ... Jerry? Ben Geisler here. Any of the screening rooms free this afternoon?... Good, book it for me. A writer named Fink is gonna come in and you're gonna show him wrestling pictures... I don't give a shit which ones! WRESTLING pictures! Wait a minute- isn't Victor Sjoderberg shooting one now?... Show him some of the dailies on that. He slams down the phone. GEISLER ...This ought to give you some ideas. He jots an address on a piece of paper and hands it to Barton. GEISLER ...Eight-fifteen tomorrow morning at Lipnik's house. Ideas. Broad strokes. Don't cross me, Fink. SCREEN Black-and-white footage. A middle-aged man with a clapstick enters and shouts: CLAPPER DEVIL ON THE CANVAS, twelve baker take one. Clap! The clapper withdraws. The angle is on a corner of the ring, where an old corner man stands behind his charge, a huge man in tights who is a little too flabby to be a real athlete. His hair is plastered against his bullet skull and he has a small mustache. VOICE Action. The wrestler rises from his stool and heads toward center ring and the camera. He affects a German accent: WRESTLER I will destroy him! He passes the camera. VOICE Cut. Flash frames. The clapper enters again. CLAPPER Twelve baker take two. Clap! He exits. The wrestler moves toward the camera. WRESTLER I will destroy him! VOICE Cut. The clapper enters CLAPPER Twelve baker take three. Clap! WRESTLER I will destroy him! SLOW TRACK IN ON BARTON Seated alone in a dark screening room, the shaft of the projection beam flickering over his left shoulder. As we creep in closer: WRESTLER (off) I will destroy him!... I will destroy him!... I will destroy him!... I will destroy him!... Another off-microphone, distant voice from the screen: VOICE Okay, take five... THE SCREEN A jerky pan, interrupted by flash frames. The wrestler is standing in a corner joking with a makeup girl who pats down his face as he smokes a cigarette. A cut in the film and another clapstick enters. CLAPPER Twelve charlie take one- ON THE CLAP: BACK TO BARTON Staring at the screen, dull, wan, and forlorn. VOICE (off) Action. THE SCREEN The angle is low – canvas level. We hold for a brief moment on the empty canvas before two wrestlers crash down into frame. The German is underneath, on his back, pinned by the other man. The referee enters, cropped at the knees, and throws counting fingers down into frame. REFEREE One... two... WRESTLER AAAAHHHH!! The German bucks and throws his opponent out of frame. VOICE Cut. CLAPPER Twelve charlie take two. Crash. REFEREE One... two... WRESTLER AAAAHHHH!! BARTON Glazed. WRESTLER (off) AAAAAAHHHHHH!!... AAAAAAHHHHHH!!... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!... PAGE IN TYPEWRITER The screaming drops out abruptly at cut. We hear only the sound of heavy footfalls on carpet. Below the opening paragraph, two new words have been added to the typescript: "Orphan?" "Dame?" The foot falls continue. THE HOTEL ROOM Night. Barton paces frantically back and forth. He looks at his watch. HIS POV It is 12:30. CLOSE ON THE PHONE It is lifted out of the cradle. BARTON Hello, Chet, it's Barton Fink in 605. Can you try a number for me in Hollywood... Slausen 6-4304. We pull back to frame in Barton as we hear his call ring through. Barton sweats. BARTON Pick it up... Pick it up. Pick it- AUDREY Hello. BARTON Audrey, listen, I need help. I know it's late and I shouldn't be calling you like this – believe me I wouldn't have if I could see any other alternative, but I – I'm sorry - listen, how are you – I'm sorry. You doing okay? AUDREY ...Who is this? BARTON Barton. I'm sorry, it's Barton Fink. Through the phone, in the background, we hear Mayhew's drunken bellowing. MAYHEW Sons of bitches! Drown 'em all! We hear various objects dropping or being thrown to the floor. AUDREY Barton, I'm afraid it's not a good time- MAYHEW Drown all those rascals... BARTON I'm sorry, I just feel like –I know I shouldn't ask, I just need some kind of help, I just, I have a deadline tomorrow- MAYHEW I said drown 'em all! Who is that? There is more clatter. Audrey's voice is hushed, close to the phone: AUDREY All right Barton, I'll see if I can slip away- MAYHEW Who is that?! Gaddamn voices come into the house... sons of bitches... BARTON If you could, I'd – AUDREY If I can. He gets jealous; he- MAYHEW Goddamn voices... DROWN 'EM! BARTON I need help, Audrey. AUDREY I'll try to slip out. If he quiets down, passes out... I'm afraid he thinks – well, he said you were a buffoon, Barton. He becomes irrational– MAYHEW Hesh up! Be still now! DROWN 'EM! DROWN 'EM! DROWN – WIDE ON THE ROOM Later. It is quiet. We are craning down toward the bed, where Barton lies stretched out, his head buried beneath a pillow as if to blot out the world. The track reveals the wristwatch on Barton's dangled arm: 1:30. THE HALLWAY At the end of the dimly lit corridor a red light blinks on over the elevator, with a faint bell. BACK TO BARTON With two violent and simultaneous motions he whips the pillow off his head and throws out his other wrist to look at his watch. There is a knock at the door. Barton swings his feet off the bed. THE DOORWAY Barton opens the door to Audrey. AUDREY Hello, Barton. BARTON Audrey, thank you for coming. Thank you. I'm sorry to be such a... such a... Thank you. They enter the main room, where Audrey perches on the edge of the bed. AUDREY Now that's all right, Barton. Everything'll be all right. BARTON Yes. Thank you. How's Bill? AUDREY Oh, he's... he drifted off. He'll sleep for a while now. What is it you have to do, exactly? Barton paces. BARTON Well I have to come up with – an outline, I'd guess you call it. The story. The whole goddamn story. Soup to nuts. Three acts. The whole goddamn- AUDREY It's alright, Barton. You don't have to write actual scenes? BARTON No, but the whole goddamn – Audrey? Have you ever had to read any of Bill's wrestling scenarios? Audrey laughs. AUDREY Yes, I'm afraid I have. BARTON What are they like? What are they about? AUDREY Well, usually, they're... simply morality tales. There's a good wrestler, and a bad wrestler whom he confronts at the end. In between, the good wrestler has a love interest or a child he has to protect. Bill would usually make the good wrestler a backwoods type, or a convict. And sometimes, instead of a waif, he'd have the wrestler protecting an idiot manchild. The studio always hated that. Oh, some of the scripts were so... spirited! She laughs – then stops, realizing that she has laughed. She looks at Barton. AUDREY ...Barton. She shakes her head. AUDREY ...Look, it's really just a formula. You don't have to type your soul into it. We'll invent some names and a new setting. I'll help you and it won't take any time at all. I did it for Bill so many times – Barton's pacing comes up short. BARTON Did what for Bill? Guardedly: AUDREY Well... THIS. BARTON You wrote his scripts for him? AUDREY Well, the basic ideas were frequently his- BARTON You wrote Bill's scripts! Jesus Christ, you wrote his – what about before that? AUDREY Before what? BARTON Before Bill came to Hollywood. Audrey is clearly reluctant to travel this path. AUDREY Well, Bill was ALWAYS the author, so to speak- BARTON What do you mean so to speak?! Audrey, how long have you been his... secretary? AUDREY Barton, I think we should concentrate on OUR little project- BARTON I want to know how many of Bill's books you wrote! AUDREY Barton! BARTON I want to know! AUDREY Barton, honestly, only the last couple- BARTON Hah! AUDREY And my input was mostly... EDITORIAL, really, when he'd been drinking- BARTON I'll bet. Jesus – "The grand productive days." What a goddamn phony. He resumes pacing. BARTON ...W.P. Mayhew. William Goddamn Phony Mayhew. All his guff about escape. Hah! I'LL say he escaped! Barton sighs and looks at his watch. BARTON ...Well, we don't have much time. He sits down next to Audrey. Audrey's tone is gentle. AUDREY It'll be fine... Don't judge him, Barton. Don't condescend to him... She strokes Barton's hair. AUDREY ...It's not as simple as you think. I helped Bill most by appreciating him, by understanding him. We all need understanding, Barton. Even you, tonight, it's all you really need... She kisses him. As Barton tentatively responds, we are panning away. We frame up on the door to the bathroom and track in toward the sink. We can hear the creak of bedsprings and Audrey and Barton's breath, becoming labored. The continuing track brings us up to and over the lid of the sink to frame up its drain, a perfect black circle in the porcelain white. We track up to the drain and are enveloped by it as the sound of lovemaking mixes into the groaning of pipes. BLACK FADE IN: BARTON The hum of a mosquito brings us out of the black and we are looking down at Barton, in bed, asleep. It is dawn. Barton's eyes snap open. HIS POV The white ceiling. A humming black speck flits across the white. BARTON Slowly, cautiously, he props himself up, his look following the sound of the mosquito. His gaze travels down and to one side and is arrested as the hum stops. HIS POV Audrey lies facing away on her side of the bed, half covered by a blanket. BARTON Gingerly, he reaches over and draws the blanket down Audrey's back. HIS POV The alabaster white of Audrey's back. The mosquito is feeding on it. EXTREME CLOSE ON BARTON'S EYES Looking. EXTREME CLOSE ON THE MOSQUITO Swelling with blood. WIDER As Barton's hand comes through frame and slaps Audrey's back. She doesn't react. Barton draws his hand away. Audrey's back is smeared with blood. ON BARTON He looks at his hand. HIS POV His hand is dripping with blood. Too much blood. BACK TO BARTON Eyes wide, he looks down at the bed. HIS POV Blood seeps up into the sheet beneath the curve of Audrey's back. BARTON He pulls Audrey's shoulder. AUDREY She rolls onto her back. Her eyes are wide and lifeless. Her stomach is nothing but blood. The top sheet, drawn to her waist is drenched red and clings to her body. BARTON He screams. He screams again. We hear rapid and heavy footfalls next door, a door opening and closing, and then a loud banging on Barton's door. Barton's head spins towards the door. He is momentarily frozen. Another knock. Barton leaps to his feet and hurries to the door. THE DOORWAY Over Barton's shoulder as he cracks the door. Charlie stands in the hall in his boxer shorts and a sleeveless tee. CHARLIE Are you all right? Barton stares dumbly for a moment. CHARLIE ...Can I come in? BARTON No!... I'm fine. Thank you. CHARLIE Are you sure – BARTON No... no... Barton is nodding as he shuts the door in Charlie's face. He walks back into the room. HIS POV Audrey's corpse, in long shot, face up on the bed. BARTON He walks toward the bed, wheels before he reaches it, and starts back toward the door. He stops short and turns back again to the room. He averts his eyes – as it happens, toward the secretary. He walks stiffly over and sits, his back to Audrey. CLOSE ON BARTON As he sits in. He stares emptily down at the desk, in shock, totally shut down. Behind him, we can see Audrey on the bed. He stares for a long beat. Strange, involuntary noises come from his throat. He is not in control. Becoming aware of the noise he is making, he stops. He lurches to his feet. THE DOORWAY As Barton enters, opens the door, and sticks his head out. HALLWAY Barton peers out the see if the coast is clear. HIS POV The long hallway. In the deep background, Chet, the night clerk, is stooping in front of a door to pick up a pair of shoes. Next to him is a castored shoe caddy. All of the doorways between us and Chet are empty of shoes. CHET Close on him as, mid-stoop, he looks up. CHET'S POV Up the long hall. In the deep background a door is closing. CHET He pauses, then straightens up and puts the shoes on the shoe caddy. It squeaks as he pushes it on down the hall. BARTON'S ROOM Barton stands at the door, listening to a very faint squeak. Eventually it becomes inaudible. He cracks the door again, looks out, and exits. HALLWAY Barton goes to Charlie's room and knocks. Footfalls end as the door is cracked open. CHARLIE Barton. Are you all right? BARTON No... Can I come in? CHARLIE Why don't we go to your room- BARTON Charlie, I'm in trouble. You've gotta help me. Once again he is breathing hard. Charlie steps out into the hall and shuts the door behind him. CHARLIE Get a grip on yourself, brother. Whatever the problem is, we'll sort it out. BARTON Charlie, I'm in trouble – something horrible's happened – I've gotta call the police... Charlie leads him towards his room. BARTON ...Will you stay with me till they get here? CHARLIE Don't worry about it, Barton. We can sort it- He is pushing Barton's door open, but Barton grabs an elbow to stop him. BARTON Before you go in – I didn't do this. I don't know how it happened, but I didn't... I want you to know that... Charlie looks into his eyes. For a moment the two men stare at each other – Charlie's look inquisitive, Barton's supplicating. Finally, Charlie nods. CHARLIE Okay. He turns and pushes open the door. BARTON'S ROOM The two men enter. Barton lingers by the door. Charlie walks into the foreground to look off toward the bed. His eyes widen and he screams. He turns and disappears into the bathroom. We hear vomiting, then the flush of a toilet. CHARLIE Jesus... Jesus... Jesus have mercy... His reaction has not encouraged Barton, who is more and more agitated. Charlie emerges from the bathroom, sweating. CHARLIE ...Jesus, Barton, what the hell is this? What're we gonna do? BARTON I've gotta call the police – or you could call for me – CHARLIE Hold on – BARTON You gotta believe me – CHARLIE Hold on – BARTON I didn't do this, I did NOT do this– CHARLIE Hold on. Stop. Take a deep breath. Tell me what happened. BARTON I don't know! I woke up, she was... God, you gotta believe me! Charlie, in spite of himself, is sneaking horrified glances back into the room. CHARLIE I believe you, brother, but this don't look good. BARTON We gotta call the police – CHARLIE Hold on. I said hold on, so hold on. BARTON Yeah. CHARLIE What do you think happened? BARTON I don't know! Maybe it was her... boyfriend. I passed out. I don't know. Won't the police be able to – CHARLIE Stop with the police! Wake up, friend! This does not look good! They hang people for this! BARTON But I didn't do it – don't you believe me? CHARLIE I believe you – I KNOW you. But why should the police? Barton gives him a dumb stare. CHARLIE ...Did you... Barton, between you and me, did you have sexual intercourse? Barton stares at Charlie. He swallows. Charlie shakes his head. CHARLIE Jesus... They can tell that... BARTON They GOTTA believe me, Charlie! They gotta have mercy! CHARLIE You're in pictures, Barton. Even if you got cleared eventually, this would ruin you. He turns and starts toward the bed. CHARLIE ...Wait in the bathroom. BATHROOM Later. Barton, still in his underwear, sits leaning against the wall, staring glassily at his feet. From the other room we hear the creak of bedsprings and the sounds of bed clothes being torn off. Finally there is a last creak of bedsprings and the sound of Charlie grunting under great weight. We hear heavy footsteps approaching. Barton looks up through the open bathroom door. HIS POV Charlie is groping for the front doorknob, cradling the sheetswaddled body in his arms. BACK TO BARTON His neck goes rubbery. His eyes roll up. His head lolls back to hit the wall. BLACK Slap! Slap! We are low on Charlie, who is following through on a slap and backing away, having aroused Barton. Charlie is now wearing pants but is still in his sleeveless tee, which has blood flecks across the belly. CHARLIE You passed out. Barton looks groggily up. BARTON ...Uh-huh... Where's Audrey? CHARLIE She's dead, Barton! If that was her name. TRACKING IN ON BARTON He stares at Charlie. CHARLIE (off) Barton, listen to me. You gotta act like nothing's happened. Put this totally out of your head. I know that's hard, but your play from here on out is just to go about business as usual. Give us some time to sort this out... Barton looks at his watch. THE WATCH 7:45. CHARLIE (off) ...Just put it out of you head... TRACKING Toward a pool set in a grand yard with shaped hedges and statuary set amid palms trees. Sunlight glitters angrily off the water; we are approaching Jack Lipnik who sits poolside in a white deck chair. LIPNIK Bart! So happy to see ya! REVERSE Pulling Barton, who is being escorted by Lou Breeze. Barton is haggard, sunken eyes squinting against too much sun. LIPNIK Sit! Talk! Relax for a minute, then talk! Drink? As Barton sits: BARTON Yeah... rye whiskey? LIPNIK Boy! You writers! Work hard, play hard! That's what I hear, anyway... He laughs, then barks at Lou Breeze. LIPNIK ... Lou. Lou exits. LIPNIK Anyway. Ben Geisler tells me things're going along great. Thinks we've got a real winner in this one. And let me tell you something, I'm counting on it. I've taken an interest. Not to interfere, mind you – hardly seems necessary in your case. A writer – a storyteller – of your stature. Givitta me in bold strokes, Bart. Gimme the broad outlines. I'm sitting in the audience, the lights go down, Capitol logo comes up... you're on! He beams expectantly at Barton. Barton licks his parched lips. BARTON Yeah, okay... well... we fade in... Lipnik is nodding, already involved in the story. BARTON ...It's a tenement building. On the Lower East Side... LIPNIK Great! He's poor, this wrestler! He's had to struggle! BARTON And then... well... Barton looks back out at the pool, his eyes closed to slits against the sun. He looks back at Lipnik. BARTON ...Can I be honest, Mr. Lipnik? LIPNIK CAN you? You damn well better be. Jesus, if I hadn't been honest in my business dealings – well, of course, you can't always be honest, not with the sharks swimming around this town – but if you're a writer, you don't think about those things – if I'd been totally honest, I wouldn't be within a mile of this pool – unless I was cleaning it. But that's no reason for you not to be. Honest, I mean. Not cleaning the pool. Lou has entered with a drink, which he sets next to Barton. Lou sits. Barton looks around, takes the drink, sips at it greedily, but must finally take the plunge. BARTON Well... to be honest, I'm never really comfortable discussing a work in progress. I've got it all worked out in my head, but sometimes if you force it out in words – prematurely – the wrong words – well, your meaning changes, and it changes your own mind, and you never get it back – so I'd just as soon not talk about it. Lipnik stares at him. His smile has disappeared. There is a long beat. Lou Breeze clears his throat. He apparently feels obliged to fill the silence. LOU ...Mr. Fink. Never mind me. Never mind how long I've been in pictures. Mr. Lipnik has been in pictures just about since they were invented. HE practically invented them. Lipnik has turned to look curiously at Lou. LOU ...Now I think if he's interested in what one of his contract employees is doing while he draws pay, I think that employee ought to tell him, if he wants to stay an employee. Right now the contents of your head are the property of Capitol Pictures, so if I were you I would speak up. And pretty goddamn fast. Lou looks at Barton, expectantly. Lipnik continues to stare at Lou. There is a long silence, terribly heavy. Finally, Lipnik explodes – at Lou. LIPNIK You lousy sonofabitch! You're telling this man – this ARTIST – what to do?! Lou Breeze is stunned. LOU Mr. Lipnik, I – LIPNIK This man creates for a living! He puts food on your table and on mine! THANK him for it! Thank him, you ungrateful sonofabitch! Thank him or YOU'RE fired! Barton is staring, aghast. BARTON Mr. Lipnik, that's not really necessar- Lipnik, still staring at Lou, gives no sign of hearing Barton. He rises and points. LIPNIK Get down on your knees, you sonofabitch! Get down on your knees and kiss this man's feet! LOU Mr. Lipnik, please – BARTON I – Mr. Lipnik – LIPNIK KISS THIS MAN'S FEET!! Lou, aghast, looks at Barton. Barton, aghast, can only return the same stunned look. Lipnik snarls at Lou: LIPNIK ...Okay, get out of here. You're fired, you understand me? Get out of my sight. Lou gets stiffly to his feet and stumbles away. BARTON Mr. Lipnik, I – LIPNIK I apologize, Barton. BARTON No no, Mr. Breeze has actually been a great help – LIPNIK You don't have to cover for him. It's noble of you, but these things happen in business. BARTON Mr. Lipnik, I really would feel much better if you could reconsider – LIPNIK Ah, forget it, kid. I want you to pull this out of your head. If that sonofabitch wouldn't apologize to you, goddammit, I will. I respect your artistry and your methods, and if you can't fill us in yet, well hell, we should be kissing your feet for your fine efforts. He gets down on his knees in front of Barton. LIPNIK ...You know in the old country we were taught, as very young children, that there's no shame in supplicatin' yourself when you respect someone. Barton stares, horrified, at Lipnik, on the ground at his feet. LIPNIK ...On behalf of Capitol Pictures, the administration, and all a the stockholders, please accept this as a symbol of our apology and respect. BARTON'S POV Lipnik kisses his shoe and looks up at him. Behind Lipnik the pool glitters. BARTON'S ROOM The cut has a hard musical sting. Out of the sting comes a loud but distorted thumping noise. We are looking down, high angle, form one corner of the room. We are presented with a motionless tableau: Barton sits, hunched, in the far corner, elbows on knees, staring at the bed in front of him. He wears only trousers and a T-shirt and his body and face glisten with sweat. The bed's sheets have been stripped and the ratty gray mattress has an enormous rust-red stain in the middle. After a beat, in the foreground, the only motion in the scene: A bead of tacky yellow wall-sweat dribbles down the near wall. Silence, then the thumping repeats, resolving itself to a knock at the door. Barton rises slowly and crosses to the door. THE DOOR Barton opens it to Charlie, who is dressed in a baggy suit, his hair slicked back, a tan fedora pushed back on his head. It is the first time we have seen him well turned out. A battered briefcase is on the floor next to him. He holds a parcel in his left hand, about one foot square, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with twine. CHARLIE Barton. Can I come in? Barton stands back from the door and Charlie picks up his briefcase and enters. THE ROOM As the two men enter. BARTON Jesus... You're leaving. CHARLIE Have to, old timer. Just for a while. Barton sounds desperate: BARTON Jesus, Charlie, I... CHARLIE Everything's okay, believe me. I know it's rough mentally, but everything's taken care of. BARTON Charlie! I've got no one else here! You're the only person I know in Los Angeles... He starts weeping BARTON ...that I can talk to. Charlie, also disturbed and unhappy, wraps both arms around Barton. Barton sobs unashamedly into his shoulder. Charlie is somber. CHARLIE It's okay... It's okay... BARTON Charlie, I feel like I'm going crazy – like I'm losing my mind. I don't know what to do... I didn't do it, believe me. I'm sure of that, Charlie. I just... His breath comes in short gasping heaves. BARTON ...I just don't know what... to do– CHARLIE You gotta get a grip on, brother. You gotta just carry on – just for a few days, till I get back. Try and stay here, keep your door locked. Don't talk to anyone. We just gotta keep our heads and we'll figure it out. BARTON Yeah, but Charlie – CHARLIE Dammit, don't argue with me. You asked me to believe you – well I do. Now don't argue with me. He looks at Barton for a beat. CHARLIE ...Look, pal – can you do something for me? Charlie hands him his parcel. CHARLIE ...Keep this for me, till I get back. Barton, snuffling, accepts the package. CHARLIE ...It's just personal stuff. I don't wanna drag it with me, but I don't trust 'em downstairs, and I'd like to think it's in good hands. Still snuffling: BARTON Sure, Charlie. CHARLIE Funny, huh, when everything that's important to a guy, everything he wants to keep from a lifetime – when he can fit it into a little box like that. I guess... I guess it's kind of pathetic. Wallowing in self-pity: BARTON It's more than I've got. CHARLIE Well, keep it for me. Maybe it'll bring you good luck. Yeah, it'll help you finish your script. You'll think about me... He thumps his chest. CHARLIE ...Make me your wrestler. Then you'll lick that story of yours. Barton is tearfully sincere: BARTON Thanks, Charlie. Charlie solemnly thrusts out his hand. CHARLIE Yeah, well, see you soon, friend. You're gonna be fine. Barton shakes. As they walk to the door: BARTON You'll be back? CHARLIE Don't worry about that, compadre. I'll be back. Barton shuts the door behind Charlie, locks it, and turns around. HIS POV The room. The bed. The blood-stained mattress. Barton walks across the room and sits carefully at the edge of the bed, avoiding the rust-colored stain. For a long beat, he sits still, but something is building inside. Finally, when we hear the distant ding of the elevator arriving for Charlie, it erupts: Barton sobs, with the unself-conscious grief of an abandoned child. HIGH WIDE SHOT Barton weeping, alone on the bed, next to the rust-colored stain. FADE OUT FADE IN: BATHING BEAUTY With the fade in, the sound of the surf mixes up. We pan down the picture to discover that a snapshot has been tucked into a corner of the picture frame: it is the snap of Charlie, smiling and waving, with his foot up on the running board of the 1939 Ford roadster. BARTON Sitting at the desk, staring at the picture. From his glazed eyes and the way his mouth hangs open, we may assume he has been staring at the picture for some time. He notices something on the desk and picks it up. HIS POV The Holy Bible – Placed by the Gideons. Barton opens it, randomly, to the Book of Daniel. The text is set in ornately Gothic type. "5. And the king, Nebuchadnezzar, answered and said to the Chaldeans, I recall not my dream; if ye will not make known unto me my dream, and its interpretation, ye shall be cut in pieces, and of your tents shall be made a dunghill." BARTON Staring at the passage. His mouth hangs open. THE BIBLE Barton riffles to the first page. In bold type at the top: "THE BOOK OF GENESIS" Underneath, in the same ornately Gothic type: "Chapter One 1. Fade in on a tenement building on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Faint traffic noise is audible; 2. As is the cry of fishmongers." BARTON Squinting at the page through bloodshot eyes. His mouth hangs open. BARTON'S ROOM – DAY At the cut the harsh clackety-clack of typing bangs in. Sunlight burns against the sheers of Barton's window, making it a painfully bright patch in the room which itself remains fairly dim. Barton sits at the secretary, typing furiously. He finishes a page, yanks it out of the carriage, and places it face-down on a short stack of face-down pages. He feeds in a blank sheet and resumes his rapid typing. He is sweating, unshaven, and more haggard even than when we left him the previous night. The telephone rings. After several rings Barton stops typing and answers it, absently, still looking at his work. His voice is hoarse. BARTON Hello... Chet... Who?... He puts the receiver down on the desk, leans over the typewriter, and examines something he has just written. He picks the phone back up and listens for a beat. BARTON ... No, don't send them up here. I'll be right down. ELEVATOR A small oscillating fan whirs up in a corner of the elevator. We pan down to Barton, who is riding down with Pete, the old elevator operator. Barton's voice is hoarse with fatigue. BARTON ...You read the Bible, Pete? PETE Holy Bible? BARTON Yeah. PETE I think so... Anyway, I've heard about it. Barton nods. They ride for a beat. LOBBY Late afternoon sun slants in from one side. The lobby has the same golden ambiance as when first we saw it. Barton is walking toward two wing chairs in the shadows, from which two men in suits are rising. One is tall, the other short. POLICEMAN Fink? BARTON Yeah. POLICEMAN #2 Detective Mastrionotti. POLICEMAN #1 Detective Deutsch. MASTRIONOTTI L.A.P.D. BARTON Uh-huh. All three sit in ancient maroon swing chairs. Mastrionotti perches on the edge of his chair; Deutsch slumps back in the shadows, studying Barton. DEUTSCH Got a couple questions to ask ya. MASTRIONOTTI What do you do, Fink? Still hoarse: BARTON I write. DEUTSCH Oh yeah? What kind of write? BARTON Well as a matter of fact, I write for the pictures. MASTRIONOTTI Big fuckin' deal. DEUTSCH You want my partner to kiss your ass? MASTRIONOTTI Would that be good enough for ya? BARTON No, I – I didn't mean to sound – DEUTSCH What DID you mean? BARTON I – I've got respect for – for working guys, like you – MASTRIONOTTI Jesus! Ain't that a load off! You live in 605? BARTON Yeah. DEUTSCH How long you been up there, Fink? BARTON A week, eight, nine days – MASTRIONOTTI Is this multiple choice? BARTON Nine days – Tuesday – DEUTSCH You know this slob? He is holding a small black-and-white photograph out toward Barton. There is a long beat as Barton studies the picture. BARTON ...Yeah, he... he lives next door to me. MASTRIONOTTI That's right, Fink, he lives next door to you. DEUTSCH Ever talk to him? BARTON ...Once or twice. His name is Charlie Meadows. MASTRIONOTTI Yeah, and I'm Buck Rogers. DEUTSCH His name is Mundt. Karl Mundt. MASTRIONOTTI Also known as Madman Mundt. DEUTSCH He's a little funny in the head. BARTON What did... What did he – MASTRIONOTTI Funny. As in, he likes to ventilate people with a shotgun and then cut their heads off. DEUTSCH Yeah, he's funny that way. BARTON I... MASTRIONOTTI Started in Kansas City. Couple of housewives. DEUTSCH Couple of days ago we see the same M.O. out in Los Feliz. MASTRIONOTTI Doctor. Ear, nose and throat man,. DEUTSCH All of which he's now missin'. MASTRIONOTTI Well, some of his throat was there. DEUTSCH Physician, heal thyself. MASTRIONOTTI Good luck with no fuckin' head. DEUTSCH Anyway. MASTRIONOTTI Hollywood precinct finds another stiff yesterday. Not too far from here. This one's better looking than the doc. DEUTSCH Female caucasian, thirty years old. Nice tits. No head. You ever see Mundt with anyone meets that description? MASTRIONOTTI But, you know, with the head still on. BARTON ...No. I never saw him with anyone else. DEUTSCH So. You talked to Mundt, what about? BARTON Nothing, really. Said he was in the insurance business. Deutsch indicates Mastrionotti. DEUTSCH Yeah, and he's Buck Rogers. MASTRIONOTTI No reputable company would hire a guy like that. BARTON Well that's what he said. DEUTSCH What else? BARTON He... I'm trying to think... Nothing, really... He... He said he liked Jack Oakie pictures. Mastrionotti looks at Deutsch. Deutsch looks at Mastrionotti. After a beat, Mastrionotti looks back at Barton. MASTRIONOTTI Ya know, Fink, ordinarily we say anything you might remember could be helpful. But I'll be frank with you: That is not helpful. DEUTSCH Ya see how he's not writing it down? MASTRIONOTTI Fink. That's a Jewish name, isn't it? BARTON Yeah. Mastrionotti gets to his feet, looking around the lobby. MASTRIONOTTI Yeah, I didn't think this dump was restricted. He digs in his pocket. MASTRIONOTTI ...Mundt has disappeared. I don't think he'll be back. But... He hands Barton a card. MASTRIONOTTI ...give me a call if you see him. Or if you remember something that isn't totally idiotic. BARTON'S ROOM We are tracking toward the paper-wrapped parcel that sits on the nightstand next to Barton's bed. Barton enters and picks it up. He holds it for a beat, looking at it, then brings it over to the secretary and sits. He shakes it. No sound; whatever is inside is well packed. Barton holds it up to his ear and listens for a long beat, as if it were a seashell and he is listening for the surf. Finally he puts it on his desk, beneath the picture of the bathing beauty, and starts typing, quickly and steadily. DISSOLVE THROUGH TO: REVERSE Some time later; Barton still types. He is face to us; beyond him we can see the bed with its rust-colored stain. The phone rings. Barton ignores it. It continues to ring. Barton rises and exits frame; we hold on to the bed in the background. We hear Barton's footsteps on the bathroom tile as the phone continues ringing. Barton sits back into frame stuffing cotton into each ear. He resumes typing. ANOTHER ANGLE Barton typing. The desk trembles under the working of the typewriter. Charlie's parcel chatters. Barton takes a finished page out of the carriage and places it face down on the growing stack to his right. He feeds in a new page. We hear the muted ding of the elevator down the hall. Barton resumes typing. We hear a knock on Barton's door. Barton does not react, apparently not hearing. THE DOORWAY We are close on the bottom of the door. Someone in the hallway is sliding a note beneath the door; then his shadow disappears and his footsteps recede. The note is a printed message headed: "While You Were Out... " Underneath are the printed words: "You were called by" and, handwritten in the space following: "Mr. Ben Geisler." Handwritten below, in the message space: "Thank you. Lipnik loved your meeting. Keep up the good work." Barton's offscreen typing continues steadily. FADE OUT HALLWAY A perfectly symmetrical wide low angle shot of the empty hall. Shoes are set put in front of each door except for one in the middle background. At the cut in we hear faint, regular typing. We hold for a beat. There is no motion. The long, empty hall. The distant typing. We hold. The typing stops. There is a beat of quiet. It is broken by the sound of a door opening. It is the shoeless door in the middle background. A hand reaches out to place a pair of shoes in the doorway. The hand withdraws. The door closes. A short beat of silence. The distant typing resumes. The long empty hall. The distant typing. FADE OUT OVER THE BLACK We hear the distant sound of a woman's voice, tinny and indistinct. WOMAN Just a minute and I'll connect you... FADE IN: CLOSE ON BARTON His eyes are red-rimmed and wild. He sits on the edge of his bed holding the phone to his ear. His voice is unnaturally loud: BARTON Hello? Operator! I can't... Oh! He stops, reaches up, takes a cotton wad out of his ear. We hear various clicks and clacks as the telephone lines switch, and then a distant ring. The phone rings three or four times before it is answered by a groggy voice. VOICE ...Hello. BARTON Garland, it's me. GARLAND Barton? What time is it? Are you all right? BARTON Yeah, I'm fine, Garland – I have to talk to you. I'm calling long distance. GARLAND Okay. Muffled, we hear Garland speaking to someone else. GARLAND ...It's Barton. Calling long distance. Back into the receiver: GARLAND ...What is it Barton? Are you okay? BARTON I'm fine, garland, but I have to talk with you. GARLAND Go ahead, son. BARTON It's about what I'm writing, Garland. It's really... I think it's really big. GARLAND What do you mean, Barton? BARTON Not big in the sense of large – although it's that too. I mean important. This may be the most IMPORTANT work I've done. GARLAND Well, I'm... glad to hear that – BARTON Very important, Garland. I just thought you should know that. Whatever happens. GARLAND ...That's fine. BARTON Have you read the Bible, Garland? GARLAND ...Barton, is everything okay? BARTON Yes... Isn't it? GARLAND Well, I'm just asking. You sound a little – Guardedly: BARTON Sound a little what? GARLAND Well, you just... sound a little– Bitterly: BARTON Thanks, Garland. Thanks for all the encouragement. He slams down the phone. OVER HIS SHOULDER A one-quarter shot on Barton from behind as he picks up the cotton wad and sticks it back in his right ear. He resumes typing, furiously. After a beat he mutters, still typing. BARTON ...Nitwit. THE BATHING BEAUTY Later. We hear typing and the roar of the surf.' CLOSE ON TYPEWRITER We are extremely close on the key-strike area. As we cut in Barton is typing: "p-o-s-t-c-a-r-d-." The carriage returns a couple of times and "T-H-E–E-N-D" is typed in. The paper is ripped out of the carriage. CLOSE ON A STACK OF PAGES Lying face down on the desk; the last page is added, face down, to the pile. The pile is picked up, its edges are straightened with a couple of thumps against the desktop, and then the pile is replaced on the desk, face up. The title page reads: "THE BURLYMAN Motion Picture Scenario By Barton Fink" Barton's right hand enters frame to deposit a small cotton wad on top of the script. Barton's left hand enters to deposit another small cotton wad on top of the script. We hear Barton walk away. We hear bath water run. THE BATHING BEAUTY Still looking out to sea. USO HALL We are booming down to the dance floor as a raucous band plays an up-tempo number. BARTON Dancing animatedly, almost maniacally, his fingers jabbing the air. The hall is crowded, but Barton is one of few men not in uniform. USO GIRL Giggling, dancing opposite Barton. GIRL You're cute! BARTON Caught up in his dancing, oblivious to the girl. A white uniformed arm reaches in to tap Barton on the shoulder. SAILOR 'Scuse me, buddy, mind if I cut in? Barton glares at him. BARTON This is MY dance, sailor! SAILOR C'mon buddy, I'm shipping out tomorrow. For some reason, Barton is angry. BARTON I'm a writer! Celebrating the completion of something GOOD! Do you understand that, sailor? I'm a WRITER! His bellowing has drawn onlookers' attention. VOICES Step aside, four-eyes! Let someone else spin the dame! Give the navy a dance! Hey, Four-F, take a hike! Barton turns furiously against the crowd. BARTON I'm a writer, you monsters! I CREATE! He points at his head. BARTON ...This is my uniform! He taps his skull. BARTON ...THIS is how I serve the common man! THIS is where I – WHAPP! An infantry man tags Barton's chin on the button. Bodies surge. The crowd gasps. The band blares nightmarishly on. HOTEL HALLWAY Quiet at the cut. After a beat, there is a faint ding at the end of the hall and, as the elevator door opens, we faintly hear: PETE This stop: six. Barton, disheveled, emerges and stumbles wearily down the hall. He stops in front of his door, takes his key out, and enters the room. BARTON'S POV Mastrionotti is sitting on the edge of the bed reading Barton's manuscript. Deutsch stands in front of the desk staring at the bathing beauty. MASTRIONOTTI Mother: What is to become of him. Father: We'll be hearing from that crazy wrestler. And I don't mean a postcard. Fade out. The end. He looks up at Barton. MASTRIONOTTI ...I thought you said you were a writer. DEUTSCH I dunno, Duke. I kinda liked it. BARTON Keep your filthy eyes off that. Deutsch turns toward Barton and throws a folded newspaper at him. DEUTSCH You made morning papers, Fink. Barton opens the paper. A headline reads: Writer Found Headless in Chavez Ravine. The story has two pictures – a studio publicity portrait of Mayhew, and a photograph of the crime scene: two plainclothes detectives stare down into a gulley as a uniformed cop restrains a pair of leashed dogs. MASTRIONOTTI Second one of your friends to end up dead. DEUTSCH You didn't tell us you knew the dame. With a jerk of his thumb, Mastrionotti indicates the bloodstained bed. MASTRIONOTTI Sixth floor too high for you, Fink? DEUTSCH Give you nose bleeds? Barton crosses the room and sits at the foot of the bed, staring at the newspaper. DEUTSCH Just tell me one thing, Fink: Where'd you put their heads? Distractedly: BARTON Charlie... Charlie's back... MASTRIONOTTI No kidding, bright boy – we smelt Mundt all over this. Was he the idea man? DEUTSCH Tell us where the heads are, maybe they'll go easy on you. MASTRIONOTTI Only fry you once. Barton rubs his temples. BARTON Could you come back later? It's just... too hot... My head is killing me. DEUTSCH All right, forget the heads. Where's Mundt, Fink? MASTRIONOTTI He teach you to do it? DEUTSCH You two have some sick sex thing? BARTON Sex?! He's a MAN! We WRESTLED! MASTRIONOTTI You're a sick fuck, Fink. DEUTSCH All right, moron, you're under arrest. Barton seems oblivious to the two men. BARTON Charlie's back. It's hot... He's back. Down the hall we hear the ding of the arriving elevator. Mastrionotti cocks his head with a quizzical look. He rises and walks slowly out into the hall. Deutsch wathces him go. HIS POV Mastrionotti in the hallway in full shot, framed by the door, still looking puzzled. MASTRIONOTTI ...Fred... Deutsch stands and pushes his suit coat back past the gun on his hip, revealing a pair of handcuffs on his belt. He unhitches the cuffs and slips one around Barton's right wrist and the other around a loop in the wrought iron footboard of the bed. DEUTSCH Sit tight, Fink. THE HALLWAY As Deutsch joins Mastrionotti. DEUTSCH Why's it so goddamn hot out here? MASTRIONOTTI ...Fred... Deutsch looks where Mastrionotti is looking. THE WALL Tacky yellow fluid streams down. The walls are pouring sweat. The hallway is quiet. MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH They look at each other. They look down the hall. THEIR POV The elevator stands open at the far end of the empty hall. For a long beat, nothing. Finally Pete, the elevator man, emerges. At this distance, he is a small figure, stumbling this way and that, his hands presseed against the sides of his head. He turns to face Mastrionotti and Deutsch and takes a few steps forward, still clutching his head. MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH Watching. PETE He takes on last step, then collapses. As he pitches forward his hands fall away from his head. His head separates from his neck, hits the floor, and rolls away from his body with a dull irregular trundle sound. MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH Wide-eyed, they look at each other, then back down the hall. All is quiet. THE HALLWAY Smoke is beginning to drift into the far end of the hall. We hear a muted rumble. MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH Mastrionotti tugs at his tie. He slowly unholsters his gun. Deutsch slowly, hypnotically, follows suit. DEUTSCH ... Show yourself, Mundt! More quiet. THE HALLWAY More smoke. LOW STEEP ANGLE ON ELEVATOR DOOR The crack where the floor of the elevator meets that of the hall. It flickers with red light from below. Bottom-lit smoke sifts up. CLOSE ON MASTRIONOTTI Standing in the foreground, gun at ready. Sweat pours down his face. Behind him, Deutsch stands nervously in the light-spill from Barton's doorway. The rumble and crackle of fire grows louder. THE HALLWAY More smoke. PATCH OF WALL Sweating. A swath of wallpaper sags away from the top of the wall, exposing glistening lath underneath. With a light airy pop, the lathwork catches on fire. MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH Sweating. DEUTSCH ...Mundt! THEIR POV The hallway. Its end-facing-wall slowly spreads flame from where the wallpaper droops. LOW STEEP ANGLE ON ELEVATOR DOOR More red bottom-lit smoke seeps up from the crack between elevator and hallway floors. With a groan of tension relieved cables and a swaying of the elevator door, a pair of feet crosses the threshold into the doorway. JUMPING BACK Wide on the hallway. Charlie Meadows has emerged from the elevator and is hellishly backlit by the flame. His suit coat hangs open. His hat is pushed back on his head. From his right hand his briefcase dangles. He stands motionless, facing us. There is something monumental in his posture, shoulders thrown back. MASTRIONOTTI Tensed. Behind him, Deutsch gulps. MASTRIONOTTI There's a boy, Mundt. Put the policy case down and your mitts in the air. CHARLIE He leans slowly down to put the briefcase on the floor. CLOSE ON MASTRIONOTTI Relax. He murmurs: MASTRIONOTTI He's complying. BACK TO CHARLIE He straightens up from the briefcase, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands. BOOM! The shotgun spits fire. Mastrionotti's face is peppered by buckshot and he is blown back down the hallway into Deutsch. Bellowing fills the hallway over the roar of the fire: CHARLIE LOOK UPON ME! LOOK UPON ME! I'LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND!! THE HALLWAY The fire starts racing down the hallway. CLOSE STEEP ANGLE ON PATCH OF WALL Fire races along the wall-sweat goopus. TRACK IN ON DEUTSCH His eyes widen at Charlie and the approaching fire; his gun dangles forgotten from his right hand. HIS POV Charlie is charging down the hallway, holding his shotgun loosely in front of his chest, in double-time position. The fire races along with him. He is bellowing: CHARLIE LOOK UPON ME! I'LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND! I'LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND! DEUTSCH Terrified, he turns and runs. REVERSE PULLING DEUTSCH As he runs down the flaming hallway, pursued by flames, smoke, and Karl Mundt – who, also on the run, levels his shotgun. BOOM! PUSHING DEUTSCH His legs and feet spout blood, paddle futilely at the air, then come down in a twisting wobble, like a car on blown tires, and pitch him helplessly to the floor. PULLING CHARLIE He slows to a trot and cracks open the shotgun. PUSHING DEUTSCH Weeping and dragging himself forward on his elbows. PULLING CHARLIE He slows to a walk. BARTON'S ROOM Barton strains at his handcuffs. HIS POV Through the open doorway we see Charlie pass, pushing two shells into his shotgun. PULLING DEUTSCH Charlie looms behind him and – THWACK – snaps the shotgun closed. Deutsch rolls over to rest on his elbows, facing Charlie. Charlie primes the shotgun – CLACK. He presses both barrels against the bridge of Deutsh's nose. CHARLIE Heil Hitler. DEUTSCH Screams. CHARLIE Tightens a finger over both triggers. He squeezes. BLAM! TRACK IN ON BARTON He flinches. The gunshot echoes away. Barton strains at the handcuffs. We hear Charlie's footsteps approach – slowly, heavily. THE DOORWAY Charlie, walking down the hall, glances in and seems mildly surprised to see Barton. The set of his jaw relaxes. His expression softens. He pushes his hat farther back on his head. CHARLIE Barton! He shakes is head and whistles. CHARLIE ...Brother, is it hot. He walks into the room. BARTON'S ROOM As Charlie wearily enters. CHARLIE How you been, buddy? He props the shotgun in a corner and sits facing Barton, who stared at him. CHARLIE ...Don't look at me like that, neighbor. It's just me – Charlie. BARTON I hear it's Mundt. Madman Mundt. Charlie reaches a flask from his pocket. CHARLIE Jesus, people can be cruel... He takes a long draught from his flask, then gives a haunted stare. CHARLIE ...if it's not my build, it's my personality. Charlie is perspiring heavily. The fire rumbles in the hallway. CHARLIE ...They say I'm a madman, Barton, but I'm not mad at anyone. Honest I'm not. Most guys I just feel sorry for. Yeah. It tears me up inside, to think about what they're going through. How trapped they are. I understand it. I feel for 'em. So I try and help them out... He reached up to loosen his tie and pop his collar button. CHARLIE ...Jesus. Yeah. I know what it feels like, when things get all balled up at the head office. It puts you through hell, Barton. So I help people out. I just wish someone would do as much for me... He stares miserably down at his feet. CHARLIE ...Jesus it's hot. Sometimes it gets so hot, I wanna crawl right out of my skin. Self-pity: BARTON But Charlie – why me? Why – CHARLIE Because you DON'T LISTEN! A tacky yellow fluid is dripping from Charlie's left ear and running down his cheek. CHARLIE ...Jesus, I'm dripping again. He pulls some cotton from his pocket and plugs his ear. CHARLIE ...C'mon Barton, you think you know about pain? You think I made your life hell? Take a look around this dump. You're just a tourist with a typewriter, Barton. I live here. Don't you understand that... His voice is becoming choked. CHARLIE ...And you come into MY home... And you complain that I'M making too... much... noise. He looks up at Barton. There is a long silence. Finally: BARTON ...I'm sorry. Wearily: CHARLIE Don't be. He rises to his feet and kneels in front of Barton at the foot of the bed. The two men regard each other. Charlie grabs two bars of the footboard frame, still staring at Barton. His muscles tighten, though nothing moves. His neck fans with effort. All of his muscles tense. His face is a reddening grimace. With a shriek of protest, the metal gives. The bar to which Barton is handcuffed had come loose at the top and Barton slides the cuff off it, free. Charlie gets to his feet. CHARLIE I'm getting off the merry-go-round. He takes his shotgun and walks to the door. CHARLIE ...I'll be next door if you need me. A thought stops him at the door and he turns to face Barton. Behind him the hallway blazes. CHARLIE ...Oh, I dropped in on your folks. And Uncle Dave? He smiles. Barton looks at him dumbly. CHARLIE ...Good people. By the way, that package I gave you? I lied. It isn't mine. He leaves. Barton rises, picks up Charlie's parcel, and his script. THE HALLWAY As Barton emerges. Flames lick the walls, causing the wallpaper to run with the tack glue sap. Smoke fills the hallway. Barton looks down the hall. HIS POV Charlie stands in front of the door to his room, his briefcase dangling from one hand, his other hand fumbling in his pocket for his key. With his hat pushed back on his head and his shoulders slumped with fatigue, he could be any drummer returning to any hotel after a long hard day on the road. He opens the door and goes into his room. BACK TO BARTON He turns and walks up the hallway, his script in one hand, the parcel in the other. A horrible moaning sound – almost human – can be heard under the roar of the fire. BLACKNESS STUDIO HALLWAY We are tracking laterally across the lobby of an executive building. From offscreen we hear: BARTON Fink! Morris or Lillian Fink! Eighty- five Fulton Street! Filtered through phone: OPERATOR I understand that, sir – BARTON Or Uncle Dave! Our track has brought Barton into frame in the foreground, unshaven, unkempt, bellowing into the telephone. In a hallway in the background, a secretary gestures for Barton to hurry up. OPERATOR I understand that, sir, but there's still no answer. Shall I check for trouble on the line? Barton slams down the phone. LIPNIK'S OFFICE Barton enters, still clinging on to Charlie's parcel. Lou Breeze stands in one corner censoriously watching Barton. Lipnik is at the far end of the room, gazing out the window. LIPNIK Fink. BARTON Mr. Lipnik. LIPNIK Colonel Lipnik, if you don't mind. He turns to face Barton and we see that he is wearing a smartly pressed uniform with a lot of fruit salad on the chest. LIPNIK ...Siddown. Barton takes a seat facing Lipnik's desk. LIPNIK ...I was commissioned yesterday in the Army Reserve. Henry Morgenthau arranged it. He's a dear friend. BARTON Congratulations. LIPNIK Actually it hasn't officially gone through yet. Had wardrobe whip this up. You gotta pull teeth to get anything done in this town. I can understand a little red tape in peacetime, but now it's all-out warfare against the Japs. Little yellow bastards. They'd love to see me sit this one out. BARTON Yes sir, they – LIPNIK Anyway, I had Lou read your script for me. He taps distastefully at the script on his desk, which has a slightly charred title page. LIPNIK ...I gotta tell you, Fink. It won't wash. BARTON With all due respect, sir, I think it's the best work I've done. LIPNIK Don't gas me, Fink. If you're opinion mattered, then I guess I'd resign and let YOU run the the studio. It doesn't and you won't, and the lunatics are not going to run THIS particular asylum. So let's put a stop to THAT rumor right now. Listlessly: BARTON Yes sir. LIPNIK I had to call Beery this morning, let him know we were pushing the picture back. After all I'd told him about quality, about that Barton Fink feeling. How disappointed we were. Wally was heartbroken. The man was devastated. He was – well, I didn't actually call him, Lou did. But that's a fair description, isn't it Lou? LOU Yes, Colonel. LIPNIK Hell, I could take you through it step by step, explain why your story stinks, but I won't insult your intelligence. Well all right, first of all: This is a wrestling picture; the audience wants to see action, drama, wrestling, and plenty of it. They don't wanna see a guy wrestling with his soul – well, all right, a little bit, for the critics – but you make it the carrot that wags the dog. Too much of it and they head for exits and I don't blame 'em. There's plenty of poetry right inside that ring, Fink. Look at "Hell Ten Feet Square". LOU "Blood, Sweat, and Canvas". LIPNIK Look at "Blood, Sweat, and Canvas". These are big movies, Fink. About big men, in tights – both physically and mentally. But especially physically. We don't put Wallace Beery in some fruity movie about suffering – I thought we were together on that. BARTON I'm sorry if I let you down. LIPNIK You didn't let ME down. Or even Lou. We don't live or die by what you scribble, Fink. You let Ben Geisler down. He liked you. Trusted you. And that's why he's gone. Fired. That guy had a heart as big as the outdoors, and you fucked him. He tried to convince me to fire you too, but that would be too easy. No, you're under contract and you're gonna stay that way. Anything you write will be the property of Capitol Pictures. And Capitol Pictures will not produce anything you write. Not until you grow up a little. You ain't no writer, Fink – you're a goddamn write-off. BARTON I tried to show you something beautiful. Something about all of US – This sets Lipnik off: LIPNIK You arrogant sonofabitch! You think you're the only writer who can give me that Barton Fink feeling?! I got twenty writers under contract that I can ask for a Finktype thing from. You swell-headed hypocrite! You just don't get it, do you? You think the whole world revolves inside whatever rattles inside that little kike head of yours. Get him outta my sight, Lou. Make sure he stays in town, though; he's still under contract. I want you in town, Fink, and outta my sight. Now get lost. There's a war on. THE SURF Crashing against the Pacific shore. THE BEACH At midday, almost deserted. In the distance we see Barton walking. The paper-wrapped parcel swings from the twine in his left hand. BARTON He walks a few more paces and sits down on the sand, looking out to see. His gaze shifts to one side. HIS POV Down the beach, a bathing beauty walks along the edge of the water. She looks much like the picture on the wall in Barton's hotel room. BARTON He stares, transfixed, at the woman. THE WOMAN Very beautiful, backlit by the sun, approaching. BARTON Following her with his eyes. THE WOMAN Her eyes meet Barton's. She says something, but her voice is lost in the crash of the surf. Barton cups a hand to his ear. BEAUTY I said it's a beautiful day... BARTON Yes... It is... BEAUTY What's in the box? Barton shrugs and shakes his head. BARTON I don't know. BEAUTY Isn't it yours? BARTON I... I don't know... She nods and sits down on the sand several paces away from him, facing the water but looking back over her shoulder at Barton. BARTON ...You're very beautiful. Are you in pictures? She laughs. BEAUTY Don't be silly. She turns away to look out at the sea. WIDER Facing the ocean. Barton sits in the middle foreground, back to us, the box in the sand next to him. The bathing beauty sits, back to us, in the middle background. The surf pounds. The sun sparkles off the water. THE END
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+BASIC INSTINCT by JOE ESZTERHAS INT. A BEDROOM - NIGHT It is dark; we don't see clearly. a man and woman make love on a brass bed. There are mirrors on the walls and ceiling. On a side table, atop a small mirror, lines of cocaine. A tape deck PLAYS the Stones "Sympathy for the Devil." Atop him... she straddles his chest... her breasts in his face. He cups her breasts. She leans down, kisses him... JOHNNY BOZ is in his late 40's, slim, good-looking. We don't see the woman's face. She has long blonde hair. The CAMERA STAYS BEHIND and to the side of them. She leans close over his face, her tongue in his mouth... she kisses him... she moves her hands up, holds both of his arms above his head. She moves higher atop him... she reaches to the side of the bed... a white silk scarf is in her hand... her hips above his face now, moving... slightly, oh-so slightly... his face strains towards her. The scarf in her hand... she ties his hands with it... gently... to the brass bed... his eyes are closed... tighter... lowering hips into his face... lower... over his chest... his navel. The SONG plays. He is inside her... his head arches back... his throat white. She arches her back... her hips grind... her breasts are high... Her back arches back... back... her head tilts back... she extends her arms... the right arm comes down suddenly... the steel flashes... his throat is white... He bucks, writhes, bucks, convulses... It flashes up... it flashes down... and up... and down... and up... and... EXT. A BROWNSTONE IN PACIFIC HEIGHTS - MORNING Winter in San Francisco cold, foggy. Cop cars everywhere. The lights play through the thick fog. Two Homicide detectives get out of the car, walk into the house. NICK CURRAN is 42. Trim, good-looking, a nice suit; a face urban, edged, shadowed. GUS MORAN is 64. Crew-cut, silver beard, a suit rumpled and shiny, a hat out of the 50'sa face worn and ruined the face of a backwoods philosopher. INT. THE BROWNSTONE There's money here -- deco, clean, hip -- That looks like a Picasso on the wall. They check it out. GUS Who was this fuckin' guy? NICK Rock and roll, Gus. Johnny Boz. GUS I never heard of him. NICK (grins) Before your time, pop. (a beat) Mid-sixties. Five or six hits. He's got a club down in the Fillmore now. GUS Not now he don't. Past the uniformed guys... nods... waves... past the forensic men... past the coroner's investigators... they get to the bedroom. INT. THE BEDROOM They walk in, stare -- it's messy. It's like a convention in here. LT. PHIL WALKER, in his 50's, silver-haired, the Homicide guys; JIM HARRIGAN, late 40's, puffy, affable; SAM ANDREWS, 30's, black. A CORONER'S MAN is working the bed. LT. WALKER (to Nick and Gus) You guys know Captain Talcott? They nod. GUS What's the Chief's office doin' here. CAPT. TALCOTT Observing. LT. WALKER (to the Coroner's Guy) What do you think, Doc? THE CORONER'S GUY The skin blanches when I press it -- this kind of color is about right for six or eight hours. LT. WALKER Nobody say anything. The maid came in an hour ago and found him. She's not a live-in. GUS Maybe the maid did it. LT. WALKER She's 54 years old and weighs 240 pounds. THE CORONER'S GUY (deadpan) There are no bruises on his body. GUS (grins) It ain't the maid. LT. WALKER He left the club with his girlfriend about midnight. That's the last time anybody saw him. NICK (looks at body) What was it? THE CORONER'S GUY Ice pick. Left on the coffee table in the living room. Thin steel handle. Forensics took it downtown. HARRIGAN There's come all over the sheets -- he got off before he got offed. GUS (deadpan) That rules the maid out for sure. CAPT. TALCOTT This is sensitive. Mr. Boz was a major contributor to the mayor's campaign. He was Chairman of the Board of the Palace of Fine Arts -- GUS (to Nick) I thought you said he was a rock and roll star. LT. WALKER He was a retired rock and roll star. CAPT. TALCOTT A civic-minded, very respectable rock and roll star. GUS What's that over there? We see the white powder laid out in lines on the small mirror on the side table. NICK (deadpan) It looks like some civic-minded, very respectable cocaine to me, Gus. CAPT. TALCOTT (evenly, to Nick) Listen to me, Curran. I'm going to get a lot of heat on this. I don't want any... mistakes. Nick and Talcott look at each other a beat, then -- NICK Who's the girlfriend? Lt. Walker looks at the notepad in his hand. LT. WALKER Catherine Tramell, 162 Divisadero. Nick writes it down. He and Gus turn, leave. Captain Talcott watches them. He looks disturbed. INT. THE LIVING ROOM As they head out -- NICK Talcott doesn't usually show up at the office 'till after his 18 holes. What are they nervous about? GUS They're executives. They're nervous about everything. LT. WALKER Nick! He stops, turns, sees Walker behind them. Walker comes up to them. LT. WALKER (to Nick) Keep your three o'clock. NICK Do you want me to work the case, Phil, or do you want me to -- LT. WALKER I said keep it. EXT. A VICTORIAN ON DIVISADERO - DAY It is more a mansion than a house. They ring the bell. An Hispanic MAID answers. They flash their badges. NICK I'm Detective Curran, this is Detective Moran. We're with the San Francisco Police Department. We'd like to speak to Ms. Catherine Tramell. THE MAID (after a beat, an accent) Just moment. Come in. She leads them into a lavish, beautifully done living room that offers a sweeping view of the Bay. THE MAID Sit, please. Just moment. They look around, impressed. There is a Picasso on the wall here, too. GUS Ain't that cute? They got his and her Pig-assos, son. NICK (smiles) I didn't know you knew who Picasso was, Gus. GUS (grins) I'm a smart sonofabitch. I just hide it. Nick smiles -- and at that moment a beautiful BLONDE walks into the room. She looks like she has been asleep. She is in her early 20's. She wears a very sheer robe. NICK We're sorry to disturb you, we'd like to ask you some -- THE WOMAN Are you vice? GUS (after a beat) Homicide. THE WOMAN What do you want? GUS When was the last time you saw John Boz? THE WOMAN Is he dead? NICK (after a beat) Why do you think he's dead? THE WOMAN You wouldn't be here otherwise, would you? GUS Were you with him last night? THE WOMAN You're looking for Catherine, not me. NICK Who are you? THE WOMAN I'm Roxy. (a beat) I'm her -- friend. She looks at them a beat. ROXY She's out at the beach house at Stinson. Seadrift. 1402. NICK Thanks. They start to head out. ROXY You're wasting your time. Catherine didn't kill him. A beat, they look at her, and go... EXT. SEADRIFT - STINSON BEACH - DAY Foggy. Cold. It is an expensive spit of land on the ocean. Multi-million dollar "beach houses" with gardens and swimming pools. There are two Ferraris in the driveway -- one black, one white. They get out of the car in front of the house. They see a woman in back of the house, sitting on a deck chair, staring at the sea, a blanket around her. As they get to her -- NICK Ms. Tramell? She takes a long look a Nick, then looks away. CATHERINE TRAMELL is 30 years old. She has long blonde hair and a refined, classically beautiful face. She is not knockout gorgeous like Roxy; there is a smoky kind of sensuousness about her. NICK I'm De... CATHERINE (evenly) I know who you are. She doesn't look at them. She looks at the water. CATHERINE How did he die? GUS He was murdered. CATHERINE Really. Maybe that's why you're from Homicide. How? Nick glances at Gus. NICK With an ice pick. She closes her eyes a beat and then, still staring out, we see a thin smile. They see it, too, and glance at each other. NICK How long were you dating him? CATHERINE I wasn't dating him. I was fucking him. They glance at each other again. GUS What are you -- a pro? Catherine looks at him -- that thin smile again. CATHERINE No. I'm an amateur. She looks away. NICK How long were you having sex with him? CATHERINE About a year and a half. NICK Were you with him last night? CATHERINE Yes. NICK Did you leave the club with him? CATHERINE Yes. NICK Did you go home with him? CATHERINE No. We had a drink at the club. We left together. I came here. He went home. NICK Was there anyone with you last night? CATHERINE (looks at Nick) No. I wasn't in the mood to have sex with anyone last night. They look at her a beat. NICK Let me ask you something, Ms. Tramell? Are you sorry he's dead? Catherine looks at him. CATHERINE Yes. I liked fucking him. They stare at her. She looks out at the water. CATHERINE I don't really feel like talking anymore. GUS Listen, lady, we can do this downtown if you -- CATHERINE Read me my rights and arrest me and I'll go downtown. She doesn't even look at them. CATHERINE (quietly) Otherwise, get the fuck out of here. Please. A long beat as they look at her. INT. A CORRIDOR - POLICE HEADQUARTERS The door says Dr. Elizabeth Gardner, Counseling. Nick opens the door, peeks in. The receptionist is not there. A clock says 3. INT. THE COUNSELING OFFICE He walks in -- sees the inner door open, walks in. NICK I'm sorry, Beth. I -- I got hung up in Stinson. DR. ELIZABETH GARDNER, the police psychologist, is a very good- looking, dark-haired woman. She is 30. BETH (smiles) How are you, Nick? NICK I'm fine. Come on, Beth! You know I'm fine! How the hell long do I have to keep doing this? BETH As long as Internal Affairs wants you to, I suppose. Sit down, Nick. NICK It's bullshit. You know it is. BETH (smiles) I know it is -- but sit down anyway so we can get it over with, okay? He sits down. BETH So -- how are things? NICK (after a beat) Things are fine. I told you. They're fine. She watches him closely. BETH (after a beat) How is your -- personal life? NICK My sex life is fine. (a beat) My sex life is pretty shitty actually since I stopped seeing you -- maybe I should think about my Electrolux again. That embarrassed her; she looks away from him. NICK (after a beat) Sorry. She shrugs. A beat. BETH How about the booze? NICK It's been three months. BETH (after a long beat) How about the coke? NICK No. BETH No? NICK (hard) No! I'm working my tail off. I'm off the sauce, I'm not even smoking anymore. She smiles. BETH How's not smoking? NICK It's fucked -- now will you please tell I.A. that I'm just you average healthy totally fucked-up cop and let me get out of here? BETH (after a beat; smiles) Yes. NICK Thank you. And he starts heading out. BETH (behind him) I still miss you, Nick. He doesn't even turn, pretends he didn't hear. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU He walks in. Gus Moran gets up from his desk as soon as he sees him. GUS Talcott's in there. They're waiting. They start heading for Lt. Walker's office. GUS How'd it go, son? NICK She misses me. GUS (grins) Hallelujah. INT. LT. WALKER'S OFFICE He and Gus sit there with Lt. Walker, Harrigan, Andrews and Captain Talcott. HARRIGAN Sixteen stab wounds to the chest and neck. No usable prints, no forcible entry, nothing missing. No prints on the ice pick, either -- it's available at any Safeway. The scarf is Hermes, expensive -- they sell about 20,000 a year worldwide. ANDREWS The powder was cocaine, high- quality, high-content. He inhaled it; there were minute quantities on his lips and penis. Mr. Boz leaves five million dollars, no insurance, no direct survivors. He liked his coke, he liked his girls, and he liked rock and roll. NICK He liked the mayor, too, right? Talcott gives him a look. GUS What about his girlfriend? TALCOTT Is she relevant here? I didn't know she was a suspect. LT. WALKER She's a suspect. TALCOTT On what basis? LT. WALKER (looks a notes) Catherine Tramell. Age 30. No priors, no convictions. Double major, magnum cum laude, Berkeley, 1980. Literature and Psychology. Daughter, sole survivor -- Marvin and Elaine Tramell, killed in a boating accident, 1978, Catherine Tramell sole heir. Estimated assets $110 million. It hangs there. NICK Are you kidding me? LT. WALKER (continues) Formerly engaged to Roberto Vasquez, deceased -- ANDREWS Bobby Vasquez? LT. WALKER Bobby Vasquez, former middleweight contender, killed in the ring Atlantic City, 1984. NICK (smiles) I love it. She's got a hundred million bucks. She fucks fighters and rock and roll stars. And she's got a degree in screwing with peoples' heads. LT. WALKER You forgot her degree in literature. She's a writer. She published a novel last year under a pen name. Do you want to know what it's about? They just stare at him. LT. WALKER It's about a retired rock and roll star who is murdered by his girlfriend. It hangs there a long beat. INT. NICK'S APARTMENT - NIGHT His apartment is very bare -- very few things -- with wide open spaces. There is a lot of chrome. He sits on the couch, reading a book. It is a paperback. We see the title -- Love Hurts, by Catherine Adams. He puts the book down a beat, then picks the phone up, dials. NICK Page 67, pop. Do you know how she does the boyfriend? With an icepick, in bed, his hands tied with a white silk scarf. INT. A POLICE DEPARTMENT CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY Nick, Gus, Lt. Walker, Harrigan, Andrews, Captain Talcott -- and Beth Gardner. With them is an older, white-haired man, DR. ANDREW LAMOTT. There are copies of "Love Hurts" around the table. LT. WALKER Dr. Gardner? BETH I've asked Dr. Lamott to consult with us. This isn't really my turf. Dr. Lamott teaches the psycho- pathology of psychopathic behavior at Stanford and is also a member of the Justice Department's Psychological Profile team. Dr. Lamott? DR. LAMOTT There are two possibilities. One. The person who wrote this book is your murderer and acted out the killing described in ritualistic, literal detail. Two. Someone who wants to do the person who wrote this book harm read the book and enacted the killing described to incriminate the writer. NICK (after a long beat) What if the writer did it? What are we dealing with? DR. LAMOTT You're dealing with a devious, diabolical mind. This book must have been written at least six months, maybe years before it was published. That means the writer planned the crime, at least in the subconscious, back then. The fact that the writer carried it out indicates psychopathic obsessive behavior in terms not only of the killing itself but in terms of applied advance defense mechanism. A long beat. GUS Most times I can't tell shit from shinola, Doc. What was all that you just said? Some grins, titters. BETH She anticipates the book to be her best alibi. DR. LAMOTT Correct. BETH She's going to say Do you think I'd be dumb enough to kill anyone in the exact way I've described in my book? I wouldn't do that because I'd know I'd be a suspect. A long beat -- as they think about it. NICK What if it's not the writer? What if it's someone who read the book? DR. LAMOTT You're dealing then with someone so obsessed that he or she is willing to kill an irrelevant and innocent victim to place the blame on the person who wrote this book. We are talking about deep-seated, obsessional hatred; an utter lack of sense of proportion or perspective. GUS We've got a top-of-the-line, once- in-a-lifetime loony-tune either way you cut it -- that's what you're saying, right, Doc? DR. LAMOTT You're dealing with someone very dangerous and very ill. INT. THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE - DAY PROSECUTOR JOHN CORRIGAN, a big man in his 50's, with Captain Talcott, Lt. Walker, Nick, and Gus. Corrigan is reading a file. He gets up, yawns, goes to his window, looks out. CORRIGAN Come on, you know there's no case here. There's no physical evidence -- okay, she doesn't have an alibi but there's no motive. Her defense would just beat us to death with the copycat thing. Anybody who read the book could have done it. A long beat; no one says anything. NICK So what do we do -- nothing? LT. WALKER (after a beat) We bring her in for questioning. TALCOTT She's got enough money to burn this whole department down. LT. WALKER She was the last person seen with the guy -- I'll take the responsibility. TALCOTT It's yours. CORRIGAN It won't do any good. She'll come in with Lee Bailey and Mel Belli trailing behind her on a solid gold chain from Tiffanys. TALCOTT Yes she will. NICK (after a beat) No she won't. They look at him. NICK (smiles) I don't think she's going to hide behind anybody. I don't think she's going to hide at all. TALCOTT (after a beat) I think you're as crazy as she probably is, Curran. Nicks says nothing. GUS You know what they say: It takes one to know one. Nick looks a Gus, grins. EXT. HER HOUSE IN STINSON - DAY They walk from the car to the door of the big beach house. They ring the bell. They hear typing inside. The typing stops. She comes to the door in jeans and a tight-fitting sweatshirt. NICK Ms. Tramell, we'd like you to come downtown and answer some questions for us. CATHERINE Are you arresting me? NICK If that's the way you want to play it. They look at each other a beat. CATHERINE (smiles) Can I change into something more appropriate? It'll just take a minute. He nods. CATHERINE Come in. INT. THE HOUSE It is beautifully done in a Santa Fe motif. She goes to a bedroom of the living room. Nick sits down on a couch facing the bedroom she's walked into. Gus sits across from him, his back to the bedroom. There is a coffee table between them. She leaves the bedroom door halfway open. An old newspaper is on the coffee table. Nick reaches for it. The headline says VICE COP CLEARED IN TOURIST SHOOTINGS. A headline underneath says GRAND JURY SAYS SHOOTINGS ACCIDENTAL. There is a photograph of Nick. He stares at the paper. CATHERINE How long will this take? Nick puts the paper down on the coffee table. He is lost in his thoughts. Gus picks the paper up. NICK (looks up) I don't know. Nick, facing the half open bedroom door, sees a mirror near the wall of the bedroom. The mirror reflects her in the other corner of the bedroom. She is taking her clothes off. He stares. She strips down. He sees her back. She has a beautiful body. Naked, she puts a dress on. She doesn't put any underwear on. NICK Do you always keep old newspapers around? CATHERINE Only when they make interesting reading. And she is suddenly out of the bedroom. She stands there, smiles. They look at each other a long beat. CATHERINE (finally) I'm ready. They get up, head out. GUS You have the right to an attorney. CATHERINE Why would I need an attorney? INT. THE CAR - DAY They sit in the front; she is in the back. The car goes over the winding, two-lane Mt. Tamalpais road. The fog is heavy. It's starting to rain. We see the beach far below. CATHERINE Do you have a cigarette? NICK I don't smoke. CATHERINE Yes, you do. NICK I quit. She smiles, looks at him. A beat, and he turns away. Another beat, and she lights a cigarette up. NICK I thought you were out of cigarettes. CATHERINE I found some in my purse; would you like one? He turns back to her. NICK I told you -- I quit. CATHERINE It won't last. A beat, as she looks at him, and then he turns away. GUS You workin' on another book? CATHERINE Yes I am. GUS It must really be somehtin' --makin' stuff up all the time. He watches her in the rearview mirror. CATHERINE It teaches you to lie. GUS How's that? CATHERINE You make it up, but it has to be believable. They call it suspension of disbelief. GUS I like that. "Suspension of Disbelief." He smiles at her in the mirror. NICK What's your new book about? CATHERINE A detective. He falls for the wrong woman. He turns back to her. NICK What happens to him? She looks right into his eye. CATHERINE She kills him. A beat, as they look at each other, and then he turns away from her. Gus watcher her in the rearview mirror. INT. A POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM - DAY It is large, fluorescent-lighted, antiseptic. She walks in with Nick and Gus. In the room are prosecutor John Corrigan, Lt. Walker, Captain Talcott, Harrigan, and Andrews. There is a police stenographer a plain young woman in her 20's. As soon as she comes in -- CORRIGAN I'm John Corrigan. I'm an assistant district attorney, Ms. Tramell. Can we get you anything? Would you like some coffee? CATHERINE No thank you. TALCOTT Are your attorneys -- NICK (hiding a smile) Ms. Tramell waived her right to an attorney. Corrigan and Talcott glance at Nick. She sees the look. CATHERINE (smiles) Did I miss something? NICK I told them you wouldn't want an attorney present. LT. WALKER Why have you waived your right to an attorney, Ms. Tramell? CATHERINE (to Nick) Why did you think I wouldn't want one? NICK I told them you wouldn't want to hide. CATHERINE I have nothing to hide. The two of them keep their eyes on each other. She sits down. They sit around her. Nick sits directly across from her. She lights up a cigarette. They watch her. She is poised, cool, in complete command of herself. CORRIGAN There is no smoking in this building, Ms. Tramell. CATHERINE What are you going to do? Charge me with smoking? Ever so casually, she blows her smoke across at Nick. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE INTERROGATION ROOM - LATER CORRIGAN Would you tell us the nature of your relationship with Mr. Boz? CATHERINE I had sex with him for about a year and a half. I liked having sex with him. She has control of the room; she looks from one man to the other as she speaks. CATHERINE He wasn't afraid of experimenting. I like men like that. I like men who give me pleasure. He gave me a lot of pleasure. A beat, as they watch her. She is so matter-of-fact. CORRIGAN Did you ever engage in sado- masochistic activity with him? CATHERINE (smiles) Exactly what do you have in mind, Mr. Corrigan. CORRIGAN (after a beat, little flustered) Did you ever tie him up? CATHERINE No. ANDREWS You never tied him up. CATHERINE No. Johnny liked to use his hands too much. I like hands and fingers. They stare at her. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE INTERROGATION ROOM - LATER LT. WALKER You describe a white silk scarf in your book. CATHERINE I've always had a fondness for white silk scarves. (she smiles) I have a very vivid imagination. NICK But you said you liked men to use their hands. CATHERINE No. I said I liked Johnny to use his hands. (she smiles) I don't give any rules, Nick. I go with the flow. They have their eyes on each other. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE INTERROGATION ROOM - LATER CORRIGAN Did you kill Mr. Boz, Ms. Tramell? CATHERINE I'd have to be pretty stupid to write a book about a killing and then kill him the way I described in my book. I'd be announcing myself as the killer. I'm not stupid. She smiles. TALCOTT We know you're not stupid, Ms. Tramell. LT. WALKER Maybe that's what you're counting on to get you off the hook. NICK Writing a book about it gives you an alibi for not killing him. CATHERINE Yes it does, doesn't it? She holds his eyes a second, then -- CATHERINE The answer is no. I didn't kill him. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE INTERROGATION ROOM - LATER GUS Do you use drugs, Ms. Tramell? CATHERINE Sometimes. HARRIGAN Did you ever do drugs with Mr. Boz? CATHERINE Sure. GUS What kind of drugs? CATHERINE Cocaine. She looks directly at Nick. CATHERINE Have you ever fucked on cocaine? (she smiles) It's nice. He watches her. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE INTERROGATION ROOM - LATER NICK You like playing games, don't you? CATHERINE (smiles) I've got a degree in psych. It goes with the turf. Games are fun. They are holding each other's eyes. NICK How about boxing? That's a game. Was that fun for you? They don't take their eyes off each other for a second. TALCOTT I think that's irrelevant to this inquiry. CATHERINE (to Nick) Yes it was. Bobby died. NICK How did you feel when he died? CATHERINE I loved him. I hurt. Their eyes are still on each other. NICK How did you feel when I told you Johnny Boz had died -- that day at the beach. CATHERINE I felt somebody had read my book and was playing a game. NICK But you didn't hurt -- CATHERINE No. NICK Because you didn't love him -- CATHERINE That's right. Their eyes are digging into each other. NICK Even though you were fucking him. CATHERINE (after a beat) You still get the pleasure. Didn't you ever fuck anybody else while you were married, Nick? A beat; he stares at her, expressionless. LT. WALKER How did you know he was married? CATHERINE (watching Nick) Maybe I was guessing. What difference does it make? She lights a cigarette. He stares at her. CATHERINE Would you like a cigarette, Nick? He just stares at her, expressionless. CORRIGAN Do you two know each other? NICK No. CATHERINE No. INT. THE INTERROGATION ROOM - LATER ANDREWS How did you meet Mr. Boz? CATHERINE I wanted to write a book about the murder of a retired rock star. I went down to his club and picked him up. Then I had sex with him. LT. WALKER You didn't feel anything for him. You just had sex with him for your book. She looks at Nick. CATHERINE In the beginning. Then I got to like what he did for me. GUS That's pretty cold, ain't it, lady? CATHERINE I'm a writer, I use people for what I write. You write what you know. Let the world beware. She and Nick have their eyes on each other, then -- CATHERINE (to Corrigan, smiles) Would you like me to take a lie detector test? DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE POLICE BUILDING - NIGHT We see her in a glass-enclosed cubicle with a polygraph EXAMINER. Nick stands outside watching her with Gus and Lt. Walker. Her back is to them. The Examiner shuts the machine down, gathers rolls of papers, and comes out of the cubicle. THE EXAMINER No blips, no blood pressure variations, no pulse variance. Either she's telling the truth or I've never met anyone like her. A long beat, then -- LT. WALKER Well, I guess that's it. A long beat, Nick watches her as she sits inside. NICK How does somebody beat this machine? THE EXAMINER Ninety-nine point nine percent of the cases, they don't. You'd have to be able to mask the truth from your own central nervous system, your circulatory system, your adrenal glands. In my opinion, this woman is telling the truth. The Examiner walks away. They stand there. Catherine stands at the door of the cubicle behind them -- CATHERINE Can I go now? LT. WALKER (after a beat) Yes. Thanks for coming in, Ms. Tramell. I'm sorry to inconvenience you. She says nothing, has a thin smile. CATHERINE Can I ask one of you for a ride? They look at her a beat. NICK Sure. CATHERINE (smiles) Thanks. And he and Catherine walk away. Gus and Walker watch them. INT. HIS CAR - NIGHT It is an old, mint-condition silver Porsche. It is pouring rain; the wind is blowing a San Francisco winter storm. Nothing is said a long beat as he drives. She yawns. Stretches. He looks at her. CATHERINE (smiles) I'm tired. NICK It's got to be tiring to beat that machine. She looks at him and looks away. A beat. CATHERINE If I were guilty, and if I wanted to beat that machine, it wouldn't be tiring. It wouldn't be tiring at all. NICK Why not? CATHERINE Because I'm a professional liar. I spend most of my waking hours dwelling on my lies. (a beat) For my writing. He looks at her. CATHERINE (smiles) I love the rain, don't you? He says nothing, doesn't look at her. CATHERINE You took a polygraph after you shot those two people, didn't you? He looks at her now. NICK I passed. CATHERINE You see? We're both innocent, Nick. He pulls up in front of her house on Divisadero, stops. He sees the white Ferrari in the driveway. NICK How do you know all this stuff about me? CATHERINE You know all about me. NICK I don't know anything that isn't police business. CATHERINE (after a beat) You know I don't like to wear any underwear, don't you, Nick? They look at each other a beat. CATHERINE (smiles) Thanks for the ride. And she's out of the car. He watches her as she hurries in the rain -- his eyes on her until the moment she opens the door and is inside. INT. THE TEN-FOUR - NIGHT It is a police bar, San Francisco style. Ferns Joe Montana and Will Clark posters. The jukebox has a lot of Tony Bennett. He walks in. He sees Lt. Walker at a back booth with Gus, goes to them, sits down. LT. WALKER What is all this "Nick" stuff -- Nick would you like a cigarette. Nick can you give me a ride. NICK She didn't ask me for the ride. She asked anybody. LT. WALKER And you volunteered. A BARTENDER stays behind the bar, but yells to him. THE BARTENDER Perrier, Nick? NICK Double Black Jack rocks, Harry. GUS (with concern) What you doin', son? NICK It's my first drink in three months. That okay with you, pop? (to Lt. Walker) She doesn't know me. I never saw her before Gus and I talked to her. THE BARTENDER Here you go, Nick. He gets up, gets his drink -- NICK Thanks, Harry. He sits back down. He takes a big slug. They watch him. LT. WALKER You sure? NICK I'm sure. He takes another big slug. NICK Now what? LT. WALKER What now what? Now nothing. She passed the polygraph. That's it. NICK She knew she could beat it. That's why she asked to take it. LT. WALKER How the fuck do you know? What is it with you and this broad anyway? NICK Come on, Phil. You're not gonna let this slide. What about her parents? What about what else she's published? At least we should get the stuff to see if we find anything else that's an amazing real-life coincidence. LT. WALKER Her parents died in an accident. I don't care what else she's written. What are you -- a book critic? NICK How did they die? Was there an investigation? LT. WALKER How you're saying she killed her parents? Did she kill Bobby Vasquez, too? GUS Not unless she got up in the ring and turned into one mean sonofabitch. LT. WALKER Maybe she did, Gus. Maybe she grew herself an Afro and learned a left hook and put shoe polish on her face. Let's polygraph her again and ask her about it. NICK (casually) Fuck you, Phil. LT. WALKER Fuck you, too Nick. A beat, then -- NICK (calls to the Bartender) Can you get me another double Black Jack, Harry. Gus looks at him with concern. A man in his 50's -- LT. MARTIN NILSEN is suddenly there. He is overweight, florid. NILSEN (to Nick) Hey, shooter -- You back on the Black Jack, Shooter? He grins. Nick doesn't look at him. LT. WALKER We're discussing a case, Marty. NILSEN I know that. I had no doubt of that. THE BARTENDER Here you go, Nick. Nilsen takes the drink, hands it to Nick. NILSEN (grins) Double, huh, Shooter? Nick turns to him. He's sitting in the booth; Nilsen is standing there. Nick looks like he's barely restraining himself. NICK I'm off-duty, Nilsen. You hear me? I'm off-duty discussing a case. Internal Affairs shouldn't have any trouble with that. Maybe I should put in for overtime. NILSEN (grins) You do that, Shooter. Why don't you send it to me? I'll give it special attention. A beat, and then Nick gets up, faces him. NICK I'm gonna tell you once more, Nilsen -- Lt. Walker and Gus get up and hold Nick back. Beth Gardner, the police psychologist, is suddenly there. BETH What's the problem? NILSEN (grins) No problem, Doctor. Here comes the Doctor just in time to save her patient. Take care, Shooter. And he walks away. Nick still looks like he wants to go after him. Beth pulls him away from the booth. BETH You okay? NICK (after a beat) Yeah. BETH (smiles) You don't look so okay. Nick looks at her a beat. NICK (smiles) What are you doing here? BETH (smiles) Baby-sitting. (she shrugs) Rookie cop. NICK (smiles) What else is new? A beat. He looks at her again. NICK You want to get out of here? She looks at him a beat. BETH (smiles) Yes. At the booth, Gus and Lt. Walker watch the two of them leave. GUS Maybe it's for old-time's sake. LT. WALKER (watches them go out) Sometimes I think he started banging her just to get himself off the hook with Internal Affairs. GUS (after a beat, smiles) He ain't that way. He's got heart. LT. WALKER (smiles) Yeah. I know. INT. BETH'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT He is kissing her -- hard, rough. He forces her against the wall. BETH Don't -- please, Nick -- We hear her dress RIP. He kisses her harder -- we hear her panties RIP. He gets the dress off, pushes his hands under her bra -- BETH Please don't -- don't -- He puts his mouth to her shoulder, bites it -- as they move down to the floor. INT. BETH'S LIVING ROOM - LATER It is dark. The are still partially dressed. They are on the floor. He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling. She lies next to him -- the torn dress wound around her. There is a bite mark on her shoulder. A long beat, silence -- then -- BETH What was she like? NICK Who? BETH Catherine Tramell. NICK (after a beat) She said what you said she'd say. She sits up, looks away. He looks at her, puts his finger on the bite mark idly, gently. A beat, and he kisses her shoulder gently, then lies back down. BETH I met her at Berkeley. He looks at her. BETH We were in some of the same classes. NICK (after a beat) Why didn't you tell me? She looks at him. BETH I'm telling you. They look at each other a long beat. BETH (with difficulty) You've never been... like that... before. He says nothing, looks away from her. BETH Why? He doesn't look at her a long beat, says nothing. NICK You're the shrink. She keeps looking at him. He won't look at her. BETH You weren't making love to me. A beat; he looks at her. NICK Who was I making love to? She looks at him a long beat. BETH You weren't making love. They look at each other, a long beat, then away. He lies back down. Beth doesn't look at him, keeps sitting up. NICK (finally) I need a cigarette. BETH (after a beat) I thought you quit. He says nothing. BETH Top drawer in the foyer. (a beat) Get it on your way out. He looks at her; she won't look at him. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - MORNING He walks in. He looks hung-over. He sees Gus with Harrigan and Andrews and Lt. Walker in Lt. Walker's glass-enclosed office at the end of this big room. They look at him when they see him. LT. WALKER You look like dogshit. GUS (grins) He looks a little shrunk, that's all. ANDREWS (after a beat) We got a call from Berkeley P.D. There was a killing. A professor. Icepick. In his bed. Multiple stab wounds. 1977. NICK (a thin smile) She was there, wasn't she? LT. WALKER University records say she was there. He and Nick look at each other a long beat, then -- LT. WALKER (suddenly) Gus -- go over to Berkeley. Harrigan -- find out what else she's published. Andrews -- get the files on her parents' accident. Carbon Beth on everything. I want some psychological input on this Andrews and Harrigan go; Nick is left there with Gus. NICK What about me? GUS You're already gettin' psychological input, son. LT. WALKER (to Nick) Go stick your head in a tub of ice water. (a beat; then seriously) See where she leads. EXT. THE BEACH HOUSE AT STINSON - DAY The black Ferrari is in the driveway. He sits in an unmarked police car on a hillside above the house, watching. It is a bleak, leaden gray day. Catherine comes out of the house. She is dressed casually. She gets into the Ferrari. INT. HIS POLICE CAR He stays behind her at a safe distance on the winding panoramic highway -- a two-lane mountain road which leads from Stinson Beach into Marin County. She suddenly starts speeding up on this dangerous road, cutting in and out, passing cars very fast. He has to start cutting around cars to keep up. This woman really drives. He cuts out and can barely pass a car without hitting a Grey Lines Tour Bus head-on. Close call: sheer drops on either side. He looks frazzled. INT. HIS POLICE CAR He is behind her at a distance on a hilly Mill Valley road -- little streets, terraced hillsides, sharp turns. He goes slowly, looks around, thinks he's lost her. And then he sees the black Ferrari parked in front of a house obscured by hedges. He parks the car a distance behind the Ferrari, sits there a long beat. He gets out, goes carefully up to the hedges, looks. A small, nondescript house. He watches. He can't see anything inside the house. A beat, he reaches over to the mailbox and opens it. He takes an envelope out, looks at the name Hazel Dobkins. INT. HIS POLICE CAR - NIGHT He watches as she comes out of the house. A frail old woman in her 70's is with her. She hugs the old woman, gets into the Ferrari, STARTS it up. He waits a beat and then STARTS after her. He stays behind her at a distance -- she is going slowly. And then she suddenly GUNS it, cuts her lights -- her wheels SCREECH. He GUNS his car after her. He makes a turn. She is gone. There is a fork in the road. He turns one way, goes a few hundred feet. Nothing. Blackness. He stops. NICK (quietly) Shit. INT. HIS POLICE CAR - NIGHT He pulls his car up to her house at Stinson Beach. The black Ferrari is in the driveway. A light goes on in an upstairs bedroom. The curtain is drawn. He sees the outline of her body now. She starts to take her clothes off -- there in the window, behind the curtain. He watches her body as she does an almost languorous strip. His eyes are intense... ravishing. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - NIGHT He is alone, nobody else in the big room. He sits in front of a computer. We see the screen. He has punched in HAZEL DOBKINS, WF, 145 ALBION RD., MILL VALLEY. He is waiting for a response. We see it come on screen NOTHING CURRENT. A long beat, as he stares at the screen, and then we see these words RELEASED, SAN QUENTIN, JULY 7, 1965. We see him type in the words PRIOR ARREST RECORD. A long beat, and then it comes up HOMICIDE, JANUARY 10, 1956 - SAN FRANCISCO He stares at the screen a long beat. GUS (behind him) Ain't you go nothin' better to do than to come in here and jack off the damn machine? NICK (after a beat; lost in his thoughts) What are you doing here, Pop? GUS (grins) I came in here to jack off the damn machine. (a beat) One dead psychology professor. Noah Goldstein. Dr. Noah Goldstein. And guess what? He was her counselor. Nick looks at him a beat. NICK Was she ever suspect? GUS No, sir. They never even got a statement from her. Nick sits back a long beat, his eyes off somewhere. NICK (slowly) Do you remember a case -- 1956 -- Hazel Dobkins? GUS (grins) Hell yes! Couldn't get it outta my head for years. Still can't. Nice little kids -- nice husband, wasn't porkin' around -- no financial problems. One day -- outta the clear blue sky -- she does 'em. All of 'em. Used a knife. He got for a wedding present. Didn't even deny it. Sweet as honey. Said she didn't know why she done it. Nick just stares at him. EXT. THE STINSON BEACH HOUSE - NEXT DAY He pulls up to the house, gets out of his unmarked police car. He stands there a beat, thinking. He walks down to the beach entrance of the house. He hears a Rolling Stones SONG playing inside. He stands there. The door suddenly opens. Catherine stands there, smiles. She wears very tight-fitting spandex leotards. CATHERINE Hi. He looks at her a beat, then -- NICK Am I... disturbing you? CATHERINE No. Come in. They have their eyes on each other. A beat, and she turns to go in. INT. THE STINSON BEACH HOUSE She goes in ahead of him -- he follows her inside. He watches her body. His movements are tentative, off-balance. She turns the Stones DOWN. On a table by the window, he sees a word processor. Spread around it are newspaper clippings. They are all about him. We see the headline on one KILLER COP TO FACE POLICE REVIEW. She sees him glancing at the clips. CATHERINE I'm using you for my detective. In my book. You don't mind, do you? She smiles. He looks at her, expressionless. CATHERINE Would you like a drink? I was just going to have one. NICK No, thanks. She goes to the bar. CATHERINE (smiles) That's right. You're off the Jack Daniels too, aren't you? She is making herself a drink. She takes the ice out and then opens a drawer and gets an icepick. It has a fat wooden end. She uses the icepick on the ice, her back to him. He watches her. NICK I'd like to ask you a few more questions. CATHERINE I'd like to ask you some, too. She turns to him, icepick in hand, smiles. CATHERINE For my book. She turns back to the ice, works on it with the pick. She raises her arm, plunges it. Raises it, plunges it. He watches her. NICK (wary) What kind of questions? She puts the icepick down, pours herself a drink, turns to him. CATHERINE How does it feel to kill someone? He looks at her a long beat. NICK (finally) You tell me. CATHERINE I don't know. But you do. Their eyes are on each other. NICK (finally) It was an accident. They got in the line of fire. CATHERINE Four shootings in five years. All accidents. NICK (after a long beat) They were drug buys. I was a vice cop. A long beat, as they look at each other. NICK Tell me about Professor Goldstein. BEAT. CATHERINE There's a name from the past. NICK You want a name from the present? How about Hazel Dobkins? She looks at him a long beat, sips her drink, never takes her eyes off him. CATHERINE Noah was my counselor in my freshman year. (she smiles) That's probably where I got the idea for the icepick. For my book. Funny how the subconscious works. (a beat) Hazel is my friend. NICK She wiped out her whole family. CATHERINE Yes. She's helped me understand homicidal impulse. NICK Didn't you study it in school? CATHERINE Only in theory. (she smiles) You know all about homicidal impulse, don't you, shooter? Not in theory -- in practice. He stares at her a long beat. CATHERINE (quietly) What happened, Nick? Did you get sucked into it? Did you like it too much? NICK (after a beat) No. He stares at her, almost horrified. CATHERINE (quietly) Tell me about the coke, Nick. The day you shot those two tourists -- how much coke did you do? She steps closer to him. CATHERINE Tell me, Nick. She puts her hand softly on his cheek, He grabs her hand roughly, holds it. NICK I didn't. CATHERINE Yes, you did. They never tested you, did they? But Internal Affairs knew. They are face to face. He is still holding her roughly by the hand. CATHERINE Your wife knew, didn't she? She knew what was going on. Nicky got too close to the flame. Nicky liked it. He twists her arm back behind her -- their bodies are pressed against each other -- their eyes digging into each other. CATHERINE (in a whisper) That's why she killed herself? He is twisting her arm, staring at her, pulling her against him. We hear the DOOR behind them. A beat, and he lets her go, turns away from her. Roxy stands there, staring at them. Her hair is up. She wears a black motorcycle jacket, a black T-shirt, and black jeans and cowboy boots. CATHERINE (brightly) Hiya, hon. You two have met, haven't you? Roxy looks at Nick. Catherine goes to her, kisses her briefly on the lips, stands there with her arm around her --both of them looking at Nick. He walks by them, opens the door to go, his face a mask. CATHERINE You're going to make a terrific character, Nick. He doesn't look at her; he's gone. INT. BETH GARDNER'S OFFICE - DAY He comes in. He looks like he's going to kill someone. A RECEPTIONIST sits there. RECEPTIONIST She's on the phone -- she'll be right with you, detective --He sweeps by her into Beth's inner office. She hangs up when she sees the look on his face. NICK Who has access to my file? BETH What are you talking about, Nick -- what's wrong with you? NICK Who's got access to my goddamn file? She gets up -- he goes closer to her; she backs away from him. BETH Nobody. He goes closer to her; she backs away. BETH It's a confidential psychiatric record, it'd be illegal --She backs into a wall. She looks very scared. He comes very close to her -- puts an arm behind her to the wall. NICK Don't, Beth. Don't lie to me. She says nothing, looks scared. NICK (suddenly) It's Internal Affairs, isn't it? BETH No, Nick, please -- NICK (loud, hard) Who? BETH (blurts it) Nilsen. INT. THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS DIVISION - DAY He storms into the big room. He sees MARTY NILSEN. He is sitting behind his desk in his glass-enclosed office inside this big room. About a dozen plainclothes policemen are in the big room. He goes by them into Nilsen's office. INT. MARTIN NILSEN'S OFFICE He closes the door. Nilsen sees the look on his face, backs his chair away towards the wall. NILSEN What do you want, Curran? He goes to him, picks him up by his lapels, slams him against the wall. NICK (out of control) You sold her the file, didn't you? NILSEN (scared) What are you talking about? NICK (out of control) What'd she pay you? He slams him against the wall again. The glass EXPLODES behind them -- a chair comes into the room. Nick is frozen, holding Nilsen by the throat against the wall. ONE OF THE I.A. GUYS Let him go, Curran. Nice and easy. He looks back, sees two Internal Affairs men with their guns drawn, pointed at him. A beat, and he lets Nilsen go. He turns calmly and starts to walk out. NILSEN You're on sick leave, Shooter. As of right now. Pending the outcome of a psychiatric evaluation. EXT. THE POLICE PARKING LOT - DUSK He gets into his old Porsche. He STARTS the car up. Gus Moran comes up to the window. They look at each other a GUS What's goin' down, son? NICK Nothin' (a beat) I'll be okay, pop. They look at each other a long beat. GUS No, sir. You won't. There's smoke off yonder on the horizon. They're gonna want your badge. NICK (after a long beat) I got tired of being played with. GUS (after a beat) You sure got real conclusive ways of demonstrating that. They almost smile at each other, then -- NICK (almost to himself) She knows where I live and breathe. She's coming after me. GUS (after a long beat) What is it you got between you? NICK (after a beat; to himself) I don't know. GUS Somethin', though. A beat, and then Nick looks at him. NICK Yeah. (a beat) Somethin'. INT. HIS APARTMENT - NIGHT He sits in front of the TV, watching a lame sitcom. A bottle of Jack Daniels is half-empty in front of him. He is smoking a cigarette. BETH (behind him) I still have my key. He looks at her, looks away at the sitcom. NICK I don't want to see you, Beth. He keeps watching the sitcom. A long beat. BETH (suddenly angry) Damnit! Don't shut me out! You owe me more than that? He goes to the TV, shuts it off. NICK I don't owe you anything; you don't owe me anything. (he looks at her) We went to bed -- what was it? -- ten or fifteen times? (he smiles) It wasn't memorable enough to carry any obligations. BETH (after a long beat) Sometimes I really hate you. NICK (smiles) Yeah? Well why don't you find some friendly therapist and work some of that hostility out. (a beat) But take my advice. Put a little more life into it than you usually do. A beat, and she suddenly hurls herself at him in absolute fury, trying to claw at his face. He grabs her, blocks her. They look at each other a long beat and then he lets her go. The emotion of the moment is gone now -- they turn away from each other. BETH (finally) I'm sorry... I don't usually... act like that. Nick looks at her a beat. NICK How could you let him have my file, Beth? A long beat, then -- BETH (not looking at him) He was going to recommend your discharge a behavioral disability. I made a deal with him. He could review the session notes himself. It was the only way I could keep you on the force. She looks at him. He looks away from her. NICK You did it for me. BETH Yes. I care about you. I did it for you. He turns away from her. NICK (quietly) Get out of here, Beth. (a beat) Please? He goes to the Jack Daniel's, pours some more. She looks at him pour it and turns to go. INT. HIS APARTMENT - NIGHT He is asleep on the couch -- the TV is on to a blank screen. The Jack Daniel's is mostly gone. The phone on the coffee table RINGS. It RINGS again. He wakes, picks it up, listens. NICK Yeah. (a beat) Okay. He hangs it up. He sits there a long beat, staring. He looks disturbed. EXT. THE ALLEY BEHIND THE TEN-FOUR BAR - NIGHT He walks down the alley. There are lots of police cars, flashing lights, uniformed men, coroner's men. As he walks down the alley, he sees Lt. Walker, Gus, and several of the Internal Affairs men we saw earlier in Nilsen's office. They are standing around a Lincoln Town Car. They look at him as he comes closer to them -- then move aside. He can see into the car now. Martin Nilsen lies against the front seat. He has been shot in the head. Nick stares. GUS One shot. Close range. Probably a .38 caliber revolver. Nick stares at Nilsen's body. They watch him. LT. WALKER Give me your gun, Nick. A beat, and then Nick gives him his gun. Walker smells it, shakes his head, gives it to one of the Internal Affairs men. NICK (to Walker) You think I -- GUS I don't son, but I got the minority opinion. INT. POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT He sits in the same room that Catherine sat in --surrounded by four or five Internal Affairs men, Lt. Walker, Gus, and Captain Talcott. Lt. Walker and Gus sort of sit back -- I.A. is running the investigation. The same police stenographer -- the same plain young woman -- is sitting in the room who was there with Catherine. NICK Okay. I went after him. I lost my temper. AN I.A. MAN Do you have any evidence that he showed your psychiatric file to anyone? NICK (after a beat) No. Beth Gardner comes into the room. They look at her. AN I.A. MAN We'll speak to you afterwards, Dr. Gardner. Nick gives her a look. BETH I'd like to sit-in if you don't mind. THE I.A. MAN I'd really rather -- TALCOTT I don't see anything wrong with Dr. Gardner sitting-in if Detective Curran doesn't object. Nick looks at her, shrugs. AN I.A. MAN Where were you tonight? NICK Home. Watching TV. AN I.A. MAN All night? NICK Yeah. AN I.A. MAN Were you drinking? He looks at Beth. NICK Yeah, I was drinking. AN I.A. MAN When did you start drinking again? NICK (after a beat) A couple days ago. BETH I saw Detective Curran at his apartment around ten o'clock. He was sober and lucid. I asked him in my capacity as his departmental therapist about his altercation with Lt. Nilsen. He expressed regret and displayed no hostility. AN I.A. MAN (to Beth) How long were you at his apartment? BETH About fifteen minutes. I saw there was no reason for my concern and left. She and Nick look at each other. He looks away and lights a cigarette. AN I.A. MAN There's no smoking in this building. NICK (after a beat) What are you gonna do -- charge me with smoking? It is the exact line that Catherine used. A long beat. LT. WALKER I'll ask you once, Nick -- for the record did you kill him? NICK No. They look at him a beat. NICK Come on -- I'm going to storm into his office in front of everybody in the afternoon and then that night I'm going to kill him? I'd have to be really dumb to do that. AN I.A. MAN Going after him before gets you off the hook for killing him that's your alibi. LT. WALKER Like writing a book about killing a guy gets you off the hook for killing him. AN I.A. MAN (to Walker) I don't understand. What are you talking about? What book? LT. WALKER (to Nick) Private joke. NICK I don't think it's funny. GUS (grins) Well, hell, son, it's got a certain ring to it, I'll say that. INT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - NIGHT He is by the elevators with Gus and Lt. Andrews. He spots Beth going for the stairway. NICK (to Lt. Andrews) I'll get my stuff tomorrow. INT. THE STAIRWAY NICK Beth. She stops. He catches up to her. They walk down the flights together. They speak quietly. NICK Thank you. She looks at him, smiles. They keep walking down the steps. BETH It's the least I could do... considering I got you into this mess with those reports. NICK (smiles) No. I mean it, thank you. She looks at him, smiles. BETH How do you know Catherine Tramell saw my reports? NICK She knows stuff about me that only you know. BETH (after a beat) She must really be something. (she smiles) From a clinical point of view. NICK What was she like in school? BETH I hardly knew her. She gave me the creeps, though. I don't know why. EXT. THE BUILDING - NIGHT They get outside. Beth kisses him quickly, softly on the cheek. BETH Get some rest. Promise? He nods. She starts walking toward her car. NICK Beth. I didn't mean what I said. About -- BETH (smiles) Yes you did. I'm a big girl. I can handle it. She goes to her car. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - NEXT DAY He is cleaning his desk out, putting things into a duffel bag. Only Andrews is in the room. We see Lt. Walker sitting in his glass-enclosed office. He closes the duffel bag, looks at the place a long beat. Andrews is watching him. He goes up to Andrews ANDREWS (after a beat) Take care, you hear? NICK (after a beat) Did you find out about her parents? ANDREWS You're on leave, man. (a beat) You're on psycho leave. I'm talking to a possible whacko here. NICK You know I'm whacko, Sam, what'd you find? A beat, and Andrews opens the file. ANDREWS The boat blew. There was a leak in the gas line. There were two previous repairs. There was a five-mil policy on both of 'em. A real heavy investigation. Zilch. Goose-egg. It was an accident. NICK (after a beat) Thanks. He sees Lt. Walker looking at him. He goes into Walker's office. LT. WALKER I.A.'s going to talk to you more about Nilsen. They're handling the investigation, we're not. Stay in touch with Dr. Gardner, it'll help on the evaluation. NICK (after a beat) She killed him. LT. WALKER Beth? Now you've got Beth killing people? NICK Catherine Tramell. It's part of her game. LT. WALKER First you've got her buying your file. Now you've got her killing Nilsen. Forget her, willya? Go someplace. Sit in the sun. Get away from this goddamn fog. Get her out of your system. NICK You don't but it, do you? She knew nobody would but it. (he smiles) She knew I'd say she did it. And she knew nobody would buy it. Lt. Walker looks at him a long beat. LT. WALKER She's screwing with your head, Nick. Pretty soon you're gonna look in the mirror and think you're seeing her. EXT. HIS APARTMENT It is in the Marina District; on a street like Cervantes. He gets out of his old Porsche; he sees her black Ferrari there. She is sitting on the front stoop. She wears an Indian jacket, jeans and a T-shirt. He goes up to her. She looks at him a beat. CATHERINE I heard about what happened. What good's a shooter without his gun? She smiles. NICK (a beat) How exactly did you hear? CATHERINE (after a beat) I have attorneys. They have friends. I have friends. Money buys you a lot of attorneys and friends. NICK (after a beat) I don't know about that I don't have any money I don't have any attorneys Gus is my only real friend. CATHERINE (smiles) I wasn't talking about real friends. Why doesn't Gus like me. NICK (after a beat) I like you. CATHERINE Do you? NICK (smiles) Yeah. Would you like to come up and have a drink? She looks at him a beat. CATHERINE I didn't think you'd ask me. He looks at her a beat. NICK (smiles) I'm not that easy to figure. They start walking inside. She walks ahead of him. He watches her. She turns suddenly. CATHERINE You're not easy to figure. I'm just very good at figuring. NICK (after a beat) Don't get too cocky. CATHERINE Why not? NICK You can make a mistake. CATHERINE (smiles) Not me. And she turns, heads inside; he follows her. INT. HIS APARTMENT - DAY They walk in. She looks at the bareness of the place. CATHERINE You should put some warmth into it. You don't want it to reflect on your personality. She turns, smiles at him. He looks at the bottle of Jack Daniel's; there's not much left. NICK Jack Daniel's okay? It's gonna have to be. CATHERINE Fine. NICK Ice? CATHERINE (smiles) Please. There is a palpable tension between them. He takes the ice out, opens a drawer, takes out an icepick. CATHERINE Let me do that. You like to watch me doing it, don't you? She smiles; a beat and he hands her the icepick. She takes it, starts to us the icepick, her back to him. He lights a cigarette. CATHERINE Can I have a cigarette, please? I told you you'd start smoking again. He watches her working on the ice. CATHERINE Light it for me, will you? He does, steps to her. She parts her lips -- he puts it on her lip, watches it. Their eyes are on each other. CATHERINE Thank you. She works on the ice again, opens the cabinets for glasses. NICK What did you pay Nilsen? CATHERINE (doesn't look at him) Isn't he the policeman that you shot, Shooter? She makes the drinks. NICK What if I asked you not to call me Shooter? CATHERINE What if I call you Nicky? NICK (after a beat) My wife used to call me that. CATHERINE (smiles) I know, Nicky, but I like it. She hands him his drink, holds hers. CATHERINE Cheers. My friends call me Catherine. NICK What did Bobby Vasquez used to call you? CATHERINE Bitch mostly, but he meant it affectionately. You don't have any coke, do you? I love coke and Jack Daniel's. NICK (after a beat) There's Pepsi in the fridge. CATHERINE (smiles) It's not the same thing, is it? They look at each other a long beat, their eyes very involved. NICK (quietly) Where's it going? What do you want from me? Their faces are close together. CATHERINE Say -- "What do you want from me, Catherine?" NICK (after a beat, quietly) What do you want from me, Catherine? A beat, and she suddenly turns away. CATHERINE (brightly) I brought you something. She goes to her purse, takes a paperback book out of it. We see it -- The First Time, by Catherine Smith. He looks at it. CATHERINE (smiles) Aren't you going to thank me? NICK What's it about? CATHERINE A boy kills his parents. They have a plane. He makes it look like an accident. He stares at her. A long beat, then -- NICK Why does he do it? CATHERINE To see if he can get away with it. They look at each other a beat. NICK When did you write it? CATHERINE (after a beat) You mean did I write it before my parents died? NICK Yes. CATHERINE No. I wrote it years afterwards. He watches her; she has turned away from him -- and then she turns back to him in a different mood. CATHERINE (smiles) You're not going to stop following me around now just because you're on leave -- are you? NICK (after a beat) No. CATHERINE Good. I'd miss you. (a beat) You can get into trouble, though. You're not really a cop anymore. NICK I'll risk it. CATHERINE Why take the risk? NICK To see if I can get away with it. She looks at him; she smiles. NICK How's your new book? CATHERINE I'm getting deeper and deeper into my character. They look at each other a long beat. CATHERINE Thanks for the drink. He nods, say nothing as she goes to the door -- CATHERINE I'm leaving the house around midnight. In case you're going to follow me. (a beat) I'm going down to Johnny's club. NICK (after a beat) I'll meet you there. She looks at him a long beat; and she's gone. INT. THE STAIRWAY As she is going down the stairs, Gus Moran is coming up. He does a real double-take as he goes by her. CATHERINE (smiles) Hi, Gus. He looks at him a long beat, and he goes upstairs, into Nick's apartment. INT. NICK'S APARTMENT Nick stands at the window, watching her outside. A long beat, and he looks at Gus. GUS (after a beat) Forgive me for askin', son, and I don't mean to belabor the obvious, but why is it that you've got your head so far up your own ass? NICK (after a beat) She want to play? Fine. I can play. GUS (after a beat) Everybody that she plays with dies. NICK (after a beat, quietly) I know what that's like. INT. JOHNNY BOZ'S CLUB - NIGHT It is dark, cavernous there are a thousand people in here. The MUSIC is ear-splitting, pulsing. Lights flash. The floor is huge. At one time, this club was a church. He walks around the sides, a drink in his hand, looking for her. He doesn't see her. The he catches a glimpse of Roxy. She is dancing with another woman. He watches her. She is wearing pants and a jacket, her hair off to the side. She looks very masculine tonight. Roxy laughs at the other woman, leaves her on the floor, starts moving through the sea of dancers. He follows her through the press of bodies. She goes towards the men's room. She walks in. INT. THE MEN'S ROOM It is large, dark, shadowy It was once the sacristy. A crowd scene men and women. Roxy presses through them. A haze of crack smoke; we see people doing poppers. She opens the door to a toilet stall, walks in. Nick is behind her. As the door opens, he sees Catherine. She wears a black motorcycle jacket, a very short skirt, stiletto heels. Her hair is up. He make-up is severe, In the darkness, in the shadows she looks about 19. A hot 19. A hot flash-trash 19. She is in there with two men -- one of them is a big, body- built black guy. She has a vial of something near her face. She sees Nick watching her. She whispers something to the tall black guy. He looks at Nick, smiles a condescending smile. The door to the stall closes INT. THE CLUB He is walking along the side, watching the floor, a drink in his hand. The song ends and it seques right into the Stones's "Miss You." He sees her. Her black leather jacket is off. She wears a very tight, flimsy top, the short skirt, the heels. She is dancing with Roxy and the black guy. He watches her move... watches her body. She turns, sees him, dances, watches him... gets between Roxy and the black guy... they sandwich her with their bodies... keeps moving, turning... eyes on him... playing to him with her body. He watches. A long beat, and he goes up to them. His movements are almost trance-like. They look at each other. A long beat. Catherine stops dancing. he reaches for her. She moves away. A beat their eyes are on each other. She moves a step towards her. A beat, as they look at each other... and they start to move together. Their eyes are on each other as they move, the eyes burning... the movements tighter, hotter... and he suddenly grabs her and kisses her... as they keep moving... the song seques into the Stones's "Gimme Shelter." She is melting into him now, kissing him... Tex watches, expressionless... the black guy is gone... he holds her by the back of the neck, kissing her... their bodies pressed into each other... his hands are on her butt now, pulling her into him now, almost holding her up now... and then under her skirt, under her panties... as he kisses her neck. People around them stare... he moves his hands under her top as she keeps moving with the song, her head back, her back almost arching... cups her breasts now... she keeps moving... the song sweeping them into its rhythm "it's just a shot away, it's just a kiss away, a kiss away..." They devour each other. Right there on the floor. Barely able to hold it back. As Tex watches expressionless. As people stop dancing and stare. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HER BEDROOM It is dark. We can't see clearly. A side table, lines of cocaine on a small mirror. A CD player The Stones play "Love In Vain." There are mirrors all over the walls and ceiling. They are in bed. The bed is big and brass. Atop her... he kisses her neck... his hands under her, raising her... he moves down, kisses her breasts... puts his mouth around a breast... she arches, moves... he kisses her shoulder... biting into it... she opens her mouth... we hear no cry... we hear the Stones. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HER BEDROOM - LATER The Stones play "Monkey Man." Atop him... she kisses his chest, licks it, lowers her head... lower... lower... he arches his back... her mouth comes up... her mouth on his lips again... he turns her. Atop her... he moves her legs apart... (the CAMERA is behind them)... she holds his back... digs in her nails... rakes his back with them... digs in again... his back bleeds... he moves inside her... harder... the nails dig... blood trickles down his back. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HER BEDROOM - LATER The Stones play "Wild Horses." He is behind her... she is on her stomach... he rises her by her hips... kisses her back... races her spine with his tongue... traces her lower back... he kneels... moves into her... kisses her neck... his fingers are in her mouth... as he moves. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HER BEDROOM - LATER The Stones play "Sympathy for the Devil." Atop him... she leans close over his face, her tongue in his mouth... kneeling over him... she moves his arms above his head... moves higher atop him... her breasts in his face... she reaches over to the side... a white silk scarf is in her hand... she moves higher above him... kneeling over his face... moving oh-so-slightly... his face strains towards her. The scarf in both hands now... she starts to tie his hands with it... his eyes are open, watching her... she ties it loosely, gently... it isn't tight... but his hands are tied to the brass bed. She kisses him... moving her hips lower now... over his chest... lower... And he is inside her... her arms above him... his eyes open... she kisses his neck... bites but not hard... moves... grinding hard against him now.. she is on her knees... head arches back.. her breasts high.. still grinding. Her back arches, strains... he strains toward her... she holds her arms high... she comes out of the arch... shivering... falling over him... the scarf loosens... his arms come forward and hold her close.. closer... closer... as she moves with slight... shivery... movements. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HER BEDROOM - NIGHT It is dark, quiet. Pindrop quiet. He is sitting on the side of the bed, his head down... his back a line tracing of dried blood. She is asleep nest to him, naked. He looks around the room. The white scarf around the bedpost... the coke on the side-table... clothes all over the floor. He gets up, walks into the bathroom. INT. HER BEDROOM - NIGHT The light is too bright. He looks at himself in the mirror. He pours the water, lowers his head, puts cold water on his face. A long beat, he comes back up, opens his eyes. Roxy is in the mirror behind him. She startles him. He looks at her in the mirror a long beat, doesn't turn. She is expressionless; she wears the same thing she wore at the club. He lowers down into the basin again, puts more water on his face, comes back up, uses a towel this time, finishes with the towel. She is still looking at him in the mirror the same way. He looks at her in the mirror, doesn't turn. ROXY (quietly) If you don't leave her alone, I'll kill you. He looks at her a beat, then turns -- NICK Tell me something, Rocki. Man-to- man. (he smiles) I think she's the fuck of the century, don't you? For a second, she looks like she's going to spring at him, then controls it and turns to go. NICK How long you been here, Rock? You like to watch, do you? ROXY (after a beat, looks at him) She likes me to watch. And she turns and she is gone. INT. HER BEDROOM - NIGHT He lies on the bed in the dark, quiet room. He is on his back, his eyes open. He has his arm around her. She is asleep. CATHERINE (murmurs) Nicky. He looks at her. INT. HER BEDROOM - MORNING He wakes up. She is not there. He looks around. The white scarf is gone. The coke on the side table is gone. In its place, a scrawled note "The Beach -- C." EXT. HER STINSON BEACH HOUSE - DAY A cold and foggy day. He gets out of his old Porsche, walks down the driveway. He sees her out on the beach by the water. A small bonfire is near her. He walks towards her. Roxy watches him, expressionless, from an upstairs window of the house. He doesn't see her. He walks up to Catherine. She has an Indian blanket over her and is wearing a black felt English derby hat, her hair loose underneath. NICK (expressionless) 'Morning. She doesn't look at him -- he smiles slowly. She doesn't smile and she doesn't seem to like his smile, either. She walks along the beach. He walks with her. A long beat. NICK I think Roxy got jealous. She looks at him. He looks like he is trying to hide a smile. CATHERINE (after a beat) She's seen me fuck plenty of other guys. That wipes the hidden smile off his face. He looks at her, walks with her. A long beat. NICK Maybe she saw something she didn't see before. CATHERINE She's seen everything before. She looks at him; he's smiling now. NICK She's never seen us before. He's serious. She looks at him. She smiles slowly. CATHERINE Did you think it was so special? NICK I told her it was the fuck of the century. He can't hide his smile anymore. She says nothing, keeps walking. NICK (after a beat) What did you think? CATHERINE I thought it was a pretty good beginning. They look at each other. They keep walking. A long beat. NICK How about Roxy? Is she a fuck to the century, too? CATHERINE (after a beat) Do you want her to join us sometime? He looks at her: she's serious. NICK I didn't mean for me -- I meant for you. She looks at him. CATHERINE I'm not as judgmental about women as I am about men. They keep walking. A long beat. NICK How's your shoulder? CATHERINE Fine. How's your back? NICK It hurts. She stops, looks at him. A long beat. CATHERINE We're alike, you know. A beat, he looks at her -- NICK Are you kidding? You think this is my idea of morning-after conversation? CATHERINE (keeps walking) Do you want personal insights and adolescent secrets? I don't do those. The keep walking. NICK You mean getting inside you isn't going to get me any deeper into your character. She looks a him. A beat. She smiles slowly. CATHERINE Not unless you confuse my character with my body parts. They keep walking. A long beat. CATHERINE Were you frightened, Nicky? He looks at her. NICK (after a beat) I thought that business with the scarf was pretty nifty. CATHERINE I told you I had a vivid imagination. They look at each other. A long beat. CATHERINE You shouldn't play this game. NICK (after a beat) I don't have a choice. Their eyes are into each other. CATHERINE (after a beat) You're in over your head. NICK (after a beat) I know. A long beat. They look at each other. CATHERINE I've got a book to write. I'll see you around, Shooter. A beat, and she walks away towards the house. He watches her. INT. A COUNTRY AND WESTERN BAR - NIGHT Nick walks in. Waylon Jennings is on the JUKEBOX. Gus is sitting at the bar wearing jeans, a cowboy shirt, and a cowboy hat. Nick goes, sits next to him. NICK (grins) What is this place? Hillbilly heaven? He glances around. GUS (loud) Where in the fuck you been? I went over to your place. He is drunk, slurring. Nick sees it. NICK Easy there, partner -- I wasn't there. GUS I went over last night, too. NICK (grins) I wasn't there last night, either. Gus takes a long, drunken look at him. GUS You... fucked her! Goddamn dumb sonofabitch... You fucked her! Goddamn, you are one dumb sonofabitch -- NICK (trying to quiet him) I'm not gonna get AIDS, pop --don't worry about it. I always use a rubber. GUS (loud) I don't give a... flyin'... chili- bean... fart about AIDS! NICK (grins; quietly) You oughta use a rubber, pop. You really should. GUS (loud) What in the hell for? You think I'm gettin' any at my age? I don't like blue-haired women. I don't like 'em. NICK (straight) You don't like punk rockers? GUS (loud) Say what? INT. A DINER - NIGHT Gus is eating chili, drinking coffee. Hick keeps pouring him more coffee. NICK (grins) You feeling better? GUS (loud) I feel fine! Nick pours him more coffee; Gus guzzles it. GUS (loud) How could you fuck her? It gets some looks from the other people in her -- Nick shushes him, pours him more coffee. He drinks it. GUS (quietly) You wanna die, son? What is it -- those goddamn tourists -- you still feel so bad about that you're wigglin' your way into an icepi -- (suddenly louder) We got too many goddamn tourists comin' here anyway -- plenty more goddamn tourists where they goddamn came from. Some people here really give him the looks now. Gus looks angrily away from them, drinks more coffee. NICK (after a beat; quietly) I'm not afraid of her. GUS (loud) Why the hell not? NICK I don't know. I'm just not. GUS (loud) That's her pussy talkin' --He gets a real nasty look from a very fat woman eating a cheeseburger. He winks at her. The woman looks away from him, shaking her head. GUS (smiles; to Nick) It ain't your brain. They look at each other a long beat. Gus drinks more coffee. He sits back, pulls his cowboy hat over his eyes. A long beat. GUS (quietly) I.A. done did a track on Lt. Martin D for Dickhead Nilsen. They found a safety deposit box with fifty- thousand dollars in it, taken out three months ago, used that one time. He looks at the fat woman again -- leers at her obscenely. She looks away. NICK (after a long beat) It doesn't make sense. She didn't know me three months ago. GUS Maybe it wasn't her that paid him. Maybe the money was for somethin' else. How the fuck do I know? I'm just an old city cowboy tryin' not to fall outta his saddle. Nick looks at him and smiles a thin smile; he's not there, he's completely preoccupied. INT. A CAR - NIGHT Someone is watching as he and Gus come out of the diner. EXT. THE STREET - NIGHT He stands by Gus as Gus gets into his battered, rusted, vintage Cadillac. NICK You all right, pop? You want me to drive you? GUS In that little pissant car of yours? Hell, no. I ain't gettin' no back pain disability retirement -- I'm gettin' me a full pension and a real gold-plate Seiko watch. NICK Come on, I'll drive you in this thing. GUS You think I'd let you drive my Cadillac car? I ain't lettin' no hear-up-his-ass person drive my Cadillac car. And he steps on the gas and ROARS out of there, forcing Nick to get out of the way. Nick looks after him a long beat, shakes his head. INT. A CAR - NIGHT Someone is following him slowly as he walks down the street. He turns a corner, walks down the alley towards his Porsche, parked behind the country and western bar. The car suddenly speeds up -- ROARS down on him from the back, full bore. EXT. THE ALLEY He hurls himself across the Porsche's hood... barely avoiding the car. He sees the car at the end of the alley, turning out It is a black Ferrari. INT. HIS PORSCHE He GUNS it down the alley, makes a wild turn in the direction the Ferrari turned. EXT. THE STREET The Porsche dodges around cars very fast, almost side-swiping them, looking almost out of control, its MOTOR screaming. INT. THE PORSCHE He sees the Ferrari turn ahead. When he gets to where it turned, he turns wildly. EXT. THE STREET The Ferrari is making fast, wild turns into little streets in North Beach, its MOTOR screaming -- the Porsche is gaining ground behind it, making turns. INT. THE PORSCHE The Ferrari is up ahead and makes a wild right turn onto a road going up a hillside. He yanks the wheel hard. EXT. THE STEPS The Porsche rockets up the steps -- bouncing high into the air, almost out of control. INT. THE PORSCHE As it crests the steps and gets to the street. Nick GUNS it and it looks like it flies high down the hill-side into blackness. EXT. THE STREET But it lands on more steps -- heading downward -- bucking, almost spinning, it bounces onto the next street. INT. THE PORSCHE Another set of steps leading up he GUNS it, it rockets up, ROARS, bucking -- EXT. THE STREET And lands on the next street. Nick makes a wild right turn onto the street. And the black Ferrari appears from around a curve to the right, heading right for him. INT. THE PORSCHE Nick steps on the GAS and heads head-on for the Ferrari. The Ferrari SCREAMS head-on for him. EXT. THE STREET And at the last moment, in the game of chicken, the Ferrari tries to swerve around him on this narrow road, goes out of control and over the side, turning over and over as it rolls down the hillside. EXT. THE HILLSIDE The Ferrari has landed right-side up. He runs down the hillside and gets to it. A beat, and he opens the car door. Roxy lies hunched over the wheel, her eyes open. Her neck is broken. She is dead. EXT. THE HILLSIDE - NIGHT Police lights have been set up. He stands there with Lt. Walker and several of the Internal Affairs men. LT. WALKER Tell me again. I want to hear you say it again. NICK (after a beat; sheepish) It was an accident. LT. WALKER You're driving around North Beach for no particular reason and this car won't get out of the way -- NICK I don't think she meant to go off the hill, do you? LT. WALKER (quietly) Don't fuck with me, Nick. I don't need a reason to put your ass in a sling. He and Nick look at each other a long beat. Andrews comes up to them with a piece of paper in his hand. ANDREWS Full name, Roxanne Hardy. Last address -- Cloverdale, California. No priors, no convictions. The car is registered to Catherine Tramell. Lt. Walker looks at Nick like he's going to kill him. Nick looks calmly away. LT. WALKER You knew her, didn't you? NICK Gus and I talked to her at Tramell's house. All we did was write her name down. LT. WALKER (after a beat) I told you to stay away from Tramell. NICK (after a beat; smiles) Yeah. But you didn't tell me to stay away from her car. Walker looks at him in absolute disbelief. AN I.A. MAN I want you in Dr. Gardner's office at nine o'clock. You're out of control, Curran. NICK (to the I.A. Man) Who are you guys gonna sell my file to this time? They stare at him. He watches as Roxy's body is taken away. INT. A POLICE CONFERENCE ROOM -DAY He walks in. He looks good, in control. Beth Gardner is sitting there with two middle-aged MEN, both of them wearing suits, who smile and scrutinize him the instant he walks in the door. BETH Hello, Nick. This is Dr. Myron and R. McElwaine. They've been asked to consult with me on this evaluation. They shake hands with him. DR. MYRON Sit down, Nick. Nick gives him a look: What did he think he was going to do -- stand there? He sits down, looks at them. A beat, as they look at him, then -- DR. MCELWAINE (courtly) Nick -- when you recollect your childhood, are your recollections pleasing to you? Nick looks at them a long beat in disbelief. NICK (calmly, directly) Number one I don't remember how often I used to jack off, but it was a lot. Number two I didn't get pissed off at my dad -- even after I was old enough to know what he and mom were doing in the bedroom. Number three I don't look in the toilet before I flush it. Number four I don't wet the bed and haven't for some time. Number five You can go fuck yourselves because I'm out of here. INT. THE CORRIDOR He is walking away quickly. Beth is with him, trying to keep up. She is very angry. BETH What is your problem? I'm trying to help you. Why won't you let me help you? NICK I don't need any help. BETH Yes you do. Something's on with you. (a beat) You're sleeping with her, aren't you? A beat, he stops looks at her, then keeps walking. NICK What is this interest you've got in her? BETH My interest is in you, not in her. She seduces people, she manipulates -- NICK I thought you hardly know her. BETH I know the type. I'm a psychologist. He stops, looks at her. NICK (after a beat) That means you manipulate people too, doesn't it, Beth? You're a practicing psychologist -- that means you're better at it than she is. She looks at him a long beat. BETH (quietly) I feel sorry for you, Nick. A beat, and she turns and walks away. EXT. ROAD TO STINSON HOUSE - DAY Nick is driving down winding road to Stinson house. He is driving very fast, passing other cars on the winding and twisting road. INT. THE STINSON BEACH HOUSE - DAY Nick enters and shuts door. Looking around, he does not see her. NICK Catherine! (after a beat) Catherine! Finally he sees her sitting by the window. He walks over to her. CATHERINE (near tears) I should have known. I came into the house when you were down on the beach. She looked at me so strangely. She left right after you. (a beat) I shouldn't have let her watch us. She wanted to watch me all the time. She tried to kill you, didn't she? NICK (a beat) Did you like her to watch? CATHERINE (a long beat) Do you think I told her to kill You? NICK (softly, with intensity) No. CATHERINE (after a beat, near tears) Everybody that I care about dies. She is about to break into uncontrolable sobbing. Nick puts his arms around her. NICK (soothing) It's OK. It's OK. CATHERINE (quietly, almost begging) Make love to me. INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT They are seen rolling and turning around on each other. Their love making is sensual, sincere. Later in bed. NICK (calmly, but seriously) Do you think she killed Johnny Boz? CATHERINE (surprised, startled) For what... to set me up? She loved me she wouldn't frame me. NICK (a beat) Maybe she got jealous of Johnny Boz, too. CATHERINE (after a beat) No, she didn't... she never got jealous before... she got excited. (a beat) I don't have luck with women. There was this girl I met while I was in college. I slept with her once. She started following me around, taking my picture. She dyed her hair, copied my clothes. Lisa something... Oberman. It was awful. A long beat, he looks at her. NICK I thought you didn't do adolescent secrets. CATHERINE (after a beat) I never have before. EXT. THE DECK - MORNING It is a bright, sunshiny day. He is out there looking at the water. She comes up behind him, hugs him. CATHERINE (full of life) Isn't it just beautiful? I love it here like this. He looks at her. NICK (cold) We're still playing games, aren't we? She looks hurt. CATHERINE No. NICK (cold) No? CATHERINE No more games, Nick. I'm tired of playing games! They have their eyes on each other. NICK Then tell me about Nilsen. She turns away from him. He watches her. CATHERINE You won't believe me. NICK Try me. A beat, she looks at him. CATHERINE I paid him $50,000 in cash for your psychiatric file. NICK (after a beat) When? CATHERINE About three months before I met you. NICK Why? She turns away from him. CATHERINE I'd read about your shootings in the papers. I decided to write a book about a detective. I wanted to know my character. NICK You paid $50,000 for your character? CATHERINE I would've paid more. I wanted to know everything about you. Then you came down here after Johnny got killed... it gave me a chance to get to know my character better. NICK (after a long beat) What about the other night. What about last night? Was that to get to know your character? CATHERINE (after a beat) Maybe I'm losing interest in my book. Their eyes are on each other. CATHERINE Do you believe me? NICK (after a beat) I don't know. CATHERINE I'll convince you. And she kisses him slowly, with more and more heat, on the lips. The cordless phone on the deck table goes off. It keeps RINGING. She breaks finally from the kiss, picks it up. CATHERINE Hello? She listens a beat, then hands him the phone. CATHERINE It's Gus-who-doesn't-like-me. He takes the phone. NICK Catherine says you don't like her. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAY GUS (on the phone) She's right. You got an icepick in you yet? EXT. HER DECK - STINSON Catherine sees him smile. CATHERINE What did he say? NICK He asked if I had an icepick in me yet. CATHERINE (smiles) Funny. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAY GUS (on the phone) You know that stuff they say about how you can judge people by their friends? EXT. HER DECK NICK I don't believe it. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAY GUS Why not? NICK (smiles) You're my friend, Gus. She watches him. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAY GUS (seriously) I'm gonna make you believe in it, friend. INT. CLOVERDALE POLICE DEPARTMENT - DAY In CLOSEUP: We see a large, glossy photograph of Roxy. She looks about thirteen. She has braces in her teeth. Nick is looking at the photo -- it is in a file in his hands. He sits there with Gus in front of a woman juvenile officer. He turns the file and we see a glossy of a little boy in a pool of blood. Nick looks up at the woman. NICK (after a beat) How old was she when this happened? THE WOMAN Fourteen. We seal juvenile records until they're deceased. That's why you didn't find it in your computer. GUS What was the motive? THE WOMAN She said she didn't know herself, just sort of did it on impulse. (she shrugs) The razor just happened to be there. They stare at her. THE WOMAN That's what she said. INT. CLOVERDALE POLICE DEPARTMENT - DAY It is a small, old, rural buildinga lot of Four-H type stuff on the walls. NICK I don't understand what the hell's going on here, pop. GUS Ain't that hard, son. This young farmgirl, she got tired of all that attention goin' to her little brothers -- she fixed 'em. Just like 'ole Hazel Dobkins fixed her whole family -- except young Roxy here, she didn't use a wedding present. She used Daddy's razor. EXT. THE CLOVERDALE POLICE DEPARTMENT They are going to their cars, parked side by side. The Porsche looks pretty badly banged up. GUS It sure makes you wonder what they talked about when they set themselves down in front of the campfire at night. You ever met any of her friends who hasn't killed somebody. Nick looks at him. GUS It musta beat your ordinary everyday girl talk. Nick get into his car, sits there a beat. NICK I'm not sure anymore she did it. GUS (after a beat) Which one you talkin' about now, son? We know ole Hazel did it; we know young Roxy did it -- and the other one Well, hell, she's got that magna come lawdy pussy on her that done fried up your brain. Nick looks at him. INT. THE REGISTRAR'S OFFICE - U.C. BERKELEY A young woman is checking a computer. Nick is with her. THE WOMAN Anderson. Jack W. Donald M. I'm sorry. No Lisa. NICK Did you check all four years? THE WOMAN Yes I did. NICK (in disbelief) Can you check again? She gives him a look, but punches it in again. THE WOMAN No Lisa Anderson, detective. NICK (after a beat) Can there be some mistake? THE WOMAN (straining patience) Only if you're making it. He looks at her. EXT. CATHERINE'S HOUSE ON DIVISADERO - DAY He gets out of the Porsche, starts to go in. He looks disturbed Catherine comes out of the house with Hazel Dobkins, the old woman we saw with her in Mill Valley. Nick watches them a beat, then goes up to them. CATHERINE Hazel , this is Nick. I told you all about him. This is Hazel Dobkins. HAZEL (smiles) You're the Shooter, aren't you? How are you? He looks at her a long beat. NICK Fine. Thank you. He looks at her sort of warily. NICK ( to Catherine) Can I talk to you a minute? CATHERINE (to Hazel) Honey, why don't you go in the car? I'll be right there. The old woman starts going to the Ferrari. HAZEL (brightly) Goodbye, Shooter. Nick looks at Hazel a beat, then at Catherine. NICK You like to hang out with murderers or what? Did you know Roxy -- CATHERINE Of course I knew. He looks at her a long beat. CATHERINE (casually) Look. Sometimes when I do my research, I get involved with people. It happened with you, too. She smiles. He looks at her, doesn't know what to say. CATHERINE Killing isn't like smoking. You can quit. He looks at her What did she say? CATHERINE (preoccupied) I've go to go. I promised to get her home by six o'clock. She just loves "America's Most Wanted." America's Most Wanted? She turns to go. NICK There was no Lisa Anderson at Berkeley when you were there. She stops, looks at him a beat. CATHERINE What were you doing, checking up on me? What for? He says nothing. A long beat, she looks hurt. CATHERINE (after a beat) Henderson. And she's gone. INT. A PHONE BOOTH - DAY He is on the phone. NICK Henderson. Lisa Henderson. With an H. He waits. NICK You do? INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - NIGHT He sits in front of a computer screen with Andrews. ANDREWS I can get my butt kicked for this. You're not supposed to be in here. NICK It's not gonna take long, Sam. We see the computer screen. The screen says LISA HENDERSON DMV LICENSE CHECK We wait and then we see the words 1983 RENEWAL -- ELIZABETH GARDNER, 147 QUEENSTON DRIVE, SALINAS, CAL. Nick stares at the screen. NICK Bring it up, will you, Sam? A beat, and then we see the license itself It is Beth Gardner on the photo. Nick stares. ANDREWS Hey, that's Dr. Gardner, isn't it? NICK Bring 1976 up. A beat, and the license comes up. We see a young Beth Gardner on the photo. She has blonde hair. Nick stares. INT. BETH GARDNER'S APARTMENT - NIGHT She walks in. The apartment is dark. NICK You shouldn't leave your door open. She is startled. BETH (after a beat) I didn't. Something's wrong with my lock. A beat, she looks at him. BETH (cold) What do you want, Nick? NICK (quietly) Tell me about Catherine. She looks at him a long beat, then turns away -- BETH She told you, didn't she? NICK (after a beat) What did she tell me, Beth? BETH (after a long beat) I slept with her once in school. (a beat) I was just a kid. I was experimenting. It was just that one time. (a beat) She developed a... fixation... on me. She styled her hair like mine. She wore the same kind of clothes I did. It scared me. She looks at him, sees his look. BETH Isn't that what she told you? He looks at her a long beat. NICK She told me it was you. You wore the same kind of clothes. You dyed your hair blonde. A long beat as they look at each other. BETH I did dye my hair. It didn't have anything to do with her. I was a redhead for a while, too. NICK (after a beat) Did you know Noah Goldstein? BETH I had him in two classes. NICK You saw all the reports, Beth! Phil had you copied. You never said anything! BETH (after a beat) What do I say -- Hey, listen, guys, I'm not gay, but I did fuck your suspect. (she turns away) I was embarrassed. It's the only time I've been with a woman. She turns to him. BETH She's really sick you know. Don't you know what she's doing? She knows I went to Berkeley. She knows I knew Noah. She makes up that story about me. She's handing you somebody who's obsessed with he her. NICK She didn't hand you to me. She doesn't even know who you are. She told me about Lisa Henderson. BETH She knew you'd find out who Lisa Henderson is. You're a good cop -- what did she do? Tell you casually and make it seem irrelevant? (she smiles) Did she tell you in bed, Nick? That's how I'd do it. Nick looks at her a long beat. NICK Why did you change your name? BETH I got married. (a beat) He was on staff at the clinic. I was down in Salinas. It didn't... last long. He gets up. He looks at her a long beat. BETH Nick -- Do you really think I... that I could kill someone... I never even met Johnny Boz. What about Nilsen? What possible motive would I have to kill him? He turns to go. NICK You should do something about this lock. BETH She's evil. She's brilliant. Be careful, Nick. He looks at her. EXT. HIS APARTMENT - NIGHT He gets out of his Porsche. He walks toward the door. INT. HIS APARTMENT HOUSE - THE STAIRWAY He starts going up the dark stairway. There is a hand on his neck. He spins. CATHERINE (smiles) Do I scare you, Nick? He looks at her, doesn't say anything. CATHERINE (smiles) I just thought I'd surprise you. (a beat) What's the matter? NICK (after a beat) I found Lisa Henderson. CATHERINE Did you? What's she doing? He looks at her, doesn't say anything. CATHERINE You're not going to tell me what she's doing. (a beat) I thought we weren't playing games anymore. NICK (after a beat) I did, too. (a beat) She told me it was backwards -- she said you even styled your hair the way she did. Catherine looks at him a beat, then smiles. CATHERINE And you believed her? I even went down to the campus police and made out a report about her. He just looks at her. CATHERINE You still think I kill people, don't you? NICK (after a beat) No. CATHERINE Liar. And she's gone. INT. CAMPUS POLICE RECORDS ROOM - BERKELEY - DAY He stands with an old CAMPUS COP. He is going through files. CAMPUS COP Who'd you say you were with? NICK Homicide. San Francisco. He stops at a file, opens it. CAMPUS COP Don't you guys communicate over there? You must be the same way we are. Nick doesn't get it. CAMPUS COP There was a report about Lisa Henderson -- January, 1977 -- the file's not here. NICK What do you mean it's not here? CAMPUS COP San Francisco P.D. Detective Nilsen. Internal Affairs. You know him? Tell him we want it back. He's had it a whole year. Nick says nothing. INT. HIS APARTMENT - DAY He and Gus sit there -- they look tired, upset. GUS So Nilsen had a report on her -- so what. You don't know what the hell was in it? NICK Catherine told me what was in it. GUS If she's telling you the truth. NICK Don't you get it, Gus? If Beth killed Johnny Boz to frame Catherine -- she wouldn't want anyone to know what happened at Berkeley. It gives her the motive to kill Nilsen. GUS How did she know Nilsen knew about it -- if it happened? NICK He was I.A. He probably asked her about it. Gus thinks about it. GUS She'd have to be nuttier than a twenty-pound Christmas fruitcake. She's not the one who hangs out with multiple murderers -- your girlfriend is. NICK She's a writer -- it's part of what she does. GUS (irate) Goddamn writers -- all they do is use up trees and ruin people's eyes. (a beat) There's gotta be somebody at Berkeley who knows what the hell happened. NICK I know what happened. Catherine told me what happened. GUS (after a beat, quietly) You got goddamn tweety-birds flutterin' around your head, that's what you got. You think you're gonna fuck like minks, raise rugrats, and live happily ever after? Oh, man. INT. THE STAIRWAY - HIS APARTMENT HOUSE - NIGHT He has his key out to open his door. He hears MUSIC inside. A beat, and he opens the door. INT. HIS APARTMENT It is dark. We hear a Rolling Stones SONG. He sees Catherine standing by a window, watching him. She wears black jeans and the black motorcycle jacket. They look at each other a long beat. NICK How'd you get in here? CATHERINE I decided to give you one more chance. (a beat) I missed you. NICK You didn't not see me long enough to miss me. CATHERINE Did you miss me? NICK No. CATHERINE Come over here and tell me no. He walks up close to her. NICK No. She unzips her motorcycle jacket slowly. She wears nothing underneath it. NICK That's below the belt. She reaches for him. CATHERINE Not yet it isn't. She pulls him close. CATHERINE But we're getting there. INT. HIS LIVING ROOM - NIGHT They sit in the window seat, naked. His back is against the wall. She sits against him. He has his legs around her. They don't look at each other. She is smoking. NICK I have to do some research tomorrow. CATHERINE I'm very good at research. I'll help you. NICK No thanks. CATHERINE What are you researching? NICK I'm writing a book. CATHERINE (smiles) Really. What are you writing about. NICK A detective. He falls for the wrong girl. CATHERINE (smiles) What happens to them? NICK (after a beat) They fuck like minks, raise rugrats, and live happily ever after. CATHERINE (after a beat) It won't sell. NICK Why not? CATHERINE (after a beat) Somebody has to die. NICK Why? CATHERINE Somebody always does. EXT. THE SALINAS CLINIC - DAY He walks in; it is a small valley hospital. He goes up to the desk. There are two women there. NICK Hi, I'm looking for a Dr. Gardner? ONE WOMAN (after a beat) We don't have a Dr. Gardner on staff here. THE OTHER WOMAN Dr. Joseph Gardner? NICK (after a beat) Yeah. THE WOMAN He died -- about five or six years ago. NICK (after a beat) He was shot. INT. SALINAS SHERIFF'S OFFICE - DAY Nick sits with a sheriff's DETECTIVE. DETECTIVE He was walking home from work. They only lived a coupla blocks from the clinic. Somebody drove by and shot him. NICK What was the weapon? DETECTIVE .38 revolver. Never recovered. NICK Were there ever any suspects? DETECTIVE No suspects, no motive. Unsolved. NICK (after a beat) Was his wife ever a suspect? DETECTIVE (after a beat) I had another one of you guys down here from Frisco -- about a year ago -- he asked me the same question. What's this about anyway? NICK Routine. DETECTIVE Yeah, he said it was routine too. Now it's two guys saying it's routine. NICK Do you remember his name? DETECTIVE (after a long beat) Nope, can't say that I do. NICK Nilsen? DETECTIVE That's him. A long beat, then -- NICK Was she ever a suspect? DETECTIVE Nope. (a beat) There was some talk; it never panned. NICK What kind of talk? DETECTIVE The usual -- a girlfriend. NICK He had a girlfriend? DETECTIVE Nope. She did. (a beat) Like I say. It never panned. NICK (after a beat, gets up) Thanks. DETECTIVE I hope I helped you out. NICK (after a beat) You did. EXT. HER HOUSE IN STINSON - AFTERNOON He walks around the house; he sees her sitting out on the deck, a portable word-processor in front of her. She is smoking. He goes up to her. NICK (smiles) Hi. I missed you. I finished my research. He moves toward her. She moves away, kills her cigarette. CATHERINE I finished my book. NICK How did it end? CATHERINE (after a beat) I told you. She kills him. They look at each other a long beat. CATHERINE (quietly) Goodbye, Nick. He stares at her. A long beat. CATHERINE I finished my book. (a beat) Didn't you hear me?* (a beat) Your character's dead. (a beat) Goodbye. He stares at her. He can't believe what she is saying. CATHERINE What do you want, Nick? Flowers? I'll send you some flowers. NICK (after a beat) What is this -- some kind of... Joke? (a beat; he almost smiles) Are we playing games again? CATHERINE (after a beat) The games are over. You were right. It was the fuck of the century, Shooter. He stares at her. A VOICE INSIDE Catherine? Nick looks -- Hazel Dobkins is there. Catherine still has her eyes on him. CATHERINE Right there. A beat, and then she turns to go inside. Hazel Dobkins smiles slowly at him. EXT. THE POLICE PARKING LOT - DUSK He sits in his Porsche, staring ahead. He is parked next to Gus' Cadillac. Gus is suddenly there, onway to his car. GUS (excited) Catherine Tramell's roommate her freshman year. I got a call from her. I've been calling people who were in her dorm all day. She must've heard I was trying to talk to her. She says she knows all about Catherine and Lisa Henderson. She's over in Oakland. You wanna come with me? Nick just stares ahead. GUS You look like you seen a ghost, son? Nick looks at him. INT. GUS' CADILLAC - NIGHT Gus drives. GUS (excited) Johnny Boz's psychiatrist has an office on Van Ness. Guess who he shares office space with? Dr. Elizabeth Gardner. Nick doesn't even respond. Gus looks at him. GUS What in hell's the matter with you? Nick doesn't say anything, stares ahead. EXT. AN OFFICE BUILDING - OAKLAND - NIGHT Gus gets out with Nick. It is an old building. GUS Where the hell you goin'? NICK (after a beat) I'm going with you. GUS She said alone -- suite 405. It ain't gonna take long. A beat, and Nick gets back in the car. INT. THE OFFICE BUILDING - NIGHT Gus is on the first floor. There is no one around. He hits the elevator button. A beat, and it comes. He steps in. INT. THE ELEVATOR - NIGHT He hits the button for the fourth floor. The elevator rises a floor, stops. The door opens. There is no one there. Then it starts going up again. It rises to the third floor. It stops. The door opens. There is no one there. Then it starts to rise again. EXT. GUS' CADILLAC - NIGHT Nick sits there, staring ahead. NICK (suddenly, screaming) Gus! INT. THE ELEVATOR As it goes up. It stops. The door starts to open. As it does -- a figure in a hooded raincoat sweeps into the elevator. It happens very fast. We see blonde hair around the face. But we don't see the face itself -- the head is down, the hood up. There is an icepick in the figure's hand. The figure explodes into Gus. The icepick goes into his neck. INT. THE STAIRWAY Nick tears desperately up the stairway -- he hits the fourth floor door. It explodes open. INT. THE FOURTH FLOOR He stands there a beat, sees the elevator door open. He runs there, He sees Gus, crumpled into the corner of the elevator. INT. THE ELEVATOR He goes into the elevator -- holds Gus. He is dead. A long beat. He sees the gun in Gus' hand -- he takes the gun out of his hand. He runs out of the elevator. INT. THE FOURTH FLOOR He hears something. Gun in hand, he runs towards the SOUND. He stops, gun in hand, listens again. He runs again, hears nothing. Behind him, we see a figure. He spins suddenly, gun, in hand. Beth Gardner is there. She wears a windbreaker. She has her hands in the pockets. BETH What are you doing here? NICK (screaming) Put your hands up! She stares at him. NICK (screams) Put your fucking hands up! Don't move. BETH I got a message on my machine to meet Gus here. Where is he? She smiles a strange smile. She takes a step toward him. NICK (screams) Don't! (a beat) I know about your husband. You still like girls, Beth? BETH What? She smiles strangely again, takes a step toward him. NICK (screams) Take your hands out of your pockets! She moves a hand in a pocket and moves towards him fast -- BETH What is wrong with you? And he FIRES the gun. She is hit in the chest, goes down. A long beat, and then he goes to her. He gets down on the ground. Her eyes are open. He empties the pockets of the windbreaker -- first one, then the other the pockets are empty. BETH (in a whisper) I loved you. And she dies. INT. THE FOURTH FLOOR - LATER A lot of policemen, coroner's guys, photos being taken. Nick stands there with Lt. Walker, Harrigan, and some of the Internal Affairs guys. LT. WALKER (upset) What made you think she had a gun? Nick says nothing; he looks like a zombie. LT. WALKER What the hell was she doing here? What was Gus doing here? Andrews yells to them from the stairway door. ANDREWS Lieutenant. INT. THE STAIRWAY A FORENSICS MAN very carefully handles a hooded rain coat in a stair landing. He wears gloves. Nick is there with Lt. Walker. The Forensics Man picks the raincoat up -- a long blonde wig falls out of it. There are flecks of blood on it. He reaches into the pocket and pulls out an icepick. It has a thin steel handle and is bloody. He hands the icepick to an assistant. He looks at the raincoat. It has blood on it. THE FORENSICS MAN It's departmental issue. LT. WALKER (quietly) Jesus. INT. BETH GARDNER'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Nick with Lt. Walker. Nick looks like a zombie. Andrews comes up to them. He has a gun in his hands. ANDREWS Thirty-eight caliber revolver. Bottom drawer, bureau in the bedroom. LT. WALKER Have ballistics check it for Nilsen. Harrigan comes out. HARRIGAN Lieutenant, you'd better come in here. Lt. Walker goes into the kitchen. Nick follows him. There are several cops around a kitchen cabinet. A drawer is open. Walker looks -- we look with him. We see a copy of Love hurts, Catherine's paperback book, and a stack of photos of Catherine. Walker picks the photos up, goes through them -- we see shots of Catherine in college -- Catherine at a fight --Catherine with Johnny Boz -- Catherine with Roxy. He hands the photos to Nick. Nick stares at them. LT. WALKER I guess that's it. INT. THE DETECTIVE BUREAU - NIGHT Nick sits, his feet up. He looks like a zombie. With him are Lt. Walker, Andrews, and Captain Talcott. We see other plainclothesmen in the b.g. -- a flurry of activity, people on phones. A long beat. LT. WALKER She must've heard you on the stairway and dumped the stuff. Nick says nothing, stares off. A DETECTIVE comes over to them. DETECTIVE There was no suite 405 in that building. Catherine Tramell's roommate in her freshman year is dead. She died of leukemia two years ago. An INTERNAL AFFAIRS MAN comes over to them. INTERNAL AFFAIRS MAN Our files on Dr. Gardner show nothing about a police report in Berkeley -- nothing related to Salinas, either. A long beat -- the phone RINGS. Andrews picks it up, listens. ANDREWS Thanks. He hangs up. ANDREWS Ballistics says the .38 we found in her apartment matches Nilsen. No registration. They're checking with Salinas. The icepick is the same brand and model as the Boz weapon. A long beat -- Nick just stares. Harrigan comes up to them. HARRIGAN We checked the tape machines at Dr. Gardner's apartment and at her office -- both here and the one on Van Ness. No message from Gus on any of 'em. The one at her apartment was broken. (a beat) Johnny Boz's psychiatrist says he thinks he remembers Dr. Gardner and Boz meeting at a Christmas party at his house a year ago. A long beat. LT. WALKER (after a long beat, sadly) You just can't tell about people, can you. Even the ones you think you know inside-out. He and Nick look at each other a beat. CAPTAIN TALCOTT Congratulations, Curran. Nick looks at him, expressionless. EXT. HIS APARTMENT - NIGHT He parks his car. It is dark. Foggy. He starts heading inside. INT. HIS APARTMENT - NIGHT He goes in. He starts to walk up the dark stairway, we see him walking up several flights of steps. INT. THE CORRIDOR TO HIS APARTMENT He opens his door with his key. INT. HIS APARTMENT He walks in. The apartment is dark. A VOICE (behind him) Hi. It is a whisper, almost a hiss. He spins, fast. Catherine stands there, pressing herself against a wall. They look at each other a long beat. She looks like she is almost in a trance. CATHERINE I heard about it... on TV. He looks at her, expressionless. A long beat, their eyes are into each other. She looks like she is almost shivering. CATHERINE I can't allow myself to care about you -- I can't allow myself to care -- I can't -- I can't -- She looks very emotional. He moves towards her, puts his arms around her, holds her very close. CATHERINE (in a whisper) I don't want to do this -- please -- I don't want to do this -- I lose everybody -- I don't want to lose you -- I don't want to -- He presses her closer and closer to himself, holds her. INT. HIS BEDROOM - NIGHT It is dark; we can't see clearly. Atop her... he makes love to her... gently... tenderly... hardly moving inside her... there are tears in her eyes... DISSOLVE TO: INT. HIS BEDROOM - LATER Atop him... she is on her knees, straddling him... he is on his back, his eyes are closed... her head arches back... her breasts high... he strains toward her with his body... she holds her arms high... her right hand is in a fist... (we only see the back of her hand and arm)... it comes down suddenly... he bucks... writhes... then her whole body falls on top of him. A very long beat... We can't see him... her body completely covers him... And then finally he moves... turns her to the side... kisses her. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HIS BEDROOM - LATER The Stones play "Sympathy For The Devil" in the b.g.; the MUSIC is low. They lie next to each other on the bed. The CAMERA faces them. He lies, staring at the ceiling, on the left side of the bed, smoking a cigarette. She is curled away from him toward the right side of the bed. A long beat, then -- CATHERINE What do we do now, Nick? NICK (after a long beat) We fuck like minks. We raise rugrats. We live happily ever after. We see her right arm go to the side of the bed and then over. He stares at the ceiling. CATHERINE I hate rugrats. NICK (after a long beat) We fuck like minks. We forget the rugrats. We live happily ever after. We see from an ANGLE to the left side of the bed now Her face is expressionless. Her right arm dangles over the right side of the bed. Her right hand is clenched. Is she holding something in it against her arm? We see them from an ANGLE to the left side of the bed now: He turns his body away from her to put out his cigarette. We see her behind him slowly turning towards him and the CAMERA. A beat, and he turns towards her. They look at each other. A long beat as the SONG gets louder. We see them in CLOSEUP. We don't see her right arm. CATHERINE (in a whisper) I love you. A beat, and he kisses her. The CAMERA BACKS AWAY from them slowly to the right side of the bedroom as they kiss, and we -- FADE TO BLACK ... A long beat, as the SONG keeps playing... and we... FADE IN: We see them from the right side of the bedroom. And then the CAMERA LOWERS SLOWLY as they kiss with more and more passion. It keeps going LOWER. There is something under the bed. The CAMERA MOVES CLOSER towards it as "SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL" plays louder. We see it now in CLOSEUP as the bed rustles above... It is a thin, steel-handled icepick. The SONG plays LOUDER and LOUDER, and we -- FADE OUT THE END
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+     Basic      byJamie Vanderbilt               FIRST DRAFT             MARCH 27, 2000OVER BLACK:The sound of HELICOPTER ROTORS slicing through the air.                      STYLES (O.S.)          Jesus, God. . .FADE IN ON:An ARMY HELICOPTER as it soars over the thick LOUISIANA BAYOU.Lush and green only a day ago, the foliage below has beenripped to shreds. The kind of damage that can only be doneby nature.SUPERIMPOSE:, FEBRUARY 2 - 0630 HOURS - 32 KILOMETERS NORTHOF FORT MCKINLEY, LOUISIANAINT. ARMY HELICOPTER (FLYING) -- SUNRISESitting next to the PILOT is COLONEL WILLIAM STYLES. Mid-40's, normally gruff, but completely cowed by the damagebelow. The PILOT, unfazed.                      PILOT          Hurricane Beth, huh? Had    an ex-wife          named Beth, this is pretty   much par          for the course. This area    got the          worst of it, I hope these   guys are          all intact-                      STYLES          That's enough, Lieutenant.SOMEONE'S P.O.V. - RUNNING through the underbrush - duckingbranches, pushing through bushes, splashing through streams.LABORED BREATHING wheezes over the sound track. We're headedfor a CLEARING...INT. ARMY HELICOPTER (FLYING) -- SUNRISEThe Pilot pushes his stick forward, descending to tree level.                      PILOT          Coming up on the pick-up.EXT. CLEARING -- DAWNTWO MEN emerge from the underbrush at a run. The BIGGER MANcarrying the wounded SMALLER MAN over his shoulder. Both inragged army cadet fatigues - ripped, muddy, and bloody.The Bigger Man lowers the Smaller Man to the ground andunshoulders his M-16. Face panicked.The sound of the HELICOPTER approaching...                                                            2.INT. ARMY HELICOPTER (FLYING) -- SUNRISEThe unmistakable SOUND OF GUNFIRE from below.                      PILOT          Holy shit, that's live fire!As the Helicopter comes over the clearing, Styles and thePilot squint down through the windscreen to see the Two Men,huddled together as BULLET HITS kick up DUST around them!                      STYLES          Who's shooting at them-The Bigger Man raising his own his weapon and RETURNING FIRE.The Smaller Man frantically waving the Helicopter down...                         PILOT          I can't see-Below, the Bigger Man still shooting and then he lowers hisrifle and there's only SILENCE. No return fire.And then Styles sees why. A THIRD MAN. Lying by thetreeline. Chest torn open by gunfire. Obviously dead. Hisclothes - the same fatigues the first two men are wearing.                      STYLES          That was one of their own, he just          Shot one of their own men-                      PILOT          Who was trying to shoot them-                      STYLES          Get us on the ground!EXT. CLEARING -- SUNRISEAs the Helicopter comes in for a landing, the Bigger Mankneels next to the Smaller Man, who bleeds from a bulletwound to the arm.  His face, pale, sweating. The Bigger Manwipes the Smaller Man's brow and speaks softly and seriously.                      BIGGER MAN          Are you ready for this?The Smaller Man nods.INT. ROADHOUSE -- MORNINGA full on shit-kicking dive.     Nearly empty, given the hour.A TELEVISION plays the morning    news over the bar.  Only twoinhabitants - one a BARTENDER,    the other the lone CUSTOMER,smoking and picking at a plate    of criminally runny eggs.                                                           3.                      HARDY          Tell the truth, Vic. You made these          with a blender, right?He grins and we get our first good look atTOM HARDY - Three day stubble, dark rings around his eyes,but a with strong jaw and steady voice. Not your averagebarfly. Somebody who maybe used to be somebody.                      BARTENDER          Don't like 'em, don't eat 'em, don't          make no damn difference to me.                      HARDY          You know that was like a quadruple          negative?The Bartender takes the plate away from him.                      HARDY          Can I at least have a drink?                      BARTENDER          It's ten thirty in the morning.                      HARDY          Yeah, if you've slept.                      BARTENDER          You know the law - no liquor before          noon. Could lose my license.                      HARDY          Don't you mean "don't need no liquor          license not taken away from me"?The Bartender smiles.                      BARTENDER          Hurricane kept you up, too?                      HARDY          Yeah, and I could've used the sleep.          I'm supposed to meet people here          tonight, try and get some work going.He stops, his attention suddenly on the TV.    A NEWSCASTER:                      NEWSCASTER          ...is expected to announce the grand          jury indictments in the Guissepe          Torres police corruption case as          early as tomorrow afternoon.          Speculations abound that up to ten          former homicide detectives could be          named in the proceedings-                                                           4.The Bartender turns the TV off hastily.   Embarrassed:                      BARTENDER          Sorry.Hardy just looks away. The Bartender puts an empty glassdown and fills it to the lip with bourbon.Hardy nods a "thank you" and reaches for the glass when thePAGER on his hip goes off. He checks the number.                      HARDY          Bill Styles...                      BARTENDER          Who?                      HARDY          Old friend. Haven't talked to him          in- 911. Can I use your phone?The Bartender hands him a cordless and Hardy dials.                      HARDY          Hey, Bill, it's Tom. Long time no.          . . whoa, whoa, slow down. Yeah...          yeah, of course I'll come. An hour.He hangs up and hands the phone back to the Bartender.                      BARTENDER          What was that?Hardy, obviously shaken by the call.                      HARDY          I gotta go out to McKinley.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- MORNINGEstablishing. A sprawling five square mile compound nestledin the Louisiana backwoods. Also damaged by the Hurricane.HELICOPTERS loaded with emergency supplies land and takeoff, REPAIR CREWS work feverishly on damaged buildings, allwhile CADET PLATOONS complete morning drills around them.This is still a boot camp after all.SUPERIMPOSE: 1130 HOURS - FORT MCKINLEY BASIC TRAINING CENTEREXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- MAIN GATE -- MORNINGStyles stands waiting nervously just beyond the CHECKPOINTwith WARRANT OFFICER JULIA OSBORNE - early 30's, attractive,close cropped hair and icy eyes. In the middle of protesting.                                                          5.                      OSBORNE          This is totally unnecessary-                      STYLES          He asked to see a policeman, we're          getting him a policeman .                      OSBORNE          But this guy you called, he's not          even Army-                      STYLES          He's former Army and the best I've          ever seen in a room. Besides, he          knows the territory, we did Basic          together here.              (off her look)          You've had three hours with Dunbar          and haven't gotten a peep, we need          to take a different tack.                      OSBORNE          He's not Army, it's not official-                      STYLES          Then it's unofficial.He takes a hit from an ASTHMA INHALER, as a '71 PONTIAC GTOdrives through the gate and pulls up. Hardy emerges.                      OSBORNE              (re: his appearance)          Doesn't get any unofficialer than          that...The two old friends embrace.                         HARDY          How are you?                       STYLES          Been better.              (pause)          I read about what's been happening          With you... I should have called-                      HARDY          What kind of trouble are you in?Styles looks at the ground.      Momentarily flustered.                         HARDY          That bad?                      STYLES          Would I have called you if it wasn't?          If there was any other way-                                                       6.                      HARDY          Tell me what I can do.                      OSBORNE          You can get us some answers.Hardy takes off his sunglasses, noticing her.                      STYLES          This is Warrant Officer Julia Osborne,          The closest thing we have to an in-          House investigator.                      HARDY          And here you are going out of house.          How's that make you feel, Jules?                      OSBORNE          Hostile and uncooperative.                       HARDY          Fantastic.   You want to tell me what's          going on?INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- CORRIDORS MORNINGHardy follows Styles and Osborne. They pass SOLDIERSreplacing broken windows and sweeping up glass.                      STYLES          The official term for it is          "Clusterfuck" . By the time Beth hit          us, I'd canceled all off base          exercises save one - a six man cadet          team and their Drill out in the bush.          We're missing three and the Sergeant.          The cadets are in their eighth week          of the cycle, nobody here knows much          about them, up to and including their          names. But the Sergeant...                      HARDY          It's not West, is it?    Tell me it's          not West.Styles' look tells him it is.                       HARDY          Ah, Christ                      OSBORNE          You knew Sergeant West?                      HARDY          He was our Drill here.    Man's older          than sand.                                                   7.                      STYLES          A few years ago, the Army picked our          good buddy as their go to non-com to          trot out to the press to talk about          the kinder, gentler military. He          even did the standard video greeting          played to all incoming Basic cadets          across the country.                      HARDY          Well, he's a good soldier.Osborne nods, agreeing.                      HARDY          I didn't mean that as a compliment.                      OSBORNE          Sergeant West's served for twenty-          Three years. He's the public face          of the modern Army.                      HARDY          And you notice I'm not in the Army          anymore.They round a corner.                      STYLES          The exercise was one of his Section          Eight "private sessions". Left around          2100 yesterday and were scheduled          for pick up at 0630 this morning.                      HARDY          And the problem is you only got three.                      STYLES          No, the problem is one's dead, one's          got a bullet in his arm, and one          won't talk. The one who won't talk          was trading live fire with the dead          one as we reached the pick-up.                      HARDY          I'm assuming that's what made him          the dead one?                      STYLES          Cadet Roberto R. Nunez.   Killed right          in front of me.                      OSBORNE          Search parties for the others are          fanning out in a ten click radius          from the pickup. If they're hurt          and we can get to them in time...                                                          8.                      STYLES          I called the JAG Corps, the two cadets          we retrieved are to be flown to D.C.          On a transport leaving here at 1700-                      HARDY          Which gives us about five hours.          Why'd you call me?                      STYLES          The guy in interrogation said he'd          only talk to a cop.                      HARDY          And I'm the closest thing to it,          right?Styles stops, turning to his friend.                      STYLES          Tom, bottom line: I let those kids          go out there. If JAG shows up and I          don't have any answers for them, my          career is finished-                      HARDY          I'm not gonna let that happen.Styles exhales, relieved.                      STYLES          Thank you. Osborne will brief you          on the cadets. And Tom?              (half-smile)          It really is good to see you.INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- OSBORNE'S OFFICE -- MORNINGOsborne and Hardy enter, stepping over broken glass andhurricane debris. Hardy looks around.                      HARDY          Gotta be honest, I love what you've          Done with the place-                      OSBORNE          You and the Colonel go back.                      HARDY          He got me through Basic and a lot of          other stuff. I owe him.                      OSBORNE          You're the Tom Hardy I've been reading          about in the papers, right? New          Orleans PD fired you for taking bribes          from Guissepe Torres.                                                           9.                      HARDY          It was for suspicion of bribery,          it's really all in the wording-                      OSBORNE          Wording and your friendship with the          Colonel aside, I'm not comfortable          having you involved in this.                      HARDY          Subtlety really isn't one of you          finer points, is it, Osborne?Osborne opens her mouth to reply but Hardy cuts her off.                      HARDY          Three things. First - You don't          have a choice. Second- I've never          taken a bribe in my life. And Third -          I'm still a little drunk from last          night, so if I skip over the witty          banter and move forward to straight          hitting on you, try not to take          offense. Tell me about the two guys.                      OSBORNE          Hurricane knocked out our Mainframe,          so all we have are their dogtags.          Cadets Raymond Dunbar and Levi Kendall-                       HARDY          Levi?   Who names their kid Levi-                      OSB0RNE          Senator Jonathan Kendall, of Ohio.                      HARDY          Christ... Remind me to thank Bill          for mentioning that on the phone-                      OSBORNE          Kendall Junior is still  in surgery,          so he won't be available  to answer          for his name or anything  else for          another hour - the cadet  we're talking          to first is Dunbar.                      HARDY          He's in interrogation?                       OSBORNE          Yes.                       HARDY          Move him.                                                        10.                         OSBORNE          Why?                      HARDY          Because interrogation rooms look          suspiciously like interrogation rooms,          which doesn't exactly put people at          ease. Is he cute?                         OSBORNE          Excuse me?                      HARDY          Is Dunbar cute?                       OSBORNE              (pissed)          That is the most unprofessional-                      HARDY          Is he handsome, self assured, carry          himself well, does he look you in          the eyes or down at the floor, does          he have good bones, suggesting good          breeding, does he slouch or sit up          straight - these are important          questions, as they reveal a great          deal about this man's character so          please get over yourself for two and          a half seconds and tell me is he          cute?Osborne stares at him.    She finally nods.                      HARDY          Thank you. At some point in there          I'm gonna rub my nose. When I do,          go at him with everything you got.                      OSBORNE          Good cop/bad cop?                      HARDY          Something like that.She starts to go make preparations.                       HARDY          Oh, and Osborne? You have any donuts          around here?INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- CORRIDOR -- MORNINGAs two M.P.'s escort RAYMOND DUNBAR (the "Bigger Man") into                                                            11.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- MORNINGA small cluttered room with the shades drawn. A foldingtable has been set up in the middle of it with a chair oneach side. Dunbar takes a seat in the far chair. Takes inhis surroundings as the MP's leave, locking the door.INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- CORRIDOR - MORNINGHardy and Osborne head towards the Coffee Room.                      OSBORNE          I questioned him for three hours and          he didn't make a sound. You don't          have a badge, he won't talk to you.                      HARDY,          Ten bucks says I have him talking in          under three minutes.Osborne starts the timer on her digital watch.                        OSBORNE          Go.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- MORNINGDunbar looks up as they enter.    Hardy smiles, cheerily.                      HARDY          Cadet Dunbar, good morning! I'm Tom          Hardy and I believe you've already          met Officer Osborne. I understand          you had a rough time of it last night?No response.    Hardy takes a seat across from the cadet.                      HARDY          Not talking, huh? You probably just          want to get some food and some sleep.          They feed you yet?No response.    Hardy reaches into his pocket.   Pulls out aDONUT.Dunbar eyes it, wary but definitely wanting it.                      HARDY          Go on. You can eat in front of          someone and still not talk to them -          my parents did it for years.Dunbar grabs the donut, wolfing it down.                      HARDY          Want another one?No response.    Osborne looks to her watch - it's been a minute.                                                           12.                      HARDY          Maybe later. Ray, let me say this          up front - I'm not a cop.Dunbar turns away, no longer interested.   Hardy continues:                      HARDY          I used to be, but that's beside the          point. Who I am doesn't really          matter; what matters is that right          now, you're in a shitload of trouble.          You understand that, right?No response.                      HARDY          Now, I don't know if you did what          you did in self defense and frankly          I don't really care. I'm just doing          a favor for Colonel Styles because          he wants to know if anyone else who's          still out there is in need of          assistance. To be honest with you,          though, I don't care about that          either.Dunbar looks up at this, surprised.                      HARDY          I don't know those guys, you do.          They die, to me, it's like seeing a          couple people died in a fire on the          news - tragic, but it doesn't affect          me. The only thing I care about is          I agreed to do a favor for a friend          and try and talk to you till your          transpo shows up. You like baseball?No response.   Osborne looks at her watch - two minutes.                      HARDY          I could talk baseball for   days.          Batting averages, ERA's, I   got          statistics in my brain, I   don't know          how I remember them. It's    freaky.          You wanna talk baseball?Dunbar, completely confused.                      HARDY          Come on Ray, we're gonna be here          five hours, we gotta talk about          something. So who do you like?A long silence and then:                                                        13.                      DUNBAR          I don't like baseball.Hardy grins as Osborne stops her watch at 2:41.                      HARDY          Why not?                      DUNBAR          I asked for a policeman.                      HARDY          You're under military arrest, it's          not gonna happen. What's wrong with          baseball?                      DUNBAR          It's... too slow.                      HARDY          Well, it's a game of anticipation,          that's the beauty.                      DUNBAR          I just don't like it.                      HARDY          What do you like then?As they continue, we TRACK under the table to reveal a HIDDENMICROPHONE...INT. STYLES' OFFICE -- MORNINGStyles and an M.P. listening to the Coffee Room conversation.DUNBAR'S VOICE, over the speaker:                      DUNBAR (O.S.)          I don't know... I like the Army.                      HARDY (O.S.)          C'mon, Ray, everyone hates the Army          during Basic. I'll tell you straight,          I hated it here.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- MORNING                      DUNBAR          You did Basic here?                      HARDY          Fifteen years ago under Sergeant          West. Piece of work, that guy. I          remember, he used to have these two          silver .45's with ivory handles and          if you weren't quick enough, he'd                      (MORE)                                                              14.                         HARDY (CONT'D)             knock you on the head with one of             them. He still carry those guns?He Dunbar nods.                         HARDY             I was also his " knife dummy" .                 (to Osborne)             See, West used to say he could slit             a man from stem to sternum in three             seconds. He'd use this length of             pipe to demonstrate and if you were             the knife dummy, you'd spend all day             getting a pipe rammed into your balls             if you weren't fast enough to defend             yourself. That was a loooong day.Hardy laughs at the memory and turns back to Dunbar.                         HARDY             Incidentally, Ray, I promised them             I'd ask where West and the others             are. Can we get to them?He looks to the floor.                         DUNBAR             There's no need...                         HARDY             They're dead, aren't they?Dunbar looks back up at Hardy.                         DUNBAR             Yeah.INT. STYLES' OFFICE -- MORNINGStyles lowers his head at this.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- MORNING                         HARDY             You kill them?No answer.    Hardy rubs his nose.   Osborne steps forward.                         OSBORNE             The Colonel saw you shoot Nunez,             You're a murderer-                         HARDY             See, Ray, this is what we call "good             cop, bad cop".                 (MORE)                                                        15.                       HARDY          She shouts, I stand up for you, you're          grateful, a bond of trust is          established.Osborne, stunned by this.                      HARDY          But I don't want to play games.          That's why you're not in an          interrogation room, with one of those          two way mirrors - everyone knows          those things are two way, right?Dunbar looks at him good nods slowly.                      HARDY          Right. Now, I'm gonna go get you          another donut and you think about          whether you want to talk more, okay?                      DUNBAR          Okay.Hardy smiles at him, gets up, and leaves.INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- CORRIDOR -- MORNINGOsborne follows him out into the hall where Styles waits.                      OSBORNE          Baseball?                      HARDY          Believe somebody owes me ten dollars-                      OSBORNE          You made me look like an idiot-                      HARDY          Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know the          object of the interrogation is to          make you look good- Everyone knows          good cop, bad cop - by admitting it          I appeared trustworthy.                      STYLES          You think he did it?                      OSBORNE          No-                      HARDY          Yes-They stop, looking at each other.                                                          16.                      STYLES          You've got four hours and forty-five          minutes to find out.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- MORNINGHardy returns, another donut in hand, Osborne behind him.                      HARDY          Why'd you ask for a cop, Ray?                      DUNBAR          I'm not telling you what happened.                      HARDY          Okay... but I would like to know          about the other cadets. What they          were like - nice guys? Dunbar takes          a deep breath.                      DUNBAR          Some.                      HARDY          Tell me about them.As Dunbar begins to talk, we FLASHBACK...EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- PARADE GROUNDS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGORow upon row of freshly shaven headed CADETS stand atattention. Their first day of boot camp.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          First day was when I met Pike.    Sarge          hated him from the beginning.A man with a face of granite strides up and down the lines.Two ivory handled pistols on his hips. His lifeless cobaltblue eyes take in the Cadets. This is SERGEANT WEST.                      WEST          You motherfuckers have just made the          worst mistake of your lives! You          have chosen to join my Army! This          Army is my mother, my father, and my          little virgin sister and I will not          allow anyone or anything that is not          up to my standards near her pretty          little virgin cooze, do you understand          me - give me a sir, yes, sir!                      THE CADETS          Sir, yes, sir!                                                         17.                      WEST          Those who I deem unworthy to pass          through this camp will quit, and          those who refuse to quit I will kill.          You ever hear of a training accident -          Give me a sir, yes, sir!                      THE CADETS          Sir, yes, sir!                      WEST          In my time I have killed sixteen men          for the good of my country, sixteen          men whose entrance into this Army I          could not condone, as it would weaken          the fabric of this nation's defense!          This base suffers an average of three          training accidents a year, unfortunate          incidents that I will not hesitate          to repeat if you cross me, understand -          Give me a sir, yes, sir!                      THE CADETS          Sir, yes, sir!                      WEST          So forget what you've seen on Sixty          fucking Minutes about the kinder,          gentler military - you will either          succeed, quit, or die by my hand!He walks over to a tall black cadet in the front row.   PIKE.                      WEST          My power here is absolute, isn't          that right, nigger?                      PIKE          Sir, yes, sir!West hauls off and SLAPS Pike across the face!                      WEST          I hail from Biloxi, Mississippi where          we string greasy coon necks up from          tree branches when the mood strikes          us you have a problem with that?                      PIKE          Sir, no, sir!West grabs Pike by the neck, CHOKING HIM. The others CadetsGASP. Pike goes down on his knees, the loss of air is sogreat. He reaches up automatically to try and save himself...                                                          18.                      WEST          What the fuck is this? You lay a          hand on me while I'm trying to do my          duty and rid the world of you?He KICKS PIKE IN THE BALLS and releases him. Pike goes fetalon the ground, VOMITING, as West stands over him, screaming.                      WEST          Get the fuck up, you're still in          formation, get the fuck up!Pike somehow gets to his feet, vomit streaking his clothes.                       WEST          What the fuck have you done to that          uniform, take it off, take it off,          take it off!Pike, still gasping, can't move fast enough.    West slaps himagain and tears the man's shirt off.                      WEST          Get those fucking pants off, I want          you buck ass naked, you don't deserve          to wear these beautiful United States          Army issue clothes!Pike struggles off the rest of his clothes until he is NAKED.West turns and spies Dunbar in the line.                      WEST          Cadet, what's your name!                      DUNBAR          Sir, Dunbar, sir!                      WEST          You know how to work a pistol, Dunbar?                      DUNBAR          Sir, yes, sir!West draws one of his PISTOLS and gives it to him.                      WEST          Dunbar you are to stand here and          guard this nigger for the next twenty-          four hours! He is not to be given          food, water, or clothes! If he so          much as moves, you are to blow his          nigger brains out, is that clear?                      DUNBAR          Sir, yes, sir!                                                           19.                      WEST          The rest of you, fallout for          physicals!The rest of the Cadets fallout, following West away to oneof the buildings, leaving Dunbar and Pike.One with a gun, the other naked.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Fifteen guys quit that day.    But not          Pike.EXT. OBSTACLE COURSE -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- MORNINGThe CADETS, navigating a log spanned over a PIT OF MUD.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Time went on and the Sarge started          singling people out.One of the Cadets, a small man named ANDERSON, falls fromthe log. Screaming, West dives into the pit and pullsAnderson out, knocking him on the head with a pistol.EXT. TARMAC -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- AFTERNOONAnderson stands naked, his arms straining to hold up,TWOPAINT CANS perpendicular to his body as West berates him.                      DUNBAR          He'd zero in on a fella and ride him          till he quit.EXT. MAIN GATE -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- NIGHTAnderson, now in civilian clothes, gets into a TAXI.   Quit.EXT. FIRING RANGE -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- MORNINGWest, screaming at a weasely looking cadet named CHILDS.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Those who wouldn't quit, he'd put in          what he called Section Eight.INT. SECTION EIGHT BARRACKS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- NIGHTA horribly dilapidated quarters. Four cadets, Dunbar, Pike,Childs, and MUELLER sleep in rickety bunks.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Washout rejects, guys he said were ,          "dumbfucks too stupid to know they          were dead". He separated us from          the rest. We slept alone...                                                          20.INT. MESS HALL -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- MORNINGThe same four Cadets, eating ON THE FLOOR as the other membersof the Cadet Corps chow at tables.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          . . .ate alone.. .EXT. REGULAR BARRACKS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- EVENINGThe four Cadets fallout on a run shirtless, with heavy packsand rifles held over their heads as the rest of the CadetCorps files into their barracks for sleep.                      DUNBAR ( V. O . )          ...and trained long after the other          guys got to turn in.EXT. PARADE GROUNDS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGO -- MORNINGThe Cadet Corps, mustered. West zeroes in on NUNEZ (the"dead one"), whose t-shirt has a spot on it.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Fellas lived in daily fear of being          Sectioned and with good reason, too.West pulls Nunez out of line by his ear and kicks him overtowards a separate muster of our Four Section Eighters.                      DUNBAR          They figured we were the boys who'd          meet with a "training accident" .Nunez takes a place among them.   Looking absolutely terrified.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT DAYOsborne leans forward.                       OSBORNE          Are you saying Sergeant West tried          to kill you?                      DUNBAR          No, ma'am, he just wanted us to quit.          Making it through was kind of an          honor. Some of the other guys on          the base told us that if you could          hack Section Eight, Command would          consider you at the top of the class.                      HARDY          That's not exactly true...              (off their looks)          I'm living proof. How did you get          Sectioned, Ray?                                                        21.Dunbar gives a look that almost resembles a smile.                      DUNBAR          That first night with Pike. I made          the mistake of letting him sit down          at around 0300.                      OSBORNE          Tell us about the other guys, the          ones West weeded out.                      DUNBAR          There were six of us...EXT. OBSTACLE COURSE.-- ONE WEEK AGO -- EVENINGThe six members of Section Eight on a forced run through therain. We focus in each face as Dunbar describes them. Firstup is MUELLER a tall Aryan looking blonde with a square jaw.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Mueller was from Tulsa, a real good          ol' boy type. One of those "his          Daddy's Daddy's Daddy died at Bull          Run and no bleeding heart Yankee was          gonna take away his scatter gun" .          He idolized West.Muller, grinning, as West kicks his ass to pick up the pace.Next to him is NUNEZ, a strapping hulk of a manchild.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          And Nunez idolized Mueller. Big          fella from New Mexico. After he got          Sectioned he just followed Mueller          around like a lap dog. He wasn't          mean like Mueller, though, didn't          have it in him.Next to Nunez is CHILDS, small and weasely with feral eyes.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          But Childs did. Didn't talk to          anyone, but you got this feeling          something was wrong with him, like          real wrong. Type of guy you felt          uncomfortable going to sleep near.Behind Childs runs Pike.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Pike I told you about. He took the          brunt of it from Mueller and West.          Once they found it out he was a          convict they were merciless.                      (MORE)                                                           22.                      DUNBAR (V.O.) (CONT'D)          He'd been busted for Auto Theft,          judge gave him the option of jailor          the Army. He made the wrong choice.Next to Pike, Dunbar and KENDALL run side by side.   Kendallis short like Childs, but also weak. Wheezing.                      DUNBAR          Finally Kendall and me. Kendall was          a smart guy, we got along okay.          Pike and I tried to help him, but...Kendall falters and Pike stops to try and help him up. Westsmacks the him away, practically kicking Kendall to his feet.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          He was sickly. Had that shaking          thing, whatd'yacall it, epoxy?                       OSBORNE (V.O.)          Epilepsy.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Yeah. Spent half his time in the          infirmary. Only reason he enlisted          was his father. West didn't section          him till last week.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      HARDY          And those were the guys who went on          the exercise with you?                       DUN BAR          Yeah.   And that's all I'm saying.Hardy leans back in his chair.                      HARDY          You smoke, Ray?                      DUNBAR          This is one of those interrogation          tricks, isn't it? You don't give me          a cigarette till I tell you more.                      HARDY          No, actually, I just left mine in          the car and was hoping you had some.Dunbar studies him for a moment and then pulls a pack ofDorals from his pocket and puts them on the table.                       HARDY          My brand.   Must be my lucky day.                                                         23.He takes one and lights it.      Dunbar does the same.                      HARDY          Let me ask you one thing. You seem          like a good guy, Ray. You carried          Kendall wounded to the pickup. So          what I don't get is what you did to          make Nunez want to kill you?Dunbar just looks at the ground. A KNOCK at the door.    Hardyand Osborne turn to see an M.P. stick his head in.                         M. P.          Sirs?INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- CORRIDORS -- MORNINGHardy and Osborne emerge to find Styles waiting for them.                      HARDY          He's not done by a longshot, I can          get more out of him-                         STYLES          He can wait.     Kendall's out of          surgery.EXT. ARMY JEEP (MOVING) -- MORNINGHardy and Osborne sit in the back of the open car as itrumbles across the grounds, headed towards the Base Hospital.They sit in silence until:                      HARDY          Why'd you join the army?Osborne looks at him, annoyed.                      OSBORNE          You really want to make banal chit-          Chat like that now?                      HARDY          You're right. We should sit in          silence.                      OSBORNE          We're in the middle of a murder case-                      HARDY          Best time for banal chit-chat.He slips something into his pocket.                      OSBORNE          What is that?                                                    24.                      HARDY          Microrecorder for Kendall - didn't          have- time to wire his room. Now          tell me why you joined the army or          I'll jab this pen through your neck.Osborne smiles in spite of, herself.                      OSBORNE          Typical army brat story. Dad was          noncom, Mom was a Nurse. There was          never any real doubt of joining up.                      HARDY          You had a mobile of bayonets above          your crib.                      OSBORNE          Something like that.     You?                      HARDY          I lost a bet.Osborne laughs.                      OSBORNE          You're kidding.                      HARDY          Yeah. That's just the story I tell          the girls to get them into bed.          Truth is... I don't know. The whole          honor and duty thing. Make a          difference in the world, crap like          that. Didn't really work out.Osborne studies him.                         OSBORNE          I bet    that's the second story you          tell    the girls to get them into bed,          after    you make them laugh with the          first    one.Hardy just smiles.                      OSBORNE          This is the straight hitting on me          you were talking about, isn't it?                      HARDY          The very same.                      OSBORNE          You do understand that there's          absolutely no way I could ever be          attracted to you, right?                                                        25.                      HARDY          I plan to grow on you.                      OSBORNE          You're off to a late start.                        HARDY          So noted.They pass an OVERTURNED CLIMBING TOWER.                      HARDY          You guys really got the shit kicked          out of you here.                      OSBORNE          Imagine what it must have been like          for them out there. What do you          think of Dunbar?                      HARDY          He's telling the truth, up to a point.                        OSBORNE          What point?Hardy doesn't respond, instead looking out as they pass theSECTION EIGHT BARRACKS.                      OSBORNE          Something wrong?                      HARDY          Being back here. Gives me the          willies.                      OSBORNE          Not the happiest of memories?FLASHCUT TO - FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. A bunch of young Cadets,Hardy and Styles among them, doing forced push-ups by thebarracks in the rain as West randomly berates and KICKS THEM.BACK TO HARDY - As he looks away and shakes it off.                        HARDY          No.INT. BASE HOSPITAL -- RECOVERY UNIT -- DAYA NURSE leads Hardy and Osborne down a spotless white hall.                      NURSE          Normally we wouldn't let anyone see          him this soon, but Colonel Styles          said it was urgent-                                                         26.                      HARDY          It is.                      OSBORNE          Remember, he's the son of a Senator,          so go easy. Kid gloves.                      HARDY          Got it.INT. BASE HOSPITAL -- KENDALL'S ROOM -- DAYKendall lies in a bed, a network of tubes in his arm.   He isawake but pale, still weak. He studies his visitors.                      KENDALL          You... I've seen you around the Base.          But you...              (POINTING TO HARDY)          You're not Army, are you?                      HARDY          Coast Guard, special detective detail.          We feel this incident may have put          the beaches of Florida at risk.Kendall's laugh turns into a cough.   Placing Hardy.                      KENDALL          That's it. You're that policeman          with friends in low places. Tell          me, how's Guissepe Torres doing these          days? Those racketeering indictments          must have really been a downer-                      HARDY          Levi, you got about four hours before          armed men show up here, put you on a          plane to Washington, and lock you in          a very small dark room.  I suggest          you talk to us.Kendall smiles again, not losing any of his cool.                      KENDALL          I've done nothing wrong.              (gestures to his wound)          I'm the victim here.                      HARDY          But not the only victim, right?                      KENDALL          My, my, my, how did things turn so          hostile so quickly? If I didn't          know better, I'd say you two were          out to get me.                                                          27.                      OSBORNE          We just want-                      KENDALL          What, "The Truth"? Please. There          are degrees of truth, officer, always          degrees. Things are not what they          seem.Hardy stares at him for a moment and then gets up to leave.                      HARDY          It's too early in the day for me to          give a shit about some pissant cadet's          bad version of "intrigue". You want          to talk to us, send word over to the          brig. Let's go.Nonplussed, Osborne follows.    Hardy turns back at the door.                      HARDY          You're working too hard, Levi. I          can tell cause you're sweating. And          you're sweating cause you have no          idea what Dunbar's already told us.INT. BASE HOSPITAL -- CORRIDORS -- DAYHardy and Osborne walk to the NURSE'S STATION.                      OSBORNE          That was kid gloves?                      HARDY          Have no fear, Osborne, we have not          yet begun to fight.He pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights it.                      OSBORNE          But we have to question him-              (noticing)          Thought you didn't have cigarettes-                       HARDY          I lied.   Wait for it...Osborne just stares at him, not knowing what to say next.The PHONE at the Nurse's Station rings and a NURSE answers.Listens for a moment, hangs up, and turns to them.                      NURSE          Cadet Kendall-                      HARDY          We're on our way.                                                        28.INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- DAYHardy and Osborne sit across from Kendall's bed.                      HARDY          Sergeant West is dead isn't he?Kendall nods.                      HARDY          And the other three Cadets?Kendall hesitates, then nods again.                      HARDY          Feel free to elaborate .Kendall takes a breath and begins, all trace of bravado gone.                      KENDALL          My father is a powerful man. Over          the years he's used that power to          protect me, in one form or another,          from certain... unpleasantries.              (deep breath)          I am a homosexual.                      HARDY          Senator Daddy must be thrilled.                      KENDALL          He is not, shall we say, wild about          the idea. He has asked me on numerous          occasions to be more discreet about          my proclivities, and I have done my          best to oblige him. However, in the          last four weeks, I began a          relationship with another cadet.          What do you think of that?                      HARDY          I think you just blew "Don't Ask,          Don't Tell" out of the fucking water.                      KENDALL          The Sergeant discovered this          relationship and wanted me expelled.          My father interceded, so instead,          West Sectioned me and made sure every          other cadet knew that I was gay.                      OSBORNE          He couldn't kick you out so he wanted          you to quit on your own.                      KENDALL          He wanted more than that.                                                        29.                      HARDY          More intrigue, Levi?Kendall stares at them, dead serious.                      KENDALL          Yes.INT. SECTION EIGHT BARRACKS -- LAST NIGHTThe six Cadets asleep, all except Kendall, who stares up atthe patchwork ceiling.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          It was the regular Tuesday night          drill. He'd let us sleep for an          hour and then wake us up, drag us          out to the bayou, and work us all          night, separate from the others.          The door SLAMS OPEN, revealing West.                      WEST          Get up, get up, get up! We're going          on a little night hike, boys - muster          in five on the south tarmac!He leaves as the Sectioners rise, groaning.                      PIKE          Hurricane's due after midnight and          we're still going out?                      MUELLER          Toughens us up, Pike.    You don't          like it, quit.Pike pulls on his pants and shoots him the finger.                      KENDALL          Maybe we shouldn't go.                      MUELLER          The faggot speaks.                      KENDALL          You ever been in a hurricane, Mueller?                      MUELLER              (mocking gay lisp)          You ever been in a hurricane, Mueller?Mueller and Childs laugh, but Nunez looks concerned.                      NUNEZ          You really heard this?                                                          30.                      PIKE          You know Popham, works in the kitchen?          He told me it was on the radio.He stops, listening.    They all hear the WIND, HOWLING outside.                      KENDALL          We should tell him we're not going.                      MUELLER          Oh, yeah, "Excuse me, Sergeant, sir,          we don't feel like going out - we          don't want to get rained on." He'll          kick our asses from here to Cleveland.He pulls on his rain poncho and is out the door, Nunez rightbehind him. The others, getting ready, all except Kendall.Dunbar comes over and puts a hand on his shoulder.                        DUNBAR          He's right.    We don't have a choice.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- TARMAC -- LAST NIGHTThe six cadets, mustered in front of West and a TRANSPORTCHOPPER. West hands out M-16's, sidearms, and grenades whileyelling above the wind.                      WEST          A rifle, a pistol, and three          phosphorous grenades to a man! This          is live fire, so keep those safetied          until we touch down; I don't want          anyone shooting their dick off!Some chuckling.                      WEST          Some of you may have heard there's a          hurricane coming! American soldiers          do not wait for good weather - they          do not wait for a bright sunshiney          day to do their duty! An American          Soldier learns to operate in the          worst conditions and turn said          conditions into an advantage against          their enemy! Anyone who thinks these          conditions are too harsh, feel free          to lay down and die, you get me?                      THE CADETS          Sir, yes, sir!                      WEST          LZ is two clicks North of a cabin,          you are to split into teams of two                      (MORE)                                                          31.                      WEST (CONT'D)          and work your way through your          designated area blasting as many          targets as you can find! Each area          has twenty targets, first team to          take all twenty and find the cabin          wins! Teams are as follows - Dunbar          and Nunez, Pike and Mueller, Kendall          and Childs!Mueller groans.                      WEST          I will be in the areas monitoring          your progress and if I see anyone          drag ass I will personally slit you          stem to sternum and leave you for          dead! Fall out!The Cadets board the Transport Chopper. Kendall gets onlast, passing West who leans in and whispers to him:                      WEST          You're gonna die tonight, faggot.INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAYOsborne looks up.                      OSBORNE          He said what?                      KENDALL          "You're gonna die tonight, faggot" .          Clear as day.                      OSBORNE          No one else heard it?                      KENDALL          He whispered it in my ear.Hardy scratches his temple.                      HARDY          Levi, I don't know   if you're familiar          with investigative   work, but we have          this little thing   called "motive"          and you just gave   yourself one.                      KENDALL          You said you wanted to know what          happened- I'm telling you the truth.                      HARDY          What happened to "degrees"?                                                           32.                      KENDALL          Didn't kill him-                      HARDY          Then who did?INT. ARMY TRANSPORT HELICOPTER (FLYING) -- LAST NIGHTOn Kendall, sitting among the Sectioners in silence.terrified he looks like he's about to throw up.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          I wanted to tell someone what he'd          said, but I couldn't. Mueller would          just laugh. Nunez and Childs wouldn't          care. Pike and Dunbar were okay,          but... When West outed me, he isolated          me. An outcast among outcasts. And          I'd just been told tonight was the          night I'd die.The Chopper touches down on the edge of the BAYOU. The doorrumbles open as West points out different team directions inthe blackness.                      WEST          First team, second team, third team,          go, go, go!The click of rifles being unsafetied as the cadets pour outof the helicopter.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- LAST NIGHTWe track with Kendall and Childs as they head away from theLanding Zoe, rifles up, heads down, side by side. Movingthe brush quickly and quietly, eyes scanning for targets.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          I knew Childs a little, we worked at          the PX together.The wind is picking up and it's started to RAIN.   Theirponchos flap loudly against the elements.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          I started getting it in my head that          maybe West had paid him, maybe he          was the one who was supposed to give          me a training accident-The ROAR of GUNFIRE!  Kendall turns  towards it,  SCREAMINGfor a moment... Until he sees Childs  lower his  smoking rifle,a SHREDDED TARGET on a tree in front  of them.   He looks down,noticing has his own weapon TRAINED  ON CHILDS.  ..Childs steps forward, knocking Kendall's rifle away.                                                           33.                      CHILDS          Don't you ever point a gun at me!                      KENDALL          I'm- I'm sorry. . .Kendall, terrified. Shaking. A beat. Childs picks up therifle from the ground and hands it back to him.                      CHILDS          Come on, let's move.VARIOUS SHOTS -- Kendall and Childs, moving through the bayou,Childs taking out targets. It's raining harder now.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          All I could think of was West, out          there somewhere in the dark. Maybe          watching the others, maybe watching          me. And waiting to make his move.Childs speaks, and Kendall almost jumps out of his skin.                      CHILDS          Christ, am I alone in this world?          Shoot something-A SOUND from the left. Kendall panics, pivots, and FIRES...Into DARKNESS. No target, no West, no nothing. Kendall,really freaked out now.                      CHILDS          A target, Kendall, cap a fucking          target. What's wrong with you?                      KENDALL (V.O.)          I thought I was gonna have an attack.          Go into a fit and bite off my own          tongue in the middle of the bayou.          Childs could tell I wasn't right.                      CHILDS          Just safety your shit and get behind          me, okay? I'll take care of this.Kendall nods and lets Childs walk ahead. Staring at Childs'back as they move on. On Kendall's face, thinking...                      KENDALL (V.O.)          Maybe it was a trick. Maybe this          was when they'd get me, when I felt          safest.CLOSE. ON KENDALL'S FINGER - Clicking off the safety again.Moving towards the trigger...                                                             34.                         KENDALL (V.O.)            But if I struck first and took out            Childs, then maybe I could make it            out alive...Kendall raises the rifle.    Sights Childs' back.      A momentof utter silence and then...INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                        KENDALL            Maybe I shouldn't tell you that.            Maybe I should tell you I wasn't            scared at all. But I was...                (long pause)            Enough to almost kill him.                        HARDY            But you didn't.                          KENDALL            No.    Poetic justice, though.                             OSBORNE            Why?No reply.   Hardy smiles, understanding.                        HARDY            Because Childs is the one who shot            you.Osborne looks up, surprised.           Kendall nods.                        KENDALL            But that came later.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- LAST NIGHTAs Kendall safeties his rifle and lowers it... The SOUND ofa tremendous EXPLOSION comes from their right! Kendall andChilds knocked off their feet as the sky momentarily LIGHTSUP with the blast as a MAN SCREAMS!                             CHILDS            Over there!Childs points to the right, where the dim shine of PHOSPHOROUScan be seen through the trees. He drags Kendall to his feetand the two take off running towards it.Kendall panting and scared, ducking branches and leapingditches as the two sprint towards the dying glow.                             CHILDS            Hello!    HEL-                                                           35.The sound of GUNFIRE!   Childs TACKLES Kendall...                        CHILDS          GET DOWN!They hit the deck, face down in mud. It takes them a secondto realize the shots are not directed at them.                      CHILDS          Fuck, what the fuck is going on-                      KENDALL          What do we do?                      CHILDS          Whoever it is isn't shooting at us...He trails off. The gunfire and screaming have stopped.Silence now, save for the wind and rain.                      KENDALL          Don't want to go-                        CHILDS          Fine.Childs rises and heads towards where the sounds were.Kendall, lying in the rain and mud, shivering.    Alone.   Aftera moment he gets up and follows.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED,-- LAST NIGHTThe SCORCHED GROUND and TREES smolder under the rainfall.Kendall finds Childs, standing down by the creek.Something lies by his feet.                        KENDALL          What's-He stops, seeing.                      KENDALL          Oh, Jesus.. .WEST. Literally spread out on the ground, dead. Eyes open,face half blackened, he has been ripped in two at the torso.A horrifying sight. Kendall stumbles back from it.                      KENDALL          Did- Did you-                       CHILDS          It was the grenade you fucking idiot.          Look at him!                                                          36.Kendall can't.   He sits, sobbing.   Part horror, part relief.                      CHILDS          This isn't our area.   Whose area is          This-                      MUELLER          Can anybody hear me!Childs pivots at the sound of Mueller coming over the ridge.                      MUELLER          Hey, I-              (seeing it)          Holy fuck. .,. holy fuck, what the          fuck did you guys do?                      CHILDS          We found him like this-Mueller raises his rifle at the weeping Kendall.                      MUELLER          You killed him you fucking faggot-                      CHILDS          We found him like this! Kendall was          with me the whole- Listen to me!Mueller, finally seeming to understand.    Lowering the gun.                      MUELLER          Jesus, Jesus fucking Christ...Muttering to himself, walking in circles.                      CHILDS          Where's Pike?No response.                      CHILDS          Mueller, where's Pike?Mueller looks up.                      MUELLER          We got- I don't know, we got separated                      CHILDS          Before or after the explosion?              (no response)          Mueller-                      MUELLER          I don't know!                                                        37.                      KENDALL          How can you not know-Mueller comes at him, screaming:                      MUELLER          Shut the fuck up, you fucking faggot,          You just shut the FUCK UP-                        CHILDS          HEY!Mueller stops, eyes crazed. Childs looks to the sky, whichis becoming worse by the second.                      CHILDS          We have to get out of this.    To find          the cabin.He helps Kendall to his feet.                      KENDALL          What about Pike?                      CHILDS          Maybe he'll be there.    Either way,          we have to go.Kendall nods, slowly.   The two start up the hill.                      MUELLER          Shouldn't we- I mean, we shouldn't          just leave him here.He points down to West's body.    Childs looks at it.                      CHILDS          You can carry him if you want.He and Kendall continue on. Mueller lingers a moment longerand then turns, following them up the hill.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- LAST NIGHTKendall, Childs, and Mueller make their way through the bush.The WIND and RAIN have conspired into a FULL BLOWN HURRICANE.The three men are practically stumbling now, leaning inagainst it to stay on their feet. Kendall spies somethingthrough the maelstrom. It looks like WET WOOD. He points:                        KENDALL          There!THE CABIN -- Wooden, one story, and large, it resembles asolidly built shack. It is being thrashed by the storm.                                                          38.The trio stumble towards the front door...INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTObviously abandoned. Bare of any furniture save for twowooden chairs next to an empty fireplace.DUNBAR and NUNEZ shout in surprise as the three menpractically collapse into the cabin. Dunbar runs to boltthe door against the elements as Nunez helps them up.                      NUNEZ          What happened to you-                      MUELLER          What happened to you?                      DUNBAR          We finished the course and came here,          Then heard an explosion-              (to Mueller)          Where's Pike?                      CHILDS          We don't know. West is dead.Silence. Dunbar and Nunez stare at him.    Mueller jerks ahand towards Kendall and Childs.                      MUELLER          They found him. Poor fucker was          Practically blown in half-                      KENDALL          Poor fucker my ass...                      MUELLER          You better watch it, faggot, I'm not          Sure you and Childs didn't do him-                      CHILDS          What about you, wandering around          Alone? At least we have an alibi-                      DUNBAR          What do you mean, alone?                      MUELLER          Pike and I got separated-                      KENDALL          Yeah and he doesn't know when-                      MUELLER          I remember now, it was before the          Explosion-                                                         39.                      KENDALL          Oh, you remember now-                      MUELLER          I'm about two seconds away from seeing          If fairies really can fly-                      NUNEZ          What about Pike?Mueller stops, as the others turn towards the big man.Silence. They realize what the question means.                      DUNBAR          He wouldn't kill anybody. . .                      MUELLER          Oh, bullshit, he's a fucking convict.          You know how much he hated West-                      DUNBAR          I hated West, Childs hated West,          everyone with a goddamn brain hated          West but that doesn't mean we killed          him!                      NUNEZ          What if it wasn't one of us?    What          if it was a local-                      KENDALL          He was blown up by a phosphorous          grenade, they don't exactly sell          those at 7-11.                      MUELLER          Look, here are the facts - Roberto          was with Dunbar, Queen Kendall was          with Childs, and Pike's the only one          not here. He did it!The others nod, becoming convinced.                      CHILDS          He is the only one unaccounted for.                      KENDALL          Maybe he's dead too.    Maybe you killed          Them both, Mueller-                      DUNBAR          Shut up.              (to Mueller)          Let me see your grenades.                      MUELLER          Why?                                                             40.                      DUNBAR          We were each given three so whoever          killed West will be missing one.Mueller angrily digs into his sack and pulls out his grenades.                          MUELLER          See?   Three.     Now can we please-He stops. Hearing a SOUND outside.        Through the wind andrain, FOOTSTEPS on the porch.They all turn to the door.       Waiting...The DOOR SWINGS OPEN.. Pike.       Covered in BLOOD.                          PIKE          Hey, guys.They stare at him as he calmly closes the door and walksover to the empty FIREPLACE. Finally:                      DUNBAR          Whose blood is that, Jay?       West's.                      PIKE          Any kindling for afire?He looks around for kindling.       A beat.                      DUNBAR          What do you mean, West's?                      PIKE          I mean I killed him.              (pause)          Isn't that what we all wanted?INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      HARDY          He admitted it.                      KENDALL          Right in front of us. Mueller went          after him but we held him back.          Pike surrendered and volunteered to          be tied up. So we roped him to a          chair and tried to ride out the storm.                      OSBORNE          Why would he just surrender?Kendall turns to her and smiles.                      KENDALL          Because he had a plan.                                                        41.INT. CABIN -- LIVING ROOM -- LAST NIGHTPike, tied to a chair by the fireplace while the others lookfor, food in the KITCHEN. Alone, Kendall walks past Pike:                      PIKE          Hey, Kendall, talk to you for a sec?Kendall looks around - there seems no harm in it.                      PIKE          You hated West as much as I did.          I'm not saying what I did was right,          but you can't tell me you're not          glad the motherfucker's dead.Kendall says nothing. Pike looks around, makes sure no oneis listening and then whispers:                      PIKE          The thing is, we've got a real          opportunity here. You turn me in          Tomorrow and we're both fucked-                      KENOALL          What are you talking about?                      PIKE          A gay Senator's son who let his Sarge          get fragged on a training exercise?          The press'll crucify you and your          father. His career will be over and          it'll be your fault. But we do this          different and you come out a hero.On Kendall, thinking about it.    A beat.                        KENOALL          How?                        PIKE          Mueller.    He's as bad as West and we          both know   it. Now I can't do it,          cause I'm   tied up, but we get the          others to   go along-                      KENDALL          Don't think I want to hear this-                      PIKE          Someone else can do the deed, it          doesn't have to be you. Maybe Nunez          too, he's got a tendency to follow          Mueller, but the rest of us can come          out ahead - the guys who took out          their Sergeant's killers!                      (MORE)                                                        42.                        PIKE (CONT'D)          We'll   move the bodies out to the          creek   and say we came over the hill          right   as they fragged West, all we          gotta   do is tell the story right.Kendall stares at him.   Disgusted.                      KENDALL          You're sick, Pike.He turns and walks away.   Pike watches him go.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          Later on I.saw him talking to Dunbar.          They had been close. I was in another          room when it happened.INT. CABIN -- KITCHEN LAST NIGHTKendall, looking through the empty cabinets for food whenA GUNSHOT -- From the living room. As Kendall bolts towardsthe noise, the air is filled with the sounds of SCREAMINGand SHOOTING! He pushes through the door...INT. CABIN -- LIVING ROOM -- LAST NIGHTKendall, coming through the door as we SLO-MO...Mueller, sprawled out on the floor, dead... Pike, tied tothe chair, bullethole in his forehead... Nunez, wounded,stumbling out the front door into the hurricane...And a badly wounded Childs, pistol out, TURNING towards theSOUND OF THE DOOR and FIRING...Kendall's arm, HIT with a SLUG, and he starts to go down...FREEZE-FRAME -- On Kendall's form, falling.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          I don't think he meant to do it. It          was just reflex - he'd already been          gutshot. I must have passed out          cause next thing I knew...EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- DAWNThe sounds of RUNNING  and HEAVY BREATHING. Kendall's eyesflutter open. He's on   Dunbar's back, being carried throughthe woods. The sound   of GUNFIRE and a TREE BRANCH SHATTERSnext to them. Someone   is chasing them. Trying to kill them.Nunez.                                                        43.Dunbar bobs and weaves as another volley of bullets comesfrom behind and we can now hear ROTOR BLADES APPROACHING...EXT. CLEARING -- DAWNAs Dunbar bursts into the sunlight, carrying Kendall.The entire thing dreamlike, what we saw at the opening, butfrom KENDALL'S VIEWPOINT -- the helicopter overhead, Nunezbehind, Dunbar turning and shooting, NUNEZ GOING DOWN...INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                       KENDALL           And that's it.Hardy is silent.    Staring at him.                       OSBORNE           Nunez was chasing Dunbar.                       KENDALL           Because he'd shot Mueller.                       OSBORNE           But you didn't see it, right?                       KENDALL           Like I said, I was in the kitchen.           When I came out, Mueller and Pike           were dead, Nunez and Childs were hit           and Dunbar was gone.                       HARDY           Why did he come back for you?                       KENDALL           I honestly don't know. Maybe to           have someone to cover for him. And           I wish I could, but there's no doubt           in my mind he killed those men.Silence.   Kendall's got nothing more to say.                       HARDY           Okay. I think that's it.     He rises           and walks to the door.                        KENDALL           Mr. Hardy?Hardy turns back.                       KENDALL           What did Dunbar tell you?                                                        44.Hardy smiles and pushes out the door...EXT. STYLES' OFFICE -- DAYHardy and Osborne stand before the Colonel, filling him in.                      HARDY          Pike killed West, Dunbar killed          Mueller, Childs, and Nunez.                      STYLES          Who killed Pike?                      HARDY          Someone must have got a shot off.          He wasn't exactly a moving target.Styles turns to Osborne.                      STYLES          What do you think?                      OSBORNE          It's too neat.                      HARDY          "Too neat." How long have you been          an investigator?                      OSBORNE          I don't think that has anything to          do with-                      HARDY          That means under a year. Let me          explain what ten years of police          work has taught me - murder is basic.          There are no conspiracies, no grand          mysteries, and no evil puppet masters          behind it all, pulling the strings;          murder is shitty people doing a shitty          thing to other shitty people - it          doesn't always make sense but it's          always neat. Dunbar's our guy.Osborne struggles to put it into words.                      OSBORNE          I just... He came back for Kendall.          I don't think he's capable of murder.                      HARDY          Everyone's capable of murder, Osborne.Osborne turns, making her case to Styles.                                                 45.                      OSBORNE          Look, all we've got is what Kendall          says, and he didn't actually witness          any deaths except Nunez. He found          West, he saw Mueller and Pike, but          just their bodies - he didn't see          any crime committed.                      HARDY          Well, I'm sure if he'd known this          was all going to happen he'd have          Tried harder to witness it for you-                      STYLES          West's body isn't in the creek bed.They stop arguing, turning to look at him.                      STYLES          We've already been over the terrain          twice. Nothing.                      HARDY          There was a hurricane, Bill, the          wind probably moved it.                      STYLES          Habeas Corpus - you have to have a          body to have a crime.                      HARDY          Okay, then let's widen the search          'to include the endzone in Giants          Stadium and the trunk of my car-                      STYLES          Without the body we have no physical          proof. We need a confession.                      HARDY          From Dunbar? I hate to break this          to you, but I don't think he's gonna          be all that psyched to put himself          in for the death penalty.                      STYLES          Nevertheless-                      HARDY          Nevertheless what'? Kendall will          testify and that'll be enough.                        STYLES          Not for me.A beat. Almost accusingly:                                                   46.                      HARDY          You mean not enough to save you.                      STYLES          JAG gets here in three hours.   Try          for the confession.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- DAYDunbar looks up as Hardy and Osborne enter.                      HARDY              (cheerfully)          Hey, Ray! Just had a nice talk with          your buddy. Kendall - seems you          killed three people!                      DUNBAR          That son of a bitch.                      HARDY          That'd be my reaction too-                         DUNBAR          He's lying.                      HARDY          Well, why didn't you say so? We'll          Just drop all your charges, then-                         DUNBAR          I'm serious-Hardy leans across the table.                      HARDY          Fuck "you're serious", Raymond, you          got exactly zero truck with us; right          now we'd take the word of a crackhead          over yours, so if you've got something          to say, say it.                      DUNBAR          Did Kendall tell you about the PX?                      OSBORNE          He said he worked there-                      DUNBAR          No, did he tell you about it?   About          the business Childs ran?                      OSBORNE          What business?                                                        47.                      DUNBAR          Pills, shots, you name it, Basic's a          lot easier when you don't feel pain-                      HARDY          So Childs made some side money, so          what? People are dead, Ray, and the          only one we have to blame is you-                      DUNBAR          Didn't shoot West-                      HARDY          Yeah, we know, Pike did.Dunbar stares at him.                      DUNBAR          You think you know everything, don't          you? You haven't even scratched the          surface.Hardy leans across the table, looks Dunbar dead in the eye.                      HARDY          I know enough to know you got two          choices - you can sign a confession,          in which case you'll probably spend          the rest of your life in a military          prison, or you can tell us to fuck          off, in which case you'll probably          get the gas chamber.              (smiling)          Am I scratching your surface yet?Dunbar stares at him for a moment and then LAUNCHES HIMSELFat Hardy, SCREAMING. Tackles him to the floor, CHOKING HIM...Osborne, pulling her sidearm, and PISTOL WHIPPING Dunbar inthe head! Dunbar goes sprawling off Hardy as M.P.'s rushinto the room, RESTRAINING him.Hardy gets up, gasping, and stumbles to the door.                         OSBORNE          Hardy!But he's already gone.INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- CORRIDORS -- DAYHardy, walking angrily towards the front entrance, wheezingand massaging his neck. Osborne, runninq to catch up.                      HARDY          Why the fuck wasn't he in restraints?                                                          48.                      OSBORNE          I don't know.Styles appears at the end of the hall.                      STYLES          Tom, where are you going-                      HARDY          Home, I'm done.                      STYLES          What about the confession?Hardy stares at him. ..                      HARDY          You want a confession? Why don't          you confess, Bill: people are dead          and you don't give a shit about it!          Only reason you called me is to          protect your fucking job, you know          this is your fault-                      STYLES          What the hell are you talking about-                      HARDY          I'm talking about West! We had him,          Bill, we were there. You're the          fucking Base Commander, you knew          what he did to Cadets and you let          him go on the way he always he has-          Styles couldn't reassign him, he's a          legend-                      HARDY          You knew what he was capable of and          you just stood by. It was just a          matter of time till somebody fragged          his ass, and you know what? He          deserved it. There's your confession.He pushes past a shocked Styles and walks out the door.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- PARADE GROUNDS -- DAYHardy storms across the grass.   Osborne, still following.                      OSBORNE          Goddammit, Hardy, you can't just          leave-                      HARDY          Watch me.                                                   49.                       OSBORNE           You said you owed Styles and now           you're gonna turn your back on him?Hardy whirls on her.                       HARDY           West was a monster! Fifteen years           ago, I was here, I was Section Eight,           I was Pike. Fuck being the knife           dummy- that thing he did, stripping           Pike down, making him stand outside           all night? He did that every year,           he did that to me. Fifteen years           ago, I wanted him dead, and now I'm           supposed to care that somebody offed           him? Sorry, no can do. I tried.                       OSBORNE           You did more than try. You cracked           Dunbar in less than three minutes,           as an investigator you're phenomenal-                       HARDY           Phenomenal at taking bribes, right?A beat.   Osborne shakes her head.                       OSBORNE           I was starting to believe you, you           know? That you weren't who everyone           Said. I guess I was wrong-                       HARDY           Oh, spare me the reverse psychology           bullshit! This isn't my "great second           chance", Osborne. Everyone thinks           I'm a piece of shit cop who took           money and nothing is going to change           that. Nobody will ever know what           happens here-                       OSBORNE           But you will.Hardy stares at her.                       HARDY           Why do you care?                       OSBORNE           Because it's my job. Because people           are dead. Because of the whole honor           and duty thing, make a difference in           the world, crap like that.               (pause)           We can do this, Hardy.                                                      50.Hardy looks at the ground.                      OSBORNE          Two and a half hours. That's all          I'm asking. Two and a half hours to          maybe get the truth. Silence.Hardy looks back up at her.     Speaking softly:                      HARDY          I didn't shoot West...                       OSBORNE          What?                      HARDY          Dunbar... He said he didn't shoot          West. West wasn't shot, Kendall          said he was blown apart by a          phosphorous grenade and Dunbar never          saw the body.They stare at each other for a moment...INT. COFFEE ROOM -- DAYHardy and Osborne enter to find Dunbar in SHACKLES.                       DUNBAR          Apologize-                      HARDY          You saw West's body.                       DUNBAR          Of course-                       OSBORNE          Where?                      DUNBAR          The creek bed-                      HARDY          And he'd been shot.                       DUNBAR          Yeah-                      OSBORNE          What about the phosphorous grenade?                      DUNBAR          One went off, yeah, but it didn't          Touch him- I thought you knew this-                                                         51.                      HARDY          Tell it to me.INT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED -- LAST NIGHTDunbar and Nunez RUNNING towards the glow of phosphorous andsound of GUNFIRE. They come over the hill to see Childs andKendall, standing over WEST'S BODY. Dunbar stops, shocked.                      DUNBAR          Holy fuck... Holy fuck, what the          fuck did you guys do?                      CHILDS          We found him like this...Dunbar edges closer, looking at West.   With BULLET HOLES.His chest, riddled.                      KENDALL          Somebody emptied a full clip into          him-                      HARDY (V.O.}          Stop.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      HARDY          Kendall told us Mueller was the one          who found them with West's body.                      DUNBAR          He's lying, then. We didn't see          Mueller till we got to the cabin.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTDunbar, Kendall, Childs, and Nunez push through the door tofind Mueller in his undershirt, a FIRE burning in the hearth.                      MUELLER          Jesus, what happened?                      DUNBAR              (breathing hard)          West...he's dead.                      OSBORNE (V.O.}          Back up.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      OSBORNE          Mueller was alone in the cabin?                                                        52.                       DUNBAR          Yeah.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHT                      MUE:LLER          Pike and I got separated... then I          heard gunfire. Close.                       DUNBAR          So did we.   Why didn't you come?Mueller looks down, scared.                      MUELLER          I was afraid... Mueller voice FADES          OUT as he continues to talk.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          I didn't buy it. But Mueller had          all three of his grenades.Mueller shows his three grenades to the others.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      OSBORNE          At least you and Kendall agree on          that.                      HARDY          What happened next?     Dunbar shudders.                      DUNBAR          Pike came back.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTPike, staggering in through the door. The others get upfrom where they are sitting - it's been awhile since theyarrived. Pike shouts at Mueller:                      PIKE          What the fuck happened to you-                      MUELLER          What the fuck happened to you? One          minute you're next to me and the          next you're gone and the sky lights          up like fucking Christmas-                      DUNBAR          Where have you been, Jay?                                                            53.                       PIKE           Wandering through a hurricane trying           to find this place. It's gettin'           bad out there-               (looking around)           Where's West?                       CHILDS           Yeah, right. . .                        DUNBAR           Shut up.               (to Pike)           West's dead.A beat.                       PIKE           What?Silence.   All of them staring at Pike.                       DUNBAR           Where have you been, Jay?Pike, suddenly understanding.      Fear creeping into his face.                       PIKE           Oh, no. . . no, fuck that-He moves to the door, but. . .                       NUNEZ           Hey!Nunez, with his PISTOL out.      Trained on Pike.                       PIKE           Roberto, what the fuck?                       DUNBAR           We just want to check your pack-                       PIKE           Why?                       MUELLER           Whoever shot the Sarge blew a grenade           first-                       PIKE           Blame the nigger, then, huh? Someone           turns up dead, you just look for the           Darkest face in the crowd-                       DUNBAR           You know it's not like that-                                                         54.                          PIKE            Do I?The CLICK as Nunez pulls back the pistol's hammer.                        NUNEZ            Let him check your pack.Pike stares at them and then throws his pack down, angrily.Dunbar goes to it, opens it, and reaches in. Pulls his handout. Only TWO GRENADES. Looks at Pike. Sadly.                          DUNBAR            Tie him up.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTLater. The fury of the storm has increased. Kendall, Childs,Nunez, and Mueller, in the KITCHEN looking for food.IN THE LIVING ROOMPike, tied to the chair. Dunbar sitting in a corner,listening to the hurricane rage outside. Pike watches him.                        PIKE            Just like the first day, huh?    You            standing guard on me.A CREAKING as the cabin SHIFTS on it's foundation.   Dunbarlooks up at the roof, scared. It holds.                        PIKE            This place ain't gonna hold much            longer.Dunbar doesn't reply. Still staring nervously at the roof.Pike looks to make sure the others out of earshot, then:                        PIKE            You and me are friends, right?No reply.                          PIKE            Right?                          DUNBAR            Yeah...Pike takes a deep breath.                        PIKE            You gotta untie me.                (off Dunbar's look)            I didn't do this thing, Ray.                                                    55.                      DUNBAR          You hated West more than any of us.                      PIKE          Maybe, but that don't make me a killer-                      DUNBAR          You're the only one missing a grenade.                      PIKE          Which anyone coulda taken out of my          gear on the chopper. Were you          watching your pack on the ride in?Dunbar starts to get up.                      PIKE          Ray, this is my life    here. I ain't          gonna pretend I'm not    happy West is          gone, but you know I    couldn't have          done this. It's not     in me.                      DUNBAR          If not you, then who?                         PIKE          Mueller.                         DUNBAR          Oh, come on-                      PIKE          We're sweeping our area and suddenly          he's gone. Couple minutes later,          phosphorous grenade pops off about a          third of a click away-                      DUNBAR          That's exactly what he says about          you.                       PIKE          Who you gonna trust, Ray?    Him or          your friend?Dunbar stares at him.                      DUNBAR          You hated West, Mueller loved him-                      PIKE          Enough to go to prison? Childs' PX          Scam, Mueller was in on it-                         DUNBAR          Bullshit.                                                          56.                      PIKE          Look in my pack.                       DUNBAR          Why?                       PIKE          Just look.   Little pocket.Dunbar walks over to Pike's pack and unzips it.    Checks thelittle pocket. Pulls out a VIAL and a SYRINGE.                      PIKE          Combat grade morphine.    Mueller sold          it to me. .                      DUNBAR          You're lying-                      PIKE          Pull up my sleeve.    Right arm.Dunbar does to reveal a cluster of TRACK MARKS.                      PIKE          That look like a lie to you? I been          using solid for the last eight weeks.Dunbar sits down.   Not knowing what to say.                      PIKE          After that first night on the parade          Grounds with you, I was bad -          Exposure, malnutrition, the works.          I needed something to keep me from          crashing. Mueller found me.INT. CADET SHOWERS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGOEmpty except for Pike. He sits, nude, curled up on the tile,as the nozzles blast STEAMING WATER down onto his shiveringform. FOOTSTEPS approaching. Mueller. He leans down nextto Pike, speaking to him. Kindly.                      PIKE (V.O.)          He said he knew guy who had an in at          the PX, could hook me up. This is          before I knew what a dick he was.As Mueller produces a SYRINGE from his pocket...INT. BASE PX -- BACKROOM -- SIX WEEKS AGOA covert meeting among stacks of supplies. Childs standswith Mueller, talking to a gaunt Pike. Behind Pike are agroup of other SICKLY LOOKING CADETS, all jonesing.                                                        57.                       PIKE           Later on Childs got assigned there,           started running the shit out to every           cadet who needed it. But I was our           class's first customer.. .Pike hands the smiling Mueller a WAD OF CASH...INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTDunbar staring open mouthed at Pike.    Shocked.                       DUNBAR           Why... why didn't you tell me?                        PIKE           Becoming a morphine addict during           Basic ain't exactly something you           want to broadcast. Only Mueller and           Childs know.A beat.   Dunbar gets to his feet.                       DUNBAR           That still doesn't mean you didn't           kill him.                       PIKE           You saw West, right?   How was he           killed?                       DUNBAR           Full clip to the body-                       PIKE           From up close or far away?                       DUNBAR           His chest was hamburger-                       PIKE           That's close range. You go full           auto on a guy from close range, you're           gonna be swimming in blood. Look at           my uniform. Nothing.Dunbar looks.   Not a speck of blood on it.                       PIKE           And where's Mueller's? When I came           in, he was only wearing a t-shirt.Dunbar looks over to fireplace, where ashes are smoldering...FLASHCUT TO - When Dunbar first entered the Cabin: Mueller,standing there in a T-SHIRT, a FIRE burning in the hearth.                                                           58.                      PIKE          Way I figure it, West must have found          out about their little business and          was gonna bust them, so they decided          to get rid of him first...                         DUNBAR              (softly)          They?                      PIKE          Mueller and Childs. One of them          must've taken the grenade from my          pack on the chopper...INT. TRANSPORT HELICOPTER (FLYING) -- EARLIER LAST NIGHTThe Sectioners sit, stonefaced, staring out the window.CLOSE ON - Mueller's hand as it snakes into Pike's pack andextracts a phosphorous grenade.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- EARLIER LAST NIGHTMueller and Pike, twenty feet apart, scouring the brush fortargets. Mueller looks to Pike and then slips away...                      PIKE (V.O.)          Then Mueller ditches me during the          exercise and heads for the creek.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED,-- EARLIER LAST NIGHTMueller stands on the hill and pulls the grenades pin, tossingit down the embankment. ..                      PIKE (V.O.)          He blows the grenade to frame me and          gets West to come running... .The grenade BLOWS, setting the entire area AGLOW...EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- EARLIER LAST NIGHTKendall and Childs, turning towards the sound...Note: Each shot of Kendall and Childs in this sequence shouldcorrespond exactly to Kendall's Flashback.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED -- NIGHTWest emerges from the bush at a sprint.                      WEST          What the fuck is going on?!Mueller runs down the embankment toward him.                                                          59.                      MUELLER          Don't know, sir, I-Six feet away from West, Mueller suddenly raises his rifleand PULLS THE TRIGGER.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- EARLIER LAST NIGHTKendall and Childs, running in the direction of the grenade...                       PIKE          Childs' job is easy, he only has to          delay Kendall long enough for Mueller          to get away.Suddenly MACHINE GUNFIRE shatters the night!                      CHILDS          GET DOWN!He tackles Kendall into the mud.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED -- EARLIER LAST NIGHTMueller, smoking rifle in hand, uniform covered in bloodstands over WEST'S DEAD BODY. He turns and runs off INTOTHE BRUSH. A moment later, Childs and Kendall come intoview at the top of the embankment...                      PIKE (V.O.)          Now all Mueller has to do is get rid          of the evidence...INT. CABIN -- EARLIER LAST NIGHTMueller, still covered in blood, enters the dark cabin. Hestrips of his shirt and throws it in the fireplace. Strikinga match, igniting the bloody rag... .                      PIKE (V.O.)          And wait for everyone else to arrive.Mueller, watching the evidence burn...INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTPike sighs, finished with his story.                      DUNBAR          I... I don't know...                      PIKE          What don't you know?                      DUNBAR          This is a lot of information to be          Getting... I have to think-                                                          60.The hurricane outside GROWING LOUDER as the Cabin ROCKS again.The sound of WOOD SNAPPING. Pike stares up at the roof.                      PIKE          There's no time to think, Ray, we          gotta get out of here! You untie          me, we grab the guns, get Kendall          and Nunez, and make a run for it-                      DUNBAR          No... no, we can just wait till we          get back and then tell the M.P.'s-                      PIKE          We wait and I'm a dead man. I got a          black face, a criminal record, and          over a hundred other cadets who'll          testify how much I hated West - my          court martial will take six minutes.          It's either me or them, Ray, and you          gotta decide right now.The cabin SHIFTS again.     Dunbar stares at him.                       PIKE          Untie me.Dunbar doesn't move.                      PIKE          Untie me, Ray.A long beat.   The two men stare at each other.And then Dunbar pulls his knife from his boot and leans downto cut Pike's bonds.                      PIKE          Thank God. . .                      MUELLER (O.S.)          What the fuck are you doing?Dunbar freezes.   Caught.He looks to the open kitchen door where Mueller stands.                      MUELLER          Guys, get out here!The others enter the room. Dunbar, kneeling there, knifeinches away from severing Pike's ropes.                      PIKE          This place is going, Mueller.     We          gotta move-                                                        61.                      MUELLER          Shut the fuck up.              (to the others)          He was gonna cut him loose.The others stare at Dunbar.                        NUNEZ          Why?                      PIKE          Cause I didn't do it.Childs motions to Dunbar.                      CHILDS          Get away from there.He's serious.    Dunbar moves away from Pike.                      MUELLER          We all know what you did, Pike. I          don't know what kind of nigger voodoo          You been working in here, but-                      PIKE          Where's your shirt, Mueller?                      MUELLER          Used it to start the fire-                      PIKE          Still got mine on, not a speck of          blood on it. Not a bad trick for a          murderer- you said you burned yours?The others begin to look at Mueller with new eyes.                      MUELLER          Was freezing from the hurricane-                      KENDALL          So you took off your shirt?                      MUELLER          To start a fire, goddammit!              (pointing to Pike)          What about him, huh? Maybe he offed          the Sarge and changed shirts, brought          an extra one in his pack. Y'ever          think of that? Go ahead, cut him          loose! First chance he gets, he'll          waste the rest of us, that's how          they work-The hurricane, reaching FEVER PITCH outside as WATER beginsleaking in through the roof.                                                   62.                      PIKE          Goddammit, Ray, we gotta get out of          Here-                      MUELLER          We're not going anywhere.PIKE TURNS TO MUELLER:                      PIKE          Cadet Michael Mueller, I hereby place          you under military arrest for the          Murder of Sergeant Nathan West-                      MUELLER          The fuck are you talking about-                      PIKE          You are to be stripped of all weapons          And placed under guard-                         MUELLER          Bullshit-                      PIKE          Until we return to base, and          ballistics can match your weapon to          the slugs in Sergeant West's body-                         MUELLER          Shut up!Mueller pulls his SIDEARM and POINTS IT AT PIKE.                      KENDALL          Mueller, what the fuck-                      DUNBAR          Don't do this-Pike, EYES LOCKED with Mueller.    Continuing:                      PIKE          A test will no doubt link you to the          Killing-                         DUNBAR          Put it down!                      MUELLER          Tell him to shut up-                      PIKE          -failure to comply with this arrest          is a court martialable offense in          and of itself-                                                             63.                      KENDALL          Pike, please-                      PIKE          Although that won't matter much when          Coupled with the murder charge-                      MUELLER          SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING NIGGER-Pike leans forward.                      PIKE          You stupid white trash motherfucker,          I saw you do it-And Mueller FIRES.Pike's head SNAPS BACK.The gunshot, DEAFENING.    Then, for an eternity, SILENCE.Nobody moves.   Nobody breathes.   As if time has stopped.                      KENDALL          Oh.. . my God...Mueller lowers his arm, the pistol clattering to the floor.His face, as shocked as the others.                      MUELLER          He wouldn't... stop talking...He takes a step forward towards Pike.    A hole in the middleof the black man's forehead.                       DUNBAR              (softly)          So you killed him?                        MUELLER          I. . .Almost mechanically, Dunbar begins to reach for his own gun...The unmistakable sound of a two rifles' magazines being RACKEDsimultaneously. Dunbar turns to see Childs and Nunez, theirM-16's in hand. Levelled at him.                      CHILDS          Get that hand away.Dunbar does.    Looks to Nunez.                        DUNBAR          You too?                                                           64.                      CHILDS          We can still come out of this okay.          Pike got free, he got a gun, he came          after us. That's the story.Mueller collapses on the ground.   Head in hands.                      MUELLER          West was one thing, but this-                      CHILDS          Shut up, Mueller.                      KENDALL          You framed-him...                      CHILDS          None of that matters now. We got          two dead bodies and a story that          explains them. You're either with          us, or against us - which is it?Dunbar and Kendall, looking at each other. It's clear whatthe wrong answer will mean. A long beat, until                      KENDALL          Okay-He is cut off as the WIND outside ROARS - the HURRICANEmounting to it's FULL FORCE - and the WINDOWS BLOW INWARDS,showering Childs, Mueller, and Nunez with glass!Dunbar's hand flies to his pistol, PULLING IT...Mueller, SCREAMING, trying to claw the glass from his EYES...Childs, seeing Dunbar move, PULLS THE TRIGGER. .. .And the cabin is filled with the THUNDER OF GUNFIRE as Kendallgoes down, clutching his ARM...DUNBAR FIRES, hitting Childs directly in the chest...Childs, still shooting, falls back, his random spray ofbullets PUNCHING INTO MUELLER who jerks like a marionette...Nunez, drawing a bead on Dunbar, about to shoot, when...A great CRESCENDO of WOOD SPLINTERING and SUPPORTS BUCKLINGovertakes them and the CABIN'S ROOF COMES DOWN ON THEIR HEADS.EXT. DEMOLISHED CABIN -- FIRST LIGHTHours later. The rain has lessened and the Hurricane hasbegun to lift as Dunbar pulls himself from the debris.Hearing a FAINT CRY from his left.                                                        65.Kendall.   Half conscious, his arm, bloody.Dunbar slings the man across his shoulders as the rising sunbegins to peak through the clouds overhead.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- SUNRISEDunbar, carrying Kendall towards the clearing when GUNFIREcomes from behind. He turns to look...Nunez. The only other survivor from the Cabin. A hundredyards back, rifle in hand, coming after them with a vengeance.Dunbar, sprinting towards the clearing, bullets at his heelsand as he bursts from the tree line he looks up to see aHELICOPTER OVERHEAD                       DUNBAR (V.O.)           And then I killed the last of them.FLASHCUT TO - Nunez, chest blown open, going down...INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT DAYAnd we're back to the interrogation. Dunbar, stubbing out acigarette and looking up at Hardy and Osborne.                       DUNBAR           Can I have some coffee?Osborne blinks, like a trance has been broken.                       OSBORNE           Yeah... yeah, sure.She goes over to the machine and pours a cup.                       HARDY           You shot Childs and Nunez.                       DUNBAR           They would have killed us both. You           want me to write a confession, I'll           write a confession.                       HARDY           You saved Kendall's life-                       DUNBAR           But not Pike's.Osborne hands him the coffee.                       OSBORNE           Why didn't you tell us all this in           the first place?                                                         66.                      DUNBAR          Would you have believed me?Their faces say "no".   Osborne spreads a MAP out on the table.                      OSBORNE          Where's the cabin?                      DUNBAR          Don't know on a map. West told us          it was there, we just found it.          Maybe the hurricane took it away.                      HARDY          Raymond, for you to have any chance          of coming out of this, we need to          locate the other bodies and examine          them to corroborate your testimony.          Otherwise this is just another story-                      DUNBAR          Mr. Hardy, I joined the army for          college money. I didn't ask for any          of this - I tried to do the right          thing out there and people got killed.          You say finding those bodies'll help          me, then go find them. I don't want          to die.EXT. FOR MCKINLEY -- CORRIDORS -- DAYHardy and Osborne, walking and talking.                      OSBORNE          Talk it through: Childs, Mueller,          and Nunez know they're going out on          the regular Tuesday Night drill,          hurricane or ho hurricane, so they          plan it: Kill West, pin it on Pike.                      HARDY          And they're smart about it. They          know when you commit a crime you          know is going to be investigated,          you need a fall guy and for that to          work, you have to have a witness.                        OSBORNE          Dunbar.                      HARDY          Exactly, someone who's not involved,          who's word can't be questioned. You          only let them see what you want them          to see, you make them believe, so          when the time comes, they've totally          bought into your version of events.                                                        67.                      OSBORNE          They believe the innocent are guilty          and the guilty are innocent.                      HARDY          And if they're asked, that's what          they'll tell the, world.                       OSBORNE          So it's a good plan but it goes wrong;          Mueller flips out and shoots their          fall guy, which means they have to          bring Dunbar and Kendall into the          Cover story-                      HARDY          Kendall maybe would have agreed, but          The hurricane buttfucks the cabin-                      OSBORNE          Buttfucks the cabin?                      HARDY          And all hell breaks loose. A lot of          Good guys shoot a lot of bad guys          and whiz, bang, zoom, happy ending.                      OSBORNE          So why, after Dunbar drags Kendall          out from under a house, does the          Senator's son try and get us to put          his savior in the gas chamber?                      HARDY          That bugs you too?                        OSBORNE          Little bit.                      HARDY          Let's go talk to Bill...INT. STYLES' OFFICE -- DAYHardy and Osborne stand in front of an agitated Styles. Hetries to take a hit off his asthma inhaler and gets nothing.Frustrated, he tosses it away.                      STYLES          Fucking asthma... This whole thing's          driving it nuts.A beat.                      HARDY          What I said before-                                                             68.                      STYLES          Was dead right. You think Dunbar's          on the level?                        HARDY          Yeah.                      STYLES          Does Osborne agree?                      OSBORNE          Yes, sir, I do.Hardy lays a piece of paper on Styles' desk.                      HARDY          Dunbar's confession. It should be          enough to get you out of trouble.Styles looks at it and then slowly up to Hardy.                      STYLES          You want Kendall, don't you?                      OSBORNE          He tried to burn Dunbar to us. You          don't do that if you're not involved.Hardy nods, agreeing.   Styles stares at them.                      STYLES          You both know if you do this, if you          go after a Senator's son and you're          wrong... it's not just me in the hot          seat anymore.                        OSBORNE          We know.                      STYLES              (to Hardy)          I'm giving you a chance to walk away.                        HARDY          We know.Styles nods and looks to his desk.      Almost to himself:                      STYLES          You don't get to be a Colonel without          compromising. Without getting out          of the way of the bigger dogs. You          politic, play it safe, think of the          career first. And when things get          dirty, you just look the other way...He looks back up at Hardy.      His eyes, steeled.                                                          69.                      STYLES          Four of my men are dead. You think          Kendall had something to do with it,          then you go get the son of a bitch.INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- DAYKendall lies in his bed, looking worse than before.   Hardyand Osborne enter.                      OSBORNE          Pike never confessed.                      KENDALL          We've been making progress, I see.Osborne looks to her watch.   Kendall notices.                      KENDALL          Running out of time, are we? Tick-          Tock, tick-tock, how long till your          witnesses fly the coop?                      OSBORNE          Fifty minutes.                      KENDALL          Not much time to solve the crime.          Tell me, detective, how did it feel          taking blood money from Guissepe          Torres? Did it weigh on your          conscience or did you just not think          about it?                      HARDY          You tried to pin three stone murders          on Dunbar-                      KENDALL          How many murders did you cover up?          One? Five? Maybe an even ten.                      HARDY              (to Osborne)          Can I go to jail for punching a guy          who's been shot?Kendall begins coughing.                      KENDALL          I think they're giving me the wrong          medicine. This isn't a very good          Hospital, you know-Hardy sighs and goes to the sink to get him some water.                                                        70.                      KENDALL          Epileptic attacks are murder on your          system. Rattle your internal organs          like a paint mixer.                      HARDY          My heart weeps.He returns with a GLASS OF WATER and hands it to Kendall.                      OSBORNE          Pike never confessed.                      KENDALL          No, but it got you interested, didn't          it? Got you to dig. Inspired Ray          to tell you terribly sordid tales          about drugs and creek beds and dead          little sergeants who stuck their          noses where they didn't belong.                      HARDY          Is it the truth?                      KENDALL          There's that word again.              (smiling)          As I told you, I wasn't in the room          when everyone started shooting.                      OSBORNE          Dunbar says you were.                      KENDALL          Then he's mistaken. You know, I          really don't think my father would          approve of this line of questioning-                      HARDY          Why did you tell us he shot everybody,          Levi? You put him in for three          murders, the man saved your life-                      KENDALL          So I should stay silent about his          misdeeds? The guns went off, I ran          in, Childs shot me, Pike and Mueller          were dead, and Dunbar was running          out the door with the smoking gun-                      HARDY          Dunbar was running out the door?          Ohhhhhh... See that's where I was          confused, because I thought you said          Nunez was running out the door.                                                           71.                       KENDALL          No.   I said Dunbar.                      HARDY          Huh. You know, I really thought you          said Nunez. I thought you said          "Dunbar was gone," My fault, I gotta          check the tape on that.              (off Kendall's look)          Oh, yeah we taped the last interview.          This one too. Cause it'd be a real          break for us to catch you in a lie.Silence. They wait for Kendall's reaction. He looksmomentarily flustered by this... and then he smiles.                      KENDALL          I believe your next line is "What          are you trying to hide?"                       HARDY          Well?                      KENDALL          Sorry to disappoint. I'm on          painkillers for the injury - they          cloud the mind. You're right, it          was Nunez. Any more questions?Hardy doesn't know what to say.   That was his ace card.                      KENDALL          Don't get me wrong, Mueller and Childs          were quite the pair, the type of          guys you didn't feel comfortable          going to sleep around. Completely          capable of murder. But as I said, I          didn't hear the exchange before the          shooting. I wasn't in the room.Osborne furrows her brow at this as Hardy continues.                      HARDY          Dunbar will testify that you were.                      KENDALL          Then we'll leave it up to the courts -          His word against mine. What does          his father do again? Steelworker?              (smiling)          Doesn't matter, I'm sure justice          will be served. In any case, my          father will definitely want to talk          to you about all these questions,          these accusations on his son. He's          quite protective.                                                             72.Osborne turns to Hardy.                         OSBORNE             I need to talk to you outside.EXT. BASE HOSPITAL -- CORRIDOR -- DAYOsborne and Hardy, exiting the room.      Whispering:                         HARDY             We're fucked, I know-                         OSBORNE             They got their stories straight.                           HARDY             What?                         OSBORNE             What Kendall said - "the type of             guys you don't feel comfortable going             to sleep around." That's what Dunbar             said about Childs to the letter.                         HARDY             Are you sure?                           OSBORNE             Positive.    Hardy, they planned this.She grins.    He grins back.                         OSBORNE             Not bad for hostile and uncooperative,             eh?INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- DAYHardy and Osborne reenter, smiling.      Kendall chuckles.                         HARDY             Something funny, Levi?                         KENDALL             I was just thinking of what's going             to happen to your careers when my             father gets through with you.Hardy pulls the out MICRORECORDER and hands it to Osborne.                         HARDY             Why don't you talk to Levi off the             record for a second?                           OSBORNE             Good idea.                                                         73.Smiling, she stops the tape.    Then turns to Kendall.                      OSBORNE          You and Dunbar got your stories          straight. Little details, little          inconsistencies, designed to bounce          us back from one of you to the other,          asking questions, killing time, until          the transport arrives and whisks you          away to where Senator Daddy can          protect you. You think you're just          going to slide out of this? You're          an accessory to murder, Levi, you're          Going to jail-                      KENDALL          You can't threaten me-                       HARDY          Jail if he's lucky, the gas chamber          if he's not-                      KENDALL          Didn't do anything-Osborne laughs.                       OSBORNE          It doesn't matter, Levi. We're going          to find those bodies and when we do,          I'm going to make sure one of them          has a bullet in them that matches          your weapon-                      KENDALL          What?                      HARDY          That's a fantastic idea-                      OSBORNE          See, I just take your gun to the          morgue and fire it into one of their          skulls; then I call every newspaper          in the country with the story about          how Senator Kendall's gay son went          nuts on a training mission-                      KENDALL              (beginning to panic)          It won't work-                      OSBORNE          It will and you know why?              (MORE)                                                        74.                       OSBORNE           Because you're not a person anymore,           you're a cadet in the United States           Army; you have no identity, no Miranda           warning, and no rights. So I'm gonna           throw you to the wolves, and unlike           you I'm gonna get away with it,           because you're pissing me off!She finishes, breathing hard. Kendall, totally cowed. Hardy,trying to suppress a smile. Osborne rises for the door.                       OSBORNE           Enjoy your flight to Washington-                        KENDALL           Wait-                        OSBORNE           What.Silence.   Kendall takes a deep breath.                       KENDALL           Dunbar's telling the truth.                       OSBORNE           Wrong answer-                       KENDALL           We did get our stories straight, but           not because we killed anyone.               (pause)           It was because I threatened him.                        HARDY           Why?                       KENDALL           Because of what I saw.               (pause)           Who really killed West.Osborne holds up the microrecorder and starts the tape again.                       OSBORNE           Who killed Sergeant West?Kendall stares at the recorder.   A long pause.                        OSBORNE           Who, Levi-                        KENDALL           Childs.                                                           75.                      HARDY          How do you know?                      KENDALL          Because I was standing next to him.He pauses, taking a shaky sip of water.                      KENDALL          I was in on the PX thing. He and          Mueller and me, we were making          thousands. West found out. Childs          said we were just gonna scare him -          Use my Dad's clout. I had this whole          speech prepared about how if he ratted          us, his career was over. We met him          in the creek bed but before I said          anything...EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED -- LAST NIGHTWest stands in front of Childs and Kendall, facing them.Kendall opens his mouth to speak, but Childs steps forwardand raises his rifle, FIRING...INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      KENDALL          I swear, I didn't know he was gonna          do it. After, he told me we were          gonna pin it on Pike, one of our          biggest customers.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTAs they TIE PIKE to the, chair.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          Nobody'd believe the word of a black          junkie ex-con against ours.Childs gives Kendall a look that says "Stay quiet".                      KENDALL (V.O.)          He told me I'd better keep quiet, or          I'd end up the same as West.Pan over to Dunbar, who binds his friend, sadly.                      KENDALL (V.O.)          Dunbar didn't know anything about          any of it. Everything he told you          was true, except after...                                                       76.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- LAST NIGHTDunbar pulls Kendall from the cabin's wreckage. As Kendallbegins to talk to him, Dunbar's eyes widen in shock. ..                      KENDALL (V.O.)          I told him what had really happened          to West. Told him to keep quiet          about it or I'd destroy him. Because          if it came out that I was involved          with the whole PX scam, my father          would be finished.INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                      KENDALL          I scared Dunbar into silence.  He's          been trying to cover for me the whole          time. We got here, you came to  see          me... I didn't know if I could trust          him with that kind of secret-                      OSBORNE          So you framed him. The same way          Childs was going to frame Pike.Kendall nods.   Crying a little.                      HARDY          Little advice, Levi, next time you          frame a guy, pick someone who can't          defend themselves.Kendall says nothing.                      OSBORNE          What happened with Nunez?                      KENDALL          He came after us. And I told Dunbar          he had to kill him...EXT. CLEARING -- EARLIER THAT MORNINGThe helicopter, hovering overhead. Dunbar, carrying Kendall,spinning his rifle to face Nunez, sixty yards away. Dunbarhesitates before firing, not wanting to...                        KENDALL          Do it!Dunbar's rifle ERUPTS...INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- PRESENT DAY                        KENDALL          And he did.                                                          77.Kendall finishes, wiping his face.    Osborne turns to Hardy.                      OSBORNE          That's how you do good cop/bad cop.Hardy smiles and gets up.   Walking slowly to Kendall's bed.                      HARDY          Childs did it, huh?Kendall nods, still a little teary.                      HARDY          First Pike, then Mueller, now Childs?          When are we getting to the others?          When are we gonna hear about Nunez?FLASHCUT TO - NUNEZ, in the creek bed, SHOOTING WEST.                        HARDY          Or Dunbar?FLASHCUT TO - Now DUNBAR, SHOOTING WEST.                      HARDY          Or you, Levi? When is it finally          going to come out that you were the          one who killed him?FLASHCUT TO - KENDALL, SHOOTING WEST.                        KENDALL          I didn't-                      HARDY          But you can't prove it! You can't          prove anything until we find the          bodies!Kendall, crying harder now, beginning to shake.                      HARDY          You lied to us, Levi, you're going          to the gas chamber unless you tell          us where to find them!                      KENDALL          I don't know-                      HARDY          Where are they!                        KENDALL          Maybe-                        HARDY          MAYBE WHAT-                                                        78.                      KENDALL          MAYBE HE-And then. His mouth SLAMS SHUT. Teeth cracking togetherover and over again like a metronome on speed, and his bodyJERKS HORRIBLY, going horizontal, SHAKING VIOLENTLY!Osborne, leaping to her feet.                      OSBORNE          Get something between his teeth!Hardy grabs a fork from the bedside table and tries to shoveit into Kendall's chattering mouth. His teeth, CLAMPINGDOWN on the metal and Hardy's hand, drawing blood.                      HARDY          Shit!The Nurse bursts into the room.                      NURSE          What is-                      OSBORNE          He's an epileptic!The Nurse runs to the bed, pushing Hardy aside. As moreMEDICAL PERSONNEL runs into the room, they usher Hardy andOsborne to the door.                      DOCTOR          You're going to have to wait outside-                      OSBORNE          He's a witness!                      DOCTOR          It doesn't matter, outside-                      KENDALL          F-F-F-F-F-F-Fuh-Osborne tries to move to him, but the Doctor blocks her path.                      OSBORNE          He's trying to say something-                      DOCTOR          Out, NOW.                      KENDALL          Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Osborne knocks the Doctor down and runs to Kendall's side.                                                            79.                        DOCTOR           SECURITY!Kendall looks up, focusing on Osborne, a slight moment ofclarity in his eyes.                       KENDALL           Fuh-Fucking Pike.And relapses into ANOTHER FIT as SECURITY GUARDS drag Hardyand Osborne from the room.INT. BASE HOSPITAL -- WAITING ROOM -- DAYLater.   Hardy and Osborne sit in silence, eyes downcast.Waiting. Hardy pulls his last cigarette from the pack, lightsit, crumples the pack and tosses it into a garbage can.                       HARDY           I pushed him too hard.                       OSBORNE           You couldn't have known-                       HARDY           Yeah, I could've.      Should've.                       OSBORNE           You wanted to get the truth.                       HARDY           No, I didn't. I wanted to humiliate           him. For what he did to Dunbar.           For fucking over the little guy.                       OSBORNE           You mean the falsely accused?Hardy looks up at her and nods.                       OSBORNE           You wanted to break him.                        HARDY           Yeah.                        OSBORNE           So did I.She looks back to the floor. Hardy takes a drag from thecigarette, and then tosses that away too.The door opens and Styles walks into the room.    Somber.                        STYLES           It's over.   Time of death was 4:42.                        (MORE)                                                         80.                      STYLES (CONT'D)          JAG's been notified and I called the          Senator myself. My report will          reflect that his medical condition          made this unavoidable... you two had          no culpability in the matter.                      HARDY          That's horseshit and you know it.                     STYLES          Maybe. But it's my fault and I'll          carry it.He sighs and takes a seat next to them.                      STYLES          We found the cabin. Demolished,          like they said. No bodies. Hurricane          like that coulda scooped 'em up,          dropped them down two counties over.          We'll find them.Hardy says nothing.                      STYLES          You think you could explain all this          to me?                      HARDY          I wouldn't know where to start.              (pause)          I guess it was about one man framing          another. He thought if the other          guy got blamed, people would over          look his own wrong doings.Styles nods, understanding.                      OSBORNE          What happens to Dunbar now?                      STYLES          Gets on his plane in ten minutes,          which means you two are done.          You'll understand if I don't walk          you out.Hardy gets up to go and then stops.   Realizing something.                      HARDY          They're taking your command, aren't          they?                      STYLES          The Senator...He points to Kendall's hospital room.                                                          81.                      HARDY          I'm sorry, Bill.                      STYLES          Don't be. I'm not cut out to deal          with the West's of the world.                      HARDY          You're a good soldier, Bill.                      STYLES          I thought you said that wasn't a          compliment.Hardy smiles.                      HARDY          This time it is.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- PARADE GROUNDS -- EVENINGThe sun, beginning to dip in the sky, as Hardy and Osborneexit the hospital.                      OSBORNE          Your car's in the motor pool.     I'll          walk you over.They walk in silence, for a bit.                         OSBORNE          So what now?                      HARDY          Now I go home, get drunk, and try          and forget this ever happened.                      OSBORNE          Think it'll work?                         HARDY          Nah.They pass a GROUP OF CADETS doing drills.    Hardy, watchingthem. Almost looking wistful.                      OSBORNE          You know, you never told me why you          left the army.                      HARDY          It dawned on me one day that we were          supposed to be a nation founded on          the principle of questioning          authority... and all I did here was          follow orders. It didn't add up.                                                        82.                      HARDY [CONT'D)          Plus, I got kicked out.                      OSBORNE          For what?                      HARDY          That's gonna stay my secret.INT. MOTOR POOL -- EVENINGHardy and Osborne make their way towards Hardy's car.                      OSBORNE          We were close to something with          Kendall.                      HARDY          Maybe... Maybe we were nowhere near.Sometimes mysteries stay mysteries.                       (pause)          I haven't by any chance grown on          you, have I?                      OSBORNE          No.                      HARDY          Good, just making sure.Osborne turns to the DUTY SERGEANT.                      OSBORNE          We're going need a vehicle release.The Sergeant nods, walking up with a clipboard.                      SERGEANT          Sign here and here.              (recognizing them)          Hey, ain't you the folks workin' on          that whole hulabaloo from last night?                      OSBORNE          Yeah.                      SERGEANT          Terrible tragedy. One of those          Section Eight boys worked in here.          Pike. Heard he got out okay.Hardy signs the clipboard and hands it back.                      HARDY          Hate to be the bearer of bad news,          Sergeant, but he didn't make it.                                                        83.The Sergeant scratches his head.                      SERGEANT          Funny. I swear I saw them bring him          and the smaller guy in this morning.                      OSBORNE          No, no that was Cadet Dunbar-                       SERGEANT          You mean Ray Dunbar?     Well, that          ain't right.                      HARDY          Why not?                      SERGEANT          I saw 'em get off the chopper.     White          guys, right? Two                      OSBORNE          So?                      SERGEANT          Ma'am, Ray Dunbar's black.Hardy and Osborne stare at him.    ShockedA beat.                      SERGEANT          Did I say something wrong-                      HARDY              (to Osborne)          What runway's that transport leaving          from?                      OSBORNE          Four-                      HARDY          Get in.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- PARADE GROUNDS -- EVENINGCADETS SCATTER as Hardy's car ROARS OUT OF THE MOTOR POOL,PEELING across the grass towards the far side of the base!Hardy, white knuckling the wheel, doing his best to steeraround anyone who can't get out of the way in time.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY RUNWAY FOUR -- EVENINGA Large TRANSPORT PLANE sits on the runway waiting as threeM.P.'s and a JAG LAWYER lead Dunbar/Pike (who, for purposes0£ continuity, we will continue to call DUNBAR) out to it.                                                           84.The SQUEAL OF TIRES as Hardy's car SLIDES around the cornerof the nearest building and SCREECHES to a halt by the plane.Hardy and Osborne, leaping out, running towards Dunbar andthe M.P.s.                      OSBORNE          We need to talk to him-                      JAG LAWYER          Sorry, Officer, we have a schedule          To keep-                      OSBORNE          We need to talk to him now.Hardy grabs Dunbar by the arm.                      HARDY          We're not finished yet-                      DUNBAR          You wanna bet?                      JAG LAWYER          M.P.'s, escort this man off the base!                      DUNBAR              (smiling)          Sorry, detectives.     Time's up.As the M.P.'s grab Hardy, dragging him away. Osborne, tryingto stop them. Dunbar, climbing the stairs onto the plane...Osborne pulls her SIDEARM, levelling it at him as Hardy yells:                      HARDY          James Randall Pike, COME ON DOWN!Dunbar stops at the hatchway. Slowly turning back to them.Seeing the gun. The M.P.'s release Hardy. Nobody moves.                      OSBORNE          Let's go have a talk.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- EVENINGHardy and Osborne roughly lead Dunbar into the room, the JAGLawyer trailing behind, shouting:                      JAG LAWYER          This is your entire career here-                      OSBORNE          Fuck off.She slams the door and BARRICADES it.    Turns to Hardy.                                                           85.                      OSBORNE          We got maybe three minutes till they          break it down.                      HARDY          Right back where we started.                      DUNBAR          You want to talk about baseball now?Hardy practically throws Dunbar into a chair.                      HARDY          No more games, right, Pike?    It was          you who West singled out...FLASHCUT TO - WEST on the parade grounds, now stranglingDUNBAR on the first day...                      HARDY          You who got hooked by Mueller's          morphine...FLASHCUT TO - Now DUNBAR in the showers as MUELLER hands hima syringe...                      HARDY          You who did it all.Hardy steps forward and RIPS OPEN Dunbar's right sleeve,revealing the TRACK MARKS.                      HARDY          You wanted revenge on West, revenge          on them all, so you killed them.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTDunbar standing in the Cabin; Mueller, Childs, and Pike,dead at his feet.                      HARDY (V.O.)          But that wasn't enough. You needed          a new identity, because no one was          going to believe James Randall Pike,          convicted felon, had acted so nobly          in the face of danger - you needed a          name people could trust, one that          hadn't been to jail, one that hadn't          publicly been West's bitch boy.He stares down at the bodies in the cabin, his eyes focusingon the black man's uniform. The name on it reads - "DUNBAR".As he reaches for it...                                                        86.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT EVENING                      OSBORNE          You kept Kendall alive to corroborate          your story and he did it all they          way up to the end. You even gave          him his own motive in case we decided          to burn him, too.                      DUNBAR          Can't do that now, though, can you?                      HARDY          You walked into the army a convicted          felon with a sentence of five years          in a uniform and were going walk out          eight weeks later with a different          name, a clean record, and an honorable          discharge - a guy who did "everything          he could" to save his friends.Dunbar looks at them.   One to the other.   Slowly.                      DUNBAR          Is that what I did, now? And of          course, you can prove all of it.                      OSBORNE          We can prove that you're not Ray          Dunbar. Impersonating a fellow Cadet          is a court-martial in and of itself-                      DUNBAR          Did I ever claim I was Raymond Dunbar?          Was I ever told to state my name          rank and serial number for the record?          No. You assumed who I was, because          I was wearing this uniform. Don't          believe me?He reaches under the table and rips out the HIDDEN MICROPHONE.                      DUNBAR          Check your tapes.Hardy and Osborne exchange an uneasy glance.                      HARDY          We don't need the tapes-                      DUNBAR          Oh, you don't? What else do you          have on me? You haven't found any          bodies yet, have you?                      HARDY          We've found all of them.                                                       87.Dunbar chuckles at the bluff.                      DUNBAR          Ohhhh, I don't think so...                      OSBORNE          How do you know that?                      DUNBAR          Just a guess. Maybe they're not          where they're supposed to be. Maybe          somebody moved them. Habeas Corpus -          no bodies, no crime, and Nunez still          plays as self defense. Face it          detectives ... you have nothing.Hardy, knowing he's right. In a flash he reaches down PULLSOSBORNE'S GUN and grabs Dunbar, SLAMMING him up against thewall, pressing the weapon TO HIS TEMPLE!                      HARDY          Not true, Cadet, I've got a gun-                      DUNBAR              (terrified)          Jesus!                      OSBORNE          Hardy, what are you doing-                      HARDY          Isn't this how your story goes?          Pike annoys someone so much he gets          shot in the head-                      DUNBAR          Please, please don't-A POUNDING on the locked door.    Hardy ignores it.                      HARDY          We can tie you to the chair if it'll          work better for you-                      OSBORNE          Hardy, for Chrissakes-                      HARDY          WHERE'S WEST'S BODY?                      DUNBAR              (practically in tears)          You'll never find it-Hardy COCKS the pistol as Dunbar screams:                                                           88.                      DUNBAR          You'll never find it cause HE'S NOT          DEAD!A CRASH as the door's lock SNAPS and M.P.'s POUR into theroom! Styles and the JAG Lawyer behind, taking in the scene.                      STYLES          What in God's name is going on?Hardy releases Dunbar, who slides to the floor, gasping.                      DUNBAR          He- He made me do it-                       HARDY          Do what?                      DUNBAR          Hunting- we had to hunt him-                      JAG LAWYER          Sergeant, arrest these men!                      OSBORNE          You mean the exercise?                      DUNBAR          There never was an exercise! Never          targets, never teams, I don't even          know if there's a creek bed out there-As the M.P.'s grab Hardy and Osborne, pulling them away...                      HARDY          What did you do?                      JAG LAWYER          That's enough-                      HARDY          Goddammit, what did you DO?!                      DUNBAR          I COULDN'T KILL HIM!He breaks down sobbing.   Styles holds up a hand to the M.P.'s.                       STYLES          Hang on.                       JAG LAWYER          Colonel-                       STYLES          No.   I want to hear this.                                                            89.The JAG Lawyer glowers as the M.P.'s stand down.   Dunbartries to pull himself together. To Hardy:                      DUNBAR          You're right. I was the one he          singled out. Beat me morning, noon,          and night, ran me ragged. When          Mueller found me, I was gone. He          gave me a little taste...INT. CADET SHOWERS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGOMueller showing the syringe to the naked Dunbar.   Dunbar'svoice over speaks in unison with Mueller:                      MUELLER AND DUNBAR (V.O.)          I got a friend with an in at the PX,          can hook you up...INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT EVENING                      DUNBAR          What I didn't know, was his friend          was West. He ran the whole thing.                      STYLES          You're lying, son.                      DUNBAR          You think it's easy to have all that          morphine just disappear without a          higher up authorizing it? Check the          requisition orders, I'll lay money          it's his signature on them.INT. SECTION EIGHT BARRACKS -- EIGHT WEEKS AGODunbar, alone, sleeve rolled up, arm tied off: Sliding theneedle into his vein...                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          That was his game, see? Ride the          cadets so hard they'd need something          to stay on their feet. Then he'd          send Mueller or Kendall to them,          waving around their magic needle          promising to make it all go away.He hits the plunger, injecting.   His face goes tranquil.INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT EVENING                      DUNBAR          It wasn't a new thing either.   He'd          been doing this for years.              (MORE)                                                          90.                      DUNBAR          Every nine weeks, a new class of          cadets, new potential customers.          The amount of money involved over          that period of time... this was some          high stakes shit.He takes a deep breath, looking at them.                      DUNBAR          Dunbar moved his through the kitchen.          I worked in the motor pool and hooked          all the mechanics. By the time the          hurricane hit, we were all in. Some          using, some pushing, some both. But          then something happened. West heard          one of us was about to talk, to blow          his whole operation. He figured          he'd made enough money, had enough          of the army, maybe it was time to          disappear. But first he was gonna          teach us one last thing.INT. SECTION EIGHT BARRACKS -- LAST NIGHTWest, entering the,barracks, shouting the cadets awake.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          The Tuesday Night drill was the          perfect cover. The hurricane made          it even better.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- TARMAC -- LAST NIGHTThe cadets, climbing aboard the chopper.                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          He put us on the chopper and flew us          to his cabin. And then he told us.INT. CABIN -- LAST NIGHTThe six men stand in rigid formation, eyes on West.                      WEST          Gentlemen! It has come to my          attention that there is a traitor in          our midst. Someone who was going to          break the code of fraternal          brotherhood that I have endeavored          to create in all of you. Perhaps          that failure is mine. But we take          care of our own. And this traitor          must be made to pay.He walks down the line of the six men, eyeing each of them.Finally stopping at one. Putting a hand on his shoulder.                                                        91.Nunez.                         WEST             Run.                         NUNEZ             Sir, I wasn't-                         WEST             I know you were. Cadet  Mueller found             the letter you'd written to the             Colonel in your locker.  You were             going to betray us all.  Now, run.He points to the door. The hurricane, RAGING outside.   Nunezlooks to the others, then the door, and understands.He takes off running out the door.       Gone.West walks over to a table covered with a tarp. Pulls thecloth aside to reveal M-16's, PISTOLS, and GRENADES.                         WEST             Now we'll see whose training's paid             off the most. You are to hunt Cadet             Nunez down and bring his body back             to me. If you fail and he escapes,             we all go down together.The remaining five cadets, understanding there is no placefor friendship or kindness here. This is life and death.They walk to the table and gear up.EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- LAST NIGHTLightning, thunder, and rain as Nunez runs unarmed throughthe thick brush.SOMEWHERE BEHIND HIM - The other five fan out, rifles up,following his trail, ready to kill.                         DUNBAR (V.O.)             It was insanity. We were hunting a             man down to kill him.ON MUELLERMaking his way down embankment, M-l6 out, ready for anything.From behind him, MOVEMENT...                         DUNBAR (V.O.)             He got Mueller first.Nunez TACKLES HIM at full speed, feet SLIPPING on the wethill, and the two TUMBLE head first into a GULLY. Punching,kicking, biting, anything to stop the other man.                                                                 92.Nunez, CHOKING Mueller as he strains to reach his gun...                          MUELLER            Roberto...With a HEAVE, Nunez SNAPS HIS NECK.        Mueller lies still.                        DUNBAR (V.O.)            He took his gun. Used it on Childs.Nunez spins, seeing CHILDS BEHIND HIM. He DIVES as Childsfires! Hits the ground in a roll, comes up with Mueller'srifle, and SHOOTS - BLOWING CHILDS BACK against the wet rocks.                        DUNBAR (V.O.)            I can't imagine what it was like.            Having your friends try to kill you...Nunez slumps against the gully's wall, breathing hard.          Inagony over what he's just had to do.                        DUNBAR (V.O.)            But you do what you have to survive.Closing his eyes, Nunez steels himself. Wipes the bloodfrom his hands and climbs out of the gully.ELSEWHEREPIKE, creeping through the foliage. Trying to listen forsounds of movement through the storm. His eyes narrow as hehears a HIGH PITCHED WHINE...The bullet hits his forehead dead center.        He crumples.PULL BACK TO REVEAL - Nunez in a tree, thirty meters away.Lowering his rifle.      He climbs down.                        DUNBAR (V.O.)            Kendall and I found Dunbar a couple            minutes later.TIME CUT TO:Dunbar and Kendall come upon Pike's fallen form. They gazedown at the uniform emblazoned with the name "DUNBAR".                        DUNBAR (V.O.)            It came to me in a split second.            Change clothes, change identities.            If James Pike gets discharged he            goes right back to jail. But if I            was Dunbar, I could walk away from            all this with a new life. But then...As he reaches down for the uniform, a SHOT RINGS OUT.                                                           93.KENDALL FALLS, wounded in the arm. Dunbar raises his rifleto find Nunez, standing ten yards away, gun trained on him.YELLING OVER THE HURRICANE:                          NUNEZ           Put it down!A Mexican stand-off.   The rain continues to fall.                       DUNBAR           I just want to go!Nunez shakes his head.                       NUNEZ           You were gonna kill me, Pike!    Thought           you were my friend!Dunbar, torn. He can't bring himself to shoot, but he can'tsurrender either.                       DUNBAR           I have to get Kendall to a hospital!                       NUNEZ           He was gonna kill me too!Silence.   The two men still facing each other.                       NUNEZ {CONT'D)           I snapped Mueller's neck! He was my           best friend and I had to snap his           neck because he was gonna shoot me           for drugs! For West!                       DUNBAR           We don't have to do this! You go           that way, I'll go this way!Nunez laughs.                       NUNEZ           You'll shoot me in the back!                       DUNBAR           You killed three people!    Isn't that           enough for one night?More silence.   Neither moves.    The sky above, a maelstrom.                       DUNBAR           I don't want to die out here, Roberto!           Do you?Nunez, staring at him.     Deciding.                                                              94.                      NUNEZ          If you even twitch...Dunbar nods.Nunez begins backing away, rifle still trained on him.And then Dunbar spies something behind and to the left ofNunez...West.Staring down at him from behind some brush.       Watching.Nunez, slowly backing away. He pauses as his foot catcheson a fallen branch. Looks away from Dunbar for a split secondto step over it...West nods to Dunbar as if to say "Go on. . . "                      DUNBAR          Forgive me. ..And Dunbar FIRES.Nunez, caught by the burst, GOES DOWN. The echo of thegunshots, swallowed by the storm. Dunbar lowers his head inagony. West walks down.                      WEST          Congratulations, Cadet Pike.      You          get the gold star.Dunbar stares at his Sergeant through the rain.                        DUN BAR          Fuck you.West smiles.   Tilts his head to Kendall.                      WEST          You'd best get him out of here.          Don't worry about the bodies, they'll          be taken care of.Dunbar doesn't move.                      WEST          This is where we part ways, Cadet.          You tell them I died out here, or          I'll come back for you. Tell them          one of the others did me. Mueller,          Childs, I don't care who. You and          Kendall, you tell them a story.              (smiling)          You can tell a story, can't you?Dunbar doesn't reply.   West laughs and flips him a salute.                                                         95.                       WEST          Dismissed.And West turns and walks away, stepping over Nunez.   GivingDunbar a clear shot at his back.Dunbar raises his rifle, wanting, needing, dying to shootthe old man...But he can't.   West disappears into the bayou.A GROAN from the ground. Kendall. Dunbar's reverie broken,he leans down, beginning to unbutton the Dunbar Uniform...INT. COFFEE ROOM -- PRESENT EVENINGDunbar stubs out a cigarette, finished. Hardy, Osborne,Styles, and the JAG Lawyer gaping at what he has just said.                      DUNBAR          I guess Nunez wasn't dead after all.          He came after us with a vengeance.              (to Styles)          You know the rest.                      HARDY          And the bodies?                      DUNBAR          You won't find them. Won't find          West, either. He's too good.                      OSBORNE          No bodies, no West...                      HARDY          No death certificates.    No crime.                      DUNBAR          Just four people MIA.    Silence.The JAG Lawyer steps forward.                      JAG LAWYER          You'll testify to this, the          corruption, the drug scam?Dunbar says nothing.                      JAG LAWYER          We can cut a deal for you on the          Nunez killing.                      DUNBAR          I don't want any deals.                                                            96.                       JAG LAWYER           If you're telling the truth, the PX           requisition records will prove it-                       DUNBAR           All the proof you need will be when           West comes back and puts a bullet in           my brain. But I'll do it. I'm a           dead man, anyway. Like Kendall.               (looking at Hardy)           We both should have died out there           with our brothers. I know that now.Silence.   The JAG Lawyer looks to Hardy, all anger gone.                       JAG LAWYER           I'll take him now if you don't mind.Hardy nods. Dunbar rises and slowly walks to the door.Turning back to Hardy.                       DUNBAR           Tell me, detective.   Did you get           what you wanted?Hardy shakes his head, sadly.                       HARDY           Not even close.They leave.   Styles walks over to Hardy.                       STYLES           Tom-Hardy holds up a hand, cutting him off. Styles nods,understanding, and leaves, closing the door behind him.Hardy and Osborne stand there.   Not speaking.    It's done.INT. FORT MCKINLEY -- OFFICER'S CLUB -- NIGHTSeveral hours and bourbons later, Hardy sits at the bar,drunk and alone. Out of place, the only one not in uniform.Osborne walks in, locates Hardy, and strides over to thebar, a sheaf of papers under her arm. Her face, stoic.                       OSBORNE           We need to talk-                       HARDY           Seven.He takes a slug of his drink.                       OSBORNE           What?                                                       97.                      HARDY          Seven guys. What was it you said?          You were "just starting to believe I          wasn't the guy people said".He chuckles.                     HARDY {CONT'D)          Seven. That's the answer to Kendall's          question. How many? Seven.Osborne looks at him.    Realizing what he's saying.                      OSBORNE          This isn't the time-                      HARDY          This is the perfect time. You know          what makes a good detective? The          number of confessions they get.          You're a good detective, Osborne.          So now you get mine.                      OSBORNE          What if I don't want it?                         HARDY          Tough.He pours himself another drink.                         HARDY          Thing about    taking money is, you          don't have    to do anything.  You just          sit there.     Maybe you don't return a          phone call.     Maybe you don't follow          up a lead.     But that's it.  Keep the          money, your    work's done.Osborne stares at him.                      HARDY          Seven unsolved murders. And you          know what? It didn't weigh on my          conscience. Not one goddamn bit.He takes a slug from his glass and grimaces.                      OSBORNE          That's not true.                      HARDY          There are degrees of truth, officer.          Always degrees.                                                          98.                      OSBORNE          You're a good man, Hardy.                        HARDY          Really.                      OSBORNE          Far as I'm concerned, whatever you          did in the past can stay in the past.Hardy stares at her.                      HARDY          I may not be growing on you, but          you're sure as hell growing on me.He motions to the bartender for another glass, but Osbornetakes his hand, stopping him.                      OSBORNE          And because you're a good man, I          know you'll do the right thing.Hardy looks at her, questioning.   Osborne takes a deep breath.                      OSBORNE          Pike never made it to D.C.. Somebody          took him off the plane before it          left. My guess is he's already dead.Hardy stares at her.                        HARDY          West?                        OSBORNE          Nobody saw.    But I don't think so.She puts the papers on the bar.                      OSBORNE          These are the requisitions from the          PX, the ones used to release the          drugs to Mueller. West signed half          of them - Pike was telling the truth.          Look who signed the other half.She taps the bottom of the paper. Hardy, not wanting tobelieve it. He looks up at her, pained.                      HARDY          Do I have a choice in this?                      OSBORNE          Yeah. I can wait till you're off          the base and do it myself.                                                       99.Hardy stares at his glass.   Deciding.                       HARDY          Fuck it.   Let's go finish this.INT. STYLES' OFFICE -- NIGHTStyles, finishing his paperwork. He rises and turns off hisdesk light, bathing the office in DARKNESS. He's about toleave when he notices a SILHOUETTE in the doorway.                      HARDY          "You have to get out of the way of          the bigger dogs". That was good.Styles squints at the figure.                      STYLES          Tom, is that you?Hardy steps forward, into the office.                      HARDY          It was so good, I actually forgot          you're one of the bigger dogs now.          The Base Commander. The one in          control.You couldn't let him testify, could you?                      STYLES          What are you talking about?                      HARDY          If you let him testify then it would          have all come out. West was supposed          to take care of it out there, shut          Nunez up and then disappear. But it          got messy and people got killed. So          you called your old pal Tom Hardy,          figuring if worse came to worse,          he'd cover for you.                      STYLES          You're drunk-                      HARDY          I'm not going to cover for you, Bill.          Not for this.Styles, realizing what Hardy's talking about.                       STYLES          Look-He begins to move from behind his desk.                                                   100.                      HARDY          Stay where you are.                       STYLES          Or what?   You've gone round the bend-                      HARDY          West had a partner. Someone who          knew how to get things done.Hardy throws the papers onto Styles' desk.                      HARDY          What I can't understand is why you          signed these. If you'd just let          West take care of the paperwork, no          one would have known, but you got          careless. So when Pike finally told          the truth you had to get rid of him,          too.                      STYLES          That's preposterous-                      HARDY          Toxicology report came back.          Kendall's attack was caused by a          drug known as anephadrine, maybe          you've heard of it. It's for          asthmatics. If an epileptic takes          enough, it kills them. I checked          with the nurses at the hospital -          you're the only other person who          visited Kendall.                      STYLES          Wanted to see if he was okay-                      HARDY          You poisoned him, Bill. You heard          our interrogation, you knew he was          ready to crack, so you killed him,          just like Pike.                      STYLES          I'm not even going to dignify that-                      HARDY          No!  You will stand there and you          will listen! What happened to you,          Bill?  You were the one who joined          up to do good in the world. You          were the one who believed in it-                                                      101.                      STYLES          You want to get into a finger pointing          contest about character? The army          kicked you out for drugs, the cops          fired you for taking bribes from a          mobster, and you think you can stand          there and lecture me on codes of          conduct? There's only one criminal          standing in this room and it's you.                      HARDY          Not for long.He walks towards the desk.                      HARDY          No more witnesses. West's a ghost.          But it doesn't matter because we          have your signature, the hospital          log, and Kendall's toxicology report.          And that'll be enough.                      STYLES          You're crazy-                      HARDY          You can't duck this, Bill. I may          have done every goddamn thing in my          life wrong but I won't let this          happen.                      STYLES          For the last time, I have no idea          what you're talking about-                      HARDY              (squinting)          Get your hands away from the desk!In the darkness we see Styles MOVE SUDDENLY...                      HARDY          Osborne, gun!Hardy DIVES to the floor - Osborne in the doorway, PISTOLraised, FIRES TWO SHOTS! Muzzle flare lighting the room fora split second as Styles is BLOWN BACK against the wall!Hardy gets to his feet and flicks on the LIGHT. Styles liesslumped in the corner, two holes in his chest. Dead.Osborne lowers her weapon, shaking.Hardy points to the top desk drawer, which is open. Insideit sits an IVORY HANDLED PISTOL. Fully loaded, safety off.It's presence tells them everything they need to know.                                                          102.                      OSBORNE          It's West's, isn't it?Hardy nods and then turns to look down at Styles' body.                      HARDY          Now it's over.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- PARADE GROUNDS -- NIGHTThe aftermath. Flashing blue and red lights from parkedMilitary Police vehicles illuminate the grounds as M.P. 'Sstring crime scene tape around the front entrance of thebuilding, securing the site for investigation.Hardy takes in the entire scene from afar. Standing by hisGTO, watching as several M.P.'s finish questioning Osborne.When she's done she spies Hardy and walks over to him.                      OSBORNE          What are you doing out here?                      HARDY          Leaving without saying goodbye.          What are you gonna do?                      OSBORNE          Go home, get drunk, and try and forget          this ever happened.                      HARDY          Think it'll work?                      OSBORNE          Nah.                      HARDY          Want company?Osborne smiles.                      OSBORNE          A word of advice about women - that          first hour or so after they kill          their boss? Probably not the best          time to hit on them.                      HARDY          I should probably write that down.                      OSBORNE          Yeah. .Hardy pulls a card from his pocket and hands it to her.                      OSBORNE          Your phone number?                                                      103.                        HARDY            In case you need me to testify about            the shooting. They'll clear you.A beat.                        OSBORNE            He was your friend.                        HARDY            Yeah. But he was a lot of other            things, too. Thanks.She nods.   An awkward moment.      Finally:                        HARDY            I'll see you.He turns away.   Walking towards his car.                          OSBORNE            Hey, Hardy!He turns back. She walks up and holds something out to him.A ten dollar bill.                        OSBORNE            I owe you this.He looks down at the money.                        HARDY            You saved my life tonight. Keep it.                (pause)            Actually, don't keep it, I need the            money.He takes the bill and Osborne laughs. He climbs into hiscar and starts it. Grinning at her through the open window.                        HARDY            You're one of the good ones, Osborne.            Don't sweat the details.He puts the GTO in gear and drives off. She watches him go,then looks down at his card. Smiling. Maybe she will call.INT. OSBORNE'S APARTMENT -- NIGHTA bottle of Scotch at her side, Osborne slips a tape marked"BASIC TRAINING INTRO - SGT. N. WEST" into her VCR. Settlesback to watch it. West's face fills the screen.                        WEST            Welcome, Cadets. The art of warfare            is simple and complex. Simple in            its goal, complex in its execution.                                                         104.INT. HARDY'S GTO (MOVING) -- NIGHTIt's started to rain.    Hardy drives in silence.                      WEST          As Sun Tzu writes, the true warfare          is deception.A HITCHHIKER up ahead.    Hardy pulls over for him.INT. OSBORNE'S APARTMENT -- NIGHTOsborne, drinking and watching.                      WEST          At all times you must confuse your          enemies, surrounding them with          uncertainty, giving them false hope.INT. HARDY'S GTO -- NIGHTThe Hitchhiker gets into the car.                      WEST          At all times, you must mask your          true intentions.Hardy, smiling at him, because the Hitchhiker is not aHitchhiker at all...                      HARDY (V.O.)          Why'd you ask for a cop, Ray?The Hitchhiker is Dunbar.                      OSBORNE (V.O.)          They got their stories straight. . .EXT. LOUISIANA BAYOU -- CREEK BED -- LAST NIGHT24 hours ago. The hurricane rages. A HAND pulls the PIN ona phosphorous grenade and CHUCKS IT.It blows, frying brush and nothing more.West comes over the hill, running to investigate. He stopsat what he sees. Nunez stands unarmed in the creek bed,SURROUNDED by the other Section Eight Cadets. A prisoner.                      WEST          What the fuck is going on?                      DUNBAR          Your weapons, Sergeant.West doesn't move. Kendall walks over and DISARMS West,pushing him into the circle next to the terrified Nunez.                                                        105.                      WEST          Is this about that little drug          business you all are running? Yeah,          I know about that, Roberto told me-                        NUNEZ          Shut up!    Look, we won't say anything-                      WEST          Fuck that. You little pissers really          think you can throw a scare into me?Dunbar raises his rifle and SHOOTS NUNEZ. He goes down,twitches once and lies still. Dead. West looks at Dunbar.                      WEST          You're gonna have to do a lot better          than that, son.                      HARDY (O.S.)          How about this?And with that, Tom Hardy emerges from the brush carrying, aCOMBAT KNIFE. West's eyes sparkle with recognition.                      WEST          Didn't I kick your ass out for this          drug thing fifteen years ago?Hardy just smiles.                      WEST          Should've known you were involved in          this. Come on then. Let's see you          try and stick me-Moving faster than   West thought imaginable, Hardy moves andthe knife FLASHES,   CUTTING WEST OPEN stem to sternum. Hardygrips the older man   by the shoulders, lowering him to theground as he dies.    Whispering in his ear:                      HARDY          Stem to sternum. You taught me well,          Sarge.And WEST DIES. A moment of utter silence and then VOICESFROM THE PAST begin coming back to us:                      STYLES (V.O.)          You think you could explain all this          to me?Kendall walks over to Hardy and hands him a PISTOL.                      HARDY (V.O.)          I wouldn't know where to start.Kendall holds out his arm, gritting his teeth...                                                          106.                      HARDY (V.O.)          I guess it was about one man framing          another...And Hardy SHOOTS Kendall once, THROUGH THE ARM.EXT. CLEARING -- THIS MORNINGMueller and Childs lay NUNEZ's DEAD BODY out in the brush.The sound of the Helicopter approaching...TIME CUT TO:Dunbar raises his rifle and FIRES towards the tree line.Aiming at nothing. The Helicopter comes into view overhead.DUST KICKS UP around Dunbar and Kendall - bullet hits.                       HARDY (V.O.)          When you commit a crime you know is          going to be investigated, you need a          fall guy.. .ON STYLES' FACE - Watching this through the windscreen.                      STYLES (V.O.)          The one who won't talk was trading          live fire with the dead one as we          reached the pick-up.RACK FOCUS TO - Hardy, concealed in the woods, FIRING atDunbar and Kendall's feet to simulate Nunez shooting at them.Dunbar, shooting towards where Nunez's body lies. Making itlook like he just killed Nunez.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- THIS MORNINGHardy arriving at the Fort, EMBRACING STYLES.                      HARDY          And for that to work, you have to          have a witness...PAN OVER to OSBORNE, watching.                      HARDY (V.O.)          Someone who's not involved, who's          word can't be questioned...VARIOUS SHOTS -- Of Hardy and Osborne, investigating thecase, talking to Dunbar, talking to Kendall...                      HARDY          You only let them see what you want          them to see, you make them believe...                                                           107.INT. OFFICER'S CLUB -- EARLIEROsborne, showing Hardy the requisition forms.                      OSBORNE (V.O.)          They believe the innocent are guilty          and the guilty are innocent.EXT. FORT MCKINLEY -- EARLIERAfter shooting Styles, Osborne gives her story to the M.P.'s.                      HARDY (V.O.)          And if they're asked, that's what          they'll tell the world.INT. OSBORNE'S APARTMENT -- PRESENT NIGHTOsborne, watching the taped West.                       WEST          Your greatest weapon will by your          allies . . .INT. COFFEE ROOM -- EARLIERHardy, taking a cigarette from Dunbar's pack.                       HARDY          My brand.   Must be my lucky day.INT. KENDALL'S HOSPITAL ROOM -- EARLIERKendall, coughing fit.   Hardy, getting him a GLASS OF WATER.                      WEST (V.O.)          . . . some of which you may have to          sacrifice for the greater good.Hardy, secretly dissolving a POWDER into Kendall's water.                      HARDY (V.O.)          We got the toxicology report . . .INT. STYLES' OFFICE -- EARLIERHardy, confronting Styles in the dark.                      WEST (V.O.)          Make no mistake, the innocent will          die. . .Osborne, FIRING TWICE into Styles.   As he hits the wall                                                        108.                       HARDY (V.O.)           Next time you frame a guy, pick           someone who can't defend themselves...           But it will not be in vain.           Sometimes, you can trick the enemy           into doing your work for you. . .Osborne, staring down at WEST'S PISTOL.                       HARDY (V.O.)           He still carry those guns?INT. STYLES' OFFICE -- EARLIEREarlier.   Alone, Hardy plants West's pistol in Styles' desk.                       WEST (V.O.)           ...if you engage in a clever enough           subterfuge.INT. BASE PX -- BACKROOM -- EARLIERHardy stands behind Kendall and Dunbar, overseeing them asthey fill out requisition forms. Kendall signs West'ssignature, Dunbar signs Styles'.                       HARDY (V.O.)           What I can't understand is why you           signed these...As we move into a CLOSE UP on Hardy:                       OSBORNE (V.O.)           You never told me why you got kicked           out of...                       STYLES (V.O.)           The army kicked you out for drugs...                       MUELLER AND DUNBAR (V.O.)           I got a friend with an in at the PX,           can hook you up...                       STYLES (V.O.)           There's only one criminal standing           in this room and it's you.INT. OSBORNE'S APARTMENT -- NIGHTOsborne, watching the tape of West's speech.                       WEST           Which brings us to the simple goal.           For the true warrior, the one and           only objective is to emerge from           conflict unscathed.                                                         109.EXT. ROADHOUSE PARKING LOT -- PRESENT NIGHTThe GTO pulls into a space and Hardy and Dunbar get out.                      HARDY (V.O.)          I promised them I'd ask you where          West and the others are...                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          Washout rejects, guys he said were          "dumbfucks too stupid to know they          dead"...                      HARDY (V.O.)          He's telling the truth up to a          point...They walk towards the bar's entrance.                      HARDY (V.O.)          You can't prove anything until we          find the bodies...                      PIKE          All we gotta do is tell the story          right...                      DUNBAR (V.O.)          You haven't found any bodies yet,          have you...As Hardy and Dunbar push through the doors into the bar...                      HARDY (V.O.)          WHERE ARE THEY?INT. ROADHOUSE -- NIGHTA table of FOUR MEN look up as Hardy and Dunbar enter.Mueller, Childs, Pike, and the Motor Pool DUTY SERGEANT.All drinking beer, having a grand old time.                      STYLES (V.O.)          Habeas Corpus - you have to have a          body to have a crime.Hardy and Dunbar smile and go to join them.INT. OSBORNE'S APARTMENT -- PRESENT NIGHTAs the taped West concludes his speech.                       WEST          Thank you.                                                          110.The screen cuts to STATIC. Osborne turns off the TV,extinguishing the last source of light. OVER THE DARKNESS:                       WEST (V.O.)           You can tell a story, can't you?EXT. ROADHOUSE PARKING LOT -- NIGHTSilence.   We slowly move towards Hardy's parked GTO...                       HARDY (V.O.)           Murder is basic.Focusing on the TRUNK...                       HARDY (V.O.)           There are no conspiracies, no grand           mysteries, no evil puppet masters           behind it all, pulling the strings.INT. GTO TRUNK -- NIGHTWEST'S BODY, stuffed into the trunk of Hardy's car.                       HARDY           Everyone's capable of murder, Osborne.EXT. CLEARING -- THIS MORNINGDunbar lays the wounded Kendall down as the Helicoptercarrying Styles comes in for a landing. Dunbar wipes thesweat from Kendall's brow and asks him seriously:                       DUNBAR           Are you ready for this?ROLL CREDITSFADE OUT
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+BLACKWe HEAR "Waltzing Matilde," by Tom Waits.INT. MUSEUM OF MODERN ART - DAY (DREAM SEQUENCE IN GRAINY BLACKAND WHITE)Fade out music.Silence.A well-dressed black BOY and his MOTHER walk through severalgalleries.They stand before Picasso's "Guernica," holding hands.The mother is disturbed. Crying.The boy looks up, confused and frightened, concerned to see hismother crying in public. She looks at him tenderly.Her brow furrows. She stops crying. She stares just above hiseyes.Something's happening: she looks with wonder at the top of hishead... his eyes roll upward, trying to see - it's a crown!He raises his hands. He touches it.A beam of light illuminates the crown, casting its glow on hismother's face.The beam gets whiter, the rest of the screen gets black.INT. CARDBOARD BOXSilence. In darkness, we hear a VOICE - imbued with a sense ofits own history:                      VOICE (O.S.)           Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh           boat. There's no trip so horrible that           someone won't take it. The idea of the           unrecognized genius slaving away in a           garret is a deliciously foolish one. We           must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh           for really sending this myth into orbit.           How many pictures did he sell? One? He           couldn't give them away. We are so ashamed           of his life that the rest of art history           will be retribution for Van Gogh's neglect.           No one wants to be part of a generation           that ignores another Van Gogh.The beam of light shines through a small hole. It falls upon asleeping, dreaming, delighted face. It belongs to JEAN MICHELBASQUIAT.OUTDOOR, DAYTIME SOUNDS filter in.Hearing the voice, Jean frowns at being woken up.EXT. TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK - DAYA long, rectangular cardboard box.SUPER: "NEW YORK CITY"ANGLE ON:RENE RICARD (early 30's), seated at a park bench, hunched over anotebook. He's a raggedy dandy: A poet in a hooded sweatshirt andwhite hightops.As he writes, he reads aloud, as if addressing Posterity.                        RENE (CONT'D)                   (sighing theatrically)            In this town one is at the mercy of the            recognition factor. One's public            appearance is absolute.Beyond him, a HAND gropes its way out of the box. It tosses a canof YOOHOO chocolate drink.                       RENE (CONT'D)            I consider myself a metaphor of the public.            I am a public eye. I am a witness.A HEAD appears from the box. It's Jean's.Jean sees the start of a crisp, colorful autumn day. The urbanpark around him is alive with a typically full range of the goodand bad in life. He eases himself out of the oversize box inwhich he has spent the night. There's something about the waythat he stands while waking up that suggests he's almostsurprised at his own body, the adultness of his limbs - just asubtle hint of him coming out of a dream.He squints in the sunlight. He has a soft, gentle, Haitian face.His hair is pulled tight to his head. He wears two pairs of bluejeans (one cut like chaps over the other) a paint-coveredWesleyan University T-shirt, and the inside lining of anovercoat. His appearance is unruly, but it's deliberate. He'sstylish.He shakes himself off and collects his stuff, which includes: asmall book of Pontormo drawings, a can of black spray paint. anda cigar box made into a loudspeaker with pencil holes and maskingtape.Jean walks out of the park and looks up past the buildings at thesky:SUPERIMPOSED IN THE SKY - STOCK FOOTAGE OF A HAWAIIAN SURFERJean sees the surfer, 'riding the nose' in glistening, shimmeringsunlight.                                                  DISSOLVE TO:EXT. TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK - DAYRene grabs the box for use as a desk and continues to speak outloud as he writes.                       RENE (CONT'D, O.S.)            Part of the artist's job is to get the work            where I will see it.EXT. LOWER EAST SIDE ST. - DAYAs he speaks, we see Jean pass the wall of a funeral parlor. Hespraypaints: "SAMO AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOD"                        RENE (CONT'D, O.S.)            When you first see a new picture, you don't            want to miss the boat. You have to be very            careful because you may be staring at Van            Gogh's ear.Jean signs his words with his 'logo', a triple pointed crown.As he presses the spray can, we HEAR the roar of a breaker.                                                  CUT TO:INSERT: CLOSEUP OF SIDEWALKPressed into the concrete is a pair of EYEGLASSES. A light-colored piece of rock completes the picture to make a face.EXT. LESHKO'S RESTAURANT - DAYJEAN'S POV: His shoes pause next to the face in the concrete.                                                  CUT TO:IN FRONT OF THE RESTAURANTIs a METAL BILLBOARD with red plastic magnetized LETTERS thatreads: "TODAY'S SPECIAL: CLAM CHOWDER $1.50. TRY IT!!!"                                                  CUT TO:INT. LESHKO'S - DAYJean enters.                                                  CUT TO:EXT. LESHKO'S RESTAURANT - DAYThe sign. It now reads: "SAMO'S DAY OLD TEETH $5.00"                                                     CUT TO:INT. LESHKO'S RESTAURANT - DAYBending over a countertop, we see GINA CARDINALE, 22. He fixateson her.She looks up and notices his stare. She continues to work.Still staring at her, he sits down at a table. He pours maplesyrup onto the table. He draws in the syrup with his fingers.CLOSE ON SYRUP ON TABLEANOTHER WAITRESS arrives at his table. She's put off by thesyrup.                      WAITRESS           What'll it be?Jean thinks about it, eyes still following Gina.                       BASQUIAT           Ummm. It'll be great. We'll live together           in peace. What's her name?                  (indicates Gina)He looks up at the waitress.                      WAITRESS           Gina. What'll it be?                       BASQUIAT           Pancakes.She leaves and whispers something to Gina. Gina turns and glancesover at Jean.Jean pours more syrup and starts writing his name.At the grill, LESHKO, the burly Owner/Cook, has his watchful eyeon Jean. He doesn't like what he sees.Jean smears the syrup thinly, so it doesn't erase itself. Hedraws a picture of Gina, using his fingers and the silverware,rendering her last expression strikingly with a few quick lines.A GAUNT YOUNG MAN saunters up to Jean's table. He's sort of atall Puerto Rican Alain Delon with sleepy eyes. He is BENNY.                      BENNY           Hey - Willie Mays.                      BASQUIAT           Willie Mays.Suddenly, Rene Ricard enters - a one-man parade. He beckons toGina, snapping his fingers.                      RENE           Nurse!!! Oh!!! Nurse!!! Carrot juice. Tofu           burger. Rapido!                      GINA           We don't serve that - amigo.                      RENE           Fine... A greasy cheeseburger. Fries - and           a vodka.                       BASQUIAT                  (under his breath)           Who's that?                      BENNY           The Devil, man. Rene Ricard. Art critic -           writes for Artforum. People read him. Tell           him who you are..                         BASQUIAT           Who am I?                         BENNY           SAMO.                         BASQUIAT           Oh yeah..Rene lands at the counter.Jean's gaze is still on Gina.She waits on a MAN at a nearby table.                      CUSTOMER           How's the special today?                      GINA           It's your stomach.She hurries past Jean.                         BASQUIAT           Hey.She slows down, not wanting to.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           What do you think?She looks at her portrait in the syrup... She can't resistsmiling.                      GINA           It's me. I've never been done in maple           syrup. Here's a rag.Gina smiles. She offers him one. As she holds it out, their eyeslock. She tries to resist his smile.                        BASQUIAT                   (gently)           Gina?She puts her finger in the syrup and licks it off.Benny takes it all in.Leshko is upon them.                      LESHKO           Alright. Look at you, staring at this girl,           making a mess.He waves Jean toward the door.Jean takes Gina's rag and begins cleaning his mess, seeminglycompliant.                      BASQUIAT           How about those pancakes?He brings out a roll of dimes to the tabletop and splits it open.Dimes roll all over the table and stick in the syrupy parts. Themanager explodes.                      LESHKO           OK! Goodbye!                      GINA           Pipe down, Lech. Let him order.                      LESHKO           You nuts? Let him order? You on his side?           You're not such a good waitress. You get           out, too.                      GINA           I just don't think you're being fair.                      LESHKO           I need this?                      GINA           I need this?Gina quietly removes her apron in disbelief.Benny gets up to leave very casually.                       BENNY                  (waving g'bye to Jean)           Willie Mays.                       LESHKO                  (to Gina)           That's right. You go with them. Make babies           the government has to pay for.                                                     CUT TO:GINA AND JEANLeave the restaurant.Behind them, we see Rene, absorbed in his writing.EXT. AVE. A - DAYThey stand outside, not knowing quite what comes next.Jean gives Benny a look (i.e. 'scram').                      BENNY           Catch you later.Benny leaves.A CHILLY WIND picks up.Jean's mood is suddenly downcast.They button up their overcoats, about to leave.                       GINA           What's a job, anyway?                  (pause)           What's wrong with you?The truth is, he feels awful for causing Gina's trouble, butshows it by moping like a child.                      GINA (CONT'D)           No, don't tell me - you just got fired by           your crazy boss.                      BASQUIAT           I guess you did.                      GINA           Guess I just got sick of him.                      BASQUIAT           Can I walk you home?                      GINA           I think I could do that alone.Gina walks away.He runs after her.                      BASQUIAT           Wait, I'm in a band....We're at the Mudd           Club on Halloween. I'll put you on the           list.Gina turns and looks back at Jean.                      GINA           I hate the Mudd Club.He catches up to her.Gina notices a dead leaf in his hair and picks it out.                      GINA (CONT'D)           Have you been camping? You could use a           scrub.                      BASQUIAT           I'm clean. Smell me. I always smell good. I           don't know why, I just do!He leans forward, offering his neck.                       GINA                  (smelling)           You do! You definitely do.                      BASQUIAT           Just come to the Mudd Club on Friday.                      GINA           I don't go there. Too many party girls.                      BASQUIAT           Party girls? Can I call you?                       GINA                  (teasing him)           Yeah, if you have any dimes left. 477-0496.He writes her number on his pant cuff with a big fat magicmarker.                      BASQUIAT           Here, this is for you. I made this.He hands her the small speaker.She takes it.                        GINA           Thanks.She admires the speaker watches him walk off.EXT. MENTAL HOSPITAL (OUTSIDE THE CITY)We see Jean crossing a lawn outside a mental hospital.INT. MENTAL HOSPITAL - RECREATION / VISITING ROOM - DAYPSYCH. PATIENTS fill a cavernous day-room engaged in arts andcrafts. Some of the sadder patients stare off into space as Jeancrosses the room. He carries a plate of cookies and a full glassof milk.He approaches a sad, nice-looking, middle-aged black woman - thesame one from the dream, earlier. She sits alone fondling apillow in her lap. It's his mother, MATILDE. She doesn't see himcoming.As he sets the plate in front of her, she notices him. Sherecognizes him and seems pleased, even in her isolation. Hekisses her on the cheek.                       BASQUIAT           Hey, mom.She smiles slightly.Jean takes a cookie. She does likewise.They eat in silence, looking at each other, communicating whatthey can.Time passes. In between cookies her fingers find and break thestems of the pillow feathers.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           I met the girl I'm gonna marry.His mother brightens. She drinks the milk. They finish thecookies.                      MATILDE           Do you like it here?                      BASQUIAT           I'd like it better in Hawaii.INT. CARDBOARD BOX - NIGHTJean tries to sleep in the box. RAIN falls heavily onto it.Drops of water hit his face.He wills it to stop. It doesn't.Finally, he can't stand it. Rain forces his blinking eyes open.INT. BENNY'S APARTMENT -     NIGHTA door opens to reveal Jean's wet face.Benny lets him in.Jean enters a rundown railroad flat crammed with musicalinstruments, beer cans, and homemade art. There's a couch with asheet over it.Junk is piled in a corner - mostly art books and drawings.Benny sits down at an electric piano, which he's evidentlyplaying. He sings along, softly, working out the words,concentrating, absorbed.Jean sets his belongings on the couch, walks to a mic stand andstarts making up his own words.                      BASQUIAT           "She loves me.           Oh yeah she loves me!           She loooooooves me,           Oh yeah she loves me!"           Bring me some chicken, baby!                      BENNY           Would you shut the fuck up? You hear what           I'm doing?                       BASQUIAT           Yeah man. I'm jealous. You're always great,           Benny.                  (goes back into 'act')           "Her name is G-I-N-A Gina           And she lo-oooves me."           I did say chicken!Benny turns off the piano and lights a roach, angry at Jean'sself-centeredness.Jean digs through a pile of garbage. Finally, he finds what he'slooking for - a pile of "SAMO baseball cards" - color Xeroxes ofhis favorite images and words. He pockets them.                       BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           I knew I left these somewhere. One of           these'll send your kids to college someday.                  (hands it to Benny solemnly)           Here - I made this for you.                       BENNY           Thanks.                  (beat)           Your dad called again - something about a           job.He hands Jean a slip of paper. He notices the number on Jean'spants.                      BENNY (CONT'D)           You got a date already?                       BASQUIAT                  (exhaling)           We're getting married. She said she could           tell I was a great artist - she could see           it in my eyes. She said she wanted to be by           my side and have inter-racial babies with           me.Benny grins. He grabs a basketball and spins it expertly on hisindex finger.                      BENNY           G'night... See you in court tomorrow.Jean turns on the TV. He notices the roach. He picks up the paperBenny gave him with the message from his father and sets it onfire.He lights the roach with it.He looks up; on television, we see a BUM being interviewed. Jeanturns up the volume.The bum's on the ground, looking beat up. Jean picks up a pocketrecorder and turns it on:                      BUM           The guy just hit me and I was on the           ground!!!! Boom, for real.Jean mutes the sound on the TV. He rewinds and proudly plays backthe words "Boom, for real."He picks up the phone and dials. He turns on the speakerphone.Jean holds the recorder to the speaker as someone answers thephone. (Jean walks in and out of frame throughout the following.)                      VOICE           Hello?                       BASQUIAT                  (deadpan)           I-Is this the s-s-suicide h-h-hotline?                      VOICE           Yes. My name is Chris. What's yours?                      BASQUIAT           Jean Michel.                      CHRIS           That's a beautiful name. French?                      BASQUIAT           Haitian. I'm going to kill myself. I'm           taking pills. Reds, blues, greens.Jean opens his notepad and looks down a long list of seeminglyrandom words. He comes to the words (in order) "liquid, hijack,"and "Marlboros."                      CHRIS           What? Wait a minute... talk to me.                       BASQUIAT                  (about to sob)           Life doesn't... make... sense. This city's           k-killing me. I want my liquid hijack           Marlboros!                       CHRIS           What? Life's beautiful. Depression isn't           permanent. Don't you believe that?                  (pause)           What is it - did your girlfriend leave you?                      BASQUIAT           No! I have a boyfriend. He loves me.Jean spies an electric pencil sharpener and plugs it in.                      CHRIS           You see? You have someone to live for.                      BASQUIAT           No, I don't. I'm alone. We all are.           Especially here. The world's unjust. The           respect fools get. The disrespect I get.                      CHRIS           What is it you want?    Respect? I have           respect for you, just    for making this call.           One philosopher said    "Sadness is a sin           against the richness    of the world." Think           about it. Feel it.                      BASQUIAT           You don't even know me. I want real           respect.He jams a pencil into the electric sharpener and holds thereceiver right next to it, giving the guy an earful:RRRRKKKKKKK!!!ANGLE ONCLOSE UP - A speaker. It fills the screen.We continue to hear:                       CHRIS (O.S.)                  (beat)           What? What do you want?                       BASQUIAT                  (breaking loose)           Fame. My liquid hijack Marlboros and the           moon and the cow that jumped over it.CAMERA PULLS BACK FROM SPEAKER TO REVEAL:INT. MUDD CLUB - HALLOWEEN NIGHTJean and Benny are on stage with two other GUYS, members of theband Gray. Everyone but Jean is dressed in some sort of Halloweencostume.We HEAR the words "Boom, for real" blasting from the P.A. system.What follows is a continuation, a collage of words from Jean's"suicide hotline" call -                      P.A.           One philosopher said "Give me my liquid           hijack Marlboros. Life's beautiful. You           have someone to live for. What do you want?           RKKKK! That's a beautiful name... French?Jean sits in a chair onstage with his band members. Benny playsthe organ. The other band members play percussion and guitar.It works. The crowd loves it.The song ends abruptly.We begin to hear James Brown's "Sex Machine."Jean looks out into the crowd and notices Gina. She's lookingright back at him from the bar. Pleased to see her face, he saysto himself -                      BASQUIAT           Boom, for real.We see him walk offstage into the crowd. They meet.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           I thought you hated this place?                         GINA           I do.                  (beat)           I just said that. I was never here before.           I actually like it.MUSIC segues into PIL's "Public Image".                      BASQUIAT           Let's get out of here.He leads her towards the exit. They step out of the club.EXT. MUDD CLUB - NIGHTHIGH, WIDE ANGLEIt's raining heavily. Jean motions for Gina to wait under theentrance. He tries to hail a cab... And another. And another.A parade of them passes, but each time they slow down, they get aglimpse of Jean and drive off.Finally, Gina steps out of the entrance. She raises her hand, anda car pulls over instantly.INT. CAB - NIGHTThey scurry into the backseat.The cab pulls off.EXT. CHINESE RESTAURANT - NIGHTThrough a steamy, rain-wet window, we see Jean and Gina seated ata table, dining.They seem to be having a nice time.INT. GINA'S APARTMENT - NEXT MORNINGGina lays in bed. Daylight streams into the apartment.Jackhammers RATTLE outside. (Music: REGGAE SONG - ErrolScorcher's "Cockroach in de Corner.")EXTREME CLOSEUPA cockroach crawls from Gina's bedroom across the floor and intothe kitchen where Jean sits naked on the floor, working on adrawing. It crawls over his drawing towards a cardboard box.Jean rummages through a cabinet. He finds a can of bugspray. Jeantears off a side of the box. With cardboard in one hand andbugspray in the other, he forgets the cockroach.He's mesmerized by the list of ingredients on the aerosol can.Someone POUNDS furiously at the door.Ignoring the pounding, he starts listing the ingredients on thepiece of cardboard, finishing his new drawing by including asymbol of a cockroach to the left of the list.                      LANDLADY           Miss Cardinale... Open up for me, please!He gets up and peeks through the security hole. He sees a middle-aged Hispanic woman reaching to unlock the door. He opens it.                      LANDLADY (CONT'D)           Ohhh, Dios mio!She stares at him levelly.                      LANDLADY (CONT'D)           I just want the rent.                      BASQUIAT           Why didn't you say so? Damn! She's asleep!Jean draws on a piece of paper on the counter next to him. Hehands it to the landlady. It's a a little shack with a big headnext to it that says "'Here' For Rent."The landlady looks at him like he's crazy. She balls up thedrawing and puts it in her pocket.Gina arrives in the doorway, wearing a robe. The landlady'strapped between them.                       GINA                  (to Jean)           What're you doing?The landlady wags her finger at Gina.                      LANDLADY           Next Monday.Gina and Jean look amused as they watch her leave.                      BASQUIAT           Wanna go get some breakfast?                      GINA           A friend of mine offered me a job doing a           little work installing a show in a gallery.           He's an electrician. I was supposed to be           there an hour ago.She looks at the bugspray drawing on the floor.                      GINA (CONT'D)           Ohh, that's nice.Jean kisses her neck as she looks at the drawing.We HOLD on the drawing.INT. MARY BOONE GALLERY - DAYWhite dust sprinkles down onto Jean's face from the ceiling.Unable to use his hands, he tries to blow the dust out of hiseyes...His boss, GREG, a mild-mannered hippie electrician, works abovehim on the ladder. Jean steadies the ladder. Greg's head is outof frame.The gallery is an impressive space under preparations for anopening.                      GREG           Jean, could you get me a Phillips           screwdriver?                      BASQUIAT           A what?                      GREG           A Phillips head. From the toolbox.                      BASQUIAT           Yeah.Jean searches through the toolbox. He picks up a screwdriver andreads the handle: "CRAFTSMAN"                         BASQUIAT (CONT'D)              'Phillips head,' right?                         GREG              Yeah.Jean shakes his head and puts it back. He tries a couple more -they each say "CRAFTSMAN." He puts them back.Finally, he finds one with a different handle. It says "G.S.C.2000."                         BASQUIAT              You don't have any!!!                         GREG              That's impossible. I've got, like, five of              'em!He comes down off the ladder.                          GREG (CONT'D)              You're holding one in your hand!!!                     (beat)              You've never done this kind of work before,              have you?                     (demonstrating)              See, this is a regular screwdriver, and              this is a Phillips head. The cross thing...              I'll tell you later what all the tools are              so you'll know.A GROUP of people arrives.Albert Milo    comes into view, tailed closely by Rene Ricard andMARY BOONE    - well dressed, petite, intense, 30. Milo, (also about30), wears    casual clothes splattered with paint. Mary Boone isengaged in    conversation with Milo. Rene chatters away.Greg climbs back up the ladder. He holds a piece of wire down toJean. Jean stares at the group while trying to be invisible.                         RENE              I need to make a call, Mary. You don't              mind, do you?                         MARY BOONE              Certainly not. You can use my line.Rene picks up the phone.                          RENE              To Paris. Bernard Picasso -                     (to Mary)              You know Bernard -                          MARY BOONE                     (wincing)              Be my guest.Jean watches the group talking.                       GREG           Jean? Hold this, please.                  (beat - he sees why Jean's so                  distracted)           You'll get there. But it's good to have           something to fall back on. That's why I           became an electrician. It pays the rent.           Y'know, I'm an artist, too.                      BASQUIAT           I didn't know.                      GREG           I sculpt. I'm really just starting to find           myself. How old are you? Twenty? You're           just like I used to be. I'm forty-one. And           I'm glad I haven't gotten any recognition.           It gave me time to develop.Jean watches Mary and Milo talking.                       MARY BOONE                  (to Milo)           I can't tell you how happy I am with this           show.Mary yells across the room to Jean.                       MARY BOONE (CONT'D)                  (her tone impersonal)           Excuse me - you - what's your name? Would           you move those tools there and put them           somewhere else?He looks at her.Milo watches to see what he's going to do.                       BASQUIAT                  (to Milo)           My name is Jean Michel Basquiat. Have you           heard of me?                       ALBERT MILO                  (amused)           No. Should I have?                      BASQUIAT           I'm a painter, too.                      ALBERT MILO           Really. Huh. Too bad.                      MARY BOONE           Excuse me, would you please move those           tools?Jean looks at Milo. Milo looks back at him.Jean walks past the tools and continues toward the door. He walksout without turning around.Milo smiles to himself.EXT. BOONE GALLERY - ALBERT MILO OPENING - DUSKThe ART WORLD CROWD fills the gallery. Jean lurks across thestreet, watching through the window.Cabs and limousines line the block. A crowd outside blocks thestreet.Jean's obviously impressed, jealous and estranged -     he feelsentitled to all this.He crosses the street to get a closer look.THROUGH THE WINDOWHe sees Albert Milo    talking with ANDY WARHOL and BRUNOBISCHOFBERGER. Andy,    of course, is thin, silver-haired, andnearly albino. Bruno    is a Swiss art dealer in his 40's. He exudesmoney - a pillar of    security.On the other side of the room, Rene Ricard is surrounded by acoterie of young, mostly BLACK AND HISPANIC MALES. Rene looksdrunk, enjoying the moment, holding court.Rene crosses to Albert and Andy.People pass by.Jean starts to walk.About half a block away, he sprays on a wall:"THE WHOLE LIVERY LINE BOW LIKE THIS WITH THE BIG MONEY ALLCRUSHED INTO THESE FEET"He looks pleased. He turns and looks up West Broadway beyond thebuildings at the sky:SUPERIMPOSED IN THE SKYWe see a surfer emerging from a HUGE WAVE. He looks powerful andexalted.                                                     CUT TO:EXT. BASKETBALL COURT - DAYANGLE ON: A wall. We see the following graffity:"JIMMY BEST ON HIS BACK TO THE SUCKERPUNCH OF HIS CHILDHOODYEARS"A basketball bounces against a wall.Jean and Benny amble onto a basketball court. Jean's changed hishairstyle. Now the dreadlocks stand straight up from his head.Benny dribbles with skill while Jean puffs furiously on acigarette. He doesn't look like he's slept, but he's happy.Benny throws the ball to Jean. It bounces off a puddle andsplashes Jean.                      BENNY           Come on, Jean. Get rid of your cigarette.           Concentrate.                       BASQUIAT           I am... On Gina.                  (beat)           Fuck - I didn't think we were actually           gonna do this.                      BENNY           Concentrate on the ball. Shoot.Jean shoots. It flies up, up, up -     and over the backboard.He runs after the ball, gets it, and dribbles clumsily.                      BENNY           You're shattering all my myths.                         BASQUIAT           About what?                      BENNY           Your people.                      BASQUIAT           Oh - you mean black people!He shoots and misses again. He throws it to Benny, who does apicture-perfect lay-up.                       BASQUIAT (CONT'D)                  (changing the subject)           How long do you think it takes to get           really famous?During the following, Benny performs a series of amazing shotswhile Jean looks on admiringly.                      BENNY           For a musician or a painter?Jean shrugs.                      BASQUIAT           Whatever. Famous. To where you can do your           stuff all day without thinking about           anything else.                      BENNY           Ummm... Four years. Six to get rich.He shoots. Swish.                      BENNY (CONT'D)           First, you have to dress right.He shoots again. Swish.                      BENNY (CONT'D)           Then, you have to hang out all the time -           with famous people - the right people, the           right chicks, the right parties.He shoots again. Swish.                      BENNY (CONT'D)           And you gotta do your work all the time           when you're not doing that. The same kinda           work, the same style - over and over           again, so people recognize it and don't get           confused. Then, once you're famous, you           have to keep doing it the same way, even           after it's boring - unless you want people           to really get mad at you - which they will           anyway.Benny tosses Jean the ball. Jean walks off the court.                      BASQUIAT           Come on. I hate this. I'm no good at it.Jean shoots the ball and keeps walking. The ball goes in. Hedoesn't notice. Benny runs after it.EXT. HOUSTON ST. - DUSKBenny and Jean walk along. Benny dribbles.                      BENNY           Famous people are usually pretty stupid.           You're too smart. You'd get bored to death.           You don't wanna be like John Henry -           fighting the machine. Just do what you do.           It's about integrity. Follow your heart.                      BASQUIAT           Who's John Henry?                      BENNY           Oh man! Folklore guy - worked on the           railroad. Y'know, pounding in spikes and           laying down track. Then one day they           invented a machine to do it. And he says           "Fuck that, I'm a MAN" and he challenges           the machine to a race to lay down a mile of           track. It takes two days. Neck and neck the           whole time. They get right to the end, and           he beats it by one spike.                  (pause)           Got a cigarette?                      BASQUIAT           So then what?                      BENNY           He drops dead! See? Just do your shit like           you do it! Your friends like you, you get           laid, everyone walks by, sees your stuff           everywhere. It's good. What else do you           want?They watch a long stretch limo cruises up across the street.                       BASQUIAT           Like I said - my liquid hijack Marlboros.                  (indicates limo)           Check it out.The LIMO DRIVER opens the back door. Andy Warhol and BrunoBischofberger step out.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           Andy Warhol. He's famous and he's not           boring.INSERT: AN IMAGE OF ANDY'S PAINTINGS AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM(FOOTAGE FROM JONAS MEKAS FILM)Jean scrounges in his pockets, pulls out his Xerox cards, andreadies himself as Bruno and Andy enter BALLATO'S RESTAURANT.                      BENNY           What're you doing? You're doing something.                      BASQUIAT           He's the best painter in the world. I'm           gonna give him one of these.                      BENNY           Don't give him anything, man. Your art's           worth a lot. Trade. That's what real           artists do with each other. Besides, he'll           just use you. He's famous for that.Benny watches Jean crosses the street. Jean passes the limousine.Inside, the driver (a 24-year old Rasta) takes a hit from a jointand watches Jean.CLOSE ONThe driver's eyes.                                                   CUT TO:DRIVER'S POV:He watches Jean cross the street.Jean enters the restaurant.INT. BALLATO'S - DAYJean enters. Andy and Bruno spot him. The Maitre'd becomesalarmed. but it's too late - he's at their table.He spreads his cards on the table. The topmost card reads"REDEEMABLE BECAUSE OF HIS YOUTH."Andy stares dead ahead, Sphinxlike.Bruno watches the non-interaction between the two.                       MAITRE'D                  (to Jean, flustered)           Can I help you?.He taps Jean's shoulder.                       MAITRE'D (CONT'D)                  (to Jean)           Sir...?                       BRUNO                  (sympathetically)            I think it's ok.                      MAITRE'D           Of course, Mr. Bischofberger.Bruno picks up one of the cards.                      BASQUIAT           You wanna buy some ignorant art? Ten bucks.                      ANDY WARHOL           Ignorant art?                      BASQUIAT           Yeah... Like - stupid, ridiculous, crummy           art.                      ANDY WARHOL           Ohhh. That's new. That sounds good.                      BASQUIAT           Ten bucks apiece.                      ANDY WARHOL           I can give you five. You didn't do very           much to these.                      BASQUIAT           You don't even work on your stuff!                      BRUNO           It doesn't matter how much you worked on           them. It matters how much you can get for           them.                      BASQUIAT           I can get ten.                       ANDY WARHOL           I'll take two. This one and... that one.                  (to Bruno)           Can I borrow some money, Bruno?Bruno pulls out a hundred dollar bill.                      BRUNO           Here. Do you have change?As WAITER arrives with the tray, Jean pockets the bill.                       BASQUIAT           You made a good deal. Here, you can have           these, too.He leaves all the cards and walks toward the door.BRUNO'S POV:Jean leaving past stupified Maitre'd.EXT. GINA'S APARTMENT - DAYJean and Benny are outside the entrance to Gina's building. Jeancarries two huge bags overflowing with groceries and flowers. Hebuzzes. There's no answer.                      BASQUIAT           I'll be right back.He produces a key and lets himself in.He enters the building.INT. GINA'S APARTMENT - DAYJean sets the groceries on the counter and leaves.We notice the Bugspray painting on the wall, along with more ofJean's work and supplies.EXT. GINA'S APARTMENT - DUSKJean rejoins Benny in front of Gina's building.As they're leaving, Gina comes up the street.                       BASQUIAT                  (to Benny)           Check you later, man.                      BENNY           Hi Gina.                      GINA           Hi.INT - GINA'S APARTMENT - DAYFlowers and groceries are strewn on the counter.                                                     FADE TO BLACK                                                     FADE IN:Over the following MONTAGE we HEAR:                      RENE (O.S.)           ... 'APT 20'... The church bells would ring           at noon and six a.m.. 24 strokes:           How many times we counted them.           We called our bed the cloud.           And there we'd float.           The bathtub was in the kitchen           and took forever to fill up.           We'd bathe together afterwards.           Oh the countless cigarettes and           take out Chinese food...           The bed was so narrow           Three years we made it fit.           The sheets were green the           sheets were pink the sheets           white linen from the past.           Little home, farewell,           The broken windows           and the bodega on the corner.           Now from my balcony           I look out over all New York...INT. GINA'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJean and Gina are sleeping.SERIES OF DISSOLVES: As they're turning together in their sleep.                                                     FADE TO BLACK                                                     FADE UP:INT. KITCHEN / LIVINGROOM (GINA'S APARTMENT) - DAYFilled with Jean's paintings.SERIES OF DISSOLVES: Paintings and objects fill the room.                                                     FADE TO BLACKSUPER: "A YEAR AND A HALF LATER EAST 9TH ST."                                                     FADE UP:INT. GINA'S APARTMENT - DAYJean watches "The Little Rascals" on TV in the living room. Thesound is turned off and a record player PLAYS Gypsy music loudly.Rolled up in a large drop cloth, Gina is asleep on the floor.Next to her, Jean works on all fours, drawing figures, crowns,and houses.Working feverishly, he writes "HEY, HEY, HEY" in big clusters,then writes other words: SHARK, IMMORTALITY, JOHN THE REVELATOR,FAME, INK, TEETH, HAWAII SUPERMARKET, POLE STAR, BABOON and TAR.He has an acoustics manual and Bible open    on the floor. He copiesthe technical blueprints from the manual.    He reads the Bible,following the text with a dirty finger. It    seems that he watchesTV, draws, listens to the music and reads    at the same time.He mixes Liquitex paints and puts some colors on the drawings. Hedraws a long blue line and carries it over onto the floor. Up thewall. Through the fridge. Across the window.He takes off his paint-covered clothes and changes into Gina'sblack slip. He rummages around the room, gathering pieces of hisand Gina's clothes.He spreads the clothes on the floor, and selecting wide brusheswith long bristles, picks up the cans of Liquitex paint.When paint spills on the clothes, he spreads it into shapes.Gina wakes up. She reaches for one of the painted shirts.                       GINA                  (in disbelief)           Basquiat, those are my best clothes!!! What           are you doing?                      BASQUIAT           C'mon, baby, I painted them for you.           They're beautiful now.                       GINA           I'm going to my parents this weekend. What           am I going to wear?                  (she begins to cry)           How could you do that to me?Jean wipes his hands off on his thighs and puts his arms aroundGina, holding her.                      BASQUIAT           ... I'll buy you some new ones.                      GINA           You don't have any fucking money..Jean lets her cry for a moment, then notices the music playing onthe stereo - a Gypsy song sung in Spanish.                      BASQUIAT           Do you know what he's saying?                      GINA           What who's saying?                       BASQUIAT           Manzanita....                  (translating song)           ... if one day I die, and    you read this           piece of paper, I want you    to know how much           I love you. Although I'll    never see you           again, Gypsy, Gypsy, your    hair, your hair,           your face, your face'Gina looks up at him.                       BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           'Even though you were never mine           And you never will be           You have a piece of my heart           You have, you have, you have...'                  (he reaches down, wiping off                  Gina's face)           'Gypsy, Gypsy, your hair, your hair, your           face, your face.'No longer crying, Gina leans her head against Jean.We HEAR a CALL from the window:                      BENNY (O.S.)           Willie Mays!!! Willie Mays!!!                       BASQUIAT                  (at the window)           Come on in!                                                    CUT TO:Benny and two GUYS come barreling into the apartment. Immediatechaos. Benny holds up a packet of drugs and jiggles ittemptingly. They make themselves at home. Jean sits with them andstarts to chop up the drugs.Gina gives Jean a look. She stands, still wrapped in the dropcloth. She lets it fall to the floor. She's wearing only herunderwear. She walks to the bedroom. Benny watches her.                      BASQUIAT           Gina, don't you want any of this? You could           use some.Gina doesn't respond. She comes out of the bedroom with a smallsuitcase.                         GINA              See you later.She leaves.Silence.                         GUY #1              Nice underwear...They start to laugh.INT. GINA'S APARTMENT - LATERKneeling on the floor,    Jean    covers the surface    of therefrigerator door with    fast,    rushing strokes.    He mixes paint in alarge soupbowl and dips    his    hair in the bowl.    Pressing his headto the door, he paints    with    his hair. He stops    to examine themarks.He HITS his head against the door harder and harder.                                                           FADE TO WHITEINT. GINA'S APARTMENT - MORNINGCAMERA PULLS BACK: Revealing Jean's eyes. They're open andmotionless. His head is tilted toward his chest.OFF SCREEN WE HEAR the sounds of Gina coming home:The LOCK turns. The door OPENS.Gina comes in and drops a bag on the floor.                          GINA              Basquiat?Silence. She picks up the mail from under the door and walks intothe room. There's a lump on the floor. It's Jean.                         GINA (CONT'D)              Wake up! I'm back!She shakes his arm. No result. She lifts his head, revealing hispainted hair.She shakes him harder. His body is totally limp.The whites of his eyes are red; his pupils slowly float up,vanishing.                         GINA              Jean, what did you do to yourself?She listens to his breath, then to his heart.                          GINA                  (panicking)           Jesus Christ!She finds heroin sprinkled into some pot on the floor near him.                       GINA                  (slapping his face)           Don't do this to me.She shakes him until his eyes unglue. His pupils float into theirproper place.                      BASQUIAT           ... What's the matter?                       GINA                  (furious)           Oh, God, Basquiat, you scared the shit out           of me. How the fuck could you do that to           yourself?                      BASQUIAT           You're back.                      GINA           It's Monday morning.                      BASQUIAT           It's not Sunday? I missed you. You           shouldn't leave me alone.                      GINA           You're blaming me? I had to go see my           family.                      BASQUIAT           I'm your family.                      GINA           Basquiat, what did you take?Jean tries to pick himself up from the floor. He gets up stiffly,like Pinnocchio. The long sleep made his limbs wooden.                      BASQUIAT           Nothing special - just some weed.He finds an old joint and lights it up.                       GINA           Basquiat, don't lie.                  (holds up powder)           This is smack.                      BASQUIAT           You want some?He offers her the joint.EXT. ST. MARK'S PLACE - NIGHTJean and Benny walk along, sharing a beer in a brown paper bag.They approach a DRUG DEALER and exchange money for dope.Jean finds a discarded window frame in a pile of trash andcarries it with him.They sit down on a stoop. Jean rolls up a dollar bill, emptiesthe dope onto the window, and splits it into two lines. He handsthe rolled up bill to Benny, who snorts the line.Benny shakes his head involuntarily, making a violent face, asthough the dope burned a hole in his sinus.                        BENNY             We got beat.                         BASQUIAT             For real?Jean takes a taste with his finger... He tastes his tongue andmakes a face..He snorts part of his line, anyway, to make sure.He frowns.They continue onwards. Jean still carries the window.                        BENNY             You gonna carry that around all night?                        BASQUIAT             Yeah... I'll paint on it.INT. PARTY - NIGHTThe party's winding down - hip-hop kids, Lower East Side types.Jean and Benny pass through the room, ignoring the two or threeclusters of people - maybe fifteen in all...Jean encounters a familiar face: an enormous red-haired dealer -ROCKETS (35). They greet each other as friends.Rockets leads Jean aside. They stand near a wall where a paintinghangs ("Flats Fixed"). It bears Jean's three-point crown.                        ROCKETS             You did that, didn't you?Jean shrugs.                         BASQUIAT             I gave it to Maripol. She let me stay here             for awhile.Jean hands him twenty dollars. Rockets hands him two dime bags.As if thinking better, he hands the bill back to Jean.                       ROCKETS            Do one for me and it's free. How's that?Jean re-pockets his money. He gestures to Rockets as if to say"fine - it's a deal."He and Benny sit down across the room and split a bag onto thewindow, as before. This time, it's good. They lean back into it,slumping down into the couch.Nearby, Rene sits on a couch with THREE STREET KIDS - artists(who we've seen at Milo's opening). They sit on their kneeslooking out a window passing binoculars back and forth.ARTIST #1 looks through the window with a pair of BINOCULARS. Hepoints down towards the street, trying to get Rene's attention.                       ARTIST #1            Check this out, Rene.Rene lunges towards the window. The stereo BLARES (Curtis Blow's"Survival")                        RENE                   (singing along)            "The name of the game is survival, You            learn it in jail upon your arrival!"Another ARTIST (#2) a young black man, runs up and tries to turndown the volume.Rene grabs his crotch.                       ARTIST #2            Chill, man! Be cool! This isn't even my            apartment!                       RENE            Oh man, you a FINE nigga! You know that?                       ARTIST #2            Cut it out, man! And don't be callin' me            that shit!ANGLE ON:Benny is now alone on the couch. He nods out.                        RENE                   (noticing him)            Oh my, there goes the neighborhood. Who's            house is this, anyway?Artist #2 is still mad at Rene.                        RENE (CONT'D)                   (to Artist #2)            That's what I like about you straight boys.            You're so sensitive!!!                   (resumes singing)           "The name of the game is survival,           Survival! Survival! only the strong           survive"                      ARTIST #1           Rene! Come here, man!                      RENE           I gotta go pee.Rene weaves across the room. Suddenly, he stops cold. He'sstaring at Jean's painting. He doesn't move.                       RENE (CONT'D)                  (to himself)           Who did this?                  (beat - louder)           Who did this?                      ARTIST #2           I don't know. I told you, this isn't my           apartment.                      ARTIST #3           I know who did that. That's Jean Michel's.           He's right here, man...He turns to look for Jean.                      ARTIST #3           Fuck, man, where'd he go? Where's Jean?Benny looks around ineffectually and shrugs.                       RENE                  (to himself)           It's fucking amazing. Motherfucker's got to           put a crown on it.                       ARTIST #1                  (yelling from the window)           Rene, man, check this out. Whoa... He's           kinda cute.Rene looks to him and back at the painting. He takes one lastlook.He stumbles towards the window and grabs the binoculars fromArtist #1..We look through the binoculars' POV at a GUY coming down thestreet. He's wearing all black, cowboy boots, and sunglasses.                      RENE           Naaaa. Poor thing has a little dick.                      ARTIST #2           How do you know?                      RENE           Just look at him.                  (Rene hands the binoculars to                  him)           Little silver thingies on his cowboy boots?           Honey, I don't think so.He looks around the room again as if looking for Jean.                      ARTIST #3           Whoa - check it out. It's him!Rene grabs binoculars.BINOCULARS POV:Jean pauses before one of his own graffiti pieces:"PLUSH SAFE, HE THINK"Rene watches in awe. Jean, moving a bit slowly, `signs' his tagwith the copyright sign. He walks off.                      RENE           MOTHAFUCKAH!                      ARTIST #2           That's the same guy who did this painting.                      RENE           I know that. Don't let him get away.He hands the binoculars to Artist #3 and runs towards the door.EXT. STREET - NIGHTBINOCULARS POVWe watch as Rene looks frantically for Jean, but can't spot him.Finally he sees Jean's hair-do bobbing up and down a block away.He runs towards it.                      RENE           Hey, wait up!!!Huffing and puffing, he catches up.                      RENE           You heard of Albert Milo. I made    that           niggah. I'm Rene Ricard. Didn't    you read           "Not About Albert Milo?" I know    who to           hype. Baby, I'm gonna make you a    star.                      BASQUIAT           Can you put me in the ring with him?                       RENE           I can put you in the ring with him. Even           book the dates.                  (beat)           But those big boys know how to fight. They            could make you look real sissy.                   (they laugh)            I was looking at that painting upstairs.            It's the first time a picture made me            embarrassed to own anything.                   (beat)            So what's your real name? 'Samo?'                       BASQUIAT            Jean Michel Basquiat.They shake hands.                       RENE            Sounds famous already.INT. PS 1 SHOW - DAYINSERT:   A huge poster reads:"NEW YORK / NEW WAVE100 ARTISTS"CLOSE ON: A HAMMER, POUNDINGJean pounds a nail into one of his pieces, nailing it directlyonto the wall. Everyone stares.                       RENE            Oh child... You got no respect. Didn't            anyone teach you how to mount paintings?Rene smiles. Jean finishes pounding the last piece into the wall.CAMERA pulls back to reveal several of Jean's paintings - foundobjects with paint on them.                        RENE (CONT'D)            This is a very important season in New            York. One's public appearance is absolute.                   (beat - a man approaches)            Oh!!! Louise!!! I'd like you to meet Jean            Michel Basquiat -                   (beat)            SAMO. This is Henry Geldzahler.A crowd begins to gather around the work.                       HENRY            Ohh... SAMO. I've heard a lot about you. I            love your graffiti.                       BASQUIAT            I was a kid then.                        HENRY                   (to Rene)            How much are these?                      RENE           You or the museum?                      HENRY           It's for me.                      RENE           Five.                      HENRY           I'll take it.Henry leaves.                       RENE           That's five thousand dollars.                  (hissing to Jean)           He's from the Metropolitan Museum of Art so           suck my pussy, you star.LATERThere seems to be a buzz about Jean already. People gather aroundhis paintings.Gina arrives. She looks great.                      BASQUIAT           You look fucking beautiful, beautiful.                      GINA           Well thanks!ANNINA NOSEI, a sophisticated, well-groomed woman appears atJean's side. She takes in his paintings.As Jean, Rene, and Annina talk, Gina is left out.                      RENE           This is Jean Michel, whose work I told you           about.                       ANNINA NOSEI                  (to Jean)           Rene hasn't stopped talking about your           paintings. Haven't I seen you in my           gallery?                      BASQUIAT           No.                       ANNINA NOSEI                  (to Rene)           You haven't been by lately.                      RENE           I didn't have the subway fare. My Medicare           ran out.                      ANNINA NOSEI                  (to Jean)           How do you come up with all those words you           put over everything?                      BASQUIAT           I don't know.Jean sees Bruno and turns his back to her.Bruno looks at the paintings with a smile... He gives a cheerfulnod to Annina.                      BRUNO           You're doing well.He leaves. Annina's impressed that Jean knows Bruno.                      ANNINA NOSEI           I'd love to see some more of your work...           Where's your studio?                      BASQUIAT           You name it, I paint there.                      ANNINA NOSEI           Well, I don't want to get mugged on a           Bowery street corner. Maybe I could find a           place for you to work. Take my card.                      BASQUIAT           You want a drink?He produces a pint bottle in a paper sack.                       ANNINA NOSEI           No thanks.                  (to Rene)           But I'd like one of these paintings.She walks off.                         GINA           Who's that?                       RENE           You kidding? That's Annina Nosei. Jean's           been in her gallery a thousand times.                  (to Jean)           You slut. How do you know Bruno           Bischofberger?                  (to Gina)           He's only the biggest art dealer in Europe.                      BASQUIAT           I had lunch with him once.INT. GINA'S APARTMENT (BEDROOM) - NIGHTJean and Gina lay in bed.                       BASQUIAT            Which island of Hawaii do you want our            house to be on? Maui? Kaui? Molokai?                        GINA                   (a little upset)            I hadn't thought about it.                        BASQUIAT                   (in perfect Hawaiian)            Oahu, Lanai, Niihau, Kahoolawee -                       GINA            Staten Island would be ok.Beat. Silence.Jean can't sleep. He stares at the ceiling.                       BASQUIAT            Do you wanna marry me?Beat.No reply.Gina's asleep.INT. GINA'S APARTMENT (KITCHEN) - LATER (NIGHT)Quietly, Jean kneels on the floor of the kitchen. He paints on anold window.He draws figures of three people sitting at a table - obviously afamily. He crosses out one person and paints a dog under thetable.He crosses everything out.He mixes the paint in a large bowl and starts again.Again, he crosses everything out.INT - GINA'S APARTMENT - MORNINGJean continues to work. He's wearing pajamas and a bathrobe.Gina enters, waking up.She looks at the painting.                       GINA            Kind of a family portrait.Jean moves to add something. She stops him.                       GINA (CONT'D)            It looks done.                           BASQUIAT             Think so?He pauses.                           BASQUIAT (CONT'D)             ... babies.                        GINA             You mean babies with you?                        BASQUIAT             What's wrong with me?                        GINA             You're your own baby.Jean paints out the image.There's a KNOCK at the door.                           GINA             Who is it?                        ANNINA NOSEI (O.S)             Annina Nosei.                           GINA             Who?Jean jumps up and locks himself in the bathroom. Gina goes to thedoor, unlocks the chain, and looks out.                         GINA (CONT'D)                    (through the crack)             Hello? Oh. Come in.She opens the door.                        ANNINA NOSEI             Is Jean Michel here?                           GINA             No.Closed in the bathroom, Jean smiles while eavesdropping.                        ANNINA NOSEI             I'm here to see some work.Annina starts noticing all the work around her. Gina hands her astack of drawings.                        ANNINA NOSEI (CONT'D)             These are great.                        GINA             Aren't they?                        ANNINA NOSEI             How much for these five?                      GINA           You should talk to him about this.Annina contains her excitement.                       ANNINA NOSEI                  (continuing to stare at the                  work)           Um... Do Rene and Jean have a contract           together?We see Jean in the bathroom looking at himself in the mirror witha bird's nest on his head.                      ANNINA NOSEI (CONT'D)           I'm interested in showing Jean's work.                      GINA           I really think you should talk to him about           this.Jean pops out of the bathroom.                      BASQUIAT           When?                      ANNINA NOSEI           How about right now?She opens the door.Unnoticed, Gina starts for the bedroom.                       GINA                  (calling back)           Be ready in a minute!                                                    CUT TO:THE DOOR SLAMSAs Jean exits with Annina.INT. TAXI - DAYJean waits in a taxi in front of Benny's apartment.                      BASQUIAT           Honk the horn again, will you please?The DRIVER obliges. The back of the cab is loaded with all hisbelongings. Boxes piled with junk. Bags of new painting supplies.Benny emerges from his building and jumps into the cab.                       BASQUIAT (CONT'D)                  (annoyed)           You're late.                  (to cabby)           One-fourteen Prince.The cab pulls out. Jean lights a joint. and smokes it furiously.He doesn't pass it to Benny.                      BENNY           What's the rush, John Henry?                      BASQUIAT           I ain't John Henry.                      BENNY           Good.                      BASQUIAT           What's your fuckin' problem, anyway?Benny holds out his hand for the joint.                       BENNY                  (inhaling)           I don't really have any problems.                      BASQUIAT           Good. What do you have?                      BENNY           What's your fuckin' problem? You get a           girlfriend and a little attention and then           start acting all uppity with me.                       BASQUIAT                  (mortified)           'Uppity?' Like as in 'uppity nigger?'He snaps his finger for the joint back.                       BENNY           That's not how I meant it.                  (beat)           For all you know, you might just be a flash           in the pan! You can never tell.                      BASQUIAT           Hey fuck you! I deserve this shit. You're           just jealous 'cause it ain't happening to           you!The cab stops for a red light. Benny gets out. He doesn't say aword. Jean doesn't look at him. The cab sails off.EXT. ANNINA NOSEI GALLERY - DAYIt stops in front of the gallery. From outside, we see Anninaconversing on the phone. She looks up and opens the door for him.INT. STAIRWELL - BLACK.Off screen we HEAR Jean walking down the stairs.                      ANNINA NOSEI           I've got to find the switch.INT - BASEMENT, ANNINA'S - DAYAnnina flips on a light.                         ANNINA NOSEI           Here it is.Jean looks around him. He's in a large, empty cement-floored roomlit by fluorescent lights.INT. BASEMENT, ANNINA'S - (LATER) - DAYJean bends over, beginning several canvases. He pours paint onthem - kind of like photographs we've seen of Jackson Pollock. WeHEAR Miles Davis' "Flamenco Sketches."INT - BASEMENT, ANNINA'S - DAY (LATER)GRANDMASTER FLASH'S "WHITE LINES" fills the room.The walls are covered with half-finished, unstretched CANVASES.Two or three more lie on the floor.He works like a maniac, buzzing back and forth from one paintingto another, adding figures, crossing out words, all the whilesmoking and eating cookies. The crumbs fall onto the paintings.He walks on them.Every so often, he refers to a book of DaVinci drawings. Tornpages litter the floor beneath the book.We hear someone THUMPING down the stairs.It's Rene. A PUPPY follows him.He dumps a huge load of paint supplies, art books, and carryoutribs. The puppy sniffs around happily, licking at Jean andwalking over the paintings, wagging his tail.He stops the tape player and inserts some Persian music.Jean empties some foil-wrapped bags of coke. He cuts a line ofcoke on a foil plate.Rene starts reading from a poem he's evidently written:                      RENE           3rd night I called    him 'boy'           He sed "don't call    me 'boy'" "Well           Then don't call me    'Boss'" That           Was the end for us    and I've           Been seeing him for    2 1/2 years.           In kangaroo court I    want to be           Able to say I never kept a           Slave. But he tricked me in           To Tying him up and busting his           Face. He'll jump up at my Trial           Yelling 'He wupped me gud.'Jean warms the plate 'til the coke crackles, and then "chases thedragon," sucking the smoke through a straw.He offers it to Rene, who refuses. He lights and hands Rene thejoint. Rene takes a hit. Jean takes it back.Jean starts to work again.The PUPPY runs around, chasing after him, getting in his way,running across the paintings. Jean laughs, playing tag. The puppygets a hold of Jean's sleeve. It unravels about ten feet.While Jean's playing, Rene spots a painting with the words"Famous Negro Athletes."                      RENE           Oh man! That's one looks famous already.Without hearing him, Jean walks towards the painting and with aswipe, paints out what Rene is pointing to.                       RENE (CONT'D)           You are a willful boy. How'm I s'posed to           write about you if you keep changing           everything?The phone RINGS... Jean ignores it. Rene gets it -                       RENE (CONT'D)           Uh huhh... Band practice?                  (to Jean)           It's Benny. He wants to know why you're not           at band practice...?                       BASQUIAT                  (quietly)           Fuck...                  (to Rene)           I forgot about that.He sets his brush down.Rene hold the phone against his leg.                      RENE           Fuck band practice... If you're gonna be a           painter you're gonna have to break a few           hearts - you don't wanna be like Tony           Bennett..                      BASQUIAT           Tony Bennett... What do you mean?                      RENE           Singing on stage and painting in your spare           time.                      BASQUIAT           I didn't know Tony Bennett painted.                      RENE           My point exactly.Jean picks up the phone... All he hears is a DIAL TONE.                      RENE (CONT'D)           So keep painting.                       BASQUIAT           Yes, Boss.                  (beat)           If you're so smart, why are you here with           me in this basement?                       RENE           You're news. I want the scoop. I write it           down. When I speak, no one believes me. But           when I write it down, people know it's           true.                  (beat)           There's never been a black painter in art           history that's been considered really           important, you know?                      BASQUIAT           So what?                      RENE           So shut up and keep painting..                       BASQUIAT                  (touched)           What time is it?                      RENE           5:11.Jean regards a near-finished painting. He writes "5:11" on it. Hecrosses it out and re-writes it, "Rene 5:11." Rene looks pleased.                      BASQUIAT           That one's for you.                      RENE           Thanks... I'll take it tonight.                      BASQUIAT           I can't. After the show.Jean continues painting. Rene slumps down onto the floor, happy -a parasite content to have a host, impressed with Jean'slimitless energy. Rene closes his eyes.BLACKINT. ANNINA'S BASEMENT - LATERJean is bent over his work. He looks to see a pair of legs. Theybelong to Albert Milo.                      BASQUIAT           Hey - it's the big A.M..                      ALBERT MILO           Rene's been telling me about your work.Milo takes his time looking at the paintings.Jean continues to work, never wanting to appear impressed byanyone. He walks on top of the paintings.                      ALBERT MILO (CONT'D)           Is this finished yet?                      BASQUIAT           I don't know.                      ALBERT MILO           When's your show?                      BASQUIAT           Not sure. How was yours?                       ALBERT MILO           I haven't decided yet.                  (beat)           Rene, you wanna come over to the studio           tomorrow. I wanna make a painting of you.                      RENE           How about now?Rene shrugs to Jean. He prepares to leave.                      ALBERT MILO           See you at your opening. Thanks.Albert and Rene begin to ascend the stairs. Jean continuespainting. The dog leaves with Rene and Albert.                      WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)           Ohhh, Albert Milo, what a pleasure to meet           you.Jean's brush stops.                      ALBERT MILO (O.S.)           This is Rene Ricard.Jean paints over the words "Rene 5:11."We hear FOOTSTEPS COMING DOWN THE STAIRS. The woman continues -                      WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)           We're Tom and Cynthia Kruger - nice to have           met you.JEAN'S POVWe see Annina's legs coming down the stairs.REVEALA man wearing a pin-striped suit and gold-rimmed glasses. Thewoman is wrapped in a cashmere shawl.                        ANNINA NOSEI (O.S)             Tom and Cynthia Kruger.                        BASQUIAT (O.S)             I know.We SEE that Jean continues to paint, looking down.                         ANNINA NOSEI             This is Jean Michel Basquiat.                    (beat)             You've seen the SAMO graffiti everywhere.             That's his. This is the true voice of the             gutter.As she speaks, Jean squirms. He grabs a banana from a fruit bowl.Without peeling it, he takes a big bite. And another. Andanother. Everyone looks uncomfortable. Annina starts showing themthe paintings.                        CYNTHIA KRUGER             We've seen the graffiti. I work on Wall             Street. And I've heard wonderful things             about the paintings. Everybody's talking             about you.                        BASQUIAT             Yeah.He looks up at them, eating the banana.                         ANNINA NOSEI             Here's a very good example of his recent             work that's not spoken for yet.                    (beat)             He's got to work in a basement. He's got so             much energy that if he worked in a place             with a window, he'd jump right through it.             Most of these are reserved already. After             this week, this work will not be available.                         TOM KRUGER                    (to his wife)             ... I don't know.... This one's nice, but I             don't know if I could live with it. That             green is so... institutional.He (Kruger) looks up to see two KIDS enter - young black artists,one of whom we saw with Rene at the loft party.They walk right into the middle of the room, completely obliviousto the presence of Annina and the Krugers..                       KID #1                  (enthusiastically)           Yo, man, you're a damn lucky nigger selling           this shit!                      BASQUIAT           You like it?                      KID #1           Not bad. Yeah, I do.The Krugers hem and haw in front of the painting next to Jean.                      CYNTHIA KRUGER           I'm fascinated by his choice of crossing           out words that way.                      ANNINA NOSEI           Yes, well, they are more meaningful in           their absence, no?                       KID #1                  (to Jean, joking)           What does it mean?Jean paints the words "Rene 5:11" back into a painting. Theyignore the kid..                      CYNTHIA KRUGER           I like this one, but that green...Suddenly, we see LEGS coming down the stairs. It's Gina. Everyonelooks at her.                      BASQUIAT           Y'want me to make it a nice shit brown?                         TOM KRUGER           Beg pardon?Gina hadn't expected to find herself in the middle of this scene.                      BASQUIAT           Hi. This is Gina.Annina nods to her.Gina nods to the group.                      CYNTHIA KRUGER           They're something like Dubuffet's...           That... childlike quality.Gina tries to connect with Jean. He's cold.                       CYNTHIA KRUGER (CONT'D)                  (to her husband and Annina)           I can't make up my mind.                      TOM KRUGER           I like this one. If it were just another           color..                       BASQUIAT           Get a fucking decorator. If you buy one,           you'll have to change your whole lives -           maybe even sell your kids!                  (to Annina)           These paintings aren't even done yet!!!He sets his brush down. As he leaves -                      TOM KRUGER (O.S.)           I think we'll take the green one.HOLD ON:Gina, left standing in the middle of this.INT. MCDONALDS - DAYCLOSE ON McDonald's COUNTERMAN. He smiles.                      BASQUIAT           I'll take three big Macs, two chocolate           shakes, two orders of fries, and an apple           pie.                      COUNTERMAN           You want three Big Macs, two chocolate           shakes, two orders of fries, and an apple           pie.A line begins forming behind Jean.                      BASQUIAT           Forget it .I'll take six, no, seven           chocolate shakes, an order of fries, a Big           Mac, and two apple pies.                      COUNTERMAN           You only want one Big Mac?The people in line are beginning to get impatient.                      BASQUIAT           Yeah... And make it three apple pies.EXT. SOHO STREET - DAYJean leans on a fire hydrant, eating a Big Mac.A pink scarf blows on the wind right in front of his face. Hecatches it.A BOMBSHELL BLONDE arrives with her hand outstretched to retrieveit.                      BIG PINK           How can I ever thank you?                       BASQUIAT                  (with a smile)           I'd like to squeeze your titties.He offers her a Big Mac.                         BIG PINK           Come on.                         BASQUIAT           Wanna Mac?                      BIG PINK           No, I'd like the scarf.                         BASQUIAT           Have a Mac.                      BIG PINK           I don't eat junk food.                       BASQUIAT           Oh. I didn't know. I'll take you to the           best restaurant in town.                  (beat)           You'll miss a great meal and I'll keep the           scarf, anyway. What's your name?                      BIG PINK           You're a fast mover.                      BASQUIAT           No name? That's ok. I'll just call you Big           Pink.A man sleeping on the ground with a beehive of paper bags on hishead and three overcoats sticks out into the sidewalk.Jean leaves the McDonald's bag near his head as he walks down thestreet with the girl.INT. GINA'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJean enters the apartment.                         GINA           Hi.                         BASQUIAT           Hi.                      GINA           What's that?                        BASQUIAT             A present I picked up for you.Gina holds the scarf up and looks at it.                        GINA             It's beautiful. Thanks.As she holds it up he puts it around her neck and kisses her.                         BASQUIAT                    (tenderly)             You look like an angel.INT. ANNINA NOSEI GALLERY - NIGHTSilence.CLOSE UP PAINTINGWe read the words:"BOOM #2A CAT POURING TACKS ON ITS TONGUE"SOMEONE (the big red-haired dealer we met earlier) walks in frontof us.CAMERA PULLS BACK to reveal a crowd in a gallery. It is literallyfilled with people. Again - all this takes place in silence.We begin to HEAR Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?" It colorsthe motion of the crowd.                                                  CUT TO:EXT. PRINCE ST (BET. MERCER AND WOOSTER) - DUSKJean walks down the street. He's got on a new set of clothes andhe listens to a Walkman. We HEAR Miles Davis' "FlamencoSketches."JEAN'S POVWe MOVE down Prince St. and take a left on West Broadway. Weapproach a huge crowd. We get closer and closer until we areimmersed in it.The crowd realizes Jean's amongst them. People start approachinghim. Someone removes the headphones.The DIN of the crowd replaces the music. Amongst the normal crowdchatter, we hear friends' calling out:                        VOICES IN CROWD             Jean!!! Jean Michel!!!INT. ANNINA NOSEI GALLERYAnnina    beckons to him. Beyond her, he sees Albert, Andy, andBruno.    He's being escorted or maybe just pushed - it's hard totell.    Each step of the way, he's pounced upon by INDIVIDUALSwe've    never met. The room is wall-to-wall with people. People areswept    along in currents.                          MAN                     (wildly enthusiastic)              Jean, man!!! Let's make a record!                          WOMAN                     (slyly, intimately)              You finally did it.                          MAN #2                     (pointing to Jean, sneering)              He's so fulla shit.                         MAN #3 (O.S.)              How much is he getting for these?Jean walks up to Andy Warhol.                         BASQUIAT              Andy, man, thanks for coming. I'd like to              paint your jacket.                          ANDY WARHOL              My jacket? Gee, great...                     (he Polaroids Jean)              Your show looks great. Quite a turnout. You              look great. You kids. You drink red wine              with fish. You can do anything! Make              paintings in the basement of your gallery?              First time I've heard of that!They are approached by Mary Boone, a short woman in high heelsand an Armani suit).                         ANDY WARHOL (CONT'D)              Jean Michel, this is Mary Boone. She's got              the great new gallery.                         BASQUIAT              Yeah, I met her already.                          MARY BOONE                     (shaking Jean's hand)              You should be pleased. It's a great              show...I'm having a dinner later at Mr.              Chow's for Albert. You should come.In the background, we see Annina watching.                         ANDY WARHOL              You'll like it. Everyone'll be there.Annina walks over to Jean with a COUPLE.                      ANNINA NOSEI           Jean, your parents are here.                      BASQUIAT           Hi Dad. Hi Nora.                      NORA           Congratulations.                      BASQUIAT           Thanks for coming.Rene appears out of the crowd.                       ANNINA NOSEI                  (continuing to Jean's father)           You must be very proud.                      FATHER           I am!                      RENE           How does it feel to have a genius in the           family?                      FATHER           It feels... good!Jean notices Benny across the room. He slows down and waves.Jean sees Gina across the room wearing the scarf.Just beyond her, he sees Big Pink approaching.There must be ten people between them.                       BASQUIAT                  (to Rene)           I'll be right back.He moves towards her. Suddenly, directly in front of him are theKrugers.                      TOM KRUGER           We love our painting.                      BASQUIAT           Which painting?                      TOM KRUGER           The green one.                      BASQUIAT           Oh yeah.                      CYNTHIA KRUGER           We got a couch to match.                      TOM KRUGER           She's only kidding!Looking past the Krugers, Jean looks for Gina. He sees her. Hispath is blocked.He presses forward, looking for Gina, getting caught in thecrowd.Jean strains to keep an eye on Gina and Big Pink..Benny arrives at Jean's side holding a bottle of Jack Daniels anda shot glass.                      BENNY           Willie Mays. A Toast.Jean brushes past him.                      BASQUIAT           Not now, ok?Benny is left standing next to Andy holding the bottle.Jean manages to advance a few more feet through the crowd, thenruns smack into Rockets, his drug dealer.                      ROCKETS           Jean Michel, my man. Nice party. Should we           step into my office?Nearby, Benny sees this meeting and walks off, disgusted,thinking this is why Jean gave him the brush off.                      BASQUIAT           That's alright. I'm cool now.Jean looks off and sees Big Pink fingering the scarf, sayingsomething to Gina.Gina slaps her in the face.Jean tries to get around the dealer.Gina turns to leave. She catches Jean's eye.She walks out.                      ROCKETS           A gift! I was just trying to give you a           gift!The dealer palms something to Jean.                         BASQUIAT           I gotta go.Jean steps away from Rockets, but is trapped in the crowd.Rockets looks after him with disappointment.Rene arrives with, Andy, Bruno, and a PHOTOGRAPHER.                         RENE                  (edging his way in)           This guy wants a picture.They shrug and crowd in - Jean, Andy, and Rene. The photographergets them to squeeze closer and closer.                      PHOTOGRAPHER           Of the painters, please.There's not enough room. Rene accidentally gets pushed out offrame.Rene fumes. Albert Milo arrives with his parents (JACK AND ESTHERMILO). They are a nice Jewish couple in their 70's.                      BASQUIAT           He said 'of the painters!' Hey - Albert!           Get in the picture!Albert crowds in. The photographer SNAPS a picture and the FLASHblinds everyone momentarily.                      ALBERT MILO           Hey, Jean, I'd like you to meet my           wife....and my parents. Mom, Dad, this is           Jean Michel Basquiat.Jean pulls out a joint and lights it as if it were a cigarette.He offers it to Albert, who takes a hit.                       ESTHER MILO                  (frowning at her son)           Don't do that.                  (beat)           Hello, Jean.                      JACK MILO           Hi, John... Are your parents here?                      BASQUIAT           Well.                  (inhaling)           My dad's here with his wife. My mom           couldn't make it.He offers the joint to Albert's mother.                       ESTHER MILO                  (waving it away)           No thanks.Everyone laughs.                       BRUNO                  (to Jean)           I'd like to do a show with you.                  (pointing to "Rene 5:11"                  painting)           I'm especially interested in that one. I'd           like to buy it for myself.Jean spots the very word on the painting ("Rene 5:11") andfreezes for a second.                      BASQUIAT           I wasn't gonna sell this one.He looks around the room for Rene, but doesn't see him. Brunoremains smiling, waiting for an answer.                      BRUNO           You shouldn't have put it in the show. This           is the one I absolutely have to have. I           really love it.                        BASQUIAT           Sure, ok..Jean wants out. He feels compromised.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           Do you think I could borrow your limousine?           I'll get it back to you in an hour.                      BRUNO           It's OK. Just have him bring you to dinner           at Mr. Chow's later. We'll be there.                        ANDY WARHOL           Bye, Jean.Jean makes his way through the crowd, as we see images of thecrowd and fragments of paintings. As he nears the door, he feelshis arm pulled.                       RENE                  (hissing)           You fucking little whore! You sold my           painting! I'm gonna tell you something,           brother - when you're climbing up the           ladder of success, don't kick out the           rungs! Believe that shit.                      BASQUIAT           I'll make you another one.                        RENE           Forget it.He pulls out a scrap of paper and starts writing.                        BASQUIAT           Rene -Rene shushes him... He hisses loudly, like a cat.                       RENE           SHHHHHH. Later.                  (speaking to himself)           "What is it about art, anyway......"Jean pauses. He turns around and surveys the room once more.A blink.Silence.We see the crowd in SLOW MOTION.Everyone's eyes are shut.                       RENE (O.S.; CONT'D)           ... that we give it so much importance?           Artists are respected by the poor because           what they do is an honest way to get out of           the slum using one's sheer self as the           medium. The money earned is proof pure and           simple of the value of that individual...           The Artist.INT. / EXT. GALLERY - NIGHTThe CAMERA rises higher and higher over the crowd and followsJean as he makes his way toward the street.We begin to DISSOLVE into a MONTAGE of stills of ARTISTS:                      RENE (O.S.CONT'D)           The picture a mother's son does in jail           hangs on her wall as proof that beauty is           possible even in the most wretched. And           this is a much different idea than the           fancier notion that art is a scam and a           rip-off. But you could never explain to           someone who uses God's gift to enslave that           you have used God's gift to be free."EXT. STREET - NIGHTJean enters a waiting limo. It pulls away from the curb.Rene finishes as the limo threads its way through the night-lit,twinkling city.INT. LIMO - NIGHTThe DRIVER is the young Rasta we saw earlier outside Ballato'sdriving Bruno and Andy.Jean slumps in the back seat.The driver can't help staring in the rearview mirror.                      DRIVER           I really... admire you.                      BASQUIAT           Me? Why?                      DRIVER           You did it! You made it. I'm a painter,           too.                      BASQUIAT           That's great.                      DRIVER           Would you check out my studio some time?                      BASQUIAT           Sure. I'd be glad to.The limo pulls over.                       DRIVER           Here?Quickly, Jean gets out of the limo. He leaves the door open.The DRIVER watches as Jean talks to two DRUG DEALERS.Jean jumps back into the limo.The driver pulls away. In the rearview mirror, he sees Jeanseparate a bag from a bundle of ten. He rips it open and snortsdirectly from it.He lays his head back and takes a deep breath.                       BASQUIAT                  (calm, relieved)           What's your name, man?                      DRIVER           They call me Steve, but I prefer Shenge.                      BASQUIAT           Nice to meet you, Shenge. Want a job?INT. MR. CHOW'S RESTAURANT - NIGHTAn elegant Chinese restaurant on the Upper East Side. The diningroom is split level with a mezzanine reserved for celebrities andspecial friends of the owner.At the podium, the MAITRE'D approaches.                      MAITRE'D           Good evening.From behind the Maitre'd on the mezzanine we see Bruno waving toJean.In the dining room on the lower level sit Annina and Rene.Nearby, at another, smaller table, are seated DAVID MCDERMOTT andPETER MCGOUGH, two artists dressed in Victorian attire.Annina beckons him.Rene looks away from him and talks to a WAITER. Jean waves toAnnina and continues towards Bruno's table.Seated at a large table are Andy, Bruno, Albert Milo, his wifeand parents, Henry Geldzahler, MELINA PORTOS (a young heiress)and FRANCESCO and ALBA CLEMENTE and Mary Boone. Dinner's alreadyserved.At the large table, everyone watches as Milo makes a portrait ofFrancesco in a beautiful leatherbound book. It belongs to Mr.Chow, who is nearby at the bar.                       ANDY WARHOL           Hi, Jean.He motions to Mr. Chow to set a chair for Jean between Mary Booneand himself.                      BRUNO           Jean, everyone loved your show.As Jean is seated, Andy and Jack Milo resume conversation -                      JACK MILO           Nixon lives in Saddle River, New York.                      ANDY WARHOL           Saddle River's in New Jersey.                      JACK MILO           Saddle River, New York!                      ANDY WARHOL           It's in New Jersey.                       JACK MILO           New York.                      ANDY WARHOL           I think it's in New Jersey.                      JACK MILO           It's in New York.                      ANDY WARHOL           Oh, I didn't know that.CLOSE UP: Jean smiles at Andy's diplomacy.Albert finishes drawing his portrait: it's Francesco with his armaround a headless torso.                       ALBERT MILO                  (to Francesco)           You finish it.He pushes the book across the table.Francesco begins to draw.                       MARY BOONE                  (to Jean)           I hear your show was sold out already.           There's a very important collector who's           interested in some of your works.                      BASQUIAT           Bring him over sometime. I have some other           stuff to show him.Annina watches from the other table as Jean talks to Mary.Francesco finishes his drawing.Albert takes the book and passes it to Jean.                      ALBERT MILO (CONT'D)           Go on, take it..Jean takes it. Mr. Chow watches his book change hands.Jean takes a bowl of moo-shoo pork in front of him and dumps itonto the book. Then he uses a piece of pork to draw a head.Suddenly, there's a shrill, familiar voice.                       RENE           I'd like a glass of your best champagne,           please?                  (reading)           This is an enormously important season in           New York, and to make a false step could           have severe repercussions for years. We are           no longer collecting art, we're buying           individuals.                      ANDY WARHOL           Oh shut up, Rene.                       RENE           Everything's over your head, Andy. Even Mr.           Chow's menu.                  (beat - to Jean)           Thanks for not inviting meHe leans over everyone and helps himself to some spears ofasparagus.ANGLE ONEsther Milo, watching.                      RENE (CONT'D)           I'm starving. You can't buy    advertising           like this. This is the most    glamorous           dinner you'll have here this    fall. How           about some of that imitation    crab?                      MR. CHOW           I'm not paying for the drawing with crab.           It's a present to my friends. It's my           birthday.Jean finishes his drawing - a big beautiful head that fills thescreen.Rene grabs it from him. He holds it up for everyone to see.                      RENE           Isn't he great? Thanks, Jean.He rips the page from the book.                      RENE (CONT'D)           He owes me one.Everyone's face drops. Mr. Chow grabs his book. He motions to acouple WAITERS -                      MR. CHOW           You're too much, Rene. Get this guy out of           here.                      RENE           I haven't eaten yet!!!The waiters grab Rene's arms.                      RENE (CONT'D)           Hands off me, you faggots! I'm going. I'm           going...I've kept Diana Vreeland waiting           too long, anyway.                      ANDY WARHOL           Wow... That was a nice drawing, too, Jean.           Maybe you should do another one.                       MR. CHOW                  (exhausted)           Some other time.Spontaneously, David McDermott climbs onto the tabletopdownstairs and sings "Paris Je T'aime."As he belts it out in a theatrical falsetto, he glides overglasses and plates, executing a leap to another table in mid-song.The restaurant staff and OTHER DINNER GUESTS watch, agape.CLOSE UP - DAVID'S SHOES.As David dances, Annina walks over to the table, greeting peopleand saying goodnight.                       ANNINA NOSEI                  (to Jean)           It's great that people are interested, but           if anyone's going to buy anything, I'll           handle it for you. Everything goes through           the gallery, even if they come to your           studio.                      BASQUIAT           Sure.Annina leaves.Jean leans back in his chair, taking in this splendid new world.He pulls out a joint, lights up, inhales with pleasure, closeshis eyes and smiles.SUPER OVER HIS FACE: "FOUR YEARS LATER"SCREEN GOES BLACK                      INTERVIEWER (O.S.)           ... had twenty-three one man shows, been in           forty three group shows from Zurich to           Tokyo..                                                    FADE UPINT. GREAT JONES STREET LOFT - DAYNote: The following scene is shot in documentary style.                      INTERVIEWER (O.S, CONT'D)           ... had over fifty articles written about           you, switched galleries - how many times? -           DJ'd in the hottest clubs -Jean looks out the window, yawns and rubs his eyes. He now sportsdreadlocks bundled into groups of spikes sticking out of hishead. He wears a wrinkled Wesleyan College T-shirt, paint-splattered jeans, and no shoes; just out of bed, it would seem.An INTERVIEWER - a balding Brit with all the humor of a bankclerk - tries to buddy up with Jean on camera.                       INTERVIEWER   (CONT'D)           ... one of the youngest    artists ever to be           included in the Whitney    Biennial, also           produced a rap record.    It's said you're           quite the ladies man -    even dated Madonna           for a couple months!!!                  (takes a breath)           All at the ripe old age    of 24. One might           ask: is there anything    left for Jean Michel           Basquiat to do?Jean and the interviewer face each other in front of one ofJean's paintings. Jean stares at the interviewer, incredulous.                       INTERVIEWER (CONT'D)           What is it that gets you out of bed in the           morning?                  (nervous laugh)                      BASQUIAT           I hate this. Turn that off.Jean walks off camera and disappears into his bedroom.Shenge (the former limo driver, now working as Jean's assistant)assembles stretchers.SUPER: "GREAT JONES STREET, 1985"A CAMERA CREW waits in the room. Jean returns.                      INTERVIEWER           We're running a little late.He signals to the crew that he's beginning.                         INTERVIEWER (CONT'D)                    (to crew)           Ready?He points to some scribbled words on the canvas.                      INTERVIEWER (CONT'D)           ... Can you... decipher this for us?                        BASQUIAT           Decipher?                      INTERVIEWER           Yes. What do they... stand for?                      BASQUIAT           They're just words.                      INTERVIEWER           Yes, I understand - but where do you take           them from?                       BASQUIAT           Where? Do you ask Miles where he got that           note from? Where do you take your words           from?                  (beat)           Everywhere.                       INTERVIEWER                  (pointing to a detail)           What are they?                       BASQUIAT                  (smiling mischievously)           Leeches. A long list of leeches.                  (looking at some frames                  Shenge's working on)           It looks good like that.                       INTERVIEWER           Hmmm. And 'Parasites.'                  (beat)           You seem to be a Primal Expressionist.                      BASQUIAT           You mean like an ape?He grabs a huge double mouthful of French Fries and washes themdown with champagne..                       BASQUIAT (CONT'D)                  (chewing, spilling)           A primate?                       INTERVIEWER           Well, you said that.                  (beat - looks at notes)           You've got a lot of references from           Leonardo da Vinci, don't you?                      BASQUIAT           Oh, that's a "Leonardo's Greatest Hits"           painting. You like it?                      INTERVIEWER           Yes, but as a black painter -                      BASQUIAT           I use a lot of colors - not only black.                         INTERVIEWER           What?                      BASQUIAT           I'm not black.                         INTERVIEWER           You're not?                         BASQUIAT           Not what?                         INTERVIEWER           Not black.                      BASQUIAT           No, I'm Haitian-Puerto Rican.The BUZZER sounds. He signals for Steve not to answer the door.                      INTERVIEWER           Yes, yes... Let's talk about that.... your           roots... Your father is from Haiti, isn't           he?                        BASQUIAT                   (growing weary)           Yup.                      INTERVIEWER           Hmmmm. Interesting. And when you grew up           were there any primitives hanging in your           home?                      BASQUIAT           We don't hang them at home, y'know - just           in the streets..                       INTERVIEWER           I see..                  (beat)           And... How do you respond to being called -           hmmm...                  (peruses some notes)           - yes, "the pickaninny of the art world."                       BASQUIAT                  (smiles - hurt, stunned)           Who said that?                      INTERVIEWER           Why, that's from Time Magazine.                      BASQUIAT           No, he said I was the Eddie Murphy of the           art world. He said the Eddie Murphy.                      INTERVIEWER           Is it true that your mother resides in a           mental institution?Jean walks off camera like he just received a punch in thestomach.The filming of the interview becomes increasingly erratic.                      INTERVIEWER (CONT'D)           Let me... just... open something up here.           You come from a nice, middle class,           respectable home. Your father is an           accountant. Why did you at one time live in           a cardboard box in Tompkins Square?Jean walks back into frame.                       INTERVIEWER (CONT'D)           Or rather, do you think you're being           exploited or are you yourself exploiting           the white image of the black artist from           the ghetto?                       BASQUIAT           Are those the only two possibilities?                  (cramming a French Fry into                  his mouth)           You wanna French fry?                      INTERVIEWER           OK. One last thing. Is there any anger in           you? Any anger in your work?                      BASQUIAT           Should there be?                      INTERVIEWER           Tell me about it. What are you angry about?Jean drifts off.                      BASQUIAT           Mmmm. I don't know. I don't remember.INT. FANCY GOURMET DELI - DAYJean and Andy browse through the aisles. Jean piles things intohis cart.Jean approaches the specialty counter. Andy continues with thecart.                       BASQUIAT                  (to COUNTERMAN)           Can I have some caviar, please?The Counterman selects a miniscule plastic spoon of caviar andbegins to put it into a tiny glass jar.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           I'd like to taste it, first.Reluctantly the Counterman gives him a taste with a look like"what's a person who looks like you doing buying caviar?"Jean tastes the caviar and hands him back the spoon.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           Is that the best quality you have?                      COUNTERMAN           Yeah, it's the best one.                      BASQUIAT           I'll take the whole tin.                      COUNTERMAN           It's three thousand dollars!                       BASQUIAT           I'll take it.                  (wipes nose with sleeve.)           Andy, gimme three thousand dollars.                  (beat)           Just the caviar - I'll get the rest.He hands two one hundred dollar bills for the other items to thecounterman, who checks them carefully.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           You check everyone's bills or just mine?                                                   CUT TO:EXT. WINDOW - DAYA cheap pharmacy gift shop window. Jean and Andy look in on twoyellow furry stuffed ducks which are part of a larger display.                      ANDY WARHOL           When I was little, my brother and I used to           have two ducks as pets. We called them the           Rodriguez Brothers.They walk into a beauty salon.INT. BEAUTY SALON - DAYJean and Andy recline on the beautician's armchairs. THREEBEAUTICIANS busy themselves with the two of them, simultaneouslygiving them pedicures and manicures. Jean sets down a magazine.                      BASQUIAT           I wish they'd quit writing this shit about           me.                      ANDY WARHOL           That's good. At least they're interested.                       BASQUIAT           Everybody's paying top dollar for scraps of           paper, refrigerator doors - anything with a           SAMO tag on it.                  (beat)           The other day, I just wanted a pack of           cigarettes, so I did a drawing and sold it           for two bucks. A week later this gallery           calls me up: "Somebody's offering us the           drawing. Should we buy it for five           thousand?"                       ANDY WARHOL           Wow... Stop giving them away.                  (beat)           I got an invitation to model for Comme de           Garcons... You wanna do it with me?                      BASQUIAT           Yeah - I'd do that... You could teach me.                      ANDY WARHOL           Gee. I don't need to. You're a natural. You           should sign up with my modeling agent.Jean points to Andy's ankles - they have plastic flea collars onthem.                      BASQUIAT           Cool.                      ANDY WARHOL           My dog, Archie... I woke up with flea           bites... Creepy. I ran out and bought flea           collars. They work really well.Beat.                      BASQUIAT           Let's leave this town and go someplace.           Some island.                         ANDY WARHOL           Let's go to    the Carnegie Museum. They have           the world's    most famous sculptures all in           these giant    plaster replicas. It's really           great. It's    in Pittsburg.EXT. STREET - - DAYThey walk out of the beauty salon..Jean sees the back of a girl. She looks a lot like Gina.                         BASQUIAT           Ouch..                      ANDY WARHOL           What's wrong?                      BASQUIAT           That girl looks just like my old girlfriend           Gina.                      ANDY WARHOL           Do you still love her?                      BASQUIAT           Yeah. I really blew it. I still think about           her.                      ANDY WARHOL           Well, have you asked her to come back?Jean shakes his head `no,' sorry that he didn't.INT. BARBETTA'S (RESTAURANT) - DAYA medium-sized dining room with dark wood paneling and tastefullyappointed furnishings.Jean and Gina enter. Gina looks considerably more conservativethan previously - more like a student. Jean's dressed well, butlooks even more careworn than usual. His hair is tied back with anecktie. He has a couple sores on his face. His skin looks alittle puffy.The MAITRE'D smiles at Jean and bows -                      MAITRE'D           Mr. Basquiat - what a pleasure to see you           again.                      BASQUIAT           Hey George, what's up?A huge table with NINE WHITE EXECUTIVES. WAITERS clear theirlunch settings. As they spot Jean and Gina entering, they gawkand snicker.George leads them to their table. As they take their seats, Jeannotices the suppressed giggles coming from the executives' table.They try to ignore it. George disappears.Jean seems self-conscious about the sores on his face.                      GINA           So are you really friends with Andy? He           seems like such a weirdo.                      BASQUIAT           He's not. He's out of town and he calls me           every day. What's weird about him?                      GINA           Don't you think he's using you?                      BASQUIAT           Why does everybody say that? He's the only           person I know who doesn't need to use me.George reappears.                      GEORGE           Would you like to see the wine list?                      BASQUIAT           Chateau Latour '64, please.George disappears again.                       GINA           So. Are you ready? I start Columbia next           fall. Of course, there's like, a year of           pre-med stuff, but - whatever. I'm really           excited.                  (beat)           And: Rene gave me a job as his secretary.           His poems are getting published.                         BASQUIAT           How is he?                      GINA           Pretty much the same.Jean's eyebrows go up.                       BASQUIAT           Wow. Congratulations. I hate that asshole.                  (beat)           Thanks for coming. I guess I just wanted to           find out how you're -                       GINA                  (referring to an extra loud                  snicker from execs)           What's that about?                         BASQUIAT           Forget it.George arrives and pours a sip for Jean to taste. He nods. Georgemoves off. Two or three of the executives break out laughing.Jean puts the glass down and looks at them. The other table isclearly making fun of him.                      GINA           That is amazing. What year is it?                        BASQUIAT           George?George hurries over.                      GEORGE           I'm sorry, Mr. Basquiat.                       BASQUIAT           See that table over there? I'd like to pay           their bill.Long silence.                        GEORGE           I'm sorry?Gina looks at Jean, confused.                      BASQUIAT           Yeah, just put their bill on my tab.                        GEORGE           Really?                        BASQUIAT           Yeah.                        GEORGE           Very well.He moves off towards the executives. George whispers to the HEADEXECUTIVE, and nods towards Jean. The executives spread the wordsamongst themselves. They're horrified.                       BASQUIAT                  (continuing)           Baby, I think about you a lot. I'm really           sorry about everything. You have to believe           me. I'm serious. I wish, y'know, that we           were -                      GINA           I don't believe it, Jean - they're picking           straws.A YOUNG EXECUTIVE, obviously the loser, takes a deep breath andheads towards them.                        YOUNG EXECUTIVE           Excuse me... On behalf of my friends I'd           like to apologize. We're really sorry.                      BASQUIAT           I wish you niggahs could get it togeth-           ahhhhhh.The Executive reaches to shake Jean's hand. Jean puts a hundreddollar bill in his hand.                      YOUNG EXECUTIVE           What's this for?                       BASQUIAT           The tip.Jean turns back to Gina. The Executive leaves them. Georgesmiles.                      GINA           You don't have to be sorry. There's no one           to blame. Jean, you're a real artist. I           thought I was one. You made me realize I           wasn't.                      BASQUIAT           What's his name?Gina balks. Rather than face a disappointment -                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           I have to go to the bathroom.INT. BARBETTA'S (BATHROOM) - DAYCLOSE ON JEAN - looking in the mirror.He looks at himself.He starts to pick at his face.INT. PALLADIUM - HUGE ROOM - NIGHTJean and Albert Milo sit on a banquetteA huge white painting of Jean's with a dragon's head hangs on onewall to their left. On the opposite wall in back of the bar hangsanother huge painting with a lot of heads, mostly black.Lots of PEOPLE mill about a huge room.A GIRL - another Gina look-alike walks through the crowd. Jean'seyes follow her momentarily..                       BASQUIAT                  (re: the paintings)           What do you think?                       ALBERT MILO           I like the one with the dragon's heads a           lot. But the black one's filled up with too           many heads...                  (beat)           I'd take some of them out.                  (beat)           I think you're painting too fast. I           wouldn't put in so many heads. Let it           breathe a bit.                      BASQUIAT           It's always how you would do it. This is my           version.                      ALBERT MILO           You're right. It's your version. You should           come over to the studio sometime.                      BASQUIAT           Why, so you could humiliate me?                      ALBERT MILO           No, I wanted to make a painting of you.EXT. UNION SQUARE PARK - DAYJean rides his bicycle through the park. He's looking up at thebirds flying in the trees.ANGLE ONThe birds. We see the statue in the middle of the park, but wehave no idea where we are until we see the Mays Dept. Store sign.The birds circle in flocks, never lighting on the trees.EXT. THE FACTORY (ENTRANCE) - DAYJean presses a buzzer. He's admitted. He carries his bike on hisshoulder.INT. THE FACTORY - DAYJean enters a broad, high-ceilinged studio. It's neat. Paintingslie on the floor.Andy's back is turned to him. As Jean gets closer, he sees thatAndy's assistant FRANK is peeing on canvas covered with copperpigment. We hear the SOUND of the piss.Frank holds a bottle of beer in his hand.                      ANDY WARHOL           A little more to the right, Frank. OK...           Good. Now up... You got a little more?Jean notices a bunch of Andy's wigs on a desk.                      BASQUIAT           What's with the wigs?                      ANDY WARHOL           I'm going to send them to my friends for           Christmas presents.                      BASQUIAT           You think those are good presents? Who           wants an old wig?Jean makes a grimace. He walks up to the painting Frank's peeingon.                      BASQUIAT           Piss painting?                      ANDY WARHOL           I wanted to make a few more of these.           Frank's been drinking this Mexican beer. It           makes a good green.                      BASQUIAT           How come you're not peeing on them           yourself?                      ANDY WARHOL           I don't like beer.Looking down at the painting -                      BASQUIAT           If you ever want me to shit on 'em, just           ask. You could finger paint.INT. THE FACTORY - LATERJean and Andy collaborate on a large canvas. Andy outlines aMobil Oil winged horse.Jean paints it out. To the side he paints a penguin with a hat.                      ANDY WARHOL           That was my favorite part!                      BASQUIAT           We can do better. It needed more white.Andy watches as Jean lights a joint and continues working on hispenguin.                      ANDY WARHOL           Jean, you make me feel worthless. You're so           famous.Andy paints an Amoco logo next to the penguin.                      BASQUIAT           I don't even have any friends anymore           besides you. And everyone says "Warhol?           That death-warmed over person on drugs?           He's just using you."                      ANDY WARHOL           Gee. You shouldn't take it so seriously,           Jean. That's why you can't stop taking           drugs. You always think people don't like           you. Everyone likes you.                      BASQUIAT           People are only interested in you because           you're famous, not because they know a           fuckin' thing about your work.Jean paints out part of Andy's logo.                      ANDY    WARHOL           Bruno called. In    Europe, people are saying           you're gonna die    from drugs. They think           they can cash in    on your death.                      BASQUIAT           When I was poor, everybody doubted I could           make it. When I got rich, everyone said,           `yeah, but he'll never keep it up.' Now           everyone says `he's killing himself.' So I           clean up, and then they say `Look. His           art's dead.' I don't take drugs, anyway.           I'm healthy now.Jean obliterates Andy's logo.                      ANDY WARHOL           If you say so. You sleep until 5:00 p.m.           You call at four in the morning. You never           show up anywhere on time - if you show up.           You're painting out everything I do!Andy paints back in part of the horse.                      BASQUIAT           That's better.Jean adds some letters on top of Andy's logo.                      ANDY WARHOL           I can't even see what's good anymore.Jean Michel obliterates the rest of the logo with some white.Andy steps back and squints as he examines Jean's work.                      ANDY WARHOL (CONT'D)           Yeah, I see what you mean about the white.           It's better.Jean quits painting.                      BASQUIAT           After the show we should take a nice long           vacation. Maybe go to Hawaii. That's what           I'm gonna do. I'm going to give up painting           and start playing music again. I wanna           sing.                      ANDY WARHOL           That would be a pity because you're a real           painter.Frank arrives.                      FRANK           Here's the poster for the show.He presents them with a yellow poster of Jean and Andy facingeach other with boxing gloves.INT. FACTORY - NEXT DAYShenge hands Andy a box.Andy opens the box. Inside is a football helmet with Jean'sdreadlocks glued to the outside.CLOSE UP: Andy in mirror wearing helmet.                                                  CUT TO:INSERTThe screen is filled with the cover of the New York TimesMagazine. Jean is featured on the cover, without his dreadlocks.INT. GREAT JONES ST. LOFT - NIGHTAs Shenge opens the door, a CROWD of people spill out. They pourinto the loft. The studio is crowded with PEOPLE. (Many of themwe recognize from earlier scenes in Mudd Club, Jean's opening,etc). On the wall there is a portrait of Jean by Andy. Thebackground is a piss painting.Inside, Jean kneels on the floor in the corner of the loft with abunch of people around him - girls, mostly. Twenty-five copies ofthe Times Magazine lay stacked on the floor.Crouching on one knee, Jean signs a copy for a BRUNETTE.Looking up -                      BASQUIAT           Name?                      BRUNETTE           Elke.                      BASQUIAT           Number?                      BRUNETTE           505-0236.A BRUNETTE walks up -                        BASQUIAT           Name?                        BLONDE           Monica.                        BASQUIAT           Number?                        BLONDE           477-0258.Andy's assistant, Frank, arrives with CHRISTINE, 25, a model.                        BASQUIAT           Yo, Frank.                      FRANK           This is really great. What a nice place.Jean is taken with Christine.                      FRANK (CONT'D)           Have you met Christine?                      BASQUIAT           I don't think so.He's thrown off his rhythm.                      CHRISTINE           Would you sign one of those for me?TOXIC (seen with Rene at loft party earlier) spots Jean and stepsin.                      TOXIC           YO! Jean, this is Ramellzee.                      RAMMELLZEE           Yo... You know why Rammellzee's here, don't           you?                        TOXIC           Uh-oh!                      RAMMELLZEE           I'm here for an interrogation. You've been           called a graffiti artist and I wanna know           why. All I see are scribble scrabble           abstractions!                        BASQUIAT           Boom.                      RAMMELLZEE           Boom? As in ordnance? Are your letters           armed? What is the prime directive of           graffiti culture? Do you know, black man?Jean likes Rammellzee enough to be patient... Toxic grins androlls his eyes to Jean. Jean watches Christine as they go on.                       TOXIC                  (to Ram, re: Jean)           Man, I was up on him years ago on the IRT.                      RAMMELLZEE           You're selling and ending the culture. Not           one bit of information. Only to get the           money and growl with the power, man.                      TOXIC           That's ignorant.                       BASQUIAT           That ain't ignorant - that's just stupid.                  (beat - to Christine)           Can I get you a bowl of gumbo?Rammellzee yells after him -                      RAMMELLZEE           This interrogation is not over!Jean escorts Christine to the kitchen.Bruno and Andy stand in the crowd.Nearby are two WOMEN.                      WOMAN           Albert Milo? Ugh! He's just a pressmonger.           That's all these people do.                      WOMAN #2           You know, I love Jean's early work. It's           really got something. But this           collaboration with Andy - maybe they           thought it was a joke... I mean - whose           work is it? Jean's or Andy's?Walking by, Rene responds to this -                      RENE           His early work? He's only twenty-six!Rene walks over to Jean.                        BASQUIAT           Hey, Rene.                      RENE           Thanks again for not inviting me. I'm only           here on business.Rene heads back out into the party.Jean eats gumbo while Christine thumbs through the TimesMagazine.ANGLE ONRene responds to something Andy's been telling him in a lowvoice.                        RENE (CONT'D)                   (loudly)            You're asking me? Nigga, please. After the            way you treated me? This is the first time            I've heard from either of you in months! I            had to crash this party! You treated me            like a suede biscuit. Rene don't play that!            I can't get him off drugs! I don't even            talk to him any more!!!                        ANDY WARHOL                   (to Bruno)            What's a suede biscuit?                                                  CUT TO:CHRISTINELooks up from her magazine..                        CHRISTINE                   (amused)            Hey, what's this? It says right here you're            Andy's... "lapdog"...Jean walks away.He passes through the crowd, making his way to the door.He exits.EXT. GREAT JONES ST LOFT - NIGHTDrugged, upset, Jean leaves the party.He opens a limo door and looks back at his house. The partycontinues.The limo drives off.We HOLD on Jean's building.INT. LIMO - NIGHTThe limo floats through the streets.Jean stares out the window.                       BASQUIAT            Here... Pull over.The limo pulls over.Jean exits.EXT. STREET - NIGHTJean disappears around the corner.ANGLE ONTHREE KIDS in the process of prying a door panel with crowbars.We see that they're removing one of Jean's SAMO pieces from awall. We read:"PAY FOR SOUPBUILD A FORTSET IT ON FIRE"Jean arrives behind them.                           BASQUIAT              What's up?                         KID #1              Mind your own fuckin' business.                          BASQUIAT                     (recognizing his work)              That's mine.                         KID              That ain't yours, man. Some asshole named              SAMO did this.                         KID#3              He's dead. That's what I heard.                         KID #2              He ain't dead yet. He's gonna kill himself.              That's why all those art fags in Soho are              paying more every time we bring one of              these in.                         KID #1              Stupid SAMO... Hardly any of this shit              left.The panel is almost pried free without a scratch.                         KID #3              This one's damn nice. I say we hang onto it              if he's almost dead.Jean shoves his way in front with a magic marker and adds acouple words; now it reads:"SAMO IS DEAD"                      BASQUIAT           There you go. Now it's worth more.The kids are outraged, thinking Jean's ruined their find.They jump on him.They beat the shit out of him.They're done.Jean lies curled up on the ground, trying to talk.                      KID #2           What's he saying?                      BASQUIAT           I'm SAMO... I'm SAMO...                       KID #3                  (bending close)           He says he's SAMO.Kid #1 whacks him in the back once more for good measure.                       KID #1           He wish.                                                     DISSOLVE TO:THE SEAIt is flat, dead, gray.Ominous and waiting.INT. GREAT JONES ST. LOFT - DAYWashed in sunlight, a large painting leans against the wall, thewords "HAITIAN BASEBALL FACTORIES" scrawled through its center.Jean lays down, watching TV.He looks older now, more worn. His face is slightly swollen. Hiscomplexion is discolored.Shenge covers a triptych with wide brush strokes of yellow paint.He circles a large, primitive figure of a black man drawn withmagic marker in the center. He is careful to leave the figureintact.                      BASQUIAT           Paint it out.                       SHENGE           Out?                      BASQUIAT           Yeah... Maybe just his arms.                  (Shenge paints out the arms)           Put some Cerulean Blue there.Jean points to the lower corner.Shenge picks up the phone, which has been RINGING for some time.                      SHENGE           It's Andy again.                      BASQUIAT           Still not here.                      SHENGE           - In this corner?                         BASQUIAT                    (not looking)           Yeah..Shenge changes the brush and dips it in the can.                      SHENGE           You want me to put it here?                      BASQUIAT           Use your fucking instinct.Shenge shrugs and starts to spread the blue. Jean looks at hiswork.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           Don't try to make art. Just paint like a           housepainter.A woman's shout can be heard through the open window. Shengelooks out.                      SHENGE           It's Maria Portos. What should we do?                      BASQUIAT           Why don't you try letting her in, Steve - I           mean Shenge.                      SHENGE           Get up. She won't buy anything if she sees           me working on it!                      BASQUIAT           Wanna bet? If you show too much respect for           people with money, they don't have respect           for you.MARIA, a raven-haired, sharp-featured beauty in a Chanel suitjacket, blue jeans, and pearls walks into the room. She's withELLEN - younger - a millionaire fake hippie from Texas.Maria carries a bag with clogs in it - a present for Jean. Shetakes them out.                       MARIA                  (showing him the clogs)           These reminded me of you, the clogs. I           found them in Amsterdam.Jean doesn't get up from the floor.                      MARIA (CONT'D)           How are you?                      BASQUIAT           Fine.                       MARIA           You remember Ellen?                  (looking around)           What are you working on?Basquiat points at the painting.                      ELLEN           How much is something like that?Jean raises his hand and pumps five fingers three times in theair.                      MARIA           Fifteen. Reasonable.Ellen makes a snotty face.                       BASQUIAT           It's unfinished.                  (to Shenge)           How 'bout some blue in the corner?Shenge gives Jean a stupefied look.                      SHENGE           Blue? Where?                      BASQUIAT           What's wrong with you today?Shenge is embarrassed by Jean's remark in the company of the twowomen.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           Don't look at me like that. It hurts my           feelings.He points. Unsure, Shenge picks up the brush and paints one ofthe corners.Maria browses through a stack of paintings leaning against thewall.                      MARIA           I love these.                      ELLEN           God... I just can't even care anymore.           Compare this to a mountain or a tree.           Who're y'all trying to kid? That's what I           think. I was just in the Himalayas, and           like - OK - is this important? No. I mean,           compared to the rain forest or something?           These are just narcissistic jokes.                       MARIA                  (to Jean)           Who are you selling these through now?Jean gets to his feet. He dips a long, thin brush into blackpaint and nonchalantly crosses out the half figure that Shenge iscarefully surrounding with blue.                       BASQUIAT           Well, that's better.                  (to Maria)           You can buy direct from me.                      ELLEN           Look at these - silkscreens? What're you?           Andy Warhol Junior? It's like - not even           handmade anymore.She's not even worth a response. Jean looks around, numb.INT. MARY BOONE GALLERY - DAYJean enters the gallery. Cleaned up. Healthier. Bruises healing.He looks like he's been painting.Mary looks up from her desk, surprised to see Jean.                      MARY BOONE           Jean Michel... Crawling from the wreckage?                      BASQUIAT           I need a dealer.                      MARY BOONE           You have a bunch of them, don't you? Albert           Milo walks in from another room.                       ALBERT MILO           Hey Jean!                  (to Mary)           It'll never fit.                      MARY BOONE           It'll be ok.                      ALBERT MILO           You better take a look. Why's your door so           small? The ceilings are sixteen feet and           your door's the size of a mouse hole!                      MARY BOONE           Why are your paintings so big? Just go           home. I'll get it in.                       ALBERT MILO                  (to Jean)           You doing anything right now?                       BASQUIAT           Naa..                      ALBERT MILO           Let's get out of here.                       BASQUIAT           See ya in an hour.                  (to Mary)           So what do you think?                      MARY BOONE           Bruno spoke to me already. We could talk           about it.                       BASQUIAT           I'm here.                      MARY BOONE           OK. I'll be at your studio Thursday three           o'clock.INT. ALBERT MILO'S LOFT - DAYAlbert shows Jean through a series of large rooms filled withenormous paintings.It looks like the Cairo Museum.They pause before a painting.                      ALBERT MILO           This is painted on a backdrop from the           Kabuki theater in Japan. I painted it after           Joseph Beuys died. A rebirth painting. I           felt like he could've painted it, or maybe           someone else was painting it instead of me.           The Chinese calligraphers used to change           their name mid-career so they could start           over as someone else..                      BASQUIAT           Do you ever get sick of it?                       ALBERT MILO           Of what?                      BASQUIAT           The whole thing - painting.                      ALBERT MILO           No. It's one of the few times I feel good.           I used to have to go to work and cook every           day. That I got sick of.                      BASQUIAT           What about the shit they write?                      ALBERT MILO           You're asking me this because of the           'lapdog' remark. I read that. The person           that wrote that has the compassion of a           housefly. That's your enemy, not your           audience. Your audience hasn't even been           born yet. It's a lie that art is popular.           The only thing popular about it is that           it's written about in newspapers. I'm           surprised when anybody comes to my           openings. There're about ten people on the           planet who know anything about painting,           and Andy's one of them.                      BASQUIAT           I haven't felt like talking to him since           that thing came out.                      ALBERT MILO           As long as I've known Andy, he's never           asked me for anything except to speak to           you about getting off drugs. He's painted           my picture, we've eaten dinner in God knows           how many places together. But he doesn't           care about me. He cares about you. You're           the only person he cares about. He's your           friend. Fuck that article. You want a           toasted bagel with cream cheese?Milo's daughter STELLA (12) calls out from over the balcony.                      STELLA (O.S.)           Papa, the TV's broken... Will you fix it           please?                      ALBERT MILO           Alright. I'll be right up.Albert leaves.Jean looks at some paintings.Stella comes downstairs.                       STELLA                  (to Jean)           Hi.                      BASQUIAT           Hi.                      STELLA           I've seen you before. I like your paintings           a lot. Your hair was different.                      BASQUIAT           You like your dad's paintings?                      STELLA           Some of them.                      BASQUIAT           Stand still.He draws her.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           See you later.                      STELLA           ThanksHe walks to the door, leaving the drawing on the floor.Albert returns.                      ALBERT MILO           Where's Jean?                      STELLA           He just left.Albert opens the door to the stairwell looking for Jean.He hears the sound of URINATING.He leans over the stairwell.He sees Jean Michel, taking a piss on the landing.He shuts the door quietly.EXT. GIFT SHOP WINDOW - DAYJean walks out of the gift shop (seen earlier, next tobeautician's)EXT. BROADWAY AND HOUSTON STREET - DAYJean walks through the middle of the intersection. He carries twoyellow, furry toy ducks under his arm.SUPER: "FEBRUARY 22, 1987"Seeing Bruno at the wheel of a black Mercedes stopped at a light,Jean clowns around like a street vendor who wants to wash hiswindow.Bruno doesn't notice him.                      BASQUIAT           B.B. It's me - Jean! What's the matter? No           snow in Switzerland this year?                      BRUNO           I didn't see you.                      BASQUIAT           What do you mean?                      BRUNO           You haven't heard? Andy's dead.The light changes.Bruno pulls across the street because of the traffic.Jean drops one of the ducks in the street and walks off.ANGLE ONThe duck lying in the street.EXT. GREAT JONES ST. LOFT - NIGHTThe "OUT FOR RIBS" sign hangs outside Jean's door.EXT. GREAT JONES ST - DAYMary sits in her limo trying to call Jean.INT. GREAT JONES ST. LOFT - DAYNear darkness. The curtains are drawn. Music plays: `Birds' byNeil Young: "it's over.....it's over".Jean watches a video tape with the sound MUTED. The screen fillswith Andy's face. We SEE a series of quick scenes from his life.Jean and the remaining duck are lit by the TV.INT. GREAT JONES ST. LOFT - DAYEXTREME CLOSEUP: A COLORED PENCIL TIPHeld in Jean's hand. It's stalled in mid-stroke. He writes with amagic marker on the heel of two wooden clogs the word: "TITANIC"There's a loud BANGING at the door.When it stops, the pencil tip resumes its long voyage across thepage.MUSIC UP: Tom Waits' "Tom Traubert's Blues"EXT. GINA'S APARTMENT - DAYJean buzzes the doorbell. He's wearing the clogs. He's hurting.The intercom comes on.                      BASQUIAT           Hello? Gina?                         MALE VOICE           Who is it?Jean recognizes Benny's voice.ANGLE UPGina and Benny look out the window into the street.Jean's a block away.EXT. MENTAL HOSPITAL - NIGHTJean gets out of a cab. He walks up to the entrance.The doors are locked. He rattles them.Inside, an OLD JANITOR keeps mopping.Jean pounds harder, RATTLES the doors more.                      BASQUIAT           Hey, come here! Please. Just for a second.           Open the door.The janitor gets nervous. He leaves.He returns a moment later with a large SECURITY GUARD.                      BASQUIAT           Open up! Open up!The guard unlocks the door, hoping to settle Jean down.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           My mother's inside.                       GUARD           Come back tomorrow. Visiting hours are           over.                  (beat)           Don't cause any trouble.                      BASQUIAT           I'm not here to visit... I wanna take her           home.The guard gently ushers Jean out through the door.                      GUARD           Don't cause any trouble.He locks the door and walks off with the janitor.EXT. STREET - DAYBREAKJean, walks around, drifting, stoned. He looks up at the skyline.                                                    DISSOLVE TO:Waves crash silently over a surfer.                                                    FADE TO BLACK                                                    FADE IN:STREET SOUNDS                      BENNY (O.S.)           Willie Mays.                                                    FADE IN:EXT. STREET -   MORNINGJean has been passed out on a sidewalk.CLOSE ON: Benny's face.He leans over Jean and helps him up.                      BASQUIAT           Willie Mays... Nice to see you.Benny looks at Jean's eyes.Jean stretches, kicking life back into his limbs.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           How's Gina? You guys getting along?Benny looks at him guiltily.                          BENNY           She's good.                      BASQUIAT           I guess it was a long time ago.                      BENNY           Come on, let's get out of here.EXT. JEEP - STREETS - DAYJean and Benny zoom along in a battered old Army Jeep. Nowrevived, Jean stands up, waving at people miming General Patton.We HEAR the music of "Summer of Siam."                      BENNY           Sit down! You're gonna fall out!                          BASQUIAT           Me fall? Let's get some drugs!                      BENNY           Drugs??!                      BASQUIAT           Medicine, man! Like health food. I'm taking           care of my health!INT. HEALTH FOOD STORE - DAYA mountain of homeopathic medicine and health food on thecounter. Benny helps the clerk load it into a box.                      CLERK           You starting a hospital?Jean approaches and dumps some more stuff onto the counter.He's chewing something.                       BASQUIAT           Just ring it up. I don't need a bag.                  (to Benny)           Try this tabouli - it's great...Tabouli spills onto Jean's shirt.EXT - WEST BROADWAY - DAYJean and Benny walk along. Benny's arms are full with boxes.Jean walks in front, eating yogurt. He's wearing his Titanicclogs. Benny tries to keep up.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           My mom told me this... Or was it a dream?                                                  DISSOLVE TO:INT. CELL - DAYA crude stone jail - almost medieval - fairy-tale like. A thickwooden plank suspended by chains for a bench. A candle on thewall.A small, crowned prince (the boy seen in the dream in intro.)looks longingly out the window at rolling green hills. Terracedhillsides, cedar trees, cottages, smoke wafting up from chimneys.Dirt streets.The prince smashes the window. He hits his head on the bars,gripping them tightly.EXT. MEDIEVAL VILLAGE' - DAYThe villagers cease their activities as they listen to the SOUND.Looking up, they smile, as if warmed to their souls by someunearthly and intangible substance. They look heavenwards.CAMERA follows their collective gaze skywards.We shoot up, up, into the sky.                      BASQUIAT (O.S.)           There was this little prince with a magic           crown. An evil warlock kidnapped him,           locked him in a cell in a huge tower and           took away his voice. There was a window           made of bars. The prince would smash his           head against the bars hoping that someone           would hear the sound and find him. The           crown made the most beautiful sound that           anyone ever heard. You could hear the           ringing for miles. It was so beautiful,           that people wanted to grab the air. They           never found the prince. He never got out of           the room. But the sound he made filled           everything up with beauty.                      BASQUIAT (O.S)           It's definitely time to get out of here.EXT. WEST BROADWAY - DAYWe rush down, down through the sky.Buildings come up at us.We're over Soho.We're back on the ground.Benny and Jean continue walking.We see Jean from behind. He's looking up.Benny stops to readjust his parcels.Jean continues down the street, talking louder.                      BASQUIAT (CONT'D)           Hawaii? Fuck Hawaii. Let's go to Ireland.           We'll stop in every bar and have a drink.FREEZE FRAME ON HIS FACESUPER:"JEAN MICHEL BASQUIATBORN: DECEMBER 14, 1961DIED: AUGUST 12, 1988"EXT. IRELAND - DAYRolling hills. Green. Lush. Peaceful..                                         FADE OUTTHE END
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+BATMAN 2 Screenplay By Sam Hamm FIRST DRAFT NOTE: THE HARD COPY OF THIS SCRIPT CONTAINED SCENE NUMBERS. THEY HAVE BEEN REMOVED FOR THIS SOFT COPY. NOTE ALSO: THE HARD COPY OF THIS SCRIPT WAS IN THE NON- PREFORMAT FONT "BOOKMAN OLD". THIS HAS BEEN CHANGED TO PREFORMATTED TEXT FOR THIS SOFT COPY. EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - DUSK It's finally happened. Hell's frozen over. Christmas is two weeks off, arid SNOW is falling in Gotham. Beneath its pristine white blanket, the city looks uncharacteristically serene -- almost inviting. Peace has been miraculously restored: strangers wave hello. Salvation Army Santas ring their bells on streetcorners. And now, as night falls, an ILLUMINATED SIGN winks on above Broad Avenue: "JOYEUX NOEL GOTHAM -- Only 16 Shopping Days Left Till Christmas." The streets are bustling with jolly shoppers. At a souvenir store, we find an exasperated MOM squabbling with her seven- year old. Like many other storefronts in Gotham, this one is overflowing with bootleg BATMAN MERCHANDISE: t-shirts, key chains, ceramic figurines. The kid is already wearing a Batman baseball cap and a little black cape, but he obviously wants more. Mom drags him off past another store window, this one full of SCRAP METAL, with a sign reading "AUTHENTIC FRAGMENTS OF THE BATWING -- $19.95 and up." A PANHANDLER is perched at the entrance. Beneath his array jacket is a grubby sweatshirt with the familiar yellow-and-black logo. In Gotham this winter, Batmania is everywhere... EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - LATER THAT NIGHT Two hours later, the SNOWSTORM's grown into a full-fledged blizzard. The drifts are two feet deep and the streets are all but empty of cars. A massive SNOW PLOW the size of a Panzer tank rumbles past, FILLING THE FRAME... ...and revealing, as it passes, a group of CAROLERS, all bundled up in mufflers and parkas. Unbothered by the weather, they walk the street singing, spreading cheer and goodwill to the few passersby. They've just gone into a lovely a capella rendition of "Silent Night" when an oversized DELIVERY TRUCK, outfitted with snow chains, clanks slowly past in the wake of the plow. Its sides are decorated with cartoon igloos advertising a popular ice cream snack -- POLAR BARS -- oddly inappropriate for this time of year. A streetcorner SANTA, with bell and bucket, WAVES at the truck as it rounds a corner. The CAROLERS carol. Then -- -- a VIOLENT EXPLOSION rocks the street -- followed by the sound of AUTOMATIC GUNFIRE and a high, wailing SECURITY ALARM. EXT. SCHRACH AND CO. - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT Around the corner there's CARNAGE on the streets. The windows have blown out of Gotham's leading jewelry store. Gut-shot SECURITY GUARDS stagger and go face down in the snow as ROBBERS, dressed in white camouflage gear, clamber out through the shattered glass with SACKFULS OF LOOT. CAROLERS spill around the corner to see what's going on, but a spray of GUNFIRE sends them scattering in panic. The POLAR BAR truck pulls even with the jewelry store, and as it does... The REAR DOORS open. A RAMP slides down from the back of the truck. The ROBBERS scramble aboard, and mere seconds later SLIDE out AGAIN -- riding atop five SKIDOO SNOWMOBILES. SIRENS HOWL. A POLICE CAR appears, taking the corner just a trifle too fast -- FISHTAILING on the icy street and plowing into a drift. INT. SQUAD CAR - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The COPS gun the engine, but their wheels are spinning in the snow -- no traction. They're about to climb out and give chase on foot when, through the windshield, they see the Salvation Army SANTA... ...HOISTING AN AK-47 AND FIRING DIRECTLY AT THEM. The windshield disintegrates and the COPS sink from view as SANTA races off to the last of the snowmobiles, which is already burdened with LOOT. EXT. STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT MORE SQUAD CARS converge on the jewelry store -- but it's difficult to carry on a high-speed pursuit when the snow's a foot deep and the best you can do is 6 MPH. The COP CARS skid to a halt, blocked by the rumbling SNOWPLOW. By now, of course, the LOOTERS are gone -- scooting off on either side of the plow, sticking to the snowy sidewalks. EXT. STREETS - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT SNOWMOBILES glide across the sidewalks, sending the few hardy souls who are out on the streets DIVING FOR COVER. A couple of DERELICTS are cowering behind a fire hydrant, trying to avoid getting run over. Every time they poke their heads out, another SKIDOO whizzes past, missing them by inches. The ROBBERS fan out in various directions. These guys are obviously going to get away clean -- unless... The DERELICT points up at the night sky, where a BEACON is blazing in the darkness -- THE BLACK SILHOUETTE OF A BAT... INT. POLICE CAR - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT MORE SIRENS. A COP takes a radio call as he streaks down the long wide avenue which borders Gotham Park -- one of the few streets which is relatively clear. The COP at the wheel goes wide-eyed and nudges his partner in disbelief. Before their eyes, FIVE SNOWMOBILES appear from the cross streets up ahead and CONVERGE at the entrance to Gotham Park. Bringing up the rear is SANTA CLAUS. COP What the hell -- ? EXT. ENTRANCE TO PARK - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BRAKES SQUEAL. Several squad cars are now massed at the entrance to the park -- but there's one problem. The city's snow plows don't operate on the park roads -- and the entrance is blocked off with SAWHORSES reading "CLOSED TO TRAFFIC." A huge steep drift prevents them from entering -- and so all they can do is stand by helplessly, WATCHING as the snowmobiles vanish into the trees. The COPS race about like headless chickens, trying to concoct a plan. A couple of them are trying to scale the stone walls of the park. Another is at his car, barking into a radio mike: COP WITH MIKE Yeah, you heard me. Snowmobiles! (pause) So what do we do? Chase 'em on foot?? ALL EYES TURN at the blare of a horn. The COPS peer down the long corridor of the cross street -- and see a STRANGE BLACK VEHICLE barreling toward them at 90 MPH, with no intention of stopping... THE BATMOBILE!! COPS dive left and right. A split-second later... ...a FORTY-FOOT JET of NOVA-INTENSITY FLAME erupts from the front of the jet-black supercar -- instantaneously DISSOLVING the drift that blocks the entrance to the park -- turning the ice and snow on the paths before it into water! The BATMOBILE screams past in the wink of an eye. The COPS get to their feet; cold as it is, they're sweating. One of them mops his brow and announces, dumfounded: COP I ...That was Batman. COP II NO SHIT!! COP II yanks COP I into the nearest squad car, and the others follow suit. ENGINES REV. As long as the BATMOBILE's cleared a path, they might as well join in the chase... EXT. BRIDLE PATH - THAT MOMENT TWO BURLY TEENAGERS -- both dressed in RED BERETS and PARKAS with BLACK BATMAN SWEATSHIRTS visible underneath -- are trudging along the path when they're STARTLED by a pair of speeding SKIDOOS. Moments later, they spot a RED GLOW on the horizon... ...and their JAWS DROP as the BATMOBILE roars into view, BURNING OFF THE SNOW IN ITS PATH. Thrilled beyond words, they WHOOP WITH GLEE, slapping high-fives as the car streaks past. INT. BATMOBILE - ON BATMAN - THAT MOMENT His face is weirdly illuminated by the flame still spitting from the front of the car. Cool as ever -- approaching the chase as a simple problem in logic -- he checks a radar display on his dashboard and sees FIVE BLIPS. EXT. PARK - ON SQUAD CARS - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The cops follow along in BATMAN's path. The lead car LOSES CONTROL and plows headlong into a drift. The DRIVER jams the pedal, but his rear wheels end up digging a deep rut in the ice. He sits there cursing, pumping the accelerator as other COPS race past him on foot. INT. BATMOBILE - ON BATMAN The various ROBBERS have spread out, their vehicles BOUNDING over the hilly terrain of the park. He spots two of them up ahead; as he draws closer, they PART WAYS, veering off to the left and right... ANGLE ON BATMOBILE - MOVING PODS OPEN on the front fenders, and MISSILE LAUNCHERS rotate into place. The Batmobile fires a pair of HEAT-SEEKING TORPEDOS, which BURROW into the snow on either side and disappear. ANGLE ON LEFT SNOWMOBILE - MOVING The DRIVER looks back over his shoulder and sees what appears to be a BLACK SHARK FIN plowing through the snow behind him, GAINING FAST. He takes evasive action, but the SHARK FIN always seems to follow. Just as he approaches the crest of a hill... ...the TORPEDO slams into the rear of the SNOWMOBILE. The force of impact knocks the ROBBER cleanly off. His LOOT lands in the snow beside him, but the SNOWMOBILE keeps going -- sailing over the crest of the hill and striking the rocks beyond with a deafening EXPLOSION. ANGLE ON RIGHT SNOWMOBILE - MOVING This ROBBER's a little smarter than his buddy. When he sees the shark fin on his tail, he noses his snowmobile off into a GROVE OF TREES. The trees are too closely spaced for the torpedo to maneuver; it strikes the nearest tree trunk and explodes harmlessly. The ROBBER is feeling good about himself, because the Batmobile can't follow either. But BATMAN has a Plan B. As he drives alongside the grove, he HITS THE ACCELERATOR, passing the snowmobile on its left. A STEEL SPIKE attached to a cable launches from the side of the Batmobile and WEDGES ITSELF into a distant TREE. The cable goes taut, and the tree TOPPLES -- directly into the path of the second SNOWMOBILE. The vehicle crashes into the trunk, and the hapless ROBBER goes cartwheeling head-over- heels into a drift. In the distance, COPS appear -- racing to the scene on foot, ready for mop-up duty. BATMAN kills the flamethrower, hits the brakes, and FISHTAILS, doing a quick 180 on the snow. He's just spotted fresh quarry: snowmobiles three and four, whizzing over a rolling white pasture in the distance. EXT. PARK - THAT MOMENT We're at a makeshift CAMPSITE -- where a cluster of HOMELESS PEOPLE are burning refuse in a garbage can to keep warm. They look on in puzzlement as the two SNOWMOBILES whiz past and disappear over a crest of a hill... EXT. LAKEFRONT - ON SNOWMOBILES #3 AND #4 They bounce down the hillside and SKID -- arriving at the edge of a frozen-over LAKE. With the roar of the Batmobile behind them, the two DRIVERS get the same idea simultaneously. Smiling, they rev their engines and set out over the surface of the lake. Now the Batmobile crests the ridge. The car's weight tips suddenly and it begins to skid down the hill toward the lake. BATMAN sees what's happening and kills the flamethrower just in time -- but he can't brake the car on the snowy slope. The prow of the Batmobile slides out onto the edge of the lake -- -- and under its weight, the ICE begins to crack. The left front tire takes a sudden dip -- and worse yet, the car is sliding forward. INT. BATMOBILE - ON BATMAN He shifts frantically from drive to reverse, trying to rock the car out of its predicament, but his rear wheels find no purchase. He can hear the ice cracking beneath him. Grimacing, he throws a switch on the dashboard -- EXT. LAKE - ON BATMOBILE -- and the trunk pops open. An industrial-strength GRAPPLING HOOK shoots upward and digs in at a point beyond the crest of the hill; and a concealed WINCH ASSEMBLY begins to grind away, hauling the Batmobile uphill, out of danger. INT. BATMOBILE - ON BATMAN Suspended just above the icy lake, he sees the SNOWMOBILE vanishing into the distance. He opens (yet another) panel on the dashboard... EXT. LAKE - ON SNOWMOBILES #3 AND #4 The ROBBERS give each other a big thumbs-up. They're almost halfway across the lake now and the Batmobile is disabled. All at once they hear a strange WHISTLING overhead... Fireworks? No, it's a THERMITE BOMB -- rocketing past them, hitting the ice some forty feet ahead and EXPLODING GAUDILY. JAGGED CHUNKS OF ICE break free and SHIFT in the frigid water -- and the ROBBERS are skidding into the drink before they know what's hit them. ANGLE ON SNOWMOBILE #5 - MOVING The last of the robbers is SANTA CLAUS -- his big sack filled not with toys, but precious stones. He approaches the edge of the park, negotiating his way through a maze of rocky outcroppings. He squirts out from behind a boulder into a clearing... ...and GASPS in PANIC as a SEARING BURST OF FLAME erupts behind him. The BATMOBILE speeds out from the other side of the boulder; SANTA twists his accelerator, desperately trying to build up speed. As it is, he's barely managing to stay ahead of the flamethrower. But the jet of flame suddenly DIES; the HOOD of the Batmobile rises half a foot -- -- and TWIN PROJECTILES launch into the air. A heavy NET is strung between them -- and it lands SMACK ON TOP OF SANTA CLAUS, entangling the snowmobile and stopping him in his tracks. Immobilized, he watches through the net in horror as the Batmobile barrels down. When the great black machine is almost atop him -- -- it stops on a dime six inches from his heavily-padded frame. EXT. ENTRANCE TO PARK - A MINUTE LATER - NIGHT The COPS are spread out near the entrance. They've rounded up the other ROBBERS and returned most of the loot. They hear a dull ROAR in the distance... ...and a few seconds later the BATMOBILE streaks into view, dragging the NET behind it -- SANTA, his loot, and his snowmobile, all tied up in one tidy parcel. At the entrance to the park, the NET detaches itself from the Batmobile, dumping SANTA into the hands of the waiting COPS. Without stopping, the BATMOBILE roars out of the park and vanishes whence it came. A mildly-humiliated COP turns to his colleague and SHRUGS: COP I ...Merry Christmas. The second COP points to SANTA, still struggling in the net. COP II Gift-wrapped and everything. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. CITY HALL - DAY TV MINICAM CREWS are camped out on the steps of City Hall, with a sizable crowd watching from the street. COMMISSIONER GORDON is reading from a prepared statement. GORDON After a high-speed chase -- over $750,000 in precious jewels were recovered intact by the police force -- working in concert with Batman. At the sound of Batman's name, a CHANTING goes up in the crowd: VOICES IN CROWD TAKE BACK THE STREETS! TAKE BACK THE STREETS! TAKE BACK THE -- GORDON winces and lets out a sigh. The CHANTERS are a group of pugnacious, well-muscled KIDS, late teens and early twenties, all dressed in identical garb: black Batman SWEATSHIRTS and little red Guardian-angel BERETS. They're obviously members of the same club -- just like the guys we saw in the park. GORDON waits for them to shut up, but they don't; so he grabs the mike and speaks slowly and distinctly, trying to be heard over the din. GORDON I would like to stress -- that while this city enjoys a special relationship with Batman -- (louder) -- we do not condone vigilantism -- (practically screaming) -- IN ANY FORM. It's no use. He's totally drowned out by the RED BERETS, who continue to shout and shake their fists. Giving up, he returns the mike to a REPORTER and marches up the steps in a huff. The RED BERETS CHEER. CUT TO: INSERT - TELEVISION SCREEN The evening news: a live, on-the-spot interview from Gotham Square. A superimposed GRAPHIC identifies a surly kid in a RED BERET as "MIKE SEKOWSKY -- SPOKESPERSON -- ORDER OF THE BAT." SEKOWSKY And hey! Where does this -- (BLEEP; expletive deleted) -- Gordon get off calling us ? We're not breakin' any laws. We're a group of concerned citizens, that's all -- just like Batman. WOMAN IN CROWD You people are nothing but hoodlums! SEKOWSKY Hey, lady -- we're out here on patrol riskin' our necks to protect old biddies like you. (into mike) If this lame-o Gordon could do his job -- MORE CATCALLS from the crowd. The picture jumps suddenly as a minicam is jostled; some sort of SCUFFLE appears to be breaking out. Before it does, CAMERA PULLS BACK from the TV screen, placing us in: INT. WAYNE MANOR - KITCHEN - NIGHT where ALFRED THE BUTLER is watching the Sekowsky interview with extreme dismay. As he trims the crusts from a pair of hearty watercress sandwiches, he SLICES HIS FINGER OPEN. ALFRED makes a pained face -- it's all Sekowsky's fault. Onscreen, the fracas continues; SEKOWSKY has recommandeered the mike... SEKOWSKY (on TV) We're provin' that the spirit of Batman is alive in this city. We're gonna take back the streets! SEKOWSKY raises a fist. Behind him, his CRONIES begin to chant: "TAKE BACK THE STREETS! TAKE BACK THE STREETS!" Incensed, sucking on his finger, ALFRED moves to the TV and flicks it off. He turns on the radio in search of something more soothing. "Good King Wenceslas" pipes through the manor; smiling, ALFRED sets the sandwich plate alongside a steaming kettle on a Sterling silver tea service. INT. BRUCE'S LIBRARY - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The CAROL CONTINUES UNDERNEATH as ALFRED, white linen draped over one forearm, sets the tea tray down on his master's big mahogany desk. He digs in his pocket for a key and unlocks a side drawer. The drawer contains a stack of yellowed, aging NEWPAPER CLIPPINGS -- among them one which reads "THOMAS WAYNE MURDERED: Prominent Doctor, Wife Slain in Robbery. Unidentified Gunman Leaves Child Unharmed." ALFRED digs around beneath the clippings and finds a concealed SWITCH at the rear of the drawer. Gears grind, and a sectional bookcase detaches itself from the wall -- sliding out a couple of feet to reveal a STONE STAIRWAY which descends into darkness... INT. BATCAVE - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT Descending the stone stairs, ALFRED arrives in the Batcave. "Good King Wenceslas" is on the speakers down here as well. Across a catwalk the BATMOBILE rests on its little plateau, wrapped in a tarp. ALFRED clears some space on a lab table and sets the tea service down. He glances up at the bank of video monitors and sees SEKOWSKY, still babbling, on several channels simultaneously. He scans the cave, but there's no trace of BRUCE. ALFRED Sir? -- MASTER BRUCE?? As if in response, BATS screech and flutter in the distant recesses of the cavern. ALFRED turns suddenly and sees BRUCE behind him, suspended from a thin filament wire, RISING OUT OF A BOTTOMLESS ABYSS. BRUCE I'm not deaf, Alfred. I hear you. He's wearing his civvie -- tweed pants and cashmere sweater -- but he's got the utility belt, with its spring-action reel, buckled about his waist. Clutching a bundle, he hangs in midair for a moment, dangling over the void. ALFRED slowly regains his composure: ALFRED I took the liberty of preparing tea. (indicating tbe monitors) I take it you've been watching the news? BRUCE, still dangling, glances up at the SEKOWSKY interview and nods. BRUCE Yeah...lot of crazy people in this world. BRUCE rocks back and forth to build up momentum. He kicks off on the nearest stone outcropping, lands gracefully on the Batcave floor, and unbuckles his belt. Preoccupied, he drops his mysterious bundle on the lab table: a roll of black fabric, and a cluster of lightweight, hollow ALUMINUM RODS, connected by what appears to be SURGICAL TUBING. ALFRED I should inform you...Christmas is approaching, and we've received our annual solicitation from the Fireman's Toy Fund. (eyeing the equipment) If I may inquire...? BRUCE Oh, yeah. Watch this. BRUCE hits a trigger on a tiny gas canister attached to the tubing. The tubing inflates and the rods spring erect -- stiffening, wing-like, into something which looks remarkably like the skeleton of an umbrella. ALFRED Most ingenious, sir. What exactly it? BRUCE What does it look like? ALFRED To the untrained eye, sir, it looks remarkably like...the skeleton of an umbrella. Sounds good. BRUCE eyes his new invention, thinks it over, smiles slyly. BRUCE Good guess, Alfred. That's exactly right. BRUCE hits the trigger, and the rods WILT with a hiss. He sits at his lab table; ALFRED unfolds a napkin on his lap, pours a cup of tea. ALFRED Splendid, sir, and if I may say, I'm glad you're putting your time to such productive use. (beat) Now -- the Toy Fund. Our contribution last year was a half-million dollars... BRUCE We can do better than that. ALFRED Then there's the foster-parents program... the Gotham homeless crusade... BRUCE nods abstractedly and tucks into his sandwich. He seems oddly preoccupied -- not exactly melancholy, but his thoughts are obviously a million miles away. ALFRED looks on, concerned: ALFRED (cont.) Is something troubling you, sir? BRUCE Yeah...the holidays, I guess. Always gets me thinking about... (he changes the subject) And to tell you the truth, I'm a little -- concerned about Vicki. ALFRED (anxiously) Miss Vale, sir...? BRUCE Yeah. I've been thinking about it lately. Thinking about it a lot... (gravely; shaking his head) ...and I still can't figure out what to get her for Christmas. BRUCE shoots ALFRED a solemn, perplexed look -- and ALFRED heaves an audible sigh of relief as we CUT TO: INT. PRISON CELL - DAY TIGHT ON a stack of COOPS and CAGES, piled high against a bare concrete wall. Each cage -- and there are at least two dozen of them -- contains a twittering BIRD: starlings, pigeons, cardinals, titwillows... CAMERA PULLS BACK from the bars of the cages to reveal a VERY ODD FIGURE in prison greys. A CANARY, perched on his shoulder, SINGS HAPPILY as he stands in front of a grimy, cracked mirror, plastering back his hair, BUFFING HIS NAILS with quick, birdlike strokes. MR. BONIFACE is beak-nosed, epicene, and so fat that it seems his skin should burst; the adjective that comes to mind is "obscene." Despite his eccentric appearance, he comports himself with overblown, theatrical dignity. Fastidious and preening, he does not suffer insults lightly. CAMERA PULLS BACK FURTHER -- through another set of bars -- and we realize that MR. BONIFACE is himself caged. A PRISON GUARD arrives to slide back his cell door... GUARD Up and at 'em, Pengy. -- Pengy? MR. BONIFACE pointedly ignores the GUARD, refusing to acknowledge the odious (if wholly appropriate) nickname. GUARD (cont.) Boniface... MR. BONIFACE finally turns. With an expression of extreme distaste, he affixes a MONOCLE over one eye, returns the canary to its cage and allows himself to be ushered out. INT. WARDEN'S OFFICE - DAY MR. BONIFACE and his ATTORNEY sit at a long table across from the WARDEN and the members of the PAROLE BOARD. PAROLE OFFICER You want to return the money you stole. BONIFACE Intact. The map will show you where it's buried. The PAROLE OFFICER stares skeptically at a hand-scrawled MAP. PAROLE OFFICER All of it. Forty-two million dollars. MR. BONIFACE stares down humbly at the table -- as if he finds the mere mention of his transgression too embarrassing to bear. PAROLE OFFICER II Why this sudden change of heart? MR. BONIFACE Gentlemen, I want my debt to be repaid in full. I want to be a part of civilized society! (oozing sincerity) Prison life is not for me. The guilt, the fear, the constant shame...one meets a disturbingly low class of people. PAROLE OFFICER II Sure, but -- forty-two million dollars?? MR. BONIFACE nods plaintively. It's quite a perfomlance. He dabs at his face with a handkerchief; it's hot in here, and he's the delicate type... WARDEN His record's clean. Thirteen years without an incident. ATTORNEY I'd like to point out, my client's put his time to good use. A student of ornithology...articles published in several respected journals... The PAROLE OFFICER thumbs through a stack of magazines: Bird World, Ornithological Review, Beaks And Feathers, Nest Egg. MR. BONIFACE Birds, yes. My only source of solace. PAROLE OFFICER In light of this rather extraordinary gesture, I see no reason not to endorse your application for parole. BONIFACE Thank you, sir. You won't regret it. MR. BONIFACE shakes hands with the members of the PAROLE BOARD. As the GUARDS escort him out, a BLACK MYNAH BIRD SQUAWKS LOUDLY from its cage in the corner of the office: MYNAH CRIME DOES NOT PAY. AAWWK!! CRIME DOES NOT PAY. CHUCKLES all around. On his way out the ATTORNEY gestures toward the mynah -- and BEAMS at the parole board: ATTORNEY Personally trained by my client. INT. PRISON CELL - DAY Free time -- the cell doors are open and the convicts are milling around in the common area. T-BONE, 220 lbs. of dumb, hulking beef, saunters up to his cell and finds his bunkmate, MR. BONIFACE, staring at a stack of EMPTY CAGES. BONIFACE whirls on him suddenly, his face beet-red, APOPLECTIC WITH RAGE: MR. BONIFACE -- Where are my birds?!? T-BONE Shit, Pengy. I let 'em go. MR. BONIFACE Hermione. My canary. It's the dead of winter! T-BONE flops casually on his bunk, obviously enjoying MR. BONIFACE's profound distress. T-BONE They were all cooped up. With you leaving and all -- seemed like the humane thing to do. BONIFACE'S GAZE FALLS on a corner of the cell. He spots a scattering of YELLOW FEATHERS -- a patch of FRESH BLOOD. With a supreme effort of restraint, he turns and forces a smile... MR. BONIFACE I see. -- You might as well have this. I won't be needing it... He tosses a SONY WALKMAN to T-BONE, who flicks it on. The dim strains of CLASSICAL MUSIC are audible through the earphones... T-BONE Well, thanks, Pengy. No hard feelings. (chuckling to himself) Y'know, I'm gonna miss that pudgy little ass of yours. T-BONE tunes the Walkman to a rock station, slips the headset on, grins from his bunk. TWO GUARDS arrive. As they escort him out, MR. BONIFACE mutters: MR. BONIFACE You won't miss it long. EXT. PRISON - MAIN ENTRANCE - DAY It's fifteen degrees outside as MR. BONIFACE -- aka THE PENGUIN -- waddles forth from the prison gates, regally attired in cutaway and pin-stripes. He pauses to inhale a deep lungful of the icy air; then, with a smile of exhilaration, he removes his coat and STRETCHES -- spreading his wings, REVELING in the cold. A STRETCH LIMO pulls up. Two identically gaunt and vulture- like DANDIES, formally dressed, with bowler hats and umbrellas, step out to meet him. These two gentlemen -- FRICK and FRACK -- serve as the Penguin's general factoti and "business managers." FRICK Welcome back, Mr. Boniface. PENGUIN Mr. Frick. Mr. Frack. Our years of planning are about to pay off. INT. LIMO - MOVING - DAY Now that he's loose, the PENGUIN's rapacious side is beginning to show. His eyes twinkle with greed as he contemplates his own ingenuity. PENGUIN I take it they found the money all right? FRACK We buried it exactly as you specified. $42,271,009... PENGUIN How much have we got left? FRICK reaches into his coat for a BALANCE SHEET. FRICK Let's see -- an initial capitalization of 42 million and change, compounded over thirteen years, at an annual return of just under sixteen percent -- PENGUIN Fine, fine. How much? FRICK Seventy-nine million. -- Excluding the sum we buried. THE PENGUIN lets out a dry, heaving CHORTLE, midway between a normal laugh and a DUCK'S QUACK. He checks his watch and reaches into his pocket for a small ELECTRONIC DEVICE. PENGUIN Speaking of burials... EXT. PRISON YARD - DAY T-BONE on work detail. He's got the Walkman on and he's shoveling snow to the beat. He winces, and removes the headphones... The MUSIC he was listening to has been replaced by an eerie, high-pitched WHINE. He's twisting the knob, trying to find the station he was tuned to, when a PIGEON dives down STRAIGHT AT HIS HEAD. T-BONE HEY -- ! He drops the shovel as the bird STRIKES, glancing off his head. Before he can react, THREE MORE PIGEONS have swooped down at him, PECKING at his head and shoulders in a frenzy. He lets out a HOWL and staggers through the prison yard in a frenzy. DOZENS of PIGEONS are pouring over the prison walls, SHRIEKING HIDEOUSLY, descending on him. He falls to the ground screaming for help, but the other prisoners run like rabbits, terrified... By the time the GUARDS come racing across the courtyard, T-BONE's no longer even visible. There's just a swarming, man-shaped mass of PIGEONS, pecking away, flapping their wings insanely. Covering their faces as they move in, the GUARDS blow their whistles -- BEAT AT the pigeons with billy clubs. All at once, the PIGEONS take off en masse -- leaving T-BONE's mutilated corpse sprawled in the yard. A GUARD notices the Walkman, picks up the earphones to listen, and hears nothing but ROCK MUSIC -- "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen. Bird bird bird, bird is the word... EXT. ROAD - ON PENGUIN'S LIMO - MOVING An AERIAL VIEW of the LIMO as it cruises down the deserted road leading away from the prison. It disappears from view -- and all at once the frame is filled with PIGEONS, great squalling FLOCKS of them, dutifully following their master as he makes his way back to Gotham City. DISSOLVE TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - ENTRYWAY - NIGHT ALFRED opens the front door and finds a bundled-up VICKI out on the portico, red-cheeked, flushed, and happy. She pulls him forward, gives him a quick peck on the cheek. VICKI Guess what, Alfred. I think I found a present for Bruce. She's got a long, skinny GIFT BOX propped up against the exterior wall. At first it doesn't want to fit through the door -- it must be eight feet long -- but with ALFRED's help she gets it inside. The faithful butler stares curiously at this odd-shaped gift... VICKI (cont.) Skis. -- Don't let on, okay? ALFRED He won't hear a word of it from me. VICKI He's such a nightmare to shop for. -- What do you get him year after year, Alfred? ALFRED (conspiratorially) I find you can't go wrong with surveillance equipment. Let me put this under the tree... VICKI Not so fast. She reaches into the pocket of her coat and pulls out another small gift. ALFRED stares at the tag -- "TO ALFRED, LOVE VICKI" -- and tries to suppress a HUGE GRIN. ALFRED Why, Miss Vale -- ! VOICE FROM BEHIND What's all this? ALFRED and VICKI turn. It's BRUCE, dressed for dinner, marching down the long stairway in the entry hall. VICKI waves frantically. VICKI Don't look. It's your present. VICKI rushes over to embrace him. He gapes at the long skinny box -- BRUCE What'd you get me? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? VICKI frowns and gives him a kiss. She nestles up against him. WHISPERS in his ear: VICKI I'm going to give you the happiest Christmas you've ever had. Still in the clinch, BRUCE shoots a look at ALFRED. Taking the hint, ALFRED clears his throat and bends to pick up one end of the ski box. He backs out of the entry hall, dragging the box before him... CUT TO: EXT. GOTHAM PARK - NIGHT FIRES burn in garbage cans. TENTS and LEAN-TOS dot the snowy landscape. Men, women, and children wander aimlessly, huddling against the cold. An army of the HOMELESS has set up camp in Gotham Park. On the nearby periphery, PICKETERS -- half concerned citizens, half down-and-outers -- are marching the sidewalks, keeping a candlelight VIGIL. Hand-lettered placards read: "SAVE THE PARK." "PARKS ARE FOR PEOPLE." "THIS PARK IS OUR HOME." The source of the protest? A towering SIGN posted in a corner of the park, announcing the imminent consuuction of a new luxury highrise -- the GOTHAM PARK TOWERS -- a project of Shaw Construction, Inc. A LAMBORGHINI sits at a traffic light nearby... INT. LAMBORGHINI - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BRUCE and VICKI, dressed for dinner, stare out at the demonstration. VICKI Homeless. (beat) I was just down here Tuesday. Seems like there's more every day. BRUCE starts to say something, but can't think of anything to say. VICKI (cont.) Christmas time. And they say there's over a thousand people living in the park already. BRUCE -- Yeah. The light changes. BRUCE throws the car into gear and -- at the next intersection -- turns the car right, into the park. EXT. PUB-IN-THE-PARK - NIGHT Despite the name, it's a tony little bistro catering to Gotham's elite. A PANHANDLER, underdressed for the cold, has been hustling the customers as they come out; a couple of PARKING ATTENDANTS are trying to drag him discreetly away as BRUCE'S CAR pulls up. A VALET opens the car for BRUCE and VICKI, who look on in concern as the PANHANDLER gets the bum's rush. The liveried DOORMAN shrugs apolagetically -- sorry for the inconvenience -- as they enter. INT. PUB-IN-THE-PARK - NIGHT Post-dinner. VICKI's got a sheaf of PHOTOS spread out on the table in front of BRUCE -- shots of Gotham's HOMELESS, being forcibly evicted from slum dwellings, erecting their SHANTYTOWNS in Gotham Park. VICKI They're already razing the tenements and SRO's downtown. These people don't have anyplace else to go. (beat) If the city starts selling off the park... BRUCE takes a good long look at his opulent surroundings. HUGE WINDOWS open on a serene and picturesque view of the park; CAMPFIRES flicker in the distance... BRUCE -- Yeah. I guess I'll pass on dessert. VICKI (taking his hand) Bruce, you do a lot more than most people even dream of. BRUCE Sure. Comes off the top of my taxes -- VICKI That's not what I meant. They exchange a long silent look. Of course she's referring to Batman. Still, the argument doesn't hold much water with BRUCE. BRUCE -- What I "do" doesn't come close to the root of the problem, Vicki. (long pause) I'm just a Band-Aid. VOICE FROM BEHIND Bruce! It's been ages! VICKI turns -- and rapidly closes her photo folder. Millionaire construction magnate RANDALL SHAW is in the restaurant table-hopping, and he's just glommed onto BRUCE. BRUCE Randall. You remember Vicki. -- How's the construction business? SHAW The park tower? All systems go. If we can get the junkies and winos cleared out... (a big grin) Not too late to get in on the deal. BRUCE I'll think about it. SHAW Say, Walter Barrett's due back from Europe. We should all get together at the club. (clapping him on the shoulder) Nice to see you again, Miss Veal. "Miss Veal" maintains a big phony smile as SHAW moves off to the next table. She murmurs to BRUCE through clenched teeth: VICKI What a pig. BRUCE I've known him since he was seven years old. He was a pig then too. VICKI Now he wants to gobble up the park... (shivering) Bruce -- isn't there something you can do about people like that? BRUCE What, tie him up with a bat-rope? VICKI No, you idiot. I meant you. Bruce. BRUCE nods -- oh, yeah. Subtle distinction. INT. PUB-IN-THE-PARK - NIGHT BRUCE and VICKI emerge from the restaurant. He hands his parking stub to a VALET. A crowd's beginning to form in the lot outside... The red-and-blue bubble of a POLICE CAR is flashing a short distance off, near the entrance to the park. TWO RED BERETS, in full Order-of-the-Bat regalia, look on as a recently-mugged WOMAN JOGGER gives her statement to the investigating COPS. BRUCE and VICKI, intrigued by the Batman-wannabes, move a little closer -- within eavesdropping range: RED BERET I We were on patrol. Saw the whole thing. JOGGER I was attacked. Three men in ski masks -- COP I (indicating the RED BERETS) And these two broke it up? JOGGER These two?? They ran like rabbits. I never saw anybody take off so -- RED BERET II Hey! Somebody had to go for the cops. COP II You. SHUT UP, all right?? (to the JOGGER) Lady, who was it that bailed you out?? JOGGER A kid. Thirteen or fourteen tops. He just came out of nowhere and -- tore into 'em. (shaking her head) It was so quick I didn't even see his face. Nearby, VICKI shoots a highly quizzical look at BRUCE, who responds with a mystified shrug. Her professional curiosity piqued, she wanders over to introduce herself to the JOGGER. An exasperated COP leads the RED BERETS away from the crime site: RED BERET I Dumb shit. Shouldn'ta been jogging in the park at night anyway. (sullenly) Look around you. It's fulla bums. BRUCE gestures at the RED BERET's Batman sweatshirt as he passes. BRUCE Nice outfit. RED BERET I Piss off, geek. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. WATERFRONT DISTRICT - NIGHT Snow blankets the abandoned warehouses rimming Gotham Harbor. FOGHORNS blare in the distance as a pair of STILETTO HEELS -- totally inappropriate for the weather -- click across the sidewalk and pause at mid-block, where a wide wooden plank leads down from street level to a seedy hole-in-the-wall bar: the WHARF RAT. INT. WHARF RAT - NIGHT A roughneck joint, about as trendy as the average bait shack. The clientele consists primarily of surly types who are saving up for their next tattoo. A TV over the bar is tuned to the late news: ANCHORWOMAN ...and tomorrow, the city's power elite will be turning out in force to greet millionaire industrialist Walter Barrett, who returns to Gotham after a five-year stay in Europe... The BARTENDER switches to a hockey game, because none of the rowdies at the bar give a shit about Walter Barrett. None, that is, except for a strapping young bruiser named RICKY, who gets up and makes his way to a pay phone in the corner. Moments later, the owner of the high heels enters; she opens her black fur coat and unwraps her muffler, revealing exotic, vaguely Eurasian features. She's dark and elegant, fine- boned, regal of bearing -- and her name, though we don't know it yet, is SELINA KYLE. She's not the kind of girl who typically frequents the Wharf Rat, and so her entrance creates quite a stir. A LONGSHOREMAN at the nearby pool table misses his shot and digs a rut in the felt. Two blowsy WHORES size her up territorially as she finds an open stool at the bar and settles in with serene indifference. The regulars, of course, are all but licking their chops. The only guy in the joint who hasn't noticed her yet is RICKY, who's still on the phone: RICKY Yo. Ricky here. What's the haps? In mid-conversation he notices SELINA. She smiles invitingly -- right at him. Mildly startled, he smiles back. RICKY (cont.) Midnight. No sweat. See you then. He hangs up eagerly. Then, with a deep breath, he hitches up his pants and swaggers over to SELINA's end of the bar. SELINA Well. "Ricky," is it? RICKY How'd you know that? SELINA I heard you on the phone. Talking to your girlfriend. RICKY Girlfriend? No, no. That was business. SELINA makes a big show of peeling off her gloves. SELINA If you've got time for a little pleasure ...maybe you'd like to buy me a drink. She clasps his hand. His EYES BUG OUT. Three enormous rings, a diamond bracelet -- there must be several thousand in rocks on her left hand alone. RICKY gapes at the sparklers, bedazzled. RICKY Jeez -- they look almost real. SELINA Why wouldn't they be? RICKY is not the smoothest guy around, and his line of thought is all too evident. He swallows hard and tries not to stare. RICKY You'd have to be crazy. Nobody'd wear the real thing to a dive like this. SELINA Oh, they're real, all right. So are these. She waves her FINGERNAILS -- long, polished, and talon-sharp -- in front of his eyes. With lightning speed, before he can react, she pins his wrist to the bar -- and with one quick stroke carves a THIN BLOODY STRIPE in the back of his hand. SELINA's eyes flash as he gasps in shock. He tries to jerk his hand away, but he can't break her grip. Then -- her dominance firmly established -- she releases his hand with a coy, Cheshire-cat smile. SELINA (cont.) Weren't we going to have a drink? He blinks, forces a chuckle, smiles unsteadily. She takes his wounded hand, lifts it slowly to her mouth, and LAPS GENTLY at the blood. RICKY is hypnotized. She's got an odd way of flirting, but RICKY finds it somehow -- intriguing. He dabs at his hand with a napkin and signals to the BARTENDER. CUT TO: EXT. WATERFRONT - PIER 31 - NIGHT Just after midnight; the snow's still failing, the waters are icy, and the wharfs are deserted -- almost. A small STEAMBOAT is docked at Pier 31, and the deck is lined with THUGS -- mean, ugly, and heavily armed. A similar contingent of gun-toting GOONS is waiting to greet them on the dock below. The boys on the dock hoist ASSAULT RIFLES as the BOAT THUGS extend a gangplank. Something major is about to happen... The CHIEF DOCK GOON gestures to his LIEUTENANT, who grabs a black MEDICAL BAG. Hands raised, the two of them start up the gangplank. Throughout all this, the DOCK GOONS keep their guns trained on the BOAT THUGS, covering their buddies. One of them turns to a colleague: DOCK GOON I Where's that goddam Ricky? DOCK GOON II Probably out gettin' laid. And here we are freezin' our balls off... EXT. STEAMBOAT - ON DECK - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The LIEUTENANT unloads chemical testing gear from his doctor's bag. The lead BOAT THUG gestures to a stack of SHIPPING CRATES which rest atop a large NET spread out across the deck. BOAT THUG I You pick. The CHIEF GOON selects a crate at random. Two BOAT THUGS tip it on its side and, using a crowbar, pry off a FALSE BOTTOM -- revealing a dozen packets of WHITE POWDER. POV SHOT - HIGH ANGLE - THAT MOMENT We're now watching the scene from a vantage point atop a ramshackle boathouse at water's edge. Down on the deck of the steamboat, the LIEUTENANT goes to work testing the merchandise. LIEUTENANT It's pure. REVERSE ANGLE - THAT MOMENT A BLACK SILHOUETTE is peering down from the boathouse roof. The mysterious watcher ducks quickly out of sight; the only details that register are a pair of ominously familiar POINTY EARS... CHIEF GOON (O.S.) Let's do it. He gestures to his boys on the dock. A CRANE-AND-WINCH assembly rotates into place over the deck -- and the BOAT THUGS gather up the corners of the netting and attach them to the big hook. BOAT THUG I Hold it. Let's see the money. Down on the wharf, a DOCK GOON kneels beside a metal suitcase and opens it. Lots of long green inside. The BOAT THUG signals thumbs up, and the CRATES rise into the air as the goon with the suitcase starts up the gangplank. LOW ANGLE - ON GANGPLANK - THAT MOMENT The goon with the suitcase marches up. Beyond him, in the distance, a LITHE BLACK SHADOW vaults off the boathouse roof and makes a silent, graceful landing on the long shaft of the CRANE. ANOTHER ANGLE - THAT MOMENT The moment of maximum tension: grim faces all around, everyone holding a gun on someone else as the suitcase arrives on deck and crane swings over the pier. ANGLE ON CRANE - THAT MOMENT Razor-sharp, CHROME-STEEL TALONS slash suddenly through the air. ON DOCK - LOW ANGLE - THAT MOMENT The netting GIVES WAY, and TWO DOZEN SHIPPING CRATES rain down onto the pier, CRUSHING two DOCK GOONS underneath. The crates explode into splinters, littering the dock with drugs and random ART OBJECTS as the other DOCK GOONS scatter in panic. ON STEAMBOAT - THAT MOMENT Nobody knows quite what's going on. Panicking, the GOON with the suitcase full of money turns tail and dives for the gangplank. BOAT THUG I sees him and squeezes off a quick shot. Winged, the GOON topples off the gangplank and hits the drink, suitcase and all. Pandemonium. All at once, everyone's OPENING FIRE. Thinking he's been double-crossed, BOAT THUG I turns on the CHIEF GOON and SHOOTS HIM TWICE at point-blank range. BOAT THUG I YOU SON OF A BITCH! (to another BOAT THUG) Go after it. Get the money. GO!! He raises his gun, and the second BOAT THUG dutifully obeys -- diving off the deck into a hail of gunfire. Everyone's ducking for cover. BOAT THUG I barks orders at the pilothouse: BOAT THUG I Soltar las amarras! -- CAST OFF!! ANOTHER BOAT THUG LOOK! BOAT THUG I whirls, just in time to see a SHADOWY FIGURE landing cat-like on the deck mere yards away. Clad in inky black leather from head to toe, the intruder's face is concealed by what appears to be a BONDAGE MASK. Studded, with openings for the eyes and mouth, it spans one incongruous touch: a pair of POINTED CAT EARS. She bares her teeth and HISSES. It's a woman. BOAT THUG I is momentarily mesmerized. In the time it takes him to lift his gun, she's produced a CAT-O'-NINE-TAILS. She SNAPS it at him: REELS HIM IN; and with one lethal stroke, RAKES her steel talons across his face and throat. He slumps to the deck, lifeless. The other BOAT THUG rushes her; she catches him under the jaw with a sudden upthrust, LIFTS HIM INTO THE AIR, and sends him toppling into the water. The gangplank falls aside as the steamboat pulls away from the pier. She hoists an abandoned ASSAULT RIFLE, SCATTERS the DOCK GOONS with a round of automatic fire, and VAULTS off the boat -- landing in a graceful crouch on the edge of the pier. Most of the DOCK GOONS have taken flight, but a few unlucky specimens remain behind. She somersaults forward; takes one goon off his feet with a crack of the whip; knocks another off the dock with a twirling high-kick to the jaw; sends two more reeling with swift talon-slashes. The whole frenzied mop-up action takes just under ten seconds. Alone at last, she stands back to survey the scene. Counting the stiff's on the boat -- which is now receding in the harbor -- there must be well over a dozen dead. The snow is speckled with red. A half-dozen bodies lie sprawled in their own blood; one of them, the lone survivor, is face-down and softly MOANING. Retracting her steel claws, the MASKED WOMAN crouches amid the wreckage of the smashed shipping crates. BINDLES OF WHITE POWDER -- millions of dollars' worth -- are scattered all about the pier, but she couldn't seem less interested. Instead, she's checking the MANIFEST NUMBERS stamped on the sides of the crates. She finds crate #18396-BB and rummages among its contents until she comes up with a carefully-wrapped parcel. She opens it carefully and holds it up for inspection. The statuette of a RAVEN -- carved from solid onyx -- glistens in the moonlight. The WOMAN pauses long enough to slip a small CARD in the MOANING PUNK's back pocket. Then, cradling the raven under one arm, she dashes off on silent cat feet. A LANTERN approaches. It's an OLD SALT -- some kind of hapless night watchman -- and his face goes bone-white at the sight of the carnage on the docks. He kneels beside the moaning punk, turns the body over, and GASPS -- because the PUNK'S FACE has been CLAWED TO SHREDS. PUNK Murcielago. MURCIELAGO!! CUT TO: INT. PENGUIN'S LAIR - NIGHT The unique chamber in which we find ourselves is alive with the flutter and song of COLD-WEATHER BIRDS -- dozens of them, all chirping, flitting about in the rafters, alighting on special perches mounted in the walls. At the center of this penthouse room is a vast sunken POOL. ARCTIC TERNS loll on the surrounding rocks as a LACKEY with a wheelbarrow empties cracked ice into the already-frigid water. Carefully landscaped, it looks like the penguin exhibit at the Gotham Zoological Gardens. A MASSIVE, INDISTINCT SHAPE glides beneath the surface. It's not a whale; it's too pink. It is, instead, the PENGUIN -- and as he breaks the surface, sputtering, he sees FRICK standing in the open doorway. FRICK Mr. Boniface? Your...visitor has arrived. PENGUIN Thank you, Mr. Frick. Show her in. The PENGUIN moves to the edge of the sunken pool. Two of his LACKEYS swivel a CROSSBAR, which hangs from the ceiling by a long chain, into place over his head. He grasps it with both hands -- and the crossbar RISES, hoisting his formidable bulk out of the water. INT. HIGH-RISE - CORRIDOR - THAT MOMENT FRICK leads the VISITOR down a long corridor lined on either side with BIRD CAGES -- exotic songbirds with brilliantly-hued plumage. CAMERA TRACKS ALONG behind her, and although we can't see her face, there must be something distinctively feline about her -- because the BIRDS are shrieking and fluttering in their cages, RECOILING INSTINCTIVELY as she strolls past. FRICK opens a door and ushers her into... INT. PENGUIN'S LAIR - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT Our visitor -- SELINA KYLE -- enters the penguin-pool room. Her teeth begin to chatter. The big bay windows have been thrown open, and SNOW is blowing in from outside. It's freezing in here. She sees the PENGUIN -- wearing a thin dressing gown and an APRON outfitted with SEED POUCHES -- scattering birdseed on the window ledge for the pigeons, totally oblivious to the cold. He turns, throws his arms wide in greeting, kisses the back of SELINA's hand. PENGUIN Ah, Miss Kyle! At last we meet. SELINA At last we meet. -- Pigeons? PENGUIN Yes, they're common birds -- dirty, stupid, unattractive -- but they're very obedient, and they do crap on people's heads. May I? She extends a SHOPPING BAG. The PENGUIN removes a parcel and unwraps it, revealing the RAVEN STATUETTE. He sets it on a nearby desk, fondles it reverently...and BEAMS at SELINA. PENGUIN (cont.) I see your reputation was not exaggerated. SELINA I've located the others. All but one. (shivering) I'm surprised you don't catch pneumonia -- ! With an apologetic smile, the PENGUIN pulls the windows shut. PENGUIN My normal body temperature is ninety-two degrees. Germs find me inhospitable. SELINA I see why they call you the Penguin. PENGUIN They may call me that...but rarely more than once. Champagne? She nods. He pours two glasses, hands one to SELINA, raises a toast. PENGUIN (cont.) My dear. Here's to the second biggest crime in the history of Gotham City. CUT TO: INT. POLICE OBSERVATION ROOM - NIGHT COMMISSIONER GORDON and another cop, LT. EDDIE BULLOCK, are in darkened antechamber adjacent to an interrogation room. BULLOCK It wasn't about the drugs. Whoever it was left thirty kilos sitting on the docks. They're watching, through a two-way glass panel, as a terrified man with a heavily-bandaged face tells his story. It's the lone survivor of the dock massacre, JULIO, and his voice is audible over a concealed intercom: JULIO (filter) Un silueta negra -- con colmillos, y garras -- el demonio. El murcielago. MURCIELAGO! GORDON What's that he keeps saying? BULLOCK "Murcielago." -- Bat. GORDON Nonsense. That dock looked like a slaughter-house. Batman's never committed murder. BULLOCK We did find this in his back pocket. BULLOCK hands GORDON a CARD. It reads: "THOSE WHO FEED ON THE SOUL OF GOTHAM WILL SUFFER MY WRATH" -- and in lieu of a signature, there's a little black BAT-EMBLEM in the bottom corner. While GORDON's staring at it, a POLICEMAN pokes his head in: POLICEMAN Commissioner? We've got Barrett. INT. POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM - THAT MOMENT A cubicle down the hall. The splenetic WALTER BARRETT, millionaire industrialist, is fidgeting in his chair as GORDON enters. BARRETT Fine welcome. These storm troopers of yours dragged me away from my coming-home party! (beat) I'd like to know the meaning of this -- GORDON I'd like to know how thirty kilos of pure cocaine wound up concealed in your personal effects. BARRETT Gordon -- I come from one of the oldest and most influential familles in Gotham. If you plan to accuse me of smuggling drugs, be my guest. (long, menacing pause) I'll have your badge before you leave this room. GORDON weighs the threat. He nods to the COPS in attendance... GORDON Book the son of a bitch. GORDON storms out. BARRETT jumps out of his chair, but the COPS restrain him. Outraged, he bats their hands away... BARRETT I believe I'm still entitled to a phone call. CUT TO: EXT. DOWNTOWN GOTHAM - DAY VICKI with her camera, squeezing off snaps. She's standing behind a SAWHORSE, part of a crowd of onlookers at a downtown DEMOLITION SITE. SURVEYORS and HARDHATS bustle about in a VACANT LOT, a full city block in size, fenced off and strewn with rubble. The only structure still standing is a lone, decrepit TENEMENT BUILDING; a WRECKING BALL is poised above it, ready to strike. A SIGN at one corner of the lot announces a forty-story OFFICE COMPLEX soon to be erected on this site by SHAW CONSTRUCTION, INC. Down below is RANDALL SHAW HIMSELF, in necktie and hardhat, speaking into a WALKIE-TALKIE: SHAW Come on! Let's move it! We're an hour behind as it is!! A few moments later, a CLUSTER OF PEOPLE emerge from the tenement building -- a mixed team of COPS and CONSTRUCTION GOONS who are forcibly removing a DESTITUTE FAMILY from the condenmed building. VICKI watches angrily... HER POV - TELEPHOTO LENS A quick series of shots: the SQUATTERS wailing and struggling, clinging to the doorways, unwilling to leave. Their few belongings are packed in a couple of CARDBOARD BOXES, which the cops heave rudely out onto the street. Finally, the handcuffs and nightsticks come out... ANGLE ON SHAW - THAT MOMENT - DAY A SURVEYOR grabs SHAW by the arm and points out the woman taking photos in the crowd. SHAW recognizes her instantly. His face turns into a mask of outrage -- as if he's been personally betrayed. SHAW Jesus Christ, that's Bruce Wayne's bimbo! He makes eye contact with her. VICKI stares back defiantly. He's about to stroll over and tell her off when a HARDHAT signals to him: HARDHAT Phone call, Mr. Shaw. Guy said it's urgent. SHAW (to tbe SURVEYOR) Hold the ball. I wanna hear it crash. He climbs into the cab of a nearby TRUCK, where he picks up a CELLULAR PHONE. INTERCUT - BARRETT AND SHAW BARRETT's still in custody at the police station -- using his one phone call to contact the construction magnate. BARRETT It's me, Randall -- Walter Barrett. I want you to call my attorney. That was my shipment they busted up last night. SHAW Jesus, Walter, I -- (suddenly puzzled) Why are you calling me?? BARRETT It's worse than that. Somebody took my raven. SHAW stares at the phone in horrified disbelief. ANGLE ON VICKI - THAT MOMENT SHE WATCHES as SHAW climbs out of the truck -- numb, in a daze. He signals to the WRECKING BALL OPERATOR; a WHISTLE blows, and the great iron ball knocks a MAMMOTH HOLE in the facade of the tenement. SHAW doesn't even stick around to watch it. He scurries off to his car at the end of the block. VICKI, highly intrigued, gets it all on film... INT. GOTHAM GLOBE - CITY ROOM - DAY VICKI's in a huddle with the Managing Editor, SCHULTZ, showing him her PHOTOS -- SHAW orchestrating the eviction of the SQUATTER FAMILY. SCHULTZ Great stuff, but we're looking at a shitfight with our beloved publisher. He and Shaw... (crossing his fingers) Old money sticks together. VICKI points to a photo of SHAW racing from the truck to his car. VICKI I'd sure like to know what shook him up so. He was out of there like a scared rabbit... Just then, a reporter -- WILK -- rushes up excitedly to SCHULTZ's desk. WILK Got a blind tip from downtown. You know that massacre on the docks? Batman. VICKI reacts in astonishment. SCHULTZ's jaw drops -- this is hot. EDITOR Whoa! Is this on the level? WILK Cops even got a note. "Those who feed on the soul of Gotham will suffer my wrath!" (grinning; to VICKI) Sounds like your pal's cranked it up a notch. VICKI starts to protest, but thinks better of it. INT. WAYNE MANOR - ENTRY HALL - EVENING ALFRED opens the door. A BANNER HEADLINE stares him in the face: BATMAN IMPLICATED IN DOCK MASSACRE Industrialist Linked to Drug Smuggling Ring VICKI, who's holding up the afternoon paper for ALFRED's inspection, peeks out glumly from behind the masthead. VICKI Seen the late edition? ALFRED I'm afraid so, Miss Vale. Master Bruce is sequestered in the cave. INT. BRUCE'S LIBRARY - A MOMENT LATER - EVENING On their way to the Batcave, ALFRED and VICKI pass through the library. They pause in front of the television -- which is tuned to a PANEL SHOW, with various experts discussing the hot issue of the day. ENVIRONMENTALIST (on TV) Walter Barrett's no saint. His factories have been dumping poison into the air and water for years. If he is mixed up with drugs... PUNDIT (on TV) That's not the issue. The issue is, do we entrust our public safety to some...masked vigilante. Does Batman have a license to kill? ALFRED (shaking his head) Ah, the public. Dishearteningly fickle. VICKI follows ALFRED out. We HOLD on the TV as the CAMERA PANS OVER to the third guest on the panel, loudly demanding air time. He's wearing a RED BERET and a BATMAN SWEATSHIRT: MIKE SEKOWSKY (on TV) Yo, here's the tip, man. Drug dealers are scum. If Batman did wax these punks...SO WHAT? They deserved it! End of discussion. INT. BATCAVE - A MOMENT LATER - EVENING ALFRED and VICKI arrive; BRUCE gestures for them to keep quiet. He's hunched over a TAPE RECORDER -- and COMMISSIONER GORDON'S VOICE is blaring from a nearby speaker... GORDON (O.S.; filter) Anyone could've written that note. INT. GORDON'S OFFICE - THAT MOMENT GORDON's in conference with a number of CITY OFFICIALS -- blissfully unaware that anyone might be eavesdropping. CITY OFFICIAL I And I suppose anyone could've taken out a boatload of armed thugs. A dozen men, Jim -- murdered in cold blood -- GORDON Before we forget, Batman's saved hundreds of lives! CITY OFFICIAL II He's still a vigilante. We don't know who he is, where he comes from, why he does it... CITY OFFICIAL I Street punks are one thing, Jim. This is Walter Barrett -- a personal friend of mine! As the conversation continues, CAMERA SLOWLY MOVES IN ON a COMPUTER TERMINAL in the corner. We see the tiny TRADEMARK embossed on the CPU -- "WAYNE TECHNOLOGIES." INT. BATCAVE - THAT MOMENT - ON BRUCE as he LISTENS through his concealed bug. CITY OFFCIAL II You've gotta bring him in, Jim -- at least for questioning. It would sure help if we could get that mask off... BRUCE shuts the recorder off. He turns to face ALFRED and VICKI -- BRUCE Ladies and gentlemen...I've been framed. CUT TO: EXT. GOTHAM CITY - NIGHT The BAT-SIGNAL blazing in the night sky. After a beat, the CAMERA TILTS DOWN to a cluster of EXCITED CITIZENS, who point and holler as the BATMOBILE streaks past. INT. SQUAD CAR - THAT MOMENT TWO COPS are parked in an alleyway, watching as the BATMOBILE whizzes past on the street. The DRIVER pulls out behind it as the second COP grabs his radio mike... COP One-delta-niner -- 10-80 on Riverview north-bound at 33rd -- 10-78, repeat 10-78. VOICE ON RADIO (filter) 10-4, one-delta-niner -- that's a 10-37, repeat 10-37. Backup on the way. EXT. STREET - ON BATMOBILE BARRELING TOWARD US on the street. The SQUAD CAR gains behind it. A SIREN HOWLS; a red-and-blue bubble begins to flash... The BATMOBILE makes a HAIRPIN TURN -- and ACCELERATES. OVERHEAD ANGLE - THE STREETS As the BATMOBILE rounds the corner and picks up speed, TWO MORE SQUAD CARS scream down the cross street, joining in the pursuit. All at once THICK BLACK SMOKE billows from the back of the Batmobile -- ENVELOPING the police cars, BLINDING THE DRIVERS... EXT. STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT TWO SQUAD CARS parked in a V-formation -- a makeshift roadblock. ANXIOUS POLICEMEN mill about in front of them. They move into position as the BATMOBILE, still trailing smoke, rounds a corner and careens directly toward them... ANGLE ON BATMOBILE - THAT MOMENT The FRONT FENDER of the Batmobile detaches and EXTENDS itself from the body of the car. It BENDS in the middle; WING-PANELS flip into place, forming an arrowhead-shaped COW-CATCHER. EXT. STREET - ON ROADBLOCK A SHRIEKING HORN BLARES. The COPS see the Batmobile SPEEDING UP and dive for the sidewalk. The COW-CATCHER slams into the SOUAD CARS, pushes them effortlessly aside, and cruises through the gap. As the PURSUING CARS emerge from the smoke cloud and follow the Batmobile through, we TILT UP to the roof of a nearby building -- EXT. ROOFTOP - THAT MOMENT -- and realize that the Batmobile's on automatic pilot, because BATMAN's been on the roof all along -- watching the action with some dismay. His relationship with the Gotham PD appears to be on shaky ground. He speaks into his voice-activated REMOTE CONTROL UNIT: BATMAN Evasive. SIRENS HOWL below as he strolls across the rooftop, lost in thought. CUT TO: INT. PENTHOUSE APARTMENT - NIGHT At this height, the SIRENS are a distant insect drone. We're in the palatial digs of RANDALL SHAW, the construction magnate. There's obviously money to be made in real-estate development -- because the walls are lined with art, and the floor-to-ceiling windows open on the most spectacular view in Gotham. At the moment, SHAW's posing casually in front of his new Brancusi -- which rests on a pedestal near the windows. An UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN in a slinky black dress LOOKS ON, her back to the camera... WOMAN It's a fake. SHAW Hmm. It cost me a half a million dollars. You're sure? WOMAN Absolutely. You see, I...happen to know where the real one is stashed. The WOMAN wanders out of frame as SHAW smiles, impressed. He seems peculiarly nonchalant about the whole deal; at the moment, art is not the first thing on his mind. CAMERA STAYS ON HIM as he pours two glasses of red wine and circles in on his mysterious guest. SHAW I guess you'd know. I have some "friends" in the art world. They say that -- for certain hard-to-get items -- you're the one to call. WOMAN (O.S.) How flattering. SHAW They say for the right price...you could steal Michelangelo off the Sistine Chapel Wall. WOMAN (O.S.) Mr. Shaw. Do you believe everything you hear? SHAW Oh, I'm not one to judge. I admire people who take what they want. I'm just curious how you do it. SHAW hands her the wine, and for the first time we see her face. It's SELINA KYLE, perching seductively on the arm of the sofa... SELINA I find that the old methods work best. Setting her wine down, flashing her patented Cheshire-cat smile, SELINA moves in on him -- and they go into a deep, passionate kiss. Her long red nails dig into his back; SHAW drops his wine glass, which SHATTERS -- splashing red wine across the polished parquet floor. INT. PENTHOUSE - SHAW'S BEDROOM - NIGHT The action's gone horizontal. SELINA, peeled down to a sheer lace teddy, is on the bed atop SHAW -- tickling his throat with quick, lapping kisses. She rolls off suddenly; when he tries to sit up, she pushes him back down with a single finger. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she peels off her STOCKINGS, twisting them around into tight cords. With a coy smile she runs her finger in a circle around SHAW's hairy chest -- and then, abruptly, knots one stocking tightly about his wrist and ties it off on the bedpost. SHAW Hey, what are you doing -- ? He tries to break her grip. She BACKHANDS him sharply across the face. SELINA You're very inquisitive. You'll just have to be disciplined. An EDGY SMILE spreads across his face as she binds his other hand to the bedpost. None too quick, he's just caught on that all this is part of SELINA's kinky scene. She crosses quickly to the bathroom -- SHAW You know, I've...I've never really done this kind of thing before. -- and reemerges wearing her CATWOMAN mask...which seems perfectly appropriate in this context. SELINA I think people should indulge their fantasies. Don't you? Now that he's all trussed up, she crosses the room and reaches into an oversized bag. She withdraws an odd-looking chromium BRACE, slips it on over her wrist, and hits a trigger. SIX- INCH STEEL TALONS snick into place. SHAW's dopey smile fades... SHAW Hey, what are those -- what are you -- He lets out an awful, shrill SHRIEK as the camera WHIP PANS away from the bed to a Jackson Pollack on the wall nearby. A SPRAY OF BLOOD spatters across it -- in an aesthetically pleasing way -- and the SHRIEK ends in a LOW GURGLE as we CUT TO: INT. BUILDING LOBBY - A FEW MINUTES LATER - NIGHT A SECURITY GUARD is working a crossword at his booth near the entrance of the building. Behind him, a bank of MONITORS show various empty hallways throughout the building. He reaches for his coffee and sees a RED LIGHT flashing on a wall panel nearby. INT. SHAW'S PENTHOUSE - THAT MOMENT The penthouse is THROBBING with the clangorous sound of a BURGLAR ALARM. SELINA is standing by an OPEN WALL SAFE -- concealed behind a painting, which has been swung away on hinges -- and she's HOLDING HER EARS, wearing a look of complete exasperation: oh, shit. The GUARD'S VOICE crackles over a nearby intercom: GUARD (O.S.; filter) Mr. Shaw? What's going on up there? -- Mr. Shaw? Furious with herself, she reaches inside the safe and extracts a BLACK RAVEN statuette -- identical to the one she took on the docks. She slams the door shut and swings the picture back into place. EXT. STREETS - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT SIRENS echo in the streets. SQUAD CARS make sudden turns and streak off toward SHAW's building. EXT. ROOFTOP - HIGH ANGLE - NIGHT Watching the cars from his rooftop vantage, BATMAN raises an ANTENNA mounted on his utility belt and cups one hand to his head. An EARPIECE concealed inside his cowl gives him the police frequency: DISPATCHER (O.S.; filter) -- possible 15 in progress, 188 E. 69th at Gotham Park West. Move out. It's Randall Shaw. Repeat, all units -- BATMAN's eyes widen. He steps to the ledge and pulls a TINY METAL CYLINDER from his belt -- immediately recognizable as part of BRUCE's hydraulic umbrella-gizmo. But it's no umbrella. When BATMAN thumbs the switch, his BLACK CAPE begins to SPREAD and RISE -- stiffening, expanding -- INFLATING itself into a pair of RIGID BLACK BATWINGS. He steps OFF THE LEDGE, INTO MIDAIR -- SOARING SILENTLY ACROSS THE STREET LIKE A HUMAN HANG-GLIDER as the cop cars cruise past far below. INT. SHAW'S BEDROOM - NIGHT There's an awful BANGING at the front door. SHAW lies under the bloody sheets, hands folded, staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. SELINA, now dressed in full Catwoman regalia, slings a lightweight KNAPSACK over her shoulders. She picks up the nearest chair, RAMS IT through SHAW's plate-glass window, and clambers out onto the ledge outside. Ten seconds later the COPS burst in. They rush to the bedroom -- spot the shattered window, the inert gory mass on the bed -- -- but the real shock comes when they glance over at the wall. Painted there, in blood...is a big, red, dripping BAT. COP JESUS! EXT. ROOFTOP - SHAW'S BUILDING - NIGHT Forty stories up. The CATWOMAN, in a surefooted crouch, she scurries along the ledge -- SPRINGS at a cornice -- and in one lithe motion VAULTS UP onto the ROOF. She scampers across the rooftops, dropping from one to the next with rope and tackle, like a mountain climber -- -- until she reaches the building at the end of the block. Here she pauses to dig in her knapsack. She pulls out a retractable HOOK at the end of a rope, swings it around, HEAVES IT at the rooftop across the street... EXT. STREET BELOW - LOW ANGLE - THAT MOMENT POLICE pile out of cars and race for the entrance, totally oblivious to the odd scene taking place overhead -- where the small, barely-visible figure of a WOMAN, clad entirely in black leather, is doing a TIGHTROPE WALK across the intersection. EXT. ROOFTOP - A MINUTE LATER - NIGHT The CATWOMAN bounds across snowy rooftops until she decides she's out of danger. Then, weary and exhilarated, she drops to her knees; bathed in moonlight, she preens, stretches, emits eerie little purrs and hisses of pleasure. She's just made a kill and her blood is running high, so she's stopped for a moment of Quality Time. She hears an odd crunching noise two roofs over. Her whole body tenses and -- though her head doesn't move -- her eyes dart left. A CAPED SHADOW has just touched down at the end of a line. The gold BAT-EMBLEM on his chest is visible for the briefest of seconds before he steps back into the shadows. She acts like she hasn't noticed... ...but a little smile flickers across her lips just the same. TIGHT ON BATMAN - THAT MOMENT His eyes widen -- his LIPS PART as he watches her. If it's possible to see absolute consternation behind that mask, we're seeing it now. HIS POV - ON CATWOMAN - THAT MOMENT She still doesn't let on that she's seen him. Instead, she goes to the ledge of the roof and begins to STRUT, like a gymnast on the balance beam -- POSING for him in a little private show -- a strange, self-infatuated, AUTOEROTIC DANCE ROUTINE for BATMAN's benefit. EXT. ROOFTOP - THAT MOMENT His jaw is down around his knees. Whoa. He edges forward slightly, as if hypnotically drawn to her... She hears a noise. Stops. Makes a big show of looking left and right. Somehow afraid she'll see him watching, BATMAN jumps back into the shadows. She gathers her things; a small WHITE CARD flutters from her knapsack to the snowy roof, and she VANISHES over the edge. Snapping back to reality, he bolts across the roof just in time to see -- EXT. SIDE OF BUILDING - ON CATWOMAN - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT She's rapidly working her way down the side of the building, flipping down from one fire escape to tile next -- a master gymnast. Three stories up, she lands on a railing, then STOPS -- LAUNCHING HERSELF out over the street, making a perfect landing on the roof of a passing BUS. EXT. ROOFTOP - ON BATMAN - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BATMAN turns -- and his eyes fall on the WHITE CARD. He kneels to pick it up; a brief three-word MESSAGE is scrawled upon it... LOOKING FOR LOVE? He goes goggle-eyed with astonishment. He rushes back to the edge of the roof and sees the BUS just turning toward the entrance to Gotham Park. He's reaching for his grappling-gun, figuring to follow, when a FLOODLIGHT catches him full in the face. EXT. STREETS BELOW - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT Down below, the cops are sweeping their beams across the rooftops. Two of them catch a quick glimpse of BATMAN just as he ducks back behind the cornice, out of view. COP Hey. You see what I saw...? This sends the astounded COPS rushing to their radios. Right on cue, COMMISSIONER GORDON's car pulls up. LT. BULLOCK, who's already on the scene, fills him in as he climbs out. BULLOCK It's Randall Shaw. Torn to ribbons. -- We just made Batman up on the roof. GORDON Oh God. EXT. GOTHAM PARK - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The BUS rumbles deeper into the snowy park. A BLACK SILHOUETTE springs off the roof into the trees, disappearing among the branches... We TRACK WITH the bus as it moves through the park, arriving finally at: EXT. CLEARING IN PARK - SHANTYTOWN - NIGHT The little colony of HOMELESS PEOPLE in their cardboard shacks and lean-tos, still occupying the future site of the Park Towers. MARCHERS and PICKETERS are continuing their protest nearby, and some charitable organization's set up a makeshift soup kitchen on folding tables -- hot coffee and sandwiches. VICKI's on the periphery of the camp, camera in hand. She's trying to persuade a HOMELESS MAN to let his picture be taken. VICKI Please, just one. It's important for people to see what's happening. HOMELESS MAN They don't want to see us, lady. They just want us gone -- out of sight, and out of mind. (mumbling as he wanders off) Get worse before it gets better. It always does. VICKI TURNS. In the distance, the PICKETERS are shrieking and wailing. A VAN's just pulled up to the edge of the park, and a dozen HARDHATS are elbowing their way through the crowd. All at once they're swarming through shantytown with TIRE IRONS and BASEBALL BATS, overturning the sandwich tables, RIPPING DOWN the shabby tents and lean-tos. Some of the HOMELESS PEOPLE run. Those who resist meet with swift and sudden violence. A MARCHER jumps a hardhat, and gets a baseball bat in the gut for his trouble. VICKI waits for the police sirens, but they don't come. She backs off toward the trees, she begins SNAPPING PHOTOS FRANTICALLY, capturing the carnage on film. A HARDHAT is dismantling a lean-to with his tire iron -- sending the terrified family inside scurrying off into the snow -- when he glances up and sees VICKI taking his picture. He points her out to a colleague... ...and suddenly the two of them are RUSHING TOWARD HER with pure cold malice in their eyes. VICKI turns to run, but it's slow going in the snow. She SLIPS and FALLS; her attackers are almost upon her... ...when a SHADOWY FIGURE DIVES OUT OF THE TREES and TACKLES one of the HARDHATS. The FIGURE lands a powerhouse blow to the fallen HARDHATs jaw, knocking him out cold. The second HARDHAT turns and lifts his TIRE IRON. But the FIGURE, with surprising agility, is already rolling out of the way. As he rolls, he grabs the first guy's HARDHAT off his head and brings it up in front of him -- blocking the blow from the second guy's tire iron. In the same motion, he plants a FOOT in the second HARDHAT's belly and sends him REELING BACKWARD, HARDHAT II drops the tire iron, and the FIGURE snatches it out of midair as he gets to his feet. He moves in on the second HARDHAT, BRANDISHING the iron -- -- and while HARDHAT II is staring at it, the FIGURE HIGH- KICKS HIM in the face. HOP; KICK. HOP; KICK. The FIGURE has nailed him three times squarely on the jaw before he can hit the ground. The FIGURE turns toward VICKI. Her eyes go wide with astonishment. It's a KID, thirteen or fourteen at the outside, sunken-eyed, grimy-looking, in a torn-and-tattered RAINCOAT. She stares at him for the briefest of instants before he rushes off to the aid of his fellow homeless... She can't believe what she's seeing. The KID wades smack into the midst of the remaining HARDHATS, and kicks ass -- spinning, pirouetting, kicking, clawing in a furious display of pure athleticism. It seems like he's everywhere at once. There's only one other guy in Gotham City who can handle himself like this... Rallying behind him, the MARCHERS and HOMELESS PEOPLE snatch bats and tire irons from the fallen HARDHATS -- and the tide turns. The invasion is being repelled. Faced with renewed resistance, the few HARDHATS still left standing TURN TAIL and race off to their VAN. Triumph in shantytown. The MARCHERS and HOMELESS cluster together to lick their wounds -- and the KID, satisfied that everything is under control, turns and sprints off toward the trees. But one prostrate HARDHAT is only playing dead. As the KID runs past, the HARDHAT extends a TIRE IRON into his path -- TRIPPING HIM, sending him sprawling in the snow. The KID throws up his hands as the HARDHAT prepares to smash down at him... CLANG. The HARDHAT drops his tire iron and topples over, BOARDLIKE. The KID looks up and sees VICKI standing there with a baseball bat. He gives her a quick nod of acknowledgement as he gets to his feet -- thanks for returning the favor. He's about to light out again when -- VICKI WAIT! Don't be afraid. I wanted to thank you. I -- KID (cautiously) Twenty. VICKI What? KID Twenty bucks. VICKI's mildly taken aback, but she reaches for her purse just the same. She's barely gotten her wallet open when the KID snatches the bill out of her hands. They stare at each other for a long moment -- VICKI ...Who are you? KID Dick. -- and then he's bounding off like a shot. VAULTING up into a tree and vanishing amid the snowy branches. VICKI starts to follow, but there's no way she can keep up. Instead she digs into her CAMERA BAG... HER POV - THROUGH TELEPHOTO LENS Using the long lens, she tracks the KID's progress through the treetops. She can't actually see him, but occasional chunks of SNOW and ICE are falling to the ground as he jumps from limb to limb... For a moment it seems like she's lost him. As she sweeps the lens back and forth, scanning the trees, she catches sight of an EQUESTRIAN STATUE in the distance. She ups the magnification so she can see the plaque on the pedestal. The stone figure on the horse is Union war hero GEN. OLIVER WAYNE -- BRUCE's great-grandfather. As luck would have it, the KID drops to earth not ten feet from the statue -- VICKI's got him in her sights again. He looks around cautiously to make sure no one's following, then races toward a STONE BRIDGE which arches between two small hillocks, over a frozen creek. There's a DRAINAGE TUNNEL, four or five feet in diameter, mounted in the bridge abutment, the KID pries off a wire grate and clambers inside, then pulls the grate back into place behind him. Home sweet home. EXT. PARK - ON VICKI - NIGHT as she lowers the lens. Her face is full of conflicting emotions. She'd love to corner this boy vigilante and find out what his story is. But on the other hand -- even the homeless are entitled to their privacy... CUT TO: INT. PENGUIN'S AVIARY - NIGHT A CANARY sings in its cage as a BLACK CAT watches transfixed from a nearby chair. The cat arches its back -- waits -- and SPRINGS AT THE CAGE, BATTING at it in midair. The canary SHRIEKS; the cat YOWLS; a WOMAN snatches it up off the floor, cradles it in her arms... WOMAN'S VOICE Now Hecate. You don't want that scrawny little bird -- It's SELINA, looking ripe and slinky in a sheer black ensemble. At the desk behind her is the PENGUIN, in his customary cutaway and waist-coat, polishing his new RAVEN. He bares his teeth: PENGUIN Do you want me to wring that creature's neck? SELINA You try it, I'll do the same to you. (as he grumbles; bemused) I saw him, you know. PENGUIN Saw who? SELINA Batman. He was dreamy. She strokes the cat, in a reverie. The PENGUIN drops his polishing cloth, startled. PENGUIN Dreamy?!? Are you insane!? My God -- (sputtering wildly) Are you sure it was him? What did he do? SELINA He stood on a roof and watched me. He didn't realize I'd seen him. I don't think he knew quite what to make of me. (smiling) But he was definitely interested. This sends the PENGUIN into a frantic round of pacing. (Or waddling.) PENGUIN This scheme of yours is backfiring. We don't need him on our tails. Do you know how much money is at stake here? SELINA Money isn't everything. (casually) What's the point if we can't enjoy ourselves? She chuckles to herself. He stares at her in disbelief -- and SQUAWKS. CUT TO: EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - MORNING The big SIGN over Gotham Square tells us there are only 9 shopping days left until Christmas. Down below, BRUCE is walking VICKI to work. VICKI Six-on-one, and he took 'em all out...then vanished into a drainage pipe -- right next to the statue of General Wayne. BRUCE My illustrious great-grandfather. Think it's the same kid we heard about? VICKI Must be. He reminded me of you. BRUCE chuckles. They pass a NEWSSTAND just outside the Globe building, pausing to stare at the headlines -- which SCREAM: NEW BAT-MURDER? Batman Suspect in Slaying of Millionaire Developer Commissioner Gordon Refuses Comment The accompanying photo is a full-color spread of the BLOODY RED BAT painted on SHAW's wall. BRUCE scowls at VICKI: BRUCE -- You work for this rag? (snatching up a paper) Your boss is calling for Gordon's resignation -- unless he brings Batman in for questioning... VICKI nudges BRUCE and points at a STOREFRONT across the street. THEIR POV - SOUVENIR SHOP The owner is in the store window, hastily removing all of his Batman merchandise and setting up new displays devoted to TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and THE SIMPSONS. A MOTHER drags her squirming TODDLER past the entrance -- the kid smells heavy markdowns on Bat-shit, but Mom clearly doesn't approve... BACK TO SCENE - ON BRUCE AND VICKI looking on in dismay. BRUCE crumples the paper in outrage: BRUCE I need a good PR man. NEWS VENDOR Hey, pal -- you buyin' or borrowin'? With a sullen look, BRUCE tosses the paper back on the rack. VICKI pulls him off toward the entrance of the Globe. VICKI That's what happens when you go after the rich and powerful. BRUCE Hey, it wasn't me, remember? I am rich and powerful -- As he's talking, BRUCE glances back at the newsstand. He sees an AD FLYER tacked up on one side -- "LOOKING FOR LOVE? Find it in the GOTHAM GLOBE PERSONALS." Looking for Love. Eyes widening, he digs in his pocket for a quarter and races back to the newsstand. VICKI keeps walking... VICKI Maybe it's almost...good. In a weird way. I mean, Shaw, and Barrett -- if people like that were really scared, maybe they'd -- She suddenly realizes she's talking to herself. She turns around and sees BRUCE back at the newsstand, hurriedly unfolding a copy of the Globe. She marches back and tugs at his sleeve. VICKI (cont.) Hey, I'm late for work. You can read that later. BRUCE Quiet. I'm looking for a personal ad. Her face screws up in confusion as BRUCE frantically scans the page. BRUCE (cont.) "Tall, Dark And Handsome -- You saw me on the roof 12/16. I was in black; you were too." VICKI Is this some kind of bad joke? BRUCE It's her. That cat woman, or whatever she is. (reading aloud) "I jumped a bus into Gotham Park hoping you'd follow, but you were too shy..." VICKI What does she want -- a date? BRUCE She's trying to contact me. Says she's gonna leave me another ad... The two of them exchange a look of utter perplexity. BRUCE's mind is racing; he seems bizarrely aroused -- in a way that makes VICKI just a trifle nervous... INT. GOTHAM GLOBE - CITY ROOM - DAY VICKI arrives at her desk and sets her portfolio down. She spots a message in the "in" file. She takes one look at it, and her eyes go wide with RAGE. She storms out in a fury... INT. PUBLISHER'S OFFICE - A MINUTE LATER - DAY Barging past a phalanx of SECRETARIES, VICKI bursts into the inner office of HARRISON J. PROVOST, publisher of the Globe. He's just opening his mail. He heaves a weary sigh as VICKI BARKS at him: VICKI WHY DID YOU KILL MY STORY? PROVOST Close the door. (waiting for her to calm down) Your story isn't news. With Shaw dead -- VICKI But the project's still going ahead! If attacking homeless people in the park isn't news, I'd like to know what is -- PROVOST There's a psycho out there in a mask and cape -- killing off Gotham's most prominent citizens! That's news. (beat) I've known Randall Shaw all my life. His family is in mourning. And it just so happens I don't believe in slandering the dead. VICKI FUMES. She turns and stares PROVOST straight in the eye. VICKI Mr. Provost -- how much money do you have tied up in the Park Tower project? PROVOST Vicki...I'm going to forget you made that remark. For the sake of your job, I suggest you do the same. VICKI stalks of -- and PROVOST goes back to his mail. He finds an envelope addressed in a shaky, psychotic scrawl, with the word "CONFIDENTIAL" underlined three times in ink. He tears it open -- -- and HIS FACE TURNS PALE as he stares down at the contents: a small business-sized card, signed with a BAT-EMBLEM... THOSE WHO FEED ON THE SOUL OF GOTHAM WILL SUFFER MY WRATH CUT TO: EXT. GOTHAM HALL OF JUSTICE - DAY WALTER BARRETT and his ATTORNEY emerge onto the front steps of the courthouse. BARRETT is instantly mobbed by REPORTERS. REPORTER I Mr. Barrett! Any comment on the arraignment? REPORTER II Is it true bail was set at two million dollars? ATTORNEY Stand back! My client has nothing to say at this time! The ATTORNEY clears a path for BARRETT, who climbs into a waiting CAR, shielding his face. REPORTERS cluster around it... As the car pulls out into traffic, we see a flock of PIGEONS taking wing from their perches on the statues outside the Hall of Justice. OVERHEAD SHOT - ON BARRETT'S CAR PIGEONS fill the frame, swooping down toward the CAR, which is idling at a traffic light far below. INT. BARRETT'S CAR - THAT MOMENT The liveried DRIVER drums his fingers as he waits for the light to change. BARRETT's in the back, speaking into his cellular phone. BARRETT It's time we called an emergency meeting of the Raven Society. Get back to me... Looking troubled, he hangs up. A fat white glob of PIGEON SHIT splatters across the windshield. Seconds later -- another SPLAT. BARRETT (cont.) Damn pigeons. DRIVER Just washed it, too. The DRIVER reaches for the wiper switch. They hear a tiny DINK as a SOLID PELLET bounces off the windshield. BARRETT and the DRIVER exchange a mystified look. A small, blinking CAPSULE has just lodged in the wiper-blade assembly... OVERHEAD SHOT - ON BARRETT'S CAR Just as the light changes, the CAR EXPLODES into a million fragments -- leaving a BLACKENED CRATER in the middle of the intersection. CUT TO: INT. BATCAVE - DAY TIGHT ON A VIDEO MONITOR -- showing FIRE TRUCKS in the intersection we've just left, hosing down the wreckage of BARRETT's car. BRUCE is watching intently when ALFRED appears behind him. ALFRED The Fluegelheim called again, sir. They want to know if you'll be attending the opening of the new Egyptian exhibit. BRUCE, still engrossed in his news broadcast, waves ALFRED off. BRUCE Cancel. ANCHORWOMAN (on TV) -- and, citing new evidence in the so- called string of "millionaire murders," Police Commissioner J.T. Gordon today swore out a warrant for the arrest of Batman. (beat) We go now live to Mike Sekowsky, spokesperson, Order of the Bat. SEKOWSKY Jeez! Talk about gratitude -- !! At the sight of SEKOWSKY's face, BRUCE kills the sound in disgust. ALFRED looks on helplessly as he paces the floor of the Batcave. BRUCE Well, Alfred, it's official. I'm a wanted man. (beat) "New evidence"...I've gotta find that woman. Did you check the personals? As ALFRED shakes his head no, a BUZZER sounds. They've got a visitor. BRUCE hits a switch on a monitor, and sees COMMISSIONER GORDON'S CAR sitting outside the wrought-iron gates of Wayne Manor. He throws a nervous look at ALFRED. ALFRED speaks into a microphone: ALFRED Who's there? GORDON Jim Gordon, Alfred. I've got to see Bruce. A spooky development. Does GORDON suspect? After a moment's hesitation, BRUCE nods to ALFRED -- let him in. ALFRED Mr. Wayne will see you, sir. INT. BRUCE'S LIBRARY - A MOMENT LATER A curious BRUCE ushers GORDON into the library, gestures toward the liquor cabinet. The Commissioner nods his head no. He's fidgety, ill at ease -- he obviously doesn't want to be here. GORDON Sorry to bother you. Bruce -- I'll get right down to it. You knew Shaw and Barrett -- BRUCE I saw them occasionally. We all sat on the board of the Fluegelheim... GORDON Did you have any...dealings with them, or -- BRUCE No. I never liked the way they did business. GORDON The thing is, Bruce, you're all lumped together in the public mind -- the Five Families of Gotham, that sort of thing -- and, uh... (taking a card from his pocket) Harrison Provost got this in the mail. BRUCE examines the card, -- "THOSE WHO FEED," etc. He stares at GORDON in mock-concern, playing it close to the vest... BRUCE Then Batman is behind all this. GORDON Batman or a damned good imitation. BRUCE Well. He's changed tactics, hasn't he. GORDON (shrugging; at a loss) Shaw, with his high-rises -- Barrett, a druglord, major polluter -- they weren't exactly model citizens. Who knows, it could be some crazy social-conscience kind of thing. BRUCE You mean he's going after...the root of the problem. GORDON shakes his head and gets up to go. BRUCE hands him the card. GORDON Let me know if you get one of these. We'll put all our resources at your disposal. BRUCE nods thoughtfully as ALFRED appears to see the Commissioner out. A moment later, the butler reappears. BRUCE Changed my mind, Alfred. I'll be dropping in on the Fluegelheim after all. CUT TO: INT. FLUEGELHEIM MUSEUM - NIGHT It's a party to celebrate the opening of the new Egyptian exhibit, and the Fluegelheim is hopping. BOARD MEMBERS, MUSEUM PATRONS, and SOCIALITES mill about in dinner jackets and evening gowns, making small talk. AN OPEN SARCOPHAGUS has been set up as a wet bar. On a raised concrete platform in the center of the hall, rimmed by a decorative moat, sits an ancient Egyptian SHRINE. The TEMPLE OF BASTET has been moved to Gotham and reconstructed in the Fluegelheim --sandstone walls, fountains, statuary and all. Guarding the entrance is a stately bronze statue of the goddess BASTET -- who has the body of a woman and the head of a pointy-eared CAT. She holds an aegis and a sistrum; four tiny KITTENS romp at her feet. BRUCE, who's just arrived, is taking an intense interest in the cat-goddess... VICKI What is it? BRUCE I just had a weird sense of deja vu. He glances over by the sarcophagus and sees PROVOST, the publisher, huddle with ELIOT TIPTREE III, transit magnate -- the remaining member of Gotham's "Five Families." The two of them are engaged in some urgent conversation which he can't quite make out... TIPTREE Harrison -- we really ought to warn Bruce. We owe him that much. BRUCE detaches himself from VICKI and strolls toward them. PROVOST and TIPTREE force smiles and wave, affecting an air of nonchalance. PROVOST (cont.) The man's a space cadet. Let him look out for himself. (as BRUCE arrives; cheerfully) Why, Bruce! What a delightful surprise. BRUCE Good to see you two. Looks like the Five Families are suddenly down to three. (looking around) In fact, if somebody dropped a bomb on this room right now -- TIPTREE chuckles nervously. PROVOST is even less amused. PROVOST Is that your idea of a joke, Bruce? BRUCE Not at all. Commissioner Gordon seems to think we should all be hiring bodyguards. TIPTREE PROVOST Oh, that's absurd. I already have. The two of them glower at each other. It's like an outtake from The Newlywed Game. BRUCE shrugs it off and makes a vacuous face: BRUCE Thing is, I can't imagine why Batman would be after us. Can you? PROVOST and TIPTREE are about to go into another round of hemming-and-hawing when a NEW FACE joins the party. It's SELINA KYLE -- stunning as ever in an extravagantly revealing dress slit up to the armpits. She's holding two glasses of CHAMPAGNE... SELINA You two look like you need a drink. -- And is this who I think it is? She flashes BRUCE her most winning, seductive, heavy-artillery SMILE. He BLINKS, temporarily speechless. PROVOST Selina Kyle -- Bruce Wayne. SELINA Our absentee board member! I've been wanting to meet you forever. TIPTREE Selina's the new Curator of Antiquities. She brought the Temple over block by block -- SELINA You two won't be terribly upset if I borrow Bruce for a moment, will you? Before he can protest, she's linked an arm around his and dragged him off. A nearby FAT MAN spots SELINA, wiggles his eyebrows and WAVES BRIGHTLY. His tongue is practically hanging out -- he's just dying to write her a check. SELINA SIGHS WEARILY to BRUCE: SELINA (cont.) Major contributor. -- I always seem to wind up in charge of fund-raising... BRUCE I can't imagine why. SELINA Tax year's almost over, you know. I hope we can count on your usual generous donation. (indicating PROVOST and TIPTREE) Someone's got to set an example for those two tightwads. BRUCE They're proccupied. This string of murders -- SELINA I asked them if they'd consider including us in their wills. (chuckling to herself) They didn't seem a bit amused... ANGLE ON VICKI - THAT MOMENT She's making small talk with a bunch of STUFFED SHIRTS and their overdressed WIVES. She glances across the room at the statue of Bastet, sees SELINA draped all over BRUCE. A frown crosses her face... ANGLE ON BRUCE AND SELINA - THAT MOMENT She's still clinging to his arm as they stare up at the statue. SELINA -- and this is my good friend Bastet, the Egyptian Cat Goddess. BRUCE I think we've already met. -- This is quite an expedition you've put together. SELINA I'm glad you think so. I have to say, Bruce -- you're not at all what I expected. BRUCE Sorry to disappoint you. SELINA Oh, it's not that. Not at all. It's just that I'd always heard you were... BRUCE What? SELINA (coyly) Oh...sort of a... BRUCE (smiling; fascinated) No. Come on. What? BRUCE's state of mounting infatuation is abruptly shattered when VICKI sidles up alongside him and -- territorially -- takes his other arm. The women exchange big, toothy, plastic smiles; stranded in the middle, BRUCE realizes they're waiting for him to introduce them. BRUCE Oh. Selina Kyle -- my friend Vicki Vale. SELINA The photographer. I've seen your pictures in the Gazette. VICKI The Globe. SELINA Oh, that's right. The tabloid one. -- What an original dress! VICKI, still smiling, cocks an eyebrow at BRUCE. He senses trouble coming and tries to head it off at the pass. BRUCE Selina supervised the reconstruction of the temple. Brought it back from Egypt... stone by stone. VICKI Really. She must be awfully tired. (to SELINA) How'd you get to be in charge of a huge project like this? SELINA It was easy. I slept with the Pharoah. She laughs at her own joke. VICKI responds with a dry little chuckle of her own. SELINA gives BRUCE a SHARP YANK on the sleeve. SELINA (cont.) Excuse us, won't you, sweetheart? We have some boring museum business to talk about. VICKI fumes. BRUCE shrugs apologetically as SELINA drags him off out of earshot. SELINA (cont.) I. Short leash. BRUCE Pull in the claws, okay? She's really terrific. SELINA I'm sorry, Bruce. Sometimes I get a little...aggressive, you know? (handing him a card) Look, I need to talk to you. Come by sometime. I'll give you the private tour. BRUCE Wait. Let me explain about Vicki -- SELINA (shushing him) I understand. Anyone who's that protective must have a pretty good reason for it. She shoots him one last smile -- sly, conspiratorial, unmistakably juicy. Then she's off in pursuit of another major funder. BRUCE is thoughtfully turning the card over in his hands when VICKI rejoins him. VICKI How's "business"? BRUCE Relax, okay? I like you better. He scans the room, trying to find PROVOST and TIPTREE. No luck. VICKI If you're looking for your fellow millionaires, they left some time back. CUT TO: INT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT The roof of the Gotham Globe. A STARLING circles overhead for a moment -- then DIVES down an exposed VENTILATION SHAFT. INT. GOTHAM GLOBE - THAT MOMENT TWO ARMED BODYGUARDS are standing watch outside an office. Brass letters on the door read "J. HARRISON PROVOST, PUBLISHER." INT. PROVOST'S OFFICE - THAT MOMENT PROVOST, agitated, working late. He speaks, sotto voce, into the phone: PROVOST Don't worry about that. I've had the office swept for bugs. No one's listening... INT. TIPTREE'S LIBRARY - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT TIPTREE in his paneled study at home. There's an open bottle on the table and he's been hitting the sauce -- hard. His VOICE QUAVERS: TIPTREE It's just so -- unfair. I mean...it was over a century ago. It's not like we're responsible. (hollow-eyed) How could he know? How could Batman know about the Raven Society?? INT. OFFICE - ON PROVOST - THAT MOMENT PROVOST Who knows and who cares. The point is, it's happened... He hears a CHIRP and looks up. It seems to be coming from a HEATING VENT on the wall. But then it stops, so he resumes his conversation -- PROVOST (cont.) I'm clearing out of the country, and I'm taking the raven with me. I suggest you do the same. INT. HEATING VENT - THAT MOMENT In the metal shaft on the other side of the grate is a tiny BIRD -- the same one we saw flying down the air shaft. Now that we've got a close-up view, we can see the thin BATTERY PACK wired to its underbelly...and the MINIATURE MICROPHONE taped to its leg. PROVOST (O.S.) I'll tell you how to reach me. And don't repeat this to anyone. CUT TO: INT. PENGUIN'S LAIR - DAY The PENGUIN stands over his indoor penguin pool. He's wearing rubber gloves, feeding LIVE FISH from an ice chest to his arctic birds. The vents in the windows are open, and the climate in the room is downright icy as SELINA's wrapped in fur, stroking her pet cat: SELINA He's just another rich idiot. (chuckling to herself) The odd thing is, he didn't seem a bit concerned. PENGUIN Then he is an idiot. SELINA He lives in some big sprawling manor. I'll have to get inside, scope it out... see where he's got the raven stashed. PENGUIN How do you plan to do that? SELINA How do you think! A feline smile from SELINA. The PENGUIN chuckles to himself, lobs a FISH out over the pool. A swooping GULL snatches it out of the air before it hits the water. FRICK arrives in the doorway. FRICK It's Mr. Provost, sir. He's planning to embark on an unscheduled Christmas vacation. PENGUIN Good! That should save us a trip to the bank. CUT TO: INT. FLUEGELHEIM - BACK ROOM - DAY A huge open room cluttered with all kinds of junk: archaeologist's tools, restoration equipment, etc., plus a healthy assortment of curios and oddities from all over. This is SELINA's private domain. CAMERA TRACKS past a glass case full of ugly, withered, turdlike specimens... BRUCE What have we got here? SELINA Mummified cats. Bastet's sacred animal. They were buried by the thousands at Bubastis. -- Oh, careful! BRUCE FREEZES with his hand poised over a set of four earthen JARS. Each has a lid carved in the shape of a HEAD: ape, jackal, man, falcon. SELINA (cont.) Canopic jars. In the process of mummification, the internal organs were buried separately. (pointing to each jar in turn) Lungs -- stomach -- liver -- intestine -- BRUCE withdraws his hand with a bemused shudder. BRUCE You're in a gruesome line of work. SELINA Keeps me interested. And that's not easy to do... BRUCE's attention turns to a crumbling statuette of an odd beast: a WINGED LION with the head of a FALCON. BRUCE This one I know. It's a gryphon, right? SELINA Very good. A mythical demon, half-bird, half-lion...sweeping down from the sky to deliver retribution and justice. BRUCE nods. He can dig it. He regards the gryphon for a long moment and CHUCKLES. BRUCE Poor guy. Birds and cats -- you wouldn't think the two halves would cooperate. SELINA Only under certain circumstances. (beat) I'm really glad you came, Bruce. I was afraid I'd given you the wrong impression. Or maybe it was the right impression. BRUCE What was it you wanted to talk to me about? SELINA Your collection. I'd love to see it. I mean, everyone says you've got a fabulous -- She breaks off in midstream and chuckles to herself. She toys demurely with her equipment. She looks up at BRUCE and switches tactics -- going for the direct approach. BRUCE braces himself... SELINA (cont.) Mainly I just wanted an excuse to see you again. Does she know you're here -- Vicki? BRUCE (shrugging) No. SELINA It must be strange. Having all that power, and money -- never really knowing if that's what people are attracted to. BRUCE What are you attracted to? SELINA I think you're a little bit nuts. (beat) I think you're a little -- bored with your life. Having everything you want. No variety, no...danger. And every once in a while you need to take a risk. Shake it all up. BRUCE How? SELINA Maybe by...coming here today. She leans back against a crate, moistens her lips. She's letting him have it with both barrels. SELINA (cont.) That's one thing I can give you, Bruce -- danger -- a little something you can't get at home. BRUCE hesitates -- but the lure is irresistible. He moves forward slowly; SELINA's eyes close; their lips draw slowly closer... ...and he SNEEZES IN HER FACE. She backs off in shock as he covers his face. His eyes are watering and he's WHEEZING. She rushes over -- SELINA Are you okay? BRUCE Is there a cat in here? Right on cue, SELINA's black cat HECATE lets out a loud MEOW -- and STRETCHES against BRUCE's pants leg. He brushes the animal aside and it LEAPS into SELINA's arms. BRUCE sniffles uncontrollably. BRUCE (cont.) Get it away! She drops the cat, which scampers off. BRUCE rubs his eyes. SELINA Poor thing. You're allergic! BRUCE Yeah, cats...ever since I was a kid... (snorting and weeping) Look, I'd better get some fresh air. Maybe another time, okay... He heads for the door before SELINA can stop him. He's gone, but she knows she's left a dent in his armor. She smiles in bemusement as HECATE jumps into her arms and PURRS. EXT. FLUEGELHEIM - A MOMENT LATER - DAY BRUCE stumbles out the museum feeling mildly discombobulated. He marches down the front steps past a NEWSSTAND -- where he stops to buy a copy of the afternoon GLOBE. He opens it to the PERSONAL ADS and finds what he's been waiting for: TALL, DARK, AND HANDSOME -- Christmas is coming. Why don't we trim the tree together? This puzzles him for a moment -- until he looks up the street. In the distance, at the very center of Gotham Square, WORKMEN are stringing lights around an enormous CHRISTMAS TREE, almost fifty feet tall. The LIGHTING CEREMONY is an annual event in Gotham. BRUCE smiles slightly, tucks the paper under one arm and walks to his car. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - NIGHT SNOW falls on a huge CROWD gathered around the big tree. The tree won't be lit for another twenty minutes or so, and so the ONLOOKERS are singing CHRISTMAS CAROLS from printed lyric sheets. A BAND is playing on a makeshift ORCHESTRA PLATFORM erected in front of the tree, leading the crowd in a spirited rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." The Square is rocking with good will toward men. When they get to the part about saving us all from Satan's power -- EXT. ROOFTOP OVERLOOKING SQUARE - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT -- the CAMERA TILTS UPWARD to BATMAN, watching the action from his usual gargoyle's perch. He's scanning the streets and the rooftops, waiting tor the CATWOMAN to make her move -- whatever it is. He glances at the building directly across the square from him. On the roof is a neon sign reading Gotham City Globe in ornate old-English letters -- and above that, a ROTATING METAL SCULPTURE of the world turning. His eyes rove downward along the facade of the building... EXT. GOTHAM GLOBE - THAT MOMENT At street level, an ARMORED CAR has pulled up in front of the Globe offices. THREE SECURITY GUARDS with rifles climb out of the ARMORED CAR, followed by a FOURTH -- who has an OBLONG BOX handcuffed to his wrist. Of course, we can't see what's inside, but to those of us in the know the box looks just about the right size for a RAVEN STATUETTE. The GUARDS scan the street and enter the building without incident. As they do, a NEWSPAPER DELIVERY VAN crosses the frame; mounted on its side is an ADVERTISING PLACARD which reads: BATMAN: HERO OR MENACE? Read All About It in the GOTHAM GLOBE! EXT. ROOFTOP - ON BATMAN He watches with some curiosity. An armored car: is this some part of the CATWOMAN's scheme? But no...the GUARDS are safely inside the building, and the CAR is leaving. He settles back to wait. INT. NEWSPAPER DELIVERY VAN - THAT MOMENT The innocuous-looking VAN rounds the corner of the Globe building. FRICK is at the wheel, FRACK is riding shotgun, and the PENGUIN is between them, peering out eagerly through the windshield. They turn into the Globe's BASEMENT GARAGE -- where dozens of similar vans are parked at the LOADING BAYS. Just part of the fleet... INT. PROVOST'S OFFICE - A MOMENT LATER The quartet of SECURITY GUARDS arrive at PROVOST's office. The publisher has already packed his suitcases for a speedy getaway. The LEAD GUARD -- the one cuffed to the RAVEN BOX -- sets his precious cargo on a desk and stands discreetly at arm's length while PROVOST unlocks it and checks its contents. Satisfied, he slams it shut. He reaches into his top drawer for an ENVELOPE, which he hands to his PERSONAL SECRETARY. PROVOST Open this in an hour. Phone my wife and tell her where to meet me. (to the GUARDS; edgily) No trouble on the way, I take it? LEAD GUARD No sir, Mr. Provost. We came straight from the bank vault. GUARD II 'Copter should be just touching down. We'll have you safely out of here in no time. EXT. ROOFTOP - ON BATMAN "Here Comes Santa Claus" echoes up from the streets. BATMAN watches as a COPTER descends toward the HELIPAD on the roof of the Globe... INT. CORRIDOR OUTSIDE OFFICE - A MOMENT LATER PROVOST and the LEAD GUARD with the raven box are at an elevator bank. The other GUARDS head for a stairwell. GUARD II We'll check the stairs. See you on the roof. The LEAD GUARD starts to press the UP button, but PROVOST pulls a key from his pocket instead: PROVOST No -- my private elevator. It's safer. INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT - THAT MOMENT shooting DOWN on the car as it rises. The shaft above it is filled with BIRDS -- starlings, crows, pigeons and the like, swooping and gliding among the gears and cables... EXT. ROOF OF GLOBE BUILDING - THAT MOMENT In BG, the helicopter on its pad, idling noisily, the rotors still spinning. In FG, the small dormer-like structure that houses the STAIRWAY. The metal access door opens, and the first of the GUARDS steps warily out, rifle at the ready. He smiles back at his pal. GUARD No way. They don't pay us enough to tangle with Batm-- A black-gloved, CHROME-TALONED HAND snakes around the edge of the dormer and RAKES ACROSS HIS THROAT... INT. ELEVATOR CAR - THAT MOMENT SWEAT beads up on PROVOST's lip as the GUARD hits the up button and the car begins to rise. Suddenly, the LIGHTS GO OUT. The car stops with a lurch. PROVOST What is it?? What's happening?? Suddenly, there in the darkness, they hear a series of loud POPPING SOUNDS...which could be gunfire... EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - THAT MOMENT - ON CROWD singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" at the top of their lungs. Happy faces beam. No one hears anything unusual over the music... EXT. ROOFTOP - ACROSS STREET - ON BATMAN BATMAN straining to listen. We get another faint series of POPS -- barely audible over the CAROLING from below, and the loud PUTT-PUTT-PUTT of the helicopter blades. He can't really be sure he's heard anything at all. He scans the roof of the Globe building, but he can't see what's happening beyond the big steel globe sculpture and the neon sign... EXT. GLOBE BUILDING - ROOFTOP - THAT MOMENT The CATWOMAN lets fly with another burst of automatic fire from the dead GUARD's rifle. The helicopter is still idling, but no one's left to fly it -- the rooftop is littered with stiffs... INT. ELEVATOR CAR - THAT MOMENT PITCH BLACK. Pre-verbal GROANS and MURMURINGS OF FEAR issue from the darkness. An EERIE RED LIGHT kicks on -- the emergency generators -- and we see PROVOST backed up in a corner of the car, twitching and jumping like a crazed spastic. The GUARD, in a futile effort to placate him, points up at the LIGHT: GUARD There. Mr. Provost. See? The generator's kicked in. It's just an electrical problem. PROVOST is only marginally consoled. They hear a strange TWITTERING NOISE in the shaft above them... PROVOST starts babbling again. The GUARD slaps him across the face. But the TWITTERING has him a bit concerned as well. He stares up at the ceiling of the car as he PUNCHES BUTTONS on the panel; with another LURCH, the car begins to move. GUARD There. See? It's moving. We're fine. PROVOST It's going down. We're going DOWN!!! INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT - THAT MOMENT The BIRDS in the shaft have all ROOSTED on the TOP OF THE CAR. They're patiently riding it down as it descends... INT. ELEVATOR CAR - THAT MOMENT The car stops again. PROVOST is totally losing it. The exasperated GUARD grabs him and SHAKES HIM. GUARD Okay, Mr. Provost -- I'm gonna have a look through the trap door. But I need you to help me. Okay? You have to help. PROVOST nods and tries to get a grip on himself. The GUARD looks up at the trap door in the ceiling of the car. He can't reach it... He uncuffs the BOX containing PROVOST'S RAVEN from his wrist -- and STANDS on it. Still short. Unholstering his gun and using it as a prod, he can almost reach the trap door. He JUMPS UP and, poking with the gun, manages to dislodge the panel slightly. More TWITTERING. PROVOST and the guard look up through the tiny crack in the ceiling and see nothing but darkness. GUARD Probably just some bird that's gotten in the shaft. Now calm down. You'll have to give me a boost. The GUARD climbs back atop the raven box. PROVOST gives him a boost and he manages to catch hold of the lip of the trap door. GUARD (cont.) Okay, help me out...steady... PROVOST wraps both arms around the GUARD's wriggling LEGS and tries to hoist him upward. INT. SHAFT - ON ROOF OF CAR - THAT MOMENT From a vantage level with the roof of the car, we see the GUARD'S FINGERS, clinging to the lip of the trap door. Now his HEAD rises into view, pushing the panel aside as he pulls himself upward. He peers around. His BROW wrinkles as he sees a bizarre sight -- PASSELS of SQUAWKING BIRDS, walking back and forth in front of him, STRUTTING and PREENING mere inches from his face... INT. ELEVATOR CAR - THAT MOMENT The bottom half of the GUARD dangles from the ceiling. PROVOST still has his arms wrapped around the GUARD's knees. All at once, the GUARD begins to SCREAM -- his body JERKS and his legs KICK WILDLY. Still PROVOST struggles to hang on -- even as BLOOD spatters across the top of his bald dome... Finally, the GUARD's violent spasms are too much. PROVOST trips over the raven box, stumbles backward and lands on his ass in a corner of the car. The GUARD tumbles in a heap to the elevator floor, his face PECKED and CLAWED beyond recognition, his eyes gone altogether. PROVOST lets out a series of SHRIEKS. He peers at the open trap door, sees the BIRDS staring curiously down at him, and SHRIEKS AGAIN. The EMERGENCY TELEPHONE rings. He stares at it. It rings again. Shielding his eyes and screwing up his courage, PROVOST crawls across the floor and reaches for the receiver. PENGUIN (V.O.; filter) Sixteenth floor. Linens, housewares, ladies' lingerie! PROVOST W-who is this?? INT. GLOBE - BASEMENT LOADING BAY - THAT MOMENT NEWSPAPER DELIVERY VANS are parked in neat rows -- all driverless. FRICK is sitting with a boxful of electrical equipment next to a bank of ELEVATORS; all the cars have been LOCKED OPEN here in the basement, except for ONE -- PROVOST's private elevator, the doors to which are still closed. The PENGUIN stands beside it, speaking into a RED PHONE. PENGUIN Mr. Provost? If you want to get out of that car alive, I suggest you follow my instructions to the letter. As he talks, we see various NEWSPAPER EMPLOYEES sprawled on the concrete nearby, DEAD. A CORRUGATED METAL DOOR has been lowered over the LOADING BAY, separating the newspaper production staff from the VAN POOL. They're trapped on the other side. BANGING AWAY LOUDLY on the door... PENGUIN (cont.) SHUT UP IN THERE. (calmly; into phone) You should see a cord hanging just behind you. INT. ELEVATOR CAR - THAT MOMENT PROVOST looks over his shoulder and sees the aforementioned CORD descending through the trap door. PROVOST Yes -- yes, I see it -- PENGUIN (V.O; filter) Tie the cord to the handle of your box. PROVOST lets the phone drop. He grits his teeth, but hastens to obey. As he's knotting the cord around the handle of the box, a DINKY BIRD flutters down through the trap and sends him into a panic. Practically weeping, he reaches for the phone. PENGUIN (V.O.; filter) When you're done, I want you to give two sharp yanks on the cord. Cowering in terror, PROVOST reaches for the cord and yanks it twice. PROVOST Who are you?? Why are you doing this?? INT. LOADING BAY - ON PENGUIN Behind him, FRICK and FRACK are pulling on RED BERETS and BATMAN SWEATSHIRTS -- Order of the Bat gear. FRICK climbs into a NEWSPAPER DELIVERY VAN and starts the engine. PENGUIN Well, Mr. Provost, I guess you could call me an irate reader. And to be perfectly frank -- I'm doing this because I hate Garfield. Chuckling, the PENGUIN holds a SONIC DEVICE up to the mouthpiece of the phone. INT. ELEVATOR CAR - THAT MOMENT A SHRILL WHINE emanates from the receiver. All at once, the elevator car is FULL OF BIRDS -- squawking wildly, flinging themselves against the wall, going insane in the tiny confined space. PROVOST is screaming like a madman. The birds are in his hair, his face -- everywhere. He fights his way over to the panel and begins punching buttons in a frenzy... All at once the car PLUNGES DOWNWARD. It's as if the floor has DROPS AWAY beneath PROVOST's feet -- he's in FREE-FALL. INT. LOADING BAY - ON PENGUIN PENGUIN Going down! He hangs up the phone and steps a discreet distance back from the ELEVATOR DOORS. INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT - THAT MOMENT The RAVEN BOX dangles from its cord in FG as the CAR rockets uncontrollably downward. A steady stream ot BIRDS are making a quick exit from the trap door in the roof... INT. TOP-FLOOR LANDING - THAT MOMENT The CATWOMAN's on a landing near the stairwell, just below the dormer that leads to the roof. She pries open a pair of ELEVATOR DOORS... ...and a FLOCK of BIRDS pours out of the empty shaft, making for the open ACCESS DOOR a half-story above. She reaches inside, finds the cord attached to the RAVEN BOX, and reels it in. She rips off the lock and opens the box for a quick look at her trophy. It's there, all right -- another RAVEN just like the first two. An awful CRASH, from twenty-five stories down, RATTLES THE SHAFT... She makes a disgusted face, grabs the RAVEN, and bolts for the roof. EXT. ROOFTOP ACROSS STREET - ON BATMAN He watches in puzzlement as a VAST FLOCK OF BIRDS takes flight from the Globe roof across the square. Something weird is definitely going on. He's about to abandon his post -- -- but down below, the CAROLERS have stopped CAROLING. The big tree's about to be lit, and they're counting off the seconds: CROWD Ten! Nine!... EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - CORNER NEWSTAND A ramshackle kiosk at street level. The NEWS VENDOR has stepped out onto the sidewalk to watch the tree festivities. A GLOBE DELIVERY VAN, its side bearing the "BATMAN -- HERO OR MENACE?" advertisement, cruises past and dumps a bundle of papers on the curb. EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - ON CROWD AT TREE EXCITEMENT is BUILDING as the seconds tick off: CROWD ...Three! Two! One! The CHRISTMAS LIGHTS come on, and the CROWD breaks into CHEERS. The ORCHESTRA strikes up a sprightly version of "JINGLE BELLS." EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - ON NEWSTAND The NEWS VENDOR is applauding and singing along like everyone else when a second newspaper van rumbles past... NEWS VENDOR Hey! No! I aleady got a -- He spots TWO MASKED MEN in the doorway of the van -- wearing RED BERETS and BAT-SHIRTS. They shove a BODY out the door -- The mutilated corpse of HARRISON PROVOST lands on the sidewalk with a THUD -- right beside a bundle of NEWSPAPERS which read "BATMAN MURDER SPREE BAFFLES POLICE." EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - ON VAN - MOVING The NEWS VENDOR chases after the VAN, but it's already rounded a corner and is cruising along the periphery of Gotham Square. The CROWD is still singing merrily, unaware of its presence -- -- until the BACK DOORS fly open -- and a swarm of RABID, CHITTERING BATS screech out into the midst of the crowd!! EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - ON CROWD AT TREE The CAROLERS break into MASS HYSTERIA as HIDEOUS BATS swoop down from above, CLAWING at their heads and shoulders. ORCHESTRA MEMBERS drop their instruments and stagger off the BAND PLATFORM, falling into the branches of the giant Christmas tree. EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - ON SIDEWALKS CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS are teeming in and out of nearby STORES. They drop their SHOPPING BAGS and race about in utter CHAOS as the bats attack. WOMEN SCREAM. CHILDREN SCREAM. MEN SCREAM TOO. A MAN staggers backward through a GLASS STOREFRONT and lands on his butt in a WINDOW DISPLAY -- a big mechanical SANTA CLAUS on his North-Pole throne, chuckling merrily in a prerecorded voice: "HO HO HO." The MAN STRUGGLES WILDLY as the BATS converge on him. INT. DEPARTMENT STORE - THAT MOMENT HORRIFIED SHOPPERS scatter through the aisles as the BATS pour in through the broken window. WOMEN lined up for a FREE MAKEOVER squeal in panic as BATS arrive to rearrange their hairdos. EXT. ROOFTOP - ON BATMAN He stares down stunned at the PANDEMONIUM raging below. He glances across the street...and sees the TINY SILHOUETTE of a WOMAN standing atop the cast-iron GLOBE SCULPTURE, LAUGHING at the chaos, TAUNTING him. EXT. STREETS - OVERHEAD ANGLE - THAT MOMENT A few blocks away from Gotham Square. SIRENS HOWL. There's a steady stream of COP CARS speeding toward the site of the disturbance. One vehicle is moving in the opposite direction, against traffic -- a NEWSPAPER DELIVERY VAN. EXT. GLOBE BUILDING - ROOFTOP - A MOMENT LATER BATMAN touches down on the roof and stares in horror at the CORPSES strewn across the helipad. A dying GUARD raises a shaky hand... BATMAN crouches beside him. A GURGLE comes up from his throat and a bubble of BLOOD swells on his lips. All at once he hears a WOMAN'S VOICE from the shadows of the GLOBE SCULPTURE... CATWOMAN (O.S.) Some people just can't take discipline. (beat) Go ahead. Finish 'em off... His head jerks up. He can't see anything. A sudden WHOOSHING noise, and now the voice is coming from the other side of the roof. CATWOMAN (O.S.) You might as well. You're going to get blamed for it anyway. He stands. He gets a quick glimpse of a FELINE SHADOW springing past a skylight; she's jumping all around the roof, clinging to exposed pipes and fixtures. He reaches for a Batarang. CATWOMAN (O.S.) Oh, come on, angel. You know you want to. (purring loudly) Besides -- I want to see how you do it! BATMAN Who are you? He's barely gotten it out when she SLAMS INTO HIM from behind, feet first, knocking him to the rooftop. He tries to get up, but she comes at him with a couple of CARTWHEELING KICKS, knocking him back into a cornice. He ducks right just as a SHARP SPIKED HEEL strikes the exposed brick a mere three inches from his throat. He catches her leg, upends her -- but she somersaults away and lands on her feet. Cats always do... CATWOMAN My, aren't we frisky tonight. He flings the BATARANG. It CLANGS into the big NEON SIGN as she SPRINGS up into the darkness, out of reach. GLASS TUBING shatters and SPARKS FLY as she calls down from the shadows -- CATWOMAN I should tell you -- I've got nine lives to play with -- and you've only got one... He turns -- she drops DIRECTLY ONTO HIM -- and locked in a death grip, they STAGGER BACKWARDS across the roof, directly toward the HELICOPTER. The huge ROTOR BLADES are still turning... BATMAN ducks instinctively and the CATWOMAN breaks free -- FALLING BACKWARD onto the roof. It's a strategic move: when he rushes at her, she BRACES HERSELF against the ground and KICKS UPWARD with startling force. This time the spiked heel connects -- LIFTING BATMAN off his feet, KNOCKING HIM BACKWARD into the TAIL of the HELICOPTER. He slumps there, stunned -- and before he knows it, she's on him. She grabs his THROAT with one hand and clamps the other around his CROTCH. He tries to break her grip, but she's just as strong as he is. And she's LIFTING him -- forcing him upward, toward the REAR STABILIZING ROTOR on the tail of the helicopter! The rear ROTOR BLADES WHINE LIKE A BUZZSAW as his head rises perilously closer. At the last possible instant, he grabs a handful of her HAIR -- YANKS IT as hard as he can -- With a YOWL, she releases him. They tumble to the roof and she DIVES ATOP HIM. Her TALONS click into place -- he sees them poised directly above his EYES -- -- but manages to slam an ELBOW under her chin before she can strike. Now they're disentangled; they get up groggily and circle each other... SOMEONE IS BANGING on the metal door that leads up to the roof, trying to break it down. BATMAN turns for an instant -- a sudden CRACK -- -- and he finds himself all wrapped up in the CATWOMAN's CAT- O'-NINE-TAILS...which is also outfitted with a TASER. She sends a PARALYZING ELECTRIC CHARGE through his body and he collapses to the roof in a jittering heap. The BANGING on the door is louder... CATWOMAN Did I tell you I invited company? -- Keep 'em busy, angel, I've gotta scat. She kneels down and plants a BIG WET KISS on his twitching face. Then she scurries to the edge of the roof, DISAPPEARING -- -- just as the DOOR gives way -- and an ARMED SWAT TEAM comes crashing out onto the roof! Just coming around, BATMAN tries to roll out of sight -- but the COPS are swarming the place. They spot the BODIES on the tar and gravel, see BATMAN scuttling for cover, and draw the obvious conclusion. Pulling guns, they OPEN FIRE. BULLETS RICOCHET off the big metal GLOBE. BATMAN, as is customary in these situations, shoots a GRAPPLING HOOK at the roof of the next building over -- which is a couple of stories taller than the Globe -- and REELS HIMSELF UPWARD along the side wall. The SWAT COPS score a couple of dead hits which set him swinging like a pendulum, but his body armor holds and he clings to the line long enough to reach the roof. CUT TO: INT. NEWSPAPER VAN - MOVING - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT FRlCK and FRACK, still in their Order-of-the-Bat garb, are in the front seats; the PENGUIN is leaning out the side door. Someone's obviously tipped the COPS about the source of all the ruckus -- -- because a pair of POLICE CARS are on their tail and gaining fast. Still hanging in the doorway, the PENGUIN raises his UMBRELLA, peers down its length like a RIFLE SIGHT, and PULLS A TRIGGER. ANGLE ON SQUAD CAR - MOVING - THAT MOMENT A SONIC DART -- one of the PENGUIN'S BIRD MAGNETS -- lodges itself in the GRILLE of the foremost POLICE CAR. INT. SQUAD CAR - MOVING - THAT MOMENT The COPS in the car react in astonishment as PIGEONS begin HURLING THEMSELVES at the WINDSHIELDS. A DOZEN KAMIKAZE BIRDS bounce off in rapid succession. CRACKS begin to spread across the glass. The COPS can't see where they're driving. The car SWERVES WILDLY. And still the PIGEONS KEEP COMING -- COVERING THE WINDSHIELD -- TOTALLY OBSCURING THE STREETS FROM VIEW... EXT. STREETS - ON SQUAD CARS - THAT MOMENT The first car, COMPLETELY COVERED WITH BIRDS, smacks into a LAMPPOST and SKIDS. The second car CRASHES INTO IT. And the pigeons continue to pour down from the heavens, SWARMING onto the immobilized squad cars. INT. NEWSPAPER VAN - MOVING - THAT MOMENT The PENGUIN grins with delight as the van speeds off unmolested. PENGUIN Look at that, boys -- they do flock together!! CUT TO: EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT AMBULANCES are pouring into the square as the BAT ATTACK continues. COPS are firing their guns blindly into the skies as they try to evacuate the citizenry. PARAMEDICS drop the stretcher they're carrying when BATS swoop down at their heads... EXT. ROOFTOPS - NIGHT BATMAN is still pursuing the CATWOMAN, who's perched one roof over, in a squat, wiggling a finger for him to follow. The roofs are icy and treacherous, but he matches her step for step, leap for leap, as she vaults from one building to the next, leading him on. Finally she reaches the edge of a building on the corner of the block; there's no place to go but down. She squats on the ledge and smiles, beckoning to him -- CATWOMAN Ooh. Where have you been all my life? He edges closer. Suddenly, she does a BACKFLIP -- DIRECTLY OFF THE EDGE OF THE ROOF. BATMAN hears GLASS SHATTERING. He hesitates a second -- moves closer to the edge of the roof -- PEERS OVER THE ICY CORNICE. BATMAN'S POV - THAT MOMENT Staring down, he sees a narrow LEDGE running around the facade of the building some ten or twelve feet below. The window of a corner apartment has been smashed; the curtains are flapping in the chill wind. EXT. ROOF - ON BATMAN - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT She's obviously making her getaway through the apartment. BATMAN climbs up on the slippery cornice and prepares to drop to the ledge below -- cautiously, because it's a long way down. A sudden CRACK -- The CATWOMAN hasn't entered the apartment. Instead, she's followed the ledge around the corner of the building, silently doubling back onto the roof behind BATMAN. He TURNS just as her WHIP wraps itself around his left leg. She gives it a sharp tug -- his feet SKID on the ice -- and HE TOPPLES OVER THE EDGE OF THE ROOF. EXT. FACADE OF BUILDING - ON BATMAN He plunges downward for the briefest of seconds -- then JERKS UP SHORT, SLAMMING INTO THE WALL OF THE BUILDING. The WHIP has coiled itself around his leg, and for now it's holding tight. He's dangling upside down, bat-like; he bounces away from the wall; he SPINS in midair as one loop of the whip UNRAVELS, dropping him another foot or so. He manages to brace his left foot against the wall. It's a massive strain, but he's momentarily safe if he can keep from moving. The alternative is a twelve-story drop, straight down to the pavement... EXT. ROOF - ON CATWOMAN - THAT MOMENT She's wrapped the handle-end of the whip around an exposed pipe on the roof, anchoring BATMAN in place. With a cheshire- cat grin, she removes the RAVEN from her knapsack and holds it on the edge of the cornice. EXT. FACADE - THAT MOMENT BATMAN hanging immobile. Craning his neck, he can just see the RAVEN STATUETTE on the ledge above him -- bouncing slightly, and apparently talking to him... CATWOMAN (O.S.) Nevermore. Nevermore! Now the CATWOMAN appears beside it -- elbows on the cornice, chin propped up on her folded hands, like a chatty girl at a fern bar. CATWOMAN Cute, huh! I think it'll look nice over the fireplace. Maybe you can drop by and see it sometime. (demurely) I hope you won't think I'm too... aggressive or anything, but I find you very attractive. She toys aimlessly with the whipcord, batting at it like a cat with a piece of yarn. BATMAN grimaces. She speaks in a low, soothing, seductive tone -- almost a purr. Behind the bondage mask she bats her eyelashes. CATWOMAN (cont.) It's just so hard to meet interesting men these days. Don't you think so? (sighing) I have trouble with relationships. Men find me intimidating...kind of predatory, you know? Really I'm not. Really I'm just playful... BATMAN huffs and puffs, trying to bend at the waist so he can grab hold of the whip. She frowns and YANKS on it. His foot flies free of the wall, and another loop of the whip uncoils before he can stabilize himself. CATWOMAN (cont.) Don't laugh! I'm trying to open up to you! Angrily, she holds a STEEL CLAW to the whip -- ready to cut him loose. ANGLE ON BATMAN He's palmed the GRAPPLING-HOOK LAUNCHER from his belt. Holding it close to his body, out of view, he works it around into firing position. He'll shoot it right through her if he has to... CATWOMAN (cont.) I always seem to fall for the wrong guys. You know...most men are rats. ANGLE ON CATWOMAN She withdraws her hand from the whip, reverts to her philosphical mode. CATWOMAN Mice, really. It's disgusting -- they beg you to walk all over them and then they whine when you do it. Once you've had your fun there's not much you can do but kill them. (beat) But you seem different. I mean, you obviously understand about dressing up... that saves a lot of explaining. I think people should indulge their fantasies, don't you? BATMAN is sweating profusely. He can't hold his position much longer. And the CATWOMAN is dragging this insane flirtation out endlessly... CATWOMAN So I think I'll let you live. Cute boys like you are hard to find... (standing up) 'Bye, angel. I'll be thinking about you. And just like that, she VANISHES -- moving silently off with her raven, leaving BATMAN to dangle. He hangs there a moment, tries to twist himself around without moving his foot. He braces one hand against the wall; with the other, he lifts his grappling gun and FIRES. The HOOK SNAGS somewhere on the roof. BATMAN yanks the line taut and is laboriously trying to pull himself erect when -- -- the CATWOMAN reappears over the edge of the cornice! CATWOMAN Gee...I'm so fickle. A QUICK SWIPE of her STEEL TALONS, and the whipcord is neatly SEVERED. BATMAN'S FOOT slips out from under him -- but he's still got hold of the GRAPPLING GUN. He DROPS eight or ten feet... EXT. ROOF - ON CATWOMAN watching with amusement as BATMAN's weight causes the hook to DISLODGE. It skitters across the gravel surface of the roof and CATCHES, at the last instant, on the edge of the CORNICE -- -- which promptly CRUMBLES and GIVES WAY. Fascinated, the CATWOMAN leans over the edge of the roof and peers down... ANGLE ON BATMAN - AS HE FALLS He flails wildly, tangled in his cape, as the ground rushes up toward him. He gets a last-ditch inspiration -- finds the GAS CYLINDER on his belt and hits the switch. The rods in his cape begin to INFLATE... Six stories up, his BATWINGS spring erect, slowing his plunge. Five stories up, an UPDRAFT hits him and he suddenly INVERTS. Four stories up, he rights himself. Three stories up, he goes into a downward spiral, out of control, gliding in great wide arcs over the street... ...and a moment later there are no stories left. With an ugly crunch, he smacks into the slush-covered pavement and BOUNCES. Face down, he skids some twenty feet to a halt -- right in the middle of a BUSY INTERSECTION. EXT. INTERSECTION - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A DELIVERY TRUCK hits the brakes and screeches to a stop, two feet away from BATMAN'S HEAD. He doesn't move. PEDESTRIANS are already gawking and pointing as the DRIVER climbs out and peers down at the inert caped figure lying face-down in the street: DRIVER What the hell is this? CARS are backed up, due to the panic in Gotham Square a few blocks over. HORNS are honking. A TRAFFIC COP marches over -- TRAFFIC COP Awright, what's the problem here? (spotting BATMAN) Jesus. He tries to clear the crowd away. A full-fledged GRIDLOCK is forming around the prostrate BATMAN. The COP blows his whistle, tries to maintain order as two unifonned PATROLMEN rush up to join him. They manage to roll the unconscious BATMAN over on his back. The assembled COPS stare down at the mask, the scuffed body armor. Still waxy, they finger the GUNS in their holsters... PATROLMAN Good God. Cowan -- get to the car -- radio the commissioner!! By now there must be two hundred people in the intersection, all surging forward to get a look. More COPS are arriving to beat them back. TRAFFIC COP Is he dead? What do we do? PATROLMAN The mask. Get the mask off. They hunker down over BATMAN. One of them tugs at his mask -- but the helmet-like cowl doesn't want to give way. He feels around -- TRAFFIC COP Some kinda seam here on the neck... The PATROLMAN nods okay, and the COP tugs at a Velcro-like fastening under BATMAN's chin. The instant it comes open -- -- a BURST of FINE GREEN MIST spews forth from concealed JETS in the gold-and-black BAT-EMBLEM, and the COPS reel backward, shrieking, gasping for breath and clewing at their eyes. Booby-trap -- they've just been Maced. One of the ONLOOKING COPS steps back in horror and confusion. On impulse, he draws his gun and FIRES TWICE at BATMAN. The body JERKS and the bullets RICOCHET OFF -- TRAFFIC COP DON'T SHOOT, you idiot. The crowd -- Before he can finish, a BLACK BOOT kicks the gun out of the ONLOOKING COP's hand. BATMAN is back among the living. SIRENS BLARE as he spins and rolls into a crouch -- lashing out with elbows and knees -- driving the cops back -- Fuck the crowd. TWO MORE COPS pull their guns and open fire in absolute panic. BATMAN slams backward into the delivery truck and crumples to the ground. As he falls, he grabs a couple of SMOKE CAPSULES from his belt and flings them to the pavement. Seconds later, a THICK CLOUD OF BLACK SMOKE is spreading through the intersection. BATMAN emerges into the midst of the crowd -- weaving in and out among the stalled vehicles -- EXT. INTERSECTION - ANOTHER ANGLE - NIGHT A MOUNTED COP rides up to the outer fringe of the traffic jam, drawn by all the confusion. He rears the horse back, turns it in a circle; blows his piercing whistle as he tries to reroute the incoming cars... Suddenly a WIRE wraps itself around his chest and arms. He looks down. He sees a BATARANG in the instant before a sudden JERK pulls him cleanly off his mount. BATMAN climbs up on the hood of the nearest car -- vaults over to the next -- and the next -- then hops into the saddle of the MOUNTED COP's waiting HORSE. He digs in his heels, maneuvering through traffic... EXT. POLICE CAR - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT LT. EDDIE BULLOCK and another plainclothesman are a few blocks off trying to get through the jam. Their siren is on, but the cars blocking their path have no room to pull over. BULLOCK grabs the radio mike: BULLOCK Hell of a mess up here, Commissioner. We'll have to go in on foot... As they wait for a response, they see a HORSE charging past in the opposite direction. On the back of the horse...is BATMAN. Gaping, BULLOCK nudges his partner -- who throws the car immediately into REVERSE. As they watch, BATMAN kicks the horse's flanks and turns right -- toward Gotham Park. INT. GOTHAM PARK - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT Two RED BERETS, members of the Order of the Bat, are on night patrol, strolling down a rambling path near the entrance to the park. RED BERET I This is wack, man. Nothing ever happens around here anymore. The other RED BERET lets out a WHOOP OF FEAR and yanks his partner out of the way. They tumble into a snowdrift as BATMAN'S HORSE vaults over the stone wall of the park and gallops past, nearly trampling them in the process. By now, SQUAD CARS are roaring into the park... INT. PARK - ANOTHER SECTION - A MOMENT LATER SIRENS BLARE and RED LIGHTS FLASH in the distance as the COP CARS spread out along the winding roads that run through the park. BATMAN reins the horse in suddenly as a black-and-white whips past on an access road just ahead of him, no more than twenty yards away. He turns the horse in a circle. MORE RED LIGHTS appear in the distance; another contingent of SQUAD CARS has just entered from the opposite side of the park. It's going to be tough getting out of here... Then: his eyes fall on the statue of his great-grandfather, GENERAL WAYNE -- two Waynes on horseback, not twenty feet apart. He thinks back to his earlier conversation with VICKI and gets an inspiration. He rides past General Wayne to the STONE BRIDGE which spans the little frozen creek. There he finds the DRAINAGE TUNNEL VICKI described, obscured by the wire-mesh grate. This must be where the boy vigilante holes up... He dismounts, ties his CAPE to the pommel of the horse's saddle and sends it off with a slap. He pries the grate loose and crawls inside. INT. DRAINAGE TUNNEL - THAT MOMENT A dank, but cozy, hideout; WARM STEAM hisses from a grate in the floor. RUMBLING SOUNDS fill the little chamber as a SUBWAY TRAIN passes directly underneath. A little farther back there's an ACCESS SHAFT, with a Jacob's ladder, leading to the train tracks below. Poking around, he finds a couple of cardboard BOXES -- the boy vigilante's stash. The first contains tins of food, plus various odds and ends. The second's more in line with what he needs -- it's full of OLD CLOTHING. A TRAIN rumbles past underneath. BRUCE removes his COWL and sets about putting together a civilian disguise that'll get him out of the park. A wool hat and a long, moth-eaten topcoat: perfect. As he's pulling them out of the box, he spies something extremely odd -- It's a COSTUME -- a spangled red-and-green GYMNASTS OUTFIT with a little yellow CAPE -- neatly folded and in pristine condition. He removes it carefully from the box and holds it up in front of him. Stitched on the vest is a single initial, "R," in a black circle. He stares at the whole mystifying ensemble in complete befuddlement... The roar of the train subsides, and he hears a SCUFFLING NOISE. Someone's in the tunnel with him. He lowers the costume abruptly -- -- revealing DICK, the boy vigilante, who's crouched in front of him not three feet away. The kid's just crawled up through the ACCESS SHAFT, and he's not at all happy to see an intruder messing with his stuff: DICK It's MINE! He lunges furiously at BRUCE. The two of them tumble back into the grate at the tunnel entrance, KNOCKING IT LOOSE -- EXT. PARK - MOUTH OF TUNNEL - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A POLICE CAR streaks past on the bridge overhead mere seconds before BRUCE and DICK roll out into the snow, still grappling. BRUCE flings the kid into the bridge abutment. DICK lands hard; when he looks up, his EYES WIDEN, and a weird crooked smile comes to his face... Out here in the moonlight he can see his opponent. The body armor -- the gold-and-black emblem on the breastplate -- and above it all, the face of BRUCE WAYNE, exposed to view... As a siren howls nearby, BRUCE flattens himself against the bridge. Like it or not, his fate rests entirely in a strange little boy's hands. The kid sizes up the situation immediately. He nods his head up and down. Then he takes off his own ratty coat and throws it to BRUCE. BRUCE is in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth. He pulls on the coat, gives DICK a nod of acknowledgement, and starts to move off. DICK NO. WAIT! BRUCE turns, uncertainly. DICK throws him his woolen SKI CAP. The KID GIGGLES -- oddly, uncontrollably. Then he sprints off into the woods, dancing, leaping. As he disappears from view, he lets out a shrill, piercing, almost FERAL SHRIEK -- -- which is obviously intended to divert the cops. BRUCE makes haste in the opposite direction. EXT. PARK - ANOTHER SECTION - A MOMENT LATER BRUCE'S HORSE gallops through the trees, the black bat-cape still attached to its saddle and BILLOWING behind it. INT. SQUAD CAR - MOVING - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT TWO COPS scanning the park. The CAPED HORSE charges past in front of them and is momentarily silhouetted in the headlights. From a distance, it looks like BATMAN is still in the saddle. The COP at the wheel makes a sudden turn. A moment later, he SLAMS ON THE BRAKES. A MAN has just stepped out onto the road, directly in the squad car's path -- a hunched figure in an old coat and woolen ski cap, obviously one of the homeless. A COP leans on the horn and shouts out the window: COP Dumb son of a bitch!! The MAN -- BRUCE -- steps back out of the squad car's path. The COPS take off -- in hot pursuit of a riderless horse. CUT TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - KITCHEN - PRE-DAWN A DOCTOR'S BAG rests on the kitchen table. ALFRED, in robe and slippers, rummages inside it and comes up with an ACE BANDAGE. ALFRED Commissioner Gordon called. He wants to install a full contingent of police guards here at the manor -- in round-the-clock shifts -- to protect you from Batman. BRUCE is sitting erect in a straightbacked chair. His shirt is open and he's holding his arms aloft while ALFRED wraps a full roll of adhesive tape around his battered RIBS. BRUCE Great. What'd you tell him? ALFRED I told him that since you were Batman, you'd require no protection from Batman. BRUCE makes a face: how droll. ALFRED tears off the tape with a brisk YANK -- and BRUCE lets out an involuntary YELP OF PAIN. BRUCE Jesus, Alfred -- !! ALFRED In future, sir...I strongly advise against trying to fly off twenty-story buildings. BRUCE It's just a few bruises. ALFRED One bruise, sir. Which covers your entire body. BRUCE gets up -- stiffly -- and buttons his shirt in gingerly fashion while ALFRED packs his first-aid gear in the doctor's bag. BRUCE I'm getting too old for this line of work. (beat) Cops placed me at the scene of the crime -- that weird kid of Vicki's saw my face -- ALFRED I shouldn't worry overmuch. I doubt the two of you move in the same circles. BRUCE -- and I got the living shit knocked out of me by a woman. ALFRED Sir -- such outmoded sexist attitudes are quite unbecoming. INT. UPSTAIRS BEDROOM - DAY In a lavishly-appointed guest room on Gotham's Upper East Side (or equivalent thereof), we find a pair of PLAINCLOTHES COPS settled in for a stakeout: rumpled topcoats thrown across antique chairs, french-fry bags and GREASY BURGER WRAPPINGS littering the carpet. HIGH-POWERED RIFLES propped against one wall. They peer through venetian blinds at an ELEGANT OLD BROWNSTONE across the street... HIS POV - ROOF OF BROWNSTONE - THAT MOMENT A UNIFORMED COP, also carrying a walkie-talkie, is keeping watch on the roof of the brownstone. He signals "all clear" to his counterpart watching from the house opposite. INT. UNMARKED CAR - THAT MOMENT TWO MORE PLAINCLOTHESMEN are parked at the end of the block, munching on donuts and watching the same brownstone. They spot a POSTMAN lugging his sack up the tree-lined street on his way to the brownstone. One of the PLAINCLOTHESMEN picks up his RADIO MIKE: PLAINCLOTHESMAN Mailman's coming. EXT. BROWNSTONE - A MINUTE LATER The POSTMAN marches up the front steps of the brownstone, sorting through letters and packages. He hasn't even rung the bell when the door is opened by ANOTHER COP -- who snatches the mail delivery from his hands and SLAMS THE DOOR IN HIS FACE. INT. BROWNSTONE - THAT MOMENT MORE COPS, at least half a dozen, are milling about inside -- unshaven, ties loosened, shirtsleeves rolled up. They're in for the long haul. The first COP gives a handful of letters to a couple of COLLEAGUES -- then hands over a PARCEL, wrapped in brown paper, to a pair of BOMB-DISPOSAL EXPERTS. They carry it gingerly into the kitchen. Into the midst of all this bustling activity strides COMMISSIONER GORDON: GORDON Anything suspicious! In the parlor, where all the shades are drawn, TWO COPS are examining each letter in turn, holding them up to a light bulb, CREASING THEM carefully before slitting them open. COP Nothing yet. Christmas cards and bills. He anxiously watches their progress. A VOICE calls from the kitchen. BOMB-DISPOSAL EXPERT (V.O.) Commissioner -- ? INT. KITCHEN - A MOMENT LATER GORDON enters. The bomb-disposal boys have their equipment scattered all over the kitchen table. They've slit the brown- paper wrapping of the PACKAGE, exposing a ROUND DECORATIVE TIN. BOMB-DISPOSAL EXPERT It's a fruitcake. He lifts the lid for GORDON to have a look. GORDON ...Have it analyzed. INT. BROWNSTONE - ENTRY HALL - THAT MOMENT A bleary-eyed ELLIOTT TIPTREE marches down the stairs carrying a pair of OVERSIZED SUITCASES. His WIFE and TWO KIDS are behind him -- all bundled up, preparing to embark on an extended vacation. POLICEMAN Mrs. Tiptree? The car's here. TIPTREE, fighting back tears, embraces his wife for a long wordless moment. Their LITTLE GIRL, aged six, tugs at Mommy's sleeve. LITTLE GIRL I don't wanna go to Grandma's. I wanna stay here with Daddy. MRS. TIPTREE She's got a nice tree just like ours, honey. Daddy'll be up as soon as he can. LITTLE GIRL She's old. She doesn't even have cable. LITTLE BOY What about our presents? He gestures toward the GIFTS piled high around the tree in the parlor. TIPTREE Don't worry. I'll bring 'em up with me. We'll open 'em when I get there. TIPTREE forces a smile for the kids. He CLUTCHES his wife's hand. GORDON Sorry, folks, but we'd better move along. MRS. TIPTREE Kids? Tell your Daddy goodbye... Tearful hugs all around; then a cadre of UNIFORMED COPS escort MRS. TIPTREE and the KIDS to the door. TIPTREE pulls GORDON aside. TIPTREE They'll be safe, won't they? GORDON As safe as we can make 'em. (beat; sternly) It would help if you could give us some small hint what this is all about. TIPTREE I told you. I... TIPTREE shrugs helplessly and stares at his shoes. GORDON is convinced he's holding something back. GORDON You have no idea what was in that box that Provost had delivered from the bank. TIPTREE shakes his head wearily. GORDON glowers as he turns to go. GORDON (cont.) All right, Mr. Tiptree. Merry Christmas. GORDON exits. TIPTREE wanders listlessly into the living room, pulls back the drapes, and WATCHES as his wife and kids ride off in a convoy of POLICE CARS. One of the COPS tries to pull him away from the window, but he refuses to move... ...until a PHONE RINGS. Everyone jumps at once. A TECHNICIAN hits a switch on a loudspeaker-and-tape-recorder assembly, then gestures for TIPTREE to pick up the receiver... TIPTREE Hello...? VOICE ON LOUDSPEAKER Mr. Tiptree? Andy here. Listen -- we've got a chance to grab a good-sized block of Atlantic Teledyne at twenty-six and an eighth -- The COPS heave sighs and turn off their tracing equipment. TIPTREE Not today, Andy. Let's talk after New Year's. TIPTREE hangs up and starts to BAWL right there in the middle of the room. The COPS turn away in sympathetic embarrassment as he goes to a corner wet bar and pours himself a good stiff jolt. INT. TIPTREE'S BEDROOM - DAY Wallowing in despair, TIPTREE sits at an antique secretary composing a LETTER. He takes a long pull on a glass of Scotch, signs his name, and inserts the letter into an envelope. He opens the desk drawer -- takes a long look at a .38 automatic stashed inside -- then finds a stamp and affixes it to the envelope. He addresses it to BRUCE WAYNE. A moment later he hears a noise at the window: TINK TINK TINK. He peers through the blinds and sees a CARRIER PIGEON on the ledge outside -- pecking at the glass, asking to come in. He raises the window and the PIGEON hops fearlessly inside, onto the sill. The bird, well-trained, struggles only slightly as he unties a tiny CAPSULE from its leg and removes a FOLDED NOTE. Scrawled across it is a handwritten message: IF POLICE SEE THIS YOUR FAMILY IS DEAD He opens the note and begins to read as the PIGEON takes wing. CUT TO: INT. BRUCE'S LIBRARY - DAY BRUCE is at his desk examining the morning editions. A BANNER HEAD-LINE shrieks: BATMAN SOUGHT IN PUBLISHER'S MURDER Bat Attack Panics Gotham Square J. Harrison Provost, 41, Leaves Distinguished Legacy He hears a VISITOR arriving in the entry hall. He gets up... INT. ENTRY HALL - THAT MOMENT - DAY BRUCE ambles out and sees SELINA, who's just arrived, doing her patetented thing on ALFRED. SELINA English accents are so stimulating. (beat) You have the most beautiful silver hair! ALFRED stammers as she reaches up to STROKE HIS HAIR. He's about to break into a sweat. He's eminently relieved when she turns and sees -- SELINA (cont.) Bruce! BRUCE Selina. What are you doing here? ALFRED affects a look of grandmotherly outrage as SELINA slinks over and takes BRUCE by the arm. She's on him like a barnacle. SELINA I wanted to see your things, remember? And I got tired of waiting for you to call me back. (gesturing toward ALFRED) He's adorable. How long have you had him? INT. HALLWAY - A MOMENT LATER - DAY BRUCE leads SELINA down a hallway to the armory. He glances back over his shoulder and sees ALFRED peering snoopily around the corner. BRUCE You heard about Harry Provost. SELINA It's incredibly awful. It got me a little worried. (sidling up closer) I hate to think of something happening to you. BRUCE Same here. SELINA It's odd, though. Danger, the thought of suddenly dying -- in a weird way it gets you sort of...aroused. Don't you think? BRUCE cocks an eyebrow at her. Everything gets her sort of aroused. INT. ARMORY - A MOMENT LATER SELINA BEAMS at the fantastic collection of armored gear and exotic weapons. She's like a kid in a toy shop. SELINA Bruce, this is incredible. (indicating a suit of armor) Malaysian -- ? BRUCE Not bad. Sarawak warrior caste. SELINA It's like -- everything in here is another little piece of your mind. I was right about you. (turning to face him) Promise, okay? Promise you'll show me every inch of this place. PAGE 87 MISSING FROM HARD COPY INT. BATCAVE - FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER ALFRED is at a PRINTER, scanning page after page of computer printout. He delivers his findings to BRUCE, who's seated at a nearby terminal, scanning data and tapping away at the keyboard. ALFRED The police have no files whatsoever on Selina Kyle. BRUCE (abstractedly) London...Cairo...Belgium... ALFRED What exactly are you -- BRUCE Her credit card records. (looking up) Every major art theft in the last five years -- she's been on the scene or close to it. ALFRED You mean she's some sort of -- collector? A...cat burglar, or -- BRUCE Could be. Museum curator, authenticator -- she's got the perfect cover for it. (beat) What would she want with that stupid raven? ALFRED Raven, sir? BRUCE That's what the Catwoman took from Provost. A little raven statuette, about so big... (shaking his head) But it couldn't have been that valuable. He continues to scan the screen. ALFRED is suddenly lost in thought. ALFRED How very odd. (long pause) I'm sure it's nothing, but -- BRUCE What, Alfred? ALFRED Your father had a raven, sir. A small statue of the very sort you describe. It used to sit on his desk. This piques BRUCE's interest. He swivels around in his chair and stares directly up at ALFRED. BRUCE What happened to it? ALFRED After your father's...demise, Mr. Tiptree came to the house and asked if he could have it. As a keepsake. I saw no harm... (shrugging) That was thirty years ago. BRUCE Wait a minute. Mr. Tiptree? ALFRED George Tiptree. Your friend Elliott's father. CUT TO: INT. TIPTREE'S BEDROOM - AFTERNOON TIPTREE has an oversized suitcase open on the bed. It's empty -- except for the BALLED-UP WADS of NEWSPAPER which he's stuffing inside it. His head turns suddenly at the sound of the doorbell... INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - A MOMENT LATER TIPTREE emerges from his bedroom and peers over a bannister into the ENTRYWAY below. Standing there is an unexpected visitor -- BRUCE WAYNE -- holding his arms aloft while a battery of COPS pat him down. BRUCE What are you looking for -- Batarangs? TIPTREE Bruce! Come on up. (to the COPS) I want to talk to Mr. Wayne alone. The COPS look on suspiciously as BRUCE ascends the stairs. INT. TIPTREE'S LIBRARY - A MOMENT LATER TIPTREE lets BRUCE inside and shuts the door behind him. BRUCE hands him a GIFT BOX. BRUCE I brought you a Christmas present. Sorry about the wrapping -- the police made me open it. TIPTREE opens the box and pulls out a diamond-studded TIE CLASP. He looks up at BRUCE with an odd mixture of bewilderment and gratitude. BRUCE nods for him to try it on, and he obliges... TIPTREE ...I'm afraid I don't have anything for you. BRUCE I think you may have something that belonged to my father. TIPTREE -- You know? He stares at BRUCE, astonished. His head sinks into his hands. TIPTREE (cont.) It'll all be over tomorrow. One way or another, it'll all be over. (looking up; despondent) I've decided, Bruce. I'm gonna give him the last two ravens. He's already got the others. BRUCE What are you talking about? Who? TIPTREE Batman. I don't know how he found out, but -- TIPTREE reaches for the bottle on his desk to pour himself a drink, but BRUCE angrily knocks the glass out of his hands. BRUCE It's time you told me what's going on here. TIPTREE Didn't you ever wonder where it came from, Bruce? All the privilege, all the power ...all the money? (beat) The ravens are a...a kind of map, Bruce. The key to an incredibly vast fortune. BRUCE Whose fortune? TIPTREE Gotham City's. FLASHBACK - PROCESSED FOOTAGE (MOS) The cobblestone streets of 19th-Century Gotham. A massive EXPLOSION blows open one wall of a municipal building, and total CHAOS erupts: fires starting, BYSTANDERS screaming, POLICE rushing to the scene... TIPTREE In 1880 the Gotham City Treasury was looted. It was a fantastic operation -- perfect military precision. The robbers made off with milllons in gold and silver bullion... A HORSE-DRAWN CART weighted down with gold bricks careens around a corner. Atop it are two men in MASKS, firing a GATLING GUN into the crowd. POLICE and ONLOOKERS tumble to the pavement, shot dead, as ANOTHER CART emerges from the wreckage of the treasury and takes off in the opposite direction. FLASHBACK - PROCESSED FOOTAGE (MOS) CITY OFFICIALS in a boardroom trading papers back and forth, arguing furiously with five calm, distinguished-looking GENTS -- one of whom is the bushy-bearded Civil War hero GEN. OLIVER WAYNE. TIPTREE (V.O.) The city was going under. Bankrupt... until five rich men stepped in to bail it out. In exchange they took the land rights, the mineral rights, the service contracts -- BACK TO SCENE - ON BRUCE AND TIPTREE BRUCE The Five Families. TIPTREE Our ancestors. They bought Gotham City -- carved it up and ran it into the ground. In five years they were rich beyond imagining. (pause) We've just been following in their footsteps. And in all this time no one's ever suspected -- BRUCE -- that they were the ones behind the robbery? FLASHBACK - PROCESSED FOOTAGE (MOS) The FIVE PATRIARCHS in front of a roaring fireplace at Wayne Manor, raising a celebratory toast. CAMERA PANS OVER to a nearby table; on it rest FIVE RAVEN STATUETTES. TIPTREE (O.S.) They had five ravens made. Five ravens which -- combined -- would reveal the location of the treasure they'd stolen. (beat) But they never touched it. They never needed to. It's still there to this day. BACK TO SCENE - ON BRUCE AND TIPTREE TIPTREE The ravens, and the secret -- have been passed down through generations. Father to son... (shaking his head) Your father -- died before he could tell you. BRUCE So they stole his piece of the puzzle. TIPTREE Yeah. I've got it, Bruce, and I'm going to hand it over. He's right, you know. We've all been feeding -- feeding on the soul of Gotham... BRUCE stares at him, stony-faced. There's one part of the story that doesn't quite add up. BRUCE (cont.) I don't believe you, Elliott. My father was a decent man -- an honorable man. He would never have taken part in a scheme like this. TIPTREE It wasn't his doing, Bruce. It was -- BRUCE That doesn't matter. If he knew that his fortune was based on a crime -- a crime against the city... (violently) Reputation or not, he would've tried to -- TIPTREE Christ, Bruce! Do you want me to spell it out for you?!? BRUCE backs off. An awful shiver of anticipation runs down his spine. TIPTREE (cont.) He was a decent man. He was an honorable man. That's why they had him killed. CAMERA ZEROES IN ON BRUCE'S HORRIFIED FACE as we get a SERIES OF SHOTS Quick, almost subliminal glimpses of BRUCE's primal trauma: a MUGGER snatching at his mother's necklace. THOMAS WAYNE lunging at him. The young JACK NAPIER firing at THOMAS. PEARLS showering down on the rain-drenched sidewalk. A second bullet felling his MOTHER -- -- and finally, young BRUCE himself, face wracked with PAIN and GRIEF -- BACK TO SCENE - ON BRUCE -- an expression which perfectly matches the one which the adult BRUCE is wearing as he relives it all thirty years later. Staggered and glassy-eyed, he stares off into space as TIPTREE finishes his tale. TIPTREE They killed him...to protect their secret ...and now the bill's come due. Now the bill's come due. CUT TO: EXT. WAYNE MANOR - ESTABLISHING - TOWARD DUSK The wrought-iron gate outside BRUCE's vast estate -- and beyond it, Wayne Manor itself, rising bold and stately against the setting sun. A COUNTY SHERIFF'S CAR cruises past... INT. WAYNE MANOR - BRUCE'S BEDROOM - THAT MOMENT BRUCE lies motionless on his bed. Scattered about him are SCRAPBOOKS, FAMILY PHOTOS and yellowed NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS which describe the murder of his parents. Disoriented, he gazes about aimlessly at his familiar surroundings -- which no longer seem quite so familiar... He folds his arms formally across his chest and stares up at the ceiling, inert, as if the very weight of his heritage is crushing him down. Somewhere, a PHONE RINGS. He makes no move to answer it. INT. WAYNE MANOR - KITCHEN - DUSK VICKI's at the kitchen table drinking coffee. ALFRED, who's in his apron preparing dinner, picks up the ringing phone. ALFRED Thank you, yes, everything's fine. I'll expect your next call in an hour. (hanging up; to VICKI) The police are becoming an awful nuisance. VICKI I feel so awful for him, Alfred. There must be something we can do. ALFRED I realized long ago -- that there are places in Mr. Wayne's heart which no one will ever penetrate -- or share. (pause) He loves you, Miss Vale. But in certain ways he will always be alone. BRUCE (O.S.) ...Thanks for the testimonial. ALFRED turns and sees BRUCE standing in the doorway, staring at him. He starts to say something, but thinks better of it. He returns to his dinner preparations as BRUCE sits down across from VICKI. She extends a hand and he takes it -- making a visible effort to hold himself together. BRUCE Tiptree's planning some kind of rendezvous with 'Batman.' I think Batman ought to be there when it happens. ALFRED I see, sir. When shall we expect you back? BRUCE Get your cap. You're driving. INT. TIPTREE'S BROWNSTONE - NIGHT It's late, and the house is dark as TIPTREE treeds silently downstairs carrying an OVERSIZED SUITCASE. The lights are on in the kitchen, where the COPS are playing poker and watching TV. INT. PARLOR - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS twinkle in the darkness. TIPTREE kneels beside the tree and digs around among the packages. He pulls out an OBLONG GIFT BOX with a tag addressed "TO DADDY -- FROM SANTA." With a glance back at the kitchen, he soundlessly unwraps the package -- and opens it to reveal a matched set of RAVEN STATUETTES. He transfers them to the big suitcase -- then slinks into the hallway... INT. BEDROOM ACROSS STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The two STAKEOUT COPS are chuckling at a Charlie Brown Christmas special on a portable TV. One of them glances out the window and sees a man in a topcoat emerging from the brownstone, SUITCASE in hand... STAKEOUT COP I Shit -- that's Tiptree!! The COP grabs for his WALKIE-TALKIE. EXT. STREET OUTSIDE BROWNSTONE - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT TIPTREE is halfway down the block when two COPS burst out of the brownstone. COP Mr. Tiptree! What the hell are you -- HEADLIGHTS FLASH ON as the SURVEILLANCE CAR revs its engine. TIPTREE breaks into a RUN -- and the COPS from the brownstone follow suit. At the end of the block he vanishes down a SUBWAY ENTRANCE. INT. SUBWAY STATION - THAT MOMENT A VIOLINIST is panhandling outside the token booth as the COPS come racing down the stairs. The COPS trip over his open violin case, scattering small change across the conrete floor. They flash their badges at the booth and VAULT OVER THE TURNSTILE -- -- just in time to see TIPTREE, with his SUITCASE, scuttling down a stairway which leads to the train platform below. INT. SUBWAY PLATFORM - A MOMENT LATER TIPTREE steps onto an EXPRESS TRAIN. The doors slide shut behind him -- and the hapless COPS curse under their breath as he rolls off. COP We've gotta get back to the radio. INT. SUBWAY CAR - A MOMENT LATER - MOVING TIPTREE takes an open seat and looks around apprehensively. Being fabulously rich, be's probably ridden the subway twice in his life -- and at this time of night, EVERY FACE in the sparsely-populated car looks vaguely menacing. Derelicts, prostitutes, teen-gang members -- ALL OF THEM eye this well- heeled stranger with intense curiosity as he clutches his suitcase and stares anxiously at the floor... An ODD, GAUNT FIGURE enters at the end of the car. It's a DEAFMUTE. He shambles down the aisle passing out little white CARDS. One side is a guide to International Sign Language. The other reads: DEAF AND DUMB PLEASE HELP -- $1.00 TWO YOUNG TOUGHS take a card and tear it in half, chuckling, shining the DEAFMUTE on. A HOOKER, the heart-of-gold type, stuffs a buck in his tin cup. He reaches TIPTREE and extends a card; TIPTREE ignores him, refusing to make eye contact -- -- but the DEAFMUTE shoves the card insistently into his face. Now TIPTREE looks up. THIS CARD bears a personalized message: GOTHAM CENTRAL STATION B-TRAIN WEST TO RIVERVIEW TIPTREE's eyes widen. The DEAFMUTE -- who is in fact FRICK -- glowers down and holds out his cup. TIPTREE digs in his pocket; the smallest bill he's got is a twenty, but he hands it over anyway. Smiling at this act of generosity, FRICK moves on to the next car. TIPTREE stares down tremulously at the card. He fidgets with his TIE CLASP -- the one BRUCE gave him earlier... INT. LIMO - MOVING - NIGHT TIGHT on a hand-held ELECTRONIC TRACING DEVICE. A small BLIP moves across a shifting GRID not unlike a radar screen. BRUCE is in the back of the limo, eyeing the tracer intently. ALFRED's up front, at the wheel. BRUCE According to this, he's directly below us. ALFRED The subway, sir? BRUCE Yeah. Take a right. INT. GOTHAM CENTRAL STATION - THAT MOMENT It's slightly more crowded here in the hub of Gotham. TIPTREE emerges onto the platform and spies a squad of TRANSIT COPS thirty or forty feet away -- speaking into WALKIE-TALKIES as they scan the crowd. Sticking close to the tracks, he turns swiftly toward the nearest stairway -- blending in with the crowd, trying to hold the SUITCASE out of view. INT. LOWER PLATFORM - A MINUTE LATER TIPTREE IS RUNNING for the B-train just as the doors begin to close. He manages to thrust the suitcase inside -- but the doors SLIDE SHUT on his hand, and he DROPS IT. He stands there on the platform, his face turning BONE WHITE as the train lurches forward... False alarm. The train stops, and the doors hiss open again. INT. SUBWAY CAR - MOVING - A MOMENT LATER TIPTREE clambers aboard with a severe case of palpitations. As the train pulls out, a couple of rough-looking but helpful STREET TYPES show him to a seat and hand him his precious suitcase. He sits there panting... Moments later, a DEAFMUTE enters the car. TIPTREE does a take: it's the exact same guy who was riding the other line! Of course, he doesn't know about Frick's malignant twin -- FRACK... WIPE TO: INT. LOCAL STOP - TEN MINUTES LATER - NIGHT Having changed trains twice more since we left him, TIPTREE debarks at a deserted local stop. The station is EMPTY except for one other passenger, who's gotten off here as well -- a WOMAN in a long fur coat. TIPTREE WATCHES as she approaches on her way to the stairwell, STILLETO HEELS clicking across the floor. There's something familiar about her -- but she's wearing a big, broad-brimmed hat, and she TILTS IT DOWN as she passes, obscuring her face. It is, of course, SELINA... TIPTREE stands there expectantly with his suitcase, awaiting further instructions. They aren't long in coming. A BLACK MYNAH BIRD swoops out of the tunnel, lands on the platform, and STRUTS in front of him. MYNAH FOLLOW ME. AWWWKK! FOLLOW ME. The bird flutters its wings and takes off again -- INTO THE TUNNEL. TIPTREE stares after it in disbelief. Then the bird CAWS AGAIN -- its shrill voice echoing from the darkness of the tunnel: MYNAH (O.S.) FOLLOW ME. AWWWKK! TIPTREE clambers over the edge of the platform, dropping awkwardly to the tracks below. Suitcase in hand, he begins to walk... INT. LIMO - MOVING - NIGHT ALFRED tearing up the streets as BRUCE consults his tracer. BRUCE He's slowed down. Looks like he's under the park. ALFRED How do you propose to get down there, sir? We can't have Batman strolling up to buy a token. BRUCE I know another way in. (beat) Step on it. They're down there waiting for him. ALFRED turns the limo hard right -- into GOTHAM PARK -- past the statue of GENERAL WAYNE atop his horse... INT. SUBWAY TUNNEL - THAT MOMENT A LOCAL TRAIN roars by, filling the screen. When it passes, we see TIPTREE with his suitcase, walking along the express tracks at the far wall of the tunnel -- more frightened with each step. It's dark and eerie down here in the tunnels; the only illumination comes from dim LANTERNS spaced at fifty-foot intervals. He sees the lights of an EXPRESS TRAIN behind him, and quickly switches to the local tracks. The train rumbles past with a deafening blare, and the car lights briefly illuminate his surroundings. TIPTREE glances over at the inside wall of the tunnel... ...where he sees, huddled in an ALCOVE just off the tracks, a small gathering of HOMELESS PEOPLE. They've set up camp down here in the tunnels, away from the elements. Surrounded by bags full of old clothes, DINING on canned food and cheap wine, they stare curiously at the well-heeled stranger with the suitcase who's invaded their domain. TIPTREE eyes them fearfully and picks up his pace, hastening down the tunnel. The HOMELESS make no move to follow -- with one exception. A KID, thirteen or fourteen, in a ratty topcoat, climbs down onto the tracks and watches inquisitively as TIPTREE vanishes into the shadows. His face is familiar. It's DICK -- the boy vigilante from the park. INT. TUNNEL - FARTHER DOWN TRACKS - A MOMENT LATER In this stretch of the tunnel the LANTERNS don't seem to be working -- and the MYNAH is completely invisible. When he comes to a fork in the tracks, he has to wait for the sound of the bird's shrill voice to guide him: MYNAH AWWRRK! FOLLOW ME. TIPTREE stumbles ahead blindly in the darkness. He trips on the tracks and drops the suitcase. As he's getting to his feet, a FLASHLIGHT shines DIRECTLY IN HIS FACE... VOICE STOP THERE. The MYNAH BIRD flutters through the beam of light and perches on the shoulder of an UNSEEN FIGURE. TIPTREE COWERS and SQUINTS, trying to make him out, but the figure who stands before him is shielding his face with an open UMBRELLA. TIPTREE I've cooperated. I've done everything you said. PENGUIN Open the case. TIPTREE lifts the lid, revealirig TWO RAVENS in the suitcase. A CACKLING LAUGH echoes in the darkness. PENGUIN (cont.) ...Two ravens? TIPTREE The other one is Bruce Wayne's. (trembling) He doesn't know anything about this. You've got what you want. There's no need to -- PENGUIN Thank you, Mr. Tiptree. You may go. TIPTREE stands. He backs away from the suitcase warily. TIPTREE My family. You won't -- PENGUIN We'll certainly take your unexpected generosity into consideration. TIPTREE We -- ?!? (shielding his eyes) You're not Batman. PENGUIN No. I'm his brother-in-law -- Birdman. Now move out. INT. TUNNEL - HIGH ANGLE - THAT MOMENT TIPTREE marches slowly down the tracks, TOWARD CAMERA, silhouetted in the flashlight beam. The beam SHIFTS SLIGHTLY as the Penguin moves toward the suitcase and sets the light down -- -- and we catch sight of the CATWOMAN perched on a steel cross-girder above the rails, her CHROME-STEEL TALONS GLINTING as she waits for TIPTREE to pass underneath. INT. TUNNEL - ON TIPTREE looking increasingly twitchy as he approaches the cross- girder. He slips a hand into the pocket of his topcoat, WHIRLS SUDDENLY -- -- and brings up his .38 AUTOMATIC, firing THREE QUICK SHOTS at the PENGUIN. The shots RICOCHET LOUDLY off the umbrella -- which happens to be a bulletproof job. The PENGUIN lifts his brolly; FIRE SPITS out of the shaft -- -- and TIPTREE staggers backward. SHOT IN THE CHEST. He spins into a steel upright and topples, face-forward, onto the ELECTRIFIED THIRD RAIL -- FRYING HIMSELF in a shower of sparks. The smoke is still clearing when the CATWOMAN drops to the tracks. The PENGUIN rushes to her side to check TIPTREE for signs of life. CATWOMAN That idiot. Another six feet -- PENGUIN So sorry to spoil your fun. -- He brought two ravens. We've got a complete set! CATWOMAN What?? PENGUIN Yeah! They're in the suitcase -- An AWFUL RUMBLING fills the tunnel. They see the lights of a TRAIN approaching on the center track -- the same one they're standing on, the one TIPTREE's body is slumped across. The PENGUIN's first impulse is to run back toward the inner track, where the ravens lie, but the CATWOMAN is trying to drag TIPTREE out of the train's path... CATWOMAN GIVE ME A HAND! They pull the corpse onto the outer express track just as the train arrives. They stand against the outer wall, waiting for the train to pass... ...and when it does, they see DICK -- the boy vigilante -- standing on the inner track directly across from them. HOLDING THE SUITCASE. The kid takes off like a shot. The CATWOMAN and the PENGUIN exchange quick looks of utter disbelief -- and BOLT AFTER DICK. INT. TUNNEL - ON DICK The bulky suitcase is slowing his progress. He looks back over his shoulder; although the stubby-legged PENGUIN has fallen well behind, the CATWOMAN is gaining fast. PAGE 101 MISSING FROM HARD COPY INT. TUNNEL - ON DICK watching in the light from the train as the two costumed figures grapple in the distance. He races back toward the scene of the melee... INT. TUNNEL - OUTTER EXPRESS TRACK - THAT MOMENT ...where BATMAN and the CATWOMAN are trading punches, blow for blow. He knocks her off her feet with a vicious right hook, and she sprawls on the track, dazed and bleeding. She lifts a hand: no mas... He looks back toward the suitcase on the center track. Before he can make a move toward it, he spots ANOTHER TRAIN approaching on the outer tracks -- right on the heels of the last one. He crouches to pull the CATWOMAN's limp frame out of its path... ...but as he does so, a HORN BLARES -- and a SECOND TRAIN comes barrelling down the center track from the opposite direction! Now he's got trains approaching on either side, and there's no place to go -- The CATWOMAN is groggily getting to her feet. He LUNGES at her -- THRUSTS HER BACKWARD, toward an ALCOVE in the outer tunnel wall. INT. TUNNEL - ON DICK - THAT MOMENT The OUTER train is already speeding past, obscuring BATMAN and the CATWOMAN from view. The CENTER train is bearing down fast. A split-second before it arrives, DICK'S HAND snatches the suitcase out of its path -- and he TUMBLES TO SAFETY on the innermost LOCAL TRACK. He stands and watches as the two trains pass in opposite directions. He doesn't know if BATMAN is alive or dead... INT. ALCOVE - THAT MOMENT BATMAN and CATWOMAN are flattened in the tiny alcove -- there's not two inches of breathing space between them and the passing TRAIN. She's come around now, and she's FLAILING and CLAWING at him, trying to PUSH HIM OUT. HER HAND closes around his UTILITY BELT. As they struggle, she hits the trigger of a SMALL GAS CYLINDER... It's BRUCE's hydraulic BATWING DEVICE -- the one that saved him when he fell off the roof. But this time the results are altogether different. He GASPS IN HORROR as the WINGS OF HIS CAPE stiffen and inflate -- FORCING HIM AWAY FROM THE WALL OF THE TUNNEL. His OUTER WING strikes the TRAIN -- FLAPPING WILDLY against the passing CARS -- SNAGGING FINALLY on the ralling of the rearmost car -- -- and BATMAN is suddenly RIPPED OUT OF THE ALCOVE -- DRAGGED OFF DOWN THE TRACKS by the passing train! INT. TUNNEL - INNERMOST TRACK - ON DICK He's still there with the suitcase -- waiting apprehensively to see what's become of BATMAN. Finally the center train passes -- -- and he sees CATWOMAN standing ALONE IN THE ALCOVE -- smiling at him -- advancing menacingly. DICK TURNS TO RUN... A GUNSHOT rings out -- and the last thing he sees as he slumps to the tracks is a whiff of SMOKE pluming from the shaft of the PENGUIN'S UMBRELLA. The PENGUIN's panting -- soaked with sweat. The CATWOMAN snatches up the suitcase and rushes over to join him. She peers off into the tunnels after BATMAN, exhilarated... CATWOMAN God. Did you see him? Isn't he hot? PENGUIN Haven't you got anything else to think about? (mopping sweat from his brow) I'm hot. That was exhausting. CATWOMAN No pain, no gain! -- Suck it up. We're not out of here yet. She sprints off down the tracks. SQUAWKING, he waddles along behind her, as fast as his fat little legs will carry him... As they vanish into the darkness, the CAMERA TRACKS back -- past DICK, who lies unconscious on the tracks, bleeding heavily from his shoulder wound -- DEEPER INTO THE MAZE OF TUNNELS -- -- arriving finally on the ragged black figure of BATMAN as he staggers forth from the shadows, dazed and bloody. He scans the tunnel, finding no trace of his enemies -- and then his gaze falls on DICK. He limps over and KNEELS at the boy's side -- cradling his head protectively, staring helplessly into the blackness all around him... DISSOLVE TO: EXT. GOTHAM CITY SKYLINE - NIGHT The stark outlines of the city, BATHED IN MOONLIGHT. CAMERA ZEROES IN on the glowing, ornamental DOME of CITY HALL... INT. CITY HALL - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A PENTAGONAL BALCONY girds the interior of the dome. We TILT DOWN to ground level -- where TWO AGED SECURITY GUARDS lie sprawled at odd angles on the marble floor, FATALLY SHOT. The PENGUIN closes his gun-umbrella and waddles across the atrium of City Hall, past a statue of blind Justice, to a point directly under the dome. There, encased in a plexiglass case, is a SCALE MODEL of GOTHAM CITY -- circa 1885, when City Hall was erected. He shouts up: PENGUIN LETS DO IT! INT. CITY HALL - BALCONY UNDER DOME - THAT MOMENT The CATWOMAN, FRICK, and FRACK are already up on the balcony. Lining its periphery are various DISPLAY CASES of historical interest; and positioned along the wall at each point of the pentagon are FIVE ARCHED NICHES -- each one containing a bronze bust. The patriarchs of Gotham's Five Families... The CATWOMAN and co. go to work quickly. She removes the FIVE RAVENS from a gunny sack as FRICK and FRACK work their way around the balcony, YANKING the busts from their recessed bases. She follows along behind them, replacing each bust with a RAVEN. When they're done, the PENGUIN yells up: PENGUIN Now. Give each raven a quarter-turn. His pals in the dome oblige -- TWISTING each raven in its recessed socket, in quick succession... INT. CITY HALL - ATRIUM - ON PENGUIN The moment of maximum tension. He stands there frothing at the mouth with anticipation. SECONDS TICK OFF, and nothing happens. CATWOMAN What happens now? PENGUIN I don't know. That's all...! He looks around expectantly as the others peer down at him from above. He really doesn't know what's supposed to happen next. Suspecting the worst, he throws his umbrella to the floor and begins STAMPING ABOUT IN A RAGE, SPUTTERING, flapping his arms like wings. PENGUIN (cont.) We've been TRICKED! It's a HOAX! It's a -- He SHUTS UP suddenly at the sound of a loud CHUNK. Somewhere behind him, ANCIENT GEARS are beginning to grind. He spins and stares at the SCALE MODEL of GOTHAM in its plexiglass case... The city model is TREMBLING slightly. As he watches, the DOME of the miniature CITY HALL -- in the dead center of the model city -- POPS OFF on a hinge. A METAL STRONGBOX rises into view... INT. DOME - ON BALCONY - THAT MOMENT The CATWOMAN, FRICK and FRACK stare down at the little metal box. The PENGUIN is already clambering atop the plexiglass case of the model, SMASHING AT IT with his umbrella, trying to get at the box. FRICK That's the treasure? CATWOMAN No. It's a map... She affixes a ROPE to the balcony railing and CLIMBS OVER. INT. CITY HALL - ATRIUM - ON PENGUIN The plexiglass case finally SHATTERS -- and the PENGUIN falls through, landing atop Gotham City. He snatches at the strongbox and gets to his feet, bestriding the city like a colossus. He's climbing down off the tabletop when the CATWOMAN, on her rope, touches down behind him. He hunkers down on the floor and knocks the rusted padlock off the box. He opens it and stares greedily at the contents -- a MAP and a bunch of old, crumbling PHOTOS. The CATWOMAN creeps over to his side: PENGUIN Bruce Wayne. So he doesn't know a thing about the treasure, eh...? (handing her the map) Look at this. It's right under Wayne Manor. It's been there all along! Now the CATWOMAN snatches at the PHOTOS. They show progressively closer views of ANCIENT GNARLED STALACTITES -- an odd, distinctive SUBTERRANEAN ROCK FORMATION... PENGUIN (cont.) Looks like some kind of cave. FADE THROUGH TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - GUEST BEDROOM - DAY TIGHT ON THE FACE of DICK. He lies unconscious in a big soft frilly bed A WOMAN'S HAND wipes his feverish brow with a damp cloth; he moans slightly... His eyes snap open suddenly. He sits BOLT UPRIGHT with a yelp. VICKI No, no -- don't try to get up -- you're hurt. He pushes her aside and climbs out of bed anyway. His shoulder is bandaged, his arm in a sling. The pajamas he's wearing are three sizes too large. He paces about, staring at his unfamiliar surroundings. VICKI (cont.) It's all right. You're safe. You can stay here as long as you need to. DICK I don't belong here. You can't keep me here. Vaguely unnerved, he goes to a window, pulls back the shades, looks out at the grounds. VICKI It's "Dick", isn't it? Or do you prefer "Richard"? He stares at her as if she's nuts. VICKI opens a closet door: all of his ratty belongings are hanging inside -- including the red-and-green GYMNAST'S SUIT with the "R" insigne on the breast. VICKI "R" -- for Richard, right? See, all your things are here... (staring at the costume) What is it, some kind of gymnast's outfit? DICK It's none of your business. What is this, some kind of home? VICKI No, not that kind. There's a swimming pool -- tennis court -- you can have anything you want. DICK Tennis court?! -- Lady, you're rich. How the hell would you know what I want? VICKI tries to lay a soothing arm on his shoulder. He bats it away, pushes her aside and turns toward the door in agitation -- DICK I'm not staying. You can't make me -- -- and sees BRUCE standing in the doorway looking at him. BRUCE I can make you. DICK freezes -- as if BRUCE's mere presence has mesmerized him. The hint of a smile plays across his face: ohhhhh. I'm in Batman's house. BRUCE (cont.) Come on. Wanna go at it? (no response) Look, kid -- like it or not, you're my guest -- and long as you're here you might as well enjoy it. ALFRED appears with a tray of hot food and sets it down on a bedside table. DICK edges toward it and sits down. He waits for ALFRED to leave and then TUCKS IN HUNGRILY -- eyeing BRUCE all the while. BRUCE (cont.) Will you two be okay in here? VICKI nods yes. BRUCE backs out of the room. INT. WAYNE MANOR - OUTSIDE GUEST ROOM - DAY BRUCE pulls the door shut. ALFRED follows him down the hall. ALFRED What do you propose to do with him, sir? Keep him in the room for the rest of his life? BRUCE I don't know, Alfred. I've got other stuff to worry about. ALFRED The child is hurt, sir. At the very least we should attempt to locate his parents. BRUCE He hasn't got any parents. ALFRED How do you know that, sir? BRUCE turns and fixes ALFRED with a steely gaze. BRUCE ...I know. The PHONE RINGS as BRUCE starts down the long stairway. ALFRED picks up a hallway extension. He covers the mouthpiece: ALFRED Sir -- it's Miss Kyle. BRUCE rushes back upstairs to take the call. INT. PENGUIN'S LAIR - THAT MOMENT - DAY ARCTIC BIRDS chirping all around in the penguin-pool room. A SNOW OWL struts across the PENGUIN's desk as SELINA makes a phone call -- with the PENGUIN, FRICK, and FRACK hovering over her. SELINA Well! Tall, dark and handsome. Are we still on for tonight? INT. WAYNE MANOR - ON BRUCE He covers the receiver and stares intensely at ALFRED. On his look we DISSOLVE TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - FRONT PARLOR - NIGHT Christmas carols playing. VICKI's got DICK helping her trim the tree. INT. BRUCE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT BRUCE is getting dressed for his date with SELINA. ALFRED Is this necessary, sir? After all...it is Christmas eve. BRUCE reaches for his UTILITY BELT. He empties the contents of one packet onto a dresser: a dozen tiny, red GLASSINE CAPSULES. He scoops up a handful of the CAPSULES and deposits them in his jacket pocket. BRUCE Stuff'll knock out a moose, much less a cat. ALFRED I don't like to see you going out on a date...unprotected, sir. BRUCE She'll be ready for Batman -- but not for me. (turning to go) It's the only way, Alfred. I've got to take her out tonight. INT. ENTRY HALL - FIVE MINUTES LATER (DICK'S POV) DICK watches from the front parlor as VICKI meets BRUCE at the bottom of the stairs. The two of them exchange a few brief words; he embraces her, strokes her hair gently -- then glumly sets his jaw and moves off toward the front door. VICKI reenters the parlor, trying to force an expression of cheer as DICK turns discreetly away. This is one weird household he's landed in... INT. SELINA'S LOFT - NIGHT SOFT MUSIC plays in the background as SELINA preens in front of a vanity, doing her eye makeup, taking great pleasure in her own reflection. She's looking especially sultry tonight in a glittering low-cut gown. She lowers one shoulder strap and strikes a pose in the mirror: better. She runs a hand through her hair, TOUSLING IT for that recently-ravished look. The DOORBELL rings, and by the time SELINA crosses over to answer it, she's lowered the other strap as well -- which means she has to hold up the top of her dress with one hand. BRUCE finds himsell dumbstruck as she lets him in. She pulls up both straps as she greets him nonchalantly: SELINA You're early. I'm afraid I'm not quite dressed. BRUCE enters and takes a long look around. It's a big open loft, only partly finished, filled with Egyptian artifacts. The walls feature modern paintings with CAT MOTIFS. The finished section is dominated by a huge BED on a raised platform -- three or four CATS are walking around on it, yowling at BRUCE. SELINA CHUCKLES as he scopes it all out. SELINA (cont.) If you're looking for my bondage gear, it's at the cleaners. BRUCE Christmas eve. No tree? SELINA No presents. I've been a bad girl this year. BRUCE takes a seat on the sofa while SELINA goes to a nearby wet bar. BRUCE I'm surprised you kept this date. I thought you would've lost interest by now. SELINA What makes you say that? BRUCE You've got what you want, don't you? SELINA I do now. (smiling) We've had this date for a long, long time. With that, she sets the drinks down on the table and moves in to KISS him -- a long, slow, wet kiss. But BRUCE seems strangely unresponsive. She breaks free and gives him a funny look. BRUCE How much is it going to cost me? SELINA What? BRUCE ...To get the ravens back. He watches her closely for a reaction. SELINA's shocked, but she conceals it well -- chuckling in apparent confusion. SELINA You're the oddest man I've ever met. (moving in on him) Let's talk later, Bruce. I've got kind of a short fuse... BRUCE tenses slightly as she KISSES him again -- leaving a crimson LIPSTICK SMEAR on his cheek. She works her way downward, kissing him around his neck and throat... HIS HAND reaches into his jacket pocket. He withdraws a tiny GLASSINE CAPSULE. But before he can use it -- He JERKS BACK suddenly -- pushes her away. His free hand goes to his neck, where a thin trickle of BLOOD is oozing from between two bright red LIPSTICK LIPS. She's bitten him... Now she SHUSHES him -- reaches over to the tiny wound and massages it gently with one hand. SELINA Did I hurt you? Just relax -- you'll start to enjoy it. BRUCE pulls away again. His eyes are strangely glazed. He tries to speak, but his tongue feels thick and swollen. SELINA (cont.) Bruce, you look faint. It must be the cats. BRUCE stands suddenly. It's as if he's mired in a slo-mo nightmare. His legs give way beneath him and he topples to the floor, INERT. His fingers go slack and the capsule rolls out; he tries to reach into his pocket, but his arm won't seem to work. SELINA's cat, HECATE, strolls across his prostrate form -- purring and stretching... BRUCE'S POV A worm's-eye view -- SELINA looms over him with a predatory smile on her face, shifting in and out of focus. BRUCE What di-- what did you d-- She runs a finger across her lips and holds it up -- bright red. SELINA I guess I've...gotten under your skin. BACK TO SCENE - ON BRUCE His hand goes to the BITE on his neck -- and he realizes SELINA's lipstick is spiked with a fast-acting PARALYTIC DRUG. He writhes helplessly on the carpet, his whole body gradually going slack. The PENGUIN, FRICK and FRACK stroll through the doorway and stand over him -- ALL LAUGHING... DISSOLVE TO: EXT. WAYNE MANOR - NIGHT A COUNTY SHERIFF'S CAR cruises past the manor, right on schedule. INT. WAYNE MANOR - PARLOR - NIGHT ALFRED on the telephone, checking in with the County Sheriff's boys. ALFRED Everything's fine, thank you. We'll talk in an hour. Behind him, VICKI is waiting up for BRUCE. She's curled up on the sofa, reading a book, throwing the occasional anxious glance at a big grandfather clock -- which strikes eleven o'clock. INT. WAYNE MANOR - GUEST BEDROOM - NIGHT DICK opens the bedroom door and peeks down the hall. He's got all his belongings tied up in a bundle on the bed; he opens a window and throws the bundle outside. There's a nice strong TREE BRANCH some ten or twelve feet from the window -- just close enough that he should be able to make it. He climbs up onto the windowsill, crouches, and SPRINGS. INT. CAR - OUTSIDE - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A car full of trouble: SELINA, wearing a fur coat over her Catwoman garb, at the wheel; the PENGUIN riding shotgun; and FRICK in the back seat -- next to BRUCE, who's semi-conscious and stone limp. The car idles outside the wrought-iron gates of Wayne Manor. PENGUIN Try his mag card. FRICK digs in BRUCE's pockets and finds a bunch of RED CAPSULES. FRICK Look at this. He's a pillhead. Now FRICK finds a mag-striped card and INSERTS IT into an electronic device at the edge of the drive. The gates magically part. There's a large VAN just behind the car -- driven by FRACK, and carrying two random GOONS. Both vehicles pull in before the gates slide shut. INT. WAYNE MANOR - A MOMENT LATER VICKI hears a signal from the security panel in the kitchen announcing what should be BRUCE's arrival. She heaves a huge sigh of relief -- then rushes to the door and flings it open. She sees BRUCE standing there and her face lights up. VICKI Ohh. Am I glad to -- To her horror, BRUCE topples forward -- and lands on the floor, flat as a board. VICKI SHRIEKS as the PENGUIN enters, throwing his arms wide. PENGUIN MER-R-R-RY CHRISTMAS!! EXT. WAYNE MANOR - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT DICK has shimmied down to a lower branch. He lets go and drops to the snow, WINCING; his shoulder wound is bleeding again. As he grabs his bundle, he hears RAUCOUS LAUGHTER coming from around the house. He races over to peer around the corner. He sees the two cars out front. He sees the last of the goon squad barging in through the front door. His face full of confusion and conflict, he moves to a window. In the entry hall he sees BRUCE on the floor -- and VICKI surrounded by gun-toting intruders. One of them grabs her and twists her arm behind her back. INT. WAYNE MANOR - ENTRY - THAT MOMENT VICKI shrieking and struggling as she stares down at BRUCE. VICKI What did you do to him?? SELINA gives her a catty little smile. SELINA First-time jitters, I guess. Everything was going great, and then...he just went limp as a noodle. INT. WAYNE MANOR - ON STAIRWAY Drawn by the commotion, ALFRED rushes down the stairs to the entry hall, pulling a robe around him. He freezes in his tracks when he sees FRICK dragging VICKI into the front parlor, holding a gun to her head. PENGUIN You'd be the butler. Why don't you come on down and attend to your guests? ALFRED hesitates, until the PENGUIN pulls a gun on him. He marches down the stairs slowly, pausing by BRUCE's prostrate form. ALFRED Mr. Wayne. Is he -- ? PENGUIN You know how it is. Some guys just can't hold their egg nog. INT. FRONT PARLOR - A MOMENT LATER The PENGUIN marches ALFRED in where the rest of the gang's already assembled. FRICK throws VICKI down roughly on a sofa just next to the Christmas tree while the GOONS drag BRUCE inside. PENGUIN I should explain the occasion of our visit. There's a treasure underneath this house -- and I don't plan to leave until you tell me how to find it. Now who's going to talk -- Miss Vale? VICKI I don't know what you're talking about. PENGUIN The cave. Under the house. How do I get there? The PENGUIN gestures. FRICK holds the gun to her head. VICKI (cont.) I don't know! I swear, I would tell you -- PENGUIN (turning to ALFRED) Then maybe you'd like to tell me. ALFRED You're no more than a common thief. PENGUIN Wrong, you old idiot. I happen to be a very uncommon thief. (beat) Are you going to tell me, or does Miss Vale get an early present this year? FRICK cocks the gun. VICKI stares aghast at ALFRED, who scans the room, weighing his options. Trembling, he shuts his eyes -- ALFRED I...don't...know... PENGUIN Then go ahead, Mr. Frick...decorate the tree. FRICK's finger tightens on the trigger. VICKI winces. ALFRED starts to blurt something out. But a split-second before he can speak -- SELINA Wait! (crossing over to VICKI) We don't know how to get down there yet. We may need her when Bruce wakes up. The PENGUIN sighs and waves FRICK off. ALFRED and VICKI heave simultaneous sighs of relief. He throws her a shamefaced look -- but she gives him a tiny nod of acknowledgement: you made the right play. SELINA (cont.) Besides -- I want this one for myself. So pretty...I'm going to give her a brand new face for Christmas. The PENGUIN throws a look at BRUCE, who's still out cold on the floor. He turns to FRICK and FRACK. PENGUIN Why don't you two tie up our host? ALFRED sits beside VICKI while SELINA wanders off to tour the premises. FRICK and FRACK, meanwhile, drag BRUCE into a back parlor which opens off the room they're in. INT. BACK PARLOR - THAT MOMENT They dump BRUCE face down on a sofa -- then rip the telephone cords from around the baseboard and use them to bind his hands and feet. INT. FRONT PARLOR - ON MR. BONIFACE Still holding his gun on VICKI and ALFRED, he wanders about the room, admiring the various furnishings and expensive objects. PENGUIN It's all so plush and tasteful, isn't it? Just the sort of setting in which I've always imagined myself. ALFRED, on the sofa, can't resist letting out a snort of disgust. PENGUIN (cont.) I see. You think I'm vulgar. You think I'm...nouveau. ALFRED I think you're a dirty little man with a -- The PENGUIN silences him by sweeping one arm across a tabletop, sending a bunch of PRICELESS CHINA FIGURINES crashing to the floor. He points to ALFRED as FRICK and FRACK reappear. PENGUIN See, boys, that's old money talking. After a while, they actually start to believe they've earned all this. (smirking) I don't mind. Someday I'll be old money too -- when the statute of limitations runs out. SELINA (O.S.) Hey! -- Guess what I just found. Face full of anticipation, he TURNS -- just in time to see SELINA returning from the kitchen with a big silver tray of... SELINA (cont.) Christmas cookies! The PENGUIN is crestfallen, but that doesn't stop him from cramming a handful of cookies down his gullet. SELINA graciously serves VICKI and ALFRED, who munch away with limited enthusiasm. PENGUIN Let's spread out and see what we can find. (to FRICK and FRACK) You two -- keep an eye on our friends here. Give me a yell the minute Wayne comes to. FRICK and FRACK post themselves at the doors to the front parlor as SELINA, the PENGUIN and the GOONS fan out through the house. CAMERA TRACKS WITH THEM as they move past BRUCE -- -- and in a quick CLOSEUP we see his EYES OPEN -- his hands STRUGGLING against his bonds. SERIES OF SHOTS QUICK GLIMPSES of the intruders enacting their depredations as they search for the entrance to the cave. SELINA and the PENGUIN are flinging open doors, moving clocks, looking for secret panels; as they go, they systematically TEAR THE HOUSE APART -- smashing BRUCE's possessions, ripping paintings out of frames, etc. Meanwhile, the TWO GOONS are outside prowling around the grounds, looking for an exterior entrance -- and back in the parlor, FRICK and FRACK are keeping their guns trained on ALFRED and VICKI. INT. WAYNE MANOR - CORRIDOR OFF KITCHEN - NIGHT CAMERA TRACKS down a long, empty hallway -- arriving at a LOCKED DOOR with curtained-off glass panels. Suddenly, an ELBOW smashes through the glass -- a hand reaches inside and fumbles for the lock -- INT. FRONT PARLOR - THAT MOMENT FRICK and FRACK start at the sound of a SECURITY ALARM blaring from the kitchen. VICKI looks at ALFRED... FRICK Better check it out. FRICK stays behind as FRACK rushes out into the entryway and down a long hall to the kitchen. He tosses a glance back at VICKI and ALFRED, then steps out into the entryway himself. FRICK (cont.) What is it? What's going on?? VICKI and ALFRED look into the back parlor. DICK GRAYSON has sneaked in behind the sofa -- and he's busy sawing away at BRUCE's bonds with a letter opener. Both of them stiffen simultaneously -- if FRICK steps back inside, he'll have a clear view of DICK and BRUCE. INT. KITCHEN - THAT MOMENT FRACK has opened a panel on the kitchen wall, revealing the SECURITY SYSTEM from which the alarm emanates. A RED LIGHT is blinking, indicating DICK's break-in. FRACK throws switches frantically, trying to kill the sound. Finally he succeeds -- and SHOUTS: FRACK Some kind of security system -- INT. BACK PARLOR - THAT MOMENT DICK's gotten BRUCE free -- but BRUCE, still under the effects of the drug, isn't much use. He tries to get off the sofa and crumples in a heap. DICK Can you move, man? BRUCE Library -- got to get me to the library -- DICK slings an arm around BRUCE and drags him to a door opening onto the hallway. They're just about to step outside when FRACK comes marching back on his way from the kitchen. INT. FRONT PARLOR - ON VICKI AND ALFRED -- faces wracked with utter, desperate tension as they watch the situation develop. INT. ENTRY HALL - THAT MOMENT FRICK and FRACK conferring, ignoring VICKI and ALFRED for the moment. By now the PENGUIN is waddling in from a hallway: PENGUIN What is that ungodly racket? FRACK A security alarm. It went off in the kitchen. PENGUIN My God! Is someone in here? He struts over to huddle with his cronies. BRUCE and DICK are still poised in the doorway. It looks bad... INT. FRONT PARLOR - THAT MOMENT ALFRED looks at BRUCE and DICK -- then at FRICK and FRACK bickering with the PENGUIN in the entryway. He pats VICKI's knee -- gestures for her to keep her seat -- -- and LUNGES at FRICK, making a play for his gun. A moment of confusion ensues -- giving DICK and BRUCE just enough time to dart out into the hallway, duck around a corner, and vanish -- -- but ALFRED is a frail old gent, and he can't keep it up for long; a blow to the face sends him sprawling to the floor. FRICK instinctively pulls the trigger and SHOOTS HIM at point- blank range. VICKI rushes into the hallway -- screaming, crying. INT. LIBRARY - THAT MOMENT The room's a mess, books all over the floor. The groggy BRUCE props himself up against his desk. He manages to pull the bottom drawer open -- gropes frantically for the secret switch. He's CRYING. BRUCE Alfred... DICK I'll go back. BRUCE I can't...get down there...without you. DICK turns. To his amazement, the sectional bookcase is swinging open -- revealing the secret passage to the BATCAVE. INT. ENTRY HALL/FRONT PARLOR - THAT MOMENT We will all be pleased to know that ALFRED has only suffered a superficial wound to the arm. VICKI is on her knees beside him; the PENGUIN is watching them with utter contempt. PENGUIN What an extraordinarily stupid thing to do. VICKI SHUT UP. Help me with him. The PENGUIN rolls his eyes and orders FRICK and FRACK to give VICKI a hand without him. They carry him into the parlor, lay him out on the sofa. VICKI reaches into her purse for a handkerchief and begins binding his wound as the PENGUIN pulls FRACK aside. PENGUIN You and I had better check the ground floor and see what's going on. Mr. Frick -- do you think you'll be able to manage this pair? FRICK Yes sir. PENGUIN Oh, good. That does relieve my mind -- He turns, glances into the back parlor, and sees a pile of CUT CORDS on the love seat. The blood drains out of his face. PENGUIN (cont.) Where's Wayne??? INT. BATCAVE - THAT MOMENT DICK has just entered another world -- and he's looking around him in pure, unalloyed amazement. BRUCE is fumbling with a packet on a spare UTILITY BELT; he shakes out a fistful of pills and swallows them dry. Then he goes to his bank of monitors and begins flipping switches. They blink on one by one; DICK moves up behind BRUCE and looks on, dazzled. INSERT - MONITOR The screen shows The PENGUIN in a sun room, shouting to his two armed GOONS through a pair of French doors. PENGUIN Check the grounds! The shape he's in, he can't have gotten far. BACK TO SCENE - ON BRUCE He turns to his main control panel, reaches for a switch, and waits. EXT. WAYNE MANOR - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The two GOONS outside, with guns and flashlights, roaming cautiously around the grounds. They turn suddenly -- -- as CORRUGATED-STEEL SECURITY PANELS slam into place over every ground-floor door and window in Wayne Manor! INT. SUN ROOM - THAT MOMENT The PENGUIN sees the same thing happening, only from inside. He listens helplessly as his GOONS pound on the steel panels from outside. It's just occurred to him that he's trapped in here... INT. BATCAVE - A MOMENT LATER DICK is up on a catwalk leading back to the library of Wayne Manor. BRUCE shouts up to him from the control console down below. BRUCE -- as soon as he gets to the East wing. Wait for my signal. You know what to do. DICK nods yes and bolts off. INT. FRONT PARLOR - A MOMENT LATER VICKI and ALFRED are still sitting at gunpoint. With the commotion going on all around them, FRICK is getting itchy- fingered. Suddenly the STEREO begins blaring at top volwne -- "SANTA BRING MY BABY BACK TO ME." FRICK turns and stares at it in confusion -- goes over to fiddle with the controls -- -- and suddenly BRUCE'S VOICE is coming through the loudspeakers. BRUCE (O.S.; filter) VICKI! RUN! NOW! She's off the sofa like a shot, DIVING for the entry hall. FRICK turns and takes aim -- -- but before he can squeeze the trigger, DICK's come out of nowhere to HIGH-KICK him in the face! The shot goes wild and the two of them tumble into the Christmas tree, knocking it over... INT. ENTRY HALL - THAT MOMENT VICKI hits the floor of the entry hall. HUGE OAKEN SLIDING DOORS are already slamming shut behind her. The same thing is happening all down the hall -- the East wing of the house is sealing itself off! INT. FRONT PARLOR - THAT MOMENT DICK CARTWHEELS across the carpet -- catching FRICK high on the chest and RAMMING him backward, into the hearth. Before FRICK can regain his balance, DICK's BEANED HIM across the back of the skull with a fireplace poker. He bends and picks up FRICK's gun -- which he tosses to ALFRED, who's been watching all this with some fascination from the sofa. DICK Here. You might need it. ALFRED Thank you, Master Dick. And...bravo. INT. KITCHEN - THAT MOMENT VICKI has made it to the wall phone. She can't seem to get a dial tone -- VOICE FROM BEHIND Do you really think we're that stupid? VICKI turns, and realizes to her horror that the VOICE is SELINA's. SELINA (cont.) I tawt I taw a puddy tat...!! With that she raises a hand -- and her CLAWS pop out. VICKI turns, grabs a carving knife from a wooden block -- but before she can do anything with it, a WHIP cracks and wraps around her wrist, jerking the knife loose. SELINA tugs on the other end, reeling her closer. SELINA You know, I've got a great recipe for Sliced Bitch -- VICKI lunges forward suddenly, causing the whip to slacken and throwing SELINA off-balance into the center island. While they're tangled up, VICKI grabs a MEAT CLEAVER and tries to bring it down on SELINA, but SELINA rolls effortlessly out of the way and returns the favor, SWIPING at VICKI with her claws. VICKI brings a Calphalon skillet up just in time to block the blow: CLANG. VICKI sweeps her arm across the countertop, showering SELINA with knives and appliances. It buys her enough time to make for the door -- but SELINA comes flying after her. Another downswipe with the claws -- but VICKI shoves a BUTCHER'S BLOCK into SELINA's path, and her TALONS wedge a half-inch deep in the wood. VICKI rushes out while she's trying to pry herself loose. INT. DINING HALL - A MOMENT LATER SELINA enters but finds no trace of VICKI. SELINA I love a good old-fashioned catfight -- but this is pissing me off. VICKI charges out from behind a sideboard, pushing a WHEELED COCKTAIL CART before her. It SLAMS full-force into SELINA, who lands on her back on the great long dining table. VICKI is in the doorway to the entry hall by the time she gets up. INT. ENTRY HALL - STAIRWAY - A MOMENT LATER VICKI races up the stairs. She has a good lead, but SELINA makes up the difference in a hurry. She takes the stairway in three giant bounds -- reaches the landing just as VICKI ducks down the hall and into a bedroom, slamming the door behind her and LOCKING IT. SELINA HERE, kitty kitty kitty...HERE, kitty kitty... She KICKS THE DOOR OPEN. INT. BEDROOM - THAT MOMENT SELINA enters and strikes a coy pose as she shuts the door behind her. VICKI has opened a pair of French doors leading to a balcony, but it's too long a drop. She stands there paralyzed as SELINA advances. SELINA So this is where you earn your keep. She GRABS VICKI -- holds her out at arm's length and shoves her roughly back onto the bed. VICKI flails wildly as SELINA kneels atop her... SELINA's CLAWS shred VICKI's blouse, revealing a frilly section of bra -- SELINA Mmm! Frederick's of Gotham? She plants a talon against VICKI's sternum and RAKES IT DOWNWARD, drawing a RED STRIPE on the exposed flesh of VICKI's belly. Now VICKI just loses it. She begins to SHRIEK uncontrollably. SELINA Not so loud, honey! The neighbors'll get the wrong idea. (laughing) Santa's coming. Time for all good girls to go to sleep... She raises her claw-hand and prepares to slash down at VICKI's neck. But an instant before she can strike -- VICKI goes wide-eyed and shuts up. A BLACK SHADOW falls across the moonlit bed. SELINA tenses -- -- as a BLACK-GLOVED HAND grabs a fistful of her hair -- BATMAN Miss me, "Angel"? He yanks her bodily off the bed. Before she knows what's happening, he delivers a POWERHOUSE UPPERCUT. She flies into the door and knocks it cleanly off its hinges. INT. HALLWAY/STAIRCASE - A MOMENT LATER BATMAN steps out after SELINA, who's only now picking herself up. SELINA Okay -- let's do it, huh? You and me... all the way this time. She HISSES and jumps him. They grapple -- a quick flurry of fists -- and he knocks her ass-over-teakettle down the long stairway. She gets to her feet, limping, and darts around a corner. BATMAN marches implacably down the stairs, taking his time... INT. HALLWAY - A MOMENT LATER VICKI rushes out of the bedroom. She looks down the hall and sees FRACK flying out of the guest room, UPSIDE DOWN -- slamming into the wall opposite. He slumps to the carpet, out cold. A moment later DICK strolls out. VICKI rushes to his side -- VICKI Come on. We'll be safe in the cave. INT. DOWNSTAIRS HALLWAY/ARMORY - A MOMENT LATER BATMAN PAUSES outside the door to the armory, which is slightly ajar. He pushes it in cautiously... ...and a HALBERD smashes through the wood frame -- slicing down mere inches from his face. It's the PENGUIN wielding the ax; he backs off in seeming terror as BATMAN advances on him. But then -- -- SELINA springs down from a perch above the doors -- landing on his back -- and the two of them are going at it again. It's a room full of exotic weaponry, and most of it gets a good workout in the next thirty seconds. BATMAN dodges a LANCE -- which embeds itself into the wall behind him, QUIVERING -- and swings a MACE squarely into SELINA's ribs. It's a crippling blow; she flies backward, knocking over a suit of exotic armor -- which TOPPLES, knocking over another -- and another -- -- until the various suits of armor have all fallen over, domino-style -- the last of them landing squarely atop the cowering PENGUIN. SELINA is badly hurt now. She makes it out of a rear door to the armory. BATMAN pauses to check on the PENGUIN -- he seems to be out for the count -- and sets off in pursuit of SELINA. SEVERAL MOMENTS PASS before the groaning PENGUIN comes around enough to dig himself out. INT. HALLWAY - A MOMENT LATER As the PENGUIN stumbles around a corner, he peers into the LIBRARY. VICKI is crouched by BRUCE's desk, reaching into a bottom drawer. A hidden panel in the bookcase pops open... INT. LIBRARY - THAT MOMENT As she helps ALFRED into the secret passageway, VICKI turns to DICK: VICKI Come on. Come with us. DICK No. I can still help... INT. HALLWAY - A MOMENT LATER The PENGUIN flattens against the wall as DICK sprints out of the library and heads off in the opposite direction. There's a flabbergasted look on his face -- he recognizes this kid. WIPE TO: INT. BATCAVE - A MINUTE LATER At the monitor bank, watching BATMAN's pursuit of SELINA, are VICKI and ALFRED. They pivot suddenly at the sound of a VOICE: PENGUIN Such primitive entertainment. He's holding a gun on the two of them. He stares about delightedly, taking in the prehistoric splendor of the cave. His eyes light up at the sight of the BATMOBILE, parked on its little plateau. PENGUIN (cont.) So Bruce equals Batman. It seems I've discovered two treasures! (an evil smile) Don't move. I'd be only too happy to shoot you both. He pulls out his packet of photos and begins to scan the cave. He spots the distinctive ROCK FORMATION in an upper vault of the cavern. It's a couple of plateaus over; a long narrow CATWALK runs past it, some ten or twelve feet below. PENGUIN The Gotham City Treasury. It's about to be stolen twice. ALFRED Don't be absurd. You'll never be able to get it out of here. PENGUIN Oh, I'll manage somehow. You two are my guarantee of that. (nudging VICKI with the gun) Let's have a look, shall we? You go first. He shoves her. She starts across the catwalk, his gun at her head. INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - THAT MOMENT SELINA's made it back upstairs, but she's moving at quarter- speed, favoring one leg and clutching her ribs as she lopes down the hallway. She's just passed the balcony overlooking the entry hall when BATMAN appears dead ahead in her path. He's ready to rumble -- but instead of responding, she packs it in. She stops, slumps against a wall and begins to laugh. SELINA It could've been so nice -- you and me -- if only you weren't so screwed up. BATMAN It's over. I don't want to hurt you any more. SELINA Tell me something -- one thing. If you don't enjoy all this...why do you do it? He just looks at her. He doesn't have an especially good answer. She sighs. SELINA (cont.) I'll never understand men. She SPINS SUDDENLY, delivering a high-kick to BATMAN's throat. As he reels backward, into a wall, she leaps up onto the narrow BANNISTER RAILING some thirty feet above the entry hall floor and goes into a CROUCH -- preparing to SPRING at the enormous crystal CHANDELIER mounted to the ceiling -- -- but just as she launches off, BATMAN rolls -- and brings up a GUN from his belt. He fires a RAZOR-SHARP DISK which sails past her head, cleanly SLICING THROUGH the chain which suspends the chandelier. The chandelier FALLS just as CATWOMAN catches hold of it -- and she finds herself PLUMMETING to the floor of the entry hall. On impact, the chandelier EXPLODES into a thousand fragments; the CATWOMAN lands hard on her back and lies sprawled in the midst of the wreckage, unmoving. BATMAN advances slowly down the stairs. Her arms and legs jut out at unnatural angles; she lets out an eerie, whimpering YOWL OF PAIN -- a cri du chat. He stands over her; she glares up at him. BATMAN Nine lives. CATWOMAN I can't move. I can't move. Her face is cut and bleeding. She tries to lift an arm and can't quite manage it. He crouches down beside her, still cautious... CATWOMAN (cont.) DON'T LOOK AT ME!! (pleading) Do me, baby...do me now...that's what I want. Please? BATMAN looks up. DICK is standing on the balcony overlooking them, highly curious as to what he'll do. BATMAN No. BATMAN slowly rises to his feet. She lets out another gruesome WHINE. CATWOMAN COME ON. Don't stop now. FINISH ME OFF. (almost weeping with pain) Son of a bitch. You're all alike... Her STEEL CLAWS snick into place. With an agonizing effort she lifts her forearm -- bends her wrist. She's trying to slit her own throat. He reaches for his belt, extracts a GLASSINE CAPSULE, and breaks it open with his thumb. He drops it amid the shattered glass around her face. A tiny cloud of GREEN GAS plumes out, and her hand falls limply at her side as she lapses into unconsciousness. BATMAN stands over her for a minute as DICK marches down to join him. DICK You should've done it, man. You should've killed her. BATMAN gives him a long, hard look -- but says nothing. BATMAN There's a radio in the cave. We'll send for help. INT. BATCAVE - A MOMENT LATER The PENGUIN and VICKI are on a catwalk just below the ROCK FORMATION. A STONE OUTCROPPING extends toward the catwalk, and he forces her to JUMP FOR IT. Now he has to follow; the prospect makes him nervous, but it's a short hop, and he clears it okay -- finding his footing on the rocky slope. They're cautiously making their way up toward the ROCK FORMATION when BATMAN appears suddenly at the far end of the catwalk -- sizes up the situation and FREEZES IN HIS TRACKS. PENGUIN Ah, the illustrious Mr. Wayne. Look at you now. Whatever would your friends say? (smiling) You've been an exceptionally congenial host -- but I must ask you to back off. The PENGUIN grabs hold of VICKI and HOLDS HER CLOSE as they climb the last few feet toward the grotto. BATMAN swings his cape around, concealing his hands from view. He takes a cautious step backward. CLOSEUP - BATMAN'S HAND His free hand closes around a BATARANG -- flicks it open. ANGLE ON ROCKS - PENGUIN AND VICKI They've pulled almost even with the rock formation. A LARGE DANK GROTTO is visible through a small gap in the rocks. PENGUIN No sudden moves. It's a long way down. Gun at her head, he peers into the grotto... HIS POV - INSIDE THE GROTTO A VAST FORTUNE in GOLD and SILVER BULLION, undisturbed in all these years. GLINTING in the darkness. Hanging upside-down, above it, like silent guardians, are BATS -- DOZENS of them -- their tiny wet red eyes GLIMMERING at the PENGUIN... He dislodges a rock. It tumbles into the grotto... ...and a startled BAT comes screeching out of the gap in the rocks -- FLYING DIRECTLY AT HIS FACE. ANGLE ON ROCKS - PENGUIN AND VICKI He BACKS AWAY IN HORROR as the bat streaks past him. He FIRES HIS GUN wildly. The SOUND OF IT rouses MORE BATS, and they come flying out of the hole -- a VAST, CHITTERING SWARM. VICKI SHRIEKS; the PENGUIN STUMBLES -- and the two of them FALL BACK ONTO THE ROCKS, hanging on for dear life. BATMAN VICKI! An instant later BATMAN lets fly with the BATARANG. Clean hit; the PENGUIN staggers back, and his GUN skitters down across the rocks. With BATS screaming all around her, VICKI takes a deep breath and VAULTS toward the CATWALK. She's a foot short; she grabs hold of the railing and HANGS THERE, over the ABYSS, trying to pull herself up. BATMAN races toward her -- -- but the PENGUIN, clambering down across the rocky outcropping, has managed to grab hold of his GUN. The BATS have begun to swirl up toward the higher recesses of the cavern, and he's able to draw a clean bead on BATMAN. THUNDEROUS ECHOES reverberate through the cave as the first shot strikes BATMAN and knocks him backward. As the second spins him around. As the third sends him TOPPLING OVER THE RAILING. VICKI screams. BATMAN manages to grab the rail with one hand. Now two of them are hanging from the catwalk -- sitting ducks -- and the PENGUIN is determined to empty the clip. The ECHOES are cacophanous. ANCIENT STALACTITES drop from the vaulted roof of the cavern, PLUMMETING DOWNWARD like deadly projectiles, shattering agaist the cave floor. And then -- BATMAN pulls a tiny DEVICE from his utility belt and FLINGS IT. It lands in the rocks at the PENGUIN's feet. He stares down at it, and two beats later -- -- it begins to emit an EERIE ELECTRONIC WHINE. Within moments, EVERY BAT IN THE CAVE is in a FRENZY -- HOMING IN ON THE SIGNAL. The PENGUIN looks up sees them coming. A CHOKED WAIL emits from his throat as he drops the gun and stands there, PARALYZED. He's just been beaten at his own game. He lets out a last awful HOWL as HUNDREDS OF BATS ENGULF HIM -- -- and he PLUNGES DOWN INTO THE PIT -- his hideous scream dwindling to a faint echo, then vanishing altogether... BATMAN manages to drag himself up onto the catwalk. He rushes over to VICKI, pulls her up, drapes his cape around her protectively. Gradually, as the BATS recede to their distant perches, he stands and helps VICKI to her feet. They embrace on the edge of the abyss. On the far plateau, DICK has hooked up with ALFRED. The butler is slumped against a lab table, weary and exhausted, clutching his wounded arm. DICK slings an arm around him and helps him to the stairway. CUT TO: EXT. WAYNE MANOR - NIGHT SQUAD CARS everywhere. FRICK and FRACK emerge in handcuffs, flanked by COPS. PARAMEDICS carry the still-unconscious SELINA past on a stretcher and load her into the back of an ambulance. INT. WAYNE MANOR - ENTRY HALL - NIGHT The place is an utter mess. Amid the carnage we find BRUCE conferring with COMMISSIONER GORDON and LT. BULLOCK. In b.g., a POLICE DOCTOR is dressing ALFRED's gunshot wound. GORDON ...and then Batman showed up? BRUCE He saved all our lives, Jim. I can't say for sure, but I'd bet she's the one behind the murders. GORDON God -- I pray you're right. (beat) One thing before we go, Bruce. Who's the kid? BRUCE looks into the front parlor, where VICKI and DICK are righting the fallen Christmas tree. BRUCE Oh, that's Vicki's little cousin. He's in town for the holidays. GORDON Well, he picked a hell of a time to visit. (turning to go) Merry Christmas, Bruce. Good luck cleaning this place up. GORDON and BULLOCK file out, followed by the POLICE DOCTOR. BRUCE smiles wearily to himself and strolls into the front parlor. INT. FRONT PARLOR - NIGHT ALFRED loads 'SILENT NIGHT' on the CD. VICKI ambles up to BRUCE: VICKI What are you going to do with all that gold? BRUCE I dunno. Might be a good start on a place to live -- for some people who don't have one. She hugs him. DICK plugs in the Christmas-tree lights; they blink to life just as the GRANDFATHER CLOCK strikes twelve. VICKI It's Christmas. BRUCE Yeah. Maybe you should -- open your present. She runs a hand along his cheek and laughs softly. VICKI Oh, Bruce, presents doesn't matter. None of it matters. We're all safe. We're together. BRUCE ...You might as well. He digs around in his jacket pocket and produces a tiny GIFT BOX, which he hands to VICKI. She unwraps it, opens it slowly -- and sees a DIAMOND RING inside. She gazes up at him, speechless. He gazes back. CAMERA PULLS UP and away until we can see the whole of the devastated room, and all the people in it -- VICKI, falling into BRUCE's arms; DICK, off to one side, watching them; ALFRED, tossing broken furniture into a roaring fireplace. And on the image of this decidedly eccentric family unit, we FADE OUT. THE END 
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+BATMAN Screenplay by Sam Hamm Based on the Character Created by Bob Kane FIRST DRAFT October 20, 1986 FADE IN: EXT. CITYSCAPE - NIGHT The place is Gotham City. The time, 1987 -- once removed. The city of Tomorrow: stark angles, creeping shadows, dense, crowded, airless, a random tangle of steel and concrete, self-generating, almost subterranean in its aspect... as if hell had erupted through the sidewalks and kept on growing. A dangling fat moon shines overhead, ready to burst. EXT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT Amid the chrome and glass sits a dark and ornate Gothic anomaly: old City Cathedral, once grand, now abandoned -- long since boarded up and scheduled for demolition. On the rooftop far above us, STONE GARGOYLES gaze down from their shadowy, windswept perches, keeping monstrous watch over the distant streets below, sightless guardians of the Gotham night. One of them is moving. EXT. GOTHAM SQUARE - NIGHT The pulsing heart of downtown Gotham, a neon nightmare of big-city corruption, almost surreal in its oppressiveness. Hookers wave to drug dealers. Street hustlers slap high- fives with three-card monte dealers. They all seem to know each other... with one conspicuous exception: A TOURIST FAMILY, Mom, Dad, and little Jimmy, staring straight ahead as they march in perfect lockstep down the main drag. They've just come out of a bit show two blocks over; the respectable theatre crowd has thinned out, and now -- Playbills in hand -- they find themselves adrift in the predatory traffic of Gotham's meanest street. MOM For God's sake, Harold, can we please just get a taxi?? DAD I'm trying to get a -- (shouting) TAXI!! Three cabs streak pass and disappear. MOM grimaces in frustration as LITTLE JIMMY consults a subway map. JIMMY We're going the wrong way. Nearby, STREET TYPES are beginning to snicker. DAD surveys them nervously, gestures toward the subway map. DAD Put that away. We'll look like tourists. TWO COPS lean on their patrol car outside an all-night souvlaki stand, sipping coffee and chatting with a HOOKER. The HOOKER smiles at JIMMY. JIMMY smiles back. MOM yanks him off down the street and glowers at DAD. DAD (cont.) We'll never get a cab here. Let's cut over to Seventh. JIMMY Seventh is that way. DAD I know where we are! EXT. SIDE STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A deserted access street, sidewalks lined with the husks of stripped-down cars. MOM, DAD, and JIMMY take a deep breath and march down the darkened street. A VOICE startles them. VOICE Hey, mister. Gimme a dollar? The VOICE belongs to a DERELICT -- nineteen or twenty, acne-scarred -- who sits between two garbage cans, his palm uplifted. His ratty t-shirt reads: 'I LOVE GOTHAM CITY.' MOM, DAD, and JIMMY pause for the merest of seconds, then move on -- pretending not to hear. DERELICT Mister. How about it. One dollar? (standing up) One dollar, man. Are you deaf? Are you deaf? -- Do you speak English?? By now the TOURISTS are halfway across the street. Mercifully, the DERELICT doesn't seem to be following. They pick up their pace. They don't see the SHADOWY FIGURE in the alleyway. They don't see the GUN until a gloved hand brings it down, butt-first, across the back of DAD's neck. DAD crumples. MOM grabs JIMMY and backs up against a brick wall, too terrified to scream. The DERELICT races across the street to join his confederate, the STREET PUNK, who's already searching for DAD's wallet. MOM's mouth opens in panic. They can see she's about to snap -- so the STREET PUNK, still in a crouch, trains his gun on JIMMY. STREET PUNK Do the kid a favor, lady. Don't scream. The poor woman is utterly horrified. TEARS stream down her face. But she keeps her wits about her, stifles the urge to shriek, and hustles JIMMY off down the street. The two PUNKS watch them break into a run -- then chuckle, slap hands, race off in the opposite direction. EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT Six stories up. The PUNKS -- NICK and EDDIE -- hunker down on the tar-and-gravel roof, sizing up their take. NICK (emptying the wallet) All right. The Gold Card. (tossing the credit card in EDDIE's face) Don't leave home without it. A chill wind whips across the roof as NICK extracts the cash and begins to count it. There's a distant, indistinct CLANG: metal on metal. EDDIE hears it and tenses up. EDDIE Let's beat it, man. I don't like being up here. NICK What, scared of heights? EDDIE I dunno, man. After what happened to Johnny Gobs -- NICK Look, Johnny Gobs got ripped and walked off a roof, all right? No big loss. EDDIE That ain't what I heard. That ain't what I heard at all. (beat) I heard the bat got him. NICK Gimme a break, will you? Shut up... EDDIE Five stories, straight down. There was no blood in the body. NICK No shit. It was all over the pavement. NICK has no patience with campfire tales -- but here on the roof, in the pale moonlight, he can't ignore the slight tingle at the base of his spine... EDDIE There was no blood, man. (beat) My brother says... all the bad things you done... they come back and haunt you... NICK Listen to this. How old are you? There ain't no bat. EDDIE My brother's a priest, man. NICK No wonder you're such a chickenshit. Now shut up. (conclusively) There ain't no bat. As they speak our attention shifts to a point at the opposite corner of the roof, some fifteen yards away... where, at the end of a line, a STRANGE BLACK SILHOUETTE is dropping slowly, implacably, into frame... EDDIE You shouldn'ta turned the gun on that kid, man. You shouldn'ta -- NICK Do you want this money or don't you? Now shut up! Shut up -- BOTH PUNKS FREEZE at the sudden, inexplicable sound of BOOTS CRUNCHING ON GRAVEL. They turn slowly. Their JAWS DROP. Standing at the edge of the roof, bathed in moonlight, is a BLACK APPARITION. IT DOES NOT MOVE. EDDIE stands rooted to the spot, a choked gurgle in his throat, as if he's just seen his own death. The BLACK FIGURE advances, spreading its arms. Or rather, its WINGS: GREAT BLACK BATWINGS, flapping in the wind. NICK drops to the gravel, gropes for the gun, brings it up. And still the BLACK FIGURE draws closer, deliberate, menacing. On its chest: THE EMBLEM OF A BAT, in an oval yellow field, glowing like a target in the darkness... NICK FIRES TWICE. TWO CLEAN HITS. The strange black figure is knocked bodily to the roof. Trembling, sweating buckets, NICK gets to his feet. He whacks a motionless EDDIE on the arm -- NICK (cont.) I'm gettin' outta here. -- and bends to retrieve his loot. EDDIE lets out a strange, pre-verbal squeal... ... and NICK sees THE HUMAN BAT, BACK ON ITS FEET, NIGHTMARISH, UNDEAD, MOVING SLOWLY AND INEVITABLY CLOSER. Panic. Sheer, raw, unrelenting panic. Stolen money flutters out of NICK's hands. He scuttles around the periphery of the roof, his feet skidding on the gravel as he searches for a way down. The BLACK SPECTRE is blocking his path to the fire escape. Trapped like a rat, NICK FIRES WILDLY. EDDIE is frozen in place, his eyes glazed over, his face drained of blood. The BAT treads calmly past. A LEG snakes out. A BLACK BOOT catches EDDIE high on the chest -- -- LIFTS HIM CLEANLY OFF HIS FEET -- -- AND SENDS HIM FLYING THROUGH THE AIR. EDDIE slams into a brick chimney and slumps to the roof unconscious, a broken, weightless puppet. THIS ACTION IS SO SMOOTH, SO AUTOMATIC, THAT THE BAT DOES NOT EVEN BREAK HIS STRIDE. NICK sees his chance and CHARGES past the black wraith, scrambling toward the fire escape... A GLOVED HAND slices through the air, and NICK pitches forward, his legs ensnared in a tangle of WIRES. Screaming now, he drags himself across the gravel roof, the looming figure of the BAT at his heels... ... until there's no place left to go. NICK cowers against the ledge, his pants torn, his hands and knees bloody. He has dissolved into total mindless hysteria. Almost by reflex, NICK keeps shooting. He'd do better if he could manage to open his eyes. By now the hammer is falling on an empty chamber, but NICK continues, obsessively, to pull the trigger. He weeps; he moans; he wails... THE BAT grabs a fistful of NICK's shirt, and with supernatural ease HOISTS HIM into the air. NICK (cont.) Don't kill me... don't kill me... When NICK finally opens his eyes, he realizes THE BAT is standing on the ledge of the roof -- HOLDING HIM OUT, at arm's length, over six stories of nothingness. The gruesome black apparition speaks, in a rasping whisper: BATMAN I won't kill you. I want you to do me a favor. NICK looks down. Far, far below, CARS wink silently past. He looks up. And sees, in the mirrored lenses where BATMAN's eyes should be, the twin reflections of his own stricken face. BATMAN (cont.) Tell your friends. Tell all your friends. NICK HOWLS. Almost as an afterthought, THE BATMAN heaves him roughly back onto the roof. And then -- casually, without a moment's hesitation -- STEPS OFF THE LEDGE OF THE ROOF, INTO MIDAIR. Trembling, NICK crawls to the ledge and looks over... finding ABSOLUTELY NO TRACE of the Batman. NICK is still screaming as we PAN UP to the bilious yellow globe of Gotham's moon. MAIN CREDITS ROLL: BATMAN CUT TO: INT. GOTHAM CITY DEMOCRATS' CLUB - NIGHT An oversized CAMPAIGN POSTER fills one wall: "A NEW GOTHAM. HARVEY DENT FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY". We TILT DOWN to find the man himself, determined, dynamic HARVEY DENT, addressing a crowd from behind his podium. DENT ... it is no longer enough to go after the small-time punks and petty criminals who infest the streets of Gotham City. Crime and corruption must be attacked at the root! ANOTHER ANGLE - THE AUDIENCE Civic-minded politicos decked out in fund-raiser finery. They applaud DENT's tough talk wildly. They've just shelled out $500 a plate for a chicken dinner, and by God they're going to enjoy this. Tuxedoed WAITERS move among the tables, deftly refilling water glasses. As they do, we SEE an EMPTY PLACE SETTING -- the only one in the hall. Some well-meaning moneybags has laid out half a grand and then neglected to show up. The engraved placecard reads: BRUCE WAYNE. ANGLE ON DENT DENT If elected, my first act as district attorney will be to return an indictment against Boss Carl Grissom! CUT TO: INT. APARTMENT - NIGHT A woman's apartment, decorated in pastel pinks and mauves. Original paintings and sculptures everywhere. The place reeks of money. In the foreground: a MAN'S HAND, long, elegant, manicured. Manipulating a DECK OF CARDS, doing a one-handed shuffle with extraordinary finesse. In the background: a TV set tuned to the 11 o'clock news, with highlights of HARVEY DENT's campaign speech. DENT (on the TV screen) Together we can make Gotham city a safe place for decent people to live and work and play. THE HAND sets the deck on an end table, raps it twice, turns up four aces off the top. This most unusual deck sports a .22 calibre BULLET HOLE straight through the middle. JACK NAPIER Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be much happier someplace else. JACK NAPIER, 32, is right-hand man and chief enforcer to Boss Carl Grissom. His features are delicate, almost feminine, and he takes a vain, gangsterish pride in his appearance. He is also absolutely merciless. He trains a cold eye on DENT's televised image as ALICIA HUNT -- 26, beautiful, Carl Grissom's kept woman -- glides over in her negligee and snuggles up. ALICIA Anything new? JACK The usual gas. If this clown could lay a hand on Grissom... I would've had to kill him by now. ALICIA finds JACK's necktie draped over a nearby chair. She begins knotting it playfully about his neck. ALICIA If Grissom knew about us... he might kill you. JACK seems uninterested in her affections. His eye darts back and forth between the TV and his own reflection in a nearby vanity. JACK Don't think so, angel. I'm too valuable. That's the way I've planned it. (pause) And besides, he doesn't know. JACK checks his watch, reaches for his topcoat, and stands in front of the vanity. He runs a hand through sculpted hair, checks out his Albert Nipon ensemble. ALICIA You look just fine, Jack. He smiles at himself before turning to the door. JACK ... I didn't ask. CUT TO: EXT. ALLEYWAY - NIGHT The scene of the earlier mugging, a half-block off Gotham Square. Only now, the deserted alleyway is a beehive of activity: police cars, an ambulance, a forensics van. EDDIE THE PUNK goes past on a stretcher, catatonic. Watching him are a porcine cop, LT. ECKHARDT, and a POLICE MEDIC. MEDIC That one there won't say a word. The other one's raving his head off. ECKHARDT Variety, huh? The spice of life. At the mouth of the alley, we find ALEXANDER KNOX -- thirty, hyperactive, a crime reporter for the Gotham Gazette. At the moment, he's chatting with a uniformed PATROLMAN. PATROLMAN They found him hugging a drainpipe. He was scared to come off the roof. KNOX Great, but tell me: is this another you-know-what? 'Cause if so, it's the third one this week. PATROLMAN (testily) I dunno. What's "what"? KNOX Good answer. I'm gonna put you in for a commendation. KNOX spots ECKHARDT and the MEDIC, waves cheerily, and saunters down the alley. ECKHARDT curses under his breath. ECKHARDT Oh Christ, it's Knox. KNOX Hiya, gents. This anything I should know about? ECKHARDT Nothing out of the routine. At this exact moment two uniformed PATROLMEN drag a brain- fried NICK past the mouth of the alley. NICK A bat, I tell you, a giant bat! He wanted me to do him a favor...! KNOX tilts one eyebrow. ECKHARDT and the MEDIC trade disgusted looks. KNOX No offense, boys, but these guys are seeing something up there. ECKHARDT No comment. Print what you like. KNOX Come on. One question. Is there a six-foot bat in Gotham City? KNOX's tone is jokey, but only half-jokey. ECKHARDT snorts in disgust and turns away. KNOX shouts after him: KNOX (cont.) If so, is he on the police payroll? If so, what's he pulling down after taxes? EXT. STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT We pick up LT. ECKHARDT as he emerges onto the side street. He's headed for his car when he spies a STRETCH LIMO idling across the street. Leaning on the hood, waving hi, is the dandyish JACK NAPIER -- flanked by two impressive GOONS. ECKHARDT throws a nervous glance back in KNOX's direction. He turns left, gestures to JACK to meet him farther up the block. By the time he reaches the corner JACK has swaggered up alongside him. ECKHARDT takes a fat brown envelope from JACK and stuffs it quickly in his coat. JACK You didn't show up. ECKHARDT We had another bat sighting. JACK I'm sure that was vitally important. Listen: things are heating up. Someone is leaking information to Harvey Dent. ECKHARDT bristles. There's no love lost between these two. ECKHARDT I'm doing the best I can. If it's a problem -- JACK Eckhardt... our problems are your problems. ECKHARDT I'll work on it. JACK reaches out and grabs ECKHARDT by the lapels of his topcoat -- an Italian job, obviously expensive. He rubs the material between his fingers. JACK Very nice, Lieutenant. But a little ostentatious on a cop's salary, don't you think? ECKHARDT (knocking his hands away) I answer to Grissom, punk. Not to you. JACK You're a smart boy, Eckhardt. You should be thinking about the future. ECKHARDT laughs in his face. ECKHARDT Ambition. (nodding his head) Forget it, Jack. You'll never run that organization. JACK And why's that? ECKHARDT You're a psycho, friend. You're an A-one crazy boy and Grissom knows it. JACK lashes out and BACKHANDS ECKHARDT across the face. The fat cop, stunned, turns bright red and CHARGES JACK. JACK claps a hand on ECKHARDT's face and shoves him back full-force. The cop sprawls on his ass in the doorway of an all-night Cuban-Chinese restaurant. By now PATRONS are staring out of the restaurant windows. ECKHARDT is livid. His hand goes instinctively to his gun. JACK Here. Use mine. JACK pulls an automatic from his pocket and tosses it in ECKHARDT's lap. He looks down and laughs, daring ECKHARDT to pick it up -- just as the two enormous GOONS from the stretch limo appear behind him for reinforcement. ECKHARDT wipes blood from his mouth as JACK -- an A-one crazy-boy grin on his face -- reaches down for the gun. JACK (cont.) It's all right, boys. Lt. Eckhardt here is a good cop. A real good cop. (pause; smiling) Inexpensive. DISSOLVE TO: INT. GOTHAM GLOBE - CITY ROOM - DAY Gotham city's leading tabloid daily. COPY BOYS rush to and fro; REPORTERS pound out articles on computer terminals. ALEXANDER KNOX saunters in, a sheath of typed pages in his hand, and pauses at a CARTOONIST's drawing table. KNOX What have you got for me, Jerry? JERRY holds up a cartoon: a HUMAN BAT, with an awful, fanged rodent's face, wearing a business suit. The caption at the top reads: "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?" KNOX nods in approval. KNOX (cont.) Nice, but... maybe a little more gore on the fangs, huh? He pats JERRY on the shoulder, moves on. A BESPECTACLED COLLEAGUE spots him and calls out: COLLEAGUE Hey Knox, you got a visitor. KNOX I'm real busy, Clark. Be a pal and dust him, okay? COLLEAGUE This one you might want to dust yourself. Curiosity piqued, KNOX moves toward his desk... and stops in his tracks. Propped up on the desk are a PAIR OF LEGS. The legs -- exceptionally nice ones -- are attached to a WOMAN leaning back in KNOX's swivel chair, taking a nap, her face obscured by a big outrageous hat. KNOX ... Vicki Vale. The hat tips back. VICKI VALE, her face framed by a shock of bright red hair, flashes a dazzling smile. She pulls KNOX over for a quick smooch and laughs. VICKI How'd you know it was me? KNOX Honey -- I would know any randomly selected square inch of Vicki Vale. (grinning) If I had a good enough hint. He points at the oversized CAMERA BAG on his desk. It bears the monogram "V.V." VICKI catches on, makes a face at him. KNOX (cont.) Where the hell have you been? VICKI A nice, restful vacation. She reaches into the camera bag and pulls out a stack of glossy 8x10's: COMBAT PHOTOS from some unspecified war-torn corner of the world. KNOX leafs though them, impressed. KNOX God, a girl could get hurt doing this. VICKI I do get hurt. She unbuttons her sleeve, rolls it back to show KNOX a long fresh scar on the inside of her arm. He winces -- then points to the scar and adds, slyly: KNOX Got any more of those? VICKI Nothing I'm at liberty to reveal here. What's new and hot in Gotham City? KNOX It's too good, Vick. We got a six- foot bat that swoops out of the night and preys on evildoers. VICKI (laughing) Evildoers, huh? Big or small? KNOX Small so far. I mean -- they don't allow bats in boardrooms, do they. VICKI Speaking of which... I hear the notorious Bruce Wayne is throwing a big do for the Harvey Dent campaign. KNOX Yeah. Hottest ticket in town. Every law'n'order freak in the city's gonna be there. KNOX suddenly freezes. It's just occurred to him that VICKI may have a purpose in all this. KNOX (cont.) Wa-a-it. Vicki. You're not saying -- She reaches back into her camera bag and hands over an INVITATION. KNOX is all but panting with excitement. KNOX (cont.) Aw, Vicki. Vicki! (apprehensively) Got a date? She flutters her great big eyelashes, shakes her head no. KNOX grabs her face and plants a kiss on her forehead, nearly knocking her out of the swivel chair. KNOX (cont.) Vicki, baby, I love you, I've always loved you. Will you marry me? VICKI (straightening her clothes) No. KNOX Well, I'm starving. Will you at least buy me a hamburger? VICKI Yes, but please -- be gentle. Overwhelmed with glee, he offers her his arm. CUT TO: INT. PENTHOUSE - DAY A HUGE PLATE GLASS WINDOW opens on the best view in Gotham. This spectacular penthouse suite is just one of the power perks available to CARL GRISSOM, kingpin of the Gotham City rackets, fat, fifty, and utterly without charm. GRISSOM, behind a big broad desk, addresses his LIEUTENANTS -- a fearsome assemblage of bloodless white-collar types and few outright goons, sprawled in chairs throughout this makeshift 'boardroom.' The big boss waves a copy of the Gotham Globe -- with HARVEY DENT's face on the cover. GRISSOM Nine points ahead in the new poll. I don't like the way this is shaping up. JACK NAPIER slouches in an easy chair off to GRISSOM's right, doing his trademark one-handed shuffle. JACK We can always pop him. -- Or pop someone close to him. LIEUTENANT Let's feed him to the bat. This suggestion draws CHUCKLES from several members of the crowd. GRISSOM is unamused. GRISSOM He's going after our front companies. Specifically Ace Chemical. Which would tie us in with Councilman Kane, Senator Miller... on up the line. (pause) We have to clean out our files before the subpoena comes down. LIEUTENANT How do we go? The usual fire? GRISSOM I'm thinking break-in. Trash the office, remove the relevant documents... JACK "Industrial espionage." GRISSOM That's right. And Jack -- (pause) I'd like you to handle this operation personally. JACK has just turned up the third ace off the top of the deck. His hand freezes in midair. JACK ... Me? At this exact moment, METAL DOORS slide back -- and ALICIA HUNT steps out of GRISSOM's private penthouse elevator. She's carrying a handful of SHOPPING BAGS. GRISSOM Hello, sweetheart. I wonder if you'd mind waiting in the other room. ALICIA's gaze meets JACK's as she vanishes through a side door. The eye contact is not lost on GRISSOM. JACK Why do you need me to handle a simple break-in? GRISSOM (emphatically) Because I want someone I can trust. JACK bridles, but doesn't protest. Nervously, he turns the fourth card off the top of the deck. It's not an ace. It's a JOKER -- a Joker with a neat, round, .22 calibre HOLE through its face. GRISSOM (cont.) We'll work out the details later. But it's got to be soon. -- All right, that's all for now. GRISSOM'S CRONIES get up to go. JACK, troubled, lingers behind a moment. GRISSOM (cont.) You don't mind, do you Jack? It's an important job. I can't trust it to somebody who'll screw up. JACK I understand. GRISSOM (smiling) Jack. Don't forget your lucky deck. JACK pockets the deck and leaves. GRISSOM sits behind the big desk and GRINS WOLFISHLY. GRISSOM (cont.) My friend, your luck is just about to change. He reaches for the phone. ALICIA appears in the doorway nearby, modeling her new purchases for him. He smiles coolly at her as he speaks into the receiver. GRISSOM (cont.) Get me Lieutenant Eckhardt. CUT TO: EXT. WAYNE MANOR - ESTABLISHING - NIGHT A vast, rambling mansion on sixty wooded acres a half- hour's drive from Gotham: old money, and how. Out front, a team of red-jacketed VALETS are parking expensive cars. INT. BALLROOM - NIGHT A DEALER'S HAND pushes cards out of a shoe (the card kind, not the Florsheim kind). It's casino night at Wayne Manor; the ballroom has been outfitted with roulette wheels, blackjack tables, etc., and the various members of Gotham's power elite are happily -- and legally -- throwing money into Harvey Dent's campaign kitty. DENT himself is surrounded by a gang of political cronies, telling jokes, calling in favors. VICKI's off in another group, looking luscious, drawing compliments from big shots and envious, furtive glances from their wives. And, in a corner of the room, all alone in his cheap suit, stands ALEXANDER KNOX -- staring inquisitively up at the ceiling. A butler, ALFRED, appears alongside KNOX with a trayful of champagne glasses. He too looks up at the ceiling. KNOX How high up would you say that is? ALFRED I'd say about thirty feet, sir. KNOX You know, if you cut your bathroom in half, you'd have my apartment. ALFRED Which bathroom is that, air? KNOX The small one. KNOX takes a drink and ALFRED moves on. A moment later, VICKI detaches herself from her little circle of admirers and hooks up with KNOX. KNOX (cont.) Man, I feel like Robin Leach. You actually know all these people? VICKI Some. I am a rich bitch, remember. (pause) I'm quoting. KNOX winces at the reminder. She smiles and takes his arm. KNOX Yeah, I guess we move in different circles. -- Though I did meet a one-eyed pimp last week. ANGLE ON JAMES W. GORDON Gotham's Police Commissioner, a distinguished-looking gent in his late fifties. He's at a craps table, blowing into his fist. ONLOOKERS root him on as he lets the dice fly. Snake eyes. Crapped out. GORDON passes the dice as KNOX and VICKI wander up alongside him. KNOX Commissioner Gordon! What do you hear from our pointy-eared friend? KNOX puts his hands up behind his head and wiggles his fingers -- like little bat ears. GORDON groans. GORDON Knox, for the ninth time, and you can quote me -- there is no bat. KNOX Aww, Commissioner. There's gotta be one honest cop in Gotham city. HARVEY DENT is working the room. He ambles up, claps a friendly hand on GORDON's shoulder. DENT How's your luck, Jim? KNOX Mr. Dent. What's your stand on winged vigilantes? DENT exchanges a meaningful look with GORDON. DENT Mr. Knox, I think we have enough real problems in this city without worrying about ghosts and goblins and Halloween characters. CUT TO: EXT. ACE CHEMICAL CO. ESTABLISHING - NIGHT A NEON SIGN reads: "ACE CHEMICAL. FOR A MODERN TOMORROW." From the SIGN we pan over to a METAL SLUICE GATE -- dumping TONS of CHURNING TOXIC SLUDGE into Gotham's East River. INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT TIGHT ON the rear-view mirror. JACK NAPIER is meticulously applying BLACK CAMOUFLAGE PAINT to his face. He could be getting ready for a date. The van is parked outside a chain-link fence which surrounds the Ace Chemical complex. JACK'S POV - THROUGH WINDSHIELD The SECURITY GUARD in a glass booth at the entrance to the parking lot. ONE OF JACK'S BOYS creeps up behind the booth and takes the GUARD out. INT. VAN - ON JACK He turns the key in the ignition, shifts into first. CUT TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - NIGHT KNOX and VICKI are taking an unauthorized tour of BRUCE's house, wandering through rooms decorated in wildly divergent motifs, eyeing an astounding collection of artworks and antiques from every corner of the world. KNOX My question is, where does one man get all this junk. VICKI All over the world. They say he spends most of the year overseas -- until recently, anyway. KNOX Holy shit... KNOX goes goggle-eyed as they enter the LIBRARY. INT. BRUCE WAYNE'S LIBRARY - NIGHT KNOX (cont.) ... We found the arsenal. One wall is lined to the ceiling with leather-bound volumes. On the other walls hang EXOTIC WEAPONS. Halberds. Maces. Blowguns. Bolas. Thugee ropes and samurai swords... every arcane implement of death the human mind has ever devised. KNOX lets out a low whistle. KNOX (cont.) This guy has just gotten interesting. What else do you know? VICKI Just what I've heard. Rich. Reclusive. Old money and lots of it. KNOX Likes to kill? VICKI (smiling) Women find him magnetic. KNOX I bet they like him for his big charity balls. VICKI That, and the sweet smell of two hundred million bucks. KNOX Well, you know me. The more they've got, the less they're worth. (scanning the room) This guy must be the most worthless man in America. Just then, A VOICE FROM BEHIND intrudes. BRUCE WAYNE You disappoint me. Why not the world? KNOX turns. We get our first good look at the smiling face of BRUCE WAYNE: 32, tall, athletic, impeccably mannered... and intensely handsome. KNOX I assume in my usual charming manner I've just insulted the host. (extending a hand) Alexander Knox. BRUCE Bruce Wayne. -- I've read your work. I quite like it. KNOX Great. Give me a grant. BRUCE I might consider it if you introduce me to Miss Vale. KNOX blinks at VICKI. BRUCE already seems to know who she is. KNOX shrugs and forges bravely ahead: KNOX "This is Miss Vale." -- That felt redundant. BRUCE (to VICKI) You're just back from Corto Maltese. I saw your combat photos. Quite a departure for you. VICKI That's intriguing. They haven't been published yet. BRUCE smiles and ignores the implied question. BRUCE ... You have an extraordinary eye. He's laying on the charm now. KNOX, his territorial instincts aroused, pipes up: KNOX Some people think she has two. VICKI shoots KNOX a sidelong glance: VICKI Don't mind my friend. He's a little nervous tonight. KNOX, chastened, calls off the dogs and sizes up his competition. BRUCE is charming, all right, but there's something formal, maybe even calculating about it -- he could be reading his clever remarks off cue cards. It's almost as though he's an actor doing a brilliant imitation of charm. This is a man who thinks three moves ahead. KNOX doesn't like him. But VICKI -- who's used to seeing male charm turned on and off, at will -- doesn't seem to mind at all: VICKI (cont.) This is an amazing house. I'd love to shoot it sometime. BRUCE I don't... seek publicity. -- Will you be staying in Gotham for a while? VICKI As far as I know. BRUCE Good. Then with any luck we'll run into each other. Suddenly ALFRED, the butler, appears in the doorway behind them. He clears his throat. BRUCE turns. ALFRED Excuse me, sir. Commissioner Gordon was compelled to leave -- very unexpectedly. He asked me to convey his regrets. BRUCE Thank you, Alfred. (to VICKI) I hope you'll excuse me. It was a great pleasure meeting you. (to KNOX) And you. Without bothering to shake hands BRUCE does a sharp 180 and strides hurriedly out of the room. KNOX I know the rich are different, but that guy is real different. VICKI, staring off after BRUCE, doesn't seem to hear him. KNOX (cont.) Hello? Vicki? VICKI Oh. Sorry. I was thinking. KNOX What were you thinking? VICKI Yum, yum. KNOX Well, he must like the way he looks. He's got a mirror in every room. And indeed, the two of them are standing before an enormous WALL MIRROR, eight feet wide, running from floor to ceiling. VICKI I get it. Bruce Vain. She pokes KNOX. He groans at the dumb pun. And suddenly we CUT TO: REVERSE ANGLE - THROUGH THE MIRROR looking DOWN ON KNOX and VICKI -- THROUGH ONE-WAY GLASS -- as they continue to chat. Behind the mirror... recording everything that happens in the room... is a small, silent, state-of-the-art SURVEILLANCE CAMERA. CLOSEUP - VIDEO MONITOR showing KNOX and VICKI in the library. CAMERA PULLS BACK to reveal that the screen we're watching is only one in a whole vast bank of video monitors. From this control center, we can see everything that's happening in the house. Now we ZERO IN on a single screen: GUESTS moving backward, with exaggerated speed, as a videotape REWINDS. At the panel, BRUCE WAYNE hits a button. And now we see COMMISSIONER GORDON talking to a uniformed POLICEMAN. PATROLMAN ... anonymous tip. Tonight. The Ace Chemical Company. GORDON (obviously agitated) Good Lord, it we could put our hands on Jack Napier... Why wasn't I told about this? Who's in charge of the -- PATROLMAN Lt. Eckhardt, sir. GORDON Eckhardt. Oh my God... And suddenly COMMISSIONER GORDON is grabbing for his coat. The monitor goes black. BRUCE reaches up, loosens his tie. CUT TO: EXT. ACE CHEMICAL CO. - PARKING LOT - NIGHT UNMARKED POLICE CARS are pulling into the lot, headlights off. ECKHARDT circulates among his ARMED SWAT TEAM, handing out xeroxed copies of a PHOTOGRAPH. The PHOTOGRAPH is a full-face shot of JACK NAPIER. ECKHARDT Shoot to kill. INT. ACE CHEMICAL - FILE ROOM - NIGHT SPARKS FLY. A SAFECRACKER, in welder's mask, trains a blowtorch on the office safe. Behind him, JACK'S HOODS are at work on the filing cabinets. The SAFECRACKER kills his blowtorch and opens the metal door of the safe, giving JACK a good look at its contents: SAFECRACKER ... Empty. HOOD I Just like the file cabinets. HOOD II I don't get it. If this place is cleaned out already, what do we need five men? JACK shakes his head. His boys are antsy, ready to mutiny. By now it's depressingly obvious: they've been set up. Then, as if they needed any proof -- a SIREN blares outside. EXT. ACE CHEMICAL - NIGHT ECKHARDT'S SWAT TEAM goes wide-eyed as a CONVOY OF POLICE BLACK-AND-WHITES roars into the Ace parking lot. UNIFORMED COPS pile out of their squad cars, relieving the SWAT TEAM. ECKHARDT goes livid as COMMISSIONER GORDON approaches. ECKHARDT What are you trying to do, blow the collar? GORDON (to SWAT TEAM) You men are dismissed. We'll take over from here. (to UNIFORMED COPS) Any man who opens fire on Jack Napier... will answer to me. ECKHARDT tries to slink off. GORDON grabs him roughly. GORDON (cont.) You. Stick around. INT. ACE CHEMICAL - THAT MOMENT JACK and his HOODS ducking out of the office. It's two stories above the refinery floor, accessible by a network of steel ladders and CATWALKS running between the walls. Down below, a CORRUGATED METAL DOOR begins to rise. COP Freeze! One hood goes into a crouch and OPENS FIRE. Half of his colleagues dive back into the office, looking for a rear exit. The others take off across the CATWALKS. ANGLE ON GORDON standing in the doorway as his MEN rush into the building and take their places behind heavy machinery. SHOTS RING OUT as the HOODS scatter. ECKHARDT (snidely) Nice work, Commissioner. GORDON I'm in charge here. Not Carl Grissom. INT. HALLWAY - THAT MOMENT TWO HOODS run down a tiled corridor in the office section of the complex. They're almost at the end of the hall when a CAPED BLACK SHADOW steps into their path. It stands there, motionless. EXTENDS ITS ARMS -- like giant WINGS -- revealing the yellow-and-black insigne on its massive chest. BATMAN. One millisecond later, the shocked HOODS are racing back in the opposite direction. THE BATMAN flings a handful of STEEL BALL-BEARINGS across the tiled floor. HOOD I tumbles to the floor and lands hard, losing his breath. HOOD II rolls and pulls a GUN. BATMAN hurls a BOOMERANG -- its edges scalloped, like a bat's wing. HOOD II finds his gun hand PINNED TO THE WALL by the twin prongs of the BATARANG. THE BATMAN strides briskly toward them, businesslike, taking his time. He grabs a handful of HOOD I's hair, lifts his head off the floor, KNEES HIM IN THE FACE. He turns to the petrified HOOD II. CHROME-STEEL TALONS spring out of his fingertips. He strolls past HOOD II, reaching out casually to give him a QUICK NICK on the chin. HOOD II slumps against the wall, unconscious. ANGLE ON JACK down on the floor, racing along a wall, THROWING SWITCHES -- anything to create a diversion. With every switch he throws, ANOTHER GIGANTIC MACHINE roars to life. CENTRIFUGES SPIN. HUGE POLYMER EXTRUDERS spit out thick strands of plastic gunk. OVERHEAD CHEMICAL TANKS rotate into place over giant basins. JACK SEES a squad of COPS on his tail, moving from machine to machine, keeping covered. He SHOOTS AND RUNS. ANGLE ON CATWALKS BLASTING AWAY, HOODS III and IV scuttle across the elevated walkways, keeping down, avoiding police fire. One of them starts up a vertical ladder leading to the next catwalk up. BATMAN plunges past on the end of a rope. A BLACK-GLOVED HAND snatches at HOOD III's collar as he climbs and YANKS HIM CLEANLY OFF THE LADDER. They drop to the lower catwalk. HOOD IV gapes. He LEVELS HIS GUN at BATMAN, who stands his ground, holding onto the rails of the catwalk for support. A bullet hits him squarely in the chest. He does not fall. HOOD IV turns and scrambles. BATMAN goes to his belt for a miniature SPEAR GUN. He points it at HOOD IV and FIRES... planting a BARBED HOOK in the HOOD'S LEG. ANGLE ON COPS staring up in utter disbelief at the action on the catwalk. COP LOOK! GORDON My God... it's him. ANGLE ON CATWALK HOOD III, on his feet now, charges BATMAN from behind. BATMAN -- not even turning to face him -- DROPS HOOD III with an ELBOW. Now he has a HOOD on either side. He takes a STEEL BILLY CLUB from his belt, whips it once through the air. It telescopes out into a FOUR-FOOT STAFF. Like a drum majorette from hell, he WHIRLS THE STAFF as the HOODS CONVERGE on him. HOOD III takes a debilitating JAB UNDER THE JAW. BATMAN SPINS on his heels and SLAMS THE STAFF into HOOD IV's BACK -- knocking him OFF THE CATWALK to the factory floor forty feet below! INT. ACE LOADING BAY - THAT MOMENT JACK spots a possible out. He hits a button on the wall; STEEL DOORS RISE to reveal ACE CARGO TRUCKS in the parking lot outside. Beyond the trucks... AN ARMY OF COPS waiting for JACK to make his move. No go. He turns. Behind him, other cops -- the inside team -- are rushing at him in full riot gear. JACK ducks behind a forklift and darts into the adjacent room. INT. CHEMICAL SUPPLY ROOM - A MOMENT LATER JACK sprints through the room, firing FOUR SHOTS at the metal CHEMICAL TANKS on the wall. TOXIC CHEMICALS gush out onto the floor in streams. The streams run together... begin to SMOKE and SIZZLE. COPS RIGHT BEHIND HIM. JACK can't resist taking one last pot-shot at a FIFTH CHEMICAL TANK. AN EXPLOSION knocks him off his feet. INT. FACTORY FLOOR - A MOMENT LATER COPS LOOK ON IN PUZZLEMENT as a RIVER OF CHEMICALS courses out into the main refinery. A second later, they go UP IN FLAMES. A WALL OF FIRE bisects the factory floor. JACK RACES ALONG behind the spreading wall of flame. The cops can't see him now. He ducks behind a huge machine, hits a switch -- and SLUICE GATES OPEN. CHEMICAL SLUDGE begins to churn. A big HOLE IN THE WALL appears as a gate opens on the East River. It's the waste dump! Up on the catwalk, BATMAN has a perfect view of JACK. If JACK can just sprint through the flames without getting shot, he'll make it to the river. BATMAN hooks a rope to his Batarang, FLINGS IT at a catwalk across the floor. JACK bolts. BURSTS THROUGH the wall of fire. And just as he does -- BATMAN leaps off the catwalk and swings down toward him! His foot catches a THIRTY-FOOT ROLL of plastic, six feet in diameter, one of several standing upright on the floor. The plastic roll DROPS into JACK's path, BLOCKING HIS EXIT. An instant later, BATMAN lands on top of JACK. Wraps an arm around his throat and RAISES his free hand. DRUG-TIPPED STEEL TALONS appear. But before he can paralyze JACK... VOICE HOLD IT! In all the ruckus, HOOD V has managed to circle back behind the heavy machinery. Now he's got a GUN pointed DIRECTLY AT COMMISSIONER GORDON'S HEAD. HOOD V Let him go or I'll do it. BATMAN releases JACK and stands back. JACK chuckles to himself: what loyalty. Then, with plenty of time, he strolls across the floor to a Jacob's ladder mounted on the back wall... and BEGINS TO CLIMB toward the catwalks. All action stops. BATMAN doesn't move. The COPS don't move. HOOD V stands there sweating, his gun hand shaking as he waits for JACK to climb safely out of shooting range. ECKHARDT's pig-like eyes glisten. His hand drops to his side. He's half-tempted to pull a gun and get the Commissioner plugged. ANGLE ON JACK at a crouch, groping his way along the rail of the catwalk. He reaches a paneled glass window propped open by a supporting rod. It's a forty-foot drop to the swirling black currents of the East River... and freedom. He's about to climb out when his eye falls on a .38 AUTOMATIC -- which lies, abandoned, on the gridwork floor of the catwalk mere yards away. ANGLE ON FACTORY FLOOR The HOOD, one arm around GORDON. With his gun at the Commissioner's temple, he backs slowly toward the door. HOOD V Nobody makes a move. We go out clean. JACK'S VOICE ECKHARDT!! ALL EYES TURN to the catwalk overhead, where JACK stands poised with the .38 in his fist. A SINGLE SHOT drops ECKHARDT cleanly. The moment's distraction is all BATMAN needs. He hurls a NINJA WHEEL -- a small, ratcheted, razor-sharp disc -- at the FOREARM of HOOD V. One jerk of a thin filament WIRE -- a sudden SHRIEK -- and GORDON IS FREE. The THUG lurches forward. His GUN DROPS to the floor, DISCHARGING ACCIDENTALLY. AN UNGODLY HOWL OF PAIN echoes out from the catwalk above. JACK REELS and STAGGERS, his hands CLUTCHING AT HIS CHEEKS. BLOOD GUSHES from between his fingers. JACK NAPIER HAS BEEN SHOT THROUGH THE FACE. A YOUNG COP, unnerved by the sight of JACK's agonized pirouette, draws his gun and OPENS FIRE. GORDON NO!! But the bullet has caught JACK in the arm. He spins, totters to the edge of the catwalk... and TOPPLES OVER. The COPS look on helplessly as JACK plunges TWO STORIES DOWN into a CATCH BASIN full of BUBBLING TOXIC WASTE, SCREAMING ALL THE WAY. GORDON (cont.) Goddammit, we had him. We -- And suddenly, with JACK out of the picture, all attention focusses on THE BATMAN. COPS reach for their guns, circle warily around him. Cornered now, he backs off slowly, HANDS ON HIS BELT. GORDON (cont.) Hold it right there, Mister. THE BATMAN raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. Then -- as the COPS advance -- he flicks TWO TINY CAPSULES onto the factory floor. A BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT. COLORS BURST in a wild pyrotechnic display. COPS stumble backwards, momentarily dazzled, as a THICK WALL OF BLACK SMOKE conceals BATMAN from view. A TINY GRAPPLING HOOK rockets out of the dense curling cloud and CATCHES on a catwalk overhead. COP LOOK! The COPS are firing wildly into the smoke. But it's too late. At the end of a cord, THE BLACK MAJESTIC FIGURE OF THE BATMAN whips upward, rising out of the smoke like an avenging angel -- and DISAPPEARING into the shadowy heights, safely out of range. GORDON HOLD YOUR FIRE! COP ... Who is this guy? GORDON I don't know, but he's one hell of a showman. CUT TO: EXT. ACE CHEMICAL CO. - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A BLACK SHADOW scurries across the roof. From the illuminated sign with its neon ace, WE PAN DOWN past the chemical sluice to a SECOND ACE... a card from JACK's lucky deck, pierced by a neat, round bullet hole, bobbing on the oily surface of the foul, polluted river. As deadly toxins gush forth, OTHER CARDS from the deck swirl past: a nine. A deuce. A queen. And finally, a JOKER -- SHOT CLEANLY THROUGH THE FACE. A BONE-WHITE HAND BREAKS THE SURFACE as we SHOCK CUT TO: INT. GOTHAM GLOBE - CITY ROOM - DAY A BANNER HEADLINE on the late edition of the Globe: "BAT MAN FOILS ROBBERY. WHO IS MASKED VIGILANTE?" Behind the newspaper, feet propped up on his desk, is a jubilant KNOX. He's on the horn to COMMISSIONER GORDON. KNOX Commissioner. Do us both a favor. Don't tell me some lie you'll have to retract later. CLICK. KNOX grins, lowers the paper, finds himself looking up at the smiling face of VICKI VALE. KNOX (cont.) Vick! Looks like our friend the bat is getting ambitious. -- Why the dopey grin? VICKI Guess who's got a date with Bruce Wayne. KNOX Bruce Wayne? Date? He called you up and asked you for a date?... Shit. (shouting) HEY MIRANDA! C'MERE! (to VICKI) I want you to pay close attention to this. Miranda -- tell my friend here what you told me about Bruce Wayne. A SUPERANNUATED SOUTHERN BELLE toddles over. MIRANDA REITZ, 60, is the society editor of the Globe. MIRANDA You mean Mister One-Nighter? KNOX Yeah. "Mister One-Nighter." (to VICKI) Because that's the average length of his relationships with women. MIRANDA The current record is almost two weeks. That cover girl -- what's her name? You must've shot her, Vicki -- KNOX Tell her about the peanuts. VICKI Peanuts? KNOX Yeah. Peanuts. Which is how he goes through women. MIRANDA Like Planter's Peanuts. VICKI is about to break out into helpless giggles. VICKI Plain or roasted? (standing up) Alex, I'm very flattered that you've gone out and done all this research. KNOX Why? (blushing suddenly) Aw, come on, Vicki, I'm a reporter. I'm curious. I do this for a living. -- What'd you tell him? VICKI I told him yes. KNOX fumes. VICKI shakes her head and laughs. She takes KNOX's face in her hands, plants a kiss on his forehead. VICKI (cont.) You're awfully sweet to be concerned, but it's really not necessary. I'll call you, okay? She exits. KNOX stands there looking poleaxed. KNOX ... What was that? MIRANDA That was one of the most gracious fuck-yous it's ever been my pleasure to watch. -- What a nice girl. KNOX, totally flustered, sighs and sinks into his chair. KNOX Miranda, I'm busy. Go be productive. CUT TO: EXT. COASTLINE - DAY A CABIN CRUISER slices through the waves. In the distance, closer to the shore, we see a throng of SAILBOATS. EXT. DECK - YACHT - DAY BRUCE's forty-foot cabin cruiser, aptly christened "DIE FLEIDERMAUS." BRUCE and VICKI are on the deck, in chairs, soaking up sun, gazing off at the sailboats. VICKI Do you sail? BRUCE Too much work. I'm not really the physical type. -- Thank you, Alfred. ALFRED has just appeared from belowdecks with a tray of drinks for BRUCE and VICKI. VICKI watches as BRUCE reaches for his glass. His forearm looks like a thin layer of skin over braided telephone cables. VICKI You do a very convincing imitation. (sipping her drink) Mm, this is tasty. What's yours? He smiles, slides the drink over toward her, gestures for her to try a sip. VICKI (cont.) ... Ginger ale? BRUCE Two drinks and I start swinging from the rooftops. (beat) Tell me, Vicki. There's something I'm very curious about. What took you down to Corto Maltese? VICKI ... I guess I needed a change. BRUCE You were one of the most successful magazine photographers in the city. Everyone wanted you. VICKI Have you ever been to Corto Maltese? BRUCE Not since the shooting started. VICKI We went there once when I was little. I played on the beach. And at nights -- they had a band -- I danced with my father on the hotel patio. (shrugging) That was Corto Maltese. When the war broke out I had to go back. And I promised myself that this time... I wouldn't look away. BRUCE What did you see? VICKI ... Terror. The conversation is getting rather intense -- at both ends. VICKI seems to have hit some weird chord within BRUCE. BRUCE There's terror everywhere. Some types are just more -- familiar than others. For a moment BRUCE seems to be drifting back into his familiar 'preoccupied' mode. VICKI laughs apologetically. VICKI I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -- I know it all seems a million miles away, out here on the water, with all this -- BRUCE Insulation? VICKI is momentarily stuck for a reply. In some way she can't quite grasp, he seems to be challenging her. VICKI Bruce, really, when I say these things I don't mean to criticize you. BRUCE I think you see things very clearly. VICKI I'm happy to talk about something else. I don't want to be depressing. BRUCE (smiling) Do you assume that if I know you better I won't like you as much? VICKI starts laughing. BRUCE is a notorious womanizer, but if this is a come-on, it's like no come-on she's ever seen. VICKI I'm sorry, Bruce, I have to ask. Are you like this with the other women you know? -- Because I just can't seem to get a handle on this conversation. BRUCE (taking her hand) Vicki, if I say anything cryptic, or... ambiguous, I think you should put the most flattering possible interpretation on it. Because even if it doesn't sound that way... that's how I'll mean it. Bingo. The guy's a chessplayer, but on the other hand he's also rather touchingly, almost childishly, sincere. Before she knows it, VICKI finds herself melting. CUT TO: INT. GOTHAM CITY OPERA HOUSE - NIGHT Rigoletto. THE DUKE onstage, launching into his big crowd-pleaser, "La Donna e Mobile." WE PAN THE AUDIENCE, finding several mobile young DONNAS in the crowd -- drop-dead beauties in slinky gowns. Although most eyes are fixed, reasonably enough, on the stage, DONNA #1 is staring with undisguised envy at a PRIVATE BOX above the orchestra seats. Her mouth twists in disgust. She scans the crowd, finds her counterpart (DONNA #2) some rows back, on the arm of a bald bigwig. DONNA #2 is wearing a similar sour expression, staring up at the same box. DONNA #3 is even less discreet than her comrades. She has her opera glasses trained on the couple in the box. HER POV - THROUGH OPERA GLASSES - THE BOX BRUCE and VICKI. He whispers in her ear. She smiles and whispers back. A beat. He whispers again. This time she doesn't laugh. But her lips part slightly. SCREEN GOES BLACK as the opera glasses SNAP SHUT. ANGLE ON CROWD - DONNA #3 staring icily at the DUKE as he finishes up to a round of TUMULTUOUS APPLAUSE. CUT TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - NIGHT BRUCE and VICKI enter. He takes her coat, drops it on a chair by the door. VICKI is giddy, all champagned up. VICKI -- but it's not fair. I'm half drunk and you're not even -- BRUCE Would you like me to take you home? VICKI God. You would. (sidling up to him) Come on, Bruce. I just want to get two drinks in you. As an experiment. BRUCE Maybe we should just kiss. VICKI ... We could try that. WIDER ANGLE BRUCE embracing VICKI in the vastness of the darkened entry hall, framed by long semicircular STAIRWAYS on opposite walls. A SUDDEN FLASH OF LIGHTNING transports us to: EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - ESTABLISHING - NIGHT Broken windows, graffiti on the walls: a decrepit rathole near the Gotham docks. INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE - NIGHT TIGHT ON a face swathed in bandages. The patient sits erect in a wooden chair, surrounded by the grimy paraphernalia of an unlicensed gangland doctor. The DOCTOR, a nervous little ferret with the bedside manner of a back-alley abortionist, steps up with a scissors. DOCTOR Well, Mr. Napier, let's see how we did. He begins to snip away. As the bandages come off, we get: JACK NAPIER'S POV The last strands of gauze peel away. The DOCTOR stands there, looking at his handiwork. His mouth falls open. His eyes bug out. He GAGS. JACK (V.O.) Mirror. The DOCTOR just stands there staring AT CAMERA, stock- still, apparently transfixed by the sight of JACK's face. JACK (V.O.) Mirror. ANGLE ON DOCTOR He clears his throat, reaches apprehensively for a hand mirror, and passes it out of frame to JACK. Two beats. Then, the sound of GLASS SHATTERING as the mirror drops to the floor. JACK begins to laugh. THE DOCTOR gets a little edgy. DOCTOR You understand the facial muscles were completely severed -- JACK keeps on laughing. The DOCTOR turns uneasily away, gestures apologetically at his seedy equipment. DOCTOR (cont.) -- you can see what I have to work with here -- MORE LAUGHTER. The trembling DOCTOR covers his face with one hand, whining now, not daring to look at JACK. DOCTOR (cont.) I'm sure that with proper recon-- recon-- reconstructive surgery -- A DOOR SLAMS. JACK is gone. The grateful DOCTOR breathes a sigh of relief and steadies himself on an operating table. EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - OVERHEAD ANGLE - NIGHT From a point high above we see JACK emerging into the alley, pulling on a hat, wrapping a muffler about his head. We can't see his face. But we can't forget his LAUGH. CUT TO: INT. BRUCE WAYNE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT VICKI nestled peacefully under the covers. Beside her is BRUCE: hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. It's almost as though BRUCE is not used to sleeping at night. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He looks at VICKI. She's terribly lovely. But despite all that, we can't shake the feeling that BRUCE... would really rather be somewhere else. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - NIGHT LOUD MUSIC. KIDS in punk regalia stand outside a rock club as JACK stalks past. The wind knocks his hat off. KID Nice hair, dude! JACK ignores them as he bends to retrieve his hat. Then he gazes up at the steel-and-glass facade of a SKYSCRAPER -- and strides deliberately across the street. INT. GRISSOM'S PENTHOUSE - NIGHT The spectacular Gotham skyline, seen through the plate- glass window of GRISSOM's conference room. The doors to the private elevator hiss open and JACK wanders in. He plops in the big plush swivel chair behind GRISSOM's desk. GRISSOM (O.S.) That you, sugar bumps? GRISSOM waddles in unsuspectingly from the adjoining room. He's fresh out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his impressive girth. He's using a smaller towel to dry his hair, and so it's a moment before he sees the bundled-up figure at his desk. GRISSOM (cont.) Who the hell are you? JACK It's me. "Sugar Bumps." GRISSOM (recognizing his voice) Jack? (advancing cautiously) Thank God. I can't believe it's you. I heard you'd been -- JACK (standing up) Is that what you "heard"? JACK gestures him over to the empty chair. GRISSOM doesn't move until he sees the GUN pointed at his belly. JACK (cont.) YOU SET ME UP! (beat) Over a girl. You must be insane! GRISSOM surreptitiously reaches for a desk drawer. JACK (cont.) Keep your hands on the desk. GRISSOM Sooner or later you would've tried to take me, Jack. You may get me now, but your life won't be worth a dime. JACK I've died once already. It wasn't so bad. -- In fact I recommend it. GRISSOM is beginning to panic now. It's obvious that JACK is utterly, hopelessly deranged. GRISSOM Jack, listen -- we'll cut a deal -- JACK JACK? JACK? DO I LOOK LIKE A JACK?? And now, for the first time, he flings away the hat. RIPS THE MUFFLER from his face. And -- as GRISSOM gasps in shock -- STANDS REVEALED in his full horrendous glory. His flesh is bleached bone-white. His hair is a luminous seaweed-green. And his cheeks are torn and puckered from the bullet wound, TWISTING HIS MOUTH INTO A HIDEOUS, PERPETUAL HARLEQUIN'S GRIN. JACK (cont.) I'm not a Jack any more. (pause; cackling) You made me a Joker! THE CACKLE BUILDS INTO FURIOUS, HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER. GRISSOM, revulsed, terrified, pushes himself away from the desk, back toward the window which overlooks the city. GRISSOM Jack -- I'm warning you. WIPE THAT LUNATIC GRIN OFF YOUR FACE. JACK HA! That's the best part. I CAN'T!! And with that JACK pulls the trigger. And fires. And fires again until the CLIP IS EMPTY. EXT. GRISSOM'S BUILDING - NIGHT We TILT UP the chrome-and-glass facade of the skyscraper, arriving finally at the TOP FLOOR: a PLATE GLASS WINDOW spiderwebbed with cracks where Jack's bullets hit. INT. GRISSOM'S PENTHOUSE - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The room is still dark. JACK -- or, as we'll know him from this moment on, THE JOKER -- sits in GRISSOM's swivel chair, staring out at the moon-drenched skyline. JOKER What a view. Our little city. It always brings a smile to my face. He reaches for a nearby glass of liquor and glances down at GRISSOM -- who lies dead on the floor, the towel still wrapped around him. THE JOKER laughs softly to himself. JOKER (cont.) Guess it's my little city now. Wonder what it'll look like when I get done with it. (pause) I bet it'll be something real fine. Real fine and pretty. DISSOLVE T0: INT. BRUCE WAYNE'S BEDROOM - MORNING The sun is just up, and VICKI finds herself alone in bed. A SOFT, OFF-KEY BARITONE VOICE drifts out of the adjacent bathroom: BRUCE in the shower, singing "Honeysuckle Rose." She breaks into a huge smile and climbs out of bed. Somehow she's wound up wearing BRUCE's ribbed formal shirt. INT. BATHROOM - A MOMENT LATER - MORNING BRUCE in his opulent deco shower stall, still SINGING to himself. VICKI sneaks up behind him, opens the door. He instantly STOPS SINGING -- as if he's been hit by a brick. VICKI I didn't mean to scare you. I just had to come in here and see it that was really you singing. She smiles, teasing him. He doesn't respond. He acts as if she's caught him doing something shameful -- exposed him. VICKI (cont.) (singing) "Don't buy sugar -- you just have to touch my cup." Come on. "You're my sugar --" (no response from BRUCE) Bruce, you are such a case. BRUCE seems somehow unable to sing along. But be quickly recovers his composure -- and forces a crooked, almost childish smile. BRUCE I don't sing very well. VICKI Then there's one thing in the world you don't do very well. And I know what it is. -- Now you'll have to kill me. He kisses her good morning, steps out and reaches for a towel. His body is one big mass of BRUISES AND ABRASIONS. VICKI (cont.) Poor thing. You should stay off that horse. CUT TO: INT. GLOBE - CITY ROOM - DAY KNOX, in a surly mood, examines the morning edition of the Globe. He's turned to page six -- the gossip page -- and there, under Miranda Reitz's byline, is a picture of VICKI. It seems she and BRUCE are the talk of the town. KNOX (disgusted) ...Peanut. A COPY BOY approaches his desk with a MANILA FOLDER: COPY BOY Here's that morgue file you wanted. KNOX leans back in his chair. The file is labelled "BRUCE WAYNE: 1982-1987." KNOX opens it and begins to leaf through old clippings from back issues of the Globe. WAYNE FOUNDATION TO FUND LOW-COST HOUSING. MILLIONAIRE HEADS CHARITY DRIVE FOR GOTHAM HANDICAPPED. HURRICANE VICTIMS SAY 'THANK YOU' TO BRUCE WAYNE. KNOX's face sags in dismay. Every article seems to be telling us just how swell a rich philanthropist can be. KNOX Come on. Gimme some dirt! Then he notices something odd. In the whole fat file of clippings, there are no pictures of Bruce Wayne -- with two partial exceptions. One is a group shot, Bruce in the middle, waving at the camera and blocking our view of his face. The other is an ancient picture of a collegiate Bruce, stern-faced, hair down to his collar. The caption reads "BRUCE WAYNE IN 1973" -- years out of date even when it ran in the paper. KNOX (cont.) ... Why don't you like your picture taken? CUT TO: INT. APARTMENT LOBBY - NIGHT A DOORMAN DOZES in the plush lobby of ALICIA HUNT's apartment building on the East Side of Gotham. Through the glass doors we see ALICIA outside in the chill wind, peering inside, hesitant to enter. As silently as possible she uses her key and steps in, tiptoeing past the doorman, trying not to wake him. She's almost made it when he SITS BOLT UPRIGHT, startling her. DOORMAN Miss Hunt! (smiling) No need to sneak in. The rent's been taken care of. ALICIA ... The rent? Paid? INT. ALICIA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT ALICIA, mystified, lets herself in and turns to lock the door. She's startled once more by a VOICE FROM BEHIND. VOICE Honey -- I'm home! She pivots. Her eyes widen. She SHRIEKS. Sitting cross-legged in an easy chair, a twisted grin on his loathesome face, is THE JOKER. He's in a smoking jacket and slippers, reading the paper, a dry martini at his side. This grim parody of domesticity sends poor ALICIA into a dead faint. INT. PENTHOUSE SUITE - DAY It looks for all the world like a corporate boardroom. At a long table sit Gotham's most distinguished criminals: GANGLORDS and RACKETS BOSSES from every corner of the city. They stare suspiciously at the head of the table. JOKER (O.S.) So that's how it is, gents. Until Grissom decides it's safe to come up for air... I'm running the show. Now we see what they see: THE JOKER, dressed rather flamboyantly in a big slouch hat. His FACE is layered with flesh-toned makeup, and his HAIR's been rinsed black. Unfortunately, he can't conceal his ghoulish SMILE. GANG BOSS So why don't we hear this from Grissom? RACKETEER I got something I'd like to know. How come you're wearing that stupid smirk? JOKER 'Cause I got an army, chum. And I got Grissom's army. And this city is mine. CARMINE ROTELLI, an especially oily mobster, speaks up: ROTELLI I don't like taking orders, from Grissom. And I especially don't like taking orders from Grissom's goon. JOKER I've considered that possibility. ROTELLI And what happens if we say no? JOKER (chuckling) Nobody wants a war, Carmine. If we can't do business, we shake hands and part friends. ROTELLI That's it? JOKER That's it. THE JOKER extends a hand. ROTELLI reaches out to shake it. He doesn't see the JOY BUZZER concealed in the JOKER's palm. 40,000 VOLTS course through ROTELLI's body. He drops back into his seat a blackened husk, SMOKE pouring out from his sleeves and shirt collar. The CRIMELORDS recoil in horror. Before they can make a move, a squad of ARMED THUGS burst into the room. JOKER (cont.) Looks like Carmine got a little hot under the collar. CRIMELORD ... You're insane! The JOKER is a wee bit agitated. He removes the hat and mops sweat from his brow, exposing a patch of CHALK-WHITE FLESH -- to the great bewilderment of the ONLOOKERS. JOKER That's what they said about Lee Iacocca. Now GET OUT OF HERE. -- And THINK IT OVER! The sickened CRIMINALS file out cautiously. That leaves THE JOKER alone in the room with the charred corpse of ROTELLI. THE JOKER sinks into a chair and -- as is his wont -- ADDRESSES THE STIFF: JOKER (cont.) Heck, they're not such bad guys. I say we give 'em a couple of days to come around. (thoughtful pause) We-e-ll... maybe one day. (then, casually) Aaah, screw it. Let's grease 'em. CUT TO: INT. SMALL BACK ROOM - NIGHT A poker game. A CRIMELORD from the JOKER's board meeting picks up his hand and fans out the cards. FIVE JOKERS. He looks up, puzzled. The last thing he sees is a HIRED KILLER bursting in through the door, GUN IN HAND. EXT. GOTHAM PARK - DAY A COSTUMED CLOWN with a wheeled cart, filling balloons from a helium tank, passing them out to the kids. CRIMELORD #2 strolls past. The CLOWN offers him a balloon, which be politely refuses. THE CLOWN reaches into his cart for a RED METAL TANK. But, as we quickly find out, it's not a helium tank -- it's a FLAMETHROWER. EXT. HALLIDAY PLAZA - DAY A sunny, landscaped quad surrounded by corporate skyscrapers: trees, grass, marble fountains, flags of many nations. Amid the pedestrians we catch BRUCE and VICKI, all smiles, cutting through the plaza on the way to lunch. VICKI ... To tell you the truth, I'd just about given up waiting. BRUCE I said I'd call you the minute I got free. And I did. -- And here we are. VICKI (teasing him) Hm hmm. Lunch. Not even dinner. He stops in his tracks, takes her by the shoulders. BRUCE Vicki. Do you want the whole truth? All coyness aside? (long pause) I wish I had more time to give you. Every day I don't see you, I miss you. (beat) Now. Are you going to waste this lovely afternoon being all mad at me? All this, of course, is delivered with devastating sincerity. VICKI finds herself totally disarmed. VICKI Okay, I'm a sucker. You sound so much like someone I used to... (stopping suddenly) Bruce? I know this is silly, but -- you're not married, are you? He stops and laughs. She smiles crookedly, takes his arm. ANOTHER ANGLE - ACROSS PLAZA - THAT MOMENT PHILLY RICORSO -- another CRIMELORD from the boardroom -- enters the plaza flanked by a cadre of PAID BODYGUARDS. ON BRUCE AND VICKI A PAINTED STREET MIME walks alongside them, feeling his way along an imaginary wall. VICKI groans. VICKI All street mimes should be executed. BRUCE ... Looks like a convention. And indeed, there are HALF A DOZEN STREET MIMES converging on the center of the plaza. RICORSO and co. approach the mirrored-glass entrance of a skyscraper. In the lobby, A MIME -- who's been annoying the passersby -- THROWS A BOLT, LOCKING THE DOORS from inside. A BODYGUARD bangs on the glass. Nearby, ANOTHER MIME reaches into a trash bin -- and pulls out a MACHINE GUN. SUDDEN SCREAMS OF TERROR from the onlookers. VICKI turns to BRUCE. Before she can get his name out, he's HOISTED HER BODILY and THROWN HER behind a marble fountain. SERIES OF SHOTS BRUCE'S EYES darting birdlike around the plaza -- INTERCUT with the following POV SHOTS, ALL IN SLOW MOTION: - TWO MIMES with machine guns. One of them lining PHILLY and co. up against the glass doors, the other holding the CROWD at bay; - A WOMAN in the crowd fainting. A THIRD MIME gleefully imitating her swoon, to no one's amusement; - PHILLY and his goons, COWERING, hands in the air, as OTHER MIMES cruelly mimic their terrified poses... ... and suddenly BRUCE is RUNNING FRANTICALLY, looking for a secluded spot, an alleyway, anything. No go. He's out in the open, with onlookers everywhere. In his civvies, he's just another citizen... TOTALLY IMPOTENT. He darts around a corner, backs against a wall. WOMEN, CHILDREN, GROWN MEN race past. No privacy. He's practically quaking now, in the throes of some terrible anxiety. He looks up at the sky overhead, terrified. A BRILLIANT SUN bears down on him as MACHINE GUNS CHATTER. ANGLE ON PHILLY AND BODYGUARDS BODIES JERKING as GLASS rains down in shards. ANGLE ON BRUCE his back arched, his mouth agape, his face drained of blood as the sounds of carnage echo through the plaza. It's almost as if the bullets are striking him. A moment later, it's all over but the screaming. VICKI emerges from the crowd and finds BRUCE slumped against the wall, nearly catatonic. She moves to touch him. As if by reflex he reaches out and GRABS HER BY THE ARMS -- with a grip so strong it could crush bone. She GASPS, looks up -- and sees, in his traumatized EYES, a look so raw, so desperate, that it virtually defies comprehension. VICKI BRUCE!! He blinks rapidly. He relaxes his grip. Before VICKI's eyes, he's changing... becoming the BRUCE she knows. BRUCE Oh my God... are you all right? He reaches for her. Involuntarily, she steps back. He sees her reaction and his face goes slack -- frightened, pleading. This time she lets him embrace her... but her face is full of bewilderment and doubt. INSERT - TELEVISION SCREEN ANCHORWOMAN ... live from Halliday Plaza, where a gangland-style execution claimed the life of racketeer Philly Ricorso. Ricorso's death is the third in a rash of underworld killings... CUT TO TWO-SHOT: the ANCHORWOMAN and COMMISSIONER GORDON. ANCHORWOMAN (cont.) Commissioner, you've heard the rumors. Are these murders the work of the mysterious 'Batman'? A PIERCING CACKLE fills the air. CAMERA PULLS BACK from the TV, placing us in the JOKER's boardroom. Behind the big desk he SWIVELS INTO VIEW, phone in hand. JOKER All reet! I think it's about time we called another meeting, huh? CUT TO: INT. WAYNE MANOR - DAY ALFRED on the phone, a feather duster in his hand. ALFRED I'm sorry, Miss Vale. I've given him your messages. That's all I can do. ANGLE WIDENS. BRUCE is sitting mere feet away, obviously distraught, locked in some sort of internal struggle. INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - THAT MOMENT - DAY VICKI Please tell him... I'm not trying to make his life difficult. I'd just -- I'd just like to know what's going on. A KNOCK at the door as VICKI hangs up. She goes to open it, finds KNOX -- wearing a big, cheshire-cat smile. KNOX Hiya, peanut. I got something I'd like you to see. INT. LIBRARY - DAY A MICROFILM MACHINE. As VICKI looks on curiously, KNOX -- all eagerness now -- threads up a roll of film and begins cranking through back-issue newspapers. KNOX Okay, here we go. Check it out. He steps back. VICKI stares down at the display screen. A FRONT-PAGE BANNER HEADLINE reads: THOMAS WAYNE MURDERED Prominent Doctor, Wife Slain in Robbery Unidentified Gunman Leaves Child Unharmed Beneath it, a PHOTO: cops kneeling over corpses. Medics with stretchers. And off to one side, a YOUNG BOY -- BRUCE WAYNE -- his arms wrapped around the waist of a BEAT COP. The BOY stares straight at the camera. His face is a mask of UNFORGETTABLE AGONY. You can't take your eyes off it. VICKI Oh my God... I've seen this picture. KNOX I guess so. Pulitzer Prize, 1963. VICKI His face. Allie, look at his face. TIGHT ON THE BOY'S contorted face, staring out in shock and disbelief, his features recognizable across all the years -- permanently, indelibly traumatized. The same face VICKI saw in Halliday Plaza. KNOX Yep. He watched the whole thing happen. -- Recognize the beat cop? Jim Gordon. VICKI Oh, Bruce... KNOX Something like this -- what do you suppose this could drive a guy to? INT. RESTAURANT - DAY A greasy spoon off the lobby of the Globe building. KNOX and VICKI in a booth. VICKI Alexander, you are on drugs. KNOX He walks out on his own party. Half an hour later, the Caped Crusader turns up in full bat-drag. (beat) Sees an execution, freaks out in an alleyway. No place to change. (smiling) Yeah, Vicki, he's "married" all right. VICKI You're pissing me off, Allie. I know exactly why you're doing this. KNOX (leaning forward) Oh? Why is that, Vicki? VICKI wilts under the challenge. She holds her silence for a second, then changes the subject. VICKI He's best friends with Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent. They would know. KNOX ... Okay, Vicki, I have a confession to make. I'm the Batman. VICKI snorts, rolls her eyes impatiently. KNOX (cont.) Don't believe me? Why not? VICKI Alexander... I know you. KNOX Right. And they know him. And that's why it would never occur to them for a minute that their old buddy Bruce puts on a cape at night and goes out looking for -- VICKI This is pointless. I'm leaving. KNOX (grabbing her arm) Your little chum is out of his mind. (relaxing his grip) Next time you call him up and he can't go out Friday night -- think it over. CUT TO: INT. ACE CHEMICAL CO. - DAY LOW ANGLE on the JOKER. He stands on a catwalk high above the refinery floor, lord of all he surveys, overseeing production like a demented middle manager. INT. STOREROOM - DAY A dank, windowless room in the bowels of Ace Chemical, which the JOKER has converted into a makeshift lair. SAP- LIKE GOO drips in puddles from exposed pipes overhead. CAMERA DRIFTS across the JOKER's cluttered desk. Shipping manifests. Ledgers. PSYCHOTIC DOODLES scrawled in crayon. More significantly: an old CONTRACT dating back to the mid- seventies. It's half-obscured by other papers, but the initials 'CIA' are plainly visible. Then: a BOUND REPORT with the title 'DDID NERVE GAS: RESULTS OF PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTATION.' Across its title page, a diagonal rubber stamp: 'DISCONTINUED January 1977.' And finally: a sheaf of PHOTOS. Laboratory apes, chimps and orangutans, all DEAD. Their LIPS are drawn back, exposing HIDEOUS, CHEMICAL-INDUCED GRIMACES. ON ONE WALL: POSTER-SIZED BLOWUPS of the grinning apes. ON THE OPPOSITE WALL: a large-scale photographic reproduction of the Gotham City skyline, its bottom half HIDDEN FROM VIEW by the JOKER's desk. The PHONE RINGS. The JOKER -- who has been sitting on the floor by the cityscape -- POPS INTO FRAME and picks it up. JOKER How's that first shipment coming? VOICE ON PHONE Right on schedule. Oh, we got that address for you -- 79 East End, #12-C. JOKER Mmm. How'd you find it? VOICE ON PHONE Called her agent. The JOKER nods in satisfaction and resumes his place on the floor. Like a happy kindergartener, with paste pot and scissors, he's CLIPPING PHOTOS from a magazine -- horrible scenes of death, destruction, panic, mutilation. One by one, he's PASTING these shots on the blowup of Gotham city -- all along sidewalk level -- creating a massive photomontage of ANARCHY IN THE STREETS. We've seen these photos before. VICKI VALE took them... in Corto Maltese. INT. PHOTOGRAPHER'S STUDIO - DAY In foreground, ROWS OF MAKEUP in startling profusion: mascara, blusher, eyeliner, lipstick. HALF A DOZEN BEAUTIFUL MODELS giggle into their makeup mirrors. In the background VICKI wanders past with a stylish friend, CLAIRE, who owns and operates the studio. CLAIRE ... of course, after Corto Maltese, this must all seem pretty tame. VICKI Not to me. I need a job. CLAIRE Now Vicki. Everyone knows you've got your hooks in Bruce Wayne. VICKI Then "everyone" must know something I don't. CLAIRE (cattily) Oh. Really. Well. -- Come on, dear, Tony's dying to see you. In a corner of the studio, TONY, a gaunt, tubercular Brit, is shooting a swimsuit layout with two SUPERMODELS. They all ad lib greetings to VICKI as TONY darts around hyperkinetically, snapping the girls in a series of poses. TONY Yes, ladies, smiles, show me those smiles, fabulous, tropical smiles, think Tahiti, I want to see teeth, yes, those glorious teeth -- As VICKI looks on, the SUPERMODELS freeze in place simultaneously, a strange, STRICKEN LOOK on their faces. TONY (cont.) My God no, don't stop now, those smiles, I need those smiles -- Suddenly the girls are LAUGHING -- but the laughter is unnatural, involuntary. VICKI, sensing that something is terribly wrong, lays a hand on CLAIRE's arm. The MODELS, now wearing HUGE SMILES, begin to TWITCH SPASMODICALLY. TONY snaps away. TONY (cont.) Yes! Oh baby, YES! That's -- (beat) No! Too far, too far! Pull back, pull back! (dropping the camera) OH MY GOD! The SUPERMODELS PITCH TO THE FLOOR, shuddering convulsively, their LIPS drawn back in FRIGHTFUL, FROZEN, LAB-APE GRINS. VICKI GASPS. CLAIRE SCREAMS. TONY SCREAMS. CUT TO: INT. TELEVISION STUDIO - EVENING The Eyewitness News set, with anchors PATSY NARITA and DAVE McELROY. Behind them, BLOWUPS of the two dead SUPERMODELS. PATSY The fashion world was stunned today by the sudden deaths of top models Kelly Brinkley and Christie Emberg. Cause of death has been attributed to a violent allergic reaction, although authorities have not yet ruled out the possibility of drug use. Dave? Behind DAVE, on the bluescreen: a HUGE STATUE, covered in canvas -- not unlike New York's Statue of Liberty. DAVE In Gotham, plans continue for the city's 300th birthday celebration. The four-day event will conclude with the unveiling, in Gotham Harbor, of the newly restored 'Lady Gotham'... A TECHNICIAN'S HAND passes a slip of paper into frame. DAVE (cont.) This bulletin just in. Nine more mysterious deaths at a beauty parlor in -- Off to the left, PATSY begins to LAUGH. DAVE FROWNS. DAVE (cont.) Patsy! This is hardly the -- (his eyes widen) PATSY!! An offscreen CRASH. Suddenly DAVE is up out of his seat, mouth agape in horror. PATSY HAS GONE INTO CONVULSIONS. CAMERA WHIPS VIOLENTLY RIGHT AND LEFT as she jerks out of her seat and TOTTERS UNCONTROLLABLY across the set, LAUGHING INSANELY. TECHNICIANS rush the soundstage in an unrehearsed frenzy. PATSY spins like a dervish and LURCHES BACKWARD over the newsdesk in a death spasm, giving us a quick look at the grisly Joker's grin etched on her now-lifeless face. DAVE gestures frantically to the cameraman: DAVE (cont.) KILL THE CAMERA!! KILL THE -- Suddenly, CRACKLING VIDEO STATIC wipes out the screen. A moment later, we're looking at: SPLITSCREEN CLOSEUP - THE SUPERMODELS Their gorgeous faces sprout BIG, ANIMATED-CARTOON GRINS as a BOUNCY TUNE -- "Put on a Happy Face" -- comes up underneath. MODELS (CARTOON VOICE) ... Love that Joker! INT. SUPERMARKET - DAY THEME MUSIC CONTINUES as a grinning, deranged pitchman -- THE JOKER -- pushes his shopping cart down the aisle. The shelves are filled with products bearing his TRADEMARK HARLEQUIN'S FACE. He waves merrily in time to the music. INT. STUDIO - VIDEO CONTROL BOOTH - THAT MOMENT PANICKED TECHNICIANS swarm the booth. The studio feed has been JAMMED. Every monitor shows THE JOKER'S COMMERCIAL. DIRECTOR WHERE'S IT COMING FROM?? TECHNICIAN I DON'T KNOW! CLOSEUP - THE JOKER JOKER ... new improved Joker brand. With the secret ingredient... SMYLENOL! (a sweep of the hand) Let's go to our blind taste test. TIGHT ON an anonymous MAN -- GAGGED AND BLINDFOLDED, tied to his chair, squirming, struggling. On the table before him is a package labelled "BRAND X." A SUPERIMPOSED TITLE reads: "NOT AN ACTOR." JOKER (cont.) Ooh. He's tense. Irritable. Out of sorts. (wagging a finger) He's been using Brand X! But with new improved Joker brand... ANGLE WIDENS to include a BLINDFOLDED CORPSE, limp in his chair, GRINNING HORRIFICALLY. JOKER (cont.) ... it's a SMILE EVERY TIME!! EXT. IDYLLIC PASTORAL SETTING - DAY THE JOKER in a field of wheat. On a picnic blanket before him are TWO CLEAN-CUT MODELS -- one male, one female, BOTH DEAD... and GRIMACING HORRIBLY. JOKER (cont.) -- and the world smiles with you! Irresistable -- oh-so-kissable -- He grabs the dead MODELS by the hair. THEIR TEETH CLINK as he forces their heads together for a post-mortem kiss. SERIES OF SHOTS Television sets all over Gotham, as startled citizens react to the JOKER's maniacal promo. JOKER I know what you're saying. Where can I buy these fine, fine products? Well, that's the gag, folks, you never know. Chances are... you've bought 'em already!!! As his RANT CONTINUES, we SEE: - A YOUNG MAN watching the bedroom TV as he dresses for a date. He's got an aerosol deodorant can poised under one arm, ready to spray. He looks down at the can, suddenly uncertain. Could it be...? - A FAMILY in their kitchen, eyeing a 12-inch portable as MOM serves dinner. They dig in automatically, then FREEZE with their forks in midair. - A MIDDLE-AGED MATRON at the living-room TV. Shocked, she calls to her husband -- and gets no reply. We FOLLOW HER to the bathroom door. On the floor she sees AN OVERTURNED SHAMPOO BOTTLE. Then: her HUSBAND, slumped down in the tub, a lethal GRIN on his face. She lets out a SHRIEK. INT. WAYNE MANOR - STUDY - NIGHT ALFRED THE BUTLER in a crouch, glued to the tube. ALFRED ... Sir! HIS POV: THE JOKER in tight closeup. Offscreen, an INFANT begins to squall. THE JOKER cocks an eyebrow. JOKER Baby's got a tummyache? Here's something that'll fix him quick! He tosses a JOKER PRODUCT out of frame. Then -- leering -- he gives the camera a BIG JUICY WINK. JOKER (cont.) Now on your grocer's shelf. So remember -- use Joker brand -- and put on a happy face!! MUSIC UP. VIDEO SNOW fills the screen as the jammed transmission end. ALFRED looks over his shoulder. TRACK IN ON THE GRIM, DETERMINED FACE OF BRUCE WAYNE. SERIES OF SHOTS - The Gotham Globe cartwheeling into frame: PANIC GRIPS GOTHAM Contaminated Products Claim 72 Lives WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS "JOKER"? - An ANCHORWOMAN on the evening news. Her complexion is curiously sallow. BLACK BAGS show under her eyes. ANCHORWOMAN ... sixteen new deaths, with no clues as to the Joker's identity or demands. The list at potentially lethal products now includes: perfume -- mascara -- cold cream -- - The makeover counter at Bloomingdale's. SECURITY GUARDS rush to the scene as THREE MATRONLY CUSTOMERS go into simultaneous smiling fits. - An ANCHORMAN with a BIG UGLY ZIT on his nose: ANCHORMAN Men's cologne toothpaste mouthwash -- underarm deodorant -- - A SUBWAY CAR jammed with STRAPHANGERS. HUGE PATCHES OF SWEAT under every arm. The doors slide open; ONCOMING PASSENGERS RECOIL VISIBLY at the unendurable stench. - The original ANCHORWOMAN, whose look is now 100% natural. Her hair is frizzy. Her eyebrows are missing altogether. Every wrinkle on her face is plainly visible. ANCHORWOMAN Hair spray -- eyebrow pencil -- moisturizing cream -- - A LARGE DRUGSTORE. CASHIERS sit idly by the registers. The store is utterly devoid of customers. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - DUSK From across the street we see VICKI headed down the sidewalk toward a museum. A GLOVED HAND reaches for a pay phone. VOICE She's outside the Fluegelheim. INT. ALICIA HUNT'S PENTHOUSE - THAT MOMENT A BONE-WHITE HAND slams a phone receiver down. THE JOKER is at his vanity. He's rinsed his hair black. He's applying pounds of pancake makeup to his bleached face, his puckered cheeks. In the right light he could almost pass for human. In all the city, he's the only person still using cosmetics. A DREAMY, DRUGGED VOICE intrudes: ALICIA Jack? Who was that? As he looks up at the mirror, we get a quick glimpse of ALICIA behind him. The voice, the long blonde hair, are unmistakable. But for some reason, ALICIA'S FACE is COVERED... by a SHINY WHITE PORCELAIN DOLL'S MASK. JOKER Get dressed. We're going out. INT. FLUEGELHEIM MUSEUM - EVENING A Gotham landmark, the Fluegelheim looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would've dreamed up -- a large open atrium encircled by a stucco RAMP, which spirals up along the interior walls to the CEILING four stories above. You walk up this gently-inclined ramp to view the paintings. INT. FLUEGELHEIM - ROOFTOP TEA ROOM - EVENING The upper terminus of the ramp opens on an airy, fern- filled dining room popular with tourists and elderly matrons who work up an appetite looking at art. VICKI enters, camera bag slung over one shoulder, portfolio in hand. VICKI I'm meeting Mr. Wayne. Is he here? MAITRE D' No, but your table is ready. INT. TEA ROOM - TWENTY MINUTES LATER - EVENING VICKI, sipping on a gin and tonic, checks her watch. A WAITER brings her a small parcel, wrapped in brown paper, bearing a single word: URGENT. WAITER Miss Vale, this just arrived for you. As the WAITER leaves, she tears off the wrapper. Inside is a small white box and a NOTE -- SCRIBBLED IN CRAYON. DEAR V. VALE, PUT THIS ON RIGHT NOW. Unsigned, of course. VICKI, puzzled, opens the box to find a MINIATURE GAS MASK. She hears a strange HISSING NOISE. A few feet away, GREEN SMOKE is billowing out of an air-conditioning vent. TRAYS OF FOOD CRASH TO THE FLOOR as WAITERS pass out. ART LOVERS drop forks, go face down in their pasta salad. VICKI hurriedly fits the gas mask over her nose and mouth. Within seconds, she's the only one conscious in the room. INT. MUSEUM - THAT MOMENT GREEN SMOKE plumes up toward the ceiling as we TILT DOWN toward the floor of the atrium. PATRONS and SECURITY GUARDS lie sprawled on the floor, twisted at odd angles, out cold. The mist is beginning to clear now. The doors swing open and in strolls THE JOKER, looking quite dapper in his street makeup and BIG PURPLE PIMP'S HAT. A SQUAD OF GOONS enters behind him. Some of them are carrying large cartons. They lock the entry doors, place a "CLOSED" sign in front of them, and begin uncrating LARGE CANS OF BLACK PAINT. The JOKER steps up onto the ramp, examines the artwork with an appreciative eye. JOKER Okay, boys, let's broaden our minds. He stops in front of an Ingres odalisque. Stands back a pace or two to get a better look. Then pulls out a STRAIGHT RAZOR and cuts a LONG DIAGONAL GASH in the canvas. He ambles up the ramp, stepping over collapsed patrons, pausing at every fourth or fifth painting. Monet water lilies, a Degas ballerina -- all get the razor treatment. Behind him his CRONIES work their way up the ramp, HEAVING BLACK PAINT on every canvas the JOKER has missed. He cocks an eyebrow at Edvard Munch's "THE SCREAM." JOKER (cont.) I kinda like this one. Leave it. INT. TEA ROOM - A MOMENT LATER - EVENING VICKI at her table, still wearing the gas mask, scared as hell. The overhead lights wink out and the room goes dark. The JOKER saunters over and pulls up a chair. JOKER I think it's safe to take that off. VICKI recognizes the deranged smile instantly. She removes the gas mask, tries to gather her wits. JOKER (cont.) You're quite beautiful. VICKI ... Thank you. JOKER Unfortunate, but I think we can work around it. He sets a couple of CANDLESTICKS on the table and reaches for his lighter. A LONG JET OF FLAME shoots out, Jerry Lewis-style, as he lights the candles. JOKER (cont.) You're Vicki Vale. I guess you know who I am. -- Is this your portfolio? She nods. He opens it, begins leafing through the record of VICKI's career. Newspaper photos from the Globe, at first. Then fashion layouts, magazine covers of celebrities. Artier B&W shots from VICKI's first couple of exhibitions. JOKER (cont.) Crap. Crap. Crap, crap, crap... Ahhh. Now here's what caught my eye. He's come to the COMBAT PHOTOS from Corto Maltese. JOKER (cont.) The panic. The bloody skulls. The armless screaming fellows... you know, the atrocities. (smirking) Somehow, when you shoot it, it all comes out so clean, so lovely. VICKI is squirming, but she doesn't think it wise to debate the point. Not with this lunatic, anyway. JOKER (cont.) I guess I'm just an old cornball, but... I live for beauty. I look around at my little city, it gets me down. (indicating the photos) We don't have anything like this. Well, it came to me that what this city needs... is beautification. Kind of a big makeover. (enraptured) Miss Vale, I finally realized that one man can make a difference. You know the saying. "In his image... created he them"? VICKI gazes at the awful face of this deranged visionary, getting more frightened by the minute. VICKI And you want a -- JOKER A visual record, yes. A before-and- after kind of thing. (leaning closer) This could make your reputation. Her first impulse is to get up and run. But she fights the impulse. She won't run... not until she gets this maniac on film. She reaches for her camera bag. VICKI Maybe we should start with a portrait of the artist. People might like to see the face behind the makeup. JOKER (momentarily puzzled) ... Behind the makeup? Then it sinks in. By candlelight, in the darkened restaurant, with his pancake makeup and his black rinse job, he looks practically normal. VICKI must think she's looking at his real face! JOKER (cont.) Oh. Yes. I see what you mean. He finds a pitcher, pours a glass of water, and very carefully SETS IT ON THE TABLE in front of VICKI. Then -- suddenly, inexplicably -- HE BARKS AT HER: JOKER (cont.) Silly little TWIT -- I can't take you ANYWHERE! He sits back and grins expectantly. VICKI is thoroughly nonplussed by this bizarre outburst. A moment passes. He obviously wants her to do something, but she hasn't got a clue as to what it is. Growing impatient now, he POINTS at the WATER GLASS: JOKER (cont.) Well? What are you waiting for?? Now VICKI gets the point. She picks up the glass and HURLS ITS CONTENTS in THE JOKER'S FACE. His hands go up. He writhes. He shrieks -- like the Wicked Witch of the West dissolving. He reaches for a napkin to wipe his face clean... and begins to CACKLE. His awful white-and-green clown's face revealed behind the running makeup, he LEERS at her. JOKER (cont.) You see, Miss Vale -- that was my makeup. (leaning forward) What do you think? VICKI is repulsed, but she's determined to tough it out. VICKI I've seen worse. Much worse. JOKER Strong stomach, huh? I like that in a woman. -- Maybe we can do business after all. He seems to have calmed down a bit. It's almost as if he's coming on to her. But just then, a tiny BELL sounds behind them... and a VOICE intrudes: VOICE Jack? The JOKER turns. ALICIA steps out of a ROOFTOP ELEVATOR and moves toward them, drugged, wraithlike. She's still wearing the porcelain DOLL'S MASK we saw earlier. JOKER (to VICKI) Christ, it's my girlfriend. (to ALICIA) WHAT? ALICIA You said I could look at the pictures before you -- before you -- JOKER Shucks, honey, I forgot. (rolling his eyes at VICKI) I'm in trouble now. (to ALICIA) This is business, sweetie. Why don't you go outside and see how the boys are coming? VICKI can't take her eyes off this strange figure drifting eerily through the abandoned tea room. VICKI (hesitantly) ... Why the mask? JOKER Alicia! Come here, have a seat. Show Miss Vale why you wear the mask. ALICIA sits down numbly and begins to undo the mask. JOKER (cont.) You see, Miss Vale, Alicia's beautiful. One in a million. A work of art. In fact... We're looking at ALICIA's profile as the mask comes off. The side that's turned to us is indeed beautiful. But the side we can't see... SENDS VICKI RIGHT OVER THE EDGE. JOKER (cont.) She makes you look sick. VICKI lurches out of her seat, knocking it over, HER FACE FROZEN IN HORROR. She finds her CAMERA, holds it out like a weapon as THE JOKER advances on her. VICKI You SCUM! You SICK FILTH!... You DID THAT to her! JOKER What? I improved her a little... VICKI backs away, snapping the shutter on her camera. HE BLINKS as the flash gun goes off repeatedly. VICKI I'll see you burn. I'll see you dead. -- GET AWAY FROM ME!! JOKER Miss Vale, was it something I said? (brightly) Do you want to sniff my flower? There's a BRIGHT PURPLE BOUTONNIERE in his lapel. He holds it up for VICKI's inspection as he moves menacingly closer. VICKI NO! The JOKER squeezes a concealed BULB. A JET OF CLEAR LIQUID spurts out of the FLOWER, NARROWLY MISSING VICKI. She GASPS. BUMPS INTO A TABLE. ACRID BLACK SMOKE rises from the floor where the clear liquid hit. Acid. JOKER Come on, Miss Vale... STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES!! He backs VICKI into a corner. And then -- abruptly -- A SKYLIGHT SHATTERS IN A HAIL OF GLASS! A CAPED SHADOW DROPS TO THE FLOOR OF THE RESTAURANT! And THE JOKER is face to face with... THE BATMAN! On his wrist is a STEEL GAUNTLET. Ha AIMS IT at the JOKER like a weapon. Then PIVOTS SUDDENLY -- POINTS HIS ARM THROUGH THE DOOR OF THE RESTAURANT -- -- AND FIRES A METAL SPIKE into the adobe wall of the RAMP OUTSIDE!! JOKER (cont.) ... YOU!! On the end of the spike is a CORD leading to BATMAN's belt. In the wink of an eye he's GRABBED VICKI -- DRAGGED HER OUT OF the tea room -- and PLUNGED OVER THE RAMP WALL, FOUR STORIES STRAIGHT DOWN TO THE ATRIUM FLOOR BELOW!!! The JOKER races to the edge of the ramp. JOKER (cont.) GET 'EM!! GET 'EM!! His GOONS are stationed at various points along the ramp, still defacing masterpieces. They pull their guns and OPEN FIRE as BATMAN and VICKI plummet past. ANGLE ON BATMAN AND VICKI - AS THEY FALL He holds the gauntlet overhead, ROPE whistling through it. As we watch, the gauntlet sprouts STEEL WINGS -- forming a BULLETPROOF SHIELD over their heads! TWO FEET ABOVE the marble floor, THE ROPE jerks them up short -- like a bunjee cord. GUNS BLAZE as BATMAN and VICKI drop safely to earth and MAKE FOR THE EXIT. The doors are LOCKED. BATMAN spots the black "CLOSED" sign on a metal stand. He HEAVES IT through the glass doors. VICKI hustles through. He points her to a side alley. EXT. SIDE ALLEY - THAT MOMENT - DUSK VICKI rounds the corner just as BATMAN lobs a SMOKE PELLET into the doorway of the Fluegelheim. BATMAN GET IN THE CAR! VICKI WHICH CAR? VICKI suddenly feels quite stupid. Because -- while there are many cars parked along the side alley -- there is only one BATMOBILE. VICKI (cont.) ... Oh. The BATMOBILE is sleek, futuristic, and... well, indescribable. Imagine your own. VICKI climbs into the passenger seat and is immediately dazzled by a stunning array of electronic gadgetry. BATMAN Ignition! As BATMAN sprints down the alley, a COMPUTER DISPLAY on the dashboard registers his unique voiceprint. A tinny, synthesized VOICE repeats the command: COMPUTER Ignition. The engines are revving up even as BATMAN vaults into the cockpit alongside VICKI. Guns in hand, the JOKER'S GOONS Are stumbling out of the Fluegelheim, hacking, coughing, blinded by smoke. They DIVE FOR THEIR LIVES as the BATMOBILE comes barrelling out of the alley at ninety miles an hour. THE JOKER emerges just as the BATMOBILE careens off. JOKER I WANT HIM!! I WANT HIM!! The JOKER climbs into the back of a van labelled "MONARCH PLAYING CARDS." Half his GOONS pile into the van behind him, the other half into a second car nearby. EXT. STREETS - THAT MOMENT SIRENS HOWL as POLICE CARS converge on the Flugelheim. INT. BATMOBILE - THAT MOMENT roaring out into CITY TRAFFIC. VICKI Look! Police! BATMAN I called them. VICKI Shouldn't we -- A POLICE CAR whizzes past the BATMOBILE. TIRES SKID. The COP CAR does a quick 180 and sets out in hot pursuit of the BATMOBILE. BATMAN FLOORS THE ACCELERATOR in response. INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT TIGHT ON the demented face of THE JOKER. A GOON calls out from the front of the van. GOON There they are! Dead ahead! THE JOKER screams into a RADIO DISPATCHER'S MIKE. JOKER ALL UNITS! SOUTHBOUND ON RIVERVIEW! SERIES OF SHOTS The JOKER'S ARMY. THUGS in cars. CREEPS in Italian restaurants. CROOKED COPS at a coffee shop. LIGHTS FLASH, BEEPERS SOUND, and within seconds they're racing to the streets, eager to join the chase. SERIES OF SHOTS - THE STREETS COP CARS. GOON CARS. THE BATMOBILE streaks through an intersection, nearly causing a pileup. THE JOKER'S VAN makes short work of a SABRETT'S HOT DOG STAND in its path. INT. BATMOBILE - THAT MOMENT PEDESTRIANS GAWK as the sleek supercar RIPS UP THE PAVEMENT. VICKI What about her? What about the girl? BATMAN He won't kill her. (gritting his teeth) GODDAMMIT! They're moving up on an EMPTY BLOCK -- a NIGHT CONSTRUCTION TEAM. A HUGE PIECE OF HEAVY MACHINERY backs up slowly and inexorably, BLOCKING THE INTERSECTION. BATMAN GUNS THE ENGINE. SWERVES LEFT. TRIES TO SLIDE PAST. And HITS THE BRAKES -- stopping inches short of a head-on collision with a lamppost. He jumps out of the car. No chance to get through. THE JOKER'S VAN is two blocks back and coming up fast. ONLOOKERS and CONSTRUCTION WORKERS are beginning to form a crowd around them. VICKI Can't we -- BATMAN Too many people. Come on! (as she scrambles out) SHIELDS!! The BATMOBILE's computerized VOICE replies: COMPUTER Shields. With a series or CLANGS, CHROME-STEEL PLATES slide into place -- across the cockpit, over the tires -- leaving the BATMOBILE an inert, impenetrable BLOCK OF BLACK METAL. BATMAN and VICKI sprint through the CONSTRUCTION SITE, vaulting over mounds of loose dirt and concrete rubble. INT. VAN - MOVING - NIGHT THREE POLICE CARS, red lights blazing, OVERTAKE THE JOKER'S VAN and bear down on the abandoned BATMOBILE. GOON AT WHEEL Are they ours? JOKER ... I don't know. We'd better get out of here. (into RADIO MIKE) Westbound on 36th. DO YOU COPY?? The VAN does a discreet U-turn and rumbles off sedately down the street. EXT. SIDE STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BATMAN and VICKI zigzag past storefronts and candy stands, dodging astonished PEDESTRIANS. INT. CAR - MOVING - THAT MOMENT FOUR GOONS with GUNS. They spot BATMAN and VICKI coming off the side street. GOON I, the driver, speaks into a radio: GOON I We got 'em! JOKER (V.O.) (over radio) Take 'em! I want his head! EXT. STREET - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BATMAN and VICKI race down the sidewalk. The car is gaining on them; and then, from behind -- BATMAN and VICKI are caught in a SPRAY OF BULLETS. They dive. Drop behind a parked car. And don't come up. They've ducked into a BLIND ALLEY. INT. ALLEYWAY - NIGHT Hunkered on the pavement, they watch the car glide past the mouth of the alley. VICKI sighs in relief. BATMAN -- still alert, his muscles tensed -- puts a restraining hand on her arm. He looks overhead, sees a catwalk spanning the width of the alleyway five stories up. BATMAN How much do you weigh? VICKI ... A hundred and eight? He does some quick mental calculations. A beat. Then the CAR reappears -- backing up -- blocking their only avenue of escape. BATMAN unfurls a rope, HEAVES A BATARANG UPWARD, and grabs VICKI roughly about the waist. BATMAN HANG ON! The JOKER'S THUGS pile out of the car. The BATARANG catches on the catwalk, and BATMAN triggers the spring-action REEL on his utility belt -- jerking him and VICKI INTO THE AIR. BULLETS zing past as they whip upward like fish on a line. One story; two stories; and then... They slow. They STOP. They DANGLE IN MIDAIR as the Joker's goons advance. BATMAN wriggles, twists. They lurch upward another few feet -- and stop again. VICKI SCREAMS. Her additional weight is too much for the reel mechanism. They're stranded two stories up -- SITTING DUCKS. BATMAN (cont.) Whatever happens -- DON'T LET GO!! In the wink of an eye he's detached the reel from his own waist and hitched it around VICKI's belt. Before she has a chance to protest, he LETS GO. VICKI rockets upward at blinding speed, shrieking all the way. BATMAN, his cape billowing, PLUMMETS DOWNWARD. VICKI slams up into the catwalk and BOBS on the end of the line as BATMAN lands with a loud crash, overturning a row of garbage cans. The GOONS are on him in a flash -- one per limb. Random kicking and flailing. BATMAN manages to slam two GOONS into a wall, but before he can get to his feet -- -- GOON #3 slams a lead pipe into the back of his skull. BATMAN is down for the count. The THUGS dust themselves off and circle around his prostrate form, still wary. The LEAD THUG holds his colleagues back, draws his gun, and fires TWO SHOTS, point-blank, at the yellow-and-black INSIGNE on BATMAN's chest. The body jerks. They move closer. And stop. GOON I ... No blood. GOON II Jesus. GOON III Wait a minute. GOON III screws up his courage and crouches beside the body. He examines THE BATMAN'S TUNIC... and RIPS IT OPEN. GOON IV ... What is that? GOON III Some kind of body armor. GOON I He's human after all. -- Take that mask off. EXT. ROOFTOP - ON VICKI Five stories overhead, VICKI has pulled herself up onto the roof of the adjacent building. She watches transfixed as the THUGS bend over to remove BATMAN's cowl. But at this height -- and this angle -- she can't see his face. On a sudden impulse she reaches for her CAMERA BAG. ANGLE ON GOONS peering-down open-mouthed at the unconscious face of BRUCE WAYNE. Blood seeps from BRUCE's left nostril. GOON I Well?... Who is this guy? GOON II I dunno. You seen him before? GOON III Maybe he's got some kind of I.D. GOON IV Good idea. Let's check his wallet. GOON I We'll worry about it later. Plug him. (beat) In the head. GOON II draws his automatic. And at that very instant... A FLASH GUN EXPLODES OVERHEAD. Startled, the THUGS look up. ANOTHER CAMERA FLASH. GOON III Goddam, it's the redhead! ON VICKI A chunk of ledge chips off mere inches from her head as the GOONS OPEN FIRE. She ducks back behind the overhang, holds the camera out over the ledge, and KEEPS ON FLASHING. ON BRUCE HIS EYES WINK OPEN. ON VICKI momentarily idle. She's used up her roll. The GOONS KEEP SHOOTING as she reaches in her bag for new film. She finds it, loads the camera with astonishing dexterity -- and then, on instinct, reaches back inside the bag for a TELEPHOTO LENS. All the better to see you with, Batman... ON THE THUGS No response from VICKI. They begin to relax a little. GOON II Did you hit her? GOON I Who cares? Wax that freak. They turn their attention to BRUCE. A GLOVED HAND snakes out with lightning speed -- GRABBING GOON I BY THE COATTAIL and pulling him DIRECTLY INTO THE LINE OF FIRE. GOON II bas pulled the trigger twice before he knows what's happened. In one fluid motion BRUCE HEAVES GOON I's lifeless body THROUGH THE AIR, knocking GOON II backward over a garbage can. GOON II falls and CRACKS HIS HEAD on the nearest wall. GOON III takes a rabbit punch to the throat. He's on the way down when he catches a STEEL-TOED BOOT in the gut. Four seconds after all this began, BRUCE is alone in the alleyway with GOON IV. GOON IV has his gun pointed right at BRUCE, but he's shaking too much to pull the trigger. BRUCE smiles. GOON IV SCREAMS and RUNS FOR HIS LIFE. Through all this, VICKI's telephoto camera has been poised on the ledge, snapping away. BRUCE looks up at the FLASH GUN and shakes his head. He bends to retrieve his cowl. ON VICKI She finally dares to peek down at the alley. Limp goons everywhere. And, in addition, THE BATMAN -- leaping up, grabbing the edge of a fire escape, climbing up to meet her. VICKI thinks fast. She may have a clean shot of BATMAN'S FACE. She advances the film in the camera and removes the roll, then drops it down her blouse. But BATMAN is likely to want that roll. So she straightens her skirt and scurries across the roof, away from the alley. She should have a minute or so before be gets there. It's a three-foot drop to the next roof over. VICKI clambers down and quickens her pace, tossing a nervous glance over her shoulder every couple of steps. Then, somehow -- and she'll be damned if she can figure out how -- she walks smack into THE BATMAN. And GASPS. BATMAN ... Not even a 'thank you'? VICKI Well -- I think you might consider thanking me. You were good as dead. BATMAN That's because you lied about your weight. (a long pause) Thank you. VICKI NODS and tries to walk past him. He grabs her arm. BATMAN (cont.) I'll have to ask you for that film. VICKI I just wanted to distract them. I wasn't trying to get a picture of you. BATMAN looks down at the camera hanging from her neck. The telephoto lens must jut out six inches. VICKI gulps. BATMAN Please. VICKI I won't let you have it. THE BATMAN is amused. He smiles menacingly. VICKI (cont.) I know you can break my neck and take it. But the Joker's on that same roll. I -- BATMAN The Joker is a murderer. And you were as good as dead. So -- VICKI Look, I appreciate what you did for me. But this is my job. And I'm keeping those pictures. BATMAN All right, here's a compromise. I'll develop the photos. You keep the Jokers and I'll keep the rest. VICKI How do I know you won't keep them all? BATMAN Because I'll take you with me. He reaches out, holds her gently by the shoulders. His voice is deep and soothing. True, VICKI is a little dizzy from all that's happened, but she's undeniably drawn to him. Still cautious, though. She reaches into her bag and hands over a roll of film. The original roll -- not the telephoto shots, which are still stashed in her blouse. BATMAN (cont.) Thank you, Vicki. VICKI ... Where are you going to take me? No reply. She looks up into his mirrored eyes. He pulls her closer to him. Brushes back her hair, runs one hand delicately along the line of her cheek... ... AND BREAKS A TINY CAPSULE under her nose. VICKI SLUMPS into BATMAN's arms. CUT TO: EXT. ALLEYWAY - NIGHT Street level. BATMAN emerges carrying VICKI's inert form in his arms. He pauses and peers around the edge of a wall at the BATMOBILE two blocks down. The car is still there, the chrome-steel shields intact. But DOZENS OF COPS and CURIOSITY-SEEKERS are SWARMING ALL OVER the fearsome machine. BATMAN snorts in frustration. AN ENORMOUS THREE-TON CATERPILLAR WINCH rumbles up the street toward the Batmobile. He's about to get towed. BATMAN takes a RADIO TRANSMITTER from his utility belt and SPEAKS INTO IT. BATMAN Shields open. EXT. STREET - ON BATMOBILE TWO COPS are crawling along the hood of the car. From within they hear the tinny computerized voice: COMPUTER Shields open. The steel plates begin to retract. BATMAN (V.O.) (over radio) Ignition. COMPUTER Ignition. The stunned COPS gaze into the Batmobile's cockpit. COP There's somebody in there! They TUMBLE OFF THE HOOD as the turbine engines ROAR TO LIFE and THE BATMOBILE BEGINS TO MOVE. COPS AND ONLOOKERS quickly clear a path. They stand there stunned as the futuristic auto PICKS UP SPEED and advances toward the end of the block. The LEFT TURN SIGNAL flashes dutifully. And the BATMOBILE VANISHES AROUND THE CORNER. PANDEMONIUM BREAKS LOOSE as the COPS bolt for their cars. EXT. STREET - NIGHT SIRENS WAIL. PASSERSBY STARE SLACKJAWED at the driverless BATMOBILE as it tears down the street, passing, darting, dodging buses and CUTTING OFF TAXIS -- all with a squad of COP CARS in hot pursuit. EXT. ALLEYWAY - NIGHT BATMAN sees the BATMOBILE rounding the corner and approaching on the straightaway. He takes VICKI in his arms and STEPS DIRECTLY INTO THE PATH OF THE ONRUSHING HEADLIGHTS. BATMAN STOP! BRAKES SQUEAL. The BATMOBILE stops one yard short of BATMAN and VICKI. A moment later BATMAN is AT THE WHEEL. SIRENS BUILD. LIGHTS FLASH. The COP CARS are now visible behind them. BATMAN floors the pedal; the Batmobile's powerful AFTERBURNERS kick in; and the hapless cops KILL THEIR SIRENS as BATMAN zooms off into the night at 140 mph. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. BACK ROAD - NIGHT A deserted stretch of road, lined by ancient tall pines on either side. The BATMOBILE roars past. INT. BATMOBILE - NIGHT VICKI is gradually coming to on the passenger's side. VICKI ... How long have I been out? BATMAN Quite a while. I took the scenic route. VICKI (gazing around her) Well, I've certainly enjoyed it. What's that? He's just hit a BUTTON on the dashboard. BATMAN Garage door. EXT. ROAD - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT At the side of the road, a FALLEN TREE, surrounded by underbrush, RISES HYDRAULICALLY INTO THE AIR -- revealing a SECRET ROAD invisible from the main thoroughfare. Doing sixty, the BATMOBILE makes a hairpin turn. Seconds later, the FALLEN TREE drops back magically into place. INT. BATMOBILE - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT As they cruise down the hidden road, VICKI STUDIES BATMAN'S FACE. KNOX's words are very much on her mind. VICKI I meant to ask you. Up on the roof -- how did you know my name? BATMAN SMILES in response. VICKI smiles with him. VICKI (cont.) I'm serious. How did you know? No reply. VICKI frowns, looks through the windshield, and SEES -- much to her horror -- an enormous SHEER CLIFF WALL LOOMING DEAD AHEAD. Wide-eyed, she looks at BATMAN. Still smiling, he HITS THE GAS -- SPEEDING UP. She lets out a SCREAM. ANGLE ON CLIFF WALL One second to impact. Suddenly the cliff wall VANISHES ALTOGETHER -- revealing, in its place, the GAPING MOUTH OF AN UNDERGROUND CAVERN. The Batmobile zooms through. A moment later, the CLIFF WALL -- which is nothing more than a HOLOGRAPHIC PROJECTION -- winks back into existence, showing no trace of the cavern. INT. BATCAVE - NIGHT We all know this place. Although we haven't had time to acquire the familiar mementos -- the dinosaur, the giant penny -- the BATCAVE is unmistakable. Vast banks of blinking computers. A state-of-the-art crime lab. A fully- equipped workshop for hammering out new toys. It's the biggest and best secret clubhouse a boy could wish for. BATMAN climbs out of the car. He removes his cape, strips off his bullet-riddled jersey and his body armor. There are TWO BIG BRUISES on the center of his chest. VICKI looks on as he goes to a rack along one wall and picks out a fresh tunic -- one of four. She wanders over to examine the row of bat-suits -- and the BODY ARMOR. VICKI What is this stuff? Kevlar? BATMAN Better. It's not on the market yet. VICKI It doesn't protect your head, though. BATMAN That's why I wear a target on my chest. THE BATMAN takes obvious pleasure in showing her his futuristic bachelor's pad. His tone is jokey, almost flirtatious. Behind the mask, he's a lot looser, more carefree, than some guys we could name... ... like Bruce Wayne. VICKI is, to put it mildly, awed. She wanders around gaping at millions of dollars' worth of equipment. VICKI How'd you find this place? BATMAN Stumbled across it when I was a boy. VICKI'S HEAD jerks up abruptly. In the dim recesses overhead, BATS ARE SCREAMING. She shivers. BATMAN (cont.) They don't come down here. They're afraid of the lights. VICKI I don't like bats. Not that kind. BATMAN They used to terrify me. But I forced myself to keep coming back, and -- (smiling) -- I guess I became the thing I feared the most. I'll do your photos now. He goes to a HIGH-SPEED PHOTO PROCESSING MACHINE -- the kind they have at Fotomat, only better -- and loads the roll. VICKI wanders over to the edge of a DEEP BLACK PIT. She kicks a pebble over. Long seconds pass; no sound. She looks up. Suspended over the bottomless pit are a pair of GYMNAST'S RINGS. This guy is dedicated. VICKI Who pays for all this? BATMAN I have sponsors. VICKI The computers? BATMAN I'm running a check on the tainted products. There is a pattern. Beauty products. Personal hygiene. VICKI No more makeup. -- Looks like we'll all be showing our true faces now. She looks straight at him. It's almost a direct request. But BATMAN is preoccupied with the matter at hand. BATMAN I've tracked all the records. Every shipment, every warehouse, every loading dock. Nothing. No opportunities for tampering. Somehow the Joker is supplying tainted ingredients... at the source. VICKI Wait. You can just tap into any corporate database you want? Anywhere? BATMAN Oh, no. I let the FBI do that. Then I tap into the FBI. -- Your photos are ready. He holds up a hand to VICKI: stand back. Then he checks out the pictures -- SMILING as he shuffles through the prints. VICKI You could've killed him, you know. You could have killed the Joker. BATMAN I had to save you, Vicki. (turning to face her) Here you go. I think I'll let you keep the whole set. She looks at the photos. Joker. Joker. Joker. And four shots of the BATMAN in action. He's without his mask, but there's no clean angle on his face. VICKI doesn't quite know why, but her head is reeling. BATMAN (cont.) Care for an autograph? He takes one of the prints, scrawls on it, hands it to her with the inscription: "TO VICKI. LOVE, B." Now he turns to shut down the photo machine. VICKI is trembling. Her hand goes to her belt, finds the telephoto roll concealed in her blouse. She steps up silently behind him, reaches for his cowl. At the last second... she STOPS. VICKI ... Bruce? HE FREEZES IN PLACE for an indecisive moment. Then: BATMAN Are you talking to me? He turns in seeming incomprehension. And shows her a SMILE... the same crooked, curious, childlike smile she saw on BRUCE's face that morning when she caught him singing. BATMAN (cont.) Maybe we've had enough for one night. I'll take you home. Almost in a trance now, she lets him lead her to the BATMOBILE. As she takes her seat he reaches into his utility belt for another KNOCKOUT CAPSULE. BATMAN (cont.) Do you want to do it this time? VICKI doesn't move. She looks at the capsule in her hand as he walks over to the driver's side and gets in. BATMAN (cont.) Don't be afraid. I'm here. She takes one last look at the familiar SMILE beneath the mask... then breaks the capsule and BREATHES DEEP. FLAME ERUPTS from the rear of the Batmobile as the after- burners kick in and BATMAN screeches off. A FIERY RED GLOW fills the screen, BURNING OUT THE IMAGE as we DISSOLVE TO: EXT. GOTHAM STREET - 1963 - NIGHT (DREAM SEQUENCE) The red glow resolves itself into a DREAMLIKE STREET SCENE: liquid, weightless figures moving in a tinted, soundless cityscape as DISTANT, TINKLY CARNIVAL MUSIC plays underneath. We're outside a theatre watching first-nighters emerge from the opening of a hit musical. In the crowd we pick out THREE FIGURES: DR. THOMAS WAYNE, his wife MARTHA, and -- in THOMAS's arms -- their young son BRUCE. BRUCE hasn't made it through the show. He's asleep, head nestled peacefully against his father's shoulder. THOMAS rouses the boy gently, sets him down on the sidewalk. BRUCE rubs the sleep from his eyes as THOMAS puts an arm around his wife. Together they begin walking. IN A SINGLE CUT the crowd has DISAPPEARED, and the WAYNES are walking toward us up a deserted street. THOMAS and MARTHA are laughing, making jokes, reaching down to tousle BRUCE's hair. Their FACES, as they draw closer, are FULL OF JOY. And then, without warning -- A HANDGUN enters frame. The WAYNES freeze in their tracks. THOMAS steps protectively in front of his wife, reaches for his wallet, begins unbuckling his watch. He won't put up a fight. MARTHA's hand goes involuntarily to the PEARL NECKLACE at her throat. The GUNMAN sees it, gestures for her to hand it over. But MARTHA is paralyzed, afraid to move. The GUNMAN steps past THOMAS, SNATCHES AT THE NECKLACE. The instant his wife is threatened, THOMAS ATTACKS. The pearl strand BREAKS in the GUNMAN'S HAND as he drops toward the sidewalk. A SILENT BURST OF FLAME erupts from the muzzle of the gun. THOMAS CRUMPLES. MARTHA emits a PIERCING SHRIEK -- a shriek we cannot hear -- -- a shriek cut short by a second burst of flame. BRUCE stands paralyzed in shock. THE GUNMAN scoops a handful of pearls off the sidewalk, reaches for MARTHA's purse, and rises slowly -- his gun levelled directly at the boy. Almost catatonic, BRUCE stares down at the corpses of his parents. At their hands, somehow intertwined. At the tiny glinting pearls and the spreading pool of blood around them. He looks up with a gaze so bleak, so petrifying... that the GUNMAN turns and runs. AND WE CUT. To an exact reproduction of the Pulitzer Prize- winning photo... the cops bent over the bodies, the medics with their stretchers, the boy BRUCE, his arms wrapped tightly around the waist of OFFICER GORDON. There's only one difference. BRUCE's head is turned away from us. We can't see his face. And now a HAND enters the frame. Much like the GUNMAN's hand, but feminine, beckoning. BRUCE, hearing his name, LOOKS UP; then, agonized, ashamed, he BURIES HIS FACE in GORDON's side. GORDON gestures angrily at the intruder. But the hand keeps beckoning. And ultimately BRUCE turns. Showing us the tear-stained face from the famous photo. A face slack with horror. The horror of his parents' death... and more importantly, the horror that someone would dare to violate this most private and terrible of moments. At last we see what BRUCE sees: a WOMAN crouched on the sidewalk nearby. The WOMAN is holding a camera. The WOMAN is smiling prettily at BRUCE. The WOMAN is VICKI VALE. A FLASHBULB EXPLODES. FILLING. THE SCREEN with its blinding white light, SCORCHING OUT THE IMAGE as a HARSH RINGING SOUND cuts through the silence. CUT TO: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT VICKI AWAKENS. She sits up in bed, tremulous, distraught. The bedside phone is ringing. She reaches for it, but her hand freezes in midair. She knows who's calling. Three rings later, she manages to lift the receiver. To her amazement, she finds she cannot speak. Finally, she hears a VOICE at the other end of the line. BRUCE (V.O.) Vicki... ? INT. BRUCE WAYNE'S STUDY - NIGHT BRUCE at a big mahogany desk in his somber, book-lined study. The room is dark but for a small table lamp. BRUCE Vicki, I've been thinking about you. (long pause) I know it's late. I'm sorry. I -- Are you there? INTERCUT BRUCE AND VICKI VICKI Yes, Bruce -- I'm here -- BRUCE I'm sorry about the way things went between us. I'd very much like to see you again. VICKI Well, Bruce... I don't think... that would be possible. BRUCE I wish you'd reconsider. (groping) I didn't stand you up today. The museum was closed when I got there. VICKI I, uh... ON VICKI Her voice trails off. She's profoundly shaken. She knows. BRUCE (V.O.) Vicki? Vi -- She returns the receiver to its cradle. ON BRUCE He hears the click. His lips part slightly. He hangs up and sits there at the desk, staring straight ahead. CUT TO: INT. VICKI'S BATHROOM - NIGHT TOTAL DARKNESS. VICKI stands before the bathroom mirror. She holds the OPENED ROLL OF TELEPHOTO SHOTS over the sink. Then she strikes a match. IGNITES the film. Drops it into the sink, and -- with hollow eyes -- WATCHES IT BURN. CUT TO: INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - LATER - NIGHT It's four in the morning. VICKI, wrapped in a bathrobe, still shaky, pours her fifth cup of coffee. Sitting across from her is a rumpled and stubbly ALEXANDER KNOX. KNOX Vicki, it all fits. The stuff you're telling me -- the car, the equipment -- somebody's paying for it. VICKI I just can't -- KNOX The FBI. You know who's got the FBI computer contract? Wayne Technologies. (shaking his head) The guy's bats all right. He's bat shit crazy. This is gonna be the most incredible -- VICKI But he's not. KNOX Not what? VICKI He's not crazy. KNOX slaps his forehead in frustration, sprawls back in his chair. KNOX Vicki. We got a wealthy millionaire here... who dresses up like a bat. He goes out at night and swings around -- in his cape -- on a rope. (throwing up his hands) Okay. Maybe I'm crazy. VICKI Allie... he wants to tell me. That's why he took me there. Because he's trying to tell me. KNOX Gimme a break. If he wants to chat, he can talk to his car. The joke dies. VICKI stares dead ahead. KNOX looks on in utter disbelief as it all comes into focus: he's lost her loyalty. VICKI is in over her head with BRUCE. VICKI He has to tell someone. And I'm the one. He's trying to tell me. KNOX, hurt in a way he doesn't fully understand, gets up and pulls on his coat. He stares at her coldly: KNOX Well, when he does you know my number. CUT TO: EXT. NEWSSTAND - DAY CUSTOMERS are lining up to buy the early edition of the Globe, which carries the full-page banner headline: WAR OF THE FREAKS Batman, Joker in Fluegelheim Shootout In the midst of the hubbub a DELIVERY TRUCK cruises past, dumping a bundle of AFTERNOON EDITIONS on the sidewalk. "WAR OF THE FREAKS" has been relegated to the lower right- hand corner of the page -- supplanted by more pressing news: STOCK MARKET CRASHES Product Scare Drops Dow to 1100 Biggest One-Day Decline in History INT. WAYNE FOUNDATION - DAY BRUCE in a plush office suite downtown, on the phone to his broker. Behind his desk is a big plate-glass window with a fortieth-floor view of the financial district, so he can wave at his fellow millionaires on their way down. BRUCE Don't sell. It won't last. We'll ride it out. With exaggerated calm, he hangs up. He lifts the receiver to dial another number, then hesitates and hangs up again. INT. RECEPTION AREA - A MOMENT LATER - DAY BRUCE, affecting an air of nonchalance, strolls past a squad of SECRETARIES at desks. Phones are ringing off the hook. INT. HALLWAY - A MOMENT LATER - DAY BRUCE ambles past a couple of COLLEAGUES. One of them is shambling catatonically down the hall, bumping into walls. The other is WAILING HYSTERICALLY. WAILING COLLEAGUE ... a nine-million-dollar bath! BRUCE nods in sympathy as they pass. He stops outside the door to a men's room, looks around cautiously, then enters. INT. MEN'S ROOM - A MOMENT LATER - DAY A small anteroom outside the bathroom proper, with a bank of PAY PHONES on one wall. BRUCE checks the bathroom to make sure it's empty, then digs out a quarter and dials a number. He cups one hand confidentially over the receiver: BRUCE (the familiar rasp) Vicki?... This is Batman. I thought I'd call and see how you're doing. INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - DAY VICKI (hesitantly) ... I know it's you, Bruce. I'm not going to talk to you unless we can discuss it. INT. MEN'S ROOM - ON BRUCE BRUCE (a little smile) Who's this "Bruce"? Are you trying to make me jealous? VICKI (V.O.) (filter) I'm serious, Bruce. We have to -- At this very moment, a DAZED FINANCIER enters from behind. FINANCIER Hi, Bruce. BRUCE automatically claps a hand over the mouthpiece. His face goes slack as he hangs up -- with VICKI'S TINNY VOICE still squeaking on the other end of the line. CUT TO: INT. DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE - NIGHT HARVEY DENT at a big desk, flanked by a number of POLITICOS. DENT ... We deal. ADVISER Harvey, please. I mean -- (shaking his head) If your first official act as D.A. is to cut a deal with a terrorist... DENT Screw that, Ed. We've got a market panic of national proportions. -- We've got 786 people dead. (beat) I won't sacrifice one more life for the sake of appearing strong. POLITICO Harvey's right. We've got the 300th anniversary gala coming up. The networks won't even send in a crew. ADVISER Harvey, the police are working round the clock, the feds are coming in. This thing could break any minute now. (turning) Tell him, Jim. COMMISSIONER GORDON reaches into his vest pocket for a cigar. He clips the end off, lights it, takes a long drag... and STARES GLUMLY at the floor. GORDON Cut the deal. INT. CITY HALL - NIGHT The MAYOR sits impatiently at a long table, flanked by JIM GORDON, HARVEY DENT, and other prominent officials. The room is packed with REPORTERS and TV NEWS CREWS. NEWS ANCHOR ... at City Hall, where the mayor is waiting to open negotiations with the clown-faced terrorist known as the Joker. It is now eight minutes past the appointed deadline, and still no word from -- INT. GOTHAM GLOBE - CITY ROOM - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT REPORTERS cluster around a bank of four TV sets, each tuned to a different station, all broadcasting from city Hall. REPORTER I Look at 'em sweat. Can't wait for the next Gallup Poll. REPORTER II Hey Knox, cheer up. It ain't the Batman but it's pretty choice. KNOX, who has recently taken up smoking, responds with a grunt. SUDDEN HUBBUB from the ONLOOKERS as a wave of VIDEO NOISE wipes half the screen away. INSERT - TELEVISION SCREEN Split-screen. On one side is the MAYOR. On the other -- sitting in a director's chair with a big yellow HAPPY-FACE BACKDROP behind him -- is the JOKER, grinning fiendishly. JOKER Joker here. Can we talk? The MAYOR fumbles for his prepared statement. MAYOR "While this administration remains vehemently opposed to terrorism in any form, we are prepared to negotiate any reasonable demands which will guarantee the safety of the populace." JOKER Huh. Demands. Well, gents, this is kinda embarrassing, but... I'm having such a swell time, I just haven't thought any up. He shrugs. STARTLED REACTIONS from the city officials. JOKER (cont.) But I'm a reasonable fella. If you want to make me an offer... Panicked, the MAYOR and co. go into a quick huddle. MAYOR All right, all right. Here's the deal. Total amnesty... and the sum of ten million dollars, payable in -- JOKER Ten million dollars. Ten million dollars. (flying off the handle) Ten mi-- YOU CHEAPSKATES! I've just wiped out the stock market. I've cost you billions! (petulantly) I want ten million and one. MAYOR No, wait, please! We'll talk. Just tell us what you expect. JOKER Goddammit, I expect to be treated like an ARTIST. GET OFF MY SCREEN!! MORE VIDEO STATIC sweeps across the screen, pushing the MAYOR clean out of frame. The JOKER leers at the camera. JOKER (cont.) I might just think up some demands. And I'm gonna talk to all my friends, and see what they want, too. And then maybe we'll get together -- have a little party -- exchange presents. (waving goodbye) Happy Birthday, Gotham. "The Shadow of Your Smile" comes up UNDERNEATH as the JOKER's transmission ends and the SCREEN GOES BLACK. INT. GLOBE CITY ROOM - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT FRANTIC ACTIVITY as REPORTERS rush to their telephones and typewriters. KNOX strolls slowly back to his desk. He's sitting on the biggest story of his career... and now, as he realizes grimly, nobody knows or cares. CUT TO: EXT. ANDREWS ISLAND - DAY A tiny island in Gotham Harbor, homesite of LADY GOTHAM -- the huge, newly restored stone statue that welcomes incoming ships. Her upper half is draped in a huge TARP prior to the unveiling ceremony scheduled for this Sunday. At the base of the statue, WORKMEN are assembling a big wooden platform, complete with microphones, amplifiers and spotlights. They raise a gigantic BANNER which reads: "GOTHAM CITY -- 300TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION." CUT TO: EXT. WAYNE MANOR - DAY A TAXI pulls away from the wrought-iron gate at the entrance to the estate. KNOX ambles up to a stone pillar, glances up at a VIDEO CAMERA mounted over the gate, and hits a BUZZER. ALFRED (V.O.) (through loudspeaker) Yes? KNOX Alexander Knox. Gotham Globe. ALFRED (V.O.) Mr. Wayne is out for the day. KNOX Actually, I wanted to talk to Batman. Pass that on to Mr. Wayne, would you? KNOX starts cockily off down the driveway -- then STOPS. Behind him, the iron gates are SLIDING OPEN. INT. BRUCE'S LIBRARY - TEN MINUTES LATER - DAY KNOX, agitated, drums his fingers on the edge of a big leather chair. BRUCE stands across from him. BRUCE I've been expecting to hear from you. KNOX Well, that's how it is, chum. She tells me everything. BRUCE What is it you want? KNOX Simple. You know the score. One column -- and I can bring all this tumbling down. I can take you off the streets once and for all. (a shaky pause) I want you to hang up the suit. And I want you to stay away from Vicki. BRUCE I can't do that. Not while the Joker's still out there. KNOX Then stay away from Vicki. That's all I want, man. I just want your word. BRUCE turns away, evading his gaze. KNOX fumbles in his jacket for a cigarette. KNOX (cont.) See, I don't know how it happened -- she's a smart girl and you are an extraordinarily screwed-up guy -- but she's in love with you. BRUCE There's something I don't understand. If you've got the story, why haven't you printed it? KNOX Because I -- (beat) Because she'd never speak to me again. KNOX is a bundle of nerves now. No longer cocky, he stubs out his newly-lit cigarette -- and begins to PLEAD OPENLY. KNOX (cont.) Come on, Bruce. Be straight. What have you got to offer? You gonna marry her? Batman and Mrs. Batman? (laughing bitterly) Gimme a break, huh? Who's gonna be Best Rodent? BRUCE sinks into a chair, exhales sharply. He can't even put up an argument. The two of them sit there, not looking at each other, as ALFRED appears in the doorway. BRUCE Do you want a drink? KNOX Yeah, a drink. "Civilized." Man-to- man, right? BRUCE Alfred, bring something for Mr. Knox. -- I'll have one too. CUT TO: EXT. GOTHAM PARK - LATE AFTERNOON The weekend-long BIRTHDAY GALA is getting underway, and Gotham Park is mobbed with CELEBRANTS enjoying a FREE CONCERT. Onstage: FIVE ELVIS IMITATORS, dressed in everything from black leather to white spangled jumpsuits, representing the King in progressive stages of deterioration. INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - DUSK She's on the sofa beside a disconsolate BRUCE. VICKI ... So we just pretend none of this ever happened. We never met. We -- (frightened) You're going to get yourself killed, Bruce. You know that, don't you? BRUCE It wouldn't matter much. VICKI I don't understand it. You can do so much good for people. As Bruce Wayne. He sinks back on the sofa, closes his eyes. He's had the same argument with himself a thousand times. BRUCE Money makes money, Vicki. The foundation runs itself. -- I'm extraneous to the process. VICKI You're one man. You can't save everybody. BRUCE What it I could save a handful? -- What if I could save one? VICKI is sick of watching BRUCE torment himself. She stands up, almost crying now, and ACCUSES HIM DIRECTLY: VICKI Bruce, at the rate you're going, you can't even save yourself. BRUCE (staring right at her) Sometimes... I don't know if there's enough of me left to save. VICKI is totally drained. She heads for the kitchen. VICKI Oh, God. I've got to have some coffee or something. A moment's breather as BRUCE sits on the sofa reflecting. Then, suddenly, a KNOCK at the door. VICKI reappears and moves to answer the door. BRUCE -- on his feet instantly -- grabs her by the shoulder. BRUCE Are you expecting anyone? She nods no. He goes to the peephole in the door. BRUCE (cont.) Who's there? THROUGH THE PEEPHOLE he sees a DELIVERY BOY. DELIVERY BOY Package tor Miss Vale. BRUCE Set it down by the door. On the left-hand side. The DELIVERY BOY sets the package down and wanders off, tipless, muttering something about "cheap shits." After a moment's interval, BRUCE opens the door and bends to pick up the mysterious package. Another brown-paper parcel... ADDRESSED IN CRAYON. VICKI BRUCE! He strides past her, handling the parcel gingerly, and sets it down on the kitchen counter. VICKI (cont.) It's just like the last time. He sent me a present before he -- BRUCE Very thoughtful. Don't touch it. As VICKI watches, he goes into the living-room and finds his ALLIGATOR ATTACHE CASE. He opens the case, removes a LAPTOP COMPUTER and a handful of business papers... then lifts out a false bottom to reveal his UTILITY BELT. VICKI Oh, Bruce. Don't tell me you carry it around with you. BRUCE I feel naked without it. He takes out a tiny ULTRASOUND SCANNER -- rather like a stethoscope, with a miniature sonar display where the earpieces should be -- and runs it over the package. BRUCE (cont.) Not a bomb. But it could be rigged. Wait in the next room. He takes a small GAS MASK from his belt, puts it on, then SLITS THE WRAPPING with a steak knife. Nothing. Cautiously, he pulls back the flaps. The box is full of STYROFOAM POPCORN. BRUCE shoves a hand down into the popcorn... and extracts a HUMAN EAR. In the doorway behind him, VICKI lets out a squeal. BRUCE grabs the box and dumps TWO DOZEN EARS on the counter. BRUCE ... They're wax. VICKI finds a hand-scrawled NOTE among the ears. VICKI "It worked for Van Gogh. Let's make up. I'll need you soon." -- Whew. BRUCE (lost in thought) That does it. It's going to be this weekend. The KITCHEN PHONE rings. VICKI reaches for the receiver. Her eyes go wide and she gestures him over. INT. ALICIA HUNT'S APARTMENT - THAT MOMENT ALICIA, in her porcelain mask, on the phone. ALICIA I thought you ought to know -- he's coming for you... ON BRUCE AND VICKI Faces pressed together as they listen in. BRUCE covers the mouthpiece with one hand. BRUCE Keep her on the line! VICKI ... Where are you calling from? As VICKI struggles to keep the conversation alive, BRUCE rushes into the living room and crouches beside his LAPTOP COMPUTER. He plugs it in, flips open the screen, punches up a telecommunications program. A moment later VICKI enters from the kitchen. VICKI I'm sorry, she hung up. What are -- BRUCE Finding out where she is. VICKI How can you do that if she's already off the line? BRUCE I've had an automatic tracer on this number ever since he tracked you to the museum. INT. BATCAVE - THAT MOMENT MASSIVE COMPUTERS click and whir. At BRUCE's prodding, INFORMATION comes up on the monitor: a number, a name -- ALICIA HUNT -- and an East Side address. INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - THAT MOMENT - EVENING THE SAME INFORMATION scrolls across BRUCE's screen. BRUCE Got it! VICKI What now! BRUCE Hang on. I have to leave a message. HE FREEZES. He's heard something in the hallway outside. INT. HALLWAY - THAT MOMENT ELEVATOR DOORS open on THREE THUGS. One of them uses a key to lock the car in place on VICKI's floor. The key is on the end of a ring which contains dozens of other keys. The KEY RING belongs to a DOORMAN, who's riding in the elevator with the JOKER's trio of thugs. He's dead, alas. The THUGS dump him unceremoniously on the floor of the hall and march toward VICKI's apartment. INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - A MOMENT LATER BRUCE is nowhere in sight. VICKI is at the sink washing dishes, acting nonchalant. She pretends not to hear the DOOR unlocking behind her. She turns -- and faces the THREE ADVANCING THUGS. THUG I Hi, Miss Vale. Let's not put up a fight, huh? 'Cause we'd hate to have to -- BRUCE steps into the doorway behind them. With a single sweep of the arm, he flings THREE DRUG-TIPPED NINJA WHEELS at the thugs, catching one in the neck, one in the shoulder, one in the hip. They COLLAPSE in quick succession. BRUCE There's a garage in this building? VICKI nods yes. BRUCE -- all business now that he's in his element -- disappears into VICKI's bedroom. She peeks around the corner. He reemerges carrying a BLACK NYLON STOCKING, which he stuffs into his pocket. VICKI is full of question, but he shushes her before she can speak. BRUCE (cont.) I've got to take him out now. He stoops down beside the THUGS and pulls the elevator key off the key ring -- which he then tosses to VICKI. BRUCE (cont.) Pick an apartment and stay there. And listen: call the police. Give them that address. Every available man. He starts out the door, stops just long enough to take a dumbfounded VICKI in his arms for a kiss. INT. UNDERGROUND GARAGE - A MOMENT LATER - EVENING THE JOKER'S VAN, bearing the Monarch Playing Card logo. TWO ARMED GOONS lean against the hood. They watch as the elevator opens and an ordinary fellow in a suit steps out. BRUCE pulls car keys from his pocket and strolls past the thugs, head down, whistling. As he walks around the van, his hand brushes against it -- leaving a MAGNETIZED HOMING DEVICE, almost too tiny to notice, stuck to the fender. He walks another six paces, then stops short. He feels around in all his pockets, making a big show of having forgotten something. BRUCE Oh, hell! The GOONS eye him curiously as he strides back toward the elevator. The doors are closing before it strikes them that something is amiss. GOON Hey, boss, something's up. The elevator's working. INT. VAN - ON JOKER Frustrated, snarling, ready to throw a tantrum. JOKER DAMMIT! You can't get good help these days. -- Let's move out. EXT. STREET - EVENING - OVERHEAD ANGLE From high above the street we see the JOKER'S VAN pulling out of VICKI's building. We're up on the roof, with BRUCE. He hits a button on his utility belt, and a RED SIGNAL LIGHT begins to flash. BRUCE clamps the utility belt around his waist. Pulls the BLACK NYLON STOCKING over his head. And suddenly, he's BOUNDING ACROSS THE ROOFTOPS in pursuit of the JOKER. EXT. CROSS STREET - A MOMENT LATER - EVENING The VAN turns right at the intersection. Nothing unusual. But for some reason, PEDESTRIANS are pointing at the sky, staring goggle-eyed at the rooftops. Far above them, a MAN -- dressed in a suit, a tie, a yellow belt and a BLACK STOCKING MASK -- is gliding across the intersection on a ROPE. INT. VAN - A MOMENT LATER The VAN DRIVER guns through a red light. BRAKES SQUEAL on either side. In the back of the van, the JOKER GROWLS: JOKER Slow down, you maniac! EXT. INTERSECTION - THAT MOMENT - EVENING As the VAN ROARS PAST, a MOUNTED POLICEMAN shakes his fist. His horse shies, rears back, turns in a circle. He's just about gotten the beast calmed down when a MAN IN A STOCKING MASK plummets down on a rope from nowhere and lands directly behind him on the horse's back. BRUCE elbows the startled COP. Now there's only one rider. The VAN turns left. BRUCE gallops straight ahead through the intersection, hoping to cut the JOKER off. INT. ALICIA HUNT'S APARTMENT - THAT MOMENT ALICIA peers out through the window. On the street below, UNMARKED CARS are converging. INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT The JOKER and co. are two blocks away from ALICIA's. They see a POLICE SWAT TEAM sealing off the building. DRIVER Boss! Jesus! They've -- JOKER They'll be sorry. They'll be sorry. -- GET OUT OF HERE! EXT. SIDE STREET - THAT MOMENT - EVENING BRUCE on horseback, charging past elegant old brownstones, drawing stares from passersby. We get a quick look at the FLASHING RED SIGNAL LIGHT on his belt. EXT. RIVERVIEW DRIVE - THAT MOMENT - EVENING A YELLOW VW BUG rips up the street at 70 mph. INT. VOLKSWAGEN BUG - THAT MOMENT We can't see the driver. But we do see, on the seat beside him, a VIDEO DISPLAY with a shifting grid map of the city -- and on it, a FLASHING SIGNAL blinking in perfect sync with the one on BRUCE's belt. EXT. SIDE STREET - THAT MOMENT BRUCE sees the VW bug rounding the corner and STREAKING TOWARD HIM. He reins in the horse; it rears back on its hind legs in a classic western pose; the BUG zooms past -- -- and ALFRED THE BUTLER heaves out a BROWN LAUNDRY BUNDLE, neatly tied in string. BRUCE snatches it out of the air, gives ALFRED a quick salute -- and the BUG is gone. INT. JOKER'S VAN - EVENING The JOKER and his boys are stalled in heavy traffic at the southern border of Gotham Park. POLICE BARRICADES are everywhere; the surrounding streets have been roped off for the birthday gala. HORNS HONK in anger. JOKER MOVE! Can't you do something?? DRIVER It's some kind of detour. They're backed up for blocks! The JOKER snorts. He happens to glance into the side-view mirror. What he sees there... CURDLES HIS BLOOD. JOKER Oh my God. How does he do it... ? EXT. STREET - A BLOCK AWAY - THAT MOMENT THE BATMAN, IN FULL COSTUMED GLORY, GALLOPING UP THE STREET ON HORSEBACK -- passing stunned COPS, weaving in and around the stalled autos, GAINING FAST on the JOKER. INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT THE JOKER climbing all over the DRIVER. He HITS THE GAS, RUNS THE VAN UP ON THE SIDEWALK, and -- at the first opening he sees -- CRASHES THROUGH A POLICE BARRICADE INTO GOTHAM PARK ITSELF. BATMAN is half a block behind him now. As he follows hot on the JOKER's heels, TWO HELICOPTERS swing into the park from overhead. EXT. GOTHAM PARK - EVENING CROWDS EVERYWHERE. On the central platform where we saw the FREE CONCERT earlier, an EMCEE mans the microphone: EMCEE -- the most spectacular, most death- defying aerial stunt ever devised. Tonight -- for the first time anywhere -- THE FLYING GRAYSONS! He points up at the two approaching HELICOPTERS, flying side-by-side in tight formation some forty feet apart. ANGLE ON HELICOPTERS ONLOOKERS GASP as TWO TRAPEZES drop from the bellies of the twin copters. Dangling from the trapezes are the FLYING GRAYSONS -- a husband-and-wife aerialist team in spangled red-and-green suits. They begin swinging toward each other in a plane perpendicular to the path of the copters. EXT. GOTHAM PARK - GROUND LEVEL PANIC DOWN BELOW as the JOKER's van barrels through the crowd, HORN BLARING. BATMAN is moving up swiftly. On each wrist he's wearing a MINIATURE ROCKET LAUNCHER. He lets fly with TWO SALVOS. The first explodes harmlessly against a tree. The second HITS THE REAR DOOR OF THE VAN -- driving it off the access road down into the brush, where it nearly topples over sideways. ANGLE ON FLYING GRAYSONS GRAYSON has just completed a double somersault in midair, landing in the capable hands of his wife. Now they're swinging again, building momentum as he prepares to make the return leap back to his own trapeze. INT. HELICOPTER - THAT MOMENT In the bay of the helicopter stands a kid, fifteen, compact, tough, and wiry: DICK GRAYSON. Like his parents, he's wearing a red-and-green suit. From the copter, he's got a perfect bird's-eye view of the BATMAN-JOKER chase. PILOT Ready to go, Dick? DICK What's all the ruckus down there? EXT. PARK - GROUND LEVEL - THAT MOMENT The VAN bounces over rocks and bushes, narrowly avoiding trees, with BATMAN in hot pursuit. INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT At the foot of a hill, the JOKER spies a truck. On its side, in bright red letters, a WARNING: "DANGER - FIREWORKS. FLAMMABLE LOAD." The JOKER reaches into the back for a HIGHWAY FLARE. JOKER Head for the truck! INT. HELICOPTER - THAT MOMENT Hovering over the chase scene, DICK catches sight of the JOKER. He GASPS IN SHOCK as a LIT FLARE flies from the back of the VAN... directly into the FIREWORKS TRUCK. EXT. PARK - GROUND LEVEL - A MOMENT LATER THE BATMAN is thrown off his horse by the shock of a massive EXPLOSION. All at once, THE SKY IS FULL of BURSTING, INCANDESCENT COLORS!! THE JOKER hangs out of the rear of the van, looking up, an expression of PURE DELIGHT on his face. JOKER I love fireworks! ANGLE ON HELICOPTERS LURCHING AND SPINNING IN THE SKY as FIREWORKS rocket past. One of them takes a dead hit on the rotor. JOHN GRAYSON falls to his death instantly; a moment later, the COPTER plummets into the trees with a resounding, fiery CRASH. MARY GRAYSON hangs from the second copter as it bobs and weaves out of control. ONLOOKERS SCREAM IN TERROR. EXT. STREET - THAT MOMENT THE JOKER'S VAN bursts out of the park and speeds up a wide, cordoned-off avenue. Overhead, THE SECOND COPTER veers wildly, out of the park now, swinging dangerously close to the tall buildings along the avenue. INT. HELICOPTER - THAT MOMENT DICK GRAYSON at the mouth of the bay, hanging on by a canvas strap. He watches helplessly as his MOTHER swings into a POWER LINE and drops three stories to the pavement. DICK NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!! His face is contorted with rage and pain. The PILOT struggles desperately to right the copter, barely avoiding a collision with the nearest building. And then -- before THE PILOT can make a move to stop him -- DICK HAS JUMPED OUT OF THE COPTER. ANGLE ON DICK With astonishing physical grace, he DIVES. GRABS A FLAGPOLE. Executes a perfect somersault. FLIPS onto a nearby fire escape. VAULTS to the next fire escape down. And LEAPS OUT OVER THE STREET -- -- MAKING A PERFECT TWO-POINT LANDING on his intended target... THE ROOF OF THE JOKER'S VAN!! INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT THE JOKER hears a THUNK overhead. He casually lifts his gun and BLOWS A HOLE THROUGH THE ROOF OF THE VAN. EXT. ROOF OF VAN - MOVING - THAT MOMENT The blast just misses DICK. He sprawls flat, YANKS at the chrome luggage rack on the roof of the van, and BREAKS OFF A FOUR-FOOT SHAFT OF METAL. ANOTHER SHOT through the roof. DICK rolls forward, hoists his chrome spear over the windshield. INT. VAN - THAT MOMENT SPLINTERED GLASS flies everywhere as DICK RAMS THE SHAFT THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD. THE DRIVER dodges left and LOSES CONTROL OF THE WHEEL. EXT. ROOF OF VAN - MOVING - THAT MOMENT The VAN careens wildly toward an OVERPASS. DICK rises up into a crouch just in time to see a sign which reads "DANGER -- LOW CLEARANCE." He's about to get his head taken off! ONE SECOND BEFORE IMPACT a BLACK-CAPED SHADOW swings across the street and SCOOPS DICK OFF THE ROOF OF THE VAN. EXT. STREET - NIGHT BATMAN AND DICK tumble to the pavement. THE VAN knocks over a fire hydrant and STOPS. DICK is already on his feet, ready to CHARGE THE VAN, when BATMAN throws a powerful arm around his waist. DICK LET ME GO! LET ME -- THE JOKER steps casually out of the van. TWO GOONS with MACHINE GUNS emerge behind him. PEDESTRIANS SCREAM as the GOONS level their guns at the CROWD. DICK (cont.) YOU PIECE OF -- YOU MOTHERF-- DICK is kicking, screaming, clawing, biting. BATMAN has his hands full restraining the kid. JOKER Like your boyfriend. He's kinda hot. (glowering at BATMAN) Hands off the belt. BATMAN Take me. Let the boy go. JOKER Gosh, I could kill you, but then you'd miss my party. And I'd be real, real sad if you couldn't make it. BATMAN What are you talking about? JOKER Batman! Don't you even recognize your old pal Jack? After all... (cackling insanely) You made me what I am today. BATMAN cocks his head in puzzlement as DISTANT SIRENS BLARE. The JOKER and his HOODS -- guns still aimed at the crowd -- back away and race off on foot, vanishing into the night. DICK BREAKS FREE and BOLTS AFTER THEM. BATMAN throws him to the street with a flying tackle. The boy is hysterical. DICK HE KILLED MY PARENTS! HE KILLED MY -- BATMAN flinches at the sound of the words. He reaches into his belt and -- mercifully -- breaks a KNOCKOUT CAPSULE under DICK's nose. DISSOLVE TO: INSERT - TELEVISION SCREEN A taped report from the hallway outside ALICIA's apartment. COPS and FORENSICS MEN mill about in the b.g. REPORTER ... on a tip attributed to the mysterious Batman. The apartment was booby-trapped with the Joker's laughing gas, leaving 17 policemen dead. (beat) Also found dead at the scene was Alicia Hunt, 26, a former model -- CAMERA PULLS BACK to reveal that the TV SCREEN is part of BRUCE'S BANK OF MONITORS, deep in the Batcave. The other screens show the various rooms of Wayne Manor, all empty. We move now to the video display of a COMPUTER WORKSTATION, showing TWO FACES side-by-side: a mug shot of JACK NAPIER and a freeze-frame of the JOKER from one of his pirate transmissions. A GRAPHICS PROGRAM abstracts the twin heads into THREE-DIMENSIONAL, ROTATING TOPOLOGICAL GRIDS -- and, as we watch, the two spinning heads COLLIDE AND MERGE. Except for the fearsome grin, they MESH PERFECTLY. Yet another terminal: BRUCE's database. The same phrase flashes again and again, scrolling up the screen: ACE CHEMICAL CO. ACE CHEMICAL CO. ACE CHEMICAL CO. And, finally: BRUCE HIMSELF, slumped at a table, his head in his hands. He's realized, to his horror, that he is responsible for the birth of the Joker. And frankly... he would just as soon be dead. INT. WAYNE MANOR - GUEST BEDROOM - DAY DICK GRAYSON is sprawled on a huge four-poster bed, unconscious, softly moaning. He COMES TO with a jolt. Breaking into a sweat almost instantly, he looks at his unfamiliar surroundings. A shadowy figure stands nearby. DICK ... Where am I? BRUCE My name is Bruce Wayne. You're welcome to stay here as long as you want. BRUCE steps out just as ALFRED enters with a breakfast tray. DICK makes a puzzled face. What the hell is going on here? INT. HALL OF JUSTICE - DAY Beneath the statue of blind Justice, BRUCE and HARVEY DENT march through the portico, engaged in a heated argument. DENT We'll send a team into Ace the moment the warrant comes through. BRUCE He'll be ready when you do. Remember what happened at the apartment. DENT All right, Bruce, what do you suggest? BRUCE I suggest a nice big bomb. DENT Good. A bomb. On a blind tip from Bruce Wayne. -- We do have laws. BRUCE Then for God's sake, Harvey, cancel the anniversary celebration. DENT We've told him we'll deal. What could he possibly have to gain by -- BRUCE Do you still think the Joker cares about money?? DENT I don't know. I'm just a D.A. I don't have access to all your expert sources. Mexican standoff. BRUCE stalks off fuming. DENT hangs back a moment, then turns down the hall. EXT. WAYNE MANOR - ESTABLISHING - DAY The ornate, wrought-iron GATE which opens on the long driveway snaking up toward Wayne Manor. It's bolted shut. INT. WAYNE MANOR - DAY A glass-enclosed room which houses an enormous HEATED INDOOR SWIMMING POOL. DICK GRAYSON does a couple of laps, then climbs out and towels himself off. He looks out at the estate: tennis courts, a riding stable in the distance. He's not happy. All this opulence could drive a guy stark staring nuts in short order. INT. GUEST BEDROOM - DAY An OPEN SUITCASE on the bed. DICK fingers a gold ashtray bearing the figure of Winged Victory -- then shrugs and tosses it into the suitcase on top of his gymnast's costume. When he looks up he sees BRUCE in the doorway behind him. DICK ... Your butler wouldn't gimme a ride so I figured I'd hoof it. BRUCE Sorry. I can't let you leave. DICK You can't keep me here, man. That's kidnapping. BRUCE If I let you leave, you'll do the same thing again. You'll go after the Joker... and you'll wind up dead. (turning to go) DICK Hey, man. Look at you. You're rich. You got everything you want. How do you know what's in my mind? BRUCE turns to face him. The little hellion's eyes are filled with raw, burning hatred. BRUCE knows the feeling. BRUCE I don't care what's in your mind. You're staying. BRUCE reaches for a key in his pocket. Without warning, the kid RUSHES him, throwing a rock-solid punch. With blinding speed, BRUCE sidesteps him, parries the blow, and winds up spinning DICK around -- INTO A WALL. DICK is stunned, but he has to laugh. This rich boy has a move or two. BRUCE stands there, silently challenging him. A second later, the kid is airborne -- upping the ante with a scissor-kick aimed squarely at BRUCE's gut. In a blur of motion BRUCE checks the kick, swings an arm into DICK's chest, and sends the boy sprawling flat on his back. INT. WAYNE MANOR - KITCHEN - THAT MOMENT ALFRED, in his apron, fixing a tray of snacks. He looks up curiously at the ceiling. From the sound of it, a battle royal is shaping up in the guest bedroom. INT. GUEST BEDROOM - THAT MOMENT DICK'S BODY -- head down, feet up -- flies through the air. He SMASHES INTO a closet door and slumps to the carpet. Shaken now, and sweating profusely, he looks up at BRUCE... who stands calmly over him, adjusting his necktie. A long, tense moment passes between them. Then: DICK ... You're him. No reply from BRUCE. Their gazes lock. And suddenly... ALFRED (V.O.) FREEZE! DICK and BRUCE look around. The puny, mustachioed butler stands in the doorway, feet spread in a Dirty Harry stance, a .44 MAGNUM trained on DICK. BRUCE It's all right, Alfred. Everything's under control. ALFRED ... Very good, sir. ALFRED relaxes, musters his dignity, and turns to go. CUT TO: INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - AFTERNOON CANNED APPLAUSE as THE JOKER marches out onto a makeshift STAGE to give his QUARTERLY REPORT to the stockholders. JOKER Thankya, thankya. Ladies and germs, I'm here to tell you... we have had one helluva quarter. He waves a pointer at three SALES CHARTS on portable easels. JOKER (cont.) Panic's up. Terror's up. And fear -- fear's gone straight through the roof. You guys should be proud -- 'cause I couldn'ta done it without each and every one of you! MORE CANNED APPLAUSE. The JOKER takes a bow. JOKER (cont.) I feel it's time to expand the Joker line. I was askin' myself, what are the products that every consumer wants most? And that's when it hit me: the water you drink, and the air you breathe! Huh? Bingo! (strutting across stage) Now, some of you have your eye on the profit margin. You're thinkin': this boy's too ambitious. You don't approve. In fact, some of you have been talking about turning me in to the cops. Or knocking me off. He pauses. GLARES OUT at the audience. NO RESPONSE. JOKER (cont.) But that's okay. I understand. Not everyone shares my eye for beauty. And just to show there's no hard feelings, I'm throwin' a little shindig tonight -- and you're all invited! THE CANNED APPLAUSE goes right off the meter. JOKER (cont.) How 'bout it? IS EVERYBODY HAPPY?? REVERSE ANGLE - THE AUDIENCE Familiar faces all around -- the major players of the Gotham underworld. But despite the enormous twisted grins, no one here is laughing or applauding. No one here is living. The JOKER is playing to a roomful of smiling corpses. One of them topples out of his chair and lands with a plop. JOKER Look at that, folks. We got 'em rolling in the aisles! CUT TO: INT. BRUCE'S BEDROOM - TOWARD DUSK VICKI lies in BRUCE's bed, under the covers, propped up on the pillows. BRUCE is in his robe over by the window, looking out at his estate. BRUCE All this apparatus, Vicki... this house, and the money, and the power... it was never mine. It was something I inherited. Bruce Wayne was something I inherited. (pause) All I ever hoped for was someone who could see through Bruce -- who could see me -- and not be frightened. VICKI I'm not frightened of you, Bruce. I'm frightened for you. BRUCE In all these years... why couldn't I see how it would turn out? He turns toward her. His face is ravaged with guilt. Now she's truly afraid. BRUCE (cont.) I'm responsible, Vicki. If it wasn't for me, there'd be no Joker. CUT TO: INT. BATCAVE - EVENING TIGHT ON a tiny electronic device: two cylindrical steel casings bracketed together, topped by a DIGITAL TIMER. BRUCE makes a few adjustments with a jeweler's screwdriver, hits a trigger, and watches the TIMER tick off seconds. 30. 29. 28. At 25 seconds, BRUCE kills the countdown and CLAMPS THE DEVICE into an empty packet on his utility belt. He stands up wearily. He's in his bat-suit, minus the cape and cowl. Behind him, hanging back discreetly in the shadows, is his loyal butler ALFRED. BRUCE Where's the boy? ALFRED Upstairs. He's quite docile. BRUCE I know that feeling. It won't last. BRUCE takes a moment to survey the Batcave as ALFRED looks on tremulously. BRUCE (cont.) He's a long way ahead of where I was at his age. (taking ALFRED's shoulders) I want you to treat him just as if he were me. Promise. ALFRED Yes, sir. BRUCE He'll be taken care of financially. Beyond that... you know what to do. Don't let all this go to waste. Their eyes lock for a long moment. ALFRED is unable to speak. Finally BRUCE turns and starts slowly up the long circular stairway which leads from the Batcave to Wayne Manor. On the third step he pauses: BRUCE (cont.) Alfred? -- Thank you. As BRUCE disappears up the stairs, a shaken ALFRED steadies himself against a lab table, fighting back tears. INT. BRUCE'S BEDROOM - EVENING BRUCE draws the curtains, sets an alarm clock. The current time is 7:09 PM. He sits cross-legged on the floor, slumps forward slightly, and closes his eyes. He inhales, exhales, taking deep, regular breaths. His muscles relax. Ten seconds later, BRUCE has plunged into DEEP SLEEP. Time passes. The clock shows 7:19, 7:32. At 7:44 we TRACK IN on BRUCE's unconscious face, drawing closer and closer until HIS EYELIDS FILL THE FRAME, twitching with the irregular movement characteristic of R.E.M. sleep. Without warning his EYES SNAP OPEN. HOLD ON BRUCE'S GAZE -- grim, alert, determined -- as the clock hits 7:45. An ALARM SOUNDS, BREAKING THE SILENCE with its grating electronic WHINE. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. ACE CHEMICAL - AERIAL SHOT - NIGHT The trademark ace on the illuminated sign. From our vantage point high above, we can see THREE CARGO TRUCKS rolling out the main gates. A half-mile away, THE BATMOBILE cruises up the waterfront, approaching soundlessly, its headlights off... preparing for a final showdown with the JOKER's forces. INT. ACE CHEMICAL - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The JOKER'S MINIONS, working late, readying a huge shipment. At an open loading bay, we find a DISPATCHER with a clipboard, directing MORE UNMARKED TRUCKS in the lot outside. DISPATCHER Boston, Philly: loading bay one. EXT. ACE CHEMICAL - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The BATMOBILE stops short of the main gate. ENGINES ROAR and the supercar ACCELERATES, SMASHING THROUGH THE GATE and taking half the chain-link fence with it. In the guard's booth, ARMED GOONS pull guns as the BATMOBILE streaks across the parking lot and LAUNCHES A ROCKET at the corrugated metal door which opens on the factory floor. A THUNDEROUS EXPLOSION tears a gaping hole in the door. INT. ACE CHEMICAL - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The BATMOBILE cruises through the flaming wreckage and SKIDS TO A HALT on the refinery floor. The JOKER'S MEN are everywhere. They take one look at the BATMOBILE, PANIC, and PELT THE CAR with a barrage of MACHINE-GUN FIRE. CRACKS begin to spread across the Batmobile's plexiglass dome. Within moments, the windshield SHATTERS -- and COLLAPSES ALTOGETHER. INT. BATMOBILE - THAT MOMENT BULLETS rip through the upholstered passenger seats. It doesn't matter. The car is empty. No one's driving. TRACK IN on the computer console -- where a familiar tinny voice calmly repeats its pre-programmed command: COMPUTER ... Detonate. A beat. Then: BLAM. INT. POLICE CAR - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT A CONVOY approaches Ace Chemical -- GORDON's team preparing to raid the plant. Inside each car: SPECIAL UNIT COPS dressed in asbestos suits, gas masks in their laps. All at once, a BRILLIANT RED GLARE suffuses the sky. COP Good Lord! EXT. ACE CHEMICAL - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT THE JOKER'S MEN running for their lives across the parking lot, KNOCKED FLAT by the force of SIX DEAFENING EXPLOSIONS. For a few seconds everything is flame and fury. And then -- All that's left of Ace Chemical is a pile of charred rubble and a PILLAR OF THICK BLACK SMOKE, spiraling up to the sky. CUT TO: EXT. ANDREWS ISLAND - NIGHT DAZZLING FIREWORKS explode in the night sky over Gotham Harbor. SEARCHLIGHTS sweep across the mammoth, welcoming stone figure of LADY GOTHAM -- still wrapped in canvas, ready to be unveiled. THOUSANDS OF RUBBERNECKERS jam every square inch of Andrew's Island. COPS ON HORSEBACK speak into walkie- talkies as they patrol the edges of the crowd. Across the Harbor, Ace Chemical is going up in flames -- but as far as the crowd can tell, with all the noise and excitement, it's just another part of the celebration. At the base of the statue, GOVERNOR GILROY speaks into a microphone: GOVERNOR GILROY As Governor of this great state, it is now my honor to unveil for you a very special lady -- a lady who stands tall for life and liberty -- America's favorite lady... LADY GOTHAM! The CROWD begins to APPLAUD RHYTHMICALLY, chanting 'LADY GOTHAM! LADY GOTHAM!' It's like Times Square on New Year's Eve, waiting for the big ball to drop. GILROY hoists a pair of oversized scissors and cuts a ceremonial ribbon: hydraulic CRANES kick into gear: CABLES DROP FREE, and the canvas cover draws back from LADY GOTHAM's face... ... to a chorus of SCREAMS from the crowd. LADY GOTHAM IS WEARING A GRISLY JOKER GRIN!!! Suddenly -- in the midst of the hysteria -- THE SEARCHLIGHTS DIE. The STAGE LIGHTS BLINK OUT. ANDREWS ISLAND IS PLUNGED INTO DARKNESS. Instantaneous mass panic: the GOVERNOR shouts to his aides as ONLOOKERS mob the stage. COPS are knocked from their horses as the CROWD stampedes. PANDEMONIUM RULES. And across the harbor... block by block... GOTHAM CITY IS GOING DARK. EXT. GOTHAM SKIES - AERIAL SHOTS - NIGHT QUICK SHOTS of FOUR HELICOPTERS hovering at different points over the blacked-out city. LOUDSPEAKERS blare out a PRE-RECORDED MESSAGE: JOKER (V.O.) HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Gotham. Here's a little token of my esteem. HAVE FUN... 'cause THE PARTY'S ON ME! INSANE LAUGHTER echoes. CARGO BAYS open wide. The JOKER'S HELICOPTERS begin LEAFLETING THE CITY... with MONEY! SERIES OF SHOTS ANARCHY IN GOTHAM as high-denomination bills flutter to earth, blanketing the streets. HOPELESSLY OUTMANNED COPS try to maintain order as SOLID CITIZENS trample one another in a paroxysm of ANIMAL GREED. BUILDINGS EMPTY as APARTMENT DWELLERS race outside. ALL TRAFFIC STOPS as DRIVERS climb out of their cars to SNATCH MONEY FROM THE AIR. DARKNESS EVERYWHERE. In the pitch-black subways, TERRIFIED COMMUTERS are seized by claustrophobia. GLASS SHATTERS, DOORS BREAK OPEN as they claw their way out of stalled subway cars and SPILL OUT onto the tracks. On the streets above, GOTHAM'S CRIMINAL ELEMENT is having a field day. The cops are preoccupied, utterly helpless against the first waves of RIOTING AND LOOTING. FLAMES ERUPT. PUNKS race down the street carrying fur coats and color TV's. LOOTERS break through the display window of an electronics store, and climb in among the goodies... only to FLY OUT, two seconds later, on the wrong end of a SHOTGUN BLAST. THE JOKER'S DREAM IS COMING TRUE. EXT. STREET - NIGHT In a crouch on the pavement, snapping photos of the wild street action, is VICKI -- fearless, professional, doing her job. A battered FORD ESCORT cruises up behind her. KNOX VICKI! VICKI sees KNOX, climbs into the passenger seat. He's wearing a big smile. They're jazzed, oblivious to danger. KNOX (cont.) Couldn't turn down the job, huh? A girl could get hurt this way. VICKI Yeah. Deja vu. KNOX What do you say? Let's head for the lights. In the distance, above the tops of the buildings, BEACONS are sweeping the sky. EXT. BROAD AVENUE - NIGHT Stationed all up and down Gotham's widest thoroughfare are huge portable SEARCHLIGHTS -- mounted on trucks with portable generators, unaffected by the power outage. On the money-covered sidewalks, TOTAL BEDLAM. But on the street itself, a bizarre PARADE is taking place, just as if nothing's wrong. Rumbling up the avenue at two-block intervals, moored to floats, are DOZENS OF ENORMOUS BALLOONS in the shapes of cartoon characters and historical figures. It's like a hellish Thanksgiving's day procession. The LEAD-OFF BALLOON is a gigantic, grotesque CLOWN -- smiling ghoulishly, dressed in white pierrot frills. We TILT DOWN to the FLOAT BENEATH IT... ... and there, atop a mountain of roses where the prom queen should be, sits the JOKER -- smiling, waving daintily at the rioters and looters, presiding over the carnage like some demented parade marshal. CUT TO: EXT. LAKE - NIGHT A desolate rural setting. UTTER SILENCE. Moonlight glints on placid waters. We track in on a small sign bearing the legend: "GOTHAM CITY RESERVOIR." Far off in the distance, HEADLIGHTS ARE APPROACHING. EXT. ACCESS ROAD - AERIAL SHOT - MOVING - NIGHT The THREE CARGO TRUCKS from Ace Chemical roll ominously TOWARD THE RESERVOIR on their deadly mission. And then -- A STREAKING BLACK SHADOW ENTERS FRAME, overtaking the TRUCKS. THE BATWING! A phenomenal ULTRALIGHT AIRCRAFT, swift, sleek, jet-black and infinitely maneuverable, it SOARS EASILY past the trucks, swooping low just long enough to release a BOMB over a concrete bridge. EXT. ACCESS ROAD - A MOMENT LATER The BRIDGE EXPLODES, blocking the trucks' path to the reservoir. PUZZLED DRIVERS climb out of their cabs and wonder what to do next. They spot the BATWING in the distance -- banking, doing a sharp 180. For a moment they gape in disbelief. Then they HEAD FOR THE TREES as the BATWING DIVES DIRECTLY AT THE TRUCKS, firing THREE ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS... and destroying the JOKER's lethal cargo once and for all. ANGLE ON BATMAN in the cockpit, his jaw set, not even looking back at the wreckage as his plane screams off toward the Gotham skyline. EXT. GOTHAM STREET - NIGHT FRIGHTENED PEDESTRIANS race past OVERTURNED CARS. A PARADE FLOAT, run aground on the sidewalk, begins to BURN. Above it, a damaged BALLOON -- the cartoon character UNDERDOG -- is losing helium, warping and buckling in on itself, sinking down gently toward the flames. Down the street, KNOX'S FORD ESCORT is coming up fast. INT. FORD - MOVING - THAT MOMENT VICKI snapping photos out the window as UNDERDOG drifts downward. FLAMES lick up at his belly -- and the cartoon blimp EXPLODES. KNOX So much for Underdog. THEN -- as they drive past -- A SECOND EXPLOSION. And all at once the STREET IS FULL OF DEADLY GREENISH GAS! VICKI ALLIE!! THE WINDOWS!! EXT. STREET - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT The Ford Escort, windows up, swerves out of a THICK SPREADING CLOUD of GREEN LAUGHING GAS -- threatening to engulf the entire block! INT. FORD - MOVING - THAT MOMENT KNOX WHAT HAPPENED?!? VICKI stares back at the green cloud. Turns. And sees, up the street, THE JOKER'S PROCESSION: BALLOONS BY THE DOZEN! VICKI Oh my God. Compressor tanks. He's got the balloons rigged with compressor tanks!! KNOX Jesus Christ, the guy's a genius. INT. BATWING - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BATMAN, at the controls, gliding over the Gotham streets. He looks down, sees a BILLOWING HAZE of DENSE GREEN FUMES. At its periphery: LOOTERS reeling and staggering, falling to the pavement, LAUGHING THEMSELVES TO DEATH. INT. FORD - MOVING - THAT MOMENT VICKI staring through the windshield. Overhead, an AIRCRAFT streaks past... an aircraft with SCALLOPED BLACK BAT WINGS. VICKI LOOK! IT'S BRUCE!! (frantically) Allie -- the balloons. We've got to find some way to tell him! KNOX Great. How?? They speed up the street toward the PARADE. SPOTLIGHTS SHINE. Suddenly KNOX's eyes bug out. He SLAMS ON THE BRAKES and SKIDS TO A HALT. KNOX (cont.) COME ON! EXT. AVENUE - A SECOND LATER - NIGHT Before VICKI can speak, KNOX has grabbed a tire iron from the back of the car and RACED OUT ONTO THE STREET. He flings the TIRE IRON through a glass STOREFRONT. It's a COSTUME SHOP. In the window, MANNEQUINS dressed in party costumes: Frankenstein. Ronald Reagan. And, that current popular sensation... THE BATMAN. As VICKI catches up with him, KNOX drags the Batman dummy out of the store window. RIPS OFF ITS BLACK CAPE. And DASHES MANIACALLY UP THE SIDEWALK. Waving the cape, he VAULTS onto the back of a SPOTLIGHT TRUCK. VICKI's face goes slack. Now she gets it. KNOX GIMME A HAND UP HERE! VICKI climbs aboard. They drape the cape over the face of the spotlight. Then they put their shoulders to the swivel assembly -- tilting the spotlight -- AIMING THE BEAM... ... DIRECTLY AT THE JOKER'S WHITE CLOWN BALLOON!!! INT. BATWING - THAT MOMENT BATMAN stares at the CLOWN BALLOON dead ahead. On its massive distended belly... a BURNING YELLOW OVAL. And in the center of the oval... THE BLACK SILHOUETTE OF A BAT. BATMAN'S MOUTH drops open. He understands. EXT. AVENUE - ON JOKER'S FLOAT - THAT MOMENT THE JOKER reaches into a big sack and begins distributing MINIATURE GAS MASKS, like party favors, to his cronies on the float. Then he pulls out a radio-operated REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE and points it up at the CLOWN BALLOON. He hits a button. The CLOWN begins to INFLATE. Its joints bulge. Its FACE SWELLS UP as the COMPRESSOR TANK concealed inside it releases its noxious contents. The JOKER is BEAMING, a look of PURE UNALLOYED JOY on his face... ... when his PARADE FLOAT BLOWS TO SMITHEREENS BENEATH HIM! The JOKER and his men CARTWHEEL THROUGH THE AIR and TUMBLE TO THE ASPHALT as THE BATWING WHIPS PAST OVERHEAD, soaring through the stone canyons of Gotham at a 90-degree angle to the ground! JOKER No... NOOOOO!!! ANGLE ON CLOWN BALLOON as it rises, rises, swelling to grotesque proportions in the starless night. The tallest buildings are far below it now. Finally it BURSTS -- and the deadly GAS inside it disperses harmlessly in the wind. EXT. AVENUE - THAT MOMENT THE JOKER on the edge of a tantrum as he digs amid the rubble of his float for the remote device. At last he finds it; aims it up at the other balloons in the procession; hits a button repeatedly... ... and HOWLS IN FRUSTRATION. Nothing's happening. The damned thing is broken. He heaves it to the street in a fit of pique. A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY as the BATWING swings back for another pass, BUZZING the JOKER at an altitude of twenty feet. SIZZLING LASER FIRE sweeps the street. CABLES SNAP and BALLOONS DRIFT UPWARD as BATMAN'S LASERS sever their moorings. The JOKER can only look on helplessly, in stunned disbelief. As he's watching his plans evaporate... HIS EYES FALL ON THE MAKESHIFT BAT-SIGNAL. JOKER There. There. -- GET 'EM!! ANGLE ON SPOTLIGHT TRUCK A SPRAY OF MACHINE-GUN FIRE shatters the Bat-signal. KNOX throws VICKI to the street, ducks down behind the spotlight, and tosses her his CAR KEYS. KNOX GET THE CAR! The JOKER'S GOONS are coming up fast as VICKI reaches the Ford, starts it, and comes ROARING UP toward KNOX. He jumps off the truck as VICKI twists the wheel, lays a track of rubber, and noses the car back in the opposite direction. GUNFIRE as KNOX jumps inside and they PEEL OUT. INT. FORD ESCORT - MOVING - A MOMENT LATER KNOX's breathing is ragged, but he breaks out in HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER nonetheless. The two of them are totally exhilarated. They can't believe what they've just done. KNOX HOLY SHIT!! VICKI You okay? KNOX Yeah. Yeah. Little winded. DID YOU SEE THAT?! VICKI (laughing wildly) God yes, Allie. I've gotta say -- that was the ballsiest move I ever -- KNOX (ecstatic) Holy shit. Holy -- He GURGLES. AN ENORMOUS GOUT OF BLOOD bubbles up between his lips -- and BURSTS. VICKI ALLIE!! His hand goes to his stomach -- and comes away bloody. He looks down in genuine bewilderment. KNOX Jesus, Vicki. That quickly, he's dead. VICKI lets out an awful wail and slams on the brakes. She sits there in the middle of the street, POUNDING THE WHEEL, TEARS pouring down her face. EXT. GOTHAM HARBOR - NIGHT In the sky, CARTOON CHARACTERS drift lazily out to sea. EXT. BROAD AVENUE - NIGHT THE JOKER and his boys running like hell down the avenue, past the parade. They reach the last of the floats -- the one bringing up the rear -- then CLIMB ABOARD and disappear through a CONCEALED HATCH. WOOD SPLINTERS as the top of the float begins to ROTATE mysteriously. The muzzle of a CANNON breaks through the parade decorations. And one moment later... A ROSE-COVERED TANK is rumbling up Broad Avenue! INT. BATWING - THAT MOMENT BATMAN sweeps past overhead. He sees the tank, unleashes a burst of LASER FIRE. It bounces harmlessly off the tank, leaves a trail of SMOKING ASPHALT on the street. He swoops low overhead, hits a button on his control panel as he streaks OVER THE TANK and into firing range. INT. TANK - THAT MOMENT THE JOKER and his MEN clap hands to their ears as an EAR- SPLITTING ULTRASONIC SHRIEK reverberates in the tank. The JOKER screams out commands, to no avail. No one can hear him. He falls on the controls, begins hitting buttons. EXT. STREET - THAT MOMENT The TANK TURRET swings wildly. A HEAT-SEEKING MISSILE rips through the night, narrowly missing the BATWING... and BLOWING A HOLE in the side of a skyscraper. INT. BATWING - THAT MOMENT THE BLAST all but knocks the BATWING out of the sky. BATMAN stabilizes the plane, climbs for the clouds. When he's clear of the buildings, he grits his teeth and rolls out. He's coming back for more! INT. TANK - THAT MOMENT The JOKER stares at a tiny BLIP on his radar screen. JOKER He'll be back... he'll be back!! EXT. BROAD AVENUE - ON BATWING The black ultralight hurtles down Broad Avenue at full speed, on a suicide mission. MISSILES streak past on either side. MACHINE GUN FIRE peppers the dome of the cockpit. The REAR STABILIZER WING takes a direct hit... and BURSTS INTO FLAME! The BATWING, trailing thick black smoke, bears down on the tank like a kamikaze plane. BOMB BAYS OPEN as BATMAN dumps the last of his high explosives DIRECTLY INTO THE PATH OF THE TANK. The BATWING takes a hard bounce off the top of the tank and CRASHES TO THE STREET. And suddenly a GAPING CHASM opens underneath the tank as the bombs go off -- and BROAD AVENUE BEGINS TO SPLIT WIDE OPEN! INT. SUBWAY TUNNEL - THAT MOMENT BROKEN CONCRETE SLABS rain down on a SUBWAY CAR stalled in the tunnel DIRECTLY BENEATH BROAD AVENUE. SUPPORT GIRDERS groan and GIVE WAY as the STREET ITSELF COLLAPSES -- and the front end of the TANK drops through, CRUSHING THE SUBWAY TRAIN BENEATH IT! EXT. BROAD AVENUE - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The rear end of the TANK projects out through the rubble. A hatch pops open. The JOKER crawls out through the smoke and pulls himself up to the street. He's down to his last three GOONS. He points to the BATWING: bent, broken, WEDGED ON ITS SIDE in the asphalt SEAM running up Broad Avenue -- half in, half out of the tunnel. JOKER You do him. I'm outta here. The GOONS look on in dismay as the JOKER scurries off. They sidestep blackened debris and move up cautiously on the Batwing. Through the cockpit dome they can see BATMAN... inert in his harness, beaten to a pulp, all but dead. A JET OF FLAME drives them back momentarily. They reach for their guns, move in warily... VOICE Yo. The frightened GOONS turn in unison. An abrupt flurry of motion -- feet and fists flying -- quick flashes of red and green -- -- and THREE GOONS lie paralyzed on the street. The only one left standing is a fifteen-year-old boy garbed in a red-and-green aerialist's uniform... DICK GRAYSON. INT. BATWING - THAT MOMENT BATMAN slumps at the controls. Beneath him, asphalt SHIFTS and BUCKLES. The Batwing lurches to the right, drops a foot or two into the tunnel. Metal braces collapse and the plexiglass dome of the cockpit SHATTERS LIKE AN EGGSHELL. TONGUES OF FIRE lick at his face. He's helpless, pinned in place. He manages to look up -- and SEES, through a dream- like haze, A HAND extended toward him: DICK HEY! COME ON! And suddenly DICK is clambering down into the flaming wreckage. He gets an arm around BATMAN's chest and with an extraordinary effort HAULS HIM OUT OF THE BATWING. EXT. STREET - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT They stagger across the ruptured street. BATMAN grimaces in agony. His right leg -- shattered -- is like rubber beneath him. His ribs are crushed. He's barely conscious. DICK Now we're even, huh? Even up. BATMAN How did you... DICK I hitched. MOVE IT! DICK drags BATMAN to safety as the Batwing ERUPTS INTO FLAME behind them. BATMAN The Joker. Is he --? DICK Forget it. Relax. (beat) ... He's mine now. DICK snatches an abandoned .38 off the pavement. BATMAN DICK! THE BATMAN tries to pull himself erect. The pain is unendurable. His body has finally failed him. He collapses on the pavement, powerless to intervene, as DICK races off with murder in his eyes. EXT. GOTHAM CATHEDRAL - NIGHT A BELLTOWER's jagged spire, jutting up into the night sky, piercing the moon. Down at street level, the JOKER is scrambling up the marble steps at the entrance to the old abandoned cathedral. He pulls a WALKIE-TALKIE off his belt. JOKER Gotham cathedral. Come and get me. HEAVY PANELED DOORS groan on tired hinges as THE JOKER forces his way inside. A beat. Then DICK GRAYSON appears, hot on his trail, sprinting up the steps two at a time. INT. CATHEDRAL - A MOMENT LATER - NIGHT Ancient and creepy. A huge pipe organ, shattered stained glass windows, row after row of mahogany pews... all forgotten, covered with dust and cobwebs. The JOKER wanders about, staring at the statuary, the rusted icons. DICK enters silently behind him. He kneels behind a rear pew, brings up the gun, and squeezes off THREE QUICK SHOTS at the JOKER. The JOKER dives, takes cover, and RETURNS DICK'S FIRE. Then: silence. In a crouch, groping his way along the wall, THE JOKER finds what he wants: a small door opening on a wooden stairway, leading to the belltower. He ducks inside and starts up. DICK'S GUN drops with a thud. His hand slips from the back of the pew. In the second before he slumps to the floor, unconscious, he sees a curious sight: a TINY BLACK NINJA WHEEL, imbedded in the flesh of his leg. Behind him -- framed in the arched doorway -- A RAGGED BLACK GHOST begins his final unholy march down the center aisle of the old cathedral. INT. CATHEDRAL - BELLTOWER - NIGHT A tiny stone chamber, 8'x8', open on four sides to the wind. The enormous church bell has long since been removed. The JOKER stands in an archway, gazing at the gargoyles on the roof below. He hits a button on the walkie-talkie: JOKER I'm in the belltower. Don't land. INT. HELICOPTER - MOVING - NIGHT A PILOT replies through his radio headset. PILOT E.T.A. two minutes. Hang on. The PILOT swings the copter right in a wide, swooping arc. INT. STAIRWAY TO BELLTOWER - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT BATMAN. Broken, beaten, his right leg useless, he hauls himself up the steps one at a time. He should be dead. Dried blood cakes his face, his chest. Dizzy, exhausted, his body strained to the limit, he slumps against a wall to steady himself, then reaches into his utility belt for a painkiller -- and forces the capsule back onto his dry, swollen tongue. Quaking all over, he tries to draw himself erect... and TOPPLES OVER, landing with his full weight on the rotten wood of the belltower stairs. THE STAIRWAY COLLAPSES, turning to splinters beneath him. And suddenly BATMAN finds himself DANGLING PRECARIOUSLY IN MIDAIR, hanging by one hand to an upper step. It would be so much easier to let go. He looks down at the fragments of the shattered stairway, STILL FALLING, vanishing into the dark depths of the stairwell. Then he looks up. At the trapdoor. A mere six feet away. His TEETH CLENCH in a monstrous grimace. AND WITH AN INHUMAN EFFORT, HE HOISTS HIMSELF UP ONTO THE UPPER STEPS. For a full five seconds he's blind with pain. A RAGGED WOODEN SHAFT is buried in his right shoulder. Twitching, trembling, he reaches up and YANKS IT OUT with his last ounce of strength. The trapdoor is a foot above his head. It could be a mile. BATMAN finally realizes he's not going to make it. He reaches down and rips open a Velcro seal on his utility belt, revealing the strange TIMER DEVICE we saw him making earlier. Before he can activate it his hand falls limply at his side. THE BATMAN is out like a light. INT. BELLTOWER - THAT MOMENT - NIGHT The JOKER glances casually down at the trapdoor, wondering what all the noise is about. He draws his gun, moves cautiously to the trapdoor, and lifts it a few inches... just enough to see the unconscious form on the stairs. JOKER ... Batman? No reply. The JOKER stands there and lets out a little snicker. He looks out through the archway, sees no sign of his rescue copter. Then -- a look of curious amusement on his face -- he steps down THROUGH THE TRAPDOOR and LUGS BATMAN up into the belltower. He props BATMAN up against a wall. Still no sign of life. The JOKER crouches beside him and -- almost tenderly -- pats his face. JOKER (cont.) Batman? Batman? THE BATMAN's lips part. But he's too weak to speak. JOKER (cont.) I thought you'd be more comfortable here in the belfry. (chuckling to himself) Before I kill you I'd like to see who you are. Would that be okay? BATMAN emits a tiny low moan. The JOKER takes it as a yes and reaches over to undo his cowl. BRUCE WAYNE stares up with dulled, sightless eyes. The JOKER reaches into his pocket for a purple handkerchief, moistens it, dabs at the caked blood on BRUCE's face. JOKER (cont.) Oh my, aren't we pretty. (brightening suddenly) I know you! You're the rich boy!! The JOKER is enormously tickled by this discovery. He claps his hands together in sheer glee. JOKER (cont.) My goodness, what in the world made you do it? It must've been something pretty terrible! He's practically dancing now. He's made a friend. JOKER (cont.) You know, we should've sat down and had us a little heart-to-heart. I bet we would have got on famously. BATMAN Mad... man... JOKER Well now, you're not exactly the picture of mental health, are you. BATMAN ... Murderer... JOKER Bruce, we're both murderers. Think how many people you've killed by letting me live. A SPOTLIGHT cuts through the night sky. The JOKER hears his helicopter approaching in the distance. BRUCE reaches down furtively. Finds the timer on his utility belt. FLICKS A SWITCH... and the countdown begins. The JOKER pulls a straight razor from his pocket and opens it gingerly. JOKER (cont.) I have to do it now, Bruce, but it won't even hurt. Now relax. The bat's in his belfry, all's right with the world... He has the razor almost up to BRUCE's throat when BRUCE reaches out and GRABS HIS LAPELS in a death grip. The JOKER is momentarily amused by this seeming display of affection. JOKER (cont.) Why, Bruce... Then he hears ticking. Looks down at the flashing digital display on BRUCE's belt. 0:26 seconds. 0:25 seconds. He SHRIEKS HORRIFICALLY and DROPS THE RAZOR. BRUCE won't let go of him. Finally he manages to lurch convulsively away, sprawling on the floor of the belfry. BRUCE is wearing a great big Joker smile. JOKER (cont.) IT'S NOT FUNNY!!! BRUCE No... sense... of humor? The JOKER reaches out for the ticking time bomb. Thinks better of it and retracts his shaking hand. He can see the copter approaching now, slicing through the clouds. He screams, waves a flashlight in the air: his signal beacon. 0:20 and counting. The JOKER scans the belltower frantically. His eyes fall on the trapdoor. He races over, flings it open, starts down the stairs in a frenzy. There are no stairs. They've collapsed. 0:16 and counting. Screaming insanely, the JOKER vaults through the door and makes for the open stone archway. The copter is directly overhead now. A rope ladder drops from its belly. EXT. BELLTOWER - THAT MOMENT The helicopter descends, its whirling blades stirring up a windstorm on the roof of the old abandoned cathedral. DEAD LEAVES rise and swirl in the churning air. INT. BELLTOWER The JOKER makes a futile grab at the rope ladder, almost losing his purchase on the archway parapet. He gestures wildly for the copter to make another pass. 0:12 to go. EXT. BELLTOWER A maelstrom of swirling leaves. And now, among the leaves -- roused from their resting place in the rotten rafters of the old cathedral -- -- A HORDE OF SQUEALING, CHITTERING BATS!! Filling the air like a black cloud, HUNDREDS OF THEM, taking flight in blind uncomprehending fury -- INT. BELLTOWER The JOKER leaps into empty space, grabs hold of the ladder, cackles in mad triumph -- -- AND SUDDENLY THE BELLTOWER IS FULL OF BATS. A SCREECHING SWARM, HIDEOUS, BLACK-WINGED -- SWOOPING THROUGH THE ARCHWAYS DIRECTLY AT THE JOKER -- -- WHO SCREAMS IN TERROR -- LETS GO OF THE LADDER -- -- and plunges into the night. TIGHT ON BATMAN. Six seconds remain. There is still time if he makes his choice now. Surrounded by the flapping of leathery wings, his body working on pure adrenalin, he unbuckles the belt. Lurches into position. Heaves it out into the darkness. It snags on the bottom rung of the dangling rope ladder. INT. HELICOPTER - POV CO-PILOT The CO-PILOT is hanging out one side of the copter, just enough to see what's going on. CO-PILOT PULL UP!! PULL -- EXT. CHURCHYARD - OVERHEAD ANGLE It's as if time has stopped. The world has grown suddenly silent. We're looking down at the JOKER, whose body lies splayed and broken on the flagstone surface of the churchyard. Slowly, elegantly -- we have all the time in the world, now -- we DRIFT DOWNWARD, closer, until his FACE FILLS THE SCREEN, the familiar chilling grin still intact. Sad clown, A-one crazy boy, staring aimlessly at the stars. Suddenly his face is bathed in a brilliant gasoline GLOW. POV JOKER Looking up he sees a beautiful display of fireworks, bursting and burning, spirals of color snaking through the sky as the helicopter explodes in eerie silence. REVERSE ANGLE - THE JOKER'S FACE It's all so lovely. The JOKER's expression is happy, almost childlike, as he gazes up at this private show. Gradually, though, the bright colors fade; and the JOKER's face begins to relax, the twisted grin dissolving at last as darkness sets in. FADE THROUGH TO: INT. TELEVISION STUDIO - NIGHT AN ANCHORWOMAN delivering an oncamera EDITORIAL. ANCHORWOMAN As the details of the Joker's heinous plan become known, a city's gratitude goes out to the mysterious Batman. His whereabouts remain unknown, but Batman -- if you're alive -- if you're listening -- thank you. EXT. CEMETERY - DAY VICKI at a fresh gravesite. She places a FLORAL ARRANGEMENT in the urn at the head of the grave; stands back to examine it; then bends once more to reposition the drooping flowers. VICKI I loved you too. As soon as the words come out, she begins to CRY. Then she gets hold of herself; rises; turns up her collar; and goes. The headstone reads: "ALEXANDER KNOX, 1956-1987." INT. WAYNE MANOR - STUDY - DAY ALFRED, in his apron, on the phone. ALFRED No, Mr. Wayne is in Thailand. I'm afraid he's quite unreachable. INT. WAYNE MANOR - DAY The glass-enclosed room which houses BRUCE's Olympic-sized SWIMMING POOL. Outside, snow is falling. In the pool, on an inflatable rubber raft, is BRUCE WAYNE. Beside him, waist-deep is the water, is VICKI -- helping him rehabilitate his leg and shoulder. VICKI I don't know why I'm doing this. I half wish you'd stay a cripple. BRUCE Ohhhh... you don't mean that. VICKI (grasping for words) I don't, but... I do. It's just... I love you, Bruce. I -- BRUCE (taking her hand) Vicki. Do you love half of me? Or all of me? A hard question for VICKI to answer. She thinks it over for several beats, then SMILES... SLOWLY, SADLY. VICKI I guess you did it, didn't you. You saved everyone. (pause) Almost. For a moment he stares deeply into her eyes. Then he pulls her over, takes her in a tight embrace. BRUCE I don't know how to explain this so it makes sense... but you saved me. INT. BATCAVE - THAT MOMENT - DAY DICK GRAYSON stands at the brink of the bottomless pit and looks up at the GYMNAST'S RINGS suspended overhead. He sets his jaw and then -- with only a moment's hesitation -- LEAPS INTO THE VOID. His hands find the rings. He launches himself HIGH INTO THE AIR and does a spectacular TRIPLE SOMERSAULT, catching the rings on his way down. Exhilarated, he makes a perfect landing on the edge of the pit. 10-point-0. A SMILE OF PLEASURE comes to his lips. CUT TO: EXT. ROOFTOP - GOTHAM CITY - NIGHT A dark, moonless night. LIGHTS OF THE CITY sparkle in the distance. CAMERA DRIFTS across the rooftop, settling finally on the broad back of a BLACK-CAPED FIGURE poised at the edge of the roof, gazing down on the streets below. A SECOND FIGURE enters frame. We get a brief glimpse of his RED-AND-GREEN SUIT in the seconds before our EYES TURN SKYWARD... to the SEARING YELLOW SPOTLIGHT sweeping through the clouds. In its center: the VAST BLACK SILHOUETTE of a BAT, wings extended, DOMINATING the night sky. We HOLD on the GLARING BAT-SIGNAL as BATMAN and ROBIN vanish over the edge of the roof, plunging down toward new adventures. MUSIC BUILDS and we FADE OUT. 
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+                               THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS                                        Written by                                       Erica Beeney                               FADE IN:               EXT. FOREST - DAY               DISTANT GUN AND MORTAR FIRE               Muffled by the wet green forest.               The very earth seems to tremble.               A RABBIT               Darts out of a log, lifts itself on its hind legs and sniffs                the air.               LOBBED GRENADE EXPLODES               VOICES and SHOUTS, closer now, mix with the rumbling WAR                SOUNDS in a veritable symphony of violence and confusion.               A DEAD AMERICAN GI lays splayed out, careless in death.               A pair of SOLDIERS flash among the trees, running hunched                over and low, and disappear into the gray blooms of SMOKE.               For a moment the forest takes a breath.               Nothing but trembling leaves. Then - The RATTLE of a Jeep                Coming closer in fits and starts, GRINDING through low gears.               A Willys MB appears, CRASHING through the undergrowth.               It's driven by Private First Class KELLY ERNSWILER.               Eighteen, if that. Not much meat on him. His insignias                indicate he's in the 29th Infantry.               His face might be attractive, under other conditions.               He pauses and pulls a map from the pocket of his M41 standard-               issue field jacket.                                     KELLY                         Where the hell are those Krauts?               To give himself courage, he SINGS Tommy Dorsey's "I'll Be                Seeing You [in all the old familiar places]" while maneuvering                the Jeep through the bushes and rocks.               He drives straight for a fallen LOG, GUNS the engine and                tries to go over it.               The Jeep's FRONT WHEELS catch on the log.               The BACK TIRES spin.               Kelly gets out. Takes off his M1 combat helmet and wipes his                face. Assesses the situation.               He grabs a BRANCH. Jams it under the wheel, trying to lever               the Jeep free. When --               The STUTTER of a nearby MACHINE GUN startles him.               The branch SNAPS against Kelly's weight. He slips and falls                in the mud.                                     KELLY                         Shit.               Determined, he grabs his pack and carbine and sets off on                foot through the forest.               EXT. CLEARING               Kelly strides purposefully out of the woods. Pauses against                a split-rail fence beneath the innocent sun.               Across the clearing stands a seemingly abandoned BARN.               But not for long, as TWO GERMAN INFANTRYMEN appear around                the corner of it.               Kelly moves behind a tree to assess the situation.               Unaware, the Germans smoke and talk. Kelly's too far away to                hear them but he watches their every move.               They're relaxed, not as on guard as they should be. Their                Karabiners rest slung across their backs.                                     KELLY                         Bingo.               AGAINST THE TREE               Kelly focuses himself.               Then he shoulders his carbine.               Pulls out his dog tags and kisses them grimly.                                     KELLY                         "And so they buried Hector, breaker                          of horses."               He takes his Smith & Wesson 1917 PISTOL from his pistol belt                and steps out into the SUNLIGHT FIELD in plain sight of the                guards.               Surely he knows they can see him. He must want them to see                him.               But they don't. Too busy passing nudie wallet photos.               Halfway across the open grass, Kelly raises the pistol but                does not aim it.               Just strides steadily closer, arms spread out, making himself                an easy target.               Crazy as it seems, Private Kelly Ernswiler is trying to get                himself killed.               EXT. BARN               Kelly pauses not twenty feet from the Germans, FIRES into                the air and waves --               -- when from behind him comes a voice.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (O.S.)                         Eine maus findet den kase.               Kelly whips around to face a third German, the OFFICER.               His pistol points right into the Officer's shocked pink young                face. Point blank range.               Only - Kelly doesn't fire.               He just lowers the pistol.               The German smiles.                                     KELLY                         Kill me Adolf.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Mien Prisoner!               The Infantrymen have recovered from their idle and come                running.               One of them yanks Kelly's hands behind his back and pushes                him into the barn roughly.               Kelly doesn't struggle.                                     KELLY                         Hey, Siegfreid and Roy. What are you                          waiting for? Kill me.               INT. BARN               Kelly sits slumped in a chair, legs tied up. One of the                Germans shines a flashlight in his face. Kelly squints.                                     KELLY                         Come on you pussies. Let's get this                          over with.               The German Officer produces a piece of paper and a fountain                pen.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (German accent)                         You will write your mother. Tell her                          how you will die now.               Kelly takes the pen and examines it.                                     KELLY                         Genuine Third Reich issue, no less.                          Nice work.               The Officer pokes the paper.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         You will write. How you die alone.                                     KELLY                         My mother and I don't have that kind                          of relationship.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (hisses)                         Write.               Kelly thinks about it for a minute - should he or shouldn't                he - but sighs and begins writing. After a few lines, the                Officer snatches the paper away and passes it to an                Infantryman.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Enough. Now you will beg for your                          life.                                     KELLY                         What don't you understand?                                     INFANTRYMAN                              (interrupts sheepishly                               in German accent)                         The protocol says we should -               The Officer wheels around and scowls at the speaker. He seems                to be getting a bit hysterical.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         I am the fucking protocol.                              (to Kelly)                         Beg!               He and Kelly glare at each other.               The Officer FIRES his Luger into the rafters.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Beg - for - your - life!                                     KELLY                         You got to be kidding me.               The Officer grabs his throat.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Silence. Now I have a little fun.               Kelly laughs. The officer slaps him. Kelly jerks away.                                     KELLY                         Now that's against the rules.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (sneers)                         There are no rules in war.               Suddenly another AMERICAN GI appears behind the German in                the shadows.               Only Kelly can see him. The GI motions to Kelly "keep talking"                while he gets into a better position with his M-1 rifle.                                     KELLY                              (to Officer)                         You've never killed anyone before,                          have you?                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         I shower in the blood of my victims --               The GI shoots the two infantrymen who fall in exaggerated                pain and commence death throes.               Quick as a flash, the GI's Colt 1911 PISTOL is at the German                Officer's neck, his M-1 in his other hand.                                     GI                         No wonder you smell so bad.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Don't shoot, please.               The GI's eyes widen. He looks at Kelly.                                     GI                         Will you look at the manners on this                          guy?                              (to German)                         Remember to thank me when I kill                          you.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         No, really, not in the neck -               But the GI does anyway.               The Officer SHRIEKS, grabs at his neck, and falls.                                     GI                              (to Kelly)                         You all right?                                     KELLY                         Yeah. My elaborate death scene wasn't                          going anywhere anyway.                                     GI                         You want me to give you a minute?                                     KELLY                         That's okay. They'll get me                          eventually. If you can't get killed                          in a war, when can you?                                     GI                         That's right. Look on the bright                          side.               The GI holds out his hand.                                     GI                         Bart. Bart Bowland.               Kelly takes the hand of the grinning all-American type guy.               About his own age, but BART takes up more space.                                     KELLY                         Kelly. Kelly Ernswiler.                                     BART                         Kelly?                                     KELLY                              (mimics)                         Bart?                                     BART                         I mean - that's Irish, right?                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (from the floor, now                               with a decidedly                               American accent)                         Wow man, this is a really beautiful                          scene and all, but I have to                          interrupt.                              (to Bart)                         Why the fuck did you have to shoot                          that cap so close to my neck? You                          gave me a powder burn.                                     KELLY                         Listen you wienerschnitzel. You should                          talk. You slapped me. I'm not your                          bitch.               The Officer gets up and dusts off his uniform.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Well, what was that whole creepy                          death wish thing about?                                     KELLY                         Well it didn't work, now did it?                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (shrugs)                         Sometimes I get so caught up in the                          moment.                                     KELLY                         And what was that ridiculous shit                          about making me write to my mother?               The Officer grins.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                         Inspired, wasn't it?                                     BART                         Dude, you made him write to his                          mother? Who are you, Dr. Phil?                                     INFANTRYMAN                              (also with American                               accent)                         Can we get up now?               Bart helps him up and checks his regulation-issue Timex.                                     BART                         Might as well. There's only an hour                          left anyway.               The German Officer crosses his arms.                                     GERMAN OFFICER                              (to Kelly)                         Admit it. You were scared.                                     KELLY                              (snorts)                         Right.               Kelly gets up from the chair and falls over. His legs are                still tied.               EXT. FOREST               The DEAD GI gets up and walks off with the GERMANS and some                other SOLDIERS, done for the day.               Bart and Kelly walk back to the stranded Jeep.                                     BART                         That Willys yours?                                     KELLY                         Yup. Just got her. Three summers                          packing out at Shop Rite.               Bart unfolds an entrenching tool from his belt and digs under                the back wheels, building up dirt.               Then he goes around to the front and puts his shoulder against                the hood. Bart rocks the Jeep while Kelly pumps the gas.               The Jeep finally pulls free and SPRAYS Bart with mud.                                     KELLY                         My bad. Thanks though.               Kelly looks over his shoulder and starts backing away.                                     KELLY                         See you.               Bart stands there, dripping with mud, shocked.               About a hundred feet away Kelly stops.                                     KELLY                         Well, come on.               Bart walks towards the Jeep. Kelly backs it up again.                                     KELLY                         I couldn't resist.               Bart climbs in.                                     BART                         Real funny, Ernswiler. You might                          still get your chance to die today.               INT. DINER - DAY               The customers are all REENACTORS. Some Yanks, some Germans,                a few Scottish and North African irregulars. "Boogie-Woogie                Bugle Boy" plays on the jukebox.               Bart and Kelly sit in a booth together. Bart has an easy,                confident manner and expansive gestures. Kelly eats hunched                over, like someone might try and steal his food.                                     BART                         Character building? Those crazy guys                          from Ann Arbor tied them to a dock.                                     KELLY                              (shrugs)                         That's what you get for invading                          Wisconsin.                                     BART                         D-Day at Kenosha was nothing. At                          Guadalcanal Chillicothe there was a                          guy who actually injected himself                          with malaria.                                     KELLY                         That's crazy.               They both eat for a minute.                                     BART                         Where do you live, anyway?                                     KELLY                         Shaker Heights.                                     BART                         That explains the death wish. Me                          too. What street?                                     KELLY                         Penn Place.                                     BART                              (chewing)                         Hmm, don't know it.                                     KELLY                         It's not technically in Shaker Heights                          - but I go to Shaker Heights High.               Pause. Kelly looks at Bart.                                     BART                         Langely Prep.                                     KELLY                         Sorry to hear that.                                     BART                         Well, I got kicked out of Shaker                          Heights High because my birdhouse                          came unglued in honors woodshop.                                     KELLY                         Of course. I would have gone to                          Langely myself only my polo pony had                          the fits.               Bart throws his napkin on his plate.                                     BART                         No matter.                              (raises his voice to                               address the room)                         We're all soldiers here.                                     CROWD                         That's right./Here, here./ Whooping,                          cheers, etc.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - DAY               Kelly pulls up into the circular gravel drive. Bart's house                is fancy. A nice yard and a pool. Bart hops out.                                     BART                         You should come over some time.                         Service our lawnmower.                                     KELLY                         I would, but then I might soil my                          croquet whites. You understand.                                     BART                         How bourgeois. Cheerio then.               Kelly watches Bart go into his house and smiles in spite of                himself.               EXT. ERNSWILER HOUSE - DUSK               Kelly's house is a also pretty nice, nothing to be ashamed                of. It is smaller and weirder. The flowers and bushes are                overgrown and strange sculptures dot the yard, some leaning                at precarious angles.               Kelly washes his Jeep in the driveway.               EXT. ERNSWILER HOUSE - NIGHT               Kelly buffs the headlamps with a chamois. The Jeep looks                good as new. He pulls a canvas cover over it.                                     KELLY                         Sleep tight Hot Lips.               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE, KITCHEN - NIGHT               Kelly walks in on his dad ABE making sandwiches. A great big                pile of cheese and PB&J.                                     ABE                         Sergeant Keller! How was the war?                          Did we win?               Kelly doesn't smile at this. He looks at the sandwiches and                puts his finger to his chin in a gesture so facetious it's                downright angry.                                     KELLY                         Let me guess. Happy Meals for the                          wavy gravy wellness center?               Abe grabs two pieces of bread from a loaf. He looks kind. A                bit ill-used by life. The phrase "rode hard and put away                wet" comes to mind.                                     ABE                         As usual, your cynicism is refreshing.               He finishes that sandwich and adds it to the pile.               Kelly pauses while opening the refrigerator. His back                tightens. He slams the door with his foot.                                     KELLY                         As usual, your cheerful optimism                          makes me ill.               Abe pauses over a slice of bread only briefly. The hostility                is nothing new.                                     ABE                              (lightly)                         You should get that checked.               Kelly walks through the kitchen and out the back door.                                     KELLY                              (O.S.)                         Sure thing, doc. Say hello to Leif                          Garrett for me.               INT. ERNSWILER GARAGE - NIGHT               Kelly opens the screen door and pokes his head in.               A family of Chinese immigrants, the Lings, paints canvases                at long worktables. There's a MOTHER, father MAO, grandmother                XIOU-XIOU, SON and DAUGHTER.               Finished canvases hang from the walls and lean in piles                against it. All of them are portraits of animals. Some have                on hats or clothes.               Kelly's mom EVE shows grandmother XIOU-XIOU a few strokes                with a paintbrush.               Eve wears jeans. She's one of those young-looking mothers                Kelly's friends would have crushes on. If he had any friends.                                     MAO                              (to Kelly)                         Son of Eve. You are very dirty.                                     KELLY                              (awkward)                         A rough charge. You know.                                     EVE                              (to Kelly)                         Don't touch anything. We have to get                          ready for the Starving Artist show.                              (to Xiou-Xiou)                         Now Nana, the gold has to be feathery,                          not gloppy - see?               Eve demonstrates on the painting - a pair of monkeys in French                court dress. Kelly looks over his mom's shoulder.                                     EVE                         Now you try.               Grandmother Xiou-Xiou dabs at the painting.                                     EVE                              (to Kelly)                         She loves the gold. Always overuses                          it. And usually her touch is so light.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         Gold is the color of the sun.               Eve moves along the row, stopping to look at the paintings                in progress.                                     KELLY                         You know why we never have anything                          to eat in this house?               But Eve has stopped behind Mao's painting. She's not paying                attention to Kelly.                                     EVE                         Mao, what did we say about the eyes?               She gestures at the image of a horse done Santa Fe style,                lots of pastels, very abstract.               Mao looks at her quizzically.                                     MAO                         More - empathy?                                     EVE                         That's right. And didn't I tell you                          to put in more cacti?                                     MAO                              (shakes head)                         No, no more cacti. Too busy.                          Simplicity is best.               His family nods in support of this rash aesthetic statement.               Eve rolls her eyes.                                     EVE                         Oh boy. I'm not having this battle                          with you again.               Kelly breaks in.                                     KELLY                         Because your husband takes food from                          his own family to feed every loser                          druggie in Cleveland.               Eve moves down the line.                                     EVE                         Well, you can always chip in here.                          We're ordering pizza later.               At this the family nods and smiles to each other, pleased                with the news.                                     KELLY                         No. Some people have to work later.                              (casual)                         Will you drop something off at the                          dry cleaners for me tomorrow?               Eve looks up at him for the first time. Takes in his filthy                uniform.                                     EVE                         Sweetie, you know what we said about                          paying for the war things. Nothing's                          changed.                                     KELLY                         It's the only thing I ever ask you                          for --                                     EVE                         Don't be dramatic.                                     KELLY                         But it's important to me.               Eve stops at Mother Ling's painting.                                     EVE                         You're just going to have to find a                          way to pay for it yourself then, I                          guess.                              (to Mother Ling)                         No - not that way - the sky should                          be stormier. Angry clouds.               Mother Ling looks up at Kelly, who's scowling. She smiles                and nods, understanding.                                     KELLY                         Why do I bother?               Kelly leaves. Eve's busy talking.                                     EVE                         More brown, less blue.               INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT               Kelly comes back in a grabs a sandwich off the pile.                                     ABE                         Now Keller, who needs that sandwich                          more - you or the daughter of a crack                          addict trying to make a new life?               Kelly looks at him and bites into the sandwich.                                     KELLY                         How about the son of a heroin addict                          trying to get ready for work?               Kelly leaves with the sandwich. Abe sighs and picks up more                bread.                                     ABE                         That went well.               INT. KELLY'S ROOM - NIGHT               On the walls a poster for the Civil War miniseries next to                one of Led Zeppelin. Some maps. A globe. Models of fighter                planes and a set of old tin soldiers.               Oh yeah, and his mom's ORIGINAL PAINTING, the one that started                it all, this one signed by her - a very intense looking pink                rabbit glaring out of the canvas with huge eyes.               He sits on the edge of the bed for a minute staring into                space before he peels off his muddy uniform piece by piece.               INT. GROCERY STORE - NIGHT               Ah, the graveyard shift. Musak Steely Dan.               Kelly unpacks cat food.               Thousands and thousands of little cans of it. It's hard to                keep the rows straight on the shelves.               SARAH, the night cashier, stands at her register. She's plain-               looking now but she'll be beautiful later when she figures                out who she is.               Not another soul in the store. Sarah wanders over to Kelly's                aisle as if pulled by a magnet.                                     SARAH                         So how'd your battle go today? I                          still don't understand how you could                          reenact the Battle of the Bulge in                          seventy-two degree weather.                              (plays with hair)                         Didn't all those guys freeze to death?               Kelly doesn't stop working. He's got a system.                                     KELLY                         Well, a Port-a-John fell over on a                          couple of guys.                                     SARAH                         That's gross.                                     KELLY                         War is hell.               Kelly grabs another handful of cans.                                     SARAH                         Then why do you do it?               Kelly pauses. He puts two cans on the shelf very deliberately.                                     KELLY                         You're never more alive then when                          facing simulated death.                                     SARAH                         Really? Maybe I should try it.               Kelly looks at her, thinks about this, and stands up.                                     KELLY                         You are William J. Stone of the 1st                          Airborne, pinned down in Noville.                          The Germans have the high ground and                          they're shelling your position                          heavily.                              (starts throwing cans)                         You're holed up in a stone barn.                          Sustaining heavy casualties. Running                          low on ammo. The cries of wounded                          men fill the air like the cries of                          hungry babies.               Sarah covers her head, huddled behind the boxes of cat food,                dodging cans.                                     KELLY                         Your commanding officer gets hit in                          the face, dies. At 1 p.m. you lose                          radio contact with headquarters. If                          you withdraw, the Germans will flank                          the entire Allied forces arrayed                          along Bastogne and break the front.                          What do you do? What do you do?                                     SARAH                         Stop it!               Kelly goes back to stocking, satisfied.                                     KELLY                         Battle of Bulge, the Southern                          Shoulder, December '44.                                     SARAH                         Sorry I asked.               Sarah stands up and starts to wander away but Kelly makes a                peace offering.                                     KELLY                         Hey. Want a snack? We got a whole                          shipment in of busted Oreo's.               Sarah looks at her feet, considering whether or not to accept                it.                                     SARAH                         I'll accidentally drop a couple pints                          of milk and meet you over there.               INT. DAIRY BACKROOM               Sarah and Kelly sit on milk crates, pass the cookies back                and forth and get philosophical.                                     SARAH                         The frozen food woman came in with                          her kids. They must eat out of those                          little cardboard trays every night.                          One of the kids looked like cardboard.                                     KELLY                         Do you know we stock more flavors of                          cat food than we do baby food?                                     SARAH                         No.                                     KELLY                         Sixteen flavors of baby food including                          the toddler meals-in-ajar, thirty-                         one flavors of cat food.               He fishes for a cookie.                                     KELLY                         Next time you should tell that woman                          to buy her kid some cat food.               An ANGRY WOMAN pushes open the swinging door of the backroom                with her loaded shopping cart.                                     WOMAN                         Is this store open? I've been waiting                          up front. If the store's closed, it                          shouldn't have a sign that says twenty-                         four hours.               Sarah gets up. Kelly stays right where he is, finishing a                cookie.                                     SARAH                         Sorry about that.                                     WOMAN                         I have a lot of coupons and I don't                          want to be here when they expire.                                     KELLY                              (to Sarah)                         Charge her double for everything.               Sarah smiles and hurries away.               INT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               Kelly walks down the hall with his army-issue BACKPACK slung                over one shoulder. Besides a serious case of bedhead, he                looks normal.               No one says hi to him as he makes his way to his locker.               As he twirls the combination and opens it, he notices LANCE --                short and wide, built like a tank, prematurely balding, and                his girlfriend BRIDGET embracing a few lockers down.               They kiss raunchily, their tongues darting in and out of                each other's mouths.               Lance sees Kelly looking and stops kissing.                                     LANCE                         What the fuck are you looking at, GI                          Jane?               Kelly shakes his head and gets a book out of his locker.                                     LANCE                         No really, what makes you think you                          can look at me?                                     KELLY                         I honestly didn't know it was you. I                          thought it was a free preview of the                          Spice Channel.                                     LANCE                         That's pretty funny. You got dental                          insurance?               Kelly closes his locker and walks away.               Bridget wipes her mouth guiltily.               Lance shakes his head and pulls Bridget to him, grinding his                pelvis against hers.                                     BRIDGET                         Stop it.               She walks away.                                     LANCE                         What? What?               INT. CLASSROOM -- DAY               The lights are off in history class.               The teacher MR. NORMAN shows slides on the Civil War. The                more we see the clearer it becomes that they are his own                photos from a vacation spent visiting the memorials.               Mr. Norman smiles out at his class in shot after shot.               He clicks the remote and a photo of his WIFE, crouched over                and wearing shorts, drinking from a garden hose appears on                screen.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Whoops!               He hurries through to the next slide.               It doesn't matter anyway. Everyone is almost asleep.               Except Kelly, who becomes increasingly irritated the more                Mr. Norman talks.                                     MR. NORMAN                         And here, at Gettysburg, the ranks                          of Union soldiers fought bravely on.                          They were willing to give their lives                          so that others might be free.               Kelly shifts in his seat.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Is there a problem Mr. Ernswiler?                                     KELLY                         No.               But Mr. Norman doesn't start talking again.               He waits, looking at Kelly, smiling blandly. Until the silence                becomes uncomfortable. And Kelly gets mad.                                     KELLY                         Come on. Isn't this analysis a tad                          simplistic? I mean, maybe for a second                          grade history class, sure - but to                          insist on still characterizing the                          Civil War as some moral struggle?                          The soldiers were drafted - the only                          ones who had to fight were the ones                          who couldn't afford to pay their way                          out.                              (losing it)                         Why don't you talk about the Draft                          Riots? Where are your slides for                          that?               INT. PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE - MOMENTS LATER               Fresh flowers and a crocheted tissue box hoodie make the                place cozy.               Kelly sits across the desk from PRINCIPAL HOLMSTEAD, a well-               groomed woman with a gentle talk show host demeanor.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         What gives you the idea that you can                          or ought to question the curriculum?               Kelly doesn't move. He's not into this.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         Or question your teacher?                                     KELLY                         I know. I mean, who ever heard of a                          classroom dialog? Not Socrates.               Ms. Holmstead is exasperated, but she likes him in spite of                herself. He's a smart cookie. She's got to change her                strategy.               She leans back in her chair.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         Kelly, you're a very bright boy. But                          you're making some serious mistakes.                                     KELLY                         I don't need to. Everyone else makes                          them for me.               Her chair SQUEAKS as she leans forward and looks at Kelly                intently.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         This anger must be masking a lot of                          hurt.                                     KELLY                         I was wondering what the tissues                          were for.               Holmstead tries again. She looks down at his file.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         I see you're not going to college                          next year. What are your plans?               Kelly shrugs. Holmstead searches his face for any clues.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         How do I get through to you?                                     KELLY                         Advertisers use status and sex to                          appeal to my demographic.               She shakes her head and swings her chair towards the window                and gazes out at the front walkway of the school. Her face                clears. Something's clicked.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         I think we can come up with a                          punishment which might actually be                          more of an opportunity for you to                          realize your true potential.               EXT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               School's been out for a while. The first rush had already                left.               Kelly comes down the front steps and starts across the parking                lot to his Jeep.               Lance steps out from behind an SUV and intercepts him.                                     LANCE                         You upset Bridget.               Kelly hardly stops walking.                                     KELLY                         Give me a break.                                     LANCE                         You need to apologize.                                     KELLY                         What are you going to do, make out                          with me?               Lance runs and grabs Kelly's backpack.                                     LANCE                         Why are you fucking with me? You                          little fucker. Want to play, fuckface?                                     KELLY                         You just used fuck as a verb, noun,                          and adjective. Impressive.               Kelly tries to start walking again but Lance has hold of                him.                                     LANCE                         Let's see what Beetle Bailey's got                          in his knapsack.               Lance grabs Kelly's arm and yanks it back. Kelly still seems                unconcerned.               Suddenly he pulls away, but Lance keeps hold of his backpack.               Lance holds the backpack up next to his head and points at                it, gleeful.               Lance walks away towards his car. Kelly runs after him.               Lance holds Kelly off easily with one hand and throws the                backpack into his SUV. They STRUGGLE for a minute, until                Lance pushes Kelly away, gets in the car.               Kelly runs next to the car and pounds on the window as Lance                drives off.               Finally, Kelly gives up. Lance turns out of the parking lot                and HONKS the horn.               Kelly shakes his head.                                     KELLY                         Rim job.               INT. ARMY NAVY STORE - DAY               Kelly sifts through a pile of backpacks looking for a                replacement. From his post behind the counter, Bart sees him                and comes over.                                     BART                         Kelly. Hey.                                     KELLY                         You work here?                                     BART                         Just a couple days a month, to get a                          heads-up on the latest stuff. What                          are you doing?                                     KELLY                         Looking for a backpack.                                     BART                         Is that all? Don't bother. I have a                          couple extras at home. I could give                          you one if you want.                                     KELLY                              (beat)                         Sure, I guess.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, DAD'S LIBRARY - DAY               Kelly stands a bit awkwardly waiting for Bart to get the key                from the desk to open the door in the corner. The door finally                swings open.               INT. STOREROOM               Bart and Kelly stand between shelves piled high with war                memorabilia. Uniforms in vacu-pac sealed bags, weapons in                shoeboxes, cannonballs and tattered and gunsmoke-darkened                flags.                                     KELLY                         Very impressive.                                     BART                         My dad's real into hoarding.               Kelly holds up a flask in a leather case.                                     KELLY                         What's this?                                     BART                         Grant's field flask.                                     KELLY                         Wow. Your dad should meet my history                          teacher. He sent me to the principal's                          office today for questioning his G-                         rated interpretation of the Civil                          War.                                     BART                         Forget him.                                     KELLY                         I would, but now the principal's                          making me give a speech on the Civil                          War at an assembly.                                     BART                              (laughing in sympathy                               and amusement)                         What is he, some kind of sadist?                                     KELLY                         She thinks she's doing me a favor.                                     BART                         Jesus, she must think you're really                          screwed up. Are you?                                     KELLY                         Depends on who you ask. Everyone's                          got an opinion.                                     BART                              (grabs box)                         Take this. That'll shut them up.               Bart opens the long box. Nestled inside is a leg bone with a                foot attached to it.                                     BART                         Stonewall Jackson's.                                     KELLY                         Yeah right.                                     BART                         Can you imagine that? Losing your                          leg and getting back up on your horse?                          Unbelievable. What balls.               Kelly nods. That is balls.                                     BART                         He's got so much crap crammed in                          here he doesn't even notice when                          it's missing. I saw a backpack in                          here somewhere.               Bart puts down the box carelessly and paws through the piles.               INT. BOWLAND KITCHEN               Bart and Kelly sit at the kitchen table drinking sodas,                waiting for MINNIE, the housekeeper, to finish making them                dinner.                                     BART                         I thought he had a couple.                                     KELLY                         I'd feel weird taking one out of the                          tomb of Tutenkamen anyway.                                     BART                         Trust me, you shouldn't.                              (burps)                         Where'd your old one go?                                     KELLY                         I lost it.                                     BART                         How?               A pause. Kelly decides to tell him.                                     KELLY                         Someone took it.                                     BART                         You let someone take it?                                     KELLY                         I didn't let him. I told off some                          idiot --                                     BART                         Sounds like your mouth gets you into                          trouble a lot.                                     KELLY                         I'm telling you, it's not me, it's                          the world.               TABBY, Bart's older sister comes in.               She's older. Definitely in college, if not out. And totally                shockingly beautiful. Otherworldly.                                     BART                         Tabby, this is Kelly.                                     TABBY                              (to Kelly)                         Don't give him any money, whatever                          you do.                                     BART                         Shut up.                                     TABBY                         All these little old ladies are                          looking for him in Arizona. He took                          their retirement money and bought                          defective bazookas with it.               Kelly laughs. And looks at Tabby more closely.                                     BART                         Very funny. We're paying attention                          to you, are you happy now?                                     TABBY                         Finally, my life is complete. Fait                          accompli.                                     BART                              (to Tabby)                         Minnie's making sloppy joes. Want                          one?                                     TABBY                         Sloppy joe? Sloppy no.               She opens the fridge and gets a yogurt.                                     TABBY                         I have to go take a shower. Will you                          call me when Miner gets here?               Tabby leaves. Kelly's distracted.                                     KELLY                         Who's Miner?                                     BART                         The fiancÈ.               Bart rolls his eyes, indicating what he thinks of good old                Miner.               Kelly nods, doesn't say anything.                                     BART                         Listen, I'm going to the flea market                          on Saturday. I have a line on a couple                          dealers. You could get a backpack                          there.               Kelly glances at the door Tabby left from.                                     KELLY                         Oh yeah? Flea market, land of                          bargains.                                     BART                         Especially if you know who to talk                          to.               Kelly looks at Bart with suspicion -- and respect.               EXT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - MORNING               Kelly hops out of his Jeep and walks towards the front of                the school.               Lance is there, hanging out with Bridget and some of his Cro-               Magnon FRIENDS.               He wears a WW II CAP, overseas airborne style, obviously                Kelly's.                                     LANCE                         Hey fuckface. Like my new hat? I                          just joined the Boy Scouts.               The Cro-Magnons grunt approvingly at this witty repartee.                                     KELLY                         If you stay in it long enough, maybe                          you'll get your fudgepacker badge.               Ooh. The Cro-Magnons laugh at Lance and EGG him on - "You                gonna take that?"/"He just called you a fag", etc.               Lance frowns and grabs Kelly.                                     LANCE                         You're a regular Howie Mandel.               Still holding on to him with one arm, he SLAPS Kelly hard                across the face with the other.               Kelly's knees give a bit. Lance holds him up.                                     BRIDGET                         Lance!               Lance looks over at her and releases Kelly.                                     LANCE                         Okay babe.                              (to Kelly)                         One day you and me will be alone.                          And won't that be nice?               Kelly is hurt but covering.                                     KELLY                         Too bad my mom won't let me date                          yet.               Kelly frowns and adjusts his clothes. Tries to re-wet the                dry inside of his mouth with his tongue.               He turns slowly and trudges up the stairs.               Sarah has been watching the whole thing from the door.                                     SARAH                         Why do you mess with him?                                     KELLY                         You're right. I should give him a                          break.               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE - DAY               Kelly watches TV in the living room. His cheek has a nice                bruise on it. Eve enters.                                     EVE                         Oh, Kelly, you're home. Good. I need                          you to go to the art supply store                          for me.               Kelly looks at the TV.                                     KELLY                         Get Abe to do it.               Eve goes to her purse and rifles through it to find her                wallet.                                     EVE                         He was going to but he had to go                          lead a meeting at Care House.                                     KELLY                         What a surprise.                                     EVE                         I'll make it up to you.                                     KELLY                         Where have I heard that before?               Eve sighs.                                     EVE                         When are you going to give me a break?               Kelly jabs at the remote.                                     KELLY                         Let me think - maybe when I finally                          forget every single word of The Little                          Mermaid soundtrack I'd listen to in                          the car waiting for him to score.                          No, probably when I don't prepare                          myself before I go into the bathroom,                          expecting to find him passed out on                          the floor.               Eve waits through this.                                     KELLY                         Actually, you know what? I know I'll                          be able to put it all behind me when                          I go away to college.                              (slaps his forehead,                               pretend remembering)                         Only, I can't go because someone                          spent my college fund on Mexican                          Black Tar. So looks like I'll have                          to try to forget at Shop Rite, where                          I'll be working for the rest of my                          life.                                     EVE                         You're right. You have every reason                          to crawl into the corner and give                          up. But please just get me some paints                          first.               Eve comes over to Kelly. He sighs and puts his hand out.                                     KELLY                         What do you need?               She gives him the money.                                     EVE                         We need burnt sienna, cadmium red,                          and midnight blue. Two tubes of blue.                              (looks at him)                         What happened to your face?               She puts her hand up but he moves away from it.                                     KELLY                         Forget it.               INT. ART SUPPLY STORE - DAY               Kelly looks through the paints, picking out tubes. He looks                up and sees Tabby browsing the paintbrushes.               He's suddenly nervous. He knocks over a few cans of thinner.                Almost leaves.               Instead, he gathers his courage, goes to the display opposite                hers and waits to catch her eye.                                     KELLY                         They're having a sale on glitter.               It takes Tabby a second to recognize him.                                     TABBY                         Oh, hello. What happened to you?                                     KELLY                              (shrugs)                         Tennis injury.               Tabby looks at him suspiciously like she's not sure whether                to believe him.               Tabby finishes with the mediums and moves onto the paints.               Kelly follows her, staying in the opposite aisle.                                     TABBY                         You paint?                                     KELLY                         Well, you see... That's a difficult                          question.                                     TABBY                         How so?                                     KELLY                         I don't really feel comfortable                          calling anything done since the                          Renaissance "painting." We might                          have a more experimental interaction                          with the picture plane, but our skills                          have suffered from it.               In spite of herself, Tabby laughs at this. This gives Kelly                more confidence. He leans over the aisle to see what she's                looking at.                                     KELLY                         You're working with acrylic. Why?                          Oil's much - richer.                                     TABBY                         Oh you're not one of those oil snobs                          are you?                                     KELLY                         Of course not.               Kelly comes around and leans nonchalantly against the shelves,                knocks more things over and fumbles to replace them.                                     KELLY                         It's just - isn't acrylic a bit -                          jejune?                                     TABBY                         Jejune? You're jejune. How old are                          you anyway?                                     KELLY                         Older than my years.               Tabby walks to the counter with her brushes.                                     TABBY                         And you paint?               Kelly looks down and partially confesses.                                     KELLY                         Well, you know, my mother's kind of                          an artist, so -                                     TABBY                         That explains it.               Tabby signs the slip and takes the bag. She walks out, Kelly                with her, matches her pace, talking.                                     KELLY                         That explains nothing. Doesn't anyone                          believe in innate knowledge anymore?                          Michelangelo was fifteen when he                          painted the Infanta.                                     TABBY                         Infantas are Spanish. Michelangelo                          was Italian.               Tabby gets into her car. Kelly leans into her window.                                     KELLY                         Exactly. One world, one people. Just                          like Jesse Jackson envisioned.               Tabby tries to conceal her smile and starts her car.                                     TABBY                         Well - Kelly. Nice talking to you.               She drives away. Kelly stands there watching. Then he winces.                                     KELLY                         What the hell did you just say?               EXT. ERNSWILER HOUSE - DAY               Kelly pulls up in his Jeep. He turns off the engine but                doesn't get out. Just sits there. He doesn't want to go in.               EXT. FLEA MARKET - DAY               Colored plastic flags droop in the sun.               MILITARY STALL               Bart sweeps his eye over everything. A SKINNY GUY wearing a                wife beater has some not half-bad stuff.               Kelly, bruise faded to yellow and green, examines a glass                mason jar of what seems to be dirt.                                     SKINNY GUY                              (to Kelly)                         That there's actual sand from Iwo                          Jima.                                     BART                         Or your sister's sandbox.               The guy shrugs.                                     SKINNY GUY                         Well, it don't come with no                          certificate of authenticity.                              (considers)                         I could write one up for you, I                          suppose. Get it notarized.                                     BART                         No, that's quite all right. Actually,                          I'm in the market for medals.                                     SKINNY GUY                         Sure. I got a couple purple hearts.                          A Silver Star. DSC. Can't sell them                          to you though. They were gramp's.                              (wink)               Bart acts casual, hands clasped behind his back.                                     BART                         Are you sure?                                     SKINNY                         They have a lot of sentimental value                          -                                     BART                         Yeah. How much?                                     SKINNY GUY                         A lot.               Bart pulls out a paper bag and offers it to the skinny guy,                who looks inside.                                     SKINNY GUY                         What's this?                                     BART                         General Ulysses S. Grant's field                          flask, my friend.               Kelly is shocked. The skinny guy looks at his suspiciously.                                     BART                         Throw in one of those backpacks and                          we'll call it even.               The skinny guy looks at Bart, and in the bag again. He goes                to get the backpack. Kelly's impressed by this smooth                exchange.               FLEA MARKET - BETWEEN ROWS               Kelly and Bart weave through the maze of stands. Kelly now                holds the backpack.                                     KELLY                         Buying and selling US service medals                          is illegal.                                     BART                         Exactly. That's why the resale value                          is so high.                                     KELLY                         Is that what they teach you at                          Langely?                                     BART                         Don't be so naÔve. We all have our                          skeletons. Some of them just pay                          more than others.                                     KELLY                         And I'm not even going to ask about                          the flask.                                     BART                         Don't ask, don't tell. The army gets                          everything right, don't they?               CAMPAIGN PIN STALL               A frowsy WOMAN in a muumuu sits fanning herself in front of                an extensive display of pins and buttons.                                     WOMAN                         You boys look like Goldwater fans.                                     KELLY                         I've never been accused of that                          before.                                     WOMAN                         Well jeez, you don't have to be                          insulted.                                     BART                         Anything military?               The woman considers this, her fan working back and forth                lazily.                                     WOMAN                         Fish around in that cigar box.               Bart paws through the box. Acts casual.                                     BART                         What do you want for the box?                                     WOMAN                         Twenty dollars.                                     BART                         Fifteen.                                     WOMAN                         Don't be so hasty.                              (fanning)                         I got a few Geraldine Ferraro pins                          I'm looking to unload.               FLEA MARKET FOOD COURT               Kelly and Bart, now wearing the smiling black & white face                of Geraldine Ferraro, eat disgusting yet delicious flea market                food and watch a slow-motion bingo game.                                     KELLY                         Goldwater fan. I think that's some                          kind of insult.                                     BART                         Not at Dartmouth. Where are you going                          to go to school?                                     KELLY                         I'm not.                                     BART                         Ah, you have that luxury.                                     KELLY                         You don't?                                     BART                              (shrugs)                         I didn't have much say in the matter.                          Everything has been decided for me                          since birth. I'm not whining about                          it. Play the hand you're dealt, right?                                     KELLY                         Easy for you to say. You got a royal                          flush.                                     BART                         Are you crazy? My life sucks.                          Everyone's always telling me what to                          do. You can't fight it. Go with the                          flow.               They eat for a minute to the soothing sounds of the BINGO                CALLER: TWENTY-ONE, THIRTEEN, FOUR, SEVENTY-EIGHT.                                     KELLY                         What about Tabby?                                     BART                         She got to go where she wanted. Sarah                          Lawrence. Six years. She's almost                          done with grad school. Yale.                                     KELLY                         I didn't think people actually went                          to Yale.                                     BART                              (thinking)                         I don't know. I mean, she drives off                          in her car in September. For all we                          know, she could just pull her car                          over in Albany and sleep there until                          May.                                     KELLY                         What do you mean?                                     BART                         It was a joke. Joke?               Bart does some fake sign language to help Kelly out.                                     KELLY                         Oh. Is that what one of those sounds                          like? Somehow, I always imagined                          they would be funnier.               Bart pushes Kelly, who grabs his arm like it got hurt.                                     KELLY                         Sarah Lawrence? Isn't that for                          lesbians?               Bart shrugs.                                     BART                         What happened to your face?                                     KELLY                         Remember the backpack incident?                                     BART                         Same guy?                                     KELLY                         The one with mad cow-diseased                          hamburger meat for brains? That would                          be the one.               Interested, Bart leans forward.                                     BART                         What are you going to do about it?                                     KELLY                         I'm not going to lower myself to his                          level.                                     BART                         Of course not. But there are                          alternativesÖ                                     KELLY                         Alternatives?                                     BART                         Haven't you ever heard of the 193rd                          Special Operations Wing?               Kelly shakes his head.                                     BART                         Well do you want to get this guy or                          what?                                     KELLY                         Yes.                                     BART                         All right. Let's get the fuck out of                          here, then.               Bart tosses his wrapper at the trashcan. Kelly watches it                hit the rim and go in.                                     BART                              (on the move)                         I have some things to show you.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, KITCHEN - NIGHT               Bart and Kelly sit amidst a spread of books, papers, and                electronic equipment.                                     BART                         Once we've gathered the intelligence,                          the plan will reveal itself.                                     KELLY                         We don't plan first?               Bart opens a pad.                                     BART                         No, it limits our scope - what's the                          objective?                                     KELLY                         Humiliation. Rage. Despair.                                     BART                         Easy enough. 'Nam's probably our go-                         to war for that sort of thing. I                          have the declassified briefs from                          the Phoenix Project around here                          somewhere.               Bart grabs a book and starts flipping through pages.               Tabby enters with an armful of art supplies.                                     TABBY                         Hey. I have some stretcher bars out                          in the car. Can somebody help me                          bring them in?                                     BART                         Of course we'll drop what we're doing                          because what you're doing must be                          more important.               Bart doesn't look up. He grabs another book.                                     KELLY                         Sure. I mean, I'll help.               Bart raises his eyebrow. Kelly shrugs off the look.                                     BART                         I'll find those reports.               INT. TABBY'S STUDIO - NIGHT               Tabby drops the canvas and points at the table. Kelly dumps                the bars and stands there looking around.               At the wood floors and skylights. Couch covered with a sheet.               Painting, serious ones, with layers of paint and mysterious                objects stuck to them lay against the walls. They all seem                faded, like a vacation photo that's been through the wash.               Kelly moves to the PAINTING on the easel.               Very yellow and pink. Kind of looks like castles.                                     KELLY                         Gold. The color of the sun.               Tabby wrestles with the bolt of canvas.                                     TABBY                         That's the Cleveland waterfront.                                     KELLY                         As the viewer, I get to decide what                          it is, I'm afraid. And it doesn't                          look a thing like it.                                     TABBY                         It's the light. I was playing with                          diffusion.                                     KELLY                         Well make sure you put it away when                          you're done with it.                                     TABBY                         Very funny, wiseass.               Kelly resumes his tour of the room.                                     KELLY                         It must be nice to have a place like                          this to get away to.                                     TABBY                         It is.                                     KELLY                         What about Farmer?                                     TABBY                         Farmer?               Tabby unrolls the canvas and measures lengths.                                     KELLY                         The boyfriend.                                     TABBY                              (laughs)                         Miner? What about him?                                     KELLY                         Is he an artist, too?                                     TABBY                         No. Definitely not. Thank god.               Kelly is silent for a while, fiddling with a clamp light.                                     TABBY                         You said your mom was a painter?                                     KELLY                         She was, well - is I guess.               Tabby cuts the canvas.                                     TABBY                         What do you mean?                                     KELLY                         She used to be. But then my dad -                          wasn't working anymore so she turned                          it into a business. She has a family                          of Chinese immigrants in the garage                          making them for her.                                     TABBY                         Like Andy Warhol's Factory.                                     KELLY                         More like Andy Warhol's tool shed.                          It was nice before, though. My playpen                          used to be in her studio.                                     TABBY                         Wow. So you really grew up with it.                          What does, did, your dad do?                                     KELLY                         He's a VH-1 documentary without the                          music.                                     TABBY                         "Tragedy struck?"               Kelly nods.                                     KELLY                         "And then, things took a turn for                          the worse."                                     TABBY                         Well, just wait. Those burnout types                          always have a triumphant comeback                          tour.                                     KELLY                         I already changed the channel.               Tabby sits back on her heels and looks at him.               Bart's head appears in the open door.                                     BART                         Christ Kelly, I let you go out on a                          little supply line assist and you're                          gone for days. Come on.                                     TABBY                         Have fun, boys.                                     KELLY                         If only it were fun. War's deadly                          serious, ma'am.                                     TABBY                              (to Bart)                         And I used to think you were the                          only crazy one.                                     BART                         Enough with the mind pollution, Hanoi                          Hannah.               Bart leaves. Kelly stands by the door. This is his only                chance.                                     KELLY                         I'm worried about you playing with                          diffusion unsupervised.                                     TABBY                         Are you?                                     KELLY                         Yes. I might have to come by and                          show you the proper safety procedures.                          Some time in the presence of an art                          prodigy would do you good.                                     TABBY                         I don't think I have room for a                          playpen in here.                                     KELLY                         Ouch.               Tabby smiles. Kelly leaves.               EXT. BOWLAND YARD - NIGHT               Bart and Kelly walk across the yard.                                     BART                         So, you have a thing for my sister?                                     KELLY                         What? No, no.                                     BART                         Everybody does.               They skirt around the pool.                                     KELLY                         We just have a few things in common.                                     BART                         Oh really, like what?                                     KELLY                         I can't tell you. It's my feminine                          side.                                     BART                         You don't wear women's clothes when                          you're alone, do you?               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE, LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Kelly comes out of the kitchen with a glass of water in pajama                bottoms and a T-shirt. The TV's on static. He sees a FIGURE                sleeping on the couch and starts to walk through the room.               Then he stops, sighs, and backtracks. He turns off the TV.               Then he sees the empty bottle of wine next to the couch.                                     KELLY                         Dad.               The figure doesn't move. Kelly doesn't know what to do.                                     KELLY                              (louder)                         Dad?               Kelly looks around, worried. In this house an unresponsive                dad isn't necessarily sleeping. Should he wake up his mom?               He shakes the figure slightly. It rolls over, only it's not                his dad. It's some scabby ADDICT. Kelly yanks his hand away.                                     ADDICT                         Wha?               A moment.                                     KELLY                         Sorry.               EXT. ERNSWILER HOUSE, BACK YARD - NIGHT               Abe sits on a lawn chair.               Kelly comes out, unfolds another chair and sits next to his                dad - a good distance away.               They both look up at the sky.                                     ABE                         Keller. There's a meteor shower.               Kelly frowns.                                     KELLY                         A funny thing just happened. A little                          trip down memory lane. I thought you                          were on our couch, dead.               Abe laughs.                                     ABE                         Oh, you mean Emmett? They didn't                          have an empty bed for him at Care                          House.               Kelly nods, considering this.                                     KELLY                         Well that's one of your more brilliant                          ideas.                              (anger rising)                         Have you thought about the fact that                          it might be dangerous? That he might                          steal something, or go into cardiac                          arrest? Drink all our cooking wine?                          Which he seems to have done.                                     ABE                         He just needs a place to sleep for                          the night.                                     KELLY                         You're right. Besides, having him                          here makes it feel like home.               Abe slams his hands down on the arms of his chair.                                     ABE                         I've been straight for four years,                          almost five. A third of your life.               Kelly claps slowly.                                     KELLY                         Big whoop. I've been straight the                          whole time.               Abe closes his eyes.                                     ABE                         I hate to tell you this, but I'm not                          your problem anymore.               Kelly gets up.                                     KELLY                         No. That's the one thing I get to                          decide.               Abe looks at Kelly.                                     ABE                         Let me know. I can wait.               They look at each other. Kelly shakes his head and goes                inside. Abe looks up at the sky.                                     ABE                              (to himself)                         Keller, there's a meteor shower.               EXT. LANCE'S HOUSE - DAY               In a backyard tree house next door sit Kelly and Bart, Kelly                looking through a pair of M3 field glasses.                                     KELLY                         I have the target in sight.               BINOCULAR MATTE               Through the twin circles Lance gets into his car in front of                his house.                                     KELLY                         I think he's leaving.                                     BART                         Let me see. Don't be a farb, give                          them up.               Kelly hands the glasses over. Bart looks through them. Then                he puts them down.                                     BART                         The coast is clear.               The boys looks at each other.                                     BART                         Let me prepare to deploy.               Bart opens up a duffel bag and pulls out a yellow jumpsuit                which he puts on. Kelly looks through the binoculars.                                     KELLY                         Is this going to work?                                     BART                         We've planned for every contingency                          using the tried and true techniques                          of the last great world power.                                     KELLY                         Save it for the press conference.               THE LAWN               The boys climb down out of the tree house.               Bart is dressed in an official-looking yellow jumpsuit with                telephone repairmen's tool hanging from his belt and a hard                hat on. Kelly carries a toolbox.                                     BART                         Stay low. On my signal.               He looks at Kelly. Then he holds up one finger and gestures                "go." They sneak hunched over towards the fence. A LITTLE                GIRL comes out of the house and stops when she sees them.               Bart and Kelly look at each other. Bart takes the toolbox                and gestures to Kelly by pointing at the girl and covering                his mouth.               Kelly peels off towards the girl while Bart continues across                the lawn.               The girl starts to SCREAM. Kelly swoops up and covers her                mouth with his hand. He tucks her under his arm and runs                towards the opposite side of the house.               He puts the girl down, still covering her mouth.                                     KELLY                         We're the good guys. If you scream,                          the bad guys are going to come and                          burn down your house. Okay? So stay                          here and be quiet.               The girl nods. Kelly takes his hand off her mouth and starts                to sneak away.                                     GIRL                         My dad has a gun.               Kelly runs across the street to get a view of the front door.               IN FRONT OF LANCE'S HOUSE               Bart turns up the driveway and RINGS the doorbell.               LANCE'S MOTHER opens the door. Bart confers with her briefly                and steps inside. The door closes behind him.               Kelly stares so hard at the door he doesn't see the NEIGHBOR                come up behind him.                                     NEIGHBOR                         Can I help you, young man?               Kelly starts and turns.                                     KELLY                         I was just inspecting your lawn.               Kelly grabs a few blades of grass.                                     KELLY                         Have you thought about Astroturf? It                          takes a lot less water to keep green.                          I mean, no water, technically.                                     NEIGHBOR                         I'm not interested.                                     KELLY                         Oh. I see. Okay then.               Kelly gets up and starts to walk down the street, only -                Lance PULLS UP in his SUV.               Kelly darts behind a parked car and watches Lance go into                the house.                                     KELLY                         Oh, shit.               Lance comes right back out. He forgot something in his car.                                     KELLY                         Oh, shit.               Kelly moves around the car, trying to keep it between him                and Lance.               Bart comes down the front walk whistling and eating a cookie.                He smiles at Lance, now coming back up the walk.                                     LANCE                         Smile worker bee. I'll be your boss                          some day.               Bart nods and tips his HARD HAT.               Kelly follows him on the other side of the row of cars until                Lance's house is out of sight.               Then he gets in step beside Bart.                                     BART                         What an asshole. His mom gave me                          cookies, though.                                     KELLY                         Did you get it done?                                     BART                         Don't ask stupid questions. Let's go                          home and listen.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, BART'S ROOM - DAY               The boys sit around an FM receiver/recorder.                                     BART                         It was a five-watt FM bug, so we                          should be in range -               Bart FLIPS the ON switch and Lance's Mom's voice fills the                room.               The boys smile with delight.                                     LANCE'S MOM                              (O.S.)                         So then I told her, "Harriet, with                          potato salad like that it's no wonder                          Ray-Ray's cheating on you."                                     WOMAN                              (O.S.)                         You didn't.                                     LANCE'S MOM                         You're right. But I was thinking it.                          Instead I just told her to add more                          vinegar next time, and -               Kelly shakes his head as the women natter away.                                     KELLY                         I don't think we can use any of this.                                     BART                         Be patient. It's voice activated, so                          we'll get everything. Trust me. It's                          going to be great.                                     KELLY                         All right, then.               Kelly gets up to leave while Bart fiddles with the knobs.                                     BART                         We reconnoiter tomorrow at nineteen                          hundred hours.               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE, KITCHEN - NIGHT               Abe and Eve have dinner together.                                     EVE                         -- And if we don't sell them there,                          we'll set up on the corner of Stevens                          and Lane, by the gas station. That's                          a good location.               Eve looks at her husband and sees he's not paying attention.                He seems a little out of it. He's pushing his food around on                his plate.                                     EVE                         Are you listening to me?                                     ABE                         Did you make this with more chili                          pepper than usual?                                     EVE                         The same as always.               Kelly comes in, walks through the kitchen and up the stairs.                                     EVE                         Kelly. Want dinner?                                     KELLY                              (O.S.)                         I ate.               His parents eat for a minute in silence. Abe winces and puts                down his fork. Eve smiles tenderly at him.                                     EVE                         One day, we're all going to be happy.               Abe puts his hand over hers.                                     ABE                         That sounds nice.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, BART'S ROOM - NIGHT               Bart moves around the room excitedly.                                     BART                         It's really too perfect, actually.                                     KELLY                         What? What?                                     BART                         I can't describe. Just hit play.                          It's all cued up.               Kelly hits a button. The tape clicks ON. From the speakers                comes:                                     BRIDGET                              (recorded)                         I told you, that makes me nervous.                          Me no likey.                                     LANCE                         But baby, my birthday's coming up.                                     BRIDGET                         Still. That's not a good enough                          reason.                                     LANCE                         Come on. A little action. A little                          prime time action.                                     BRIDGET                         But people might see us.                                     LANCE                         That's the point. That's what makes                          it sexxxy. Dangerous.               Kelly stops the tape.                                     KELLY                         Dangerous.                                     BART                         Exactly.               Bart and Kelly share a look. Kelly grins.                                     KELLY                         Let's draw up the plans.                                     BART                         I have a few notes jotted down.               All we have to do is fill in the details and let Operation                Deadmeat begin.               INT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               Bridget primps at her locker while Kelly watches nervously                from his.               When she starts to close the locker door, Kelly rushes towards                her and BUMPS into her. Her books and papers spill to the                floor.                                     KELLY                         Oh Jesus, I'm so sorry -               He starts picking them up.                                     BRIDGET                         Oh, it's okay -               She looks around. If Lance showed up it wouldn't be good for                either of them.               Kelly hands her the rest of her stuff. They part ways.               Kelly shoves a piece of paper into his pocket.               Principal Holmstead CLICKS down the hall in her heels and                Kelly DUCKS into a doorway just in time. He turns and pretends                to look at a posted announcement as she passes.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, BART'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Bart inspects Bridget's book report with a jeweler's loop.               He swings over to a piece of stationary Kelly's working on.                                     BART                         She dots her I's with hearts. And                          her L's are loopier. The L is very                          important.                                     KELLY                         I'm working on it.               They both crouch over the paper.                                     KELLY                         I feel kind of bad for her. She's a                          nice girl.                                     BART                         Sometimes collateral damage can't be                          avoided.                                     KELLY                         Stop it.               He pushes back from the table.                                     KELLY                         How does that look?                                     BART                              (inspecting)                         Pretty good. I think we're ready to                          manufacture a document.               Kelly takes out a fresh sheet of paper.                                     BART                              (clears his throat)                         Begin. "Hey Daddy. It's your birthday                          and you've been a very bad boy. But                          so has the baby. Both baby and Daddy                          have to get punished, only this time                          -               INT. LANCE'S ROOM - NIGHT               Lance, shirtless, reads aloud from the letter.                                     LANCE                              (Cont.)                         - baby makes the rules. Await further                          instructions at school tomorrow --               EXT. STREET - DAY               Bart wears his school uniform and sits in the passenger seat                next to Kelly.                                     LANCE                              (V.O. cont'd)                         -- Baby will be waiting where Daddy                          least expects her. Love, Bridgie."                          Yes!                                     BART                         Do you have everything?               Kelly just looks at him. Bart's already asked this question.                                     BART                         We can't afford any errors.                                     KELLY                         You don't need to tell me. It's my                          ass on the line.               Kelly pulls up in front of Bart's school.               Bart turns to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.                                     BART                         I wish I could be there to see it.                                     KELLY                         You'll get the de-brief.                                     BART                         It's a day that will live in infamy.                                     KELLY                         You couldn't do any better than that?                                     BART                         I don't hear you coming up with                          anything.               Bart hops out and salutes Kelly, who give him the thumbs up                in response and pulls away.               INT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               Lance can't keep his hands off Bridget.                                     BRIDGET                         What's gotten into you?                                     LANCE                         Nothing, you bad girl.               Lance cackles.                                     BRIDGET                         Did you drink a bottle of Robitussin                          before school again?               The bell RINGS.                                     LANCE                         See you soon, my naughty baby.               Bridget looks a little scared.               INT. HISTORY CLASS               Lance slouches into a seat next to Kelly, who drops another                STATIONARY NOTE into Lance's open backpack.               Kelly watches as Lance grabs his book, sees the note, opens                it, and leers.                                     LANCE                         It's my birthday! I'm going to get a                          present.               Kelly looks down at his desk and smiles.                                     LANCE                         Damn it, fuckface. What're you smiling                          about? You wish you were me.               Lance raises his hand.                                     LANCE                         Mr. Palmer? May I be excused?               Lance leaves like a house afire.                                     KELLY                              (to himself)                         Eine maus findet den kase.               INT. HALL               Lance sneaks down the hall towards the STORAGE CLOSET and                whispers into the door.                                     LANCE                         Daddy's here for the Easter egg hunt.               He pulls open the door. Nothing.               INT. STORAGE CLOSET               Lance turns on the light. No one there.               But propped up on the shelf next to a vase with a rose in it                is another note.                                     LANCE                         Ooh, push my buttons.               He snatches the note. His eyes widen as he reads.                                     LANCE                         Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You little minx.               INT. LANGELY PREP, BATHROOM - DAY               Bart crouches in the stall, looking at his watch.               When the second hand sweeps past the twelve, he opens his                cell phone and punches in a number.                                     BART                              (serious grownup voice)                         Yes, I need to get a message to                          Bridget Shumann. This is MENSA.               INT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH, CAFETERIA/GYM - DAY               Lunchtime. Typical bedlam. KIDS mill around.               At one end of the cafeteria/gym is a small stage, the kind                pep rallies are held on.               Lance edges his way through the crowd, making a beeline for                the STAGE DOOR.               INT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH, MAIN OFFICE               A confused Bridget stands at the SECRETARY'S desk.                                     BRIDGET                         But I just got this note last period.                                     SECRETARY                         Well I don't have anything here for                          you - let me look again. Oh yes, the                          MENSA called.               The secretary hands Bridget the message. She looks at it.                                     BRIDGET                         Cool. They want me to be an honorary                          member.                              (pause)                         Is that like a sorority or something?               INT. BACKSTAGE               Lance looks around eagerly.               He peeks through the curtains at all the kids and can barely                contain his excitement.                                     LANCE                         Bridgie? Come on, daddy's sick. He                          needs his medicine.               He spots a WOMAN in the shadows.               It must be Bridget.               He unbuckles his pants and lets them drop to him knees.                                     LANCE                         I brought our friend along. He's                          happy to see you.               He rips off his shirt and shuffles across the dark stage                toward her.               INT. LIGHTING BOOTH               Kelly looks at his watch.               INT. LANGELY PREP CLASSROOM               Bart looks at his watch in anticipation.               INT. LIGHTING BOOTH               Kelly flicks a switch and presses a button.               INT. CAFETERIA               The crowd falls silent and turns towards the mechanical sound                of the STAGE CURTAIN OPENING.               They squint from the BRIGHT STAGE LIGHTS.               SHOCK ripples through the crowd as they take in the tableau                revealed to them:               A frozen half-naked Lance on his knees before a BLOW-UP DOLL                tied to a chair.                                     LANCE                         What the fuck are you all looking                          at?               Bridget, standing in the doorway, covers her mouth in horror.                                     STUDENT 1                         Look, he's got a hard on.                                     STUDENT 2                         Eeeeew.               Lance stumbles off stage to HOOTS and CATCALLS, but mostly                hysterical LAUGHTER.               INT. LIGHTING BOOTH               Kelly smiles, laughs and claps his hands with delight. Then                he returns to military precision. He turns all the switches                back to how they were and uses his shirtsleeve to cover the                doorknob so as not to leave fingerprints.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, DAD'S LIBRARY - NIGHT               Bart pours them two glasses of his dad's scotch. He's                overjoyed.                                     BART                         You're kidding me.                                     KELLY                         Yup. There it was. The whole school                          saw it. Wasn't too impressive either.               They raise their glasses to each other.                                     BART                         To Operation Mincemeat.                                     KELLY                         To the 193rd.               They both take swallows of scotch. Kelly retches.                                     BART                         How does it feel to give better than                          you get?               Kelly finishes his scotch.                                     KELLY                         Good. Real good.                                     BART                         You want some more?                                     KELLY                              (croaking)                         Don't mind if I do.                                     BART                         That's my boy.               The drink again. Kelly's feet are up. For the first time, he                looks comfortable.               INT. SUPERMARKET - NIGHT               Sarah stands at her register, flipping through a magazine.               Kelly pulls up on the ELECTRO-SHOPPER with field goggles on.                                     KELLY                         You know what this is?               He puts his foot down like a kickstand.                                     KELLY                         Eighteen volts of pure freedom.                                     SARAH                         Sounds dangerous.                                     KELLY                         Oh, it is. Unless you know how to                          handle it.               Kelly runs his hand lovingly along the frame. Then he looks                up at Sarah.                                     KELLY                         You ever seen the freshly waxed floor                          in the produce section glistening                          under full florescence? It's                          breathtaking.               Sarah gets on behind him.                                     KELLY                         Hold on tight.               He puts his foot up and kicks it into gear.               The Electro-shopper takes off - barely. Kelly takes the corner                too sharp and clips the edge of an END CAP DISPLAY of cereal                boxes -- they fall to the floor.               The Electro-shopper inches forward.                                     KELLY                         Close call.                                     SARAH                         Have you been drinking?               INT. PARENT'S BEDROOM - MORNING               Kelly looks in at his parents, checking to make sure they're                still asleep.               When he leaves ABE opens his eyes and listens to the door                CLOSE downstairs.               INT. EVE'S STUDIO               Kelly throws some paints and brushes into his backpack.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - DAY               Kelly stands awkwardly on the front stoop with his backpack.                Minnie opens the door.                                     MINNIE                         Kelly? Bart's not here, he -                                     KELLY                         Oh, that's all right. Actually, I'm                          here to see Tabby. Just to do a little                          painting with her.                                     MINNIE                         She's out back in her studio.                                     KELLY                         Thanks.               INT. TABBY'S STUDIO               Tabby stands barefoot in the sunlight, a palette knife in                her hand.               Music's playing. Jeff Buckley. She looks over as the door                opens, surprised.                                     TABBY                         Kelly?                                     KELLY                         Hey. I warned you I'd come.                                     TABBY                         You did.               She goes back to painting. Kelly stands there for a minute,                waiting for her to say something else, give him an invitation.               She doesn't. Until she looks up and sees him standing in the                same place.                                     KELLY                         Maybe I should go --                                     TABBY                         Well you're here now. Go ahead. Set                          your canvas up. Use one of the ones                          in the corner.               Kelly looks through them and picks one.                                     TABBY                         Brushes are in the jar. Paint's in                          the drawer.                                     KELLY                         I brought my own.               He takes off his backpack and opens it.                                     TABBY                         Well then.               Kelly busies himself pulling out paints and other supplies.               He can't help but look at her. The light hits her hair and                she glows. She catches him looking.                                     KELLY                         Does it mess up your concentration?                          Me being here?                                     TABBY                         No.               She turns back to her painting.                                     KELLY                         Oh. That's good.               Kelly sets up his canvas.                                     TABBY                         Just don't talk.                                     KELLY                         Why would I?                                     TABBY                              (pause)                         I'm kidding.                                     KELLY                         Right. Irony. I like that.               Kelly feels the tubes of paint. Nervous. Squirts some color                out. Looks over his shoulder at her.               He's trying to get his act together, to be cool about being                there, in the studio, alone with her. Trying to figure out                how to play it.                                     MINER                              (O.S.)                         Hey! Hey babe.               Miner opens the door. See Kelly. Smiles like the stockbroker                he is and crosses to him.                                     MINER                         Miner Webber.               Miner holds out his hand for a good old-fashioned shake.               Kelly takes it.                                     KELLY                         Webber Miner.               Miner looks confused.                                     TABBY                         Kelly. This is Kelly -                                     KELLY                         Kelly Ernswiler. Sorry. I -                                     MINER                         Quite all right.                              (smiles as an                               afterthought)                         So, what do we have here, a little                          painting class?                                     TABBY                         Kelly's a friend of Bart's. He paints.                                     MINER                         Oh? What's your real job?               Kelly smiles eagerly at Miner over the edge of his canvas.                                     KELLY                         That would be stock boy at the Shop                          Rite. But, as President Don Kaminsky                          says, every employee is part owner.                          So you could say I'm a captain-of-                         industry in training. Kind of                          capitalist larva.                                     MINER                         That's quite an image.                                     KELLY                         Only if you see the most magical                          part. Do you see?                                     MINER                         What?               Kelly spreads his arms out and flaps them a little.                                     KELLY                         One day I'll be a beautiful butterfly.                          First I'll have to be a pupa though.                          I figure I won't be going out much                          then. Pupa: the awkward adolescence                          of the insect world.               Miner stares at Kelly. He can't tell what he might be making                fun of, or if it might be him.                                     MINER                         Whatever it takes to get you through                          the day.               Kelly rolls his eyes at this uninspired response, though                Miner doesn't see it. He grabs Tabby's paintbrush and pulls                her to him.                                     MINER                         I have the afternoon off. Come away                          with me.                                     TABBY                         I'm not at a good stopping point.                                     MINER                         Oh, come on. They'll still be here.                              (to Kelly)                         I know you'll still be here.               Kelly smiles his most idiotic energetic smile and slaps paint                on his canvas in exaggerated strokes.                                     TABBY                         I really shouldn't.                                     MINER                         But everyone will be coming soon.                          And it will get all crazy, and we                          won't have any time to ourselves.                                     TABBY                         We will. I promise.               Tabby kisses Miner. He realizes there's no convincing her                and sighs.                                     MINER                         Like tonight? We can practice                          honeymoon suite.                                     TABBY                         Maybe. Probably.               Miner looks at Kelly, who looks away.               Then he puts his hands in his pockets and leaves.               Tabby and Kelly paint in silence for a while. Kelly moves                around to look at his canvas from different angles, like                he's copying what he thinks a painter would do.                                     KELLY                         Is he always like that?                                     TABBY                         Like what?                                     KELLY                         Overbearing.               Tabby stops and puts down her brush.                                     TABBY                         Just because he didn't want to picture                          you as a pupa?                                     KELLY                         Oh, he will - later. When he's alone.                          Whether he wants to or not.               Kelly paints.                                     KELLY                         Not that though. How he wanted you                          to stop.                                     TABBY                         He wants to be with me. What's so                          bad about that?                                     KELLY                         Just because some one wants to be                          with you doesn't mean they're good                          for you.               Kelly is suddenly very involved with his painting. He has a                hard time making eye contact with Tabby.                                     KELLY                         No one should ever ask you to stop.                          If you stop, you might not be able                          to start again. Or you might start                          again, only things will be different.                                     TABBY                         Well, that's sweet -                                     KELLY                         It's not sweet, actually. It's just                          the truth.                                     TABBY                         Hey, I can take care of myself.               She picks up her brush.                                     KELLY                         When's the wedding?                                     TABBY                         At the end of the month. But don't                          ask me about it. It makes me nervous.               Kelly looks at her seriously.                                     KELLY                         Why? Is something wrong?                                     TABBY                         No.               Awkward silence.                                     TABBY                         What are you painting?               Kelly stops and sighs, now back in serious artist mode.                                     KELLY                         Really, there are so many layers of                          - imagistic symbolism - that I really                          don't feel comfortable summing it                          up, but, well - it's a recurring                          dream image. A mermaid riding a rocket                          ship.               Tabby stops painting.                                     TABBY                         How?                                     KELLY                         What do you mean, "how?" Sidesaddle.                          She's riding it sidesaddle. She's                          got a fish tail, for chrissake. I                          haven't decided yet if she's got                          scuba gear on or not.                                     TABBY                         Do you have any idea what you're                          talking about?               Kelly puts up his thumb in an approximation of an artist's                gesture.                                     KELLY                         Does that matter?                                     TABBY                         Well, some people actually say what                          they really think.                                     KELLY                         What if they don't know what they                          really think?                                     TABBY                         It doesn't matter. It's called being                          yourself.                                     KELLY                         Sounds boring.                                     TABBY                         Not boring. Scary and wonderful and                          exciting.               Kelly stops squeezing paint onto his palette. His gestures                slow down. He's taking this in. Then he shakes it off.                                     KELLY                         Hey. I'm trying to create here. Stop                          distracting me.               INT. EVE'S STUDIO - NIGHT               Kelly comes in to return the art supplies.               Xiou-Xiou's alone working. She looks up and smiles at Kelly.                                     KELLY                         Mom's got you working late?                                     XIOU-XIOU                         No.               Kelly walks over and sees what she's working on. A beautiful                spare Chinese landscape.                                     KELLY                         Wow. You're really good. Why do you                          make those stupid animals for mom?                                     XIOU-XIOU                         Each painting is a lesson. Here -               She gets out a piece of paper for him.                                     KELLY                         I'm making a lot of art these days.                          I guess that means a lot of lessons.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         Each line has a whole drawing                          contained in it. Each drawing has a                          whole life contained in it.                                     KELLY                         Oh, that's all?               Kelly watches her for a minute, the delicate whoop and swirl                of her strokes.               He dips a brush into the ink and watches Xiou-Xiou's                restrained and confident movements.               Eve leans against the doorframe.                                     EVE                         Hey you two. I'll try not to act                          surprised. It might spoil the moment.               Kelly puts down the paintbrush.                                     KELLY                         I can't do this. I have to go.                                     EVE                         Keller, I think I'm missing some art                          supplies. Have you seen them around                          the house?               Kelly avoids her eyes as he leaves.                                     KELLY                         No, I haven't.                                     EVE                         I don't know what to do with him.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         You son is not yet cooked. Give him                          time.               Eve looks over Xiou-Xiou's shoulder.                                     EVE                         When are you going to let me give                          you your own show? We could do it                          for real.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         No problem. When you offer me an                          eighty-twenty split.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, DINING ROOM - NIGHT               Kelly eats with the Bowlands - Bart's mom, MATHILDA, his dad                HARRISON, and Tabby and Bart.               The Bowlands dress up a bit for dinner, like any good Wasp                family.                                     BART                              (to Harrison)                         -- But I told you I want to take                          German --                                     HARRISON                         German's a Cold War language. You                          can't get any kind of State Department                          position without more diverse                          linguistic training than that. You'll                          take Chinese.               Bart frowns.                                     HARRISON                         Are we on the same page?                                     BART                              (mutters)                         Same page.               Everyone eats in silence.                                     MATHILDA                              (to Tabby)                         So darling, when are you going to                          bite the bullet and do the seating                          arrangement?               Tabby puts down her fork.                                     TABBY                         I can't deal with that stuff, ma. I                          don't care who sits next to whom. I                          should have eloped.                                     KELLY                         After all, Mrs. Bowland, sometimes                          when you bite the bullet, it explodes                          in your mouth.               Mathilda looks surprised. This could go either way.                                     MATHILDA                              (tentatively)                         Why, I've never thought about it                          before but that is a rather strange                          expression, isn't it? You wouldn't                          say, "Sooner or later you've got to                          put the grenade in your pants," would                          you?                                     HARRISON                         But have you ever noticed how in                          movies they always bite the grenade                          before they throw it?                                     KELLY                         Yeah, but they never take a bite out                          of their pants.               Everyone but Bart LAUGHS.               Tabby throws Kelly a grateful glance, for getting her out of                a conversation she didn't want to have.                                     MATHILDA                         What an unusual conversation! Do you                          have similar discussions at the dinner                          table with your family, Kelly?                                     KELLY                         Basically. I ask why all the furniture                          is missing and my Dad reminisces                          about dropping acid and watching                          Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.               All but Bart LAUGHS again.                                     TABBY                         He talks about art.                                     BART/MATHILDA                         You do?               Kelly looks down at his plate.                                     KELLY                         My mother's kind of an artist, so -                                     HARRISON                         You come from a creative family, do                          you?               Mathilda salts her food.                                     MATHILDA                         I wish my boys would talk to me about                          my passions. I can't get them anywhere                          near the subject of my garden.                                     KELLY                         I noticed your magnolias. Very fine                          specimens.                                     MATHILDA                         They are fine, aren't they?               Mathilda beams.                                     BART                              (ironic)                         Is there nothing you can't discuss?               If anyone notices the slight edge to Bart's voice, they ignore                it.                                     HARRISON                         Here, Kelly, try a bit of these leeks.                          Minnie has a way with the white sauce.               INT. BART'S ROOM               Kelly and Bart play PlayStation II "Medal of Honor" in Bart's                bedroom. Bart is sulking, almost imperceptibly.                                     BART                         My dad has this friend who's a                          director. He's shooting a documentary                          for the History Channel.                                     KELLY                         Cool.                                     BART                         He needs some guys to do a reenactment                          of some European theater battles for                          him.               Kelly stops playing and looks at Bart.                                     KELLY                         We're going to be on the History                          Channel?               Bart's eyes stay on the screen.                                     BART                         I haven't asked you yet.                                     KELLY                         Oh, come on.               Kelly jabs at his controller.                                     BART                         Well, if you want to. Next weekend.                          But you have to take it seriously.               Kelly gives Bart a derisive glance.                                     KELLY                         What do you mean? Of course I will.               The flickering TV light illuminates Bart's pinched look.                                     BART                         From what I've seen, you play fast                          and loose with your characterizations.                          This has got to be straight up.               This annoys Kelly.                                     KELLY                         I'm not "fast and loose." I play the                          emotional truth. I make it real.               Bart glances at him.                                     BART                         Like back in the dining room?                                     KELLY                         What does that have to do with it?               Bart shakes his head.                                     BART                              (mimics)                         "I noticed your magnolias. Very fine                          specimens." That was real?               Kelly's video game character dies. He drops the controller.                                     KELLY                         What is this about?                                     BART                              (shrugs)                         You just seem to have your own agenda,                          that's all.               Bart plays on. He's keeping a lid on everything while Kelly                gets more and more agitated.                                     KELLY                         My own agenda? What other reason is                          there to do anything?                                     BART                         I'm just saying. I know the difference                          between fantasy and reality.               Kelly looks at Bart in disbelief.                                     KELLY                         Are you saying I don't?               Bart won't meet his eyes.                                     BART                         I don't know.               Bart pauses the game.                                     BART                         Why didn't you tell me your dad was                          a burn-out?               Kelly gets up and grabs his jacket.                                     KELLY                         Why do you steal from yours?               He leaves. Bart un-pauses the game and continues playing.               INT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               Kelly drinks from the fountain and wipes his mouth on his                sleeve.               Principal Holmstead's smiling face greets him when he                straightens up.                                     PRINCIPAL                         Kelly! I told some of your teachers                          about your presentation. We're all                          really looking forward to it.               Kelly frowns at the Principal's back as she CLICKS away.               Sarah appears. They walk down the hall together.                                     SARAH                         What presentation?                                     KELLY                         I don't want to talk about it. As a                          matter of fact, do me a favor and                          pretend you never heard anything                          about it.                                     SARAH                         Okay. Um.                                     KELLY                         What, Sarah?                                     SARAH                         It's nothing. I -               Kelly starts to pull ahead.                                     SARAH                         I have an extra ticket to Aerosmith                          this weekend.                                     KELLY                         Aw Sarah, that's really great, I                          mean. It's just that - I'm busy.                                     SARAH                         Oh. Yeah, I figured. Okay. I'll see                          you in the dairy section, though.                                     KELLY                         Right.               She stands there looking lost.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - DAY               Kelly smoothes the cover over his Jeep. Bart pulls up to the                curb in his BMW.                                     KELLY                         What are you doing here?                                     BART                         I tracked you down. There's someone                          I'd like you to meet.               INT. OLD SOLDIERS' HOME - DAY               A few OLD SOLDIERS sit sunning in chairs in the industrial                feeling living-room.               Bart and Kelly sit across from CHARLIE HAYES, an old black                guy, playing dominos.                                     CHARLIE                              (to Kelly)                         Are you one too?                                     KELLY                         Yup.                                     CHARLIE                         And what do you see in that?                                     KELLY                         Living, dying, camaraderie, bravery                          - the big stuff. Things we don't                          have anymore.                                     CHARLIE                         I see.               Charlie sorts his tiles and scowls. He leans in to Kelly's                face, giving him the eye.                                     CHARLIE                         And do you think it's brave getting                          trench foot and syphilis, eating                          another ration of spoiled frank and                          beans out of a dented can?               Kelly is taken aback by this.                                     KELLY                         Well, no -               Charlie leans back and nods, thinking about Kelly's response.                He no longer seems angry.                                     CHARLIE                         Yeah, that wouldn't be much fun,                          would it?                                     KELLY                         No, sir.               Charlie sets down a tile and pulls at his chin.                                     CHARLIE                         Parts of it were kind of fun though.                          I got separated from my platoon and                          lived for two weeks in the forest of                          the Ardennes living off what I could                          kill.                              (pause)                         I felt very close to the land.               Bart gives Kelly a significant look. Kelly doesn't notice.               He's looking closely at Charlie.               EXT. GAS STATION - DAY               Kelly sits in the car. Bart pumps gas. They talk through the                window.                                     BART                         I met him when my mom made me go                          around caroling with the Youth Group.                                     KELLY                         You don't really believe that stuff                          about Berlin? And Hitler's compound?                                     BART                         Does it matter?                                     KELLY                         Of course it matters. Doesn't the                          truth matter?               Bart grins.                                     BART                         I don't know. You tell me.               Kelly avoids this by getting out of the car.                                     KELLY                         I want a drink. Let me borrow a couple                          bucks.                                     BART                         I told you not to play him for money.                                     KELLY                         I was trying to be nice. He's your                          friend.               Bart returns the pump and screws in the gas cap.                                     BART                         Exactly. You should know better.                          What do you want.                                     KELLY                         Mountain Dew -               Just then he glances towards the gas station and sees EVE,                set up in the adjacent abandoned lot. She's got the van parked                there with the sliding door open and paintings propped around                on display.                                     KELLY                         -- Oh shit.               But Eve has seen him. She shields her eyes with her hand and                calls to him.                                     EVE                         Kelly!               Kelly backtracks towards the car.                                     BART                         That woman's calling you.               Eve walks over to them. Kelly can't get out of it.                                     KELLY                              (low)                         Bart. Meet my mom.               Eve smiles brightly.                                     EVE                         What a nice surprise. It's so nice                          to finally meet you.               Bart is surprised but recovers his manners quickly, just                like he's been taught to.                                     BART                         Likewise. So, doing a little business?                                     EVE                         A little is right. But I work it as                          much as I can.               Eve laughs.               Kelly shifts his weight from foot to foot. Eve looks at both                of them.                                     EVE                         So, what have you boys been up to?                                     KELLY                         Bart took me to meet his friend                          Charlie at the Old Soldiers' Home.                                     EVE                         Charlie at the Old Soldiers' Home?                                     KELLY                         You don't know him.                                     EVE                         You boys should swing by Care House.                          There are some Vets there.                                     KELLY                         We can't.                                     EVE                         Oh. Well - okay.               Eve watches a car pull into the lot next to the van.                                     EVE                         I should go. But you boys should                          come over to our house some time.                              (to Bart)                         I know your family must get tired of                          him.               Kelly visibly bristles at the thought of his parents                entertaining Bart.                                     BART                         Not at all. But I'd love to, anyway.               Eve looks at Kelly. Then she runs back over to the van.                                     KELLY                         There you go. Now you know everything.                                     BART                         What's your problem? She's pretty                          cute.               Kelly rolls his eyes and gets back in the car.                                     BART                         Don't you want your soda?                                     KELLY                         Forget it.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, BART'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Kelly watches Bart pick through parts of his uniform.               After the encounter with mom, he's retreated into himself.                                     BART                         So filming's on Saturday. Can you                          make it?                                     KELLY                         Are you kidding?                                     BART                         Good. It's gonna be really cool.                          He's got an explosives expert coming.               Kelly doesn't say anything.                                     BART                         What's up?               Kelly runs his hand through his hair. He can't bring himself                to say what's really on his mind.                                     KELLY                         Remember that stupid speech?               Kelly picks up Bart's Colt and sights with it. Bart frowns.               He knows Kelly's avoiding the real stuff.                                     KELLY                         I'm supposed to give it next week.               Bart polishes his combat boots.                                     BART                         Maybe you should talk to my dad about                          it.                                     KELLY                         You think he'd go for that?               Bart keeps his head down, polishes intently.                                     BART                         Of course. He loves you. He was                          talking the other day about helping                          you out.                              (ironic)                         Want to go to Dartmouth?                                     KELLY                         Are you serious?                                     BART                         He was. If you applied for Spring                          Semester, he could "pull some                          strings."                                     KELLY                              (shakes his head slowly)                         I don't think that would work for                          me. Considering -- my background.                                     BART                         Yeah, probably not.                                     KELLY                         I'm not properly socialized. I                          wouldn't fit in.               Bart checks his bandoleer and cartridges.                                     BART                         That's bullshit.                                     KELLY                         No, it's not.                                     BART                         Tell that to my family. They're like                          your fucking fan club.               Bart pauses, darts his eyes at Kelly.                                     BART                         Even Tabby likes you.                                     KELLY                         So much she ratted me out to you.                                     BART                         Well, she's inviting you to the                          wedding.                                     KELLY                         Oh.               Bart watches Kelly's face.                                     BART                         But you probably won't enjoy that                          much, will you?                                     KELLY                         I don't know what you're talking                          about. Weddings? I love weddings. I                          always get drunk and make out with                          someone's cousin.               Bart throws his olive drab socks at Kelly's head.                                     BART                         Good, I'll call mom's nephew Fletcher                          and tell him to expect a little                          action.                                     KELLY                         Fletcher, eh?                                     BART                         He's twelve. Let me give some advice.                          He's very into sharks at the moment.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - NIGHT               Kelly waves to Minnie and goes out the front door.               There he pauses, trying to decide what to do. Then he scowls.               He goes around the corner. Towards Tabby's studio.               INT. TABBY'S STUDIO               Tabby sits on the couch facing away from the door. Kelly                enters.                                     KELLY                         Why did you tell --               Tabby turns toward him. She's crying.                                     KELLY                         What? Oh, I'm sorry.               He knows he should leave, but Kelly just stands there.               Kelly runs his hand along his pants in a nervous gesture.               Tabby dabs at her face.                                     TABBY                         Miner and I broke up.               Beat.                                     KELLY                         I'm sorry.                                     TABBY                         Yeah.                                     KELLY                         Honestly? I didn't think you two                          were right for each other.                                     TABBY                         You did, huh?               Kelly walks over to her painting.                                     KELLY                         Like this painting. Stare at it too                          long and you can't see it anymore.                          But if someone else sees it for the                          first time, they can tell exactly                          what it is.                                     TABBY                         I don't need any more bullshit right                          now.               Kelly stops, taken aback. He walks away from the painting.                                     KELLY                         He could never understand you.                                     TABBY                         I'm not as complicated as you think.               Kelly walks to the window and looks out.                                     KELLY                         I never said you were complicated.               Tabby laughs/cries at this.                                     TABBY                         Oh.                                     KELLY                         He just wasn't the right one.               Tabby nods. She's starting to calm down a little.                                     TABBY                         There's more to it than that.               Tabby looks at her shredded tissue. Kelly sits down on the                couch next to her.                                     KELLY                         I'm really sorry. I really am.                                     TABBY                         Thanks.               Kelly pats her knee awkwardly.                                     KELLY                         Don't cry.               Tabby turns her face to Kelly's.                                     TABBY                         You like me, don't you?                                     KELLY                         Of course.               Tabby closes her eyes.                                     TABBY                         No, I mean -- you like me.               Kelly looks scared. He wants to retreat. But he calms himself                down.                                     KELLY                         Yeah. I think you're amazing.                                     TABBY                         Well, do something.               Long pause. Then -- Kelly kisses her. She kisses back and                they fall against the couch together.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - NIGHT                                     BART                              (O.S.)                         All right, all right. I'm going.               Bart comes out in his pajamas to turn off the sprinkler. He                looks up and freezes.               Kelly comes out of Tabby's studio. He shuts the door carefully                and walks around the pool.               Kelly doesn't see Bart.               Bart doesn't say anything. He just watches Kelly go.               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE - DAY               Kelly throws parts of his soldier's kit onto his bed from                corners of the room. The canteen underhand. The Jeep cap as                a free throw. This is the best day of his life.               Until he finds his uniform crumpled up behind the door, still                crusted with mud.                                     KELLY                         Damn it. Damn it.               He flops on his bed. But he can't help it. Soon he's smiling                again. He gets up, gathers up the uniform, and tears out of                the room.               INT. KITCHEN               Kelly comes down the stairs two at a time, singing.               Eve and Abe watch surprised from the table. Abe looks pale.                                     KELLY                         What?               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, BART'S ROOM - NIGHT               Bart sits in his desk chair, frowning.               Mathilda knocks and opens the door.                                     MATHILDA                         Minnie's starting dinner. Is Kelly                          coming over?                                     BART                         Not tonight, ma.               Mathilda pauses and looks at her son.                                     MATHILDA                         Okay, then.               EXT. BATTLEFIELD - DAY               An ASSISTANT DIRECTOR and CAMERAMAN unload equipment from a                van.               The DIRECTOR looks off into the distance, trying to visualize.               Kelly pulls up next to the van. He wears a spotlessly clean                uniform.                                     DIRECTOR                         Are you with the 101st or the 82nd?                                     KELLY                         Well, 82nd today. It's not my usual                          division. Technically, my patches                          indicate -                                     DIRECTOR                         Whatever. Make yourself comfortable.                          We'll be a while setting up. Some of                          the other boys are over by craft                          service.                                     KELLY                         Oh?               Kelly doesn't go anywhere.                                     DIRECTOR                         The snack table. It's over there.                          Someone will come get you when we're                          ready.                                     KELLY                         Right. Is Bart Bowland here yet?                                     DIRECTOR                         Bart? Oh, Harrison's son. I don't                          know.                                     KELLY                         Ok. Thanks.               CRAFT SERVICE               Kelly and a half dozen other SOLDIERS stand or sit in the                grass around the table. They talk and rest on their backpacks.               A MAKEUP ARTIST makes the rounds.                                     MAKEUP ARTIST                              (to Kelly)                         And you are?                                     KELLY                         Kelly Ernswiler, private first class.                                     MAKEUP ARTIST                         All right, Kelly. Let's take a look                          at you.               She gets out some pomade and runs a comb through his hair,                slicking it back.                                     MAKEUP ARTIST                         That's it, handsome.               Kelly grins. When she walks away he messes up his hair again.               He scans the crowd. No Bart.               The A.D. walks over.                                     A.D.                         Okay, everyone. We're going to start                          positioning. Then we'll go through a                          few rehearsals.                              (points at soldiers)                         You, you and you - go over there by                          that tree. You and you guys, behind                          the hill.                              (looks at clipboard)                         Okay, who's got the Jeep?                                     KELLY                         That MG? She's mine.                                     A.D.                         Great. We'd like to use it. Can you                          drive it beyond the hill over there?               Kelly tries to act casual.                                     KELLY                         Sure. I don't think that would be a                          problem.               He walks towards his Jeep and pauses.                                     KELLY                         Have you seen Bart Bowland? Has he                          checked in?                                     A.D.                         Don't know. We've got enough people.                          It doesn't matter.               Kelly nods, wondering a bit. But it's soon forgotten.                                     KELLY                              (to Jeep)                         Hot Lips, old girl, you're going to                          be famous.                                     A.D.                              (yells)                         Okay people. Listen to my voice.                          From now on, you do whatever this                          voice says. Take your place.               BEHIND THE HILL               Kelly waits with his rifle next to his Jeep, bored.               He sees a FIGURE in the shadows of the trees.               He raises his rifle and points it at the figure.                                     KELLY                         Password.               Bart steps out of the barn.                                     KELLY                         Hey! Where the hell have you been?                                     BART                         No where.                                     KELLY                         They put you over here with me? That's                          great. I think we'll get some close-                         ups. They want me to drive old Lippy.                          Isn't that awesome?               Bart doesn't say anything.                                     KELLY                         What the hell's your problem?                                     BART                         I ought to fucking kill you.                                     KELLY                         What?                                     BART                         You had to do it.               Kelly shakes his head, avoiding Bart's eyes, trying to keep                it normal.                                     KELLY                         What are you talking about?                                     BART                         You just do whatever the fuck you                          want. And consequences don't matter,                          do they?                                     KELLY                         Are you out of your mind?               Bart looks at Kelly. Sees nothing but a kid in an old Army                uniform.                                     BART                         What the fuck do you think she's                          going to do, run off with you?               The blood rises to Kelly's face.               But he still won't look at Bart.                                     BART                         You're a seventeen-year-old bag boy.                          She's a Yale grad student. Talk about                          living in a fucking fantasy world.               Kelly's hands turn white around the rifle.                                     KELLY                         No. You'd rather have me be miserable                          like you are.               Bart comes closer. Uncomfortably close.                                     BART                              (biting sarcasm)                         Once again, you've displayed your                          uncanny ability to nail the truth of                          a character.               Kelly finally raises his head.               And looks Bart right in the eyes.                                     KELLY                         Stop talking out your dad's mouth                          and use your own for once.               Bart lunges at Kelly.               EXT. FILM SHOOT               The camera's set up.               The groups are in position.               The A.D. stands by the cameraman.                                     A.D.                         Standby for rehearsal. Cue the                          explosion.               GRAY CLOUD EXPLODES               In the field. Soldiers leap out of trenches.                                     A.D.                         Cue the Jeep.               Nothing happens.                                     A.D.                         Cue the Jeep. Cue the fucking Jeep!               The A.D. shakes his head.               BEHIND THE BARN               The A.D. comes around the corner followed by the cameraman.               Bart and Kelly roll around on the ground.                                     A.D.                         What the H. Christ is going on over                          here?               Bart and Kelly continue to fight.                                     A.D.                              (to cameraman)                         Hey, roll this. Get this. Are you                          getting this?               The cameraman puts his camera up to his eye and films.               Kelly finally pushes Bart off him, gets in his Jeep and drives                away.                                     A.D.                              (to cameraman)                         Follow him. Are you getting it?               Bart sits on the ground, out of breath.                                     A.D.                         We can use this. We'll cut it                          together.               The A.D. directs the camera at Bart.                                     A.D.                         Get close on him.               Bart pushes the camera away.               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE, KELLY'S ROOM - DAY               Kelly lays in bed staring at the ceiling. There's a cut across                his eyebrow.               Eve comes in carrying her car keys and sits on the bed.                                     KELLY                         I don't want to talk about it.                                     EVE                         Well, you're going to have to. Your                          father's at the hospital.                                     KELLY                         Which one of his loser friends ended                          up there?               Eve plays with her keys. Then she stops.                                     EVE                         They think he has stomach cancer.               Kelly feels the sensation of falling, like a dream.               Then he snorts and rolls over, away from his mom.                                     KELLY                         Oh this is just perfect.               Eve looks at the back of Kelly's head. She's tired but still                trying to deal.                                     EVE                         Why would you say something like                          that?                                     KELLY                         Because it seems to fit.                                     EVE                         "Seems to fit." Do you understand                          what I just said?               Kelly gets up. Puts his feet on the floor. His shoulders are                slumped.                                     KELLY                         Why, do you want to say it again?                                     EVE                         Kelly -                                     KELLY                         I have to go to work.               He gets up and holds the door open for her. Eve looks at                him, heart heavy. She leaves.               Kelly sits on the bed. Then he looks at the rabbit painting.               He grabs it off the wall and SLAMS it backwards against the                floor so he doesn't have to look at it.               The painting falls back against the bayonet fixed to Kelly's                rifle and TEARS.               He KICKS it.               INT. GROCERY STORE - NIGHT               Kelly angrily wrestles with giant boxes of paper towels.               He RIPS open the box and they roll everywhere.               Sarah watches from checkout. She comes over to help him pick                them up.                                     SARAH                         I forgot to tell you this box was                          booby-trapped.               Kelly doesn't say anything.                                     SARAH                         The concert was lame. The opening                          act singer ripped his leather pants                          during a stupid dance routine and                          stormed off stage.                              (pause, looks at his                               cut)                         Are you okay?                                     KELLY                         No.                                     SARAH                         Lance?                                     KELLY                         No.               Kelly gathers an armful of paper towels.                                     KELLY                         Listen, I'm busy.                                     SARAH                         Sure. I understand.                                     KELLY                         I doubt it.               Sarah puts a couple of rolls on the shelf.                                     SARAH                         Um, I don't have a perfect life, if                          that's what you're asking.               Kelly stops what he's doing.                                     KELLY                         No, Sarah, actually, I'm not asking.                          I never ask you anything but you                          just talk anyway. Have you ever                          noticed that?               Sarah drops the rolls she had in her hands.                                     SARAH                         Fuck you.               She leaves. Kelly shakes his head.               INT. TABBY'S STUDIO - MORNING               Kelly, still in his work clothes, comes in without knocking.                                     KELLY                         Hey, I hoped you were up -               He stops when he sees Tabby and Miner sleeping together on                the couch.               Tabby opens her eyes.                                     TABBY                         Kelly?               Kelly goes and takes his painting off the easel.                                     KELLY                         I just came to get this.               Kelly leaves.               EXT. BOWLAND YARD               Tabby follows Kelly across the yard.                                     TABBY                         Hey.               Kelly stops and turns around.                                     KELLY                         I guess the wedding's back on.                                     TABBY                         We talked.               Tabby smiles sadly.                                     TABBY                         I'm really sorry.                                     KELLY                         Don't be.               They stand there in the yard. Tabby wraps her arms around                herself.                                     KELLY                         My dad's got cancer.               Tabby looks at Kelly, pained.                                     TABBY                         Oh, Kelly.               She takes a step towards him. He backs up.                                     KELLY                         I guess we all get what we deserve.               Kelly looks at Tabby for a second, then turns and walks away.               EXT. RURAL ROAD - DAY               Kelly drives along an open stretch of road. He throws the                painting out of the Jeep.               He comes to a turn and takes it much too fast.               The Jeep SKIDS, teeters on two wheels, and goes over the                embankment.               BOTTOM OF DITCH               Steam trails up from the Jeep's radiator. The front end is                completely smashed.               Kelly bangs his fist against the steering wheel.                                     KELLY                         Stupid bitch.               Then he calm himself, gets out, and starts walking.               EXT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               Kelly rides an old bike up to the bike rack and locks it.               INT. HISTORY CLASS               Kelly comes in late.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Kelly! There you are. I was just                          telling the class about our special                          treat today. Mr. Ernswiler is going                          to be giving the three first-period                          history classes a little talk about                          the Civil War.               Kelly closes his eyes. He had forgotten - or tried to forget.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Let's all make our way in an orderly                          fashion down to the auditorium, shall                          we?               The class bolts for the door.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Orderly, I said orderly.               Mr. Norman looks at Kelly pleasantly.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Well, what are we waiting for? I'm                          so looking forward to hearing your                          views.               INT. AUDITORIUM               Kelly sits in a chair on the stage next to Mr. Norman.               A scattering of KIDS sit out in the auditorium.               Principal Holmstead stands at the podium.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         For those of you who haven't had the                          chance to get to know Kelly, you                          should know he has a very interesting                          hobby. He takes part in reenactments                          of World War II battles right here                          in Ohio.                                     AUDIENCE KID                         I did that too. When I was seven.               Scattered LAUGHTER. Kelly frowns.                                     HOLMSTEAD                         He has an unusual first-hand knowledge                          of history. We recently discovered                          that this extends beyond World War                          II to the Civil War, which he is                          going to discuss with you today.                          Kelly?               Kelly rises to scant applause. He stands at the podium,                looking out at the crowd.               He looks down and thinks. He looks back up. The silence                stretches. Kids start giggling.               Finally he leans into the microphone.                                     KELLY                         I'm sorry.               He walks off stage.                                     HOLMSTEAD                              (to Mr. Norman)                         Well, go after him.               EXT. SHAKER HEIGHTS HIGH - DAY               On his knees Kelly fumbles with his bike lock, getting madder                and madder. Just as he's about to get it undone --               Lance appears.                                     LANCE                         What, they re-assign you to the                          bicycle brigade?               Kelly frowns at the lock.                                     KELLY                         I'm busy.                                     LANCE                         Too bad, cause I'm not. Remember                          that little show I put on for the                          school?                                     KELLY                         I don't know what you're talking                          about.                                     LANCE                         Oh, come on. Pants down? Doll? Hard                          on?               Kelly looks up at Lance.                                     KELLY                         Oh that. I heard about it.                                     LANCE                         And did you hear me and Bridget aren't                          going out anymore because of it?                                     KELLY                         I haven't been following the story.                                     LANCE                         Yeah well, let's get this over with.                                     KELLY                         It is over.               Lance pushes Kelly away from his bike. Kelly falls back on                his hands.               He squints up at Lance and moves back towards his bike.               Lance KICKS him back with his foot and looks at him.                                     KELLY                         Just let me go home.                                     LANCE                         Did you call me a homo?               Lance KICKS him again. Kelly breathes hard.                                     KELLY                         This isn't a good time for me. Let's                          re-schedule.                                     LANCE                         No time like the present.               Lance picks Kelly up and SLAPS him hard on the face.                                     KELLY                         First you should probably get me to                          write home to my mother.               Lance PUNCHES Kelly and he reels. Then Kelly lunges for him                and they fall to the ground. Kelly swings wildly but Lance                pins him down and gives him a few good ones.               Then Mr. Norman comes out.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Stop it!               Mr. Norman rushes over to them.               Kelly scrambles up and rips at his bike lock, gets on his                bike and rides away.               Mr. Norman tries to take a panting Lance by the arm but Lance                shakes him off.                                     LANCE                         Get off me.               EXT. ERNSWILER HOUSE - DAY               Kelly rides by his house and keeps going.               EXT. HOSPITAL - DAY               Kelly stops and looks up at the hospital but can't bring                himself to go in. He pedals on.               EXT. CLEVELAND WATERFRONT - DAY               Kelly sits on the loading dock of an abandoned factory.               He watches the rusty barges glitter on the water. The wind                ruffles his sweaty hair.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - DAY               Kelly's at the front door.                                     MINNIE                         Bart's not here. Sorry.               She closes the door. Kelly wheels his bike down the driveway.               He sees Bart sitting out by the pool with a couple of LANGELY                BOYS.               Bart sees Kelly and ignores him, laughs at something one of                the guys says.               INT. ERNSWILER HOUSE, BATHROOM - DAY               Kelly sits on the toilet, putting a bandage on a red scrape                down his arm.               Eve appears in the doorway.                                     EVE                         Oh Kelly. What happened?               Kelly looks up at her. He's still got the cut eyebrow, which                has split back open, and some dried blood under his nose.                                     KELLY                         Nothing.                                     EVE                         Jesus. Let me see that.               Eve comes over and tilts Kelly's head back to look at the                cut. This is the first time she's touched him.               She gets some antiseptic and ointment from under the sink                along with Band-Aids and goes to work.                                     KELLY                         Ow.               Kelly lets her dab at his face. He closes his eyes.                                     EVE                         I'm going over to see dad.               Kelly opens his eyes and pulls away.                                     KELLY                         Oh.               Eve puts a butterfly bandage across Kelly's eyebrow.                                     EVE                         And you need to come.               Kelly pulls his head away.                                     KELLY                         I don't want to.                                     EVE                         At this point that's not an option.                                     KELLY                         Now's not a good time, ma.               Eve looks at Kelly sadly.                                     EVE                         It's never a good time.                                     KELLY                         You can't make me.               Eve shakes her head.                                     EVE                              (voice rising)                         It's not about you anymore --                                     KELLY                         Don't you get it? It was never about                          me.               Eve rises to her feet. He's just sent her over the edge.                                     EVE                              (yelling)                         What is wrong with you? When are you                          going to stop blaming us, blaming                          him? I'm sick of you being angry. I                          want to be angry! They just took out                          half of your father's stomach -                                     KELLY                         Enough.                                     EVE                              (screaming and crying)                         You will not tell me what's enough.                          You don't know about anything. All                          you do is fight fake battles, in the                          woods, on the playground. But this,                          right here, us - this is the real                          one, the only one worth anything.               She stops and breaks down.                                     EVE                         The man I love is dying.                                     KELLY                         That's between you and him.               Eve looks at her son. Her face looks older.                                     EVE                         If I made a mistake, if you felt                          left out, I'm sorry. But I can only                          deal with one thing at a time.               Eve leaves. Kelly sits on the toilet, lost.               INT. KELLY'S ROOM - MORNING               The sun shines in through Kelly's window.               He's laying in bed awake - has been for a while.               He gets up and starts dressing slowly and deliberately. He                puts on his best shirt and tie, sensing trouble when the                tie's too short.               He pulls the suit out of his closet.               The jacket doesn't fit. The sleeves don't even go down to                his wrists.               And he can hardly button the pants. He rips off the jacket.               He pulls everything out of his closet. Nothing there.               He sits on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands.               He looks at his DRESS UNIFORM, hanging on the back of the                closet in its dry-cleaning bag, right where his mom left it.               He shakes his head. No, he couldn't do that.               Then he sighs.               EXT. EPISCOPAL CHURCH - DAY               It's decorated for a wedding. Flower garlands trail up the                banisters.               GUESTS trickle in.               Harrison, dressed in a suit with a boutonniere on his lapel,                talks to an USHER.                                     HARRISON                         Don't sit any of Mathilda's sisters                          next to me if you can help it.                              (to guest)                         Oh, hello. So nice to see you. Thank                          you for coming.               Bart comes outside, also dressed as an usher.                                     HARRISON                              (to Bart)                         Where's the priest?                                     BART                         He should be here any minute. Calm                          down.               Bart walks down the steps and looks down the street.               Kelly's walking towards him. IN HIS DRESS UNIFORM.               Bart walks down the street to meet him.                                     BART                         What the fuck are you doing?               Kelly looks down. He can't meet Bart's eyes.                                     KELLY                         I was invited.                                     BART                         I uninvited you.                                     KELLY                         It's not your wedding.               Bart looks at Kelly and shakes his head.                                     BART                         Why are you wearing that?               Kelly doesn't answer.                                     BART                              (softening)                         I can't let you come in.                                     KELLY                         Why?                                     BART                         Because you know why. Just go home.               Kelly finally looks up at Bart and nods.               A Town Car pulls up.               Tabby gets out in her wedding dress. Has there even been a                more glorious woman? Will there ever be again?               Her MAID OF HONOR leads her around to the side of the church.               Kelly watches every step.                                     KELLY                         She looks beautiful. Tell her - give                          her my congratulations.               Kelly walks off.               Bart watches him go.               INT. BOWLAND HOUSE, KELLY'S ROOM - DAY               Kelly sits on the edge of the bed, head in hands.               He sees the torn rabbit painting. After a minute, he picks                it up and looks at it.               INT. EVE'S STUDIO               Xiou-Xiou sits painting. Kelly enters with the rabbit.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         Oh! Son of Eve. You startled me.                                     KELLY                         Grandma Ling. Can you fix this?               She examines it and takes out a wet sponge. She wipes it                across the back of the canvas.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         Your mom made it for you. I can fix                          it.               She works silently for a minute. Kelly watches her. She cuts                a small piece of canvas to repair the hole.                                     KELLY                         Did you come here to work on your                          own stuff? Don't waste your time on                          this.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         I never waste time.               She turns the painting over and gets out some paints to touch                it up.                                     XIOU-XIOU                         See. Everything can be mended.                                     KELLY                         You're trying to tell me something,                          aren't you?                                     XIOU-XIOU                         Oh no. I could not tell you anything.               INT. HOSPITAL, ABE'S ROOM - DAY               Eve sleeps in a chair next to Abe, in bed sleeping. He looks                pale but otherwise fine.               Kelly stands in the doorway, still in his uniform.               Abe comes to and sees him standing there.                                     ABE                         Hey. Kelly.                                     KELLY                         Hey dad. How you feeling?                                     ABE                         Not bad.                                     KELLY                         They gave me some stitches downstairs.                              (points to eyebrow)                         Three.                                     ABE                         Did you get punched?                                     KELLY                         A couple times, actually.                                     ABE                         I know the feeling. Come on in and                          watch some television. Don't worry,                          this one's bolted to the wall. As                          you can see, my reputation precedes                          me.               Kelly comes into the room and sits in a chair.                                     ABE                         Any battles this weekend?                                     KELLY                         A few.                                     ABE                         Busy, busy.               Abe and Kelly look up at the television in the corner.                                     ABE                         Answer me this: how come no one ever                          reenacts the Vietnam War?                                     KELLY                         It'd be pretty depressing, wouldn't                          it?                                     ABE                         I guess it would.               Both continue to look up at the television.                                     KELLY                         Plus that, you'd have to have                          protesters and stuff.                                     ABE                         Folks dressed up like your mom and                          me. People reenacting fleeing to                          Canada, burning draft cards. I guess                          that would ruin the spirit of the                          thing, now wouldn't it?                                     KELLY                         I could make it work.               Abe looks at Kelly.                                     ABE                         I bet you could.               Kelly nods. Eve wakes up.                                     EVE                         Kelly, is that you?                                     KELLY                         You were expecting some one else?               HOSPITAL CORRIDOR               Kelly and Eve get snacks from the vending machine.                                     KELLY                         He looks good.               Eve looks at Kelly, her face full of love and sadness.                                     EVE                         He looks just like you.               Kelly nods slowly, taking this in. And it is finally too                much.               He breaks down and cries. For the fear and the misplaced                rage, the fights and the stubbornness.               But finally, relief.               They walk back down the hall together. Eve reaches out and                puts her hand on Kelly's neck.               EXT. BOWLAND HOUSE - DAY               Kelly rides his bike past the house and stops when he sees                the car packed up in front.               Bart comes out with a box of stuff.                                     BART                         Hey.                                     KELLY                         Hey. You going away already?                                     BART                         Yeah. The have this intensive summer                          orientation thing.                                     KELLY                         Is that good?               Bart puts the box in the car.                                     BART                         Well, it's optional, but dad thinks                          it would be "a good way to meet                          people."                                     KELLY                         He's probably right.                                     BART                         He usually is.               They stand there.                                     KELLY                         Well, go Big Green.               Kelly gives him a little ra-ra with one hand. Bart smiles.               Kelly's been doing his research.                                     BART                         Thanks.               Kelly lifts his foot up to the pedal of his bike.                                     KELLY                         Have fun. And get laid, will ya?               Bart laughs a little and shakes his head. Kelly is gone.               Harrison comes out.                                     HARRISON                         Is that everything?                                     BART                         Everything you'd let me bring.               Harrison checks the ties on the roof.                                     HARRISON                         Give me a break.               INT. GROCERY STORE - NIGHT               Kelly stocks shelves.               There's a NEW GIRL working the register.               Kelly sees SARAH come in. He follows her to the bakery.                                     KELLY                         Hey.                                     SARAH                         Hey.               Sarah picks some bagels.                                     KELLY                         How come you don't work here anymore?                          The Electro-shopper's getting rusty.                                     SARAH                         I've got a summer internship at an                          ad agency.                                     KELLY                         Fancy.                                     SARAH                         It's all right, I guess.                                     KELLY                         No, it's great.               Kelly moves around to her other side, closer.                                     KELLY                         Hey -               Sarah moves away. Once bitten twice shy and all that.                                     SARAH                         When are you going to get a real                          job?                                     KELLY                         I don't know. Probably when I figure                          out something better to do.                                     SARAH                         You can't be a stock boy your whole                          life.               Sarah walks to the front of the store. Kelly walks with her.                                     KELLY                         Yeah I can. I mean, I probably won't,                          but I could.               Sarah turns to him at the checkout aisle.                                     SARAH                         Well, it was good seeing you.                                     KELLY                         Um.                                     SARAH                         What?                                     KELLY                         Remember that presentation I told                          you never to ask me about again?               INT. OLD SOLDIERS' HOME - DAY               Kelly stands in the front of the room, pointing to a battle                plan with large arrows drawn on it.               Charlie, Mr. Norman, Principal Holmstead, Eve and Sarah sit                among other OLD SOLDIERS.                                     KELLY                         Lee arrayed his defenses over here.                          Only this time, Grant was ready for                          him.               Kelly keeps talking. Many of the OLD SOLDIERS sleep.                                     OLD SOLDIER 1                              (to old soldier 2)                         This is boring.                                     OLD SOLDIER 2                         Yeah. Let's see that slide of the                          wife again.               DOMINO TABLE               Sarah, Kelly, and Eve play dominos with Charlie and Mr.                Norman.                                     MR. NORMAN                              (to Charlie)                         Remarkable, remarkable. And they                          never knew?                                     CHARLIE                         The real kicker was moving those                          cutouts of tanks around. The thought                          we had a whole regiment over there,                          but it was just a couple of us and                          those Hollywood props.                                     EVE                         That's amazing. Art playing a part                          in war.                                     CHARLIE                         You're damned right. We practically                          won the thing right there.                              (eyeing Sarah and Eve                               with approval)                         Now this is more like it. Anyone                          care to place a wager on the table?               Kelly tries to gesture to Sarah "no."                                     SARAH                         If you think it would be more fun.                                     MR. NORMAN                         I can't imagine having more fun that                          I am now.               Mr. Norman smiles at the group.                                     CHARLIE                         You're never been to a French                          whorehouse, I take it.                                     EVE                         I have.                                     MR. NORMAN                         Oh, my.               EXT. OLD SOLDIERS' HOME - DAY               Eve waits while Kelly and Sarah walk out to Sarah's car.               Kelly helps Sarah into it and closes the door for her.                                     KELLY                         I still don't understand how you did                          that.                                     SARAH                         I spent my summers with my grandma                          in the Catskills. She didn't give me                          any spending money.                              (shrugs)                         So I played the bones for ice cream.               She pulls away. He watches her go.                                     KELLY                         Hot damn.                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END                                                                
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+                                BATTLE: LOS ANGELES                                   Written by                                Chris Bertolini                                                             05/14/09                                                                           FADE IN:          FROM SPACE, a view of the EARTH. The vibrant BLUE of its          OCEANS is striking against the vast BLACK VOID of space.          MOVE CLOSER TO THE EARTH, where the shimmering PACIFIC OCEAN          meets the CALIFORNIA COASTLINE...          A bird's-eye view of LOS ANGELES comes into relief-- a criss-          cross of streets, freeways. The buildings not more than dots.          Keep MOVING CLOSER as SOUND FADES IN.          We notice MOVEMENT through the sprawl of city now: MASSES OF          PEOPLE and CARS moving AWAY FROM THE OCEAN as we arrive at...          EXT. PICO BLVD. - GROUND-LEVEL - DAY          The SOUND is at a frantic pitch here-- The sound of CHAOS on          the streets. People SCREAMING, CAR HORNS BLARING as CARS          jockey for position, moving eastward among...          HORDES OF PEOPLE on foot, their PANICKED FACES rushing past.          SUPER: LOS ANGELES-- CONTACT + 1 HOUR as we...                         CUT TO:          INT. 1ST SERGEANT'S OFFICE / CAMP PENDLETON - DAY          SUPER: MARINE CORPS BASE, CAMP PENDLETON. OCEANSIDE, CA.          Then SUPER: THE DAY BEFORE...          We are CLOSE ON: SERGEANT MICHAEL NANTZ late 30s, tall,          battle-hardened, staring forward, listening impatiently.          1ST SGT. ROY (O.S.)          Must be some kind of mistake...          Company 1st SERGEANT JOHN ROY, also late 30s, sits behind his          desk, holding Nantz' file. Smiles.          1ST SGT. ROY          I got paperwork here, with your          signature, says you're retiring.          SGT. NANTZ          No mistake, John.          1ST SGT. ROY          My ass. You got a box full a',          medals, file full a' commendations.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              2.          1ST SGT. ROY (cont'd)          Hell, everything but the Good          Conduct.          SGT. NANTZ          They can take the Good Conduct          Medal and shove it up their...          1ST SGT. ROY                         (LAUGHS)          See, that's what I'm talking about,          Mike. You're a marine!          Nantzsmiles back now.          SGT. NANTZ          I appreciate it, John. You know          that. But, I been to too many          funerals. Had to visit too many          moms and dads, tell 'em about what          happened to their sons...          BEAT.          1ST SGT. ROY          Look. You're on that training          assignment right now. Why don't          you just ride it out for a month or          two. See how you feel...          SGT. NANTZ          I did my twenty. I'm done.          Roy takes this in, nods. He stands, holds his hand out.          1ST SGT. ROY          You're gonna miss it.          Nantz shakes.          SGT. NANTZ          Wanna bet?                          CUT TO:          THE GREEN WASH OF NIGHT VISION GOGGLES          Looking out onto ROLLING HILLS and TREES... We hear (O.S.) :          VOICE #1 (O.S.)          I don't see it...          VOICE #2 (O.S.)          I'm telling you, it's in the trees.                                                                                                              3.                         FIVE MARINES          From the 1st Platoon, 2nd battalion, 5th Marines (the 2/5)..           Camo uniforms, NIGHT VISION GOGGLES on, stare into the DARK.          CPL. CORREGGIO, 20, linebacker-big, shakes his head,          frustrated.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Screw it. I'm gonna launch another          one...          The other marines back away quickly as...          WIDEN to see we're...          EXT. OFFICER'S GOLF COURSE / CAMP PENDLETON - NIGHT          Correggio, GOLF CLUB in hand, steps to a golf tee. WHACK.          He tees off.          The marines follow the ball as it sails into the darkness.          CPL. CORREGGIO -          That's more like it.          PVT. LENIHAN, 18, baby-faced, looks impressed.           PVT. LENIHAN          Sweet.          PVT. IMLAY, 19, a dense but good-natured country boy, moves          to the tee.          PVT. IMLAY          Don't encourage him. Correggio's          freakin' ego's big enough already.          He takes the club from Correggio.          PVT. IMLAY          Let an expert show you how it's          done, bro.          Imlay TEES OFF, his swing plainly choppy, uncoordinated.          POV THROUGH IMLAY'S NIGHT VISION GOGGLES          As he WHACKS THE BALL, visible in the night vision's greenish          glow. It HOOKS into a sand trap.          PVT. IMLAY (O.S.)          Mother fu...                                                                                                              4.          Then he stops as a LIGHT flashes beyond the trees.          PVT. IMLAY          Foot mobiles. 3 O'clock.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Told you they'd come!          THREE GIRLS, 19-21, signal with a FLASHLIGHT. Then race down          a small hill onto the golf course.          EXT. GOLF COURSE - LATER          The THREE GIRLS sit around a beat-up TAHOE parked near the          tee, CASE OF BEER on its back gate, sipping beers.          Corpsman ADUKWU, 20, a tall, thin Nigerian, TEES OFF.          PVT. IMLAY          That dog'll hunt! Damn, Daktari,          you can play!                         ADUKWU                         (THICK ACCENT)          We have courses in Nigeria, Imlay.          PVT. IMLAY          Well, how would I know? I mean,          it's an American game.          PVT. LENIHAN          Actually, Imlay, it's Scottish.          PVT. KERNS, 19, an antsy fireplug of a guy, shakes his head.          PVT. KERNS          Lenihan, you as good with an M-16          as you are with your mouth?          PVT. IMLAY          Kerns. Lay off him.          PVT. KERNS          What? Just wanna make sure the          rookie won't fold under fire.          Correggio shoves a beer into Kerns' hand.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Relax, dude.          He throws an arm around Kerns' shoulder, smiles at the girls.                                                                                                              5.          CPL. CORREGGIO          My buddy's jumpy 'cause he got an          assfull a' shrapnel our last tour.          PVT. KERNS          I'm jumpy? You're crawling up your          own ass 'cause we train with Sgt.          Nantz tomorrow.          Correggio eyes Kerns. This was the wrong thing to say.          One girl, smiling seductively, steps to Correggio, takes the          golf club.from him.                         GIRL #1          If this is the officer's course,          what happens if they catch you out          here?          She readies to take a shot. Correggio snuggles up behind          her, ostensibly teaching her how to swing.          CPL. CORREGGIO          We can handle it, baby. We're          experts at night maneuvers.          Nearby, the SECOND GIRL chats up Adukwu.                         GIRL #2          So you're from where again?          Imlay pops a beer, interrupting.          PVT. IMLAY          Nigeria. Adukwu's our corpsman.          Like a medic. Saved Kerns' ass.                         (TO ADUKWU)          Daktari, tell her about Nigeria.          Adukwu starts to talk, but Imlay interrupts again:          PVT. IMLAY          Adukwu's a green card marine...          (motions to Lenihan)          And Lenihan here-- He's just green.          Mom signed so he could join at 17.          I'm looking after him since he          don't know his ass from a hot rock.          Lenihan suddenly ducks behind the Tahoe, throwing up.                         GIRL #3          You're doing a good job.                                                                                                              6.          PVT. IMLAY          Yeah. We always take the new meat          out here to christen 'em...          Lenihan shuffles back out from behind the Tahoe.          PVT. IMLAY          Hey, barfy. Grab your beer.          toast.          Everyone holds beers aloft. Lenihan joins in reluctantly.          PVT. IMLAY          To Lenihan. Who gets his first          taste a' those hills tomorrow.          He points off to the HILLY, DESOLATE TERRAIN near the course.          PVT. KERNS          Good luck, rookie.          The marines chuckle knowingly, about to drink...          Then they hear the sound of TIRES skidding to a halt. They          look toward the hillside, see the WHITE HELMETS'of MPs.          CPL. CORREGGIO          MPs!          The marines grab the goggles and clubs, pile...          INTO THE TAHOE          With the girls. The Tahoe skids away, the beer CRASHING off'          the back. The first girl eyes Correggio.                         GIRL #1          Experts, huh?          Correggio grins sheepishly. She smiles. sweetly, taking his          hand, writing her PHONE NUMBER on the back of it as...          INT. BEDROOM / OFF-BASE APARTMENT - SAN CLEMENTE - MORNING          A modest working-class two bedroom apartment. A TELEVISION          on in the b.g.. A NEWS PROGRAM:          NEWSCASTER (ON TV)          .what appears to be an          unprecedented meteor shower,          falling off the Falkland Islands.                                                                                                              7.          LT. BENNIE MARTINEZ, 25, whose youthful looks and open smile          contrast with his muscular frame, rolls in bed to see...          His wife, ANNA, 24, sitting on the edge of the bed next to          him, turning something over in her hands.          LT. MARTINEZ          What are you doing up so early?          She holds up the object in her hands-- It's Martinez'          LIEUTENANT BARS.                         ANNA                         (OBVIOUSLY PROUD)          Lieutenant. I still have to get          used to that.          She kisses him lightly, stands. Martinez smiles, watching          her move off.          LT. MARTINEZ          Yeah, lot of things we gotta get          used to.          We see her VERY PREGNANT BELLY now as she smiles back, exits.          As she does, Martinez turns back to the TELEVISION:          'METEORS' falling into a distant ocean.          NEWSCASTER (V.0.)          This dazzling display is visible          from Argentina to Southern Chile.          EXT. DRIVEWAY / OFF-BASE APARTMENT - LATER          Martinez, in uniform now, exits the ground-floor apartment,          heads to HIS CAR as Anna exits, watching him go, smiling.                         ANNA          Call me later.          LT. MARTINEZ                         (SIMULTANEOUS)          I'll call you later.          He stops, smiling back at her now. She waves coyly.          Then Martinez is RUNNING BACK TO THE APARTMENT.          Moving with the grace of the college football player he was          just a few years ago.                                                                                                              We don't go with him. Just observe from a distanceas...          Martinez arrives at Anna, who laughs as he leans down,          kissing her stomach now.          EXT. TRAINING COURSE - MORNING          The 1st PLATOON of the 2/5, 39 marines, all 18-23 years old,           sweating as they RUN HILLS in FULL GEAR in the blazing sun.          Key on the MARINES FROM THE GOLF COURSE, staring forward          at... Nantz, running up ahead.          PVT. KERNS          Heard Nantz put in his papers.          He's out.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Good. Wish he done it years ago.          Lenihan, struggling, breathing hard, looks up at this,          STUMBLING as he does.          Nantz, looking back at the chatter, sees...          Imlay grab hold of Lenihan, helping him forward now.          SGT. NANTZ          Goddamn it, Imlay, you gonna wipe          his ass for him, too? Every man          carries his weight!          Nantz drops back, runs alongside the struggling Lenihan.          SGT. NANTZ          Just quit, Lenihan. Do us all a          favor. 'Cause the squad's only as          strong as the weakest man.,..          Lenihan STUMBLES and FALLS IN THE DIRT.          SGT. NANTZ          And right now you're getting us all          killed. You hear?          On these words, NANTZ MEETS EYES WITH CORREGGIO, further back          in the pack. Nantz looks away, sees...          Imlay, suddenly at Lenihan's side, helping him up. Nantz          shoves Imlay away, knocking him onto his ass.                                                                                                              9.          SGT. NANTZ          You think you're helping him,          Imlay!? You think you're making          him stronger?!          Nantz puts a boot into Imlay's chest, shoving him flat.          Correggio stares at this, steaming.          SGT. NANTZ          Stay on the goddamn ground, Imlay!          You've just been gut-shot.                         (TO LENIHAN)          Your buddy's down, bleeding to          death, Lenihan. LZ's at the top of          this hill. You gonna let this man          die in the dirt on some stinking          hill? Or are you marine enough to          save him?!          Lenihan stumbles to his feet, wiping dirt from his mouth.          PVT. LENIHAN          I'm gonna save him, sir!          Lenihan bends, strains, somehow heaves Imlay up.          He begins STUMBLING UP THE HILL, carrying Imlay on his back.          SGT. NANTZ          Come on, goddamnit! It's a hot LZ!          The chopper's gotta move! They're          gonna leave you BOTH to die!!!          Lenihan staggers, knees trembling, weaving back and forth.          Then his foot comes down on a ROCK IN THE TRAIL. His ANKLE          GIVES WAY. Lenihan falls, yells in pain, grabbing his ankle.          SGT. NANTZ          GET UP!!!          PVT. LENIHAN          I can't.          SGT. NANTZ          Don't you ever tell me you can't!          Correggio takes a step towards Nantz now. Kerns stops him.          CPL. CORREGGIO          He's injured, Sergeant.                                                                                                              10.          A moment as they stare at each other. Nantz, voice like ice:          SGT. NANTZ          He's not injured. He twisted his          goddamn ankle.          Nantz' looks over the men, sweaty, covered with grime.          SGT. NANTZ          We are marines. "Can't" is not the          code we live by. "Can't" gets          marines killed. Do things the          right way, the marine way, maybe          you get to come home... Maybe your          buddy gets to come home.          Correggio stares back sullenly on this.          SGT. NANTZ          Dying's easy, ladies. Everything          else takes balls.          Nantz spits on the ground.          SGT. NANTZ          Adukwu. Run a bag of saline into          Lenihan and tape that ankle. We          start back in ten minutes.          INT. FLOWER SHOP DAY          We recognize two marines from 1st platoon: CPL. DEVREY          HARRIS, 22, African-American, steely, quick-witted, and CPL.          NICK STAVROU, 23, a Greek hulk with an easy smile.          Harris stares at a TELEVISION on a table behind the counter.          NEWSCASTER (V.0.)          .meteors are falling off the          coasts of California, Ireland,          India, in the Bay of Bengal-- all          less than ten miles from land...          CPL. STAVROU          Man, I thought Lenihan was gonna          wash out today.          CPL. HARRIS          Hey, I remember carrying your fat          ass up that hill hung over as shit.          Newbie gets no sympathy from me.                                                                                                              11.          A woman, CHERISE, 22, Harris' fiancee, hurries over.                         CHERISE          For three hundred more, she said we          could have sprays of lilies. I          know it's a lot, but it'd be so          beautiful. What d'you think, baby?          Harris looks pained. But before he can speak up:          CPL. STAVROU          Well, I think it's a no-brainer.          You're only getting married once!          What, are you gonna worry about          three hundred bucks?          Cherise looks expectantly to Harris, who smiles back weakly.          CPL. HARRIS          Of course, baby. Whatever you want          She kisses him, heads to the florist as Harris turns on                         STAVROU:          CPL. HARRIS          Dude, what are you doing?          CPL. STAVROU          Busting your balls.                         CHERISE                         (CALLS OVER)          Tomorrow we shop for cake.          Stavrou throws an arm round Harris' shoulder, smiles.          CPL. STAVROU          I love cake.          INT. CAMP PENDLETON / PSYCHIATRIST'S OFFICE - DAY          A drab, nondescript office. Kerns sits across a desk from          the BASE PSYCHIATRIST, who's consulting a FILE.                         PSYCHIATRIST          Still not sleeping... And the          nightmares?          PVT. KERNS          No. I mean, sometimes. But it's          no big deal.                                                                                                              12.                         PSYCHIATRIST          You're not drinking, right,          private? That's just a crutch...          PVT. KERNS          Alcohol? No, sir. Definitely not.          The psychiatrist stares at this. Then WRITES in the file.          PVT. KERNS          So... What's my status? Am I          cleared for combat? I feel good.                         PSYCHIATRIST                         (STILL WRITING)          Let's meet again next week.          EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - RED BEACH, CAMP PENDLETON          Two surfers-- CPL. GRAYSTON, 23, looking grizzled beyond his          years, and PVT. SIMMONS, a spaced-out surfer vibe, sit on          boards in the water, staring at...          TWO MPs, on the beach, waving them in.          PVT. SIMMONS          I don't know why they always have          to give us shit. It's not fair.          CPL. GRAYSTON          Question is, why does everybody          think life's supposed to be fair?          Why do bad guys want to kill us?          Why can't I have a nipple ring?          Why is it the more power we get,          the more we want? Nothing's fair,          Simmons.          PVT. SIMMONS                         (SMILES)          Whatever, Corporal. I just like to          blow shit up.          Suddenly, a SIREN begins WAILING from the base. Grayston and          Simmons exchange a glance. They start paddling in quickly.          EXT. TRAINING COURSE - DAY          Nantz is running with another platoon of MARINES. Everyone          slows as the SIRENS WAIL from the base.                                                                                                              13.          SGT. NANTZ          Hold.          The squad stops, following Nantz' gaze to...          An approaching dust cloud, being kicked up by...          A HUMVEE and TWO FIVE-TON TRUCKS          Speeding up the dirt road toward the marines.          Everyone is silent as they watch the HUMVEE and TRUCKS pull          up... This is not normal.          1st Sergeant Roy hops from the Humvee, shouting:          1ST SGT. ROY          Marines! Into the trucks. Now.          Proceed to the armory and draw          weapons.          The marines exchange glances, heading for the five-tons.          Roy motions to Nantz, who follows him to the Humvee.          SGT. NANTZ          What's going on, John?          1ST SGT. ROY          Look, Mike, I know you're burnt          out, ready to move on... Whatever          you want to call it. But          everybody's being deployed right          now. And the platoon's down a          sergeant. We need you.          SGT. NANTZ          For what? Do I have a choice here?          They arrive at the Humvee. Roy turns to Nantz.          1ST SGT. ROY          No. You don't. It's all hands on          deck, Mike.          Nantz nods, resigned. Starts climbing into the Humvee.          SGT. NANTZ          Just don't lose my paperwork.                                                                                                              14.          INT. HUMVEE - MINUTES LATER          Roy drives back to base, Nantz next to him. SIRENS are          wailing, HELICOPTERS TAKING OFF in the distance.          1ST SGT.. ROY          Meteor storm's hittin' up and down          California now... All I know is,          this is a helluva lot more than          just some space rocks fallin' out          to sea...          SGT. NANTZ          What d'you mean?          He turns., stares at Nantz.          1ST SGT. ROY          Whole base is being mobilized.          There's some kinda' bad shit          hittin' the fan.          EXT. CAMP PENDLETON - MINUTES LATER          The Humvee and five-tons swing into the base past a mass of          activity: TRUCKS being loaded with supplies, TANKS driving          onto flat cars, MARINES racing about.          INT. HUMVEE - SAME          1ST SGT. ROY          You're assigned to 1st platoon,          under Lt. Bennie Martinez. His          platoon sergeant was rushing back          to base, got in a car accident.          SGT. NANTZ          What are the odds?          As the Humvee pulls to the COMMAND BUILDING, Nantz sees...          LT. MARTINEZ hurrying to meet them.          1ST SGT. ROY          There's the lieutenant. Young,          been with us three months, straight          outta basics school. Bright kid,          but this is his first deployment,          so keep an eye on him, Mike.                                                                                                              15.          INT. DORM ROOM - BACHELOR ENLISTED QUARTERS - SAME          Lenihan and Imlay, Correggio and Kerns are getting their gear          together, hurriedly packing.          Lenihan checks and double checks a LIST with the contents of          his pack, ticking off 'poncho liner,' 'gore-tex jacket,'          'socks,' 'vest,' 'first aid kit,' flashlight'...          PVT. KERNS          It's probably just a drill, right?          PVT. IMLAY          They shifted Nantz into our unit.          Something must be going on.          PVT. LENIHAN          I heard Nantz kicked ass on his          last tour. Went into a compound by          himself, killed, like, ten          insurgents...          CPL. CORREGGIO          That what you heard? You don't          know shit, Lenihan.          Correggio, pissed, grabs his pack, heads for the door.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Move your asses. They want us in          the armory.          And he's gone. Lenihan, confused, looks at Imlay.          PVT. LENIHAN          What's his problem?          PVT. IMLAY          Nantz lost a lotta guys on that          tour. Correggio's brother was one          of 'em.          Lenihan nods, somber, getting it.          INT. HALLWAY / BASE COMMAND BUILDING - MOMENTS LATER          Nantz and Martinez walk through quickly. All around them,          NUMEROUS OFFICERS hurry, all responding to RINGING BEEPERS.          Nantz peers into VARIOUS OFFICES. Every one is buzzing with          activity: Clerks bustling, maps spread out, phones ringing.                                                                                                              16.          And every office has a TELEVISION on. We hear OVERLAPPING.          REPORTER'S VOICES from the offices they pass:          TV REPORTERS (V.0.)          .cluster of what appears to be          meteors is tightly packed... hard          for scientists to predict the size          or quantity striking the oceans...          SGT. NANTZ          They calling us.in because of these          meteors, Lieutenant?          LT. MARTINEZ          I assume so... Maybe an evacuation.          Whatever it is, it'll be good to          get out in the field with the men.          Nantz looks askance at this. Martinez catches it.          LT. MARTINEZ          Look, Sergeant, let's be clear. I          know your rep, know what you've          done... But this is my unit. We're          not gonna have a problem, are we?          SGT. NANTZ          No problem, sir. It's all yours.          INT. ARMORY - DAY          At numerous windows,. LINES OF MARINES hand in weapons cards,          receiving their weapons in return. Among them...          The marines from 1st Platoon of the 2/5 (Correggio and Kerns,          Stavrou and Harris, Imlay and Lenihan, Adukwu), all watching:          MOUNTED TELEVISIONS-- A WOMAN REPORTER, 20s, on a BEACH.          Behind her, POLICE disperse thin CROWDS of PEOPLE, bullhorns          blaring. A legend on the TV screen reads 'SANTA MONICA, CA.'          PVT. MOTTOLA, squad radio man, tall and thin, listening to an          IPOD, and PVT. GUERRERO, lumbering, eyes on the TV.          PVT. MOTTOLA          We never got a chance to finish the          new mix, man. We were gonna add          some metal to it...          PVT. GUERRERO          We'll have time later.                                                                                                              17.          The marines stare at the harried reporter on TV.          REPORTER (ON TV)          .National Guard troops have flown          in to evacuate all surrounding          beach areas...          PVT. MOTTOLA                         (TREPIDATION)          Yeah... Later.          INT. BRIEFING ROOM / CAMP PENDLETON - LATER          Nantz and Martinez crowd in among other SERGEANTS and          LIEUTENANTS, the COMPANY CAPTAIN briefing them.                         CAPTAIN          These objects were completely          undetected until they entered our          atmosphere.          LT. MARTINEZ          So... what are they, Captain?                         CAPTAIN          We have no idea. But whatever they          are, they're not hitting the water          at terminal velocity. They're able          to slow down before impact.          Glances exchanged in the room now.                         CAPTAIN          This is no meteor shower. Homeland          Security has bumped the threat          level to red. Marines, we are the          first line of defense. All units          gear up, be ready to move.          INT. ARMORY - LATER          The young marines from 1st platoon are still in line for          their weapons along with many OTHER MARINES. Some are          nervously bullshitting, others intently watching...                         THE TELEVISION:          The REPORTER on the beach looks harried now as THICK SMOKE          rolls in across the water. POLICE SIRENS wail in the b.g.                         I                                                                                                              18.          REPORTER (ON TV)          .some sort of smoke has appeared          over the ocean now...          CPL. HARRIS          Hey, shut up. Shut up!          Others quiet down now. All focus slowly shifting to...                         THE TV:          The reporter on the beach is cupping her earpiece.          REPORTER (ON TV)          I'm being told a Coast Guard cutter          just issued a Mayday...          The TV SHOT PANS to the WATER...          The DISTANT CUTTER lists to one side, SINKING below the waves          as indistinct DARK SHAPES clamber onto it from the water.                         THE MARINES          Push forward, scrambling to the TVs.          PVT. KERNS          What the hell are those things?!          ON THE TV:          The CUTTER DISAPPEARS behind the thick rolling SMOKE.          The camera PANS back to the REPORTER, silently staring out.          2/5 PARADE DECK / CAMP PENDLETON - SAME          Crowded with MARINES, including squad leader Grayston, all          getting ready. Or they were...          Right now, ACTIVITY HAS CEASED. Marines silently stare at...                         TELEVISIONS          The REPORTER ON THE BEACH staring out, clearly panicked.          REPORTER (ON TV)          It appears... the cutter has...          She stops, seeing the SMOKE reach the WATER'S EDGE. A HUSH          falls over the CROWD as SMOKE rolls across the beach.                                                                                                              19.          INT. HALLWAY / COMMAND BUILDING          Formerly bustling... Now all OFFICERS and MARINES are frozen,          crowding around open office doors, staring at...                         TELEVISIONS          As the REPORTER reacts to isolated SHOUTS echoing from the          crowd on the beach. Some are pointing out to the ocean...          REPORTER (ON TV)          What is that...? In the water...          The news cameraman PANS to the WATER as it begins to CHURN.          INT. BRIEFING ROOM / CAMP PENDLETON - SAME          Nantz and Martinez stand among the other sergeants and          lieutenants staring, stunned, at...                         A TELEVISION:          SCREAMS and panicked voices ring out from those ON THE BEACH          now as INDISTINCT FIGURES appear from under the waves.          PEOPLE RACE AWAY, plodding along the sand in hopeless flight          as these FIGURES charge into the crowd...          GUNSHOTS ring out, police shooting at the INDISTINCT FIGURES          that appear, then disappear in the EVER-THICKENING SMOKE.          MOVE IN ON NANTZ, staring at the TV as...          The news cameraman RUNS away now, the PICTURE being          transmitted growing shaky, indistinct, frenzied as...          A DARK FIGURE appears, overruns the cameraman as...          The NEWS CAMERA suddenly cuts to BLACK. In black, all we          hear is SCREAMS echoing from the beach.          EXT. CAMP PENDLETON AIR FIELD - MINUTES LATER          All activity has doubled, a frantic energy now. TRUCKS race          along the perimeter of the air field, massive CH-46          HELICOPTERS TAKE OFF loaded with MARINE UNITS...          The 1st platoon stands together, Lt. Martinez addressing them          as ANOTHER CH-46 HELICOPTER is landing nearby.                                                                                                              20.          LT. MARTINEZ          As you probably heard, Sgt. Nantz          will be taking over for Sgt. Beck.          We're lucky to have him aboard.          The CH-46 helicopters TOUCHES DOWN now, its massive,, bay door          opening for them. Martinez barks:          LT. MARTINEZ          Let's move, men!,          The platoon grabs gear, runs for the helicopter, climbing          aboard. Nantz hurries them along, grabbing packs, throwing          them on after the marines.          Then he grabs Correggio's pack, about to throw the pack on...          Correggio grabs it back from Nantz.          Nantz turns, faces off with Correggio.          SGT. NANTZ          You got something to get off your          chest, Corporal?          CPL. CORREGGIO          No. It's cool, Sergeant. You got          a Silver Star and my brother came          home in a box. I get it.          Beat.          SGT. NANTZ          Get aboard, Corporal.          Correggio jumps into the chopper.          INT. CH-46 TRANSPORT HELICOPTER - LATER          IN FLIGHT. The marines, helmets on, packs between their          knees, sit facing each other.          The sound of the CH-46's massive rotors is deafening. Some          shout over the din, too nervous to remain quiet.          PVT. GUERRERO          What the hell you think those          things are?          CPL. HARRIS          Gotta be extraterrestrial.                                                                                                              21.          PVT. IMLAY          You mean, like, from space?!          CPL. STAVROU          No, Imlay. From Canada.          Correggio looks down at his hand... Sees the GIRL'S PHONE          NUMBER written on it.          ACROSS THE DECK, Martinez huddles with Nantz, MAP in hand.          LT. MARTINEZ          Santa Monica airport's our Forward          Operating Base. We get some Cobras          and F-18s in the air, we'll have          plenty of support.          Nantz nods. They're flying into the unknown and Martinez          seems as nervous as the younger men.          Kerns leans in to Nantz, desperately needing reassurance.          PVT. KERNS          How many a' them you think there          are, Sergeant?          Nantz just stares out, stone-faced.          SGT. NANTZ          We'll know soon enough, private.          INT. CH-46 TRANSPORT HELICOPTER - LATER          The marines are glued to the windows, shocked by what they're          seeing as the chopper BANKS toward Venice/Santa Monica:          FIRES raging from various explosions. In the distance,          MASSIVE LINES of TRAFFIC moving away from the ocean.          The STREETS bordering the beach look deserted-- Except for          the BODIES dotting the landscape.          Nantz looks at Martinez, who is hunched over, scribbling a          LETTER. Martinez folds it, then writes the name ANNA on it.          We realize it's a letter in the event of his death.          Martinez stares at the letter. Then carefully tucks it away.                         CUT TO:                                                                                                              22.          EXT. SANTA MONICA AIRPORT/FORWARD OPERATING BASE - LATER          The airport is being quickly transformed into a military          base: MILITARY VEHICLES line the runway, more being driven          from a nearby CARGO PLANE.          The CH-46 LANDS.          The platoon JUMPS OUT, squad leaders forming the men up as...          Nantz and Martinez salute a CAPTAIN heading to them as F-18          JETS take off, screaming overhead.          LT. MARTINEZ          Lt. Martinez, sir. 1st Platoon of          the 2/5.                         CAPTAIN          Situation is as follows: Most of          Santa Monica is cleared of          civilians. We've got a defensive          line at Lincoln Boulevard a mile          from the ocean...          He points out LINCOLN BOULEVARD on a MAP, the OCEAN close by.                         CAPTAIN          At 9 p.m., everything from Lincoln          to the ocean will be bombed.          Martinez blanches.          LT. MARTINEZ          We're... leveling it, Captain?                         CAPTAIN          We've got an infestation of god-          knows-what. It's an enemy ground          force only, they have no aircraft.          So our jets'll tear 'em a new          asshole. We will rule the air.          LT. MARTINEZ          But... there must be civilians          stuck behind the line, sir.                         CAPTAIN          That's affirm. We're getting          distress calls, sending squads out.          He points to the MAP, to streets running from Lincoln Blvd.                                                                                                              23.                         CAPTAIN          Your mission, Lieutenant, take your          1st squad, proceed west from          Lincoln to a community center          located here...          (pointing to map)          In a park on 10th and Bay Street.          Police were using it as an          evacuation point. They got          overrun. Get there, any civilians          you find, get 'em back here to the          FOB for evacuation. You got three          hours.          Another CHOPPER is LANDING. Nantz yells over the sound:          SGT. NANTZ          What do we know about these things,          Captain?                         CAPTAIN          Not much. But police have shot          'em. They bleed.          The captain, hurrying to the next chopper, yells back:                         CAPTAIN          It's our job to kill 'em.          EXT. STREET - LATER          Nantz and Martinez are double-timing with the 1st squad (Cpl.          Grayston, Correggio and Kerns, Stavrou and Harris, Imlay and          Lenihan, Mottola and Guerrero, Simmons and Adukwu).          As they approach Lincoln, they slow, eyes widening.          REVERSE to see what they're staring at:          LINCOLN BOULEVARD. Being fortified into a defensive line.          MARINES are setting up sand-bagged MACHINE GUN NESTS in a          parking lot fronting a nail shop and a China Express.          Other MARINES hunker behind barricades in front of a Goodyear          Tire Store, firing MORTARS toward the ocean.          RUBBLE. BURNING BUILDINGS. Smashed-in storefronts. Cars          CRASHED at intersections, the echoing WAIL of CAR ALARMS.          Pockets of CIVILIANS are being waved forward by MARINES. A          LITTLE GIRL with a Smurf backpack is rushed across Lincoln.                                                                                                              24.          Martinez turns, rallies the squad, most of whom look shocked.          LT. MARTINEZ          Let's go, marines! Clock's          running. Focus on the mission.          We're gonna get to that community          center and get those people safe.          A COBRA ATTACK HELICOPTER screams overhead, firing into the          distance. Martinez turns to Nantz, shouting over the din:          LT. MARTINEZ          Something to add, Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          (to the squad)          Kill anything that's not human.          EXT. 10TH STREET - LATER          Nantz and Martinez lead the squad FROM LINCOLN onto 10th St.          Various STRUCTURE FIRES are visible in the distance.          The squad passes a FIRE TRUCK crashed against a fence, engine          idling. FIREMEN lie near their hose lines, dead.          Suddenly... BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Deep, deafening sounds          exploding in the distance.          The ground SHAKES from massive AFTERSHOCKS. Billowing SMOKE          rumbles from the west. Ash rains,down, the sky turns black.          The squad hunkers down, panicked looks exchanged.          PVT. KERNS          What the hell is that?!          LT. MARTINEZ          Keep it together. Watch your          angles.          The aftershocks fade. Ominous quiet again.          The squad continues DOWN THE STREET.          CPL. HARRIS          Helluva way to get citizenship, eh,          Daktari?                         ADUKWU          Shit, I'd rather be in Afghanistan.                                                                                                              25.          THICK SMOKE hangs in the air. The lack of visibility is          clearly adding to the marines' fright.          Numerous SHAPES become visible in the smoke.          As the squad approaches slowly, the shapes become clear...          BODIES splayed in the street.          CPL. HARRIS          Cherise and I were supposed to          register at Bed, Bath & Beyond          tonight...          CPL. STAVROU          Think you're gonna be busy, bro.          Nantz points his rifle into a CRASHED PICKUP TRUCK. A BODY          is slumped beneath the wheel.          Simmons comes up behind Nantz. Peers into the truck:          Sections of the BODY appear almost dissolved by a white          phosphorous-like substance.          PVT. SIMMONS          What is that shit, Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          (caustic, dismissive)          Something bad, private. Now get          back with your team.          PVT. KERNS          Whoa, whoa... Contact! Twelve          o'clock!          A SHAPE is moving to them through the smoke.          The marines aim, about to fire just as the smoke clears...          A DOG. Standing there, staring mournfully at them.          Nervous chuckles now. Correggio sidles up to Kerns.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Relax, man.          Kerns just shoots him a look. The squad moves on.          As they approach a SIDE STREET that intersects 10th...          The DOG WHINES. Correggio pets it, trying to comfort it...                                                                                                              26.          But the dog suddenly RACES OFF, disappearing into the smoke.          The marines spin, rifles up, growing unnerved...          PVT. IMLAY          What the hell...?          CPL. HARRIS          Something spooked that dog...          Then Kerns sees the SMOKE SWIRLING DOWN THE SIDE STREET...          As if something is racing through it.          Kerns breaks formation, SPRINTS DOWN THE SIDE STREET, FIRING.          PVT. KERNS          Contact! Contact!          Discipline shatters as the squad follows Kerns...          DOWN THE SIDE STREET.          SGT. NANTZ          Marines! Hold your position!          Kerns stops, spinning, looking. for targets, breath ragged,          eyes panicked. Correggio races up.          CPL. CORREGGIO          What'd you see?!          Suddenly, the INDISTINCT FORM of an ALIEN CREATURE appears          through the smoke, moving FAST down the side street.          Kerns is ready, FIRING. The others react, FIRING as well.          The ALIEN FORM is blasted, DROPPING into the smoke.          LT. MARTINEZ          Hold your fire! Hold your fire!          Everyone stops firing. Nantz gets in Kerns' face.          SGT. NANTZ          One enemy runs and you break          discipline and chase it?!          (to the others)          Think, marines. Stay alive.          LT. MARTINEZ          The sergeant is right. Stay on          course. We have a mission...                                                                                                              27.          Suddenly, the SHADOWY ALIEN FORM RISES again, darting off,          disappearing into the smoke.          The squad stares back, stunned.          CPL. STAVROU                         (QUIETLY)          Holy shit.          CPL. HARRIS          How many rounds it take?          CPL. STAVROU          Enough.          Correggio edges to Kerns, who's looking panicky.          CPL. CORREGGIO          You okay?          PVT. KERNS          They're real, bro. I kept prayin'          they wouldn't be...          SGT. NANTZ          Quiet.          Nantz, unnerved himself, stares into the smoke...          LT. MARTINEZ          What is it, sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          That thing running down the          street... That was to draw us in...          Slowly, fading in, we hear what Nantz hears now...          A RUMBLING SOUND BEHIND THEM. Building. Nantz spins to it.          SGT. NANTZ          They're coming. We took the bait,          now they're cutting us off.          PVT. KERNS          I can't see a goddamn thing!          But the SOUND of their ADVANCE tells us there's many.          SGT. NANTZ          Light it up!          The squad lets loose with a barrage of FIRE as...                                                                                                              28.          TRACER FIRE shoots back at the marines from the smoke.          Glimpses of INDISTINCT FIGURES moving fast.          LT. MARTINEZ          Mottola, get on the radio. See if          we can get some air support.          Mottola starts working the radio, trying to remain calm as.'..          PROJECTILES EXPLODE in BRIGHT FLASHES around the marines.          PVT. SIMMONS          Contact front! Contact front!          Correggio, frustrated, peers through the smoke.          CPL. CORREGGIO          What are we shooting at?!          PVT. MOTTOLA          Lieutenant. Command says air power          is totally committed. Enemy          contact all over the area...          Martinez stares back at this ominous news as...          The MARINES FIRE back into the THICK SMOKE. But the enemy          attack keeps INCREASING in ferocity.          One PROJECTILE hits a wall above Lenihan. It EXPLODES, some          kind of liquid splashing onto him. Lenihan grimaces.          PVT. LENIHAN          Ahh, shit! It's burning!          His HELMET is being eaten away by the liquid. Imlay is          immediately at Lenihan's side, pulling the helmet off.          Lenihan's skin is blistering, oozing.          PVT. LENIHAN                         (PANICKED)          My face, man...! How's my face?          PVT. IMLAY          Ugly as ever, bro.          The squad hunkers down, trying to find any cover-available--          behind cars, trees.          Martinez drops BEHIND A CAR, pulls out his MAP, checking it          for escape routes.-                                                                                                              29.          Chaos as ENEMY TRACER FIRE increases, exploding around them.          Martinez looks desperate, forced to FLEE FROM COVER by the          alien fire.          LT. MARTINEZ                         (SHOUTS)          Fall back! Here!          He leads them further down the side street.          SGT. NANTZ          We can hold this position,          Lieutenant!          LT. MARTINEZ          We're gonna get pinned down!          SGT. NANTZ          Sir, these things seem to be          operating tactically! Don't let          them dictate your decisions...          LT. MARTINEZ                         (SHOUTS)          Move to live, marines!          The squad follows Martinez, retreating...          INTO A 'WALK' STREET.          JUST A SIDEWALK separates the houses opposite each other.          A moment. SILENCE. Nantz looks at the heavy FOLIAGE, dense          SHRUBS and TREES on both sides. He knows:          SGT. NANTZ          It's an ambush. This is the kill          zone!          Nantz slings his COMBAT SHOTGUN forward.          SGT. NANTZ          FIRE!          On Nantz' order, the SQUAD OPENS FIRE just as...          ALIEN FIRE EXPLODES from the THICK COVER of bushes and trees.          Nantz leads the brutal counterattack, PUMPING and FIRING his          combat SHOTGUN.          Martinez is shouting orders, directing the men as...                                                                                                              30.          Kerns backs against a fence, overwhelmed by the chaos. ; He          aims, shoots. Then he freezes.          Correggio steps in front of Kerns, firing to protect him.,          Lenihan takes a hit from the enemy tracer fire exploding„          around the marines. He's blown back into thick bushes as...          THE REST OF THE SQUAD battles fiercely.          An alien PROJECTILE slams into Cpl. Grayston'S ARM. The          SPRAY OF LIQUID bubbles out from the wound.          Then something grabs Grayston through the bushes...          Nantz sticks his SHOTGUN into the bushes, fires. BOOM. And          Grayston is suddenly free. Nantz drags him into...          THE FRONT YARD OF A HOUSE.          The squad follows, Correggio pulling Kerns into the yard.          THEY BACK TOWARD THE HOUSE.          Guerrero, Imlay and Simmons lay down an awesome barrage with          powerful SAWS (Squad Automatic Weapon), covering.the retreat.          Trees and bushes are shredded, houses are splintered.          All this mayhem allows the squad to...          BARGE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR OF THE HOUSE.          Pandemonium. The marines are sweaty, bleeding, scared.          PVT. SIMMONS          Jesus! Oh my God!          CPL. STAVROU          Keep your shit together!          PVT. SIMMONS          What the hell are those things?!          CPL. HARRIS          They're the goddamn enemy.          PVT. IMLAY          Yeah, and there's a million of 'em!          PVT. SIMMONS          Where'd they come from?! Why'd          they come here?!                                                                                                              31.          LT. MARTINEZ          Everyone... just calm down.          PVT. SIMMONS          Calm down?! We keep shooting          them... Why don't they die?!          SGT. NANTZ          Stow that shit, Private.          (turns, to the others)          Watch the yard. Secure the back.          We're not dyin' here today.          The marines take up firing positions at windows and doors.          CORREGGIO EYES KERNS.          CPL. CORREGGIO          You okay?          Kerns stares back, deer in the headlights. He nods.          ADUKWU IS WRAPPING GRAYSTON'S ARM as Grayston fumbles for a          CIGARETTE. Adukwu lights it for him.          CPL. GRAYSTON          I know. These things'll kill me.          Adukwu smiles. Grayston stares at his arm, ironically:          CPL. GRAYSTON          Hell, now that just ain't fair.          Nantz moves to Martinez, who is staring down at the wounded          Grayston and Guerrero.          SGT. NANTZ          Sir, what are your orders?          Martinez turns, stares at Nantz.          LT. MARTINEZ          I led us right into that ambush.          SGT. NANTZ          Sir. Your orders.          Beat. Martinez nods.          LT. MARTINEZ          Let's figure out how we get out of          here. We'll medevac the wounded          from that park.                                                                                                              32.          Nantz nods, turns to Mottola.          SGT. NANTZ          Radio the FOB. Get us a medevac at          that park by the community center.          As Mottola works the radio, he's startled to see Guerrero,          who has been SLASHED across both eyes.          PVT. GUERRERO          I can't see, Motorola.          Mottola, horrified, steadies his voice.          PVT. MOTTOLA          You'll be okay.          A slight beat. Then...          PVT. GUERRERO          You're one shitty liar, bro.          PVT. IMLAY          Hey, where the hell is Lenihan?!          Everyone stops, stares.          EXT. BACK YARD OF DIFFERENT HOUSE - SAME          Lenihan, pressing a hand into his side, BLOOD oozing between          his fingers, peers INTO THE BACK YARD at...          A SWIMMING POOL, its water gently lapping. A GARAGE nearby.          Lenihan, startled by the SOUND of ALIENS RUNNING in the alley          behind the house, takes cover BY THE GARAGE.          He struggles to remain calm. Then the sound FADES. He          waits. Silence. Lenihan starts to edge,out as...          A BANG rings out on the far side of the garage.          Lenihan spins back behind cover, eyes desperately searching.          INT. HOUSE - SAME          Nantz shoulders his M-16. Martinez eyes him.          SGT. NANTZ          I'll go for Lenihan, sir.                                                                                                              33.          LT. MARTINEZ          All right. We'll package the          wounded, then rally on 10th street.                         (TURNS)          Mottola, Imlay. Go with the          sergeant.          The two quickly step to Nantz.          PVT. IMLAY          We got your six, Sergeant.          Anything you need.          SGT. NANTZ          What I need is for you to keep          quiet. And stay close.          PVT. IMLAY          Right. Got it. Quiet.          SGT. NANTZ          Starting now, Private.          As Nantz turns, Mottola slaps Imlay in the helmet.          INT. BACK YARD OF DIFFERENT HOUSE          Lenihan creeps around the garage, spies a SIDE DOOR leading          into it. He grabs the handle. Mercifully, the door opens.          INT. DARK GARAGE - CONTINUOUS          Lenihan falls INTO THE DARK GARAGE. Boxes and old furniture.          Just one dirt-stained WINDOW on an opposite wall.          Lenihan crouches in the dim light, coughs, spitting up blood.          He turns on his radio, says into it:          PVT. LENIHAN          Motorola? You copy?          His RADIO buzzes back with Nantz' voice:          SGT. NANTZ (V.0.)          Lenihan. This is Sgt. Nantz...          PVT. LENIHAN          Sergeant, Jesus, I had to turn the          radio off..'. These things are          everywhere!                                                                                                              34.          EXT. ALLEY - SAME          Nantz is MOVING, with Mottola and Imlay. covering.          SGT. NANTZ                         (INTO RADIO)          We're coming for you, Lenihan.          What's your location?          INT. GARAGE - SAME          Lenihan looks across the garage, out of the window...          PVT. LENIHAN          I'm in a garage... I can see two          palm trees right next to it. House          is white with black shutters...          Just as something BANGS against the garage.          SGT. NANTZ (V.0.)          Is the house a two-story?          Lenihan stares, his eyes going wide, panicked.          SGT. NANTZ (V.O.)          Lenihan, is the house a...?          Lenihan CLICKS the radio OFF.          Then waits, very still, listening, M-16 held tightly. His          breathing turns shallow-- from loss of blood and from fear.          Lenihan sees the BRANCHES of a bush SWAYING outside the          window, as if something just brushed past it.          EXT. STREET - SAME          Nantz, Mottola and Imlay moving through the thick smoke...          Nantz still trying to raise Lenihan on the radio.          SGT. NANTZ          Lenihan...? Lenihan...?          Imlay taps Nantz on the shoulder, motions to his ears. He          hears something...          The marines freeze, Nantz clicking the radio off as...          Nearby, they hear SOUNDS of aliens running... Somewhere...                                                                                                              35.          The marines crouch, weapons up, straining to see through the          smoke. They remain stock still. Then...          The sound fades into the distance.          Nantz looks at the men. Motions. They creep forward as...          INT. GARAGE - SAME          Lenihan moves TO THE WINDOW, searching the garage floor,          desperate not to step on anything that would make noise. He          edges forward to peer through the dirty glass. Then...          THUD THUD THUD. More NOISES... On the garage roof now.          Lenihan looks up, panicked as...          CRASH! The WINDOW suddenly CRASHES IN.          Lenihan spins, FIRING wildly, lighting up the garage as...          He stumbles to the door, fumbling for the handle, falling...          EXT. BACK YARD OF HOUSE - CONTINUOUS          .OUT OF THE GARAGE. Lenihan staggers back, eyes darting          along the garage roof, gun aimed.          Nothing there.          As Lenihan continues backing away, peering through the          drifting smoke at the garage, he's unaware that BEHIND him...          A SHADOWY ALIEN FORM IS RISING FROM THE POOL.          Lenihan doesn't see it, but he senses it. He turns, FIRES...          A SPLASH as the shadowy alien figure is blasted back INTO THE          POOL, disappearing under the water.          Quickly, nervously, he loads another mag, edging to the pool.          He peers over the pool edge...          An indiscernible DARK FORM lays on the bottom of the pool.          Lenihan is transfixed a moment. Then he raises his rifle to          punch more rounds into the thing as...          WHOOOM! The creature launches OUT OF THE WATER!                                                                                                              36.          BLISTERING GUNFIRE! As Nantz, Mottola and Imlay burst into          the yard. They fire, as does Lenihan.          The fusillade of bullets tears the creature up.          The marines STOP FIRING as the alien falls to the ground.          They stare amazed at the 7 ft. tall ALIEN CORPSE... Rigid          skeleton bursting out of its skin, some strange layer of          machinery intertwined with its flesh.          CPL. MOTTOLA          Oh my God... What the hell are          these things?          PVT. IMLAY          They're butt ugly, that's what they          are.          Nantz grabs onto Lenihan, noticing his wound.          SGT. NANTZ          We're gonna get you to the medevac,          Private.          PVT. LENIHAN          Thank you, Sergeant. Thanks for          coming for me.          SGT. NANTZ          But Lenihan...          PVT. LENIHAN          Yes, Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          Ever get separated from your unit          again, I'll find you and shoot you          myself.          PVT. LENIHAN          Yes, Sergeant.          Imlay slings Lenihan's arm around his shoulder and they're          instantly moving, RUNNING FROM THE YARD.          EXT. SIDE STREET - MOMENTS LATER          The men meet up with the others. Adukwu and Kerns carrying          Grayston on a litter, Simmons holding onto the blinded          Guerrero, guiding him.                                                                                                              37.          LT. MARTINEZ          All right, let's get to the          community center...          They head off, Simmons still supporting Guerrero as THWACK!          An alien projectile slams INTO SIMMONS' THROAT. Choking, he          CRUMPLES to the ground. Guerrero stands, blind, helpless.          Panic. The marines spin, searching for targets.          LT. MARTINEZ          Move! Grab Simmons! Go, go!          Stavrou hoists Simmons as the marines run off, FIRING to          cover their retreat, as...          The SILHOUETTES of DARK ALIEN FORMS are visible on distant          rooftops, watching the rifle squad disappear down the street.          EXT. STREET - LATER          Nantz, Martinez and the rest of the squad hustle silently          through the street, supporting their wounded. They take          cover behind cars, peering out to see...          The PARK in the distance. A wide open FIELD with a COMMUNITY          CENTER BUILDING on the far side.          There are distant sounds of warfare, but the area here seems          strangely quiet.          Then, out of the smoke, an IMAGE APPEARS... Something MOVING          AT THEM...          The marines all shift, aim forward, about to blast away as...          FOUR MARINES come into view, moving ghost-like.          Nantz signals with his flashlight. The marines hurry over,          silently falling behind the cars.          LT. MARTINEZ          You guys are 2/5?                         MARINE          2nd squad, 3rd platoon...          LT. MARTINEZ          Where's the rest of your unit?                                                                                                                             MARINE          This is it, Lieutenant. Everyone          else is dead or missing.          The news hits Martinez hard. He eyes Nantz.                         MARINE          We were on the street, like, ten          minutes and they ambushed us. As          soon as we radioed for help, it's          like they were everywhere...          PVT. MOTTOLA                         (ON RADIO)          Medevac's incoming, lieutenant.          LT. MARTINEZ          All right. Stay with us.          And the squad moves out...          EXT. PARK - MOMENTS LATER          A large FIELD stretches from the street to a squat BUILDING,          the COMMUNITY CENTER.          The specter of LIGHTS is thrown onto the field, an other          worldly effect until we realize the lights are coming from...          A MEDEVAC HELICOPTER          Descending steadily, its thundering rotors whipping the air..          LT. MARTINEZ          Load the wounded. Sgt. Nantz, Cpl.          Harris-- let's find the civilians.          Martinez, Nantz and Harris run to the community center as...          The WOUNDED are hustled to the CHOPPER as it TOUCHES DOWN.          INT. LOBBY OF COMMUNITY CENTER - CONTINUOUS          The marines burst in, looking around. To the right, a GYM.          To the left, a HALLWAY with numerous side rooms off of it.          SGT. NANTZ          U.S. Marines! U.S. Marines!          A clattering. The marines immediately move toward it,          peering down the dark hall...                                                                                                              39.          Then the DOOR to a side room OPENS to reveal...          A WOMAN, MICHELE, 28, staring out, looking shell-shocked.          SGT. NANTZ          How many of you?          A MAN, JOE RINCON, 45, jacket and tie, behind her.                         MICHELE          There's five of us. Three kids.          Nantz is immediately moving.          SGT. NANTZ          Where? Where are the kids?          He pushes past the adults, sees TWO GIRLS AND A BOY, 8-10.          EXT. ATHLETIC FIELD          The marines run up to the chopper with the wounded. INSIDE          THE MEDEVAC they see WOUNDED laid across the helicopter's          cabin. A CREWMAN in the medevac yells over the din:                         CREWMAN          You called in with two wounded!          PVT. IMLAY          We got four!                         CREWMAN          Can't take four! We have no room!          CPL. STAVROU          Make goddamn room!          A beat. The crewman relents in the face of Stavrou's          impressive bulk, tries to make room.          Imlay and Stavrou get Simmons and Grayston on.          Mottola helps Guerrero in, squeezing his hand.          PVT. GUERRERO          I'll work on that mix for you.          PVT. MOTTOLA          Thanks, dude. Think I'm gonna need          it.          Lenihan crawls onto the chopper's deck with Imlay's help.                                                                                                              40.          PVT. IMLAY                         (SMILES)          You just had to get outta the shit.          Lenihan smiles back.                         CREW CHIEF          Now! We're moving now!          Imlay bumps fists with Lenihan, backs away as...          EXT. COMMUNITY CENTER - CONTINUOUS          Nantz runs out with the BOY. Followed by Martinez and          Harris, hustling the two GIRLS out.          SGT. NANTZ          Wait! Stavrou, hold it! KIDS!          Stavrou tries to hold the chopper, screaming at it as...          THE MEDEVAC RISES.          Nantz, Martinez and Harris run to the chopper with the kids.          The marines around the medevac are screaming up at it, trying          to hold it, but to no avail.          The CHOPPER GAINS ALTITUDE as suddenly...          BOOM! A SHOCK WAVE OF ENERGY FIRES from the west as...          The MEDEVAC takes a DIRECT HIT.          The devastating energy wave blasts it END-OVER-END...          The massive helicopter CRASHES INTO A HOUSE blocks away,          exploding, as...          Nantz turns ominously as an unearthly BUZZING SOUND FADES IN.          LIGHTS are ADVANCING from a street leading to the field.          As the SOUND and LIGHTS BUILD, Nantz runs to the other          marines to get them off that field.          He pulls on them, urging them to the COMMUNITY CENTER doors.          They REACH THE COMMUNITY CENTER, fall into it just as...          Glowing through the heavy cover of smoke... The STROBING          LIGHTS of some strange ALIEN AIRCRAFT zooming overhead.                                                                                                              41.          Speeding toward Lincoln. FIRING PULSING WAVES OF ENERGY,          lighting up the distant sky.          INT. COMMUNITY CENTER LOBBY - CONTINUOUS          The marines and civilians fall into the large entryway. The          marines are breathing hard, looking stunned.          PVT. KERNS          Goddamn flying saucers now...?!                         ADUKWU          All those guys on the chopper...          PVT. IMLAY          Why'd those bastards have to come          down here and start this shit?!          SGT. NANTZ          That is not relevant, Imlay!          They're here. They're trying to          kill us. Kill them first!          Martinez eyes Nantz on this. Then barks orders:          LT. MARTINEZ          Secure the perimeter! Stavrou,          give me an ammo check. Cpl.          Correggio, take three men, set up          an Observation Post on the roof.          SGT. NANTZ          You heard the lieutenant. Move!          The dazed marines begin COVERING doors and hallways. We see          in their FACES that it's a very different fight now.          Nantz turns, can see the MEDEVAC ABLAZE out a window. His          solemn stare hints at a growing desperation.          Martinez steps up to him, looks out. Quietly:          LT. MARTINEZ          They got air power, too... Knocked          that medevac right out of the sky.          So much for ruling the air.          Nantz just keeps staring out.                                                                                                              42.          LT. MARTINEZ          Listen, Sergeant. These men are          scared. A little compassion would          go a long way...          Nantz turns on Martinez now.          SGT. NANTZ          How's that gonna help them survive,          Lieutenant?                         (BEAT)          I'll lead these marines. But don't          ask me to get close to them.          Nantz walks off.          INT. COMMUNITY CENTER LOBBY - MINUTES LATER          Marines on post, watching various windows and doors.          Imlay kneels by the kids, who look devastated by the day's          events. Imlay wets a rag with water from his canteen, wiping          the dust and dirt from the kids' faces.          The younger girl, KIRSTEN, 8, begins crying. She suddenly          hugs Imlay.          Imlay, startled by this, looks uncomfortable at first. Then          hugs the little girl back, smiling at the older.girl, ANY,          10, Kirsten's sister.                         AMY          You're not gonna leave us, are you?          A beat. Then Imlay smiles.          PVT. IMLAY          No way, sweetheart.          The woman, Michele McDermott, is clearly rattled, struggling          for composure, eyes constantly moving to the kids.          Mr. Rincon, a calm, watchful air about him, stands with his          son, HECTOR, the kid who Nantz had carried to the chopper.                         RINCON          My son and I came here... There          were only three cops, spread pretty          thin... Then those things attacked.          Police couldn't stop them.                                                                                                              43.          SGT. NANTZ          What happened to everyone?                         RINCON          I don't know. Most people ran. We          hid in a side room, found Michele          and the girls... Couldn't see what          happened. Just heard... Screams.                         MICHELE          I have my nieces for the week. My          sister and her husband are in          Hawaii for their anniversary... Is          it safe there? I heard this is          happening in other places...          Martinez is at a loss for words.                         MICHELE          What do they want from us? Why are          they here?          LT. MARTINEZ          I...don't know. Right now, our job          is just to get you to safety, okay?          Harris appears from the hallway.          CPL. HARRIS          Lieutenant, something you should          see...          EXT. COMMUNITY CENTER / BACK DOOR - MOMENTS LATER          The door opens. Nantz and Martinez edge out with Harris. As          they peer into the smoke drifting past the building, an IMAGE          becomes clear...          An ALIEN BODY. On the ground nearby. Ripped by bullets.          They step to it cautiously, realizing... IT'S NOT QUITE DEAD!          The alien MOVES, turning as if to stare back at them.          Without a word, Nantz lifts his rifle, shoots it in the head.          INT. COMMUNITY CENTER LOBBY - SAME          Hector sits with Kirsten and Amy, digging candy Nerds out of          his backpack. He turns to the other kids, holding the box          out. Both kids reflexively accept handfuls of candy.                                                                                                                             44          Then Hector notices Imlay standing nearby.                         HECTOR          Want some Nerds?          Imlay holds his hand out. Hector shakes candy into it as...          Nantz enters, calling to Adukwu:          SGT. NANTZ          Adukwu, bring your kit.          Adukwu is immediately up, moving to Nantz.          SGT. NANTZ          We're gonna cut one of these things          open. See if we can figure out          what makes 'em tick.          Michele overhears, offering:                         MICHELE          Maybe I can help, sergeant. I'm a          vet...          SGT. NANTZ          You're a veteran?                         MICHELE          (can't help but smile)          No, a veterinarian.          SGT. NANTZ          Oh... Okay. Well, thanks, um...          Nantz has forgotten her name. She smiles.                         MICHELE          Michele.          SGT. NANTZ          Right. Michele.          (smiles, embarrassed))          Sorry.          Mottola walks up.          PVT. MOTTOLA          Sergeant. Can't raise anybody on          the radio. We're cut off.          Off Nantz' look...                                                                                                              45.          EXT. COMMUNITY CENTER ROOFTOP          Kerns, Correggio and TWO 2nd SQUAD MARINES are on watch,          peering down to the street from opposite sides of the roof.          All on edge, exhausted, dirty. No one says a word.          Correggio eyes the other marines. They exchange an 'all-          clear' sign. Then Correggio pulls up a radio.          CPL. CORREGGIO                         (INTO RADIO)          O.P. reporting. We're clear up          here.          Correggio and Kerns look over the destroyed streets, smoke          and flames rising from buildings in the distance, glimpses of          white phosphorous raining down. A beat, then...          CPL. CORREGGIO          .fucking aliens.          Kerns looks at Correggio, starts to chuckle at the absurdity          of it all. Then Correggio laughs. It's infectious. It's          desperate. Then the laughter slows. Stops.          PVT. KERNS          You think those things get scared?          They're probably just grunts like          us. Probably dumped into battle,          told to go fight...          Kerns looks out... The constant thud and crack of warfare...          A city crumbling. V          PVT. KERNS          I thought I could handle it...          CPL. CORREGGIO          You are handling it. Thing I'm          worried about is Nantz.          PVT. KERNS          Sergeant saved our ass at that          ambush... He knows what he's doing.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Yeah? Tell my brother that.                                                                                                              4.6 .          INT. SIDE ROOM / COMMUNITY CENTER - LATER          Nantz enters with Michele and Adukwu. Stavrou and Harris are          in the room with Martinez. They step aside, revealing... The          ALIEN BODY on the floor.          Michele stops, stares. She and Adukwu are both taken aback          at the sight of one of these things up close.          SGT. NANTZ          You sure you can do this?                         MICHELE          I was more sure two minutes ago.          She looks to Adukwu. They step to the body together as...          Nantz approaches Martinez.          SGT. NANTZ          What's the plan, Lieutenant?          LT. MARTINEZ          Mission is still to get the          civilians to the Forward Operating          Base. We've got a battalion there,          all that firepower... I was          thinking, I saw a bus couple of          blocks back on 11th...          SGT. NANTZ          Maybe we should stay on foot.          Martinez looks at Nantz. Then opens a MAP, pointing to          'Santa Monica Airport' on it.          LT. MARTINEZ          The FOB is here, at the airport...          That's miles to cover with those          kids... And those bombs are gonna          drop in a little more than an hour.          (thinking, deciding)          We've got to move fast.          SGT. NANTZ          We have no radio contact, nothing          to let us know the best route to          take... And a bus is a big target.          LT. MARTINEZ          I made the call, Sergeant. It's my          responsibility.                                                                                                              47.          Beat. Then Nantz nods, turns.          SGT. NANTZ          Harris, Stavrou, lieutenant needs          recon on a.bus. It was abandoned          two blocks south off 11th...          LT. MARTINEZ          If it runs, get it back here.          SGT. NANTZ          Can you hotwire a bus?          CPL. HARRIS          (gestures to Stavrou)          He's from Jersey, sergeant.          A nod from Nantz on this.          EXT. COMMUNITY CENTER ROOFTOP - MINUTES LATER          Correggio and Kerns are surveying the street. Correggio          pulls the RADIO up, talks quietly into it:          CPL. CORREGGIO          Stavrou, Harris...          INT. EXT. COMMUNITY CENTER - SAME          Stavrou and Harris peer out an EXTERIOR DOOR as they hear          Correggio (V.0.) from the RADIO:           CPL. CORREGGIO (V.0.)           .you're clear down 11th Street.          They exchange a quick glance.          CPL. STAVROU          Every day a holiday, buddy...          CPL. HARRIS          .every meal a feast.          They slip outside, running off silently.          EXT. COMMUNITY CENTER ROOFTOP - SAME          Correggio and Kerns watch Harris and Stavrou run down the          street, covering them with their M-16s.                                                                                                              48.          INT. SIDE ROOM - LATER          Adukwu and Michele, scalpels in hand, hover over the alien          body. Its thick leathery skin has been sliced open.          Martinez and Nantz observe, Imlay on post nearby.          LT. MARTINEZ          How's it going?                         ADUKWU          Well, Lieutenant, I'm a medic, Dr.          McDermott's a vet... We weren't          sure who was most qualified to cut          this thing open.          Martinez smiles.                         ADUKWU          Look. It's been surgically          modified...          He pulls tissue aside, revealing where the alien's 'gun' is          attached to its arm.                         ADUKWU          Part of its arm has been amputated          to fit this weapon.          SGT. NANTZ          Talk about commitment to cause.          Adukwu examines a VENTED CAP just to the right of where the          alien's 'heart' would be. Thick, fleshy veins run from it.          LT. MARTINEZ          What is that thing?          PVT. IMLAY          He's from Nigeria, Lieutenant. Not          a different solar system.          Nantz looks over at Imlay.          SGT. NANTZ          Thank you, private.          Adukwu twists the cap. It comes free, revealing...          A GELATINOUS ORGAN. Slimy, viscous fluid seeping from it..          Everyone steps back, reacting to the putrid smell.                                                                                                              49.          PVT. IMLAY          Whoa, that stinks!          Everyone steps back except Michele, that is. Unfazed, she          takes her scalpel, makes an INCISION across the organ.          PVT. IMLAY          I'm gonna puke. Swear to God, I'm          gonna puke!          SGT. NANTZ          Whatever you do, do it quietly,          Imlay.          EXT. STREET - SAME          Stavrou forces the door of a METRO BUS open, climbs INTO THE          BUS, ducking below the steering wheel as...          Harris covers, staring off to the FAR STREET. Tree branches          there cast LONG SHADOWS which sway with the breeze. Then...          The indistinct FORM of an ALIEN scout appears in the shadows.          CPL. HARRIS          Hey, Stavs...          CPL. STAVROU          Relax. First thing I wired was a          school bus. Trying to impress this          Betty. She had a huge rack...          CPL. HARRIS          Enemy scout. Move your ass.          Stavrou doesn't look up. Just works diligently.          CPL. STAVROU          Don't rush genius.          EXT. ROOF - SAME          Correggio and Kerns remain still, peering into the distance.          PVT. KERNS          Shit. You seeing what I'm seeing?          Correggio pulls BINOCULARS...          POV THROUGH BINOCULARS: A SIDE STREET, TREES overhanging it.                                                                                                              50.          Movement. ALIEN SHAPES massing on the side street.          Appearing and disappearing through the smoke and trees.          Then the POV THROUGH BINOCULARS PANS to pick-up...          The BUS. Nearby. In the path of the alien movement.          Correggio grabs the RADIO. Says:          CPL. CORREGGIO                         (INTO RADIO)          Harris. Movement, 1500 meters up          11th.          Suddenly, a loud BANG rings out below them.          PVT. KERNS          What the hell was that?!          They exchange glances with the other marines across the roof.          All four move quickly, converging on one side of the          building, look down the side of it...          An EXTERIOR DOOR leading into the center is BROKEN OPEN.          INT. COMMUNITY CENTER SIDE ROOM - SAME          Michele finishes her incision, carefully PEELS A SECTION OF          THE ORGAN BACK.          Something vaguely METALLIC is revealed within it.          As Michele touches her scalpel to it, it SPARKS.          Then starts rhythmically GLOWING.          LT. MARTINEZ          Looks like it's receiving a          signal...          Suddenly, the ORGAN CONVULSES rapidly. Expanding,          contracting.          Nantz sees the ALIEN'S GUN VIBRATING now, the whole arm          TWITCHING, spreading through the alien's body like a seizure.          LT. MARTINEZ          This thing's still alive!          Nantz pulls his KA-BAR FIGHTING KNIFE, thrusting it DEEP INTO          THE ORGAN, twisting viciously.                                                                                                              51.          The organ stops vibrating. The glow fades. The body slumps.          SGT. NANTZ          Not so hard to kill when you know          where to aim.          Mottola appears in the room, a sense of controlled panic.          PVT. MOTTOLA          Lieutenant. There's a breach.          INT. HALLWAY / COMMUNITY CENTER - SECONDS LATER          The marines step from the side room with Michele. They peer          up and down the dark hallway, listening...          OTHER DOORS along the hall take on an ominous presence now.          SGT. NANTZ                         (LOW)          They in the building?          PVT. MOTTOLA          No clue, Sergeant. An exterior          door was broken open.          SGT. NANTZ          Lieutenant. Maybe we should gather          the civilians in the gym.          LT. MARTINEZ          Good idea, Sergeant.          INT. / EXT. BUS - SAME          Stavrou, still beneath the wheel. Harris, eyes on the street          as the RADIO crackles with Correggio's VOICE:          CPL. CORREGGIO (V.0.)          Harris, hostiles advancing right at          you. Approximately two hundred          meters and closing...          CPL. STAVROU          Done!          Stavrou hops into the driver's seat, tries to start the bus.          It doesn't turn over.          Harris and Stavrou exchange a quick glance. Stavrou drops          below the wheel again...                                                                                                              53.          INT. LOBBY - CONTINUOUS          More ominous BANGS ring out from down the long hallway,          BUILDING in intensity.          Nantz stands, staring DOWN THE DARK HALL with his M-16,          surprised as Martinez steps up next to him.          LT. MARTINEZ          We're in it together, Sergeant.          Martinez slams a grenade into his launcher now.          LT. MARTINEZ          C'mon, Mottola. Get that bus here!          Mottola is on the radio, frantic:          PVT. MOTTOLA          Where the hell is that bus?!          INT. BUS - SAME          Stavrou is still underneath the wheel. Harris looks out to          see ALIENS rounding the corner in the distance.          CPL. HARRIS          Get this thing started.          CPL. STAVROU          Hey, why didn't I think a' that?          INT. COMMUNITY CENTER LOBBY - SAME          CRACK! Down the hall, the sound of a door splintering...          SGT. NANTZ          We're out of time!          Martinez looks INTO THE GYM, sees the kids staring back.          LT. MARTINEZ          Go! Get 'em out!          Imlay swings the GYM DOOR OPEN, moving the civilians out.          IN THE LOBBY          Nantz and Martinez stand together, aiming at the hall as...          A final BANG... We hear a door being BURST OPEN.                                                                                                              55.          Nantz, in the front, exchanges a glance with Martinez at the          ominous sight of...          A PLUME OF BLACK SMOKE rising in the distance.          THEY SPIN ONTO LINCOLN BOULEVARD.          Screech to a halt at the obstacle course of BATTLE WRECKAGE          strewn across the street.          Noxious BLACK SMOKE is rising from BURNING HUMVEES and          TRUCKS. Smoking CRATERS pothole the street.          LT. MARTINEZ                         (SHOCKED)          Jesus Christ. Those alien ships          took the whole line out.          SGT. NANTZ          We've got forty minutes 'til they          level this area.          LT. MARTINEZ                         (TO STAVROU)          Get us to the Forward Operating          Base. Fast.          Stavrou lays on the gas, speeding away as, in the back, the          other marines stare out. Mottola peers into the sky...'          PVT. MOTTOLA          Where the hell are all our jets?          EXT. BUS (MOVING) - SIDE STREETS, SANTA MONICA          The bus snakes through jammed streets, abandoned cars, bombed          out buildings.          INT. BUS -SAME          Martinez is in the front with Stavrou, Nantz in the middle of          the bus, hovering near the civilians sitting on the floor.          Rincon holds Hector, Michele with her arms around both girls.          Marines on the seats above, weapons ready.          Nantz hears Imlay whispering to Harris:          PVT. IMLAY          Why the hell'd the lieutenant wanna          take a bus? We're sittin' ducks.                                                                                                              56.          SGT. NANTZ          (low, hard)          The call's been made, private. You          so eager to decide the fate of all          these people?          Imlay is stone silent.          SGT. NANTZ          Didn't think so.          Then Nantz looks up, meeting eyes with Martinez as...          A NOISE in the distance now. A low VIBRATION, building.          Nantz moves to Martinez. They peer out of the front.          LIGHTS fill the sky, heading east. As they approach...          The VIBRATION gets louder and louder, shaking the bus now.          SGT. NANTZ          Everybody get down, weapons inside          the bus. Make no noise.          The men pull their guns in from the windows, crouching as low          as possible, straining to see, hear...          The vibrations grow louder, LOUDER! Suddenly... WHOOSH!          An ALIEN AIRCRAFT rips overhead.          Then another, and another, and another... All heading east.          The image of their speed, their power, their other-          worldliness is overwhelming, devastating.          Nantz stares, relief flooding his face, as the armada flies          on. Leaving them behind. Until...          Suddenly, Mottola's RADIO BLARES!                         COMMAND                         (FROM RADIO)          All stations this net, urgent          traffic. Multiple enemy aircraft          moving east...          As the transmission rings out, Nantz looks up to see...          One ALIEN SHIP split from the armada, TURN BACK TO THE BUS.                                                                                                              57.          LT. MARTINEZ          It's coming back...!          The children scream, marines agitated... all hear a low          vibration, echoing off buildings, heading their way.          SGT. NANTZ          (staring at the radio,                         REALIZING)          Kill that radio!          Mottola turns off the radio.          The alien aircraft STOPS. Hovers a moment.          SGT. NANTZ          They're tracking our signals! All          radios, cell phones-- keep          everything off!          Everyone stares silently, tensely. Then...          A single BEAM OF LIGHT suddenly shines from the alien craft.          Then the alien aircraft MOVES FORWARD again. Slowly. But          still heading their way.          LT. MARTINEZ          It's still coming... It's          searching...          Nantz grabs a PORTABLE RADIO.          He looks around the bus, sees the little girl, Kirsten,          ponytail in her hair. He leans down to her.          SGT. NANTZ          Hi. Could I have your, uh, hair          thing?          She stares, wide-eyed, at this fearsome, sweating marine.                         KIRSTEN          My... pony holder?          Nantz nods. She pulls the PONY TAIL HOLDER from her hair,          hands it to Nantz. He smiles. Briefly. Heads to the front.          SGT. NANTZ          Anything happens, Lieutenant, get          the SAWS up front and take off with          these kids.                                                                                                              58.          LT. MARTINEZ          Sergeant...          BUT NANTZ IS OUT OF THE BUS.          EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS          Nantz runs down the street with the radio under his arm.          Heading toward a GAS STATION.          Nantz glances back, sees... The ALIEN AIRCRAFT SEARCHING the          street below, getting closer and closer to the bus as...          INT. BUS (STOPPED) - CONTINUOUS          Amy and Kirsten pressed under seats, Michele covering them          up... Hector closing his eyes in his dad's arms...          The marines duck low, gripping their weapons.          They hear the aircraft coming closer, almost above them.          LIGHT starts shining through the windows as...          EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS          Nantz, almost to the gas station, wraps the pony tail holder          around the radio, looks back to see.          The ALIEN AIRCRAFT STOP, HOVERING OVER THE BUS!          Shining lights into it, scanning, scanning...          INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS          Hector's eyes widen, staring up at the light. Michele pulls          the girls in closer, trying to calm them, herself.                         MICHELE                         (WHISPERING)          It's gonna be okay, it's gonna be          okay, it's all gonna be okay.          Everyone freezes as the BEAM reflects off the walls, filling          the space with a horrible bright light, exposing them as...                                                                                                              59.          EXT. STREET BY GAS STATION - CONTINUOUS          Nantz presses the "Push to Talk" button on the radio as...          The alien craft suddenly TURNS in NANTZ' DIRECTION.          Nantz wraps the pony tail holder around the radio, keeping          the button on it depressed so it's SENDING A CONSTANT SIGNAL.          He slides the radio toward one of the GAS PUMPS...          Keeps moving, diving BEHIND A VAN across the street.          Nantz peers around it, sees...          The alien aircraft HEADING FOR THE GAS STATION, descending.          Nantz slams a grenade into the launcher on his M-16.          The alien aircraft zooms at the gas pumps, its unearthly hum          growing louder and louder as...          NANTZ FIRES THE GRENADE.          The GAS PUMP EXPLODES! A MASSIVE FIREBALL HITS THE ALIEN          CRAFT!          Nantz flattens himself to the street as...          The ALIEN AIRCRAFT, trailing smoke and flames, thunders out          of control RIGHT OVER HIM...          Then CRASHES into a building... BLOWING APART!          INT. BUS (STOPPED) - CONTINUOUS          Marines ducking, civilians screaming as...          DEBRIS from the alien ship BLOWS OVER THE BUS, burning pieces          falling to the ground...          EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS          Nantz runs out from behind the van, checks the remains of the          burning alien aircraft, rifle raised.          NO ALIEN inside. The ship is a DRONE.          Nantz takes this in, then starts back for the bus.                                                                                                              60.          INT. BUS (STOPPED) - SAME          Nantz runs back onto the bus as Stavrou pulls swiftly away.          SGT. NANTZ                         (TO MARTINEZ)          That ship was an unmanned drone,          lieutenant. And that alien we cut          open had something in it receiving          signals... They must have one          helluva command and control center.          Martinez pulls his map out, eyes Nantz.          LT. MARTINEZ          That was some real John Wayne shit,          Sergeant.          Nantz tries to shrug it away. But Martinez nails him.          LT. MARTINEZ          Don't do it again. We work as a          team, Sergeant. We clear?          Beat. Nantz nods.          SGT. NANTZ          We're clear, Lieutenant.          Nearby, Imlay whispers to Mottola:          PVT. IMLAY          Who's John Wayne?          Martinez looks up from the map, turns to Stavrou.          LT. MARTINEZ          Take the freeway, Corporal. Cuts          half the distance off our drive.          SGT. NANTZ          Sir. We get on that freeway, we'll          be exposed...          LT. MARTINEZ          It doesn't seem like we're much          safer out here. We've got two          shitty options-- I'm choosing the          one that gets us there fastest.          (then, quietly)          We don't want to be in this area          when the bombs start to fall.                                                                                                              61.          EXT. STREET BY FREEWAY - MINUTES LATER          The bus bangs past a few stalled cars, cruising up a ramp,          onto the freeway.          INT. BUS (MOVING) - 10 FREEWAY - SAME          Martinez and Nantz crouch near the front, keeping watch.          From this elevated vantage point on the freeway, the big          picture emerges IN THE DISTANCE:          The BATTLE FRONT is moving east... A DEFENSIVE LINE of TANKS          is visible, blasting away at aliens.          SWARMS of DRONE AIRCRAFT engage F-18 JETS flying at them.          LT. MARTINEZ          Jesus...                         (TO STAVROU)          Double time, Corporal.          The bus barrels forward, careening BETWEEN CARS, knocking          some out of the way.          LT. MARTINEZ          Take the next exit. Head south.          We're two clicks from the FOB.          The bus drives onto the shoulder, past the sea of abandoned          cars, heading to the off-ramp.          Nantz appears uneasy. They are exposed on this freeway and          he doesn't like it.          He MOVES TO THE BACK, peering out windows, checking angles.          Michele looks up as he passes, sees a GASH on Nantz' head.                         MICHELE          Your head, Sergeant. You're          bleeding.          Nantz touches his head, looks at the blood. He wipes it on          his pants. Michele smiles at him softly.                         MICHELE          Bet when you woke up this morning,          you didn't think your day would end          up like this.          SGT. NANTZ          That's a pretty safe bet.                                                                                                              63.          SGT. NANTZ          Hostiles. Back up. Now, go!          Stavrou guns the BUS BACKWARDS, knocking abandoned cars out          of the way...          LT. MARTINEZ          Guess you were right, Sergeant.          CPL. STAVROU          Incoming! Down! Down! Down!          A projectile EXPLODES next to the bus! Sending CARS FLYING!          SHRAPNEL TEARS A GIANT HOLE through the side of the bus.          TWO 2nd SQUAD MARINES are instantly killed, blown clear out          of the hole. Civilians screaming...          Stavrou hits the gas, BACKING THE BUS UP the best he can.          An ILLUMINATION heading toward them... BOOM!          Another projectile DESTROYS AN OVERPASS behind the bus!          Trapped. And ALIENS are STREAMING AT THEM in the distance.          Stavrou works the shift, grinding gears, gunning the bus...          BEHIND A CONCRETE DIVIDER close by the COLLAPSED OFF-RAMP.          The off-ramp now dangles precariously: a 15-foot cliff-face          of missile-scarred concrete and re-bar.          Martinez looks over to Nantz, not sure what to do...          SGT. NANTZ          (to Martinez, low)          Let's dismount, set up a perimeter,          get the civilians down to the          street.          LT. MARTINEZ          Stavrou, get down that ramp, secure          the street! Kerns, Adukwu, help          get the civilians off the freeway.          Stavrou starts off the bus for the broken off-ramp.          LT. MARTINEZ          Harris, Imlay, give us overwatch up          on the roof. The rest of you push          out 20 meters, set up a perimeter.                                                                                                              64.          SGT. NANTZ          And don't forget, aim chest, right!          Imlay joins Harris, SMASHING THE SKYLIGHT out of the bus          roof, CLIMBING OUT, taking position on the bus' roof.          The rest of the marines EXIT THE BUS. Nantz grabs Adukwu.          SGT. NANTZ          Stay here with the civilians. As          soon as Stavrou gives the sign, get          them down to the street!          Adukwu nods. Nantz starts off the bus.                         HECTOR          (looks up at Nantz)          Are we gonna die?          Nantz turns back to Hector. Manages a smile.          SGT. NANTZ          Course not, kid, we're the good          guys.          And Nantz is off the bus.          EXT. BUS ROOF          Imlay and Harris, prone, propped on their elbows, Imlay          scanning through binoculars, sees...          30-40 ALIEN FIGHTERS coming their way.          PVT. IMLAY          I got about three dozen hostiles,          twelve o'clock. 300 meters now.          Coming fast.          EXT. 10 FREEWAY - SAME          Nantz stands with Martinez at the concrete barrier. Nantz'          scans the marines' positions.          SGT. NANTZ          Prepare to repel. Fix bayonets!          This might get up-close and          personal!          Just a low CLATTERING now, the battle-rattle of Nantz and his          men fixing BAYONETS to their rifles. Nantz-yells out:                                                                                                              65.          SGT. NANTZ          Cpl. Harris!          CPL. HARRIS          Sir!          SGT. NANTZ          Being vastly outnumbered provides a          marine rifleman with what?          CPL. HARRIS          A target rich environment, sir!          SGT. NANTZ          Marines. We stand here. Let these          bastards know who they're fucking          with.          PVT. IMLAY          2/5!          Sporadic FIRE now, as the marines fire on the advancing          aliens, still at a distance.          EXT. OFF-RAMP - 10 FREEWAY          Stavrou descends down the collapsed off-ramp, negotiating the          fractured, angled slab of roadway.          Kerns covers him above, from the freeway.          Stavrou hits the ground, securing the area. He looks up at          Kerns and gives him the "All Clear" sign. Kerns takes off...          INT. / EXT. BUS - 10 FREEWAY          Adukwu stands in.the bus, looking out to see Kerns running          back to them, signalling. Adukwu turns to the civilians          crowded behind him.                         ADUKWU          Okay, it's clear. We're gonna go.          Amy and Kirsten, terrified, look up at Michele. She hurries          the girls to the door of the bus as Kern runs up.                         MICHELE          It's okay. I'll be right behind          you.          Adukwu picks up Amy. Kerns picks up Kirsten.                                                                                                              66.          PVT. KERNS          (takes a breath, telling          them, himself)          It's gonna be scary but we can do          it, okay?          An alien round flies through the bus, shattering the back          window! The girls scream.          Kerns and Adukwu race away, running with the girls... Rincon          grabs Hector. He and Michele follow...          RUNNING ACROSS THE FREEWAY...          To the off-ramp. It seems like a long way off. They run          past Correggio, rocking a SAW full auto. The FIRE is          deafening.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Come on!! Come on!! Get some!          Rincon and Michele, breathing ragged, feet pounding, look          up... They're getting closer and closer to the off-ramp as...          Alien rounds blow chunks of concrete off the roadway...          UP AHEAD, Kerns and Adukwu rush the girls to the EDGE OF THE          RAMP, hurrying to get them down as...          Rincon and Michele REACH THE OFF-RAMP now.          Kerns grabs Hector, HELPING HIM ANGLE DOWN THE OFF-RAMP,          getting the boy safely handed down to awaiting Stavrou as...          ON THE FREEWAY          BANG! MOTTOLA TAKES A ROUND TO THE SIDE.          Rincon spins, sees the marine drop, SCREAMING.          Rincon looks back at Adukwu, who is busy getting Michele down          the off-ramp now.          Then Rincon looks back to the freeway, sees Mottola writhing          in agony.          Rincon runs to Mottola, kneeling next to him.          Mottola looks up at Rincon, fear in his eyes.                         RINCON          It's okay, son. I got you.                                                                                                              67.          Rincon starts to PULL Mottola TOWARD THE OFF-RAMP...          Struggling to get him to safety.          Mottola's body starts to convulse. Rincon stops, tries to          control him. Sees Mottola's eyes rolling back in his head.          Then Rincon is horrified when he looks up to see...          ALIENS RACING FORWARD... Heading his way!          Moving in and out of the sea of abandoned cars.          Rincon redoubles his efforts, pulling on the injured Mottola.          As he does, he looks back up to see...          The ALIENS ARE ALMOST ON TOP OF HIM now as...          BANG! The first alien is shot by...          Nantz, suddenly there, M-16 poised.          Rincon looks from Nantz to... MORE ALIENS coming at them!          No choice-- Rincon PICKS UP the injured Mottola's RIFLE.          Scared, but resolute. He looks at Nantz.                         RINCON          What do I need to know?          The slightest beat, then...          SGT. NANTZ          It's set to fire in three round          bursts. We're low, so don't waste          your shots.          Rincon holds the M-16 against his shoulder, aiming.                         RINCON          Just sight down the barrel...?          SGT. NANTZ          And give 'em hell.          Rincon sights down the barrel of his rifle at ONE ALIEN in          the distance. He squeezes the trigger...          BY THE FREEWAY OFF-RAMP          Adukwu sees Rincon and the wounded Mottola now. He runs to          them, incoming rounds WHIZZ by as...                                                                                                              68.          Adukwu bends over Mottola, seeing that he's dead. Adukwu          closes Mottola's eyes as...          An ALIEN APPEARS from behind a car, AIMING STRAIGHT AT          ADUKWU. It is about to FIRE as...          BAM! BAM! BAM! Rincon FIRES, blowing the alien away.          Adukwu looks up, realizing Rincon just saved him.          He,meets eyes with Rincon, who stares back, stunned a moment          by his own actions. Adukwu immediately shouts a. warning.:          PVT. ADUKWU          Keep fighting!          Rincon snaps back, turns to fire... A moment too late as...          THUMP! Rincon is HIT. He falls.          Adukwu grabs Rincon, sees the pain and fear in the civilian's          eyes. Adukwu rips open packages of QuickClot, begins          spreading the fast-clotting powder on Rincon's wounds as...,          EXT. BUS ROOF          Harris and Imlay firing... From this height, they can see the          full expanse of freeway:          More WAVES OF ALIENS coming, using abandoned cars as cover...          CPL. HARRIS          Shit, Lieutenant, we're gonna be          overrun !          BY THE BUS / ON FREEWAY          Nantz and Martinez exchange a desperate glance on this. Then          Nantz. looks around, assessing the situation.          SGT. NANTZ          Gimme two of your smoke cannisters!          Martinez pops two canisters off, hands them to Nantz.          LT. MARTINEZ          Take someone to cover you!.          Nantz turns, sees Correggio. Then he turns the other way,          sees Kerns.          SGT. NANTZ          Kerns! Come on!                                                                                                              69.          PVT. KERNS          Me, Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          I'm not worried about fightin' next          to you, Kerns. Now let's go.          A slight smile from Kerns on this as he follows Nantz...          Who sprints low, scurrying between cars... 10... 20... 30          yards closer to the enemy.          Nantz and Kerns arrive at a large SUV.          Kerns ducks low, covering Nantz. Nantz crouches, opens the          gas tank...          Unscrews the fuse from the smoke grenade body, tossing the          canister aside... pulls the pin... flips the 'spoon' off...          SGT. NANTZ          Get ready to move on my word.          Nantz holds the fuse over the open gas cap.          SGT. NANTZ          Now!          Nantz drops the fuse into the gas tank.          They go RUNNING BACK TOWARD THE BUS as...          B0000M! The SUV EXPLODES in a ball of flames!          Nantz and Kerns dive BEHIND ANOTHER VEHICLE, Kerns crouching,          laying cover fire. Nantz pulls a fuse.          SGT. NANTZ          Again! Ready?!          PVT. KERNS          (pops up, fires)          Ready!          Nantz drops the fuse, they run... The CAR EXPLODES in flames!          Nantz runs to ANOTHER CAR, making sure Kerns is with him.          EXT. BUS ROOF          Harris and Imlay see what Nantz is doing...                                                                                                              70.          He's creating a WALL OF FLAME... Funneling the enemy into          one NARROW CORRIDOR!          Forcing them through the OPENING between the CARS ON FIRE...          PVT. IMLAY          Damn, Sergeant sure as shit's          ninja. He just gave us a kill          zone, didn't he, Corporal?          CPL. HARRIS          Soon as they come through, blow 'em          back to hell!          The first alien appears THROUGH THE BURNING CORRIDOR. Imlay          blows it away! Harris blows away the next... It's working!;.          EXT. FREEWAY BY BUS          Nantz and Kerns fall back BEHIND THE BUS, next to Martinez,          Correggio and a 2nd squad marine.          Along with Harris and Imlay on the bus roof, they are the          only ones left holding the aliens off. All FIRE forward as...          More and more aliens begin pouring through, braving the          flames... Into the line of fire...          Many aliens go down. But because of their sheer numbers,          few start to make it through, FIRING BACK at the marines.          Martinez sees the 2nd SQUAD MARINE go down in front of him.          Martinez rushes to his side... HE'S DEAD.          Martinez rises to shoot and...THWUMMP. Martinez is hit.          He looks down, blood running over his belt. Shock on his          face. He's been shot in the stomach.          Martinez looks around...          The remaining aliens now only cars apart from them.          Two forces taking cover behind spraying glass and punctured          metal, firing directly into the faces of their enemy.          Martinez pulls himself together, struggling over to Nantz.          LT. MARTINEZ          Pull the men back... Pull 'em all          back now, Sergeant. I'm gonna stay          and cover.                                                                                                              71.          Nantz looks at Martinez about to say something. Sees the          blood draining from his stomach, down his legs.          Nantz grabs Martinez, pulling him up.          SGT. NANTZ          Lieutenant. We gotta get you outta          here. No way we're leavin' you...          LT. MARTINEZ          I said I got it...          SGT. NANTZ          I'm not leaving you here to die.          LT. MARTINEZ          That's not your call, Sergeant.          Now get your men outta here...          He pushes Nantz away, looks around, the chaos slowing down          for him. He reaches into his vest...          Martinez hands the LETTER we saw earlier to Nantz. A moment          between them.          Nantz nods, then spins, moving, yelling to the men.          SGT. NANTZ          We're pulling back. Head to the          lower street, now! NOW!          Nantz runs toward the edge of the destroyed off-ramp, laying          cover as the men head down.          Harris and Imlay slide down off the roof of the bus, joining          the others running to the off-ramp. Correggio sees...          MARTINEZ STAYING BEHIND, shooting at the aliens, drawing          their fire.          CPL. CORREGGIO                         (TO NANTZ)          What about the lieutenant?          SGT. NANTZ          Keep movin', corporal! Go!          All the men climb DOWN THE OFF-RAMP. Nantz turns to go back          to get the Lieutenant himself, sees...          Martinez hauling himself toward the rear of the bus.                                                                                                              72.          EXT. BUS          Martinez, behind the back of the bus, struggles to breath,          still drawing fire. Grabs his radio.          LT. MARTINEZ                         (TRANSMITTING)          This is Lieutenant Bennie Martinez',          U.S. Marine Corps!          Aliens converge toward the back of the bus.          Ten... Fifteen... Twenty ALIENS heading for the signal...          Heading for Martinez.          LT. MARTINEZ                         (TRANSMITTING)          1st Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 5th          Marines!          He turns, sees Nantz coming back for him...          Martinez pulls a smoke canister from his vest... Holds it up          for Nantz to see...          Then unscrews the fuse, pops open the gas cap of the bus...          ALIENS CLOSE IN ON MARTINEZ...          Nantz turns, dives for cover as...          Martinez drops the fuse into the gas tank...          A flash of fear across his face as... Aliens are on him as...          KABOOOOOOOOOOOOM! THE BUS EXPLODES IN FLAMES!          Massive fire ball shooting 300 feet into the sky'!          Nantz raises his head, debris raining down, sees...          ALL THE ALIENS DEAD.          His eyes wide at Martinez's sacrifice, the burden now on him,          he's in charge of the men, the civilians...          Nantz gets to his feet. Runs for the off-ramp.                                                                                                              73.          EXT. OFF-RAMP. LOWER STREET - CONTINUOUS          Nantz drops down the destroyed off-ramp... Runs to the          marines and civilians BEHIND THE ABANDONED VAN. He sees          Adukwu working on Rincon, Hector crying in Michele's arms.          SGT. NANTZ          Package Mr. Rincon for transport.          We've got to move...          CPL. CORREGGIO          Sergeant. Did you just leave Lt.          Martinez back there?          SGT. NANTZ          Lt. Martinez stayed behind. He          knew he was dying...          CPL. CORREGGIO          So you left him? Is that how it is          with you?          SGT. NANTZ          He sacrificed himself to save our          asses.          (steps to Correggio)          Now you get your head straight,          Corporal. This is my unit now.          Nantz looks at the men, who stare back, shaken.          SGT. NANTZ          Let's move. We need shelter...          Those bombs are gonna drop!          EXT. STREET - MOMENTS LATER          A frantic dash through the street, rubble and fires all over.          Marines carry the kids. HECTOR, in Harris' arms, head          swiveling, eyes searching for his dad, sees... Imlay and          Adukwu CARRYING rINCON, who appears lifeless.          INT. BIG 5 SPORTING GOODS STORE - CONTINUOUS          A dark, empty store. The marines burst in, aiming rifles.          SGT. NANTZ          Tighten this place down. See if we          can establish communications. Hard          line only! Nothing wireless.                                                                                                              74.          The marines move into position, covering windows and doors.          Nantz turns to Michele, huddling with the kids.          SGT. NANTZ          Listen, we're out of the bomb          zone... But when they fall, we will          definitely be rocked. Make sure          the kids are prepared for that.          Hector suddenly breaks free, rushing forward.as Imlay and          Adukwu enter with Rincon, setting him down.          Nantz pulls blankets from a nearby rack, covering Rincon. As          he does, we see a glimpse of Rincon's BLOOD-SOAKED CLOTHING.          He is very pale. Blood flecks his lips.          Hector stares into his father's face, eyes filling. Rincon          touches Hector's face lightly.          SGT. NANTZ          It'll be okay. We'll get your dad          fixed up.          But when Hector looks to Nantz on this, he can't meet the          boy's gaze. Hector can see this isn't the truth.                         RINCON          Listen to me, son. I'm not going          to make it.          (a slight beat)          But you will.                         HECTOR          I don't want to go without you.                         RINCON          I know. But you have to. Now wait          with Michele a minute. Let me talk          to the sergeant.          Reluctantly, Hector allows Michele to lead him away.          SGT. NANTZ          Mr. Rincon, we can take you and...          Rincon turns to Nantz, steel-eyed.          MR. RINCON          Don't waste time, sergeant. You          and I both know what's going on          here.                                                                                                              75.          SGT. NANTZ          I can't leave you...                         RINCON          No. You can't take me.          Nantz is silent, at a loss.          ACROSS THE STORE          Imlay stares at a CLOCK on the wall, calls out:          PVT. IMLAY          Four minutes and those bombs drop,          Sergeant.          NANTZ looks over at this. But his expression is blank.          He turns back to Rincon, who's staring straight into him.                         RINCON          I keep playing it over in my          head... If I'd done things          differently... Maybe I could have          gotten Hector out earlier.          SGT. NANTZ          You can't look back. You make the          best decision you can...          A beat.                         RINCON          Just promise you'll get my son out          of here, Sergeant.          Nantz looks like he has the weight of the world on him.          SGT. NANTZ          I promise.          Rincon holds out his hand. Nantz takes it, meeting his gaze.                         RINCON          I'm trusting you with the only          thing I have in this world.          Nantz stares, nods.          CPL. HARRIS          Sergeant! Hard wire connection!                                                                                                              76.          Nantz turns to see Harris behind a COUNTER, at a COMPUTER--          an INTERNET CONNECTION on its screen.          The marines crowd around, reading the ominous HEADLINE...          "GLOBAL INVASION -- Alien 'Creatures' Attack From Oceans"          PICTURES of ALIENS racing through urban streets, swarming          over cars stuck in massive lines,of traffic...          Underneath these pictures we see CAPTIONS, a litany-of doom:          Battle: Tokyo... Battle: Cape Town... Battle: Los Angeles...          Then a BUDDY LIST pops up on the screen, an INSTANT MESSAGE:          'baby, is that you?'          CPL. HARRIS          Damn, that's Cherise...          Harris quickly types back a response: 'you ok?'          The message comes back: no, real scared.'          Harris responds: 'where are you?'          He hits SEND. But the message doesn't go through. He clicks          the mouse. But the computer has frozen.          Then 'Internet Connection Lost' pops up on screen.          Everyone stares. Harris stands, walks from the computer.          Stavrou watches him go as...          ACROSS THE BIG 5 FLOOR          HECTOR steps back to his dad's side. Rincon's eyes open          slowly. He looks at Hector. Manages a small smile. Reaches          out, wipes a tear from his son's face.                         RINCON          I'm very proud of you, son. You're          being so brave...          Hector throws his arms around his father, hugging him          tightly.                         RINCON          I love you, Hector.          Mr. Rincon smiles. His face peaceful. Hector is silent,          tears rolling down his face.                                                                                                              77.          PVT. IMLAY          Thirty seconds!          CPL. STAVROU          Get away from the windows! Get          those kids behind cover!          The marines back away from the windows into the center of the          store, hunkering down with the civilians. Everyone stares at          the CLOCK on the wall as it ticks...          PVT. KERNS          C'mon. Fry those bastards...          PVT. IMLAY          Those bombs drop, then everything's          gonna change. Get to the FOB, get          some goddamn ammo...          PVT. KERNS          Some goddamn food...          CPL. CORREGGIO          Some goddamn tanks.          Beat. Everyone stares as... The CLOCK ticks to NINE...          AND NOTHING HAPPENS.          They wait. Fear grows on everyone's faces.          PVT. KERNS          They shoulda' dropped, right? We'd          feel it from here, wouldn't we?          CPL. CORREGGIO          That much ordinance? They'd feel          it in Nevada. Something's wrong...          PVT. IMLAY          Maybe it's good... Maybe we turned          the tide...          CPL. STAVROU          Yeah, right, Imlay... 'Cause we          were kickin' ass out there.                         MICHELE          What's happening, Sergeant? What's          that mean?          SGT. NANTZ          I don't know.                                                                                                              78.          Adukwu quietly approaches Nantz now, voice low.          PVT. ADUKWU          Sergeant... Mr. Rincon is dead.          Nantz turns, staring off at Hector, sitting by his father.          It's all too much...          SGT. NANTZ          Jesus...          Nantz takes a deep breath, his mind racing, the world closing          in on him. He turns to Michele.          SGT. NANTZ          Listen, our Forward Operating Base          is about a mile away. We have to          go on foot. I'll need your help          with Hector now.          Michele nods. Watches as Nantz slowly walks to Hector.          Nantz kneels by the boy.          SGT. NANTZ          I'm sorry Hector. Your dad...          didn't make it. You understand?          Hector, sobbing, overwhelmed by grief and fear, looks up at          Nantz.                         HECTOR          I don't wanna be here. I want my          dad back. I want it all to go back          to the way it was before...          AT. THE FRONT OF THE STORE.          Stavrou, eyes on the still street, sees...          TWO ALIEN SCOUTS appear. They crouch by a car.          CPL. STAVROU          Sergeant, we got hostiles in front.          All the marines stiffen, the clatter of rifles being raised.          But Nantz, tearing up himself, just stays focused on Hector.          SGT. NANTZ          Me too, Hector. I wish it could go          back, too...                                                                                                              79.          STAVROU LOOKS OUT TO THE STREET          MORE ALIENS appear now, moving TOWARD THE STORE.          CPL. STAVROU          Out of time, sergeant.                         NANTZ          Tries to lead Hector away. Hector struggles.          SGT. NANTZ                         (URGENTLY NOW)          We have to go, Hector.                         HECTOR                         (CRYING)          No! No! I want my dad!!!          Nantz lifts Hector. We see Hector's face, stricken, staring          back at his father as he's carried off.          The other marines gather up Michele and the girls...          And everyone is moving silently THROUGH THE STORE as...          AT THE FRONT OF THE STORE          CRASH! The plate glass window is SHATTERED as...          An ALIEN smashes through it.          The alien is very still, peering around. Then it begins to          creep forward as...          A SECOND ALIEN, then a third, a FOURTH follows, leaping into          the store with sinewy power.          AT THE REAR OF THE STORE          Nantz peers out a BACK DOOR. It's clear. They MOVE OUT just          as...          MORE ALIENS leap in. They move in formation THROUGH THE          STORE as...          THE BACK DOOR silently shuts.          QUICK CUT TO:          EXT. ALLEY - CONTINUOUS          As Nantz and the others slip out of the back...                                                                                                              80..          SGT. NANTZ          Stavrou, Harris.          CPL. HARRIS          Yes, Sergeant.          SGT. NANTZ          Blow something up.          CPL. STAVROU          Yes, Sergeant.          As the others RACE AWAY down the alley...          Stavrou takes his rifle butt, SMASHES the WINDOW of a nearby          CAR. Reaches in... Jams the car's gear into.neutral.          As the massive Stavrou pushes the car AGAINST THE STORE'S          BACK DOOR...          Harris pulls his KA-BAR FIGHTING KNIFE.          Harris.slides UNDER THE CAR... Punctures the GAS TANK.          As Harris rolls away from the FLOW OF GASOLINE...          Stavrou LIGHTS it. Both men RUN DOWN THE ALLEY.          CPL. STAVROU          Don't think they'll be comin' out          that way...          As... BOOM! The car, blocking the door, goes up in FLAMES.          DOWN THE ALLEY          Stavrou and Harris FALL BEHIND A BUILDING with the others.          NANTZ, still holding Hector, looks off to a SIDE STREET..He          signals to Kerns and Correggio.          SGT. NANTZ          Check it out.          The two marines run down the alley to the SIDE STREET.          Nantz sets Hector down. Looks the boy in the face.          SGT. NANTZ          This is the hardest thing you'll          ever have to do...          Michele, arms around Kirsten and Amy, watches Nantz.                                                                                                              8.1.          SGT. NANTZ          But we'll get through it together.          I promise, Hector.          Hector nods, still crying. Nantz exchanges a glance with          Michele, who moves to Hector, comforting him.          Nantz steps away as Kerns and Correggio run up, reporting:          CPL. CORREGGIO          Looks good, both directions.          Out of earshot of the civilians, Nantz spins to his men with          fiery intensity.          SGT. NANTZ          We are not losing one more of these          civilians. Period. Am I making          myself clear?                         (BEAT)          Let's move.          The group jogs silently DOWN THE ALLEY.          EXT. STREET - LATER          Nantz leads the group down the residential street, tidy          bungalows on either side.          CPL. STAVROU          You okay, bro?          CPL. HARRIS          I hadn't a pushed Cherise to get          married, she'd still be in Chicago.          Suddenly, Nantz stops, fist raised. The squad halts as...          A SOUND fades in, a deep RUMBLING.          The marines FALL BEHIND CARS now, pulling the civilians down          with them as the RUMBLING continues to BUILD.          SGT. NANTZ          Under the cars! Now!          The marines frantically shed their packs, squirming UNDER THE          CARS with the civilians, pulling the kids under as...          A GIANT HOST OF ALIENS                                                                                                              82.          Rounds the corner in the distance, THOUSANDS'OF THEM, filling          the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. An army on the move.          NANTZ DRAGS HECTOR UNDER ONE CAR with him,' pulls the boy in          close, gets his legs under the car, under cover, just as...          The mass of aliens SWARM PAST, the ground shaking, RUMBLING.          The humans HUDDLE UNDER THE CARS, peering out to see the legs          and arms of the aliens flying by. Some bound OVER THE CARS,          which bounce up and down, BANGING with the aliens' weight.          The RUMBLING EBBS as the aliens disappear into the distance.          EXT. STREET - LATER          The squad moves in formation, surrounding the civilians.          Little Kirsten comes up behind Correggio. He's surprised as          she slips her hand into his. Correggio looks down, seeing          how scared she is. He smiles, grips her hand tightly.          Up ahead, Nantz leads, MAP in hand.          PVT. IMLAY          How far, sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          One block over.          Imlay smiles at Kerns.          PVT. IMLAY          We'.re gonna make it! Dude, we're          gonna make it...          But as they approach a CORNER... Nantz stops, exchanges a          glance with his corporals.                         MICHELE          What's the matter?          SGT. NANTZ          The smell.          An ominous beat. The squad moves down the dark street as...          ASH FLOATS DOWN here from the sky... Like a beautiful early          winter snow...          THEN THEY TURN THE CORNER                                                                                                              83.          We slowly MOVE IN TIGHTER and TIGHTER on Nantz.          Until we are CLOSE ON NANTZ' FACE.          A REDDISH GLOW is reflected there. Nantz stops, looking          horrified. We REVERSE to see...          A DEEP BLACK COLUMN OF SMOKE rising into the night sky from          NUMEROUS FIRES that rage within the fence line of...          SANTA MONICA AIRPORT.          As they approach the Forward Operating Base, the devastation          is slowly revealed:          CRASHED F-18 JETS and COBRA HELICOPTERS line the runways.          BODIES and SMOLDERING MARINE VEHICLES litter the airfield.          PVT. IMLAY          Jesus... They wiped our Forward          Operating Base right off the map.          PVT. KERNS          Now we know why those bombs never          dropped. They took our jets out.          CPL. CORREGGIO          This was a dug-in marine Corps          position that had armor, air and          ground. Maybe we got nothing left          to fight with...          Michele MEETS EYES WITH NANTZ. His look tells us everything--          THEY'RE LOSING THIS WAR.          Nantz turns, spies an AIRPORT FIRE STATION by the runways.          SGT. NANTZ          Let's get under cover. Now.          INT. DESERTED FIRE STATION - MOMENTS LATER          The marines enter cautiously, rifles up. Then they hustle          the civilians inside when it appears safe.          SGT. NANTZ          Lock this place down.          The marines fan out, securing doors, checking windows as...          Nantz kneels by Hector, tries to comfort him.                                                                                                              84.          SGT. NANTZ          You're a brave kid. When this is          over, you're going to be a hero.                         HECTOR          People always say that. "He's a          hero."                         (BEAT)          No one even knows what a hero is.          SGT. NANTZ          Your dad was a hero.          Hector just stares back.          SGT. NANTZ          He saved Pvt. Adukwu up on that          freeway.          Hector exchanges a glance with Adukwu. Something passes          between them... One man died so another could live...          SGT. NANTZ          You save a marine under fire, you          get a medal, y'know.          Nantz pulls out a MEDALLION, the CREST of the 2/5 on it.          SGT. NANTZ          This is our medallion. It's yours.          For your dad.                         (SMILES)          You're 2/5 now, Hector.          Hector takes the heavy medallion, looks it over, pointing to          the 2/5 MOTTO on it:                         HECTOR          What's that mean, "retreat hell?"          SGT. NANTZ          During World War I, an officer from          our regiment was ordered to          retreat. He said, "Retreat? Hell,          we just got here!"          Nantz is happy to see a slow smile from Hector now.          Harris calls out:          CPL. HARRIS          We're secure, sergeant.                                                                                                              85.          Nantz stands on this, addresses the marines:          SGT. NANTZ          Listen up. We need ammo. Kerns,          Adukwu stay with the civilians.          The rest of us, let's move.          Nantz puts a hand on Hector's shoulder.          SGT. NANTZ          I'll be right back.          EXT. SANTA MONICA AIRPORT RUNWAY - MINUTES LATER          Black plumes of SMOKE fill the night sky as Nantz and his men          head silently toward the bodies of dead marines and aliens.          The tarmac is a smoldering WASTELAND: Empty, bombed-out          buildings on its outskirts, burning aircraft and vehicles          litter the runways. Fires crackle.          As they go, the marines rifle the pockets and pouches of          their fallen comrades, pulling out any available ammo.          IMLAY whispers a low, heartfelt refrain to the dead marines          he searches.          PVT. IMLAY          Sorry, bro.          He moves on to another fallen marine, searching.          PVT. IMLAY          Sorry, bro.          Across the runway, Nantz pulls ammo from the pouch of a dead          marine. Then looking up, he sees...          A LAV-25 ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER. INTACT.          Nantz moves to it. Then turns. A LOW WHISTLE from him and          the marines look up. They hustle to Nantz. Everyone gives          the LAV an excited once-over.          CPL. STAVROU          Looks like it just rolled off the          goddamn assembly line!          PVT. IMLAY          Good job, Sergeant!                                                                                                              86.          SGT. NANTZ                         (TO STAVROU)          Can you drive this thing?          CPL. STAVROU          Hell, if it's got an engine,          sergeant, I can drive it.          SGT. NANTZ          Good. Get it running.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Seems like vehicles are targets...          SGT. NANTZ          A minivan's a target, Correggio. A          LAV with a Bushmaster chaingun...          That's an asset.          Imlay grins. Nantz motions to him, starting off.          SGT. NANTZ          Come on.          PVT. IMLAY                         (FOLLOWING)          Me? Where, sergeant?          Nantz points to the CONTROL TOWER, its windows blown out.          SGT. NANTZ          High ground. We need to see the          big picture.          INT. FIRE STATION - SAME          Kerns has a tub of ice cream, scooping bowls for the kids.          PVT. KERNS          My dad's a fireman. They love          their ice cream. Used to visit the          firehouse with my little brother,          they always had tons of it...          (re. the kids)          My brother's not much older than          these guys.                         MICHELE          You don't look much older, either.          She gazes at the kids, pain and anger washing over her.                                                                                                              87.                         MICHELE          Is this day ever going to end?          PVT. KERNS          Maybe the Sergeant'll find a way          outta here.                         MICHELE                         (SMILES)          What's with you guys anyway?          Doesn't anybody have a first name?                         ADUKWU          Emmanuel. Manny.          PVT. KERNS          Pete. You married? Family?                         MICHELE          I'm single. Lots of family back in          Nebraska, though... Hopefully          they're safe...          She shakes the thought away.                         MICHELE          What about you guys?          PVT. KERNS          Little Rock.                         ADUKWU          Nigeria. I came here to be a          doctor.                         MICHELE          You should be a surgeon, the way          you cut into that thing...          Adukwu smiles. Then his smile fades as he looks around.                         ADUKWU          Yeah. Maybe...          INT. CONTROL TOWER - MOMENTS LATER          Nantz enters with Imlay. They look around...          The WINDOWS have been BLOWN OPEN. The wind rustles papers          through the ghostly space, blowing them out into the night.                                                                                                              88.          On one desk, a COMPUTER is flashing a SLIDESHOW: Happy          PICTURES of someone's family vacation.          From this, high vantage point, they can see for miles...          Nantz looks out one end of the control tower, sees all the          way to the ocean...          Then he turns, looks the other way, dead east...          A vista of EXPLOSIONS, spreading-into the distance. ALIEN          DRONE AIRCRAFT engage F-18s. One jet is blown up, spiralling          to the ground.          SGT. NANTZ          Look how far east they've gotten.          That's almost the whole city...          Nantz looks out through BINOCULARS:          Sees the HOLLYWOOD SIGN ablaze in the hills...          Then pans to a mid-city area. Stops when he sees one          quadrant of the city, blocks wide, SHIMMERING an INKY BLACK.          Some kind of DARK ENERGY WAVE emanating from the ground.          SGT. NANTZ          What the hell's that?          Imlay peers out.          SGT. NANTZ          There's zero activity there.          And the area does seem completely devoid of activity-- No          alien or human aircraft above it. Like a DEAD ZONE.          PVT. IMLAY          What are we gonna do, Sergeant?          Nantz, panning with the binoculars, sees a CHOPPER TAKING OFF          in the distance now.          Nantz grabs a MAP on the desk, eyes roaming over it. Then          looks back to where he saw the chopper.          SGT. NANTZ          That must be the alternate          extraction site. Maybe we can          evacuate the civilians there...          He turns to Imlay.                                                                                                              89.          SGT. NANTZ          Get them in the LAV. I'll radio          for an evac helicopter... When I          do, they'll be coming, so we have          to move fast.          PVT. IMLAY          Think we can make it, Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          We're gonna give it one helluva          try, Imlay.          He reassures the young marine with each-word:          SGT. NANTZ          We're not dying here.          INT. FIREHOUSE - LATER          The marines, absent Nantz, surround the civilians          protectively as they hustle them into the LAV.          CONTROL TOWER - SANTA MONICA AIRPORT - MINUTES LATER          Nantz standing alone with a RADIO PACK looking out into the          black night, wind blowing through the tower.          The LAV WAITS ON THE TARMAC below, engine running.          Nantz takes a deep breath. Presses the button on the RADIO.                         NANTZ                         (TRANSMITTING)          Any station, this is Foxtrot 2          November. I have four civilians          and seven marines, we're heading to          Alternate Extraction Point Charlie.          Requesting evacuation. I say          again, this is Foxtrot 2 November          heading to Alternate Extraction          Point Charlie. Out.          Nantz turns immediately, hurrying out.          EXT. CONTROL TOWER - SECONDS LATER          Nantz runs from the tower and climbs into the LAV.                                                                                                              90.          INT. LAV - CONTINUOUS          Nantz sees the civilians and marines crammed together in the          back amid gear and guns.          He turns to Stavrou behind the wheel.          SGT. NANTZ          Use the thermal sight. No lights.          Stavrou drives, spins away as Nantz climbs...          INTO THE TURRET          He mans the M-240 MACHINE GUN. Imlay beside him on the 25MM          BUSHMASTER CHAIN GUN.          Headlights off, running dark, Stavrou drives, peering through          the THERMAL SIGHT.          STAVROU'S POV THROUGH THERMAL          Washed green, the city a war zone, massive destruction..          An ALIEN DRONE winging toward the airport as...          EXT. STREET, NEAR SANTA MONICA AIRPORT - LATE NIGHT          The LAV moves fast in total darkness down a car-strewn          street. Santa Monica Airport fading behind them, suddenly...          BOOOOOOM-! Bright burst of light!          And the Control Tower explodes in a ball of fire.          INT. LAV - CONTINUOUS          Nantz watches the alien drone fly off into the night.          EXT. STREET - LATER - NIGHT          Miles away, the LAV drives through a CITY STREET, surrounded          by TALL BUILDINGS, the area a desolate wasteland now.          INT. LAV - SAME          Stavrou drives, hands gripping the wheel as he maneuvers          carefully through wrecked abandoned cars.                                                                                                              91.          IN THE TURRET          Nantz eyes a nervous Imlay.          SGT. NANTZ          Extract site's only a couple more          miles, Imlay.          Imlay nods back. Nantz peers down to...          STAVROU, BEHIND THE WHEEL...          Eyes focusing tensely through the thermal sight scope.          THERMAL SIGHT POV          Green wash of the city passing by. Tall, empty buildings all          around... Suddenly, a big DARK OBJECT in the street!          Stavrou SLAMS THE BRAKES. Civilians and marines in the tight          passenger compartment are thrown around.          Right in front of the LAV...          A massive CRATER. The street's impassable.          SGT. NANTZ          We gotta go around.          The LAV backs up, Nantz scanning the sky, gripping the M-240          machine gun, trying to see out into the darkness...          Then they TURN A CORNER... And a VIEW BETWEEN TWO TALL          BUILDINGS is harrowing...          FOUR ALIEN DRONE AIRCRAFT hovering... Then turning. Flying          toward them.          SGT. NANTZ          Get ready, Imlay. Here they come.          Stavrou looks out to see... A HELICOPTER in the distance.          CPL. STAVROU          Think I see our ride, sergeant!                         SGT NANTZ          Get us there. Cause we're about to          get lit up.          The alien drone ships are winging at them. They are only 200          meters out when...                                                                                                              92.          SGT. NANTZ          See what that Bushmaster can do,          Imlay!          Imlay OPENS UP on the 25MM BUSHMASTER CHAIN GUN.          PVT. IMLAY          Come on, you martian bastards!          The Bushmaster is a rapid-firing CANNON spewing 200 rounds a          minute, each capable of destroying a light tank.          For once, the aliens are overmatched. The ALIEN SHIPS take          HEAVY FIRE from the Bushmaster...          One goes down IN FLAMES, the others PEEL OFF, flying behind          buildings.          PVT. IMLAY          Where'd they go? Where'd they go?          Nantz is scanning the sky, then...          SGT. NANTZ          Imlay, on your six!          Imlay spins in the turret, picking up...          The three remaining ALIEN AIRCRAFT coming back around.          The lead alien ship FIRES!          A ,CAR EXPLODES next to the LAV. Imlay rocks in the turret.          PVT. IMLAY          Son of a...          Imlay targets, fires the Bushmaster...          The lead alien ship is HIT, winging out of control INTO A          SECOND SHIP. The TWO SHIPS EXPLODE into a building as...          The FINAL ALIEN AIRCRAFT dodges the FIREBALL, flying straight          at the LAV...          SGT. NANTZ          Getting close, Imlay...          PVT. IMLAY          I got it.          Imlay FIRES a burst. The last aircraft is hit...                                                                                                              93.          It PINWHEELS TO THE GROUND, exploding into FLAMING WRECKAGE          which hurtles RIGHT AT THE LAV.          SGT. NANTZ          Stand on it, Stavrou!          Stavrou pushes it, TRYING TO OUTRUN the burning wreckage...          Which is almost on top of the LAV as...          Stavrou spins AROUND A CORNER, escaping.          The wreckage explodes into a building behind them as...          THUMP - THUMP - THUMP! The sound of a UH-1'Medevac ECHOES.          PVT. IMLAY          The chopper!          Nantz looks out, sees the CHOPPER LANDING in the street.          The LAV screeches up amid the RUBBLE and SMOKE.          CPL. STAVROU          Last stop!          SGT. NANTZ          Everybody out!          The marines rush the civilians OUT OF THE LAV... Nantz and          Imlay scrambling out last.          SGT. NANTZ          Pretty decent shooting, Imlay.          PVT. IMLAY                         (GRINNING)          Goddamn, you did it, sergeant!          We're gonna get these people out!          EVERYONE RUNS TO THE CHOPPER.          The marines begin loading the civilians in, the old-school          CREW CHIEF hopping off to help the kids in.                         CREW CHIEF          You are in the middle of the shit,          Sergeant! Everything's been pulled          back.          SGT. NANTZ          What are you talking about?!                                                                                                              94.                         CREW CHIEF          We've lost most of our air assets.          We're abandoning Los Angeles. This          city's done...!          (to the pilot)          Let's go!          The chopper powers up, Nantz SCRAMBLES ON with the others.          INT. EVAC HELICOPTER - CONTINUOUS          The CHOPPER BEGINS TO LIFT OFF. As it rises, Nantz gazes out          at the CITYSCAPE. He sees fires, wreckage everywhere. Then          he looks off to see...          THE BLACK DEAD ZONE SHIMMERING NEARBY          Nantz watches the HELICOPTER BANK TOWARD THE BLACK ZONE. But          as it gets closer...          The HELICOPTER DIPS precipitously, suddenly losing altitude.          The kids SCREAM. The marines hang on.          Nantz sees the PILOT STRUGGLING with the controls. The          HELICOPTER'S GAUGES are going crazy.          The pilot BANKS HARD AWAY from the area, reversing course.          And the helicopter STABILIZES.          SGT. NANTZ          What the hell happened?!                         CREW CHIEF          Something there was playing hell          with our power!          Nantz stares at this. Then notices Hector watching. him.          He sees the 2/5 MEDALLION clutched tightly in Hector's hand.          Sees the words "Retreat Hell."          Nantz looks back at the MYSTERIOUS BLACK PATCH of cityscape.          Then he turns to the crew chief.          SGT. NANTZ          Set us back down!                         CREW CHIEF          What?!          The other marines in Nantz' unit look over, alarmed now.                                                                                                              95.          SGT. NANTZ          We need to recon that area!                         CREW CHIEF          We can't land! May not have power          to take off again...          Nantz looks out. Spies a BUILDING with a FLAT OPEN ROOF. He          points to it.          SGT. NANTZ          Then we'll rope down!          CPL. CORREGGIO          What the hell, sergeant? What's          going on?          SGT. NANTZ          There's something over there... We          could be the only ones left here to          figure out what it is.          (to the others)          Let's go, marines.          The marines look frightened, confused. They start to pull          themselves up. ROPES are dropped from the chopper as it          hovers over the building...          SGT. NANTZ          NOW! Go! Go!          The marines start to RAPPEL DOWN, one after another as...          Nantz exchanges a glance with Michele.          SGT. NANTZ          They'll get you safe.          He smiles at the girls. Then turns, nods at Hector. Puts a          hand on his shoulder. A BEAT.          SGT. NANTZ          See you soon, buddy.                         HECTOR          What are you gonna do?          SGT. NANTZ          We're gonna fight.          Nantz turns, grabs a ROPE, drops out of the chopper.                                                                                                              96.          EXT. BUILDING ROOFTOP - CONTINUOUS          As the chopper hovers, Nantz drops to the roof, hunkers down          with the other marines. Nantz watches the evac helicopter          fly off to safety.          Then he turns to the marines, who stare back hopelessly,          clearly at their lowest point.          PVT. KERNS          Why'd we get off the chopper,          Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          'Cause we have a job to do.          PVT. IMLAY          But we were getting out...!          CPL. CORREGGIO          You have some hunch and now we're          stuck out here in the shit?!          SGT. NANTZ          That's right. This fight's not          over.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Sergeant's gonna get us killed!          Just like my brother.          A beat. Nantz eyes Correggio. It's laid open now.          SGT. NANTZ          Believe me, Correggio, I grieved          for every marine I ever lost...          Nantz looks around now, from marine to marine.          SGT. NANTZ          But we are in the fight of our          lives right now. And our duty is          to keep moving forward. Keep          fighting. That's how we honor men          like your brother, Correggio. And          Lt. Martinez. And Hector's father,          who saved Adukwu's life. He wasn't          trained for that. He just picked          up a rifle and did what needed to          be done. If a civilian can do          that...                         (MORE)                                                                                                              97.          SGT. NANTZ (cont'd)          Well then I better square my shit          away and do whatever I have to do          to defeat this enemy. But I can't          do it alone.          Nantz stares. The tension is palpable.          SGT. NANTZ          I need you men. And maybe we'll          die fighting today. Not because          we're heroes. But because we're          goddamn United States marines, and          always will be.                         (BEAT)          I'm willing to give my full measure          for you. I'm hoping you'll do the          same for me.          A BEAT, glances exchanged. THEN ALL THE MARINES RISE AS ONE.          CPL. STAVROU          Sergeant. We'll follow you to hell          and back.          Nantz smiles, nods.          SGT. NANTZ          Good. 'Cause that's where we're          going.          EXT. STREET - MOMENTS LATER          The squad is moving in unison, covering all around,          approaching the LAV. They jump in.          INT. LAV - CONTINUOUS          Stavrou fires it up, drives off as... Nantz eyes the jumble          of gear. He grabs his COMBAT SHOTGUN, a portable RADIO,          which he makes sure is OFF...          Then an olive case marked: GLTD. He stuffs it in his pack.          PVT. IMLAY          Laser target, sir?          SGT. NANTZ          Might have to get some cruise          missiles in here.          PVT. IMLAY          Shit, yes, Sergeant.                                                                                                              98.          CPL. STAVROU                         (CALLING OUT)          Hostiles. Twelve o'clock.          Nantz looks up to see...          ALIEN SOLDIERS appearing on the street now.          Nantz goes back to stuffing his pack.          SGT. NANTZ          Just hit the gas, Corporal. We got          plenty of armor.          Everyone looks up at this. Then looks out to see...          The aliens attacking, FIRING on the LAV as...          Stavrou floors it, ALIEN FIRE pinging off the LAV's armor          as... SPLAT!!!          STAVROU MOWS THROUGH THE ENEMY LINE.          Nantz looks out the back to see some ALIENS STAGGERING AWAY.          SGT. NANTZ          Reverse, Corporal.          CPL. STAVROU          Aye, aye, Sergeant.          As he BACKS UP, mowing back over the remaining aliens... The          marines cheer.          EXT. STREET - LATER          The LAV cruises slowly. Nantz stares forward.          The BLACK DEAD ZONE looms ahead... As they get closer, it          seems like the whole area is absent of light. A black hole.          Nantz stares out, about to answer when the LAV LURCHES, then          lurches again. Stavrou REVS the engine.          SGT. NANTZ          What's going on?          CPL. STAVROU          Losing power, Sergeant. Gauges are          dropping... losing voltage...          The LAV slows. The engine skips. Then the LAV DIES.                                                                                                              99.          SGT. NANTZ          Stavrou?          CPL. STAVROU          She's dead, Sergeant.          Nantz looks around, warily. The streets are quiet, deserted.          SGT. NANTZ          All right, dismount. Grab anything          you think we can use.          The men nod, and move OUT OF THE LAV to...          EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS          Correggio and Kerns on one side of the street, Stavrou and          Harris on the other. Imlay with Adukwu. Nantz watches his          men move forward, covering each other's advance. Scanning'          the buildings, searching for targets...          Then Nantz halts them. They crouch together, peering at...          The middle of the DEAD ZONE just ahead of them. It is very          dark. No lights are visible from any source. The men SWEAT.          PVT. IMLAY          Hot as hell here.          CPL. CORREGGIO          No lights.          PVT. ADUKWU          My watch stopped.          SGT. NANTZ          Something's generating heat.          Messing with our electronics.          Sucking up all the power...          Nantz scans the street. The sweat dripping into his eyes.          SGT. NANTZ          Where would you put a critical          asset if you wanted to protect it?          Or hide it?          CPL. HARRIS          Underground.          Nantz points to A SUBWAY ENTRANCE AHEAD.                                                                                                              100.          INT. SUBWAY ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER          The squad runs to the subway entrance, stopping just inside.          SGT. NANTZ          Harris, Adukwu, stay here, watch          the street.          Harris and Adukwu nod. Taking position at the entrance.          Nantz motions to the others.          SGT. NANTZ          Let's go.          Nantz leads Stavrou, Correggio, Kerns and Imlay down the          stopped escalator to the SUBWAY PLATFORM.          Nantz stands, gazing around at the empty subway platform.          Silent. Spooky. A train is stopped. Doors open. It is          dark, the only light bleeding in from the street above.          He motions Stavrou to guard against anything coming from          above. Then he moves forward with the others.          A huge number of BIRDS line the dark cavity above the train          tracks, taking cover themselves, roosting quietly.          Nantz sees a DOOR in the tunnel wall, heads to it.          He pulls his KA-BAR KNIFE out, sticks the blade into the door          jam, pops the DOOR OPEN. Nantz turns to Correggio and Kerns.          SGT. NANTZ                         (QUIETLY)          You two stay here, watch our backs.                         (TO IMLAY)          Imlay, come with me.          Nantz and Imlay slip through the doorway.          INT. UNDERGROUND SERVICE HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS          Nantz and Imlay stand very still, peering down the long, dark          hall, looking for movement. Nantz motions and they move          forward silently, guns ready.          They turn a corner and stop. It is PITCH BLACK here.          Nantz clicks on his flashlight. They move forward. After          only a few feet, the FLASHLIGHT DIMS AND DIES.          Imlay clicks on his flashlight.                                                                                                              101.          SGT. NANTZ                         (WHISPERING)          No. Save it. Something is killing          anything electronic we use.          Imlay clicks his flashlight OFF. But now we see...          A dim light ahead. Nantz and Imlay creep forward, very          slowly. Turn a corner, see...          A STRANGE LIGHT at the end of the hallway. THE LIGHT GLOWS          fiercely, as if it's shining through the floor.          Nantz, silhouetted by the light, signals Imlay to stay put.          Nantz steps forward, toward the strange glow of light. As he          approaches, he realizes it's coming through...          An IRON GRATE in the floor.          Nantz moves to the grate, kneels, PEERING DOWN INTO...          A MASSIVE SUBWAY TUNNEL          Fifty feet wide, the dim tunnel has been further EXCAVATED.          It is a huge CAVERN now, extending off into the distance          further than Nantz can see.          The huge space is illuminated by MASSES OF ALIEN MACHINERY.          An ELECTRIC HUM FILLS THE AIR.          Tending the machinery: DOZENS OF ALIENS, bigger than the          others.          One of the ALIENS TURNS, focusing up, right at Nantz.          Nantz spins, runs back into the darkness. Calling to Imlay:          SGT. NANTZ          Run, Imlay! Run!          BANG. The iron GRATE FLIES into the air.          INT. DIFFERENT PART OF UNDERGROUND SERVICE TUNNEL          Nantz and Imlay, race along in the dark. They hear POUNDING          FOOTSTEPS of the alien pursuing him.          A glimmer of LIGHT ahead. Along the floor. It is, a DOOR.          They burst through a DOOR, into...          A DIM STAIRWELL.                                                                                                              102.          Nantz follows Imlay UP THE STAIRS as...          The STAIRWELL DOOR below is SMASHED OPEN.          Nantz spins, swinging his shotgun. HE FIRES.          BOOM! The blast ILLUMINATES the huge ALIEN, filling the          stairwell with its horrible bulk.          Nantz backs up the stairs, pumping the shotgun, firing...          Each blast ILLUMINATES THE ALIEN in a STROBE EFFECT. The          alien moves up the stares. Nantz KEEPS FIRING.          The NOISE IS DEAFENING in the enclosed space.          Then the SHOTGUN RUNS DRY. And we're left IN DARKNESS.          Imlay clicks on his FLASHLIGHT, revealing...          The ALIEN at Nantz' feet, its strange "hand" on his boot.          Nantz, terrified, aims at the alien, waiting to see if it          will move. It doesn't.          INT. SUBWAY PLATFORM - MOMENTS LATER          Nantz and Imlay re-enter, running up to join the others.          Up the stairs, by street-level, Harris and Adukwu keep watch.          Harris motions: "ENEMY TROOPS".          Nantz nods. Signals for all the marines to head down the          stairs. The marines gather around Nantz. To Harris:          SGT. NANTZ          How many?          CPL. HARRIS          Hard to tell. A lot.          SGT. NANTZ          I think I got their attention.          Nantz kneels. He opens his pack, pulls out the radio and the          case marked GLTD.          SGT. NANTZ          Look. There's something big down          in the tunnels. It's sucking up a          lot of power, could be a major          Command &.Control asset.                                                                                                              103.          Nantz stares at his men.          SGT. NANTZ          We need to destroy it.          PVT. KERNS          But we got no jets left, right,          Sergeant?          SGT. NANTZ          Hopefully, they can still fire          cruise missiles from Pendleton or          Vandenburg... I'll radio in a          strike, paint the target from the          street. You know what that means.          The man nod solemnly.          PVT. IMLAY          We gotta hold 'em off long enough          to paint the target.          CPL. STAVROU          If we can get a transmission out          before the radio dies...          CPL. HARRIS          And the targeting laser lasts long          enough for command to get a lock on          the target.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Hell, dying's easy, ladies.          Everything else takes balls, right?          They all laugh softly.          SGT. NANTZ          Let's do it.          He takes a deep breath, raises the radio, and TRANSMITS:          SGT. NANTZ                         (TRANSMITTING)          Any station, this is Foxtrot 2          November. Priority Fire Mission. I          have identified a major enemy          command and control asset-- located          grid 459083. 1 WILL BE LASING.                                                                                                              104.          COMMAND (V.0.)          Foxtrot 2. You have visual          confirmation of this C&C asset? We          can't waste resources.          SGT. NANTZ          Affirmative. They're building a          huge complex underground... I think          it's the head of the snake.          Repeat. I will be...          THE RADIO GOES DEAD.          Alien fire EXPLODES now, rocking the station.          BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Nantz and the marines cover their heads          as the station starts to come apart, chunks of concrete fall.          The walls crack. Dust fills the air.          Nantz SCREAMS as a chunk of concrete FALLS ACROSS HIS ANKLE.          Then, it's over. All is silent. Nantz, GRIMACING in PAIN,          strains to lift the concrete chunk off his ankle. He GROANS.          The marines rise. Pale, sweating, Nantz hobbles to his feet.          He slings his rifle, and carrying the GLTD, hurries on his          bad ankle to the stairs.          Nantz looks up. Rubble nearly fills the stairway. There is          only a small opening of daylight near the ceiling.          The men all unclip their web gear, begin climbing.          EXT. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES STREET - MOMENTS LATER          A chunk of rubble falls from the pile at the subway entrance,          and Nantz emerges, rolling down the pile to the street.          The other marines follow, set up a perimeter as..,.          Nantz takes cover behind a berm of rubble, DROPPING down,          flattening himself to the ground.          He sets the GLTD (LASER DESIGNATOR) up on top of the pile.          Nantz removes his flack jacket and places it over the laser          designator.          SGT. NANTZ                         (TO HIMSELF)          Here we go...                                                                                                              105.          Nantz switches on the TARGETING LASER.          A RED BEAM OF LIGHT shoots from the designator to a fixed          point in the center of the street.          Nantz looks up to see...          The street fill with ALIEN SOLDIERS rushing out now.          PVT. IMLAY          Here they come!          The marines FORM A PERIMETER AROUND THE LASER, OPENING UP on          the aliens as...          The mass of aliens surges forward like a wave.          SGT. NANTZ          Hold them back! We have to keep          the laser on target!          Nantz FIRES. An alien goes down. He picks another target          and FIRES. The alien staggers, keeps coming. Three more          rounds and the alien goes down.          But the rest KEEP COMING... closing in...          FOLLOWING THE BEAM OF THE LASER BACK TO NANTZ.          Nantz is picking his targets. AIMING, FIRING... Turning,          finding targets, reloading, the aliens getting closer...          Then his rifle runs dry.          NANTZ pulls his sidearm. He aim, FIRES, shooting a closing          alien in its 'heart.' It drops.          Rounds impact around Nantz as he shoots another alien...          Then the next. The next. Then his sidearm is out of bullets          as... An EXPLOSION rips near Nantz.          Knocking the laser away.          Nantz struggles...TO THE LASER. RE-AIMING it as...          MORE ALIENS POUR INTO THE STREET.          The marines are pushed into a SMALL CIRCLE around the laser.          Fighting nearly back to back.                                                                                                              106.          Kerns is HIT. He is thrown to the ground, but is back up,          arm bleeding, firing.          An alien RUSHES AT CORREGGIO who spins just in time, FIRING          repeatedly until the alien goes down.          Stavrou swings his rifle butt, SMASHING another alien. It          staggers back. Stavrou puts numerous rounds into it.          An alien reaches ADUKWU, knocking him to the ground, about to          blast him...          Harris runs the alien through with his bayonet, twisting and          firing his rifle at the same time. The alien falls.          The marines are FIGHTING AS ONE.          All focused on SURROUNDING NANTZ. THEN THE LASER DIES.          Imlay notices the laser beam is gone.          PVT. IMLAY          Did we get a lock!?          SGT. NANTZ          I don't know!          Then... An ear-splitting NOISE. The marines look up, see...          A CRUISE MISSILE COMING STRAIGHT DOWN THE STREET!          Nantz looks up at his men, yelling:          SGT. NANTZ          INCOMING! Fall back! This way!          Nantz and his men begin BACKING AWAY. Firing as they do,          trying to hold off the aliens.          Nantz, limping on his injured ankle, GOES DOWN. Correggio is          there to help him up.          CPL. CORREGGIO          Think you just twisted your ankle,.          sir.          And through it all, Nantz still smiles at this.          SGT. NANTZ          Don't stop!! We're too close to          the impact point!!          The marines start running as...                                                                                                              107.          MORE CRUISE MISSILES APPEAR, RIPPING TOWARD THE GROUND...          BOOOOOM! The first missile strikes!          Then another...and another ...BOOOOM! BOOOOM!          A piercing WHISTLE sounds. Nantz looks into the sky as...          Suddenly KABOOOM!!! A 2000 pound laser-guided ARTILLERY          SHELL explodes INTO THE GROUND...          THE GROUND HEAVES UP. A MASSIVE EXPLOSION of fire and smoke          erupting from beneath the surface.          A SHOCK WAVE BURSTS OUT FROM THE IMPACT POINT.          THE MARINES ARE ENVELOPED... DISAPPEARING as...          Buildings shatter, cars are tossed, flames erupt.          Then SILENCE descends a moment. Only the crackle of flames,          falling glass. The dust and ash settles in a grey haze.          Nothing could have survived this. BEAT. Then...          A FIGURE RISES UP out of the grey destruction.          SGT. NANTZ          MARINES!          AS ONE, the men rise out of the ash, standing tall.          SGT. NANTZ          ON ME!          The marines fall in. A PHALANX with Nantz at its center.          SGT. NANTZ          FIRE!          They move forward. Precise. Deadly. FIGHTING AS ONE.          The seven remaining marines POUR FIRE on the mass of aliens.          The Drone Ships fall from the sky, EXPLODING on the ground.          The aliens, in disarray, are mowed down. The rest FLEE.          And as the smoke drifts away, there is silence again.          Nantz looks up to see...                                                                                                              108.          HIS MEN. His warriors. Standing with smoking weapons, ready          for more. Correggio staggers up, covered in dust, bloody.          CPL. CORREGGIO          You know what, Sergeant? My          brother said you were a bad ass.                         (SMILES)          I had no idea...          SGT. NANTZ          Your brother was one helluva          marine, Correggio.                         (SMILES BACK)          So are you.                         CUT TO:          INT. MEDEVAC HELICOPTER          Nantz sits in the rumbling chopper. Surrounded by his          marines. Imlay stares out at the city below.          PVT. IMLAY          Man, it's quiet.          CHOPPER PILOT (V.0.)          They're in full retreat throughout          Los Angeles, heading back into the          ocean. Units are mopping up.          On this, Nantz turns to his SQUAD. Beat.          SGT. NANTZ          This has been a hell of a battle.          Plenty of other battles to go.          Everybody good with that?          The marines don't hesitate.                         MARINES          Yes, Sergeant!          CPL. CORREGGIO          Well, uh, actually, Sergeant...          there's this girl I was supposed to          meet up with tonight...          SGT. NANTZ                         (SMILES)          I'm sure she'll understand.          Nantz looks at his marines.                                                                                                              109.                         NANTZ          I think you men earned the right to          call yourselves marines today. I'm          damn proud of every one of you.          Retreat!?                         MARINES          HELL!                         ALL          2/5!!!                         THE END
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+The Beach
+Written by John Hodge
+Based on the Novel by Alex Garland
+ 
+ 
+© Figment Films ltd. 15 June 1998
+
+
+
+
+ 
+	1.	EXT. BANGKOK. NIGHT.
+	2.	A single headlamp in close up shines directly and brightly out
Extreme noise and light.
Beyond its glare can be seen the outline of a motorized tricycle ("tuk-tud") and its Thai driver
A young man, Richard, sits in the back, his rucksack beside him, swaying with the motion of the vehicle. He is worn and sweating.
They travel through nocturnal Bangkok: fleets of tuk-tuks, taxis, road works, food vendors, dogs, tourists.
Music and credits.

+	2.	EXT. KHAO SAN ROAD. NIGHT
+	3.	The bright headlight comes to a halt. 
Richard climbs down from the tuk-tuk
RICHARD (V.O.)
When you hit Bangkok, there's really only one place to go.
The street is busy, full of Thai's and travelers.
Richard picks his way through the crowd, his rucksack on his back.
He absorbs the scene as he passes boarding houses and hotels, and the shops and stalls selling food, clothes, pirated tapes, jewelry, travel tickets, and international phone calls. Restaurantes are filled with western travelers watching American films or European sport.
RICHARD (V.O.)
(continuing)
The Khao San Road is a decompression chamber between east and west. It's where you learn to breathe car fumes and tropical air for the very first time, or else carefully rearrange your memories before you catch your flight home.
Richard is approached by a young male Thai Hustler who walks backwards in front of him while making his pitch.
HUSTLER
You need somewhere to stay?
RICHARD 
I'll be OK, Thanks.
Richard politely ignores each of his subsequent offers.
HUSTLER
What do you want? Sell your passport? Buy passport? Airline tickets? You want silk? I'll take you to the best silk place? You get a suit in twenty-four hours. Diamonds? You want to come with me, you get present for your girlfriend. Maybe no girlfriend. You want a girl, no problem. Good time. Boy girl fucking no problem. You want to drink some snake blood?
At this last one Richard stops and addresses the Hustler.
RICHARD
No thanks.
Richard walks on, the hustler fading out behind him.
HUSTLER
You want designer clothes? I get you Versache, Gucci, Armani, no problem. You want a camera, all the best makes: Nikon, Leica, Canon I can get you.
RICHARD (V.O.) 
Yeah, it's all here: you an phone home, meet up with strangers, split up with your friends, watch Hollywood movies while you sip Budweiser and eat a burger or get some massage and green chicken soup. You could be anywhere in the world bu you could only find it here. And what do they want, all these people?

+	3.	EXT. KHAO SAN ROAD. NIGHT./ INT. BARS AND SHOPS. NIGHT.
+	4.	Various young travelers, male and female, in snapsho9t exerpts, address their comments to the camera or each other.
TRAVELER 1
Where you been?
TRAVELER 2
Where you going?
TRAVELER 3
I've been there
TRAVELER 4
It's a waste of time
TRAVELER1
We just got back
TRAVELER2
Fantastic
TRAVELER 3
How much did it cost?
TRAVELER5
A complete rip off.
TRAVELER3
Too many people. There's a much better place along the coast.
TRAVELER 4
We're going exploring. We've read this book. It tells us all the best places to explore.
TRAVELER 2
I know a place that everyone says is really unspoiled.
TRAVELER 1
I heard they built a big hotel there.
TRAVELER 5
Some sort of sewage problem, apparently.
TRAVELER 1
We're going anyway: all the rooms have got air conditioning.
RICHARD (V.O.)
But for me it's all about finding out something about a place, and something about yourself. And when you get off the beaten track, that's where you find out what there is to find out.
Richard turns into one of the restaurants.

+	4.	INT. RESTAURANT. NIGHT.
+	5.	The restaurant extends deeply back away from the street. Richard passes many diners not dissimilar to himself. Some are talking, many are engrossed in the video entertainment.
At the back he reaches a reception desk where he drops his pack.
A Thai female HOTEL RECEPTIONIST sits behind the desk. She immediately shows Richard a "menu" of available rooms. The menu offers a spread of prices for single/double/window/fan/aircon/bathroom.
Richard points to the cheapest combination and hands over 300 baht.
The Receptionist becomes aware that he is being started at.
A worn, disheveled man in his mid-thirties is standing at the nearby bar, a bottle in his hand, studying Richard. This is Daffy.
RICHARD
Good evening.
Daffy says nothing but continues to stare and takes a drink.
Richard will not be stared down. Neither turns away.
The Receptionist passes over a key and smiles broadly.
HOTEL RECEPTIONIST
Welcome to Thailand.
Richard turns to her.
RICHARD
Thank you.

+	5.	
+	6.	INT SHOWER. NIGHT

+	7.	In a small windowless shower room, Richard stands motionless, eyes closed, facing with pleasure the spray of cold water.

+	6.	INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR. NIGHT
+	7.	The sound of the shower can be heard through a door marked with a shower sign.
The sound stops and the door is opened. Richard emerges with a towel wrapped around his waist, carrying his key and washbag.
He walks the short distance to his room. He puts the key in the door but the lock is stiff and he has to fiddle with it, bent over and dripping water on the floor.
While he is doing so, the sound of footsteps climbing nearby stairs can be heard.
There is the sound of a loud wolf-whistle.
Richard turns to the source of the whistle.
A beautiful European woman is smiling at him. This is Francoise. She approaches and takes the key from his hand. She turns the key in one direction, then the other, while twisting the handle.
FRANCOIS
Et voila.
The door swings gently open. She stands back
RICHARD
Thank you.
Footsteps approach from the stair.
Francoise is joined by a young man, ETIENNE, who catches up with her. He nods at Richard as he takes her arm. They walk away from Richard to the next door.
FRANCOISE
Bonsoir.
RICHARD
Eh - bonsoir.
ETIENNE
Goodnight.
The couple reach their door. They enter their room and the door is closed behind them.
Alone in the corridor again, Richard contemplates their presence.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I was traveling alone for two reasons. First of all, being alone allows you more opportunity to absorb your experiences on a personal level. Secondly, and this I felt acutely at that moment, there was no one who wanted to go with me.

+	7.	INT RESTAURANT. NIGHT
+	8.	Richard is in the restaurant which is quiet now.
He is alone at a table eating and drinking. On a high shelf several feet away a Hollywood action film, all gunshots, car chases, and explosions, plays on the television.
Most of the tables around him are empty.
Richard is interrupted by the man he met earlier, Daffy, who pulls up a chair beside him.
DAFFY
Excuse me.
RICHARD
Yes?
DAFFY
I'm Daffy.
RICHARD
Richard. Hi.
DAFFY
Look, I'm sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you could help me out.
RICHARD
Help you out?
DAFFY
Yeah; just ten or fifteen dollars maybe.
RICHARD
I'm sorry, I don't think so.
DAFFY
I'm waiting on some money coming through. It's just that at the moment, you know, I'm short. They're going to chuck me out. On the street in Bangkok, that's bad.
RICHARD
I'm really sorry but I just arrived; I'm on a pretty tight budget myself. I just can't afford it.
DAFFY
Just five dollars, please.
He leans in close to Richard
DAFFY
(continuing)
I'll share something with you.
RICHARD
I'm sorry. I can't lend you any money.
Daffy retreats.
Richard turns back to the video and his food.
Daffy approaches two young women sitting at a nearby table.
DAFFY
Excuse me, ladies, is there any chance you could help me out. I'm down on my luck at the moment.
The two young women seem uncomfortable. Richard notices.
DAFFY
(continuing)
if you could see your way to lending me some cash -
RICHARD
Here.
He leans across and holds out a ten dollar note for Daffy.
DAFFY
Thank you, sir. Thank you. I promise I will repay you.
RICHARD
Just take it, OK.
Daffy takes it.
Richard returns to the video as a big yellow explosion is reflected on his face.

+	8.	INT. RICHARD'S HOTEL ROOM. NIGHT.
+	9.	Some light enters from the street through a small window.
Richard lies on his bed, watching the fan rotate above him.
He is listening to the sound of Etienne and Francoise engaging in noisy sex. They reach the climax of their activity and fall silent.
Richard just has time to enjoy the silence when a new disturbance begins, this time from the next room in the other direction. It is a man, Daffy, banging on the wall just above Richard's head and shouting in time.
DAFFY (O.S.)
Have. You. Got. Anything. To. Smoke.
Have. You. Got. Anything. To. -

+	9.	INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR. NIGHT.
+	10.	Richard knocks sharply on the door of Daffy's room.
The door is opened immediately by Daffy, looking even worse then before.
RICHARD
No, I don't have anything to smoke.
Daffy stares at him for a moment. Recognition dawns.
DAFFY
You. You're the guy that lent me the money.
RICHARD
Yeah, that's right. Now could you be quiet so I can get some sleep.
DAFFY
Ten dollars. I'll find a way to pay you back. How would you like to know About somewhere special? The perfect beach. Paradise. No one else knows about it. That's got to be worth something. What do you say?
RICHARD
Look I don't care about the money right now: I just want some sleep. So if you could be quiet -
DAFFY
Yea, OK. I will be, I will be, I promise.
RICHARD
Thanks.
Richard turns away.
DAFFY
Richard -
He turns back.
DAFFY
(Continuing)
Been nice knowing you.
He sticks his hand out.
Richard politely reciprocates.
RICHARD
Sure.
They shake hands.

+	10.	INT. EXT. RESTAURANT. DAY.
+	11.	The restaurant fronts on to the street where a new day's activity is beginning.
Richard watches this as he eats his breakfast.
He notices Etienne and Francoise sti down at the next table.
RICHARD
Bonjour.
ETIENNE
Good morning.
FRANCOISE
Did you sleep well?
RICHARD
Not too bad.
FRANCOISE
I hope our noise did not keep you awake.
Richard looks from one to the other.
RICHARD
The noise? Don't worry. You're on holiday.
ETIENNE
She means your neighbor. The Scotsman
RICHARD
Oh, that noise! Yes, he certainly did.
ETIENNE
We moved rooms because of him.
FRANCOISE
He tried to borrow money from us.
ETIENNE
What idiot would lend him money? It would disappear.
FRANCOISE
He said if we lent him money h would tell us about a secret beach.
ETIENNE
It's on an island that no one get to.
FRANCOISE
But he has been there, off course.
ETIENNE
It was ridiculous; all this at three o'clock in the morning.
RICHARD
It would be nice though, if there was a place like that. You know, that no one could get to.
ETIENNE
Of course, but look; all these people. If that place existed, they'd all be there.

+	11.	INT. TRAVEL AGENT'S. DAY
+	12.	On a large board are details, photographs and prices of various standard excursions. A Thai TRAVEL AGENT reels them off at great speed.
TRAVEL AGENT
Nakhon - Pathom - Phra Ptahom Chedi - Damnoen Sadual floating market - eight hundred baht. Kanchanburi - Erwan national Park Phrathat Cave, huang Khamin Falls - six hundred baht. Nam Tok, hellfire Pass, Three Pagodas, Sai Yok National Park - fifteen hundred baht. Bang Pa In Royal Palace, Ayatthaya, Wat Phra Manhathat, Wat Raburna - one thousand baht. What do you want?
Richard studies the board but is not excited.
RICHARD
Twenty Marlboro light, please.
Instantly the Travel Agent produces the packet of cigarettes from a shelf and lays them on the counter.

+	12.	EXT. KHAO SAN ROAD. DAY.
+	13.	Richard lights up and looks around.
He looks through the tapes at a stall.

+	13.	INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR. DAY
+	14.	Richard walks along the corridor towards his room, his new tape playing on his walkman.
On his door, a folded sheet of paper is attached with a pin.
Richard lifts it off and unfolds it.
It is a detailed and carefully drawn map of a cluster of islands. Some are named. One is unnamed. On it, some features are marked; hills, forest, river and a letter X.
In the corner it reads "X = beach".
Richard switches his Walkman off.
He studies the map then walks to Daffy's door and knocks.
No reply.
Richard twists the handle and pushes gently. The door opens.

+	14.	INT DAFFY'S ROOM. DAY.
+	15.	The room is dim, be even so the blood can be seen sprayed and smeared around the walls, sheets and floor.
There is no sign of Daffy.
Richard treads carefully, avoiding the pools of blood on the floor.
He reaches the other side of the room. There, wedged in the narrow gap between bed and wall, is Daffy's corpse. His wrists have been cut.
Richard studies the map again.
RICHARD (V.O.)
You hope and you dream, but you never believe that something's going to happen for you, not like it does in the movies. And when it does, you sort of expect it to feel different. More visceral. More real. Like IMAX maybe. I was waiting for it to hit me, but it didn't. And just for the record, I never did get my ten dollars back.
Richard switches his walkman back on.

+	15.	INT. POLICE STATION. DAY.
+	16.	In an office, two policemen, one in UNIFORM and the other a DETECTIVE, stand over Richard while he signs a statement.
RICHARD (V.O.)
The police didn't want to waste any time on it. They were just pissed off becase he was traveling on a false passport, name of Mr Daffy
Duck, birthplace Ruritania, which kind of fucked up all the paperwork. They pulled everyone in from the hotel, but all they wanted form me was a statement saying I found him and it looked like he cut his wrists. No problem.
The detective studies Richard's passport.
DETECTIVE
What are you doing in Thailand? Tourist?
RICHARD
Traveler.
DETECTIVE
You go to Patpong? See smoke from pussy, ping pong ball from pussy, razor blade from pussy; bird from pussy.
RICHARD
I don't think so.
DETECTIVE
Why not? Thai girls best in the world. Thai food best in the world. Thai dope best in the world.
RICHARD
I wouldn't know anything about that, sir.

+	16.	INT. POLICE STATION CORRIDOR. DAY
+	17.	The door of the office opens and Richard walks out.
Lined up in the corridor, slouching against the walls, are several other travelers from the hotel. At the front of the queue are Francoise and Etienne.
The officer beckons Etienne into the office and closes the door.
Richard and Francoise acknowledge each other with a smile.

+	17.	INT. RICHARD'S HOTEL ROOM. DAY.
+	18.	Richard is seated at the top of his bed, addressing his speech out of shot while he holds the map.
RICHARD
OK, this island may not actually exist. And even if it does, we might not be able to get there. But look at it like this: what else is there to do around here?
Richard is alone.
RICHARD
(continuing)
So what do you think? Are you going to come or not. I'd be thrilled if you'd join me, you and your…you and your boyfriend.

+	18.	INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR. DAY
+	19.	Richard knocks on his neighbors' door.
Etienne opens it.
RICHARD
Hi. You want to take a hike? I mean a trip. A journey. With your girlfriend and me. I mean the two of you, and me. It's a secret island. Paradise. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Francoise appears behind Etienne.
FRANCOISE
Hi.
RICHARD
Hi there. Here, take a look.
He shows Etienne the map.
RICHARD
(continuing)
It's a map. The dead guy left it for me; I think it's the place he tried to sell you. It's going to be just fucking great. You want to come? I'd be thrileld if…
Francoise and Etienne are looking at him.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I realized that I had absolutely no idea of how I was going to get there.

+	19.	EXT. RAILWAY/THAI COUNTRYSIDE. NIGHT.
+	20.	A train travels at night alongside fields.

+	20.	INT. TRAIN. NIGHT
+	21.	Richard is awake. Opposite him, Etienne and Francoise are slumped together in sleep.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Etienne, however, and I have to hand it to the guy, was fucking great. He organized the whole thing: tickets, timetables, best route, the whole damn trip.

+	21.	EXT. SEA. DAY.
+	22.	The bow of a passenger ferry crashes through a wave.

+	22.	EXT. BOAT DAY.
+	23.	The decks are crowded with travelers and their packs. Amongst them are Richard, Francoise, and Etienne. Maps and guidebooks are being studied by many. The noise of the engines and the wind deters conversation.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Thanks to him we hit the final stop on the tourist trail inside twenty-four hours, where, Etienne assured me, we would hire what he called a "local fisherman" to take us on the last stage of our journey.

+	23.	INT EXT. TRUCK. DAY
+	24.	Inside back of a covered, converted pick-up, four people are seated down each side, amongst them Richard, Francoise, and Etienne.
Behind them as they bump along, can be seen the dusty red road bordered with dense green shrubs.
The truck stops.

+	24.	EXT. ROAD. DAY.
+	25.	Richard unloads the final of the three rucksacks from the roof of the truck, passing it down to Etienne who stands at the back with Francoise.
The truck pulls away, revealing as sign, "Seashell Bungalows".

+	25.	EXT. BUNGALOW. DAY.
+	26.	A simple wooden shack on stilts, one of several standing in a line at the edge of the beach. There is a small porch to the front.

+	26.	INT. BUNGALOW. DAY
+	27.	A spartan room: bed, mosquito nets, chair, cupboard, fan.
Richard dumps his rucksack.

+	27.	Ext. SEA/BEACH. DAY.
+	28.	A long inflatable tube is towed past by a motorboat, its passengers whooping with delight.
As it passes, Francoise is revealed, standing in the water, looking in towards the shore. She begins to walk in.
On the beach there are sunbathers, games of beach volley ball, and vendors selling food and sunglasses.
RICHARD (V.O.)
This was just the kind of place I didn't want to hang around. Not that it's lacking in comfort. Quite the opposite. It's got everything. Everything you could possibly need to make you feel at home. And what's the point of that.
On the beach Francoise picks up a towel.

+	28.	EXT. BEACH RESTAURANT. DAY.
+	29.	The restaurant fronts on to the beach. At the back there is a bar.
Richard sits alone at a table with a drink, watching the scene on the beach, including Francoise.
Etienne pulls up a chair and sits down.
Francoise will join them as the dialogue proceeds.
ETIENNE
It's arranged. Tomorrow morning. Eight hundred baht.
RICHARD
Nice work.
ETIENNE
There is one problem.
Etienne opens the map on the table.
ETIENNE
He will not take us to the island. It's in the National Park and it is forbidden to go there. But we are allowed to travel to this one to stay for one night.
RICHARD
That's the wrong one.
ETINENNE
I know that.
Francoise sits down with a drink.
RICHARD
So from there to there?
FRANCOISE
We swim.
RICHARD
Swim?
ETIENNE
We leave our rucksacks on this island and then we swim.
FRANCOISE
You can swim?
RICHARD
Yes, of course I can swim. How far do you think it is?
ETIENNE
One or two kilometers.
RICHARD
Oh. Great. Not far at all. I don't like to be negative, but do you think we should let someone know where we're going?
ETIENNE
Why?
RICHARD
We're going to swim "one or two kilometers" across open sea, from one uninhabited island to another. Something goes wrong. What then?
FRANCOISE
Have you told someone?
RICHARD
No.
FRANCOISE
I think it's a bad idea to tell anyone.
ETIENNE
Richard, it's secret. That's the whole point.
RICHARD
Yeah, OK. Foreget it. We won't tell anyone.
Richard picks up the map

+	29.	EXT. BUNGALOW. DAY
+	30.	Richard sits on his veranda, under cover. Beyond him is a tropical downpour.
He hears two sets of footsteps rushing up the stairs of the next door bungalow. Two men, Americans, Zeph and Sammy, try to open their door but cannot.
ZEPH
Fuck, I knew we locked it. We should have left it unlocked.
Sammy addresses Richard
SAMMY
We lost our key
RICHARD
Where did you lose it?
ZEPH
On the beach. Or in the water.
SAMMY
The truth is we don't know.
RICHARD
You try reception?
ZEPH
Closed. Back later. We hope.
RICHARD
Pretty annoying
SAMMY
It's a disaster, to which there is only one sensible, considered, appropriate, and timely response.

+	30.	EXT. BUNGALOW. NIGHT.
+	31.	All three are stoned. A joint is passed around while Zeph sings badly.
ZEPH
I smoke two joints in the morning, and I smoke two joints at night, and I smoke two joints in the afternoon, and then I feel alright. I smoke two joints in time of peace, and two in time of war. I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints and then I smoke some more. I can't remember the rest.
RICHARD
Perhaps you smoked too much dope.
ZEPH
Not possible
SAMMY
Do you know the Kentucky friend mouse story?"
RICHARD
Woman bites chicken leg, turns out to be a mouse. Or a rat. It's an urban myth.
SAMMY
Exactly. Always happened to someone else.
RICHARD
So?
SAMMY
So there's an urban myth, well more of a rural myth, going around here at the moment. It's about a beach.
RICHARD
Uh-huh.
ZEPH
Yea. This beach is perfect. It's on an island, right, hidden from the sea. Imagine: pure white sand and enough dope to smoke all day every day for the rest of your life. Only a few know exactly where it is and they won't tell anyone.
SAMMY
Of course no one's actually ever met any of these people, only met someone who has. You know what I mean. It's a Kentucky fried mouse.
RICHARD
I hadn't heard that one before. But it's good. It's a good story.
A torch shines on them, jolting them into some sort of reaction and a woman's voice calls out.
THAI WOMAN
Hey, you! I got your key!

+	31.	INT. BUNGALOW. DAY
+	32.	Richard's rucksack is packed an by the door.
Richard is sitting copying Daffy's map on to another sheet of paper. He finishes and writes a note on the copy.
He puts the original in his pack and lifts it.

+	32.	
+	33.	EXT. BUNGALOW. DAY. 

+	34.	Richard hops over the fence to the veranda of Zeph and Sammy's bungalow.
He slips the folded copy under their door.
He looks around to check that he has not been seen.

+	33.	
+	34.	EXT BEACH. DAY

+	35.	Richard walks along a narrow wooden pontoon, his rucksack on his back.
He stops about half way along at a small narrow wooden boat with an outboard motor.
He looks down into it.
Etienne and Francoise walk past him along the pontoon without stopping and disappear from view.
RICHARD (V.O.)
OK, let's face it. There is no such thing as a local fisherman anymore. There really isn't the demand for them. If you want to catch fish you put down a hundred kilometer drag net.
Richard walks away along the pontoon.
RICHARD (V.O.)
(continuing)
And if you want to go somewhere - you get a taxi.

+	34.	
+	35.	EXT. SEA.. DAY.

+	36.	Richard, Francoise and Etiene sit at the back of a small powerful motor launch which skims across the surface of the sea with great noise and speed.

+	35.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	36.	The motor launch idles gently as it drifts into the shallows of a small deserted bay.
Richard Francoise, and Etienne jump from the boat into the shallows.

+	36.	EXT. BEACH. NIGHT.
+	37.	As the sun sets they sit in silence, each shovelling down forkloads of noodles.

+	37.	EXT. BEACH. NIGHT.
+	38.	The only sounds are those of crickets and the waves gently breaking on the shore.
Richard is lying asleep on the sand.
He is woken by someone rummaging through the rucksack beside him. It is Francoise, removing clothes, books, souvenirs. Eventually she finds her camera, a mini-tripod and a cable-release.
She places them on an unfolded T-shirt on the sand.
RICHARD
Francoise -
FRANCOISE
Sshh. Etienne will be angry if I wake him. He thinks I waste film taking photographs of the sky.
Richard wakes up and works out what she is doing.
RICHARD
I think so too.
FRANCOISE
One night I will get the perfect photograph.
She presses the cable release.
FRANCOISE
(continuing)
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six.
She lets the shutter close.
FRANCOISE
(continuing)
Take a look.
Richard leans over and squints down the viewfinder.
The sky is framed. Francoise leans into the frame.
Richard draws back.
RICHARD
You realize that in the eternity of space, there is a planet, just like this one, where you are photographing back towards us. You're photographing yourself.
FRANCOISE
Incredible
RICHARD
There are infinite worlds out there, where anything that can happen does happen.
FRANCOISE
So on one you are rich, on another poor. On one you are a murderer, on another the victim.
RICHARD
Exactly
FRANCOISE
Richard, you know something - 
She hands him the cable release while she adjusts the camera.
FRANCOISE
(continuing)
That is just the kind of pretentious bullshit that Englishmen and Americans always say to French girls so that they can sleep with them.
RICHARD
Sorry. I thought I was doing quite well.

FRANCOISE


It's just the sky, Richard.


She presses his thumb down on the cable release, her hand around his.FRANCOISE
(continuing)
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept…


+	38.	EXT. NIGHT. SKY.
+	39.	Francoise voice fades away over an image of the night sky.
Time lapse: the sky rapidly changes to day.
RICHARD (V.O.)
When you develop an infatuation for someone, you always find a reason to believe that this is exactly the person for you. It doesn't need to be a good reason, a bad one will do just as well. Taking photographs of the night sky, for example: in the long run that's just the kind of dumb irritating habit that would cause you to split up. But at the time - it's the charming eccentricity you've been searching for all these years. 

+	39.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	40.	From a different beach they look towards their target: the island. It is 1-2 kilometers away.
Richard, Etienne, and Francoise stand on the beach looking towards it. Each is in their swimwear and a T-shirt, and carries a plastic bag, inflated and tied, in which they carry their valuables and some rations.
ETIENNE
One kilometer
FRANCOISE
Two.
ETIENNE
Richard?
RICHARD
I don't know - I'm American.
ETIENNE
So?
RICHARD
We think in miles, not kilometers.
ETIENNE
So how many miles do you think it is?
RICHARD
I have no idea but it looks like a long way.
FRANCOISE.
Too far?
RICHARD
If it's too far, then we'll drwon. But if we don’t' try then we'll never know.
Richard wades into the water.,
RICHARD
So, let's go.
RICHARD (V.O.)
You have to enjoy a moment like that. You just don't know, you see; it may never happen again.
Once more.
RICHARD
SO, let's go.
RICHARD (V.O.) 
I am such a fucking hero. "Let's go". I felt like I'd waited all my life just to say something like that. So I replayed it a couple of times, taking it from different perspectives. 

+	40.	EXT. BEACH. DAY. 
+	41.	
Multiple repeats of Richard's moment from various perspectives and speeds. 
RICHARD 
So: let's go. 
RICHARD (V.O.) 
You have to enjoy a moment like that. You just don't know, you see: it may never happen again. 
Once more. 
RICHARD 
So: let's go. 
He dives in and begins swimming.

+	41.	EXT. SEA. DAY.
+	42.	They are far out to sea now, several hundred meters from the shore.
Richard swims at the front, the other two about five meters behind.
RICHARD
Everyone ok?
ETIENNE
We're ok.
RICHARD
I think we're about half way.
A few strokes later.
ETIENNE
Richard - I saw a fin!
RICHARD
What!
ETIENNE
A fin!
They all stop and tread water.
RICHARD
A shark fin?
ETIENNE
I don't know, just a fin. Over there. About a hundred meters.
RICHARD
Big?
ETIENNE.
Yes.
RICHARD
Well what the fuck do you expect me to do about it.
ETIENNE
Nothing. I just thought you ought to know.
RICHARD
Well to be honest, Etienne, I would rather have not known about it.
ETIENNE
I'm sorry.
RICHARD
A bit fucking late.
He starts swimming again.
A few strokes later he hears a short sharp scream from Francoise.
ETIENNE
Francoise! Francoise!
Richard turns around. Francoise is gone. Her plastic bag bobs on the surface. Etienne is frantic, hysterical.
ETIENNE
(continuing)
She is gone!
RICHARD
What happened?
Etienne submerges briefly and resurfaces.
ETIENNE
She just went under the water. She was pulled under. Oh God, I don't see her.
RICHARD
Was there a shark? Did you see a shark?
They both start looking down at their feet and circling frantically in the water.
ETIENNE
I don't know! I don't know! Oh God.
Suddenly Richard screams.
Francoise surfaces, pulling up his ankle.
She and Etienne laugh at Richard.
RICHARD
Very funny. You Europeans, you have ssuch a playful sense of humor. No wonder your comedy has conquered the world.
He swims on.
ETIENNE
What about Moliere?
RICHARD
Fuck off.
He swims on without looking round.

+	42.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	43.	One by one the three swimmers emerge from the sea and collapse on the beach. They are absolutely exhausted and lie there on the sand, unable to speak.
Eventually, they tear open their plastic bags, drink some water and eat some chocolate.
Richard has a little water left in his bottle. He notices Francoise and Etienne eyeing it enviously.
He holds the bottle out towards them, then snatches it back and swigs down the last of the water.
+	44.	EXT. FOREST. DAY.
+	45.	Richard, Francoise, and Etienne walk through the forest behind the beach.

+	43.	EXT. FOREST. DAY
+	44.	They scramble up a steep slope through dense foliage. 
Richard, at the front, pauses to let the other two pass him, then he follows.

+	44.	EXT. TOP OF SLOPE/CLEARING. DAY.
+	45.	Richard reaches the top of the slope and follows the other two through a gap in the foliage.
He joins Etienne and Francoise who are standing in awe at the edge of a large clearing filled with cannabis plants.
ETIENNE
Nice Island.
They smile and examine the plants.
Richard wanders a short distance away.
Something glinting on the ground catches Richard's eye. He leans down and picks it up. It is an empty brass cartridge from a rifle. Richard looks around.
Just ahead he sees the remains of an extinguished campfire, and beyond that, protruding from the undergrowth, a pair of male legs and beyond them, the butt of a rifle.
CLOSE IN on the nest in the undergrowth. The legs and gun belong to a Farmer. He is asleep. His physique is strong and his skin weathered.
Richard turns back to Etienne and Francoise. They are still strolling amongst the plants.
Richard begins to back away.
The Farmer wakes.
He lifts his gun and stands up to look out over the dope field.

+	44.	EXT. FIELD. DAY.
+	45.	There is no one there.

+	45.	EXT. FIELD. DAY.
+	46.	The farmer looks around, sees nobody. His attention is attracted by a whistle.
He looks over. A group of three more, similarly armed Farmers emerge from the forest at the other side.
He waves at them. They beckon him across.
He sets off through the field.

+	46.	EXT. AMONG PLANTS. DAY.
+	47.	The three inturders continue to crawl along the ground between the plants
Suddenly Richard stops. The farmer's footsteps come closer.
His feet pass in the gap between Richard and Francoise. He pauses. They lie frozen in place. He lights a cigarette and drops the match. He moves on.
They breath again.

+	47.	EXT. EDGE OF FIELD. DAY.
+	48.	Richard, Etienne, and Francoise reach the far edge of the field and enter the forest again.
FRANCOISE
My God, what are we doing here?
ETIENNE
Shit. This was not on the map, Richard.
RICHARD
I didn't draw the map, Etienne.
ETIENNE
It's a fucking mess.
RICHARD
I didn't force you to come, so don't blame me.
FRANCOISE
We should go back. It's too dangerous. We shouldn't be here.
RICHARD
Go back? How? Swim perhaps? Great idea. Back in the water? Well fuck that. You swim back if you want to. Both of you. I'm not.
ETIENNE
Richard - she is frightened. So am I.
Richard looks at them. They await his lead.
RICHARD
Well, we're not going back.
Richard smiles. The other two are still nervous.
RICHARD (V.O)
Once again, I think you'll agree. A moment worth savoring. 

+	51.	EXT. FOREST. DAY.
+	52.	They flit thorugh a lest dense forest, up a slope, looking carefully around as they go.
RICHARD (V.O.)
The most satisfying aspec, of course, was that Monseigneur Practical, Mr. Timetable, Mr I'll-sort-it-out-with-a-local-fisherman, he turned out to be not so hot in your actual primordial fight or flight situation, your combat zone, where what it takes to stay alive is quick thinking and nerves of steel. I didn't need to say anything. I knew it, and so did he.
They reach the top of the hill. Richard looks back. Down below they can see the dope fields.
They continue
+	53.	EXT. FOREST. DAY.
+	49.	They are travelling downhill now, beside a stream.
They stop to drink from it.
ETIENNE
If we follow this down, it should lead us all the way to the lagoon.
RICHARD
That's right, all the way down.
RICHARD (V. O.)
He was right. All we had to do was follow the water and we'd be in paradise. Only I twasn't going to be that easy.

+	53.	EXT. WATERFALL. DAY.
+	50.	Water thunders from a clifftop to a pool
Etienne and Francoise are lying flat on a rock, peering over the edge of this high waterfall. It falls in a single giant step.
On either side of the waterfall, cliffs curve away to form a massive circle enclosing the lagoon and an area of land covered in forest.
Etienne crawls back a few paces to where Richard is sitting on a rock. Francoise continues to look over.
ETIENNE
Well, Richard, how are we going to get down?
RICHARD
Why are you asking me?
ETIENNE
Why shouldn't I?
RICHARD
Because you can have an opinion too.
ETIENNE
I have an opinion
RICHARD
OK, so let's hear it.
FRANCOISE
We'll jump.
RICHARD
Don't be stupid. Etienne?
ETIENNE
We'll climb down over there.
RICHARD
There?
ETIENNE
So, what do you think?
FRANCOISE
Listen to me - we can jump.
RICHARD
No, if we try to climb there we'll all be killed. Over there looks better.
ETIENNE
Maybe we could make a rope out of some creepers.
RICHARD
Yes, or maybe we could build a hang glider and a giant staircase.
FRANCOISE
(Shouting)
Please!
They turn to her. She is standing with her back to the drop.
RICHARD
What?
She turns around.
ETIENNE
No!
She jumps.
She falls towards and into the pool.
Richard and Etienne scramble to the edge and peer over.
She surfaces and waves.
Richard and Etienne look at each other.
RICHARD
OK, so we'll jump.

+	54.	EXT. WATERFALL. DAY.
+	51.	Richard and Etienne jump.
They sink and then surface.
All three are ecstatic and elated, charged with the excitement of the fall and the joy of a journey's end. They exchange hugs and kisses.
They become aware of a single person clapping slowly.
They turn to see Keaty, a young Afro-Caribbean Londoner, standing a few paces away.
KEATY
Congratulation. It took me the best part of an hour to work up the balls to do that. Mind you, I was alone, so you have to make allowances.
They say nothing.
KEATY
(continuing)
I'm Keaty.
RICHARD
Are there many people here?
Keaty raises a hand to stop Richard's question.
KEATY
The Q and A comes later. First of all, I think you'd better meet Sal.

+	55.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY.
+	52.	Sal, a woman in her early thirties, is seated on the floor opposite Richard, Francoise, and Etienne.
Sal is studying Daffy's map. She hands it back to Richard.
Gathered around them are about twenty assorted inhabitants of various nationalities, all weathered travelers in their twenties or thirties.
The longhouse is single story building made from wood and bamboo lattice, about thirty meters long. It is divided up by low partitions into single or double sleeping areas, some of which are personalized, others not. There is also an open area where this action takes place.
RICHARD (V.O.)
At first they were more interested in the map than us. It seems that Daffy, the guy who drew it, he was a founding father, he discovered this places and set up the community five years ago. Then about one year ago he starts to get depressed, six months later he leaves and that's the last they hear till we turn up.
RICHARD
He's dead. He cut his wrists open in a hotel room on the Khao San Road. The police didn't know what to do with the body. I guess they'll incinerate him or something.
SAL
Do you tink he gave a mpa like this to anyone else.
RICHARD
I don't know. I don't think so.
SAL
And you, have you told anyone or shown anyone this map?
ETIENNE
No.
FRANCOISE
No.
RICHARD
No.
SAL
Good.

+	56.	EXT. ISLAND SCENES. DAY/NIGHT.
+	53.	Commence a montage of various scenes of island life involving its citizens and the newcomers.
The longhouse stands at one edge of a clearing, dominating it. Scattered around are several other smaller huts and a few tents. Other locations are the beach, the garden, and the forest.
We see the inhabitants

+	▪	at work in the garden 
+	▪	in the lagoon 
+	▪	relaxing on the beach 
+	▪	around the fire at night
+	54.	RICHARD (V.O.)
Now I've got to say that my first impressions were not favorable. Oh God, I thought, it's a tribe of hippies. I thought we'd have to talk about our positive energies a lot, kiss the earth every morning and recycle our waste products by some unspeakable mechanism. Fortunately not. It really was some kind of a paradise. We grew some fruit and some dope. The farmers on the other side left us alone and we didn't trespass on their turf.

+	57.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY
+	58.	Everyone, including Francoise, Etiennne and Richard is sitting around a big wooden table set for dinner. Two people are serving side dishes of vegetables and rice.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Sal was the leader but it wasn't a big deal. There wasn't any ideology or shit like that, it was just a beach resort for people who don't like beach resorts.
One man begins drumming softly on the table with his hands. Another joins in, then another. Soon everyone is tapping out a rhythm, against the table or a bottle or a coconut shell, using their hands or a knife or chopsticks.
This is intercut with the following scene to the point where the newcomers have joined in and it reaches a crescendo as the main dish -a massive complete swordfish, is served.

+	58.	EXT. ISLAND SCENES. DAY.
+	59.	Various characters are introduced in different locations; at work or at rest; speaking to Richard or (as if to him) to camera.
First the three Swedes.
RICHARD(V.O.)
There was the Swedes: Christo, Sten, and Karl.
CHRISTO
We like fishing
KARL
Fishing. Yeah.
STEN
Yeah.
CHRISTO
And in the winter we like skiing.
KARL
Yeah.
STEN
Yeah.
CHRISTO
But in Thailand - there is no skiing.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Then there were the Yugoslavian girls.
SONJA
We are from Sarajevo.
MIRJANA
Our hearts are full of loss
RICHARD
I'm sorry.
They start laughing at him
SONJA
It's alright.
MIRJANA
We tell everyone that.
RICHARD (V.O.)
There was the Weathergirl.
WEATHERGIRL
I feel a tightness in my pelvis; it's gonna rain.
Heavy rain falls.
RICHARD (V.O.)
And yes, unfortunately, there was a man with a guitar.
GUITARMAN
(singing badly)
"Come as you are, as you were, and as I want you to be…"
RICHARD(V.O.)
The only person I didn't like was Sal's boyfriend, Bugs. He was one of those pricks who just won't shut up about all the great things they've seen and done, all of which are just that little bit better, bigger, more dangerous, more extreme, more remote, more unusual, more thi more that more fucking everything than anything you've ever done.
BUGS
We were in the dessert for three weeks. It's forty-eight in the shade and there's bugger all of that to speak of. We're on one and half liters a day; it's practically suicide. But every morning we'd look east and see the sunrise, and I'd thing, if I die today - it's worth it.
RICHARD (V.O.)
The local diet was pretty good and most evenings we'd smoke some dope. Most afternoons too, as a matter of fact, but I had a personal rule never to smoke before lunch, although as time went on I allowed myself a certain number of - special occasions".
Richard smokes dope.

+	59.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY.
+	60.	The drumming reaches its crescendo and the swordfish is laid out.
RICHARD (V.O.)
This became our world. Pretty soon nothing else mattered anymore: family, friend, future achievements - who cares. Back home was just standing behind a counter all day wearing a stupid fucking hat saying, "how can I help you sir, eat in or take away?" All gone, all faded away. I settled in. I found my vocation.

+	60.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	61.	Richard, Etienne, and Francoise are standing in waist-deep water. Each is holding a bamboo spear.
Their hair is longer and their tans deeper than when they arrived.
They are watching Christo who stands a short distance away, spear poised for the kill while he talks through the process.
CHRISTO
OK. Now you stand still. You wait. The fish come. You wait until the fish are still. They trust you. You wait.
His speech is hypnotic, calming. His students take in the view.
CHRISTO
(continuing)
And then-
He suddenly throws the spear into the water. He lifts it out triumphant.
CHRISTO
(continuing) 
You kill
A dying fish wriggles on the end of the spear.
CHRISTO
(continuing)
Now, you try.
Richard, Etienne and Francoise wade apart a little and into deeper water. They wait and look.

+	61.	EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY & EXT. SURFACE. DAY.
+	62.	Their feet and legs are visible. At first nothing is happening, then a few fish swim into view.
Richard throws and misses. The other two throw and miss.
CHRISTO
No, no, no. Too fast. Slowly.
They pause
Richard throws. He hauls his spear from the water.
RICHARD
Yo!
A decent sized fish wriggles on the end.
CHRISTO
You are a natural!
They all congratulate him.
Richard raises the spear aloft.
RICHARD
And I say unto you: I shall provide.

+	62.	EXT. CLEARING. DAY
+	63.	A bamboo spear, loaded with fish like a giant kebab, is carried across the clearing towards the cooking area wehre the chef and his helpers are at work.
The spear is held by richard who smiles as he deposits the fish on the broad wooden chopping surface.
RICHARD (V.O.)
That's right, I had an aptitude, a hidden talent. All these years I'm good for nothing, turns out I'm a full-on old fashioned hunter fucking gatherer.

+	63.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY
+	64.	As Richard enters there are only a few people inside.
He walks to the partitioned area and looks for a packet of cigarettes among his possessions.
Opposite to him, Keaty is lying down, reading the Bible.
KEATY
Ah, the hunter gatherer returns. Satisfied with a good day's killing amongst the fruits of the sea?
RICHARD
That's me: a good day's killing.
KEATY
God has smiled on you.
RICHARD
He has?
KEATY
He has made you sharp of eye and swift of limb. In other words, you catch a lot of fish, you'll be very popular around here.
RICHARD
Great.
KEATY
Don’t forget to thank Him, will you?
RICHARD
I'll try.
KEATY
He'd appreciate that. Anyway, first day's fishing, first day's catch, you lot are just about ready to join the community.
RICHARD
I thought we already had.
KEATY
Not yet baptized, my son, not yet baptized.

+	64.	EXT. CLEARING. NIGHT
+	65.	A blade burns in the fire.
Keaty lifts the knife from the fire.
The entire community is assembled, watching. 
He takes Etienne's wrist.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Every society must have its rituals. They're what binds you together, they tell you that you belong. Ours was simple. Last one to arrive tattoos the next.
KEATY
It hurts. OK?
Etienne nods.
Keaty swiftly cuts the simple symbol just below Etienne's shoulder and smears blue powder into the cut.
Etienne winces.
Keaty finishes and hands the knife to Etienne who heats the blade briefly in the fire before he turns to Francoise. He kisses her arm before he cuts.
Francoise takes the knife.
Richard offers his arm. She grips it tightly. She hesitates.
He looks into her eyes.
She cuts. He grimaces. She works on, holding his arm.

+	65.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.
+	66.	A few candles still burn as people prepare to turn in for the night. Richard is lying in his sleeping area. He is watching Francoise.
She is standing, visible only from the waist up above a partition. She is inspecting her tattoo.
RICHARD (V.O.)
All the excitement of arrival had given me something to think about, but it wasn't enough to displace my major preoccupation. You can go to the most beautiful place in the world, but the sunlight shall not bleach they passion, nor the tide wash away thy desire.
A hand. Etienne's appears from below, beckoning her down.
She takes the hand.
Just for a moment her eyes meet Richard's and then she lowers herself towards the ground, disappearing from view.
The last candle is extinguished.

+	66.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	67.	A game of soccer is in progress, involving most of the population, men and woman.
Etienne is playing well.
A few people, not involved in the game, are scattered along the beach, relaxing. Amongst these are Francoise and Richard, who is watching the game.
RICHARD
He's good.
FRANCOISE
Who?
RICHARD
Etienne. He's good at soccer.
FRANCOISE
Oh, I wouldn't know.
RICHARD
You don't like soccer?
FRANCOISE
No. It's so boring.
RICHARD
Yea, but he is good. Look. Nearly scored.
FRANCOISE
Is that good or bad?
RICHARD
I think it's good. Not that I think there's anything good about being good at soccer. Anyone could do that. I could do it if I wanted to. I just don't want to. That's all.
She sits up.
FRANCOISE
Richard.
RICHARD
Yes?
FRANCOISE
What are you talking about?
RICHARD
I don't know. Just conversation.
FRANCOISE
Do you have a girlfriend?
RICHARD
Here?
FRANCOISE
Anywhere
RICHARD
No. Why?
FRANCOISE
Just conversation.
RICHARD
I'm not jealous, if that's what you're thinking.
FRANCOISE
No, it's what you are thinking. You are far from home. You meet a girl. It's exciting, why not? You are attracted to her - it's in your eyes. Perhaps in hers as well. So you think something might happen; it's easy to believe, it's exciting. But she has a boyfriend so you are jealous. Don't worry. It's natural. Now I have seen enough football. Shall we swim?
Richard is stunned.
RICHARD
So would I be wrong?
FRANCOISE
What?
RICHARD
If I thought something might happen - would I be wrong?
She touches him.
FRANCOISE
Richard, how would I know? I don't know any more than you.
She walks away.
Richard watches her go. He turns to the football.
Etienne scores.
RICHARD (V.O.)
And that's all it takes. Nothing more than a few words and the softest touch and your life is different, won't ever be the same again. Man dies, leaves you the mystery map to the secret island: happens every day. But you get a smile from someone you want: well that's special, that's worth the journey.


+	67.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.
+	68.	Richard is sitting in his bed.
He is watching Francoise in conversation with Keaty across the other side of the room. During Richards (V.O.) their conversation ends and Keaty walks away, leaving Francoise momentarily alone.
Most of the population is present in the room. Sal is reading.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I would have liked to have continued our discussion, to thrash out the details of our forthcoming affair, but every time I had the chance to catch her alone, something always got in the way.
Francoise is alone now. Richard is about to move across when the center of the room is occupied by commotion.
At the heart of this are Bugs, and an Italian man, Gregorio. Bugs is holding a pair of pliers. Gregorio is in pain.
Richard watches.
BUGS
I can deal with it!
GREGORIO
I don't want you to deal with it.
BUGS
It won't take a minute.
GREGORIO
No! Please, no! I must go to the mainland.
Onlookers join in.
VARIOUS
No way/ You can't go to the mainland/ No, etc.
GREGORIO
Sal!
Sal looks up for the first time.
SAL
Sorry, I wasn't really tuned in. You want to go to the mainland? To see a dentist, is that it?
GREGORIO
Yes.
Sal is casual but firm.
SAL
No. It's out of the question.
She returns to the book.
With help from two or three other people, Bgs drags Gregorio to the floor and rips out the offending tooth with a pair of pliers. Gregorio screams.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I was sort of disturbed by this, but really only by the method, by the way that Bugs handled it. But the guy couldn't leave; I could see that. When you have something secret, everyone's got to take responsibility to keep it that way.
Francoise has gone.

+	68.	EXT. BEACH. DAY
+	69.	A tropical lightening storm is in progress.
At the edge of the beach, Christo, Richard, Sten, and Karl are standing under the ineffectual shelter of a palm tree, ecah holding their spear. A short distance away, under anotehr tree, sit Francoise and Etienne, hand in hand.
They are all contemplating the sea and the sky. Christo has a swimming mask and a snorkel.
RICHARD (V.O.)
In any case, I was more concerned about the Francoise situation. After such a promising start, it just didn't seem to be reaching its natural conclusion. In truth it was beginning to annoy me; I mean what's the use of being in paradise if you can't have whatever you want. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the whole idea?
CHRISTO
The problem is seeing the fish. With the rain and the poor light, they are very difficult to catch. It could last for days. Sometimes when it rains, we get hungry.
RICHARD
Hey, Etienne, you going fishing?
ETIENNE
I don't know, maybe if - 
RICHARD
Don’t' worry. You just sit there. I'll go, OK? I'll go. You just sit there.
He takes the mask and snorkel from Christo and marches down towards the sea.
ETIENNE
Good luck
Richard looks back at them but says nothing. He pulls the mask on and resumes his march into the sea.

+	69.	
+	70.	EXT. LAGOON. DAY. AND UNDERWATER. DAY.

+	71.	Richard swims along near the sea-bed past rocks and coral but can see no fish.
He surfaces and swims further out.
He hears shouts from the shore. He turns and treads water.
The shouts from his colleagues are indistinct, carried away by the wind and the rain.
RICHARD
(Shouting)
I can't hear.
He takes the mask off to clean the lens.
RICHARD
(Continuing)
And you can't hear me.
He puts the mask back on and turns away from the shore.
He freezes.
There is a shark's fin in the water, moving towards him.
He looks around. The shore seems far away. He starts swimming frantically towards it.
The shark closes in.
Richard submerges and turns to face the shark.
The shark approaches head on. It is about five feet long with the appropriate teeth.
Richard is terrified, convinced he is about to die.
The shark swoops towards him at speed.
It stops, its teeth centimeters from his mask. It pauses then flicks its tail and swims past Richard.
He is astonished.
It circles him and approaches again, pausing just in front.
Tentatively, Richard raises a hand.
The shark does not react.
Richard pats it gently on its snout.
It swims around him again.
Richard sees small fish swimming around him. He spears one and holds it out on the tip of his spear.
The shark snatches it off and repeats its circle but does not threaten Richard.
He smiles.
As it approaches again, he holds the spear in both hands and lowers it by his side.
The shark bobs in front of him, curious and friendly.
Richard's arms begin their forward motion as his V.O. commences.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I ducked to one side, then to the other as it passed me. First on my left, then on my right. 

+	70.	
+	71.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.

+	72.	Grilled shark steaks have been passed around and eaten by all while Richard stands and relates his adventure. He cannot resist a glance at Francoise, who listens with rapt attention.
RICHARD (V.O.)
But it could see that I was getting tired, so I stood my ground as he swam in for his final attack.

+	71.	
+	72.	EXT. UNDERWATER. DAY.

+	73.	Continuing the shark scene.
The shark is bobbin in front of him, practically wagging its tail. 
Richard is smiling.
RICHARD (V.O.)
And at that instant, it was either the shark or me. The shark knew it, I knew it.
Richard's arms flex. The spear travels up. It stops. Richard grips the spear tightly as it shakes.
Blood spurts out towards Richards' mask in pulses and the sea turns red around him.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Nothing personal, of course. It's the way of nature. But I swear that in the last flicker of its dying eyes there was a moment between us, when it said -

+	72.	
+	73.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.

+	74.	Richard continues his story.
RICHARD
"Hey Richard - enjoy your dinner."
There are cheers to the end of his story.
Bugs waits until these die down.
BUGS
Strange thing, killing a shark, isn't it?
RICHARD
Just a big fish, Bugs.
BUGS
Just a big fish? Maybe. Maybe when it's still a baby and it hasn't really learned to kill yet, then maybe it's just a big fish. But when it's a great white angry mother with the taste of human blood on its tongue, well then it's a different story.
Richard yawns noisily. Some people laugh.
He notice Bugs scowling at him.
RICHARD
Sorry, Bugs. Is it just me or does this wet weather make everybody tired? Maybe we can hear your "very different" and I'm sure "very fascinating" story some other time.
There is a flurry of exaggerated yawning, sniggering, extinguishing of candles and calls of "goodnight".
Bugs does not laugh. He stares at Richard.
Richard is smiling as he extinguishes the final candle.

+	73.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	74.	A sunny day. A game of cricket, under the supervision of Keaty, is about to begin.
KEATY
Wicketkeeper. First slip. Second slip. Gully. Square leg. Long leg. Silly mid-off. Cover point.
At low tide, two sets of cricket stumps have been set up on the beach some twenty yards apart. The stumps and bats have been roughly hewn.
At one end, Sten stands with a bat, ready to defend his stumps. At the other end stands Keaty, who is umpiring. Behind them, the bowler warms up, holding a small rubber ball.
Among the ten fielders are Etienne and Francoise.
Richard, the second batsman, walks toward Keaty, practicing with an air of exuberance.
KEATY 
(Continuing)
We thank you Lord, for the twin pillars of civilization, Christianity and cricket, even when played by those of another faith., Amen. Ok, right arm over the wicket; first ball.
The bowler runs up and bowls. Sten hits the ball and it is fielded for no run at leaisurly pace by Etienne. Keaty and Richard watch.
KEATY
(Continuing)
You do realize that killing a defenseless shark won't make any difference.
RICHARD
Difference to what?
KEATY
You and Francoise, that's what.
RICHARD
Sorry Keaty, but I don't know what you're talking about.
KEATY
That is why you killed it, isn't it? Ducked one way then the other! All to impress her, I suppose.
The second ball is bowled and fielded.
KEATY
(Continuing)
But you haven't got a chance in hell. I'm not saying you won't get a quick fumble in her knickers down the back of the longhouse but in the long run.
Third ball
RICHARD
I don't need to discuss this with you.
KEATY
No ball!
RICHARD
Also, you're wrong.
Third ball re-bowled and hit well.
KEATY
Four runs!
He turns back to Richard.
KEATY
(continuing)
Richard, you are a novelty act. He is the main attraction.
RICHARD
Thank you for your opinion, Father.
Fourth ball.
KEATY
I don't mean to bring you down. I just wouldn't want anyone to get hurt
RICHARD
If you don't shut up, you're the one that's going to get hurt.
Silence
KEATY
One other thing.
RICHARD
What?
KEATY
He's better looking than you.
RICHARD
Thanks.
Fifth ball bowled and hit. The batsmen both run, Richard and Sten exchanging places.
Richard prepares to face the bowler
KEATY
Right arm over the wicket. One ball remaining.
The ball is bowled. Richard hits it in the air.
KEATY
Catch it! Catch it!
Etienne catches it.
Keaty signals "out".
Richard walks away from the wicket, past Keaty and the celebrating fielders, Francoise among them, who have gathered around Etienne.

+	74.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	75.	Richard reaches the fringe of the beach where Sal is sitting alone, half watching the game.
SAL
Aren't you going to stay and watch the game?
RICHARD
No. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go for a long walk.
SAL
Don't forget about this evening. You wouldn't want to miss it.
RICHARD
Why? What happens this evening? Another obscure English sport with which to humiliate the Americans?
SAL
It's the anniversary, Richard.

+	75.	EXT. CLEARING. NIGHT.
+	76.	A pair of hands, Sten's, tap loud and fast on a small drum.
The inhabitants are sitting in a group. They are all holding half coconut shells.
Sonja walks along with a large clay bottle, filling each shell with a milky liquid.
Sal is standing up.
The drumming stops.
SAL
To the first six years.
They all drink.
Richard cringes at the unpleasant taste.
Beside him, Etienne proudly gulps down the whole drink.
Sonja refills the cups, pouring freely.
SAL
(continuing)
And looking forward to the next one.
They all drink again.
Once again, Richard sips while Etienne empties his cup.
RICHARD
So who was actually the first here?
SAL
Well, technically, Daffy was the first person on the island.
RICHARD
So why did he leave?
There is an immediate silence.
SAL
What?
RICHARD
Why did Daffy leave? What made him unhappy?
The silence persists.
RICHARD
(continuing)
Sorry. Have I broken a rule?
SAL
No, Richard, don't worry. Daffy left because he felt that in coming to paradise we had inevitably destroyed it.
RICHARD
Because you built a shelter.
SAL
He was a purist.
MIRJANA
He was crazy.
There is a general murmur of agreement.
RICHARD
Must have been.
The atmosphere is still slightly awkward.
Guitarman breaks the silence by plunging into a rendition of a popular favorite.
Sonja refills the cups.
Once again, Etienne tilts back his head and drinks.

+	76.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.
+	77.	The longhouse is empty. Outside a different, slower tune is being played.
The door is kicked open.
Richard struggles in, carrying Etienne draped over his shoulder.
Francoise follows.
Richard lets Etienne slide off onto his bed where he lies, inert and comatose.
FRANCOISE
Look at him. It's disgraceful to drink so much.
RICHARD
I think he just got carried away with the excitement of the occasion.
FRANCOISE
Don't make excuses for him. I'm so embarrassed. 
RICHARD (V.O.)
Now, I thought, this si my moment. It's now or never. Now or never. Now or -
RICHARD
Francoise -
FRANCOISE
Richard, would you like to go tot the beach with me.
RICHARD
Yes!

+	77.	
+	78.	EXT BEACH. NIGHT.Richard and Francoise walk down the shore to the moonlit sea.
Francoise wades in up to her thighs. Richard follows.
FRANCOISE
Do you like it here, Richard?
RICHARD
I love this island.
FRANCOISE
Do you think about home?
RICHARD
No.
FRANCOISE
Nor do I. Do you think that I ignore you?
RICHARD
Me? No.
FRANCOISE
It's because I am with Etienne. It's difficult to spend time with you.
RICHARD
I don't suppose there's any special reason that you should, spend time with me, that is.
FRANCOISE
Of course there is: I like you, a lot.
RICHARD
And have you mentioned this to Etienne.
FRANCOISE
No. It's our secret.
They are very close now, looking into each others' eyes. 
Suddenly Francoise looks away.
FRANCOISE
(continuing)
There!
RICHARD
What?
FRANCOISE
Look! The plankton. Shrimps. In the dark, when they are disturbed, they glow.
She dives in. He follows.
UNDERWATER. NIGHT.
Their faces, close together, are illuminated by the phosphorescent plankton.

+	78.	
+	79.	EXT. BEACH. NIGHT.

+	80.	They surface, kissing passionately.

+	79.	EXT. CLEARING. DAY.
+	80.	Under a shelter in the cooking area, the Chef walks up to two sacks of rice and slashes them open.
He picks out two clumps of green, rotten mush and holds them out towards Sal who stands nearby.

+	80.	EXT. CLEARING. DAY
+	81.	The inhabitants of the community are sprawled around the area, generally facing towards Sal who addresses them. Francoise is sitting with Etienne but turns to acknowledge Richard with a smile at some stage.
SAL
Alright, I've got some bad news. As some of you may have heard, a couple of sacks of rice have gone rotten. Now this is not a disaster - 
VARIOUS
Oh, no.
SAL
Yes, that's right: I need a volunteer to go to Ko Pha Ngan with me to buy some rice. So please don't all volunteer at once.
There are no volunteers. Everyone avoids Sal's eye.
SAL
(continuing)
Keaty?
KEATY
I went two months ago.
SAL
And so did I. Anyone else?
Still no volunteers.
SAL
(continuing)
Richard?
Richard has been scrutinizing Francoise's back.
RICHARD
What?
SAL
What about you? Will you come to Ko Pha Ngan with me?
RICHARD
Sure. Yea. I'll come with you.
SAL
Great.
She smiles at him.

+	81.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY
+	82.	Richard is sitting on his mat with a pencil and a piece of paper. A line of people wait to pass him some crumpled baht and their order.
Their recitals overlap.
MAN 1
Toothbrush, toothpaste, sixty cigarettes, a new hat, some elastoplast, a pair of swimming trunks, four bars of chocolate and some razors.
WOMAN 1
One hundred aspirin, one hundred paracetamol, six boxes of regular tampons, toothpaste, soap and some shampoo.
MAN 2
Toothpaste, a ball of string, four double-A batteries, and twenty condoms. No, make it forty.
WOMAN 2
Six bars of chocolate, moisturizer, four boxes of tampons, assorted sixes, two bars of soap and some toothpaste.
MAN 3
One tin of beef curry.
WOMAN 3
A newspaper, some boiled sweets, shampoo and conditioner, two hundred cigarettes, a pair of plastic sandals, small, a new swimsuit, size ten, bright but no flowers, a plain T-shirt, a jar of Vegemite and three cigarette lighters.
The last to sit down opposite Richard is Bugs. He sits close, their knees almost touching.
Richard is posed with his pen, ready to take note.
RICHARD
Anything I can do for you?
Bugs smiles.
His right arm whips out and he grabs Richard by the testicles.
Richard buckles forward in pain.
BUGS
Yeah. When you get to Ko Pha Ngan, keep your hands to yourself and your dick in your pants.
He releases Richard.
Preplexed and in pain Richard watches Bugs walk away.


+	82.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.
+	83.	Everyone is asleep. Track along past the sleeping forms to stop at Richard.
The figure looking down at him is Sal.
+	84.	EXT. CLEARING. DAWN.
+	85.	Sal and Richard are walking away from the longhouse in the early morning light. Sal has a small parcel of cannabis wrapped up in a plastic bag.
RICHARD
Why are we leaving so early.
SAL
If you hang around, people take advantage of you, give you orders for all sorts of shit - clothes, condoms, Vegemite and God knows what else.
RICHARD
Right.
SAL
We go to Ko Pha Ngan, sell the dope, buy the rice, and come back. That's all.
+	86.	EXT. BEACH / Water. Day.
+	87.	Sal walks into the water and begins swimming out towards the cliff.
Richard watches then dives into the water.
+	88.	EXT. LAGOON / CLIFFS. DAY.
+	89.	Sal waits for Richard as he catches up with her at the base of the cliffs inside the lagoon.
RICHARD
Over?
SAL
Under.
RICHARD
Anything I should know?
SAL
Don't breathe till you get to the other side.
Sal submerges.
Richard watches her disappear into an underwater tunnel into the rock.
He takes a deep breath.,
UNDERWATER. DAY.
Richard enters the tunnel, passing from the light into the dark.
He enters near total darkness.
Far ahead is a narrow point of dim light.
He swims towards it.
+	90.	INT CAVE. DAY.
+	91.	Richard surfaces, breathing deeply. He is in a cave within the cliffs, from which a small entrance opens on to the sea beyond.
Within the cave is a large flat rock and moored beside that is a small narrow boat with an outboard motor.
The ceiling of the cave is high and opening into it is a chimney (which will be in use later). Additional light enters through this.
As Richard surfaces, Sal is already in the boat.
SAL
Welcome to the garage.
She pulls the start cord. The small engine's loud roar reverberates around the stone walls.
+	92.	EXT. SEA / CLIFFS. DAY.
+	93.	The small boat emerges from the cave on to the sea, Richard at the front and Sal at the helm.
+	94.	EXT. BEACH. NIGHT.
+	95.	By the light of the moon, they come to land on a deserted stretch of beach. Richard jumps into the shallows as Sal cuts the engine.
Lights dance in the sky some distance away.
Sal and Richard drag and shove the boat up the beach.
The full moon shines brightly. The insistent beat of dance music is heard.
RICHARD (V.O.)
All the way I was sort of looking forward to the party, but when we actually got there -
+	96.	EXT. BEACH RESORT. NIGHT.
+	97.	The street is lined with bars each pumping out western music on its own sound system.
Richard and Sal walk along the strip.
They turn towards a bungalow complex. Sal is still carrying the parcel of dope.
RICHARD (V.O.)
- I couldn't be bothered. It all seemed kind of trashy and out of place. This was why we kept the secret. If these assholes ever found out about our island they'd take just one night to spoil it forever.
+	98.	EXT. BUNGALOWS RECEPTION. NIGHT.
+	99.	The reception area is covered by an awning. An old warped pool table stands in the center. Sal and the receptionist, SUMET, greet each other and speak in Thai. There are no subtitles but when they discus sthe number of rooms they indicate with their fingers: this is not seen by Richard.
SAL
Good evening.
SUMET
Good evening, how are you?
SAL
Very well, thank you.
SUMET
You brought something?
SAL
As always.
Sal puts the parcel on the desk. Sumet weighs it in her hand.
SUMET
Good.
SAL
We'd like to stay one night.
SUMET
Two rooms?
SAL
One.
Sumet looks at Richard.
SUMET
A good choice. Young and strong.
She squeezes his arm and laughs.
SAL
She says she's got two rooms. No problem.
RICHARD
Great.
+	100.	INT. PHONE BOOTH. NIGHT.
+	101.	Richard is in one of a line of booths in an international call office/general tourist store.
RICHARD
I don't know. I just don't know. Maybe this year, maybe not. I like it here. Things are different out here.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I phoned home and discovered that I couldn't communicate. I realized that I was no longer the person they knew.
RICHARD
You don't understand.
He hangs up.
He steps out of the booth. On the other side of the store are racks of patterned shirts and hats.
Richard walks across and stares just beyond them.
He is looking in a mirror, at himself, tanned and weathere-beaten.
+	102.	INT.SUPERMARKET. NIGHT.
+	103.	Richard browses, selecting the items on his list, then spending time choosing soap, eventually opting for a brand marked "Genuine French Soap".
RICHARD (V.O.)
In fact the more I thought about it the more I realized that none of this world made any sense to me. I'd left it behind. We all had, and in its place we'd found somewhere special, and we were determined to keep it that way.
He drops the "French" soap in his basket.
+	104.	EXT. BEACH. NIGHT.
+	105.	The music is far away now. Richard and Sal struggle along the deserted beach to their boat carrying a pallet laden with sacks of rice.
They arrive and drop the pallet.
RICHARD
Now I understand why no one wants to come for the rice.
INT/ EXT. BAR. NIGHT.
The bar opens out to a street just back from the beach. It is busy.
Sal and Richard stand at the bar with their drinks.
SAL
So how does it feel to be back in the world?
RICHARD
It's not like I remembered it.
SAL
It gets worse every time.
A hand rests on Richard's shoulder, gently pushing him aside to create space at the bar. It is Zeph.
ZEPH
Excuse me, please.
He does not see Richard's face but concentrates on the barman.
Richard recognizes him and conceals his face.
ZEPH
(continuing)
Excuse me! Four beers please. Heinneken.
The barman serves him.
Sammy and two German girls stand behind Zeph. He passes the drink back to them and turns to speak.
Richard and Sal listen in.
ZEPH
(Continuing)
OK, where was I?
SAMMY
The beach.
ZEPH
Right, the beach: it's on this secret island, in the middle of the national park where no one is allowed to go. It's paradise.
GIRL 1
Sounds cool.
ZEPH
What's even better is we got the map of how to get there.
GIRL 1
Can we see it?
SAMMY
Sure. Let's go back to our place. We can smoke some dope, drink some beer, loosen off these tight clothes we're wearing, then check out the map.
ZEPH
But hey it's secret - if we show you the map, you have to come with us.
They laugh. Zeph and Sammy high-five each other.
ZEPH
(continuing)
Back in a minute. Just going to conduct a recon of the local sanitation facility.
Richard watches him leave the bar.
+	106.	EXT. TOILET. NIGHT.
+	107.	The toilet is a narrow concrete passage with a ditch along the bottom on one side. There is no roof but a single light above.
Zeph is just finishing as he notices Richard.
ZEPH
Hey, Richard! I hardly fucking recognize you. Where have you been? The beach? Tell me - it's paradise.
RICHARD
There is no beach.
ZEPH
What?
RICHARD
The map is wrong.
ZEPH
You've been?
RICHARD
No. it's dangerous.
ZEPH
Danger - hey, you're calling my middle name. What kind of danger?
RICHARD
Doesn't matter.
ZEPH
I think you're trying to put me off.
RICHARD
I'm just telling you, for your own good: stay away. Don't go. Don't even try. Just forget it.
ZEPH
We'll do whatever we want.
He goes to leave. Richard places a hand on his chest. They stop for a moment. Zeph pushes the hand away.
ZEPH
(continuing)
Fuck you.
Zeph walks past then turns back.
ZEPH
(continuing)
Stay away from the mushrooms, Richard, they make you paranoid.
+	108.	EXT. BECH / STEPS. NIGHT.
+	109.	Richard and Sal are climbing the steps towards the bungalow reception.
SAL
That idiot Daffy? What was he doing - handing out Xerox copies to every asshole in Thailand?
RICHARD
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
SAL
Why? That's all I want to know. Why?
RICHARD
I don't know, Sal.
SAL
Pardon me for this, but thank Christ he's dead.
+	110.	EXT. BUNGALOWS RECEPTION. NIGHT.
+	111.	Richard and Sal enter from the steps. Behind them the party is still in progress.
Sal approaches the desk while Richard hangs back.
She greets Sumet who hands over one key.
SAL
Bad news.
RICHARD
What?
SAL
She gave away your room. She thought we were - you know - together. Sorry.
RICHARD
Right. Great. Well I'll go find somewhere else then. I'll meet you back here in the morning.
SAL
Richard.
She shows him the key for the room.
They look at each other.
SAL 
(continuing)
I'm going to play a couple of games of pool with Sumet.
She throws the key. He catches.
SAL
(continuing)
Why don't you go warm the bed?
+	112.	INT. BUNGALOW. NIGHT.
+	113.	The room is in darkness. Moonlight penetrates the threadbare curtain. The bed is surrounded by a mosquito net.
The music from the beach party is audible.
Just visible through the net is the outline of two human forms entwined.
+	114.	EXT. BUNGALOW. NIGHT.
+	115.	Lizards scuttle across the small porch.
+	116.	INT. BED. NIGHT.
+	117.	Surrounded by a wall of mosquito net, Richard and Sal lie on the bed.
Sal lies on her side falling asleep. Richard is awake.
RICHARD
Sal.
SAL
Uh-huh.
RICHARD
Can I ask you a question?
SAL
It was great.
RICHARD
No, it's not that. I just wondered about Bugs. And me.
Sal rouses herself.
SAL
OK, it's like this. Bugs is my boyfriend, my partner, and you, you're someone I just screwed. Is that ok?
She turns on her side again.
RICHARD
That's fine. That's absolutely fine.
SAL
Good, now get some sleep - I may wish to have sex again before we eat breakfast.
+	118.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	119.	Richard and Sal push the boat into the water and away from the beach, jumping on board as they do so.
+	120.	EXT. SEA/CLIFFS. DAY.
+	121.	Richard and Sal approach the outer cliffs of the sea-wall in the boat. Richard looks up.
Bugs is standing at the top of the cliff, directly above the cave.
+	122.	INT CAVE. DAY.
+	123.	The sacks of rice are now contained in a net being hauled upwards on a rope towards and into the chimney which rises out of the ceiling.
Sal swims away into the tunnel.
+	124.	EXT. CLIFF TOP. DAY.
+	125.	Bugs and Keaty haul the rice up with the aid of a block and tackle.
+	126.	INT. CAVE. DAY.
+	127.	Richard is alone as he looks up the chimney and watches the cargo disappear the last few feet to the top of the cliff.
As it reaches the top it is swung aside and Bugs looks down.
Richard and Bugs stare at each other down the length of the chimney.
Richard casually clutches his groin and thrusts once.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Screwing Sal was pretty good but screwing Bugs - that was even better.
+	128.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT.
+	129.	The longhouse is full of inhabitants.
Richard walks the length of the hut like Santa Claus despensing toiletries and other gifts as requested.
He reaches Francoise alone at the end of the hut.
He gives her the "French" soap.
RICHARD
For you.
FRANCOISE
I missed you.
RICHARD
I'm back.
FRANCOISE
What was it like?
RICHARD
The rice run? No problem.
FARNCOISE
I mean being with Sal?
RICHARD
Oh…fine. Listen, do you want to go to the beach?
FRANCOISE
I can't. Meet me tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock at the waterfall.
She touches him as she walks away.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I didn’t' feel as bad as I should have about all this. In fact I didn't really feel bad at all. What happened on Ko Pha Ngan was different, it didn't count.
+	130.	EXT. FOREST/WATERFALL. DAY.
+	131.	Richard is on his way to the waterfall.
RICHARD (V.O.)
And I was glad to be back. Now I really did understand why no one wanted to go for the rice. Life here was so good that going back to the world we came from could only bring you down.
He reaches the area by the waterfall and stands waiting. He looks around for Francoise: no sign. He checks his watch: a few minutes to ten.
SAL (O.S.)
Hi there, Richard.
Richard turns to see Sal, who has appeared as though from nowhere.
RICHARD
Oh, Sal. Hi.
SAL
Hi? Is that all you can say? I thought we had a little more rapport than that.
RICHARD
I mean, hello, nice to see you. What brings you here.
SAL
I was looking for you.
RICHARD
Oh. Well, here I am.
SAL
I have to go somewhere. I'd like you to accompany me.
Richard checks his watch.
RICHARD
Right now? It's not really all that convenient, Sal.
SAL
I'm sorry. Are you meeting someone?
RICHARD
Me? No.
SAL
You sure?
RICHARD
Yes.
SAL
Good. So, you can come with me.
 
(Unfortunately the copy of the script is now missing a page.)
 
SAL
If they reach the island, I want you to discourage them from getting any further.
RICHARD
"Discourage."
SAL
You'll think of something, Richard. I trust you.
Sal kisses him on the cheak and leaves.
Richard watches her go.
RICHARD
Sal! How long do I - Sal!
She does not turn around.
Richard turns back towards the other island.
He focuses the binoculars.

+	111.	EXT. BEACH. DAY.
+	112.	The empty beach on the other island.
+	113.	EXT. HILLTOP. DAY.
+	114.	Richard is not pleased.
+	115.	EXT. BEACH. NIGHT.
+	116.	Richard and Francoise are sitting in the shadows.
RICHARD
She didn't tell me how long I was supposed to wait or anything. You know what she's like, she just gets you to do things.
FRANCOISE
What kind of things?
RICHARD
Just things, you know.

+	83.	

FRANCOISE
No, I don't.
RICHARD
Hey, what's wrong - I'm sorry I wasn't there today. Is that it?
FRANCOISE
I think Sal is attracted to you.
RICHARD
No, I don't think so.
FRANCOISE
On Ko Pha Ngan, did anything happen?
RICHARD
Happen? No, nothing.
FRANCOISE
You promise.
RICHARD
I promise.
FRANCOISE
Good.
They kiss.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Ok, so I lied. It just wasn't the right time.
+	114.	EXT. HILLTOP. DAY. Richard sits at the lookout.
RICHARD (V.O.)
And the next day, we couldn't meet up either. It was straight back up. Same scene again: no travelers, no boat, no action, nothing. Now I thought if this is going to be a regulra situation, I'm going to have to start hiding from Sal so I don't have to come up here. But a strange thing happened: I began to enjoy it. I looked forward to it, I started to explore.

+	115.	EXT. HILL. DAY. From a vantage point, Richard looks down on the lagoon, the beach, the forest, and the clearing.
With the binoculars he can see the details of life in each of these areas.

+	116.	EXT. ISLAND SCENES. DAY. Through the binoculars, various characters are at work or at rest including Francoise, Etienne, Sal, Bugs, Keaty, etc.
RICHARD (V.O.)
And then I couldn't understand why I'd never come up before. I got a whole new perspective. They were ants, or rats in an experiment, but up here I wasn't part of it, I was free. I could do whatever I wanted. This was my personal adventure playground. There was even a bunch of local bad guys I could fool around with.

+	117.	EXT. FOREST NEAR DOPE FIELD. DAY. Looking through the trees, the four dope farmers (with their guns) are visible about thirty meters away, relaxing and playing cards.
Richard appears in a tree, hiding from their view, if they cared to look.
He steals forward to another tree. He watches them.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Pretty soon, I was starring in my very own war movie. It was Vietnam 1968, or at least about as close to it as I would ever get, considering I was born in 1973. But I knew exactly who I was: renegade special forces officer on a solo mission, search and destroy. I liked the sound of it "he prefers to work alone," they'd say, "he's got the stare."
The farmers are oblivious.
Richard advances as far as he dare: a few meters from them.
He peers at them around the edge of the tree.
He notices that the one nearest has left a knife on the ground.
Richard lifts a stone and throws it high in the air beyond the farmers.
As it falls through the trees to the forest floor the farmers are startled. They stand and turn away towards the noise reaching for their guns, cocking them, etc.
The knife is taken by Richard.
The farmers see a bird fly from a tree. Satisfied, they give up and return to their resting place.
Richard steals away from tree to tree.
The farmer cannot understand where his knife has gone.

+	118.	EXT. FOREST. DAY Richard sits in a hollow under a rough shelter he as made from palm leaves.
He is using the knife to gut a bird of some sort which he then eats raw.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I hadn't entirely forgotten my purpose up here, but I wasn't worried about it. I mean I didn't want one of those bastards turning up with my map sticking out of his pocket, but if they did, it was going to be a challenge. It was a mission, my mission, to defend our island.

+	119.	EXT. HILLTOP. DAY. Richard watches the empty beach.
RICHARD (V.O.)
The only hitch was - the enemy didn't show up. Now it was probably a mistake, but I one day I brought Francoise up. I thought I'd show her around.

+	120.	EXT. FOREST. DAY Richard struggles through dense undergrowth, followed by Francoise.
RICHARD
Come on, just through here. Watch out for the thorns. Here: look.
Beneath a tree, a few rotting logs are topped off with palm leaves.
RICHARD
(continuing)
Well, what do you think?
FRANCOISE
What is it?
RICHARD
It's a shelter. I built it. I thought we could move up here. Get away from it all.
FRANCOISE
We?
RICHARD
Yeah. You'll need to tell Etienne, of course but - 
FRANCOISE
Richard, it's horrible.
RICHARD
Primitive, yes, but you have to accept some limitation when you go for seclusion like this.
FRANCOISE
And to eat?
RICHARD
Whatever I kill, we'll eat.
Francoise laughs.
FRANCOISE
Enjoy yourself, Richard. I'll see you later, back in civilizatin.
RICHARD
Do you want a mushroom?
FRANCOISE
What?
RICHARD
They grow here, all over the place. I picked some. Here.
Richard collects a handful from under the shelter.
Francoise does not think this is funny.
FRANCOISE
No thanks.
RICHARD
Please yourself.
He swallows one.
Francoise turns away. She struggles back through the undergrowth.
Richard watches her. He swallows a handful of mushrooms.

+	121.	EXT. FOREST. DAY. Close up: a caterpillar crawls along a green leaf.
Richard, his pupils dilated, is watching, transfixed.
He holds the knife at the end of the leaf.
The caterpillar crawls on to the blade.
Richard sticks his tongue out and swivels the blade around.
The caterpillar crawls on to his tongue.
Richard gently closes his mouth.
He swallows.
RICHARD (V.O.)
When you're a highly trained combat machine, you can't allow yourself to be distracted by minor problems in your personal life. And you can't sit around, you have to stay active, otherwise your energy will dissipate. You have to feed the fear.

+	122.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT/DAWN. Richard, his face disrupted by mud, sneaks towards the rough shelter of wooden planks and palm leaves under which the four farmers are sleeping.

+	123.	INT. EXT. SHELTER. NIGHT/DAWN. The shelter is several meters long but shallow and is open down the length of one side.
This is the farmers' home on the island.
It contains a collection of tools, arms, crates, bedding, food, cigarettes, and bottles of cheap whiskey.
Spaced out within the shelter, the four farmers are asleep on low pallets or mats on the ground, each with their gun by their side.
Richard enters the shelter and surveys the scene.
He approaches the nearest farmer who lies asleep. He is wearing a bandana which has slipped half off in his sleep.
Very slowly, Richard reaches down and lifts the farmer's gun, a Kalashnikov-type assult rifle.
Richard holds the weapon, becoming comfortable with it.
He lifts the butt to his shoulder and squints down the sight.
He closes in on the farmer, so close that the muzzle is almost tickling the farmer's nose.
In his sleep, the farmer swats at his nose as he might swat at a fly. Richard withdraws the gun a fraction.
His finger strokes the trigger.
He moves very carefully around the shelter, pointing the gun at each sleeping farmer and mouthing "bang" as he goes.
He returns to the first farmer and kneels beside him.
The farmer is on his side, facing away from Richard. He stirs in his sleep and wakes slightly.
He reaches out behind him to feel for his gun. His hand feels the metal. He relaxes and closes his eyes again.
Behind him, Richard smiles and releases his own grip on the gun.
Instead he lifts the bandana away from the farmer's head and puts it on his own.
Now he produces the knife from the back of his shorts.
He kneels beside the farmer and holds the knife firmly.
Abruptly he stabs it into the upright wooden plank behind the farmer's head.
The blade sinks deep into the wood.

+	124.	EXT. WATERFALL. DAY. Richard screams as he executes an exhibition dive from the top of the waterfall to the pool below.

+	125.	EXT. BEACH. DAY. There is no one on the beach apart from Richard.
He walks to the water and dives in.
He surfaces and faces the sun.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I was ecstatic. In a fair contest I had infiltrated their command and left my mark. I had fulfilled my potential as a warrior, a soldier, a killer on the loose. I could just imagine them trying to work how the missing knife got home.
Christo, Sten, and Karl appear walking down the beach with their fishing gear as Richard walks in from the water.
RICHARD
Hi, guys.
CHRISTO
Hello Richard.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I couldn't wait to tell Francoise about it.

+	126.	EXT. FOREST. DAY. Richard's face is slapped twice by Francoise's hand.
They are standing in a small clearing not far from the longhouse.
Francoise raises her hand to slap him again. He retreats a fraction.
RICHARD
Do you want to calm down? I'm trying to tell you about something exciting. I'm trying to share it with you and all you can do is freak out because you don't like where I want to live.
FRANCOISE
I don't care about that.
RICHARD
No? Still pissed about the mushrooms. You know Francoise, sometimes you are so uptight.
FRANCOISE
You liked to me. About Sal.
RICHARD
Oh, that. She told you?
FRANCOISE
She told everyone. She believes in openness and honesty, not like you.
RICHARD
Come on, you were two-timing Etienne.
FRANCOISE
Because I liked you. I didn't know you were going to screw Sal twenty-four hours later.
RICHARD
Well if you're going to make such a big deal out of it -
FRANCOISE
Bugs is going to kill you. And you know what - I don't care.
She raises her hand and slaps him again.
Richard does not flinch.

+	127.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY. Richard enters the longhouse.
Inside are several people, including Bugs, sitting at the far end.
When they see that it is Richard, all conversation stops.
One by one at first, then en masse, everyone except Bugs leaves the longhouse, hurrying past Richard at the door.
Richard and Bugs stare at each other down the length of the longhouse.
Richard smiles. He repeats the gesture that he made when returning with the rice: he clutches his groin and thrusts towards Bugs.
Bugs starts running towards Richard.
Just as Bugs reaches him he takes evasive action, feinting to one side.
Bugs, cursing, pursues Richard around the longhouse, each of them trampling over possessions and partitions. Bugs is bigger but Richard is too sly and nimble for him, taunting and mocking as he dodges around the narrow upright supports that run down the middle of the building.
Eventually Bugs has Richard cornered.
They face each other, crouched slightly, breathing heavily.
From outside a loud, horrified screaming begins.
It carries on and on.
RICHARD
Don't you think we ought to go see what the problem is?
Bugs pauses for a moment. He glances towards the door for a fraction of a second.
Richard slugs him in the jaw.

+	128.	EXT. CLEARING. DAY. Richard emerges from the longhouse, flexing the fingers of his punching hand.
A crowd has gathered as he joins it.
At the center are Karl, on his knees, wailing and shouting in Swedish, and Sten, who has been savaged by a shark and looks dead. Despite his appearance, Keaty and Gregorio are attempting to resuscitate him.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Poor Karl: he didn't speak much English, but he only needed one word.
KARL
Shark! Shark!
RICHARD (V.O.)
They were trying to save Sten's life although even as a novice in this field I could tell that just wasn't going to happen.
Richard backs away.

+	129.	EXT. BEACH. DAY. Richard walks along the shore and begins to follow a bloodstained furrow in the sand.
RICHARD (V.O.)
The way I saw it, sharks live in the sea, so if you go swimming where they live, they might eat you. That's what sharks are good at, that's what they do. I could have explained this to Christo but I just knew he wouldn't see it.
Richard is standing over Christo who is lying in agony on the sand.
CHRISTO
Richard! My foot. My foot! It's so painful. My foot!
Richard looks at Christo's right leg: it has been bitten off beneath the knee, leaving only a ragged bloody stump.
RICHARD
Yeah, your foot - it's - pretty bad.
Christo clings to him.
CHRISTO
But it will be ok? Please Richard, when I get to the hospital?
RICHARD
Hospital?
CHRISTO
Tell me - it will be ok.
RICHARD
Yeah. Sure. Christo, it'll be ok.

+	130.	EXT. GRAVE STIE. DAY. A freshly dug grave in sandy soil about 1.5 meters deep.
The corpse (Sten) in a sleeping bag is slung into the grave, its feet protruding from the end.
Immediately, the earth starts to be filled in from either side.
KEATY (O.S.)
We are gathered here today to pay our last respects to Sten. I couldn't claim to know the bloke all that well but what I knew, I liked. He was a straightforward, easy to get along with, reliable sort of guy. He worked hard for the whole community - he even lost his life fishing for us.
Keaty is addressing the entire community beside the grave while earth is heaped on.
KEATY
He made an effort to join in whatever was going on. For example, he played cricket with an aptitude and enthusiasm that belied his Nordic origins, and I think we can see that as a symbolic ofhis place amongst us in a wider sense. Anyway, he wasn't one for long speeches, and neither am I. May God take you soul, and you shall rest forever in peace mate. We'll miss you.
Keaty holds back a tear as he throws a flower in the grave.
Others throw flowers in.
Bugs hammers a wooden cross into the ground behind the grave.

+	131.	INT. LONGHOUSE. DAY. Christo is being nursed by Etienne who is mopping his brow, trying to get him to drink etc.
Several people are sitting around, inactive and silent.
Christo moans. A couple of people get up and leave.
RICHARD (V.O.)
After the funeral we all tried to get back to normal, but it just didn't seem right. After a while it became clear that the problem was Christo. You see, in a shark attack, or any other major tragedy I guess, the important thing is to get eaten and die, in which case there's a funeral and someone makes a speech and everyone cries and says what a good guy you were, or: get better in which case everyone can forget about it. It's the hanging around in between that really pisses people off.

+	132.	EXT. FOREST. DAY. Etienne is backing through the forest. Outraged.
ETIENNE
This is disgusting! You cannot do this! Take him back!
A party of stretcher bearers, including Bugs, Sal, and Keaty, carry Christo through the forest. Sal is carrying a small rolled up tent. Richard walks behind.
SAL
Ok, that's far enough.
They lower Christo to the ground.
ETIENNE
Take him back, you fucking animals!
Sal drops the tent at Etienne's feet.
The part walks away apart from Richard
ETIENNE
(continuing)
Fucking bastards!

+	133.	INT. SMALL TENT. DAY. Christo, delirious, is being nursed by Etienne in the small tent, now situated in the middle of the forest.
Richard is with him.
RICHARD
It's not that they don't care, Etienne, it's just that they don't care in the same way as you do. It's a fine distinction, I know.
ETIENNE
I understand: they wish he was dead.
RICHARD
No! they've be equally happy if he recovered. They just want an outcome.
ETIENNE
He needs a doctor.
RICHARD
You worked in a hospital.
ETIENNE
For one month, as a cleaner, a domestic.
RICHARD
Well that's one month longer than anyone else around here. Look, you're doing your best for the guy. No one could ask for more. Everyone apprecaites that.
ETIENNE
Look, Richard!
Etienne draws back the sheet covering Christo's discolored stump.
Richard recoils.
RICHARD
Jesus!
ETIENNE
It's gangrene. It's spreading. He needs an amputation.
Etienne produces a knife from his possessions.
RICHARD
You're going to do it here?
ETIENNE
Where else?
RICHARD
OK! I'll hold him still.
Etienne prepares to proceed, but at the last moment he cannot.
He drops the knife
Richard relaxes.

+	134.	EXT. BEACH. DAY. People are playing and relaxing on the beach and in the water, shouting and swimming.
RICHARD (V.O.)
It would be a lot easier to condemn our behavior if it hadn't been so effective, but out of sight really was out of mind. The bad smell was gone - it was like we had amputated Christo from our community and after the operation was over, we felt a whole lot better.
UNDERWATER. DAY.
In water one meter deep, moving forward with a smooth side-to-side action, the POV of some underwater creature.
Small fish scatter ahead of it.
Suddenly a pair of legs come into view: they are Francoise'.
Close right in on them at speed.

+	135.	EXT. SEA. DAY. Francoise screams as Richard surfaces beside her, laughing.
FRANCOISE
Richard!
RICHARD
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.
FRANCOISE
That's not funny.
RICHARD
Hey, relax, just a joke. What's wrong with you?
FRANCOISE
No, what's wrong with you? Why didn't you stop them moving Christo?
RICHARD
Francoise I just thought we ought to spend some time together. We haven't had a chance to talk, and let's face it, it's going to be a lot easier for us to do that if Etienne isn't hanging around the longhouse.
FRANCOISE
I don't believe it. You really think it was alright to move him.
RICHARD
He was getting everyone down.
FRANCOISE
I don't know what has happened to you, Richard.
RICHARD
I like it here! That's what happened! So what's the problem?
Francoise turns and walks away.
Richard calls after her sarcastically.
RICHARD
(continuing)
We do still have something going don't we?
She does not reply.
RICHARD (V.O.)
So, it seemed that Francoise and I were finished. Under other circumstances I might have got depressed about a think like that, but I had something else to occupy my mind.

+	84.	

+	136.	EXT. BEACH. DAY. Seen through binoculars, Zeph walks along the beach on the other island. He is carrying a large piece of driftwood.
He turns away from the water and walks up the beach towards the line of palm trees.
There he joins Sammy and the two German girls who are constructing something from driftwood and polystryrene floats.

+	137.	EXT. CLEARING. NIGHT. Richard is sitting with Sal.
RICHARD
They're building a raft. It's nearly finished.
SAL
When did they get there?
RICHARD
I don't know. Sometime during all that shark shit.
SAL
Well you'll have to stop them.
RICHARD
They won't get beyond the DMZ.
SAL
The what?
RICHARD
The demilitarized zone, Sal.
SAL
Right. You call it what you want, Richard, just don't let them get this far.
RICHARD
They won't. Believe me.
SAL
This is a particularly bad time, with Christo lying in that tent, it wouldn't look good if anyone arrived.
RICHARD
He's still alive?

+	138.	EXT. FOREST. DAWN. In the small tent, a torch glows, outlining Etienne and Francoise over the prone form of Christo.
Francoise emerges from the tent.
Richard watches.

+	139.	EXT. FOREST. DAWN On the upper part of the island Richard ascends rapidly beside the stream.

+	140.	EXT. HILLTOP. DAWN. Richard surveys the beach on the other island.

+	141.	EXT. BEACH. DAWN. Through binoculars.
Zeph, Sammy, and the German girls launch their raft. It floats.
They climb on and begin paddling.

+	142.	EXT. FOREST NEAR DOPE FIELD. DAY. Richard flits thorough the trees until he can see the shore.

+	143.	EXT. BEACH. DAY. The travelers on their raft come ashore.
They consult their map then move into the forest.

+	144.	EXT. FOREST NEAR DOPE FIELD. DAY. Richard watches them as they ascend the slope to the dope field.
In the other direction, hidden from the travelers perspective, he notices the four farmers sitting at their shelter eating breakfast.

+	145.	EXT. FIELD. DAY. The travelers, watched by Richard, reach the top of the slope and then the edge of the field.
The farmers are nearby.
RICHARD (V.O.)
If I was going to warn them, then now was the time to do it. All I had to do was walk out and tell them not to make any noise I could lead them to safety. I could persuade them to go. I could threaten them. If the worst came to the worst, I could lead them to the camp and we could kick the shit out of them, then send them home. But I didn't want to do any of those things. I wanted to see what would happen.
Zeph, Sammy, and the German girls are jubilant.
SAMMY
We are in dope heaven. There is no other explanation.
ZEPH
(singing)
I smoke two joints in the morning. I smoke two joints at night. I smoke two joints in the afternoon and then I feel alright. I smoke two joints in time of peace and two in time of war. I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints and then -
Zeph stops singing. He has seen the farmers, armed and watching him from a few meters away.
Sammy and the others also notice, one by one. They too stand still, dumb and frightened.
ZEPH
Hi.
SAMMY
Shit.
ZEPH
We're Americans. Tourists. But we will leave. We made a mistake. We go now. We take nothing.
Slowly, he begins to walk backwards, smiling reassuringly.
The farmers say nothing but advance and outflank the travelers, herding them back into a huddle.
ZEPH
(continuing)
We go now. We leave in peace. Look we can pay. Here, American dollars. You can have them.
The farmers line up opposite them.
All begin to plead desperately for their lives.
One of the German girls suddenly breaks away and starts running in the direction of Richard's hiding place. 
One of the guards shoots at her repeatedly, missing.
The others start shooting at the remaining three, cutting them down in a hail of bullets.
The German girl keeps on running, zigzagging as she goes.
The farmers fire but miss.
She reaches the place where Richard is hiding, couched down in the undergrowth.
Startled by seeing him, she stops abruptly.
Richard and the German girl stare into each other's eyes for a moment.
Suddenly her chest explodes forwards as a single bullet rips through from her back.
She falls to the ground.
Richard is spattered in her blood.
He sits motionless, staring at her corpse.
UNDERWATER. DAY.
In the pool at the base of the waterfall. It is empty.
Richard appears, submerging at the speed from his jump.
He sinks then floats slowly towards the surface, eyes open.

+	146.	EXT. POOL. DAY. Richard climbs from the pool.
RICHARD (V.O.)
So that was it. Now I knew exactly what would happen. I wouldn't need to wonder aobut it any longer.

+	147.	EXT. CLEARING. NIGHT. Richard walks across the deserted clearing towards the light of the longhouse.
Around him, a wind begins to blow.

+	148.	INT. LOONGHOUSE. NIGHT. The longhouse is full. Everyone is there, apart from Etienne and Francoise, engaged in quiet conversation.
Richard is hardly noticed as he sits down.
A few seconds later, Sal sits opposite him. She is absolutely matter of fact.
SAL
Well?
RICHARD
They're dead.
SAL
All of them?
RICHARD
Yes, all of them. They disturbed the farmers.
SAL
Right.
RICHARD
I guess that means we don't need to worry about them any more.
SAL
Yeah. The only problem we have left is Francoise and Etienne.
Richard realizes what she means.
RICHARD
You knew they'd be killed.
SAL
It's not the first time.
RICHARD
And Daffy?
SAL
What?
RICHARD
Daffy. He saw it happen. Didn't he? Yea, he saw it happen. And now you wanted me to see it happen.
SAL
Richard, if you're going to live here, you've got to get involved.
Richard's knife (the stolen one) is lying beside him. Sal picks it up by the tip of the blade.
SAL
(continuing)
Francoise. And Etienne.
She slaps the knife into Richard's hand.
She stands up and walks away.
Richard contemplates the knife.

+	149.	EXT. CLEARING. NIGHT. A storm is building up, scattering anything loose across the clearing.

+	150.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT. Most of the lights are out now. The wind is beginning to rattle the building.
Richard lies awake.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I wasn't thinking about what she asked me to do.

+	151.	INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR. DAY. Richard and Daffy shake hands.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I was trying to remember somewhere I used to call home, someone I used to be, but I couldn't put a name to that place or a face to that person anymore - they got left behind in a hotel room in the Khao San Road along with a man who cut his wrists.

+	152.	INT. DAFFY'S ROOM. DAY. Richard steps carefully across the floor, avoiding the pools of blood.
RICHARD (V.O.)
But at least I understood why he'd done it.

+	153.	EXT. CLEARING. NIGHT. It is pouring rain and the storm grows stronger.
Richard appears alone in the clearing, the knife in his hadn.
Thunder and lightening begin.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I still didn't know what I was going to do when I got to them. You see, when you have blood on your hands, you ask yourself, what difference will it make if you spill some more? I had made a sacrifice to keep the secret, and now that sacrifice was the secret.

+	154.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT. Richard approaches the faint glow of the small tent where Francoise is nursing christo.
He is carrying the knife.
He crawls close up to the tent. Etienne is sleeping in the open doorway.

+	155.	INT. LONGHOUSE NIGHT. Inside there is darkness while all are sleeping.
The thunder is directly overhead and the lightening flashes frequently.
Sonja stirs in her sleep.
In a flash of lightening she thinks she sees something.
A whole series of flashes provide a clearer view.
At the end of her bed four corpses, Zeph, Sammy, and the two German girls, hang upside down and bound together from the central beam in the roof of the building.
Zeph appears to be staring at her, his hair trailing against her feet.
She screams.
More lightening illuminates the four armed Farmers.

+	156.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT. Richard crawls towards the sleeping Etienne.
Inside the tent, Francoise has her back to the entrance as she mops the brow of Christo, feverish and unconscious.

+	157.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT. The farmers have torches now.
One of them is interrogating Sal angrily in Thai while the other inhabitants cower at gunpoint.
FARMER
You draw maps! You bring people here! Why?
SAL
No, we don't. We bring no one.
FARMER
You are lying! You are bringing people here. Too many people!
He hits her with the rifle butt.
SAL
No, I promise, we keep it secret. We tell no one.
He hits her again.
FARMER
Then who drew this?
He holds out the map drawn by Richard.

+	158.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT. Richard draws closer to Etienne. He reaches him, the knife poised in his hand.

+	159.	INT. LONGHOUSE. NIGHT. The four bodies hang from the roof.
The farmers have gone.
Sal lies injured on the floor.
The inhabitants silently pass the map from one to the other.
It reaches Bugs last. He studies it.

+	160.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT. Richard's bald is at Etienne's throat.
He opens his eyes, frozen with fear.
Richard is aware of a gaze from another direction. Keeping the knife at Etienne's throat, he turns to see that Francoise is looking at him. They stare at each other.
Richard takes the knife away.
RICHARD
You have to leave. Do you understand? You have to leave right now. If you don't they'll kill you.
ETIENNE
What about Christo?
RICHARD
There is nothing more you can do. I'll look after him.
FRANCOISE
Richard -
RICHARD
You don't have time to talk about this. You have to go now.
Christo moans. Etienne looks at him.
RICHARD
(continuing)
Leave him with me.
Etienne understands. He and Richard stare at each other.

+	161.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT. Bugs runs through the forest, away from the lights of the clearing.

+	162.	EXT. FOREST. NIGHT. Francoise and Etienne flee through the forest towards the beach.

+	163.	INT. SMALL TENT. NIGHT. Richard studies Christo, illuminated by a torch.
His breathing is labored and irregular.
Richard reaches forward. He pinches Christo's nose and covers his mouth.
Christo's body struggles briefly and goes still.
Richard relaxes his grip.
He switches off the torch.

+	164.	EXT. LAGOON. NIGHT. Richard swims out from the beach.

+	165.	EXT. LAGOON/CLIFFS. NIGHT. Richard swims out towards the cliff.
He reaches the cliff and pauses, taking a deep breath before submerging towards the underwater tunnel.

+	166.	INT. CAVE. NIGHT. Moonlight reflects in through the chimney and the entrance.
Etienne and Francoise are in the boat.
Etienne is trying to start the boat.
He sees the silhouette of a man surface and crawl onto the flat rock.
Etienne steps off the boat onto the rock as the figure in the shadows approaches him.
ETIENNE
Richard, come one, get into the boat.
The man pulls Etienne forward and stabs him deep into his abdomen.
ETIENNE
(continuing)
Richard!
It is Bugs.
BUGS
Richard can't help you now, French boy.
Francoise screams.
Bugs releases Etienne who falls helpless to his knees.
Bugs turns his attention to Francoise. She pulls the start cord and the engine starts.
Bugs holds one end of the mooring rope, pulling the boat towards him while Francoise tries to undo the other end.
RICHARD (O.S.)
Hey, Bugs!
Richard stands on the rock.
Bugs turns towards him. He drops the rope and walks a couple of paces, then rushes him.
Richard manages to avoid the blade.
They fight.
Bugs forces Richard on to the ground
He is about to stab Richard.
Etienne appears behind Bugs, struggling on his feet, bleeding from his wound.
He is holding a piece of rope. He slings it around Bug's neck.
Etienne's eyes roll and his head lolls.
He falls back into the water, pulling Bugs with him.
UNDERWATER. NIGHT.
Etienne and the struggling Bugs sink.
Bugs cannot free himslf, becoming only more entangled.

+	167.	INT. CAVE. NIGHT Richard lies on the flat rock.
Francoise is in the boat.
She switches off the engine.
UNDERWATER. NIGHT.
Etienne and Bugs lie at rest on the sea bed.

+	168.	EXT. SEA. DAY. A calm sunny day.
Richard and Francoise are on the boat, drifting.
RICHARD (V.O.)
That was the worst thing: I didn't even get to die. I had to live with myself.

+	169.	INT. HOTEL ROOM. DAY. In a typical Khao San Road hotel. The room is a mess.
Richard disheveled and haggard is sitting at a small table, working with a pencil and a piece of paper.
RICHARD (V.O.)
I haven't seen her since and I don't suppose I ever will. I've been here six months now.

+	170.	EXT. CLEARING. DAY. The clearing is deserted and overgrown.
The longhouse is derelict and overrun with creepers.

+	171.	EXT. ISLAND. DAY. From above in one rising shot, the beach, the lagoon, and the island.
RICHARD (V.O.)
Listening to all the people talk about where they're going to go and ho great it's going to be, and I try to tell them: you can go too far, you can find out too much, but no one ever listens, no one ever listens. I guess there's some things you just have to discover for yourself.

+	172.	INT. HOTEL ROOM. DAY. He finishes his work. It is a copy of The Map.
He picks up a single tack.

+	173.	INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR. DAY. Richard pins the map to the door of an adjacent room.
He walks back to the open door of his own room.
He looks back once and closes the door.
Close on The Map.

+	85.	 
 
THE END


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+   DR. BEAN      ByRichard Curtis     AndRobin DriscollINT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    BOARDROOM - DAYA very grand room, with lots of wood and some very famous portraits round thewalls.A group of grave gentlemen and gentlewomen. They are the trustees of theNational Gallery. LORD WALTON, a very grand man, sits at the table head. Tohis right sits his assistant, GARETH. All are deep in thought. LORD WALTONfidgets with a pencil on the table. He raises his head as though about tospeak. Everyone looks up expectantly. And... LORD WALTON goes back tofidgeting. So does everyone else.                                                                          CUT TO:CREDIT.   POLYGRAM & WORKING TITLE PRESENT.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    BOARD ROOM - DAYThe scene is as silent and static as we left it Last... then:                                     GARETH                       I suppose we could just sack him.                                                                          CUT TO:EXT.   MR BEAN'S STREET.     DAYMr BEAN comes out of his house, ready to face the world-He walks up the street, tutting slightly at     a 'NO PARKING' sign he passes.The street is totally car-free except for a     very visible lime green mini. Apoliceman strolls by and glances down at a     pair of legs sticking out fromunder it, next to a toolbox. He moves on,      satisfied that someone is mendingtheir car.BEAN approaches the car     and whips out the fake legs he left there. He thenunlocks the big padlock     that secures the car door, pops the fake legs inside,fiddles with something     else in the back seat, and drives away at a frighteningspeed with a smug look     on his face.The Theme Music - big and dramatic - begins, as do the rest of the credits.BEAN gaily motors on - then unexpectedly the sweeping theme tune jumps, as ifit has hit a scratch: the cinema audience should be worried there's a soundfault.BEAN comes to a street full of sleeping policemen ~ he goes at them at quite alick - and every time he shoots over one of the bumps, the theme tune jumpsviolently.BEAN looks a little annoyed into the back seat - we now see the cause of theproblem. Instead of having a car radio, BEAN has an old record playerstrapped into the back seat, playing the theme tune.On he drives, through empty streets - then JOLT - he's reached the gloriousfamiliarity of Central London, Big Ben and all - but heels now in dreadfultraffic.Heels not happy. He looks to the left and sees a very thin alleyway. Hetakes out a metal comb from his pocket and, using it like a bomber's sight-line-checker, measures the front of his car and the width of the alley. He 'Ssatisfied - does a 90-degree turn - and shoots down the alley. It is such aperfect fit that sparks fly from the door handles as they graze the walls.But at the end of      the alley, the traffic's just as bad.     BEAN    notices he'soutside Harrods.       There's a tail-coated Security Guard at    the    'front door.BEAN watches him      stroll a bit down the street - and takes    his    chance. Heturns and drives      straight through the double doors, into    the    store.                                                                                            2INT.    HARRODS.   DAY.BEAN and his car whizz through the ground floor, past perfume counters andleather glove racks.CUT TO a Security Guard. As       he passes one of the counters, BEAN's little carjust shoots behind him. The       Guard continues through the Children's sectionthere are giant elephants and      teddies, children's size cars, then two hugeplastic tractors - and then,      stock still, strangely in harmony actually, theLime Green Mini with BEAN in      it. The Guard walks straight past.The moment he is gone, BEAN shoots off again - but, damn!, spies another Guardand is forced to turn and drive down some very steep stairs indeed. The themesong goes CRAZY as the record player jumps.                                                                                 CUT TO:6 people waiting at a gilded lift. They hear a strange sound, and turn to seewhat it is. In fact, it's coming from inside the lift. When the lift doorsopen, out shoots the Mini through the double doors and back into the street.                                                                                        3EXT.    KNIGHTSBRIDGE.     DAY.Out in the street, BEAN is faced by an accident. There are flashing lights, acrumpled car, suggestions of hurt passengers. BEAN looks concerned.                                                                                 CUT TO:EXT.    THE STRAND.     DAY.An Ambulance roars through the traffic. It reaches its hospital, turns off,and there, right smack behind it is the Mini. Cut in to see BEAN, smilingbroadly. He whizzes into Trafalgar Square, maybe even across it, sendingpigeons and tourists flying, and parks directly outside the statuesqueNational Gallery. Of course, there's not another car there. Just the Galleryand the mini.                                                                                 CUT TO:EXT.    NATIONAL GALLERY - DAYBEAN    gets out of the car, takes out his bag - thinks a little, opens it andtakes    out a "Doctor on Call' sign. To re-enforce it, he puts a bone in theback    window and a skull of the front seat. Happy with the arrangement, he re-locks    the padlock and sets off smiling up the big, stairs to work.As he does so, pan up the building, and into the window of the room where thatBoard meeting was taking place.                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    BOARDROOM - DAY                                     GARETH             Look, I don't hate the man but ...                                  LORD WALTON             I know, Gareth. It's the mental strain he inflicts on us all.             How is Professor BradburyA grand gentleman, MR MORRISON, pipes up.                                  I'm MORRISON             Heels got the feeling back in his fingers - but his hands are             still stapled together.                                  LORD WALTON             Mmmm, and how far are we with the computer, Hubert?                                                                             4                                     HUBERT               Timothy is loading the final catalogue data as we speak,               Milord. An awful thing to say, but when the program's up and               running our, Mr. Bean will become a little less than ....               useful?A glimmer of hope.INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    PORTRAIT SECTION - DAYBEAN wanders past three or four portraits and mimics the characters in them.He passes a guard.                                        GUARD                           (not looking up from his book)                     Morning, Bean.The GUARD sighs with boredom. He gets this from BEAN every day. As Beanmoves on, he treads on the heel of a tourist's shoe. It comes off- BEAN moveson blithely.                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    CARTOON ROOM ENTRANCE - DAYBEAN is passing the very special room where Leonardo Da Vinci's cartoon, 'TheVirgin and Child', hangs, preserved by a very dim artificial light. There aresilhouettes of a few tourists in the room reverently studying the work,listening to a female GALLERY GUIDE.BEAN dips into his pocket for his identity badge and in so doing brings out acoin. The coin drops and rolls into the special room. BEAN follows it intothe darkness.                                   GALLERY GUIDE                                    (hushed)                   ... by Leonardo Da Vinci. As you can see, the special light                   in here goes some way to protect the drawing from                   photodisintegration caused by gamma ...The camera stays outside the room with the picture in view. We hear thesqueak of a tiny door open, then a click. The room is suddenly flooded inblazing white light. The onlookers gasp in horror.                                                                               5BEAN re-emerges from the room with his precious coin. As an afterthought hepops his hand round the doorway and turns off the light. He scuttles away.The GALLERY GUIDE shakes her head in total exasperation.                                                                      CUT TO:INT. NATIONAL GALLERY. BOARDROOM - DAY                                     GARETH             Maybe it would be simpler to pack all our paintings onto trucks             and move the entire National Gallery somewhere else. And not tell             him.                                        HUBERT             Seconded.     We could all move to France.                                       GEORGE             All those in favour.They all raise their hands wildly.                                     LORD WALTON                           Come on - settle down everyone.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    ELEVATOR - DAYBEAN stands in the elevator silently with four other       people. He gives himselfa long squirt of breathfreshener. Then offers it to        the others, who politelyrefuse him. So he stands still again. Pause. BEAN          then smells somethingunpleasant. He leans and has a little sniff of the        person to his left. Allright there. Then he sniffs to his right, and reels        at what he smells. Heagain takes out the breath freshener, and forces it       upon VINCENT, an elderlygentleman, who is mortified.At this moment the elevator stops - BEAN and VINCENT get out and the camerafollows VINCENT as he heads for the boardroom door and enters. He is anothertrustee. This dialogue is heard from behind the closed door.                                    VINCENT                   I'm sorry I'm late.                                       GARETH                   Why can't we just give him the boot for crying out loud?!                                                                               6                                    VINCENT                   Steady on, old man. I only ...                                     GARETH                   Not you, you idiot.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    CORRIDOR - DAYBEAN, with cup of tea, walks along a corridor. He can't not interfere fortidiness sake. One empty room he switches off the light. Another he shutsthe door.He passes a computer room, with an open door where a big man is busily typingin a programme - BEAN looks at him snootily and heads on.He approaches the door to his office. A sign reads: 'STORAGE & CATALOGUE'.There is a huge padlock on the door. BEAN takes out a big key and enters hisdomain.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    STORAGE OFFICE - DAY.BEAN enters. He's been here for years and made it his own. It's an oddlittle world. There's a framed picture of Shirley Bassey on his desk andAirfix planes hang from the ceiling. Also a large cosy armchair and a T.V.A pleasant Man in a suit, around 40, breezes in.                                    SUIT MAN             Ah Bean, I'm looking for a painting by Van Hocht.    Still Life.             Circa 1670. Can do?BEAN nods. This is what BEAN likes to do best. The camera follows as heturns sees the extraordinary sight behind him...His office is just a tiny    corner of a massive storage room, hundreds of feethigh and long, the walls    completely full of rack after rack of storedpaintings. At the end of     the room, we can see hundreds of sculptures: busts,modern abstracts, men on    horses, classical maidens, Rodins, the lot. It'slike the giant storehouse    at the end of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.                                                                                7BEAN sets off into it in his own eccentric way. He knows exactly where heelsgoing. He climbs a ladder, like you find in a library - then pushes himselfoff, and whizzes the entire length of the room on slippery wooden runners.He has now reached the sculpture area, but    the painting heels looking for ison the other side. He crosses the room by     using the sculptures as a kind ofartistic obstacle course. In front of him     is the Burghers of Calais, a Rodinstatue of 5 prisoners in chains. He simply     walks across their 5 heads, likestones in a stream.He then comes to an abstract modern piece, which he uses as    a slide   and at theend of which, he crawls through the hole in the next modern    thing.    He thenbegins to climb up various famous ancient statues, using the    mouths   asfootholes, breasts as support, codpieces as steps and empty    eyes as   fingerholes.After a problem getting his. foot caught in the jaw of a sculptured dog, hewalks flat along a modern sculpture, then uses a sequence of classicsculptures as stairs - on the head of a little Degas ballerina, one step on tothe bottom of a horse, two steps onto the head of the person riding the horse,three steps and now he's on the other side of the hall.He then triumphantly pulls out a painting.     It's the one!,                                     SUIT MAN              What would we do without you! The entire inventory of British Art              stored in that one, curious brain of yours.BEAN beams.INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.   BOARDROOM - DAY                                      GARETH              Then we are agreed, gentlemen.   He goes.                                     VINCENT              Only if we're positive that the new catalogue database will render              Mr. Bean's hitherto 'talents' obsolete.                                      HUBERT              There's no question.                                                                                   8                                    LORD WALTON              Very well.   Mr Bean is.... art history.    We can all stop taking              the pills.A reserved smatter of laughter, from relief more than anything.      LORD W. talksinto an intercom on the table.                                   LORD WALTON              Miss Hutchinson, would you send Mr. Bean up to the boardroom,              please.                                  MISS HUTCHINSON                                       (V/O )              Yes sir. oh, and Lord Walton, the Grierson Gallery called again.                                   LORD WALTON              Thank you. (To the room) One final thing. Once again we have been              invited by the Grierson Gallery of Southern California to second              one of our staff for a short visit. The Grierson has a fairly              modest collection - but it does include the most famous American              painting of all, 'Whistler's Mother'. Any thoughts?Cut to the trustees - they shake their heads and wrinkle, their noses, notvery interested. A 106 year old SIR RUPERT puts up his hand.                                   LORD WALTON              Yes. Sir Rupert. And may I say sir, how honoured we are that you              still grace us with all your time, wisdom, and infinite knowledge.              Your invaluable thoughts, sir?                                    SIR RUPERT              Could you speak up please. I didn't catch the question.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.     NATIONAL GALLERY.      STORAGE OFFICE - DAYBack in his office area BEAN ceremoniously hands SUIT MAN the Van Hochtpainting. He's very proud of himself.                                          SUIT MAN               Thank you, Bean.      You're a genius.                                                                                      9BEAN laughs - delighted.         SUIT MAN exits and MISS HUTCHINSON enters, warily.                                     MISS HUTCHINSON               Mr. Bean.     Lord Walton would like to see you in the boardroom.BEAN gives a little pleasured squeak.             How exciting for him.   He follows MISSHUTCHINSON out into the corridor.                                                                                  CUT TO:INT.     NATIONAL GALLERY.      CORRIDOR.   DAYBEAN    walks along    the same corridor as before. Turns off another light. Thencomes    to the room    where he saw the Programmer. The computer, showing a VanGogh    portrait, is    on and no-one's there. BEAN, who hates wasted electricity,goes    in to switch    it off.We see the Van Gogh change to a pictorial representation of the Storage room -with an arrow pointing to where the Van Gogh is located. BEAN is clearlygoing to be replaced by this programme. Or not ... BEAN searches for theplug, but it's under acres of desk - so he simply pulls a cable out of theback the computer. The entire system clicks off. At which moment theProgrammer comes back in.                                       PROGRAMMER                       What's happening here?                                            BEAN                       Ahm...With a slightly guilty smile he picks up the cable again looks with puzzlementat the five available places to plug it in and just takes a random guess. Anda disastrous one. There is a ugly electrical fizzle. The screens come onwhite, then pop out completely.                                            BEAN                       Ah.... Ahm....BEAN realises that he has done something wrong and quickly shoves the cableinto another circuit. The Van Gogh appears happily on the screen. BEAN andPROGRAMMER both give out a sigh of relief. BEAN smiles and leaves quickly.But a second later the computer screen disintegrates and the Van Gogh slidesdown the screen like a water-colour in the rain. The PROG difficult tobreathe.                                                                                          10                                                                                  CUT TO: INT.     NATIONAL GALLERY.      BOARDROOM - DAY                                    LORD WALTON               You have your voting slips, gentlemen.          Please remember the             Americans are looking for something quite high powered.     A             doctorate preferably...There is a knock at the door. BEAN enters. LORD WALTON smiles. The rest ofthe faces in the room are looking dangerously close to smug. BEAN is verynervous indeed.                                  LORD WALTON                                   (gravely)             Ah, Mr. Bean. Please take a seat for a moment.      I have some news             which will not, I'm afraid...The phone rings. LORD WALTON answers. BEAN sits next to VINCENT and sniffsat him. VINCENT's breath hasn't improved.                                      LORD WALTON                                     (into phone)             Yes?     Put him on... Timothy. The computer ... Yes... When? How?             All    of it? Absolutely all of it? Did you back it up? How long             will    it ... ? Another six months. Fair enough. Come up here             will    you, dear boy.He slowly hangs up. Everyone has got the gist of what has just occurred withthe new computer- The energy drains from them all as they contemplate anothersix months with BEAN still on the staff. LORD WALTON coughs politely.                                  LORD WALTON             As I was saying, gentlemen. The Grierson Gallery. South             California. Great opportunity. Thousands-of miles-away though it             is. Doctorate or ( IMPISHLY ) no doctorate, perhapsAll get the message at the same moment and hurriedly scribble on their votingslips. The slips get handed down the line to LORD WALTON. We see that everysingle slip has 'BEAN' on it.                                     LORD WALTON             Mr. Bean.     Wonderful news. You are going to America.                                       MR. BEAN                                    (overwhelmed)             Ooooh, how lovely.There is a knock at the door. The fat, bespectacled,PROGRAMMER puts his head round it.                                    LORD WALTON                                     (beaming)             Ah, Timothy.    You're sacked.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   NATIONAL GALLERY.    CORRIDOR - DAYBEAN rounds a corner and walks     towards us, imitating a bowlegged cowboy. TheTheme from Bonanza plays. He      whips out his pair of imaginary six shooters,spins them on his fingers and     returns them to-their imaginary holsters, makinggun sound effects. He's very      happy.-He passes the Security Guard - he drawshis gun on him - zero reaction     the Guard just raises his eyebrows and yawns.BEAN heads on through the gallery merrily - but suddenly, his good mood isbroken, when he notices 3 schoolgirls entering a new exhibition, called TheUltra-Human Form. This worries him - and we soon see why - BEAN heads in tothe room where all the paintings are very graphic nudes, and the 3 girls arehaving a good giggle.BEAN quickly rushes over and with his hand covers the breasts of the paintingthey're inspecting.Two girls then move on to the next painting - which unfortunately also hasbreasts. BEAN stretches and just manages to cover them with his other hand.Now the third girl    heads on, so BEAN can drop the hand on the first painting -but now has to try    to cover the breasts on the third painting, which is a reallong stretch away.     He can't quite make it, so he takes off his shoes, whichgives him the extra    3 inches. Again, safe. Just.Now, all three girls leave the paintings - but, to BEAN's chagrin, head overto a classical nude sculpture in the middle of the room. It's like the 3Graces, 3 naked women back to back. BEAN thinks fast. He quickly whips offhis                                                                              12Belt and rushes over to the statue, where he succeeds in looping it round tocover all six nipples.Unfortunately the girls have already lost interest and head over to the otherside of the gallery. To BEAN's horror. Because at that moment we reveal whatis on the other side of the room. A epic painting in the style of the others- with literally 40 graphically naked people.BEAN sprints across the room, stands on a chair, and desperately tries tocover a particularly lurid example of a gentleman's manhood.At which    moment the teacher of the party and 40 other schoolgirls appear andscream in    chorus. BEAN thinks that it is the painting that has caused offenceand is in    outraged agreement with them. He turns. Cut wide to reveal thatthey are    screaming because he's beltlesstrousers    have fallen down.                                                                          CUT TO:EXT.   GRIERSON GALLERY.     AMERICA - DAY.8.30 am California time. A modern building with plenty of glass. Large,modern sculptures are spotted around its grounds, including a dramatic one oftwo huge old cars, head down in the ground, backs protruding into the air.THOMAS GRIERSON, owner of the gallery, wearing a slick expensive suit, walkswith DAVE LEARY and BERNIE, both in casual jackets and ties. GRIERSON is avain, slightly pedantic and pompous man - maybe short - always just trying toshow he's Boss. The three are strolling towards the main entrance. Hugesign: 'THE GRIERSON GALLERY' with a silhouette of Whistler's Mother taken fromthe painting, as an incorporated logo.                                      GRIERSON               Lord Walton assures me this guy's one of the very top scholars in               the English art world. Has a couple of doctorates no less.                                       BERNIE               Great news.BERNIE is smooth and smiley. DAVID LEARY, Vice President, is a very pleasant,but slightly worried man, knocking on 40. Too nice for his own good. Thethree pass a lone MIME ARTIST wearing a cheap vac-form PRESIDENT CLINTON facemask. David can't help being just a little nice to him and finds himself leftbehind. He scampers to catch up.                                                                                   9First, catching under the handle - then the couch, thenFour other chairs - and finally the deep freeze.        No-one's going to get inthrough that door.BACK IN THE    HALL BEAN pushes the string    back inside the    letter box and slapshis hand in    satisfaction. He locks the     door's enormous    padlock, looks aboutcarefully to    make sure no one's around,    and then hides    the key under a gardengnome on the    floor, standing amongst a    row of pathetic    pot plants.                                                            MIX THROUGH TO:INT.    AIRPORT.   RECEPTION DESK.   NIGHTThe lady checking in BEAN looks puzzled as she holds his passport. So hepulls the shockingly stupid face. 0h yes, she sees, that's the guy in thepicture. She hands him his ticket.                                   CHECK-IN LADY                Here we go, sir. You've been moved to l st. class. Apparently                your friends at the Gallery were so delighted that you're                finally on your way. BEAN is very touched.                                                                               CUT TO: INT.    AIRPORT LOUNGE - NIGHT BEAN enters the first class lounge. It's fairly empty, but BEAN still squeezes himself between an old lady drinking a cup of tea, and a very grand looking American military man in a business suit. The Grand Man lights up a cigar. This doesn't please Mr "No Smoking BEAN. First, he waves the smoke away, in small, then big, then huge wafting motions. Then he tries, miming, to cut it up into segments and move them aside. The man pays no attention at all. BEAN puts a plastic mug over his face, like a gas mask and breathes heavily. The man looks at him - but doesn't give a damn BEAN now takes a paper bag - catches some of the smoke, and take it over and empties it into the dust bin. The Grand Man goes on smoking stubbornly.        He then sees a magazine rack and leaves his cigar as he goes to get one.                                                                                       13                                        DAVID               Sounds like a real coup, sir... getting this Doctor of ...                                      GRIERSON            Various things. Thank you. However, as you know, this is not an            inexpensive venture, and, financially speaking, we're in very            serious crap right now. He can't quite hide his tackiness.) DAVID holds the door for GRIERSON - then sees an old woman coming towards him. He waits for her to go through, and due to his sweetness, is again left behind. He rushes to catch up.They are now passing the reception counter cum gallery shop. DAVID exchangessmiles with the cashier, ANNIE. Very bubbly, not very bright. The shop isfull of Whistler's Mother memorabilia - posters, cards, porcelain statuettes.                                    GRIERSON            So ... I'm wondering if one of you would have this guy stay in your            home instead of some expensive hotel.                                     BERNIE            Love to, sir, but no can do. No spare room.   Period.                                        GRIERSON            David?                                      DAVID            Oh, look, I mean, it's kind of the last thing... I mean, I'd really            like to, but... things at home are kind of sensitive, so I couldn't            really er ...                                    GRIERSON            I thought perhaps as Vice-President, and in view of the unfortunate            attendance's for the summer show this year... the MASSIVE financial            LOSS ...                                      DAVID              on the other hand ... maybe a breath of fresh air is just what my              family needs ... Yes. Great news. Fabulous. Triumphant. Course              it might need a little smoothing over. When's he due?GRIERSON hands DAVID a piece of paper.                                      GRIERSON              Tomorrow.   You have a problem with that?PAUSE                                       DAVID              No. Perfect.   Looking forward to it.                                                                        CUT TO:INT.    LONDON . PHOTO BOOTH.    DAY.The camera faces Mr BEAN sitting in a Photo booth. His face is totallyimpassive for 1, 2, then 3 flashes. And then, just before the 4th flash, hepulls the biggest, maddest face you've ever seen. Flash! He gives a littleSatisfied giggle.                                                                        CUT TO: EXT.    THE LEARY HOUSE - DAY 7 p.m. California time. A pleasant suburban house. DAVID's car pulls into the drive. JENNIFER, his slightly Gothic 16 year old daughter, is kissing BRAD, her scruffy boyfriend. He sits astride a motor scooter. He has a bum-fluff moustache. DAVID gets out of his car and approaches them.                                   DAVID            Hi, Jennifer. How was school? (she doesn't break the kiss with            Brad) oh really? That's good, great. Fantastic. We'll talk some            more. The two continue kissing as DAVID moves on. He's just about to head for the house when a swish convertible draws up at the curb. DAVID's wife, ALISON, has been given a lift home by her young attractive boss, CHARLES. They are laughing in the car as DAVID walks up.                                                                               15He is slightly disturbed to see ALISON kiss CHARLES on the cheek beforegetting out with her port folio. CHARLES smiles pleasantly on seeing DAVID.                                      CHARLES            Hello, David.                                    DAVID            Hi, Charles. (To Alison) Wow - late!                                    ALISON                                  (brightly)            I had to do some last minute stuff.                                  CHARLES            My fault. We've got a heavy load on at present.     How about you,            gallery going well?                                    DAVID            Ahm, well, you know ~ that's a tough question - on one' level I            think it ....                                    ALISON            Don't ask him about work, Charlie. Life's too short.Alison is the same age as DAVID, but seems to have lasted the course better -she's confident, in good shape. The atmosphere is awkward. JENNIFER screamsout. Her 8 year old brother, KEVIN has sprung from the shrubbery and lassoedher and BRAD. ALISON goes over to sort them out.                                     ALISON            Kevin!   You stop that right now!                                      CHARLES            Great kids.     Good looking too.                                      DAVID            You think so?    Well I 'spose they're pretty, you know... okay,            looks-wise.                                      CHARLES            Take after their mother, huh?                                       DAVID            Ah ... absolutely.DAVID is not very happy here.                                                                               16                                                                          CUT TO: INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   KITCHEN - DAYIt is open plan and leads through into the lounge. DAVID and ALISON enter.ALISON puts her port folio on the table and leads DAVID onto a sofa. She putsher arms round him.                                    ALISON            Let's take a break, David. This weekend, why don't we just get            into the car and drive to the coast. Find a motel. Like before            the kids were born. Go to a fairground. Win me another Bambi.She reaches across and picks up a little ceramic Bambi on a table next to thecouch.                                    ALISON            Jennifer can stay and look after Kevin                                    DAVID            Sounds great. Excellent. Though-, Ahm... there's this guy who's            coming to work at the Gallery, from England...                                       ALISON                                  (SUSPICIOUSLY)                                      Yeeees?                                    DAVID            And they asked me if we'd like to ... you know... put him up for a            while.                                      ALISON            There aren't hotels?                                    DAVID            Yes, there are hotels. They just thought maybe it'd be nice for            him to stay with a real American family. Popcorn, waffles, all            that stuff.                                       ALISON                                    (POINTEDLY)            And what did you say?                                    DAVID            I said I'd check with you.She looks at him piercingly.     This clearly happens a lot.   She knows when he'stelling the truth. Pause.                                       DAVID            Then I said 'yes'.She puts Bambi carefully back on the table, gets up and moves to the kitchen.DAVID follows.                                      ALISON              Do we know anything about him?                                     DAVID              Ahm - he's male. He's English. He's a doctor of er ...      at least              2 things. I think they would have mentioned if he was a     blind              dwarf. Or one of those guys who kills lots of people all     the              time. I think we're looking at someone moderately normal     here.                                      ALISON              David - are you ever going to learn to say 'no'?                                       DAVID              Yes.   Yes. (pause) Sometime. She shakes her head.                                      ALISON              It's the last thing we need.                                      DAVID              That's exactly what I said ... before I said - Great, it's a              sensational idea."He knows he's made a mess here.       Enter KEVIN, their smart young son, strollingthrough.                                      KEVIN              Hiya Dad ~ I'll need you upstairs for homework in about ....              (checks watch) oh, 20 minutes.                                        DAVID                                    Great, good.And KEVIN exits.                                                                                  18                                      DAVID               Didn't kids do their own homework, like way back?     Years ago?               No. Course not. Just imagining it. ALISON isn't really listening.       Much tension.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT.   MR.   BEAN'S BED-SIT - NIGHT9.30 p.m. U.K. time. A black London taxi is parked outside a terraced housewith its motor idling. Its driver looks fed up waiting. BEAN appears at adownstairs window, motioning to his watch that he will not be long.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   MR.   BEAN'S BED-SIT - DAYMR. BEAN is ready to leave his room.       Battered oldsuitcase in hand, he checks the room from the doorway.Every conceivable thing that can be opened - cupboards,drawers, fridge -sports an oversized padlock.    EvenBean's old G.P.O. phone has one on its dial.BEAN looks across to his TEDDY, who is lounging on a miniature chair, insidean up-sided cardboard box. The box is sits on an armchair. A hand-writtensign, taped to its roof reads: 'TEDDY HOTEL' followed by three stars.                                                                            19A smaller sign informs us that the hotel is: 'FULL'. BEAN is just about toleave but stops to consider. Taking a felt tipped pen, he adds two more starson the hotel hoarding, as a treat.He then, slightly, incomprehensibly, begins to tie string it around variousobjects in the flat. The fridge - the corner of a chair, a couch leg.                                                                        CUT TO:INT.   MR.   BEAN'S RESIDENCE'S HALLWAY ~ DAYBEAN leaves his flat. lee notice a large official sign stuck on the doorsaying 'NO SMOKING". He now turns his attention to the pieces of stringhanging out the letter box in his door. Grabbing the bunch of them, he pulls.CUT TO back inside the flat. we now understand the string - as all thefurniture starts to move across the flat. It works incredibly neatly thechair reaches the door                                                                               20BEAN acts fast.    He takes the cigar - and quickly dunks it in the old woman'scup of tea.He sits there, guiltlessly, as the Grand Man returns. Simultaneously, the mantries to suck the wet cigar, and the Old woman drinks the disgusting tea. Ahorrid experience for both.                                                                        CUT TO:INT.   AEROPLANE - DAY.Boarding time. BEAN enters the plane and turns    right, into the body of theplane. After walking right down the plane, he    is directed by a hostess backup to first. As he walks back, we notice the'    ridiculous contrast, fromtotally cramped accommodation with hundreds of   children and muzak, to theelegance, and space of First class.BEAN couldn't be more thrilled.    There follows a sequence of short momentsfrom this nightmare flight.1/ The Old Tea-Drinking Lady is being helped with her ,luggage.    A hostessslides it into the compartment above her head.                                      OLD LADY               Be careful.   It's for my Grand-daughter.The next instant BEAN comes up with his case. He opens the     same locker, andtries to fit his case in. Doesn't quite go - so he pushes     it violently. Wehear crunching cracking sounds. Finally, it's almost there     - BEAN slams thelocker door. One final definitive, though muffled, smash.      The OLD LADY looksat BEAN suspiciously.2/ BEAN sits down - and who should be his next door neighbour? The Grand Man,whose name is REYNOLDS. BEAN smiles merrily. The affection is not mutual.Champagne comes    round instantly. BEAN takes it, along with a small bowl ofnuts, and clinks    glasses with his unsmiling partner. BEAN tries to impresshim by throwing    nuts up into the air and catching them in his mouth (a wellpractised art).     No response.BEAN then switches on the noisy overhead air blower. Then can't turn it downagain. It's very stuck. He manages however to push it away from his face -straight into REYNOLDS' . REYNOLDS looks annoyed, BEAN guiltless.                                                                                 21Then 'BEAN has an idea. He takes a tissue out of his pocket, puts in hismouth, chews it into a spitballAnd rams it into the blower. Both of them are relieved. REYNOLDS picks uphis champagne to have his first proper sip. And whapp! The spitball, underhigh pressure, shootsinto it, sending champagne spraying all over REYNOLDS.     Not a good start.3/--BEAN is reading the in-flight magazine. There's an annoying sound. Helooks sideways - it is the headphones of the YOUNG BOY in the seat across theaisle. He's fallen asleep with his headphones on. BEAN looks annoyed. Thensuddenly decides to cut his fingernails with a little pair of scissors hecarries. He holds out his hand to snip the nail - and accidentally on purposesimply cuts the wire of the boy's headset. That's better.4/ Night. Wide shot of the plane - everyone is asleep except one pool oflight. It's Mr BEAN still up, reading.But even he is   wilting. His eyes close, and his body starts to waver towardssleep. Next to    him, REYNOLDS is in a total lying position - andunfortunately,   as BEAN slowly tips over, his mouth comes into direct contactwith REYNOLDS'   flies.From across the compartment, a hostess sees what's happening. She's shocked,comes over and taps BEAN on the ,,shoulder. He shoots up, and nearlystrangles her in shock. She calms him down, shows him how to put his chairback - and leaves him to sleep. CUT ON....5/ REYNOLDS still asleep. With BEAN asleep completely on top of him.Completely. His hand is spread on REYNOLDS' face. REYNOLDS' eyes open.         Hesees what's happened. His arm goes up and rings for the Hostess.6/ Morning has broken. REYNOLDS is still trying to sleep - BEAN is wideawake. The Hostess approaches, and the MOTHER of the YOUNG BOY says her sonisn't very well.BEAN decides to cheer him up. He mimes an aeroplane which makes the boy feelmore ill. Then does a rather good lizard impersonation by sticking bits ofpaper to his tongue and eye-lids and fluttering them.He then brings out a scrunched up bag of Dolly Mixtures and does his trick ofthrowing a sweet in the air and catching it in his mouth. The boy is too illto be impressed.BEAN tries to cheer him up with his imaginary gun pretending to be a cowboyand then a tough American Cop. Nothing. Then he has an extremely fun idea.He empties the Dolly Mixtures from the paper bag and pockets them.                                                                                22He then blows up the empty bag and is about to pop it to wake REYNOLDS, whenhe sees it's got a hole in it. No fun.Meanwhile, the Boy has taken out his sick-bag. BEAN is delighted - yes,that's perfect. He turns away for a split second to scrunch up the uselessbag, while, unseen to him, the boy vomits into his bag. BEAN turns, grabs thebag from him - blows into it, puts it right into REYNOLDS' face at armslength, and smacks his hands together. CUT at just the right moment.                                                                        CUT TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.     ARRIVALS - NIGHTThe traditional exit area. A random bunch of people are waiting - relatives,limousine drivers - and, rather strangely, three 30 year old women dressed incurly red wigs from the musical, 'Annie'.The LEARYS are at the barrier. KEVIN has a cardboard sign with 'MR. BEAN'written on it. People are streaming out of the Arrivals gate. ALISON is nothappy. Actually no one is. JENNIFER looks particularly fed up.                                        DAVID             For all you know, he may be a very attractive young man.                                    JENNIFER             Oh come on - the guy's going to be a creep.   All Englishmen are             ugly.                                        DAVIDWhat makes you say that?                                   JENNIFER           All the guys they claim are English to and good-looking like Dan           Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson, turn out to be Irish. Even Anthony           Hopkins is welsh. Prince Charles is so ugly they pay him two           million bucks a year to stay indoors.                                     DAVID             Richard Burton was very good-looking.                                      JENNIFER             Welsh.                                        DAVID             Sean Connery.                                                                                23                                       ALISON             Scottish.                                       DAVID             Tom Jones?                                     JENNIFER             Welsh again.                                     DAVID             Okay, so the guy's gonna look like Meatloaf's backside.    No-one's             asking you to go to bed with him.JENNIFER glares at him.     A tired ALISON has had enough of this waitingalready.                                       ALISON             Bed sounds good though.    Bed sounds great.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.    CONVEYER - NIGHTBEAN, is off the plane. REYNOLDS strides ahead of him, a huge wet patch in asemi-circle around his neck. BEAN comes to a moving walkways. He steps on toit sheepishly, thinking it's very daring and brave, gripping the handrail asthough he was travelling at 100 mph.But soon he gains greater confidence. He stands up straight, both hands offthe rail. There are a couple of COPS leaning against a wall, chatting. BEANnotices their guns. Slipping into role-play mode, he reaches into his breastpocket, ready to bring out his imaginary shooter ... The last security guardhe tried this with just yawned ~ so BEAN thinks it's safe. But this time, theCOPS turn and stare at him tensely..Flustered by their interest in him, BEAN needs to get away. He turns,        butfinds that he is walking in the opposite direction, on the spot. The        COPSread this as suspicious behaviour and move towards him suspiciously.        BEANturns to gets himself going in the right direction. The COPS follow.         BEANruns. The COPS give chase.                                                                            CUT TO:                                                                                    24INT.   'AMERICAN AIRPORT.    ARRIVALS - NIGHTA little BALD MAN arrives at the barrier. The three red wigged clones fromthe musical, `Annie' swamp him with shrieks and kisses. The LEARYS aregetting impatient.                                      KEVIN                                    (bored )             Who do you think is the ugliest guy who ever lived.                                     DAVID             Well, Michael Bolton's pretty grisly.                                       KEVIN             I vote for Bart.                                     JENNIFER             Shut up, Kevin.                                     KEVIN          NO, seriously - I know he's your boyfriend, but there's something          about his upper lip that is so weird. What do you think it is, Dad?          Jen says it's a moustache, I say it's a cluster of about 11          mosquitoes, resting.                                   JENNIFER          You know the thing I hate most about children?                                      KEVIN          Nope.                                     JENNIFER          You.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.   CORRIDOR - NIGHTBEAN is running down the busy corridor with the two COPS in pursuit.      Theydraw their guns. Two more COPS appear,coming from the opposite direction.    BEAN is trapped.    He drops his case.                                       COP 1                           Police!   Stop or we shoot!                                                                                 25Passers-by scream and throw themselves to the floor. BEAN freezes on thespot, terrified. All four COPS have their guns trained on him in the shootingposition.                                     COP 1             Carefully take out your weapon, holding the butt with two fingers             only. Slowly place it on the floor and take three paces back!Dead slowly, BEAN puts his hand into his inside jacket pocket and brings itback out made in the shape of a gun. He slowly transfers that imaginary itemto the finger and thumb of his left hand. He bends down and places it on thefloor then takes three paces back. He gives out a big breath after the effortof it all. The COPS just stare at him, gob-smacked.Little OLD LADY from plane steers up from nowhere. She rattles her box ofbroken china and kicks BEAN in the shins. Things are not going his way.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.   POLICE INTERVIEW ROOM - NIGHTBright and clinical. Close on BEAN sitting behind a       table; a very small manin very big trouble. Behind him, two uniformed COPS       stand guard. A large,black plain clothes detective sits opposite, smoking      a cigarette. This isBRUTUS. He studies BEAN's passport photo. It's the        baboon face. He holds itup to bean's face to make a comparison. BEAN pulls       the face to match thephoto.                                     BRUTUS             Mr. Bean. Are you presently on any kind of medication at all?BEAN thinks deeply for a moment then shakes his head.                                     BRUTUS             You could certainly use some.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.   ARRIVALS - NIGHTALISON, JENNIFER and KEVIN are slumped in seats near the barrier.      DAVID walksup.                                     ALISON             What did they say?                                                                               26                                     DAVID             Well, they're kind of busy but it doesn't look like ...                                     ALISON             Did you really ask?                                     DAVID             I'm not sure I got the right person but they were a bit busy ...                                     ALISON             What's wrong with you, David? All you have to do is say, Excuse             me, I've been sitting here since the start of the Millennium and             I'd really like some action from you before the end of the world.             I'll go.                                      DAVID             No, no.   I'11 try again ...                                     ALISON              I said, I'11 go. She goes. KEVIN shakes his head disappointedly al,-- his father. DAVID slumps down on the seat. He overhears JENNIFER flirting with an incredibly undesirable bloke in a leather jacket - white, with Rasta hair extensions, and about sixty rings in his nose. (This is STINGO).                                    JENNIFER             So. where do your parents live?                                     STINGO             My parents are dead. DAVID is pretty confident that he knows who killed them.                                    JENNIFER             Yeah, so are mine.                                                                          CUT TO:EXT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.     TAXI RANK. NIGHTCOP 1 puts BEAN in the back of a taxi with his case.      Hetakes some dollar notes from his own wallet and hands them to the driver.                                                                                   27                                     COP 1             Just get him the hell out of here, will ya?He slams the door and the taxi drives away.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT-.     ARRIVALS - NIGHTThe LEARYS are all asleep in eccentric positions on the seats. JENNIFER'shead is resting on STINGO's leg. Kevin's cardboard sign with 'MR. BEAN,written on it falls from his lap to the floor.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE - NIGHTThe taxi draws up outside the house.      BEAN gets out with his case.   The CABDRIVER is strangely friendly.                                   CAB DRIVER             Thanks man, I can't tell you how much I appreciate talking to ya.             In this job you get so many jerks spilling their guts all over ya,             with their stupid problems ... But you, you're a great listener,             ya know that?BEAN smiles politely. Taxi drives away. BEAN walks up to' the front porch,checks the house number on his piece of paper and presses the doorbell. Noanswer. Presses again. Still no answer ... Now where have they hidden thekey. He inspects things carefully.The camera sees what he sees ... the     doormat, the flowerpot, the window-ledge... and then he spots a little stone     frog. BEAN smiles. Key hiding issomething he knows about - and people     are pathetically obvious about it. BEANpicks up the FROG to reveal the front     door key. It glints in the porch-light.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.     HALLWAY - NIGHTBEAN lets himself in. The pre-alarm buzzer goes off quietly. He has 15seconds before the alarm goes off proper. He strolls confidently to where thealarm control unit obviously is ... under the stairs.                                                                                   28Close-up of flashing L.E.D. Again, BEAN looks carefully and finds the magneticbox, housing a little key, attached to the underside of the console. Just asthe alarm goes off, for the splittest of a secondette, he turns the key in itsslot ... and is safe.BEAN finds the switch and turns on the hall light. He switches it off again... then on. Then rapidly clicks it on and off repeatedly.Fun.                                                                                CUT TO:EXT.     THE LEARY HOUSE - NIGHTShot from across the street, with all the house lights flashing off and onmadly.                                                                                CUT TO:INT.     THE LEARY HOUSE.    LOUNGE - NIGHTBEAN stands in front of the television, looking a little annoyed about thefact that the remote control in his hand is having no effect at all. He stabsat it randomly.                                                                                CUT TO:EXT.     THE LEARY HOUSE - NIGHTThe garage doors are swinging open and closed rhythmically.                                                                                CUT TO:INT.     DAVID'S CAR - NIGHTKEVIN and JENNIFER are asleep in the back. DAVID drives in silence, Alisonnext to him. Uneasy atmosphere. DAVID stabs at buttons on the car radio.                                       ALISON               It isn't working any more, David.                                       DAVID               I know - I'11 take it in to George tomorrow'- he'll fix it.               Stupid thing.HE SWITCHES IT OFF.                                                                                     29                                          ALISON                No, US.     It's not working any longer -you and me. Pause. DAVID's now heard it completely. He takes his eyes off the road and stares at ALISON a moment too long. A car's horn snatches back his attention.                                          DAVID               Jesus.                                       ALISON                I need some time, David. A little time.        It's not just you.                It's partly me.                                          DAVID                But in general ... it's ... mostly me, right?Pause.     Single shot of Alison and David.       She doesn't answer.   He isdestitute.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   HALLWAY - NIGHTBEAN wanders down the stairs in his pyjamas. He sees a walkman - and puts iton happily. He moves to the rhythm. He locks the door, turns on the alarmand turns off thehall light.                                                                         CUT TO:EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE - NIGHTDAVID's car turns into the drive just as the hall light goes off. (For thenext few minutes, knife-edged timing 0 is all). The LEARYS sleepily get outof the car and approach the house. DAVID brings out his door key.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   UPSTAIRS LANDING - NIGHTThe exact moment the key turns in the lock, BEAN, still wearing headphones,disappears into a bedroom with a little ceramic sign on it saying: 'GUESTROOM'.The exhausted family enter an apparently untouched house. KEVIN turns on thestairs light, climbs to his room off the landing and closes the door on whicha sign reads: 'KEVIN'.                                                                              30At that instant BEAN walks out, looking for the bathroom with his wash bag.He looks up at the light. It should not be on. He frowns, turns it off andexits to bathroom. At which precise moment JENNIFER, zombie-like, is halfwayup the stairs                                     JENNIFER             Thanks a lot, Kevin!JENNIFER goes into her room.     The sign reads: `JENNIFER'.ALISON turns on the light and climbs the stairs. David heads into thekitchen. They exchange a sad look. She goes into their bedroom: the signreads: 'GRUPS'. At which instant, BEAN, still wearing headphones, leaves thebathroom, and heads downstairs ....                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   KITCHEN - NIGHTThe light is on. DAVID takes a deep breath. Bad night. He picks up an emptycoffee jar, sighs and goes into the pantry a full one. BEAN enters. He opensthe refrigerator and he studies the food on offer. Nothing he fancies ...then BINGO!He sees a little plate of 3 strawberries. He eats     one, then two, then popsthe third into his mouth. It tastes a bit off, so     he takes it out of hismouth, puts it back on the plate, closes the fridge    door, and exits ... justas DAVID comes out of the pantry. Close on BEAN's     hand as it comes round thedoor frame and turns off the light. DAVID, on the     move, stubs his toe on achair. He groans in pain, limps to the fridge.        He spots the lone, alreadysucked strawberry and pops it into his mouth.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   D & A'S BEDROOM - NIGHTALISON is watching T.V. in bed with the remote control.       DAVID enters withorange juice and puts it down by his side of the bed.                                      DAVID             The lights blown in the kitchen. I'll fix it tomorrow.They're not a happy couple.    She concentrates on the TV even turns it up alittle.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   BATHROOM - NIGHTBEAN turns on the basin's cold faucet.       It gushes noisily.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   D & A'S BEDROOM - NIGHTClose on Letterman on the TV. The noise from it drowns out any noise from thebathroom.(The bathroom has two doors - one into DAVID and ALISON's bedroom,the other onto the landing)..                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.   BATHROOM - NIGHTBEAN can't hear the T.V. because of his headphones. He takes out histoothbrush but notices an electric one on a shelf with spare brush heads.He's intrigue. He swaps the heads and enjoys cleaning his teeth with thisclever modern implement.-He puts the   electric brush down and checks his teeth    in the mirror. He hasforgotten to   turn off the brush and so it vibrates off    the sink and lands inthe toilet.    Bean fishes it out and places it back on    the shelf where he foundit. He turns    off faucet, then exits, turning out the    light.DAVID enters and turns the light on again. He takes down the toothbrush andcleans his teeth. He calls through the bedroom door.                                     DAVID             That poor guy, Bean ... He's probably still sitting at London             Airport!He finishes his teeth then runs the hot faucet.       He exits to bedroom as BEANenters from hall with dirty socks.                                                                           CUT TO:INT. THE LEARY HOUSE. D & A'S BEDROOM - NIGHTALISON is still watching T.V. The volume is getting to DAVID.                                      DAVID             Alison, please.                                                                                    32                                                                               CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARYS' HOUSE.      BATHROOM ~ NIGHTBEAN is just finishing washing his socks in David's water. He rings the dirtywater from them, and exits. DAVID enters in his under shorts. He checks histired eyes in the mirror then washes his face in the basin water withoutlooking.                                                                               CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.      LANDING ~ NIGHTBEAN notices a framed photograph on the wall. It is of the LEARY family.They are grouped outside their house. It is a very happy picture. BEANsmiles at it. He takes it off the wall and takes it into a bedroom. As thedoor quietly closes we see the sign: 'JENNIFER'.                                                                               CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.      D & A'S BEDROOM - NIGHTLights are out.       DAVID and ALISON in bed.    The latter is facing away.                                       DAVID               I need to make a confession. I know you're awake.       Please, it's               important.(Long pause)                                        ALISON                                  (without stirring)               Go ahead.                                       DAVID               I had the last strawberry in the refrigerator.ALISON smiles in spite of herself. She turns over and puts her arm aroundDAVID. She gets up close to his face.                                       ALISON               There were three strawberries.                                         DAVID               One.                                                                                    33                                        ALISON                Liar.                                       DAVID               0h Ali we can work this thing out, you know.ALISON smiles, sleepily, and goes to kiss him. She stops and sniffs.Thoroughly put off, she rolls over and closes her eyes.                                         DAVID               Ali?    What's wrong?                                     ALISON             Your face smells like a foot.                                                                          CUT TO:EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE - DAYThe next morning. Shot from across the street: A newspaper boy delivers.Birds sing. It's a lovely, peaceful, early morning. Then ... a terrifyinggirl's scream pierces the quiet.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.    UPSTAIRS LANDING - DAYThe whole family charges out onto the landing. JENNIFER hurtles out of herroom screaming. She barges through the family and locks herself in thebathroom.                                        ALISON             What is it?    Jennifer!                                    JENNIFER                                    (0.O.V.)             ... There's a man ... there's a man ... there's a man in my...                                     DAVID             Honey, calm down now... it's okay...                                      JENNIFER                                      (p.o.v.)             There's a man.    I woke up next to a man ...                                        KEVIN           It wouldn't be the first time.                                                                                  34                                     ALISON             Shut up, Kevin. (to Jennifer) Honey, you-re not making sense ...                                       DAVID             It's okay.    There's no one out here. Just open the door.   Trust             me.Pause ... then a click of the bathroom lock ... Jennifer comes out. Thenthere's another click. BEAN breezes out of Jennifer's bedroom, past thefamily, in his pyjamas, carrying a wash bag and a towel over his arm. Hewaves to them friendly, slips into the bathroom and closes the door. Thefamily stare in amazement.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.    KITCHEN - DAYThe family, now dressed for work and school, are having breakfast at thekitchen table. After an uncomfortable silence:                                        KEVIN            He makes Prince Charles look kind of handsome.                                    ALISON            He can't stay here, David.                                   DAVID            Okay. It's not a problem... Let's just sit ... I'11 talk to the            gallery ...                                    ALISON            David, I'm serious!                                     DAVID            I know you are.   Very serious ... most of the time these days.                                    ALISON            Now what does that mean? My daughter wakes up with a strange man            in her bed, and I'm supposed to think it's amusing? (looks at his            tie) That tie's God-awful. Why do you wear it?DAVID is thrown.   He looks down at his tie.   JENNIFER looks grumpy.   KEVIN iseating happily.                                                                               35BEAN enters, dressed, carrying a plastic carrier bag.    He acknowledges thefamily with a grunt and a smile.                                     DAVID            Ah, Mr Bean ...                                     BEAN            Excuse me. He moves to the phone, checks his watch and dials quickly.                                                                         CUT TO: INT.   BEAN'S BED-SIT - ENGLAND - NIGHT The ancient G.P.O. phone starts to ring on a small table. (The following takes place in a matter of seconds). On the table are two, large, shiny, hard backed books, wedged up    at one end and sloping away at right angles to one another. Each book has a     pair of rulers set, parallel to one another, in Play-Doh. They each form     a canal. Between one pair of rulers sits a small box of salt. Between the    other pair is a miniature bust of BEETHOVEN. As the phone continues to ring     and vibrate the table, these items judder along the canal, an inch at    a time. The box of salt teaches the bottom of the book and topples over the edge of the table. ( The BEETHOVEN bust' teeters on the edge of its book). The salt lands in a plastic funnel, taped to the top of a bamboo stick. The bottom of the stick sits on the BBC 2 button of a T.V. remote control. Close-up of its infrared L.E.D. as it flashes once. The phone stops ringing. CUT TO: the T.V. comes on at the start of a documentary about grizzly bears.                                             A voice-over begins a narration. CUT TO: close on TEDDY sitting in his cardboard box hotel.    Flickering light from the T.V. plays on his face.                                                                              CUT TO: INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.    KITCHEN - DAY Bean hangs up happily, then approaches the toaster, stuffs a pair of wet socks into it and pulls down the start lever. Satisfied, he now turns to the family.                                         BEAN               Now - can I help?  They just stare, dumb-founded.                                                                                      36                                                                              CUT TO: EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE - DAY DAVID and BEAN arrive at the car and get in.          DAVID heads out of the drive at a reasonable speed. BEAN suddenly yanks on the hand-brake. DAVID's head hits the windshield with a sickening thud. BEAN reaches for and fastens his seat belt. He looks to DAVID. DAVID gives BEAN a pained look. What planet does he come from? He fastens his own seat belt while BEAN wonders why it's all taking so long.                                                                              CUT TO: EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.      CAR PARKING - DAY It's a rather fancy building. Like a little Guggenheim DAVID parks by a large, expensive, looking car. BEAN opens his door and it bangs-hard against the pristine body work.                                                                              CUT TO: INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.      RECEPTION AREA - DAY As BEAN and DAVID enter through the swing doors they meet ANNIE, the very bubbly girl in charge of entrance tickets at the reception cum shop counter.                                         ANNIE               Two dollars please.                                         DAVID               Annie, it's me.                                       ANNIE               Oh, right, yeah. (to Bean) two dollars please.                                         DAVID               No, Annie, no.    This is Doctor Bean. He's going to be working with               us.BEAN frowns.    That word 'doctor'.                                                                           37                                    ANNIE            Oh, great. Usually we charge people two dollars to come in- but            for people who work here, that would be 730 dollars a year, which            is like, a lot of money, so we kinda like let them off. Hi.BEAN smiles at her.                                    ANNIE            He doesn't like to say much does he?                                    DAVID            Right first time.                             ANNIE            I can understand THAT. Neither do I.As BEAN and DAVID move on, BEAN gives ANNIE a 1ittle wave. She waves sweetlyback. She cocks her head to one side and watches him go. She likes Mr. BEAN alot.                                                                      CUT TO:INT. GRIERSON GALLERY. GROUND FLOOR- DAYBEAN and DAVID arrive In the ground floor gallery. A few visitors are viewingthe paintings. The acknowledge ELMER, the huge, ex-army, Security Man, sittingon a small chair by a wall, reading a newspaper. The pass two oldish ladiesinspecting a painting                                    DAVID            You'll notice, our clientele is not totally young. I sometimes            worry they're not really getting to grips with the art on a deep            aesthetic level.Stay with the ladies as DAVID and BEAN head on.                                 OLD LADY 1            What do you think?                                  OLD LADY 2            0h yes - lovely - very nice.                                  OLD LADY 1               And what colour would you use for the curtains?                                                                           38                                  OLD LADY 2            Well, I thought the sort of blue in this one. (she points to a            gorgeous blue Matisse) And I thought the curtains in the bathroom            would be nice in this yellow ....And-they head on to a Van Gogh with a nice yellow in it.BEAN stops to admire a painting. It is Pre-Raphaelite in style, depicting awoman reclined on a bed in a castle chamber. She is wearing a chastity beltfastened with a small padlock, her breasts are concealed under a draped flag.It is a tasteful and romantic picture.                                        DAVID              Beautiful.    'HIS MISTRESS' by John Everett Millais, 1829 to 96.              Know it?BEAN shakes his head. It's the padlock he's interested in he points at it andsmiles. ANNIE walks up.                                        ANNIE              Excuse me.    Mr Grierson called down. He's ready to see you              upstairs.                                        DAVID              Thanks, Annie.ANNIE walks off back the way she came, looking at BEAN approvingly over hershoulder.                                        DAVID              Better go.    Grierson hates people being late.                                        BEAN              Yes.   Ahm... think I'11 ...He gestures that held like to tidy up a little. Brush his hair, etc. BEANwaddles off after ANNIE clearly in need of relief. DAVID watches him go.                                        DAVID              Why me?                                                                             CUT TO:INT.    GRIERSON GALLERY.   CORRIDOR - DAY.BEAN is catching up with ANNIE. She notices him following and coyly smiles toherself. She stops, turns round and grins. She thinks he has come to saysomething to her.                                                                                  39BEAN stops dead in front of her - then turns sharp left into the men'swashroom. ANNIE's smile fades.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.    GRIERSON GALLERY.   WASH ROOM - DAYBEAN    comes out of a booth. He tidies his hair and tie in a mirror. He pushesdown    the pressurised tap to wash his hands. It splashes terribly. The wholefront    of his trousers are soaked. The last thing you want when about to meetyour    new boss. Damn!There now follow a quick, complicated piece of business.1/ BEAN spots a paper-towel dispenser. He turns towards it at just the momenta man exits from a booth - BEAN turns back to the sink to hide his trousers,as the man swiftly does his hands, goes to the paper dispenser, and takes thelast towel. Damn again.2/ BEAN    now puts    his hope in a rolling    towel. But it's rather high. He hasto jump    to try to    reach the trouser.     At which point Another Man enters.Jumping    BEAN has    been caught in a very    weird position. He pretends he has.chosen    the Men's    Room as the place to    do his rather energetic exerciseroutine.3/ As the man leaves, he then tries to blow the patch dry with his mouth.Another Man enters. Again, BEAN is 1 compromised - pretends it's even moreexercises. That man also enters a booth.4/ BEAN suddenly notices the hand drying machine! He turns it on. A healthyblast of warm air. Annoyingly, it's also rather too high. He tries jumpingand bouncing to get his waist to the right height. It's not going to work.Brainwave! He climbs up on two sinks. Now the drier is blowing in exactlythe right place. BEAN sways to let the air cover the whole area. It'sworking excellently.5/ At which moment, one of the men exits from         a booth and sees him in themirror. BEAN is in an immensely compromising          sex-with-machine position. Hepretends he's there to change the light bulb         above, which he takes out calmlyand polishes. The man leaves, BEAN smiles.           But as he exits, BEAN's facetransforms - he's totally scalded his fingers         on the scorching bulb.                                                                                   406/ BEAN rushes to the sink, puts his fingers under the tap, pushes on thewater - and soaks himself all over again. At which moment, DAVID enters,exasperated.                                          DAVID                Come on!     Let's go! BEAN exits uneasily hunched to hide his wet patch.          They enter the corridor, and he spots a newspaper.                                                                              CUT TO: INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE - DAY BEAN and DAVID enter. It's        a warm, formal. office. On the wall behind the desk is a full-size, framed       poster of Whistler's Mother. On a white background, at the base of       the poster, a caption reads: 'THE GRIERSON GALLERY, HOME OF WHISTLER'S       MOTHER'. Elsewhere, the walls are full of paintings. GRIERSON and BERNIE look up from a computer screen at DAVID and BEAN, who is, rather weirdly, carrying a newspaper in fronts of his flies. GRIERSON approaches David, and shakes his hand.                                      GRIERSON               Ah, David. Finally. (CHECKS HIS WATCH DELIBERATELY ) And this               must be our professor from across the sea.                                       DAVID               Yes, this is Doctor Bean.                                        BEAN               Actually I'm not .... er ...                                    GRIERSON             This is Bernard Schimmel. Bernie the Doctor. BERNIE offers his hand. BEAN has to do a nifty handchange to free up the correct hand for the handshake. The newspaper stays firmly in place.                                THOMAS GRIERSON             Ah ~ the Tribune - mind if I just ....He reaches out to borrow the newspaper. BEAN has to squeeze in right next tothe desk and sit behind it, before he can hand the paper over   thus ensuringthe continued invisibility of the wet patch. GRIERSON studies the paper for asecond.                                    GRIERSON             Take a seat, gentlemen..... although before we settle - feast your             eyes on these.GRIERSON goes to a painting on a wall. DAVID and BEAN follow ~ BEAN about oneinch from DAVID's back, walking in perfect rhythm.                                    GRIERSON             Arthur Rackham. Originals of course. Got four of them. Check             this out ... Venus and the Cat, Aesop's Fables. Isn't that             something?He heads towards said illustration on adjacent wall - and BEAN and DAVIDfollow, still totally glued together. A strange sight.                                       DAVID.             They're beautiful, sir.                                   GRIERSON             Maybe. Hell of a price, I'11 tell you.     Anyway - down to             business. They head back to the desk - but Bean, in a momentary lapse of concentration fails to follow. He's now stuck on the wrong side of the room, unable to turn around.                                    GRIERSON             Bernie was just showing me his new ideas for a cross-gallery             computer system. Dr Bean - would you like to look at this? Very             exciting stuff ....                                        BEAN             Ahm ... NO.GRIERSON is slightly surprised.   But they persevere.                                     BERNIE             What I'm doing, Dave, is developing the ultimate user-friendly,'             interactive public guide to the gallery.Punching buttons on the computer, he reveals wonderful maps of the gallery,and when clicking on sections of the map, graphic explanations of each roomscontents.                                                                                 42Meanwhile.   Bean has spotted a fan on the other side of the room.    He movesaround the room, always facing straight to the wall. When he reaches the fan,he switches it on: unfortunately it's a rotating fan - so to keep the wind onhis trousers, BEAN has to do a strange, rhythmic dancing movement, followingthe arc of the fan.                                       DAVID           It's very good Bernie.                                   BERNIE           But the particular glory of the system... is that it can also work           oh large screens in each individual room - so we can network the           program to every room in the gallery.                                     GRIERSON             Not bad, eh?    What do you think, Doctor?   Ah.... Doctor Bean? BEAN turns, shocked to    have been observed. He looks down at his trousers and, HOORAY!, they're    dry at last. He's delighted, and moves back across the road towards them,    hands in pockets, in a big, confident, groin- thrusting, dry-trouser    boasting walk.                                   GRIERSON             Well, thanks for dropping by. Enjoy your stay with our Vice             President and his family. They're simple people.-.but warm,             yes, Doctor?                                    BEAN           I'm not actually... um...                                   GRIERSON             ... Settled in yet. I know. Plenty of time. Bernie, perhaps             you'd like to take Dr. Bean on a tour of the gallery.                                      BERNIE           Absolutely.     This way, sir. BEAN displays his crotch proudly one last time before he and BERNIE exit. GRIERSON tries to fathom the strange man who just left.                                     GRIERSON           He's a genius, right?                                                                                43                                   DAVID           Ah... He certainly has something, sir.                                  GRIERSON           Very pleased you've taken him in, David. At a time when no-one's           job is safe, it really identifies you as a team player.                                   DAVID           Yes, although, I really..... thank you. Yes, it's great to have           him with us. The whole family's very excited.                                     GRIERSON           Glad to hear it.     Tell poor Mr Larson to come through, will you?                                      DAVID           You're not going to ....                                  GRIERSON           Sack him? David, what else can I do? This business is not,           repeat, not breaking even. And David ... notice anything this           morning? DAVID frowns then sees.                                    DAVID              You've tinted your hair? It takes years off you, sir.GRIERSON beams.                                                      MIX THROUGH TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   RECEPTION AREA - DAYEnd of the day.. ANNIE perks    up at the reception desk as DAVID, butespecially BEAN, approaches    from the gallery area. She has a pile oftissues near-by and draws a    heart on one of them. She arranges it on thecounter-top where BEAN could    not fail to see it on his way to the exit.                                      DAVID           Goodnight Annie.                                      ANNIE           Night.BEAN does not even notice her.    As DAVID heads for the exit, BEAN suddenlysneezes.                                                                               44He reaches for ANNIE's love message and blows his nose on it. He drops thetissue in a bin as he exits.ANNIE sighs her disappointment.                                                                        CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   BY PARKING LOT - DAY(About 5 p.m.) BEAN and DAVID head for the parking lot. On the way, BEAN'sinterest is drawn to the MIME ARTIST we met before in his Clinton mask,performing his heart out in front of the Dead Cars sculpture. BEAN lingers.The MIME accosts a woman, pretending to brush dust from her clothes, combher hair etc. The MIME is a bit of a pain in the ass really. The womanquickly moves on.BEAN is intrigued. The MIME mimes climbing a ladder. BEAN goes up next tohim - and looks up. There's nothing there. He decides the MIME is a bit ofa tricky. This is confirmed when the MIME pretends he's locked behind apane of glass. BEAN simply pokes his finger through the imaginary glasswall, and hits the MIME's nose.                                 CUT TO: DAVID watching bemusedly some way off.The MIME is however delighted someone is taking an interest at last.    He takes a handkerchief from BEAN's pocket, and gets BEAN to guess which hand the hanky's in. It's not in the left. Not in the right. BEAN isn't the slightest bit impressed - he just reaches round and takes the hank-y from where it's tucked into the MIME's trousers - and heads away. As he moves off, the MIME touches h' on the shoulder. BEAN turns and the MIME starts a mocking gun duel. He draws his guns. BEAN is pretty unimpressed. The MIME turns his back and walks the 10 paces to draw. 4 He turns .... But now BEAN decides to settles it once and for all. In a brilliant piece of big mime, he puts together the biggest gun ever seen outside an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. He sets up a pedestal - opens a case ~ lifts out a hugely heavy gun - then the 7 bits that click on that gun. Then opens another case, and takes out the huge artillery shell to load it. The MIME is getting very frightened. Then BEAN pulls up an imaginary stool to sit behind his mega-Gatling Gun. The MIME begins to run away. BEAN twirls in his imaginary seat, and lines up his sights, following the terrified MIME.                                                                             45 Finally, in a BOOM that almost knocks BEAN out of his imaginary seat, he fires. 10 seconds delay, and the MIME falls in a very dramatic death, 50 yards away.BEAN is happy - and heads back to the parking lot where DAVID, arms folded,leans against his car. DAVID gets into his car. BEAN opens the passengerdoor and thumps it loudly into the side of the expensive car next-door (sameas this morning).                                                                       CUT TO:EXT.   SHOPPING MALL.   PARKING LOT - DAYDAVID parks next to a beaten up convertible.                                      DAVID             Okay. I'll get some steaks. Alison loves steak ... Wine - good.             Candy? No candy. Alison hates candy. We gotta do this right,             Bean, or ... (looks at Bean) Just stay out of trouble, okay?BEAN nods.   DAVID gets out and heads for the mall.   Nearby woman tramp (BAGLADY) goes   through a trash can.BEAN tries to control himself but weakens. He plays with all the buttons andswitches on the dashboard; windshield wipers, lights. Then he notices athrobbing noise ... He gets out of the car to investigate.BEAN swiftly locates the throbbing sound. The e-empty convertible has itsengine running. BEAN notices the keys in the ignition. How stupid ofsomeone. He turns off the engine and takes out the keys. There are severalpeople returning to their cars with groceries. BEAN offers the car keys tothem as if to say: "Are these yours?"[The following should take place at quite a speed, real drama.]Then suddenly, A ROBBER dashes towards BEAN from the direction ' of the Mall,weaving in and out of parked cars, with a small white carrier bag, assumedlyfull of money. He wears jeans, a black polo-neck and, much to BEAN's delight,a PRESIDENT CLINTON face-mask.      As far as BEAN's concerned, this is his oldfriend, the MIME.ROBBER throws the bag of money on to the back seat of the convertible and getsin - but he cant find the keys to start it. He frantically searches all hispockets ...                                                                                  46BEAN leans into shot.     He holds out the keys, grinning.                                       ROBBER             Gimme the keys!BEAN runs away with them. Or doesn't! He is in mime mode - And runs on thespot, getting faster and faster. The ROBBER approaches this obvious madman.He is quite a tough, scary, and scared individual.                                     ROBBER             I said, give me the keys!BEAN turns and holds out two hands, just like the MIME did to him. Theperplexed ROBBER picks one hand. Wrong one. He then.... pulls a gun and putsit hard to MR BEAN in BEAN's face. Passers-by scream and fall to the ground,the bag lady amongst them. Sudden harsh reality.But not to BEAN. He simply takes the gun, and waves it in the ROBBER's face,ticking him off for breaking the rules.                                     ROBBER             OKAY, OKAY - TAKE IT EASY!!!BEAN gestures the ROBBER to turn around. He does, sure this sicko is goingsimply to shoot him in the head. But instead BEAN puts his back to theROBBER's back, and starts to count                                        BEAN              1,2,3,4, 5, 6,7,8, 9,10He turns and gestures to the ROBBER it's time to draw.       By this time a crowdhas gathered.                                     ROBBER             But I haven't got a f.....                                        BEAN             Ssssh!!!!He points out a small child, watching from behind a trash can.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   SHOPPING MALL.    EXT.   COFFEE SHOP ~ DAYDAVID is hurrying back to the parking lot, with a bag of groceries, and a bigbunch of red roses.. He stops dead in his tracks as he spots something ...                                                                                  47ALISON and CHARLES are sitting up on stools, in the window of a coffee shop.ALISON laughs at something that CHARLES says. Their body language suggests acertain closeness. DAVID is saddened. He hurries away.                                                                      CUT TO:EXT.   SHOPPING MALL.   PARKING LOT ~ DAYBEAN waves the gun at the ROBBER.                                       ROBBER             I haven't got a gun.But BEAN is pushing him to draw.      Finally...                                      ROBBER                             Okay, okay, I'11 do it!He draws. BEAN draws too. They fire. And BEAN really fires. To hisamazement. Onlookers scream. BEAN throws the gun away in startlement.The ROBBER lunges for it ~ BEAN kicks it away, trying to help him avoid such adangerous implement.The ROBBER lunges at BEAN who throws the keys away over his shoulder. TheROBBER has to scrabble under a car for them- BEAN thinks of final joke - andniftly swaps the ROBBER's bag, for one of the Old BAG LADY's bags. A fewdollar notes spill out of it.When the ROBBER emerges with the keys, BEAN 's waiting to escort him to hiscar. He opens the door - then spots a tourist hiding and puts his arm aroundthe ROBBER and gets him to take a photograph of them. BEAN removes theROBBER's mask as the picture is taken. Forgetting himself, the ROBBER smilesfor the camera.The ROBBER, jolted back to reality by the sound of approaching Police carsirens, jumps in the car and drives away. BEAN waves goodbye to theconvertible as a couple of Police cars screech up. COPS jump out.DAVID approaches the scene with groceries and roses. What kind of hell hasBEAN caused now? But instead of trouble, he sees the passers-by are gettingto their feet, applauding BEAN and whistling! They crowd round the COPSexplaining what a hero BEAN has been.BEAN hands over the gun to a COP. He doesn't really understand what all thefuss is about. He notices the BAG                                                                            48LADY wandering away with her bags. Should he tell her that he has swapped oneof them for the ROBBER'S? No. He's getting too much attention to be bothered.A COP comes up to BEAN. It is COP 1 from the airport scene.                                        COP 1                         Excuse me.    Mr. er ... Cabbage?Sudden mutual recognition.                                                                      CUT TO:INT.   POLICE PRECINCT. INTERVIEW ROOM - NIGHTClassic smoked filled room with street light cutting through half closedVenetian blinds. Two or three DETECTIVES slouched in the shadows.BRUTUS, the   huge    black detective from    earlier, sits opposite BEAN    at a table,smoking. He    is    looking at a photo. A     close-up reveals it to be a    full lengthone of BEAN   and    the ROBBER outside the    mall with the ROBBER's face    unmasked.BRUTUS eyes   BEAN    for a while. BEAN is     terrified. BRUTUS taps the     photo.                                         BRUTUS              It's Eddie Guardino.     Go pick him up.One of the DETECTIVES lazily leaves the room.          BRUTUS leans forward on hiselbows.                                      BRUTUS              Guardino fled the scene with 160 K, in a white plastic bag. We got              the car. We got the bag. And we got 20 pairs of stinking              pantyhose. (drags on his cigarette) Anything you wanna tell me?BEAN looks at h4-m blankly.       BRUTUS holds up the photo.                                      BRUTUS              'Fraid I'm gonna have to keep this.BEAN calmly takes the picture and tears it in half. He gives back the ROBBERhalf and puts the other half, with himself on, into his pocket. BRUTUS glaresat him.                                         BRUTUS              Mr. Bean.     You lookin' to stay long in California?                                                                                      49BEAN grins.    At last.     A question he can answer.     He nods, happily.                                       MR. BEAN              Oh, yes.                                                                                 CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARYS' HOUSE.      KITCHEN - NIGHTDAVID is talking to KEVIN. BEAN is there. In the background, Jennifer playswith a computer game. DAVID is very animated.                                         DAVID              He was incredible.     This guy is fearless.     He has no fear.                                      KEVIN              That's one - way of looking at it.        You might also say this guy is              brainless he has no brain'.                                         DAVID              Well, there is that ...                                       KEVIN                                    (TO BEAN )              I'11 give you a chance... Know anything about computers?                                        BEAN             Ahm....                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE LEARYS' HOUSE.   KEVIN'S BEDROOM - NIGHTKEVIN is playing an adventure game: `GOBLINS 2' [This game exists.] TheGOBLINS chuckle and make stupid noises that BEAN can imitate. A catchy pieceof music accompanies the game.The computer monitor shows the inside of the WIZARD's house. KEVIN moves theGOBLINS, and two little characters, FINGUS and WINKLE, around the room byclicking on areas in the room with his mouse.BEAN and KEVIN are both wearing pointed goblin hats made from newspaper.                                                                                  50                                     KEVIN             It's so embarrassing. All the guys I know are on Goblins 3 and             I'm still stuck with the lousy Wizard in Goblins 2. BEAN is interested in the computer because he likes the cute little GOBLINS. He gets his delighted face right up to the screen. He sings along with the catchy tune. KEVIN is getting frustrated.                                        KEVIN             Come on, winkle. KEVIN clicks on a cuckoo clock in the WIZARD's room.       The cuckoo pops out holding a key in its beak.                                        KEVIN              It's gotta be here.     Something to get the key away from the              stupid cuckoo. BEAN scans the monitor screen: he spots a little frog at the bottom of the scene. His eyes light up. He takes the mouse and rapidly and repeatedly clicks on the frog.                                        BEAN                       Click, click, click, click, click ... The frog croaks and jumps off a little round stone.       KEVIN gets excited.                                        KEVIN              How'd you do that!?     That was so obvious!!! BEAN grins and makes WINKLE pick up the stone. Then he clicks through to inside the wizard's house. He makes WINKLE throw the stone at the cuckoo which instantly drops the key from its beak.                                     KEVIN             Beanie, you are waaaaay Cool! KEVIN slaps BEAN on the back.      BEAN is delighted.   Close on monitor, showing The Goblin game-                                                                         CUT TO: INT.   LIVING ROOM.    DAY Another game. JENNIFER'S Super Nintendo game on TV in the lounge area. It is a Gothic game where he-man types attack Vampires and bats with swords.                                                                              51DAVID is in the kitchen - setting out the roses in a vase.    The door opens -enter ALISON. Some tension.                                      DAVID            Hi,                                      ALISON            Hi..... (PAUSE ) Roses.                                    DAVID            Yes. And    I have a wine for dinner            that will kill you.                                    ALISON            Great. ( SHE SETTLES A LITTLE ) You said you'd ask Grierson about            putting our guest somewhere else. Did you?                                      DAVID            Sort of half.....                                      ALISON            Meaning?                                    DAVID            I was sort of half way through the sentence in which I would have            asked him when it suddenly seemed like a mistake.                                    ALISON            Honestly David, you're so spineless.Pause. Jennifer looks around.   She can't help but hear.   Not a happyexperience.                                      DAVID            Roses.     Wine.He is asking her for softness. Pause. At which moment BEAN enters wearingpointy hat. He helps himself to a melon from a bowl. He grins and exits.ALISON looks at DAVID sadly.                                      ALISON              But no real change.Almost instantly, BEAN is back. He rummages through a drawer and takes outsome large elastic bands. And leaves.                                    ALISON            I really do need some time on my own. Away from here.                                                                              52                                     DAVID             Look, Bean's history. I swear to you, he's packing as we speak.             And you can't leave. ( HE PICKS UP THE BAMBI ) I've got Bambi.             You never go anywhere without him. Please let's just talk.                                     ALISON             Okay. ( GHOST OF A SMILE ) Put Bambi down, and we'll talk.He puts Bambi down on the side-table, on the flat surface of his CD player.BEAN appears again behind her, now looking even madder. Pointy hat, largepointy ears made from melon peel, held in place by the rubber band stretchedround his face ~ huge front teeth also cut from the melon. He grinsgleefully.DAVID and ALISON just stare. BEAN is followed by KEVIN who wears the same earsand teeth.                                     DAVID             Look, you guys, could you just give us a moment to ... Jennifer -             could you turn that damn thing down.It is quite loud. JENNIFER looks for the remote control. BEAN helpfully picksup a remote control from the sofa and points it across the room.                                     ALISON             No, that's not for the TV. That's for the ...Too late! BEAN punches a button and the lid of the CDplayer launches the Bambi into the air.DAVID sees it. In slow motion he dives dramatically and just misses it.         Itsmashes on the floor.BEAN raises his eyes heavenwards, shakes his head and tuts.        He thinks DAVIDis a real Butter Fingers.JENNIFER, upset, has found the TV remote and unintentionally switches from theVampire game to a TV channel. It's very loud.ALISON gives DAVID a tearful look, and shakes her head.                                                                             CUT TO:EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE      NIGHT.A taxi drives away.      Alison is in it.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   HALLWAY- NIGHT.JENNIFER and KEVIN are in their night clothes. They sit with David on thestairs ~ still looking at the door-Alison left through.                                           KEVIN                I wish I    could use    that at school. "Hey, Teach, no hard                feelings    ... It's    just things between us ain't what they used                to be and    I need a    little space, ya know? So I'11 see you                around in    a couple    of years, maybe".                                    JENNIFER             It's a kind of an interesting swap. Mom for the Man from Ga Ga.She gets up and walks away.                                     DAVID             Jen - you don't wanna talk about it?                                    JENNIFER             It's you and Mom that need to talk.                                        DAVID             Sure.    You're right.                                     KEVIN             You know, Mr. Bean's okay. You're not gonna kick him out, are             you, Dad?                                      JENNIFER                                  (FROM HER DOOR)             Of course he is.                                        KEVIN             Are you?                                        DAVID              Yes, I am.    I must.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   HALL/BEAN'S ROOM.   DAY.DAVID heads for Mr BEAN's room, and knocks cautiously on the door.                                                                                 54                                         BEAN                                      (o. o. v)             Enter. DAVID enters - Camera follows as DAVID finds his way through BEAN's washing hanging from strings across the room. BEAN is sticking things in a picture album.                                        DAVID             Hi, am I disturbing you? BEAN gives him an affable smile. In a pause before he quite gathers himself to broach the difficult subject, DAVID asks a polite question.                                        DAVID             May I? BEAN acquiesces. He starts from the beginning, with pictures of him as a kid. Always standing on his own. Picture of BEAN with mop of frizzy hair, at 16.    DAVID smiles.   BEAN mimes stupid disco dancing. DAVID turns another page. It is a sequence      of pictures of BEAN at famous UK locations - Big Ben, Stonehenge, Buckingham     Palace, 10 Downing Street. They are .idiosyncratic because all taken by him     at arms length with his Polaroid - so he never quite makes it squarely into     shot. A whole page of Teddy. Then three pages of BEAN's mini with dates, on labels, going way back. Then a whole page of garden gnomes.                                      DAVID              None of your folks here - Family? BEAN starts to look for something in particular.      DAVID uses the pause to broach the awful subject.                                      DAVID              Look... the reason I came in here was to ... well... since you've              been here twelve all... BEAN has    found what he was looking for. It is the picture of the family that he    took from the landing on his first night here. What's left of the Polaroid    of himself, from the mall, that he rescued from BRUTUS, is stuck next to    it. He's even written - 'Bean & Family' - he doesn't realise there's anything    sad about it. But DAVID is rather moved. Pause.                                                                                 55                                      DAVID              Well, that's er...great. Look, I just came in ... (no, he cant do              it) ... to say good night. Okay?BEAN nods.    DAVID smiles and goes to the door.BE-AN waves good-bye a little rudely and gets back to the album. Even when wefeel sorry for him, he's a little rude. DAVID walks away, shaking his head.                                       DAVID              Spineless.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   DAVID AND ALISON'S BEDROOM.The first morning without ALISON.    "She's Gone" by Hall & Oats begins to play,a song full of yearning.DAVID feels the other side of the bed.    No-one there.He walks into the bathroom and turns on the shower. Then walks back into thebedroom - She's gone - I've got to learn how to face it " He takes a towelfrom a cupboard and returns to the bathroom. He feels very alone.He removes his pyjamas and gets into the steam-filled shower. - she's gone -she's gone" - but the camera moves to reveal that he is not alone after all.BEAN has, simply entered the shower, and is now happily soaping himself,wearing ALISON's shower cap. manly screams from the both of them.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   CANTEEN - DAY.DAVID sitting down at table, with BEAN, who is tucking in happily ~ eating aburger & bun with knife and fork. DAVID speaks after a longish pause.                                      DAVID              Bean can I ask you something?BEAN nods.                                      DAVID              Do you think you can ever really know someone? Even if you've              known them, well, almost all your life? What do you think?                                                                              56 BEAN thinks hard, then looks at his watch, makes his excuses and simple walks away.                                                                         CUT TO: INT.    GALLERY CORRIDOR.     DAY. BEAN at a pay phone.      He dials carefully-                                                                         CUT TO: INT.    BEAN'S BED-SIT.     DAY 10 am U.K.    time. (The following takes place in a matter of seconds) Close on the T.V. A    morning kids show blares out. A huge wardrobe stands four feet away from    a wall. There is a string tied to one of it's door handles, stretching    out of shot. The wardrobe seems to be leaning backwards at an angel. It     rocks slightly and creaks. (Feature its padlock). There is a folded ironing board balanced over a roll of hall carpet, see-saw fashion. One end of it is wedged under the wardrobe. BEAN's G.P.O. phone rings on the table and it's vibrations cause the bust of BEETHOVEN to fall over the edge of the table. It lands on the end of the ironing board. The Wardrobe groans as it is set off balance and falls against the wall with a heavy thump! and raising of dust. The string tied to its handle becomes taut.CUT TO: the T.V. plug in its socket. This end of the string is tied to it.The string tightens and the plug is yanked out of the socket.The T.V. screen goes blank. Shot of TEDDY in the cardboard hotel'.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.    CANTEEN.   DAY.BEAN returns, sits down and starts to eat again. David is still deep inthought.                                        DAVID              Well, they say there's only one way to get over this sort of              thing. Take it day by day. Keep working. Keep to your normal              patterns. That's the only hope. So let's just ... take today              shall we?                                                                                57BEAN nods.    He is not on David's emotional level here.                                      DAVID              I think the time has come from you to meet the grand Madame.              She's all around you ... how do you fancy meeting her in the              flesh? Sure enough, all around are posters, and the silhouette of Whistler's Mother. BEAN nods, though fairly distracted by the slice of gherkin he's found in his bun and now picks out with his fingers.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.    THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   CORRIDOR - DAY.BEAN and David en route to the painting.                                      DAVID              I usually only let her out for the big summer exhibition - but'              let's see whether what they say about the healing power of great              works of art is true, huh?                                                                         CUT TO: INT.    THE WHOLE GALLERY - DAY BEAN and DAVID do the rest of the journey, in quick cuts - along corridors - in an elevator. A sense of expectation and excitement. En route, they are joined by ELMER, the huge Security Guard. The three arrive outside a large oak door. ELMER ceremoniously unlocks the door, all the time glaring at BEAN - who swallows hard. A light turns green and a buzzer sounds. Then there is the door to the inner sanctum. ELMER stares at BEAN as he unlocks it. Another light turns green and another buzzer sounds.                                      DAVID              As you can see, security's pretty tight in this section.   Nobody              gets past Elmer here. Isn't that right?                                      ELMER              Not in one piece anyway. I see Mrs Whistler as kind of ... like              my own dear mother. I'd kill any man that tried to interfere with              her. The Vice President here will vouch for that.                                                                                58                                      DAVID              You've known me five years Elmer. When do you get to calling me              David?                                      ELMER              Not my place, sir. It would only be a matter of time before I'm              calling you Dave. Then where would we be? By next year, you're              my Sweety-Pie" and I'm "Coochie-Coo". I'11 be back in 15.He salutes, glares at BEAN and walks away.        BEAN and DAVID enters the room.BEAN looks warily back at ELMER                                      DAVID              You think he's tough you should see the size of the hunk that              works the night shift.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.    THE GRIERSON GALLERY.      THE WHISTLER ROOM - DAY.The room is very dark, only tiny lights in the corner.                                        DAVID              Stay there.    Keep your eyes closed. One final lock, one final key.DAVID unlocks double doors in a wall with a plastic key card. Buzz - click!The camera holds on BEAN, his eyes tight shut. The lights go up on BEAN'sface, a magical golden glow.                                          DAVID              Right.   Open now.Cut round - and there is this beautiful and very famous painting, lovinglyshot. Music. Atmosphere. Glory.BEAN opens his eyes and looks at the painting.                                          BEAN              Mmmmm. Nice.                                      DAVID              I'11 leave you with her for a few minutes. I'm sure you'll want              to give her a proper inspection. But whatever you do, don't leave              the room. Megasecurity, okay? Catch you.BEAN nods. DAVID leaves him.         BEAN is still for a while and then goes up andinspects it closely.                                                                                    59He tuts disapprovingly as he spots dust on the bottom of the frame. He blowsit away fussily. He steps back to admire the painting. There is dust up hisnose and... SNEEZE - all over the painting!He takes out his handkerchief and wipes the spittle off in panic. Then looksback at the painting. Unfortunately, there now seems to be a big blue markright across Mrs Whistler's face..BEAN checks his handkerchief. Yes, there's wet ink all over it. He finds theleaking pen in his pocket. 0 God. He takes out his shirt, spits on it andtries to wipe the painting, but he can't make the shirt reach it. He takesthe painting down from the wall and has another go. NO GOOD! The ink justspreads right over Whistler's Mother's pure white collar.BEAN    now looks round in panic. What the hell can he do? He goes to the heavydoor    - and looks out into the corridor. He hears someone coming, hides andsees    a young girl from the catering staff wheeling a slightly squeaky trolleypast,    covered with a white cloth.He goes back in - and has an idea.        He goes to a little table in the cornerand begins to take thing off it.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.     GALLERY.   UPSTAIRS CORRIDOR - DAY.The    door opens, and    BEAN emerges, pushing what appears to be a trolley coveredwith    a white cloth.     Although, if you look carefully, this trolley actuallyhas    no legs. It is     the painting covered with the table cloth. To make it abit    more convincing,    BEAN makes an apt squeaky noise.He proceeds along the thin corridor - and then sees another exactly similartrolley coming right towards him.' A problem. As they get close, BEANsuddenly pretends he sees something astonishing behind the on-coming man.                                            BEAN                                     (silently mouths)                What the ... !!!When    the   man turns, BEAN just twists his painting sideways and shoots pasthim.     We   see the face of the deeply perplexed trolley-pusher when he looksback    and   BEAN is no longer there. He turns round to BEAN, who turns back tohim    with   a totally blank and innocent look. BEAN sees an elevator and headsfor    it.                                                                            CUT TO:                                                                                    60INT.     THE GRIERSON GALLERY.     ELEVATOR - DAYInside the elevator, BEAN relaxes for a moment. He leans the painting againstthe wall and presses the third floor button. The bell dings.                           ELEVATOR VOICE                Second floor.BEAN manages to get the painting into trolley position before the doors opento a group of six very fat middle aged people. They all wear large badgesdeclaring them to be members of a 'Diet Club'. They squeeze into the elevatoralong both sides of BEAN's trolley. There is a very, very, THIN WOMAN behindthem who can't fit on.                                      THIN WOMAN                I guess I'll see you up there, guys.The doors close. As the painting is wedged against the fat people's stomachson both sides, BEAN is able to let go of it and make a great show of checkinghis watch. He nonchalantly, drums the fingers of both hands on the top of thetrolley'. The bell dings.                               ELEVATOR VOICE                Third floor.The doors open. BEAN flips the painting onto its side and strolls out of theelevator. The 'Diet Cub, members stare, after him.BEAN heads on, squeaking - and at last sees what he's looking for.        A men'sroom.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON GALLERY.    MEN'S ROOM - DAYBEAN enters, relieved. It is small, just a little sink, a towel and a toilet.About a yard wide - but the picture fits in.BEAN starts to wash the painting very carefully and lo!! The ink starts tocome off. Massive relief. Then, alas, someone tries the handle of the door.BEAN speeds up. A knock. He peers out the keyhole. There are now 4 peoplewaiting. BEAN is very worried.                                                                           CUT TO:                                                                                  61INT.-GRIERSON GALLERY.     OUTSIDE MEN'S ROOM - DAYPause. Then out comes BEAN, drying his empty hands, miming, "Sorry, Sorry.".We see into the toilet. nothing there. No sign of the painting. BEAN turnssharply left.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT.   GRIERSON GALLERY - DAYDAVID is talking to BERNIE in the grounds.       We can see the side of the wholegallery in shot as they talk.                                        BERNIE             I was hoping DU.     Bean might take a look at my computer project             today.                                    DAVID              Yes. I'11 mention it to him.       But ... he's kind of his own guy,              you know?                                     BERNIE             Howls he getting on with the family?                                         DAVID             Ah. Fine.     It's good.   It's great. We will be slightly distracted by      the observation that Whistler's Mother, America's most valuable painting,      is at this moment balanced on a very thin ledge three floors up - where Bean      has put in, outside the Men's room window. A bird and then a couple       more birds perch on it.                                        BERNIE             And howls Alison?                                     DAVID             She's ... well, she's good.                                     BERNIE             Saw her at the movies the other night with that boss of hers.             Nice guy. Good looking.                                         DAVID             Yes, isn't he.                                        BERNIE             It's great when people who work together can become real friends.                                        DAVID             Isn't it?                                                                                   62                                     BERNIE             I like to think that's what's happened with you and me ... even             though you're kinda my boss. Still maybe it won't always be that             way, huh?DAVID doesn't quite see what BERNIE is getting at but smiles politely.Now we see BEAN's plan -    he has emerged at a nearby window. He    can't reachthe painting at first.     So he stretches further and further out   the window.No good. Finally he has     to go out on the ledge. He shoos away    the birds, whothen decide to settle on    him instead. Finally he gets a hand on    the painting.As he does so, he loses    hold. He just manages to grabs a window    before hefalls.                                     DAVID             Look, I've left Bean on his own. Nice to chat though Bernie -             always a subtle joy.                                      BERNIE             Thanks, David.   Always a pleasure.Period.BEAN is slowly managing to claw his way back towards the open window with thepainting. It is an extraordinary piece of acrobatics. DAVID turns to go.                                        BERNIE             By the way. Don't     know what you think, Mr Vice President, but             I've been hinting    to the old man that someone's got to have the             balls to take some    sort of emergency measures around here - or             we're all in the             crap house. What     do you think?                                     DAVID             'Emergency measures, in your book means sack people right?                                    BERNIE             Not necessarily. That's where this ... ( POINTS TO HIS BRAIN )             comes in. No, I've had a better idea than sacking people. You'll             hear soon enough.BERNIE grins and walks away. Bean does one final swing, and ....                                                                              CUT TO:                                                                                   63INT.   GRIERSON GALLERY.   STOREROOM - DAY.A small storeroom where Bean's wriggling bottom is just coming back throughthe window. He has the picture and is safe.He sets the picture down on a table.      Darn!   The birds have done theirbusiness on it.He maniacally rummages through various dusty cans and bottles on a shelf. Hechooses a can, too rusty to read its label, takes off the lid and sniffs.This smells like the right sort of stuff. He pours the liquid on to a rag andrubs it on the face of Mrs. Whistler. The solvent effortlessly removes theink stain. Whistler's Mother looks as good as new.BEAN is so, so, relieved. But then he notices something else happening.      Theliquid did not stop with removing the stain. It is now busy removingWhistler's Mother's face entirely. As Bean watches-in frozen horror,America's most famous painting turns back to a blank canvas.BEAN thinks for a second - and then has a desperate thought.     Removing the penthat started all the trouble, he decides to try to draw back    on Whistler'sMother's 'face. He doesn't have much time. It shows. Where       once was asublime oil painting, is now a biro line-drawing which looks    a little likeDanny de Vito.Bean lifts it against the wall to check how it's worked. Unfortunately,there's a nail there. The picture tears, Bean panics - it tears even more.Total destruction.                                                                         CUT TO: INT.     GRIERSON GALLERY.   CORRIDOR - DAY.BEAN Hurries down the corridor with his pseudo-trolley again, and a vaguelymad look on his face. He spots ANNIE at a drinks machine. She smiles sweetly(here comes her man) BEAN takes a sharp left into an adjacent corridor. ANNIEis hurt.                                       ANNIE               True love can be very hard.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.     THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   THE WRONG ROOM - DAYClose on the double doors (identical to those of the Whistler Room) BEANenters with the Painting, under the                                                                                 64cloth. He closes the doors and rests a moment to catch his breath.     He takes astep into the room and freezes.The    very fat 'Diet Club, people are seated at easels, paint brushes poised.The    very THIN WOMAN is standing in the centre of the room in her underwearwith    a Greek urn perched on her shoulder. All eyes are on BEAN, who exitsvery    quickly.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.     INNER SANCTUM.   WHISTLER ROOM DAY.BEAN gets back to the right rooms and closes the door desperately behind him.He stands frozen for a second - and at that moment, a hand tries the door.BEAN leaps at it and stops. the handle turning. Then there's a knock. BEANmoves the big table in front of the door - he's barricading himself in.There's a famous Rodin sculpture in there - he shoves it along to block, thedoor as well. When he's succeeded, he leans hot and sweaty against it - and adoor on the other side of the room calmly opens and .... DAVID walks in.                                     DAVID             Seems to be a problem with the door.(PAUSE) Where's the picture             gone?                                       BEAN             Ahm.....                                       DAVID             What?    What?Pause.   Pause.    BEAN finally shows it.   Not a pretty sight.                                       DAVID             Oh Jesus. Oh God.     Oh Jesus God.   Oh Mary Mother of Jesus. Oh             Jesus of Nazareth.                                       BEAN             oh dear.                                       DAVID             What happened?!!!                                      BEAN             Ahm.... (setting himself up for an interesting, comprehensive             answer).                                                                                 65                                     DAVID             Don't bother (panicking) Oh my god.....He rushes to the door he just came in - and locks it.             Wait a minute - why am I worrying about this? I did it. I just go             out and tell them what happened - you're a madman from England and             you did this terrible thing and it's not my fault. That's right,             isn't it?BEAN nods, knowing he deserves his doom.             Perfect - and then they say - who left him alone with the             picture?" And I say - "me". And they say "you're fired". And I             say ' right'. And so I get fired and you go to jail and no one's             any happier.BEAN shakes his head.             And then they say, "firing David isn't enough - let's prosecute             him for negligence. And they prosecute me and it turns out I was             negligent and I go to jail, and my wife leaves me and my daughter             becomes a prostitute and I end up on Death Row sharing a cell with             Butch McDick, the infamous gay rapist - or worse, I end up in the             same cell as you!BEAN looks hurt.             No, no...Now, let's just be calm let's think about this calmly.             (he tries - and fails ... ) Oh Godigodigod! Okay, now wait.             Let's have another look at it.BEAN shows it to him.             Jesus!!! I'm already thinking back to 5 minutes ago as paradise.             5 minutes ago - just walking along, shooting the breeze with my             old pal Bernie.BEAN then he has a brilliant idea. He hangs the painting back up in thesecurity cupboard and closes the doors. Then he removes from his pocket asmall note book.                                                                               66He scribbles something on it, tears the page out, licks it and sticks it onthe cupboard door. It reads `OUT OF ORDER'.                                      DAVID             Brilliant.   Brilliant. Problem solved!BEAN is delighted.             Apart from the tiny drawback that the first person who opens the             cupboard will say -"Look, someone's totally destroyed Whistler's             Mother- let's kill them".BEAN is less delighted.              No - the most important thing is tbat no-one sees it.              Ever again!He locks the cupboard with his plastic card key-               That's the first thing. Then ... that's the first thing....               Next ... next is the next thing which is... obviously... ritual               suicide. Look, let's get out of here. Try to act natural.The let themselves out and go into the corridor- BEAN acting his version of`natural' - very liquid.                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   CORRIDOR.   DAY-They bump straight into GRIERSON and ELMER.                                     GRIERSON             Ah, David.   Showing Dr. Bean our good lady?                                      BEAN             Actually I'm not a...                                    DAVID            That's right - Whistler's Mother. Looking at his mother - not his            father - not interested in his father, Couldn't give a flying            doughnut for his sisters or brothers - just his mother. Yes.                                   GRIERSON            Well, good - think I may go and look at her myself...                                                                               67                                     DAVID            No!                                   GRIERSON            Er ... pray tell me why?                                    ELMER            Because they've just cut her into tiny pieces, sir.     That's why.BEAN and DAVID die and go to hell until ELMER laughs at his own little joke.GRIERSON laughs too.                                    ELMER            I better continue my rounds, sir..He strolls away.                                    DAVID            The thing is, sir, I've just been giving the painting a very            thorough inspection, with the help of Dr Bean here - and we feel            the time's come for Whistler's Mum to have her first face-lift.                                   GRIERSON            Time taken its toll on the old girl, eh?                                     DAVID            Exactly.   She's in a surprisingly terrible state.    Isn't she,            Bean?                                     BEAN            Oh yes.                                    DAVID            Whistler was a great painter, but he wasn't a great chooser of            paints ....BEAN hudders at the thought of his paint-choosing.The colours are beginning to fade. However ~     if you give me just one littleyear I can restore the picture to its original    glory, the way it looked whenWhistler's Mom first looked at it and said....    0 Actually I'm not sure you'vegot the hair right, darling." By the way, your    hair is looking great today,sir.                                                                               68                                    GRIERSON            Thank you David.   However, flattery will get you nowhere.    Truth             is, I have a rather different plan for Whistler's dear Mama.             Bernie and I have been inspecting our books - and the long and             short of it is, we cannot survive with our current losses, so ...                                        DAVID             ... you have to sack me.     I understand, sir.    I'll go quietly.     In             fact I'll go right now.                                    GRIERSON             No. no, no, hold on ... We cant sustain our loses - so I've             decided.. to sell Whistler's Mother.DAVID lets out a little yelp.                                    GRIERSON             Brilliant, huh? I already have a prospective       buyer - the current             Governor of California, no less, who is flies      in tomorrow to             inspect her and clinch the deal. Spread the       news. I think             decisive leadership has done the trick, don't      you?                                       DAVID             Yes, sir.   Yes, sir.   Congratulations. Marvellous thing.     Bravo. GRIERSON leaves.    DAVID turns to BEAN.                                        DAVID             Bean.   Do you drink?BEAN shakes his head.                                        DAVID              Neither do I.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   BAR - NIGHTIt is very late and very gloomy. Just a couple of loners staring into theirdrinks. The BARTENDER is up one end of the counter, smoking and reading thesports pages. There is a T.V. on above the bar, showing baseball.                                                                                   69BEAN and DAVID are sitting up at the bar. The latter has had far too muchwhisky and looks the worse for it. BEAN has a tall glass packed with fruitand paper umbrellas. We can guess how much he's had to drink by the way hehas difficulty finding the straw with his mouth. DAVID almost, but not quite,slurs his words:                                     DAVID             It's just a matter of acceptance, isn't it ... lose your job -             lose you wife ... C'est la vie. You ever been married, Bean?He turns to BEAN who has the end of a straw up his nose.                                        DAVID             I guess not.He fills his glass from a bottle.            You know, I don't get it. The New Artist     exhibition-this year -            people might not all have liked the dead    sheep, but ... the place            didn't look that empty to me. It wasn't     full but I saw people. I            just don't understand how the gallery can    be so bankrupt they have            to sell the Whistler.He looks at BEAN who now has peanuts in each nostril.DAVID notices the BARTENDER looking at BEAN strangely ....                                      DAVID            He's English, okay?    You wanna make something of it?BARTENDER goes back to reading. DAVID searches for his last train of thought,taking a huge swig from his drink.                                    DAVID            ... To hell with the figures. I'm not a damn accountant. I'm an            artist. You know, me and Ali met in art school? I cut quite a            figure then. Far cry from the man you see before you now. Then,            I smoked Gitanes before I went to bed, to help me sort out the            problems of the world. Now, I take a spoonful of laxative before            I go to bed to help me sort out the problem with my bowels.                                                                                 70BEAN at that moment is keen to show DAVID his nut trick. He throws a peanuthigh into the air - and catches it in his mouth. Then does two. Then does itwith his eyes closed. Actually, it's rather impressive.                                    DAVID             Truth is, I disappointed her. I turned out to have no spine.             Spineless. A kind of medical miracle. Mr Flippy-Floppy. I             just don't seem to be able to fight - cant stick up for myself.             Too nice. I mean, I should never have let you come stay and I             should be handing you over to the police right now. Shall I             tell you something, Beanie ...Bean has been interested all this, even looking to    check whether David doesindeed have no spine. But now the baseball on the     TV is making it hard forhim to concentrate on-this important confidence.     He raises a finger, forDAVID to be quiet for a second. He blows a peanut     from his, nostril at theT.V. - it hits the button, and changes station to    a pleasant quiet-musicstation.                                    DAVID             Do you want to know what the reality of the situation is? BEAN nods his head, very curious, listening hard.             This is it. Because you moved into my house, my wife has left             me. She might have done it anyway - but you were the ten ton             weight that broke the camel's spinal column.BEAN stares at DAVID - something is getting in he's actually registering this.             That's point one. And point two - is that you've destroyed             Whistler's Mother, which was' the last hope for the place where             I work. So within a week, I'm going to lose my job as well.BEAN nods, seriously dispirited.                                                                                 71                                     DAVID             So, you've totally and utterly destroyed my life. Do you             understand? You've put me in a position where it would have been             better if I'd never been born.He puts his hand on BEAN'S shoulder.     BEAN looks down.Very sad. This is actually the first time in his life that he's realised thathis actions have really effected the life of another person. BEAN looks upsadly. Sad music plays.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   LEARY HOUSE.   DAVID'S ROOM - NIGHTDAVID is asleep in bed.     The camera moves out into the hall and into BEAN'sroom.INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.    BEAN'S ROOM- NIGHT.BEAN is lying, fully dressed, in the darkness, on his back. Thinking.Worried by what he's heard. Then suddenly an idea comes into his eyes.      Themusic is like his brain He jumps off the bed.There follows a version of the classic tooling up for action sequence. Butthe 'tools' here are distinctly bizarre. BEAN picks up his suitcase, and inquick cuts, rushes through the house and collects....DAVID'S PLASTIC KEY CARDA PAIR OF Y-FRONTSA TORCH.SOME OF KEVIN'S CHEWING GUM. 6 EGGSA COOKING BASINA CUPA LARGE PAINT BRUSHA BOTTLE OF CLEAR NAIL VARNISH DAVID'S LARGE TIN OF LAXATIVE.     A HAIR DRIERAN ACTION MAN DOLLA POSTER OF THE GIRL AND HER BOTTOM WITH THE TENNIS BALL.TWO OVEN GLOVESA SKATEBOARDAND 4 VOLUMES OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.Fully tooled, he snaps the suitcase shut.                                                                         CUT TO:                                                                                 72EXT.   GALLERY.   NIGHT.The building is floodlit by ground spots.BEAN arrives silently, with suitcase, on the skateboard. Soon his full planwill be revealed. The Gallery is empty, apart from the one Security Guard,BUCK, visible through the glass front of the building, drinking coffee,watching his 12 security monitors. BEAN swallows at the sight of BUCK - he isa massive gorilla of a man.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON GALLERY.    RECEPTION - NIGHT.BUCK is casually watching his screens, when suddenly, horror of horror, thehuge silhouette of a person hanging .themselves from a tree outside appears,the shadow of the limp body thrown across the floodlit gallery wall. BUCKfrantically rushes out. And BEAN subtly slips in.                                                                            CUT TO:EXT.   GRIERSON GALLERY - NIGHT.BUCK is looking for the body amongst the trees. He finds nothing. Because hefails to notice the tiny ACTION MAN swinging gently in front of one of theground-level floodlights.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON GALLERY - NIGHT'.Inside, BEAN is casually pouring the entire       contents of DAVID's large laxativetin into BUCK's coffee. He also swaps two        keys on the board of keys by thedesk. He then takes the opportunity to put        the oven gloves on his feet, oneshaped like a pig, one like a crocodile, so       he can move silently.BUCK returns. He sits down, and takes a long gulp of coffee. Pause. BEANwatches. BUCK feels something uncomfortable in his stomach. He takes a keyfrom his rack of keys, and sets off and rounds a corner- On a monitor screen,BEAN watches him break into a canter - as he passes through another monitorBUCK is at full sprint. BEAN giggles.BEAN is satisfied he'll be uninterrupted for a while. He goes to the key-rack, borrows two keys, and sets off on his mission. The next 3 minutes offilm are a sequence of cuts between three scenarios:                                                                                 73FIRST: BUCK - his next 10    minutes    are not happy ones. When he reaches thetoilet, the key he chose    does not    unlock it. He has to sprint back, grab allthe keys, and charge back    again to    the door. Then he has to try out everysingle key. We never see     him find    the right one.SECOND scenario - all the    activities of the night shown on the securitymonitors. BUCK sprinting     desperately through shot - BEAN casually going abouthis business and, on one    occasion, BUCK running right past BEAN, but notseeing him - he has other    things on his mind.THIRD scenario - we actually see BEAN's Big Plan.He unlocks the merchandise shop. So he can see properly and have his handsfree, he puts the y-fronts on his head, and wedges the torch into them, like ahead-lamp. He then takes a poster of Whistler's Mother and replaces it withthe rolled-up Tennis Ball Girl. He unrolls the Whistler and places the 4encyclopaedias on its corners to hold it down.He separates the yokes from the eggs, mixes the whites with clear nail varnishand varnishes the-poster with it. Dries it off with the hair drier.,With the now stiff poster, he heads up elevators and escalators to get to theWhistler Room itself, all the time chewing gum frantically. Once there, heunlocks the final cupboard with David's plastic key, takes the Whistler downand removes the destroyed Mother from its gilded frame, and its wooden supportframe. He uses the chewed gum to stick the new one down to the old frame.He then puts the very convincing forgery back into the security cupboard andrelocks it with DAVID's key card.The job is done.     He scrunches up the old, torn picture, pops it in a dustbin,and heads off.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT. STREET.    NIGHT-BEAN zipping along on the skate board with his suitcase.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON GALLERY.      UTILITY ROOM - NIGHT.BUCK, trouserless, is sitting, reading a newspaper next to a noisy washingmachine.                                                                           CUT TO:                                                                                74INT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.      BEAN'S ROOM.    NIGHT.   KITCHEN - DAYBEAN lies back in bed with quiet satisfaction.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   DAVID'S ROOM.      MORNING.DAVID wakes with a violent start.                                       DAVID               0 my God. Tell it vas a dream. The door swings open.       It is Bean with a tray of coffee and toast.                                            BEAN               Morning.                                       DAVID               It wasn't a dream, was it. I have to go in to work and tell them               Whistler's Mother now looks like Danny De Vito.                                            BEAN            Well, Ahm.... He laughs cheerily.                                         DAVID            What?                                                                           CUT TO: INT.   DAVID'S CAR. Bean is still chuckling.                                                                           CUT TO: INT.   GALLERY.    CORRIDOR. Still highly amused, BEAN      guides DAVID in the direction of Whistler's Room. David takes out his key to      open the room - but the door swings open. DAVID is shocked. There stands       GRIERSON, looking straight at Whistler's Mum. In all its untorn, unsmudged,      undestroyed glory.                                                                                75                                   GRIERSON            I think you're wrong, David. She looks as fine as she's ever            looked. Worth every cent of the 10 million dollar-s.                                         DAVID            Ahm....                                  GRIERSON            Bravo. Let's put on a good show tomorrow, shall we?       Don't want            anything to go wrong.                                         DAVID            Quite right, sir.Grierson leaves.    David gets close to the painting and peers ....                                         DAVID            Wait a minute.BEAN just puts his finger to his mouth...                                         BEAN            Ssshhhh.He lets out a hug smile - he can solve the problems of the world, as well ascreate them.INT. THE LEARY HOUSE. HALL- SATURDAYJENNIFER skips down t-he stairs, carrying a trendy duffel bag, just as DAVIDenters from the kitchen.                                       JENNIFER            Bye, Dad.                                     DAVID             Ah ... Jennifer, I need you to watch Kevin.    Jen?But JENNIFER has already reached the front door ....                                      JENNIFER             Be serious, Dad.    It's Saturday.She exits.                                                                          CUT TO:                                                                               76EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE - DAYJENNIFER is heading down the path.    DAVID runs out of the house and catches upwith her.                                     DAVID             Jen, you have to help me here! I've got to go in to work, and             with your mom away ... I really need you.A powerful motorbike turns into the drive at speed and skids round to face theopposite direction. JENNIFER runs over to it. The bike's rider turns off hisengine and removes his helmet. It is STINGO, the white Rasta from theairport, with the hair extensions and the sixty rings in his nose.                                      STINGO                                    (to DAVID)             You.He hands JENNIFER a helmet.                                      JENNIFER             Don't worry, Dad.    I'll be home. Monday, after school.BEAN and KEVIN arrive at DAVID's side to spectre.                                     KEVIN             Hey, En, nice bike'- but remember: any kids you have are gonna             look just like its handsome driver.                                     DAVID                                  (angry now)             Jennifer! This is not - repeat, not! how we do things in this             family. I've told you never to get on one of those death traps!             Please - talk to me. I promise to be reasonable.JENNIFER has put on the helmet and is climbing onto the back of the bike.                                    JENNIFER             Great, Dad. You promised you'd get rid of him! (points at Bean)             And as for: "how we do things in this family. We don't have a             family till you get Mom back.                                                                               77She slaps STINGO on the shoulder.    STINGO kicks the starter lever.    Nothing.Again.     Nothing ...                                        JENNIFER               Come on Sting!                                        KEVIN               Sting?!   Sounds like something you put on a rash.STINGO is still kicking the starter.       DAVID is desperate.                                       DAVID               Don't just stand there, Bean - do something.BEAN instantly takes on the hero's mantle and runs to the bike. DAVID is notfar behind him. STINGO is still trying to kick start it. BEAN takes out asmall screwdriver and twiddles with something on the engine.The bike sparks into life and does a wheelie before speeding out of the driveand down the road. BEAN stands, hands on hips, looking very-pleased withhimself indeed.                                          DAVID                To BEAN )    Right! Right! You get inside and look after Kevin!                (not such    a good idea) Uh --- Right! Kevin. You get inside and                look after    ... uh... (that would be a worse idea) Right! Get in                the car!     Both of you. Jesus!                                                                             CUT TO:INT.     THE GRIERSON GALLERY.    RECEPTION AREA - DAYDAVID, BEAN and KEVIN at the reception desk.                                         ANNIE               So, Kevin.    How's it going?                                         KEVIN               Badly.    You wanna adopt me?ANNIE smiles cutely at BEAN.       DAVID is still rattled.                                          ANNIE                Big day today, huh?                                                                                  78                                          DAVID                Uh ... yes ...DAVID looks askance at BEAN.       BERNIE hurries up and takes DAVID to one side.                                       BERNIE                Great day. At last we can start getting out of debt and                concentrating on the future.                                       DAVID                Yes, look, I wanted to talk to you about this.      I'm sure we                haven't been doing as badly as all that.                                         BERNIE              You're an innocent and an optimist David - that's why I love              you. (he hugs him and laughs). Jesus - what a terrible tie-              Come on, the Governor's coming at 3. And before then I have a              little surprise for you and the Boss. DAVID calls to ANNIE.                                     DAVID              Annie ... would you look after Kevin? And Kevin - you look after              Bean.He heads off with BERNIE.     Back at the counter.   BEAN, KEVIN & ANNIE.                                     KEVIN             My Dad told me all about you.                                       ANNIE             Did he now?                                     KEVIN              He says you've got a babe count of ten out of ten, and a brain              cell count of about two and a half.                                     ANNIE              Yeah, I'll go with that. I'm kinda, like, dumb, intellectually.              (to Bean) But I'm great in bed.BEAN is unsettled by this.     He gives a shudder and heads for the gallery.                                                                                 79                                     KEVIN             Catch you later, babe.(goes after Bean) Come on, Beanie - there             must be a computer here somewhere. I hate paintings. They don't             do anything.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE.    DAY.BERNIE, DAVID and GRIERSON. BERNIE looks very confident at a computermonitor. A painting is in fact 'doing' something, on the computer screen, asthe girls in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting actually dance the can-can.                                      GRIERSON             Well, congratulations.    Isn't that great, David?                                       DAVID             Certainly is.                                     BERNIE             We'll be able to start this afternoon. I'11 pipe the guide to             every video screen in the gallery. Now, that'll impress the             Governor.                                   GRIERSON             Well, bravo! What with you and Whistler's Ma - I think I've got a             winning team.DAVID slightly embarrassed not to be included in the winning team.      He looksto the poster of Whistler's Mother behind GRIERSON's desk.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   BERNIE'S ROOM - DAYKEVIN and BEAN have found a computer,    also showing BERNIE's Gallery programme.The monitor shows the interior of the    ground floor of the gallery. KEVINclicks, and up comes the same Toulouse    Lautrec picture. As KEVIN works themouse, BEAN hums the catchy tune from    'GOBLINS 21. It's play time again.                                     KEVIN              This is way cool, Beanie.He clicks again, and a tiny talking Toulouse Lautrec starts to explain theprovenance of the painting.                                                                              80                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   THE WHISTLER ROOM. DAYDAVID is overseeing things. There's a burgundy rope, keeping people a bitaway from the case in which Whistler's Mother is contained. ELMER brings intwo large flower displays. BERNIE enters.                                     BERNIE             Jesus! Hurry up you guys. Am I the only person round here who             actually gets things done.He exits. BERNIE is growing in confidence - and getting nastier by theminute. DAVID pulls a face at ELMER.                                     DAVID             You arrange those flowers yourself?                                      ELMER             Sure did.                                      DAVID             They're pretty.   Learn it in the army?                                     ELMER             No - but when you've torn out a man's throat with your bare hands,             you learn to appreciate the beautiful things in life.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY - DAYThe final touches in the preparation for the big visit to up-tempo, "we'regetting ready" music.1.    Gardeners gardening, window cleaners cleaning, polishers polishing etc.And someone empties a dustbin, in the midst of which we glimpse somethingwhich might be a scrunched up old Whistler painting.2.    BERNIE watches as someone plugs in a plug - and a huge video screen inthe gallery flickers and starts up.3.    ANNIE at her counter, reading a book called 'The Art of Conversational.She shakes an imaginary hand and rehearses a keen conversation with animaginary V.I.P.                                                                                814.    ELMER, in the men's room mirror, trims his hair around his peaked hatwith scissors. He has a row of war medals on his chest. He polishes themproudly with his sleeve.5.    GRIERSON watches through the front glass - a red carpet rolls itself outfrom the gallery's main entrance to stop by the rear door of a black car.                                                                         CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY - DAYClose on the bottom    of the black cars rear door. It opens and a pair of legs,wearing black shoes    and charcoal trousers, step out onto the red carpet. Asthey walk purposely    up the carpet, the camera pans up their owner's body, toreveal that this is    BERNIE. It's a rehearsal. He is met with a hand shake byGRIERSON at the main    entrance.                                    GRIERSON             What a pleasure, Governor Reynolds. I'd like you to meet some of             our staff here. (checks a prompt card).                                     BERNIE             And that's where you introduce me to the Governor.                                      GRIERSON             Right.    Got it.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.     RECEPTION AREA - DAYGallery staff wait, all wearing name badges. GRIERSON leads BERNIE to thereception counter. ANNIE steps out from behind it and shakes BERNIE's hand.                                     ANNIE             Good day, Governor Reynolds. I'm Annie ...                                       BERNIE             Curtsy.                                     ANNIE             Curtsy? Are you kidding? This is 1990s America.      Women don't             curtsy, they run the damn country!                                                                                82                                      GRIERSON           Alex, please!                                       ANNIE           That's Annie, sir.GRIERSON takes BERNIE on to ELMER who is next in line.                                    GRIERSON             This is Elmer, our longest serving...                                     BERNIE             Hey. Let's junk the medals, Elmer. This is not a Veterans'             reunion. We wanna make the Governor feel at home. Not remind him             of piles of dead people wearing uniforms.ELMER puts on a defiant face. DAVID shakes his head disapprovingly.        GRIERSONmoves BERNIE to meet DAVID. They'Shake hands.                                     DAVID             David Leary. I'd like to echo my colleagues welcome to you and             thank you for your patronage ...BERNIE rudely cuts him off.                                     BERNIE             Okay, that'll do. The Governor's here in half an hour.       We have             to be totally ready then. No excuses. Period!                                    GRIERSON             Thank you Bernie. Well done. Now, If you'll excuse - I have a             little smartening up to do myself.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.    BERNIE'S OFFICE - DAYBEAN at the computer. He's actually quite enjoying himself now. In fact,he's rather hogging the thing. This is, after all, an animated catalogue -his area.                                                                                83                                     KEVIN             I'm just gonna go see if Annie needs me for anything.      Truth is,             she smells kinda nice. okay? (grins).BEAN smiles and gives KEVIN a thumbs-up.       KEVIN returns the gesture andexits..Back to the computer, BEAN clicks on an icon which takes him to the groundfloor gallery. He clicks through various paintings and stops at the paintingof the woman, in the castle, wearing the chastity belt. BEAN clicks andenlarges the painting to fill the screen.He happily hums the catchy tune from 'GOBLINS 2' and homes in on the tinypadlock on the chastity belt. Padlocks interest him. He clicks on thekeyhole rapidly (as we have seen him do with the frog in GOBLINS 2).                                     MR. BEAN             Click! click! click! click! click!.Suddenly, to BEAN's surprise, the padlock starts to flash red...then thewhole screen starts to flash ... before going dramatically back to black ...Now flashing in the .centre of the monitor is an icon of a tiny key. Beneathit, a row of six dashes appears (e.g - - - - - - - ). A cursor is flashingover the first dash.BEAN is totally absorbed. He loves these kinds of puzzles. With one finger,he slowly types out letters on the keyboard (he has to search for some ofthem). As he does so, they appear over each dash in turn:                                 G-O-B-L-I-NA message pops up: "ACCESS DENIED" BEAN tries something 0 else.                                 G-N-O-M-E-SThe message again: `ACCESS DENIED'. The room door suddenly opens! MakingBEAN jump! It's BERNIE. He cannot see the computer screen from the doorway.                                       BERNIE         How goes it, Bean?    Ready for the Governor?BEAN smiles and nods nervously.       He knows he's probably up to something heshouldn't be.                                                                                   84                                    BERNIE           We need you downstairs in ten minutes and not a second more.           Period. Oh, And put this on.BERNIE throws BEAN a name badge with 'Dr. Bean' on it. BEAN nods. BERNIEexits. BEAN goes back to the code. He types in the first thing that comesinto his head:                                      B-E-R-N-I-EThat damned message again: `ACCESS DENIED'.         Then, as though something isdawning on him, he punches in:                                      P-E-R-I-0-DUp comes a message: "CODE ACCEPTED". Close on BEAN's face as light from thecomputer plays on it- He reads it carefully and with interest. We cant quiteread his expression - but what he sees is a surprise and a puzzle. Longmeaningful pause as his eyes scan the screen.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.      THE WHISTLER ROOM - DAYBERNIE enters - DAVID is looking at Whistler's Mother, still puzzled.                                        BERNIE             David?   Lift off!                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.     RECEPTION AREA - DAYThe staff and various dignitaries are lined, looking out through the glass inanticipation. Through the glass we see a couple of Police Motorcycle Escortspull up outside followed by a beautiful, old, classic Rolls Royce.                                                                            CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY - DAYThe red carpet unrolls all the way to the Rolls, rear door. Close on thebottom of the driver's door. It opens and out step a pair of legs, wearingarmy boots and khaki trousers.                                                                                    85The legs step sideways onto the carpet and approach us. Camera pans up toshow us that GOVERNOR REYNOLDS is dressed in his Veteran's uniform - chest ofmedals and forage cap. He is a grand figure. In fact - he's exactly the samegrand figure Mr BEAN caused epic problems To on the plane over. He gives hisprized possession, the car, a little token polish with his sleeve beforeheading on.BRUTUS and his SIDE-KICK COP fall into step behind him.       They are the Policepresence today.GRIERSON and BERNIE greet REYNOLDS at the entrance.GRIERSON is wearing a striking brand new light blue silk suit.       BERNIE isfrowning - not happy about that uniform.                                    GRIERSON             what a pleasure, Governor. Welcome.                                    REYNOLDS             Hi, Grierson, forgive the war paint.       Going on To my regiment/s             reunion after.                                      GRIERSON             Not at all, Governor.    Very striking. REYNOLDS takes in GRIERSON's suit.                                      REYNOLDS             Interesting suit.                                       GRIERSON                                      (Beaming)             Why thank you sir.                                      REYNOLDS              off the peg?                                   GRIERSON                                (crestfallen )                Yes it is ... may I introduce you To Bern ...He gestures to BERNIE but REYNOLDS cuts in and hands BERNIE a set of car keys.                                    REYNOLDS                                  (To Bernie)             Go park the old jalopy, will ya, son.BERNIE's smile melts away. As they enter the gallery, BERNIE hopefully offersthe car keys to BRUTUS - who rewards him with a "don't be stupid" smile andfollows the Governor.                                                                                 86BEAN (wearing "Dr Bean" name badge) comes into the corridor by the front door,thus just missing REYNOLDS. BERNIE sees him and jumps on the chance todelegate.                                     BERNIE             Bean - go park the Governor's car, will you. BEAN assents happily. BRUTUS spies BEAN over his shoulder and frowns - its that mad English guy again. BEAN gets to the door and sees the Governor's car. Yummy!                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   RECEPTION AREA - DAYGRIERSON leads REYNOLDS to the reception counter, as BERNIE sneaks up to takehis position again. ELMER is in the background trying to look professional,deferring to BRUTUS.ANNIE steps out from behind the counter, curtsies and ,shakes REYNOLDS' hand.                                     ANNIE             Good day, Governor. I'm Annie.      You know, you're a lot taller             than you were half an hour ago.                                    REYNOLDS             Well, that's great to hear at my age, Annie.      Thank you very much.                                      ANNIE             Governor Reynolds, does your wife, like, have to curtsy?      Or does             she 0 have a decent job?                                    REYNOLDS             Er ... Mrs. Reynolds is doing just fine.      Just fine.He spots KEVIN and winks at him.      KEVIN smiles back.                                                               CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   DAY.BEAN has let himself into the car. It's one of the happiest moments of hislife, as he inspects the gleaming panel and sits back in the gorgeous leatherseat.                                                                                 87He starts the car up - and heads up into the circular car park. He sweepsdangerously round a few turns - but just manages to keep the car in tact.Finally he reaches the top floor where there is one quite small space left.BEAN is a good driver in a car that is, unfortunately, one foot wider than theone he's used to.He takes out the comb he always used to measure space with his Mini, andmeasures the space. Yes. Seems large enough. He moves the car in. It isn'tlarge enough.With a hideous scraping of metal against metal, the Rolls Royce squeezes inbetween the two cars, losing its wing mirror and door handle in the process.BEAN looks a tadge concerned.                                                                                CUT TO:INT.    THE GRIERSON GALLERY - DAY.REYNOLDS has moved on to ELMER who salutes crisply.         REYNOLDS returns thesalute with pride.                                     REYNOLDS              Nice set of medals there Elmer.      Which beach they drop you on?              Utah? Omaha?                                       ELMER              Couldn't tell you sir. I was so drugged up with the killing I              didn't know where I was.                                     REYNOLDS              Well, congratulations soldier.                                                                                CUT TO:EXT.    PARKING LOT - DAY.BEAN sitting in the wedged car. He tries       the door - but it won't open acentimetre. He's totally stuck. He looks        up at a small window in the roof.If only he could get that open. He pushes      various buttons, which set ofwindscreen wipers, squirters, radios. He       pushes the cigarette lighter.Finally, he pulls a lever - and the bonnet      pops up an inch.At which moment we see the lighter shoot out, and on to the seat. BEAN isstill looking round below the dashboard, when he notices a little fire in theseat beside him. Not good news.                                                                                     88 BEAN panics a bit, turns and half      climbs over into    the back   seat, when he spies a drinks cabinet. He has a       very good idea -    he finds   a cut crystal decanter of brown liquid, opens it      and uses it to    douse the   fire. Not a wise move with brandy. Before the       cut, we see the    WHOOOSH!   of a major fire in the front seat of the car.                                                                                CUT TO: INT.    THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   DAY.GRIERSON leads REYNOLDS towards the main gallery. He points up to the videoscreen they are passing, which shows the two of them walking along - as doesevery screen in the gallery. REYNOLDS is impressed. He glances at DAVID inpassing.                                        REYNOLDS             Nice tie, fella.DAVID grins to himself.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   PARKING LOT - DAY.The front of the car isn't    what it was. There has been a big fire. It's outnow - three decanters lie    empty. BEAN is not happy. Finally, he decides togo for brute strength. He     turns the car on again, puts it into reverse, andputs his foot down on the    accelerator.We see the car from above. Full throttle. Totally still. Totally still.And then WHOOOOSH WHAM!!! It reverses at 100 mph straight backwards, smashingviolently into and destroying the back of the car behind _ as it happens,Bernie's car.                                                                  CUT TOINT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.    GROUND FLOOR - DAYREYNOLDS stops to admire a small painting - a twelfth century 'Crucifixion ofChrist'.                                    GRIERSON             Ah, one of my favourites. It expresses a universal agony that the             established Church so rarely acknowledges, don't you think?                                                                            89                                    REYNOLDS             Jesus ... no one's got feet like for crying out loud. Have you             got feet like that? Dammed if I have. Let's move it, shall we?BERNIE spots a slightly concerned DAVID.                                       BERNIE             Everything okay, David?                                        DAVID             Yes. Ahm.      I was just wondering where my English house guest had             got to.                                     BERNIE             He's just parking the Governor's car.                                     DAVID             Great - keep him out of trouble.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   PARKING LOT - DAY.BEAN is inspecting the car. He's not too happy with it. '.He tries to getthe bonnet down, but it insists on staying up. He shrugs his shoulders andgets in to drive off again, having to wind down the window and drive byleaning his head out. This means that as he heads for the exit, he fails tosee the system to stop people leaving without paying, a foot high barrier thatappears out of the ground. When he hits it, the car stops dead.BEAN gets out,    leaving the car idling and goes to the booth where normally theattendant would    be - but everyone is in the gallery at the moment. Inside hepushes a couple    of buttons, and, hurrah, gets the one that drops the barrier.Less hurrah, he    has forgotten to put on the hand brake.As he moves    back towards the car, it glides slowly down the ramp on theoutside of    the building, then accelerates, and finally, on a particularlysharp turn,    smashes through the wall, and flies off the building. We hear acrash - but    do not see where it lands.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.    GROUND FLOOR - DAYGOVERNOR REYNOLDS turns away from another picture.                                                                                 90                                     REYNOLDS              Can we go and see Mrs. Whistler now?      My eyes are making my feet              sore, as my wife would say.                                          DAVID              Sure, Governor.   Please.     This way.The party follows DAVID as he walks through the gallery, towards the doubledoors, to take the lift to the Whistler Room. An excited atmosphere.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   WHISTLER ROOM.    DAY.Everyone enters.                                      DAVID              Ladies and gentlemen - most of you have seen Whistler's Mother              before, can I ask you just to step back. Thank you.It's part of his plan of caution - he knows there's something wrong - andwants as few people as possible to .see the painting close up. The crowdmoves back.                                      DAVID              I'd like the Governor to have, as it were, a private audience with              his new friend.REYNOLDS is flattered. Silence. DAVID inserts the plastic card key - opensthe doors - and sure enough there in all its glory is Whistler's Mother'.Respectful silence.REYNOLDS is delighted.     He stands back to inspect her.                                     REYNOLDS              Well, hello Ma'am! Yes - she certainly looks a million dollars to              me - or should I say ten million dollars!Everyone applauds.                                     GRIERSON              Bravo - what do you say to a final glass of, though I say it             myself, rather 'expensive' champagne. (grins smugly)                                                                               91People start to file out. REYNOLDS, GRIERSON, BERNIE and DAVID stay behind.DAVID spots BEAN arriving. He hands the car keys back to BERNIE with aslightly dazed smile. DAVID eagerly takes his arm and brings him over.                                     DAVID             Governor, I don't believe you've met Dr Bean, our expert from             England.They turn to each other - recognition from BEAN "it's the man from the plane".He does a very quick hand-shake and tries to make a getaway before REYNOLDSrecognises him...                                      BEAN             Ah, hello, sorry, I ... Ahm... sorry ...BEAN turns. In fatal slow motion he trips over the cord that stops anyonegetting too close to the great painting. He spins and falls in the directionof the painting.CUT TO: the looks of horror on all the faces.CUT TO: BEAN, reaching out to keep himself standing. We think he's going totear the painting. He doesn't. He simply catches hold of the bottom of theornate frame. It ,,snaps off.CUT TO: a look of relief for an instant on all faces.CUT TO: the truth - as the frame breaks off, there is the little white strip,saying, THE GRIERSON GALLERY, HOME OF WHISTLER'S MOTHER"-CUT TO: a look of horror on all faces.CUT TO: ELMER looking like someone has just murdered his own mother.CUT TO: BRUTUS and SIDE-KICK glowering at BEAN.                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   GALLERY CORRIDOR.   DAY.Governor REYNOLDS storming through the Gallery, with -BERNIE and GRIERSONscampering after him.                                    REYNOLDS             You were going to sell the State of California a poster - for ten             million dollars! Who the hell do you think you are, Shorty!?                                                                               92                                    GRIERSON             Look, Governor - just wait - it's may not be as bad as it looks             ....                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.      WHISTLER ROOM - DAY.DAVID and BEAN stand alone in silence, in front of the debris. BEAN isabsolutely destitute. DAVID stares at him. BEAN just lifts his hands.Totally sad. What will, what can DAVID say to him? Finally, DAVID just putshis hands on his shoulder.                                        DAVID             Nice try, kiddo.BEAN cant quite believe he's forgiven. At which moment, there is a knock onthe door. ANNIE enters, holding KEVIN's hand.                                      ANNIE             David.   There's a call for you.    It's your wife.                                    DAVID             Great. Classic timing. Why don't you ask her just to leave a             date for the divorce? I'll check my diary later.Then he notices the worried expressions on ANNIE and KEVIN's faces.                                      ANNIE                       She's calling from the hospital ...BEAN and DAVID both take this in.      DAVID turns and runs towards the receptionarea. ANNIE calls after him.                                        ANNIE             She's on line three!KEVIN grabs BEAN's hand and they both run after DAVID.      ANNIE watches BEAN goand sighs.                                        ANNIE             Such... great buns.                                                                          CUT TO:                                                                               93INT.   GALLERY ENTRANCE HALL.   DAY.The party is in disarray. In the background, DAVID is on the phone at thereception counter with KEVIN and BEAN. BRUTUS hovers, he suspects BEAN -wants to question him.                                    REYNOLDS             I've known soldiers who've had their heads blown off who were more             intelligent than you two. Not only have you failed to protect             your most valuable possession from theft - but you didn't even             know it'd been stolen! I'd sooner buy heroin from the guy who             sells drugs outside my grandson's school than anything from you             guys.                                    GRIERSON             I am sorry you feel that way.                                    REYNOLDS             And I'm sorry you look that way, short-ass.     That suit stinks and             you obviously dye your hair.GRIERSON is seriously shocked and offended.             Now, bring my car round the front please - I've had enough of this             crap!.                                         BERNIE             Certainly, sir.He rushes off. Meanwhile, DAVID slams down the phone and he, BEAN and KEVINrush out of the building. ELMER, BRUTUS and SIDE-KICK give chase.                                                                              CUT TO:EXT.   GALLERY PARKING LOT.     DAY.DAVID's car screeches out onto the street and tears away.BRUTUS and SIDE-KICK arrive, flustered, at their car.        SIDE-KICK isfrantically searching for its keys.                                         BRUTUS             Come on man!     Move it!A car passes by them slowly.      ELMER is driving.   He shouts from his window.                                                                                   94                                          ELMER             Hey, Cop, wanna ride?       Jeese, where do they get you guys?The cops jump in his car while it is still moving.                                                                              CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY - DAYREYNOLDS at the entrance.      BERNIE walks up sheepishly, holding up car keys.                                     BERNIE             There is one other tiny problem, sir.                                                                              CUT TO:EXT.   STREET.   DAY.DAVID's car speeds by.      ELMER's car is not far behind it.                                                                              CUT TO:INT.   DAVID'S CAR - DAYDAVID is driving fast.                                          KEVIN             Is Jenny gonna be okay?                                     DAVID             She was wearing a helmet. It could have been worse.                                     KEVIN             But is she gonna be okay?                                          DAVID                                       (snapping)             How the hell should I know?KEVIN is hurt.             I'm sorry. What can I say - she's unconscious. And I mean -             every night when we sleep, we're all unconscious, aren't we?             She'll pull out of it. God though - why the hell do kids have to             ride bikes?DAVID slams on the brakes.     He nearly went through a red light.                                                                              95                                     DAVID             Damn! She's a good kid. Sometimes good people get a break once             in a while. (manages a smile)A chauffeur driven, open top limo, pulls up next to DAVID's car. BEAN looksout of his window to see the BAG LADY, from the mall robbery, sitting in theback. She is still wearing her filthy clothes. She raises a glass ofchampagne to BEAN and smiles.BEAN waves back uncertainly.     He's sure he's seen her before - a vague memory.CUT TO: ELMER's CAR is in the traffic queue about ten cars back. BRUTUS andSIDE-KICK get out and start running down the line towards DAVID's car.The lights are green. DAVID puts his foot down and the car screeches awayjust as BRUTUS and SIDE-KICK are within inches it.CUT TO: BRUTUS and SIDE-KICK turn on their heels and head back to ELMER's car.They are very unfit.They are just about to jump in the car when gun shots are heard from a near-bygas station- BRUTUS turns and sees a .robbery in progress. A man with a gunis about to run away. BRUTUS is torn, not knowing which quarry to pursue.                                      BRUTUS             Shiiiit!                                       ELMER             It's okay!    I'll tail 'em!                                      BRUTUS             You got it.BRUTUS and SIDE-KICK draw their guns and run towards the gas station. In amoment of confusion - a shot rings out. We think in the corner of our eyethat we see BRUTUS fall to the ground, as ELMER screeches away after DAVID'scar.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.   RECEPTION - DAYMuch hustle and bustle. DAVID is getting directions from a nurse at the desk.He beckons to KEVIN and BEAN and strides, purposely towards a corridor. Theyhurry to catch him up, and Bean treat on the back of his shoe. DAVID turnsand shouts at him.                                                                               96                                      DAVID           Just stay away from me!   D'you hear?He takes KEVIN's hand and storms away round a corner. BEAN is taken aback notknowing what to do or where to go. He is really feeling sorrow now. He'sshaken. All part of his slow coming to feel things properly.                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.   CORRIDOR - DAYDAVID and KEVIN turns a corner - and stop, frozen. There, sitting alone, on abench, outside JENNIFER's room, is ALISON. She gets to her feet. Their eyesmeet.                                                                       CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY -DAYA crowd outside the gallery, look off camera. The camera follows BERNIE'sgaze and takes in the modern car sculpture. Where there were two cars facedown in the earth, there are now three, the new addition being Governor'spride and Joy. The three cars form a tall pyramid.Close on REYNOLDS' face. GRIERSON approaches.                                    REYNOLDS               Don't even think of saying one word to me, or I'11 find a way               of fitting all three of those cars right up your ass.  GRIERSON nods - he's got the message.                                                                       CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.   CORRIDOR. DAYALISON and DAVID are standing where they were before, three paces apart.ALISON is upset, tired and drawn.                                     ALISON             They're not calling it a coma. The doctor says she's ... just             kind of taking time out. (to Kevin) Hi, tough guy. (to David) It's             a busy night. The doctor will be back in a while.  A doctor passes                                                                               97                                     DAVID             Excuse me.                                    DOCTOR 1             I'll be back in a minute.                                           DAVID              Okay, great. ALISON looks at him. We don't quite read the expression but somewhere under there we know she's thinking "yup, he's still ineffective."                                     ALISON              At least you didn't bring Mr Bean with you.                                           DAVID              Ah, well ....                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.     CORRIDOR - DAYBEAN is looking for his friends.        A doctor sweeps by him.   A nurse behind.                                           NURSE              Doctor Jacobson?                                      DOCTOR JACOBSON             Yes?                                     NURSE             We need you urgently in C Theatre.                                   DOCTOR JACOBSON             Damn.     I was just going to Number 4 ....                                           NURSE             It is urgent, sir.                            DOCTOR JACOBSON             Okay.....The doctor rushes away and drops his stethoscope as he .goes.         BEAN sees it,picks it up and follows him he's trying to be useful.                                                                             CUT TO:                                                                                    98INT.   HOSPITAL.     RECEPTION - DAYELMER is at the busy reception desk and has been talking with a nurse.                                     ELMER             No, no, I didn't realise the situation.       I won't disturb them now.ELMER is obviously moved to find out about JENNIFER. He moves towards theexit ... He is surprised to see BUCK, the night-shift guard, dressed incivvies, sitting with outpatients.                                           ELMER             Buck?BUCK looks up, painfully, goes to say something, then dashes into a men's roomclose-by. ELMER shakes his head and leaves.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.   CORRIDOR - DAY.BEAN still following DR JACOBSON, who goes through more swing doors and thensuddenly disappears. BEAN sees a big "4" above a door and goes in, holdingthe Stethoscope. A nurse accosts him instantly. She reads his name badge.                                       NURSE 2             Doctor ... Bean?BEAN is fed up trying to correct people with this misconception.                                      BEAN              Actually ... (huge sigh) ... Yes, yes, yes...                                       NURSE 2              Just in time, sir.     Allow me.She immediately slips the white coat onto BEAN, and the gloves, and the mask.INT.   HOSPITAL.   CORRIDOR - DAYALISON, DAVID and KEVIN are sitting on the bench opposite JENNIFER's room.KEVIN picks up JENNIFER's SUPER NINTENDO console from the bench. DAVIDnotices this. ALISON answers his look.                                                                             99                                    ALISON           When the Police told me what had happened I ... it's stupid I know           ... but I remembered all that stuff people do to get through to           coma victims ...                                     KEVIN           Like playing them recordings of their dish washers and coffee           grinders?                                     ALISON           That right.   So I went home and picked it up.                                     DAVID           Good thinking. (pause) You still call it 'home'.ALISON looks at him seriously.INT.   OPERATING THEATRE.   NIGHT.Inside the operating theatre, a body is waiting in position. There are 3attending nurses and an assistant doctor. They all look up to BEAN as heenters, fully kitted up.                                   ASSISTANT             Good evening Doctor.. What we have here is a bullet wound in the             lower thorax it seems to have ruptured the lung, and there's             severe inner bleeding along the abdomen.                                       NURSE 2             He's coming round.                                   ASSISTANT             Give him a T 70, straight away.The victim starts to move - he looks up - we see his face for the first time.It is the police officer, BRUTUS. He is in great pain. As the sedative shotgoes in, BEAN takes off his mask, and smiles, with a little wave. A look oftotal panic goes over BRUTU'S eyes, as he loses consciousness.                                   ASSISTANT              Shall I do the cut, sir?BEAN nods - he's not going to argue with anyone. The assistant cuts. BEAN ishorrified, almost faints, then snatches the knife. He can't believe thismaniac has just cut through another personas flesh.                                                                             100                                   ASSISTANT             I'm sorry. it's only MY first week.BEAN hands the knife to the NURSE testily.                                     NURSE             I'm afraid we'll now have to wait for the X-rays, Doctor, or we'll             never find the bullet. Come on everyone sort out the support             systems.EVERYONE turns to get on    with their particular jobs. BEAN is left with thebody. A pause. He gets      a little bored. Takes a sweet packet out of hispocket. Only one sweet     left. he takes it out lovingly, and then does what healways does - throws it    up into the air, to catch it in his mouth.Unfortunately, he forgets that he is wearing a mask.     It hits the middle ofthe mask and bounces into the cut in the body.BEAN looks down annoyed. Checks round him - everyone's 'still busy. So heputs his hand in the body, really rummages around, finds the sweet, takes itout, and then realises he's in fact got the bullet between his fingers...Guiltily, he slips it back into the body, rummages a bit more, finds thesweet, wipes it, & pops it in his mouth. At which second the X-ray arrives.                                   ASSISTANT              Here we go, doctor. ( STUDYING THE X-RAY ) the bullet is here -              so we'll probably have to extend the cut to here. Think we all              better be prepared for a long one here. This is tricky.BEAN tuts scornfully - 'you're wrong 1, reaches in again, feels around for asecond, and triumphantly produces the bullet between his fingers.They all applaud.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.    CORRIDOR - DAY.BEAN exits from the theatre - still in gown and mask, followed by theassistant. The police SIDE-KICK is waiting.                                   SIDE-KICK             Any news on the chief?.                                                                                101                                    ASSISTANT            There certainly is.    Dr Bean here just saved his life.SIDE-KICK's eyes water. He's choked. BEAN shakes his hand nervously, andheads on fast before he's found out. He turns the corner and suddenly seesDAVID and ALISON, still seated. ALISON sees him.                          ALISON            0 my god.                                    DAVID             Sorry, honey - he just happened to tag along.                                    ALISON            Nothing ever really changes, does it, David?She turns her head away: the bond of the moments before is gone.       BEAN looksvery contrite. At that moment, another doctor walks by.                                      DAVID            Excuse me.                                   DOCTOR 2            Yes, your doctor will be with you in a minute.    We have a lot to            deal with here, sir.ALISON looks round, and shakes her head. BEAN kicks DAVID in the shins.DAVID looks round, puzzled. There is a poster of the human skeleton. BEANpoints to the spine. DAVID looks but cannot fathom a relevant meaning fromit.Another doctor comes along - the same one who they spoke to first.       He'syoung, confident slightly arrogant.                                     ALISON            Excuse me, doctor.                                    DOCTOR            Really Ma'am, we'll get to you in due course.                                     ALISON            Okay.DAVID looks at the poster opposite again. Spine, ribcage, skull. Looks backat Bean gesturing to it. This time the penny drops! Spine spineless!                                                                                102                                      DAVID            Say that again, son.                                     DOCTOR            I beg your pardon?                                    DAVID            I said say that again, son - because the next time you do, I'll            make sure you're in there with my daughter, but in a slightly less            healthy state and she's in a coma with a broken arm right now.                                       DOCTOR               I'm er ... sorry if you've been waiting a long time.                                       DAVID               We have. In fact, we've been sitting here since the start of the               Millennium and I'd really like some action from you before the end               of the world.A hint of a smile arrives on ALISON's lips. She's heard that somewhere before.                                                DAVID               So,    why not haul    your    ... (checks) nice little ass into this room               and    explain to me    and    my wife why our precious daughter is going               to    be absolutely    fine    because of all the fantastic intelligence               and    attention you    are    going to give her case.                                               DOCTOR               Okay, sir.        Certainly.    Good.DAVID turns to ALISON - she does a little tilt of herHead `WOW'. And he turns to BEAN, who points tohimself,    and nods .... n Come on!                                       DAVID               Yes, and Bean, for God's sake, keep out of the goddamn way, will               you? BEAN nods enthusiastically and backs off.                                               ALISON                 Smiling         Well, well.                                                                                  CUT TO:                                                                                      103INT.     HOSPITAL.    JENNIFER'S ROOM - NIGHTClose on an E.C.G. monitor, green lines on black screen. DAVID and ALISON sitby JENNIFER's bed. JENNIFER is unconscious. She has her arm in a cast and asmall Band-Aid on her head. otherwise she seems undamaged.KEVIN    is sitting on the end of the bed playing the SUPER NINTENDO game (theGothic    Vampire thing, with bats and he-men, we saw on JENNIFER'S TV earlier).It is    plugged into a T.V. which sits on a trolley. It's quite a noisy game.KEVIN    is immersed in it.                                               ALISON               Let's get a coffee.                                             DAVID               Yes.     Great.     Kevin, I'11 send Bean in to keep you company.ALISON exits. David follows. BEAN enters.               He sees JENNIFER for the firsttime. Sympathy shows in his eyes.                                       KEVIN               Help me with this. It's a scientific experiment. We're gonna               wake up Sleeping Beauty here with the tortured screams of Vampire               bats.BEAN is determined to help. He sits down with KEVIN. The game continues.The he-man jumps up and down, lashing out at bats with his sword. Lots ofnoise, but JENNIFER sleeps on.                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.   CORRIDOR - NIGHTBy a drinks machine.    ALISON finishes drinking from a plastic cup.                                       ALISON             Disgusting.She looks up at DAVID, who's looking at her.     Slowly she gets close and putsher arms around him. She's a bit tearful.                                     DAVID             Everything's gonna be fine.                                        ALISON                                       (pause)             About Charles...                                                                              104                                        DAVID             shhh...                                     ALISON              It was nothing. We're not ... He just makes me laugh.      When was              the last time we laughed? Any of us?                                     DAVID              I know... I know. I've been an arsehole of spectacular              proportions. Olympic standard.                                        KEVIN              Dad... They look down to see KEVIN has arrived.                                     KEVIN              These guys just hijacked the T.V. Me and Bean were trying to ... A hospital PORTER passes, pushing the T.V. on a trolley.                                HOSPITAL PORTER              Sorry, folks. We're short on these and there's another kid down              the hall that could use ...                                     DAVID              Wait a minute .... (about to get tough again)                                        ALISON              Please. It's okay.      Really. (to David) Wow - who put the fire              in you, my' man?                                                                          CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.   JENNIFER'S ROOM - NIGHTJENNIFER is still asleep. BEAN is sitting on the end of her bed. He looks atthe SUPER NINTENDO console thinking, "How can I get this working again? Howcan I help?" The only sound in the room is the beeping from the E.C.G.machine, monitoring Jennifer's heart. BEAN has an idea.He yanks off the jack plug at the end of the Super Nintendo lead.        Producinghis small screwdriver, he starts to unscrew the console casing.                                                                            CUT TO:                                                                                   105INT.   HOSPITAL.     CORRIDOR - NIGHTDAVID, ALISON and KEVIN walk back towards the room.                                     ALISON             Maybe I ought to think about getting another job.                                     DAVID             Good idea - with a boss who's a really ugly son-of-a-bitch.She and DAVID manage to share a smile. They're going to get through this.Suddenly, we hear noise from the vampire game, coming from JENNIFER's room.KEVIN registers this and is puzzled. Then ALISON and DAVID notice it.                                         DAVID             I thought you said....                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   HOSPITAL.     JENNIFER'S ROOM - DAYThe LEARYS appear in the open doorway.       Their expressions turn from curiosityto horror.BEAN has plugged the SUPER NINTENDO games system into the       back of JENNIFER'sE.C.G. monitor. A couple of bats are flapping about the        screen but the mostworrying thing here (shown in close-up) is the sight of a       he-man type, jumpingup and down, lashing out, with his sword, at the passing       pulse light, showingJennifer's faint vital signs ...ALISON gasps.      DAVID slowly moves into the room.                                     DAVID             Now, Bean ... just put down that thing ... nice and slow ... you             hear me? Come on now...But BEAN is determined to keep going - it's his way of reviving Jennifer.DAVID approaches the opposite side of the bed and gets ready to pounce ... CUTTO: a close-up of the monitor. The he-man chases the pulse light ...DAVID dives across the bed just as he man swipes the pulse light with hissword. DAVID has landed on top of JENNIFER. The pulse light explodes and themonitor screen whites-out. JENNIFER wakes up with a start.                                                                                   106                                        JENNIFER             Dad!     Get off!?   What's happening here?!   Mom?ALISON covers her mouth, tearful, but she can't hold it back.        She laughs.DAVID and KEVIN stare at JENNIFER. They can't help but join in the laughter.JENNIFER has no idea what's going on. BEAN is happy that everyone is happy.                                     KEVIN             I don't care what anyone says. Mr. Bean brought my sister back             from the dead. He did it under laboratory conditions. My eyes do             not lie!ALISON grins at him.      Then at BEAN.                                                        MIX THROUGH TO:INT.   LEARY HOUSE.     KITCHEN.   NIGHT.ALISON is fixing some coffee.       DAVID enters.                                            DAVID             Here, let me do that.                                          ALISON             No, I'm fine.He just stands there.             okay - you grind the beans, andHe moves towards her - his arms slip round her waist.             ... put them in the .... ( but she can't concentrate I don't             believe this. I'm being seduced by my own husband.Pause. They are just about to kiss when BEAN enters.He's a bit impatient.                                      BEAN             Ahm - excuse me ... ( POINTING TO HIS WATCH ) You know..They jump apart.      The moment is gone.                                          ALISON             Oh yes.     Sorry.    Though I think these are ready.                                                                                  107ALISON takes out two single socks which have been neatly wrapped around acouple of drinks mats and put in the toaster slots.                                        ALISON             There.     Is that how you like them?BEAN beams at her.      He's impressed - and feels he's accepted.    He leaves.                                          ALISON             He's not too bad.       I can live with him.                                     DAVID             I'm afraid you don't know the half of it. Sit down.       I have a tale             to tell. And not a happy one.                                                                            CUT TO:EXT.   THE LEARY'S KITCHEN.     NIGHTLooking in front outside, we see Alison sit down. We see, ,but do not hearDavid start to talk. Within seconds her hands go up to her face in horror.                                                                            CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE.     DAY.With heavy hearts everyone is gathered to hear their fate. Pan across thefamiliar faces. DAVID. BERNIE. ELMER. ANNIE. BEAN, looking nervous andshifty. Dead silence as GRIERSON stands, very solemnly.                                    GRIERSON             Colleagues - what can I say? Incidents such as occurred yesterday             teach a man important lessons. On reflection, I realise it would             have been a sin to sell Whistler's Mother to such an impertinent             philistine as Governor Reynolds. And therefore, I blame myself             for having ever let things get to such a pass that we felt we had             realise our the staff - twelve got today, I've Schimmel as to sell             her. I suddenly problem here hasn't been it's been the leadership             flabby, lazy- And so decided to appoint Bernie my new Vice-             President.CUT TO BERNIE, looking smug next to DAVID, who is pretty shocked by this.                                                                                108                                    GRIERSON               He's a man with a plan who will haul us into profitability and               the 21st century.                                          BERNIE               Thank you, sir.       Although, I'm afraid I don't quite see how we               can ...                                    GRIERSON               Good point Bernie - precisely the kind of perceptive               interjection I'd expect from my new V.P. How can we, you ask,               survive without Whistler's Mother - our single greatest asset?               Well, the truth is - we can't. So what am I saying? Will we               find her again? Never - this robber was clearly the work of a               criminal of great genius.BEAN looks pleased - but then realises it's not a suitable emotion ~ so nodssagely.               Insurance? Not a chance. Those bastards never pay. So,               surely we're bankrupt? Surely your jobs are forfeit? Surely               you're back on the unemployment lines, scraping a living as               waiters and boys? Yes. Yes indeed. Except for one little               thing. one little thing done by one little man. Dare I say,               one helluva little man. Watch this.Everyone is totally at a     loss. GRIERSON stands and moves to the framed posterof Whistler's Mother on     the wall. He then produces a plastic key card andinserts it in a slot on     the side of the frame. A buzz and a click! Anelectric motor starts to     whirrrr ...The glass, along with the title strip at the bottom of the poster, slidesgently down inside the picture frame to reveal that the poster is in fact theoriginal oil of Whistler's Mother.                                    GRIERSON               Ladies and gentlemen. The REAL Whistler's Mother!There are gasps from the room.     BEAN is open mouthed.GRIERSON beams as many applaud and BEAN now joins in hyperactively.      He'ssaved!                              GRIERSON                The best security in the world is no match for a master                criminal. But no master criminal is a match for me. Thank                you all. Now if you would please return to your posts, my new                Vice President, Bernard Shimmel would like you all to see the                computer program we had prepared for yesterday until we were                so rudely interrupted by events.The room is emptying.     DAVID and BEAN stand there, DAVID stunned.   GRIERSONheads over.                                    GRIERSON             David, David, David ...                                       DAVID             I'm fired?    Because I let a... copy of a painting the get stolen?                                    GRIERSON               Of course not. I'm sacking you for neglectful conduct,               relating to the heavy financial loss this gallery has incurred,               through your recent lack of professional judgement. A loss I               trust Bernie will be able to reverse.                                       David              But ....                                    GRIERSON               I will of course invite you an excellent reference - or Bernie               will.BERNIE looks across from the computer and smiles.      BEAN has his eyes on DAVID.He is mortified by what'shappening.   GRIERSON notices but misinterprets his worried expression.                                    GRIERSON               Of course, Dr. Bean, we'll arrange alternative accommodation               for you. I believe Bernie has a spare room with en suite               bathroom.DAVID glares at BERNIE.     BEAN is thinking 'No!   I don't want to stay withhorrible BERNIE.'                                    GRIERSON             How are you making out there?                                                                                110                                      BERNIE             All fixed up, sir.   Stick around, Davey boy.   This is going to be             quite a show.He presses an intercom.    He's enjoying himself.             Hi everyone - this is your new Vice President, Bernie Shistler.             Would you please watch your video screens. You're in for a treat,             guys.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   VARIOUS ROOMS.   DAY.All the staff in all the rooms, gallery, canteen, corridors, look up atvarious screens. Cut round rooms during this flashy demonstration.                                     BERNIE                                      (V/0)             Here you can see our new interactive gallery guide.    Every picture             in the gallery will have its own story to tell.A Van Gogh picture comes up on the giant video screens....and then keeps changing, as BERNIE keeps talking.             Just click , and here is a portrait of the painter - then his             family then other paintings by him - then other pictures relevant             to him in the gallery Everyone is delighted and impressed.             And the beauty is, any idiot can use it. Dr Bean - would you like             a try?                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE - DAY.BEAN swiftly obliges and sits at the computer.                                     BERNIE             Perhaps you'd like to bring up Whistler's Mother. But BEAN has another plan.    He begins to click boxes.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY.   MAIN GALLERY - DAY.The Millais painting we have seen before, with the padlock, comes up on thevideo screen.                                    BERNIE                                     (V/0)                 Ah, Our visiting professor has chosen the splendid Millais                 painting - "His Mistress"                                                                       CUT BACK:INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE.     DAY.BEAN busy on the computer.                                     BERNIE               Just click on the corner.BEAN again disobeys ... He clicks on the padlock repeatedly - humming thefamiliar 'Goblins' tune. BERNIE is looking very tense.                                     BERNIE               Right let me take over now...BEAN turns and snarls at him - almost a bark ...                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   THE MAIN GALLERY - DAYEveryone is glued to the screens.                                     BERNIE              You've had long enough on it now.       A joke's a joke.   That's it.              Period!On the computer screens, the screen has gone black, just as it did when Beanwas playing earlier, and the 6 dashes have appeared with the flashing cursorover the first of them. All watch, intrigued by what they see.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE DAYThe blood drains from BERNIE's face.        Still humming happily, BEAN slowly typesin the letters:                                     P-E-R-I-0-D                                     BERNIE             You can stop right there, Mr! Those are confidential ...                                                                                 112Words and figures fill the screen.        BEAN throws his hands up and sings averbal fanfare:                                          BEAN             Daaa!   Daaa!GRIERSON moves to DAVID's side and the two stare at the screen, the meaning ofits contents dawning on them. Close up of the screen as their eyes find thewords: `NEW ARTIST EXHIBIT' in the middle of columns of words, figures anddollar signs.                                                                             CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON GALLERY.     ALL ROOMS.The same figures are being flashed all over on the huge screens. Peoplewatching and listening in awe. ANNIE and ELMER stare at it angrily.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.   GRIERSON'S OFFICE ~ DAY                                     BERNIE             Excuse me, If I may just ...                                    GRIERSON                                    (calmly)             Shut up, Schimmel. Exactly how long have you been siphoning             gallery money into your own private accounts?DAVID scrolls down the screen.                                     DAVID             Look at all this - publicity expenditure ... catering ... all             completely fictional ... back as far as June 93 ...                                     BERNIE             I don't think you really understand what you're looking at ...                                     GRIERSON             Horse shit.   You're dead, grease-ball.   Period.He pushes a button, that sends a picture of what's happening in his officethroughout the Gallery.             My friends, good news. Mr Schimmel is not only no longer Vice-             President. He actually no longer works here.                                     BERNIE              But wait a minute - you can't let some moron from England turn              you against me. I deny any knowledge of this. He probably              typed in all this stuff himself. Don't you find it all a bit              suspicious that it's here at his fingertips. (pointing at Bean)              There's your criminal, gentlemen. There's the Limey that set me              up!Pause. All eyes turn to BEAN.     CUT TO people watching the big screenseverywhere.                                      GRIERSON              Dr. Bean.    Have you got anything to say to that? BEAN looks long and hard at BERNIE.                                      BEAN              Yes- (PAUSE) It's exceedingly rude to point.And punches BERNIE sharply in the nose.    Everyone in the gallery bursts intoapplause.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT.   THE GRIERSON GALLERY - DAY.Half an hour later. Police cars draw up.      BERNIE is shoved in the back seatof one. GRIERSON, BEAN & DAVID watch.                                    GRIERSON                               (to uniformed cop)              I don't know what your methods are these days, Officer, but I'd             also ask him a few questions about the destruction of the             Whistler copy.BEAN nods his head firmly.    The car pulls away.     Then breaks and reverses.The SIDE-KICK gets out.                                     SIDE~KICK            Oh, yeah - I forgot.SIDE-KICK opens the back of the car.    He takes out a huge bunch of flowers.             The chief said I was to give you these.BEAN is delighted. Then sniffs the flowers.      What a nasty stink.    Not hissort of thing at all.                                                                                  114SIDE-KICK drives AWAY.   GRIERSON turns to DAVID.                                   GRIERSON            I owe you a very serious apology, young man. It wouldn't surprise            me if you wanted to leave us after this. I sincerely hope that            you do not.                                    DAVID            VERY ACCOMMODATING Well, no, sir, I'm sure ...He looks sideways to Bean, who is frantically pointing to his spine.       DAVIDgets the message, and changes his tune..            Let me think about that, Thomas.     We'd have to talk quite a salary            hike.                                     GRIERSON            Of course.                                       DAVID            And a car.                                     GRIERSON            Mmmmm...                                       DAVID            Maybe two cars.                                     GRIERSON            A car sounds sensible.                                    DAVID            And I need Fridays off, to spend more time with my family.            Speaking of which - if you'll excuse me .... I've got a lot of            time to make up.DAVID heads off. BEAN wants to follow, but needs to get rid of the stinkyflowers. He turns to ANNIE and gives them to her to be rid of them. Shebeams with delight: after all, he DID love her.BEAN heads off with DAVID to the parking lot.       As they go, DAVID puts an armround BEAN.Who shoos him away instantly.           No sloppiness for him.                                                                                CUT TO:                                                                                      115EXT.   THE LEARY HOUSE.          HALL - DAY.The LEARY family in a group.           JENNIFER's arm in a sling.                                       ALISON                well, it's been... unusual. But thank you.She goes to kiss BEAN - but he just sticks out his hand, and shakes it firmly.Then moves on to JENNIFER.                                            JENNIFER                Good-bye Mr Bean.        Sorry I screamed that first time. He shakes her broken arm firmly ... and she screams again.                                             DAVID                Come on          hurry or we'll be late.                                                                                CUT TO:EXT.   LEARY HOUSE.       DAY.BEAN, KEVIN    & DAVID    get into the car. It pulls away, as they drive off, BEANsticks his    hand of    the window - and waves a last farewell to ALISON andJENNIFER.     At last    a sentimental moment - romantic music swelling - like LizaMinelli at    the end    of "Cabaret".Until the waving hand viciously cracks against the wooden front gate as thecar squeezes past.                                                           MIX THROUGH TO:INT.   AMERICAN AIRPORT.          DEPARTURE AREA - DAYThe three 30 year old women, dressed in curly red wigs from the musical,'Annie', hug and kiss their little BALD MAN and send him off through thegates. They shriek and wave him good-bye. DAVID, KEVIN and BEAN are there.                                       DAVID               ... Oh, and Grierson phoned Lord Walton at the National. Said               good things about you. So expect a great reception back home,               huh?BEAN delighted. Promotion is in his sights. He studies his watch.              He'sbeing polite but held really like to get going.                                                                                      116                                       KEVIN               Good-bye Beanie. It's Bean .... surreal.          And don't forget you're               welcome to come back anytime ...   DAVID delivers a sharp nudge to his ribs.                                      KEVIN              ... in the distant future.                                      DAVID              Bye, Bean. Thanks for everything. And take care, huh?      I know              it's insane, but I'm going to miss you.BEAN    nods abruptly, picks up his case, checks his watch and goes. He doesn'tlook    back. Kevin and David turn and walk away. DAVID does stop to look backover    his shoulder at BEAN, heading off in the distance. But BEAN doesn'tturn,    so DAVID walks on.Then there is suddenly a tap on his shoulder. It's BEAN, ,as though he'smagically jumped there. He gives DAVID a big bear hug, a big grin, and then alittle wave - and heads away. In the distance, he treads on the back of ,someone's shoe.                                                       MIX THROUGH TO:EXT.    THE NATIONAL GALLERY.   LONDON - DAYShot from high up. BEAN's lime green mini approaches, coming around TrafalgarSquare, and drives up onto the pavement, in front of the gallery. It stopsand BEAN gets out. He looks up at the building, pleased to be back.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT.    THE NATIONAL GALLERY - DAYBEAN pauses outside the revolving doors to clip his staff identity badge ontohis top pocket. He enters in high spirits.                                                                           CUT TO:INT.    THE NATIONAL GALLERY - DAYBEAN enters the reception hall. It is totally deserted.He frowns, and heads on, puzzled..                                                                                  117                                                                           CUT TO:INT.    NATIONAL GALLERY.   GALLERY 1    DAYThe place    is totally empty except for a CLEANER sweeping up litter in themiddle of    the room. There are faded rectangles on the walls where all thepaintings    should be. Only one very solid looking statue remains. BEAN isthoroughly    perplexed                                        CLEANER              They've moved, guy.BEAN is utterly perplexed. He looks round the corner into another emptygallery, and shakes his head.                                                                           CUT TO:EXT.   THE NATIONAL GALLERY - DAYBEAN looks up at the building and gives a disgusted grunt ,before getting intohis car and drives off around Trafalgar Square. His brow is deeply furrowed.What will he do now with his life?                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   THE NATIONAL GALLERY ~ DAYThe empty gallery BEAN just inspected. Then, from out behind the oneremaining statue, emerges MISS HUTCHINSON. Then, from behind a pillar, LORDWALTON.                          LORD WALTON               Is he gone?                          MISS HUTCHINSON               Yes, my lord.                           LORD WALTON               Tell the others.                           MISS HUTCHINSON               Very well, my lord.                                                                         CUT TO:INT.   PITCH DARK ROOM.       DAY.Pitch dark. A door opens and the light from the corridor falls on the 150gallery employees squashed into this one tiny room. It's the gent's loo.                                                                              118MISS HUTCHINSON's head pops in.                                  MISS HUTCHINSON                   He's gone.Massive cheer, bowlers in the air, massive music.     Roll credits.                                                                         CUT TO:EXT.   BEAN'S HOUSE        DAY.Behind the credits, we see close-ups of BEAN hammering away at large planks ofwood on some wooden structure.He walks    away from it - without us seeing what it isand goes    to his Mini, where TEDDY sits on a pile of books in the front seat,wearing a    seat belt. Bean gets into the car, which is laden with suitcases,starts it    up and drives ........ straight into the huge crate he has built.     A rope tied to the backbumper pulls the lid closed behind him.                                                                         CUT TO:EXT.   MOTORWAY.    DAY.The crate sits on the back of a speeding truck.                                                                       CUT TO:EXT.   AIRPORT.   DAY.The crate is now on the top of a forklift truck moving up the ramp on anAmerican airline cargo plane. Close up on a large sticker on the crate: itreads: "DAVID LEARY, 23 WOODFORD AVENUE, CHESTERFIELD, CALIFORNIA. HANDLEWITH CARE.And cut to the plane flying through clear skies.   Though, for the Lear's ofcourse there are no clear skies ahead.THE END
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+                           BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD                                                                                                           Written by                                                    Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin                                                           FINAL DRAFT                                   Based on the stage play "Juicy and Delicious" by Lucy Alibar          EXT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - DAWN                                   An abandoned looking trailer sits on top of two 15-foot-tall          oil drums. Distant thunder trembles through the peeling          metal panels. The structure is in such disrepair, that          surely no one lives here.                                   But then, a light goes on.                                                            INT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - MORNING                                   A tiny hand sculpts the mud on top of a crawfish hole placed          on the floor. We pan up to reveal a little girl examining a          baby chicken that appears to be dead. This is HUSHPUPPY, an          unkempt and seemingly uncared for six-year-old with a gaze of          unmistakable wisdom.                                   Hushpuppy places the chick on the crawfish hole, like a queen          on her throne and the chick twitches to life, cheeps twice.          Hushpuppy's esoteric science experiment is interrupted by          DISTANT THUNDER. Her eyes stand to attention.                                                   CUT TO:                                                            EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                   An eerie, harsh wind whips hay and dust through over a giant          slumbering pot-belly pig.                                   Hushpuppy, donned in boys' underpants and a child-sized wife-          beater, tip-toes behind the epic creature. She studies it,          wonderful, is this the source of the thunder?                                   With the utmost delicacy, she lays a hand on the pig's belly.          We hear his HUGE BEATING HEART.                                                   CUT TO:                                                            EXT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - VARIOUS                                   A series of glimpses of Hushpuppy's scientific method. She          chases geese, chickens, ducks, dogs around the property- a          cross between an abandoned farm and salvage yard.                                   Hushpuppy grabs a baby chick and puts it to her ear. A TINY          HEARTBEAT. She listens with focused wonder and intensity.                         2                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           All the time, everywhere,           everything's organs be beatin' and           squirtin' and talkin' to each other           in ways I can't understand. Mosta           the time they probably just sayin'           "I'm hungry," or "I gotta poop,"           but sometimes they talkin' in           codes.                                    Hushpuppy's eyes dart up as a MAN'S VOICE yells-                                    MAN'S VOICE (O.S.)           Get up, get out of here!                                    We hear a YOWL as a cat is flung across the room.                                    A window made from a gas station sign opens in a Robinson           Crusoe style tree house patched together from storm debris           and discarded appliances.                                    A wild man with severe features, a frazz of unkempt hair, and           brawler's scars opens a window made from a metal sign. This           is WINDELL EMMETT DOUCET, known to all as WINK (39).                                                   WINK           Get your pants on, man!                                    Wink kills a beer and sends it out the hole in the wall into           a basketball hoop attached to a fishing net that stretched 15           feet down to the ground. The net is overflowing with beer           cans.                                                             EXT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - DAY                                    Hushpuppy obediently climbs a series of increasingly bigger           and bigger oil drums that function like a ladder, up to the           door of her house.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    We now see Wink in his morning ritual. He opens a cooler           with a butchered chicken inside it and tosses the bird on the           grill.                                    He goes to the front porch and pours down a bag of dog food.                                    He pulls a clothesline that leads to Hushpuppy's trailer. A           BELL RINGS.                         3                                                                            WINK           Feed up time! Feed up!                                    Hushpuppy, now wearing pants and a slightly more proper T-           shirt, comes running down the oil barrels to her house. She           echoes her Daddy.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Feed up time! Feed up!                                                             INT. ABANDONED BUS - DAY                                    Hushpuppy devours the whole roast chicken with her hands,           getting right in there like it was a candy apple. It looks           really yummy.                                    Pigs, dogs, chickens, and cats are chowing down all around           her.                                    A hatch opens above her and we realize we're in the bottom of           the Shacko. Wink sticks his head through the hatch and throws           corn to the chickens.                                                   WINK           Share with the dogs.                                    Hushpuppy rips off a piece of chicken and flings it to a           filthy chihuahua with no hair on the back half of its body.           This is WINDELL, in spite of her circumstances, quite a           handsome young pup.                                                             EXT. BATHTUB MARSH WATER - THE TURCK - EVENING                                    WIDE, we see Hushpuppy and Wink drift through the marsh.           They ride in a severed truck bed floating on top of oil           drums. A motor is strapped to the back. A sign on the boat           reads "The Turck", Hushpuppy's spelling of "Truck".                                    They look out to where the water goes all the way to a           monolithic, 20 foot wall stretching infinitely into the           distance. This levee, the first piece of modern construction           we've seen, encloses the civilized world, protecting it from           rising water. The Bathtub is on the wrong side of wall.                                    Wink stares out at the distant factories behind the wall with           a peaceful and confident disdain.                                    Hushuppy matches his relaxed defiant expression.                         4                                                                            WINK           Ain't that ugly over there?                                    He takes a long pull on his beer.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           We live in the prettiest place on           earth.                                    Hushpuppy looks over the wall to the Dry Side. It's an           endless sprawl of oil processing power plants without a tree           or bird in sight. This is the engine that runs the Northern           world.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Daddy says, up above the levee, on           the dry side, they're afraid of the           water like a bunch of babies. They           built the wall that cuts us off.                                                             EXT. AERIAL BATHTUB - DAY                                    We fly over marsh and water, coming upon a tiny crop of           shanties on an island perched at the very bottom of the land.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           They think we all gonna drown down           here. But we ain't goin' nowhere.                                                   CUT TO:                                                             EXT. CAUSEWAY - PRE-FLOOD - DAY                                    CLOSE ON Hushpuppy letting out a WARRIOR SCREAM in a mass of           HOLLERING people.                                    They stand on a long and crumbling road surrounded on both           sides by water. The rag tag band of revelers charge forward           WHOOPING and SHOUTING.                                    Hushpuppy kisses her hand and smacks the town sign. "Isle de           Charles Doucet" is crossed out and someone has graffitied           "The Bathtub." Each party-goer repeats Hushpuppy's kiss and           smack in wild, ritualistic fashion.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           The Bathtub's got more holidays           than the whole rest of the world.                         5                                                             EXT. LAFOURCHE ROAD - DAY                                    The townspeople charge in a rousing parade. Everyone drags           trails of beer cans, boat parts, anything they can tie to           themselves that makes a lot of noise.                                    They are the hard faces of fishermen and their feisty wives,           downtrodden but with a sense of fortitude among them, a           community of heart, spirit, passion, and reckless abandon.                                    We see none of the separations that we're used to in modern           society. There is no evidence of politics, religion, class,           race or any other divisive ideology. The Bathtub is a place           of true and honest unity.                                    Megaphones sticking out a gutted mini-van broadcast the Cajun           band playing inside. Fiddle, saw, guitar, and double-bass           players struggle to hold onto their instruments and the truck           bounces them down a dirt road.                                    They drive under a banner reading "Welcome to the Bathtub           Storm Season!"                                    Wink and Hushpuppy rattle along on a float made from the           front end of a pickup truck. Over the front cabin rears a           giants sculpture of a horse-head made out of wooden spikes,           metal plates, and heavy chains. Carnival-dressed maniacs           clamber on top.                                    Wink hollers and waves to people. He fires jets of beer into           the mouths of the crowd.                                    Hushpuppy dances on the back of the float. Though she's the           tiniest member of this very adult parade, she's right in the           thick of everything. No one is checking I.Ds Here.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Daddy always saying, that up in the           dry world, they got none of what we           got.                                                             EXT. LAFOURCHE SQUARE - DAY                                    The town dances around the band in a clearing in the woods.           Everyone is bouncing to the music, smiling and joking with           one another.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           They only got holidays once a year.                         6                                                             Six babies, each with a racing number pinned to their diaper,           are placed by their enthusiastic mammas at a starting-line on           a track marked by two adjacent crowds of onlookers. Bets are           flying between the spectators as if they're about to watch a           cock-fight.                                    ANNOUNCER (V.O.)           All babies to the race! Come up to           the starting line! The baby race           is about to begin.                                    Hushpuppy dances in the cheering crowd, swigging a bottle of           something she probably shouldn't have.                                    A STARTING GUN fires, and the babies make a crawl for it.           Most of them are paralysed in tears or bewilderment, but one           brave soul toddles towards victory.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           They got fish stuck in plastic           wrappers, they got their babies           stuck in carriages, and chickens on           sticks and all that kind of stuff.                                    Hushpuppy looks up at Wink who is dancing with his best           friend WALRUS (60), a slack jawed, white haired, pinked           nosed, handsome devil.                                    A baby crosses the finish line, ahead of the rest,           victorious. The crowd goes wild.                                                             EXT. MARINA PAUPIER NET - NIGHT                                    Wink opens his trawl net and dumps a massive catch into a           picking pan. There's food to feed a hundred in the haul. No           one is a bit fazed though, this is just your average night           fishing in the Bathtub.                                    Shrimp, crabs, and small leaping fish struggle over one           another for dear life.                                    Hushpuppy helps him sort the catch. Winks's hands move with           virtuosic ease, separating the crabs from the shrimp. She           studies Wink's every move and tries to measure up to her           Dad's proficiency. He doesn't demonstrate or explain           anything, but we sense there is a system of education in           place here.                         7                                                             Hushpuppy focuses in on a tiny fish, wriggling and sucking           it's last breaths of air.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           One day, the storm's gonna blow,           the ground's gonna sink, and the           water's gonna rise up so high,           there ain't gonna be no Bathtub,           just a whole bunch of water.                                    She pick up a crab, pets its belly. The DIN of the party           fades down around her as she listens to its HEARTBEAT.                                                             EXT. LADY JO'S CYPRESS FOREST - NIGHT                                    Explosions everywhere as Bathtubers rampage blasting           fireworks down the street instead of into the air. Men           dressed as women, women dressed as men, in some kind of           reckless esoteric ritual.                                    The SCORE kicks in hard with a tinge of ominous forboding.           We sense that in spite of the ecstatic energy, the unbridled           joy, that a cloud hangs over this community. The people are           parting like it's there last day on earth, and we feel           viscerally, that it could be.                                    Hushpuppy runs in the thick of it behind Wink waving a           fountain sparkler. Wink trips and falls.                                    Wink lies on his back on the ground. He sees his daughter           watching him, holding the huge sparkler, and they both laugh           with sheer joy.                                    Hushpuppy stops over him and points a bottle rocket in his           face, the fuse burning. He nods his approval. They watch           the fuse burn down to the last moment. She turns it upward,           and they watch her rocket join a sky filled with pluming           mortars.                                    Hushpuppy looks at the light flickering across Wink's faces.           He's momentarily peaceful, admiring the spectacular display.                                    Hushpuppy smiles at him with pride. He doesn't see her.                                    They run off into the crowd, which is pulsating at the           pinnacle of mayhem. The OMINOUS MUSIC shifts gears into a           BLASTING PATRIOTIC HYMN of the Bathtub. Throw your fist in           the air! These are the survivors, those who fight for their           joy and their history to the last man.                         8                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           But me and my Daddy, we stay right           here. We who the earth is for.                                    Hushpuppy runs right at us with detonating fireworks in both           hands, engulfed by light. She swings them toward camera and           the screen is engulfed in an inferno of sparks. A white out.           Black letters slam down.                                    BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD                                                             INT. SCHOOLBOAT - MORNING                                    MUSIC CUTS abruptly as a basket of crawfish is slammed in           front of camera. The crawfish squirming and struggling for           life engulfs the screen.                                                   WOMAN'S VOICE           Meat.                                    A fearsome, uncompromising leader, sexy like a lady           bullfighter, peeks at Hushpuppy over a mass of squirming           crawfish. This is MISS BATHSHEBA (36).                                    She points to three students, pushing their heads with her           finger, each time announcing:                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           MEAT. MEAT. MEAT.                                    The twelve students follow her through a maze of creatures           caged in mason jars, basins, and boxes with breathing holes-           her educational tools.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Every animal is made out of meat.           I am meat, ya'll asses meat.           Everything is part of the buffet of           the universe.                                    Miss Bathsheba rolls up the leg of her skirt.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           This here, is an Aurochs.                                    Riding her thigh, is tattooed a scene much like a cave           painting in Lascaux. In thick black ink, it depicts a battle           between early men wielding spears, and giant bull-like           animals bearing down over them.                         9                                                             MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           A fierce, mean creature that roamed           the earth back when we all lived in           caves. They would gobble the cave-           babies down right in front of their           cave-parents. And the cavemen           couldn't do nothing about it,           because they were too poor, too           stupid, too small. Who here thinks           the Cavemen were sitting around           crying like a buncha pussies?                                    Children stare blankly, no one raises their hand.                                    Hushpuppy watches a heroic crawfish crest the basket, fall to           the floor, and make a run for it.                                    Miss Bathsheba snatches up the rogue crawdad and flings it           back into the vat.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Y'all better think about that.           Cause any day now, the fabric of           the universe is coming unraveled.           The ice caps gonna melt, the           water's gonna rise, and everything           south of the levee's going under.                                    She points to a map showing a ragged coastline. On the wrong           side of a giant line marked "levee" is an island labeled "The           Bathtub."                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Ain't gonna be no Bathtub, just a           whole bunch of water. Y'all better           learn to survive.                                    A mysterious COLD WIND fills the air. Hushpuppy stares into           a wall poster of an ice cliff reading: THE SOUTH POLE.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Way back in the day, the Aurochs           was king of the world.                                                             EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF - DAY                                    CRASH CUT to the PANORAMA of an ice cliff, but now it's real.                         10                                                             We CUT CLOSER to overwhelming white light accompanied by           intermittent FROZEN CRACKS that build in frequency and           volume.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           If it wasn't for giant snowballs,           and the iced age. I wouldn't even           be Hushpuppy, I would just be           breakfast.                                    The light dims in intensity to reveal, frozen deep inside the           ice wall, barely visible- a fanged, hairy, bloated, stone           aged creature, the same as on Miss Bathsheba's leg. This is           an Aurochs.                                                             INT./EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - EVENING                                    Hushpuppy climbs a metal ladder made from a railing, up to           Wink's shanty in the trees. Windell, her dirty Chihuahua,           follows behind.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Daddy? Feed-up time. Feed-up?                                    Hushpuppy bangs on the door of the shacko.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           Daddy?                                    Nothing.                                    She goes inside.                                    The house is empty.                                    She checks the Shacko for food. Nothing.                                                             EXT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - EVENING                                    Several hours later, Hushpuppy stands on a metal bin looking           into the distance.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           DADDY!?                                    Like some sort of animal call, she SHRIEKS.                         11                                                             INT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy draws a picture of Wink on a foldout mattress...                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Kids that got no Mamma, no Daddy           and nobody. They got to live in           the woods, and eat grass, and steal           underpants.                                    Hushpuppy lays down next to her drawing of Wink.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - MORNING                                    Windell, the Chihuahua and the potbelly pig awake to greet           the day.                                    Hushpuppy peers into the ground floor of the shacko.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Daddy? Daddy?                                    No response.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.) (CONT'D)           If Daddy don't get home soon, it's           gonna be time for me to start           eating my pets.                                                             EXT. SCHOOLBOAT - DAY                                    Kids walk home with their parents after a day at the           Schoolboat, which we now see is big a yellow houseboat           floating on the bayou.                                    Hushpuppy waits alone, no one has come to get her.                                    Miss Bathsheba locks up the door and heads for her small           motor boat tied off on the side of the school.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           You need a ride, boo?                                                   HUSHPUPPY           My Daddy's coming to pick me up.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           How about food or something, you           hungry?                         12                                                             Hushpuppy shakes her head `no'.                                    Miss Bathsheba's doesn't totally believe her, but she's not           the type to coddle either.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Alright, well suit yourself.                                    Miss Bathsheba motors away.                                    Hushpuppy waits until she's out of sight and starts walking.                                                             INT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - MORNING                                    Playing don't-touch-the-floor, Hushpuppy navigates her house.                                    The room has with holes in the walls blocked with old clothes           and paper towels. Homemade toys fill every surface. This is           the domain of a child at loose ends.                                    Hushpuppy leaps over her bed- a nook piled with clothes- and           plugs in the Christmas lights.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O)           Everything we still got from Mamma,           we keep in my house.                                    We push in on a shrine to her mother:                                    A red basketball jersey. An apron. A sawed-off shotgun. A           child's drawing of a beautiful lady.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.) (CONT'D)           Daddy says, the first time she           looked at me, it made her heart           beat so big, that she thought it           would blow up. That's why she swam           away.                                    Hushpuppy takes the jersey down. She puts it over a chair in           the dining area.                                    Hushpuppy gets a can of cat food. A pot. Water in a bowl.           Her actions have a sad sense of routine to them- she's been           left alone before, and has her own self-invented system for           feeding herself.                                    She opens a can of cat food, takes it out with her hand and           throws it in a pot. She licks the remnants off her finger.                         13                                                                            MARIETTA'S VOICE           Hi my sweet baby.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Hi momma.                                    MARIETTA, Hushpuppy's imaginary, invisible mamma, is speaking           from the basketball jersey chair. Marietta functions like an           imaginary friend- Hushpuppy is the only one who can see her.           Hushpuppy takes the pot, puts it on the stove.                                                   MARIETTA'S VOICE           Hushpuppy what you doing there?           You being good like I taught you?                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Yes, mamma.                                    Hushpuppy turns on the gas.                                    Hushpuppy goes through her safety precautions: oven mitts, a           helmet, she flips the table and hides behind it.                                    She aims the stove lighter: a flame thrower made from a           cigarette lighter and a can of spray deodorant. A spray of           flames ignites the stove in a FIREBALL.                                                   CUT TO:                                    MOMENTS LATER. Hushpuppy behind the bubbling stove. She ties           on an apron and sways to the music. She is dressing like her           mom.                                    Marietta's Voice sings to her.                                                   MARIETTA'S VOICE           You're good, you make me happy /           you're good, you make me happy.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           That's pretty Mamma.                                                   MARIETTA'S VOICE           You're pretty Hushpuppy.                                    Hushpuppy stares into the floating islands of cat food frying           in fat, which in her POV is a surreal churning vision, like           the bubbling lava at the center of the earth.                                    She's SHOCKED out of her vision by a YOWLING CAT being flung           across the yard.                         14                                                             WINK (O.S)           Get out of my way you fat animal!                                    Hushpuppy jumps down from the stove, grabs a bowl of water,           and runs to greet Wink,                                                             EXT. WINK'S COMPOUND - MORNING                                    She clambers down the oil drum ladder spilling her water           everywhere in her excitement.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Daddy! Daddy, Daddy!                                    Wink doesn't turn to acknowledge her as he trudges across the           field toward his Shacko. He's wearing a hospital patient's           smock and no shoes, it seems he checked himself out.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           I learned lots of stuff while you           gone. If I drink all this here I           can burp like a man.                                    Hushpuppy gulps down water, all of it. Wink keeps walking.           Hushpuppy BURPS like a man, but he doesn't turn around.                                    Hushpuppy stops to examine the situation. Something's not           right here.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           How come you wearing a dress?                                    Hushpuppy tugs his patient's smock and he shrugs her off           violently.                                                   WINK           Leave me alone, Man.                                    She sees his hospital I.D bracelet still on.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           You wearing a bracelet too?                                                   WINK           Go in your house, you wouldn't           understand.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I wanna come in your house.                         15                                                             Hushpuppy whacks Wink's butt.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           I WANNA COME IN YOUR HOUSE!                                    Wink fakes like he's gonna smack her.                                                   WINK           GO AHEAD!                                    Hushpuppy tears off.                                    Wink storms into the Shacko in the Backo.                                                             INT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - DAY                                    Hushpuppy stomps inside. Her cat food is burning, with steam           jetting up to the ceiling. She thinks about it for a moment,           and turns the burner up. Smoke billows.                                    Hushpuppy grabs her basketball jersey off the chair and jumps           over the breakfront counter. Behind her A MASSIVE GREASE           EXPLOSION.                                    Hushpuppy ducks down, panicking. She check over the median.           The stove is on engulfed in flames.                                    Hushpuppy scrambles under a cardboard box.                                                             INT./EXT. HUSHPUPPY'S BOX - DAY                                    The walls of the box are decorated with years of her           drawings. In here she feels a strange safety. The FLAMES           and BREAKING WINDOWS feel distant and muffled.                                    She draws a hieroglyphic of herself sad and crying on an           island with a sun and a palm tree.                                    She peeks out as Wink runs into the house, which is filled           with black smoke, flickering flames.                                    WINK (O.S.)           (panicking from inside)           Hushpuppy!? Boss lady!? Hushpuppy           where you at!?                                    Hushpuppy drops the box closed. Smoke billows into the box,           filling it up.                         16                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O)           If Daddy kill me, I ain't gonna be           forgotten, I'm recording my story           for the scientists of the future.                                    Hushpuppy draws a bigger figure giving her a hug as Wink's           panicked fury intensifies outside.                                    WINK (O.S)           HUSHPUPPY!? Where are you Boss!?                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O)           In a million years, when kids go to           school, they gonna know that once           there was Hushpuppy and she lived           with her Daddy in the Bathtub.                                    Wink pulls Hushpuppy's drawings off the walls, he flings them           out the door to safety.                                    Hushpuppy coughs.                                    Wink has heard. He looks toward the box.                                                   WINK           BOSS LADY?                                    Hushpuppy and makes a runs for it, flying out the door.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Don't you run away from me. I           swear to GOD Hushpuppy!                                                             EXT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - DAY                                    Hushpuppy runs out of Wink's compound into the woods, Wink on           her trail. In the background, the house is a towering           inferno.                                                             EXT. TRAIL BEHIND WINK'S COMPOUND - DAY                                    They run deeper into the swamp.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I'm tearing off!                                                   WINK           You ain't tearing off nothin', I'll           bust your ass!                         17                                                                            HUSHPUPPY           I'm tearing off just like my Momma.                                                   WINK           Come on!                                    Wink tried to yank her toward home and Hushpuppy refuses.           She digs her heels in.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           See what happens. See what happens           to you!                                    Hushpuppy hooks her leg around a tree and holds on.                                    Wink slaps Hushpuppy and she falls face down.                                    He looks away, disgusted with himself.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           See what you making me do? You're           killing me!                                    He reaches down and tries to pick her up.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Get up and now come on.                                    Hushpuppy jumps up on her own.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I hope you do die! And after you           die, I come to your grave and eat           birthday cake all by myself!                                    Hushpuppy punches Wink in the heart and suddenly EVERYTHING           GOES QUIET, as if all the insects in the forest have hushed.                                    All at once, we hear--                                    A HUMAN HEART, beating until there is a SONIC BOOM, an           earsplitting CRACK of glacial ice.                                    Hushpuppy turns toward the sound. When she turns back Wink's           face has transformed, wrenches with fear and pain.                                    Wink keels over clutching his arm.                                    Hushpuppy stares, her breath accelerating.                                    Wink's eyes roll back in his head, he begins to seizure.                         18                                                             ANOTHER GLACIAL CRACK rings out. The SPLITTING builds to a           DEAFENING ROAR. She covers her ears.                                                             EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF / WOODS - DAY                                    Fissures appear like lightning through the massive ice cliff           from the opening of the movie.                                    Hushpuppy runs from the sound, hands over her ears. We           INTERCUT with shots of falling glaciers. The universe is           coming unravelled.                                    An ice shelf COLLAPSES into the ocean in a MASSIVE AVALANCHE,           a wave rolls toward camera.                                                             EXT. GRAVEYARD BY THE WATER - DAY                                    The wave, now just a tiny ripple, hits Hushpuppy's feet.           Suddenly, the water level rises around her. It overtakes her           knees and keeps going. Hushpuppy backs up to shore,           terrified.                                    Hushpuppy calls out to a distant beacon flashing on the           horizon.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Momma!? Momma!? MOMMA!? I think           I broke something.                                                             EXT. SCHOOLBOAT - DAY                                    Hushpuppy runs out of the woods toward school in a total           panic.                                    In front of the school parents pile their children into a           pickup trucks and vans.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Miss Bathsheba! Miss Bathsheba!           My Daddy fell down!                                    Miss Bathsheba takes Hushpuppy's hands as she tries to catch           her breath to speak. Clutched in her hand is the hospital           bracelet that Wink had been wearing.                                    Bathsheba turns over the diagnostic bracelet and reads it,           her eyes widen in recognition and alarm.                         19                                                             INT. SCHOOLBOAT - DAY                                    Hushpuppy watches Miss Bathsheba frantically pull herbs and           roots from her containers of medicinal oddities and pack it           into a large medicine jar.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           It's gonna be OK baby.                                    Bathsheba hands Hushpuppy the medicine jar.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Ok, Hushpuppy, here's what I need           you to do. You take this medicine           and run as fast as you can. Go!                                                             EXT. SWAMP CLEARING - DAY                                    We see glimpses of nature protecting itself from the           impending disaster. Flowers curl up, insects horde food           underground, RUSTLING sounds fill the air. Black birds, and           bats, and all manner of flying creatures fill the sky.           They're all getting the hell out of dodge.                                    Hushpuppy, quaking with fear, runs through a menacing swamp           clutching her medicine jar. The rising winds swirl the marsh           grass all around her.                                    Hushpuppy runs to the spot where Wink collapsed.                                    He's gone.                                    Hushpuppy looks around the swamp, unable to understand.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Daddy could have turned into a           tree, or a bug. There wasn't any           way to know.                                    Hushpuppy hides her medicine jar in her storage unit- a           leather flap laid over the hollow of an oak tree. The hollow           is filled with trinkets and objects she's collected over the           years.                                    Hushpuppy flinches as a shrieking animal calls out.                                    She looks up to see a leaf covered in writhing caterpillars.           One of them has been skewered by a beetle and is fighting for           it's life.                         20                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           The whole universe depends on           everything fitting together just           right. If one piece busts, even           the smallest piece, the entire           universe will get busted.                                                             EXT. ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF - DAY                                    Blocks of glaciers roll out of the avalanche and away from           Antarctica like floating ice cubes. Embedded in each cube,           is an Aurochs.                                    A single ice cube takes over the frame and the mammoth dead           Aurochs' eye stares right at us. Its jaw wide, its fangs           bared, the ferocious beast appears to have fossilized mid-           pounce. THUNDER BOOMS.                                    We drift upwards into the cloud cover. As we rise above the           white canopy, the spiral of a hurricane forms.                                                             EXT. LAFOURCHE ROAD - DAY                                    STRINGS SWELL under HOWLING WINDS. We follow behind a little           boy running down the road with an alarm bell as the people of           the Bathtub mobilize in a frenzied evacuation.                                                   BOY           The storm's coming! The storm's           coming!                                                             EXT. LADY JO'S BAR - DAY                                    Hushpuppy sulks out of the woods, feeling sorry for herself.           She looks up and freezes like she's seen a ghost.                                    Wink hobbles down the road, looking shell-shocked. The           traffic on the road moves in one direction: out. Wink walks           back into town in the opposite direction.                                    In Hushpuppy's POV Wink arrives at Lady Jo's bar where a band           of drunken sweethearts are in their regular positions. They           are watching the evacuation go by like it's a Veteran's Day           parade. They giggle and hurl good-natured curses out to a           family making their way to safety.                         21                                                                            LITTLE JO           Look at these assholes running           around all over the damn place.           C'est la vie assholes!                                                   WINK           I know y'all with me. Y'all doin'           the storm.                                                   LITTLE JO           Lady Jo's ain't never closed honey.                                                   WINK           That's what I'm talking about.           Walrus my big man, you staying?                                                   WALRUS           Wrong number buddy. I'm outta here           as soon as I finish my beer.                                    Wink dismisses him with a wave of his hand.                                                   WINK           You ain't goin nowhere.                                                   WALRUS           This ain't no sneeze comin' out the           gulf. I'm gone brother.                                                   WINK           I'll see you tomorrow Walrus.           Lookit there, Winston's with me.                                    WINSTON is passed out on the stairs.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           What you doing about the storm           Winston?                                    Without opening his eyes, Winston raises an umbrella over his           head. Wink laughs.                                                   WALRUS           Hey! It's Hushpuppy.                                                   EVERYBODY           Hushpuppy! Hushpuppy's here.                                    They burst into a round of drunken applause.                         22                                                                            WINK           Hushpuppy? Where you been?                                                   HUSHPUPPY           What happened to y-                                                   WINK           Shut-up!                                    He lifts her up by the britches and carries her away.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           You don't talk!                                                             INT./EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - GROUND FLOOR - DAY                                    Through the bus window, Hushpuppy watches Wink prepare for           the storm as branches and debris fly by him. He RANTS to           himself and drinks. He ties the Turck onto the house.                                    Hushpuppy looks to where her animals lurch and freeze, run           around in circles, pant heavily. They feel it coming.                                    Rain drops start to spatter the window and Wink trips and           falls trying to catch a fleeing chicken.                                                             INT./EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - 2ND FLOOR - NIGHT                                    Now, the full force of the storm HOWLS and CLATTERS the           shutters. Rain screams against the corrugated metal roof.                                    Wink tapes padding over all sharp corners and plastic wraps           the furniture. He's Hushpuppy-proofing everything.                                    He runs a piece of duct tape across the floor.                                                   WINK           This side is still Wink's house.           No toys, and no girl stuff over           here.                                    Wink pushes charred toys from Hushpuppy's house across the           line.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           So if I want to come over that side           and smack you in the face, that's           against the rules. So there's a           plus for you.                         23                                                             Hushpuppy is not able to see the bright side here.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Now come on down here and get in           the boat, man.                                    He points to a trunk on the floor. Hushpuppy hops down and           gets in. Wink sits on his air mattress.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           If the water get real high, we           gonna float to the top and we gonna           bust through the roof and we gonna           ride away, okay?                                    Wink puts a pair of mismatching water wings on her.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           You never NEVER take these off.           I'm your Daddy, and you do what I           tell you to do, because it's my job           to keep you from dying, ok? So sit           back and just listen to me...           Close your eyes and go to sleep.           CLOSE YOUR EYES!                                    Hushpuppy watches Wink pretending to sleep. The THUNDER           scares the bejesus out of him again.                                    She looks to the ceiling where water is starting to pour in           steadily.                                    Looks back at Wink who is sneaking a sip from his liquor           bottle. He resumes his phony sleep.                                    A strong gust of wind JOLTS the entire room and he springs           out of bed.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Why you starin' at me like that? I           can't sleep with you starin' at me           like that.                                    Wink paces the floor.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Listen. You need to understand,           you're a kid and I'm a man.                                    She doesn't understand.                         24                                                                            WINK (CONT'D)           What, you scared?                                    Hushpuppy nods. THUNDER BOOMS and Wink is the one who           flinches.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Don't be scared, no storm can't           beat no Doucet. I'm gonna show           you. You watch.                                    But he can see she's still scared.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           I'm'll show you! We Doucets we're           not scared of no damn storm.                                    Wink grabs a bottle of moonshine and climbs down the hatch in           the floor into the storm.                                    Hushpuppy runs to the window and peeks out.                                    OUTSIDE. The frenzy of the hurricane propels Wink at full           sprint through the 100 MPH winds. He tears his clothes off           and guzzles moonshine as branches fall all around him.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Look at me! Look at me Hushpuppy!           Watch me kick butt.                                    Wink fires his shotgun at the heavens.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Hell yea! I'm right here! I'm           right here I ain't going nowhere.           AHHHHHH!!!                                    A THUNDER CLAP shakes the house so hard a ceiling beam           CRASHES down.                                    Hushpuppy runs to her bed as if it might keep her safe.                                    Windell, swinging from a basket tied to the ceiling, BARKS,           panicking herself.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Mamma!? MAMMA!?                                                   CUT TO:                         25                                                             EXT. PATAGONIAN COAST - NIGHT                                    Still in the rainstorm, a glacial cube SHATTERS, flopping a           mammoth body onto the shoreline.                                    It's chest heaves and a LOW SNORT is heard. The animal           begins to roll over.                                    Her dinosaur size hoof plants in the mud as she lifts herself           up. We stare over the muscular haunch of her body as she           stares into the distance.                                    The massive creature turns, testing her limbs after thousands           of years of sleep.                                    She looks up to the storm and lets loose a GURGLING ROAR.                                    We sit close on one of her black eyes. There is something           dangerously sad in her cold gaze. Her head moves from the           frame as she starts forward on her journey.                                                             EXT. AERIAL BATHTUB - DAY                                    Silence. The storm has passed.                                    The camera flies high over the Bathtub. The tops of houses           poke out from the massive water like lily-pads in a pond.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - FLOODED - MORNING                                    A slab of metal stares at us, surrounded by water.                                    Something under the metal BANGS TWICE and an axe dislodges a           roof panel. The axe twists and leverages off the slab.                                    Wink hefts Hushpuppy on top of the roof. Then Windell.           Dishevelled and hung-over, he pulls himself up too.                                    The three survivors stare in stunned silence at their new           world.                                                             EXT. FLOODED LAFOURCHE ROAD - TURCK - MORNING                                    Wink slowly navigates the Turck in through the flooded           landscape where their town had once been. Neither he nor           Hushpuppy can say a word. Everything is submerged. Every           organism is dead or has fled. The quiet is overwhelming.                         26                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           For every animal that didn't have a           Dad to put it in a boat, the end of           the world already happened.           They're all down below, trying to           breathe through water.                                    They pass abandoned house, after abandoned house, the ones on           stilts have water up to the porches. Trees are bashed           through roofs, walls are blown through, bathrooms exposed.                                                             EXT. WINSTON'S HOUSE - FLOODED - MORNING                                    Wink uses a pole to open a door.                                                   WINK           Yo Winston?                                    No one answers. They push off.                                                             EXT. EDISON'S HOUSE - FLOODED - THE TURCK - DAY                                    Wink enters an intact house with water up to the porch.                                    WINK (O.S.)           Edison? Ow-Wee!                                    Wink leans against the door frame. From his POV we see           Hushpuppy on the Turck. She picks a leaf and eats it. Wink           shakes his head in dismay, realizing all too clearly his girl           is not ready for survival.                                                             EXT. SWAMP - THE TURCK - DAY                                    The Turck passes through a net of Spanish moss into the belly           of a swamp.                                                   WINK           Some day when I'm gone, you gonna           be the last man in the bathtub.           You have to learn how to feed your           house.                                    Wink goes to the edge of the turck and sticks his hand in the           water.                         27                                                                            WINK (CONT'D)           Now, stick your left hand in this           water, stick it in there.                                    Hushpuppy puts her right hand in the water.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Ok, what you do is you hold your           hand steady and you just wait for           your fish to come. You gotta ball           your fist up, this is your punching           hand. Ball your fist up in case           you have to whack it when they come           up.                                    Wink pulls a Catfish out with his bare hand.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           WHOOOOO YEA! Whooo lord, look what           we got. I gotcha. Say "I gotcha!"                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I gotcha!                                    Wink slams the fish down on the floor of the Turck and pins           it.                                                   WINK           Yea! Hold him down! Now, you hold           it down like this, and whack him           good with your fist.                                    Wink pins the fish and punches it in the face.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Go ahead whack him! You whack him           good. Hold him like that and whack           him!                                    Hushpuppy pins the fish. She tries to whack it and it cuts           her.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           OW!                                    She hides her cut hand from Wink.                                                   WINK           You OK? That's all a part of it.                         28                                                             Hushpuppy winces in pain.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           You wanna try it again?                                    Hushpuppy shakes her head no, trying not to cry.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Come on. One more time.                                                             INT. EDISON'S HOUSE - FLOODED - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy has enclosed herself under a table with a           tablecloth on it. She's drawing on the floor with charcoal.                                    Something alive hits the roof and scurries across. We hear           the entire house MOAN, or was it a distant ROAR?                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Daddy?                                    Wink's hacking cough, which has gotten worse since last we           heard it, fills the room. Hushpuppy tries to shake him           awake.                                    Hushpuppy looks through the gap in his shirt.                                    On Wink's chest, surrounding his heart, a corroded spider web           of purple bruises shows through the skin, like varicose veins           covering his entire heart.                                    Hushpuppy's eyes go wide with horror.                                                             EXT. EDISON'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                    The beacon pulses on the distant horizon.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Mamma? Is that you?                                    The beacon does not respond.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           I've broken everything.                         29                                                             EXT. DESERT - DAY                                    A cloud of dust circulates particles. The Haze is blinding.           A distant RUMBLING grows.                                    Dark shapes tear through the haze in a deafening stampede.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Strong animals, they know when your           hearts are weak. That makes them           hungry and they start coming.                                    We see one at first, then more join rank around it. The           Aurochs are charging in a pack. They are a biblical terror;           the horsemen of the apocalypse.                                                             EXT. LADY JO'S BAR - DAY                                    The turck moves through the cypress forest, signs are strewn           everywhere pointing to Lady Jo's bar. It appears abandoned.                                    Suddenly, the door SQUEAKS open. Walrus winces at the           sunlight and pops a beer.                                    He steps out the door and SPLASHES into the water.                                                   WALRUS           Holy bowlegged Sarah!                                                   WINK           Hey partner! Hey Walrus!                                    Wink pulls in the Turck and paddles to rescue the thrashing           drunkard.                                    They leverage Walrus aboard and lay him out on deck.                                                   WALRUS           (gauging his surroundings)           I musta passed out.                                    Wink starts chuckling silently. His chuckle builds to a           laugh.                                                             INT. LADY JO'S BAR - FLOODED - DAY                                    They enter the bar, empty bottles, half eaten crabs, and           general party debris are littered everywhere.                         30                                                             Little Jo is sprawled on the floor under a table. Is she           dead or just wasted?                                                   WINK           Little Jo!                                    She awakes with a start and bangs her head on the table.                                                   LITTLE JO           Wink!?                                    Wink and Walrus run to help her up.                                    LITTLE JO (CONT'D)                          (TO WALRUS)           You don't touch me you filthy           bastard!                          (TO WINK)           Wink, you get me.                                    They both lift her.                                    LITTLE JO (CONT'D)           Goin' on all night `bout how           tonight's the last night on earth           we gotta make it count. Talkin'           dirty right in front of Peter T.                                                   WALRUS           Sorry Peter T.                                    Peter T enters from the Bathroom.                                                   WINK           Peter T, my man! I knew you wasn't           gonna leave me man!                                    Peter T speaks in his polite, level-headed, soft sweet voice.                                                   PETER T           Oh no, oh no.                                                   WALRUS           (re: Peter T)           That is one classic dude right           there.                                                   WINK           Peter T, you are a titan! Glad you           stayed man! RHHAAAA!                         31                                                             Wink jiggles Peter T's ample belly. Peter T giggles with           glee.                                    Wink puts one arm around Walrus and the other around Peter T.           He smiles to Hushpuppy.                                    She laughs too, the first smile in quite some days.                                                             INT. LADY JO'S BAR - LATER THAT NIGHT                                    The Bathtub crew are lolling in the later party stages.           There is a rooster on the table looking like the most sober           creature in the room by far.                                                   WALRUS           If I had wings, I know I could have           flown in that bad boy. But I would           have probably bounced off a tree,           or...                                    Hushpuppy lays on the table in pile of empty crab shells.                                                   WINK           Hushpuppy! Did I ever tell you the           story of your conception?                                    The bar crowd chuckles.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           When me and Hushpuppy's Mamma first           met we was so shy, we used to sit           around, and drink beer, and smile           at each other. One day we was so           shy we just napped...                                    Wink's voice FADES DOWN as Hushpuppy's fantasy takes over.           She closes her eyes.                                                             EXT. FANTASY HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - DAY                                    Wink, younger and prettier, naps in an uncharacteristically           colorful lawn chair.                                    A LOW, GURGLING GROWL wakes him up.                                    There in the yard, crawling slow and lazy, is a massive 15-           foot alligator, breathing the heavy, slutty way alligators           breathe.                         32                                                             A topless woman steps in front. Sweat beading on her perfect           shoulder blades, down her perfect, back ending in a pair of           boys' underpants- just like Hushpuppy's.                                    Throughout Hushpuppy's vision, we never see Marietta's face,           it's always covered, shot from the back, or out of frame.                                    Marietta cocks the shotgun with one hand, Terminator 2 style.                                    Lowers it on the gator...                                    BLAM. Wink sits up in SLOW MOTION- her panties, and her long           naked legs are covered with gator blood.                                    She turns to Wink, her head ABOVE FRAME.                                    CLOSE UP on her eye. She winks.                                                             INT. FANTASY HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                    We follow behind Marietta's supple curves as she walks into           the kitchen. Her white slip is almost see through...almost.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Back when Daddy used to talk about           Mamma, he'd say she was so pretty           she never even had to turn on the           stove.                                    She runs her fingers along the counter and the burners IGNITE           one by one as she passes.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           She just walk into a room and water           start to boil.                                    Water starts to bubbles like a spontaneous volcanic eruption.                                    Marietta reaches into the frigidaire, and pulls out two ice-           cold beers.                                    Ice melts down the bottles.                                    She opens them on the counter, flawlessly.                                    She walks over to Wink. Stands there. A hot mess.                                    Wink's voice FADES UP.                         33                                                             WINK (V.O.)           Your Momma battered that gator up,           and set it to fry.                                                   CUT TO:                                                             INT. LADY JO'S BAR - NIGHT                                    Wink tips his drink.                                                   WINK           ...and Hushpuppy popped into the           universe maybe four minutes later.                                    He empties the glass, sufficiently drunk now.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           I got it under control.                                    Wink looks away, lost in his own fantasy.                                                             INT. FANTASY HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                    Over Marietta's shoulder, beads of sweat form along the strap           of her slip. Good Lord.                                    Wink looks, and meets her eyes. The gaze of a proud and           smitten man.                                    Grits fall through the chimney vent, into the boiling water.           Dancing like all the invisible particles of the universe.                                                             INT. LADY JO'S BAR - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy stares hard, her face locked in pride and           determination. Filling with all the strength and heroism of           her long-lost mother. She's ready to snap into action.                                                             EXT. FLOODED BATHTUB - THE TURCK - DAY                                    ENERGETIC MUSIC drops and we move in a semi-montage through           Hushpuppy's search for survivors.                                    Hushpuppy rows the Turck through the flooded Bathtub by           herself. In the distance she sees a lone horse. It stands           on an tiny island of land, the last high ground in an endless           stretch of water.                         34                                                             The horse holds Hushpuppy's gaze. She hears it's strong,           resilient HEARTBEAT. They are one and the same.                                                             EXT. SCHOOLBOAT - THE TURCK - DAY                                    Hushpuppy approaches Schoolboat, which has weathered the           storm relatively intact.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Miss Bathsheba!?                                                             INT. SCHOOLBOAT - DAY                                    Hushpuppy opens the door.                                    We hear RUSTLING and WHISPERING inside school.                                    It's three little girls left behind in the storm. JOY           STRONG, a tall, wild-haired leader; LIZARD, a tiny thing in a           giant man's tee shirt, and T-LOU, the muscle of this girl           gang, looking very meek in her desperate condition.                                    The girls are huddled against each other, terrified, hungry,           and alone.                                                             EXT. LADY JO'S BAR - DAY                                    Miss Bathsheba, shell-shocked but steadfast, steers the boat           toward the bar, the four girls now safely in her care. From           the inside we hear CAROUSING, TOASTING, and RAUCOUS CAJUN           MUSIC.                                                             INT. LADY JO'S BAR - FLOODED - NIGHT                                    Wink pours a mountain of crab and shrimp at a great communal           table, assembled from many different tables.                                                   WINK           Come on lets go! Time to eat!           Come on children, feed up time!                                    He sends a feast sliding across the floor under the table,           where Joy, T-Lou, and Lizard dig in.                                    Wink has decorated the bar with all the waterlogged relics of           the Bathtub.                         35                                                             The room is a shrine of people's chairs, umbrellas, clothing.           We're late in the game, and the party has descended into           utter debauchery.                                    Jean raises a glass.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           To the last of the food!                                                   WALRUS           To the last of the water!                                                   LITTLE JO           You ain't drinkin' no water.                                    Miss Bathsheba pour shots and toasts.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Yea, tastes like more, alright!                                    Hushpuppy struggles to peel her shrimps, sitting on top of           the table.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           For the ones we'd never find, we           make a funeral the Bathtub way,           with no crying allowed.                                    Drunken Wink is giving drunken Walrus a bath as he eats.                                                   WALRUS           When the water goes down, I'm gonna           French kiss the dirt!                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Water's not goin' down man.                                                   WINK           Nah, that's my beautiful place           under there.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Man you know they got plenty of           salt coming into that water,           everything beautiful is gone.           Trees are gonna dies first, then           the animals, then the fish.                                                   WINK           I got it under control.                         36                                                             Hushpuppy picks up a crab. She tries to pound it open, tries           yanking on a leg. She can't shell it.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           Come on Hushpuppy, come over here           lemme show you how.                                    Hushpuppy sits down next to Jean, a good pupil.                                    JEAN BATTISTE (CONT'D)           Here baby. You hold like this,           then you turn it over like that.                                    Hushpuppy follows instruction in deep concentration, but a           bit tentative.                                    We see Wink look away from Walrus and Jo's bawdy humor           extravaganza and focus in on Hushpuppy. His disdain is           palpable for this froufrou shelling technique.                                    JEAN BATTISTE (CONT'D)           Don't be scared of it now. Now,           you take this knife, and you pop           this off.                                    Jean holds Hushpuppy's hand and guides a knife to open the           belly of the crab.                                    JEAN BATTISTE (CONT'D)           Atta girl.                                                   WINK           NO! Hushpuppy--                                    Wink POUNDS the table. And the party falls suddenly silent.                                    Wink pushes the utensil away. He grabs a crab, opens it in           three virtuosic hand motions.                                    Grease and spice explode everywhere and Wink sucks the face           of the crab clean. It is beautiful to watch.                                    He slams a fresh crab in front of Hushpuppy.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Beast it!                                    Hushpuppy looks to Miss Bathsheba for guidance.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           You heard your Daddy. Beast it.                         37                                                             Hushpuppy pulls on the crab shell with all her might. She           doesn't have the power.                                                   EVERYONE                          (CLAPPING ALONG)           BEAST IT! BEAST IT! BEAST IT!                                    The kids jump out from under the table and chant.                                    Hushpuppy is turning blue, her eyes bulge with effort...                                    CRACK!                                    Hushpuppy opens the crab claw and sucks down the meat.                                    Everyone goes wild with applause! The kids too!                                    Hushpuppy stands up, ascending to the top of the table. She           lets loose a WARRIOR CRY and flexes her muscles, deadly           triumphant.                                    Little Jo gets so excited she starts dancing on the table.           She CACKLES and jitterbugs wildly.                                    Walrus gets up to join her. Jean gets up and dances too.           All the kids get up.                                    Wink glows with pride. Miss Bathsheba smiles.                                                   WINK           Yea! You see what kinda family we           got?! We got feeling!                                                             EXT. SCHOOLBOAT - FLOODED - VARIOUS                                    A DRIVING SCORE kicks in as we MONTAGE through the           transformation of the Schoolboat into a ramshackle Ark.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           It wasn't no time to sit around           crying like a bunch of pussies.                                    The survivors whittle sticks into spears, bend metal debris           into spikes.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           We was gonna build a camp right on           top of the Bathtub.                         38                                                             Jean Battiste, cackling wildly, hauls a thrashing goat onto a           floating animal pen. Chicken coops, snake cages, a pig pen           are stacking precariously.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           We got enough animals to eat until           the water goes down.                                    Rafts are lashed to the sides of the school. Every floating           structure left in town is hauled in and added to the Ark.                                    Peter T ties on a floating vegetable garden.                                    In WIDE we see what looks like a small village of floating           structures forming.                                                             INT. SCHOOLBOAT - DAY                                    Miss Bathsheba puts Lizard's head in her lap, Lizard is           playing as if she's unconscious after hyperventilating.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           (teaching a lesson)           Come here, like this.                                    She takes Hushpuppy's hand and places it on Lizard's chest.           She moves her hand in a circular motion.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Like this. Tee-Lou get some water.                                    Tee-Lou runs to get a handful of water.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           Quick little circles. Good for the           heart. Joy Strong?                                    Joy turns her back. Miss Bathsheba shakes her head.                                    Tee-Lou returns and pours water on Lizard's head, cooling           her.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           This is most important thing I can           ever teach y'all. You got to take           care of people that's smaller and           sweeter than you are.                                    Hushpuppy registers this advice, takes it to heart. She rubs           Lizard's chest with delicacy and affection.                         39                                                             Lizard's breathing returns to normal, and she sits up           peacefully. Hushpuppy is awestruck. Bathsheba gets to her           feet.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           That's better.                                                             INT. SCHOOLHOUSE - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy watches Wink sleeping. His breathing has gotten           worse.                                    She tiptoes up with her red basketball jersey and lays it           down on Wink, tucking him in just right.                                    A DISTANT RUMBLING is heard. Cutting off suddenly as we...                                                   CUT TO:                                                             EXT. BRAZILIAN FAVELLAS - DAY                                    A quiet town, not unlike the Bathtub, but with tangled power-           lines, electrical towers, and layered hills.                                    A stone flies from behind a house and bounces down the           street, denting the silence.                                    Slowly, the peaceful morning transitions into MORE RUMBLING,           a distant CRACK.                                    Suddenly the house in the foreground explodes to smithereens           and the head of an Aurochs drives through it.                                    Without breaking step, Aurochs maraud the village, trampling           it into oblivion. We settle close on an Aurochs eye,           emotionless and relentless in its calm.                                                             EXT. BATHTUB MARSH WATER - TURCK - MORNING                                    Wink, Hushpuppy, and the Bathtub crew pole the Turck through           a lake blanketed with carcasses, pushing through the dead           fish, dead porpoises, dead alligator garfish like they were           lily pads. There is no wind, only dense wet heat searing on           the faces of the characters. The once green foliage has gone           brown and thirsty.                         40                                                             HUSHPUPPY V.O.           Two weeks later, everything started           to die.                                                   WINK           (to the water)           Come on fishes, where y'at?                                    Wink empties his net- nothing but a pile of carcasses. He           tips it back into the water. Wink pulls himself to the edge           and sticks his head under to look for fish.                                    Hushpuppy looks at him with an air of doubt for the first           time. Wink looks ridiculous, a dead fish drifts off his           head.                                                   HUSHPUPPY                          (WHISPERING)           You wanna leave the Bathtub,           Walrus?                                                   WALRUS                          (WITHOUT THOUGHT)           Nah.                                    Wink pulls his head back up.                                                   WINK           I heard that.                                    Hushpuppy fidgets guiltily.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Nobody's leaving the Bathtub! You           don't know nothing!                                    Wink lowers his net back in the water.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)                          (TO WALRUS)           This water gonna kill us here. We           gotta do something `bout this. I           ain't starvin' to death while them           people go grocery shopping up           there.                                                             INT. SCHOOLBOAT - FLOODED - MORNING                                    The kids sleep on Miss Bathsheba in a big pile on the floor.                         41                                                             Hushpuppy wakes hearing SHIFTING and a SNAP behind her.                                    Peter T is uncapping a shotgun shell and pouring black powder           into a small jar.                                    She looks out the window where Jean Battiste is unhooking a           propane container from Miss Bathsheba's burner. He opens her           chest freezer and hefts out a 12-foot garfish, dropping the           container in the water.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           Shit!                                    Wink sneaks up and whispers to Hushpuppy.                                                   WINK           Boss, Daddy's gotta take care of           something.                                    Hushpuppy is instantly concerned, she's heard this line           before, and it always leads to trouble.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           I'm gonna fix everything back how           it was.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Everything gonna go right back?                                                   WINK           Hell yeah, we gonna win.                                    Wink pounds his chest in solidarity. Hushpuppy matches his           pound, but without confidence.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Boss, anything go wrong, Walrus is           Daddy.                                    Wink and Hushpuppy look Walrus-- the face of doddering           drunken bewilderment. A goat licks him.                                    Hushpuppy is not comforted.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           You're gonna be the king of the           Bathtub, I promise that.                                    Wink can see he's getting nowhere.                         42                                                                            WINK (CONT'D)           Just sit here I'll be right back.                                    The DOOR CLOSING wakes Miss Bathsheba up. She scans the           room, noticing the three missing people.                                                   WALRUS           (an unconvincing lie)           I think they be gone. I-I really           can't say where.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Walrus, don't make me slap your           ass! They go to the levee!?                                    Walrus is intimidated into silence.                                    MISS BATHSHEBA (CONT'D)           You so much as piss on that wall,           you know what them people gonna do?           They gonna smoke us out and stick           us in a damn shelter.                                    Hushpuppy watches Miss Bathsheba go for her boat keys.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Daddy says, brave men don't run           from their home.                                    Hushpuppy scurries out the side window, escaping outside           before Miss Bathsheba sees her.                                                             EXT. UNDER THE TURCK TARP - DAY                                    Wink, Jean Battiste, and Peter T keep their heads above water           as they float under the tarp behind the truck bed. Peter T           is wearing a life jacket and still has his top hat on.                                                   WINK                          (WHISPERING)           Peter T, don't hold onto me, hold           onto the boat. You gonna be fine.                                    Jean Battiste duct tapes fireworks around the bomb: a propane           tank with an igniter made from a battery and a pouch of black           powder.                                    He inserts the bomb into the stomach cavity of a giant           garfish carcass.                         43                                                             Wink shoves two propane tanks inside the belly of the           garfish.                                    He hands a rope attached to the igniter to Peter T.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Peter T, you hold the trip-line.                                                   PETER T           (Soft and sweet)           Ok then.                                                   WINK           Just don't pull `til I say.                                                   PETER T           Ok then.                                                   WINK           You can do it. I have complete           faith in you.                                                   PETER T           Ok.                                    Jean Battiste is hesitant.                                    Wink gives Jean Battiste a confident nod.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           Lock and load.                                    Jean Battiste carefully unravels the string that leads to the           fuse. He shoves the igniter down the mouth of the garfish.                                                             EXT. LEVEE WALL, IN THE WATER - DAY                                    The Turck pulls into an enclosed segment of the levee, Wink           bobs out from under the Turck and latches a pre-made tether           running out of the garfish to a handle on the wall. He bobs           back under the boat.                                                             EXT. SCHOOLBOAT - DAY                                    Hushpuppy dives under the fishing net on a motor boat just           before Miss Bathsheba charges outside and keys the ignition.                                    Hushpuppy peeks out and the boat roars to life and rips           across the water.                         44                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           The entire universe depends on           everything fitting together just           right. If you can fix the broken           piece, it can all go right back.                                                             INT. UNDER THE TURCK TARP/SANTA MARIA - DAY                                                   WINK           Peter T hand me the-                                    He looks, Peter T has both hands on the Turck.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Peter you didn't drop the trip-           line?                                                   PETER T           No I did not.                                    Peter T thinks a moment.                                    PETER T (CONT'D)           Oh, yes I did.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           Oh, Peter T.                                                   PETER T           I'm sorry.                                    Wink dunks under water.                                                             EXT. LEVEE - DAY                                    Wink surfaces in front of the igniter rope.                                    As he grabs the rope, Bathsheba's snake catcher snares his           hand and pulls his arm against the side of her Jon boat.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Here's how we do with wild animals.                                                   WINK           AHH! Get off me woman! I'm trying           to save the Bathtub                                    Hushpuppy watches the struggle in hiding.                         45                                                             Bathsheba wrenches the rope out of Wink's hand and chucks it.                                    The igniter rope lands in front of Hushpuppy under the net           pile. She grabs it. She reels it in.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Get in the Boat! I'm hauling           you're ass back home, little boy.                                    Jean Battiste swims out of hiding.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           Wink!?                                                   WINK           Jean Battiste, get the trip line!                                    Suddenly, Hushpuppy pops out from under the nets, holding the           rope taught. She stumbles and almost sets if off by           accident.                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           Hushpuppy!?                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           She got it! Pull! Pull!                                                   WINK           NOW BOSS!                                                   MISS BATHSHEBA           No! Hushpuppy!                                    Hushpuppy, contemplates in an eerie peace.                                    The screaming chorus FADES and she is alone in her quiet,           eyes darting between Bathsheba and Wink. Courage and           certainly clench inside her her. You listen to your Daddy.           She pulls the rope.                                                             EXT. LEVEE WALL IN THE WATER - DAY                                    The trip-line releases the detonator.                                                             EXT. LEVEE - NORTH SIDE - DAY                                    The levee DETONATES. Shattered wood and cement fire towards           camera.                         46                                                             Debris propels Hushpuppy backwards.                                    Her quiet resumes as she lands on the deck of the boat in           slow motion. She watches in a daze as smoke, water, and           flaming dust cycles above her. All the beauty of the           universe.                                                             EXT. FLOODPLAIN - THE BATHTUB - DAY                                    Water recedes in the Bathtub, revealing the tragic, mud-           soaked remnants of their paradise.                                    Hushpuppy slogs through the muck, each step going two feet           down into the stinking filth.                                    The crew trudges behind her in silence.                                                             EXT. ARK WRECKAGE - DAY                                    The blow-up crew crests a hill and sees the remains of the           ark sprawled across an open field.                                    Wink's and Hushpuppy's eyes well up as they beholds the state           of their island. The water has drained. Everything is dead.                                    More striking than the ripped-up houses, the land surrounding           the island has disappeared. Trees are gone. Shards of marsh           that had been attached float in the distance. What was a           dense, green landscape is barren. The Bathtub is a scorched           hell.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - POST-FLOOD - EVENING                                    Hushpuppy picks through the rubble of the Shacko in the           Backo. She finds their grill, and a window made from a dryer           door and brings them to Wink.                                    The Shacko has crash landed under the stilts of a house           that's been entirely washed away. Wink has done some work           reassembling the walls and broken parts into a semi-           functional enclosure.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - POST-FLOOD - LATER THAT NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy find nails and brings them to Wink, who leans wall           panels against the stilts from the previous house.                         47                                                             He hammers nails wearily. His strength is sapped. He HACKS           out bile.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           It didn't matter that the water was           gone. Sometimes, you can break           something so bad, that it can't get           put back together.                                                             INT./EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - POST FLOOD - EVENING                                    Hushpuppy climbs the stairs of the original house to get to           the top of the Shacko.                                    She looks down through the hole in the floor.                                    In her POV Wink climbs into bed, he painfully takes his shirt           off. The bruise on his chest has extended all the way across           his stomach.                                    Hushpuppy looks out on the water for some sign that           Marietta's still with her. The light shining on the water is           off. She sees nothing but dead trees and a defunct oil rig.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Mamma!?                                    Nothing.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           Mamma where you at!?                                    As if in response, we hear a HELICOPTER LOUDSPEAKER.                                                   PILOT           This is a mandatory evacuation           area, you can no longer live here.           Everyone in this area, has to           leave. I repeat....                                                             EXT. DEAD FOREST - MORNING                                    Hushpuppy wades through the muck in what used to be a lush           forest, now reduced to toothpick trees and mud.                                    She finds her storage unit in the tree hollow, and lifts out           the medicine jar.                         48                                                             HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           When you're small, you gotta fix           what you can.                                                             INT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - POST FLOOD - NIGHT                                    She pours the crushed up roots into Wink's mouth, careful not           to disturb him. Wink dooesn't move.                                    Hushpuppy gently folds in the orange fungus. Quiet, quiet--                                                   WINK           GUUAAAHH!                                    Wink spews up an explosive cloud of medicine.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           God damn!                                    Wink grabs her medicine jar and threatens her with it.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           What you doing!?                                    He smashes it against the wall.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           What the hell's wrong with you!                                    Hushpuppy is so upset she doesn't know what to do. She           screams in anger.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Raaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!                                    Raging, Hushpuppy breaks everything she can get her hands on,           ruining everything Wink's reassembled, tipping shelves, pans,           walls. She grabs a fishing pole and starts bashing Wink's           grill over and over.                                                   WINK           You wanna throw things? Come on!           I can do that too. You want to           play that game? Let's throw stuff!                                    Wink joins in, breaking stuff too, channeling all his anger           into the destruction.                                    Wink throws himself into the wall. It breaks off and dumps a           series of shelves all over the floor.                         49                                                             Hushpuppy can't believe it.                                    Suddenly it's cathartic, they start throwing objects at each           other and laughing.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Come on! Come on!                                    Wink pegs her in the face with a stuffed animal and she           grins.                                    Hushpuppy throws a pillow!                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           AAAAH!!! COME ON! COME ON!                                    Hushpuppy throws a shoe.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           AAAAAHHHHH!!!!! YEAH!! COME ON!                                    Hushpuppy and Wink destroy everything in the house.                                    Something goes off in Wink chest. He grabs his heart and           collapses on the floor.                                    Hushpuppy realizes something's not right. She throws a life-           jacket at her father.                                    Wink continues to force a smile at her. Hushpuppy won't           return the smile.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Man. You think I don't know.                                    Hushpuppy's bottom lip starts quivering.                                    Wink's smiles disappears.                                                   WINK           Hey. No crying. Don't you cry           man. Don't you cry!                                    He threatens her with a shoe. Hushpuppy hides behind an           overturned chest.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           HEY! Don't cry damn it!                                    Wink hangs his head and catches his breath against the wall.                         50                                                                            WINK (CONT'D)           Shit.                                    He pull himself to his feet and grabs a bottle of moonshine.                                    He sets up two cups on the table.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Come on get a drink.                                    Wink pours Hushpuppy a shot.                                    Hushpuppy sips. Winces. Looks suspiciously at her father.           Sips again.                                    Wink takes one straight from the bottle.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           This counts as I'm sorry for a           whole buncha things. Lord.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           You gonna be gone?                                                   WINK           What? No!                                                   HUSHPUPPY           You gonna leave me alone?                                                   WINK           I ain't gon' leave nothing.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Cause if you be gone, I be gone           too.                                                   WINK           Hushpuppy, that is not how it           works.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I will. Sometimes in the bed I           start shaking and can't stop. I           got what you got.                                                   WINK           No man. That's just a side effect           of being a stupid little girl.                         51                                                                            HUSHPUPPY           I ain't gonna be dead?                                                   WINK           No. You? No! You gonna live a           hundred years more. You know what,           show me the guns.                                    Hushpuppy shoves Wink.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Show me them guns man.                                    Wink clears everything off the table with one sweep.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Show me the guns! Guns! guns! guns!           guns! guns!                                    Hushpuppy flexes her biceps. She begins to chant, fierce and                          TRIUMPHANT--                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Guns! Guns! Guns! Guns!.....                                                   WINK                          (OVERLAPPING)           Guns man, give to me! Guns! Guns!                                    Wink holds up his hand to arm-wrestle. They SCREAM in tandem           as Hushpuppy pins him hard.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Ooooo, Hushpuppy you the man. Who           the man?                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I'm the man.                                                   WINK           Who the man!?                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I'm the man!                                                   WINK           TELL ME LOUDER WHO THE MAN!!!!                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I'm THE MAN!!!!!!!                         52                                                                            WINK           YOU THE MAN, RIGHT?!                                    Wink is overcome with love. It's too much for him to bear.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Fuck this table!                                    In a violent euphoria, Wink grabs the table and hurls it           across the room.                                    This scares Hushpuppy. She stares silently at her wild           animal father, longing for something more than rage.                                    Wink takes a step toward like he's going to comfort her, then           stops, turning back.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           I gotta lay down hear? I gotta be           strong. Don't be scared.                                    Wink lays down in the corner.                                    Hushpuppy doesn't go to bed, she just stands there.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           What?                                    Hushpuppy waits, not backing down.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)                          (GIVING IN)           Come here.                                    Hushpuppy goes to Wink.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Lay down.                                    Wink pats his heart for her to put her head down on it.                                    A long beat.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           Hey.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Yea?                                                   WINK           You ain't the one who's sick.                         53                                                             She listens to his BIG HUGE HEART.                                                             EXT. WET SAND MUCK EXPANSE - DAY                                    The Aurochs move into a desolate, barren, wasteland, looking           exhausted and starved.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Strong animals got no mercy.                                    Cold wind blows them backwards. An old Aurochs falls behind           the pack. Its legs give out and it lays down. It's not going           to make it.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           They the type of animals that eats           their own Mommas and Daddies.                                                   CUT TO:                                    The Aurochs cannibalize their fallen comrade, ripping skin           and organs in a storm of flesh and gore.                                    The CRIES of the screaming mother melt together with another,           sound, more MECHANICAL...                                                             INT./EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - POST FLOOD - MORNING                                    The SOUND becomes recognizable as a HELICOPTER PROPELLER.                                    Hushpuppy opens her eyes, still tucked in Wink's arm.           Through the wall she sees FOUR WELL-DRESSED men. They are           out of place like aliens exiting their space ship.                                    She rouses Wink, he hears the FOREIGN SOUNDING VOICES and           yanks Hushpuppy up. He instinctively pulls him and Hushpuppy           behind the over-turned table and grabs a broken chair leg to           defend them with.                                    EVACUATOR (O.S.)           (from outside the door)           This is a mandatory evacuation           area. Everyone in this region has           to leave.                                    Wink hurls the chair leg at the intruders as they try to           enter.                         54                                                                            WINK           We ain't going nowhere!                                    Hushpuppy grabs a chair leg as well. It's a standoff.                                                             INT. LADY JO'S HOUSE - POST FLOOD - MORNING                                    Three evacuation workers ram the door of Little Jo's house.                                    Little Jo greets the intruders brandishing a cutting knife           and civil war era pistol.                                                   LITTLE JO           You gonna have to shoot me cause           I'm not going.                                                   EVACUATOR 2           Ma'am we're not gonna shoot you.                                                   LITTLE JO           I ain't never left here and I won't           never will.                                    She spits. They get closer.                                    LITTLE JO (CONT'D)           Son, don't make me cancel your           birth certificate.                                    The Muscle grabs her by the weapons and in the struggle, slam           her to the ground. It's horrible.                                                   EVACUATOR 2           Relax, relax ma'am.                                                   LITTLE JO           YOU SON OF A BITCH!                                    They drag Little Jo out of the house.                                                             INT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - MORNING                                    MATCH CUT to Wink and Hushpuppy pinned and being dragged out.                                                   WINK           Get your hands off of her! I'm           gonna kill you! Let her go!                         55                                                             EXT. REFUGEE CAMP - DAY                                    CRASH CUT TO an off-white monolithic community center           surrounded by a cement parking lot. Stressed, amateur           looking doctors from the real world move in and out of the           glass doors.                                    A makeshift sign reads "Open Arms Processing Center."                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - COTS - DAY                                    The interior of the refugee camp is violently, fluorescent-           lit and painted white in an attempt to maintain a facade of           sterility.                                    Hushpuppy stares at the strange and modern ceiling like           they've descended from another planet.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           It didn't look like a prison, it           looked like a fish tank with no           water.                                    The Bathtub residents walk through the gymnasium which has           been converted into a holding tank/hospital for refugees.           Student doctors are examining, treating, feeding people. The           abandoned souls, the sick, and the old are lined up waiting           for assistance.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - KITCHEN - DAY                                    A processed egg patty jiggles weirdly as it hits Hushpuppy's           tray.                                                   WINK           Don't eat that.                                    DR. MALONEY, a clean-cut, over-extended handsome young doctor           hustles toward the lunch line.                                    DR. MALONEY           Mr. Doucet, can I have a word with           you, we found something in your           test. It's-                                                   WINK           Whoa whoa whoa, not in front of my           kid. Stay, Hushpuppy.                         56                                                             Wink pulls Maloney out of earshot.                                    DR. MALONEY           Mr. Doucet, there's no easy way to           say this...                                    Hushpuppy struggles to hear more, only a couple words come           through the din of refugees.                                    DR. MALONEY (CONT'D)           ...require surgery           immediately...you need to think           about what you want for your           daughter...you could die.                                    In Hushpuppy's POV: Maloney puts a sympathetic hand on Wink's           shoulder and Wink pushes it off violently. Maloney puts up           his hands in peace and Wink shoves him through one of the           curtains and is assaulted by a flood of orderlies.                                                   WINK           I don't need nothing from you! You           keep your hands off her! I don't           need nothing from y'all! Let me           go!                                    Hushpuppy is snatched as she fights to come to his rescue.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Daddy!                                    They tackle Wink to the ground. He goes limp as he falls.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - COTS - DAY                                    We TRACK with Wink as he comes to consciousness rolling           through the cots. He is sedated and being pushed in a           wheelchair.                                    He looks through an open door.                                    In Wink's POV- Joy, Tee-Lou, Lizard, and the rest of           Bathsheba's original school class play in a room with a           BABYSITTER.                                    She tickles Hushpuppy, who has been given new clothes and           looks like a normal little girl for the first time. Her           boots and boys underpants have been traded for a delicate           blue dress. The image is jarring.                         57                                                                            BABYSITTER           Hushpuppy needs a hug.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I don't want your hug!                                    The Babysitter squeezes Hushpuppy. Hushpuppy tries to squirm           away.                                                   BABYSITTER           Hushpuppy, that's not how nice           girls act. Say "I'm sorry ma'am."           Hey! Say it. Say it or you're           going to corner time.                                    Hushpuppy's eyes meet Wink's and she freezes at his           horrifying appearance.                                    Wink grabs a sofa trying to stop the wheelchair as it rolls           by. His fingers slips off, too weak to hold on. He tries to           scream and nothing but a SEDATED MOAN comes out of his mouth.           He tries to pull the tubes out of his arm.                                                   ORDERLY           (gently moving Wink's hand                          AWAY)           There there, sir.                                    Hushpuppy stares in shock as Wink is wheeled away.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - WINK'S ROOM - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy watches in hiding as a hand covered in a rubber           glove changes the bandage on a surgical scar; it looks           infected and mishandled.                                    The same hand puts pills in Wink's mouth.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - TERMINAL WARD - DAY                                    Hushpuppy stands over an old man on an artificial respirator.           She's creeps closer, examining him. She puts her head on his           chest. His heart is beating.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           When an animal gets sick here, they           plug it into the wall.                                    She whispers in his ear.                         58                                                                            HUSHPUPPY           They're coming for you.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - TERMINAL WARD - A DIFFERENT BED - DAY                                    She repeats the process with another vegetable.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Daddy says, if he ever got so old           he couldn't drink beer, or catch           catfish, that I had to put him in a           boat, and set him on fire, so no           one could come plug him into the           wall.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - WINK'S ROOM - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy peeks through the curtains at another terminal bed.                                    She sees two orderlies force pills into Wink's mouth. He's           regaining his strength and is able to hold them off           momentarily before submitting, and going limp.                                    Hushpuppy bolts, unable to take it.                                    We stay in the room as the orderlies walk away.                                    Wink peeks to make sure they're gone, then spits his pills on           the floor.                                    Wink stares at the ceiling for a long beat. Then, with a           burst of energy he grabs his morphine drip and topples           himself onto the floor. He pulls his wires out.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - KID'S ROOM - MORNING                                    Hushpuppy lies asleep in a pile with Tee-Lou, Lizard, and           Joy. Wink enters and jostles her awake.                                                   WINK           Boss. Let's go.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Where we goin'?                         59                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS                                    Wink and the girls hustle to the entrance of the Refugee           center.                                    Walrus comes running down the hall, pushing Peter T on a           gurney.                                    Wink looks bewildered, the rest of the team seems to have           their own plan afoot.                                                             INT. REFUGEE CAMP - COTS - MORNING                                    Jean Battiste and Little Jo charge through the cots riling           refugees into revolt as the orderlies chase them trying to           maintain decorum.                                                   JEAN BATTISTE           Go home! Everybody get up! Don't           you want to go home? Lets go!           These people don't care about you!                                    Little Jo fights off an orderly with a syringe.                                                   LITTLE JO           You live in this hell hole!                                                             INT/EXT. REFUGEE CAMP - EVACUATION BUS - DAY                                    Wink runs the kids toward the bus, they pass two busses           labeled for Salt Lake City, Des Moines.                                    Wink helps Joy, Tee-Lou, and Lizard get on. Then Hushpuppy.                                    Suddenly Wink's hand slips out of Hushpuppy's. He steps away           from the evacuating bus. Hushpuppy turns and the bus door           slams between them.                                                   WINK           (from outside the door)           Make sure you put her somewhere           good ok?                                     Wink sags. He's giving her away. He turns to leave..                                                   HUSHPUPPY           (banging on the door)           NO! I ain't running! No!                         60                                                             Wink walks away from the bus, his chest heaving, his face           clutched in the horror of what he's done.                                    Behind him, the bus pulls forward, then veers violently.                                    Hushpuppy charges the driver clawing at her face, punching           and kicking.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           Let me go!                                    The driver pulls the break and Hushpuppy bangs the doors           open.                                    She charges Wink from behind, gives him a diving shove.                                    He topples over.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           You trying to get rid of me! You           trying to get rid of me!                                                   WINK           No!                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Why you trying to get rid of me?                                                   WINK           I ain't trying to get rid of you.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           You is.                                                   WINK           No. Hushpuppy... I can't take care           of you no more.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Yes you can.                                    Hushpuppy stares him down, accusing.                                                   WINK           Daddy's dying!                                    Hushpuppy's chest heaves up and down.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           My blood is eating itself. You           know what that means?                         61                                                                            HUSHPUPPY           Don't be sayin' about dying.                                                   WINK           Everybody's Daddy dies.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Not my Daddy.                                                   WINK           Yes, your Daddy!                                    Her defiance is broken and the information starts to sink in.           It hurts Wink as much as it hurts her.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)           I didn't want you to watch that,           ok? You understand?                                    Wink doubles over hacking. He COUGHS horribly.                                    Hushpuppy looks down and sees blood spotting the grass,           dripping from his mouth.                                    The Bathtub gangs charges out the door!                                    Across the parking lot they go in a spree of euphoria, coming           to a halt around Wink.                                    Hushpuppy is trying to drag his limp body across the parking           lot.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Come on! Come on!                                    Little Jo hold Hushpuppy away from him.                                                   WINK           Walrus, get me home.                                                             EXT. LAFOURCHE ROAD - DAY                                    The Bathtub crew carries Wink through the entrance to town.           His arms slug over Walrus and Jean Battiste, he's barely able           to help walk.                                    We sense from the weary faces and silent eyes that it's been           a long journey home.                         62                                                             INT./EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    They drag Wink through the Shacko entrance.                                    Everyone goes in except Hushpuppy who stops outside the door           as they lay him down in convulsions. She stays and tries to           watch.                                    Wink tries to say something to Walrus and can't. Blood           bubbles out of his mouth. Wink catches Hushpuppy's eye then           looks away as fast as he can.                                    Reeling, but steady, Hushpuppy backs out the door.                                                             EXT. LAFOURCHE ROAD - DAY                                    Hushpuppy walks down the road in an almost eerie state of           calm. She takes in the remnants of rusting houses and           flipped boats, her lifeless ghost town.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           Everybody looses the thing that           made them, it's even how it's           supposed to be in nature.                                                             EXT. LAVA RIDGE - DAY                                    Now with her three friends, she tip-toes past several           humongous footprints up to a gruesome fox carcass. Something           gigantic has ripped open its stomach and gutted it.                                    She leans over, unafraid, trying to understand it's meaning.           Flies swarm and nibble, their movement almost elegant. Seen           in close up, the gory mess has a strange beauty to it.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           The brave men stay and watch it           happen. They don't run.                                    A SONIC BOOM springs her upright, she looks around for the           source of the sound. Is it an Aurochs?                                    She looks towards the muddy bayou. The SONIC BOOM sounds           again and the entire body of water quivers with the impact.                                                             EXT. DARDAR RIDGE - EVENING                                    The beacon blinks out on the water.                         63                                                             Hushpuppy stares towards it. The children are gathered           behind her.                                    Something has changed in her eyes. The eerie calm has given           way to a hardened determination. Though unclear to us, her           internal path of action is certain.                                    She takes a deep breath, and lets out a WARRIOR CRY. She           runs straight into the water with her girl gang charging           behind her.                                                             EXT. GULF OF MEXICO - EVENING                                    Joy, Tee-Lou, Lizard, and Hushpuppy swim through open water,           pulling each other forward. They head in the direction of           the beacon.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Come on! Keep going!                                    They try to kick toward the light but are getting nowhere,           the current pulls them backwards.                                    We hear a BOAT HORN and they look to where an ANCIENT TUG           BOAT with a cabin that towers into the sky like a giraffe           head, appears through the mist.                                                             EXT. GULF OF MEXICO - SERGEANT MAJOR'S BOAT - EVENING                                    The girls climb aboard, lifting each other onto the deck.                                    They look up to the sound of FOOTSTEPS on the upper deck.                                    Hushpuppy looks up to see SERGEANT MAJOR (60) -                                    A big, timeless looking man with a salt and pepper moustache,           saunters up to the rail. He stares down, examining these           runts with an air of suspicion.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I'm going by my Mamma.                                    He smiles broadly, as if this was the secret password. Him           and Hushpuppy stare at each other and immediately there is           understanding. Two lost souls in the wilderness.                                                   SERGEANT MAJOR           That's a good place to go.                         64                                                             EXT. GULF OF MEXICO - SERGEANT MAJOR'S BOAT - EVENING                                    Hushpuppy sits adjacent to the Sergeant in the tug's elevated           wheelhouse. They are two stories up, and the white walls           create a glow that makes us feel like we're almost in another           dimension.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           Which way are we going?                                                   SERGEANT MAJOR           Don't matter baby, this boat'll           take you exactly where you need to           be. It's just that type of boat.                                    Hushpuppy and Sergeant Major share an ease unlike anyone else           we've seen Hushpuppy interacted with. The speak like an old           teacher with his favorite disciple. They let their silences           last.                                    SERGEANT MAJOR (CONT'D)           You want a chicken biscuit?                                    Hushpuppy shakes her head `no'.                                    SERGEANT MAJOR (CONT'D)           They're good for you.                                    A deep, far away melancholy settles over him. He munches on           a chicken biscuit, then tosses the wrapper on the floor. The           wheelhouse is wall to wall with chicken biscuit wrappers.                                    SERGEANT MAJOR (CONT'D)           I been eating these all my life. I           keep the wrappers in the boat,           `cause they remind me who I was           when I ate each one. The smell           make me feel cohesive.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I wanna be cohesive.                                                    SERGEANT MAJOR           Oh you will be, I got no doubt in           my mind.                                    They let this thought settle, then Hushpuppy turns her swivel           chair back toward the water                         65                                                             The beacon appears through the mist. Hushpuppy's eyes go           wide.                                    As they approach, another boat comes into view. A half-           sunken barge that looks as though its been rusting in the           same position for a century. As we move in we see a lit up           sign: "Elysian Fields Floating Catfish Shack GIRLS GIRLS           GIRLS."                                                             EXT./INT. ELYSIAN FIELDS - ENTRANCE - EVENING                                    Hushpuppy, Joy, Tee-Lou, and Lizard disembark onto the barge           with Sergeant Major following behind. They circle around a           hatch in the floor with light pulsing out of it. Far-away           JAZZ echoes up from the bowels of the ship. They look to           each other in wonder.                                                             INT. ELYSIAN FIELDS - DANCE FLOOR - NIGHT                                    Hushpuppy descends a ladder into a glimmering wonderland.           Christmas lights swallow the ceiling, and a light smoke           facade encompasses everything. We feel like we're looking at           a portal into the past, a Belloq-esque turned New Orleans           Jazz parlor. The regulars are all oil-workers wooing their           ladies of the night.                                    There is a stage with a DJ and two singers, karaokeing along           with "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" by Fats Waller.                                    The hyperactive MISS FRANKIE, the matriarch of this           establishment, comes a'hoppin'.                                                   MISS FRANKIE           Holy crap you have toddlers!                                                   SERGEANT MAJOR           Good afternoon, Miss Frankie.                                                   MISS FRANKIE           Well butter my butt and call me a           biscuit! How you, Sergeant Major?           You need some grits?                                                   SERGEANT MAJOR           Yes ma'am.                         66                                                                            MISS FRANKIE           Holy Sugar, they are so precious!           Y'all just as cute as a tub of           puppies!                                    Women descend on the kids who recoil, not knowing what to do           with all this affection. Joy Strong puts up her fists.                                    Hushpuppy pushes through the crowd nonplussed by the flurry           of doting ladies. They are not who she is looking for. They           are not who she is looking for.                                    She scans pictures of strippers through the ages pasted up           all over the ceiling, each of them with a bra hung on it,           none of them right.                                    Bar patrons nod and tip their glasses to her as she passes,           ladies smile and return to their drinks, drunk flirtatious           dancers giggle at her, but she remains unfazed.                                    She reaches two swinging doors that lead to the kitchen.                                    Hushpuppy stops. Sniffs. Heaven.                                    SLOW MOTION: in Hushpuppy's POV, smoke curls through the           swinging doors, the light illuminating the dust particles.           It's a magic kitchen. Her POV tilts down to the floor where           a pair of well-pedicured feet in flip-flops walks towards the           swinging doors. They open.                                    Hushpuppy holds her breath.                                    A gorgeous COOK (35) wearing a baseball cap and an apron           comes out the double doors. She wipes some sweat off her           brow. She watches the band and kills a bottle of ice-cold           beer.                                    The Cook looks down. Sees Hushpuppy.                                                   COOK           You need something baby?                                    Hushpuppy nods, holding her breath. She still can't speak.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           Well whatchu want? You alone?                                    Hushpuppy shrugs.                                    She's too stunned, too shy to speak.                         67                                                             The Cook takes stock of the helpless creature in front of           her. Like a butcher shop owner with a pesky hungry puppy,           she submits to Hushpuppy's longing gaze.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           Get in here, I'm'll show you a           magic trick.                                    Hushpuppy follows her into the magic kitchen, knocking her           head against the swinging doors on her way in.                                                             INT. ELYSIAN FIELDS - KITCHEN                                    With the smooth fanfare of a circus performer, The Cook lifts           an egg, opens a beer bottle with her teeth, SPITS the cap at           the egg and it cracks over the grits.                                    Hushpuppy's face is joy beyond all measure. She watches the           Cook's flying hands, she prepares everything in a single           motion, it's like a dance. She slaps a fresh alligator tail           on the table and begins sawing through the scales.                                                   COOK           Lemme tell you somethin', when           you're a child people tell you that           everything's gonna be all hunky-           dory and all that bullshit, but I'm           here to tell you that it's not. So           get that out your head right now.                                    She removes the knife from the gator and aims it at Hushpuppy           like its a pointer.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           Life's some big old feast, yeah,           but you? You ain't nothin' but a           stupid little waitress.                                    She scales a gator, strips the bones, dredges, fries.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           Everything you got on your platter           gonna fall on the floor and ain't           nobody gonna be there to pick it up           for you. Someday it's all gonna be           on you.                         68                                                             She stirs the grits. Grits on plate. Gator on plate. Plate           in front of Hushpuppy. Lemon is squeezed all over           everything.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           So smile, girl.                                    Hushpuppy tries to crack a grin. She barely remembers how to           smile and it comes out all wrong. The Cook shakes her head,           opens another beer on her teeth, and heads for the pantry.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           Nobody likes a pity-party-having-           ass-woman.                                    Hushpuppy stays behind staring into the floating particles of           dust in the incandescent light-- stars of the universe. The           golden bubbling fry pot-- lava of the molten core.                                                             INT. ELYSIAN FIELDS - KITCHEN - LATER THAT NIGHT                                    Four perfect gator nuggets are placed next to a sumptuous           dollop of grits.                                                   COOK           The gator's magic.                                    Hushpuppy looks up from her food-hypnosis.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           (encouraging a smile)           Awwwwwwwww.                                    A real smile emerges across Hushpuppy's face.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           Mmm-hmm.                                                             INT. ELYSIAN FIELDS - DANCE FLOOR - NIGHT                                    Magic soars as the couples rock back and forth on the dance           floor. Strippers cradle their dates. It's all very sweet           and tender. This seems to be the M.O of this strip club,           slow-dance not pole-dance.                                    The kids are each dancing with a stripper, glowing with love.           They are orphans in a heaven of mothers.                         69                                                             We float back to Hushpuppy, the camera dances with her and           the Cook.                                    The Cook squeezes Hushpuppy and spins her. Each time we           catch their face their eyes are wetter and wetter.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           You can take care of me. Me and           Daddy.                                    After a long beat.                                    The Cook shakes her head `no.'                                                   COOK           I don't know nothing bout your           Daddy, I can't take care of nobody           but myself.                                    This sinks into Hushpuppy.                                                   COOK (CONT'D)           You can stay if you want.                                    Hushpuppy considers this for a moment, squeezes the Cook.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           This is my favorite thing.                                                   COOK           I know.                                    A far-away look has come over her. Her mind is somewhere           else.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           I can count all the time I've been           lifted.                                                             INT. HUSHPUPPY'S HOUSE - DIMLY LIT ROOM - DAY                                    We look up at a face that's slowly coming into focus- it's           Wink, younger and healthier.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           I can count all the times I've been           lifted on two fingers.                         70                                                             He is the first sight of the slimy newborn baby girl tucked           in his arm. Baby Hushpuppy stares up at him as he carries           her.                                    WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S)           Wink! Bring my baby here! They           need to wash her off.                                                   WINK           Naw, that waits.                                    Baby Hushpuppy's huge-eyed, warped facial expression ogles           Wink. She coos.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)                          (TO HUSHPUPPY)           Alright fatso, breathe some air.                                    They pass through a doorway and sun washes over Baby           Hushpuppy. She smiles and smiles at the world.                                                             INT. ELYSIAN FIELDS - DANCEFLOOR - NIGHT                                    Back in reality Hushpuppy gathers herself. She's suddenly           not hugging back, just being held.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           I need to go home.                                                   COOK                          (WHISPERED)           No.                                    Hushpuppy cups her hand to the Cook's ear and whispers           something inaudible.                                    The Cook squeezes her tight, seeming on the verge of adopting           her. But she can't. She spins Hushpuppy around and around,           then puts her down withouth meeting her gaze.                                    Hushpuppy watches her disappear into the crowd of swaying           couples.                                    All goes quiet, and we sit behind Hushpuppy's head, a sea of           light like a crown around her.                                    MUSIC SWELLS. Decisively, with the force of a charging           general, Hushpuppy turns and runs toward camera.                         71                                                             EXT. DEAD OAK RIDGE - DAY                                    MATCH CUT to Hushpuppy leading Joy, Tee-Lou, and Lizard           across a ridge dotted with Dead Oak trees, she's come back to           the Bathtub.                                                             EXT. DEAD OAK RIDGE - WATER - DAY                                    The camera moves over the water, past the dead oaks.                                    We turn the corner past a stretch of marsh, and come upon the           Aurochs, four of them, now suddenly and viscerally in the           landscape of the Bathtub, swimming steadily toward solid           land.                                                             INT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    The Bathtub crew sits by Wink's bed. His eyes are open, but           everyone is silently waiting for the inevitable.                                                             EXT. ARK WRECKAGE - DAY                                    The children crest the ridge.                                    The RUMBLE of Aurochs hoofs is suddenly and violently           audible.                                    Hushpuppy turns. She catches a glimpses of something massive           moving behind the distant oaks.                                    The kids turn and hustle down the ridge.                                    Hushpuppy, Joy, Tee-Lou, and Lizard hustle down hill with           increased urgency. The DISTANT TRAMPLING is growing louder.                                    Behind Hushpuppy the dark shapes of the Aurochs crest the           ridge in a deafening STAMPEDE. Joy, Tee-Lou, and Lizard           scream and sprint out in front of Hushpuppy.                                    Hushpuppy walks steadily forward, refusing to run. Her face           locked with determination, she is unafraid. Her eyes shoot           toward the shacko.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    Wink, with all his strength looks toward Hushpuppy, their           eyes meet.                         72                                                             In Wink's POV, Hushpuppy stops dead on the bridge, waiting           for her fate, staring toward her father.                                                             EXT. ARK WRECKAGE - DAY                                    The Aurochs bear down on Hushpuppy from behind, their           footsteps rattling the frame. They grow inconceivably large,           the camera has to tilt to hold the frame.                                    Hushpuppy balls her fists and stands her ground. Suddenly,           she turns.                                    The Aurochs ROARS. Then, inches away from Hushpuppy, she           stops. She SNORTS, blowing Hushpuppy's hair back. Hushpuppy           doesn't flinch.                                    The Aurochs stares face to face with Hushpuppy. Sniffs.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    Wink is frozen in wonder, unable to believe his eyes.                                                             EXT. ARK WRECKAGE - DAY                                    Hushpuppy raises her chin in confident defiance.                                    Now in full profile, we see the Aurochs towering 15-feet           tall, she takes a step forwards, sniffs again. A low SNORT,           or is it a purr?                                    The Aurochs lowers her head with respect.                                    Her eyes well with emotion, recognizing one of her own. A           ferocious warrior.                                    The Aurochs steps back, takes a knee, and with a BELLY FLOP           that rattles the very earth, she lays down. Her three           companions follow suit, their fat tummies settling into an           almost joyful, lazy, repass.                                    A strange calm has settled over Hushpuppy. Almost a smile,           but more of a peace and an affection for her equal. They're           both children in their way.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           You're my friend, kind of.                         73                                                             Mother Aurochs grunts, a sentence only Hushpuppy can           understand.                                                   HUSHPUPPY (CONT'D)           I gotta take care of mine.                                    With weary and clumsy steps, the Aurochs stand and retreat.                                                             EXT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    Hushpuppy approaches the shacko. It's like walking the           plank, but she's unafraid, at one with her destiny.                                    The Bathtub crew look on her in awe. They part ways to let           her pass.                                    She reaches the door, steeling her reserve.                                    Hushpuppy opens the door.                                                             INT. SHACKO IN THE BACKO - DAY                                    Wink is curled up on Hushpuppy's bed-- very, very thin. His           eyes are closed. His chest heaves up and down in short           violent breaths. Hushpuppy stands and stares.                                    Wink looks at Hushpuppy in reverence. He knows it's the last           time.                                    Wink motions for her to come closer.                                    Hushpuppy inches toward him. It takes all of her might. She           sits on his bed.                                    Hushpuppy takes her to-go container from Elysian Fields out           of a paper bag and pops it. She unwraps a gator nugget, dips           it in hot sauce, and holds it out for Wink to take a bite.                                    Hushpuppy watches as Wink chews weakly. She eats one           herself.                                    Wink and Hushpuppy draw it out. They don't want it to end.           It takes a full minute for him to swallow the first bite, and           she paces herself to finish when he does.                                                   WINK                          (BARELY AUDIBLE)           Real good.                         74                                                             Wink's chest heaves up and down, harder and harder. A tear           rolls down his face.                                                   WINK (CONT'D)                          (CHOKING UP)           No crying, you hear?                                    She holds them back, being tough for her Daddy.                                                   HUSHPUPPY           No crying.                                    Hushpuppy's face hardens, and even as the tears fall, we see           a strength and composure that only Wink could have put there.                                    She falls into his arms and he embraces her.                                    Hushpuppy squeezes Wink. She does not let go. She stays           strong.                                    Wink's hand trembles on her back.                                    She holds him as his deep, warm, heartbeat slows, slows, and           stops. His weight slumps over her. She keeps on holding           him, but she knows.                                                             EXT. GRAVEYARD BY THE WATER - DAY                                    Steadfast, Hushpuppy holds a torch on the edge of the           Bathtub. The Turck, piled with branches, floats in front of           her.                                    She lowers the flame and lights a cloth covering Wink's body           aflame. She pushes the funeral pyre out into the current.           We watch the boat flames drift into the foreground, covering           Hushpuppy face with flames. She looks into them in all her           grief and wisdom.                                    The group begins a funeral prayer, playing quiet in the           background as Hushpuppy contemplates the pyre.                                                   PETER T           As I stand by the bayou,                                    Everyone else joins him.                                                   EVERYONE           A ship at my side starts her motors           and sails for the gulf. I watch           her until she disappears. "There!                          (MORE)                         75                                                   EVERYONE (CONT'D)           She's gone!" Gone where? Gone           from my eyes, that's all. She's           just as big as when she left me.           And somewhere else, other voices           are calling out, "Here she comes!"           And that is dying.                                    They raise their drinks to the sky and shout in unison.                                                   EVERYONE (CONT'D)           HERE! SHE! COMES!                                    Hushpuppy gazes into the sparks leaping off the top of the           fire are foregrounded in front of Hushpuppy, particles of           Wink jumping into the sky. HORNS ENTER, droning low, and           building into an funeral dirge.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           When I relax behind my eyes I see           everything that made me flying           around in invisible pieces. When I           look too hard it goes away, but           when it all goes quiet, I see they           are right here.                                    The Turck almost disappears over the horizon. The HORNS take           a hopeful turn, the melancholy of the dirge mixing with the           anthem of the Bathtub.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           I see that I'm a little piece of a           big, big universe, and that makes           things right.                                    Hushpuppy stands tiny on the ledge of the Earth, framed in           front of an expanse of endless water.                                                             EXT. CAUSEWAY - POST-FLOOD - DAY                                    The Bathtub gang marches across the marsh road. Hands touch           the town sign, saying goodbye.                                    HUSHPUPPY (V.O.)           When I die, the scientists of the           future, they gonna find it all.           They gonna know, once there was a           Hushpuppy, and she lived with her           Daddy in the Bathtub.                         76                                                             We CUT WIDE to reveal that the water is rising and washing           over the road. Our heroes are marching on the final sliver           of land. The camera flies backwards, and our view of the           road disappears into mist and churning waves. They appear to           be walking on water.                                    Hushpuppy leads them forward, into the future.                                    CUT TO BLACK.
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+"BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA" by Mike Judge and Joe Stillman The movie begins with scenes of people screaming in horror and running down the streets of a big city. The ground shakes from what seems like giant footsteps. There are pieces of building debris falling everywhere, people getting crushed, power lines coming down, etc. - complete pandemonium. It all looks very much like a Japanese animated King-Kong or Godzilla movie. We hear the footsteps getting closer and the ground shaking becomes more intense - more debris falling. Then we see a HUGE BLACK TENNIS SHOE come into frame and smash a National Guard truck. As we pan up, we see the white socks, then the red shorts, the AC/DC T- shirt, then we hear the familiar, "Huh huh huh." - only it's a huge sound...this is a THREE-HUNDRED FOOT TALL BUTT-HEAD. "Butt- Kong" continues his path of destruction - stomping on cars and buildings and saying, "This is cool. Huh huh huh." Airplanes and tanks start firing at Butt-Head (Butt-Kong). He looks irritated and says, "Cut it out butt-munch!" Butt-Head swats at the planes, sending them crashing to the ground and stomps on the tanks. Then, something catches his eye. Butt-Head reaches into a skyscraper and picks up a nice looking woman - a lot like the one from the King Kong movie. He looks down at her in his hand and goes wide-eyed, "Whoa! Huh huh huh." The woman screams in terror as Butt-Head looks down at her and tries a few lame pick up lines. "Uuuuh...Hey baby. I'm like, pretty tall. Huh huh huh." He swats down a helicopter that is circling his head, "Dammit, I'm trying to score!" The helicopter goes down in flames. We CUT TO some guys sitting on a tank firing at him. They notice giant footsteps coming from the other direction and turn the tank around. Through their binoculars we see a THREE-HUNDRED FOOT BEAVIS coming from the horizon. The giant Beavis is even more destructive than Butt-Kong (maybe he could be breathing fire). Beavis starts trying to pick up on Butt-Head's woman. Butt-Head puts the woman down and he and Beavis begin to go at it, leveling the city with one of their stupid juvenile smack-fights. We CROSS-DISSOLVE from three-hundred foot Beavis shaking Butt-Kong to Butt-Head asleep on the couch with Beavis shaking him. INT. B&B'S HOME - DAY BEAVIS (O.C.) Butt-Head! Butt-Head! Hey, Butt-Head! Butt-Head is dead asleep on the couch. Beavis shakes him. BEAVIS Butt-Head, wake up, wake up! Butt-Head comes around. BUTT-HEAD Dammit, Beavis, I was about to score. Huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah, but check it out. It's gone! BUTT-HEAD What's gone? BEAVIS The TV. Beavis is making STRANGE NOISES, in a state of shock. Butt-Head rubs his eyes and looks at the empty space where the TV was. BUTT-HEAD Uuuuuuh, huh huh. Uuh,... Out the window, we see two YOUNG MEN carrying B&B's TV into their van. Still on the couch, Butt-Head looks over at the broken window. We see a CROWBAR lying on the floor, and the front door left open. Butt-Head looks at the BROKEN WINDOW, at the CROWBAR, the OPEN DOOR, then back at the EMPTY SPACE where the TV was. He does this a couple of times - piecing it all together. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) Whoa! I think I just figured something out Beavis. BEAVIS What? BUTT-HEAD This sucks. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. Beavis is still in shock. They both stare at the empty space where the TV was for a beat, not quite sure what to do. Beavis is SHAKING AND MAKING WEIRD NOISES. He presses buttons on the remote a few times, as if it might help somehow. BUTT-HEAD This sucks more than anything that has ever sucked before. We must find this butt-hole that took the TV. EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT Bad neighborhood. 70's music blares. A fast driving car drives right at us and stops. Punks run in fear. Beavis hops out of the driver's seat, wearing bell-bottoms, chain jewelry and a 70's afro. Into a dramatic CLOSE-UP, he takes off his glasses. FREEZE ON BEAVIS ANNOUNCER Beavis! FRAME UNFREEZES. Beavis whips out a huge gun. BEAVIS Freeze, butt-wipe! An attacker comes from one side. Beavis uses Judo. Another tosses a knife. Beavis ducks, then shoots with two hands, police style. INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT Swinger's pad. Totally 70's. A group of bikini'd girls on a waterbed. Butt-Head approaches them. He wears a leisure suit, collar way open. He plops down in the bed. FREEZE ON BUTT-HEAD ANNOUNCER Butt-Head! FRAME UNFREEZES. The girls wrap their arms around him. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. Come to Butt-Head, baby. ANNOUNCER Star in... MAIN TITLE - FULL FRAME EXT. CITY STREETS - DAY/NIGHT ACTION MONTAGE BEGINS. Styled like a 70's cop show opening. OPENING CREDITS to the movie appear just as cop show credits would. Beavis does a Starsky and Hutch-style roll with a gun. Butt-Head slaps a pimp. Beavis drives, chasing a car. Butt-Head is slapped by a girl. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. That was cool. Beavis and Butt-Head are in a warehouse shoot-out. A black police chief rises from a desk to yell at B&B. B&B dive for cover just before a building explodes. In CLOSE-UP, Beavis smiles for an ID shot. Butt-Head does the same. Beavis, in a rooftop fight, kicks his opponent over the edge. A beautiful woman, back to us, takes off her dress for Butt-Head. FINAL OPENING CREDIT APPEARS. Butt-Head and the woman fall into bed. Suddenly... INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY/DOOR TO A.V. ROOM - DAY From inside, SOUND of equipment crashing. B&B come out wheeling a TV on one of those carts. There are cables attached to it still leading back into the A.V. room. As they push the cart we hear more equipment falling. BUTT-HEAD Dammit, it's stuck. They give it one big push and it finally breaks free. We see that the cables are tangled with cables from other TVs and VCRs, which all come crashing to the ground. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) Huh huh huh. That was cool. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. Let's just wheel this thing back to the house. INT. SCHOOL/ANOTHER HALLWAY - DAY MR. VAN DRIESSEN stops B&B. VAN DRIESSEN Ah, excuse me boys. What's going on here? BUTT-HEAD Uh, someone stole our TV. BEAVIS Yeah. We're just gonna use this one. Get outta the way. Heh heh. VAN DRIESSEN I'm afraid that TV belongs to the school. Mmmkay? You know, this could be a positive experience for you guys. There's a wonderful world out there when we discover we don't need TV to entertain us. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. He said "anus." BEAVIS (to himself) Entert-ain...us...an-us...Oh yeah! Heh heh. Anus. Heh heh. VAN DRIESSEN (frustrated) Have you guys heard a word I've said? BUTT-HEAD Yeah, "anus." Huh huh huh huh. VAN DRIESSEN Look, guys, just take the TV back to the A.V. room right now. And try to be a little more open-minded. Mmkay? Van Driessen leaves. B&B continue to wheel the cart home. BUTT-HEAD What a dork. Huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. He's a anus. Heh heh. EXT. SCHOOL/STAIRWAY - DAY B&B arrive with the cart at the top of a stairway. They lamely attempt to let it slowly down the steps. The cart is too top-heavy and goes tumbling to the bottom of the stairs, shattering the TV. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. That was cool. BEAVIS No it wasn't! BUTT-HEAD Uh,...Oh yeah. B&B stand at the top of the stairs looking down at the wrreckage. PRINCIPAL McVICKER shows up by the TV. McVICKER Why.... You... You bastards... Ge... get out! You're suspended. One more screw up... and you're expelled. B&B walk off laughing. EXT. THE ANDERSON'S DRIVEWAY - DUSK B&B walk up. There's a camper in the driveway. BUTT-HEAD Whoa, check it out Beavis. I didn't know Anderson had a Camper. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. Maybe it has a TV. Heh heh. TV. B&B walk up to the camper and start to open the door just as MARCY ANDERSON opens it. (As usual, she doesn't recognize them.) MARCY Oh, hello. Are you guys here to look at the refrigerator? BUTT-HEAD Uh, no. BEAVIS We're here to look at the TV. Heh heh. MARCY Oh, I didn't realize it was broken. Come on in. BUTT-HEAD Cool. Huh huh huh. B&B walk into the camper. Marcy stays outside. EXT. ANDERSON'S CAMPER - SAME TIME Tom is adjusting the trailer-hitch. Marcy watches. TOM Well that oughtta hold her. Ya know, the most important thing you can have on a camper is a good propane regulator, and this here's the best one they make. MARCY I sure hope we can get the 'fridge fixed before we leave. TOM Now Marcy, we've been savin' for this trip our whole lives and we're gonna go come Hell or high water... Through the camper walls, we hear the faint sound of B&B AIR/MOUTH-GUITARING "IRON MAN." TOM (CONT.) What the hell is that noise? INT. ANDERSON'S CAMPER - DUSK B&B watch a "Cops"-type show. Beavis gets up, goes to the refrigerator and grabs a soda. The refrigerator is under the counter on which the TV is sitting. Beavis takes a sip and then does a SPIT TAKE, SPRAYING SODA ALL OVER THE TOP OF THE TV. BEAVIS AAAAAAGH!!! This crap is warm! ANGLE ON TV: The soda Beavis spit out drips into the inside of the TV. We see smoke and hear SIZZLING AND SHORT CIRCUIT SFX. The TV goes dead. BUTT-HEAD Beavis, you butt-hole! You broke it. EXT. ANDERSON'S CAMPER - DUSK B&B come out. Tom notices them. TOM Hey, what's goin' on here? MARCY They're here to fix the TV, Tom. TOM The TV ain't broken. BUTT-HEAD Yeah it is. Huh huh huh. Tom adjusts his glasses as he looks at B&B. TOM'S BLURRY P.O.V.: We see B&B out of focus. TOM Hey wait a minute. You two look kinda familiar. Ain't you them kids that've been whackin' off in my tool shed? BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh huh huh. ANGLE ON BEAVIS: looking particularly guilty, eyes shifting back and forth. B&B walk off, leaving Tom wondering. EXT. STREET IN A SEEDY PART OF TOWN - JUST BEFORE DAWN B&B are having TV withdrawal. Butt-Head is bug-eyed. Beavis has the shakes bad, arms folded like Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy." BEAVIS Nnnnooo. Oooooh nooooo. BUTT-HEAD What's your problem Beavis? BEAVIS I need TV now! Now! NNNNDAMMIT!!! Butt-Head stops short. He looks up. His face is bathed in a golden, throbbing light. BUTT-HEAD'S P.O.V.: We see a flashing neon sign that says, "TV". Pull back to show B&B are standing outside the Elite Motel Lodge, featuring "Color TV" and "Air-Cooled Rooms", with "Special Nap Rates." B&B stare up, as if at a god. BEAVIS (crazed) Heh heh. TV. Heh Teee Veee. EXT. MOTEL COURT - CONTINUOUS Butt-Head tries the first door. It's locked. He tries the second door. It's locked. He tries the third door. It opens. B&B's eyes bulge. Inside, PRINCIPAL McVICKER is lying across the legs of an obvious prostitute, his pants pulled down. She SPANKS him. McVICKER Please mmm... may I have another?! B&B LAUGH. McVicker hears and looks up. McVICKER (CONT.) Beavis and Butt-Head! Y...y...you bastards. BEAVIS Can we watch your TV? McVICKER Y... Y... You're expelled! Get out! Butt-Head closes the door, laughing, and starts to walk towards the next door. The muffled sound of a SPANK can be heard followed by McVicker asking for another. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. That was cool. BEAVIS Dammit! I need a TV now! We're missing everything! INT. MOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS The only light in the room is a flickering TV. Sitting on the bed, talking on the phone is MUDDY. He's a tough, mean looking red-neck - a Jack Ruby type. On the nightstand next to him is a three-quarter drunk bottle of bourbon and a manila envelope. On his lap is a big gun. MUDDY ...Are you sure these guys can pull this off? It's gotta look like an accident... We hear a knock on the door and muffled B&B laughs. MUDDY (CONT.) Hold on a minute. That must be them now. I'll call you back. (Hangs up phone)... Come in! B&B walk in. Muddy turns on the light. BEAVIS (sounding suddenly sedated) Aaaah. TeeeVeeeee, heh heh. MUDDY Yer late. BUTT-HEAD Why? Did we miss American Gladiators? MUDDY'S P.O.V.: B&B are a drunken blur. MUDDY Well, Earl said you guys were young, but jeez... Oh well, as long as you can get the job done. So what are your names? BUTT-HEAD Uh, Butt-Head. BEAVIS Beavis. MUDDY That's alright. I'd rather not know your real names anyways. I'm Muddy. Look, I'm gonna get right to the point. I'll pay you ten grand plus expenses, all payable after you do her... BUTT-HEAD (full of innuendo) Do her? Huh huh. MUDDY That's right. I'm offering you ten grand plus expenses to do my wife. We gotta deal? Butt-Head stares in shock. BEAVIS Actually, we just wanna watch TV... BUTT-HEAD Shut up Beavis! Uh, yeah. We'll do your wife. BEAVIS (trembling) Nnnnaah...We need to watch TV DAMMIT!!! Butt-Head SMACKS Beavis and pulls him aside. BUTT-HEAD Beavis, you butt-munch, this guy wants us to score with his wife. And he's gonna pay us. We can buy a new TV. BEAVIS Oh, heh heh really? Cool. Heh heh. BUTT-HEAD (to Muddy) Uh, huh huh... We'll do it, sir. MUDDY Okay, then let's get down to business. ANGLE ON THE BED. Muddy slaps down a picture of DALLAS, his wife. Leather clad, biker, beautiful. MUDDY (CONT.) Here she is. Her name's Dallas. She ain't as sweet as she looks. She stole everything from me. Ya gotta watch out, 'cause she'll do you twice as fast as you'd do her. BUTT-HEAD Whoa, huh huh. Cool. Muddy plunks down PLANE TICKETS. MUDDY She's holed up in a hotel room in Las Veags. Your flight leaves in a couple of hours. Now c'mon, I'll drive you to the airport. BUTT-HEAD Holed up. Huh huh huh. Holed. BEAVIS Can we watch some TV first? Muddy picks up the gun and SHOOTS the TV. MUDDY No. EXT. CITY STREETS - MORNING Muddy driving his loud four-by-four like a maniac, drunk with bloodshot eyes. B&B are in the back seat. He eyes them through the rearview. Meanwhile, a cat bounces off the windshield with a SHRIEK. MUDDY One more thing. Mah wife's got this leather satchel. It's black, about this big. I need ya to bring it back. It's real important. Sentimental value... Any questions so far? BUTT-HEAD Uh, yeah. Does she have big hooters? MUDDY She sure does. BUTT-HEAD This is gonna be cool! Huh huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. Boooooiiiing!!! MUDDY Just make sure it looks like an accident... BEAVIS (spastic) Yeah, heh heh. I think I just had an accident. Heh heh hmm heh hmm heh. MUDDY Huh huh. You guys are funny. Let's have a drink on it. Muddy swigs the last swallow from his bottle of bourbon. EXT. AIRPORT - EARLY MORNING In an overhead view, the four-by-four screeches up to the gate, fishtails to a stop, throwing B&B onto the sidewalk, and peels away. BUTT-HEAD We're gonna get paid to score. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh, and then we're gonna get a big-screen TV! Heh heh. BUTT-HEAD Beavis, this is the greatest day of our lives. Huh huh huh. INT. AIRPLANE - DAY B&B enter the plane. They sit down in the first two seats on the right - in First Class. A flight attendant, DOLORIS approaches them. DOLORIS Hi. Can I help you find your seats? BUTT-HEAD Uuh, nah. These seats are OK. DOLORIS I think your tickets have you seated in row fourteen, coach. So why don't you just go ahead and move back, OK? BUTT-HEAD That's OK. Someone else can have those. BEAVIS Yeah, it's not that important to me, really. Those seats are too small anyways. Doloris yanks them out of their seats and leads them down the aisle. ANGLE DOWN AISLE in coach. Doloris stops by a row where an elderly woman, MARTHA, sits by the window. Next to her: Two empty seats. DOLORIS Here you are. She gestures to the seats and leaves. Beavis climbs in the middle, Butt-Head in the aisle - still watching Doloris. BUTT-HEAD Hey Beavis. When she was leading us down here, huh huh, she touched my butt. Huh huh huh. Martha, her senses a bit dimmed from age, turns to B&B. MARTHA Hello there. Are you two heading for Las Vegas? BEAVIS Yeah, we're gonna score. MARTHA I hope to score big there myself. I'm mostly going to be doing the slots. BEAVIS Yeah, I'm hoping to do some sluts too. Heh heh. Do they have lots of sluts in Las Vegas? MARTHA Oh, there are so many slots you won't know where to begin. BEAVIS Whoa! heh heh. Hey Butt-Head, this chick is pretty cool. She says there's gonna be tons of sluts in Las Vegas! Heh heh heh. BUTT-HEAD Cool. Huh huh huh. MARTHA It's so nice to meet young men who are so well mannered. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. I'm gonna have money, and a big-screen TV and sluts everywhere! MARTHA Oh, that's nice. CAPTAIN'S VOICE (V.O.) (through P.A.) Good morning. This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard flight 151 non-stop to Las Vegas. We ask that you turn your attention to the front of the cabin for pre-flight safety instructions. B&B see Doloris, stepping nearby to demonstrate the seat belt. ATTENDANT'S VOICE To fasten your seat belt, insert the free end into the coupling. BUTT-HEAD Insert. Huh huh huh. Doloris demonstrates. B&B are dumbfounded. It's too complicated. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) Uh... They struggle to make their seat belts fit, getting each other's parts. TAMMY (O.C.) Hi, I'm Tammy? Can I help you with that? Butt-Head looks up. From his P.O.V. we see a beautiful woman, TAMMY, smiling, her hands reaching down. FALLING IN LOVE/HARP MUSIC STING plays. CLOSE on Butt-Head's lap as two female hands reach down and pull one strap from between Butt-Head's legs. Butt-Head looks down at his lap as Tammy leans over him. A loud CLICKING can be heard. Butt-Head stares blankly. TAMMY (CONT.) There you go. You're all set. BUTT-HEAD (stunned) I love you. Suddenly Martha buckles Beavis' belt. Tammy goes. BEAVIS Wait, I wanted her to do it. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. Soon, she will be mine. CAPTAIN'S VOICE Flight attendants, please prepare for take-off. The engines start to hum. The plane is rolling. Butt-Head struggles to get his seat belt off. He does everything but pull the handle. Beavis goes white with fear. The plane starts to shake. The engines rumble. Beavis starts to freak. BEAVIS Hey wait a minute. What's going on?! Butt-Head bangs away at his seat belt. Beavis looks out the window and realizes they're in the air. BEAVIS (CONT.) (screams) Aaaagh! We're gonna die!!!!! ANGLE ON COUPLE IN FRONT OF B&B: MAN D'ya hear that? Something must be wrong! WOMAN Oh my God!!!!!!! ANGLE ON CABIN, people start screaming. The plane quakes, lifting up. ON BUTT-HEAD, furiously pulling: BUTT-HEAD Dammit! Huh huh. That chick wants me. BEAVIS Aggghg! We're gonna die! We're all gonna die! The plane arcs upward. Butt-Head finally gets the belt off as the plane is in full thrust. He rises and goes tumbling backward down the aisle. ON PEOPLE seeing Butt-Head flying, screaming in panic. In free fall: Butt-Head grabs the door to the hangable luggage. It all comes tearing out. Butt-Head flies up, hitting several overhead luggage racks, which open and spill their contents. Butt-Head lands in the galley, causing food to go flying and coffee to pour freely. ON THE CABIN as the plane starts to level out. People stop their screaming. ON BUTT-HEAD, underneath the rubble, poking his head out. He's directly across from the flight attendant station where Tammy is strapped in. BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh... could you, like, do that thing with my belt again? INT. PLANE - LATER All's in order. Flight attendants roll the beverage cart up the aisle. People read, relaxed. ON BEAVIS AND MARTHA. Martha is showing pictures of her grandchildren. Beavis is showing the picture of Dallas that Muddy gave him. BEAVIS I'm probably going to make out with her first before we, you know, get down... MARTHA You'll have to speak up son. I have this ringing in my ears. My doctor says it could be related to my heart palpitations. I've had two operations on my heart. BEAVIS Really? I poop too much. MARTHA Oh, maybe you're lactose intolerant. BEAVIS Uh... No, (louder) I poop too much. Then I get tired. MARTHA Well, if you find yourself getting tired, take a couple of these. She hands him a box of NoDrowz. MARTHA (CONT.) They perk me right up. BEAVIS Heh heh, thanks. He pours the contents into his hand and chews them like candy. Then his eyes open wide. BEAVIS (CONT.) (strange) Uh, tastes like crap. Heh heh. Mmmmm. Beavis starts wolfing them down. INT. PLANE - A BIT LATER Tammy passes out meals from a rolling cart. She works with Doloris. Butt-head stands behind Tammy, attempting to hit on her. BUTT-HEAD (to Tammy) So, uh huh huh, are you going to Las Vegas? Huh huh huh. Tammy ignores him and moves on, leaving Butt-Head there. ANGLE ON BUTT-HEAD, looking down at something. PAN DOWN to reveal he's looking at a BEER on a fat guy's tray. The guy's asleep. Butt-head picks up the beer. ANGLE ON BEAVIS, nearby. The NoDrowz is starting to take effect. Beavis starts shaking, babbling, staring cross-eyed at his fist, etc. (pre-Cornholio stuff) Tammy reaches her next passenger. TAMMY Hi, we're serving dinner. Our selections tonight are chicken piccata or seafood gumbo... BEAVIS (O.S.) Piccata? Piccata! Picattatta tatta! Tammy moves forward, leaving Butt-Head standing there. In the background, we see Beavis starting to quake, on the verge of Cornholio mode. PASSENGER Does the gumbo have corn in it? ANGLE ON BEAVIS: Turned, facing the cabin, T-shirt pulled over his head in full Cornholio mode. BEAVIS I am Cornholio! I need picatta for my bunghole! TAMMY You'll have to wait your turn sir. BEAVIS Are you threatening me? My bunghole will not wait! Beavis starts to wander down the aisle. ANGLE ON CURTAIN TO FIRST CLASS CABIN. Beavis enters. From the other side, SOUND of screams. We hear several CALL BUTTONS being pressed. ON BUTT-HEAD. He approaches Tammy from behind. She ignores him. BUTT-HEAD Uh, I got a beer. Want some? Huh huh. ANGLE INSIDE THE COCKPIT. The PILOTS are relaxed and settled in when the door to the cockpit slams open. Beavis is in the doorway SCREAMING. BEAVIS Bargarajjjaaaahhh!!! I am Cornholio!! The pilots SCREAM. The copilot jumps up so fast he causes coffee to spill everywhere, including on the captain's lap. The captain then jumps up, hitting the controls and SENDING THE PLANE INTO A NOSE-DIVE. ON BUTT-HEAD In the back of the plane standing next to Tammy. He starts to take a sip of beer. The nose-dive of the plane causes Butt-Head to go FLYING TOWARDS THE FRONT OF THE PLANE. BUTT-HEAD AAAAAHHH!!! Huh huh. AAAAHHH!!! Butt-Head bounces all overthe plane and then gets tangled up in the curtain that separates first class and coach. It tears off, and he continues to fly forward. COCKPIT The captain is desperately trying to regain control of the plane. Butt-Head slams into the cockpit, landing on the control panel facing the captain. CAPTAIN Get the hell out of the cockpit! BUTT-HEAD Huh huh, you said... CAPTAIN NOW!!! The captain throws Butt-Head back behind him and pulls the plane out of the dive. EXT. LAS VEGAS AIRPORT - EARLY EVENING The plane lands. INT. COCKPIT DOOR - EARLY EVENING The flight attendants, shaken, smile at a line of people deplaning. The people are white with fear, some covered with flecks of spilled food and other matter. ATTENDANTS Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. They grow silent and still as B&B pass by. Beavis takes the T- shirt off his head, coming down from Cornholio. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. That was cool. INT. TERMINAL/ARRIVAL GATE - DAY Arriving passengers are greeted. A family is reunited. Two businessmen walk up to limo drivers holding cards with their names. A reunited couple hugs. B&B look around in confusion. BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh, this is Las Vegas? BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. I thought there'd be casinos and lights and stuff. People greet and walk away. The place starts to clear out. One limo driver is left standing. He wears sunglasses and holds a sign that reads: Beavis and Butt-Head. B&B look around. Except for the driver, they're alone. BEAVIS (CONT.) Hey Butt-Head, why's that guy holding a sign? BUTT-HEAD Uh... maybe he's blind... Huh huh, check this out. B&B go up to him. Butt-Head turns around, drops his pants and hangs a "B.A." at the guy. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. DRIVER Ah, excuse me. You wouldn't know where I can find these guys, would ya? He indicates the sign. Butt-Head turns around and pulls up his pants. They look and try to read: BUTT-HEAD (reads) Uh, B...A...U... No, uh, V... BEAVIS (reads) Uh... Buuuuut. Boot. Someone named boot. BUTT-HEAD (realizes) Huh huh. This says Beavis. BEAVIS And Boot-Head. BUTT-HEAD That's Butt-Head. Don't you get it, Beavis. These dudes have the same name as us. BEAVIS Yeah, we should party. The limo driver rolls his eyes and walks away. DRIVER This way, sirs. B&B follow the driver away. Beavis looks around. BEAVIS So where's those guys? EXT. MUDDY'S MOTEL ROOM - DAY HARLAN and ROSS, the two dumb-looking rough-necks that stole B&B's TV are standing outside Muddy's motel room. Harlan knocks on the door. ROSS Where the hell is he? HARLAN You sure this is the right place? Harlan looks through the window and sees the shattered TV. No one's there. Muddy's four-by-four SQUEALS into the lot and skids to a stop next to Harlan and Ross' van. Muddy gets out, looking really drunk now. HARLAN (CONT.) You Muddy? MUDDY (slurring) You the cops? ROSS Uh, no. Earl sent us. You know, to take care of your wife... Muddy grabs Ross by the collar. MUDDY What the hell?!... What about those other... ROSS Huh? Muddy tosses Ross to the sidewalk and starts back to they four-by- four. MUDDY Dammit!!! She did it to me again!!! HARLAN Hey, I noticed your TV was broken. You wanna buy a new one? Muddy gets in the four-by-four and starts it. MUDDY I'm gonna go to Vegas and kill all three a' them! Harlan and Ross seem momentarily confused. Muddy revs the engine, peels out backwards HITTING THE FRONT OF THE VAN. This causes B&B's TV and some other loot to spill out the back onto the sidewalk. Ross starts to pick it up. HARLAN Just leave it. Worthless piece o' crap. ROSS Yeah, really. We gotta start stealin' from rich people. EXT. LAS VEGAS - DAY MONTAGE SONG BEGINS. Note: I would like this to be a well-known band (Red Hot Chili Peppers) doing their best imitation of a modern Las Vegas lounge act. I think a song like "What Am I Gonna Do With You" by Barry White or something obnoxious like "Bicostal" by Peter Allan would be cool. Or maybe Sinatra's "You Make Me Feel So Young" would be best. The car passes by major hotels and tourist sights, finally pulling up to a big luxurious hotel and casino. INT. HOTEL/CASINO - DAY Establishing shots. Excitement. Gambling tables going on forever. ON THE LOUNGE BAND playing the song we've been hearing. They should vaguely resemble the actual band doing the song. PAN DOWN rows of slot machines. PAN ACROSS DEALERS handling cards and chips. DOLLY RIGHT UP TO B&B, staring in utter awe. REVERSE ANGLE REVEALS: They're staring at a huge Roman statue of a bare-chested woman. Their faces are blank. They're seeing God. Finally: BUTT-HEAD Beavis. This is what it's all about. BEAVIS (speechless) Heh heh. Yeah. EXT. VEGAS - DUSK Lights are popping on. Billboards and signs are lighting up. The whole strip is coming alive. Pure excitement. INT. HOTEL/CASINO - DUSK ON B&B, still staring at the statue. B&B (in awe) Huh huh huh huh huh. A security guard comes and drags B&B away. ON THE LOUNGE BAND, continuing the song we've been hearing. INT. B&B'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT The door is opened by a bellboy. BELLBOY I'm so sorry about that little misunderstanding. We didn't know you were registered guests. Here's some playing chips compliments of... Beavis rushes in and grabs the remote which is attached to the night table. He tries to pull it up and can't. BEAVIS This remote's too heavy! BELLBOY Sir, it's attached to the... BUTT-HEAD Here, dumbass! Let me try! They both struggle to pull it up. Finally, they fall over backwards. Annoyed, the bellboy leaves. INT. ELEVATOR BANK/9TH FLOOR - NIGHT The elevator arrives. B&B get on. There's several sophisticated people. From inside, a computerized FEMALE ELEVATOR VOICE: ELEVATOR VOICE Ninth floor, going down. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. BUTT-HEAD Going down. Huh huh huh. The sophisticated people look repulsed. The doors close. INT. HOTEL/CASINO - NIGHT MUSIC DIPS DOWN FOR DIALOGUE. B&B step off the elevator and walk among the gambling tables. Beavis pulls one of the playing chips out of his pocket and bites into it. BEAVIS Ow! These chips suck. BUTT-HEAD What a rip-off. Come on. We gotta find that chick. Beavis tosses the chip on a roulette table. ANGLE ON THE WHEEL. The ball lands on 13. At the table, the DEALER... DEALER 13. We have a winner. (to Beavis) Sir, your chips? BEAVIS I don't want 'em! Keep 'em. DEALER Let it ride! BUTT-HEAD (to dealer) Uh... could you help us find a chick? DEALER (uneasy) Sir, the casino does not partake in that kind of activity. The wheel stops. DEALER (CONT.) (amazed) 13! Winner! People oooh and aaah. More gather to watch. Through the gathering throng comes CHERYL, a hooker. CHERYL Excuse me, boys. Did I hear you say you're looking for a date? B&B freeze, shocked. CHERYL (CONT.) I'm Cheryl, and I can show you a real fine time. B&B don't move. The dealer rolls again. CHERYL (CONT.) A time you'll remember for the rest of your lives, if you know what I mean. DEALER (to Beavis) Sir, do you want your chips? BEAVIS No, Dammit! I don't want any chips! DEALER Let it ride. Cheryl puts her hands on their thighs. CHERYL What say we three go up to your room, take off our clothes and just see what comes up. B&B's eyes open wide. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh huh huh huh. BEAVIS Uh... Uh... The wheel stops. DEALER 14. No winners. CHERYL Hmmmm. Oh well. She leaves. People scatter. B&B are left alone. Staring. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. That chick was talking about doing it. BEAVIS Heh heh. This is the best night of our lives. WIDE SHOT. B&B just stand, laughing. MUSIC FADES BACK UP... INT. HOTEL LOUNGE - NIGHT ANGLE ON THE BAND, continuing the song. Tourists watch from tables - decidedly not rocking out. B&B dance alone near the stage, doing the "butt-knocker." INT. HOTEL OFFICE - NIGHT A WOMAN ATTENDANT answers the phone. WOMAN ATTENDANT Good evening. Room service. How may I help you? From the phone... B&B (on phone) Huh huh huh huh huh. The woman's disturbed. WOMAN ATTENDANT Hello... Hello... INT. HOTEL/CASINO - NIGHT B&B try to climb up and grab the gigantic boobs of the statue. Butt-Head falls, knocks Beavis off and they both hit the floor hard. INT. B&B'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT Beavis is on the phone in the main room. Butt-Head sits on the toilet and speaks from the phone in the bathroom. BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh, I'd like to be serviced... in my room. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. INT. HOTEL LOUNGE - NIGHT B&B keep dancing as the famous BAND plays the MONTAGE SONG which ENDS. EXT. VEGAS - DAWN Sunrise. The song rings out. INT. B&B'S ROOM - MORNING BEavis is picking up the night table by the remote attached to it and moving the whole thing. Butt-Head approaches a door next to the bed. BUTT-HEAD Uh, I wonder where this door goes to. Beavis comes over to check it out. Butt-Head opens the door. It's one of those double doors to the next room. Butt-Head tries to open the second door, jiggling it. Suddenly, the door opens. Someone reaches out and pulls B&B inside. It's DALLAS, the girl Muddy sent them after. INT. DALLAS' SUITE/MAIN ROOM - CONTINUOUS She has them pinned against the wall. DALLAS is hot, clad in tight leather, tattooed, pierced, sexy. BEAVIS (excited) Hey, Butt-Head, it's her! Heh heh. DALLAS All right, who are ya? C.I.A? F.B.I.? A.T.F.? BUTT-HEAD Uh... Hey baby. Are we like, doing it? BEAVIS Me first? DALLAS You got two seconds! BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh. Is that gonna be enough time? Dallas grabs Butt-Head by the shirt. DALLAS Who sent ya? BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh, this fat dude. He said we could do you. And he was gonna pay us. DALLAS Muddy! Sonofabitch! Hold it. What's he payin' ya? BUTT-HEAD Uh, ten uh... DALLAS Ten grand? That cheap-ass... I got a better deal for ya. I'll double it. I'll pay ya twenty if you go back there and do mah husband. BUTT-HEAD Uh, you want us to do a guy? Huh huh. No way. BEAVIS (considering it) Umm,... I don't know Butt-Head. That is a lot of money... Maybe if we close our eyes and pretend he's a chick... Butt-Head SMACKS Beavis, bringing him to his senses. From outside, SOUND of a police siren. Dallas goes to the window. The place is being surrounded by police and plain black cars. DALLAS (panics) Damn! You boys, you wait right there. Dallas goes into the next room and closes the door. B&B look at each other. They start to take their pants off. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. I'm ready for love. BEAVIS Me first! Me first! INT. DALLAS' SUITE/OTHER ROOM - DAY Dallas gets binoculars from her bag and scouts outside. Her P.O.V. REVEALS dozens of police and A.T.F. cars. The hotel's surrounded. As Dallas looks around, she spots a tour bus across the street. On the side: "Dream America Tours." Dallas quickly dials the phone. DALLAS (to phone) Gimme the number for Dream America Tours. (pause) Right. Dallas dials again, crossing to the door to peek out at B&B - both standing in their underwear, waiting. Beavis picks his nose. Dallas closes the door again. DALLAS (CONT.) (to phone) Yeah, you got a bus leaving today? (pause) Five minutes? Where's it goin'? (listens) Washington, D.C.? (mulls it over) Perfect. (a look back to the other room) Gimme two tickets. INT. DALLAS' SUITE/MAIN ROOM - DAY B&B are in their underwear. Butt-Head sits at the edge of the bed. Beavis tries to pull the remote off the table. Dallas enters, sees this sight, and shuts off the TV. She looms over Butt-Head. BUTT-HEAD So, uh, huh huh. Are we gonna score now? BEAVIS Me first! BUTT-HEAD Forget it, bunghole! B&B start to wrestle. Dallas sees Beavis' pants. DALLAS (realizing) Score? You boys wanna...? Butt-Head grabs Beavis' neck. BEAVIS Ow, let go, Butt-Head! BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. She picks up the pants, getting an idea. DALLAS You wait here. She takes the pants into the next room. B&B keep wrestling. BEAVIS Me first. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. No way, dude. INT. DALLAS' SUITE/OTHER ROOM - DAY TIGHT ON her black satchel. From it she lifts a delicate electronic device, the X-5 unit, about the size of a credit card. An LED light blinks. Using her switchbalde, she cuts a hole in the back seam of Beavis' pants, creating a natural pocket. She carefully slides the unit in. INT. DALLAS' SUITE/MAIN ROOM - DAY B&B's fight escalates. Butt-Head picks up a LAMP and throws it at Beavis. It hits the wall and SHATTERS. Beavis charges Butt-Head. INT. DALLAS' SUITE/OTHER ROOM - DAY Dallas is licking a piece of thread. She quickly and expertly threads a needle and then starts to sew the electronic device into the inside back of Beavis' pants. She suddenly wrinkles her nose as if she has smelled something. She holds the pants up to the light. Inside, the shadow of the unit. INT. DALLAS' SUITE/MAIN ROOM - DAY B&B fight wildly. Dallas enters and clears her throat. B&B freeze. FULL ON DALLAS, posed sexily, seductive. DALLAS Don't wear yourselves out, boys. Save some energy for me. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. BUTT-HEAD This is it, Beavis. Huh huh. We're finally gonna score. BEAVIS Heh heh. Thank God. DALLAS I'm gonna do it with both of ya. B&B (uncontrollable) Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. Dallas clears her throat to get their attention. And again. DALLAS (sexy) Boys... (shouts) Boys!!! Silence. DALLAS (CONT.) But first, you hafta do a little job for me. (touches seductively) Would you like to do a job for me? Silence. They're in shock. DALLAS (CONT.) Here's what it is. I want ya to take a bus ta Washington, D.C. That's all. And when ya get there, I'll be waitin'. You're gonna make a whole lotta money. (In their faces) And I'm gonaa give you everything! B&B (near comatose) Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. DALLAS Until then... (tosses Beavis' pants in his face) Keep your pants on. She looks back to the window, now all business. DALLAS (CONT.) OK guys, time to move out. INT. HOTEL LOBBY/FRONT DOOR - DAY A.T.F. agents enter and spread out. We see several agents go up the stairs. INT. DALLAS' ROOM/DOORWAY - DAY DALLAS Remember, Washington, D.C. You'll get more money than you ever dreamed of. And you'll get me. She kisses them both seductively. DALLAS (CONT.) (urgent) Your bus is downstairs. Get going. She shuts the door, leaving B&B outside. Nearby, a maid with her cart passes by. B&B stare, frozen for a beat, then go running for the elevator. ANGLE AROUND THE CORNER, out of B&B's view. Just as the elevator doors shut, dozens of federal agents with guns rush in and kick open Dallas' door. EXT. HOTEL/CASINO - DAY More Feds and police enter. ANGLE ON B&B, walking past, oblivious to all else. As he walks away, Beavis rubs his butt. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh. BUTT-HEAD This is gonna be cool. Huh huh. They walk to the tour bus across the street. INT. TOUR BUS - DAY B&B walk down the aisle, Beavis rubbing his butt. Most seats are taken by senior citizens. Up ahead, two vacant seats. B&B fight to get in first. BUTT-HEAD No way butt-hole! I want the window. BEAVIS Cut it out butt-hole! A VOICE Why don't you take turns? They turn. It's Martha, the woman from the plane, sitting across the aisle. BEAVIS Hey, Butt-Head, it's that slut from the plane! MARTHA Why it's you two. How'd ya do in Vegas? BEAVIS Uh, we didn't score yet. MARTHA Sorry to hear that. Me, I took a beating. BUTT-HEAD Cool, huh huh huh. MARTHA That's why I'm bussing it across America. I'm so glad you're here. (to man in next seat) Jim, I want you to meet two nice boys. JIM, an old guy, wakes up and looks over. MARTHA (CONT.) This is Travis and Bob... What's your last name, dear? BUTT-HEAD Uh... Head? huh huh. My first name's Butt. Huh huh huh. JIM Pleased to meet ya, Mr. Head. All the seniors turn around to meet them. MARTHA Meet Sylvia. And Elloise and Sam. And Ed. And Doreen. BUTT-HEAD Are you guys sluts too? Huh huh huh. EXT. TOUR BUS - DAY It takes off. We PAN back to the hotel as Muddy arrives in a cab. INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE DALLAS' ROOM - DAY DRAMATIC REVEAL of AGENT RYAN FLEMMING entering the hallway. He's an A.T.F. honcho, powerful, hard-ass. Looks like an Oliver North- type. Sounds something like Fred Thompson. He walks with his assistant, AGENT BORK and another agent. They find Dallas' room and enter. INT. DALLAS' HOTEL ROOM - DAY Dallas sits calmly, confident, as agents tear apart the room. FLEMMING So, are you going to tell us where it is or am I going to have to have Agent Hurley over there give you another cavity search? ANGLE ON AGENT HURLEY, a tough, stocky woman. DALLAS Ooh is that a promise? FLEMMING Look Mrs. Scum, we know who you are. Tell her Bork. BORK Dallas Grimes. Married to Muddy Grimes. You run a mom and pop arms smuggling ring. He tosses her some photos of her and Muddy. DALLAS Oh, you got my bad side. Bork hands Flemming another file. Flemming checks it. FLEMMING Three days ago you pulled a job at the Army Research Facility in Hadley, Nevada - where you stole... (reads) The X-5 unit. Now we happen to know you had the unit with you when you checked in here, so why don't you be a good girl and tell us where it is. DALLAS You gonna charge me with anything? (pause) I didn't think so. You wanna let me go now or wait 'till my lawyer files a wrongful arrest. BORK (aside to Flemming) We got nothing, Chief. We tore the place apart. We can only legally hold her for another couple of hours. FLEMMING (aside to Bork) Dammit! (slams fist down) Where's that damn unit??!! EXT. HOOVER DAM - DAY The bus parks. INT. TOUR BUS - DAY B&B are excited. BEAVIS Heh heh. We're in Washington! BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. We're gonna score now. MARTHA Actually, we're at the Hoover Dam. Martha walks on down the aisle. BUTT-HEAD Damn, huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. Damn right! They follow the seniors out of the bus. Beavis rubs his butt. EXT. THE ROAD - DAY Dallas drives by in a slick car. INT. DALLAS' CAR - DAY She adjusts her rearview mirror to observe a Fed car following her. She smiles. INT. HOOVER DAM - DAY B&B and the seniors are on a tour through the giant basement. B&B talk and approach the HOOVER GUIDE, speaking nearby. BEAVIS So, like, where is she? BUTT-HEAD (looks around) Yeah, really. HOOVER GUIDE Over 40 thousand cubic tons of concrete were used in the construction of the Hoover Dam. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. HOOVER GUIDE From top to bottom, this dam is 51 stories. BEAVIS Uh, huh huh, excuse me. Is this a God Damn? B&B Huh huh huh huh huh. They follow the tour into the next room. INT. HOOVER DAM/OBSERVATION ROOM - DUSK A glass wall separates this from the master control room. There, two technicians are on watch. Banks of monitors show the water and pipes from various angles. B&B are the last in. Beavis rubs his aching butt. The guide is already speaking. HOOVER GUIDE ... Generates over 6000 gigawatts of electricity, all passing through this control room. This way. The tour moves on. BUTT-HEAD This is dumb, let's find that chick. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh, enough'a this crap. They walk back from where they came. Through the glass wall, we see the two control room technicians heading out. BEAVIS (CONT.) Check it out Butt-Head, TV! BUTT-HEAD Cool! Huh huh huh. INT. HOOVER DAM/HALL OUTSIDE CONTROL ROOM DOOR - DUSK SOUND of air compression as this secure door opens. The two technicians walk out. They walk away, not seeing that behind them, B&B approach the control room door. They enter just before the door closes. SOUND of air compression locks. INT. A.T.F. HEADQUARTERS/FLEMMING'S OFFICE - DUSK Agent Bork knocks and enters. FLEMMING Talk ta me, Bork. BORK Chief, we found a witness that says he saw two teenagers leaving Dallas' room shortly before we arrived. FLEMMING Did you give him a full cavity search? BORK (confused) Ah, the witness? FLEMMING Yes. You can never be too careful Bork. BORK Well sir, I didn't really think it was necessary. You see we have a picture of them from the elevator security cam. Here, have a look. TIGHT ON PICTURE. A still of B&B laughing on the elevator. BORK (CONT.) They look like a couple of kids chief. FLEMMING Bork, don't you realize what kids today are capable of? Don't you read the papers? Suddenly the lights blink on and off. All three men look up. INT. HOOVER DAM/CONTROL ROOM - DUSK We see a bank of TV monitors, video of water, turbines, etc. Beavis is rubbing his butt against a switch on the console, causing the lights to blink on and off. BUTT-HEAD Beavis, huh huh, what'er you doing? BEAVIS My butt's bothering me! BUTT-HEAD You should kick your butt's ass. Huh huh huh. Butt-Head looks at the bank of monitors - all showing water. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) Dammit, all they have is shows about water. BEAVIS That sucks. Heh heh. They need some shows about fire! Change the channel. BUTT-HEAD Uh... Butt-Head starts randomly hitting controls everywhere while Beavis rubs his butt against a computer keypad. TIGHT ON CONTROL: "Main Water Release Valve". Butt-Head turns it. An alarm sounds. BEAVIS Yeah, turn it up! Louder! Heh heh. INT. DAM DOORS - DUSK An alarm sounds. Giant doors open, causing water to start to flood through the gates. INT. HOOVER DAM/CONTROL ROOM - DUSK Butt-Head presses more buttons. His hand is near the biggest switch for: "Master Station Control". BUTT-HEAD (reads sign) Uh... Mas... Ter... Huh huh. Masturbation, huh huh. Butt-Head throws the switch. Lights go out. SOUND of generators grinding to a halt. INT. HOOVER DAM/MACHINE ROOM - DUSK Machinery stops suddenly and large support beams break. A disaster. INT. HOOVER DAM/CONTROL ROOM - DUSK SOUND of twisted, grinding metal, loud alarms. BUTT-HEAD Uh... ON ONE OF THE MONITORS, we see a small electrical fire. BEAVIS Yeah, fire! Fire! FIRE!!! EXT. HOOVER DAM - DUSK The lights go out. EXT. VEGAS STRIP - DUSK In succession, one set of lights after another goes out. The famous strip goes dark. INT. A.T.F. HEADQUARTERS/FLEMMING'S OFFICE - DUSK The lights go dead. FLEMMING The hell's going on? INT. HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOM/VEGAS - DUSK A surgeon just makes an incision as the lights go out. SURGEON Whoooooops. EXT. CAMPGROUND - DUSK Marcy Anderson hammers the last peg in for their tent. Tom checks the stew on the fire and looks around. TOM I'll tell ya, it doesn't get any better than this. This here is God's country. Unspoiled and... A rumbling interrupts him. He and Marcy turn to see: A wall of water, heading for them. TOM (CONT.) Aaaaghhh!!!... They're smashed by the flood. EXT. HOOVER DAM - DUSK Mass chaos. Traffic jams. Honking horns. People shouting. ANGLE ON B&B AND THE SENIORS, about to get on the bus. BUTT-HEAD That was boring. Huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah, it's just the same thing over and over again. BUTT-HEAD Uh... We can't leave Washington 'till we find that chick. MARTHA Oh, we're a long ways from Washington Bob. This is the Hoover Dam. Martha gets on the bus. HOLD ON B&B. BEAVIS Damn! Heh heh hmm heh. They get on the bus. INT. VEGAS HOTEL/CASINO - DUSK Mayhem. People scream in the dark. Some steal chips and run. ANGLE TO SIDE, where Muddy has the Concierge by the neck. CONCIERGE I swear, that's all I know! They got on that tour bus. It was probably heading west. Please... Muddy slams him against the wall and walks away. MUDDY I'm gonna kill 'em! EXT. HOOVER DAM - DUSK The doors close on the tour bus. It pulls out and drives away. EXT. SIDE OF ROAD - DUSK At her car, Dallas watches the bus from a distance, then lays down her binoculars, satisfied. DALLAS You boys better show up. With a look at the Fed car behind her, she gets in her car and drives down a different road. EXT. ROAD - DUSK The bus heads off into the desert. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. HOOVER DAM - MORNING Police cars everywhere. Fire engines. Reporters. News helicopters. Disaster. Several A.T.F. cars pull up. Flemming and several of his agents get out and head immediately for the dam. INT. HOOVER DAM/CONFERENCE ROOM - MORNING TIGHT ON A TV MONITOR. It shows B&B at the Hoover Dam controls the eve before, shot on surveillance camera. Frame freezes. B&B looking particularly stupid. REVEAL Flemming's there with his agents. Flemming leans forward. FLEMMING You see what I see, Bork? BORK I see it. I don't get it. FLEMMING You got half the state looking for ya - how do you get away? BORK (realizes) Cut the power! FLEMMING Damn right. Bork, we're dealing with real pros here. My opinion, terrorists... What's the scoop on that stolen unit? BORK Well, sir it's not good. (to an assistant) Roll the tape... The X-5 unit is a new top-secret biological weapon, a manmade virus... ON MONITOR. The device that was put in back of Beavis' pants. BORK (CONT.) The deadliest known to man. It could wipe out five states in five days. It can be activated by simply entering the right code. Here's what happened when it was tested on a group of Army recruits... ON THE MONITOR. Army recruits coughing up black gunk, rolling around in pain on stretchers, dying. Grotesque (but funny). FLEMMING Jesus Jumped-Up Christ! If this were to fall into the wrong hands... BORK It gets worse. The unit wasn't finished. It has a flaw - the casing. If hit hard enough, it could break open, releasing the virus. A murmuring through the room. Flemming rises and holds up a picture of B&B. FLEMMING Okay People, as of right now these are the most dangerous men in America. I want these faces in front of every Fed and two- bit sheriff within a thousand miles. The orders are dead or alive. Let's just pray that nothing hits that unit. INT. TOUR BUS - DAY TIGHT ON Beavis' butt, as Butt-head KICKS IT REPEATEDLY. BEAVIS Ow! Cut it out Butt-Head. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. Get out of the way, Beavis, I wanna sit by the window. Huh huh. BEAVIS Ow! I'll kick your butt! BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. You mean like this? Butt-Head keeps kicking. ANGLE ON THE DRIVER UP FRONT. DRIVER Okay, people, next stop, Grand Canyon. He guns it. EXT. TOUR BUS - DAY It takes off down the road. MONTAGE SONG BEGINS. (Maybe White Zombie doing something like, "Born to Be Wild") INSERT: A RED LINE snakes across a map to Grand Canyon. EXT. GRAND CANYON - DAY Gorgeous. Our seniors and others take pictures and stare in awe. Some hold hands. One crosses herself. ANGLE ON B&B, nearby, also staring in awe. REVEAL they're watching a jackass take a dump. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh. BEAVIS The poop's coming out of the ass of the ass. Heh heh heh. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. It's coming out of the ass, but it's also coming out of the ass of the ass. INT. A.T.F. HEADQUARTERS - DAY TIGHT ON PHOTO OF B&B, going out on the wire. INT. A POLICE STATION - DAY TIGHT ON COP getting the photo off a machine. INT. A POST OFFICE - DAY TIGHT ON B&B's PHOTO as it's pinned to the wall. INT. DRIVING TOUR BUS - DAY PAN across seniors showing off pictures of their grandchildren. Pan stops on B&B showing off the picture of Dallas to a senior. Butt-Head does the "finger-in-hole" fornication gesture as they LAUGH suggestively. EXT. SIDE OF ROAD - DAY Flemming reads a map strewn on his hood. He turns to Bork to give orders. Bork repeats them into his radio. Several cars pull out. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes across a map to Utah. EXT. SALT LAKE CITY - DAY Martha and the seniors pose in front of a classic Salt Lake City view. A sign nearby reads "Welcome to Salt Lake City." REVERSE ANGLE shows B&B, taking their picture. P.O.V. OF CAMERA shows Butt-Head's hand covering half the lens. Framing is crooked and way off. Click and FREEZE. EXT. SIDE OF HIGHWAY - DAY Middle of nowhere. Confused, Martha is taking a picture. REVERSE ANGLE shows B&B, posing by the road sign: Baggs, Wyoming. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. P.O.V. OF CAMERA, showing B&B laughing. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes across the map to Wyoming. CROSS-DISSOLVE BETWEEN THE BUS AND THE SIGHTS IT PASSES: EXT. FLAMING GORGE, WYOMING - DAY A classic view of a powerful gorge. REVERSE SHOWS THE TOUR BUS driving by. Martha and the seniors rush to the windows to stare in awe. EXT. GRAND TETON, WYOMING - DAY A classic view of the huge peaks. REVERSE SHOWS THE TOUR BUS driving by. More seniors rush to the windows to see. EXT. YELLOWSTONE PARK, WYOMING - DAY A spectacular view of Yellowstone Lake and the Rockies. REVERSE SHOWS THE TOUR BUS. Seniors staring in awe. PAN over to another window. B&B press their BARE ASSES against the window. EXT. YELLOWSTONE/OLD FAITHFUL - DAY MONTAGE SONG ENDS. A RANGER/GUIDE stands in front of the seniors talking about the geyser. B&B are towards the front, off to one side. RANGER (a la Carl Sagan) There are over two hundred active geysers in Yellowstone Park alone. Old Faithful here is one of the largest. During an eruption the water can reach as high as two hundred feet!... BUTT-HEAD So? RANGER (ignoring Butt-Head) It shoots out over twelve thousand gallons of water in a single eruption... BEAVIS That's not that much. BUTT-HEAD Yeah really. Let's get outta here Beavis. Huh huh huh. This sucks. B&B walk off as the flustered ranger leads the seniors to some benches where they wait for the geyser to erupt. EXT. YELLOWSTONE/OLD FAITHFUL - LATER The geyser erupts. The seniors watch in sheer awe. MARTHA It's...incredible...! INT. VISITOR CENTER/MEN'S BATHROOM - DAY B&B stare ahead in similar awe. BUTT-HEAD It's incredible!... Huh huh huh. REVEAL they're standing before the urinals. Butt-Head moves to the side, tripping a motion detector which makes the urinal AUTOMATICALLY FLUSH. BEAVIS Whoa! That's amazing! Heh heh heh. They start moving from urinal to urinal, causing all to flush. EXT. OLD FAITHFUL/PARKING AREA - DAY The bus idles. The last senior climbs aboard. The driver looks around impatiently. He checks his watch. DRIVER I can't wait forever. INT. OLD FAITHFUL/RANGER'S OFFICE - DAY The ranger/guide enters and checks off a chart on a bulletin board near B&B's "wanted" photo. Suddenly the guide sees B&B's photo, then, out the window, the bus closing its door and pulling away. RANGER Oh my God! The guide picks up the phone. INT. VISITOR CENTER/MEN'S ROOM - DAY B&B go back and forth, "playing" the urinals, passing hands, heads, whole bodies in front of the motion detectors. B&B Huh huh huh huh. Finally, Butt-Head pauses. BUTT-HEAD This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. EXT. SIDE OF A ROAD - DAY Flemming is on the radio. Bork runs up. BORK Chief, we got 'em! They're on a senior citizens tour bus going east on I-40. EXT. OLD FAITHFUL/PARKING LOT - DAY B&B get on a bus that looks completely different than the tour bus. INT. DIFFERENT BUS - DAY TIGHT ON B&B. Butt-Head looks around. BUTT-HEAD Uh... Is this the right bus? BEAVIS You mean there's mre than one? A WIDER SHOT REVEALS it's a bus full of nuns. B&B look around and see this. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. Hey Beavis. We're on a bus with chicks. BEAVIS Heh hmm heh heh. Butt-Head turns to the nun next to him. BUTT-HEAD Hey, baby. The nun looks disturbed as the bus takes off. EXT. I-40/SIDE OF THE ROAD - DAY The tour bus is stopped. Like P.O.W.'s, the seniors stand with hands on heads. Agents search the bus. ANGLE ON LINE OF SENIORS. Flemming walks nearby and is told: BORK They're not on the bus. Flemming looks the seniors over. FLEMMING (re: seniors) These people know something. I want full cavity searches. Everyone. Go deep on 'em. Hurley and two agents grab the nearest senior and drag him away. FLEMMING (CONT.) I tell you Bork, these guys are smart. Damn smart. They're probably a hundred miles away by now. Behind Flemming, an agent waves on traffic including B&B's new bus. As it pulls past, B&B hang B.A.'s. Flemming doesn't see. MONTAGE SONG BEGINS: INSERT: A RED LINE snakes through a map, pretty much retracing the route B&B took north. Down into Utah. INT. BUS - DAY A nun strums a guitar and sings. Butt-head head-bangs. The nuns around look uneasy. Nearby another nun reads the Bible to Beavis. BEAVIS Hey, Butt-Head, this book kicks ass! There's this talking snake and a naked chick and then this dude puts a leaf on his schlong! Heh heh heh. The nun next to Beavis is disgusted. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes down through Colorado. One of the nuns is trying to teach B&B the sign of the cross. Butt-head moves his hand down, up, left and then swings his hand to the far right SMACKING Beavis. INT. ROADSIDE RESTAURANT - DAY Sitting before a long table, the nuns close their eyes and pray, hands clasped together. PAN THE ROW to B&B who's hands are clasped together and interlocked as they do the incredibly juvenile 'peek at the vagina' trick. B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes through a map to Rancho Taos, New Mexico. EXT. MISSION OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHURCH - DAY A beautiful old adobe-style church. Nuns exit the bus, excited, followed by B&B who look around. The nuns walk into a visitor center. B&B walk right into the church. INT. CHURCH - DAY In a WIDE SHOT we see B&B walk in, look around and head for the CONFESSION BOOTHS. BEAVIS Check it out Butt-Head, porta-potties. BUTT-HEAD Cool, huh huh. B&B each enter a confession booth on the priest's side. INT. ST. FRANCIS CHURCH - LATER WIDE EST. SHOT shows that a confessional service has begun. INT. ST. FRANCIS CHURCH/CONFESSION BOOTH - DAY We see a man nervously confessing. This seems difficult for him. MAN (about to cry) Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I,...I...I slept with a woman, and... From the priest's side of the confessional we hear Butt-head. The man can't see him. BUTT-HEAD (O.S.) Huh huh huh, really? Was she naked? MAN Well, yes Father. Please forgive me. I... BUTT-HEAD (O.S.) Cool, huh huh huh. Could you like, see her boobs? ANGLE INSIDE ANOTHER CONFESSIONAL MAN #2 (confused) How many Hail Marys? BEAVIS (O.S.) A thousand! Yeah, heh heh hmm. And I want you to hit yourself. Right now! MAN #2 Now?! BEAVIS (O.S.) Yeah! Heh heh hmm heh. DO IT! From outside the confession booth, we hear the sound of a SMACK. BEAVIS (O.S./CONT.) Harder! Heh heh. Again! Heh heh. You need to straighten up! EXT. ST. FRANCIS CHURCH - DAY As B&B board the bus they are STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes further down into Arizona. EXT. PETRIFIED FOREST VISITOR'S CENTER - DAY This establishes. INT. PETRIFIED FORESTS VISITOR'S CENTER - DAY B&B stare at an exhibit, riveted. The nuns watch them. A recording plays. RECORDING (V.O.) Welcome to the Petrified Forest. The world's largest site of petrified wood. B&B Huh huh huh huh wood. The Mother Superior makes a signal the other nuns were waiting for. They all rush back to the bus, leaving B&B behind. RECORDING (V.O.) You may wonder, how can wood get so hard? B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. Through the window, we see the bus drive away. ANGLE ON AN OLD RANGER behind a counter, looking at B&B. He sees their A.T.F. photo nearby and reaches for a phone. EXT. PETRIFIED FOREST VISITOR'S CENTER - DAY MONTAGE SONG ENDS. B&B step outside. Nearby, a tourist car pulls up. BEAVIS Hey, where'd those chicks go? BUTT-HEAD Uh... I think you scared them off. BEAVIS This sucks. What are we doing here? Weren't we suppost'a go to Washington and score or something? From the car, a tourist couple heads into the building. BUTT-HEAD (to couple) Uh, do you know where Washington is? TOURIST MAN Yeah, 'bout 2000 miles that way. He points to the desert, then continues into the building. BUTT-HEAD Cool. Huh huh huh. B&B walk off into the desert. EXT. PETRIFIED FOREST TOURIST CENTER - LATER The place is crawling with A.T.F. Flemming walks out with Bork and the OLD RANGER. FLEMMING Didn't see which way they went. Didn't see their vehicle. I don't suppose you tried to stop them? OLD RANGER The most dangerous guys in America? Not me, Sonny. I make nine dollars an hour. FLEMMING National security is the responsibility of every American. Bork... BORK Cavity search...? FLEMMING Deep and hard. Agents lead the old Ranger away. FLEMMING (CONT.) They're not gonna get away this time. I want roadblocks. Every road outta here for two hundred miles. EXT. ROAD - DAY IN MONTAGE SHOTS: A.T.F. agents put up roadblocks. Agents load guns. Agents pile up sandbags and prepare for battle. EXT. DESERT - DAY WIDE SHOT. A wasteland. Scorching desert hear. B&B, small in frame, look lost. They're parched, weak. BEAVIS This sucks. It's all hot and stuff. BUTT-HEAD This desert is stupid. They need to put a drinking fountain out here. BEAVIS Yeah or like a Seven-Eleven or something... Are we almost there? BUTT-HEAD Uh, probably like, another five minutes or something. ANGLE FROM OVERHEAD. Lost, alone, B&B wobble like they haven't long to live. Overhead, vultures circle. ANGLE ON B&B, exhausted, spent. Staring ahead, Butt-Head suddenly sees something. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) Whoa! Check it out! Beavis clears his eyes and sees it too. B&B Yes! Yes! Huh huh huh. Excited, saved, they rush weakly forward. B&B'S P.O.V. REVEALS they rush to: A GIANT BIG SCREEN TV. BEAVIS Turn it on! Turn it on! As they get closer it disappears - just a mirage. BUTT-HEAD Uh... BEAVIS Dammit!!!! Dammit!!!! ANGLE ON SUN, brightening. The FRAME WHITES OUT. EXT. ROADBLOCK - DAY Cars are backed up into the horizon. The car up front is waved on. Up next: Tom and Marcy. An agent steps over and shows the picture of B&B. TOM Something wrong, Officer? AGENT Sir, we're looking for these two fugitives. ANDERSON SQUINTS to see. HIS P.O.V. REVEALS the photo out of focus. ANDERSON Why I'll be danged. It's those boys been whackin' off in my camper... AGENT You saw these two? ANDERSON I sure did. They were whackin' off in my tool shed. Then whackin' off in my camper. I never seen so much whackin' off. The agent steps back and shouts into his walkie-talkie: AGENT Blue Den this is post nine! I have positive ID!! (to Tom) Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you and your wife to step out of the vehicle. ANDERSON Well you see, me and the missus are on our way to Washington. We got this schedule... The agent pulls his gun and orders: AGENT Now!!!! EXT. SIDE OF HIGHWAY/JUST OFF ROADBLOCK - DAY A BIT LATER. Agents swarm over Tom's camper, turning everything upside, pulling out dishes, trashing everything. TOM (furious) Now wait right there. You're dealing with a veteran of two foreign wars. They're the ones been whacking off. If I find anything broken in there, you and I are gonna tangle! An A.T.F. agent smashes the micro on the ground and sifts through the pieces. Nearby, Flemming and Hurley watch. FLEMMING (appalled) Masturbating in a man's camper! We're dealing with two sick individuals. I want that camper torn apart, full cavity searches all around. SNAP! SFX as Agent Hurley puts on her rubber gloves and leads Tom and Marcy away. Agent Bork runs up to Flemming. BORK Chief - just came in! Two days ago, Express Airways had a disturbance by someone calling himself - Cornholio. Guess who matches the description? He holds up a police sketch of Cornholio. Flemming walks to a nearby chopper. SOUND of engine revving. Others follow. FLEMMING Finally, a real break. Get me that flight's point of origin. We're gonna kick some ass. EXT. DESERT - DAY B&B walk along in the scorching heat. Ahead of them they see a DUMB GUY and a DUMBER GUY with motorcycles parked. They are trying to start a camp fire, LAUGHING. DUMB GUY (to B&B) Uh, hey. One of you kids got a match? BUTT-HEAD (dehydrated) Uh, my butt and your...uh, butt. INT. B&B'S HOME - DAY Peaceful. Empty. Suddenly dozens of A.T.F. agents break in, guns ready, searching every corner. They tear it apart. EXT. B&B'S TOWN/STREETS - DAY Agents rush down the business streets. People are in a panic. It's like an invasion. ANGLE ON ELITE MOTOR LODGE - ON B&B'S TV SET as agents rush by, knocking it over with a crash. INT. VAN DRIESSEN'S CLASS - DAY Guitar in hand, Van Driessen sings: VAN DRIESSEN She flies so gracefully, over rocks, trees and sand. Soaring over cliffs and gently floating down to land. She proudly lifts her voice to sound her mating call. And soon her mate responds by singing... "Caw, Caw, Caw." Come with me, Lesbian Seagull. Settle down and rest with me... Suddenly dozens of A.T.F. agents crash into the room. The door bashes in, knocking Van Driessen down hard and crushing his guitar. Flemming enters. Behind him, McVicker. McVICKER Uh...uh...uh that's him. He's their teacher. VAN DRIESSEN What's going on here? FLEMMING I'll ask the questions. Are these your students? He shows a picture of B&B. VAN DRIESSEN I assume you're a government agent. I would think you would know there's something in this country called due process. FLEMMING That's about the kind of talk I'd expect from the guy who taught these two. Take this scum away. VAN DRIESSEN I believe I'm supposed to be read my Miranda Rights... An agent interrupts, punching Van Driessen in the gut. He's taken away. Flemming turns menacingly to McVicker. McVICKER I...I...I always knew they were no good. I... I... I hate them! FLEMMING (to McVicker) You've been harboring two criminal masterminds! Bork rushes up to Flemming with a paper. BORK Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in? FLEMMING (appalled) Bork! You are a federal agent. You represent the United States Government... Never end a sentence with a preposition. Try again. BORK Oh, ah... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean that guy off in whose camper they were whacking? FLEMMING That's better. Yes? BORK We've run a sample through the National Criminal Sperm Bank and come up with two possible genetic matches for a father. (holds up photos) TIGHT ON PHOTO. It's the DUMB GUY and DUMBER GUY from the desert. BORK (O.S./CONT.) Former Motley Crue members turned drifters. Flemming takes the paper and marches off. Others follow. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. DESERT - NIGHT B&B and the Dumn abd Dumber Guys are sitting around a campfire. The Dumb Guy looks like an older, more stupid, version of Butt- Head. The Dumber Guy is a couple of evolutionary scales down from Beavis. Their relationship is an exaggerated version of B&B's. Butt-Head is staring at the Dumb Guy in admiration. Beavis, like the Dumber Guy, appears to be just staring at the fire, hypnotized. Dumb Guy is eating spaghetti out of a can. BUTT-HEAD You were a roadie for Motley Crue? DUMB GUY (mouth full) Yup. Huh huh. BEAVIS Fire. DUMB GUY Here's another true story. About fifteen years ago, we stopped in this, uh, toilet, called Highland... BUTT-HEAD Really? That's where we're from. DUMB GUY Well, then you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, here's the story. I scored with these two chicks. True story. BUTT-HEAD You scored with two chicks?! DUMB GUY (spaghetti dribbling from mouth) Yeah, they were sluts. Huh huh huh. DUMBER GUY Ih hih hih hih hih hih. Dumb Guy punches Dumber Guy in the head with a closed fist. DUMB GUY Shut up, dumb-ass! You didn't score. I scored with both of them... BUTT-HEAD Uh, do you think these two sluts still live in Highland? That would be cool. DUMB GUY (after taking another big bite) Hey, you wanna see something really cool? Huh huh huh. Dumb Guy gets up, turns his butt towards the fire and starts to drop his pants. EXT. DESERT/LONG SHOT - CONTINUOUS The campfire is in the distance, middle of nowhere. A flatulant sound is heard. Suddenly, a big beautiful purple and orange fireball erupts, lighting up the sky. B&B/DUMB GUY/DUMBER GUY (O.S.) Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. BEAVIS (O.S.) Fire. EXT. DESERT - MORNING B&B wake up. The Dumb Guy and Dumber Guy are gone. The sun is scorching. B&B inch forward - spent, dehydrated, near death. ANGLE ON GROUND as B&B collapse into frame. Butt-Head looks up at the sun, squinting. BUTT-HEAD (barely alive) The sun sucks. A vulture picks at Beavis' shirt. Beavis SMACKS the vulture. BEAVIS (to the vulture) Cut it out butt-hole! The vulture moves revealing a PEYOTE CACTUS. Beavis looks at it. BEAVIS (CONT.) Hey Butt-Head, isn't there supposed to be like, water in cactuses? BUTT-HEAD (semiconscious) Uh... Beavis takes a bite of the cactus, chews and then coughs. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) (sees something) Hey Beavis, check it out. IN FRONT OF B&B: Two vultures start humping. B&B (struggling to laugh) Huh huh huh (cough) huh huh (cough). EXT. ROADBLOCK - DAY START ON SUN - over B&B? REVEAL it's over Muddy who looks at a picture of B&B held by an A.T.F. agent. MUDDY No, I can't say I've seen 'em. I sure hope it's safe to drive around here. COP Don't worry, sir. Just stick to the main roads. If they're around, they're probably hiding out in the desert. MUDDY That's good to know, Officer. Muddy takes off with a smile and turns off onto a side road. EXT. DESERT - LATER B&B barely crawling forward. Butt-Head stops, then Beavis. They're barely able to talk. BEAVIS Hey Butt-Head, are we gonna die? BUTT-HEAD Uh, probably, huh huh...Whoa, I think my life is like, flashing in front of my eyes! BUTT-HEAD'S VISION. Through time-lapse dissolves we see him sitting on his couch with Beavis, laughing like an idiot in the exact same positions at age 2, 5, 7, 10, 13. BUTT-HEAD Whoa, my life is cool! TIGHT ON BEAVIS: BEAVIS Uh... I think I'm seeing something too. It's like a really long time ago... BEAVIS' VISION: Beavis as a sperm cell swimming through a uterus. It's a sperm cell with the face of Beavis on it. BEAVIS/SPERM Yeah, heh heh. This is gonna be cool. Beavis/Sperm swims over to the egg. With its own tail the Beavis/Sperm starts picking its nose. BEAVIS/SPERM (CONT.) Hey, how's it goin'? Heh heh heh. Several other sperm charge in, knocking Beavis into the egg. His conception looks like a dumb accident. BACK ON BEAVIS: BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh I scored. Animated bubbles appear around Beavis' head. BEAVIS (CONT.) Hey Butt-Head, I'm starting to feel weird. I think I'm freaking out. BUTT-HEAD Huh? Huh huh. BEAVIS Whoa, this is cool! Heh heh. It's like, everything looks all weird and... BEAVIS' P.O.V. OF BUTT-HEAD: His face starts to warp and colors start shifting. BEAVIS (CONT.) ...and... Whoa!...and it's like there's all these weird shapes and it's sort of like,...it's like...like a MUSIC VIDEO!!! Tight on Beavis' face staring in wonder. THIS IS WHERE THE MUSIC VIDEO/HALLUCINATION SEQUENCE BEGINS. It could even be so shameless as to actually have a chyron in the lower left hand corner. I would like to have a band (White Zombie?) do a version of something like, "Fire," by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. This is the song that begins, "I am God of Hellfire and I bring you... fire!" The concept of this will depend somewhat on which band we get, but I would like to see it get pretty wild and surreal. (If it's White Zombie, we could incorporate some of Rob Zombie's artwork.) BEAVIS' P.O.V.: We see the sun above the horizon turn into a giant ball of fire. The ball of fire develops a face and speaks. FIRE I am God of Hellfire and I bring you...(music begins) Fire... BEAVIS Whoa!!! This kicks ass!!! THIS IS THE GREATEST VIDEO BEAVIS HAS EVER SEEN. Out of the ball of fire steps a beautiful woman in a bikini. At first the video is mostly the God of Hellfire, chicks in bikinis and various images of B&B's TV in all its glory. As the video/hallucination continues, it becomes a psychotic mass of naked people, fire, TVs, vultures, B&B head-banging, weird stuff from my high school notebooks, etc. At one point we see the God of Hellfire in a Burger World uniform. As the song winds down, we incorporate Muddy's car into the surreal imagery. (We should also incorporate their TV, as well as maybe some of the characters from the show that aren't in the movie.) Then, we REVEAL Muddy's car actually pulling up to B&B's near-dead bodies. The SONG ENDS as Muddy tosses water on B&B. REVEAL they were not far from the side of a road all along. B&B Ahhhhghhhhgh! B&B snap out of it. They rise and find Muddy hovering over them with a shotgun. BEAVIS Aagh! I'm all wet!...(realizing) Oh, cool. Heh heh heh. Water. Muddy aims his shotgun at B&B. MUDDY Ah'm gonna enjoy this. Any last words b'fore ah kill ya? B&B think. BUTT-HEAD Uh... Huh huh. I have a couple. Butt cheeks, huh huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah! Boobs. Heh heh. I just wanna say that again. Boobs. Heh heh. MUDDY Ah'm gonna blow you both to hell! BUTT-HEAD Cool, huh huh. (realizing) Hey Beavis that's that dude that's paying us to do his wife. BEAVIS Oh yeah. Can you just take us to Washington? We're gonna meet her there and, you know, heh heh hmmm... MUDDY Washington! That's where she was gonna meet up with ya? (realizes) Damn, she's goin' all the way! B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh huh. Muddy lowers the gun a bit. MUDDY You know, I just might need you after all. Aw right, in the trunk. You're gonna help me get mah unit back. Muddy pops it open. B&B climb in. Muddy closes the trunk on them and walks to the front of the car. HOLD ON THE TRUNK. BUTT-HEAD (O.S.) Boy, it sure is hard to score. Huh huh huh. Muddy peels out. EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY A MONTAGE SONG BEGINS. Muddy drives by. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes through a map to Santa Fe. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY Muddy's car drives by. Muddy hears B&B laugh from inside the trunk and turns up the radio to drown it out. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes through a map to Oklahoma City. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. GAS STATION - DAY Muddy pumps gas. From inside the trunk: BEAVIS (O.C.) Hey Butt-Head, look. A jack. Heh heh. BUTT-HEAD (O.C.) Huh huh. Jack. Huh huh. INSERT: A RED LINE snakes through a map to Little Rock, Nashville and into Virginia up Rt. 81. EXT. MUDDY'S CAR DRIVING ON HIGHWAY - DAY ANGLE OUTSIDE MUDDY'S TRUNK. From within we hear: BUTT-HEAD (O.C.) Hey, Beavis, check it out. I'm jacking off! B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. Pumping up the jack, they cause the lid of the trunk to start to bend. Suddenly, it pops open. B&B are a sweaty mess. They gasp. BUTT-HEAD This sucks. Let's get outta here. They look out. The road behind them races past at 80 mph. Beavis stares dumbly. BEAVIS Uh, you first. BUTT-HEAD C'mon, Beavis, just start running really fast when you hit the ground. It'll work. BEAVIS Okay. I'll go right after you. Butt-Head shoves Beavis out of the car. BEAVIS (CONT.) Ahhhhghghhghghgh! Beavis tries to run, but hits the road and flips over and over - and smashes his butt. BEAVIS (CONT.) Owwwwww, my butt!!!!!! His body stops in the middle of the road. A huge truck, about to hit him, swerves and jackknifes over the side. Behind the truck, several cars screech to a halt, one smashing into the other. ANGLE ON MUDDY'S TRUNK Butt-Head looks at the road. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh huh huh. That was cool. ANGLE ON MUDDY'S TIRE. It hits a pothole. ANGLE ON BUTT-HEAD, shooting out of the trunk, he grabs onto the lid. He bounces against the road again and again. Finally, he loses his grip as the lid to the trunk closes. ANGLE ON BUTT-HEAD, rolling along the highway. A car, about to hit Butt-Head, screeches to a halt. Other cars behind it smash and pile up. ANGLE ON ROAD SOME WAYS BACK. On Tom and Marcy in their car. TOM Boy, what I wouldn't give for five minutes alone with them two little bastards... The car ahead of Tom crashes into the car ahead of that. Tom crashes into it. And the car behind crashes into Tom. OVERHEAD ANGLE shows cars and trucks behind, crashing, piling up. A massive pile-up. INT. MUDDY'S CAR - DAY Muddy doesn't notice the mess behind him. He drives on. MONTAGE SONG ENDS EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY LATER. ON MEDIVAC helicopters; one landing, another taking off. MOVE TO WOMAN TV REPORTER, talking to camera: REPORTER Authorities are calling this the worst highway disaster in the nation's history... INT. A.T.F. HEADQUARTERS/FLEMMING'S OFFICE - DAY Flemming, Bork, and about six other agents look at a map. Behind them, a TV is on with the reporter continuing. Behind the reporter, B&B poke their heads into frame at 45 degree angles, looking like deer in the headlights. REPORTER (CONT.) ... Behind me, over 400 vehicles lay wrecked or stuck. No one knows what caused it, but police have not ruled out the possibility of terrorists. Bork notices B&B on TV and taps Flemming on the shoulder. Flemming looks. FLEMMING Well, I'll be a blue-nosed gopher. BORK (despairing) Where did these guys come from? Flemming looks at the big map which traces sightings of B&B across America. FLEMMING The question is, where are they going. He looks again at the TV. On the news, a story about... REPORTER 2 ...set for 5:00 tomorrow when representatives from around the world will meet in Washington for the first such peace conference... Flemming looks back at the map, and then back at the TV. FLEMMING What the hell...? Bork! That bus we picked up. Where was it headin'? BORK (checks papers) D.C., Chief. FLEMMING (realizing) Jesus jumped-up... Bork, can you imagine what would happen if they set that thing off in our nation's capital, or even worse, if they sold it to some damned foreigner at that conference. (rises and puts his fist down) Well, it's not gonna happen! EXT. HIGHWAY/CRASH SITE - DAY B&B walk along looking at the wreckage. BUTT-HEAD Whoa, this kicks ass! Huh huh huh. MARTHA (O.S.) Yoo-hoo! Travis and Bob Head. Whoo-hoo! The tour bus stands nearby. Martha calls from the window. BEAVIS Hey Butt-Head it's that chick! BUTT-HEAD Uh, oh yeah. Cool. They can take us to Washington and we can finally score. B&B head into the bus. BEAVIS Yeah, heh heh. Umm, isn't Seattle in Washington? Heh heh... 'cuz I was thinking maybe we could go see Hole. BUTT-HEAD Yeah. We can go see Hole and then we can get some hole. Huh huh huh huh. INSERT: MAP. The RED LINE snakes right up to D.C. INT/EXT. TOUR BUS - DAY INTERCUT BETWEEN THE BUS AND THE SIGHTS IT PASSES: ANGLE ON THE LINCOLN MONUMENT. ANGLE ON BUS WINDOW. Several seniors press their faces to see. ANGLE ON THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. ANGLE ON BUS WINDOW. More seniors rush to the window to see. ANGLE ON THE CAPITOL BUILDING. ANGLE ON BUS WINDOW. B&B press their bare asses. EXT. CAPITOL - DAY The seniors and B&B get off the bus. As soon as they're out of sight, Dallas drives up and sees the Tour Bus. She smiles to herself. INT. CAPITOL UNDERGROUND GARAGE - DAY Dark. Isolated. Dallas pulls up and gets out of her car. Suddenly, a voice: VOICE/MUDDY 'Spectin' someone? Dallas wheels around. Muddy's got a gun on her. MUDDY (CONT.) Well, well. Look at this. The love of my life. Where have you been? Muddy moves towards Dallas. She steps back. DALLAS Honey, I was gonna split it with you after I sold it, right down the middle. I swear. I just... MUDDY Sure you were. But now you don't have to go through all that bother. Dallas moves seductively towards Muddy. DALLAS Come on Muddy. Whatd'ya say we just forget about it and go get a room like old times... Muddy cocks his gun. MUDDY I don't think so. Where is it? INT. CAPITOL - DAY B&B walk up to the information booth where a HOST makes an announcement. HOST (announces) All Senators are requested for a vote. All Senators are requested for a vote. A bell accompanies this announcement. HOST (CONT.) (to B&B) Can I help you? BEAVIS Yeah, we're looking for Washington. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh. We're gonna meet this chick with really big hooters. HOST Sirs, you are in Washington. BEAVIS Well where is she?! BUTT-HEAD Could you, like, tell her we're ready to score? HOST No! Just a moment... She turns to the side to answer the phone. INT. CAPITOL/PRIVATE PANEL ROOM - DAY Six Senators sit behind a panel. BOB PACKWOOD testifies across from them. SENATOR Thank you for returning, Senator Packwood, to help us understand how sexual harassment happens in this sacred institution. Suddenly, SOUND OF BUTT-HEAD over the PA. BUTT-HEAD (V.O.) Uh... Attention, attention! We're looking for that chick with the big boobs. BEAVIS (V.O.) Heh heh. We wanna do her now! HOST (V.O.) Hey! Gimme tha... B&B (V.O.) Huh huh huh huh huh. ANGLE ON PACKWOOD - smiles. PACKWOOD Huh huh huh huh huh. INT. CAPITOL/SENATE - DAY Classic wide, overhead shot. SOUND of all Senators. SENATORS Huh huh huh huh huh. INT. CAPITOL UNDERGROUND GARAGE - DAY Muddy finishes tying Dallas' hands behind her back. He crosses to his trunk. MUDDY You forgot who yer dealin' with, Honey. Ya see, I got your mules right here in my trunk and... Muddy pops the trunk. It's empty. MUDDY (CONT.) Say what?... I'm gonna kill 'em!!! DALLAS No honey we're gonna kill 'em. Dallas, still tied up, starts kissing Muddy. He gives in. EXT. CAPITOL - DAY ANGLE ON B&B getting on the bus last. INT. TOUR BUS - DAY Butt-Head sits. Beavis pauses, still standing. BEAVIS Hey wait a minute. What's going on? Why are we getting back on the bus? OLD GUY It's time to go son. BEAVIS We can't leave! We never met that chick! Dammit!!! We were supposed to get some! BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. Settle down Beavis. BEAVIS Oh yeah,...I mean no. NO! I won't settle down! Not this time!... Beavis is shaking, fed up. He delivers the speech of his life. BEAVIS (CONT.) Dammit, this always happens! I think I'm gonna score and then I never score! It's not fair! We've traveled a hundred miles 'cause we thought we were gonna score, but now it's not gonna happen! BUS DRIVER (yelling from his seat) Hey buddy, sit down! Now! BEAVIS SHUT UP! (continuing) I'm sick and tired of this! We're never gonna score! It's just not gonna happen! We're just gonna get old like these people, but they've probably scored! BUS DRIVER (standing) Hey! I'm warning you! Sit down! BEAVIS It's like this chick's a slut (motioning to Martha)... and look at this guy!... He's old but he's probably scored a million times! OLD GUY (nods in agreement) Ohh yeah. BEAVIS But not us! We're never gonna score! WE'RE NEVER GONNA SCORE!!! AAGGHHHH!!! The bus driver tackles Beavis. INT. CAPITOL/PARKING GARAGE/MUDDY'S CAR - DAY In a tight shot, we see Muddy and Dallas humping away in the back seat (in a PG-13 kind of way). We hear the sound of a door opening. ANGLE ON FLEMMING, BORK AND SEVERAL AGENTS LOOKING DOWN. FLEMMING Well look what we have here. You two make me sick... Book 'em Bork. DALLAS You don't have anything on us and you know it. FLEMMING Oh I don't huh? How about lewd conduct? Maybe indecent exposure?... Here's what's gonna happen. One of you's gonna make a deal and get me the unit. The other can spend the next sixty years in jail. MUDDY There you're wrong, boy. Me and mah wife are back together and you'll never... DALLAS He stole the unit. Said he put it in some kid's pants. MUDDY Why you damn little... He's cuffed and dragged away. INT. TOUR BUS - DAY The driver sits down and drives on. Beavis is slightly beat up. Martha reaches into her purse, filled with prescription medications. MARTHA Now Travis, it doesn't do a body good to get all worked up. Here. This should help you relax. She holds up a box of NoDrowz and squints at the label. MARTHA Does that say Xanax? BEAVIS Um, um, yeah, probably. Heh heh. Beavis takes a couple, then starts wolfing down the whole box. INT. FLEMMING'S CAR - DAY Flemming's on the radio. Bork checks a tour guide. FLEMMING (to radio) Okay, boys and girls, our suspects are on a tour bus we believe to be headed for... (checks papers) the White House! Jumpin' Jesus! I want everyone there. Our people. Locals. Orders are shoot to kill. Repeat! Shoot to kill! BORK Chief, I swear, we tore that bus apart. They couldn't have... FLEMMING Bork, when this is all over, remind me to make you an appointment with Agent Hurley. EXT. STREETS OF WASHINGTON - DAY All manner of police, A.T.F., F.B.I. cars speed along. EXT. WHITE HOUSE/TOURIST PARKING LOT - DAY B&B and the seniors walk from the bus to the White House. Beavis is starting to shake as he finishes off the NoDrowz. NEARBY, Anderson's camper pulls up. INT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY The seniors and B&B are being led on a tour. B&B in back. Beavis is starting to SHAKE AND MAKE STRANGE NOISES. As the tour moves on, Beavis stays behind. He goes over to a coffee-serving cart sitting outside a meeting room. He starts WOLFING DOWN SUGAR CUBES. BACK ON THE TOUR: The tour is led by a smiling guide, SANDY. SANDY Welcome to the White House. My name is Sandy, and I'll be your tour guide. In case you don't know it, you've come on a very special day. Today... She points to the camera crews outside the window. EXT. WHITE HOUSE LAWN - DAY ON A NEWS REPORTER, facing camera. Behind her, a large gathering before a stage. REPORTER Today, representatives from around the world are gathered at the White House for an historic global conference called: Give Peace A Chance - or G-PAC. EXT. WHITE HOUSE ENTRANCE - DAY A.T.F., Police and F.B.I. cars arrive. INT. WHITE HOUSE TOUR - DAY The tour stands in the East Room. SANDY This is the East Room. Many of the portraits you see were saved from the fire set by the British in 1814... Beavis is shaking, babbling, staring at his fist, etc. BEAVIS Heh heh. Fire. Heh heh Aaaaeeehhhhg!!! BUTT-HEAD What's your problem Beavis? SANDY ...The site for the White House was chosen by President Washington and Pierre L'Enfant... Beavis now has his T-shirt pulled over his head and is pacing around and babbling. He's too loud now for Sandy to ignore. BEAVIS L'enfentatta tiitatta for my bunghole! SANDY Sir, are you okay? BEAVIS Are you threatening me?! I am Cornholio! SANDY Sir, maybe you should wait out in the lobby. Beavis/Cornholio wanders off, muttering. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO In thees lobby, wheel there be T.P.? EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY ON FLEMMING AND THE HEAD SECRET SERVICE GUY - arguing. FLEMMING You don't understand. National security is at stake here. We must evacuate. SECRET SERVICE GUY Not without proper authorization. INT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY A group of foreign dignitaries is being led through the hallway on a tour. Two of them chat in Spanish. We see Beavis coming down the hall in the opposite direction. DIGNITARY #1 El Presidente es un gringo muy gordo, no? DIGNITARY #2 Si. They pass Beavis babbling - riffing off their Spanish. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Gr-r-ringo! Burrito! R-r-anddatattta!! Beavis turns around and stops. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (CONT.) I am Cornholio! I need T.P. for my bunghole! Heh heh heh. The group continues down the hall, ignoring Beavis. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (CONT.) (humble) Would you like to see my bunghole? Beavis leaves. INT. WHITE HOUSE/CORRIDOR OF PRESIDENTS - DAY Tom and Marcy Anderson gaze at a portrait of Eisenhower. TOM (sotto) Where are ya when we need ya Ike... (to Marcy) I tell ya what, Honey, with all we been through, it don't change a thing. I said it before and I'll say it again. This is the greatest country on earth... Beavis/Cornholio wanders by behind them. Tom turns to look. TOM'S BLURRY P.O.V.: We see Beavis/Cornholio wander down the hall BABBLING. TOM (adjusting his glasses) Say, that looks like... Nah, it couldn't be. INT. WHITE HOUSE/ANOTHER PART OF THE HALLWAY - DAY Beavis comes around a corner and stops at a portrait of Nixon. ANGLE ON PORTRAIT. Nixon doing classic victory pose - peace signs with both hands up. ANGLE ON BEAVIS. His hands also up in the Cornholio pose. He stares for a beat, then: BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Are you threatening me?!... I am Cornholio! Beavis wanders off. INT. PRESS ROOM - DAY The press secretary is giving a conference. The room is packed with reporters. PRESS SECRETARY Yes, the president does plan to speak today at the G-PAC conference. REPORTERS (raising hands) Mr. Secretary! Mr. Secretary! What about the rumors that a biological weapon has been stolen and smuggled out of the country at this conference. Mr. Secretary! SECRETARY Those rumors are entirely unfounded... While this goes on: Through a doorway in the back of the room, we see Beavis wander out of frame and then come back in. He starts WOLFING DOWN MORE SUGAR CUBES from a coffee serving cart. BEAVIS I am the great Cornholio. I am a gringo... EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY IN MONTAGE SHOTS: A.T.F. and Secret Service agents argue. Several S.W.A.T. trucks pull up. S.W.A.T. team guys jump out of trucks and load guns. INT. WHITE HOUSE TOUR - DAY The tour stands in a giant, elegant dining room. SANDY This is the State Dining Room where the most powerful world leaders are entertained. BUTT-HEAD Uh, where's the TV? Huh huh huh. Hey Beavis,... Beavis? Butt-Head wanders off. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) This house sucks. INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE OF OVAL OFFICE - DAY A Secret Service guard is talking on radio/phone. GUARD Evacuation?... Probably just another bomb threat or something... OK. The guard walks off down the hallway, leaving his post. From the other end of the hallway we see Beavis/Cornholio enter, still babbling. INT. WHITE HOUSE/OVAL OFFICE - DAY Beavis wanders in and finds no one around. He shouts in frustration. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO I am the great Cornholio! Heh heh. You will cooperate with my bunghole! He picks up the red phone and presses the button again and again. INT. STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND - DAY The war room. A LIEUTENANT picks up the red phone. A TITLE COMES UP: STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND. LIEUTENANT Yes, Mr. President. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (on phone) I am Meester President! I have no bunghole! I am Cornholio! LIEUTENANT Mr. President, I can't make out what you're saying. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (on phone) Bungholio! Presidente! I need teepee! A GENERAL comes by. LIEUTENANT (to general) Sir, the President sounds strange. Something's going on. I don't think it's a drill. GENERAL Washington may be under attack. Go to Defcon 4. ANGLE ON LIEUTENANT'S HAND, moving to push a button. Alarms sound. ANGLE ON BIG MAP. A sign flashes: DEFCON 4. Soldiers run through frame. EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY The seniors, along with other tourists and dignitaries are escorted out of the building. INT. WHITE HOUSE CORRIDOR - DAY A.T.F. agents rush by. We HOLD here after they go. Butt-Head walks by, unaware. Butt-Head walks around and opens a door. The door to CHELSEA CLINTON'S room. Inside, she's folding clothes. (NOTE: If Clinton is not reelected, the shot will be wider, revealing she's packing a suitcase) BUTT-HEAD (excited) Whoa! Huh huh uh,... (suave) Hey, baby. Huh huh, I noticed you have braces. So do I, huh huh. EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY We HOLD ON A WIDE SHOT of the back of the White House for a beat. Then: We see Butt-Head come CRASHING out of a second-story window - thrown by Chelsea. He lands deep in the bushes below. ANGLE ON the bushes. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. That was cool. We see Butt-Head slowly emerge from the bushes. He looks up, suddenly seeing: DOZENS OF A.T.F. AGENTS surround him, rifles trained. BUTT-HEAD (awestruck) This is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Flemming steps up. FLEMMING Alright, where's the unit? BUTT-HEAD Uh, in my pants? Bork and others quickly frisk Butt-head. BORK Not on him, Chief. FLEMMING Agent Hurley... Hurley steps forward. FLEMMING (CONT.) ... I want you to give this scumbag a cavity search. I'm talking Roto-Rooter. Don't stop 'till you reach the back of his teeth. Butt-Head is led away. INT. OVAL OFFICE - DAY Beavis is on the red phone. He goes through the President's drawers. LIEUTENANT (on phone) Mr. President, the bombers are scrambled. Sir, we're awaiting your final orders. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO I order you to surrender your T.P.! INT. STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND - DAY The General grabs the phone from the Lieutenant. GENERAL Gimme that! (to phone) Mr. President, in the name of all that is holy, I must have those launch codes! BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (on phone) Are you threatening me? Bungholio! Click. Beavis hangs up. INT. WHITE HOUSE/OVAL OFFICE - DAY Beavis walks out of the Oval Office. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Presidente Bungholio! You will cooperate with my bunghole! INT. A.T.F. VAN - DAY Hurley steps out of a van to speak with Flemming and Bork. She pulls off a LONG GLOVE that goes almost to her shoulder. Butt-Head sits, disheveled. BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh, did I just score? HURLEY He's clean, chief. FLEMMING The other guy must have it. He's gotta be in here somewhere. (re: Butt-Head) Bring him. Flemming, Bork and the other agents take off. INT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY In the main reception area, Beavis is surrounded by a few FOREIGN DIGNITARIES who try to make sense of what he is saying. DIGNITARY #1 Que es un "bunghole"? Que lengua es? Arabigo? DIGNITARY #2 De donde eres tu? BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Arabigo? I am the Great Cornholio. I have no bunghole. Where I come from there is no T.P. A White House representative comes up. He assumes Beavis is with the dignitaries. REPRESENTATIVE I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience gentlemen, but we're going to have outside for a moment. Follow me please. He leads them out, including Beavis who continues to babble. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO You can run but you cannot hide from the Almighty Bunghole! Heh heh hmm. EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY Beavis/Cornholio and the dignitaries are escorted out. Beavis, unnoticed, keeps walking. Beavis, walking along stops. He sees something. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Aaaaahh... ON BEAVIS' P.O.V. across the street, we see what Beavis is looking at: ANDERSON'S CAMPER. ANGLE ON BEAVIS. He takes the picture of Dallas out of his pocket. TIGHT ON the picture of Dallas. TIGHT ON Anderson's camper. TIGHT ON Beavis. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (CONT.) Aaaahh, heh heh... Beavis looks alternately at the camper and the picture a couple of times, and then walks across the street. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (CONT.) Booiiing! Ptang ptang! Wagh-hah!!! Beavis goes into Anderson's camper and shuts the door. A Secret Service agent walks by, just missing Beavis. INT. WHITE HOUSE/CORRIDOR OF PRESIDENTS - DAY Tom and Marcy enjoying a moment. TOM Boy I tell ya what, it really makes ya proud. I could stay here all day. An A.T.F. agent comes up and interrupts Tom. AGENT Sir, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave... TOM Now wait just a minute... AGENT Now! NEARBY, Flemming and Bork are showing the police sketch of Cornholio to Sandy and questioning her. Bork sees Anderson walk by from a distance. BORK Say chief, isn't that guy whose camper,...I mean, off in whose... FLEMMING (irritated) Not now Bork. EXT. ANDERSON'S CAMPER - DAY From inside the camper we hear THE STRANGEST CORNHOLIO SOUNDS YET. ANGLE ON the front of the camper. Tom and Marcy walk up. TOM I tell ya what honey, this country's goin' to Hell in a handbasket. They get in the front. Tom adjusts the side-view mirror. TOM (CONT.) I'm gonna go over right now and talk to my Congressman about this... TOM'S P.O.V.: In the side-view mirror we see the camper SHAKING and hear Beavis/Cornholio. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (O.S.) Ooooaaaaaghhh!!! Whack-awhack-aaaaghh!!! TOM What the hell?...Wait here a minute... Tom gets out and goes into the camper. HOLD ON THE CAMPER DOOR. Tom throws Beavis/Cornholio out the door. Beavis is in his underwear with his T-shirt still pulled over his head. TOM (CONT.) And if I ever catch ya whackin' in here again I'm gonna hog-tie ya! (to himself) Now I gotta straighten up in here. Tom goes back in the camper. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO You have offended my bunghole! EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY Bork reports to Flemming. Butt-Head is held by two agents. BORK We just cleared all four floors. No sign of him. FLEMMING Damn! Where the hell is he? We should've found him by now. Bork sees something. It's Beavis, about a hundred yards away. BORK Chief, look! FLEMMING (picks up radio) Attention all units. We've got him. He's in front of a camper in the visitor's lot. EXT. OUTSIDE ANDERSON'S CAMPER - DAY Beavis stands, T-shirt still over his head. Suddenly, dozens of agents surround him, pointing guns at him. Beavis seems oblivious to the danger. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO I am the great Cornholio! I will lay waste to your bunghole! Heh heh. BEHIND THE AGENTS, Flemming approaches and gives orders. FLEMMING OK, nobody shoot. He could still have the unit on him. Keep your distance. We don't wanna take a chance on hitting it. BORK Where are his pants? FLEMMING Who knows? Beavis reaches to scratch his butt. Agents step back, cautious. Flemming picks up a bullhorn and addresses Beavis. FLEMMING (CONT.) This is Agent Flemming, A.T.F.. We won't hurt you. We just want the unit. Tell us where the unit is. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Do you have T.P.? T.P. for my bunghole? FLEMMING We'll get you whatever you want. (to agents) Get that other kid. We might need him. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Do you have any oleo? Heh heh. BORK (on a radio) This is Bork. We need some T.P. and some...(to Flemming) What's he say? ANGLE BEHIND AGENTS. Butt-Head is brought in by two agents. BUTT-HEAD Whoa, this rules! Can I have a gun too? Huh huh huh. ON BEAVIS. He continues to babble, making the agents nervous. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO You must bow down to the Almighty Bunghole. (Beavis) Heh heh, this is cool. (Cornholio, chanting) Bungholio-o-o-o-o-o! FLEMMING (to Bork) He's jerkin' us off. I think we're gonna have to take him out. Get ready to fire on my orders... (on bullhorn) This is your last chance. Give us the unit now... BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO (Beavis) Why does everyone wanna see my schlong? (Cornholio, chanting) I am the one-and-only-almighty-bungholiooo! FLEMMING (to agents) OK boys. Get ready to fire on the count of three. (on bullhorn) I'm gonna give you three seconds... ANGLE ON AGENTS taking aim, cocking their guns. FLEMMING (CONT.) (on bullhorn) One... ANGLE ON BEAVIS, chanting. BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO Cornholio-o-o-o-o... ANGLE ON BUTT-HEAD. BUTT-HEAD Uh, huh huh huh. FLEMMING (on bullhorn) ...Two... BEAVIS/CORNHOLIO ...o-o-o-eieee-ooooeeeooooo... FLEMMING (on bullhorn) Thrr... Suddenly Tom Anderson throws open his camper door, holding Beavis' pants. TOM And take yer damn pants with ya...! (noticing) What in the hell...? BORK (pointing) THE PANTS!!! He's got the unit! Suddenly all guns are on Anderson. FLEMMING (through bullhorn) Drop the pants! Now! TOM Wait a minute. I ain't the one... IN SLOW MOTION: A S.W.A.T. TEAM GUY lunges at Tom, grabbing the pants. Tom pulls away, causing the pants to RIP. THE UNIT GOES FLYING. A FROZEN MOMENT. SLOW MOTION. TIGHT ON THE UNIT. TIGHT ON FACES IN THE CROWD. TIGHT ON THE UNIT. TIGHT ON FLEMMING. TIGHT ON BUTT-HEAD, LAUGHING IN SLOW MOTION - OBLIVIOUS. TIGHT ON THE UNIT, FALLING, FALLING. IT HITS BUTT-HEAD'S HEAD, BOUNCES AND FALLS INTO HIS HANDS. The agents all stare at Butt-Head - quiet, not sure what to do. Butt-Head hands it to Flemming, nonchalant. BUTT-HEAD Uh, here ya go. Huh huh huh. The crowd CHEERS. ON ANDERSON'S CAMPER. Tom is handcuffed roughly. TOM Now wait just a minute... An agent comes out of the camper with the picture of Dallas. Bork grabs it and shows it to Tom. BORK How do you explain this? Flemming approaches Tom. FLEMMING Sooo, using two innocent teenagers as pawns in your sick game, huh? TOM I don't know what the hell... FLEMMING (disgusted) Take him away. Anderson is dragged away past a group of young, boy-scout types who shake their heads in shame. ANGLE ON Beavis and Butt-head being interviewed by a reporter. Beavis is in his underwear. Tom is being dragged away in the background. BEAVIS I always thought there was something wrong with him. Heh heh heh. BUTT-HEAD Yeah, he had a lot of problems. Huh huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah, and um, he used to hit me too. BUTT-HEAD (leaning towards camera) Uh hey, does anyone wanna see my unit? B&B Huh huh huh huh huh huh. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY Later. Establish. Most A.T.F. cars are pulling out. INT. WHITE HOUSE/OVAL OFFICE - DAY B&B sit as Flemming paces in front of them. Beavis is no longer Cornholio. FLEMMING I gotta admit, I didn't believe it. I thought you were scum. But you saved more lives today than you'll ever know. You led us to one of the sickest criminals in our history. This country owes you a debt. BUTT-HEAD Uh, does that mean, like, we're gonna get money and stuff? BEAVIS Yeah, and chicks! We were supposed to score. FLEMMING For security reasons, your actions will have to remain top secret. But someone very special wants to give his thanks. Flemming motions to the big chair. The PRESIDENT swivels around and rises to shake hands with B&B. PRESIDENT Beavis and Butt-Head. On behalf of all your fellow Americans, I extend my deepest thanks. You exemplify a fine new crop of young Americans who will grow into the leaders of this great country. BUTT-HEAD Huh huh huh. He said crap. Huh huh. BEAVIS Heh heh. This guy's cool. PRESIDENT In recognition for your great service, I'm appointing you honorary agents in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. BUTT-HEAD Whoa, huh huh!!! The President hands them citations. BUTT-HEAD (CONT.) You hear that, Beavis! We're gonna get alcohol, tobacco and guns! BEAVIS Yeah, maybe some chicks too. Heh heh. B&B leave the office, muttering. BUTT-HEAD Cigarettes and beer rule! Huh huh. BEAVIS Yeah! We're with the bureau of cigarettes and chicks! We're gonna score! B&B Huh huh huh huh huh. EXT. AIRPORT NEAR B&B'S HOMETOWN - DAY A plane lands. INT. PLANE/DOOR - DAY As before, the flight crew stares in horror and silence as B&B deplane. BUTT-HEAD Uh... bye-bye. BEAVIS Heh heh. Bye bye. Heh heh. EXT. ELITE MOTEL LODGE BAR - DAY Walking home, B&B pass the motel. They notice the sign for big screen TV. They stop and look at it. BUTT-HEAD You know what else sucks? We never even got a TV. ON BEAVIS, seeing something, amazed, ecstatic. BEAVIS Heh mmm, hey mmm Butt-Head! Look! Heavenly MUSIC. B&B stare at the wonder before them. ANGLE ON THEIR TV, mangled, partly-crushed junk. B&B Yes! Yes! Yes! Huh huh huh. B&B run up to the set like it was their lost and found dog. EXT. RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY B&B walk off into the distance with the TV. BEAVIS Hey Butt-Head, do you think we're ever gonna score? BUTT-HEAD Uh, I probably will, but not you. You're too much of a butt-monkey. Huh huh. BEAVIS Shut up, dill-hole. BUTT-HEAD Butt-dumpling... BEAVIS Turd-burglar... BUTT-HEAD Dill-wad... BEAVIS Bunghole... BUTT-HEAD Butt-snatch... BEAVIS Um, uh, butt... um, hole. Butt-hole... BUTT-HEAD Uh... dill, um, face... BEAVIS Um... ass... head... BUTT-HEAD Uh... butt-snatch... BEAVIS You already said that, Butt-Head. BUTT-HEAD Oh, uh, I mean, uh, ass-goblin... B&B Huh huh huh... B&B head off into the sunset, trading lame insults as we FADE OUT. END 
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+                                    BEGINNERS                                                            Written by                                   Mike Mills          INT. HAL FIELDS HOME.          A single daisy stands in a vase in an empty kitchen.                                   INT. HAL'S BEDROOM          OLIVER FIELDS clicks on the light to the closet. He looks at          the rack of his parents' clothes.          He begins to put some in a box marked "home", some in a box          marked "thrift".                                   INT. HAL'S BATHROOM          Oliver enters the bathroom and flushes bottle after bottle of          pills and liquids down the toilet. Next he struggles as he          looks over the old toothbrush, hairbrush, all the bottles and          tubes besides the sink. He stares for a beat, then throws          them all away.                                   INT/EXT. HAL'S TRASH AREA          Oliver hauls trash outside, adding it to a very large pile of          bags. An older Jack Russell Terrier, ARTHUR, follows him.                                   INT. HAL'S OFFICE          Oliver and Arthur sit on the office floor surrounded by          papers, boxes, books and trash bags. He finds a photo of HAL          FIELDS in an open Jean jacket, no shirt, it's attached to a          personal ad application which he begins to read.                                                            CUT TO PAST                                   EXT. LARGE EMPTY PARKING LOT NIGHT          In the dark, OLIVER FIELDS has a tape recorder and          microphone, he follows ANDY as he excitedly prepares, a group          of friends looks on.                          ANDY           Okay. Is it on? (recorder)                          OLIVER           Yeah yeah.                          ANDY           This is for our friend Hal Fields.           Hal. We love you.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 2.                         CONTINUED:                                   Andy quickly lights a rack of large fireworks, they shoot up          into the night and explode - smoke - more explosions -          everyone's laughing. Oliver looks up at the fireworks,          recording the sounds, happy.          BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.                                                            CUT TO PRESENT                                   EXT. HAL'S DRIVEWAY - NIGHT          Oliver has packed his car, he leans down to Arthur.                          OLIVER           You're coming to live with me now.          Arthur looks at him.                          OLIVER           This is my car.          Arthur hops in.                                   EXT. STREET - NIGHT          Oliver's car drives down Sunset boulevard.                                   INT. OLIVER'S HALLWAY - NIGHT          Oliver and Arthur enter, he's carrying a box, his house is          dark and lonely.                                   INT. HAL'S DINNING ROOM          Oliver enters his dining room, Arthur in tow.                          OLIVER           This is the dining room where           people come and eat sometimes.          The dog listens intently. Oliver moves on, the dog follows.                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM          Oliver and Arthur enter the living room.                          OLIVER           This is the living room.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 3.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver looks around, the dog looks with him.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BATHROOM          We see the door open revealing Oliver and Arthur continuing          their tour.                          OLIVER           That's the bathroom.          The dog looks.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT          Arthur lays next to Oliver in bed. Unable to sleep, Oliver          looks to the ceiling.                                                            CUT TO NARRATED SEQUENCE                                                            STILL BLACK AND WHITE AND COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SUN, THE          STARS, YOSEMITE, GEORGE W. BUSH FLASH BY:           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is 2003. This is what the sun           looks like, and the stars, nature.           This is the President.          NOW PHOTOS OF THE SUN, STARS, NATURE, ETC. FROM 1955 FLASH                         BY:           OLIVER V.O.           And this is the sun in 1955, and           the stars, and nature, and cars,           and phones, and movies, and the           President. These are what pets           looked like. These are fireworks.           This was smoking.          PHOTOGRAPHS, CROPPED IN ON FACES FROM 1955, VERY FAST          SEQUENCE OF PEOPLE KISSING:           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           This is what it looked like when           people kissed...          FAST SEQUENCE OF FACES FORM 1955 LAUGHING:           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           ...When they were happy...          SEQUENCE OF FACES CRYING:                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 4.                         CONTINUED:                                    OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           ...When they were sad.          FAST SEQUENCE OF MARRIAGE PHOTOS FROM 1955:           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           My parents got married in 1955.          SHOT OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM, SHOT OF AN OLD HOUSE:                          OLIVER           He was a museum director - she           fixed up old houses.          1955 STILL PHOTO OF A BABY BEING BORN:                          OLIVER           They had a child, and they stayed           married for 44 years...          A SEQUENCE OF STILL SHOTS OF FRENCH TOAST IN DIFFERENT STAGES          OF BEING EATEN, THEN STILL SHOTS OF STRAWS THAT JUMP CUT INTO          CIGARETTES, THEN LIVE ACTION CLIP FROM THE TELETUBBIES, AND          THEN RAPID FIRE THROUGH STILL SHOTS OF EVERY PRESIDENT FROM          1924 TO 2003 AND BACK.           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           ...Until she died in their bed,           after four months of cancer and           eating French toast for every meal           and watching the Teletubbies           everyday and confusing white straws           for her cigarettes and skipping           back and forth through time inside           her head.                                   INT. HAL'S HOUSE LIVING ROOM - DAY          Hal fields sits on a couch, in a purple sweater, looking into          camera, struggling for words.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Six months later, my father told me           he was gay. He had just turned 75.                          HAL           I'm gay.          Same camera angle, Hal still looking into camera we jump cut          to him wearing a robe.           OLIVER V.O. (CONT'D)           I always remember him wearing a           purple sweater when he told me this           but actually he wore a robe.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 5.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL           I'm gay.          Same angle, we continue to jump cut through Hal talking to          camera, each cut in different clothes, and with each cut his          line has a different inflection.                          HAL (CONT'D)           I'm gay.          Jump cut, new outfit.                          HAL (CONT'D)           I loved your mother, but, uh... now           I want to explore this side.          Jump cut, new outfit.                          HAL (CONT'D)           I don't want to be just           theoretically gay, I want to do           something about it.          New outfit and inflection.                          HAL (CONT'D)           ...I want to do something about           it...          New outfit and inflection.                          HAL (CONT'D)           ...I want to do something about it.                                   INT/EXT. VARIOUS - DAY          A live action "portrait" of Hal, looking into camera, first          in old clothes, then jump cut to new all black outfit.           OLIVER (V.O.)           He changed all his clothes.                                   EXT. PARK - DAY          The camera moves through a large group of men and streamers          gathered for Los Angeles Pride event.           OLIVER V.O. (CONT'D)           He got a boyfriend, Andy, a           physical trainer who was also           studying for his professional           pyrotechnic license.          Camera lands on Hal beaming with pride, his arm around Andy          who looks into camera and says.                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 6.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANDY           Since I came out to my father, he           never speaks to me. That's why           I've been always attracted to older           men.          Hal and friends laugh warmly at Andy. We cut to live action          "portraits" of a priest, a therapist, the Primetimers, his          movie-night club, and the large L.A. Pride group, all looking          into camera.           OLIVER V.O.           He found an out gay priest to guide           him spiritually. He saw a therapist           for the first time. He joined the           Primetimers. Movie night.           Los Angeles Pride, and then...                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM          We see Hal's living room, empty of furniture in the morning          light.           OLIVER V.O.           Four years after he came out, he           died in this room...                                   CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLIVER'S KITCHEN - MORNING          Oliver enters, followed closely by Arthur. Oliver walks          through the kitchen - Arthur follows him. Oliver walks          through the living room - Arthur follows. Oliver makes a          circle through the house - Arthur follows.          Oliver sits, looking down at Arthur.                          OLIVER           Look, its lonely out here, so you'd           better learn how to talk with me.          Arthur's face looks up at him filled with a dog's love and no          words.                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           While I understand up to 150 words -           I don't talk.          Oliver leans down, pushing his head into Arthur's.                          OLIVER           I know. I know.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 7.                         CONTINUED:                                                                                     CUT TO PAST          A SERIES OF QUICK MEMORIES...                                   INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY          Camera follow's Oliver down a long corridor.          INT. ICU ROOM - NIGHT          Oliver sits as HAL lays in a coma on a ventilator. The room          is dark, Oliver uses a flashlight to quietly read to his          father.          INT. ICU ROOM - DAY          QUICK CUTS. A nurse opens the shades. A DOCTOR and two nurses          stand over Hal, everyone's nervous. Hal is struggling with          all the tubes down his throat. Oliver is trying to help him          breathe, talking into his ear.          Oliver is ushered out of the room. The nurse draws the          curtain.          MOMENTS LATER: Oliver sits with Hal, now off the ventilator          but still very weak and disoriented. Oliver coaches his          breathing.                          OLIVER           Calm. Calm, calm breaths.          Hal coughs.                                   INT. ICU ROOM          It's the middle of the night, Hal is connected to many I.V.s          in both arms, still disoriented, he's tangled up in the          tubes, trying to pull them out of his arms. He wakes up          Oliver.                          HAL           Oliver! Please help me with all           these ropes.          Oliver rushes and helps him.                          OLIVER           Pop, Pop, stop -- you're gonna hurt           yourself.          A NURSE quickly enters and helps hold down his arms.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 8.                         CONTINUED:                                                   NURSE           Mr. Fields, we're going to have to           secure your arms again.                                                                                                              She puts his hands in restraints, Oliver helps.                          HAL           You two married?                          OLIVER           No, Pop.                          HAL           Why not? She's great.          The nurse smiles, embarrassed, and continues with her job.                          OLIVER           She's a great nurse in the           hospital, we don't really know her,           you're very high on drugs.                          HAL           You always have some very good           reason, haven't you?                          OLIVER           No, Pop, I just don't want to be           like you and mom.           (aside to the nurse)           Thank you...                                   CUT TO PAST                                   INT. OLIVER'S CHILDHOOD HOME 1978          IN THE KITCHEN: We see 10-year-old Oliver watching his mother          GEORGIA and father kiss quickly, politely, and then his          father leaves quickly. Hal remains in silhouette through the          shot.          DIFFERENT DAY, IN OLIVER'S BEDROOM: Oliver watches Hal and          Georgia kiss, and Hal leave - more like a performance than          anything real.          DIFFERENT DAY, IN PARENT'S BEDROOM: Oliver watches Hal and          Georgia kiss and Hal exit, quick and dry.          10-year-old Oliver studies them each time.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 9.                         CONTINUED:                                   DIFFERENT DAY, OLIVER'S BEDROOM: Georgia quickly opens the          door and finds Oliver drawing.                          GEORGIA           Oliver!          He turns and Georgia shoots him with her finger, Oliver falls          to the ground.                          GEORGIA           Olly, you can do better.          He gets up and she shoots him again - He falls more          dramatically, knocking his head on the floor.                          GEORGIA           That's good.          His mom looks at him affectionately.                                                            CUT TO PRESENT                                   EXT. ECHO PARK STREET - NIGHT          Oliver walks Arthur across a lit field, towards the dog park.                                   EXT. DOG PARK - NIGHT          Everywhere dogs and their people are playing. Oliver and          Arthur sit on a bench like two humans. Oliver watches the          action, Arthur stares at Oliver.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Go have your own experiences with           your own people. I'll be right           here...          Arthur stays by Oliver's side.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           I'm a human. I'm not a dog.           And you're a Jack Russell, that's a           breed. Your personality was created           by this guy John Russell, a hunting           enthusiast, in the 1800s. And he           bred your ancestors to have stamina           and courage for the hunt. You think           you're just you, and you want to           chase the foxes, but other people           planted that in you years ago.                          (MORE)                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 10.                         CONTINUED:                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Now, somewhat arbitrarily, you are           considered very cute by us humans,           and we keep breeding you not to           chase foxes, but to be cute, and we           put you in movies and television           shows, and you, you're chasing           tennis balls cause there as close           to a fox as you're going to get.          Arthur stays by Oliver's side.                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE          CU on Oliver's hands as he draws a T-shirt that reads:          "My personality was created by someone else and all I got was          this stupid T-shirt."          Reveal that Oliver is in a design office. LIZ, 30's enters,          they IMPROV hellos.          JUMP CUT thru a series of Oliver's drawings. A speech bubble          that reads: "A fair amount of failures." He draws portraits          of girls with dates: "Ellen O. 1984-1988" -- "Julie P. 1988-          1989" -- "Liz B. 1993 - 1995" -- "Lynette I. 1995" --          "Amanda Y. 1996-2000" -- "Yuki H. 2000" -- "Christina S.          2001" -- "Michelle M. 2001-2003"          Oliver stops drawing, lost in his thoughts...                                                            CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT          In the dark I.C.U. room, Hal is still attached to many I.V.s,          Oliver is helping Hal look at a book of Japanese rock gardens          with a flashlight.                          OLIVER           Want me to read this? I found it in           your books.                          HAL           Yeah, alright. Give me the           flashlight.          Oliver opens it, they look at a few pages together, photos of          serene gardens.                          OLIVER           Nice.                          HAL           Oh, that's nice.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 11.                         CONTINUED:                                   Hal keeps peeking at a bouquet of flowers in the corner of          the room. Hal takes the flashlight from Oliver and guides it          to the flowers.                          OLIVER           Oh, Andy brought those for you.                          HAL           Oh, yeah?          Hal continues to direct the light across the room, we follow          the circle of light as it moves a cross a wall landing on a          painting.                          HAL           Oh, who did that painting?                          OLIVER           Well, I don't know. Its just a           painting on the wall.          Hal continues exploring, Oliver's enjoying his father's          curiosity, he lands on some photos displayed on the table.                          HAL           A--, and these?                          OLIVER           They're just photos, Pop.                          HAL           But how do they relate to the           exhibit?                          OLIVER           They're just personal photos.           They're not art.          Hal slowly moves the flashlight up the wall, across the          ceiling to a strange assortment of fire detectors,          sprinklers, sensors, all laid out against the acoustic tile          ceiling. Hal points up. Oliver looks for a beat, then...                          OLIVER           Uh, well that's the water sprinkler           thing.                          HAL           Well, its beautiful.                          OLIVER           What is?                          HAL           Putting the Japanese gardens there.           It's just beautiful.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 12.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver looks from the ceiling to the rock garden book. The          ceiling and the gardens look the same. Oliver is moved by          Hal's confusion. ANDY, 45-years-old, physical, boyish, storms          into the room.                          ANDY           Hal.                          HAL           Andy!          Andy gets on the bed opposite Oliver. He gives Hal a big kiss          on the lips. Hal glows. Oliver backs away slowly. Andy picks          up Hal's hand, turns it palm up and presses his face into it.                          ANDY           I brought something for you.          Oliver watches from outside the room as Andy excitedly pulls          a portable tape player out of his bag.                          ANDY           We made a recording for           you.                          HAL           Oh, God.          Andy pushes play, on the recording we hear Andy's voice:           ANDY ON TAPE           This is for our friend Hal Fields.           Hal. We love you.          We hear voices HOOTING, and then large FIREWORKS, LAUGHTER          and CLAPPING.          Oliver watches his father's happiness from a distance.          CUT TO PRESENT          INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE          CU on Oliver's hands drawing bright streaming colors of the          fireworks.          LATER: Oliver get's to his real work, pulling out a few 8X10          photos of a band "The Sads". There are some instructions on          record company letterhead - he is to do an album design for          their new record - they want him to draw portraits of the          three members.          Oliver begins to do quick portraits of them based on the          photo.                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 13.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Jesus, Liz. Another band that           wants portraits.                          LIZ           Well, at least it pays the rent.                          OLIVER           You do something decent once, and           that's all people ever want.          JUMP CUT through the different portraits developing. It's not          what Oliver want's to do.                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - LATER          Elliott and Shauna let themselves in. Elliot grabs a stool          and sits down.                          ELLIOTT           Hi Liz.          Oliver continues to draw, as Shauna and Elliott try to get          his attention.                          ELLIOTT           Oliver?                          OLIVER           Yeah?                          ELLIOTT           The pen is not your friend. The           paper is not your friend. The           party is your friend. We're your           friends. Your friends are your           friends.                                   INT. OLIVER'S LIVING ROOM          Elliot is now dressed as a cop and Shauna as a large chicken,          they are dancing with no music as Oliver sits on a couch          depressed dressed as Sigmund Freud, complete with wig-beard-          glasses-pipe.                          SHAUNA           I got the skills... he's got the           moves...                          ELLIOTT           I got the moves... you've got the           skills...           10/29/07 14.                                                                                                              INT. OLIVER'S FRONT DOOR          Oliver, Elliott, and Shauna are leaving. Arthur can't believe          he's being left behind. It's actually the first time they          will separate.                          OLIVER           Arthur, you haven't been invited to           this party. You're gonna stay and           look after the house.          Oliver tentatively shuts the door, takes three steps, Arthur          begins to howl. Oliver tries to ignore it, but stops again.          He looks back at the house and the howling.                          CUT TO:                                   INT. OLIVER'S CAR - DRIVING          Arthur, victorious, sits in Elliot's lap in the front seat,          while Oliver drives and Shauna is squeezed in back in her          chicken outfit.                          ELLIOTT           You remember when Oliver was funny?           And he could actually, like, talk,           in complete sentences?                          SHAUNA           Funny? Funny? I don't think so Fun           maybe, but not funny unless, like,           serious is funny. Then he's'           fucking hilarious.          Elliot and Oliver laugh.                          SHAUNA           But, lovable. You are very           lovable.                          ELLIOTT           Yeah, very lovable.                                   INT. HOUSE PARTY - NIGHT          Oliver carries Arthur, they all enter a costume party, making          their way through the crowd of people in all kinds of          disguises, music blaring, Oliver slides into the less          populated kitchen. A woman rushes up to Oliver, surprised to          see he has a dog.                          FEMALE PARTIER           So cute, does he do tricks?                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 15.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           His name's Arthur - he doesn't do           tricks.          In the background are a couple dressed as JULIAN and ETHEL          ROSENBERG, we see them observe Oliver and Arthur.                          PARTIER           No? Arthur, SIT!          Arthur promptly sits down. Oliver's totally surprised.                          PARTIER           He's so cute. Shake!          Arthur sticks out his paw. Oliver doesn't like seeing Arthur          blindly perform.                          PARTIER           Oh my god, he's so cute, I want           him.                          OLIVER           (in Freud accent)           Does it make you feel powerful to           order my dog around? Maybe give           you a sense of power?                          PARTIER           Oh, you're being a therapist!           Freud!                          OLIVER           Thanks, yeah. Very good.          Oliver picks up Arthur and escapes the kitchen. The          Rosenberg's are still watching.          LATER...          Oliver and Arthur sit in a chair next to a couch where a man          dressed as a witch, complete with green face and long black          hair, is lying back as if in a traditional analysis session.                          LONG-HAIRED MAN           Well, I didn't ask for this. Who           would ask for this? This color.           This nose. This cheek, this chin.           You know, this is my life. This           isn't a story. This isn't a           joke...          Oliver is playing along, but he's really not emotionally          ready for this party. He feels very far away.                          OLIVER           Yeah.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 16.                         CONTINUED:                                                   LONG-HAIRED MAN           I'm so glad you came, Doc. Just           really good to get this stuff off           my chest.                          OLIVER           (in Freud accent)           I'm sorry. Our time is up, uh...           for this week. Thank you for           coming in.          The witch moves on.          Oliver sits with Arthur in his lap, alone, lost in all this          joviality.          We see that the woman dressed as Julius Rosenberg is watching          him.          Just as Oliver is about to get up, she plops herself down          onto the couch, ready for her session.           OLIVER V.O.           Oh, I was just- I was gonna take a           break, actually.          She pulls out a writing pad, oblivious. Oliver can tell she's          not going to give it up.                          OLIVER           (back in accent)           Well, I guess we should start with           your mother.          The woman writes on her notepad and shows it to Oliver:          "Never had one."                          OLIVER           Well then your father.          She mimes shooting herself in the head and dying.                          OLIVER           I don't understand. You can't           talk? Is it a mental problem? Do           you need analysis?          She writes on her pad: "I have laryngitis"                          OLIVER           That's a physical problem.          She smiles at him, looks at him a little too long, Oliver is          more and more pulled in by her playfulness - she writes:          "Why are you at a party if you're sad?"          CU on Oliver, surprised and impressed by her observation.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 17.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           I was doing such a good job of           hiding it. How could you tell?          Ethel holds up her notebook. She has drawn TWO EYES.          Oliver's taken by her.                          OLIVER           Clearly, I'm gonna need a drink.           You?          She smiles and nods.                          OLIVER           You, stay here, yeah?          Oliver moves to--                         INT KITCHEN          Elliot and Shauna are deeply engaged in conversation with          someone dressed as a pickle and someone dressed as much less          colorful chicken.                          ELLIOTT           No, its just not a natural color           for a chicken.                          SHAUNA           No.                          ELLIOTT           (motioning to Shauna's                          COSTUME)           And look, you see what happens when           you free yourself from the cage,           walk away from the factory.                          SHAUNA           You just have no real color.                          YOU'RE LIKE--          Oliver slips past, hands Arthur to Elliot. He scoops ice          from the bucket and starts filling two cups.                          ELLIOTT           Hey, hey.                          SHAUNA                          (COUNTING CUPS)           Uh-oh, one. Uh-oh, two.                          ELLIOTT           Two drinks.                          SHAUNA           What does that me--, one, two.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 18.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ELLIOTT           Well that's two, two people.                          SHAUNA           Two people. A girl and a guy?                          ELLIOTT           Hopefully.                          SHAUNA           Yeah, wow, making moves.          Oliver leaves Arthur in Elliott's arms.                          OLIVER           Watch him OK?          Oliver begins to leave his drinks. We see his POV of the          woman dressed as Julius Rosenberg waiting on the couch.          Oliver slips into one of his memories...                                                            CUT TO PAST                                                                                     INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM/INT. HAL'S BEDROOM - LATE NIGHT          INTERCUT: The phone RINGS, wakes up Oliver, he turns on the          light, answers the phone. PRE-CANCER Hal talks excitedly.                          OLIVER           Hello?                          HAL           Oliver?                          OLIVER           Yeah.                          HAL           I'm not sorry I woke you!           I went to Akbar tonight.                          OLIVER           You did?                                   INT. AKBAR - NIGHT          Hal and his friends, BRIAN and ROBERT, make their way through          a crowded gay club. Hal is by far the oldest, and most          excited, man there.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 19.                         CONTINUED:                                    HAL (V.O.)           They had wonderfully loud music. In-           sit, in-sit, in-sit. What kind of           music is that?           OLIVER (V.O.)           Probably house music?                                   INT. HAL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT          Hal gets a pad and pen to write this down.                          HAL           "House music."                                   INT. AKBAR - NIGHT          A bunch of Young Gay guys dance. Hal is on the side, dancing          by himself, hands in the air twinkling his fingers.           OLIVER (V.O.)           So did you meet anyone?          At the packed bar, Hal drinks alone.           HAL (V.O.)           Young gay men don't go for older           gay men.                                   INT. OLIVER'S HOUSE CONTINUOUS          Back to Oliver in bed, on the phone.           HAL (V.O.)           You have it easy.                                   CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. HOUSE PARTY - NIGHT          Oliver snaps out of his memory. He makes his way through the          crowd and delivers the drink to her. He looks at her a little          too intensely, then blurts out.                          OLIVER           Would you like to dance?          She happily nods yes. They walk to the dance floor, we think          Oliver's going to be shy, but he breaks into a kinetic,          angular, dance. She's surprised with us - she laughs, they          have a good time.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 20.                         CONTINUED:                                   JUMP CUT THROUGH THE NIGHT: Oliver, "Julius", Elliott and          Shauna are talking to a magician. "Julius" picks a card, the          magician mixes it into the full deck, pops a card into the          air, it is hers. Shauna and Elliott can see that Oliver's          coming alive.          LATER. They dance again, now they're sweaty, the dance          floor's packed - it's the pinnacle of the party.                                   INT. PARTY BATHROOM - NIGHT          The party's winnowing down in the background - "Julius" and          Oliver look at each other in the mirror for a beat, and then          simultaneously take their wigs off, revealing their true          selves.                          OLIVER           Hello...          Shes mouths a silent "hi"...                          OLIVER           Can I give you my number?          She pulls out her pad and pen and hands them to him.                          OLIVER           Thanks.          As he writes, Oliver spies Arthur sitting in the corner of          the bathroom, staring directly at him.                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           Tell her the darkness is about to           drown us unless something drastic           happens right now.          Oliver looks to her.                          OLIVER           I feel bad dragging Arthur to the           party. I should get home. It was           really nice meeting you.          She writes on her pad: "Au Revoir"                          OLIVER                          (CHUCKLES)           Au revoir. Yeah.          He leaves.                                                            EXT. STREET OUTSIDE PARTY - NIGHT (CONTINUOUS)                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 21.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver and Arthur walk up the empty street - Oliver kicking          himself for missing his chance with her. His phone rings.                          OLIVER           Hello?          ON THE OTHER END: Silence. A little breathing, the party in          background.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Is that you?          BEEP.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           One beep means yes?          BEEP.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           I've always wanted to have a phone           call with someone who doesn't           talk...          BEEEEEEEEEEEEP.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           You want to do something?                         BEEP                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Now?          BEEP.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Okay, I'm parked just right up the           street.          BEEP. They hang up. Oliver is filled with hope.          CUT TO: "Julius" walking out into a pool of street light.          They smile at each other, but don't say anything. They get          into his car.                          OLIVER           Okay. You point - I'll drive.          Oliver starts the engine. She points forward and they head          off. At the light she points left, he follows. Down the          street she points right...                          OLIVER           This way?                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 22.                         CONTINUED:                                   She nods. Oliver drives up on the sidewalk before the          street, heads down it for half a block, then takes her right.          We can hear them laughing.                                   EXT./INT. HOTEL ROOM LOBBY - NIGHT          Oliver, Arthur and the woman enter a very fancy hotel lobby.          Oliver is impressed. She mime's giving him a tour but still          doesn't talk.                                   INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT (CONTINUOUS)          Oliver and the woman open the door and enter her suite. They          look at each other nervously.                          OLIVER           Nice place.          They sit on her bed. She steals his pipe, put's it in her          mouth -- writes on her pad and shows it to him.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Oh, my mother. My mother died five           years ago.                          ANNA           (in a hoarse whisper)           Oh merd.                          OLIVER           Oh, you spoke.                          ANNA                          (A WHISPER)           I'm not supposed to.          She writes and present him with a new question.                          OLIVER           My father died two months ago,           almost three.          She looks at him with sincere empathy and surprise. Oliver's          opened up, an now everything gushes out, he barely knows what          he's saying.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           He, he was gay.          She's very surprised.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           He was gay the whole time they were           married.                          (MORE)                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 23.                         CONTINUED:                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           He came out after my mother died           and, uh... he was 75 years old.          There's a quiet moment of deep connection.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Sorry.          She mouths "No" (don't say sorry). She reaches out and gently          runs a finger across Oliver's brow and the outline of his          face, he's so vulnerable, she lovingly/mischievously squishes          his face together and messes up his hair. Then she leans in,          and they kiss for the first time - delicately.                          ANNA                          (WHISPER)           Can we just sleep?                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Sure, sure.          They lay down, she takes his arm and pulls him into spooning          her. He pulls the covers over them.                                                                                     INT. HOTEL ROOM - THE NEXT MORNING          Oliver wakes, still in his clothes. ANNA is already up. She          waves and Oliver smiles.          Anna holds up her notebook: "Who are you?"                          OLIVER           Oliver.          She writes again: "Go to NY. Audition. Back Thursday."                          OLIVER           How long are you here when you get           back?          Anna holds up one finger.                          OLIVER           A year?          Anna shakes her head and smiles. She gestures smaller.                          OLIVER           A month? Right. And then?...          She pantomimes a camera rolling, and herself acting.                          OLIVER           You're filming here. Acting.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 24.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver smiles as he interprets her gestures.                          OLIVER           And after?...          She makes a casual tossing motion with her hand.                          OLIVER           Just somewhere else. Where?          Anna only shrugs. She writes more, and tosses the notepad on          his lap. Oliver reads: "Can I see you again?"          He's very happy.                          OLIVER           Yes.                                   INT. HOTEL HALLWAY          They walk down the long hallway, Oliver carries her bags,          Anna holds onto Arthur's leash. Oliver reaches out and holds          her hand. They stop and kiss - gentle and comfortable with          each other.                                   EXT. ANNA'S HOTEL, RED HALLWAY - DAY          Oliver now alone with Arthur - heading home, he's happy.          CU on his face as he remembers...          REPEAT SCENE: Oliver and Anna's first kiss, tentative and          delicate.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM - DAY          Oliver's POV: Hal and Andy kiss lovingly.                                   INT. HAL'S KITCHEN - DAY          Oliver's POV: Andy comes up behind Hal doing the dishes,          kisses him. Hal smiles very happy.                                   INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT          Oliver's POV: Andy kisses Hal in the Hospital.          CUT TO PRESENT           10/29/07 25.                                                                                                              INT. OLIVER HOUSE ENTRY WAY          Oliver and Arthur enter his home, much more alive than the          last time we saw him come through the door.                          OLIVER           Hello house, (Low voice) hello           Oliver.                                   INT. OLIVER'S DINING ROOM - DAY          Oliver makes two piles of mail, one says Oliver Fields, one          has a yellow forwarding sticker that says Hal Fields. The Hal          Fields pile is much bigger.                          OLIVER           Jesus, Pop, you get so much mail.          Oliver slows and stares at his father's magazine - The          Advocate. Two attractive, shirtless men on the cover under          the title: America's Sweethearts. Oliver's lost in memory...           DOCTOR LONG (O.S.)           Hal, its remarkable how well you've           recovered from being on the           ventilator.                                   INT. HAL'S HOSPITAL ROOM          Hal sit's on top of his hospital bed, wearing one of his all          black outfits, looking much healthier. A doctor sits on his          bed, Oliver listens from the side.                          HAL           But...?                          DOCTOR LONG           The bronchoscopy revealed a mass           about the size of a quarter. It is           located in your lower right lung.          CU on Hal taking this in.           DOCTOR LONG (CONT'D)           I'm afraid the biopsy showed it's           cancerous.                          HAL           Uh-huh. I see.                          DOCTOR LONG           It appears to have spread... to the           large hilar lymph nodes in your           chest and liver.                          (MORE)                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 26.                         CONTINUED:           DOCTOR LONG (cont'd)           With the already weakened state of           your heart and lungs...          As Dr. Long talks about treatments, Oliver drifts back from          the conversation, slowly retreating to a window in the far          corner, as we continue to hear Dr. Long speak, we see          Oliver's thoughts, fixating on "a mass about the size of a                         QUARTER"                         WE HEAR:           DR. LONG (O.S.) (CONT'D)           ... Surgery isn't possible given           its location. We can start           radiation treatments and see if           you're strong enough for Chemo. You           will be able to go home.                         WE SEE:          SHOT OF A QUARTER ON BLACK          SHOT OF TWO DIMES AND A NICKEL          SHOT OF 5 NICKELS.          SHOT OF 25 PENNIES.          We cut back to Hal's face, stoically digesting the news.                          DOCTOR LONG           Do you have any questions?                          HAL           No. Thank you.          As the doctor leaves. Oliver takes his father's hand.                          OLIVER           I'm sorry.                          HAL           Well, let's not rush out and tell           everyone.                          OLIVER           Andy?                          HAL           No need to get him up a tree.          Hal takes a moment and composes himself. In his eyes we can          see that he knows there is an end to his life.                          HAL (CONT'D)           Can you read me something?                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 27.                         CONTINUED:                                   Hal hands Oliver his Advocate magazine, he begins to read          from "Tough Guys Do Dance."                          OLIVER           The Brazilian ballet star is           already known not only as a skilled           partner, but also as a gifted and           versatile dancer, who adeptly           fields roles ranging...          Camera tracks out of the room, leaving the two men alone...          CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - DAY          SERIES OF CU JUMP CUTS: We see Oliver's hands as he draws a          series of silhouetted figures hanging from trees, others          happily beheaded, all with talking bubbles that say, "Let's          not rush out and tell everyone"          JUMP CUTS: Oliver draws another severed head, then a woman          smoking next to the words, "First lung cancer."          JUMP TO LATER: Oliver tacks his drawings to the wall, looks          at them.          He looks down and pets Arthur, as we hear...          CUT TO PAST           OLIVER V.O.           Yeah, he's fine. He sleeps on your           bed.                          HAL           But is he eating?                                   INT. HAL'S HOSPITAL ROOM          Hal sits on his bed fully dressed, Oliver is visiting.                          OLIVER           Yeah, yeah, he's eating.                          HAL           Oh God, I worry so much about--          As Andy enters, his hands mysteriously cupped together.                          HAL           Oh here we are...          Andy shows Hal his cupped hands.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 28.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL (CONT'D)           What have you got in there?                          ANDY           A slug.                          HAL           Oh, Andy, you can't bring that kind           of thing in here.                          ANDY           Oh I can look.          Andy flashes open his hands, revealing nothing. He snorts and          laughs.                          HAL           Fuck you.          Oliver watches with amusement. NURSE SOPHIA enters...                          HAL           It's time for inspection...          The nurse works her way between Andy and Hal to take his          pulse.                          NURSE           Hello, Mr. Fields.                                                                            HAL           Hello.          Andy feels interrupted, strangely hurt by the nurse. The          nurse begins to take Hal's vital signs.                          ANDY           I'm Andy. Hal's boyfriend                          NURSE           I'm Sophia.          Andy gets more and more upset.                          ANDY           You know, I have the right to be           here as much as anyone else.          Hal lovingly cuts him off, trying to ease the tension.                          HAL           Go take a walk. Calm yourself.          Andy walks out, feeling embarrassed and rejected.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 29.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           What was all that?                          HAL           Oh, Andy hasn't had it easy. Be           nice to him.          To everyone's surprise, Andy storms back in with a bouquet of          flowers, dumps them on Hal's chest, kisses him triumphantly          and leaves again.                          HAL           (knowing he stole them)           Andy, where did you get these?                                   INT. HOSPITAL ROOM NIGHT          JUMP CUTS: Oliver helps a group of Hal's gay friends and Andy          get settled. They're jovial, they come with drinks and          flowers, the room gets very full. Oliver hands out cups,          offers wine, Andy lifts his paper cup and makes a toast.                          ANDY           Guys, guys, this is to us. Cheers.          A NURSE suddenly enters.                          STRICT NURSE           Drinking's not allowed in the room.          All the guys freeze.                          HAL           Oh, it's not?          She shakes her head no, the party stops, she leaves. Oliver          instinctively polite, starts packing up their cups.                          OLIVER           I'm sorry.          Moans and complaints from the group.                          HAL           No, no, no. She's a wonderful           nurse. (he pauses a beat, then           raises his cup again) Here's to           health care.          Hal swigs back his wine. They all laugh, grab their cups and          toast.                          EVERYONE           To health care!          Hal looks happy, Oliver smiles but can't believe his dad.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 30.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           What did you do with my father? He           was so polite.                          HAL           Oh, I invited him - but he never           returns my calls.          The guys drink merrily. Someone shoves a cup into Oliver's          hand, pours him a drink.                                                            CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLD MELROSE BOOKSTORE - NIGHT          Oliver, Elliott and Arthur are shopping in a very old and          crowded used book store. Oliver picks up a stack of magazines          as Elliott interrogates him.                          OLIVER           Two, four, six, eight...                          ELLIOTT           That's it? That's all you're gonna           tell me?                          OLIVER           I'm gonna meet her at her hotel           again. You happy?                          ELLIOTT           Yeah, I'm very happy. Are you           happy?          Oliver drops his books on the counter to check out.                          OLIVER           (to shop owner)           Here's eight...          Turns to Elliot.                          OLIVER           We haven't actually had a           conversation yet, so, you know...                                                            EXT. STREETS NIGHT - CONTINUOUS          The three are now in Oliver's car.                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 31.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ELLIOTT           You're thinking about her all the           time.                          OLIVER           And you know that because?                          ELLIOTT           Because you're not talking about           it. I know you.          There's a pause, then the truth.                          OLIVER           It's true. It's embarrassing. I'm           38 and falling for a girl again...                                                            CUT TO PAST                                   INT. GEORGIA'S BEDROOM - DAY          Georgia works at her writing table. Young Oliver, bored,          watches her.                                                             OLIVER V.O. (CONT'D)           It's like I lost the instructions           or I, I never had them...          Young Oliver walks up to Georgia.                          YOUNG OLIVER           Where's Pop?                          GEORGIA           At the museum.                          YOUNG OLIVER           Is something wrong with you guys?          Georgia is startled, she hides her feelings with humor.                          GEORGIA           What're you, in the FBI?                          YOUNG OLIVER           No.                          GEORGIA           The CIA?                          YOUNG OLIVER           No.                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 32.                         CONTINUED:                                                   GEORGIA           KGB? (Oliver shakes his head, no)           SLA? (no) PTA? (no) BMW?          Oliver sits silently.                          GEORGIA           There is nothing wrong with me and           Pop.          Georgia's mask breaks revealing sadness. Oliver can see it,          she can see he sees it. Georgia gets up and leads Oliver out          of the room.                          GEORGIA (CONT'D)           C'mon.          INT. CHILDHOOD HALLWAY - DAY          They stand in front of his bedroom door.                          GEORGIA           When you feel bad, you go into a           room and scream - loud as you want,           for a minute or two, then it's out           of you. It's called catharsis.          She opens the door, pushes him inside, and closes the door.          INT. OLIVER'S CHILDHOOD ROOM - DAY          Young Oliver pauses, confused in his room. He doesn't scream.          INT. CHILDHOOD HALLWAY - DAY          He comes back out. Sheepish.                          OLIVER           I don't feel like screaming...          Georgia, never ruffled.                          GEORGIA           You will...                                                            CUT TO PRESENT                                   EXT. HOLLYWOOD STREET - LATE AT NIGHT          Oliver and Arthur watch from the car as Elliott gets a can of          spray paint, heads to a blank wall across the street and          sprays a large tag on a wall. He then runs back to the car,          looks proudly at his work.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 33.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           What the fuck is that?                          ELLIOTT           L-E-IT, Elliot                          OLIVER           Well, that's ridiculous.                          ELLIOTT           I know! (Getting his criticism           more) You're not very supportive.                          OLIVER           Well, its just copying something           someone did, like, 30 years ago in           the Bronx.                          ELLIOTT           Well yeah. I'm part of a tradition           of civil disobedience, something           bigger than myself.          Oliver can't believe Elliott said that.                                   EXT. NEW STREET          Elliott drives along-side Oliver who's walking with a spray          paint can, terrified as he's never done this before. He          tries to spray, nothing comes out.                          OLIVER           How does it work?                          ELLIOTT           Shake it, you have to shake it.          Oliver shakes it awkwardly, then sprays across the wall:          1985 BUSH FINDS JESUS          Oliver runs back to the car, exhilarated.                          ELLIOTT           What was that?                          OLIVER           Historical consciousness... you           know, something bigger than myself.          Elliott scoffs.                          OLIVER           Let's do it again.          Elliott drives off. Oliver's coming to life.                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 34.                         CONTINUED:                                                  WE HEAR:           ELLIOTT (V.O.)           Okay, but when you see her, don't           tell her that you painted           historical consciousness on the           wall...          WE SEE: more of Oliver's graffiti on different buildings:                         1983 CHICKEN MCNUGGETS          2003 BRITNEY SPEARS MOST GOOGLED                                   EXT. OLIVER'S HOUSE DAY          Oliver exits his house alone, down his front stairs to the          street. Halfway down, he hears now familiar sound of Arthur          barking and howling. Oliver can't believe it.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM          Anna is sitting on the bed, gently petting Arthur.                          ANNA           He's sweet. He misses your Dad.          She stops. Gets up, nervous, and walks past Oliver into the          next room. Oliver follows her in. They pause uncomfortably,          Anna suddenly leans in and kisses him. Before it goes to          far...                          OLIVER           Maybe we, we could, um, just talk           for a second.                          ANNA           Right.          They awkwardly break apart. Anna goes to a chair, Oliver          follows. While nothing has really been expressed between the          two, Anna seems to understand the problem.                          ANNA           Well, my name is Anna. You're           worried you can't trust me because           you don't know who I am. I get it.           That makes sense to me.          She falters, looks at him vulnerably. Oliver abruptly kisses          her. She pushes back. They pause. She traces his brow slowly          with her index finger, the way she did their first night.          JELLY ROLL MORTON'S "SWEET JAZZ MUSIC" PLAYS                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 35.                         CONTINUED:                                   CUT TO POST SEX:          The music carries us, they lie in bed, naked. Anna innocently          leans over and takes Oliver's arm and bites down hard. He          grimaces. She stops and kisses it, admiring her teeth marks.          She gets up, sits at a side table and finds her cigarettes.          Oliver watches her.          The music seems to bend and slow down, this continues as we          fall into memory...                                                            CUT TO PAST                                   INT. GEORGIA'S BEDROOM          CU on young Oliver's hand pushing on a record making the          bending, slowing sounds.                          GEORGIA           Oliver, stop it.                                   Oliver stands up bored, Georgia's in the connecting bathroom          getting ready to go out.                          OLIVER           This music's old.                          GEORGIA           It's black, black music is the           deepest cause they suffered the           most, them and the Jews.          Oliver plops down on the bed, listening to her.                          GEORGIA           In my next life I'm gonna marry a           good hot blooded Jew - someone full           of emotion.                          OLIVER           I'm Jewish right?          Georgia comes and sits with him, caresses his hair as she          talks with him.                          GEORGIA AT 50           You're a quarter, I'm a half, your           father's none. He has the least           emotions, You'll have more emotions           than him, but I'll have the most           emotions.          She likes that she has the most emotions. They head out.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 36.                         CONTINUED:                                                   GEORGIA AT 50           You get to play chauffeur but just           to the bottom of the hill.                                   EXT. OLIVER'S CHILDHOOD CAR          10 year old Oliver's in the driving sear, Georgia smokes and          admires his handling of the car.                          GEORGIA           You're turning into a wonderful           driver.          Oliver's proud.                                   INT. LACMA ART MUSEUM STEPS DAY          Oliver escorts Georgia up the large steps of the museum. The          crowd from an opening gathers at the top.                                   INT. DAVID SMITH GALLERY LACMA DAY          Georgia and Oliver approach a David Smith sculpture. After          staring at it's angels for a beat, Georgia begins to do an          angular modern-dance-pantomime of the sculpture, imitating          it's shapes with her body. Oliver locks up with          embarrassment. A confused and concerned museum guard          approaches.                          SECURITY GUARD           Excuse me Mrs. Fields....                          GEORGIA           What? You're not allowed to           interact with the art?                          SECURITY GUARD           It's just that...                          OLIVER           C'mon.          Still embarrassed, Oliver takes Georgia's hand and walks her          away from the guard.                          GEORGIA           You too? You like being a good           citizen?                          OLIVER           No.          CUT TO PRESENT           10/29/07 37.                                                                                                              INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM - LATER          Anna's sits in her kimono. Oliver's buttoning his shirt.                          ANNA           Can you toss me my camisole.          Oliver throws a sweater.                          ANNA (CONT'D)           No, my camisole.          She throws the sweater back at him. Oliver looks around          helplessly. He grabs a flower out of a vase and hands it to          her.                          OLIVER           Camisole?          Anna laughs.                          ANNA           You don't know what a camisole is?                          OLIVER           I was brought up by these animals           and they didn't like questions.          They're both smiling now.                          OLIVER           They were very frowned upon. So I           had to guess.          Anna takes this in.                          ANNA           You can ask me anything.                          OLIVER           Anything?          CUT TO: Oliver and Anna at the window.                          OLIVER           What's out there?          She points.                          ANNA           That's a tree.                          OLIVER           Yeah.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 38.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANNA           And cars.                          OLIVER           Uh-huh.                          ANNA           Another building like this one.                          OLIVER           Right.                          ANNA           People in the building like us.           Half of them think things will           never work out. The other half           believe in magic. It's like a war           between them.          Oliver smiles. He moves away from the window.                          OLIVER           How do you know so much about           people?                          ANNA           Oh. Well, you have to learn how to           read their faces.          She climbs onto his lap, straddles him.                          ANNA           For example... here is mad.          Anna passes her hand across her face, and she's "mad".                          ANNA           Happy...          Her hand passes again and she's "happy".                          ANNA           Sometimes its just nothing.                          OLIVER           Oh yeah?          She points at her blank face.                          ANNA           This is nothing... And they are           good at looking one way and being           another way.          Her playfulness is very meaningful to Oliver, he's in love.           10/29/07 39.                                                                                                              EXT. FREEWAY PEDESTRIAN OVERPASS          They walk through a caged-in freeway overpass - Oliver is          carrying Arthur while blindfolding Anna with his hands. Over          this we hear the sounds of the quiet hotel room and an          intimate conversation between them.           ANNA (V.O.)           You don't know me. I like that.           OLIVER (V.O.)           No, that's not true.           ANNA (V.O.)           Oh yeah?           OLIVER (V.O.)           Yeah, you have blonde hair that           goes down to about here. You smoke           in non-smoking rooms.          Oliver is still covering her eyes, leading her to a certain          point, the busy sound of the freeway fading up...                          OLIVER           Okay, open your eyes...          HIGH ANGLE on huge trucks and traffic racing just beneath          Oliver and Anna's feet under the overpass. The trucks lay on          their horns as they pass, scaring and thrilling them.          MOMENTS LATER: they walk alongside the LA river together, arm          in arm, happy. The intimate conversation continues in voice          over.           ANNA (V.O.)           Oh yeah? You drive on the sidewalk.           You were raised by animals.           Sometimes you look very alone, like           you just got here.          They meet up with friends on the banks of the river.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Yeah, you see, you don't know me at           all.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL HALLWAY          Oliver and Arthur are leaving, walking down the long hallway          together. Arthur seems to stop and look up at Oliver.                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           She's unlike any girl I've ever           met.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 40.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver stops and looks at Arthur.                          OLIVER           Someone flashy walks into your life           and you're just gonna fall for it?                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           Are we married yet?                          OLIVER           No, uh, it doesn't work like that.           There are other steps, it's           complicated.          They look at each other a beat and then walk on together.                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           I hope this feeling lasts.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S HOSPITAL BATHROOM - DAY          Oliver is shaving Hal's face.                          HAL           What happened with Michelle?                          OLIVER           You know... I don't know.                          HAL           She seemed great.                          OLIVER           She was great.                          HAL           Maybe you should take out a           personal ad, where you explain your           situation?                          OLIVER           My situation?                          HAL           Yeah, I mean, you want to be in a           relationship but you can't stay in           one.                          OLIVER           That's your fatherly advice?           Personal ads?                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 41.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL           Well, a lot of people use them... I           did.                          OLIVER           What?                          HAL           If Andy wasn't going to be           monogamous, why should I be?                          OLIVER           Jesus, Pop.                          HAL           Jesus yourself.                                   INT. HAL FIELD'S HOUSE- DAY          Hal's friends hold up a hand-made "WELCOME HOME" sign in the          living room. Oliver helps Hal walk to his crew, Andy at the          center holding Arthur.                          HAL           Hello house (Answers back in deep           voice) Hello Hal.          Andy holds Arthur. Hal and Arthur kiss. They've clearly          missed each other.          JUMP CUTS: Oliver takes bottles of pills and syrups and          inhalers out of a Sav-On bag. He makes a chart of the          medicine, the dosage, and puts the pills in a dish. It's          emotional job for him.                                   INT. HAL'S DINING/KITCHEN          Oliver watches as Andy sneaks up behind Hal with his hands          cupped closed. Hal turns and smiles.                          HAL           Oh God, what have you got this           time?                          ANDY           It's a green caterpillar.                          HAL           No, no, no, you don't have a green           caterpillar.                          ANDY           Oh yeah I do.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 42.                         CONTINUED:                                   Andy opens his hands to reveal he actually does have a green          caterpillar.                          HAL           Oh my God. Gross! Oh, Jesus...                          (LAUGHING)          Andy puts the caterpillar down on the saucer of Hal's tea          cup, gives him a big kiss, and starts to leave...                          HAL           Hey, you going?                          ANDY           Yeah, Michael's in town.                          HAL           Oh. Right.          Andy waves goodbye and leaves. Hal is sad but covering it          up. He catches Oliver watching.                          OLIVER           I thought he was your boyfriend?                          HAL           Well, at least I'm the number one           boyfriend.          Hal grimaces in pain, doubles over.                          OLIVER           Pop.                          HAL           Oh, my stomach.                          OLIVER           Alright, come on. Come on.          Oliver tries to clear the couch of books and dogs for Hal to          sit down.                          OLIVER           Arthur, down.                          HAL           Well, let's say, when you were           little, you always dreamed of some           day getting a lion?          Oliver eases Hal down onto the couch.                                                                                                                              (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 43.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL           And you wait and you wait and you           wait and you wait and the lion           doesn't come. Then along comes a           giraffe.          Oliver helps Hal get his feet up.                          HAL           You can be alone or you can be with           the giraffe.                          OLIVER           I'd wait for the lion.          Oliver grabs the oxygen tubes and puts them on Hal's face.                          HAL           That's why I worry about you.          Hal looks at Oliver with love and concern.                                                            CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - DAY          CU on Oliver's hands as he writes "THE HISTORY OF SADNESS".          CUT TO him drawing an explosion with the caption: "EARTH          BEGINS (SADNESS NOT YET INVENTED)". He draws a man and a          woman with the caption: "FIRST COUPLE TO MARRY FOR WRONG          REASONS." He draws a spilled glass - "INVENTION OF ALCOHOL,          ANCIENT EGYPT." He draws a man's face and torso: "FIRST GAY          MAN ACCUSED OF BEING MENTALLY ILL." He draws a man labelled          "PRESENT" having been crushed by a giant boulder labelled          "PAST."          Oliver stops drawing, thinking of a conversation with his          father. CUT TO: Hal on his couch (previous scene) talking to          Oliver.                          HAL           You want me to be with someone like           me. I like Andy cause he's not like           me... he's fun.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL HALLWAY          Arthur runs down the hotel hallway, followed by Oliver, they          come to a corner and Anna jumps out, scaring them, they laugh          and continue on together.           10/29/07 44.                                                                                                              INT. MELROSE BOOK STORE NIGHT          Oliver and Anna are in the overcrowded used book store we saw          earlier. Oliver sees her down the aisle.                          OLIVER           Hey, what did you get?          She puts the cover of Liv Ullman's "Changing" over her face -          Ullman's face on the cover becomes Anna's.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Liv Ullman. Very serious.                          ANNA           And I found this crazy book.          She holds an old copy of THE JOY OF SEX in front of her face.                          OLIVER           That's kind of a classic American           thing.          Anna opens the book to a large drawing of a couple having          sex.                          ANNA           Maybe we can figure out some           classic American things to do.          Oliver takes the book and flips through the pages.                          OLIVER           Yeah, Like page 75?                          ANNA           Uh-huh.                          OLIVER           Or 75 all the way through, through           80.          LATER...          Oliver, Anna and Arthur sit at the end of an aisle looking at          a book on "Old Hollywood". The book has a photo of Louise          Brooks from the Twenties.                          OLIVER                          (READING)           Louise Brooks, star of silent           screen... effectively banned from           Hollywood in early Thirties, ended           up working as a salesgirl at Saks           Fifth Avenue.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 45.                         CONTINUED:                                   Anna listens. Oliver turns the page, we see a photo of          Veronica Lake.                          OLIVER           Veronica Lake.                          ANNA           Oh I love her.                          OLIVER           She was a pin-up model and a film           star... Success was short-lived...           series of broken marriages... She           struggled with mental illness and           alcoholism. She died of hepatitis           at the age of 53.                          ANNA           All these actor stories end sad. I           can tell you that already. It's           not a good life.          Oliver closes the book, they share a look, and something          vulnerable. Anna changes the mood, pulls out The Joy Of Sex,          skips through the pages as she talks.                          ANNA (CONT'D)           So. Now I want real Mexican food.          She stops on an illustration she likes.                          ANNA (CONT'D)           And I want to try page... 46.                                   EXT. STREET TACO TRUCK - NIGHT          Oliver, Anna and Arthur walk up to a typical L.A. Taco truck          on the side of the street. There is nothing fancy looking          about it.                          ANNA           No.                          OLIVER           Yeah.                          ANNA           Really?                          OLIVER           It's really good.          JUMP CUT: They're sitting on milk crates by the truck, ready          to take their first bite, Anna dives in un-selfconsciously,          we're not sure what she thinks.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 46.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           What do you think?                          ANNA           It's so good.          Oliver's so relieved.                          OLIVER           It's good? Oh, I wasn't sure you'd           like it.                          ANNA           Why?                          OLIVER           You're an actress and staying in           that fancy hotel.          Anna can barely swallow her huge bite...                          ANNA           I like this place.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM          They lie on the bed, continuing their conversation, side by          side, looking up at the ceiling together.                          ANNA           I used to love hotels. But now I'm           always in a new apartment or... in           another hotel somewhere.                          OLIVER           How do you keep hold of friends...           or boyfriends?                          ANNA           It makes it very easy to end up           alone - to leave people.                          OLIVER           You can stay in the same place and           still find ways to leave people.          She reaches up with her hand, their fingers intertwine.                          ANNA           You are like that? Its what you do?          Oliver nods yes. They know each other much better than either          one knew.                          ANNA           So we are the same?                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 47.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Yeah, I guess so.          The look to each other.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S HOUSE - OLIVER'S ROOM - NIGHT          Thumps and loud 1920's music wakes Oliver in the middle of          the night. He turns the lights on, discombobulated.          He gets up, works his way through the dark house. Turning on          lights.                          OLIVER           Pop?                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT          Hal's awake, he's taken down dozens of books from a wall to          wall bookshelf. A huge physical task. MARIA a nurse is with          him. Oliver's dumbfounded.                          HAL           Oh, did I wake you? Yeah. (Handing           Maria some books) Thank you Maria.           (to Oliver) And now that you're           here, uh, would you please put           those up there?                          OLIVER           What are you--? Pop. What?                          HAL           I'm reorganizing.                                                   OLIVER           Prednisone makes you crazy.                          HAL           I'm just not sleepy. I feel great.                                   INT. HAL'S OFFICE          Oliver and Hal are sitting at either side of his desk, Arthur          is in hal's lap. The sound from last scene bleeds over...           OLIVER (V.O.)           Pop, you should rest.          Hal looks sick but energized, he shuffles his desk of papers.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 48.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL           As soon as I finish these papers.           Right, papers? (In a different           voice) Right, Hal. As soon as           you're done, you can rest.          Oliver can only sit and worry.          CUT TO PRESENT                                   EXT. ELYSIAN PARK          Anna, Oliver and Arthur are walking in Elysian park, a view          of downtown behind them. Oliver's looking at her face, she          notices.                          ANNA           What?                          OLIVER           Nothing, you're pretty.                          ANNA           No...                          OLIVER           Yeah.                          ANNA           Jewish girls are not pretty. They           can be "interesting", or cute, but           not pretty.                          OLIVER           You're kidding right?                          ANNA           That's what my mom told me.                          OLIVER           She did not.          Anna laughs. As Anna continues to explain, the sound begins          to fade down...                          ANNA           No, you're right, this girl at           school told me that. And I went           home and my mom said, `Anna, who           told you that?          And Oliver's narration fades in over them walking...                                                                                                                              (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 49.                         CONTINUED:                                    OLIVER (V.O.)           This is what it looks like when           Anna tells me about being Jewish in           2003. And when I tell her that my           mother was Jewish. And then my           father turned in his gay badge when           my mother turned in her Jewish           badge. And they got married in           1955.          CUT TO NARRATED SEQUENCE          STILL PHOTOGRAPHS FLASH BEFORE US:          PHOTOS OF GEORGIA IN 1938, F.D.R., BUSINESS MEN...           OLIVER (V.O.)           My mother didn't know she was           Jewish until she was 13. It was           1938. This is what people looked           like.          THEN LIONS AND GIRAFFES FROM 1938. THEN ADOLF HITLER ON TIME          MAGAZINE COVER.           OLIVER (V.O.)           And lions and giraffes. This man           was Man of the Year.          THEN GEORGIA'S FATHER IN 1938, GEORGIA'S SWIM TEAM PHOTO.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Her father tried to hide that they           were Jewish. This is the swim team           that asked her to leave once they           discovered that she was Jewish.          THEN A QUICK SERIES OF ANGLO LOOKING FEMALE MODELS AND PIN-          UP'S FROM 1938.           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is what pretty looked like in           1938.          NOW A STILL PHOTO OF HAL IN 1938.           OLIVER (V.O.)           My father realized he was gay when           he was 13. It was 1938.          THEN A SERIES OF PHOTOS OF MALE MODELS IN SWIM SUITS AND          EXERCISING.           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is what pretty looked like.                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 50.                         CONTINUED:                                   THEN PHOTOS OF THEIR HIGH SCHOOL, G.I.'S FROM W.W.2, AND          JAMES DEAN.                                                             This is the high school where they           first met. This is the war they           both went to. And this man was           popular when they met again.          NOW A PHOTO OF A PUBLIC RESTROOM.           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is the only place my father           could hide and have sex in the           Fifties.          NOW HISTORICAL FILM FOOTAGE OF GAY MEN BEING BUSTED BY THE          VICE SQUAD IN THE 1950'S AND BEING LOADED INTO PATTY-WAGONS.           OLIVER (V.O.)           My father said if you got caught my           the Vice Squad you could lose           everything...           This is everything.          A RAPID-FIRE SEQUENCE OF FACES AND PEOPLE FROM 1950'S          ADVERTISEMENTS - EVERYONE HAPPY AND ENJOYING THEIR CARS,          FAMILIES, MEALS AND HAIR PRODUCTS.          NOW A STILL PHOTOGRAPH OF A PSYCHIATRISTS COUCH.           OLIVER (V.O.)           My father laid down on a couch like           this and told the psychiatrist all           his problems in 1955. The doctor           told him that homosexuality was a           mental illness, but it could be           cured.          AND THEN A MEDICAL MODEL OF A HUMAN BRAIN.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Not everyone got cured.          A MAP OF 1950'S LA, WITH SMALL ARROW POINTING TO THEIR HOME           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is where my parents lived in           1955.          ANOTHER ARROW SUPERS ON VERY CLOSE TO THEIR HOME.          TITLE: THE MATTACHINE SOCIETY                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 51.                         CONTINUED:                                    OLIVER (V.O.)           And this is the home where the           first gay rights group was secretly           meeting.          NOW A STILL PHOTO OF AN EMPTY CHURCH FROM THE 1950'S.           OLIVER (V.O.)           While they were reciting their           vows, here in this church...          AND THEN A STILL FROM ALLEN GINSBERG'S 1955 APARTMENT.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Allen Ginsburg was writing his           famous poem, Howl, blocks away in           this room.          AS WE SLOWLY ZOOM INTO GINSBERG'S APARTMENT, HISTORICAL          RECORDING OF HIM READING HOWL FADES UP AND OVER THE NEXT          SCENE.           ALLEN GINSBERG (V.O.)           Who let themselves be fucked in the           ass by saintly motorcyclists and           screamed with joy. Who blew and           were blown...          CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - DAY          GINSBERG'S READING CONTINUES OVER: Oliver flips through a          mock-up he made for "The Sads" - it's all the happy faces          from 1950's advertising that we saw in the last scene. One          face per-panel.          LATER: the three members of "The Sads" and a RECORD COMPANY          REP arrive. Jelly Roll Morton piano plays, we see but do not          hear the meeting take place. The Sads look at the designs,          which include many of the "History Of Sadness" drawings we          have seen now in CD cover format - and no portraits of the          band. It's clear that The Sads are not into Oliver's work.          CUT TO: After the meeting, the RECORD COMPANY REP talks to          Oliver alone.           RECORD COMPANY LADY           Just do the portrait of them, it's           an album cover, right? That's what           they want. Yeah?          Oliver's very disappointed but polite.                                                                                                                              (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 52.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Yeah. Right.                          CUT TO:                                   EXT OFFICE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS          Oliver and Arthur leave the office, defeated.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM - DAY          Oliver walks into Hal's living room, carrying his full tray          of medication.                          OLIVER           Here, Pop.                          HAL           Oh, God.                          OLIVER           I know, I know. Come on.          Hal begins taking his many pills, with each one he pings his          glass with a teaspoon as he swallows. The room is cluttered          with books. Oliver picks up a toppling pile of files from a          paper-filled side table.                          HAL           Hey, no, no, no. That's the Gay           Pride Day stuff. Just leave those.                          OLIVER           Alright.          Oliver begins to neaten a messy pile of books on top of a          chair.                          HAL           And that's for gay book club. You           better leave those too.                          OLIVER           But what about this chair? Is it           gay?                          HAL           The chair's not gay. Obviously.          Hal gets up and walks to the kitchen, his oxygen cannon cord          is attached to the pump behind him, stopping him short.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 53.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Pop, Pop, the cord won't go that           far.                          HAL           Oh, to hell with it.          Hal pulls off the oxygen and keeps walking, frail but          determined. Andy enters with a large pilates ball.                          HAL           Oh, hey what's that?                          ANDY           Now that you're out of the           hospital, you'll have to exercise,           get you back into shape.          Oliver can't believe it.                          HAL           That's a great idea.                          ANDY           Okay, let's try it. I'll, I'll show           you how.          Hal's still heading to the sink.                          HAL           Yeah, later on, I'm gonna make           myself some tea.                          ANDY           Okay, I'll clean it up. It's a           little - yech.          Andy walks out, Hal pours water into a kettle, in front of          him on the window sill is the same vase from the first scene          of the film, with some dead daisies in it.                          HAL           Your mother's vase needs some           flowers.          Oliver looks at them frustrated and uneasy...                                   INT. STAPLES - DAY          Oliver and Hal walk amongst all the products. Hal wears his          portable oxygen and grabs different kinds of papers, dumping          them in the basket Oliver holds.                          OLIVER           Pop, you just got out of the           hospital, you should take it easy.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 54.                         CONTINUED:                                   They're in a new isle, Hal continues his march.                          OLIVER           You need to tell Andy that           you're... not well.          Hal, continues on, avoiding looking at Oliver.                                                   HAL           You'll tell him, won't you?          Oliver's flabbergasted, but his dad's vulnerability is clear          to him.                          OLIVER           Me?                          HAL           Please?                                   INT. HAL'S GUEST HOUSE - DAY          Andy's on an elliptical trainer, through a window we can see          Oliver approaching with the weight of the world on his          shoulders. Andy see's him, can immediately sense that          something is wrong.                          OLIVER           Hey.          Oliver approaches seriously, this makes Andy nervous, he          stops his workout. Oliver tries to find his words.                          ANDY           You know that I tried to have sex           with women?                          OLIVER           Yeah?                          ANDY           Yeah. I wanted you to know I           tried, it just, it didn't work.                          OLIVER           Hey, I don't have a problem with           gay guys.                          ANDY           Have you ever had sex with a man?                          OLIVER           No.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 55.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANDY           I heard that if a man hasn't had           sex with another man, he's always           afraid of gay men. You know,           they're a threat.          Oliver's blown away by the logic.                          OLIVER           I don't know Andy.                          ANDY           I didn't want you to feel           threatened, I don't want to have           sex with you. What I do, most           people wouldn't even call it sex.          Andy's relieved he got this off his chest, all tension is          relieved for him, Oliver is just confused.                          OLIVER           Okay, okay.                          ANDY           Hey...          Andy gives Oliver a big sweaty hug. Oliver leaves.                                   INT. HAL'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS          Oliver enters as Hal's finishing the dishes.                          OLIVER           I couldn't tell him.                          HAL           That's okay.                          OLIVER           No it's not. You can't hide this           from him. He loves you.                          HAL           For someone with so much           relationship advice, you seem           awfully alone.          Oliver, angry but at a loss for words, takes the flower vase          and leaves, Arthur follows.                                   EXT. HAL'S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS          Oliver and Arthur exit a side door, go to a planter full of          daisies and cuts some for his mother's vase. He looks back          Arthur.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 56.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Just act natural. When he's not           looking, we'll make a run for it,           okay?          CUT TO PRESENT                                   EXT. GRIFFITH PARK          We cut to Arthur sprinting up a trail in Elysian park. Oliver          and Anna chase after him. In contrast to the previous scene          there is lightness and laughter here.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM NIGHT          The three enter, the phone is ringing, Anna is staring at it          with dread. Oliver looks at her, he finally moves to pick it          up.                          ANNA           Don't, don't.          It keeps ringing.                          ANNA           It's my dad.          They both watch the phone as it rings and stops.                          OLIVER           He's that bad?          She picks up the phone, and gestures for Oliver to pick up          the line next to him.                          ANNA (CONT'D)           I'll be my dad, you be me.                          OLIVER           OK.                          ANNA           (In a deep man's voice) Honey?          She gestures again, Oliver picks up the phone on his side of          the bed. Anna turns away, he can only see her back across the          bed. He turns away too.                          OLIVER           Oui?          Anna continues to talk in a different voice.                          ANNA           C'est toi, cheri?                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 57.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Oui Papa.                          ANNA           You never call me back.                                                   ANNA           You know, I can't stop thinking           about, you know, about it. Doing           it.                          OLIVER           Doing what?                          ANNA           Killing myself. You are the only           one I can tell that to.          Oliver breaks role, turns around looks at her.                          OLIVER           You should tell mom about that, not           me.          She just looks at him. Back into phone.                          ANNA           You are my girl.          They hang up. She's embarrassed, she lightens the mood to get          out of this intimacy.                          ANNA           Now I have to kill you.                          OLIVER           Just as it was going so well.                          ANNA           I know. I'm sorry.          She tosses a pillow over his face and pretends to shoot him          twice. She pulls the pillow back tentatively, he's smiling.                          OLIVER           Hey Anna?                          ANNA           Hey Oliver?                          OLIVER           How do you feel about vandalism?          It's the last question she thought he'd ask. She's amused.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 58.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANNA           I don't know. Pretty okay.                                   EXT. LOS ANGELES STREETS/INT. CAR - NIGHT          Anna, Oliver, Elliott, Shauna and Arthur drive up Sunset          Blvd. They arrive at Alvarado, park and get out. Above them a          well lit large blank/white billboard. As Oliver and Elliott          get spray paint cans from the back of the car...                          ELLIOTT           Oliver, don't write any of that           serious stuff, okay? Just write           something funny. Girls like funny.                                   EXT. ROOFTOP          The gang get to the top of the stairs, on to the roof where          they can see the large blank billboard towering in front of          them.                          SHAUNA           You know what? Here, give me           Arthur. We'll just stay here and           get arrested. You know, that's           good.          Oliver leaves Arthur with her, and Anna and Elliott and him          head off to the billboard. They climb it's structure, it's          high and a bit scary. On the top is a gang plank looking over          the city. Anna is happy she came. Elliott goes to paint the          back side of the billboard. Oliver meets up with Anna, over          looking the city.                          OLIVER           You okay?                          ANNA           Yeah. I'm gonna stay here with my           new friend (the handrail she           holds).                          OLIVER           Okay.          Oliver walks out and writes big letters across the billboard.          YOU MAKE ME LAUGH BUT IT'S NOT FUNNY.          He makes his way back. Anna's not where she was, he looks and          finds her in the gangways between the two billboards with a          view to downtown below her.                          ANNA           C'est beau ici.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 59.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Yeah.          He comes to her, wanting to get beyond the romance somehow.                          OLIVER           I'm trying to impress you.                          ANNA           (Gasps ironically) Really?          She walks to him and puts her hands around his head, somehow          it's more intimate and vulnerable now.                          ANNA           It's working.          They kiss.          MOMENTS LATER. They're at the bottom of the ladder. They all          run back to their car.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL - NIGHT          Oliver, Anna and Arthur walk down the hallway. Arthur bolts          ahead suddenly, getting free of Oliver, he runs to and OLD          MAN - wearing all black and looking just like Hal. Oliver          runs up to stop Arthur.                          OLIVER           Arthur, Arthur. I'm sorry.          We see the old man's face, it's not Hal, but it the          resemblance hits Oliver too. The man is struggling with his          hotel key card.                          OLD MAN           Oh. No problem. No problem. What's           with this card?                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Uh, do you mind?          Oliver swipes the man's key, the door opens.                          OLD MAN           Thank you.          He disappears. Oliver looks overwhelmed by this ghost. Anna          senses what's happened. She leads Oliver to their room.                                   INT. ANNA'S ROOM - NIGHT          Oliver sits on the bed, sinking. Anna watches him. She comes          to him, hugs him.                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 60.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANNA           He looked like your dad?                          OLIVER           Yeah.          She wants to take care of him, she lays him back on the bed,          helps him take his coat off, she's sitting on him, caressing          him - Oliver is overwhelmed by memory.                          OLIVER           Somewhere along the line, he           stopped admitting to himself that           he was sick.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HOSPITAL - DAY          A SERIES OF REPEAT ACTIONS ON DIFFERENT DAYS:          1. Camera tracks with Oliver helping Hal into the Cancer          Center. Hal is full of life.          SAME ANGLE TWO MORE TIMES, DIFFERENT DAYS, DIFFERENT CLOTHES          AND EXTRAS.          2. Hal arrives at the cookie plate in the Cancer Center          Lobby.          SAME ANGLE TWO MORE TIMES, DIFFERENT DAYS, DIFFERENT CLOTHES          AND EXTRAS.          3. CU on the cookie plate.          SAME ANGLE TWO MORE TIMES, DIFFERENT DAYS, DIFFERENT COOKIES.          4. Hal sits happily eating his cookie. He is chipper, alive,          without self-pity.          SAME ANGLE TWO MORE TIMES, DIFFERENT DAYS, DIFFERENT CLOTHES          AND COOKIES.                                   INT. RADIATION ROOM          Hal looks into camera (Oliver's perspective) as he pulls his          shirt off, the radiation machine is in the background. Hal          grandly introduces Oliver to the Technician.                          HAL           Oliver, this is Blake. He's a           wonderful man.          CU of the small round registration tattoos on Hal's chest                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 61.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL           Look. I finally got a tattoo.           Registration purposes of course.          CUT BACK TO PRESENT                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM          Anna still straddles Oliver, she's moved by his story.                          ANNA           Good for him.          CUT BACK TO PAST          Oliver continues to tell Anna about Hal.                                   INT. COUNTERPOINT BOOKSTORE           OLIVER (V.O.)           He did a lot of shopping. Bought           all these books.          SAME ANGLE AND LOCATION, JUMP CUT THROUGH 3 DIFFERENT DAYS OF          HAL LOOKING FOR BOOKS.          JUMP CUT THROUGH 3 DIFFERENT SETS OF BOOKS BEING PUSHED          TOWARDS THE CASH REGISTER.           OLIVER V.O.           And new clothes.                                   INT. MENS CLOTHING STORE DRESSING ROOM.          SAME ANGLE, MENS DRESSING ROOM, 3 DIFFERENT DAYS, OLIVER          BRINGS DIFFERENT CLOTHES TO HAL IN THE DRESSING ROOM.                                   INT. STAPLES STYLE STORE - DAY          Hal buying more and more paper, Oliver helping him.           OLIVER (V.O.)           He was obsessed with Staples.                                   INT. NURSERY          JUMP CUT THROUGH TWO DIFFERENT DAYS, OLIVER HELPS HAL BUY          PLANTS.                                                                                                                              (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 62.                         CONTINUED:                                    OLIVER (V.O.)           He bought a lot of plants.                                                            CUT BACK TO PRESENT                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM          Oliver's very emotional now, as is Anna.                          OLIVER           He had a lot of parties.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S HOUSE - NIGHT          Oliver arrives at Hal's, there is a party going on, Oliver is          surprised, he carries groceries with him.                          HAL           Well, glad you could make it.                          OLIVER           I thought I was making dinner?                          HAL           It's movie night.          Oliver and Hal make their way through a crowd of Hal's gay          friends. They're in party mode.                          PARTY GUEST           Hal, you look wonderful.                          HAL           Oh, I'm turning the corner on this           thing.          We loose Hal and Oliver in the group...                                   INT. HAL'S DINNING ROOM - ANOTHER DAY          Twelve of Hal's gay friends sit around the table in an          assembly line of paper folding-envelope stuffing-labeling,          stamping...           OLIVER (V.O.)           He had these political letter           writing parties, there was an out           gay congressman he was           supporting...                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 63.                         CONTINUED:                                   Hal leads the guys as they put the letters together.                                   INT. HAL'S HOUSE (BACK TO MOVIE NIGHT PARTY)          BACK TO Oliver and Hal, arriving in the kitchen with the          groceries.           OLIVER (V.O.)           He started telling everyone that he           was getting better.          They're finally almost alone.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           Why're you telling them you're           "turning the corner"?                          HAL           Well...                          OLIVER           You have stage 4 cancer?                          HAL           It's not as bad as it sounds.                          OLIVER           Pop. There is no stage 5.                          HAL           That's not what it means.                          OLIVER           What does it mean?                          HAL           It just means it's been through 3           other stages.          Oliver doesn't know what to say, he looks through the door at          all of Hal's friends -- happy, laughing, partying. He looks          back at Hal, ready to fight him more, but for the first time          we can see fear and doubt in Hal's face.                          OLIVER           What movie are we watching?                          HAL           "The Life of Harvey Milk." He was           the first openly gay politician...                          OLIVER           Yeah I know who Harvey Milk is.                          HAL           Good, good.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 64.                         CONTINUED:                                   Hal heads back to the party, leaving Oliver alone in the          kitchen overwhelmed.          MOMENTS LATER: Everyone is crowded onto the couches, they're          watching the Harvey Milk film.                                   INT. HAL'S OFFICE          Hal paces and dictates to a secretary.           OLIVER (V.O.)           He hired a secretary that he could           dictate to.          LIVE ACTION PORTRAIT OF THE SECRETARY LOOKING INTO CAMERA.           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           He wrote an essay about religion...                                   INT. HAL'S DINNING ROOM - ANOTHER DAY          Hal works with his secretary as Oliver looks on. Hal pulls          the lap-top to himself and reads what he has dictated...                          HAL           Eventually Jesus grew old. He could           no longer walk far and he could no           longer preach in a loud voice. One           day he announced to his apostles           that he was departing. The three           disciples prayed with him, gave him           water, bathed and fed him. After           gasping for breath for several           days, one morning, just as dawn           came, Jesus passed away.                          OLIVER           You re-wrote Jesus' death?          They all laugh.                          HAL           It was so violent, we need new           stories.          Oliver goes over and kisses Hal on the head.                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM          Oliver enters and sees Hal and Andy taking a nap together on          the day bed. Hal wakes up and waves at Oliver.                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 65.                         CONTINUED:                                    OLIVER V.O.           For the first time I saw him really           in love.          Oliver waves back at his father.                                    ANNA V.O.           He sounds amazing. But that must           have been crazy for you.          CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM          Anna hugs and kisses Oliver. She's both overwhelmed by his          need and sympathetic to all that he's lost.                                                            LATER THAT NIGHT: The room is dark, Oliver is asleep. Anna is          nervously awake. She quietly gets out of bed, puts her pants          on, and sneaks to the door. Arthur wakes up and hops to her          wanting to follow.                          ANNA           Stay here.          She starts to close the door, Arthur scratches, she tries          again, he scratches. She opens the door, Arthur trots out          into the hallway - Anna catches up with him.                                   INT. HOTEL HALLWAY          A troubled Anna walks down the hallway with Arthur.                                   INT. HOTEL BALLROOM          A dark empty ballroom, filled with tables. Anna sits in the          dark and smokes.                                   INT. HOTEL ROOM          Oliver wakes up, slowly figures out that Anna is not in bed.                          OLIVER           Anna?                                   INT. HOTEL HALLWAY          Oliver, now in clothes, sleepily looks for Anna.           10/29/07 66.                                                                                                              INT. HOTEL BALLROOM          Oliver enters the ballroom, Arthur trots to him. He see's          Anna across the room - full of heavy feelings. He sits by          her.                          ANNA           I couldn't sleep, I wanted to walk           around...          Oliver's petting Arthur. He's confused and hurt.                          ANNA           You've lost so much. What if I           can't make up for that?                          OLIVER           If this is too much, then we should           just stop.          Oliver gets up and starts to leave, Anna's surprised. She          catches up with him puts her arms around him from behind.                          ANNA           Wait, wait.          She forces him to stay there.                          ANNA           I don't want to stop.          They hold this pose in silence for a beat, then,          surprisingly, he hoists her over his shoulder, and carries          her back to their room. She laughs, they've made it past this          trouble.          CUT TO PAST                                   EXT. LARGE PARKING LOT - DUSK          Andy shouts...                          ANDY           Ready?          Andy has a set-up of large fireworks ready to go, Hal and          twelve friends stand by, Oliver's behind.           EVERYONE BUT OLIVER           YES!          Mock enthusiasm.                          OLIVER           No!                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 67.                         CONTINUED:                                   The fireworks go off.          BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM          IT IS INCREDIBLY LOUD. Big fireworks explode, the guys laugh          and HOLLER. Hal raises his arms up in the air in celebration.                          HAL           Again!                          EVERYONE           AGAIN! AGAIN!          As Andy lights up some more.          BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM BOOOM          Oliver covers his ears, he yells out...                          OLIVER           FFFFFUUUUCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!          He's still yelling after the explosions stop.          The guys, all sensing the insanity laugh and yell back at          him.                          GUYS           FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!          Oliver's laughing now - the noise, the absurdity. Hal and          Oliver make eye contact. Hal yells less strongly than the          others but trying...                          HAL           FFFFFFUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!!          They keep eye contact. They are bonded, happy, out of their          normal confines. Oliver comes to Hal, yelling again.                          OLIVER           FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!                          HAL           FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!                          OLIVER           FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!                          HAL           FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!                                   CUT TO LATER: All the guys spread out across the parking lot          looking for Arthur who must of fled during the explosions.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 68.                         CONTINUED:                                                   EVERYONE           Arthur! Arthur... Arthur...                                   CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM MORNING          Arthur runs towards camera chasing a tennis ball that Anna          threw for him. He runs back and jumps onto the bed, waking          Oliver. He's sleepy, she's happy, wants him to wake up.                          ANNA           Ah, you're awake! Arthur says it's           time to get up, he says he has the           day off.                          OLIVER           He talks to you too?                          ANNA           Yeah.                          OLIVER           Your English is not so perfect. And           he said ten minutes.                                   INT. MOONLIGHT ROLLER RINK - NIGHT          Hard cut Oliver and Anna roller-skating to carousel music.          They're having a great time being terrible at it.          Oliver and Anna join Elliott and Shauna on the side of the          rink. Arthur is half hidden in a duffle bag at their feet.                          OLIVER           You okay? (to Anna) You did really           well.                          ELLIOTT           Yeah, I can't believe that was your           first time.                          OLIVER           (To Arthur) You watching all the           humans going around and around.          The manager of the rink suddenly arrives, upset.                          MANAGER           Excuse me. There's no dogs allowed           in the building. You need to remove           him from the premises please.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 69.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           If I leave him on his own, he loses           all control.                          MANAGER           I'm sorry. There's no dogs allowed           in the building.                          OLIVER           Yeah, but if I leave him in the           car, he cries, he howls. I can't           leave him in the car.           ELLIOTT AND SHAUNA           C'mon, it's her first time!                          ANNA                          (ANGRILY)           A ca vas! C'est bon!                          MANAGER           I don't know what she's saying but           I don't like it.                          OLIVER           She is just talking in French.           She's saying it's OK, it is such a           small dog.                          MANAGER           You need to remove the dog from the           premises or I'm going to have to           call the authorities.                          OLIVER           You're gonna call the authorities?           ELLIOTT AND SHAUNA           Fuck it, steal the skates, just           leave.                          ANNA           Dans ce pays! On ne peut pas           amener un chien. On peut rien           faire. Mais c'est con...                                   EXT. MOONLIGHT ROLLERINK BACK DOOR - CONTINUOUS          Oliver, Anna and Arthur make their way out the door and down          the street in their skates.                                   INT. MAIN HOTEL HALLWAY          They roll down the main lobby hallway, Arthur running behind,          dodging people as they go.           10/29/07 70.                                                                                                              INT. UPSTAIRS HOTEL HALLWAY          They struggle to skate down the hotel hallway, past a maid.                          OLIVER           Sorry, excuse us, sorry.          They enter Anna's door.                                   INT. ANNA'S HOTEL ROOM - CONTINUOUS          Oliver, Anna, Arthur enter on their skates. Still very          playful, they skate around the big room. The phone rings.          Anna's face falls, they both know it must be her father. She          muster's on trying to have a good time. Oliver goes and          unplugs the phone.                          OLIVER           He shouldn't do this to you.          The phone in the next room keeps ringing. He awkwardly skates          to it and unplugs it. He returns.                                                            Oliver skates to her concerned.                          ANNA           Even if we don't answer, he's still           in here (points to her head).I go           somewhere else, he's still here.          Oliver can relate.                          OLIVER           Your leaving soon?                          ANNA           Yeah.                          OLIVER           I think you should come to my house           and move in with me.                          ANNA           Would you want a strange girl like           me?                          OLIVER           Yeah, a lot.          She's very moved.                          ANNA           Do you cook?                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 71.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Yes (not so sure).          She laughs. She almost cries as she thinks this over. She          skates to him, puts her arms around him.                          ANNA           I would love that.          They kiss.                          OLIVER           But now I'm going to have to kill           you for sure now.                          ANNA           Why?                          OLIVER           Cause I'm falling in love with you.          The sound in the room fades down, Oliver's narration fades in          over the shot of them embracing in their skates.           OLIVER V.O.           Anna and I are in a relationship in           2003.          STILL PHOTOS OF THE SUN IN 2003, THE STARS, LIVE ACTION SHOT          OF OLIVER AND ANNA EATING, TALKING AT NIGHT IN BED:           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is what the sun looks like and           the stars. This is what it looks           like when we eat. When we tell each           other the stories in our heads.          THEN STILL PHOTOS OF L.B.J., GEORGES POMPIDOU, THEN SUN IN          1971, ANNA'S CAT, ANNA'S PARENTS IN THE 70'S, ANNA'S          POSTCARDS OF PARIS-LONDON-BERLIN-NEW YORK CITY:           OLIVER (V.O.)           I was born in 1965. Anna was born           in 1971. This is what the sun           looked like. Her pets. Her parents.           She left home when she was 16. She           lived here and here and here.          NOW STILL PHOTOS OF FOUR DIFFERENT YOUNG MEN, 3 DRAWINGS OF                         OLIVER'S X'S:           OLIVER(V.O.)           She had three serious           relationships. She left all of           them. I had four serious           relationships. I left them too. Or           let them fall apart.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 72.                         CONTINUED:                                   STILL PHOTOS OF W.W.2 GI'S SEEN BEFORE, AND THE PUBLIC MENS          ROOM SEEN BEFORE. LIVE ACTION SHOT OF ANNA FEELING TROUBLED,          LIVE ACTION SHOT OF ANNA WALKING BY THE RIVER LOOKING INTO          CAMERA HAPPY.           OLVIER (V.O.)           We didn't go to this war. We didn't           have to hide to have sex. Our god           fortune allowed us to feel a           sadness that our parents didn't           have time for and a happiness that           I never saw with them.          NOW LIVE ACTION SHOT OF OLIVER AND ANNA TALKING AT NIGHT,          LIVE ACTION SHOT OF OLIVER AND ANNA RUNNING BACKWARDS IN          PRETEND SLOW MOTION. THEN ANNA'S EYES LOOKING INTO CAMERA,          HER EAR, HER FEET, ANNA SAYING "I LOVE YOU".           OLIVER (V.O.)           We didn't know how we learned the           stories in our heads but sometimes           they stop running and I can really           see Anna's eyes in 2003. Her ears.           Her feet. This is what it looks           like when she says, I love you, in           2003.          LIVE ACTION SHOT OF ANNA CRYING WITH OLIVER, LIVE ACTION SHOT          OF OLIVER HUGGING HER AND ANNA SAYING SOMETHING WE CANNOT          HEAR.           OLIVER (V.O.)           This is what it looks like when she           cries. When she tells me there's           always a new empty room waiting for           her. They used to make her feel           free. Now they make her feel the           opposite of free.                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - DAY          Oliver's at his desk, looking at photos of himself and his          mother at a museum exhibit from the 70's. We see young Oliver          and Georgia, an exhibit of stuffed animals, a quote on a          wall. Oliver goes to his notebooks, looks through them till          he finds a small rainbow sticker. He puts it on the table and          thinks...          CUT TO PAST                                   EXT. HAL'S DINNING ROOM          Oliver's helping Hal take his medication, Hal deals with is          mail.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 73.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Next one.                          HAL           Lord.          With each swallow he pings a glass with a fork. Hal opens a          letter from a gay rights organization, he hands Oliver the          rainbow sticker we just saw.                          HAL (CONT'D)           Here, that means gay pride.                          OLIVER           Yeah, everyone knows that, here.          He gives Hal another pill, another reluctant difficult          swallow, another ping.                          HAL           No they don't.                          OLIVER           Everyone knows about that Pop.                          HAL           Don't be ridiculous.          Hal's hiding something, he doesn't look Oliver in the eyes          when he asks...                          HAL           Did you know, about me?          Oliver shakes his head no.                          OLIVER           No, I just thought you and mom           weren't in love.                          HAL           We loved each other.                          OLIVER           But you were gay that whole time.                          HAL           I learned how not to be.                          OLIVER           For 44 years?                          HAL           I knew I was gay, though, at dinner           parties I was looking at the           husbands not the wives.                          (MORE)                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 74.                         CONTINUED:                          HAL (CONT'D)           I couldn't have survived if I           didn't know that. I just chose not           to follow those instincts.                          OLIVER           What about sex? You guys had sex?                          HAL           She didn't think I was the greatest           lover, but we made do. Look, I           liked my life, the museum, our           house, that's what I wanted.                          OLIVER           And mom? You wanted mom too right?          Frustrated and angry, Oliver takes the pill tray into the          kitchen, leaving Hal behind.                          HAL           Yes, stop that.                          HAL           She proposed to me you know.          This draws Oliver back into the room.                          HAL           I said - look I love you and we're           great buddies but you know what I           am. And then she says, that doesn't           matter. I'll fix that.          Oliver's never heard this part of the story before.                          `HAL           I thought. Oh, God. I'll try           anything.          SCREEN FILLS SOLID PINK.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Sex.          SCREEN FILLS SOLID RED.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Life.          SOLID ORANGE.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Healing.          SOLID YELLOW.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Sunlight.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 75.                         CONTINUED:                                   GREEN.           OLIVER (V.O.)                          NATURE          TURQUOISE.           OLIVER (V.O.)           Spirit.          WE SEE STILL PHOTOS OF THE FIRST GAY PRIDE FLAG, THE 1977 SAN          FRANCISCO GAY PRIDE PARADE.           OLIVER (V.O.)           The first Gay Pride flag was made           in 1978 by a man named Gilbert           Baker. He gave a meaning to each           color.          NOW STILLS PHOTOS OF CARTER, A LEGO FIGURE, SUPERMAN, PETS:           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           This man was President. This was           invented, this is what movies           looked like. Pets.          HISTORICAL FOOTAGE OF HARVEY MILK'S BODY BEING CARRIED AWAY          ON A STRETCHER.           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           On November 27th, 1978. Harvey Milk           was shot and killed.          STILL PHOTOS OF THE MUSEUM EXHIBIT OF STUFFED ANIMALS.           OLIVER (V.O.) (CONT'D)           One week later, my father opened           his annual Museum Christmas           Exhibit. He collected stuffed           animals from people in the           community, and put them on display.           My father printed a quote from The           Velveteen Rabbit in large type on           the wall...          NOW A STILL PHOTO OF THE QUOTE ON THE WALL OF THE MUSEUM.           OLIVER V.O.           ...`The stuffed rabbit asked - What           is real? And the Horse said, "Real           isn't how you're made. It's a thing           that happens to you. When a child           loves you for a long long time not           just to play with, but really loves           then you become real...                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 76.                         CONTINUED:                                   NOW WE SEE HISTORICAL FOOTAGE OF GAY MEN BEING LOADED INTO          PATTY WAGONS BY THE VICE SQUAD IN THE 1950'S:           OLVIER (V.O.)           ...And the rabbit asked, 'Does it           hurt?' And the horse said,           'Sometimes.' 'Does it happen all at           once like being wound up, or bit by           bit?'...          THEN HISTORICAL FOOTAGE OF CASTRO STREET DURING THE 1977 GAY                         RIGHTS PARADE:           OLIVER (V.O.)           ...'It takes a long time. That's           why it doesn't happen to people who           break easily...                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM          Oliver enters to find Hal and Andy dancing humorously to loud          opera music. Hal dances free, without restraint, full of          life.           OLIVER (V.O.)           ...Generally by the time you are           real, most of your hair has been           loved off, and your eyes drop out           and you get loose in the joints.           But these things don't matter at           all because you are real and you           can't be ugly, except to people who           don't understand.'"          The music blares as Arthur greets Oliver. Hal comes to          Oliver, Andy continues to dance.                          HAL           Andy's moving in.                          OLIVER           Yeah? Is that a good idea?          Hal hugs Oliver.                          HAL           Just be happy about it.          Oliver can't just be happy about it.          CUT TO PRESENT           10/29/07 77.                                                                                                              INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE          HARD CUT TO: Oliver's design for The Sads tacked on his wall -          a clumsy drawing of a man and a woman with the caption:          "First couple too in love to feel sad."          Reveal a Sads band member looking at the design in disbelief.          The rest of the band looks at Oliver's wall of designs -          there are no portraits of them. We cut into the meeting mid          melt-down.                          OLIVER           This is the idea, is that it's the           history of sadness.          Oliver spreads out an impossible long CD panel design.                          OLIVER           Here, this could be your...          The panels go on and on.                          OLIVER           Your gonna need a big CD box.          JUMP CUT: Later, Oliver's still trying to talk the band into          his idea.           Four billion years ago, Earth           begins. And the idea is that           sadness has not been created yet.          JUMP CUT: Oliver and the RECORD COMPANY REP now alone.                          OLIVER           I'm sorry.           RECORD COMPANY REP           I'm sorry too.          They shake hands and she leaves.          JUMP CUT: Oliver's now alone with Arthur in his lap.                          OLIVER           Well, that went well.                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           Are we married yet?                                   EXT. OLIVER'S HOUSE          Oliver's car stands in front of his house. He gets Anna's          suitcase out of his car.                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 78.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Come on Arthur.                                   INT. OLIVER'S FRONT DOOR          They enter his house, it's her first time there. She's          nervous, but tries to get over it.                          OLIVER           This is the living room.          He leads her into the dining room.                          OLIVER           Dining room.          Oliver points to a photo of his parents when they were in          their 50's.                          OLIVER           There are my parents. My mom. Hal,           Georgia, this is Anna - Anna - Hal,           Georgia.          Anna's overwhelmed feeling increases, she continues to try to          roll with it.                                                   ANNA           Hello.                                   INT. OLIVER'S STAIRWELL          Oliver continues his tour, leading her up the stairs to his          room.                          OLIVER           These're the stairs.                          ANNA           Yeah?                          OLIVER           They go up.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM          They enter, Anna's churning, he shows her some drawers in his          dresser that he emptied out.                          OLIVER           I emptied these for you. I'll get           your case.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 79.                         CONTINUED:                                   Anna looks around, not able to deal with the intimacy,          stability and generosity.                          OLIVER           Are you okay?          She want's to be, she hides it all by initiating sex with          him, physical and fast.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT (LATER)          They sleep.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM - DAWN          Oliver wakes up, he figures out he's alone again. Feelings he          was trying to overlook come to the surface now.                                   INT. OLIVER'S LIVING ROOM - MORNING          Oliver comes into the living room finds Anna on the couch.          Feelings of hurt and mistrust well up in him.          Nervous at Oliver's look, feeling in trouble, she tries to          reconnect.                          ANNA           You OK?                          OLIVER           Are you?                          ANNE           I couldn't sleep, I didn't want to           bug you.          Oliver can't overcome his mistrust of her and the whole          situation. She tries to defend herself, honest and          vulnerable.                          ANNA           I was nervous, and excited. I kept           thinking, maybe I'm not so lost.                          OLIVER           Why were you crying yesterday?          They're miles apart.                                   INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - DAY          Oliver deep in thought, something building in him...                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 80.                         CONTINUED:                                   CUT TO PAST          REPEAT MEMORY: Young Oliver watches his mother and father go          through the motions of kissing.          CUT TO PRESENT                                   EXT. OLIVER'S HOUSE- NIGHT          Oliver and Arthur stand outside his house at night.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM          Oliver notices Anna's drawers are still empty.                                   INT. OLIVER'S DINING ROOM          They eat, their connection is broken. Oliver is moody and          distant.                          ANNA           You okay?                          OLIVER           Yeah.                                                                            CUT TO:                                   INT. OLIVER'S KITCHEN ROOM - MORNING          Oliver alone in the kitchen, brooding. Anna enters in her          Kimono.                          ANNA           You seem so unhappy with me.                          OLIVER           Well are you happy here?                          ANNA           Maybe I'm not perfect at it. I           don't really know what I'm doing...           but I want to be here.          He's silent, distant, confused. She's hurt by his silence and          mistrust and leaves.           10/29/07 81.                                                                                                              INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM          WE SEE BUT DON'T HEAR: Oliver and Anna talking/arguing          through a series of jump cuts. The sound comes back for the          last line.                          OLIVER           I don't know Anna. I don't think           this is what I am supposed to feel           like.          Anna looks crushed and surprised.                          ANNA           Okay. I will go back to New York           then.          She gets up to go.                                   EXT. OLIVER'S HOUSE DAY          A cab is picking her up, Anna looks back up at Oliver's          house, hoping something will happen, nothing does, she puts          her suitcase in the trunk and gets in.                                   INT. OLIVER'S LIVING ROOM DAY          Oliver paces by his door. He rests his head against the door,          lost in a confused sadness, we cant tell he's crying.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - DAY          Oliver's POV as he pushes Hal's wheelchair down a cold          hospital hallway.                                   INT. DOCTORS' OFFICE - DAY          Inside a small doctor's office, Hal, Oliver and Dr. Long have          a meeting.           DR. LONG           Hal, you don't need to come in for           any more treatments.          Stoic and irreverent, Hal feigns surprise.                          HAL           Have I done something wrong?                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 82.                         CONTINUED:                                    DR. FLASTER           It's best that you stay home.           Hospice can help you more now, any           more treatments would just -- cause           more pain.                          HAL           I see.           DR. LONG           I'm sorry, I wish we could do more.                          HAL           You did an excellent job Dr. Long.           Thank you... for... For coming to           the party.          Oliver's devastated.                                   INT. HAL'S HOME - DAY - LATER          JUMP CUTS: From Hal and Oliver's POV we jump through time as          two men deliver and set up a hospital bed in Hal's living          room. And the nurse puts sheets and a blanket on the bed.                                   EXT. HAL'S STREET - DAY          Oliver wheels Hal's chair in outside the house, taking him to          see a view of the canyons. Hal's face reveals he's finally          stopped denying the end is near.                                   INT. HAL'S HOUSE - NIGHT          Oliver and Hal sit side by side in his new hospital bed, it's          dark and quite and Oliver has his hand in Hal's.                          HAL           You always wanted to hold my hand           when you were little. I couldn't,           you know. I was afraid it would           look funny. I wanted to be close,           you know and my father certainly           was never close with me. God, I           hope I wasn't like that.                          OLIVER           I can barely remember you from when           I was little.                          HAL           I guess I was at work.          CUT TO PAST           10/29/07 83.                                                                                                              INT. MUSEUM OPENING 1978          Young Oliver walks behind Georgia as she meanders through the          crowd, feeling alone. She turns and finds Oliver on her tail.          A fancy woman is talking pretentiously about a painting.          Georgia's critical and amused, she sidles up to the woman and          gently places her head on the woman's shoulder.                          FANCY WOMAN           Oh!          Georgia smiles at her, casually unnerving. Oliver pulls her          away.                          OLIVER           Let's go home.          CUT TO: Oliver and Georgia heading away through the gallery.                          GEORGIA           What about your father? What will           he possibly do without us?                                   INT. MUSEUM HALLWAY          As they're making their way out of the museum an formal older          lady stops them.                          OLDER WOMAN           Georgia? You leaving?                          GEORGIA           Yes Mary, it's an emergency,           Oliver's appendix has ruptured.                          OLDER WOMAN           Oh dear.          They look at Oliver who's mortified.                          GEORGIA           He's a very composed child.                          OLIVER           Let's go.          Oliver pulls her away before she starts any more trouble.                                   EXT. STREET/INT. GEORGIA'S CAR          Georgia's in drivers seat, they're at a stoplight.                          GEORGIA                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 84.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver points left and she turns...                          GEORGIA           Aha. The infamous left.          Up a new street, they arrive at the next stop.                          GEORGIA           And?          Oliver points left.                          GEORGIA           Left again. Going in circles. I           like it.          Irreverent but heavy, they drive on.                                   INT. OLIVER'S CHILDHOOD HOME          Oliver and Georgia enter. She heads down the hallway to her          room, Young Oliver follows behind. She walks down the hallway          to her bedroom, enters and closes the door.          CUT TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLIVER'S HOUSE - NIGHT          Oliver lies on his bed in the half darkness. He's been there          a while, Arthur staring at him.          CUT TO PAST          INT. ANNA'S HOTEL          Oliver remembers Anna on her hotel bed the night they met,          messing up his hair, kissing for the first time.          BACK TO PRESENT                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM          Oliver feeling the most lost, can't help but look at Arthur          who's staring him down.                          ARTHUR SUBTITLE           We knew it wouldn't work even           before we met her.          Oliver get's this more than ever. Something changes inside of          him, he picks up his cel phone and dials.                          ANNA                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 85.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Anna? Where where you?                                   EXT. ELLIOTT'S HOUSE - DAY          Oliver arrives with Arthur in a hurry.                                   EXT. ELLIOTT'S DOOR - DAY          Oliver hands Arthur, a dog bed, and a bag of dog food to          Elliott.                          OLIVER           Hey.                          ELLIOTT           Hey.                          OLIVER                          (TO ARTHUR)           You're going to take care of           Elliott. I'll be back in a couple           of days.                          (TO ELLIOT)           Good luck.                          ELLIOTT           Alright.                          OLIVER           Okay? Thanks.          Elliott closes the door. Oliver heads back to his car and          Arthur's howling begins. It's an incredibly sad and desperate          howl. Oliver gets to his car, the howling doesn't stop,          Oliver can't ignore it. Oliver get's out of the car, heads          back to house to get Arthur.                                   EXT. OLIVER'S CAR - DAY          Oliver and Arthur drive up to a new house. Oliver looks at          Arthur with guilt.                                   EXT. ANDY'S BACKYARD - DAY (CONTINUOUS)          Oliver watches Andy cry as Arthur licks him all over.                          ANDY           He remembers me.          It's true, Oliver's surprised.           10/29/07 86.                                                                                                              EXT. ANDY'S HOUSE - DAY (CONTINUOUS)          Andy closes the door, Oliver walks the first ten feet, to his          surprise, silence. He walks to the edge of the yard, silence.          He tentatively gets into his car, silence. He drives away.                                   INT. TAXI CAB - NEW YORK - DAWN          Oliver sees the Manhattan skyline as they cross the bridge          into Manhattan.                                   EXT. 2ND AVENUE - CONTINUOUS          Oliver crosses the cold New York avenue.                                   EXT. AVENUE B AND 10TH ST. - CONTINUOUS          Oliver passes a bodega with flowers - he pauses.                                   EXT. ANNA'S STREET - CONTINUOUS          Oliver now with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, looking for          the right number, finds her building. On his way to the door,          he has doubts about the flowers, he decides to throw them          away.          Oliver rings her buzzer, no answers, a stranger leaves the          building and he catches the door before it close, he enters.                                   INT. ANNA'S DOOR          Oliver makes it to her door, he knocks, there's no answer. He          pulls out his phone and calls her.          INTERCUT BETWEEN THEM:           ANNA (V.O.)           Hey.                          OLIVER           Hey. Look I'm so sorry... But I'm,           I'm at your front door. I'm in New           York.          Anna, still in bed, sits up and feels something.           ANNA (V.O.)           I'm in Los Angeles.          Oliver's flabbergasted she's not behind the door.                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 87.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           You, you're in LA?          Anna laughs, but is touched.                          OLIVER (CONT'D)           You said you were coming here?!                          ANNA           Yeah, but I didn't leave.                          OLIVER           Fuck. I'm in your building.          Anna laughs.           ANNA (V.O.)           Okay. See the window? Near the           radiator?          Oliver looks around and sees the radiator - goes to look.                          ANNA           There is a hide-a-key behind it.                                   INT. ANNA'S APARTMENT.          The door opens, Oliver tentatively enters the empty room.          The apartment is very spare, barely lived in. A lone couch,          clothes on a rack, a few personal photos taped to the wall.                          OLIVER           Okay, I'm inside. Wow, there's like           nothing here.                          ANNA           No.          Oliver moves forward into the kitchen.           ANNA (V.O.)           This is my kitchen. It's where I           eat.          Oliver follows her tour, while she's not there, it's          strangely intimate.           ANNA (V.O.)           This is my bathroom. It's very           fancy.          The bare, poor bathroom is not fancy.           ANNA (V.O.)           Outside my window...                                                   (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 88.                         CONTINUED:                                   Oliver walks and looks out her window.           ANNA (V.O.)           ... That's my neighbor's roof. The           room at the end is my bedroom...                                   INT. ANNA'S BEDROOM          Oliver enters her bedroom.           ANNA (V.O.)           That's my closet. Those are my           clothes and my pictures.          There is a single rack holding up some clothes. Her pictures          are taped to the wall. Oliver sits on her bed.                          ANNA           Why do you leave everyone? Why did           you let me go?          Oliver thinks for a moment.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. OLIVER'S CHILDHOOD HOME - NIGHT          REPEAT MEMORY: Oliver watches his mother walk down the          hallway, very alone, and enter her bedroom - it feels like          some gesture of hopelessness.          WE HEAR OLIVER'S ANSWER OVER THIS IMAGE:           OLIVER (V.O.)           Maybe because I, I don't really           believe that it's gonna work. And           then I make sure it doesn't work.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING-ROOM - DAY          Hal lies in the hospital bed set up in his living room.          JUAN, a young handsome and probably gay hospice nurse is          gently helping him take his morphine. Hal looks at Juan with          love and affection. Oliver watches from the kitchen door.                          HAL           Isn't Juan's hair wonderful.                          JUAN           Thanks. I use this great mousse.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 89.                         CONTINUED:                                                   HAL           Well it's terrific.                          JUAN           Do you wanna try some?          Hal turns shy and young.                          HAL           Oh, no.                          JUAN           Just a little bit?                          HAL           I don't think so.                          JUAN           Come on. Just try a little bit.           It'll be fun.                          HAL                          (LAUGHS)           Yeah?                          JUAN           Yeah.                          HAL           How do you do it?                          JUAN           Okay, I'm going to show you how.          Juan steps away and grabs his mousse, puts a little in his          hand and sits back down on Hal's bed. He begins to spread          it gently through wisps of Hal's white hair. Oliver watches          Hal close his eyes, and deeply enjoy this simple affection          and camaraderie with another gay man.                          JUAN           There.                          HAL           Is that it?          Hal looks into camera which is Oliver's POV.                          HAL           How do I look?          Oliver's filled with love, happiness, regret.                          OLIVER           Great. You look great.          CUT TO PRESENT           10/29/07 90.                                                                                                              INT. ANNA'S BEDROOM          Oliver's still on her bed, his heart and mind is somewhere          else.          CUT TO PAST                                   INT. HAL'S LIVING ROOM - DAY          Hal's unconscious on his hospital bed. Some of Hal's friends          gather around his hospital bed as Hal's gay priest gives him          his Last Rites - Oliver and Juan watch in disbelief in the          background.                                   INT. HAL'S KITCHEN - LATER          Oliver's alone in the kitchen, his head on the table -          asleep. Juan walks to him and wakes him.                          JUAN           Oliver. He's gone.          Oliver gets up. He can now see to the hospital bed, Hal's          lifeless profile. Oliver is lost.          Oliver goes to Hal, puts his head on his chest and cries.          CUT TO NARRATED SEQUENCE          CUT TO BLACK           OLIVER (V.O.)           Once you make the call, you have           less than an hour before two men           come and place the body into a bag.          WE SEE STILL PHOTO OF A CHECK TO THE NEPTUNE SOCIETY, A JAR          OF PEANUT BUTTER, A METAL ASH CONTAINER.                                                                                                               OLVIER (V.O.)           They charge 1485 Dollars for           cremation and deliver the remains           in a small metal container, the           size of a jar of peanut butter. You           will need to get a death           certificate.          NOW HAL'S DEATH CERTIFICATE, CREDIT CARDS, PHONE BILLS,          INSURANCE STATEMENTS, MORTGAGE STATEMENT, TAX FORM                          (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 91.                         CONTINUED:                                    OLIVER (V.O.)           You will need to make copies and           send them to cancel every credit           card, phone account, utility, gym           membership, every insurance policy,           mortgage, to settle their taxes.          A FAST SEQUENCE OF STILLS OF HAL'S MAIL PILING UP, THEN LIVE          ACTION SHOT OF A HAND WRITING THE OBITUARY. STILL PHOTO OF A          TRASH BAG, HAL'S PURPLE SWEATER.           OLIVER (V.O.)           You will have all their mail           forwarded to your address. You will           write their obituary. You run it           with a photo in the paper for two           dollars a word. You will wonder if           it's right. You'll throw a lot of           their stuff away. You'll bring a           lot of their stuff to your house.           This is the photo my mother kept in           her bedroom.          A STILL PHOTO OF DOROTHEA LANGE'S FRAMED DAISY PHOTOGRAPH.          THEN, MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF THE PHOTO WITH DIFFERENT HANDS AND          DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS OF DAISIES FLASHES BY.           OLIVER (V.O.)           When I was a kid I thought that was           my arm giving her daisies. Now I           make a new mistake and think it's           her arm giving me the daisies,           saying, here, here's simple and           happy. That's what I meant to give           you.                                   EXT. ANDY'S HOUSE - DAY          Oliver arrives at Andy's door. Andy answers, Arthur's jumps          up to see Oliver.                          OLIVER           Hey.                          ANDY           Hey.                          OLIVER           Arthur...          Oliver picks him up, he gets all of Arthur's stuff, he's a          little cold to Andy.                          OLIVER           Thank you... Thanks.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 92.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANDY           It's cause I'm gay, isn't it?          Oliver stops and looks back.                          OLIVER           What?                          ANDY           You never called or came to see me?          Oliver falters, not know how to say it, then...                          OLIVER           No. No, it's because my father           loved you so much.          This hits Andy hard. Oliver turns to leave but can't. He          turns back, goes to Andy and they hug.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM          Oliver and Arthur arrive, happy and relieved, Oliver jumps on          his bed and Arthur follows.                          OLIVER           Arthur... hey. Hey, how've you           been?                                   INT. OLIVER'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM          Oliver opens the front door to Anna.                          OLIVER           Hey.          She's a bit tentative, but she's here and happy.                          ANNA           Hey.                          OLIVER           Come in, come in.          Arthur runs up and Anna bends down to greet him. They missed          each other.          Anna walks in and Oliver follows.                          ANNA           The living room.          She heads to the dinning room.                                                                            (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 93.                         CONTINUED:                                                   ANNA           Dining room...          Oliver laughs nervously. In the dining room, Hal's old boxes          are still stacked along the walls. Oliver leans forward and          pulls something out of a box.          She looks at a personal ad application, with the picture of          Hal in the open jean jacket we saw at the beginning of the          film.                          ANNA           Oh. Crazy picture...                          OLIVER           Yeah.                          ANNA           Can I read it?                          OLIVER           Sure.                          ANNA           I'm looking for sex with the hope           it turns into friendship or a           relationship. But I don't insist           on monogamy.          CUT TO PAST                                                  VARIOUS LOCATIONS          We see REPEAT SHOTS of Hal, and in every shot he's looking at          camera. Hal telling Oliver he's gay, Hal napping with Andy          and waving at Oliver, Hal after Juan put in his hair mousse          looking at Oliver, Hal showing Oliver his radiation tatoo...           ANNA (V.O.)           I'm an old senior guy, 78, but I'm           attractive and horny. I'm an art           historian, now retired.          MORE REPEAT SHOTS: Hal with Andy at the L.A. Pride picnic,          Hal playing with Arthur on his couch.           ANNA (V.O.)           And in addition to art, I like           houses, gardens, parties, and           walking with my Jack Russell.           I'm 5'11", 160 pounds. I'm trim,           gray hair, blue eyes, hairy cheest.          CUT BACK TO THE PRESENT                                                                                                     (CONTINUED)           10/29/07 94.                         CONTINUED:                                                   OLIVER           Chest...                          ANNA                          (LAUGHS)           Chest? I like giving and, and           what?          Oliver finishes reading for her.                          OLIVER           I like giving and getting rubdowns           and then going into mutual soft           stuff.          They both smile.                          ANNA           I have a nice house with food,           drinks, friends and me. If you           are willing to try an older guy,           let's meet and see what happens.          She looks at the photo again.                          ANNA           He didn't give up.          They look at each other, more vulnerable and willing than          we've seen them.                                   INT. OLIVER'S HALLWAY          Anna walks down the hallway, Oliver follows her.                                   INT. OLIVER'S BEDROOM          Anna and Oliver sit side by side on his bed.                          OLIVER           What happens now?                          ANNA           I don't know.                          OLIVER           How does that work?          They look at each other, they smile.          CUT TO MAIN TITLE
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+                             BEING HUMAN                             Written by                            Bill Forsyth                                           THIRD DRAFT                                           January, 1992WARNER BROS. INC.                          � 19924000 Warner Boulevard                      WARNER BROS. INC.Burbank, California 91522                  All Rights Reserved"... and as he stared at the sky and listened to a cowmooing almost dreamily in a distant village, he tried tounderstand what it all meant -- the sky, and the fields,and the humming telegraph pole; he felt that he was justat the point of understanding it when his head started tospin and the lucid languor of the moment becameintolerable..."                       Vladimir NabokovIn this script there are six main characters who inhabitdifferent periods of time, from pre-history to thepresent day. But there is just one story. Because weblend into one developing narrative the lives that weshow.There is no suggestion of time travel or re-incarnationor any other tricksy or mystic device. We can do in realtime and with real characters what other movies strive todo with immortal time travellers and ghosts. Our storyis thoroughly based in reality and the magic we aredealing with is real, human magic.In moving from one character to the next everything willchange; supporting characters, setting, period. But theessential situation of our hero of the moment will relateto the one before and the one following.The magic will be in the transitions, in leaving onecharacter and advancing the film through hundreds orthousands of years to find our next hero in tantalizinglysimilar human circumstances. The effect of these transi-tions across space and time, will let the audience graspthe simple truth behind our story; that we are all in ittogether.The key to allowing the audience to enjoy this humanconnection at the heart of the film is that one actorwill play the six individuals. The feeling will be ofthe endless, glorious playing and replaying of the simpledrama of being alive.We end the film with a present-day hero, but by that timewe will be seeing this modern man in an entirely freshlight, feeling his kinship with the caveman and the slaveand the others who have gone before. The resolution ofhis contemporary story is theirs also. By then perhaps,we will be able to see ourselves in this novel perspec-tive, too.And the structure of the film itself has the thrill ofnovelty. It has never before been used in cinema.Never. Our six characters and their stories connect inmany different ways, some obvious, others vague, tanta-lizing threads. Even global connections are made, as theplanet itself and all its people, come and go in thestory. For the audience the game of making the connec-tions, feeling the bonds, even inventing or discoveringassociations of their own, will be endless in this big-gest of stories, smallest of stories. It is truly a newcinematic experience.                                       *                                                                       *                             BEING HUMAN      Hector is a family man. He and his woman and two      children live near the ocean in a sheltered fold on a      hillside, a shallow cave given protection at its entrance      by a covering of branches and brush. Just inside a small      fire smoulders permanently, a few times a day encouraged      into life for cooking or warmth. If it ever went out it      would be a catastrophe, so it remains a smouldering com-      fort and a constant preoccupation for the whole family.      Hector doesn't know that his name is Hector. It is      simply a convenience to help us tell his story. The idea      of individual names is an imaginative leap that has not      yet been made by mankind when we first meet him. Hector      is living out his life 4000 years before the birth of      Christ, in a reasonably temperate zone of the planet. In      his entire life Hector will traverse no more than ten      square miles of it.      FADE IN:      FIRST IMAGE      is the reflection of Hector's face in a rock pool. The      image suddenly fragments. Hector is enjoying himself,      deflecting his stream of pee now and then so that his      image reforms itself and then is disrupted again. When      he is finished, a trace of vanity makes him bend down      closer to his reflection. He strokes his long hair and      fingers a blemish on his cheek.      Then he is aware of another presence. He sharply turns.      Some way off a solitary figure stands on the rise of some      rocks, not afraid to show itself. Hector calls out.                               HECTOR                 Go back home... leave me alone...      We see that the figure is a young BOY, Hector's son.     The      Boy thinks about it for a moment, before turning and      disappearing behind the rocks.1-4   TITLE SCENES                                               1-4      The small fire that never goes out has been enlarged to      cook the day's meal. Beyond the fire on a rock shelf      HECTOR plays with his children, a GIRL of six and Boy of      eight. It is the usual rough romp that fathers indulge      in, but in 4000 BC possibly rougher than normal. Hector      is acting the part of some trapped wild animal, lashing      out at the hunters surrounding him. But in his act of      wild rage he gets carried away. He picks up his son and      throws him hard, much too hard, on his back.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                            2.           *1-4   CONTINUED:                                                   1-4      The Boy tumbles down   from the shelf to the cave floor at      his mother, DEIRDRE's   feet, howling in pain. Deidre      scowls at Hector. If    the gesture had been invented he      would probably shrug   his shoulders. The Boy howls on.      Hector kneels beside his daughter, absorbed in her antics      as she sleeps. She is a vivid dreamer. Her whole little      form wriggles and contorts in response to the fantasy      unspooling in her head. She emits unearthly nighttime      noises, squeals and giggles and moans. Hector is fasci-      nated. Where has his daughter gone? Who is this strange      wild creature that has taken her form, lying beside him?      Hector's daughter delights him. And while Hector watches      his daughter, Deirdre from their bed watches Hector.      It is almost dawn, the cave is quiet and the fire has      diminished. By its light we see Deirdre and Hector making      love, on their bed of dried grass and skins. It's diffi-      cult to say what their lovemaking might look like. What      has 6000 years done to that art? We will think about it.      On the far side of the cave we see the sleeping children.      As we MOVE CLOSER we see that they are far from sleep.      Two sets of bright eyes peek out from under their cover.      We CUT BETWEEN them, the loving parents and the watching,      learning children.      Hector is arguing with his son, just outside their cave.      The Boy wants to go foraging with him again.                                 HECTOR                   No... stay here... stay!      Hector takes a few steps.    The Boy follows.                                 HECTOR                   No... go back... go away...      Hector walks on again, taking big, angry father strides.      The Boy stubbornly tags along at a safe distance. Hector      walks on for some time before turning on him.                                 HECTOR                   Leave me alone! Stay here...                   Stay!      There is real anger in his voice. The Boy wisely      retreats to the cave. As Hector turns to continue his      walk alone he see Deirdre looking at him accusingly from      the entrance. She holds out her arms ready to comfort      the Boy rejected by his father. Hector is in the      classic, timeless, no-win situation and he knows it.      With a sigh of frustration he heads for the beach.                                                          3.         *5   EXT. SHORE - DAY                                             5    Hector is foraging on the shoreline, gathering cockles,    seaweeds, mussels, crabs, anything edible. He splashes    in the shallows, hoarding the food in a roughly-woven    bag. Every now and then he will suck a cockle from its    shell or crunch on a particularly tasty piece of seaweed.    Hector looks about 30 years old. This is advanced middle    age for his times and it shows. He has a heavy cold and    an irritating hack in his throat. In a similar condition    a modern individual would spend two or three pleasantly    drugged days in bed, perhaps attempting a little light    paperwork propped up on some pillows.    The sun is warming the day. Hector sits on a rock, sur-    veying his world. He seems very much a part of it. He    watches some wading seabirds nearby. Like him they are    nosing around the margins of low tide for food. He    smiles. In another season they or their eggs will pro-    vide a meal or two. There is a strange atmosphere of    appropriateness in the scene, Hector seems such an inte-    gral part of it. The easy fit of the man in his land-    scape strikes us. Hector belongs to it in ways that a    present-day hunter or holiday maker, or even naturalist,    never could. Also, there is an odd sense of the world    being rather empty.    Whether the larger world is round or flat,   spinning or    orbiting, Hector neither knows nor cares.    He knows    simple things. Cold and hunger. He knows     warmth, rough    comfort and companionship. His family and    the safety of    their cave.    Further along the shore Hector drops his bag and straigh-    tens himself, easing the ache in his back. Then some-    thing disturbs him. From behind a distant headland a    smudge of smoke trails into the sky. Hector picks up his    bag and runs. He knows where he is going. He reaches a    vantage point on some rocks. He steadies himself and    gazes hard out to sea. We can feel the strain in his    eyes as he tries to detect any hint of threat in the    glinting water. Then his jaw drops in fear. Around the    edge of the headland two dark shapes proceed in regular    motion. Their steady progress is full of menace. Oar-    driven boats, slowly, insistently making their way into    Hector's bay. He jumps from the rocks and runs up the    beach toward the cave. One thing else that Hector knows    is fear, blind, gut-turning fear.6   EXT. HILLSIDE - DAY                                          6    Hector is a small figure in the landscape now, racing up    the steep slope in the direction of his home.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                            4.       *6   CONTINUED:                                                   6    He stops for breath and to look back on the bay. The    shapes are distinct now, two large open boats, roughly    made but menacingly adequate for their purpose, coastal    raiding. The boats are nearing the beach now and figures    can be seen preparing to land. Hector gathers enough of    his wits and strength to continue his race up the    hillside.7   INT. HECTOR'S CAVE - DAY                                     7    Inside, his family are in a state of panic. They seem to    have prepared for this moment. Through their agitation    there is purpose. They gather bits and pieces to carry    with them in their flight. Hector's children are attemp-    ting to take too much. Hector shouts instructions to    them as he puts more wood on the fire. It must stay    burning in their absence.    Hector gathers his family together and they leave the    cave.8   EXT. HILLSIDE - DAY                                          8    Hector shoves his children in one direction up the slope    further into the hills. His woman runs off the other    way. A hasty, confused argument takes place.                                 HECTOR                 Up the hill!                               DEIRDRE                 No, down onto the other beach.                 The little ones can't take the                 hill. Neither can I.                              HECTOR                 Up the hill! They're down there                 already. I saw them!                                 DEIRDRE                 You're wrong!    She runs off down the slope. Hector has no choice but to    follow her, herding the children in front of him.    Deirdre runs on, heading for the lower slope and the cover    of some trees. Then from these same trees she sees the    figures of the RAIDERS coming toward her. She turns,    running back up the hill. Hector and the children also    turn and run back the way they have come, by now dropping    precious bits of food and other possessions. The Raiders    are running strongly, five or six of them.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                          5.         *8    CONTINUED:                                                  8     The little Girl starts to go back for a precious toy she     has dropped. Hector picks her up and carries her off     over his shoulder. The Boy follows.     Deirdre is trailing behind them. She was right. She     doesn't have the stamina for the hill. Hector looks back     and sees the Raiders gaining on her. His face is a con-     fusion of fear and indecision. He almost stops, as if to     go back and help her, but then changes his mind and runs     off once again with the children. Deirdre is by now     throwing the things she is carrying at her pursuers,     hoping that they will stop to retrieve them and allow her     to gain some ground. But they don't stop and the effort     tires her even more.     She attempts one final dash and then, all of her energy     gone, she stops in her tracks and waits for her pursuers.     the Raiders break their run also and trot and finally     walk, the distance between them and Deirdre.     Hector is watching all of this over his shoulder, still     running. He stops for a moment to watch Deirdre being     finally surrounded by the Raiders. Then he runs on.9    EXT. VALLEY - DAY                                          9     Hector is tiring, too. With the Girl still awkwardly     clinging to his neck he is picking his way up a steep     slope, half-dragging the Boy up behind him. He stops     for a breath and sees the raiders moving into the     valley below. In a moment of utter panic he lets go of     his son, drops the Girl from his shoulder, and runs on     alone. We can sense the moment of release in his     unburdened flight. But it doesn't last long. Some way     up the slope he stops and turns. He sees his children,     only now beginning to work out what has happened, and     the raiders below. He can't do it. Even as the Girl     calls to him he is running back down the hill, feeling     the first stab of a guilt that will never leave him.                                GIRL                  Come back, Dada...10   EXT. VALLEY - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                          10     Hector and the children have reached the safety of a     small valley higher up in the hills. The raiders have     been slowed down by their capture of Deirdre. Hector     is hoisting his two children into the lower branches of     a solitary tree on the hillside. He coaxes them up into     the higher branches.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                           6.10   CONTINUED:                                                 10                                BOY                  I'm hungry.                                HECTOR                  Don't move from here. I'll come                  for you in the morning. There's                  no food. Try and sleep in the                  branches. Don't cry. Don't make                  a noise.     Hector moves off, looking back to his children in the     tree.  They too gaze anxiously at him. They don't wave.     Maybe waving hasn't been invented yet. Hector heads off     alone, higher into the hills.11   EXT. ROCKS - DUSK                                          11     It is dusk now. We find Hector waking from a fitful     sleep behind some rocks. He sits up and takes in his     surroundings. His face hardens as awareness of his pre-     dicament returns. He stands up and then crouching low,     moves off down the hill.12   EXT. VALLEY - DUSK                                         12     Hector has returned to the area of the tree. He slows     down some distance away and just in time. He sees a     figure standing beneath the tree. He moves forward to     the protection of some rocks, and watches. He is close     enough to hear the voice of the solitary Raider, although     he doesn't understand the words. The Raider looks up     into the branches and talks in a friendly, persuasive     way.                                RAIDER                  It's too cold to spend all night                  up there. We've got a fire at the                  beach. Food, too.     There is no response from the tree.    The Raider coaxes     again.                                RAIDER                  Come on! Your mother's down                  there. She's happy... she's warm,                  too... and full... she wants to                  see you... she sent me...     His friendly tone of voice has an effect. There is     movement in the branches. Hector can see the dark shapes     of his two children clambering down. The Raider     stretches out his arms and helps the Boy to the ground.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                         7.12   CONTINUED:                                                12     Then he reaches up for the Girl, catches her as she drops     and keeps her in his arms. He laughs in a comforting     way.                                RAIDER                  That was easy, eh? You're half                  asleep already, little girl. I'll                  carry you.     Hector watches the Raider and his children move slowly     off, down the hillside, the Raider carrying the Girl in     one arm and holding the Boy's hand. They almost look     like a family.13   EXT. BEACH - NIGHT                                        13     It is fully dark now. On the beach the Raiders have set     up a comfortable camp with a large fire. We are still     with Hector. He has come down from his bleak hiding     place in the hills. The smell of fire and food and con-     cern for his family, have drawn him here. He is hiding     somewhere way off from the camp, but close enough to     observe it.     What he sees disturbs him, but for odd reasons. His     family appear to be happily integrated with the Raiders.     His two children have become fast friends with the man     who coaxed them from the tree. His woman is with a     larger group closer to the fire. They are playfully     attempting to communicate with her, and although still a     little timid, she is smiling. There is no hint of bar-         *     barity, rape or abuse. That was not the intention of the     Raiders. To them, a fertile woman and two healthy     children are as gold will be to plunderers of later ages.     For their part, the family have to accept the situation.     Food and shelter are the best that life can offer.     Painfully, Hector takes in the reality of the scene. His     family have been stolen from him, plain and simple. In     the morning they will be gone, out to sea and round the     headland forever. He watches them for a while longer,     then it becomes too painful. He retreats into the dark-     ness and up into the empty hills again.14   EXT. ROCK SHELTER - NIGHT                                 14     Hector spends a long, cold night alone, squatting in a     narrow crevice in the rocks. He doesn't sleep, or even     attempt to close his eyes. He stares into the darkness.     There is nothing in the world to comfort him, no phi-     losophy or religion, no friend to run to. This night he     is utterly alone.                                                         8.15   EXT. ROCKS - MORNING                                       15     In the morning it is lightly raining. Hector stands in     the drizzle outside the shelter. It seems to revive him,     refresh him, even comfort him. A sign, however meager,     that life goes on. Then Hector trots off in the direc-     tion of the shore. There is not much else that he can     do.16   EXT. BEACH - DAY                                           16     The Raiders are loading up their boats, wading back and     forth from the shoreline. Hector watches from cover.     His family are already on one of the boats, awaiting            *     whatever lies ahead, too afraid to betray real emotion.         *     The last of the Raiders on shore wade out the short dis-     tance to the boats. Hector watches these moments of     departure, watches the faces of his family.     Hector makes his move. In a mad act he breaks cover and         *     runs down toward the departing boats. The last Raiders     are climbing aboard. Hector charges at full speed to the     water's edge. He screams agonizingly at the Raiders and     impotently starts throwing stones at them. The Raiders     all look at him. The LEADER is impudently brushing     Hector's missiles aside, like so many flies and smiling.     Suddenly Hector's rage and energy leave him. He stands     looking at the Raiders and they look at him, for a long     moment. The Raiders are all young men, hardly into their     twenties, and nowadays might resemble something like a          *     motorcycle gang. But in Hector's time they are men in     the full prime of life. They begin to laugh and exchange     remarks about Hector. He returns their looks fiercely.     His woman and children sit on the boat, frozen in fear.         *     The Leader eventually turns from Hector, still smiling     and gives an order. The men lift their oars and prepare     to leave. Then an older man stands up in the other boat.     He calls over to the Leader, nodding in the direction of     Hector. Hector doesn't know what they are saying, but     they have an intense exchange, obviously centered on him.     The older man seems to be an adviser, a priest or wise     man, although he's still only about thirty years old.     The Leader listens to him intently. The PRIEST talks and     points to the cliffs. The Leader looks there and nods     his head. He gives some instructions to his men. Hector     stands, bemused. Six or so of the Raiders leave the     boats, wade ashore and without any resistance from him,     take hold of Hector. Hector's children instictively rise        *     as if to defend their father, but Deirdre, despite her          *     own feelings, wisely holds them back.                           *                                                              9.17   EXT. CLIFFS - DAY                                             17     Hector's hands have been bound with rope. He is being     led up to the top of the cliffs. The Priest and the     Leader walk on ahead, still talking intensely.     At the top of the cliff the bay and the boats and the     wide sea are stretched out beneath them. The Priest, as     they arrive, becomes excited. He points to a pile of     large stones at the very summit of the headland. The     mound of stones is obviously man-made.                            PRIEST               I told you! I knew they did it               around here! Ask him...     The Leader moves closer to Hector and talks to him in a     friendly, reasoning tone.                             LEADER               What do we do? Do we throw you               over, is that the idea?     Hector doesn't understand.    He looks at him blankly.                             LEADER               He wants me to throw you over.               What does it do? Does it help the               sun? Should I throw you over?     The Leader tries to help Hector understand by miming the     act of throwing him off the cliff. Hector doesn't know     how to respond.                             PRIEST               I tell you, it's one man, one               stone. It'll help the voyage.     The Leader is unsure. He walks around the pile of     stones, checking it out from all sides as if it was some     infernal machine that he didn't know the workings of. He     squats down and squints through it to the watery sun     emerging from the clouds far out to sea. He looks across     to Hector, now sitting on the grass. The Leader sits     down beside him. They sit together like friends. The     ageless intimacy of sacrificer and victim.                             LEADER               What's it got to do with the sun?                             PRIEST               I don't know, yet.     The Leader looks at Hector.    Then he makes up his mind.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                              10.17   CONTINUED:                                                     17                                LEADER                  No.  It's too much of a risk.                  Just add a stone to the pile. Let                  him go. That's the best we can                  do.  Let's go.     With that, he stands up. The Priest, with some       sense of     ceremony, looks around for a large stone, picks      one up     and places it on top of the pile. He waits for       a moment,     almost as if he expects some consequence of his      action.                                PRIEST                  It's meaningless, without him                  going over the cliff.     The Leader strides off back toward the beach. The others     follow him, giving a final look or smile to Hector, apart     from the Priest, who looks him up and down, regretting     that he is not by now a corpse in the ocean. Hector     watches them go, too shocked still to react in any mean-     ingful way. He stands alone, trying to unpick the rope     that binds his hands.     When they are some distance from him, Hector starts to     follow them, at first running to catch up and then simply     trotting after them. The Raiders are aware of him behind     them. The Leader eventually stops and calls to Hector.                                 LEADER                  Off you go.   We don't want you.     He turns from Hector   and moves on. Hector persists in     following them. They    are his only connection now with     anything that thinks   or feels in the world. His link     with them is all that   is left. Again and again the     Leader stops to shoo   Hector away, but Hector dumbly tags     along behind.18   EXT. BEACH - DAY                                               18     The Raiders wade out to the waiting boats. Hector     follows to the very water's edge, then stands and bleakly     watches them. The Raiders prepare to move off. Hector     is an embarrassment to them now. At the last moment the     Leader gives a brusque order to one of his men. The man     clambers out of the boat and wades ashore again,     carrying a large flint-bladed knife. He comes out of the     water and walks up to Hector. Hector is beyond any form     of reaction. He will take whatever is offered to him.     The man comes close, the knife held ready. He stands in     front of Hector for a moment. On the boat, Hector's     family are tense with fear for his life.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                         11.18   CONTINUED:                                                 18     Then the tense moment passes, as the man grunts and nods     at Hector's hands, still bound with rope. Hector under-     stands. He lifts his hands and the man with some effort     hacks through the rough hemp. Then he turns and wades     back to the boat.     As the man clambers aboard the Leader speaks to him. The     man stops, drops back into the water, and returns to     Hector on the shore. He offers Hector the cut piece of     rope, a weird gesture of conciliation. He even smiles.     Hector refuses the gift. The man stands sheepishly for a     moment, then drops the rope at Hector's feet and wades     back to the boat. A piece of rope in exchange for a     family.     Hector watches them for some time, his family and the     strange Raiders, as they, achingly slowly, retreat from     his view and his life.     At last he turns and moves up from the shoreline. He     goes some distance then stops, thinks for a moment, then     retraces his steps. He goes back to the water's edge,     picks up the piece of rope that bound him, and walks     off with it. It might be of some use to him.19   INT. CAVE - DAY                                            19     Hector has returned to his cave home, now cold and empty     of life. He is working on his instincts now, still     emotionally in shock. He digs around in the embers of     the fire. Some of the larger bits of wood still hold     some life. Hector bends low and starts to waft expertly         *     and blow at the fire's remains.     We leave our first Hector squatting at his fire, in the     simplest act of physical survival. For him the problems     of emotional survival without his family lie ahead.20   INT. BATHHOUSE FURNACE - DAY                               20     This is another, bigger fire. In fact we might be in     hell. A crude furnace blazes. Filthy, sweat-covered     men feed it with wood and charcoal, an endless task given     the ferocity of the fire. To one side of the oppressive,     low-ceilinged furnace room, some small boys endlessly     toil at two large bellows, feeding the flames with jets     of air. OVER the NOISE of the FURNACE someone is     WHISTLING, an odd human sound in an inhuman setting.     Shadowy figures come and go with barrow loads of wood.     We TILT UP TO the space above the furnace to see a mass     of dangerously crude clay pipes, oozing water and steam     at every joint.                                                         12.21   INT. BATHHOUSE - DAY                                      21     Above the heat and filth there is a different world. A     clean, beautifully tiled world of lazing figures, droning     conversations and resonant laughter. It is the hot room     of a bathhouse somewhere in the Roman Empire. We have     advanced 4000 years into the future and it shows in the     technology. It is men's day at the bathhouse. All of     the people relaxing in the water look prosperous and     comfortable with themselves. Slaves wait in attendance,     some around the edge of the pool, others in the water     rubbing backs and massaging shoulders. There are three     or four times as many slaves as bathers, and the proprie-     torial way that they look after their masters gives the     place the odd atmosphere of a kindergarten for over-     indulged grown-ups.     And then we find our Hector. He stands against the wall,     holding a large towel. Although clean-shaven and more     healthy-looking we can still recognize Hector, more so         *     by the look in his eyes. There is a set to his face     that tells us he is a man alone, emotionally detached     from his surroundings. He is a personal body slave. He     watches his master in the pool, alert to any hint of need     that he might have.     Hector's master LUCINNIUS is not as relaxed as the others     around him. He is in anxious conversation with an older        *     man wading beside him. We don't hear what they are saying     but there is enough body language to detect Lucinnius'     pleading and the older man's cool distraction. The older     man gives a final dismissive shake of his head. Hector         *     immediately moves to the side of the pool with the towel as     Lucinnius climbs out of the water.                             LUCINNIUS               I'm going to the cool room.22   INT. BATHHOUSE - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                      22   *     Hector wraps the towel around his master and follows him,     a look of concern on his face. Lucinnius' worries are     Hector's also.     Hector walks a pace behind Lucinnius through various     chambers of the bathhouse, passing the games area and     the massage room as they go. All around them slaves     attend to their pampered masters.23   INT. BATHHOUSE - COOL ROOM - DAY                          23   *     After an anxious scan of the cool room, Lucinnius goes     towards three men occupying a marble bench.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                            13.23   CONTINUED:                                                   23     Hector as if by magic produces a small wooden stool for     his master to sit on as he joins the others. Hector then     moves out of earshot, but still alert to his master's     behavior. Lucinnius is nervous as he attempts to     casually join his friends. The eldest of the three     gives off as much of the aura of a Godfather as a naked     man in a towel can. The other two are deferential to     the older man, and treat Lucinnius with apparent con-     tempt. Hector watches the older man put a paternal     hand on Luccinius's shoulder and speak with a calm     smile on his face. Hector almost winces to see his     master submit to this patronizing treatment. Slave     and master exist so closely together that many of     their feelings are shared. More precisely, Lucinnius's     feelings are shared by Hector. It is a one-way exchange.     From morning until night, and probably in his dreams too,     Hector is living two lives, his own and his master's.     Here in ancient Rome is this what they call classic     schizophrenia?     As Luccinius stands to leave we can    tell by their expres-     sions that the THREE MEN are open in    their contempt for     him. Hector is quickly on his feet     and by Lucinnius's     side as he goes. A final sarcastic     remark comes from one     of the three.                                MAN #1                  Well washed, Lucinnius.     Lucinnius tries to muster his dignity as they leave.              *24   EXT. STREET - DAY                                            24     This is not the grandeur of Rome, but the dusty main     street of a provincial capital in Greece or Spain or     North Africa. It is difficult to tell from the people     because they are such a cosmopolitan crowd, faces from     every corner of the Mediterranean world. It has some-     thing of the atmosphere of a frontier town in a western,     except that here the half-finished buildings are made of     brick and stone.     Lucinnius leaves the bathhouse. Hector follows three     paces behind him, loaded down with the large towel, the     scrubber, robe, and the wooden stool. The stool goes     with them everywhere, in case Lucinnius has to stop in     the street and converse with a friend. Other notables     are among the street throng, their own slaves tagging     along behind with their little wooden stools. Some have     whole trains of slaves shadowing them. Human status     symbols. Lucinnius stops near some street stalls.     Hector stops beside him.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                           14.        *24   CONTINUED:                                                  24                                LUCINNIUS                  Bad omens, Hector. Bad omens.                  Get me something to eat. Just                  a mouse or two.                               HECTOR                  Yes.     Hector places the stool at Lucinnius's feet and moves off.     Lucinnius sits down, still absorbed in his problems.     Hector keeps an eye on Lucinnius as he orders the food.                                HECTOR                  Two mice... and some bread...                               STALLHOLDER                  No mice.                                HECTOR                  Two chicken legs, then, cold, and                  the bread.     As Hector is given the food and pays for it, he sees     another man, JULIAN, approach Lucinnius, trailed by TWO     SLAVES. One of them is carrying a folding chair much     more substantial than Lucinnius's. Julian and Lucinnius     greet one another and sit down to talk, Lucinnius at     something of a height disadvantage. The Two Slaves move     off to one side. Lucinnius's mood has brightened since     the arrival of his friend. Their conversation seems open     and friendly.     Hector gives his master his food, and then moves to join     the Two Slaves, hearing a snatch of the conversation as     he goes.                                JULIAN                  Of course you're free to call at my                  house at anytime, but I was                  receiving Nepos... how could I                  admit you?     Hector offers to share his bread with the other Two     Slaves. They easily fall into conversation, inevitably,     about their masters.                                SLAVE #1                  Spoiled his day, meeting your man...                  he's been avoiding him all week.                                SLAVE #2                  His ships have gone too, we heard.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              15.24   CONTINUED:    (2)                                              24     This is news to Hector.                                HECTOR                  When did you hear?                                SLAVE #2                  Last night. Nepos knew. Pirates.                  They're sunk, he reckons. That                  could finish him, eh?                                HECTOR                  This is the worst it's been.                           *                                SLAVE #1                  You'll be up for sale before you                  know it!     This makes them laugh, Hector less so than the other     two.                                HECTOR                  He's finished... you reckon?     The other two nod their heads.                                SLAVE #1                  Yes... at the baths... I could                  tell... they smelled blood...                                HECTOR                  Well... if he'd pulled it off he'd                  be in Rome by now...                                SLAVE #1                  And you with him...     Hector nods his head thoughtfully.                                HECTOR                  And me with him... half way home...     Lucinnius and his friend stand and exchange their final     words, unaware of the scrutiny they have been under, or     so used to it that they are oblivious to it. Hector     and the Slaves hurry to gather up the seats and take their          *     positions behind their masters. The casualness of their     conversation has gone, and they resume the formality of     their roles.25   EXT. STREET - DAY                                              25     Lucinnius is eager to talk, and tosses his words over his     shoulder to Hector.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              16.25   CONTINUED:                                                     25                                LUCINNIUS                  He's a true friend, probably the                  only one I have left.     Hector obligingly trots a step or two closer to Lucinnius     to aid their conversation.                                HECTOR                  Will he lend you the money?                                LUCINNIUS                  He was honest about it. He said                  so, plain and simple. No.                                HECTOR                  That's a problem.     Lucinnius unburdens himself.                                LUCINNIUS                  And the ships have gone... did I                  tell you that?                               HECTOR                  Have they?                                LUCINNIUS                  Cyprian knows already. He'll                  want his money back too...     We can see the concentration on Hector's face as he     concocts appropriate responses.     He has a tough occupation, being the alter ego to an     ambitious loser in one of the most competitive and     dangerous societies ever to exist. And he has to carry     the stool and the towel as well.                                LUCINNIUS                  When we get home I want you to get                  some chickens... and fetch Hermas,                  the diviner.                               HECTOR                  Yes.26   INT. HOUSE - DAY                                               26     At home, we find Lucinnius and Hector with the diviner     HERMAS. They are gathered around a shrine in the large     public room. The entrails of a chicken lie on a slab of     marble. Hermas prods them with a knife. He makes much     of the mysteries of his craft, as if it were a skill     beyond ordinary men.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                          17.26   CONTINUED:                                                 26     The other two peer over his shoulders. Suitably mysti-     fied, Lucinnius talks in a reverent low voice.                                LUCINNIUS                  Are my ships from Sicily still                  afloat...?     Hermas tetchily stops him.                                HERMAS                  No, no... offer the grain first...                  sprinkle it on the altar...     Lucinnius obeys.                                HERMAS                  ... and we can't ask the Gods                  specific questions like that...                  it's a gentle, probing enquiry...                  general questions... but let's                  see.     He cuts into the chicken liver and prods around the in-     side. The other two wait in silence.                                HERMAS                  General answer... no...                                                                     *                                LUCINNIUS                  What do you mean?                                 HERMAS                  I mean, no.   The liver says no...     Lucinnius objects.                                LUCINNIUS                  Do it again... I want you to do it                  again... Is it the Gods' will...                   *                  that Cyprian... be well disposed                   *                  towards me... in the future?                       *                                HERMAS                  If you want to do it  again, you                  need another chicken  and another                  fifteen sesterces...  and I'd like                  the first fifteen now  please.     Hector looks a Lucinnius, who nods reluctantly. Hector     opens his purse and counts out the coins for Hermas.                                                            18.27   INT. HOUSE - NIGHT                                           27     Hector is giving Lucinnius a soothing shoulder massage.     Lucinnius is still in a talking mood.   His troubles     won't allow him to relax.                             LUCINNIUS               Cyprian loaned me half a million               to fit out these ships... I'm                           *               finished. Just when things were               going well... I had plans for you               too, Hector... in four or five               years I was going to make you a               free man... and then in ten years                       *               you'd be a citizen... you... you                        *               could've found your family...               brought them here... everything...     Hector smiles ruefully.                             HECTOR               It sounds good.     Lucinnius misses the irony in Hector's voice and enthuses     about his own future generosity.                             LUCINNIUS               It does, doesn't it!     Lucinnius is silent for a while as Hector continues to            *     rub his shoulders.                             LUCINNIUS               I shouldn't give up. I can't...               I'll visit Cyprian, first thing               tomorrow... before the others can               get to him... he's got to see               reason... I can pay him back...               sometime. It's the only chance               we have, Hector. Should I do it?                               HECTOR               You must.                               LUCINNIUS               You're right.    I must.     This burst of resolve has relaxed Lucinnius.   His tense     muscles yield more to Hector's fingers.     THALIA enters the room. She is a household slave, a     Nubian from Africa. She carries a lighted torch and     moves around the room lighting the wall lamps. Lucinnius     watches her.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                            19.27   CONTINUED:                                                   27                                LUCINNIUS                  Thalia, I think I need one of                  your massages. Hector, you can                       *                  finish the lamps.     Hector does as he is told. He takes the torch from     Thalia and discreetly leaves the room, hearing Lucinnius     as he closes the door.                                LUCINNIUS                  Lower, Thalia.28   INT. HECTOR'S ROOM - NIGHT                                   28     Late at night, Hector is still awake. He rises from his     bed and quietly moves out of the room. He is careful     not to disturb the sleeping forms lying all around him,     some of them sprawled on the floor. He shares his bed-     room with at least eight other slaves. Privacy is a     master's privilege.29   INT. HOUSE - NIGHT                                           29     In the darkened house, Hector makes his way up some     stairs and along a passage. The only sound is a crack     or two of far-away THUNDER. At the end of the passage,     Hector finds a small ladder propped against the wall.     He climbs this, and lifts open the trap door above his     head.30   EXT. ROOF - NIGHT                                            30     Odd flashes of lightning far out to sea are the only     source of light as Hector moves across the flat roof.     In one corner he sees what he is looking for, the outline     of a figure resting against the low parapet wall. He     moves towards it. The figure speaks.                                FIGURE                  I missed you last night.     It is Thalia. We can tell that they are close.      Hector     sits down beside her.                                HECTOR                  He kept me working until morning.                                THALIA                  What's happening?                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              20.30   CONTINUED:                                                     30                                HECTOR                  He has no money and a lot of                  enemies. If he's very clever he'll                  survive... but the omens are bad...                  and he's not very clever.                                THALIA                  She doesn't like him.                                HECTOR                  Nobody does. He's unfortunate.                  You get people like that. Clumsy                  and sad.     Thalia looks out towards the sea.                                THALIA                  Why does the thunder always stay                  out on the ocean?     Hector puts an arm around Thalia. At first it feels                 *     strange, their physical intimacy alongside their matter-     of-fact conversation, but gradually we understand it, the     giving and taking of comfort where it can be found, and     the realness of their friendship. Their stroking and     touching and holding becomes good to watch. We get a     feeling for what they have given one another, in stolen     hours and half hours, up here on the roof, the only place     where they can be themselves.                                HECTOR                  It's the Gods arguing. They're                  working out what to do with                  Lucinnius... he'll be lying awake                  down there... wondering what                  they're saying about him.     They laugh.    Far away some street DOGS BARK.                                HECTOR                  If he goes down I'll ask for my                  freedom... he owes it to me... he                  said as much... you too... we                  could be free...                               THALIA                  Then what?                                HECTOR                  What we talk about.     By now he is kissing her.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                21.30   CONTINUED:    (2)                                                30                                THALIA                  We talk about going home. Yours                  is that way and mine is that                  way... your family is that way.                                HECTOR                  I just made that up... I don't                           *                  know which way they are... anyway                        *                  ... you can't think like that.                           *                  Not after so many years...                               *                                THALIA                  It's what you talk about.                                HECTOR                  We talk about it because it can                          *                  never happen. What we do is you                          *                  and me...                                THALIA                  I don't understand. I think you'll                  leave. You're going to leave me                  here.                               HECTOR                  Never. It's you and me now.                  That's all.                                 THALIA                  Well.   We stay here.   He'll survive.                   *     Hector is silent, still kissing her.      He yawns as he              *     speaks.                                HECTOR                  Then I can see you every night.                  I'm tired.31   INT. HECTOR'S ROOM - NIGHT                                       31     Hector is back in his bed. A figure enters the room,     steps over the sleeping bodies on the floor and shakes     him awake. Hector comes to. Lucinnius stands over him,     whispering.                                LUCINNIUS                  I can't sleep. Get me a chicken.                  I want to make another sacrifice.                  We'll do it ourselves.     Hector wearily takes himself out of bed and follows     Lucinnius out of the room.                                                           22.        *32   INT. HENHOUSE - NIGHT                                       32     Hector is in the henhouse, in the dark, selecting a     chicken for sacrifice. He is about to leave when he     sees a MAN and WOMAN, arms around each other, sitting in     a corner. The Man looks at the white hen Hector is     holding.                             MAN               Can't you find a woman, Hector...     Hector smiles. He isn't surprised to see them. They are     only doing what he and Thalia do on the roof. The Slaves     have their meeting places scattered all over the house.                             HECTOR               Sorry to trouble you... just               fetching a chicken... good night               ... the roof's free...     The Man shakes his head with a smile. Hector leaves, the     sleepy chicken going to meet her fate in his arms.                             HECTOR               Come on, miss, you can tell               Lucinnius his future.33   EXT. STREET - MORNING                                       33     Hector and Lucinnius are approaching the home of Cyprian.     Hector as usual is walking some paces behind his master,     and he carries a large satchel of documents. Cyprian's     home is a street palace. It is early in the morning, but     there is already activity around the house, visitors     coming and going, messengers, petitioners. A few impor-     tant callers arrive in litters, carried by slaves.     Lucinnius and Hector even have to join a line at the door     and are checked in by the gateman. Lucinnius's hopes of     quietly bending Cyprian's ear are dashed. It seems as     if the whole world owes allegiance to this provincial     Mr. Big.34   EXT. COURTYARD - MORNING                                    34     The slaves gather on one side of the courtyard, gossiping     and playing games of chance on the ground. Their masters     wait on the other side of the courtyard, seated on     benches along the wall. Cyprian's aides usher the     visitors into his presence in a regular flow, some have     an audience of a few minutes, others last merely seconds.     Hector keeps an eye on Lucinnius, like a mother watching     her child from a distance on its first day at school.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              23.34   CONTINUED:                                                     34     Lucinnius, sitting expectantly in line, does look a     little pathetic, even ridiculous. Straight-backed, hands     on knees, alert, worried, he looks a bit like a sacri-     ficial offering himself.     Hector plays a game of five-stone with some other slaves     as he watches Lucinnius shuffling up the bench place by     place to the front of the line. We almost expect Hector     to give him a little wave of encouragement as he is     finally summoned into the inner office. Hector waits.     The first signs seem good. Lucinnius doesn't emerge     within the first minute. Cyprian is at least giving him     the time of day. More minutes pass. Hector watches a     game of handball while keeping an eye on the office door.     One or two others, familiar to us from the bathhouse, go     into the office. So does Lucinnius' friend Julian.     Eventually Lucinnius emerges into the sunlight, a broad     smile on his face. Hector relaxes and leaves the ball     game to join him.                                HECTOR                  You look happier.                                LUCINNIUS                  Relieved anyway... relieved that                  it's over at last.     Lucinnius strides out of the courtyard with Hector     following after him.35   EXT. STREETS - DAY                                             35     Lucinnius and Hector are walking home in their usual     formation. Hector is closer than normal, so that they     can talk.                                HECTOR                  Will he help you?                                LUCINNIUS                  I have to kill myself by tomorrow                  morning. He has all my letters to                  Titinius, none of them got                  through. He says it's like                  treason... and he says I should                  want to die for owing him half a                  million anyway...     Hector is shocked.                                HECTOR                  What if you don't...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              24.35   CONTINUED:                                                     35                                LUCINNIUS                  Then he will... and that wouldn't                  be pleasant... he would drag me to                  Rome... those letters...     Lucinnius shivers to think of them.                                LUCINNIUS                  I'm done for, Hector... but it's                  strange... I feel kind of good                  about it... the struggle is over                  ... we've seen it through                  together, eh?                                HECTOR                  I don't know what to say.                                LUCINNIUS                  Let's get home. We have a lot to                  do.     Lucinnius quickens his pace.                                LUCINNIUS                  Tonight... peace at last...     Lucinnius is obviously in a state of shock.36   INT. HOUSE - DAY                                               36     Hector and Lucinnius are in his study. Lucinnius is     busy clearing up his papers. He is less hysterical than     in the previous scene, more aware of the reality of what     he has to do.                                LUCINNIUS                  We'll do it with a knife, Hector.                  When everyone has gone to bed.                  The two of us, to the end...                                HECTOR                  I don't understand. What do you                  want me to do... I don't think I                  can help you...                                LUCINNIUS                  We'll help each other, Hector. We                  must. We've been through this                  whole mess together... we must die                  together.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                            25.36   CONTINUED:                                                   36                                HECTOR                  I don't know what you mean.   What                  mess?                                                *                                LUCINNIUS                  You don't understand do you? I'm                  asking you to die with me...                  you're my closest, my dearest                  slave... what would they say about                  me if you refused to die with me?                  This is honor... we're choosing                      *                  death... we're not going to submit                  to the humiliations that Cyprian                  can heap on us, are we?                                HECTOR                  You say we... I don't know... what                  is we? I've done nothing... I                        *                  know nothing...     Lucinnius changes his tone, becomes more, in his own     mind, frank, man-to-man.                                LUCINNIUS                  Hector... at Cyprian's this morning                  ... I had to sign certain papers                  ... tell a bit of a story...                                                                       *                                HECTOR                  What kind of story?                                LUCINNIUS                  A confession. That we were                  plotting against Cyprian and the                  provincial senate... we were short                  of names... most of the people I                  know were in the room... people I                  thought were my friends... so I                  mentioned you... I had to...     Hector is stunned with shock...                                HECTOR                  So I'm a conspirator?                                LUCINNIUS                  Yes. So you see, I don't want you                  to die with me just because of my                  honor... it's more complicated...                  I'm sorry, Hector. I would be                  honored... if you would die with                  me... I mean it...     Hector manages to speak.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              26.        *36   CONTINUED:     (2)                                             36                                HECTOR                  Can I sit down?                               LUCINNIUS                  Of course.                                HECTOR                  This is the worst it's been.37   EXT. COURTYARD - DAY                                           37     Hector is in   the inner courtyard of the house, beside the     kitchen. He    is talking to GALLUS, who is Lucinnius's     ten-year-old   son. Hector has a close friendship with     him. As we    listen to their conversation it becomes clear     that Hector   finds comfort in the boy, for the family that     he lost.     Today there is an air of distraction about Hector.     Understandable, considering his scheduled death.     The kitchen slaves come and go as they talk.                                HECTOR                  But even if it's round you can                  still fall off the edge.     Hector has picked up a large metal plate to help him make     his point.                                GALLUS                  No... it's not round like that...                  it's round like this.     Gallus sees his playball.     He picks it up.                                HECTOR                  Do you believe everything that                  Greek tells you...?     Gallus ignores this tease, intent on the ball.                                GALLUS                  Rome must be right in the middle...                  here... and we must be out here                  somewhere...     Hector becomes more interested.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                         27.37   CONTINUED:                                                37                                HECTOR                  So, where is my home?                                GALLUS                  How many months did they march you                  here?                               HECTOR                  Seven.     Gallus walks out the distance from Rome with his fingers,      *     as if there is serious calculation.                            *                                GALLUS                  It must be about here.                            *     His fingers stop on the other side of the ball.                                GALLUS                  But then you'd be upside down...                                HECTOR                  I wasn't upside down... and how                   *                  could you see the sun round there                  ... I saw the sun at home... every                  day...     Gallus is stumped for answers.                                 *                                GALLUS                  I'll ask him tomorrow...                          *     Hector remembers that he and the boy's father are              *     supposed to die that night. He looks on Gallus with a          *     new tenderness.                                HECTOR                  Yes, tell me tomorrow... I'd like                  to know... because my children are                  round there and I want to know                  that they're getting the sun...                  ask him something else, too...                  where are the gods if the whole                  thing is round?                                GALLUS                  I think I know that... they're out                  here, and all around... that's how                  they can look down and see                  everything...38   INT. ALTAR - NIGHT                                        38     Lucinnius is at it again. In the lamplight, a live     chicken stands on the altar.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                            28.38   CONTINUED:                                                   38     Hector and Lucinnius watch it as if their lives depended     on it. Perhaps they do.                                LUCINNIUS                  If he eats the grain it means yes.     He scatters some grain on the table.     The chicken at once     begins to peck them up.                                HECTOR                  It's saying yes... there's a way...                                LUCINNIUS                  No, it's saying yes, we should die.                                HECTOR                  But you asked it if we had to die,                  or if there was another way... it's                  saying yes, there is...                                LUCINNIUS                  No, it's saying yes, we should die.     The bird is certainly enjoying his food.                                HECTOR                  Maybe it's just hungry...     The chicken is inscrutable, as they are prone to be.39   INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT                                     39     A dead chicken adorns Lucinnius's table. He and his     wife, DALMIA, and their son are lying on their couches     picking at the food with their fingers. Lucinnius is     drinking more wine than usual. Hector and the other     household slaves are in attendance. Thalia is also     there, serving her mistress.     Dalmia knows something is up, but she doesn't know what.     She attempts to break the silence. She calls on the cook     from the kitchen.                                  DALMIA                  Solus!     The kitchen slave quickly appears.                                DALMIA                  Solus... I'm eating chicken again.                  I ate chicken yesterday and the                  day before... will I be eating                  chicken again tomorrow? Why am I                  always eating chicken?                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                           29.39   CONTINUED:                                                  39     SOLUS looks up at Lucinnius and Hector, but they offer     him no help.                                SOLUS                  It's what we have to hand in the                  kitchen, ma'am... I always try to                  use the fresh stuff... the                  chickens have just been turning                  up...     He looks again at Lucinnius and Hector. They look at     each other. Thalia looks at Hector. Dalmia looks at     them all looking at each other, more intrigued than she     was before.     A SLAVE interrupts them.                                SLAVE                  Two men have come to see you.                  From Cyprian.     Lucinnius and Hector look at each other and share a     moment of hope. They might be coming with good news,     perhaps a softening of Cyprian's heart.40   INT. RECEPTION ROOM - NIGHT                                 40     The two VISITORS that await Lucinnius and Hector are an     unpromising sight. They are big men, unsophisticated and     look uncomfortable in their well-cut togas. A couple of     the godfather's foot soldiers.     They greet Lucinnius deferentially, but he knows that     they would break his back at the whim of their master.                                VISITOR                  Good evening, Lucinnius. Cyprian                  asked us if we could be of any                      *                  assistance... in the business that                  you have to conduct tonight... to                  make that business as...                            *                  comfortable... as you could wish...     Lucinnius sighs, as his last hope expires.                                LUCINNIUS                  Thank you, gentlemen... But I feel                  that I will be capable of taking                  care of my affairs tonight without                  your help... Thank Cyprian for his                  kind thought...     The heavies metaphorically keep their foot in the door.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                          30.40   CONTINUED:                                                 40                                  VISITOR                  We're   spending the night at the                  house   of Nepos, not far from here.                  Don't   hesitate to send your man for                  us...   at any time... We're anxious                  that   things should go well for you.                                 LUCINNIUS                  Thank you.   Good night.                                VISITOR                  We'll call in the morning at any                  rate... just to make sure.                                 LUCINNIUS                  Thank you.     Hector is closing the door when one of the Visitors talks     roughly to him.                                  VISITOR                  You.    Come here.     Hector instinctively looks to his master. Lucinnius     doesn't protest, but retreats into the house. Hector is     left alone with the Visitors.                                VISITOR                  He looks like the kind that'll                  want some help. Have you ever                  killed before?                                HECTOR                  Only chickens.                                VISITOR                  He's not much different. Use a                  thin blade, but long. Get it in                  deep... the heart... feel for a                  space between the ribs...     He prods at Hector's body freely, showing him what to do.     If it is ticklish, Hector doesn't let on.                                VISITOR                  ... or go in from the back... any                  place he'll let you...     We leave Hector nodding obediently as this weirdest of     coaching lessons continues.                                VISITOR                  Getting it out's not as easy as                  you might think... you have to                  twist a bit... to get over the                  stickiness...                                                             31.41   INT. STUDY - NIGHT                                            41     Late at night in Lucinnius's study, an oil     lamp and a     candle cast their shadowy light, adding to     the tension in     the room. Hector stands beside Lucinnius,      who is     counting out coins and other valuables on     his table.                             LUCINNIUS               Eight hundred sesterces... cash               ... that's all that's left... what               a failure... my father left me               three farms and forty thousand...     Lucinnius places the money in a box on his table. He is     quite drunk, resigned now to his fate. Hector however is     cold sober, grim-faced. Lucinnius looks up at him.                             LUCINNIUS               Nothing else to be done.    Don't               you want some wine?                             HECTOR               No... but I want something...                               LUCINNIUS               What is it?                             HECTOR               I want to die a free man... I               don't want to die a slave...     Lucinnius looks at him grimly and manages a smile. He              *     clears his throat and attempts to put a note of ceremony     into his voice.                                LUCINNIUS               Hector,    by this proclamation, I               make you    a freed man... I don't               know the    exact words... I've never               done it    before... But you're free,               Hector.                                                                        *                             HECTOR               In writing... so that when they               find me... they know I died a free               man... please...     Lucinnius looks at him for a moment, then reaches out for     his paper and pen.                               LUCINNIUS               Very well...     He scratches out a few words on the paper, Hector looking     over his shoulder, keenly watching what he writes.     Lucinnius finishes writing and lays down the pen.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              32.41   CONTINUED:                                                      41                                LUCINNIUS                  They'll find it in the morning.                  It's a nice thought, Hector... you                  were right to ask.                                  HECTOR                  Thank you.                                LUCINNIUS                  Well... freed man, let's do it.                         *     Lucinnius picks up a large kitchen knife which lies on     the table. He fingers its blade.                                                                          *     A trickle of fear passes across Hector's face.       Will the     half-drunk Lucinnius want to kill him first?                                HECTOR                  What do you want me to do?                                LUCINNIUS                  Nothing... I mean, not to me... I                  have to do it first... you                  understand that... and then you...                  if I don't succeed... then you                  must help me...                                  HECTOR                  I understand.                                LUCINNIUS                  No point in messing up the room.                  Let's go downstairs.     Lucinnius stands and leaves the room.     Hector follows     with the oil lamp.42   INT. PASSAGE - NIGHT                                            42     The house is quiet and in darkness as they walk along the     passage and down the stairs to the washing room. Hector     walks behind, casting the light on Lucinnius's crumpled,     defeated form. Lucinnius begins to sob, at first     quietly, then more loudly and more pathetically. Hector     looks around and behind him, afraid, or perhaps hoping,     that Lucinnius's moans will wake the household.43   INT. WASH ROOM - NIGHT                                          43     Lucinnius has worked himself into a dramatic state of     distress, with drink and terror and self pity.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              33.        *43   CONTINUED:                                                     43     He runs into the tiled washing room, wails loudly and     makes a stabbing motion at his stomach. Hector sees all     of this from behind as he enters the room. Lucinnius     crumples to the floor and squats on his knees. He calls     out in pain.                                LUCINNIUS                  Oh, that hurts, that stings!     Lucinnius sits back on the step of the washing pool,     holding his stomach. Hector sits down beside him. They     both look down at the blade, still in Lucinnius' body.                                LUCINNIUS                  This is hopeless.     They sit absurdly like this for a long moment, neither     of them knowing what do do next. It's awkward, like in a     waiting room. Then Lucinnius speaks.                                LUCINNIUS                  Help me, Hector...                                HECTOR                  You've done it... you've done it                  ... lie down...     Hector speaks gently, like coaxing a frightened animal.     He helps Lucinnius lie out on the marble floor.                                HECTOR                  Close your eyes... you did it...                                LUCINNIUS                  Thank you, thank you.     The movement has increased the spread of blood over     Lucinnius' clothing. He raises his head.                                LUCINNIUS                  You do it now, Hector... hurry...                                HECTOR                  Lie still... lie still...                                LUCINNIUS                  Do it Hector... do it... you                  promised...     It looks as if Hector is playing for time.                                HECTOR                  Shush... I'll need the knife...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                           34.43   CONTINUED:    (2)                                           43                                LUCINNIUS                  Take it... do it...     Lucinnius' voice is fading now. Hector waits, then     reaches down for the knife in Lucinnius' stomach. We     see on his face the effort as he pulls at it, and do we     detect a subtle twisting of the blade to speed Lucinnius     on his way? Lucinnius sighs and twitches a little. It's     as if the life flows out of him as the knife is released     from the wound. His voice is even more faint.                                LUCINNIUS                  Do it, Hector... do it... do it...     Hector has the knife in his hand, but still he waits,     looking at Lucinnius, willing the last dregs of life from     him.                                LUCINNIUS                  Do it... do it... do it...     The whispers fade to a croak. Lucinnius lies still.     Hector has won this final battle of wills. He stands    up,     suddenly repulsed by what has happened. But quickly    he     gathers his wits. He makes his decision. He throws     the     knife down. It clatters along the hard shiny floor.     Hector has run out of the room before it has come to    rest     against the wall.44   INT. STUDY - NIGHT                                          44     Hector runs into the study and makes for the box contain-     ing the coins. He puts most of them into a leather money     bag and ties it to his waist. Then he pulls on     Lucinnius's cloak and rushes out of the room. He returns     quickly to pick up his certificate of freedom from the     table. Then just as he is leaving, he again stops, sits     down on the chair, pulls off his worn shoes and places on     his feet a pair of Lucinnius's stout street sandals.45   EXT. COURTYARD - NIGHT                                      45     Hector is walking quickly from the kitchen across the     courtyard to the street gate. Near the gate he stops     and looks back at the house. He makes a decision and     retraces his steps across the courtyard and back into     the house.46   INT. THALIA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                  46     Thalia is sleeping in a large pallet bed on the floor     with two other women. Hector gently shakes her shoulder,     trying not to wake the others. After a moment or two     Thalia opens her eyes.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              35.46   CONTINUED:                                                     46     Hector whispers to her before she has time to open her     mouth.                                HECTOR                  I'm leaving... come now if you                  want to... but we must hurry...                  I'm a free man... I'm free.                  Will you come?47   EXT. HARBOR - NIGHT                                            47     The shadowy cloaked figures making their way down to the            *     harbor are Hector and Thalia.                                       *     Nearer the harbor we sense the nighttime work of loading     and preparing ships for the morning tide. By the light     of oil lamps cargos are manhandled aboard, voices shout,     WINCHES CREAK. Hector encounters a night WATCHMAN, but     diverts his suspicion by boldly addressing him.                                HECTOR                  I have some mail for Tyre... where                  are the east-bound ships?                                WATCHMAN                  Ask at the harbor.                                     *     With an authoritative nod, Hector strides off in the     direction of the noise and lights, Thalia at his heels.     Hector talks when the Watchman is out of earshot.                                HECTOR                  We want a timber ship... they go                  west... straight to Rome...                                 THALIA                  And then?   Then you go home?                          *     Hector hurries on, noncommittal in his reply.                                HECTOR                  You can go to anywhere from Rome.48   EXT. QUAY - NIGHT                                              48     Hector and Thalia approach a ship heavily laden with     timber. Final supplies are being carried aboard, super-     vised by two men on the quay. Hector approaches them.                                HECTOR                  Where is the Captain?                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                         36.48   CONTINUED:                                                 48                                CREWMAN                  He's on the ship.     He indicates a man standing on the rear deck. Hector and     Thalia climb up the gangplank and approach him.                                HECTOR                  Good morning, Captain... I'm                  looking for passage to Rome, for                  both of us...                                CAPTAIN                  And who might you be?                                HECTOR                  I'm the steward of Lucinnius the                  merchant... we have business in                  Rome... I need an immediate                  passage...                                CAPTAIN                  It's five or six days... to                        *                  Brundisium... you can walk or ride                  from there... you have money?                               HECTOR                  Of course.                                                                     *                                CAPTAIN                  Well, let's see... passage for                  two... food for two... six days...                  what were you thinking of offering?                                HECTOR                  When do you leave?                                CAPTAIN                  Anxious to leave, are you?                                HECTOR                  Keen to start, yes.49   INT. SHIP - DAY                                            49     Hector and Thalia are asleep, huddled together in a cor-     ner of the ship that they have claimed as their quarters.     A CREWMAN comes and shakes Hector awake. He stirs himself     to the sounds of a SHIP UNDERWAY, the sounds of the SEA-     WASH, the WIND in the CANVAS, the MOANS of the TIMBERS.                                CREWMAN                  Captain says to come on deck.     Hector wakes Thalia and they clamber out of the darkness     of the hold onto the brightest, freshest of days at sea.                                                          37.50   EXT. SHIP - DAY                                             50     There is no sign of land behind them. The ship is moving     swiftly in a strong, clean breeze and a light sea. We     can tell from Thalia's reactions that she has never been     out at sea before, at least never above deck. Every-     thing is novel to her and it shows, even the movement of         *     the ship. Her excitement is childlike.                             THALIA               Where's the land gone?                                                                      *     Hector, too, is taken by the novelty of it all but is     less prepared to admit it. He waves his hands around the     empty horizon noncommittally.                             THALIA               Have you been on a ship before?                             HECTOR               Yes, of course.     We can tell he is lying.                             THALIA               Me, too, but they kept us down               there.     She points down into the lower depths of the hold.   Then     she gets even more excited.                             THALIA               Tonight... we'll be where the               thunder is!     They look at each other and then all around them. The     freshness of the day and on an overwhelming feeling of     freedom, exhilarate them. Their senses and their     feelings, are in new territory. They are like children     in a brand-new world.     The Captain on the other side of the ship, beckons them.         *                             CAPTAIN               Thought you would like to see               them.     He points to three shapes in the mid-distance, ships     heading for the port they have left. There is a thrill           *     in their glamor, their fine progress under full sail.                             CAPTAIN               Your master's ships... going               home...                                                                      *                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                              38.50   CONTINUED:                                                      50                                HECTOR                  No... they can't be... they're                  lost...                                CAPTAIN                  No they're not... I know these                  ships... my brother-in-law's the                  master of the big one with the                  brown sail...     Hector and Thalia look at each other. The Captain smiles     at them and looks back to the ships, coursing healthily     on their way.                                CAPTAIN                  Somebody been putting the wind up                  Lucinnius? That's an old one...                  didn't think anybody'd fall for                  that...51   EXT. SHIP - DAY                                                 51     Later, the ship is still making brisk progress. Thalia     and Hector are sitting on deck, some distance from one     another. They are quieter now, more thoughtful. Hector               *     catches her eye. Hector is drawn by her smile and moves              *     to join her. They sit quietly, absorbed in thought,     thoughts of each other, their looks and smiles tell us     that. As if they are talking without words. Hector     looks around him. A sailor on the forward deck is     sorting out some rope, an echo of a previous time and                *     place. The wind catches the sailor's hat. He grabs it     from the air and spends time arranging it once more on     his head, just so. A tiny human moment.                              *52   EXT. WAGON - DAY                                                52     A man is driving a heavy two-horse wagon. The wind has     just lifted his hat from his head. He spends some time     replacing it carefully, just so. Watching him from the     back of the wagon is Hector.     The drama of the lives of Thalia and Hector      has played     itself out long ago. Between the breath of       sea breeze     that lifted the hat of the Roman sailor and      the gust of     mountain wind that snatches the hat of the      wagoner, lies     1400 years.                                                          *     Hector sits   in the wagon beside a woman. There are     tantalizing   similarities between their situation and the           *     one we left   Thalia and Hector in on the boat a few     moments ago,   1400 years ago.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                               39.52   CONTINUED:                                                      52     The woman and Hector exchange glances now and then,     delicate signals of mutual awareness. Talking without     words.     They are not alone in the wagon, perched on its half load     of timber. With them is a NUN accompanying a GIRL of     about eight. The Girl is tearful. A man, his face     unseen, is snoring underneath his hat. A younger man,     gaunt and hungry-looking, is dressed in the rough     travelling clothes of a monk or PRIEST. Even without his     habit we would know he was a holy man. His incessant     talk tells us.                                PRIEST                  We want to praise God because we                  live in this ultimate age, when                  all things are done, all is known,                  all the wonders of his creation                  revealed to us... nothing more for                  man to see or do... all that is                  left is the hope of salvation...                  even for our humbler sisters...     The Girl is sobbing through all of this.                                PRIEST                  Yes weep, child, weep for joy...                  you are a glorious example to us                  all... already a child of God's...                  blessed to spend your earthly days                  within his church as Christ's                  servant... what generous parents                  you have... giving you to the                  sisters... What a sacrifice.                            *     There is an Irish lilt to his voice which colors what                *     he is saying with a tinge of mischief. He is a difficult     fellow to pin down. Hector looks at him amusedly, still              *     sharing his thoughts silently with the woman, BEATRICE.     The Nun interrupts the Priest cheerfully.                                NUN                  She's already received the last                  rites, before she left her family.                  She belongs to God now... Don't you?                    *     The child sobs more noisily.                                         *                                PRIEST                  Fortunate child, destined for                  paradise. Untouched by the                  abiding curse of carnal lust.   I                  struggle against it...                                (MORE)                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                         40.52   CONTINUED:    (2)                                         52                                PRIEST (CONT'D)                  I will not join myself carnally                  with any woman...     He looks accusingly at Beatrice.                               *                                PRIEST                  ... I will carry my unspilt seed                  from this world to the next... as                  should every man...     Now Hector is getting the hard looks from the Priest.                                PRIEST                  ... If all men forsook forever the                  fleshy temptations... and held                  womankind to barrenness... think                  how much the sooner would come the                  day of judgement... all God's                  chosen gathered in paradise... I've               *                  written a small treatise in favor                 *                  of virginity, sister. We could                    *                  discuss it later if you like...                   *     The DRIVER of the wagon turns his head briefly to the     Priest.                                DRIVER                  What are you talking about?     Hector gestures to Beatrice that he is leaving the wagon     to walk for a while and asks her to join him. She shakes     her head with a smile. Hector smiles, too, then jumps     down from the wagon and, walking slowly, allows it to     gain ground in front of him. The ramblings of the Priest     fade away.                                PRIEST                  It's simple, brother... if we                  cease carnal union entirely then                  in fifty or so years we'll all be                  rid of our earthly lives and God                  can proceed with His reign over                  His heavenly kingdom... that same                  paradise that God gave to man                  before, but which man was so unfit                  to inhabit that within seven hours                  Eve was already tempting her                  master and mate, and within nine                  hours the Lord had to expel the                  both of them! Just think, they                    *                  messed it up in nine hours!                       *                                                         41.53   EXT. MOUNTAIN TRACK - DAY                                 53     Hector smiles as the Priest's VOICE FADES into the dis-     tance. It is a  cold fresh day of early summer. They are       *     travelling high in the mountains. Hector dawdles on     his way, eating a hard biscuit he takes from his pocket.     The last sound he hears from the wagon is the renewed     WAILING OF the GIRL. Hector lays himself down at the           *     side of the road. His eyes begin to close. Then a SOUND     in the distance makes him open them again. He listens.     MORE SOUNDS drift up to him from the floor of the valley.     He stands up and crosses the track. At first he can see     nothing. He walks back along the rim of the road. Then     he sees where the noise is coming from. A mounted     skirmish is in progress, just where a wooden bridge     crosses the small river, at the very bottom of the valley.     There are no more than 30 knights in full armor, with     twice as many foot soldiers and squires. Even from such     a distance Hector can see and hear that the fighting is     ferocious, almost insane in its intensity. From this     distance it is like a puppet show, except the violence     is real. The scene places Hector in his time and for us     there is a strange feeling to it, almost as if Hector     has awoken from sleep and found himself transported to     some distant age. But this is not the case. Hector is     where he belongs, in Medieval Europe.     Hector makes his decision. With a last look behind him         *     he runs off in the direction of the wagon. Like any wise     citizen of a violent age, Hector knows when to leg it.54   EXT. WAGON - DAY                                          54     Hector catches up with the moving wagon and jumps onto     it, happily back in the security of his fellow                 *     travellers. He smiles at Beatrice.                             *                             HECTOR               A bit cold... walking...     She smiles at him. He sits opposite her in the wagon,     and allows his foot to touch hers. She doesn't move     away. Hector calls to the Driver.                             HECTOR               How long to get there?                             DRIVER               When it gets dark, we'll be there.                   *     Hector looks at Beatrice.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                              42.54   CONTINUED:                                                     54                                HECTOR                  I thought I heard fighting... back                  there...     Beatrice replies, but in a language that Hector doesn't     understand.                                BEATRICE                  I don't know what you're saying...                  I haven't understood anything                  you've said all day...     Hector talks back to her.                                HECTOR                  I don't know what you're saying...     They both smile. It doesn't seem to disturb them too     much that they don't share a language. They repeat                  *     their incomprehensible statements, just for the fun of     it.                                BEATRICE                  I don't know what you're saying.                                HECTOR                  I don't understand.     Beside Hector the Girl has stopped sobbing but she is     still troubled. She turns to him and speaks quietly but     with determination.                                GIRL                  I want to go home to my mother.     Hector doesn't know how to respond. He can do nothing               *     to help her, and anyway, is more interested in Beatrice.            *55   EXT. FARMYARD - NIGHT                                          55     It is almost dark when the wagon finally turns into the     yard of the farm where they will spend the night.56   INT. FARMHOUSE - NIGHT                                         56     The Farmer and his Wife have laid out a table with     simple food, a stew, bread and wine. The travellers settle     down to eat. The Priest, however makes a performance out     of his more modest needs. He calls loudly to the wife     working at the open fire.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              43.56   CONTINUED:                                                     56                                PRIEST                  Just bread and water for me,                  Mistress. I have no need of wine                  or meat.     She brings him a jug of water and he makes much of giving     thanks to God for his simple meal, muttering his grace     quietly to himself, excluding all others from his conver-     sation with the Almighty.57   INT. FARMHOUSE - NIGHT                                         57     In the dark, sleeping bodies lie all over the floor of an     upstairs room. Gentle snores and regular breathing lay a     blanket of soft sound over the human forms.     One of the forms stirs and sits up on one elbow. Hector,     in another corner of the room, sleeping lightly, becomes     aware of this. He watches as the figure stands up and     picks its way between the bodies to the door. The figure     pauses and crouches over Beatrice. Hector can hear the     distinct sounds of the figure sniffing her, from head to     toe, and then a deep, long sigh. The figure stands up and     moves quietly to the door, disappearing downstairs.     Hector rouses himself and follows the other.58   INT. FARMHOUSE - NIGHT                                         58     Hector creeps cautiously into the dark kitchen. The                 *     figure has gone to the pantry and can be heard RUMMAGING     there. Hector creeps closer and sees that it is the     Priest. He already has a chicken leg between his teeth     as he hunts for a cup for the jar of wine tucked under     his arm. He emerges from the pantry. He sees Hector     standing by the table. They recognize one another and     relax. The Priest doesn't re-enter his holy act. He     speaks normally, cheekily.                                PRIEST                  God, I'm starving. Do you think                  I dare heat that up on the fire?     He indicates the large pot containing the remains of the     stew.                                PRIEST                  No... I'll eat it cold... I                  deserve to suffer.     He pours some wine into the cup and slides it across the     table to Hector.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                44.58   CONTINUED:                                                       58     Then he digs his hands into the cold stew and eats chunks     of meat as they talk.                                PRIEST                  Have some wine.     Hector takes a drink.                                HECTOR                  I saw some fighting today... back                  up the road...                                PRIEST                  So, the mad knights are at it                  again... what were they, Swiss                  or English?                                  HECTOR                  I don't know.    They all look the                  same to me.                                PRIEST                  It might help us get through...                  if there's a bit of confusion...                  we'll still travel separately                  though, for now.     The Priest changes his tone of voice, mocking his own     holy act.                                PRIEST                  But, Hector, you must keep out                  of the way of temptation... I saw                  the way you were eyeing up that                  widow... now stay away from                  that... although she is beautiful,                  is she not... but we're going                  home, remember.     Hector is smiling.                                HECTOR                  How do you know she's a widow?                                PRIEST                  Look at her eyes... hungry eyes...                  she could lead you into trouble...                  she smells like paradise, though.     He changes his tone yet again.       He talks straight.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                  45.58   CONTINUED:    (2)                                                  58                                PRIEST                  Listen, Hector, let's get this                  clear... if anyone's going to dally                  with that widow it'll be me... you                  couldn't handle her... she'd                  bewitch you... at any rate, you're                  not a sinning kind of fellow, are                  you... why don't you get off up                  the road tomorrow, and I'll catch                  you up, in five or so days...     Hector doesn't answer, but smiles. The Priest has     stirred thoughts that he had intended to dampen entirely.                                PRIEST                  You're not a sinning fellow,                  remember... another month and                  we'll be at the channel, then                  home... the little ones you only                  talk about when you're drunk...                  don't forget them...     Hector still remains silent.        The Priest is worried.                                PRIEST                  Why do I always talk so much...                  you weren't even thinking of her                  'til I opened my mouth... but I                  trust you... don't worry. I know                  you wouldn't do anything to anger                  your God, or me. Get me some                  bread.     Hector obeys the Priest without thought.        The Priest is           *     happier now that he is in control again.                                PRIEST                  Who saved your neck in Venice?                                HECTOR                  You did, Ronald.     Hector approaches the Priest with the bread.                                PRIEST                  And don't you forget it.     He raises his cup to Hector.                                PRIEST                  May the Lord forgive us our sins,                  those we have committed and those                  we as yet only dream of. She's                  a glory of a woman.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              46.58   CONTINUED:    (3)                                              58     For all his wit and endless talk we can sense a trace of     vulnerabililty in Ronald. For all his bluster, there is     the feeling that he needs Hector as much as he claims     Hector needs him.59   EXT. FARMYARD - DAY                                            59     Overnight, the remnants of a company of soldiers, fresh             *     from battle, have collected in the courtyard. Some are     tired, dispirited, others are wounded. Our Travellers               *     watch from the farm window. A few mounted knights come     into the yard, herding in front of them a small group of     prisoners, well-dressed knights and squires.60   INT. FARMHOUSE - DAY                                           60     The travellers look out on the exciting scene, and talk     as they eat their breakfast of bread and milk.                                PEDLAR                  Hostages, too, they've got... they                  only take the rich ones...     He turns to the forlorn Girl.                                PEDLAR                  Have you ever seen so many fine,                  rich men, my girl?     Hector talks to the company, but means his words for the     Priest.                                HECTOR                  I won't be travelling today.     The Priest looks him straight in the eye.                                PRIEST                  The fighting's behind us, brother                  ... you'll be safe enough.     Hector shakes his head, catching Beatrice's eye.                               HECTOR                  I'll stay.                                PRIEST                  You should go.     The Nun puts an arm around the Girl.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              47.60   CONTINUED:                                                      60                                NUN                  We're going. God will protect                  his ewe lambs.                                          *     Suddenly the door is thrown open and four SOLDIERS man-     handle an inert body, dressed in full armor, into the     room. They scatter the food from the table and lay out     the MOANING suit of armor on it. A young SQUIRE follows     them in and kneels by the knight in the suit. The MOANS     are MUFFLED because the knight's helmet has been battered     out of shape in the battle and can't be removed. The     ugly dent suggests an equally ugly wound inflicted on the     head inside. The Soldiers gingerly try to remove the     helmet. Their efforts are useless. Blood oozes from the     joints of the helmet. The MOANING suit of armor seems     inhuman, robot-like.                                SOLDIER                  Must be sore in there.   Is it your                  dada?     The Squire looks at him and nods his head.       Hector looks        *     with sympathy at the boy.                                            *                                SOLDIER #2                  If he's got a little head it might                  be alright. Has your dada got a                  big head?     An OFFICER comes into the room.                                OFFICER                  Is there a blacksmith here?                  Where's the smith?                                FARM WOMAN                  In the village, sir, half a day                  away.     The Officer looks at the moaning suit of armor, then at     the astonished group of Travellers. He picks on the     Priest.                                OFFICER                  You, Priest, come here... get to                  work on him... he's not ready for                  heaven yet... there's a hundred                  thousand livres on his head if I                  get him to Paris alive... Start                         *                  praying... there's fifteen livres                  in it for you if he lives...     The Priest obediently goes up to the knight and starts to     pray earnestly. The Officer turns to the Soldiers.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                              48.60   CONTINUED:    (2)                                              60                                OFFICER                  Get that helmet off... get                  hammers, anything you can find...                      *                  and one of you get back down into                  the valley and fetch an armorer.     The Soldiers scatter to   carry out their orders. Hector            *     takes time to watch the   Squire still kneeling beside his          *     father, quietly stroking   the helmet. Ronald the Priest     mutters every prayer he   can remember. The suit of armor     twitches and MOANS.     Hector looks at Beatrice and motions for her to follow     him outside. The Priest looks on helplessly as they     slide past the table and head for the door.61   EXT. FARM - DAY                                                61     More soldiers have continued to make their way to the     shelter of the farm. Everywhere is the chaos of war.     Wounded men lie awaiting the attentions of either the     medicos or the priest. Prisoners huddle in cowed groups.     Everyone looks for food. Individual soldiers, like lost     souls, run here and there trying to regroup with their     comrades. The youngest are squires of twelve or thir-     teen, the oldest are red-faced, overweight knights in     expensive armor.     Hector and Beatrice have found a quiet corner where they     can sit and talk. Behind them is a group of soldiers,     reserves who have not yet joined the battle. They are     much fresher than the rest and are drilling as a disci-     plined unit.     Their movements are a strange cross between parade ground     drill and battle training. To the BEAT of DRUMS they     perform rhythmic, hypnotic movements, repeating the same     pattern over and over again. A deadly dance, thrusting     their pikes in unison. They become like one evil,     inhuman machine. It is mesmerizing to watch, all the                *     more so in relation to the coy seduction scene that Hector     and Beatrice are acting out. They have the problem of not     sharing a language, but, resourceful as lovers are, they     soon employ this as another titillating element in their     love-play.                                HECTOR                  I think you know what I'm saying                  ... a little...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             49.61   CONTINUED:                                                    61                                BEATRICE                  No, I don't, I don't understand                  a word.                                HECTOR                  How come you don't speak like                  anyone else? Are you far from                  home? Home? Where you sleep                  and live?                                BEATRICE                  I think I know what you mean...                  home.                                HECTOR                  I'm far from home, too... way, way                    *                  over there... then across the sea...                                BEATRICE                  You're losing me again.                                HECTOR                  Have you ever seen the sea? Water                     *                  everywhere... right to the end of                  the world... I come from the other                  side of the little water, then                        *                  there's the big, big water... I                       *                  had a friend who sailed on that...                    *                  went too far... fell right over                       *                  the edge... into nothing. They                  never came back... they fell off                  the world...     Hector smiles, pleased with himself.    Beatrice laughs.                                HECTOR                  You think that's funny? It's                  true... it's a sad story... you                  shouldn't laugh.                                BEATRICE                  Talk about home again... remember                     *                  you said home?                                HECTOR                  I'm not making sense, am I? Well,                  let's go back to homes. That's                  where I'm going... I've been away                  for too long... Some people locked                  me up... I had to run away.                                                                        *                                BEATRICE                  Tell me something else.                               *                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                           50.61   CONTINUED:    (2)                                           61                                HECTOR                  We have to learn to talk the                  same... try it like me, say it...                  home...                                BEATRICE                  I know what you're saying...                  you're saying home... say                  something else.                                HECTOR                  Home... home... try it... home...                                BEATRICE                  You want the word for home? It's                  home... say it... home... home...                                HECTOR                  I don't want your word for home,                  I want you to say mine... home...                  home...                                BEATRICE                  Come on, you can do it... home...                  home...     Beatrice has her way, turning the tables on Hector.    He     says it in her language.                                HECTOR                  Home... home...     Beatrice smiles. In this tiny victory the dynamic of     their relationship is set.                                BEATRICE                  That's it... clever boy!     They fall silent, suddenly shy. Beatrice breaks this             *     moment by reaching out to Hector's neck, very delicately,     like a caress. Hector smiles. There first touch. Then            *     it changes. Beatrice completes her movement with a sharp     grab at Hector's hair, and pinches her fingers on something.     Triumphantly she shows him the flea she has caught.                                BEATRICE                  Tick... it's a tick.                                HECTOR                  Flea... a flea... thanks.     Beatrice looks at him directly now, their intimacy well     under way.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                                   51.61   CONTINUED:    (3)                                                   61                                BEATRICE                  Bet there's more in there. You                  need a good going over... nobody's                  been looking after you.     She ruffles his hair, in a motherly but then again sex-                  *     ually provocative way. He understands her well now.                                HECTOR                  Why don't we go somewhere and                  have a good session... I could do                  you... I'd like to give you a                  good grooming...     They understand each other perfectly now.         They look     around for a more private spot.62   INT. FARM - DAY                                                     62     Ronald the Priest still kneels by the inert knight in     armor. The boy Squire still sits by his father's head.     Ronald mumbles quietly to himself in prayer. The knight     is deathly still, no sight or sound of breathing or     moaning. The suit of armor seems to grow even more rigid     as we look at it. There is no sense of it containing     life. The Officer re-enters the room from outside.                                 OFFICER                  How is he?                                PRIEST                  Sleeping now... at peace, for the                  moment.                                OFFICER                  Leave him for a while. There are                            *                  a few souls out here you can help                  on their way to heaven. Ten sous                            *                  a soul to you... come on.     The Officer leaves.       Ronald quickly follows him outside.            *                                RONALD                                        *                  Twenty sous is normal.    How many                          *                  are there?                                                  *     When they have gone the Squire gives his father a nudge,                 *     but there is no response from the knight, just the     impression of lifeless bulk.                                                           52.63   EXT. FARM - DAY                                             63     Hector and Beatrice have found some privacy, near the     trees and by a low wall. Some bushes hide them from     full view of the farm yard. Hector is sitting cross-     legged and Beatrice kneels behind him, giving his head     a thorough going over. Mutual grooming is the original,     and perhaps the best, form of foreplay. Hector certainly     likes it.                              BEATRICE               That's four.                             HECTOR               Yes, it does feel good.     She gives his scalp a final delicious rub, and then stops.                             BEATRICE               You can do me now.     Beatrice loosens her clothing to bare her neck and     shoulders. Hector begins to probe her hair and scalp.            *     She arches her back under the first touch of his fingers.     Hector laps it up, inspired to caress ever more tenderly         *     her scalp and neck, still with the outward purpose of     looking for fleas.                             HECTOR               Got one... a tiny little one...               yours are so small... and fair...                      *     To Hector even her fleas are a delight. He seems to want         *     to keep it as a pet. There is no hope for this man.              *     Beatrice moans softly, happily. Hector still kneading            *     her scalp.                             HECTOR               I don't know your name. I'm               Hector... who are you? I'm               Hector.     Beatrice replies with a hint of breathlessness.                             BEATRICE               Hector... yes... I'm Beatrice...                              HECTOR               Beatrice.                             BEATRICE               Yes. Hector... I think you'll               have to do under my arms... I'm               a little itchy there...                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              53.63   CONTINUED:                                                     63                                HECTOR                  Yes, I think Beatrice is a good                  name.                                                  *     Beatrice is sighing contentedly now.                                BEATRICE                  Maybe we should find the river,                  and have a proper wash...     In between parting the hairs on her scalp Hector is kiss-     ing her on the neck now. At first it is small, snatched     kisses amongst the grooming, but soon the kisses become     longer and the grooming less.                                BEATRICE                  I'm still itchy lots of places,                  Hector.64   EXT. FARMYARD - DAY                                            64     The Priest is with some seriously wounded soldiers, laid     out in a corner of the farmyard. Whether he is a bogus     priest or not, Ronald is taking his duties seriously.     There is a little of the rogue about him now. He sees     the Nun and the little Girl preparing to leave. They     have acquired a mule. They mount up, the Girl behind     the Nun, and plod off through the farmyard. They stop     briefly beside the Priest to say their farewells.                                PRIEST                  Goodbye, little girl... the Lord                  will bless you, I know, in his                  house.     He talks to the Nun as they move off.                                PRIEST                  How long for you on the road?                                NUN                  Three or four days.                                PRIEST                  Good luck to you.                                NUN                  They're not killing nuns, yet.                                PRIEST                  The Saxon, won't he go with you?                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                           54.        *64   CONTINUED:                                                  64                                NUN                  He's nowhere to be seen.     The Priest watches them go, and then returns to his     duties with the wounded.65   EXT. TRACK - DAY                                            65     The Nun's mule turns out of the farmyard and heads off     along the track. A few Soldiers are burying some of     their dead nearby. The Nun watches this and doesn't see     what the Girl sees on the other side, the mingled bodies     of Hector and Beatrice, all pretence at grooming now     gone, engaged in fervent lovemaking. It's probably the     first and last that the Girl will see. A smile flickers     across her face before she turns away forever. Ahead of     her there might be many a bleak night in her convent     when she will remember the image, and that same smile     will return to her lips.66   EXT. FARMYARD - DAY                                         66     The Priest is kneeling beside a young wounded Soldier.     He is close to death, but in his youth is fighting it.     He is frightened, and clings to the presence of Ronald.                                SOLDIER                  My name is Peter... don't forget                  ... tell everybody that was my                  name... Peter...     Ronald is mumbling his prayers.                                PRIEST                  Lie still, Peter...                                SOLDIER                  That's it, Peter... tell everybody                  ... write it... don't forget it...                  Peter... tell them Peter died here                  ... my name is Peter... Peter...                  say it again.     Ronald stays with the boy as he struggles against his     own annihilation.                               PRIEST                  Peter...     Ronald behaves well with the dying boy.                                                         55.67   INT. FARMHOUSE - NIGHT                                     67     The Priest makes his way upstairs in the darkness. He     yawns, a long, contented yawn. He has completed the     hardest day's work that he has undertaken as a priest,     if he really is a priest. If he is not, then the pre-     tence has been just as exhausting. He wants to sleep.68   INT. FARMHOUSE - ANOTHER ANGLE - NIGHT                     68     In the room sleeping forms lie here and there in the     darkness. Some officers have moved in and the place is     more crowded than before. The Priest makes his way to     his corner, but on the way he pauses by Beatrice. She     snores lightly. The Priest bends over and takes a long     sniff at her, then he sighs out his admiration.     He steps over her and settles into his own space by the     window. He suddenly misses the presence of Hector. He     looks again at Beatrice, still and sleeping. What the     Priest doesn't see is the extra pair of hands massaging     her neck and head. She moans softly in her pretence of     sleep.     The Priest is troubled, suspicious, but he doesn't know     why. He sniffs again, in the general direction of     Beatrice. The mingled smells that his sensitive nose     detects perplex him, but he settles down, pulling his           *     cloak over his head.     Across the room, Hector's head emerges from the covering     beside Beatrice. They make love quietly in the dark,     also enjoying the thrill of confounding the Priest.69   INT. FARMHOUSE - DAY                                       69     The Priest wakes up. Outside he can hear the first     sounds of the day, the murmuring VOICES of Soldiers in     the yard, the CLATTER OF MILK PAILS. In the room it is     still semi-dark. The Priest sits up. The others have     already left, but Beatrice is there, stretching herself     and fixing her hair. Hector is not with her. She smiles     at the Priest. Then, in another part of the room, Hector     emerges from what looks like a pile of clothing, sits up     and smiles too.                               HECTOR               Good morning.     Hector and Beatrice look at each other. The Priest looks     at them in turn. Their cheeky act of innocence mocks     him.                                                              56.70   EXT. FARMYARD - DAY                                            70     Hector is washing himself by the stream that flows close     by the yard. He drinks a handful of water for breakfast.     The Priest sees him from the farmyard and comes to join     him.                                                                *     Hector is in a cheerful mood, pleased with himself and     his success with Beatrice. The Priest is sullen,     reproachful.                             HECTOR               You're a busy man, what with all               these souls departing.                             PRIEST               There's nothing wrong with helping               someone to die in peace. They               want me to go with them.                             HECTOR               Nothing at all.                             PRIEST               Are you staying here?                             HECTOR               Moving on, as you told me to...               we'll meet up, like you said.               I'll wait for you at the channel.                                                                         *                             PRIEST               She'll do you harm. I told    you.               She might be a witch. Wait    for               me. I still have the money     from               Venice. We can be home in    a               month.                             HECTOR               Witch my arse. Stop giving me               orders.     Both of them are unhappy now, confusing one another,     spoiling their friendship.                             HECTOR               You're a strange fellow. Are you               a priest? Are you jealous?     The Priest is silent. They are saved from hurting each     other more. A Soldier shouts down to them from the farm.                             SOLDIER               We're moving soon, Father.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              57.70   CONTINUED:                                                     70     The Priest turns to Hector for what might be the last     time.                                PRIEST                  So, you're leaving?                                HECTOR                  You have work to do here.     The Priest walks back up to the farm. Hector calls out              *     what might be an attempt at an apology or simply another            *     taunt.                                HECTOR                  I don't understand you.     The Priest looks back at him briefly, then walks on.71   EXT. TRACK - DAY                                               71     Hector and Beatrice have packed their few belongings into     a shoulder bag. They turn out of the farmyard and walk     down the main track.     Hector catches a last glimpse of the Priest being helped     onto the back of a horse, behind a Soldier. He is ridden     off in the opposite direction with the rest of the troop.     Other battles lie ahead to be blessed, and more battered     bodies requiring comfort.     Hector and   Beatrice are enjoying the first pulse-     quickening   flush of their intimacy, and the thrill of     knowing it   will go further. They chatter freely,                  *     despite not   sharing a language.                                HECTOR                  I'm glad we're going the same way.                                BEATRICE                  We'll have to sleep in the hills                  tonight. Will you keep me warm?     The damp greyness of the early morning has lifted and the     sun is shining as they step out onto the higher hills.72   EXT. HILLSIDE - DAY                                            72     Hector and Beatrice have stopped to eat. They shelter in     the fold of a hillside, with a wide stream running some     way below. Hector feeds Beatrice a piece of cheese from     his knife.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             58.72   CONTINUED:                                                    72                                BEATRICE                  Hurry up and finish your wine and                  then we can make love.     Hector seems to know what she is saying. He throws down     his knife and cheese, lying down with her on the grass.     He kisses her breasts and her body eagerly. He lifts her     skirts and caresses and kisses her naked legs and thighs.     She stretches herself out happily, arms spread wide on     the grass. Hector talks through his kisses.                                HECTOR                  Why do you smell so wonderful?     He lifts his head to let her see him sniffing.                     *                                BEATRICE                  Oh, you like my smell, do you? I                  make it from the flowers. I put                       *                  it here, and there, and there.     Hector kisses her more. She smiles and turns her head to     the sky. Then she starts to giggle.                                BEATRICE                  I don't believe it... someone's                  watching us, the dirty devil...                  don't look... he's down by the                  water, by the rocks...     Hector doesn't understand, and keeps on with his kissing.     Only her persistent giggling makes him stop and look up.           *     Hector sees him too. Down by the stream a head peering     over the top of a rock, not even attempting to hide.                                                                        *                                  BEATRICE                  Cheeky devil.                                HECTOR                  He's not moving. He must've seen                  us, though.                                                                        *     She sits up and straightens her clothing, suddenly     anxious.                                BEATRICE                  Don't look at him anymore. Let's                  go... down the other side of the                  hill.     But Hector still looks at the figure in the distance.     There is an uneasy silence while Hector works it out.     Then he speaks.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                                59.72   CONTINUED:    (2)                                                72                                HECTOR                  It's a dead man.     Beatrice doesn't understand.        Hector stands up, still     looking at the figure.                                HECTOR                  Come on, we're going that way at                  any rate.     They move cautiously. When they are closer to it, and                 *     can see it for what is is, they walk straight for the     dead body.73   EXT. HILLSIDE - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                              73   *     It is the body of a young squire, handsomely dressed     in the livery of his master. Such a squire would follow     his knight into battle, guiding him through the chaos.                *     But this boy seems to have died a less public, more     furtive death. He lies leaning against a rock, eyes     open, an expression something like a smile on his face.     There is no sign of a wound.     Hector looks around at the ground.                                HECTOR                  No sign of a battle... only a few                  horses... or just one. He wasn't                  killed in a fight.                                BEATRICE                  Poor boy. Isn't he fine-looking.                  Look at his shoes.     There is a sadness about this young death in such a     lonely place. Hector and Beatrice are open to this sad-               *     ness, but in their age sentiment was of a tougher strain.                                BEATRICE                  We'll cover his eyes at least...                  so the crows don't get him. Look                  at these shoes, though.     She is already gathering stones.        Hector sees what     Beatrice is doing.                                HECTOR                  That's good of you.     As he lays him down Hector sees a small, dry wound on     the boy's side. Beatrice brings her armful of stones and     starts to build a mound around the squire's head.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             60.73   CONTINUED:                                                    73     Hector helps her by gathering stones from the stream.     Soon they have covered his head completely with stones,     his body lying exposed.                                HECTOR                  It's all we can do. It won't keep                  the wolves away though.     Beatrice is still taken by the boy's shoes.                                BEATRICE                  His feet are like mine, you know.                  I'll give you mine, poor boy, and                  I'll have yours. I have more                  walking to do.     She looks at Hector.                                BEATRICE                  It's not stealing if I give him                  mine, is it?     Hector watches as Beatrice exchanges her old shoes for     the squire's. They fit her well, and she proudly shows     them off to Hector. He smiles at her.74   EXT. STREAM - DAY                                             74     Later, Hector and Beatrice are enjoying each other     immensely, making love by the stream. Beatrice hasn't     removed her new shoes, she likes them so much. She is     dabbing Hector with her perfume which, he has discovered,     she keeps in a small bottle kept in a pouch on a chain     around her neck.                                                                        *     Nearby the corpse of   the squire still lies, its head     shrouded in stones,   as if absurdly hiding its eyes from     the antics of Hector   and Beatrice. The old shoes     Beatrice has placed   on its feet look odd compared to     the fine uniform.                                                  *     Hector and Beatrice seem unaware of the strangeness of     their situation, but perhaps it only looks strange to     our modern eyes.     Hector continues to bask in her wonderful aroma.                                HECTOR                  You've put magic in this stuff,                  haven't you, you're bewitching                  me...     They appear to get the gist of one another's love talk.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                             61.74   CONTINUED:                                                    74                                BEATRICE                  You're eager today, Hector, aren't                  you? Is it all this death?                                HECTOR                  I don't know what you're saying                  but I like you when you talk.75   EXT. HILLSIDE - DAY                                           75     Hector is watching Beatrice conduct some kind of     ceremony over the corpse of the squire. She takes a     handful of dried flowers or herbs from a pouch in her     bag. Mumbling strangely and quickly to herself, she     walks around the corpse three times, scattering the     leaves over the body.     Hector is fascinated, but a little uneasy. He watches     from a safe distance. During the few moments that it     takes, Beatrice seems like a different person.     Then, all of a sudden, the familiar, friendly Beatrice     returns. She completes her ceremony by throwing a few     drops of her perfume over the body. She smiles.                    *                                BEATRICE                  That should help him a little.                                HECTOR                  We should go now. We've been here                  too long.                                BEATRICE                  I wonder if his mama will ever                  know what happened.                                HECTOR                  You said mama. I know what that                  is... mama... We can talk the                  same...                                BEATRICE                  Mama... that's right... mama...76   EXT. HILLSIDE - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                           76   *     They have reached the summit   of the hills. It is like     the roof of the world. Below    them lies the valley. The     air is clean. The landscape    looks untouched by man,     but a few smudges of smoke in   the distance suggest farms     or villages. There might be    the glimpse of a castle on     a hill.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                           62.76   CONTINUED:                                                  76     If it all feels oddly familiar to us, then perhaps it     is the memory of a picture in a forgotten story book, or     an ancient landscape on a gallery wall. Once again in     the film there is the tantalizing feeling of awaking not     from a dream, but in a dream.     The moment passes in the more down to earth concerns of     Hector and Beatrice.                                HECTOR                  I have to keep the sun on my back,                  that's what Ronald said... the                  sun on my back all the way home...                  I'll stay on this side of the                  river...                                BEATRICE                  Yes, of course... we stay on this                  side of the river, all the way                  down... until tomorrow...                                HECTOR                  I stay on this side...                                BEATRICE                  Yes... On this side. Then the                  other.     They move off, each thinking that they have reached     agreement. Beatrice starts to sing as they make a                *     gentle descent into the forests below.77   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                           77     Beatrice is milking a stray cow they have found in the     forest. Hector is watching her, especially her hands.     She manipulates the udders of the cow deftly, sexily.     Her hands seem to have sensual personalities all of     their own. She is chattering non-stop, explaining the            *     subtleties of milking to Hector. But he can't take     his eyes or his mind off her thrilling hands. He     responds distractedly.                                           *                                HECTOR                  Oh yes... oh yes.78   EXT. HILLS - NIGHT                                          78     Hector lies by their small fire, watching Beatrice, who     sleeps by his side. She is dreaming. She mumbles in     her sleep, whole sentences. She turns this way and that.     Hector watches in fascination.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                            63.78   CONTINUED:                                                   78     We feel the echo of another night when a man watched     someone sleep and dream.     He handles some of the things spilling from her bag,     lying beside him. Her dried flowers and herbs, which he     sniffs, her little bottles and phials. Witches brew? Or     simply an early version of a cluttered handbag?     We don't know what is passing through Hector's mind.     Perhaps he is trying to work out how he came to be lying     with the strange, wonderful, unknowable creature by his     side. And how many people have done that through the     ages, in caves or by campfires, or in suburban bedrooms?     There are many ways in which we will be able to connect     with this perplexed, flea-ridden man, far away from home,     huddling by a fire in the forest, trapped in his time, as     we all are.79   EXT. FOREST - MORNING                                        79     Hector and Beatrice are on the move again. They make     their way down into the thickening forest. Beatrice     walks ahead, light-footed and humming to herself. She     seems to be in comfortably familiar territory now. The     mist swirls about him as Hector follows on behind,     tagging along as if caught in her sexual wake.80   EXT. BOAT - DAY                                              80     Hector and Beatrice have reached the river, broad and     slow-moving. Beatrice has hailed a boatman from the far     side. He maneuvers his small boat to them and they     clamber aboard. Beatrice and the boatman greet each     other familiarly. They gossip amiably as the ferry makes     its way across the river. Hector sits quietly with a     smile on his face, their chatter incomprehensible to him.81   EXT. SHORE - DAY                                             81     As they climb out of the ferry Hector is suddenly unsure     of what he is doing.                                HECTOR                  I think we're going the wrong way.                  I want the sun on my back. We                  should have stayed on the other                  side.     He mimes what he means.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                               64.81   CONTINUED:                                                      81                                BEATRICE                  Don't worry... we're nearly there.                  I'll fix your back for you... give                  you a good rub.     Before he can protest she has moved off.        So he follows     her.82   EXT. VILLAGE OUTSKIRTS - DAY                                    82     They have reached the outskirts of a village. Beatrice     turns off the main track and up a narrow path. Hector     follows her. Soon she stops at a small house close to     an orchard. The house sits in the mess of a run-down     farm yard, chickens and goats running here and there.     Beatrice opens the door of the house and goes inside.     Hector hesitates before following her.83   INT. COTTAGE - DAY                                              83     Beatrice turns to him when they are inside.                                BEATRICE                  Here we are... home... you want                  some food... and then I'll show                  you everything. We have a spring                  ... you can wash...     Hector stands looking around the small dark room.     Beatrice suddenly seems shy and awkward.                                BEATRICE                  This is when I wish you could                  understand me. You'll have to                  learn, you know... I want you to                  stay here. You want to, don't                  you?     Hector looks at her in silence.                                BEATRICE                  I look after the hens, and I make                       *                  dyes from the plants, and perfumes                  too. I'm good at that. But I'm                          *                  no good with the sheep and the                  goats. I wish you could                  understand... Arnaud's been dead                  two years...                                            *     She crosses the room to a wooden chest under the window.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              65.83   CONTINUED:                                                     83     She lifts the lid and removes some men's clothing, rough     working trousers and a hide jacket.                                BEATRICE                  I still have his clothes.   I'll                  make them fit you...     She holds the jacket up against Hector to measure it.     Hector's reaction to a dead man's clothing is                       *     predictable.                                                        *                                HECTOR                                   *                  What did he die of?                                    *                                BEATRICE                  I'm getting shy. Imagine me being                  shy with you... I made this for                  him... tonight we'll try them on.                  You're the same height as Arnaud,                  but a little thinner. I'll make                  them fit. I'm a good sewer. And                  we have a big bed upstairs for                  you and me, in the rafters... You                  and me... sleep...     Hector is beginning to understand what she means, but he     keeps his feelings to himself. Beatrice talks on. Now     that she has started, she wants to say it all.                                BEATRICE                  I like you. You like me too,                  don't you? We were lucky to meet                  the way we did. All the men around                  here are old.                                          *     Beatrice falls silent, overtaken     by her shyness. Hector     understands fully what she means     now, but his mind is     a confusion. He can't respond.       She tries to direct his     thoughts to the one area she is     sure about.                                BEATRICE                  Come up and I'll show you the bed...     She climbs a   ladder nearby and lifts open a trapdoor     on the wooden   ceiling. Hector climbs up to join her and     together they   stand on the ladder with their heads poking     into the tiny   space above.84   INT. COTTAGE - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                             84   *     Beatrice is proud of her bed, a rough mattress on the     floor covered in some blankets she has probably made     herself.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                               66.84   CONTINUED:                                                      84     The bed takes up most of the space of the small attic.     They look at it together.                                BEATRICE                  A good bed, eh? For you and me.                  We can have fun up here... better                  than a ditch...     She laughs. Hector's expression lightens a little too.     It occurs to him to take up her offer immediately. She               *     catches his thought, and the moment tingles happily.                 *     Then from outside they hear voices. Firstly a young Boy     calling.                                BOY (O.S.)                  Mama, are you home?85   INT. COTTAGE - DAY                                              85     Beatrice and Hector   descend back in the room. A BOY     of about eight and   a GIRL of ten are coming in from the            *     garden. They have    been working outside. Beatrice goes     to embrace each of   them. Hector's face is a confusion     once again.                                GIRL                  You were gone a long time.   Who's                  this?     The Girl eyes Hector up and down.                                BEATRICE                  This is Hector.     Beatrice pronounces his name with care.      She stands     proudly by her children.                                BEATRICE                  These are my children...     The CREAK of a door makes Hector turn his head.                                BEATRICE                  ... and this is my mother....     An OLD WOMAN stands in the main doorway, smiling at     Hector and nodding her head. She speaks to her daughter.                                MOTHER (OLD WOMAN)                  So... you found one, eh?     Hector stands, surrounded by instant family, and doesn't     know what to do. Eventually he speaks.                               *                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              67.        *85   CONTINUED:                                                     85                                HECTOR                  Is there water... to drink... to                  wash?     He mimes with his hands. Beatrice understands that he     wants some breathing space. She talks to her son.                                BEATRICE                  Take Hector to the well... but                  come here first.     She takes off the dead Squire's shoes and puts them on     the Boy's bare feet. He is delighted. He does a little     dance in them before leaving with Hector.86   EXT. WELL - DAY                                                86     Hector stands at the well some way from the house.     Beatrice's garden is a madness of wild flowers, harvested     by her for scents and powders. She is a remarkable     woman, living as she does in the harsh male world of     her time. The scented air and the dizzy SOUNDS OF the     BEES almost make Hector swoon. He is experiencing the     full, heady impact of Beatrice, and it is summed up in     a full-blown pollen-filled sneeze.     He drinks at   her well. The Boy is beside him, still     engrossed in   his new shoes. Hector splashes some water     on his face   and looks back at the house. He has some     decisions to   make.87   INT. COTTAGE - DAY                                             87     The Mother sits by the window in the nearest thing to     a comfortable chair that the house has to offer. She     is working on some lace. Hector enters the room to     watch her. He smiles and stands shyly at the door. The     Mother thinks he wants her chair for himself. In a     flurry of apology she rises, drops her work and motions     for Hector to have the good seat. He is full of     embarrassment.                                HECTOR                  No, no... sit down... I just came                  to watch... please... sit...     He guides the Mother back to the good chair. They     struggle comically for a while, but eventually she allows     Hector to settle her there. She mumbles unhappily.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             68.        *87   CONTINUED:                                                    87                                MOTHER                  We can't have this... this was                  Arnaud's seat... it's yours                  now... I can sit on the box...     Hector gently pacifies her.                                HECTOR                  You must sit there... look...                  you need the light from the                  window... it's your                  seat... I don't want it... it's                  yours... I can sit on the box.     The old woman   allows herself a shy smile. Whether in     innocence or   mischief, she has secured the best seat in     the house for   herself. If he stays, Hector will never     dare rest his   bones in it.88   EXT. YARD - DAY                                               88     Hector has retreated to the yard. The Girl is     boiling some dyes in a cauldron over an open fire. The     Boy is working at a basketful of flower heads, pulling     petals and separating the hearts, putting them in a     large jar of colored liquid.     Hector is aware of Beatrice watching him. She is     returning to the kitchen, firmly holding a struggling     chicken, wings flapping and feathers flying everywhere.     This chicken is making the supreme sacrifice in     Beatrice's final effort at total seduction, a wonderful     meal. Hector is guiltily aware of this as their eyes     meet briefly.     Hector takes in   what the Boy is doing and joins in     the work. The    Boy smiles at Hector's initial clumsiness.     He motions for   Hector to have a sniff of the jar of     liquid. Hector    does so.  The smell is heady and pleasant.                               HECTOR                  Ah...     The Boy says something and points towards his sister.     She stands by her cauldron, stirring the bubbling liquid.     Hector goes to watch her work. He looks in the cauldron.                                HECTOR                  Good color... for cloth?     Without thinking, Hector leans over the cauldron to     sniff. A hideous odor assaults him. He backs off.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                             69.        *88   CONTINUED:                                                    88                               HECTOR                  Ugh...     The Girl says something to him, and points to a bucket     of liquid at her feet. Hector makes out something like     the word "peepee."                               HECTOR                  Peepee?     The Girl nods enthusiastically.      The Boy is sniggering.89   INT. COTTAGE - DAY                                            89     Hector sits at the table with Beatrice and her family.     There is an air of awkward silence, although the Boy     and Girl look openly at Hector, perhaps assessing him as     a future father.     The meal has been served in a communal pot. In Beatrice's     house there is the luxury of small individual plates.     The others wait for Hector to begin, but he indicates     to the old Mother to help herself first. She does, and     she doesn't stop until her plate is heaped high with     food. There is definitely some power play going on in     the old woman's mind, although her face is all innocence.     Hector submits, taking only a modest portion of food.     The old Mother's appetite is prodigious. It is comical     to watch her little frame consume so much, quietly     and methodically. She is an eating machine.     During the meal Beatrice and Hector exchange glances. But     this time their talking without words is a serious affair.                                HECTOR                  Mmmm... good food....90   EXT. COTTAGE - DAY                                            90     From the kitchen Beatrice watches Hector in the garden.     he is making an effort to appear relaxed, but as he     paces here and there Beatrice knows that he is unhappy.     She leaves the kitchen to join him.                                BEATRICE                  Take a walk to the village if                  you want... you look as if you                  need a walk...     Hector opens his heart to her, knowing she will understand     his feelings if not his words.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                 70.90   CONTINUED:                                                        90                                HECTOR                  I have to leave soon. I can't                  stay... it would be wrong to stay                  for just a while...91   EXT. COTTAGE - DAY                                                91     It is awkward for Hector to say goodbye.                                HECTOR                  I have to go... have to keep the                  sun on my back... I have to get                  home... I have a family, just                  like you... I like you... you                             *                  smell good... wonderful...     Hector fumbles awkwardly with his bag and then walks     off down the track. He turns to look at Beatrice.     She stands outside her house for a long time, watching     him until he turns onto the main road and OUT OF SIGHT.     The pain and the awkwardness in   Beatrice and Hector     are specific, but the scene of   parting is timeless.     Is this the ten millionth such   parting, or the billionth?     It is one of them at any rate,   and a sad one.92   EXT. RIVER - DUSK                                                 92     Hector has reached the river, but it is already growing     dark and the boatman has gone for the night. Hector     sees the boat, dragged out of the water.     He sits down against the trunk of a large tree.       His              *     eyes begin to close.                                                   *93   EXT. RAFT - MORNING                                               93     Hector awakes. He looks around him. He is on a huge                    *     raft, made of ship's timbers. We have left our previous     Hector sitting under his tree 400 years ago. This     Hector is awakening into what might be a nightmare.     The huge raft is many smaller rafts lashed together.     There are over a hundred and fifty people perched on     them, lying or squatting in sleep. It is early morning.     The sea is calm around them, but the deep ocean swell is     still there to remind them of their predicament, menacing,     like a controlled anger.     Hector is fully awake now, sitting against some boxes.     He speaks to ANDRE sitting close by.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                            71.93   CONTINUED:                                                   93     Andre is Hector's   slave, still bound to him in service     through shipwreck   and disaster. Our Hector is now a     master. Andre is    a young Asian. A quiet, capable,     intelligent man,   but with that same lost look in his     eyes that Hector   had as a slave. He too is far from     home.                                HECTOR                  I had a wonderful dream. I was                       *                  lying under a tree, beside a river.                  I was dozing. I heard the water...                  beautiful clear water. I got up                  and drank some. I think I ate some                   *                  raspberries too.                                ANDRE                  I would like some water.     Hector looks around him at the squalid mass of distressed     humanity.                                HECTOR                                 *                  God, this is the worst, the worst.                   *     Some figures rise and an argument takes place, like     a domestic squabble. We can hear some of their exchanges.                                WOMAN                  Let me keep him... they said we'll                  find land in a day or so... you're                  evil...                                MAN                  When they're dead they go over the                  side... The place stinks enough                  as it is...     There is a flurry of movement amongst the figures, then     a splash, then a cry of a Woman. The noise has awakened     others. All over the raft figures are coming awake,     sitting up, taking in the new day, and the dreadful     reality of their situation.     Andre speaks to Hector.                                ANDRE                  Do you think I'll still see                  Europe?                                HECTOR                  I think there's more chance of                  me eating you, Andre.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                             72.93   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             93     The more we see     of the people, their costumes, weapons,     mannerisms, the     easier we will place them in their     time. They are      survivors of a foundered ship some time     at the height of     the great colonial empires. The year     could be 1590.      The place is the Indian Ocean.     Hector turns his eyes to another part of the raft,     closer to him. He watches a man and woman. The woman,     URSULA, still has her eyes closed, sleeping on a pile of     canvas. The man, FRANCISCO, stands beside her holding     a cloak over her to protect her from sea spray. His eye     catches Hector's, and they hold each other's gaze for a     long time. There is antipathy but also pain in their     look.                                                              *     A man, DOM PAULO, moves among the waking wretches.      He     speaks with authority.                                DOM PAULO                  I think today will be the day,                  my friends. We've been in the                  inshore currents since yesterday.                  Three crowns to the first one to                  sight the coast. God preserve us                  all.     Someone speaks from under a crude canvas shelter.                                SAILOR                  Never mind the three crowns... a                  side of beef would do... or a drink                  of clean water.     Dom Paulo strides off to his station by the makeshift     rudder.                                DOM PAULO                  Don't worry, there'll be food for                  all ashore. Africa's full of                  meat and drink.                                SAILOR                  It's full of Africans too.94   EXT. RAFT - DAY                                               94     The sun is up, and Dom Paulo was right. The raft is     now standing off-shore riding out the heavy ocean surf     before finally beaching. The strong are helping to row     ashore, under the shouted instructions of the NAVIGATOR.     Those too weak to help are huddled beside their posses-     sions, hoping to survive this final trial of the sea.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                         73.94   CONTINUED:                                                 94     Hector works his oar with the rest. He has time to cast     a glance at Ursula and Francisco. Francisco in his     manic-heroic way manages to row while at the same time     trying to offer a steadying arm to Ursula.     If Hector had time or energy to laugh, he would.     The raft is in the full rage of the surf. The sense     behind its loose construction is obvious now. Snake-like     it rides the waves, one half up, the other down. The     beaching isn't easy. A few people are washed overboard     with no way of saving them. Finally the raft makes it     through the barrier of the outer surf. They are in a     long curving bay. Up from the beach lies an area of             *     dunes, and beyond that a thick belt of jungle.     The raft scrapes onto the sand. Those near the beach     scramble ashore, immediately prostrating themselves in     prayers of thanks while those at the back jump into     the water and clumsily wade the last few feet to safety.     Hector's attention is never far from Ursula. She is             *     struggling in the water with some of her baggage. A     youth, NUNO, goes to help her. Hector overtakes him and     nudges him out of the way, offering to take Ursula's load     from her shoulders. She refuses his help. Waist-deep in         *     water they tussle over her bundle of possessions. Hector        *     overpowers her, wrestles her load from her grasp, angrily     wades to the shore and dumps it on the sand. In amongst     the drama of their situation their little battle of wills     seems petty and pathetic, but it reveals much about their     past.                                                                     *     Soon the survivors are dragging their possessions from     the raft. They have managed to hoard a surprising amount     from their doomed ship. Carpets, chests, chairs, all     are dragged ashore.95   EXT. CAMP - DAY                                            95     Civilization has taken hold quickly in this little corner     of Africa. Dom Paulo, the leader, already has a table     and chair set up in the sand, and behind him SAILORS are     erectig a tent-like house, made from timbers and rich     tapestries and carpets. The others are making their own     shelters all along the beach. A regular little community     is taking shape, a crazy, rich-textured village decked out     in all the colors of the East. The silks and ginghams     that were destined for the finest halls in Europe now give     shelter to sick slaves, starving sailors, ruined traders     and grieving mothers.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                           74.        *95   CONTINUED:                                                  95     Some of the survivors have   recovered sufficiently from     the trauma of near death to   mark out the boundaries of     their new beach homes with   lines of stones. The habits     of ownership die hardest of   all.     Although Dom Paulo is the man in authority he is also a     man in deep shock. Most of what he has earned or     plundered in his colonial years now lies at the bottom     of the ocean. Since he is socially superior to anyone     else on the ship he assumes responsibility and command.     There are probably fifty men among the survivors more     suited to lead them to safety.     By Dom Paulo's side always is his SON. A quiet boy of     about eleven. He is like a little miniature of his     father, dressed in the same style of clothes. He is a     constant, silent witness to everything that Dom Paulo does,     good or bad, wise or foolish. He and his father are a     continuing fascination for Hector, and we can enjoy     Hector watching the boy watching his father. Some of the     absurdities and comedies of the situation can be high-     lighted in this way. There can be sadness in it too     however, the pain of a son witnessing his father's     compromises or failures all too closely, and Dom Paulo's     sad awareness of his image slowly tarnishing in his     son's eyes.     Amidst the construction work, Dom Paulo is talking with     some of his OFFICERS.                                DOM PAULO                  How many made it?                                OFFICER                  Eighty men. Ten women. Eighteen                  children and forty-five slaves.                                DOM PAULO                  Two parties of ten men each... one                  to the north and one to the south...                  bring back what you can... game,                  fruit, anything... and send someone                  back as soon as you find fresh                  water. Any trouble, discharge                  three shots.     The Officer leaves to carry out his orders.    Dom Paulo     addresses another of his men, Da Cunha.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              75.95   CONTINUED:     (2)                                             95                                DOM PAULO                  Have the carpenter start                  immediately on a cross, a big                  one... Father Diogo wants a                  place of worship by this time                  tomorrow. We'll look for a                  spot later. We've all got a lot                  of praying to do. And where's                  Dias... tell him I want to see                  him.96   EXT. CAMP - DAY                                                96     Hector and Andre are walking through the half-built     village.  Andre is carrying Hector's possessions, a     rolled-up carpet and a bolt of colorful cloth. We feel     an echo of the days when Hector was a slave, walking     two paces behind with his master's possessions.     Hector finds what he is looking for. Francisco is     working on a shelter for himself and Ursula, with the     help of some slaves. Hector approaches him, making     another attempt to heal wounds from his past.                                HECTOR                  I have a carpet and some cloth...                  I thought if we worked together                  we could make a better shelter...     Francisco barely stops his work to reply.                                FRANCISCO                  If it's a joke it's a poor one.                        *                                HECTOR                  At least ask Dona Ursula...                                FRANCISCO                  I don't have to ask her... I know                  she would agree with me... leave us                  alone.     His stubborn rejection of Hector reveals just how     strong their friendship once was.                                HECTOR                  Well... would you take my cloth,                  at least?                                FRANCISCO                  Keep it and build your own hovel                  somewhere else... leave us                  alone...!                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              76.96   CONTINUED:                                                     96     Then from along the beach the sound of RAISED      VOICES     distracts them. They see some figures, laden       with     supplies, running off into the forest. Others       are     following them, discharging MUSKETS, shouting      for the     DESERTERS to stop. Hector and Francisco walk       briskly     in the direction of the trouble. They see two       of the     Deserters being overtaken by their pursuers.       The rest     make their escape into the jungle.97   EXT. CAMP - DAY                                                97     Hector and Francisco reach Dom Paulo's office in the     sand. The leading citizens are gathering there as     the two captured Deserters are brought in.                                SAILOR                  They ran off with the dry bread...                     *                  about eight of them, sir...                            *     Dom Paulo looks at the two prisoners.                                DOM PAULO                  You men are deserters. You will                  die tomorrow.     He speaks again to the Sailor.                                DOM PAULO                  Chain them on the raft for tonight,                  and watch them...     Francisco steps forward, outraged.                                FRANCISCO                  I must object... these sentences                  can't be lawful...     Dom Paulo's authoritative manner vanishes in an instant.     He becomes hesitant, unsure of himself. As always, his              *     Son watches every detail of the exchange.                           *                                DOM PAULO                  Do you think so?                                FRANCISCO                  Of course... we can't allow                  ourselves to fall into terror                  and violence...                                DOM PAULO                  You're right... but then how can                  we punish them? We can't lock them                  up...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             77.97   CONTINUED:                                                    97     Dom Paulo looks around at the assembled notables,     confused, out of his depth. Other opinions are voiced.                                SALGADO                  You were right the first time,                  sir... they must hang... they were                  stealing the bread from our                  mouths...     The captured Deserters look on helplessly as their lives     are argued over.                                YOUNG DESERTER                  I didn't steal any bread... Gomes                  had the bread... he's off, in the                  forest...                               DOM PAULO                  Oh dear...     Dom Paulo turns to the Priest.                                DOM PAULO                  What do you think, Father?     The Priest throws open his arms noncommittally.                                PRIEST                  I'll comfort them whether they                  live or die, now or later, any of                  you, all of you... I'll comfort                  you all.                                SALGADO                  Hang them... you have to set an                  example...     Dom Paulo is deeply confused.                                DOM PAULO                  So I was right the first time?     Francisco confuses him even more.                                FRANCISCO                  No, sir... there must be proper                  justice...                                DOM PAULO                  What's proper justice?                                *                                DESERTER                  I didn't steal any bread...                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                            78.        *97   CONTINUED:    (2)                                            97                                SALGADO                  You have to make a decision, sir.                                DESERTER                  It was Gomes... he told us to run.                                DOM PAULO                  I'll decide... no I won't... we'll                  all decide... most of the people                  that matter are here... we'll have                  a vote... who agrees with                  Salgado... and me... that they                  should die?     A lot of hands go up. Hector hesitates, his instincts     are not for killing. But the force of the majority     weighs on him. He starts to raise his hand. At that     moment, as he scans the crowd, he meets the eyes of the     Deserter whose death they are voting on. For a moment     they communicate. Hector is thrown. He drops his hand,     only to find in the next instant the stern gaze of     Salgado on him. He hesitates again, then starts to     raise his hand. Then the eyes of the Deserter find him     once more. This comic pantomime goes on while a solid     majority of the crowd firmly raise their hands.                                DOM PAULO                  ... and those against death...     One of the Deserters raises his own hand meekly.                                DOM PAULO                  You can't vote...     Then he looks to Salgado.                               DOM PAULO                  Can he?                                SALGADO                  It doesn't matter.     Then the other Deserter raises his hand too.                                SALGADO                  I don't think this is working,                  Dom Paulo... we need authority...                  you must decide...     Dom Paulo thinks.                                DOM PAULO                  Very well... Da Cunha?                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              79.97   CONTINUED:    (3)                                              97     DA CUNHA steps forward.                                DOM PAULO                  The cross the carpenter is                  working on... tell him to turn                  it into a scaffold... have it                  erected along the beach, away                  from the women... the executions                  will be at sunrise tomorrow. Tell                  Father Diogo.     He turns to the Sailors holding the Deserters.                                DOM PAULO                  Take them to the raft.     The dazed Deserters are led off.       Dom Paulo's face clouds     in doubt again.                                DOM PAULO                  Everyone in agreement with hanging?                    *                  Or should we shoot them... or what?                                DA CUNHA                  Hanging is fine, sir.                                                                         *                                DOM PAULO                  Very well... now... who's going                  to conduct the executions... should                  we pick someone, or have a                  volunteer...     Dom Paulo looks over the faces of the men.       He stops at     Hector.                               DOM PAULO                  Hector?     Hector doesn't have the will to accept or the courage to            *     refuse. He is saved by another young man, ALVAREZ, eager     to prove himself.                                ALVAREZ                  I'll do it, Dom Paulo.                                DOM PAULO                  Thank you, Alvarez. Sunrise                  tomorrow. Send the Priest to                  them tonight.     We can sense the feeling of relief in Hector. Dom                   *     Paulo's son has been a silent witness to everything that            *     has happened, but his blank face reveals nothing of his             *     feelings.                                                           *                                                            80.98   EXT. CAMP - EVENING                                           98     It is growing dark. Fires are being lit outside     the     shelters. Andre is building Hector's tent while     Hector     watches him. The tent is only large enough for     one     person, and somehow looks mean compared with the    others.                             HECTOR               Good work, Andre.     He looks across to the well-made shelter of Ursula and     Francisco. Ursula herself works at the fire.                                                                        *     Hector turns to Andre.                             HECTOR               You go and sleep by the big fire,               Andre. Keep warm.     Andre leaves.99   INT. CAMP - NIGHT                                             99     Hector goes inside his little    house. He puts his back     to the entrance and opens the    canvas sack which contains     all his possessions. He pulls     out his prize, a sizeable     chunk of bread and some dried    fruit. He guiltily gnaws     at the hard bread.     He is surprised by the sound of the boy, Nuno outside.                               NUNO               Senor Hector?     Hector quickly stows his food back into his sack, and     with a grunt of irritation sticks his head out of the     shelter.     Nuno is holding four fruits, about the size of large     apples, but green and thick-skinned.                             NUNO               This was all they found in the               forest. Four for each of us.               They taste kind of milky, but               sour.                             HECTOR               Thank you, Nuno.                             NUNO               My mother ate three and she was               sick. So try two... but she's               sick anyway... maybe you can try               three...                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              81.99   CONTINUED:                                                     99                                HECTOR                  I'll start with two.     Nuno makes to leave, but then hesitates.                                NUNO                  Hector, will you help me?     Nuno is looking down the beach to the remains of the     raft on the shoreline. The shapes of the two Deserters     chained there can just be seen.                                NUNO                  Lopo... the boy they're going to                  hang tomorrow... he was cook's                  cabin boy... I was going to take                       *                  him something to eat... I thought,                  perhaps, one of yours and one of                  mine...     He looks at the fruit he has just given Hector.                                NUNO                  You said you might just eat two...                                HECTOR                  But there's tomorrow, Nuno... we                  must eat tomorrow too...     Nuno looks disappointed. His eyes turn again to his     playmate tied to the raft.                                HECTOR                  Dom Paulo would call it a waste.                  You must keep yourself strong, Nuno,                  that's what he'd say... so that you                  can help the others... God knows                  what we have ahead of us... we'll                  need strong people like you...     Nuno is silent, unconvinced.                                HECTOR                  Try not to think about Lopo any                  more... The guards wouldn't let                  you near him anyway.     Nuno stomps away in silence.       Hector shouts after him     cheerily.                               HECTOR                  Goodnight!                                                          82.         *100   INT. CAMP - NIGHT                                         100      In the privacy of their tent Dom Paulo and his son are      engaged in their nightly ritual, practicing on their      recorders. Dom Paulo leads the young boy through an      intricate, pretty tune. They sit formally and there is      an air of stoicism about them, determined as they are      to maintain their civilized habits in these bleakest of      circumstances. But there is also a feeling of madness      about it. The madness of a man who has lost a grip of      what is going on about him. Down on the beach men are      waiting to die in the morning on his orders. The blend      of formality and madness make the scene comic.101   EXT. CAMP - DAWN                                          101      The sun has risen sharply, soaring out of the ocean. It      blinds the eyes of those in the little execution party      making their way along the beach.      The cross-cum-scaffold has been erected some way from the      camp. Most people are  attending to their morning      chores with one eye on the grim act of justice being      carried out along the shore.      Our view of the hangings will be from the distance of the      camp; marionette figures, men dancing on ropes, the form-      ality of legal death. The priest and the executioners.      It takes a while for the people in the camp to become      aware of the other observers up on the dunes. Three      figures stand in full view, boldly, silently, watching      the camp and the pantomime at the scaffold.      The word passes around the camp. Eyes pass between the      executions and the tall natives watching.   The first man      is already dangling on the rope by the time that Dom Paulo      and his officers are discussing the appearance of the      natives.                               DA CUNHA                 Some gunpowder would scatter them,                 sir.                               DOM PAULO                 No, they might want to be                 friendly... they'll have food                 too... get one of our African                 slaves... we must try and talk to                 them... If they think we're timid                 we're dead.                                                           83.102   EXT. DUNES - DAWN                                           102      A solitary SLAVE makes his way up from the camp to the      natives on the dunes. Everyone in the camp watches as he      approaches them. There is tension. Will the natives run      or fight or talk. They begin to talk. The natives seem      most interested in the hangings, and point in that      direction, asking questions. The Slave makes an attempt      at explaining what is happening, but the natives seem      baffled. They start laughing and shaking their heads.      By now the second figure is dangling on the rope, the      cross making an efficient double-gallows.103   EXT. CAMP - DAWN                                            103      While Francisco's attention has been on the natives,      Hector has sidled up to him, still hoping to ingratiate      himself. He talks while they watch the two events, the      hanging and the meeting.                              HECTOR                I hate it when people have to die.                      *                              FRANCISCO                It's foolishness. Killing our                own men when we have the whole of                Africa to face.                              HECTOR                It's foolish squabbling at all.                We should be friends.      Francisco looks at him for the meaning in what he is      saying. Hector shrugs. He takes a small bundle from      his jacket and gives it to Francisco.                               FRANCISCO                What's this?                              HECTOR                Some bread and raisins.                              FRANCISCO                I thought everything was shared                out on the raft...                              HECTOR                Well this wasn't. It's for her...                and you.      Francisco looks Hector straight  in the eye, looking for      his angle. But this time there   is none. Hector is      simply a lonely man seeking to  retrieve lost friendship.      There is a glimmer of sympathy  in Francisco's face.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                              84.103   CONTINUED:                                                    103      On the high dunes the Slave and the natives have now      parted company. The Deserters still spin at the end of      their ropes, the Priest praying at their feet.      Francisco walks away from him.      Hector calls out.                                 HECTOR                   I must speak to her!104   EXT. CAMP - DAY                                               104      The Slave approaches Dom Paulo outside his tent.                                 SLAVE                   They want to make a visit here...                   with their King... he will bring                   gifts, and will receive gifts.                   They said not to sacrifice anymore                     *                   men for them... they don't like                   that...      Dom Paulo and the others laugh.105   EXT. BAY - DAY                                                105      The tide is sweeping more wreckage into the bay. Barrels      and boxes and timber bob in the waves. People make their      way to the shoreline to retrieve these new gifts from the      sea.                                                                *      The whole of the camp is eager and shouting. They bring             *      in the boxes and barrels. A whole harmonium is man-      handled ashore. Some boys drag it up onto dry sand and      start to work its bellows. At first only water spurts      from it, but then a watery note or two is emitted. The      mood soon becomes festive. Dom Paulo makes his way down             *      to the shore to make the celebrations official.                     *      By now the first of the newly-arrived crates are being      opened. Inside are eggs, many, many large eggs, in      crate after crate.      An OFFICER brings the first of the eggs to Dom Paulo.                                 OFFICER                   Turtles' eggs, sir... Doctor Correa                   was shipping them to the Royal                   Zoo... I think they hoped some of                   them would hatch.                                 DOM PAULO                   Well... it's eggs for supper                   tonight... for everyone...                             *                                                           85.106   EXT. CAMP - DUSK                                           106      That night everyone does eat turtles' eggs. At their      fires in the dusk they fry them, boil them, scramble      them. Some eat them raw. The abundant green fruits      make a tolerable side dish. The happy mood of the      afternoon has survived into the night. For once there      is enough to eat, and the hangings are a thing of the      past. Above the ROAR of the constantly rolling SURF      the CROAKY sounds of the waterlogged HARMONIUM can be      heard.                                                           *107   INT. HECTOR'S TENT - DUSK                                  107      Sadly for Hector, the harmonium enthusiast is very close      to his shelter. The JANGLY MUSIC is loud and insistent.      Hector removes six large eggs from a bag and takes them      outside to his fire.108   EXT. CAMP - DUSK                                           108      Andre is there eating the last of his omelette.                                HECTOR                How are they?                                ANDRE                Good.      Hector cracks one of his eggs into a copper pan. Inside          *      is a brown smudge of dried yoke and some dust. Hector            *      grunts in annoyance and cracks another egg. The yoke is      discolored and the smell is rank. Hector looks at Andre,      rapidly finishing his omelette before Hector can demand          *      it.                              HECTOR                Yours were fine?                                ANDRE                Yes.      Hector picks up a third egg and shakes itclose to his      ear. It seems as empty as the other two.  He picks up      a fourth egg and cracks it open. A small dried-up, half-      formed baby turtle RATTLES into the pan. Andre is      quietly enjoying Hector's frustration. He stands up to      leave.                                ANDRE                Good night.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                               86.         *108   CONTINUED:                                                     108                                 HECTOR                   Have you any eggs left?                                 ANDRE                   The slaves only got three.    I want                   to ask you something.                                 HECTOR                   You were lucky. What?                                 ANDRE                   I want my real name back.                                 HECTOR                   You don't like Andre anymore?                                 ANDRE                   I think of my home all the time.                   I want to hear the name they call                   me. We should die with our real                   names.                                 HECTOR                   We're not going to die, Andre...      Hector smiles at his own insensitivity.                                 HECTOR                   I've forgotten your name...                                 ANDRE                   Ketabomago Pululo.                                 HECTOR                   Now I remember why we called you                   Andre.      Andre looks at him expectantly.                                 HECTOR                   I will, Andre... I promise... I'll                   call you that... when I remember...      Andre is satisfied, and leaves.      Hector calls to him.                                 HECTOR                   Good night... Keta...                                 ANDRE                   Ketabomago Pululo...                                 HECTOR                   Yes... good night...                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               87.108   CONTINUED:    (2)                                              108      Hector is alone. Hector gives up on the eggs and pulls               *      out his store of bread and fruit from the tent. The                  *      next source of annoyance is the continuing noise of the      HARMONIUM.      He shouts across to the musical enthusiast, a YOUTH      with a few older children by his side.                                 HECTOR                   Hey! Stop that, will you? Think                   of the older people, and the                   sick... I'll give you an egg if                         *                   you stop... here...                                                                           *109   EXT. CAMP - NEXT MORNING                                       109      The Officers and Dom Paulo are selecting items for barter            *      from their crates and boxes of valuables. Hector and      other notables are also there.      Cheap goods, a box of rosaries and crucifixes made of                *      common beads, for example, are being gone through and      suitable junk selected for gifts.      They talk as they work.                                 DOM PAULO                   How many are sick?                                 DA CUNHA                   About fifty, sir, some of them                   very sick indeed. It's the eggs.                   A couple of the crates were full of                     *                   rotten ones, but eaten just the                         *                   same. Others just ate too many.                   It would have been better to ration                   them, I suppose.                                 DOM PAULO                   How wise of you to think of that                   now. Any deaths?                                DA CUNHA                   Six.                                 DOM PAULO                   How many eggs did you have?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               88.109   CONTINUED:                                                     109                                  DA CUNHA                   Three.   I had them boiled.                                  DOM PAULO                   I had four.   I don't feel well                   now...                                 DA CUNHA                   Four's all right... the really ill                   ones had eaten eight, ten...                                 DOM PAULO                   Let's not think about it... what                        *                   have you got?                                           *      Salgado comes forward with a handful of the broken      remains of a kettle. Copper is a useful currency.                                 SALGADO                   It worked well... they'll go for                   this... and nails... Luis cleaned                   up a sackful from the crates...      Salgado shows a handful of nails from a small sack in his      hand.                                 DOM PAULO                   Organize some men to gather all                         *                   the nails they can find. We have                   to keep control of that particular                   currency.      Dom Paulo rummages in a box of cheap rosaries, selects a      couple, and then retires to his tent. The others work      on at the table. Hector drifts off down to the beach.110   INT. DOM PAULO'S TENT - MORNING                                110      Inside his tent Dom Paulo goes to his small mirror. He      takes off the heavy silver chain and medallion from      around his neck, and a valuable brooch from his coat. He      stows them safely in a locked box and replaces it in its      hiding place in the sand floor. Then he adorns himself      in the cheap rosary and other trashy items. Dom Paulo,               *      catching sight of his watching Son in the mirror, holds              *      a silencing finger to his mouth.                                     *111   EXT. BEACH - MORNING                                           111      Hector is walking along the beach, close to a pile of                *      discarded boxes and crates.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                            89.111   CONTINUED:                                                   111      He quickly searches through them. He soon finds what he            *      is looking for, a piece of wood with some nails still      attached to it. He pulls out the nails and pockets them,      then continues to rummage amongst the wood for more.      Hector is a survivor. And not the first Hector to      scavenge on a beach, in a world that feels big and empty.112   EXT. DUNES - MORNING                                         112      Hector is enjoying the   freshness of the day. We see              *      him climb over a dune   and then as he nears the summit      duck and retreat down   the slope again. Cautiously he      crawls up the dune and   looks over to the other side.      He is watching a young Girl and the boy Nuno. They are      twelve or thirteen years old. They are coyly in the      early stages of making love, the Boy lying close to the      Girl, kissing her, beginning to caress her. Their                  *      love-making is poised oddly between child's play and               *      eroticism. It's their day of discovery and it is like      a dream of love.      The Boy is just about to   discover some more and is      fumbling with the Girl's   clothing, when he looks up and      catches sight of Hector.    Hector ducks down but knows he      has been seen and decides   to brazen it out. He stands      up in full view of them.                                 HECTOR                   Stop that... leave her alone...                   get back to the camp... or I'll tell                   your mother... how can you play like                   this when there are people needing                   your help back there...?      The Boy is standing now and fixing his clothing. He walks      off back to the camp. The Girl remains sitting in the      sand, buttoning her dress, too embarrassed even to raise      her head to Hector.      Then Hector is touched by something, perhaps the sad stoop      in the Boy's shoulder or the Girl's lowered head. Hector      realizes he has broken something precious and in their      circumstances infinitely fragile and irretrievable. He      feels like an oaf. He calls after the Boy.                                 HECTOR                   Come back... I didn't mean it...                   it was a joke... you come back...                   she's still here... I won't say                   anything...                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                               90.112   CONTINUED:                                                     112      But the Boy walks on, turning around now and then to look      at Hector, who feels foolish and mean. Hector calls down      to the Girl.                                HECTOR                   I'm sorry.      But she doesn't look up, still fumbling with her buttons.      Hector curses quietly and looks out across the dunes,      angry with himself. Then he sees the procession of the               *      Native King and his people, some cattle, and porters      carrying baskets.      Hector runs off towards the camp.113   EXT. CLEARING - DAY                                            113      The meeting of the two leaders is weird and wonderful                *      to see. The ragged Europeans, already scanning the                   *      baskets of the Natives for signs of solid food,      somehow still muster an absurd sense of their own                    *      importance for the occasion. The Natives, excited and                *      curious, trying to contain their exuberance so that they             *      don't miss a single detail of this most significant      day. Many of the Natives have climbed into the trees,                *      either out of timidity or to get a better view                       *      The trees around the meeting place are dripping with      bodies, like human fruit.      Hector slips into the crowd as the NATIVE KING is in      mid-speech. When he has stopped talking the Slave begins      to haltingly translate.                                 SLAVE                   He was excited when he heard you                   had come, but he wants to know                   if you are real people... he                   didn't think you would be such                   a strange color... so he wants                   to see your...      He points repeatedly at his navel.                                   *                                 SLAVE                   ... so that he will know that you                   were born like real people...                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                            91.113   CONTINUED:                                                   113      Dom Paulo won't suffer the indignity alone.    He talks to      the Officers standing closest to him.                                 DOM PAULO                   Right... you four as well...      He begins to open up his coat and shirt. The four      Officers do the same. The King and a few of his atten-      dants take a step or two forward and peer at the exposed      white European bellies. They look at one another and      mumble solemnly. Then they step back. Dom Paulo and the      Officers fix their clothing and re-muster their dignity.      The King is enjoying himself.    He speaks again to the      Slave, who then translates.                                 SLAVE                   He wants to see you breathe.      The King takes a deep breath, then nods to Dom Paulo.      Dom Paulo and the Officers do as they are told. The King      joins them, and for a few moments there is a kind of      communion between them. Then everyone joins in. It is a            *      strange, poignant moment, all the Natives and all the      Europeans united in the simple act of breathing.      Dom Paulo regains his composure.    He speaks to the Slave.                                 DOM PAULO                   Tell him that we want to trade                   with him, to buy food... and we                   want him to guide us out of here...                   we have a long way to travel... to                   where the white men have their                   big ships...      The Slave speaks to the King. The King listens and talks      back for a long time. Then the Slave translates again.                                 SLAVE                   He has heard of white men very,                       *                   very far away... this way...                   but you have to cross many rivers...                   twenty big rivers...                                 DOM PAULO                   Tell him I want to give him these...      Dom Paulo steps forward to the King. An Officer brings             *      a wrapped cloth. Dom Paulo opens it, letting the King      see the pieces of broken copper inside.                                                                         *                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              92.113   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             113      The Officer produces a handful of large nails and      gives them directly to the King. The King nods his      head in approval and shows the nails to his attendants.      They are impressed.                                 DOM PAULO                   ... and tell him that I want to                   make him a very special gift as                   one King to another...      Various Officers raise their eyebrows at this.                                 DOM PAULO                   Of these precious things, which my                   fathers and forefathers have worn                   for many long years before...      Dom Paulo solemnly and without a blush removes the cheap      rosary from around his neck and offers it to the King.                                 DOM PAULO                   I shouldn't do this, but it is                   such a special occasion, and he is                   such a great and worthy King...      This is translated.    The King refuses to accept the               *      rosary. Instead he    is pointing to a couple of chunky      and valuable-looking   rings on Dom Paulo's fingers which      he has forgotten to   remove.                                 SLAVE                   He says he could not accept such                   a treasured gift, something of                   such value to your family...                   instead he would be happy to take                   one or two of the old rings you have                   on your fingers... but please do                   not insist that he take your                   necklace...      It is impossible to know if the King is being naively      polite or hugely clever. Dom Paulo's Officers enjoy a      muted titter as he peels off his precious rings and      gives them to the King, replacing the worthless baubles      around his own neck. The King begins talking again.      The Slave translates.                                 SLAVE                   He will give you guides to help                        *                   you across the first of the big                   rivers... it is ten days from                   here...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              93.113   CONTINUED:    (3)                                             113                                 DOM PAULO                   Thank you, thank you...      The Slave continues.                                 SLAVE                   ... and he asks you to be ready                   to leave the beach in two days                   time... he cannot permit you to                   stay longer...      Dom Paulo looks shocked.                                 SLAVE                   Because with the new moon the                   turtles will arrive and lay                   their eggs... you may frighten                   them... you must be gone...      The mention of turtles' eggs almost turns the stomachs      of most of the survivors, even the fit ones.      The King and his followers walk back into the forest.               *      Soon the survivors are alone again, with the lost-      looking cow the Natives have left. A doomed cow if      ever there was.114   EXT. BEACH - EVENING                                          114      The remains of the cow hang on the spit over the large      fire the survivors have made on the beach. Small groups      of people sit around it, gnawing on the roasted flesh.      The image is once again timeless, the elements of it      simple; man, fire, flesh, food.      One cow doesn't go far between a hundred starving people.      Some are still on their feet by the large fire. Now and      then a hand will dart out over the flames to snatch a      bone hanging loose or a tasty-looking piece of gristle.      They are the survivors of the pack, if any will be.      Hector is, of course, among them. He    risks the searing      heat to pull at a couple of blackened   bones. He sees      Nuno, the boy he chased away from the   Girl earlier in      the day. Nuno is sitting by himself,    staring vacantly      at the fire, licking his fingers.      Hector sits down in the sand beside him. Nuno hardly      notices him until Hector offers him one of his bones.      Nuno grabs it.                                NUNO                   Thanks.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                               94.114   CONTINUED:                                                     114                                 HECTOR                   Suck out the marrow... it's the                   best bit.      Nuno follows Hector's example. Hector allows him to      feel the benefit of his gift before he starts to talk.                                 HECTOR                   I'm sorry about today...                                 NUNO                   It doesn't matter...                                 HECTOR                   But it does... it was mean of                   me... I was upset at something...                   I wasn't really angry at you...                                 NUNO                   I know.      Nuno is taking it rather well.      Hector regains his      natural self-confidence.                                             *                                                                           *                                 HECTOR                   You don't think too badly of me?                                 NUNO                   No...                                 HECTOR                   You still like me?      Nuno shyly nods his head.                                                                           *                                 HECTOR                   You do?                                 NUNO                   Yes.      Hector is satisfied now.                                 HECTOR                   Well, that makes me feel better...                   we all have to like each other...                   and respect each other... that's                   important too.      They are silent for a moment.                                 HECTOR                   If you don't respect me, just                   say so...                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               95.114   CONTINUED:    (2)                                              114      Nuno looks at him, smiling weakly. Then he turns away      in silence. Hector tries another approach to win the      Boy over.                                 HECTOR                   I have a boy like you... maybe                          *                   you could meet him when we get                   home...      This doesn't produce much of a response. Hector tries      again. He starts to chuckle to himself and nudges Nuno      in the ribs.                                 HECTOR                   You can take her back there                   tomorrow, eh?      Nuno shakes his head.                                 NUNO                   No... she's sick now...115   EXT. CAMP - NIGHT                                              115      Dom Paulo and the Priest and some of the Officers are      having a more formal meal at Dom Paulo's table outside      his shelter. An argument is in progress between Dom      Paulo and GASPAR DIAS, the navigator.      Gasper Dias has drawn a rough map which lies on the      table.                                                                           *                                 DOM PAULO                   Can't you be more accurate?      Hector comes to the meeting. He sits down on a box      near the table and watches and listens, his expression      changing with the shifts in mood of the others. This                 *      is Hector the social animal, our Hector with his pockets             *      full of stolen nails and his tent full of stashes of      food.                                 DIAS                   How can I be accurate without                   instruments? As it is I'm                   sighting the sun with two pieces                   of wood... Call it five hundred                   and be done with it... he said                          *                   twenty rivers.                                          *                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                                96.115   CONTINUED:                                                      115                                 DOM PAULO                   We just want you to be as accurate                   as we know you can be, Dias. After                   all, the ship did manage to find                   that rock with admirable precision.                                 DIAS                   Confound you, Dom Paulo, that's an                   insult... she hit that rock because                   she was taking water and                   unsteerable... She was overloaded                   before she left India and you know                   it....      Dias pounds his fist on the table.                                   DIAS                   I've told   you... we vote for a                         *                   leader or   you can walk into the                   jungle on   your own... it should                   have been   done days ago...                                 DA CUNHA                   Calm down, Dias... you can't stay                   here forever, living on turtles'                   eggs...      There are mock groans and laughter at the thought of it.      The tension for the moment is broken.                                 *                                 DA CUNHA                   What about the sick and the                   injured, Dom Paulo...?      Dom Paulo lets out a heavy sigh.                                 DOM PAULO                   I've discussed it with Father                   Diogo... I don't see how a hundred                   of us can carry seventy sick...                                 FATHER DIOGO                   I'm going to search the scriptures                   tonight. I'm sure that God has                   an answer to it.                                 DIAS                   An excuse, you mean... we'll be                   leaving them here to die...                                 SALGADO                   Oh, so you're coming with us now,                   Dias!                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               97.115   CONTINUED:    (2)                                              115      Dias mumbles to himself.                                 DIAS                   After the vote...                                 FATHER DIOGO                   It might be the best we can offer                   them now... the chance to die a                   good Christian death here, and set                   an example to the heathens...116   EXT. CAMP - NIGHT                                              116      Hector is   making his way in the dark back to his shelter.      He passes   close to the tent of Francisco and Ursula.      Francisco   is outside, by the fire. An impulse takes      Hector to   join him.                                 HECTOR                   I'll be glad when we're on the                   move... the sound of the sea is                   driving me mad.                                 FRANCISCO                   Good night, Hector...      Hector lingers.                                 HECTOR                   Where is Ursula? Sleeping?                                 FRANCISCO                   Sick. She hasn't been able to                   rise since yesterday.                                                                           *      Hector's face expresses his shock. From what he has      heard at the meeting this is serious news. He makes a      decision. He speaks to Francisco, willing their old      friendship back into existence in the urgency of the      moment.                                 HECTOR                   Will you share a bottle of wine                   with me? I've had it since we                   left the ship... I want to drink                   it tonight, with you.      This offer has found a chink in Francisco's armor.                                 FRANCISCO                   You have a bottle of wine?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                                98.         *116   CONTINUED:                                                      116                                HECTOR                   Yes.                                 FRANCISCO                   Well, fetch it.117   EXT. CAMP - NIGHT                                               117      Hector has returned with his precious bottle. Francisco      by some miracle has two fine crystal glasses. As they      drink they begin to reveal a hint of their old intimacy.                                 FRANCISCO                   You should hang for this. Some                   people on the raft might have                   lived with a glass of this in                   their stomach...      Francisco sips the wine with the relish of long      abstinence.                                 HECTOR                   I know. I feel very guilty.    I                   brought this too...      Hector pulls a cotton bag from under his coat.                                 HECTOR                   Honeyed fruit. The last I have.      Francisco can't believe such food still exits.       He      smiles in anticipation.                                 FRANCISCO                   You rogue... give it here...      Francisco grabs at the bag and stuffs two or three      sweets into his mouth, not so much the gentleman now.                                 HECTOR                   I brought it for Ursula...      Francisco talks through his munching.                                 FRANCISCO                   Much too rich for her... do you want                   to kill her?                                 HECTOR                   Surely... some fruit couldn't...                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                              99.117   CONTINUED:                                                    117                                 FRANCISCO                   Don't argue with me, old friend...                   you're the guilty one around here,                   and don't you forget it.                                 HECTOR                   Why is it always me? Why am I                   always guilty, always sorry... am                   I so bad?                                   FRANCISCO                   With   Ursula you weren't bad, you                   were   stupid... you did the one thing                   you   can't do to a strong woman...                   you   took away her pride... what else                   can   she do but hate you?      Hector is silent.                                 FRANCISCO                   And then you get on the same ship...                   what a fool...                                 HECTOR                   I had to get home... just like you...                                 FRANCISCO                   And when the ship went down... why                   did you have to get on the same                   raft... it was as if you were trying                   to torment her...                                 HECTOR                   But... the other raft was sinking...                                  FRANCISCO                               *                   So?                                                    *                                 HECTOR                                   *                   Francisco... please...                                 *      Francisco's face breaks into a smile. They drink the                *      rest of the bottle in silence, the complexity of their              *      friendship having gone beyond words.                                *118   EXT. MASS - DAY                                               118      On a headland overlooking the bay, Father Diogo's mass is      in progress. Every fit member of the camp is there, and      a good many of the sick have been carried in litters to      take part. The harmonium has been carried up the hill      and is in full voice, some youths dissipating their      precious energy on its bellows. The younger boys have      been organized into a choir.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              100.118   CONTINUED:                                                     118                                                                           *      The large cross stands behind Father Diogo, held     in place      by a cairn of piled stones at its base. When we      FIND      Hector there is something tantalizingly familiar     about it      all; the cliffs, the ocean, the kneeling Hector,     a pile      of stones, the offering to a god.                                                                           *119   EXT. CLEARING - DAY                                           119      The natives have gathered nearby. They have been moved,              *      perhaps by the music, or perhaps by the simple, universal            *      posture of worship itself. They begin to sing, a low,      rhythmic, compelling chant. It mingles with the distant      voice of Father Diogo, and then with the chanting voices      of all the Europeans, until it seems that the whole      world is praying.120   EXT. CAMP - MORNING                                           120      Next morning the camp on the beach     is being broken up.      The place is like a junkyard. The      amount of damage that      a hundred and fifty people can do     to a beach in two days      is impressive. Dom Paulo and the      officers watch the work.      With them are some messengers from     the king, and the      Slave translator.      One of the messengers is talking.     When he finishes, the      Slave translates.                                 SLAVE                   Yes... they will look after the                   sick... but the King would like                   one thing... the machine that                   makes music...                                 DOM PAULO                   We need food as well... ten                   cows... to take with us... then                   the King can have the music.121   EXT. CAMP - ANOTHER ANGLE - MORNING                           121    *      Hector is sitting beside Nuno on a box, talking earnestly      to him. Andre stands beside them.                                                                           *                                 HECTOR                   You must come with us.                                NUNO                   No.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                               101.121   CONTINUED:                                                      121                                 ANDRE                   Your mother might not get well...                   do you understand that?                                 NUNO                   That's why I have to stay.                                 HECTOR                   And afterwards... what will you                   do then?                                 NUNO                   Follow you and the others.                                 HECTOR                   Alone?      Nuno remains silent.                                 ANDRE                   Let him be.122   EXT. CAMP - DAY                                               122      Dom Paulo and Father Diogo are standing beside Dom                    *      Paulo's table, all that remains of his headquarters on                *      the beach.                                 FATHER DIOGO                   I'll comfort them as best as I                   can.                                 DOM PAULO                   You're staying with them?      Father Diogo hastens to correct this misunderstanding.                                 FATHER DIOGO                   No, no, I'll comfort them before                   we leave. I think my place is                   with you...      Two sailors, like stagehands, enter and remove the table,      leaving Dom Paulo and Father Diogo propless on the beach.123   EXT. JUNGLE PATH - DAY                                        123      The trek from the beach to the village has started. A      long line of people, including some local natives, carry      the sick in crudely-made litters. Even this short trip      is hard.  Somewhere in the line six sailors manhandle the      harmonium up the jungle path.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                             102.123   CONTINUED:                                                    123      Just behind   them Hector is helping Nuno to carry his      Mother in a   litter. It is like a civilization on the      move. In a    day or two the wind and the sea will have      rubbed out   all evidence of their stay, and the bay will      welcome its   regular tenants, the turtles.124   EXT. NATIVE VILLAGE - DAY                                   124      There is a sense of bustle in the native village as the      European sick are settled into their huts and the others      prepare to depart. Emotional farewells take place in                *      dark corners of the small huts. A group of unmoved      sailors are playing cards in the dirt.                              *      In amongst the bustle Hector is looking for Francisco.      He finds him taking some of his possessions into a hut.             *                                 HECTOR                   Francisco... I have to see her                         *                   before we leave.                                   FRANCISCO                   I'll ask her.      Francisco goes into the hut. Hector waits outside,      watching the small human dramas all around him. Soon      Francisco emerges from the hut.                                   FRANCISCO                   In you go.      Hector goes into the hut, stooping low at the small      entrance.125   INT. HUT - DAY                                              125      Ursula is lying in a darkened corner. Hector is shaken      by the sight of her, ashen and fevered, but tries not to      show it. He kneels beside her.                                 HECTOR                   Ursula... it's Hector.      She turns her eyes to him but doesn't speak.                                 HECTOR                   We're leaving soon. I've come to                   say goodbye...      Her voice is a whisper.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                                103.         *125   CONTINUED:                                                       125                                  URSULA                   Goodbye.                                 HECTOR                   I won't forget you... I won't                   forget India... I can't forget                   how I hurt you...      She looks at him but doesn't or cannot speak.                                 HECTOR                   We should have talked... I could                   have explained... many things...      She manages a whispered word.                                  URSULA                   Lisbon...                                 HECTOR                   Yes... I'll pray for you in                   Lisbon... at the Cathedral...      She lies still.       Hector lingers for a moment.   Then he      speaks again.                                 HECTOR                   I'm sorry I hurt your pride...      Hector has blown it. Ursula pulls herself up on an      elbow, finding wells of energy from sheer indignation.      Hector is astonished, almost jumping out of his skin.                                 URSULA                   What? What did you say?    What are                   you talking about?                                 HECTOR                   Nothing, nothing...      Ursula speaks one word, and then falls back into a dead      faint.                                  URSULA                   Idiot!      She lies still. Hector leans over her to make sure she      is still breathing. He whispers nervously.                                  HECTOR                   Ursula?                                                            104.126   EXT. HUT - DAY                                             126      Outside the hut, Dom Paulo is talking with Francisco.                              DOM PAULO                We won't forget you, or what you                are doing for these poor people...                              FRANCISCO                I'm not staying here with the                intention of dying, Dom Paulo...                we'll be following you... when we                are fit and well...                              DOM PAULO                Yes, of course...                              FRANCISCO                ... and good luck to you...                            *      They make what they both know is their final parting.            *                              DOM PAULO                God protect you... it breaks my                        *                heart to leave you all here, but                I don't know what else I can do.      They shake hands.                              DOM PAULO                We're leaving the cross with                you...                              FRANCISCO                Oh, thank you...                              DOM   PAULO                It's too heavy to   carry... and who                knows... it might   make some                impression on the   heathens.      Hector comes out of the hut, solemn-faced.                       *                              HECTOR                Francisco, I must talk to you                alone...127   EXT. HUT - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                             127      Hector takes Francisco by the arm and leads him behind      the hut.                              FRANCISCO                You've made your peace with her?                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                105.127   CONTINUED:                                                       127                                  HECTOR                   Yes.   I think so...                                      *                                 FRANCISCO                   Thank, God... Well, goodbye.                              *                                 HECTOR                   Is there anything that I can do                   for you? A letter... a message?                           *      Francisco laughs softly.                                 FRANCISCO                   No... if you were carrying                                *                   something for me I would have to                   worry about you... if you go                   empty-handed I can put you out of                   my mind!      Hector smiles uncertainly, unsure if Francisco is making      a joke. Then he becomes more serious.                                 HECTOR                   I want to ask you something.                              *                   There's no easy way to do it...                                 FRANCISCO                   Go on, Hector...                                   HECTOR                   Your boots...      Francisco looks down at his boots.                                 FRANCISCO                   What about them?                                 HECTOR                   Can I have them? You can have                   mine... they'll be fine for                   here... but I have to walk six                   hundred miles...      Hector lifts a foot to show Francisco his boot. Francisco      is stunned into silence. But then a smile comes to his                 *      face.                                 FRANCISCO                   Yes, you're right... I daresay                            *                   my boots would take you six hundred                       *                   miles... I look after them...      Hector becomes almost poetic in his pleading.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               106.127   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             127                                 HECTOR                   I'll walk all the way home,                   Francisco... I'll pray for your                   soul in the Cathedral in Lisbon...                                 FRANCISCO                   ... In my boots...                                HECTOR                   Yes.      Francisco starts to laugh out loud.                                 FRANCISCO                   Hector, you have surpassed                   yourself... sit down and take my                   boots!      Francisco starts to take off his boots. Hector does the             *      same. He can't believe his luck. At this moment, he                 *      loves Francisco. He makes nonsensical small talk,      hopping around on one foot.                                 HECTOR                   They were made by Da Fosca,                   weren't they?      Francisco is giggling now.                                 FRANCISCO                   The best bootmaker in Goa... pray                   for my soul in Lisbon, Hector...                   and pray for your own...      Francisco is laughing, but Hector doesn't get the joke.                                                                          *128   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                             128      A different forest. A wilderness of giant pines, ranging      through the mountains for hundred of miles. It is late              *      in the year. There is one human sound in the cold still-            *      ness, a voice singing.      BOBBY, the owner of the voice, has a pack on his back.              *      He is making his way up a steep slope to an area of flat      ground. He stops singing, looks around, and calls out               *      in a powerful voice.                                                *                                 BOBBY                   They've gone... long gone!      Bobby looks around the abandoned camp, the dead fires,              *      cleared areas for tents.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                              107.         *128   CONTINUED:                                                     128      Up the slope and INTO VIEW comes his companion, leading      a laden pack horse. It is Hector.                                  HECTOR                   How long?                                 BOBBY                   They've been gone a week, at                   least.                                  HECTOR                   Damn them...                                 BOBBY                   We're ten days late...      They look at each other.      They are in trouble, and now      they know it.                                 BOBBY                   Cheer up. Have a look around.                   I'll start on a fire...129   EXT. CAMPSITE - DAY                                           129      Hector has scoured the campsite.      He holds up a canteen      he has found.                                 HECTOR                   It's Sandy's... whiskey...                                 BOBBY                   Well done, my lad!      Hector walks to the fire, pleased with     himself. Bobby      unfolds his fist and looks at what he     has found, an      Indian arrowhead with a few inches of     broken shaft. He      folds his hand over it again, keeping     his secret.      Behind them, nailed to a tree, is a plaque their      companions have left. It reads, "Pennsylvania Boundary      Expedition 1761, Marker 152." Also on the plaque someone      has written, "We left here, 20th October."130   EXT. CAMP - NIGHT                                             130      Hector and Bobby sit by the fire with their supper.      They      are both anxious, but pretend not to be.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                          108.         *130   CONTINUED:                                                 130                                 BOBBY                   Even if we lose their track, we'll                   still hit the river... we can't                   miss that.                                 HECTOR                   It's too high for Indians?                                 BOBBY                   Much too high. You won't find an                   Indian up here. We just have to                   keep our heads... no panic.                                 HECTOR                   If you did find an Indian, what                   would he be?                                 BOBBY                   You wouldn't... but he might be a                   Delaware if you did.                                 HECTOR                   We keep working?                                 BOBBY                   Why not. We can log the peaks on                   the far side, just a couple of                   sightings a day... keep us busy...      Their forced tone of matter-of-factness only serves to      heighten the growing feeling of doom.                                 HECTOR                   You think we'll get out?                                 BOBBY                   If we keep our heads.   I wish I                   had some tobacco.131   EXT. CAMP - ANOTHER ANGLE - NIGHT                        131      Hector is lying awake, watching Bobby's sleeping form on      the ground at the other side of the dying fire. Behind      Bobby is a wolf, sniffing and edging his way closer to      them. Hector isn't anxious. He knows the wolf will soon      become aware of them and move off. He is worried about      something else. From under the pack that makes his      pillow he pulls a piece of broken arrow, a shaft and some      feathers, the other end of Bobby's find. He looks at it,      then looks back to Bobby and the wolf.                                                            109.132   EXT. CAMP - MORNING                                        132      In the morning Hector and Bobby are taking readings from      the instruments they have hung on a large tree, main-      taining the disciplines of their work. It gives some      shape and meaning to their predicament.                              BOBBY                Barometer... twenty-eight and                three-eighths... temperature...                        *                low... thirty-four... high...                forty-two and a half... time...      Hector writes it in the log book. Bobby goes to the              *      horse and takes a brass chronometer from a box strapped      to the saddle. Hector takes out a smaller chronometer      from his own pack. They compare readings. There is a      difference of some four or five minutes in the time.                              BOBBY                It's getting worse... you're                nearly five minutes fast now...                              HECTOR                I'm not fast... you're slowing                down.      They obviously have this tiff every morning.                              HECTOR                What's the point of having two                chronometers when you don't take                the average?                              BOBBY                Exactly... you should throw yours                away.                              HECTOR                You're unscientific, Bobby... at                heart...      Hector writes in the book.   He speaks pointedly.                              HECTOR                Seven twenty-five...      Bobby mocks him with a laugh.                                    *133   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                          133      Bobby is leading the horse and Hector walks on ahead.            *      The going is easy through the ferns and grasses. Bobby           *      for a moment forgets his apprehensions and starts to sing      loudly.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                             110.         *133   CONTINUED:                                                    133                                 BOBBY                   I see her in the dewy flowers                   I see her sweet and fair...      His voice rings sharply around the forest. Hector far      ahead turns around, taken by surprise. Bobby has      frightened himself too. He eyes the forest all around      as the echo of his voice fades. Chastened, he begins      to sing again, quietly this time, under his breath.                                 BOBBY                   There's not a bonny bird that sings                   But minds me o' my Jean...134   EXT. CLEARING - DAY                                        134      Hector and Bobby have stopped at a point of bare rock      looking out across the broad valley.      They are building a pile of stones, a cairn. They work      quietly, methodically. The only sounds are of their      breathing and the CLICK-CLACK of the stones. We feel the      echoes of our many previous Hectors and their piles of      stones, built for this or that purpose. Our doomed      surveyors are acting out the same ritual, this time in      the name of science.      They finish the cairn and erect their heavy tripod over      it, and dangle a plumb line from the tripod. Bobby      scratches the center point on the top stone of the cairn.      They are establishing a survey point. They talk as they      work.      When they anchor their   tripod, the cold hard sound of      their CHISELS STRIKING   ROCK ECHOES all through the forest.      It unnerves them. They    stop hammering and listen to the      ECHO BOUNCING down the   valley.                                 HECTOR                   Sure this is a good idea.                                 BOBBY                   Let's get out of here.      They hastily dismantle the equipment and load up the      horse, in an atmosphere of controlled panic.135   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                          135      They are travelling together now, on either side of the      horse's nose, finding comfort in the closeness of each      other. They stop for Bobby to consult his compass.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                111.         *135   CONTINUED:                                                       135      He indicates a slight change of direction, and they move      off again. Still they don't talk. We can feel their      anxiety breeding in the silence. Why don't they talk?      They proceed in this weighty silence, but even the CRIES      of the BIRDS now seem to mock them.      The route takes them downhill. The slopes are more dense      with undergrowth now and the going isn't so easy. Some-      times they are reduced to an undignified scramble, hanging      onto the bulk of the horse between them. They no longer      look much like conquerors of the wilderness.136   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                            136      They are on the valley floor now. The trees are more      openly spaced and the grass is richer. They are moving      quickly but they have a hard time keeping the horse on      the trot. It hasn't seen grass this good in weeks.137   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                            137      They are moving more slowly, the ground is rockier and      the trees are thickening. They take the easy way up the      hillside, a natural path made by deer or bear.      It is difficult to know who is more shaken by their      encounter, the Indian or Hector and Bobby.      The INDIAN is sitting behind a tree as they pass, dozing      or deep in reverie. They almost pass without noticing      him, but Hector gives a turn of his head and there is the      Indian four feet from him. At the same instant the Indian      comes to his senses and sits bolt upright. The encounter      is high comedy but full of terror for all of them.      The Indian stands up.       Hector absurdly greets him.                                   HECTOR                   Hi!   Hello!      The Indian backs off from them, holding his hands up and      smiling crazily, as if to say, "Don't mind me, boys, I'm      just leaving..." Hector and Bobby are equally silly in      their response.                                 HECTOR                   Hey, come back... we're just                   moving through... don't                   apologize... we all got a fright...                   goodbye...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                112.         *137   CONTINUED:                                                       137      The Indian is in full retreat now, waving his hands about      apologetically, but making good distance from them.      Suddenly, he is gone. It has happened so quickly that      Hector and Bobby scarcely believe it has happened. Then      they realize that in their fright they have let go of the      horse. It has headed back down to the tastier pastures      in the valley. They see it disappearing into the trees      below them.                                 BOBBY                   That was stupid...                                 HECTOR                   Did you see him?                                 BOBBY                   Sure I saw him.                                 HECTOR                   Was he a Delaware?                                 BOBBY                   How the fuck should I know? He                   was an Indian... and Indians don't                   come in ones...                                 HECTOR                   Yeah... I think he was an Indian                   too... What about the horse?                                 BOBBY                   I'm not going back down there.                                 HECTOR                   Don't panic, Bobby...                                BOBBY                   Why not?      He runs off into the forest.        Then he turns and shouts to      Hector.                                BOBBY                   Come on!      Hector follows him, a mad race through the forest.138   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                             138      Hector and Bobby are sitting on a rock, gathering their      wits. It is odd how they talk so matter-of-factly.                                 HECTOR                   What did you see?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                             113.         *138   CONTINUED:                                                    138                                  BOBBY                   Same as you.                                 HECTOR                   An Indian... with long hair...                                 BOBBY                   That's it... kind of short...                                 HECTOR                   Yeah... he was't tall...                                 BOBBY                   That's the one.      Hector scans the hills above them.                                 HECTOR                   Let's get a bit further up.      They move off.     Bobby looks at Hector's backpack.                                 BOBBY                   What've you got in there?                                 HECTOR                   Some food, the logbooks, my                   letters, a candle...                                  BOBBY                   A gun?                                  HECTOR                   No.139   EXT. CAMP - DAY                                        139      They have stopped to make camp. It is late afternoon,      the sky just darkening, sharp shadows on the far peaks, a      purple glow in the air.                                 BOBBY                   We won't have a fire tonight. We                   should make a shelter though, in                   case it snows.                                 HECTOR                   What about bears, without a fire?      Bobby laughs quietly.                                 BOBBY                   Don't even think about bears, Hector.                                                            114.       *140   EXT. CAMP - NIGHT                                          140      They are making a round frame of bent branches and cover-      ing it with foliage. Half-hidden in the undergrowth, it      is big enough for two men to huddle in. Tonight they feel      the most basic of urges, to curl up in a ball and hide.141   INT. CAMP - NIGHT                                          141      They are safe and snug in their hideaway. Hector has lit      his candle. He is reading his letters, holding them close      to his eyes in the dimness. He has the air of someone      putting his affairs in order. Bobby is thinking aloud.                              BOBBY                Maybe he's lost too... on his                own... must be Delaware... they                were chased up here years ago...                everybody thought they'd cleared                off west... the other side of                Ohio... they were an angry lot...                no wonder... they used to farm on                the coast.      He looks up at Hector, and allows himself a small smile.                              BOBBY                Go on, read it out...      Hector looks up.                                 HECTOR                What?     No... not tonight...                              BOBBY                I've had to listen to it every                night since April... why not now?      Hector gives in. He holds a scrap of paper close to the      candle and reads.                              HECTOR                Dear, Father, I miss you. Three                frogs are dead. Everybody misses                you.  Bring me a bear's head and                claws and a gun. School is good.                Miss White has married a fireman.                Come back soon. Do not worry                about the frogs, they did not                have names. Nathaniel.      Hector looks up at Bobby.                              HECTOR                It's not so funny now as it was.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                              115.         *141   CONTINUED:                                                     141                                 BOBBY                   It wasn't funny then.                                 HECTOR                   If you knew him... if you could                   picture him saying it... it would                   be funnier.                                 BOBBY                   I had a father like you... nine                   months on a whaler and then three                   weeks at home telling us all how                   much he missed us...                                 HECTOR                   I'm going home, for the winter...      Bobby doesn't pursue his argument.    He tenses, then      sniffs the air vigorously.                                BOBBY                   Smell it?                                HECTOR                   No.                                 BOBBY                   Goddam it... smell it?      Hector sniffs some more.                                HECTOR                   Tobacco?      They whisper.                                 BOBBY                   Where the hell is it coming                   from?      He puts his head out of the shelter.                                 BOBBY                   I can't tell... a night like this                   it could carry for miles...      He huddles back inside the shelter.                                 BOBBY                   I wish I had a smoke.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                                116.       *141   CONTINUED:    (2)                                              141      After a tense silence, Hector takes a small package from      an inside pocket. He hands it to Bobby.                                 HECTOR                   I was saving it... you have it...      It is a wedge of tobacco.      Bobby takes it.                                 BOBBY                   What do you mean, you were saving                   it? You know the rules... no                   hoarding, tobacco or food... you've                   listened to me for a month, day and                   night... wanting a smoke...                                 HECTOR                   Well have it now... I don't smoke...                   take it...                                 BOBBY                   You've kept it from me, and you                   don't even use it...                                 HECTOR                   I was saving it for my birthday...                   I was going to give it to you then...                                 BOBBY                   I have to wait until your birthday                   for a smoke? Who are you... the                   fucking king?                                 HECTOR                   Go on, smoke it... have it now...                                 BOBBY                   I bloody won't... I'm not smoking                   on your command... I bloody won't.      There is a brooding silence.                                   BOBBY                   God,   your poor children... what do                   they   have to do for a piece of                   candy   in your house? It's very                   hard   to like you sometimes... d'you                   know   that?                                 HECTOR                   I know, Bobby... but that's how I                   feel about you, too... that's why                   we're friends... we try hard...                   come on... smoke your pipe...                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                  117.       *141   CONTINUED:    (3)                                                141      Hector is neatly turning the tables on Bobby, who now      appears churlish, childish.                                 BOBBY                   No... I'll have it in the morning.                                 HECTOR                   Come on... tell me... who would                   you rather be sitting here with...                   have a think...      Bobby does, and then breaks into a smile.                                   BOBBY                   Daniel Boone?      Hector smiles, too.                                 HECTOR                   Yeah. He would be a help... but                   after Daniel Boone...                                 BOBBY                   I can't think of anyone else... but                   you're impossible to like sometimes.      Suddenly Bobby grows shy of their growing intimacy.                                 BOBBY                   We should sleep. We've got a lot                   of running to do in the morning.      But Hector has other plans.          He is in control of their      friendship now.                                 HECTOR                   No we're not... we're going to                   talk... all night...      Bobby yields to this with the softest, most vulnerable      smile we have yet seen on his face.                                 HECTOR                   So... where do you want to start?      Bobby is silent, but still smiles his acquiescent smile.      Hector reads the silence well.                                 HECTOR                   I know where you want to start...      Bobby is still silent.                                   HECTOR                   Alicia...                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                             118.       *141   CONTINUED:    (4)                                           141      Bobby's smile breaks into a boyish laugh.                                 BOBBY                   Well... what about Alicia?                                  HECTOR                   I'm sorry...                                 BOBBY                   No... I'm sorry...                                 HECTOR                   What do you mean, you're sorry...                   I'm the one that has to apologize...      Bobby is mischievous now.                                 BOBBY                   Oh no you're not...      It will be a worthwhile night for both of them.142   EXT. FOREST - DAWN                                          142      It is a glorious dawn. Bobby sits looking out on the      valley, smoking his pipe. Behind him Hector is busy      writing in his log book.                                 BOBBY                   Isn't it a beautiful day?      Hector finishes his writing, tears out the page from his      book. He offers it to Bobby.                                 HECTOR                   I've said who we are and where                   we're headed. Want to sign it,                   write anything?                                  BOBBY                   No.                                 HECTOR                   The peak we logged yesterday...                   I've named it Nathanial Mountain.                   After my boy... is that fine with                   you?                                 BOBBY                   I was going to call it Tobacco                   Mountain... or Mount Alicia... but                   Nathaniel's fine...                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                           119.         *142   CONTINUED:                                                  142      Hector smiles. He puts the paper in a small leather      pouch, puts the pouch on the ground near the shelter,      and starts to build a small pile of protective stones      on top of it.      Bobby stands, and turns to watch him.                                 BOBBY                   Let's get away from here.                                   HECTOR                   North?                                   BOBBY                   Yeah.    Keep the sun on our backs.      Bobby walks off with great clouds of tobacco smoke      billowing defiantly around him, as if to challenge      their night-time tormentor.      Hector takes a last look at their shelter and its little      memorial cairn and then runs to catch up with Bobby.143   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                          143      Hector and Bobby look vulnerable as they walk through      the open forest with their meager packs on their backs.                                 BOBBY                   We can move quicker without the                   horse... we just have to keep                   moving... we have to get away from                   here.      Behind them they don't see the figure moving from the      cover of one tree to another, and then another figure      following the first. They move like ghosts.144   EXT. FOREST - DAY                                          144      Bobby is a few steps ahead of Hector. He dips down      over a rise, and instantly returns. He throws himself      and Hector to the ground. Hector tries to struggle free.                                   HECTOR                   What's wrong?                                  BOBBY                   Quiet.   They're on the other side...      Hector ducks lower, hugging the ground. Bobby is      already sliding up the slope to look over the rise.      Hector follows him.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                             120.144   CONTINUED:                                                    144      On the other side, they see the women and children of      a small group of Indians at the edge of a stream. The      women are washing clothes, the children are splashing and      playing. We are close enough to hear their laughter.                                 BOBBY                   We're right in the middle of them...                                 HECTOR                   Does it have to be bad?   They might                   be friendly...                                 BOBBY                   They were chased here... They should                   be on the coast growing corn...      Bobby turns to Hector to make his point. That is when he      sees the first of the figures, just the ghost of a shadow      moving from tree to rock. His eyes flick across the      forest behind them. He sees another figure caught in      the act of seeking cover, looking absurdly embarrassed      for the fleeting moment that we see it. Then Bobby      sees another. Are they teasing them? It looks so much      like a game children would play.                                   BOBBY                   Oh-oh...                                               *                                   HECTOR                   What's wrong?                                          *                                 BOBBY                   They're behind us. They must                   think we're stalking the women...      Hector looks and sees nothing. Fifty Indians hold their      breath. The forest seems empty. But Hector looks at      Bobby. He is grey-faced, a man who is looking at death.      Hector knows they are doomed.                                 BOBBY                   Do you want to run?                                 HECTOR                   I'll do what you do.                                                                          *      They leap to their feet and run. There is only one      way to go, over the rise, through the women and children      and across the stream. To the watching Indians it looks      like a direct attack on their families. From behind      trees and rocks they emerge and begin the chase. A      tragedy of misunderstanding.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                                 121.144   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             144      Hector and Bobby scatter the women and children and      splash across the stream, burning all their energy in               *      this mad life-or-death race. Although their families      are safe, the Indians keep up the chase, the moment of      confusion compounded in action. They lope easily after      them, waiting for the white men to tire. There are no               *      whoops or shouts. They follow Hector and Bobby into the      trees, spreading out on either side, shaping the human      net that will soon engulf them.      It is a menacing spectacle. Death is near.        Hector      and Bobby stay close together as they run.                                 BOBBY                   When they catch up... fight...                   it'll be quicker... fight like                   hell...                                 HECTOR                   They're not going to catch us.                   We're going home.      Hector stretches out an arm to Bobby.                                 HECTOR                   Hold my hand, Bobby...      They hold hands and run.145   EXT. BUILDING - DAY                                           145      A war party of media people surround Hector as he exits      a Yellow Cab. He forces his way through the yelling      crowd of REPORTERS and camera crews. Hector is trying      to make his way into a crumbling apartment building in      Queens. Policemen help Hector through the barrage of                *      shouted questions.                                 REPORTER #1                   Do you know the lady, Mr. Troup?                                 REPORTER #2                   Think you'll go to jail again?                                 CAMERAMAN                   Look here for a second, will you,                   Mr. Troup?                                 REPORTER #1                   Will you talk to us when you come                   out?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                             122.145   CONTINUED:                                                    145      Hector enters the building. The media mob immediately      switch off their energy. They light cigarettes, fiddle              *      with cameras, stare into space, as if someone has      shouted "Cut."146   INT. BUILDING - DAY                                         146      Hector climbs to the fourth floor.     A POLICEMAN goes with      him.      Two paramedics come up the stairs behind them, carrying a      stretcher. The Policeman stops.                                 POLICEMAN                   You guys are downstairs... third                   floor... thirty-eight...      The paramedics turn around and head back down the stairs.      Hector looks at the Policeman curiously.                                 POLICEMAN                   You're forty-eight.      They continue climbing.147   INT. APARTMENT - DAY                                        147      Hector and the Policeman squeeze past a cluster of people      at the door and enter the apartment.                                 POLICEMAN                   This is Troup!      A DETECTIVE is with another man who looks like a city      official.                                 DETECTIVE                   Come here, Troup. I'm Cobb.      Hector joins them.                                 DETECTIVE                   You bring everything?                                HECTOR                   What?                                 DETECTIVE                   Building warrant, license, fire                   certificate, sanitation                   certificate... I want them all...                   This is Mr. Santiago, from the                   city... insurance...                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                               123.147   CONTINUED:                                                      147                                 HECTOR                   This isn't really my building...                   it's my partner's... I just took                   the call and came right over...                   I have to leave town in an hour                          *                   or so anyway...                                 DETECTIVE                   Slow down, Troup... so it's 3:15                   on a Friday... you're staying here                   'til Mr. Santiago gets the                   paperwork... get your partner over                   here, with everything... this is                   serious...      Hector looks at his watch.                                   HECTOR                   3:35...                                 MR. SANTIAGO                   I might have to close the place                   down.                                   HECTOR                   Where is she?      The Detective and Hector walk down the hall. They stop      at the door of the bathroom. Hector looks inside. There      is a large ragged hole in the floor. At the far side of      it the toilet unit dangles at a dangerous angle into the      hole, held only by its plumbing. Firemen are working to      secure it and what is left of the floor with metal props      and hydraulic jacks. Lying on the floor below,      surrounded by rubble, and being attended by the      paramedics, is an old lady, MRS. PHILIPPOPOLIS. She      tries to sit up when she sees Hector peering at her over      the rim of the hole. She looks angry.                                 MR. PHILIPPOPOLIS                   I phoned you Monday... I told you                   the floor was making noises...                                 HECTOR                   Not me, Mrs. Philippopolis... my                   ex-partner... I think you spoke                          *                   to him... How are you feeling?      Hector says this clearly, for the benefit of the      Detective and Mr. Santiago. The Detecitve is unimpressed.                                 DETECTIVE                   Come back from there, Troup, the                   floor's still moving...                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                             124.       *147   CONTINUED:     (2)                                          147                                 HECTOR                   I'll make a couple of calls... I'll                   straighten it out... is she bad?                   Why don't they move her?                                 DETECTIVE                   They waited for a portable X-Ray                   machine... they can move her now.                                 HECTOR                   She seems in good spirits...      As if in response, Mrs. Philippopolis shouts up to      Hector as she sees him leaving the bathroom above her.                                 MRS. PHILIPPOPOLIS                   Wait 'til my son sees his mother                   lying here like this... he's gonna                   sue you... you're a lousy landlord...                   you should be ashamed... to let old                   people live like this... I phoned                   you Monday... I have a witness!                   I was dancing with a prince on my                   eighteenth birthday, and now look at                   me... you have me falling down a                   toilet!148   INT. BUILDING - DAY                                         148      Hector retreats into the hallway. Takes out his mobile      phone and dials, while watching the ominous Mr. Santiago      making copius notes in his book. Hector gets connected.                                 HECTOR                   Boris... why did you do this to                   me? Get down here now... they                   want all kinds of certificates...                   They won't let me leave the                   building... I have my kids tonight,                   I haven't seen them in four years...                   I did tell you, I've been talking                   about it all week... how come they                   phoned me, this isn't my building?                   What? Don't tell me anymore... I                   want you here, now... and on your                   knee... I'll phone the lawyer...                   but you move. My weekend's ruined                   before it's started.      Hector quickly dials another number.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                             125.148   CONTINUED:                                                    148                                 HECTOR                   Anna... thank God... you have to                   help me... I'm still in Queens...                      *                   I've got cops here and everything                      *                   ... I need your car... I don't have                   time to pick up the rental now...                   they won't let me leave the                   building... you come down here...                   and put my bag in the car... no..                      *                   I have to pick the kids up by six,                   otherwise I fuck up her weekend                   too... she'll kill me... this is                   an emergency... what can I say?                   Please... right... okay...      He finishes the call just as Santiago approaches, waving      his notebook now full of incriminating notes.                                 SANTIAGO                   It looks like water rotted the                   floor... You have any plumbing                   maintenance records?                                 HECTOR                   At the office... I might have some                   bills... it's not my building.                         *      Santiago is talking almost to himself now, absorbed in the      mundane mechanics of Hector's building.                                 SANTIAGO                   It's a weird one... I don't know                   how water could sit in there for                   so long without somebody noticing                   ... you didn't use water-resistent                   paint on the ceilings did you?      Hector shakes his head wearily.                                 HECTOR                   I don't really know...                                 SANTIAGO                   You're going to have to check out                      *                   the whole building... you know                   that, don't you?                                 HECTOR                   Can I do it Monday?                                 SANTIAGO                   Good joke... it'll take you a                   month.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                            126.148   CONTINUED:    (2)                                            148      Hector is already dialing another number as Santiago      wanders off in search of further fascinating discoveries.                                 HECTOR                   Can I speak with Leonard, please...                   Mr. Deutsch? My name is Hector                   Troup, Borlonski and Troup, Real                   Estate...      There is a moment's pause.                                 HECTOR                   Leonard... it's Hector... Borlonski                   and Troup... yes... listen, we've                   had a domestic accident at our                   Eighth Street building... a floor                     *                   ... and an old lady... she did                   mention the word sue, but it might                   have been hysterics... what I need                   to know is what certificates you                   have on file for the building... I                    *                   know it's Friday... just do one                       *                   thing... let me know if the                   insurance is current... I need to                   know that... I'm on my mobile...                   anything you have... before five                   ... thank you...      During the call Hector has walked   down the hall and back      to the hole in the floor. He sees    Mrs. Philippopolis,      now strapped in a stretcher, being   carried out of the      room below. At the sight of him,    she tries to sit up,      straining on her straps.                                 MRS. PHILIPPOPOLIS                   My son's downstairs... when he                   sees me like this he'll kill you...                   go on... jump through the hole...                   see what it feels like! Break both                   legs!      Hector is almost tempted to do what she says.149   INT. BUILDING - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                          149      Hector is following the paramedics as they negotiate      Mrs. Philippopolis down the three flights of stairs.      He is on the phone again. This time to his former wife.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                               127.149   CONTINUED:                                                      149                                 HECTOR                   I'll be on the way in thirty                   minutes at the outside... I can't                   say... Queens to New Jersey, on                   a Friday... what do you think?                   I'll be there... it's important to                   me too, I've been trying to put                   this weekend together for years...                   I'll be there... I won't take                   it out on the kids, I can walk                   away from problems... as soon as                   I get the car... I'll be there...      All the while Mrs. Philippopolis issues a non-stop                    *      torrent of Greek expletives -- calmly and in a considered             *      tone, but obviously obscene. Hector is shocked.                       *150   EXT. BUILDING - DAY                                           150      On a street Hector stands with a Policeman watching                   *      Mrs. Philippopolis being loaded into the ambulance. Her      SON is with her. When she is safely inside he walks      towards Hector. Fortunately he is of modest build, and      a head shorter than Hector, and he seems to be saving      his wrath for the Courthouse.                                 SON                   Mr. Troup, I'm George                   Philippopolis.      They shake hands.                                 HECTOR                   I'm sorry about your mother...                                 SON                   Well... it's happened... you want                   to travel with us, or do you have                   a car?                                HECTOR                   What?                                 SON                   To the hospital...                                 HECTOR                   Well, I wasn't planning to...                                 SON                   You're not making a visit to the                   hospital?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               128.150   CONTINUED:                                                      150                                 HECTOR                   I've talked to your mother, given                   her my best wishes... she wants                   her family with her now... Any                   other Friday but this one.      The Son addresses the Policeman.                                 SON                   He's not coming to the hospital...      The Policeman looks at Hector.                                 POLICEMAN                   That could look bad...      The cop is enjoying his role as straight man to these      two. Hector takes out his diary.                                 HECTOR                   Look, George... here's what I can                   do... I'll visit her on Tuesday,                   I'll organize some flowers...                   lots...                                                  *                                 SON                   Screw the flowers... who's gonna                   check her into the hospital...                   who's gonna pay? It's your                   building that fell down...                                                                            *      He nods his head to the Policeman.                                 HECTOR                   They won't let me leave here...      The Policeman this time backs him up.                                  POLICEMAN                   That's true.      The Son backs off to the waiting ambulance reluctantly.                                 SON                   Wait 'til they hear this in court                        *                   ... he wouldn't even make a trip                         *                   to the hospital... Can't you even                        *                   give me a credit card number?                            *151   EXT. BUILDING - ANOTHER ANGLE - DAY                            151      The ambulance drives off just as BORIS arrives.       Hector      runs to the car.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               129.         *151   CONTINUED:                                                      151                                 HECTOR                   It's never been this bad, Boris.                   Deutsch is checking the                   insurance... did you bring the                   rest?                                 BORIS                   Yeah... we're covered for most                   things... the license is current,                   the inspection certificate is                   okay...                                 HECTOR                   What's with the we... it's your                   problem.                                 BORIS                   How is she?                                 HECTOR                   She's a witch... her   bones must be                   made of steel... she   didn't break                   a thing... it might   help if you                   make a visit to the   hospital...                   why did you do this   to me?                                 BORIS                   I'm sorry, Hector... I   just put                   your name on the lousy   forms... I                   didn't plan this... I   just                   borrowed your name on   the titles.      Hector doesn't let up on his anger.                                 HECTOR                   I told you to stop doing that...                   why does this keep happening to                   me... my name is mine... use your                   own name, Boris Borlonski... will                   you remember that?                   Boris Borlonski!      Boris is conciliatory.                                 BORIS                   Hector... forgive me... I'll take                   care of it... don't let it spoil                   your weekend... four years, huh?                   You make the most of it... and                   don't worry, you'll walk away                   from this... I'm sorry...      Hector is calm now. We can sense real depth in their      relationship, despite Boris's pranks.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               130.       *151   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             151                                 HECTOR                   Yeah, I'm sorry too... you have                   to get out of this business... I                   thought I had...                                 BORIS                   Go on... have a great weekend...                   I'll talk to you on Monday... we'll                   straighten everything out...                                 HECTOR                   This is the worst it's been.                                 BORIS                   Everything can be fixed... always.      Then Hector's girl friend ANNA arrives in her car. It is      a bright pink station wagon, highly decorated with flower      motifs and slogans like "ANNA'S ARRANGEMENTS," and "FRESH      OR DRY, WE'LL PLEASE THE EYE." Anna is a florist.      Hector brightens when he sees her. Everything is falling      into place. All he has to do now is cross two rivers      and Manhatan Island in under an hour, in Anna's pink car.      He runs to meet her.                                 ANNA                   Get in... you can dropp me at the                   shop.      Hector gets into the car, smiling broadly.152   INT. CAR - DAY                                                152      Anna drives skilfully through the busy Friday streets.                                 HECTOR                   You bring my bag?                                 ANNA                   Yeah. Your camera's in there too.                   Take some photographs of the                   kids...                                  HECTOR                   Sure.   Thanks.                                 ANNA                   Nervous?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               131.         *152   CONTINUED:                                                      152                                 HECTOR                   Not much... just like I'm being                   executed...                                 ANNA                   Well you deserve to suffer.      Our Hectors have been hearing this for centuries, but at      least Anna smiles when she says it.                                 ANNA                   Don't worry... this is the                   beginning of something... not the                   end... you can start being a                   father again.                                 HECTOR                   I'm glad you talked me into it.                                 ANNA                   I didn't do much... you were                   ready...                                 HECTOR                   You're right... you're absolutely                   right... I was ready... I am                   ready, for everything... I'm                   fixing all that shit with Boris...                   I told him... it can't go on...                   I want my freedom.      Anna is looking at him amusedly, nodding her head with      every earnest pronouncement that he makes.                                 HECTOR                   ... and the kids... that'll work                   out... we can have them over                   sometimes... Yeah?                                 ANNA                   Sure... that was the plan... when                   we have the space...                                 HECTOR                   Right, when we have the space...                   when we get the bigger apartment...                   together...                                 ANNA                   There you go... you said it...                   the bigger apartment together...      Hector is pleased with himself.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               132.152   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             152                                 HECTOR                   Yeah... I said it, didn't I?                                 ANNA                   You're a man of decision,                   Hector...      Hector is high on his optimism now, and cheeky with it.                                 HECTOR                   Yes I am... Together... I said it                   ... and get out of my car at the                   corner here... I don't have the                   time to go 'round the block.      Anna pulls into the curb. Hector leans over to embrace      her before she has stopped the car.                                 HECTOR                   Thanks... for the car...                   everything...                                 ANNA                   Do the best you can with them,                   Hector... and one more thing...                   deliver these...      She indicates a massive bouquet of flowers wrapped in      cellophane, taking up the whole of the luggage space in      the car.                                  HECTOR                   What?   Anna, I can't...                                 ANNA                   Here's the address... just two                   blocks before the bridge... a                   five minute detour. It's a                   golden wedding... you have to...      She looks him straight in the eye.                                 ANNA                   We have to help each other...      Hector accepts this.                                 ANNA                   Oh, you'll need gas too... Go to                   it, Hector...      She kisses him quickly, but lovingly.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                            133.        *152   CONTINUED:    (3)                                           152                                 ANNA                   Phone if there's any disasters...                   don't suffer alone...      Hector watches Anna stride, in her business-like way,      around the corner OUT OF SIGHT. He is almost home.153   INT./EXT. CAR - DAY                                         153      A trip from Queens to New Jersey at five o'clock on      a Friday afternoon is going to look like a dream sequence      whatever you do with it, and that's fine.      Hector's trip to his children has more meaning for us      than a simple journey from A to B. We will be aware of      our other Hectors, and the journeys home that they did      or didn't manage to make. This car trip will pull the      threads together.      And after so many images of the natural world, a world      little altered by man, the PANORAMIC SHOTS of New York in      all its mad glory will place our Hector in a new dimen-      sion. If there is a breathtaking moment in this film,      when everything comes together, when all the pieces fit,      then it will be somewhere around here that it happens.      Six thousand years ago we left Hector on a beach, aching      for his family. If the traffic allows, tonight in New      Jersey Hector will complete his journey.      We will GO WITH Hector OVER the bridge, ACROSS the      avenues of Manhattan and THROUGH the tunnel. His PHONE      RINGS ONCE.                                 HECTOR                   Hello... Leonard, hello... yes...                   we're insured... thank God... yes                   now I know God's a lawyer...                   thanks...      On the outskirts of Jersey City he finds the suburban      street he is looking for. If the last crosslight holds      on green then he might even make it on time.      Hector stops the car outside Janet's house and lets out      a sigh of relief.154   EXT. HOUSE - EVENING                                        154      Hector's former wife, JANET, and her new husband, DONALD,      come out of the house as Hector walks up to the door.      Donald is carrying luggage and heads straight for their      car in the driveway.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                               134.154   CONTINUED:                                                      154                                 DONALD                   Hi, Hector.      He starts loading up the car.       Janet talks to Hector.                                 JANET                   You made it. The kids are just                   coming. They're not over the                   moon about going to the beach                   house. I ought to warn you.                                 HECTOR                   Why didn't you say? I could have                   fixed up something else. I                   thought it would be a good place                   to get to know them again...                                 JANET                   Well, I figured you should be                            *                   allowed to make your own mistakes.                   It's only for a couple of nights,                   they can take it... and you'll                   learn... Check into a hotel if                   it gets too much... they like                   hotels.      She shouts into the house.                                 JANET                   Come on, you two... your father's                   ready to go...      She hands Hector a piece of paper.                                 JANET                   This is where we'll be, if                   anything crops up... thanks for                   the break...      Hector gets a little scared about what he has taken on.                                 HECTOR                   Maybe this is a bit sudden for                   them... Maybe I should have come                   over a couple of nights and got                   to know them...      Janet doesn't let him off the hook.                                 JANET                   By Monday, you'll know them...      Then the children come out of the house, BETSY, who is      about thirteen, and TOM, who is eleven.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               135.         *154   CONTINUED:    (2)                                               154                                 JANET                   Here he is, the invisible dad.      She turns to Hector.                                 JANET                   That's what they call you.      Hector is daunted by how grown up they are, not any      more the little kids in the photograph in his wallet.                                HECTOR                   Hi.      They hardly lift their heads to him.                                BETSY                   Hi.                                TOM                   Hi.      Janet takes control of the farewells.                                 JANET                   You three have a good weekend.                   If it's too miserable at the                   house your father said he'll                   take you to a hotel.      Hector nods his head obediently. He always did with      Janet. The children let their mother pat them and follow      Hector to his car, eyes to the ground.                                 JANET                   Good luck, Hector.      Donald shouts from behind the wheel of his car, where he      has been hiding.                                 DONALD                   See you Monday, Hector.      The kids load themselves into the back of Hector's car.      Betsy notices the huge arrangement of flowers, wrapped      in cellophane and red ribbon. It seems to have grown      even larger than before.                                 BETSY                   Are those for mom?      Hector looks at the flowers.       His face contorts in guilt      and anxiety.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              136.       *154   CONTINUED:    (3)                                            154                                 HECTOR                   Oh no... Jesus save me... what                   have I done...                                   BETSY                   What's wrong?      He picks up his mobile phone and is about to dial Anna's      number, then he stops.                                 HECTOR                   No... I can't face it, not just                   now...      He looks at the kids.                                   HECTOR                   Let's go.155   INT./EXT. CAR - DUSK                                         155      They are driving on the freeway. It is dusk. Hector is      on the telephone again. He can't let go of business.                                 HECTOR                   Excuse me, kids... I have to                   consult the oracle...      He gets connected.                                 HECTOR                   Hello... God? No, Leonard, it's                   Hector... just a joke... sorry to                   phone you at home, did Boris call                   you? The insurance is fine? Good                   ... but she could claim negligence                   ... oh, she's got a lawyer                   already? That's a bad omen...      Betsy and Tom are listening in the back seat, eager for      clues about this virtual stranger in front of them.                                 HECTOR                   Is there anything we can do right                   now... make her an offer... Sure,                   with the insurance company... sure...                   you're right... me, too... I have                   the kids in the car with me right                   now... sorry to bother you...                   'bye...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                137.155   CONTINUED:                                                       155      Hector throws the phone onto the passenger seat, lets out      a sigh, and catches sight of the kids in the mirror.      Their perplexed expressions make them look younger than      they are, and vulnerable. Hector's heart aches for them.      He smiles and puts on an act of brightness.                                 HECTOR                   That's it! The last call... the                   weekend starts right now... we                   have things to do... look out for                   a Safeway... we need some                   supplies... and gas... oh my God,                   gas... soon...      They return his look with blank expressions.        He picks up      the phone and offers it to them.                                 HECTOR                   Want to make any calls?    Betsy?      She shakes her head.                                   HECTOR                   Tom?                                 TOM                   No... and it's Thomas...                                 HECTOR                   But we called you Tom... that's                   what it says on your birth                   certificate...                                   THOMAS (TOM)                   I changed it.      Hector wisely lets it go.                                 HECTOR                   Right... it's your name... you                            *                   can do that... Safeway... keep your                       *                   eyes skinned... and I could murder                        *                   a Chicken McNugget.                                       *156   INT. SAFEWAY - NIGHT                                           156      Hector is pushing a cart around a large Safeway. The      place is almost deserted. Betsy and Thomas are tagging      along.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               138.156   CONTINUED:                                                      156      For every four items Hector puts in his cart Betsy      removes three and returns them to the shelf. Hector      notices and puts up with it for a while. But when Betsy      returns the rolls of kitchen towel he has selected he      makes a stand. He turns to face her.                                 HECTOR                   What's wrong with that? It's a                   kitchen roll... why can't I pick                   a kitchen roll?      Betsy is defiant.                                 BETSY                   It's bleached... and it isn't                   recycled... you don't care...                   you just buy junk...      She picks up a more friendly brand of kitchen towel from      the shelf and throws it into the cart. Hector has the      sense to back down.                                 HECTOR                   Good point, Betsy...      Betsy keeps on the attack.                                 BETSY                   Everything you buy is junk... I                   don't eat steak... and what's                   this...      She prods a packet of frozen hamburgers.                                 BETSY                   Ugh! Why don't you ask us what                   we like... it'll save you money...                   you buy junk, we won't eat it...      A trace of girlish common sense has crept into her voice.      Hector warms to her.                                   HECTOR                   You're right.      Hector pushes the cart to her.                                 HECTOR                   Well, get to it... I'll just tag                   along...      Betsy moves off with the cart.                                 BETSY                   I do it every week anyway.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                          139.156   CONTINUED:    (2)                                          156      Thomas backs her up.                                THOMAS                   She does. She tells us what to                   eat. We let her.      Hector follows them up the aisle.                                 HECTOR                   Can I just keep a couple of those                   steaks? We can't live on chicken.                   *157   EXT. GAS STATION - NIGHT                                   157      Hector is filling up the car in a gas station close to      the Safeway. An attractive woman is filling her car in      the next line. Her eyes and Hector's meet. For some      reason they exchange the smallest smile. For a few      brief moments they are talking without words as their      tanks fill. The ten billionth romance in the history of      the planet sparks into life and fizzles out again in the      twinkling of an eye. By the time their credit cards are      back in their pockets their love is a memory. From the      back of the car the kids have watched it all.      Betsy gives Hector a withering look of disapproval as he      climbs back into the car.158   INT./EXT. CAR - NIGHT                                      158      Back on the road, it is later. The kids have fallen      asleep. Hector relaxes. He watches them in their sleep,      searching for some traces of the little children that      have haunted his thoughts for so many years, the tots      he abandoned.159   EXT. HOLIDAY HOUSE - NIGHT                                 159      The car pulls up at the holiday house. Hector gets out.      It is dark, but we can hear the sound of the SEA and      there is sand underfoot. Hector walks to the house and      unlocks the door. He puts on a couple of exterior lights.      He carries Thomas, still sleeping, from the car and into      the house. Betsy follows him, still half-asleep, groaning      fussily. She talks through her yawns.                                 BETSY                   Are you going to bring the flowers                   in?                                 HECTOR                   Don't mention the flowers.                                                            140.       *160   INT. HOUSE - NIGHT                                         160      Later, Hector can't sleep. It has been too eventful a      day. He sits bleary-eyed watching a late-night TV SHOW.      A man sits cross-legged on a studio floor and is talking      to a phone-in viewer. The TV man has five small stones      which he regularly scatters on the floor.                              TV MAN (V.O.)                This is good, Tony, the stones                are talking to me already... now                here's something... travel...                movement... Tony, are you planning                a move... travel... anything?                              TONY (V.O.)                Yes I am... I've been thinking                about a move to California...                              TV MAN (V.O.)                The big one, eh, Tony? These                stones are really talking here...                what are you planning for yourself                in California?                              TONY (V.O.)                I'm hoping for an acting career,                Mel...                              TV MAN (V.O.)                Tony, these stones really like                what you're planning... there is                no doubt in my mind about that...                now listen... you have to be                specific... these stones really                want to tell you something, be it                love, money or the purpose of your                life... but I want a specific                question from you... think about                it... what do you want to know...                love... or your income level next                year? Be as specific as you                can, Tony...      Perhaps this might have enthralled one of our earlier      Hectors, but our modern one is simply restless. He      stands up and leaves the room.161   INT. HOUSE - NIGHT                                         161      Next door, he watches the kids sleeping in their little      holiday beds. Hector watches them. We've seen our      Hectors do this before, and we feel the echo. But as      he turns to leave the room Hector gets a fright.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                               141.         *161   CONTINUED:                                                      161      Betsy starts talking loudly. At first Hector thinks she      is awake, giving him into trouble, but she is fast asleep.                                 BETSY                   Get me the books... all the books...                   all of the books... no, no, no...                   not the pancakes... not the                   pancakes... no...      She changes in an instant from a bossy adolescent to a      tearful, crumpled little girl. She sobs pitifully.                                 BETSY                   ... not the pancakes...      Hector is a confusion of feelings: frightened,      fascinated, impotent. How can he help her? How could he      possibly unravel the secret of the pancakes, what comfort      could he offer his stranger daughter if he did? It is      a spooky, mystical moment for Hector, more mystical than      the mumbo-jumbo still issuing from the TV next door.                                 TV WOMAN (V.O.)                   ... find your true cosmic partner                   first time around... every weekday                   morning at three here on the Psychic                   Network... Lucinda's Horoscope Dating                   Show... remember there is an answer,                   and there is a special partner out                   there for you...      Hector moves quietly out of the room, Betsy's sobs having      subsided. Just as he is closing the door he gets      another surprise, this time from the sleeping Thomas.                                 THOMAS                   ... don't let the oil run out...                   yes you did... watch the oil...                   why... why?      Hector closes the bedroom door.     He is one spooked, moved      human being.162   INT. HOUSE - MORNING                                          162      In the morning, they are making breakfast in the kitchen.      The kids are having juice and cereal. Hector is      scrambling some eggs.                                 HECTOR                   How about some eggs?      They shake their heads.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                          142.         *162   CONTINUED:                                                 162                                 HECTOR                   You don't eat eggs?                                 BETSY                   How many have you got in there?                                  HECTOR                   Three.   Is that all right?                                 BETSY                   For a week, maybe.      Hector does a little probing.                                 HECTOR                   How about pancakes, Betsy... d'you                   like pancakes?                                 BETSY                   Not much... why?                                 HECTOR                   I just wondered. Pancakes don't                   mean much to you?                                 BETSY                   They don't mean a thing.     Why?                                 HECTOR                   Nothing.      The mystery of Betsy's pancake dream is evidently lost in      infinity. Hector changes the subject.                                 HECTOR                   I thought we could walk into town                   this morning. I saw the Funfair                   when we came through last night.                                 THOMAS                   We don't go to Funfairs.                                 HECTOR                   Let's take the walk anyway.                                 THOMAS                   I brought some books.   I want to                   stay home and read.      Hector is determined to make it work.                                  HECTOR                   No.   We're taking a walk.                                                            143.163   INT. HALLWAY - DAY                                         163      They are preparing to leave the house.   Thomas is still      reluctant to go.                              THOMAS                It's going to rain... we should                stay.                              HECTOR                Here's an umbrella... and there                must be some old coats in here...                and shoes... I only have these                I'm wearing...                              THOMAS                Donald has some shoes...      Thomas is already in the cupboard under the stairs.   He      emerges with a pair of sturdy walking shoes.                              HECTOR                I don't know if I want to wear                Donald's shoes.                              THOMAS                Why not?      Hector declines to explain the complex   reasons that he      might have for not wanting to wear the   shoes of his      children's replacement father. He sits    down on the            *      stairs to put them on. Then something    on the wall      catches his eye.                               HECTOR                Wow.   Look at this.      The kids' heights have been marked on the wall on some      long-ago holiday. The dates are beside them.                              HECTOR                Six years ago. Look at that...                What's this?      He points to a mark and a date lower down on the wall.                              THOMAS                That was the flood. The sea came                right up. Donald says it's the                icecap melting. It's going to get                worse. That's why Mom's selling                the place.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                               144.163   CONTINUED:                                                      163                                 HECTOR                   It comes up every year?                                   BETSY                   The last two.164   EXT. BEACH - DAY                                               164      They are on the beach, walking in the direction of town.      Hector strides ahead in a show of enthusiasm, although      awkward in Donald's big shoes. The kids trail behind.      He calls back to them.                                 HECTOR                   Where are the birds?    Is it the                   wrong time of year?                                 BETSY                   They don't come over so much.                   The shellfish have gone... that's                   what...                                 HECTOR                   That's what Donald says?                                 BETSY                   Yes... and it happens to be true.      Hector looks at the sky.       He speaks quietly to himself.                                 HECTOR                   Please don't rain... please...165   EXT. FUNFAIR - DAY                                             165      The light DRIZZLE now falling is keeping away what few                *      fun-seekers there are left in town. The Funfair is not      much fun. It is the end of the season. Hector and the                 *      kids are a sorry sight parading the empty alleys. The      kids seem to glory in the misery of it all, getting back      at Hector for four years of neglect. Heavy-hearted,      Hector still tries to make a go of it.                                 HECTOR                   Let's have a ride...      He has stopped at some dated space rockets.                                 BETSY                   The seats are wet.      Hector triumphs. He pulls a wad of kitchen roll from      his pocket and starts to wipe the seats.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                              145.165   CONTINUED:                                                     165                                 HECTOR                   Kitchen roll, unbleached,                   re-cycled, biodegradable... dry                   seats...      Betsy has the grace to smile as the three of them climb      aboard the rockets.      As the attendant releases the brakes and cranks them up      into the drizzle, 'round and 'round, Hector knows that he      has to do something to break the awful distance between      him and his kids. He looks at them. They sit grimly in      their rockets, one in front of him and one behind. Their      faces are set in expressions of what? Boredom?      Resignation? Patience? Expectancy? Then he realizes      what is going on. They are waiting for him to open up to      them, talk to them seriously, explain himself. He looks      at Betsy's face and sees in it the years of his absence,      her stoicism, her patience, her courage. It moves him.      He leans over to her.                                 HECTOR                   This is ridiculous. Let's go                   somewhere and talk.      Betsy smiles her small patient smile.                                 BETSY                   All right, if you want to...      Hector looks to Thomas. Thomas vigorously nods his      agreement. Hector is happier. He looks down on the      decrepit fairground.                                 HECTOR                   How do we land these things?166   INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY                                       166      The only place the small town has to offer is a deserted      coffee shop on the shorefront. Hector, Betsy and Thomas      sit at a corner table, beyond them through the window is      the beach and the ocean.                                 HECTOR                   Sure you won't have a pancake,                          *                   Betsy?                                                  *      Betsy gets impatient.                                                *                                BETSY                                      *                   No!                                                     *                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                146.166   CONTINUED:                                                       166                                 HECTOR                   Okay, first question?                                     *      The kids are ready for this.        There is no coyness now.                                 THOMAS                   Where have you been?                                 BETSY                   What he means is why did you stay                   away?      Hector begins like a story-teller embarking on a long      saga.                                 HECTOR                   Well, that's a fair question...                   your mother and I got divorced...                   you're big enough to remember...                   she must have told you all that?                                 BETSY                   Sure she has... but lots of people                   get divorced... that doesn't mean                   they disappear...                                 HECTOR                   You're right... what can I tell                   you... I went kind of crazy after                   that, for a good while... I came                   around a few times... remember?                                 THOMAS                   Not really.                                 HECTOR                   Well, it wasn't easy... everything                   with her and Donald happened                   pretty quickly. I missed you both                   really badly... but for a while I                   thought I should stay away, until                   your mother got settled... no,                   that's not really true... I missed                   you... but I was kind of crazy at                   the same time... your mother and I                   married young... I wasn't used to                   the freedom... it went to my head                   ... then you moved to New Jersey.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               147.166   CONTINUED:    (2)                                             166                                 BETSY                   It's forty minutes away on a slow                   bus...                                 HECTOR                   You're right, you're right. I                   don't have too many excuses for                   the first year... the second year                   is easier... I was in jail.      Hector is pleased with this.       A solid excuse.                                THOMAS                   What for?                                 HECTOR                   We were doing government work,                   big contracts... there were some                   temptations... my boss asked me                   to shuffle a few papers... there                   was a lot of money in it... I had                   to testify against him... it was                   like killing somebody.      Hector thinks about this, remembering the pain. For us      there is the echo of the real killing that was done long      ago.                                 BETSY                   Thomas wanted to visit you in                   jail, but Mom wouldn't let him.                        *      Hector looks at Thomas.                                HECTOR                   You did?      Thomas nods proudly.                                 HECTOR                   Well I appreciate that... but I'm                   glad your mother didn't let you.                   I'll tell you all about it some                   day.  It was no fun. One year                   and eight months.                                 THOMAS                   We didn't even know when you got                   out.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               148.166   CONTINUED:    (3)                                             166                                 HECTOR                   I wasn't in great shape... I sure                   didn't want you to see me then...                   so I got back to work... in real                   estate... found a partner, we met                      *                   in jail...                                             *      The kids look shocked at this.                                      *                                HECTOR                                    *                   No. He's a good man, a good man.                       *                   I like him. I mean it. He's my                         *                   friend.                                                *                                 BETSY                   That's what you do now?                                 HECTOR                   Yes. We rent apartments... but                   we want to get into commercial                   property... people are a                   nuisance... does that sound bad?      Betsy shrugs her shoulders.                                 BETSY                   How should I know?      Hector carries on with his story.                                 HECTOR                   Just recently I've been feeling                   good, things have been going                   well... and I missed you two...                   so here we are...                                 BETSY                   What about your girl friend?                                 HECTOR                   Who told you about her?                                BETSY                   Nobody.                                 HECTOR                   Anna... she's nice... she wants to                   meet you, real soon... she sells                   flowers... well, you know that...                   and on Monday she's probably going                   to kill me...      The kids smile.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               149.166   CONTINUED:    (4)                                             166                                 THOMAS                   Betsy thinks that was her at the                   gas station...                                 BETSY                   Shut up, Tom...      Hector has to think to remember.                                 HECTOR                   No... heck... no... did you think                   she was following us?                                 THOMAS                   She's always thinking up stories                   like that... she never stops...                                 BETSY                   Well, if people don't tell you                   things...                                 HECTOR                   She's right, Thomas... people                   should talk more.                                 THOMAS                   So you haven't been staying away                   because of us?                                 HECTOR                   What do you mean? Is that what                   you thought? I was avoiding you                   two? No... you mustn't think                   that... that's terrible...      They have almost exhausted themselves in this first bout      of talking. Hector looks out at the sea.                                 HECTOR                   The rain's off. Let's go.167   EXT. BEACH - DAY                                              167      Betsy and Hector are sitting on the sea wall, watching      Thomas play on the beach. The sun is emerging.                                 BETSY                   I have to ask you something else.                                HECTOR                   Go on.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                              150.167   CONTINUED:                                                     167                                 BETSY                   Why did you leave just two days                   before my swimming test?      Hector is moved by the depth of her memory, her pain.                                 HECTOR                   I didn't leave because it was two                   days before your test... it was                   just what your mother and I                   decided... I taught you how to                   swim... we went to the pool twice                   a week... why would I leave?                                 BETSY                   I know... that's what I mean...                   why did you leave just then?      Hector looks at Betsy. She is beginning to cry silently.      He puts a tentative arm around her shoulder.                                 HECTOR                   Oh, God, Betsy. I'm sorry.      Betsy is still crying.                                 BETSY                   It doesn't matter.                                 HECTOR                   How did you do, in the test?                                BETSY                   I passed.      Hector leaves his limp arm on her shoulder. It is too                *      soon for gestures of emotion. After a long moment she      speaks.                                 BETSY                   I'm a life-saver now.      Hector doesn't make the obvious comment. His emotions      are full. He hides his feelings in a gruff call to      Thomas.                                 HECTOR                   Hey, Thomas! We're going home...                   we're having a barbecue... Betsy                   said she'll even let me eat a                   steak!                                 BETSY                                     *                   Hurry up, Tom!                                          *                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                          151.       *167   CONTINUED:    (2)                                        167      Thomas breaks off from his play and runs towards them.                                 HECTOR                   Don't call him Tom, he doesn't                   like it.                                  BETSY                   I'm allowed.      Somehow Hector is touched by this.                                 HECTOR                   Your mother said it, when we                   split up... don't lose the                   children... didn't mean much at                   the time. But she was right.                                 BETSY                   Who said I'd let you eat a steak?      There is a silence.      Then Hector speaks.                                   HECTOR                   Betsy.    On Monday will you come                   with me   when I take the flowers                   back to   Anna? I can't face her                   alone.    She wants to meet you                   anyway.                                  BETSY                   Sure.                                 HECTOR                   You'll be there, right beside me?                                 BETSY                   I'd have to take the morning off                   school.                                  HECTOR                   Is that bad?                                 BETSY                   No, that could be good...      Betsy and Hector are quite close now.                                 HECTOR                   Just tell them you were with your                   invisible dad.                                                             152.        *168   EXT. BEACH - DAY                                             168      Hector and Betsy are walking on the shore.     Thomas tags      along behind them.                              BETSY                What's she like? How did you                meet her?                              HECTOR                The funny thing is I fell in love                with her before I ever saw her...                I smelled her... It was the day I                got out of jail... I was on the                train and she was sitting behind                me... it was just this incredible                perfume... remember I'd been                inside for nearly two years with                four hundred sweating males...                She got off the train and I                followed her... I couldn't help                it... that's how good she is...                she listened to a bum who followed                her off a train...      Betsy looks at him kindly.                              HECTOR                ... but she's still going to kill                me on Monday...      They share a laugh.   Betsy looks out to the ocean.                              BETSY                I think I'll paint the sunset                tonight.                              HECTOR                It's just like a big pancake                up there, isn't it?      Betsy doesn't take the bait.   There is a silence.                              HECTOR                I remember when you two were tiny..                I used to watch you sleeping... it                was like now... I felt close to you,                could touch you... but you weren't                there... you were gone... dreamland                ... just when I was closest to you,                you weren't there... I felt it last                night, too.                              BETSY                That's what it's like... you                should know that.                                                    (CONTINUED)                                                              153.         *168   CONTINUED:                                                     168                                 HECTOR                   I'm not smart about things like                   that, usually.                                 BETSY                   Don't be so tough on yourself.                   You seem to want to be... you                   don't have to...                                  HECTOR                   No?                                 BETSY                   No... we can do that...      She smiles. Hector is out of his depth with this      daughter of his.                                 HECTOR                   Is that a joke?                                 BETSY                   No, I mean it... look out for                   yourself...      Hector looks at her in wonderment. One of those moments      when another human being stands before you and is an      utter mystery.                                  HECTOR                   Who are you?   Who's inside                   there?                                 BETSY                   You'll never know.      Future generations of women are going to be just as      unknowable to our Hectors as past ones were. Betsy      moves off briskly along the beach. Hector trails      after her, hooked.169   EXT. BOAT - DAY                                              169      Betsy and Thomas are in a small fragile rowboat, some      distance from the shore. They are watching Hector who      is collecting a pile of large stones on the beach.      Another Hector and another pile of stones. This one      is making a fire for the barbecue. These human rituals      never stop.                                 BETSY                   I thought he was taller.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                 154.169   CONTINUED:                                                        169                                 THOMAS                   Well, it's been a while... you're                   bigger.                                 BETSY                   I suppose so. He's getting fat,                   too. I bet I could beat him at                   the breast-stroke now.170   EXT. BEACH - DAY                                              170      Hector turns from his work. Out at sea the kids look      small and vulnerable. Hector is more anxious than he      should be, out of practice at fatherhood. He calls to      them.                                 HECTOR                   Come on in, kids... that boat                   doesn't look too safe...      They call back to him.                                 BETSY                   We're fine!      Hector tries to relax, but he doesn't have the      confidence yet, or something. He is edgy.                                 HECTOR                   I've just found you... I don't                   want to lose you. What would I                   tell your mother... come on in...      He walks down to the water. The kids reluctantly pull      on the oars and bring the little boat in. A few feet      from the beach they hit some sand. The boat sticks.      Hector wades out in his shoes so far. Then he calls      to Thomas.                                 HECTOR                   Throw me the rope, Thomas, I'll                   pull you in.      Thomas throws the mooring rope to Hector. It isn't      attached to the boat. Hector ends up with all of the      rope in his hands. He stands there, and they all laugh.                                 HECTOR                   This is one useless piece of                   rope, Thomas...      Just for a moment we have the image of our     Hector      standing on the shoreline with a length of     rope. An      image with an echo from six thousand years     ago. But      this time Hector is laughing, and his kids     are safe.                                                            155.         *171   EXT. BEACH - SUNSET                                          171      At the very moment of sunset Betsy is trying to capture      it in a watercolor sketch. She has set up an easel on      the beach. It's like action painting. She works      frantically on the picture, racing the sun as it dips      into the ocean. Tough little Betsy can even lose      patience with the sun.                              BETSY                Why does it always go so fast...?      Thomas is laughing at her. He has seen    her attempt this      before. Hector has other concerns. He     is trying to      light his barbecue. Match after match    disappears into      his elaborate stone structure, only to   fizzle out.      The sun finally vanishes, and Betsy goes limp at her      easel. The sun has won the race again. She and Thomas      watch Hector trying to light the fire. After a while      he is conscious of their amused attention on him, then      he becomes a little self-conscious.                              HECTOR                I used to know how to do this...      They laugh a little.                              HECTOR                I did... I used to be really                good at this...      He wafts and blows ineffectually at a flicker of flame.      There's not much of the caveman about him now.172   EXT. BEACH - DUSK                                            172      It is a calm dusk. Hector is turning the meat on the      barbecue. He is in a splendid frame of mind.                              HECTOR                Ah... smell it... the smell of                civilization... scorched meat...      Hector serves the chicken onto their plates. He sits      down beside them with his steak, and a glass of wine.      He watches Thomas attack his chicken, and smiles.                              HECTOR                I'd forgotten that... how you                eat... dedicated... like it's                your religion!                              THOMAS                Things I like.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                               156.172   CONTINUED:                                                      172                                 HECTOR                   You used to hum to yourself too,                   when you ate... like everything                   was fine with the world.      Thomas tries it out, eating and humming. It feels good      to him. His head nods with the chewing and the tune.                                 THOMAS                   Hey, so I did... I'd forgotten                   about that...      The early stars are appearing in the sky. Hector lifts      his eyes to a bright point low on the horizon.                                 HECTOR                   There she is... old Mercury...                                 THOMAS                   No... Mercury doesn't rise 'til                   after midnight... that's Jupiter...      Hector is impressed by his son.                                 HECTOR                   I'd forgotten... we used to watch                        *                   the stars... you could tell me the                       *                   names of all the planets... you                          *                   could recite them like a poem...                   remember... at the tiny window                   upstairs in the old house?                                THOMAS                   No.                                 HECTOR                   Oh well, not to worry. I'm glad                   you still like astronomy though.                                 THOMAS                   I'm not into star-gazing so much                   ... we're working on computer                   modelling... we're trying to make                   a biosphere...                                HECTOR                   Uh-huh?                                 THOMAS                   A self-sustaining life system...                   for inter-stellar travel. But we                   always get a methane build up, it                   doesn't matter what we do...                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                              157.       *172   CONTINUED:    (2)                                            172                                 HECTOR                   This is at school?                                 THOMAS                   Yeah. We're making such a mess of                   the world, one day we're going to                   have to take off for somewhere                   else...                                 HECTOR                   Sounds like Donald said that...      Hector realizes how far his kids have travelled from      him. He looks at them.                                 HECTOR                   Well, I'm glad you two are thinking                   about the old planet. I'm proud                   of you. Look how beautiful                   everything is. Sometimes I think                   it's people that make it all                   wrong... we walk around with all                   our problems...      Betsy chimes in.                                 BETSY                   I don't know. If it wasn't for                   us there'd be nobody around to                   see it all.      Hector stands to fetch another baked potato from the fire.      We see the three of them in a WIDE SHOT, the evening sky      now pulsing with more and more points of light. Hector's      voice and laughter carry to us.                                 HECTOR                   Don't worry, you two... I'll tell                   you... it's just a big, black                   sheet up there with holes in it                   so the light comes through...                   that's the truth... the very                   latest...      Hector has come to rest, and found peace at last, however      temporary, here on the beach, beneath the same stars that      our first Hector wailed at six thousand years ago.      On Monday he will face the music. The kids will go      back home, Mrs. Philippopolis will have to be dealt with,      and the wilting three hundred dollar bouquet of flowers.      In general, life will take over, on Monday. But at this      moment of calm on the beach, let's leave him while he's      ahead.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                               158.172   CONTINUED:    (3)                                             172      Their voices ring out playfully across the expanse of      darkening beach and light-laden sky.                                 BETSY                   Wait a minute... I know... the                   whole universe is inside a speck                   of dust that's lying in a ball of                   fluff in the cuff of a pair of                   pants hanging over the back of a                   chair...                                 HECTOR                   No... I'll tell you... the whole                   thing... stars and everything...                   is sitting on the skin of a bubble                   of milk in a bowl of cornflakes...                   and somebody's just about to eat                   it...      The three of them are laughing now.                                 BETSY                   Skimmed milk...                                 THOMAS                   You don't get bubbles in skimmed                   milk...                                 HECTOR                   Okay... it's half-and-half...      Perhaps that's just about as close as Hector and his                *      tribe of humans will ever come to working it all out.      But they try.                                                       *                                 BETSY                   I've got a better one... we're                   all inside a speck of pollen                   that's stuck to the wing of a bee                   while it sits on a flower...                                 HECTOR                   Don't mention flowers, Betsy...                   please, not tonight.      And then, after a long, long pause.                                 *                                 HECTOR                                   *                   I have an idea, Betsy... we're                         *                   inside a pancake... what d'you                         *                   think?                                                 *                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               159.172   CONTINUED:    (4)                                           172                                 BETSY                                  *                   Why are you always talking about                     *                   pancakes... what's wrong with you?                   *                                 THOMAS                                 *                   You've got pancakes on the brain.                    *                                                   FADE OUT.                                 THE END
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+BEING JOHN MALKOVICH A Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman INT. CHEERLESS ROOM - DAY The room is bare, dusty. A ceiling fan turns. The wall clock ticks. Craig, 30 years old and small, sits at a collapsible card table. The only item on the table is a book. Craig picks it up, looks at the jacket. It's entitled "Sit." Craig opens the book. It reads: "sit sit sit sit sit..." over and over, page after page. Craig closes the book. He begins to stand, but thinks better of it, sighs. He looks at the book again. It is now entitled "Die." He opens it up. "die die die die die..." A rooster crows. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - MORNING Craig jolts awake. A rooster stands on Craig's chest, crowing. Lotte, also 30, in the middle of dressing for work, hurries in and pulls the bird from Craig's chest. LOTTE Sorry, hon. I didn't know Orrin Hatch was out of his pen. Good morning. Lotte leans down and kisses Craig on the forehead. CRAIG Morning. LOTTE Gotta run. Shipment of grub worms coming in first thing. CRAIG Enjoy. LOTTE Craig, listen, honey, I've been thinking... maybe you'd feel better if you got, you know, a job or something. CRAIG We've been over this. Nobody's looking for a puppeteer in today's wintry economic climate. LOTTE Well, you know, maybe something else until this whole puppet thing turns around. CRAIG (bitterly) The Great Mantini doesn't need a day job. LOTTE (sighs) Craig, everyone can't be Derek Mantini. (beat) Well, grub worms are waiting. Do me a favor? CRAIG What? LOTTE Would you check in on Elijah? He seems to be a little under the weather this morning. CRAIG Which one is Elijah again? LOTTE The monkey. CRAIG Yeah. Okay. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE' S GARAGE - MORNING The place is a mess. Vivaldi blasts through cheap speakers. A small marionette stage stands in the back of the garage. The stage is lit and on it is a finely sculpted puppet version of Craig. The "Craig" puppet paces back and forth, wringing its hands with incredible subtlety. We see Craig, above and behind the stage. He is manipulating the puppet. His fingers move fast and furious. The puppet breaks into a dance, a beautiful and intricate balletic piece. Soon the puppet is leaping and tumbling through space, moves that one would think impossible for a marionette. Sweat appears on the real Craig’s brow. His fingers move like lightning. The puppet moves faster and faster. Sweat appears on the puppet's brow. We see that the sweat is being piped from a special device that the real Craig controls. The Craig puppet collapses on the floor of the stage. It puts its hands up to its face and weeps. Craig hangs the puppet, and comes down around the front of the stage. He is heaving. He switches off the music, picks up a beer and takes a swig. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - DAY The room is filled with penned and unpenned animals of all kinds: snakes, lizards, birds, a dog, cats, etc. Craig sits on the couch and looks at the want ads, the TV is on in the background. Elijah, the monkey, sits next to Craig holding his stomach and moaning weakly. On the TV, Derek Mantini is working a 60 foot high marionette from the top of a water tower. The assembled crowd is enthralled. TV ANNOUNCER The crowd is enthralled as Derek Mantini, arguably the greatest puppeteer in the history of the world, performs "The Belle of Amherst" with his 60 foot Emily Dickinson puppet, directed by the inimitable Charles Nelson Reilly. Charles Nelson Reilly floats by in a hot air balloon. CHARLES NELSON REILLY Beautiful, beautiful! Nyong-nyong. CRAIG Gimmicky bastard. Craig switches off the TV. He comes across an ad for a female puppeteer to teach at a girls school. Craig rubs his chin in thought, then stands with great determination. MUSIC IN: TRIUMPHANT CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - DAY Craig searches through Lotte's closet, looking for the right dress. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BATHROOM - DAY Craig waxes his body, shaves his face. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - DAY Craig paints his nails while he chats on the phone. Craig pulls stockings and underwear from Lotte's drawer. Craig picks a wig from a mannequin head on Lotte's dressing table. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - DAY Craig, at the sewing machine, is sewing padding to go onto his chest and around his hips. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BATHROOM - DAY Craig applies make up in the bathroom mirror. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - DAY Craig, now looking very much like a woman, admires himself in the full length mirror. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - DAY Craig hails a taxi in his get-up. Men on the street turn and leer at him. CUT TO: INT. HEADMISTRESS’S OFFICE - DAY Craig and the headmistress chat over tea. Craig is quite animated and charming. The admiring headmistress smiles and nods her head in approval. CUT TO: INT. CLASSROOM - DAY Craig instructs a class of uniformed girls. He draws complex diagrams of puppets on the blackboard. The students are transfixed, except for one troubled girl who eyes Craig sullenly from the back of the room as she plays with a switchblade. CUT TO: INT. THEATER - DAY Craig guides the hands of the troubled teenage girl, who is trying to manipulate a marionette. The girl looks up at Craig. Her tough facade crumbles and she smiles. Craig smiles back. CUT TO: EXT. SCHOOL GROUNDS - DAY The girls carry Craig on their shoulders. Everyone is joyous. CUT TO: EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY Craig leads the girls in a bike race. Everyone is laughing and screaming. One of the girls notices that Craig is riding a man's bike. MUSIC OUT. CUT TO: INT. JAIL CELL - NIGHT Craig sits in a holding cell with several other men. He is still in the dress, but the wig is in his lap and the make-up is smeared off. Lotte appears with a cop outside Craig's cell. The door is opened, and Craig, Lotte, and the cop head down the hall. CUT TO: INT. CAR - NIGHT Lotte drives. Craig looks out the window. Both are silent. LOTTE (finally) Is the trial date set? CRAIG May 11th. More silence. LOTTE Why'd you do it, Craig? CRAIG I'm a puppeteer. They drive in silence. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - MORNING Craig sits on the couch in his bathrobe and studies the want ads. He sees an ad for a company called "WOMYN-TEERS", looking for "an African-American, Lesbian Separatist Puppeteer for Community Outreach." Craig rubs his chin in thought, stands with determination. MUSIC IN: SAME AS BEFORE. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BATHROOM - MORNING Craig applies a dark pancake make-up to his face. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - MORNING Craig pulls an afro-style wig off a mannequin head on Lotte's dressing table. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - MORNING Craig, now made up to look like a black, lesbian separatist, hails a cab. Women look at him longingly. CUT TO: INT. CAR - NIGHT Craig, dressed as the black lesbian and beaten to a pulp. sits in the passenger seat. Lotte drives. LOTTE (finally) Why, Craig. why? CRAIG (through fat lip) I... puppeteer. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - DAY Craig reads the paper. He comes across an ad: "Female puppeteer wanted for nudist colony marionette staging of 'Oh, Calcutta!'" Craig rubs his chin. CUT TO: INT. CAR - NIGHT Craig sits in the passenger seat. He is made up as a woman and wears a full-body rubber "naked woman" suit. Lotte drives. LOTTE (finally) You know, maybe you should speak to someone about this. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE' S LIVING ROOM - DAY Craig sees a personal ad: "Male puppeteer looking for attractive female puppeteer for friendship, travel, and much much more." Craig rubs his chin, then thinks better of it and sighs. He finds a want ad calling for a "short-statured file clerk with unusually nimble and dexterous fingers needed for speed filing." Craig writes down the address. CUT TO: INT. OFFICE BUILDING LOBBY - DAY Craig. in sport coat and tie, studies the business listings board. He finds LesterCorp, and sees that it is located on floor 7 1/2. Craig presses the elevator button and waits. Another man comes and waits next to him. The doors open, and Craig and the other man get in. CUT TO: INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS The other man presses "9." Craig studies the buttons. There is no "7 1/2." WOMAN #1 Seven and a half, right? CRAIG Uh. yeah. WOMAN #1 I'll take you through it. The man picks up a crowbar leaning in the corner. He watches the floor numbers light up in succession. After "7" and before "8", the man hits the emergency stop button. The elevator slams to a halt. The man pries open the doors with the crowbar. Revealed is a standard office building hallway, except that from floor to ceiling it is only about four feet high. Everything is scaled down accordingly. The number on the wall across from the elevator is 7 1/2. WOMAN #1 Seven and a half. CRAIG Thank you. Craig climbs out onto the 7 1/2 floor. CUT TO: INT. SEVEN AND A HALF FLOOR - CONTINUOUS Craig, hunched-over, makes his way down the hallway looking for LesterCorp. He passes a hunched-over man walking in the other direction. They nod to each other. Craig finds a door marked "LesterCorp - Meeting America's Filing Needs Since 1922." He enters. CUT TO: INT. LESTERCORP RECEPTION AREA - CONTINUOUS All furniture is scaled down to fit into this low-ceilinged space. A few other short men sit reading tiny magazines. Craig approaches Floris, the receptionist. FLORIS Welcome to LesterCorp. May we meet your filing needs? CRAIG No, uh, my name is Craig Schwartz. I have an interview with Mr. Lester. FLORIS Please have a seat, Mr. Juarez... CRAIG Schwartz. FLORIS Pardon? CRAIG Schwartz. FLORIS I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have no idea what you're saying right now. CRAIG My name is Schwartz. FLORIS Money, Miss Warts? CRAIG Forget it. Craig takes a seat next to the other applicants. FLORIS (calling across the room) Fork ah did? The intercom buzzes. Floris picks it up. FLORIS (to Craig) Mr. Juarez? CRAIG Yes? FLORIS Yex? CRAIG I said "yes." FLORIS You suggest what? I have no time for piddling suggestions from mumbling job applicants, my good man. Besides, Dr. Lester will see you now. I think that's what he said. Craig stands, opens Lester's door, and enters. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Craig enters. Lester, a giant of an old man, sits hunched behind his tiny desk. LESTER Come in, Mr. Juarez. I'd stand, but, well, you know. CRAIG (extending his hand) Actually, my name is Craig Schwartz, Dr. Lester. Lester flips an intercom switch. LESTER Security. CRAIG No, it's okay, sir. Just a mixup with your secretary. LESTER She's not my secretary. She's what they call an executive liaison, and I'm not banging her, if that's what you’re implying. CRAIG Not at all, Dr. Lester. I simply misspoke. LESTER Tell me, Dr. Schwartz, what do you feel you can bring to LesterCorp? CRAIG Well, sir, I'm an excellent filer. LESTER (crafty) You think so, eh? Which comes first, L or... Glooph? CRAIG Glooph is not a letter, sir. LESTER Damn, you are good. I tried to trick you. Okay, put these in order. Lester hands Craig a bunch of index cards. Craig orders them with amazing speed and dexterity. Lester watches, eyes wide. LESTER (CONT'D) (flips intercom switch) Floris, get Guinness on the phone. FLORIS (O.S.) Gehginnis ondah foam? LESTER Forget it. FLORIS (CONT'D) Fork ah did? LESTER (flips off switch) Fine woman, Floris. I don't know how she puts up with this damn speech impediment of mine. CRAIG You don't have a speech impediment, Dr. Lester. LESTER Flattery will get you everywhere, my boy. But I'm afraid I have to trust Floris on this one. You see, she has her doctorate in speech impedimentology from Case Western. Perhaps you've read her memoirs, "I can't understand a word any of you are saying." CRAIG No. LESTER Pity, it tells it like it is. That's why the eastern, read Jewish, publishing establishment won't touch it. That's a quote from the book jacket. George Will, I think. (beat) I apologize if you can't understan a word I'm saying, Dr. Schwartz. CRAIG No. I understand perfectly. LESTER (choking up) Thank you for being kind enough to lie. You see, I've been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech. You're hired. Any questions? CRAIG Just one. Why is this floor so short? LESTER Low overhead, m'boy. We pass the savings on to you. (laughs heartily) But seriously, that's all covered in orientation. CUT TO: INT. ORIENTATION ROOM - DAY It's a small screening room with red velvet seats. There are a few people scattered about the squat theater. Craig is among them. He looks around the room and his eyes rest momentarily on Maxine. She is in her late 20's with close cropped black hair. Her eyes are opaque, her face expressionless, her countenance trance-like. She glances over at Craig, then turns back to the screen. The lights dim. A projector whirs and the screen is illuminated. CUT TO: EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY We tilt up the building. MUSIC: Perky Industrial Film Music. TITLE: The 7 1/2 Floor NARRATOR (0.S.) Welcome to the 7 1/2 floor of the Mertin-Flemmer building. As you will now be spending your work day here, it is important that you learn a bit about the history of this famous floor. DISSOLVE TO: INT. 7 1/2 FLOOR - DAY Don and Wendy, two office workers, crouch in the hall and chat. Both hold cups of coffee. WENDY Hello, Don. DON Hello. Wendy. WENDY Don, I was wondering, do you know why our workplace has such low ceilings? DON It's an interesting story, Wendy. Many years ago in the late 1800's, James Mertin, an Irish ship captain looking to invest in the future of our great country, came to this town and decided to erect an office building. CUT TO: OLD FOOTAGE OF CONSTRUCTION CREW WORKING. DON (CONT'D) (V.0.) He would call this building the Mertin-Flemmer Building, after himself and someone else, who, local legend has it, was named Flemmer. CUT TO: INT. 19TH CENTURY OFFICE - DAY An actor playing Mertin sits at a desk and writes with aquill. He appears very stern and has mutton chop sideburns. DON (CONT'D) (V.0.) One day. Captain Mertin received an unexpected visitor. There is a knock at the door. MERTIN Enter ye, if ye dare enter. A tiny woman enters. TINY WOMAN Captain Mertin? MERTIN What want ye, girl child? TINY WOMAN I am not a child, Captain Mertin, but rather an adult lady of miniature proportions. MERTIN (taken aback) I see. Well, it is not my fault that thou art tiny. So if it is charity yer after, then be gone with ye, ye foul demon. TINY WOMAN I am not asking for alms, but rather the ear of a kind man with a noble heart. MERTIN (sighs) Aye. Speak then if ye must. TINY WOMAN Captain Mertin, surely I am a God-fearing Christian woman like yourself, but alas, I am afraid that the world was not built with me in mind. Door knobs are too high, chairs are unwieldy, high-ceilinged rooms mock my stature. Nor am I a marrie lady, Captain. after all, who would marry a person of my diminutiveness? So I am forced to work for my few pennies a week as an optometrist. Why cannot there be a place for me to work safe and comfortable? Mertin wipes a tear from his eye. MERTIN Woman, your story moves me like n other. Me own sister was tiny and then died. Therefore, I shall make ye me wife. And I shall build a floor in my building, between the 7th and 8th, which will be scaled down, so from now on there shall be at least one place on God's green Earth that you and your accursed kind can live in peace... DISSOLVE TO: INT. HALLWAY 7 1/2 FLOOR - DAY Don And Wendy crouch and talk. DON So that's the story of 7 1/2. Since the rents are considerably lower this floor has been adopted by businesses which for one reason or another are forced to cut corners After all... the overhead is low! Ha ha ha! WENDY Ha ha ha! TITLE: The End CUT TO: INT. ORIENTATION ROOM - DAY The screen goes dark. The lights go up. Craig looks over at Maxine. She stands and walks past him. CRAIG Moving story. MAXINE Yes. Unfortunately it's bullshit. The real story of 7 1/2 is so evil that it could never be revealed to Americans raised on sitcoms and happy news anchors. CRAIG Is that true? MAXINE Well, truth is for suckers, isn't it?. CRAIG Listen. I'm Craig Schwartz, just starting out at LesterCorp. MAXINE How dreary - to be - Somebody / How public - like a Frog / To tell one's name - the livelong June / To an admiring Bog! CRAIG (proudly) Emily Dickinson. MAXINE I wouldn't know. Maxine walks away. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE' S KITCHEN - NIGHT Lotte chops onions. A parrot sits on her head. Craig stirs a pot on the stove. A monkey leaps from the top of the cabinet to the top of the refrigerator to the kitchen table. A dog watches the monkey and barks at it. PARROT Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! CRAIG Shut up! LOTTE (to Craig) Sorry, honey. The dog continues to bark. PARROT Sorry honey. Sorry honey. An offscreen neighbor pounds the wall. NEIGHBOR (0.S.) Shut up! LOTTE (yelling) Sorry! Lotte grabs the parrot off her head and leaves the room. PARROT (0.S.) Help! She's locking me in a cage! Lotte reenters. LOTTE Isn't that cute? I just taught her that. CRAIG Adorable. What time are they supposed to be here? LOTTE Seven-ish CRAIG We have to make it an early night. LOTTE They'll understand. Besides I've got a morning appointment tomorrow with Elijah's shrink. We're getting to the bottom of this acid stomach. CRAIG (not paying attention) Hmmm. LOTTE Some sort of childhood trauma, she thinks. Possible feelings of inadequacy as a chimp. Interesting, huh? CRAIG Hmmm. The doorbell rings. The dog barks. The parrot screams. The neighbor pounds on the wall. DISSOLVE TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT The dining room table is set up. Craig and Lotte and their friends Peter and Gloria are seated and eating dinner. There is an obvious lull in the conversation. PETER Good food, Lotte. LOTTE Thanks. Craig helped, too, by the way. PETER Vegetarian, right? LOTTE Yes. All vegetable. all the time. PETER Amazing. There is another lull. Everyone eats. PETER (CONT'D) No kidding about that 7 1/2 floor. Craig? CRAIG No kidding, Peter. GLORIA That's great. It almost sounds like make-believe. (beat) Like a storybook. (beat) like a fairy tale. (beat) It's really great. (beat) So Lotte, when you say all vegetable, do you mean all vegetable entire1y? CUT TO: INT. PETER AND GLORIA'S CAR - NIGHT Gloria and Peter drive in silence. GLORIA Lotte told me that Eskimos have a lot of words for snow. PETER How many? GLORIA Ten, I think. PETER I wonder why so many. GLORIA Because they have a lot of snow. Isn't that interesting? CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S KITCHEN - NIGHT Craig washes the dishes. Lotte dries them. They don’t look at each other. CUT TO: INT. LESTERCORP FILE ROOM - MORNING Craig in a cream colored suit, pours over the file cabinets. Floris watches from the doorway. FLORIS You're good. Craig turns. CRAIG (over-enunciating) Thank you, Floris. Floris shrugs, shakes her head. FLORIS You're not like the other boys we've had here. Granted, I can't understand what you're saying either, but your soft palette resonates tremendously well and you never ever constrict your epiglottis. CRAIG I am a trained performer. FLORIS (swooning) Music to my ears! Whatever you said. Speak, speak, speak, my magnificent friend, speak! CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY 7 1/2 FLOOR - DAY Craig pours himself a cup of coffee. Maxine approaches with an empty cup. CRAIG Hello again. Craig fills her cup. MAXINE Yes, well... CRAIG You know, I've been thinking about what you said yesterday, about the orientation film being a cover-up. I think you're on to something. MAXINE And fifty other lines to get into a girl's pants. CRAIG No, really. MAXINE You know, if you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me. That's the thing, Romeo. Maxine walks away. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S GARAGE - NIGHT Craig is at his workbench, painting the finishing touches on a new puppet. It is beautiful. It is Maxine. Lotte watches quietly from the door. A Lotte puppet hangs from a hook, tangled and dusty. LOTTE New puppet? Craig is surprised, caught. CRAIG Yeah, just an idea I had. LOTTE She's very beautiful. CRAIG (shrugging) Just an idea I had. Craig hangs the puppet, stands, and switches off the light. CRAIG (CONT'D) C'mon, let's go to bed. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT The room is dark. Lotte snores lightly. Craig lies there with his eyes open. Quietly, he gets up and leaves the bedroom. Lotte watches him go. CUT TO: INT. GARAGE - NIGHT Craig stands above the puppet stage. He is working both the Craig puppet and the Maxine puppet at the same time. The two perform a beautiful and graceful pas de deux. They finish in a passionate embrace. CRAIG (quietly) I would too know what to do with you. CUT TO: INT. FILE ROOM - MORNING Craig files. Floris watches him from the doorway. Dr. Lester watches Floris from behind a cabinet. FLORIS Oh, what magic those fingers could work on the right “cabinet.” (strokes Craig's neck) Alphabetize me, baby. And don't forget, I comes before U. Floris laughs long and hard. Too long and too hard. CRAIG Floris, you're very nice, but I'm afraid I’m in love with somebody else. FLORIS (upset) I'm afraid I... have no idea what you are saying... you bastard! Floris runs from the room. Lester pokes his head out from behind the cabinet. LESTER Don't toy with Floris, Schwartz. Why, if I were eighty years younger, I'd box your ears. CRAIG I wasn't toying with her, sir. I was just... How old are you? LESTER One hundred and five. Carrot juice. (beat) Lot's of it. I swear, it's almost not worth it. I piss orange. Oh, and I, have to piss sitting down... like a godamn girly... every fifteen minutes. But nobody wants to die, Schwartz. CRAIG I'll keep that in mind, sir. LESTER No sir-e-bob, I don't die. But what I do is get older, wrinkled like a former plum that's become the wrinkled prune you see before you. Oh, to be a young man again, maybe then Floris would care for me. CRAIG The elderly have so much to offer, sir. They are our link with history. LESTER I don't want to be your godamn link, damn you. I want to feel Floris' naked thighs against my own. I want to know passion. I want my body to inspire lust in that beautiful, complex woman. I want her to shiver in a spasm of ecstasy when I penetrate her. Oh, God, the agony of the flesh, Schwartz. CRAIG Dr. Lester, while I am flattered that you share your feelings with me, I believe perhaps the workplace is not the most suitable environment for this type of discussion. LESTER All right. Meet me at the Juicy-Juice Juice Bar after work today and I'll spill my goddamn guts for you. Lester exits. CRAIG Shit. CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY 7 1/2 FLOOR - DAY Craig squats next to a payphone. CRAIG (into phone) I won't be late. I just have to listen to Lester's sexual fantasies and drink carrot juice for a little while. It's a job thing. Maxine walks by. Craig grabs her arm, signals for her to wait a minute. She waits. CRAIG (CONT'D) (into phone) I gotta go back to work. Yeah, okay. You too. Okay. Bye. Craig hangs up. MAXINE What? CRAIG I just wanted to say “hi.” Did you know I still don't know your name or where you work? MAXINE Yeah. CRAIG How about this, if I can guess your first name within three tries, you have to come out for a drink with me tonight. MAXINE Why not? CRAIG Great. (watches her face as he guesses) Buuuhhppaahhhhnnn. . . . . Muhhhahhhhh. . . . . ahhhnnnaaa. . nollltuuukkkaaaaralllll. . . tashabararassssssuuuuusaaaaaaa. . . nnnnnnnaaaaaannnnnnnnncccccceeeeeee Mwaaaaaa. . . . .Mahhhhhkkkkk. . . sssseeeeeen. Maxine? MAXINE Who told you? CRAIG I'm right? MAXINE Who told you? CRAIG That's incredible! Nobody told me! I swear! It's kismet. Maxine! It's a beautiful name. There's a psychic connection. Don't you see? It was meant to be! Maxine! Maxine! Maxine! I will shout it from the rooftops! MAXINE Somebody told you. CRAIG Oh, Maxine, nobody told me. Maxine, Maxine. It just came out of me like a song, Maxine. A beautiful crazy, song, Maxine. Maxine. Maxine! MAXINE I am dubious, but I don't welsh. Meet me at The Stuck Pig. Seven o'clock. You're late, I walk. So help me, if I find out you cheated. CRAIG (in heaven) Maxine. Craig walks down the hall. A tiny smile flits across Maxine's face. CUT TO: INT. JUICY JUICE BAR - EVENING Lester and Craig sit at a table. There are several emptied glasses of carrot juice in front of Lester. Craig nurses one glass, and keeps checking his watch. LESTER Imagine a room full of women. Nubile, blonde, wet with desire, Schwartz. A harem, if you will. Me in leather. A harness, if you like. I am the object of this desire, and all eyes are on me as I speak. “Ladies,” I begin. “I am the love god, Eros. I intoxicate you. My spunk is to you manna from heaven... CRAIG (standing) Dr. Lester, it's been really fascinating, but I'm afraid I have to get home to my wife now. LESTER Wife, huh? I'd love to meet her, Craig. CRAIG Yessir. LESTER Shall we say dinner on Friday. Just the two of us? (afterthought) You can come too if you like, Schwartz. CRAIG (checking watch) That's sounds fine, sir. Gotta run. Craig hurries to the door. Lester downs Craig's juice, signals the waiter for more. CUT TO: INT. THE STUCK PIG - NIGHT Maxine sits at the bar, watching her watch. Craig rushes into the room, frantic, out of breath. He spots Maxine and plops himself next to her. CRAIG Made it. Maxine. Maxine, Maxine, Maxine. MAXINE Just. CRAIG Buy you a drink, Maxine? MAXINE You married? CRAIG Yeah. But enough about me. Maxine laughs. The bartender approaches. CRAIG (CONT'D) What'll you have? MAXINE (to bartender) The usual, Barry. CRAIG (to bartender) I'll have, like, a beer. Like a Budweiser, or something. The bartender walks away. CRAIG (CONT'D) I like you. I don't know what it is exactly. MAXINE My tits? CRAIG No, no, it's your energy or your attitude or the way you carry yourself or... MAXINE Christ, you're not a fag are you? Because I don't want to be wasting my time. The drinks arrive. Maxine's is in an enormous fishbowl of a glass. It's bright blue, with fruit and marshmallows swimming in it. Paper umbrellas stick out of it, an plastic monkeys hang from the rim. CRAIG That's the usual? MAXINE Don’t let the girly shit fool you. It'd blow your shorts off. Maxine downs it like a shot of whiskey. She pushes the empty glass to the bartender. MAXINE (CONT'D) Set me up again, Barry. The bartender walks away with the empty glass. CRAIG I’m not a homosexual. I just like women for more than their bodies. I guess you could say I'm the new American male. MAXINE You're a fag or a liar. CRAIG (backpedaling) I mean, I am really attracted to you. MAXINE (mocking) I mean, I am really attracted to you. Jesus, you are a fag. We can share recipes, if you like, Darlene. Maxine gets up. CRAIG (at a loss) No, wait! I like your tits. (beat) I love your tits. I want to fuck you. MAXINE (sitting) Good. Now we're getting somewhere. (beat) Not a chance. Maxine's second drink comes. She downs it, pushes the glass toward the bartender. MAXINE (CONT’D) So, tell me about yourself. If you can get your mind out of the gutter long enough, dog-boy. CRAIG Well, I'm a puppeteer... The bartender comes back with Maxine's drink. MAXINE (to bartender) Check. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Lotte is combing Elijah. Craig enters. CRAIG Hi. LOTTE Hi. CRAIG (nervous, talking too much) Sorry, I'm so late. Lester just wouldn't let me go. We’re supposed to have dinner with him on Friday. I can get us out of it if you want. He's really amazing, this insane old lech. It's actually sort of amusing when you get past just how disgusting it is. There is a silence. Lotte continues to comb out Elijah. Finally: LOTTE Did you eat? CRAIG Nah. I'm not hungry. I'm sorry I didn't call. It was just, you know, hard to get away. LOTTE I was worried. CRAIG I'm sorry. How was your evening? LOTTE Tom-Tom's puncture wound is infected. CRAIG The ferret? LOTTE The iguana. CRAIG Right. LOTTE I dressed the wound. Then I've just been feeding everyone, putting everyone to bed. CRAIG Yeah. You want a beer? LOTTE No thanks. I'm going to turn in. CRAIG All right. I'll be in my workshop for a little while. I'll be in in a little while. I need to unwind a little. (beat) I'll be in soon. A little while. LOTTE 'kay. Lotte exits. CUT TO: INT. GARAGE - NIGHT Craig works the Craig and Maxine puppets. The puppets sit on the edge of the small stage and chat. Craig does a pretty fair impersonation of Maxine's voice. CRAIG (as Maxine, fascinated) Tell me, Craig, why do you love puppeteering? (as Craig) Well, Maxine, I'm not sure exactly. Perhaps it's the idea of becoming someone else for a little while. Being inside another skin. Moving differently, thinking differently, feeling differently. (as Maxine) Interesting. Would you like to be inside my skin, Craig? Think what I think? Feel what I feel? (as Craig) More than anything. Maxine. (as Maxine) It's good in here, Craig. Better than your wildest dreams. The puppets kiss. CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY 7 1/2 FLOOR - DAY Craig waits at the coffee machine. Checks his watch. Finally Maxine approaches. CRAIG Hi. MAXINE You're not someone I could get interested in. Craig. You play with dolls. CRAIG (rehearsed) Puppets. Maxine. It's the idea of being inside someone else, feeling what they feel, seeing what they see... MAXINE Yikes. CRAIG Please, let me explain. Craig grabs Maxine's hand and drags her into an empty office. CUT TO: INT. EMPTY OFFICE - DAY Craig pulls Maxine in closes the door. CRAIG It's just, and I've never done this before, Maxine, but it's just that I feel something for you. I've never felt this before for anyone, not even my wife. My future is with you, Maxine. MAXINE You might want to check those tarot cards one more time. Maxine heads for the door. Craig sits on a box. He puts his head in his hands and sighs. Across the room he notices a very small door with a two by four nailed across it. CRAIG Another evil secret of the 7 1/2 floor. Craig pries the two-by-four off and opens the door. It's a dark and wet membranous tunnel inside. CRAIG Holy shit. Maxine is gonna love this. Craig lets go of the door and it slams shut. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S OFFICE - DAY Lester sits at his desk studying an instruction manual for a juicer. The spanking new juicer sits on his desk. There is an urgent knocking at the door. LESTER Yes? Craig rushes in. CRAIG Dr. Lester. . . LESTER Ah, Craig. Just the fellow I wanted to see. (proudly spreading his arms) Juicer! Easy as pie. Just keep your fingers clear of the blade, and never, never use it while bathing in a tub full of water. CRAIG Dr. Lester, I have a question. I was in that vacant office down the hall and I stumbled upon a little door and.... LESTER Ah. yes, the little door. (checks watch) There is a short film on the little door in the orientation room in exactly two minutes. If you hurry, you'll just make it. CRAIG Thank you, sir. Craig exits. Lester waits a moment. then dials the phone. LESTER Put up reel 752. CUT TO: INT. ORIENTATION ROOM - DAY Craig sits in the otherwise empty screening room. The lights dim, the film begins. TITLE: THE LITTLE DOOR IN THE VACANT OFFICE CUT TO: INT. VACANT OFFICE - DAY Wendy crouches in the vacant office and studies the closed little door. Don enters. smiling. DON Hi. Wendy! What're you up to in this vacant office. WENDY Well, Don, I peeked in here, even though I know it's against floor policy. and I discovered that there's a little tiny door in here. Isn't it cute? It's almost like a little dolly's door. I wonder what it’s for. DON (laughing) That's right, Wendy, it is against floor policy, but as long as you're here, let me tell you what I know about our cute little door friend. Many years ago, this very office was occupied by a kindly old watchmaker named Mr. White. DISSOLVE TO: INT. WATCHMAKER'S WORKSHOP - DAY An old man toils away in the dusty office. WHITE Hmmm. I must have a small store room to store my merchandise when I am through working on it. I know, I will build a tiny store room. How cute! DISSOLVE TO: INT. VACANT OFFICE - DAY WENDY Wow! That's some story, Don. DON Truth is stranger than fiction, Wendy! They laugh. TITLE: THE END CUT TO: INT. ORIENTATION ROOM - DAY The lights go up. Craig sits there for a moment. An usher pushes a broom down the aisle. CRAIG Bullshit. Craig exits. The usher mumbles something into a walkie-talkie. CUT TO: INT. VACANT ROOM - DAY Craig opens the little door and climbs into the membranous hallway. The door slams shut behind him. CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - MORNING It's dark and wet. The walls are soft and membranous. There is a dripping sound. Craig crawls along. Soon something starts to pull Craig as if he is being sucked through a straw. There is a flash of light. CUT TO: INT. FANCY DINING ROOM - MORNING The POV of someone reading a newspaper. The person lifts a cup of coffee to his mouth. There is a slurping sound. The person puts down the coffee cup and the newspaper, and stands up. CRAIG (CONT'D) (V.0.) (losing his balance) Whoa! What the hell? Where am I? We're still in POV. The person walks across the room, picks up his wallet from a coffee table. looks in a mirror and checks his teeth for food. It's John Malkovich. CRAIG (CONT'D) (V.0.) Holy shit! It's that actor guy. Shit! What's his name? That actor guy! What's happening? Am I inside him? Am I in his brain? Am I him? Is he me? Does he know I'm here? My brain is reeling! Is his brain reeling? Malkovich walks to the front door, opens it, exits his apartment. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Maxine sits at her desk, eats a sandwich. looks at a fashion magazine, and chats on the phone. MAXINE The puppeteer told me he loves me today. (laughs) I know. I can't think of anything more pathetic. CUT TO: INT. TAXI - CONTINUOUS John Malkovich's POV from the back seat of the cab. The cab pulls away from the curb. MALKOVICH (V.0.) (resonant throughout) The Broadhurst Theater, please. The cabbie studies Malkovich in his rearview mirror as he drives. CABBIE Say, aren't you that actor guy? MALKOVICH Yeah. CABBIE John Makel... CRAIG (V.0.) John Malkovich! Of course! CABBIE Mapplethorpe? MALKOVICH (V.0.) Malkovich. CABBIE Malkovich! CRAIG (V.0.) John fucking Malkovich! CABBIE Yeah. I liked you in that one movie. MALKOVICH (V.0.) Thank you. CABBIE The one where you're that jewel thief. MALKOVICH I never played a jewel thief. CABBIE Who am I thinking of? MALKOVICH I don't know. CABBIE I'm pretty sure it was you. Hey, could I get your autograph now? It's for .... oh, what the hell, it's for me! I'm your biggest fan! MALKOVICH Yeah, okay. The cabbie hands a pad back over the seat. Malkovich reaches for it. There is a slurping sound. CRAIG (V.0.) (panicky) Ahhhh! The image starts to fade, then suddenly goes black. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - DAY It’s on the side of Jersey Turnpike. There is a “pop” and Craig falls from nowhere into the ditch. He is soaking wet, and now dirty from the ditch. He stands, looks confusedly around, sees a N.J. Turnpike sign. After a moment, he goes to the side of the road and sticks out his thumb. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S OFFICE - LATER Maxine sits behind her desk with her feet up, and talks on the phone. MAXINE Absolutely, doll. I'm just about to close up here. Craig walks in disheveled and exhausted. Maxine sees him, keeps talking. MAXINE (CONT’D) (into phone) Meet you at “The Pig” in twenty minutes. (laughs lasciviously) Oh yeah, maybe I'll keep my legs closed till then. (hangs up. to Craig) I'm splitting for the day. Lock up for me, won't you, darling. Maxine stands, puts some stuff in her purse. CRAIG Don't you want to know what happened to me? MAXINE (considers) No. Maxine heads for the door. Craig grabs her arm. CRAIG This is important! MAXINE (looking at his hand on her arm) It better be. Craig sits Maxine down in a chair, lets go of her arm. CRAIG There's a tiny door in that empty office. It's a portal, Maxine. It takes you inside John Malkovich. You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes, then, after about fifteen minutes, you're spit out into a ditch on the side of The New Jersey Turnpike. MAXINE Sounds delightful. Who the fuck is John Malkovich? CRAIG He's an actor. One of the great American actors of the 20th century. MAXINE What's he been in? CRAIG Lots of things. He's very well respected. That jewel thief movie, for example. The point is that this is a very odd thing, supernatural, for lack of a better word. It raises all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of self, about the existence of the soul. Am I me? Is Malkovich Malkovich? Was the Buddha right, is duality an illusion? Do you see what a can of worms this portal is? I don't think I can go on living my life as I have lived it. There's only one thing to do. Let's get married right away. MAXINE Is this Malkovich fellow appealing? CRAIG Yes, of course. He's a celebrity. MAXINE Good. We'll sell tickets. CRAIG Tickets to Malkovich? MAXINE Exactly. Two hundred dollars a pop. CRAIG But there's something profound here, Maxine, we can't exploit it. MAXINE Fine. I'll do it myself. I was going to offer a partnership to you, but this way it's more money for me. CRAIG You wanted to be partners with me? MAXINE (bored) Sure. It'd be fun. CRAIG (pleased) Really? (then:) But, Maxine, can of worms! End of the world! Illusory nature of existence! MAXINE I'll protect you, Dollface. Maxine reaches over and squeezes his lips affectionately between her thumb and forefinger. CRAIG (in love) Oh. Maxine. DISSOLVE TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT Craig and Lotte are getting into evening clothes. LOTTE Don't be ridiculous. There is no such thing as a portal into someone else's brain. CRAIG Brain. soul, I'm telling you, Lotte. I was right inside him looking out. We're going to be rich. LOTTE I want to try. CRAIG What? LOTTE I want to be John Malkovich. Tomorrow morning. Plus I'd like to meet this partner of yours. CRAIG (nervously) Well, you know we're going to be very busy tomorrow. I'll tell you what. Let's do it tonight. Right now. LOTTE Now? CRAIG Yeah. We'll do it right now. On the way to Lester's house. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - NIGHT Craig holds open the small door as Lotte climbs in. CRAIG I'll meet you on the turnpike. LOTTE I'm scared. The door slams shut. CRAIG Me too, babe. Craig hurries out the door. CUT TO: INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT Malkovich is in the shower. We watch from his POV as he soaps himself. He does this in a sensual manner. LOTTE (V.0.) Holy cow! Malkovich steps out of the shower, slowly towels himself dry. LOTTE (V.0.) Oh, yes. Yes. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - NIGHT Lotte lands in the ditch. She is wet and ragged. Traffic whizzes by. Craig turns on the headlights in his parked car. They shine on Lotte. Craig steps out of the car. LOTTE I have to go back. CRAIG Okay. Maybe tomorrow. LOTTE I have to go back now. CRAIG We'll talk about it in the car. Craig helps Lotte up and toward the car. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S CAR - NIGHT Craig drives. Lotte looks distractedly out the window. LOTTE I have to go back, Craig. Being inside did something to me. All of a sudden everything made sense. I knew who I was. CRAIG You weren't you. You were John Malkovich. LOTTE (tickled) I was, wasn't I? (yelling out the window) I was John fucking Malkovich! (laughs, then intensely) Take me back, Craig. CRAIG Tomorrow. We're late for Lester. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S DINING ROOM - NIGHT It's a posh place with flocked wallpaper and candelabras. Lester, Craig, and Lotte sit around an elegantly appointed table with all different sorts of juices in front of them. Lotte is still wet. Lester sits quite close to her. LESTER Tell me, Lotte, can you understand a word I'm saying? LOTTE Yes, of course, Dr. Lester. LESTER Oh, be still my heart. LOTTE Dr. Lester, would you point me toward the restroom? LESTER With immense pleasure, my dear. Down that hall, ninth door on the left. Watch the step down. It's sunken, you know. Lotte smiles, and heads down the hall. CRAIG Dr. Lester... LESTER More beet-spinach juice, my friend? CRAIG No thank you sir. It's delicious, though. I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to work at LesterCorp, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to tender my resignation effectively immediately. LESTER I see. Are you unhappy at our little company? CRAIG No sir, not at all. It's just that I'm going to open my own business and... LESTER And what sort of business will this be? If you don't mind my asking. CRAIG Uh, import-export. Olive oil. Right on 7 1/2 actually. (beat) In the vacant office. So we'll still be seeing each other. LESTER The vacant office. I see. Olive oil. Interesting. Be warned, Schwartz, there are certain “doors” which should never be opened. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S HALLWAY - NIGHT Lotte walks down the ritzy hallway. She is counting closed doors in search of the bathroom. She opens a door, looks inside, gasps, then enters the room. CUT TO: INT. LESTER' S ROOM - CONTINUOUS Lotte enters the room. It is dark. At the far end there is what amounts to a candle-lit shrine to John Malkovich. The centerpiece of the shrine is an enormous photograph of Malkovich bordered by a garland of flowers. Lotte stares at it for a moment, then drops to her knees in front of it. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE' S BATHROOM - NIGHT Lotte has just taken a shower. She towels herself dry in much the same way as Malkovich. Her eyes are closed. She opens them slowly and sees herself in the mirror. Disappointedly, she drops the towel and heads out of the bathroom. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S GARAGE - NIGHT Craig sits at his work table. He is pulling the heads off of the Craig and the Maxine puppets. He puts the Maxine head on the Craig puppet. He sighs. CRAIG My kingdom for your portal, Maxine. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - MORNING Maxine sits at her desk composing an ad. Craig stands behind her, ostensibly looking over her shoulder, but actually studying the back of her head. He sighs. MAXINE Okay. Here it is. (reading) Ever want to be someone else? Now you can. No kidding. Only two hundred dollars for fifteen minutes. Visit J.M. Inc., Mertin-Flemmer Building. etc., etc. CRAIG Sounds good. Oblique but intriguing. Phone it in. Maxine dials the phone. Lotte enters. CRAIG Lotte! Why aren't you at the pet shop? LOTTE Fuck pets. Is this your partner? I had to come back and do the Malkovich ride again. Fuck everything else. Is this her? MAXINE (into phone) Yes, hello, I wanted to place an ad. (to Lotte) Hi, are you Craig's wife? LOTTE Yes, Hi. CRAIG Lotte, Maxine. Maxine, Lotte. Lotte and Maxine shake hands. LOTTE Hi. Have you done Malkovich yet? MAXINE Hi, uh. (into phone) Hi. I wanted to place an ad. Yes. "Ever want to be someone else?" No, that's the ad, but let's talk about you in a minute. "Ever want to be someone else? Now you can. No kidding..." CRAIG (to Lotte) Why aren't you at work? LOTTE I've been going over and over my experience last night. It was amazing. (beat) I've decided I'm a transsexual. Isn't that the craziest thing? CRAIG What, are you nuts? That's Oprah talking. LOTTE Everything felt right for the first time. I need to go back to make sure, then if the feeling is still there. I'm going to speak to Dr. Feldman about sexual reassignment surgery. CRAIG This is absurd. Besides Feldman's an allergist. If you're going to do something, do it right. CRAIG (cont'd) (beat) It's just the thrill of seeing through someone else's eyes, sweetie. It'll pass. LOTTE Don't stand in the way of my actualization as a man, Craig. MAXINE (hanging up the phone) Let her go, Craig. I mean “him." CRAIG (anything for Maxine) Yeah, okay. (opens the portal door) I'll pick you up. Lotte enters. Craig closes the door. stands there. MAXINE You better hurry. Traffic. Maxine tosses Craig his car keys. He heads out the door. Maxine dials the phone. MAXINE (CONT'D) (into phone) Davey? Max. Get me John Malkovich's home phone? That's great. Love ya and owe ya. CUT TO: INT. JOHN MALKOVICH'S LIVING ROOM - DAY Malkovich's POV. He sits on the couch. drinks coffee, and reads a copy of Awake and Sing. Bach plays on the stereo in the background. MALKOVICH (reading aloud) So you believe in God... you got something for it? You worked for all the capitalists. You harvested the fruit from your labor? You got God! LOTTE (V.0.) What raw, animal power! MALKOVICH But the past comforts you? The present smiles on you, yes? The phone rings. Malkovich puts down the script, and picks up the phone. MALKOVICH (CONT'D) (into phone) Yeah? MAXINE (0.S.) (telephone voice) Mr. Malkovich? MALKOVICH Who's calling? MAXINE (0.S.) You don't know me, but I'm a great admirer of yours. MALKOVICH How'd you get this number? MAXINE (0.S.) It's just that I fantasize about you and, well, speaking to you now has gotten me sort of excited and... LOTTE (0.S.) (turned on) Oh, I like this. MALKOVICH Listen, this is not amusing. Please don't call here any... MAXINE (0.S.) (giggling) Ooh, such authority! NY nipples are at attention, General Malkovich, sir. So I'll be at Bernardo's tonight at eight. Please, please meet me there. I just adored you in that jewel thief movie... Malkovich hangs up the phone. LOTTE (V.O.) My God! (attempting thought control) Meet her there. Meet her there. Meet her there. Meet her there. Meet her there... Malkovich goes back to his script. LOTTE (V.O.) (CONT'D) Meet her there. Meet her there. Meet her there... Malkovich picks up a pen and writes: Bernardo's 8:00. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - MORNING Craig waits. Lotte pops into the ditch. She's wet and slimy. CRAIG How was it? LOTTE I have to go back tonight. At eight Exactly. CRAIG Why? LOTTE Don't crowd me, Craig. CUT TO: INT. BERNARDO'S - NIGHT Malkovich's POV. It's a busy Italian restaurant. Malkovich looks around, checks his watch: 8:03. A guy walks up to him. GUY Excuse me, are you John Malkovich? MALKOVICH Yes. GUY Wow. You were really great in that movie where you played that retard. MALKOVICH Thank you very much. GUY I just wanted to tell you that. And say thank you. I have a cousin that's a retard, so, as you can imagine, it means a lot to me to see retards portrayed on the silver screen so compassionately. The guy walks away. Malkovich scans the room. Maxine enters the restaurant. We see her, but Malkovich doesn't single her out of the crowd. She looks around. LOTTE (V.O.) Maxine! Maxine spots Malkovich. and heads over. He focuses on her. MAXINE Hi. I'm so glad you decided to come. I'm Maxine. Maxine holds out her hand. She is charming. Malkovich takes her hand. MALKOVICH I'm John. I didn't think I was going to come, but I felt oddly compelled. I have to admit I was a bit intrigued by your voice. LOTTE (V.O.) God, she's beautiful. The way she's looking at me. At him. At us. MAXINE And the funny thing is. Mr. Malkovich, my voice is probably the least intriguing thing about me. LOTTE (V.O.) I've never been looked at like this by a woman. MALKOVICH Can I get you a drink? MAXINE Whatever you're having. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S CAR - NIGHT Craig drives. Lotte is soaking wet. She stares out the window. CRAIG So how was it? What was he doing? LOTTE Oh, you know, not a lot. Just hanging around his apartment. I think he must be a lonely man. CRAIG You see, men can feel unfulfilled, too. I'm glad you're realizing that. You shouldn't be so quick to assume that switching bodies would be the answer to all your problems. LOTTE You're right. You know I was thinking that we should have Maxine over for dinner. Since you two are partners and all. It might be a nice gesture. CRAIG I don't know. There's some tension between us. I'd hate to expose you to that. LOTTE It'll be okay. I'll fix my lasagna. We’ll smoke a joint. (dreamily) Tensions will melt away. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S DINING ROOM - NIGHT Craig, Lotte, and Maxine are seated at the table and eating lasagna. Lotte eyes Maxine. Craig eyes Maxine. There is an awkward silence. LOTTE (to Maxine) Did you know that Eskimos have not one, but fifty words for snow. It's because they have so much of it. CRAIG After dinner I'll show you my puppets. MAXINE Ah. LOTTE After that I'll introduce you to my favorite monkey, Elijah. He's got an ulcer, due to a suppressed childhood trauma. But we're getting to the bottom of it. (whispers) Psychotherapy. There is another silence. MAXINE (to no one in particular) The way I see it, the world is divide into those go after what they want and those who don't. The passionate ones, the ones who go after what they want, may not get what they want, but they remain vital, in touch with themselves, and when they lie on their deathbeds, they have few regrets. The ones who don't go after what they want... well, who gives a shit about them anyway? Maxine laughs. There is another silence. Suddenly, at the same moment, both Craig and Lotte lunge for Maxine and start kissing her passionately about the face and neck. They stop just as suddenly and look at each other. CRAIG You? Lotte looks away. MAXINE Craig, I just don't find you attractive. And, Lotte, I'm smitten with you, but only when you're in Malkovich. When I looked into his eyes last night, I could feel you peering out. Behind the stubble and the too-prominent brow and the male pattern baldness, I sensed your feminine longing peering out, and it just slew me. CRAIG (disgusted) My God. Lotte strokes Maxine's face. Craig clears dishes from the table. MAXINE (to Lotte, removing her hand) Only to John, sweetie. I'm sorry. (gets up) Thanks for a wonderful dinner. (walks past kitchen. to Craig) No hard feelings, partner. Maxine exits. Craig and Lotte look at each other. LOTTE I want a divorce. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - MORNING It is deadly silent. Craig and Maxine sit at their desks. The wall clock ticks. Craig whistles tunelessly, every once in a while looking up and discreetly checking out Maxine. Eventually there is a knock at the door. CRAIG (a little too urgently) Come in! Erroll, a sad, fat young man enters meekly. ERROLL Hello, I'm here about the ad. CRAIG Please, have a seat. Erroll sits in a chair in front of Craig's desk. He glances nervously over at Maxine. ERROLL When you say, I can be somebody else, what do you mean exactly? CRAIG Exactly that. We can put you inside someone else's body for fifteen minutes. ERROLL Oh, this is just the medical breakthrough I've been waiting for. Are their any side effects? Please say no! Please say no! MAXINE No. ERROLL Long term psychic or physiological repercussions? MAXINE No. Don't be an ass. ERROLL Can I be anyone I want? MAXINE You can be John Malkovich. ERROLL Well that's perfect. My second choice. Ah, this is wonderful. Too good to be true! You see, I'm a sad man. Sad and fat and alone. Oh, I've tried all the diets, my friends. Lived for a year on nothing but imitation mayonnaise. Did it work? You be the judge. But Malkovich! King of New York! Man about town! Most eligible bachelor! Bon Vivant! The Schopenhauer of the 20th century! Thin man extraordinaire! MAXINE Two hundred dollars, please. ERROLL Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes! Erroll takes out his wallet. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - DAY Craig waits by his car, checks his watch. "Pop!" Erroll plops into the ditch, wet and unkempt. He looks around, sees Craig, charges him with a yell and gives him an enormous bear hug. ERROLL Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thousand times, thank you! CRAIG (gasping for air) Tell your friends. ERROLL Oh, I will, and I have many, many friends and associates, my friend. All, by the way, in Overeaters Anonymous. All of them fat and alone like me, all of them dream of being someone else, all of them with John Malkovich as their second choice! CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY 7 1/2 FLOOR - DAY The hall outside Craig and Maxine's office sports a long line of crouching fat people, all clutching cash in their hands. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Craig kneels at the door and peeks out through the mail slot. Maxine sits at her desk and files her toenails. CRAIG This is amazing! We're gonna be rich! MAXINE So unbolt the fucking door, Einstein. Craig unlocks the door. Lester steps in, closes the door behind him, locks it. LESTER You're making a big mistake, Schwartz. (nods to Maxine) Ma'am CRAIG Dr. Lester, I don't know what you're talking about. LESTER There are rules, boy, procedures, etiquette. This is not a toy. I've been waiting seventy years to utilize this room, grooming myself, quietly setting the stage, performing ablutions, paying tribute, seeing all his motion pictures again and again. Worshipping, Schwartz, worshipping properly. CRAIG You're insane. LESTER I am not alone. There are others. We are legion. You will pay for this blasphemy. You will pay dearly. Lester exits. Craig looks at Maxine. There is a moment of tension. Finally: MAXINE Crackpot. Craig opens the door. The first few fat people move noisily into the room. CUT TO: INT. DR. LESTER'S ALTAT ROOM - NIGHT Many cloaked people in the room kneeling with candles in hand before the lit photo of Malkovich. Lotte kneels in the back row. They chant: DISCIPLES OF MALKOVICH How much do we love you? We loved you in "Making Mr. Right." That is how much we love you. We even own the director's cut on laser disc. Please accept us into your head as we have accepted you into our hearts. Please let us be you. Amen. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S DINING ROOM - A BIT LATER The worshippers mill about, chatting, drinking coffee, nibbling on cookies. LESTER May I have your attention, please. We have a new disciple among us tonight. DISCIPLES OF MALKOVICH Hallelujah. LESTER She is the wife of Schwartz. A stunned hush falls over the group. LOTTE (apologetically) I'm getting divorced. LESTER No you mustn't, my child. LOTTE But why, Son of Malkovich? LESTER We need you on the inside, my child. To report on his comings and goings, and if need be, to... destroy him... (hands Lotte a gun) ...for lack of a better word. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Craig is putting stuff in boxes. Lotte enters in her cloak. LOTTE What are you doing? CRAIG I'm moving. Remember? What's with the hooded cloak? LOTTE Nothing. Don't go, Craig. I've been thinking. Let's try to work this out. We've got so much history. CRAIG (still packing) You should feed your animals. They're looking peaked. LOTTE I'm getting rid of the fucking animals. CRAIG What? LOTTE I'm getting rid of the animals. I've lost interest. Besides, they're standing between you and me. CRAIG No they're not. LOTTE You've always hated the animals. CRAIG You've always loved the animals. LOTTE I'm giving them up. I've changed. I've found a new focus. CRAIG What's that? LOTTE (beat) Us, of course. Craig looks up from his packing. He and Lotte stare at each other for a long while. CRAIG (tenderly) Oh, Lot... They hug. CRAIG (CONT'D) What about Maxine? LOTTE Fuck Maxine. CRAIG We wish. They look at each other and laugh, them fall back into the embrace. They both get faraway looks in their eyes. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S GARAGE - NIGHT The clock reads 3:00 AM. Craig, in his pajamas, is working the Craig and Maxine puppets. They make love on the bare puppet stage. Craig seems possessed. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS The phone rings. Maxine sleepily picks it up. MAXINE Yes? LOTTE (O.S.) I have to see you. Can you call him and invite us over? MAXINE When? LOTTE (O.S.) Give me one hour to get inside him Exactly. Maxine checks her alarm clock. The time is 3:11 AM. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S CAR - NIGHT Lotte drives. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S APARTMENT - A BIT LATER The doorbell rings. Maxine, in a sheer black nightgown, answers it. John Malkovich stands there. MAXINE Thanks so much for coming over. MALKOVICH Oh, I'm really glad you called. Maxine gestures for him to enter. As Malkovich passes by her, she checks the wall clock. The time is 3:50. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - NIGHT Lotte sits on the floor in the dark. She leans, out of breath, against the wall next to the portal and checks her watch. The time is 4:10. She pulls open the door. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT Maxine and Malkovich sit a bit awkwardly next to each other on the couch. MAXINE So, do you enjoy being an actor? MALKOVICH Oh sure. It's very rewarding... The digital clock on the VCR clicks over to 4:11 AM. Maxine's look softens, and she kisses Malkovich hard on the lips. He seems surprised, but quickly warms to it. We shift top Malkovich's POV as Maxine begins to unbutton Malkovich's shirt. LOTTE (V.O.) Oh my darling. Oh my sweetheart. MAXINE I love you, Lotte. LOTTE (V.O.) Maxine... MALKOVICH (stopping) I'm sorry, did you just call me "Lotte"? MAXINE Do you mind? MALKOVICH (thinking) No, I guess not. I'm an actor. They get back to it. MAXINE Oh, my sweet, beautiful Lotte. MALKOVICH (thinks he's playing along) Yes, Maxine, yes. LOTTE (V.O.) This is too good to be true. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT A sweaty and spent Craig sneaks back into the bedroom. He sees that the bed is empty. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - NIGHT With a gasp and a wail of release, Lotte pops into the ditch. She is soaking wet and breathes heavily. She just lies there. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S KITCHEN - MORNING Craig is hunched over a cup of coffee. The front door can be heard to open. After a moment Lotte appears in the kitchen doorway. She is caked with dirt. Craig looks up at her. CRAIG You were him last night, weren't you? LOTTE (quietly) Yes. CRAIG And he was with her. LOTTE We love her, Craig. I'm sorry. CRAIG We? LOTTE Me and John. CRAIG Don't forget me. LOTTE Well, you have the Maxine action figure to play with. Craig looks down at his coffee. LOTTE (CONT'D) I'm sorry. That was nasty. CRAIG Life is confusing, isn't it? LOTTE Sometimes we're forced to make hard decisions. (beat) I'd like for us to stay together, Craig. You know, platonically, if that's possible. I truly value our friendship. CRAIG I feel that somehow my parents never prepared me to make this particular decision. Not that I blame them. How could they know? Today's world is so complicated. (beat) No. I have to go away now. I'm sorry, Lotte. I'm so sorry. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - MORNING Craig enters with red-rimmed eyes. Maxine sits at her desk, actually looking kind of radiant. MAXINE You're late. CRAIG Are you torturing me on purpose? MAXINE (matter of fact) I've fallen in love. CRAIG I don't think so. I've fallen in love. This is what people who've fallen in love look like. MAXINE You picked the unrequited variety. Very bad for the skin. CRAIG You're evil, Maxine. MAXINE Do you have any idea what its like to have two people look at you with total lust and devotion through the same pair of eyes? No I don't suppose you would. It's quite a thrill, Craig. Craig turns and walks out the door. CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY 7 1/2 FLOOR - CONTINUOUS Craig hurries past a long line of fat people, all looking eager, all clutching cash. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S OFFICE - MORNING Lester sits at his desk. The intercom buzzes. LESTER (depressing switch) Yes, my dear? FLORIS (O.S.) (intercom voice) Someone names A Lot of Warts on line two. LESTER Thank you, Floris. FLORIS (O.S.) (intercom voice) Think, Jew florist? LESTER (pressing line 2) Good morning, Lotte! LOTTE (O.S.) Dr. Lester, everything's falling apart. CUT TO: INT. GUN SHOP - MORNING Craig is at the counter buying a pistol. CUT TO: INT. JUICY-JUICE JUICE BAR - MORNING Lester and Lotte sit at a table. They both have really large glasses of carrot juice in front of them. LOTTE I blew it, Dr. Lester. LESTER You followed your heart, my child, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. LOTTE But now we've lost access to Craig. LESTER (laughs) My child, I don't think its a great mystery what Craig's up to. CUT TO: CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - DAY Craig stands still and tense, with gun in hand. We hear the front door unlock. Lotte enters. She does not see Craig. He grabs her from behind as she passes. Lotte screams. Craig holds the gun to her head. LOTTE I'm your Goddamn wife. Once you vowed to cherish me forever. Now you hold a gun to my head? CRAIG Yeah, well welcome to the nineties. LOTTE Suck my dick! CRAIG (slapping her) Shut up! Lotte is stunned. She feels the muzzle against her forehead. She shuts up. Keeping the gun trained on Lotte, Craig dials the phone. He hands the receiver to her. He holds his ear to the receiver also. CRAIG (CONT'D) Tell her you need to see her. LOTTE (to Craig) You bastard. Craig cocks the pistol. MAXINE (V.O.) J.M. Inc. Be all that someone else can be. LOTTE (looking at Craig) I have to see you. MAXINE (V.O.) Sweetie! Oh, but we can't. It's business hours. I need to keep the membranous tunnel open for paying customers. CRAIG (sotto) Tell her, what the hell, close early today, live dangerously. LOTTE What the hell, darling. Close early today, live dangerously. MAXINE (V.O.) Oooh, doll. I love this new devil-may-care side of you. Alrighty, I'll track down Lover-boy, and I'll see both of you in one hour. Exactamundo. Maxine hangs up. Lotte hands the phone to Craig, who hangs it up. Craig opens up the big cage where Elijah is housed, and motions with the gun for Lotte to enter. LOTTE (screaming) Help! He's locking me in a cage! Craig slaps Lotte hard. She looks at him, almost sadly. NEIGHBOR Shut up! PARROT Shut up! CRAIG Lesson number one: Be careful what you teach your parrot. Craig tapes Lotte's mouth, ties her hands and feet. Elijah watches him tie her. He becomes somewhat agitated, and holds his stomach. CUT TO: INT. BROADHURST THEATER - DAY Malkovich is rehearsing some business on stage. Maxine watches from the house. She anxiously checks her watch, then points to it so Malkovich can see. MALKOVICH Tommy, can I take fifteen? CUT TO: INT. MALKOVICH'S DRESSING ROOM - DAY Malkovich and Maxine are having sex on the make-up table, against the mirror. MAXINE Oh, Lotte... Oh, sweetie... We now watch the scene from Malkovich's POV. MALKOVICH Maxine... CRAIG (V.O.) I can't believe it. This is too good to be true. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - DAY Craig is toweling himself off, hurriedly combing his hair. Maxine enters. CRAIG You're glowing again. MAXINE A girl has a right to glow if she wants. It's in the fucking constitution. Maxine sits. Craig smiles to himself. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - EVENING Craig is feeding the various caged animals. He puts two plates of food in Elijah's cage. Lotte is ungagged and unbound now. She eats as Craig slumps down next to the cage, gun in hand. CRAIG It was lovely being you being Malkovich, my dear. I'd never seen the passionate side of sweet Maxine before, or her actual tits for that matter. If only, I've been thinking to myself, if only I could actually feel what Malkovich feels, rather than just see what he sees... And then, dare I say it, if only I could control his arms, his legs, his pelvis, and make them do my bidding. LOTTE It'll never happen, fuckface. CRAIG Ah, but you're forgetting one thing, Lambchop. LOTTE What's that? CRAIG I'm a puppeteer. Craig picks up the phone and dials. He smiles as he holds the receiver up to Lotte's face. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Malkovich and Maxine are having sex on Maxine's couch. MAXINE Lotte, this is so good... CRAIG (V.O.) (tense, commanding) Move right hand across her left breast now. Move right hand across her left breast now. Move right hand across her left breast now. Malkovich clumsily, awkwardly moves his hand across Maxine's breast. CRAIG (V.O.) (CONT'D) Holy shit, yes! MALKOVICH Holy shit, yes! CRAIG (V.O.) Holy shit! He said what I said! MALKOVICH Holy shit! He said what I said! MAXINE Lotte? Is that you? CRAIG (V.O.) Yes, yes, sweetheart, yes! MALKOVICH Yes, yes, sweetheart, yes! (scared) What the fuck is going on? I'm not talking. This is not me! MAXINE Oh, Lotte... Maxine kisses Malkovich hard on the lips. There is a sucking sound. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - NIGHT There is a pop and Craig lands in the ditch. CUT TO: INT. MAXINE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT A panicked Malkovich is pulling on his clothes. MALKOVICH Something was making me talk. Some Goddamn thing was making me move. I gotta get out of here. MAXINE Oh, Dollface, it was just your passion for me taking hold. MALKOVICH No, Dollface, I know what my passion taking hold feels like. I gotta go. He leaves. Maxine falls back on the couch and sighs contentedly. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT A wet, mess Craig sits next to Lotte's cage. Lotte is bound and gagged. CRAIG I did it, sweetie. I moved his arm across your girlfriend's glorious tit. I made him talk. And, oh, there was the beginning of sensation in the fingertips. Ummmm-mmmm! It's just a matter of practice before Malkovich becomes nothing more than another puppet hanging next to my worktable. Coffee? CUT TO: INT. MALKOVICH'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Malkovich paces nervously, a glass of whisky in his hand. Kevin Bacon sits on the couch and fiddles with a Rubic's Cube. MALKOVICH It's like nothing I've ever felt before. I think I'm going crazy. KEVIN BACON I'm sure you're not going crazy. MALKOVICH Kevin, I'm telling you... it was like nothing I've... KEVIN BACON Yeah yeah yeah. Yadda yadda yadda. Were you stoned? MALKOVICH Yes, but you see, someone else was talking through my mouth. KEVIN BACON You were stoned. Case closed. End of story. How hot is this babe? MALKOVICH I think it might've been this Lotte woman talking through me. Maxine likes to call me Lotte. KEVIN BACON Ouch. Now that's hot. She's using you to channel some dead lesbian lover. Let me know when you're done with her. This is my type of chick. MALKOVICH I'm done with her now. Tonight really creeped me out. KEVIN BACON You're crazy to let go of a chick who calls you Lotte. I tell you that as a friend. MALKOVICH I don't know anything about her. What if she's some sort of witch or something? KEVIN BACON All the better. Hey, Hot Lesbian Witches, next Geraldo, buddy boy. Ha ha ha. MALKOVICH I gotta know the truth, Kevin. KEVIN BACON The truth is for suckers, Johnny-Boy. CUT TO: EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - MORNING Malkovich, in a baseball cap and sunglasses, leans against the wall. After a moment, Maxine emerges from the building and walks down the block. Malkovich follows at a safe distance. CUT TO: INT. 7 1/2 FLOOR - MORNING The elevator doors are pried open. It's packed. Maxine and a few other people climb out. The last to emerge is Malkovich. He is astounded by the dimensions of the floor. He turns the corner and sees the long line of crouching fat people. Maxine goes into the office and closes the door. Maxine sees "J.M. Inc." stenciled on the office door. He turns to the first fat man and line. MALKOVICH Excuse me, what type of service does this company provide? FAT MAN You get to be John Malkovich for fifteen minutes. Two hundred clams. MALKOVICH (quietly flipped) I see. FAT MAN No cutting, by the way. Malkovich pounds on the door. FAT MAN (CONT'D) No cutting! Several fat people jump on Malkovich, and start beating him. Craig steps out of the office. CRAIG Hey! Break it up! Break it up! Everybody gets a chance to be... The fat people climb off Malkovich. His glasses and cap have been knocked off and everyone recognizes him. FAT MAN It's him! Oh, we're so sorry Mr. Malkovich! I hope me and my associates from Overeaters Anonymous didn't hurt you too terribly. MALKOVICH (to Craig) Inside. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Craig and Malkovich enter. Maxine looks up, startled, but controlling it. MAXINE Darling! MALKOVICH What the fuck is going on? CRAIG Mr. Malkovich, my name is Craig Schwartz. I can explain. We operate a little business her that... simulates, for our clientele, the experience of... being you, actually. MALKOVICH Simulates? CRAIG Sure, after a fashion. MALKOVICH Let me try. CRAIG You? Why I'm sure it would pale in comparison to the actual experience. MALKOVICH Let me try! MAXINE Let him try. CRAIG Of course, right this way, Mr. Malkovich. Compliments of the house. Craig ushers Malkovich to the portal door, opens it. MALKOVICH (repulsed by the slime) Jesus. Malkovich climbs in. The door closes. CRAIG What happens when a man climbs through his own portal? MAXINE (shrugs) How the hell would I know? I wasn't a philosophy major. CUT TO: INT. MEMBRANOUS TUNNEL - DAY Malkovich crawls through. It's murky. He's tense. Suddenly there is a slurping sound. CUT TO: PSYCHEDELIC MONTAGE We see Malkovich hurtling through different environments. It's scary: giant toads, swirling eddies of garish, colored lights, naked old people pointing and laughing, black velvet clown paintings. CUT TO: INT. RESTAURANT - NIGHT Malkovich pops into a chair in a swakn night club. He's wearing a tuxedo. The woman across the table from him is also Malkovich, but in a gown. He looks around the restaurant. Everyone is Malkovich in different clothes. Malkovich is panicked. The girl Malkovich across the table looks at him seductively, winks and talks. GIRL MALKOVICH Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich... Malkovich looks confused. The Malkovich waiter approaches, pen and pad in hand, ready to take their orders. WAITER MALKOVICH Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich? GIRL MALKOVICH Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich. WAITER MALKOVICH Malkovich Malkovich. (Turning to Malkovich) Malkovich? Malkovich looks down at the menu. Every item is "Malkovich." He screams: MALKOVICH Malkovich! The waiter jots it down on his pad. WAITER MALKOVICH Malkovich. Malkovich pushes himself away from the table and runs for the exit. He passes the stage where a girl singer Malkovich is singin sensuously into the microphone. She is backed by a '40's style big band of Malkoviches. SINGING MALKOVICH Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich... Malkovich flies through the back door. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - DAY Malkovich lands with a thud in the ditch. Craig is waiting there with his van. On its side is painted "See The World in Malk-O-Vision" followed by a phone number. Malkovich is huddled and shivering and soaking wet. CRAIG So how was it? MALKOVICH That... was... no... simulation. CRAIG I know. I'm sorry... MALKOVICH I have been to the dark side. I have seen a world that no man should ever see. CRAIG Really? For most people it's a rather pleasant experience. What exactly did you... MALKOVICH This portal is mine and must be sealed up forever. For the love of God. CRAIG With all respect, sir, I discovered that portal. Its my livelihood. MALKOVICH It's my head, Schwartz, and I'll see you in court! Malkovich trudges off along the shoulder of the turnpike. CRAIG (calling after him) And who's to say I won't be seeing what you're seeing... in court? Cars whiz by Malkovich. Someone yells from a passing car. MOTORIST Hey, Malkovich! Think fast! Malkovich looks up. A beer can comes flying out of the car and hits him on the head. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Craig is feeding the animals. His gun is stuck in his pants. He gets to Lotte's cage. She is bound but ungagged. She looks haggard. LOTTE Once this was a relationship based on love. Now you have me in a cage with a monkey and a gun to my head. CRAIG Things change. Anyway, you gave up your claim to that love the first time you stuck your dick in Maxine. LOTTE You fell in love with her first. CRAIG Yeah but I didn't do anything about it. Out of respect for our marriage. LOTTE You didn't do anything about it out of respect for the fact that she wouldn't let you near her with a ten foot pole, which is, by the way, about nine feet, nine inches off the mark anyway. CRAIG (beat) That's true. Oh, God, Lotte, what have I become? My wife in a cage with a monkey. A gun in my hand. Betrayal in my heart. LOTTE Maybe this is what you've always been, Craig, you just never faced it before. CRAIG Perhaps you're right. I can't let you go though. Too much has happened. You're my ace in the hole. LOTTE I need a shower. CRAIG I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry. I'm some kind of monster. I'm the guy you read about in the paper and go, "he's some kind of monster." LOTTE You're not a monster, Craig. Just a confused man. CRAIG I love you so much. She dials her phone, opens her cage, puts phone to her ear. CRAIG (CONT'D) But I gotta go now. I've got to go be Johnny. MAXINE (O.S.) J.M. Inc. Be all that someone... LOTTE We have to meet. MAXINE One hour. Craig hangs up, tapes Lotte's mouth. CRAIG I'll tell you all about it when I get home. Craig exits. Lotte fiddles with the ropes on her hands Elijah, slumped in the corner of the cage, blankly watches her moving hands. Suddenly his eyes narrow. Something is going on in his brain. We move slowly into his eyes. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. JUNGLE - DAY It is a memory: blurry and overexposed, the color washed out. We see a weathered wooden sign which reads "Africa." The sound of running feet, huffing frantic breathing. We watch from up in a tree (Elijah's POV) as two men in safari suits chase a couple of chimps across the jungle floor. The chimps are screaming as the safari men tackle them and tie them up. The safari men laugh. SAFARI MAN Well, there monkeys ain't going nowhere. Let's get us a couple a brews 'fore the boss comes back... The safari men leave the chimps on the ground. We descend from the trees to the ground next to the bound chimps. One of the chimps looks at the camera. He grunts and squeals. CHIMP ONE (DUBBED VOICE) Son, untie your mother and me! Quickly! Before the great bald chimp-men return. A small pair of chimp hands enter into the frame and struggle to untie the ropes, but to no avail. Chimp two speaks. CHIMP TWO (DUBBED VOICE) Hurry, Elijah! SAFARI MAN Why you little bastard! Elijah is wrestled to the ground amidst much screaming. DISSOLVE TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S APARTMENT - DAY Elijah shakes off the memory and looks determinedly at the ropes on Lotte's hands. He attempts to untie the knot. He works furiously and succeeds. Lotte pulls the tape from her mouth. LOTTE Oh, Elijah, you are magnificent! Elijah beams and screams for ecstatic joy. Lotte unlocks the cage, and dials the phone. LOTTE Maxine! Listen: It hasn't been me in John the last three times. Craig's had me locked up in the apartment. He made me call you at gunpoint. It's been him! Oh, God, it's been him! MAXINE (O.S.) (beat, calmly) Really? Well, you know, he's quite good. I'm surprised. Anyway, I have a session with Malkovich I have to attend. I'll speak with you soon. LOTTE But Maxine, I thought it was me you loved. MAXINE (O.S.) I thought so too, doll. I guess we were mistaken. Maxine hangs up. Lotte, visibly shaken, dials the phone. LOTTE Hello, Dr. Lester? CUT TO: INT. MALKOVICH'S APARTMENT - NIGHT The doorbell rings. Malkovich answers it. Maxine stands there, dressed in an evening gown. MALKOVICH Come on in. MAXINE I can explain about the portal, darling. MALKOVICH Don't con me, Maxine. We're over. I just let you up here to tell you that, and to tell you that I'm taking you and Schwartz to court. MAXINE Oh shut up. (beat) Craig, darling are you in there? Malkovich tenses up, then shakes his head in an awkward, puppet-like manner. When Malkovich speaks, it seems to be against him will. MALKOVICH Yes. How did you know it was me? MAXINE Lotte called me. MALKOVICH Oh, so the bitch escaped. MAXINE Apparently you can control this Malkovich fellow now. MALKOVICH I'm getting better all the time. MAXINE I'll say you are. Let's do it on his kitchen table, then make him eat an omelette off of it. MALKOVICH (as Malkovich) No... damn... you... (as Craig) Oh shut up, you overrated sack of shit. Malkovich begins undressing, and does a lewd bump and grind while looking mortified. Maxine giggles. Malkovich (Craig) laughs wildly. CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S OFFICE - NIGHT Lester's hand is in a bloody bandage. The juicer sits on hi desk. Lotte sits across from him looking nervous and hollow-eyed. LESTER You know I think it pays to leave juice-making to the trained professionals. You look terrible, my dear. LOTTE Craig stole Maxine from me, Dr. Lester. LESTER Hmmm, a lesbian, are you? I must inform you that I find that highly arousing. LOTTE No, you don't understand. I've been inside Malkovich when I'm with Maxine... LESTER (slaps Lotte furiously) What?! That is not allowed. My God, you are supposed to be one of us. You know you must never partake of Malkovich by yourself! LOTTE No, I didn't know that. LESTER Oh, didn't anyone show you the indoctrination video? LOTTE No. LESTER Oh, sorry. Right this way. CUT TO: INT. SCREENING ROOM - NIGHT Lotte site next to Lester in the darkened auditorium. The projector whirs. The screen lights up. TITLE: SO YOU WANT TO BE JOHN MALKOVICH A much younger Lester addresses the camera in this black and white film, which seems to have been made in the 50's. LESTER ON FILM Welcome, my fellow Malkovichians. As you may already know, today a baby was born into this sad world. We see a shot of a newborn. LESTER ON FILM (CONT'D) His name is John Horatio Hannibal Malkovich. And we are the keepers of the door to his soul. One day, when his brain is big enough, we will all journey into his head and live there for all eternity. Following the teachings of our leader Karl Marx, we will build the ultimate communist community, one body and hundreds, maybe thousands, of brains inside working together to form a super human intellect capable of curing disease, stopping all war, and ruling the world with a benevolent fist. We will take a wife, a woman of uncommon beauty and intellect, who is, as yet, still an infant herself. We see a photo of another infant, this one with a ribbon in her hair. LESTER ON FILM (CONT'D) Her name is Floris Horatia Hannibella DeMent. LOTTE Does Floris know that she's the chosen? LESTER Well, I tried to explain it to her, but... Lester points to his ear and shrugs. CUT TO: INT. MALKOVICH'S BEDROOM - NIGHT Malkovich and Maxine lie naked on the bed, looking quite relaxed. MAXINE You still there, sweets? MALKOVICH Yeah. I've figured out how to hold on as long as I want. Oddly enough, it's all in the wrists. MAXINE Wow. (little girl pout) Do a puppet show for me, Craig honey. MALKOVICH You mean with Malkovich? MAXINE I'd love to see your work. MALKOVICH (pleased) Really? Yeah. Okay. Malkovich leans over and kisses her, then gets up. MALKOVICH (CONT'D) I'll do something I call "Craig's Dance of Despair and Disillusionment." Malkovich performs the same dance that the Craig pupper did at the beginning of the film. It is exactly the same, complete with impossible somersaults and perspiring brow. He finishes by falling to his knees and weeping. MAXINE (moved) That was incredible. You're brilliant! MALKOVICH You see, Maxine, it isn't just playing with dolls. MAXINE You're right, my darling, it's so much more. It's playing with people! Malkovich kisses Maxine. She snuggles close to him. MAXINE Stay in him forever? MALKOVICH (as Malkovich, screaming) No! (as Craig, calmly) But how will we make a living, my love, if our clientele doesn't have access to our product? MAXINE Well, we'll have all the money in Malkovich's bank account, plus he still gets acting work occasionally. MALKOVICH (as Malkovich, breaking through) No! Please! (as Craig, to Malkovich) Shut up, will you? We're trying to think here. (to Maxine) It is sort of like being a puppeteer. I like that about it. MAXINE No one would ever have to know its not him. MALKOVICH (an idea) Wait a minute! What if everybody knew? What if we presented Malkovich as the world's most complicated puppet and me as the only puppeteer sophisticated enough to work him? We'd wipe the floor with the Great Mantini! MAXINE Oh, Craiggy, that's brilliant! CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S SHRINE ROOM - NIGHT The worshippers are assembled. Lotte stands before them. LOTTE I have sinned, unwittingly, against the community. And for this I am truly sorry. MAN #2 W-w-what's it like on the inside? LOTTE Oh, it's glorious. It's indescribable. MAN #2 Oooh, I wanna go. I wanna go. I say it's time. LESTER Perhaps you're right, Terry. We're all prepared, and perhaps this Schwartz fellow is forcing our hand a bit. We will enter the portal tonight! Everyone cheers. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - NIGHT Maxine and Malkovich are furiously filling the portal with cement. Suddenly Malkovich stops and runs to the office door screaming a bloodcurdling scream. He stops just as suddenly, begins to strangle himself. MALKOVICH (Craig to Malkovich) Shut up! (to Maxine) Sorry, dear, I lost control for a minute. MAXINE (kissing him) It's okay, my sweet. They go back to filling the portal. There is the sound of many shuffling feet in the hallway. The door flies open and the Malkovichians led by Lester and Lotte burst in. Malkovich and Maxine turn with a start. LESTER Aaaahhhh, the portal! LOTTE (to Malkovich) You bastard! Lotte lunges for Malkovich. Lester grabs her arm, holds her back. LESTER No! Don't harm the vessel! LOTTE It's Craig in there, I can tell. LESTER I understand, but we must protect the vessel at all costs. (to Malkovich) Please, Craig, please step aside and allow us to have what is rightfully ours. CRAIG Squatter's rights, Lester. Craig laughs somewhat maniacally. Maxine slips her arm through Craig's, joins him in his laughter, and glances triumphantly over at Lotte. MAXINE Now excuse us, we have an entertainment legend to create. LESTER (to the cult members) Clear the way for them, my friends. They will be dealt with in due time. The Malkovichians grumble and let Malkovich and Maxine exit. LESTER (CONT'D) Now, let's see what we can do to salvage this portal... for the sake of all that is good. The Malkovichians converge on the sealed portal, and begin clawing desperately at the quick-drying cement. Fingers are scraped raw, and we see smears of blood and skin on the rough gray surface. CUT TO: INT. AGENT'S OFFICE - DAY A slick-looking agent answers a buzzing phone. AGENT Of course, send him right in. Don't ever keep him waiting again. Do you understand? Malkovich and Maxine enter. The agent stands, holds out his hand. AGENT (CONT'D) John! Great to see you! Sorry about the cunt at reception. MALKOVICH This is my fiancee Maxine. The agent shakes Maxine's hand. AGENT Great to see you, Maxine. Sorry about the cunt at reception. Please have a seat. Malkovich and Maxine sit. AGENT (CONT'D) Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water? MAXINE No thanks. AGENT (into phone) Teresa, get me a chicken soup. (to Malkovich and Maxine) Chicken soup? Maxine and Malkovich shake their heads "no." MALKOVICH I'll get right to the point, Larry. I'm a puppet now... AGENT Okay. MALKOVICH I'm being controlled by the world's greatest puppeteer, Craig Schwartz... AGENT (no clue) Oh yeah, he's good. MALKOVICH ... and I want to show off his skills by performing a one-puppet extravaganza in Reno. MAXINE Vegas. MALKOVICH Vegas. Can you arrange that? AGENT Sure, sure. Just let me make a couple of calls. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - DAY The cult members are still there, now with picks shovels. They are worn out and sweaty. The portal is excavated, but it seems ragged and destroyed. Man #2 emerges from the hole, a rope tied around his waist. MAN #2 That's the last of it, boss. Lester peers through the door. LESTER Well, let's see what we've got here. Lester crawls into the tunnel, the door slams behind him. CUT TO: INT. PORTAL - CONTINUOUS Lester crawls through. There is a slurping sound and a flash of light. CUT TO: INT. BUNKER - DAY The scene is in black and white. Bombs are dropping. There is a blonde in forties clothes there. Lester views the scene through somebody's POV. LESTER (V.O.) My God, where am I? This seems so familiar. The person walks past a mirror. It's Hitler. LESTER (V.O.) My God, I'm Hitler in the bunker! Aaaahhhh! Aaaah! DIRECTOR Cut! We look over to see a director and camera crew. LESTER (V.O.) Oh, I'm just the actor in that Twilight Zone episode. There is a popping sound. CUT TO: EXT. DITCH - DAY Lester pops into the ditch. One of his cult members is waiting with a car, and looking hopeful. Lester sadly shakes his head "no." CUT TO: INT. LESTER'S SHRINE ROOM - DAY The cult members mill about, drinking coffee, chatting. Lester enters with the cult member who picked him up at the ditch. All quiet down and look over at him. LESTER Thank you all for your efforts, but I'm afraid we can no longer get into Malkovich through the portal. LOTTE (panicky) Why not? I need to get in there! LESTER I'm not certain, my dear, but I believe your husband has somehow psychically diverted the route. LOTTE That bastard! I'll gladly dispose of him in the name of the order, Son of Malkovich. LESTER I'm afraid that no physical harm must come to him as long as he inhabits the vessel. MAN #3 (raises hand) Oooh, I got an idea! What if we build another portal to Malkovich, like around back, and sneak in that way? MAN #4 Only Captain Mertin knew how to build a portal, dummy, and he's dead! LESTER Actually, my friends, I suppose its time I told you, I'm Captain James Mertin. The members fall into a stunned silence. Lester takes some refrigerator magnets and spells out L-E-S-T-E-R on a board. He then rearranges them for a while. LESTER (CONT'D) You see, Lester is an anagram for Mertin. Lester continues to rearrange the letters, getting a little tense now. LESTER (CONT'D) It used to work, I'm sure of it. Several members check their watches. LESTER (CONT'D) Oh, damn it to hell. Anyway, I am. L-E-S-T-E-R has been left as E-L R-E-S-T as Lester turns from the board to face the congregation. MAN #3 How can this be? I thought you were only one hundred and five years old. Mertin would have to be... LESTER (chuckles amiably) I'm two hundred and five, truth be told. WOMAN #1 (flirtatiously) You don't look a day over one hundred and five, Captain. What's your secret? LESTER Lots of carrot juice, little lady. That, and a deal with the Devil. There is a lot of murmuring in the room now. MAN #2 So what exactly are you saying? Are we in cahoots with the Dark Master here? LESTER Surprise. The cultists get tense, start to leave en masse. LESTER (CONT'D) Wait! It's not that bad! When we get into Malkovich, we still get to rule the world, just like I told you. The only difference is that we rule in the name of evil, instead of good. People stop in their tracks. MAN #3 That's the only difference? LESTER Absolutely. The cultists think about is, then shrug and stay put. LESTER (CONT'D) So anyway... Lotte stands. LOTTE Well, I for one, am resigning. I will not serve evil. I am ashamed of all of you. Lotte heads for the door. LESTER My dear, let me assure you that when we attain power, it will be much more pleasant for those inside Malkovich, than for those outside. Lotte stops and turns. LOTTE I'll take my chances. She exits. LESTER Anybody else? WOMAN #1 Do we get to wear a crown? LESTER But of course. WOMAN #1 Count me in. LESTER Good. I think its time to beckon Mr. Flemmer. Perhaps He can help us out of this pickle. FLIP TO: INT. LESTER'S SHRINE ROOM - A BIT LATER Mr. Flemmer, a silver-haired gentleman in turtleneck and blazer, scratches his head. The cultists patiently watch him. FLEMMER Boy, this is a toughie. To be honest, I didn't anticipate this. LESTER And as I said, sir, we can't very well exert physical persuasion upon the sacred vessel Malkovich. FLEMMER Right, Lester. I heard you the first time. I'm not a dummy. LESTER Didn't mean to imply that you were, sir. FLEMMER Look, I'm going back to my house to ponder this. So stay calm and keep track of Schwartz's comings and goings. Oh, and somebody dispose of Schwartz's wife, will you? (to cultists) Nice to meet you all. The cult members ad-lib "same here, sir." CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Lotte site in the living room, in her pajamas, softly sobbing. The caged animals watch her. LOTTE Oh, my friends. Be thankful you're not human. People are treacherous and greedy and corrupt. I've lost my heart to two of them and I almost lost my soul to another. And I'm no better. Look at the way I keep you, locked in cages, for my own enjoyment. Well, I've been in a cage too, my friends. Literally and figuratively. So tonight I set you free. Lotte opens the windows and the front door, then unlocks all the cages. The animals scurry and fly out of their cages, and out of the house. Lotte watches silently until she is alone. LOTTE (CONT'D) Good-bye, friends. A hand reaches for hers. She looks down. Elijah is still there and holding her hand. She smiles. LOTTE (CONT'D) Hello, friend CUT TO: EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT We see the menagerie of animals on the otherwise deserted street, dispersing into the night. A lone dark figure turns the corner, and walks slowly up the street to Craig and Lotte's building. CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND LOTTE'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS Lotte and Elijah see the dark figure coming up the steps. The buzzer rings. Lotte and Elijah jump. LOTTE They've come to kill me, Elijah. See, I know too much. I should get the door. It's impolite to keep death waiting. Elijah looks at her sweetly, a great sadness in his eyes. Then he leads her by the hand out the window. CUT TO: EXT. VEGAS HOTEL - NIGHT The marquee reads: World's Greatest Puppeteer Craig Schwartz and his Magical Puppet John Malkovich. CUT TO: INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT Malkovich sits in a tuxedo and watches himself in the dressing table mirror. Maxine, in a tight black number, reclines on the couch. MAXINE This is it, lover. You're stepping onto that stage a nobody and presto-change-o, you're coming back the greatest puppeteer the world has ever seen. MALKOVICH I'm nervous. Malkovich is fighting me hard today. Malkovich jerks a bit, gets it under control. MAXINE Doesn't he know how important tonight is to us? MALKOVICH He's a selfish bastard. CUT TO: INT. LAS VEGAS THEATER - NIGHT The house is filling with formally dressed audience members. The cultists and Lester, also in tuxes and gowns, are among them. The lights go down. ANNOUNCER (O.S.) Ladies and gentlemen, it is the great privilege of the Luxor hotel and Casino to present Craig Schwartz and his magical puppet John Malkovich. The orchestra starts up. The curtains part. LESTER Blasphemous bastard. Malkovich tap dances out onto the stage. He is amazingly nimble and the audience "oohs" and "aahs." LESTER (CONT'D) (grudgingly) Pretty good though. Malkovich does an amazing triple somersault, lands on one knee and, with spread arms, begins singing: "Kiss Today Goodbye." in a beautiful tenor. The orchestra catches up with him. The audience goes wild. A pretty-boy young man with a big tousle of black hair and a shiny, tight suit appears at the back of the house. An usher glances over at him. USHER Oh, Mr. Mantini! We weren't expecting you tonight, sir. Um, I'm afraid there's not an empty seat in the entire house. MANTINI (not taking his eyes from the stage) Make one empty. USHER Y-y-y-es sir. The usher looks nervously around for someone to boot. Martini waits in the back. On stage, Malkovich is now performing the "back of the car scene" from "On The Waterfront." He alternates between the Marlon Brando part and the Rod Steiger part, moving back and forth from one stool to the another. He performs it magnificently. We see Lester in the audience wiping a small tear from his eye. LESTER Not too shabby. Mantini is now sitting in a good aisle seat next to a beautiful woman. Her boyfriend is being hauled toward the exit by the usher. The beautiful woman watches, with some concern, as the boyfriend is taken away. Then she turns and smiles flirtatiously at Mantini. Mantini smiles back. On stage Malkovich is dressed in a ringmaster's outfit and juggling chainsaws. MANTINI Nothing more than a Goddamn clown. At this point the entire audience stands and gives Malkovich a spontaneous standing ovation. All except Mantini. Even the cultists get up. CUT TO: INT. SEWER - NIGHT Lotte sits sadly in the wet tunnel. She is scrunched-up against the damp cold. A small fire smolders in front of her. We hear footsteps approaching. It is Elijah, carrying supplies: food and blankets. He covers her with a blanket and sits down next to her. LOTTE They're going to take over the world, Elijah. Evil will reign. But, then, evil already reigns, doesn't it? So what difference does it make if John Malkovich is wearing the fucking crown while it's reigning? Elijah sighs, then holds his stomach. The ulcer is returning. CUT TO: INT. FLEMMER'S APARTMENT - DAY It's a conservatively furnished upper westside apartment. Looks like it belongs to a Columbia professor. The walls are lined with books. Mr. Flemmer sits at his desk, his head in his hands, deep in thought. The doorbell rings. FLEMMER It's open. The door opens and Lester pokes his head in. LESTER It's just me, boss. I brought croissants. Lester enters with a greasy white paper bag. FLEMMER Have a seat. I wracking my brain over this Malkovich thing. LESTER We saw his show at the Luxor last night. FLEMMER (impressed) Vegas? What'd you think? LESTER The kid's got talent. You've never seen Malkovich like this. Schwartz had him up there singing and dancing. Impressions. FLEMMER Impressions? Those are hard. LESTER Very talented son of a bitch. Too bad we can't kill him. FLEMMER I suppose I could come to him in a dream. I don't know. That's the best I can think of right now. LESTER A scary dream? FLEMMER No, a sexy dream. Of course, a scary dream. LESTER (noncommittally) I like that. CUT TO: INT. HOTEL SUITE - NIGHT Malkovich sits on the floor in silk pajamas. He is surrounded by newspaper clippings. He is drinking champagne from the bottle. Maxine is at a dressing table, brushing her hair. MALKOVICH They love me, darling! "Craig Schwartz is fantastic!" The New York Times. "If only Craig Schwartz had always been inside Malkovich!" Women's Wear Daily. "Craig Schwartz - The world's greatest puppeteer!" Paul Wunder, WBAI Radio. MAXINE Oh, darling. It's a dream come true. We're going to ride this straight to the top. MALKOVICH Sleepy suddenly. MAXINE Busy day, my little fire chief. Why don't you climb into bed, and I'll meet you there in just... But Malkovich is already passed out on the floor on top of his clippings. Maxine smiles maternally, gets up and puts blanket over him. We stay on Malkovich's face. DISSOLVE TO: INT. HELL - NIGHT Craig wanders across a jagged, rocky landscape. Geysers of flame shoot up around him. The sky is red. He is frightened. He arrives at a desk. The man behind the desk is facing away from him. He swivels to face Craig. It is Flemmer, looking the same as usual except for little red horns and a sinister grin. CRAIG Who are you? FLEMMER I am the Devil. CRAIG Oh. FLEMMER Leave Malkovich. He is mine. CRAIG Okay. Sorry. I didn't know. CUT TO: INT. HOTEL SUITE - CONTINUOUS Malkovich awakes with a start. Maxine looks over at him. MAXINE Bad dream, darling? MALKOVICH I've got to leave Malkovich. MAXINE You've got to be kidding. MALKOVICH I just had the most horrifying nightmare. The devil was in it. Flemmer crouches behind a bureau and listens. He is pleased with himself. MAXINE Malkovich is our meal ticket. You can't back out because of some stupid dream. FLEMMER (to himself) Shit. MALKOVICH Honey, we can be happy and poor together. MAXINE (laughs derisively) Perhaps you'll want to consult that Ouija board again. There is a knock at the door. Maxine opens it, angry. MAXINE (CONT'D) Yeah what?! MALKOVICH Derek Mantini! Mantini enters. Maxine is suddenly interested. Mantini and Maxine give each other the once over. MANTINI (still eyeing Maxine) Hello, Schwartz. I saw your show. MALKOVICH Did you see the reviews? MANTINI Yeah, I saw them MALKOVICH Because if you missed any, I just happen to have copies here you can take with you when you leave now. MAXINE I'm Maxine. I produced the evening with Malkovich. MANTINI Very impressive. I could use a producer with your vision. And other outstanding attributes. MALKOVICH She's not available. MANTINI We'll see, Schwartz. We'll see. MAXINE Yeah, we'll see, Schwartz. We'll see. MANTINI I won't waste your time Schwartz, or more importantly, mine. Here's my proposal: There's only room in this world for one "World's Greatest Puppeteer." Correct? So let's allow the puppet-going public to crown their king. MALKOVICH How do we do that? MANTINI A friendly competition, if you will. Your Malkovich puppet and my Harry S. Truman puppet appear opposite each other in a play. Not some Vegas Burly-Q pyrotechnics, but a real play that requires actual acting. The audience decides who is more deserving of the title. The losing puppeteer bows out graciously. Goes back to obscurity as a file clerk. MALKOVICH What's the play? MANTINI Say... "Equus"? It's got everything. MALKOVICH Never heard of it. MANTINI Broadway's finest three hours. It's about the suppression of the individual. Conformity as God in modern society. MALKOVICH Sounds boring. Are there any songs? MANTINI Nothing but acting to hide behind, buddy-boy. MALKOVICH I'm not afraid. I toured for a year with the National Puppet Company's production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night." MANTINI Great then. MALKOVICH Is there dancing? MANTINI No. MALKOVICH Who needs dancing? CUT TO: INT. FLEMMER'S APARTMENT - DAY Lester is watering Flemmer's plants. A key is heard in the door. Flemmer enters, a small carry-on bag slung over his shoulder. LESTER How'd it go? Did you say the philodendron gets water or no? FLEMMER No, for God's sake, I just watered it yesterday. (beat) It almost went well. I gave a pretty good dream, but circumstances arose. LESTER What kind of circumstances? FLEMMER Maxine says she'll leave him if he leaves Malkovich, plus he's been challenged to a puppet-duel by Mantini. LESTER The Great Mantini? FLEMMER No, the Mediocre Mantini. Of course the Great Mantini! LESTER Oh, he's good! Great, actually. I saw him do "Tru" with his sixty foot Robert Morse puppet. Sensational. FLEMMER But I think I have another plan. LESTER (snippy) Do tell. I love a good plan. FLEMMER Why are you being like this? Lester shrugs. LESTER I missed you. I'm sorry. Tell me the plan. FLEMMER Well, if Mantini wins, Schwartz will leave Malkovich, right? So, if he needs it, I help Mantini's performance a bit, give him an edge. Spice up the show. LESTER Can you do that? I mean, do you know anything about puppetry? FLEMMER I am the Devil, Lester. I think I can handle it. LESTER I was just asking. No disrespect intended. FLEMMER Fine. Let's drop it. LESTER Fine. I mean, it's not like I was doubting you, it's just that I know puppetry is a skill that takes a long time to acquire. FLEMMER Fine. I'm not mad. Let's just drop it. LESTER Fine. Your mail's on the kitchen table. Mostly junk. Oh, there's a letter from Alex Trebek. CUT TO: INT. SEWER - NIGHT Lotte and Elijah, now dirty and drawn, are talking. Elijah uses sign language. ELIJAH (SUBTITLES) You've got to tell Craig what's going on. He must never leave Malkovich. LOTTE I'm glad you learned sign language, Elijah, but I'm tired of your nagging. I'm tired of this conversation. I'm tired period. What has the world ever done for me that I should feel personally responsible for saving it? ELIJAH (SUBTITLES) It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness. I learned that from you. Lotte turns away, shaken. A tear rolls down her face. LOTTE What have I become? CUT TO: EXT. BROADHURST THEATER - NIGHT The Marquee reads: Derek Mantini's sixty-foot Harry S. Truman puppet and Craig Schwartz's actual-size John Malkovich puppet in Peter Shaffer's "Equus." CUT TO: INT. BROADHURST THEATER - NIGHT The house is packed. On stage is a minimalist set: wood planks and metal poles. Six guys in brown turtlenecks and stylized wire horse heads mill about. The 60 foot Harry S. Truman puppet is pacing, his strings extending up into the flyspace and out of sight. Malkovich sits on a bench. Truman and Malkovich both take stabs at British accents. HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET Do you dream often? MALKOVICH Do you? HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET It's my job to ask the questions. Yours to answer them. MALKOVICH Says who? HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET Says me. Do you dream often? MALKOVICH Do you? We see the audience fidgeting in their seats, coughing. CUT TO: INT. BROADHURST BACKSTAGE - CONTINUOUS The dialogue drones on as Maxine watches coolly from the wings. She drags on a cigarette. Mr. Flemmer, dressed as a stagehand, stands behind Maxine. He also watches the actors, with an occasional sideways glance at Maxine. MAXINE (without turning around) Keep your eyes in your pants, old timer. CUT TO: INT. THE BROADHURST LOBBY - A BIT LATER It's intermission. The lobby is crowded. Maxine moves through the crowd listening to snippets of conversation. Flemmer, now in a tuxedo, moves about also. First couple: THEATERGOER #1 That Truman puppet is downright boring as the psychiatrist. THEATERGOER #2 It's a wooden performance, really. Get it? Wooden? Second couple: THEATERGOER #3 What's with the Malkovich puppet? He was much better in Vegas when he played the piano with his feet. THEATERGOER #4 I hate it when they try to stretch. It's like Woody Allen. Third couple: THEATERGOER #5 They both stink! I'm going across the street to second act Miss Saigon. CUT TO: INT. DRESSING ROOM - A FEW MINUTES LATER Malkovich watches himself in his dressing table mirror. Maxine enters, flops herself down on the couch and lights up a cigarette. MAXINE You'd better turn on the pyrotechnics, lover, 'cause right now you're running neck and neck with the dead president. And you're both in last place. Malkovich continues to watch himself in the mirror, nods his head. CUT TO: INT. CATWALK ABOVE STAGE - CONTINUOUS Mantini leans against a rail and smokes a cigarette. Charles Nelson Reilly, in a tuxedo, confers with him in hushed tones. CHARLES NELSON REILLY You're doing beautifully, my boy. I wept at the speech about your wife. Flemmer materializes behind Mantini CHARLES NELSON REILLY What the hell? Nyong-nyong! Mantini spins around to face Flemmer. Reilly makes a break for it. Flemmer points a finger and Reilly freezes in mid-strut. Flemmer then points a finger at Mantini, and he, too, freezes. Flemmer picks up the giant wooden controls for the marionette, and pulls a copy of the play from his pocket. CUT TO: INT. BROADHURST STAGE - NIGHT We watch the second act in progress. The Truman puppet pace as he delivers a monologue. Somehow he doesn't even seem to be a puppet anymore, so subtle and graceful are his movements and the changes in his facial expressions. It's as if there's a giant actual Harry Truman on stage. HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET I can hear the creature's voice. It's calling me out of the black cave of the Psyche. I shove in my dim little torch, and there he stands -- waiting for me. He raises his matted head. He opens his great, square teeth and says (mocking) 'Why? ... Why me? ... Why -- ultimately -- Me? ... Do you really imagine you can account for Me? Totally, infallibly, inevitably account for Me? ... Poor Dr. Dysart!' Malkovich watches impressed and a little scared by this bravura performance. He glances out into the audience and sees a silent, rapt crowd. DISSOLVE TO: INT. BROADHURST STAGE - A BIT LATER Malkovich is delivering a monologue. Acting up a storm. During Malkovich's speech, Truman repeatedly attempts to upstage him, nodding his head, looking thoughtful, raising his ten foot eyebrows in surprise... MALKOVICH Eyes! ... White eyes -- never closed! Eyes like flames -- coming -- coming! ... God seest! ... God seest! ... NO! CUT TO: EXT. NEW YORK STREET - CONTINUOUS A man hole cover is pushed off. Lotte climbs out onto the street. She is dirty but determined. CUT TO: INT. BROADHURST STAGE - LATER STILL Malkovich is in convulsions on the floor. Big dramatic convulsions. Truman scoops him up, and places him on the bench. Malkovich continues with the convulsions, milking it. Truman speaks. HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET Here ... Here ... Sssh ... Sssh ... Calm now ... Lie back. Just lie back! Now breathe in deep. Very deep. In ... Out ... In ... Out ... That's it ... In. Out .. In ... Out ... Malkovich is breathing insanely now, trying to keep the focus on himself. Flemmer is in the catwalks, watching the crowd. The audience is watching Malkovich. AUDIENCE MEMBER (to his wife) That Malkovich puppet is a damn fine actor. FLEMMER (blood boiling) Bastard is stealing my thunder. Malkovich and Truman on the stage. Truman is pacing, swirling, dancing, juggling enormous bowling pins as he talks. HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET All right! I'll take it away! He'll be delivered from madness. What then? He'll feel himself acceptable! What then? Malkovich has upPed his convulsions now. He watches Truman out of the corner of his eye while writhing tormentedly on the bench. He levitates. Spins in mid-air. Falls on all fours and does an uncanny impression of a yelping dog. Truman watches Malkovich, continues to speak. But now, when he talks, fire comes out of his mouth. HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET (CONT'D) I'll heal the rash on his body. I'll erase the welts cut into his body by flying manes. The audience "ooohs" at the flames. Malkovich rips off his clothes and convulses into the dying swan-bit from "Swan Lake." The audience applauds. Truman continues his speech, now transforming himself into an actual 60 foot swan and flying around the auditorium as he speaks. HARRY S. TRUMAN PUPPET (CONT'D) You won't gallop anymore, Alan. Horses will be quite safe. You'll save your pennies every week, till you can change that scooter into a car... The audience watches the giant swan overhead, necks craned, in awe. Malkovich sighs. He is out of his league. He goes into a remarkable tap dance routine and sings "Mr. Bojangles", but nobody even looks at the stage. The giant swan bursts into flames, flies back onto the stage, burns to a crisp, then rises from his ashes as the actual Harry S. Truman. Truman looks confused and disoriented, as if just raised from the dead. ACTUAL TRUMAN Where am I? Aren't I dead? (possessed) Vote for Mantini! Truman grows and grows until he is again just a giant puppet. The audience bursts into applause, then delivers a standing ovation. Truman bows. Flemmer laughs wildly in the catwalks. Malkovich walks dejectedly from the stage. CUT TO: INT. BACKSTAGE - CONTINUOUS Malkovich walks past Maxine. She doesn't even look at him. Thunderous applause is heard in the background. MALKOVICH Good-bye, Maxine. MAXINE Whatever. Malkovich drops limply to the floor. He lifts his head. MALKOVICH (weak but relieved) I'm back! My nightmare is over. CUT TO: INT. CATWALK - CONTINUOUS Flemmer watches Malkovich from above. He pulls out a walkie-talkie. FLEMMER (into walkie-talkie) Okay, now! CUT TO: INT. CRAIG AND MAXINE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS Lester is surrounded by all the Malkovichians. He holds the walkie-talkie, has just received word. He nods, and the Malkovichians crawl in single file into the portal, while shrieking a war cry. CUT TO: INT. BACKSTAGE - CONTINUOUS Maxine watches as Malkovich pulls himself up off the ground. Suddenly, he is again possessed, first by one person, then by two, then by three, his body jerking and pulsating with each new occupant. It's almost like popping corn, starting out slowly, then going faster and faster, until Malkovich is possessed by all fifty Malkovichians. He shrieks a war cry and runs out onto the stage. CUT TO: INT. STAGE - CONTINUOUS The Truman puppet now hangs limply from the catwalks. Malkovich hovers just above the stage and addresses the audience. MALKOVICH (now sounding like fifty voices) I am your earthly king! Kneel before me! The audience scoffs at first, but then are compelled to their knees. CROWD (like automatons) Hail Malkovich, king of the damned. Malkovich laughs, gives the thumbs up sign to Flemmer in the catwalks. Flemmer gives the thumbs up sign back. Lotte appears in the back of the theater, an out-of-breath figure in shadows. It is too late. She runs from the theater. CUT TO: INT. BACKSTAGE - CONTINUOUS Maxine watches, somewhat amused. She turns and heads for the exit. CUT TO: EXT. NEW JERSEY TUNPIKE - NIGHT A dejected Craig walks along the shoulder. He is wet and cold. We hold on him for a long while until he eventually merges with the landscape. FADE OUT FADE IN EXT. MANHATTAN STREET - DAY CHYRON: LATER THAT WEEK Something is wrong. It's a typical midtown street, but everything is painted gray: the buildings, the streets, the sidewalks, the cars. People walk along the streets, carrying gray briefcases, wearing gray jumpsuits. Nobody talks, nobody smiles. Gray birds fly silently in the sky. There is no noise whatsoever. There are several movie theaters on the block. All marquees advertise John Malkovich movies. Around the corner comes Malkovich. He is floating about ten feet off the ground on an enormous, bright red, jeweled throne. He wears a gold crown and purple silk robe and smiles condescendingly, majestically. Floris sits on his lap. She is dressed in an orange satin gown. Nobody on the street looks up. MALKOVICH (fifty voices) Greetings, my lowly subjects. FLORIS Great things, my lonely subtext? MALKOVICH (rolls his eyes) Boy, be careful what you wish for. (to Floris) Never mind, dear. Just enjoy the ride, will you? Floris shrugs, picks at her finger nails. MALKOVICH (CONT'D) (to the people on the street) I am bored. You will dance for your king now. Without pause the entire street of gray clad people breaks into a meticulously choreographed production number. Totally silent, totally joyless, but exquisitely executed. We see that Maxine is one of the anonymous dancers. Her face is void of expression. Malkovich laughs. MALKOVICH (CONT'D) Faster! Faster, my little trained monkeys! The crowd dances faster and faster. Older people fall over, exhausted, clutching their hearts. Nobody stops dancing to help, nobody dares. CUT TO: EXT. CENTRAL PARK - DAY Bird's eye view of the park. It's all painted gray. Every tree, every leaf. There's no sign of life. The camera moves in, through some gray trees and gray brush to: A LUSH GREEN OASIS CAMOUFLAGED ON THE TOP AND SIDES WITH GRAY PAINT This place is filled with life: Colorful birds, lizards, cats, a rooster. All the animals are active, happy, but totally silent, as if they know the precariousness of their position. Lotte and Elijah sit among them. These are the animals that she freed earlier. Lotte and Elijah hold hands and look into each other's eyes. We see that they both wear gold bands. They are husband and wife. Elijah signs. ELIJAH (SUBTITLES) Must you take this terrible demon on yourself, my love? LOTTE Yes. I'm the only one. I have to enter Malkovich and destroy him from the inside. If not me, who? ELIJAH (SUBTITLES) If there was any way I could go in your place. But I'm only a monkey and... LOTTE (puts finger to his lips) Hush, sweetheart. Lotte slips into a gray jumpsuit. She stuffs a homemade bomb on her pocket. She and Elijah kiss passionately, then embrace. LOTTE (to the animals) I'll be with you always, my friends. Who knows, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll rejoin you with wings and a beak. ELIJAH (SUBTITLES) Wings and a halo, my darling. Wings and a halo. Lotte turns quickly. This is too much to bear. She descends into a storm drain. The animals stop what they're doing. PARROT (softly) Good-bye. Good-bye. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. MERTIN-FLEMMER BUILDING - DAY A man-hole cover lifts. Lotte pokes her head out. The coast is clear. She emerges. Assumes the dead-eyed expression of the others, and enters the building. CUT TO: INT. ELEVATOR - DAY Lotte watches the floors change. After seven, she presses the emergency stop button. The elevator jerks to a halt. She picks up the crow bar in the corner, pries open the door. The 7 1/2 floor is gone. Nothing is there but pipes and wires and beams. She climbs out onto the floor. CUT TO: INT. BETWEEN FLOORS - CONTINUOUS Lotte searched the floor for some sign of the portal. It is nowhere to be found. There is a noise behind her. She turns with a start. It's Craig, ragged and ill-shaven. LOTTE My God! CRAIG I'm so glad you're safe. You look really wonderful. LOTTE I'm in love. For the first time. It's funny, but when it happens to you, there's no question. CRAIG He's a lucky man. (beat) Do I know him? LOTTE It's Elijah. CRAIG The iguana? LOTTE The monkey. CRAIG Oh, right. As long as you're happy. I'm sure he's a better lover than I ever was. LOTTE A better friend. CRAIG (beat) I'm sorry for everything. LOTTE (pecking him on the cheek) It's okay, Craig. It all worked out, in an odd sort of way. CRAIG You came up here looking for the portal? LOTTE Yeah. I was going to kill him from the inside. CRAIG And yourself too in the process. God, you're so beautiful. Why couldn't I see that before? LOTTE You saw it once. Now you see it again. That's life, isn't it? And you were up here to try the same thing, weren't you? CRAIG I suppose. But they got here first, the lousy bastards. So now it's all over, I guess. LOTTE I don't know. There's a small community of us. We have a place they don't know about. We're happy. We'll keep trying to figure out a way. Come stay with us. Join the struggle. CRAIG You'll have me, after all I've done to you? LOTTE People make mistakes. CRAIG I'm through with puppets, Lotte. I just want you to know that. LOTTE I know. CRAIG I'd like to be a farmer. I want to help things grow, to encourage life. Do you and your friends need a farmer? LOTTE Sure. We could really use a farmer. We'd be grateful for the help. (beat) Also, I think, you know, if you wouldn't mind too terribly, a little puppet show every once in a while, would do a lot to lift our spirits. You know, if you wouldn't mind too terribly. Craig's eyes well up with tears. Lotte looks at him sweetly. LOTTE (CONT'D) Oh honey. It's gonna be okay. She puts her arm around him and leads him toward the elevator. CRAIG I love you, Lotte. We come on very close to Craig's arm as he lifts it to put it around Lotte. We see a thin almost invisible filament. We follow it up, and discover that Craig is now a marionette being controlled from above by an emotionless Mantini in a gray jumpsuit. MANTINI (in Craig's voice) I can't wait to see where you and your friends live, Lotte. LOTTE (O.S.) It's beautiful, Craig, like Eden. Now we see filaments attached to Mantini's arms, and w follow them up to find that Flemmer is controlling Mantini. FLEMMER One serpent, coming up. Flemmer throws his head back and laughs. The camera moves into his mouth and down his throat, which, oddly enough, looks exactly like the membranous John Malkovich portal tunnel. MUSIC IN: "Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head" by They Might Be Giants. It plays throughout the credits. FADE OUT THE END
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+                                                                         THE BELIEVER                                                     Written by                                   Henry Bean & Mark Jacobson                                                                                                                  2000                                               Final Shooting Script                                                                                BLACK SCREEN                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    "And God said to Abraham, 'Take your                    son, your only son, whom you love,                    Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah                    and offer him there for a sacrifice                    upon a mountain that I will show you..."                    INT. YESHIVA CLASSROOM -- DAY                    A run-down place. A dozen 12-year-old BOYS sit at old-          fashioned desks. These are not Hasidim, but Orthodox Jews:          normal American kids in yarmulkes. The teacher, RAV          ZINGESSER is young, overweight, acnescarred, good-humored.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    And why did the Holy One -- blessed                    be He -- do this? Why did he ask                    Abraham to sacrifice his only son,                    whom he loved?                    Two boys off to one side: AVI (a smart, tough, brownnose)          and DANNY (the eternal dissident) argue under their breath....                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    Isaac wasn't his only son. Ishmael                    was his son, too.                                        12-YEAR-OLD AVI                    The only son he loved.                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    Oh, they only kill them when they                    love them...?                                        12-YEAR-OLD STUART                        (up front; answering Zingesser)                    It was a test of Abraham's faith. Of                    his devotion to God.                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    It's not about Abraham's faith. It's                    about God's power. God says, "You                    know how powerful I am? I can make                    you do anything I want, no matter how                    stupid. Even kill your own son.                    Because I'm everything, you're nothing."                    TITTERS. Danny looks around at his classmates: nerds,          wankers, nose-pickers. Two kids in back furtively read the          racing form under their desks. He hates them for their          indifference as much as he despises Stuart's piety or Avi's          ass-kissing.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    But, Danny, if HaShem is everything,                    and we are nothing how are we to                    judge His actions?                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    We have free will and intelligence --                    which God allegedly gave us....                                        AVI                    Anyway, God never lets Abraham kill                    Isaac. He provides the ram so that --                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    Personally, I think that's a lie. I                    think he did kill him.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    You think?! Based on what?                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    There's midrash supporting this. My                    father read a book by Shalom Spiegel                    that -- Isaac actually died and was                    reborn.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    No one follows that midrash.                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    I do; I follow it. But okay, say God                    provided the ram. So what? Once                    Abraham raised the knife, in his                    heart it was as if he'd killed him.                    He could never forget that. And                    neither could Isaac. Look at him:                    he's traumatized, he's a putz for the                    rest of his life. By the end he can't                    tell Jacob from Esau....                    The kids laugh. Zingesser CRACKS a ruler against a desk.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    Watch your language....                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                        (rising impassioned)                    I think the whole Jewish people were                    permanently scarred by what happened                    on Mt. Moriah, and we still live in                    terror....                                        12-YEAR-OLD STUART                    Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    Fear of God makes you afraid of                    everything. All the Jews are good at                    is being afraid. And being sacrificed.                    Oooo. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. Even the guys with the sports          pages are shocked by that one.                                        12-YEAR-OLD STUART                    Don't you believe in God?                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    I'm the only one here who does                    believe. You say he's mysterious, yet                    merciful. I see him for the power-                    drunk madman He is. And we're                    supposed to worship such a Deity?? I                    say Never! I say...fight him. I say --                    The ruler has been CRACKING from "power-drunk" on.... Now          Zingesser grabs Danny, yanks him out of his chair.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    Avi -- ask Rabbi Springer to come                    remove Danny from the class....                    Avi rises, grinning, as...Danny struggles wildly to get free.                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    And you, if you had come out of Egypt,                    you would have been destroyed in the                    desert with those who worshipped the                    Golden Calf.                                        12-YEAR-OLD DANNY                    Then let Him destroy me now. Let Him                    crush me like the conceited bully He is.                        (to the ceiling)                    Go ahead. Kill me. Here I am. Do it!!                    The class sits frozen in terror, waiting for God to kill          Danny. But nothing happens.                    INT. YESHIVA STAIRWELL -- NIGHT                    Danny runs down the steps alone.                    EXT. RUN-DOWN COMMERCIAL AREA -- TWILIGHT                    Danny walking home alone. He sees TWO KIDS (older, tougher,          blonder) coming toward him. He slips off his yarmulke and          slants across the street. The kids slant that way. He hears          a RUMBLING, looks up at an ELEVATED TRAIN entering a station.          He runs up the steps toward the SHRIEKING train....                    INT. 7 TRAIN -- 1998 -- DAY                    TITLE: 13 YEARS LATER                    The train passes above used car lots, discount furniture          stores, residential side streets...finally pulls into a          station. The doors open. People file on, the CAMERA letting          them go by until it spots a tall, thin COLLEGE STUDENT in a          YARMULKE. Danny grown up?                    PAN with him as he sits, opens an organic chemistry text. The          doors close. The train starts up, but the Jewish boy hardly          notices; he is already reading. He sways with the motion of          the car, half-hidden by other passengers. We realize he is          being watched.                    REVERSE ANGLE: another YOUNG MAN, standing -- a "SUEDE-HEAD"          (his hair cut so short it's like a fine fabric).                    SUEDE-HEAD'S POV: THE JEWISH BOY pushes his glasses back up          his nose, wipes the nose with a handkerchief, puts the          handkerchief away, and all the time his eyes have not left          the page. Suede-head steps between passengers and stands          directly over the Jewish boy. He looks down at the yarmulke          pinned to the stiff, wavy hair, at the oversized shirt          collar, scrawny neck, prominent Adam's apple, pimples,          dandruff, ingrown facial hair...                    He steps closer, crowding the boy's knees. The boy shifts a          little without looking up. Subtly but relentlessly, Suede-          head pursues him along the bench until, unable to slide          farther, the boy flattens his legs against the seat. Suede-          head presses into the boy's knees.                    The boy accidentally bumps a BUSINESSMAN to Suede-head's          left. The man (late 30s, Wall Street Journal, African-          American) looks from the boy to Suede-head and understands          at once what is going on.                    Suede-head stares right back -- and the BUSINESSMAN returns          to his paper. Suede-head eases him aside and steps on the          boy's shoe.                    SHOES -- A HEAVY BLACK BOOT PINS A BROWN WINGTIP TO THE FLOOR                    The wingtip wiggles back and forth, finally working free.          The boy still hasn't looked up.                    SUEDE-HEAD & THE JEWISH BOY                    swaying, locked in a strange, silent intimacy. Suede-head          forces the boy into ever more contorted postures,          increasingly ridiculous denials of what is happening. And          the boy not only never stops reading the chemistry text, he          keeps highlighting relevant passages.                    The train slows. The boy closes the book, caps the          highlighter, gathers his things and manages to stand up,          wriggling awkwardly around Suede-head. The doors open, he          gets off.                    INT. STATION -- DAY                    Looking up a long escalator, the Jewish boy riding down          toward us.                    Suede-head arrives on the run at the top, races down a          flight of stairs, vaults the bannister, slides down a metal          slope....                    Lands on his feet and comes to stand at the foot of the          escalator.                    The boy rides inexorably down. At the bottom, he tries to go          around Suede-head who blocks this way, then another, driving          him into a corner.                    The boy realizes he has nowhere to go -- finally turns to          face his tormentor. Their eyes meet for the first time. He          is actually bigger than Suede-head, but not nearly as strong.          He won't fight, is simply acknowledging what he can no          longer deny. There is even an odd relief that disgusts          Suede-head more than all the rest.                                        SUEDE-HEAD                    Fucking kike.                    He slaps him in the face. He stumbles backward. As Suede-          head goes to hit him again, the boy holds his books in front          of him. Suede-head punches the books straight into his face.          The boy falls, curls into a fetal position. Suede-head kicks          him....                                        SUEDE-HEAD                    Get up.... Get the fuck up....                    He won't budge. Suede-head punches him repeatedly until he          hears VOICES approaching. He runs back up the stairs to the          train and only as we FOLLOW him do we realize that he is our          protagonist. This is Danny grown up.                                                                CUT TO:                    INT. DANNY'S STUDIO APARTMENT -- NIGHT                    Like his brain, the room is at once crowded and tidy and has,          so far as we can see, neither windows nor doors. Shelves of          books, CDs, magazines, videotapes loom over a neatly made bed.                    Danny, in briefs and boots, is lifting weights. The phone          rings. A machine picks up: no outgoing message, only a BEEP.          Then:                                        WOMAN'S VOICE                    Is this working? I'm trying to reach                    Danny Balint...Danny, it's Vicki, we                    met at Happy Jack's last month...?                    He keeps doing curls.                                        WOMAN'S VOICE                    I was hoping maybe we could...get                    together again... Give me a call --                    718-555-0193.                    She hangs up. A moment later Danny finishes the set, gasping          for air, heart pounding, muscles throbbing.                    INT. SAME -- NIGHT                    A radio is playing the news. Danny sits at a small desk, on          the phone and browsing the Internet, a take-out menu beside him.                                        DANNY (INTO PHONE)                    ...Is it completely vegetarian?                    ...What do they make the stock                    from?... Not chicken, you're sure?...                    And no dairy... No, no cheese I don't                    eat cheese... Yeah, all right. And                    the tropical fruit shake... How long?...                    Over this we see: COMPUTER SCREEN: GLIMPSES OF PASSING PHRASES:                    ...ZIONIST OCCUPATIONAL GOV'T CONTROLS 78% OF THE SENATE, 62%          OF THE HOUSE...DYNAMITE CAN BE STOLEN FROM CONSTRUCTION          SITES & ROAD CREWS, PARTICULARLY IN MOUNTAINOUS AREAS...          CURTIS ZAMPF IN NYC 5/18...JEWISH PIMPS, DRUG DLRS &          ABORTIONISTS HAVE AS THEIR MAIN GOAL...CONVERTING THE GLOCK          901 TO FULLY AUTOMATIC IS RELATIVELY SIMPLE. FIRST, REMOVE          THE FIRING PIN...                    He HIGHLIGHTS the item about Curtis Zampf...                    EXT. VOMPADINK -- TWILIGHT                    A tough working-class Queens bar.                    INT. VOMPADINK -- TWILIGHT                    Men drink in clusters, including a group of skinheads....          Danny takes a place alone at the bar, drawing furtive          attention from the regulars. When the BARTENDER finally          comes over...                                        DANNY                    Vodka tonic.                    A strange call for this place. As he waits, Danny turns and          watches the skinheads enough to make them aware of him.                    The girls watch him, too. The skins don't like that. One of          them (Billings) seems ready to do something about it. The          others try to calm him, and when they look back, Danny has          left. He barely touched the drink.                    The skins are puzzled, but one indicates his watch: time to          go. They gather their stuff....                    EXT. CITY/INT. 7 TRAIN -- EVENING                    Looking out the front of the train as it rushes toward          Manhattan. A dramatic sky rises above the skyline.                    EXT. STREET -- NIGHT                    The three skins -- O.L., CARLETON, BILLINGS -- walk up an          East Side street. Billings is telling a story....                                        BILLINGS                    ...So she takes the pants in back --                    where they try them on? And I think                    fuck it....                                        CARLETON                    Are you shitting me?? Right in the store?                                        BILLINGS                    She's been giving me the eye. She's                    hot. So I wait till the owner goes up                    front....                    During this, O.L. starts to SPRAY PAINT a crude SWASTIKA          onto a BUS KIOSK. A VOICE startles them....                                        VOICE                    What are you doing??                    They jump, turn. Danny steps out of the shadows.                                        DANNY                        (indicating swastika)                    What do you think you're doing?                                        BILLINGS                    Who the fuck are you?                                        DANNY                        (coming toward them)                    Who am I?? Who are you, you schmucks,                    you can't even make a decent                    swastika.... Give me the paint.                        (O.L. looks to his friends)                    Give it to me.                    Danny's will is stronger; O.L. hands over the spray can.          Danny shakes it, critiques O.L.'s rendering....                                        DANNY                        (gruff but avuncular)                    It's too squared off. You got to                    orient it up and down, diamond-shaped,                    like this....                        (sprays an excellent swastika)                    ...The arms go clockwise.                        (hands the can back)                    You're going to Curtis Zampf; me, too.                    Let's go?                    They exchange looks: how did he know about Curtis?                                        CURTIS ZAMPF (O.S.)                    ...Where I grew up in South Boston                    twenty years ago, when a kid walked                    down the street, everyone knew who he                    was...                    INT. LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT                    Grand but threadbare. The skins enter: O.L. like a child,          Carleton like a sardonic adolescent, Billings like a          revolutionary, Danny like an uncrowned prince.                    CURTIS ZAMPF is addressing a dozen or so guests. He is 40          but appears younger; with rough good looks, longish hair and          a leather jacket, he seems more like an aging rock star or          sexy novelist that a standard-issue American Nazi.                                        CURTIS                    ...If he ran out in front of a car,                    some old Mick'd yell at him, "Jimmy                    Dunne, get back on that sidewalk and                    stay there...."                    He does the Boston Irish accent so well, everybody laughs.          Up front we notice the only WOMAN in the room. She is in her          40s, regal, beautiful, forbidding. Her name is LINA MOEBIUS.                                        CURTIS                    ...The day he graduated high school,                    he'd go see his uncle down at the gas                    works, or the priest's brother in the                    shipyard, get his apprentice papers,                    eight years later he'd be making                    $16.50 an hour, have four kids, play                    ball on Sundays in Columbus Park, and                    when he died, the whole town'd get                    drunk and cry over him....                    The crowd -- nonunion electricians, white taxi drivers,          unemployed bookkeepers, failed academics, off-duty cops --          listens quietly.                    During this, a young woman (CARLA) appears from the rear of          the apartment, heading for the kitchen with a coffee cup and          a history book. She glances into the living room.                                        CURTIS                    ...Today, when that kid walks down                    the street it's full of trash and                    half the faces are black. The                    shipyard's closed, all the jobs at                    the gas works are set-asides, and by                    the time he drops out of school, he                    can barely get a job at Burger King.                    So he drinks, smokes crack, and when                    he hangs himself on the front porch                    at twenty-three, the only people at                    his wake are a couple of buddies and                    his mother. The boy's father won't                    find out he's dead till six months                    later.                        (beat)                    The soul of this country is being                    destroyed, and all the government can                    offer is free trade, mutual funds and                    IPOs.                                        GUY DANIELSEN                    You sound like a leftist.                                        CURTIS                    I used to be one.... No, seriously, I                    called myself an anarchist. I stood                    up for the oppressed. I opposed state                    power.                                        AN OLD COOT                    Don't you still?                                        CURTIS                    I oppose the present state because                    it's weak. It has been ever since the                    left emasculated it over Vietnam. But                    I think the average man is crushed                    less by accumulated capital than the                    loss of community or real leadership,                    the personal emptiness he simply                    cannot fill on his own....                        (matter-of-fact)                    That's why I'm a fascist. It's the                    only form of government that                    addresses our deepest needs.                    Silence. Danny -- who has spotted Carla -- begins to clap, a          few others join in. Danny raises his hand; Curtis nods to          him....                                        DANNY                    What do you think the fascism of the                    twenty-first century will look like?                    Everyone -- including Carla -- turns to see who asked that.                                        CURTIS                    More cultural than political.                                        DANNY                    Obviously.                                        CURTIS                    Decentralized, nonviolent,                    increasingly mainstream. We'll see                    antiabortion, anti-immigration groups                    form alliances with the gun lobby,                    Christian identity types, tax resisters                    and even some libertarians....                    The crowd seems impressed, but restless and bored.                                        OLD COOT                    What about race?                    A stirring: many share the concern. Lina watches closely.                                        CURTIS                    This isn't the time for that.                    Murmurs of surprise, disappointment.                                        DANNY                    I disagree.                        (glances at Carla)                    I think race is central to everything                    we're talking about.                        (murmurs of agreement)                    Spiritual life comes from race. From                    the blood. Without that, we're no                    better than the Jews....                    The magic word. The whole room comes alive. Zampf grimaces.                                        CARLA                    What's wrong with the Jews?                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Carla...                                        DANNY                    Have you read Toynbee? Spengler?                                        CARLA                    Nobody reads that stuff anymore.                                        DANNY                    Too difficult?                                        CARLA                    Too Christian. You know Jameson? Paul                    Virilio?                                        DANNY                    The point is, the modern world is a                    Jewish disease.                                        CARLA                    Disease? What disease?                                        DANNY                    Abstraction. They're obsessed with                    abstraction.                    That stops the conversation. But Carla is intrigued; here is          someone whose mind moves in strange and interesting realms.                                        VOICE (GUY DANIELSEN)                    What would you propose?                    The questioner is a young man (GUY DANIELSEN), better spoken          than the others. Danny feels all eyes on him.                                        DANNY                    Killing Jews.                    A tremor of fear and excitement ripples through the room.          Zampf glances at Mrs. Moebius; she is watching Danny intently.                                        CURTIS                    That would be a catastrophic mistake.                                        DANNY                    People hate Jews. Do you agree?                                        CURTIS                    They used to. Today it's not an issue.                                        DANNY                    No, but deep down, beneath the                    "tolerance" they learn on television,                    nothing's changed. The very word                    makes their skin crawl.                        (around the room people nod)                    It isn't even hate, really. It's more                    the way we feel when a rat runs                    across the floor. We want to step on                    it. Crush it. We don't even know why.                    It's a physical reaction. Everyone                    feels it.                                        GUY DANIELSEN                    Which ones would you kill?                                        DANNY                    Prominent Jews. Who are either                    symbols in themselves or who                    represent aspects of the Jewish                    character people despise.                                        GUY DANIELSEN                    Such as?                                        OLD COOT                    Barbra Streisand.                    Mutterings: "Who's she?" "Yeah, her..." But Danny says:                                        DANNY                    Too obvious.                                        VOICES                    Kissinger...Dershowitz...Roseanne...                                        DANNY                    Yes. And Larry King...                                        OLD COOT                    Is he Jewish?                                        DANNY                    ...Leona Helmsley, Michael Eisner, Bob                    Dylan, Phillip Roth, Ruth Bader                    Ginsberg, Steven Spielberg, Winona                    Ryder, Beverly Sills, Alvin Toffler,                    Katherine Graham. All of them. But                    not yet. We don't want celebrity                    obscuring the issue.                                        CARLA                    Which is what?                                        DANNY                    At first, no one will know why the                    victims are being killed.                                        CURTIS                    You wouldn't announce it?                                        DANNY                    I'd say nothing. After two or three,                    people will try to find a pattern. A                    reason.                                        CURTIS                    But when it comes out, the public                    will be outraged. It will look like                    Germany all over again.                                        DANNY                    Isn't that what we want? Germany all                    over again? Only done right this time...                    The crowd feels a deep atavistic thrill. Zampf glances at          Mrs. Moebius....                                        DANNY                    Without speeches or political parties.                    A movement without leaders so that no                    one can stop it...                    The room is stunned to silence. Mrs. Moebius signals Curtis.                                        CURTIS                    Okay, let's break this up for now....                        (to Danny)                    Could you wait a minute...?                    INT. SAME -- FIVE MINUTES LATER                    Danny -- flushed with triumph -- stands looking down at the          city.                    ACROSS THE ROOM -- MRS. MOEBIUS & CURTIS ZAMPF                                        CURTIS                        (low)                    ...I thought we agreed, no anti-                    Semitism...it's exactly what we're                    trying to put behind us.... Trash the                    blacks, fine; but...                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Did you see how they reacted to him?                                        CURTIS                    Yes, of course. But that only plays                    in this room, with people who aren't                    embarrassed to call themselves Nazis.                    If you want a modern fascism, you                    don't mention Jews.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    It's a romantic movement, Curtis. It                    always has been.                                        CURTIS                    Lina, the Thousand-Year Reich barely                    lasted a decade.... Do you really                    want to go down that road again? In                    America of all places, where                    obedience and discipline are not                    exactly the national virtues...                    She looks over at Danny, now chatting with Carla....                                        LINA                    He's very bright.                                        CURTIS                    He speaks well. But what do we do                    with him?                                        LINA                    Let's find out who he is.                                        CURTIS                    You mean who he really is.                    ON DANNY & CARLA                                        CARLA                    You're not in school? What do you do?                                        DANNY                    I work at the Big Boy warehouse. In                    Queens. I drive a fork-lift.                                        CARLA                    Where'd you read all that stuff?                                        DANNY                    I just read it....                                        LINA                    Young man...                    He turns. She's beckoning to him. He gives Carla a look,          then crosses to her, sitting in a chair she indicates.          Curtis offers him a drink; he declines. Carla takes one.                                        LINA                    Lina Moebius. And you are...?                                        DANNY                    Daniel Balint.                                        LINA                    Balint?                                        DANNY                    It's German.                                        LINA (IN GERMAN)                    What part of Germany are you people from?                                        DANNY (IN GERMAN)                    From the Rhineland originally.                                        LINA (IN ENGLISH)                    Are you with the FBI, Mr. Balint?...                    Or any other law enforcement agency?                                        DANNY                    I was going to ask you the same thing.                    Smiles, laughter. Everyone seems to relax.                                        LINA                    So what are you really after,                    Daniel?... Do you just want to kill                    Jews, or do you have something larger                    in mind?                    Carla watches, silent. Danny is aware of both mother and          daughter.                                        DANNY                    Without blood -- a willingness to                    spill it -- there's no real power, no                    authority.                                        LINA                        (pleased by this)                    Curtis is afraid you'll marginalize us.                                        DANNY                    We're already marginal. We are saying                    what no one else has the guts to say.                    Isn't that precisely our appeal?                                        LINA                    So what Jew would you kill first?                                        DANNY                    Ilio Manzetti...former ambassador to                    France. Managing partner at Damon,                    Schwarzchild.                                        CURTIS                        (to Lina, explaining)                    An investment banking house.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    He's Jewish? Manzetti?                                        DANNY                    Totally. The family emigrated from                    Bulgaria when he was eleven.                                        CURTIS                    How would you kill him?                                        DANNY                    I'd have to research it, study his                    routines, his security.... But                    ideally on a New York street at                    midday, using a small-caliber                    automatic without a silencer.                                        CARLA                    Why no silencer?                                        DANNY                    You want it to be an event.                    Lina stands, takes a sherry. Everyone else rises with her.                                        LINA                    Danny, why don't you come visit us in                    the country. We have young men with                    lots of energy and no ideas. Maybe                    you could give them something to                    think about.... Bring your friends,                    if you like....                    As Curtis leads him toward the door, Danny looks around for          Carla, hears WOMEN'S VOICES arguing in German. Frustrated,          he goes down the stairs....                    EXT. STREET -- NIGHT                    Danny and the other skins walking down the middle of the          street, drinking beer, oblivious to traffic.                                        BILLINGS                    Bring your friends.... We're not his                    friends.                                        DANNY                    Then I won't bring you....                    The others laugh. Someone HONKS behind them. Billings turns:                                        BILLINGS                    FUCK YOU.                                        BLACK VOICE (O.S.)                    Hey, bonehead...get your moon ass off                    the street.                    Billings turns and throws his beer at the voice. A CRASH,          BREAKING GLASS, a screech of BRAKES, CAR DOORS open and shut...                                        BILLINGS                    Why don't you go back to Rwanda and                    give each other AIDS.                    That does it. The skins run out of frame. SOUNDS of a fight.          Danny watches, indifferent, then finally joins in.                    INT. PRECINCT LOCKUP -- NIGHT                    The skins in a cell. O.L., head bloody, moaning and vomiting.                                        O.L.                    I can't see....                    Carleton comforts him. Billings paces, looks at Danny,          sitting against the wall, relaxed for the first time.                                        BILLINGS                    What, do you like it here?                                        DANNY                    Read Mein Kampf? Hitler had all his                    best ideas in prison.                                        OFF-SCREEN VOICE                    Daniel Balint?                    Danny looks up: a JAILER unlocks the cell. Carla appears          behind him. Danny stops without stepping through the open door.                                        DANNY                    I'm not leaving without them.                    The other skins are surprised, moved. Carla and Danny stare          at each other. Finally she turns to the jailer....                                        CARLA                    Can I use a credit card?                    EXT. STREET CORNER, SUBWAY ENTRANCE -- NIGHT                    A Mercedes pulls up, Carla driving. The skins climb out,          Carleton guiding O.L., who cannot see.                                        CARLA                    He should go to a hospital.                                        O.L.                    I'm okay.                    Billings turns back, sees Danny still in the car.                                        BILLINGS                    You coming?                                        DANNY                        (glances at Carla, stays                         in the car)                    We'll go to the country sometime, okay?                    Billings nods grudgingly. The car drives off. Carleton grins.                                        CARLETON                    Fucking Danny, man...                                        BILLINGS                    He's an asshole.                    INT. MOEBIUS APARTMENT -- TWILIGHT                    Carla leads Danny through the darkened apartment.                    INT. CARLA'S ROOM -- TWILIGHT                    An old bookcase full of leather-bound German volumes...Danny          opens one marked Hofmannsthal. He tries to read a marked          passage.                                        DANNY                    "...und die Worte zerfielen mir im                    Munde wie modrige Pilze..."                                        CARLA                    "And the words fell apart in my mouth                    like moldering mushrooms..."                                        DANNY                    How come so many of the books are in                    Spanish?                                        CARLA                    They're my father's. He's from                    Argentina. My mother's family went                    there during the war. That's where                    they met.                                        DANNY                    Are they still together?                                        CARLA                    He's in a mental institution.... He's                    been there for ten years, off and on.                    Mostly on.                                        DANNY                    Is he a Nazi?                                        CARLA                    I guess. His parents are. He doesn't                    care about that.                                        DANNY                    What's he care about?                                        CARLA                    Killing himself.                    They look at each other. There's that gulf between them that          they have to cross, but they're not sure how.                                        DANNY                    You think people ever commit suicide                    out of happiness?                                        CARLA                    That's stupid. Why would they?                    He shrugs. She takes his hand, rubs the bruised knuckles.                                        CARLA                    You're not like the others, are                    you?... Your friends.                                        DANNY                    Yes, I am. Basically I am.                    She leans close, whispers....                                        CARLA                    Hurt me.                    He's surprised, but not very. He grabs her wrist, twists it.                                        CARLA                    Ow! That's too hard.                    He pulls her out of frame. She starts to say something, but          it's cut off by another CRY OF PAIN. We keep looking out the          window....                    INT. SAME -- LATER                    The light has shifted across the city, and we hear only a          muffled sobbing.                    The CAMERA TURNS to look at...Carla and Danny naked on the          bed. He lies back, reading the German book. She's curled on          her side, weeping abjectly. Still sobbing, she rolls over,          buries her face in his chest. We see that his neck is          scratched up.                                        CARLA                    Do it again....                    She begins to fondle him. He ignores it until he finishes          the poem, then turns to her.                    INT. SAME -- LATER                    The light has shifted again. Danny sleeps alone, his face          strangely innocent. Carla drops onto the bed, shakes him.                                        CARLA                    Get up...you gotta go.                    He opens his eyes. She's dressed, her hair wet from the          shower, a faint puffiness around her mouth. He pulls her          down to him.                                        CARLA                    No, you have to leave. I've got to                    write a paper.                        (slaps his stomach hard)                    Out!                    He looks up. Her face is cold, indifferent. He gets to his feet.                    INT. MOEBIUS APARTMENT -- DAY                    Danny on his way to the door, hears something, turns...CURTIS          ZAMPF is coming out of a bedroom in his underwear. From          within...                                        LINA MOEBIUS (O.S.)                    Bring the paper, too.                    Curtis now sees Danny. A look between them. Danny goes out.                    EXT. QUEENS, STAIRS TO ELEVATED TRAIN -- DAY                    Once a Jewish neighborhood, now occupied chiefly by blacks,          Latins and more recent immigrants.                    As Danny (wearing headphones) comes down the steps... TWO          BLACK KIDS (big, menacing, boombox) are coming up, blocking          his way. Danny walks right between them, forcing them apart.                    They turn, glare after him. He turns, glares back. They          scoff and keep going up. He walks on.                    EXT. OZONE PARK HOUSE -- DAY                    He lets himself into a row house. We barely notice the          mezzuzah on the door post.                    INT. OZONE PARK HOUSE -- DAY                    A nearly vanished world of lower-middle-class Jewish life,          though the "Jewishness" (menorah, kiddush cup...) is          restricted to one dusty corner behind a secular chaos of          books, newspapers, half-empty cups, half-filled glasses...                    Danny's FATHER, 55, sits on a faded chair, an oxygen mask on          a cart beside him. Danny's sister, LINDA, 30, is cutting his          hair with a scissors. When Danny enters, they both look up          at him in surprise, alarm, possibly even love. For a moment          no one knows what to do.                    The father begins to wheeze, puts the mask over his face and          breathes deeply. Linda tells him to lean back; resumes          cutting. On the wall we see Danny's BAR MITZVAH PHOTO.                    Meanwhile, Danny has found a stack of mail, all addressed to          him. His father and sister are visible behind him in a          mirror. Without speaking, he goes down the hall, and we hear          him DESCEND STAIRS to:                    INT. HOUSE, BASEMENT -- DAY                    Danny has taken off his coat (revealing a black T-shirt with          a red swastika), and is going through a number of cardboard          boxes marked "D," pulling out comic books, baseball gloves,          martial arts gear, drawings of voluptuous women, morbid          gothic figures, gun magazines, books about Hitler,          Nazis...and finally a .22 AUTOMATIC stuffed in a blue sock.                    INT. HOUSE, BASEMENT                    He removes the clip, checks the slide, while nodding to the          MUSIC coming through his earphones. He looks up, sees LINDA          at the foot of the stairs, pulls off the headset.                                        LINDA                    I knocked, you didn't answer.                    It's too late to conceal the gun; he places it beside him.          She does her best to ignore the swastika shirt....                                        LINDA                    What are you doing here?                                        DANNY                    I just came to get some stuff. I'll                    be out in five minutes.                        (off her)                    He doesn't want me around.                    She looks down as if that were not true, or the way in which          it is too complicated to go into.                                        LINDA                    He's going to die.                        (as Danny looks away)                    He won't take his medicine. He eats                    dairy. He probably still smokes when                    I'm not around.                        (off Danny's helpless gesture)                    I asked him to come live with us.                    Alex offered to share his room,                    unsolicited.... But he didn't want to                    be any trouble.                                        DANNY                    Then he couldn't be bitter about                    living alone.                                        LINDA                    Why deprive him of his greatest pleasure?                    They exchange what are almost smiles. But then the subject          she's been trying to avoid -- the only subject -- suddenly          erupts...                                        LINDA                    Ah, Jesus Christ, Danny, how can you                    wear that thing?... You know what it                    means? To your people...                                        DANNY                    They're not my people....                                        LINDA                    Tell it to Hitler.                                        DANNY                    Oh, he decides? Hitler's the chief                    rabbi now?...                                        LINDA                    Is this because of those kids who                    used to beat you up?                                        DANNY                    What kids?...                                        LINDA                    The Polacks? From Sacred Heart?                                        DANNY                    Nobody ever beat me up.                        (as she sighs, turns to go)                    Look, Linda, there're fifty reasons.                    Even if you knew them all, there'd be                    another fifty you didn't know.                                        LINDA                    Do you know them?                        (off him)                    I made him some noodles for dinner.                    You can heat them up and --                                        DANNY                    I've got to get back to the --                                        LINDA                    You can heat them up and eat with him.                    INT. LIVING ROOM, QUEENS HOUSE -- NIGHT                    Danny (now wearing a plain white T-shirt) bends over the          coffee table eating a noodle casserole and reading the Post.          His father eats off a TV table. He finishes, cursorily wipes          his mouth, picks up a remote and turns on the television.                                        DANNY                    It's Friday....                                        FATHER                        (a hoarse rasp)                    Do I give a shit?                    Danny holds up both hands: he's not arguing, simply informing.                                        FATHER                    The Torah says not to light a fire on                    the Sabbath, because it's work,                    correct?                        (Danny sighs)                    But if alternating current's running                    through the wires every second of                    every day, and I throw a switch, send                    it here instead of there, how is that                    lighting a fire?                                        DANNY                    "Do chickens give milk?"                                        FATHER                    Exactly.                    He channel-surfs until he comes to a stand-up COMIC doing a          routine. They both watch.                    TV: the COMIC is funny in a brutal, compulsive way. Lots of          pop references, implicit postmodern nihilism. The routine          reflects what Danny (and the Shiites, the Unabomber, Timothy          McVeigh, T.S. Eliot, et al.) have against the modern world.                                        FATHER                    Who's this?                                        DANNY                    Dennis Leary.                                        FATHER                    Leary?                                        DANNY                    No.                    The father grunts with grim satisfaction, he suspected as much.                                        DANNY                        (offering consolation)                    Howard Stern.                                        FATHER                    Obviously.                    Danny sighs: why bother. But adds...                                        DANNY                    Adam Sandler.                                        FATHER                    Funny?                                        DANNY                    Not like Mr. Dorfmann.                                        FATHER                    He was funny.                    As they watch, apropos of nothing:                                        FATHER                    After your mother died, that's when                    you stopped going to shul. Doing your                    homework. Everything.                                        DANNY                    And that's when the Mets started to                    stink.                                        FATHER                    'Cause they got rid of Johnson. He                    knew how to deal with the assholes.                    Dallas Green, please...                                        DANNY                    Valentine...                    The father snorts. On TV the comic gets off a line, and they          both laugh. Their laughs are quite similar; they glance at          each other.                                        FATHER                    There's some maple walnut in the freezer.                                        DANNY                    Linda says you're not supposed to                    have dairy.                                        FATHER                    Just a little... What's the difference?                    Danny goes into the kitchen. The father extracts a pack of          Salems from between the cushions, lights one, takes a          desperate drag... The phone RINGS. He curses, stubs it out,          grabs the phone.                                        FATHER                    Yeah?... Hold on.... It's for you.                    Danny gives his father a dish of ice cream, takes the phone.                                        DANNY                    Hello...?                                        VOICE                    Daniel Balint? My name's Guy                    Danielsen. I'm a reporter with the                    New York Times.                                        DANNY                        (impressed, suspicious)                    New York Times...?                    His father looks up. Danny takes the phone into the kitchen.                                        VOICE                    I'm doing a piece on right-wing                    groups, post Oklahoma City. I hear                    you're an important figure in those                    circles. You have a lot of interesting                    ideas....                    INT. KITCHEN -- NIGHT                                        DANNY                    Who told you that?                                        VOICE                    Isn't it true?                                        DANNY                    No, it's...yeah, it's true, but...                    how'd you get this number?... No, not                    here... Maybe Sunday? There's a place                    off Queens Blvd. Near the courthouse...                    EXT. COFFEE SHOP, QUEENS -- DAY                    A HIGH-ANGLE view of the coffee shop. After a moment, Danny          enters frame, starts toward it....                    INT. COFFEE SHOP, QUEENS -- DAY                    Danny enters, looks around. To his surprise he sees GUY          DANIELSEN from the Nazi meeting rising, extending his hand.                                        GUY DANIELSEN                    Danny...Guy Danielsen...                                        DANNY                        (sardonic, now he gets it)                    You...                    Guy shrugs, smiles apologetically.                    ANOTHER ANGLE -- DANNY & GUY WITH COFFEE                                        GUY                    Milk...?                    As Danny declines, Guy gets out a small cassette recorder,          is about to turn it on, when he notices Danny's reaction....                                        GUY                    Is it okay if I record this?                                        DANNY                    No... Yeah, fine, go ahead... So                    what's this about? Is this about me?                                        GUY                    I'm trying to figure out where the                    radical right is going to next....I                    thought you were the most interesting                    person at that meeting.                                        DANNY                    What about Curtis Zampf?                                        GUY                    Curtis is a politician -- and a bit                    of a hustler. He's not a thinker.                                        DANNY                    I agree.                                        GUY                    The other night you said the modern                    world is a Jewish disease. Could you                    elaborate on that?                                        DANNY                    In the movement -- the racialist                    movement -- we believe there's a                    hierarchy of the races. Not just in                    IQ, but in the civilization, the art,                    the forms of government, the                    civilizations that each race                    produces... Why are you writing this                    down if you're recording it?                                        GUY                    It helps me concentrate.... So does                    that mean you're a white supremacist?                                        DANNY                    What should I be, a white inferior-                    ist? A multicultural Zulu egalitarian?                    Let me ask, where are your people from?                                        GUY                    My mother's family is French, my                    father's was German, originally.                                        DANNY                    German. Mine, too. So who do you                    think's given more to the world, the                    Germans -- Beethoven, Goethe,                    Nietzsche -- or the entire continent                    of Africa? Ibos, Bantus, Mandingos...                                        GUY                    Danny, what about the Jews?                    Danny shifts in his seat, growing more interested....                                        DANNY                    The Jews are different.... Blacks are                    disgusting and inferior, but it's                    like criticizing a retarded child.                    The Jews are...a poison in the human                    well....                                        GUY                    A poison...?                                        DANNY                    Let me give you an example.... Sexuality.                                        GUY                    Sexuality??? What do you mean?                                        DANNY                    You ever fuck a Jewish girl?                                        GUY                    What??!?                                        DANNY                    Did you ever fuck one, Guy?                                        GUY                        (laughing, embarrassed)                    What's that go to do with...I've gone                    out with a, with Jewish women. Why?                                        DANNY                    And? WHat did you notice?                                        GUY                    Notice? Like what...?                                        DANNY                    Jewish girls like to give head, right?                                        GUY                    I don't know. Is that right?                                        DANNY                    And Jewish men like to get it.                                        GUY                    Everybody likes to, don't they?                                        DANNY                    Yes. It's very pleasurable. But the                    Jews are obsessed with it. You know why?                                        GUY                    Why?                                        DANNY                    Because the Jew is essentially female.                                        GUY                    Female...                                        DANNY                    Real men -- white, Christian men --                    we fuck a woman. We make her come                    with our cocks. But the Jew doesn't                    like to penetrate and thrust -- he                    can't assert himself that directly --                    so he resorts to perversions. Oral                    sex is technically a perversion, you                    know that, don't you?                        (as Guy nods)                    After a woman has been with a Jewish                    man, she never wants a normal partner                    again. A normal man.                                        GUY                    Does that mean the Jew is the better                    lover?                                        DANNY                    You're not listening. He isn't better.                    He gives pleasure, but that's                    actually a weakness.                                        GUY                    Danny, what makes you think you know                    all this?                                        DANNY                    Let's just say I've done due diligence.                                        GUY                    So, fine, it's not that the Jew, the                    Jews own the media and the banks.                    It's that they're sexually corrupt.                                        DANNY                    The Jews clearly control the media                    and the banks. Investment banks, not                    the commercial ones. But the point is                    they carry out in those realms the                    same principles they display in                    sexuality. They undermine traditional                    life; they deracinate society.                    Danny leans over to make sure Guy's getting it right.                                        DANNY                    Deracinate... Tear out the roots. A                    people -- a real people -- derives                    its genius from the land: the sun,                    the sea, the soil. This is how they                    know themselves. But the Jew doesn't                    have soil.                                        GUY                    He has Israel.                                        DANNY                    Those aren't Jews.                                        GUY                    Of course they're Jews.                                        DANNY                    Notice the Israelis: a fundamentally                    secular society. They no longer need                    Judaism because they have soil. The                    real Jew is a wanderer, a nomad. He                    has no roots, no attachments. So he                    "universalizes" everything. He can't                    hammer a nail, plow a field. He can                    only buy and sell, invest capital,                    manipulate markets. He takes the life                    of a people rooted in soil and turns                    it into a cosmopolitan culture based                    on books, ideas, numbers. This is his                    strength....                        (pumped; this is what                         he loves)                    Take the great Jewish minds: Marx,                    Freud, Einstein. What have they given                    us: communism, infantile sexuality                    and the atom bomb. In a mere three                    centuries since these guys emerged                    from the ghettos of Europe, they've                    taken us from a world built on order                    and reason and hurled us into a chaos                    of class warfare, irrational urges                    and relativity, a world where the                    very existence of matter and meaning                    is in doubt. Why? Because it is the                    deepest impulse of the Jewish soul to                    unravel the very fabric of life until                    nothing is left but thread, nothing                    but nothingness. Nothingness without                    end...                                        GUY                    Are all Jews the same?                                        DANNY                    Differences exist, of course, but                    they're irrelevant. For the Jew, his                    Jewishness dominates everything. Even                    the ones who renounce it, who hate it,                    who want to cut it out of their                    hearts a knife...can't escape.                    They're still just Jews.                    Guy finishes writing that and looks up.                                        GUY                    Danny, this is great. You're                    incredibly articulate. One more                    thing... How can you believe this when                    you're a Jew yourself?                    A beat. Danny smiles at the mistake....                                        DANNY                    What? Excuse me?...                        (Guy says nothing)                    You're kidding, right?                                        GUY                    Do you know Rabbi Stanley Nadelman?                    He used to be at Congregation Beth                    Elohim in Ozone Park...?                                        DANNY                    Who? How would I know him?                                        GUY                    He says you were bar mitzvahed there,                    in March 1988.                                        DANNY                    You believe that? And you call                    yourself a reporter?                                        GUY                    So you're saying it's not true.                                        DANNY                    Look at me.  DO I look Jewish?  Look...                    He indicates his hair, turns sideways to show his profile?                                        GUY                    Were you ever bar mitzvahed anywhere                    else?                                        DANNY                    Do you know who you're fucking with here?                                        GUY                    That's what I'm trying to find out,                    Danny. Who am I fucking with here?                                        DANNY                        (sputtering, unsure                         what to say)                    Listen to me....                                        GUY                    Why would Nadelman lie?                                        DANNY                    To discredit me. Because I know who                    they are. Look, I thought I explained                    it to you. Those people can say or do                    anything. And they will. It's all                    narrative to them, it's... Are you                    going to print what this guy said?                                        GUY                    Give me a reason not to.                                        DANNY                    It's slander. It's reckless disregard.                    I'll sue you and your fucking Jew paper.                                        GUY                    Does that mean you deny what he says                    is true? Yes or no.                    GUN: pulled from Danny's pants, slammed down on the table...          Guy sits back abruptly. Danny picks it up, cocks it....                                        DANNY                    Look at me. Look at me, Guy.... Oh,                    now you can't look at me? Look at me,                    you schmuck. Look at me....                        (pokes the gun in Guy's face)                    You print that shit in the New York                    Times...I'll kill myself.                    Everyone in the place is staring. Danny walks out, stuffing          the gun in his pants, shoving a man aside to get to the door.                    EXT. COUNTRY -- DAY                    Traveling through low, tree-covered mountains listening to          the overture to Tannh‰user.                    INT. VAN -- DAY                    Carleton driving; O.L. (one eye bandaged) riding shotgun. In          back: Billings and Danny (flipping through a Times.)                                        BILLINGS                    Do we have to listen to this shit?                                        DANNY                    Yes.                                        BILLINGS                    Why'd we have to leave so fast?                                        O.L.                    Nobody made you go.                                        CARLETON                    Danny's running from the law.                                        BILLINGS                    O.L., how come your mother gives you                    a car when you're too fucking blind                    to drive?                                        O.L.                        (cackling)                    She says 'cause now I can't crack it up.                                        CARLETON                    Hey, O.L., assholes at four o'clock.                    O.L. leans out the window, giving dual "birds" to an empty          street.                                        O.L.                    FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES. SUCK MY DICK!                    The others laugh.                    EXT. DEFUNCT MOTEL -- TWILIGHT                    The van stopped in front. All of them out of the car. No          one's around except the noisy CRICKETS. The city kids are          uneasy.                                        CARLETON                    I thought there were people here....                                        DANNY                    I'll go look....                    He walks toward the back. Billings decides to go with him.                                        O.L.                    I better stay with the van....                                        CARLETON                    Yeah, you better stay here and guard it.                    O.L. gives him the finger. Carleton laughs -- but he stays          back, too.                    EXT. REAR OF MOTEL -- TWILIGHT                    Danny and Billings see PEOPLE in back. Now NINE YOUNG MEN          and a bulldog come to greet them: survivalists, speed-freaks,          skinheads...and one blank loner (DRAKE) with a blue swastika          tattooed to his lips like a tiny kiss. A case of STEROID          EXCESS fixes his gaze on Danny.                                        DANNY                    We're from New York. Curtis Zampf                    invited us.                                        WHIT                    Who?... Curtis who?                    Are they in the wrong place? Then someone laughs, they all          relax, exchange greetings, obscure handshakes. Everyone's          just getting comfortable when, for no apparent reason...                    STEROID EXCESS                    slugs Danny in the face.                    He stumbles backward. The others crowd around, keep him from          falling, also from getting away. Billings starts to help,          but people grab him: this is Danny's problem.                    Steroid comes at him.... Danny steps inside the charge and          goes to work on the bigger man's body. We barely see what          happens, but we hear it and feel the crowd's shock. Danny is          stronger than we realized and much more vicious. In seconds,          Steroid sinks to his knees, face bloody. Danny holds up him,          leans close:                                        DANNY                    Enough?                    Steroid mumbles in the affirmative. Danny nods -- then hits          him four more shots to the face. Even this crowd winces.          Steroid drops with a wet thud.                    As Danny straightens up, wiping the blood off his hands,          people instinctively step back.                                        DANNY                    Which was his room?                                        KYLE                        (ferrety, glasses)                    Number ten.                    On the end: has an extra window. Danny walks into the room.          Steroid's stuff starts flying out the door.                    EXT. MOTEL PORCH -- NIGHT                    Danny on a pay phone.                                        DANNY                    Yeah, I'm trying to reach Carla, is                    she?... Did she get my other                    message?... No, I'll call back....                    EXT. MOTEL PORCH -- NIGHT                    Danny hangs up the phone, glances into a room where we dimly          glimpse Nazis taking drugs, drinking beer, screaming...                                        VARIOUS VOICES                    Fucking niggers... Fucking niggers?                    Fucking gooks!...                    Then incomprehensible shrieking rage, a fight, breaking glass...                    Danny sighs, bored. He spots two nerdy Nazis, KYLE and WHIT,          playing some battle re-creation board game and rehashing          WWII....                                        WHIT                    ...Look, if Hitler had knocked out                    the RAF in '39, which he could easily,                    easily have done, he'd have taken                    England, and the U.S. wouldn't have                    had --                                        KYLE                    ...A staging ground for the invasion,                    yeah. But he blew it going after                    civilian targets. Just like he blew                    the Russian front, diverting supplies                    to Auschwitz....                    Danny looks up the hill toward a farmhouse perched above          them. One light burns inside.                                        DANNY                    Where's Mrs. Moebius?                                        KYLE                    Her place is down the road. But she                    just comes out for weekends sometimes.                    Danny squats to look at the board game.                                        DANNY                    What is this, Stalingrad?                                        WHIT                    Gettysburg. But we're refighting it                    with World War I technology. It's a                    fucking bloodbath.                    He grins maniacally. Danny smiles. Kyle is emboldened by          Danny's unexpected friendliness, lowers his voice....                                        KYLE                    That was unbelievable what you did to                    Lucas. The guy's an animal.                                        DANNY                    You could do it.                                        KYLE                    Get out of here....                                        DANNY                    You look right through him. He's                    there, but there's something on the                    other side of him that you want. It's                    all you want. And whatever's in the                    way doesn't matter.... Then it's easy.                    As Kyle and Whit contemplate his wisdom...                                        DANNY                    Either of you know anything about                    explosives?                    They both look up, very interested.                    TWO FAMILIES IN TABLEAU -- WOODEN CUTOUTS -- DAY                    Jews: MAN (black hat, beard), WOMAN (sheitl, shawl), BOY          (kippah, twerpy), GIRL (fat, ugly), even a DOG, a Star of          David on its side.                    Blacks: MAN (watermelon, pitchfork), WOMAN (fat, fried          chicken), BOY (syringe, 9mm), GIRL (twins, welfare check),          DOG (black).                                        VOICE (O.S.)                    Take a breath, let out a little,                    relax, then squeeze.                        (a RIFLE SHOT;                         nothing's hit)                    Again...                    Another SHOT. A bullet hits the Jewish boy in the rear end.          Sunlight streams through the hole. We are:                    EXT. REAR OF MOTEL -- DAY                    Danny peers down the barrel of an M-16. Kyle squats beside him.                                        KYLE                    Which one were you aiming at?                                        DANNY                    The mother.                    Kyle nods, patient, is drawing Danny's attention back to the          target when...                    DRAKE                    Sets up beside them, begins squeezing off rounds so fast, it          sounds like an automatic weapon.                    TARGETS: the bullets chew up and knock over all four Jews.          And selectively: shooting the man's face, the woman's          breasts, the boy and girl in the groin. The dog he merely          flattens.                    Drake looks at Danny without expression, drops the clip,          shoves in a fresh one and riddles the black family in          similar fashion.                    EXT. MOTEL PORCH -- NIGHT                    Danny, pay phone to his ear, flipping through a New York          Times. He throws it aside as a voice comes on the line....                                        DANNY                    Carla?... It's me, Danny...Danny                    Balint...? We met at that...[meeting                    at your house.]                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    Yeah, I remember.... Kill any Jews yet?                                        DANNY                    I didn't realize you cared.                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    I don't. I was just curious how full                    of shit you were.                                        DANNY                    Did you know that there was a New                    York Times reporter there that night?                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    Really, which one? I bet it was the                    guy with the Prada shoes.                                        DANNY                    I didn't notice his shoes.... Did                    your mother know he was there?                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    I doubt it. How did you find out?                                        DANNY                    He called me up. He wanted to talk to                    me about my ideas.                                        CARLA                    I bet. He didn't realize that nobody                    who talks such a good game ever plays                    one.                                        DANNY                    You weren't complaining about my play                    last time.                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    That's a much easier game.                                        DANNY                    Why don't you come visit, we'll have                    a rematch.                                        CARLA                    Too many good players down here. I'm                    with one right now.                                        DANNY                    Oh, really?                                        CARLA                    Bigger and better.                                        DANNY                    Then how come you're talking to me?                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    I'm not.                    Click. She's gone. He hangs up, walks straight into...                    INT. MOTEL ROOM -- NIGHT                    Nazis sprawled about, drinking beer, impassively watching TV.          The bulldog pants on the floor. Carleton calls to it:                                        CARLETON                    Gas Chamber...                    It trots over, receives a scrap of food. Everything desultory:                                        DANNY                        (to the whole room)                    When are we going to do something?                    People glance up wearily: give us a break....                    EXT. TOWN -- DAY                    Danny, Billings, O.L., and Drake walk through the town,          looking for trouble. A couple of local TEENAGERS watch them,          impressed by the swastikas, tattoos, swagger.                    INT. DELICATESSEN -- DAY                    Two WAITERS (Jewish college students, athletic, confident)          watch the Nazis come in. One indicates to the other that          he'll handle this. He brings menus, water; he's carefully          polite.                                        FIRST WAITER                    You know what you want?                                        BILLINGS                    We sure do.                    The Waiter ignores the innuendo, readies his order pad.                                        BILLINGS                    Ham and cheese on white.                                        FIRST WAITER                        (forbearance)                    We don't have ham. We don't have cheese.                                        BILLINGS                    What the hell do you have?                                        FIRST WAITER                    That's what the menus are for.                    He smiles. Billings glares.                                        O.L.                    Roast beef and Swiss.                                        FIRST WAITER                    I said: no cheese.                                        O.L.                    What's wrong with cheese?                                        FIRST WAITER                    This is a kosher restaurant. We don't                    serve meat with dairy.                                        DANNY                    What about chicken?                                        FIRST WAITER                    That's meat.                                        DANNY                    The Bible only says don't seethe a                    kid in its mother's milk. But                    chickens don't give milk.                                        FIRST WAITER                    Look, you want cheese, go someplace else.                                        DANNY                    But it's stupid, right? You admit                    it's stupid.                                        FIRST WAITER                    No, I don't admit it's stupid.                                        DANNY                    You can have chicken with eggs but                    not with milk. Why is that?                                        FIRST WAITER                    I'm not here to talk about religious                    law, if you don't like --                                        DANNY                    But you already talked about it: you                    said it's not stupid. Why isn't it                    stupid?                                        FIRST WAITER                        (calling the other Waiter)                    Steve...                                        DANNY                    Steve's going to explain it.                    Steve approaches, a sawed-off broom handle over his shoulders.                                        STEVE                    We have a problem here?                                        BILLINGS                    We sure fucking do. We don't                    understand why you can't eat chicken                    with milk. It doesn't make sense.                                        STEVE                        (an intellectual)                    Religion isn't about making sense.                    It's about --                                        DANNY                    It's about the incomprehensible,                    Steve, not the idiotic.                                        STEVE                    Fuck you.                                        DANNY                    That explains it! Now we understand!                    The Nazis laugh. Steve swings the broom handle at Danny...who          ducks it, grabs it, slams it back at him.... GAVEL RAPS...                    INT. COURTROOM -- DAY                    A JUDGE (white-haired, red-faced, blue-eyed, well-meaning)          peers down at the four NAZIS, still bruised from the fight.                                        JUDGE                    ...As the altercation appears to have                    been instigated equally on both sides,                    prison terms strike the court as                    excessive.                    The Nazis are relieved. Spectators disappointed.                                        JUDGE                    However, the defendants' political                    views suggest that they might profit                    from contact with members of our                    community whose experiences differ                    from their own....                    INT. A SOCIAL ROOM -- DAY                    NUMBERS TATTOOED ON AN ARM...a thumb steadily smooths the          skin as:                                        RUMANIAN WOMAN (O.S.)                        (Rumanian accent, uninflected)                    ...When I refused to have sex with                    him, the warden had my sister, Esther,                    executed in front of the entire block....                    The Nazis, accompanied by a "HATE COUNSELOR" (male) sit in          plastic chairs opposite five elderly JEWS. The speaker is in          her late 60s, still something of a beauty.                                        RUMANIAN WOMAN                    ...Everyone considered it my fault.                    After that, of course, I did anything                    he wanted.                                        BILLINGS                    Why didn't he just rape you?                    SNICKERING among the Nazis, a whispered crack:                                        O.L.                    Who'd want to fuck her anyway?                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    I hear one more remark like that, we                    go back to the court for resentencing.                                        RUMANIAN WOMAN                    He was a pig, like you, so perhaps he                    had no taste.                    The Nazis laugh. The Jews try to calm the woman, though she          has spoken without any evident emotion. Billings gets up          restless.                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    Sit down, please.                        (as Billings sits)                    Thank you, Mrs. Cohen. Mr Liebowitz,                    you indicated you had a story you                    wanted to tell....                    INT. SAME -- LATER                    Nazis are dozing, staring out the window. O.L. threads a          piece of dental floss through the zipper pull on his          trousers. Danny is visibly disgusted by the whole business.          Over this we hear:                                        POLISH MAN (O.S.)                    ...The man was afraid to let us hide                    on his farm any longer, but he agreed                    to take us to a more remote place. On                    the way he was stopped at a checkpoint,                    and when the soldiers found us in the                    hay, one of them grabbed my son out                    of my arms. He began to cry, so I                    reached for him, not to take him back,                    simply...                    THE MAN: mid-70s, tall, stooped, a crushed spirit.                                        POLISH MAN                    ...simply to assure him I was there.                    But the sergeant became enraged....                    He stuck his bayonet in my son's                    chest, and lifted him up, impaled on                    it. My son was three years old....                    Billings is muttering, "What a load of crap..." The Hate          Counselor looks over sharply. The other Nazis are stunned by          the story. Danny can barely contain himself, though we are          not sure why.                                        POLISH MAN                    ...He held him up so that the blood                    spurting out of him feel on my                    face.... The soldiers were laughing.                    FLASHCUT: EXT. A COUNTRY ROAD -- DAY                    A horse hitched to a hay wagon; FARMER driving. THREE NAZI          SOLDIERS have discovered a Jewish family hiding in the hay.          A sergeant is holding up something unseen on the end of his          rifle.                    The Polish man who has been telling the story looks up at          whatever it is. Blood falls on him. The Nazis are laughing.                                        POLISH MAN (O.S.)                    When the blood stopped, the sergeant                    pushed my son off the bayonet and                    said, "There, you can have him now...."                    BACK TO SCENE: INT. A SOCIAL ROOM -- DAY                    The room is silent. The Nazis faces blank, shaken. Until...                                        DANNY                    And what did you do?                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    What are you trying to say?                                        DANNY                    What did you do while the sergeant                    was killing your son?                                        BILLINGS                    Forget it, Danny, it's all bullshit.                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    Wait a second...                                        DANNY                        (to Billings)                    Shut up.                        (to man, mid-70s)                    What did you do?                                        RUMANIAN WOMAN                    What could he have done?                                        DANNY                    What could he have done?? You fucking                    kikes...                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    You can't say that....                                        DANNY                    The Nazi's killing his kid. He                    could've jumped the guy. He could've                    gouged his eyes out, grabbed the                    bayonet and gutted him.... What would                    you have done if they were killing                    your son?                    The counselor is briefly confused....                                        RUMANIAN WOMAN & OTHERS                    ...They'd have shot him on the                    spot.... He would have been dead in                    two seconds.... Who are you judge?                                        HATE COUNSELOR                        (to Danny)                    Please sit down.                                        DANNY                    SO THEY SHOT HIM! SO HE WAS DEAD. SO                    WHAT. HE'S WORSE THAN DEAD NOW. HE'S                    A PIECE OF SHIT...                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    Okay, that's it. You're going back to --                                        DANNY                        (over him, to Polish man)                    What do you think you should have done?                                        POLISH MAN                    And you, you think you know what you                    would have done? You have no idea.                    You can't even imagine what that was                    like. And you never will....                                        BILLINGS                    Don't listen to them, Danny. It's all                    a bunch of crap.                                        ANCIENT JEW                    What is crap?                                        BILLINGS                    The so-called Holocaust. It never                    happened. It's the hoax of the                    twentieth century.                                        DANNY                        (disgusted with this idiocy)                    Oh, please...                                        BILLINGS                    Danny, it's true. There were no six                    million. At most, two hundred                    thousand Jews died in the camps. And                    the majority of them were from                    disease and --                    The Jews are shouting about historical records, the          disappearance of families, whole towns.... But Danny is louder:                                        DANNY                    Where did you read this? Robert                    Faurisson?                                        BILLINGS                        (surprised he knew)                    Yeah. He's a respected scholar. Even                    No-am Chomsky says he --                                        DANNY                    Billings, if Hitler didn't kill six                    million, why is he your hero?...                    Concentration camps all over Europe,                    and he only gets rid of a measly two                    hundred thousand.... He's a putz.                    Some surprise that a Nazi is arguing against a denier.                                        ANCIENT JEW                    Hitler was not a putz. Hitler was                    real. God created him to punish the                    Jews for abandoning God.                    The other survivors are embarrassed by this, but the Ancient          Jew ignores them.                                        ANCIENT JEW                    It is you who are putzes. Little                    pishas with your dreams of hatred and                    killing...                    Danny scoffs, gets up to leave.                                        HATE COUNSELOR                    Where do you think you're going?                                        DANNY                    ...We have nothing to learn from                    these people. They should learn from us.                    As Danny walks out, the Ancient Jew catches his eye.                                        ANCIENT                    And what should we learn from you,                    Daniel?                    Her use of Danny's name feels knowing, slyly invasive. All          SOUND VANISHES for a beat, and Danny barely manages to say:                                        DANNY                    Kill your enemy.                    EXT. MOTEL -- DAY                    Kyle opens the trunk of his car, shows Danny inside: two          bags of shotgun powder and several lengths of metal piping          with screw-on caps.                                        DANNY                    What is it?                                        KYLE                    Green dot -- shotgun powder. For pipe                    bombs.                        (off Danny's reaction, smiles)                    A guy in a lumberyard gave it to me.                    A donation to the cause.                                        CARLETON (O.S.)                    Hey, Danny.... Guess who's here....                        (as Danny quickly slams                         the trunk)                    Your girlfriend... She's up at the house.                    EXT. THE FARMHOUSE -- DAY                    In the driveway: Carla's Mercedes, a Triumph motorcycle.          Danny peers in through the windows, goes to the door.                    INT. FARMHOUSE, LIVING ROOM -- DAY                    Danny sees Carla sitting on a green sofa wearing a white          sundress and leafing through a magazine. Curtis is mixing          drinks. Lina is practicing with her stylus on a new          electronic organizer.                                        LINA                    My L's keep coming out as C's....                                        CURTIS                        (spots Danny)                    The prisoner returns....                    Danny greets them all. Carla barely looks up.                                        LINA                    Danny, get a drink and come talk to me.                    INT. LIVING ROOM -- A FEW MINUTES LATER                    Danny talking with Lina and Curtis but watching Carla.                                        CURTIS                    ...Insulting people who were in the                    camps. ...What's the point?                                        DANNY                    They're liars and cowards.                                        CURTIS                    I'm sure they are. But what do we                    accomplish by pointing it out?                                        DANNY                    It's the truth....                    Curtis rolls his eyes. Lina signals him to lay off.                                        LINA MOEBIUS                    Danny, what do you think of our troops?                                        DANNY                        (trying to be diplomatic)                    They have guts. And they know what                    they hate...which is good. But they                    have no idea why; they don't think,                    they don't read.... They're on beer                    and crank half the time....                    A phone RINGS in another room.                                        LINA                    The young people in this country...                    They're like pigs; all they want is                    happiness.... But one needs pigs                    sometimes.                        (as it RINGS again; to Carla)                    Liebchen...                    Carla puts down her magazine, goes out to the kitchen.          Danny's eyes follow her, and Curtis's follow his.                                        LINA                    Do you feel you're making progress here?                                        DANNY                    You mean Ilio Manzetti?                                        LINA                    Forget Manzetti.... Take on something                    simple. Something you can actually                    accomplish.                        (to Curtis)                    Maybe he'd be more valuable in the city.                                        CURTIS                    An urban type.                    Danny is stung. Carla calls from the kitchen.                                        CARLA (O.S.)                    Danny...telephone.                    He starts: who could be calling him here? As he goes into          the kitchen to take the phone, Curtis says quietly...                                        CURTIS                    He's mad, Lina, you know that.                    She hears him but doesn't respond.                    INT. KITCHEN -- DAY                    Danny picks up the phone; there's a New York Times beside it.          Carla busies herself about the kitchen.                                        DANNY                    Hello?                                        WOMAN'S VOICE                    You know what today is?                                        DANNY                    Linda... How did you get this number?                                        LINDA'S VOICE                    It's Mom's yartzeit.                    Danny starts to hang up, sees Carla watching, turns away          keeping his voice low.                                        DANNY                    How did you get the fucking number?                                        LINDA'S VOICE                    I want you to say kaddish for her.                    It's the only thing she asked from us....                                        DANNY                    I don't do that.                                        LINDA'S VOICE                    You do it on the inside....                                        DANNY                    Don't tell me what I --                                        LINDA'S VOICE                    ...I want you to do it on the outside,                    too.                                        DANNY                    No!                                        LINDA'S VOICE                    Yes!                    He hangs up. He grabs the Times, looks through it quickly.                                        CARLA                    Who's Linda?                                        DANNY                        (dropping the Times)                    Why won't you talk to me?                                        CARLA                    I'm talking to you right now. Who's                    Linda?                    He tries to kiss her. She pushes him away.                                        DANNY                    When can I see you?                                        CARLA                    You can't.                                        LINA (O.S.)                        (in German)                    Carla, it's time to leave.                                        CARLA                    I have to go visit my father.                                        DANNY                    Your father??                                        CARLA                    He's at a home out here.                    She starts to walk past. He grabs her arm.                                        DANNY                    I'm coming to your room tonight.                                        CARLA                    No.                    She tries to pull free; he won't let her go.                                        LINA (O.S.)                    Carla!                                        CARLA                    Just after midnight. Five past... But                    don't come through the house, they'll                    hear you. I'm in the back bedroom,                    second floor. Climb onto the kitchen                    roof, I'll leave the window open.                    He tries to kiss her, but she ducks away and goes out.                    EXT. STREET/INT. O.L.'S VAN -- EVENING                    Danny is parked opposite a fortresslike building of soiled          brick. For a long time he cannot bring himself to get out.          Finally he opens the door....                    INT. AHAVAT TORAH, FOYER -- EVENING                    A LARGE WOMAN, about 40, her body barely contained by a          brilliant magenta dress, greets him with a smile the size of          a wedding cake. She holds out a prayer book stuffed with flyers.                                        LARGE WOMAN                    Shabbat shalom.                    She speaks quietly, not wanting to disturb the service, yet          even so her voice is huge, and her flashing eyes clearly          expect some kind of enthusiastic response. Within we hear          the ALENU being chanted.                    Danny ignores her and the proffered siddur. A basket of          yarmulkes seems to infuriate him, but he snatches one anyway          and, conveying a helpless disgust, puts it on his head. From          within he hears...                                        CONGREGATION (O.S.)                        (in rough unison)                    Ba-yom, ha-hoo, ba-yom, ha hoo...(etc.)                    He stands with his hand on the door, but not opening it.                                        RABBI'S AMPLIFIED VOICE (O.S.)                    On that day, the Eternal shall be One.                    And His Name shall be One....                    The organist plays a brief decrescendo....                                        RABBI'S AMPLIFIED VOICE                    The mourner's kaddish can be found on                    page 187....                                        LARGE WOMAN                    Is anything wrong?                                        DANNY                    Shut the fuck up.                    She's startled but not intimidated, is about to respond,          when Danny simply turns and walks out of the building.                    EXT. AHAVAT TORAH -- EVENING                    He stops beneath an open window through which he hears...                                        RABBI'S AMPLIFIED VOICE                    ...Grant us peace, thy most precious                    gift, O Thou Eternal source of peace.                    We recall with loving memory those                    whom Thou hast summoned unto thee.                    And we mention by name...Sophie                    Budnitz...Bernard Schwabb...Milton                    Lifter...Aaron Lustig...Minnie Baum...                    Danny closes his eyes, but at the end adds, under her breath:                                        DANNY                    ...Harriet Kantor Balint...                    A half dozen VOICES, including Danny's, recite in unison...                                        DANNY & OTHERS                    Yis-ga-dal v'yis-ka-dash sh'may ra-bo...                    The body of the congregation joins in on certain phrases,          producing a subtle and solemn music. Danny chants the entire          prayer, and the moment it ends, and the rabbi begins the          benediction....                                        RABBI'S VOICE (AMPLIFIED)                    May the Lord bless you and keep you....                    EXT. AHAVAT TORAH/STREET -- EVENING                    ...he starts toward his car. But the Rabbi's VOICE seems to          follow him, unnaturally loud and clear:                                        RABBI (O.S.)                    May He cause the light of His                    countenance to shine upon you and be                    gracious unto you....                                        DANNY                        (to himself)                    Eat shit....                                        RABBI (O.S.)                    ...May you be blessed in your going                    forth as you were in your coming....                                        DANNY                        (shouting to the empty street)                    EAT SHIT, ASSHOLES....                                        RABBI (O.S.)                    And let us say...                                        RABBI & CONGREGATION                        (with organ; singsong)                    Ah -- ah -- ah....men....                    As Danny reaches the van, he sees the LARGE WOMAN silhouetted          in the open doorway....                                        LARGE WOMAN                    YOU EAT SHIT.                    Danny realizes he's still wearing the kippah. He throws it          at her, but it only goes a couple of feet. He catches it,          throws harder. This time it floats back toward him, and he          has to jump out the way to keep it from hitting him. He gets          in the car and drives off.                    A WRISTWATCH: 12:05. We are:                    EXT. FARMHOUSE -- NIGHT                    Danny hoists himself onto the kitchen roof. Above him is an          open window, candlelight flickering. He starts into the room,          stops....                    INT. BEDROOM -- NIGHT                    Carla sits on the bed, straddling Curtis, who lies beneath          her. She is looking right at Danny. Curtis, unaware of him,          keeps thrusting into her from below.                    Danny starts to leave, but on second thought stays. Carla          stares expressionless, yet more attentive to him than to          Curtis. Indeed, their eyes never leave each other, so that          when she becomes aroused, we understand that it is Danny she          is responding to, Danny she is really making love to.                    Gradually her face loses its aloofness and seems to reach          out to him, to reveal feelings that she can no longer deny.          She holds her gaze until, at the final instant, she shudders          out a series of stifled cries.                    When she looks again, the window is empty.                    INT. DANNY'S MOTEL ROOM -- DAY                    Danny reading. A KNOCK at the door. He looks up, Curtis          comes in. Danny stiffens at the sight of him, but Curtis is          friendly.                                        CURTIS                    What are you reading?                    Danny tilts the book to show him: History of Political          Philosophy.                                        CURTIS                    Leo Strauss...                        (nods approvingly)                    I've got to go to Boston. I came to                    say goodbye.                                        DANNY                    What about Mrs. Moebius and...?                                        CURTIS                    They left an hour ago.                        (off Danny's disappointment)                    You mind some personal advice? Forget                    Carla. That's not the side your                    bread's buttered on.                        (off Danny's silence)                    How soon can you get back to the city?                                        DANNY                    A week or so. There's something I                    want to do here first.                                        CURTIS                    What's that?                        (off Danny's silence)                    Okay. Surprise us...                    INT. DARKNESS -- NIGHT                    The sound of SPLITTING WOOD. Then VOICES in a cavernous space...                                        CHAOS OF VOICES                    Ow, shit... You're stepping on my                    fucking -- ...Get off me...Goddammit...                        (sounds of PUNCHES, a SCUFFLE)                    Stop it!... Where's the light?                    One appears, illuminating nothing, dissipating into the          still vaster darkness. A SERIES OF LIGHTS bang on in          ecclesiastical bursts, illuminating: a vaulted ceiling...          stained glass panels... We are:                    INT. SYNAGOGUE SANCTUARY -- NIGHT                    A dour, ornate place built in the early decades of the          century. The sight of it silences everyone for a moment. Then...                                        CARLETON                    Jew World...!!                    Drake, Billings, Carleton, O.L. and Steroid run wild...          kicking over benches...spray-painting swastikas...hurling          prayer books...urinating from the balcony...                    ...Danny looks around like someone revisiting his childhood          home: slides his hand along a pew back...leafs through a          chumash...gazes up at the eternal lamp behind its red          glass...the gilded doors of the ark... A hint of Kol Nidre          MUSIC haunts him....                                        DANNY                        (to himself, barely a                         whisper)                    Shut up. Fuck you....                                        KYLE (O.S.)                    What...?                    Danny turns; Kyle is right behind him.                                        DANNY                    Nothing. Where is it?                        (as Kyle hoists a                         sports bag)                    Okay, let's take one of these panels                    off so we can get under the bema...the                    stage.                    As they unscrew a panel, Carleton runs past. A football          flashes overhead. We hear GLASS BREAK...LAUGHTER.                    INT. UNDER THE STAGE -- NIGHT                    DANNY WATCHES KYLE attach a bomb (four sticks of dynamite          wired to a digital timer) to a 2x4 with a bungee cord. He          hooks the ends, cautiously lets go. The cord springs free.          The bomb falls.                    Kyle gasps. Danny catches it.                    Frozen, they look at each other. Kyle exhales, takes the          bomb and, with Danny holding it, carefully restrings the          bungee. A MECHANICAL NOISE overhead:                                        STEROID (O.S.)                    Wow, look at this shit....                                        DANNY                    What are they doing?                    Kyle has no idea and doesn't care. Danny scrambles out.                    INT. SANCTUARY -- NIGHT                    Straightening up, Danny is stunned by a vision:                    THE OPEN ARK -- THE TORAHS                    ...their silver crowns and breastplates, velvet robes. And          Steroid Excess, lifting one out. Danny reacts with an          instinctive horror.                                        DANNY                    What are you doing? Put that down!                    ...Put it back in there.                    Steroid -- cowed by Danny -- starts to obey, but before he          can...                                        BILLINGS                    What do you care?                                        DANNY                    I don't, but...                                        BILLINGS                        (vaults onto the stage)                    Let's look at the fucking thing.                    Each CURSE makes Danny wince, but he just hovers about          nervously as Billings and Steroid try to unwrap the Torah          while others gather, some comically wrapping themselves in          tallises.                                        DANNY                    Put it there, on the...                    He indicates the bema, stepping back as if to deny any          involvement, yet at the same time trying to monitor          everything they do.                                        DANNY                        (indicating crowns, the                         yod...)                    Just be careful with the...                                        O.L.                        (puts a crown on his head)                    "If I were king of the forest...not                    Prince, not Duke, not Earl..."                    Danny cannot endure this desecration, but everyone else          laughs, so he keeps his mouth shut.                                        KYLE                    Open it up.                                        DANNY                        (impulsively taking over)                    Here...                    He shoves his way in and, gripping the handles, unrolls the          Torah. Low MURMURS at the sight of the broad columns, the          mysterious calligraphy, the CRACKLING parchment. Danny          himself is struck by the sudden immediacy of the sacred text.          OVER this...                                        VOICES                    Oooo... Weird... You read it from                    right to left.... The letters look                    like squashed bugs.... What kind of                    paper is that?                                        DANNY                    It's not paper, it's parchment. It's                    made from sheepskin. And all the                    letters are drawn by hand.                                        KYLE                    Neat calligraphy.                    Danny nods, then, as if against his will....                                        DANNY                    It's called the flame alphabet. It's                    supposed to be the word of God                    written in fire.                                        BILLINGS                    Fire...                                        DANNY                    The mystics tried to read the white                    spaces around the letters. They                    thought there was a whole alternative                    language hidden there, with secret,                    alternative meanings.                                        KYLE                    Cool.                    Danny sees Drake watching him, smirks to express his disgust.                                        BILLINGS                    How come you know all this shit?                                        DANNY                    How come you don't know it?                        (pressing the advantage)                    How can you say you hate the Jews                    when you don't know anything about --                                        BILLINGS                    Fuck you. I hate the Jews at least as                    much as you do.                                        DANNY                    No, you don't.... If you hated them,                    you'd study them, so you'd know why                    you hate them. You know what tefillin                    is? Tsitsis? Shotness? You know the                    kaddish from the kiddush?                        (obviously not)                    Eichmann? He went to Israel. He                    studied the Torah, the Talmud, the                    Mishnah, the whole bit. He hated Jews.                                        CARLETON                    Who's Eichmann?                                        DANNY                    Who's Eichmann?!!?                    Danny's incredulous, though it's not clear how many of the          others know why Eichmann was.                                        KYLE                    He was head of the Gestapo's Jewish                    sector. He deported people to the camps.                                        CARLETON                        (reaching toward the parchment)                    Can we touch it?                                        DANNY                    Yeah, but not on the letters.                                        BILLINGS                    Why the fuck not?                                        DANNY                        (warning finger)                    Just don't.                    Billings bristles at Danny's authority; Carleton says to him...                                        CARLETON                    Didn't you see Raiders of the Lost Ark?                                        BILLINGS                    What??                                        CARLETON                    That was an ark, man. That was a                    Torah. They fucked around with it,                    and the Torah melted their faces.                                        BILLINGS                    That's a movie, you moron.                                        CARLETON                    Fine, go ahead. Touch the letters.                    The others are gathered around, delicately touching the          sheepskin.                                        BILLINGS                    Let me see.                    He pushes through, looks at the Torah. He runs his fingers          over the crinkled parchment, the smooth black letters.                                        DANNY                    I said not on the --                    Suddenly Billings grabs the parchment in both hands and          tries to tear it. It's tougher than it looks.                                        DANNY                    Stop it! What are you doing?                    He tries to stop him, but -- accidentally or not -- Drake          gets in the way, and before Danny can do anything else,          Billings crumples it and finally tears a long gash into the          scroll.                    This produces a strange effect on the others. Some (Kyle,          Steroid, Drake) join in. They knock the aitz off the bema,          it rolls out, exposing ten feet of Torah. They stamp on it,          spit on it.... Others (Carleton, O.L.), though less troubled          than Danny, are surprised (and embarrassed) by their own          revulsion at these acts.                    Danny watches helplessly, like the survivor who did nothing          as his son was murdered.                    Finally the Torah lies torn and soiled on the stage. A          strange silence.                                        KYLE                    Let's get out of here.                    ...Danny kneels by the Torah. With a tallis, he attempts to          clean the parchment. Carleton and O.L. help him roll it onto          the aitz. [Echo "Christ taken down from cross" with Torah as          Christ.] They replace the cover, the yod, the crowns....                    Finally Danny lifts it up, holds it to him as if it were his          dead child. He closes his eyes, murmurs to himself....                                        DANNY                    Shema yisrael adonai elohenu adonai                    echod.                                        CARLETON                    What'd you say?                                        DANNY                    Nothing. Let's go....                    He starts to walk out, carrying the Torah.                                        CARLETON                    Why are you taking that?                                        DANNY                    I'm stealing it.                    EXT. AHAVAT TORAH -- DAY                    A VIDEO IMAGE:                                        NEWSCASTER VOICE (V.O.)                    ...Tragedy was barely averted today                    at Temple Ahavat Torah when a bomb                    planted under the bema failed to                    detonate....                                        KYLE (O.S.)                    Shit!                                        NEWSCASTER VOICE (V.O.)                    ...Authorities say that if it had,                    injuries and loss of life could have                    been in the dozens....                    INT. DANNY'S MOTEL ROOM -- DAY                    Danny, Kyle and others watching the TV.                                        NEWSCASTER VOICE                    Channel 8's Cindy Pomerantz spoke to                    Rabbi Malcolm Weiss.                    ON TV: Cindy (sleek, sexy) and the rabbi (handsome, vain).                                        CINDY (ON TV)                    Rabbi, how is it that disaster and                    tragedy were averted here today at                    Ahavat Torah?                                        RABBI (ON TV)                    Apparently the power cell in the                    timer gave out precisely thirteen                    minutes before the device was set to                    go off. So we can only conclude that                    once again God has intervened to save                    the Jewish people....                                        DANNY                        (giving the finger to                         the TV)                    Oh, fuck you...                                        RABBI (ON TV)                    As you know, Cindy, thirteen is a                    mystical number in the Jewish faith.                    We believe that God has thirteen                    attributes...                    Danny is beside himself.                                        RABBI (ON TV)                    ...Of which the highest is ein sof,                    which means "without end," or,                    sometimes, "nothingness without end...."                                        CINDY (ON TV)                    Nothingness without end.... That's                    very interesting.                                        RABBI (ON TV)                    The purest form of spirit...                    ON DANNY. Sound fades. He's haunted: "Nothingness without          end" was what he'd told Guy Danielsen the Jews were obsessed          with. He seems to hear the cello playing "Kol Nidre" again.          Then...                                        DANNY                    Okay, everybody out. Get out.                    He switches off the TV. Shoves them out the door, slams it.                    INT. DANNY'S MOTEL ROOM -- LATER                    Alone he sits at the desk, finds himself gazing at the Torah,          standing in a corner of his closet, draped in the tallis.                    He slams the closet door, it bounces open. Slams it again,          making sure it latches.                    He sits down, looks at the closed door until, in bitter          resignation he gets up and opens it again.                    He unrolls the Torah on the bed...Scotch tapes the tear          closed...attempts to clean the stain with a moistened cloth.                    INT. DANNY'S MOTEL ROOM -- DAY                    Danny is in the bathroom in front of the mirror, holding his          shirt up with his chin as he wraps the tallis around his          torso. When he lowers the shirt, the fringes hang out like          the tsitsis that Orthodox men wear.                    He feels a weird loathing for this, but he smooths and          arranges the tsitsis to look just like a Hasid's. He clicks          his heels together and gives a Nazi salute.                                        DANNY                    Alenu l'shab'ach la'adon hacol...                    Another Nazi salute. A KNOCK at the door. He hides the          fringes under the shirt, throws a blanket over the Torah.                                        DANNY                    What?                                        STEROID (O.S.)                    Phone, Danny.                    EXT. MOTEL -- PAY PHONE -- DAY                                        GUY'S VOICE (PHONE)                    Danny Balint...Guy Danielsen, New                    York Times.                                        DANNY                        (tucks in the tallis                         fringes)                    What do you want? What happened to                    your article?                                        GUY'S VOICE (PHONE)                    I couldn't get my editor to run it,                    but I bet he will now that you've put                    a bomb in a synagogue. That was you,                    wasn't it, Danny?                    Danny hangs up. Stands there. A VOICE makes him jump....                                        VOICE (DRAKE)                    Hey, Danny, want to kill a Jew?                    Danny turns: it's Drake. These are the first words he's spoken.                    EXT. SUBURBAN STREET/INT. CAR -- DAY                    Danny and Drake pass a low-slung modern synagogue. A sign          announces: AMBASSADOR ILIO MANZETTI Friday, August 31. Danny          reacts, startled...Drake smiles.                                        DRAKE                    Park up there, we'll walk back.                    EXT. CONGREGATION BETH SHALOM -- TWILIGHT                    The building is lit. Within we hear an AMPLIFIED VOICE,          presumably Manzetti giving a speech. We can't make out the          words. Danny and Drake are hidden among the rhododendrons          flanking the parking lot. Danny is watching a door in the          side of the building and eating a sandwich as Drake loads a          scoped rifle.                                        DRAKE                    Lie on your stomach and come up on                    your elbows.                                        DANNY                    Why me?                                        DRAKE                    You want to kill a Jew. I already did.                    Danny assumes the prone position, Drake sets the rifle in          his hands.                                        DANNY                    Who'd you kill?                                        DRAKE                    Four. But no one this important.                    We hear APPLAUSE within as the speech ends.                                        DRAKE                    Okay, it's over. He'll take a couple                    questions, then come out.... Sight                    down the rifle toward the door.                    THROUGH RIFLE SCOPE: Danny pans from the side door -- where          TWO MEN are smoking -- to a waiting limousine.                                        DANNY                    How did you know they were Jews?                                        DRAKE                    I can tell....                                        DANNY                    How?                                        DRAKE                    I was a Jew in a previous life.                    Before Danny can respond, Drake gestures toward the synagogue.                                        DRAKE                    Here they come.                    Danny puts his eye back to the scope.                    SCOPE POV: stirring at the door. The men put out their          cigarettes. Three figures emerge: a MAN and a WOMAN on          either side of an older, distinguished-looking man (MANZETTI).          They walk this way.                                        DRAKE (O.S.)                    Shoot him in the head. Always shoot a                    Jew in the head.                                        DANNY                    I'm a bad shot. I don't think I can --                                        DRAKE (O.S.)                    Just get him in the cross-hairs. With                    those shells, anywhere you hit him,                    it'll bounce around, rip his insides                    all up.                    SCOPE POV: the TRIO walking this way, cross-hairs on Manzetti.                                        DRAKE (O.S.)                    Right there! Just squeeze he trigger.                    Slow... Do it!                    Danny FIRES, misses. Everybody hits the ground.                                        DRAKE                    You missed on purpose.                                        DANNY                    I didn't. I told you, I can't --                                        DRAKE                    What's that?                    Danny looks over his shoulder. His shirt has ridden up his          back, revealing the tallis wrapped around his waist.                                        DRAKE                    I knew it.                    Drake pulls a .45 from the duffel.... Without thinking,          Danny rolls over, fires the rifle. Drake is blown backward,          dropping the .45.                    Danny leaps up.... Drake's on his hands and knees, his          trousers quickly darkening with blood. Danny's upset.                                        DANNY                    Oh, Jesus...Drake, are you okay...?                    FOOTSTEPS, coming this way. Danny runs. We hear voices, "Get          down.... Stay down.... He's got a gun...." Drake picks          himself up, stumbles away, bent over....                    EXT. QUEENS -- DUSK                    Danny parks the van in an abandoned lot near the river.          Quickly wiping down the wheel with his shirt, he tosses out          his duffel bag and the scoped rifle. He climbs out, wipes          down the door, throws the rifle into the water, grabs the          duffel and hurries away.                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    Kyle, it's me Danny. How you doing?...                    I had to come into the city to see                    Mrs. MOEBIUS... No, I gave Drake the                    van, didn't he bring it back?                    INT. DANNY'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                    Danny's on the phone, whipping through several newspapers.                                        DANNY                    ...Since when?... Really? And he                    didn't call?... No, I don't know...                    He finds a tiny item: "Gunfire Reported at Synagogue." He          scans it: no mention of Drake or himself.                                        DANNY                    Sure, come on down.... Can you bring                    my stuff?... Thanks...and if Drake                    shows up, let me know right away....                    Good...                    He hangs up. From behind some books, he extracts the small          caliber handgun he found in his father's house earlier.                    INT. MRS. MOEBIUS'S APARTMENT -- TWILIGHT                    Danny alone, waiting, nervous. He hears FOOTSTEPS approach,          he touches the gun in the back of his trousers. Lina and          Curtis enter.                                        LINA                    How have things been going?                                        DANNY                        (how much do they know?)                    Fine.                                        LINA                        (indicates a chair)                    We want to talk to you about                    something....                        (as they sit, Danny nervous)                    We're about to launch an aboveground,                    intellectually serious fascist movement.                    Danny is relieved and intrigued. Lina nods at Curtis to go on.                                        CURTIS                    We want to build bridges to certain                    positions in the political mainstream:                    works like The Bell Curve,                    Sociobiology, anti-Zionism, anti-                    immigration, the com-munitarian                    issue.... We'll hold conferences:                    invite liberals, blacks, Jews.                    Chomsky, Cockburn, Stanley Crouch,                    Shahack....                                        DANNY                    I've been waiting all my life for                    something like this.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    We want you to help run it. Give                    speeches, lead seminars... Handle the                    fund-raising.                                        DANNY                        (slapped in the face)                    Fund-raising??                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    We think you'd be good at it.                    OFF-SCREEN we hear the front door. FEET come up the stairs....                                        DANNY                    What about...Manzetti, the synagogues....                                        CURTIS                    That doesn't seem to be happening,                    does it?                                        DANNY                    I've been stuck out in the country                    with those guys who just want to                    paint swastikas and heil Hitler. How                    am I supposed to -- (get anything                    done there?)                    He stops short as Carla walks into the room for shopping.          She glances at them, puts down her bags, goes into the          kitchen....                                        CURTIS                    Danny, the night we met, you said the                    name Ilio Manzetti. We were impressed.                    We were excited. But here it is                    September, and Mr. Manzetti is still                    walking around breathing the air.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    We need intellectuals, we have enough                    thugs already.                    Danny's watching Carla go down the hall toward the back, can          barely bring his attention back to the conversation at hand.                                        DANNY                    I'm not an intellectual.... I mean, I                    read, but... Fund-raising isn't what I...                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Look, if you want to kill Jews on                    your free time, fine. We need you to                    raise money. Will you do that for us?                    He nods but cannot look at her.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Thank you.                    He's dismissed. He rises.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Do you have a suit?                        (off Danny; to Curtis)                    Let's get him one.... And a cell                    phone too.                        (as Danny turns to go;                         a joke for her own amusement)                    And if you insist on blowing up a                    synagogue, make it that big one on                    Fifth Avenue, would you?                                        DANNY                    Beth Shalom? It's Reform.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    So what?                                        DANNY                    They're not that Jewish.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    I don't care what they are. I know                    those people, and I don't like them.                    The rest are just a bunch of kikes,                    aren't they?                    She smiles. He manages a smile back and hurries away, face          burning with shame.                    EXT. MOEBIUS APARTMENT, STREET -- NIGHT                    Danny comes out of the building, squats between two parked          cars and vomits, retching spastically until, gasping for          breath...                                        VOICE                    Here...                    He turns. Carla walks over to him, wipes his mouth with a          crumpled tissue. When she moves to kiss him, he holds back,          shy about the smell, but she kisses him anyway, on the mouth.                    INT. DANNY'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                    Carla, naked, browsing the books, sees something in the          closet. It's the Torah Danny took from the synagogue. She          unrolls it on the bed, her gaze moving over the mysterious,          glossy script. Danny, coming out of the bathroom, sees what          she is doing, and stops short.                                        CARLA                    Where'd you get this?                                        DANNY                    I stole it. From a synagogue.                    She looks at the broad printed columns....                                        CARLA                    How come there's no punctuation?                                        DANNY                    That was a later invention, it's not                    in the scrolls.... Anyway, the Jews                    know where the sentences end. They                    know the whole thing by heart. Every                    word. Every letter.                                        CARLA                    Do you know it like that? By heart.                                        DANNY                    No.                                        CARLA                    But you can read it, the Hebrew....                    Right?                                        DANNY                    What do you care?                                        CARLA                    'Cause I want to know.... What is                    this word? This one here...                    Danny looks at the word, then back at her. He's torn between          competing desires, but finally...                                        DANNY                    Va-yomer... And he said.                        (she moves her finger                         to the left)                    It goes the other way.                                        CARLA                        (she knew that)                    Oh, yeah...                        (moves finger right)                                        DANNY                    Va-yomer adonai el Avram: lech lecha                    mayartzcha oo-mimohlad-tcha oo-m'bayt                    avaycha el ha-ertez asher arecha...                                        CARLA                    What's it mean?                                        DANNY                    And God said to Avram, take yourself                    away from your land and from the                    place you were born and from your                    father's house into the land -- a                    different land -- and I will show you....                    Danny remains silent a moment, affected by the passage....                                        CARLA                    I want to learn to read it.                                        DANNY                    Why?                                        CARLA                    Know your enemy.... 'Cause it's a                    basic text of Western culture. I want                    to read it in the original. Okay?                                        DANNY                    Hebrew's very difficult. It would                    take years.                                        CARLA                    I'm good at languages.                    He looks at the smooth expanse of her back, the articulations          of her spine. He finds her very beautiful.                                        DANNY                    Put something on. You're not supposed                    to be naked in front of it.                                        CARLA                    Why not?                                        DANNY                    They think it's the word of God, and                    it's holy, and the flesh isn't....                                        CARLA                    That's stupid.                                        DANNY                    Yeah, it's stupid.                        (indicating her T-shirt)                    Put it on, or I won't teach you.                    She grudgingly pulls on the shirt as he gets a pencil and paper.                                        DANNY                    See, the Jews love to separate things:                    the holy from the profane, milk from                    meat, wool from linen, the Sabbath                    from the week, the Jew from the                    gentile.... As if one little scrap of                    this was going to completely                    contaminate that.                                        CARLA                    What assholes.                                        DANNY                    You can't curse in front of it either.                    He shrugs as if indifferent to these rules, yet compelled to          point them out.                                        CARLA                    Who gets contaminated, the Jews or                    the gentiles?                                        DANNY                    Good question. Both.                        (draws a letter)                    Aleph...                                        CARLA                    It looks a little like a swastika.                                        DANNY                    It's silent. It holds a place, takes                    a vowel. The vowels are little dots                    that go under the letters.                                        CARLA                    Where are they?                                        DANNY                    They don't put them in the Torah.                    I'll get you a chumash, they'll have                    them there...Bet...Gimel...Dalid...Hay...                        (as she repeats the names)                    How come you're here instead of with                    Curtis? Besides the Hebrew lessons...                                        CARLA                    The sex is better.                                        DANNY                    Even though his dick is so big?                                        CARLA                    With you there's a tragic dimension.                                        DANNY                    Vuv...Zayin...Chet...Tet...                    He writes each letter as he says it, and she repeats after him.                    EXT. WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE -- DAY                    Danny and Kyle.                                        KYLE                    This will be a different kind of device.                                        DANNY                    That damn thing. You know how it made                    me look...?                                        KYLE                    I'm sorry, Danny. It won't happen                    again. I'm going to use a brand-new                    power cell. Plus we'll have a back-up                    timer.                                        DANNY                    I've gotta kill some Jews, Kyle. I'm                    serious. I'm always talking about it.                    This time it's gotta happen.                                        KYLE                    It will.                    Kyle's confident, and the prospect of this really happening          gives Danny pause. He feels a brief chill, escapes it with...                                        DANNY                    What about Drake, did he ever show up?                                        KYLE                    No, it's weird, man. Nobody knows                    where he went.                    Danny nods, gestures for Kyle to split. Kyle looks around,          walks away. Danny waits a moment, then heads in the opposite          direction.                    EXT. WILLIAMSBURG -- DAY                    Danny walking behind a Hasidic family (MAN, WOMAN, 3-year-          old BOY, STROLLER)...watching them. At a corner, the father          takes the boy's hand, and as they cross the street, the boy          glances back at Danny.                    EXT. COUNTRY ROAD -- DAY, 1943                    TWO NAZI SOLDIERS have just discovered a JEWISH FAMILY          hiding in the back of a hay wagon. The POLISH MAN is holding          the little boy.                    As a soldier tries to take the BOY out of his arms, the          child panics, clings to his father, screaming, "Papa...          Papa..." It is the scene the survivor described in the          meeting with the Nazis. But now the father is DANNY'S          FATHER....                                        FATHER (IN POLISH)                    ...Hush, come on, don't cry.                    Everything will be all right....                    A Nazi sergeant comes over, irritated. The sergeant is Danny.                                        DANNY/NAZI SERGEANT                        (in German)                    What's the matter here?                                        FATHER                        (to the Sergeant, in German)                    Excuse me, I'm sorry, just a moment...                    The sergeant rips the child out of his arms. The kid becomes          hysterical. The father manages to take the boy's hand.                                        FATHER                        (in Polish)                    Please, sweetheart, you have to go.                    I'll see you soon.                    In an access of disgust, the sergeant sticks his bayonet          into the boy -- or rather, into something offscreen. We hear          a terrible sound, the child grunts. The family gasps in horror.                    Danny/sergeant lifts the (unseen) child into the air. Its          SHADOW darkens the father's face. Drops of blood run down          his cheeks....                    Danny/sergeant stares into the father's face, enraged at the          man's passivity.                                        DANNY/NAZI SERGEANT                    Fucking kike.                    EXT. STREET -- DAY                    DANNY'S FACE -- sweating, haunted, as if he's just woken          from the previous.                    He's still walking down the street, but now, as if to flee          his thoughts, he steps through a door into...                    INT. BOOKSTORE -- DAY                    A Jewish bookstore. He grabs the first book that comes to          hand, reads for a moment, throws it down in disgust. Picks          it up again, is still reading when...                                        VOICE                    Hey, Danny...Danny...                    He looks up at a young man about his own age; wearing a          yarmulke, but otherwise normal, hair clean, beard neatly          trimmed.                                        YOUNG MAN                    It's Stuart. Stuart Schoenbaum.                                        DANNY                    Shlomo?                                        STUART                    Yeah...                    Danny puts down the book, trying to conceal that he's been          reading it. He offers a hand. Stuart manages to restrain the          impulse to embrace him, but takes the hand warmly.                                        STUART                    Jeez, it's been since, what, Kenny's                    wedding.                                        DANNY                    Yeah, uh... So how are you? What's                    going on?                                        STUART                    I'm in the rabbinic program at JTS...                                        DANNY                    JTS...?                                        STUART                    What about you? What are you doing?                    Something strange, I bet.                                        DANNY                    I'm in a kind of...underground...thing.                                        STUART                        (impressed, excited)                    Are you an artist?                                        DANNY                    No, no... Not that kind of...                    underground. More a private...                    business. Private.                    Meaning he can't talk about it. Stuart nods. Danny notices a          young woman: dark, curly hair, sharp eyes.                                        STUART                    You remember Miriam....                                        DANNY                    Yeah, hey, how're you doing...                                        MIRIAM                    Hey...                    An irony to her. They certainly remember each other.                                        STUART                    She's at Yale Law -- interning with                    the district attorney...                        (Miriam makes a face)                    We're getting married next spring. In                    Israel.                                        DANNY                    Wow, that's uh...great...                    He glances at Miriam; but she has picked up the book he'd          been reading, is leafing through it. It makes him uneasy.                                        STUART                    It's great seeing you....                                        MIRIAM                    Maybe Danny'd like to come to the                    minyan for the holidays....                    Danny gives her a dirty look, but Stuart's thrilled:                                        STUART                    Oh, good idea. We're davening with                    this group from the seminary.                    Interesting people, very open-minded,                    you might like them. And guess who                    comes...Avi! You guys could go at it                    again like the good old days.                    As Stuart scribbles an address...                                        STUART                    Danny and Avi used to argue about                    everything. Torah, Talmud, politics,                    girls. It always ended in a fistfight.                                        MIRIAM                    I remember.                                        DANNY                    I always won.                                        MIRIAM                    The arguments, anyway.                                        STUART                        (hands Danny the address)                    It's a K.I. on 101st. In the little                    chapel. Try to make it. It'd be fun.                    Danny smiles. He has no intention of going. Once they leave,          he picks up the book and resumes reading.                    INT. AN EXECUTIVE SUITE -- DAY                    ROGER BRAND, a high-powered CEO, sits behind a big desk,          speed-reading something through half-glasses. He finishes,          removes the glasses. A New York Times is on the desk.                                        BRAND                    You write that?                        (as Danny nods)                    Come work for me. You've got a lot to                    learn; I can teach it to you.                                        DANNY                    I have a job.                                        BRAND                    This? This is a joke.                        (tossing down the pages)                    I'll give your group a thousand bucks.                                        DANNY                    You gave fifty thousand to that                    college magazine.                                        BRAND                    Fifty's an exaggeration. Anyway, that                    was a different moment. Things were                    possible that aren't now.                                        DANNY                    Actually, I think this moment has                    possibilities that --                                        BRAND                    Yeah, I read your piece. It's very                    smart. And very wrong.                    Brand's phone beeps, he touches a button, continues.                                        BRAND                    Forget the Jewish stuff. It doesn't                    play anymore.                        (over Danny's)                    There's only the market, now, and it                    doesn't care who you are.                                        DANNY                    People still need values, beliefs....                                        BRAND                    No, they don't. Not the smart ones.                        (because he likes him)                    Look, I'll give you five grand if you                    can document your tax-exempt                    status.... But when you fall off this                    horse, come see me. I can show you                    how to make a lot of money.                                        DANNY                    I don't care about money.                                        BRAND                    You will.                                        DANNY                    You're a Jew. Maybe you don't realize                    it, but you are.                                        BRAND                        (smiles, uninsulted)                    Maybe I am. Maybe we're all Jews now.                    What's the difference?                    On Danny, troubled by this.                    INT. A SMALL LECTURE HALL -- EVENING                    A half-dozen white lumpen sit at desks. Danny writes "ANTI-          SEMITISM" in large letters on a blackboard. He turns....                                        DANNY                    How many of you think of yourselves                    as anti-Semites?                        (All the hands go up.)                    Good. Actually, the term is a bit                    imprecise since technically Jews are                    only one of the Semitic peoples....                    In fact, Arabs are Semites, as are                    the Eritreans, the Ethiopians, and so                    on.... But for our purposes an anti-                    Semite is someone who hates or is                    against Jews.... Now, why do we hate                    them?                    He looks around. The room is silent.                                        DANNY                    Let me put it another way. Do we hate                    them because they push their way in                    where they don't belong? Or because                    they're clannish and keep to themselves?                    Murmurs of "Yeah. Both." But some are confused by this.                    INT. SAME -- ANOTHER DAY                    Slightly bigger crowd, a few middle-class-looking people.                                        DANNY                    ...Because they're tight with money,                    or because they flash it around?                    Because they're Bolsheviks or because                    they're capitalists? Because they                    have the highest IQs, or because they                    have the most active sex lives?                    The audience, confused...                                        DANNY                    Do you want to know the real reason                    we hate them?...                    INT. SAME -- DAY                    ...More people: white collar workers of both sexes, nurses,          artists. Lapel buttons, bumper stickers, backpacks: "FIGHT          NEW WORLD DISORDER" "STOP THE WTO" "EARTH FIRST!"                                        DANNY                    ...Because we hate them.                        (as people exchange                         puzzled looks)                    Because they exist. Because it is an                    axiom of civilization that just as                    man longs for woman, loves his                    children and fears death, he hates                    the Jews.                        (smiles)                    There is no reason. If there were,                    some smart-ass kike would give us an                    argument, try to prove we were wrong.                    And of course that would only make us                    hate them more. In fact we have all                    the reasons we need in three simple                    letters: J-E-W. Jew. Say it a million                    times. It is the only word that never                    loses its meaning: Jew Jew Jew Jew                    Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew....                    EXT. NEW JERSEY MEADOWLANDS -- DAWN                    Danny and Kyle sitting in the tall grass across the          marshlands toward the Manhattan skyline shimmering in the          distance.                                        KYLE                        (sings, looking at watch)                    "My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land                    of liberty, Of thee I..."                    He points sharply and an explosion occurs thirty yards away.          They run over, pick up the mangled timer. They're pleased.                    EXT. JCC (ANSCHE CHESED) -- DAY                    A couple of stragglers hurry through the door as we hear...                                        VOICES                    B'Rosh Hashanah yika-teyvun, uv'yom                    tsom kippur yey-chateymun...                    INT. SMALL CHAPEL -- DAY                    Rosh Hashanah services. A woman is davening....                                        WOMAN                    And it came to pass after these                    things that God tested Abraham...                    DANNY...sitting with Stuart and Miriam...                                        WOMAN (O.S.)                    ...And said to him, "Abraham." And he                    said, "Here am I..." And God said,                    "Take your son, your only son, whom                    you love..."                                        DANNY                        (to himself)                    It's not his only son....                                        ANOTHER VOICE                    The only one he loves.                    Danny looks at AVI (athletic, smooth-shaven) who grins          sardonically and fakes a punch as...                                        DANNY                    They only kill them when they love them?                                        AVI                        (sliding into a seat                         next to them)                    What are you doing here, I thought                    you were a Nazi.                                        STUART                    Come on, Avi...                                        AVI                    You know what this guy told me once:                    Islam and Judaism both start with                    Abraham murdering his son: first                    sending Ishmael into the desert, then                    sacrificing Isaac....                                        VOICES                    Shhhh... Can you please be quiet?                                        DANNY                    And Christianity's the same, with                    minor variations.                                        AVI                    Ridiculous.                        (to the people around them)                    Folks, don't listen to this guy. He's                    a well-known anti-Semite.                                        MIRIAM                    Avi, please...                                        AVI                        (snatching off Danny's hat)                    ...Look, he's a skinhead.                                        VOICES                    It's just a style, Avi.... There are                    antiracist skins.                                        AVI                        (laughing)                    Believe me, Danny's the racist kind.                    Are you a fascist, Danny? Yes or no.                                        DANNY                    What's a fascist?                                        AVI                    I rest my case. He's a Jewish Nazi.                    He always was.                                        DANNY                    Whereas Avi's a Zionist Nazi.                                        AVI                    The Zionists aren't Nazis.                                        DANNY                    They're racist, they're militaristic,                    they act like bullyboys in the                    territories....                                        AVI                    They don't have extermination camps.                                        DANNY                    They had Sabra and Shattila.                                        MIRIAM                    Do you hate them because they're                    wimps or because they're bullyboys?                    Danny's startled by the question, but before he can react...                                        AVI                        (over her, to Danny)                    That was the Lebanese, that wasn't --                                        VOICES (O.S.)                    The Israeli Army knew about the camps.                    Sharon encouraged the falangists to                    go in there and murder all the --                                        AVI                    You don't know that. There's no --                                        DANNY                    Read the early Zionists on European                    Jewry; they sound like Goebbels.                                        AVI                    They sound like you.                                        DANNY                    The Nazis did everything the f¸hrer                    told them. You do everything the                    Torah tells you. Or the rebbe.                    Identical slave mentality.                    Avi lunges at him. They begin pounding each other. Chaos.                    EXT. STREET -- NIGHT                    Miriam and Danny walk down West End Avenue together. He's          oddly relaxed with her?                                        MIRIAM                    Why did you come tonight? To see me?                                        DANNY                        (after a beat)                    To hear them read Torah.                                        MIRIAM                    I thought you hated Torah.                                        DANNY                    That doesn't mean I don't like                    hearing it.                                        MIRIAM                    Point out all the lies and fucked-up                    thinking.                    She smiles and even he smiles a little. They walk together,          oddly companionable.                                        MIRIAM                    You know the joke: a Jew's shipwrecked                    on a desert island. When they rescue                    him, they see he's built two                    synagogues. They say, for vhat do you                    need two synagogues? He says, vun to                    pray in, and vun I'd never set foot                    in so long as I live, so help me God.                        (he nods, he's heard it)                    You pray in the one you'd never set                    foot in...and vice versa.                                        DANNY                    I can't help what I think.                                        MIRIAM                    This is me.                    She stops in front of a nice doorman building. He's impressed.                                        MIRIAM                    Tell me about Lina Moebius.                                        DANNY                        (startled)                    How did you...?                                        MIRIAM                    I work in the DA's office. You go to                    those meetings, half the people there                    are informants.                                        DANNY                    You mean the Times guy?                                        MIRIAM                    Which Times guy?                                        DANNY                    With the shoes... There was more than                    one?                    In an excess of paranoia, he walks away. She calls after him....                                        MIRIAM                    Danny...Danny...                        (he doesn't look back)                    Shit...                    INT. DANNY'S APARTMENT -- NIGHT                    Sweltering heat. A fan ruffles Carla's hair as she lies on          the futon going back and forth between Hebrew/English Torah          and a Hebrew grammar. Danny is on the floor lifting weights.                                        CARLA                        (slowly, laboriously)                    Payn tash-chiton v'ashiytem...                                        DANNY                        (correcting her)                    V'asitem...                                        CARLA                    V'asitem lechem pessel to-monat. And                    make no graven image of the Lord, or                    the form of any figure, or of man or                    woman, or beast or fowl or fish or                    anything that looks like anything.                    Because He's not like anything. Not                    only can't you see Him or hear Him,                    you can't even think about Him. I                    mean, what's the difference between                    that and Him not existing?                                        DANNY                        (still exercising)                    No difference.                                        CARLA                    Christianity's silly, but at least                    there's something to believe in. Or                    not believe. Judaism there's nothing.                                        DANNY                        (to himself)                    Nothing but nothingness...Judaism's                    not about belief.                                        CARLA                    What's it about?                                        DANNY                    About doing things. You light candles,                    say prayers, keep the Sabbath, visit                    the sick....                                        CARLA                    And belief follows?                                        DANNY                    No. Nothing follows. You don't do it                    because it's smart or stupid or it                    saves your soul. You're not saved.                    Nobody's saved. You do it because the                    Torah tells you do. You submit to the                    Torah.                                        CARLA                    Fuck that.                                        DANNY                    Don't curse in front of it.                                        CARLA                        (flips the book closed)                    Why should I submit?                                        DANNY                    You shouldn't.                                        CARLA                    You think I should just because                    there's no reason?                    He looks at her without answering.                                        DANNY                    No, I think you shouldn't.                                        CARLA                    Judaism doesn't even need God. You                    have the Torah, the law. That's your                    fucking God....                        (anticipating his objections)                    The book's closed.                    In an access of something, she bites his arm, hard. He          winces, pushes her away. She kisses the place she bit. He          starts to play with her hair....                                        DANNY                    You're learning the Hebrew really fast.                                        CARLA                    I told you, I'm good at this.                                        DANNY                    Plus you have nothing else to do all day.                                        CARLA                    Oh, am I learning it faster than you                    did? Maybe I'm smarter.                    He laughs, likes her arrogance. But she misunderstands:                                        CARLA                    Is that funny? You think Jews are the                    only smart ones?                    As they make out, grow aroused...                                        DANNY                    What...? You think I'm Jewish?                                        CARLA                    It's all you talk about. Jewish,                    Jewish, Jewish. Nobody talks about it                    that much except the Jews.                    Danny's taken aback by the simple logic.                                        DANNY                    Nazis talk about it all the time.                                        CARLA                    Do they?                    And, of course, she has grown up among Nazis.                                        DANNY                    The real Nazis. Hitler, Goebbels,                    they talked about Jews incessantly....                    You ever read their diaries?...                                        CARLA                    Is that why you became a Nazi? So you                    could talk about Jews incessantly?                                        DANNY                    Believe me, Adolf Hitler couldn't                    possibly have hated the Jews as much                    as I do. Not in a billion years. You                    know why?                                        CARLA                    'Cause he wasn't a rabbi.                                        DANNY                    You want a punch in the mouth?                                        CARLA                    Okay...                        (he doesn't hit her)                    Why don't we light candles on Friday?                    Let's light candles.... And say the                    kaddish.                                        DANNY                    Kaddish is the prayer for the dead.                                        CARLA                    I mean kiddush. Let's say kiddush.                    And shave my head, fuck through a                    sheet, all that stuff...                        (as he walks away)                    Come on, just for fun. To see what                    it's like...                    INT. SMALL LECTURE HALL -- NIGHT                    Packed with a well-dressed crowd, very different from the          crowds we've seen here before.                    DOWN IN FRONT: Mrs. Moebius and Danny talk in low tones.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Half the right-wing money in New York                    is here tonight. They came to see you.                    If you impress them, if you do what I                    know you can, this movement will be                    up and running by tomorrow. And on                    the front page of the New York Times                    in six months.                    She straightens his tie, directs him toward the lectern. He          hesitates....                                        DANNY                    We tested the new bomb.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    What?                                        DANNY                    We redesigned the timing mechanism.                    It can't possibly malfunction.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Danny, please. Just give your                    speech.... And nothing about Jews, okay?                    She walks away.                    INT. SMALL LECTURE HALL -- STAGE -- NIGHT                    Danny steps to the lectern. The CROWD QUIETS. He stands          silent for a long moment, then closes his eyes and chants          with feeling:                                        DANNY                    Shema yisroel adonai elohenu adonai                    echod.                    General confusion. Mrs. Moebius and Curtis exchange wary          glances.                                        DANNY                    Who knows what that is?                                        VOICE                    A Jewish prayer.                                        DANNY                    Can anybody imagine why I would say a                    Jewish prayer?                                        ANOTHER VOICE                    Because you're a Jew.                    Nervous laughter. Danny laughs with them.                                        DANNY                    That could be one reason. What's                    another?                        (no response)                    Let me put it this way...who here                    would like to destroy the Jews?                        (murmurs of approval)                    Who wants to grind their bones into                    the dust?                    A scattering of applause, growing more sustained...                                        DANNY                    And who wants to see them rise again,                    wealthier, more successful, powerful,                    cultured and intelligent than ever?                    Silence. No one wants that.                                        DANNY                    Then you know what you have to do?...                    You have to love them.                    Puzzled mutterings: "What?... What's he talking about?..."                                        DANNY                    Did he say love them? Love the Jews?                    It sounds strange, I know, but with                    these people nothing is simple. The                    Jew says that all he wants is to be                    left alone to study his Torah, do a                    little business and fornicate with                    his over-sexed wife.... But it isn't                    true. He wants to be hated. He longs                    for our scorn. He clings to it as if                    it were the very core and mystery of                    his being. If Hitler had not existed,                    the Jews would have invented him. For                    without such hatred, the so-called                    Chosen People would vanish from the                    earth....                    People react with confusion, uncertainty, suspicion.                                        DANNY                    ...And this reveals a terrible truth,                    the crux of our problem as Nazis: the                    worse the Jews are treated, the                    stronger they become. Egyptian                    slavery made them a nation; the                    pogroms hardened them, Auschwitz gave                    birth to the State of Israel.                    Suffering, it seems, is the very                    crucible of their genius. If the Jews                    are, as one of their own has said, a                    people who will not take yes for an                    answer, then let us say yes to them.                    If they thrive on opposition, let us                    cease to oppose them. The way to                    annihilate them, utterly and                    completely, is to open our arms, take                    them into our homes and embrace them.                    Only then will they vanish into                    assimilation, dilution...and love.                        (a warning finger)                    But we cannot pretend. The Jew is                    nothing if not clever. He will see                    through condescension and hypocrisy.                    To destroy him, we will have to love                    him sincerely.                    ON THE AUDIENCE, befuddled. A HAND goes up. Danny nods to it.          The man steps forward, and we see that it's Guy Danielsen of          the Times. Danny is shaken....                                        GUY                    But if the Jews are strengthened by                    hate, wouldn't this "destruction" you                    speak of -- by love or by any other                    means -- in fact make them more                    powerful than they are already?                                        DANNY                        (after a beat)                    Yes. Infinitely more. They would                    become as God.                    Murmurs of confusion, outrage... "God??!!!" Danny notices          the TALLIS crawling out from under his shirt, stuffs it back in.                                        DANNY                    It is the Jews' destiny to the                    annihilated so that they can be                    deified....                        (the murmurs swell)                    Jesus understood this perfectly. And                    look what was accomplished there with                    the death of just one enlightened Jew.                    Imagine what would happen if we                    killed them all!!                        (over the rising outrage)                    So, let us say together... Shema                    yisroel...                    One or two voices respond, but must people shout him down.          Mrs. Moebius is outraged. People are throwing things,          shouting. The meeting degenerates into chaos.                    INT. MOEBIUS APARTMENT -- DAY                    Danny talks to Mrs. Moebius. Offscreen we hear a TV.                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Are you out of your mind?!                                        DANNY                    I was just trying to make a point. If --                                        CARLA (O.S.)                    Oh, my God...                        (calling)                    Lina...                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    I'm relieving you of all duties. I                    don't want you working for us anymore....                                        DANNY                    You can't. Do you know how many                    people I've brought into...the                    movement...?                                        CARLA (O.S.)                    Lina, come here!                    INT. KITCHEN -- DAY                    Carla watching a small TV on the kitchen counter. Danny          arrives, followed by Lina and Curtis as we hear...                                        REPORTER (O.S.)                    According to police, he had just left                    the restaurant and was walking the                    block and a half back to his office,                    when the gunman stepped out of this                    doorway, fired seven times at point-                    blank range...then fled on foot.                                        DANNY                        (a terrible premonition)                    Who was it?                    Mrs. Moebius impatiently signals him to silence.                                        REPORTER (O.S.)                    ...Paramedics arrived within ninety                    seconds, but Mr. Manzetti was                    declared dead at the scene.                    At the mention of Manzetti's name, Danny goes white.                                        ANCHOR'S VOICE                    Ilio Manzetti was one of the                    respected and influential men in New                    York. As an investment banker,                    diplomat, adviser to presidents and                    mayors, he helped shape public policy                    and private finance for more than                    three decades. He'll be missed, Phil.                    This is Michael Port with New York 1.                    Danny's knees are weak, his hands cold, his stomach rises....          He becomes aware of the others, staring at him in amazement.                                        DANNY                        (stunned)                    Do you think I...                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Danny, please, we don't want to know.                    She and Curtis walk out of the room. Stunned, shaken, Danny          leaves in a different direction. The TV plays to an empty          room...                                        ANCHOR'S VOICE                    The assailant is described as a white                    male in his late 20s....                    EXT. MOEBIUS BUILDING/STREET -- DAY                    Danny wanders out the door in a daze. His cell phone RINGING.          He has to search his pockets, then fumbles to turn it on....                                        KYLE'S VOICE (PHONE)                    You finally killed a Jew, man. How's                    it feel?                                        DANNY                    Kyle...I can't talk right now....                    He hears a CAMERA SHUTTER and MOTOR DRIVE. He turns....                    EXT. ACROSS THE STREET -- DAY                    GUY DANIELSEN & A PHOTOGRAPHER.                    They're coming toward him.                                        GUY                    Did you kill Ilio Manzetti?                                        DANNY                    No.                    Suddenly Danny runs after the photographer, they struggle....                                        PHOTOGRAPHER                    Not the camera, don't hurt the camera...                    Danny opens the camera, rips out the film, exposing it.                                        GUY                    Did you kill him?                    Danny glares at him without answering, walks away. Guy          hurries after him....                                        GUY                    Two days ago you addressed a Nazi                    rally. Last week you went to a Torah                    study group.                                        DANNY                    What were you, following me?                                        GUY                    How do you reconcile the two?                                        DANNY                    I don't. Look, stay out of what you                    don't understand.                                        GUY                    Explain it so I can.                                        DANNY                    You work for the New York Times. Your                    whole job in life is not to understand                    things like me.                                        GUY                    I don't think you know what you are.                                        DANNY                        (walking on, fast)                    Yeah, and what are you? A Times man?                    A Presbyterian? Impotent? A prick?                                        GUY                    Who killed Manzetti?                                        DANNY                    If I tell you, will you pull the                    story? Not write about me?                                        GUY                    It's too late.... If I didn't,                    somebody else would.                        (as Danny just snorts)                    Yom Kippur starts at sundown. Will                    you go to synagogue?                                        DANNY                        (turns on him, threatening)                    Get the fuck away from me.                    Guy backs off. Danny crosses the street.                                        VOICE                    Hey, Danny, just one more!                    He glances back. It's the PHOTOGRAPHER who has reloaded and          now SNAPS a shot AS DANNY TURNS AWAY and keeps going....                    EXT. LOWER MANHATTAN -- DAY                    Danny and Miriam walking together among the trees.                                        MIRIAM                    You're telling me you killed him? You?                    Killed him? Bullshit. What kind of                    gun did you use?                                        DANNY                        (guessing)                    A forty-five.                                        MIRIAM                    It was a nine millimeter.                                        DANNY                    You're lying.                                        MIRIAM                    So are you... But they'll believe                    you....                        (as they walk)                    Lina Moebius is saying the whole                    thing was your idea. That you                    proposed it in a meeting at her house.                        (when he doesn't deny it)                    Ah, Jesus, Danny... What were you                    thinking? Are you glad Manzetti's                    dead? Do you really want to kill Jews?                    You want to kill me?                                        DANNY                    I was just talking. I -- look, I                    can't help what I think.                    He doesn't know how to answer, walks away from her to the          railing overlooking the water. He stares into the current          flowing past. Finally Miriam joins him....                                        MIRIAM                    All right, what if all along you were                    actually infiltrating the Nazis -- to                    expose them....                                        DANNY                    But I wasn't.                                        MIRIAM                    And only talked about killing                    Manzetti to convince them you were an                    anti-Semite. If you'd had any idea                    somebody would take it seriously, you                    never would have said it.                                        DANNY                    I can't say that.                                        MIRIAM                    Think about your father. Your sister.                                        DANNY                    The truth doesn't mean anything to                    you, does it?                                        MIRIAM                    Danny, I'm trying to -- save you.                                        DANNY                        (over her)                    Fucking kike.                    Miriam is stung. She can't believe he said that. Still, she          gets a small tape recorder out of her purse, hands it to him.                                        MIRIAM                    Try to get Lina Moebius on tape,                    telling you to do something.                    Something violent... That's right, I                    don't care about truth. I care about                    you.                        (looks at her watch)                    Kol Nidre's at six-thirty. I've got                    to meet Stuart. We'll be at the                    minyan tonight and tomorrow. If you                    need me, come there....                    Danny watches her walk away, then turns to the railing.          Ideally a FERRY is pulling away from its slip and heading          out across the harbor. He watches it, then looks down at the          current moving past. He reaches a decision, throws the tape          recorder into the water, turns and walks away....                    INT. DANNY'S APARTMENT -- LATE AFTERNOON                    Danny stops just inside the door. The place is spotless. The          desk has been pulled out from the wall, covered with a snowy          cloth and set for a Sabbath meal: brass candelabrum, challah          under a satin cover...and two place settings.                    Carla is pouring wine into the kiddush cup. She's wearing a          modest dress, her hair is pinned up with a piece of lace.                                        DANNY                    What's going on?                    She turns, startled; she hadn't heard him come in.                                        CARLA                    It's erev Yom Kippur.... We'll have                    dinner, then go to shul. Atone for                    our sins.                    He grabs a couple of olives off the table, eats them as he          goes through his closet, stuffing a couple things in a bag....                                        CARLA                    Come on, we can be like Eichmann. He                    studied Torah. He hated Jews.                                        DANNY                        (in the closet, looking)                    Is it like Eichmann? Are we goofing?                                        CARLA                    I don't know. I just want to try it.                                        DANNY                    Shit...                        (looking in other places)                    Did you talk to your mother today?                                        CARLA                    No. What are you looking for?                                        DANNY                    Nothing.                        (indicates table as he                         keeps looking)                    Why are you doing this?                        (back to the closet)                    I thought God didn't exist.                                        CARLA                    He commands it whether He exists or                    not...                        (off his silence; with                         difficulty)                    Look, we can fight him and be crushed.                    Or we can submit.                                        DANNY                        (from the closet)                    And be crushed.                                        CARLA                    Yeah, okay. But what if...what if...                    submitting...being crushed, being                    nothing, not mattering, what if                    that's the best feeling we can have?                    He finds it (a kittel), stuffs it in the bag.                                        CARLA                    Look, just light the candles with me.                    Then we'll eat. You have to eat.                                        DANNY                    You eat first, then you light.                        (exasperated, he has to                         explain)                    Once you light, it's Yom Kippur,                    which means you're fasting, so you                    can't...eat.                    He trails off, looks at her. She's everything he ever wanted,          and he's already lost her.                                        DANNY                    A woman of valor, who can find her?                    Her price is above rubies....                    He walks out, leaving the door open. Carla starts to call          after him, but then doesn't. She turns back, lights the          candles and awkwardly reads the prayers....                    EXT. STREET/PAY PHONE -- SUNDOWN APPROACHING                    Danny on a phone. Behind him, Jews hurry home for the          holiday. He hears a BEEP...                                        DANNY                    Miriam, it's me, Danny.... Come on,                    the holiday hasn't started, pick up                    the --                        (as someone does)                    ...Is Stuart davening Ne'ilah                    tomorrow at the minyan... 'Cause he                    always does... Tell him I'm doing it                    instead....                    She argues (we hear her VOICE not her words)...Danny cuts          her off.                                        DANNY                    Miriam, I'm davening.... He gives me                    any trouble, I'll beat the shit out                    of him right there in the room. I'm                    serious....                    She's still talking when he hangs up and walks away.                    INT. MOEBIUS APARTMENT -- NIGHT                    Lina and Curtis with Billings and Drake, who looks bad...                                        LINA                    Why didn't you tell us?                                        DRAKE                        (never considered it)                    I was hurt. I just...                                        BILLINGS                    He went to his friends' place and I                    laid up there 'til he was better.                    Then he called me.                                        CURTIS                    You should've gone to the police.                                        LINA                    I don't think Drake wants to talk to                    the police. Do you?                                        DRAKE                    I'll take care of him myself.                    The phone RINGS. Curtis answers, listens, covers the mouthpiece.                                        CURTIS                    Daniel Balint.                    She takes it with a dramatic gesture.                                        LINA                        (takes the phone)                    Hello...?                    INTERCUT WITH:                    EXT. PAY PHONE, 65TH STREET -- NIGHT                                        DANNY                    Lina... It's happening. Tonight.                                        LINA                    What is happening?                                        DANNY                    Beth Shalom. Like you wanted.                                        LINA                    Beth Shalom? What are you talking                    about? Who is this...?                                        DANNY                    Lina, you said if I was going to                    plant a bomb, I should --                    A CLICK as she hangs up. He's pleased. He steps away from          the phone. He's carrying a grease-stained bag and is across          from...                    TEMPLE EMANU-EL...KOL NIDRE being sung by a soprano within;          and ORGAN accompanying her.                    EXT. 5TH AVENUE AND 65TH STREET -- NIGHT                    In the synagogue across the street we hear KOL NIDRE being          sung by a soprano; an ORGAN accompanying her. Danny looks up          at the temple.                    FLASHCUT: EXT. FOREST ROAD -- DAY, 1943                    Looking up as the Nazi sergeant holds the boy on the bayonet          over the father's head. But now Danny is the father, and the          father is the sergeant.                    He lunges at the Nazi, knocking him down, tearing at this          throat. The sergeant screams....                                        NAZI SOLDIER                        (in German, to his fellows)                    Kill him!                    Danny bites through the Nazi's jugular as bullets rip into him.                    INT. FIFTH AVENUE AT 65TH/INT. KYLE'S CAR -- NIGHT                    Kyle's car is parked on the Central Park side of          Fifth....Danny gets in the passenger side. Kyle is behind          the wheel, wiring an explosive device. Danny hands him the          grease-stained bag.                                        DANNY                    How're we doing?                    Kyle holds up a solitary pipe bomb.                                        KYLE                    That's all we've got left.                                        DANNY                    It'll be enough if we use it right.                        (checks his watch)                    Okay, the service'll go about another                    hour. Say an hour for the janitors,                    then one more just to be safe...                    We'll go in at midnight.                    Kyle has extracted a cheeseburger and shake from the bag. As          he starts in on them, he realizes Danny isn't eating.                                        KYLE                    Didn't you get anything?                                        DANNY                    I'm not hungry.... Come on, let's                    drive around.... We don't want to be                    spotted here.                    Eating, Kyle starts the car, pulls away....                    INT. MOEBIUS APARTMENT -- SAME TIME                                        LINA                        (white with fury)                    He is trying to set us up.                    Curtis picks up a cell phone and dials.                                        LINA                        (to Drake and Billings)                    I want him dead by tomorrow night.                    That lies within your capacities,                    correct?                    Billings nods. Drake unconsciously licks the center of his          lower lip. As they leave, we see that he limps horribly.          When they're gone...                                        CURTIS                        (into phone)                    Yes, I believe that a bomb is going                    to be planted tonight at Temple                    Emanu-el on 65th Street.... By the                    same man who killed Ilio Manzetti...                    His name is Daniel Balint....                    EXT. FIFTH AVENUE/INT. KYLE'S CAR -- DRIVING -- NIGHT                    POV inside van. Fifth is quiet. Temple Emanu-el again,          straight ahead. But now we see SECURITY GUARDS near the door.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    Oh, what is this shit?                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    Keep driving. Don't slow down.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    Christ...                    POV speeds up, whips past the synagogue.                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    Not too fast.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    You said they didn't have night guards.                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    They don't. I checked twenty times....                    Somebody must have talked.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    Who even knew?                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    Mrs. Moebius.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    Why? Why would she?                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    The Manzetti thing must have scared                    her. She thinks she'll get implicated.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    So what do we do with the device?                    The Plaza straight ahead...                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    Take a right on 59th...                        (as the car turns)                    We'll put it someplace else.                                        KYLE (V.O.)                    Where?                    ON DANNY'S FACE                                        DANNY                    I have an idea....                    INT. A DARKENED BLDG (JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER) -- NIGHT                    A pencil-beam flashlight moves through the darkness. We          follow it. The light enters a space where SOUND ECHOES....                                        DANNY (V.O.)                    Over here.                    INT. JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER ROOM -- NIGHT                    A PENCIL BEAM shows Kyle on his back attaching the bomb to          some kind of wooden floor cupboard. He's worried about the          paltry amount of explosives.                                        KYLE                    It's all reinforced in here. It's not                    going to blow out the way we want it....                    Danny is too preoccupied flipping through a machzor to answer.                                        KYLE                    If I went back to the lumberyard, the                    guy'd give me all the dynamite I                    wanted. Untraceable, you wouldn't --                    need to...                                        DANNY                    No, it has to be tomorrow. You won't                    get this many of them in here for                    another year. It'll be fine.                                        KYLE                    It's not going to be fine. It's --                                        DANNY                    Just do it.                    Kyle sighs, goes about doing it, he HEARS SOMETHING and freezes.                                        KYLE                    What's that?                    Danny clicks off the light. A SILHOUETTE on the windows...                                        DANNY                    It's just somebody on the street.                    Light on. Relieved, Kyle turns his attention back to the bomb.                                        KYLE                    When do you want it to go off?                                        DANNY                    Seven-thirty tomorrow evening.                                        KYLE                    So that's what? Nineteen thirty                    minutes...what time is it now...                    Kyle checks his wristwatch, sets the timer to eighteen hours          eighteen minutes. It begins counting down.                    EXT. SYNAGOGUE -- NIGHT                    Kyle and Danny come around the corner, get in Kyle's car          parked near the side door.                    EXT. EIGHTH AVENUE NEWSSTAND -- NIGHT                    A stack of papers, the early edition of the Times. As Danny          grabs one, he notices a stack of tabloids....                    FRONT PAGE: The Manzetti crime scene with screaming headline:          "MANZETTI SLAYER JEWISH NAZI." Next to this another tab:          "JEW KILLS JEW?"                    Danny grabs a Times, flips it over... We see only his face:          registering this, unsurprised. He opens the paper....                    INSERT: TWO PHOTOGRAPHS                    The sweet-faced bar mitzvah boy we saw at his father's          house... And a BLURRY PHOTO of Danny walking away from Guy          Danielsen and the photographer outside Mrs. Moebius's house.          Danny's face is not clearly seen.                    TILT UP TO DANNY                    Calm. He tucks the paper under his arm beside the machzor          and crosses Eighth Avenue toward a cheap hotel....                    CHEAP HOTEL -- NIGHT                    Carrying the papers, Danny goes through the door.                    INT. HOTEL ROOM -- EARLY MORNING                    Danny at the window, staring out. The TV plays behind him.                    On TV -- A REPORTER INTERVIEWING MRS. MOEBIUS                                        REPORTER                    ...You're saying that when he first                    appeared at your house, you had no                    idea he was Jewish....                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    None whatsoever. But I have to admit,                    I'm not terribly surprised.                                        REPORTER                    What do you mean?                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    I think anti-semitism today is                    largely a Jewish phenomenon. Wouldn't                    you agree?                    Danny can't help smiling at her audacity.                                        REPORTER                    In the Third Reich, weren't a number                    of high-ranking Nazis of Jewish origin?                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                    Yes, and they were said to be the                    most virulent proponents of the Final                    Solution. Really, who but a Jew would                    want to kill Ilio Manzetti simply                    because he was Jewish? Who thinks                    about such things?                                        REPORTER                    The papers are going to report                    tomorrow that your colleague, Curtis                    Zampf, has been a federal informant                    for the past two years. Do you                    believe that?                                        MRS. MOEBIUS                        (enigmatic smile)                    Curtis is always more complicated                    than he seems. Even now.                                        REPORTER                        (to the camera)                    And so, on this, the most solemn day                    of the Jewish year, a former yeshiva                    student is being sought in connection                    with a monstrous hate crime that --                    The set is CLICKED OFF with the remote. In the darkened          screen, we see Danny take his bag off the bed and go out the          door.                    EXT. JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER -- LATE AFTERNOON                    As Danny approaches, a STOCKY YOUNG MAN on a folding chair          outside the front door checks him out.                                        DANNY                    Gamar tov.                    The Stocky Young Man beckons him on. As he passes, Danny          spots a gun and shoulder holster inside the man's zippered          jacket.                    INT. JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER -- DAY                    Several Yom Kippur services are going on in different rooms.          And we hear different groups of VOICES. And one reading...                                        VOICE                    ...They cast lots, and the lot fell                    on Jonah...                    Danny puts on his kittel -- a white prayer coat.                    INT. JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER, 2ND FLOOR/INT. SMALL          AUDITORIUM -- DAY                    About forty WORSHIPPERS, most in their 20s and 30s. Danny          slips into the back, spots Carla up front with Miriam and          Stuart. He's shocked, appalled....                    CARLA -- trying to follow along the prayer book, suddenly          Danny is leaning over her shoulder from the row behind.                                        DANNY                        (desperate whisper)                    What are you doing here?                    People sitting nearby HUSH him; he ignores them.                                        CARLA                    Miriam called, looking for you. She                    said you might come, so I...                                        DANNY                    You gotta get out of here.                                        CARLA                    You don't own this place.                                        STUART                    Listen, Danny, you can't just barge                    in and --                                        DANNY                    Shut up...                                        MIRIAM                    You shut up. Who do you think you are?                                        DANNY                        (to Carla, low, urgent)                    There's a bomb here. It's going to go                    off at seven-thirty.                                        CARLA                    Oh, please...                    The SHUSHING becomes louder.... She turns away.                                        VOICES                    It's Yom Kippur.... People are                    davening.... Can you take it                    outside.... You have some nerve....                    Danny looks around at the scolding, angry, pious faces....          He hates them. He sits back and closes his eyes.                    EXT. FOREST ROAD -- DAY, 1943                    The Jewish father (played by Danny's father) is ripping open          the Sergeant's jugular as the soldiers shoot him. One of the          soldiers (who is now Danny) says:                                        DANNY/NAZI SOLDIER                    Kill them. Kill them all.                    The soldiers begin firing.... But now, three Israeli          commandos appear, Danny, Avi and the security guard we saw          outside. They fire Uzis at the Nazis, who fire back.                    Danny the Nazi soldier and Danny the Israeli commando fire          at each other at point-blank range. The SOUND fades and we          hear SCRAPING CHAIRS, MURMURS, VOICES....                    INT. SMALL AUDITORIUM -- SUNDOWN                    Danny wakes with a start. People are about to resume after a          break, but there's some confusion. People are talking to          Stuart, who keeps glancing toward Danny....Danny finds his          machzor and gets up...as he approaches the bema, Stuart          comes to meet him.                                        STUART                    Danny, listen, people expect me to                    daven; they don't want someone they                    don't know -- leading their prayers.                                        DANNY                    Get out of my way.                    Stuart backs down. Danny steps onto the bema, opens the machzor.                                        MURMURING VOICES                    What's going on?... Who is this?...I                    thought Stuart was davening....                                        DANNY                        (to the room)                    Page 766.                    He glances at a clock at the back of the room: 6:14.                                        DANNY                    Yis-gadal, v'yis-kadash sh'mey raba...                    People join in, but one man, in back, is outraged.                                        ENRAGED MAN                    Jesus Christ, you know who that is?...                    You see the paper?                                        MALE VOICE (O.S.)                        (gently teasing)                    You're reading the paper on Yom                    Kippur, Barry?                    Chuckles.                                        ENRAGED WIFE                    I saw the paper. That's not him, that                    guy was darker.... This is somebody else.                                        VOICE (O.S.)                    That guy wouldn't go to shul, Barry...                                        ENRAGED MAN                    You want to bet? I'll bet you                    anything...                        (he's SHUSHED, "Could                         you, please...")                    Let's go, we're leaving....                                        ENRAGED WIFE                    Oh, for God's sake, you leave.                                        ENRAGED MAN                    I'm going to get a cop.                    He stalks to the door but doesn't leave, turns back as if          compelled to watch this outrage...as....                                        DANNY                    Da-amiran b'alma, v'imru amen...                    He begins the silent amidah, taking three steps backward,          then three forward, bowing as he prays so that he sees the          watch on the lectern.... It says: 6:16....                                                                DISSOLVE TO:                    INT. A ROOM -- SUNDOWN                    Kyle on hands and knees, gasping for breath, his face bloody.          DRAKE sits in a chair, injecting methamphetamine into the          vein of his forearm. Billings comes through the door with a          newspaper.                                        BILLINGS                    I got one....                    He squats beside Kyle, shows him the Times story about Danny.                                        KYLE                    Are you kidding me??                                        BILLINGS                    Now do you know where he is?                    Kyle thinks, glances at a watch: 6:47.                                        KYLE                    Yeah, I bet I do.                    INT. SMALL AUDITORIUM -- TWILIGHT                    The windows have darkened. The congregation is on its feet          chanting the AVINU MALKENU, the climactic prayer of the day.                    Danny, leading the prayers, looks up at Carla, Stuart,          Miriam...near the front, chanting with him. He looks at the          clock: 7:21.                    Suddenly it seems impossible to go through with this. He          stops praying, but no one notices....                    EXT. JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER -- TWILIGHT                    As Kyle, Drake and Billings approach, the place seems to          glow with an inner radiance. Drake and Billings hold weapons          at their sides.                    The stocky security guard sees them coming and gets up,          reaching for his gun. Billings and Drake stop. Kyle wishes          he weren't here.                    Everything suspends for a moment as, within the building,          three distinct GROUPS OF VOICES can be heard, each chanting          the AVINU MALKENU at a slightly different point in the prayer.                    Drake raises his gun and fires.                    INT. JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER -- SMALL AUDITORIUM -- TWILIGHT                    People are chanting AVINU MALKENU so fervently that the          GUNFIRE outside seems only a faint POPPING. No one          particularly notices. Danny, freaking, doesn't hear the          gunshots. He tries to address the people in the front rows....                                        DANNY                    Wait a minute...                    But the praying is too loud, too strong. No one stops or          listens. He steps down off the bema....                                        DANNY                    Stop praying. You've got to get out                    of here.... All of you...                    A few people in front are puzzled by his strange behavior,          but the rest keep chanting. Stuart comes up to Danny....                                        STUART                    You wanted to daven. Now daven....                    Danny glances over people's heads at the clock: 7:25. He          doesn't notice...                    THE DOOR                    BANGS open. DRAKE stands there, .357, bleeding profusely          from the head, the swastika on his lips. At first, only a          few people notice, they stop praying.                                        PEOPLE                        (panic, confusion)                    Who's that?... What is he...oh, my God...                    Avi is the first one out of his chair, walks right at Drake.                                        AVI                        (calm, forceful)                    Put down the weapon. Put it down....                    Drake shoots him. Avi goes down, writhing in pain. Screams,          panic. People come at Drake, but he grabs an 11-year-old          girl, puts the gun to her head.                                        DANNY                    Drake! Up here...                    Everyone turns, including Drake -- who's blinded by the          blood in his eyes, but recognizes the voice.                                        ENRAGED MAN                    See, he knows him. The Nazi bastard...                    Drake moves unsteadily toward the front, pulling the girl          with him. A WOMAN (a doctor) goes to tend Avi, who is still          conscious. People begin to slip out the back, taking          children. Others stay, looking to jump Drake, but he keeps          the .357 on the little girl.                                        DANNY                        (to Carla, Miriam, Stuart)                    Get everybody out of here. Fast.                    He steps back onto the bema, separating himself from the          others and drawing Drake's attention. The clock reads 7:28.          Outside we begin to hear SIRENS....                                        DANNY                    Drake...                    Drake refocuses, pulls the girl on.... From the hall, we          hear OTHER GROUPS in the building, chanting....                                        VOICES                    Avinu malkenu, choney-nu v'aneyenu...                    Avinu malkenu, choney-nu v'aneyenu,                    ki eyn banu ma-asim...                    (Our father, out king, graciously                    answer us though we are undeserving...)                    -- nu va-aneynu...                    At the front, Drake wobbles. People start forward. He cocks          the gun against the little girl's head. She's weeping silently.                                        DANNY                    Drake, I'm right here....                    Drake looks. Danny reaches out a hand. Drake points the .357          at him and FIRES, missing. A HAND grabs the little girl,          pulls her to safety.                    The room is nearly empty now, save Miriam, Carla, Stuart, a          few others. The AVINU MALKENU can still be heard from the          hall....                                        ENRAGED MAN                        (from the door)                    Let them kill each other. They're                    animals.                                        ENRAGED WIFE                    Barry, for God's sake...                    Drake wobbles from loss of blood. Nearly drops the .357.                    Danny glances at the clock: 7:30. What is it, another dud??                    Drake FIRES again, hits Danny in the shoulder....                                        CARLA                    Danny!                    She runs forward. The shoulder hurts; he calls to the others....                                        DANNY                    GET HER OUT OF HERE!                    Miriam, others, grab Carla, pull Carla toward the door.                    Drake comes toward Danny, trying to lift the .357 for the kill.                                        VOICES                    Cha'nainu v'anainu, ki ain baw-nu                    ma'ah-seem...                    Danny grabs Drake's gun hand, forces it up in the air. The          gun goes off. Plaster rains down on them.                    Drake dies. Danny catches him under the arms.                    He looks at the watch: 7:32. He relaxes.                                        VOICES                        (fervent)                    ...Asey imanu tz'dakah va'chesed...                    Asey imanu tz'dakah va'chesd, v'ho-                    shi --                    The instant before the prayer ends...it's cut off by a          sudden silence. Then a FLASH of light...                    The SCREEN GOES WHITE...                                        CARLA'S VOICE                    Danny, no...                    INT. STAIRCASE, YESHIVA -- DAY                    Where we saw Danny leave the school as a 12-year-old. Now          LOOKING DOWN, we see Danny as an adult, coming up them two          at a time.                    FOLLOWING DANNY as he races up. His old teacher, RAV          ZINGESSER, appears on a landing above....                                        RAV ZINGESSER                    Danny, good to see you...I wanted to                    take up that discussion we were                    having...                        (as Danny hurries past)                    ...about Abraham and Isaac.                                        DANNY                    I can't right now....                    But as he nears the NEXT LANDING, there is Zingesser waiting          for him again...                                        ZINGESSER                    You remember what you said, that                    Isaac actually died on Mt. Moriah?                    I've been thinking maybe you're                    right... Died yet was reborn in olam                    ha-bah....                    Danny goes past once more....                    But now, LOOKING DOWN at Zingesser as he appears above Danny          yet again. As Danny nears the landing...                                        ZINGESSER                    Danny, stop...                        (as Danny goes by,                        calling after him)                    ...Where are you going?... Don't you                    know, there's nobody up there?                    As Danny passes the camera we PAN to watch him still racing          upward. beyond us into the darkness....                                                                   THE END                     
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+                               BELOVED                              Written by                          Richard LaGravenese                         Based on the Novel by                             Toni Morrison                                                October 11, 1996     FADE IN...     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - DAWN.     It is winter in Ohio. A house sits isolated beside a barren     field. The field stretches beyond, until a line of distant     woods stops it. Around the back of the house stands a rundown     STORAGE SHED, a cold house, a privy and a water pump. A porch     with a single door serves as the only entrance.     Camera begins a slow move toward the house as we;     SUPER - OHIO, 1865     WE HEAR SOUNDS from inside the house - BUMPS, A CHAIR FALLING     OVER...and FEET RUNNING on wooden floor boards.                                                            CUT TO:     INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - DAWN.     C.U. - THE HANDS OF TWO BROTHERS HOLDING EACH OTHER AS THEY     RUN DOWN THE STAIRS..     BULGAR (13 yrs. old) and HOWARD (14 yrs. old) run down the     steps from the second floor. They are fully dressed, carrying     a small bag of belongings.                         HOWARD               We gonna need food. Wait here.     Bulgar reluctantly lets go of Howard's hand as the latter     runs into the kitchen. Alone, he edges towards the front     door, when suddenly;     THE DOOR SLOWLY CREAKS OPEN on it's own. Scared, he steps     away slowly.     INT. KITCHEN - DAWN.     Howard is trying to toss some food into a bag. He spots A     CAKE sitting on top the wooden table, with some pieces     already eaten. He finds a knife and approaches the table.     He is about to cut into the cake when he sees TWO TINY HAND     PRINTS appear on the cake's surface. Howard stops cold -     dropping the knife.     INT. FRONT ENTRANCE - DAWN.     Howard exits the kitchen and takes Bulgar's hand;                         HOWARD               Come on!                         DENVER (OS)               Bul?     The boys look up the stairs and see their baby sister, nine     year old DENVER.                         DENVER               Where you goin?     The brothers are brokenhearted at the sight of her. They love     their sister. But there are stronger forces here.     A MIRROR on a wall beside Howard cracks down the middle.                         HOWARD               We gotta go!     Bulgar looks up to Denver. They exchange a look of deep     affection and pained longing. He wants to take her.                         HOWARD               Bye, Denver. You take care.                         DENVER               Bye? Bul?     Bulgar is starting to cry. He rushes up the steps and hugs     his sister. He kisses her hard then breaks away. Denver's     outstretched hand misses his shirt and hangs mid-air.                         DENVER               No..Bul...     Bulgar flies down the steps and disappears out of the house     holding Howard's hand once more.     Denver sits alone at the top of the stairs.  She sadly looks     up and weeps, as if to the house itself:                         DENVER               Now what you go and do that for?     EXT. ROAD TO THE TRAIN - DAWN.     THE VOICE OF SETHE HUMMING A MELODY carries over the images     of:     The two boys running for their lives towards the train,     holding hands all the way.  Howard is the first to reach it.     As it passes by, he throws his bag upon it and jumps in.     Bulgar races beside it as Howard reaches for him.     C.U. - HOWARD'S HAND reaching for BULGAR's...They connect.     WIDE SHOT - The boys are on the train as it leaves town.     On it's route, the train passes a ramshackle GRAVEYARD.     CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY INTO THE GRAVEYARD until it reaches A     HEADSTONE, made with flecked pink stone. Upon the headstone     is only one word:     BELOVED.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - CONTINUOUS.     Camera moves slowly towards the side exterior of 124, into a     Close-Up of a WOMAN looking out of a second floor bedroom     window. It is SETHE, mother of the two boys and Denver. She     hums her melody, softly, sadly, with a resigned understanding     of why her boys are running away...and a deep pain that is     too constant to notice.                                                          FADE OUT;     FADE IN:     INT. 124 - BABY SUGGS BEDROOM - LATER THAT DAY.     BABY SUGGS, grandmother and mother-in-law to Sethe, sits in     her bed fondling colored fabric of BRIGHT GREEN..It is the     only vibrant color in an otherwise drab surrounding. Suggs is     bed-ridden, exhausted to her bones - her face a mosaic of     suffering and sacrifice and tested faith.                         BABY SUGGS               Ya know what I'd love to see? I loved to               see me some lavender. You got any               lavender? Or even pink - pink'll do.     Sethe is placing folded laundry into a dresser. She stops and     checks her pockets for rags or swatches...She looks around     the room..                         SETHE               No. Sorry.                         BABY SUGGS               Ah, winter in Ohio is especially rough if               you've got an appetite for color.     Suggs goes back to contemplating her green until;                         SETHE (OS)               Oh wait...     Suggs looks up to see Sethe sticking her pink tongue out at     her. Suggs smiles.                         BABY SUGGS               Oh, that's fine. Fine.     Sethe lets out a small laugh. She walks toward the window,     stretching her body. Her expression changes as she thinks of     her boys. Baby Suggs reads her like a book.                         BABY SUGGS               They'll be all right. I'm surprised they               lasted here this long.                         SETHE               I don't know. Maybe we should have moved.                         BABY SUGGS               What'd be the point? Not a house in the               country ain't packed to the rafters with               some dead Negro's grief. We lucky our               ghost is a baby. My husband spirit come               back? Or yours? Don't talk to me! Ha..You               lucky. You got one child left, still               pullin at your skirts. Be thankful. I had               eight. Eight with six fathers. Every one               of them gone from me. Four taken, four               chased and all, I expect, worrying               somebody's house into evil. My first born               - alls I can remember of her now is how               she loved the burned bottom of bread. Her               little hands..I wouldn't know'em if they               slapped me. Can you beat that? Eight               children and that's all I remember.                                        SETHE                    (returning to her work)               You remember Halle.                         BABY SUGGS               Oh, I remember bits and pieces of all               of'em I guess..Halle, of course..I had               Halle a lifetime. Almost twenty years...               My two girls, sold and gone before I               could even a heard about it, and them               without their grown up teeth yet. My               third child, my son after Halle...I let               that straw boss have me for four months               so's I could keep that boy. Next year, he               had him traded for lumber anyway and me               pregnant with his child. I couldn't love               that child. I wouldn't. Not any of the               rest either. God take what He               would....and He did...                         SETHE               The boys wouldn't have left if Halle were               here.                         BABY SUGGS               Those boys didn't even know him. You had               six whole years of marriage to my Halle               Fathered every one of your children. A               blessing. I learned hard that a man's               just a man, but a son like that...like               Halle..now that's somebody.     Sethe's mixed feelings show all over her face. Although she     loved Halle, there is clearly something unresolved in her.                         SETHE               Just got a few more things to do, then               I'll start supper.     Sethe exits.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - LATE DAY.     Denver is playing in the front yard by herself.     Sethe is pumping water into a bucket for clothes washing. A     gentle breeze carries a LEAF into the bucket. Sethe sees it     floating atop the water for a moment, then picks it up.     C.U. of SETHE as the image triggers a feeling - and the     feeling a memory - from long ago.     Sethe looks around her and finds she is no longer standing in     the barren field of 124...but rather-     MEMORY;     EXT. SWEET HOME - LATE DAY.     A stunning vista of the plantation SWEET HOME - sun beating     down on groves and rows of gorgeous sycamores for as far as     the eye can see. Sethe's figure dwarfed by the majestic     landscape.     Sethe looks frightened. Her breathing grows shallow. She     hears something;     THE SOUND OF A WAGON'S WHEELS - rolling over a road, growing     louder, coming towards her                                                          INTERCUT;     C.U. OF A WAGON WHEEL MOVING RAPIDLY ON A ROAD. CAMERA PANS     UP TO THE MAN DRIVING THE WAGON - A STERN WHITE MAN WEARING A     DISTINCTIVE HAT...     SETHE TURNS away from the sycamores towards the road to see;     END OF MEMORY;     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE - LATE DAY.     A MAN driving a horse and wagon with two children in the     back, coming up Bluestone Road. He wears no hat.     Sethe breathes easily. She looks around her -the reality of     124's barren field has returned. The memory of Sweet Home's     sycamores have vanished.     Denver is playing near the road. As the wagon nears 124,     Denver looks up and smiles. The Man whips the horse hard so     as to ride past the house faster. The children stare at     Denver and 124, with horror and curiosity.     The stares of the children destroy Denver's smile. She     watches them go, then turns to hide her upset and sees her     mother watching her.     Sethe looks to Denver with empathy and impotence: wanting to     ease her daughter's pain and knowing full well she cannot.     Hurt and angry, Denver runs past Sethe, towards the woods.     EXT. WOODS - LATE DAY.     Denver runs with a purpose, knowing exactly where she is     going.     She reaches FIVE BOXWOOD BUSHES planted in a ring. The tall     bushes stretch toward each other four feet off the ground,     forming a round, emerald room in the center, seven feet high,     with walls fifty inches thick of murmuring leaves.     This is Denver's private place. She bends low and crawls     through the leaves into the center. Once there, this lonely     child wipes away her tears and tries to pull herself     together. She lays her face against the cool earth.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - NIGHT.     Denver walks to her room in her night dress. She passes the     opened door of her mother's bedroom and peeks in:     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Sethe kneeling by her bed, as if praying...     Beside Sethe, A WHITE DRESS KNEELS as well, with it's sleeve     around Sethe's waist. Like two friendly grown-up women,     comforting each other in prayer.     Denver tip toes away.     INT. DENVER'S ROOM - NIGHT.     Sethe enters to check on Denver, whom she thinks is asleep.     She leans over and kisses her forehead, only to discover she     is awake;                         DENVER               Mama?                         SETHE               What is it baby?                         DENVER               You think maybe when daddy comes, he               could talk to the baby ghost. Maybe make               her behave and then people won't be               scared of here no more.                         SETHE               I don't know.                         DENVER               Why won't she ever settle?                         SETHE               She's mad like a baby gets mad. You               forgetting how little it is. She wasn't               even two years old when she died. Too               little to understand.                         DENVER               For a baby she throws a powerful spell.                         SETHE               No more powerful than the way I loved her.     Hearing her mother say this, moves Denver.                         DENVER               What do you pray for Mama?                         SETHE               Oh, I don't really pray anymore. I just               talk.                         DENVER               About what?                         SETHE               Oh, about time. How some things go. Pass               on. Some things just stay.                         DENVER               What things?                         SETHE               Like, the place I was at before here -               Sweet Home. Even if that whole farm and               every tree and blade of grass on it died -               it'll still be there. Waiting. And if you               go and stand in the place where it was,               what happened there once, will happen               again.                         DENVER               If it's still there, waiting, that mean               nothing ever dies?                         SETHE               Nothing ever does. That's why I had to               get my children out. No matter what.               That's why you can never go there.                         DENVER               You never tell me all what happened. Just               that they whipped you and you run off               pregnant with me.                         SETHE               You don't need to know nothing else.                         DENVER                    (nods)               I saw a white dress kneeling next to you               when you was praying.                         SETHE               White? Maybe it was my bedding dress.               Describe it to me.                         DENVER               Had a high neck. Whole mess of buttons               coming down the back.                         SETHE               Buttons. Well, that's not my bedding               dress. I never had a button on nothing.               What else?                         DENVER               A bunch at the back. On the sit down               part.                         SETHE               A bustle?                         DENVER               I don't know what it's called.                         SETHE               You say it was holding on to me. How?                         DENVER               Kneeling next to you while you were               praying. I mean, talking. It looked just               like you.                         SETHE               Well, I'll be.                         DENVER               I think it was a sign. I think maybe               baby's got plans.                         SETHE               What plans?                         DENVER               I don't know, but that dress holding onto               you got to mean something.                         SETHE               Maybe. Maybe it does.     Sethe smiles sympathetically for her lonely child. They hear     a sound in the house - floor boards creaking.                         DENVER               She's crawling again.     Sethe nods and holds her daughter's hand as they listen.                                                          FADE OUT;     SUPER: 1873.                                                           FADE IN;     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - DAY.     C.U. - PAUL D. GARNER.     Paul stands on the road, gazing up at the house. Grateful     he's arrived, cautious about what he'll find, he steps     towards the porch. His clothes are ragged. His feet sore and      blistering in his shoes.     EXT. THE PUMP - DAY.     Off to the side of the house, Sethe washes her feet and legs     at the pump. She looks up and sees Paul's figure walking     towards the house. The sun blazes in her eyes. She can't make     out who it is, or whether or not he's even real. As he     reaches the porch, Paul disappears from view.     Sethe walks towards the front of the house. When she is     little more than forty feet away, she stops - still not     certain Paul is a real man or an hallucination of the past.                         SETHE               Paul? Paul D.? Is that you?                         PAUL                    (smiles)               What's left.                    (He rises)               How you been girl, besides barefoot?     Sethe jams her balled up stockings into her pocket. She     smiles like a little girl, not able to believe her eyes.                         SETHE               You looking good.                         PAUL               Devil's confusion. He lets me look good               long as I feel bad.                         SETHE               How long has it been?                         PAUL               'Bout eighteen years, I figure.                         SETHE               Eighteen years.                         PAUL               And I swear I been walking every one of               them. Mind if I join you?     He begins taking off his shoes.                         SETHE               You want to soak them? Let me get you               some water.                         PAUL               No, uh, uh. Can't baby feet. A whole more               tramping they got to do yet.                         SETHE               You're not leaving right away, are you?               You stay awhile.                         PAUL               Well, long enough to see Baby Suggs,               you..Where is she?                         SETHE               Dead.                         PAUL               Aw no. When?                         SETHE               Eight years now. Almost nine.                         PAUL               Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.                         SETHE               Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard               part. Sorry you missed her though. Is               that what you came by for?                         PAUL               That's some of what I came for. The rest               is you.     Sethe doesn't know what to do with her eyes when he says     this..she looks away instinctively. Paul realizes that may     have sounded too intimate so he leans back and sighs:                         PAUL               The truth be known, I go anywhere these               days. Anywhere they let me sit down.                         SETHE               Come on inside.                         PAUL               Porch is fine. Cool out here. Sit with               me.     Like a nervous little girl, Sethe takes a sit beside a man     for the first time in years, folding her sweat stained skirt     beneath her.                         PAUL               So Baby Suggs is gone. Somehow never               thought death would find her.                         SETHE               It finds everyone.                         PAUL               We managed well enough without meeting               it.                         SETHE               I suppose.     Awkward pause. Sethe tries to find the words to a difficult     question - but one that is foremost in her mind;                         SETHE               I wouldn't have to ask about him, would               I?...You'd tell me if there was anything               to tell, wouldn't you?     Paul knows instantly she is asking about Halle.                         PAUL               You know I would. But I don't know any               more about what happened to Halle now               than I did then.     Something about Paul's expression might suggest he's keeping     something from her. He turns his gaze outward as he says;                         PAUL               You must think he's still alive.                         SETHE               No. I think he's dead. It's just not               being sure that keeps him alive.                         PAUL               What did Baby Suggs think?                         SETHE               Same. Ha, listen to her, all her children               dead and she felt each one go the very               day and hour it happened.                         PAUL               When she say Halle went?                         SETHE               1855. Same day my baby was born.                         PAUL               You had that baby, did you? Damn, never               thought you'd make it. Running off               pregnant.                         SETHE               Had to. Couldn't be no waiting.                         PAUL               All by yourself too.                         SETHE               Almost. A white girl helped me.                         PAUL               Then she helped herself, God bless her.     Awkward silence.                         SETHE               We got spare rooms. You could stay the               night, if you had a mind to.                         PAUL               You don't sound too steady in the offer.                         SETHE               Oh it's..it's truly meant. I just hope               you'll pardon my house.     Paul smiles a warm, touched smile that after all that they've      survived, Sethe is worried about what he'll think of her     home.                         PAUL               My house. I like the sound of that.     Sethe smiles, then rises to escort him in.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - DAY.     Sethe opens the front door and enters, with Paul behind her,     hanging his shoes by the laces over his shoulder. As he     follows her in;     A POOL OF RED, UNDULATING LIGHT forms around him. It worries     him.                         PAUL               You got company?                         SETHE               On and off.     The light undulates faster and faster, extending all the way     to the kitchen at the end of the hall. Frightened, Paul steps     back out the door.                         PAUL               Good God! What kind of evil you got in               there?                         SETHE               It's not evil..It's just..just sad. Come               on. Just step through.     Sethe reaches out her hand. Paul tentatively takes it and is     lead through the red light of the hallway, through to the     kitchen where it ends.     As he walks through, we can see Paul affected by the light.     It is sad. A sadness that touches him, welling up inside     until tears are brimming in his eyes. He reaches the normal     light of the kitchen and steps out of it.     INT. KITCHEN - DAY.     Paul turns back to find the red light in the hall is gone.                         PAUL               I thought you said she died soft as cream.                         SETHE                    (busying herself in kitchen)               Oh that's not Baby Suggs. That's my               daughter. The one I sent ahead with the               boys before I run off.                         PAUL               She didn't live?                         SETHE               No.                         PAUL               The boys too?                         SETHE               No, they alive - they run off before Baby               Suggs died. The one I was carrying when I               left Sweet Home is all I got left.     Still affected by the light, Paul eases himself down at the     table, finding something to say.                         PAUL               Well, probably best..If a Negro boy got               legs he ought to use them. Sit down too               long, somebody figure out a way to tie               them up.......                    (the image disturbs Sethe)               You by yourself then?                         SETHE               Me and Denver... my daughter.                         PAUL               No man?                    (Sethe shakes head "no")               And that's all right by you?                         SETHE               It's all right by me...I cook at a               restaurant in town. Sew a little on the               sly....     She places a bottle and a glass on the table before him. The     light jarred him. He snatches the bottle to drink and calm     himself down. She jokes.                         SETHE               You look more done in by a walk through               my front hall than all those eighteen               years of walking put together.                         PAUL               Got that right.     INT. SECOND FLOOR OF 124 - MORNING.     Denver, all of eighteen years old now, and beautiful, is     buttoning up her dress when she hears the voice of a man down     in the kitchen. She stops. Her face lights up.                         DENVER               Daddy?     She runs down the white staircase.     INT. KITCHEN - MORNING.     As Denver runs into the kitchen, we hear:                         SETHE (OS)               Won't you stay a little while? Can't               nobody catch up on eighteen years in a               day.     Denver appears expectantly, down the white staircase that     leads from the second floor. She looks at Paul wide eyed.     They turn to her with gentle smiles;                         SETHE               Baby, this here's Paul D. Garner...Paul,               this is my Denver...Paul's the last of               the Sweet Home men.     Denver's heart sinks.                         PAUL               Good morning Miss Denver. It's a               pleasure.                         DENVER               Good morning, Mr. D.                         PAUL               Garner, baby. Paul D. Garner.                         DENVER               Yes sir.                         PAUL               Glad to get a look at you. Last time I               saw your mama, you were pushing out the               front of her dress. She's a fine looking               young lady, Sethe. Fine looking. Got her               daddy's sweet face.                         DENVER               You knew my father?                         PAUL               Knew him. Knew him well.                         SETHE               Of course he did. I told you, he's from               Sweet Home. Paul may stay with us a               while. Won't that be nice, having an old               friend stay a spell?     But Denver reacts with surprise and dismay. Paul is not her     friend. Paul, right now, is more of an intruder.                         PAUL               If that's all right with you, that is?                         DENVER               We have a ghost here, you know.                         PAUL               We met. But sad, your mama said. Not               evil.                         DENVER               No sir, not evil. But not sad either.                         PAUL               What then?                         DENVER               Lonely.                         SETHE               I don't see how it could be lonely               spending every minute with us like it               does.                         DENVER               It's my sister. She was just a baby when               she died in this house.                         PAUL               Reminds me of that headless bride back               behind Sweet Home. Remember that Sethe?               Used to roam them woods regular.                         DENVER                    (annoyed, resentful)               Mama doesn't like talk about Sweet Home.               Says it was never sweet and it sure               wasn't home.                         SETHE               Girl, mind yourself!                         PAUL               Now, now, she got it right there, Sethe.                         SETHE               But it's where we were. All together.               It's where I met your father. And it               comes back on us whether we want it to or               not....                         DENVER               Then why don't you ever tell me about it?     Sethe pauses - unnerved and irritated by Denver's challenge.                         SETHE               Denver, start up the stove. Paul must be               hungry.                         PAUL               Don't go to no trouble on my account.                         SETHE               Bread's no trouble. The rest I brought               back from where I work. Least I can do,               cooking dawn to noon, is bring dinner               home. You got any objections to pike?                         PAUL               If he don't object to me I don't object               to him.     He addresses his humor to Denver who offers no response. She     crosses to the stove and works on lighting it. She's mad.                         DENVER               Where's he going to sleep? Baby Sugg's               room got no sheets or nothing.                         SETHE               We'll figure it out.                         DENVER               Maybe you should stay with mama, Mr.               Garner. Then you two can talk about Sweet               Home all night long.                         SETHE                    (explodes)               What's the matter with you! I never knew               you to behave like this!                         PAUL               Leave her be, Sethe. I'm a stranger to her.                         SETHE               That's just it. She got no cause to act               up with a stranger.     Denver collapses where she stands, sobbing out loud. Sethe     moves to her.                         SETHE               Baby, what is it? Did something happen?     Denver moves away. Sethe registers this rejection.                         DENVER               I can't no more! I can't no more!                         SETHE               Can't what? What can't you?                         DENVER               I can't live here! I don't know where to               go or what to do but I can't live here.               Nobody speaks to us. Nobody comes by.               Nobody even knows I'm alive.                         PAUL               What she talking about 'nobody speaks to               you'?                         SETHE               It's the house. People don't...                         DENVER               It's not! It's not the house! It's us!               It's you!                         SETHE               Denver!                         PAUL               Leave off, Sethe. It's hard for a young               girl living in a haunted place. That               can't be easy.                         SETHE                    (growing irritated)               It's easier than some other things. Come               here, baby..     Denver allows herself to be held.                         PAUL               I'm a grown man with nothing new left to               see or do and I'm telling you it' ain't               easy. Maybe you oughta move.                         SETHE               No!                         PAUL               Sethe!                         SETHE               No. No moving. No leaving. It's all right               the way it is.                         PAUL               You going to tell me it's all right with               this child half out of her mind.                         SETHE                    (holding Denver in her arms)               I got a tree on my back and a haunt in my               house and nothing in between but the               daughter I'm holding in my arms. No more               running - from nothing! I will never run               from another thing on this earth, you               hear! I took one journey and I paid the               ticket but let me tell you something,               Paul D. Garner; it cost too much! Do you               hear me?! It cost too much! Now sit down               and eat with us or leave us be!     Sethe's sudden outburst startles Paul. He watches as Sethe     ushers Denver out to the keeping room off the kitchen to     quiet her down.     Alone, Paul is disturbed by Sethe's words. He fishes out a     pouch of tobacco and concentrates on it, searching for     smoking papers he knows he doesn't have...waiting for Sethe     to return.     When she does, she heads straight for the stove. She spits on     her finger and touches it to check it's heat. She then begins     to make bread from flour, soda and salt - keeping her back to     Paul throughout - as the scene continues;                         PAUL               What tree, Sethe?                         SETHE               Huh?                         PAUL               What tree on your back? I don't see               nothing growing on your back.                         SETHE               It's there all the same.                         PAUL               Who told you that?                         SETHE               White girl. That's what she called it. I               never seen it and never will. But she               said that's what it looked like. A               chokecherry tree. Leaves, branches. That               was 18 years ago. Could have cherries by               now for all I know...                         PAUL               I don't follow.     Sethe pauses. Something in her decides to tell Paul D,     although she keeps working on the bread to stay in control;                         SETHE               I had milk, see. I was pregnant with               Denver but I had milk for my baby girl               that I sent ahead with the boys. I hadn't               stopped nursing her when I sent her and               the boys ahead of me. Anybody could smell               me long before they saw me. Nothing I               could do about it. All I knew is I had to               get my milk to my little girl. Nobody was               going to nurse her like me. Nobody was               going to get it to her fast enough or               take it away when she had enough..nobody               knew she couldn't pass her air if you               held her up on your shoulder, only if she               was lying on your knee..Nobody knew that               but me...     Paul listens, half dreading where he thinks this story's going.                         PAUL               We was talking about a tree, Sethe.     Sethe works faster. It is the work, taking an action - any     action - that allows her tell the story numbly, without the     pain of reliving it...without the images attacking                         SETHE               Schoolteacher's boys drag me into the               barn and took my milk...     ....yet, the images come anyway.     INTERCUT: FLASHES OF MEMORY attack as SETHE TELLS HER     STORY...                                                       JUMP CUT TO:     INT. BARN - A NIGHT REMEMBERED.     - Sethe being raped, beaten, held down by SCHOOLTEACHER'S     BOYS in a barn with a loft...                         SETHE (IN KITCHEN)               ..Held me down in that barn and took it.                                                       JUMP CUT TO:     Sethe screams and is smacked across the face.                         SETHE (IN KITCHEN)               They were like boulders on me. Their               hands over my mouth and on my shoulders               and my legs.                                                       JUMP CUT TO:     One of the boys holds her face and mouth and head as the two     others hold down her body and ravage her....                         SETHE (IN KITCHEN)               I couldn't move. Alls I could see was the               loft above their heads.                                                       JUMP CUT TO:     Her mouth covered, her head immobile - she stares up at the     loft.     END OF MEMORY IMAGES.                         PAUL               The loft?     INT. KITCHEN - PRESENT DAY.     Sethe squeezes her eyes to erase the image and works harder     on the biscuit dough...The flashes of IMAGES STOP...                         SETHE               I told Mrs. Garner on them. She had that               lump on her neck and couldn't speak but               her eyes rolled out tears, I remember.               Them boys found out I told on 'em and               Schoolteacher made one open up my back,               and when it closed it made a tree.                         PAUL               They used cowhide on you?                         SETHE               And they took my milk.                         PAUL               They beat you and you was pregnant?                         SETHE               And they took my milk!     Sethe has separated the dough into biscuits which she slips     into the stove. As she rises, Paul steps gently behind her.     He slowly caresses her breasts from behind, pressing his     cheek against her back.. He rubs his cheek against it,     feeling the scars beneath the dress. Raising his fingers to     the hooks, as Sethe cries silently, he undoes her dress which     slips down to her hips, exposing the sculpture her back has     become.                         PAUL               Aw Lord, girl.     Grateful to have her body be someone else's responsibility     for the moment, Sethe closes her eyes as Paul touches every     ridge and leaf of her tree with his mouth. The tenderness is     almost unbearable.     Suddenly, PAUL'S LEGS BEGIN TREMBLING. He pauses and looks     down...He realizes it is not his legs that tremble, but     rather;     THE FLOORBOARDS THEMSELVES ARE PITCHING, GRINDING, SHOVING     the house from side to side.     Sethe slides to the floor, struggling with her dress.     On all fours, Denver crawls in from the keeping room as if     trying to keep the house together.     Paul, falling, reaching for an anchor, begins to shout;                         PAUL               GOD DAMN IT! HUSH UP! Leave this place               alone! Get the hell outta here!     A table rushes at him but Paul grabs it's leg. Managing to     stand at an angle as the house continues to pitch, he holds     the table by two legs and bashes it about, wrecking     everything, screaming at the house;                         PAUL               YOU WANT TO FIGHT, COME ON! GOD DAMN IT!               SHE GOT ENOUGH WITHOUT YOU! SHE GOT ENOUGH!     The quaking slows to an occasional lurch but Paul does not     stop whipping the table around until everything it is     absolutely still. He leans against the wall, panting.     Sethe is crouched by the stove. A mixed expression of relief     and guilt - the expression of a mother whose disobedient     child has been sent away. But a child she loves nonetheless.     Denver looks frightened. More alone than ever, now that her     one companion is gone.     All three are breathing together as if to the same beat, like     one tired person.                                                      LAP DISSOLVE:     INT. KITCHEN - LATER THAT DAY..     Denver walks through the broken furniture and dishes. At the     stove, she ashes over the fire and pulls the pan of biscuits     from the oven,     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - CONTINUOUS.     A shirtless Paul D. is by the water pump washing himself.     INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS.     Denver lifts the fallen jelly cupboard, it's contents laying     in a heap in the corner of the bottom shelf. She takes out a     jar. She looks for a plate and finds half of one by the     broken table. She picks it up as she hears Paul enter through     the front door.     INT. BABY SUGGS BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS.     Sethe prepares a bed for Paul. Baby Suggs quilt is on the     bed. She hesitates whether or not to leave it there.     Paul stands by the door with his shoes in his bands, his     shirt hanging open down the front.     Sethe is surprised to see him there - she feels awkward.                         SETHE               Why don't you...take a rest..I'll call               you when we're ready.                         PAUL               Sure you don't want me to help clean up?                         SETHE               No..you'd just get in my way. Denver and               me'll do it.     They stand in silence, looking at each other for a moment.     The awkwardness they both feel strike them suddenly as funny.     Paul starts smiling. Sethe covers her mouth to conceal it.     And then, just as quickly, the urge to laugh subsides - and     the fear they feel takes it's place.     Paul slowly closes the door and places his shoes on the     floor. Sethe watches him. Paul crosses to her. He moves in to     kiss her. They approach each other's lips like two burn     victims, trying desperately not to hurt the other with their     touch.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - CONTINUOUS.     Denver sits on the porch steps, alone once again. Miserably     eating the biscuit and jelly off of a half broken plate.     INT. BABY SUGGS BEDROOM - MINUTES LATER.     Sethe and Paul lay in bed, after lovemaking. They are still     fully clothed. The lovemaking was fast and finished quickly.     Now, there is an awkwardness that is without humor or     excitement - but sits like a chasm between them.     As Sethe lays there, SHE REMEMBERS:     MEMORY:     EXT. THE CORN FIELDS OF SWEET HOME - A DAY REMEMBERED.     A brilliant bright yellow and green corn stalks in a tiny     corn field.     Sethe and a slightly older HALLE - handsome, strong - run     through the field until Halle stops them at an isolated spot.                         HALLE               How's this?                         SETHE               Here?! out in the open?!                         HALLE               Look around - can you see anybody?     Sethe looks and can see nothing through the corn stalks. She     shakes her head no.                         HALLE               Then nothing can see us neither.     He takes off his shirt. Seethe giggles as she gets on the     ground, keeping her ankles crossed.     Halle lays her back and gently separates her legs. She     giggles. Halle pauses before laying on top of her.                         HALLE               You are a beautiful sight.                         SETHE               Don't talk stupid.                         HALLE               You're my wife now! I can talk as stupid               as I like about you!                    (she giggles)               I ain't never loved nothing like you               before, Sethe.                    (Sethe is moved)               And after I get mama out...then I get us               out too. And you'll see, baby girl...                    (smiles)               we're gonna have us a liiife..     He sings the word "life", so that Sethe laughs. Then, Halle     lowers himself slowly to her and they begin to make love. As     camera pans up to a HILL above the field, we hear Sethe ask;                         SETHE (O.S.)               You sure nobody can see?     We hear Halle grunt "uh-huh" as we arrive on the hill where a     GREAT TREE sits.     EXT. GREAT TREE ON THE HILL - DAY.     Beneath the tree, PAUL D, SIXO and Paul's brothers Paul A.     and Paul P. are pouring water over heads and watching;     POV; Unbeknownst to Halle and Sethe, their lovemaking is in     clear view to anyone on the hill...                         PAUL A               Damn. I don't get why she picked him.                         PAUL D               Halle's got that way about him. That way               a woman feels he's doing it all for her,               not for himself at all.                         PAUL A               I can't see nothing so special about Halle.                         PAUL F               What about what he's doing for his mama?                         PAUL A               Fool thing, if you ask me. By the time he               buys it, freedom won't mean a thing to               somebody that old and worn.                         SIXO               Freedom mean something anytime it come.     The men watch the corn stalks swaying to the lovemaking.     A YOUNG PAUL D., in particular, watches with tender yearning.     INT. KITCHEN AT SWEET HOME - EARLY EVENING.     MR. GARNER, the man who owns and runs Sweet Home. He offers     cooked corn to the men.                         MR. GARNER               Raccoon must've got into my corn. Damaged               a few so, no use throwing them out...     The men looks to each other, suppressing a laugh.                         MR. GARNER               Sethe, get the butter there.     Everyone looks at each other as they thank No. Garner and     begin to smear butter on their corn and eat.     A NEIGHBORING FARMER visiting the Garner's cautions him;                         NEIGHBORING FARMER               You spoil these nigger boys.                         GARNER               Maybe you got boys on your farm. My               nigger's are men. Not a boy among'em.               Bought 'em thataway, raised'em thataway.                         NEIGHBORING FARMER               Beg to differ Garner. Ain't no nigger men.                         GARNER               Not if you scared. But if you a man               yourself, you'll want your niggers to be               men too.                         NEIGHBORING FARMER               Wouldn't have no nigger men around my               wife.                         GARNER               Neither would I..Neither would I.     Sethe hides a smile as she hands a piece of corn to Halle.     Paul A and Paul F hesitate as they think of eating the corn     which the lovers consummated. But Sixo digs right in.     Paul D eats slowly, his eyes never leaving Sethe as she moves     Around the kitchen, her eyes never leaving Halle...Paul's     Attraction and love for her are apparent.     END OF MEMORY;     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - EARLY EVENING.     C.U. on PAUL, on his back, turned away from Sethe.     What began as Sethe's memory, has blended into Paul's.     Sethe rises off the bed, breaking the thick silence between them:                         SETHE               I'll call you when there's something to               eat.     She exits, leaving Paul alone on the bed.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - THE FOLLOWING DAY.     We see the house now. No creaking or sounds of breaking     furniture. Just the sound of Paul D. singing.     INT. KITCHEN - DAY.     Paul is singing as he fixes the table he broke while driving     the baby ghost away.     Denver is sweeping the floor - irritated by Paul's presence     and voice.     They both hear the front door open as Sethe arrives home from     work.     They look to each other to see which one will make a move for     Sethe first. Paul knows enough to bide his time with Denver.     He watches as she places the broom down and exits the     kitchen.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - NIGHT.     Paul and Sethe sit on the porch together. Sethe is sewing.     Paul nervously gets up his nerve to ask:                         PAUL               Sethe.                    (she stops and looks)               I was thinking of looking for work around               here. What do you think?                         SETHE               Ain't much. River mostly. And hogs.                         PAUL               Hogs is fine.     Paul moves to where Sethe is sitting.                         PAUL               I don't need much, Sethe. Eat, sleep,               sing a little when it strikes me. I don't               ask for more to..to live somewhere.     Sethe realizes what he is asking and tentatively responds:                         SETHE               All right. It's...it's fine with me.                         PAUL               Your girl Denver. Seems she's of a               different mind.                         SETHE               Don't worry about her. She's a charmed               child. Nothing ever touch her too bad.               From the beginning. Everybody I knew dead               or gone, but not her.                    (pause)               You got to know something, though - this               here ain't no better life. It's just not               that other one. What I do here - all I               ever do - is keep Denver from that               other..So if you stay, there's no more               talk about Sweet Home or anything else. I               won't let the past in my yard again.               Getting me and Denver through this here               life is all that matters. You understand?                         PAUL               Dangerous to love anything that much,               Sethe. Best thing is to love everything               just a little bit..that way, when it               breaks or runs off or gets taken, well               maybe you'd have a little love left over               for the next one.                         SETHE               Don't be asking me to choose, Paul D.               There ain't no choice here.                         PAUL               That's the whole point. I'm not asking               you to choose. Just want to know if               there's some space for me. Want to know               if it's more than "you can stay", "it's               fine"..more like, "I want you here Paul".     Beat. Sethe is frightened by the prospect of feeling for him.                         SETHE               Maybe we should leave things the way they               are.     Sethe rises to enter the house when Paul's words stop her:                         PAUL               How are they?                         SETHE               We get along.                         PAUL               What about inside?                         SETHE               I don't go inside.                         PAUL               Sethe, if I'm here with you, with Denver,               you can go anywhere you want. Jump, if               you want to, 'cause I'll catch you. Go as               far inside as you need - I'll hold your               ankles. Make sure you get back out. I'm               not saying this because I need a place to               stay. I told you, I'm a walking man, but               I been heading in this direction for               seven years. When I got here and sat out               there on the porch, waiting for you,               well, I knew it wasn't the place I was               heading toward. It was you. We can make a               life girl. A life.                         SETHE                    (scared)               I don't know. I don't know.                         PAUL               Leave it to me. See how it goes. No               promises, if you don't want to make any.               Just see how it goes, all right?     Sethe's heart is twisted. She wants to cry...because she     feels hope...and because she feels fear.                         SETHE               All right. We'll see how it goes.                         PAUL               You willing to leave it to me?                         SETHE               Well..some of it.                         PAUL                    (smiles)               Some?...Well okay...some.     Sethe manages a smile.     INT. DENVER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Denver lies curled up in her bed. Alone.     Sethe enters and crawls in unexpectedly. Denver looks up,     surprised to see her.                         DENVER               What is it? What's wrong?                         SETHE               Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Lay back down.     Denver obeys, unsure.                         DENVER               You think baby ghost's really gone?                         SETHE               Don't know.                         DENVER               I miss her.     Sethe lets out a small laugh.                         DENVER               I do. Baby Suggs told me baby ghost would               never hurt me. She was my sister. When I               was little, after the boys left, I used               to think that she and me both were               waiting for daddy to come. And once he               did, she wouldn't be mad no more.                    (Sethe listens sadly)     They hear Paul singing out on the porch. Denver grimaces.                         DENVER               Wish he'd shut-up...He's ruined               everything.                         SETHE               No, he hasn't. He won't.                    (hesitates)               He..he wants to takes us to the               carnival next Thursday...     Denver's eyes light up with excitement then caution.                         DENVER               You mean, go out where they'll be other               people?                         SETHE               Dress up a little bit. Wear our hats.               What do you think?                         DENVER                    (downplaying her excitement)               Maybe....                         SETHE               Maybe...All right...all right.                    (difficult for her to say)               Can I ask you something?                    (Denver nods, her back to                    Sethe)               I was wondrin'..What you think about               us...maybe... maybe thinking we could               start...if we got an idea to, thinking we               could start.. countin' on...                    (she stops)                         DENVER               On what mama? Countin' on what?     Sethe can barely bring herself to say. To hope. To imagine.     Paul? But, for Denver, she forces herself and whispers;                         SETHE               Something.     EXT. CARNIVAL - DAY.     Paul and Sethe and Denver walk among the hundreds of black     townspeople gathered for the carnival.     A sign reads COLORED THURSDAY...TWO PENNIES ENTRANCE FEE.     Paul is in high spirits. Saying hello to anyone whose eye he     catches. Willing, eager to get anything for Denver she wants.     Feeling a little more like a normal van in a normal life.     Denver is excited but worried. She doesn't want to like Paul     but can't help the thrill she's feeling. And when one or two     passersby shout out;                         VARIOUS PASSERS-                         BY               Hey Denver!...Hi there Denver!     Denver heart almost weeps with joy.     Sethe walks cautiously. Overdressed for the occasion, it is     her first outing among neighborhood folk in many years.     She catches the eyes of some of the women she knows...ELLA     and LADY JONES..good Christian women who nod in their     acknowledgement yet are holding back something. A judgement?     A repulsion?     Paul doesn't notice them and for this Sethe is glad.     MONTAGE of SCENES...the various carnival acts, all performed     by a WHITE TROUPE; magic, clowning, fire swallowing, spitting     ribbons, acrobats forming pyramids...     Our trio take it all in like water to the thirsty.     At one point, A WHITE CARNIVAL BARKER shouts to the children;                         CARNIVAL BARKER               All Pickaninnies free!!     The phrase stabs Sethe and Paul a bit. But Paul whispers;                         PAUL               Two pennies and an insult well spent in               my opinion to see the spectacle of               whitefolks making a spectacle of               themselves.     Sethe can't help but let out a small laugh - and with that     laugh, a sudden sensation of relief...     Paul buys Denver some licorice, peppermint and lemonade.     Holding the lemonade for her, Paul asks;                         PAUL               Mind if I take a sip?     Denver agrees. Paul takes some lemonade then wipes the rim     where he sipped with a small napkin and gently hands it back     to her. Denver, in spite of herself, is starting to like him.     END MONTAGE.     EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY.     Our trio are leaving the carnival, walking three astride with     distance in between each. The sunlight casts strong shadows.     Sethe's eyes glance towards the ground behind them and sees;     THEIR THREE SHADOWS ARE HOLDING HANDS.....as they walk home.                                                          FADE OUT;     FADE- IN.     EXT. A STREAM AND THE BANK BESIDE IT - DAY.     WIDE ANGLE of a BEAUTIFUL, WIDE STREAM (more like a small     river) with a MULBERRY TREE standing tall on the bank before     it. There is not a soul in sight as the stream moves     gracefully beneath the sun.     SUDDENLY;     A FULLY DRESSED YOUNG BLACK WOMAN EMERGES FROM THE MIDDLE OF     THE STREAM LIKE A GODDESS ARISING OUT OF SPIRITUAL WATERS...     SHE WEARS A STRAW HATT A WHITE DRESS WITH BUTTONS, A LACE     COLLAR AND NEW SHOES. SHE WALKS OUT OF THE WATER TO THE BANK.     Exhausted, sopping wet and breathing heavily as if from     asthma, she sits, leaning against the mulberry tree. She     seems too tired to even hold her head upon her neck. Yet her     skin is like new lineless and smooth. Glowing.     Although racked with pain, SHE IS SMILING. Smiling the way     travellers smile when they have finally arrived after a long     and arduous journey.     EXT. WOODS - DAY.     The Young Black Woman makes her way through the woods. She     passes by Denver's BOXWOOD BUSH secret place. Then continues     forward, as if with a specific direction in mind.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - LATE AFTERNOON.     Sethe, Paul and Denver approach 124. Denver is the first to     see.                         DENVER               Look. What is that?     All three look to see;     THE YOUNG BLACK WOMAN sitting on a stump not far from the     steps of 124.     As the three approach, the Young Woman lifts her head and     stares directly at Sethe.     The two women exchange a moment in their eyes - Sethe,     curious yet warm...The Young Woman, happy yet there is a     hunger in her stare.     INT. KITCHEN - MOMENTS LATER.     The Young Woman seated on a chair as Denver refills a tin cup     of water. The Young Woman drinks greedily, cup after cup.                         SETHE               You from around here?     The Young Woman shakes her head NO. She reaches down and     takes off her shoes, which Sethe notices as new. Sethe bends     down to pick them up. The Young Woman never lets her eyes     leave Sethe.                         PAUL               Those shoes look brand new.                         SETHE               What might your name be?     The Young Woman speaks in a low, rough voice;                         BELOVED               Beloved.     Sethe drops the shoes. Denver sits down. Paul smiles;                         PAUL               Beloved. You use a last name, Beloved?                         BELOVED               Last. No..just Beloved..                    (she spells it)               B..E..L..O..V..E..D...     As she spells it we see sethe's reaction; she is deeply     touched. Then Denver's - who looks both amazed and curiously     excited.     Sethe hangs her own hat on a peg then approaches Beloved.                         SETHE               That's a pretty name Beloved. Take off               your hat and I'll make us something. We               just got back from the carnival over near               Cincinnati-     But Beloved has fallen asleep upright in the chair.                         PAUL               Miss...Miss, you want to lay down?     Her eyes open to slits. Paul is about to help her when Denver     rises;                         DENVER               I'll take her up. She can sleep in baby               Suggs room - that all right Mama?                         SETHE               Course.     Denver eases Beloved onto her feet, which Sethe and Paul     notice do not have a line or sore on them.                         PAUL                    (whispers to Sethe)               Look at her feet? They're not walking               feet. More like she rode from somewhere               all the way here.     Yet, Beloved can barely stand upon them as Denver escorts her     to the white staircase. Beloved starts coughing.                         PAUL               Sounds like the croup.                         SETHE               Is she feverish, Denver?                         DENVER               No. She's cold.                         SETHE               Then she is. Fever goes from hot to cold.                         PAUL               Could have the cholera.                         DENVER                    (adamant)               She's not sick!     Denver helps her up the stairs. Sethe and Paul register     Denver's defensive reaction.     INT. BABY SUGG'S ROOM - SAME TIME.     Denver eases Beloved into the bed. Beloved falls asleep the     second she hits the pillow. Denver gently - cautiously -     strokes Beloved's forehead and cheek.     INT. BABY SUGG'S ROOM - NIGHT.     Denver stands vigil beside Beloved, wrapped beneath a quilt.     INT. BABY SUGG'S ROOM - THE FOLLOWING DAY.     Denver watches her sleep, wiping her hot forehead with cold     cloths...     INT. BABY'S SUGG'S ROOM - NIGHT.     Denver washes out Beloved's underwear and stockings...She     hears Beloved murmuring. She moves quickly to her side.                         DENVER               Beloved? Beloved I'm here...what is it?                         BELOVED               Heavy..this place is heavy.                         DENVER               Would you like to sit up?     Beloved shakes her head no. She takes hold of Denver's arm     and wraps it around her own body. Denver sits up against the     pillow as Beloved snuggles her body into Denver's arms and     falls back asleep. Denver holds her, lovingly.     INT. BABY SUGGS ROOM - DAYS LATER.     Denver has not left her bedside. She places another quilt     upon her, tucking it in around the sides. As she does this,     Beloved's eyes open for a brief moment, catching the sight of     Denver over her. She smiles. Denver gratefully smiles back.                         DENVER               Can I get you anything? Are you hungry?     Beloved looks over to a plate of half finished food -     Denver's meal. Denver picks up a piece of sweet bread and     feeds her. Denver is thrilled.     THE FOLLOWING SCENES TAKE PLACE OVER SEVERAL WEEKS;     INT. KITCHEN - THE NEXT DAY.     Denver places sugar between two pieces of bread and gives the     sandwich to Beloved, who, no longer feeling sickly, accepts     it with a bright smile.     EXT. HEN HOUSE - ANOTHER DAY.     Denver explains how to pack mud in the cracks of the hen     house as Beloved listens attentively, eating jelly out of a     jar.     INT. HEN HOUSE - ANOTHER DAY.     Denver explains to Beloved how to warm the chicks with their     skirts as the latter eats something sweet. They both giggle     at the softness of the chicks.     INT. DENVER & BELOVED'S BEDROOM - ANOTHER DAY.     Denver is showing Beloved how to make her bed.                         DENVER               ..then you fold it over like this see.               This here used to be where my brothers               and me slept. I was always at the top.                         BELOVED               How you get so smart?                         DENVER               I ain't so smart.                         BELOVED               Yes you are!                         DENVER               Well, I used to go to Lady Jones. She'd               teach us with songs how to spell and               count.                         BELOVED               You don't go no more?                         DENVER               No I...I had to stop going.                         BELOVED               You so smart. Tell me about your               brothers.                         DENVER               Well..they're names were Howard and..     As Denver continues, Beloved steps towards her and begins to     touch her face - examining her lips, her nose, her skin as if     it were a rose to admire. Denver drinks in the attention, her     heart expanding with love with every touch from this strange     creature.                         DENVER               ..and....and Bulgar...At night, we used               to..crawl into bed together..I'd lay down               on Bul's lap and Howard would tell us die-               witch stories. He said they would protect               us...And if I learned them, they would               protect me if ever they were gone...     EXT. PORCH - EARLY EVENING.     Everyone is sitting on the porch after dinner.     Beloved, looking strong and fit, eats a cane stick - gnawing     at it to the flax, keeping the strings in her mouth long     after the syrup had been sucked off. It makes Denver laugh,     as she licks her cane stick. It makes Sethe smile, to see     them both happy.     It makes Paul disgusted.     INT. KEEPING ROOM - NIGHT.     Paul confronts Sethe as she sews.                         PAUL               You gonna just feed her, from now on?                         SETHE               Denver likes her. She's no real trouble.                         PAUL               But don't she have a home? Some place to               go?                         SETHE               Didn't mention one. I thought we'd wait               until her breathing got better. She still               sounds a little lumbar.                         PAUL               She breathe like she can eat, she could               blow this whole house down. And all those               sweets.                         SETHE               Sometimes the body needs that sugar for               strength when it's trying to recover               after an illness.                         PAUL               But that's just it. She don't seem sick.               Something funny about her.                         SETHE               Funny? How?                         PAUL               Acts sick, sounds sick but she don't look               sick. Good skin, bright hands and strong               as a bull.                         SETHE               She can hardly walk without holding onto               something.                         PAUL               That's what I mean. Can't walk but I               passed by Baby Sugg's room this morning               and saw her lifting the rocker with one               hand.                         SETHE               You didn't?                         PAUL               Don't tell me. Ask Denver. She was right               there.     At that moment, Denver passes by on her way to the kitchen.                         SETHE               Denver. Come in here a minute.     Denver enters the keeping room.                         SETHE               Paul says you saw Beloved pick up the               rocking chair in Baby Suggs room with one               hand. That so?     Denver looks at Paul with a hard gaze;                         DENVER               I didn't see no such thing.     From Paul's expression we can tell Denver is lying...and     whatever fragile connection they were building, is swiftly     destroyed.     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Sethe is getting ready for bed. Denver sticks her head in:                         DENVER               Have you seen her? I can't find her.                         SETHE               Who?                         DENVER               Beloved.     Sethe shakes her head. Denver exits anxiously. The mentions     of Beloved's name stir a MEMORY in Sethe:     MEMORY:     EXT. GRAVESTONE YARD - A DAY REMEMBERED.     Sethe talks to the HEADSTONE ENGRAVER as he works in the hot     sun. His YOUNG SON helps him.                         SETHE               She need a marker. Somethin' to tell me               where she is. But I ain't got no money.     The Engraver eyes her body.                         ENGRAVER               What you got then?     Sethe is embarrassed by his lascivious tone, especially in     front of the young boy.     The Engraver rises, takes a step toward Sethe and touches her     hip, curling his hand around to her back.                         ENGRAVER               What you want it to say?                         SETHE               I was thinking what the preacher say at               the funeral. Dearly Beloved.                         ENGRAVER                    (touching her)               For ten minutes I give you one word for               free.     His hand glides down to her buttocks. Sethe can't help but     see the Young Boy watching the scene.     END of MEMORY.     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     As the memory starts to fade form her mind, Sethe suddenly     feels someone else's presence. She looks up to find:     Beloved standing by the door - watching her.                         SETHE               Oh!...I didn't know you were there.                         BELOVED               Can I help?                         SETHE               Help what, honey?     Beloved kneels before her on the floor and finishes buttoning     up Sethe's night dress.                         BELOVED               Where you go in the morning?                         SETHE               Work. I work in a restaurant.                         BELOVED               What time you go?                         SETHE               Little after the sun come up. I like to               make a loaf of bread before I go. How you               feelin'?     Beloved nods, absorbing the information.                         SETHE               You remember your mother at all?                         BELOVED                    (scratching back of her head)               I remember a woman who was mine and I               remember bein snatched away from her.     Sethe, nods, understanding such things. She cautiously     reaches out to stroke Beloved's face. Beloved responds like a     puppy, pressing her cheek against Sethe's hand. Sethe is     moved.     INT. KITCHEN - PRE DAWN.     Sethe enters the kitchen to make bread before she leaves for     work. She finds Beloved waiting for her, placing out her     cooking things on the table. Beloved looks up and smiles.                         BELOVED               I'm helpin make your bread.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE - EARLY EVENING.     Beloved waits anxiously at the window for the sight of Sethe     coming home from work....     When she sees her, she runs through the house, out the door     to meet her.     Denver appears at the door, upset by Beloved's loss of     attention in her.     EXT. PORCH - EVENING.     C.U. - SETHE, as she leans her tired head against the porch,     sitting on the step. She closes her eyes and is about to     drift off, when;     BELOVED'S HAND gently touches her shoulder, settling there.     Sethe looks up and smiles, patting her hand. Beloved stands     above her as Denver takes a seat on the step.     Beloved searches Sethe's eyes and asks;                         BELOVED               Where your diamonds?     The question surprises Sethe...and startles Denver.                         SETHE               Diamonds? What would I be doing with diamonds?                         BELOVED               On your ears.                         SETHE               Wish I did.                    (beat)               Hmm..come to think of it, I had some               crystal once. A present from Mrs. Garner -               woman I worked for at Sweet Home.                         DENVER               I never saw you with no earrings.                         SETHE               Gone. Long gone.                         BELOVED               Tell me...Tell me about your diamonds...     Sethe hesitates. Beloved kneels at her feet.                         DENVER                    (to Beloved)               Ma'am don't talk about Sweet Home.                         BELOVED                    (ignoring her)               Tell me...Tell me about your diamonds.     Denver awaits her mother's reaction with great interest.     Sethe looks at Beloved sweet, innocent expression and     something in her resistance, eases:                         SETHE               Well..this lady I worked for in Kentucky               gave them to me when I got married..     Denver is both interested and slightly hurt at her mother's      willingness to tell Beloved what she'd never tell her:                         SETHE               ..What they called married back then. I               remember going up to her in the kitchen               to tell her. I'd help her make ink for               Mr. Garner in the kitchen. I was fool               enough to think I was going have some               kind of ceremony...maybe even a new               dress..                    (CONTINUES AS WE CUT TO;)     Sethe's continues telling Beloved, an attentive audience...     Denver, more attuned to Beloved's interest than the story, is      disturbed at her mother's telling of it.     INT. KITCHEN - ANOTHER EVENING.     Camera moves up from the mended legs of the table Paul broke     to;     A suspicious Paul glares at Beloved as they eat dinner.     Beloved is ever ready to pass Sethe a bowl or napkin or     whatever she needs. She is "shining" - for Sethe, and for     Sethe alone.     Denver notices it as well.     It is raining outside. Both Denver and Beloved are wet from     the rain. Denver's hair is all tangled.                         SETHE               Best unbraid that hair.                         DENVER               Tomorrow.                         SETHE               Today's always here. Tomorrow never.                         DENVER               It hurts.                         SETHE               Comb it everyday, it won't..                         BELOVED               Your woman never fixed up your hair?     All three look to Beloved, puzzled by her question, which is     clearly intended for Sethe. Paul's getting more annoyed.                         PAUL               What?                         SETHE               My woman?..You mean my mother?     Beloved nods. Paul and Denver exchange a curious look.                         SETHE               If she did I don't remember. I don't               think I saw her but a few times.                         BELOVED               Tell me 'bout her.     Paul and Denver look to Sethe, waiting to see if she'll answer.                         SETHE               ..I remember once, she picked me up and               carried me behind the smokehouse... The               only thing I do remember in fact...     Paul is disturbed by Sethe's carefree storytelling - how it      contradicts her words to him that first day and worried it     will lead to no good...     Once again, Denver is surprised to hear what she's never     heard before. She looks to Paul and knows what he is     thinking. Paul looks back and knows Denver realizes it. But     Denver returns his glance with a defensive dismissal of the     eyes.                         SETHE               ...She opened up her dress and right on               her rib, right here, was a circle and a               cross burnt right into the skin....                         PAUL                    (interrupts her)               Sethe.                         SETHE               What?     Paul doesn't want her to continue but doesn't want to say so.                         PAUL               Any more beans?     Sethe rises to get him more food and she continues:                         SETHE               ...anyway, she points to this mark and               says to me "This is your ma'am. I am the               only one whose got this mark now. The               rest all dead. If something happens to me               and you can't tell me by my face, you can               know me by this mark"..Scared me so...               I couldn't think of anything to say so I               said "Yes Ma'am..but how will you know               us? Mark me too. Mark the mark on me               too."                         DENVER               Did she?                         SETHE               No. She slapped my face. I didn't               understand it then. Not until I had a               mark of my own...     Paul is disturbed. He can see Sethe getting upset. He is mad     at Beloved for her damn questions..                         BELOVED               What happened to her?     Something inside of Sethe stops, a wall erected. Something     unwanted is coming into her consciousness. Paul notices it.     She rises;                         SETHE               Don't know. Everybody done?     Sethe collects a few dishes and crosses to the sink as Paul asks:                         PAUL               Well, as long as we're all asking               questions, getting to know each other..                    (to Beloved)               Why don't you tell us a little bit about               yourself?     Camera follows Sethe as she arrives at the sink, placing the     dish inside. We hear the others O.S.:                         DENVER (O.S.)                    (defensively)               She don't remember nothing.                         PAUL (O.S.)               You be surprised what you start               remembering once you start talking.                         BELOVED (O.S.)               Can I have some more pudding?     Camera stays on Sethe as we drown out the voices at the     kitchen table. She is staring out the window above the sink     as if watching the MEMORY BEING RELIVED IN HER YARD;     POV - OUT THE WINDOW;     MEMORY:     EXT. A LARGE TREE IN A FIELD - A DAY REMEMBERED.     A CROWD of people surround a tree. SEVERAL WHITE MEN are     preparing to hang a group of black men and women standing in     line, awaiting their turn.     Among the crowd is A CHILD (SETHE) holding the hand of an     OLDER BLACK SLAVE WOMAN (NAN). Nan is pointing to a WOMAN     (SETHE'S MOTHER), who is one of the people waiting in line to     be hanged. Nan whispers to Sethe:                         NAN               That's your mama - right there.     Little Sethe looks up and sees her mother - her face a mask     of courage and rage and tears. She looks straight ahead - not     at anyone in particular, especially not her daughter.                         NAN               ..I'm telling you, small girl Sethe...Me               and your Mama was taken by the men many               times..She threw them other babies               away..the others from the whites, without               names, she threw them away..But you she               gave the name of the black man. She had               her arms around him, child. The others,               she did not put her arms around.               Never...Never...     The child Sethe listens, watching her mother move further     down the line.     END of MEMORY as WE CUT BACK TO:     INT. KITCHEN -     Sethe, the memory passing, hears the voices in her kitchen:                         PAUL (O.S.)               Ain't you got no brothers or sisters?                         BELOVED (O.S.)               I don't have nobody.     She finds Paul interrogating Beloved who eats a second     pudding. Denver tries to interfere.                         DENVER               She has us now!                         PAUL               You been here five weeks, we still don't               know nothing bout you..                         SETHE               Paul, Stop it. Denver bring those dishes.                         PAUL               What was you looking for when you came here?                         BELOVED               This place. I was looking for this place               I could be in.                         PAUL               Somebody tell you about this place?     At the sink, both Sethe and Denver pause, obviously interested.                         BELOVED               She told me. When I was at the bridge,               she told me.     Paul looks quizzically at Sethe, who shrugs;                         SETHE               Must be somebody from the old days.                         PAUL               How'd you come? Who brought you?                         BELOVED               I walked here. A long, long, long, long               way. Nobody bring me.                         PAUL               You had new shoes. If you walked so long               why don't your shoes show it?                         SETHE               Paul D. stop picking on her.                         PAUL               I want to know! Where'd you get them               shoes and that dress you had on?                         BELOVED               I take the shoes! (coughs) I take the               dress! (coughs) The shoe strings don't               fit! I...     Suddenly, she begins to CHOKE on a raisin from the pudding     and falls backward, off the chair.     Denver and Sethe rush towards her. Beloved thrashes around     until they help her turn over and spit up the raisin.     She breathes in Sethe's arms as Denver wipes up the mess,     glaring at Paul.                         SETHE               You all right?                         BELOVED                    (whispers)               I want to go to sleep now.                         DENVER               Come to my room. I can watch out for you               up there.     Sethe gets Beloved to her feet. Denver takes her up the     staircase to her room - glaring at Paul.     When the girls have gone, Sethe turns on Paul as she cleans     up.                         SETHE               What's the matter with you?                         PAUL               I don't understand what the hold is. It's               clear why she holds onto you, but I just               can't see why you holding on to her.                         SETHE               What you care who's holding on to who?               Feeding her is no trouble. And she's nice               company for Denver.                         PAUL               We was just starting to feel a little               like a family ourselves.                         SETHE               Is that what's got your teeth on edge?                         PAUL               I can't place it. It's a feeling in me.                         SETHE               You wanna feel somethin!? ... Feel how it               is to have a bed to sleep in and somebody               there not worrying you to death about               what you got to do each day to deserve               it. And if that don't get it, feel how it               feels to be a colored woman roaming the               roads with anything God made liable to               jump on you. Feel that!                         PAUL               I know every bit of that, Sethe. I wasn't               born yesterday and I never mistreated a               woman in my life!                         SETHE               Well, that makes one of you in this               world.                         PAUL                    (surprised)               One? Not two.                         SETHE               No. Not two!                         PAUL               What Halle ever do to you? Halle stood by               you. He never left you.                         SETHE               Ha, what'd he leave then if not me, huh?                         PAUL               I don't know but it wasn't you. That's a               fact.                         SETHE               Then he did worse - he left his children.                         PAUL               You don't know that.                         SETHE               HE WASN'T THERE! He wasn't where he said               he would be! I had to pack my babies off               ahead of me, on their own, so I could               stay behind to look for him...Underground               agent said by Sunday we had to leave..               Sunday came and he wasn't there.                         PAUL               He couldn't get out of the loft, I expect.     Forgetting himself, Paul let that slip out.                         SETHE               Loft? What loft?                         PAUL                    (hesitates)               The one over your head... The one in the               barn.     Sethe stops dead cold. It's no use...     The MEMORY TAKES OVER:     INT. BARN - THE PAST.     Violent, rapid images of Sethe being raped and beaten held     down by SCHOOLTEACHER'S BOYS. Sethe, pinned down, stares up     at the loft...Camera rises up...     There, in the loft, hides HALLE...The expression on his face     is that of a man broken in two...     END of MEMORY.     INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.     Sethe wraps her arms tightly around herself and asks;                         SETHE               He saw? He told you he saw?                         PAUL               You told me. The day I came here. You               said they stole your milk. I never knew               what messed Halle up. That was it, I               guess. I seen him the day after you left.               Says where you been Halle? All he says to               me was "the loft". I asked him what he               meant not going with you but he never               answers me. But I knew was something               broke him. Not one of them years of               Saturdays, Sundays and nighttime extra               never touched him. But whatever he saw go               on in the barn that day broke him like a               twig.                         SETHE               He saw them boys do that to me and let               them keep on breathing?                         PAUL               A man ain't a Goddamn ax, Sethe.               Chopping, hacking, busting every Goddamn               minute of the day. Things get to him.               Things he can't chop down cause they               inside him. The last time I saw him, I               knew he was broken for good...                         SETHE               What did he say?                         PAUL               Nothing.                         SETHE               What did you say? Didn't you say anything               to him?                         PAUL               I couldn't.                         SETHE               Couldn't?! Why the hell not?!     C.U. on PAUL who doesn't want to explain - or even remember -     as we cut to:     MEMORY:     EXT. SWEET HOME - DAY.     PAUL HAS A BIT IN HIS MOUTH CHAINED TO A WAGON.     He is being lead away from Sweet Home with other black men,     by Three white Men. The bit jerks his head back, saliva     spills uncontrollably out of his mouth. His hands are chained     behind him. His feet chained together at the     ankles....Another chain is connected to an iron belt and     stretches to a wagon. He is being lead away with forty five     other prisoners...                         PAUL (VO)               I tried to kill Brandywine - man               Schoolteacher sold me to. Don't know what               possessed me...Me and about 45 other               prisoners were being walked from Kentucky               to Virginia...then on to Georgia. Two               places I don't ever want to see again.     He is lead past the milk shed, when he sees:     HALLE, alone with a crazed faraway look in his eyes, sitting     by the butter churn. HALLE'S FACE IS COVERED WITH BUTTER AND     CLABBER. He sticks his hands in the churn and continues to     cover his face with the sticky, slippery, white substance     covering his face and head, squeezing it through his hands.     The White Men laugh. Paul is aching to scream out to him but     the iron bit holds down his tongue.     As Paul is lead past Halle, A ROOSTER named MISTER is SITTING     ON A TUB in the sun shrieks with an almost arrogant glee.                         WHITE MAN               Look at Mister there...                    (referring to the rooster)               You go tell these niggers where to go               there Mister! Crow'em right outta here!     Mister crows and the white men laugh.     Tears of rage and humiliation stream down Paul's face. He     struggles to keep a view of Halle, until he is out of sight.     END OF MEMORY.     EXT. PORCH. - EARLY EVENING.     Paul approaches Sethe, touching her gently.                         PAUL               I didn't mean to tell you that.                         SETHE               I didn't plan on hearing it.                         PAUL               I can't take it back but I can leave it               alone.     Sethe, instead of collapsing from the information, she seems     hardened.                         PAUL               Let's do that..let's leave it alone now.                         SETHE                    (more to herself)               Let it alone. Just sit down and leave it               be! Yeah that would be nice. Would be               even nicer to lose it altogether - if I               had my choice. Halle did. Other people's               brains stopped, went crazy. How sweet               that would have been. Me and Halle               squatting by that churn, smashing cold               lumpy butter in our faces, not a care in               the world..                         PAUL               Sethe, don't do this..                         SETHE               What a relief to just stop it all right               there, huh?!! Close it shut! Squeeze that               butter...But I had three children on               their way to Ohio and nothing would have               changed that! And you tell me he didn't               leave me!!     Sethe exits O.S. Paul is left alone on the porch until     Beloved runs out of the house giggling with Denver in     pursuit. As Denver passes, Paul sarcastically remarks;                         PAUL               Guess she's feeling better, huh?     Denver gives him a quick, disdainful look, then continues     after Beloved.     The two girls run towards the woods.     EXT. BOXWOOD BUSH ROOM - NIGHT.     Beloved is dancing beneath a bright moon. Denver is an     attentive, grateful audience.                         DENVER               Where'd you learn to dance?                         BELOVED               Nowhere. Look at me do this!     She puts her fists on her hips and skips.                         BELOVED               Now you! Come on! Come on!     She takes Denver's hand and places another on her shoulder.     As they dance, Denver laughs harder and harder - a giddiness     from the dizziness and the gratitude she feels for Beloved's      attention.     They spin and fall to the ground, like two lovers nestled.     Beloved catches her breath as Denver asks;                         DENVER               Why you call yourself Beloved?                         BELOVED               In the dark my name is Beloved.                         DENVER               What's it like where you were before?                         BELOVED                    (a thoughtful expression)               Dark. I'm small in that place. I'm like               this here.                         DENVER               Were you cold?                         BELOVED               Hot. Nothing to breathe there. No room to               move.                         DENVER               How did you get here?                         BELOVED               I wait; then I got on the bridge. I stay               there in the dark, in the daytime, in the               dark in the daytime. Long time.                         DENVER               All this time you were on the bridge?                         BELOVED               No. After. When I got out.                         DENVER               Why'd you come here?                         BELOVED               To see her face.                         DENVER               Ma'am's? Sethe's?                         BELOVED               Yes. Sethe.     And with that, Denver takes a breath of courage to ask the     question she's been longing to ask:                         DENVER               You my sister, ain't you? You really are.     Beloved looks at her and smiles. They are so close she leans     in curiously and - touching Denver's face - kisses her on the     lips.                         DENVER               You won't leave us, will you?                         BELOVED               No. Never. This is where I am.                         DENVER               I knew it. I knew. First time I saw you               and you said your name. And when you               touched me - real gentle. And familiar.               Like I'd felt that touch before.     Smiling, Beloved moves to touch Denver's cheek when suddenly,     Denver sits up cross legged and urges Beloved;                         DENVER               Don't tell mama. You musn't tell her who               you really are. I don't know what she'd               do! Please, you hear?     Suddenly, Beloved's face turns to rage as she rises up as     well;                         BELOVED               Don't tell me what to do? Don't never               tell me what to do!?                         DENVER               But..but I'm on your side. I want to               protect you...                         BELOVED                    (stands above Denver)               She's the one! She's the one I need! You               can go but she's the one I have to have!     Beloved abruptly drops to her knees and crawls out the     boxwood bush room as Denver's pleads;                         DENVER               No. Beloved please! Don't go! I didn't do               nothing! We were dancing! Don't go!....     INT. DENVER'S & BELOVED'S ROOM - DAWN THE FOLLOWING DAY.     The room is still dark from the night but the sun is rising     outside.     Suddenly, Beloved awakens with a start. She senses something.     She rises and looks out the window to see;     POV;     SETHE WALKING ACROSS THE FIELD.     Beloved quickly grabs her clothes and exits to follow her, as     Denver awakens just in time to see her go.     EXT. WOODS EARLY MORNING.     Sethe is dressed as if for church as she makes her way through     the woods with a specific destination in mind.     Soon, she comes upon;     EXT. A CLEARING IN THE WOODS - EARLY MORNING.     Sethe steps out of the woods and into an open clearing. A     LARGE ROCK sits in the clearing like a pulpit above the pew's     of grass and weeds.     Sethe remembers the place as it was... She hears the VOICES     OF A CROWD...a gathering of people though the clearing     remains empty. She crosses to the rock and sits. Camera moves     up to reveal -     MEMORY:     BABY SUGGS, vital and strong, standing on the rock,     preaching:                         BABY SUGGS               I'm not here to tell you all to clean up               your lives and sin no more....I'm not               here to tell you we're the blessed meek               and are glorybound!...I'm here to tell               you that the only grace we can have, is               the grace we can imagine...And if you               cannot see it, then you shall not have               it...     END OF MEMORY.     C.U. on SETHE as she remembers Baby Suggs words, sitting     alone in the clearing - the images of the past gone.     EXT. WOODS - SAME TIME.     Beloved has found her and watches from a hidden place...     Camera moves beyond her to find;     Denver, having followed Beloved, watches her from a distance.     EXT. A CLEARING IN THE WOODS - EARLY MORNING.     Sethe remembers Baby Suggs advice:                         BABY SUGGS (V.O.)               ..God lead you home... So now, lay'em               down, child. Sword and shield..Don't               study war no more. Lay all that mess               down. Sword and shield...                         SETHE               Lay'em down...sword and shield.     Sethe weeps...She slides to the ground and holds her head to     weep. She covers her head from God and cries AS SHE LETS THE     MEMORIES COME..memories she can no longer fight from coming;                                                            CUT TO:     SETHE'S MEMORIES;     EXT. SWEET HOME - A NIGHT REMEMBERED.     SETHE IS IN THE SAME BENT OVER POSITION only here, her back     is exposed and she is being beaten by the Schoolteacher's     boys. The BOY BEATING SETHE never stops with the whip for a     second as he rants;                         BOY BEATING SETHE               NIGGER TRASH..OPENING YOUR MOUTH...                         SECOND BOY               YOU GONNA KILL HER! YOU BETTER STOP!                         BOY BEATING SETHE               I'LL KILL HER ALL RIGHT...NEVER OPEN HER               MOUTH 'BOUT ME AGIN....     They beat her mercilessly.     EXT. FIELD - NIGHT.     Sethe, tear stained, bloody and very pregnant fights her way     through a corn field as she makes her escape..     Her dress hangs torn at the back - her wounds open and     bleeding. Her feet already swollen and blistered. She is in     agonizing pain. She moves like a figure in a nightmare.                                                            CUT TO:     A SERIES OF IMAGES IN WHICH WE SEE SETHE STRUGGLING THROUGH     DAYS AND NIGHTS OF WALKING AND HIDING, IN VARIOUS LOCATIONS     AS SHE MAKES HER WAY ACROSS THE STATE.     THE FINAL IMAGE IS:     EXT. ONION FIELD - DAY.     Sethe falls to the ground unable to move - her contractions     have started and the pain is unbearable.     Her breasts are leaking on her sweat stained body. Her legs     are scratched and bleeding from moving through broken twigs     and rock. On her back, the tree is starting to form.     She lays there waiting for death. Until a VOICE ASKS:                         AMY (OS)               WHO THAT BACK THERE!     Sethe can not answer as she hears TWO FEET moving through the     field. She clutches her pregnant stomach as if somehow she     might hide it from whoever might be coming to harm her.     A RAGGEDLY LOOKING WHITE GIRL with arms like cane stalks and     enough hair for five heads steps through into view.                         AMY               Look there. A nigger. If that don't beat               all...     Sethe can not speak for fear.                         AMY               Man, you 'bout the scariest looking               something I ever seen. What you doing               back up here?     Sethe manages to control her breath and push out the word;                         SETHE               Running.     Amy looks at Sethe's swollen, bloody flesh at the end of her     legs.                         AMY               Them the feet you running on? My Jesus               my...                         SETHE                    (semi-delerious)               Am I in Ohio?                         AMY               Ohio! Fool girl - you in Kentucky. You               'bout a thousand miles from Ohio.                         SETHE                    (murmurs to herself)               I'm still in Kentucky.                         AMY               You got anything on you, gal, pass for               food?                         SETHE               No, ma'am.                         AMY               I like to die I'm so hungry. Thought               there might be huckleberries. That's why               I come up here. You having a baby?                         SETHE               I expect this baby ma'am is gonna die in               these wild onions.     Amy doesn't know what to do with that information. So..                         AMY               Well, I got to eat something.     Any stands and looks as if she's about to leave when Sethe,     feeling the girl is safe, stops her with a question.                         SETHE               Where you on your way to, miss?                         AMY                    (eager to tell)               Boston. Get me some velvet. It's a store               called Wilson. I seen pictures and they               have the prettiest velvet.                         SETHE               Boston - is that far?                         AMY               Farther than Ohio.                         SETHE               Must be velvet closer by.                         AMY               Not like in Boston. Be so pretty on me.               You ever touch velvet? Or even seen it?                         SETHE               If I did, I didn't know it. What's it like?     Sethe desperately wants her to stay - to not be alone. Amy     kneels back down to her, curious now;                         AMY               What they call you?                         SETHE                    (lies)               Lu.                         AMY               What you gonna do, just lay there and               foal?                         SETHE               I can't get up.                         AMY               What?                         SETHE               I can't get up.     Amy wipes her nose and looks up beyond Sethe.                         AMY               There's a house back yonder. Well, not a               house with people in it - more like a               lean-to near the river.                         SETHE               How far?                         AMY               Make a difference, does it? You stay               here, snake might get you.                         SETHE               Well, he may come but I can't stand up,               let alone walk...and God help me, I can't               crawl.                         AMY               Sure you can Lu..come on..     Amy helps Sethe turn over onto all fours.     EXT. ONION FIELD - DAY...MINUTES LATER.     Amy walks beside Sethe as the latter painfully crawls, taking     moments to stop and let the pain go through her.                         AMY               Come on Lu! You got to move faster than               that. You won't get to Ohio til you               ninety years old, you keep moving that               ways.     INT. LEAN-TO - EARLY EVENING.     Amy makes a pile of leaves for Sethe to lay on and some rocks     for her to put up her feet. She talks non-stop as she works.                         AMY               Never know it to look at me but I used to               be a good size. Nice arms, everything.               That was before they put me in the root               cellar...     She eases Sethe onto the leaves then lifts her feet onto the     rocks.                         AMY               ...Mama worked for these people here to               pay for her passage but then she had me               and died right after so I had to work               for'em.. I was fishing off the Beaver               once and a nigger floated right by me. I               don't like drowned people, do you? Your               feet remind me of him. All swole like.     Amy props Sethe up from behind when she notices                         AMY               You all bloody back here. Gal you a mess.               Undo your dress - let me see.     Sethe makes a tremendous effort just to turn to her side as     Amy undoes her dress;                         AMY               Lord, I ain't never seen a poorer excuse               for a-     Amy sees Sethe's back and, for a moment, is speechless. Then:                         AMY               Jesus...It's a tree Lu..A chokecherry               tree. I had me some whippings but I don't               remember nothing like this. Glad I ain't               you.. what God have in mind I wonder.               ...You thank your Maker I come along.               Spiderwebs all I can do for you. What's               in here ain't enough. I'll look               outside...Maybe I ought to break them               blossoms open and let the pus run..                    (rises)                    (smiles)               That you ain't dead yet Lu's a miracle.               Make you a bet..You make it through the               night, you make it all the way...     INT. LEAN-TO - NIGHT.     To Sethe's amazement, Amy begins to massage her feet and legs     the pain of which causes Sethe to cry.                         AMY               It's gonna hurt now..Anything dead coming               back to life hurts. Stop wiggling, girl.                    (sings)               "WHEN THE BUSY DAY IS DONE AND MY WEARY               LITTLE ONE ROCKETH TO AND FRO; WHEN THE               NIGHT WINDS SOFTLY BLOW AND CRICKETS               CHIRP AGAIN; WHERE'PON THE HAUNTED GREEN               FAIRIES DANCE AROUND THEIR QUEEN THEN               FROM YONDER MISTY SKIES COMETH LADY               BUTTON EYES..."                    (talks)               Don't up and die on me in the night, you               hear me Lu? I don't want to see your ugly               face hankering over me. If you do die,               just go on off somewhere where I can't               see you, hear?                         SETHE               I'll do what I can, miss.     Amy continues singing.....     EXT. PATH LEADING TO RIVER - DAY.     Sethe is trying to walk, holding on to Amy at first, then a     tree.                         AMY               Cause of me, you up and walking. See,               Jesus - Lu made it through..I'm good at               sick things, ain't I?                         SETHE               Yeah, you good...                         AMY               What's that all over your dress?                         SETHE               Milk..Got to get my milk to my baby girl.                         AMY               You got another baby waiting for you?                         SETHE                    (stops and touches belly)               I think this one is dead.     Amy doesn't know what to say, so she says:                         AMY               You hungry?     Sethe keeps trying to walk;                         SETHE               I ain't nothing but in a hurry, miss. Got               to meet someone...help bring me and my               milk to my baby girl...                         AMY               You want shoes?                         SETHE               Say what?                         AMY               I figured how...                                                            CUT TO:     Amy cutting two pieces form Sethe shawl then filling them     with leaves and tying them over her feet -                                                            CUT TO:     EXT. RIVERBANK - DAY.     Sethe and Amy walk towards the river when then see:     A SMALL, ABANDONED ROWBOAT with oars.                         AMY               Jesus looking at you, girl!     Sethe can't believe her eyes. She walks right into the water     when suddenly, her own water breaks and her labor begins...     She doubles up in pain;                         AMY               What you doing that for!? Ain't you got a               brain in your head? Stop that right now!               I said stop it, Lu. You the dumbest thing               on this here earth, LU!..LU!     Sethe, on her knees, crawls into the boat and props her feet     up. Water leaks in wherever it can, rising up as high as her     waist. Amy takes her position to assist.                         AMY               Oh Jesus, I'm awful sorry 'bout the               braggin...I need you here now..Come on               Jesus...don't be getting lost on me now.     Sethe screams in agony as the child pushes through. Amy curses;                         AMY               Damn daddies never around 'cept for the               fun part. Biggest joke God made on woman               was giving men the planters 'stead of the               soil...!! PUSH!                         SETHE                    (gasping)               PULL!!     Amy's strong hands pull Denver's head out and up, to meet     Sethe's eyes. Sethe cannot believe this creature made it     through..Amy rinses it with water then, wrapping it in her     skirt, holds it up to Sethe..                         AMY               My Lord...She's never gonna know who I               am. You gonna tell her? Who brought her               into this world. You better tell her, you               hear! You say MISS AMY DENVER. Of Boston.                         SETHE               That's pretty. Denver. Real pretty.     EXT. BANKS OF THE OHIO RIVER - DAY.     Sethe awakens, mud-caked, on the banks of the river. Her baby     girl crying beside her. Amy is gone. She rises, painfully,     picks up her child and continues on her way.                                                            CUT TO:     MONTAGE - MORE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SETHE, NOW WITHOUT AMY - A     NEW BABY STRAPPED TO HER BODY - MAKING HER AWAY ALONG THE     OHIO RIVER...THROUGH HOT SUNNY DAYS AND RAINY NIGHTS WITHOUT      PROTECTION...SEARCHING FOR FOOD AND SHELTER...     FINAL IMAGE IS:     EXT. RIVER BANK - OAK TREE - NIGHT.     A thunderstorm cracks across the sky and floods the river.     Sethe is sitting beneath the oak - the rain soaking her as     she breast feeds her baby. She cries out loud - but her sobs     and tears are lost in the rain and thunder.     EXT. RIVERBANK - LATER THAT DAY.     Sethe walks downriver with Denver tied to her chest. She     stops when she sees:     A FLATBED gliding down river. She can't make out if they're     white people or not, so she hides behind a tree until it     passes;     Waiting behind the tree, we see that Sethe is sweating a     fever. But Denver seems to be doing fine.     She sees the flatbed pass her and continues on her way. She     sees;     THREE COLORED PEOPLE - AN OLDER MAN and two boys - fishing.     She approaches cautiously.     One of the boys is the first to see her. Sethe's bloody and     torn clothes and her feverish face make her quite a sight to     the young boy. He taps the Old Man on the shoulder and     motions for him to turn around.     The Old Man takes in Sethe and instantly knows where she's     been and why she's there.                         STAMP PAID               Headin cross?                         SETHE               Yes sir.                         STAMP PAID               Anybody know you coming?                         SETHE               Yes sir. My mother-in-law over in...     Stamp Paid raises his hand to stop her. He looks around to     see that no one else is in sight, then motions for her to sit     on a rock. As she does, he gets a water jug and hands it to     her - she drinks like a madman in the desert. The Boys watch     in fascination. Stamp Paid turns to one of them and says:                         STAMP PAID               Take off that coat?                         BOY               Why?                         STAMP PAID               You heard me?     The Boy slips out of his jacket, complaining.                         BOY               What am I gonna wear?                         STAMP PAID               You want it back...     He unties the baby from Sethe and wraps it in the coat.                         STAMP PAID               ..then you go head and take it off this               baby. And if you can do that, then go               'way somewhere and don't come back.     EXT. RIVER - DAY.     On a flatbed, Stamp Paid crosses the river with Sethe, her     baby and the two boys.     EXT. OPPOSITE RIVER BANK - DAY.     Stamp Paid helps Sethe walk up a very steep bank while the     Boy without a jacket, carries the baby who wears it.     INT. BRUSH-COVERED HUTCH - DAY.     Stamp Paid leads Sethe and the others into the hutch.                         STAMP PAID               Wait here. Somebody be here directly.               Don't move. They'll find you.                         SETHE               Thank you. What's your name - so I can               remember you right.                         STAMP PAID               Name's Stamp. Stamp Paid. Watch out for               that baby, you hear?     She nods as he and the boys exit.                                                   LAP DISSOLVE:     LATER - SAME LOCATION:     Sethe is asleep with the baby when ELLA enters the hutch;                         ELLLA               Saw the sign a while ago but I couldn't               get here no quicker.                         SETHE               What sign?                         ELLA               Stamp always leave the old sty open when               there's a crossing. Knots a white rag on               the post if it's a child too.                    (kneels)               My name's Ella..Where you headed?     Ella empties a sack with a wool blanket, cotton cloth, two     baked sweet potatoes and a pair of men's shoes.                         SETHE               My mother-in-law's. Name's Baby Suggs. She               got my other three children I sent ahead.                         ELLA               When was this one born?                         SETHE               Yesterday. I hope she makes it.                         ELLA               Hard to say.                    (gives her men's shoes)               Let's try to get these on your feet.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - NIGHT.     Baby Suggs rises off the bench on the porch when she sees     Sethe coming up the walk. She runs to her and embraces Sethe     and the baby, tears in her eyes.                         BABY SUGGS               Oh my Lord...My sweet Lord thank you.     Baby Suggs welcomes Sethe into the house, kissing her hard on     the lips....Sethe can't believe she's in her arms.                         BABY SUGGS               Where's Halle?     Sethe looks at her with confusion and exhaustion.                         SETHE               He wasn't there.     A flash of fear is quickly transformed into pragmatism.                         BABY SUGGS               Well, he be along presently, I'm sure.                         SETHE               Where are the children?                         BABY SUGGS               Not now. You too ugly looking to wake 'em               up in the night. First we get you well..     INT. KEEPING ROOM - NIGHT.     Baby Suggs bathes Sethe - first her face, her body...hands,     arms, legs...     When she gets to her unrecognizable feet, she touches them.                         BABY SUGGS               You feel this?                         SETHE               Feel what?                         BABY SUGGS               Nothing..     Baby Suggs notices roses of blood on Sethe's back...She looks     and covers her mouth when she sees the remnants of the whipping.                         BABY SUGGS               Girl...     INT. KEEPING ROOM - LATER THAT DAY.     Baby Suggs with two other grown women attend to Sethe's back -     greasing it and pinning double thicknesses of cloth to the     inside of a newly stitched dress...     INT. KEEPING ROOM - STILL LATER THAT DAY.     Sethe, sitting in bed with her new dress and her wounds     dressed waits for her children.     Baby Suggs opens the door and the boys are ushered in. Sethe     welcomes them to her arms...They run to her, jumping on the     bed. The startle causes some pain but Sethe doesn't care.     The Little Girl (Beloved) is crawling and ushered toward her     mama.                         BABY SUGGS               Already crawling - ain't that somethin?               ..Come on, baby girl..right this               way..Mama's waiting..     Sethe picks her up and the tears flow. She can't stop kissing     them - their necks, their heads, their hands...The Boys     inspect her strange looking feet and ask;                         HOWARD               Pappie come?                         SETHE               Soon.     Baby Suggs seems doubtful but appreciates the lie for the     children.                         BABY SUGGS               All right boys - mama's home now, you be               seeing her all the time..Go downstairs               and get your supper...Go on...     Sethe hugs and kisses them as if for the last time - as if     she still doesn't believe she can just get out of bed, walk     downstairs and be with them. The Boys leave as Sethe cradles     the Little Girl.     Sethe anxiously undoes her dress and carefully guides her     breast to the Little Girl. She winces with pain and smiles -     she got her milk to her baby girl.     Baby Suggs gathers the rags Sethe wore when she first arrived.                         BABY SUGGS               Nothing worth saving here.                         SETHE               Oh wait..Look and see if there's               something knotted up in the petticoat.               Wedding present. From Mrs. Garner.     Baby Suggs finds TWO CRYSTAL EARRINGS.                         BABY SUGGS               Be nice if there was a groom to go with               it. What do you think happened to him?                         SETHE               I don't know. He wasn't where he said to               meet him at. I had to get out. I had to.               He'll make it. if I made it, Halle sure               can.                         BABY SUGGS                    (skeptical)               Well put these on - maybe they'll light               his way.     As Sethe takes the earrings, the Little Baby Girl reaches for     them.     Through her eyes, we see them sparkle and shine - like     diamonds.     Baby Suggs hands gently massage Sethe's neck as she says;                         BABY SUGGS               Whatever happens now...God lead you home.               So now lay'em down Sethe...Sword and               shield..Don't study war no more. Lay all               that mess down. Sword and shield...     Sethe surrenders herself to Baby Suggs firm, safe hands -     letting go of the "diamonds", one of which lands in the hands     of the Little Girl...who plays with them in fascination...     END OF MEMORY.                                                       CUT BACK TO:     PRESENT DAY;     EXT. A CLEARING IN THE WOODS - DAY     Sethe is remembering these last images, she eases her own     hand up to her neck - rubbing herself the way Baby Suggs did.     She realizes how much she misses her...and wonder who can     touch her now and help her "lay it all down". And then, quite      suddenly;     AN IMAGE FLASHES ACROSS HER MIND;     - PAUL GENTLY EASING HIS HANDS AROUND SETHE FROM     BEHIND...TENDERLY KISSING SETHE'S BACK     Paul...There is Paul. Sethe realizes, as IMAGES FLASH ACROSS     HER MIND'S EYE:     - PAUL SITTING ON THE PORCH THE FIRST DAY HE ARRIVED.     - PAUL BATTLING THE BABY GHOST.     - PAUL SINGING AS HE FIXES THE KITCHEN TABLE.     - SETHE WRAPPED IN PAUL'S BIG ARMS AS THEY LAY IN BED.     Sethe rises from the ground, as if with a new realization.     She begins to walk out of the clearing and into the woods,     her pace increasing with each image....     EXT. WOODS - DAY.     Sethe walks through the woods, passing Beloved unawares - who     has fallen asleep by a tree. Beloved is awakened as Sethe     walks by, and gets to her feet to follow.     Further on, Sethe passes a sleeping Denver, who also awakens     upon hearing the footsteps of her mother, followed by     Beloved. Sethe walks on, unaware of them following her.     EXT. FIELD OF 124 BLUESTONE - DAY.     Wide angle of Sethe walking well ahead of Beloved and Denver.     Sethe is walking with great purpose and energy.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - DAY.     Sethe enters and runs through the house to the kitchen;                         SETHE               Paul? Paul, you home?...     Paul sits in a tub under the white staircase. He smiles.     Sethe is relieved...grateful to find him there, for her.                         PAUL               Where else would I be on a Sunday off?     Sethe smiles, almost in tears.                         PAUL               Why don't you come on in here?                         SETHE               Paul D. What if the girls came in?                         PAUL               I don't hear nobody.                         SETHE               I have to cook.     Paul D. stands up in the tub and holds Sethe against his wet,     naked body.                         PAUL               What you gonna cook?                         SETHE                    (loving his body and his                     attention)               I thought I'd make some snap beans.                         PAUL               Oh yeah.                         SETHE               Fry up a little corn?                         PAUL               Yeah.     He kisses her - and that's exactly what she wanted.                         SETHE               Oh Paul...                         PAUL               I'm right here baby.                         SETHE               Thank you Lord.     Camera slowly moves out of the kitchen as Sethe and Paul     begin to make love, revealing;     Beloved watching from the doorway, unknown to Sethe or Paul.     She is disgusted, envious...and runs out..     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - DAY.     Beloved runs out of the house and heads back for the woods.     She passes Denver as if she weren't there.     EXT. STREAM IN THE WOODS - DAY.     Beloved reaches the stream and steps in. She begins to     violently hit the water around her, then begins hitting her     own face and head, clawing at it as if to escape from the     boundaries of flesh. Suddenly she submerges herself     underwater and holds herself there, as if to drown herself...     She bursts out of the water, gasping for air...Slowly, her     rage subsides, replaced with a calm, ruthless understanding     EXT. THE FIELD OF 124 BLUESTONE RD.- DAY.     Beloved is walking back toward the house. She stops.     She looks back at the house to the kitchen window - knowing     Paul and Sethe are in there. She approaches the kitchen     window and looks in.     POV - Sethe is drying off Paul's body and rebuttoning her     dress.     Camera moves slowly into a C.U. of Beloved, this time her     focus is on Paul.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - EVENING.     The inhabitants eat dinner in silence.     Denver awaits a look from Beloved. As Beloved passes her a     bowl of peas with a smile, Denver is satisfied.     Beloved then turns to Paul, offering him the bowl.                         BELOVED               You have brothers or sisters?     Caught off guard, Paul looks to Sethe - whose expression asks     him to be nice.                         PAUL               We don't talk about that.     Beat.                         BELOVED               Sethe told us you been walking for               eighteen years. Where you been all that               time?     Paul is about to get mad when he looks to Sethe again, reels     it back in and answers curtly, but politely;                         PAUL               Lots of places. I don't remember them               all. Don't remember much about anything.                         BELOVED               You be surprised what you start               remembering once you start talking.     Hearing his own words echoed back to him, annoys him.                         PAUL               Well not me. What's gone is gone. No good               come from bringing it back.     Pause. Paul focuses on his dinner, suddenly ill at ease. He     can't help looking, covertly, at Beloved and finds Beloved     staring right back at him...It makes him shiver.     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Sethe is asleep.     Paul is restless - tossing and turning as we Intercut;     Dream Images flashing across his mind...     - RAIN POURING DOWN A TRENCH. A MUDDY POOL FORMING AROUND A     BLACK MAN'S FEET.     - IRON CHAINS FED INTO METAL ANKLE CUFFS.     - PAUL D. ON HIS KNEES BEFORE A WHITE GUARD crotch.                         WHITE GUARD (OS)               YOU HUNGRY NIGGER?     Paul awakens.     INT. KITCHEN - DAWN.     Sethe enters to find Paul asleep in the rocker by the stove.     She stirs him.                         SETHE               Paul?..Paul?                         PAUL                    (waking up)               Mmmm. What?...                         SETHE               I called you two or three times but I               gave up round midnight. I thought maybe               you went out somewhere.                         PAUL               Damn. I'm sorry honey...                         SETHE               I'll make some breakfast - you get               yourself washed up.     Sethe begins to make breakfast as Beloved enters the kitchen     and sees Paul has slept in the rocker. She looks at him with     a smile, as if she knows more than she's letting on. Paul     registers the look.     INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.     Paul is asleep in the rocker...He is restless...HE DREAMS:     EXT. A ROAD IN VIRGINIA - DAY.     Paul is chained by the ankles to forty-five other men. He     hands are shackled. In his mouth, an iron bit...     The men are being led by WHITE GUARDS with rifles.     Camera follows them under a burning sun as they approach;     A TRENCH. One thousand feet long. Five feet deep. Five feet     wide.     Camera tilts down to reveal, within the trench;     WOODEN BOXES, with scrap limber roofs and a door of bars     fitted on them like a cage that opens up to a wall of red     dirt stretching two feet above the top of the bars themselves.     INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.     Paul awakens...his face and body drenched in sweat.     EXT. FIELD BETWEEN 124 AND THE STOREROOM - NIGHT.     Paul D. walks across the field with a thin blanket over his      nightclothes - walking toward the storeroom.     In the window of her bedroom, Sethe watches him - sensing he     is moving further and further away from her.     In the window of Denver's room, Beloved watches Paul as well -     with a pleased expression.                                                            CUT TO:     PAUL'S MEMORIES;     EXT. A FIELD IN GEORGIA - DAY.     A RIFLE SHOT. A WHITE GUARD SHOUTS;                         WHITE GUARD               Hiiiiiii!     EXT. TRENCH - DAY.     Three white Men walk along the trench unlocking the cage     doors one by one...     One by one, the Black men emerge and stand in a line in the     trench.     When all are assembled, A SECOND RIFLE SHOT signals them to     climb out of the trench to the ground above.     Waiting for them above the trench, is one thousand feet of     chain. Each Black Man bends over and waits as the First Man     on line threads the chain through his leg iron, passing it to     the second and so on...     As they connect each other to the chain, Camera Pans down the     line of men and while not a word is spoken, WE HEAR THEIR      THOUGHTS...thoughts to themselves, or, if possible, through     their eyes to the man beside them:                         BLACK MAN ONE                         (VO)               I'm a make it..                         BLACK MAN TWO                         (VO)               New man. New man...                         BLACK MAN THREE                         (VO)               Steady now, steady.                         BLACK MAN FOUR                         (VO)               Help me... this mornin's bad.                                                       DISSOLVE TO:     THE BLACK MEN ARE CHAINED AND KNEELING IN A STRAIGHT LINE.     The White Guards walk passed them. one White Guard stops in     front of the man beside Paul D. He turns to him.                         WHITE GUARD               Breakfast? Want some breakfast nigger?                         BLACK MAN ONE               Yes sir.                         WHITE GUARD               Hungry nigger?                         BLACK MAN ONE               Yes sir.                         WHITE GUARD               Here you go.     The White Guard unzips his fly and undoes his pants and moves     a step closer to the Black Man's mouth.     Paul D. looks ahead, trembling...He vomits...The Guard steps     away as another Guard steps in and hits Paul on the shoulder     with a rifle..     EXT. FIELD - DAY.     The Black Men work...sledge hammers in hand...     As they work, miraculously, THEY SING.."They sing about the     women they knew, the children they had been...they sing of     bosses and masters and misses...of mules and dogs and the      shamelessness of life...They sing of sisters long gone. They     sing love songs to Death."     INT. TRENCH - NIGHT.     A torrential downpour. The men in the wooden cages watch the     rain filling the trench, corroding the red dirt wall around     them.     Bugs and human debris swirl around their legs and feet. Mud     covering them through the cracks of the scrap lumber roof.     Some finds rest. other's minds are long gone.     Camera finds Paul...HE IS SCREAMING. But there is no sound     coming from his mouth. Tears flow down his face, but when he     touches them, he realizes;     They are tears of mud. He looks up and the wooden planked     roof is breaking under the power of the rain..He looks down     and the water is up to his thighs.     Suddenly, the chain linking his feet is pulled and he is     knocked down..He gets up, searches through the mud for the     chain and notices it's slack..He pulls as well....     One by one the men in the boxes realize the chain's end is     being undone by the rain, as camera tracks down towards the     last box to the dirt wall, into which the chain has been     locked...It is giving way within the muddy wall.     THE MEN BREAK THROUGH THE ROTTED WOOD ROOFS TO FREEDOM...     WIDE ANGLE;     AS THE MEN CLIMB OUT OF THE MUDDY COFFINS, GRASPING FOR A     HOLD, CRAWLING WITH EVERY MUSCLE OF THEIR BODIES - TO GET OUT     OF THE TRENCH before mud and water drown them....     Paul climbs with the will of ten men, with every ounce of     strength he has left...     END of MEMORY.                                                       CUT BACK TO:     INT. COLD ROOM - A WINTER NIGHT.     Paul D. is wide awake. The memories won't let him sleep.     Winter has arrived and the night is cold. He lies underneath     a thin blanket in yet another sleeping place, even further     from the house. He adds newspapers under and around his body     to stay warm.     He looks as if he has given up on sleeping altogether. He     hears the door to the cold room open. But he does not turn to     look.                         PAUL               What do you want in here?     Beloved enters the cold room.                         BELOVED               I want you to touch me on the inside part               and call me my name.     She hoists up her skirt and turns her head away.. Paul stares     at a silver lard can so as not to look.                         PAUL               When good people take you in and treat               you good, you ought to try to be good               back. You don't....Sethe loves you. Much               as her own daughter. You know that.                         BELOVED                    (drops her skirt)               She don't love me like I love her. I               don't love nobody but her.                         PAUL               Then what you come in here for?                         BELOVED               I want you to touch me on the inside               part.                         PAUL               Ever since you come here - feel like I               got a new devil to face.                         BELOVED               You have to touch me. On the inside part.               And you have to call me my name.                         PAUL               Ain't no chains on me no more. I don't               have to do nothing...Now, go back in that               house and go to bed.     Paul continues to stare at the lard can - like Lot's wife,     he's fearful what turning to look will do.                         BELOVED               Call me my name.     Beloved moves closer, right up behind him, entwining her arms     around his body, like chains..                         PAUL               No. Ain't no chains on me...                         BELOVED               Call me.                         PAUL               ...Ain't no chains on me...                         BELOVED               I'll go if you say it.     Tears well up in his eyes. Paul can feel her warmth. He     surrenders.                         PAUL               Beloved.     Beloved presses her body against his. He turns and grabs her,     kissing her with a passion bordering on hatred.     EXT. COLD HOUSE - NIGHT.     Denver sits outside the cold house - and listens to the     sounds of lovemaking. And cries.     INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.     Sethe, Denver, Paul and Beloved eat dinner...in silence.     INT. COLD HOUSE - ANOTHER NIGHT.     Beloved is wrapping her body with a blanket as Paul lies on     his bed of newspapers - their lovemaking finished. Beloved     gives him a final look - no tenderness or affection or even      friendliness. Just a cold look, void of respect or even     attraction.     She exits the cold house, leaving Paul alone. He is on the     verge of tears.     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Paul stands above the sleeping Sethe - his guilt driving him     mad. He wants to touch her, to wake her, to ask for     forgiveness and help. But he can not and buries his head in     his hands.     EXT. SAWYER RESTAURANT - LATE AFTERNOON.     Paul waits outside in the cold, cupping his hands and     breathing inside to keep them warm. He is rehearsing:                         PAUL               Look here Sethe..You ain't gonna like               what I got to say but I got to say               it...See, it's not the..a man               can't...what I mean is, it ain't really               me..see, it ain't weakness, the kind of               weakness I can fight, that girl is doing               it. I know you think I never liked her               nohow, still don't, but she is doing it               to me anyway. Fixing me, Sethe, she's               fixed me and I can't break it...     Sethe appears, exiting the back door of the restaurant with a     scrap pan in the crook of her arm. To her surprise. she finds     Paul waiting for her.                         SETHE               Man, you make me feel like a young girl,               you coming by to pick me up after work.               Nobody ever did that before. Better watch               out, I might start looking forward to it.     She tosses the bones and skins from the scrap pan into a heap     before four dogs who wait there as if by appointment.                         SETHE               Got to rinse this out.     She enters the restaurant. Paul watches the dogs eat -     watching them getting what they wanted. Sethe re-appears with     a cloth over her head.                         SETHE               You get off early or what?                         PAUL               I took off early.                         SETHE               Anything the matter?                         PAUL               In a way of speaking.                         SETHE               Not cut back?                         PAUL               No, no. They got plenty of work with them               pigs..More they can handle. I just..                    (Sethe waits)               You ain't gonna like what I'm about to               say, Sethe.     Sethe steps forward to hear what Paul came to tell her. There     is no apprehension or anger in her look. Instead, a calm     resolve - as if she were already able to accept whatever he     had to tell her without it being anyone's fault. As if she     already knew he cane to say he was leaving her. She smiles.                         SETHE               Well say it, Paul D...whether I like it               or not.     Paul knows what she's expecting. And when he sees her     diminished expectation, the melancholy without blame in her     eyes....he can't tell her about Beloved. He is filled with     respect and admiration for her in that moment. Something pops     into his head and out of his mouth that wasn't planned;                         PAUL               I want you pregnant, Sethe. Would you do               that for me?     Sethe breaks up with laughter. Paul joins in.                         SETHE               You came by here to ask me that!? You are               one crazy-headed man. You right; I don't               like it!...Don't you think I'm a little               too old to start that all over again?     She slips her fingers into his.                         PAUL               Think about it.     Paul lifts them, putting the tips of her fingers on his     cheek. He smiles broadly;     She laughs, shaking her head. A burden transformed into a     gift, so suddenly. They begin walking.     Sethe and Paul catch and snatch each other's fingers,     stealing quick pats on the behind, joyfully. Paul throws his     arm around Sethe and squeezes. She lets her head touch his     chest. They stop and stay that way for a moment - not     breathing. Sethe closes her eyes. Paul looks up to the trees     lining the roadside like defending arms against attack.     Softly, suddenly, it begins to snow. Sethe opens her eyes:                         SETHE               Mercy.     EXT. BLUESTONE ROAD - EARLY EVENING.     On the road towards 124, Paul and Sethe run hand in hand.     Snow falling all around them.                         SETHE               I been on my feet all day, Paul D.                         PAUL               Where I been? Sitting down!?                         SETHE               Stop! I don't have the legs for this!     They slow to a walk.                         PAUL               Then give'em to me.     Before she can stop him, Paul hoists Sethe up over his     shoulders.                         SETHE               You need some babies..somebody to play               with in the snow.                         PAUL               I sure would like to give it a try. Need               a willing partner though.                         SETHE               I'll say..Very, very willing.     They continue laughing and moving down Bluestone Road when     they are jolted by the appearance of;     Beloved. Waiting in her usual place for Sethe. Her hands     wrapped in a long shawl, waiting to be given to Sethe. Her     eyes only on Sethe, not even acknowledging Paul's presence.     Sethe gets herself down from Paul.                         SETHE               Crazy girl. You out here with nothing on.     She takes the shawl from Beloved's hands and wraps it around     her shoulders.                         SETHE               You got to learn more sense than that.     She walks on ahead with Beloved. Paul, suddenly icy cold and     filled with anger, walks behind.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - NIGHT.     Denver waits on the porch. Sethe and Beloved walk by her.                         SETHE               Evening, girl.     Sethe and Beloved enter the house. As Paul approaches, he     stops before Denver. Their eyes meet. Paul stares at her, as     if to ask - "Who's ally are you?"...Denver, unnerved by his     look, runs into the house. Paul waits on the porch until, a     moment later, Sethe re-appears.                         SETHE               Now I know you not sleeping out there               tonight, are you Paul D.?                    (Paul doesn't reply)               You come upstairs tonight. Where you               belong...and stay there.     As if healed by her strength, Paul's face melts into relief.     INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.     Denver is cleaning the dishes. Beloved sits like an angry,     upset five year old with her fingers in her mouth.                         BELOVED               She likes him here...                    (to Denver)               Make him go away.                         DENVER               She'd be mad if he leaves.     Beloved didn't consider that. Her fingers move violently in     her mouth as if something were bothering her...until,     finally, she pulls out a back tooth...her lips slightly     bloody.                         DENVER               OOoo..didn't that hurt you?                         BELOVED               It's like my dreams...I get two dreams,               see..One, I exploding...BUUOOGGG...The               other I being swallowed. Sometimes it's               hard to keep my head on my neck, or these               legs connected to my hips...One day I               think I might wake up and I'll be in               pieces..                    (Looks at tooth)               Maybe it's starting.                         DENVER                    (cleans Beloved's mouth)               Oh stop. It's just a tooth. Probably               wisdom. Does it hurt?                         BELOVED               Yes.                         DENVER               Then why don't you cry?                         BELOVED               What?                         DENVER               If it hurts, why don't you cry?     Beloved, eases herself into Denver's arms, and cries...     EXT. WINDOW OF 124 - NIGHT.     We see Sethe and Paul united as the snow begins to pile up.     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - LATER THAT NIGHT.     Sethe lies with Paul, in the dark, her face looking up to the     ceiling. Paul is asleep.     On her face are reservations. She rises, crossing to the     window to look out.     At the same time, Beloved appears silently at the doorway of     the room, looking at Sethe - hurt and sad. She walks by     without Sethe noticing her.     Sethe takes a breath at the window, watching the snow fall.     Then, as she moves back to the bed,...     Camera moves ahead of her to:     A DIFFERENT BED IN WHICH HALLE IS TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP. A     YOUNGER SETHE CRAWLS IN BESIDE HIM.     WE ARE IN MEMORY;     INT. HALLE & SETHE'S SWEET HOME LIVING QUARTERS - NIGHT.     Sethe, Halle and the baby girl (Beloved) sleep together by     the wall. The boys sleep together under a window.  Halle is     trying to sleep but Sethe is awake...                         SETHE               What you think about Schoolteacher?                         HALLE               He white, ain't he?                         SETHE               I mean, is he different like Mr. Garner               was?                         HALLE               How was he different?                         SETHE               Well, he and Mrs. Garner - they ain't               like other whites I seen before.               Mr. Garner always spoke soft, for one.               Mrs. Garner too.                         HALLE               Don't matter. Loud or soft, what they               say is the same.                         SETHE               Mr. Garner let you buy out your mother.               Found that house for her to live in from               those friends of his in Ohio...                         HALLE               Yep. He did.                         SETHE               Well?                         HALLE               If he hadn't, she would have dropped in               his cooking stove.                         SETHE               Still, he did it. Let you work off her               fee, lending yourself out on Sundays. He               could of said no. He didn't tell you no.                         HALLE               No, he didn't tell me no. She worked here               ten years. If she worked another ten, ya               think she would have made it? I pay him               for her last years and in return he got               you, me and three more coming..                         SETHE               He always treated you fair. Called you               all men - said he never wanted niggers on               his farm.                         HALLE               That's just it. We was men because he               said so. We was men because we was on his               land. You think he be calling us men if               we ever walked off his land?                         SETHE               When we walk, don't matter what they call               you. You'll be free.                         HALLE               Sethe..baby girl, that ain't gonna               happen. Not by walking, anyway.                         SETHE               What you mean?                         HALLE               Schoolteacher in there told me to quit               lending myself out.     That phrase "..while the boys is small"..causes Sethe to look     at her sleeping boys..                         SETHE               But..then..how you gonna buy yourself               out? Or them?                    (points to the children)               Or me?     Halle raises himself up to face her, to give her the final blow.                         HALLE               Ain't gonna be no buying us out, like I               did with mama. Or them. As far as               Schoolteacher concerned, ain't no other               life ahead for any of us but this one.     Sethe understands, looks to her sleeping children and is     frightened.                         SETHE               Halle....what we going to do?                         HALLE                    (whispers)               Sixo, ya know he creeps out at night..he               says the way they took my ma'am..he says               freedom is that way. He and Paul A. got a               plan.  They heard of this man, what they               call an underground agent...if we do what               he says, don't need no buy out.                         SETHE               You mean...? But what if we caught?               What'd they do to us? To the children?                         HALLE               Same thing they're doing now, honey -               only quicker.     EXT. SWEET HOME - A DAY REMEMBERED.     Sethe carries a big basket of berries as young Howard and     Bulgar run ahead of her. She turns in the opposite direction     and walks along the side of the house to the back entrance of     the kitchen.     She passes the open window of the classroom and hears;                         SCHOOLTEACHER                         (OS)               Which one are you doing?                         BOY (OS)               Sethe?     Hearing her name, Sethe stops and peeks through the window.     Schoolteacher is standing over the student, who has been     writing in a notebook. Schoolteacher licks his finger and     thumbs a couple of pages before saying;                         SCHOOLTEACHER               No, no. That's not the way. I told you to               put her human characteristics on the               left; her animal ones on the right. And               don't forget to line them up.     Although Sethe doesn't entirely understand, something about     the words disturb her. She looks to her children.     INT. MRS. GARNER'S BEDROOM - A DAY REMEMBERED.     Mrs. Garner is sick in bed with a goiter. Sethe enters with     some soup.                         MRS. GARNER               I don't think I can swallow that.               Too thick. I'm sure it's too thick.                         SETHE               Want me to loosen it up with a little               water?                         MRS. GARNER               No. Take it away. Bring me some cool               water, that's all.                         SETHE               Yes ma'am...     Sethe helps her drink a glass of cold water.                         MRS. GARNER               Yes, you can have quite a few.                    (drinks)               Mmmm. Thank you Sethe. Now tell me, I               know Halle's no trouble but the others,               the Pauls and Sixo - how's my brother-in-               law handling them? All right?                         SETHE               Yes Ma'am. Look like it.                         MRS. GARNER               They do what he tells them?                         SETHE               They don't need telling.                         MRS. GARNER               Good. That's a mercy. I know he's no Mr.               Garner. But after he died, I had no else               to turn to. I would've had to sell one.               It wasn't even enough selling Paul F. And               in my condition. I needed help. People               said I shouldn't be alone here with               nothing but Negroes. And he is a learned               man being a schoolteacher...     As Sethe fills Mrs. Garner's basin with fresh water, she     looks out the window and sees:     SCHOOLTEACHER outside with his students, we notice HE WEARS A     VERY DISTINCTIVE HAT as Mrs. Garners description continues;                         MRS. GARNER               ...I know his ways might be a little more               strict but as long as the men do as               they're told I'm sure it'll be fine. All               right, I'm through.. Talking makes me               tired.                         SETHE               Yes ma'am.     INT. BARN - A NIGHT REMEMBERED.     Sethe lies beaten and raped, her clothes torn, her body     aching and sweaty. She struggles to get to her feet and exit     the barn.     INT. HALLE AND SETHE'S LIVING QUARTERS - NIGHT.     Sethe opens the door to find her children asleep. She is     about to wake them when;     She notices Mrs. Garner's light is on in her bedroom window.     Sethe, blind with rage, decides there's one thing she must do     before she takes her children to the meeting place.     INT. MRS. GARNER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Mrs. Garner lies ailing through a sleepless night when her     bedroom door opens. Sethe enters - her appearance tells all.                         MRS. GARNER               My God Sethe..what happened to you?     EXT. SWEET HOME - NIGHT.     Sethe carried her baby girl in one arm, her two boys by the     hand with the other...They move as fast as they can.     EXT. CORN FIELD - NIGHT.     They arrive at the meeting place where A WOMAN crouching in     the field is waiting.                         WOMAN               Hurry up. You're late.                         SETHE                    (hands her the children)               Here!                         HOWARD               But ma'am...                         SETHE               Just go with her! Do what I tell ya!     Sethe carefully hands her baby girl to the woman.                         SETHE               Put sugar water on that cloth for her to               suck so she won't forget me til I come.                         WOMAN               Where you going?                         SETHE               Halle wasn't there. I gotta go back.                         WOMAN               You crazy..                         SETHE               Take em out. Now! I'll get there myself.               I got her milk...I'll get there...Don't               worry.     She kisses her baby girl, a little too hard perhaps, waking     her...along with the boys...                         SETHE               Go..Go! Now!     Sethe disappears back into the corn field leaving the Woman     holding the baby girl... as Bulgar cries out.                         BULGAR               Mama?     EXT. CORN FIELD CLOSER TO SWEET HOME HOUSE - NIGHT.     Sethe exits the corn field and heads for her living quarters     when suddenly;     THE FOUR BOYS appears from out of nowhere..two restraining     her, one holding a horsewhip....                         BOY WITH HORSEWHIP               You nigger bastard..     Sethe struggles and is about to scream out when she is     slapped and muffled and dragged into the corn field to be     beaten.....     END OF MEMORY;     INT. SETHE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT.     Sethe awakens, sweating from having fallen asleep and     reliving her past nightmare. She sits up and realizes where     she is. She looks beside her and sees Paul asleep. She lays     down, pressing her body against his so that there is no space     between - enfolding her arms around him.     EXT. PIG SLAUGHTERHOUSE - DAY.     Pigs are crying in the chute as Paul, Stamp Paid and twenty     other workers push and prod them towards the slaughterhouse.     Although steeped in pig shit on a wintry day - his hands numb     from the cold - Paul D. is in high spirits. HE SINGS as he     works much to the amusement of his fellow co-workers.                         CO-WORKER 1               Hey - you like this work so much maybe               you best get in the chute with the               others. You ain't got much more sense               than they do.     The men laugh. Paul smiles and brushes it off.                         PAUL               Ain't just a job reason to sing. Other               things a man's got to look forward to               that a job just a way to spend your day               til the good times arrive.                         CO-WORKER 2               Good times? Ain't no such day.                         STAMP PAID               Now, now...it's all a state a mind, right               Paul D. If you can think it, it can               happen.                         PAUL               More than that. When a man can make plans               then a man can make good times happen.                         CO-WORKER 1               Oh the man's got plans! You saving up for               a gold mine, boy.                    (more laughter)                         PAUL               Better then gold, my friend. Me and my               woman's planning on starting a family.     Stamp Paid's face registers sudden concern.                         PAUL               New life. Born free, hear! Now if that               don't define a good tine, I don't know               what does.                         CO-WORKER 2               Nothing born free ever again.                         PAUL               What you talkin? Nobody owns us no more.               Nobody gonna own my children neither.                         CO-WORKER 2               Children inherit what come before'em.               Just cause you can't see no chains, don't               mean they not there. We're not free men.               We're somewhere between freedom and               chains. And as long as the world is               white, that's where we're stayin.     The truth of this causes the men to be silent as they     continue working. Stamp Paid looks at Paul, confused by what     he should do.     EXT. PIG SLAUGHTERHOUSE - LATER THAT DAY.     The men are on break. Paul sits alone enjoying a lunch packed     by Sethe...Stamp Paid approaches and sits beside him.                         STAMP PAID               May I?                         PAUL               Free country. No matter what anybody says.                         STAMP PAID               I like the way you think, boy. Good. Good               to think that way. Friend of mine, Baby               Suggs was her name...sort of became a               preacher in these parts..that was her way               of thinking too. When she was at her               best, that is.                         PAUL               You knew Baby Suggs?                         STAMP PAID               Oh yes...You're not one of her Sweet Home               men, now are you?                         PAUL               Yes sir...Me and my brothers and her son.                         STAMP PAID               Oh, I see now.                         PAUL               Sethe told me she died soft as cream.                         STAMP PAID               Well...maybe on the outside.                         PAUL               Why is that?     Stamp Paid looks at him with sympathetic, sudden     understanding.                         STAMP PAID               You don't know, son, do you? See I had to               figure that out first.                         PAUL               Know what?     Stamp Paid pulls out AN OLD NEWSPAPER CLIPPING from a bag he     carries with him all the time. He hands it to Paul who looks     to see:     A DRAWING OF A YOUNG BLACK WOMAN beneath a HEADLINE; MURDER!     RUNAWAY SLAVE KILLS CHILD....                         PAUL               Who is it?                         STAMP PAID               That there's a picture of Sethe.                         PAUL               Sethe?                    (studies it)               Nah, that ain't her mouth. I can see               where you might think it around the eyes               but that there ain't her mouth. Besides,               why would some black woman's picture be               in the paper?                         STAMP PAID               You don't read son, do you?                    (Paul shakes head NO)               You want me to read to you?     Paul senses something terribly wrong...and doesn't know     whether to say yes or no.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - EARLY EVENING.     Sethe is sweeping the porch.     Paul appears on the road. When he sees Sethe on the porch in     the distance, he stops.     Sethe sees him and smiles - but something about his slow     approach to the house sends off an alarm within her.     Paul makes his way to the porch. He stops before her.                         SETHE               Already fed the girls. You eat?                    (he shakes NO)               Want something?     Paul doesn't answer. Instead, he steps up to her as he     removes the clipping from his pocket and hands it to her.     Sethe's heart stops beating for a moment - not having seen     this image for many years. But she's survived worse than the     telling so she faces him.                         SETHE               Best you come inside.     She rises and enters the house. Paul follows.     INT. KITCHEN - EARLY EVENING.     Paul sits at the table. Sethe begins her story seated before     him.                         SETHE               I don't have to tell you about Sweet               Home. What it was. But maybe you don't               know what it was like for me to get away               from there.     She looks for a response but expects none.                         SETHE               I did it. I got us all out. Without Halle               too. Up til then it was the only thing I               ever did on my own. Decided. And it came               off right like it was supposed to..     She rises and begins to move about the room, circling Paul     as she tries to find a way to explain it all;                         SETHE               We was here. Each and every one of my               babies and me too. I birthed them and I               got 'em out and it wasn't no accident. I               did that! I had help, of course, lots of               that, but still it was me doing it; me               saying, "Go on" and "Now!". Me having to               look out. Me using my own head. But it               was more than that. It was a kind of               ...'thinking-about-myself' I never knew               nothing about before. It felt good. Good               and right. I was big, Paul, and deep and               wide and when I stretched out my arms all               my children could get in between. I was               that wide. Look like I loved them more               after I got them here. Or maybe I               couldn't love'em proper in Sweet Home               'cause they wasn't mine to love. But when               I got here, when I jumped off that wagon -               there wasn't nobody in the world I               couldn't love if I wanted to....                                                       DISSOLVE TO:     MEMORY... as SETHE NARRATES:                         SETHE (VO)               I had 28 days...28 good days of free               life.....     INT. SETHE'S ROOM AT 124 - A DAWN REMEMBERED.     Sethe, out of habit, is awake before the sun has risen. She     is fully dressed.                         SETHE (VO)               ...of getting up like I always did,               getting dressed before the sun came out,               and then realizing I had to decide myself               what to do with the day...     She sits on the bed, watching the sun rise.     INT. THE CHILDREN'S ROOM - CONTINUOUS.     Sethe watches her children sleeping, safely.                         SETHE (VO)               ...Days of watching my children sleep               away the morning...And taking care of my               baby like it was the most important thing               I had to do...     Denver is asleep in a bassinet. Sethe reaches in and picks     her up. She sits by a window and breast feeds her as she hums     A MELODY. (This is the same melody we heard Sethe humming in     the beginning of the film).     Sethe's melody carries itself over the following images;     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE ; WATER PUMP - DAY.     Sethe is carrying a bucket of water to the house. She sees:     Bulgar and Howard running and playing. Howard tackles his     brother and starts tickling him. The two boys laugh hard.     Sethe watches, a moment of fear across her face;                         SETHE (VO)               I'd hear my boys laughing a laugh I ain't               never heard. And for a second I'd get               scared - scared someone might hear them               and get mad...     Sethe realizes, placing down the bucket:                         SETHE (VO)               Then I remembered...and if they laughed               that hard til it hurt, that would be the               only hurt they had all day....     Sethe sobs, uncontrollably.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Ella teaches Sethe a new stitch as she chatters on.                         SETHE (VO)               We had us days of company...     EXT. FIELD - DAY.     Another woman teaches Sethe the alphabet, as Sethe cradles     Denver and the Little Girl (Beloved) crawls around her feet.     INT. KITCHEN - DAY.     Baby Suggs and Sethe cook with a kitchen full of men and     women who have come for a visit.                         SETHE (VO)               ...of ease and real talk. Talks about the               Fugitive Bill, Dred Scott or book               learning...Talks as quiet or as stormy as               we wanted...     Two men get into an argument to the amusement of the women.     EXT. CLEARING IN THE WOODS - DAY.     As folks gather to hear Baby Suggs preach, she introduces a     smiling, shy Sethe to each one.                         SETHE (VO)               ...And when everyone would gather to hear               Baby Suggs, I saw something I ain't never               seen before in my whole life...     Alone for a moment, Sethe looks around at the crowd of faces;     Sethe's Melody stops as Baby Suggs stands on her rock and     calls to the crowd:                         BABY SUGGS               Let the children come!     FROM OUT OF THE WOODS, CHILDREN RUN INTO THE CLEARING.     Camera follows the joyous exodus to reveal:     THE CLEARING IS FILLED WITH ADULTS the entire black     community of the days when Sethe first arrived. The children     run to their respective families;                         BABY SUGGS                    (with joy)               Let your mother's hear you laugh!!     The children, loving the game, laugh hard. The adults get a     kick out of it.     Sethe watches her boys and hides her laughter.                         BABY SUGGS               Let the grown men come!!     OUT OF THE WOODS, A GROUP OF GROWN MEN COME INTO THE CLEARING.                         BABY SUGGS               LET YOUR WIVES AND YOUR CHILDREN SEE YOU               DANCE!     The men form a circle and dance as the crowd supports them     with a clapping rhythm. A SONG arises from the women to     accompany to dance....                         BABY SUGGS               Now...you women...I want you to cry. For               the living. For the dead....Just cry.     Camera follows those women who are not singing as one by one,     they remember and weep...     Sethe watches...and weeps.                         SETHE               ....Something in me knew Halle was never               gonna knock on our door. He was never               gonna see what I saw that day. I saw what               men look like...and I saw mothers, for               the first time.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Stamp Paid walks up to the porch carrying a TWO BIG BASKETS     OF BLACKBERRIES ... his body dirty, scratched and bleeding.                         SETHE (VO)               I think it was Stamp Paid who started it.               He walked six miles to the riverbank,               slid into a ravine, reached through blood               drawing thorns, suffered mosquitoes,               wasps and the meanest lady spiders in the               State just to bring us those berries.     He places the baskets on the porch in front of Baby Suggs,     Sethe who is holding Denver..and the Little Girl (Beloved).                         BABY SUGGS                    (laughs)               What a sight you are, Stamp.                         STAMP PAID               Worth it though. Just one bite of these               berries and you feel down right anointed.     He puts one into Denver's mouth.                         SETHE               She's too little for that, Stamp. Her               bowels be soup.                         BABY SUGGS               It'll sickify her stomach..Now go wash up               round back...crazy fool..     Stamp exits.                         SETHE               It was real nice of him.                         BABY SUGGS               He's a good one, no doubt of that. I can               get three, maybe four pies out of this.               Seems a shame just for us though. I'm               gonna invite Ella and John over...                         SETHE               How 'bout if I make a couple of chickens               to back it up?                         SETHE (VO)               And that's how it began...     INT. KITCHEN - DAY.     Sethe and Baby Suggs and Ella and several other women cook.                         SETHE (VO)               ...Three pies became twelve...two hens               became five turkeys...     EXT.THE FIELD/124 BLUESTONE RD. - EVENING.     Various images of people gathered enjoying food and     drink...laughing and singing...                         SETHE (VO)               ...and Ella and John turned into almost               ninety others...     - Women serving up the food...     - Older men sitting and talking as they eat...     - Younger men playing with the children. Chasing them with     sheets on their backs, scaring them into laughter..     - A Man with a guitar playing a blues song and singing.     While Sethe enjoys her free life and, most of all, her     children - the boys running around her..Denver in her     arms..Her Little Girl (Beloved) by her side.. Baby Sugg's     visits with various guests, serving up the food...                         SETHE (VO)               ... Everybody ate so well and laughed so               much...     INTERCUT; Images of whispers exchanged between some of the     women:                         SETHE (VO)               ...it made them angry...     Women head to head with a remark or an eye of disapproval     towards Baby Suggs as she continues cooking and feeding....                         SETHE (VO)               The pies, the turkeys...the bread pudding               and shortbread..the one whole block of               ice brought all the way from Cincinnati -               it made 'em mad...Loaves and fishes were               Jesus's powers...they did not belong to               an ex-slave who never had a white boy               beat her, who had her freedom bought, who               rented a house from white folks that               hated slavery worse than they hated               slaves...It made'em furious - her               thoughtless generosity and un-called for               pride...She had over stepped...offended               them by giving too much...and they left               their disapproval there so's you could               smell in the air the whole next day...     EXT. THE FIELD/ 124 BLUESTONE RD. - THE FOLLOWING DAY.     Baby Suggs works the field, not far from Stamp Paid...                         SETHE (VO)               Later on I wondered why no one warned               us...why no one saw them coming and ran               to 124 to tell us...     She chops at the soil over the roots of the pepper plants.     She stops - sensing something is wrong. She looks up at a     clear blue sky...She hears the birds and the stream way down     beyond the woods..     She looks around and sees Bulgar, Howard and the Little Girl     (Beloved) playing with loud voices by the side of the house.     She sees Sethe squatted in the pole beans with Denver in a     bushel basket beside her.     The clok, clok of wood being chopped causes her to look over     to Stamp Paid, helping out with the axe...     She returns to her work...but something is deeply wrong.     And then she hears it;     THE SOUND OF HORSES and A HORSE DRAWN WAGON coming from the     distance. (The same sound Sethe heard in her first memory of     the sycamores earlier on)     She rises up and looks;     POV;     EXT. BLUESTONE ROAD - DAY.     Far in the distance, FOUR HORSEMEN ARE RIDING TOWARD THEM.     ONE DRIVES A WAGON and IS WEARING A DISTINCTIVE HAT - IT IS      SCHOOLTEACHER.....                                                       CUT BACK TO:     EXT. THE FIELD OF 124 BLUESTONE - DAY.     Sethe continues working until she notices peripherally that     Baby Suggs is standing stock still, staring at something.     Sethe rises and looks in the same direction;                                                       CUT BACK TO:     EXT. BLUESTONE ROAD - DAY.     The Four Horsemen are closer...                                                       CUT BACK TO:     EXT. THE FIELD OF 125 BLUESTONE - DAY.     Sethe's face freezes in terror as ...     Stamp Paid, in between chops, looks up and sees the two     women..then turns his face to see the men.     BUT IT IS SETHE'S FACE WE CONCENTRATE ON - AS WE INTERCUT THE     ONCOMING APPROACH OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN and HEAR HER WORDS:                         SETHE (VO)               ...There's a Look whitefolks get..a Look               every Negro learns to recognize along               with his ma'am's tit..That righteous Look               that's like a flag going up the pole..the               righteousness that announces the whip,               the fist, the burning, the lie...long               before it happens in the open...     Over the above speech, we see in Sethe's expression a death     of soul - an instantaneous loss of hope for possibilities of     joy and life. And with it, an insane rage.     Sethe grabs Denver out of the basket, then scrambles after     the crawling Little Girl (Beloved), scooping her under her     free arm...                         SETHE               Howard!...Bulgar!     The tone of her voice cause the boys to freeze. She runs     towards them, grabbing one by the hand and ordering the other     to run in front of them. She moves and speaks with efficient     clarity.                         SETHE               The shed!...Get in the shed!...Run!     Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid watch helplessly -     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE -     The Four Horsemen - Schoolteacher, his Nephew, a Slave     Catcher and a Sheriff - arrive at the house and dismount,     tying their horses to the front gate (which is no longer     there).     The Nephew scampers to the front of the house and peers in     the window - he listens. Hearing nothing he motions for them     to go round the side of the house.     Camera follows them as it reveals Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid     standing exactly where we left them...Except;     They are both staring at the shed - out of which strange     noises, thuds and the FRIGHTENED CRIES OF CHILDREN are heard....     Two Black Boys and several Woman are coming up the road. The     Slave Catcher motions with his rifle for them to stop - and     they do.     The men move towards the shed, meeting up with the Nephew as     he runs past Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid...     POV;     Camera moves closer towards the shed, the sounds coning from     within more audible now...     INT. THE SHED -     The Nephew opens the door. The Four Men enter....     Howard and Bulgar are bleeding in the sawdust, unconscious -     a bloody shovel lays near them.     Sethe is holding a blood-soaked Little Girl (Beloved) to her     chest with one hand...and Denver by the heels of the other.     She is swinging Denver toward the wall planks, misses then     tries again...     When out of nowhere, Stamp Paid rushes by the horrified white     men and GRABS DENVER OUT OF SETHE'S HAND before she can swing     her a second time...     Stillness.     Schoolteacher looks at the carnage...a bloody saw lies at     Sethe's feet, the weapon she used on her own child's throat.     The Nephew is paralyzed...horrified.                         NEPHEW               What she go and do that for?...What she               go and do that for?     Baby Suggs walks in. Whatever amount of God's grace she could     imagine and will into being, vanishes with one look into that     shed.                         SHERIFF               You all better go on.                    (to Schoolteacher)               Nothing here to claim, I guess.               Look like your business is over. Mine's               started.     Schoolteacher beats his hat against his thigh and spits in     the shed before exiting, followed by the catcher and the     nephew.     The Sheriff speaks to Sethe.                         SHERIFF               I'll have to take you in. No trouble now.               You've done enough to last you....     Sethe doesn't move.                         SHERIFF               You come quiet, here, and I won't have to               tie you up.     Meanwhile, Baby Suggs notices who breathes and who does not     and moves straight to the boys....     Stamp Paid extends his arm to Sethe.                         STAMP PAID               Sethe. You take my arm and gimme yours.     Sethe turns to him, the first time she's looked into anyone's     eyes and sees Denver in his arms...A sound escapes from her     throat as though she'd made a mistake.                         SHERIFF               I'm going out here and send for a wagon.     He exits. Baby Suggs rubs the boys' hands, tries to raise     their eyelids, spits on her dress and wipes away the blood as     they slowly regain a dazed consciousness..She whispers;                         BABY SUGGS               I beg you pardon..I beg your pardon..     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. -     Sethe, clutching the dead baby to her chest, is led out of     the shed by Stamp Paid,     Outside, a throng of black faces have gathered who stop     murmuring the second they see her. Among them are Ella and     Lady Jones. They are shocked and pained.     Sethe is led past them to a waiting cart - in total silence.     Baby Suggs, at the same time, is getting the boys up the     porch into the house. When Denver cries in Stamp Paid's arms,     she stops..lets the boys sit and runs towards the cart.     Sethe is seated in the cart beside the Sheriff. Baby Suggs     takes the crying Denver from Stamp Paid..She tells the     Sheriff.                         BABY SUGGS               Excuse me..but the child needs               nursin..needs the mother's milk..                         SHERIFF               Then she's best come too.     Baby Suggs approaches Sethe who sees Denver crying and     reaches for her without letting the baby go. Baby Suggs     resists;                         BABY SUGGS               One at a time!...And you gotta clean               yourself up!     But Sethe only wants her living child. The two women struggle     as Stamp Paid does what he can..Finally, Sethe wins and takes     Denver with her free hand, undoes her dress and nurse's her     with a bloody breast..     Baby Suggs breaks inside. Breaks right in two, although from     outwards appearances, she looks merely numbed by shock.     A WHITE BOY makes his way through the crowd with a pair of     shoes and hands them to her..                         WHITE BOY               Mama says Wednesday. She says you got to               have them fixed by Wednesday.     Baby Suggs looks at him not understanding..                         WHITE BOY               You hear, Baby? She says Wednesday.                         BABY SUGGS                    (taking the shoes)               I beg your pardon..Lord, I beg your               pardon..I sure do....                                                            CUT TO:     PRESENT DAY (END OF MEMORY) :     INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - NIGHT.     Paul D. sits at the kitchen table. The story told. Sethe     looks out the window...and waits..                         PAUL               Your love is too thick, Sethe.                         SETHE               Love is or it isn't. Thin love ain't love               at all...I did stop him. I took and put               my babies where they'd be safe...                         PAUL               Didn't work though, did it?                         SETHE               It worked.                         PAUL               How? Your boys gone, you don't know               where. One girl dead, the other can't go               farther than the yard. How did it work?                         SETHE               They ain't at Sweet Home! Schoolteacher               ain't got'em!                         PAUL               Maybe there's worse.                         SETHE               It ain't my job to know what's worse.               It's my job to know what is and keep them               away from what I know is terrible. I did               that.                         PAUL               What you did was wrong, Sethe.                         SETHE               I should have gone back there? Taken my               babies back there?                         PAUL               There could have been a way. Some other               way.                         SETHE               What way?                         PAUL               You got two feet, Sethe. Not four!     That jumped out before he had a chance to choose saying it.     Sethe has no response...The distance between these two people     in this small room is suddenly vast.     Paul rises, playing with his hat...not knowing how to leave.     But desperately needing to. He moves to the exit and stops..                         PAUL               You can set aside supper for me... Might               be late getting back...     Unable to look at her, he turns to exit. When Sethe speaks in     a soft, forgiving tone, he stops to listen;                         SETHE               After all I told you, Paul D. and after               telling me how many feet I have, you               think saying goodbye is gonna break me               into pieces?     Paul turns to look at her and realizes she saw right through     him...                         SETHE               You're a sweet man.     Unable to bear it, Paul turns and leaves...     Sethe stands still, fighting tears, and whispers...                         SETHE               So long, Paul D.     INT. KITCHEN - DAY.     Sethe is scrubbing the floor, with Denver trailing by with     dry rags.     Beloved enters holding a pair of ice skates;                         BELOVED               What do these do?     Sethe and Beloved look up. Sethe smiles;                         SETHE               My Lord...where'd you dig up those?                         DENVER               There for skating on the ice.               We have another pair and half of another,               I think.                         BELOVED               Can we try them?     Sethe takes the skates and looks at them with a curious     lightness:                         SETHE               Go ice skating? Ha...                    (beat)               Why not?                         DENVER               You sure mama?                         SETHE               Strikes me that after your man leaves, it               might just be the wrong time to be               scrubbing floors... might just be the               perfect time to go ice skating.     Denver and Beloved register hopefulness in the light of     Sethe's attitude. Sethe speaks to Denver;                         SETHE               Go get the shawls..and find me an old               shoe for that half a pair...     The girls get excited. Sethe tosses the scrub brush into the     pail.     EXT. A FROZEN CREEK - DAY.     A bright, cold winter day. Beloved wears a pair of old     skates. Denver wears the second pair and Sethe has one skate     and one shoe..The two girls giggle and fall as they try to     skate on the ice... helping each other up. Their skirts      whirling...their laughter mingled with screams of delight.     Sethe, wearing only shoes, watches them and laughs.                         DENVER               Come on, ma'am...try!     Sethe steps onto the ice and takes a few strides and promptly     falls on her rear. The girls scream with laughter. Sethe     tries to get up and falls, their laughter infecting her as     well. The girls try to help her and fall over each other in     the trying.     Denver rises and tries an independent glide. The tip of her     skate hits a bump and she falls, flapping her arms wildly.     All three laugh so hard, they start coughing. Beloved goes to     Denver's aid.     Sethe rises up on her hands and knees, her laughter shaking     her chest and causing her eyes to tear in the cold air.     Beloved helps Denver, and falls as well. The two girls see     Sethe laughing and play it up even more, a few more times...     Until, Denver notices something and motions Beloved to stop     and look.     The two glide back to Sethe. Her laughter has stopped, but     her tears have not... They gently, comfortingly, touch her     shoulder.     INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT.     It is a snowy night outside the windows.     Sethe has laid out blankets and quilts in front of the fire     in the stove. She has made sweet milk that she hands to the     girls before taking her place in between them, on the floor,     facing the fire; Denver, on her right, rests her head on her     lap. Beloved sits on her left.     She looks over to Beloved who is staring at the fire. The     illumination highlights her beauty and her profile; the chin,     mouth, forehead - all copied and exaggerated in a huge shadow     the fire threw on the wall. Sethe can't help but stare as     another thought occurs to her;                         BABY SUGGS (V.O.)               ...All I remember is how she loved the               bottom of burned bread. Her little               hands...I wouldn't know 'em if they               slapped me".                         SETHE (VO)               ..."Here. Look here. See this mark? If               you can't tell me by my face, look here."     Beloved lifts her head towards the fire at the same time she     leans back to rest on a propped-up pillow. In the flickering     of the firelight, Sethe can see:     A SMILE OF A SCAR BENEATH HER CHIN.     Sethe knows before she's aware of it consciously. And just as     it hits her, BELOVED BEGINS TO HUM A MELODY.     Sethe recognizes it as her own melody.                         SETHE               I made that song up. I made it up and               sang it to my children...     Denver lifts her head from her mother's lap to look at Sethe,     knowing what is happening....                         SETHE               ...Nobody knows that song but me and my               children.     Beloved turns to Sethe;                         BELOVED               I know it.     A click. Sethe looks at her daughter, returned. "There is no     gasp of astonishment - no exclaim for the miraculous. For     what is truly miraculous is so, because the magic lies in the     fact that you knew it was there for you all along."                                                       DISSOLVE TO:     MORNING;     INT. KITCHEN - MORNING.     It's snowy white outside. The girls are still asleep in front     of the stove. But Denver awakens upon hearing her mother load     the stove with dry wood and begin to cook breakfast. Sethe     hears her wake up and turns, as she beats eggs in a bowl;                         SETHE               Back stiff?                         DENVER               OOh, yeah...Don't know if it's the floor               or the skating.                         SETHE               Could be that fall you took.                         DENVER               That was fun.     Beloved snores lightly beside her;                         DENVER               Should I wake her?                         SETHE               No, let her rest.                         DENVER               She likes to see you off in the morning.                         SETHE               I'll make sure she does. But first I'm               going  make up a nice, big breakfast               against that cold outside.                         DENVER               Won't you be late for work?                         SETHE               Don't matter. First time I'll be late in               nine years. No great trouble..Whatever               goes on out there goes on with or without               me showing up on time... don't matter...                    (looks at the girls)               The world is in this room, baby. This is               all there is and all there needs to be.     Denver smiles - but it is a cautious smile. Something about     her mother's statement both elates and disturbs her.     EXT. BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     A conflicted and contrite Stamp Paid walks through the snow     down Bluestone road towards 124.     As he does, he remembers his last conversation with Baby     Suggs;     MEMORY:     EXT. RICHMOND STREET - DAY.     A fall day. Leaves ankle high. Stamp Paid is walking when he     sees baby Suggs carrying a carpetbag full of repaired shoes.     He crosses over to her as he gets her attention;                         STAMP PAID               You missed the Clearing meeting three               Saturdays running.     Baby Suggs turns to her old friend - but there is no sign of     welcome or recognition. There is a noticeable change in her     demeanor. She continues walking. He follows;                         STAMP PAID               Folks came.                         BABY SUGGS               Folks come. Folks go.                         STAMP PAID               Here, let me carry that.     He reaches for the carpetbag but Baby Suggs pulls it away.                         BABY SUGGS               I got a delivery around here. Name of               Tucker.                         STAMP PAID                    (points)               Yonder. Twin chestnuts in the yard.     They walk a bit, until;                         STAMP PAID               Well?                         BABY SUGGS               Well what?                         STAMP PAID               This Saturday - you coming to Call or               what?                         BABY SUGGS               If I call them, and they come what on               earth am I going to say to them.                         STAMP PAID               Say the Word!     Two whitemen raking leaves look up at the sound of Stamp     Paid's voice, which was too loud. So he whispers;                         STAMP PAID               The Word. What you was put here to speak.                         BABY SUGGS               That's the last thing they took from me.                         STAMP PAID               But you got to do it. You got to. Can't               nobody Call like you. You have to be               there.                         BABY SUGGS               What I have to do is get in my bed and               lay down. I want to fix on something               harmless in this world.                         STAMP PAID               What world are you talking about? Ain't               nothing harmless down here.                         BABY SUGGS               Blue. That doesn't hurt nobody. Yellow               neither.                         STAMP PAID               You getting into bed to think about               yellow?                         BABY SUGGS               I likes yellow.                         STAMP PAID               Then what? When you get through with blue               and yellow, then what?                         BABY SUGGS               Can't say. It's something can't be               planned.                         STAMP PAID               You blaming God. That what you're doing?                         BABY SUGGS               No, Stamp. I ain't.                         STAMP PAID               You saying whitefolks won. That what you               saying?                         BABY SUGGS               Those white things have taken all I had               or dreamed. I'm saying ain't no bad luck               in this world 'cept for white folks..They               just don't know when to stop.                         STAMP PAID               You saying nothing counts?                         BABY SUGGS               I'm saying they came into my yard.                         STAMP PAID               You saying God give up? Nothing left for               us but pour out our own blood?                         BABY SUGGS               I'm saying they came into my yard.                         STAMP PAID               You punishing Him, ain't you?                         BABY SUGGS               Not like He punished me.                         STAMP PAID               You can't do that, Baby. It ain't right.                         BABY SUGGS               Was a time I knew what was.                         STAMP PAID               You still know.                         BABY SUGGS               What I know is what I see: a nigger woman               hauling shoes.                         STAMP PAID               Aw, Baby.     He stops her, before the Twin Chestnuts of the Tucker house.                         STAMP PAID               We have to be steady. "These things too               will pass". What you looking for? A               miracle?                         BABY SUGGS               No. I'm looking for what I was put here               to look for: the back door.     They exchange a look of silence and finality. She turns and     walks to the back door of the house and knocks. A moment     later a White Woman appears, takes the carpetbag and keeps     Baby waiting on the back steps while she goes in for a dime.     Baby rests on the railing until the whitewoman returns.     MEMORY END.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Now, Stamp Paid feels the need to find out what's going on     inside 124 since he caused Paul to leave. He approaches the     porch, then the front door. He raises his hands to knock -     but he can't bring himself to do it.     He turns to walk away then stops. He turns back and with a     force of will, KNOCKS LOUDLY upon the door. No answer. He     KNOCKS AGAIN. Still no answer.     He steps back, trying to sense if anyone's there. He turns to     leave when he sees;     TWO HEADS in the window. Denver and Beloved. Denver bolts     away, but Beloved remains a moment longer - looking in Stamp     Paid's eye, then disappearing into the house.     Stamp Paid is unnerved by her look.     INT. SAWYER'S RESTAURANT - LATE MORNING.     Sethe enters late, putting on her apron as SAWYER yells;                         SAWYER               What the hell you thinking, girl?               Strolling in here this late?                         SETHE               Don't talk to me, Mr. Sawyer. Don't say               nothing to me this morning.                         SAWYER               What? What? You talking back to me?                         SETHE               I'm telling you don't say nothing to me.     Sethe begins organizing her counter to make pies.                         SAWYER               You better get them pies made!     Sethe ignores him as she begins. Sawyer is at a loss.                         SAWYER               Not too sweet! You make it too sweet they               don't eat it.                         SETHE               Make it the way I always do.                         SAWYER               Yeah. Too sweet.                    (he exits)     INT. ELLA'S HOUSE - DAY.     Ella opens the front door for Stamp Paid. He looks disturbed.                         ELLA               Where you been keeping yourself? I told               John must be cold if Stamp stay inside.                         STAMP PAID               Oh I been out.     Stamp takes off his hat and follows Ella, who is doing     laundry in the kitchen.                         ELLA               Out where?                         STAMP PAID               Was over to Baby Suggs.                         ELLA               What you want there? Somebody invite you               in?                         STAMP PAID               That's Baby's kin. I don't need no invite               to look after her people.     Ella shrugs and continues folding wet laundry on a line     behind the stove. Stamp sits.                         STAMP PAID               Somebody new there. A woman. Thought you               might know who she is.                         ELLA               Ain't no new Negroes in this town I don't               know about. What she look like? You sure               that wasn't Denver?                         STAMP PAID               I know Denver.                         ELLA               You sure?                         STAMP PAID               I know what I see.                         ELLA               Might see anything at all at 124.                         STAMP PAID               True.                         ELLA               Better ask Paul D.                         STAMP PAID               Can't locate him.                         ELLA               He's sleeping in the church.                         STAMP PAID               The church!                         ELLA               Yeah. Asked Rev. Pike if he could stay in               the cellar.                         STAMP PAID               It's cold as charity in there! What he do               that for? Any number'll take him in.                         ELLA               Can't nobody read minds long distance.               All he have to do is ask somebody.                         STAMP PAID               Why? Why he have to ask? Can't nobody               offer? What's going on? Since when a               black man come to town have to sleep in               the cellar like a dog?!                         ELLA               Unrile yourself, Stamp. It's only a few               days he been there.                         STAMP PAID               NO! Shouldn't be no days! You know all               about it and don't give him a hand? That               don't sound like you, Ella. Me and you               been pulling colored folk out the water               more'n twenty years! Now you tell me you               can't offer a man a bed?! A working man               who can pay his own way?                         ELLA               He ask, I give him anything.                         STAMP PAID               Why's that necessary all of a sudden?                         ELLA               I don't know him that well.                         STAMP PAID               You know he's colored? What else there to               know?                         ELLA               Stamp, don't tear me up this morning! I               don't feel like it.                         STAMP PAID               It's her, ain't it?                         ELLA               Her who?                         STAMP PAID               Sethe. He took up with her and stayed in               there and you don't want nothing to-                         ELLA               Hold on! Don't jump if you can't see               bottom!                         STAMP PAID               Girl, give it up! We been friends too               long to act like this.     Beat. Ella knows he's right. She surrenders the truth.                         ELLA               Well, who can tell what went on in there?               I never even knew who Sethe was or none               of her people.                         STAMP PAID               You know she married Baby Suggs' boy.                         ELLA               I ain't sure I know that. Baby never laid               eyes on her till she showed up here. And               how'd she make it and her husband didn't?               And where is he? And how she have that               baby in the woods by herself? Said a               whitewoman help her. Shoot. You believe               that? Well, I know what kind of white               that was.                         STAMP PAID               Aw, no, Ella.                         ELLA               Anything white floating around in the               woods - if it don't got a shotgun, it's               something the Lord tells me I don't want               no part of.                         STAMP PAID               You was friends.                         ELLA               Till she showed herself.                         STAMP PAID               Ella.                         ELLA               I ain't got no friends take a handsaw to               their own children.                         STAMP PAID               What's any of that got to do with Paul               D.?                         ELLA               What run him off? Tell me that!                         STAMP PAID               I run him off.                         ELLA                    (surprised)               You?                         STAMP PAID               I told him...Showed him the newspaper.               About Sethe. Read it to him. He left that               very day.                         ELLA               You didn't tell me that. I thought he               already knew.                         STAMP PAID               He didn't know nothing. And nobody.               Except her, from when they was at that               place Baby Suggs was at.                         ELLA               He knew Baby Suggs?                         STAMP PAID               Sure he knew her. Her boy Halle, too.                         ELLA               And he left when he found out what Sethe               did?                    (Stamp sits)               What you say casts a different light on               it, I guess...I thought-     Stamp knows what she thought.                         ELLA               But you didn't come here talking 'bout               Paul. You came asking about a new girl.                         STAMP PAID               That's so.                         ELLA               Well, Paul D. must know who she is. Or               what she is.                         STAMP PAID               You mind loaded with spirits. Everywhere               you look you see one.                         ELLA               You know as well as I do, Stamp, that               people who die bad don't stay in the               ground.     Stamp can not deny this.     EXT. BLUESTONE ROAD - EARLY EVENING.     Sethe is walking home to her daughters. There is a serene,     introverted expression on her face...as if she were detached     from the world around her, safe inside. We hear her thoughts:                         SETHE (VO)               Beloved, she my daughter...She mine. She               come back to me of her own free will and               I don't have to explain a thing.. She had               to be safe and I put her where I knew she               would be. But my love was tough and she               back now. She come back to me in the               flesh...I won't never let her go. I'll               explain to her, even though I don't have               to. Why I did it. How if I hadn't killed               her she would have died and that is               something I couldn't let happen to her.               When I explain she'll understand, cause               she understands everything already..And               she ain't even mad...When I put that               headstone up I wanted to lay in there               with you, put your head on my shoulder               and keep you warm and I would have if               Bulgar and Howard and Denver didn't need               me, because my mind was homeless then. I               couldn't lay down with you then. No               matter how much I wanted to. I couldn't               lay down nowhere in peace, back then. Now               I can. I can sleep like the drowned, have               mercy. She come back to me, my daughter,     DENVER'S VOICE OVER FADES IN OVER SETHE'S....                       SETHE (VO)              DENVER               my Beloved and she        Beloved is my               is mine....               sister...                         DENVER (VO)               ..and she is mine...                                                           FADE TO;     INT. 124 BLUESTONE ROAD - EARLY EVENING.     Denver is cleaning the kitchen, waiting for her mother. We     hear her thoughts:                         DENVER (VO)               ..I swallowed her blood right along with               my mother's milk. She played with me and               always came to be with me whenever I               needed her. Me and her waited for our               daddy. I love her. I do. She never hurt               me. I love my mother but I know she               killed one of her own, and tender as she               is with me, I'm scared of her because of               it. All the time, I'm afraid the thing               that happened that made it all right to               kill her own, could happen again.               Whatever it is, it comes from outside               this house, outside the yard. So I never               leave this house and I watch over the               yard so it can't happen again ... I have               to keep it away from my sister...I'll               protect Beloved...'Cause She's mine...     BELOVED'S VO FADES IN OVER DENVER'S...                 DENVER (VO)               BELOVED (VO)               Beloved..She's mine       I am Beloved                         BELOVED (VO)               and she is mine...     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - EARLY EVENING.     Beloved, waiting for Sethe to come home, sees her     approaching. We hear her thoughts:                         BELOVED (VO)               I am not separate from her. There is no               place where I stop. Her face is my own               and I want to be there in the place where               her face is and to be looking at it               too...a hot thing..In the beginning I               could see her. I could not help her               because the clouds were in the way. But I               could see her. The shining in her ears. I               look hard at her so she will know that               the clouds are in the way..I cannot lose               her again. I see her face which is mine.               It is the face that was going to smile at               me in the place where we crouched before               I come up out of the blue water. Sethe's               is the face that left me. Sethe's sees me               in her and I see the smile. She is my               face smiling at me. It is the face I               lost. Now we can join..a hot thing.     Sethe comes to the waiting Beloved and smiles. She offers her     hand and Beloved rises. Denver exits to them and smiles. She     extends her hand to Beloved's free hand. The three women     stand astride each other, arms around each other's waist as     they walk toward the porch...     The dusk sunlight creates THREE SHADOWS - three figures     holding each other the way Sethe saw the shadows at the     carnival...Only they weren't Hers, Denver's and Paul's...They     were Hers, Denver's and Beloved's....     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - EARLY EVENING.     The girls rush into the house, and down the hall.     Sethe enters. Then turns back to the door.     C.U. ; OF SETHE'S HAND LOCKING THE FRONT DOOR AS WE HEAR;            SETHE (VO)     I AM BELOVED AND SHE IS MINE..     DENVER (VO)                                      SHE IS MINE...     OVER THE FOLLOWING CHORUS OF DIALOGUE, A MONTAGE OF     IMAGES DEPICTING SETHE, BELOVED AND DENVER CLOSING UP     THE HOUSE FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD - LOWERING SHADES,     LOCKING WINDOWS, BARRING DOORS.....          SETHE (VO)     TELL ME THE TRUTH..              BELOVED (VO)                                 CANNOT LOSE HER AGAIN.                         SETHE (VO)               DID YOU COME FROM THE OTHER SIDE.                         BELOVED (VO)               YES. I WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE.                         SETHE (VO)               YOU CAME BACK BECAUSE OF ME?                         BELOVED (VO)               YES.                         SETHE (VO)               YOU NEVER FORGOT ME?                         BELOVED (VO)               YOUR FACE IS MINE.                         DENVER (VO)               DON'T LOVE HER TOO MUCH.                         SETHE (VO)               DO YOU FORGIVE ME?                         BELOVED (VO)               YOU HURT ME.                         DENVER (VO)               I WILL PROTECT YOU.                         SETHE (VO)               WILL YOU STAY?                         BELOVED (VO)               WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME WHO AM YOU?                         SETHE (VO)               I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU AGAIN.                         DENVER (VO)               WATCH OUT FOR HER; SHE CAN GIVE YOU               DREAMS.                         BELOVED (VO)               WHERE ARE THE MEN WITHOUT SKIN?                         DENVER (VO)               THE WHITEFOLK?                         SETHE (VO)               OUT THERE. WAY OFF.                         DENVER (VO)               DADDY IS COMING FOR US.                         BELOVED (VO)               CAN THEY GET IN HERE?                         SETHE (VO)               NO. THEY TRIED ONCE BUT I STOPPED THEM.               THEY WON'T EVER COME BACK...YOU MY BEST               THING.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - EARLY EVENING.     CAMERA PULLS BACK FROM THE FRONT DOOR, NOW LOCKED AGAINST THE     WORLD, IN A SLOW MOVE....AS WE HEAR A BLEND OF THE THREE     WOMEN'S VOICES - THE OVERLAPPING, HAUNTED THOUGHTS OF THE     LIVING...                         THREE WOMAN (VO)               BELOVED..YOU ARE MY SISTER..YOU ARE MY               DAUGHTER. YOU ARE MY FACE..YOU ARE ME..I               HAVE FOUND YOU AGAIN..I WAITED FOR               YOU..YOU ARE MY BELOVED. DON'T LOVE HER               TOO MUCH...YOU MY BEST THING.. YOU ARE               MINE..YOU ARE MINE..YOU ARE MINE...     BY THE TIME THE CAMERA REACHES BLUESTONE ROAD, THE VOICES ARE     MIXED, UNDECIPHERABLE YET AUDIBLE...     ...AUDIBLE TO STAMP PAID, WHO STANDS ON BLUESTONE RD.     LISTENING TO THE HAUNTED VOICES OF 124.  HE IS FRIGHTENED.                                                         FADE -OUT.     FADE- IN:     EXT. CHURCH - DAY.     A cold day. Paul D. sits against the church drinking from a     bottle when a voice causes him to look up;                         STAMP PAID               Howdy.     Stamp has his hands in his pockets, moving about.                         PAUL               You got any more newspaper in that pocket               for me, just a waste of time. Ain't               interested.     Stamp sits beside him.                         STAMP PAID               This is hard for me. But I got to do it.               Two things I got to say to you. I'm a               take the easy one first.                         PAUL                    (laughs)               If it's hard for you, might kill me dead.                    (he drinks)                         STAMP PAID               I come looking for you to ask your               pardon. Apologize.                         PAUL               For what?                         STAMP PAID               You pick any house, any house where               colored live. Pick any one and you               welcome to stay there. I'm apologizing               'cause they didn't offer to tell you. But               you welcome anywhere you want to be. My               house. John and Ella. Miss Lady               Jones..anybody. You choose. You ain't got               to sleep in no cellar and I apologize for               each and every night.                         PAUL               Well I...I did get offered one place but               I just wanted to be off by myself a               spell.                         STAMP PAID               Oh yeah. Oh that's load off. I thought               everybody gone crazy.                         PAUL               Just me.                         STAMP PAID               You planning to do anything about it?                         PAUL               Oh yeah. I got big plans.     He drinks from the bottle like an angry, broken man. It stabs     at Stamp's heart to see him like this.     A WHITE MAN in a horse and wagon drives up the path leading     to the church. He leans stops before them and leans forward;                         WHITE MAN               Hey!!                         STAMP PAID                    (on his feet)               Yes sir.                         WHITE MAN               I'm looking for a gal name of Judy. Works               over by the slaughterhouse. Said she               lived on Plank Road.                         STAMP PAID               Plank Road. Yes sir. That's up a ways.               Mile, maybe.                         WHITE MAN               You don't know her? Judy? Works in the               slaughterhouse.                         STAMP PAID               No sir, I don't, but I know Plank Road.               'Bout a mile up thataway.     Paul drinks from the bottle. The White Man addresses him.                         WHITE MAN               Look here..There's a cross up there, so I               guess this here's a church or used to be.               Seems to me like you ought to show it               some respect, you follow me?                         STAMP PAID               Yes sir..You right about that. That's               just what I come over to talk to him               about. Just that..     Paul offers no response. The White Man clicks his tongue and     drives off. Stamp breathes a sigh of relief.                         PAUL               You remember your price, Stamp?                         STAMP PAID               Never found out.                         PAUL               I did. Down to the cent.$900. Always               wondered though what Mrs. Garner got for               my brother Paul F. Must of been more than               nine hundred dollars cause she use that               money for Sweet Home for almost two               years. But then they hung my other               brother Paul A. up on a tree so I guess               he wasn't worth the same..I wonder what               was Baby Suggs worth? And Halle? I wasn't               surprised when I found out they tracked               down Sethe all the way to Cincinatti. Her               price must have been higher than all of               us - her being property that reproduced               itself without cost. A breeder.                         STAMP PAID               No use thinking these things now.                         PAUL               Oh but we got to. How we gonna know our               price in the future? How are children's               children's children gonna know what they               cost? Who's gonna tell them? What are               they gonna pay for us, if we free?                         STAMP PAID               Children ain't gonna need to know that               kind of thing.                         PAUL               They'll know. They'll know as soon as               they born. Cause it's inside us,Stamp.               It'll be inside them. We'll pass it down.               Schoolteacher didn't just change the               outside, he changed the mind..and the               blood..and what it carries...and what               it's worth..                         STAMP PAID               I don't believe that. I won't.                         PAUL               There was a rooster named Mister down at               Sweet Home. Last time I saw Halle, with               that butter all over his face and me with               an iron bit in my mouth, I saw Mister -               sitting on a tub. He loved that tub. Like               king on a throne. He was a hateful thing.               Bloody and evil..But he was better than               me.  Mister was allowed to be and stay               what he was. Even if you cooked him you'd               be cooking a rooster named Mister. But               wasn't no way I'd ever be Paul D.               again..Schoolteacher changed me. Was               never no beating under Mr. Garner.               Schoolteacher changed that. Why wouldn't               a man run from that? Why wouldn't a man               not work, kill, starve, pull out his own               heart to stop feeling 'stead of feeling               that? And it strikes me, it's got to be               cause we were something else. And that               something was less than a chicken sitting               in the sun on a tub.     He drinks.                         STAMP PAID               I said I had two things to say to you. I               only told you one. I have to tell you the               other.                         PAUL               I don't want to know.                         STAMP PAID               I was there Paul D...There in the yard.               When she did it.                         PAUL               What yard? When who-     And then Paul realizes he's talking of Sethe.                         PAUL               Jesus.                         STAMP PAID               It ain't what you think.                         PAUL               You don't know what I think.                         STAMP PAID               She ain't crazy. She love those children.               She was trying to outhurt the hurter's               all.                         PAUL               Leave off..                         STAMP PAID               She was only-                         PAUL               Stamp, leave off I said! I knew her when               she was a girl. She scares me and I knew               her when she was a girl...                         STAMP PAID               You ain't scared of Sethe. I don't               believe you.                         PAUL               She scares me. I scare me. And that girl               in her house scares me.                         STAMP PAID               Who is she? Where she come from?                         PAUL               Don't know. Just shot up one day from a               stump.                         STAMP PAID               She what run you off? Not what I told you               'bout Sethe?     Paul thinks a moment. Then, tears brimming in his eyes:                         PAUL               Tell me something, Stamp. Tell me this               one thing. How much is a nigger supposed               to take?                         STAMP PAID               All he can. All he can.                         PAUL               Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?                                                          FADE OUT;     FADE IN;     SPRING.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - MORNING.     The sun shines on a warm April day..a day abundant with     growth and renewed hope.     But a shadow appears to be hovering over 124. It looks more     worn than before...neglected, abused.     A broken window...the front door off it's hinge...a front     step splintered and dangerous.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - MORNING.     Camera opens on the front hall and moves through the house,     revealing the same neglect inside;     Broken furniture, dusty floors, mess and disorder...     Camera enters;     INT. KITCHEN - MORNING.     Dirty pans, crusted food on the table, window curtains     hanging askew...     Sethe sits hunched over, asleep, in a chair against the wall.     She wears a dirty, torn dress that hangs on her body - which     seems withered, frailer since we last saw her...In her lap     lies a clean pretty dress she was in the process of sewing     when she fell asleep from fatigue.     A LOUD CRASH wakes her up. Followed by a LOUD FRUSTRATED     YELL. Her face registers fear. She realizes where she is,     what time it is...and begins organizing breakfast...     She places the dress neatly on the chair, then grabs a cloth     and wipes away the crumbs and dirty plates from supper,     placing them in the sink...     She opens a pantry cupboard to reveal BARE SHELVES except for     a SINGLE EGG and a bowl of HOMINY GRAINS about 1/4 full. She     searches in a panic for more food - anywhere - opening      cabinets, doors - places that never stored food. She realizes     there is none left.     INT. DENVER'S ROOM - MORNING.     Denver finished dressing. She has been able to maintain a     semblance of order about her person and room..     But as she steps out into the second floor hallway, we see     the same disarray as downstairs...     She passes by Baby Sugg's old room and discovers;     BELOVED, sprawled across the bed, half naked. Her belly is     huge, her body unwashed. She looks, and behaves, like a wild     animal...     A broken lamp lies on the fall - pushed over by her leg as     she shifted in bed. Her feet, overhanging the bed, are still     touching the bedside table where the lamp sat.     She is awake now - making a small hole larger in Baby Sugg's     old quilt.                         DENVER               You shouldn't be in here?     Beloved jolts her head up to Denver. She doesn't like being     looked at unawares...                         BELOVED               What do you know about it? I sleep where               I want.                         DENVER               You best leave that quilt alone. That was               grandma's quilt.     Beloved looks at Denver, then at the quilt - then abruptly     tears the hole apart with one strong pull.     Triumphant, she gets out of bed and exits, passing Denver;                         BELOVED               Breakfast ready? I'm hungry!     INT. KITCHEN - MORNING.     Sethe has prepared all the food that was left and placed it     on one plate which she sets on the table. She stands at the     stove, with her back to us, picking crusted pieces of food     off the bottom of the pan.     Beloved moves straight to the chair in front of the place and     begins to eat, shovelling the food into her mouth.     Denver sees her mother covertly eating the burnt pan crumbs,     as she pretends to wash the dishes.                         SETHE               Morning.                         DENVER               Morning, ma'am.     Sethe turns, not realizing Denver was there as well. Their     eyes meet. Sethe wonders if her daughter saw her eating the     pan crumbs. She smiles;                         SETHE               You hungry?     Knowing there must be nothing left, Denver answers;                         DENVER               No, ma'am.     Sethe looks relieved.                         DENVER               I'll finish those. Why don't you sit               down?     Denver crosses to the dishes, taking the pan from her mother.     Sethe nods and crosses to the table, to sit down.     But as she sinks into the chair, Beloved kicks it away;                         BELOVED               You don't sit with me!!                         SETHE               Baby, don't be like that.                         BELOVED               You don't sit with me!! I don't sit with               people who leave me!                         SETHE               Don't talk like that. Your mama loves               you.                         BELOVED               I had another dream last night.                    (as she eats)               The dead man laying on top of me and I               had nothing to eat. And the ghosts               without skin stuck their fingers in me               and said Beloved in the dark and bitch in               the light..                         SETHE               Don't say those things. You forget about               those dreams..                         BELOVED               You gave me the bad dreams. You left me               behind...                         SETHE               Mama told you - I'd give up my own life,               every minute, every hour of it to take               back one of your tears baby...My children               my best thing. You my best thing!                         BELOVED               You're weren't nice to me..you didn't               smile at me..                         SETHE               That's not true. I told you, I had to get               you out, make you safe...so's you and me               could be together on the other side,               forever..                         DENVER               Ma'am...     No one pays attention to Denver.                         BELOVED               LIAR!     Beloved flings her plate at Sethe, hitting her hard across     the eye..the plate breaking...                         DENVER               MAMA!                         SETHE               Hold back Denver - I'm fine..You..you go               on upstairs. I'll do the cleaning up.                         DENVER               But mama..                         SETHE               Go upstairs I said!!     Sethe's harsh tone is only for Denver. Denver exits the     kitchen, afraid to leave them alone...     As she moves from the kitchen, she hears;                         BELOVED (OS)               I want somethin' sweet.                         SETHE (OS)               We don't have nothing sweet no more,               baby.                         BELOVED (OS)               Not for me, you don't! You don't let me               eat the pies...                         SETHE (OS)               No. Since mama lost her job, we don't               have no more pies..     Denver walks up the white stairs...     INT. BABY SUGGS' ROOM - DAY.     Denver has straightened up her grandmother's room. Cleaned     away the broken pieces of the lamp. Gathered the remnants of     the quilt..     She holds the quilt as she sits on the bed, facing the     headboard. SHE REMEMBERS:     MEMORY:     INT. BABY SUGGS' ROOM - A DAY REMEMBERED.     Baby Suggs, near death, lying in her bed, chuckles and     coughs;                         BABY SUGGS               You mean I never told you about your               daddy? About the Bodwins who let me rent               this here house while I do my shoe               repairing? About your mother's feet, not               to mention her back? I never told you all               that?     A NINE YEAR OLD DENVER shakes her head.                         BABY SUGGS               Is that why you can't walk down the steps               and out yonder by yourself?     Denver can't answer.                         BABY SUGGS               Why you never go back to Lady Jone's and               learn your letters? You liked going there               I remember. Seeing the other children.               Then all a sudden, you stop.                         DENVER               There was a boy there...said mama was a               jailbird...said he could prove it..     Baby Suggs face registers the pain of her granddaughter, hurt     by hurtful words.                         BABY SUGGS               My Jesus my...What people won't say. Why               didn't you come and ask me?                    (Denver shrugs)               'Fraid I'll tell ya, huh?                    (Denver looks at her)               Come here, child..     Denver crawls into her arms.                         BABY SUGGS               You got to go sometime. You got to go out               there by yourself sometime.                         DENVER               But you said...you said out there, there               ain't no...what was that word?..no..de-               fense. No de-fense.                         BABY SUGGS               There ain't.                         DENVER               Then what do I do?                         BABY SUGGS               Know it, and go on out the yard. Go on.     END OF MEMORY.     INT. BABY SUGGS' ROOM - DAY.     Denver has crawled up and snuggled against the pillow in the     same position as when she was nine in her grandma's arms.     INT. SECOND FLOOR LANDING - DAY.     Denver has changed into a clean, pretty dress and is     approaching the stairs when she passes Sethe's room. It's     door is open. She looks in..     Sethe stands with her back to the door, cleaned up, wearing     her best dress and the hat she last wore to the carnival.     Denver smiles, hopefully;                         DENVER               Mama?     Sethe turns, startled, to reveal - it is BELOVED in Sethe's     best clothes...When Beloved sees Denver, she smiles     tauntingly and strikes a pose...                         BELOVED               I look just like her.     Disgusted, Denver exits.     INT. KITCHEN - DAY.     Denver walks down the stairs, entering the kitchen;     Sethe is on her knees, picking up pieces of broken plate. As     she moves the skin on her knees bleeds as it scrapes against     pieces too small to clean.                         DENVER               Mama let me help you.                         SETHE               NO!...She wanted me to do it.     Sethe continues her work, without even looking at Denver.     Denver pauses a moment, realizing she is of no use here - but     knowing she needs to help her mother somehow.     She looks up to the kitchen, where every cupboard door is     open revealing empty shelves...SHE EXITS - HEADING FOR THE     FRONT DOOR.     INT. FRONT HALL - DAY.     C.U. - FRONT DOOR.     Denver's hands slowly reaches towards the door lock - and     OPENS IT.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Denver opens the door, then pushes the broken screen door off     it's hinge. She closes the door behind her.     She begins her walk from the porch to the road. The first     time she's ever gone alone..not knowing what she will face     beyond the perimeters of her home.     She reaches Bluestone Road and stops. She looks in either     direction and sees not a soul. She takes a breath.     She begins to walk - to get help.     A block from the house, TWO BLACK MEN turn a corner and walk     towards her.     Denver stops, frightened, not knowing what to do.     The TWO BLACK MEN pass her, tipping their hats, saying;                         TWO BLACK MAN               Morning...Morning..     And they walk by. Denver's eyes speak the gratitude she never     got her mouth open in time to reply. Heartened by the     encounter, she picks up speed.     EXT. LADY JONES' HOUSE - DAY.     LADY JONES - a light-skinned black woman with gray eyes and     yellow woolly hair - opens the door to find Denver.                         LADY JONES               Why Denver..Look at you.     Denver manages to smile.                         LADY JONES               It's been so long. It's so nice of you to               come see me. What brings you?     Unfortunately, Denver can't manage anything beyond the smile.                         LADY JONES               Well, never mind - nobody needs a reason               to visit. Let me make us some tea. Come               on.     Lady Jones takes her by the hand and leads her inside.     INT. LADY JONES' HOUSE - DAY.     Tea things sit on a table between them. Denver eats whatever     she can. Lady Jones watches with care and concern.                         LADY JONES               How's your family, honey?     Denver swallows a bite of something with some tea, then;                         DENVER               I want to work, Miss Lady.                         LADY JONES               Work? Start learnin your letters again?                         DENVER               No. I mean work work.                         LADY JONES               Well, what can you do?                         DENVER               I can't do anything but I would learn it               for you if you have a little extra.                         LADY JONES               Extra?                         DENVER               Food. My mama, she doesn't feel well. I               couldn't stay away from her too long,               cause of her condition but I could do               chores in the mornings.                         LADY JONES               Oh baby...I don't know anyone could pay               anybody anything for work they did               themselves...But if you all need to eat               until your mother's well, all you have to               do is say so...We have a church committee               invented so nobody had to go hungry.                         DENVER               No..No that won't do...     Lady Jones can sense something far more serious is going on.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD./ KITCHEN - DAY.     Denver brings four eggs, some rice and some tea onto the     kitchen table.     Sethe's eyes well up. She looks at Denver as if for the first     time. Her face an expression of gratitude. Suddenly;                         BELOVED (OS)               RAAAIN!!! RAAAAIN!     Sethe and Denver rush out of the kitchen to see;     beloved running through the rooms, clawing at her throat,     causing it to bleed...                         SETHE               BABY!     Sethe and Denver rush towards into the keeping room. Sethe     stumbles over a chair to get to Beloved, kneeling on the     floor, ripping at her own neck...     Denver gets her from behind and Sethe grabs her from the     front, pinning her down - trying to stop her from hurting     herself. Beloved screams and strikes out at Sethe, pulling     her hair, clawing at her as well...     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Denver exits the house because she sees something unusual in     the yard;     POV - THE STUMP;     On the same stump that Beloved first appeared, sits A BASKET     OF EGGS. Denver crosses to it, lifts it and a PAPER flutters     to the ground. She reads it;     M. LUCILLE WILLIAMS...     EXT. M. LUCILLE WILLIAMS HOUSE - DAY.     Denver returns the empty basket to M. Lucille Williams.                         DENVER               Thank you.                         M. LUCILLE                         WILLIAMS               Your welcome..     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Beloved eats ravenously from a bowl of white beans. Sethe     sits in the corner, as if waiting to serve her...     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY     Upon the stump, sits a plate of cold rabbit meat, which     Denver brings inside.     INT. GRACE'S HOUSE - DAY.     Denver is returning a bowl to Grace, a friendly woman.                         GRACE               No, darling. That's not my bowl. Mine's               got a blue ring around it..Would you like               to come in a spell?     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Beloved sleeps curled up on the kitchen floor after eating -     her mouth still dirty from the meal...     Sethe, unwashed, her hair uncombed, sits in her corner chair.     She is trying to mend a torn dress.     Denver eats a little from the latest neighborhood gift. She     hears her mother mumbling to herself like a madwoman.                         SETHE               Nobody..no sir..that's right..nobody's               going be doing that..nobody going be               writing my daughter's characteristics on               the animal side..no sir..I don't               care..ain't laying that down..no sir. I               refuse..that's right..that's right...                         DENVER               Mama...Mama she's asleep. Why don't you               eat something.                         SETHE               She likes this dress...                         DENVER               But you'll hurt your eyes doin it there.               Come sit at the table.     Sethe considers this. She rises cautiously, then sits at the     table. Denver rises and gets her some food, placing it before     her.                         DENVER               Please mama, eat something...     Sethe nods...Denver is getting more and more frightened of     losing her mother completely...Instead of protecting Beloved     from Sethe, she must protect her mother from Beloved.     EXT. THE BODWIN'S HOUSE; BACK DOOR - DAY.     A white family home in a white Ohio neighborhood.     JANEY WAGON, a benevolent black servant woman, opens the back     door for Denver.                         JANEY               Yes?                         DENVER               May I come in?                         JANEY               What you want?                         DENVER               I want to see Mr. and Mrs. Bodwin.                         JANEY               Miss Bodwin. They brother and sister,               darlin.                         DENVER               Oh.                         JANEY               What you want'em for?                         DENVER               I'm looking for work. I was thinking they               might know of some.                         JANEY                    (smiles)               You Baby Sugg's kin, ain't you?                         DENVER               Yes ma'am.                         JANEY               I heard your mother took sick, that so?                         DENVER               Yes ma'am..                         JANEY               Well, come on in. You letting in flies.     INT. THE BODWIN'S HOUSE - DAY.     The house is filled with books and pearl white lamps and     glass cases filled with glistening things.     Denver pushes her feet into the soft blue carpet as she sits     with Janey.                         JANEY               You know what? I've been here since I was               fourteen and I remember like yesterday               when Baby Suggs, holy, came here and sat               right where you are. Whiteman name of               Garner brought her. He and Mr. Bodwin               were good friends. That's how she got               that house you all live in. Other things               too.                         DENVER               Yes ma'am.                         JANEY               I never went to those woodland services               but she was always nice to me. Always.               Never be another like her.                         DENVER               I miss her.                         JANEY               Bet you do. Everybody miss her. That was               a good woman...Well, I don't know whether               the Bodwins think it or not but they sure               could use some extra help.                         DENVER                    (hopeful)               Ya think?                         JANEY               They getting older now and I can't take               care of 'em like I used to. More and more               they keep asking me to sleep over night.               Now, I don't want to quit these people               but they can't have all my days and               nights too. I got my own family needs me.               It'll take some convincing but maybe you               could come after supper - take care of               your mama during the day, then earn a               little something at night, how's that?                         DENVER               Fine. But what would I do at night?                         JANEY               Be here. In case.                         DENVER               In case of what?                         JANEY               In case the house burn down or bad               weather slops the roads so bad I can't               get here on time or late guests needed               cleaning up after. Anything.                    (laughs)               Don't ask me what whitefolks need at               night.     During Janey's lines, Denver looks about the house imagining     herself here at night...her eyes happen upon A STATUE OF A     BLACK BOY on his knees, his head thrown back farther than a     head could go, his mouth wide open like a cup and filled with     money for delivery tips. On the pedestal are the words' AT YO     SERVICE;                         DENVER               They good whitefolks?                         JANEY               Oh yeah. They good. Can't say they ain't               good. I wouldn't trade them for another               pair, tell you that. But you come back in               a few days - give me a chance to lead'em               to it. All right?     Denver nods, beaming gratefully - so gratefully that no words     come, only tears... Janey reaches for Denver's hand and holds     it warmly;                         JANEY               What is it, child? What's the trouble               with Sethe?     Denver looks at her and we know she needs to tell someone.     INT. ELLA'S HOUSE - DAY.     Ella has gathered all the women of the town for a meeting     including Lady Jones, Janey Wagon, M. Lucille Williams,     Grace;                         GRACE               But is it really the daughter, Janey? The               killed one?                         JANEY               That what she say.                         M. LUCILLE                         WILLIAMS               How they know it's her?                         ELLA               It's sitting there. Sleeps, eats and               raises hell. Whipping Sethe every day.                         GRACE               I'll be. A baby?                         JANEY               No. Grown now. The age it would have been               had it lived.                         GRACE               In the flesh. And whipping her.                         M. LUCILLE                         WILLIAMS               Guess she had it coming a little.                         ELLA               Nobody got that coming.                         M. LUCILLE                         WILLIAMS               But Ella- you can't just up and kill your               children.                         ELLA               No, and the children can't just up and               kill the mama. What's fair ain't               necessarily right...                    (the women listen)               Now you all know how I felt about the               whole thing. I know the rage Sethe felt               in that shed that day.  We all do. But               what I could not understand, and still               don't, was her reaction to it. Prideful.               Too damn complicated for a black woman in               her position before God. But whatever she               done, I don't like the idea of past               errors taking possession of the present.               I don't cotton to sin moving in on a               house, unleashed and sassy. Every day               life takes enough, takes all a woman has.               "Sufficient unto the day is evil thereof"               and nobody needs more. Nobody needs a               grown up evil sitting at a table with a               grudge. As long as that ghost showed               itself from a ghostly place, I respected               it. But once it take on flesh and come               into this world, well, the shoe's on the               other foot now. I don't mind a little               communication between worlds. But this               here's an invasion.     The women agree.                         GRACE               Should we pray?                         ELLA               Uh-huh. First. Then we got to get down to               business.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD.: KITCHEN - DAYS LATER.     Denver comes down the stairs, entering the kitchen.     Sethe, worn out, looking more beaten and ravaged than before,     stands at the sink with an ICE PICK chopping up ice. Denver     speaks to her, but she does not turn or acknowledge her.                         DENVER               Mama?....Mama I'm going out..                    (no response)               Mama, I got a job. Working over at the               Bodwins at night. Mr. Bodwin coming over               now to pick me up on his way back from               town. I'll be staying there nights and               coming back here for the daytime. We'll               have some money, mama..Mama?     Sethe continues her action as if hypnotized. Denver     approaches her from behind and whispers softly;                         DENVER               I'm going help you, mama. Don't you give               up yet.     Denver touches her gently, but Sethe acts as if she hears and     feels nothing. Denver exits.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - LATE THAT DAY.     Denver is sitting on the stump waiting for Mr. Bodwin when     she hears;     THIRTY WOMEN, gathered together, walking up Bluestone Rd.     towards 124, SINGING A HOLY SONG;     Denver is amazed by the sight as the women position     themselves right in front of 124 - armed with bibles,     crucifixes and whatever other symbols of heavenly power they     could find.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD; THE KEEPING ROOM - DAY.     Sethe is rubbing a naked Beloved's forehead with a cool cloth     filled with ice, when the two women hear the singing.     Beloved rises first and moves to the window to see.     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     The women continue singing.                                                            CUT TO:     EXT. FURTHER DOWN BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     MR. BODWIN, sitting on a wagon pulled by a horse, is riding     toward 124 when he hears the singing as well.     WE NOTICE THAT MR. BODWIN IS WEARING A HAT SIMILAR TO THE ONE     SCHOOLTEACHER WORE on that fateful day.                                                       CUT BACK TO:     EXT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     The women continue singing as:     Sethe and Beloved, her belly as big as a pregnant woman's,     exit the house.     The women are stunned by the sight and slightly confused by     the lack of fear between the women.     Sethe is holding Beloved's hand. Beloved is smiling brightly     at the beautiful singing.     Denver looks to her mother;     Tears run down Sethe's face but she is not crying. The sound     of the women's voices wash over her like a baptism. She looks     to all the women, faces she remembers, faces she has missed     although up until this moment was not conscious of missing.     Then, Sethe looks beyond the women and sees:     MR. BODWIN APPROACHING IN HIS WAGON. SHE SEES MR. BODWIN     WEARING A HAT THAT LOOKS LIKE SCHOOLTEACHERS.     Sethe's expression turns to fear, then rage. In her ravaged     mind, she thinks it is Schoolteacher coming back...                         SETHE               No...No, he's not coming into my yard. He               not taking my best thing...No..     She releases Beloved's hand and moves forward...                         SETHE               No...no...no..                         DENVER               Mama?     She passes Denver, feeling for the ICE PICK IN HER APRON.                         SETHE               No...NO..NO..NOOOOOOOOOOOO!     As Mr. Bodwin reaches the thirty women who separate him from     124. HIS EYES FOCUS IN WONDER ON THE NAKED BELOVED AS;     SETHE RUNS TOWARDS HIM AND THE WOMEN, HER HAND EXTENDED     HOLDING THE ICE PICK..                         DENVER               MAMA...NOOOOOOO!     DENVER RUNS AFTER HER. SETHE REACHES THE WOMEN AND LUNGES FOR     BODWIN BUT THE WOMEN SEIZE HER, CREATING A HILL OF BLACK     PEOPLE. SETHE RISING TO THE TOP, HER HAND EXTENDED. DENVER     REACHING HER FROM BEHIND, PULLING HER BACK AND PUNCHING HER     OUT COLD AS THE BODIES FALL AROUND THEM....     Beloved watches from the house - watches Sethe attack and     defend with the ice pick.  And something within her is     resolved. For a moment, we see a calm spirit instead of a     wild animal. And a tear upon her face..     Then, just as quickly, she sprints around the side of the     house and disappears from view.     The Women try to help Sethe as Denver cries for her mother.     Mr. Bodwin looks on stunned.     WIDE ANGLE - OF A NAKED BLACK WOMAN WITH A FULL BELLY RUNNING     THROUGH AN OPEN FIELD, REACHING THE WOODS THEN DISAPPEARING     INTO THE TREES......                                                          FADE OUT;     FADE IN:     EXT. RICHMOND ST. - DAY. WEEKS LATER.     Paul D. is on his way to work when he sees;     A poised, confident Denver walking in the opposite direction.     She spots him and smiles;                         DENVER               Good morning, Paul D.     Paul is clearly impressed by the sight of her.                         PAUL               Well, is it now? How you getting along?                         DENVER               Don't pay to complain.                         PAUL               You on your way home?                         DENVER               No. Got me an afternoon job at the shirt               factory. Figure between that and my night               work at the Bodwins I might be able to               put something away for me and mama.                         PAUL               They treating you right over at the               Bodwins?                         DENVER               More than all right. Miss Bodwin, she               teach me stuff..Book stuff. She says I               might go to Oberlin. She's experimenting               on me.     Paul smiles - wanting to warn her but deciding not to spoil     the possibilities that lay before her.                         PAUL               Your mother all right?                         DENVER               No. Not a bit all right. Hasn't gotten               out of bed since that day.                         PAUL               You think I should stop by? Think she'd               welcome it?                         DENVER               I don't know. I think I've lost my               mother, Paul D.     Silence.                         PAUL               That girl...You know, Beloved...                         DENVER               Yes?                         PAUL               She gone like they say?                         DENVER               Haven't seen her since that day. Ella               thinks she might be waiting in the woods               for another chance but..I don't think so.               Mama thinks she's gone for good. Says she               can feel it.                         PAUL               You think she sure 'nough your sister?                         DENVER               At times. At other times I think she               was...more. But who would know that               better than you. I mean, you sure 'nough               you her.     She levels her eyes at him and he knows what she means.                         PAUL               Well, if you want my opinion...                         DENVER               I don't. I have my own.                         PAUL               You grown.                         DENVER               Yes sir                         PAUL               Well, good luck with the job.                         DENVER               Thank you.     They pass each other until Denver turns back;                         DENVER               And Paul D...you don't have to stay 'way,               but be careful how you talk to my mama,               hear?                         PAUL               I will.     Paul watches her walk away. He watches as a YOUNG BLACK MAN     runs towards her shouting;                         YOUNG MAN               Hey, Miss Denver..Wait up!     He watches as the two young people, the future, walk     together.     INT. 124 BLUESTONE RD. - DAY.     Paul enters the house and hears HUMMING. He walks towards the     keeping room, whose door is ajar;     INT. KEEPING ROOM - DAY.     Sethe lies in bed with the remnants of Baby Sugg's quilt over     her, as she hums her melody and looks out of the window.                         PAUL               Sethe?                         SETHE                    (turns to him)               Paul D.     She looks like she's dying.                         PAUL               Aw, Sethe.     He approaches her.                         SETHE               You shaved.                         PAUL               Yeah. Look bad?                         SETHE               No, You looking good.                         PAUL               Devil's confusion. What's this I hear               about you not getting out of bed?                    (no response)               I saw Denver. She tell you?                         SETHE               She comes in the daytime.  She still with               me, my Denver.                         PAUL                    (nervous)               You got to get up from here, girl.                         SETHE               I'm tired, Paul. So tired. I have to rest               a while.                         PAUL                    (getting upset, shouts)               Don't you die on me!! This is Baby Suggs               quilt. Is that what you planning!?                         SETHE               Oh, I don't have no plans. No plans at               all.                         PAUL               Look - Denver be here in the day. I be               here in the night. I'm a take care of               you, you hear? Starting now.     Sethe looks at him - a long look - and sees in him that     thing, that blessedness, "that makes him the kind of man who     can walk into a house and make women cry, make women tell him     things they could only tell each other".                         PAUL               What, baby?                         SETHE                    (cries)               She left me. She's gone again.                         PAUL               Aw, girl. Don't cry...Me and you, we got               more yesterday than anybody. We need some               kind of tomorrow...                         SETHE               She was my best thing.     Paul leans down and takes her hand, entwining his fingers     into hers...                         PAUL               You your best thing, Sethe. You are.     Sethe smiles, with tears in her eyes, looking almost     surprised;                         SETHE               Me?...Me?     EXT. THE CLEARING - A DAY OUT OF TIME.     A beautiful, sunny day. The clearing is full. Everyone looks     bright and hopeful. Dressed in bright, summer clothes...     A robust Baby Suggs is on her rock giving her best Call, as     camera pans the crowd of faces eager to believe ....                         BABY SUGGS               ..The only grace we can have, is the               grace we can imagine. If you cannot see               it, you will not have it...Here, in this               place, we are flesh. Flesh that weeps,               laughs, dances on bare feet in the grass.               Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not               love your flesh. They despise it. They               flay it. O, my people, they do not love               your hands. Those they only use, tie,               bind, chop off and leave empty, Love your               hands. Love them. Raise them up and kiss               them. Touch others with them, put them               together, stroke them on your face 'cause               they don't love that either. You  got to               love it. You. Yonder out there, they               ain't in love with your moth. They will               see it broken and break it again. What               you say out of it, they will not heed.               What you scream from it they do not hear.               No, they don't love your mother. You got               to love it. And the feet that need to               rest and to dance. The backs that needs               support. The shoulders that need arms,               strong arms I'm telling you! O my people,               out yonder they don't love your neck               unnoosed and straight. So love your neck;               put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and               hold it up. Love all your inside parts,               love 'em..and the beating heart, love               that too. More than eyes or feet. More               than lungs that have yet to draw free               air, love your heart. For this is the               prize.     And with her twisted, broken old body BABY SUGGS BEGINS TO     DANCE AND TWIRL UP ON HER ROCK.     And the crowd gives her music, SINGING IN FOUR PART HARMONY.     CAMERA PANS THE CROWD OF BEAUTIFUL FACES singing together.     Among the crowd, we see FAMILIAR FACES...     WE SEE THE WOMEN WHO SANG AT 124...     WE STAMP PAID, ELLA, JOHN, and LADY JONES...     AND WE SEE SETHE, SURROUNDED BY ALL HER CHILDREN.                                                          FADE OUT.                             THE END
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+                              THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL                                      Written by                                      Ol Parker          Based on the book THESE FOOLISH THINGS by Deborah Moggach                                                                                                                    10/01/11                                                                           1 OVER BLACK 1          Muffled music; soothing, generic.                         AUTOMATED VOICE          Thank you for your patience.          Your call is important to us. We          will be with you shortly.          2 INT. MANSION FLAT, LONDON - DAY 2          A neat, well-appointed flat, tastefully decorated. Framed          against a large window which looks out over the city, an          elegant woman in her 70's: EVELYN GREENSLADE. She's on the          phone, on hold.          On the desk in front of her is a brand new laptop computer;          the screen reads 'Getting Started ...'                         AUTOMATED VOICE                         (ON PHONE)          Thank you for your patience.          Your call is important to us. We          will be with you shortly.          Evelyn's patience is strained nonetheless. She taps her          fingers on the desk.          AUTOMATED VOICE (cont'd)                         (ON PHONE)          Thank you for your patience.          Your call is -          A slightly-accented voice finally interrupts.                         FEMALE VOICE          Mrs Greenslade, thank you for                         WAITING -                         EVELYN                         (OVERLAPPING)          Yes, now if you could stay on the          phone for a moment and talk to          me, just talk to me. I'm not          even clear, I don't actually          understand what it is I'm trying          to order. Is wireless the same          as wi-fi? And what do either of          them have to do with broadband?                         FEMALE VOICE          Mrs Greenslade, since the account          is not in your name, before we          can make any changes we need to          speak to the account holder. Can          I please talk to the account          holder?                                                                                                                                       EVELYN          What?                         FEMALE VOICE          I'm asking if I can speak to the          account holder. Before we can          make any changes -                         EVELYN          You can't talk to him, no.                         (BEAT)          He's dead. He died. There's          only me.          3 INT. CORRIDOR/JUDGES CHAMBERS. INNS OF COURT - NIGHT 3          GILES, a judge in full wig and robes, moves quickly down a          corridor. He passes other judges, going the opposite way.          He arrives at the office of GRAHAM DASHWOOD, goes in.          GRAHAM is at his desk. His robes are on a hanger, his wig          is on a stand beside him.                         GILES          We're late.          4 INT. CORRIDOR. INNS OF COURT - NIGHT 4          Moments later. Graham and Giles walk down the corridor.                         GRAHAM          Bloody retirement parties. Hard          cheese, soft wine, and endless          speeches. Why do people do that?          No one ever said about any kind          of party: it was a wonderful          occasion, just a shame that the          speeches were so short.                         GILES          it'll be you one day.                         GRAHAM          One day very soon.                         GILES          You've been saying that for          years.          They walk into a large room, full of lawyers.          4A INT. HALL. INNS OF COURT - CONTINUOUS 4A          At one end of the hall, a very old JUDGE is giving a very          dull speech.                                                                                                               3.                         JUDGE          An occasion such as this leads          one to cast ones mind back to the          days when I first entered my          pupillage. I had the very good          fortune of serving as a junior to          Mr Justice Stancombe          Graham's not listening any more. He's looking around the          room. At the old, tired faces.                         JUDGE (CONT'D)          . the unwelcome news that I          would transfer Chambers, bringing          to mind the old adage a fronte          praecipitium, a tergo 1upi          Everything seems to slow down, the judge's mouth moving          more and more sluggishly, though his voice remains the          same. The effect is strange .. then the sound of laughter.                         GRAHAM          This is the day.          Everyone looks round at him. He's almost as surprised as          they are that he's spoken out loud.                         GILES          Graham?                         GRAHAM          This is the day.          He turns and walks out.          5 INT. HOSPITAL - DAY 5          Staff bustle around a busy A & E ward. MURIEL lies on a          bed in the corridor.          The Head Nurse, KAREN, rushes past.                         MURIEL          Listen, young lady. I want a cup          of tea, and I want it now.                         KAREN          The trolley will be along          shortly.                         MURIEL          How hard d'you have to fall down          before you get some proper          attention? Hours I've been lying          here, and not a single doctor has          come to see me.                                                                                                               3A.                         KAREN          Now that's not quite true, is it          Mrs Donnelly?                         (MORE)                                                                                                               4.                         KAREN (CONT'D)          A doctor did try and examine you,          and you sent him away.                         MURIEL          That one?          She looks up to the far end of the ward, where a doctor is          washing his hands. He's black.                         MURIEL          He can wash all he likes, that          colour's not coming out. I want          an English doctor.                         KAREN          An English doctor? Why didn't          you say so? I'll get one right          away.          She goes away, comes back moments later with a tall,          handsome doctor. The bad news for Muriel is                         KAREN (CONT'D)          This is Dr Ghujarapartidar. And          this is Mrs Donnelly.          5A EXT. NEW HOUSING ESTATE - DAY 5A          A crescent of identical bungalows, part of a brand new          retirement facility.          A mobility scooter carrying an elderly resident trundles          down the road.          ESTATE AGENT (O.S.)          .. with an unlimited range of          leisure opportunities just a          stone's throw away...          6 INT. NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT - DAY 6          A young estate agent, EVAN, is showing DOUGLAS and JEAN          around a very small, and very beige bungalow.                         EVAN          So as I say, what you're looking          at here is very competitively          priced, you can't get better          value for your grey pound.          Another little feature, not          necessary right now, but give it          a couple of years                         (POINTS)          . rails on the walls to help          you get around, and down here, a          panic button in case of a sudden          fall, brings the Warden running.                                                                                                               4A.                         JEAN          What if we fell somewhere else?                         EVAN          Sorry?                         JEAN          It's just that we might not          manage to plan our sudden fall in          the exact corner where the button          is.                         EVAN          Yeah. As I say -                                                                                                               5.                         JEAN          And would it be possible to get          the rail to go through the middle          of the room as well?                         DOUGLAS                         DARLING                         JEAN          To help us get across, not just          around?                         DOUGLAS                         (TO EVAN)          Could we have a moment, please?          Thanks. Thanks so much.          Evan goes.                         JEAN          Thirty years in the Civil Service          and this is all we can afford?                         DOUGLAS          Would it help if I apologized          again?                         JEAN          No. But try it anyway.          7 INT. BAR - NIGHT 7           JUDITH (40ish) is sitting opposite someone. We don't see           whom.                         JUDITH          And then after that I worked as a          systems analyst for a few years          but I just found it so dull, what          I really wanted was to do          something that was more creative,          that matched my ...                         (BEAT)          I'm sorry. On the form they          asked for our age bracket, and          the age we wanted to meet . and          in both cases I ticked 35-45.          Now we see the man she's talking to. It's NORMAN. He's          dapper, nice looking. And at least 70.                         NORMAN          That's right, yes. So did I.          They're at a speed dating evening. Numbered tables, etc.                         NORMAN (CONT'D)          Anyway, don't stop. Something                         MORE CREATIVE                                                                                                               6.                         JUDITH          How old are you?                         NORMAN          Early 40's.                         JUDITH          D'you mean you were born in the          early 40's?                         NORMAN          Judy, I know what you're asking -                         JUDITH          It's Judith.                         NORMAN          Judith. And trust me, I've still          got it.          The bell goes; the signal for the women to get up and move          along to the next table. Judith leaves without looking          back.                         NORMAN (CONT'D)          I just can't find anyone that          wants it.          Another hopeful candidate arrives opposite Norman. And          looks crestfallen at what's on offer.          8 INT/EXT. BEDROOM/STAIRS/HALL. FAMILY HOUSE - DAY 8          MADGE is in her bedroom. She's arguing with her son-in-law          CRAIG. Madge's suitcases are by the door.                         CRAIG          This is crazy. You're crazy.          You can't just up and leave like          this.                         MADGE          And yet if you watch me, that's          exactly what you'll see happen.          She picks up her suitcases, heads out of the room. Madge's          daughter JESSICA is on the landing.                         JESSICA          What's going on?                         CRAIG          Your mother's lost it.                         JESSICA          My mother never had it.                                                                                                               7.                         CRAIG          Talk to her. She doesn't listen          to me.                         MADGE          Nobody listens to you.          She heads down the stairs. Craig and Jessica follow.                         MADGE (CONT'D)                         (TO JESSICA)          It's one of the great mysteries          of life that someone so vibrant          and fascinating as my daughter          should choose to spend her life          with this fraction of a man.                         JESSICA          I still don't understand what's          going on.                         CRAIG          I just asked her to babysit. And          now she says she's leaving.          They're at the bottom of the stairs. Jessica's children,          LIAM and KATIE, are watching.                         JESSICA          But you love babysitting.                         MADGE          I loved it last night.                         LIAM          We had pizza and stayed up late.                         MADGE          And the night before.                         KATIE          We had Chinese and stayed up          late.                         LIAM          If you don't go, tonight we could          do a curry.                         MADGE          It's tempting, my darlings, but          you know why I must leave.                         LIAM          We know.                         KATIE          (to her parents)          Being here is stopping her          finding a husband.                                                                                                               8.                         CRAIG          Another one?          LIAM AND KATIE          Bye Granny.                         MADGE          Don't let the buggers get you          down.          Madge turns to go.                         CRAIG          How many husbands have you had,          anyway?          She turns back, smiles.                         MADGE          Including my own?          Then she's out of the front door, and heading for the taxi.                         JESSICA          Mother? Mother!          9 INT/EXT. TAXI - DAY 9           Moments later. Madge climbs into the back of the cab.                         TAXI DRIVER          Name the place, darling. Where          are you going?          Madge smiles.                         MADGE          I have absolutely no idea.          10 INT. MANSION FLAT - DAY 10          Evelyn, whom we saw earlier on the phone, is in the living          room. Her son CHRISTOPHER is there. And her lawyer          HAROLD.                         CHRISTOPHER          There's no other way There          just isn't. Harold told us this           three months ago.                         HAROLD          And I'm afraid matters have only          got worse.                                                                                                               8A.                         CHRISTOPHER          We can't wait any longer. We          need to put this flat on the          market, and at least make a start          at paying off Dad's debts.                                                                                                               9.          Christopher turns to Harold.                         CHRISTOPHER (CONT'D)          I've talked it through with Polly          and the boys, and of course we           all agreed. Ma will move in with           us.                          HAROLD          I think that's best, Evelyn.          It's what Hugh would've wanted.          They wait for confirmation from Evelyn. None comes.                          CHRISTOPHER          Good. Settled. End of          discussion.                         EVELYN          That's what your father used to          say.                          CHRISTOPHER                         MA -                          EVELYN          When there'd never really been           any discussion at all.                          CHRISTOPHER          I want to look after things for           you.                          EVELYN           Like he did for forty years                          CHRISTOPHER           Yes.                          EVELYN          And look how that turned out.           She turns to Harold                          EVELYN (CONT'D)          How can any of us know what Hugh          would've wanted? And would he          have seen fit to tell us anyway?                         (BEST)          Obviously the flat has to be          sold.          (Best, then to Christopher)          And you're very kind. And dear          Polly. But no, I won't be coming          to live with you.                                                                                                                9A.          11 INT. HOSPITAL - DAY 11          Muriel has now been transferred to a ward. She is          listening to DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR.                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          You need a new hip, Mrs Donnelly.          It's not a difficult operation.                         MURIEL          Easy for you to say, you're not          having it.                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          Regardless. You do need a new          hip.                         MURIEL          I'm not getting it from you.                                                                                                              2nd Green Revisions I0/01/11 10.                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          Not me personally, no.                         MURIEL          Not any of your lot.                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          I see.                         MURIEL          So when do I have the operation?                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          I'm afraid you'll be on a waiting          list for at least six months.                         MURIEL          At my age, I can't plan that far          ahead. I don't even buy green          bananas.                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          There is another way. Our          hospital trust is funding a new          pilot scheme, that will enable us          to out-source you to another          hospital, where they can perform          the procedure almost immediately,          and at a fraction of the cost.                         MURIEL          Is it local?                         DR GHUJARAPARTIDAR          That depends how you define          local.          12 INT. EVELYN'S FLAT/CHRISTOPHER'S OFFICE - NIGHT 12          Evelyn is on the phone to her son Christopher. They're          both sitting at computers. Evelyn's new-found dexterity is          impressive.          Around Evelyn's room are packing boxes, some already full.                         CHRISTOPHER                         (ON PHONE)          When did you get a computer?                         EVELYN          How far along is the progress          bar? The strip at the bottom          that tells you -                         CHRISTOPHER          I know what it is. What are you          showing me anyway?                                                                                                               11.          The webpage has come up. It's a picture of a beautiful old          building. And underneath is written 'THE BEST EXOTIC          MARIGOLD HOTEL'.          As Christopher gapes in horror, he hears a mellifluous          Indian voice.                         INDIAN VOICE          'Come and spend your autumn years          in an Indian palace with the          sophistication of an English          country manor. Steeped in the          tradition of the Raj, tucked away           on the outskirts of Jaipur .'          13 INT. INTERNET CAFE - DAY 13          The mellifluous tones continue. Madge mouths the words to          herself as she scans the same web-page.                         INDIAN VOICE          it exudes historical          ambience and is graced with           breathtaking surroundings .'          14 INT. SALON - DAY 14          Jean whom we earlier saw looking at the bungalow, is at          the hairdressers. Her stylist ABI listens to her reading a          computer printout for the same hotel. Which looks classy,          elegant, and welcoming.          Madge's voice bleeds into Jean's.                         JEAN                         (READING)          'Lofty terraces, open courtyards,          domes, arches and canopied          balconies transport one back in          time.'                         ABI          I wouldn't mind going there          myself.          15 EXT. GOLF COURSE - DAY 15          In the background, a train rumbles along the Piccadilly          Line towards Heathrow.          Douglas, Jean's husband, is on the green with his friend          SIMON. Douglas is lining up a tricky putt.                         SIMON          There won't be any golf courses.                                                                                                               12.                         DOUGLAS          Just as well. I can't afford the          green fees.                         SIMON          But a retirement home?          Douglas misses his putt.                         DOUGLAS          It's a luxury development, where          all the residents are in their          golden years.                         SIMON          Like the Costa Brava.                         DOUGLAS          Yes. But with more elephants.          Simon holes out.          16 INT. JUDGES CHAMBERS - DAY 16          Graham, the judge, is in his office. It's nearly empty;          his entire life is being packed away.          His friend Giles watches him put more things in boxes.                         GILES          How long have we known each          other? And you've never once          talked about India.                         GRAHAM          D'you want these books?                         GILES          You might need them again.          Graham smiles at him, calls out.                         GRAHAM          Mrs Megson!          His cleaner, MRS MEGSON, comes in.                         MRS MEGSON          Sir?          Graham takes a beautiful vase off the shelf, gives it to          her.                         GRAHAM          I want you to have this.                         MRS MEGSON          Are you sure?                                                                                                               13.                         GRAHAM          Absolutely. There's a slight          crack on the bottom. But I think          you might know something about          that already.          Mrs Megson goes.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          I used to live there. A long          time ago.          17 INT. BASEMENT BEDSIT. EARLS COURT - DAY 17          A bedsit. Slightly down at heel, and sparsely furnished.          Norman, whom we met speed dating, is talking to someone.          We don't see who.          Quietly, in the background, Radio 2 music from an old          battery radio.                         NORMAN          I have to go. I do. And I could          say I wish you'd come, but I've          never lied to you. We both know          I need more than you can offer.          We know that. Don't we?          We see who's sitting in front of him. An ancient          dachshund.                         NORMAN (CONT'D)          (to the dog)          Don't make that face at me.          Norman's Polish landlady, MRS JELLINEK, is at the door.                         MRS JELLINEK          (to her dog)          You. Upstairs.          The dog hops off the chair, and leaves. Norman watches him          go.          MRS JELLINEK (cont'd)          Any warm clothes you have use for          no more, I take them. And not          forget to leave keys when you go.          She leaves. Norman is left alone.                         NORMAN          I'll miss you too.                                                                                                                14.          18 EXT. HOUSING ESTATE - DAY 18          The district ambulance driver, JACKSON, is pushing Muriel          in a wheelchair across a housing estate.                         MURIEL          You know who'll be there, don't          you? Indians. Loads of them, A          sea of brown faces and black          hearts, all greasy haired and          reeking of spices. Never see one          on their own, do you? No,          becuase they hunt in packs. All          the better to rob me blind and -                         JACKSON          You know what? You can take it          from here.                         MURIEL          You're supposed to see me into my          flat. That's what they said.                         JACKSON          My wife is from Mumbai.          He heads off. Muriel shouts after him.                         MURIEL          No good moaning to me, mate. You          married her!          But he's gone.          Muriel wheels herself on over the bumpy ground.          19 EXT. PASSENGER DROP-OFF. STANSTED AIRPORT - EVENING 19          A reluctant Christopher is pushing a trolley carrying          Evelyn's cases to the terminal.                         CHRISTOPHER          You're sure your tickets are in          order?                         EVELYN          They should be. The hotel paid          for them. I'm sure they'd          rather have us there than not.          And its fantastically cheap for          the first three months.                         CHRISTOPHER          I wonder why.          They walk on in silence.                         CHRISTOPHER (CONT'D)          How will we know you're alright?                                                                                                               15.                         EVELYN          I'll call. They do have phones          there, you know. Or you can          just read my blog.                         CHRISTOPHER          Your what?                         EVELYN          On the interweb. You can log in          whenever you like, read my news.                         CHRISTOPHER          I just hope the first item will          be announcing your return. I          don't suppose they'll be paying          for the journey back...?          Evelyn stops. They've reached the terminal.                         EVELYN          Could you please, before I go,          say one thing that is supportive?          Because I've never done anything          like this before.                         CHRISTOPHER          Without Dad, you never did          anything at all. And i don't          think you'll be able to cope.                         EVELYN          Well. I suppose we'll find out,          won't we?          They head into the building.          20 INT. CHECK-IN AREA. AIRPORT - EVENING 20          Madge is at the First Class Check-In desk.                         MADGE          And the connecting flight to          Jaipur is first class too?          The check-in girl nods, hands Madge back her passport.                         MADGE (CONT'D)          I tell you, it's tough to get          upgraded nowadays. I had to          flirt so hard with the travel          agent, it was practically phone          sex.          21 INT. SECURITY AREA. AIRPORT - EVENING 21          The light is fading.                                                                                                               15A.          Norman appears to be relishing a detailed search from a          female Security Guard.                         NORMAN          Come on. Thorough as you like          Muriel is waiting to collect her bag from the belt.                         SECURITY GUARD          We'd like to take a look in this          bag, Madam, if you don't mind.          He lifts the bag onto a table. It's heavier than he          thought.                                                                                                               16.          SECURITY GUARD (cont'd)          What you got in here anyway?          He opens the bag, stares in astonishment.                         MURIEL          PG Tips. Brown sauce. Ten jars          of Marmite. Thirty one packets          of Chocolate Hobnobs. Pickled          onions. Pickled eggs. And          pickle.                         SECURITY GUARD          No liquids on the plane.                         MURIEL          What does that mean?                         SECURITY GUARD          It means you can't take the          pickled onions. Or the pickled          eggs.                         (BEAT)          The pickle's fine.          22 INT. BOARDING GATE. AIRPORT - EVENING/NIGHT 22          The passengers from Flight 1045 to Delhi are seated at the          gate, waiting to board.          Muriel is wheeled up by an attendant and parked at the end          of the only remaining row of empty chairs. Douglas and          Jean are already sitting there.          Jean smiles politely as Graham sits down a couple of seats          away.          Norman arrives, carrying his battery radio, sees an empty          place between Jean and Madge, who is sitting at the end.          He smiles knowingly at Madge as he sits.          Finally Evelyn takes the only available space, between          Graham and Douglas.          And there the seven passengers wait patiently, unaware of          their common fate.          The sound of a jet engine, quiet at first, finally engulfs          them.          23 EXT. RUNWAY. INDIA - DAWN 23          The plane cruises down through a stunning sunset, and lands          at Delhi Airport.                                                                                                                17.          24 INT. AIRPORT TERMINAL, DELHI - DAY 24          Evelyn, Douglas, Jean and Graham are descending on an          escalator. Madge is a few steps up.                         JEAN          Obviously one's read one's          Kipling, but we view this as an          opportunity to explore another          culture, as well as making new          friends. And a retired judge is          just the class of guest one was          hoping for, isn't it Douglas?                         DOUGLAS          I'm sorry?                         GRAHAM                         (TO EVELYN)          And is this your first time in          India?                         JEAN          You don't seem like an          experienced traveller.                         EVELYN          I'm not. Although one has read          one's guidebooks.          Jean blinks. Evelyn and Graham share a smile. Douglas          hides his. And Madge sees it all.          As they head towards the baggage carousel, they're met by          Muriel and Norman, emerging from the elevator. Norman is          pushing Muriel's wheelchair.                         NORMAN          Norman Cousins.                         MADGE          Madge Hardcastle. A pleasure.                         NORMAN          Play your cards right, it could          be.          Madge stares at him. A voice comes over the tannoy.                         AIRPORT ANNOUNCER          Ladies and gentlemen, we regret          to inform you that owing to bad          weather, Flight 105 to Jaipur has          been cancelled. The airline is          happy to arrange                         CUT TO:                                                                                                                18.          25 INT. AIRPORT. DELHI - DAY 25          Hours later. The airport is deserted, except for the          Marigold Hotel party, who sit slumped and exhausted on          another row of seats, with Muriel's wheelchair at the other          end.          After a moment, Graham says                         GRAHAM          Alright. Plan B.          26 INT. DELHI AIRPORT - DAY 26          Moments later. They're all moving briskly through the hi-          tech, ultra-modern, beautifully air-conditioned building.                         JEAN          Of course it's a good idea. Who          can you trust if not a High Court          Judge?                         DOUGLAS          And this way we see more of the          country.          Norman is pushing Muriel's wheelchair.                         NORMAN          (leaning down, to                         MURIEL)          If anyone asks, say you're my          mother. I don't want people to          think we're together.                         MURIEL          In your dirty dreams.                         JEAN          Douglas, these are not words that          often pass my lips, but you may          actually be right. The country          seems to be rather more civilised          than one originally thought.          27 EXT. DELHI BUS STATION - EVENING 27          Moments later. Our heroes are in the middle of an          extraordinary scene. Stifling heat, deafening noise; the          chaos, the bustle, the grime, the crowds, the life.          They're surrounded by taxi drivers, baggage          handlers,beggars etc. All clamouring for their attention.          Evelyn looks a little shocked. Jean is traumatized, a          handkerchief to her face.                                                                                                               19.          Graham, at the ticket booth, triumphantly holds up a          fistful of tickets.                         GRAHAM          (shouting over the din)          The bus will drop us in the          centre of town. We can take tuk-          tuks the rest of the way!          They follow him through the hordes. And see their bus.          It's absolutely rammed. People are practically hanging out          of the windows.                         MADGE          There's not enough room.                         GRAHAM          It's time to prove the first and          only rule of India: there's          always room.          He starts to fight his way to the door. Evelyn's at the          back. She stops, for a moment, looks around her.                         EVELYN          What larks, Pip.          Douglas is just ahead of her. He turns, smiles.                         DOUGLAS          Let's hope so.          28 EXT. HIGHWAY - EVENING 28          Muriel's wheelchair is strapped to the back of the bus,          which is screaming down the six-lane highway. A huge tower          of luggage is piled precariously on the roof.          The road appears to be complete chaos; cars, buses, even          cows overtaking each other.          The bus pulls into the outside lane to follow a truck which          is overtaking some slower vehicles. As the truck pulls back          into the inside lane, it reveals a huge truck barrelling          towards them on the wrong carriageway.          Norman, sitting at the front, screams his last scream...                         NORMAN          NOOOOOOO... . U          At the last minute, the bus pulls back into the inside          lane. The Indians on the bus take absolutely no notice.          29 INT. BUS - EVENING 29          Norman is grinning from ear to ear.                                                                                                               20.                         NORMAN          I'm loving this!          Evelyn is sitting next to Madge.                         EVELYN          A few months ago I was organising          the church flowers.                         MADGE          Are you struggling with the          feeling you're not in control of          your circumstances?                         EVELYN          A little.                         MADGE          You know what the shortest prayer          in the world is?                         EVELYN          No.                         MADGE          Fuck it.          Evelyn laughs.                         MADGE (CONT'D)          You're not doing the church          flowers any more. May as well          enjoy the ride.          Douglas is watching a nice Indian family. They're having a          picnic. The father notices Douglas looking, offers him          some food.          Douglas makes the namaste gesture, takes some happily.                         JEAN          Are you insane? "Avoid all food          not from a reputable vendor, it          will have been washed with impure          water."          Douglas keeps eating, with great enjoyment.                         DOUGLAS          It's just a sandwich.                         JEAN          Marvellous. Then I'll have the          ham, cheese, and streptococcus,          please. Or perhaps the bacteria,          lettuce and tomato.          Douglas turns to Muriel.                                                                                                               21.                         DOUGLAS          Would you like some of this? I          believe it's aloo ka paratha.                         MURIEL          If I can't pronounce it, I'm not          eating it.          The cacophony of horns continues. Jean screams, as another          collision looms.          30 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - DUSK 30          The last of the light. The bus moves on through a beautiful          landscape.          31 INT. BUS - NIGHT 31          Everyone is asleep, or trying to sleep.          Except Muriel. She reaches into her bag, and carefully          removes a biscuit. She surreptitiously lifts it to her          mouth, and starts to chew.          Madge has fallen asleep on Evelyn's shoulder. But Evelyn          is still awake, as is Graham.                         EVELYN          How long since you were here?                         GRAHAM          Forty years.                         EVELYN          As long as I was married.                         (BEAT)          He died recently. My husband.                         GRAHAM          I'm sorry.                         EVELYN          D'you think we're going to be          alright?                         GRAHAM          God, don't ask me. I'm more          scared than you are.          They both smile, sit in silence for a bit.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          Yes. I think it's going to be          extraordinary.                                                                                                                22.          32 EXT. BUS - DAWN 32          The sun rises. A beautiful, pearly dawn.          The bus drives through the great gates of Jaipur. Below,          the city shimmers in the heat. It's a magnificent sight.          EVELYN (O.S.)          What exactly is a tuk-tuk?          33 EXT. JAIPUR STREET - DAWN 33          Our heroes are squashed into a pair of them, facing          forwards and backwards, attempting not to swallow too much          dust as they wheel crazily through the teeming morning          streets of the city. They stare in amazement at the world          racing past them.          A scooter overtakes. A young man is driving, his          girlfriend riding side-saddle on the back. Her sari          billows out behind her. Douglas and Evelyn both watch her,          struck by this image of beauty, youth and vitality.          34 EXT. STREET/GARDEN PATH. MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 34          The tuk-tuks have pulled up, and our travellers emerge,          exhausted and dirty, staring through some garden gates at          the Marigold Hotel. Once a beautiful building, once          possibly even luxurious, it is clearly in the process of          being given at least half the face-lift it badly needs.          Parts of the building are freshly painted, some of the          ornate balconies are crumbling, and one wall is clad with          crazily skewed bamboo scaffolding. A huge old tree towers          over an untended garden, its branches poking into the          windows of the building.          34A EXT. ROOFTOP. MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 34A          A young man leans out from an upper balcony to see the          arrival below: SONNY KAPOOR (early 20's).          He deposits a paint pot and brush on a parapet, and races          off across the rooftop.          34B EXT. GARDEN PATH/COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 34B          Dazed and horrified, the travellers wander up the pathway.          A cow standing in front of them is pushed into the garden          by a couple of young houseboys who then run to the tuk-tuks          to collect their luggage.                                                                                                                23.          34C EXT. STAIRWAY/COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 34C          Sonny clatters down the steep steps, and comes tearing out          onto a verandah, as the travellers arrive in the courtyard          below. He spreads his arms wide.                         SONNY          Welcome to India!!!          They stare up at him.          35 EXT/INT. COURTYARD/HALLWAY.BEDROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 35          The courtyard is not without charm, although somewhat          delapidated. A fountain at the centre does not look as if          it has seen water in years, and faded awnings are strung up          haphazardly.          Sonny is leading Madge into the darkness of the building,          towards her room.                         SONNY          This is a building of the utmost          character, which means that          perhaps not everything will          function in the way you expect it          to. But as the manager and chief          executive supervising officer of          the Marigold Hotel, I can tell          you with great pride that the          building has stood for centuries,          and will stand for many more, in          100% shipshape condition. Please          follow me, carefully avoiding          that naughty stone there          round this corner, leading us          most successfully all the way to          . your bedroom!          The room is very small, comfortable, and tastefully          decorated. But there's no door.                         MADGE          Where?                         SONNY          Here. In here.                         MADGE          My dear man. Rooms have doors.          What you're showing me here is an          alcove.                         SONNY          The door is coming soon, most          definitely.                         MADGE          How soon?                                                                                                               24.                         SONNY          Let us not concern ourselves with          details, Mrs Hardcastle. Rather          than speaking of doors, we should          instead take pleasure in the          freedom to roam.                         MADGE          Does your room have a door?                         SONNY          Oh yes.                         MADGE          Then that's where I'll be          staying.          36 EXT. UPPER COURTYARD, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 36          Douglas and Jean arrive at their room. Douglas goes in          through the arched doorway, promptly comes back out again.                         DOUGLAS          Bird in the room! Bird in the          room!          Jean pushes him aside, goes on in. Several pigeons are          flying around in some panic.          37 EXT/INT. VERANDAH/BEDROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 37          Evelyn arrives at her room, goes on in.          The room is light and airy. And rather nice. But all the          furniture is covered in sheets.          As Evelyn stands there, Sonny comes rushing in, yanks all          the sheets off, and runs out again.          38 EXT/INT. BEDROOMS/TERRACE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 38          Muriel wheels herself towards her room. Standing inside is          a male nurse, AJIT.          Muriel swivels her chair around. Graham is just going into          his room.                         MURIEL          There's an Indian in there!          Graham smiles, goes on into his room. Which is dusty, but          comfortable and pleasant.          He looks around with satisfaction.                                                                                                                25.          39 EXT. STAIRWAY, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 39           Norman is laboriously climbing the stairs to his room. He          stops, catches his breath.          40 EXT. TERRACE, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 40          Ajit is attempting to explain himself to Muriel.                         MURIEL          My what?                         AJIT          Your physiotherapist. To help          with your recovery after the          operation.                         MURIEL          You're not touching me.                         AJIT          Traditionally that is how          physiotherapy is practised.          41 EXT. ROOF, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 41          Norman comes out onto the roof of the hotel. His room is          right in front of him, a kind of penthouse cabin. A bed,          but not much else. The trees poke in through the open          window.          He walks through the room, hangs his battery radio on a          hook and leans out of the balcony, surveying the view.                         NORMAN          This'll do.          42 INT. RECEPTION - DAY 42          Jean is confronting Sonny.                         JEAN          I want to stay at the other          hotel, the one in the brochure.                         SONNY          Mrs Ainslie, prepare to be          amazed. This is that very          building!                         JEAN          You've Photoshopped it!                         SONNY          I have offered a vision of the          future.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               26.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Of course I had hoped that by now          it would be the present. But in          India we have a saying:          everything will be alright in the          end. So if it is not alright,          then it is not yet the end.                         JEAN          What will start to make this          alright is for you to give us a          refund.                         SONNY          Of course if that is what you          desire, you must have it.          Absolutely no problem, I will          refund you completely.                         JEAN          You will? Straight away?                         SONNY          Without question, Mrs Ainslie, I          most definitely will. Straight          away in three months.          43 INT. GRAHAM'S ROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 43          Graham is taking some things out of his bag: an old map of          Jaipur, sepia-tinted photographs of a British family during          the Raj, official documents yellowing with age.          He picks up a photograph, looks at it.          From outside, we can hear Ajit, the physiotherapist          AJIT (O.S.)          a stay of five days and it is          done under general anaesthesia.          A hip replacement usually takes          only two hours          44 EXT. TERRACE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 44          Ajit's explanation continues. Muriel is trying not to          panic.                         AJIT          Your surgeon will remove the top          end of the thigh bone, and insert          an artificial bone instead. A          most routine procedure.                         MURIEL          Have you got a marker pen on you?                         AJIT          Why?                                                                                                               27.                         MURIEL          I want to mark it. So you don't          take the wrong hip.          45 EXT. UPPER VERANDAH. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 45          Douglas is on his way down the stairs.          Evelyn comes out of her bedroom.                         EVELYN          Oh, hello.                         DOUGLAS          Is everything alright?                         EVELYN          I was just going to find the          manager.                         DOUGLAS          I'm afraid he's dealing with my          wife. Or vice versa.                         EVELYN          I promised I'd call my son, to          tell him I'd arrived, and -                         DOUGLAS          And the phone in your room          doesn't work. May I?          45A INT. EVELYN'S ROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 45A           Douglas picks up the very old-style phone. Evelyn is          watching.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          Now, did you try jiggling it a          bit?                         EVELYN          Yes, did that.                         DOUGLAS          Did you kind of bang it lightly          on the desk a few times?                         EVELYN          That too.                         DOUGLAS          Hmm.          He twists off the mouthpiece of the receiver, lifts the          receiver carefully. And blows on it.                                                                                                               28.                         EVELYN          How did you come to be here? In          India.                         DOUGLAS          I invested our - well, my -          retirement money in our          daughter's internet company. She          assured me that as soon as the          start-up actually started up, and          the conversion from virtual to          actual proved sufficiently          viable, then she would be able to          pay it all back.                         EVELYN          I'm not sure I understand what          most of those words mean.                         DOUGLAS          It turns out neither did she.          Douglas has put the mouthpiece back on, holds the receiver          to his ear.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          There you are. Good as new.                         EVELYN          Really?                         DOUGLAS          No, of course not. I've got no          idea what I'm doing.          Evelyn bursts out laughing.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          Now, would you like me to not fix          that chair? Because I can do          that too.          45B EXT. STAIRWAY. MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 45B          The houseboys are struggling with the unequal task of          pulling Muriel's wheelchair, with Muriel in it, up the          narrow steps.          SONNY (O.S.)          In honour of your arrival, a          special welcome British roast for          you all!          46 EXT. UPPER COURTYARD - NIGHT 46          A group of mismatched table and chairs, that constitute the          dining area of the hotel.                                                                                                               29.          Sonny is serving up a meal. His guests, wearing garlands          of marigolds, listen politely.                         SONNY          .Cooked lovingly by myself and          my most loyalist factotum and          helper, Young Wasim ...          He points to YOUNG WASIM. Who is about 80, and is sitting          in the corner, fast asleep.                         MADGE          Roast what?                         SONNY          A wonderful taste of Blighty.                         MADGE          Roast what?                         SONNY          Roast goat curry.                         DOUGLAS          Yes please.                         JEAN          So the upshot is that he's spent          all our money getting us here,          and we can't leave till he's made          some more.          Muriel has arrived at her table.                         SONNY          Gentle friends, you have found          your way to this place,          bequeathed to me by my beloved          father, that I have raised from          the ruins of his broken dreams,          and renamed The Best Exotic          Marigold Hotel For The Elderly          And Beautiful. Yes, I use the          words most deliberately...          Norman is not looking very well at all. Sonny doesn't          notice, keeps on going.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          .You have all heard the chimes          at midnight, and long in tooth          have youbecome. Who knowshow          many daysyou have left?But we          are mosthonoured that youhave          chosen tospend that time with          us.          Norman's head suddenly tips forward, and he falls from his          chair onto the floor.                                                                                                               30.          General panic. Everybody crowds round, but no one knows          what to do.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Let me through, please. My          brother is a doctor.          He kneels next to Norman, and checks his watch as he feels          for a pulse.          Everybody waits. And then                         SONNY (CONT'D)          This man is dead.          An appalled silence.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Please, we must cover his face.          We should preserve his dignity at          this terrible moment.          Madge looks around. All there is is a napkin. She passes          it Sonny, who lays it over the face of Norman.          Who promptly coughs.                         DOUGLAS          He just coughed. I heard him          cough!                         EVELYN          He moved! He's alive!                         MADGE          He's fainted, that's all.          Sonny shakes his watch next to his ear. It's stopped.          Norman sits up.                         NORMAN          What's going on? Did I nod off?          Everyone crowds round Norman, helps lift him back up.          Except Muriel. She just stares at them all.                         MURIEL          Hell. I'm in hell.          47 EXT. STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 47          The sun rises. A washer-man bicycles up to the hotel, a          load of clean sheets balanced on his handlebars.          Shopkeepers on the street are beginning to set out their          wares.                                                                                                               31.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Day Nine. Old habits die easier          than we think, and new ones form.          48 INT. EVELYN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 48          Evelyn is typing - hunt and peck - at her computer. Beside          her, the classified pages of the local newspaper.          EVELYN (V.0.)          No longer do I reach out in the          morning for Radio 4. My news          comes instead from the Jaipur                         HERALD          49 EXT. STREET, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 49          A sign reads: 'THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL FOR THE          ELDERLY AND BEAUTIFUL - OPEN FOR BUSINESS.'          Sonny affixes a sticker: 'NOW WITH GUESTS!'          EVELYN (V.0.)          . Soon I might even grow          accustomed to the storm of car          horns and vendors.          50 EXT. STREET, CENTRAL JAIPUR - DAY 50          The main road in Jaipur is chaotically busy. Crowds,          bikes, cows, dust, noise, and laughter.          Sonny's battered old car has broken down. Madge is in the          front seat, Douglas and Jean in the back.          Sonny is aiming a couple of kicks at the engine.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Can there be anywhere else in the          world that is such an assault on          the senses?          51 EXT/INT. PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE, JAIPUR - DAY 51          An office out of a Kafka novel; cloth bags containing files          are piled all around the room, floor to ceiling.          Graham is seated at a desk, in front of a sober official.          He is filling in a form.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Those who know the country of old          just go about their business.          But nothing can prepare the          uninitiated for this riot of          noise and colour ...                                                                                                                32.          51A EXT. JANTAR MANTAR OBSERVATORY. JAIPUR - DAY 51A          Norman seems less interested in the astonishing geometric          devices of the ancient observatory than in the female          tourists who have come to see them...          52 EXT. STREET, CENTRAL JAIPUR - DAY 52          The chaos and din of the street is even more mind-boggling.          Madge now has the bonnet up, and is studying the engine.          Douglas stands in the street, staring in wonderment around          him.          Inside the car, Jean looks utterly traumatized, shrinking          lower in her seat as a horde of kids swarm at the windows,          shouting, wheedling, gesticulating. Sonny does his best to          wave them away.          EVELYN (V.0.)          ... for the heat, the motion, the          perpetual teeming crowds. Sonny          is conducting his own personal          assault on our senses          53 INT. UPPER COURTYARD, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 53          The guests look on with trepidation, as another meal is          laid before them.          EVELYN (V.0.)          with the flow of exotic          dishes he demands daily from the          kitchen. Mooli Moong Dal.          Baghara Baingan. Banjari Gosht.          Paneer Methi Chaman ...          As the list unfolds, the guests, one by one, enter their          bathrooms; a litany of doors closing          Until Norman.          EVELYN (V.0.) (cont'd)          Mutton Vindaloo ...          Norman lies on his bed, reading the Kama Sutra.          He spins the book round, in order to study an illustration          more intently.          54 INT. HOSPITAL, JAIPUR - DAY 54          The hospital puts the NHS to shame. It's hi-tech, bright,          and spanking clean.                                                                                                               33.          Sonny pushes Muriel through the doors of the lobby. The          reception area is a forest of dark skin. Muriel is rigid          with fear.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Initially you're overwhelmed.          But gradually you realise: it's          like a wave. Resist, and you'll          be knocked over ...          Sonny is in discussion with some doctors.          Then he turns to see that Muriel has vanished. Through the          window Muriel can be seen frantically wheeling herself away          down the path...          EVELYN (V.0.) (cont'd)          Dive into it, and you'll swim out          the other side.          55 EXT/INT. STREET/ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 55          Madge is exchanging some coins with a street trader in          return for a mobile phone.          In her room, Madge scans a phone directory, and dials a          number.          EVELYN (V.0.)          This is a new and different          world.          56 INT. EVELYN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 56          Evelyn is finishing her blog. She picks up the paper,          checks something.          EVELYN (V.0.)          The challenge is to cope with it.          57 EXT. GARDEN, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 57          Evelyn is coming down the path to the gate.          EVELYN (V.0.)          And not just cope ... but thrive.          58 EXT. STREET, JAIPUR - DAY 58          Evelyn is walking down a rough street on the outskirts of          the city. Kids are everywhere, laughing, shouting, doing          tricks, begging.          Evelyn approaches them, holding up a piece of paper.                                                                                                               34.                         EVELYN          Please, can anyone direct me to          this address?          Evelyn's piece of paper gets passed around: none of the          kids can read. An older boy finally points. Suddenly          there's lots of pointing.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          Thank you.          She goes to move, but the kids are still all around her.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          I'm sorry, I don't . I don't          really have much ...          She gives them the contents of her pockets.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          Alright? Alright now? Goodbye.          She starts to walk, is surprised that the entire posse of          kids walks with her. In fact, the group seems to be          growing exponentially. She looks like the Pied Piper.          59 INT. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 59          Douglas is getting ready to go out. Jean clearly isn't.                         DOUGLAS          Graham was talking about this          marvellous temple. I thought you          might want to come with me.                         JEAN          I'm your wife. Have we met?                         DOUGLAS          You'd really rather stay here all          day?                         JEAN          Given the alternative, yes.                         DOUGLAS          When I walk out in the morning,          the street kids all smile at me.                         JEAN          Because you give them money.                         DOUGLAS          One does this trick where he          holds his hands out in front of          himself, and then swings through          his own arms. Got to be worth a          rupee or two.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               34A.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)                         (BEAT)          I'll go on my own then.                                                                                                                35.          60 EXT. CHAND POLE STREET. JAIPUR - DAY 60          The road is absolutely rammed; with cars, bikes and          rickshaws. All honking horns, all seemingly headed in          different directions.          Evelyn has somehow made it to the central reservation. She          takes a deep breath, and plunges into the maze of traffic,          heading for the other side.          61 EXT. RICKSHAW. SUBURBAN ROAD, JAIPUR - DAY 61          Graham is in a rickshaw. The rickshaw driver, PRAVESH, is          driving it through a neighborhood in transition. Skeletal          structures of a new India rise above the houses.          61A EXT. BUILDING SITE/STREET. JAIPUR - DAY 61A          Some kids playing cricket.          The rickshaw weaves its way through them and comes to a          halt.          Graham gets out, and stands in the street, dwarfed by a          huge modern building, some months away from completion.                         GRAHAM          This can't be right, surely?                         PRAVESH          I am thinking so, saab.                         GRAHAM          But there were houses all along          here . these were homes.                         PRAVESH          I can take you some other          place..?                         GRAHAM          No. That'll do for now. Thank          you.          He hands over some money, and Pravesh pedals away.          Graham turns to look at the boys playing cricket. One of          them, SANJAY, is batting.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          Excuse me. There used to be                         HOUSES HERE                         SANJAY          All knocked down.                         GRAHAM          And the people? The families?                                                                                                               36.                         SANJAY          They move.          Graham nods, turns to look at the giant structure that has          taken over, then turns back.                         GRAHAM          Don't grip so tightly with your          right hand.          Sanjay looks puzzled.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          On the bat. The right is just a          guide. Keep your left elbow          high, play down the line of your          arm, and then you'll hit through                         THE BALL          Sanjay looks at him, squinting in the sun.          62 INT. CORRIDOR. HOSPITAL - DAY 62          Ajit is wheeling Muriel through the hospital.                         MURIEL          When can I go back to England?                         AJIT          As soon as you can walk onto the          plane. How does the hip feel?                         MURIEL          They must have got lucky.                         AJIT          It's strange. I think the more          operations they perform, the          luckier they get.           He glances down at Muriel, who betrays no signof getting           Ajit's joke.          63 EXT. MARKET. BACK STREETS - DAY 63          Evelyn is still searching for the right address. She's          turned off the main road, and is heading down a narrow side          streets. The city has become denser, and the walls seem to          have closed in.          She pushes her way through the crowded market.                                                                                                                37.          63A EXT. PASSAGE/COURTYARD - DAY 63A          Uncertain, Evelyn turns down a narrow alley, and suddenly          finds herself in an enclosed courtyard strewn with          makeshift washing lines. The atmosphere is faintly          threatening.          As she tries to find her way out, she becomes aware that          she is being watched: the walls are full of doorways, and          people have come out to stare at her. She has stumbled          into their home.          Evelyn tries to suppress her panic, turning from one face          to another.                         EVELYN          I'm so sorry. I didn't realise -          She backs into a kind of flatbed trolley, piled high with          cooking utensils, which clatter noisily to the ground. She          goes to pick them up.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry...          A man is staring at her: SURESH.                         SURESH          Yes.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get          to this address.                         SURESH          Yes.                         EVELYN          Do you understand me? Can you          help me find this place?                         SURESH          Yes.                         EVELYN          Is that yes you understand, or          yes you can help me?                         SURESH          Yes.          Some of the children who have gathered laugh at this, and          the tension is broken slightly.                         EVELYN          Let's go with both, shall we?                                                                                                                38.          63B EXT. STREET. JAIPUR - DAY 63B          Suresh's flatbed trike is rolling down the street, piled          impossibly high with bundles of brightly-coloured textiles.          On the back, enthroned in the fabric, is Evelyn.          64 EXT. WASTELAND - DAY 64          Graham is playing cricket with the teenagers. He's good,          too. He whacks a ball off into the distance.                         GRAHAM                         (TRIUMPHANT)          YES!          A boy runs off to fetch the ball. Graham half-runs, half-          walks to the other end, then turns for a second run,          breathing heavily. Then walks back to the crease, gets          ready for the next delivery.          It's hot and he's tired, but he hasn't felt this good for          years.                         SANJAY          Give me the ball. I can take          him.          He turns cheerily to Graham.                         SANJAY (CONT'D)          Down is where you're going,          Uncle.                         GRAHAM          Come on. Do your worst.          They're both enjoying the banter, as Sanjay heads back to          the beginning of his run-up, then turns and sprints in to          bowl.          As Graham watches Sanjay running towards him, Sanjay seems          to slow, his movements becoming sluggish, never seeming to          reach the crease. He looks at the faces of the other boys,          frozen, waiting. The ball seems to take forever to leave          Sanjay's hand.          Graham steps back, completely fails to play a stroke, and          is bowled.                         SANJAY          That's what I'm talking about! I          felt the need, the need for -          Graham still hasn't moved.                         SANJAY (CONT'D)          Are you alright, Uncle?          Graham finds his voice at last.                                                                                                               39.                         GRAHAM          Yes. Yes, I'm fine.          65 EXT. STREET/CALL CENTRE BUILDING - DAY 65          Suresh brakes, stops outside a glass-clad high-rise          building.                         SURESH          Yes.          Suresh helps Evelyn down off the back.                         EVELYN          Thank you.                         SURESH          Yes.                         EVELYN          This is it?                         SURESH          Yes.                         EVELYN          Then thank you. You're very          kind.                         SURESH          Yes.          He rides off. Evelyn looks nervously up at the building.          66 INT. OPERATIONS ROOM. CALL CENTRE - DAY 66          A brightly-lit open plan office on a high floor of the          building. The city sprawls magnificently below.          Partitions divide off the cubicles. Within them sit rows          of workers, all early 20's, all with headsets clamped to          their ears. As chaotic as the streets of Jaipur are, this          place is immaculate, controlled and efficient.          We hear snatches of what they're saying.                         TELEMARKETERS          Thank you for talking to us today          We do appreciate your call          while I have you on the          phone, can I talk to you about          our special offers . your call          is important to us . now is          there anything else I can help          you with ... shouldn't take more          than five minutes . your custom          is valuable to us                         (MORE)                                                                                                               39A.                         TELEMARRETERS (CONT'D)          I'm afraid I'll have to refer          that to my supervisor just a          routine security check before we          start . Thank you for talking          to us today          Through a glass partition, Evelyn can be seen sitting at a          desk, talking to someone.                                                                                                                40.          67 INT. SUPERVISOR'S OFFICE. CALL CENTRE - DAY 67          JAY (late 20's) is talking to Evelyn.                         JAY          You're sure I can't offer you          something? We have English          Breakfast Tea. Building Tea, as          you call it.                         EVELYN          Builder's tea. It's called          builder's tea. And no, I'm fine.          Thank you.                         JAY          Tell me then. How can I help          you?          Beat.                         EVELYN          I don't think you can. I'm          sorry, I shouldn't have come.          She stands.                         JAY                         WAIT -                         EVELYN          I saw your advertisement in the          local paper, and it specifically          mentioned the ability to talk to          older people. But this is not          what I imagined ...                         JAY          You came for a job?                         EVELYN          I've wasted your time.                         JAY          Mrs Greenslade. Everyone working          here is a graduate of a good          university. This is a place for          ambitious people. Young people.                         EVELYN          I see that. Good day.                         JAY          Please. One second.          Evelyn stops.                         JAY (CONT'D)          It is really builder's tea?                                                                                                               41.                         EVELYN          Yes. We dunk biscuits into it.                         JAY          You dunk?                         EVELYN          It means lowering a biscuit into          your tea, letting it soak in          there, then trying to calculate          the exact moment just before it          dissolves to whip it up to the          mouth, and enjoy the blissful          union of biscuit and tea          combined.                         (BEAT)          It's more relaxing than it          sounds.                         JAY          Perhaps you can help us after          all.          68 INT. OPERATIONS ROOM. CALL CENTRE - DAY 68          A few minutes later. From the open-plan office Evelyn can          be seen talking to Jay.          One person watching is SUNAINA (20's). She's talking on          the phone.                         SUNAINA          We do appreciate your custom,          which is very important to us.          And can I draw your attention to          our special -          But the person at the other end has hung up. Sunaina          starts to dial another number.          Then the clock hits 11, and a buzzer sounds. Sunaina gets          up, heads for the door.          69 EXT. FORECOURT. CALL CENTRE - DAY 69          Dozens of motorcycles are parked in front of the building.          People are hanging around chatting and smoking.          Sonny arrives on his motorcycle, a bag of marigolds          strapped to the pillion seat.          Sunaina, who is with some friends, spots him, comes over.          She smiles as he pulls her to him.                         SUNAINA          I get two breaks in eight hours.          Explain to me why I would want to          waste one of them with you -                                                                                                                42.          He kisses her. She kisses him back.                         SONNY          Leave this place. Come and work          for me.                         SUNAINA          You can't afford me.                         SONNY          I cannot afford anything.                         SUNAINA          Still tempting. I miss you. Am          I coming round tonight?                         SONNY          Let's meet somewhere else. I          will rent a hotel room.                         SUNAINA          Sonny, you own a hotel. It has          many rooms.                         SONNY          Some of them now occupied. With          actual real guests.                         SUNAINA          Paying guests?                         SONNY          Why must you nitpick? It is not          an attractive quality.                         SUNAINA          It isn't?          They kiss again, start to make out a bit. Then           JAY (O.S.)          Sunaina!          They turn to see Jay who has come out of the Call Centre.                         JAY (CONT'D)          (calling, to Sonny)          You can let go of my sister now.          Break's over.                         SONNY          Hello Jay.                         JAY          Sonny boy.                         SONNY          Don't call me that.          Jay smiles, holds the door open for Sunaina.                                                                                                               43.                         JAY          Let's go.          70 EXT. GARDEN - EVENING 70          Jean is sitting in a chair, reading. Graham comes up the          path.                         JEAN          Good evening, Your Honour.                         GRAHAM          Mrs Ainslie. I hope you had a          good day. What did you get up          to?                         JEAN          Well, I started in my bedroom,          where I had a lovely couple of          hours giving all the cockroaches          names. Then after a lunch that          will long have a place in my          heartburn, I came out here          and stared blindly at a book          waiting for someone - anyone to          rescue me. And how glad I am it          was you.                         GRAHAM          Why would you not go out?          There's so much to see.          Jean had hoped for some appreciation of her wit, and is          floored by his question. She can hardly understand, let          alone tell him, the depths of her discomfort.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          Open your eyes, Mrs Ainslie. All          life is here, I tell you.          Jean stares at him. He goes on through the archway into          the hotel. Then stops.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          I could talk to the chef, if you          like. Perhaps get you some          grilled chicken, plain rice.                         JEAN          I would appreciate that very          much.          Graham goes on in. Jean just sits there. Wishing he'd          come back out again.                                                                                                                44.          71 EXT. TERRACE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 71          Muriel is back. She's in her chair, on the terrace outside          her room.          A young hotel worker, ANOKHI, brings out a tray of food to          her.          Muriel watches her, but Anokhi is deferential, won't meet          Muriel's eyes. She puts the tray down and leaves.          Muriel just sits there, glaring balefully into the night,          the untouched tray of food by her side.          72 EXT. UPPER COURTYARD - NIGHT 72          Evelyn comes into the dining area. Graham is there, at a          table in the corner.                         GRAHAM          Good evening.                         EVELYN          Good evening.          Evelyn sits at her table.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          I trust you had a good day?                         GRAHAM          I'd rather hear about yours.                         EVELYN          I got a job. My first. Ever.          I'm going to be a sort of          cultural advisor.                         GRAHAM          A role I'm sure you'll perform          with great distinction.          He's about to inquire further, when Evelyn sees Douglas and          Jean emerge from their room.                         EVELYN          Perhaps if you wouldn't mind          keeping that news to yourself.                         GRAHAM          I'm flattered you shared it with          me.          He turns to greet the new arrivals.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          Good evening, the Ainslies.                                                                                                               45.                         EVELYN          Have you had a good day?                         DOUGLAS          Spectacular.                         (TO GRAHAM)          I went to the temple you told me          about. A place of meditation and          peace, quite stunning.                         JEAN          So spiritual, I bet you hardly          noticed the smell of elephant          dung.                         DOUGLAS          No elephants, sadly. Still none.                         (TO GRAHAM)          I thought I might see you there.          Where did you get to instead?                         JEAN          Yes, where do you get to every          day?                         GRAHAM          Well, I've just finished telling          Mrs Greenslade all about it.          Evelyn registers the lie, but says nothing.                         JEAN          I'm sure she wouldn't mind          hearing it again.          She waits. But Graham is as elusive as he is tactful.                         GRAHAM          I talked to the chef for you. He          said it will be no problem.                         JEAN          Did you hear that, Douglas?          Plain grilled food; manna from          heaven.                         DOUGLAS          I don't have to have it too, do          I?                         JEAN                         (TO GRAHAM)          I don't know how to thank you.                         DOUGLAS                         (TO EVELYN)          You really should see this          temple.                                                                                                               46.                         EVELYN          I'd like that very much.                         DOUGLAS          But maybe take a clothes peg for          your nose.          73 EXT. COURTYARD/UPPER VERANDAH, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 73          Graham and Evelyn emerge through the arch heading for their          rooms.          Graham starts down the stairs.                         EVELYN          Goodnight.                         GRAHAM          Goodnight to you.          He seems about to say something else. She waits for a          moment, then walks on.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          Mrs Greenslade?                         EVELYN          Evelyn.                         GRAHAM          Can I show you something?          74 INT. GRAHAM'S ROOM - NIGHT 74          Moments later. Evelyn is sitting in front of Graham's          collage.                         GRAHAM          I grew up here. Just a short          drive away. It was a big house,          and we had servants, everyone          did. We knew their wives, their          children. One boy, Manoj, became          my friend. We played a lot of          cricket together, played anything          we could. And that's how it          stayed for years. Until one          night, he became something more.                         (BEAT)          We had a few months, we had that.          There was a weekend in Udaipur,          we sat by a lake and watched the          sun go down, and I remember          thinking . I will never be this          happy again. And I was right.          Because quite suddenly it was          over. We'd fallen asleep, and          they found us.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               47.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)                         (BEAT)          For me it was bad enough. But I          already knew who I was, and I          think my family had guessed. For          Manoj, the disgrace was absolute;          a double taboo. His father was          fired, they were sent away, all          of them. I don't know what I          could've done, but it should've          been more than nothing. I put up          no fight. I let it happen.                         (BEAT)          Soon afterwards I went to          England, to University. I always          told myself I'd come back. But I          never did.                         EVELYN          Until now.                         GRAHAM          And now I think .. what if I am          the last person on earth he wants          to see?          Evelyn says nothing.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          I don't think I can go through          with it.                         EVELYN          Do you want to see him again?                         GRAHAM          Yes. Yes. Oh yes.                         EVELYN          Then you must.          75 EXT. TEMPLE/STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 75          As the bell tolls, the faithful arrive at the temple for          morning prayers.          75A EXT. UPPER VERANDAH/SERVANTS COURTYARD - DAY 75A          Evelyn stands outside her room, listening to the bells,          sipping a cup of tea, pensive. She looks down into a          dilapidated part of the building, where the staff are          housed. Women in bright saris go about their business.          76 INT/EXT. MURIEL'S ROOM/VERANDAH, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 76          From her wheelchair, Muriel is re-making her bed. She          tucks in a perfect hospital corner.                                                                                                               48.          She looks up. Anokhi is on the verandah, replacing her          untouched supper tray with breakfast. Anokhi is about to          leave, but stops.          Then she goes to fetch Muriel's jar of pickle from the          windowsill, and places it on the table.          Muriel watches, then wheels herself outside, looks at the          tray.          From outside, Sonny's voicecan be heard.          SONNY (O.S.)          And so now that we are fully          operational, Mr Maruthi, it is          clear that with a small injection          of funds for the Phase Two          Development ...          77 EXT. GARDEN/COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 77          Brimming with confidence, Sonny is walking a wealthy          investor, MR MARUTHI, around the grounds. Some builders          are dismantling scaffolding.                         SONNY          .. the Best Exotic Marigold          Hotel can rise like a phoenix to          its previous state of glory. And          when I say small injection, I          mean small in the sense of medium-          sized. Possibly larger.                         MR MARUTHI          This hotel was never glorious.                         SONNY          Just the phoenix part then.                         MR MARUTHI          How many rooms will there be?                         SONNY          Many.                         MR MARUTHI          How many?                         SONNY          A great amount. Plenty of rooms,          no question.          They've arrived in the courtyard.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          I am not a details man, Mr          Maruthi.                                                                                                               49.                         MR MARUTHI          Nor was your father.          They see Muriel on her verandah.                         SONNY          Mr Maruthi, I present to you one          of our beloved guests. Dear Mrs          Donnelly, please describe in as          much detail as you desire your          experience of the ambience and          atmosphere of the Best Exotic          Marigold Hotel.                         MURIEL          Kill me. Kill me now.          Sonny steers Mr Maruthi towards the reception, speaks          quietly.                         SONNY          The wheel is spinning. But the          hamster is dead.          He stops, as he sees an elegant older woman standing in the          doorway. This is the redoubtable MRS KAPOOR.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Mummyji! What are you doing          here?                         MRS KAPOOR          You called. I came.                         SONNY          I couldn't have called. The          phones don't work.                         MRS KAPOOR          That's why I came.          78 INT. SONNY'S OFFICE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 78          Moments later. Sonny closes the door behind him.          His mother starts going through the contents of his desk.                         MRS KAPOOR          Who was that man out there?                         SONNY          The contents of this desk are          mine. Don't open the drawers. I          must insist you don't open the          drawer.          Mrs Kapoor opens the drawer.                                                                                                               50.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Tell me why you have come.                         MRS KAPOOR          Do I need a reason to visit my          favourite son?                         SONNY          No. He is in his mansion in          Delhi.                         MRS KAPOOR          My second favourite.                         SONNY          He went to Kerala to make his          fortune.                         MRS KAPOOR          But make it, he did.                         SONNY          As I will make mine. I have a          dream, Mummyji. A most brilliant          one: to out-source old age. And          not just for the British. There          are many other countries where          they don't like old people too.                         MRS KAPOOR          Your brothers own a third of the          hotel each, they are entitled to          a third of the profits.                         SONNY          Success does not happen          overnight, Mummyji. This is blue          sky thinking, and it requires          long-term strategy and patience.                         MRS KAPOOR          How is your girlfriend?                         SONNY          I look forward to you meeting          her.                         MRS KAPOOR          And I look forward to you meeting          the woman you will marry. She is          from a good family in Delhi.                         SONNY          I can marry as I choose, Mummyji.          I need no permission.                         MRS KAPOOR          I presume it is your girlfriend          who teaches you such nonsense.          One reason not to marry her.                                                                                                               51.                         SONNY          What if I love her?                         MRS KAPOOR          An even better reason. Now send          Young Wasim to the car for my          luggage.                         SONNY          He cannot carry, he has a dicky          back ... wait, your luggage? How          long are you staying?                         MRS KAPOOR          As long as it takes.          79 INT. BATHROOM. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S. MARIGOLD HOTEL - 79                         DAY          Jean is looking out of her bathroom window, down into the          courtyard.          She sees Graham come out of his room. She turns back to          the mirror, looks at herself.          80 EXT. MURIEL'S TERRACE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 80          Near to Muriel, Anokhi is sweeping the floor.                         MURIEL          You won't get the dirt out like          that.          Anokhi just smiles at her radiantly.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          I worked in service for years,          looked after a lovely house. I          kept it spotless. You need a bit          more pressure on that brush.          Graham walks past, on his way out.                         GRAHAM          She won't speak English. She's          what used to be called an          Untouchable. An outcast, born          below society. To a good Hindu,          even her shadow is polluted.          He greets Anokhi in Hindi, and heads for the door.                         MURIEL          Where d'you go every day? Is it          a woman? Nip round there for a          curry and a bit of afters?                                                                                                               52.                         GRAHAM          I don't think so. I'm gay.          Although nowadays more in theory          than practice. Good day.          He leaves. A moment later, Jean comes rushing out.          Immediately she realises two things; first, that Graham has          already gone. And second, that Muriel is watching her.                         JEAN          Good morning.          Muriel says nothing.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          Lovely day.          Still nothing from Muriel.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          Lovely.                         (BEAT)          Lovely.          She turns and goes back in.          Muriel thinks for a while, then turns to Anokhi.                         MURIEL          Long old life, isn't it?          81 EXT. VICEROY CLUB - DAY 81          A classic colonial building, straight out of the English          Raj.          Madge is being shown around by an elderly secretary, MR          DHARUNA.                         MR DRARUNA          The Viceroy Club was opened by          the great Lord Kitchener himself,          and many of the fixtures have          remained unchanged since then.                         MADGE          Yes, I see that. Perhaps you          could tell me a little about the          clientele? Any maharajahs?          Wealthy widowed land-owners?                         MR DHARUNA          It is not the policy of this club          to divulge details of our          members.          They go past a very handsome older Indian man. Who          radiates wealth and privilege.                                                                                                               53.          MR DHARUNA (cont'd)          Good morning, Your Excellency.                         MADGE          Where do I sign up?                         MR DHARUNA          The admission fee is 120,000          rupees, and thereafter 15,000          rupees each month.                         MADGE          I wonder if I might get a little          discount. Owing to my status.                         MR DHARUNA          Your status, madam?                         MADGE          Yes. One was rather hoping to          fly under the radar, but one is a          member of the Royal Family.                         MR DHARUNA          Which member, madam?                         MADGE          I'm Princess Margaret.                         MR DHARUNA                         (BOWING SLIGHTLY)          It is most surely an honour to          meet you. And may I say how well          you look. Especially taking into          account that you died nine years          ago.                         (BEAT)          Your real name please, madam.          And 120,000 rupees.          82 INT. PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE - DAY 82          Graham comes into the chaotic office.          The bookish official, MR CHIDAMBRAM, is behind the desk.                         GRAHAM          Good morning.                         MR CHIDAMBRAM          Good morning, Sir. Did I not say          that we will contact you when          there is information regarding          your inquiry?                         GRAHAM          Yes, you did say that. You did.                                                                                                               54.                         MR CHIDAMBRAM          While it is most pleasant to see          you, your presence does not          actually accelerate our          investigation.                         GRAHAM          I'll try not to come in tomorrow.                         MR CHIDAMBRAM          I expect I will see you then.          83 INT. CALL CENTRE - DAY 83          None of the operators are on the phone. Instead they are          sitting in a semi-circle, looking curiously at Evelyn. Who          is sitting next to Jay, a little daunted by the attention.                         EVELYN          .You ring in the morning.          Let's assume the person answering          will be a woman. She will have          had her breakfast. Tea or          coffee. Semi-skimmed milk,          always. If she's under 50 she'll          be contemplating yet another          diet, over 50 she'll have more or          less given up, and be eating          toast. The radio may be playing,          or more likely daytime TV. A          chat show, or a programme with a          moderator speaking to a panel of          young women whose boyfriends have          all slept with their mothers.          The girlfriends' mothers, I mean,          not their own. Although          Anyway, then the boyfriends          usually come out, and everybody          fights.          Sunaina is in the audience. She calls out.                         SUNAINA          I'm not surprised people hang up          on us.          Laughter.                         EVELYN          That's the point. When the phone          rings and it's this robot          nobody wants a machine, but it's          almost worse when it's a person          behaving like one. All these          sales cliches just strung          together. 'Your call is          important to us'. Is it? Well          then sound like it.                                                                                                               55.                         SUNAINA          'Your custom is valuable'.                         EVELYN          Right. That one. Don't ever say          that.                         SUNAINA          'Service is our middle name'.                         EVELYN          Yes, when your middle name is                         ACTUALLY                         SUNAINA          Shantanu.                         EVELYN          Which is beautiful. You people          are young, vibrant, real. I'm          sure the typical housewife would          enjoy talking to each and every          one of you.                         SUNAINA          Her morning sounds like fun.          What are you doing here?          Beat.                         EVELYN          I suppose I'm not typical          anymore.                         (TO JAY)          Is that the sort of thing?          84 INT. MADGE'S ROOM - EVENING 84          Madge is at her mirror, doing her make-up with great care.          She looks beautiful.          85 EXT. VICEROY CLUB BAR - EVENING 85          Madge walks up the gravel path towards the magnificent          building. She's superbly dressed, looks great. She goes          up to the BARMAN.                         MADGE          Excuse me. Would there be any          wealthy single men in tonight?                         BARMAN          There is one.          Madge puts some money into his breast pocket.                                                                                                               56.                         MADGE          Perhaps you could seat me next to          him?                         BARMAN          This way, madam.          He leads her along across the terrace. Madge follows,          checking her hair, her breath, etc.          The barman reaches an ornate suite of furniture. There's          someone sitting there, his back to us, an elegant arm          draped over the side of the chair.                         BARMAN (CONT'D)          His Royal Highness Prince Michael          of Kent.          The man rises from his chair and turns. And Madge is left          staring at Norman.          There's a pause. Then Madge reaches into the barman's          breast pocket, and removes her money.                         MADGE          I'll have that back, thank you          very much.          86 EXT. MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING 86          Graham comes through the courtyard, heads for his room.          Muriel is on her verandah.                         GRAHAM          Good evening.          Muriel nods at him, and he goes on into his room.          A moment later, Jean sits down next to Muriel.                         JEAN          You know where he goes. I know          you know. But you won't tell me.          Muriel says nothing.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          I can get Hobnobs out here, you          know. I know a way.                         (BEAT)          As many as you want. Milk or          plain.          Long pause.                         MURIEL          Public Records Office.                                                                                                               57.                         JEAN          Thank you.          87 EXT. WELL - EVENING 87          A huge construction, centuries old, with a series of steps          reaching down deep into the earth, so people can climb down          to get their water.          Young couples sit on the steps in the evening heat, boys          leap into the water.          Sonny and Sunaina are watching the swimmers.                         SONNY          My father used to bring me to          this well to swim. He said the          water was better, and so were the          people we would meet.                         (BEAT)          He would have liked you so much.          Sunaina smiles at this.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          My mother doesn't want us to be          married.                         SUNAINA          She hasn't met me yet.                         SONNY          She doesn't need to meet you          Sunaina absorbs this.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          She knows you are not from Delhi.          That you have no family money,          and work in a call centre. You          are a part of a new India she          cannot welcome.                         SUNAINA          Isn't this where you tell her          what you want?                         SONNY          That conversation will be easier          when the hotel is a success.                         SUNANINA          Do you love me?                                                                                                               58.                         SONNY          I have found a new investor. I          am most optimistic that he will          enable us to move forward with          Phase Two of the Marigold Hotel                         PROJECT                         SUNANINA          Shouldn't you finish Phase One          first?                         SONNY          In business, if you stand still,          you move backwards. No, I have          that wrong. If you stand still,          you are overtaken by people going          the other way. Wait -                         SUNAINA          You didn't answer the question.          Do you love me?                         SONNY          My feelings for you cannot be          reduced to a single word.                         SUNAINA          It's a nice word, Sonny. And          people like hearing it.                         SONNY          Sunaina, please. My mother is          wrong. It is you who are too good          for me.                         SUNANINA          You say that a lot. You          shouldn't I'll start to believe          you.          They watch the boys in the water.          88 INT. VICEROY CLUB BAR - NIGHT 88          Madge and Norman are sitting together. Norman is looking          across at the bar, where an attractive older ex-pat lady is          sitting, thus far resisting Norman's attempts to catch her          eye.                         NORMAN          I still think you're cramping my          style.                         MADGE          Please. You have no style to          cramp.                                                                                                               58A.                         NORMAN          That lady at the bar keeps          looking at me.                         MADGE          As one would something in a          museum.                         NORMAN          Why must you mock? I just want          to feel young again, to be needed          as much as I need, if only for          one night, one wonderful night.          Tell me you don't know how that          feels.                                                                                                               59.          Silence for a bit.                         MADGE          Give me a minute. Then join us.          She gets up, heads towards the bar. Where she sits a          couple of seats away from the woman. Who is called CAROL.          She sits there a moment, then sighs, and starts to talk to          the barman.                         MADGE (CONT'D)          Rejected again. Many years ago,          that man over there gave me the          most extraordinary night of my          life. He may seem coarse and          uncouth, but that only disguises          a tenderness and an exquisite          sensitivity to a woman's needs          Norman arrives at the bar.                         NORMAN          Those drinks not ready yet?          Madge turns to Carol.                         MADGE          They say patience is passion          tamed.          Carol smiles.                         MADGE (CONT'D)          I'm Madge.                         CAROL          Carol.                         MADGE          And this . is Norman.                         CAROL          How do you do?                         NORMAN          Carol? As in Christmas?          Madge winces.                         CAROL          I suppose.                         NORMAN          Great.          Silence.                                                                                                               60.                         MADGE          So what brings you to Jaipur,          Carol?                         NORMAN          Yes, Carol. What brings you to          Jaipur?                         CAROL          I run a small boutique travel          agency. But I've actually lived          here all my life. My father          worked in the Foreign Office.          Another silence.                         NORMAN          You're very fit.                         CAROL          I beg your pardon?                         MADGE          Oh god.                         NORMAN          I mean you look like you keep          yourself in shape. Physically.                         CAROL          Well, I did join a gym last year.          It cost a fortune, and I didn't          get any fitter. Apparently you          have to actually go.          Madge laughs. Norman doesn't. Then realizes that it was a          joke, lets out a too-loud bray of laughter.                         CAROL (CONT'D)          And so what do you do, Norman?                         NORMAN          Me?                         CAROL          Yes.                         NORMAN          Oh. I'm                         MADGE          Norman's in business.                         CAROL          Really?                         NORMAN          Yes.                                                                                                               61.                         CAROL          What business?                         NORMAN                         (TO MADGE)          You tell her.                         MADGE          Import-Export.                         NORMAN          Although these days there's          rather more Ex- than Im-, if you          see what I mean.                         CAROL          I'm afraid I don't.          Madge gets up.                         MADGE          I have to splash some water on my          face. Please God I drown in it.          She heads for the bathroom.          Norman and Carol share another silence.                         CAROL          Well look, it's been lovely          chatting.                         NORMAN          No it hasn't.                         CAROL          No. It hasn't. But I really                         MUST -                         NORMAN          Carol?          She was about to go, stops.                         NORMAN (CONT'D)          Can we drop all this pretence?          And start again? I'm not          charming. I'm not good at          repartee. And I'm not a          plutocrat with the sexual          capacity of a rutting rhino. My          name is Norman. And I'm lonely.                         CAROL          My name is Carol. So am I.          89 INT. VICEROY CLUB BAR - NIGHT 89          Minutes later. Madge comes out of the bathroom.                                                                                                               62.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Day 22. Like Darwin's finches,          we are slowly adapting to our          environment. And when one does          adapt, my god, the riches that          are available.          Madge looks across the bar. And is startled to see Norman          and Carol chatting up a storm, laughing together.          As she watches, Norman orders more drinks, then turns          smiling back to his new friend.          Madge walks slowly out of the bar, and into the night.          90 INT. EVELYN'S ROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 90          Evelyn is at her computer, typing.          EVELYN (V.0.)          There is no past that we can          bring back by longing for it          91 EXT. PATH/GARDEN. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 91          Ajit is pushing Muriel down to the gate for her morning          constitutional.                         EVELYN          . only a present that builds          and creates itself as the past          withdraws ...          92 INT. SUPERVISOR'S OFFICE. CALL CENTRE - DAY 92          Jay is counting out cash into Evelyn's hand; her first          paycheck.                         EVELYN          And India, like so many things in          life, like life itself I suppose,          is about what you bring to it.          93 EXT. JAIPUR STREET - DAY 93          Ajit is pushing Muriel through a poor neighborhood. Muriel          is looking left and right, astounded by the life she sees.                         MURIEL          Where's this? Where are we?                         AJIT          Janta Colony Kachi Basti.                         MURIEL          What happened to my usual route?                                                                                                               63.                         AJIT          Anokhi has invited you to her          home.                         MURIEL          You didn't tell me.                         AJIT          You'd have said no.          94 INT. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 94          Jean is sitting, reading a book.                         JEAN          Will you check in at the bank?          Douglas emerges from the bathroom.                         DOUGLAS          I checked yesterday. And the day          before. As requested.                         (BEAT)          Will you be staying in again?                         JEAN          Why do you ask that every          morning?                         DOUGLAS          Because I hope for a different          answer. Because I think you'll          be hurt if I don't. And because          it's not healthy for you to spend          all day and every day in the          confines of the hotel.          He goes back into the bathroom. Jean changes the subject.                         JEAN          I didn't sleep a wink. The tap          in there never stops dripping.          DOUGLAS (O.S.)          I talked to Young Wasim about it.                         JEAN          What did he say?          DOUGLAS (O.S.)          No idea. It was in Hindi.          Douglas comes out of the bathroom, holding the tap.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          I thought I might get it fixed          myself.                                                                                                               63A.                                                                                                               64.                         DOUGLAS          No time like the present.          Actually I say that, but I          enjoyed yesterday, and I'm          optimistic about tomorrow too.                         JEAN          I wish I could say the same.                         DOUGLAS          So do I.          He goes.          Jean sits for a while, looking utterly disconsolate and          lost. Then she gets up, goes over to the balcony.          Down below she can see Graham leaving.          95 EXT. LOWER COURTYARD - DAY 95          Madge is sitting on a chair. Norman arrives.                         NORMAN          Your Madgesty.                         MADGE          I gather the night went well.                         NORMAN          Would you like to hear about it?                         MADGE          Not in the least.                         NORMAN          Good. Because you're going to.          Two drinks, some sexually charged                         BANTER -          Douglas comes out, carrying a tap. And heads out of the          archway.                         DOUGLAS          Morning. Lovely day.                         MADGE          Good morning.          They watch him leave.                         NORMAN          Two drinks, some sexually charged          banter, and we were heading back          to her place. Bidding the          rickshaw farewell, I walked her          to the door.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               65.                         NORMAN (CONT'D)          And there, my young friend, I          leaned forward, and I kissed her.          Beat.                         MADGE          And?                         NORMAN          And what?                         MADGE          Is that all? You didn't seal the          deal?                         NORMAN          We have a date next week.                         MADGE          What is wrong with you?                         NORMAN          I wanted to prolong the          anticipation. To spend some time          with the knowledge that soon I'm          going to eat, drink, and laugh          with someone, hold her to me,          kiss her softly. Then go back to          her place and get my end away.          96 EXT. MARKET - DAY 96          The market is buzzing with commerce. Evelyn is at a stall          selling fabrics, talking to the vendor, AKRAM.                         EVELYN          (holding up a pashmina)          Bow much for this, please Kitna                         PAISE                         AKRAM          One thousand rupees Ek hazaar                         RUPIA                         EVELYN          Thank you.          She reaches for her wallet. Then Douglas speaks from          behind her.                         DOUGLAS          No no, forgive me. That's not          how it works.                                                                                                               65A.          Evelyn turns, happy to see him.                                                                                                               66.                         EVELYN          Good morning.                         DOUGLAS          And to you. Sorry to butt in,          but you don't ask him how much he          wants, you just tell him how much          you'll pay.                         (TO AKRAM)          She'll give you two hundred.          Absolutely no more, final offer.                         AKRAM          One thousand rupees.                         DOUGLAS          Pity.                         (TO EVELYN)          Now walk away. Walk away.                         EVELYN                         BUT -                         DOUGLAS          I know what I'm doing.          Evelyn complies, and they turn and walk away.                         EVELYN          Yes. The thing is, you see, I          did actually want to buy that.          To brighten up my room.                         DOUGLAS          He'll come after us.                         EVELYN          Do you think so?                         DOUGLAS          Absolutely. This is how the game          is played. Just keep on walking.          They push through the crowds.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          He's playing it cool, but he'll          come.          They keep walking.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          He's playing it very cool.          They keep walking. Then Douglas stops. Evelyn looks at          him.                                                                                                               67.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          He's not coming.                         CUT TO:          Moments later. They're back at Akram's stall. Evelyn          counts out the money.                         EVELYN          Eight hundred and fifty, nine          hundred, nine hundred and fifty,          one thousand.          She turns to Douglas, smiles.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          You'll get him next time.          Then she notices something.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          Why are you carrying a tap?          97 INT. MARIGOLD HOTEL, DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM - DAY 97          Jean gives up on the sentence she has already read a          hundred times, and snaps her book shut. She stands, then          sits again.          Then stands.          98 EXT. SWEEPER COLONY - DAY 98          Ajit is now pushing Muriel through a poverty-stricken slum.          The people live on the streets, or in collapsing tin          shacks. Everywhere there is struggle and deprivation.          And yet the pervasive atmosphere is nowhere near as          depressing as we would expect. The colours are bright, the          smiles on the children's faces even brighter.          Not that Muriel can recognise the joy, of course. She's          horrified by her surroundings. And acutely aware of the          stares of the slum-dwellers.          98A EXT. ANOKHI'S HUT - DAY 98A          A primitive brick and cement hut, one of the few amongst          dwellings made mostly from sticks and plastic bags.          A bunch of young kids are fascinated by Muriel's          wheelchair, pushing it around and taking turns to sit on          it.                                                                                                                68.          99 INT. ANOKHI'S HUT - DAY 99          Muriel sits on the only chair.          Opposite - squashed together as if posing for a photograph -          are all the generations of Anokhi's family: Anokhi herself,          her husband, mother, grandmother, and several children.          They all smile at Muriel.          A long pause. Then Muriel turns to Ajit.                         MURIEL          How soon can I leave?          100 INT/EXT. HARDWARE SHOP - DAY 100          Douglas is talking to JAMSHED, who works behind the          counter. Evelyn sits outside.                         DOUGLAS          You see what I think, and of          course I'm no expert, is that the          valve seat has eroded, so we'll          need the washer changed and a new          seat re-ground.          Douglas glances back at Evelyn. Who betrays not the          slightest scepticism.          Jamshed studies the tap.                         JAMSHED          The gland nut has come away from          the spindle.                         DOUGLAS          Well of course, it could be that          too. Can you fix it?                         JAMSHED          Not cheaply. Not cheaply. Most          expensively indeed.          Jamshed takes the tap to a workstation at the back, starts          to fiddle with it. Douglas joins Evelyn.                         DOUGLAS          I was in a tuk-tuk the other day,          didn't seem to be taking the          usual route back to the hotel.          It turned out that the driver had          decided to take me to another          hotel, that he was sure I would          prefer. And of course one wants          to believe that he genuinely had          my welfare at heart, and that it          wasn't run bg his brother-in-law.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               69.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          One wants to trust, in general,          don't you think? But you never          really know, do you?          Jamshed stops fiddling with the tap. And takes a hammer to          it.                         EVELYN          The day I met my husband was the          day the fair came to town. My          girlfriend and I went on the          carousel. Her horse was fine.          But when the ride began I felt          mine give a little, like it might          collapse. Then these strong arms          were around me, holding the horse          together. And a voice in my ear          said "Just trust me". And I did.          Without question. Until the day          he died.                         DOUGLAS          How wonderful.                         EVELYN          The sale of our flat went through          last week. I had to sell it to          pay off Hugh's debts.                         (BEAT)          I've been forced to get a job out          here. Which, in fact, I love.          But even at Sonny's rates, I          still couldn't make ends meet.          After what my own husband did to          our life savings.                         (BEAT)          So no. You're right. You never          know.          Jamshed holds up the tap. Which is now in several parts.                         JAMSHED          No good. You must be buying          another.          101 EXT. PATHWAY/GATE/STREET, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 101          Jean walks down the path to the gate.          She stops, looks fearfully at the chaotic sea of humanity          outside. She's unable to move.          Finally, she steps out. And is of course immediately          assaulted by the assorted kids, beggars, street vendors,          etc.          As anxiety begins to engulf her, she quickens her pace,          brushing through them as best she can, until she is almost          running.                                                                                                                70.          102 INT. ANOKHI'S HUT - DAY 102          Muriel is still at the tea party.          Anokhi speaks. Ajit translates.                         AJIT          She wants to thank you for your          kindness.                         MURIEL          I haven't been kind.                         AJIT          You're the only one that          acknowledges her.          Anokhi brings out a plate of food.                         ANOKHI          Tarkha dhal. Chapati.                         MURIEL          I'm not eating that.                         AJIT          You will insult her very deeply          if you do not.          Muriel looks up. They're all still watching, waiting          smiling.          She looks at Anokhi's grandmother, as dignified as she is          old.          Muriel reaches out, takes something off the tray. And has          a bite. It's not too bad.                         MURIEL          I'd still rather a Scotch Egg.          Then she sees something through the open doorway: the          children have turned her wheelchair on its side and are          spinning the wheels.          She's on her feet in a flash.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          Get off! Get off it, you dirty          thieving bastards!          Several terrified faces turn.          One little girl starts to cry.          Everyone is staring at Muriel.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          I didn't see. They were playing.          I'm sorry. I'm sorry                                                                                                                71.          103 EXT. STREET. JAIPUR - DAY 103           Jean is now in a tuk-tuk, lurching and weaving through the           traffic, a handkerchief clasped firmly over her mouth,           panic in her eyes.          104 INT. STAIRCASE/CORRIDORS/OFFICE. PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE.104          JAIPUR - DAY          The corridors are full of people patiently waiting their          turn to grapple with a vast bureaucracy.          Reaching the top of the staircase, Jean takes it all in.          She walks down another corridor. Then stops.          Through a doorway, she sees Graham at the desk, talking to          Mr Chidambram.                         CUT TO:          In the office.                         GRAHAM          But I've filled out that form.          I've given it to you. Many          times.                         MR CHIDAMBRAM          There is a process. You are          making an enquiry. For each          enquiry a form must be filled in.                         GRAHAM          But it's the same enquiry I make          every day.                         MR CHIDAMBRAM          And therefore the same form you          must fill in.          Graham glances towards the doorway, catches sight of Jean.          Their eyes lock, then Jean pulls back out of sight,          panicked.          104A INT.CORRIDOR, PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE. JAIPUR - DAY 10414A           Jean is hurrying down a corridor. Behind her, Graham           emerges from a doorway, and calls to her                          GRAHAM           Mrs Ainslie... .?                         105 OMITTED 105                                                                                                               72.          106 INT. TEA ROOM. JAIPUR - DAY 106          Later. Jean and Graham are sitting in an elegant tea room.          Jean is still very shaken.                         JEAN          I don't know how you can bear          this country. What do you see          that I don't?                         GRAHAM          Unutterable beauty. Everywhere.          In the light, the colours, the          smiles, the people who see life          as a privilege not a right, and          so teach me something every day.          The waiter brings their tea.                         JEAN          Is this milk pasteurized?                         WAITER          Yes madam.                         JEAN          But that's not true, is it?          You're just lying to me right now                         GRAHAM          It'll be fine.          The waiter goes.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          It's a pleasant surprise to see          you out and about.                         JEAN          Is it?          She looks at him.                         GRAHAM          Yes. That's progress. Where          were you going?                                                                                                               73.                         JEAN          To the bank. I . was going to          the bank. Not that there's any          reason to think something has          changed. But our daughter, you          see, she did promise, and one          does try to remain optimistic.          One has to. Otherwise                         OTHERWISE          Graham worries she might be about to break down. He          reaches across the table, puts his hand on hers.          She leans forward, puts her other hand over his, holds on          tightly.          Graham is startled. He tries gently to pull back, but she          holds on.                         GRAHAM                         JEAN -                         JEAN          Oh god. Is it possible you feel          the same?          She brings his hand to her mouth, kisses it.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          The way you talk to me. Your          compassion, your understanding          .. the wonderful, tender          consideration, it had to be more          than just -                         GRAHAM          I'm gay.          She stares at him. Beat.                         JEAN          As in ... happy?          Graham says nothing. Jean lets go of his hand.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          Yes. I see. Of course I see.          The ghastly inappropriateness of it all settles on them          both.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          I appear to have humiliated          myself. And embarrassed you.                         GRAHAM          I'm not embarrassed.          Jean smiles wanly, grateful for his lie.                                                                                                               74.                         JEAN          Like I said. This country is          driving me mad.                         (BEAT)          Shall we go?          107 EXT/INT. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY107           Evelyn is outside in the courtyard. We don't see Douglas.                         EVELYN          Anything?          DOUGLAS (O.S.)          Not yet.          Evelyn waits a moment.                         EVELYN          How about now?          DOUGLAS (O.S.)          One second.          Another pause.          DOUGLAS (O.S.) (cont'd)          Oh good lord.                         EVELYN          What?          DOUGLAS (O.S.)          Listen.          The sound of a flowing tap.          DOUGLAS (O.S.) (cont'd)          And now ...          The tap stops.          DOUGLAS (O.S.) (cont'd)          No drip.          He appears in the doorway, triumphant.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          No drip!          He walks towards her, hand in the air.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          Hi-five !          Evelyn just looks at him. She's never hi-fived anyone in          her life.          After a moment Douglas puts his hand down.                                                                                                               75.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          I've never done that before. It          just seemed appropriate.          Jean has appeared at the other side of the courtyard.          Douglas senses her mood, moves towards her.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          Darling!                         EVELYN          Mrs Ainslie, how are you? Did          you have a good day?          Jean doesn't answer. She's staring at Douglas. Who looks          so happy.                         DOUGLAS          Let me tell you about ours. Your          husband of many a year, who has          never even known which end of a          hammer to use, has actually          managed to -                         JEAN                         (SUDDENLY INTERRUPTING)          We have to get out of here.                         DOUGLAS          What did you say?                         JEAN          I can't stay in this country a          moment longer.                         DOUGLAS          Why ...?                         EVELYN          Do excuse me.          She makes a tactful exit. Jean is going past Douglas into          their room.                         DOUGLAS          I don't understand                         JEAN                         (INTERRUPTING)          Pick a reason. Pick ten. The          climate, the squalor, the poverty          She goes past him into their room.                                                                                                                76.          108 INT. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM - CONTINUOUS 108                         JEAN          . we should never have come.          This whole trip is a grotesque          fantasy. It's time to go home.          Jean starts to pack. Irrationally, compulsively.                         DOUGLAS          Who's paying for the tickets?                         JEAN          (not hearing him)          Look at us. A group of self-          deluding old fossils traipsing          around as if it's our bloody gap          year. Humiliating ourselves                         DOUGLAS          Not us, we can't pay. And I          don't see you asking our friends                         BACK HOME                         JEAN                         (OVERLAPPING)          .. We should just face up to the          truth. That we're all old, we're          all past it. That's the real          truth, the raw, unvarnished fact          of the matter. All we're good          for now is the beige bloody          bungalow with the sodding panic          button in the sodding corner ...          She stops packing, and subsides onto the bed, crying          quietly.          Nobody speaks for a while.                         DOUGLAS                         (GENTLY)          We just have to make the best of          it, darling. I really think          that's the best thing to do.                         JEAN          Yes, well. When I want your          opinion, I'll give it to you.          109 INT. MEEHAR CLINIC - MORNING 109          An impossibly small roadside clinic.          Norman is sitting there, the only man in three rows of          brightly dressed women.          DR RAMA comes out of the consulting area.                                                                                                               77.                         DR RAMA          Mr John Smith.          No response. The doctor looks at Norman, who has forgotten          his own alias.          DR RAMA (cont'd)          Mr John Smith?          Norman jumps up.                         NORMAN          That's right! Me!          110 EXT/INT. MARKET/OPERATIONS ROOM. CALL CENTRE - DAY 110          Sonny is at the flower market, sitting on his motor bike,          waiting for the flower vendor to tie up his bundle of          marigolds. He's on his phone.                         SONNY          Come on. Pick up pick up pick          up.          The phone is answered at the other end.                         SONNY (CONT'D)                         (INTO PHONE)          Sunaina, I must see you. I must.          If I cannot hold your body          against mine, I swear I will go          mad.          We cut to the call centre. It's not Sunaina on the phone,          but Jay, who is standing next to her.                         SONNY'S VOICE                         (ON PHONE)          I yearn for you, I burn for you,                         I -                         JAY          I think it's my sister you're          burning for there, Sonny boy.                         SONNY          Thank you, Jay. Thank you.          Jay hands the phone to Sunaina.                         SUNAINA          Hey.                         SONNY          Private line, Sunaina. Do those          words mean nothing to you?                                                                                                               78.                         SUNAINA          He took the phone. What could I          do?                         SONNY          I miss you. I miss you every          moment. Come and see me.          Tonight.                         SUNAINA          I cannot tonight. It is my          parents 25th wedding anniversary.          Tell your mother that.                         SONNY          Come after. Come late                         SUNANINA          You'll be asleep.                         SONNY          I'll be waiting.                         SUNANINA          You'll be asleep. But i can wake          you in that special way...                         SONNY          You will sneak in?                         SUNAINA          I'm not ashamed.                         SONNY          Neither am I. Absolutely not.          There is no shame. You do not          have to sneak.                         (BEAT)          All the same, if you did want to          be very quiet, and not let anyone          see you, it couldn't hurt.          111 INT. CONSULTING ROOM - DAY 111          Norman is talking to DR RAMA.                         NORMAN          I'm worried there's no lead in my          pencil.                         DR RAMA          OK. I don't know what that          means.                         NORMAN          No snap in my celery.                         DR RAMA          I'm still not quite with you.                                                                                                               78A.                         NORMAN          I plan to party hearty tonight,          but I can't guarantee that my          love gun will fire.                         DR RAMA          Mr Smith -                         NORMAN          Will the lance dance, and the          trouser lion roar?                         DR RAMA          What is your problem?                                                                                                               79.                         NORMAN          I don't know if I can still have          sex.                         DR RAMA          Ah.                         NORMAN          I'm not a young man anymore,          doctor. And I'm a little bit          scared. Truth be told, I'm a lot          scared.                         DR RAMA          How long since you've been with a          woman?                         NORMAN          What's today?                         DR RAMA          Monday.                         NORMAN          Six years.                         DR RAMA          I've got some pills that'll help.          112 EXT. SERVANTS COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 112          The back of the hotel, where Sonny envisages his Phase Two          development. Very dilapidated.          Anokhi is cleaning pots. Young Wasim sits in the corner.          Ajit has just wheeled Muriel into the courtyard.                         MURIEL                         (TO ANOKHI)          I wanted to tell you something...          Anokhi looks up.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)                         (TO AJIT)          Tell her. Tell her I was glad to          come, glad she invited me.          Ajit translates.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          Glad to meet her family. Her          grandmother. Her kids.          Ajit translates. Anokhi speaks.                                                                                                               80.                         AJIT          She asks if you have children?                         MURIEL          I looked after somebody else's.          Ajit translates.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          This one family, years I was with          them. I ran the house, looked          after the money, did it all,          cared for them like they were my          own.          Ajit starts to translate. But Muriel doesn't wait.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          That's the mistake, see. You          don't want to get like that, to          start feeling part of something.          One day they decided I needed          some help. I was grateful, I          tried to teach her. Not just the          books, but how to crisp up the          bacon like the gentleman          preferred it, the way the little          one liked to have her hair          brushed. The things you only          know if you care. But then they          said I was no longer useful to          them. Thanked me for my service.          As if that's all it was.                         (BEAT)          I got a flat in the end. I'm the          only one in the building not a          foreigner. More Indians there          than here! But before I came to          this place, my biggest problem          was what to do with all the time          I had. Because that flat's so          small, I can have the whole place          spotless in half an hour. And          then what am I supposed to do for          the rest of the day?          There's silence for a bit. Then Ajit speaks.                         AJIT          Did you want me translate that as          well?          Muriel smiles. It's the first time we've seen this.          Muriel stops, thrusts something into Ajit's hand.                         MURIEL          Give her these.                                                                                                               81.          Ajit hands Anokhi what Muriel gave him: a packet of          Chocolate Hobnobs.          This time it's Muriel who cannot meet Anokhi's eye. Tries          to hide her desire to leave. Ajit turns her chair and          pushes her away.          Over this, the sound of singing          113 EXT. ROOFTOP. MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING 113          Norman's on his rooftop, under the primitive spout of water          that passes as his shower. Hanging from a nail in the wall,          the battery radio is pumping out a bizarre Indian cover          version of the Chic song "Le Freak".          Norman is naked, and singing along lustily.                         NORMAN          Aaaaaah, freak out! Le freak,          c'est chic .. Aaaah, freak out!          Feet slapping in the soapy water, he performs a nifty disco          move.          114 INT. SONNY'S OFFICE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING 114          Sonny is in his office, going through the accounts.          There's a strange ringing somewhere nearby. He pays no          attention, then stops and thinks for a moment. Then          realises what it is.          He sweeps the pile of papers off the desk, starts          frantically looking for the telephone.          115 EXT. UPPER COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING 115          Graham and Evelyn are having drinks.                         EVELYN          I've been getting out and about          as much as I can, but I feel I've          hardly scratched the surface. And          of course I'd love to see          Udaipur. The lake you talked          about.                         GRAHAM          I'd love to take you. Perhaps -          He breaks off. Douglas and Jean have come in. Jean looks          rather desperate.          EVELYN AND DOUGLAS                         (SIMULTANEOUSLY)          Good evening.                                                                                                               81A.          An awkward moment. Graham stands.                                                                                                               82.                         GRAHAM          Good evening, Mrs Ainslie.          Please allow me.          He pulls a chair out for her. She shoots him a look of          passionate gratitude for his exquisite sensitivity.                         JEAN          You're very kind. But I rather          think I'll turn in early.          Goodnight everyone.          She goes into her room.          116 EXT. COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING 116          Muriel is sitting outside her room, doing the crossword.          Madge is coming through the arch, stops dead.          Norman is standing in front of her, on his way out. He          looks transformed. And rather handsome.                         MADGE          Is this it?                         NORMAN          This is it.                         MADGE          You're not worried about the          danger of having sex at your age?          Norman shrugs.                         NORMAN          If she dies, she dies.          He leaves. Sonny sprints into the courtyard.                         SONNY          Progress, Mrs Donnelly, Mrs          Hardcastle! The wheel is turning          most assuredly in our favour!          He shoots up the stairs.          117 EXT. UPPER COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING. 117          Douglas, Graham and Evelyn are looking at the menu.          Sonny bursts in.                         SONNY          Mr Dashwood! Everybody! Great          news!                                                                                                               83.                         GRAHAM          What is it, Sonny?                         SONNY          They are working, they are          working!                         GRAHAM          That is great news. What are          working?                         SONNY          The telephones of the Marigold          Hotel.                         GRAHAM          Well, congratulations.                         SONNY          Thank you. I must tell          everybody. I must tell my          mother!          He runs off. Comes back.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Oh wait. You have a phone call.          118 EXT. STREET, POOR NEIGHBOURHOOD. JAIPUR - EVENING 118          Graham, Evelyn, and Douglas are walking quickly up a quiet          street.                         GRAHAM          It's a false alarm. There's no          way they could find anything in          that office. They probably just          picked an address at random, just          to keep me off their backs. I'm          sure that's what happened. It's          going to be nothing. Don't you          think it's going to be nothing?                         EVELYN          I think you should knock on the          door and see.                         GRAHAM          Yes. Yes I should.                         (BEAT)          Yes.          119 EXT. HOUSE - EVENING 119          Some men sit under a tree, playing cards.                                                                                                               84.          Across the street, Graham approaches a house. At a polite          distance, Evelyn and Douglas wait. Graham knocks at the          open door.          A woman, GAURIKA, appears. She stares at Graham.                         GRAHAM          I'm sorry to disturb you so late.          My name is Graham Dashwood. A          long time ago I -                         GAURIKA          I know who you are.          Beat.                         GRAHAM          I am afraid I don't know you.                         GAURIKA          I am Gaurika. The wife of Manoj.                         GRAHAM          (after a fraction of a                         BEAT)          I'm very pleased to meet you.          And if you could, if you would          tell him that I called around,          I'd appreciate that very much,                         AND -          He breaks off. She's walked past him, looking to the other          side of the road.          He turns to look at the men playing cards. Gaurika calls in          Hindi.          A beautiful-looking man looks up. MANOJ.          He looks across at the house. Stands up slowly as Graham          walks across the street towards him.          Graham reaches him. The two men just stand there for a          moment. Then they hug very tightly.          From the steps of the house, Gaurika watches.          Evelyn looks at her, fascinated.          Across the street, Manoj and Graham are still holding each          other, unable to let go.          120 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 120          Douglas and Evelyn are walking.                         DOUGLAS          (a tiny bit sloshed)                         (MORE)                                                                                                                85.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          First time going in to London          with my dad, on his commute...          He'd always been so extraordinary          to me, so unique. But there he          was standing on the station          platform, utterly          indistinguishable from all the          other men in suits. And then of          course a few years later I was          one of them... Hated my job.          Hated it.                         (BEAT)          Sorry, talking too much. Blame a          good dinner out.                         EVELYN          What was she thinking?                         DOUGLAS          I beg your pardon?                         EVELYN          His wife. Manoj's wife. She          knew who Graham was. Had he told          her?                         (BEAT)          D'you think we'll find out          tomorrow?                         DOUGLAS          Not me, I'm heading up to the          Badi Mahal Palace. Very excited,          been reading all about it.                         EVELYN          Tell me.                         DOUGLAS          I would, if I could remember a          word.          Evelyn laughs. Then Douglas suddenly grabs her. And pulls          her out of the way of a motor bike, zooming past them.          Sunaina hasn't realised she nearly hit them, and powers on          towards the Marigold.          Douglas and Evelyn stand for a moment, startled, holding          each other. Something passes between them that embarrasses          them both. Then they part quickly, guiltily.          They're outside a small restaurant, and with exquisite          timing, a group of musicians start to play a romantic tune.                         WAITER          Come, please. Nice meal,          please...                                                                                                               86.                         DOUGLAS                         (NAMASTE GESTURE)          We've eaten, thank you...          They continue on their way. Slightly further apart than          before.          121 EXT. MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 121          It's the middle of the night, and everything's quiet Or          as quiet as it can be in the middle of the usual night-time          Indian cacophony.          Sunaina parks her bike outside the hotel, goes on in.          122 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 122          Sonny is sleeping peacefully.          123 EXT. COURTYARD, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 123           Sunaina moves across the courtyard.           Not sneaking, exactly. But making no sound.          124 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 124           Sonny sleeps on.          125 INT. CORRIDOR, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 125           Sunaina is definitely sneaking now. She aims down the          passage towards Sonny's room.          126 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 126           Sonny stirs, but doesn't wake up.          127 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 127           Sunaina comith esno te bedroom.           She takes off her clothes. And climbs, naked, into bed           beside the sleeping figure.          128 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 128          A loud scream.          In a different bed, in a different room, Sonny wakes up.          And remembers.                                                                                                                87.          129 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 129          It's Sunaina that's screamed. Because she's in bed with          Madge.          Who couldn't be happier.                         MADGE          A midnight booty call. How          utterly marvellous.          130 INT. CORRIDOR, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 130          Sonny hares out of his temporary bedroom, and races down          the corridor, towards Madge's room.          131 INT. BEDROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 131          Sunaina has jumped out of the bed and across the room,          grabbing one of Madge's generous scarves to cover her          nakedness.                         SUNAINA          I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry . I          don't know what your name is, but          I'm incredibly sorry.                         MADGE          Don't be. Most action I've had          in weeks.                         SUNAINA          If you could just please not                         MENTION -          Sonny bursts in.                         SONNY          Do not worry, Mrs Hardcastle! I          can explain each and every thing!          Hesees Sunaina.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Oh my god you are naked.          He turns to Madge.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Mrs Hardcastle, I must apologise          with deep and profound sincerity -                         SUNAINA          How could you not tell me you          weren't in your room!                                                                                                               88.                         SONNY          Yes, Sunaina, to you too I must          apologise with equally deep and          profound sincerity. Now go. Get          out. Quickly.                         SUNAINA          I'm going. Just let me get          dressed, and -                         SONNY          No no, quicker than that. You          must leave, before -          MrsKapoor flings open the door.                         MRS KAPOOR          What is going on here? Who          screamed?          She sees the nearly-naked Sunaina.          MRS KAPOOR (cont'd)          No no no no no. No! This is a          respectable hotel, not a brothel.                         (TO SUNAINA)          You, get out.                         (TO MADGE)          And Mrs Hardcastle, I expected          better of you. Actually, this is          exactly what I expected of you,          but nevertheless -                         SUNAINA          Mrs Kapoor, I'm Sunaina.                         MRS KAPOOR          Since I will not be paying for          your services, your name is of no          interest to me.                         (BEAT)          How do you know mine?          Sunaina is shocked to realise that Mrs Kapoor doesn't know          her name. Sonny steps forward reluctantly.                         SONNY          Because this . is my Sunaina.                         MRS KAPOOR          The girl who my son described as          not too modern.                         MADGE          This is getting interesting.                         MRS KAPOOR                         (TO SUNAINA)          Tell me, please.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               89.          MRS KAPOOR (cont'd)          Is there anyone in this building          you haven't slept with?                         SONNY          Mummyji, do not get the wrong          idea. Sunaina was not here to be          with Mrs Hardcastle. She was          here to have sex with me!          Mrs Kapoor turns to Sunaina. Who is speechless.                         MRS KAPOOR          This is the sort of woman you          are. OK. Each to her own. But          do not ever try and tell me that          you are suitable wife for my son.                         (BEAT)          Find your clothes and go. I          don't expect to see you again.          132 EXT. GARDEN/PATHWAY. MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 132          Sunaina is leaving the hotel, angry and humiliated. Evelyn          and Douglas are coming up the path.                         EVELYN          Sunaina?          And now Sunaina is even more humiliated.          132A EXT. STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 132A          Sunaina roars away on her scooter.                         DISSOLVE TO:          133 EXT. STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 133          The same street. The sun is just coming up, and traders are          setting up their stalls, spreading their wares on rugs on          the ground.          One trader is unloading some fruit. A few guava roll off          the edge of his wagon.          Someone picks them up for him. It's Graham, who smiles as          he puts them back. The trader gives him a fresh one.          Graham takes it, and walks on, munching the delicious          fruit. A contented man.          134 EXT. GARDEN. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 134          Norman is sitting on a stone bench under a spreading tree.                                                                                                               90.          GRAHAM (O.S.)          How did it go?          Norman turns, to see Graham standing above him.                         NORMAN          I have seen the top of the          mountain. And it is good.          Graham nods, sits down next to him. They gaze out at the          waking city.                         GRAHAM          I saw someone yesterday, a man I          hadn't seen for many years. A          man I've loved all my life.          Norman is a bit startled by this.                         NORMAN          A man... .?                         GRAHAM          Yes.                         NORMAN          Carry on.                         GRAHAM          (smiling, unperturbed)          I didn't know how he'd been in          the meantime, didn't want to          guess. I brought disgrace upon          him and his family, and imagined          he might hate me for it.                         (BEAT)          But we talked all night. He's          been happy. He's led a peaceful          life, married to a woman who          understood him and loved him          nonetheless. But he's never          forgotten me. That's what he          said.                         (BEAT)          I asked his forgiveness anyway.          He said he had nothing to forgive          me for. That instead I should          forgive myself.                         (BEAT)          All that time. All that time I          believed I'd sentenced him to a          life of shame. When I was the          one in prison.                         (BEAT)          But not any more.                                                                                                               91.          Silence for a while.                         NORMAN          Top of the mountain.                         GRAHAM          Yes.          Norman smiles, then stands and goes on inside.          Graham settles back into his chair, looks out at the world.                         GRAHAM (CONT'D)          Not any more.          135 EXT. COURTYARD/VERANDAH, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 135          Norman comes into the courtyard. Madge, sipping from a cup          of chai, calls down from her verandah.                         MADGE          How was the night?                         NORMAN          Rather special.          He leaves. Madge just stares after him.          136 EXT. STAIRCASE. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 136          Norman on the stairs to his room.          He stops, catches his breath.          137 EXT. GARDEN. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 137          Graham is watching a stunningly beautiful bird. A snow          crane; white and magnificent. It's on the grass in front          of him.          Then it opens its huge wings, takes off. And flies up into          the bright blue sky. It's an extraordinary sight.          As Graham watches the snow crane swoop and dip, it appears          suddenly to slow and stall, until it seems to hang in the          air, almost motionless.          138 EXT. ROOFTOP. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAWN 138          Norman crosses the rooftop to his bedroom. He comes          inside, sits on the bed.          139 EXT. GARDEN, MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 139          Graham is still sitting in the garden.                                                                                                               92.          EVELYN (O.S.)          You're back.          He doesn't turn round. Evelyn has come out to the garden.          She goes over to him.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          It's been rather an extraordinary          night all round. First tell me          your news, and then -          She breaks off.          Graham is dead.          139A EXT. COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 139A          EVELYN (V.0.)          Day 45. Of course it was          inevitable. Put enough old          people in the same place, it          won't be too long before one of          them goes...          Jean, Douglas, Madge, Norman and Muriel shocked and sobered          140 EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - DAY 140          A train is crossing the endless fields.          141 INT. TRAIN - DAY 141          Evelyn stares out of the window. Madge, Norman, Douglas          and Jean are behind her. Opposite sits Manoj. Evelyn          turns to look at him, and at Gaurika, Manoj's wife, who          sits beside him.          EVELYN (V.0.)          We all know it'll happen, but few          of us know when. Graham died of          a heart attack, evidently not his          first. So he had a better idea          than most what was coming, he          just neglected to tell us. His          prerogative.          142 EXT. LAKE - DAWN 142          Three white vehicles are driving across a narrow causeway,          which barely rises above the surface of the lake. They          seem to be floating. Clouds of dust billow behind them.                                                                                                               93.          EVELYN (V.0.)          There was talk of sending the          body home, but Manoj felt he          should have a Hindu burial. At          the place they had visited          together. Not a holy place.          Although for them perhaps it was.          143 EXT. FUNERAL PYRE, RUINS - DAY 143          A ruined garden, surrounded by the waters of the lake,          crumbling pillared porticoes and arches. What must once          have been a royal retreat is now long abandoned and          overgrown.          Graham's friends stand watching the pyre, transfixed by the          flames. Manoj, dressed in white, stands with Gaurika. He          recites a Hindi prayer.          EVELYN (V.0.)          A body takes a long time to be          consumed. Many hours for the          mourners to remember their dead.          The fire must be lit at dawn, and          by sunset, there must be nothing          left but ash.          144 EXT. LAKESIDE - SUNSET 144          Stripped to the waist, Manoj walks into the water, holding          a bowl.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Where do our souls go? is that          all of us that is left behind?          Perhaps the most we can ask is          that when we do shuffle off, we          do so knowing that we were loved          Manoj pours Graham onto the water. The ashes shim r and          dance, caught in the gentle currents.          145 EXT. SERVANT'S GARDEN. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 145          Muriel and Anokhi are in the servants' garden. Young Wasim          sits silently in the corner.                         MURIEL          So there's a process, they call          it pickling. I have no idea what          it is, or how they do it, but          whoever invented it was a smart          man. But the real genius was the          one who introduced an onion into          the system. That I could never          have thought of.                                                                                                               94.          Ajit looks at her, ready to translate.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          No, forget it.          Muriel is looking out at the yard. She sees Mrs Kapoor,          talking to some surveyors. They're mapping out the          building.          Mrs Kapoor sees Muriel watching her, comes over to them.                         MRS KAPOOR          Mrs Donnelly, what are you doing          here? You should not be here,          talking with this one.                         MURIEL          I'm helping her clean. If these          pots get any dirtier, you'll have          to serve the food with          penicillin.                         MRS KAPOOR          We have other rooms. Go to one          of them instead. While this is          still a hotel.          She turns back to the surveyors.                         MURIEL                         (TO AJIT)          What's her problem? What's          happening here?          Ajit can't answer. But he knows a man who can.          He points to Young Wasim.                         AJIT          He can tell you.          146 EXT. ROOFTOP BAR, BHARATPUR PALACE HOTEL. UDAIPUR - 146                         EVENING          A stunning view over the city. Madge is having a drink          with Norman. Douglas is sitting on the wall, but keeps          looking down towards the stairs.                         MADGE          When someone dies, you think          about your own life. And in my          case, there is less of it in          front of me than behind. And I          don't want to grow older. I          don't want to be condescended to,          ignored and marginalised by          society. To become peripheral to          the action.                         (MORE)                                                                                                               95.          MADGE (coat' d)          I don't want to be the first          person let off the plane in a          hostage crisis.          They laugh together. And don't even see Douglas go.          147 EXT. LANDING. BHARATPUR PALACE HOTEL - EVENING 147          The landing is large, and open to the sky. Evelyn has just          come up the stairs to go to her room. She's leaning against          the stone baluster.                         DOUGLAS          I wondered where you'd been.          Evelyn turns. Douglas is on the stairs above her.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          We're all up top, having a drink.                         EVELYN          I went to see Gaurika. Manoj's          wife. I wanted to ask her what          she knew. And the answer was          that she knew everything, that          he'd loved another man, and          always would. He told her when          the marriage was arranged.                         (BEAT)          They had no secrets from each          other, none.          Suddenly she's crying. Unable to stop.          Douglas puts his arms around her, and holds her to him.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          And that's right, don't you see?          That must be right. Because what          is the point of a marriage in          which nothing is shared?          Her words hang in the air. They stand there for a moment.          Jean has come out of her room, and stands there, watching          them.                         JEAN          Mrs Greenslade, might I have my          husband back now?          They spring apart.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          Douglas?          She walks off back into the room. Douglas turns to Evelyn.                                                                                                               96.                         DOUGLAS                         FORGIVE ME                         EVELYN          Yes, of course.                         DOUGLAS          Forgive me.          Evelyn goes quickly to her room, leaving him standing          there.          148 INT. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM - EVENING 148          Douglas closes the door.                         DOUGLAS          She was upset.                         JEAN          Spare me your explanations.          D'you think I'm jealous?                         DOUGLAS          I don't see why else you would          have embarrassed me. And Evelyn.                         JEAN          You were already doing a          perfectly good job of          embarrassing yourself. Can you          imagine how ghastly it's been for          everyone to watch you mooning          around after that simpering doe-          eyed ex-housewife, taking          advantage of her loneliness and -                         DOUGLAS          God, can you hear yourself? Can          you? Do you have any idea what a          terrible person you've become?          Jean is stunned into silence.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          All you give out is this endless          negativity, a refusal to see any          kind of light and joy even when          it's right in your face, and a          desperate need to squash any sign          of happiness in me or anyone else          .. it's a wonder I don't fling          myself at the first kind word or          gesture that comes my way. But I          don't. Out of some dried-out          notion of loyalty and respect,          neither of which I ever bloody          get in return.                                                                                                               97.          There's a long silence.                         JEAN          I checked my emails. This came.          She hands him a piece of paper.          149 EXT. ROOFTOP BAR. BHARATPUR PALACE HOTEL - EVENING 149          Evelyn comes onto the terrace, and heads for Madge and          Norman. She picks up Madge's glass.                         MADGE          Are you alright?                         EVELYN          I just need some water.          She drains the glass.                         MADGE          That was a gin and tonic.                         EVELYN          Yes. I know that now.                         MADGE          What's happened?                         NORMAN          Good evening, the Ainslies.          Douglas and Jean are approaching them.                         MADGE          How are you both?                         JEAN          We're particularly well.          Douglas, tell them our news.          She looks to him, waits. He says nothing.          So she turns, and smiles.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          We're going home.          150 EXT. EVELYN'S VERANDAH/KITCHEN. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 150          Sonny is with his investor, Mr Maruthi. They emerge from          the upper courtyard onto the terrace overlooking the back          of the hotel.                                                                                                               98.                         SONNY          And so I would ask you to loosen          the strings on your purse, Mr          Maruthi, and to do it most          rapidly. So that Phase Two          Development of the Best Exotic          Marigold Hotel can begin with          immediate effect.          Mr Maruthi looks down, sees Muriel. She's with Anokhi,          Ajit, and Young Wasim.          He calls down to her.                         MR MARUTHI          Mrs Donnelly, I believe.          Sonny spots the danger, tries to lead Mr Maruthi away.                         SONNY          And now if you would please be          following me to the ground floor                         ROOMS          Mr Maruthi ignores him, calls down again.                         MR MARUTHI          How are things at the hotel?                         SONNY          Mr Maruthi -                         MURIEL                         (CALLING BACK)          Better. They're going better.          Sonny takes a moment to recover.                         SONNY          You see? Profound satisfaction.          Such is the inevitable result of          a prolonged stay at the Marigold          Hotel.          And now Mr Maruthi has spotted something else. The          surveyors, who are still taking their measurements.                         MR MARUTHI          What are those men doing?                         SONNY          (Glancing back for a moment)          Working for me, Mr Maruthi. To          create a home for the elderly so          wonderful that they will simply          refuse to die! Stare death in          the face and say-                         (MORE)                                                                                                               98A.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          (follows Mr Maruthi's                         GAZE)          What are those men doing?                                                                                                                99.          151 EXT. KITCHEN/SERVANT'S GARDEN. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 151          Moments later. Through the window, Muriel watches Sonny          confronting his mother.                         SONNY          Mummyji, what is going on here?                         MRS KAPOOR          I have spoken to your brothers.          They want to sell the hotel.          These men are here to value the          building.                         SONNY          They are valuing the land. My          brothers do not care about the          building. They will knock it          down.                         MRS KAPOOR          They could just wait a month for          it to fall down of its own          accord.                         SONNY          You joke, Mummyji, but inside I          know you are not laughing. You          do not want to see this dream          destroyed. Send these people          away.                         MRS KAPOOR          No, my son. It is too late.          152 INT. SONNY'S OFFICE - NIGHT 152          Mrs Kapoor is at the desk, going through the accounts.          Sonny stands opposite her.                         SONNY          Mummyji, please -                         MRS KAPOOR          These figures do not support your          argument.                         SONNY          There is still time to turn          things around. With a small          injection of funds, we can -                         MRS KAPOOR          Who is trusting you with that          money? Eh? You, who cannot run          a chai stand. Just like your          father.                                                                                                               100.          Beat. Then Sonny speaks quietly.                         SONNY          Do I remind you of him so much?          Is that why you must be cruel to          me?                         MRS KAPOOR          You think I am cruel?                         SONNY          You loved my father. And he          loved this hotel.                         MRS KAPOOR                         (FIERCELY)          Two mistakes. There will not be          a third.                         (BEAT)          Say goodbye to all this, Sonny.          And come with me to Delhi. Your          life will become easier.                         SONNY          Not easier, Mummyji. Smaller.          He leaves.          Mrs Kapoor comes back to the desk, fiddling with some          paperwork, discomfited.          She turns to the doorway. Muriel is there, in her chair.                         MRS KAPOOR          Mrs Donnelly. Can I help you?                         MURIEL          Depends. Do you know how to use          a computer?                         MRS KAPOOR          I assume you are joking.                         MURIEL          Mrs Ainslie said she had an          address where I could get some          things I need. Some biscuits.          She said I could get them on the          line.                         MRS KAPOOR          I wish you luck.          Mrs Kapoor smiles, and leaves.          Muriel watches her go, then turns to the computer.          Her fingers fly across the keyboard.                                                                                                                101.          153 INT. TRAIN - NIGHT 153          The train rattles its way through the night. Jean is          chatting away, in a better mood than we've seen her for          some time. Evelyn listens in silence.                         JEAN          The whole thing is actually          tremendously exciting. Not just          getting on a plane, but getting          on a plane and turning left.                         NORMAN          Turning left?                         JEAN          First class. And home in time          for our 40th wedding anniversary.          We haven't yet decided how to          mark the occasion.                         MADGE          Perhaps a minute's silence?          154 INT. SONNY'S OFFICE, MARIGOLD HOTEL - NIGHT 154           Ajit keeps watch, while Muriel is at the printer. Waiting           as it disgorges pages.                         155 OMITTED 155          155A EXT. STREET. JAIPUR STATION - DAY 155A          The tuk-tuks are lined up.                         NORMAN          (hailing a tuk-tuk)          Two should fit us all, I think.                         EVELYN          I'm actually going to walk.          Apparently they're getting ready          for a festival.                         DOUGLAS          Perhaps you'd like one of us to          accompany you.                         MADGE          I'm happy to walk with you.                                                                                                               102.                         EVELYN          I'll be fine.          Evelyn speaks to both Douglas and Jean.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          I'm delighted for your daughter's          success. I wish you all every          happiness.                         JEAN          Thank you.          Evelyn turns, and walks away.          156 INT. TUK-TUX - DAY 156          Douglas and Jean are in the tuk-tuk with Madge and Norman.          There is a sombre atmosphere.          A motor-bike hurtles past them, going the other way.                         DOUGLAS          Was that Sonny?          157 INT. CHRISTOPHER'S HOUSE, LONDON - DAY 157           A phone is ringing. Christopher is still in bed, his wife           Polly asleep next to him.          He answers.                         CHRISTOPHER                         YES          (can't believe his ears)          Ma?          158 EXT. PHONE BOOTH. TICKET OFFICE. JAIPUR STATION - DAY 158          Evelyn stands under the awning of the ticket office.                         EVELYN          I just wanted to hear your voice.                         (BEAT)          No, I'm sorry, I didn't think          about the time . How are you?          And Polly? The boys . how are          the boys?          She listens to him. She's holding back tears.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          Oh good, I'm glad you've been          reading it. Yes. Yes, I've made          some very good friends.                         (BEAT)          No, I'm fine, of course I am.                                                                                                               103.          As much as she had wanted to speak to him, she now wants          the conversation to be over.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          I think my money is running out,          I'd better go. Goodbye for now,          darling. I'll call again later.          She hangs up. And stays there with her hand on the phone.          Out on the street, Sonny is pulling up. She looks over to          him.                         SONNY          Mrs Greenslade. Where are the          others?                         EVELYN          They're on their way to the          hotel.          Sonny looks around, at a loss.                         EVELYN (CONT'D)          What's the matter?                         SONNY          I wanted to warn you before you          see for yourself of the most          momentous changes that are          occurring, absolutely all of them          without question for the very          positive.                         EVELYN          What are you talking about?                         SONNY          I am delighted to announce the          closing of the Best Exotic          Marigold Hotel, and the joyful          return of all of its inhabitants          to their home country.                         EVELYN          What?          159 EXT. GARDEN PATH. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 159          Norman and Madge have arrived back at the hotel.          Mrs Kapoor is breaking the news to them.                         MRS KAPOOR          Please relax in the knowledge          that your journey home is being          arranged, and paid for by the          hotel.                                                                                                               104.                         MADGE          Our journey here was arranged and          paid for by the hotel, and look          how that went. I'd rather walk          back to England.                         NORMAN          I'd rather not go back at all.          A voice comes behind them. Carol has come out of the          courtyard.                         CAROL          Why would you have to?          160 EXT. JAIPUR STATION - DAY 160          Sonny and Evelyn are still talking.                         SONNY          And for myself the news is even          better. I shall be moving to          Delhi to live with my mother, and          furthermore I shall be wed to a          most suitable person of her          choice, whom I look forward very          much to meeting before I spend          the rest of my life with her.                         EVELYN          But what about your girlfriend?                         SONNY          She is no longer my girlfriend.                         EVELYN          This is a disaster.                         SONNY          Then we must treat it just the          same as we would treat a triumph,          is that not what your Mr Kipling          tells us? Although of course,          here we have a problem. Because          I, Sunil Indrajit Kapoor, have          never had a triumph, so of course          I do not know how to treat one.          No, all I have had is an constant          series of disasters interspersed          with the occasional catastrophe,          an unending stream of total -                         EVELYN          Sonny, do you love her? Sunaina?                                                                                                               105.                         SONNY          Most deeply.                         EVELYN          Have you told her you love her?                         SONNY          It is because I love her that I          must not tell her. She can do so          much better than me.                         EVELYN          And you have told her that?                         SONNY          Many times.                         EVELYN          Good. Women love it when you say          that kind of thing. It's a          powerful aphrodisiac.                         SONNY          Really?                         EVELYN          No, of course not. Go and find          her right now, before you lose          her forever. Her future is hers          to choose, and so is yours. You          can have anything you want,          Sonny. You just need to stop          waiting for someone to tell you          you deserve it. Or you can just          keep failing yourself, and          hurting the ones you love -                         SONNY          Mrs Greenslade, stop drilling!          You have struck oil!          He goes to his bike, climbs on, and rockets off.          161 EXT. UPPER COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 161          Madge is sitting, pensive. Carol comes in.                         MADGE          Where's Norman?                                                                                                               106.                         CAROL          Packing.                         MADGE          But we don't have to leave yet.                         CAROL          I asked him to come and stay with          me.                         MADGE          Is that wise? I'm not sure he's          trained.                         CAROL          You think it's too soon.                         MADGE          It doesn't matter what I think.                         CAROL          It is too soon. But at our age we          can't afford the luxury of taking          it slow. And it's either this or          he goes home and I don't want          him to go home.          Madge looks at her for a while. Then smiles.                         MADGE          I wish you both the very best.                         CAROL          You haven't met anyone?                         MADGE          Single by choice. Just not my          choice.                         (BEAT)          I actually think it might be          over. For me. With men. And if          that's gone, I'm not quite sure          what's left.                         BEAT                         CAROL          Did you know Norman brought          pills? The first night he stayed          with me?                         MADGE          They obviously did the trick.                         CAROL          I saw them in his pocket. I          didn't want it to be like that.          So when I had the chance I          swapped them.                         (BEAT)                         (MORE)                                                                                                               106A.                         CAROL (CONT'D)          He went all night on two aspirin.                         (BEAT)          It's never over.          Norman appears with his one bag and his battery radio.                         NORMAN          Ready?                                                                                                                107.          162 EXT. STREET, CENTRAL JAIPUR - DAY 162          Sonny roars through the streets on his bike.          163 EXT. STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 163          Evelyn approaches.          She sees a taxi waiting outside the hotel.          164 EXT. STAIRCASE, MARIGOLD HOTEL - CONTINUOUS 164          The houseboy is carrying Douglas and Jean's bags down to          the car.          165 EXT. COURTYARD, MARIGOLD HOTEL - CONTINUOUS 165          Evelyn comes into the courtyard. Muriel is sitting there.          The two women stare at each other.                         MURIEL          Do you want him to see you?          165A EXT. STREET. JAIPUR 165A          Sonny is waiting at a junction, texting into his mobile          phone.          166 INT. DOUGLAS AND JEAN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 166          Douglas is checking they haven't left anything. Jean is at          the door. She's impatient.                         JEAN                         DOUGLAS          166A INT. CALL CENTRE - DAY 166A          Sunaina picks up her mobile, looks at the message.          167 EXT/INT. TAXI/STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 167          Jean is sitting in the taxi, which is driven by BARUM.          Douglas climbs in.          A beat.                         DOUGLAS          My wallet, I forgot my wallet.          One second.          Before Jean has a chance to say anything, he goes back in.                                                                                                               108.          She watches him go.          168 EXT. COURTYARD, MARIGOLD HOTEL - CONTINUOUS 168          Douglas comes back into the courtyard, heads towards the          staircase to Evelyn's room.          Then Muriel speaks from her verandah.                         MURIEL          She's not back yet.          Douglas stops. Beat.                         DOUGLAS          Right.                         (BEAT)          Then perhaps you could tell her I          said goodbye.          He turns and walks out.          169 INT. EVELYN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - CONTINUOUS 169          Evelyn is at her window, listening. She turns to watch him          leave.          170 EXT. MARIGOLD HOTEL - CONTINUOUS 170          Douglas gets back into the taxi.                         DOUGLAS          (slamming the door)          False alarm. Had it the whole          time. Let's go.                         171 OMITTED 171          172 EXT. CALL CENTRE - DAY 172          Sonny roars into the forecourt, gets off his bike, and runs          into the building.          A SECURITY GUARD goes to stop him, but Sonny's already          running up the stairs.          172A INT. STAIRWELL/LANDING. CALL CENTRE - DAY 172A          Sonny keeps going up, floor after floor.                                                                                                               109.                         SONNY                         (YELLING)          Sunaina! Sunaina!          He reaches the seventh floor.          Jay appears on the landing above him.                         JAY          What's going on?          Sonny is doubled over, totally out of breath. Holds up a          finger.                         JAY (CONT'D)          Sonny?                         SONNY          I need to see Sunaina!                         JAY          Her shift's not over. And when          it is, she doesn't want to see          you.          Beat.                         SONNY          Jay, you are the son my mother          wished I was; an intelligent man,          with a strong head for business.          You see things as they are, not          as you wish them to be. So fuck          off out of my way.          Jaydoesn't move.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Or you can give her a message.          Sunaina is standing against the wall, unseen by Sonny,          listening.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          Tell her from me what I should          have told her the day we met.          What I will announce to anyone          who asks. And many who do not.          Sunaina speaks to Jay.                         SUNAINA          Including your mother?                         JAY                         (TO SONNY)          Including my mother?                         SUNAINA          His mother.                                                                                                               110.                         JAY                         (TO SONNY)          Your mother.                         SONNY          I will tell every mother in the          land.                         SUNAINA                         (TO JAY)          What will you tell them?                         JAY                         (TO SONNY)          What will you tell them?                         SONNY          The only thing that matters in          this world. That I love you.          And always will.                         (BEAT)          And by you, I mean Sunaina, Jay,          not you. Although if you are to          be my brother-in-law, I hope we          can become better friends.                         SUNAINA          Why is he only saying this now?                         JAY                         (TO SUNAINA)          You ask him.                         SUNAINA          Why are you only saying this now?                         SONNY          Because, Sunaina, love of my          life, no more will I believe that          I am not worthy, for only by          loving you as you deserve will I          become so.          On Sunaina's face as she hears this.          173 EXT. STREET, CENTRAL JAIPUR - DAY 173          The cacophonous sound of drumming: a small band of players          are beating out a deafening, syncopated rhythm as the          Ganeshi festival begins to unfold.          Sonny is on his bike, Sunaina riding side-saddle on the          back. They're speeding through the city.          Sonny rockets through an arch way up a side street, is          confronted by a huge traffic jam. The Ganeshi procession is          bringing everything to a standstill.          He does a U-turn, speeds off back the way they came.                                                                                                                111.          174 INT/EXT. TAXI/STREET - DAY 174          Douglas and Jean are sitting in the traffic jam.                         DOUGLAS          It's funny. They call it rush          hour, but nothing actually moves.                         (BEAT)          It's not that funny.                         (BEAT)          Although I suppose it's all about          context, isn't it? I mean -                         JEAN          Douglas?                         DOUGLAS          Yes?                         JEAN          If you say one more word, I'll          kill you with my thumbs.          174A EXT. COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 174A          Muriel sits alone in the courtyard, under her awning.          Then Carol and Norman appear from reception, followed by          Mrs Kapoor. They cross towards the arch.                         MURIEL          Where d'you think you're going?                         MADGE          You may well ask.          Madge is sitting under the shade of a tree..                         NORMAN          We're moving in together.                         MURIEL          Already?                         CAROL          That point has been made.                         MRS KAPOOR          The hotel is closing.                         MURIEL          Doesn't have to.          Silence. Everyone stares at Muriel.          She takes out the spreadsheets.                                                                                                               112.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          I've been going over the          accounts.          174B EXT. STREET, CENTRAL JAIPUR - DAY 174B          If anything, the traffic is now worse. Jean and Douglas's          taxi has progressed a few yards, and is now wedged into the          arch. The Ganeshi procession is completely blocking the far          entrance to the archway.          Jean gets out, looks at the sea of unmoving traffic ahead          and behind.                         JEAN          This is ridiculous. It could go          on for hours. There's no way          we're ever going to get out of          here.                         DOUGLAS          Maybe there is.          A rickshaw arrives next to them, swerving through the          traffic. It is ridden by IFTI.                         JEAN          You. Can you get us to the          airport?                         IFTI          Sorry long way sore legs not          possible.                         JEAN          I'll give you everything I have.                         IFTI          Step right in mind your head          let's go.                         JEAN          Come on, Douglas. Come on!          Douglas gets the suitcases out of the trunk of the cab.                         IFTI          Sorry no manage people and cases.                         JEAN          (grabbing her suitcases)          What?                         IFTI          Not possible. Two person, no          cases; one person, and cases.                                                                                                               113.                         JEAN          (taking off her watch)          How about if I give you something          else? My watch?                         IFTI                         (TAKES IT)          Sure. Thank you. Still not          possible.                         DOUGLAS          We'll get another flight. We can          go back to the hotel, and leave          in the morning.                         JEAN          No.                         DOUGLAS          Jean, you heard what he said. He          can't do it.                         JEAN          He can do one person, and cases.                         DOUGLAS          Yes, but                         JEAN          Could fate find a better way to          tell us what we need to hear?                         DOUGLAS          Which is what?                         JEAN          That it's over. It was over a          long long time ago.                         DOUGLAS          This is not the time to talk          about this. Let's wait till we                         GET-                         JEAN          I have to go, Douglas.                         DOUGLAS          I won't let you.                         JEAN          No, you'll want to come after me.          Chase me to the airport and tell          me everything will be fine.          But please don't. Because the          truth is we both deserve more          than we've had. You're just too          kind and too loyal to admit it.                                                                                                               113A.          Beat.                         JEAN (CONT'D)          I will be alright.                         (SHE SMILES)          I'm turning left.          She climbs onto the rickshaw.                                                                                                               114.          As the drumming intensifies, Douglas stands holding his          suitcase, watching her weave through the traffic and out of          sight.          174C EXT. STREET. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 174C          Sonny and Sunaina roar towards the hotel, drive into the          gate and up the path...          175 EXT. STREET/COURTYARD. MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 175          Mrs Kapoor is studying the spreadsheets.                         MRS KAPOOR          I don't know what any of these          figures mean.          Sonny and Sunaina drive into the courtyard, screech to a          halt.          They dismount.                         SONNY          Mummyji? Mummyjit                         MRS KAPOOR          Right here, you do not need to          shout.                         SONNY          Do you remember what my father          used to say? That nothing happens          unless first we dream. Like him          I have dreamt, Mummyji, and like          him, I have failed. The Marigold          Hotel is crumbling into dust.          And it turns out I can live with          that. But the one thing I will          not do is live without this girl.          To whom I did not introduce you          properly before.                         (BEAT)          This is Sunaina Shantanu Palawat.          The woman I love, and wish to          marry.                         SUNAINA          I am very pleased to meet you,          Mrs Kapoor.                                                                                                               115.          Sunaina puts out her hand. Mrs Kapoor will not take it.                         MRS KAPOOR          (shaking her head)          No. I forbid it. I forbid this          match. Utterly and completely.          Do you hear me, Sonny? This          cannot happen.          And then a low, rumbling sound comes from the corner. Like          a quiet volcano.          Young Wasim is speaking. It's a long, poetic and heartfelt          speech.          Unfortunately it's in Hindi.                         MADGE          What is he saying?                         MURIEL          What he said to me, I imagine.          She turns to Sunaina.                         MURIEL (CON'TD)          Can you help?                         SUNAINA          He is saying . he is saying          that he has been with this family          as long as he can remember.          Given them a lifetime of service.          And that he remembers another          fight, between two young people          and their parents. And he          remembers the moment where the          young man stood up to his mother                         MRS KAPOOR          . and said yes, I want to marry          this woman. Yes, she is from a          different community. But she is          smart, she is beautiful, and I          love her.          Long pause.          MRS KAPOOR (cont'd)          I don't know who he's talking          about.          She offers Sunaina her hand.          MRS KAPOOR (cont'd)          Take care of my favourite son.          Sunaina shakes her hand.                                                                                                               116.                         NORMAN          So I'm not clear now. Am I          staying or going?                         MURIEL          Depends how you read the          accounts.                         SONNY          The accounts?                         MURIEL          Turns out the original plan is          good, it works. Just not in the          hands of an imbecile.                         SONNY          I knew that plan was good!                         MURIEL          What the place needs is more          money.                         SONNY          Unfortunately my investor, Mr          Maruthi has decided that while he          greatly admires my endeavors, he                         CANNOT -                         MURIEL          He's reconsidered.                         SONNY          You spoke to him?                         MURIEL          So long as there is someone to          help the manager.                         SONNY          The manager needs no help.                         SUNAINA          Sonny...                         SONNY          The manager needs a little help.                         MURIEL                         (TO NORMAN)          So will you stay?          Norman looks at Carol.                         NORMAN          I'd like to.                                                                                                               117.                         CAROL          In the shack on the roof?                         NORMAN          I sleep in the trees.                         SONNY                         (TO CAROL)          We have a double room. Bathroom          ensuite. And a fully working          door.          He points to Graham's room.                         SONNY (CONT'D)          A guest has recently checked out.          Madge can't believe he just said that.                         CAROL          I'll think about it.                         MURIEL                         (TO MADGE)          Mrs Hardcastle ? You're staying.                         MADGE          On my own?                         MURIEL          You're off your game. Lost your          confidence, maybe. But you're a          thoroughbred. You'll be back.          Madge smiles.                         MURIEL (CON'TD)          And what about you, Mrs          Greenslade?          Evelyn has come down, unnoticed by all. Except Muriel.                         EVELYN          What about me, Mrs Donnelly?                         MURIEL          We haven't talked much, you and          I.                         EVELYN          My loss, evidently.                         (BEAT)          I'm not sure what I should do.          Nothing here has quite worked out          as I hoped.                                                                                                               117A.                         MURIEL          Most things don't. But sometimes          what happens instead is the good          stuff.                         (BEAT)                         (MORE)                                                                                                               118.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          Haven't you got work in the          morning?          Evelyn nods.                         MURIEL (CONT'D)          Besides, he'll be back.                         EVELYN          You don't know him. He's the          most loyal man I've ever met.                         MURIEL          50,000 rupees says I'm right. At          your current salary that should          take you three months to pay off.          Muriel stands up. Everybody stares. She starts to walk          slowly but proudly across the courtyard. She reaches the          doorway, turns back.                         MURIEL          If you'll excuse me, someone's          waiting to help me make mango          chutney. Why did no one tell me          about that stuff?                         MRS KAPOOR          Who is the new assistant manager?                         MURIEL          Why? Are you thinking of          applying for the job?          She gestures for her wheelchair.          Sonny rushes up with it. She sinks down.                         MURIEL (CONT'D))          That's enough exercise for one          day.          175A EXT. AIRPORT ROAD. JAIPUR - EVENING 175A          Jean sits in the rickshaw, surrounded by her luggage,          carried by Ifti's strong legs towards her future.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Day 51. The only real failure is          the failure to try.          175B INT. EVELYN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - EVENING 175B          Evelyn is at her computer typing.                                                                                                               119.          EVELYN (V.0.)          And the measure of success is how          we cope with disappointment. As          we always must.          175C EXT. STREET, CENTRAL JAIPUR - NIGHT 175C          Douglas, still holding his suitcase, is surrounded by          Ganeshi drummers, silhouetted against the lights of the          city.          The sound fades as he disappears into the celebration, and          is replaced by the gentle sound of temple bells, ringing          for morning prayers.          EVELYN (V.0.)          We came here, and we tried. All          of us, in our different ways.          176 INT. EVELYN'S ROOM, MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 176          Evelyn is still sitting, fully dressed in her room. She's          been up all night.          Her alarm clock buzzes. She turns it off.          177 EXT. EVELYN'S TERRACE, MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 177          Evelyn comes out of her room, walks across the terrace.          178 EXT. COURTYARD, MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 178          EVELYN (V.0.)          Some achieved more than others.          but we did our best. Nothing          else matters.          Evelyn walks through the courtyard, and on out of the          hotel.          179 EXT. GARDEN/PATHWAY, MARIGOLD HOTEL - MORNING 179          Evelyn walks down the path towards the street.          Then Douglas comes through the gate, with his suitcase.          They stand there, looking at each other for a moment.                         EVELYN          Good morning.                                                                                                               120.                         DOUGLAS          It is, isn't it?                         EVELYN          You're still here.                         DOUGLAS          I missed the plane.                         EVELYN          What about Jean?                         DOUGLAS          She didn't.          Beat.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          (putting down his                         SUITCASE)          I had quite an interesting night,          actually. I met the same taxi          driver, but this time I let him          take me to his brother's hotel.          Which turned out to be less of a          hotel, and more of a brothel,          really. They gave me this pipe,          said it was apple tobacco, but          that's not what we called it when          I was a student. So I made my          excuses and left, wanted some          time to think. This city at          night is extraordinary.                         (BEAT)          Of course the apple tobacco          helped.                         (BEAT)          Guess what? I finally saw an          elephant.          Silence for a bit.                         EVELYN          I'm late for work.          She goes past him.                         DOUGLAS          Um ...          She stops, turns.                         DOUGLAS (CONT'D)          What time do you finish?                         EVELYN          I get back about 5.                         DOUGLAS          Tea time.                                                                                                               121.                         EVELYN          Yes.                         DOUGLAS          How do you take it?                         EVELYN          With a little milk.          She turns and walks away.          She's smiling.          180 EXT. MARKET, JAIPUR - DAY 180          EVELYN (V.0.)          Perhaps it's true: we don't stop          playing because we grow old, we          grow old because we stop playing.          Douglas is haggling with a motorbike mechanic. He seems to          be having more success with the price than in earlier days.          180A EXT. ROOFTOP, MARIGOLD HOTEL - DAY 180A          Carol is lying on Norman's bed, reading a book, while he          washes his socks in a bucket.          EVELYN (V.0.) (CONT'D)          All we really know about the          future is that it will be          different.          181 EXT. VICEROY CLUB. JAIPUR - DAY 181          Madge is chatting vivaciously to someone. It's the elegant          older man we saw earlier. And he seems utterly smitten.          EVELYN (V.0.) (CONT'D)          So we must celebrate the changes.          182 EXT. STREET. JAIPUR - DAY 182          Sonny and Sunaina race through the streets on his          motorbike. Sonny raises a fist in salute.          EVELYN (V.0.)          Let them come. Bring them on.          Because as someone once said,          everything will be alright in the          end ...                                                                                                              Coming from the other direction, another motorbike, Douglas          at the handlebars, returning Sonny's greeting.          And on the pillion seat, riding side-saddle, her scarf          flying in the breeze, is Evelyn, on her way home from work.          EVELYN (V.0.) (cont'd)          So if it's really not alright,          then trust me: it's not yet the          end.                                                                                                                              
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+THE BIG BLUE by Luc Besson Bob Garland Marylin Golden "God is at the bottom of the sea and I dive to find him." Enzo MaiorcaFADE IN:EXT. GREEK ISLAND - SUNSETCREDIT SEQUENCE:The image is in black and white.The sun disappears behind arid cliffs which cast giantshadows on the sea.A little boy around 8 years old -- tanned from head to toe-- sprints along the cliffs, scrambles from one rock toanother with amazing agility.In one hand, he carries a transparent plastic bag. In theother, a net bag containing flippers, mask, pants andsweater.The only thing that slows him down is his bathing suit --obvious hand-me-downs -- way too big. He tugs on them ashe goes, holding them up... Until they slide again... ashe leaps again... and pulls them up...The little boy is JACQUES MAYOL.End credits.EXT. GREEK ISLAND - SUNSETJACQUES reaches a ledge jutting out over a deserted cove.He spits in his mask... expertly spreads the spit with afinger... locks his feet into the flippers... and dives.He surfaces a long way out... adjusts his mask... andswims away from shore.IN OPEN SEAThe boy stops swimming -- starts to gulp air -- sucks itin -- oxygenating his blood in a series of deep rapidbreaths -- almost hyperventilating, almost alarming ifwe've never seen this before.His gaze is glued to the ocean floor. Clear clear water.40 feet deep. And intensely blue.Suddenly, he catches his breath and dives -- into theblue.UNDERWATERJACQUES touches bottom. Clamps his legs around a rock tohold himself down. Unhurried, thoroughly at home, 40 feetunder... he opens the plastic bag. A huge speckled morayeel appears in a hole in the rock, slithers toward him.The carnivore's jaws are bigger than the boy's head.The boy smiles at him. Pulls a piece of raw meat out ofhis bag and holds it out. The eel takes the morseldelicately -- and slithers back into his hole.Gravely, JACQUES takes another morsel out of the bag.EXT. VILLAGE - DUSKJACQUES walks up a steep road bordering the port, almostdry now.Two boys about his age run up the streets; call out, catchup with him and gesture toward the port. THE BOYS Jacques! Come quick!EXT. PIER - DUSKThe little boys tug JACQUES to the end of the pier andpoint to something in the water. BOYS Look! Right there! It's shining!JACQUES walks over, and sure enough sees something shininga few feet down in the water. JACQUES (squinting) A coin. FIRST BOY I found it. SECOND BOY Liar!Camera pans and we see a middle-aged PRIEST loadingsupplies into a small boat. He stops to watch thechildren's negotiations. Little JACQUES is putting hisflippers on. JACQUES Ok. I'll get it, but no fighting, all right?The two boys nod as they point to the coin. JACQUES We'll split it. FIRST BOY You can't split a coin. That's stupid. SECOND BOY He's right. You're stupid.The pope smiles. JACQUES Then we'll buy something and split that. SECOND BOY A helicopter... JACQUES It's a small coin. FIRST BOY A Ferrari. SECOND BOY I don't want a Ferrari... What is it? JACQUES (interrupting them) Maybe a little radio.The two boys look at each other. JACQUES Well. We'll decide later. The light is going. SECOND BOY I get the radio from after school, until midnight. FIRST BOY Since when do you stay up until midnight? JACQUES All right, all right... Can I concentrate? And you can stop pointing. I've seen it. VOICE (O.S.) I've seen it too.The voice is ENZO'S. Another young boy wearing littleround glasses. FIRST BOY (annoyed) Shit, it's the Italian!He is slightly older than JACQUES but he is taller. ENZOis with ROBERTO, his younger brother, the only one allowedto carry his flippers. Five kids are behind him. ENZO Well, if it isn't the little Frenchman! How is the little Frenchman? JACQUES (cool) Fine!ENZO pats JACQUES on the shoulder and leaves his handthere -- a lightly intimidating gesture. ENZO You don't mind if I go instead, do you? JACQUES (intimidated, and pretending not to be) No... ENZO If you did mind, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?ENZO pats his shoulder reassuringly. ENZO (to his brother) Roberto, mio palmo!ROBERTO who has already started to moisten his bigbrother's gear in the water, holds a pair of drippingflippers and a glistening mask. The pope watches thescene with obvious pleasure. ENZO (to his brother on the edge of the pier) Count!Sure of himself, ENZO takes a deep breath and dives in thewater. ROBERTO counts out loud. ROBERTO 1... 2... 3...The kids all walk over to the edge of the pier. A fewfeet away, JACQUES takes off his flippers. ROBERTO 4... 5... 6...ENZO bursts out of the water, the coin in his hand. Thechildren cheer and clap. ROBERTO rushes to catch theequipment that comes flying at him, piece by piece.ENZO walks over to JACQUES. ENZO (showing him the coin) Who's is it now? You saw it but I dove for it!JACQUES doesn't answer.ENZO smiles and slowly puts the coin in his pocket. Hepulls it out again and waves it under JACQUES' nose. ENZO (without turning around) Roberto? How long? ROBERTO Six seconds.ENZO looks at JACQUES for a while. ENZO I'll throw it back into the water. You dive and if you do less than six, it's yours.JACQUES doesn't say anything, then finally shakes hishead, negatively. ENZO smiles, taps him on the shoulder. ENZO Brava!The first boy finally sums up his courage to speak. BOY (timidly) Enzo? I saw the coin first... We split? ENZO (smiling) You can't split a coin, stupid.ENZO laughing, sticks the coin in his pocket and leavesthe pier with his gang.The pope smiles and pulls a coin from his pocket.With his flippers dangling from one hand, JACQUES sadlystares out at the sea. The pope calls him over. PRIEST Jacques... Come, look.JACQUES goes over to him, sees where he is pointing, thefaint gleam of the coin underwater. PRIEST Is it a coin shining down there? JACQUES (overjoyed) It is. It's a coin! I'll get it for you, Father! PRIEST It'll be for the poor.JACQUES, intent on the coin's glimmer, quickly slips onhis fins, prepares his mask. He swims in the water like afish, goes directly to the coin. Scoops it up, brings itto the surface.He breaks water, waves the coin, looks for the priest andsees he is no longer there. JACQUES Padre?He looks at the ancient impression on the coin -- "Boy ona Dolphin". DISSOLVE TO:ON JACQUES - UNDERWATERHe's swimming near the spot where he fed the moray eel.He senses something behind him and turns around. He seesa dolphin, still and silent, floating vertically. Itseems to be watching him. The surprise is such thatJACQUES is in a panic, leaps up to the surface...ON JACQUES - IN BEDHe bolts upright, as if suddenly awakening from a dream.INT. ROOM - ON JACQUES' FATHER - DARKA BURLY MAN, around fifty, crosses the room in the shadowsand throws open the shutters with a bang. Sunlight poursin. He walks over to JACQUES' bed in the one room house,and runs his hand through his hair. FATHER (with a smile) ... Come on, time to get up, Jacques!JACQUES rubs his eyes. His father walks over to a pile ofblankets on the floor, on the other side of the room. Hegives the pile a kick. FATHER (screaming at the top of his lungs) Louis, wake up!He uncovers a kettle on the fire and ladles up a big bowlof soup for Jacques. A fifty year old man pokes his headout from under the pile of blankets. It's UNCLE LOUIS,who is having a very hard time, waking up.EXT. HOUSE - DAYJACQUES bursts out of the house, running. Diving gearunder his arm. A piece of buttered bread in his mouth.He catches up with his father and UNCLE LOUIS. They're ona path winding down to the port. JACQUES slows downabruptly. Tries to imitate their stride. The weather isbalmy and the sea lies before them, peaceful and blue.EXT. SEA - DAYTheir boat on the water. The chug of its ENGINE ECHOESoff the cliffs. A few gulls -- drawn by the sound -- skimthe waves of its wake.EXT. BOAT - DAYOn board. JACQUES' Father checks the antique air pump.JACQUES polishes the enormous copper diver's helmet andlays out the rest of an old fashioned deep sea diver'ssuit.At the foot of an old monastery another boat passes.The Priest is in it.JACQUES' Father and LOUIS take off their caps. JACQUEStakes the gold coin out of his pocket.The pope nods to JACQUES. His father looks over at himwithout understanding. The child quickly puts the coinback in his pocket.EXT. BOAT - DAYLOUIS casts anchor. A few feet away, siting on a rock,the kid with little round glasses is fishing. He turnsaround to the boat. JACQUES smiles and waves at him.ENZO waves back, obviously disturbed in his fishingsession. FATHER Jacques, come help me.JACQUES helps his father into the diver's suit. The burlyman struggles into a pair of weighted lead shoes. Heseems sluggish and tired. JACQUES watches worriedly. Hehas a weird feeling. JACQUES You shouldn't dive everyday, Papa. UNCLE LOUIS Then you shouldn't eat everyday, Jacques.His father catches him fondly by the scruff of the neck. FATHER (winks at him) Don't worry. When I'm tired down there, the mermaids help me out.Father and son smile at each other. Then his father putsthe helmet on. JACQUES joins LOUIS at the pump.The heavy diver's suit disappears slowly underwater. Thegleaming copper helmet is the last thing to slide out ofsight.JACQUES and LOUIS work the pump. Regular, steady motionsto maintain the flow of air. UNCLE LOUIS (to Jacques) Hey! Have you ever seen a mermaid? JACQUES No.They keep on pumping for a while, then... UNCLE LOUIS I've seen them.UNCLE LOUIS goes on. JACQUES doesn't budge. UNCLE LOUIS Don't you want to know where?JACQUES looks at the bottom to watch his father.He doesn't answer.UNDERWATER - JACQUES' FATHERHe moves along slowly in his cumbersome diving suit. Heis working the top of a rock outcrop on the sea floor. Hesees a sponge, hooks it; puts it in a bag that's attachedto a life line from the boat fastened to his waist. Hemoves on.INT. BOAT - JACQUES AND LOUIS PUMPINGThey keep up the rhythm. Sitting on a rock at a distance,ENZO watches them. UNCLE LOUIS is bored stiff. UNCLE LOUIS Why don't you ask me? JACQUES What? UNCLE LOUIS Where I saw the mermaids?! Why don't you ever ask any question? I'm always the one asking the question! We're sitting here like two stones and I'm taking to myself. Ask me something, Goddamnit!JACQUES calmly looks over at him, slows down his pumpingand almost serenely asks him: JACQUES (in a completely flat tone) Why did my mother leave?UNCLE LOUIS seems disturbed by the question. A beat. UNCLE LOUIS (ill at ease) Come on now, pump!UNDERWATER - JACQUES' FATHERHe is walking with difficulty at the bottom. His bag isfull of sponges. He seems to be having trouble breathing.EXT. BOAT - JACQUES AND LOUISJACQUES and LOUIS are pumping silently. UNCLE LOUIS feelsobliged to answer JACQUES' question.UNCLE LOUIS finally breaks the silence and explains: UNCLE LOUIS Your mother didn't leave. She went back to America, that's all. It's her home. She's allergic to this Island. She likes refrigerators and machines that clean the floor... so one day she left. Woman are like that, unpredictable, like the sea.They haven't been paying attention to the bubbles gushingat the surface. The air hose is being pulled down in avery worrisome way. JACQUES (with a slight grin) So where did you see mermaids?UNCLE LOUIS smiles. UNCLE LOUIS In the bars in Athens!Very pleased with himself, UNCLE LOUIS burst out laughing.JACQUES shyly shrugs his shoulders. The air hose issuddenly yanked down. JACQUES immediately sees all thebubbles. He is white as a sheet.JACQUES rushes to the side of the boat and starts yellingdown at his father. He grabs the life line and startspulling at it hysterically. The air hose snaps andstarts flying around like some crazy snake. JACQUES triesto jump overboard. UNCLE LOUIS catches hold of his footat the last second. JACQUES is slapping the water withhis hands, trying to go down but UNCLE LOUIS won't lethim. JACQUES is yelling desperately. ENZO is nowstanding on his rock, watching the scene, horrified.The sea now looks as if it were boiling.UNCLE LOUIS grabs hold of JACQUES and hugs him in hisarms. Standing on his rock, ENZO is now cryingdesperately. ENZO (screaming) Jacques! Jacques!The last air bubbles are now breaking on the surface; itlooks as if they will never stop. DISSOLVE TO:EXT. ITALIAN VILLAGE STREET - DAYThe image is now in color.A rocky pink cliff over looks the very bright sea whichfills the screen.SUPERIMPOSED: 1987 SICILYALFREDO runs (skips) up the cobbled street as fast as hecan go, surprisingly fast.He runs to the large terrace of a restaurant which heenters. We have time to read the sign carrying therestaurant's name: "LA MAMMA".INT. RESTAURANT - DAYALFREDO skips in. He is panting, covered in sweat. Hispanic is palpable. The whole room watches him approach along table where a large family is having a birthday partyfor a very old lady.He has to stop a second and catch his breath before he canget the words out. Then leans over and whispers in theear of a great big man -- around 30 -- built like a bull,wearing little round glasses.The man listens, then stiffens.EXT. HARBOR - CONSTRUCTION SITE - DAYA beat-up FIAT, towing an equally beat-up trailer, stops.ENZO unfolds out of the driver's seat, like a circus clownemerging from a toy car.The construction SUPERVISOR, an American, wearing a threepiece suit, hurries over to him.ENZO has already started undressing. ROBERTO unloads thediving gear from the trailer. SUPERVISOR (exhausted) Signore Molinari? ROBERTO (shaking his hand) Yes. ENZO (calmly undressing, expressionless) How did it happen? SUPERVISOR (upset) The company asked me to extract everything I could from the wreck; so the divers were trying to get at the engine... and then the boat turned over... in the current... and... look, I fucked up! Can you help? ENZO How many are, down there?ENZO goes back to the car. SUPERVISOR Just one... We're feeding him air, but he's not breathing regularly... You've got to get him out fast.ENZO glances at the map, then at the accident site. ENZO (a beat) Ten thousand. SUPERVISOR Lira? ENZO Dollars. SUPERVISOR You're going to hold me up at a time like this? ROBERTO You do understand you're talking to the champion diver of the world? SUPERVISOR Yes, but ten thousand dollars...ENZO opens the trunk of his FIAT and pulls out the jack.He slams the trunk shut, and stands looking at theAmerican, straight in the eyes. ENZO Okay. You tell me. How much would you say the man's life is worth?Extremely uncomfortable, the SUPERVISOR doesn't answer. ENZO In my village, we have a saying: when the wind blows, the flags of all nations flap in the same direction. SUPERVISOR (baffled) What does that mean? ROBERTO That you should get your checkbook. Damn quick.EXT. UNFINISHED PIER - ENZOHe's at the end of the pier, his feet dangling in themuddy water of the port. A few feet away a pump sends airHISSING through a rubber tube to the diver trapped below.ENZO inhales steadily, his chest heaving like a bellow.He carefully puts his spectacles inside his shoes, donshis flippers, etc., with his usual flair of suspense.Behind him the SUPERVISOR and other construction workerswatch expectantly. ROBERTO heaves a stone weight into thebay, a cable attached to it plays out from a drum on thepier.ENZO ignoring everyone, grabs the ordinary tire jack,flip-flops over to the now taut cable, the stone has hitbottom. He takes a deep breath and dives into the bay.UNDERWATER - WRECKENZO dives down a chimney of muck. Picks his way over andaround every hazard, until he reaches the diver, trappedunder a huge piece of debris.He pats his shoulder to comfort him, he then inserts thetire jack under a piece of concrete... And, as if he werechanging a tire, begins to pump the handle...Slowly, in a swirl of mud and water, the chunk of debrisrises off the diver's leg.EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - DAYEveryone is staring at the water silently, suspensefully.The SUPERVISOR has his checkbook in hand, but hascompletely forgotten it, intent upon what's going onunderwater. ROBERTO taps him on the shoulder. ROBERTO Since we have a little time, what do you say you write that check?UNDERWATER - WRECKENZO cuts the cables tangled around the diver's torso.Then he takes off his flippers, plants his bare feet onthe concrete, grabs the diver by the shoulders and pullshim free.The diver drops the air tube and climbs as quickly aspossible toward the surface.EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - DAYThe diver surfaces, gasping for breath. A cheer goes upfrom the crowd. Several men hurry to pull him onto dryland. But there is no sign of ENZO. Everyone waits,breathless. ROBERTO (to the Supervisor) Sign here.Suddenly, ENZO appears, burst out of the water, holdinghis flippers up in the air like a trophy. The onlookerscheer, help him out of the water, slapping him on theback.ENZO tosses the jack and his flippers to ROBERTO.Impassive and silent, he slips his arms into the prizefighter's robe that ROBERTO holds out for him, walkssolemnly back to his car.ROBERTO takes the check and walks over to the car. ENZObends down into the car and opens the roof. SUPERVISOR (through the open roof smiling) Thanks, thanks a lot. I mean that too... You extortionist bastard!The car rushes off. In the distance we see a police(carabinieri) car and an old fire engine rolling in thedirection of the construction site.INSIDE FIAT - DRIVING AWAYENZO'S car drives past them. ENZO looks at ROBERTO out ofthe corner of his eye, then suddenly explodes with joy. ENZO Dollars, Roberto! We took him for ten thousand dollars!ROBERTO whoops and whistles. ENZO reaches over and leanson the horn. The little car races by and finally stops atthe top of the cliff facing the sea.EXT. TOP OF CLIFF - DAYThe two brothers sit back, relax.Stare out to sea. ROBERTO (after a while) Enzo, what are you going to do with the money? ENZO Have the car painted. ROBERTO Santini will do that for 25 dollars! ENZO Then tell him to wax it too. ROBERTO Enzo, really. What are you going to get? ENZO (thinking) A rosary for Mama, a dress for Angelica, something with rhine- stones for what's her name, and get yourself a suit that fits... But most important... ROBERTO Yes? ENZO Find the Frenchman. Find me Mayol.EXT. FLAKES OF SNOW - MOUNTAINS - DAYMountain peaks, stark and white. A winter sky which isstrangely and disquietingly dark. A landscape swept bysnow.SUPERIMPOSED ON SCREEN: PERU - LAKE HUACRACOCHA - MAY 1987A yellow light comes out of the storm -- advances towardus. The headlight of a train.A narrow gauge locomotive steams up grade pushing piles ofsnow in front of it.INT. TRAIN - DAYSitting in the train, leaning against the misty window,JOHANA CROSS, 27, has clear quick charm and a sort ofromantic fragility. She is dressed simply but warmly.She looks through the window; all she sees is white.It is clear that she was not the one who decided on thistrip. Reading the key phrases from a beat-up note book,she calls upon an old Peruvian. JOHANA (in Spanish) Is this the Lago del Demonio? (Es bien aqui el Lago del Demonio) ... Huacracocha?The old man goes into a long, rambling explanation.JOHANA nods without understanding a thing. JOHANA Gracias. OLD MAN You welcome.EXT. TRAIN STATION - DAYThe train pulls in, slowly pushing piles of snow in frontof it and finally stops in front of an old shack whichserves as the station.A man, FRANK, bundled in a parka, comes out of asnowmobile parked by the station, and walks up to thetrain.JOHANA steps down, carrying her suitcase and drops twofeet in the snow as she comes off the last step. FRANKwalks over and leans down towards her. FRANK (smiling) Welcome to Peru!INT. SNOWMOBILE - DAYFRANK throws the luggage into the back of the snowmobile,jumps in and turns the ignition on. JOHANA takes her hat,scarf and gloves off. FRANK glances over at her, he isboth amused and charmed. JOHANA Don't you have a heater? FRANK (hitting at the dashboard) Yeah... Sure... Is this your first trip to Peru? JOHANA Does anybody live to make a second?FRANK smiles and kicks the heating system, then leans overto check it, his eyes off the road. JOHANA (a little worried) Forget about the heater!EXT. LAKE OF THE DEMON - CAMP - DAYThe storm is at its peak. The frozen snowmobile plowsalong side the lake HUACRACOCHA and stops in front of acluster of quonset huts almost completely buried in snow.FRANK gets the bags out of the back. The suitcases are bynow frozen stiff. JOHANA follows in his steps.A couple of llamas are huddled up against the hut inattempt to protect themselves from the storm.JOHANA is bewildered. Shacks in the middle of the Andes,the lake of the "Demon", and now llama that have to bepushed aside to enter one's home.As FRANK opens the door, a man is leaving the hut. Theman is JACQUES MAYOL. JOHANA and JACQUES pass each otherin slow motion. Everything seems suddenly suspended:time, sound, cold...JACQUES MAYOL instantly makes an impression on her. He isnow 34, still dark-haired, with dark eyes. He is wearinga red diving suit and a pair of round goggles. He lookslike some legendary creature one would dream about.Everything finally regains its formal speed. The doorslams, the man is gone. She and FRANK are in the middleof the entrance hall. JOHANA hasn't yet gotten over thevision she has just had, but she regains composure andenters the next room.INT. QUONSET HUTJOHANA happily takes her gloves off.FRANK puts down the bags and walks into the next room.It's a sort of laboratory, filled with ultra modernequipment.A big bay window overlooks the lake on which is built along wooden dock.Sitting in a corner, an old Peruvian man is preparing hotdrinks. JOHANA drops into a chair. FRANK A drink to warm up? JOHANA Yes, thank you. Intravenous if possible. FRANK (pulling out a flask) Tea... or whiskey? JOHANA ... both. Did I just see a man in a red suit and goggles?FRANK smiles and pours some whiskey in her tea cup. FRANK ... right. (calling out) Dr. Lawrence? The insurance man... uh... The insurance person is here! LAWRENCE It's about time!FRANK smiles and pours JOHANA some tea. She warms herhands on the cup. She asks blankly. JOHANA Would it be out of place to ask what he's doing? FRANK Who? JOHANA The guy in the Halloween suit!LAWRENCE comes in from the other side of the room.He walks straight over to the bay window. LAWRENCE Did you have a nice trip? We were getting restless, it's been three weeks since the accident.JOHANA walks over to the bay window and starts staring atsomething in the distance.EXT. DOCK - ON JACQUESAt the end of the dock, JACQUES who is sitting on the edgeof a hole which is cut in the ice, is putting a pair ofgloves on. He then grabs the handles of a strange machinewhich emerges from the water and starts taking deepbreaths, oblivious to the cold, his mind completelyelsewhere.BACK IN LABJOHANA watches JACQUES. She just can't believe her eyes.LAWRENCE is bent over one of his machines, fiddling withdifferent switches. LAWRENCE (to Johana) You should get things moving, you know. We're out of equipment and we can't do half of our experiments...! Frank, check the program!JOHANA is finally able to speak. JOHANA Who... Who is that? LAWRENCE Mayol... Jacques Mayol. JOHANA That's the experiment? Dumping a guy into a frozen lake?LAWRENCE turns one last knob. LAWRENCE ... The truck fell into a very deep crevasse. We weren't able to save the equipment. JOHANA I'll have to talk to the driver. LAWRENCE In the spring when he melts!JOHANA walks closer to the window. She isn't hearing athing he's saying.JACQUES is putting on his flippers.JOHANA can't believe it.JACQUES is standing by a hole cut in the ice. He isholding onto the machine in the water. He is waving amask. JOHANA (dumbfounded) You really send him under the ice? He isn't a slave or a convict or anything? LAWRENCE My dear, science is a cruel mistress. JOHANA But... how is he going to breathe? LAWRENCE He isn't going to breathe.JACQUES takes a deep breath, turns a handle and a weightyanks him straight down into the water. LAWRENCE sets hisstop watch off and flips a few switches.JOHANA grabs his arm as if they could do something aboutit. LAWRENCE Listen...He raises the volume: we hear the man's heartbeat througha small speaker. LAWRENCE That's his heartbeat. (excited) Can you hear the speed at which it's slowing down, it's incredible.LAWRENCE tears off the sheet with the heartbeat measureson it and hands it to JOHANA.JOHANA feels she's on the verge of crying, and can'tfigure it out.UNDERWATER - JACQUESJACQUES stops his machine by turning one of the handles.He's deep beneath the surface of the frozen lake. Heswims deliberately, carefully into a large tube which ishinged open. He closes it around himself. His heart isstill slowing down. He pushes a button on the machine,and a flash of light bursts in the opaque nightsurrounding him.BACK IN LAB - ON VIDEO SCREENWe see a moving X-ray image. LAWRENCE He's in the fluoroscope now. Listen to his heart. Impressive, huh? The flow of blood is concentrated in the brain and doesn't even feed the limbs anymore. It's a phenomena that has only been observed with dolphins... until now. JOHANA How long can he stay down? Without breathing? LAWRENCE It depends. He should come up soon. (smiling) Unless he's decided to stay for the night. JOHANA Why is he doing this? LAWRENCE For one thing, it's his job... as for the rest of it, I wish I knew.JOHANA sighs with relief as JACQUES appears at the surfacein one big breath. JOHANA Shouldn't somebody take him a blanket or something? LAWRENCE (smiling at Frank) Coffee might be nice.She heads towards the Old Peruvian and pours a cup ofcoffee... JOHANA (afterthought) Will he understand Spanish? LAWRENCE His mother's an American. He spent half of his life in the states. I'd try English if I were you.EXT. DOCK - JACQUES SURFACINGHe's groggy, half hypnotized. He looks up at the dock,sees JOHANA with a cup of coffee. He stares at her. Shehands him the coffee. JACQUES (puzzled) I recognize you. JOHANA We saw each other a little while ago. JACQUES (serious) In the lake? JOHANA (wondering whether he is joking or not) No... in the hut.After a long beat... JACQUES (with a beautiful smile) Then it was somebody that looked a lot like you... Thank you.JACQUES then turns around and walks toward the huts.JOHANA still hasn't moved, as if petrified by her emotionsand the severe cold. She then walks up to the hole in theice and peers into the dark water. She shudders.INT. CABIN - DAWNJOHANA emerges from a down sleeping bag. She's wearing abig sweater and a wool hat. She is not sleeping.Intrigued by the sound of the snowmobile, she gets up andwalks over to the frozen window. JACQUES and FRANK areloading their luggage onto the snowmobile.Outside, LAWRENCE is saying "Goodbye" to JACQUES. Unseen,JOHANA also waves from behind her curtain. JACQUES sensessomething: he turns around toward the cabin and smiles,waving his hand at JOHANA. She hides behind the curtainand shyly waves back.JACQUES gets into the snowmobile and drives out of theframe. We are left with an endless array of snow-capedmountains. DISSOLVE TO:EXT. COTE D'AZUR - DAYFixed image of the Cote d'Azur. The sparkling blue seafades into the distance.A French taxi rides along the winding road overlooking thecreeks.INT. - TAXIFrom behind all his bags, JACQUES obsessively stares atthe sea.The driver smiles. DRIVER It's beautiful, isn't it?JACQUES smiles. DRIVER We had some bad wind this week. The "Mistral"!! "Peuchere"! There isn't one olive left on its tree. It suddenly left us this morning... I sure won't be the one to call it back.EXT. ANTIBES - ROAD TO MARINELANDThe taxi comes to a stop in front of Marineland. JACQUESgets out, carrying one of his bags. JACQUES (to the driver) I'll only be five minutes.He enters Marineland.EXT. MARINELAND - ON JACQUESThe park is closed, the paths are deserted. JACQUESapproaches the Dolphin's tank. All three dolphins rise upin the water. Greet him with a click and clatter oftongues. JACQUES sits down at the edge of the tank. JACQUES Good morning, everybody! Did you sleep well? I slept in a plane, and it wasn't too great.He opens his duffel bag. Hunts around, comes up with twopackages wrapped in brownpaper. The dolphins stare athim, intrigued. JACQUES (calling out) Hey! presents.The dolphins CACKLE some more. JACQUES You think I'd forget you?He laughs. The driver, who seems to be quite familiarwith the place, walks in heading straight over to the sodamachine. Out of the corner of his eye, he takes in thescene, very intrigued.JACQUES has not noticed him.He starts unwrapping the first package. JACQUES For Bathsheba.He produces a little ceramic Llama.ON BATHSHEBAlooking at the llama, bewildered. As bewildered as adolphin can be. JACQUES turns the llama upside down. Itmoos: HIAK, HIAK... JACQUES It's a Llama. You understand? From Peru. It's fighting.BATHSHEBA shakes her head. JACQUES throws the llama intothe water. He unwraps the second package. A pair ofPeruvian gloves and hat. Wide eyed, the driver sits inthe stands to watch the show. JACQUES That's for you, Darjeeling. We wouldn't want you to catch cold!He throws them to DARJEELING who catches them. JACQUES And now... (singing out) "Ta, da..." For you Tina.He pulls out a thermos. JACQUES Something you've never seen either.He opens the thermos. JACQUES Snow!He sprinkles snow flakes on TINA'S head. She tries totaste it. JACQUES (smiling like a child) A new experience, Tina. (nostalgic) I missed you little rascals. Did you get my post card?The three dolphins leap into the air and land with a hugesplash which soaks JACQUES. He takes his shirt off. JACQUES (pretending to be serious) Oh? Is that what you want? Alright, but five minutes, no more. I have a taxi waiting.He takes off his pants. The taxi driver gets up, as if tokeep him from going in. JACQUES dives into the pool.UNDERWATER - ON JACQUESHe swims under the dolphin, reaches out and grabs hold ofthe dolphin's snout.The dolphin pulls JACQUES around and around the basinwhile JACQUES pets his chest and belly. We have neverseen JACQUES so relaxed and happy. DISSOLVE TO:EXT. MANHATTAN - DAWNOverview of a gray and dirty Manhattan morning. JOHANAdepressed, stares blankly out of the window of a yellowcab. She watches the muddy brown water flow under theBrooklyn Bridge.The driver keeps yelling obscenities to all the carsaround him.EXT. MANHATTAN - DAYA suitcase in each hand, JOHANA gets out of the cab andwalks up the stairs of her apartment.INT. HALLWAY - DAYJOHANA puts down her suitcase wearily. Catches her breathand gets out her keys. She tries one in the top lock. Itdoesn't work. She tries harder. There's a woman's voiceyelling angrily from inside the apartment. SALLY (O.S.) I changed the lock you son of a bitch! JOHANA ... Sally?The door opens. SALLY You're back! Hello. We were burgled. JOHANA Again? SALLY They got the new T.V.JOHANA comes in, looks at the ransacked apartment. SALLY ... And the new stereo. JOHANA I hope they remembered to take the microwave this time? SALLY Yep. How was your trip...? Help me clean up, okay? JOHANA You called the police? SALLY They're going to send detectives. When they get around to it. JOHANA (shrugging) So what, all they ever want is your phone number anyway.JOHANA goes over, slumps into an easy chair and sighs.After a beat... SALLY Well? JOHANA What? SALLY How was your trip? JOHANA (flatly) Nice... Very interesting... Great! (doubtfully) ... I guess. SALLY (ironically) Okay... Who'd you meet?JOHANA opens her handbag, takes out the strip ofelectrocardiogram paper, hands it to her. SALLY A cardiogram...? You met a doctor! Congratulations, you're in the chips... (an afterthought) Unless they have socialized medicine in Peru. Do they? JOHANA (indicating paper) It's his heartbeat. SALLY Oh Jesus...! I'll make some coffee. (starts toward kitchen) They left the stove. TIME DISSOLVE:INT. APARTMENT - LATERThe living room is almost completely put back together...SALLY is replacing books in the bookcase, JOHANA is usinga carpet sweeper, and talking away. JOHANA (nonstop) 6'3", 6'1", maybe 5'9" -- You can't be sure, you know the flippers, they add height or they take it away, or something. Anyway short dark hair... Not punk or anything, just short. And the cutest smile. He wasn't smiling at me, I don't think -- just smiling. And he thought he saw me in the lake. I mean that was a figure of speech... They're so romantic, the French. SALLY (bored, half asleep) I thought you said he was Peruvian? JOHANA (annoyed) Haven't you been listening?SALLY opens the drapes, revealing it's dawn outside. SALLY ... Since eight o'clock last night...! You're in love. JOHANA Don't be a jerk. (emphatically) There's no such thing as love at first sight. DISSOLVE TO:UNDERWATER - SWIMMING POOLJACQUES is swimming alone at the bottom of a giganticswimming pool. He wears a monofin, his head and chest arewired up to an assistant who runs back and forth alongsidethe pool.A man's feet are seen walking over to the side of thepool.JACQUES is swimming laps, arching his body like a dolphin.As he approaches one end of the pool, he sees a coinslowly falling in front of him. JACQUES picks it up andlooks at it: it's an old Greek coin.JACQUES smiles and swims to the surface.EXT. ON SIDE OF SWIMMING POOL - DAYJACQUES pokes his head out of the water and pulls off hisgoggles.ENZO stands over him, smiling. ENZO Jacques, my friend, how are you? JACQUES (happy) Enzo...A beat. ENZO I leave you swimming and twenty years later, you're still in the water! What the hell are you doing? Training? JACQUES Yes.An uneasiness sweeps over ENZO'S face and quicklydisappears. ENZO That's good. (smiling again) You never would have recognized me, huh? Check out the suit! Looking good, no? You know I'm the world champion? JACQUES Yes, I know. ENZO I dove 315 feet! JACQUES Great! ENZO They say I'm like Lazarus. You know, the guy who was raised from the dead?!He laughs. JACQUES smiles. ENZO goes on. ENZO (serious) Doesn't it surprise you that I just show up like this... Listen, the world championship starts in ten days in Taormina. Be my guest.ENZO puts down an airplane ticket on the side of the pool. ENZO Your ticket.Surprised, JACQUES looks over at the ticket. JACQUES Why? ENZO Because I'm sure you're dying to beat me. JACQUES (shaking his head) I don't want to be in any competition... I dive because I like to, not to beat a record... don't you have to be very mad at somebody to want to beat him? ENZO No. All you need is to want to be the best. JACQUES (smiles) You're the best, Enzo! ENZO (with a tense grin on his face) That's too easy! Every time I beat a record there's always some dumbshit asking me: "D'you know that French guy, Mayol? He's supposed to be very good! Too bad he doesn't compete." So, you're going to come with me to Taormina! First, because you're my friend and second, because you don't have one reason to keep on spoiling my pleasure. (he pushes the airplane ticket to Jacques) ... I'll see you there...EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - NEW YORK - DAYINT. DUFFY'S OFFICE - DUFFY - JOHANAShe is seated across the desk from him. He's readingthrough her report. Behind him, outside the large plateglass window, window-washers are seated on a scaffoldsuspended far above the city. They eat lunch.JOHANA'S eyes wander (bored) around the office as DUFFYreads. He looks up. DUFFY (indicating report) This is good work... unfortunately it's incomplete. (he glances at the window) Could you eat a sandwich 40 floors above the street. JOHANA (absently) What kind? DUFFY Johana, am I boring you? JOHANA Sorry. Of course not, definitely not... well, maybe a little. What did you say? DUFFY I said that the file is incomplete. See if you can get through to this Lawrence character and have him send the Peruvian registration for his missing truck... and don't let him tell you it was in the glove compartment. JOHANA Right Chief!She starts out of the office. DUFFY (to her back) Did the driver really freeze? JOHANA Like a popsicle. They're keeping him on a stick until spring. DUFFY My God! I'm glad I didn't go. JOHANA (under her breath, leaving) ... So am I.INT. QUONSET HUT - PERU - DAYDoctor LAWRENCE covers one ear with his hand as he yellsinto the phone. LAWRENCE (screaming) ... I said, all the truck papers are in the glove compartment!INT. JOHANA'S OFFICE - MANHATTANJOHANA sits at her desk, she too is yelling into thetelephone. Her colleague looks over at her and smiles. JOHANA (with a sigh) Okay, listen, just get the custom's office to send me a copy as fast as possible. We can't send you new equipment until our file is complete. Okay?INT. QUONSET HUT - PERU - DAY LAWRENCE Okay, okay. You'll have it by the end of the week, how's that? JOHANA (V.O.) You've made me a happy insurance person. LAWRENCE Then, goodbye.He is just about to hang up.INT. JOHANA'S OFFICE - MANHATTANJOHANA jumps up. JOHANA Wait! Professor...? LAWRENCE (V.O.) ... Yes?JOHANA starts snooping around the papers on her desk,embarrassed by the presence of her colleague. JOHANA (as softly as possible) You don't know how I could reach that diver of yours... Mayol... We need some additional information... I mean, we have a few questions to ask him.INT. QUONSET HUT - PERU - DAY LAWRENCE The last thing I heard, he was off to Taormina for the world diving championships. That's Taormina, in Sicily!INT. DUFFY'S OFFICE - DAYJOHANA dashes in without knocking. JOHANA Listen, I just found out we've got real problems in Sicily! DUFFY (alarmed) What d'you mean? JOHANA (improvising) The mafia! La Cosa Nostra! Coppola! De Niro...! I knew it! I knew we shouldn't have written that policy!! DUFFY (pale) What's happened?? JOHANA The documents are forged. DUFFY No! JOHANA Yes! The notary is a phony. He has the same signature as the contractor! DUFFY (outraged) It can't be true! JOHANA (fast talking) We have to send somebody over there immediately! If we prove the forgery we can cancel the policy. We'll be off the hook. There's a flight to Rome in two hours and from there its just a short hop to Sicily. DUFFY (reaching for phone) I'll send Cardoza, he'll be able to... JOHANA (interrupting) I tried him, he can't go. His son is being Bar Mitzvohed tomorrow... I'll go, boss. DUFFY I thought it was Spanish that you spoke? JOHANA (after a beat) Italian is practically the same thing.EXT. PORT OF MESSINE - DAYA ferry comes into the dock, as a plank is slowly lowered.As it descends, four rail cars lie in wait in its belly.JOHANA comes off the boat, carrying her suitcase, shewears a light summer dress. She looks around, seeming alittle lost.A white FIAT taxi screeches to a halt beside her. JOHANAjumps. The driver whose arm loosely dangles from the carwindow, grins at her. DRIVER ... Taxi?EXT. SAN DOMENICO - DAYThe white FIAT taxi pulls up in front of the SAN DOMENICOhotel, but it is JACQUES who gets out of it. The driverhelps him with his bags. RECEPTIONIST (checking the books) Mayol... Mayol... No reservation. JACQUES (uncomfortable) ... Are you sure? RECEPTIONIST Positive, Sir.JACQUES looks down at the piece of paper stapled to histicket. JACQUES This is the hotel San Domenico? RECEPTIONIST Yes Sir, and it has been so for 127 years. JACQUES (more and more uncomfortable) Yes, but... So, you haven't got a room left? RECEPTIONIST No Sir, the hotel is full because of the Diving championship. JACQUES Ah?!The Receptionist starts working on his papers again.JACQUES, completely lost, stares blankly at the hotelclerk, wondering what to do next.INT. HOTEL - DAYThe tiny FIAT clatters onto the sidewalk in front of thehotel narrowly avoiding the Countess' limo. Parks itsfrontwheels on the sidewalk, rear end in the road.ENZO, followed by ROBERTO, get out of his car, like a kingdescending from his carriage. On the way, he stops andkisses a distinguished elderly woman's hand? The hotel'sCONTESSA.ENZO tosses his keys to a doorman who stepped up tocomplain. ENZO (to doorman) Be careful with that car, it's a new paint job.ENZO enters the hotel and sees JACQUES. ENZO (yelling across the lobby) Giacomino! My friend! My brother!ENZO and JACQUES. The two men kiss each other on bothcheeks, pound each others back. They are both moved. ENZO (looking at him) So you finally decided to join us? You did the right thing! ENZO (to the desk clerk) Hey Paolo! Come stai? Get my key! (to Jacques, gesturing over his shoulder) You remember my little brother Roberto?Roberto (26) nods to JACQUES who shakes his hand. JACQUES I remember. Hi Roberto! ENZO What room have you got? JACQUES I don't have one. ENZO You don't have a room? (at the top of his lungs) Paolo? What did I just hear? I personally called you to reserve a room for my good friend Jacques Mayol and you treat him like a stranger?! JACQUES (embarrassed) It's okay, Enzo. I'll go somewhere else. ENZO Not only is Jacques Mayol a very special friend, but he happens to be one of the best divers in the world! And you're throwing him out! Are you crazy, or what? Stupido! JACQUES (really embarrassed now) Enzo drop it, I'll find something.ENZO looks at him for a moment and gives him a warm smile.He hands him his own keys. ENZO Take mine. I'll take the Countess' suite. She told me she was leaving for the cemetery... She'll be more comfortable there.PAOLO half-heartedly, hands him the key. ENZO glances atJACQUES to make sure he's properly impressed. He throwshis arm around JACQUES' shoulder, hugs him and gives him areal smile. ENZO (sincerely) I'm glad you're here.EXT. HOTEL TERRACE TAORMINA - JACQUES - ENZO - DAYThey're at a table on a terrace that overlooks the sea.They've just arrived and all around them people arelunching away furiously.ENZO beckons to a passing WAITER who comes to the table.He's a very handsome, slightly effeminate young man. ENZO (to waiter) "Spaghetti del mare" (to Jacques) It's delicious here. It's the one thing they really know how to make. WAITER Del mare for two? JACQUES (nodding quickly) Yes, sure, for two. ENZO And a bottle of "Frascatti". Two bottles! WAITER Si Signore, grazie mille.The waiter hurries away. ENZO watches his departure, thenthoughtfully. ENZO He moves just like a woman. (then, as if he were speaking to Jacques) It must be hard to live in two worlds like that, huh? To breathe in one, swim in the other...JACQUES nods without really knowing. ENZO (suddenly louder) Anyway! Nothing beats a sexy broad! Huh, Jacques!ENZO starts laughing. JACQUES would like to crawl underthe table. TIME DISSOLVE TO:EXT. HOTEL TERRACE TAORMINA - JACQUES - ENZO - LATERTheir lunch is on the table, half eaten. ENZO ... So, after all these years, you must have lots of questions to ask. Am I right? JACQUES (quickly) Yes, of course. Lots of questions.JACQUES is satisfied with his answer. He thinks that thesubject is closed. They eat silently for a moment. ENZOwatches him. Then: ENZO Well, what are they? JACQUES (giving up) I'm sorry... I don't know how to ask the questions.ENZO bursts out laughing. ENZO Well, then. I'll do the asking for you. "Tell me dear Enzo, how did you become World Champion?" Oh, that's a long story. (his voice changes) Well, after you left Amorgos, I went back to Italy and joined the Navy. So you now have in front of you -- Captain Molinari, who's been on leave of absence for the past 14 years... JACQUES That's good. ENZO How do you make a living? Your experiments, does it pay well? JACQUES It's okay. ENZO ... You married?JACQUES doesn't seem to have ever thought about marriage. JACQUES No. ENZO Me neither, 'cause of my Mother. She's a curse, my Mamma, a tornado. Stubborn as a mule! I was engaged... for a week. After that, Mamma was so mad, I tell you, pasta was bouncing off the walls.JACQUES smiles. ENZO So, not married. Well, good for you. You play the field, like me. A girl in every port, huh? JACQUES (bluffing) Exactly, I mean, after all, we're men! ENZO (slapping the table top) Damn right! That's what I tell them when people say you've turned into a fish. JACQUES (concerned) People say that? ENZO (sorry he went too far) Forget it. I was joking.EXT. ENTRANCE TO TERRACE - ON JOHANAJOHANA comes out of the stone tunnel which leads to theterrace. She looks over the crowd, trying to findsomeone.JACQUES is sitting with his back to her. She finallyspots him and walks over to the table. ENZO Eh! La Madonna! This one is for me. I'll bet you my watch that she's in my bed tonight.JACQUES turns around and recognizes her. JOHANA smilesand walks up to the table. ENZO takes his watch off andputs it on the table. ENZO (quickly) I tell you she's mine! JOHANA (to Jacques) Hello! ENZO (surprised) You know each other? JOHANA Yes. ENZO Enzo Molinari.ENZO kisses her hand and brushes his watch off the tablein the same movement. ENZO This is a great pleasure. JOHANA (laughing at the protocol) Johana Cross, pleased to meet you. (then to Jacques, faking surprise) Well! Isn't this a coincidence. I really wasn't expecting this... All the way out here. It's incredible! JACQUES Please, have a seat. JOHANA Thank you. I wouldn't want to interrupt anything.JOHANA sits down. JACQUES No, no! ENZO Not at all! JACQUES You're staying at the hotel? JOHANA I wish, but it's full. They recommended a pension in town. They say that all of Taormina is full. What's going on here? ENZO It's the Free Diving World Championship. I am by the way world champion!JOHANA has turned toward JACQUES, paying no attention toENZO. JACQUES can't stop looking at JOHANA. JACQUES But what brought you to Sicily? JOHANA I was doing an insurance investigation in Palermo. (to Enzo) I work for an insurance company. (back to Jacques) So, I decided to take a few days off. (uncomfortable) I don't know this island at all. It really is gorgeous. ENZO There is no place in the world more beautiful than Sicily!The waiter passes behind them. ENZO reaches out, grabshim by the arm, pulls him to the table. ENZO (to waiter) A spaghetti del mare for the super dedicated traveling insurance agent. JOHANA (smiling) I think I'll have a coffee. JACQUES No, no. You'll like it. It's superb. JOHANA ... Okay. I'll try.ENZO pours the wine.JOHANA shrugs fatalistically. The waiter leaves.JACQUES, intrigued, stares at JOHANA. She pretends not tonotice. ENZO (impatient) Where did you two meet? JOHANA In a lake. ENZO I might have known. (to Johana) As I was telling you earlier, I'm the world champion free diver. JOHANA Congratulations. ENZO Some people say it's the most virile sport in the world. One has to admit that when you see those men diving head first in that deep blue sea, all muscles contracted in one super human effort... JACQUES (interrupting) Enzo? ENZO (annoyed) What? JACQUES Your mother? ENZO Ahi, ahi, cazzo! Ma mamia! Where...? God, she'll kill me... (pushing the plate in front of Johana) ... if she catches me eating pasta in a restaurant.He quickly brushes off the crumbs in front of him.ON ENZO'S MOTHERheading toward them. She's a huge woman in widow's black.She shoulders her way through the tables.ROBERTO carrying her suitcases follows at her heels.ENZO jumps to his feet. Throws his arms around her. ENZO ... Mamma! MAMMA MOLINARI (expressionless) You expect me to carry all the luggage myself? ENZO Mamma. Roberto and an elevator... Isn't that enough?A beat. Signora MOLINARI inspects the plates on thetable. MAMMA MOLINARI (suspiciously) What have you been eating? ENZO Coffee only, I'm diving tomorrow. You remember little Jacques, Jacques Mayol... JACQUES (timidly) Madame... ENZO ... And his friend, Johana...Signora MOLINARI nods grudgingly. WAITER (arriving proudly) Spaghetti del mare!Dead silence.ENZO is the only one with no plate in front of him.Signora MOLINARI'S eyebrows condense into a dark stripeacross her forehead.JOHANA hands ENZO'S plate to the WAITER and takes the fullone. JOHANA (to waiter) Thank you.And begins to eat, ignoring the expressions of amazementall around her. MAMMA MOLINARI Americana?JOHANA nods enthusiastically, her mouth too full to speak. MAMMA MOLINARI (impressed, to Johana) Benvenuto!MAMMA MOLINARI has a huge grin on her face.EXT. TAORMINA STREET - JACQUES, JOHANA - TWILIGHTThey emerge onto the street in front of the entrance of asmall rooming house.JACQUES is carrying JOHANA'S luggage. The old pension iscovered in bright pink bougainvilliers, there is laundryhanging on the other side of the street. JOHANA Thanks for helping with the bag. (she looks up at the pension with little enthusiasm) It looks great! JACQUES I thought it was a nice place. (suddenly doubting) Isn't it? JOHANA I'm being a pain in the ass. (looking at him) It's beautiful here.They look at each other. JACQUES is silent. He juststands there, a suitcase in each hand.JOHANA breaks the silence. JOHANA You're going to be very busy these days aren't you? JACQUES I don't know... why? JOHANA Just because... I would have liked to visit the town... See the coast... I don't know anybody... Expect for you. (feeling she has gone too far) But you are going to be very busy. You must have tons of things to prepare, interviews... And a competition like this one must require a great deal of concentration, right? JACQUES (shakes his head negatively) Yes... Maybe... I don't know. I don't like competitions... It ruins the fun. Don't you think? JOHANA (with a faint smile) I guess... But you know... I'm American and I've mostly been taught to be competitive... There's always pleasure of being the best? JACQUES Maybe on earth there is one... but not when you dive... You see, to dive deep into the sea, for no reason... just to do it. It's a feeling... I don't know how to say this... Voluptuous?He looks up at her as he pronounces the last word. Shesmiles at him, lovingly. JOHANA (laughing) You can put down the suitcases, you know.He lets go of the suitcases. Suddenly, behind them, thereis a loud screech of tires. The FIAT tears across thestreet.ENZO in his FIAT. He pokes his head out of the window. ENZO C'mon, you two... Jacques, we have to get ready for the ceremony tonight. We have a new world champion. JACQUES I'm a little tired, I don't know if... ENZO Get in the car!INT. ENZO'S SUITE - ENZO, JACQUES, ROBERTO - NIGHTThey're in front of a wardrobe looking JACQUES over in thefull-length mirrors. He's wearing an evening shirt and atuxedo of ENZO'S. The collar is too big, the sleeveshangover his hands. He looks at himself dubiously in themirror. ENZO Roberto! The bow-tie!ROBERTO hands ENZO the bow-tie, he hooks it aroundJACQUES' collar. ENZO (taking a few steps back) Very good.JACQUES looks down at his tennis shoes. ROBERTO What about the shoes? ENZO Very chic. (hesitates) Anyway, you don't have anything else, do you? JACQUES No. ENZO Then, it's very chic. Avanti!EXT. RECEPTION ON TERRACE - NIGHTA big reception is organized on the terrace of the hotel.The official divers and technicians are all gathered infront of a podium. The terrace is loaded withphotographers.ROBERTO keeps turning round and round the long buffettable.JACQUES is alone at the bar. Incongruous detail: awhiskey bottle on the table beside him.JOHANA enters. She has also had a few drinks. JOHANA I thought you'd be at the dinner. JACQUES It's too loud for me.He tugs at his over-sized tuxedo. JOHANA You look adorable. JACQUES Thank you... JOHANA (smiling) ... Especially the sneakers.JACQUES looks down at his feet, doesn't know what to makeof her comment. JOHANA sits down beside him and poursherself a drink. They touch glasses.EXT. ON PODIUM - NIGHTOn the podium, NOVELLI, the organizer of the championship,stands in his tuxedo, talking into a microphone. An olderman in a worn out suit, stands next to him. NOVELLI Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention, please. Mr. Andre Bonnet, President of the International Diving Championship Committee, is going to present this trophy to the new world champion of free diving. This afternoon, our new champion descended to the remarkable depth of 280 feet.The audience applauds. NOVELLI This young man Tia...NOVELLI can't quite read his notes. NOVELLI Tiraro... Tirao-re... Moa...ANDRE BONNET takes his turn to read the note. A youngTahitian jumps up, heads for the podium. TAHITIAN Tiraero Moameora.NOVELLI hesitates to repeat the name. NOVELLI ... Let's all give him a big hand.The audience cheers and applauds the new champion. ENZOsits at a table, watching the ceremony. ENZO (very sarcastic) A one day hero!He gets up and walks out of the room.INT. BAR - NIGHTJACQUES and JOHANA are sitting at the bar. The whiskeyshave gone to their heads. ENZO walks over to them. ENZO A new world record! That's great! It gives me something to beat tomorrow! (to Johana) You ever been to Tahiti? JOHANA No. ENZO I'll take you there. We'll live in the sun. You'll cook fresh fish and we'll make love under the coconut trees.JOHANA smiles and shakes her head. JOHANA You forgot the Hula! ENZO Yes, of course, I'll do the Hula! JOHANA You'll be lovely, but no thanks. (to Jacques) Jacques, would you do a native dance for me? JACQUES I don't know how... Excuse me.JACQUES leaves the bar. JOHANA watches him go. ENZOnotices her way of watching him. He's a little jealous. ENZO He looks strange, doesn't he? Like a baby that just learned to walk. JOHANA Have you known him long? ENZO Forever. We used to live on the same island in Greece, when we were kids. JOHANA What was he like, when he was little? ENZO Little. Very little. And skinny, very skinny too. That is compared to me. JOHANA (amused) I get it, Enzo you were a superior child. ENZO Exactly! What is it Johana? You're so crazy about him, you don't see the truth?!She doesn't answer. ENZO Forget it, don't think of Jacques as a human being. He's from another world.She smiles. JOHANA And just where are you from? ENZO Italy!EXT. TERRACE OF THE HOTEL - NIGHTENZO sits at the grand piano in the corner of the terrace.Beethoven was always a favorite of his.JACQUES, very tipsy by now walks over, a glass in eachhand. He hands ENZO a glass, then takes off his tennisshoes and sits them neatly on the piano. ENZO There is nothing like music. It speaks from the heart. Can you tell me why we bother diving in the dark, the cold, without ever taking the time to breathe? Huh? Can you tell me why we do it?JACQUES nods. ENZO Why? JACQUES ... For the mermaids.ENZO smiles, moved. ENZO My father used to see them everywhere too... but the only one he ever caught was my mother... Actually she caught him.A beat. JACQUES Today at lunch, you asked me if I had any questions. ENZO Ah ha. You finally want to know about women. JACQUES Why? Are they what's most important? ENZO No... It depends... Sometimes they are... What, exactly do you want to know? JACQUES ... Everything. ENZO Everything about what? JACQUES (thinking) Well... about everything.ENZO grins at JACQUES and starts playing again. TIME DISSOLVE TO LATER:JACQUES AND ENZOThere are now several empty champagne bottles around.They are both quite drunk. ENZO is philosophizing.JOHANA is looking for them. ENZO ... So, between Mamma, Roberto and the sisters, we yell and scream all day long. Except with Angelica. She just cries. And then finally, we all end up kissing. Can you explain that to me?JACQUES can't answer. ENZO Because that's what love is all about. It's a pain in the ass but keeps us together. (then, in a half dreaming, half desperate tone) A large and beautiful family!JOHANA walks over to them. JACQUES (suddenly) Enzo... We must quit the competition.ENZO hits a wrong note on the piano. ENZO (worried) Why? JACQUES If we don't... I'm going to beat you.JOHANA stands next to JACQUES. ENZO (with a nervous laugh) Huh? Well listen to him! (to Johana) Do you hear that? JOHANA No. ENZO He looks me in the eye like some fuckin' gold fish, and says: "I'm going to beat you". JOHANA (with a smile) ... That's what he's here for, isn't he? ENZO Listen to her! "That's what he's here for"! He's here to loose, that's what he's here for. First of all, I'm unbeatable. Second, how old are you? JACQUES Two years younger than you. ENZO As I said, second of all you're too skinny. You've got tiny lungs. I still don't understand how you can dive without getting sick. JACQUES The size of the lungs has nothing to do with it! ENZO Look at me. These aren't lungs. These are... Tanks. How long can you hold your breath?ENZO is getting really angry. The drinks have a lot to dowith it. JACQUES (impatiently) I don't know. Longer than you.ENZO pulls open his collar and rises. ENZO We'll see.EXT. HOTEL - SWIMMING POOL - UNDERWATER - NIGHTJACQUES and ENZO dive into the pool in their Tuxedos.Each one carries a beach umbrella in a concrete base tohelp them stay at the bottom.ENZO takes two goblets out of his pocket, hands them toJACQUES. Takes a bottle of Champagne out of the otherpocket and opens it. The cork floats out of the bottle.Above on the surface of the pool there's a splash. JOHANAfinds a mask on the side of the pool and watches them.Her dress is soaked by now.ENZO pours champagne. Courteous and grave, they clinkglasses and begin to drink. They have already beenunderwater longer than a minute. They can't really drinkout of the glasses and ENZO offers JACQUES the bottle.JACQUES studies the label like a connoisseur. He drinks,passes the bottle back to ENZO.INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR - NIGHTParamedics roll two stretchers toward the elevators atfull speed. ENZO on one, JACQUES on the other. Both menkeep throwing up water.INT. JACQUES'S ROOM - NIGHTThe paramedics roll the stretcher toward the bed.JOHANA very worried, follows them. JOHANA Take it easy... PARAMEDIC Don't worry, he's empty now. He needs sleep, that's all.The two men leave the room.JOHANA walks over to the chair and rearranges JACQUES'shirt and jacket which the paramedic had thrown down.JACQUES looks like he's just had a very rough night. Hesits up and grabs the sides of the bed, as if he were on amoving boat. JACQUES Who won?JOHANA turns around, furious. JOHANA Won what? The Ass Hole Award? Well, let me tell you, it's a tie!She walks over to the bed. JOHANA Acting like a pair of two year olds! You could have died in that damn pool! JACQUES Please move slowly, you're rocking the boat. JOHANA (smiling) Lucky I was there to save you. JACQUES (seeing her wet dress) You jumped in? JOHANA Only to help the medics, I assure you. JACQUES My wallet.JOHANA wet, walks over to the wet clothes on the chair.She pulls out JACQUES soaking wallet from one of thejacket pockets. JOHANA It's still here.She tries to wipe it. JACQUES No. I want to show you. Is it ruined? JOHANA Well, water isn't exactly the best thing for pictures... Not even for pictures of dolphins... JACQUES Give it to me.JOHANA hands him the photograph. He stares at it, lookingvery sad. Worried JOHANA sits down next to him. JACQUES (on the verge of tears) My real family... (he looks at the picture and cries) What kind of man has such a family?She takes the picture out of his hands.He is so upset that JOHANA can hardly help from cryingwith him. She sits next to him and strokes his hair. JACQUES I'm sick of never feeling at home anywhere.JOHANA takes him in her arms. He breaks down.EXT. HOTEL - DAWNThe early morning sun slowly lights up the water. A yachthas left the hotel dock. It is moving out to sea off thecoast of TAORMINA.EXT. YACHT - ON DECKThis is the Committee Boat for the diving competition.On the boat, ROBERTO is worried. He checks his watch andfinally decides to wake up his brother. ENZO is asleep inthe fore peak, curled up on a coil of line, snoring away.He wears his tuxedo jacket over a skimpy bathing suit. ROBERTO Enzo, wake up! ENZO (pulled from his dream) Eh? Si! Avanti!He gets up on one arm. ROBERTO The medics are looking all over for you. ENZO (irritated) I'm meditating, can't you see? Jacques does two hours of yoga before going down. I can take a five minute nap, can't I?The boat stops. The anchor is thrown over board.The sailors, technicians and officials are getting readyfor the competition. Today is ENZO'S turn to dive. A manis hooking a plaque indicating the depth (324 feet) onto alead disk which he heaves into the water on a cable.INT. YACHT - DOCTOR'S CABIN - DAYA medic is bending over ENZO, taking his blood pressure.ROBERTO pulls the tuxedo jacket down. The doctor puts ablood pressure band around ENZO'S upper arm, pumps it up.He listens with his stethoscope. DOCTOR Mr. Molinari, I'm terribly sorry but I cannot allow you to dive in such an advanced state of exhaustion.ENZO jumps to his feet, grabs the doctor by his lapels,lifts him in the air. ENZO (outraged) What do you know about the sea? Huh? Nothing! So you just put your tubes and tin cans away. The sea is mine! I know when she is ready for me and when she isn't. And today, she is ready. Understand? DOCTOR You dive at your own risk. You're been warned.ENZO smiles and pats the doctor on the shoulder. ENZO Brave.EXT. YACHT - ON DIVING PLATFORMIt's a large float, rigged to the stern of the CommitteeBoat. ROBERTO and an assistant help ENZO down the swimladder to the platform. He's wearing a wet suit and fins.He flip-flops to the end of the platform.ROBERTO hands him his mask. The goggles are filled withpolystyrene to eliminate as much air pressure as possible.Only two pinholes to see through. The mask fits tightlyover his nose. When ENZO puts it on, he looks like anastonished insect. ENZO breathes faster and faster.ROBERTO holds the wire controlling the weighted divingapparatus. ENZO crosses himself, takes a last long gulpof air.ROBERTO releases the weight. It sinks and drags ENZOdown, he quickly disappears into the dark water...BLACK AND WHITEBut this is JACQUES as he was a child. He swims along thebottom, finds and picks up a gold coin. We can see itsancient markings, a youth on a dolphin.JACQUES looks up. In front of him is a dolphin, floatingvertically, still, apparently just watching. JACQUESisn't scared anymore. But every time he swims toward thedolphin, it moves further away. It finally disappears.INT. HOTEL ROOM - JACQUES - DAYHe sits bolt upright in bed, awakened by his dream. Helooks around the room, trying to get his bearings.JOHANA is asleep in a chair across the room. On the wallbehind her, her last nights dress is drying on a hanger.She's wrapped up in a hotel bathrobe fast asleep.JACQUES finally awake from his dream, sees JOHANAsleeping. He walks over to her, touches her shoulder.She wakes up, starts out of the chair. She grabs theblanket to cover herself, and in doing so, a book falls onthe floor. It's one of his. JOHANA You scared me!JACQUES picks up the book. JOHANA smiles. JOHANA Just checking up on your family. (then embarrassed) I guess I was drunker than I thought and the idea of going back to my hotel in a wet dress... Well... JACQUES I'm glad you stayed. Thank you. JOHANA (getting up) I'd better get back now. JACQUES You... You wouldn't want to spend the day with me?She sits back in her chair, amazed that he would even ask. JACQUES (self conscious) ... No? JOHANA No? Huh? (she says "No" as if she had asked the question) Yes, of course!!EXT. MARINELAND - TAORMINA - DAYJACQUES and JOHANA enter the dolphinarium. JOHANA iswearing an old pair of JACQUES SHORTS along with anoversized T-shirt and rolled up sweater. She seems quitepleased with her new attire.JACQUES and JOHANA walk straight through MARINELAND andhead toward the dolphin pool. It's pretty crowded, mostlykids.The dolphins are lying motionless at the bottom of thepool. The trainer is tired of throwing fish in the pooland getting absolutely no reaction. JACQUES What's the matter? TRAINER I don't understand. We've tried for two days. They won't eat. They won't perform. It's since we got the new one.CLOSE ON DOLPHINsurfacing. It thrusts its head over the edge of the pool,looks to JACQUES and SPEAKS. JACQUES Is she the new one?Surprised, the trainer nods.JOHANA looks over at JACQUES then at the dolphin. Shedoesn't understand. JOHANA How can you tell it's a female? JACQUES ... The way she moves.Three other dolphins gather around the one that JACQUES ispatting.JACQUES is staring at the female dolphin. It looks likethe animal is trying to tell him something. Suddenly thedolphin grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him into thepool.UNDERWATER - DOLPHIN POOLJACQUES hangs onto the dolphin's muzzle. Let's it pullhim along. The dolphin swims to a far corner of the pool,and pulls JACQUES to the bottom. The other dolphinscircle above.EXT. DOLPHIN POOL - DAYJACQUES pops up. As he does, three dolphins leap in theair behind him. JOHANA walks closer to the pool. She isso excited by what JACQUES is doing, she finally fallsinto the pool.After a while, JACQUES gets out of the pool and helpsJOHANA out. TRAINER Did you ever think of trying the public pool? JOHANA He's a dolphin specialist. TRAINER In that case what's wrong with the new one? Is she sick or not. JACQUES (taking his time to answer) Not the way you mean. TRAINER What am I supposed to do? Do I call the dealer...? The investment, you understand... I certainly am entitled to complain! JACQUES It's going to cost you more than you think!JACQUES turns around and walks off. JOHANA catches upwith him. JACQUES She's not like the others. She can't stand to be away from the sea. JOHANA (impressed) How do you know that? JACQUES (stopping) I don't know, I just feel it.INT. HALL - HOTEL - DAYJACQUES and JOHANA are walking across the corridor.ENZO walks up to them, followed by his tribe. Everybodyis congratulating him.ROBERTO is screaming, MAMMA MOLINARI is crying. ENZOsmiles as he talks back to them. He sees JACQUES. ENZO (screaming) Ah! Jacques!ENZO grabs hold of his shoulders. JACQUES and JOHANA arecompletely soaked. ENZO Don't be sad, I only took back what was mine.He gives JACQUES the diving plaque, it reads 280 feet. ENZO Here, it's a present.JOHANA and JACQUES smile at each other. JACQUES has wonhis bet. JACQUES (touched) ... Thank you.ENZO slaps him on the shoulder. ENZO (to Johana) Tonight we're having a little party among ourselves. 8 o'clock in my suite? JOHANA Okay.ENZO walks off then turns back toward them. He whispersin JACQUES' ear. ENZO Tell me... Can you explain why you are soaking wet?A beat. JOHANA ... We're in training.ENZO walks off.INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR - NIGHTThree formally dressed officials are waiting in front ofone of the hotel rooms. One of them holds a medal in hishand, a glass of champagne in the other. NOVELLI (through the door) Mr. Roberto, tell your brother to be reasonable. Everyone is waiting for him upstairs. The photographers are there, the press... ROBERTO (O.S.) He can't, he's indisposed. NOVELLI (trying to keep his calm) Shall we call a doctor? ROBERTO No, it's okay. Mamma is going to try something.JACQUES and JOHANA walk up from the other side of the halland stop in front of the same door. NOVELLI Mr. Mayol, help us. He refuses to receive his medal and everybody is waiting for him up there. We already have problems with the press because of the danger, and if we don't even have the divers help...! JACQUES (dubious) ... I'll do my best. NOVELLI That's very kind of you.JACQUES knocks on the door. JACQUES It's Jacques... Mayol!A beat. Then ENZO opens the door himself. ENZO Jacques! My friend! Come on in!The officials look at each other baffled. NOVELLI Mr. Enzo Molinari, allow me to impress upon you the importance of your attending the Award Ceremony... For the press... ENZO (loosing his temper) I think my brother told you I was indisposed, that should do it, no? I'm allowed to be indisposed, right? So, you just tell the press that the "big" Enzo Molinari, overwhelmed by his inspiring descent to 324 feet, will not be able to receive this trinket because he is...He looks inquisitively at the three men. ENZO looses histemper. ENZO Because he is?! ONE OF THE THREE MEN ... Indisposed. ENZO (smiling) Brave!He slams the door in their face.INT. HOTEL - ENZO'S ROOM - NIGHT JACQUES Tell me, why don't you go and get your medal? ENZO Because pasta should be eaten "Al Dente". So the trinket will just have to wait a bit.ENZO takes JACQUES by the shoulder. Inside his room isabsolute chaos: dancing, singing, eating. Wet suits hungout to dry everywhere. MAMMA MOLINARI is whipping upmountains of spaghetti on an improvised stove in themiddle of the room. A lot of smoke... steam... color...noise... All of Italy crammed into a few square feet.JOHANA taken in by the warm atmosphere, sits in a cornerof the room. JACQUES walks over and sits down at herside. ENZO (to Mamma) Mamma! La pasta?! MAMMA MOLINARI Arrivo! Arrivo!She points at ROBERTO who is taking forever to grate thecheese. ENZO grabs the guitar from his other brother'shands and starts playing. ENZO ... It's easy. You go down. You come up. (to Johana) ... Right, Johana? JOHANA (smiling) Congratulations, Enzo. ENZO Don't you agree, Jacques? JACQUES ... You always were the best.ENZO laughs then sees his mother. ENZO Ah! La pasta!ENZO starts singing in Italian. MAMMA MOLINARI serves thepasta, ROBERTO follows her around, sprinkling his cheeseon the plates. She serves JOHANA a huge plate of pasta,enough for three giants. MAMMA MOLINARI (with a smile) Buon appetito, Signorina!JOHANA who isn't even hungry, grins uncertainly. JACQUEShas walked up to ENZO. He doesn't dare ask his question. ENZO (smiling) What's the matter? You still have a bunch of things to ask me? You want to know the price of tea in China of how we landed on the moon? Is that it?ENZO laughs. JACQUES is serious. JACQUES No, I have to ask you a favor... (a beat) You're the only one who'll understand. ENZO (seriously) ... I'm listening.INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT MAMMA MOLINARI Tutto va bene?The three officials are eating pasta, plates on theirknees. Their mouths are too full to speak, they nodenthusiastically. NOVELLI (mouth full) Gracie mille, chignora.MAMMA MOLINARI smiles and slams the door.INT. FIAT - NIGHTJACQUES is driving, JOHANA sits beside him. ENZO crammedin the back seat, very uncomfortably, because of astretcher which takes up all the space.They are dressed as they were at ENZO'S party. ENZO (leaning forward) Hey! Will you slow down! When did you learn how to drive? JACQUES Driving isn't the problem, it's remembering the right road.JACQUES runs a red light. ENZO And the lights! Running lights, stealing stretchers...! You'll have us in jail. JOHANA Enzo, stop bitching, will you?EXT. MARINELAND PARKING LOT - FIAT - NIGHTThey get out of the car. JACQUES starts to change intohis swimming trunks. ENZO shakes his head, can't believehe's really come along. He laughs and starts undressing.INT./ EXT. FIAT - STREET TAORMINA - NIGHTIt's a very narrow street. The car moves down it quickly.JACQUES drives. The back seat is now occupied by thedolphin. Its nose and tail protruding through thewindows.JOHANA is in the front seat, turned around, spraying thedolphin with a watering can.EXT. BEACH - NIGHTThey have driven to the public beach. They slowly lowerthe stretcher into the water. The dolphin, leaving thestretcher, swims around a little but won't go away.He won't leave JACQUES. JACQUES (moved) You can't stay here! Come on! Go away!JACQUES swims off with her for a while.ENZO walks back toward the car with the stretcher.JOHANA, standing by the water looks at JACQUES and thedolphin who are swimming off together.JACQUES keeps splashing the dolphin as they swim. ENZO You can stop that now, she has all the water she needs.JACQUES cannot get rid of the dolphin. ENZO All right, we did it. Let's go back to the party.JACQUES and the dolphin can't seem to part. JACQUES Just one minute.JOHANA is worried, she walks up to ENZO who goes back intothe water and takes JACQUES by the arm. ENZO Jacques, the dolphin is home now. And that's where we're going. Come on! Hurry up now. Our girlfriend is freezing over there.The dolphin starts swimming off. JACQUES follows ENZOhalf-heartedly.EXT. JOHANA'S PENSION - NIGHTENZO stops the FIAT in front of the pension. The three ofthem get out. ENZO hasn't bothered to dress.JOHANA heads for the gate, she obviously has no desire ofleaving JACQUES. JOHANA Well, good night, then... ENZO You going to sleep here, all by yourself? JOHANA Yes...She looks over at the pension, having a hard timeconcealing her lack of enthusiasm. JOHANA ... It's a comfortable place. ENZO Sinister is what I'd call it...! Ours is so much cheerful! Why don't you come and stay with me... There's plenty of room in my suite. JOHANA (smiles) The Mamma's there too. ENZO (face clouds up) Yes, the Mamma is is there. JOHANA Good night Enzo, Good night Jacques. JACQUES Good night. ENZO (to Jacques) You don't need a stretcher to take her with you. You know that, don't you? JACQUES What? ENZO The dolphins aren't the only ones who don't feel very good sometimes. JOHANA Leave it alone, Enzo, it's okay.She rings the bell for the concierge, then looks back atJACQUES. JOHANA Can I come watch you dive tomorrow? JACQUES (lost) Uh... Yes, of course!The concierge comes out and opens the iron gate for her.JOHANA disappears into the parc. ENZO turns to JACQUES. ENZO You really do have a few things to learn about women!EXT. SEA - DAYThe sun is rising on a rough sea. The Committee Boat isanchored in the open sea, 600 feet above the sea bed.EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT - BAY OF TAORMINA - DAYJACQUES who is on the foredeck of a boat at sea has justlaid a towel down before him. He's suited up, sitting inthe lotus position, staring straight ahead, clearly self-hypnotized.JOHANA, NOVELLI, and other officials are in the stern ofthe boat watching last minute preparations.The scuba divers in brightly colored wetsuits andaqualungs, flop out onto the diving platform, plunge intothe water, disappear. JOHANA What are they for? NOVELLI They're paramedics. They wait at 180 feet. JOHANA (just checking) If there was a problem, they could do something right? NOVELLI Of course, that's what they're for.JOHANA sees scuba divers with weird air tanks. JOHANA (pointing) ... And those? NOVELLI Those are the divers who go down 300 to 330 feet. They dive with a Helium-oxygen mixture. At that depth, compressed air is too dangerous because it contains carbon dioxide. JOHANA What's that little air bottle on the machine? NOVELLI That isn't for the divers actually. It's for the balloon. It blows up and pulls the diver up like an elevator. Without it, with the pressure at the bottom, the diver would just stay pinned to the sea bed. JOHANA (shocked) But doesn't Jacques dive without anything? NOVELLI (smiling) Yes... It's magic.INT. BOAT - DAY - LATEROn the boat, NOVELLI checks his watch. JACQUES comes outof his room. He's dressed to dive. He ignores everyoneas he goes down the ladder to the diving platform. Heseems to be in another world. All sounds coming to himare drowned out.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - DAYJACQUES sits in the diver's slot. Opens his eyes slowlyand looks around. He puts his flippers on, an assistantstands at his side.HIS POVThe figures on the platform are vague, the VOICES areGARBLED and incomprehensible. Moving almost in slowmotion he raises three fingers. TECHNICIAN Tre minuti!BACK TO SCENETen other divers have waited for this signal to dive.They disappear one by one into the blue.JACQUES uses contact lenses instead of a mask. He putsthem in, and now, his view of the world is as distorted ashis hearing... bodies deform... sounds fade...Already euphoric from the vast amount of oxygen in hissystem, he moves into another reality altogether... seemsto empty himself out. TECHNICIAN Due minuti!JACQUES fills a small tube with water. Pours it into hisnostrils... tilts his head... then lets it run out... Heputs on his gloves... all his movements are slow, he seemsto be operating in a different time zone... He seemsunable to take his eyes off the water.EXT. END OF DIVING PLATFORM - DAY TECHNICIAN Uno minuto!JACQUES puts his nose clip on. He puts his hand on thegueuse. Closes his eyes and inhales slowly. Then hetakes a sudden last breath, nods, the technician releasesthe gueuse and in one flashing movement, he disappears.UNDERWATERThe gueuse slides down the cable. JACQUES hangs on like aribbon in the wind, past a marker, 90 feet down.Above him, the boat disappears from sight.He moves faster and faster... through a sea that lookslike a cloudy sky. The light fades rapidly around him.Below, white spotlights pierce an ocean dark as night.JACQUES reaches them in a matter of seconds. Turns thebrakes, brings his machine to a halt, 180 feet down.The medics are waiting for him there. They take hispulse. Check his eyes... 15 seconds... normal... thebubbles from there scuba tanks churn the water aroundthem...JACQUES closes his eyes... a tap on the shoulder, hereleases the brake on the gueuse. Plunges further, thistime into pitch black.Below him a faint spotlight glows on the bottom. Hereaches it and the dark diver moves to him. JACQUESbrakes his machine. Moving very slowly, turns his bodyright side up. Like a sleep walker, JACQUES starts totake the plaque off the plumbline... pauses in the middleof the gesture.The dark diver flashes the high sign to JACQUES, thumb andforefinger touching, fingers extended, all clear. JACQUESdoes not respond. The diver repeats the signal. JACQUESdoes not respond.The diver taps JACQUES on the shoulder... a beat... andthen JACQUES responds, thumb and forefinger touching okay.Slowly, reluctantly, he wraps his hand around the handleof the balloon.The dark diver quickly turns the handle for him. Theballoon inflates. JACQUES hangs on... lets it carry himup.At the plague marking 210 feet, JACQUES lets go of the theballoon. With a burst of speed, it darts toward thesurface.JACQUES follows slowly, undulating like a fish... He'sgetting warm now... He closes his eyes.Passes the medical control without stopping... withouteven seeing it like someone asleep.He's moving faster now, toward the warmth, toward the air.JACQUES opens his eyes, watches the lights grow brighter.The silhouette of the boat comes back into view. 60 feetto go.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - DAYIn slow motion JACQUES' hand holding the plaque breaks outof the water followed by his arm, in one continuousmovement, his shoulders and head.He gasps for air.A trickle of blood comes from his nose.Flashbulbs flicker, spectators cheer.EXT. OPEN SEA - A DOLPHINThe dolphin, the one rescued last night, leaps into theair, in perfect harmony with JACQUES' triumph.EXT. DOLPHINARIUMThe dolphins in the dolphinarium leap into the air at theexact same moment.The trainer doesn't understand what's going on.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - DAYJACQUES falls back into the water. Two divers run overand pull him up onto the dock.JACQUES seems completely dazed, almost in a trance. Heslowly comes to and starts screaming louder and louder.It is the scream of his body in need of the surface,reality and the feel of the land.JOHANA is terrified. She can hardly breathe. Everybodyapplauds.EXT. HOTEL DOCK - DAYJACQUES and JOHANA walk down the gangway. NOVELLI haslead the way and the news has been spread.JACQUES looks very weak and punchy.JOHANA holds him up.The spectators applaud as he goes by. Intrigued, JACQUESlooks at them all. JOHANA (excited) Jacques, listen to the applause.He doesn't respond. JOHANA (trying to keep up) Jacques, you set a world record. JACQUES I did? JOHANA Aren't you happy? Don't you feel proud...? I feel proud and all I did was watch.He is staring at her, he's returning to the real world.Slowly he smiles.She grabs hold of his arm and gives him a proud kiss onthe mouth. JACQUES is a little stunned.EXT. TERRACE - SWIMMING POOL - DAYENZO walks into the hotel, his arms filled with packages.He sees JACQUES and JOHANA. From the look on his face wecan tell he knows that JACQUES has beaten his record. Hedeliberately puts on a huge smile as he walks over tothem.INT. TERRACE - SWIMMING POOL ENZO Congratulations Jacques! It's wonderful! Wonderful!He drops his packages on the bar and gives Jacques a bighug. ENZO I'm happy for you!He kisses him and starts handing out his presents. ENZO (to Jacques) Here... (to Johana) Here... JACQUES What is it? ENZO Little presents, nothing much... I knew it, I just knew it! Look here!He holds up his arm: he is wearing two watches. ENZO Roberto's watch! I won it! He bet that you couldn't beat me!JACQUES opens his present. It's a little ceramic dolphin. ENZO You still collect them? JACQUES Yes. ENZO You don't have that one, do you? JACQUES No. Thank you. It's really beautiful. ENZO Oh it's nothing. I knew it. I told Roberto "He's very good that little Frenchman, very good". I lost my title but I won a watch!JOHANA has opened her package. It's a big plate with atext engraved on it. JOHANA Is it a poem? ENZO No, it's the recipe for spaghetti "Frutti del mare". (to Jacques) You see I was right in getting you out here. You're a world champion, my friend!JACQUES has opened the last small package. It's ameasuring tape. He looks at it without understanding.ENZO explains: ENZO It's a measuring tape.He grabs hold of the tape and lets it roll to the ground. ENZO You see this is your record, three feet more than mine! Looking at it from here, it doesn't look like much, does it?JACQUES looks at him without saying a word.ENZO hands him the measuring tape. ENZO Keep your little measuring tape, my friend, it will be a nice souvenir when I beat you next.ENZO taps his shoulder and smiles.INT. ELEVATOR ASCENDING - JACQUES - JOHANAThey're locked in a long kiss. He untucks the bottom ofher shirt and slides his hands under it.INT. HOTEL ROOM - JACQUES - JOHANA - TWILIGHTThey're in bed, making love in their fashion. Moonlightshines in the silver sea. In the background are thelights of the bay of TAORMINA.LATERJACQUES is in bed with JOHANA. They are both asleep.Suddenly, he sits up, as he always does after hisrecurrent dream.He's wide awake, looks over at her sleeping. She sleepspeacefully like a baby. Quietly, gently, he eases out ofbed and walks to the open window.He stands on the balcony, staring at the sea. Then in thedistance in the moonlight, a dolphin leaps out of thewater, once, twice, a third time.JACQUES laughs and goes back to the bed where he sits downnext to JOHANA. She is still sound asleep.EXT. HOTEL - PIER - NIGHTJACQUES quickly gets into one of his diving suits. Heputs on his flippers. The dolphin is still jumping in andout of the water. JACQUES jumps off the pier and swimsover to her.INT. JACQUES' HOTEL ROOM - NIGHTJOHANA rolls over and feels the bed in her sleep.JACQUES' absence wakes her. JOHANA Jacques?She gets up and walks over to the balcony. She doesn'tsee anything.EXT. PIER - NIGHTJOHANA walks down the pier and notices the little pile ofclothes JACQUES has left behind. She looks around butstill can't see anything. She decides to sit next to thepile of clothes, and waits, her eyes riveted to the sea.EXT. PIER - DAWNThe sky has just begun to light up again. JOHANA is stillsitting next to the pile of clothes.She is wearing JACQUES' sweater. She looks sad, yetserene. The look of a woman who has been thinking overthe situation and who has made up her mind.Tired, JACQUES swims back to the pier. It looks as if hehas come out of nowhere.He is exhausted. He takes off his flippers and gets uponto the pier in front of JOHANA. He looks at her, alittle surprised to find her there. JACQUES (warm) What are you doing here?She answers in a far away voice, with the same serenesadness. JOHANA I'm going to leave, Jacques.Dripping with water, he sits down next to her. His faceis drawn from fatigue. She continues. JOHANA I'm going back home. JACQUES Why? JOHANA Because one shouldn't fall in love with creatures from the sea. JACQUES I'm not from the sea... I don't understand what you're talking about. JOHANA Yes you do. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're afraid I want to hold onto you, and I do, but you're not ready... at least not for me. JACQUES But it's not true, I feel good with you... It feels right...She looks at him for a moment, then takes his face in herhands and rests it on her bosom, as if a small child. JOHANA I've got to get back to the hotel... and get my suitcase packed.INT. TRAIN STATION - JACQUES - JOHANA - DAYThe train station faces the sea. JACQUES and JOHANA arestanding on the platform, amid others. In the distance wehear the rumble and whistle of a train.JOHANA gets on the train. The station master blows hiswhistle. JACQUES Will... will we see each other again?JOHANA'S eyes are filled with tears. JOHANA Take good care of yourself, Jacques.The train starts pulling out of the station. JACQUES Where can I call you? Johana, tell me where can I call you?JOHANA doesn't answer. JACQUES stands helplessly in thestation, his eyes filled with tears.INT. ENZO'S ROOM - DAYENZO opens the door of his suite. His hair is messed up,he's got "sheet prints" on his face and is wearing the topof a diving suit. JACQUES Can I come in? ENZO No problem, I enjoy talking in my sleep.ENZO walks back into the apartment and crashes on the bed.He's lying on his stomach. JACQUES walks in and letshimself drop in a chair. ENZO Wake me up at 11:00.ENZO closes his eyes. JACQUES looks over at the clock, itsays 11:25. JACQUES doesn't say anything and staresblankly out of the window. ENZO (opening one eye) Hmmm! Something wrong?JACQUES doesn't answer. ENZO Is it the girl?JACQUES stares out the window. ENZO Did she leave?No answer. ENZO gets up and sits on the side of the bed. ENZO Hey! I'm going to take care of you! I've got this job, on an oil rig, no sweat! I'm taking you along... Come on! Get your bags packed! You're coming with me, I tell you!He pats him on the back. ENZO We'll make a great team, the two of us. You'll see!EXT. OIL DRILLING PLATFORM - AT SEA - DAYThe platform shines in the morning light.There are several stories of crew housing and officesabove the deck. Long steel legs disappear into theswelling slate-gray ocean. We hear WHOP-WHOP-WHOP of ahelicopter.EXT. HELICOPTER - PLATFORMThe helicopter is landing. Crewmen rush to secure it tothe oil rig's deck. Doors open and two passengers getoff: JACQUES and ENZO. They each carry a duffel bag ofpersonal belongings. They're both wearing fluorescentdiving suits.The DRILLING SUPERINTENDENT comes to meet them. SUPERINTENDENT Mayol, Molinari...?They nod. SUPERINTENDENT We've been waiting for you for three days. Goddamnit! ENZO Is that the way you talk to the best diver in the world...? And to his friend Jacques Mayol!The SUPERINTENDENT smiles sourly, and gestures to acrewman. SUPERINTENDENT Show them their quarters.Five minutes later, JACQUES and ENZO are following thecrewman. JACQUES (whispering) He doesn't like us. ENZO So what!? His job is to hand out the paychecks. And he does that very well, let me tell you.INT. DIVING CAPSULE - DAYThe diving capsule, suspended by cables, begins itsdescent through a trap door in the deck. It plunges intothe sea.The three men in the capsule are: JACQUES, ENZO and thetough looking CAPSULE COMMANDER NOIREUTER, who is much tooprofessional for ENZO'S tastes.ENZO watches through a porthole while the COMMANDERconcentrates on the control console. He runs through achecklist of systems. JACQUES responds with a "check" ashe verifies each one. ENZO is already bored and fed up bythe procedures.JACQUES is lost in thought, they don't look cheerful. ENZO (suddenly) You still thinking about her?JACQUES doesn't answer. ENZO goes on. ENZO Don't think about her anymore! Let me tell you, you're just making yourself unhappy! There are so many women in the world!He takes a cigarette from a pouch in his diving suit andstares at NOIREUTER. ENZO Plenty of women everywhere right? NOIREUTER (coldly) Smoking is absolutely forbidden. ENZO It isn't lit yet. NOIREUTER You shouldn't even carry cigarettes on board! ENZO Listen we're not supposed to piss either but that doesn't stop you from carrying "it" on board?! NOIREUTER (stubborn) The rules are the rules. ENZO (checking out this creature) ... What's your name again? NOIREUTER Noireuter. ENZO And where did you say you were from? NOIREUTER I didn't say... (contemptuous) Brussels!ENZO smiles sardonically, shaking his head very slowly.The COMMANDER'S answer explains it all.INT. DRILLING PLATFORM - CONTROL ROOM - DAYA technician is overlooking the capsule descent on avideo screen.The SUPERINTENDENT watches over the technician's shoulder. TECHNICIAN They're at 450 feet.INT. DIVING CAPSULE - DAYENZO, a cigarette dangling from his lips, looks throughthe porthole. ENZO ... I was seventeen, I loved her so much I tried to die for her. Two years later I couldn't even remember her name! Let me tell you, time erases everything! JACQUES I don't want to erase anything. ENZO You'd rather think about it and make yourself miserable? JACQUES (after thinking about it) ... Yes. ENZO (smiles) I give you this. You're stubborn... Dumb, but stubborn. JACQUES (taking it as a compliment) Thank you.INT. CAPSULE - DAYThe technician fiddles with a few knobs. TECHNICIAN Minus 800 feet. End of descent.INT. DIVING CAPSULEThe diving capsule ends its descent. The COMMANDER turnsto ENZO and JACQUES who is still staring out the porthole. NOIREUTER (with a Mickey Mouse voice) You have enough air for 15 minutes.ENZO bursts out laughing. ENZO (with Donald Ducks voice) What's with the voice? NOIREUTER It's nothing. It's just the helium, because of the air pressure. ENZO (worried) And... does the voice come back? NOIREUTER For others, yes... For you, who knows? ENZO (still a little worried, to Jacques) Try speaking to me? JACQUES (with Daffy Ducks voice) I don't find this funny. We were having a serious conversation.ENZO and JACQUES burst out laughing. They keep these samevoice till the end of the scene.ENZO pulls out a tiny silver flask out of his pocket. ENZO (to Jacques) Here, give me your finger.ENZO taps a drop onto JACQUES' finger, then on his own.Then NOIREUTER blows up. NOIREUTER (in a panic) Is that alcohol? Are you out of your mind? Alcohol is strictly forbidden. ENZO (loosing his temper) Hey! D'you have any other complaints? Just make a list and we'll stick it on the porthole! Okay?ENZO pours a second drop on his own finger. ENZO Go on, suck your finger.JACQUES hesitates. ENZO has no qualms about it and suckshis own finger. NOIREUTER is petrified. NOIREUTER Are you crazy? At this pressure? JACQUES It's very deep down here. ENZO Come on, suck your finger, you'll be seeing mermaids everywhere!JACQUES, convinced sucks his finger too. ENZO smiles.The alcohol has an immediate effect on them. ENZO (to Jacques) A thousand commanders and we get a Belgian from Alcoholic's Anonymous.UNDERWATERENZO gets out of the diving capsule, head first.He is connected to the capsule by a number of cables.JACQUES, who follows him, gets completely tangled up inthem. They are both hilariously drunk.INT. DRILLING PLATFORM - CONTROL ROOMThe SUPERINTENDENT hears them laughing through the controlroom speakers. He flips a communication switch. SUPERINTENDENT Can you hear me? What's going on? (to the technician) Are you sure you're on the right channel?The technician nods back to him.UNDERWATERThe two divers have gotten to the spot they are supposedto be working on. They have their arms around each otherand are dancing.NOIREUTER watches them through the porthole. He shakeshis head in complete disbelief.INT. CONTROL ROOMWe hear the two friends humming the tune of a Viennesewaltz. SUPERINTENDENT If those guys are playing a radio down there they'd just better watch out!!INT. JOHANA'S APARTMENTSALLY is talking away, pointing around the apartment. SALLY ... And if we repaint the walls, we'll need new curtains, you put the painters on you Visa and I'll do the curtains on American Express... for the couch there's Bloomingdales... or are you still over your limit? JOHANA (flatly) Way past it. SALLY Does that have a hidden meaning? JOHANA No. I'm just depressed. SALLY You look it too. You haven't been working out, you haven't been taking your vitamins! You haven't been drinking your herbs, you haven't been... JOHANA (stopping her) I know, I know! I'm a terrible person... (after a beat) It's... I'm so damn, damn sad. SALLY What is it honey... the frenchy? JOHANA (tentatively) Do you think I should have stayed? Don't you think maybe I should have stayed? I've been a jerk, right? (then, emphatically) I should have stayed! I was supposed to be in love... I was in love! I am in love, why did I act like a bitch? He went swimming. All the man did was go swimming! I must be crazy. It was too good to be true. SALLY Vitamins, exercise, herb tea... and see a doctor, will ya?INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE - JOHANA - DAYThe doctor enters with a folder, speaks to JOHANA DOCTOR Well Miss Cross, herbs aren't going to do the trick this time. JOHANA (worried) It's serious, right? DOCTOR I think so. You're pregnant... Congratulations! If that's in order?JOHANA breaks into a wide grin. JOHANA It's in order! Thank you. Thank you. DOCTOR I don't think it's me you have to thank.INT. DUFFY'S OFFICE - DUFFY - DAYDUFFY is at his desk. His lunch is spread out in front ofhim. Outside the window, the window-washers are eatingtheir lunch too. JOHANA hurries in. DUFFY Good afternoon. JOHANA (agitated) I came to make a clean breast of everything... the whole business. DUFFY (bluffing, with his mouth full of sandwich) Yes. Of course. Very wise. JOHANA (in a rush) Remember when I went to Italy and canceled the policy on the new stadium. Well, we weren't being cheated by the Mafia or anybody except maybe by me... (she sees the window- washers) ... Do they come for lunch everyday? I really went on my own business, to see a man that I happen to be in love with... and I'm glad I did it, but I'm sorry about the policy and I'll be happy to make up the money the company didn't get... of course just now I don't have... (she checks a note she's holding) One million, four hundred and ten thousand dollars. But if you were to dock my salary, say, twenty dollars a week, in a few hundred years we'd be even... and I think this is where you fire me? DUFFY (swallowing sandwich) You're right. You're fired. JOHANA Will that interfere with my getting maternity leave? I'm pregnant. DUFFY The Italian, I presume? JOHANA No. He's French, he was just in Italy for the competition. DUFFY (smiling) He seems to have won it. JOHANA Yes, isn't it wonderful? I'm so happy. I'll bet I'm the happiest pregnant fired person in the world!She starts to leave... calls out to the window-washers. JOHANA Bon appetit and Adieu!INT. JOHANA'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJOHANA stares out of the bay window of her Manhattanapartment. Hesitant, she walks around her telephone.Finally she makes up her mind, picks up her address bookand dials the number. JACQUES (V.O.) Hello? JOHANA It's me... Johana.INT. JACQUES' APARTMENTJACQUES is on the telephone, in front of a little windowoverlooking the sea. He is very glad to hear her voice. JACQUES How are you?INT. JOHANA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT JOHANA I got fired. JACQUES (V.O.) ... That's funny... I had this job with Enzo... we got fired too.JOHANA'S face lights up with a huge smile. DISSOLVE TO:LATERJOHANA is still on the phone, sitting in front of the baywindow. Day is dawning. JOHANA (looking out at the skyline) It's getting light out. JACQUES (V.O.) Here, it's getting dark.JOHANA smiles. She stretches, lies down on the carpetedfloor. JACQUES seems to have gone through all topics ofconversation. JACQUES I've been thinking about you a lot, you know...JOHANA is by now completely stretched out on the floor. JOHANA So have I. (a beat) ... Hello? JACQUES I'm still here. JOHANA Well, then, talk to me some more. JACQUES ... It's hard you know. You're so far away and I don't know what else to say. JOHANA Then, tell me a story. JACQUES Uh... Ah! A story?He turns around and sits on the window sill, his feetdangling in mid air.He looks at the sea, seeking inspiration. JACQUES Do you know how it is? (starting again) Do you know what you're supposed to do to meet a mermaid? JOHANA (with a smile) No... tell me. JACQUES You go down to the bottom of the sea, where the water isn't even blue anymore, where the sky is only a memory... and you float there, quietly, quietly and stay there... and you decide that you will die for them... Only then do they start coming out. They come and greet you and they judge the love you have for them... If it's sincere. If it's pure... They will be with you and take you away forever.JOHANA listens with the abandon of a child being put tosleep.INT. JACQUES' ROOM - ANTIBESThe sun hits the roof tops. The sea is sparkling.The phone rings on the window sill. JACQUES answers. JACQUES Hello? JOHANA (V.O.) It's me again.JACQUES smiles. JOHANA (after a silence) I'm being a pain, huh? JACQUES ... Not at all. JOHANA (V.O.) You sure? JACQUES (smiling) Absolutely positive. JOHANA (V.O.) Okay. In that case... I'm at the airport in Nice.JACQUES doesn't know what to say. He looks around him,can't figure out what to do. JACQUES (lost) Okay... huh, I'll be right over.INT. AIRPORT - DAYJOHANA is standing in front of the airport.JACQUES sees her. They smile shyly at each other.EXT. STREET - NICE - OPPOSITE THE NEGRESCO HOTELJACQUES and JOHANA are sitting in the back of a taxi. Thedriver stops in front of the hotel. DRIVER (loud) The Carlton! Enjoy your siesta.JACQUES and JOHANA look at each other.INT. HOTEL ROOM - JACQUES - JOHANA - DAYThe room is in semi-darkness, despite the blazing sunlightcoming through cracks in the shutters. JACQUES and JOHANAare making love. JACQUES is on top of her, his whole bodycovered in sweat. The rumpled sheets and the movements oftheir bodies suggest the movements of the sea. ALL SOUNDSare disproportionate and slightly distorted, they areunderwater...ALL JOHANA'S reluctance has vanished. Both of them actlike people who have never felt anything like this before.A certain astonishment at the depth of their feeling. Anincreasing freedom. All the muscles of their bodiesstretch to their limits.JACQUES, progressively, finds himself disappearing. Hisimage dissolves point by point... disintegrates intounbroken blue... The effect creates the impression ofsomeone melting, the screen is now totally blue.A thin, HIGH-PITCHED SOUND.From the bottom of the image, a tiny pinpoint startsTOWARD the CAMERA. It is JACQUES, naked, swimming out ofthe deep blue ocean toward the light as if he were comingout of a dive. He comes CLOSER and CLOSER to theCAMERA...Until his head almost touches the lens...A sudden DEAFENING NOISE... and we find JACQUES on top ofJOHANA. He looks down at her, speechless. JOHANA (a little frightened) Are you okay?After a long beat. JACQUES ... I think I love you.INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - ANTIBES - DAYJACQUES and JOHANA step out of the elevator of a 19thcentury building.JACQUES is carrying her suitcases. JOHANA Why did you take me to the hotel, if you live here. JACQUES You'll understand.JACQUES rings the door bell and sticks his key in thedoor. JOHANA (surprised) Someone in there?JACQUES nods and pushes the door open with the bags he'scarrying. They enter a huge, very old apartment filledwith models and paintings of boats.JACQUES leads JOHANA to the other end of the apartment.INT. BATHROOM - ON UNCLE LOUIS (SORT OF)It's a huge old-fashioned bathroom. The centerpiece is adeep ancient bathtub on faded gild feet. There's arippling shadow of a body under the bath water.JOHANA gasps. JACQUES Don't be afraid. It's my Uncle... Louis.He goes to the tub and pinches the end of a tube. UNCLELOUIS, underwater, has been breathing through it. LOUIS'head pops out of the water, furious. UNCLE LOUIS Assassin! JACQUES (loud, as if speaking to a deaf man) Uncle Louis, this is my friend Johana. UNCLE LOUIS Did you buy the cassettes? The Wagner, the Berlioz? JACQUES I brought Johana to meet you. UNCLE LOUIS Are you crazy? I have no use for a woman! Since my accident. JACQUES No, no. Johana is visiting me. JOHANA (tentatively) Bonjour Monsieur... Louis. (she looks to Jacques) JACQUES (whispering to Johana) Uncle Louis. He's a 75 year old amazing guy, isn't he? JOHANA I'm very pleased to meet you, Uncle Louis. UNCLE LOUIS (to Johana) Did you bring the cassettes, the Wagner, the Berlioz? (pointing to Jacques) This idiot never listens to anything I say. Sometimes I wonder if he isn't deaf.LOUIS climbs out of the bathtub, and pulls on a bathrobe.Behind him he's pulling two insulated wires out of thebathtub. We see that they're connected to smallunderwater speakers. As they surface, incredibly LOUDMUSIC BLASTS: the finale of the "1812 Overture",(trumpets, timpani, cannons, etc...) The sound fills theroom, the apartment, and probably all of ANTIBES.INT. DINING ROOM - JACQUES - JOHANA - LOUIS - LATERThe three of them are at the table. There are a fewscraps on their plates on a threadbare lace tablecloth.Incredibly LOUD SYMPHONIC MUSIC is PLAYING. LOUIS is asdeaf as a fence post.Everyone has to scream over the music. UNCLE LOUIS Where are you from, Henrietta? JACQUES (correcting him) Johana... New York. UNCLE LOUIS What kind of name is that? To be named after a city? JACQUES (smiling) He doesn't hear too well. JOHANA (yelling) I said I was from New York. UNCLE LOUIS (yelling at Jacques) That explains it! The best lays are from New York! JACQUES Uncle Louis! UNCLE LOUIS No, no. It's true. When I was in New York, oh boy! (to Johana) Before my accident, you understand? (then back to Jacques)JACQUES stands up and lowers the music. JACQUES (impatient) Uncle Louis! Johana is my friend. She's come to stay with me for a while. UNCLE LOUIS Good. That way I'll see more of you... Where are you going to stay? JACQUES Well... here. UNCLE LOUIS (outraged) In my apartment? JACQUES (with a sigh) It's my apartment. UNCLE LOUIS (jumping up) Liar! Thief! Torturer! When you were an orphan I nursed you at my breast. JACQUES Uncle Louis, we have a guest! UNCLE LOUIS I'm going to put a lock on the telephone. (them calming down, to Johana) Did you bring the cassettes?INT. BEDROOM - JACQUES - JOHANAJACQUES' room looks like a diving equipment storage roomwith a bed in it. JACQUES notices JOHANA'S gaze. JACQUES (solicitously) You think it'll be all right? You'll be comfortable here? JOHANA (catching her breath) It's going to be... interesting.EXT. PORT OF ANTIBES - DAYJACQUES, JOHANA and ROBERTO are waiting at the port. ROBERTO (glancing at his watch) ... It's not like him to be late. Of course sometimes he doesn't show up at all. Once in Capri, he... JOHANA (interrupting) We get the picture, Roberto. (looks over her shoulder) Jacques, I think Louis needs help.JACQUES turns around. UNCLE LOUIS is a few yards behindthem at a fish stand on the dock. He's holding up an eeland screaming at the fishmonger. UNCLE LOUIS (yelling) Two dollars for this! This fish wasn't caught. It died of cancer!JACQUES shrugs his shoulders and gives up on the idea ofinterfering. ROBERTO (pointing) Here he comes!A speed boat races along the water. It's a beautifulhighly-varnished mahogany Riva. It races into the port.Standing at the helm, looking like Christopher Columbushis hair brushed back by the wind, is ENZO.Next to him hanging on to the windscreen is an impressivesix foot, dark haired beauty. She has a scarf over herhair. She wears a purple leather micro-mini with a cerisehalter top and her ruby fingernails are three inches long.If she ever actually would get cast in a movie, she'd makeRaquel Welch hide in shame. Her stage name is BONITAMARIPOSA.ENZO kills the THROTTLE, swings the speedboat into aperfect landing at the dock. ROBERTO takes the lines. ENZO Jacques! Johana! JOHANA Enzo! JACQUES Enzo!During all of this, everyone's attention is actually onBONITA who is tugging at her long black hair. They're allawestruck except for ROBERTO. ROBERTO (meaning the speed boat) Where did you get that? ENZO (meaning Bonita) "That"! This is not a "that"... This is Bonita Mariposa, the famous Spanish actress. (whispering to Bonita) ... Who is going to be careful with the varnish... (back to Roberto) And who has come to spend a few days with us. (and very quickly) Where's Mamma? ROBERTO (checking watch) You have eight hours before she gets here.ENZO glances at his watch and sighs with relief. BONITAsays hello to JACQUES, kisses JOHANA.INT. LIVING ROOM IN JACQUES' APARTMENT - DAYLoud classical music booms from the stereo. The noisepins JACQUES, ENZO and ROBERTO to their chairs.UNCLE LOUIS gets a bottle of whiskey and serves everybody. ENZO He's really going totally deaf! UNCLE LOUIS I'm not as deaf as you are blind, my boy! You take care of your eyes, I'll take care of my ears! ENZO (laughing) I'm sorry Uncle Louis.UNCLE LOUIS pours him a whiskey. UNCLE LOUIS Come on, drink up, my boy! It might just save us from your bullshit.The bottle is empty. UNCLE LOUIS goes to the kitchen.JACQUES turns down the music, and finally hears the bellwhich has been ringing. JACQUES opens the apartment door:it's Professor LAWRENCE. Suit and tie and carrying abottle. JACQUES I'm glad you could come. I want you to meet Enzo.ENZO and LAWRENCE shake hands. LAWRENCE (with a smile) So you're the famous Enzo Molinari? ENZO (with an even bigger smile) In the flesh. I have that honor!INT. BATHROOM - NIGHTJOHANA comes into the bathroom, closes the door, cuttingdown the blaring music. The paint is peeling off theceiling.BONITA is standing under a 40 watt lamp, putting on make-up in front of JACQUES' cracked shaving mirror. BONITA You're going to live here permanently? JOHANA ... Maybe, if Jacques will let me fix up the place a little.JOHANA walks over to the mirror and watches BONITA put onher make-up like a professional. BONITA (wistfully) He's shy, not like Enzo. JOHANA Yes. Not like Enzo. BONITA (putting on eyelashes) I think, he's really nice... He's a funny guy... sometimes even very moving. JOHANA (after a long silence) ... I'm pregnant, Bonita!BONITA stops working on her make-up and looks pensively atJOHANA. BONITA Are you going to keep it? JOHANA Yes. BONITA Does he know? JOHANA No. BONITA (thinking) Maybe you should talk to him about it. JOHANA I can't... I just don't know how to...BONITA looks at her with the same pensive look.JOHANA goes on. JOHANA I was thinking of something kinda stupid last night. You know those women in the greek mythology that made love with the Gods. Take Leda for example, sleeping with Jupiter, who came to earth as a swan... Well, can you imagine Leda announcing to her swan "You're going to be a father, my little chick-a-dee"? BONITA (starts laughing) But your man isn't quite a God! JOHANA (smiles) Probably not, but I still don't have the nerve to tell him. BONITA Well, you're going to have to tell him, sometime!Unconvinced, JOHANA nods. She changes the subject. JOHANA And you...? Do you love Enzo? BONITA (earnestly) Very much, I think. (a beat) But, there's going to be a problem.EXT. TERRACE OF RESTAURANT - NIGHTThe "problem": MAMMA MOLINARI sits between ENZO andROBERTO, looking like a malevolent storm cloud, staringacross at BONITA. ROBERTO (desperately) Mamma, calimari fritti... Zuppa de pesci. Sono buoni. MAMMA MOLINARI (eyeing Bonita) Nothing. I'm not hungry. ENZO Mamma, Bonita is an actress like Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani... BONITA (icy) Sarah Bernardt. I sing too... a hell of a Carmen. Want to hear? MAMMA MOLINARI (coldly) No thank you.There's an interminable awkward silence. Then UNCLE LOUISat last finds his way to the table. JACQUES who is toograteful for the interruption springs to his feet. JACQUES Uncle Louis, you remember Enzo's mother Signora Molinari from Amorgos? UNCLE LOUIS (screaming) The whale! How could I forget? Always was something fishy about that woman!MAMMA MOLINARI is having trouble breathing. UNCLE LOUIS What were Italians doing living in Greece anyway? JACQUES Louis, we were French! UNCLE LOUIS That's different! What's the matter with you? ROBERTO (complete panic) Mamma, pesce di spada?All of them are gasping for air, trying so hard not tolaugh. UNCLE LOUIS (to Mamma) Hey, whale! Can you pass down the squids?They all burst out laughing.EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT AT SEA - DAYThe diving platform is out. The competition has begun.ENZO is at the gueuse, getting ready to dive. ROBERTOworks around him busily.BONITA on deck above him is making little gestures ofencouragement. ENZO isn't amused.Other competitors watch from the Committee Boat.ENZO turns the handle on the gueuse, plunges into thewater.Professor LAWRENCE, taking notes, stands a few feet away.UNDERWATER - ON ENZOHe dives down, further and further down. He approachesthe two medics in aqualungs at the control point (210feet).They move toward him.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - ENZOSurfacing. Assistants help him onto the platform.ROBERTO pulls off his fins. ENZO rips off his mask. Helooks furious. He tosses the depth plaque (which proveshe is qualified) back into the water. ENZO A shit dive.He looks around angrily for an official. Sees NOVELLI. ENZO Those goddamned frogmen doctors waiting around at 200 feet they just kill your concentration. NOVELLI They're required by law. ENZO (climbing off platform) There's no law down there! The only law is what your lungs can take. (to the next diver) ... Have fun! They waiting for you down there, to take the temperature of your ass.He keeps on walking across the boat, runs into JACQUES,who's just about to begin his yoga preparation.JACQUES sees ENZO'S expression, looks concerned. ENZO (defensively) Anybody can have a bad day! JACQUES I've had many... when the sea doesn't want you. ENZO (disgusted) It's never the sea! It's Roberto, Mamma, that stupid actress... Oh shit! Jacques, what do you know? Go do your Hindu exercises and don't break my balls!ENZO stamps into one of the cabins.INT. JACQUES' APARTMENT - NIGHTJOHANA is reading a child birth catalog. She throws itaway upside down, as soon as she hears JACQUESapproaching. JACQUES comes in and sits opposite her. Heseems bitter. JOHANA Well, how was it?In an involuntary gesture, JACQUES flips through thecatalog. JACQUES (sadly) Enzo had a bad day.JOHANA wonders if JACQUES will understand the presence ofthe baby magazine. JOHANA (tense) And you? JACQUES I didn't dive. JOHANA (she takes the magazine) You'll try again tomorrow? JACQUES I don't know... it didn't feel right. I'm going to bed. I'm tired.He goes away. JOHANA You forgot your magazine!He hasn't heard.JACQUES goes to the bedroom, and throws himself on thebed.JOHANA looks as if she had wished he'd put two and twotogether. JACQUES What? JOHANA ... Nothing. DISSOLVE TO:EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT AT SEA - DAYENZO bursts out of the water. He rips off his face mask,throws it on the diving platform, roaring with pleasure.He tosses the depth plague to ROBERTO. ENZO Let them try.INT. JACQUES' APARTMENT - DAYJOHANA opens the apartment door. BONITA is standingthere, a suitcase in one hand. BONITA I wanted to say goodbye, Johana.They kiss each other goodbye.JOHANA is very uncomfortable. JOHANA You're leaving? BONITA Yes... (she hands her a note) Could you please give this to Enzo. JOHANA Of course.BONITA grabs the note back and tears it up. BONITA It's no use... Just tell him I said goodbye... And give him a kiss for me, Okay?The two women hug again. JOHANA (sorry) Bonita, you shouldn't be discouraged so easily. BONITA I don't have the strength to fight off la Mamma... Anyway who wants to spend their whole life waiting at the end of a pier.BONITA rests her hand on JOHANA'S stomach. BONITA Did you tell him? JOHANA Not yet... I'm waiting for the right moment. BONITA ... You take care of yourself, Johana.BONITA smiles at her and disappears down the stairs.EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT - DOCKING - DAYOfficials, NOVELLI, LAWRENCE, ROBERTO and of course ENZOdisembark. There is a lot of excitement on the dock.Everyone has already heard the news.People swarm around ENZO.LAWRENCE spots JACQUES in the crowd, and goes to him. JACQUES (smiling) Good huh? LAWRENCE He really was unbelievable, 328 feet, deeper than the world record... (then eagerly) ... And, Jacques! He held his breath for four minutes and fifty seconds! JACQUES (smiles too) Good... I guess I have tomorrow's work cut out for me as Enzo would say... LAWRENCE (seriously) You must be very careful, Jacques. At these depths, to hold your breath for over five minutes is... You'd really be pushing it. I think it's very, very dangerous.JACQUES sees ENZO being carried past on the shoulders ofthe crowd. He ignores LAWRENCE, runs beside ENZO. JACQUES (yelling) Enzo, Enzo! Congratulations!EXT. AWARD CEREMONY - NIGHT ENZO (in answer to the crowd's applause) Thank you, thank you very much!ENZO and NOVELLI stand on a little stage facing the crowd.ENZO is holding a gold trophy, waving to friends in theaudience. NOVELLI ... Now I'm sure you've heard that some people have suggested it is too dangerous for us to continue. Dangerous, because we don't know how to measure the physiological consequences of this type of dive and also because the scuba divers are not used to going down below 300 feet.While the attentive crowd listens to NOVELLI, ENZO isgesturing to ROBERTO, explaining what appetizers he wantsfrom the cocktail trays.The crowd laughs. NOVELLI But, we polled the free divers and they insist that the competition continue!There's wild applause. ENZO lifts the trophy over hishead, smiles like a champ and yells into the microphone. ENZO (yelling) Good luck to you all!EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT - DAYENZO and ROBERTO are on the front deck watching thedivers.A German diver comes up to the surface, empty handed.ENZO smiles.The Tahitian comes out of the water in a semi-coma. Thedoctors carry him away. Once he's sure that the diver isout of danger, ENZO smiles again.A whole team of Japanese walk over to the diving platform.The team consists of one diver and six assistants, threeof them playing music to help the diver concentrate. Thediver wears a white wet suit with a red circle on hisforehead. He is concentrating very hard, so much thatENZO walks over to him to make sure he's okay. TheJapanese diver concentrates with such strength that hefaints. ENZO (smiling to his brother) Fabulous, what a dive, huh?ROBERTO smiles.The diver from the Philippines stands at the end of thediving platform. He concentrates for a moment then givesup and walks away. ENZO He's right. What's the point of knocking yourself out?INT. BEDROOM - JACQUES - JOHANA - NIGHTThey're in bed, side by side, both of them half asleep.The only light in the room comes from the open windows.He rolls over and watches her sleep, looking down at heradoringly. He slips off the chain with the gold coin.Slowly, holding the chain, he runs the coin gently overher body, stops at the level of her stomach and lets itrest there. She opens her eyes and looks at him,wondering if he senses something. JOHANA (softly) What are you doing? JACQUES I'm putting you on the coin... Your essence... That way you'll always be with me when I dive.She smiles, closes her eyes. He swings the coin over herface gently, some kind of private ceremony. She looksjust a little intimidated.The coin is now dangling in front of her mouth. Shehesitates then opens her mouth, JACQUES lets the coinslide into it.EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT - DAYJACQUES walks up to the diving platform.LAWRENCE has fixed scientific equipment on his chest.JACQUES wets and slowly puts them on.ENZO watches from the deck, his expression has changed.JOHANA, on the deck also, opposite ENZO, watches a littleworried. JACQUES concentrates then releases the gueuseand lets himself disappear under the water.UNDERWATERJACQUES dives down very fast. The control takes place at200 feet, the doctors check him and let him go. Hecontinues his descent, it's getting darker and darkeraround him.The gueuse stops at the level of the underwater platform,just below the diver, who swims over to him in a sea ofbubbles from his oxygen bottles. He asks JACQUES if he isalright, JACQUES nods and gives him a huge smile beforeswimming off, downwards!The diver realizes and starts after him. He grabs JACQUESby one of his fins and pulls him back to the roundplatform. JACQUES lets go of the balloon.The diver panics. JACQUES slowly motions that everythingis fine and slowly paddles up to the surface.EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT - DAYThe boat's huge stop watch indicates min: 4:50, then5:00, then 5:10. JACQUES has been down there for over 5minutes.JOHANA is worried sick. ENZO doesn't know what to make ofit and LAWRENCE feels completely helpless. The stopwatchindicates 5:20, then 5:25 and JACQUES, half unconscious,brakes through the surface of the water.JOHANA screams and cries with joy when she sees him. Thecrowd applauds. ENZO is somber.NOVELLI takes the plaque from JACQUES' hands and turns tothe crowd. NOVELLI (stunned) 360 feet! He dove 360 feet!!!The crowd cheers in excitement.ENZO is sullen. LAWRENCE is very worried.EXT. ON PORT - END OF THE DAYThere's a pile of gear on the dock.ENZO is in the boat loading one piece of luggage at atime, JACQUES comes up to the boat. Parked in thebackground, we see a taxi waiting with JOHANA sitting inthe back seat. ENZO pretends not to notice JACQUES'arrival.JACQUES watches him for a moment then finally dares tospeak. JACQUES (pointing at taxi) ... There's a party at the hotel tonight.ENZO keeps loading up the boat. ENZO (busy) That's good. JACQUES (after a beat) Enzo, don't be angry. I was lucky... that's all.ENZO throws the last duffel bag into the cockpit. ENZO (serious) I'll see you in Amorgos.ENZO turns around and jumps onto his boat.JACQUES walks off the dock, past the cab. JOHANA opensthe door to let him in, but he keeps walking. JOHANA Jacques...? JACQUES You go back, I'll walk.He walks off.EXT. MARINELAND - DOLPHIN POOL - ANTIBES - NIGHTThe park is empty as JACQUES approaches the pool.TINA the dolphin, jumps out of the water, swims to meetJACQUES. JACQUES pats her and kneels to talk to TINANINA. JACQUES (sadly) I won today. I dove very deep, Tina.The dolphin giggles. JACQUES What's so funny? Can you dive deeper?The dolphin nods "yes".JACQUES smiles. JACQUES (smiling) So you understand everything?The dolphin nods. JACQUES That's good... So tell me why they're all angry at me? Why is Enzo angry? I never wanted to compete with him. I never wanted to be champion of anything... All I want is to escape from them all... For just a few minutes, no people... No noise... Nothing but the sea.The dolphin nods and giggles. JACQUES Do you really understand me? Huh? Are we actually having a conversation here?Again the dolphin nods "yes". JACQUES All right then, tell me: can I ever dive as deep as you? Stay under as long...?A beat. Then the dolphin nods "yes". JACQUES Are you sure?The two other dolphins stick their heads out of the water.They all nod together.JACQUES is awed and perplexed at the same time.EXT. AMORGOS - DAYThe little town of Amorgos is beautiful, mountainous.It's surrounded by a luminous turquoise sea, with whitevillas clinging to hillsides. There is a small port. (wesaw it in the opening sequence) Further along the coast,we see the Diving Federation Committee Boat surrounded byall sorts of activity.INT. HOTEL ROOM - JACQUES - JOHANA - DAYThrough the open windows we can see parts of the villagewhere JACQUES grew up. He's staring out the window, lostin his own thoughts. JACQUES It's beautiful, isn't it?Behind him, JOHANA is hiding and throwing up. He walks toher. JACQUES What's wrong? JOHANA It's nothing. Just the long trip. I'm a little jet-lagged. JACQUES You want to lie down for a while? JOHANA No, I'll be fine. Can you just hand me a glass of water?While JACQUES gets her the water, JOHANA stares at theview.EXT. ENZO'S BOAT - IN THE LITTLE PORTROBERTO stands on the port, waiting for his brother.Suddenly the sound of a motor boat and twelve note hornechoes in the bay.The boat has just arrived at the town dock.ENZO, tears rolling down his cheeks from the wind, throwsa duffel bag on the dock and looks up at ROBERTO. ENZO Is he here? ROBERTO (uncomfortable) He's training.ENZO makes a face.EXT. SMALL PORT - DAYJOHANA sits on the little dock in front of the hotel.JACQUES pulls on his fins, looks out into the water.She clutches a stopwatch, ready to set it off.A few yards behind, hidden between two bungalows, ENZOwatches them. JACQUES takes a few deep breaths and divesa few feet underwater.JOHANA starts the stopwatch.ENZO, who sees JACQUES disappear, walks over to JOHANA andsits down beside her. ENZO Okay, now we have a good five minutes to have a nice peaceful talk. JOHANA What are you doing here? ENZO Checking out the competition. JOHANA Enzo, why do you guys do this? ENZO (teasing) What else is there? JOHANA (seriously) You know what I'm talking about. Why do you and Jacques risk your lives diving? ENZO (avoiding the question) You risk your life when you cross the street. JOHANA (frustrated) Damn it! Why won't you give me a straight answer, for once?! ENZO Because you'd laugh. JOHANA I won't, I swear. ENZO (seriously) I dive in search of God. If I go deep enough I'm going to find him. To me, the sea is a religion... That surprises you, doesn't it? JOHANA (looking down at Jacques in the water) A little... You think it's the same for Jacques? ENZO (shaking his head) No. Jacques is a creature of the sea. He isn't meant to live on earth, among us... You should know this, Johana. JOHANA (reassuring herself) He can learn. He is learning. ENZO You really think so? Did you tell him you were pregnant? JOHANA (surprised) How do you know that? ENZO You told Bonita, but you didn't tell him, right?JOHANA shakes her head negatively. JOHANA ... Not yet. ENZO Don't. JOHANA Why? ENZO Because he won't understand and it will just hurt you... Jacques has been put on earth by complete mistake. And he's only waiting for one thing: that some God up there will turn him into a fish! How long has that moron been down there? JOHANA (looking at the stopwatch) Five minutes and fifty seconds. ENZO (grabbing away the stopwatch) That idiot!They jump up. ENZO dives into the water.As JOHANA watches panicky, ENZO pulls JACQUES up onto thedock, in his arms. JACQUES is unconscious.ENZO is furious. The fear of loosing his friend hasabsolutely enraged him. He starts pacing up and down thedock. JOHANA Is he alright? What happened? ENZO (furious) The fool was asleep! If I weren't around, he'd already be dead!!! Is that who you want to live with? Well, good luck! You better learn to look after him because I won't always be here to do it!Once again he marches off, then comes back. JACQUES (mumbling) ... How long was I asleep? ENZO (to Jacques) Long enough to die. Listen, if you really want to die, that's your problem, but don't do it under my nose, okay?A few steps away, then coming back. ENZO (to Jacques) I'll never let you take away my title. D'you hear me? Never!ENZO stalks off defiantly.EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT - ANCHORED OFF THE COASTThere's activity. The competition has begun.MUSICA SERIES OF QUICK SHOTS of different competitors atvarious points in their dives.The Tahitian comes up unconscious.The German comes up unconscious.So does the diver from the Philippines.NOVELLI doesn't know what to think.EXT. TERRACE OF RESTAURANT - JACQUES - JOHANA - SUNSETJACQUES is in a T-shirt and jeans, rope-sole sandals.JOHANA wears a light white cotton dress. They both sit onthe restaurant's terrace overlooking the sea.Below them, a small boat passes. In it are baskets filledwith sponges. JACQUES stares at them for a long time. JOHANA Do you ever sometimes just stop and think how sweet life can be?A beat. JACQUES ... Sure.JOHANA wants to say something. JOHANA ... When you dive... with that machine... What does it feel like? JACQUES (after thinking about it) ... The feeling of slipping without falling... The hardest is once you are at the bottom. JOHANA Why? JACQUES Because you have to find a good reason to come back up again... And I always have a hard time finding one.JOHANA has never looked so sad and lost.JACQUES doesn't notice.ENZO who is sitting at the piano behind them, starts toplay, staring at the sea.JACQUES and JOHANA turn around and look at him. ENZO (smiling) ... You should start playing the piano, the piano is really refreshing, it clears the sinuses. Very good the piano! Tomorrow is going to be a big day!EXT. COMMITTEE BOAT UNDERWAY - ON JACQUESHe's alone in the bow. The others are clustered in thesaloon, cockpit in the stern. The boat is moving close tothe cliffs. The monastery looms above them.CLOSE ON JACQUESHe's scanning the apparently abandoned monastery searchingfor signs of life.A red and blue taxi-boat pulls up alongside the CommitteeBoat. In it, LAWRENCE waits to climb on board.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - DAYENZO puts his flippers on and grabs his gueuse. He isserious, concentrating hard.LAWRENCE'S boat slides along the big Committee Boat andthe DOCTOR climbs onto it.INT. COMMITTEE BOAT - LAWRENCE - NOVELLI - OTHERSLAWRENCE'S briefcase is open. There's a stack of graphpaper on a cabin table. LAWRENCE ... When I analyzed the data from Mayol's last dive, it became apparent... (taps the graph paper) ... At the depths these men are diving, it is a physiological impossibility that they can retain enough oxygen in their blood to make it back to the surface. It's a function of how long it takes to get to the bottom, orient themselves and to return... To attempt to break Mayol's record is simple suicide. (to Novelli) For the last time. I'm telling you cancel the competition.NOVELLI and the MEDIC look over at the diving platformwhere ENZO is concentrating. MEDIC Molinari's a seventeen time world champion. Do you want to tell him he can't dive.LAWRENCE doesn't answer. NOVELLI is thinking. NOVELLI Get Mayol in here.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - ENZOENZO is preparing. He sits at the edge of the platformhyperventilating, almost in a trance.We see JACQUES in the background, talking to NOVELLI, hethen walks over to ENZO and climbs down next to him. JACQUES Enzo? (no response) Enzo... I know you're angry at me. (no response) Enzo, it's important.ENZO opens one eye. ENZO I'm concentrating. JACQUES (quickly) We can't dive anymore. They want to cancel the competition for a while.ENZO looks at him coldly. Takes another deep breath. JACQUES (rushing on) It's not safe, they say. The doctors say it isn't possible to go deeper and live. Free diving is over as a sport. ENZO You say that because you have the title! JACQUES No! I would never cheat you. ENZO Well that's very nice of you.He takes a last breath, signs himself and reaching for thegueuse, disappears into the water.LAWRENCE, NOVELLI, the MEDICS, and others are arguing.LAWRENCE is furious that ENZO is diving. NOVELLI isballing out his assistants.JACQUES is on the platform watching the others as if theywere a gaggle of geese. He listens to the sound of thegueuse playing out, watches the depth indicator, thestopwatches. He knows something is wrong.He walks over to the edge and grabs hold of a littleoxygen bottle which is there for security. He takes a fewbreaths of the oxygen as he puts on his flippers and divesdown after ENZO.UNDERWATER - JACQUESJACQUES pulls himself down the cable, hand over hand.80 or 90 feet down he sees a group of MEDICS coming towardhim carrying ENZO'S unconscious body.JACQUES struggles with them, pushes them away, takes ENZOin his arms and climbs toward the surface, frantic,screaming silently at him, desperate to get away from theflow of air bubbles from the scuba tanks, the commotion,the memory of death.ENZO has a big serene smile on his face. The MEDICS pushboth divers toward the surface.As if they were on land, JACQUES starts shaking ENZO towake him up. He then slaps his face but ENZO remainsunconscious.They finally break the surface in each others arms.EXT. ON DIVING PLATFORMThey pull ENZO out of the water. The doctors open hisjacket. ENZO motions to JACQUES to come close. He stillhas that long smile. ENZO (faintly) You were right. JACQUES (moved) ... I was right about what? ENZO (after a long silence) ... It is much better down there. It's a better place.He tries to take a deep breath, the effort is exhausting.JACQUES smiles, holding back his tears. ENZO ... Push me back in the water... JACQUES (crying) I can't. ENZO Jacques, take me back down... Please.His smile freezes, he stops breathing. His eyes close.JACQUES puts his head down on his friend's chest and sobs.The doctors gently try to move him away, but JACQUESresists. LAWRENCE Just give him five minutes! What does it matter now, anyway... Come on, just leave him alone!LAWRENCE encourages everybody to leave the platform.JACQUES quickly grabs the nearest rope and ties it to hisbelt. Before anybody can stop him, JACQUES rolls ENZO'Sbody back into the water and dives after it.UNDERWATER - JACQUESHe holds ENZO in his arms. Lets the dead weight of thebody pull him down, deeper and deeper. The rope aroundJACQUES' waist runs out, stops his descent with an abruptjerk. When he feels it, JACQUES lets go... watches asENZO'S body continues to drift by itself into thebottomless blue...EXT. DIVING PLATFORMThe doctors have run over and are pulling the cable thatJACQUES is attached to. He is unconscious when they pullhim up. They hold him up by his feet. JACQUES throws upgallons of water. They put an oxygen mask on his face. A DOCTOR (listening to his heartbeat) The heart is going to stop! The stimulator, quickly.Suddenly, everything collapses for JACQUES. Soundsdisappear. The image slows down, the light fades.JACQUES only hears his heartbeat, which slows down.His heart stops.Among the crowd around him, he sees JOHANA, fresh, gentle,smiling. Her movements are smooth and slowed down. Shesmiles at him, simply. JACQUES smiles back. The heartstarts again slowly.The image goes back to normal.Sounds multiply (doctors, the panic, etc...) and slowlycome back.JACQUES falls unconscious. A DOCTOR The heart started again! It's all right!NOVELLI falls back in his chair, relieved.INT. JACQUES' ROOM - NIGHTJACQUES is lying on the bed, he has a strong fever.JOHANA sits at his feet.LAWRENCE rummages through a medical kit. He takes a pillfrom a bottle and gives it to him. LAWRENCE Take this. Have a good sleep.JACQUES swallows the pills. JOHANA walks over from thebalcony. LAWRENCE Sweet dreams.LAWRENCE motions to JOHANA that they should let him sleep.He goes out of the room. JACQUES (tenderly to Johana, who had started to leave the room) Kiss me.JOHANA bends over and kisses him.JACQUES holds her by the arm, doesn't want her to leave. JOHANA Sleep now. We'll talk later.JOHANA kisses him on the forehead and leaves the room.EXT. HOTEL BAR - ON TERRACE - LAWRENCE - JOHANAThey're at the little zinc bar. Not talking, not reallydrinking either, just toying with their glasses.ROBERTO passes, stops. ROBERTO I've packed all of... Enzo's clothes. (a beat) I'm going to the radio telephone... (swallowing) ... to call Mamma.They watch sadly as he leaves.INT. JACQUES ROOM - NIGHTJACQUES sitting up in bed finally lies down under thesheets. He turns off the light by the bed.INT. HOTEL RESTAURANT - LAWRENCE - JOHANAThey've moved from the bar to the table. There is uneatenfood in front of them. A third place is set.JOHANA looks at the wall clock. JOHANA I'll go see how he's doing. LAWRENCE Let him sleep.INT. JACQUES ROOM - JACQUESJACQUES is lying on the bed, he is not moving anymore. Heis breathing loudly, as if tired out. From his POV theroom becomes very dark and blue. The noise is unbearable.The ceiling turns into water.JACQUES' eyes are wide open. His face is sweating. Thewater level, from the ceiling, comes down to him, until heis swallowed by it.As he falls into the water, we see a dolphin gulping airat the surface and going back very quickly to the blue.The dolphin meets his group, about ten of them, 250 Kg ofmuscles, swimming at more than 40 km/H underwater. Theyall break through the surface to gulp air regularly.Suddenly, one of them, leaves the group. He crosses theblue and seems to make sonar-like sounds. We see a sonarpicture. It's an image in which the dolphin will appear afew seconds later. The dolphin comes up like a rocket,gulps air and goes back down.The sonar image appears again. Finally, the dolphin,locates a group of fish and starts hunting them, exactlylike a war plane. He manages to break the group in two,then in four, and this way, he isolates his victim.He breaks the surface to gulp air and goes back down. Hegoes full power. The fish he is after are even moredivided. There is only one left, totally lost and in apanic.The exhausted fish is swallowed.The dolphin slows down, goes back up, breaks the surfacein slow motion. Images becomes pale and bright.He screams inhumanly.Image is white, black, silence.INT. HOTEL ROOM - JACQUESJOHANA opens the shutters.The room is a shamble of broken glass, water pitcher andglasses, lamps and vases. The windows are blown out.JACQUES is lying in bed. There is a thin trickle of bloodcoming from his nose and ears. JOHANA (in a panic) Jacques... Are you alright?EXT. DOCK - JACQUES - JOHANA - NIGHTJACQUES jumps into ENZO'S boat. JOHANA (still worried) Jacques? Are you alright? Answer me! Are you alright?She jumps down into ENZO'S boat. He starts the engine.The boat is racing out of the port. JOHANA yells over thesound of the engine. JOHANA You've got to tell me what happened? JACQUES I saw how it has to be.JACQUES parks the boat in front of the COMMITTEE BOAT'SDIVING PLATFORM. He turns on the platform lights: aboveand underwater. He throws down the diving cable: 60, 90,120 feet...JACQUES gets undressed and sits down in the lotusposition, concentrating...JOHANA sits down a few feet away and watches him,wondering just how far he is going to push this wholething.As the cable unrolls, JOHANA starts crying. Sheunderstands that JACQUES is going to dive to the bottom,into the blue, into himself. JOHANA Jacques, you know I love you.JACQUES is putting on his flippers, and stands facing hisgueuse. JACQUES (after a silence) Don't be sad... It's not because of you, it's me. It's all going on inside me! (a beat) I've gotta go and see.JOHANA starts pacing up and down the diving platform. JOHANA See what? There is nothing to see! It's pitch black down there! It's cold. You'll be all alone! Look at me, Jacques! I am here! I exist! Look!!! (she starts waving her arms) I'm real! I am not a dream! Jacques will you look at me? (she breaks down) Please!JACQUES has not moved, he still sits motionless, facinghis gueuse.JOHANA doesn't know what to do or say. She is totallydrained. JOHANA Jacques? I'm pregnant. JACQUES That's good... that's wonderful. It's wonderful for you. JOHANA You are the father.Silence. JACQUES is petrified, without any reaction. Hedoesn't understand. She realizes it's hopeless and staresat the sea. JOHANA (after a while) I lied... to keep you here.She kisses him. JOHANA Promise me one thing. JACQUES Anything. JOHANA Promise you won't forget me.She pulls the line releasing the gueuse.JACQUES takes a deep breath and grabbing hold of thegueuse, disappears into the water -- as if swallowed bythe ocean.UNDERWATERJACQUES slides along the cable, pulled by the weight ofthe gueuse. He has a beautiful smile on his face. He isin his element. Night has closed in around him. He turnson the headlight of the gueuse, it casts a dim lightaround him.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - NIGHTJOHANA has walked over to the edge of the platform. Sheis holding the cable, to "hear" JACQUES' descent.The counter shows that JACQUES is quickly passing the 300feet mark.UNDERWATERJACQUES keeps going down, as serene as ever. He hasgained a lot of speed.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - NIGHTJOHANA holds her face in her hands. The counter indicatesthat JACQUES is going very fast.UNDERWATERThe gueuse jerks to a stop and shakes the cable. JACQUESturns his body right side up.EXT. DIVING PLATFORM - NIGHTThe counter now indicates a depth of 600 feet.JOHANA has felt the jolt of the cable. She cries hertears and looks down at the water.UNDERWATERThe headlight on the gueuse illuminates only a few feetaround JACQUES, as if he were standing in a circle oflight. He stays there, patiently floating around andaround his cable... as if he were waiting for something.A long form circles the border between the darkness andthe light.JACQUES holds out his hand. A dolphin comes and pressesits body against it. Two other dolphins come out of thenight. JACQUES watches in amazement.A dolphin lays his muzzle in JACQUES' hand, ready to leadhim off. JACQUES hesitates.JACQUES lets go of the cable and lets himself be led away.Their silhouettes disappear in the deep blue night. THE END
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+                                        "BIG FISH"                                        Written by                                       John August                                  Based on the novel by                                      Daniel Wallace                                  Final Production Draft                               This is a Southern story, full of lies and fabrications, but                truer for their inclusion.                FADE IN:               A RIVER.               We're underwater, watching a fat catfish swim along.               This is The Beast.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         There are some fish that cannot be                          caught. It's not that they're faster                          or stronger than other fish. They're                          just touched by something extra.                          Call it luck. Call it grace. One                          such fish was The Beast.               The Beast's journey takes it past a dangling fish hook, baited                with worms. Past a tempting lure, sparkling in the sun. Past                a swiping bear claw. The Beast isn't worried.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         By the time I was born, he was already                          a legend. He'd taken more hundred-                         dollar lures than any fish in Alabama.                          Some said that fish was the ghost of                          Henry Walls, a thief who'd drowned                          in that river 60 years before. Others                          claimed he was a lesser dinosaur,                          left over from the Cretaceous period.               INT. WILL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT (1973)               WILL BLOOM, AGE 3, listens wide-eyed as his father EDWARD                BLOOM, 40's and handsome, tells the story. In every gesture,                Edward is bigger than life, describing each detail with                absolute conviction.                                     EDWARD                         I didn't put any stock into such                          speculation or superstition. All I                          knew was I'd been trying to catch                          that fish since I was a boy no bigger                          than you.                              (closer)                         And on the day you were born, that                          was the day I finally caught him.               EXT. CAMPFIRE - NIGHT (1977)               A few years later, and Will sits with the other INDIAN GUIDES                as Edward continues telling the story to the tribe.                                     EDWARD                         Now, I'd tried everything on it:                          worms, lures, peanut butter, peanut                          butter-and-cheese. But on that day I                          had a revelation: if that fish was                          the ghost of a thief, the usual bait                          wasn't going to work. I would have                          to use something he truly desired.               Edward points to his wedding band, glinting in the firelight.                                     LITTLE BRAVE                              (confused)                         Your finger?               Edward slips his ring off.                                     EDWARD                         Gold.               While the other boys are rapt with attention, Will looks                bored. He's heard this story before.                                     EDWARD                         I tied my ring to the strongest line                          they made -- strong enough to hold                          up a bridge, they said, if just for                          a few minutes -- and I cast upriver.               INT. BLOOM FRONT HALL - NIGHT (1987)               Edward is chatting up Will's pretty DATE to the homecoming                dance. She is enjoying the story, but also the force of                Edward's charisma. He's hypnotizing.                                     EDWARD (CONT'D)                         The Beast jumped up and grabbed it                          before the ring even hit the water.                          And just as fast, he snapped clean                          through that line.               WILL, now 17 with braces, is fuming and ready to leave. His                mother SANDRA -- from whom he gets his good looks and                practicality -- stands with him at the door.                                     EDWARD                         You can see my predicament. My wedding                          ring, the symbol of fidelity to my                          wife, soon to be the mother of my                          child, was now lost in the gut of an                          uncatchable fish.               ON WILL AND SANDRA                                     WILL                              (low but insistent)                         Make him stop.               His mother pats him sympathetically, then adjusts his tie.                                     WILL'S DATE                         What did you do?                                     EDWARD                         I followed that fish up-river and                          down-river for three days and three                          nights, until I finally had him boxed                          in.               Will regards his father with exasperated contempt.                                     EDWARD                         With these two hands, I reached in                          and snatched that fish out of the                          river. I looked him straight in the                          eye. And I made a remarkable                          discovery.               INT. TINY PARIS RESTAURANT (LA RUE 14∞) - NIGHT (1998)               WILL, now 28, sits with his gorgeous bride JOSEPHINE. This                is their wedding reception, crowded with their friends and                family. They should be joyful, but Will is furious.               Edward has the floor, ostensibly for a toast. The room is                cozy and drunk.                                     EDWARD                         This fish, the Beast. The whole time                          we were calling it a him, when in                          fact it was a her. It was fat with                          eggs, and was going to lay them any                          day.               Over near the doorway, we spot Sandra, just returned from                the restrooms. She looks gorgeous. She couldn't be any happier                if this were her own wedding.                                     EDWARD                         Now, I was in a situation. I could                          gut that fish and get my ring back,                          but doing so I would be killing the                          smartest catfish in the Ashton River,                          soon to be mother of a hundred others.               Will can't take any more. Josephine tries to hold him back,                but he gets up and leaves. Edward doesn't even notice.                                     EDWARD                         Did I want to deprive my soon-to-be-                         born son the chance to catch a fish                          like this of his own? This lady fish                          and I, well, we had the same destiny.               As he leaves, Will mutters in perfect unison with his father --                                     EDWARD AND WILL                         We were part of the same equation.               Will reaches the door, where his mother intercepts him.                                     SANDRA                         Honey, it's still your night.               Will can't articulate his anger. He just leaves.                                     EDWARD                         Now, you may well ask, since this                          lady fish wasn't the ghost of a thief,                          why did it strike so quick on gold                          when nothing else would attract it?                              (closer; he holds up                               his ring)                         That was the lesson I learned that                          day, the day my son was born.               He focuses his words on Sandra. This story is -- and has                always been -- about her more than anyone.                                     EDWARD                         Sometimes, the only way to catch an                          uncatchable woman is to offer her a                          wedding ring.               A LAUGH from the crowd.               Edward motions for Sandra to get up here with him. As she                crosses, we can see that thirty years of marriage has not                lessened their affection for each other.               As they kiss, Edward tweaks her chin a special little way.               The crowd APPLAUDS.               Edward toasts the happy couple. Josephine covers well for                her absent husband, a smile as warm as summer.               Edward downs his champagne in a gulp.               EXT. OUTSIDE LA RUE 14∞ - NIGHT               We come into the middle of an argument on the sidewalk.                Occasional PASSERSBY take notice, especially as it gets more                heated. Both men are a little drunk.                                     EDWARD                         What, a father's not allowed to talk                          about his son?                                     WILL                              (disbelieving)                         I am a footnote in that story. I am                          the context for your great adventure.                          Which never happened! Incidentally!                          You were selling novelty products in                          Wichita the day I was born.                                     EDWARD                              (shaking his head)                         Jesus Christ.                                     WILL                         Friend of yours? Did you help him                          out of a bind?                                     EDWARD                         Come on, Will. Everyone likes that                          story.                                     WILL                         No Dad, they don't. I do not like                          the story. Not anymore, not after a                          thousand times. I know all the                          punchlines, Dad. I can tell them as                          well as you can.                              (closer)                         For one night, one night in your                          entire life, the universe does not                          revolve around Edward Bloom. It                          revolves around me and my wife. How                          can you not understand that?               A long beat, then...                                     EDWARD                              (low)                         Sorry to embarrass you.               Will won't let him get the last word.                                     WILL                         You're embarrassing yourself, Dad.                          You just don't see it.               ANGLE ON Edward. Fine. A hand to wave, enough of you.               He walks away.               ANGLE ON Will, still fuming with righteous anger. It's then                we FREEZE FRAME.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         After that night, I didn't speak to                          my father again for three years.               INT. A.P. NEWSROOM (PARIS) - DAY               A typically busy day. On hold with the phone cradled under                an ear, Will sorts through a bundle of mail dropped on his                desk.                                     WILL (ON PHONE)                              (without pauses)                         William Bloom with the Associated                          Press if I could just...               He's put back on hold. Returning to the mail, he finds a                hand-addressed envelope. Rips it open.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         We communicated indirectly I guess.                          In her letters and Christmas cards,                          my mother would write for both of                          them.               INT. BLOOM HOUSE KITCHEN - DAY               At the table, Sandra talks on the phone while Edward fixes a                sandwich.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         When I'd call, Mom would say that                          Dad was out driving. Or swimming in                          the pool.               Edward takes a seat, starting to eat his sandwich.                                     WILL                         True to form, we never talked about                          our not talking.               INT. BLOOM HOUSE MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT               Sandra stands by the window, watching as...               EXT. BLOOM BACK YARD - NIGHT [CONTINUOUS]               Edward swims laps in the family pool. He's born to the water.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         The truth is, I didn't see anything                          of myself in my father, and I don't                          think he saw anything of himself in                          me. We were like strangers who knew                          each other very well.               EXT. RIVER - DAY               Edward stares intently into the water, a lion in wait.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         In telling the story of my father's                          life, it's impossible to separate                          the fact from the fiction, the man                          from the myth. The best I can do is                          to tell it the way he told me.               We LOOK DOWN at the river, where Edward's reflection is caught                in the dark water. As the water ripples past, something                changes.               Sure enough, as we LOOK UP again, it's a younger EDWARD BLOOM,                20's, staring into the water. He's not just handsome, not                just charming. It's as if all the forces of the natural world                had conspired to create him.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         It doesn't always make sense, and                          most of it never happened.               Suddenly, this Edward thrusts both hands into the water,                grabbing hold of               THE BEAST.               He brings the catfish up to his face. Looks it right in the                eye. A beat, then the Beast spits out Edward's gold ring.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         But that's what kind of story this                          is.               Smiling, Edward takes the ring, then throws the Beast back                into the water with a splash.               TITLE OVER:                                         BIG FISH               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY               Young Dr. Bennett stands between the Wife's legs. She's                flustered and sweating, but the doctor has a comforting                bedside manner...                                     YOUNG DR. BENNETT                         Now, Mrs. Bloom, I'll need you to                          give me one good push. On three.                          One...               Suddenly, we hear a POP as a slimy mass of human being rockets                into the doctor's unprepared hands. Bennett tries to hold                tight, but the infant is slippery like a fish. It shoots up                into air.               The NURSES and the Husband try to grab the baby, but no one                can hold it. As the newborn sails upward TOWARDS CAMERA, we                can see a GIGGLING SMILE on its face.               As it falls, the newborn knocks over a tray, which provides                it a ramp to slide right out of the room. Everyone races                after it.               INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - DAY               Bursting through the doors --                                     YOUNG DR. BENNETT                         Grab that baby!               A NURSE finally scoops up the slippery baby. Everyone lets                out a collective sigh of relief.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         My father's birth would set the pace                          for his unlikely life. No longer                          than most men's, but larger. And as                          strange as his stories got, the                          endings were always the most                          surprising of all.               INT. HALF-DARK PARIS APARTMENT - (PRESENT) DAY               Over the sound of rain, a phone RINGS on a chair. By the                tone of the ring, we know we're not in the U.S. -- it has                that insistent European sound.               As it keeps RINGING, we look to see the apartment is mostly                empty, just a few half-unpacked boxes. A cradle is still in                its carton.               KEYS in the lock. LAUGHTER in the hallway. The door swings                open to reveal a drenched Will (29) carrying four sacks of                groceries, the bottoms collapsing from the rain. His wife                Josephine (28) pushes past him to get the phone.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Allo oui?               Will begins stripping out of his wet clothes, each layer                unleashing a new drizzle. He plays it up, trying to get a                reaction out of Josephine.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (on phone)                         Yes, he's here.               She hands the phone to Will, concerned.                                     JOSEPHINE                         It's your mother.               Half-stripped, Will takes the phone. This won't be good news.                                     WILL                              (on phone)                         Hi. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.               As Josephine takes off her rain coat, we see she is very,                very pregnant. She listens carefully to Will's side of the                conversation, trying to gauge how bad the news is.                                     WILL (CONT'D)                         What does Dr. Bennett say? Okay. No,                          sure, let me talk to him. I'll wait.               He covers the mouthpiece. Looks over to Josephine.                                     JOSEPHINE                         It's bad.                                     WILL                         It's more than they thought. They're                          going to stop chemo.                                     JOSEPHINE                         You need to go.                                     WILL                         Probably tonight.               A beat.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I'm going with you.                                     WILL                         You don't have to.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (a simple fact)                         I'm going with you.               INT. AIR FRANCE 747 - NIGHT               As the plane continues boarding, a STEWARDESS recites the                welcome spiel in French. Will has a window seat in coach.                Josephine sits beside him, putting on hand lotion.               Taking his hands, she rubs the excess into him. There's an                effortless intimacy between them. She can pinpoint what he's                feeling before he can.               INT. 747 / FLYING - NIGHT               Hours later, and the lights are dimmed. Most of the PASSENGERS                are asleep, including Josephine. Her head is propped against                Will's shoulder, her hands tucked under her belly.               Will watches her sleep, brushing back her hair. A beat, then                he notices a BORED BOY in the next row over.               Off the glow of the reading light, the boy is using his hands                to cast shadows on the seat back. The kid is pretty good,                making a convincing bird, a passable monkey, and finally a                dog.               We PUSH IN on the silhouettes.                                     EDWARD (O.S., PRELAP)                         So which one's it gonna be? The Monkey                          in the Barn, the Dog in the Road?               Focusing on the final shadow, we...                                                              MATCH CUT TO:               INT. BLOOM HOUSE - NIGHT               ...come to find Edward making the shapes.               Will (6) sits in his pajamas on the floor next to him. The                endtable lamp lies between them, its shade off to cast big                shadows on the wall.                                     WILL                         The one about the witch.                                     EDWARD                         Your mom says I can't tell you that                          one anymore. You get nightmares.                                     WILL                         I'm not scared.               Edward looks around for a beat, seeing if his wife is in                earshot. He then leans in, complicitous.                                     EDWARD                         Neither was I. At first.               Will smiles, excited to hear the forbidden story.                                     EDWARD                         This all happened in the swamp outside                          of Ashton. Kids weren't supposed to                          go out in the swamp, on account of                          the snakes and spiders and quicksand                          that would swallow you up before you                          could even scream. But there were                          five of us out there that night: Me,                          Ruthie, Wilbur Freely, and the Price                          Brothers, Don and Zacky.               Edward holds up his hand, counting the names on his fingers.                                     EDWARD                         Not a one of us knew what was in                          store.               As his hand moves past the light, we                                                                   COME TO:               A flashlight SWEEPS past. We are...               EXT. FIELD AT THE SWAMP EDGE - NIGHT               The night is WHIRRING and BREATHING, alive. The moon hangs                low, casting long shadows.               Five kids walk past in silhouette. Four have flashlights on.                The fifth keeps tripping, crashing into YOUNG EDWARD (10).                                     EDWARD                         Zacky, turn your flashlight on!                                     ZACKY                         I don't got any batteries!               Red-headed ZACKY PRICE is 10. His brother DON PRICE is 12,                and a lot bigger than the others.                                      DON PRICE                         Then why'd you bring it?                                     ZACKY                         I don't want to be in the swamp with                          a witch and no flashlight.               WILBUR FREELY, also 10, is the black asthmatic son of a                sharecropper. Redheaded RUTHIE MACKLIN, 8, is happy just to                be there.                                     EDWARD                         Is it true she got a glass eye?                                     WILBUR FREELY                         I heard she got it from Gypsies.                                     EDWARD                         What's a Gypsy?                                     ZACKY                         Your momma's a Gypsy.                                     DON PRICE                         Your momma's a bitch.                                     RUTHIE                         You shouldn't swear. There's ladies                          present.                                     DON PRICE                         Shit.                                     ZACKY                         Damn.                                     WILBUR FREELY                         Screw.                                     EDWARD                              (whispering)                         Turn off your flashlights! She'll                          see 'em.               MOVING UP behind the kids, we find ourselves at the gates                of...               EXT. A CREEPY OLD HOUSE - NIGHT                                     ADULT EDWARD (V.O.)                         Now, it's common knowledge that most                          towns of a certain size have a witch,                          if only to eat misbehaving children                          and the occasional puppy who wanders                          into her yard. Witches use those                          bones to cast spells and curses that                          make the land infertile.               We PULL BACK, and BACK, revealing more of the Gothically                creepy house: its broken windows, strangling vines, and eerie                gargoyles half-buried in the dirt. Even bats are afraid to                fly over it.               In the moonlight, the house is especially sinister. Who knows                what is lurking in the shadows?                                     ADULT EDWARD (V.O.)                         Yet of the all the witches in Alabama,                          there was one who was the most feared.                          For she had one glass eye, which was                          said to contain mystical powers.               We finally come to the kids, staring in through the gate.                                     WILBUR FREELY                         I hear if you look right at it, you                          can see how you're gonna die.                                     EDWARD                         That's bull-s-h-i-t, that is. She's                          not even a real witch.                                     DON PRICE                         You're so sure, why don't you go in                          and get that eye? I heard she keeps                          it in a box on her nighttable.               Edward looks back at the spooky house.                                     DON PRICE                         Or are you too scared?                                     EDWARD                         I'll go in right now and get that                          eye.                                     DON PRICE                         Then do it.                                     EDWARD                         Fine, I will.                                     DON PRICE                         Fine, you do it.                                     EDWARD                         Fine, I'm doing it.               He hands Zacky his flashlight, then starts climbing the gate.                                     RUTHIE                         Edward, don't!                                     WILBUR FREELY                         She'll make soap out of you!                              (to Ruthie)                         That's what she does, she makes soap                          out of people.               Edward drops down on the far side of the gate. Truth be told,                Edward is scared, but he forges ahead anyway.               Wilbur looks to Ruthie, and they're in complete agreement.                They get the hell out of there. Zacky would run too, but Don                holds him by the collar.               EXT. APPROACHING THE HOUSE               Edward curves around the tall bushes that hide the front                door. Anything could jump out of them.               He steps on the porch. The boards SQUEAL and CREAK, but he                continues on. A cat SCREAMS OUT from a broken wicker rocker.                Catching his breath, Edward reaches the front door.               The doorknob is ancient brass, two projections that look                like horns. Yet Edward extends his hand, reaching closer and                closer before he finally               RINGS THE DOORBELL.               Impossibly fast, the door opens, revealing an OLD WOMAN with                a patch over her left eye. She looks like she's been dead                for years, but too stubborn to lie down.                                     EDWARD                              (calm and                               straightforward)                         Ma'am, my name is Edward Bloom, and                          there's some folks'd like to see                          your eye.               EXT. BACK AT THE GATE - NIGHT               Zacky and Don Price wait for Edward, each moment more                convinced he's already dead. But suddenly, he's back at the                gate.                                     DON PRICE                         You get the eye?                                     EDWARD                         I brought it.                                     DON PRICE                              (dubious)                         Let's see it.               The Old Woman steps out of the shadows behind Edward, flipping                up her eye patch. When their flashlight beam hits her left                eye, it shines with a hellish glow.               We RUSH IN on Zacky, who is paralyzed by what he sees.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FRONT PORCH OF HOUSE - DAY               An OLD MAN -- Zacky -- stands on a wobbly stepladder, changing                a lightbulb. Suddenly, the ladder gives way and he falls.                Dead.               EXT. AT THE GATE - NIGHT               We RUSH IN on Don Price.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. FRATERNITY HOUSE BATHROOM - DAY               Twenty-year old Don Price falls face-forward on the tile,                face mushed in the grout. Very much dead.               EXT. AT THE GATE - NIGHT               Don and Zacky both tremble with fear. The latter has tears                in his eyes.                                     ZACKY                         I saw how I was gonna die. I was                          old, and I fell.                                     DON PRICE                         I wasn't old at all.               The brothers suddenly bolt. Still standing next to the Old                Woman, Edward smiles.               EXT. AT THE OLD WOMAN'S DOOR - NIGHT               Edward helps her back inside. He could leave now, but                curiosity gets the better of him.                                     EDWARD                         I was thinking about death and all.                          About seeing how you're gonna die.               The Old Woman turns to him slightly, still not facing him.                                     EDWARD                         I mean, on one hand, if dying was                          all you thought about, it could kind                          of screw you up. But it could kind                          of help you, couldn't it? Because                          you'd know that everything else you                          can survive.               The Old Woman smiles a little, a crooked grin of broken teeth.                                     EDWARD                         I guess I'm saying, I'd like to know.               The Old Woman turns leaning her face right in front of his.                And on a silent count of one, two, three -- Edward looks                into The Eye.               This time we don't cut. Instead, we HOLD ON Edward as he                witnesses his death. He stares transfixed, perplexed and                amused. Whatever he sees, it's not as dire as the other boys.                His future has something strange in store.                                     EDWARD                         Huh. That's how I go?               The Old Woman nods. Still a little overwhelmed, Edward turns                and leaves.                                     ADULT EDWARD (V.O.)                         From that moment on, I no longer                          feared death. And for that, I was as                          good as immortal.               As Edward leaves, the door swings SHUT on its own.                                                              MATCH CUT TO:               INT./EXT. BLOOM HOUSE - (PRESENT) DAY               The front door opens to reveal Will and Josephine on the                porch with their bags. REVERSE to Will's mother Sandra (53),                surprised and a little annoyed.                                     SANDRA                         How did you get here?                                     WILL                         We swam. The Atlantic, it's not that                          big really.                                     SANDRA                         Ruth McHibbon offered to pick you up                          at the airport.                                     WILL                         We rented a car.                                     SANDRA                              (simply)                         You didn't need to do that. You just                          didn't.               A beat. Starting over...                                     WILL                         Hi, Mom.               He leans in and hugs her. She surrenders, squeezing her son                tight. Will and his mother are cut from the same cloth --                strong-willed but practical. They've always been close.                                     SANDRA                         I'm so glad you're here.               That hug finished, Sandra pushes past her son to her daughter-               in-law. Seeing the size of her belly --                                     SANDRA                         You shouldn't have flown. But...               They hug.                                     JOSEPHINE                         It's good to see you. You look                          beautiful.               It's not flattery. It's the truth.                                     SANDRA                         Thank you. I'll bet you need to --                                     JOSEPHINE                         Yes.                                     SANDRA                         Down the hall on the right. The door                          sticks. You have to really pull it.               Josephine squeezes past, a smile to her husband -- be nice.                Will heads back to the rental car to retrieve luggage. Sandra                follows him.               Coming down the driveway, we get to see the house for the                first time: an older suburban home, three bedrooms, big for                the neighborhood, and nicely grown into the lot. KIDS are                playing on the street.                                     WILL                         Is that Dr. Bennett's car?                                     SANDRA                         He's up with your father.               Heading back to the house...                                     WILL                         How is he?                                     SANDRA                         He's impossible. He won't eat. And                          because he won't eat, he gets weaker.                          And because he's weaker, he doesn't                          want to eat.                                     WILL                         How much time does he have left?                                     SANDRA                         You don't talk about those things.                          Not yet.               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               Sandra is pouring iced tea for Will and Josephine.               DR. JULIUS BENNETT (85) enters from the foyer, still winded                from coming down the stairs. He was the town's first Black                physician. He's still the town's best physician.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Will.                                     WILL                         Dr. Bennett. It's good to see you.                              (they shake)                         My wife, Josephine.                                     DR. BENNETT                         A pleasure.               He judges her belly.                                     DR. BENNETT                         You're seven months.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (impressed)                         To the day.               He leans close to her, whispering in her ear...                                     DR. BENNETT                         It's a boy.               She smiles, surprised but not doubting. Will looks over --                what did he say? Josephine shakes her head.               Back to the main subject...                                     SANDRA                         You don't think he looks any worse.                                     DR. BENNETT                         No. I would say he's the same.               And in the silence that follows, a lot is said. It wasn't                the upbeat reply Sandra was hoping for.                                     WILL                         Can I see him?                                     DR. BENNETT                         Absolutely. Be good for you to talk                          to him.               A moment of awkwardness -- everyone here knows they haven't                spoken in years.               Sandra hands Will a squat can of Ensure from the case on the                counter.                                     SANDRA                         Get him to drink one of these. He                          won't, but tell him he has to.               INT. FOYER - DAY               Coming out from the kitchen, Will slowly climbs the stairs.                They CREAK with every step.               The wall is filled with family photos, happier times. Most                of the pictures are of Will, starting when he was an infant                and ending at his wedding. As he climbs the stairs, we can                see him growing up with every step.               INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY               A crack of sunlight spills around the half-open door at the                end of the hallway. Will walks towards it, running a hand                along the wallpaper.               Almost at the door, he stops for a beat. Gets his breath.                Then goes inside.               INT. GUEST ROOM - DAY               Edward Bloom, 61, lies asleep on the bed. Although he's not                the vibrant man we've seen before, it's not as bad we feared.                The illness has been quick, and left him largely intact.               There are no I.V.'s, no monitors, nothing.               Coming up to the bed --                                     WILL                         Dad?               Edward cracks open an eye, a beat before he focuses. He tries                to say something, but no words come out.               He looks over at a pitcher on the nightstand. Will pours him                a glass of water, helping him hold it to his parched lips.               Finished, Edward sets down the glass by himself. A very long,                tense beat. Will almost speaks again to fill the silence.               Finally...                                     EDWARD                         You --                              (he points)                         -- are in for a surprise.                                     WILL                         Am I?                                     EDWARD                         Having a kid changes everything. I                          mean, there's the diapers and the                          burping and the midnight feedings...                                     WILL                         Did you do any of that?                                     EDWARD                         No, but I hear it's terrible. Then                          you spend years trying to corrupt                          and mislead this child, fill its                          head with nonsense and still it turns                          out perfectly fine.                                     WILL                         You think I'm up for it?                                     EDWARD                         You learned from the best.               Will doesn't rise to the challenge. A beat, then he remembers                the can of Ensure. Holds it up. Edward recoils.                                     WILL                         Just drink half the can. I'll tell                          her you drank the whole thing.                          Everyone wins.               A beat, then Edward rolls his eyes. Fine. Will cracks open                the can, finding a straw on the nightstand.                                     EDWARD                         People needn't worry so much. It's                          not my time yet. This isn't how I                          go.                                     WILL                         Really.                                     EDWARD                         Truly. I saw it in The Eye.                                     WILL                         The Old Lady by the swamp.                                     EDWARD                         She was a witch.                                     WILL                         No, she was old and probably senile.                          Maybe schizophrenic.                                     EDWARD                         I saw my death in that eye. And this                          is not how it happens.                                     WILL                         So how does it happen?                                     EDWARD                         Surprise ending. Wouldn't want to                          ruin it for you.               Edward slurps down as much of the Ensure as he can stand,                then pushes the can away. He swallows with difficulty.                                     EDWARD                         There was this panhandler who used                          to stop me every morning when I came                          out of this coffee shop near the                          office.                                     WILL                         Okay.                                     EDWARD                         And every day I gave him a quarter.                          Every day. Then I got sick and was                          out for a couple of weeks. And when                          I went back there, you know what he                          said?                                     WILL                         What did he say?                                     EDWARD                         You owe me three-fifty.                                     WILL                         Really.                                     EDWARD                         True story.               A beat.                                     WILL                         When did you ever work in an office?                                     EDWARD                         There's a lot you don't know about                          me.                                     WILL                         You're right.               Edward gives a wry smile. He walked into that.                                     EDWARD                         Your mother was worried we wouldn't                          talk again. And look at us. We're                          talking fine. We're storytellers,                          both of us. I speak mine out, you                          write yours down. Same thing.               Will won't commit to Edward's assessment.                                     WILL                         Dad, I'm hoping we can talk about                          some things while I'm here.                                     EDWARD                         You mean, while I'm here.                                     WILL                         I'd just like to know the true                          versions of things. Events. Stories.                          You.               Edward LAUGHS a little, which becomes a COUGH. The HACKING                escalates until another drink of water gets it under control.                It's not clear whether any of this was an act to keep from                talking.                                     EDWARD                         Your mother hasn't been keeping up                          the pool. If you wanted to you                          could...                                     WILL                         I will.                                     EDWARD                         You know where the chemicals are?                                     WILL                         I used to do it when you were gone,                          remember? I used to do it a lot.               He didn't mean for that to sound so pointed. Taking the half-               empty Ensure, Will gets up to go. He's at the door when...                                     EDWARD                         I was never much for being at home,                          Will. It's too confining. And this,                          here. Being stuck in bed. Dying is                          the worst thing that ever happened                          to me.               He smiles at his joke.                                     WILL                         I thought you weren't dying.                                     EDWARD                         I said this isn't how I go. The last                          part is much more unusual. Trust me                          on that.               INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY               Shutting the door behind himself, Will drinks the rest of                the Ensure himself. Edward was right. It tastes horrible.               Heading for the stairs, Will walks past an open door. As he                leaves frame, we STAY BEHIND to look inside...               INT. WILL'S BEDROOM - DAY [FLASHBACK]               ...where an eight-year old Will is propped up in bed, his                face covered with chicken pox and pink calamine lotion. He's                showing Edward how many bumps there are on his arm.                                     YOUNG WILL                         Dr. Bennett says I'm going to have                          to be home for a week.                                     EDWARD                         That's nothing. I once had to stay                          in bed for three years.                                     YOUNG WILL                         Did you have chicken pox?                                     EDWARD                         I wish.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. TINY CHURCH - DAY               Wearing a white shirt and tie, YOUNG EDWARD -- still about                10 -- sings "Down to the River My Lord" along with the                CONGREGATION. His voice is high and thin, but he gives it                his all.               Suddenly, his voice CRACKS and DROPS a half-octave. And then                another. His friends Wilbur Freeley and Ruthie look over,                wondering what's wrong. Embarrassed, Edward just keeps                SINGING, trying to follow along with the baritone part.               He pulls at his collar. Then pulls again, his face getting                red. Starting to panic, he loosens his tie. He's starting to                undo the collar button when it POPS off by itself. Two more                buttons fly off. One hits a CHUBBY WOMAN in the neck.               ON HIS SHOES               As we watch, Edward's pant cuffs rise inch by inch -- that's                how fast he's growing.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Truth is, no one quite knew what was                          wrong. Most times, a person grows up                          gradually. I found myself in a hurry.               INT. YOUNG EDWARD'S BEDROOM - DAY               Young Edward lies in bed, his limbs connected to various                pulleys and levers to support his weight. He has a dozen                encyclopedias around him, and another dozen on the floor.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         My muscles couldn't keep up with my                          bones, and my bones couldn't keep up                          with my body's ambition. So I spent                          the better part of three years                          confined to my bed, with the World                          Book Encyclopedia being my only means                          of exploration. I had made it all                          the way to the "G's," hoping to find                          an answer to my gigantificationism,                          when I uncovered an article about                          the common goldfish.               INSERT: The encyclopedia article, complete with drawings.                                     YOUNG EDWARD                              (reading)                         "Kept in a small bowl, the goldfish                          will remain small. With more space,                          the fish can grow double, triple, or                          quadruple its size."               Young Edward thinks this through.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         It occurred to me then, that perhaps                          the reason for my growth was that I                          was intended for larger things. After                          all, a giant man can't have an                          ordinary-sized life.               EXT. BASEBALL FIELD - DAY               The CRACK of a bat announces the game-winning home run. The                crowd CHEERS the swing, and especially the batter as he rounds                the bases.               Although we've seen him briefly before, this is our first                real exposure to GROWN-UP EDWARD, who we'll follow from                roughly the ages of 18 to 30.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         As soon as my bones had settled in                          their adult configuration, I set                          upon my plan to make a bigger place                          for myself in Ashton.               EXT. SCHOOL FIELDS - DAY               SINGLE SHOTS: Football hero Edward leads his team to victory.                On the sidelines, a PRETTY GIRL admits the name of her secret                love:                                     GIRL                         Edward Bloom!               The other GIRLS SQUEAL in agreement. Don Price looks over,                glowers.               EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD - DAY               SINGLE SHOT: A lawnmower ROARS along the grass. We LOOK UP                to see who's pushing it, but it's not Edward. It's one of                his teenage EMPLOYEES.               Edward is back at the truck, which is painted to read, "Bloom                Landscaping." He has workers on every lawn.               He signs an autograph for an ADMIRING CUB SCOUT.               INT. BASKETBALL COURT - DAY               Edward takes an impossible shot at the buzzer from the other                end of the court. Naturally, he makes it, winning the game.               As the crowd goes wild for Edward, Don Price is the only                teammate who doesn't mob him.               EXT. TOWN - DAY               Edward carries a dog out of a burning house.               INT. SCIENCE FAIR - DAY               Edward wins a blue ribbon for his invention, a machine                labelled "Perpetual Motion." He and the JUDGE pose for a                photograph. A FLASH.               Pissed, Don Price throws his crappy lima bean plants in the                trash.               INT. HIGH SCHOOL STAGE - DAY               A dashingly handsome Edward leads the CAST out for a curtain                call. He's the star of the show. Off to the side, we see Don                Price is the ass-end of a horse costume.               Edward soaks in his applause, smiling and gracious.               EXT. GRADUATION STAGE - DAY               Edward accepts his diploma. The PRINCIPAL hugs him tight.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         I was the biggest thing Ashton had                          ever seen. Until one day, a stranger                          arrived.               EXT. FARM - DAY               As two FARMERS shake their heads, we REVERSE to a show a                massive hole punched through the side of a barn. It's roughly                the shape of man, but no human could be that large.               EXT. SHEEP PEN - DAY               Two fat ewes look up, a shadow falling across them. They                BLEAT in panic as               TWO OVERSIZED HANDS               reach in and scoop them up. Their protests continue as they're                carried away, one under each arm. We still haven't seen the                full stranger.               EXT. COURT HOUSE - DAY               A MOB of about 50 have gathered, many of them with shotguns.                Amid the crowd we see Don Price.                                     SHARECROPPER                         He ate an entire cornfield!                                     LITTLE GIRL                         He ate my dog!                                     HOT-BLOODED SHOTGUN TOTER                         If you ain't gonna stop him Mayor,                          we will!                                     MAYOR                         I won't have mob violence in this                          town. Now, has someone tried talking                          to him?                                     SOME FARMER                         You can't reason with 'im!                                     SHEPHARD                         He's a monster!               Agreement from the crowd. And then...                                     A VOICE (O.S.)                         I'll do it.               Everyone turns to see who said that. The crowd parts to reveal                none other than Edward Bloom. Don Price glowers.                                     EDWARD                         I'll talk to him. See if I can get                          him to move on.                                     MAYOR                         Son, that creature could crush you                          without trying.                                     EDWARD                         Trust me, he'll have to try.               EXT. HILL OUTSIDE ASHTON - DAY               Edward climbs up the last bit of the steep hillside, reaching                the mouth of a cave. Outside, buzzards squabble over the                remains of the giant's feast: broken barrels, bones picked                clean.               In his most serious voice, Edward calls out:                                     EDWARD                         Hello!               There's no answer.                                     EDWARD                         My name is Edward Bloom! I want to                          talk to you!               From deep in a cave, a thunderous voice:                                     VOICE (O.S.)                         GO AWAY!               The giant's voice has such force, it blows Edward's hair                back.                                     EDWARD                         I'm not going anywhere until you                          show yourself.               A beat, then we hear a RUMBLE, like a train coming. Edward                braces himself, fists ready for a fight, if that's what it's                going to take.               As the RUMBLE gets louder, the ground starts to shake. Even                Edward starts to worry. Just how big is this guy?                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Armed with the foreknowledge of my                          own death, I knew the giant couldn't                          kill me. All the same, I preferred                          to keep my bones unbroken.               Edward picks up a stone, ready to play David to Goliath.               Then suddenly, the giant bursts forth. Hunched over, he slams                into a stunned Edward, knocking him halfway down the hill.               KARL THE GIANT is bigger than any man you've ever seen. Not                just tall, but massive. He's completely feral, with a beard                to his elbow and skin scratched and blistered. What remains                of his clothes are ragged and muddy. God knows what's living                in his matted hair.               Karl leans over Edward, blocking the sun. Edward throws his                rock, but it just bounces off. The giant didn't even notice                it.                                     KARL                         Why are you here?               Edward ponders the best response, settling on...                                     EDWARD                         So you can eat me. The town decided                          to send a human sacrifice, and I                          volunteered.               Karl's eyes narrow, confused. Edward stands up.                                     EDWARD                         My arms are a little stringy, but                          there's some good eating on my legs.                          I mean, I'd be tempted to eat them                          myself.                              (beat)                         So I guess, just, if you could get                          it over with quick. Because I'm not                          much for pain, really.               Edward closes his eyes, hands at his side, ready to be eaten.                Karl just stares at him, not sure what to do.               After a beat, Edward opens his eyes a tiny bit, just to see                what the giant is doing. Relieved to see he's not licking                his chops --                                     EDWARD                         Look, I can't go back. I'm a human                          sacrifice. If I go back, everyone                          will think I'm a coward. And I'd                          rather be dinner than a coward.               Karl sits down with a BOOM, dejected.                                     EDWARD                         Here, start with my hand. It'll be                          an appetizer.               Reaching up, Edward shoves his hand into Karl's mouth. But                the giant spits it back out.                                     KARL                         I don't want to eat you. I don't                          want to eat anybody. It's just I get                          so hungry. I'm too big.               And that's the sad truth. Karl is less a monster than a freak --                a giant man, but in the end, just a man.               Edward takes a seat beside him.                                     EDWARD                         Did you ever think maybe you're not                          too big? Maybe this town's just too                          small. I mean, look at it.               Circling behind them, we look down at Ashton -- a tiny town                in a tiny valley.                                     EDWARD                         Hardly two stories in the whole place.                          Now I've heard in real cities, they've                          got buildings so tall you can't even                          see the tops of 'em.                                     KARL                         Really?                                     EDWARD                         Wouldn't lie to you. And they've got                          all-you-can-eat buffets. You can eat                          a lot, can't you?                                     KARL                         I can.                                     EDWARD                         So why are you wasting your time in                          a small town? You're a big man. You                          should be in the big city.               Karl smiles, but then it fades. A certain sad suspicion --                                     KARL                         You're just trying to get me to leave,                          aren't you? That's why they sent you                          here.                                     EDWARD                         What's your name, Giant?                                     KARL                         Karl.                                     EDWARD                         Mine's Edward. And truthfully, I do                          want you to leave, Karl. But I want                          to leave with you.                              (closer)                         You think this town is too small for                          you, well, it's too small for a man                          of my ambition. I can't see staying                          here a day longer.                                     KARL                         You don't like it?                                     EDWARD                         I love every square inch of it. But                          I can feel the edges closing in on                          me. A man's life can only grow to a                          certain size in a place like this.                              (beat)                         So what do you say? Join me?               Karl thinks a moment. Then --                                     KARL                         Okay.                                     EDWARD                         Okay.               They shake on it.                                     EDWARD                         Now first, we gotta get you ready                          for the city.               EXT. RIVER - DAY               IN A SINGLE SHOT, Karl cuts his hair with hedge clippers,                while Edward cuts up a surplus army tent to make him a shirt.               EXT. MAIN STREET OF ASHTON - DAY               Spirits buoyed by the high school MARCHING BAND, all the                good CITIZENS of Ashton are gathered to see off Edward and                Karl.               There's a few tears amid the familiar faces.                                     MAYOR                              (loudly, for the crowd)                         Edward Bloom, first son of Ashton,                          it's with a heavy heart we see you                          go. But take with you this Key to                          the City, and know that any time you                          want to come back, all our doors are                          open to you.               Edward ducks a bit so the Mayor can put the key around his                neck. The crowd CHEERS. And with that, Edward and Karl start                walking, waving as they go.               Only DON PRICE, smoking on the corner, isn't sad to see Edward                go. He crushes his cigarette under his heel. He wishes he                could crush Edward.               Many of the townfolk come onto the street to hug Edward or                shake his hand.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         That afternoon as I left Ashton,                          everyone seemed to have advice.                                     VARIOUS TOWNFOLK                         Find yourself a nice girl! Don't                          trust anyone in Kentucky! Watch your                          pride, Edward Bloom!                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         But there was one person whose counsel                          I held above all others.               As the crowd parts, he finds himself face to face with               THE OLD WOMAN.               The ruckus slows and quiets, as if a strange spell has been                cast. She motions for Edward to lean down, so she can whisper                something to him. Although we're VERY CLOSE, we can't hear                her voice.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         She said that the biggest fish in                          the river gets that way by never                          being caught.               The advice only succeeds in confusing Edward.                                     EDWARD                              (to the Old Woman)                         Okay. Thanks.               Edward and Karl keep walking. The Old Woman shuffles off,                somehow knowing her advice will go unheeded.                                     KARL                         What did she say?                                     EDWARD                         Beats me.               EXT. ROAD - DAY               We TILT UP from the road to reveal Edward and Karl walking                out of Ashton. Each wears a backpack with all his earthly                possessions.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         There were two roads out of Ashton,                          a new one which was paved, and an                          older one that wasn't. People didn't                          use the old road anymore, and it had                          developed the reputation of being                          haunted.               Edward and Karl come to a bend, where the paved road veers                left and an overgrown dirt road runs straight. The old road                is blocked with signs and warnings of danger.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Since I had no intention of ever                          returning to Ashton, this seemed as                          good a time as any to find out what                          lay down that old road.               Karl looks at the dirt road, wary.                                     KARL                         You know anyone's who's taken it?                                     EDWARD                         That poet, Norther Winslow did. He                          was going to Paris, France. He must                          have liked it, because no one ever                          heard from him again.                              (beat)                         Tell you what. You take the other                          way and I'll cut through here. Meet                          you on the far side.               A little paranoid...                                     KARL                         You're not trying to run away?                                     EDWARD                         Just to be sure, you can take my                          pack.               Karl perks up, even though it means more for him to carry.               EXT. DIRT ROAD - DAY               The road is overgrown, but not altogether creepy. The sun is                still shining, and the birds still CHIRPING.               Spinning the Key to the City, Edward WHISTLES, because it's                a day meant for whistling.               EXT. FURTHER ALONG - ROUGH PATH               The road has narrowed to a rough path. Spikes of sunlight                break through the thick canopy, catching particles in the                air. Still, Edward WHISTLES.               Coming around a bend, his PITCH DROPS as he sees thick, thorny                vines growing across the path. He stops. For the first time,                he realizes the birds have stopped singing. The forest is                dead quiet.               He looks back the way he came. It's tempting to go back. It                would be easier to go back. But Edward presses on.               He carefully steps through the thorns. His trouser legs catch                on the barbs. We can hear the fabric TEAR.               FURTHER ALONG               A scratched and sweaty Edward waves off various STINGING                BUGS flying at him, finally whipping off his hat to swat at                them.               Just then a CAWING crow swoops down and grabs the hat right                out of his hands.                                     EDWARD                         You stupid sonofa...               He stops his swearing, but grabs a rock and throws it. The                stone ricochets off a tree and into a BEE'S NEST. The swarm                roars out.               Edward high-tails it, each step still precarious.               EXT. THE DARK FOREST - DAY [LATER]               Edward is bruised, battered and bee-stung.               A half-broken sign lies in the road. Edward picks it up.                Reads it:                                         WARNING!                                     JUMPING SPIDERS!               Sure enough, up ahead he sees the path is overgrown with                thick cobwebs, heavy from the rain.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         There comes a point where a reasonable                          man will swallow his pride and admit                          he's made a terrible mistake. The                          truth is, I was never a reasonable                          man.               Edward tosses the sign and forges ahead, into the spiderwebs.                                     EDWARD                         And what I recalled of Sunday School                          was that the more difficult something                          became, the more rewarding it was in                          the end.               EXT. CLEARING / THE ROAD - DAY               Edward emerges from the forest, brushing the last cobwebs                off and shaking the spiders from his shirt. One is stuck in                his sleeve, and he has to dance to get it out. Even then, he                still keeps twitching, convinced another one is left behind.               At his feet, the gravel road has returned, smooth and dusty                and comforting.               Ahead lies a tiny one-street town -- smaller even than Ashton --                with powerlines emerging from the woods to feed it. Dangling                from the line above he sees two dozen pairs of shoes, their                laces tied together.               He passes a sign that reads "Welcome To Spectre!"               EXT. THE TOWN OF SPECTRE - DAY               It's a main street with stores on each side: Cole's Pharmacy,                Talbot's Five and Dime, Al's Country Store. Everything is                old, but this isn't a ghost town. In fact, there's a group                of about 20 CITIZENS spilling out to see Edward approach.                Most are smiling. There are even a few tears of joy.               What's more, all of these people are barefoot.                                     MAN'S VOICE                         Friend!               A forty-year old man named BEAMEN comes out of the seed store                to greet Edward. Friendly but a little drunk, he's the closest                thing the town has to a mayor. He's carrying a clipboard.                                     BEAMEN                         Welcome to ya. What's your name?                                     EDWARD                         Edward Bloom.               Beamen checks the clipboard. Not finding the name, he flips                forward a few pages. Still looking...                                     BEAMEN                         Bloom like a flower?                                     EDWARD                         Yes.                                     BEAMEN                         Oh. Here! Right here. Edward Bloom.                          We weren't expecting you yet.               Still confused...                                     EDWARD                         You were expecting me?                                     BEAMEN                         Not yet.               A helpful woman named MILDRED chimes in:                                     MILDRED                         You must have taken a shortcut.                                     EDWARD                         I did. It nearly killed me.                                     BEAMEN                         Mmm-hmm. Life'll do that to you. And                          truthfully, the long way is easier,                          but it's longer.                                     MILDRED                         Much longer.                                     BEAMEN                         And you're here now, and that's what                          matters.               Beamen's daughter JENNY (8) hides behind her father, peering                around to look at the handsome stranger.                                     EDWARD                         What is this place?                                     BEAMEN                         The town of Spectre. Best kept secret                          in Alabama. Says here you're from                          Ashton, right? Last person we had                          from Ashton was Norther Winslow.                                     EDWARD                         The poet? What ever happened to him?                                     BEAMEN                         He's still here. Let me buy you a                          drink. I'll tell you all about it.                          Hell, I'll have him tell you.                                     EDWARD                         No. I've gotta meet somebody. I'm                          already running late.               He didn't mean it as a joke, but for some reason, everyone's                laughing.                                     BEAMEN                         Son, I already told you. You're early.               INT. BEAMEN'S HOUSE - DAY               Sitting at the kitchen table, Edward takes a second slice of                apple pie. He and Beamen are joined by NORTHER WINSLOW (30),                who fancies himself a cultured artist, though he's never                left the state.                                     BEAMEN                         Now tell me if that isn't the best                          pie you ever ate.                                     EDWARD                         It truly is.               UNDER THE TABLE               Young Jenny is stealthily untying the laces on Edward's shoes.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         Everything here tastes better. Even                          the water is sweet. Never gets too                          hot, too cold, too humid. At night                          the wind goes through the trees and                          you'd swear there was a whole symphony                          out there, playing just for you.               Suddenly, Jenny YANKS OFF Edward's shoes. She races for the                door.                                     EDWARD                         Hey!               He chases after her.               EXT. TOWN / MAIN STREET - DAY               As she runs, Jenny ties Edward's laces together. Reaching                the edge of town, she tosses the shoes up and around the                power line -- a perfect throw. There's no way he's ever                getting them down.               The gathered citizens of Spectre CHEER for Edward, who is                confused and overwhelmed. The women hug him. Men shake his                hand.               Still focused on his shoes...                                     EDWARD                         Wait! I need those!                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         There is no softer ground than town.                                     MILDRED                         That rhymes!                                     BEAMEN                         He is our poet laureate.               The townsfolk continue to congratulate Edward...                                      EDWARD (V.O.)                         Sometimes in a dream, you'll visit                          places that seem instantly familiar,                          filled with friends you've never                          met.               EXT. UNDER A TREE - DUSK               Edward sits with Norther Winslow. The fireflies are out.                Thousands of them.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         A man might travel his entire life                          and never find a place so inviting.                          My journey had scarcely begun, and I                          had arrived.               Norther hands him his noteboook.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         I've been working on this poem for                          12 years.                                     EDWARD                         Really.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         There's a lot of expectation. I don't                          want to disappoint my fans.               A beat.                                     EDWARD                         It's only three lines long.               Norther grabs his notebook back.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         This is why you don't show work in                          progress.                                     EDWARD                         Norther, do you ever regret not making                          it to Paris?                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         I can't imagine any place better                          than here.                                     EDWARD                         You're a poet. You oughta be able                          to. And maybe if you'd seen more,                          you could.               Norther doesn't answer. Just goes back to his notebook.               EXT. BY THE RIVER - NIGHT               By the light of the full moon, Edward soaks his feet in the                water, trying to make sense of it all. The Key to the City                dangles around his neck.               He stares at himself in the reflection. He smiles.               It's then that a WOMAN emerges at the far side of the river.               No telling where she came from -- she must have been swimming                underwater. We never see her face.               She stands in the river with her bare back to Edward,                squeezing the water out of her golden hair, oblivious to his                presence. Edward is breathless. It's the first woman he's                seen in her natural state, and he doesn't dare move lest he                frighten her away.               Then he sees the snake.               It's a cottonmouth, has to be. It leaves a break in the water,                its small reptilian head aiming for her flesh.               There's no decision to be made. On pure instinct, Edward                dives in. He swims as hard as can,               GRABBING THE SNAKE               just as it's about to strike.               The woman dives back underwater, understandably terrified                that a man is coming at her.                                     EDWARD                         No, it's okay! I got it. I got the                          snake.               As the splashing subsides, Edward looks at what he holds in                his hands. Which isn't a snake at all, but rather a common                stick. And a non-threatening one at that.               While Edward ponders his mistake, he looks around to discover                that the Girl in the River is gone. He never even saw her                face.                                     EDWARD                         Wait! I'm sorry. Hello?!               Edward keeps expecting her to surface, somewhere, but she                never does. He stands alone in the river, wondering what                tricks his eyes are playing on him.               EXT. BY THE RIVER - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS                                     A GIRL'S VOICE (O.S.)                         There's leeches in there!               Edward looks to the bank, where young Jenny Hill is watching                him.                                     EDWARD                         Did you see that woman?                                     JENNY                         What did she look like?                                     EDWARD                         Well, she... uh...                                     JENNY                         Was she nekkid?               Embarrassed to admit it...                                     EDWARD                         Yeah.                                     JENNY                              (matter-of-fact)                         It's not a woman, it's a fish. No                          one ever catches her.               Given the day he's had so far, Edward isn't inclined to follow                up on the issue. He starts to wade back to the bank.                                     JENNY (CONT'D)                         Fish looks diff'rent to diff'rent                          people. My daddy said it looked like                          the coon dog he had when he was kid,                          back from the dead.               Edward climbs up onto the shore, completely drenched. He                pulls up his pant legs to reveal three shiny leeches clinging                to his skin.                                     EDWARD                         Shoot.               He starts to work pulling them off.               EXT. PATH BACK TO TOWN - NIGHT               Edward and Jenny walk back.                                     JENNY                         How old are you?                                     EDWARD                         Eighteen.                                     JENNY                         I'm eight. That means when I'm                          eighteen, you'll be 28. And when I'm                          28, you'll only be 38.                                     EDWARD                              (a little wary)                         You're pretty good at arithmetic.                                     JENNY                         And when I'm 38, you'll be 48. And                          that's not much difference at all.               Eager to get off this subject...                                     EDWARD                         Sure is a lot now, though, huh?               EXT. MAIN STREET - NIGHT               As Edward and Jenny approach Main Street, they find "downtown"                has been transformed. Lanterns and streamers hang on cables                across the street, and a small stage has been built at one                end to hold FIDDLERS.               The whole town is there in celebration of its newest citizen,                Edward Bloom. Before he can protest, two WOMEN have grabbed                him by the arms, pulling him in to dance with them.               The resulting dance number seems both choreographed and                complete chaos. From FARMER to BAKER'S WIFE, everyone wants                to dance with Edward, who finds himself tossed around like a                stick caught in a whirlpool. Still, he's having a blast.               Jenny grabs both his hands, and they spin wildly.               Beamen plucks his LAUGHING daughter away to dance with her.               Then Mildred cuts in to dance with Edward. It's hard to hear                over the MUSIC.                                     MILDRED                         Jenny thinks you're quite a catch.                          We all do.                                     EDWARD                              (not hearing)                         What?                                     MILDRED                         I said you're quite a catch!               Edward stops dancing. A beat, then he heads for the edge of                the crowd. Beamen is there, with Jenny on his shoulders.                                     EDWARD                         I have to leave. Tonight.                                     BEAMEN                         Why?                                     EDWARD                         This town is everything a man could                          ask for. And if I were to end up                          here, I'd consider myself lucky. But                          the fact is, I'm not ready to end up                          anywhere.                                     BEAMEN                         No one's ever left.                                     JENNY                         How are you gonna make it without                          your shoes?                                     EDWARD                         I suspect it will hurt a lot.               And with that, Edward walks down Main Street. The townspeople                stop dancing, disbelieving, some shaking their heads.               Poor Edward Bloom's gone crazy.                                     BEAMEN                              (calling after him)                         You won't find a better place!                                     EDWARD                         I don't expect to.               Jenny runs to him. She'd tackle him if she could.                                     JENNY                         Promise me you'll come back.                                     EDWARD                         I promise. Someday. When I'm really                          supposed to.               It's not good enough, but it will have to do. Edward keeps                walking.                EXT. THE DARK FOREST - NIGHT               VARIOUS SHOTS: Edward negotiates the thorns in his bare feet.                It's horrible. Almost unendurable.               And then it gets worse.               The trees ahead are moving. At first, it just seems to be                the wind blowing the branches, but as we hear the wood                CRACKING and GROANING, there's no mistaking it: they're trying                to block him.               Snake-like WHITE ROOTS shoot out of the ground, grabbing for                his ankles. He leaps up, kicking off one tree trunk to grab                another one's branches. He swings off, lands and rolls. Now                all the trees are moving to block him, their dark shapes                towering over him in the flashes of LIGHTNING.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         As difficult as it was to reach                          Spectre, I was fated to get there                          eventually. After all, no man can                          avoid reaching the end of his life.               As he ducks under branches, the chain holding the Key to the                City gets caught. He's almost strangled, but the chain finally                breaks. The silver key disappears into the mud.               Scrambling forward, he looks for a way out. But the trees                have encircled him, their spiky crowns bending down to crush                him.               He SCREAMS up at the night, until his breath is gone.                                     EDWARD                         And then I realized, this wasn't the                          end of my life.               With a sudden calm...                                     EDWARD                              (aloud)                         This isn't how I die.               Another lightning FLASH, and suddenly the trees are back                where they've always been. Edward is lying shoeless and torn                in a muddy puddle, staring up at the rain. And LAUGHING.               EXT. THE ROAD - DAY               His bare foot steps onto asphalt.                                     A DEEP VOICE                         Friend!               Edward turns to see               KARL               to his right, coming down the larger, paved road.                                     KARL                         What happened to your shoes?               Edward looks down at his muddy, bloody feet.                                     EDWARD                         They got ahead of me.               With that, the men start walking down the larger road.                                                              CROSSFADE TO:               INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT               Edward and Will sit at opposite ends of the table, with Sandra                and Josephine in the middle. Although Edward has a small                plate of food in front of him, he hasn't touched it. He's                exhausted from the trip downstairs, but determined to maintain                the family dinner ritual.               The other three eat awkwardly, each CLINK and SCRAPE of a                knife or fork resonating. Will finally breaks the silence.                                     WILL                         I don't know if you've seen it, but                          Josephine has some photos in the                          most recent Newsweek.                                     SANDRA                         Really! That's wonderful.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I spent a week in Morocco for the                          story. It was incredible.                                     SANDRA                         We'll have to pick up a copy.               A beat. As Will scoops out another serving of potatoes, Edward                suddenly speaks:                                     EDWARD                         I don't know if you're aware of this,                          Josephine, but African parrots, in                          their native home of the Congo --                          they speak only French.               All three stop to listen.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (amused)                         Really.                                     EDWARD                         You're lucky to get four words out                          of them in English. But if you were                          to walk through the jungle, you'd                          hear them speaking the most elaborate                          French. Those parrots talk about                          everything: politics, movies, fashion --                          everything but religion.               Taking the bait...                                     WILL                         Why not religion, Dad?                                     EDWARD                         It's rude to talk about religion.                          You never know who you're going to                          offend.               A beat.                                     WILL                         Josephine actually went to the Congo                          last year.                                     EDWARD                         Oh, so you know.               INT. GROCERY STORE - NIGHT               Will shakes a shopping cart free from the pile-up while his                mother checks her list.               AT THE PRODUCE SECTION               Sandra starts to bag string beans.                                     WILL                         Mom, would you say you understand                          Dad?                                     SANDRA                         Of course.                                     WILL                         What I mean is, do you really know                          what's going on in his head?                                      SANDRA                         Yes.                                     WILL                         How is that possible? I mean, you                          try to ask him a question and suddenly                          it's another one of his stories.                              (decidedly)                         You can't honestly say you know him.                                     SANDRA                         Yes, Will, I do. And don't presume                          things you don't know.               She's more amused than annoyed, but Will is entering dangerous                territory.                                     SANDRA                         Would you say you understand                          Josephine?                                     WILL                         Yes. But that's a different...                                     SANDRA                         No it's not. It's exactly the same.                          Your father and I met, we dated, and                          we married -- we chose each other --                          because we understood each other on                          some fundamental level. Just the                          same as you two.               She moves on to the carrots.                                     WILL                         Josephine and I have a lot in common.                                     SANDRA                         Yes, you both think William Bloom is                          a very smart man.                              (beat)                         The problem is, you only see me as                          your mother, and not as someone's                          wife. And I've been his wife longer                          than I've been your mother. You can't                          discount that.                                     WILL                         True. But I've known him my whole                          life, and I don't feel like I know                          him at all. Or ever will.               With a look, Sandra acknowledges the stakes.                                     SANDRA                         I know it's not easy. Just remember,                          he didn't choose to be your father                          and you didn't choose to be his son.                          You just ended up together. You could                          pick numbers out of a dark bag and                          it'd be just the same. If you ask                          me, it's a wonder parents and children                          can stand each other at all.                                     WILL                         But I understand you, Mom. I always                          have.                                     SANDRA                         Well, clearly you don't. But I'm not                          the mystery you're trying to solve                          right now.               INT. AT THE CHECKOUT - NIGHT               Reaching the CASHIER, Sandra hands over her coupons. Will is                approaching with a Newsweek magazine.               Two checkstands over, an ATTRACTIVE BLONDE WOMAN in her 50's               is getting her change. Though she's Sandra's generation, she                carries herself like a much younger woman, with blue jeans                and sneakers.               She accidentally makes eye contact with Will as he passes.                We HOLD ON the woman, who tracks Will as he reaches Sandra.                It's hard to read her reaction: does she recognize him, or                just find him attractive?               Will notices the gaze. The woman turns away.               Will racks his brain -- does he know this woman?                                     SANDRA                         Before I forget, your father has                          papers in the basement I'd like you                          to go through. I wouldn't know what's                          important.                                     WILL                              (distracted)                         Mom, do you know who that is? Blonde                          hair.               Sandra looks. After a beat, the Blonde Woman turns again,                semi-casually. Noticing that both Will and Sandra are looking,                she smiles a little before taking her cart to leave.                                     SANDRA                              (no idea)                         Was she one of your teachers?                                     WILL                         No. But it's weird. She seemed to                          recognize me.                                     SANDRA                              (to the cashier)                         Do you know who that is?               The Cashier turns to look. He can only get a profile as the                woman leaves.                                     CASHIER                         Never seen her before. Pretty, though.               INT. GUEST BEDROOM - NIGHT               A portable fan quietly WHIRRS in the corner. Turned low, the                RADIO on the nightstand is playing a call-in AM sports show,                just a wash of background chatter. Edward lies asleep on his                back.               At the window, Josephine quietly lowers the shade. She reaches                over Edward to switch off the radio. He stirs from the silence --                he wasn't fully asleep -- and sees Josephine stretched over                him.                                     EDWARD                              (playfully lecherous)                         Hello.               She smiles.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Hi. How are you feeling?                                     EDWARD                         I was dreaming.                                     JOSEPHINE                         What were you dreaming about?               He tries to recollect, but it's already gone. Josephine                motions, is it okay for her to sit on the bed? He nods.                                     EDWARD                         I don't usually remember unless                          they're especially portentous. You                          know what that word means, portentous?               She shakes her head.                                     EDWARD                         Means when you dream about something                          that's going to happen.                              (beat, gathering)                         Like one night, I had a dream where                          this crow came and told me, "Your                          Aunt is going to die." I was so scared                          I woke up my parents. They told me                          it was just a dream, to go back to                          bed. But the next morning, my Aunt                          Stacy was dead.                                     JOSEPHINE                         That's terrible.                                     EDWARD                         Terrible for her, but think about                          me, young boy with that kind of power.                          Wasn't three weeks later that the                          crow came back to me in a dream and                          said, "Your Grampa is going to die."                          Well, I ran right back to my parents.                          My father said, no, Gramps is fine,                          but I could see there was trepidation.                          And true enough, that next morning                          my Grampa was dead.               He sits up a bit in bed, his strength returning.                                     EDWARD                         For the next couple weeks, I didn't                          have another dream. Until one night                          the crow came back and said, "Your                          Daddy is going to die."                              (beat)                         Well, I didn't know what to do. But                          finally I told my father. And he                          said not to worry, but I could tell                          he was rattled. That next day, he                          wasn't himself, always looking around,                          waiting for something to drop on his                          head. Because the crow didn't tell                          how it was going to happen, just                          those words: your Daddy is going to                          die. Well, he went into town early                          and was gone for a long time. And                          when he finally came back, he looked                          terrible, like he was waiting for                          the axe to fall all day. He said to                          my mother, "Good God. I just had the                          worst day of my life."                              (beat)                         "You think you've had a bad day,"                          she said. "This morning the milkman                          dropped dead on the porch!" Josephine                          smiles, a half-laugh, which gets him                          smiling too.               A long beat. Then, deadpan...                                     EDWARD                         Because see, my mother was banging                          the milkman.                                     JOSEPHINE                         No, I understand.                                     EDWARD                         He was slipping her a little extra                          cream.               She nods, a bit more of a laugh.                                     EDWARD                         He was filling her basket. He was                          making deliveries around back.               As Edward continues, she can't help but laugh harder,                especially as the metaphors get more vulgar.                                     EDWARD                         He was buttering her rolls. Pumping                          her churn. Splashing milk in her                          box.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Stop.                                     EDWARD                         They were squeezing the cheese.                          Clanking the bottles. Licking the                          popsicle.               She's starting to cry from laughing.                                     EDWARD                         Cracking the eggs and making an                          omelet.               With that, he stops. She regains her composure.                                     EDWARD                         Spooning the sherbet.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (interrupting)                         Can I take your picture?                                     EDWARD                         You don't need a picture. Just look                          up handsome in the dictionary.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Please?               He rolls his eyes, why not.               Josephine leaves, heading down the hall to get her camera.                We STAY WITH Edward in bed.                                     JOSEPHINE (O.S.)                         I have photos from the wedding to                          show you. There's a great one of you                          and my father. I had an extra print                          made.               Edward grimaces, a flash of pain. Around others, he's hiding                how much it hurts, but alone we can see how bad it is.               He controls his breathing, trying to push through it.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I want to see pictures of your                          wedding. I've never seen any.               She returns with her camera. Edward smiles, doing a good job                masking the pain.                                     EDWARD                         That's because we didn't have a                          wedding. Your mother-in-law was never                          supposed to marry me. She was engaged                          to somebody else.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (loading film)                         I never knew.                                     EDWARD                         Will never told you that?                              (she shakes her head)                         Probably just as well. He would have                          told it all wrong anyway. All the                          facts and none of the flavor.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Oh, so this is a tall tale?                                     EDWARD                         Well, it's not a short one.               A devilish smile. Pushing past Edward, we settle on the                whirling fan.                                                              MATCH CUT TO:               SPINNING PINWHEEL               held by a LITTLE BOY. He's slumped over his FATHER's shoulder,                being carried towards a big-top tent. We are...               EXT. OLYMPIA CIRCUS - NIGHT               ...where the second-rate carnival is parked for the moment                in an Alabama field. To the left, we spot Edward, 20-ish,                halfway through a bag of peanuts. He's still carrying the                backpack we saw earlier, and scratched up from his trip                through Spectre.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         I had just left Ashton, and was on                          my way to discover my destiny. Not                          knowing what that would be exactly,                          I explored every opportunity that                          presented itself.               Joining the crowd, he heads into the big-top.               INT. BIG TOP - NIGHT               A troupe of STILT-WALKING FIREBREATHERS finishes their act                to tremendous APPLAUSE.               As the performers clear away, the circus' owner-and-ringmaster                AMOS CALLOWAY (50) approaches the stands. He may only be                four feet tall, but Amos has a titanic presence.                                     AMOS                         Ladies and Gentlemen, you may think                          you've seen the unusual. You may                          think you've seen the bizarre. But                          I've travelled to the five corners                          of the world, and let me tell you,                          I've never seen anything like this.               From behind Amos, CARNIES start rolling a massive ball towards                the crowd.                                     AMOS                         When I found this man, he was picking                          oranges in Florida. His fellow workers                          called him El Penumbra -- The Shadow --                          because when you were working beside                          him, he blocked out the daylight. He                          could take a whole tree in his hands                          and shake off the fruit. I had to                          pay his crew boss $10,000 just so I                          could take him with me.               Amos comes up to a MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN in the first row, a                quieter moment.                                     AMOS                         Not to alarm you, Ma'am. But if this                          man wanted to, he could crush your                          head between his toes.                              (she trembles)                         But he won't.                              (a long beat)                         He's not going to hurt her, folks,                          because he's our own Gentle Giant.                          Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you                          Colossus!               The carnies back away from the ball as a deep DRUM ROLL                begins. A moment, then the ball starts to bulge from inside.               A foot suddenly bursts out from within. GASPS from the crowd.                That foot is massive. In the stands, Edward looks closer.                Intrigued.               As the drum beat intensifies, a second foot breaks out.                Followed by hands. Shoulders. Finally, the head. This is                COLOSSUS.               From a very LOW ANGLE, we look up to see just how massive he                is. He seems to fill the Heavens. With his shaved head and                giant club, he seems more ogre than man.               In the bandstands, a YOUNG BOY's jaw drops in awe. Colossus                walks down the row, letting the crowd get a better look at                him. Some reach out to touch him, disbelieving. A tight                spotlight follows him, revealing faces in the crowd.               Colossus passes Edward, who seems unimpressed. He leans with                the spotlight, WHISTLING to get the big man's attention.               He points to the edge of the stands, where his friend is                sitting on the dirt --               KARL THE GIANT               stands up, so big the spotlight has to widen just to hold                him. He's a good foot taller than Colossus. There's a GASP                from the crowd, along with nervous anticipation -- what will                happen next?               ANGLE ON Amos, stunned, megaphone dangling.               ANGLE ON Colossus, realizing the gig is up. With a resigned                shrug, he rests his club on his shoulder and walks away into                the shadows.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BIG-TOP - NIGHT / LATER               As the stands empty, Edward and Karl talk to Amos.                                     AMOS                         What's his name? Does he talk? It's                          not important.                                     KARL                         Karl.                                     AMOS                         Tell me Karl, have you ever heard of                          the term "involuntary servitude?"               Karl shakes his head.                                     AMOS                         "Unconscionable contract?"               Nope.                                     AMOS                         Great, great. That's fantastic.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         It was on that night Karl met his                          destiny. And I met mine. Almost.               INT. BIG TOP - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS               As Amos pulls Karl aside to give him the hard sell, Edward                notices a BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN (16) leaving with her family.                She's wearing a blue dress and hat. For no good reason, she                looks back at Edward.               The two make eye contact. And as they do, all motion FREEZES.               A fiery baton remains mid-twirl, flames locked in place. A                spilled box of popcorn hangs in mid-air, each kernel like a                snowflake. Even the elephant is mid-poop.               Only Edward is free to move, winding his way between the                frozen bodies, ducking underneath arms to get closer and                closer to this woman.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         They say when you meet the love of                          your life, time stops. And that's                          true. What they don't tell you, is                          that once time starts again, it moves                          extra fast to catch up.               Suddenly, everything RUSHES. The crowd becomes a blur, and                the young woman is lost in its wake. Now it's Edward who's                frozen, helpless in time.               EXT. DIRT PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Edward checks in windows as cars pull out, searching for his                fated love. Not finding her, he becomes more frantic, running                down the rows.                                                              CROSSFADE TO:               THE EMPTY LOT               Colossus is thumbing for a ride. The last pickup truck stops                and lets him climb in back.               As the truck pulls out, it passes a dejected Edward. He'll                never find that girl, the love of his life.               INT. BIG-TOP - NIGHT               Amos leans over so Karl can sign a contract on his back. He                spots Edward walking back into the tent.                                     AMOS                         Hey kid! Your friend just made himself                          a star.                                     EDWARD                         That's great.               Amos hands off the contract to a CLOWN.                                     (INTRODUCING)                         My attorney, Mr. Soggybottom.                                     EDWARD                         Good to meet you.               Mr. Soggybottom HONKS his horn, then waddles off.                                     AMOS                         What's the matter with you, kid? I                          haven't seen a customer so depressed                          since the elephant sat on that                          farmer's wife.                              (beat)                         Get it? "Depressed?"               Karl chuckles.                                     AMOS                         See! The big guy likes it.                                     EDWARD                         I just saw the woman I'm going to                          marry, I know it. But then I lost                          her.                                     AMOS                         Tough break. Most men have to get                          married before they lose their wives.                                     EDWARD                              (with absolute                               conviction)                         I'm going to spend the rest of my                          life looking for her. That or die                          alone.                                     AMOS                         Jesus, kid.                              (realizing)                         Let me guess. Real pretty, blonde                          hair, blue hat?                                     EDWARD                         Yes!                                     AMOS                         I know her uncle. Friends of the                          family.                                     EDWARD                         Who is she? Where does she live?                                     AMOS                         Kid. Don't waste your time. She's                          out of your league.               As Amos starts to walk away, Edward hurries to catch up with                him. Karl follows as well.                                     EDWARD                         What do you mean? You don't even                          know me.                                     AMOS                         Sure I do. You were hot shit back in                          Hickville, but here in the real world,                          you got squat. You don't have a plan.                          You don't have a job. You don't have                          anything but the clothes on your                          back.                                     EDWARD                         I've got a whole backpack full of                          clothes!               He points to the bleachers, where no backpack is to be found.                                     EDWARD                              (realizing)                         Someone stole my backpack.                                     AMOS                         Kid, you were a big fish in a small                          pond. This here is the ocean, and                          you're drowning. Take my advice and                          go back to Puddleville. You'll be                          happy there.               Getting in front of Amos, Edward stops him.                                     EDWARD                         Wait. You said I don't have a plan.                          I do. I'm going to find that girl                          and marry her and spend the rest of                          my life with her.               Amos smiles, amused.                                     EDWARD                         I don't have a job, but I would have                          a job if you gave me one. And I may                          not have much, but I have more                          determination than any man you're                          ever going to meet.                                     AMOS                         Sorry, kid. I don't do charity.                                     EDWARD                         I'll work night and day, and you                          won't have to pay me. You just have                          to tell me who she is.               Amos takes a long look at him. Ultimately, there's no way he                can say no. He shrugs. What the hell.                                     AMOS                         Every month you work for me, I'll                          tell you one thing about her. That's                          my final offer.               Edward shakes Amos's hand before he can retract the offer.                We move into a MONTAGE:               INT. BIG TOP CENTER RING - NIGHT               CLOSE ON Edward, smiling nervously. His head is tilted to                the side, and as we PULL BACK, we see why: he's holding it                in a MASSIVE LION's open mouth. The beast's sharp teeth are                just poking his skin. If the lion so much as flinches, Edward                is dead.               The CROWD applauds, which makes the lion antsy. Which makes                Edward antsier.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         From that moment on, I did everything                          Mr. Calloway asked, and a lot of                          things he didn't. I'd go three days                          without stopping to eat, and four                          days without sleeping.               EXT. THE HYDRA - DAY               His eyes droopy from lack of sleep, Edward mans the whirling                amusement park ride.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         The only thing that kept me going                          was the promise of meeting the girl                          who would be my wife.               Nodding off, Edward falls backward, into the path of the                spinning arms. One of the Hydra cars hits him square in the                gut, throwing him up and away, sailing 200 feet through the                air.               EXT. FIELD - DAY               Edward chases a costumed pig, tripping over tent cords,                falling in the mud.               His hunt leads him through the back of a tent, where he's                unwittingly stepped in front of a line of motorized birds.                To the left, CUSTOMERS are shooting with rifles. He dodges                four SHOTS that knock down the birds around him.               He catches his breath, lucky.               Then a half-blind OLD WOMAN pulls her trigger, hitting him                in the shoulder.               EXT. BEHIND A TENT - DAY               Karl the Giant bandages Edward's arm as well as he can. Amos                is walking past.                                     EDWARD                         Mr. Calloway! It's been a month today.               Amos stops, looks at the young man. Finally...                                     AMOS                         This girl, the love of your life.                          Her favorite flower is daffodils.               He walks away. We PUSH IN on Edward, enraptured by the                concept.                                     EDWARD                         Daffodils.                              (to Karl)                         Daffodils!               INT. STABLES - DAY               Edward shovels shit in the nastiest stables you've ever seen.                But all he can think about is...                                     EDWARD                              (to himself)                         Daffodils!               The wonder of it. He goes back to shoveling, a smile on his                face.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         True to his word, every month Amos                          would tell me something new about                          the woman of my dreams.               INT. A DARK PLACE - NIGHT               CLOSE ON Edward, lost in quiet reverie, pondering his latest                bit of information.                                     EDWARD                         College! She's going to college!               A sudden EXPLOSION as Edward is shot...               INT. BIG TOP - NIGHT [CONTINUOUS]               ...out of a giant cannon.               INT. STABLES - NIGHT               Under a full moon, Edward feeds the animals.                                     EDWARD                              (to himself)                         Music! She likes music. I like music                          too!                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Over the months, I learned a lot                          about the woman I was going to marry,                          but not her name, and not where to                          find her.               That time had come. I couldn't wait any longer.               EXT. AMOS CALLOWAY'S TRAILER - NIGHT               Under a full moon, Edward walks up to the battered camper,                and is about to knock when he notices it's rocking. A lot.                Not just that, there's MOANING coming from inside.               But Edward KNOCKS anyway.                                     EDWARD                         Mr. Calloway! It's Edward Bloom. I                          need to talk to you.               Suddenly, the rocking and moaning stop. A beat, then the                door handle begins to RATTLE. It seems to be stuck.               Edward turns the knob.               Suddenly, the door BURSTS OPEN. Edward is knocked down by a                massive black dog, biggest you've ever seen. It has green                glowing eyes and a lick of fire for a tongue.               Edward wrestles with the beast, its mouth snapping at his                throat.                Blocking with an arm, Edward tries to push himself free, but                the creature's hands -- it has hands instead of paws -- hold                on tight.               Entwined, they roll across the dirt. The other nearby CARNIES                scatter for cover. Mr. Soggybottom pulls a revolver out of                his clown suit. Loads a silver bullet.               Edward finally succeeds in throwing the beast off. He rolls                to his feet.               The hell hound squares back on its haunches, GROWLING, ready                for another leap. Mr. Soggybottom sheds a clown tear, aiming                the revolver at the dog.               At the last moment...                                     EDWARD                         No, wait!               Edward moves just as Mr. Soggybottom FIRES. The bullet catches                Edward in the shoulder, knocking him down.               The carnies GASP.               Licking its chops, the dog approaches the helpless Edward,                who feels the ground around him, looking for some kind of                weapon. He finds only a small stick. He waves it at the dog,                ready to strike it.               Like magic, the dog's whole demeanor changes. It bounces                excitedly, ready to play fetch.               Seeing an opportunity, Edward throws the stick as far as he                can. The dog bounds after it,               SMASHING DOWN THREE CARS.               It returns a beat later with the flaming stick, which it                drops at Edward's feet. Its tail whips back and forth.                                     EDWARD                         It was that night I discovered that                          most things you consider evil or                          wicked are simply lonely, and lacking                          in the social niceties.               Edward throws the stick again. The dog takes off in a new                direction.                                                             TRANSITION TO:               EXT. FIELD - PRE-DAWN               Exhausted from playing fetch all night, Edward throws the                stick into the woods. The still-spry dog goes after it. It's                gone for a long time, long enough that Edward becomes                concerned.               He follows it into the woods.               INT. WOODS - DAWN               Amos Calloway stands up behind a bush, buck naked and hairy.                He still has the stick in his mouth, which he takes out as                Edward approaches.                                     AMOS                         Didn't kill anything, did I?                                     EDWARD                         A few rabbits, but I think one of                          them was already dead.                                     AMOS                         That would explain the indigestion.               Edward tosses him his jacket to cover his privates.                                     AMOS                         I was wrong about you kid. You may                          not have much, but what you got, you                          got a lot of. You could get any girl.                                     EDWARD                         There's only one I want.               A beat.                                     AMOS                         Her name is Sandra Templeton. She's                          going to Auburn. The semester's almost                          over, so you better hurry.                                     EDWARD                         Thank you.                                     AMOS                         Good luck, kid.               Edward walks away. Then starts running. He has to get there                as soon as possible.               Amos sits down and scratches his ear with his foot.               EXT. BIG TOP - DAY               Edward shakes Karl's giant hand. They hug.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         After saying my goodbyes, I hopped                          three trains to get to Auburn that                          afternoon.               EXT. AUBURN UNIVERSITY - DAY               We DESCEND ON the main quad, to find Edward Bloom dunking                his head in the fountain.               He changes out of his grubby shirt into a new one, just out                of the package. It's the mid-1960's, but by the conservative                dress of the passing STUDENTS, it could be any era.               EXT. SORORITY HOUSE - DAY               Edward stands with a bouquet of daffodils in front of a half-               open door. Through the crack we can see the edge of a YOUNG                WOMAN, talking in hushed tones with another girl we can't                see.               Finally, a decision is reached. The door opens to reveal the                woman of Edward's dreams, Sandra Kay Templeton. She's                effortlessly beautiful, pure and simple as sunlight.               He can't believe he's finally reached her. He half-laughs,                nervous. That makes her laugh, not sure what's going on.                                     EDWARD                         You don't know me, but my name is                          Edward Bloom and I am in love with                          you. I've spent the last three years                          working to find out who you are.                          I've been shot and stabbed and                          trampled a few times, had my ribs                          broken twice, but it's all worth it                          to see you here, now, and to finally                          get to talk to you. Because I am                          destined to marry you. I knew that                          from the first moment I saw you at                          the circus. And I know it now more                          than ever.               ON SANDRA, overwhelmed. All she can finally think of to say                is...                                     SANDRA                         I'm sorry.                                     EDWARD                         Don't need to apologize to me. I                          mean, I'm the luckiest person you're                          going to find today...               She puts her hand on the door frame. On her left ring finger,                we see a diamond.                                     SANDRA                         No I'm sorry, I... I'm engaged to be                          married.               ON EDWARD as his heart falls 20 floors. He tries to suppress                the reaction, put on a brave front.                                     EDWARD                         Oh.                                     SANDRA                         But you're wrong. I do know you, at                          least by reputation. Edward Bloom                          from Ashton. See, I'm actually engaged                          to a boy from Ashton. Don Price. He                          was a few years older than you.                                                              FLASHCUTS TO:               EXT. CREEPY OLD HOUSE - THE GATE - NIGHT               Young Don Price shines his flashlight on Edward.               VARIOUS H.S. ATHLETIC COMPETITIONS 93               Recapping earlier football, baseball and basketball                highlights, we find Edward beats Don every time.               THE STREET CORNER / ASHTON PARADE               A smoking Don Price crushes his cigarette as Edward leaves                town.                                                                   BACK TO:               EXT/INT. SORORITY HOUSE - THE DOORWAY               Edward is dumbstruck. With all the strength he can muster...                                     EDWARD                         Well. Congratulations. I'm sorry to                          have bothered you.               He turns and walks down the front steps.               She stays in the doorway for a few beats, feeling genuinely                horrible for what's happened. But eventually she goes back                inside. We hear GIGGLES from inside as her sorority sisters                get to the bottom of this.                                     SANDRA                         Stop it. It's not funny. That poor                          boy.               We LEAD Edward as he walks away, tears just starting to form.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Fate has a cruel way of circling                          around on you. After all this work                          to leave Ashton, the girl I loved                          was now engaged to one of its biggest                          jerks.               He EXITS FRAME, leaving only the sorority house in the                background.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         There's a time when a man needs to                          fight, and a time when he needs to                          accept that his destiny is lost,                          that the ship has sailed, and that                          only a fool would continue.               A beat. Edward steps back INTO FRAME, looking at the sorority                house.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         The truth is, I've always been a                          fool.               We CIRCLE as he shouts:                                     EDWARD                         Sandra Templeton! I love you! And I                          am going to marry you!               INT. SORORITY HOUSE FOYER - DAY               Sandra and her SISTERS peer out through the curtains. Is                this guy crazy?               INT. LECTURE HALL - DAY               The tweedy ECONOMICS PROFESSOR continues his explanation.                Sandra isn't paying a lot of attention.               He switches on the overhead projector without looking at it.                There's a TITTER from the STUDENTS, but he doesn't notice.               A classmate nudges Sandra, who looks up. Written on the                projector is "I Love Sandra Templeton." She's horrified and                excited at the same time. The professor finally notices what's                written there.               EXT. QUAD - DAY               Walking with her books, Sandra shakes her head, disbelieving.                We look up to the blue sky, where a giant sky-written heart                floats in the wind.               INT. SANDRA'S BEDROOM - [THE NEXT] MORNING               At her Sisters' prompting, a just-woken Sandra looks out the                second-story window to find the lawn filled with               TEN THOUSAND DAFFODILS.               Edward stands amid the sea of flowers. He's waited there six                hours.               EXT. SORORITY HOUSE - DAY               Sandra walks out to him. She's smiling, confused, joyful and                scared. All down Greek Street, STUDENTS are coming out to                see the display.                                     SANDRA                         Daffodils?                                     EDWARD                         They're your favorite flower.                                     SANDRA                         How did you get so many?                                     EDWARD                         I called everywhere in five states                          and explained this was the only way                          I could get my wife to marry me.               Out of nowhere, a tear drops down Sandra's cheek. She wipes                it off.                                     SANDRA                         You don't even know me.                                     EDWARD                         I have the rest of my life to find                          out.               From down the street...                                     A MAN'S VOICE                         Sandra!                                     SANDRA                         It's Don. Promise me you won't hurt                          him.                                     EDWARD                         If that's what you want, I swear to                          it.               The adult DON PRICE arrives. He's 230 pounds of football-               playing, Skynyrd-loving, fraternity-proud muscle. And he's                pissed.               A gang of his BROTHERS walk behind him.                                     DON PRICE                         Bloom!                                     EDWARD                         Don.                                     DON PRICE                         What the hell are you doing? This is                          my girl. Mine!                                     EDWARD                         I didn't know she belonged to anybody.               Don Price decks him, knocking him down. Edward gets right                back up, but makes no move to defend himself.               Unfazed, Don slugs him again.                                     SANDRA                         Stop it!                                     DON PRICE                              (ignoring)                         What the matter, Bloom? Too scared                          to fight back?                                     EDWARD                         I promised I wouldn't.               A beat. Don shrugs, fine. Then proceeds to kick Edward's ass                nine ways to Sunday.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         While I took the beating of a                          lifetime, it was Don Price who was                          ultimately defeated.               As the ass-whupping continues, we                                                              INTERCUT WITH:               INT. FRATERNITY HOUSE BATHROOM - DAY [FLASHFORWARD]               Sitting on the can, Don Price pinches a loaf while reading                the new Playboy.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         All the physical activity had worsened                          a congenital valve defect. Put simply,                          his heart wasn't strong enough.               Don Price squeezes down hard, trying to shit the unshittable.                Suddenly, he grasps his chest and collapses face-first on                the tile.                                                              MATCH CUT TO:               EXT. WITCH'S HOUSE / GATE - NIGHT [FLASHBACK]               The same image of Don's dead face on the tile is reflected                in The Eye.                                                         RETURNING BACK TO:               EXT. THE SORORITY HOUSE - DAY               The thrashing continues. Edward somehow fights his way back                to his feet, ready to be knocked down again.                                     SANDRA                         Don!               Don is about to slug Edward again when he turns.               Sandra pulls off her engagement ring. There's an audible                AHH! from her sisters, and an OHH! from Don's brothers.                                     SANDRA                         I will never marry you.               A beat. Don stands stunned, his mind reeling.               Edward, whose eyes are swollen almost shut, keeps waiting                for the next punch. Where is it? What's going on?                                     DON PRICE                         What. You love this guy?                                     SANDRA                         He's almost a stranger and I prefer                          him to you.                She hands him the ring. Another beat, then Don storms off.                But not before decking Edward one last time.               Sandra leans over Edward's broken body. His head lies on the                daffodils.                                     SANDRA                         How can I convince you to stop?                                     EDWARD                         Go out with me.               He smiles, his teeth bloody.                                     SANDRA                         Okay.               As the crowd of students APPLAUDS and CHEERS, we CRANE UP                above the flowered battlefield.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         As it turned out, Sandra was able to                          keep her same date at the chapel.                          Only the groom had changed.               As the MUSIC reaches a crescendo, we suddenly...                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. GUEST ROOM - NIGHT [PRESENT]                                     JOSEPHINE                         I thought you said you didn't have a                          church wedding.                                     EDWARD                         Well, we were all set to, but there                          was a complication.               He reaches for his glass of water, but Josephine already has                it for him. She watches him while he slowly drinks the entire                glass, thirstier than he imagined. While he's drinking, we...                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - NIGHT [CONTINUOUS]               Will, back from the grocery store, reaches the top of the                stairs. He hears voices coming from the bedroom.                                     JOSEPHINE (O.S.)                         Is it the medicine that's making you                          thirsty?                                     EDWARD (O.S.)                         Truth is, I've been thirsty my whole                          life. Never really known why.               Will quietly approaches the door, not exactly sneaking, but                not exactly announcing his presence. The door is open a few                inches, letting him look in on his father and his wife.               INTERCUT HALLWAY / BEDROOM                                     EDWARD                         There was one time when I was                          eleven...                                     JOSEPHINE                              (gently)                         You were talking about your wedding.                                     EDWARD                         I didn't forget. I was just working                          on a tangent. See, most men, they'll                          tell a story straight through, and                          it won't be complicated, but it won't                          be interesting either.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I like your stories.                                     EDWARD                         And I like you.               He doesn't let the moment linger with undue sentimentality.                There's a story to be told.                                     EDWARD                         Now. The thing about working for a                          circus is you don't have a regular                          address, and after three years I had                          a lot of undelivered mail.               In the hallway, Will shifts to a new position, letting himself                listen to the story one more time.                                     EDWARD                         During the four weeks I was in the                          hospital, the postmaster finally                          caught up with me.               INT. HOSPITAL - DAY               Bruised and bandaged, Edward sorts through a big bag of mail                with help from Sandra. He rips open an official-looking                letter. Reading it, his face drops.               FLUTE and DRUM, music rising to a military cadence.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         It turned out that while my heart                          belonged to Sandra, the rest of my                          body belonged to the U.S. Government.               INT. ARMY AIRPLANE - NIGHT               With a buzz cut and paratrooper gear, Edward squats with a                dozen other SOLDIERS. The noise of the ENGINES is deafening,                but Edward is engrossed in an Asian phrasebook.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         A hitch in the Army was up to three                          years at that point, and having waited                          three years just to meet Sandra, I                          knew I couldn't survive being away                          from her that long. So I took every                          hazardous assignment I could find,                          with the hope of getting my time                          down to less than a year.               The JUMP LEADER yells...                                     JUMP LEADER                         GO! GO! GO!               One by one the men jump out, their chutes clipped to a main                line. When his time comes, Edward leaps...               ...but he's stuck. His cord is caught up in the assembly.               He twists and struggles, trying to free himself. Looking                down, he can see the white parachutes disappearing into the                darkness. They're already long gone.               Digging a knife out of his pocket, Edward gets to work cutting                through the cable. It finally POPS. Edward jumps from the                plane.               EXT. OUTSIDE STAGE - NIGHT               A THOUSAND CHINESE SOLDIERS sit, bored, watching the                equivalent of a U.S.O. show.               A CHINESE VENTRILOQUIST is on stage with his Communist puppet.                We have no idea what they're saying to each other, but every                act is fundamentally the same.               The EMCEE comes on to usher him off the stage before he's                finished. The Ventriloquist protests, but finally gives in.                The Emcee makes a "shoot him in the neck" motion to one of                the ARMED GUARDS off-stage.               EXT. HIGH ABOVE THE STAGE - NIGHT               We LOOK DOWN with Edward, who is drifting right for the stage.                He can't steer. He's helpless.               But then, a BLAST of fireworks from the sides of the stage.                The lights go out as a DRUM ROLL begins. It's just enough                cover for Edward to remain unseen.               He lands with a CLANG on the lighting catwalk above the stage.                He barely grabs on, disconnecting his chute just as the                curtain goes up. Edward looks out at the sea of excited                soldiers. Every one of them would kill him. He's the legless                cricket left on the anthill.               EXT. ON STAGE               The curtain rises to reveal PING (27) at a microphone. She's                as gorgeous a woman as you'll ever see.               She stands with her hips turned in profile. Her body is a                knockout, dress cut to reveal skin. The soldiers are on their                feet, WHISTLING and HOLLERING.               UP ON THE CATWALK, Edward is surprised by an ENEMY SOLDIER.                The two men begin to SCUFFLE.               MUSIC starts, a vampy torch song. Ping sings melody while an                off-stage voice carries perfect harmony.                                     PING                         Sometimes a girl can feel so alone                          Without a lover to call her own.                          Sometimes it's so bad, she wants to                          explode.                          Wants to grab the first man she sees                          and tear off his clothes.               A ROAR from the soldiers. She knows what they want.               Still fighting, Edward jumps for a pole on the far side of                the catwalk, sliding down it to end up               BACKSTAGE.               His determined opponent follows him down.                                     PING (CONT'D)                         But she won't.                         No, she can't.                          She needs a special special different                          unusual man.                          Because that girl,                          Who looks like me,                          She has wants, but she has needs.                                     PING                              (speaking)                         Any of you got needs?               The soldiers ROAR LOUDER, STOMPING on the bleachers.               Backstage, the two men are still fighting.                                     PING                              (chorus)                         I've had twice the adventure,                          Cried double the tears.                          Two times the bad times in half the                          years.                          I need a strong man, because I've                          got                          Twice the love to give.               For the first time, Ping turns, and now we see why she was                standing in profile. Ping is one-half of               SIAMESE TWINS.               Her identical twin is JING, who's been singing harmony all                this time. They are two separate women who join at the waist,                one set of perfect legs beneath them.               Edward sees the twins from behind, does a double-take. It                costs him a punch to the jaw.                                     PING                         Say hello, Jing.                                     JING                         Hello Jing.                                     PING                              (to the crowd)                         I'm Ping. She's Jing. She's the good                          one.                              (closer)                         I'm the bad one.               As the MUSIC builds towards the climax, Edward finishes the                fight, knocking the guard out with a right hook.               As Ping and Jing reach the last chorus, they strike a final                pose in the shape of a heart, their arms forming the arches,                their backs forming the curves.               Edward slips behind curtains, trying to get away.               The soldiers are SHOUTING for an encore, lighters waving.                The curtain slowly lowers, revealing               EDWARD'S PARACHUTE.               The APPLAUSE dies, replaced by a concerned RUMBLE. The Emcee                yells for the Guards to search.               ON STAGE               Ping has no idea what's happening. Jing reaches into her                cleavage to pull out her eyeglasses.               INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT               As ARMED GUARDS search the halls below the stage, Ping and                Jing shut the door to their dressing room. At the closet,                they start to change outfits. Off-stage, their personalities                become quite apparent: Ping is brash, bitchy and ambitious,                while Jing is quiet, sweet and bookish.               In Chinese, subtitled...                                     PING                         How could you miss your cue? You                          make me look like a fool, out there                          alone.                                     JING                         You weren't alone.               Ping HUFFS, turning her back on her sister.               Jing reaches deeper into the closet to find a new dress,                exposing Edward's hiding place. She GASPS. Ping turns to                look.                                     PING                         Who the hell are you?                                     EDWARD                              (in Chinese)                         I'm not going to hurt you.                                     PING                         Damn right you're not.                              (yelling)                         GUARD!               Jing grabs her, a hand over her mouth, but it's too late. A                rifle-toting GUARD looks in.               Pretending to be her bitchy sister --                                     JING                         Tell your men not to bother us! And                          lock that door!               The guard obeys. Ping shakes her sister off. Desperately                flipping through his Asian phrasebook, he finds...                                     EDWARD                         Please, I need your help.                                     PING                         What makes you think we'll help you?               Edward pulls a photo out of his flak jacket. It's Sandra.                                                              CROSSFADE TO:               VARIOUS SHOTS                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Over the next hour, I described my                          love for Sandra Kay Templeton, and                          the ordeal that brought me before                          them. As it had always been, this                          love was my salvation. It was destined                          to be.               Hearing the story, Jing wipes away a tear. Even Ping is a                little affected.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         We put together an elaborate plan                          for escape, involving a whaling ship                          to Russia, a barge to Cuba and a                          small, dirty canoe to Miami. We all                          knew it would be dangerous.               Still subtitled:                                     PING                         And what are we supposed to do when                          we get to America?                                     EDWARD                         I can get you bookings. I know the                          biggest man in show business.                                     JING                         Bob Hope?                                     EDWARD                         Bigger.                                                             TRANSITION TO:               EXT. TEMPLETON FAMILY HOUSE - DAY               Sandra checks the mail, hoping for a letter from Edward.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         And so the twins and I began our                          arduous journey halfway around the                          world. Unfortunately, there was no                          way to send a message back to America.               A black car pulls up. Two ARMY OFFICERS get out.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         And so it was no surprise that the                          Army believed I was dead.               Hearing the news, Sandra CRIES OUT. The pain of her shout                makes church bells RING.               EXT. BEHIND THE TEMPLETON HOUSE - DAY               Sandra hangs sheets to dry on the clotheslines, forming a                tunnel of fabric.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         After four months, Sandra had gotten                          over the worst of the nightmares.                          When the phone rang, she didn't think                          it was somehow me calling her. When                          a car drove past, she didn't get up                          to check out the window.               Pulling a dress out of the basket, Sandra looks up to see               A MAN'S SILHOUETTE               on the sheet in front of her. She freezes, watching the shadow                ripple across the white fabric, blowing so softly in the                breeze. She knows it can't be him. He's dead.               She turns away. With all the strength she can gather, she                hangs up that dress and digs another one out of the basket.               Looking up, she sees not a shadow but Edward himself standing                before her. She GASPS, disbelieving, but his hand is real.                It is destiny.               Without another moment's hesitation, she kisses him.                                                              CROSSFADE TO:               BRIGHT SUNLIGHT               filters through soft sheets. We're under the covers, where a                man's hand traces the curves of a woman's bare back. A beat,                then she turns over in bed, revealing her to be               JOSEPHINE.               She blinks slowly, just waking up. Will is watching her.                He's been up for a while. We are actually...               INT. WILL AND JOSEPHINE'S ROOM - DAY               ...where the couple stays cocooned under the sheets, a kind                of limbo. A kiss good morning. Legs entangling. Neither wants                to get up.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I talked with your father last night.                                     WILL                         Did you?               A look to say, should I be worried?                                     JOSEPHINE                         You never told me how your parents                          met.                                     WILL                         They met at Auburn.                                     JOSEPHINE                         What about the details? How they                          fell in love. The Circus. The War.                          You never told me any of that.                                     WILL                         That's because most of it never                          happened.                                     JOSEPHINE                         But it's romantic.               A beat.                                     WILL                              (non-committal)                         Mmm.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Mmm, what?                                     WILL                         Mmm, what. I know better than to                          argue romance with a French woman.               He moves his head out from under the sheet. She follows him                to the "outside."                                     JOSEPHINE                         Do you love your father?                                     WILL                         Everyone loves my father. He's a                          very likeable guy.                                     JOSEPHINE                              (repeating)                         Do you love him?               Will doesn't want to answer yes or no.                                     WILL                         You have to understand. When I was                          growing up, he was gone more than he                          was here. And I started thinking --                          maybe he has a second life somewhere                          else. With another house, another                          family. He leaves us, he goes to                          them. Or maybe there is no family.                          Maybe he never wanted a family. But                          whatever it is, maybe he likes that                          second life better. And the reason                          he tells all those stories is because                          he can't stand this boring place.                                     JOSEPHINE                         But it's not true.                                     WILL                         What is "true?" I've never heard my                          father say a single true thing.               Off her silence...                                     WILL                         Look, I know why you like him. I                          know why everyone likes him. But I                          need you to tell me I'm not crazy.                                     JOSEPHINE                         You're not.                                     WILL                         I need you on my side.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I am always on your side. And I think                          you should talk to him.               INT. GUEST ROOM - DAY               The family finishes eating breakfast off TV trays set up                around the bed. For his part, Edward is looking better.                Certainly not recovered, but there's an optimism to his                expression. And for the first time, he's actually hungry.               He watches as Sandra puts the cap back on the syrup.                                     EDWARD                         Did I ever tell you about how...                                     WILL                              (interrupting)                         Yes.               Edward is startled.                                     WILL                         The maple tree and the Buick. We                          heard it.                                     EDWARD                              (re: Josephine)                         I think someone hasn't.                                     JOSEPHINE                         The tree fell on the car, spilling                          the syrup, which attracted the flies,                          which got stuck to it and flew off                          with the whole car.               A beat.                                     EDWARD                              (undeterred)                         But the real story is how I got the                          car. You see...                                     WILL                              (interrupting)                         Dad?                                     EDWARD                         Son?                                     WILL                         Can we talk?               Sandra SNAPS the cap back on the syrup.                                     SANDRA                         I'm going to get started on dishes.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I'll help you.               Both women quickly gather plates.               Will and Edward both smile. The women clearly want this to                happen. It settles for a beat after they leave.                                     WILL                         Do you know much about icebergs,                          Dad?                                     EDWARD                         Do I? I saw an iceberg once. They                          were hauling it down to Texas for                          drinking water, only they didn't                          count on an elephant being frozen                          inside. The woolly kind. A mammoth.                                     WILL                              (interrupting)                         Dad!                                     EDWARD                         What?                                     WILL                         I'm trying to make a metaphor here.                                     EDWARD                         Then you shouldn't have started with                          a question. Because people want to                          answer questions. You should have                          started with, "The thing about                          icebergs is..."                                     WILL                              (frustrated)                         The thing about icebergs is you only                          see 10 percent of them. The other 90                          percent is below the water where you                          can't see it. And that's what it is                          with you Dad. I'm only seeing this                          little bit that sticks above the                          water.                                     EDWARD                              (joking)                         What, you're seeing down to my nose?                          My chin?                                     WILL                         I have no idea who you are because                          you have never told me a single fact.                                     EDWARD                         I've told you a thousand facts. That's                          all I do, Will. I tell stories.                                     WILL                         You tell lies, Dad. You tell amusing                          lies. Stories are what you tell a                          five-year old at bedtime. They're                          not elaborate mythologies you maintain                          when your son is ten and fifteen and                          twenty and thirty. And the thing is,                          I believed you. I believed your                          stories so much longer than I should                          have. And then when I realized that                          everything you said was impossible --                          everything! -- I felt like such a                          fool to have trusted you. You were                          like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny                          combined. Just as charming and just                          as fake.                                     EDWARD                         You think I'm fake.                                     WILL                         Only on the surface. But that's all                          I've ever seen.               Edward looks away, angry and disbelieving.                                     WILL                         Dad, I'm about to have a kid of my                          own here. It would kill me if he                          went through his whole life never                          understanding me.                                     EDWARD                         It would kill you, huh?               Finally --                                     EDWARD                         What do you want, Will? Who do you                          want me to be?                                     WILL                         Yourself. Good, bad, everything.                          Just show me who you are for once.                                     EDWARD                         I have been nothing but myself since                          the day I was born. And if you can't                          see that, it's your failing, not                          mine.               EXT. BACKYARD - DAY               With a skimmer pole, Will cleans the leaves and debris out                of the pool, but it's a fool's errand. The pool has long                since gone native, a shiny slick of algae on the surface,                slime covering the cemented rocks.               Suddenly, an underwater shape RIPPLES against the water's                surface. Will is so startled that he drops the pole, which                disappears into the murky water.               A beat. He looks around, relieved that no one saw that. He                casually walks away.               INT. BASEMENT STORAGE AREA - DAY               The doors open to reveal Sandra, Will and Josephine, staring                into the mouth of oblivion. The storeroom is a museum of                hasty decisions and half-finished projects: partially built                outboard motors, dead bonsai trees, Frankensteinian                lawnmowers. We also find boxes of products Edward used to                sell.               Clearing a path, Sandra leads Will to a roll-top desk, its                ribs covered in dust. Two beaten metal file cabinets sit                beside it.                                     SANDRA                         Your father decided he needed to                          have an office, and it wouldn't do                          to have it in the house. You'll know                          better than me what's important.               With some effort, Will forces up the desktop. With a HISS, a                neighbor's cat makes a run for it. Will's getting used to                being startled.               INT. BASEMENT STORAGE AREA - DAY [LATER]               Will, Sandra and Josephine have worked through two trash                bags of papers to throw out. Looking through a new file,                Sandra makes a small sound. A memory.                                     WILL                         What is it?               Sandra hands Will a yellowed telegram. He shares it with                Josephine.                                     SANDRA                         It was during the war. Your father                          went missing. They thought he was                          dead.               Will can't believe what he's reading.                                     WILL                         That really happened?                                     SANDRA                         Not everything your father says is a                          complete fabrication.               A beat, then Sandra stands.                                     SANDRA                         I'm going to check on him.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I need to lie down for a bit.                                     WILL                         Go.               Josephine kisses him, then follows Sandra. Will re-reads the                telegram, still bewildered.               Looking for a place to put it, he tucks it into a strange                mechanical hand on the desk. It clamps down automatically.               Will smiles, a memory. He hasn't thought about this device                in years. We slowly PUSH IN on the telegram, held in the                hand.               Edward's VOICE begins as a memory...                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         After the war, the sons of Alabama                          returned home, looking for work.                          Each had an advantage over me. They                          were alive, while I was -- officially --                          deceased.               INT. DOWNTOWN OFFICE - DAY [STORY]               Edward shakes hands with his new boss, a TOUPEED MAN. The                company is called "Confederated Products." The OFFICE LADIES                all love Edward.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         With my prospects few, I took a job                          as a travelling salesman. It suited                          me. If there's one thing you can say                          about Edward Bloom, it's that I am a                          social person.               EXT. COUNTY FAIR - DAY [STORY]               On a low platform, Edward pitches a brilliant new product to                the crowd.                                     EDWARD                         I've travelled from Tennessee to                          Timbuktu, and if there's one thing                          people have in common, is we could                          all use a hand around the house.               Edward sets down a contraption, which looks something like a                metal lava lamp. Like a flower, it unfolds to reveal five                fingers and a thumb. This is the Hand Around the House.(TM)                                     EDWARD                         Why, with this product you can...               QUICK MONTAGE as he demonstrates:                                     EDWARD                         Open a jar. Open a letter. Scratch                          yourself while wearing mittens. Hold                          a book. Hold a baby. Hold the dog                          away from kittens. It's strong enough,                          you can do a handstand with no hands                          at all.               Indeed, a remarkably agile Edward is able to support his                entire weight on it. The crowd APPLAUDS.                                     EDWARD                         You can use it to point out important                          information. Or dangers. Or beautiful                          women.               The hand points a finger at an HEAVYSET MAN IN OVERALLS.                                     EDWARD                         We're still working on that one.               The crowd LAUGHS.               EXT. A COUNTRY ROAD - DAY               Edward drives, his hand out in the wind.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Soon I added other products, and                          other cities, until my territory                          stretched from the coast to western                          Texas.               EXT. TRAILER PARK - DAY               Edward kisses his pregnant wife goodbye, as much in love as                ever.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         I could be gone for weeks at a time.                          But every other Friday, I'd put all                          the money I'd made into an account                          set aside for a proper house with a                          white picket fence.               EXT. HORIZON SAVINGS & LOAN - DAY               Establishing this Texas institution, we come...               INT. HORIZON SAVINGS & LOAN - DAY               The bank is busy with the lunch-hour crowd. Taking his place                in line, Edward fills out a deposit slip.               As the line snakes around through the ropes, the man in front                of him gets a look at Edward.                                     THE MAN                         Edward? Edward Bloom?               The man is none other than...                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         It's me. Norther Winslow.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         I was astonished to see the greatest                          poet of both Ashton and Spectre all                          the way out in Texas.               The men shake, disbelieving this lucky coincidence.                                     EDWARD                         I don't believe it!                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         I want you to know, when you left                          Spectre it opened my eyes. There was                          a whole life out there that I was                          not living. So I travelled. I saw                          France, and Africa, half of South                          America. Every day a new adventure,                          that's my motto.                                     EDWARD                         That's great, Norther. I'm happy for                          you. I can't believe I helped.               He's genuinely proud.                                     EDWARD                         So what are you up to now?                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         I'm robbing this place.               Reaching the front of the line, Norther pulls two pistols                out of his coat, FIRING both into the ceiling.               SCREAMS all around. The skinny SECURITY GUARD makes a                halfhearted reach for his gun, but Norther waves him off.                The guard takes out his gun and slides it over.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                              (to Edward)                         Would you mind grabbing that?               There's nothing threatening about his delivery -- he might                as well be asking for a Budweiser. Still, Edward senses it                would be best to do as he says. He takes the guard's gun.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                              (to the crowd)                         Now, I want all of you to lie down.                          I'm gonna be cleaning out the cash                          drawers, and my associate here is                          going to handle the vault.                               (pointing to a Teller                               Woman)                         You help my friend, okay?               The TELLER WOMAN nods.               ANGLE ON Edward, not sure what to do. He has a gun, but he                truly doesn't want to shoot Norther. The Teller Woman is                already waving him to the back.               He decides he better go.               INT. AT THE VAULT - DAY               The Teller Woman is crying as she works the combination.                Edward feels horrible.                                     EDWARD                         Look, I'm really sorry. I just don't                          want anybody to get hurt.                                     TELLER WOMAN                         It's not that, it's just...               She pulls open the vault door.               INT. THE VAULT - DAY               The inner sanctum of the Horizon Savings and Loan holds                exactly one folding chair. Nothing else.                                     TELLER WOMAN                         ...there's no money. We're completely                          bankrupt.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         It turned out the savings and loan                          had already been robbed -- not by                          armed bandits, but by speculators in                          Texas real estate.                                     TELLER WOMAN                              (dead serious)                         You gotta promise you won't tell                          anybody.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. EDWARD'S CAR - DAY               Edward drives the getaway car, though truthfully they're                going just a little over the speed limit. No one's following                them. It's an empty country road for miles.               Norther HOLLERS with body-tingling joy as he counts the money.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         Sixty. Eighty. Four hundred dollars!                          Not bad for just the drawers. Let's                          see what you got from the vault.               Edward winces, but doesn't say anything yet. Digging through                the vault bag, Norther is surprised to find only a single                deposit envelope. He rips it open, revealing just a little                cash inside. Even some dimes and pennies.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         This is it? The whole vault.                                     EDWARD                         'Fraid so.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         Edward, it's got your deposit slip                          on it.               Caught, Edward has to confess...                                     EDWARD                         Look, I just didn't want you to go                          empty-handed. There's something you                          should know, Norther. You see, the                          reason why...               Edward continues his narration...                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         I told Norther about the vagaries of                          Texas oil money and its effect on                          real estate prices, and how lax                          enforcement of fiduciary process had                          made savings and loans particularly                          vulnerable.               Hearing this news, Norther was left with one conclusion:               EXT. TEXAS ROAD - DAY               Norther leans in the driver's side window.                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         I should go to Wall Street. That's                          where all the money is.               Edward looks over at Norther, the reality sinking in.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         I knew then that while my days as a                          criminal were over, Norther's were                          just beginning.               The two men wave at each other as Edward drives off. At the                last moment, Norther calls out:                                     NORTHER WINSLOW                         Edward, thank you for the hand!               He's talking about his Hand Around the House. We HOLD ON                Norther for a beat, dreaming of his future.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         When Norther made his first million                          dollars, he sent me a check for ten                          thousand. I protested, but he said                          it was my fee as his career advisor.               EXT. BLOOM HOUSE [MID/LATE '70'S] - DAY               Sandra is watering the garden. Will (5) runs past her to                greet Edward, just returned from another trip.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         Ten thousand dollars is no fortune                          to most men. But it was enough to                          buy my wife a proper house with a                          white picket fence.               We reveal the Bloom house, the nicest one in the neighborhood.                Edward kisses his wife.                                     EDWARD (V.O.)                         And for that, it was all the riches                          a man could ever want.               Sandra drops the hose, letting it run on the lawn.                                                             TRANSITION TO:               INT. BLOOM HOUSE BATHROOM - DAY [PRESENT]               CLOSE ON Edward's hand as he turns knobs.               CLOSE ON water SPLASHING into the claw-foot bathtub, which                begins to fill.               Still wearing his pajamas, Edward climbs into the tub.                Carefully lowers himself.               As the water reaches the third button up on his pajama shirt,                Edward suddenly slides               UNDERWATER.               Bubbles rise from his nose for a few beats, then stop. It's                quiet, except for the distant SPLASHING of water from the                spigot. Edward's eyes are closed.               A long beat. Another. Then the SPLASHING water goes silent.                Edward opens one eye. The other eye. He sits up to find               SANDRA               sitting on the edge of the tub. She doesn't seem particularly                worried -- her husband has always done this.                                     EDWARD                         I was drying out.                                     SANDRA                         I see. We need to get you one of                          those plant misters. We can spray                          you like a fern.               He smiles, then pulls his knees up, making room for her in                the tub. A beat while she considers.               Sandra steps out of her sandals and climbs into the tub,                facing him. Her dress is soaked, but she doesn't mind.               He leans forward and kisses her. When they separate, she has                tears hanging in her eyes.                                     EDWARD                         Come now.               He wipes them away.                                     SANDRA                         I don't think I'll ever dry out.               INT. BASEMENT STORAGE AREA - DAY               Perched awkwardly on a canoe, Will's made it through another                file cabinet. He goes through the folders page by page, but                usually ends up tossing the whole thing in the trash.               He's about to toss a file when he stops. Takes another look.                Something doesn't make sense.               INT. BLOOM HOUSE / STAIRS - DAY               Will is headed upstairs when his mother comes around the                corner with an armful of laundry, including her wet dress.                                     WILL                         Is he awake?                                     SANDRA                         He just fell asleep. Josephine's                          with him.               She passes him. He turns.                                     WILL                         Mom?                                     SANDRA                         Yes?               Will quickly debates whether or not to ask her...                                     WILL                         Did you and Dad have any other                          property?                                     SANDRA                              (thinking)                         I suppose your grandmother's house                          when she passed on. But we sold that                          right away. Your cousin Shirley bought                          it.                                     WILL                         So you never bought any land.                                     SANDRA                         Heavens no. We had a hard enough                          time keeping the mortgage on this                          place.               Will nods, just curious. He continues heading up.               INT. WILL AND JOSEPHINE'S ROOM - DAY               Will changes his shirt. Takes his keys off the nightstand.               EXT. COUNTY ROAD - DAY               Will's rental car drives past a sign reading, "Ashton, 10                miles."               INT. WILL'S CAR - DAY / DRIVING               Will checks the address on one of his father's files.               EXT. ASHTON GAS - DAY               Will talks to the ATTENDANT, who points him in a direction,                then gestures a series of left, right, left, rights.               EXT. ROAD - DAY               Will drives down a road that seems somewhat familiar. And                then we realize why: a roadsign reads "Welcome to Spectre!"               EXT. A LONE HOUSE - DAY               Sitting at the edge of a swamp, the little two-story feels                lonely, set deep in its lot. Dapples of light break through                the trees, a light breeze swaying the branches.               As Will walks from the car, the WHIRR of cicadas grows. He                checks the number: 33. This is the house. It is surrounded                by a white square-picket fence, identical to his mother's.                Will notices this.               Reaching the porch, we hear a PIANO playing inside. Badly.               Re-checking the number on a form he's carrying, Will KNOCKS.                The piano stops.                                     WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)                         Go back to the start. Right hand                          only.               The piano starts again. FOOTSTEPS.               The door opens to reveal a blonde woman in her 50's -- the                woman from the grocery store. Her name is Jenny Hill.               She and Will are startled to see each other.                                     JENNY                         Oh. Oh.                                     WILL                         Hello.                                     JENNY                         I wasn't expecting you.               Confused, Will checks the name on the form.                                     WILL                         Are you Jenny Hill?                                     JENNY                         I am. And you're Will. I've seen                          your picture, that's how I recognize                          you. I almost said something at the                          store, but it would have been awkward.                              (a beat)                         Like this.               The PIANO STUDENT, a black boy of eight, has stopped. He's                watching the conversation at the door. Speaking of awkward...                                     JENNY                              (to the student)                         Listen, Kenny. Why don't we skip the                          lesson today? We can go again next                          week.               She hands him five dollars out of her pocket.                                     STUDENT                         Do I have to give it back to my Mom?                                     JENNY                         I won't tell her if you won't.               You don't have to tell him twice. He's out the door in a                flash.               INT. JENNY'S KITCHEN - DAY               While Will sips his iced tea, Jenny flips through a form she                never expected to see again. She hands it back to Will.                                     WILL                         How did you know my father?                                     JENNY                         This was on his sales route, so he                          was through here all the time.                          Everyone in town knew him.               A beat. Not flinching...                                     WILL                         Were you and my father having an                          affair?                                     JENNY                              (taken aback)                         Wow. Wow, you just said it. I was                          expecting to dance around this for                          another half hour.                                     WILL                         I've seen him with women. He flirts.                          He always has. On some level, I                          presumed he was cheating on my mother.                          I just never had proof.               She moves, trying to get out of the corner he's boxed her                into. Once she's finally free...                                     JENNY                         Can I ask you a question? Why did                          you come here today? If you found                          this deed, why didn't you just ask                          Eddie?                                     WILL                         Because he's dying.               A long beat. Jenny is taken back by the suddenness of it.                She's a tangle of conflicting emotions.                                     JENNY                         Look, I don't know how much you want                          to know about any of this. You have                          one image of your father and it would                          be wrong for me to go and change it.                          Especially this late in the game.                                     WILL                         My father talked about a lot of things                          he never did, and I'm sure he did a                          lot of things he never talked about.                          I'm just trying to reconcile the                          two.               Fair enough. Jenny takes a seat across from him at the table.                                     JENNY                         The first thing you have to                          understand, is that your father never                          meant to end up here. And yet he                          did, twice. The first time, he was                          early. The second time, he was late.               INT. EDWARD'S CAR / DRIVING - NIGHT               It's late, and Edward is pensive.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Those days, your father was working                          for himself. If there was one thing                          you could say about Edward Bloom,                          it's that he was a social person,                          and people took a liking to him. One                          night he was returning from three                          weeks on the road, when he hit a                          thunderstorm unlike any in his life.               The first raindrops hit the windshield. Edward turns on the                wipers.               INT. EDWARD'S CAR - NIGHT - [THE STORM]               Suddenly, a deluge descends. It's not even rain anymore --                there's no space between the drops. It's like being caught                in a waterfall. It's that loud.               No choice, Edward stops the car. Puts on the handbrake. Just                as suddenly, the sound changes -- no longer pounding, but                softly SPLASHING. The world is close and echoing, because --               EXT. EDWARD'S CAR - NIGHT               -- the car is underwater. The tires are still on the road,                but where there used to be air is water.               Three catfish swim in front of his headlights.               INT. THE CAR - NIGHT               Realizing his plight, Edward tries to remain calm. Water is                trickling in through the crack between the window and the                door, but very slowly. For now, he's fine.               That's when he sees her -- The Girl in the River.               She's swimming outside the car. While we never see her face                exactly, she remains just as beautiful, just as mysterious,                as the first time we saw her.               She puts her hand to the windshield. He puts his up to meet                hers. And smiles.                                                              FLASH CUT TO:               EXT. FIELD BY DIRT ROAD - DAY               It's morning, and the sun shines brightly. Birds CHIRP. Trees                drip and the grass shines, still wet from last night's rain.               Edward gathers the clothes that have spilled out of his                suitcase, which broke open when he dropped it from               HIS CAR,               which balances precariously ten feet up in an elm tree. As                Edward gathers his last pair of socks, he notices a shiny                piece of metal sticking out of the dirt. He pulls it out,                rubs it off.               It's a key. It's the Key to the City he lost years ago.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Fate has a way of circling back on a                          man, and taking him by surprise.               EXT. ROAD - DAY               Carrying his busted suitcase, a tired Edward walks toward a                one-street town in the distance. We pass a rusty sign...                                  "Welcome to Spectre."               EXT. MAIN STREET - DAY               Amazed and disbelieving, Edward walks down the center of the                road, no cars coming from either direction. He looks up to                find his faded shoes still dangling from the power line,                along with the rest of the town's.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         A man sees things differently at                          different times in his life. This                          town didn't seem the same now that                          he was older.               EXT. TOWN OF SPECTRE - VARIOUS SHOTS               We look around the town, on and off Main Street. There are                "FOR SALE" signs in many of the windows                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         A new road had brought the outside                          world to Spectre, and with it, banks,                          liens and debt. Almost everywhere                          you looked, people were bankrupt.               EXT. SPECTRE - DAY               We slowly MOVE THROUGH a foreclosure auction to find Edward                watching. Two very corporate MEN IN SUITS, stick out among                the bidders.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Two different corporations were                          looking at buying the town, if they                          could get the price low enough. One                          wanted to open a chicken processing                          plant. The other, a municipal dump.                          Either way, Spectre would be                          destroyed.               Edward raises his hand.                                     EDWARD                         Fifty-thousand!               Everyone turns to look at this new bidder.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         And so Edward Bloom decided to buy                          the town, in order to save it.               INT. NORTHER WINSLOW'S MANHATTAN - DAY               Edward pitches his plan to Norther.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         He was never a wealthy man, but he                          had made other men rich, and now he                          asked for their favors.               INT./EXT. VARIOUS LOCATIONS - DAY               VARIOUS SHOTS: Expressive and passionate as always, Edward                talks to Ping, Jing and Amos Calloway.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Most of them had never seen Spectre --                          they only had Edward's words to                          describe it. That's all they needed.                          He sold them on the dream.                                     JING                         You can structure it as a historical                          trust. But you'll need every                          contiguous piece of property. It's                          all or nothing.               As Edward takes notes...                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         So first he bought the farms. Then                          he bought the houses. Then he bought                          the stores.               INT. AL'S COUNTRY - DAY               Finishing up with AL, Edward shakes hands.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Whatever he bought, the people were                          not asked to leave or pay rent or                          anything. They were just asked to                          keep doing as they were doing. In                          that way, he could make sure the                          town would never die.               EXT. ROAD IN THE SWAMP - DAY               Edward climbs out of his car, the road having literally                stopped. The sun is shining, but it can barely penetrate the                trees' thick canopy.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Within six months, his trust had                          purchased the entire town. With one                          exception.               In the distance, he sees a shack, so old it's nearly fallen.                He walks toward it, the marshy ground SQUISHING up around                his feet, soaking the hems of his trousers.               We hear a PIANO playing from inside the shack. Edward KNOCKS                on the half-hung door, which swings open by itself.               INT. SHACK - DAY               The inside is nicer than you'd think, a real home. A fire                burns in the stove, and curtains hang in the windows.               With her back turned to him, Jenny Hill plays the piano.                Edward doesn't recognize her as the little girl who used to                have a crush on him. Without turning, she says...                                     JENNY                         You must be Edward Bloom.                                     EDWARD                         How did you know?               She keeps PLAYING.                                     JENNY                         No one would come out here unless                          they had business. And no one would                          have business with me except for                          you. You're buying the town.                                     EDWARD                         Apparently I've overlooked this one                          piece of it, and I'd like to remedy                          that. You see, in order for the town                          to be preserved, the trust must own                          it in its entirety.                                     JENNY                         So I've heard.                                     EDWARD                         I'll offer you more than it's worth.                          And you know you won't have to move.                          Nothing will change except the name                          on the deed, you have my word.               Jenny stops playing, her piece not quite finished. She turns                to face him. Edward still doesn't recognize her.                                     JENNY                         Now let me get this straight. You'll                          buy the swamp from me, but I'll stay                          in it. You'll own the house, but                          it'll still be mine. I'll be here,                          and you'll come and go as you please                          to one place or another. Do I have                          that right?               Strange to hear it put that way, but --                                     EDWARD                         In so many words, yes.                                     JENNY                         Then I don't think so Mr. Bloom. If                          nothing is going to change, I'd just                          as soon it not change in the way it                          hasn't been changing all this time.                                     EDWARD                         It's not like you're going to lose                          anything. You can ask anyone in town.                          I've been nothing if not generous. I                          want the best for everyone.               A long beat.                                     JENNY                         Mr. Bloom, why are you buying this                          land? Some sort of midlife crisis?                          Instead of buying a convertible, you                          buy a town?               He looks at her, puzzled and surprised. No one has really                asked before.                                     EDWARD                         Helping people makes me happy.                                     JENNY                         I'm not convinced you should be happy.                                     EDWARD                         I'm sorry. Have I offended you?               She finally turns to face him.                                     JENNY                         No, you did exactly what you promised.                          You came back. I was just expecting                          you sooner.                                                              FLASHBACK TO:               EXT. SPECTRE - NIGHT               Young Jenny Hill watches barefoot Edward leave Spectre for                the first time.                                                                   BACK TO:               INT. SHACK - DAY               Finally realizing who this woman is...                                     EDWARD                         You're Beamen's daughter. Your last                          name is different.                              (realizing)                         You married.                                     JENNY                         I was 18. He was 28. Turns out that                          was a big difference.               Before he can say anything more...                                     JENNY                         I won't be selling you this house,                          Mr. Bloom.                                     EDWARD                         I see. I thank you for your time.               A bit bewildered, Edward tips his hat to her as he leaves.               EXT/INT. SWAMP SHACK - DAY               Edward pulls the door shut behind him as he leaves, but it                breaks off in his hands. It's not the clean exit he was hoping                for.               Inside Jenny looks out, surprised and annoyed.               Edward tries to lift the door back on the hinges, but they                SNAP off. The door frame buckles and the whole shack CREAKS.                                     EDWARD                         I'm sorry.               He tries to lean the door against the frame, but it keeps                slipping.                                     JENNY                         It's okay, just leave it.                                     EDWARD                         I can get it. I can just...               He leans the door a different way. It holds for a beat then                falls in, SMASHING a small table.                                     EDWARD                         Lord, I'm sorry I...                                     JENNY                         Please. Go. Just go.                                     EDWARD                         I'll...                                     JENNY                         Go.               She's dead serious. Weighing the scales of chivalry, he                finally backs away. Turns and heads back towards his car.               We STAY ON Jenny, watching him go. She's furious, but there's                something more in her feelings for him. Something softer.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         Most men in that situation would                          accept their failure and move on.                          But Edward was not like most men.               EXT. SWAMP SHACK ROAD - ANOTHER DAY               With Karl the Giant's help, Edward unloads a brand new door                from a pickup truck.               EXT. SHACK - DAY               While Jenny watches, half-annoyed, half-amused, Edward tries                to set the door square. Karl pushes against the side of the                house until it fits.               INT. SHACK - ANOTHER DAY               Holding nails between his lips, Edward puts in new windows                himself. Jenny is making soup, laughing at the story he's                telling.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         As the months passed, he found more                          and more things to fix, until the                          shack no longer resembled itself.               EXT. SWAMP - ANOTHER DAY               Edward and Karl cut down a tree, letting in a flood of light.               Through the golden pollen hanging in the air, we RISE UP to                see the shack is now               THE LOVELY HOUSE               we saw before. It's tiny and white, with black shutters and                a steep roof. A white picket fence. In every detail it is                impossibly charming.               INT. JENNY'S HOUSE - DAY               Edward is screwing a hat rack into the wall in the foyer.                Jenny leans against the doorframe listening to his story.                And watching him with deepest affection.                                     EDWARD                         Of course, the best part was creating                          new material. By the time the twins                          and I got to Havana, we had a whole                          new routine worked out for them,                          with just a ukulele and a harmonica.               Finished with his work, he takes his hat off the chair and                hangs it on the rack. Perfect.               A beat. A look between them. With that last job done, there's                no reason for him to be staying any longer.                                     EDWARD                         I suppose I should...               He takes his hat off the rack.                                     JENNY                         You can leave it there.               A beat. Does she really mean it?               She comes closer. Edward holds his ground. She takes his                hand, lifting his hat up to the peg. She's very close --                just a half-inch from kissing him when --               -- Edward gently holds her back.                                     EDWARD                         No.               She freezes, stunned and humiliated. She pulls away.                                     EDWARD                         Don't. Don't be embarrassed. I should                          never have let you think that...                              (beat)                         I am in love with my wife.                                     JENNY                         I know.                                     EDWARD                         And from the moment I saw her until                          the moment I die, she's the only                          one.                                     JENNY                         Lucky girl.                                     EDWARD                         I'm sorry, Jenny. I am.               With that, he begins to leaves.                                     JENNY                         Wait! Edward!               She finds a pen and hastily signs the deed to the house.                Hands it to him. With a look, he thanks her. Then goes.               EXT. SPECTRE - MAGIC HOUR               Edward takes a final look at this perfect little town.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         One day, Edward Bloom left, and never                          returned to the town he'd saved.               He climbs in his car and starts the engine.               EXT. JENNY HILL'S HOUSE - DAY TO NIGHT               As we watch, the swamp begins to overtake the house,                swallowing it in a tangle of vines and mossy branches.               Shoots burst up through the planks in the porch. Snakes                slither through the marsh.               Day becomes night.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         As for the girl, the common belief                          was that she'd become a witch, and                          crazy at that. She became something                          of a legend herself.               We REVERSE to find FOUR KIDS looking in through the rusty                iron gate with flashlights. A beat, then they run away.                                     JENNY (V.O.)                         And the story ended where it began.               INT. JENNY HILL'S KITCHEN - PRESENT DAY               Will and Jenny are still sitting at her table, a pitcher of                iced tea between them.                                     WILL                         Logically, you couldn't be the Witch,                          because she was old back when he was                          young.                                     JENNY                         No, it's logical if you think like                          your father. See, to him, there's                          only two women: your mother and                          everyone else.                                     WILL                         You didn't become crazy.                                     JENNY                         Well, therapy. And one day I realized                          I was in love with a man who could                          never love me back. I was living in                          a fairy tale.               Will smiles to hear it called that.                                     JENNY                         People aren't like they are in                          stories. They hurt each other without                          meaning to. They are kind and                          unbelievably cruel at the same moment.                          Like me, now. I'm not sure I should                          have told you any of this.               Her composure is starting to break.                                     WILL                         No, I wanted to know. I'm glad I                          know.               A long beat, both staring at their iced tea. Jenny is working                herself into more of a state by not talking.                                     JENNY                         I wanted to meet you for the longest                          time. I did.                              (a smile)                         I envied you so much. The way Eddie                          would talk about you when you were                          at Missouri, that award you won.                          Congratulations, incidentally. And                          when you got the job at the A.P.,                          everything, he was so proud of you.                          I mean, that's the thing. Every moment                          he loved you.               She's fighting tears, not the first ones she's shed over                this.                                     JENNY                         And as brightly as the sun would                          shine when he was with me, every                          time he left it disappeared. I wanted                          to be as important to him as you                          were, and I was never going to be. I                          was make-believe and his other life,                          you, were real.               ANGLE ON Will, sorting through his swirling thoughts.                                     JENNY                         You knew that, didn't you?                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. WILL'S CAR - DAY / DRIVING               Will skips through the stations on the radio, but ultimately                turns it off. He's trying to think.               EXT. BLOOM HOUSE - DUSK               Will walks up the front steps. There's a subtle change to                his expression, a dark cloud lifted. He unlocks the door.               INT. BLOOM HOUSE FOYER - DUSK               It's half-dark and quiet in the house, no talking, no TV.                Will sets his keys on the table.               INT. KITCHEN - DUSK               Will looks in. Empty.                                     WILL                              (calling out)                         Hello? Mom? Dad?               INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DUSK               We follow Will, looking into his and Josephine's room. He                aims for the guest room at the end of the hall.               INT. GUEST ROOM - DUSK               Looking over his shoulder, we see his father's bed is empty.                The sheets are in a tangle on the floor.               A beat, then Will half-runs back down the hall. Back down                the stairs.               INT. FOYER - DUSK               Headed out, Will grabs his keys off the table. We LOOK RIGHT,                where the "MESSAGE" light blinks on the answering machine.               INT. HOSPITAL ENTRANCE - NIGHT               The hospital is so new, it's not even finished -- thick                plastic hangs from exposed framing. There's no one at the                information desk, so Will forges ahead.               INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - NIGHT               Will reads a directory board, trying to decide the best place                to start. Then, behind him --                                     JOSEPHINE (O.S.)                         Will!               He turns to see his wife at a payphone. She hangs up. She                was calling him.                                     WILL                         What happened?                                     JOSEPHINE                         Your father had a stroke. He's                          upstairs with your mom and Dr.                          Bennett.                                     WILL                         Is he going to be okay?               A beat. How can she answer?               He half-smiles, realizing the idiocy of his question. Of                course his father's not going to be okay.                                     WILL                         What I mean is, will he get back to                          the way he was when...               She cuts him off --                                     JOSEPHINE                         No. He won't. I'm sorry.               And like that, it's done. We HOLD ON Will, reeling from the                news.               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT               Edward sleeps peacefully, just an oxygen tube under his nose.                There are no beeping monitors, no blinking lights. It's                mercifully quiet.               Sandra squeezes Will's hand tightly. She's holding herself                together, but it's been a tough day.               Dr. Bennett has just gone through the details for the third                time.                                     SANDRA                         I don't suppose one of us could stay                          with him. In case he...                              (beat)                         In case he wakes up, one of us should                          be there.                                     WILL                         I'll stay. Why don't you go home                          with Josephine and I'll stay tonight.                                     SANDRA                              (to Dr. Bennett)                         That's okay?                                     DR. BENNETT                         It's fine.                                     SANDRA                              (to Will)                         You'll call if...                                     WILL                         I will. I'll call.               A beat.                                     WILL                         Mom, do you want some time with Dad?                                     SANDRA                         Yes. Thank you.               A nod, then Will holds the door for Dr. Bennett and Josephine                as they leave. Sandra is alone in the room with her husband.               She neatens his hair. Holds his hand. As she kisses his                fingers, she tweaks her chin with them -- his signature move.                                                             TRANSITION TO:               INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - NIGHT               Sandra waits outside the women's restroom. Her face is a                study in strained composure -- acknowledging the inevitable                but refusing to surrender to it.               Josephine emerges.                                     JOSEPHINE                         I'm sorry. It seems every hour I                          have to...                                     SANDRA                         I know. It was the same when I was                          carrying Will. Like clockwork.               The two women start to walk, no hurry.                                     SANDRA                         Do you like it, being pregnant?                                     JOSEPHINE                         I do.                                     SANDRA                         I loved it. It sounds peculiar, but                          I loved every minute of it. I did.                          Eddie was travelling a lot, so he                          was gone, but I felt like I always                          had a piece of him with me. A little                          part of his soul inside me. I could                          feel it. It was alive and kicking.               Sandra has accidentally evoked a storm of emotion. She                struggles to keep it in check. Almost a whisper...                                     SANDRA                         I really miss that.               With a few breaths, Sandra tries to hold on. Hold back.                                     JOSEPHINE                         Don't stop. Don't.               A beat, then Sandra finally melts. Josephine holds her. The                two women stand together in the hallway, letting the moment                be.               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT               Will sits in a chair beside the bed, working through the                crossword puzzle. A KNOCK as Dr. Bennett enters with his                overcoat and bag, ready to leave for the night.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Glad to see you're not trying to                          have a heartfelt talk. It's one of                          my greatest annoyances, when people                          talk to those who can't hear them.                                     WILL                         My father and I have an advantage.                          We never talk.               Dr. Bennett smiles as he checks Edward's chart.                                     WILL                         How long have you known my father?                                     DR. BENNETT                         Thirty years. Maybe more.                                     WILL                         How would you describe him?                                     DR. BENNETT                              (re: chart)                         Five-eleven. One-eighty. Regulated                          hypertension.                              (beat)                         How would his son describe him?               Tables turned, Will searches for an answer. He doesn't have                one.               Dr. Bennett hangs the chart back on the bed.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Did your father ever tell you about                          the day you were born?                                     WILL                         A thousand times. He caught an                          uncatchable fish.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Not that one. The real story. Did he                          ever tell you that?                                     WILL                              (suddenly interested)                         No.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Your mother came in about three in                          the afternoon. Her neighbor drove                          her, on account of your father was                          on business in Wichita. You were                          born a week early, but there were no                          complications. It was a perfect                          delivery. Now, your father was sorry                          to miss it, but it wasn't the custom                          for the men to be in the room for                          deliveries then, so I can't see as                          it would have been much different                          had he been there. And that's the                          real story of how you were born.               A long silence, just the sounds of the hospital, doctors                being paged.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Not very exciting, is it? And I                          suppose if I had to choose between                          the true version and an elaborate                          one involving a fish and a wedding                          ring, I might choose the fancy                          version. But that's just me.               Will half-smiles.               Patting Will's shoulder, Dr. Bennett leaves. We STAY ON Will                and his father for a long time, then Will takes his pen and                starts making a list.               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - VARIOUS SHOTS               Will flips to a new page. The list keeps getting longer.               He smiles, remembering something. On his fourth page, he                looks up at his motionless father. A beat, then we slowly                                                              CROSSFADE TO:               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - PRE-DAWN               It's very early morning, and the first blue light of day is                glowing through the vertical blinds. Still in his chair,                Will wakes up a bit at a time. The notepad is on his lap,                the pen in his hand.               He cracks his neck, crooked from sleeping on it wrong. What                woke him up?               He looks to his right. Holds his gaze for a breath.                                     WILL                         Dad?               His father is awake, silently GASPING for breath. His eyes                are open, scared and confused.                                     WILL                         Dad! Do you want me to get a nurse?               Edward shakes his head unambiguously. Will already has his                finger on the orange "nurse call" button, but doesn't push                it.                                     WILL                         What can I do? Can I help? Can I get                          you something? Water?               Edward nods. Will pours a glass from the pitcher on the                nightstand. He holds it to his father's lips, but Edward                won't drink. He pushes it away. He wanted something else.                                     EDWARD                              (whispering)                         The river.                                     WILL                         The river?               It takes Edward all his strength to put together each thought.                It's like he's only half-there, fighting to hang on to this                world.                                     EDWARD                         Tell me how it happens.                                     WILL                         How what happens?                                     EDWARD                         How I go.               ON WILL, realizing...                                     WILL                         You mean what you saw in The Eye?               Edward nods. Yes, that's what he was trying to say.               A long beat.                                     WILL                         I don't know that story, Dad. You                          never told me that one.               Will pushes his fingers under his father's heavy hand, and                holds it. There's nothing else to do.               Edward looks around, confused and increasingly scared. He                sees the end approaching, but doesn't know exactly what's                coming. Without the story, he's lost.               Fighting the urge to panic --                                     WILL                         I can try, Dad. If you help. Just                          tell me how it starts.                                     EDWARD                         Like this.                                     WILL                         Okay. Okay.               Will looks around the room, increasingly desperate. He looks                to the nurse call button. He really wants to press it.               ON EDWARD, waiting for Will to begin.                                     WILL                         Okay. It's morning, and you and I                          are in the hospital. I'd fallen asleep                          in the chair. I wake up and I see                          you, and...                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY [STORY VERSION]                                     WILL                         Dad?               It's dawn, and the first golden glow is shining through the                vertical blinds.                                     WILL                              (louder and concerned)                         Dad?               We LOOK OVER to find a nimble Edward sitting up in bed,                combing his hair.                                     EDWARD                         Let's get out of here.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         Somehow, you're better. Different.                          You're getting ready to go. And I                          say...                                     WILL                         Dad, you're in no condition to...               But Edward throws back the covers.                                     EDWARD                         There's a fold-up wheelchair in the                          bathroom. Wrap a blanket around me.                          As soon as we get off this floor,                          we'll be in the clear.               Will heads for the bathroom. Sure enough, the wheelchair is                there.                                     EDWARD                         Hurry! We don't have much time.               INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - DAY               With the blanket draped over his head like a ghost, Edward                points for his son to steer the wheelchair thataway.                                     EDWARD                         Faster!               They pass a HEAVYSET NURSE, who turns to look.               Rounding a corner, they nearly crash into Dr. Bennett.                                     DR. BENNETT                         Will! I... What are you doing?               Before he can answer, Will spots Edward rolling the chair                himself, pumping both arms. Will dashes to catch up with                him.               The Heavyset Nurse leans out of Edward's hospital room.                                     NURSE                         Security! Stop them!               DOWN THE HALL               At the elevators, Sandra and Josephine step out to find Will                and Edward barreling straight at them.                                     EDWARD                         No time to explain! Follow us!               Seeing SECURITY GUARDS heading their way, a quick-thinking                Sandra shoves a nearby cart into them, bowling them down.               INT. ELEVATOR - DAY               Will brakes hard, sliding with both feet. The chair nearly                crashes into the back wall as the doors close.               EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY               Will races Edward down the row, finally reaching the                Chevrolet.               AT THE CAR               Will lifts his father out of the chair.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         I pick you up and you hardly weigh                          anything. I can't explain it.               Will sets him in the passenger seat.                                     EDWARD                         Water. I need water.               Scrambling in back, Will finds a liter of Arrowhead. Hands                it off. Edward unscrews the cap, but instead of drinking it,                he douses himself. Soaks the blanket.               Will pops the trunk. Starts to fold up the wheelchair.                                     EDWARD                         Leave it! We won't need it.               TIRES SMOKE as the car peals out.                                                                   BACK TO:               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY [REALITY]               TIGHT ON Will, trying to hold back tears as he talks.                                     WILL                         And we have to take Glenville to                          avoid all the church traffic, because                          those damn church people drive too                          slow.               TIGHT ON Edward, enjoying that detail. He's focused completely                on Will's story.                                     WILL                         I ask...                                                                   BACK TO:               EXT. GLENVILLE BLVD. - DAY [STORY VERSION]               The Chevy slaloms through the Sunday-morning traffic.                                     WILL (O.S.)                         Where are we headed?                                     WILL (V.O.)                         You say...               INT. CHEVY - DAY                                     EDWARD                         The River!               Will stops short, the traffic backed up. He HONKS, trying to                get around the jam. But it's no use.               Then, up ahead, the cars start moving, shoved aside by massive                hands. It's Karl the Giant, clearing a path by brute force.               Edward leans out the window and waves. Karl waves back.               EXT. ASHTON RIVER - DAY               The same stretch of the river where it all began. A CROWD of                more than 100 waiting.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         As we get closer to the river, we                          see everybody's already there. And I                          mean everybody.               Amos Calloway is here with the circus folk, including Mr.                Soggybottom. We also find Edward's Mother and Father, the                Mayor, and many others from along the way. No one has aged a                day since we saw them last.               While Ping scans the horizon, Jing nuzzles with her boyfriend,                Norther Winslow. It's Ping who first spots the Chevrolet.                                     PING                         He's here!               The crowd CHEERS. The Ashton marching band PLAYS. Jenny Hill                smiles. So does the Old Woman.               We PUSH IN on the Old Woman's glass eye, where we see...               YOUNG EDWARD               reflected. This is what he saw.               INT. THE CHEVROLET - DAY               Amazed, Will turns to his father.                                     WILL                         It's unbelievable.                                     EDWARD                         Story of my life.               EXT. RIVERSIDE - DAY               Will gets out of the Chevrolet, overwhelmed by the crowd.                Behind him, Sandra, Josephine and Dr. Bennett pull up. Karl                comes just after that.               Crossing to the passenger side, Will lifts his father out.                Strangely, he's gotten even lighter. Will carries him easily.               Edward pulls off his shoes, tying the laces together. He                hands them to Josephine. She throws them up at the powerline.                They loop over. APPLAUSE and CHEERS.               The crowd parts to let Will and Edward get to the river. As                he passes, Edward shakes some hands, pats some people on the                cheek, and gives others a good poke in the ribs.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         And the strange thing is, there's                          not a sad face to be found. Everyone's                          just so glad to see you, and send                          you off right.               Will walks into the river, up to his knees. He turns back so                his father can face the crowd. Edward waves.                                     EDWARD                         Goodbye everybody! Farewell! Adieu!                                     THE CROWD (VARIOUS)                         Goodbye Edward! / See ya! / We'll                          miss you!               But one face is missing from the crowd -- Sandra. Will turns                to see she's already standing in the river beside them.               The reflection of the light off the water gives Sandra an                unearthly glow. She's more tranquil and more beautiful than                we've ever seen her.                                     EDWARD                         My girl in the river.               She kisses him. He tweaks her chin. The crowd HOLLERS in                approval, but their moment remains strangely private. Only                Will is there to witness.               As the kiss ends, Edward tries to pull off his wedding ring.                But it's stuck. Finally, he sucks on it, pulling it free                with his teeth.               A look to Will, a smile with a glint of gold. Will takes the                ring out of his mouth.               Edward suddenly drops out of Will's arms with a SPLASH. For                he's no longer a man, but rather               A FAT CATFISH               swimming at his feet.               We watch as the catfish circles, then heads for deeper water,                disappearing.               Will and his mother stand knee-deep in the water, watching                Edward Bloom swim away into the sunlight. Josephine is back                on the shore, along with the entire crowd.               MUSIC BUILDS to a climax, then...               Down the river, a GIANT FISH suddenly jumps out of the water,                cutting a beautiful arc across the sunset. It then dives                back under with a SPLASH.                                                         CROSSFADE BACK TO:               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY               Will has tears hanging in the corners of his eyes.                                     WILL                         You become what you always were. A                          very big fish.                              (he smiles)                         And that's the way it happens.                                     EDWARD                              (a whisper)                         Yes. Exactly.               Edward smiles, proud of both of them. His eyes are so pale                and so open, we can almost see his soul. In every atom of                his body, in every thought, Edward Bloom is entirely happy.               And this is how he goes.               INT. HOSPITAL HALLWAY - DAY               Will shuts the door to his father's room behind him. The                walk to the payphones seems to take a lifetime.               He finds a quarter, starts to dial. He has to squint to see                through the water in his eyes. It's ringing. And ringing.                The other end answers.                                     WILL                              (voice cracking)                         Hi.               That's all he can get out before the dam breaks inside him.                He presses closer to the phone, trying to shield himself.               MUSIC begins that will carry us through the next passage.               INT. HOSPITAL RECEPTION - DAY               Will waits at reception as Sandra and Josephine come off the                elevator.               INT. GUEST ROOM - DAY               Josephine opens the curtains, letting white sunlight in. She                strips the bed.               INT. BEDROOM - DAY               Will and his mother pick out one of Edward's ties, for Will                to wear at the funeral. Will tries to button the cuffs on                the shirt he borrowed, but they're the kind that need links.               He goes through the top drawer of the dresser, trying to                find a matching pair. Further down, he finds a ribbon tied                to               THE KEY TO THE CITY.               He smiles, disbelieving. It's a real thing.               EXT. CEMETERY / ROAD - DAY               Will helps his mother out of a black sedan. She's well-               composed, not nearly the wreck we might have expected.               Josephine hugs Dr. Bennett and shakes hands with his WIFE.                The service is crowded, more than 200 people, many more than                expected.               As his mother talks to a WELL-WISHER, Will looks left to see                an Oldsmobile parking.               CLOSE ON the license plates. Missouri.               The passenger side opens, but the man who steps out is barely                visible over the door. He shuts it to reveal himself to be                70.               It's Amos Calloway. Will doesn't recognize him.               The Driver climbs out, a size 15 foot on the gravel. We TILT                UP to see this man is huge.               This man is KARL, now 55. He's not 12 feet tall, but at least                six-eight.               CLOSE ON Will, bewildered to see that this man really exists.               EXT. CEMETERY / GRAVESIDE - DAY               As the service gets ready to begin, Will guides his mother                to a seat near the grave.               Sitting beside Will, Josephine spots a stunning ASIAN WOMAN                (50) behind them. A beat later, an identical face with glasses                peers out -- the woman's twin sister.               It's PING and JING.               Josephine almost GASPS. She elbows Will, who turns to look.                From this angle the sisters seem conjoined, but then Jing                steps forward. They're really two separate people.                A sea of familiar faces, all of them aged through the years:                BEAMEN, NORTHER WINSLOW, the MAYOR, and ZACKY PRICE.               EXT. CEMETERY - DAY [LATER]               After the service, we see the crowd gathered in small groups.                By the LAUGHTER and hand gestures, we can see they're telling                stories. They're telling Edward's stories.               We find Will watching them.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         Have you ever heard a joke so many                          times you've forgotten why it's funny?                          But then you hear it again and                          suddenly it's new. You remember why                          you loved it in the first place.               Will joins in, laughing.               We slowly CIRCLE BEHIND a monument, letting it black out the                screen.                                                             TRANSITION TO:               EXT. BLOOM HOUSE BACKYARD - DAY [SUMMER]               Will sits on the porch with Sandra and Josephine, watching                his SON play in the pool with two NEIGHBOR KIDS.                                     SON                              (to the other boys)                         So he said he'd fight the giant who                          was fifteen feet tall.                                     KID                         No way.                                     SON                              (calling over)                         Dad, that's right, isn't it?                                     WILL                         Something like that.                                     SON                         See. So he was a giant but my grampa                          was going to fight him because he                          wasn't afraid of anything because                          he'd seen how he was going to die in                          this old lady's glass eye...               Will smiles as his son continues the tale, which FADES. Sandra                takes Will's hand in hers, just listening.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         That was my father's final joke I                          guess. A man tells his stories so                          many times he becomes the stories.                          They live on after him.                                                              CROSSFADE TO:               EXT. RIVER / UNDERWATER - DAY               A fat and happy catfish swims towards us.                                     WILL (V.O.)                         And in that way, he becomes immortal.               The fish passes us with a SPLASH.               CUT TO BLACK.                                         THE END
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+THE BIG LEBOWSKIWe are floating up a steep scrubby slope. We hear male voices gently singing "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and a deep, affable, Western-accented voice--Sam Elliot's, perhaps: VOICE-OVER A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, like- wise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.We top the rise and the smoggy vastness of Los Angeles at twilight stretches out before us. VOICE-OVER They call Los Angeles the City of Angels. I didn't find it to be that exactly, but I'll allow as there are some nice folks there. 'Course, I can't say I seen London, and I never been to France, and I ain't never seen no queen in her damn undies as the fella says. But I'll tell you what, after seeing Los Angeles and thisahere story I'm about to unfold-- wal, I guess I seen somethin' ever' bit as stupefyin' as ya'd see in any a those other places, and in English too, so I can die with a smile on my face without feelin' like the good Lord gypped me.INTERIOR RALPH'SIt is late, the supermarket all but deserted. We are tracking in on a fortyish man in Bermuda shorts and sunglasses at the dairy case. He is the Dude. His rumpled look and relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep.He is feeling quarts of milk for coldness and examining their expiration dates. VOICE-OVER Now this story I'm about to unfold took place back in the early nineties-- just about the time of our conflict with Sad'm and the Eye-rackies. I only mention it 'cause some- times there's a man--I won't say a hee-ro, 'cause what's a hee-ro?--but sometimes there's a man.The Dude glances furtively about and then opens a quart of milk. He sticks his nose in the spout and sniffs. VOICE-OVER And I'm talkin' about the Dude here-- sometimes there's a man who, wal, he's the man for his time'n place, he fits right in there--and that's the Dude, in Los Angeles.CHECKOUT GIRLShe waits, arms folded. A small black-and white TV next to her register shows George Bush on the White House lawn with helicopter rotors spinning behind him. GEORGE BUSH This aggression will not stand. . . This will not stand!The Dude, peeking over his shades, scribbles something at the little customer's lectern. Milk beads his mustache. VOICE-OVER ...and even if he's a lazy man, and the Dude was certainly that--quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County.The Dude has his Ralph's Shopper's Club card to one side and is making out a check to Ralph's for sixty-nine cents. VOICE-OVER ...which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide--but sometimes there's a man. . . sometimes there's a man.EXTERIOR RALPH'SLong shot of the glowing Ralph's. There are only two or three cars parked in the huge lot. VOICE-OVER Wal, I lost m'train of thought here. But--aw hell, I done innerduced him enough.The Dude is a small figure walking across the vast lot. Next to him walks a Mexican carry-out boy in a red apron and cap carrying a small brown bag holding the quart of milk. The two men's footsteps echo in the still of the night.After a beat of walking the Dude offhandedly points. DUDE It's the LeBaron.DUDE'S HOUSEThe Dude is going up the walkway of a small Venice bungalow court. He holds the paper sack in one hand and a small leatherette satchel in the other. He awkwardly hugs the grocery bag against his chest as he turns a key in his door.INSIDEThe Dude enters and flicks on a light.His head is grabbed from behind and tucked into an armpit. We track with him as he is rushed through the living room, his arm holding the satchel flailing away from his body. Going into the bedroom the outflung satchel catches a piece of doorframe and wallboard and rips through it, leaving a hole.The Dude is propelled across the bedroom and on into a small bathroom, the satchel once again taking away a piece of doorframe. His head is plunged into the toilet. The paper bag hugged to his chest explodes milk as it hits the toilet rim and the satchel pulverizes tile as it crashes to the floor.The Dude blows bubbles. VOICE We want that money, Lebowski. Bunny said you were good for it.Hands haul the Dude out of the toilet. The Dude blubbers and gasps for air. VOICE Where's the money, Lebowski!His head is plunged back into the toilet. VOICE Where's the money, Lebowski!The hands haul him out again, dripping and gasping. VOICE WHERE'S THE FUCKING MONEY, SHITHEAD! DUDE It's uh, it's down there somewhere. Lemme take another look.His head is plunged back in. VOICE Don't fuck with us. If your wife owes money to Jackie Treehorn, that means you owe money to Jackie Treehorn.The inquisitor hauls the Dude's head out one last time and flops him over so that he sits on the floor, back against the toilet.The Dude gropes back in the toilet with one hand.Looming over him is a strapping blond man.Beyond in the living room a young Chinese man unzips his fly and walks over to a rug. CHINESE MAN Ever thus to deadbeats, Lebowski.He starts peeing on the rug.The Dude's hand comes out of the toilet bowl with his sunglasses. DUDE Oh, man. Don't do-- BLOND MAN You see what happens? You see what happens, Lebowski?The Dude puts on his dripping sunglasses. DUDE Look, nobody calls me Lebowski. You got the wrong guy. I'm the Dude, man. BLOND MAN Your name is Lebowski. Your wife is Bunny. DUDE Bunny? Look, moron.He holds up his hands. DUDE You see a wedding ring? Does this place look like I'm fucking married? All my plants are dead!The blond man stoops to unzip the satchel. He pulls out a bowling ball and examines it in the manner of a superstitious native. BLOND MAN The fuck is this?The Dude pats at his pockets, takes out a joint and lights it. DUDE Obviously you're not a golfer.The blond man drops the ball which pulverizes more tile. BLOND MAN Woo?The Chinese man is zipping his fly. WOO Yeah? BLOND MAN Wasn't this guy supposed to be a millionaire? WOO Uh?They both look around. WOO Fuck. BLOND MAN What do you think? WOO He looks like a fuckin' loser.The Dude pulls his sunglasses down his nose with one finger and peeks over them. DUDE Hey. At least I'm housebroken.The two men look at each other. They turn to leave. WOO Fuckin' waste of time.The blond man turns testily at the door. BLOND MAN Thanks a lot, asshole. ON THE DOOR SLAM WE CUT TO:BOWLING PINSScattered by a strike.Music and head credits play over various bowling shots--pins flying, bowlers hoisting balls, balls gliding down lanes, sliding feet, graceful releases, ball return spinning up a ball, fingers sliding into fingerholes, etc.The music turns into boomy source music, coming from a distant jukebox, as the credits end over a clattering strike.A lanky blonde man with stringy hair tied back in a ponytail turns from the strike to walk back to the bench. MAN Hot damn, I'm throwin' rocks tonight. Mark it, Dude.We are tracking in on the circular bench towards a big man nursing a large plastic cup of Bud. He has dark worried eyes and a goatee. Hairy legs emerge from his khaki shorts. He also wears a khaki army surplus shirt with the sleeves cut off over an old bowling shirt. This is Walter. He squints through the smoke from his own cigarette as he addresses the Dude at the scoring table.The Dude, also holding a large plastic cup of Bud, wears some of its foam on his mustache. WALTER This was a valued rug.He elaborately clears his throat. WALTER This was, uh-- DUDE Yeah man, it really tied the room together-- WALTER This was a valued, uh.Donny, the strike-scoring bowler, enters and sits next Walter. DONNY What tied the room together, Dude? WALTER Were you listening to the story, Donny? DONNY What-- WALTER Were you listening to the Dude's story? DONNY I was bowling-- WALTER So you have no frame of reference, Donny. You're like a child who wanders in in the middle of a movie and wants to know-- DUDE What's your point, Walter? WALTER There's no fucking reason--here's my point, Dude--there's no fucking reason-- DONNY Yeah Walter, what's your point? WALTER Huh? DUDE What's the point of--we all know who was at fault, so what the fuck are you talking about? WALTER Huh? No! What the fuck are you talking--I'm not--we're talking about unchecked aggression here-- DONNY What the fuck is he talking about? DUDE My rug. WALTER Forget it, Donny. You're out of your element. DUDE This Chinaman who peed on my rug, I can't go give him a bill so what the fuck are you talking about? WALTER What the fuck are you talking about?! This Chinaman is not the issue! I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line you do not, uh--and also, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred, uh. . . Asian- American. Please. DUDE Walter, this is not a guy who built the rail- roads, here, this is a guy who peed on my-- WALTER What the fuck are you-- DUDE Walter, he peed on my rug-- DONNY He peed on the Dude's rug-- WALTER YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT! This Chinaman is not the issue, Dude. DUDE So who-- WALTER Jeff Lebowski. Come on. This other Jeffrey Lebowski. The millionaire. He's gonna be easier to find anyway than these two, uh. these two . . . And he has the wealth, uh, the resources obviously, and there is no reason, no FUCKING reason, why his wife should go out and owe money and they pee on your rug. Am I wrong? DUDE No, but-- WALTER Am I wrong! DUDE Yeah, but-- WALTER Okay. That, uh.He elaborately clears his throat.That rap really tied the room together, did it not? DUDE Fuckin' A. DONNY And this guy peed on it. WALTER Donny! Please! DUDE Yeah, I could find this Lebowski guy-- DONNY His name is Lebowski? That's your name, Dude! DUDE Yeah, this is the guy, this guy should compensate me for the fucking rug. I mean his wife goes out and owes money and they pee on my rug. WALTER Thaaat's right Dude; they pee on your fucking Rug.CLOSE ON A PLAQUEWe pull back from the name JEFFREY LEBOWSKI engraved in silver to reveal that the plaque, from Variety Clubs International, honors Lebowski as ACHIEVER OF THE YEAR.Reflected in the plaque we see the Dude entering the room with a YOUNG MAN. We hear the two men talk: YOUNG MAN And this is the study. You can see the various commendations, honorary degrees, et cetera. DUDE Yes, uh, very impressive. YOUNG MAN Please, feel free to inspect them. DUDE I'm not really, uh. YOUNG MAN Please! Please! DUDE Uh-huh.We are panning the walls, looking at various citations andcertificates unrelated to the ones being discussed offscreen: YOUNG MAN That's the key to the city of Pasadena, which Mr. Lebowski was given two years ago in recognition of his various civic, uh. DUDE Uh-huh. YOUNG MAN That's a Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Business Achiever award, which is given--not necessarily given every year! Given only when there's a worthy, somebody especially-- DUDE Hey, is this him with Nancy? YOUNG MAN That is indeed Mr. Lebowski with the first lady, yes, taken when-- DUDE Lebowski on the right? YOUNG MAN Of course, Mr. Lebowski on the right, Mrs. Reagan on the left, taken when-- DUDE He's handicapped, huh? YOUNG MAN Mr. Lebowski is disabled, yes. And this picture was taken when Mrs. Reagan was first lady of the nation, yes, yes? Not of California. DUDE Far out. YOUNG MAN And in fact he met privately with the President, though unfortunately there wasn't time for a photo opportunity. DUDE Nancy's pretty good. YOUNG MAN Wonderful woman. We were very-- DUDE Are these. YOUNG MAN These are Mr. Lebowski's children, so to speak-- DUDE Different mothers, huh? YOUNG MAN No, they-- DUDE I guess he's pretty, uh, racially pretty cool-- YOUNG MAN They're not his, heh-heh, they're not literally his children; they're the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, inner-city children of promise but without the-- DUDE I see. YOUNG MAN --without the means for higher education, so Mr. Lebowski has committed to sending all of them to college. DUDE Jeez. Think he's got room for one more? YOUNG MAN One--oh! Heh-heh. You never went to college? DUDE Well, yeah I did, but I spent most of my time occupying various, um, administration buildings-- YOUNG MAN Heh-heh-- DUDE --smoking thai-stick, breaking into the ROTC-- YOUNG MAN Yes, heh-- DUDE --and bowling. I'll tell you the truth, Brandt, I don't remember most of it.--Jeez! Fuck me!Our continuing track and pan have brought us onto a framed Life Magazine cover which is headlined ARE YOU A LEBOWSKI ACHIEVER? Oddly, the Dude's sunglassed face is on it; we realize that, under the magazine's logo and headline, the display is mirrored.We hear the door open and the whine of a motor. The Dude, wearing shorts and a bowling shirt, turns to look.So does Brandt, the young man we've been listening to. He wears a suit and has his hands clasped in front of his groin.Entering the room is a fat sixtyish man in a motorized wheelchair--Jeff Lebowski. LEBOWSKI Okay sir, you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski, that's terrific, I'm very busy so what can I do for you?He wheels himself behind a desk. The Dude sits facing him as Brandt withdraws. DUDE Well sir, it's this rug I have, really tied the room together- LEBOWSKI You told Brandt on the phone, he told me. So where do I fit in? DUDE Well they were looking for you, these two guys, they were trying to-- LEBOWSKI I'll say it again, all right? You told Brandt. He told me. I know what happened. Yes? Yes? DUDE So you know they were trying to piss on your rug-- LEBOWSKI Did I urinate on your rug? DUDE You mean, did you personally come and pee on my-- LEBOWSKI Hello! Do you speak English? Parla usted Inglese? I'll say it again. Did I urinate on your rug? DUDE Well no, like I said, Woo peed on the rug-- LEBOWSKI Hello! Hello! So every time--I just want to understand this, sir-- every time a rug is micturated upon in this fair city, I have to compensate the-- DUDE Come on, man, I'm not trying to scam anybody here, I'm just-- LEBOWSKI You're just looking for a handout like every other--are you employed, Mr. Lebowski? DUDE Look, let me explain something. I'm not Mr. Lebowski; you're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or Duder. His Dudeness. Or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing-- LEBOWSKI Are you employed, sir? DUDE Employed? LEBOWSKI You don't go out and make a living dressed like that in the middle of a weekday. DUDE Is this a--what day is this? LEBOWSKI But I do work, so if you don't mind-- DUDE No, look. I do mind. The Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this will not stand, man. I mean, if your wife owes-- LEBOWSKI My wife is not the issue here. I hope that my wife will someday learn to live on her allowance, which is ample, but if she doesn't, sir, that will be her problem, not mine, just as your rug is your problem, just as every bum's lot in life is his own responsibility regardless of whom he chooses to blame. I didn't blame anyone for the loss of my legs, some chinaman in Korea took them from me but I went out and achieved anyway. I can't solve your problems, sir, only you can.The Dude rises. DUDE Ah fuck it. LEBOWSKI Sure! Fuck it! That's your answer! Tattoo it on your forehead! Your answer to everything!The Dude is heading for the door. LEBOWSKI Your "revolution" is over, Mr. Lebowski! Condolences! The bums lost!As the Dude opens the door. LEBOWSKI ...My advice is, do what your parents did! Get a job, sir! The bums will always lose-- do you hear me, Lebowski? THE BUMS WILL ALWAYS--The Dude shuts the door on the old man's bellowing to find himself-- HALLWAY --in a high coffered hallway. Brandt is approaching. BRANDT How was your meeting, Mr. Lebowski? DUDE Okay. The old man told me to take any rug in the house.WALKWAYA houseman with a rolled-up carpet on one shoulder goes down a stone walk that winds through the back lawn, past a swimming pool to a garage. Brandt and the Dude follow. BRANDT Manolo will load it into your car for you, uh, Dude. DUDE It's the LeBaron.DUDE'S POINT OF VIEWTracking toward the pool. A young woman sits facing it, her back to us, leaning forward to paint her toenails.Beyond her a black form floats in an inflatable chair in the pool. BRANDT Well, enjoy, and perhaps we'll see you again some time, Dude. DUDE Yeah sure, if I'm ever in the neighborhood, need to use the john.CLOSER TRACKArcing around the woman's foot as she finishes painting the nails emerald green.THE DUDELooking.WIDERThe young woman looks up at him. She is in her early twenties.She leans back and extends her leg toward the Dude. YOUNG WOMAN Blow on them.The Dude pulls his sunglasses down his nose and peeks over them. DUDE Huh?She waggles her foot and giggles. YOUNG WOMAN G'ahead. Blow.The Dude tentatively grabs hold of her extended foot. DUDE You want me to blow on your toes? YOUNG WOMAN Uh-huh. . . I can't blow that far.The Dude looks over at the pool. DUDE You sure he won't mind?The man bobbing in the inflatable chair is passed out. He is thin, in his thirties, with long stringy blond hair. He wears black leather pants and a black leather jacket, open, shirtless, exposing fine blond chest hair and pale skin. One arm trails off into the water; next to it, an empty whiskey bottle bobs. YOUNG WOMAN Dieter doesn't care about anything. He's a nihilist. DUDE Practicing?The young woman smiles. YOUNG WOMAN You're not blowing.Brandt nervously takes the Dude by the elbow. BRANDT Our guest has to be getting along, Mrs. Lebowski.The Dude grudgingly allows himself to be led away, still looking at the young woman. DUDE You're Bunny? BUNNY I'll suck your cock for a thousand dollars.Brandt releases a gale of forced laughter: BRANDT Ha-ha-ha-ha! Wonderful woman. Very free-spirited. We're all very fond of her. BUNNY Brandt can't watch though. Or he has to pay a hundred. BRANDT Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That's marvelous.He continues to lead away the Dude, who looks back over hisSHOULDER: DUDE I'm just gonna find a cash machine.BOWLING PINSScattered by a strike.THE BOWLERSDonny calls out from the bench: DONNY Grasshopper Dude--They're dead in the water!!As the Dude walks back to the scoring table he turns to another team in black bowling shirts--the Cavaliers--that shares the lane. DUDE Your maples, Carl.Walter, just arriving, is carrying a leatherette satchel in one hand and a large plastic carrier in the other. WALTER Way to go, Dude. If you will it, it is no dream. DUDE You're fucking twenty minutes late. What the fuck is that? WALTER Theodore Herzel. DUDE Huh? WALTER State of Israel. If you will it, Dude, it is no-- DUDE What the fuck're you talking about? The carrier. What's in the fucking carrier? WALTER Huh? Oh--Cynthia's Pomeranian. Can't leave him home alone or he eats the furniture. DUDE What the fuck are you-- WALTER I'm saying, Cynthia's Pomeranian. I'm looking after it while Cynthia and Marty Ackerman are in Hawaii. DUDE You brought a fucking Pomeranian bowling? WALTER What do you mean "brought it bowling"? I didn't rent it shoes. I'm not buying it a fucking beer. He's not gonna take your fucking turn, Dude.He lets the small yapping dog out of the carrier. It scoots around the bowling table, sniffing at bowlers and wagging its tail. DUDE Hey, man, if my fucking ex-wife asked me to take care of her fucking dog while she and her boyfriend went to Honolulu, I'd tell her to go fuck herself. Why can't she board it? WALTER First of all, Dude, you don't have an ex, secondly, it's a fucking show dog with fucking papers. You can't board it. It gets upset, its hair falls out. DUDE Hey man-- WALTER Fucking dog has papers, Dude.--Over the line!Smokey turns from his last roll to look at Walter. WALTER Smokey Huh? WALTER Over the line, Smokey! I'm sorry. That's a foul. SMOKEY Bullshit. Eight, Dude. WALTER Excuse me! Mark it zero. Next frame. SMOKEY Bullshit. Walter! WALTER This is not Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. DUDE Come on Walter, it's just--it's Smokey. So his toe slipped over a little, it's just a game. WALTER This is a league game. This determines who enters the next round- robin, am I wrong? SMOKEY Yeah, but-- WALTER Am I wrong!? SMOKEY Yeah, but I wasn't over. Gimme the marker, Dude, I'm marking it an eight.Walter takes out a gun. WALTER Smokey my friend, you're entering a world of pain. DUDE Hey Walter-- WALTER Mark that frame an eight, you're entering a world of pain. SMOKEY I'm not-- WALTER A world of pain.A manager in a bowling-shirt style uniform is running for a phone. SMOKEY Look Dude, I don't hold with this. This guy is your partner, you should--Walter primes the gun and points it at his head. WALTER HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY? AM I THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES? MARK IT ZERO!The Pomeranian is excitedly yapping at Walter's elbow, making high body-twisting tail-wagging leaps. DUDE Walter, they're calling the cops, put the piece away. WALTER MARK IT ZERO! SMOKEY Walter-- WALTER YOU THINK I'M FUCKING AROUND HERE? MARK IT ZERO!! SMOKEY All right! There it is! It's fucking zero!He points frantically at the score projected above the lane. SMOKEY You happy, you crazy fuck? WALTER This is a league game, Smokey!PARKING LOTWalter and the Dude walk to the Dude's car. The Pomeranian trots happily behind Walter who totes the empty carrier. DUDE Walter, you can't do that. These guys're like me, they're pacificists. Smokey was a conscientious objector. WALTER You know Dude, I myself dabbled with pacifism at one point. Not in Nam, of course-- DUDE And you know Smokey has emotional problems! WALTER You mean--beyond pacifism? DUDE He's fragile, man! He's very fragile!As the two men get into the car: WALTER Huh. I did not know that. Well, it's water under the bridge. And we do enter the next round-robin, am I wrong? DUDE No, you're not wrong-- WALTER Am I wrong! DUDE You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole.They watch a squad car take a squealing turn into the lot. WALTER Okay then. We play Quintana and O'Brien next week. They'll be pushovers. DUDE Just, just take it easy, Walter. WALTER That's your answer to everything, Dude. And let me point out--pacifism is not--look at our current situation with that camelfucker in Iraq-- pacifism is not something to hide behind. DUDE Well, just take 't easy, man. WALTER I'm perfectly calm, Dude. DUDE Yeah? Wavin' a gun around?! WALTER (smugly) Calmer than you are.-his irritates the Dude further. DUDE Just take it easy, man!Walter is still smug. WALTER Calmer than you are.DUDE'S HOUSEA large, brilliant Persian rug lies beneath the Dude's beat-up old furniture.At the table next to the answering machine the Dude is mixing kalhua, rum and milk. VOICE Dude, this is Smokey. Look, I don't wanna be a hard-on about this, and I know it wasn't your fault, but I just thought it was fair to tell you that Gene and I will be submitting this to the League and asking them to set aside the round. Or maybe forfeit it to us-- DUDE Shit! VOICE --so, like I say, just thought, you know, fair warning. Tell Walter.A beep. ANOTHER VOICE Mr. Lebowski, this is Brandt at, uh, well--at Mr. Lebowski's office. Please call us as soon as is convenient.Beep. ANOTHER VOICE Mr. Lebowski, this is Fred Dynarski with the Southern Cal Bowling League. I just got a, an informal report, uh, that a uh, a member of your team, uh, Walter Sobchak, drew a loaded weapon during league play--We hear the doorbell.THE DOORIt swings open to reveal a short, hairy, muscular but balding middle-aged man in a black T-shirt and black cut-off jeans. DUDE Hiya Allan. ALLAN Dude, I finally got the venue I wanted. I'm Performing my dance quintet--you know, my cycle--at Crane Jackson's Fountain Street Theatre on Tuesday night, and I'd love it if you came and gave me notes.The Dude takes a swig of his kalhua. DUDE Sure Allan, I'll be there. ALLAN Dude, uh, tomorrow is already the tenth. DUDE Yeah, yeah I know. Okay. ALLAN Just, uh, just slip the rent under my door. DUDE Yeah, okay.BACK IN THE LIVING ROOMThe voice continues on the machine. VOICE --serious infraction, and examine your standing. Thank you. Beep. VOICE Mr. Lebowski, Brandt again. Please do call us when you get in and I'll send the limo. Let me assure you--I hope you're not avoiding this call because of the rug, which, I assure you, is not a problem. We need your help and, uh--well we would very much like to see you. Thank you. It's Brandt.TRACKINGWe are pushing Brandt down the high-ceilinged hallway. Distantly, we hear a dolorous soprano. Brandt talks back overHIS SHOULDER: BRANDT We've had some terrible news. Mr. Lebowski is in seclusion in the West Wing. DUDE Huh.Brandt throws open a pair of heavy double doors. The music washes over us as we enter a great study where Jeffrey Lebowski, a blanket thrown over his knees, stares hauntedly into a fire, listening to Lohengrin.BRANDT ANNOUNCES, AMBIGUOUSLY: BRANDT Mr. Lebowski.Jeffrey Lebowski waves the Dude in without looking around. LEBOWSKI It's funny. I can look back on a life of achievement, on challenges met, competitors bested, obstacles overcome. I've accomplished more than most men, and without the use of my legs. What. . . What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? DUDE Dude. LEBOWSKI Huh? DUDE I don't know, sir. LEBOWSKI Is it. . . is it, being prepared to do the right thing? Whatever the price? Isn't that what makes a man? DUDE Sure. That and a pair of testicles.Lebowski turns away from the Dude with a haunted stare, lost in thought. LEBOWSKI You're joking. But perhaps you're right.The Dude thumps at his chest pocket. DUDE Mind if I smoke a jay? LEBOWSKI Bunny.He turns back around and the firelight shows teartracks on his cheeks. DUDE 'Scuse me? LEBOWSKI Bunny Lebowski. . . She is the light of my life. Are you surprised at my tears, sir? DUDE Fuckin' A. LEBOWSKI Strong men also cry. . . Strong men also cry.He clears his throat. LEBOWSKI I received this fax this morning.Brandt hastily pulls a flimsy sheet from his clipboard and hands it to the Dude. LEBOWSKI As you can see, it is a ransom note. Sent by cowards. Men who are unable to achieve on a level field of play. Men who will not sign their names. Weaklings. Bums.THE DUDE EXAMINES THE FAX:WE HAVE BUNNY. GATHER ONE MILLION DOLLARS IN UNMARKED NON-CONSECUTIVE TWENTIES. AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS. NO FUNNY STUFF. DUDE Bummer.Lebowski looks soulfully at the Dude. LEBOWSKI Brandt will fill you in on the details.He wheels his chair around to once again gaze into the fire. Brandt tugs at the Dude's shirt and points him back to the hall.HALLWAYThe soprano's singing is once again faint. Brandt's voice is hushed: BRANDT Mr. Lebowski is prepared to make a generous offer to you to act as courier once we get instructions for the money. DUDE Why me, man? BRANDT He suspects that the culprits might be the very people who, uh, soiled your rug, and you're in a unique position to confirm or, uh, disconfirm that suspicion. DUDE So he thinks it's the carpet-pissers, huh? BRANDT Well Dude, we just don't know.BOWLING PINSCRASH--scattered by a strike, in slow motion.WIDERStill in slow motion. We are looking across the length of the bowling alley at a tall, thin, Hispanic bowler displaying perfect form. He wears an all-in-one dacron-polyester stretch bowling outfit with a racing stripe down each side.FAST TRACK INOn the Dude, sitting next to Walter in the molded plastic chairs. The Dude is staring off towards the bowler. DUDE Fucking Quintana--that creep can roll, man--BACK TO THE BOWLERDisplaying great slow-motion form as the Dude and Walter's conversation continues over. WALTER Yeah, but he's a fucking pervert, Dude. DUDE Huh? WALTER The man is a sex offender. With a record. Spent six months in Chino for exposing himself to an eight- year-old.FLASHBACKWe see Quintana, in pressed jeans and a stretchy sweater, walking up a stoop in a residential neighborhood and zinging the bell.The VOICE-OVER conversation continues. DUDE Huh. WALTER When he moved down to Venice he had to go door-to-door to tell everyone he's a pederast.The door swings open and a beer-swilling middle-aged man looks dully out at Quintana, who looks hesitantly up. DONNY What's a pederast, Walter? WALTER Shut the fuck up, Donny.PINSscattered by a strike.QUINTANAwheeling and thrusting a black gloved fist into the air.Stitched above the breast pocket of his all-in-one is his first name, "Jesus".BACK TO WALTER AND THE DUDEThey have been joined by Donny. WALTER Anyway. How much they offer you? DUDE Twenty grand. And of course I still keep the rug. WALTER Just for making the hand-off? DUDE Yeah.He slips a little black box out of his shirt pocket. DUDE ...They gave Dude a beeper, so whenever these guys call-- WALTER What if it's during a game? DUDE I told him if it was during league play--Donny has been watching Quintana. DONNY If what's during league play? WALTER Life does not stop and start at your convenience, you miserable piece of shit. DONNY What's wrong with Walter, Dude? DUDE I figure it's easy money, it's all pretty harmless. I mean she probably kidnapped herself. WALTER Huh? DONNY What do you mean, Dude? DUDE Rug-peers did not do this. I mean look at it. Young trophy wife. Marries a guy for money but figures he isn't giving her enough. She owes money all over town-- WALTER That...fucking...bitch! DUDE It's all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin said, look for the person who will benefit. And you will, uh, you know, you'll, uh, you know what I'm trying to say-- DONNY I am the Walrus. WALTER That fucking bitch! DUDE Yeah. DONNY I am the Walrus. WALTER Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov! DONNY What the fuck is he talking about? WALTER That's fucking exactly what happened, Dude! That makes me fucking SICK! DUDE Yeah, well, what do you care, Walter? DONNY Yeah Dude, why is Walter so pissed off? WALTER Those rich fucks! This whole fucking thing-- I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this fucking strumpet-- DUDE I don't see any connection to Vietnam, Walter. WALTER Well, there isn't a literal connection, Dude. DUDE Walter, face it, there isn't any connection. It's your roll. WALTER Have it your way. The point is-- DUDE It's your roll-- WALTER The fucking point is-- DUDE It's your roll. VOICE Are you ready to be fucked, man?They both look up.Quintana, on his way out, looks down at them from the lip of the lanes. Over his polyester all-in-one he now wears a windbreaker with a racing stripe and "Jesus" stitched on the breast. He is holding a fancy black-and-red leather ball satchel (perhaps a Sylvia Wein). Behind him stands his partner, O'Brien, a short fat Irishman with tufted red hair. QUINTANA I see you rolled your way into the semis. Deos mio, man. Seamus and me, we're gonna fuck you up. DUDE Yeah well, that's just, ya know, like, your opinion, man.Quintana looks at Walter. QUINTANA Let me tell you something, bendeco. You pull any your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you and stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger til it goes "click". DUDE Jesus. QUINTANA You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.Jesus walks away. Walter nods sadly. WALTER Eight-year-olds, Dude.DUDE'S BUNGALOWWe are looking down at the Dude who is prone on the rug. His eyes are closed. He wears a Walkman headset. Leaking tinnily through the headphones we can just hear an intermittent clatter.In his outflung hand lies a cassette case labeled VENICE BEACH LEAGUE PLAYOFFS 1987.The Dude absently licks his lips as we faintly hear a hall rumbling down the lane. On its impact with the pins, the Dude opens his eyes.He screams.A blonde woman looms over him. Next to her a young man in paint-spattered denims stoops and swings something towards the carrier.The sap catches the Dude on the chin and sends his head thunking back onto the rug.A million stars explode against a field of black. We hear the "La-la-la-la" of The Man in Me.The black field dissolves into the pattern of the rug. The rug rolls away to reveal an aerial view of the city of Los Angeles at twilight, moving below us at great speed.The Dude is flying over the city, his arms thrown out in front of him, the wind whipping his hair and billowing his bowling shirt. He looks up.Ahead the mysterious blonde woman wings away, riding on the Dude's rug like a sheik on a magic carpet. She is outpacing us, growing smaller.The Dude does a couple of lazy crawl strokes and then notices that a bowling ball has materialized in his forward hand. His bemusement turns to concern over the aerodynamic implications just as the ball seems to suddenly assume its weight, abruptly snapping his arm down, and him after it. He is falling. From a high angle we see the Dude hurtling down toward the city, dragged by the ball.A reverse looking up shows the Dude hurtling toward us out of the inky sky, his eyes wide with horror. Led by the bowling ball, he zooms past the camera leaving us in black.We hear a distant rumble, like thunder. Dull reflections materialize in the darkness. They are glints off the shiny surface of an oncoming bowling ball.We pull back to reveal that the blackness was the inside of a ball return, and the gleaming bowling ball is being regurgitated up at us, overtaking us.The Dude looks up, up, up at the looming ball, its mass rolling a huge shadow across his face.The gleaming ball shows three dead black holes rolling toward us --finger holes.The largest--thumb--hole rolls directly over us, engulfing us once again in black..The black rolls away and we are spinning--spinning down a bowling lane--our point of view that of someone trapped in the thumbhole of the rolling ball.We see the receding bowler spinning away. It is the blonde woman, performing her follow-through.Floor spins up at us and then away; ceiling spins up and away; the length of the alley with pins at the end; floor; ceiling; approaching pins; again and again.We hit the pins and clatter into blackness. We hear pins spin, hit each other and drop.We hear an irritating, insistent beeping.FADE INWe are close on the Dude, upside down. As the picture fades in the bowling noises continue, but filtered and faint. They come from the Dude's Walkman, the headset of which is now askew, with one arm off his ear.As the Dude opens his eyes we spiral slowly upward to put him right side around. His head is now resting against hardwood floor, not rug. DUDE Oh man.He raises himself onto his elbows and massages the red lump on his jaw. The beeper on his belt is blinking red in sync with the continuing irritating beeps.WIDE ON THE ROOMAn end table is upset, but otherwise the furniture is in place. The rug is gone.The Dude looks around. The bowling sounds continue. The beeps continue.The phone starts to jangle.TRACKWe push Brandt down the familiar marble hallway. Again there is a distant aria. Brandt throws out a wrist to look at his watch. BRANDT They called about eighty minutes ago. They want you to take the money and drive north on the 4 5. They'll call you on the portable phone with instructions in about forty minutes. One person only or I'd go with you. They were very clear on that: one person only. What happened to your jaw? DUDE Oh, nothin', you know.They have reached the little desk outside of the big Lebowski's office; Brandt opens its bottom drawer with a key and takes out an attache case. He hands this to the Dude along with a cellular phone in a battery-pack carrying case. BRANDT Here's the money, and the phone. Please, Dude, follow whatever instructions they give. DUDE Uh-huh. BRANDT Her life is in your hands. DUDE Oh, man, don't say that.. BRANDT Mr. Lebowski asked me to repeat that: Her life is in your hands. DUDE Shit. BRANDT Her life is in your hands, Dude. And report back to us as soon as it's done.DUDE'S CARWe pan off the Dude, driving, to his point of view through the front windshield. The headlights play over Walter standing waiting in front of the storefront of SOBCHAK SECURITY. Though he is wearing khaki shorts and shirt, the fact that he holds a battered brown briefcase makes him look oddly like a commuter. He also holds an irregular shape bundled in brown wrapping paper.The car stops in front of him and he opens the Dude's door and hands in the briefcase. WALTER Take the ringer. I'll drive.The Dude takes the briefcase and slides over. DUDE The what? WALTER The ringer! The ringer, Dude! Have they called yet?The Dude opens the briefcase and paws bemusedly through it as the car starts rolling. DUDE What the hell is this? WALTER My dirty undies. Laundry, Dude. The whites. DUDE Agh--He closes the briefcase. DUDE Walter, I'm sure there's a reason you brought your dirty undies-- WALTER Thaaaat's right, Dude. The weight. The ringer can't look empty. DUDE Walter--what the fuck are you thinking? WALTER Well you're right, Dude, I got to thinking. I got to thinking why should we settle for a measly fucking twenty grand-- DUDE We? What the fuck we? You said you just wanted to come along-- WALTER My point, Dude, is why should we settle for twenty grand when we can keep the entire million. Am I wrong? DUDE Yes you're wrong. This isn't a fucking game, Walter-- WALTER It is a fucking game. You said so yourself, Dude--she kidnapped herself-- DUDE ' Yeah, but--The phone chirps. Dude grabs it. DUDE Dude here. VOICE (German accent) Who is this? DUDE Dude the Bagman. Where do you want us to go? VOICE ...Us? DUDEShit. . . Uh, yeah, you know, me and the driver. I'm not handling the money and driving the car and talking on the phone all by my fucking-- VOICE Shut the fuck up. (Beat) Hello? DUDE Yeah? VOICE Okay, listen--Walter looks over at the Dude and bellows: WALTER Dude, are you fucking this up? VOICE Who is that? DUDE The driver man, I told you--Click. Dial tone. DUDE Oh shit. Walter. WALTER What the fuck is going on there? DUDE They hung up, Walter! You fucked it up! You fucked it up! Her life was in our hands! WALTER Easy, Dude. DUDE We're screwed now! We don't get shit and they're gonna kill her! We're fucked, Walter! WALTER Dude, nothing is fucked. Come on. You're being very unDude. They'll call back. Look, she kidnapped her--The phone chirps. WALTER Ya see? Nothing is fucked up here, Dude. Nothing is fucked. These guys are fucking amateurs-- DUDE Shutup, Walter! Don't fucking say peep when I'm doing business here. WALTER (patronizing) Okay Dude. Have it your way.The Dude unclips the phone from the battery pack. WALTER But they're amateurs.The Dude glares at Walter. Into the phone: DUDE Dude here. VOICE Okay, vee proceed. But only if there is no funny stuff. DUDE Yeah. VOICE So no funny stuff. Okay? DUDE Hey, just tell me where the fuck you want us to go.A HIGHWAY SIGN: SIMI VALLEY ROADIt flashes by in the headlights of the roaring car. DUDE That was the sign.Walter wrestles the car onto the two-lane road. WALTER Yeah. So as long as we get her back, nobody's in a position to complain. And we keep the baksheesh. DUDE Terrific, Walter. But you haven't told me how we get her back. Where is she? WALTER That's the simple part, Dude. When we make the handoff, I grab the guy and beat it out of him.He looks at the Dude. WALTER ...Huh? DUDE Yeah. That's a great plan, Walter. That's fucking ingenious, if I understand it correctly. That's a Swiss fucking watch. WALTER Thaaat's right, Dude. The beauty of this is its simplicity. If the plan gets too complex something always goes wrong. If there's one thing I learned in Nam--The phone chirps. DUDE Dude. VOICE You are approaching a vooden britch. When you cross it you srow ze bag from ze left vindow of ze moving kar. Do not slow down. Vee vatch you.Click. Dial tone. DUDE FUCK. WALTER What'd he say? Where's the hand- off? DUDE There is no fucking hand-off, Walter! At a wooden bridge we throw the money out of the car! WALTER Huh? DUDE We throw the money out of the moving car!Walter stares dumbly for a beat. WALTER We can't do that, Dude. That fucks up our plan. DUDE Well call them up and explain it to 'em, Walter! Your plan is so fucking simple, I'm sure they'd fucking understand it! That's the beauty of it Walter! WALTER Wooden bridge, huh? DUDE I'm throwing the money, Walter! We're not fucking around! WALTER The bridge is coming up! Gimme the ringer, Dude! Chop-chop! DUDE Fuck that! I love you, Walter, but sooner or later you're gonna have to face the fact that you're a goddamn moron. WALTER Okay, Dude. No time to argue. Here's the bridge--There is the bump and new steady of the car on the bridge. The Dude is twisting around to pull the money briefcase from the back seat. Walter reaches one arm across Dude's body to grab the laundry.And there goes the ringer.He flings it out the window. DUDE Walter! WALTER Your wheel, Dude! I'm rolling out! DUDE What the fuck? WALTER Your wheel! At fifteen em-pee-aitch I roll out! I double back, grab one of 'em and beat it out of him! The uzi! DUDE Uzi?Walter points across the seat at the paper-wrapped bundle. WALTER You didn't think I was rolling out of here naked! DUDE Walter, please--Walter has flung open his door and is leaning halfway out over the road. WALTER Fifteen! This is it, Dude! Let's take that hill!Walter rolls out with his parcel, giving a loud grunt as he hits the pavement. The car swerves and lurches and the Dude, cursing, takes the wheel.OUTSIDEWalter tumbles onto the shoulder and--RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!--muzzle flashes tear open the wrapping paper.INSIDE THE CARThe car rocks and the Dude wrestles with the wheel.OUTSIDEThe car clunks and screams around in a skid.INSIDEThe Dude is thrown forward as the car hits something.OUTSIDEAs the Dude struggles out holding the satchel of money. The front of his car is crumpled into a tree. The car body saps back to the left, where the rear wheel has been shot out.WALTER is just rising from the ground massaging an injured knee.The Dude runs up the road toward the bridge, frantically waving the satchel in the air. DUDE WE HAVE IT! WE HAVE IT!!There is a distant engine roar. A motorcycle bumps up onto the road from the ravine under the bridge and, tires squealing, skids around to speed away in the opposite direction. It is closely followed by two more roaring motorcycles. DUDE WE HAVE IT!!. . . We have it!The Dude and Walter stand in the middle of the road, watching the three red tail lights fishtail away.AFTER A LONG STARING SILENCE: WALTER Ahh fuck it, let's go bowling.BOWLING LANEA ball rumbles in to scatter ten pins.WALTER.He turns from the lane to where the Dude sits in the nook of molded plastic chairs. The Dude listlessly holds the portable phone in his lap. It is ringing. WALTER Aitz chaim he, Dude. As the ex used to say. DUDE What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What the fuck're we gonna tell Lebowski? WALTER Huh? Oh, him, yeah. Well I don't see, um-- what exactly is the problem?The portable phone stops ringing. DUDE Huh? The problem is--what do you mean what's the--there's no--we didn't-- they're gonna kill that poor woman-- WALTER What the fuck're you talking about? That poor woman--that poor slut-- kidnapped herself, Dude. You said so yourself-- DUDE No, Walter! I said I thought she kidnapped herself! You're the one who's so fucking certain-- WALTER That's right, Dude, 1 % certain--Donny is trotting excitedly up. DONNY They posted the next round of the tournament-- WALTER Donny, shut the f--when do we play? DONNY This Saturday. Quintana and-- WALTER Saturday! Well they'll have to reschedule. DUDE Walter, what'm I gonna tell Lebowski? WALTER I told that fuck down at the league office-- who's in charge of scheduling? DUDE Walter-- DONNY Burkhalter. WALTER I told that kraut a fucking thousand times I don't roll on shabbas. DONNY It's already posted. WALTER WELL THEY CAN FUCKING UN-POST IT! DUDE Who gives a shit, Walter? What about that poor woman? What do we tell-- WALTER C'mon Dude, eventually she'll get sick of her little game and, you know, wander back-- DONNY How come you don't roll on Saturday, Walter? WALTER I'm shomer shabbas. DONNY What's that, Walter? DUDE Yeah, and in the meantime what do I tell Lebowski? WALTER Saturday is shabbas. Jewish day of rest. Means I don't work, I don't drive a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't handle money, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don't fucking roll! DONNY Sheesh. DUDE Walter, how-- WALTER Shomer shabbas.The Dude gets to his feet with the portable phone. DUDE That's it. I'm out of here. WALTER For Christ's sake, Dude.Walter and Donny join the Dude as he walks out of the bowling alley.Hell, you just tell him--well, you tell him, uh, we made the hand-off, everything went, uh, you know-- DONNY Oh yeah, how'd it go? WALTER Went alright. Dude's car got a little dinged up-- DUDE But Walter, we didn't make the fucking hand- off! They didn't get, the fucking money and they're gonna-- they're gonna-- WALTER Yeah yeah, "kill that poor woman."He waves both arms as if conducting a symphony orchestra. WALTER Kill that poor woman. DONNY Walter, if you can't ride in a car, how d'you get around on Shammas-- WALTER Really, Dude, you surprise me. They're not gonna kill shit. They're not gonna do shit. What can they do? Fuckin' amateurs. And meanwhile, look at the bottom line. Who's sitting on a million fucking dollars? Am I wrong? DUDE Walter-- WALTER Who's got a fucking million fucking dollars parked in the trunk of our car out here? DUDE "Our" car, Walter? WALTER And what do they got, Dude? My dirty undies. My fucking whites--Say, where is the car?The three bowlers, stopped at the edge of the lot, stare out at an empty parking space. DONNY Who has your undies, Walter? WALTER Where's your car, Dude? DUDE You don't know, Walter? You seem to know the answer to everything else! WALTER Hmm. Well, we were in a handicapped spot. It, uh, it was probably towed. DUDE It's been stolen, Walter! You fucking know it's been stolen! WALTER Well, certainly that's a possibility, Dude-- DUDE Aw, fuck it.The Dude walks away across the lot. The portable phone starts ringing again. DONNY Where you going, Dude? DUDE I'm going home, Donny. DONNY Your phone's ringing, Dude. DUDE Thank you, Donny.DUDE'S LIVING ROOMThe Dude is slumped disconsolately back in his easy chair, fingers of one hand cupped over his sunglasses. Facing him on the couch are two uniformed policeman, one middle-aged, the other a fresh-faced rookie.At the cut the portable phone, in the Dude's lap, is chirping. The Dude waits for the rings to end. When they do: DUDE 1972 Pontiac LeBaron. YOUNGER COP Color? DUDE Green. Some brown, or, uh, rust, coloration. YOUNGER COP And was there anything of value in the car?DULLY: DUDE Huh? Oh. Yeah. Tape deck. Couple of Creedence tapes. And there was a, uh. . . my briefcase. YOUNGER COP In the briefcase? DUDE Papers. Just papers. You know, my papers. Business papers. YOUNGER COP And what do you do, sir? DUDE I'm unemployed. OLDER COP ...Most people, we're working nights, they offer us coffee.There is silence. Dude continues to stare at a spot on the floor. The older cop stares at him. DUDE ...Me, I don't drink coffee. But it's nice when they offer.AT LENGTH: DUDE ...Also, my rug was stolen. YOUNGER COP Your rug was in the car.The Dude taps the floor with his foot. DUDE No. Here. YOUNGER COP Separate incidents?The Dude stares at the floor.Silence. OLDER COP Snap out of it, son.The home phone starts ringing--a ring distinct from the chirp of the portable. The Dude makes no move to answer it. Finally the rings stop as an answering machine kicks on. DUDE You find them much? Stolen cars?Dude's Voice on Machine The Dude's not in. Leave a message after the beep. It takes a minute. YOUNGER COP Sometimes. I wouldn't hold out much hope for the tape deck though. Or the Creedence tapes. DUDE And the, uh, the briefcase?Beep. FEMALE VOICE ON MACHINE Mr. Lebowski, I'd like to see you. Call when you get home and I'll send a car for you. My name is Maude Lebowski. I'm the woman who took the rug.Beep. Dial tone. OLDER COP Well, I guess we can close the file on that one.TRACKING FORWARDWe are moving through the open living area of a large downtown L.A. loft. A huge unfinished canvas, lit by standing industrial lights, dominates one wall. The furnishings are spare given the space. On the floor is the Dude's brilliant rug.We hear a rumble like an approaching bowling ball. The Dude, standing in the middle of the loft, looks into the murky depths of the cavernous space.Something huge and white hurtles towards the Dude's head. As it roars overhead he ducks, and spins to watch it pass.We see the backside of a naked woman in a sling suspended from a ceiling track rumbling over a canvas that lies on the floor. She is holding a paint bucket in one hand and a brush in the other, with which she flicks paint down at the canvas.The Dude turns again as he hears running footsteps. Two young men in paint-spattered shorts, T-shirts and sneakers reach the sling shortly after it reaches the end of its track and haul it back for another push. VOICE I'll be with you in a minute, Mr. Lebowski.She rumbles by in another pass.All right, we'll do the blue tomorrow. Elfranco. Pedro. Help me down.The two men help Maude out of her sling. She is naked except for leather harness straps which ring her breasts and wrap her thighs and give her something of a dominatrix look.Does the female form make you uncomfor- table, Mr. Lebowski? DUDE Is that what that's a picture of? MAUDE In a sense, yes. Elfranco, my robe. My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal. Which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina. DUDE Oh yeah? MAUDE Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say. Whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his "dick" or his "rod" or his "Johnson". DUDE "Johnson"? MAUDE Thank you.This to Elfranco, who has handed her a robe.All right, Mr. Lebowski, let's get down to cases. My father told me he's agreed to let you have the rug, but it was a gift from me to my late mother, and so was not his to give. Now. As for this. . . "kidnapping"-- DUDE Huh? MAUDE Yes, I know about it. And I know that you acted as courier. And let me tell you something: the whole thing stinks to high heaven. DUDE Right, but let me explain something about that rug-- MAUDE Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski? DUDE Excuse me? MAUDE Sex. The physical act of love. Coitus. Do you like it? DUDE I was talking about my rug. MAUDE You're not interested in sex? DUDE You mean coitus? MAUDE I like it too. It's a male myth about feminists that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise. But unfortunately there are some people--it is called satyriasis in men, nymphomania in women--who engage in it compulsively and without joy. DUDE Oh, no. MAUDE Yes Mr. Lebowski, these unfortunate souls cannot love in the true sense of the word. Our mutual acquaintance Bunny is one of these. DUDE Listen, Maude, I'm sorry if your stepmother is a nympho, but I don't see what it has to do with--do you have any kalhua? MAUDE Take a look at this, sir.She is aiming a remote at a projection TV. The screen flickers to life. A title card:JACKIE TREEHORN PRESENTSSECOND CARD:KARL HUNGUSANDBUNNY LAJOYAINA THIRD CARD:LOGJAMMIN'The Dude is at the bar, a bottle of kalhua frozen halfway to his glass.From the television set we hear a doorbell ring, and then a door opening.On the TV screen the door opens to reveal a sallow-faced man in blue coyer-alls. It is Dieter, the floater in Lebowski's pool. DIETER Hello. Nein dizbatcher says zere iss problem mit deine kable. DUDE Shit, I know that guy. He's a nihilist. MAUDE And you recognize her, of course.The girl answering the door is Bunny Lebowski.Bunny The TV is in here. DIETER Za, okay, I bring mein toolz.Bunny This is my friend Shari. She just came over to use the shower. MAUDE (grimly) The story is ludicrous. DIETER Mein nommen iss Karl. Is hard to verk in zese clozes--Maude switches off the set. MAUDE Lord. You can imagine where it goes from here. DUDE He fixes the cable? MAUDE Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey. Little matter to me that this woman chose to pursue a careerin pornography, nor that she has been "banging" Jackie Treehorn, to use the parlance of our times. However. I am one of two trustees of the Lebowski Foundation, the other being my father. The Foundation takes youngsters from Watts and-- DUDE Shit yeah, the achievers. MAUDE Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, yes, and proud we are of all of them. I asked my father about his withdrawal of a million dollars from the Foundation account and he told me about this "abduction", but I tell you it is preposterous. This compulsivefornicator is taking my father for the proverbial ride. DUDE Yeah, but my- MAUDE I'm getting to your rug. My father and I don't get along; he doesn't approve of my lifestyle and, needless to say, I don't approve of his. Still, I hardly wish to make my father's embezzlement a police matter, so I'm proposing that you try to recover the money from the people you delivered it to. DUDE Well--sure, I could do that-- MAUDE If you successfully do so, I will compensate you to the tune of 1% of the recovered sum. DUDE A hundred. MAUDE Thousand, yes, bones or clams or whatever you call them. DUDE Yeah, but what about-- MAUDE --your rug, yes, well with that money you can buy any number of rugs that don't have sentimental value for me. And I am sorry about that crack on the jaw.The Dude fingers his jaw, where the lump from the sap has all but disappeared. DUDE Oh that's okay, I hardly even-- MAUDE Here's the name and number of a doctor who will look at it for you. You will receive no bill. He's a good man, and thorough. DUDE That's really thoughtful but I-- MAUDE Please see him, Jeffrey. He's a good man, and thorough.LIMOThe Dude sits in back holding a White Russian, listening to the chauffeur, a man of about the same age from whose livery cap a ponytail emerges. DRIVER --So he says, "My son can't hold a job, my daughter's married to a fuckin' loser, and I got a rash on my ass so bad I can't hardly siddown. But you know me. I can't complain."THROUGH RASPING LAUGHTER: DUDE Fuckin' A, man. I got a rash. Fuckin' A, man. I gotta tell ya Tony.He takes a sip of a freshly-mixed White Russian, which leaves milk on his mustache.I was feeling really shitty earlier in the day, I'd lost a little money, I was down in the dumps. TONY Aw, forget about it. DUDE Yeah, man! Fuck it! I can't be worrying about that shit. Life goes on!The limo has rolled to a stop. The Dude gets out, still holding his drink. TONY Home sweet home, Mr. L. Who's your friend in the Volkswagon? DUDE Huh?His eyes on the rearview mirror, Tony jerks a thumb over his shoulder.He followed us here.The Dude turns to look.HIS POVHalfway up the block a Volkswagon bug has pulled over to the curb. In the driver's seat we see a fat man's shape.THE DUDEHe scowls. DUDE When did he-The Dude is grabbed from behind and muscled away in a half-nelson by another uniformed chauffeur. SECOND CHAUFFEUR Into the limo, you sonofabitch. No arguments.As he is frog-marched towards another limo the Dude holds his drink away from his chest and cups a hand underneath it. DUDE Fuck, man! There's a beverage here!The waiting limo's back door is flung open.INSIDEThe Dude is shoved in and awkwardly takes a seat facing the rear. The door is slammed behind him. LEBOWSKI Start talking and talk fast you lousy bum! BRANDT We've been frantically trying to reach you, Dude.Brandt sits catty-corner from the Dude; directly across from the Dude is the big Lebowski, a comforter across his knees. LEBOWSKI Where's my goddamn money, you bum?! DUDE Well we--I don't-- LEBOWSKI They did not receive the money, you nitwit! They did not receive the goddamn money. HER LIFE WAS IN YOUR HANDS! BRANDT This is our concern, Dude. DUDE No, man, nothing is fucked here-- LEBOWSKI NOTHING IS FUCKED! THE GODDAMN PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE MOUNTAIN!The Dude takes a hurried sip from his drink. DUDE C'mon man, who're you gonna believe? Those guys are--we dropped off the damn money-- LEBOWSKI WHAT?! DUDE I--the royal we, you know, the editorial--I dropped off the money, exactly as per--Look, I've got certain information, certain things have come to light, and uh, has it ever occurred to you, man, that given the nature of all this new shit, that, uh, instead of running around blaming me, that this whole thing might just be, not, you know, not just such a simple, but uh--you know? LEBOWSKI What in God's holy name are you blathering about? DUDE I'll tell you what I'm blathering about! I got information--new shit has come to light and--shit, man! She kidnapped herself!Lebowski stares at him, dumbstruck. The Dude is encouraged. DUDE Well sure, look at it! Young trophy wife, I mean, in the parlance of our times, owes money all over town, including to known pornographers-- and that's cool, that's cool-- but I'm saying, she needs money, and of course they're gonna say they didn't get it 'cause she wants more, man, she's gotta feed the monkey, I mean-- hasn't that ever occurred to you...? Sir? LEBOWSKI (quietly) No. No Mr. Lebowski, that had not occurred to me. BRANDT That had not occurred to us, Dude. DUDE Well, okay, you're not privy to all the new shit, so uh, you know, but that's what you pay me for. Speaking of which, would it be possible for me to get my twenty grand in cash? I gotta check this with my accountant of course, but my concern is that, you know, it could bump me into a higher tax-- LEBOWSKI Brandt, give him the envelope. DUDE Well, okay, if you've already made out the check. Brandt is handing him a letter-sized envelope which is distended by something inside. BRANDT We received it this morning.The Dude, frowning, untucks its flap, takes out some cotton wadding and unrolls it. LEBOWSKI Since you have failed to achieve, even in the modest task that was your charge, since you have stolen my money, and since you have unrepentantly betrayed my trust.The wadding, undone, reveals a smaller wad of gauze taped up inside. The Dude undoes the tape with his fingernails and starts to unroll the inner package. LEBOWSKI I have no choice but to tell these bums that they should do whatever is necessary to recover their money from you, Jeffrey Lebowski. And with Brandt as my witness, tell you this: Any further harm visited upon Bunny, shall be visited tenfold upon your head.Between thumb and forefinger the Dude holds up the contents of the package--a little toe, with emerald green nail polish. LEBOWSKI ...By God sir. I will not abide another toe.COFFEE SHOPThe Dude and Walter sit at the counter, both staring off into space, both absently stirring their coffee with little clinking noises.AFTER A LONG BEAT: WALTER That wasn't her toe. DUDE Whose toe was it, Walter? WALTER How the fuck should I know? I do know that nothing about it indicates-- DUDE The nail polish, Walter. WALTER Fine, Dude. As if it's impossible to get some nail polish, apply it to someone else's toe-- DUDE Someone else's--where the fuck are they gonna-- WALTER You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. DUDE But Walter-- WALTER I'll get you a toe by this afternoon--with nail polish. These fucking amateurs. They send us a toe, we're supposed to shit our- selves with fear. Jesus Christ. My point is-- DUDE They're gonna kill her, Walter, and then they're gonna kill me-- WALTER Well that's just, that's the stress talking, Dude. So far we have what looks to me like a series of victimless crimes-- DUDE What about the toe? WALTER FORGET ABOUT THE FUCKING TOE!A waitress enters. WAITRESS Could you please keep your voices down--this is a family restaurant. WALTER Oh, please dear! I've got news for you: the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint! DUDE Walter, this isn't a First Amendment thing. WAITRESS Sir, if you don't calm down I'm going to have to ask you to leave. WALTER Lady, I got buddies who died face- down in the muck so you and I could enjoy this family restaurant!THE DUDE GETS UP: DUDE All right, I'm leaving. I'm sorry ma'am. WALTER Don't run away from this, Dude! Goddamnit, this affects all of us!The Dude has left frame; Walter calls after him: WALTER Our basic freedoms!He looks defiantly around. WALTER I'm staying. Finishing my coffee.He stirs the coffee, bopping his head in time to the Muzak, affecting nonchalance. WALTER Finishing my coffee.DUDE'S BATHROOMA dripping noise.The Dude sits in the bathtub, staring stuporously, a joint pinched in one hand, a washcloth draped over his head.We hear the phone ringing in the other roam.The Dude is staring at his toes, which protrude from the soapy water, splayed against the far side of the tub.After the Dude's outgoing message we hear: VOICE THROUGH MACHINE Mr. Lebowski, this is Duty Officer Rolvaag of the L.A.P.D.The Dude looks stuporously up, his head swaying. VOICE THROUGH MACHINE We've recovered your vehicle. It can be claimed at the North Hollywood Auto Circus there on Victory. DUDE Far out. Far fuckin' out. MESSAGE You'll just need to present a--The message is interrupted by loud smashing sounds, as of someone applying a baseball bat to the answering machine. DUDE Hunh?He looks blearily at the open doorway.A tall man dressed in black leather with a cricket paddle is striding across the living room towards the bathroom. DUDE Hey! This is a private residence, man!The man has entered the bathroom and, in stride, swings the cricket paddle up to smash the overhead light. Two other men are entering behind him.The room is dark now except for spill from the living room; the men are backlit shapes.One of them holds a string at the other end of which a small animal skitters excitedly about the floor.The Dude looks curiously at the small, nattering animal. DUDE Nice marmot.The man with the string scoops up the marmot and tosses it, screaming, into the bathtub.The Dude screams.The marmot splashes frantically, biting at the Dude in a frenzy of fearful aggression. FIRST MAN Vee vant zat money, Lebowski.The Dude, screaming, grabs the lip of the tub and starts to hoist himself up but the first man lays a palm on top of his head and squishes him back into the water. SECOND MAN You think veer kidding und making mit de funny stuff? THIRD MAN Vee could do things you only dreamed of, Lebowski. SECOND MAN Ja, vee could really do it, Lebowski. Vee belief in nossing.He scoops the marmot out of the water. It shakes itself off, spraying the Dude. DUDE Jesus! DIETER Vee belief in nossing, Lebowski! NOSSING!!The marmot, back on the floor, is skittering around, shaking itself and convulsing in little sneezes. DUDE Jesus Christ! FIRST MAN Tomorrow vee come back und cut off your chonson. DUDE Excuse me? FIRST MAN I SAY VEE CUT OFF YOUR CHONSON!The three men turn to leave. Over their retreating backs: SECOND MAN Just sink about zat, Lebowski. FIRST MAN Ja, your viggly penis, Lebowski. SECOND MAN Ja, und maybe vee stamp on it und skvush it, Lebowski!NORTH HOLLYWOOD AUTO CIRCUSA policeman with a clipboard is leading the Dude through a large parking lot. POLICEMAN You're lucky she wasn't chopped, Mr. Lebowski. Must've been a joyride situation; they abandoned the car once they hit the retaining wall.They have reached the Dude's car. The driver's side exterior has been scraped raw. The policeman hands the Dude a door handle and an exterior rear-view mirror. POLICEMAN These were on the road next to the car. You'll have to get in on the other side.The Dude climbs in the passenger side. DUDE My fucking briefcase! It's not here! POLICEMAN Yeah, sorry, I saw that on the report. You're lucky they left the tape deck though. DUDE My fucking briefcase! Jesus--what's that smell? POLICEMAN Uh, yeah. Probably a vagrant, slept in the car. Or perhaps just used it as a toilet, and moved on.The Dude tries to roll down the driver's window but it will not go; he bellows through the glass: DUDE When will you find these guys? I mean, do you have any promising leads?The policeman laughs, agreeing broadly. POLICEMAN Leads, yeah. I'll just check with the boys down at the Crime Lab. They've assigned four more detectives to the case, got us working in shifts.The Dude looks sadly through his window at the policeman rocking back on his heels, his raucous laughter muffled by the glass.BOWLING ALLEY BARThe Dude, Walter and Donny sit at the bar, the Dude with a White Russian, Walter with a beer, and Donny eating beer nuts. DONNY And then they're gonna stamp on it?! WALTER Oh for Christ--will you shut the fuck up, Donny. DUDE I figure my only hope is that the big Lebowski kills me before the Germans can cut my dick off. WALTER Now that is ridiculous, Dude. No one is going to cut your dick off. DUDE Thanks Walter. WALTER Not if I have anything to say about it. DUDE (bitterly) Yeah, thanks Walter. That gives me a very secure feeling. WALTER Dude-- DUDE That makes me feel all warm inside. WALTER Now Dude-- DUDE This whole fucking thing--I could be sitting here with just pee-stains on my rug.Walter sadly shakes his head. WALTER Fucking Germans. Nothing changes. Fucking Nazis. DONNY They were Nazis, Dude? WALTER Come on, Donny, they were threatening castration! DONNY Uh-huh. WALTER Are you gonna split hairs? DONNY No-- WALTER Am I wrong? DONNY Well-- DUDE They're nihilists. WALTER Huh? DUDE They kept saying they believe in nothing. WALTER Nihilists! Jesus.Walter looks haunted.Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos. DUDE Yeah. WALTER And let's also not forget--let's not forget, Dude--that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city-- that isn't legal either. DUDE What're you, a fucking park ranger now? WALTER No, I'm-- DUDE Who gives a shit about the fucking marmot! WALTER --We're sympathizing here, Dude-- DUDE Fuck your sympathy! I don't need your sympathy, man, I need my fucking Johnson! DONNY What do you need that for, Dude? WALTER You gotta buck up, man, you can't go into the tournament with this negative attitude-- DUDE Fuck the tournament! Fuck you, Walter!There is a moment of stunned silence. WALTER Fuck the tournament?!SAD; QUIET: WALTER Okay Dude. I can see you don't want to be cheered up. C'mon Donny, let's go get a lane.They leave the Dude sitting morosely at the bar. As he staresDOWN INTO HIS EMPTY GLASS: DUDE Another Caucasian, Gary. VOICE Right, Dude.STILL STARING DOWN AT THE BAR: DUDE Friends like these, huh Gary. GARY That's right, Dude.The pop song on the jukebox has ended; someone puts on "Tumbling Tumbleweeds."A man saunters up to the bar to take the stool that Walter vacated. He is middle-aged, amiable, craggily handsome--Sam Elliot, perhaps. He has a large Western-style mustache and wears denims, a yoked shirt and a cowboy hat.TO THE BARTENDER: MAN D'ya have a good sarsaparilla?We recognize the voice of The Stranger whose narration opened the movie. BARTENDER Sioux City Sarsaparilla.The Stranger nods. THE STRANGER That's a good one.Waiting for his drink, he looks amiably around the bar. His crinkled eyes settle on the Dude. THE STRANGER How ya doin' there, Dude?The Dude, still staring down at his drink, shakes his head. DUDE Ahh, not so good, man. THE STRANGER One a those days, huh. Wal, a wiser fella than m'self once said, sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar, wal, he eats you. DUDE (absently) Uh-huh. That some kind of Eastern thing? THE STRANGER Far from it. DUDE Mm.The bartender puts a brown bottle and a frosted glass on the bar in front of The Stranger, who touches his hat brim. THE STRANGER Much obliged.He looks back at the Dude. THE STRANGER I like your style, Dude.THE DUDE LOOKS UP, ABSENTLY: DUDE Well I like your style too, man. Got a whole cowboy thing goin'. THE STRANGER Thankie. . . Just one thing, Dude. D'ya have to use s'many cuss words?The Dude looks at The Stranger as if just now noticing how out of place the cowpoke is. DUDE The fuck are you talking about?The Stranger chuckles indulgently and pushes off from the bar. THE STRANGER Okay, have it your way.He brushes his hat brim with a fingertip. THE STRANGER Take it easy, Dude. DUDE Yeah. Thanks man.He is gone. "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" is ending as we hear an offscreen voice, breaking the spell: VOICE Dude! Dude!THE DUDE LOOKS:Tony, the unformed limo driver, is at the door of the bar, beckoning.MAUDE'S LOFTShe strides toward us, naked under a robe which she is just cinching shut. Paint flecks her skin. MAUDE Jeffrey, you haven't gone to the doctor. DUDE No it's fine, really, uh-- MAUDE Do you have any news regarding my father's money? DUDE I, uh... money, yeah, I gotta respecfully, 69 you know, tender my resignation on that matter, 'cause it looks like your mother really was kidnapped after all. MAUDE She most certainly was not! DUDE Hey man, why don't you fucking listen occasionally? You might learn something. Now I got-- MAUDE And please don't call her my mother. DUDE Now I got-- MAUDE She is most definitely the perpetrator and not the victim. DUDE I'm telling you, I got definitive evidence-- MAUDE From who? DUDE The main guy, Dieter-- MAUDE Dieter Hauff? DUDE Well--yeah, I guess-- MAUDE Her "co-star" in the beaver picture? DUDE Beaver? You mean vagina?--I mean, you know him? MAUDE Dieter has been on the fringes of-- well, of everything in L.A., for about twenty years. Look at my LP's. Under 'Autobahn.'The Dude fingers through the albums filling one bookshelf. MAUDE That was his group--they released one album in the mid-seventies.The Dude stops between two albums. DUDE Roy Orbison. . . Pink Floyd. MAUDE Huh? Autobahn. A-u-t-o. Their music is a sort of--ugh--techno-pop.The Dude pulls out an album with a worn sleeve. On it is the group's name, Autobahn, the album name, Nagelbett, and a pictureOF THREE YOUNG GERMANS, THEIR FOREHEADS LOOMING BELOW SLICKED-back hair, gazing upward in thin-lipped epiphany. They are wearing severe but modishly retro suits. Each has his name under his picture--Dieter, Kieffer; and Franz. A bed of nails is the only set dressing on the cyc. DUDE Jeez. I miss vinyl. MAUDE Is he pretending to be the abductor? DUDE Well...yeah-- MAUDE Look, Jeffrey, you don't really kidnap someone that you're acquainted with. You can't get away with it if the hostage knows who you are. DUDE Well yeah...I know that. MAUDE So Dieter has the money? DUDE Well, no, not exactly. It's a complicated case, Maude. Lotta ins. Lotta outs. And a lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's-- MAUDE Do you still have that doctor's number? DUDE Huh? No, really, I don't even have the bruise any more, I--She is scribbling. MAUDE Please Jeffrey. I don't want to be responsible for any delayed after- effects. DUDE Delayed after-eff-- MAUDE I want you to see him immediately.She is picking up a telephone. MAUDE I'll see if he's available. He's a good man, and thorough.CLOSE SHOT THE DUDEHis eyes are closed, a headset on, his shirt off. Leaking tinnily through the headset we hear the opening bars of "Comin' Up Around the Bend."Behind him, cropped so that we see only a little of his torso, a white-smocked figure taps at the Dude's back. After a moment the figure circles to one side, out of frame. His hand reaches in to pull one arm of the headset away from the Dude's ear, and as he does so the music issues more strongly. VOICE Could you slide your shorts down please, Mr. Lebowski?The Dude's eyes open. DUDE Huh? No, she, she hit me right here. VOICE I understand sir. Could you slide your shorts down please?DUDE'S CARThe Dude is driving home. A Creedence tape plays. The Dude is sucking down a joint. He glances at the rear-view mirror--and, noticing something, looks again.HIS POVA Volkswagon bug is following, a lone fat man driving.THE DUDEHis eyes still on the mirror, he absently takes the joint between thumb and forefinger of his right hand and flicks it out the driver's window--except that the window is not open. The butt bounces off the glass and around the car, showering sparks.DUDE'S CROTCHThe glowing butt rolls down the car seat between his legs. The Dude screams.THE STREETThe car careens wildly as the surrounding traffic veers off to, make way, horns blaring. The car finally spins and comes to rest with its passenger side wrapped into a telephone poll.INSIDE THE CARThe Dude frantically grabs at his door, which won't open, and then slides over to push at the passenger door, which also won't open. DUDE Fuck Me.But he is sitting on the passenger side now, away from the lit butt. He looks around for it.Smoke is wisping up from between the Driver's seat cushion and back cushion. DUDE Fuckola, man.He takes his beer and pours it in between the cushions. There is a hissing sound. But there is a piece of paper sticking out from between the cushions.The Dude pulls it out.It is lined spiral notebook paper, slightly singed and dripping beer, covered with handwriting. In the upper right-hand corner is the name Lawrence Sellers, and under that, Mrs. Jamtoss 5th Period. The theme is titled "The Louisiana Purchase." In red ink is a large circled D and some handwritten marginal comments; misspelled words are circled in red throughout.CRANE JACKSON'S FOUNTAIN STREET THEATERWe are behind Walter, the Dude, and Donny, facing the stage in the background where Allan, the Dude's balding landlord, is performing a dance moderne.As Walter talks to the Dude he leans in to him, his voice hushed, so as not to disturb the rest of the very sparse audience. WALTER He lives in North Hollywood on Radford, near the In-and-Out Burger-- DUDE The In-and-Out Burger is on Camrose. WALTER Near the In-and-Out Burger-- DONNY Those are good burgers, Walter. WALTER Shut the fuck up, Donny. This kid is in the ninth grade, Dude, and his father is--are you ready for this?-- Arthur Digby Sellers. DUDE Who the fuck is that? WALTER Huh? DUDE Who the fuck is Arthur Digby Sellers? WALTER Who the f--have you ever heard of a little show called Branded, Dude? DUDE Yeah. WALTER All but one man died? There at Bitter Creek? DUDE Yeah yeah, I know the fucking show Walter, so what? WALTER Fucking Arthur Digby Sellers wrote 156 episodes, Dude. DUDE Uh-huh. WALTER The bulk of the series. DUDE Uh-huh. WALTER Not exactly a lightweight. DUDE No. WALTER And yet his son is a fucking dunce. DUDE Uh. WALTER Yeah, go figure. Well we'll go out there after the, uh, the.He waves a hand vaguely toward the stage. WALTER What have you. We'll, uh-- DONNY We'll be near the In-and-Out Burger. WALTER Shut the fuck up, Donny. We'll, uh, brace the kid--he'll be a pushover. We'll get that fucking money, if he hasn't spent it already. Million fucking clams. And yes, we'll be near the, uh--some burgers, some beers, a few laughs. Our fucking troubles are over, Dude.RESIDENTIAL AREAThe Dude and Walter are pulling up in front of a dilapidated house sitting on a scrubby lot. Parked incongruously in front of the house is a brand new red Corvette. DUDE Fuck me, man! That kid's already spent all the money! WALTER Hardly Dude, a new 'vette? The kid's still got, oh, 96 to 97 thousand, depending on the options. Wait in the car, Donny.THE FRONT DOORWalter rings the bell. It is opened by a matronly Spanish woman. WOMAN Jace? WALTER Hello, Pilar? My name is Walter Sobchak, we spoke on the phone, this is my associate Jeffrey Lebowski. WOMAN Jace. WALTER May we uh, we wanted to talk about little Larry. May we come in? WOMAN Jace.They enter a dim living room and stand, looking about, as PilarCALLS UP THE STAIRS: PILAR Larry! Sweetie! Dat mang is here!There is a rhythmic compressor sound; Walter places it and nudges the Dude. At the other end of the living room a man lies on something that looks like a hospital gurney with its midsection enclosed by a motorized stainless-steel bubble. It is an iron lung, artificially breathing with distinct hisses in and out. WALTER That's him, Dude. VIVA VOCE And a good day to you, sir. PILAR See down, please. WALTER Thank you, ma'am.He and the Dude sit on a sagging green sofa. In a lowered voice, to Pilar: WALTER Does he, uh. . . Is he still writing? PILAR No, no. He has healt' problems. WALTER Uh-huh.HE BELLOWS ACROSS THE ROOM: WALTER I just want to say, sir, that we're both enormous--on a personal level, Branded, especially the early episodes, has been a source of, uh, inspir---There are footsteps on the stairs. Larry, a fifteen-year-old, looks at the two men. PILAR See down, Sweetie. These are the policeman-- WALTER No ma'am, I didn't mean to give the impression that we're police exactly. We're hoping that it will not be necessary to call the police.He adopts his command voice in turning to Larry: WALTER But that is up to little Larry here. Isn't it, Larry?Walter pops the latches on his attache case and takes out the homework, which is now in a ziploc bag. He holds it out at arm's length, displaying it to Larry. WALTER Is this your homework, Larry?Larry does not respond. WALTER Is this your homework, Larry? DUDE Look, man, did you-- WALTER Dude, please!. . . Is this your homework, Larry? DUDE Just ask him if he--ask him about the car, man!Walter is still holding out the homework. WALTER Is this yours, Larry? Is this your homework, Larry? DUDE Is the car out front yours? WALTER Is this your homework, Larry? DUDE We know it's his fucking homework, Walter! Where's the fucking money, you little brat?Throughout Walter has been staring at Larry with the homework extended towards him. WALTER Look, Larry. . . Have you ever heard of Vietnam? DUDE Oh, for Christ's sake, Walter! WALTER You're going to enter a world of pain, son. We know that this is your homework. We know you stole a car-- DUDE And the fucking money! WALTER And the fucking money. And we know that this is your homework, Larry.No answer. WALTER You're gonna KILL your FATHER, Larry!.FINALLY, IN DISGUST: WALTER Ah, this is pointless.As he shoves the homework back in the attache case: WALTER All right, Plan B. You might want to watch out the front window there, Larry.He is heading for the door. The Dude, puzzled, rises to follow him. WALTER This is what happens when you FUCK a STRANGER in the ASS, Larry.OUTSIDEWalter is striding down the lawn with his attache case like an enraged encyclopedia salesman. Without looking back at, the Dude, who follows: WALTER Fucking language problem, Dude.He pops the Dude's trunk, flings in the briefcase and takes out a tire iron. WALTER Maybe he'll understand this.He is walking over to the Corvette. WALTER YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY!CRASH! He swings the crowbar into the windshield, which shatters. WALTER YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS?!CRASH! He takes out the driver's window. WALTER THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!Lights are going on in houses down the street. Distant dogs bark. WALTER HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY!CRASH! WALTER HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS! FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!CRASH!A man in a sleeveless T-shirt and boxer shorts has run over behind Walter and grabbed him from behind on a backswing of the crowbar. MAN WHAT THE FUCK JOO DOING, MANG?!He wrestles the crowbar away from the startled Walter. MAN I JUS' BAWDEEZ FUCKEEN CAR LASS WEEK!Walter cringes before the enraged Mexican. WALTER Hunh?The man looks about, wildly. MAN I KILL JOO, MANG! I--I KILL JOR FUCKEEN CAR!He runs over to the Dude's car. DUDE No! No! NO! THAT'S NOT--CRASH! CRASH! MAN I FUCKEEN KILL JOR FUCKEEN CAR!CRASH! MAN I KILL JOR FUCKEEN CAR!INSIDE THE CARGlass rains in on a terrified, cringing, Donny. MAN I KILL JOR FUCKEEN CAR! ON A DEAFENING CRASH WE CUT TO:THE DUDE'S CARWe are looking into the car through the broken windshield as it rattles down the freeway. Wind whistles through the caved-in windows.The Dude drives, his jaw clenched, staring grimly out at theroad. Walter, beside him, and Donny in the back seat, munch 'on In-and-Out Burgers.Creedence music plays above the bluster of wind.DUDE'S BUNGALOWAs the Dude talks on the phone he is hammering a two-by-four into the floor just inside, and parallel to, the front door. DUDE I accept your apology. . . No I, I just want to handle it myself from now on. . . No. That has nothing to do with it. . . .Yes, it made it home, I'm calling from home. No, Walter, it didn't look like Larry was about to crack.He finishes hammering, rises and grabs a straightbacked chair that stands nearby. DUDE Well that's your perception. . . Well you're right, Walter, and the unspoken Message is FUCK YOU AND LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. . . Yeah, I'll be at practice.He hangs up and has just finished sliding the chair into place with its top under the doorknob and its legs braced against the two-by-four, thus wedging the door closed, when the door is opened--outwards. The chair clatters to the floor. DUDE Huh?Woo and the blond man who earlier peed on the rug stride in, kicking the chair away. WOO Pin your diapers on, Lebowski. Jackie Treehorn wants to see you. BLOND MAN And we know which Lebowski you are, Lebowski. WOO Yeah. Jackie Treehorn wants to talk to the deadbeat Lebowski. BLOND MAN You're not dealing with morons here.BLACKNESSOut of the blackness something is falling toward us. It is a woman, falling in slow motion, her limbs flailing, her mouth contorted by either fear or ecstasy. She is topless. She falls past the camera, leaving blackness, then after a beat reappears, rising into the night sky.MALIBU BEACHA crowd of mostly tanned middle-aged men with blow-dried hair, wearing jogging outfits and other expensively casual attire, are blanket-tossing the squealing young woman in nightmarish slow motion.WIDERIt is a party, lit by festive beach lights and standing kerosene heaters. 1960's mainstream jazz, of the Mancini-Brubeck school, has been piped down to speakers on the beach'.In long shot now the woman rises, squealing, disappears into darkness, descends into light, rises again.A man walks towards the camera through the pools of beach light. He is handsome, fiftyish, wearing cotton twill pants and a Turnbull & Asher shirt with a foulard knotted at the neck. Behind him, the woman rises and falls, appears and disappears. MAN Hello Dude, thanks for coming. I'm Jackie Treehorn.INSIDE THE BEACH HOUSEThe Dude is looking around at the '60's modern decor. DUDE This is quite a pad you got here, man. Completely unspoiled. TREEHORN What's your drink, Dude? DUDE White Russian, thanks. How's the smut business, Jackie? TREEHORN I wouldn't know, Dude. I deal in publishing, entertainment, political advocacy, and-- DUDE Which one was Logjammin'? TREEHORN Regrettably, it's true, standards have fallen in adult entertainment. It's video, Dude. Now that we're competing with the amateurs, we can't afford to invest that little extra in story, production value, feeling.He taps his forehead with one finger. TREEHORN People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone-- DUDE On you, maybe.He hands him the drink. TREEHORN Of course, you do get the good with the bad. The new technology permits us to do exciting things with interactive erotic software. Wave of the future, Dude. 100% electronic. DUDE Uh-huh. Well, I still jerk off manually. TREEHORN Of course you do. I can see you're anxious for me to get to the point. Well Dude, here it is. Where's Bunny? DUDE I thought you might know, man. TREEHORN Me? How would I know? The only reason she ran off was to get away from her rather sizable debt to me. DUDE But she hasn't run off, she's been--Treehorn waves this off. TREEHORN I've heard the kidnapping story, so save it. I know you're mixed up in all this, Dude, and I don't care what you're trying to take off her husband. That's your business. All I'm saying is, I want mine. DUDE Yeah, well, right man, there are many facets to this, uh, you know, many interested parties. If I can find your money, man-- what's in it for the Dude? TREEHORN Of course, there's that to discuss. Refill? DUDE Does the Pope shit in the woods? TREEHORN Let's say a 10% finder's fee? DUDE Okay, Jackie, done. I like the way you do business. Your money is being held by a kid named Larry Sellers. He lives in North Hollywood, on Radford, near the In-and-Out Burger. A real fuckin' brat, but I'm sure your goons'll be able to get it off him, mean he's only fifteen and he's flunking social studies. So if you'll just write me a check for my ten per cent. . . of half a million. . . fifty grand.He is getting to his feet, but sways woozily. DUDE I'll go out and mingle.--Jesus, you mix a hell of a Caucasian, Jackie.The Dude shakes his head, tries to focus. TREEHORN A fifteen-year-old? Is this your idea of a joke?Jackie Treehorn's image starts to swim. He is joined on either side by Woo and the blond man, all three men looking grimly down at the Dude. DUDE No funny stuff, Jackie. . . the kid's got it. Hiya, fellas. . . kid just wanted a car. All the Dude ever wanted. . . was his rug back. . . not greedy. . . it really.He squints at Jackie Treehorn, who swims in and out of focus. Tied the room together.He tips forward, spilling his drink off the table.FROM UNDER THE GLASS COFFEE TABLELooking up at the Dude as his face hits the glass and squishes.FAST FADE OUTBLACK THE STRANGER'S VOICE Darkness warshed over the Dude-- darker'n a black steer's tookus on a moonless prairie night. There was no bottom.We hear a thundering bass.SCRATCHY WHITE TITLE CARD:JACKIE TREEHORN PRESENTSANOTHER TITLE CARD:THE DUDEANDMAUDE LEBOWSKIINTHIRD TITLE CARD:GUTTERBALLSThe title logo is a suggestively upright bowling pin flanked by a pair of bowling balls. The bending bass sound turns into the lead-in to Kenny Rogers and the First Edition's "Just Dropped In."The Dude is walking down a long corridor dressed as a cable repairman. The Dude's face is washed with a brilliant light as the corridor opens onto a gleaming bowling alley.In the center of the alley stands Maude Lebowski, singing operatic harmony to the Kenny Rogers song. She wears an armored breastplate and Norse headgear, has braided pigtails, and holds a trident.The Dude stands behind her and, pressed up against her, helps her with her follow-through as she releases a bowling ball.The lane is straddled by a line of chorines in spangly mini- skirts, their arms akimbo, Busby-Berkley style, their legs turning the lane into a tunnel leading to the pins at the end.But it is no longer a bowling ball rolling between their legs--it is the Dude himself, levitating inches off the lane, the tools from his utility belt swinging free. He is face down, his arms, torpedolike, pressed against his sides.His point of view shows the lane rushing by below, the little ball-guide arrows zipping by.The Dude twists his body around, performing a barrel-roll so that he is now gliding along the lane face-up.Now his point of view looks up the dresses of the passing chorines.The Dude smiles dreamily and does a backstroke motion so that he is once again gliding face-down. He looks forward and his forward momentum blows back his hair.Coming at us, as we go through the last few pairs of legs, are the approaching pins. We hit the pins, scattering them, and rush on into black.A body drops down into the blackness in slow motion--a topless woman, squealing, her legs kicking.As she drops out of frame, leaving blackness again, three men are entering from the background, emerging into a pool of light. It is the Germans, advancing ominously, wielding oversized shears which they menacingly scissor.The Dude, now standing in a field of black, reacts to the advancing Germans. He turns and runs, fists pumping.The scissoring sound of the shears turns into the whoosh of car-bys. The field of black is punctured by headlights. The Dude is running blearily down the middle of the Pacific Coast Highway. Cars rush by on either side, horns blaring.With the BLOO-WHUP of a short siren blast, a squad car with flashing gumballs pulls up.SQUAD CARThe Dude sits in the back seat, his head lolling with the motion of the car as he blearily sings the theme of Branded: DUDE He was innocent. Not a charge was true. And they say he ran awaaaaaay.CHIEF'S OFFICEThe Dude is hurled against the chief's desk, which he bounces off of, to come to rest more or less seated in a facing chair.His wallet is tossed onto the desk.The chief leans forward, takes the wallet and sorts through it with disgusted incredulity. CHIEF This is your only I.D.?He is looking at the Ralph's Shopper's Club card. DUDE I know my rights. CHIEF You don't know shit, Lebowski. DUDE I want a fucking lawyer, man. I want Bill Kunstler. CHIEF What are you, some kind of sad-assed refugee from the fucking sixties? DUDE Uh-huh. CHIEF Mr. Treehorn tells us that he had to eject you from his garden party, that you were drunk and abusive. DUDE That guy treats women like objects, man. CHIEF Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town, Lebowski. You don't draw shit. We got a nice quiet beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don't like you sucking around bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk- off name, I don't like your jerk-off face, I don't like your jerk- off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk- off --do I make myself clear?The Dude stares. DUDE I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.The Chief hurls his steaming mug of coffee at the Dude. It hits him in the forehead with a thud, the scalding coffee splashing everywhere.The Chief is already up off his chair, rounding the desk. DUDE --Ow! Fucking fascist!The Chief slaps him twice. CHIEF Stay out of Malibu, Lebowski!He kicks the chair out from under the Dude, and then starts kicking at him. CHIEF Stay out of Malibu, deadbeat! Keep your ugly fucking goldbricking ass out of my beach community!CABThe Dude, in the back seat of a taxicab that rocks and squeaks with every bump, is gingerly touching at sore spots on his face and scalp."Peaceful Easy Feeling" is on the radio.DUDE'S POVThe back of the driver, a large black man with rasta dreds under a knit cap. DUDE Jesus, man, can you change the station? DRIVER Fuck you man! You don't like my fucking music, get your own fucking cab! DUDE I've had a-- DRIVER I pull over and kick your ass out, man! DUDE --had a rough night, and I hate the fucking Eagles, man-- DRIVER That's it! Outta this fucking cab!THE STREETThe cab screeches over towards the curb. Another car, oncoming, its radio blaring Metallica, speeds by.INSIDE THE OTHER CARIt is a red convertible. The driver, singing loudly and badly along with the radio, her hair blowing in the wind, a dreamy smile on her face as she speeds along, higher than a kite, is Bunny Lebowski.THE FOOTWELLOn the accelerator her right foot, in an open-toed bright red high-heeled shoe, has five painted toes.When she downshifts her left foot enters to engage the clutch.Five more toes.DUDE'S BUNGALOWThe Dude staggers in the open front door, one hand pressed to a lump on his forehead, and looks around. DUDE Jesus.The place is a wreck. Furniture has been overturned, upholstery slashed, drawers dumped.Quiet.The door to the bedroom starts to creak open.The Dude cringes.Maude emerges from the bedroom. She is wearing a bathrobe. MAUDE Jeffrey. DUDE Maude?She pulls open the bathrobe as she approaches. MAUDE Love me.The Dude is stupefied. DUDE That's my robe. THOOMP! ON THE EMBRACE WE CUT TO:BLACKAfter a beat, a long sigh, and then a voice from the blackness: MAUDE Tell me a little about yourself, Jeffrey. DUDE Well, uh. . . Not much to tell.A match is dragged across a headboard; the Dude is lighting himself a joint. He shakes the match out to restore blackness except for the glowing tip of the joint. DUDE I was, uh, one of the authors of the Port Huron Statement.--The original Port Huron Statement. MAUDE Uh-huh. DUDE Not the compromised second draft. And then I, uh. . . Ever hear of the Seattle Seven? MAUDE Mmnun.Click--the Dude turns on a bedside lamp. He and Maude lie next to each other in bed. DUDE And then. . . let's see, I uh--music business briefly. MAUDE Oh? DUDE Yeah. Roadie for Metallica. Speed of Sound Tour. MAUDE Uh-huh. DUDE Bunch of assholes. And then, you know, little of this, little of that. My career's, uh, slowed down a bit lately. MAUDE What do you do for fun? DUDE Oh, you know, the usual. Bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.He climbs out of bed but Maude remains in it. She wedges a pillow into the small of her back and clasps a hand on each kneecap. She pulls her knees in toward her chest to keep her pelvis raised. MAUDE What happened to your house? DUDE Jackie Treehorn trashed the place. Wanted to save the finder's fee. MAUDE Finder's fee? DUDE He thought I had your father's money, so he got me out of the way while he looked for it. MAUDE It's not my father's money, it's the Foundation's. Why did he think you had it? And who does? DUDE Larry Sellers, a high-school kid. Real fucking brat.He picks a White Russian off the bedside table. MAUDE Jeffrey-- DUDE It's a complicated case, Maude. Lotta ins, lotta outs. Fortunately I've been adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind, you know, limber. I'm real fucking close to your father's money, real fucking close. It's just-- MAUDE I keep telling you, it's the Foundation's money. Father doesn't have any. DUDE Huh? He's fucking loaded. MAUDE No no, the wealth was all Mother's. DUDE But your father--he runs stuff, he-- MAUDE We did let Father run one of the companies, briefly, but he didn't do very well at it. DUDE But he's-- MAUDE He helps administer the charities now, and I give him a reasonable allowance. He has no money of his own. I know how he likes to present himself; Father's weakness is vanity. Hence the slut. DUDE Huh. Jeez. Well, so, did he--is that yoga?Throughout, Maude has been lying on her back with her knees pulled in. MAUDE It increases the chances of conception.The Dude spits some White Russian. DUDE Increases? MAUDE Well yes, what did you think this was all about? Fun and games? DUDE Well...no, of course not-- MAUDE I want a child. DUDE Yeah, okay, but see, the Dude-- MAUDE Look, Jeffrey, I don't want a partner. In fact I don't want the father to be someone I have to see socially, or who'll have any interest in rearing the child himself. DUDE Huh...Something occurs to him. DUDE So...that doctor. MAUDE Exactly. What happened to your face? Did Jackie Treehorn do that as well?The Dude is staring off into space, thinking. His answer is absent. DUDE No, the, uh, police chief of Malibu. A real reactionary. . . So your father. . . Oh man, I get it! MAUDE What?The Dude is leaving the bedroom. DUDE Yeah, my thinking about the case, man, it had become uptight. Yeah. Your father--LIVING ROOMThe Dude finishes punching a number into the phone. PHONE VOICE This is Walter Sobchak. I'm not in; leave a message after the beep.FROM THE BEDROOM: MAUDE'S VOICE What're you talking about?Beep. DUDE Walter, if you're there, pick up the fucking phone. Pick it up, Walter, this is an emergency. I'm not-- WALTER Dude? DUDE Walter, listen, I'm at my place, I need you to come pick me up-- WALTER I can't drive, Dude, it's erev shabbas. DUDE Huh? WALTER Erev shabbas. I can't drive. I'm not even supposed to pick up the phone, unless it's an emergency. DUDE It is a fucking emergency. WALTER I understand. That's why I picked up the phone. DUDE THEN WHY CAN'T YOU--fuck, never mind, just call Donny then, and ask him to-- WALTER Dude, I'm not supposed to make calls-- DUDE WALTER, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, WE GOTTA GO TO PASADENA! COME PICK ME UP OR I'M OFF THE FUCKING BOWLING TEAM! MAUDE'S VOICE Jeffrey?THE DUDEHe emerges on his front stoop, pulling on a shirt. His attention is caught by something down the street.HIS POVA car is parked halfway down the block. We can see the shape of a fat man in the driver's seat.THE DUDEStriding purposefully down the street.HIS POVThe fat man leans forward and we hear the sound of the car's ignition coughing, but the engine will not turn over. More whines and coughs; no start.The man hurriedly fumbles in front of him. He brings up a newspaper, which he holds before his face.THE DUDEAs he gets to the car. He reaches through the open driver's window and grabs the newspaper and hurls it to the ground. He is revved with nervous energy. DUDE Get out of that fucking car, man!The man nervously complies. The Dude flinches at the man's movement as he gets out.The man cringes, reacting to the Dude's flinch.He is wearing a cheap blue serge suit. He is bald with a short fringe and a mustache.The Dude shouts to cover his fear: DUDE Who the fuck are you, man! Come on, man! MAN Relax, man! No physical harm intended! DUDE Who the fuck are you? Why've you been following me? Come on, fuckhead! MAN Hey, relax man, I'm a brother shamus.The Dude is stunned. DUDE Brother Shamus? Like an Irish monk? MAN Irish m--What the fuck are you talking about? My name's Da Fino! I'm a private snoop! Like you, man! DUDE Huh? DA FINO A dick, man! And let me tell you something: I dig your work. Playing one side against the other--in bed with everybody--fabulous stuff, man. DUDE I'm not a--ah, fuck it, just stay away from my fucking lady friend, man. DA FINO Hey hey, I'm not messing with your special lady-- DUDE She's not my special lady, she's my fucking lady friend. I'm just helping her conceive, man! DA FINO Hey, man, I'm not-- DUDE Who're you working for? Lebowski? Jackie Treehorn? DA FINO The Gundersons. DUDE The? Who the fff-- DA FINO The Gundersons. It's a wandering daughter job. Bunny Lebowski, man. Her real name is Fawn Gunderson. Her parents want her back.He is fumbling in his wallet. DA FINO See?The Dude looks at the picture.It is probably a school portrait, unmistakably Bunny, but fresh-faced, much younger looking, with a corn-fed smile and straight Partridge Family hair and bangs. DUDE Jesus fucking Christ. DA FINO Crazy, huh? Ran away a year ago.He is holding out another picture.The Gundersons told me to show her this when I found her. The family farm.A bleak farmhouse and silo are the only features on a flat snow-swept landscape.Outside of Moorhead, Minnesota. They think it'll make her homesick. DUDE Boy. How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they seen Karl Hungus.He hands back the picture.She's been kidnapped, Da Fino. Or maybe not, but she's definitely not around. DA FINO Fuck, man! That's terrible! DUDE Yeah, it sucks. DA FINO Well maybe you and me could pool our resources--trade information-- professional courtesy--compeers, you know--We hear distant yapping, growing louder with the hum of an approaching car. DUDE Yeah, I get it. Fuck off, Da Fino. And stay away from my special la-- from my fucking lady friend.The Dude steps out to meet Walter's car as it pulls up, its passenger window open and the pomeranian leaning out and yapping.DENNY'SFour people sit at a booth: Dieter, Kieffer, Franz, all in black leather, and a young woman with long stringy blonde hair, wearing torn and patched jeans and a ribbed sleeveless tee-shirt, worn thin with age. She is apparently braless, and is teutonically pale with birthmarks on her face and arms.Notable is her camera-side leg, which ends in a bandage-swaddled foot. Dried rust-colored blood stains the tip of the bandage. The four are arguing, loudly, in German. They seem very unhappy. A waitress enters with a checkpad and pen. WAITRESS You folks ready?The German shouting stops. Dieter looks sourly up. DIETER I haff lingenberry pancakes. KIEFFER Lingenberry pancakes. FRANZ Sree picks in blanket.The woman speaks to Dieter in German. He nods. DIETER Lingenberry pancakes.WALTER'S CARWalter's eyes are on the road as he listens, driving, to the Dude, whose speech is occasionally punctuated by yaps from the back seat. DUDE I mean we totally fucked it up, man. We fucked up his pay-off. And got the kidnappers all pissed off, and the big Lebowski yelled at me a lot, but he didn't do anything. Huh? WALTER Well it's, sometimes the cathartic, uh. DUDE I'm saying if he knows I'm a fuck- up, then why does he still leave me in charge of getting back his wife? Because he fucking doesn't want her back, man! He's had enough! He no longer digs her! It's all a show! But then, why didn't he give a shit about his million bucks? I mean, he knew we didn't hand off his briefcase, but he never asked for it back. WALTER What's your point, Dude? DUDE His million bucks was never in it, man! There was no money in that briefcase! He was hoping they'd kill her! You throw out a ringer for a ringer! WALTER Yeah? DUDE Shit yeah! WALTER Okay, but how does all this add up to an emergency? DUDE Huh? WALTER I'm saying, I see what you're getting at, Dude, he kept the money, but my point is, here we are, it's shabbas, the sabbath, which I'm allowed to break only if it's a matter of life and death-- DUDE Walter, come off it. You're not even fucking Jewish, you're-- WALTER What the fuck are you talking about? DUDE You're fucking Polish Catholic-- WALTER What the fuck are you talking about? I converted when I married Cynthia! Come on, Dude! DUDE Yeah, and you were-- WALTER You know this! DUDE And you were divorced five fucking years ago. WALTER Yeah? What do you think happens when you get divorced? You turn in your library card? Get a new driver's license? Stop being Jewish? DUDE This driveway.AS HE TURNS: WALTER I'm as Jewish as fucking Tevye DUDE It's just part of your whole sick Cynthia thing. Taking care of her fucking dog. Going to her fucking synagogue. You're living in the fucking past. WALTER Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax-- YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I LIVE IN THE PAST! I--Jesus. What the hell happened?He is looking off as the car slows. The Dude looks where Walter is looking.THE LEBOWSKI MANSIONWalter's car pulls up the drive into the foreground and he and the Dude get out.Both are gaping off at the front lawn. WALTER Jesus Christ.THEIR POVTire treads lead across the manicured front lawn to where a little red sports car rests with its hood crumpled into a palm trunk.TRACKING DOWN THE GREAT HALLWAYThrough the French doors at its far end we can see Bunny, naked, briefly bouncing on the diving board before splashing into the illuminated pool outside. Heavy metal music filters in from a boom box by the pool.Brandt, approaching, stoops and straightens, stoops and straightens, picking up the discarded clothes that run the length of the hall. BRANDT He can't see you, Dude.We pull the Dude and Walter as they approach the doors to the great study. Walter's dog follows, stiffly waving its tail. DUDE Where'd she been? BRANDT Visiting friends of hers in Palm Springs. Just picked up and left, never bothered to tell us. DUDE But I guess she told Dieter. WALTER Jesus, Dude! He never even kidnapped her. BRANDT Who's this gentleman, Dude? WALTER Who'm I? I'm a fucking VETERAN! BRANDT You shouldn't go in there, Dude! He's very angry!BANG--the Dude and Walter push through the double doors into--THE GREAT ROOMThe big Lebowski turns at the sound of the door. His wheelchair hums as he spins it around. LEBOWSKI (bitterly) Well, she's back. No thanks to you. DUDE Where's the money, Lebowski? WALTER A MILLION BUCKS FROM FUCKING NEEDY LITTLE URBAN ACHIEVERS! YOU ARE SCUM, MAN!The dog yaps. LEBOWSKI Who the hell is he? WALTER I'll tell you who I am! I'm the guy who's gonna KICK YOUR PHONY GOLDBRICKING ASS! DUDE We know the briefcase was empty, man. We know you kept the million bucks yourself. LEBOWSKI Well, you have your story, I have mine. I say I entrusted the money to you, and you stole it. WALTER AS IF WE WOULD EVER DREAM OF TAKING YOUR BULLSHIT MONEY! DUDE You thought Bunny'd been kidnapped and you could use it as a pretext to make some money disappear. All you needed was a sap to pin it on, and you'd just met me. You thought, hey, a deadbeat, a loser, someone the square community won't give a shit about. LEBOWSKI Well? Aren't you? DUDE Well. . . yeah. LEBOWSKI All right, get out. Both of you. WALTER Look at that fucking phony, Dude! Pretending to be a fucking millionaire! LEBOWSKI I said out. Now. WALTER Let me tell you something else. I've seen a lot of spinals, Dude, and this guy is a fake. A fucking goldbricker.He is crossing to Lebowski. WALTER This guy fucking walks. I've never been more certain of anything in my life! LEBOWSKI Stay away from me, mister!Walter reaches around from behind and hoists the big Lebowski out of the wheelchair by his armpits. WALTER Walk, you fucking phony!The big Lebowski waggles helplessly, his rubbery feet grazing the floor like a Raggedy Ann's. The pomeranian gaily leaps and yaps. LEBOWSKI Put me down, you son of a bitch! DUDE Walter! WALTER It's all over, man! We call your fucking bluff! DUDE WALTER, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! HE'S CRIPPLED! PUT HIM DOWN! WALTER Sure, I'll put him down, Dude. RAUSS! ACHTUNG, BABY!!He shoves the big Lebowski forward and he crumples to the floor, weeping. WALTER Oh, shit. LEBOWSKI (sobbing) You're bullies! Cowards, both of you!Walter is abashed. The Big Lebowski flails about on the floor. WALTER Oh, shit. DUDE He can't walk, Walter! WALTER Yeah, I can see that, Dude. LEBOWSKI You monsters! DUDE Help me put him back in his chair.Walter moves to comply. WALTER Shit, sorry man.THROUGH HIS TEARS: LEBOWSKI Stay away from me! You bullies! You and these women! You won't leave a man his fucking balls! DUDE Walter, you fuck! WALTER Shit, Dude, I didn't know. I wouldn't've done it if I knew he was a fucking crybaby. DUDE We're sorry, man. We're really sorry.The Dude has picked up the Big Lebowski's plaid lap warmer and is frantically tucking it back in around his waist and batting the dog away. DUDE There ya go. Sorry man.Walter, puzzled, hands on hips, stands over the big Lebowski. WALTER Shit. He didn't look like a spinal.TEN PINSScattered at the cut.DUDE AND WALTEREach with a beer at the scoring table. WALTER Sure you'll see some tank battles. But fighting in desert is very different from fighting in canopy jungle. DUDE Uh-huh. WALTER I mean 'Nam was a foot soldier's war whereas, uh, this thing should be a fucking cakewalk. I mean I had an M16, Jacko, not an Abrams fucking tank. Just me and Charlie, man, eyeball to eyeball. DUDE Yeah. WALTER That's fuckin' combat. The man in the black pyjamas, Dude. Worthy fuckin' adversary. DONNY Who's in pyjamas, Walter? WALTER Shut the fuck up, Donny. Not a bunch of fig-eaters with towels on their heads tryin' to find reverse on a Soviet tank. This is not a worthy-- VOICE HEY!The Dude and Walter look.Quintana is bellowing from the lip of the lane, and is restrained by O'Brien. QUINTANA What's this "day of rest" shit, man?!Walter looks at him innocently. QUINTANA What is this bullshit, man? I don't fucking care! It don't matter to Jesus! But you're not fooling me! You might fool the fucks in the league office, but you don't fool Jesus! It's bush league psych-out stuff! Laughable, man! I would've fucked you in the ass Saturday, I'll fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead! QUINTANAHe makes hip-grinding coital motions as O'Brien leads him away. QUINTANA You got a date Wednesday, man!Walter, his head cocked, and the Dude, peeking over his shades, watch him go. WALTER He's cracking.BOWLING ALLEY PARKING LOTDonny, Walter and the Dude emerge from the alley, each holding his leatherette ball satchel. WALTER A tree of life, Dude. To all who cling to it.They react to the droning synthesizer-based technopop coming from a boom box.REVERSEDieter, Kieffer and Franz, in shiny black leather, stand in a line facing them in the all-but-deserted lot. Behind them orange flames lick gently at the Dude's car, which has been put to the torch. The orange flames glow on the men's creaking leather. Next to the car are three motorcycles, parked in a neat row. The Dude looks sadly at the burning car. DUDE They finally did it. They killed my fucking car. DIETER Vee vant zat money, Lebowski. KIEFFER Ja, uzzervize vee kill ze girl. FRANZ Ja, it seems you forgot our little deal, Lebowski. DUDE You don't have the fucking girl, dipshits. We know you never did. So you've got nothin' on my Johnson. DUDEThe men in black, stunned, confer amongst themselves in German. Under his breath: DONNY Are these the Nazis, Walter?Walter answers, also sotto voce, his eyes still on the three men: WALTER They're nihilists, Donny, nothing to be afraid of.The Germans stop conferring. DIETER Vee don't care. Vee still vant zat money or vee fuck you up. KIEFFER Ja, vee still vant ze money. Vee sreaten you.He pulls an uzi from under his coat. It glints in the firelight. WALTER Fuck you. Fuck the three of you. DUDE Hey, cool it Walter.Walter ignores the Dude, addresses the Germans: WALTER There's no ransom if you don't have a fucking hostage. That's what ransom is. Those are the fucking rules. DIETER Zere ARE no ROOLZ! WALTER NO RULES! YOU CABBAGE-EATING SONS- OF- BITCHES-- KIEFFER His girlfriend gafe up her toe! She sought we'd be getting million dollars! Iss not fair! WALTER Fair! WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?! DUDE Hey, cool it Walter. Listen, pal, there never was any money. The big Lebowski gave me an empty briefcase, man, so take it up with him. WALTER AND I'D LIKE MY UNDIES BACK!The Germans confer again, in German.Donny is visibly frightened. DONNY Are they gonna hurt us, Walter?WALTER 'S TONE IS GENTLE: WALTER They won't hurt us, Donny. These men are cowards.THE CONFERENCE ENDS: DIETER Okay. Vee take ze money you haf on you und vee call it eefen. WALTER Fuck you.The Dude is digging into his pocket. DUDE Come on, Walter, we're ending this thing cheap.Walter's eyes, burning with hatred, are locked on Dieter's. WALTER What's mine is mine. DUDE Come on, Walter!.Louder, to the Germans, as he looks in his wallet: DUDE Four dollars here!He inspects the change in his palm. DUDE Almost five! DONNY (tremulously) I got eighteen dollars, Dude. WALTER (grimly) What's mine is mine.With a ring of steel, Dieter produces a glinting saber. DIETER VEE FUCK YOU UP, MAN! VEE TAKE YOUR MONEY! WALTER (coolly) Come and get it. DIETER VEE FUCK YOU UP, MAN! WALTER Come and get it. Fucking nihilist. DIETER I FUCK YOU! I FUCK YOU! WALTER Show me what you got. Nihilist. Dipshit with a nine-toed woman.In a rage, Dieter charges. DIETER I FUCK YOU! I FUCK YOU!WALTERhurls his leather satchel.KIEFFERWatching Dieter's charge, is caught off-guard. The bowling ball thuds into his chest and lifts him off his feet.He falls back, his uzi clattering away.WALTERtwists away as Dieter reaches him; grabs Dieter's head in both hands; draws Dieter's head up to his mouth, which closes on Dieter's ear.DUDEHe rushes Franz but draws up short as Franz sends out karate kicks, his leather pants squeaking and popping. Franz gives a loud cry with each kick; the Dude leans back, throwing his arms up, evading the kicks.WALTERHis jaw is still clamped on Dieter's ear. Dieter draws his saber against Walter's side, drawing blood.Walter doesn't react to the wound. Growling as Dieter screams, he worries his ear, waggling his head with his jaws clamped.THE SABERDieter drops it.DUDEAwkwardly circling, evading Franz's kicks.WALTERstill worrying the ear. With a tearing sound his head and Dieter's separate.DIETER, EARLESS, SCREAMS: DIETER I FUCK YOU! YOU CANNOT HURT ME! I BELIEF IN NUSSING!Walter spits his ear into his face.DUDEThe Dude and Franz, both now panting heavily, have yet to establish body contact. Franz continues to kick. FRANZ VEAKLING!WALTERdraws back his fist. DIETER NUSSING! WALTER ANTI-SEMITE!Bam!--A powerhouse blow to the middle of his face drops Dieter for the count.DUDE AND FRANZWith a piercing shriek Franz finally summons the nerve to charge the Dude, hands raised to deliver karate blows.As he reaches the Dude--WHHAP--the boom box swings into frame to smash him in the face. Its volume shoots up.Walter bashes him a few more times over the head. The music screeches to static, then quiet. Laid out now, Franz too is quiet.All quiet.Walter, panting, looks around. WALTER We've got a man down, Dude.With a hand pressed to his bleeding side he trots over to Donny, who lies gasping on the ground.The Dude, also panting, rises and trots over. DUDE Hy God! They shot him, Walter! WALTER No Dude. DUDE They shot Donny!Donny gasps for air. His eyes, wide, go from the Dude to Walter. One hand still clutches his eighteen dollars. WALTER There weren't any shots. DUDE Then what's... WALTER It's a heart attack. DUDE Wha. WALTER Call the medics, Dude. DUDE Wha. . . Donny-- WALTER Hurry Dude. I'd go but I'm pumping blood. Might pass out.The Dude runs into the lanes. Walter lays a reassuring hand on Donny's shoulder. WALTER Rest easy, good buddy, you're doing fine. We got help choppering in.FADE OUTHOLD IN BLACKTHE DUDE AND WALTER---They sit side by side, forearms on knees, in a nondescript waiting area. Walter bounces the fingertips of one hand off those of the other. They sit. They wait.A tall thin man in a conservative black suit enters. He eyes the Dude's bowling attire and sunglasses and Walter's army surplus, but doesn't make an issue of it. MAN Hello, gentlemen. You are the bereaved? DUDE Yeah man. MAN Francis Donnelly. Pleased to meet you. DUDE Jeffrey Lebowski. WALTER Walter Sobchak. DUDE The Dude, actually. Is what, uh. DONNELLY Excuse me? DUDE Nothing. DONNELLY Yes. I understand you're taking away the remains. WALTER Yeah. DONNELLY We have the urn.He nods through a door. Another man in a black suit enters to carefully deposit a large silver urn on the desktop. DONNELLY And I assume this is credit card?He is vaguely handing a large leather folder across the desk to whomever wants to take it. WALTER Yeah.He takes it, opens it, puts on reading glasses that sit halfway down his nose, and inspects the bill with his head pulled back for focus and cocked for concentration. Silence. The Dude smiles at Donnelly. Donnelly gives back a mortician's smile. At length Walter holds the bill towards Donnelly, pointing. WALTER What's this? DONNELLY That is for the urn. WALTER Don't need it. We're scattering the ashes. DONNELLY Yes, so we were informed. However, we must of course transmit the remains to you in a receptacle. WALTER This is a hundred and eighty dollars. DONNELLY Yes sir. It is our most modestly priced receptacle. DUDE Well can we-- WALTER A hundred and eighty dollars?! DONNELLY They range up to three thousand. WALTER Yeah, but we're-- DUDE Can we just rent it from you? DONNELLY Sir, this is a mortuary, not a rental house. WALTER We're scattering the fucking ashes! DUDE Walter-- WALTER JUST BECAUSE WE'RE BEREAVED DOESN'T MEAN WE'RE SAPS! DONNELLY Sir, please lower your voice-- DUDE Hey man, don't you have something else you could put it in? DONNELLY That is our most modestly priced receptacle. WALTER GODDAMNIT! IS THERE A RALPH'S AROUND HERE?!POINT DUME -- DAYIt is a high, wind-swept bluff. Walter and the Dude walk towards the lip of the bluff. Parked in the background is one lonely car, Walter's.Walter is carrying a bright red coffee can with a blue plastic lid. When they reach the edge the two men stand awkwardly for a beat. Finally: WALTER I'll say a few words.The Dude clasps his hands in front of him. Walter clears his throat. WALTER Donny was a good bowler, and a good man. He was. . . He was one of us. He was a man who loved the outdoors, and bowling, and as a surfer explored the beaches of southern California from Redondo to Calabassos. And he was an avid bowler. And a good friend. He died--he died as so many of his generation, before his time. In your wisdom you took him, Lord. As you took so many bright flowering young men, at Khe San and Lan Doc and Hill 364. These young men gave their lives. And Donny too. Donny who. . . who loved bowling.Walter clears his throat. WALTER And so, Theodore--Donald--Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your mortal remains to the bosom of.Walter is peeling the plastic lid off the coffee can. WALTER the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well.AS HE SHAKES OUT THE ASHES: WALTER Goodnight, sweet prince.The wind has blown all of the ashes into the Dude, standing just to the side of and behind Walter. The Dude stands, frozen. Finished eulogizing, Walter looks back. WALTER Shit, I'm sorry Dude.He starts brushing off the Dude with his hands. WALTER Goddamn wind.Heretofore motionless, the Dude finally explodes, slapping Walter's hands away. DUDE Goddamnit Walter! You fucking asshole! WALTER Dude! Dude, I'm sorry!The Dude is near tears. DUDE You make everything a fucking travesty! WALTER Dude, I'm--it was an accident!The Dude gives Walter a furious shove. DUDE What about that shit about Vietnam! WALTER Dude, I'm sorry-- DUDE What the fuck does Vietnam have to do with anything! What the fuck were you talking about?!Walter for the first time is genuinely distressed, almost lost. WALTER Shit Dude, I'm sorry-- DUDE You're a fuck, Walter!He gives Walter a weaker shove. Walter seems dazed, then wraps his arms around the Dude. WALTER Awww, fuck it Dude. Let's go bowling.THE LANES THE DUDE AND WALTER BOWLINGWe watch each of them glide across the floor, release, follow through--gracefully. We have never seen them bowl before. They are quite good. Each wears a black armband on his bowling shirt.BAR AREAThe Dude walks up to the bar. DUDE Two oat sodas, Gary. GARY Right. Good luck tomorrow. DUDE Thanks, man. GARY Sorry to hear about Donny. DUDE Yeah. Well, you know, sometimes you eat the bear, and, uh."Tumbling Tumbleweeds" has come up on the jukebox, and The Stranger ambles up to the bar. THE STRANGER Howdy do, Dude. DUDE Oh, hey man, how are ya? I wondered if I'd see you again. THE STRANGER Wouldn't miss the semis. How things been goin'? DUDE Ahh, you know. Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.The Stranger's eyes crinkle merrily. THE STRANGER Sure, I gotcha.The bartender has put two gleaming beers on the counter. DUDE Thanks, Gary...Take care, man, I gotta get back. THE STRANGER Sure. Take it easy, Dude--I know that you will.THE DUDE, LEAVING, NODS: DUDE Yeah man. Well, you know, the Dude abides.Gazing after him, The Stranger drawls, savoring the words: THE STRANGER The Dude abides.He gives his head a shake of appreciation, then looks into the camera. THE STRANGER I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there, the Dude, takin' her easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes The finals. Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up. Things seem to've worked out pretty good for the Dude'n Walter, and it was a purt good story, dontcha think? Made me laugh to beat the band. Parts, anyway. Course--I didn't like seein' Donny go. But then, happen to know that there's a little Lebowski on the way. I guess that's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' it-self, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time until-- aw, look at me, I'm ramblin' again. Wal, uh hope you folks enjoyed yourselves.He brushes his hat brim with a fingertip as we begin to pull back. THE STRANGER Catch ya further on down the trail.As we pull away The Stranger swivels in to the bar. As his voice fades: THE STRANGER ...Say friend, ya got any more a that good sarsaparilla?...
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+                                       THE BIG WHITE                                        Written by                                      Collin Friesen      FADE IN:      EXT. ROAD - WINTER DAY      A police car, nothing more than a speck on the landscape, is intermittently      visible through the blowing snow.      INT. POLICE CAR - SAME      A CORPORAL (20s), behind the wheel, with a bored DETECTIVE BOYLE (60s)      at his side.                                  CORPORAL              So his hand is like, off, right.  So he puts on a              tourniquet, puts the hand in his pocket, walks five              miles through the bush til he gets to the highway,              where he passes out, on the road, right.  Then this              logging truck comes along...                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE                        (looking ahead)              Hey.      The Corporal looks forward.      CAR'S POV: Through the windshield of a WOMAN (40s), dressed in her      pajamas and a parka, skipping down the middle of the road.      EXT. ROAD      The police car pulls to a stop, just as the woman does a pirouette and falls      over backwards.      Detective Boyle and the other Cop get out and walk over.                                  CORPORAL                        (into his radio)              Dispatch, this is unit 611, we need a first              responsder --                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Cancel that.      The Woman kicks up a leg, wiggles her foot.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE (cont'd)              I know where she belongs.      As they lift her up...1     INT. INSIDE A TRASH DUMPSTER - LATE AFTERNOON                                  1      The dumpster lid opens on a bitterly cold, gray winter's day in an Alaskan city.  A      chunky, shivering HAIR STYLIST with jet black bangs shakes out a box of      conditioning samples.                                  HAIR STYLIST                        (to someone O.S.)              She says "I haven't eaten all day," then, right there on              the bus she pulls out this, like, salmon steak and              I'm...2     INT. INSIDE A TRASH DUMPSTER - LATE AFTERNOON                                  2      The dumpster lid BANGS shut, reopens a beat later. A moment of calm until      two garbage bags SLAM against the inside of the lid. It falls shut with a CLANG.3     EXT. TRASH DUMPSTER - NIGHT                                                    3      The lid reopens. Night time now, as a street lamp BUZZES to life. A middle      aged MAN in work clothes checks to make sure he's alone. He gently lowers      the lid, opens it again a moment later, this time balancing a mini-bar fridge on      his shoulder.  He dumps the appliance into the bin and runs off.4     INT. INSIDE A TRASH DUMPSTER - NIGHT                                           4      The lid reopens.  SIRENS off in the distance...                                  MEN'S VOICES (O.S.)              One, two, three... up.      The lifeless body of a fair-sized man comes CRASHING into the garbage.      SIRENS closer.  A man seen only in silhouette leans in to pull some garbage      over the corpse.  A second man looks in, then pulls the first man away.                                  MAN'S VOICE              We'll get him later.  C'mon.      The lid drops.5     EXT. TRASH DUMPSTER - MORNING                                                  5      Black.  The dumpster reopens. Morning now. A Korean-American  TEENAGER      wearing an apron and headphones sings along to an  old KISS tune as he      deposits two large orange garbage bags.                                  TEENAGER              "...Get up, everybody's gonna move their feet, get              down, everybody's gonna leave their seat...gonna              lose your mind in..."      He shuts the lid with care.  Black.6     EXT. CITY STREET - DAY                                                         6      A cookie-cutter subdivision.  Old pine trees poke through the snow cover that      blankets the neighborhood.  HOWARD (30s), a burly outdoors type, is trying to      unload a new snowmobile from the back of his pickup.  TED WATTERS (late      20s) half hidden under a heavy dress coat, walks down the street. He stops by      Howard's driveway.                                  TED              Need a hand?                                  HOWARD                        (turning)              Yeah.  Could ya grab me those two by eights?      Ted walks up the driveway, grabs the wood slats, makes a ramp by leaning      them against the rear bumper.                                  HOWARD (cont'd)              Thanks.      Howard maneuvers the snowmobile down the ramp, his back turned toward      Ted -- who has taken out a small cam-corder and is taping Howard.                                  HOWARD (cont'd)              I tell ya, it may look fast but it sure ain't light.  You the              guy who just moved in to the Stevens old house?                                  TED              No.  Name's Ted.                                  HOWARD              Hey Ted, I'm Howard.                                  TED              Hey Howard.  What is that, an Arctic Cat? What do              those go for?7     P.O.V. CAMCORDER VIEW FINDER                                                   7      Howard finally has the snowmobile on the ground.  He's breathing heavy as he      pulls off his mitt to shake hands.                                  HOWARD              More than I could normally afford, I'll tell ya.                        (seeing the camera)              Hey!  What do you think you're you doing?      As Ted and Howard continue to talk, we PULL BACK to reveal we are watching      Ted's video playing on a VCR that is --8     INT. INSURANCE OFFICE / COMMON AREA - DAY                                      8      A group of office WORKERS look on, very much impressed, as a stunned      Howard stares at the camera.                                  TED (O.S.)              Howard, you seem like a reasonable kind of guy.              Lets you and me talk.      TIGHT ON: WATTERS at his nearby cubicle, typing frenetically on his computer.      At first, he appears to be working, until we realize that on his computer screen      pixilated Zombies die in silent anguish beneath an unholy hail of bullets.  A      Miami Dolphins sticker is the sole cubicle decoration.      As the tape finishes, a smattering of APPLAUSE from his colleagues.  Ted      gives a small wave over the cubicle wall.                                  TED (cont'd)              Thank you.  Just happy to give something back to              Liberty Capital...                        (to himself - bitter)              After all they've done for me.9     INT. INSURANCE OFFICE / COMMON AREA - DAY                                      9      CAM (30s), Native-American Alaskan walks over. Ted immediately hits a key      that turns the screen to a spread-sheet.                                  CAM              That was really cool.  It was like... watching "Cops".                                  TED              He was pretty spry for a man with a herniated disc.                                  CAM              You know, I don't want to bitch or anything, but you              were supposed to take me along on that one.                                  TED              Couldn't find you.                                  CAM              I know you know this, but the sooner they think I can              handle calls on my own, the sooner they'll kick you              back down south.                                  TED              I've been hearing that for 13 months and six days,              Cam.  After a while, it gets a little old.                        (off Cam's look)              Next time, okay.      Good enough.  Cam moves off.  Back to the zombie blood bath.  The phone      RINGS.  Ted picks up, his eyes never wavering from the gore intensive      computer game.                                  TED (cont'd)              Claims, Ted Watters.  Sure.      A final key stroke separates one last zombie from its entrails.10    INT. INSURANCE OFFICE / BRANCH'S OFFICE - MOMENTS LATER                       10      TIGHT ON: A MOUNTED SALMON      We PULL BACK to see the walls lined with souvenirs of a life spent on the      edge of the wilderness; citations from the Rotarians, pictures of sponsored      hockey teams... We are --      FRANK BRANCH (50s), a mid-level management type sits across from PAUL      BARNELL (40s), a mild-mannered everyman wrapped in a cheap suit.  Paul      takes in the display.  The two men sit in silence, smiling politely at one another.                                  PAUL              That's... quite the fish.      Branch is about to answer when Ted enters with a slim file.                                  BRANCH              Paul Barnell, Ted Watters.      Handshakes.  Paul makes steady eye contact.  Ted notices.                                  BRANCH (cont'd)              Mr. Barnell wants to talk to us about his brother's life              insurance policy.      Ted sits and flips open the file.                                  TED              Raymond, isn't it?                                  PAUL              Yes, Raymond.  You see, as I've already explained to              Mr. Branch, he's been gone for five years now, and I              thought it might be time to... move on.                                  TED              By move on you mean...?                                  BRANCH              ...cash in Raymond's policy.      Ted smiles to himself.                                  PAUL              I just thought, well, it's pretty unlikely he's still alive.              My Dad always wanted us to be able to look after              each other if anything should ever happen.  And to              be frank, money's a little --                                  TED              I understand Mr. Barnell, but here's the thing. With no              actual body, under Alaskan statutes a person must              be missing for seven years before he or she can be              legally declared dead and that's not withstanding an              investigation period where concerned parties can              take up to another year to file interventions              concerning the motion.  So, even though your              brother's status is undetermined at this point, there's              really very little we can do for you.      Ted flips the file shut.  Case closed.  Branch, not entirely happy with Ted's      demeanor, forces a smile.                                  BRANCH              Of course we are extremely sorry for your loss.      Branch looks at Ted.  Ted turns to Paul.                                  TED              Oh, absolutely.11    EXT.  STRIP MALL - NIGHT                                                      11      The city skyline rises in the distance as heat vents belch steam against the      rapidly setting sun.  But that's miles away.  Here on the outskirts is a rapidly      failing five store strip mall; a "Porn-a-copia" XXX Video store, hair stylist,      small engine repair shop, fish and chips joint and the "Barnell Great Escapes"       travel agency.  We might notice a big trash dumpster in the corner.  Paul's car,      a Ford Taurus, pulls onto the parking pad.12    INT. PAUL'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                                  12      Paul driving, talking on his cell phone and balancing a big non-spill metallic      travel coffee mug at the same time.                                  PAUL              Hang on, hang on.  First off, how did you get my cell              number?  (Beat)  Because it's for mechanical and              medical emergencies only.      Paul, wound up, taps his brakes too hard.  His mug falls, the lid pops and the      coffee proceeds to soak a stack of papers.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Great.                        (back into phone)              No, I'm not...  I just... give me a second here.      Paul parks his car, gathers the soggy papers and gets out.13    EXT. STRIP MALL                                                               13      Paul, still on the phone, carries the papers to the dumpster.                                  PAUL              Yes, and that check went out a week ago.  I watched              my secretary write it up.14    EXT. INSIDE THE DUMPSTER                                                      14      Black.  Paul opens the lid.  The phone is cradled in his neck, he checks each      soggy page to make sure he's not tossing anything important.                                  PAUL              Well I don't know.  I, I, I have no clue.  Could it              possibly be a problem on your end?  So the electric              company never makes a...  Look, I pay my bills.  I'm a              Rotarian for goodness --      Paul looks over to see some MEN from Rodney's Repo Ranch walking up to      the front door of his office.  Distracted for a moment, the phone slips and falls      into the trash.      Paul, muttering, leans in to get it.  He pushes aside an orange garbage bag,      guided by the faint sound of the other person STILL TALKING. And then--      PAUL'S POV: of THE BODY-- a 40-ish White (well, a little blue) male dressed in      a cheap suit.  Paul's phone lies across the corpse's mouth, like the dead guy is      talking.                                  THE CELL PHONE              Mr. Barnell?  Mr. Barnell?15    EXT. PARKING AREA / STRIP MALL                                                15      A SHOUT as Paul jumps back from the dumpster. The lid CRASHES down as      he scrambles/slides away.  He takes a moment to compose himself, then      realizes his phone is still in there.      He opens the dumpster lid and very quickly reaches in, grabs his cell and      hurries off.  The lid CRASHES shut.                                  PAUL                        (into the phone)              Hello?      Hung up.  Paul dials 911, looks back at the dumpster, thinks for a second, then      hits END.  He stands there, thinking.A15   INT. "BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL" - LATER                                  A15      Paul back in his office, staring out the window with a perfect view of the      dumpster.  He can't take his eyes off it.      Behind him, the Repo-Men are picking up a newish computer monitor and      walking toward the door.  He's oblivious.      At the sound of a TRUCK, his head snaps around.  It's a garbage truck, but      instead of heading to the dumpster, it rumbles past on the road.  That's all it      takes.B15   EXT. PARKING AREA / STRIP MALL - MOMENTS LATER                               B15      Paul backs his Ford Taurus up to the dumpster, pops the trunk, checks to      make sure he's alone then steps up on the rear bumper, opens the lid and      clambers inside.16    INT. INSIDE A FRIDGE - LATER                                                  16      Black.  The fridge door opens, the light revealing several cans of pop and beer      in the foreground.  Behind the      beverages, a garage where Paul struggles with the lifeless body.  He props the      man against the hood of his car, gives him a quick once over, pockets, obvious      wounds.  Nothing.      Paul moves to the fridge, starts to pull things out.17    INT. ATTACHED SUBURBAN GARAGE - CONTINUOUS                                    17      Jodie, an annoyingly small dog, enters the garage from the house and starts      sniffing around the body.  A new chew toy!                                  PAUL                        (at the sound)              Jodie, no!  Not for dogs!      He SHOOS the dog back into the house.  Paul moves back to the fridge, opens      the door and, with great effort picks up the dead man and tries to stuff him      inside.  Only problem...      The man's legs don't want to fit.  Paul leans down and grabs an uncooperative      appendage.  He grits his teeth, looks away as he kicks at the knee.  It SNAPS      sideways.      Paul fights nausea.  But with the leg now out of joint, the man fits.  Paul,      breathing heavy, leans against the door.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              OK then.  OK.      He packs in the remaining space with beer and pop bottles.  Then, just before      he shuts the door, Paul reaches in and sets the fridge temperature from 1 to 9      (the coldest setting).      A padlock and chain come from the base of a propane BBQ.  It goes around the      fridge, the lock SNAPS it in place.  Paul spots some leftover drink cans.  He      kicks them to the corner and walks into the house, trying to sound casual.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Hey Honey.  Any mail?18    EXT. CITY ROADWAY - EVENING                                                   18      Ted drives home through a wooded section of town.A18   INT. TED'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                                  A18      Ted checks out various radio stations, hating everything.  He lands on one      playing "Escape (The piÒa Colada Song)" when he looks up and suddenly      jams on the brakes.B18   EXT. ROADWAY                                                                 B18      Ted car slides toward a moose that has wandered into the middle of the road.      The car stops about five feet away.      The moose looks at Ted.  Ted looks back, wondering what he ever did to      deserve the life he's stuck with.  After a moment, the moose lumbers off.  Ted      drives on.                                                                               CUT TO:C18   INT TED'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                                  C18      TIGHT ON: A COMPUTER SCREEN where swirling signs of the Zodiac act as a      screen saver.  PULL BACK TO REVEAL we are --      A telephone cord runs from the computer to the headset of TIFFANY (20s), pert,      smart and dressed in a tight University of Alaska T-shirt.  Tiffany sits with her      feet up on the desk as she flips through a copy of "Cosmo".      It's a medium sized apartment, littered with guy stuff although bowing to      advancing signs of feminine influence.      The phone RINGS.  Tiffany hits the space bar.  The caller's number flashes on      screen.  By the second ring, an electronic timer kicks in and a complete file on      the caller appears with name, address, background, pets...  She smiles, hits      "enter."                                  TIFFANY                        (into her headset)              Psychic Pals.  How are you today... Mr. Williams?                        (pause - she listens)              Well, we are all registered psychics here.  I just had              a feeling you'd be calling.  What's up?      A KEY IN THE DOOR.  A tired Ted walks inside.                                  TED              Hey Tiff.      Tiffany looks up, then holds up a file folder with the words "WORKING -      SHHHHHH!" in big black letters.                                  TIFFANY                        (to caller)              Your TV remote control?  Okay.      Ted SIGHS, gives her a quick peck on the cheek as he wrestles off his winter      gear and heads to the kitchen.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              I need you to clear your mind...      Ted looks into the fridge, making up new words to the song "Escape."                                  TED              "If you like frozen enchiladas, getting caught in the              rain.  If you're not into...something brownish."      Ted pulls out some Tupperware, tries to figure out what's in it.  Tiffany, still      wearing her headset, appears behind him, grabs a Diet Coke from the fridge      and kisses him on the cheek.                                  TIFFANY              It's stew.  I'm not sure it's still good.                                  TED              Aren't you with a customer?                                  TIFFANY              They're concentrating.      Ted grabs a fork, takes the pot and sits at the table.  Tiffany goes back to her      desk and flips through her magazine.                                  TED                        (through a mouthful of food)              So?  How's the tea leaf business today?                                  TIFFANY              I've decided from now on to ignore you when you're              ignorant about my work.  And it's going very well              thank you.                        (reconnecting to the caller)              Mr. Williams, I'm seeing sofa cushions.  Do you have              a sofa?  Good.  Glad I could help.                                  TED              You here from that software distributor guy?                                  TIFFANY              No, but I did crack that code problem.  You know how              sometimes when you're running Beta versions you --                                  TED              English, please.                                  TIFFANY              There was a boo-boo, but I fixed it.                        (another call comes in)              Psychic Pals, how are you today, Carol?  Now I              thought we'd agreed God is everywhere, but not              specifically in your coffee pot.                                  TED              Jeez, Tiff.                                  TIFFANY              Jeez, Ted.  Do I tell you how to do your job?                                  TED                        (kidding... kind of)              No, but then again I'm not a computer aided pseudo              psychic, so if you're looking for moral equivalence...                                  TIFFANY              Before you say anything else that may keep us from              having sex ever again, let me ask you something...      She picks up her magazine.                                  TED              Tiff, please.  I always get these wrong.                                  TIFFANY              That's why we keep trying.  Now, Love is Sacrifice              test.                        (reading)              If you were in a life raft with me and there was only              enough water --                                  TED              Don't you have a customer?                                  TIFFANY                        (to the caller)              Carol?  God says he's busy with a famine right now,              but you should keep praying.  Cool.      She hangs up.  Turns back to Ted, about to pick up where she left off...                                  TED              No.  I'm not doing it.                                  TIFFANY              It's just a stupid quiz.                                  TED              Exactly.      The PHONE RINGS.  Tiffany bolts to her desk, sits, spins in her chair as she      answers the call.                                  TIFFANY              Psychic Pals.  Is this the first time you've called us              Mrs...?      Tiffany at her computer, enters the name "Margaret Barnell" into her database.      Tiffany works a "mute" button as she points back to the magazine.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              But stupid quizzes can be illustrative of potential              relationship problems.                        (to her caller)              Margaret, I'm getting the feeling this is an anxious              day for you.      Ted, cooking pot in hand, walks over to her desk.                                  TED              Our only relationship problem is you're running a              $1.99 a minute carny scam out of my living room.                                  TIFFANY              Don't call it a scam.                        (to the caller - startled)              Excuse me?                                  TED              What?                                  TIFFANY              You've got to learn to channel that rage, Margaret.                        (to Ted - playful)              You didn't just call this your living room, did you?                                  TED              I meant ours.  Ours, ours, ours.      Tiffany returns to her call, but keeps looking at Ted.                                  TIFFANY              I feel someone you really care about, maybe even              the love of your life, is being a real pain.  Now I need              you to concentrate...      Ted pretends to do just that, drawing a giggle from Tiffany before he walks off.22    INT. "BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL" - MORNING                                 22      Paul tries to open the front door, but finds it blocked by a small pile of snow.      Three good yanks and it finally opens. He enters the shop.      Faded travel posters cover the walls.  AVIS (40s), a career office gal, smiles at      her boss as she assembles a life-size stand-up cardboard display for Aloha      Airlines.  It features a      dark Hawaiian beauty holding a softball sized sea shell.  The shell juts out of      the display giving it a 3-D quality.                                  AVIS              Morning Mr. Barnell.  Coffee?                                  PAUL              Thanks Avis.  Looks good.      Paul, shivering, hangs up his coat as Avis picks up a promotional Aloha Air      surfboard (the old display) and walks it to the back.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Was November this bad last year?                                  AVIS (O.S.)              Well if we didn't have the weather what would we talk              about?  Did you send the computer back?      Paul moves to his desk.                                  PAUL              Yeah, it was not working.  Any calls?                                  AVIS (O.S.)              Just that fellow from Municipal Power and Electric.  I              told him you sent the check in weeks ago, but some              people don't like to listen.      Paul turns to look at the snow covered empty parking lot, then at a photo of his      wife Margaret on his desk.  He mentally gathers himself.                                  PAUL              Something... strange happened last night Avis.                                  AVIS (O.S.)              What was that?                                  PAUL              Did... you ever meet my brother Raymond?                                  AVIS (O.S.)              The one who went missing?                                  PAUL              Uh huh.  Well anyway last night there's a knock on              the door and there's Raymond, just... standing there              on the doorstep.      Avis arrives with the coffee and the mail.                                  AVIS              Didn't you have him declared...?                                  PAUL              Dead?  No.  I mean, they said he hadn't been gone              long enough.                                  AVIS                        (smiling warmly)              Good thing in hindsight.      Paul puts the mail down on the desk and start to flip through it.  Lots of bills,      most marked past due.  He finds a "pre- approved" credit card application, sets      it to one side.                                  AVIS (cont'd)              So where was he all these years?                                  PAUL              Lower 48.  Said he wanted to get away from the cold.                                  AVIS              Where 'bouts?                                  PAUL                        (looking up)              Sorry, what was that?                                  AVIS              Where was he living?      Paul, a flash of panic, looks over at the Hawaii display.  He keys on the shell.                                  PAUL              Florida.                                  AVIS              I've got an aunt down there.  Where 'bouts?                                  PAUL                        (blanking)              A uh... small place.  By the beach.                                  AVIS              Well that's great.  You and Mrs. Barnell will have              some company for a bit I guess.  How is she?                                  PAUL              Better, a little better.  Some days are better than              others.23    INT. BARNELL HOME - DAY                                                       23      MARGARET BARNELL (early 40s) stands in a plush bathrobe and slippers.      Despite her casual attire she is immaculately made up as she walks to the      front door, opening it on -- a young wholesome PAPERBOY smiling through the      cold.                                  PAPERBOY              Collecting, Mrs. Barnell.                                  MARGARET              Daniel, you pussy little cocksucker.  I'll get my purse.      The paperboy, unfazed, smiles as Margaret walks off.                                  PAPERBOY              It's 12 dollars.  I missed you last time.                                  MARGARET (O.S.)              Jerk off... OK, jerk off, uhhuh...      Margaret gives the paperboy his money, the stamp card plus a dollar tip, then      tweaks his nose.  Twice.                                  MARGARET (cont'd)              You say hi to your slut Mom for me?                                  PAPERBOY              Sure will.  Thanks.      He trots down the walk as Margaret shuts the door.24    EXT. INSIDE A TRASH DUMPSTER - NIGHT                                          24      The lid opens.  GARY and JIMBO (30s), check to insure they're not being      watched.  Gary, slightly effeminate, leans into the bin and BURROWS through      the garbage.  Jimbo, a bear of man, keeps watch.  He's nervous, a little out of      sorts.                                  GARY              I thought stuff didn't smell when it was frozen?  I              don't know why we have to--                                  JIMBO              Dave wants visual confirmation, he gets visual              confirmation.  We have a chance to move up here,              so let's just--                                  GARY              Like the guy's not gonna end up in a land- fill,              anyway.  You ever ask Dave what he did?                                  JIMBO              Whatever it was, he told him if he did it again, he'd              snap his neck.                                  GARY                        (smiling)              Whoops, he did it again.                        (off Jimbo not getting it)              The song?  From that girl?      No response.  Gary, HUMMING now, keeps digging, finding nothing.                                  GARY (cont'd)              So how'd it feel?  I mean, not when you did it, but,              like now?                                  JIMBO              I don't want to talk about it.      Gary hops inside as his actions become more frantic.  Still no luck.  He stands.                                  GARY              Not here.      Jimbo glares at his partner.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Serious.  He's gone.  Maybe he wasn't...                                  JIMBO              Don't even joke.  Maybe the trash was emptied.                                  GARY              Looks pretty full.  Hey...                        (ducking down)              There's a little fridge down here.                        (standing)              If we would have shot him at least we'd know for              sure.                                  JIMBO              I was following orders.  And if you hadn't started a              screaming match, no one would have called the              cops and we wouldn't have had to dump his --                                  GARY              Fine.  Sorry.                                  JIMBO              Fine.                                  GARY              I'm just saying... maybe you didn't break it all the way.                                  JIMBO                        (walking away)              It was broken.                                  GARY              I'm just saying... maybe it was like hypothermia and              he just looked dead.                                  JIMBO              It - was - BROKEN!      Gary, embarrassed, digs in the trash with his feet.25    INT. GARAGE - CONTINUOUS                                                      25       Margaret, still in her bathrobe, walks to the fridge.  As she puts her hand on the      latch, she notices the pile of pop cans on the floor.      She tugs on the door.  It opens just a crack before the chain stops it.  The      frozen head peeks through the slight gap.      Margaret SIGHS, tries to push the fridge door closed, but the body is in the way.      She gives the door a hip check.  The door latches shut while something frozen      and brittle inside CRACKS.  Margaret, oblivious, walks away.26    INT. KITCHEN OVEN                                                             26      A chicken sits in a pan, the rest of the room visible behind it through the oven      door window.                                  MARGARET (O.S.)              Paul?  Why is the fridge in the garage chained shut?                                  PAUL              How's my Angel tonight?                                  MARGARET              Blow me.  Dinner's almost ready.  You feel like some              wine?  I feel like some wine.      Paul walks to the oven, opens the door and pats the chicken.  Stone cold.                                  PAUL              Sweetie, here's a crazy thought... I don't feel like              chicken tonight, why don't we order in?                                  MARGARET              Fuck it, okay.                                  PAUL              There's actually something we need to talk about.              It's about Raymond.  He's back.      Paul smiles bravely as he shuts the oven door.  Behind the chicken, Margaret      doesn't look happy as Paul starts to explain.  She rushes from the room.27/28 TIGHT ON: TV SCREEN                                                        27/28      Home video of RAYMOND (then early 30s), fat, physically imposing and the only      person not in festive tropical gear, standing in a VFW hall decorated in a      Caribbean theme. (He is definitely not the same person Paul has cooling in the      fridge.)  A large banner behind him proclaims "HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY -      BON VOYAGE."                                  RAYMOND                        (a little drunk)              Okay, I never thought it would last this long, but              seeing as how it has... There ya go.  Let me just say              that my brother, old "Puddles McBarnesy" did better              than he should have.      A younger, somewhat tipsy Paul comes into frame, puts an arm around his      brother and smiles.                                  PAUL              What'cha saying there Raymond?  Wha'cha saying              'bout me?      Raymond shakes his brother's arm off his shoulder.                                  RAYMOND              Enough, OK?                                  PAUL                        (sing-songy)              Ray's a little jeallllllllous.  This is the one that got              away, right Ray?      The crowd LAUGHS as Paul reaches over and musses up his brother's hair.      Raymond, furious, grabs his brother by the lapels and throws him roughly to      the floor.  The laughter stops.                                  MARGARET (O.S.)              Leave him alone, ball licker!                                  RAYMOND              And shut that thing --      The screen turns to snow.  We are...      Paul at his desk, watching the video on a small TV in the wall unit.  He turns his      attention to a large cardboard box filled with documents, souvenirs, old report      cards...      On the TV playing behind him (the second part of the tape), Margaret is pictured      on a cruise ship, sunning herself.  Paul, obviously behind the camera, watches      as Margaret takes a tropical drink from a WAITER'S tray, who promptly dumps it      all over her.  But instead of the expected burst of profanity, Margaret just      LAUGHS.                                  MARGARET              That's okay, don't worry about it.                        (as the waiter walks off)              I'd like the next one in a cup, please.      Paul puts aside a faded hotel postcard from Hawaii and digs out an insurance      policy out of the box.  On the last page is a list of the payouts.  Loss of a limb:      $100,000.  Loss of thumb: $5,000. Accidental death: $1,000,000.      And, as an extra bonus, Raymond's birth certificate.  Perfect. Paul takes out the      credit card application from work, and starts to write...                                  PAUL                        (to himself)              Raymond... Barnell.29    EXT. TOBOGGANING HILL - LATE AFTERNOON                                        29      LAUGHING children on toboggans, inner tubes and discarded cardboard      boxes slide down a snow covered hill against a slate gray sky.  It's an isolated      area on the outskirts of the city.30    INT. GARY AND JIMBO'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                        30      Gary and Jimbo sit in their car in the parking area.                                  JIMBO              Which one's your sister's kid?                                  GARY              See the one on the little bike-thing?  Him.                                  JIMBO                        (hesitant)              You been alright with this?                                  GARY              The thing with the guy?  Ya know, I thought it might              kinda mess me up...                                  JIMBO              First time for both of us.                                  GARY              ...but I've been sleeping really well.                                  JIMBO              Yeah.  'Course, you didn't actually...      Jimbo mimics snapping someone's neck.  It's clearly not a gesture he enjoys.      As Gary looks at him, a Cadillac pulls up beside them.  Behind the wheel is      DAVE (50s) well dressed, in a thuggish kinda way.  Jimbo and Gary share a      nervous look.31    EXT. TOP OF THE HILL - CONTINUOUS                                             31      About 50 yards away from the two cars, Gary's NEPHEW is having his      Snowrider (a tricycle with skis instead of wheels) hijacked by a playground      BULLY in a red parka.  A tug o' war for the toy ensues as Gary and Jimbo get      out of their car.                                  NEPHEW              Leggo... it's mine.  Uncle Gary!32    EXT. PARKING AREA                                                             32      Gary and Jimbo are leaning close to the Cadillac's open window. Dave does      not look happy.                                  DAVE                        (to Jimbo)              Wait a minute.  He's disappeared?      Gary waves to his nephew.                                  GARY                        (shouting)              You just... hang in there, Billy!                                  JIMBO              Yeah.  But he's dead.  I mean, that part, no question.                                  DAVE              Yeah?  Take off your coat.  And your shirt, too.      Jimbo knows better than to argue.  He strips down, exposing his corpulent      middle-aged belly to the chilly winter winds.                                  JIMBO              I'm not wearing a wire, Dave, if that's what this is              about.                                  GARY              It was our first time.  No one gets it perfect their first              time.                                  DAVE              You too, Sweetie.      Gary is about to comply when the sound of a FIGHT on the tobogganing hill      causes them all to look over, just in time to see GARY'S NEPHEW shoved to      ground.  The Bully LAUGHS as he slides away.                                  GARY              Excuse me for a second.      Gary trots toward the hill.  Jimbo can't believe it.                                  JIMBO              Gary!  We're in the middle of something.                                  GARY                        (calling back)              Hey, I'm supposed to be looking after him.      Jimbo turns back to Dave, shrugging sheepishly.                                  DAVE              Is he...?                                  JIMBO              He's fine.  Look, we can take you there right now.              We'll show you.      Behind them on the hill, Gary tries to retrieve his nephew's Snowrider from the      Bully.  He is failing.                                  DAVE              Show me what?  An empty trash dumpster?  It was              supposed to look like an accident.  I was hoping to              see it in the paper.  So help me, if this guy pops up              somewhere...      While Jimbo does his best to stay warm, behind him on the hill, Gary can only      watch as the Bully slides away.                                  BULLY                        (echoing in the cold)              Fag!  Big homo!                                  JIMBO              He won't.  He can't.  He's --                                  DAVE              Proof, Jimbo.  I like to know my money's well spent.              You got a week.      Dave drives off as Gary walks over with his SNIFFLING nephew.                                  GARY              Slippery little sucker.  You mind if we stop at a toy              store on the way back?33    OMITTED                                                                       33A 33  INT. BARNELL HOME / BEDROOM - NIGHT                                         A 33      HIGH ANGLE ON:  Paul and Margaret in bed.  Margaret takes up more than her      share of the bed, her arm tossed over her husband.  Paul, on his third of the      bed, looks as if he's lying in state. But Paul's not sleeping.34    EXT.  BARNELL HOME - MORNING                                                  34      A newspaper clears the "For Sale - price reduced!" sign on the front lawn and      lands with a THUD on the steps.35    INT.  GARAGE - CONTINUOUS                                                     35      Paul has the "Morning News" on the hood of his car.  He looks over at the      fridge, still padlocked.                                  PAUL                        (to himself)              Let's see if anyone's missing you.      He flips through each section.  There's nothing.  Paul walks to the fridge.                                  PAUL (cont'd)                        (to the corpse)              I don't know what kind of man let's himself just              freeze to death in the trash, but I was never one to              preach.  Way I see it, you've probably got family              somewhere and they'd probably appreciate seeing              you get a decent funeral, even if it's not really... yours.      Paul, somewhat befuddled, gently pats the fridge door.36    OMITTED                                                                       3637    INT. BARNELL HOME / LIVING ROOM - LATER                                       37      Margaret pushes the vacuum across the floor, humming to herself.  Paul walks      by slipping into his coat.  He notices that the vacuum isn't plugged in.  Without      missing a beat, he walks over and plugs it into the outlet.  The VACUUM      ROARS TO LIFE.  Margaret doesn't flinch.  Paul heads out the door.38    OMITTED                                                                       3839    OMITTED                                                                       3940    EXT. WOODED AREA - LATER                                                      40      A ways out in the forest.  Only two houses on this turn-out; a cozy looking lived      in cabin sits up the road from a seemingly deserted rundown mobile home.  A      car pulls up.A40   INT. PAUL'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                                 A40      Paul adjusts a pillow he has taped to his stomach, then pulls on a blue ski      mask.41    EXT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - MOMENTS LATER                                      41      Paul undoes the bungee cord and drags his snowblower out of the trunk.  He      fires up the snowblower and starts to plow the drive way of both houses.      MRS. WHERRY (80s), in her bathrobe, looks out the window of the cozy cabin.      A tad confused, she waves to the man in the blue parka.  The blue parka waves      back.42    INT.  PAUL'S KITCHEN - NIGHT                                                  42      Paul walks in from the garage, pulling off his blue parka.  Margaret enters from      the living room.  (Paul still has the pillow taped to his front, which Margaret      happily pokes with a finger but never mentions.)                                  MARGARET                        (nervous)              He's not here, is he?                                  PAUL              Sweetie, don't you worry about Raymond.                                  MARGARET              When he's around, it just brings back... Fuck.                                  PAUL              I know.  He, he said he's probably gonna head back              down South soon.      Margaret smiles, relieved.  The phone RINGS.  Paul picks up.43    INT. MRS. WHERRY'S HOME - CONTINUOUS                                          43      Mrs. Wherry talks on the phone in her kitchen.  The head of a large antelope is      mounted on the wall behind her.                                  MRS. WHERRY              Paul?  Thank you so much for clearing the drive way.              That was most considerate.                                  PAUL              I'm afraid I don't understand Mrs. Wherry.                                  MRS. WHERRY              You were out at the cabin this morning.  Nice to see              you getting some use out of that thing.44    INT. PAUL'S KITCHEN                                                           44      Paul shakes off his boots.                                  PAUL              Oh I see.  No, you see that must have been              Raymond.  (beat) Very much so.  No, no one was              more surprised than we were. (beat)  No, he's...              indisposed right now, but I'm sure you'll see him              again.  He's going to stay at the cabin for a while              until he... leaves.  And bless you too.45    OMITTED                                                                       4546    OMITTED                                                                       4647    EXT. WILDERNESS ROAD - NIGHT                                                  47      A "Moose Xing" sign is briefly illuminated by Paul's car's headlights as it heads      up a snow packed mountain road.  The distant lights of the city are swallowed      by the thick forests of fir trees that line the road.48    INT. PAUL'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                                  48      Paul, nervous, sings along to "Escape" on the radio.                                  PAUL              "...It was my own lovely lady, and she said, oh it's              you..."A48   EXT. WILDERNESS ROAD / TURNOUT - NIGHT                                       A48      Paul pulls off.  Kills his headlights.  Pops the trunk.49    EXT. FOREST - LATER                                                           49      The corpse, now in Raymond's clothing and the blue parka, lies face up on the      Aloha Airlines promotional surfboard being lurched forward by Paul, who wears      a pair of snowshoes.  On the body's chest lies a second pair of snowshoes.      Somewhere, a WOLF HOWLS.50    EXT. TOP/BOTTOM OF A RIDGE - LATER                                            50      Paul at the top of a 25 foot drop.  He rolls the corpse, now wearing the other set      of snowshoes, over the side.  It BOUNCES down, landing in the snow with a      soft WHUMPH!51    OMITTED                                                                       5152    INT. PAUL'S HOME / KITCHEN - DAWN                                             52      Paul sits in a seeming stupor at the kitchen table.  A DING from the microwave      snaps him out of his catatonic state.  He walks to the appliance, takes out his      now re-heated coffee, checks his watch and heads out.53    EXT. TOP OF THE RIDGE / FOREST - MORNING                                      53      Paul, wearing snowshoes and carrying the surfboard, peeks over the edge.      PAUL'S POV: down at the corpse, exactly as it was last night.                                  PAUL              Well come on!  How much easier do I have to make              this?      His words echo in the cold wilderness.54    INT.  PAUL'S KITCHEN  - DAY                                                   54      Jodie the dog is in a complete frenzy, jumping up and down at the feet of Paul      who stands over a SIZZLING frying pan full of bacon.  He checks the bacon's      consistency with a fork.  Still pretty raw.  He takes the bacon and lays it on a      plate.      Beside the pan on the counter sit a baseball cap and a stapler.  Paul carefully      takes each strip of bacon and staples it to the peak of the ball cap.  He holds it      up.  The bacon hangs down like fringe.      Margaret appears in the doorway.                                  MARGARET              Paul?                                  PAUL                        (startled)              Holy-- Margaret, you scared the wits out of me.      Margaret lifts up Jodie, who's desperately trying to get at the hat.                                  MARGARET              She just wants that bacon.                                  PAUL              Such a little puppy.  How late is "Rudys" open?55    EXT. SHOPPING CENTER / RUDYS MARKET  - LATE AFTERNOON                         55      A large sign outside advertises "Fresh Moose Meat". Paul runs out with a      shopping bag, jumps in his car and drives off.56    EXT. BOTTOM OF THE RIDGE - SUNSET                                             56      Paul, carrying the shopping bag, he painfully picks his way down the rock face      toward the corpse.                                  PAUL                        (really bad British accent)              You may want to take a gander.  You may want to              take a gander...                                                                               CUT TO:57    EXT. BOTTOM OF THE RIDGE - SUNSET                                             57      THE BACON HAT -- as Paul pulls it snug on the corpse's head.  He pulls the      bloody steaks from the shopping bag and starts to smear them on the corpse's      parka.  Drops of blood hit the snow at the body's feet and disappear.      Paul drapes the steaks on the body, tucking one under an arm, the other      hanging from a pocket. He pauses for moment, then pulls out a container of      lard and, fighting his own revulsion, smears it across the dead man's face.                                  PAUL              Sorry about this part.      Paul pats the body on the shoulder, then looks up at the ridge and the long      journey ahead.58    EXT. BOTTOM OF RIDGE  - NIGHT                                                 58      A WOLF appears in the moonlight.  Followed by another, and another.  They      approach the corpse...59    EXT. HIGHWAY TURNOUT / CLEARING - DAY                                         59      Snowmobiles SCREAM to the site as people tramp through the thick snow,      covering all of Paul's hard work.  An ambulance and State Conservation      vehicles pack the area where Paul first pulled off.  Yellow police tape is strung      between fir trees marking a path toward the ridge.60    EXT. BOTTOM OF RIDGE  - DAY                                                   60      The corpse is covered with a tarp.  The area is littered with blood, animal tracks      and bits of blue parka.  POLICE OFFICERS and tough looking LOCAL      SNOWMOBILERS mill about the corpse, taking turns lifting the tarp that covers      the body.  A few yards away, DETECTIVE BOYLE (60s) talks to a seemingly      distraught Paul.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE                        (looking at the ridge)              If it's any comfort to you, he likely wasn't eaten while              conscious.  Did he say where he'd been living,              before he came home?                                  PAUL              Florida.  He didn't really talk about it much.  He              brought us this shell.      Paul holds up a sea shell, obviously from the display at his office.  Tears well      up in his eyes.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              It's really all we have left.  He'd been gone for five              years.  We'd given him up--                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              --for dead, yes sir.                                  PAUL              How did you...?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Anonymous phone tip from some Jamaican guy.                        (Paul shows no reaction)              Said he saw what looked like a body.  We tracked              you through his ID.                                  PAUL              Just like on TV.      Boyle nods sympathetically                                  PAUL (cont'd)              I've got to see him.  Please.      Paul starts to make his way to the body.  Boyle stops him.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Mr. Barnell,  I should warn you, an animal  attack isn't              pretty.  There's not much left.      Paul nods.  They make their way over to the tarp.  Boyle pulls it back.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE (cont'd)              Is that your brother, sir?      Paul leans in-- the man's face is hamburger.  Paul nods.                                  PAUL              They chewed his ears off.  What kind of animal does              something like that?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Normally I'd say bear, but these tracks and the              feeding pattern indicate wolf.  It's rare, but it can              happen.      Boyle pulls the cover back over the body. Boyle hands Barnell a clear baggie      with the dead man's wallet inside.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE (cont'd)              Your brother's personal effects.  We've got some              people with the victim's assistance program who              can help you through this.  Marcie?      Marcie, a female police officer, walks a distraught Paul away.  As they go,      another FEMALE COP approaches.                                  FEMALE COP              Coroner found some smaller bite marks on the              ankle.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Pups.  Must have been the whole freakin' pack.                                  FEMALE COP              You want an autopsy?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              On what?                                  FEMALE COP              Derek found this.      She holds up a clear evidence bag with the remnants of a strip of bacon on the      inside.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Not the smartest snack for a hiker.                                  FEMALE COP              Messy animals aren't they?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Messy.  Messy messy messy messy.61    INT. INFLATABLE GOLF DOME - LATE AFTERNOON                                    61      The second level of a large indoor driving range/mini golf course.  The sound of      clubs SMACKING golf balls echo as an intense Ted "waggles" before his shot.      On his back-swing, Tiffany throws her arms around him from behind.                                  TED              I take it you're done?                                  TIFFANY              Yup.                                  TED              Wanna hit some of mine?                                  TIFFANY                        (hugging him harder)              Nope.      He turns, LAUGHING.  They kiss as she playfully starts to grope him.                                  TED              Now this is definitely a violation of Golf Dome policy.                                  TIFFANY              Must be all this talk about using your wood.                                  TED              Woods.  So maybe later I can... check your grip?                                  TIFFANY              Secret?                                  TED              My dirty talk sucks?                                  TIFFANY              I like it when you try, though.      Tiffany gives him a peck and flits back to a nearby chair.  He hits one, skying it      into a low hanging light.                                  TED              You know in some states they actually do this              outside?      Tiffany looks over at one of the tacky tropically-theme'd mini-golf holes.                                  TIFFANY              So how many insurance companies are there in the              United States?  Like, a billion.                                  TED              That's not the point, Tiff.  I've busted my ass for              Liberty Capital.  I don't want to quit.  I deserve to be              promoted out of this ice bound backwater.                                  TIFFANY              And when it happens, I guess I'll just be another              notch on your briefcase.                                  TED              I can't believe you said that.  You know you are...      He looks around.  Embarrassed, he lowers his voice.                                  TED (cont'd)              ...the most important thing in my life.                                  TIFFANY                        (smiling/shouting)              Sorry, what was that!  You want to take me right              here?      As other GOLFERS look over, Tiffany and Ted share a warm smile, the moment      only broken by the ringing of a CELL PHONE.  She SIGHS, unzips Ted's gym      bag and answers his phone.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              Psychic... Uhm, sorry, hello?  Yeah.  Look, is this a              matter of life and death, because right now he's...      Suddenly concerned, she hands the phone to Ted.                                  TED              Hello? (beat)  You're kidding me.                        (almost stunned)              Yeah, I'll hold.                                  TIFFANY              Your Mom?                                  TED              Million dollar life policy just checked.                                  TIFFANY              On a Saturday?  What about the first annual golf, sex              and pizza triathlon?                                  TED              Look, if this is... who I think it is, I may have found us              a ticket out of here.                                  TIFFANY              We don't need a ticket.      Tiffany stands, knowing it's no use arguing, she pulls on her coat.  Ted tries to      give her a hug.  She falls into his embrace, but doesn't hug him back.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              Don't be late, OK?                                  TED              You won't even know I'm gone.      CORPSE'S POV:  Black.  The drawer is pulled open.  We are...62    INT. CITY MORGUE (BODY TRAY)                                                  62      Ted, Cam and Detective Boyle stand at the end near the feet.  A white sheet      covers most of the deceased.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              That's him.  Raymond Barnell.                                  TED              Could you?      Boyle moves toward the head and pulls back the covering.  Ted recoils.  Cam      leans in for a closer look.                                  CAM              Ouch.  That's gotta hurt.                                  TED              So what's your line on this?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Just what it looks like.  Wolves got him. Maybe a              grizzly with insomnia, but we didn't find any tracks.                                  TED              Would it surprise you to learn his brother tried to              cash in his policy two weeks ago?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              You trying to tell me Mr. Barnell chewed off his              brother's leg?                                  TED              Doesn't that make you the least bit suspicious?                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Mr. Watters, this is a nice simple ending.  We like              nice simple endings.                                  TED              But shouldn't you--                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Ya know, I don't know thing one about insurance, but              I'm guessing it's your job              to find a way not to pay these poor people.                                  CAM              Hey now, we're just like you guys, gotta run down              whatever leads we can find.      Ted walks down to the head of the victim, pulls out a camcorder and starts to      tape the body.                                  TED              Detective, we're an insurance company, not the              Salvation Army.                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Mind telling me what you're doing?                                  CAM              They gave every claims team a video camera last              quarter... you'd be amazed at how it cuts down on              litigation.  We had this case two months ago where              this mother of six was claiming...                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              I've got my own war stories, thanks.  You mind              stopping that?                                  TED              Just doing --                                  DETECTIVE BOYLE              Your job?  Yes, I caught that.      As Ted gets his last shot, Boyle covers the body back up and slides the drawer      shut with a loud CLANG.  Black.63    EXT. PAUL'S HOUSE - SUNSET                                                    63      TV NEWS CAMERA POV: Of Paul, standing on his stoop, as he's interviewed by      a well made-up female TV REPORTER (20s) dressed for the cold.                                  TV REPORTER              You ready Mr. Barnell?                                  PAUL              Yes.      The camera man flicks on his light as Paul squints.                                  TV REPORTER              The police told us what happened, how are you folks              holding up?                                  MARGARET (O.S.)              Paul?  Who's out there?      Paul reaches back, and, as discretely as possible, grabs the door handle to      keep Margaret from opening it.                                  PAUL              Obviously, my wife's very upset...                                  MARGARET (O.S.)              Paul, the door's stuck!      Margaret starts to HAMMER rhythmically on the door.                                  PAUL                        (ignoring her)              It's been a tough, you know, when something like              this happens you just have to ask yourself...                                  MARGARET (O.S.)              Who fucked with the fucking door!                                  PAUL              You can see how stressful it's been, I should really              go now.  We have to plan a service.      And with that, Paul opens his front door and ducks inside, quickly shutting it      behind him.64    INT. BRANCH'S OFFICE - DAY                                                    64      Branch, very unhappy, flips through some papers then looks up at Ted and      Cam.                                  TED              This isn't a standard case.  You were there when              this guy came in looking to cash in.  C'mon, it stinks.                                  BRANCH              Secondly, if the police say this guy was...                                  CAM              Eaten by wolves.  Sir.                                  BRANCH                        (incredulous)              Eaten by wolves, then we've got no case.  Did you              see Mr. Barnell on the news last              night?  Last thing we need is bad P.R.  I don't want              this thing Valdeez-ing on us.                                  TED              Mr. Branch, I'm sure head office would take a rather              dim view of our --                                  BRANCH              Corporate's view will be whatever I tell them.      Cam, seeing his partner is about to get himself into a heap of trouble, hustles      him toward the door.                                  CAM              Yes Sir.  Color us called off, as of now.65    INT. INSURANCE OFFICE - MOMENTS LATER                                         65      Ted and Cam walk through the cubicles.                                  TED              Stop looking at me right now.                                  CAM              You've got a strange way of bucking for a promotion,              my friend.                        (off Ted's look)              Look, I'm gonna start on the Johnasen file.  You want              to do up the paper work on Barnell?      Ted grabs his coat.                                  CAM (cont'd)              Where ya going?                                  TED              Lunch.                                  CAM              At 9:30?      Ted is out the door.66    INT. "BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL" - DAY                                     66      Ted sits across the desk from Paul.  As per usual, the place is a tomb.                                  TED              The police say they found Raymond's wallet, that's              how they tracked you down?                                  PAUL              That's right, yes.                                  TED              Any idea what he was doing out there?                                  PAUL              He'd go for walks.  Hikes, I mean.  Hiking.                                  TED              How sporty.  Was he a big hiker?                                  PAUL              Not sure I follow.                                  TED              Did he hike more than once a week?  Or was this a...              one time thing?                                  PAUL              Can I ask why you need to know all this?                                  TED              Just trying to tie up a few loose ends.                                  PAUL              You know the police... they say Raymond died in the              attack.  You do cover that sort of thing don't you?                                  TED                        (forced smile)              Yes sir.  It shouldn't take more than a few days.              Now, tell me a little more about your brother.  The              hiker.67    EXT. STRIP MALL PARKING LOT - MOMENTS LATER                                   67      Gary and Jimbo's car parked in the lot.  Gary is just returning to the vehicle with      a brown paper bag.  Jimbo has the look of man who hasn't slept in days.      Gary and Jimbo are eating fish and chips.  The name on the bag is "Ye' Olde      Fish Shoppe."                                  JIMBO              Cod or Halibut?                                  GARY              Didn't ask.                                  JIMBO                        (digging in)              So we got six different stores here. We got your              "Great Escapes" travel agency, your Ye Old Fish and              Chips place, Porn-a-Copia videos, a hair place, one              for lease and one... what is that?                                  GARY              Small engine repair.  See all the snow blowers out              front.      There is indeed a row of snowblowers lined up outside.  Jimbo takes another      bite of his fish.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Should move the blowers over to the triple X store.      Gary LAUGHS.  Jimbo is in no mood.                                  JIMBO              So, which one you figure would want to take our              friend?                                  GARY              I guess maybe the porn palace.  Ya know for some              weird sex film.                                  JIMBO              Yeah, this place is just a hotbed of adult cinema              production.  Fish shop look clean?                                  GARY              Very nice Korean family.  You figure maybe they              battered him up?      Gary LAUGHS again, then shoves Jimbo's shoulder.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Maybe we're eatin' him right now.  Huh?                                  JIMBO              Gary, this isn't a joke.  You ever known Dave to joke?      Gary, embarrassed, takes another bite of his fish.  Jimbo turns up the radio.  A      local call-in show comes on.                                  WOMAN CALLER (O.S.)              ...it could never happen.  There's never been a              documented case--                                  GARY              Sorry.                                  JIMBO              Yeah, "Sorry."  I get strip searched and you go off              playing snow angels...                                  RADIO HOST (O.S.)              Well, we've got one now, don't we!?                                  WOMAN CALLER (O.S.)              That was different. From what I read in the paper he              was unconscious. And now people are going to use              this as an excuse to--                                  RADIO HOST (O.S.)              Hey lady, why don't you tell Raymond Barnell how              wolves have gotten a bad rap.                                  WOMAN CALLER (O.S.)              I can tell you from years of experience that wolves do              not operate--                                  JIMBO              Wait a minute.                                  RADIO HOST (O.S.)              You can tell me all you want, lady, but it is an              undeniable, indisputable fact.  This Barnell guy got              turned into a Scooby Snack by a pack of wild              animals...      JIM'S POV: Through the windshield, looking at the sign for "Barnell Great      Escapes Travel."  Jimbo and Gary look at each other. Maybe...68    INT. INSURANCE OFFICE - DAY                                                   68      Ted at his cubicle on his phone.                                  TED              Yeah, hi, it's Ted Watters from Fidelity Mutual. (beat)              I need a complete credit work up on a Raymond              Barnell... and Paul, a Paul Barnell too... sure, I'll hold.      Cam walks by, leans his head over the top of the cubicle.                                  CAM              You start the month ends yet?                                  TED              Can you take care of it?  I'm kinda... working on              something.                                  CAM              Oh God, you're not still on the Barnell thing are you--      Ted pulls Cam down into his cubicle, talks in a harsh whisper.                                  TED              I went to see him.                                  CAM              And?  Then?  So?                                  TED              Trust me. Something's not right.  I can smell it.  Help              me buy a week.                                  CAM              We're gonna get in such trouble.                                  TED              I promise from now on you can come along on              everything.                                  CAM              No more Cam goes to the coffee room and Ted              disappears for three hours?                                  TED              I'll try.                                  CAM              And you'll work on your interpersonal skills?                                  TED                        (a long beat)              Yes.                                  CAM              Good.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go start covering              your ass.69    INT. BARNELL HOME / STUDY - EVENING                                           69      Paul sits beside his desk, flipping through travel brochures. Margaret enters,      teetering in the doorway.  Paul looks up.                                  PAUL              Hey.  How's my Princess?                                  MARGARET              OK.  I took some Adavan.  And called my psychic.                                  PAUL                        (picks up the phone bill)              Honey, you know how expensive that is.  I thought we              agreed that...      She moves to him, runs her hand through his hair.                                  MARGARET              Don't be mad.  It's just... this week has been so...              well with Raymond getting eaten by animals and              someone trying to steal the fridge.                                  PAUL              I know.  Why don't you --                                  MARGARET              We got another letter from the HMO today.                                  PAUL              Have you opened it yet?      Margaret starts to CRY, holding the letter up to her face the SOBS building to a      full blown breakdown.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Oh hey honey, come on now.                                  MARGARET              I'm sorry.  It's just, fucking cocksuckers.      Paul takes the letter, unfolds it and reads...                                  PAUL              "As we have stated previously... usual onset before              the age of 18... coupled with no genetic history..."                                  MARGARET              I'm sick!  I'm really, really sick!                                  PAUL              Shush, now.  (reading again) "We hasten to add,              Tourette Syndrome is not..."                                  MARGARET              Fuck them.      Paul is about to say something, but returns to the letter.                                  PAUL              "As well, please reference our previous decisions              regarding your claims for ADD, ODO, OCD,              ADHOPHI...                        (treading lightly)              Honey.  I know you don't like to talk about it, but              maybe it's not... what we might think it is but... maybe              it's just stress?  Remember that cruise?  I saw you.              You were happy.      Margaret looks at him, crestfallen.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              I'm sorry.  I'm just really tired.                                  MARGARET              They say you can't get it all of a sudden but I did.  I              really, really did.                                  PAUL              I know.  They just don't --                                  MARGARET              I'll kill myself.  Then they'll see.                                  PAUL              That is nonsense talk.                                  MARGARET              Then you can go off and...                        (sobbing again)              ...marry someone normal.                                  PAUL              You're the most normal girl I know.                                  MARGARET              I'm not crazy, Paul.  Something's really wrong with              me.      He takes her to a small sofa, cradles her in his arms.                                  PAUL              I know, Sweetie.  I know.  And we're gonna find you              the best specialists in...                        (a second, then confident)              ...what you have that we can.                                  MARGARET              Promise?                                  PAUL              I really think things are going to turn around.  Call me              cr... I just have a feeling.  You just leave everything to              me, OK?  Is that OK?  Leave everything to me?  I              promise.                                  MARGARET                        (gently)              Shit bag.                                  PAUL              That's my girl.                                                                                CUT TO:      TIGHT ON : TV SCREEN70/71 INT. TED'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                               70/71      Where Edward G. Robinson (as the character Keyes in "Double Indemnity")      grills a man about a fake insurance claim.                                  EDWARD G. ROBINSON              "Every time one of these phonies comes along it ties              knots in my stomach... I can't eat.  That's how I knew              your claim was crooked..."      At the sound of DOORBELL, the whole scene freezes.  We are --      Tiffany at her desk, working on the computer.  Ted has paused the DVD, puts      down the Barnell file and opens the door on a snow covered PIZZA GUY, soggy      pizza box in hand.                                  TED              Hey.                                  PIZZA GUY              Hi there.  That'll be $12.97.      Ted looks at his watch.                                  TED              What about thirty minutes or free?                                  PIZZA GUY              Doesn't apply when it's snowing.                                  TED                        (digging out his wallet)              So nine months of the year your guarantee is              worthless?                                  PIZZA GUY              It doesn't snow every day.                                  TED              They should really tell people when they order.                                  TIFFANY              Would you just give him the money already?                                  PIZZA GUY              It's not my decision.                                  TED              I know that.  I'm just saying.                                  PIZZA GUY              Sure.                                  TED              You understand though?                                  PIZZA GUY              Absolutely.                                  TED              It wouldn't take much.                                  PIZZA GUY              Full disclosure to the pizza consumer. I'll be sure to              pass that along.      The delivery guy leaves.      Ted walks back into the living room.  Tiffany comes over, grabs a slice.                                  TIFFANY              Why you gotta argue with the service industry?                                  TED              The problem with people today is they don't expect              anyone to tell the truth.              We've just come to accept lying as acceptable.                                  TIFFANY              If this is another passive/aggressive shot at Psychic              Buddies, all our ads state "for amusement purposes              only."                                  TED              Tiff, it has nothing to do with... look, just forget it.                                  TIFFANY              You remember being amused, don't ya, honey?              What is with you anyway?                                  TED              Want to know what's "with" me?  I'm on the verge of              cracking the biggest case of my career, one that              corporate has to notice, and nobody gives a crap.              Not my boss, and not even my girlfriend.                                  TIFFANY              So this is my fault?                                  TED              No, it's not your fault. I just want to live somewhere              where road hazards don't have antlers and the pizza              doesn't have to be delivered by dogsled.      Tiffany storms off as Ted flops onto the couch, swipes the snow from the top of      the pizza box and hits play on the DVD.                                  EDWARD G. ROBINSON              "What kind of outfit is this, anyway?  Are we an              insurance company or a bunch of dim-witted              amateurs to write a policy on a mug like that?"      Tiffany turns from the bedroom door, almost in tears.                                  TIFFANY              You know, even though Edward G. Robinson wins,              everyone like Fred MacMurray better.      She SLAMS the door.  Ted doesn't move, lost in his own world.72    INT. MRS. WHERRY'S HOUSE / LIVING ROOM - DAY                                  72      Ted and Mrs. Wherry sit on plastic covered furniture.  The mounted heads of      several dozen dead animals, foxes, wolves, elk, surround them.  Ted takes      notes.                                  MRS. WHERRY              It was terrible.  Just terrible. Raymond should have              known better.                                  TED                        (re: the mounted heads)              All these yours?                                  MRS. WHERRY              Greatest sport on earth.  Moved to a compound bow              two years ago.                        (whisper)              Arthritis.  Less draw weight.      She mimics pulling back an imaginary bow with her bony hand.                                  MRS. WHERRY (cont'd)              Coffee OK?                                  TED              I'm fine.  Did you talk to Raymond at all when he              came home?  Was he getting along with his              brother?                                  MRS. WHERRY              No.  Only saw him the once.  Never spoke.  Waved to              him.                                  TED              Waved?                                  MRS. WHERRY              He was clearing my driveway.  Raymond was a real              hellcat when he was younger.  But like they say, time              mellows even the hardest soul.                                  TED              Was he much of an outdoorsman?                                  MRS. WHERRY              I thought it was Paul at first.  Have you met Paul's              wife?  Now there's a story.  Not that I'm much for              gossip, but I think Raymond used to have a --                                  TED              Mrs. Wherry, I'm sorry, but --                                  MRS. WHERRY              Sorry.  Did Raymond like the outdoors.  Not so              much, no.  Liked living out here at the cabin, though.              I think he had some friends on the police force.              Have you talked to them?  They'd pull up here day              and night, always looking for --                                  TED              I'm sorry, did you say you thought it was Paul who              did your driveway?                                  MRS. WHERRY              Well in a ski mask you can hardly tell who's who.              Now, how 'bout some jerky?  I've got it drying out              back.73    INT. INSURANCE OFFICE - DAY                                                   73      Ted at his cubicle, thinking hard as he chews on some jerky as he works the      phone.  Snow whips by outside the window.                                  TED                        (just waiting to cut in)              That's really super, Simon.  Now how'd you like to              run some names for me?      Ted sees Cam reflected in his dark computer screen.  Annoyed, he puts his      hand over the receiver.                                  TED (cont'd)              You mind?                                  CAM              Now, now.  Let's not forget who's pulling double duty.                                  TED                        (hanging up)              Simon, I'll call you back.                        (to Cam: forced)              Sorry.                                  CAM              Much better.  So?                                  TED              Turns out our Mr. Barnell is mortgaged to the nuts.              His business is about one step              away from chapter 11.  Plus it's like his brother              Raymond never existed.  He's got no credit history,              no nothing for the last five years.                                  CAM              Ya know, not having a credit history isn't actually a              crime.  People around here have been known to              swap a snow mobile for 500 pounds of venison.              Doesn't exactly leave a paper trail.                                  TED              Yes, but he was in Florida, someplace.  Plus, the              only thing he did after his recent "reappearance" was              get some new ID and a new credit card.  Didn't              charge anything.                                  CAM              Wow.  Less than nothing.                                  TED              It's something.                                  CAM              No it's not... in my humble, junior investigator's              opinion.      The phone RINGS.  Ted picks up.                                  TED              Watters, claims.  Yeah, hang on...                        (to Cam)              It's personal.  I promise.      Cam shrugs, walks off.  Ted waits 'til he's gone...                                  TED (cont'd)              Mr. Barnell... Your ears must have been burning, I              was just -- sure, what time?      Ted is scribbling down something on a pad of paper.74    EXT. GRAVEYARD - DAY (FULL ON BLIZZARD)                                       74      Tombstones, barely visible through the blowing snow, dot the top of a small hill      on the outskirts of town.  A small group of mourners try to keep warm.  Paul and      Margaret, Avis, two other FRIENDS and the MINISTER huddle against the cold.                                  MINISTER              When someone is taken from us at such a young              age we often ask ourselves, why?  What possible              purpose could this serve?      The Minister is temporarily lost from view.                                  MINISTER (cont'd)                        (just a voice in the white)              Why is God, who is a loving God, capable of such              things...      The snow clears.  Paul, a pillar of strength, discreetly checks his watch then      sneaks a concerned look at Margaret who busily grins at everyone in sight.      Ted's car pulls into the parking area.75    INT. JIMBO'S CAR / GRAVEYARD PARKING LOT - CONTINUOUS                         75      Gary and Jimbo sit in their vehicle, watching as Ted gets out of his car and is      swallowed in a white out.  He reappears a moment later farther up the hill.                                  GARY              We should have checked the funeral              announcements right away.                                  JIMBO              Shoot.76    EXT. GRAVEYARD                                                                76      A wind GUST rocks the casket just as it's lowered into the frozen earth.  The      funeral breaks up quickly as Paul and his wife shake hands with the minister.                                  PAUL              That was lovely, thank you so much.                                  MINISTER              Margaret, Paul, you two get some sleep.      Paul looks nervously at Margaret, who is about to reply.  As her mouth      engages, a gust of wind obliterates most of her words, except for...                                  MARGARET              ...nun banger.      The Minister smiles, he must have misunderstood.                                  MINISTER              Absolutely.      Paul turns to see Ted approaching.  A blast of snow obscures his view.  When      Ted reappears, he's just a few steps away.                                  TED              Mr. Barnell.  There was no hurry on this, we could              wait until--                                  PAUL              It's OK.  We just wrapped up.  This is my wife,              Margaret.      As they shake hands, and Margaret opens her mouth to speak...                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Why don't you wait in the car, sweetheart?                                  MARGARET              Okee dokee, smokee.      Margaret smiles and totters off.                                  PAUL              She's under a little strain right now.      Ted looks down the hill at a small group of TV news vans, the REPORTERS      just now venturing out into the cold.                                  TED              I see the media's here.  They don't give people a              moment's peace, do they?                                  PAUL              I called them.                                  TED                        (surprised)              Really?                                  PAUL              Well, they've been asking me to talk some more              about Raymond.  I thought now might be an              appropriate time.                                  TED              And you'll just happen to mention your heartless              insurance company that hasn't paid off your policy              yet.                                  PAUL              I had to borrow money for the casket, Mr. Ted.                                  TED              You are breaking my heart.                                  PAUL              No, I doubt that.  They asked me to bring some              photos of Raymond.  Guess it's gonna be a pretty              big story.      He pulls out some shots of his brother.  They whip around in the wind and      blowing snow.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Of course, we could walk over there together.  You              could tell them how deeply moved you were by this              tragedy and how... the check is on its way?      Ted thinks, grudgingly impressed with Paul's ploy.                                  TED              Enjoy your press conference, Mr. Barnell.      Paul stuffs the photos back in his pocket and walks down the hill.  Ted watches      him go, is about to leave when a gust of wind forces him to avert his eyes.      Looking down he sees a photo of Raymond Barnell, on the beach in swim      trunks.  Must have fallen.  Ted pockets it and moves on.A76   INT. GARY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                                A76                                  JIMBO              That's your plan?                                  GARY              How tough can it be?                                  JIMBO              You ever try digging through six feet of half frozen              sod?  We'd need a back hoe.  Can you operate a              back hoe?  Do you know where we'd get a back              hoe?  We don't even know for sure...                                  GARY              Oh please.  Don't you think it's a pretty neat              coincidence?                                  JIMBO              Maybe we just go explain it to Dave.                                  GARY              He won't take it well.                                  JIMBO              Then I'm all for new options, here, Gary. (beat)  If we              give the money back--                                  GARY              Hey, wait a minute, now.  We did the job.  We              deserve the--                                  JIMBO              I did the job, Gary.  I know, because I haven't been              sleeping for the last week.                                  GARY              I don't know why you're letting it get to you like this.              Look, let's just not rush into anything.  It's my turn to              step up.  I know that.  I'm on it.      They look on as Paul is interviewed by the reporters.77    OMITTED                                                                       7778    INT. PAUL'S HOME / KITCHEN - MORNING                                          78      Margaret washes down some pills with her morning coffee as she looks at a      fawn in the backyard, nibbling on a bush.                                  MARGARET              Hey little, Bambi.  Where's your Mommy?  Gettin' it              from some ten point buck.  Yes she is.  Yes she is.      Just then, a THUMPING sound from the garage causes the fawn to bolt.      Margaret turns, suspicious.  She picks up the portable phone as she moves      toward the door.79    INT. GARAGE                                                                   79      Gary sticks his head inside the now unchained fridge, grabs a can of soda      from the door rack and closes the door.  A moment later, he reopens the door...      There, hanging off the frosty inside, is a chunk of the dead man's hair and      scalp.  Gary pulls it off, not sure what it means, but sure it means something.      Unseen behind him, Margaret steps into the garage.  She quickly assesses      the situation.                                  MARGARET              Stay away from our fucking appliances.      Gary spins, shocked to see Margaret.                                  GARY              Lady, just calm down.      Margaret, eyes wide with fear, unleashes a hailstorm of soda cans,      knickknacks, gardening implements and anything else she can lay her hands      on.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Hey!  Would you... Lady... I have a--      He tries to close in on her, but the torrent of stuff (a rake, a Whipper-Snipper,      an old pair of skates...) keeps him pinned down.  Finally, he manages to grab his      gun from his pocket.  But even as he raises it...      A Bissel Handvac catches him flush in the face.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Sud of a bit!      He drops to his knees, grabbing his nose, which is now gushing blood.      Margaret reaches for her portable phone and starts punching numbers.                                  MARGARET              You are in so much trouble.      Gary stands, pissed off, gun aimed at Margaret's head.                                  GARY              Lady, so help me I --      Gary ducks as the phone whizzes over his head and smashes against the      garage wall.  He stares at her.  Game over.80    INT. WAREHOUSE - DAY                                                          80      A standard corrugated metal storage facility.  Snow falls in from a large hole      that's been cut in the roof.  Cam and Ted, clipboard in hand, stand by the      owner, MR. SPELLMAN (50s).                                  CAM              So you're a souvenir wholesaler?                                  SPELLMAN              For the cruise ship trade, mostly.  Usual stuff, stuffed              animals, your huskies, your moose, your baby seals,              your whales, your walrus --                                  TED              They came in through there?                                  SPELLMAN                        (looking up/duh!)              Yeah.  Through that... big hole in the roof.  I got a list              of all the things that are missing.      Ted stares up at the sky through the ceiling.                                  TED              How much?                                  SPELLMAN              Uh, we figure about 200,000, plus fixing the roof.              Now I know you guys are gonna bust my --                                  TED              Fax over your estimate.  We'll have you a check by              Friday.                                  CAM                        (taking Ted aside)              Ted.  Maybe we should take a look at their inventory              list first?                                  TED              This is a simple case, Cam.  Bad guys, through roof,              stole stuff.  Let's clear it and get going.                                  SPELLMAN              I should tell you... we also had some VCRs we were              holding for another company.  That could run              another couple of...                                  TED              Cam?  You wanna wrap this up?                        (off his look)              Gotta go primary some time.      Cam shrugs-- "sure."  Ted hands him his clipboard and walks out, the door      closes behind him with a loud BANG.                                  CAM              Mr. Spellman?  Now I noticed a nice looking              computer in your office.  Why do you think they left              that?81    INT. BARNELL HOME / LIVING ROOM - LATER                                       81      Margaret sits taped to a Lazy-Boy recliner.  Gary, who's still bleeding from the      nose, sits across from her.                                  MARGARET              You try and rape me, I swear to Christ I'll bite it off.      Gary looks confused.  The doorbell CHIMES, playing "Tiny Bubbles."  (We stay      in the living room as Gary answers it.)                                  JIMBO (O.S.)              What's going on?                                  GARY (O.S.)              Okay, now here's the thing, just keep an open mind.      They both enter the room.  Jimbo looks at Gary, is about to smack him when...                                  MARGARET              So what now, you gonna get me smokin' from both              ends?      Gary and Jimbo have no idea how to react.  Margaret senses their discomfort,      starts to relax.                                  GARY              I just came to look around, but she started yelling              and hitting me...                                  MARGARET              Oh please.                                  JIMBO              How the hell is this solving our problem?  How is              this stepping up?                                  GARY              Just listen, okay.                                  MARGARET              Yeah, listen, if the fat from your neck hasn't stopped              up your ears.      Jimbo looks confused.  Gary ushers him into the other room.82    INT. BARNELL HOME / KITCHEN - LATER                                           82      Gary and Jimbo sit at the table, talking.  Jimbo's not happy.                                  JIMBO              This is not what we do.                                  GARY              It is now.                                  JIMBO              Where would we stash her?  Your place?                                  GARY              Too small, plus we'd have to get her in and out              without anyone seeing.  And I've seen that sty you              call an apartment.                                  JIMBO              See, it's just a bad idea.                                  GARY              Yeah.  Maybe.                        (a possible idea)              You see the whirlpool tub?                                  JIMBO              You can't be serious.                                  GARY              It could be like a little getaway.      Off Jimbo, considering this.83    EXT. BARNELL HOME - NIGHT                                                     83      Paul pulls up, hits the garage door opener and drives in.84    INT. BARNELL HOME / KITCHEN                                                   84      Paul walks in from the garage, pulls off his jacket.                                  PAUL              Hey Maggie-magster.  How ya --      Paul stops short as he sees Margaret, Gary and Jimbo sitting around the table.      Margaret's mouth is taped shut.      Paul is about to lunge at the men when Gary slides his gun into view.  He      stops.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              What are you people doing in my house?                                  GARY              Mr. Barnell.  You have something that belongs to us.                                  PAUL              I, I don't know what you're talking about.                                  JIMBO              Do you remember a dead man you found in the              dumpster behind your office?      Paul, shocked, tries to hold it together.                                  PAUL              No, I can't say that... I mean that would probably stick              in my mind a... dead body.                                  GARY              Think hard Mr. Barnell.      He tosses the frozen lock of hair onto the table.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Think hard.      Paul realizes he's screwed, gestures to the living room.85    INT. BARNELL HOME / LIVING ROOM - LATER                                       85      Gary sits on the sofa as Paul paces.                                  GARY              I thought it might be some weirdo sex thing, ya              know?  But you look like a pretty straight arrow.  So              then I'm thinking, maybe it's a scam.  Maybe              somehow our friend is worth some money to you.      Paul face lets Gary know he's dead on.                                  GARY (cont'd)              So what'd you collect?                                  PAUL              We, we had a life insurance policy              on my brother.  It was for... 100,000 dollars.                                  GARY              You know, it's always you quiet guys.  Here's how it's              going to work.  We stay here with your wife, you go              get our guy.                                  PAUL              Here?                                  GARY              We even see you or a cop even roll past, she's dead.              Plus you'll have to explain              how you scammed the insurance people out of their              hard earned money.  We'll call you in three days.              Have the body and, let's say 50,000 dollars for our              trouble.  Screw with us, we start mailing your wife              back to you.      Gary pauses for dramatic effect.                                  GARY (cont'd)              Starting with her feet.86    INT. KITCHEN - LATER                                                          86      Gary walks in on Jimbo and Margaret, still gagged.                                  JIMBO              He gone?      Gary nods, well pleased with himself.                                  GARY              He was scared.  Really scared.                                  JIMBO              You used the feet thing, didn't you?                                  GARY              No.87    INT. TED'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                                  87      Tiffany comes through the door carrying a sack of groceries.                                  TIFFANY              Hey, little help here.  I got Pop Tarts.      She sees the living room wall -- it's covered with charts, diagrams and      theories.  Ted on the floor, remote control in hand, replaying the shots of the      body over and over...                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)                        (re: the screen)              Don't tell me, "Sound of Music"?                        (no reaction)              Honey?  You OK?                                  TED              Shhhh.  This is the important part.      Ted rewinds the tape, hits play, rewinds it again as -- Tiffany watches, quietly at      first, then with growing frustration.  Finally, she walks over and grabs the      remote control.                                  TED (cont'd)              I was watching that.                                  TIFFANY              This stops now.  This case is making me and you              crazy, especially you.      No response.  Tiffany plops on the sofa and starts leafing through Ted's files.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              Ya know, I am trying to be supportive.  Leading              experts agree that's the number one complaint men              have about their mates.                                  TED              I don't have any complaints about my... you.                                  TIFFANY                        (re: the file)              Dead guy's got a record?  Cool.                                  TED              Yeah. He beat the hell out of some guy in bar fight.              Broke the guy's eye socket.      Tiffany scans the file, then looks up at the screen.                                  TIFFANY              Honey?                                  TED              Yeah?                                  TIFFANY              I think you should read this again.      He looks.  She tosses him the file.88    INT. BARNELL HOME / KITCHEN - NIGHT                                           88      Margaret, still taped to a chair, sits at the kitchen table.  By the stove, Gary is      cooking, an apron tied like a bath towel around his waist.                                  MARGARET              We don't have any money, you know.                                  GARY              Lady.  Please.                                  MARGARET              If you want Raymond's fucking insurance money...              we don't have that either.                                  GARY              It's none of your business what we want.      Gary goes back to his cooking.  Then...                                  GARY (cont'd)              So how come you talk like you do?  I mean, cursing              all the time.                                  MARGARET              It's a disease.  It's called Tourette Syndrome.  I can't              control what I say.  Turnip.                                  GARY              Really?                                  MARGARET              You've taken a handicapped person hostage.  I hope              you're proud of yourself.                                  GARY              I saw this thing on TV where they said people with              that don't usually curse.                                  MARGARET              They must have got it wrong.                                  GARY              I don't think so.  It was a movie of the week based on              real events.  Don't most of Tourette's people twitch              and stuff?      Margaret just glares.                                  GARY (cont'd)                        (knowingly)              Oh, I get it.  You got a spice rack?                                  MARGARET              Over the sink.  And what's that supposed to mean?                                  GARY              Nothing.  Cumin?                                  MARGARET              On the left. (beat)  And I'm not... crazy, it's a physical              disease.  Sometimes I can control it, and              sometimes --                                  GARY              You can't?  Want to know what I think?  I think this              "syndrome" is something you              read about somewhere and figured, hey, works for              me.                                  MARGARET              Ass-rimming ball-sucker.                                  GARY              You can completely abdicate your societal              responsibilities, say whatever you want whenever              you want, and slough it off on a illness.  Maybe I              should catch this thing. "Gee, sorry Your Honor, I              have a disease that makes me rob 7-11s."  It's              called really need a Slurpee disease.                                  MARGARET              You've never robbed a 7-11 in your life you shit              eating fuck-weasel.  What kind of man threatens a              woman with a gun, anyway?                                  GARY              You are so faking it.                                  MARGARET              Oh, I'm faking it?  Is this how you get your kicks, you              over-compensating pussy little fart sack?      Gary, suddenly tense, puts down his spoon and picks up his gun.                                  GARY              Hey!  Keep your voice down or the gag goes back.                                  MARGARET              You don't scare me.  If something bad was going to              happen, my psychic would have told me.      Gary awkwardly chambers a round, starts gesturing with the gun, trying to look      tough.                                  MARGARET (cont'd)              You put that down now you little bitch, or so help me,              I'll start yelling so loud you'll have to shoot me.      Gary, confused and embarrassed, doesn't know what to do.89    EXT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - NIGHT                                              89      Paul gets out of his car carrying a K-Mart bag.  He looks like he's been      CRYING.  Mrs. Wherry waves from her deck.                                  MRS. WHERRY              Paul, sorry to hear about your brother.                        (Paul gives a sad smile)              You moving in?                                  PAUL              Just for a bit.                                  MRS. WHERRY              She'll come to her senses.  They always do.  Oh, the              septic lines are frozen, so you'll have to use the              outdoor commode.      Paul waves as he enters the mobile home, closing the door behind him.  A      light goes on.  It starts to snow.90    INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - NIGHT                                              90      Paul walks in, survey's the interior of the mobile home.      PAUL'S POV:  A 7 year old time capsule of a party that was never cleaned up;      beer bottles, ashtrays and general garbage.                                  PAUL                        (to himself)              Would it have killed you to clean up before you left,              Raymond?      Paul picks up a small box from the floor, looks at the label.  Edible Panties.  He      puts them on top of a stack of porno mags, neatens the pile, then heads out.      INT. BEDROOM - LATER      HIGH ANGLE ON: Paul lying in bed, wide awake, but in the same position      we've seen him in when he sleeps with Margaret.  An electric heater glows      beside him.91    EXT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - CONTINUOUS                                         91      TIGHT ON: Car tires as they pull to a stop on the main road.  A pair of heavy      men's boots get out, start to make their way toward the mobile home.92    INT. MOBILE HOME - LATE NIGHT                                                 92      There's a KNOCK on the door.  Paul heads to the door.                                  PAUL              Who is it?                                  MAN'S VOICE (O.S.)              State Police.  Is there a Mr. Barnell here?                                  PAUL                        (as he unlocks it)              Yes, is there something wrong--      As he opens the door a crack, a gloved hand shoves it open.  The force of the      blow sends Paul staggering backward, landing in a heap against the wall      where a picture of his family tumbles over and shatters on his head.      RAYMOND BARNELL (40s), a bear of man, enters, picks up Paul and throws      him through the serving kitchen serving hatch.  Raymond leans through the      hole.                                  RAYMOND              Hello brother.      He walks around, takes a copy of "USA Today" and throws it at Paul.                                  PAUL              Raymond?  Is that...                                  RAYMOND              Page 16, Paul. That's why I love "USA Today", news              from every fuckin' state.  Don't you want to read it?  I              was eaten by wild fuckin' animals.  But ya know,              despite that, I'm feeling pretty God-damned chipper.      Paul beats a hasty retreat, stumbling through the mobile home with Raymond      right on his heels.                                  PAUL              Raymond, let me tell you what happened here.  We              all thought you were...                                  RAYMOND              Dead?  Yeah, I got that impression.                                  PAUL              But you had dropped off the face of the earth.                                  RAYMOND              And you just decide to make it permanent?                                  PAUL              But there were no records of you anywhere.  I              checked.      With that, Raymond kicks his brother hard in the ribs.  Paul doubles over,      gasping for breath.                                  RAYMOND              In certain lines of quasi-legal employment, using              your actual ID can be a hinderance.  But despite the              reliance on aliases, it's nice to have your actual birth              certificate to fall back on.  Gotta tell ya, Paul, I was              pretty pissed.      Raymond is about to kick him once more, but Paul puts up a hand, begging      him to stop.  Raymond, relents, then bends over and helps his brother to a      sitting position.                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              But then I start to think, Paul's no idiot.  He woulda              told 'em it's not me.  Unless...      Paul can only sit there and WHEEZE.  Raymond sits beside him on the floor,      pulls out a cigarette and lights it.                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              So what is it?  Frame job, lawsuit...                                  PAUL              Life insurance.                                  RAYMOND              Figured.  So where's my money?                                  PAUL              Your money?                        (a beat)              They're still... investigating.                                  RAYMOND              What you get?      Paul considers whether or not Raymond would even remember.                                  PAUL              Fifty thousand.                                  RAYMOND                        (with a shrug)              Almost worth coming back for.  What's the split?  I              get half?                                  PAUL                        (not quite trusting him)              Okay.  Sure.                        (changing the subject)              You look good.  Lost some weight?                                  RAYMOND              Gave up carbs.  So what are you doing out here?              She not go along with it?                                  PAUL              Who?  Margaret?                                  RAYMOND              How she hold up, anyway?                                  PAUL              She's fine.  Actually, we're not doing so good right              now.                                  RAYMOND              Any kids?                        (off his look)              Still can't get one by the goalie, huh.93    INT. BARNELL HOME / KITCHEN - LATER                                           93      Gary and Margaret sit in silence, Gary taking Margaret's pulse.  Jimbo walks in,      grocery bag in hand.                                  JIMBO              Hey.                                  GARY                        (snarky)              Hey.                                  JIMBO              Talked to our friend.  We're okay for now.  How's              everything here?                                  GARY              Oh, just great.                        (to Margaret)              Seventy six, perfectly normal.  What a shock.      Gary jumps up and storms into the bathroom just off the kitchen.                                  MARGARET              He's a little over tired.                                  JIMBO              It's been a rough week.                                  MARGARET                        (for Gary's benefit)              Really?  Why?  You and your life partner in the shitter              having trouble picking a China pattern?                                  JIMBO                        (shocked)              Um, um... Gary?                                  GARY (O.S.)              Your turn to deal with it.  If I come out of this              bathroom I'll put a bullet in her head, swear to God.                                  MARGARET              I have a psychiatric disorder.                        (to Gary, in the bathroom)              And so do you!94    EXT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / DRIVEWAY - MORNING                                 94      Paul, looking like a man who recently took a beating, shovels the light snow      cover that blankets the drive.  He looks as Ted's car pulls up.  As Ted walks      toward him...                                  PAUL              Mr. Watters.  You said on the phone something              about a resolution in our claim?                                  TED              Mr. Barnell.  Why are you staying out here?      Paul thinks about this for a long time.  Then, finally...                                  PAUL              My wife and I, we're having some problems.                                  TED              Kind of understandable I guess.  Seeing as how you              killed that man and dumped his body out in the              woods.                                  PAUL              You mean Raymond?                                  TED              No.  Not Raymond.  Definitely not Raymond.  I              thought it was at first, but that's what was throwing              me...                                  PAUL              I'm not sure I appreciate your tone.                                  TED              My tone, Mr. Barnell?  You are going to jail.  I will              personally see to that.                                  PAUL              I really think you should go now.                                  TED              You are a liar and thief.      Paul stabs his shovel into a snow bank, then walks to Ted.                                  PAUL              You know Mr. Watters, I've had a pretty rough night,              so if you wouldn't mind just leaving.      Paul tries to guide Ted away, but slips and falls on the snow.  Ted, rolling his      eyes, reaches down to help him up.                                  TED                        (noticing the bruises)              Hey.  How'd you get all cut up?                                  MRS. WHERRY (O.S.)              What's say you just move away from him.      Ted, with his hands still on Paul, turns to see -- Mrs. Wherry, from her porch, a      compound bow aimed at his forehead.                                  MRS. WHERRY (cont'd)              You all right there, Paul?                                  PAUL              I'm fine, Mrs. Wherry.  Just go back inside.                                  MRS. WHERRY              I can drop him if you want.                                  PAUL              I'm fine.  Really.                        (turning to Watters)              I think you'd better go.      Ted backs to his car, gets in and drives off.  Paul brushes the snow from his      jacket, reaches up, touches his bleeding forehead (the fall having reopened the      wound).                                  MRS. WHERRY              I've got some fishing line if you want me to stitch that.      Paul waves her off, then stares at the blood on his fingertips.  An idea slowly      takes hold.95    INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - MOMENTS LATER                                      95      Raymond pours whiskey into a 7-11 specialty cup as Paul  pulls off his coat.                                  RAYMOND              He give you the check?                                  PAUL              No.  He thinks I...  It'll be fine.                                  RAYMOND              Maybe I'll pay him a little visit.  See if we can speed              up the process.                                  PAUL              You don't have to... I figured out a way to take care of              things.                                  RAYMOND              Yeah, I was watching from the window.      Paul, agitated, pulls the blinds shut.                                  PAUL              You can't do that, Raymond.  If someone sees you...                                  RAYMOND              Ya know, I been thinking there, Paulie.                                  PAUL              About what?      Raymond walks over to Paul.  Paul tenses, expecting to be hit.  Raymond      moves right by to refill his drink.                                  RAYMOND              After we get her back from these guys who grabbed              her, you think your wife'll be able to keep her mouth              shut?                                  PAUL              I don't think I...                                  RAYMOND              Crazy people talk a lot.  And I think if you tell your              therapist something, they can use it in court.                                  PAUL              She's not...  she doesn't have a therapist.                                  RAYMOND                        (taking a slug)              Still, might wanna think about it.                                  PAUL              Think about what?                                  RAYMOND              You crossed over into the bigs now, Paulie.  Fraud.              Consorting with felons.  Got to "cowboy up."                                  PAUL              Cowboy up?                                  RAYMOND              Get tough, ya suck-hole.  I'm just saying sometimes              a man has to make problematic decisions.  Cull the              heard, so to speak.                        (off his look)              Paul, come on, just kiddin' around, here.  Don't be              such a fuckin' stick.      Raymond, an enigma, looks at Paul, then grins -- just kidding.  Paul relaxes.      Raymond tenses -- not really.  Paul's not sure how to read his brother as they      shoot looks at one another -- sibling rivalry ad absurdum.96    EXT. CITY SKYLINE - MORNING                                                   96      The sky moves from dark grey to light grey, then stops.  A thermometer outside      on an office tower shows a brisk minus 20.  Workers bundle themselves      against the cold, hurry to work past the drifts piled alongside the road.97    INT. INSURANCE OFFICE - MORNING                                               97      Ted walks in, throwing his coat over the wall of his cubicle and is about to sit      down when he notices Paul in his boss' office.  Ted moves closer.                                  PAUL (MUFFLED)              I haven't called the police yet, but I'll tell you it was              certainly tempting.      Ted opens the door to his boss' office.  Paul doesn't notice.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              I've had some dealings with, diseases of the mind,              and I can tell you he is not well.      Branch, obviously worried, stands.                                  BRANCH              Watters.  Glad you're... Mr. Barnell was just telling              me about the... meeting you two had.                                  TED              I caught that, yes.                                  BRANCH              As you can see... well, Mr. Barnell has some...              concerns.      Paul turns to look at Ted.  He has a large band-aid on his forehead, scratches      and bruises on his face.  It takes a second for the dime to drop.                                  TED              You don't think I did this?      Paul gets up and moves to the other side of the office.                                  TED (cont'd)              Oh come on.  I never laid a hand on him.                                  BRANCH              Ted, his neighbor says... otherwise.                                  TED              Now just hang on here.  Let me show you              something...      Ted digs into his briefcase.  He takes out a video tape, the police file on      Raymond and the photo of Raymond Paul dropped in the snow.98/99 INT. OFFICE - MOMENTS LATER                                                98/99      Paul and Branch listen intently as Ted paces, the TV/VCR plays shots of the      dead body in the background.                                  TED              See?  Where's the birthmark?  Your brother's police              report listed it...                        (reading from the report)              "...large purple birthmark, upper left thigh..."                        (leaning into the screen)              But I don't see it.  Not on this body.  You can see it in              the picture.  See?      Ted points to the photo;  Raymond, in the summer, wearing shorts with a      blotchy purple spot clearly visible on his leg.                                  TED (cont'd)              So what, Mr. Barnell?  Did it just disappear?  Did it              just... get better.      Ted grins.  His moment.  Finally.  Seconds feel like minutes.                                  PAUL              It... did get better.                                  TED              Did it now.  Well how in the world did that happen?                                  PAUL              Raymond was always... bothered by it. When he              came back from... Florida, he'd              had it fixed.  Laser surgery... like removing a tattoo.      Paul looks at Branch.  It's an excuse Ted hadn't thought of before.                                  TED              He did not.                                  PAUL              You taped my brother's body, in the morgue?      Paul stands and grabs the photo from off the desk.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              And this?  You stole pictures of my family?  And              taped his naked body?  What kind of sick company              are you running here?                                  TED              Oh for... he's lying.  It's obvious he...      Paul, feigning fear, shrinks back into the corner.                                  TED (cont'd)              This is crazy.  All we have to do is dig up the body...              check the leg for scars...                        (bingo)              Dental records!      Paul goes white.  He hadn't thought about this.                                  BRANCH              That will be just about enough of that. Mr. Barnell, I'm              sorry it's all come to this.  We'll have a check brought              over to you tomorrow morning.      Paul nods, stressed and strung out, he hugs the wall as he walks out.  After a      moment...                                  TED              Sir, with all due respect, he's --                                  BRANCH              Jesus, we're lucky he's not suing.  Now tomorrow,              you deliver the check to Mr. Barnell with a complete              apology.                                  TED              Fine, I understand how this looks --                                  BRANCH              It looks like you beat the hell out of one of our policy              holders.  Now send Cam in here.                                  TED              Why?                                  BRANCH              Well, while you were off on your little Easter Egg              hunt, your junior found us an out on that warehouse              robbery.  Head office is bumping him a level.                                  TED                        (fuck me naked)              I'll go get him.                                  BRANCH              They're very keen on him.  They want me to feel him              out on a transfer --      Ted has left the office, SLAMMING the door behind him.100   INT. INSURANCE OFFICE STAIRWELL - MOMENTS LATER                              100      The door CLANGS shut behind Paul as he dials his cell phone.                                  PAUL              Hello... yes, I'm wondering what city department              would be in charge of... sure, I can hold.                        (to himself)              Hang on Mag Pie, just hang on.      Paul puts a hand to his chest.  Suddenly dizzy, he drops to his knees and starts      to RETCH.  Tears well up in his eyes.  After a few moments, the storm passes.      Still on his knees, the person on the line comes back.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Yeah, hi.   I was wondering if you could.... but I was...              sure.      He sits there, on hold again, waiting...101   INT. UNDERGROUND PARKING AREA - EVENING                                      101      Ted walks to his car.  As he opens the door -- WHAM!  A fist to his face drops      Ted.  Raymond in a ski mask, picks him up, opens the car door and lays Ted's      head on the door jamb.                                  RAYMOND              Listen you little prick, we've had just about enough of              this.  You get me?      Raymond leans onto the door, Ted SCREAMING as his head is squashed in      the vice.                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              So let's just settle this right now, OK?  We want              what's coming to us.      Ted tries to say "yes."  Raymond releases his grip on the door, leans down and      grabs Ted's wallet and walks off.102   OMITTED                                                                      102103   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - NIGHT                                             103      Paul walks in on A LOUD PARTY.  Raymond, drunk out of his head, has his      arms around two marginal looking HOOKERS.                                  PAUL              Ray -      Not wanting to use his brother's real name.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Richard!  What in the blazes are you doing?                                  RAYMOND              Hey Paul.  Took care of our little problem today.  We              should see some serious money any time, soon.                                  PAUL              Could... I have a word with you?104   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS                              104      Paul pulls the sliding door closed behind Raymond.                                  PAUL                        (whisper)              Are those...?                                  RAYMOND                        (serious)              Prostitutes?                        (laughing)              I sure as hell hope so, cause Jehovah's Witnesses              won't lick your lolly no matter how much you pay              them.                                  PAUL              How did you get them here?      Raymond pulls out the credit card Paul got for him.                                  RAYMOND              Put it on my plastic.  See, got my name on it and              everything.  It's every where I want to be.                                  PAUL              You can't use that.  You're supposed to be dead!              They'll track us down.                                  RAYMOND              You think they give a shit who pays the bill?  Think for              a minute, will ya?      Paul turns, trying to compose himself, when he notices  a handgun sitting out      on the counter.                                  PAUL              What... Raymond, what is... this?      Paul pokes at the gun, sending the barrel spinning around to face him.      Raymond grabs it and stuffs it into his pants.                                  RAYMOND              That's "muh gun," Paul.      Paul's cell phone RINGS.                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              Don't be long.  The little spinner's yours.      Paul picks up the phone as the party revs back up.                                  PAUL              Yes, hello.  Sorry, what?105/106 INTERCUT:  BARNELL HOME / KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS                         105/106      Jimbo is on the wall mounted phone.                                  JIMBO              You having a party, Mr. Barnell?                        (embarrassed for Margaret)              That's... that's not right.      Margaret, now gagged, sits where we last saw her.  She tries to talk through      the gag.      Gary's staring at his watch, calling out seconds.                                  GARY              Thirty, sorry, startinnng... Now!      Paul pulls the kitchen door closed with his free hand.                                  PAUL              There's no party...let me talk to my wife.                                  JIMBO              Hang on.      He hands the phone to Margaret.  Gary leaps up and stops him.                                  GARY              Twenty-five!      Jimbo pushes past him, pulls down Margaret's gag and holds the phone to      her.                                  PAUL              Why are you counting?                                  MARGARET              Paul?  Are you entertaining?                                  PAUL                        (a wave of relief)              Oh God, oh Jesus... Margaret, are you okay?                                  RAYMOND (O.S.)              Paul, we got any more chips?                                  GARY              Fifteen!                        (grabs the phone)              The body. Have you -- (beat) No, I'm the other guy.              Have you got the body?                                  MARGARET                        (shouting)              Paul, the carrot little weasly one wants to carrot              screw me with his sick carrot little cock.  And he's              messing up my kitchen.  Carrotcarrocarrot...      Jimbo, annoyed, puts the gag back in Margaret's mouth.                                  PAUL              You sick... Don't you hurt her!!                                  GARY              I never said anything like--                        (looks at his watch in panic)              Yes or no.  Ten seconds.                                  PAUL              Yes! It'll... it'll happen tomorrow.  Put Margaret back              on!                                  RAYMOND (O.S.)              Paul!  Chips!!                                  PAUL              Hello?      Gary lunges for the phone cradle like it's the finish line in the 100 meter dash,      slamming the phone down.  A beat.                                  GARY              I think I managed to avoid a trace.                                  JIMBO                        (quietly to Gary)              We're staying at his house.107   (END INTERCUT) INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME KITCHEN                              107      Paul goes to the cupboard and pulls out a box of potato chips.  As he turns, he      sees one of the HOOKERS (30s) standing in the doorway.  She gives Paul a      come hither look.108   INT. BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL - MORNING                                  108      A bruised Ted enters, once again the only person in the shop.  He keeps his      parka on.  Avis stands to greet him.                                  AVIS              Hello.  Can I help you?                                  PAUL (O.S.)                        (icily)              Mr. Watters?      Paul comes around the corner.  He extends his hand, shocked to see the      bruises on Ted's face but knowing exactly where they came from.                                  TED              Mr. Barnell.  I have your check.                                  PAUL              Thank you, I appreciate that.                        (an awkward pause)              Please, sit.      Ted sits at Paul desk, reaches into his brief case and pulls out an envelope      and several forms.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Have a little accident, there?                                  TED              I was mugged.  The cops say it was just a random              act of violence.  But who knows, right?                        (re: documents)              You'll have to sign.      Ted slides the papers across to Paul, then gets up and moves around over      Paul's shoulder.                                  TED (cont'd)              Where I've marked it with an X.  And... I'd also like to              apologize for my --                                  PAUL              No, please.  You don't have to...      Paul, at a loss, starts to read the paperwork. He pulls open his desk drawer to      grab a pen.  Ted looks down, sees the Sea Shell in the drawer.                                  TED              That's quite the shell.                                  PAUL                        (picking it up)              It was a gift from Raymond.  He bought it for me from              Florida.  It's all we have to remember him by.      Paul puts the shell down on the desk.                                  TED              That and a million dollars.  Things really worked out              for you, didn't they? lots of cash, newly single guy...                                  PAUL              I'm not single.                                  TED              ...so you gonna head down to Club Med?  See how              much fun a big bank roll can buy?                                  PAUL              Mr. Watters, I love my wife.  Very much.      Ted can't help but look confused by this simple, yet sincere declaration.                                  TED              Can we level with each other for a moment?                        (Paul nods)              Did you --      Before he can finish his question, a DELIVERY DRIVER entering the office with      a large box.                                  PAUL              Avis!  Avis?      There's no answer.  She's in the back.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Will you excuse me?      Paul gets up to deal with the delivery.  Ted, sullen, picks up the shell and turns      it over in his hands.  Avis enter from the back.  She smiles at Ted, then sees      the shell.                                  AVIS              Oh, that's where you went.      She takes the shell and reattaches it to the display for Aloha Air.  Ted,      confused, walks over as Avis snaps the shell back into place.                                  TED              That's quite the display.                                  AVIS              They do some very nice in store promotions.      Paul walks back, shocked to see the shell now back on the display.  Ted just      stares at him.                                  AVIS (cont'd)              Here it is Mr. Barnell.                        (to Ted)              I thought someone might have walked out with it.  It's              not the best neighborhood.      Avis walks back to her desk.  Ted and Paul hold their look.  Finally, Paul walks      back to his desk and the paperwork.                                  PAUL              So, right here, by the X.      Ted nods.  Paul signs.  Ted takes the envelope with the check, hands it to Paul      but doesn't let go.  Paul tries to pull it free.  He looks at Ted who looks right      through him.  Just then, the lights go out.  They're all in the dark.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              We, uh... Avis?  Call Municipal Light and Power and              let them know I'll... stop by in a bit.      Paul looks at Ted, embarrassed.  Ted finally lets go of the check.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Thank you.      Ted shakes his head, gets up and walks out.109   OMITTED                                                                      109A109  EXT. "BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL" - NIGHT                                 A109      Paul, seen through the window, sits alone in the dark.  His face lit only by a      small flashlight, he is completely still.110   INT. TED'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                                 110      Tiffany on her headset with a customer.  Ted on the sofa, lost in thought and      whatever's on the TV.                                  TIFFANY              There's nothing to be embarrassed about.                        (a snide glance at Ted)              A lot of people find talking to a psychic very              therapeutic.  So what's on your mind, Carlos?111   INTERCUT WITH: "BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL" - CONT.                        111      An overwrought Paul is on the phone with Tiffany, sitting in the dark.  He's got      his home phone bill in front of him.                                  PAUL              I have a situation.  My wife...  do you think it's okay to              do something kinda bad to someone if you think              they're gonna do something really bad to someone              else?                                  TIFFANY              Sure.                                  PAUL              What if it's a really bad thing?                                  TIFFANY              Well, you probably shouldn't break the law if you can              help it.  Are you really sure they're going to do this              other thing?                                  PAUL              I'm... I... I don't know.  He said some things.  He said              he was joking, but I... I think he might.                                  TIFFANY              Don't think, know.  How close are you to the other              someone else, the one you're trying to protect?                                  PAUL                        (crying)              I just, I just...  Have you ever felt like that?  Like your              own life didn't even matter, as long as...                                  TIFFANY                        (touched)              Listen to me, Carlos.  Your wife is an incredibly lucky              woman.  I know, relationships are tough, but you do              what you gotta do to keep it together, okay?              Remember, love is sacrifice.      Ted can't help but SNORT at the mention of this familiar phrase as he looks at      Tiffany.  Tiffany glares back at him.                                  PAUL                        (sniffling)              I guess you're right.                                  TIFFANY              Now you get tough.  And remember, this call is for              entertainment purposes only.  Call me back and let              me know how it goes.      Tiffany hangs up and walks out.  Ted tries to catch her eye and let her know he      was just kidding.  He can't.  She goes.112   INT. PAUL'S CAR - LATER                                                      112      Paul behind the wheel, a strange determined look on his face.  He appears be      steeling himself for something.113   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / MAIN AREA - LATER                                 113      Paul enters, SLAMMING the door behind him as Raymond looks up from his      porno magazine.                                  PAUL                        (blowing by)              She's having sex with them.      And with that, Paul disappears into the back bedroom.114   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / BACK BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER                      114      Paul sits, waiting.  After what seems like forever, Raymond walks in.                                  RAYMOND              Who's doing what?                                  PAUL              Margaret.  You know that Stockholm Syndrome              thing?                                  RAYMOND              The movie?                                  PAUL              When you fall in love with your kidnappers.                                  RAYMOND              Get the fuck out of here.                                  PAUL              I went by there.  She was in the bedroom with the big              one.                        (quietly)              Not the first time, either.                        (a flash of panic)              With other men, not kidnappers.                                  RAYMOND              For real?                                  PAUL              Her therapist.  And some guy she... hardly knew.                                  RAYMOND              Wow.  Sucks to be you.                                  PAUL              Shut up.      Raymond, a momentary flash of anger, sits on the bed beside his brother.      Paul does his best not to flinch.                                  RAYMOND              I always knew she was a fucking tease.                                  PAUL              Yeah.  Guess you were right.                                  RAYMOND              Well, you want my opinion...                        (Paul nods)              I don't trust her, Paul.  Never did.                                  PAUL              You think she'd... really mess things up?                                  RAYMOND              Only one way to make sure she doesn't.                                  PAUL              Not sure what you're saying?                                  RAYMOND              You remember that pooch Mom had?  Crazy little              Jack Russel with the bladder infection?                                  PAUL              Whole basement stank.                                  RAYMOND              Nothing you can do but put the thing out of it's              misery.  And yours.                                  PAUL              You... You sure, Ray?                                  RAYMOND              Trust me, Bro'.  Leaky dogs, crazy women.  Two              things no man should have to live with.      As Ray stands to go, Paul nods, his heart ripped apart for any number of      reasons.115   INT. BANK OFFICE - MORNING                                                   115      Paul sits in the manager's office, signing forms.  A large BANK GUARD stands      nearby.  The reason? One million dollars in hundred dollar bills neatly stacked      on the desk.116   INT. OUTDOOR CLOTHING STORE - DAY                                            116      Paul, with his sack of one million dollars at his feet, is calmly trying on new      winter coats with a CLERK.  He feels each one, checking the amount of      padding.  He finally settles on a red full-length down parka.117   INT. "BARNELL GREAT ESCAPES TRAVEL" - LATER                                  117      The lights are back on as Paul, wearing his oversized red parka comes      through the front door carrying his sack of cash.  Avis looks up.                                  AVIS              Mr. Barnell?  I didn't expect you back today.  Nice              jacket.                                  PAUL              Well... I am.  And Avis?                                  AVIS              Yes?                                  PAUL              You've been with me for five years?  Paul?  Can we              make it Paul?      Paul enters the back room, closes the door.  Avis walks over.                                  AVIS              Sure.  I just thought it was more professional when              people were around to call you Mr. Barnell.                                  PAUL (O.S.)              Avis.  There haven't been any people in here for              months.  No one comes in here, unless they're              looking for pornographic movies or deep fried fish,              neither of which we carry.  So you can call me pretty              much anything you want and it won't impress the              customers at all because we don't have any.                                  AVIS              Are you OK, Paul?      Paul opens the door.  Avis is surprised to see billowing clouds of down floating      in the air behind him.                                  PAUL              No Avis, to be frank I'm a little frazzled right now.              Now could you get me some tape, my passport out              of the safe and two open-ended tickets to Paraguay.      Paul shuts the door.  Avis gets to work.118   INT.  COFFEE ROOM - DAY                                                      118      ARNITH and BILL, two city workers, sit sipping coffee at a cafeteria table.  The      room is white, very clean and fairly new.  The men wear large orange overalls,      their white construction safety helmets sit on the table beside them.                                  ARNITH              Trouble is the city keeps cutting us back and cutting              us back.      Raymond and Paul, wearing his big red parka, enter.                                  PAUL              Excuse me, are you Arnith?      ARNITH sips his coffee, points to his name patch but doesn't look up.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Great.  I was told to give you this.      Paul hands Arnith a folded form.  Arnith puts his hand out, forcing Paul to move      the form to him.  As Arnith looks at it.                                  PAUL (cont'd)              Disinterment order.  Got it from the coroner's office.              My brother didn't want to be buried.                                  ARNITH              How'd you know?                                  PAUL              Know what?                                  ARNITH              That he didn't want to be buried.                                  RAYMOND              He left it in a letter.                                  ARNITH              And you just got it now?                                  PAUL              Ya know, I don't mean to be rude here, but I'm not              sure this is any of your business.                                  ARNITH              That's entirely possible.      Bill stifles a LAUGH.  Raymond is about to tear out Arnith's spine.  Paul holds      his brother back.                                  PAUL              I, I don't think this is anything to be flippant about.                                  ARNITH              I appreciate that, Sir.  But I'm on a union specified              break right now, which means you are talking to me              as a private citizen. Now as a private citizen I can              pretty much say whatever I want to. If               you talk to me in 15 minutes I can assure you, you              will be afforded every courtesy as specified in the              workers policy guide and recently ratified in our              latest collective agreement dated --                                  PAUL              Sorry.  I'm just --                                  ARNITH              Trying to get your brother out of the ground. We              couldn't be more pleased.  You've arranged for              transportation of the remains?                                  RAYMOND              We're gonna take him to go.                                  BILL              See, now that's a problem.  We can't release the              body into your custody unless you are licensed by              the state to convey deceased persons.                                  ARNITH              Good point Bill.  Bill knows exhumation policy.  You              can look it up but I'm betting he's right.  You come              back with a bonded agent and we'll get right on this.      Paul thinks for a moment, digs into his pocket pulls out five crisp, new hundred      dollar bills and SLAMS them on the table.                                  PAUL              I'll give you five hundred dollars to go get him now.119   EXT. GRAVEYARD - DAY                                                         119      A large back hoe TURNS OVER.  The muffler BELCHES a cloud of black      smoke into the air.  Arnith is at the controls, expertly maneuvering the shovel      end towards the unmarked grave.120   INT. TRUNK OF PAUL'S CAR                                                     120      Black.  The trunk lid opens as Bill and Arnith dump a well-wrapped body      unceremoniously into the trunk.  Arnith and Bill look at each other.  Bill closes      the lid.  Black.                                  ARNITH (O.S.)              There ya go Mr. Barnell.  Snug as a bug in a rug.              Anything else we can get you?121   INT. NICK'S STRIP BAR - NIGHT                                                121      Ted sits at the bar beside Cam.  Ted, close to being drunk, plays with a book of      matches as a STRIPPER struts to Tennessee Ernie Ford's version of "16      Tons."                                  CAM              So... Miami, huh?  Can you believe that?  One little              case and "boom", you're the flavor of the month.                                  TED                        (without a trace of sincerity)              Congratulations.  Why are you here?                                  CAM              Say thanks.  I really owe you.  If you hadn't given me              a shot on that--                                  TED              Forget it.  I'm trying to.                                  CAM              So we were all kinda wondering... what did happen              to your face?                                  TED                        (beat)              Car trouble.      Ted gets up, a little shaky on his feet.                                  CAM              Should you be driving?                                  TED              Absolutely not.      Ted gets up and walks to the door.A121  EXT. NICK'S BAR - NIGHT                                                     A121      Ted exits, a BLAST of Arctic wind and snow hits him in the face.  He closes his      eyes, letting the cold run over him.122   INT. PAUL'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                                    122      Margaret sits at the dinner table, as Gary puts down an overly large serving      plate of tuna casserole.  Jimbo walks in, takes a seat and a scoop full of food.                                  GARY              We set?                                  JIMBO              Yeah.  How you feel about the turnout by Summit Hill              where the snowmobilers park?                                  GARY              Fine.      They all dig in.  Gary looks expectantly.  Just the sound of chewing.  Finally, he      can't wait.                                  GARY (cont'd)                        (to Jimbo)              You like it?                                  MARGARET              Tastes like a rectal polyp.      A long, protracted silence.  Then...                                  JIMBO                        (to Gary)              How would she know.      Gary CHUCKLES as he gets up for some ketchup.  Margaret stares at Jimbo,      who gives her a "I'll-say-what-I-need-to-have-peace-in-this-house."  Margaret      smiles, then discretely slides him the salt.  Jimbo quickly douses his food.123   EXT.  PAUL'S HOUSE - LATE AT NIGHT                                           123      Ted pulls up in front of Paul's home.  He stares at something that looks like a      tree on the front lawn.  He looks closer -- it's a "For Sale" sign.                                  TED              Blowing town, are we, Mr. Barnell?  I don't think so.      Ted staggers through the snow to the sign and drunkenly pushes it down into      the snow.                                  TED (cont'd)              I'm not done yet "travel man!"  You hear me?!      LAUGHING, he takes some matches from his pocket and tries to light the "For      Sale" sign on fire.  It's no use.  He quits.  He's cold now.  He gets up and      staggers back to his car.124   OMITTED                                                                      124125   OMITTED                                                                      125126   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / LIVING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER                       126      Raymond, half in the bag, sits on the sofa.                                  RAYMOND              See, I could have had her.  We both know that, but I              figured, she was such a... I mean, I don't know why...              You know why?                                  PAUL (O.S.)              No.  You want a refill?                                  RAYMOND              Does a duck shit under water?      Paul walks in with two glasses.  He hands Raymond the larger.                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              Any trouble getting the bank to handle that much              cash?                                  PAUL              They said it'd be in tomorrow by --                                  RAYMOND              Right, right, you told me.  Then all we have to do is              get her and the thing... Hey, remember that time in              school, when I jumped out and scared you, and you              fucking pee'd all over yourself?                                  PAUL              Was pretty funny.                        (raises his mug)              Bottoms up.                                  RAYMOND              Okay, "Puddles."  Remember how they called you              that?  Huh, "Puddles?"                        (about to drink - then)              Christ, what time is it?                                  PAUL              It's early.  Come on... ya...                        (uncomfortably)              ...pussy.      Raymond LAUGHS, takes the drink.127   EXT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME - CONTINUOUS                                        127      A beautiful winter's night, the soft snowy silence broken only by Raymond's      drunken shot of...                                  RAYMOND (O.S.)              Pussy!!!      A startled rabbit scurries across the snow.128   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / VARIOUS - LATER                                   128      Raymond is passed out on the sofa.  Paul sits, gun in hand, the barrel pointed      at Raymond's forehead.  His finger grazes the trigger...  but it's suddenly all too      real.  Paul lowers the gun, takes a deep breath and tries again.  Not wanting to      be sprayed by Raymond's gray matter, he half turns his head...  Another idea      comes to him.  Paul picks up a plastic picnic plate to use as a shield from the      blow back.      He gets ready to fire again, then makes the mistake of looking at Raymond.      Maybe it's the light... maybe it's the small puddle of drool on the cushion, but he      looks almost angelic.  Paul stares at his brother.      In the kitchen, Paul fills a glass with water, empties the pistol's bullets into      The cup and hides it on the top shelf.      Paul puts the gun back.  Not sure of his next move, he spots the beat up clock      radio lying next to his brother.A128  EXT. BARNELL HOME - MORNING                                                 A128      Establishing.129   INT. BARNELL HOME / BEDROOM - MORNING                                        129      Margaret, still tied up, lays on top of the bed covers.      Gary walks past, looks in, checks his watch, then heads to the bathroom.      Margaret listens as Gary turns on the jacuzzi tub jets.  As he starts singing,      Margaret sits up and scooches over to the phone on the end table.  Her hands      tied loosely to her chest, she manages to dial by placing the phone receiver flat      on the bed.                                  JIMBO (O.S.)              Gary!  You seen my shirt?      Margaret looks over to see Jimbo, wearing Paul's pajamas, walking past while      shaving with a portable razor.  As the line rings.                                  JIMBO (O.S.) (cont'd)              Aw jeez, again?                                  GARY (O.S.)              It relaxes me.  You know it has twelve different              settings?                                  JIMBO (O.S.)              No Gary, I don't know that because every time I              thought about using it someone was in it.                                  GARY (O.S.)              Hey, I do a lot around here.      As they continue to squabble, the phone line connects.                                  911 RECORDING              You have reached 9-11.  All our operators are busy,              but your call will be handled in the order in which it              was received.  If this is a --      Margaret, using her nose, hangs up.132   INT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME / LIVING ROOM                                       132      Paul, quiet as a mouse and dressed in his money-lined parka, picks up his      cell and his car keys, drops them quietly into his pocket.  Just as he finishes...                                  RAYMOND                        (half asleep)              What's going on.                                  PAUL              We're out of coffee.  But I'll be right back.  Still early.      Not to worry.  Raymond has already rolled over.133   INT. BARNELL HOME / BEDROOM                                                  133      Margaret has just dialed another number.  It RINGS on the other end... And      RINGS... And connects.                                  MARGARET              Paul?                                  AUTOMATED VOICE (O.S.)              The number you have dialed is no longer in service.              If you think you have --      Margaret disconnects the call, then dials again.134   INT. TED'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS                                            134      A woozy Ted is trying to keep Tiffany's phone from RINGING.      Finally, he puts on the headset and hits a computer key.  It connects.                                  TED              Yeah?  Hello?  (coughs)  Hello?      He hits a few keys on the computer keyboard.  The screen pops to life.  The line      connects.                                  MARGARET              Oh thank fucking Christ.  Is Tiffany there?                                  TED              No, she's...      He pulls off a yellow Post It note stuck to the computer.  It reads:  "Coffee made.      Don't touch my computer.  Back in 10."      Unseen on the computer screen beside him, the name "Margaret Barnell"      pops up, along with all her pertinent information like pet's name, husband,      delusions...                                  TED (cont'd)              She'll be back in a few minutes.  You want to try              later?                                  MARGARET              Well you should know, fuck-wit.  You know there's a              man with a gun in my shower, right now?      Ted, distracted, turns as he hears the doorknob turning.                                  TED              Hang on, she's on her way --      Finally he notices the computer screen.  Holy shit.                                  TED (cont'd)                        (tentatively)              Mrs. Barnell?      But before she can answer, Tiffany walks in carrying a laundry basket, pulls the      headset off Ted's head and holds it up to her ear.                                  TIFFANY              I'm here, Margaret.  How you feeling today?                                  TED              Give me the headset.      Ted grabs for the headset, Tiffany resists.                                  TIFFANY                        (to Ted)              What is wrong with you?135   INT. BARNELL HOME / BEDROOM                                                  135      Margaret sits in the same position on the bed by the phone.  Gary, in the      shower, belts out some SHOW TUNE.                                  MARGARET              Christ, where do you want to start?136   INT. TED'S APARTMENT                                                         136      Tiffany shoves Ted, who loses his balance and stumbles backward.  She puts      on the headset.                                  TIFFANY              Sorry about that.  Mrs. Barnell?  Could you speak up              a bit?      Ted is at her side, trying to listen in by pressing his ear to the outside of the      headset.                                  TED              What's she saying?                                  TIFFANY              Something about the gay mafia taking her to a park              to kill her.  Can you hand me my Help Line list?                                  TED              What... Wha...      Ted's throat seizes up again.  He stumbles to the kitchen, gulping water from      the faucet. Tiffany watches with some amusement.                                  TIFFANY              Margaret, are you sure these are real people in your              house?                                  TED              Find out where she...      His voice locks up again.  More water.                                  TIFFANY                        (listening to a profane ramble)              Well then it's a good thing you called.  Nope, not              seeing any problems, but hang on, let me really              concentrate.                                  TED              Ask her...      Ted's not doing much better.137   INT. BARNELL HOME / BEDROOM                                                  137      Margaret hears the shower stop running.                                  MARGARET              Shit on toast.      She hangs up, places the gag back in her mouth and hustles back into place.138   INT.  TED'S APARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER                                        138      Ted, pulls on his boots and his jacket.  In his hand, an address scribbled down      on a piece of note paper.  Tiffany watches, not happy.                                  TED              You're sure this is it?                                  TIFFANY              She specifically mentioned the cock-sucking turnout              up the highway where the snowmobilers hang out.                                  TED              I'll call later.                                  TIFFANY              I won't be here.                                  TED              Excuse me?      The phone RINGS.  Tiffany lets it.                                  TIFFANY              I know relationships aren't all sunshine and roses,              but I'm really not having fun anymore, and I don't              think you are either.                                  TED              God, now's so not the time, Tiff.                                  TIFFANY              Maybe you have to be like this right now, and I'm just              not in a good space to deal with it.  But...                                  TED              But what?                                  TIFFANY              Maybe we shouldn't be like this together.      Tiffany gives him that look every man who's ever crossed the line for the last      time is all too familiar with.      Ted stares.  Words fail him.  Finally, his only recourse is to hurry out the door      which shuts with a BANG.  Tiffany lets the phone continue to RING as she      stares at the door.  Sadly, she hits the computer key that picks it up.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              Psychic Buddies.  How are you Mr. Bennett?  I think              she'd be fine with you remarrying, but hang on, let              me concentrate.      Ted opens the door, steps back inside.                                  TED              OK.  Come on.                                  TIFFANY                        (to Ted)              Really?                                  TED              I've been cutting you out of my life and as a result our              normal communication channels have been              blocked.  I think you coming with me would... would...      He's reaching, but Tiffany looks cautiously hopeful.                                  TED (cont'd)              ...further the development of our relationship and              allow us to both... realize the potential of our...              interpersonalism.                                  TIFFANY              If you're going to be sarcastic.                                  TED              I'm not being anything.  Swear to God.                                  TIFFANY              Okay.  Why do you want me to come?                                  TED                        (total sincerity)              Cause if you don't, then I'll have to stay, and I'll be              mad at you and eventually we'll break up over it, and              as bad as my life is right now, that would make it a              million times worse.      Tiffany smiles, genuinely touched.                                  TIFFANY                        (into the phone)              Mr. Bennett, she's totally cool with it.  but listen,              you're gonna have to call back... I gotta go help my              boyfriend.139   OMITTED                                                                      139140   INT. PAUL'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                                 140      Paul drives, smiling for the first time in a long time.  He listens to the      beautifully wrenching Iz-Kamakawiwo'Ole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"      on the radio.  (The music continues over the next two scenes.)141   EXT. TED'S APARTMENT BUILDING - LATER                                        141      Ted and Tiffany walk out to their car.  They sneak looks at each other, not      entirely sure what emotional sign-post they just passed.142   INT. BARNELL GARAGE                                                          142      Gary and Jimbo, with Margaret, hands bound, walk into the garage.  Jodie (the      dog) runs out after them.  Margaret looks at Jimbo, who takes the dog and      gently puts him back inside.143   INT.  TED'S CAR / CITY STREETS - LATER                                       143      Ted and Tiffany drive in silence.  Then...                                  TIFFANY              Okay, it's called the listening game.  You talk, I listen,              and I can't interrupt.  Then we switch.                                  TED              Doesn't sound like much of a game, but...  I can talk              about anything?                                  TIFFANY              Yes.      Ted smiles, and launches in...144   INT. JIMBO'S CAR / CITY STREETS - LATER                                      144      Gary leans into the backseat and holds a magazine in front of Margaret's face.                                  GARY              See the little box down there?  Lists all the              symptoms of that Tourette's thing, and you don't              have half of them.                                  MARGARET              And?                                  GARY              And?  And you're faking it.                                  MARGARET              Magazines don't prove anything.                                  JIMBO              Gary, can we just try and get there in peace?                                  GARY              Magazines prove everything!!145   EXT. BARNELL MOBILE HOME                                                     145      The residence seen from a distance.                                  RAYMOND (O.S.)              That little prick!!!      As the camera rushes the mobile home, from inside comes the sounds of a      very angry man.  Then, just as we're at the door, it SLAMS OPEN.  Raymond      stands in the doorway, a mountain of anger in a hastily pulled on parka.      He's holding the clock radio by the cord.  He checks his wristwatch, then      smashes the clock radio against the trailer.      Stalking toward his car, he checks the pistol in his side pocket, then, almost as      an afterthought, opens the clip.  No bullets.  He smiles.146   EXT. GLACIER - LATER                                                         146      A not-well-frequented tourist spot, featuring an expansive, far-as-the-eye-can      see carpet of white.  The road from the turnoff is about 200 yards long, leading      to a plowed out parking area.  The road is the only way in or out.  Paul's car      takes the corner and heads toward the parking area.147   INT.  JIMBO'S CAR /  HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS                                    147      Margaret in the back, Jimbo and Gary in the front.                                  GARY              You can't be serious.                                  JIMBO              I'm still not sleeping.                                  GARY              Jimbo.  Come on.                                  JIMBO              It's a thought, okay.  With hard work, you can live okay              as a civilian.                                  GARY              After all this...                                  JIMBO              Yeah, after all this.                                  GARY              Don't you go soft on me, Jimbo.      Margaret LAUGHS through  her gag in the backseat.  Gary and Jimbo pretend      not to hear her.  They drive on in silence.148   EXT. PARKING AREA - CONTINUOUS                                               148      Gary and Jimbo's car pulls in, sliding to a stop beside Paul.149   OMITTED                                                                      149150   INT. TED'S CAR / HIGHWAY                                                     150      Tiffany and Ted drive.  Ted has just finished.  Tiffany has been paying rapt      attention.                                  TIFFANY              So this is kind of like a really weird "Law and Order"              episode?                                  TED              Sure.  I guess.                                  TIFFANY              And if Paul Barnell already killed his brother...                                  TED              Maybe his wife is next.                                  TIFFANY              Cool.  My turn?                        (Ted nods)              Now a healthy relationship is...                                  TED              Hey, here we are.      Ted takes the turnoff to the parking area.151   INT. GUN STORE  - MOMENTS LATER                                              151      A young, bored female CLERK (18) is behind the counter as the door CHIMES      go off.  She looks up to see Raymond walking in, gun in hand.  Raymond lays it      on the counter.                                  GIRL              Calibre?152   EXT. PARKING AREA                                                            152      Ted's car pulls up at the far end of the lot, about 200 yards from where Paul,      Gary and Jimbo are parked.  Paul's car is in between Ted's car and Jimbo's.      Paul gets out of his car, as do Jimbo and Gary.  Paul looks for Margaret in the      back of Jimbo's car, but she remains lying down on the backseat.                                  JIMBO              Mr. Barnell.  I'll assume you've got our friend back              there?                                  PAUL              Yes.  You can let her go now.153   INT. TED'S CAR                                                               153      Ted looks at Paul's car, too far away to see much.   He's about to get out when      Tiffany stops him.                                  TIFFANY                        (gently)              So, do you have a plan here?                                  TED              I'm gonna go talk to him.  You mind staying here?                                  TIFFANY              I guess.  So when do we call the cops?                                  TED              Soon as I... if he actually is doing... something.  I'll              wave, alright?      Tiffany gives him a quick kiss.                                  TIFFANY              That's a very good plan.      Ted's about to jump out of the car, but has to pull back his door as another      vehicle slides in beside them, the driver locking his brakes and sliding into the      snow embankment.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              Tourists.      Ted, a confused look on his face, looks over as Raymond gets out of his      vehicle.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              What?                                  TED              That was...                                  TIFFANY              Who?      Ted, too excited, fumbles with his seat belt as he tries to jump out of the car.154   CORPSE'S POV: FROM PAUL'S OPEN TRUNK                                         154      Black.  The lid opens.  Jimbo, Gary and Paul look in at the frozen body.  Jimbo      recoils at the mangled mess before him.  Gary reaches down and touches the      well-chewed body.                                  GARY              How do we know it's him?                                  PAUL              Come on!  Where would I get another one?      Good point.  Paul hands him the ransom money.155   OMITTED                                                                      155156   EXT. PARKING AREA                                                            156      Ted rushes up beside Raymond.                                  TED              Excuse me.  Aren't you... Raymond Barnell?                                  RAYMOND              I know you?                                  TED                        (confused)              You're... You're dead?      Raymond shoots him a look... Clearly this was taken as a threat.  Ted can't      help but step back.                                  TED (cont'd)              That came out so wrong.      Raymond sizes up Ted, then looks off to Paul's car.                                  RAYMOND              Go away, now.      Raymond walks on.  Ted, realizing he has no choice, runs and jumps in front of      Raymond, blocking his way.                                  TED              Okay, I don't know exactly what's going on here, but if              you would come with me to my office, just for a few              minutes, it would really help me out with my boss.      Raymond steps around Ted.  Ted stays with him.                                  TED (cont'd)              Look, I'm not trying to screw with your life at all, but              you can't just walk off with a million dollars and              expect people to--                                  RAYMOND                        (stops cold)              How much?                                  TED              See, your brother has, and I use this term carefully,              stolen a million dollars from my insurance company.              Now if we--      Before he can finish, Raymond hits him with an elbow to the temple.  Ted      drops to his knees, but even as Raymond tries to walk off, Ted manages to      grab his ankle.157   INT. TED'S CAR                                                               157      Tiffany is busy fiddling with the radio, missing the fight just outside her window      as she tunes in the Beach Boys "Wouldn't It Be Nice."158   EXT. PARKING AREA / BY PAUL'S CAR                                            158      At Jimbo's car, Gary is folding the corpse into the trunk as Jimbo pulls Margaret      upright from the backseat and tugs down her gag.  She smiles at him as, with      great care, he helps her out of the car and presents her to her husband.                                  PAUL              It's all over honey.  It's all over.  Did they hurt you?                                  MARGARET                        (smiling/whisper)              Does food poisoning count?  Have you been eating?                                  PAUL              You know me when I get busy.      She touches the bruise under his eye.                                  MARGARET              Did you fall?                                  PAUL              Just a little.                        (to Jimbo)              Hey, we're gonna get...      That's when Paul sees what Jimbo and Gary are watching.      Raymond kicks Ted in the head, turns, spots Paul and breaks into a run.      Paul seems frozen, but just for a moment.                                  JIMBO              Who the hell is that?                                  MARGARET              Paul?      Paul discretely takes off his red parka and drapes it over Margaret's shoulders.                                  PAUL                        (quietly)              Honey, I need you to start walking to that hill over              there, alright?                                  MARGARET              Why?                                  PAUL              I'll catch up in a bit.  Now, no matter what you hear,              just keep going, alright.  And if I'm... late or              something, just look in the coat, alright?      Margaret nods, kisses her husband quickly on the cheek, then starts to walk      off.      Paul, Gary and Jimbo watch, transfixed at the down-parka'd shit-storm that is      headed their way.                                  GARY                        (nervous)              Jimbo?                                  RAYMOND                        (yelling)              A million dollars, Paul!?  You really think you could              take me?  Again!                                  JIMBO              What million dollars?      Gary and Jimbo look over at Paul, somewhat confused. Raymond's ten yards      out, and they can now see he's taken out his gun.  He's aiming it at Paul.      Paul looks over his shoulder at Margaret, who's having some trouble making it      up a snow covered hill.      Gary's hand slips into his pocket, grabbing hold of his gun.  Raymond,      oblivious, moves right past.159   INT. TED'S CAR                                                               159      Tiffany finally looks over at Ted, who's just getting to his feet.  She bursts out       of the car...160   EXT. PARKING AREA / BY PAUL'S CAR                                            160      Raymond reaches Paul, takes the gun and points it at the top of his head.      Paul's eyes shut tight, expecting the worst.                                  PAUL              Raymond... please.      But shooting your brother is tougher than it looks. Paul opens his eyes.      Raymond tries to pull the trigger again, but can't. He moves the barrel six      inches to the right and shoots Margaret in the back.  She drops face first into      the snow.      Paul's world ends.      Ears RINGING, he rushes toward his wife.      Jimbo can't believe it as Gary holds him back.                                  JIMBO              Hey!  What the fuck!!      Raymond, a look of relief on his face, turns to Jimbo.                                  JIMBO (cont'd)              She had nothing to do with this!                                  RAYMOND              And you do?      But even before Raymond can raise his weapon, Gary pulls his gun and gets it      pointed (shakily) at Raymond.                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              Oh put it down, Nancy.                                  GARY              You first.                                  JIMBO              Gary!  Just --      Raymond drops his gun to his side.  Gary smiles, too happy he won the face      off.                                  RAYMOND              You win, tough guy.      Gary, trying to be cool, flips the gun to his other hand.  As he does-- BANG!  The      bullet rips into the snow about six feet from Raymond's feet.      Raymond glares at Gary.  So does Jimbo.                                  GARY                        (meek, apologetic)              Sorry.      Jimbo lunges for cover as Raymond FIRES back.  Gary, truly terrified, closes      his eyes as he squeezes off shots on the run -- BANGBANGBANGBANG.      One bullet bounces off Paul's car.  One hits Raymond.  With a quizzical look on      his face, he drops to his knees.  A large crimson stain forms on his jacket.      Everything goes quiet, except for the sounds coming from...      Paul, almost crazed with grief, cradles his wife's body.                                  PAUL              Oh God... Oh Jesus...                                  MARGARET                        (muffled)              Oh fucking hell... I can't... breath.      Paul gently turns her over.  Margaret, alive, unharmed but winded, tries to catch      her breath.                                  MARGARET (cont'd)              Paul...  Someone kicked me.      Paul feels around the bullet hole and pulls out a stack of money, now      embedded with the slug from the Raymond's gun.  He starts to weep tears of      relief.                                  PAUL              Can you stand.                                  MARGARET              Is... The Pope... a...                                  PAUL              Okay, easy...      Gary is behind the other car with Jimbo.                                  GARY                        (starting to lose it)              He just, fell... Oh Jesus, oh God.      Jimbo gently takes Gary's gun.                                  JIMBO              I know.      As Jimbo puts an arm around Gary and helps him to the car, he sees Paul,      arm around Margaret, coming their way.  Everyone stops.  A look passes, then      both couples move off.161   EXT. PARKING AREA - CONTINUOUS                                               161      As Jimbo and Gary drive away, Paul brings Margaret to his vehicle.  Spotting      Raymond, he walks over, kicks the gun away, then leans down.  Raymond's not      dead, but he's close.      Paul has to turn away.                                  RAYMOND                        (laboured)              Look at me, you little...      Paul turns back, not angry, not frightened, just a little sad.  Raymond, taken      aback for a moment, tries for one last verbal shot, but all he can manage is...                                  RAYMOND (cont'd)              Puddles.      And Raymond dies.162   EXT. PARKING AREA - CONTINUOUS                                               162      Paul turns back to his car when he spots a delirious, damaged Ted stumbling      toward him with Tiffany desperate to drag him the other way.                                  TED              Where do think you're going?                                  TIFFANY              Ted, leave him alone.                                  TED              No, no, no.  I have been beaten, humiliated, had my              head squeezed by a guy... and I am getting some              answers, right now.      Ted, barely able to stay on his feet (concussion) gets in front of Paul, and just      stands there and waits.  Paul can't help but feel bad for the guy.                                  PAUL              Okay.                                  TED              Well go ahead.                        (re: his left ear)              I can still kind of hear out of this one.                                  PAUL                        (a long pause)              I love my wife, Mr. Watters.  And when you love              someone, I mean, really love someone...      The punch hits Paul on the top of his head.  He stumbles back, but Ted is on      him before he can move out of range.  It's a strange looking fight between the      younger (physically spent) and older (emotionally drained).                                  TED                        (between punches)              I want a fucking Hallmark card or the lyrics to a              Foreigner rock ballad, I'll go to the mall, Mr. Barnell.      Margaret and Tiffany jump in, trying to pull the two men apart.163   INT. PAUL'S CAR - LATER                                                      163      The car is still in the parking area.  Paul and a bloody, beaten Ted sit up front      with Margaret and Tiffany in the back.  No one speaks, until...                                  TIFFANY              They call this the listening game.  Mr. Barnell, you              get to go first.      Ted glares at Tiffany, but her look instantly softens him.  Ted looks at Margaret,      who looks expectantly at Paul.  Ted shrugs.                                  TED              Knock yourself out.      Paul starts to talk, and Ted starts to listen...164   EXT. GRAVEYARD - NOON                                                        164      Arnith (the grave digger) walks to the side of a casket.  He hits the switch and it      starts to drop.  Arnith watches impassively, taking brief note of two people up      the hill before returning to his work.165   EXT. GRAVEYARD HILL - CONTINUOUS                                             165      It's Gary and Jimbo, dressed in black.  They watch silently as Raymond is laid      to rest.166   EXT.  TROPICAL BEACH - DAY                                                   166      The sun beats down on a white sand tropical paradise.  The wind is calm, the      water azure blue.  Perfection, except for the -- SNOW.  Big pure white flakes,      cutting across this idyllic --      Poster that hangs in a BOOK STORE window.  We are...167   EXT. STREET / LIBERTY CAPITAL TOWERS - DAY                                   167      Tiffany stares at her reflection in the window, her face transported to an island      paradise.  Ted walks out.                                  TIFFANY              Hey.                                  TED              Hey yourself.                                  TIFFANY              So where you want to go?                                  TED              Somewhere close.  My three o'clock's been moved              up.                                  TIFFANY              Cool.  You alright about everything?                                  TED              Yeah.  The life policy was written on his brother, and              he did, you know, die.  I may be rationalizing a bit, but              ethically I think I'm okay.                                  TIFFANY              Good.  I like it when you're okay.      The two walk down the street.  Snow keeps falling.  Tiffany shuts her eyes,      looks straight up as the gossamer snowflakes land and melt on her face.      She's never looked more beautiful.                                  TIFFANY (cont'd)              Don't ya just love this weather?      Ted stares at her.                                  TED              Learning to.      Tiffany grabs his hand and pulls him away, disappearing into the whiteness.168   OMITTED                                                                      168A168  INT. BARNELL HOME / LIVING ROOM - DAY                                       A168      Paul, sitting alone, reads a postcard from Margaret.                                  MARGARET (V.O.)              Pauly, know it sounds corny but I miss you so much!              Wish you could have come.  Saw some dolphins              today.  Frisky little buggers.  They were even playing              our song in the bar.  Have been pondering about              your question, and I think my answer is "yes."  After              all, it's no fun in the sun without...                                  MARGARET (O.S.) (cont'd)              Paul, you ready?      Paul looks up to see Margaret.  Dressed in a coat, she is standing in the      middle of the living room, now empty save for a few boxes and a very ugly floor      lamp.      Paul flips Margaret's letter over, and we now see it is the faded Hawaiian Hilton      postcard from the box in his den.      Paul puts the postcard in a shoe box full of keepsakes, and tucks it under his      arm.  Margaret picks up Jodie, whose in his carrying case, and walks over.      A CAR HORN sounds from outside.  It's their cab.  As they walk to the door...                                  PAUL              How you feeling?                                  MARGARET              Pretty damn good.                                  PAUL              I can tell.                                  MARGARET              Can you?      Paul takes her hand and gives it a squeeze.  They head out.169   EXT. AIRPORT TARMAC - DAY                                                    169      Snowing now, as various PEOPLE walk toward the aircraft and the portable      stairs rolled to the door.      Paul and Margaret among the crowd, exchange nervous but hopeful smiles,      then they are lost along with the other pilgrims in the swirling white.                                                                        FADE TO BLACK.170   (CODA) EXT. DAVE'S HOUSE - DAY                                               170      Dave and his WIFE (50s) walk out of their house toward their  car.  They get in,      Dave behind the wheel.171   INT. DAVE'S CAR - CONTINUOUS                                                 171      As they pull down the driveway.                                  DAVE              Why don't we go there after?                        (off her look)              Fine.  We'll do it now.                                  DAVE'S WIFE              Watch the curb.      Dave keeps backing up.  As he takes the corner and bumps over the curb, the      momentum sends the half-eaten body (that Gary and Jimbo stuffed into the      backseat) to an upright position.      They drive on, oblivious.                                  DAVE              Looks like weather.                                                                          FADE TO WHITE.
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+BigSCENE 1JOSHYou are standing in the cavern of the evil wizard.  All around you are the carcasses of slain ice dwarfs...Melt the wizard.  What do you want to melt him with?  What do you think I want to melt him with...(Josh, don't forget to take out the garbage)  Just a second!  Throw the...(Josh, did you hear what your mother said?)  One minute!  (Josh Baskin!)  Your hesitancy has cost you dearly.  The wizard, sensing your apprehension, unleashes a fatal blow from the ice scepter.  With luck, you will thaw in several million years.  Great.MOMC'mon Josh, it's starting to get awfully late!JOSHOkay. Okay. Okay.SCENE 2JOSHTake the garbage out.  Every day, take the garbage out...Rick Rodin is on the mound for the Yankees!  He looks into the catcher's mitt, shakes off the first signal, takes the turn, wipes the sweat off his brow, leans back and fires...BILLYYeah!  Good-bye Mr. Spaulding!  ...Here, here!  Quick!SCENE 3JOSHGot it.  Need it.  Need it.  Got it.BILLYHey.  Hey.  Hey!  You ever go by Simpson's desk when she's grading papers or somethin'?  When she's leaned over, you can see right down her shirt.JOSHNo!BILLYSwear to God.JOSHBra?BILLYNo.  No.  She's got one of those undershirt things.  So if you get real close to the board, you can see all the way down to her flowers.JOSHWoah!BILLYYeah.  Give me your gum.JOSHNeed it.  Got it.  Got it.  Need it...BILLYHey.  Hey.  Hey!  Oh my God, it's Cynthia!  How did a geek like Freddy Benson get a sister like that?JOSHBeats me.CYNTHIAHi Josh.BILLYHi!...He says hi!...Unbelievable!  God!  She likes you!  I know she likes you!  I'll find out, okay!SCENE 4BILLY &JOSHShimmy, shimmy cocoa pop!  Shimmy, shimmy rock!  Shimmy, shimmy cocoa pop!  Shimmy, shimmy rock!  I met a girlfriend a triscuit!  She said, a triscuit a biscuit!  Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top!  Ooh, Shelly's out, walking down the street, ten times a week!  I read it!  I said it!  I stole my momma's credit!  I'm cool!  I'm hot!  Sock me in the stomach three more times!JOSHDon't forget to call me after supper.BILLYOkay.JOSHRemember about Cynthia!BILLYDon't worry!  I'm as interested as you are.SCENE 5JOSHSo, will you tell me?BILLYYou're in!JOSHWhat do you mean, I'm in?BILLYCynthia Benson!JOSHWhat about her?BILLYYou ready for this?  She doesn't like Barry anymore!JOSHSo?BILLYSo what do you mean so?!  That's it!  She's available!MOMJosh...?JOSHIt doesn't mean...MOMHey, it's after midnight.  Now say goodnight to Billy.JOSHGoodnight Billy.  I've gotta go.BILLYGoodnight Mrs. Baskin!  Sweet dreams.SCENE 6DADAre you sure you want to go on this thing, Son?JOSHYeah!MOMNah!  Nah!  I don't know about this one, Bob.  No, this looks too scary.DADIt's okay.JOSHOh my gosh!MOMSee, I told you he doesn't want to go on it.DADSon, you know, you don't have to go on this thing if you don't feel like it.JOSHNo!  No!  It's just that I...I want to go on it myself.MOMYou do?JOSHYeah.  I think it's something...yeah, I think it's something I should do.DADGreat!  Why don't we meet you at the ferris wheel.JOSHHalf hour.SCENE 7CYNTHIAJosh?JOSHOh, hi!CYNTHIAHi!  Have you been on this before?JOSHThis?CYNTHIAYeah.JOSHYes.CYNTHIAIs it scary?JOSHYes.CYNTHIAAre you here alone?JOSHYes.CYNTHIALook.  Aren't those your parents?JOSHWhere?MOMHoney!CYNTHIARight over there.MOMSmile!JOSHWhy, yes.DARINHey, who's this?CYNTHIAThis is Josh Baskin.DARINHow ya doin'?CYNTHIAThis is Darin.  He drives.MANNext!DARINGo ahead.MANYo next!DARINGo ahead!MANYo next!  Woah!  Read this sign.  You must be at least this big to ride this ride!CYNTHIAWhat?MANHey, I don't make the rules here.  Next!  Next!CYNTHIAWell, it's a stupid rule.MANLook, why don't you try the kiddy ride?SCENE 8JOSHDrop twenty-five cents here.  C'mon!  C'mon!  C'mon!  ...Neat!  ...Make my wish....I wish I were big....Your wish is granted.SCENE 9MOMJosh!  Josh!  Josh!JOSHWhat?MOMIt's seven-thirty.  Are you up?  ...Come on Sleepy Head!  You're going to miss the bus and I can't drive you today! ...What does he do in his sleep?  ...Honey?  I put out some clean clothes.  Bring down your dungarees and stuff for the laundry, okay?JOSHOkay.MOMAre you getting a cold, Josh?JOSHNo!  Fine!MOMHe's got a cold.  Then Rachel's gonna get a cold and I'm gonna get a cold...JOSHOh my God.MOMBreakfast is ready, Josh!JOSHBe right there!MOMJosh!  Hurry up!  Your eggs are getting cold!  ...Bring down Rachel with you, all right?JOSHOkay!MOMYou want orange juice or...What about your breakfast?!SCENE 10MOMOh, you...don't!  Don't!JOSHI'm sorry! ...Mom, it's me.  It's Josh.  Mom, I'm a grown up!MOMStop it!  Oh God!JOSHI made a wish last night...I turned into a grown up, Mom!  I made this wish on a machine...MOMGo away!  Go away!  Please!JOSH...and it turned me into a grown up!  It was last night at the carnival!  My birthday is November 3rd...I got a B on my history test!MOMHere's my purse!  You can have anything that's in it!  Go away!JOSHMy, my, my baseball team is called the Dukes!  Uh, I made this for you!   Who are you calling?  Ah!  I have a birthmark behind my left knee!MOMYou bastard!  What did you do to my son?JOSHI am your son, Mom!MOMWhere is my child?!  Where is my son?!  Police!SCENE 11COACHHeads up!  Heads up out there!BILLYI'm open!  Here!  I'm open!COACHI want you to gather up these balls, go to the locker room and get on to your next class!  Wash shirts and shorts!  Billy.  Do us both a favor.  Put the balls in the equipment closet and you practice your lay up.SCENE 12JOSHBilly.BILLYYeah?  What?JOSHIt's me.  It's Josh!BILLYCoach Burns!  Coach Burns!  Coach Burns!JOSHWait a minute!  Shut up!  Shut up!  I'm your best friend, you've gotta believe me!  I'll prove it to you!  Billy, please!BILLYHelp!  Help!JOSHGod damn it Billy Kopecky!  Look, I know that I don't look like myself, okay!  But something really strange happened and I'm really scared and I need your help!  You're my best friend!  I can prove it to you!  ...Ooh!  The spades go, Down!  Down! Baby!  Down!  Down the roller coaster!  Sweet, sweet baby!  Sweet, sweet delectable!  Shimmy, shimmy cocoa pop!  Shimmy, shimmy rock!  Shimmy, shimmy cocoa pop!  Shimmy, shimmy rock!  I met a girlfriend a triscuit!  She said a triscuit a biscuit!  Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top!  Ooh Shelly, walking down the street, ten times a week!  I met it!  I said it!  I stole my mother's credit!  I'm cool!  I'm hot!  Sock me in the stomach three more times!BILLYJosh?  You look terrible.JOSHI know.SCENE 13POLICEThat's right.  We're at the scene right now.  Well, she's pretty upset and she's not making any sense at all.  There's no ransom note, no prints, there's no nothin.'  Tell you what, file a report and to be on the safe side...KID#1I bet he ran away.  Wish I could.KID#2Want me to pack your bags?SCENE 14BILLYWe go to the city, we lay low for a couple of days, find that Zoltar Machine, make your wish...you'll be home by Thursday!JOSHWell, I'm not supposed to go to New York without my folks!BILLYC'mon!  You'll be fine!  ...Here.JOSHWhere did you get this?!BILLYFrom my Dad's top drawer!JOSHYou stole it?!BILLYIt's his emergency fund!JOSHJesus Billy!BILLYWell what do you call this?!SCENE 15WOMANYou lookin' for some fun tonight sweet thing?JOSHNo, thank you.MANHey man, can you spare some change?JOSHNo, not really.BILLYHey, this looks okay.JOSHNo it doesn't.BILLYSaint James, Josh, it's religious.SCENE 16BILLYHi.JOSHHi.MANBurp!JOSHUh, we would like a hotel room, please.MAN$17.50 a night for the room, $10.00 deposit for the sheets....You go straight to the top of the stairs.  It's the last door on the right.  Next to the bathroom.  Wait a second, I'll show you.SCENE 17BILLYIt smells bad.JOSHShh!MANHave a pleasant stay....Hey Angel!  Get out of that bathroom now!JOSHI don't want to stay here by myself.BILLYI can't help it Josh.  I've gotta be home by ten.  Look, I'll cut classes tomorrow and we'll find that Zoltar thing before you know it, okay?  It's just one night.  All right?JOSHAll right.BILLYGood.JOSHWhat if I can't sleep?BILLYIt's probably better if you don't.  See you in the morning.JOSHWell, you mean like what time?BILLY8:30.  I'd use the chain if I were you.JOSHMom...Mom....SCENE 18JOSHI told you, it's not a video game.BILLYWell, what is it?JOSHWell, it's not a video game.BILLYThis one's got a number on it.  Does yours?JOSHNo.  Oh wait, here's one.MANHey, what are doing?  What are doing?JOSHDo you have Zoltar?MANNo.  I told you, I looked back in the back.  I've got Powerhouse, I've got ...JOSHWe really need Zoltar.MANWell, I haven't got it.SCENE 19BILLYThis is it.JOSHThey aren't going to have it.BILLYThey'll have it.MANCan I help you?JOSHYes.  We would like a list of all carnivals and fairs.BILLYAnd arcades.JOSHYeah.MANCarnivals and fairs...Try Consumer Affairs, down the hall, room 111.JOSHThank you.SCENE 20WOMANFill this out in triplicate.  $5.00 filing charge.BILLYSee.WOMANOne month to process.  You get in six weeks.JOSHSix weeks?WOMANSometimes longer, but, you could get lucky....Next please!SCENE 21JOSHI'm gonna be thirty years old for the rest of my life.BILLYWould you come on.  We'll figure something out.  By the way, you may be older than that!JOSHSo now what?BILLYI'll come and see you everyday after school.JOSHHow?BILLYI'll tell them I made the basketball team.JOSHI won't have anything to do.BILLYYou can get a job.JOSHI can't get a job.BILLYWhy?  It can't be any different than school.  What are you good at?JOSHI don't know.  Making spit balls?SCENE 22BILLYHow about a delivery man?JOSHI don't know how drive.BILLYOh yeah, right...Cardiological technician, civil engineer...JOSHYou gonna eat your cherry?BILLYGo ahead....Clerical transcriber...JOSHBilly?BILLYYeah....Gross.  God, that's gross!JOSHHey, go on to the next column.BILLYCollection agent, company clerk, computer operator, construction engineer...JOSHComputer operator?  Computer operator, read that one.BILLYJosh, would you quit with your stupid computers!JOSHJust read it!BILLYMacmillan Toys...toys!JOSHToys!SCENE 23WOMANMacmillan Toys, may I help you?BILLYOkay, what's next?  There.JOSHPrevious employment.BILLYYour paper route.JOSHI can't put that.BILLYPaper route circulation?JOSHYeah!BILLYWhat's he got?  Hey, don't worry about it.JOSHSocial Security number?BILLY32-17-25.JOSHWhat is that?BILLYMy locker combination.JOSHGreat!WOMANMr. Baskin.  Mr. Baskin?JOSHYes.  Yes.WOMANThe Personnel Director will see you now....Uh, you son can wait out here.JOSHYeah, okay.  Son, you should sit down and don't give the lady any trouble now.BILLYSure Dad!  ...Don't forget--look him in the eye!SCENE 24MANCouple of numbers missing on your Social Security.JOSHOh, uh twelve.MANOne two.  Says here you've got four years experience.JOSHYes.MANAll on computers?JOSHYes.MANWhere did you go to school?JOSHIt was called George Washington.MANOh, G.W.  My brother-in-law got his doctorate there.  Did you pledge?JOSHYes.  Every morning.SUSANIt happened again!  David, the girl is absolutely useless!  You've got to get me someone who knows what she is doing!  Excuse me.  I'm not getting any of my mail, nothing has been filed!  Ever since she got engaged, my life has been a disaster!  MANYou know, she came so highly recommended.SUSANShe spent the last three months writing down her married name.  Mrs. Judy Hicks.  Mrs. Donald Hicks.  Mrs. Judy Mitchleson Hicks.  Sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes without a hyphen.  Sometimes she spells the hyphen!MANWell, I really don't know where I can put her.SUSANPut her on unemployment!MANWhen can you start?JOSHSoon.SCENE 25MANI thought we'd start you out with preschoolers.  Should take you a few days.  Give you a chance to find your way around.  Do you smoke?JOSHWell, uh, just once, but...MANOnly on breaks in the coffee room....Most of that is pretty straight forward stuff.  If you have any questions, come to me.  Good luck.JOSHBye!SCENE 26SCOTTPsst!  Psst!  Hey!  Hey!  I'm Scott Brennan.JOSHUh, I'm Josh Baskin.SCOTTListen, what are you trying to do?  Get us all fired?JOSHHuh?SCOTTYou've gotta slow down.  Pace yourself.  Slowly!  Slowly!JOSHSorry.  Today's my first day.SCOTTI know!JOSHSo how long have you worked here?SCOTTFive years.  Work stinks but the fringe benefits are great!  See that girl over there in the red?  Say hi to her and she'll be yours.  She'll wrap her legs around you so tight you'll be begging for mercy!JOSHWell, I'll stay away from her then!SCOTTExcuse me.  Yeah Brennan.  I gave it to you yesterday!  Oh, here it is.  I don't have time to xerox it.  Let the new guy do it.SCENE 27MR. MThat's total bullshit Paul!PAULLook sir, the favorability rate is...MR. MCome on!  Let's not lie to ourselves!  If a kid likes a toy it sells.  That's all!SUSANBut every bit of research and focus testing...MR. MIt works with research, it works with focus testing, it just doesn't work with the kids!JOSHSorry!  I'm sorry!PAULWhy don't you watch where the hell you're going!SUSANAre you okay!MR. MI'm fine.PAULYou could kill somebody running around here like that!MR. MIt's all right Paul.  The boss should get knocked on his ass once in a while.  It's good for him.PAULI don't know sir, maybe you should see a doctor.MR. MFor crying out loud Paul, I'm fine!  I'm fine!PAULSorry sir!  Sorry!MR. MWhere were you going anyway, son?JOSHUh, I was going to the xerox room because they needed these by 5:00.MR. MOh, that's good!  Nothing wrong with a little hustle.  Nothing at all!  Right Paul?PAULWhat does he mean?  I hustle!  Uh sir!  Sir!SCENE 28MOMHello?  ...Hello?JOSHHello.  Mrs. Baskin?MOMYes.JOSHHow are you?MOMWho is this?JOSHI just wanted you to know that Josh is all right.  He's okay.MOMYou have my boy?JOSHYeah.  And you're gonna get him back, just the way he was.MOMLook, I swear to God--If you do anything to him, if you touch one hair on his head, I will spend the rest of my life making sure you suffer!JOSHWow!  Thanks!MOMLet me talk to Josh!JOSHOh, he can't come to the phone right now.MOMWhy not?  Why not?  What did you do to him?!JOSHI didn't do anything to him!  I think he's a terrific kid!MOMI want proof that he's all right!JOSHUh, well, all right.  Ask me something that only he would know.  Then I'll ask him for you and that way you'll know that he's okay.MOMAsk him what I used to sing to him when he was a little boy.JOSHIsn't there something else that you would rather ask him?MOMAsk him!JOSHOh, I got it!  I got it!  Memories, like the corner of my mind.  Misty water color memories, of the way we were.  Scattered pictures...Look, you're gonna see him again really soon.  I promise.  I cross my heart.  We'll talk about this later.SCENE 29MANHarris!  Brennan!  Baskin!JOSHWhat is this?SCOTTPay day.JOSH$187.00?!  Ha!  Ha!SCOTTYeah.  They really screw you, don't they?SCENE 30JOSHHi.WOMANHi.  Okay, so how would you like that?JOSHThree dimes, a hundred dollar bill, and eighty seven ones.WOMANOne, two, three...SCENE 31JOSHI'm never eating again.BILLYIt wasn't that bad.JOSHIt was the boat ride that did it.BILLYNo, it was the pork rinds.JOSHPork rinds!  Aghh!  We sure had fun, didn't we?BILLYYeah, we sure did.SCENE 32BOYGot you!JOSHWhat's your name?BOYJordan, what's yours?JOSHMine's Josh.BOYI'm gonna blow you away Josh!JOSHBut I just got you!BOYNo way!  Get back here!SCENE 33MR. MYou work for me, don't you?JOSHYes.MR. MI thought so.  What, are you here with your kids?JOSHNo.  I was just looking around.MR. MOh.  Me too.  I come here every Saturday.  Can't see this on a marketing report.JOSHWhat's a marketing report?MR. MExactly.  Come on.  What do you think of that?JOSHThe Championship Hockey?  Oh, I love it.  Only the...MR. MOnly what?JOSHWell, the pieces don't move.MR. MWhat do you mean?JOSHWell, on the old set you could slide the men up and down the ice, and now all they do is spin around.  It was more like real hockey the old way.  Why did they change it?MR. MI don't know.JOSHYou see, the Star Fighters are good because you can change all the pieces.  But I never liked the Galactakons.  You only get one robot, and they don't come with a vehicle.  MR. MI see.JOSHPlus you can't take them underwater.  And if you do they...Neat!MR. MOkay, let's check out the...Piano lessons?JOSHThree years.MR. MMe too.  Everyday, after school....Chopsticks....What department did you say you were in?JOSHOh, I'm in computers.MR. MComputers?  You just saved me a trip to the gym Son.SCENE 34SUSANVice President in charge of Product Development.PAULVice President!  He's only been here a week!  Vice President?!SUSANAnd he came from data processing!PAULHe's out of his mind!  The old man has finally lost it!SUSANDid you know they gave him Bob's old office?PAULBob's office?!  Bob's office is bigger than my office!  There's got to be a reason.  Things like this don't happen unless there's a reason.SCENE 35BILLYThat means if the president dies you get to take over?JOSHNo. No.  They got a hundred of them.  Are we ready?WOMANYes Mr. Baskin.JOSHCome on in.BILLYLook at this place!  It's bigger than the principal's office!JOSHHow would you know?BILLYRemember that explosion in science?JOSHOh yes!BILLYTruck-a-Killer!  $59.95?JOSHYou know that only costs 10 bucks to make.BILLYGet out of here! ...What is this?JOSHOh, well, this is just...They just put this in here...it doesn't mean anything.BILLYSo what do they make you do for all this?JOSHWell, I play with all of this stuff and then, I go in there and tell them what I think.BILLYThat's it?JOSHYeah.BILLYAnd they pay you for that?JOSHYeah.BILLYSuckers!JOSHOh, thank you Miss Patterson.  Hey!  Miss Patterson.  Could you call down to Media and have them send up a video tape of the Giants Broncos Super Bowl?  And have them edit out all the commercials and talkin' and stuff?WOMANYes Mr. Baskin.JOSHMiss Patterson.BILLYYou're the luckiest guy I know.SCENE 36PAULDid you check Mattel?SUSANNothing.PAULColleco?SUSANZero.PAULHe can't come from nowhere Susan.  He has to come from somewhere.  How about Hasbro?SUSANYes.  And Fisher Price and Worlds of Wonder.  I have called everywhere.  Nobody's ever heard of him!PAULGreat!SUSANFace it Paul.  The guy comes from data processing.PAULTerrific.  That is just terrific!  This is just terrific!SUSANYou're being paranoid Paul.SCENE 37PAULThese tests were conducted over a six month period using a double-blind format of eight over-lapping demographic groups.  Every region of the country was sampled, the focus testing showed a solid base in the 9 to 11-year old bracket--with a possible carry-over into the 12-year olds.  When you consider that Nobots and Transformers pull over 37 percent market share, and that we are targeting the same area, I think that we should see one quarter of that and that is one fifth of the total revenue from all of last year.  Any questions?  Yes?  Yes?JOSHI don't get it.PAULWhat exactly don't you get?JOSHIt turns from a building into a robot, right?PAULPrecisely.JOSHWell, what's fun about that?PAULWell, if you had read your industry breakdown, you would see that our success in the action figure area has climbed from 27 percent to 45 percent in the last two years.  There, that might help.JOSHOh.PAULYes?JOSHI still don't get it.PAULWhat?!MR. MWhat don't you get Josh?JOSHWell, there's a million robots that turn into something.  And this is a building that turns into a robot.  So what's so fun about playing with a building?  That's not any fun!PAULThis is a skyscraper.JOSHWell, couldn't it be like a robot that turns into something like a bug or something?PAULA bug?JOSHYeah!  Like a big prehistoric insect with maybe like giant claws that could pick up a car and crush it like that!MANA prehistoric transformer?MR. MInteresting.PAULGentlemen!MANSo the robot turns into a bug.PAULAh, gentlemen, listen...MANListen to him.  He's got a very good idea here.  The robot turns into a bug.MANThis is a great idea!JOSHDifferent sizes and things.  And...you could have them wreck something...MANA lady bug.  Transformers for girls!MR. MThis is a bug that moves....It's got all kinds of possibilities.PAULThis doesn't just happen.  This doesn't happen.  You don't just come to a meeting and say "bugs."SUSANI, uh....MR. MWell done, Josh.  Well done.SCENE 38PAULHo! Ho! Ho!  He is vicious!  SUSANHe's not vicious.PAULOh, come on Susan, don't kid yourself.  That man is a killer!SUSANAll he said was "I don't get it."PAULI don't get it!  I don't get!  I don't get!  He's going for the throat, trying to eviscerate me!  Did you see the look on Macmillan's face?!SUSANMmm Hmm.SCENE 39REALTORIt's quite a unique space.  The lines are so clean and you don't get any of that partition quality.  It has 50-foot ceilings, all hardwood floors, ample closet space, a modern kitchen, a brand new bathroom with a jet stream jacuzzi.BILLYWe'll take it.SCENE 40MANBaskin.  Rental delivery!JOSHDear Mom and Dad.  They said that I could write you and let you know I was okay.  So far, they're treating me fine.  I've got enough to eat and I'm perfectly safe.  They say that I'll get out of here in about a month.  In the mean time, it's a lot like camp!  I watch TV and even get outside once in a while.  I know you miss me.  But try not to worry.  I think this experience might even be good for me.  I love you very much and I know that I'll see you soon.  Your son, Joshua.  P.S.  Give Rachel a kiss from her big brother.SCENE 41WOMANIt's very beautiful and I'm having a lovely time.MR. MI'm glad Miss Patterson.WOMANIt's much better than last year.  I just wanted to tell you that.MR. MI'll have another scotch....Susan.SUSANLove your tux.MR. MI think it's the same as the maitre's.SUSANHave you decided what you're doing on the Danberry line?MR. MNo, I haven't.SUSANWell, uh, I think if you got everyone's input up front, I mean right from the beginning....MR. MSusan, have a drink.SUSANWhat?MR. MHave a couple drinks.  It's a party.SCENE 42MR. MJosh!  Glad you could make it.MANBet he gets another raise.MR. MNow that's what I call a tuxedo.JOSHI rented it.  This is a real bow tie though.  I tied it myself.  And that's why I was late.MR. MNo, you're not late at all.  Come on, let me show you around.JOSHHey, there's Miss Patterson!  Hi!  There's the guy from the meeting!  Hi!SCENE 43PAULThe guy's a damn knock-off artist.MANWhat do you mean?PAULThe Amphibian?  He takes 10,000 G. I. Joes, slaps some gills on them, webs their feet, and packages them in seaweed....So I show him the schedule and he says, "It's not correct accounting procedure!"  Give me a goddamn break!MANBut the toy sold Paul.SUSANExcuse me.SCENE 44SUSANHi.JOSHHi.SUSANAll the same people having all the same discussion.  It's like they cloned some party in 1983 and kept spinning it out again and again and again.  I loved your ideas on the Squeezy Doll line.  JOSHThanks.SUSANThey were so, incisive.  It's Beluga.  Macmillan orders it every year....You all right?  You okay?  You want a glass of water?  You want something to drink?JOSHCould I have a milkshake or something?SUSANI've got a car outside.  You want to get out of here?JOSHUh Huh.SUSANLet's go.SCENE 45SUSANI'm not really a big one for parties.  You know, I like things that are a little more intimate.  JOSHWow!  Is this your car?SUSANWell, it's the company's car.JOSHOh, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen!SUSANI mean, just seeing someone in the office, you don't really get a chance to know them.  I mean, just being with you here tonight, I really get a sense of who you are.JOSHAre you gonna eat these fries?SUSANNo. No....JOSHHey mister?  You want some of these fries?  We're not going to eat them.DRIVERNo, thank you.SUSANYou see, it's hard in a business situation...I mean there's this invisible line and even you're attracted to someone...What, are you going to call someone before...?JOSHNo.SUSANUh, I mean at this point in my life I...Don't...Don't play with the radio...Leave the uh...Don't...I'm really vulnerable right now!  You know...I mean, I love my job and I....JOSHEjector seat!  This is great!  Hey!  Come on up!  Hey, that was my apartment.SUSANReally?  I'd love to see where you live.SCENE 46SUSANSo have you always lived alone?JOSHNo, not always.SUSANAh.  Is it just recently or...?JOSHYeah.SUSANGive yourself a couple of days, it'll pass.JOSHWell, they said it was gonna take six weeks.SUSANWell, it can be painful but, that's what they invented Xanax for, right?JOSHWatch your step.SUSANI'm not sure we should do this yet.JOSHDo what?SUSANWell, I mean I like you and I want to spend the night with you....JOSHDo you mean sleep over?SUSANWell,...yeah!JOSHOkay!  But I get to be on top!SCENE 47SUSANYou live here?JOSHYeah.  It's nice, isn't it?SUSANYeah.JOSHYou uh, want a soda?SUSANHuh?JOSHSoda?  You want one?SUSANYeah, sure.JOSHThey rigged this up so you don't need any quarters....Don't!  Don't...!SUSANWhat?JOSHThe glue's not dry.  Sorry.SUSANSorry.JOSHIt's okay....You wanna play pinball?SUSANNo.JOSHYou don't need quarters for this either.  It's free.SUSANNo, thank you.JOSHOkay.SUSANIs that a trampoline?JOSHYeah.  You wanna try it?SUSANNo.JOSHYou should.  It's really fun.  It's simple, too.  Come on!  Come on!  You'll like it and it's really easy to do.SUSANNo, I don't think...JOSHI'm serious...SUSANDo have some wine?JOSHTake off your shoes...It's really easy....Let me get rid of these balls.SUSANNo, I'm...I'm...I'll watch.JOSHCome on.  It's fun.  I'll do it with you.  Up you go.  Excellent.SUSANHelp me up?JOSHSure.SUSANOkay.JOSHOkay.  Jump.  SUSANYou want me to jump?JOSHYes.SUSANThere.  Now can we have a drink?JOSHNo!  No!  No!  I mean really jump.  Now get some air between you and the trampoline.SUSANThere.JOSHOh, come on!  I'll do it with you!  All right?  I'll show you how to do it.  You ready?  Come on.  Jump.  See?  There it is.  That's all there is to it.  There you go.  There you go.  Yeah!  It's easy!  Anybody could do this!SCENE 48JOSHHere.  Pick one....It's for you.  It's a glow in the dark compass ring...so you won't get lost....Goodnight.SCENE 49PAULDid you have fun last night?SUSANSure.  Yeah.PAULYeah...You left pretty quick.SUSANI gave him a ride home Paul.PAULOh, did he enjoy it?SUSANDon't be ridiculous.PAULAh, that's me, Mr. Ridiculous.  Just a silly old guy.SUSANI don't feel like going out tonight.PAULWhat do you mean?  They're your friends....Come on!  Leave it!  Leave it!  Would you quit it!  Do you have to play with everything?SCENE 50PAULBaskin?  Baskin!JOSHWouldn't you rather play basketball?  I know how to play that.  We could be like a team for the Macmillan Company.PAULNo.JOSHI'm not very good at sports, but I'll give it a try.  My best sport is video hockey.PAULThat isn't a sport.JOSHWell, it takes eye to hand coordination.PAULIt's not a sport if you don't sweat!JOSHWhat about golf?  You don't sweat and that's a sport.PAULYeah, and you're not sittin' there letting some machine do all the work!JOSHWhat about car racing?PAULAw shut up Baskin!JOSHWhat are the rules again?PAULI told you.  Over the line to serve.  Yellow is out of bounds.  Play to 21--ready?JOSHSorry.  Sorry.PAULOne nothing.  Come on!  Get it!  Get it!  Get it!JOSHOkay.PAULThatta boy!  Okay, you ready?  All right....Ho ho!  Nice try!  That was in!  Two zip.  Just made it.  Two zip.  Ready?  Okay!  Here we go!...19/18.JOSHUh, that was under the line.PAULWhat?JOSHThat was under the line.  You said it had to be over the line on a serve.PAULNo I didn't.JOSHYeah you did!  You said it had to be over the line on a serve!PAULNo I did not, now give me the goddamn ball!JOSHWell that's cheating!PAULGive me the goddamn ball, will ya!JOSHNo!PAULGive me the ball you little shit!  JOSHIt's my serve.PAULGive me the ball!  Give me the goddamn ball!  I never said that!JOSHYes you did.PAULGive me the...Give me the ball!  Give me the ball!JOSHCheater!  You cheat!PAULI did not cheat!JOSHYou cheat!  You cheat!PAULGive me the ball!  Give me the ball!  Give me it!  Give me the ball!SCENE 51JOSHHe didn't have to punch me.SUSANI know.  He's scared of you.  You don't play his game.JOSHI tried to play his game.  He beat me up.  If he's scared of me then why did he punch me?SUSANHe punched you because he's scared of you.JOSHI don't get it.SUSANIt's just the way he is.  Everything is a fight with him.  Everyone's an enemy.  It's not just a job for him, it's a war.  JOSHWell how come you're so nice?SUSANWhat?JOSHWell, you work just as hard as he does and you're not like that.SUSANYou don't...you don't know me that well.JOSHYes I do.  You're one of the nicest people I've met.SUSANHow do you do it?SCENE 52PAULWhat's this?SUSANWhat does it look like?!  Shampoo, razor, toothpaste, two neckties and your exercise tape!  Oh, and I want my keys back!PAULSure.  It's just some scratches.  He'll get over it.SUSANOh, it has nothing to do with him.PAULOh come on Susan!  He's just another link in the chain!  First it was Tom Caulfield, then Handlen.  Then Golding, then me!  Am I missing somebody?SUSANIt's not like that anymore!PAULWhat is so special about Baskin?SUSANHe's a grown up!PAULSusan.SUSANI can't believe you brought up Golding.SCENE 53BILLYAnd many more!  What are you going to wish for this time?SCENE 54BILLYI know what we can do!  We can go out and get some beers, some dirty magazines and go back...JOSHUh, I can't Billy.BILLYWhat you mean you can't?  Of course you can!  It's your birthday!JOSHNo, I can't...I have to go somewhere.BILLYWhere?JOSHUm...well, I have to go meet somebody and...BILLYSo, you got all night!JOSHYeah I know, but it's just...well I can't right now okay, but I'll call you, all right?  Okay?  I'll give you a call.  Thanks again Billy, it was fun!SCENE 55SUSANHi....Do you want to come in?JOSHSure.SUSANSit down....Want to go?JOSHYeah!  Yeah!SCENE 56JOSHWant to go again?!SCENE 57JOSHSo they have these cars that you can actually drive them except they're on this rail so you can't get off the road...You have a really big gob of mustard right, right...SUSANWhat?JOSHMustard right....SUSANWhere?JOSHRight there.SUSANIs it gone?JOSHWell,....SUSANIs that...gone?JOSHYeah.SUSANListen.JOSHWhat?  Music?SUSANWanna dance?JOSHDance?SUSANWell we don't have to if you don't want to.JOSHOkay.  Okay.SUSANAll right.JOSHOkay....Are you cold?SUSANMm Mm.JOSHWe could get some hot chocolate....You can wear my jacket if you want.SCENE 58SUSANOh, I haven't done this in a long time....What were you like when you were younger?JOSHOh, I wasn't much different.SUSANI believe that about you....I've been thinking about you a lot....It's crazy....In my car, lying in bed....I've just never gone out with someone like you....With all the other men there was so much to hide....I feel like I can tell you anything.JOSHSusan?  There's something I think I should tell you.SUSANWhat?SCENE 59SUSANYou want the light on?SCENE 60JOSHHey Frank, how are you?  Good morning everybody!WOMANGood morning Sir.JOSHI'd like some coffee please Miss Patterson.WOMANBut you don't drink coffee.JOSHAnd uh, make it black.SCENE 61WOMANYou know, you two should come to Vermont.  It is so pretty up there.MANDid anyone happen to see that great documentary about Columbus on PBS the other night?  WOMANUh, no.  Was it good?MANI had no idea he had a fourth ship.JOSHYeah, the Santa Christina.MANThat's right.JOSHHe only had that on his second trip, though.MANYou saw it, too.JOSHNo, but I used to study...stuff.MANReally?BOYDad, I need some help.MANAll right, but not now Adam.BOYYeah, but Dad you said...MANAdam we have guests.WOMANHe's had the roughest time with algebra.  We've tried tutors, everything.JOSHAlgebra?  I used to study that, too.SCENE 62JOSHAll right, let's say Larry Bird is going to score 10 points in the first quarter.BOYOkay?JOSHHow many is he going to score in the whole game?BOYThat's easy, that's 40 points.JOSHProbably.  Okay.  And that's algebra.BOYRight!  It is?JOSHYeah!  See.  Okay.  One quarter is to ten points that he scores in that quarter.  Just as four....WOMANYou're right.  He's wonderful!SUSANI know.SCENE 63BILLYDepartment of Consumer Affairs?  Yeah Buddy it came!SCENE 64MANHe's never done this before.MANKind of like a sweepstakes.PAULGet the Art Department on the phone.  Get them!SUSANSend out for some sandwiches.MR. MMaybe next year, all right?  Next year.SCENE 65SUSANYou can do it.  I know you can!JOSHI cannot plan a whole line!SUSANWhy?  Nobody knows more about toys in the entire company!JOSHSusan, doing that means marketing and strategy and stuff like that!SUSANAll he wants is a proposal!JOSHI can't!SUSANLook, you come up with the ideas and I'll handle the marketing.JOSHBut it's....SUSANCome on.  It'll be neat.JOSHAll right...I don't know...I don't have any new ideas for toys or anything.SUSANYou've got great ideas!SCENE 66BILLYYeah, well tell him I called again.  Kopecky!  K-O-P...Yeah right...well tell him it's important!SCENE 67JOSHYou see it won't be like these where you just follow the story along.  You would actually make a whole different story appear just by pressing these buttons.SUSANAn electronic comic book?  That's amazing!JOSHYeah.  An electric comic book.  It's gonna be different every time.SUSANThis is incredible.  You're brilliant--you know that?JOSHIf you like one you could see it, you know, over and over and over again.SUSANYou're wonderful.JOSHYou really like it?...You think Mac will like it?  You know, what we could do...We could do like sports comics...or like if you're going to steal second or something like that...You'd have sports books...baseball, football...really, it work with almost any sport there is.  Hockey!SUSANWhat...What is it we're doing?  ...What's going on here?  JOSHYou know, we're....Is something wrong?  You don't like it?SUSANNo!  No!  It's...I mean if it's an affair, that's one thing.  But if it's something else...I mean, not that we have to know right now, we don't...but if we think that it could turn into something else...well....How do you feel about all of this?JOSHHow do I feel about what?SUSANHow do you feel about me?JOSHWhat is that supposed to mean?SCENE 68JOSHWell, Wednesday would be better than Thursday...WOMANMr. Baskin can't be disturbed!JOSHYeah, I have the Keating example right here...BILLYWhere've you been?  I've been trying to reach you forever!JOSHShh!  I'm right in the middle of something okay?BILLYThat's the list.  All you've got to do is call!JOSHCan you give me just a minute, please?BILLYWhat are you talking about?  This is the list!JOSHWould you come back at lunch?  All right, I'm a little bit busy right now...Hello?BILLYBusy?!JOSHBilly!BILLYAre you out of your mind?!  JOSHJesus, Billy!  Miss Patterson, could you get them on the phone again....BILLYThis is the list we've been waiting for!JOSHI've got work to do!  Can't you understand that?  I've got a deadline to meet.  God!BILLYWho the fuck do you think you are?!JOSHHey!BILLYHey, you're Josh Baskin!  Remember?  You broke your arm on my roof!  You hid in my basement when Robert Diceman was about to rip your head off!JOSHYou don't get it, do you?  This is important!BILLYI'm your best friend.  What's more important than that, huh?  I'm three months older than you are--asshole!SCENE 69JOSHYou are standing in the cavern of the evil wizard.  All around you are the carcasses of slain ice dwarfs....Melt wizard....What do you want to melt him with?  ...Throw thermal pod.SUSANJosh, what's wrong?  What is it?JOSHI haven't told you something because if I did, I didn't think you'd believe me.  And even if you did believe me, I didn't think you were going to like me anymore, so....SUSANOh, Honey, come here.  You can tell me anything.  What?JOSHSusan, I'm not what you think I am.SUSANWhat do you mean?JOSHBefore I met you I was in little league.  I was in little league and I rode my bike to school and I played with my friends and hung out with them and....SUSANJosh.  Josh.  What are you talking about?JOSHI want to go home.  I miss my family Susan and I want to go home.SUSANOh my God!  You're married!JOSHNo!  No!SUSANI knew that this was too good to be true!  I knew that there had to be something!JOSHNo.  No.  Susan, I'm not married.SUSANYou're not?JOSHNo.  I'm a child!SUSANWhat?JOSHI'm a child Susan, and I'm not ready for all this.SUSANOh that's fine.  That is just great!JOSHWell, you see what happened....SUSANNo.  I understand.  I'm not ready to make a commitment!JOSHNo!  No!  No!SUSANI'm not ready to accept responsibility!JOSHNo!  You don't understand!  I mean, I'm thirteen years old!SUSANOh!  And who isn't?  You think that there isn't a frightened kid inside of me, too!JOSHNo!  I mean I really am thirteen!  I went to bed one night and I was a kid, and when I woke up the next morning I was a grown up.SUSANOh right!  And just yesterday I was a school girl with pigtails!  Why are you doing this Josh?JOSHThere was this carnival in New Jersey.  I made a wish on this machine.  It was called a Zoltar Machine...SUSANOh stop it!JOSHIt was called a Zoltar Machine!  It had this bobbing head that looked just like a devil and if you got a quarter in the devil's mouth you could make a wish and I did!  So I made a wish to be big!  That is what I'm trying to tell you!  I changed into a grown up but I'm really just a kid!SUSANFine Josh!  You're a kid!  Look, I really don't know what it is that you're trying to tell me.  But we have a very big presentation to give tomorrow, so I'm going to get some sleep.SCENE 70BILLYJosh?  Josh!  Oh, hi Mrs. Baskin.MOMHi.  I was just looking around and...Your hair is getting longer.BILLYI got it cut yesterday.MOMHe had a birthday.BILLYYeah, I know.  He'll be coming back real soon.  Everything is going to be okay.MOMThanks.BILLYGoodnight.SCENE 71BILLYRight there.  Sea Point Park, New York!  Well?JOSHYes?WOMANThey're waiting for you Mr. Baskin.JOSHThanks.BILLYSee you around.SCENE 72JOSHThere's this flat screen inside with pictures on it and you read it.  And when you get down to the bottom you have to make a choice of what the character's going to do...Like if he going to go in and fight the dragon then you have to push one of the buttons.PAULExcuse me.JOSHPaul.PAULI don't get it.JOSHWell, it's a comic book that....SUSANSee, there's a computer chip inside which stores the choices, so when you reach the end of the page, you decide where the story goes.  That's the point.MR. MTerrific Susan.SUSANA kid makes his own decision.MR. MThis is really possible?SUSANYeah.  In fact, it's a very simple program.  Isn't that right?MANSo what happens when you run out of choices?SUSANWell, that's the great thing.  You can just sell different adventures.  Just pop in a new disk and you get a whole new set of options.MANWe could market this on a comic book rack.JOSHI'll be right back.SCENE 73MR. MHow much would the unit cost?SUSANWell, our initial figure is around...around $7.00, with a retail cost of around $18.95.PAULYou expect a kid to pay $19.00 for a comic book?SUSANI think a kid....Would you excuse me?SCENE 74SUSANJosh!  Josh!SCENE 75JOSHWill you take me to Sea Point Park, New York?BILLYSea Point Park?  Josh!....Josh!  Josh!...Yes!SCENE 76SUSANExcuse me.  You know him?  You know Josh?BILLYYeah.SUSANLook, you have to tell me where he went.BILLYWho are you?SUSANI'm his girlfriend.BILLYBilly Kopecky.SUSANLook, you have to tell me where he went.  Where did he go?  Please, tell me.  Tell me!SCENE 77JOSHWork!  Damn it!....I wish I was a kid.SUSANJosh!JOSHSusan!SUSANYou know, you don't walk out on somebody!  You don't just get up and leave and walk out like that!  You don't do that!JOSHI know.  I know.  I'm really sorry.  I'm really sorry but I didn't know what to do.  I didn't know what to say.SUSANOh God.  You got your wish.JOSHI tried to tell you.SUSANI didn't listen, I guess.  I didn't hear you...JOSHI tried to tell you last night.SUSAN...or want to...or how would I have...or even if I did listen, why would I know?  Why would I know that?!JOSHI've been thinking about this and there are a million reasons for me to go home but there is only one reason for me to stay.SUSANWhat?  What reason is that?JOSHWell, you...Oh, come on.  Don't cry.SUSANSo, what are you?  15?  16?JOSHI'm 13.SUSANWell, that explains it.JOSHMaybe you could come with me.SUSANNo.  No.JOSHWhy not?SUSANI've been there before.  It's hard enough the first time.  You know what I mean?  You don't know what I mean....Come on, I'll drive you home.JOSHI'm sorry.SUSANNo, I'll be okay.  You'll be fine.  In ten years, who knows?  Maybe you should hold on to my number.SCENE 78SUSANSo this is where you live.  Which one is it?JOSHThe one right there.SUSANOh.  It's nice.  I'm gonna miss you.JOSHI'm gonna miss you, too.SUSANYou won't even remember me.JOSHOh yes I will.SCENE 79JOSHMom?  Hello!MOMJosh?  Josh!  Josh!  Oh my God!  Oh, thank God you're home!JOSHOh Ma, I missed you all so much!SCENE 80JOSHI'm just not good enough.BILLYWhat are you talking about?  You've been hitting the ball over the fence almost every time in stick ball.  You just got to get used to a fatter bat.JOSHYou really think I could do it?BILLYYeah!JOSHCome on.  We'll hit some after supper.BILLYOkay.  I'll call you.134
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+"THE BIRDS" by Evan Hunter Based on the novel "Birds" By Daphne Du Maurier FINAL DRAFT 2nd Revision March 2, 1962 FADE IN: FULL SHOT - GRANT STREET - SAN FRANCISCO - DAY It is mid-afternoon, and there is a tempo and pace to the people walking, the doorman HOOTING for taxicabs, the policemen directing traffic. PAN SHOT - PEDESTRIANS waiting at street corner for light to change. CLOSE SHOT - MAN at the end of line of pedestrians. He is looking up at the sky. TWO SHOT - MAN AND WOMAN NEXT TO HIM as she follows his gaze upward. LONG SHOT - THE SKY with hundreds of gulls in it, wheeling. MED. SHOT - THE STREET CORNER as the light changes and people begin to cross. In the crowd walking the other way, a man turns to look up at the wheeling gulls in the sky overhead. The CAMERA LOCATES: MED. SHOT - MELANIE DANIELS in the crowd of pedestrians, approaching Davidson's Pet Shop. She is a young woman in her mid-twenties, sleekly groomed, exquisitely dressed, though hatless. She walks with the quick sureness of the city dweller, a purposefulness in her stride, a mischievous grin on her face. She continues toward the front door of a pet shop and enters. INT. BIRD SHOP - MED. SHOT Melanie opens the door and comes through, still looking back toward the street and skywards. The proprietor, a MRS. MacGRUDER, comes toward her. MELANIE Hello, Mrs. MacGruder, have you ever seen so many gulls? MRS. MACGRUDER Hello, Miss Daniels. MELANIE What do you suppose it is? MED. SHOT Mrs. MacGruder takes a look out at the sky. A puppy is BARKING, o.s. MRS. MACGRUDER (shaking her head) There must be a storm at sea. That can drive them inland, you know. They are climbing the short flight of steps into the bird department now. The BARKING of the dog SEGUES into the clamor of innumerable birds, TWEETING, TWITTERING, CAWING as Melanie and Mrs. MacGruder go to the counter at the far end. There is a circular cage in the center of the room, and the walls are lined with wire-mesh cages and smaller wooden cages so that the effect is one of being surrounded by birds, contained birds to be sure. The birds are quite beautiful, mostly exotic birds, small splashes of color behind the wire-mesh cages, larger bursts of brilliant hue on the parrots and parakeets in the bigger cages. As they walk: MRS. MACGRUDER I was hoping you'd be a little late, Miss Daniels. (apologetically) You see, he hasn't arrived yet. MELANIE You said three o'clock. MRS. MACGRUDER I know. Oh, I know. (she is more distressed now) I've been calling all morning. Oh, you have no idea. Miss Daniels, they're so difficult to get, really they are. We get them from India, you know, when they're just little chicks, and then we have to... MELANIE Well, this one won't be a chick, will he? MRS. MACGRUDER Certainly not. Oh, no. Certainly not. This will be a full grown myna bird. Full grown. MELANIE And he'll talk? MRS. MACGRUDER Well, yes, he'll talk. Well, no, no. You'll have to teach him to talk. MELANIE Yes. MRS. MACGRUDER Yes. (pause) Oh my, I suppose I should call them again. They said three o'clock. (pause) Maybe it's the traffic. I'll call. Would you mind waiting? MELANIE (judiciously) I think maybe you'd better deliver him. Let me give you my address. (she begins taking off her gloves) MRS. MACGRUDER (producing pencil and pad) Oh. Oh, well, all right. As Melanie starts writing: MRS. MACGRUDER I'm sure they're on the way, though. Could I just call? MELANIE (with a resigned sigh) Well, all right, but... She scurries out behind the counter and out of sight. Melanie finishes writing her address and stands impatiently by the counter. She taps her teeth with the pencil. MRS. MACGRUDER (O.S.) Hello, this is Betty MacGruder at Davidson's. (pause; accusingly) It's past three, you know. (pause) Well, how long do you think...? All right, would you check it please? Yes, I'll wait. Melanie sighs. Leaving her gloves and purse on the counter, she begins wandering around the shop, still tapping her lips with the pencil. There is no menace in the birds surrounding her. They are active and beautiful as they dart behind the bars and mesh of their cages. Off screen, the puppy begins BARKING again as the front door opens. Melanie looks up. MED. SHOT - MITCH BRENNER as he closes the entrance door behind him and starts up the steps to the bird department. He is a handsome man, about twenty-nine or thirty, well-dressed, and carrying a felt hat. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE seeing him, and then turning away to bend before the cage of strawberry finches. She pokes the pencil through the mesh. The birds are startled into scarlet flight. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as they pass each other in the aisle. He gives a polite little nod, and she gives a polite little smile. But as he passes her, and unknown to her, he turns for a second look -- and then vanishes behind the circular cage as he turns he corner. MED. SHOT - MELANIE looking at her watch as she wanders around the other side of the cage and then comes face to face with Mitch again. MITCH I wonder if you could help me. MELANIE What? MITCH (deliberately, and with a touch of hauteur) I said I wonder if you could help me. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE a trifle annoyed by his manner at first. She is about to inform him, if you please, that she is not a shopgirl. But then something rebellious flashes in her eyes and an idea comes to her. MELANIE (solicitously) Yes, what was it you were looking for, sir? TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MITCH (deadpan) Lovebirds. MELANIE Lovebirds, sir? MITCH Yes. I understand there are different varieties, it that true? MELANIE Well... yes, sir, there are. MITCH These are for my sister... her birthday you see. As she'll be eleven and... well, frankly, I wouldn't want a pair of birds that were too demonstrative. MELANIE I understand completely, sir. MITCH As the same time, I wouldn't want birds that were aloof, either. MELANIE (leading him around shop) No, of course not. MITCH Do you have a pair that are just friendly? MELANIE I think so, sir. (she looks around) Now then, let me see. MITCH (at the finches) Aren't these lovebirds? MELANIE No, sir, those are... redbirds. MITCH The sign says strawberry finches. MELANIE (airily) Yes, we call them that too. (she moves away) Ahhh, here we are, Lovebirds... (and stops before a cage of canaries) MITCH Those are canaries, Miss. (pause) Doesn't this make you feel awful? MELANIE (baffled) Doesn't what make me...? MITCH All these innocent little creatures caged up like this? MELANIE Well, we can't just let them fly around the shop, you know. MITCH I suppose not. Is there an ornithological reason for keeping them in separate cages? MELANIE Oh, certainly. It's to protect the species. MITCH I imagine that's very important. Especially during the moulting season. MELANIE Yes, that's a particularly dangerous time. MITCH Are they moulting now? MELANIE Some of them are. MITCH How can you tell? MELANIE Well... they get a sort of hangdog expression. CLOSE SHOT - A CAGED BIRD - MITCH'S P.O.V. The bird is wearing a distinctly hangdog expression. MITCH Yes, I see. (pause) About those lovebirds, Miss... MELANIE Are you sure you wouldn't like to see a canary instead? We have some very nice canaries this week. MITCH All right. (he smiles) She smiles back. MITCH (he waits) All right, may I see one, please? CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE as she realizes she is expected to take one of the canaries out of the cage. She smiles feebly, glances toward the counter where she expects Mrs. MacGruder to reappear momentarily, and then takes a deep breath. She opens the door to the canary cage, and cautiously puts her hand into it. MELANIE (feebly) Here, birdie. Here, birdie, birdie. One of the canaries suddenly flutters out of the cage and into the room. Melanie leaps back, startled. MELANIE Oh! Ohhhhh! FULL SHOT - THE BIRD DEPARTMENT as the canary flies frantically about the room, Melanie and Mitch in pursuit. Mrs. MacGruder appears at the counter, finally confronted with the chaos she's been expecting all day. MRS. MACGRUDER What is it? Oh! Oh my, one of the birds is loose! She joins in the chase around the room. The bird flutters up to the ceiling, and then lands on the counter and watches them suspiciously. MITCH Shhh! Shhhh! He tiptoes up to the bird, hat in hand. Quickly, he covers the bird with his hat, then reaches under to grab it. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH the canary in his hand. MELANIE There we are! MRS. MACGRUDER Oh, good! Oh, wonderful. FULL SHOT - THE BIRD DEPARTMENT as Mitch carries the canary back to the cage. He opens the door. MITCH (putting the canary in) Back into your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE startled. MELANIE What did you say? TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MITCH (savoring this) I was merely drawing a parallel, Miss Daniels. MELANIE But how... how do you know my name? MITCH (secretly) A little birdie told me. (he smiles politely) Good day, Miss Daniels. (he bows to Mrs. MacGruder) Madam. (he starts out) MELANIE Hey, wait a minute! She goes after him. Mitch turns, stops, smiles, enjoying her bafflement immensely. Melanie studies him. Then: MELANIE I don't know you. MITCH Ahhh, but I know you. MELANIE How? MITCH We met in court. MELANIE We never met in court or anyplace else. MITCH That's true. I'll rephrase it. I saw you in court. MELANIE When? MITCH Do you remember one of your practical jokes that resulted in the smashing of a plate glass window? MELANIE I didn't break that window! MITCH No, but your little prank did. The judge should have put you behind bars! MELANIE What are you? A policeman? MITCH I simply believe in the law, Miss Daniels, and I'm not too keen on practical jokers. MELANIE What do you call your lovebird story if not a practical... MITCH Ahhh, but I really do want those birds. MELANIE You knew I didn't work here. You deliberately... MITCH Right. I recognized you when I came in. I thought you might like to know what it felt like to be on the other end of a gag. What do you think of that, Miss Daniels? MELANIE I think you're a louse. MITCH I am. (he tips his hat) Good day. (to Mrs. MacGruder) Madam. (and he goes down the steps) MELANIE And I'm glad you didn't get your lovebirds! MITCH (breezily, as he goes out) I'll find something else. (he gives a slight bow) See you in court some day. The door closes. The puppy begins BARKING. MELANIE (angrily) That... that... who was that? MRS. MACGRUDER I have no idea. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE seething as she stares after him. Suddenly, she gets an idea. MED. SHOT - MELANIE going down the steps and to the front door of the shop. She looks through the glass. LONG SHOT - MITCH - MELANIE'S P.O.V. getting into his car at the curb. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE looking after the car at the curb. CLOSE SHOT - THE LICENSE PLATE CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE seeing the plate, giving a brief, determined, angry nod. She begins to repeat the numbers to herself as she turns. FULL SHOT - MELANIE as she comes up the steps again and walks toward the counter. MED. SHOT - MELANIE - MRS. MACGRUDER'S P.O.V. as she comes up to the counter. MELANIE Have you got a pencil? MRS. MACGRUDER What? Oh, yes, certainly. As Melanie begins writing: MRS. MACGRUDER They said the myna bird would be here later this afternoon. If you'd care to come back... MELANIE No, you'd better send him. May I use your phone? MRS. MACGRUDER (bewildered by everything) Yes, certainly. (she puts phone on counter) MELANIE (as she dials) Do you have any lovebirds? MRS. MACGRUDER No, not in the shop. But I can order them for you. MELANIE How soon? MRS. MACGRUDER Well... well, how soon would you want them? MELANIE Immediately. (into phone) Is this the Daily News? Melanie Daniels. Would you get me the city desk, please? MRS. MACGRUDER I might be able to have them by tomorrow morning. Would that be all right? MELANIE (with an edged anger) That would be just fine. (into phone) Hello, Charlie, this is Melanie. I want you to do a favor for me. (pause) No, this is a small one. (pause) Pressure you? Why, Charlie darling, would I try to pressure you? Will you call the Department of Motor Vehicles for me and find out who owns this license plate? DKQ dash one seven six. (pause) Yes, a California plate. (pause) No, I'll stop up there in a little while. Is daddy in his office? (pause) Oh. No, no, I don't want to break in on a meeting. Just tell him I'll see him later. Thank you, Charlie. (she hangs up) CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE ICY DETERMINATION ON HER FACE. MELANIE Now. What time tomorrow morning? FADE IN: FULL SHOT - MELANIE'S SPORTS CAR pulling up in front of Mitch's building, the top down. She glances up at the address, gets out of the car, comes around to the other side, and opens the door. CLOSE SHOT - THE LOVEBIRDS in a cage as Melanie reaches for them. MED. SHOT - MELANIE turning from the car and going into the building. She pauses in the lobby, studies the names alongside the bell buttons. CLOSE SHOT - HER GLOVED HAND running down the list of names slowly. It stops. INSERT - THE CARD her finger beside it. BRENNER, M. 3B CLOSE SHOT - HER GLOVED HAND the forefinger extended as she runs it down over every bell button in one column, and then does the same for the next column. MED. SHOT - MELANIE as she turns from the bells to the inner door of the lobby, grabbing the knob. A BUZZ SOUNDS. She opens the door. REVERSE SHOT - MELANIE coming through the door and into the lobby. She walks swiftly toward the elevator where a well-dressed man is standing, waiting. Behind her, the inner door is BUZZING wildly with answering BUZZES. Melanie and the man stand waiting for the elevator, silently. Behind her, the BUZZING STOPS. The elevator doors open. The man smiles pleasantly and allows her to enter first. She does so with a small nod. The elevator doors close. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND THE MAN - IN THE ELEVATOR The birds are CHIRPING wildly in their cage. The man and Melanie stand silently side by side. The man's eyes wander down to the bird-cage. Melanie's eyes move toward him. Self- consciously, she stands with the cage of CHATTERING birds. The man is dead-panned, unsmiling. The elevator stops. The doors begin to open. FULL SHOT - MELANIE stepping out of the elevator as the doors open. The man is right behind her. She begins looking for apartment 3B. The man is walking down the corridor beside her. She stops in front of the apartment, hesitates, hoping the man will turn the corner in the corridor. Instead, he stops at the apartment just opposite. He begins fumbling in his pocket for his key. He looks at Melanie. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE smiling at him feebly. FULL SHOT - THE CORRIDOR The man spread change and an assortment of junk on the palm of his hand as he searches for his key. Impatiently, Melanie watches him. Making a decision, she puts the birdcage down before the door to apartment 3B, and then opens her purse. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE'S GLOVED HAND reaching into the purse for a white envelope. INSERT - THE FACE OF THE ENVELOPE written there in Melanie's handwriting: MR. MITCHELL BRENNER. MED. SHOT - MELANIE as she props the envelope against the cage, and then hurriedly goes down the hallway, intent on retreat. MAN'S VOICE Miss...? She stops, distressed. FULL SHOT - THE CORRIDOR the man at the one end, key in his hand; Melanie at the other end, near the elevator. MAN Is that for Mitch Brenner? MELANIE (curtly) Yes. MAN He's not home. MELANIE That's all right. She presses button for the elevator. MAN He won't be back until Monday. I mean, if those birds are for him.... MELANIE Monday? MAN Yes. I don't think you should leave them in the hall, do you? MELANIE (trapped) Well, I... The elevator doors open. MELANIE Well, where did he go? MAN Bodega Bay. He goes up there every weekend. MELANIE Bodega Bay? Where's that? MAN Up on the coast. About sixty miles north of here. MELANIE Sixty... (her face falls) Oh. MAN About an hour and a half on the freeway. Or two if you take the coast highway. MELANIE Oh. MAN I'd hold the birds for him, but I'm going away myself. Someone's got to feed them, I suppose. MELANIE (in utter despair now) Yes. Yes, someone's got to feed them. MAN (apologetically) I'm awfully sorry. He puts the key into his lock, opens the door, and goes inside. The door closes. Melanie is alone in the hallway. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE exasperated. She looks at the open elevator. She turns to look at the birds. LONG SHOT - THE LOVEBIRDS in their cage outside the apartment door, CHATTERING. MED. SHOT - MELANIE surrendering with a gesture of resignation. She walks down the hall, picks up envelope and puts it in her purse, picks up the bird cage, carries it back to the elevator. The birds are COOING and CHIRPING madly. MELANIE Oh, shut up! And she steps into the elevator. DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - MELANIE'S OPEN CAR - (MATTE) on the coast highway. It is a spectacularly beautiful day, with a cloudless blue sky. The montage of SHOTS that follow should alternate between the winding, twisting road and the ocean below, and CLOSEUPS of Melanie driving with the caged birds on the seat beside her. The last shot should be a FULL SHOT of the car rounding a particularly sharp curve. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE She turns wheel forcefully. CLOSE SHOT - THE LOVEBIRDS in the cage as the car rounds the bend. They lean to one side as the car turns, come up straight again as the car rounds the curve. FULL SHOT - (MATTE) Car approaching Bodega Bay seen high up. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE at the wheel, she glances out toward the bay. FULL SHOT - A CLUSTER OF BUILDINGS AT WATERFRONT ahead, through the windshield as the car approaches. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE behind the wheel, leaning forward slightly for a look at the town. LONG SHOT - DOCKS ON LEFT through the windshield as Melanie slows her speed. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE behind wheel. LONG SHOT - STORES on right of the road as Melanie enters the town. SLOW PAN matching car's cruise past BAKERY, SHOE REPAIR, CLEANERS, RADIO AND TELEVISION. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE behind wheel. LONG SHOT - THE TIDES past the gas station and beyond to the parking area and the docks, continuing Melanie's slow observation of the place. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE - (PROCESS) studying the town. The car turns into road by gas station. FULL SHOT - THE TOWN through the windshield. The car turns right. There is life in the town now, fishermen crossing the road, women with their hair in curlers, old ladies carrying shopping bags. This is Saturday morning, and the town -- such as it is -- is alive with its inhabitants. We see them from Melanie's P.O.V. AS SHE SCANS THE PLACE FOR ITS POST OFFICE. (THIS TO BE TAKEN ON BACK LOT.) FULL SHOT - THE CAR pulling in, in front of the post office. Melanie opens the door and steps out. She is smartly dressed in a traveling suit and sweater. She looks up at the sign, and then walks quickly toward the front door. MED. SHOT - MELANIE enters post office. CLOSE SHOT - POSTAL CLERK behind cage as Melanie approaches it. He is busy filling out a form of some kind, affixing stamps to it, etc. He does not look up as she approaches. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE through the bars of the cage. MELANIE Good morning. CLOSE SHOT - POSTAL CLERK CLERK (without looking up) Morning. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND THE CLERK MELANIE I wonder if you could help me. CLERK Try my best. MELANIE I'm looking for a man named Mitchell Brenner. CLERK Yep. He is still busy with his form, still does not look up. MELANIE Do you know him? CLERK Yep. MELANIE Where does he live? CLERK Right here. Bodega Bay. MELANIE Yes, but where? CLERK Right across the bay there. MELANIE Where? It seems as if the Clerk will not answer her. Suddenly, he leaves the window. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE through the bars, exasperated. REVERSE SHOT - FULL - MELANIE as she tries to peek through the bars to see where he's vanished. A door to the left of the window opens, and the Clerk steps out. He walks a little distance as Melanie watches him, then stops, turns and looks at her surprised, as if he'd expected her to be right behind him. He stands stock still, looking at her, saying nothing. She understands then that he wants her to follow him, and she catches up, neither speaking. They go to the front door. He opens it, looks at her, then looks out across the town and the bay. He extends his arm and points. CLERK See where I'm pointing? MELANIE Yes? FULL SHOT - THE BAY - THEIR P.O.V. - (MATTE) CLERK (O.S.) See them two big trees across there? MELANIE (O.S.) Yes? CLERK (O.S.) And the white house? MELANIE (O.S.) That's where the Brenners live. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND THE CLERK MELANIE The Brenners? Mr. and Mrs. Brenner? CLERK Nope, just Lydia and the two kids. MELANIE The two kids? CLERK Yep. Mitch and the little girl. MELANIE I see. How do I get down there? CLERK Follow the road straight through town 'til it curves off on the left. That'll take you right around the bay to their front door. MELANIE The front door. (pause) Isn't there a back road I can take? CLERK Nope. That's the road. Straight through town, stay on your left, right around the bay to the front door. MELANIE You see, I wanted to surprise them. CLERK Mmmm. MELANIE I didn't want to come right down the road, where they could see me. CLERK Mmmm. MELANIE It's a surprise, you see. CLERK Mmmmmm. (long pause) 'Course, you could get yourself a boat, cut right across the bay with it. The Brenners got a little dock there you could tie up at. If that's what you wanted to do. MELANIE Where would I get a boat? CLERK Down at the dock by the Tides Restaurant. Ever handled an outboard boat? MELANIE (looking at him) Of course. CLERK (looks back at her) D'you want me to order one for you? MELANIE (surprised) Thank you. CLERK What name? MELANIE Daniels. CLERK Okay. He nods briefly and goes inside. Melanie looks across the bay. FULL SHOT - THE BAY - MELANIE'S P.O.V. - (MATTE) CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE smiling. She gets a new idea. She reaches into her purse for the envelope. She looks at the envelope, then tears it up and stuffs the torn envelope into her handbag. She turns back toward the post office. INT. THE POST OFFICE - FULL SHOT as Melanie approaches the Clerk's window. He is still busy, still does not look up. MELANIE I wonder if you could tell me... CLERK Yep? MELANIE The little girl's name. CLERK The little Brenner girl? MELANIE Yes. CLERK Alice, I think. (he turns, shouts to someone in rear) Harry, what's the little Brenner girl's name? HARRY'S VOICE (shouting) What? CLERK (shouting) The little Brenner girl. HARRY'S VOICE (shouting) Lois! CLERK (shouting) It's Alice, ain't it? HARRY'S VOICE (shouting) No, it's Lois! CLERK (to Melanie) It's Alice. MELANIE Are you sure? CLERK Well, I ain't positive, if that's what you mean. MELANIE I need her exact name, you see. CLERK That case, I tell you what you do. You go straight through town 'til you see a little hotel on your left there. Not the motel, that's the other end of town. This is the hotel. Now you take a right turn there, you got that? MELANIE Yes? CLERK Near the top of the hill, you'll see the school and right behind it, the church. You head for the school. Now just past the school, you'll see a little house with a red mail box. That's where Annie Hayworth lives, she's the school teacher. You ask her about the little Brenner girl. MELANIE Thank you. CLERK Yep. (pause) Could save yourself a lot of trouble. Her name's Alice for sure. MELANIE Can I have the boat in about twenty minutes? The Clerk nods. MELANIE How much for the phone calls? CLERK (brushing this aside) It's nothing. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE grinning, as she makes for the door and EXITS. EXT. GENERAL STORE - MED. SHOT - MELANIE getting into the car and slamming the door. DISSOLVE LONG SHOT (MATTE) - MELANIE'S CAR turning in school road. FULL SHOT - MELANIE'S CAR passing the school and pulling up outside the teacher's house. CLOSE SHOT - THE RED MAIL BOX with the name "Hayworth" on it. PULL BACK to reveal: FULL SHOT - MELANIE passing the mail box and going up the walk to the front door. The house is a two-story frame with steps leading to the front door. There are white curtains in every window of the house, and a sign in the window to the left of the doorway advises, ROOM TO LET. Melanie rings the doorbell. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE waiting. She RINGS the bell again: ANNIE'S VOICE (shouting) Yes? Who is it? MELANIE Me! ANNIE'S VOICE Who's me? FULL SHOT - MELANIE walking along the porch of the house. The walk in front of the house is lined with beautifully planted and cared-for flowers. ANNIE HAYWORTH comes round from the back of the house as Melanie reaches the corner. She is a woman of thirty- two, tall, big-boned, with a strong beautiful face. Her hair is disarrayed at the moment, and she is dressed for the garden, wearing slacks and a loose-fitting sweater, and earth- stained gloves. But there is something about her, a feeling of expansive comfort, rather than sloppiness. MELANIE Miss Hayworth? ANNIE Yes? MELANIE I'm Melanie Daniels. I'm sorry to bother you, but... CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE She is puzzled by Melanie who, exquisitely dressed and groomed, seems singularly out of place in Bodega Bay. She studies her openly. ANNIE Yes? TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND ANNIE MELANIE The man at the post office sent me. He said you'd know the name of the little Brenner girl. ANNIE Cathy? MELANIE The one who lives in the white house across the bay? ANNIE That's the one. Cathy Brenner. MELANIE (smiling) They seemed sure it was either Alice or Lois. ANNIE Which is why the mail in this town never gets delivered to the right place. (She takes out package of cigarettes, offers one to Melanie) Did you want to see Cathy about something? CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE taking cigarette, hesitating. MELANIE Well... not exactly. CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE studying her, thinking she understands. ANNIE Are you a friend of Mitch's? MELANIE No, not really. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND ANNIE There is an awkwardness here. Annie wants to know more. She puffs on the cigarette, smiles, tries a friendly approach. ANNIE I've been wanting a cigarette for the past twenty minutes, but I couldn't convince myself to stop. This 'tilling of the soil' can get a little compulsive, you know. MELANIE It's a lovely garden. ANNIE Thank you. It gives me something to do with my spare time. (pause) There's a lot of spare time in Bodega Bay. (another pause) Did you plan on staying long? MELANIE No. Just a few hours. ANNIE You're leaving after you see Cathy? MELANIE Well... something like that. (pause) I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound so mysterious. ANNIE Actually, it's none of my business. There is a pause. Melanie, by her silence, affirms that it is none of Annie's business. ANNIE (putting out cigarette) I'd better get on my way. Thank you very much. ANNIE Not at all. They begin walking toward the car. ANNIE (still curious) Did you drive up from San Francisco? MELANIE Yes. ANNIE It's a nice drive. (pause) Is that where you met Mitch? MELANIE (hesitating, then) Yes. ANNIE I guess that's where everyone meets him. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE as she gets in behind the wheel. Annie's remark is not lost on her, and a quick look of sudden understanding crosses her face. MELANIE Now you sound a bit mysterious, Miss Hayworth. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND ANNIE as Annie leans over the seat. ANNIE Do I? (she shakes her head, smiles wistfully) No, I'm an open book, I'm afraid. (pause) Or maybe a closed one. (she smiles again, sees the lovebirds) Pretty. What are they? MELANIE Lovebirds. Taking this as a further indication of Melanie's relationship with Mitch: ANNIE Mmm. (pause) Well, good luck, Miss Daniels. MELANIE Thank you. She nods pleasantly, starts the car, pulls away. CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE watching the car, a look of sad resignation on her face. DISSOLVE MED. SHOT - MELANIE coming out of Brinkmeyer's General Store, carrying a small paper bag, walking toward her car out front. The CAMERA FOLLOWS her as she gets in. She opens her purse and reaches in for the paper bag. CLOSE SHOT - HER HANDS She pulls out a birthday card from the paper bag. MED. SHOT - MELANIE reaching into her purse again for a fountain pen. She unscrews the cap, braces the card on her closed purse. INSERT - THE CARD Happy Birthday, the usual rhyming sentiments. The pen writes: To Cathy DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - MELANIE'S CAR crossing the highway down into the parking area behind the Tides, close to the docks. HIGH SHOT She gets out of the car and walks onto one of the docks, the bird cage in her hand. Melanie approaches a waiting fisherman. She asks for her boat. The fisherman nods. He leads her to the dock and the waiting boat. She gets into the outboard motorboat, the fisherman helping her. He hands down the lovebirds in their cage. FULL SHOT - THE BOAT pulling away from the dock, heading across the bay. VERY LONG SHOT (MATTE) - THE BOAT and the wide expanse of the bay, as it heads on a direct course for the house on the other side. VERY LONG SHOT (MATTE) Another spectacular SHOT of the small boat. FULL SHOT - THE BOAT coming head-on toward CAMERA, Melanie at the tiller. She cuts the motor. The motor drifts to a stop. The bay is silent except for the cry of the gulls. LONG SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE - MELANIE'S P.O.V. There is not a sign of activity as the boat drifts just a little closer. As Melanie watches, the front door opens and a woman comes out, walks to a red pickup truck, starts the engine. A little girl comes out of the house, goes to the truck, gets in. The woman shouts something to a man -- Mitch Brenner, probably, though it is difficult to tell from this distance -- and he comes over to the truck. The truck grinds into gear, goes around the turnabout, and heads down the road away from the farm, a huge cloud of dust behind it. The farm is still again. Mitch stands looking after the truck for a moment, and then begins walking up toward the barn in the distance. CLOSE SHOT watching, biting her lip. LONG SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE Mitch reaching the barn and entering. Silence. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE watching, waiting. LONG SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE Not a sign of life. MED. SHOT - MELANIE picking up paddle from deck, beginning to paddle in toward dock. FULL SHOT - THE BOAT edging in toward the dock. Closer, closer, Melanie puts down the paddle. The boat drifts in. MED. SHOT - MELANIE leaping ashore, tying up the boat, reaching down for the cage. She climbs onto the dock and approaches the CAMERA until she is in WAIST SHOT. The CAMERA STARTS to RECEDE in front of her as she walks forward. THE CAMERA MOVING TOWARD THE HOUSE AND BARN The barn door closed, still no sign of Mitch. WAIST SHOT - MELANIE Coming off the dock and onto the lawn, the CAMERA still RETREATING in front of her. She makes her way carefully across the lawn, glancing toward the barn, carrying the bird cage. FULL SHOT - CAMERA GETTING NEAR THE HOUSE AND BARN WAIST SHOT - MELANIE crossing the lawn, the CAMERA RETREATING in front of her. FULL SHOT - CLOSER - CAMERA APPROACHING THE HOUSE AND BARN CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE - WALKING CAMERA RETREATING in front of her: Excitement and anticipation on her face. She wets her lips. The CAMERA PANS WITH her as she goes to front door and lets herself in. FULL SHOT - INT. THE BRENNER HOUSE ENTRY as the door opens. Melanie ENTERS quickly, and closes the door behind her. She glances around for a moment, getting her bearings. The house is silent. MED. SHOT - MELANIE entering the dining room. Hastily, she puts the cage on the dinning room table, props the card up against it, then glances through the lace curtains on the dinning room window. FULL SHOT - THE BARN - CLOSER - THROUGH THE CURTAINS as before. EXT. BRENNER HOUSE - WAIST SHOT - MELANIE - MOVING P.O.V. as the front door opens and Melanie EMERGES. CAMERA PANS AND FOLLOWS her back down front walk. Melanie glances over her shoulder toward the barn. EXT. BARN - MOVING P.O.V. Mitch has not emerged. MOVING P.O.V. - MELANIE CAMERA CONTINUES MOVING on Melanie's back toward the end of the dock. Melanie again glances over her shoulder toward the barn. MOVING P.O.V. further along the dock toward the barn. Still no Mitch. BACK TO MELANIE CAMERA CONTINUES on her back for a short distance and STOPS as Melanie continues to the end of the dock and climbs into the boat. MOVING P.O.V. - MELANIE CAMERA CONTINUES on her back for a short distance and STOPS as Melanie continues to the end of the dock and climbs into the boat. MOVING P.O.V. - MELANIE CAMERA FOLLOWS Melanie as she paddles away from the dock. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE (PROCESS) as she looks toward the house and barn. She starts to duck down. EXT. BARN - MELANIE'S P.O.V. as Mitch EMERGES from the barn and goes toward the house. He goes INSIDE. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE (PROCESS) peering over the stern of the boat. EXT. HOUSE - MELANIE'S P.O.V. Mitch dashes OUT of the front door and looks around. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE as she watches Mitch. MELANIE'S P.O.V. as Mitch runs back INTO the house. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE (PROCESS) peering over stern of the boat. MITCH - MELANIE'S P.O.V. as he EMERGES from the front door and raises binoculars. EXTREME CLOSE SHOT - MITCH as he looks towards Melanie's boat through the binoculars. The Bay is reflected in the glass. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE (THROUGH BINOCULARS) She is pulling at the cord which starts the motor. She sits down and grabs the tiller. She looks back over her shoulder, as the boat moves away. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH He is smiling with amused recognition; he lowers the binoculars and dashes OUT OF FRAME. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE (PROCESS) The CAMERA IS MOVING WITH her as she looks toward Mitch. LONG SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE Mitch is running for his car. The car door SLAMS. The ENGINE STARTS. The car practically leaps out of the driveway. CLOSE SIDE-ON SHOT - MELANIE as she watches the car race along the shore. LONG SHOT - CAR - MELANIE'S P.O.V. Mitch's car racing along the shore. CLOSE SHOT - THREE QUARTER BACK LEFT - MELANIE (PROCESS) She looks off RIGHT toward car. CAR - MELANIE'S P.O.V. Mitch's car racing along the shore road, turns inland at Keesport. CLOSE SHOT - STRAIGHT BACK - MELANIE (PROCESS) Melanie looks CAMERA RIGHT, her eyes slowly turn CAMERA LEFT. CAR - MELANIE'S MOVING P.O.V. Mitch's car races past wrecked ferry boat. CLOSE SHOT - STRAIGHT BACK - MELANIE (PROCESS) Her head continues to turn CAMERA LEFT. She looks off and sees: LONG SHOT - THE DOCK - MELANIE'S MOVING P.O.V. moves forward slower. Mitch drives onto dock, gets out of the car and stands waiting. CLOSE SHOT - STRAIGHT BACK - MELANIE (PROCESS) partially posing for Mitch, her hair blowing in the wind, her head tilted back, a smile on her face. FULL SHOT - GULL swooping down from UPPER LEFTHAND CORNER OF FRAME TO LOWER RIGHT. CLOSE SHOT - STRAIGHT BACK - MELANIE (PROCESS) as gull strikes the back of her head. She recoils and looks up with shock and pain. GULL - MELANIE'S P.O.V. The gull soars away from LOWER RIGHTHAND corner of frame to UPPER LEFT. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE reacting to the sudden attack and looking after receding gull. Blood is starting down her temple from her hair. MED. SHOT - MITCH as the boat comes closer. The boat drifts in toward a second boat tied up at the dock. Mitch crosses the docked boat, leaps into Melanie's boat. MED. SHOT - MITCH AND MELANIE in the boat. MITCH That was the damndest thing I ever saw. MELANIE What made it... MITCH It deliberately came down at you -- you're bleeding... CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE a thin line of blood trickling from the cut on top of her head, down onto her forehead and cheek. She seems dazed. She shakes her head in answer to him, then touches the top of her head, looks at her bloody fingers, and then nods weakly. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH concerned. MITCH Come on, let's take care of that. FULL SHOT - THE DOCK as they climb onto it. A fisherman standing by looks at Melanie curiously. FISHERMAN What happened, Mitch? MITCH (over his shoulder) A gull hit her. FISHERMAN A what? The CAMERA FOLLOWS them as they walk across the parking area behind the Tides, and to the closest office. Mitch tries the door knob. The door is locked. INSERT - SIGN ON DOOR OUT TO LUNCH TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as he tries door of next office. It, too, is locked. MITCH Come on, we'd better go up to the restaurant. They walk quickly up the slope to the Tides, establishing gas station across the road, the collection of stores opposite, the cars pulling in and out. Mitch opens the door for her, and they ENTER. INT. THE TIDES - FULL SHOT This is a small neighborhood restaurant, with the feeling of a local hangout. There are fishermen lounging at the bar, and a teenage boy playing one of the pinball machines. Two ladies in housedresses, with their hair in curlers, are sitting at one of the booths, having coffee. The rear wall of the restaurant is almost all window, looking out over the bay and the parking area below. A television set over the bar is going. The shots and horsehoof beats of an old Western movie should be HEARD muted throughout following. DEKE CARTER, who owns the restaurant with his wife, alternates his attention between serving his customers and watching the Western. He looks up immediately when Mitch and Melanie ENTER. MED. SHOT - THE BAR Mitch and Melanie coming over to it. MITCH Deke, have you got a first aid kit back there? DEKE (instantly alarmed) What happened? MITCH Young woman cut herself. DEKE Shall I call the doctor? MITCH (accepting the first aid kit) I don't think it's that serious. You want to sit up here? Melanie climbs onto the stool. DEKE You cut yourself outside, Miss? MITCH Stop worrying, Deke. She was in a boat. He is rummaging around in the kit. DEKE I had a man trip and fall in the parking lot once, sued me before I could bat an eyelash. MITCH I don't think Miss Daniels is going to sue anybody. DEKE (doubtfully) Well, you're the lawyer. (goes to other end of bar) TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as he unscrews cap from bottle of peroxide. MELANIE What's that? MITCH Just some peroxide. I want to clean out the cut. He pours peroxide onto a gauze pad and begins swabbing the cut. They are silent for several seconds. Then: MELANIE So you're a lawyer. MITCH That's right. What are you doing in Bodega Bay? MELANIE Do you practice here? MITCH No, San Francisco. What are you...? MELANIE What kind of law? MITCH Criminal. MELANIE Is that why you'd like to see everyone behind bars? MITCH Not everyone, Miss Daniels. MELANIE Only violators and practical jokers. MELANIE That's right. As he swabs cut. MELANIE Ouch! MITCH I'm sorry. (pause) What are you doing up here? MELANIE Didn't you see the lovebirds? MITCH You came all the way up here to bring me those birds? MELANIE To bring your sister those birds. You said it was her birthday. Besides, I was coming up anyway. MITCH What for? MELANIE To see a friend of mine. (she winces) Will you please be careful? MITCH I'm sorry. (pause) Who's your friend? MELANIE Why... (pause, stymied) MITCH Yes? MELANIE (blurting the only name she knows) Annie. Annie Hayworth. MITCH Well, well, small world. Annie Hayworth. MELANIE (realizing this was a mistake) Yes. MITCH How do you know Annie? MELANIE (the lie getting deeper) We... we went to school together. College. MITCH Did you! Imagine that! How long will you be staying? MELANIE Just a few... just a day or two... the weekend. MITCH I think we'll have to shave the hair. Deke, have you got a razor? MELANIE (pulling away) Oh, no you don't! MITCH It's still bleeding a little. Here, let me put this on. He takes up a tiny Band-Aid and, tearing the gauze off, says: MITCH Bend your head down. This little Band-Aid won't show. He presses the tiny Band-Aid over the cut. Melanie takes a mirror from her handbag and, bending her head down, looks at it. She covers her hair over it as Mitch says: MITCH So you came up to see Annie, huh? MELANIE Yes. MITCH I don't believe you. (grins) I think you came up to see me. MELANIE Why would I want to see you, of all people? MITCH (shrugging) I don't know. But it seems to me you must have gone to a lot of trouble to find out who I was, and where I lived and... MELANIE It was no trouble at all. I simply called my father's paper. Besides, I was coming up here anyway, I already told you... MITCH (grinning) You like me, huh? MELANIE I loathe you. You have no manners. And you're arrogant and conceited and... I wrote you a letter about it, in fact, but I tore it up. MITCH What did it say? MELANIE None of your business. (pause) Am I still bleeding? She lowers her head. MITCH Can't see a thing. MELANIE I can't say I like your seagulls much, either. I come all the way up here to... MITCH But you were coming up anyway, remember? MELANIE I was! And all I get for my pains is a... a... a hole in the head! MITCH (grinning) Right next to the one you already had. MELANIE (angrily) Look, Mr. Brenner... LYDIA (O.S.) Mitch? They turn toward the door. MED. SHOT - LYDIA BRENNER closing the door behind her, coming toward the bar. She is a woman in her late forties, attractive, wearing shirt, blouse, cardigan sweater, low heels. There is nothing agrarian-looking about her. She speaks with the quick tempo of the city dweller, and there is lively inquiry in her eyes. LYDIA (puzzled) I thought I saw your car. What are you doing in town? MITCH (rising to greet her) I had to acknowledge a delivery. (grins) Mother, I'd like you to meet... LYDIA A what? MITCH (continuing) Melanie Daniels. Melanie, my mother. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA Her eyebrows raising ever so slightly, not in displeasure, but simply in enormous curiosity as she acknowledge the introduction. LYDIA How do you do, Miss Daniels? (to Mitch) Acknowledge a what? BACK TO SCENE MITCH A delivery, Mother. Miss Daniels brought some birds from San Francisco. Lydia thinks she understands. This is one of Mitch's San Francisco chippies. LYDIA Oh. I see. MITCH For Cathy. For her birthday. By the way, where is she? LYDIA Across at Brinkmeyer's. MITCH Miss Daniels is staying for the weekend. In fact, I've already invited her to dinner tonight. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE turning to him in surprise, beginning to shake her head. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH After all, you did go to the trouble of bringing up those birds. MELANIE (O.S.) I'm sorry. I couldn't possibly... BACK TO SCENE LYDIA You did say birds? MITCH Yes, lovebirds. We couldn't let you... LYDIA (understanding completely now) Lovebirds, I see. MITCH ...get away without thanking you in some small way. After all, you haven't even met Cathy and you are staying for the weekend... MELANIE Yes, but... MITCH You are, aren't you? MELANIE Certainly, but... MITCH Then it's settled. What time is dinner, Mother? LYDIA Seven o'clock, same as usual. MITCH I'll pick you up, Miss Daniels. Where are you staying? MELANIE With... with Annie, of course. MITCH Of course, how stupid of me. A quarter to seven, will that be all right? MELANIE Annie... Annie may have made other plans. I'll have to see. Besides, I can find my own way. MITCH You're sure now? You won't hire a boat or anything? MELANIE I'm sure. MITCH Seven o'clock then. MELANIE Maybe. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH grinning. MITCH We'll be waiting. How's your head now? MED. SHOT - THE GROUP Lydia looks at Mitch inquiringly. MELANIE (with an overwarm smile) It's nothing, Mrs. Brenner. A gull hit me, that's all. Lydia stares at her doubtfully. DISSOLVE EXT. ANNIE HAYWORTH'S HOUSE - FULL SHOT Melanie is standing on the front steps, a paper bag in her hands. She rings the doorbell. The ROOM TO LET sign is still in the window. The door suddenly opens. ANNIE (surprised) Oh, hi! (pause) Did you find her all right? TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND ANNIE MELANIE Yes, I did. There is a long awkward pause. Annie smiles expectantly at Melanie. Melanie seems hesitant. MELANIE I was wondering... ANNIE Yes? MELANIE That sign. (pause) Do you think I could have the room for a single night? ANNIE Well, I'd really hope to rent it for... MELANIE I would appreciate it. I've tried everywhere in town, and they're all full. ANNIE (after a pause) Sure. You can have it. (smiles) Where's your bag? In the car? Melanie holds up the paper bag. Annie looks at it and then smiles. ANNIE It's utilitarian, I'll say that for it. MELANIE (smiling) I just picked up some things for the night at the general store. You see, I hadn't planned on spending much time here. ANNIE Yes, I know. Did something unexpected crop up? There is a moment where both women look at each other... When Melanie answers, it is abrupt and a trifle cold -- she is again telling Annie to mind her own business. MELANIE Yes. (pause) May I use your phone? I'd like to call home. There is another moment where Annie appraises Melanie's attitude, and then accepts it. She suddenly smiles warmly. ANNIE Why don't you come in then? I was just about to mix a martini. She is about to lead Melanie into the house when they both hear a SOUND overhead. They turn to look skyward. LONG SHOT - A FLOCK OF LARGE BIRDS flying in beautiful precise formation against the sky. TWO SHOT - ANNIE AND MELANIE ANNIE (shaking her head) Don't they ever stop migrating? But Melanie is watching the sky and the birds with a curiously serious expression. DISSOLVE LONG SHOT - THE APPROACH ROAD to the Brenner house. Melanie's car is driving along the shore. Behind her, the sky is stained with sunset. There are gulls on the bay, cawing into the silence. FULL SHOT - THE CAR as it pulls into the Brenner yard. MED. SHOT - MELANIE reaching up for the rear view mirror, tilting it to examine her lipstick, touching the edge of her mouth with one hand. She gets out of the car, CAMERA FOLLOWING her to the house. She climbs the porch steps, KNOCKS on the door. There is no answer. Puzzled, she begins walking back into the yard. In the distance, she sees Mitch, Lydia and Cathy coming from behind the chicken sheds. She raises her arm in greeting. MELANIE (calling) Hi! FULL SHOT - MITCH, CATHY, LYDIA in the distance. Mitch and Cathy raise their arms. CATHY (excitedly) Hi! (she breaks into a trot toward Melanie) CLOSE SHOT - CATHY as she approaches. She is an eleven-year- old child, clear-eyed, bright, uninhibited, wearing a shirt and blouse, her hair cropped close to her head. She hesitates for just a moment. CATHY Miss Daniels? MELANIE Yes? And Cathy flings herself into Melanie's arms, almost knocking her off her feet, hugging her fiercely. CATHY They're beautiful! They're just what I wanted! Is there a man and a woman? I can't tell which is which. MELANIE Well, I suppose... FULL SHOT - ALL OF THEM MITCH (coming up) Hi. Annie had no plans, huh? I'm glad you came. Are you hungry? MELANIE Famished. MITCH Dinner's just about ready. (explaining) We were out back looking at the chickens. Something seems to be wrong with them. LYDIA (going toward house) There's nothing wrong with those chickens, Mitch. I'm going to call Fred Brinkmeyer right now. MITCH (as they follow into house) I don't know what good that'll do. (aside to Melanie) Chickens won't eat. FULL SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE as they ENTER, CAMERA FOLLOWING them throughout into dining room where Lydia dials phone, talking to Mitch all along. LYDIA He sold the feed to me, didn't he? MITCH Caviat emptor, Mother. Let the buyer beware. LYDIA Whose side are you on? MITCH I'm simply quoting the law. LYDIA Never mind the law. Cathy, you can start serving the soup. She has finished dialing now, is waiting while the phone RINGS. LYDIA This won't take a minute, Miss Dan... (into phone) Hello, Fred? This is Lydia Brenner. I didn't interrupt your dinner, did I? (pause) Fred, that feed you sold me is no good. (pause) The chicken feed. The three bags I brought. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA holding the telephone. LYDIA Well, it's just no good. The chickens won't eat it. (pause) They're always hungry, Fred. I opened one of the sacks when I got home, and I poured it out for them, and they wouldn't touch it. Now you know chickens as well as I do, and when they won't eat, there's just something wrong with what they're being fed, that's all. (pause) No, they're not fussy chickens. (pause) Who? What's he got to do with it? (pause) Fred, I don't care how much feed you sold him. My chickens... (pause) He did? Dan Fawcett? (pause) This afternoon? (pause) Well, that only proves what I'm saying. The feed you sold us is... (pause) Oh. Oh, I see. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh- huh. Maybe I ought to go over to see him. You don't think there's something going around, do you? (pause) No, never. (pause) No, Fred, they don't seem sick at all. They just won't eat. (pause) Mmmm. Mmmmm. Well, I'll try to get over to Dan's farm. Maybe he'll... mmmmm... mmmmm... all right, Fred, thanks. (she hangs up, puzzled) FULL SHOT - THE DINING ROOM as Lydia comes to the table. Mitch and Melanie are sitting opposite each other in the center chairs. Cathy is serving the last bowl of soup. LYDIA (as she sits) He got a call from Dan Fawcett a little while ago. His chickens won't eat, either. CATHY It's what you said, Mom. Mr. Brinkmeyer's feed is no good. LYDIA (slowly) No, Cathy. He sold Mr. Fawcett a different brand. (extremely worried) You don't think they're getting sick, do you, Mitch? CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA her eyes troubled as she picks up her napkin. DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - THE LIVING ROOM The meal is over. The lovebirds in their hanging cage have been covered for the night. In the b.g. Mitch and Lydia are carrying the stacked dishes to the kitchen. In the f.g. Cathy and Melanie are by a small upright piano. Melanie is playing a Debussy Arabesque: She picks up a cigarette from the ashtray now and again to take a puff. CATHY I still don't understand how you knew I wanted lovebirds. MELANIE Your brother told me. LYDIA (as she goes into kitchen) Then you knew Mitch in San Francisco, is that right? MELANIE No, not exactly. CATHY Mitch knows lots of people in San Francisco. Of course, they're mostly hoods. LYDIA (from the kitchen) Cathy! CATHY Well, Mom, he's the first to admit it. (to Melanie) He spends half his day in the detention cells at the Hall of Justice. LYDIA (coming from kitchen) In a democracy, Cathy, everyone is entitled to a fair trial. Your brother's practice... CATHY Mom, please, I know all the democracy jazz. They're still hoods. (to Melanie) He's got a client now who shot his wife in the head six times. Six times, can you imagine it? (she starts for living room) I mean, even twice would be overdoing it, don't you think? MELANIE (to Mitch as he carries load of dishes out) Why did he shoot her? MITCH He was watching a ball game on television. MELANIE What? MITCH His wife changed the channel. He GOES INTO kitchen. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND CATHY Melanie interrupts her playing to take another puff at her cigarette. CATHY Is smoking fun? MELANIE Oh, I suppose so. CATHY Could I have a puff? MELANIE I don't think your mother would like that. CATHY (O.S.) Just a little one. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND CATHY They both glance conspiratorially toward the kitchen. Quickly, Melanie extends the cigarette. Quickly, Cathy takes a small puff. CATHY (delighted) Why, it's just like air, isn't it? (determined) When I grow up, I'm gonna smoke like a chimney! I'll be eleven tomorrow, you know. MELANIE I know. CATHY Are you coming to my party? MELANIE I don't think so. (seeing the child's face) I have to get back to San Francisco. CATHY Don't you like us? MELANIE (touching her hair) Darling, of course I do! CATHY Don't you like Bodega Bay? MELANIE I don't know yet. CATHY Mitch likes it very much. He comes up every weekend, you know, even though he has his own apartment in the city. He says San Francisco is just an ant hill at the foot of a bridge. MELANIE (smiling) I guess it does get a little hectic at times. CATHY If you do decide to come, don't say I told you about it. It's supposed to be a surprise party. Melanie laughs. CATHY You see, they've got this whole complicated thing figured out where I'm going over to Michele's for the afternoon, and Michele's mother is going to say she has a headache and would I mind very much if she took me home. Then, when we get back here, all of the kids'll jump out! (pause) Won't you come? Won't you please come? CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE shaking her head, glancing toward the kitchen. MELANIE I don't think so, Cathy. INT. KITCHEN - TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MITCH Mitch is helping her as she loads the dishwasher. LYDIA She's a charming girl, isn't she, Mitch? MITCH Yes, very. LYDIA And certainly pretty. MITCH Yes. LYDIA How long have you known her? MITCH I told you. We met yesterday. LYDIA In a bird shop. MITCH Yes. LYDIA She was selling birds. MITCH No. I only led her into believing I believed she was... Mother, it's really very complicated. LYDIA But she did buy the lovebirds and then brought them all the way... MITCH Mother, where did you go to law school? LYDIA (laughing) Forgive me. I suppose I'm just naturally curious about a girl like that. (pause) She's very rich, isn't she? MITCH I suppose so. Her father owns a big newspaper in San Francisco. LYDIA You'd think he could manage to keep her name out of print. She's always mentioned in the columns, Mitch. MITCH I know, Mother. LYDIA She is the one who jumped into that fountain in Rome last summer, isn't she? MITCH Yes, Mother. LYDIA Perhaps I'm old-fashioned. (pause) I know it was supposed to be very warm there, Mitch, but... well... actually... well, the newspaper said she was naked. MITCH I know, Mother. LYDIA It's none of my business, of course, but when you bring a girl like that to... MITCH Mother? LYDIA (looking up) Yes? MITCH I think I can handle Melanie Daniels by myself. LYDIA Well... (she sighs) So long as you know what you want, Mitch. MITCH I know exactly what I want, Mother. DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - THE BRENNER LAWN - EXTERIOR - NIGHT as Mitch and Melanie cross it to her car. A wind is blowing off the water, and high fast clouds are scudding across the face of the moon. MITCH You'll be able to find your way back, won't you? MELANIE Oh, yes. MELANIE Will I be seeing you again? MELANIE San Francisco's a long way from here. MITCH I'm in San Francisco five days a week. With a lot of time on my hands. I'd like to see you. (he grins) Maybe we could go swimming or something. Mother tells me you like to swim. MELANIE How does Mother know what I like to do? MITCH I guess she and I read the same gossip columns. MELANIE Oh. That. Rome. MITCH Mmmm. I like to swim. We might get along very... MELANIE In case you're interested, I was pushed into that fountain. MELANIE Without any clothes on? MELANIE With all my clothes on! The newspaper that ran the story happens to be a rival of my father's paper. Anything they said... MITCH You were just a poor, innocent victim of circumstance, huh? MELANIE I'm neither poor nor innocent, but the truth of that particular... MITCH The truth is you were running around with a pretty wild crowd... MELANIE Yes, but... MITCH ...who didn't much care for propriety or convention or... MELANIE Yes. MITCH ...the opinions of others, and you went right along with them, isn't that the truth? MELANIE Yes, that's the truth. But I was pushed into that fountain, and that's the truth, too. MITCH Sure. Do you really know Annie Hayworth? MELANIE No. (pause) At least, I didn't until I came up here. MITCH So you didn't go to school together. MELANIE No. MITCH And you didn't come up here to see her. MELANIE No. MITCH You were lying. MELANIE Yes, I was lying. MITCH Did you really write a letter to me? Or was that a lie, too? MELANIE I wrote the letter. MITCH What did it say? MELANIE It said, "Dear Mr. Brenner, I think you need those lovebirds, after all. They may help your personality." That's what it said. MITCH But you tore it up. MELANIE Yes. MITCH Why? MELANIE Because it seemed stupid and foolish. MITCH Like jumping into a fountain in Rome! MELANIE I told you what happened in Rome! MITCH Do you expect me to believe...? MELANIE I don't give a damn what you believe! Angrily she gets into the car, is about to slam the door when Mitch catches it in his hands. MITCH I'd still like to see you. MELANIE Why? MITCH I think it could be fun. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE pulling the door shut. MELANIE That might have been good enough in Rome last summer. But it's not good enough now. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH It is for me. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE MELANIE But not for me. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH What do you want ? CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE MELANIE (angrily sarcastic) I thought you knew! I want to go through life laughing and beautiful and jumping into fountains naked! Good night! MED. SHOT - THE CAR as it pulls away. Mitch yanks his hands back from the door. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH as he watches the car leave. LONG SHOT - THE ROAD The car turns the bend and disappears. Empty road. Only the long line of telephone poles and wires and... something strange on the wires. CLOSE SHOT MITCH His attention caught by the poles and wires. CLOSE SHOT - THE WIRES Hundreds of birds sitting on them. MED. SHOT - MITCH standing and watching. A wind blows off the water. He shivers suddenly, turns up his collar, and heads for the house. DISSOLVE INT. ANNIE HAYWORTH'S LIVING ROOM - MED. SHOT - ANNIE HAYWORTH In an easy chair, reading. She is wearing a robe and smoking, absorbed in her book. She turns when she hears the front DOOR OPENING. ANNIE Miss Daniels? Is that you? MELANIE (O.S.) Yes. Annie rises to greet her. As Melanie ENTERS THE SHOT: ANNIE Hi. (seeing her face) Is something wrong? Is that cut beginning to bother you? MELANIE (touching her head) No, it's not the cut that's bothering me. ANNIE (concerned) Would you like some brandy? MELANIE If you have some, I'd... ANNIE I'll get it, sit down, Miss Daniels. Do you want a sweater or something? A quilt? As Annie gets the brandy: MELANIE No, thank you. (pause) Won't you call me Melanie? ANNIE All right. (she smiles) MED. SHOT - MELANIE sitting, tucking her legs up under her. She is disturbed by her conversation with Mitch and, in fact, by the way this entire trip has worked out. Annie brings her the glass of brandy, and she takes it gratefully. MELANIE Thank you. ANNIE (sitting opposite her) It gets a little chilly here at night sometimes. Especially if you're over near the bay. Melanie nods and sips at the brandy. There is a long pause. ANNIE Well, how'd your evening go? Melanie shrugs. ANNIE Did you meet Lydia? Melanie nods. ANNIE Or would you rather I changed the subject? MELANIE (with a tired smile) I think so. ANNIE (nodding) How do you like our little hamlet? MELANIE I despise it. ANNIE (laughing) Well, I don't suppose it offers much to the casual visitor. Unless you're thrilled by a collection of shacks on a hillside. It takes a while to get used to. MELANIE Where are you from originally, Annie? ANNIE San Francisco. MELANIE How'd you happen to come here? ANNIE Oh, someone invited me up for the weekend a long time ago. There is an awkward pause. Annie shrugs. ANNIE Look, I see no reason for being coy about this. It was Mitch Brenner. Melanie nods. ANNIE I guess you knew that, anyway. MELANIE I suspected as much. ANNIE You needn't worry. It's over and done with. A long time ago. MELANIE Annie -- there's nothing between Mitch and me. ANNIE Isn't there? (she shrugs) Maybe there isn't. Maybe there's never anything between Mitch and any girl. MELANIE What do you mean? ANNIE I think I'll have some of that, too. (she pours brandy, drinks, sighs) I was seeing quite a lot of him in San Francisco, you know. (she smiles weakly) And then, one weekend, he asked me up to meet Lydia. MELANIE When was this? ANNIE Four years ago. Of course, that was shortly after his father died. Things may be different now. MELANIE Different? ANNIE With Lydia. (pause) Did she seem a trifle distant? MELANIE (smiling) A trifle. ANNIE Then maybe it isn't different at all. You know, her attitude nearly drove me crazy. I simply couldn't understand it. ANNIE When I got back to San Francisco I spent days trying to figure out just what I'd done to displease her. MELANIE And what had you done? ANNIE Nothing! I simply existed. So what was the answer? A jealous woman, right? A clinging possessive mother. (she shakes her head) Wrong. With all due respect to Oedipus, I don't think that was the case at all. MELANIE Then what was it? ANNIE Lydia liked me, you see. That was the strange part of it. In fact, now that I'm no longer a threat, we're very good friends. MELANIE Then why did she object to you? ANNIE Because she was afraid. MELANIE Afraid you'd take Mitch? ANNIE Afraid I'd give Mitch. MELANIE I don't understand. ANNIE Afraid of any woman who'd give Mitch the only thing Lydia can give him -- love. MELANIE Annie, that adds up to a jealous, possessive woman. ANNIE No, I don't think so. She's not afraid of losing her son, you see. She's only afraid of being abandoned. MELANIE Someone ought to tell her she'd be gaining a daughter. ANNIE She already has a daughter. MELANIE What about Mitch? Didn't he have anything to say about this? ANNIE (apologetically) I can understand his position. He went through a lot with Lydia after his father died. He didn't want to risk going through it all over again. MELANIE I see. ANNIE So it ended. Not immediately, of course. I went back to San Francisco, and I still saw Mitch every now and then... but we both knew it was finished. MELANIE Then what are you doing here in Bodega Bay? ANNIE You get straight to the point, don't you? MELANIE I'm sorry. Forgive me. ANNIE No, that's all right, I don't mind. I came up here for two reasons. To begin with, I was bored with my job in San Francisco. I was teaching at a private school there... well, you know, you probably went to one yourself. MELANIE I did. ANNIE Then you know. Little girls in brown beanies. Deadly. Here I have a life. I'll go into that classroom on Monday morning, and I'll look out at twenty- five upturned little faces, and each of them will be saying, 'Yes, please give me what you have.' (pause) And I'll give them what I have. I haven't got very much, but I'll give them every ounce of it. To me, that's very important. It makes me want to stay alive for a long long time. (she sighs) That's the first reason. MELANIE And the second? ANNIE (simply) I wanted to be near Mitch. (pause) It was over, and I knew it, but I wanted to be near him, anyway. (she smiles) You see, I still like him a hell of a lot. That's rare, I think. I don't want to lose his friendship... ever. There is a moment of silence. Into the silence, the TELEPHONE shrills. Annie hesitates a moment, and then goes to answer it. CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE at the phone. ANNIE Hello? Oh, hello. No, no, I wasn't asleep. What is it? (pause) Yes, just a little while ago. Sure, hold on. (she turns to Melanie) It's Mitch. For you. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND ANNIE as they stare at each other across the room, Melanie hesitating. ANNIE He's waiting. Melanie rises and goes to the phone. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Annie to the wing chair in the foreground and stays on her throughout following, recording her reactions as Melanie talks to Mitch in the background. Annie is not devastated by this call, and yet there is a wistfulness to her expression as she realizes she may finally and irrevocably be losing Mitch to another girl. MELANIE (at phone; coolly) Hello? Yes, this is Melanie. Fine, thank you. No, no trouble at all. I simply followed the road. It's a very bright night. (pause) What? Oh. Well, there's no need to apologize. I can understand... (pause; she listens) Well... (she listens again) That's very kind of you. No, I'm not angry. (she listens) I couldn't. I'm afraid I have to get back to San Francisco. (pause) No, I wouldn't want to disappoint Cathy, but... (pause) I see. (she is warming) I see. Well, if you really... (pause) All right. Yes, I'll be there. (pause) Good night, Mitch. She hangs up and looks at Annie in embarrassment. MELANIE He wants me to go to Cathy's party tomorrow afternoon. (pause) I said I would. ANNIE I'll be going, too, to help out. It should be fun, Melanie. MELANIE It seems so pointless. (she sighs) I think I'll go to sleep. This has been a busy day. (picking up her paper bag) My luggage. She smiles, takes out a flowered muumuu, holds it up to Annie. ANNIE Pretty. Did you get that at Brinkmeyer's? Melanie nods and drapes the muumuu over her arm. She is silent for a moment, pensive. Then: MELANIE Do you think I should go? ANNIE That's up to you. MELANIE It's really up to Lydia, isn't it? ANNIE Never mind Lydia. Do you want to go? MELANIE (firmly) Yes. ANNIE Then go. The room is silent. Melanie nods, slowly, and then smiles. MELANIE Thank you, Annie. Suddenly, into the silence, comes a THUMP at the door, startling them both. ANNIE (rising) Who can that be at this hour? (she walks to door) Who is it? (no answer) Is someone there? Melanie goes to stand beside Annie. Puzzled, Annie unlocks the door, and then opens it. She looks out into the night. There is nothing but the SOUND of the wind. ANNIE (to the emptiness outside) Is anyone there? MELANIE (pointing to the ground) Look. CLOSE SHOT - A DEAD SEAGULL CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE ANNIE (sympathetically) Ohhh. Oh, the poor thing. He probably lost his way in the dark. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE who stares at the dead bird as Annie stoops to pick it up. And then, slowly: MELANIE But... it isn't dark, Annie. There's a full moon. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND ANNIE as Annie, stooping, looks up at her. On their puzzlement and consternation: FADE OUT FADE IN HIGH SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE The place is decorated with balloons strung from the house to various points on the lawn. The children, in party clothes, with their parents, are clustered around a long folding table upon which are sandwiches, ice cream and soft drinks. The parents are either helping the children to more or telling them they are having too much. There is a general SOUND of kid's CHATTER and LAUGHTER. Coming up the sloping path, away from the party, are Melanie and Mitch. The CAMERA PANS them UP the slope and away from the party in background. As they turn the hairpin bend of the slope, and come up toward the CAMERA, we see the entrance of the harbor and the Pacific in the background. The CAMERA PANS them as they come near to us and, once more, the party is in the background. Mitch and Melanie pass the CAMERA out to the left. CLOSER SHOT - THE TOP OF THE DUNES Melanie and Mitch come INTO the picture from the right and stand against the sky. Mitch takes a martini shaker from one of his pockets, and two glasses from the other. He hands one of the glasses to Melanie, and then pours. MELANIE I really shouldn't have any more. I'm a little tipsy already. MITCH I'm trying to get you to stay for dinner. We're going to have a lot of roast left over. MELANIE I couldn't possibly. I have to get back. MITCH (with a shrug) Cheers. MELANIE Cheers. They drink. MELANIE What's in this? Nitro-glycerin? MITCH Why do you have to rush off? What's so important in San Francisco? MELANIE Well... I have to get to work tomorrow morning, for one thing. MITCH (surprised) You have a job? MELANIE (sipping at the martini) I have several jobs. MITCH What do you do? MELANIE I do different things on different days. MITCH Like what? MELANIE (hesitating) On Mondays and Wednesdays, I work for the Travelers' Aid. At the airport. MITCH Helping travelers. MELANIE Yes. She hesitates for a moment, thinking. She has never really considered before what she does with her time, and now that she is accounting for it, it sounds a little meaningless and unimportant. MELANIE And on Tuesdays, I take a course in General Semantics at Berkeley. That's not a job, of course. I just take it because... MITCH What about Thursdays and Fridays? MELANIE On Thursdays I have my meeting and lunch. (pause) I'm chairman of a group that's sending a little Korean boy through school. We plan how to raise funds and... things like that. (she shrugs) MITCH And Fridays? What do you do then? MELANIE Nothing. (she smiles) I go to bird shops on Fridays. MITCH I'm glad you do. MELANIE Do you know what I was doing in that shop? MITCH What? MELANIE I have an aunt, you see. Aunt Tessa. She's seventy years old, and veddy prim and strait-laced. (she does an imitation) She's coming back from Europe at the end of the month, and I'm going to give her a myna bird that'll talk to her. MITCH What'll it say? MELANIE (facetiously) You'll think me very bold, sir. MITCH No, tell me. She leans over and whispers in his ear. They both burst out LAUGHTER. But then suddenly, a very serious look comes into Melanie's face. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE serious, introspective. MELANIE That's silly, isn't it? Teaching a bird to shock my aunt. That's just silly and childish. (slight pause) Maybe I ought to go join the other children. FULL SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as she moves abruptly away from him, and starts toward where the children have begun playing Blind Man's Bluff. Mitch stares after her for a moment, moved by this sudden glimpse of character, and then follows her down the dune. The children are all in a circle. Annie is busy changing the blindfold from Michele to Cathy. CAMERA PANS - MELANIE AND MITCH The CAMERA is now on the lawn POINTING UP toward dunes. We see Mitch and Melanie descending. They are coming down by way of a short cut and are not on the zig-zag path. As they reach the lawn they move along the side of it at the foot of the dunes. They are absorbed in each other. The CAMERA PANS OFF them and BRING INTO the picture Annie, surrounded by the children. She is in the act of changing the blindfold from Michele to Cathy. She hands Michele her glasses back. During this, and while she is putting the blindfold round the eyes of Cathy, she is looking to her right and obviously is watching Mitch and Melanie. MITCH AND MELANIE - ANNIE'S P.O.V. MED. SHOT - ANNIE CAMERA MOVES A LITTLE to her left (CAMERA RIGHT). At this moment, in the background, Lydia is emerging with the birthday cake. The candles on it are unlit. Lydia immediately also catches sight of Mitch and Melanie and she slows up somewhat as she walks to the long table, her eyes still on the couple. During this we see Annie in the foreground sending Cathy off. ANNIE All right then, here we go. (she spins her) Once! (she spins her again) Twice! (she spins her again) Three! Go get 'em, Cathy! She says all this while still looking toward the couple. She turns her head away from the couple with a new expression on her face. She twists completely around to look at Lydia as though she were wondering if Lydia sees what she sees. Suddenly we HEAR a little boy's voice crying: LITTLE BOY (O.S.) Look! Look! Annie swings round and the CAMERA RUSHES INTO her face as she looks up. LONG SHOT - ANNIE'S P.O.V. A gull is swooping down. CLOSE SHOT - CATHY as she changes her tactics, stops dead, and then cautiously reaches out in front of her at the air. The gull suddenly swoops at her, hitting her shoulder. She whirls. CATHY No touching allowed! She almost falls. FULL SHOT - THE GULL seen from Cathy's position. He flies off, cycles and then returns. CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE reacting to gull. She turns her head back to Cathy. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH reacting to the gull hitting Cathy. They start towards Cathy. MED. SHOT - ANNIE with Cathy and the children around. The CAMERA PANS DOWN as she ducks with two gulls swooping by. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA hurriedly putting the cake onto the table. She rushes round to the front of it. FULL SHOT - ANNIE - LYDIA'S P.O.V. Annie rising from the ground. Cathy and the other children are running in the background. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA reacting to two more gulls diving. FULL SHOT - TWO GULLS - LYDIA'S P.O.V. diving toward the children. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA She starts to run out CAMERA RIGHT. MED. SHOT - LYDIA REACHES CATHY She pushes her to the ground as a gull attacks. TWO SHOT - TWO MOTHERS as a gull swoops between them. FULL SHOT - MITCH coming out of the house with a broom. TWO GULLS swooping down at the children's heads. MED. SHOT - MITCH swinging at gull and missing. LONG SHOT - LITTLE BOY running toward bank. Gull swooping after him. CLOSE SHOT - LITTLE BOY falling forward against the bank as the gull smashes into him. FULL SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH running to the injured boy, who is lying against the bank. THREE SHOT - MELANIE, MITCH AND LITTLE BOY They look up. LONG SHOT - THE GULLS against the sky, flying away in formation. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH about to swing with the broom again, but the birds are no longer there. A puzzled look crosses his face. He turns to Melanie. MITCH Are you all right? TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MELANIE Yes. ANNIE (coming over) That's the darnest thing thing I've ever seen in my life. TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MITCH LYDIA Are they gone? MITCH They're gone, Mother. FULL SHOT - THE LAWN as the children begin drifting back toward the table and the cake. There is the curious feeling of lighting having struck very close by without having injured anyone. All that adrenaline has boiled up, and now it has no place to go. LYDIA Well... well, is everyone all right? MITCH (with a small boy) I think he got a little scratch, Mother. GIRL #3 Did you see them? They were hawks! GIRL #4 They were bigger than hawks! ANNIE Children, they were only seagulls. And then the meaning of what she has just said strikes her, and she remembers the bird hitting her door the night before. TWO SHOT - ANNIE AND MELANIE as Annie turns to look at her and they exchange a silent meaningful glance. BACK TO SCENE CATHY They must have been after the food, Mother. They all turn toward the table. CLOSE SHOT - THE TABLE AND THE REST OF THE FOOD ON THE TABLE, UNDISTURBED CLOSE SHOT - MITCH eyes narrowed. MITCH They didn't touch anything. BACK TO SCENE ANNIE (trying to restore order) Well, they're gone now, so... so let's... (pause) Who was 'it?' You were 'it,' weren't you, Cathy? GIRL #2 Can I be 'it,' Miss Hayworth? TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as Annie and the children begin the game behind them. MITCH You look a little shaken. MELANIE I... I am. (pause) Mitch, is... Mitch, this isn't usual, is it? The gull yesterday when I was in the boat, and the one last night at Annie's, and now... MITCH Last night? What do you mean? MELANIE A gull smashed into Annie's front door. (pause) Mitch... what's happening? MITCH (concerned) I don't know, Melanie. (pause) Look, do you have to go back to Annie's? MELANIE No, I have my things in the car. MITCH (gently) Then stay and have something to eat before you start back. I'd feel a lot better. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE She nods, and then looks up at the sky. Suddenly she shudders. DISSOLVE CLOSE SHOT - MITCH'S HANDS - DINING ROOM INT. IN BACKGROUND He is slicing the leftover roast beef. MED. SHOT - MITCH putting the meat onto plate, turning over his shoulder to call into living room. The lovebirds in their cage are making a terrible racket. MITCH Do you want some mustard with this? MELANIE (O.S.) No, thank you. CATHY (coming from kitchen) Why didn't Annie stay for dinner? MITCH She said something about having to get home to take a call from her mother back East. CATHY Oh. Where d'you want the coffee? MITCH Take it into the living room, would you, hon? CATHY (seeing the birds) What's the matter with them? Lydia turns from a side table, where she is cutting some French bread. LYDIA What's the matter with all the birds? She covers the cage. Under the cover, the birds are still tweeting madly. Lydia stares at the covered cage for a moment, and then signs heavily. LYDIA Hurry up with the rest, Mitch. I'm sure Miss Daniels wants to get on her way. As she moves into the living room. CATHY I think you ought to stay the night, Melanie. INT. LIVING ROOM - CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA a sharp look at her daughter. MED. SHOT - CATHY pouring coffee into the cups set on coffee table. CATHY We've got an extra room upstairs and everything. MITCH (coming in with two plates) That road can be a bad one at night, Melanie. (he picks up coffee cup, hands it to Melanie) They are now all eating with plates on their knees - buffet style. MELANIE If I go across to Santa Rosa I'll come onto the freeway much earlier. LYDIA (picking up a cup) Yeah, and the freeway's well-lighted, isn't it, Mitch? MITCH Yeah, but she'll be hitting all that traffic going back to San Francisco. CATHY Did you put the cover on that cage, Mom? LYDIA Yes, I did. CATHY Just listen to them! MITCH (to Melanie) Some cream? MELANIE I'll get it. She reaches over for the cream pitcher. Her eye is caught by something in the fireplace. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE looking curiously. CLOSE SHOT - THE FIREPLACE a single swift is sitting on the hearth. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE turning to Mitch. MELANIE Mitch... CLOSE SHOT - THE FIREPLACE as dozens of swifts begin pouring from the opening. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE frightened now. MELANIE (shouting it) Mitch! CLOSE SHOT - THE FIREPLACE hundreds of birds pouring into the room. FULL SHOT - LYDIA shrieking in terror, dropping her coffee cup. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM full of birds, swooping, diving. Mitch runs to the door, throws it open. MITCH (to the others) Get outside! Run! (he turns toward Lydia) CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA in terror, surrounded by birds. MITCH (O.S.) Mother! MED. SHOT - MITCH wrenching the cloth from the coffee table, cups, coffee pot, sugar bowl, creamer falling to the floor as he swings the cloth at the birds. CLOSE SHOT - CATHY covering her face. MED. SHOT - MELANIE reaching for small fireplace broom. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA shrieking as the birds dive at her face. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH realizing it's impossible to run. They must stay and fight. MITCH (shouting) Cathy, get some matches! MED. SHOT - CATHY running for the kitchen. Birds swooping after her. MED. SHOT - MELANIE swinging the fireplace broom. MED. SHOT - MITCH rushing to the fireplace. He is almost knocked over by birds coming out of the opening. He stuffs paper under the logs already in place there. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA She lets out a horrified scream. There are birds fluttering in her hair, caught there. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE swinging the broom, covered with birds. MED. SHOT - A PICTURE ON THE WALL (an enlargement of a photograph of Cathy, smiling.) As a bird flutters against it. MED. SHOT - CATHY running into the room, covering her face with bent arm, rushing to Mitch with the box of matches. MED. SHOT - MITCH taking the matches. He lights one. A bird hits his arm. He drops the match. He lights another one. CLOSE SHOT - THE MATCH falling onto the paper in the fireplace. It flickers for a moment, then catches. Birds are still pouring out, past the paper beginning to catch. CLOSE SHOT - ANOTHER WINDOW PANE as a bird crashes through it. MED. SHOT - MITCH rushing to Lydia, swinging the cloth at her head. She is hysterics now, BABBLING. The SHRIEK of the birds is a wild cacophony. CLOSE SHOT - THE FIRE blazing. MED. SHOT - A BIRD swooping out of the fireplace, its wings aflame. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM less birds in the air now, the single flaming bird flying toward the drapes. MED. SHOT - THE DRAPES as the flaming bird lands on them. CLOSE SHOT - THE DRAPES catching fire. MED. SHOT - MELANIE swinging the broom wildly. MELANIE Mitch! The curtains! CLOSE SHOT - MITCH turning, seeing, his eyes opening wide. MED. SHOT - MITCH ripping at the flaming curtain. He throws it to the floor, begins stamping on it. CLOSE SHOT - CATHY CATHY It's working! The fire's working! CLOSE SHOT - THE FIREPLACE only the blazing fire. No more birds entering. MED. SHOT - THE WINDOWS birds bursting through the panes, leaving. MED. SHOT - MELANIE as she beats away another bird. CLOSE SHOT - ONE OF THE BROKEN WINDOWS the birds leaving en masse now. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM A shambles. Windows broken, furniture knocked over, pictures askew, the floor covered with birds and broken glass. In a corner of the room, Lydia crouches with her hands covering her face, sobbing. The burnt curtain is still smoldering. Mitch is covered with soot. Melanie puts down the broom wearily. The attack is over. DISSOLVE INT. BRENNER LIVING ROOM - CLOSE SHOT - A HAND reaching down to pick up a dead bird. MED. SHOT - AL MALONE, THE DEPUTY a plain man with a limited intelligence, used to giving out speeding tickets or warning drunks. He holds the bird on the palm of his hand, looks at it steadily, nodding all the while. MALONE That's a chimney swift, all right. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH We know what it is, Al. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM Lydia is huddled in one of the easy chairs, still in shock. MALONE Well, these birds live in chimneys, you know. MITCH Not by the thousands. MALONE No, I gotta admit this is peculiar. (pause) Did you have a light burning or something. MITCH Yes, but the curtains were drawn. MALONE 'Cause sometimes birds are attracted by light, you know. (pause) Sure is a peculiar thing. MITCH What are we going to do about it, Al? MALONE I don't think I get you, Mitch. Do about what? MITCH Well... (he feels a little foolish) Well... these birds attacked us. CLOSE SHOT - MALONE slight disbelief on his face. MALONE What's more likely, they got in the room and was just panicked, that's all. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH (still a little hesitant) All right, I'll grant you a bird'll panic in an enclosed room. But, they didn't just get in. They came in! Right down that chimney. TWO SHOT - MITCH AND MALONE MALONE (trying to make sense of this) My wife found a bird in the back seat of her car once. MALONE (shrugs) Didn't know how he got in there. Had a broken leg, turned out. Just fluttering all around there. (he shrugs again) MITCH These birds were... MALONE What I'm trying to say, Mitch, is these things happen sometimes, you know? Ain't much we can do about it. (he shrugs) LYDIA Tell him about the party. MITCH That's right. We had a party here this afternoon for Cathy. Her birthday. MALONE Oh, yeah, yeah. (he grins) How old is she now? MITCH Eleven. In the middle of the party, some gulls came down at the children. And Miss Daniels was attacked by a gull just yesterday after... CLOSE SHOT - MALONE considering this. MALONE Yeah. (thinking) Were the kids bothering them or something? 'Cause sometimes they'll do that, you know. If you make any kind of disturbance near them, they'll just come after you. I seen that plenty of times myself. TWO SHOT - MALONE AND LYDIA LYDIA The children were playing a game, Al. Those gulls attacked without... MALONE Now, Lydia, 'attack' is a pretty strong word, don't you think? I mean, birds just don't go around attacking people without no reason, you know what I mean? The kids just probably scared them, that's all. LYDIA These birds attacked! MALONE (nodding) Well, what would you like me to do, Lydia? Put out a pick up and hold on any suspicious birds in the area? (he smiles) Now, that'd be pretty silly, wouldn't it? CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH Does this room look silly? TWO SHOT - MITCH AND MALONE MALONE No, you got quite a mess here, I'll admit that. (pause) Maybe you oughta put some screening on top of your chimney (pause) Seems a little pointless, though. Freak accident like this wouldn't happen again in a million years. (pause) You want some help cleaning up? CLOSE SHOT - MITCH exasperated. MITCH I can handle it myself. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA giving a small moan. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE MELANIE I'll take Cathy up to bed. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH Are you staying? CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE MELANIE I think I should, don't you? CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA observing, making no comment. MED. SHOT - MELANIE putting her arm around Cathy's shoulders. MELANIE I'll get my things from the car. Do you want to walk with me, Cathy? TWO SHOT - MITCH AND MALONE as Cathy and Melanie go out. MALONE Well, if there's anything else I can do, Mitch... MITCH Thanks, Al. We'll be all right. MALONE Goodnight, Lydia. No answer. MALONE Sure is peculiar, I got to say that for it. He exits. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM It is silent. Mitch looks across at Lydia who sits as still as a stone in her chair. The door closes gently on a note of utter helplessness. FADE OUT FADE IN INT. BEDROOM IN BRENNER HOUSE - MED. SHOT - MELANIE Melanie has just gotten out of bed. She is wearing the rather unsophisticated nightdress she brought at the store. Her hair is loose. She wears no makeup. She is bent over a lavatory which has been installed in the bedroom. She is busily brushing her teeth. Her head half turns as she HEARS VOICES. LYDIA'S VOICE Mitch! Mitch! Mitch, I'm going to drop Cathy off now. MITCH'S VOICE Okay. LYDIA'S VOICE I'll probably drive over to the Fawcett farm. Do you need anything in town? MITCH'S VOICE No. Melanie finished brushing her teeth. She goes to the window and looks out. Outside, we HEAR the SOUND of the pickup truck starting. FULL SHOT - THE YARD BELOW - MELANIE'S P.O.V. as Cathy, carrying her schoolbooks, runs to the pickup truck and climbs in. The truck moves out of the yard and down the road. It turns the bend, and moves out of sight. MED. SHOT - MELANIE turning from the window. She goes to the bedroom door, CAMERA FOLLOWING. She opens the door. MELANIE Mitch? There is no answer. MELANIE Mitch? FULL SHOT - MELANIE coming down the steps from the attic room. The house is empty. The CAMERA FOLLOWS her into the dining room, where she stops at the cage of lovebirds, bends down to them with a smile on her face. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE AND THE BIRDS She smiles and pokes her finger into the cage. The birds TWEET at her. MELANIE (imitating them) Chee-chee-chee-chee-chee. FULL SHOT - MELANIE leaving the cage. She walks to the sideboard upon which is an electric coffee percolator which is plugged into the wall. She feels it with her hand. It is hot. She pours a cup, then peers out of the side window. LONG SHOT - MELANIE'S P.O.V. Mitch on the shore, working with a rake in his hands. A thin column of smoke is climbing the sky. MED. SHOT - MELANIE carrying the cup of coffee. She sets it down for a moment to put on her fur coat, which is hanging on the hall stand. She picks up the cup again, walks to the front door and EXITS. FULL SHOT - MELANIE coming out of the house and into the garden, carrying the cup of coffee. It is a beautiful day. She sips at her coffee and then breathes deeply of the air. CLOSE SHOT - HER FACE fresh, rested. There is a contentment in her which we have not seen before. She looks off toward the shore. LONG SHOT - MITCH on the shore, working with the rake. The thin column of smoke is climbing the sky. MED. SHOT - MELANIE She turns her attention away from Mitch, and walks to the end of the garden toward the shore. A wind is blowing off the water, moving white puffs of cloud swiftly across the sky, whipping the full short shirt of muumuu about her legs as she walks. She stands there silhouetted against the sky for a moment. SLOW PAN as Melanie scans the horizon. There isn't a bird anywhere in sight. The day is still and clear, but somehow ominous in its silence. Her gaze comes to rest on Mitch and the thin column of smoke again. In the distance, Mitch sees her and raises his arm in greeting. She waves back at him. He puts the rake down and begins walking toward the house. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE There is anticipation on her face now. She watches Mitch coming toward her, her eyes glowing. FULL SHOT - MITCH closer to the house now. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE waiting, anticipating. MED. SHOT - MITCH He stops, looks at her, and then turns toward the house. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE as first surprised, and then puzzled. The back screen DOOR CLATTERS shut off screen. A small hurt look crosses her face. FULL SHOT - MELANIE as she turns away from the house and begins walking in the garden, sipping idly at her coffee. A screen DOOR CLATTERS again. She turns. Mitch is coming out of the house, from the front door, wearing a different shirt, buttoning it as he walks to her. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MITCH I wanted to change my shirt. Melanie is uncomprehending. MITCH It smelled of the fire. MELANIE (nodding) It's hard to believe anything at all happened yesterday, isn't it? It's so beautiful and still now. (pause; then sagely) I think I've got it all figured out, by the way. MITCH Really? Tell me about it. MELANIE (secretively) It's an uprising. MITCH Of birds? MELANIE Certainly, of birds. Mitch grins. MELANIE It all started several months ago with a peasant sparrow up in the hills, a malcontent. He went around telling all the other sparrows that human beings weren't fit to rule this planet, preaching wherever anyone would listen... MITCH Growing a beard... MELANIE (delighted) Yes, of course, he had to have a beard! 'Birds of the world, unite!' he kept saying, over and over... MITCH So they united. MELANIE Not at first. Oh yes, a few sparrows out for kicks... MITCH Well, they'll go along with anything. MELANIE Sure. But eventually, even the more serious-minded birds began to listen. "Why should humans rule?" they asked themselves. MITCH Hear! MELANIE Why should we submit ourselves to their domination? MITCH Hear, hear! MELANIE And all the while, that sparrow was getting in his little messages. Birds of the world, unite! MITCH Take wing! MELANIE You have nothing to lose but your feathers. They both burst out laughing, then fall into silence, then laugh again and finally are silent. The garden is deathly still. MITCH (attempting to be serious) What it was, probably... MELANIE Mmm? MITCH They're probably hungry, that's all. This was a bad summer. They eat berries and... and nuts, you know, and the hills are all burned out, so they're probably searching for food wherever they can get it. MELANIE With my little sparrow leading team. She laughs, and Mitch joins her, but it is hollow this time. Like children who have told themselves a too realistic horror story, they are becoming a little frightened. MITCH It's so damn quiet out there. MELANIE It was like that yesterday. MITCH What do you mean? MELANIE After the gulls attacked. MITCH I hadn't thought of that. (pause) And then the swifts came. MELANIE It makes you feel as if they're... they're waiting or... resting... or.... MITCH (trying to make it light again) No, they're having a meeting, Melanie. Your sparrow is standing on a soap box and... CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE her face dead serious. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH ...waving his little wings... His voice trails. His face becomes serious, too. Again, the garden is silent. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE her face set and grim, her eyes serious, her words coming slowly and with the chill of horror on them. MELANIE They were angry, Mitch. They came out of the chimney in fury. (pause) I had the feeling they wanted each and every one of us dead. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH He takes her in his arms suddenly, to comfort her. She goes to him longingly. MITCH Melanie, Melanie... MELANIE I'm frightened, Mitch. MITCH No, no... MELANIE I'm frightened and confused and I... I think I want to go back to San Francisco where there are buildings and... and concrete and... MITCH Melanie... MELANIE ...everything I know. She looks up at him suddenly. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE MELANIE Oh damn it, why did you have to walk into that shop? They kiss suddenly and fiercely. On their kiss, DISSOLVE EXT. FAWCETT FARM - FULL SHOT - THE RED PICKUP TRUCK Lydia at the wheel, pulling into the Fawcett farm, the name of the farm clearly visible on a painted arch over the gate. Lydia gets out of the truck and walks to the front door. She knocks. There is no answer. MED. SHOT - LYDIA LYDIA Dan? She comes down off the steps, the CAMERA FOLLOWING, back a little away from the house. LYDIA Dan? There is no answer. She shades her eyes and looks out over the fields. LONG SHOT - FARMHAND ON TRACTOR FULL SHOT - THE BARNYARD as Lydia crosses to a fence and cups her hands to her mouth. LYDIA (shouting) Hi, there! LONG SHOT - THE FARMHAND He stops the tractor, turns toward Lydia, shading his eyes. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA LYDIA (shouting) Is Mr. Fawcett home? LONG SHOT - THE FARMHAND FARMHAND (shouting back) I think so, ma'm. His missus is in Santa Cruz, but he ought to be here. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA LYDIA Have you seen him this morning? LONG SHOT - THE FARMHAND FARMHAND No, ma'm. I reckon he's in there, though. MED. SHOT - LYDIA LYDIA (shouting it) Thank you! FULL SHOT - LYDIA as she crosses the barnyard again. There are several chickens scurrying about. She walks closer to them, sees an open bag of feed lying against the fence. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA getting an idea. MED. SHOT - LYDIA reaching into the bag of feed. She scatters some on the ground. LYDIA Here, chick, chick, chick, chick. Here, chick, chick, chick, chick. CLOSE SHOT - A CHICKEN He struts up to the scattered grain. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA watching him. CLOSE SHOT - THE CHICKEN He seems to be examining the feed. Then he turns away from it and struts off. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA a small knowledgeable nod of her head. The chicken's reaction strengthens her determination to talk to Fawcett. She turns. FULL SHOT - LYDIA approaching the front door again. She knocks. No answer. LYDIA Dan? She backs away from the house again. The barnyard is silent. In the distance, we can HEAR the SOUND of the tractor. LYDIA Dan? Are you home? No answer. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA a little annoyed. She glances at the ground floor window closest to the door. CLOSE SHOT - THE WINDOW A small pane of glass is broken. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA puzzled. FULL SHOT - LYDIA going to the front door, trying the knob. MED. SHOT - LYDIA The door opening ahead of her as she pokes her head into the house. LYDIA Dan? The house is still and silent. INT. THE ENTRY HALL - FULL SHOT as Lydia comes in. We can see the living room off to the right, but it looks normal and untouched. Lydia turns to her left and looks down a long corridor. FULL SHOT - THE CORRIDOR - LYDIA'S P.O.V. a door at the end of it is partially ajar, spilling artificial light into the corridor. LYDIA Dan? No answer. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA a little troubled. She seems deciding whether or not she should leave. A determined look comes over her face. FULL SHOT - THE CORRIDOR - LYDIA'S P.O.V. as she walks down it slowly toward the open door at the opposite end. Outside the door, she pauses. LYDIA Dan? Are you in there? No answer. Lydia puts out her hand, slowly begins showing the door open. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA coming into the room. Her eyes begin to take in the room. SLOW PAN OF THE ROOM - LYDIA'S P.O.V. starting to the right of the doorway as she enters and continuing a little below eye level, the CAMERA PICKS OUT: A standing floor lamp, the shade dangling, but the light still burning; a picture hanging askew on the wall, its glass shattered; the window to the left of the picture, every pane of glass shattered; a dresser with two stuffed birds on its top; both birds have been badly damaged, the stuffing ripped out of them, the head of one hanging at a crooked near decapitated angle; the window to the left of the dresser, all the panes shattered. The level of the CAMERA DESCENDS, and begins a SLOW PAN of the floor. It PICKS OUT broken glass, continues its PAN to SHOW scattered feathers, continues its PAN to SHOW a broom, feathers caught in the straw, a single bedroom slipper, continues to SHOW a pair of legs in pajamas, one foot bare, the other slippered, and then immediately CUTS TO: CLOSE SHOT - DAN FAWCETT His face. Covered with blood, the eyes missing from their empty staring sockets. Immediately CUT TO: CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA a terrified scream erupting from her mouth. FULL SHOT - LYDIA turning and running for the door. The CAMERA FOLLOWS her in an unbroken headlong flight, the scream continuing as if she is incapable of stopping it, as she stumbles, runs, trips her way down the corridor and bursts out of the house, still screaming, into the pickup truck. The engine starts, she backs the truck out at breakneck speed and hits the highway, CAMERA FOLLOWING. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA at the wheel, her face stamped with terror, her eyes wide. FULL SHOT - THE TRUCK at breakneck speed, negotiating the severe curves on the highway. It almost hits a small car coming from the opposite direction, swerves, screeches around the curve. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA behind the wheel, unmindful of anything but flight. FULL SHOT - THE ROAD - LYDIA'S POV through the windshield, blurring past. She turns the bend leading to the house. For an instant, through the windshield, there is a quick glimpse of Melanie and Mitch in embrace in the garden. Then the tires shriek, and the truck turns and barrels into the front yard. FULL SHOT - MITCH alarmed as he runs out of the garden and toward the truck just as it jerks to a stop. MED. SHOT - MITCH through the truck as he pulls open the door opposite Lydia. MITCH (alarmed) What is it? CLOSE SHOT - MITCH as he sees his mother. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA slumped on the wheel of the car, her head on her arms, sobbing. On her sobs... DISSOLVE INT. BRENNER KITCHEN - MED. SHOT - MELANIE at the kitchen stove, taking a kettle of tea from the burner. She pours it into a cup, puts the cup on a tray already set with sugar and creamer. She looks up as Mitch comes into the kitchen. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MITCH That was Al on the phone. He wants me to meet him out at the Fawcett place. Says some detectives from Santa Rosa'll be there in a little while. (pause) Will you be all right here? MELANIE Yes. I was just taking her in some tea. He goes to her, puts his arms around her from behind, kisses her hair. But she turns in his arms suddenly and clings to him fiercely, and then buries her head in his shoulder. MELANIE Be careful. Please. She walks him to the door. At the door, they kiss -- a long, full kiss. FULL SHOT -- THE KITCHEN as Mitch goes out. Melanie looks after him for a moment, and then picks up the tray. Outside, we HEAR the SOUND of his car starting. The CAMERA FOLLOWS Melanie out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and to one of the bedroom doors on the other side of the house. Gently, she KNOCKS. LYDIA (O.S.) Mitch? FULL SHOT - THE BEDROOM This is Lydia's room, and cluttered with the mementos of a life no longer valid. There are photographs of her dead husband, souvenirs of trips taken together, bric-a-brac of Mitch's childhood. Under it all, there is a distinct femininity. She sits up in bed as Melanie enters, bearing the tray. MELANIE No, it's me, Mrs. Brenner. I thought you might like some tea. TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MELANIE LYDIA Oh, thank you. There is a long silence as Melanie puts the tray on the bed, arranges the pillows behind Lydia. LYDIA Where's Mitch? MELANIE Al Malone wanted him out at the Fawcett farm. LYDIA Why? Didn't Al believe my story? MELANIE He was calling from the farm, Mrs. Brenner. LYDIA Then he saw. MELANIE He must have. He sent for the Santa Rosa police. LYDIA What good will they do? She sips at the tea. There is a long awkward pause. Melanie walks to the window and looks out over the bay. LYDIA Do you think Cathy's all right? MELANIE What? LYDIA Cathy. At the school. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE at the window, her face turned away from Lydia. Her expression clearly shows that she doesn't know whether Cathy is all right. But when she turns to Lydia, there is a comforting smile on her face, and her voice is soothing. MELANIE Yes, I'm sure she's fine. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND LYDIA LYDIA Do I sound foolish to you? MELANIE No. LYDIA I keep seeing Dan Fawcett's face. (she shudders) They have such big windows at the school. (pause) All the windows were broken. In Dan's bedroom. All the windows. MELANIE Try not to think of that, Mrs. Brenner. LYDIA I wish I were a stronger person. There is a long awkward silence. She sips at her tea reflectively. LYDIA I lost my husband four years ago, you know. (pause) It's odd how you depend on someone for strength, and then suddenly all the strength is gone, and you're alone. (pause) I'd love to relax some time. I'd love to be able to sleep. (pause; the worried look again) Do you think Cathy's all right? MELANIE Annie's there. She'll be all right. LYDIA I'm not this way, you know. Not usually. I don't fuss and fret over my children. (pause) When Frank died... (pause) You see, he knew the children, he really knew them. He had the knack of being able to enter into their world, of becoming a part of them. That's a rare talent. MELANIE Yes. LYDIA I wish I could be that way. There is another silence. A curious thing is happening in this room. Lydia, for perhaps the first time since her husband's death, is discussing it with another person. Curiously, the person is Melanie. LYDIA (honestly and simply) I miss him. (pause) You know, sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I think 'I have to make Frank's breakfast,' and I... I get up and there's a... a very good reason for getting out of bed until... until, of course, I remember. (pause) I miss talking to him. (pause) Cathy's a child, you know, and Mitch... (she shrugs a little sadly) ...Mitch has his own life. (pause) I'm glad he stayed here today. I feel safer with him here. (she sighs deeply) MELANIE Would you like to rest now, Mrs. Brenner. LYDIA No. No... don't go yet. (pause) I feel as if I... I don't understand you. And I want so much to understand. MELANIE Why, Mrs. Brenner? LYDIA Because my son is... (pause) My son seems to be fond of you. (pause) And I... (pause) I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I really don't know if I... like you or not. MELANIE Is that so important, Mrs. Brenner? You liking me? LYDIA Yes, I think so. My son is important to me. I want to like any girl he chooses. MELANIE And if you don't? LYDIA (with a faint smile) Then I don't suppose it'll matter much to anyone but me. MELANIE I think it might also matter to Mitch. LYDIA (shaking her head) Mitch has always done exactly what he wanted to do. (pause) I'm not complaining. That's the mark of a man. But... (pause) You see, I... I wouldn't want to be... be left alone. I don't think I could bear being left alone. I... forgive me. This business with the birds has me upset. I... I don't know what I'd do if Mitch weren't here. MELANIE (going to the bed; adjusting the pillow) Why don't you try to sleep now, Mrs. Brenner. LYDIA (sighing) I wish I were stronger. (she pauses and looks toward the window.) Do you think she's all right? Do you think she's safe at the school? MELANIE Would you like me to go for her? LYDIA I couldn't ask you to. MELANIE I don't mind, really. LYDIA Would you? I'd feel so much better. MELANIE I'll just clear up here, and then dress. She picks up the tray and starts for the door. LYDIA Melanie? At the door, Melanie turns. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA her face soft. LYDIA (gently) Thank you for the tea. DISSOLVE EXT. BODEGA BAY - DAY - LONG SHOT Melanie's car turns and goes up School Road. EXT. SCHOOL - DAY - MED. SHOT Closer shot of the car coming to a stop outside school. Inside the school, we HEAR the children SINGING. CHILDREN (O.S.) I married my wife in the month of June. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, mo, mo mo! MED. SHOT - MELANIE smiling as she gets out of the car and heads for the school. CHILDREN (O.S.) I carried her off in a silver spoon. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-retroquo- quality, willoby-wallaby, quo-mo, mo, mo! Uality, willoby-wallaby, quo-mo, mo, mo! The CAMERA FOLLOWS Melanie into the school and down the corridor. The children's VOICES are LOUDER now. CHILDREN (O.S.) She combed her hair but once a year. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo! With every rake, she shed a tear. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo! Melanie is at the door to Annie's room now. She opens the door and looks in. FULL SHOT - ANNIE - MELANIE'S P.O.V. leading the children in song. She catches sight of Melanie at the door. Melanie wiggles her fingers. Annie points to her wristwatch indicating that she'll be finished in a few minutes and motions for her to wait in the play-yard outside. Melanie turns and starts down the corridor again. EXT. SCHOOL - MED. PANNING SHOT Melanie emerges and strolls up street toward Annie's house. Inside the children are still singing. CHILDREN (O.S.) She swept the floor but once a year. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, mo, mo, mo! She swore her broom was much too dear. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro- quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, mo, mo, mo! CLOSE SHOT Melanie turns back and seats herself on seat in front of play yard. CHILDREN (O.S.) She churned the butter in Dad's old boot. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, mo, mo, mo! And for a dasher she used her foot. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, mo, mo, mo! CLOSE UP - MELANIE A side profile of Melanie as she sits. Size of shot has seat on bottom of screen. We are shooting three-quarter toward the school. CHILDREN (O.S.) The butter came out a grizzle-y- ygrey. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, grey. Mo, mo, mo! The cheese took legs and ran away! Ristle-tee, rostle- tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, mo, mo, mo! MED. SHOT - PLAY YARD Three-quarter angle on play yard behind Melanie. A CROW alights on the Jungle Jim. CHILDREN (O.S.) I brought my wife a horse one day. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, mo, mo, mo! She let the critter get away. Ristle- tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, mo, mo, mo! CLOSER SHOT - MELANIE a nearer cut of Melanie same angle as previous. Waist shot. MED. SHOT - PLAY YARD again four more crows arrive. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE Nearer shot of Melanie smoking. Same angle. Just above waist - bust shot. MED. SHOT - PLAY YARD Again five more crows arrive. CLOSE UP - MELANIE head and shoulders of Melanie as she sits smoking. There is no sound except for the faint voices of the children singing inside the schoolhouse. Melanie is puffing away at her cigarette and occasionally glances in the direction of the school. We hold on this shot of Melanie for a very long time so that we are able to express her ignorance of what is going on behind her with the crows. After a wait of about what seems to be a half a minute or more, Melanie's attention is drawn to something above her. MED. SHOT - SKY A crows is coming down. CLOSE UP - MELANIE as her eyes follow the flight of the crow. MED. SHOT - SKY Crow moving down and LEFT to RIGHT, the sky and Annie's roof in the background. CLOSE UP - MELANIE Her head has twisted around to follow the flight of the crow. She is almost looking into the play yard. MED. SHOT - PLAY YARD A crow slowly descends to the play yard and as the CAMERA FOLLOWS it down, we see for the first time that the number of crows has increased to an alarming number - almost 200 or even perhaps 250. This last crow settles down with the others. CHILDREN (O.S.) (throughout preceding) I asked my wife to wash the floor. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, mo, mo, mo! She gave me my hat and showed me the door! Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, Retro-quo-quality, (the song slows -- it is near the end) Willoby-wallaby, mmmmmmmo, mmmmmmmoo, Mo! CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE The CAMERA WHIPS UP as she leaps to her feet in alarm. Her body has turned, but we are now facing the opposite side of the school yard. CLOSER SHOT - PLAY YARD The play yard is full of crows. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE Big head of horrified Melanie. MED. SHOT - PLAY YARD A closer view of the menacing birds. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE Big profile of Melanie. She turns with back to CAMERA and goes toward school looking at crows as she goes away. The CAMERA FOLLOWS her for a few paces and then STOPS so that her image becomes smaller as she goes up steps into EXT. PLAY YARD - DOLLY SHOT A side view of the crows as seen by Melanie. FULL SHOT - THE INTERIOR CORRIDOR Melanie in headlong flight toward Annie's room. ANNIE (O.S.) All right, children. Now please put your books in your desks, and bring the songsheets to the front of the room. No one's going out to play until I have all the songsheets. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM Annie is lining the children up near the door leading to the play yard. ANNIE We're not going outside until we quiet down. Ralph? Did you hear me? The children mutter for a moment, and then are still. ANNIE All right now. She begins opening the play yard door. Suddenly, the door from the corridor bursts open, and Melanie rushes wildly INTO the room. She goes directly to Annie, shoves her out of the way, and SLAMS shut the play yard door. CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE ANNIE wh...? TWO SHOT - ANNIE AND MELANIE against a background of children's VOICES, as they react to this new excitement. MELANIE Outside. LONG SHOT - THE CROWS - THROUGH THE WINDOWS TWO SHOT - ANNIE AND MELANIE MELANIE We've got to get the children out of here. These big windows... there's no way to board them up. Annie gives a quick nod, understanding immediately. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM Through the windows, we can see the waiting crows. One moves restlessly into flight, then settles on the equipment again. ANNIE Quiet down, children! Quiet down! The children modulate into silence. ANNIE Miss Daniels wants to see how we conduct ourselves during a fire drill. I'd like you to... CHILDREN (grumbling in Unison) A fire drill? This is our play period, Miss Hayworth! Gee whiz! Etc. ANNIE I'd like you to show her how quiet and obedient you can be. The children again fall silent. ANNIE We're going to go out of the school now. Those of you who live nearby can go directly home. I want the rest of you to go down the hill, all the way to the hotel. Do you understand? CHILDREN All the way down the hill? Gee, Miss Hayworth, we never... Home? Why do we...? ANNIE (shushing them) I want you to go as quietly as you can, not a sound, until I tell you to run. And then I want you to run as fast as you can. Does everyone understand? (pause - silence) All right. John, would you lead the class, please? The children walk two-by-two to the corridor door. John opens it, and they begin filing out. Melanie turns to look at the play yard. CLOSE SHOT - A SINGLE CROW fluttering at the window, almost in exploration. He hangs there for a moment, then wings back to the playground equipment. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE MELANIE (whispering) Hurry! EXT. PLAY YARD - FULL SHOT (6) straight on of all the crows. NEARER SHOT - PLAY YARD (8) but a different angle. CLOSER SHOT - PLAY YARD (10) but a different angle from the others CLOSE SHOT - (12) A low angle of five or six crows filling the screen. EXT. PLAY YARD The screen is filled with crows. About fifty or more. All of a sudden we HEAR the distant PATTERING of children's feet as they start running. Immediately the crows rise and the CAMERA PANS UP with them into the sky. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - LONG SHOT - (PLATE) (15) The FULL SHOT showing the children running toward the CAMERA - Annie herding them at the rear. The crows - about two hundred - rising over the schoolhouse roof and descending toward and reaching the running children. Shot as a moving background with six or seven children in front on a treadmill with the mechanical birds coming into top of screen as though continuing on from the plate. The birds swing around and among the foreground children. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (4) (S) A side view of running children with Melanie in front urging them forward. Birds fly between them, two or three others wheel around, one live one sweeps by in foreground. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (3) (P) Three or four children running. Birds overhead - one or two children spread out as others come in from sides and take their places. Birds swerve in and out. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (2) (S) Profile of running child. Bird catches up and bites. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (3) (S) A nearer side on view without Melanie. Birds wheeling in and out - others overhead. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (P) Bird on top of girl's head (showing feet and wings). EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (2) (S) A three-quarter back of two children running - lots of birds overhead and others wheeling. Screen almost full of birds. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (P) One-half child's face - a bird's head and beak on left, dashing round to the child. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - CLOSE UP (L) of feet running. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - HIGH MOVING SHOT (6) (L) showing the crows among the running children. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (P) Big head of girl - bird lands on her right shoulder - wing over her face. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (P) One SCREAMING child as bird swoops from top left down to lower right. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (2) (S) Head and shoulders of boy who ducks behind pole -- bird goes by as another attacks him from right-hand side. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (FP) Back view of boy's head running. He looks back. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (½) (P) Big head of bird coming at CAMERA. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (FP) Back view of little girl running. She looks over her shoulder. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (½) (P) Big head of bird coming into CAMERA. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (3) (L) Straight back CLOSE SHOT of Annie dragging slow children. No birds in back, but several wheeling around them. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - HIGH MOVING SHOT (6) (L) showing the crows chasing the children down the street - with the Bay in the distance. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (3) (S) A bird dives to head of Michele and she falls OUT of picture. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - CLOSE UP (1) (L) of Michele as she hits ground. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - CLOSE UP (½) (L) Her glasses smash. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (2) (S) Flash Cathy - she sees and runs back. Birds swirling around. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (1) (S) Six birds descend on fallen Michele - legs running by. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (3) (S) Cathy RUSHES IN. She disperses birds and bends to pick up Michele. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (2) (S) Melanie stops, looks back and sees Cathy and Michele, heads of other children rushing by in foreground. Birds swirling. Melanie dashes out left. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (3) (S) Melanie reaches Cathy and Michele -- Michele is now on her feet. Birds swirling -- Melanie looks about -- sees. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (2) (L) Station wagon across the street. Birds swirling about and children running by. EXT. SCHOOL ROAD (5) (L) Melanie drags Cathy and Michele to the station wagon. We see the Bay in the distance and children running on the bottom of the street. INT. STATION WAGON - CLOSE SHOT (8) (S) Shooting inside the wagon across the front seat. The three scramble in, Cathy first, then Michele and Melanie last -- the door SLAMS on crows swooping around. Cathy and Michele are SCREAMING with fright. INT. STATION WAGON - P.O.V. (3) (FP) Through the windshield we see crows attacking. Bay and running children in distance. INT. STATION WAGON (3) (P) The faces of the three - Birds are fluttering on the rear window. INT. STATION WAGON - MELANIE (3) (P) wheel in foreground. She starts to slam hand on horn ring. INT. STATION WAGON (2) (S) Crows attacking side window. INT. STATION WAGON (2) (S) Hand on horn ring. INT. STATION WAGON (2) (P) Cathy and Michele's faces huddled together. INT. STATION WAGON (2) (P) Melanie's big head - she looks down. INT. STATION WAGON - CLOSE UP (1) (P) Knob of wiper -- her hand comes in and pulls it out. INT. STATION WAGON (3) (FP) Wipers starting. Crows retreat. INT. STATION WAGON (2) (P) The three faces staring out. INT. STATION WAGON - P.O.V. (3) (P) through windshield. The crows are starting to go away. INT. STATION WAGON (2) (P) Melanie looks out and sees: EXT. SCHOOL ROAD - P.O.V. (6) (FP) through windshield. Annie running back with stick. She beats the last of the crows away. INT. STATION WAGON (6) (S) Melanie flops in exhaustion over the wheel as Annie comes round to the side window and starts to open the door. DISSOLVE INT. THE TIDES - FULL SHOT It is lunchtime and there is a busy bustle to the place as DEKE CARTER officiates behind the bar and HELEN CARTER, his wife, rushes back and forth between diners at the tables. A DRUNK sits at the bar, old, grizzled, the weary wisdom of booze in him. In one of the booths sits SEBASTIAN SHOLES in his shirt sleeves, eating a hurried lunch quickly and efficiently. A WOMAN and TWO CHILDREN are seated at another table, about to order. A party of noisy SALESMAN is laughing and clowning around throughout following at a table in the rear. The phone from behind the bar has been placed on the counter, and Melanie is speaking into it while Deke listens. Over her head, the television set is blasting with its perennial Western, the gun shots punctuating her conversation. MELANIE Daddy, there were hundreds of them. No, I'm not hysterical, I'm trying to tell you this as calmly as I know how. All right, Daddy. Yes Daddy. (she takes a deep breath) Just now. Not... fifteen minutes ago. The door to the Tides opens and MRS. BUNDY, sixtyish, wearing walking shoes and a tweed suit, a very masculine-looking woman with short clipped white hair, comes in, passes through foreground, goes to bar, her attention slowly caught by what Melanie is saying. MELANIE At the school. No, I don't. Just a minute. (to Deke) What's the name of the school? DEKE Just the Bodega Bay School. (to Mrs. Bundy) Help you, Mrs. Bundy? MRS. BUNDY I need some change, Mr. Carter. As Deke opens cash register... MELANIE The Bodega Bay School. (to Deke) Could you turn that down, please? Deke gives Mrs. Bundy her change, turns off television. MELANIE I don't know how many children. Thirty or forty. Yes. Mrs. Bundy goes to cigarette machine, pauses to listen to Melanie. MELANIE No, the birds didn't attack until the children were outside the school. Crows, I think. I don't know, Daddy. Is there a difference between crows and blackbirds? MRS. BUNDY (turning from machine) There is very definitely a difference, Miss. MELANIE They're different, Daddy. (to Mrs. Bundy) Thank you. (into phone) I think these were crows. Yes, hundreds of them. Yes, they attacked the children, attacked them. (exasperated) Daddy, a little girl was sent to the hospital in Santa Rosa. Well, all right, but you act as if I'm... all right, all right. (pause) No, I can't come home now. I just can't, Daddy. How is it there? I mean... are there birds? In the sky? But no trouble. Well, I hope... (pause) I don't know when. I simply can't leave now. Tell Mother not to worry. All right, Daddy, good-by. She hangs up. Mrs. Bundy is at her elbow. MRS. BUNDY They're both perching birds, of course, but of quite different species. The crow is brachyrhynchos. The blackbird is cyanocephalus. MELANIE Thank you. (to Deke) Do you know Dan Fawcett's number? DEKE In the book right here, Miss. As Melanie looks it up... DEKE (to Mrs. Bundy) I don't see what difference it makes, Mrs. Bundy, crows or blackbirds. If they attacked the school, that's pretty serious. MRS. BUNDY (with a superior smile) I hardly think either species would have the intelligence to launch a massed attack. Their brain pans aren't large enough for such... MELANIE (dialing) I just came from the school, madam. I don't know about their brain pans but... MRS. BUNDY Birds are not aggressive creatures, Miss. They bring beauty to the world. It is mankind, rather, who... HELEN (going to door leading to kitchen) Three Southern fried chicken, Sam. Baked potato on all of them. LAUGHTER from salesman at table. MELANIE (into phone) Hello, may I speak to Mitch Brenner, please? (pause) Yes, I'll wait. MRS. BUNDY (continuing to Deke) ...insist on making it difficult for life to survive on this planet. If it weren't for birds... DEKE Mrs. Bundy, you don't seem to understand. This young lady says there was an attack on the school. MRS. BUNDY Impossible. MELANIE (in background) Mitch? I'm glad I caught you. Something terrible has happened. Her background conversation continues through following: DRUNK (suddenly) It's the end of the world! HELEN What's this about the school? DEKE Bunch of crows attacked the school, Helen. DRUNK It's the end of the world. (suddenly quoting) "Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. HELEN The Lord's not destroying anything, Jason. DRUNK "In all your dwelling places, the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be laid waste!" (he nods) Ezekiel, Chapter six. HELEN (quoting) "Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink." DRUNK (nodding) Isaiah, Chapter 5. It's the end of the world. MELANIE Yes, all right, I'll wait for you. Good-by. (she hangs up) MRS. BUNDY (laughing) I hardly think a few birds are going to bring about the end of the world. MELANIE (turning to her) These weren't a few birds. CLOSE SHOT - THE WOMAN AND THE CHILDREN waiting for their lunch, listening to the conversation; becoming very nervous. BACK TO SCENE DEKE I didn't even know there were many crows in Bodega Bay this time of year. MRS. BUNDY The crow is a permanent resident throughout its range. In fact, during our Christmas Count, we recorded... CLOSE SHOT - SHOLES eating. SHOLES (suddenly, from his table) How many gulls did you count, Mrs. Bundy? BACK TO SCENE MRS. BUNDY Which gulls, Mr. Sholes? There are several varieties. SHOLES The ones that've been raising the devil with my fishing boats. MRS. BUNDY Probably herring gulls. They arrive in November, you know, and don't migrate North again until March or... MELANIE (leaping upon this) Have you had trouble with gulls? SHOLES One of my boats did last week. DEKE (making a connection) This young lady got hit by a gull only Saturday. SAM'S VOICE (from kitchen) Pick up the chicken. HELEN Now it's gulls. A minute ago, it was crows. (she picks up tray, shrugs, goes to table) Deke, I'm still waiting for those Bloody Marys! DEKE Coming right up! CLOSE SHOT - WOMAN as Helen brings food. She is beginning to get really frightened. WOMAN Could you ask them to lower their voices, please? They're frightening the children. LITTLE GIRL Timmy has a canary. HELEN That's nice. Are you Timmy? LITTLE BOY My cousin is Timmy. BACK TO SCENE SAM'S VOICE (leaving table, coming to bar) A whole flock of gulls nearby capsized one of my boats. Practically tore of the skipper's arm. HELEN (coming back) You're scaring the kids. Keep it low. DEKE You're scaring me, too. Are you trying to say all these... (he shakes his head) That sounds impossible, Sebastian. SHOLES I'm only telling you what happened to my boat. MRS. BUNDY The gulls were after your fish, Mr. Sholes. Really, let's be logical about this. MELANIE What were the crows after at the school? MRS. BUNDY What do you think they were after, Miss...? MELANIE Daniels. I think they were after the children. MRS. BUNDY For what purpose? MELANIE To... (she hesitates) To kill them. There is a long silence. MRS. BUNDY Why? Another silence. MELANIE I don't know why. MRS. BUNDY I thought not. Birds have been on this planet since archaeopteryx, Miss Daniels; a hundred and twenty million years ago! A TRAVELING SALESMAN ENTERS, goes to bar, listens. MRS. BUNDY Doesn't it seem odd that they'd wait all that time to start a... a war against humanity? MELANIE No one called it a war! SALESMAN Scotch, light on the water. MRS. BUNDY You and Mr. Sholes seem to be implying as much. HELEN Are you finished here, Sebastian? SHOLES Let me have some apple pie, Helen. (to Mrs. Bundy) Who said anything about war? All I said was that some gulls... HELEN (yelling to kitchen) One apple pie! You want more coffee? SHOLES No. ...came down on one of my boats. They could have been after the fish, just as you said. SALESMAN Your captain should have shot at them. SHOLES What? SALESMAN Gulls are scavengers, anyway. Most birds are. If you ask me, we should wipe them all out. World would be better off without them. MRS. BUNDY (outraged) Birds? SALESMAN Yeah, birds. All they do is make a mess of everything. Who needs them? MRS. BUNDY We need them. SALESMAN Not if they're starting a war. MRS. BUNDY They are incapable of organized warfare! MELANIE Have you ever seen a jay protecting a nest? MRS. BUNDY I have seen jays doing everything it is conceivable for jays to do. Ornithology happens to be my avocation, Miss Daniels. You're talking about preservation of the species, a hen protecting her young. There's a vast difference between... MELANIE Maybe they're all protecting the species. Maybe they're tired of being shot at and roasted in ovens and... MRS. BUNDY Are you discussing gamebirds now? All birds are not gamebirds, you know. MELANIE I don't know anything about birds except that they're attacking this town. SALESMAN Then fight back. Get yourselves guns and wipe them off the face of the earth. MRS. BUNDY That would hardly be possible. DEKE Why not, Mrs. Bundy? MRS. BUNDY Because there are 8,650 species of birds in the world today, Mr. Carter. It's estimated that five billion, seven hundred and fifty million birds live in the United States alone. The five continents of the world... SALESMAN (muttering) Kill them all. Get rid of them. Messy animals. MRS. BUNDY ...probably contain more than a hundred billion birds! DRUNK It's the end of the world! DEKE Well, we seem to have more than our share of them right now, Mrs. Bundy. Maybe this young lady's right. Maybe they've all gone crazy. HELEN Here's your pie, Sebastian. You want it at the table? SHOLES No. Here's fine. (he begins eating) HELEN Where are the Bloody Marys, Deke? DEKE Coming. HELEN (angrily) Are we running a business here -- or a bird sanctuary? SHOLES (beginning to change his mind) Actually, those gulls must have been after the fish. MRS. BUNDY Of course. SHOLES Makes a lot more sense than... well, an attack. MRS. BUNDY Of course it does. If we believe that birds are attacking, why... why next we'll believe that grasshoppers and cockroaches are capable of... DRUNK Cockroaches! Urghh! CLOSE SHOT - WOMAN getting more and more anxious. WOMAN Hurry, children. Finish your lunch. BOY Are the birds gonna eat us, Mommy? SHOLES Maybe we're all getting a little carried away by this. Admittedly, a few birds acted strangely. That's no reason to believe... MELANIE This isn't a few birds! I keep telling you that! These are gulls and swifts and crows and... MRS. BUNDY And what? Vultures? Hawks? Eagles? MELANIE Maybe! Is it impossible? MRS. BUNDY Yes. I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. (laughing) Why if that happened, we wouldn't have a chance. How could we possible hope to fight them? SHOLES We couldn't. You're right, Mrs. Bundy. WOMAN (calling from table) Excuse me, may I have a check, please? HELEN (concerned) Is everything all right, ma'am? WOMAN Yes, I... I'm anxious to get on the road. SAM (coming from kitchen) What's the matter? Something wrong out here? DEKE Nothing's wrong. SAM All this shouting. MRS. BUNDY We're fighting a war, Sam. SAM A war? Against who? Did the Russians...? SHOLES Against birds. WOMAN (suddenly) I'm glad you all think this is so amusing. You've frightened my children half out of their wits. BOY I'm not scared, Mommy. WOMAN Keep quiet. If that young lady saw an attack on the school, why won't you believe her? SAM What attack? Who attacked the school? WOMAN Birds did. Crows! And you're all sitting around here debating! What do you want them to do next? Crash through that window? LITTLE GIRL (frightened by her mother) Mommy! WOMAN Quiet! Why don't you all get home? Lock your doors and windows! (her hysteria rising) Put on your coats, children! (to Deke) What's the fastest road to San Francisco? DEKE The freeway, ma'am. WOMAN Where do I get it? SALESMAN I'm going out that way, lady. You can follow me. WOMAN Then let's go. Now! SALESMAN I haven't finished my drink. WOMAN (on edge of panic, shouting at her children) Put on your coats! Do you want to get trapped here? BOY I can't find my scarf. WOMAN Look in your sleeve! The door opens. Mitch and Al Malone come in. MITCH Melanie? At the far table, the salesman begin singing, rowdily. MITCH (going to her) I got here as fast as I could. Where's Cathy? MELANIE At Annie's house. She's all right. SAM Al, why aren't you over there where the attack was? MALONE Because I just got back from Dan Fawcett's place, that's why. MITCH He was killed last night. By birds. MALONE Now hold it, Mitch. You don't know that for a fact. MRS. BUNDY What are the facts, Mr. Malone? MALONE Santa Rosa police think it was a felony murder. They think a burglar broke in and killed him. WOMAN Were the Santa Rosa police at your school today? (impatiently, to salesman) Are you coming? SALESMAN Take it easy, lady. (through window) There isn't a bird anywhere in sight. DRUNK (quoting) "Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow or read, yet your heavenly father feeds them." WOMAN I'll never feed another bird as long as I live! SALESMAN Something like this happened in Santa Cruz last year. The town was covered with seagulls. WOMAN Can't you please finish your drink? MRS. BUNDY That's right, sir, I recall it. A large flock of seagulls got lost in a fog and headed in for the town, where all the lights were. SALESMAN They made some mess, too, smashing into houses and everything. (shaking his head) They always make a mess. We're better off without them. MRS. BUNDY The point is that no one seemed to get upset about it. They were gone the next morning, just as if nothing at all had happened. Poor things. WOMAN I'm leaving! Are you coming? SALESMAN All right, all right! (he downs his drink) Hope you figure this out, folks. DRUNK It's the end of the world. The Tides is silent for a moment. SHOLES Well, I'd better get back to the cannery. What do I owe you, Deke? DEKE Let's see. Scallops and coffee... MITCH Hold it just a minute, Sebastian. Sholes turns to him. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH his face very serious. MITCH Sebastian, I'm not an alarmist. SHOLES No one ever said you were, Mitch. MITCH (flatly) I think we're in trouble. I don't know how or why this started, but I know it's here and I know we'd be crazy to ignore it. MRS. BUNDY (sarcastically) Ignore what? The bird war? MITCH (exploding) Yes, the bird war, the bird attack, the bird plague, you can call it what you want to, they're out there massing someplace and they'll be back, you can count on that! MRS. BUNDY Ridiculous! MITCH Mrs. Bundy, why don't you go home and polish your binoculars? SAM Go on, Mitch. MITCH If we don't do something now, if we don't get Bodega Bay on the move... SHOLES Look, Mitch, even if this is true, even if all the birds... MITCH Do you believe it's true, Sebastian? SHOLES (after a long pause) No. I don't, Mitch. Because I can't see any reason for it. MITCH It's happening. Isn't that a good enough reason? SHOLES (thoughtfully) I like Bodega Bay as well as any man. If I thought... (he shakes his head) MITCH Then help me, Sebastian. You're an important man in this town. If you'll help, the rest will. SHOLES Help how? What do you want to do? MITCH I'm not sure, but... SHOLES If you don't even know what you want to do... MELANIE Listen to him, please. SAM (taking position beside Melanie) You listen to him, Sebastian! MITCH I only know we've got to drive them away from town -- before they drive us away. SHOLES How? MITCH Mrs. Bundy, you said something about Santa Cruz. About seagulls getting lost in the fog, and heading in for the lights. DEKE We don't have any fog this time of year, Mitch. MITCH We'll make our own fog. SHOLES How do you plan to do that? MITCH With smoke. MALONE There's an ordinance against burning anything in this town, unless it's... MITCH We'll use smoke pots. Like the Army uses. DEKE What good'll that do? Smoke's as bad as birds. MRS. BUNDY Birds are not bad! SHOLES How can we go on living here if we blanket the town with smoke? MITCH Can we go on living here otherwise? Pause. They are silent. SAM (slowly) It's worth a try, Sebastian. There is more silence as they all consider. And then suddenly: MELANIE Look! They turn toward the window. TIDES CAR PARK - FULL SHOT Viewed from the side window inside the Tides we see three or four gulls diving down toward the highway over the roof of the Tides Office. Two more swoop into the foreground of the window and out to the left. DEKE (alarmed) Gulls! MITCH They're back! SHOLES They're only the usual... What are you... TIDES TOWN - LONG SHOT The first gull reaches the gas station but misses the attendant who is in the act of filling the car. The owner is seen disappearing into the men's room. INT. TIDES A quick flash of the group of faces at the window of the Tides Restaurant. TIDES TOWN - MED. SHOT A nearer view of the gas station. A second gull hits the man on the back -- he falls -- hits his head on the pump and then collapses over the gasoline hose pipe, pulling it out and causing it to spill. The third and fourth gulls sweep by. The gas begins to flow away. MED. SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH inside the Tides. Mitch dashes toward the door -- Melanie after him. Through the glass windows into the street we see people dashing off to the right, in the direction of the gas station. At the door, Mitch turns. MITCH (to Melanie) Stay back in here. Deke Carter comes running from behind the bar to join Mitch. They both EXIT. Melanie dashes back to her original place at the window. The CAMERA RETREATING with her, we come to the window and over Melanie's shoulder we see the men arrive to rescue the attacked gas station attendant. Three or four gulls are still attacking and they flutter away as the men appear to beat them off. Suddenly Melanie in the foreground turns in full profile to her right and looks down. TIDES CAR PARK - MED. SHOT on the sloping pavement before her a stream of gasoline is flowing to the right into the car park. CLOSE SHOT - GASOLINE flowing down to the car park. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE through the window. She suddenly looks toward the gas station. MED. SHOT - THE CAMERA PANS along the flowing gas back to the station. CLOSEUP - MELANIE She turns back to the car park. FROM MELANIE'S VIEWPOINT We see the flow of gasoline trickling toward the car parked below her. At this particular moment, a car has pulled up, has come to a stop and a man emerges. He is in the act of lighting his dead cigar, but his attention is drawn to the happenings around the gas station. With this half-drawn attention, he strikes the match and holds it to the cigar. CLOSEUP - MELANIE She quickly slides the window open and yells down to the man. FROM MELANIE'S VIEWPOINT The man looks about him, holding the match I his fingers. As he catches sight of Melanie, the match burns his finger and he drops it. CLOSEUP - MELANIE Her horror-stricken face. FULL SHOT - THE PARKING AREA Three fast explosions in a row as the man's car, Mitch's car, and the one next to it go up in flames. CLOSE SHOT - THE HORRIFIED FACE OF MELANIE TURNING TO SEE FULL SHOT - THE GAS STATION The line of flame running swiftly from the burning cars, following the gasoline on the ground, directly to the pump, which blows up as the men are jumping away with the injured attendant. EXT. TIDES TOWN AND CAR PARK - MATTE SHOT A very high shot shows the beginning of the people of the town rushing around the car park and the streets across the highway, endeavoring to put out the two fires. We see automobiles coming to a stop on Highway One, and the oil smoke beginning to rise from the burning gas station and the parked cars. Some men have managed to start a fire hose and have trained it on the burning cars. Suddenly but slowly the foreground in the sky just below the CAMERA begins to fill with wheeling gulls. The whole picture below becomes obliterated by the foreground birds who now begin to swoop down on the town. EXT. TIDES TOWN A raking shot outside the Tides Restaurant showing the phone booth and motel off in the background. People are rushing out from the restaurant and look up in the sky. Gulls begin to descend into the scene, driving the people back into the restaurant. Melanie is seen in the distance calling for Mitch: MELANIE Mitch...! Mitch! We see her look up to the sky. LONG SHOT - THE SKY The sky is full of seagulls. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE Looking about her frantically. She turns her face up again to see the descending gulls. She is driven to take refuge in the phone booth. CLOSEUP - INSIDE THE PHONE BOOTH - MELANIE slams the door shut. Gulls are now beating at the glass all around her. EXT. TIDES TOWN From Melanie's viewpoint inside the booth we see the people who have been rushing to put out the fire now faced with clouds of birds coming on them. CLOSEUP - MELANIE looking out in terrified alarm but still searching with her eyes for Mitch. MED. SHOT - PEOPLE RUSHING FROM THE TIDES CLOSEUP - MELANIE in the phone booth. She turns and looks swiftly in the direction of the car park. EXT. TIDES CAR PARK Some men have secured a hose and are obviously getting water from the bay. They are turning the stream onto the burning cars. At this time, the birds are filling the area around them. They suddenly turn the hose up into the birds. CLOSEUP - MELANIE Her eyes turn up quickly. LONG SHOT - FROM HER VIEWPOINT We see the stream of water swing to and from among the birds. Melanie turns back from this at the sound of a roaring car. EXT. TIDES TOWN - FROM HER VIEWPOINT We see a car zig zag down from the town in a drunken manner coming toward her in the phone booth. We can see birds flying in and out of the windows of the car. We can see the arm and hand of the driver trying to beat them away. In the background of this scene we see the fire truck arrive. CLOSEUP - THE HORRIFIED FACE OF MELANIE as the car comes toward her in the booth. EXT. TIDES TOWN At the last minute, the car swerves away from the booth. CLOSER SHOT A side view of the car after practically scraping the side of the booth. We see that it's full of birds attacking the driver. As it goes by, it near tilts over to inadvertently give us a view of its interior. FLASH CLOSEUP - MELANIE watching the car. EXT. TIDES CAR PARK The car goes on and smashes into the other burning cars. It explodes. CLOSEUP - MELANIE Suddenly she hears the firing of a gun. She turns. TIDES TOWN - LONG SHOT She sees a man with a gun shooting up at birds but to no avail. One or two descend upon him. He throws the gun down and rushes back into the Tides Office. Melanie, with a slight turn, now sees: THE TIDES TOWN The fire volunteers with birds descending around them drop their hose. CLOSER SHOT shows the hose snaking wildly and jumping. At one moment the water turns and comes in a powerful stream hitting the windows of the phone booth. CLOSEUP - MELANIE recoils from this water attack. Through the streaming window she sees the fire volunteers rushing away for cover. To the left we see a horse with its head covered with gulls; its palomino-colored body covered with crows. It is bucking and leaping and kicking its van to pieces. At this moment the scene is obliterated by the appearance of a man groping his way closely past the phone booth windows. His face is poring with blood: his head and shoulders are covered with attacking birds. He disappears from sight. Melanie, now almost in a faint, opens her eyes to see Tides Town. Through the booth window she sees Mitch and Deke Carter, the owner of the Tides, coming down toward the CAMERA and waving the birds away from them with flailing arms. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE opens the booth doors and starts out with a cry of recognition, but she has barely stepped out when more gulls crash around the booth causing her to go back. CLOSEUP - MELANIE IN PROFILE looking out again toward Mitch. EXT. TIDES TOWN Through window she sees Deke Carter run off in one direction while Mitch suddenly sees a child at the window of the burning building adjacent to the flaming and smoking gas station. Mitch dashes across and goes up the short staircase into the smoking building. CLOSEUP - MELANIE looking across in horror. LONG SHOT - THE BURNING BUILDING For a moment there is no sign of anyone about, then suddenly Mitch appears with the small child at the window. He calls down. One man dashes from the direction of the Tides Office, another from the Tides Restaurant. They both wait below the window as Mitch drops the child. FLASH - MELANIE watching this breathlessly. CLOSER SHOT The moment the child has dropped, Mitch suddenly looks up. He slams the window as two or three birds crash into the windows. They disappear into the building. CLOSEUP - MELANIE holding her breath. LONG SHOT - THE BURNING BUILDING No sign of Mitch. CLOSEUP - MELANIE getting more desperate. CLOSEUP - BUILDING No sign of Mitch. Suddenly a chair flies through the window and Mitch climbs OUT and drops to the ground. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE opening the door of the booth, yells out to him. LONG SHOT - MITCH sees her and starts running toward the booth. HIGH SHOT - MITCH beating his way through the birds. He reaches the booth. LOW SHOT close to the Tides Restaurant entrance. We see Mitch drag Melanie from the phone booth and run with her toward the CAMERA through the birds into the restaurant. INT. THE TIDES There must be at least twenty people all looking toward the windows. It is as though they are hiding from a storm. The CAMERA is high enough to see Melanie and Mitch COME IN, very hurriedly close the door. We see the gulls wheeling outside. There is a kind of stunned silence among the people. We can hear the sound of the screaming gulls outside. Suddenly a woman's voice SCREAMS out: WOMAN Why are they doing it?! Why are they doing it...?! Some of the heads of the group turn. CLOSE SHOT It is the woman who had the two children screaming at Mrs. Bundy who is seated in a booth table staring numb and helpless. Mrs. Bundy turns and looks at her and mutters some words. MRS. BUNDY ([Mrs. Bundy offers a weak explanation of why the birds could have gone berserk like this. This information should be obtained from Dr. Stager.]) CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH looking across at this slight scene. They turn back and over their shoulders the gulls seem to be in much less quantity. MITCH (looking up) I think they're going. Melanie follows his look. At this moment there is a loud CRASH OF GLASS. They turn their heads suddenly. MED. SHOT - FROM MITCH'S AND MELANIE'S VIEWPOINT And past the heads of the other people who have also turned, we see one of the back windows of the Tides Restaurant has gone and gulls are coming in. Two or three of the men who are on the edge of the crowd turn and go back toward the window, beating them out. They succeed in doing this. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH They turn from the gulls in the restaurant to look to the street. MITCH I think it's safe to get out now. MELANIE Don't let's take any chances. MITCH We've got to get Cathy. They open the door and make their way out into the street, running and looking about them desperately. EXT. BODIGA STREET There are one or two gulls flying around. Others are perched on roofs as we see Mitch and Melanie dashing along the sidewalk. EXT. BODIGA STREET There are still one or two gulls or crows in evidence as they move along past the last street and come into the more countrified part of the town. LONG SHOT - THE SCHOOL YARD We see them turn and dash up the road toward the school which we see in the distance. There are some birds perched on the school roof. SIDE-ON DOLLY SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH going up the school road. He stops for a moment and looks up, Melanie following his look. SKY SHOT - FULL of wheeling gulls. SIDE-ON CLOSE SHOT - THE TWO They move on and go past Melanie's waiting car outside the school. Suddenly Melanie brings him to a halt. LONG SHOT - ANNIE'S HOUSE - FROM THEIR VIEWPOINT There are a few blackbirds on it. MELANIE'S VOICE Look... the crows again. CLOSE SHOT - THE TWO Mitch starts off. Melanie restrains him. MELANIE Careful, Mitch. The crows may be back in the play yard. CLOSE SHOT - THE TWO They advance cautiously. When they are level with the play yard, we see what they see. MED. SHOT THE CAMERA DOLLIES along the play yard. It is again full of crows. CLOSE SHOT They walk stealthily past. CLOSE SHOT CAMERA PANNING ALONG the waiting crows. CLOSE SHOT Shooting over the shoulders of Melanie and Mitch, they approach Annie's house. Melanie glances apprehensively over her shoulder toward the crows. EXT. ANNIE'S HOUSE Melanie and Mitch arrive. They come to a sudden stop. LONG SHOT - ANNIE'S HOUSE A woman is crumpled lifelessly on the front steps before the door. MED. SHOT - MITCH He reaches the body. He rolls it over. QUICK CLOSE SHOT - ANNIE dead. QUICK CLOSE SHOT - MITCH The shock registering on his face. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE realizing that Annie is dead, and wondering for a moment what Mitch's reaction will be. MED. SHOT - MITCH - MELANIE'S P.O.V. He kneels silently by the body. Gently, he touches Annie's face, and then gently and illogically takes off his jacket and covers her, as if he is tucking a blanket around her to keep her warm. He turns away then. MED. SHOT - THE WINDOW with its ROOM TO LET sign. Cathy is standing near the sign, with her eyes peering at something outside. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH turning to follow Cathy's gaze. CLOSE SHOT - MIXED BIRDS Malevolent, sitting on the fence, the killers. FULL SHOT - THE ROAD As in fury, Mitch picks up stones and begins hurling them at the birds. Melanie dashes forward. MELANIE (as the birds flutter into the air) Mitch! Don't! She runs to him, grabs his arm, struggles with him as he maniacally continues hurling stones at the birds, who are now hovering flight. MELANIE Please! Get Cathy! Let's get out of here! Her words reach him. Breathing heavily, he goes INTO the house and COMES OUT carrying Cathy, who is dazed and in a state of shock. The CAMERA PANS him over to Melanie who holds Cathy to her. CLOSER THREE SHOT as Melanie looks anxiously toward the house. MELANIE Mitch, you can't leave her out there. He GOES OUT OF PICTURE. Melanie watches him. Over her shoulder is the white face of Cathy. We HEAR a DRAGGING SOUND and then a door is CLOSED. MED. SHOT - MELANIE'S P.O.V. We see Mitch EMERGING from the house. The body is no longer in the pathway. He comes toward the CAMERA. MED. SHOT He joins Melanie and Cathy. The CAMERA MOVES AHEAD of the three of them as they silently make their way past the crows once more, Melanie holding Cathy close to her. They look out cautiously to the right. MED. SHOT CAMERA DOLLYING PAST the crows again. BACK TO THE DOLLY SHOT OF THE THREE They move forward stealthily, CAMERA AHEAD of them. MED. SHOT Another DOLLY SHOT past the crows. CLOSE SHOT - THE THREE The CAMERA is now behind them. They move away from us and go toward the waiting car. MED. SHOT They arrive at the car. MELANIE You drive, Mitch. She goes round the far side and gets into the car. Mitch slips in behind the driver's seat. The car turns into the CAMERA and goes down the school road. FULL SHOT - THE CAR - INTERIOR Mitch, Cathy and Melanie facing the CAMERA, tensely. Melanie looks over her shoulder. MELANIE (holding her breath) I don't think they're coming. Cathy does not turn: she is staring ahead of her, her eyes wide, her lip trembling. They drive in silence, and then suddenly, Cathy begins speaking, almost as if to herself, as the CAMERA COMES IN TIGHT on her face in shock. CATHY On our way back from taking Michele home... we... we heard the explosion and went outside to... see what... what it was. (pause) All at once the... the birds were everywhere. All at once. She... she pushed me inside and... they covered her. (pause) Annie. (pause) She pushed me inside. TWO SHOT - CATHY AND MELANIE as she takes the child in her arms to comfort her. DISSOLVE CLOSE SHOT - A LONE GULL flying low over the water, the CAMERA TRACKING it. The bay is silent. The gull spreads its wings to brake, and then sits on the water. The CAMERA continues low over the water, going through thousands of gulls sitting there patiently, as if it is threading itself through a crowd, not a sound, over the gulls, and then lifting to show the Brenner house in the distance. FULL SHOT - THE BRENNER HOUSE Behind the panes of glass, we can see the boards Mitch nailed across the windows. He is on the roof now, testing the two attic dormer windows. He turns to look out over the bay. LONG SHOT - THE BAY covered with sitting gulls. In the distance, the town is still smoldering. But the sky is clear of birds. MED. SHOT - MITCH picking up his hammer, sliding over the shingles to where the ladder leans against the side of the house. FULL SHOT - THE HOUSE as Mitch comes down the ladder and Melanie turns the corner, carrying a load of driftwood and old lumber. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as she drops the wood outside the door and he joins her. She is looking out over the bay when he comes to her. This is not the Melanie we saw at the beginning of the picture. Her hair is disarrayed, and her face and clothing are streaked with soot. But beyond a surface physical appearance, there is a weary wisdom in her eyes, and a strength to her as she stands looking toward the distant smoldering town. MELANIE The town looks clear. MITCH The bay doesn't. MELANIE How long have they been gathering there? MITCH The past fifteen minutes. (pause) It seems to be a pattern, doesn't it? They strike and disappear, and then they start massing again. Melanie nods. They are both silent, watching the bay. MELANIE I keep thinking of Annie. (she squeezes her eyes shut) MITCH (after a long pause) It... it doesn't look very different, does it? A little smoke over the town, but otherwise... MELANIE (looking) Even the birds sitting out there. It does look very much the same, Mitch. This could be last week. MITCH It may not be last week again for a long long time. They are both silent. MELANIE Look. They're still coming. Mitch nods. Silence. MITCH Do you want to try your father again? (Melanie shakes her head. Puzzled, Mitch looks at her) MELANIE I tried a little while ago. The phone's dead. MITCH Have we still got power? MELANIE Yes. (leaning against him) I'm tired, Mitch. I'm so very very tired. LYDIA (O.S.) Mitch! I'm getting something on the radio! INT. THE LIVING ROOM - FULL SHOT Lydia is hovering near the radio. Cathy is sitting on a footstool. The windows are boarded, and the lights in the room are on. A tremendous amount of static is coming from the radio as Mitch and Melanie join them LYDIA I can't get any of the local stations. I think this is San Francisco. ANNOUNCER ...would include formulation of a central financing committee to handle credit and to allocate responsibility for the various facets of the project. A vote on the motion is expected early tomorrow morning. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH listening. ANNOUNCER Continuing with the local news, police are still investigating the series of valuable jade burglaries in the Chinatown area. The round-up of known criminals has not as yet produced a suspect, but Commissioner Nelson said today he was certain the burglaries were quote linked and the work of the team of professionals unquote. (pause) In Bodega Bay early this morning, a large flock of crows attacked a group of children who were leaving the school during a fire drill. One little girl was seriously injured and taken to the hospital in Santa Rosa, but the majority of children reached safety in the town. (pause) On the national scene today, the opening of the new session of Congress was marked by a State of the Union address that... MITCH Is that all? ANNOUNCER (O.S.) ...drew a standing ovation for the President. The Chief Executive, in discussing our relation to Europe and the rest of the world community said: "These various elements of our foreign policy lead as I have said to a single goal -- MITCH (sighing) We're going to need more wood for the fire. We can't let it go out. ANNOUNCER (continuing as drone in background) The goal of a peaceful world of free and independent states. This is our guide for the present and our vision for the future -- a free community of nations, independent but interdependent, uniting north and south, east and west, in one great family of man, outgrowing and transcending the hates and fears that rend our age. We will not reach that goal today or tomorrow. We may not reach it in our lifetime. But the quest is the great adventure of our century. We sometimes chafe at the burdens of our obligations, the complexity of our decisions, the agony of our choices, but there is no comfort or security for us in evasion, no solution in abdication, no relief in irresponsibility. (pause) In assuming the tasks of the Presidency, I said that few generations, in all history, had been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its hour of maximum danger. This is our good fortune, and I welcome it now as I did when I first took office. (pause) For it is the fate of this generation -- Of you in the Congress and of me as President -- to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did - not make. But the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been ready to seize the burden and the glory of... LYDIA (pause) Did you you get the windows in the attic, Mitch? MITCH I got them all, Mother. LYDIA When do you think they'll come? MITCH I don't know. LYDIA If there are... larger birds, Mitch... they'll get into the house. MITCH That's a chance we have to take. LYDIA Maybe we ought to leave. MITCH Not now. Not while they're massing out there. LYDIA When? MITCH I don't know when. We'll see what... LYDIA Where will we go? MITCH I don't know yet. I think we'll be safe here. (Pause) Let's bring that wood in. LYDIA What happens when we run out of wood? Music begins to play. The music is sweet, with violins and long piano arpeggios, almost too much to bear against the tension being played in front of it. MITCH I don't know. We'll break up the furni... LYDIA (shouting) You don't know, you don't know! When will you know? When we're all dead? Like Annie? CATHY (shrieking it, her face white) Mother! LYDIA (at Mitch) If your father were here... MITCH (sharply) Mother! I'm trying my best! (shaking his head) I'm... trying... my... LYDIA (trembling, nodding) I'm sorry, Mitch. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH the strain showing on his face. He nods briefly. MITCH Let's get the wood. Why don't you make us all some coffee, Mother? FULL SHOT - HOUSE as Melanie and Mitch come out and head for the pile of wood. There is a NOISE in the sky. Startled, glancing upward, they begin to run back toward the house and then stop and slowly scan the sky. FULL SHOT - ENORMOUS FLOCK OF BIRDS flying in tight formation. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MELANIE Where are they heading? MITCH Inland. MELANIE Santa Rosa? MITCH Maybe. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE watching the birds. A look of utter sadness crosses her face. It is clear that she is thinking the birds will reach Santa Rosa, and eventually San Francisco as well. MITCH (O.S.) (gently) Come on. Let's get this wood in. Melanie nods. But the look of sadness stays on her face, and her eyes remain on the sky. DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - THE LIVING ROOM Lydia is pouring coffee into cups. In the dining room, we can HEAR the CHATTER of the lovebirds. As Lydia pours the sound distracts her. Cathy is sorting candles at the couch. There is evidence of preparation everywhere: flashlights, kerosene lamps, a butane burner. Mitch is at the fireplace putting more wood on the fire. Melanie comes into the room and dumps another load. MELANIE That's the last of it. LYDIA Did you close the door? MELANIE And locked it. CATHY Mitch, can I bring the lovebirds in here? LYDIA (snapping it) No! CATHY Mom, they're in a cage! LYDIA They're birds! CLOSE SHOT - MITCH studying his mother, realizing how close she is to breaking. MITCH (softly) Let them stay in the other room. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA her hand trembling as she pours the coffee. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM as they all sit and accept their coffee. The room is silent except for the CRACKLE of the fire. Mitch rises to put more wood on the fire. In the dining room, the lovebirds still are CHATTERING wildly. Their chirping is the only sound in the house. CATHY Mitch? Why are they doing this? The birds. MITCH (putting wood on fire) I don't know, honey. CATHY Why are they trying to kill people? MITCH I wish I could say. But if I could answer that, I could also tell you why people are trying to kill people. The room is silent again except for the TWEETING of the lovebirds offscreen. And then, suddenly, the lovebirds fall silent. CLOSE SHOT - CATHY turning to look toward the other room, her face going white, her eyes widening. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE waiting. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA waiting. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH waiting. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM dead silent now. Each of them is sitting on the edges of their chairs, waiting. There is the SUDDEN SOUND of splintering glass. LYDIA Mitch... MITCH Shhh. Shhh. Silence. Into the silence, another pane of glass, SHATTERING, the THUD of a bird against the boards. Silence. More panes of glass SHATTERING. The SOUND of birds striking the boards and the outside of the house begins building, almost like muffled drumbeats. THUD, THUD, with an irregularity of rhythm. Interspersed, like the counterpoint in an alien orchestration, is the FLUTTER of wings. And then, like another section entering, we begin to hear the SCRATCHING and CLAWING at the roof. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA looking up toward the roof, the SOUND getting louder. She squeezes her eyes shut. TWO SHOT - CATHY AND MELANIE as the child cuddles up into her arms. Over the other sounds, there comes a NEW SOUND, the unmistakable rat-tat-tat-tattat of a woodpecker. It stops. It begins again. Rat-tat-tat tattat- tat. Tat- CATHY (in terror) I'm... I'm sick, Melanie. I want.. I want to throw... Her face pale, she rises suddenly and starts for the bathroom. MELANIE I'll go with you. They leave the room. Mitch and Lydia sit in silence. We HEAR Cathy retching offscreen, almost drowned out by the shuffling of wings and the rasping of claws, the incessant thudding of birds striking the house. FULL SHOT - THE ROOM Mitch rises and puts more wood on the fire. The SOUND of the birds is still everywhere around the house. He looks at his watch. He rises, walks into the kitchen to check the back door. It seems all right. The CAMERA FOLLOWS him into the dining room. He stops at the cage with the lovebirds. CLOSE SHOT - THE LOVEBIRDS watching him. Is there menace or innocence in their eyes? He cannot tell. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH looking at the lovebirds in puzzlement. There is suddenly a NEW SOUND offscreen, the splintering of wood, the tearing sound of bigger beaks. Alarmed, he turns. MED. SHOT - MITCH coming into the entry hall. CLOSE SHOT - THE FRONT DOOR The wood is beginning to splinter as the bigger birds outside assail the door. FULL SHOT - MITCH turning quickly, the CAMERA FOLLOWING him into the dining room. He pulls the cloth off the table, begins moving it toward the door. In the entry, he lifts the table on end and piles it against the door. He goes into the kitchen again, CAMERA FOLLOWING. He upends the enamel-topped table, drags it to the back door. He is piling chairs against the table when Melanie COMES IN. She looks at what he is doing with alarm. Mitch looks in the direction of where his mother is and then back to Melanie, with an expression almost of desperation. Both turn back to the barricaded door. The CLAWING and the PECKING fills the void. The noise is a din now, insidious and increasingly more frightening. MELANIE When will they stop? MITCH I thought they'd have stopped by now. MELANIE What time is it? MITCH Almost two a.m. MELANIE You must be exhausted. MITCH How about you? She shakes her head. They both move into the dining room, the CAMERA FOLLOWING THEM. The lovebirds are sitting in their cage, close together, silent. Mitch picks up a chair, ready to carry it to the front door. He hesitates, puts down the chair, goes to the cage. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH looking at the birds, wondering. CLOSE SHOT - THE BIRDS looking back at him. Again, it is impossible to read their expressions. Malice or benevolence? MED. SHOT - MITCH He raises his hand, brings it toward the bars of the cage. CLOSE SHOT - THE BIRDS watching, unmoving. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH'S FINGER as he thrusts it through the bars. The birds sit unmoving. One of them tweets. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH MITCH I wonder if Cathy fed them. He turns away from her, goes to the cupboard, opens the door, takes out a small box of bird feed. CLOSE SHOT - THE CAGE as his hand approaches the door. The birds are watching him. His hand hesitates. Then his thumb and forefinger lift the small catch on the cage door. His fingers open the door. Cautiously, in TIGHT CLOSEUP, his hand goes into the cage. The birds sit and watch. One of them tweets. He removes the small feeding tray, puts the bird seed into it, replaces it in the cage. The birds hesitate another moment. Then, tweeting, they begin to eat. FULL SHOT - THE DINING ROOM as Mitch closes the door to the cage. Melanie is slumped against the wall. He goes to her and takes her in his arms. Wearily, she raises her head. The SOUND of the shuffling, pecking, clawing birds is everywhere around them. MITCH (holding her) You should have left when you wanted to. She shakes her head. MITCH You'd have been safe in San Francisco. MELANIE I don't want to be safe. I want to be with you. There is something pathetically comic about her voice, like a small child's, confused but defiant. Holding her close, Mitch laughs, and she laughs with him. Exhausted, they stand in each other's arms, laughing in that weary, silly, dead of night sort of way. And suddenly... The lights go out. MITCH (in the darkness) The power. MELANIE Mitch... MITCH Wait here. Don't move. The screen is totally black for perhaps five seconds. In the blackness, we HEAR the birds clawing and ripping, and the SOUND is enormously MAGNIFIED. A flashlight suddenly goes on. TWO SHOT - MELANIE AND MITCH as he comes to her with the flash. We see them only dimly as he directs the beam upwards. MITCH We'd better light some of those lamps. MELANIE No... wait. (pause) Hold me. In the near darkness, we see them embrace and kiss. It is almost black in the room except for the strange effect of the flashlight as he holds it behind her. MITCH I think they're easing off. DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - THE LIVING ROOM A kerosene lamp is burning. Melanie is awake, watching the fire. Lydia has fallen into a semi-recumbent position asleep on the couch. Cathy is curled up in one of the easy chairs. Mitch is asleep by the fire. The fire is burning brightly and steadily. The house is almost still. There is no longer the sound of the clawing and pecking, but there is another SOUND now: the sound of SOMETHING FALLING, or dropping in a steady dribbling, difficult to place. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE listening to the curious sound, trying to fathom its meaning. MELANIE (whispering) Mitch? MED. SHOT - MELANIE as she turns toward him. MELANIE (still whispering) Mitch? CLOSE SHOT - MITCH asleep. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE seeing this, making her decision. The SOUND is still coming from somewhere in the house. She decides to let Mitch sleep, picks up a very long flashlight. FULL SHOT - MELANIE as she goes through the house, checking. She stops in the entry hall, plays the flashlight over the furniture piled against the door. Everything seems all right. She goes into the kitchen, again, checks the door, and then plays the beam on the boarded windows. Satisfied, she goes down the corridor outside the bedroom. She opens the first bedroom door, enters, goes to the windows, plays the beam on them. Everything's all right. She comes into the corridor again, opens the second bedroom door, again checks windows, and leaves. FULL SHOT - MELANIE climbing the steps to the attic. She stops outside the first door upstairs, opens it, goes into the room, plays the light on the windows. Nothing. She comes out into the corridor, goes to the second bedroom, opens the door, enters, walks to the windows. They are boarded securely. She is starting back toward the door when she stops. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE looking. CLOSE SHOT - THE FLOOR a pile of chipped and broken plaster. MED. SHOT - MELANIE turning the flashlight up toward the ceiling. CLOSE SHOT - THE CEILING A huge hole in it, showing moonlit sky outside. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE turning her eyes from the ceiling, determination on her face, and suddenly, her eyes open wide. CLOSE SHOT - AN OWL sitting in the darkness, staring at her. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE reacting. QUICK MED. SHOT - THE OWL wings spread in the beam of light. FULL SHOT - MELANIE backing to the door. The owl hits her, sends her staggering back, causing the door to slam shut. She looks up at the FULL SHOT - THE CEILING a swarm of mixed birds coming through the hole and down toward her. MED. SHOT - MELANIE in the room swinging the lighted flashlight as the birds attack her. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE in the room, as the owl hits her full in the face. MED. SHOT - MELANIE swinging the flashlight as the birds attack her. MITCH (O.S.) Melanie! FULL SHOT - MELANIE AND THE BIRDS grotesque and silent as she struggles with them. The room is a crossing cacophony of mixed light beams and fluttering wings. MITCH (O.S.) Melanie, open the door! He hurls himself against it. Inside the room, where Melanie struggles, we HEAR his hammering on it. Melanie is overwhelmed by the birds. She falls to the floor, the flashlight beside her. In the spreading rays of the light, we see the frantic fluttering of wings as the birds cover her. There is a stronger assault on the door by Mitch outside. LYDIA (O.S.) (screaming) Mitch, get her out of there! MED. SHOT - THE ROOM Melanie, collapsed at the base of the door, is no longer in view. Neither are the birds, whose fluttering shadows we see on the door as Mitch again hits it from outside. MITCH (O.S.) Melanie! The door begins to open. FULL SHOT - MITCH as the door bursts inward and he stumbles into the room. He begins swinging at the birds immediately, reaching down for Melanie, fighting off the attack at the same time. He begins dragging her out of the room. Her clothes have almost been shredded from her body, and her face is torn and bleeding. We catch only quick glimpses of her near-nudity, as Mitch pulls her into the corridor and then, holding the door shut behind him with one hand, delivers swinging furious blows at the few birds that have escaped into the corridor. MITCH Mother, get a rope! LYDIA Oh, my God, look at her! MITCH (shouting) Get a rope! She rushes off. He struggles grotesquely with the birds. There is a wild fury in him, and a methodical dedication. He will not allow them to defeat him. A large bird strikes his hand, knocking the club from it. MED. SHOT - MITCH as the bird strikes at his face. He reaches out with his hands, grasping the bird, letting go of the door knob. Another bird flutters into the corridor. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH in anger and desperation as he throttles the bird with his hands. He reaches behind him to grab the doorknob again, and is immediately attacked by the other bird. MITCH (yelling) Mother! Hurry! TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MITCH as she runs up the steps and into the corridor, carrying a heavy piece of rope. Mitch grabs the bird and hurls it angrily to the floor. Lydia is staring down at Melanie in terror and compassion. He takes the rope from her, loops it over the doorknob, pulls it taut across the hallway, and ties it to the bannister, sealing the door. He turns immediately to Melanie, picks her up and carries her to the steps, Lydia following. As they go downstairs: MITCH Cathy! Get a blanket and some bandages! CATHY (at the foot of the stars, on the verge of tears) Is she all right? CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE cradled against Mitch's shoulder, her face bleeding profusely. MELANIE I'm... I'm.... FULL SHOT - MITCH as he carries her into the living room, but her down on the couch. MITCH Just lie there and keep still. Cathy rushes to them with a roll of bandages and a blanket. By the light of the lantern, Mitch drapes the blanket over Melanie and then begins unrolling the bandage. But his hands are trembling, and he drops it. LYDIA Let me do that, Mitch. She picks up the bandage. MITCH I can handle it. LYDIA I know you can. (her eyes meet his) But I'd like to. He nods. Silently, she begins working on Melanie. MELANIE (weakly) Please don't mess me up with bandages, Mrs. Brenner. LYDIA Shhhh. Shhhh. MELANIE Please. But she begins cleaning the wounds, taping bandages over the cuts. The house is still. She works silently and quickly. LYDIA (as she works) I'm not very good at this, Mitch. MITCH You're doing fine. LYDIA (Apologizing) I mean. I want to... Pause. CATHY Listen! CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA raising her eyes. The room is silent. There is nothing to hear. LYDIA They're gone. God have mercy, they're gone. FULL SHOT - MITCH as he goes to the front door, and cautiously moves away the table and chair. He opens the door a crack. FULL SHOT - THE YARD through the crack. Daylight is almost here. There are no birds visible. FULL SHOT - THE DOOR from outside as Mitch opens it wider. The door is scarred and splintered. As he opens the door, one or two dead birds spill into the room. He steps out into the yard. Lydia is directly behind him. FULL SHOT - THE HOUSE a shambles, all the windows broken. TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MITCH MITCH They're gone. The same pattern. LYDIA But they'll be back. MITCH We won't be here. LYDIA Where can we go, Mitch? There's no place to go. MITCH I want to try for San Francisco. There are buildings there. Steel and concrete! LYDIA (shaking her head) We'd never make it. They're probably all over the road. MITCH We have to try it. (a long silence) We can't stay here. (silence) Melanie needs help. (silence) Mother, the house won't take another attack. LYDIA If... (pause) If... when we get to San Francisco... (pause) If they're already there? MITCH They won't be. LYDIA If they are? MITCH We'll worry about that when we get there. LYDIA I'm frightened, terribly frightened. I... I don't know what's out there, Mitch. MITCH What do we have to know, Mother? We're all together, we all love each other, we all need each other. What else is there? Mother, I want us to stay alive! LYDIA (nodding; then after a pause) I started to say... inside... MITCH You don't have to. He holds out his hand to her. MITCH I think we'd better get started. DISSOLVE FULL SHOT - THE BRENNER YARD It is covered with the eerie half-light that comes just before dawn, a light that persists throughout all of the following until the penultimate shot in the picture. The silence is deafening. There is not a bird in sight. The door to Melanie's convertible are open as she and Mitch come out of the house together and he helps her to the car. He puts her in the back seat, tucks the blanket around her. In the background is the pickup truck, too small to hold all of them. Lydia comes to the door and quickly crosses the yard, not looking down at the dead birds. Cathy appears in the doorway to the house. CLOSE SHOT - CATHY She is carrying the cage of lovebirds. She hesitates just outside the doorway. She looks at Mitch. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH looking back at her. FULL SHOT - CATHY, MITCH, AND LYDIA Across the expanse of the desolated yard. CATHY May I take them, Mitch? He does not answer. She continues looking at him. CATHY They haven't harmed anyone. LYDIA Take them. MITCH (with a slow nod) We'll put them in the trunk, Cathy. He takes the birds from her and goes to the back of the car. The CAMERA STAYS on Cathy who gets into the car on the front seat. Mitch comes around the other side of the car, stops, and looks toward the trees. MED. SHOT - THE TREES covered with waiting birds. MED. SHOT - MITCH getting into car. MITCH Be careful with that door. Cathy closes the door gently, and almost soundlessly. Mitch does the same with his door. MELANIE (weakly) Mitch, if they hear the car starting... if they see movement... MITCH We'll take it slow until we get to the main road. (pause) Are you ready? CLOSE SHOT - MITCH'S HAND turning the key. The motor springs to life. FULL SHOT - INT. THE CAR anticipation on all the faces. MITCH All right. (he takes a deep breath) Here we go. FULL SHOT - THE CAR from the outside, as it creeps out of the yard. The bay is still, the road is still, the car makes barely a sound as it passes the gate and starts down the road. MED. SHOT - THE ROAD AHEAD - THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD as they begin driving slowly. The wires are down. A small fire is burning in the brush, where the wires made contact. The car continues to move. It turns the first bend in the road. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE - LOOKING THROUGH THE WINDOW She gasps quickly. MED. SHOT - A GROUP OF HERONS - AT WATER'S EDGE standing, waiting silently. FULL SHOT - THE CAR - INTERIOR as the tension begins to starts. MITCH Shhh. Shhhh. MED. SHOT - THE ROAD AHEAD - THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD as they approach the derelict barge. It is covered with waiting seagulls. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA seeing them. Her lip begins to tremble. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH turning toward the side of the road ahead. FULL SHOT - AN OVERTURNED SCHOOL BUS - MITCH'S P.O.V. covered with waiting birds. CATHY (whispering) Mitch, let's turn back. MITCH Shhh. Shhhhh. MED. SHOT - A ROADSIDE HOUSE as the car passes. A barricade has been set up on the front porch, and a man is leaning over it, dead, a shotgun in his hands. The porch is covered with waiting birds. At the boarded window, we see a woman and child peering from a gap. CLOSE SHOT - CATHY reacting. FULL SHOT - THE CAR - BIRD'S P.O.V. as it threads its way slowly and cautiously along the winding road to town. The birds are sitting on some of the still- standing wires, watching, waiting. FULL SHOT - THE TOWN APPROACH - THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD as the car turns a bend in the road. There are thousands of birds ahead, on every gutted and smoldering rooftop, on every pole, on every fence. LYDIA Mitch! MED. SHOT - MITCH as he stops the car and looks ahead. FULL SHOT - THE CAR in the middle of the road, stopped. Ahead are the birds. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE frightened, try not to reveal her fear. MELANIE Can we turn back? CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH I... I don't think so. If we get through town, I think we'll be all right. FULL SHOT - INT. THE CAR There is a long silence. It is Melanie who has the strongest reason for fearing the birds. It is Melanie, her fear growing, who makes the decision. MELANIE Then go ahead, Mitch. FULL SHOT - EXT. THE CAR as it begins moving forward again at an excruciatingly slow rate of speed, into the town and the waiting birds. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA as she turns to look out the window on her side. CLOSE SHOT - A LINE OF BIRDS as the car moves past them slowly. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA closing her eyes. FULL SHOT - BRINKMEYER'S GENERAL STORE through the windshield. The roof and sills are covered with birds. The window is smashed in, canned goods are strewn all over the sidewalk, bolts of cloth run in a riot from the open door and across the road, dead people are lying in the gutter. But in the hotel, we see some faces behind broken windows. TWO SHOT - CATHY, MITCH The tension on their faces, MED. SHOT - THE STORES OPPOSITE THE TIDES as the car approaches them. The windows are all broken, and merchandise is lying on the sidewalk. Birds are everywhere, waiting. CLOSE SHOT - A DEAD MAN lying on the sidewalk, clutching a television set in his arms. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH strained, looking at the road ahead. LONG SHOT - THE ROAD AHEAD a clear sky, a bird-free stretch, CLOSE SHOT - MITCH MITCH (almost as a prayer) Here we go. (he rams down on the accelerator) FULL SHOT - THE CAR - EXTERIOR as Mitch rams the accelerator to the floor and it zooms ahead in a burst of speed. FULL SHOT - THOUSANDS OF BIRDS taking wing. MED. SHOT - MORE BIRDS taking wing. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE screaming. MELANIE Mitch! CLOSE SHOT - MITCH wrenching at the wheel as the car turns a bend. FULL SHOT - THE ROAD AHEAD through the windshield, as a flock of birds take wing immediately ahead. CLOSE SHOT - THE WINDSHIELD from the inside, as birds flutter against it. CLOSE SHOT - THE ROOF OF THE CAR from the inside, as a beak slashes it, letting in a thin line of light. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH wrenching at the wheel again, another bend. HELICOPTER SHOT - THE CAR navigating the sharp bends in the road as birds streak at it in straight lines. TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MELANIE in the back seat as several slashes appear in the roof over their heads, letting in more light. CLOSE SHOT - THE ROOF More slashes, more light in scattered beams. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE her fear growing as the scattered light beams bring back the memory of the attic room and her flashlight battle with the owl. CLOSE SHOT - THE ROOF more slashes, building, the beak thrusts combining with the incoming beams of light in a weirdly horrifying way. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA LYDIA (almost a prayer) Dear God... dear God... please, please, what have we done? Please. (and then in anger at the roof and the birds) Can't they leave us alone? (shrieking it) LEAVE US ALONE! MED. SHOT - THE CAR INTERIOR all the passengers, as the roof suddenly rips back. FULL SHOT - BIRDS from inside the car, hovering over it the moment the roof tears back. CLOSE SHOT - MELANIE This is too much for her. She screams at sight of the birds, and then turns her face into Lydia's shoulder. TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MELANIE as Lydia recognizes Melanie's need. She puts her arm around Melanie's shoulder and gently, soothingly, holds her close. FULL SHOT - THE CAR racing along as the birds hover over it. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH his face screwed in anguish, tears rolling down his cheeks as he grips the wheel and hits the gas pedal. FULL SHOT - THE OPEN CAR streaming canvas ribbons behind it. It turns another bend in the road. FULL SHOT - THE ROAD AHEAD - (THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD) It is arrow-straight, no curves. FULL SHOT - THE CAR in a burst of speed as it hits the straightaway. It begins to outdistance the birds. The gap widens. A flock of birds attacks it from the side of the road, but it speeds into them and through them. The gap grows wider and wider. They are well ahead of the birds now. CLOSE SHOT - LYDIA LYDIA We're losing them. CLOSE SHOT - MITCH only a nod, his face streaming tears. LONG SHOT - THE CAR (BIRDS' P.O.V.) as they fall way behind now, the car moving swiftly into the distance. TWO SHOT - LYDIA AND MELANIE on the back seat. Melanie begins sobbing in a sudden release of tension. Lydia, in compassion, and tenderly, cradles Melanie's head on her shoulder. Melanie, her eyes glistening, looks ahead through the windshield. FULL SHOT - THE CAR INTERIOR all their faces visible. CATHY Mitch? Do... do you think they'll be all right? In the trunk? Can they breath? MITCH (with the faintest smile) I think they'll be all right, honey. There is hope on their faces as the car streaks into the wind. Not a wild exuberance, but a relaxation of tension. They stare ahead through the windshield, and then they squint their eyes against the sudden sunrise ahead, and Mitch reaches up to turn down the sun visor. MITCH It looks... it looks clear up ahead. FULL SHOT - THE CAR moving AWAY FROM THE CAMERA FAST into magnificent sunrise over the crest of the hills. Further and further into the distance it goes. FADE OUT: THE END
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+                                     "BIRTHDAY GIRL"                                      Screenplay by                           Tom Butterworth and Jez Butterworth                               FADE IN:               In a Russian summer meadow, a young girl spins around and                around. A simple guitar theme plays as the low sun catches                her hair. Around her neck is a pair of field binoculars, and                she runs through the meadow with them pressed to her face,                spying butterflies, birds, rabbits. She reaches the top of a                hillock, and jumps into the air, and flies up into the sky.                We float up and up with her as she aims the binoculars up,                up, into the sun.                                                       FADE THROUGH SUN TO:               An aerial shot of the rolling English countryside. Nothing                but fields and trees for miles. The shot describes a panorama                before looking directly down, at the earth, and we begin to                move.               We fly low over a field, a ditch and straight out over six                lanes of motorway. Cars and lorries tear below at a hundred                miles an hour. We fly over the hard shoulder to another field                beyond.               We descend on two young boys in the field. A pornographic                magazine is spread out of the flattened grass. One of the                boys puts a match to the centre page and as the flames lick                up, we begin to move again, across the field, over a path                and into a suburban garden.               We fly over five or six gardens, over a barbecue, over                children splashing in a pool, over a woman sunbathing, a man                mowing his lawn, a young boy bouncing up and down on a garden                trampoline, to arrive on the patio of John Buckingham. He                walks out onto the patio, where he sits in a chair, facing                his house, setting down a mug of tea.                                                                    CUT TO:               A blurred face sharpening into focus, John Buckingham, about                thirty-two, sitting on his patio, his garden behind, fields                beyond.                                     JOHN                         Hello.               His hand adjusts a microphone on his lapel.                                     JOHN                         Hello, hello. Hello...               He shifts in his chair. Coughs. He looks straight at us.                                     JOHN                         I don't believe in perfect love. You                          know, love that comes out of the sky                          like a thunderbolt and uh... This is                          ridiculous.               He removes the microphone. He sits there, thinking very hard.                                     JOHN                         No. No no no. Nope.               He stands, turns and stretches.                                                                  BLACKOUT:               FADE UP:               He is sitting as before, looking at us.                                     JOHN                         Running. Reading. Going out. Staying                          in. The countryside. Films, if they're                          good.                                                                  BLACKOUT:               FADE UP:                                     JOHN                         Thoughtful. Outgoing. Ambitious.                          Well-read. Reasonably popular.                          Balanced. Trusting. Quite attractive.                          Outgoing.                                                                  BLACKOUT:               FADE UP:                                     JOHN                         Someone intelligent, of course. Kind.                          Pretty I suppose. But its not                          critical.               EXT. JOHN'S STREET - DAY               John watches while two removal men lift a new double bed                from the back of a van.                                     JOHN (V.O.)                         Someone with a sense of humour.                          Someone you can communicate with on                          the same level. Someone you can really                          talk to. I think communication is                          key.               INT. BEDROOM - DAY               John's hands smooth a crisp white sheet over the double                mattress. An ant runs across the sheet. John squashes it and                picks it carefully off.                                     JOHN (V.O.)                         I think that by the time most people                          turn thirty they know where they're                          going.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. GARDEN - DAY               John encircles his house, leaving a thick trail of yellow                powder behind him.                                     JOHN (V.O.)                         And where they've been. I suppose                          they have some baggage stroke history.               EXT. THE GARDEN RECORDING - DAY               We see that John is talking to his PC. It has a small digital                camera on the side.                                     JOHN                         We all have someone in our past who                          uh... one skeleton, if you like.                          We've all got at least one person,                          as it were, under the patio. Not                          literally of course. I suppose I                          only say this because I always thought                          people who did this sort of thing                          were... I had an image that they                          were losers. Not losers. A bit sad.                          But I think this is the modern world.                          And I think really it's quite a brave                          move. Quite a brave, reasonable thing                          to do.               He smiles.                                     JOHN                         Sorry can we start again?               SINGLE CARD ON BLACK:                                      BIRTHDAY GIRL               John's fingers in close-up, type JOHN BUCKINGHAM, and his                AMEX number into his PC. Finished, he stops, and rests his                face on his hands.               He hits SEND. That instant, a worry of black crows bursts up                in the field behind him and takes to the swirling air.               Blackout. Music. Titles.               The titles pop and slide over footage of Russian women, on                computer video, advertising themselves. They mostly speak in                Russian, some of which is subtitled, some speak in English.                The women slide on and off the screen, overlap and collide,                as the titles appear. Close-ups on mouths and eyes, tight                and pixellated. It becomes a wall of image and sound.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. SKY - DAY               The GIGANTIC UNDERSIDE of a Boeing 747 TEARS down the screen.               INT. AIRPORT TRAVELATOR - DAY               John slides across the screen, motionless, towards Arrivals.               INT. AIRPORT - DAY.               Last calls for flights leaving for the other side of the                world.               Travellers criss-cross and swirl.               INT. AIRPORT MAIN ARRIVALS BOARD - DAY               BA 1880 MOSCOW On time.               INT. AIRPORT RESTROOM - DAY               He dries his face with a paper towel, then checks himself in                the mirror. He looks okay, a little white.               INT. ARRIVALS GATE - DAY               The Arrivals gate slides open and passengers flood through.                John stands among the chauffeurs and cab drivers, as the                passengers trundle by.               We follow one young woman long enough to think this must be                her, but it's a false alarm, she's lifted up and spun around                by someone else.               They've all passed. That's that. She wasn't on the flight.               John wanders away from the gate. He stands about in the swirl                in the middle of the airport. People bustle by. Everyone                going somewhere.               Gradually, we get the sense we are being watched. A woman                stands nearby. She is about twenty, very beautiful, tired                and laden with luggage.                                     JOHN                         Nadia?               She nods.                                     JOHN                         I'm John.               They shake hands.                                     JOHN                         Welcome.                              (pause)                         Well. Look I didn't have a speech                          but...               A distorted passenger announcement breaks above us. It's too                loud to talk. It ends and they stand there in silence. He                points to her luggage.                                     JOHN                         Is that everything?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         Right. Okay. Good.               They stand there.               INT. AIRPORT LIFT - DAY               Nadia and John stand side by side in a huge lift.                                     JOHN                         We can talk in the car.               A deafening roll of thunder.               EXT. AIRPORT CAR PARK - DAY               It's pouring with rain as they cross the car park towards a                patched up yellow Rover. John stows the suitcase in the boot                and opens the passenger door for her.               INT. / EXT. JOHN'S CAR (MOVING) - DAY               John turns the key in the ignition. The MG wheezes and coughs.                He tries again. Nothing. The third time it just catches and                he coaxes it to life. The colour's drained from his cheeks.               They head for the motorway. The silence in the car lasts                just long enough for John to feel he is breaking it.                                     JOHN                         It's about forty miles from here. I                          don't know if you've looked at a                          map, it's close to London but it's a                          city in itself. A Roman city. It's a                          nice house. I'm having a problem                          with ants. I uh... It's the warmer                          weather. I can't seem to find the                          nest. Sorry, do you understand "ants"?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         I just can't find a nest. The root                          of the problem. I've looked                          everywhere. What's the Russian for                          ant? Sorry that's a stupid... Sorry.                          This is strange isn't it.                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         I'm pretty nervous. Are you?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         I mean... "Ants." "I've got a problem                          with ants."               He shakes his head.                                     JOHN                         I had this...               He pulls a sign from his jacket which says "Nadia!"                                     JOHN                         As a joke but uh...               He tosses it onto the back seat.               They drive. He sees Nadia looking at England.                                     JOHN                         So. Is it different to how you                          imagined it?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         I bet.                              (pause)                         What about me? Am I how you imagined?                                     NADIA                         Yes.               He double-takes, changes lanes.                                     JOHN                         And how was the flight. Sorry, am I                          speaking too fast for you?                                     NADIA                         Yes.               John looks across.                                     JOHN                         Do uh... Sorry. Can you follow me?                          Do you understand what I'm saying?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         Good. Or should I speak slower?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     JOHN                         Do you follow or should I speak                          slower?                                     NADIA                         Yes.               He looks across. Back at the road. He changes gear.                                     JOHN                         Uh... Are you a giraffe?                                     NADIA                         Yes.               John turns to face the road ahead.                                     JOHN                              (to himself)                         Oh Jesus.               He drives in silence.                                     JOHN                         Oh Jesus.               Suddenly she winds the window down and vomits out of the                speeding car. John panics and swerves onto the hard shoulder                amidst loud horn blasts.               EXT. HARD SHOULDER - DAY               John navigates his way round the Rover in the rain to find                her kneeling on the verge, throwing up. He puts a hand on                her shoulder, but she stands up quickly, maintaining an icy                dignity considering what has just happened.               EXT. JOHN'S CLOSE - DAY               It has stopped raining and a group of young boys are playing                cricket in the road. They clear as a Yellow Rover pulls into                the Close, and into the drive of the little house at the                end.               As John climbs out of his car he eyes the boys. The boys eye                him, and his new friend.               INT. JOHN'S HOUSE - DAY               The front door closes behind them. John and Nadia stand in                the silence of his hallway. There is a small banner hanging                there: "Welcome Nadia". They study the banner together,                gravely.               Eventually he opens a door.                                     JOHN                              (quietly)                         Lounge.               She peers round him and looks inside. He leads her down                towards the kitchen.                                     JOHN                         Kitchen.               She glances around it. Then back at John. He nods to himself,                looking tense and pale.               INT. JOHN'S UPSTAIRS LANDING - DAY               He puts her suitcase down on the landing, and opens a door.                Without looking inside:                                     JOHN                         Bathroom.               He closes it.               INT. MAIN BEDROOM - DAY               Standing in the doorway of John's bedroom.                                     JOHN                         Bedroom.               There it is. The Double Bed. John frowns gravely.               Without warning, he marches out. She comes out onto the                landing to catch John plus suitcase kicking open another                door and vanishing inside.               INT. SPARE BEDROOM - DAY               Nadia peers around the door to find John standing next to a                narrow monk-like single bed.                                     JOHN                         The uh... the other bedroom...               She looks at it, then up at John. She turns and walks out.               Now she's back, with her camouflaged hold-all, dumps it onto                the floor, heaves the suitcase onto the bed and smoking no-               hands, starts unpacking. John plugs in the lamp by the bed.                To show Nadia how it works he switches it on, off, on, off,                and then feels stupid.                                     JOHN                         I'll get an ashtray.               With John gone, Nadia stops unpacking. She walks to the window                and stares out over the rooftops of the estate.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LOUNGE - DAY               John on the phone.                                     ANSWER MACHINE                         You have reached From Russia with                          Love. Our office reopens on Monday.                          If you are interested in our                          services...                              (etc. etc.)                         Thank You.                                     JOHN                         This is John Buckingham from St                          Albans. I need to speak to you                          urgently. There's a critical problem.                          It's... Call me back as soon as                          possible. It's critical.               INT. STAIRS / LANDING - DAY               John climbs the stairs holding a saucer for an ashtray. He                knocks lightly on the spare room door.               INT. SPARE ROOM / LANDING - DAY               Nadia is lying asleep on the bed in only her black underwear.                We duck straight back out.               John composes himself. He puts his head back round the door                as if there's a real chance it will be shot off. She's facing                away, arms folded, still holding the cigarette. It has burnt                out, leaving a long curl of ash on her bare hip.               He approaches the bed with immense trepidation, eases the                cigarette from between her fingers and drops it in the bin.                He stares at her bare hip, with the ash on it. Holding the                saucer under the ash, he blows on it gently. It takes three                careful breaths before it drops in the saucer. Unseen by                John, her eyes are wide open as he steals out onto the                landing. We stay with her a moment.                                                                    CUT TO:               A pot of stew, bubbling on the hob.               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               John is stirring a pot on the hob. By his expression he might                be defusing a bomb.               His head cocks, he stiffens. Nadia walks right into the                kitchen. She's changed, jeans and a tee shirt. Nadia takes                the spoon from him, says something in Russian, gestures for                him to sit.               She tastes the stew. Now she stirs the pot. He watches her.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               John and Nadia sit opposite each other. She takes a mouthful.                They catch one another's eye. And again.               On the wall across, six ants careen in crazy circles. John                can see them, but doesn't move.               He puts his fork down.                                     JOHN                         I don't know what to say. Your letters                          were in English. Good English. You                          said you'd studied English.               Nadia reaches down into her bag and pulls out a small box                wrapped in brown paper. She places it in front of him.               He warily unwraps a little wooden box. He opens the lid and                fishes out a simple gold ring. He holds it in his palm.                                     JOHN                         I can't take this.               He puts it back in the box, hoping it will disappear.               She fishes it out again and holds it on her palm for him to                take.                                     JOHN                         I can't take it. I'm not really a                          ring guy.               She takes his hand. He automatically yanks it away like he's                been burned. She takes his hand again and to stop it becoming                unbearable, he allows Nadia to push the ring onto his ring                finger. It goes on easily.                                     JOHN                         Okay. No big deal. Thank you. Yes                          thanks. Thank you.               INT. LOUNGE - NIGHT               John and Nadia sit next to each other on the couch watching                T.V. John's gaze seems to go through the T.V. and a thousand                yards beyond. Nadia is knitting a half-finished jumper, blood                red.               John stands and disappears out of shot.                                     JOHN (O.S.)                         If anyone gets this message please                          call as soon as possible. It's an                          emergency.               John sits back down. He steals side-glances at her. Her mouth.                Her red-painted fingers knitting fast.               John flips through the channels --               The Money Programme.                Antique's Roadshow.                Cup Rugby.               Eventually he offers Nadia the remote control. She takes,                aims it at the T.V. but doesn't press it. Just as it seems                she won't, she does: University Challenge.               They watch University Challenge with Nadia still aiming the                control and smoking. After another long pause she flips the                button --               The Money Programme.                Antiques Roadshow.                Rugby.               She flips again then hands the controls back to John and                they watch University Challenge.               Nadia puts down her knitting, stretches and yawns.               INT. LOUNGE / STAIRS - NIGHT               Nadia climbs the stairs. John watches her, hovering in the                doorway of the darkened lounge.               He hears the bathroom door close before venturing up.               INT. BEDROOM - DAY               John sits on the edge of his bed. He cocks his head:               Door opening and shutting; feet padding along landing; door                closing. Silence. He squeezes his door open and peers down                the dark landing. The coast is clear.               INT. BATHROOM - DAY               Brushing his teeth, staring accusingly at his reflection.                Spits. Finished, he takes a deep breath and opens the door,                and gives a small shout.               Nadia is standing right outside the door; Nightshirt, damp                hair, toothbrush in her mouth.                                     JOHN                         Good night.               He squeezes past and quick-steps down the landing.               INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT               He climbs into the big bed, fully clothed, turns off the                light and lies there in the moonlight.               After twenty seconds, the bedroom door clicks open. John                climbs out of bed as casually as possible and stands around.                                     JOHN                         You should go now. We'll talk in the                          morning.               His eyes widen but he can't speak. He wants to but she's                placed her hand across his mouth. She reaches down and takes                his hand, and draws it towards her, slowly tracing his fingers                across her breasts. She unbuttons her shirt and pulls his                hand inside.               He's breathing hard, her right hand still clasped over his                mouth. Her free hand lowers to press against him, and unzip                his fly. He lets out a moan.               We concentrate on their faces. Above the silence all we can                hear is John's breathing -- Before long Nadia looks down --                He's come.               Nadia turns and walks out, leaving John marooned, gasping in                and blowing out, angry almost, buttoning his trousers.               EXT. JOHN'S CLOSE - NIGHT               Exterior view of John's darkened house. A fox trots across                the Cul-De-Sac and sits under John's car, where it curls up.               INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               John lying in bed staring out at a streetlight.               INT. NADIA'S ROOM - DAY               The morning. Nadia opens her eyes in the sun-filled room.               INT. LANDING - DAY               She pads down the hall in her nightshirt and opens the door                to the bathroom. There on the toilet, naked, is John. He                gives another short shout. Nadia holds his eye for a couple                of seconds too long, before shutting us inside with him.               EXT. JOHN'S GARDEN - DAY               John sprints down his lawn, scattering the big black crows                eating his garden. He jumps the fence, and across the fields.               EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - DAY               John jogs along by a river in the countryside behind his                house, wearing shorts and a tee shirt. His breath billows                around him in the sharp morning air.               He stops running by a gate overlooking a small hill. He                doubles up to recover, panting hard.               INT. JOHN'S GARDEN - DAY               Two wild rabbits are nibbling the remains of a big breakfast                left on the lawn. John climbs heavily back over his fence.               There's a deck chair out there, surrounded by the remains of                breakfast. Some glossy Russian magazines, a full ashtray,                Nadia's knitting.               The patio door is ajar, the net curtain billowing. He scans                the garden jumpily. The boy next door is on his trampoline,                bouncing up and down, watching John at the top of each bounce.               INT. JOHN'S HOUSE - DAY               Sweating from the run, John peers up the stairs. The house                is silent. In the lounge he picks up the phone and dials a                number.                                     ANSWER MACHINE                         You have reached From Russia With                          Love. If you are interested...               He hangs up.               INT. LANDING - DAY               John stands with his ear to the bathroom door. The shower's                on.               INT. NADIA'S BEDROOM - DAY               It's empty. He slips inside.               Stuff everywhere. Cigarette cartons, several lighters, spare                wool, suitcase, rucksack. Huge poster of Bruce Springsteen                on wall.               Warily, he opens the bedside drawer: Different coloured bras                and knickers.               In her open suitcase lies a small wooden chest. He lifts it                out and puts it on the bed, hesitates, then opens it.               A pair of Russian Army field binoculars. He puts them on the                bed beside him. A small silver pistol, the size of a                Derringer. He studies it, and pulls the trigger. It's a                cigarette lighter.               A brochure of prospective husbands provided by the marriage                agency. After a dozen or so photos he comes across his page                but the photo has been cut out. He sees his name in the                strange lettering, under the hole.               INT. BATHROOM - DAY               Nadia in the shower, eyes shut, water pouring over her face.               INT. NADIA'S ROOM - DAY               John flicks through a stack of photographs. One of Nadia as                a young girl in a meadow, with binoculars around her neck --                John looks at the same binoculars on the bed next to him. He                turns them over in his hands.               He looks through them. He slowly lowers them. He's seen                something. He stands and crosses the room.               On the mantelpiece, in a silver frame, is his picture, cut                from the brochure. He holds it in his hands.               The shower has stopped. In a panic he replaces the picture,                the photographs, the gun lighter, the brochure, and the                binoculars.               INT. LANDING - DAY               Nadia leaves the bathroom, hair wrapped in a towel, and heads                straight towards us.               INT. NADIA'S BEDROOM - DAY               John shuts the chest, drops it back into the suitcase.               The photo of the binoculars girl is on the pillow. He whips                it under the bed just as Nadia enters.               She doesn't seem surprised to see him standing there, in her                room, in his tee shirt and running shorts.                                     JOHN                         Nadia. This isn't going to work. I'm                          sorry. It's been a terrible mistake.                          You must go.               He takes the ring off and holds it out to her. She doesn't                take it. He puts it on the bed.                                     JOHN                         I'm booking a flight for tomorrow.                          I'm sorry.               John and Nadia on her bed, Nadia tearing off his tee shirt.                She gets on top.               EXT. JOHN'S CLOSE - DAY               The milkman hops a low fence between two houses. He waves to                a man watering his rose trees.               INT. NADIA'S ROOM - DAY               John and Nadia having sex. They don't take their eyes off                each other.               EXT. JOHN'S CLOSE - DAY               A mother corrals her school children into a Volvo. They don't                want to go.               INT. NADIA'S ROOM - DAY               John sits on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his                hands. The door has just shut behind him. He looks at his                left hand. He has the ring on.                                     VOICE OVER                         Problem solving. John identifies                          most problems within appropriate                          time frames...               INT. NATWEST BANK, ST ALBANS - DAY               The large oak doors of the bank swing open.                                     VOICE OVER                         Most of the time he develops several                          alternative solutions to problems...               We move fast through the banking hall to the furthest counter.                The blind snaps up to reveal John, wearing a smart suit.                                     VOICE OVER                         He usually resolves or minimises                          most problems before they grow into                          larger problems...               INT. BEHIND THE GLASS - DAY               John's skilled hands loading a stack of banknotes into a                drawer. The cashier next along, Clare, smiles at him.                                     CLARE                         Good weekend?                                     JOHN                         Uh. Yeah. Pretty good.                                     CLARE                         Do anything special?                                     JOHN                         Uh. No.                                     VOICE OVER                         Communications. John listens and                          comprehends well.               INT. BRANCH MANAGER'S OFFICE - DAY               John sits in front of a large desk, hands on knees.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (O.S.)                         When communicating he is good at                          selecting the most efficient methods                          and displays effective verbal                          communication skills...               Across the desk the Branch Manager reads a report out loud                in an impersonal, flat manner.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         On one occasion John showed first                          class communication skills in a                          delicate customer situation.               INT. JOHN'S KITCHEN - DAY               Nadia opens a kitchen cupboard and stares inside at John's                groceries.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         Initiative. John is reasonably quick                          to volunteer whenever others need                          help. Although he is sometimes                          reluctant and or unwilling to ask                          for it himself...               She opens some pickled onions and pops one in her mouth.               INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY               Cradling the jar of onions, she scans his bookshelf.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         He is adequate at resolving difficult                          or emotional customer situations...               Bluffers guide to the Internet. She opens an old copy of The                Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Inside is written 'John                Buckingham Class 3F'.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         He usually fulfills commitments made                          to customers within expected time                          frames.               INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - DAY               She opens the wardrobe. In a shoebox she finds some photos.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         Customer Service. John shows a high                          degree of respect for customers...               One of John as a little boy, holding a football, flanked by                his parents. On the back someone has written "Summer 1973".                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         John still has some reluctance to /                          or has problems in, carving out new                          relationships face to face.               There is a photo of John, about three years ago, arm in arm                with a plain, thin-looking girl, with small eyes. Another of                him kissing her on the cheek.               INT. BRANCH MANAGER'S OFFICE - DAY               John listening.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         Judgment -- John makes able decisions                          in most areas of his job.               INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - DAY               Nadia sees something at the bottom of the cupboard. She bends                down to retrieve a black dustbin liner. She reaches in and                pulls out a small stack of hardcore pornographic magazines.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         John follows instructions                          conscientiously and responds well to                          personal directions.               She upends the bag and a half dozen videos fall out. She                picks up a magazine and begins flicking through it                impassively.               INT. LOUNGE - DAY               Nadia downstairs kneels in front of the T.V. and slips a                video into the machine. Nadia's face is lit up by the screen.                The sound of sex.                                     BRANCH MANAGER (V.O.)                         John is normally very punctual and                          in most situations assumes                          responsibility for his own actions                          and outcomes.               She pops a pickled onion in her mouth, and watches. We see                the images close and pixellated, as we did the marriage videos                in the titles. It's a bondage scene, the woman wears a gag.               INT. BRANCH MANAGER'S OFFICE - DAY               John back in the room. The report has finished and the manager                is scrutinising him in silence.                                     JOHN                         Thank you -- I think that's very                          fair.               INT. / EXT. JOHN'S CAR (MOVING) - DAY               John drives his Rover through the centre of town, the low                orange sun on his face.               EXT. JOHN'S CLOSE - DAY               The Rover pulls into the driveway. John opens the glove                compartment and removes the ring Nadia gave him, and puts it                back on. He collects a brown paper package from the passenger                seat.               INT. JOHN'S KITCHEN - NIGHT               John and Nadia at the supper table. She is knitting the                jumper. Despite the silence, John seems more relaxed, in                shirtsleeves and loosened tie. He puts his fork down, and                places the brown bag on the table, pushing it across to Nadia.                She opens it and removes a big hardback Russian - English                dictionary. John smiles and nods "open it". She flicks through                it.               She turns it over in her hands, nods, puts the book down,                reaches under the table and surfaces with the stack of porn                magazines. She puts them on the table next to the dictionary.               John beholds the pile. "Wet N' Wild" is on top.               He rises slowly from the table and sleepwalks from the                kitchen.               INT. JOHN'S HALL / STAIRS / LANDING / BATHROOM - DAY               John, frozen-headed, floats down the hall, up the stairs                into the bathroom, locks the door, sits on the toilet.               INT. JOHN'S KITCHEN - DAY               Downstairs Nadia clears, the dishes. The porn stack still                sits on the table, beside the dictionary.               INT. BATHROOM - DAY               Still on the toilet. He hasn't moved. He closes his eyes.               INT. LANDING - NIGHT               It's dark. The bathroom door opens a crack. The coast clear,                he dashes for the cover of his bedroom.               INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT               John rests his head against the doorframe and heaves a sigh                of relief. He turns and freezes. Nadia is there next to him.               She slowly loosens his tie. Holding it in her hands she                examines the strange little bank logo on it, before                deliberately tying the tie over her mouth like a gag.               A second tie is pulled from a hanger in the cupboard. Quickly                and skillfully she ties her hands together, pulling it tight                with her teeth. Finished, she flicks her hair back, and gives                him a long, level look.                                     VOICE OVER                         It will feel very strange at first                          but then you get used to it.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. ROOM IN THE BANK - DAY               A close up of John's face. He closes his eyes, falls                backwards, and is caught in the arms of a colleague.                                     TRAINER                         Good. Again.               John stands again and closes his eyes. After a short wait he                falls back and again his colleague catches him just before                he hits the ground.                                     TRAINER                         Very good. How does that feel John?                                     JOHN                         It feels good. Weird.                                     TRAINER                         It's called Trust and Letting Go.               John nods.                                     TRAINER                         Trust and Letting Go.               A simple guitar theme begins, and plays over the following                sequence:               Kids playing cricket in John's Close. A boy hits the ball                and others chase it as it bounces off cars.               John at dusk tied to the bed with his two bank ties. Nadia                is on top. They are having sex.               Hands stacking bank notes into the back of a cash machine.                Fast, mechanical.               At the bank, John walks to his desk. His phone rings. He                answers it.               Silence. Then soft breathing. John listens intently and looks                around.               "Nadia...?" -- John sits there, surrounded by his colleagues,                listening to Nadia breathe.               Close up on a man's hands tying a tie tight a-round a woman's                wrist. Pull back to a close up of Nadia's face, her eyes                fixed on John.               John running by the river.               John watches Nadia rise from his bed after sex and leave the                room. He stares out the window.               Nadia's fingers, knitting skillfully.               Nadia sits on her bed alone, pulling on black stockings and                attaching them to suspenders.               The street cricketers run for cover as a thunder storm breaks                over the close.               Rain coming down in John's garden. The pair sit under the                shelter of the back porch. John has his hands out as Nadia                is winding red wool it into a ball. The jumper is half                finished.               The rabbits shelter from the rain under broad leaves.               John in a pub with a four colleagues from the bank. He sips                his half, half listening to the conversation. It all seems                so dull. He finishes his drink and looks at his watch. They                ask him if he's staying for another.               A knitting needle is drawn from a row of red stitches on the                nearly-finished jumper.               Nadia kneels over John holding the knitting needles. She                presses one to his skin and we watch it drawn across his                chest in close up, up to his neck.               His eyes are fixed on hers.               Close up on Nadia's face. Her mouth is gagged and she's lying                on her front, head half-buried in a pillow. We can just make                out John behind, on top of her. Both are lying still and                breathing hard, covered in sweat. Catching her breath Nadia                yanks the gag off and wriggles out from underneath him. She                snatches up a towel and covering herself hurries to the                bathroom.               The guitar theme ends.               INT. LANDING - NIGHT               John presses his ear to the bathroom door. The sound of                retching.               The toilet flushes. John pads back to his bedroom. Through                the gap in the door he sees Nadia coming out, go to her room,                and shut the door. He rests his head against the door frame.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LOUNGE - DAY               A beautiful morning. Through the patio window, John watches                Nadia in the garden, sitting on the lawn reading her                dictionary in the sunlight. In dungarees with her hair up,                she looks very young.               EXT. GARDEN - DAY               He walks warily out into the sunlight. She looks up, then                back to the big book in her lap. He places the tea next to                her on the grass.                                     JOHN                         Are you O.K.?               She looks at him, then down at her tome. She speaks slowly,                in a heavy accent:                                     NADIA                         Today is bath day.                                     JOHN                         Sorry?               She studies her book. Looks up.                                     NADIA                         Today is bath day.               He shakes his head.                                     JOHN                         Bath day?               She nods.                                     JOHN                         I don't understand.                                     NADIA                         Happy bath day.               The penny drops.                                     JOHN                         Today?               She frowns. John leafs through the dictionary.                                     JOHN                         Syevodnya?                                     NADIA                         Syevodnya                                     JOHN                         Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday.               He puts his hand on her shoulder.                                     NADIA                         Party.                              (pause)                         Party. Syevodnya.               John nods, smiling.                                     JOHN                         Yes. Party. Party syevodnya.               She lights a cigarette from the butt of her last. Blows smoke.                She holds the jumper up to John, as if to try it for size,                and the theme returns.               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               John is on the telephone.                                     JOHN                         ...It might just be a twenty-four                          hour bug...               INT. BANK - DAY               Clare listens, concerned.                                     CLARE                         Well you just get better. I'll tell                          Beaky. You just get some rest, ok?               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               John puts the phone down. He looks down the hall, where Nadia                is killing ants on the table, with her dictionary. He smiles.               EXT. JOHN'S CAR - DAY               A shot from above, of the Rover's windscreen, reflecting the                passing trees.               The roof is down. We glide up the windscreen, up Nadia's                body, in the passenger seat. Her face is upturned slightly,                she's wearing sunglasses, which reflect the passing trees.               INT. JOHN'S LOUNGE - NIGHT               Nadia sits alone at the dining room table. Suddenly the lights                go out. John enters, carrying a small birthday cake glowing                with candles.               The light throws huge shadows on the walls and flickers across                their faces.               He sets the cake down on the table and sits down opposite                Nadia                                     JOHN                         Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday                          to you. Happy Birthday dear Nadia...               The front doorbell rings. A loud long burst. Nadia's face                transforms into a big grin. She hurries out into the hall,                leaving John alone with the cake. Nadia whooping and shouting                excitedly. Other voices. Shouting. Shouting in Russian.               A man bursts in carrying Nadia in his arms. He spins her                round in the candlelight, kisses her, puts her down and goes                to the table where he blows out the candles. They are plunged                into darkness.               Lots of whooping and laughing. A Zippo flares up and                illuminates some faces, all laughing.                                                                    CUT TO:               John's hand groping along the wall. It finds the light switch.               There are two men here. One small and wiry, one big and dark,                like Rasputin. They each carry rucksacks and a guitar case.                                     YURI                         You must be John. You seem very nice.                          Excuse me.               In Russian, the first man introduces Nadia to the other man,                who is relighting the candles with a Zippo. It seems they                haven't met before.               The first man, Yuri, pulls out a bottle of vodka and hands                it to John.                                     YURI                         How's that? We can't drink our piss                          can we?                                     JOHN                         Hang on hang on, sorry, but like,                          who are you?                                     YURI                         You must find some glasses, small,                          for the toast, and some plates.                                     JOHN                         What are you doing here?               Yuri stops.                                     YURI                         Sorry. You've lost me...                                     JOHN                         I'm asking what you're here for.                                     YURI                         What?               Yuri speaks to Nadia in fast Russian.                                     YURI                              (to John)                         You don't speak Russian? Pratsteetye!                          This explains your cold eyes.               Nadia begins gabbling to Yuri in Russian. Yuri says the                English word -- "Friends".                                     NADIA                              (to John)                         "Frenzy".                                     JOHN                         Yes I know.                                     YURI                              (himself)                         Yuri.                              (Rasputin)                         Alexei. Alexei and Yuri.               Alexei speaks.                                     JOHN                         What did he say?                                     YURI                         He says he feels safe here.               Nadia talks fast to Yuri.                                     YURI                         She says she wanted to tell you but                          her English is shit. And no one speaks                          Russian, it's very hard for her. The                          light please.               Alexei turns off the light again. Nadia blows out her candles.                They are plunged back into darkness. John turns the light on                again. Yuri is already sitting down.                                     JOHN                         I need to know who you are first                          please.                                     YURI                         Oh.                              (Yuri stands)                         We are Russian.                                     JOHN                         Yes. I know.                                     YURI                         Good.                              (he sits down)                                     JOHN                         And...                                     YURI                         And what? You mean from the beginning?                          Jesus. Can I uh okay, as we say in                          Russia can I cut a long story short.                          Okay. Nadia is my little cousin.                          Except she's not. But we say cousin.                          This is for you.               He hands John another bottle of vodka.                                     JOHN                         Hold on.                                     YURI                         Toast first then we talk seriously,                          I can see you are serious about us.               Vodka is splashed into their glasses. Yuri raises his glass                and shouts a toast in Russian: "Vashe Zdarovye!". They down                their vodka, John sips at his, then realises he must finish                it. Yuri makes as if to throw his in the fireplace.                                     YURI                         Just kidding.               Sausages, cheese, bread and pickle bottles rain onto the                table from Yuri's rucksack.                                     JOHN                              (to Yuri)                         So hang on. You're both Nadia's                          cousins?                                     YURI                              (shaking his head)                         Of course not. Alexei, he's is my                          problem.                                     JOHN                         Right.                                     YURI                         We better watch him. He's crazy.                                     JOHN                         Right.                                     YURI                         I am actor, he is actor, although he                          is an actor stroke musician. I just                          noodle along, I'm not so good. He                          makes me look like a retard -- He                          smokes me. I don't mean he smokes                          me.               Yuri mimes giving a blow-job.                                     YURI                         I mean he smokes me. Do you say                          "smoke" in U.K.?               He mimes the blowjob again.                                     JOHN                         No.                                     YURI                         Right. So I can say he smokes me.                          So.               Pause.                                     JOHN                         So?                                     YURI                         So I come to England with other actors                          to make shows, I meet this freak                          from Novgorod I tell him of you and                          Chicken and the birthday here we                          are.               Yuri speaks to Nadia in Russian, she replies looking at John.                                     JOHN                         What was that?                                     YURI                         I asked her if you were happy to see                          us. I find it hard to tell with you.                                     JOHN                         Yes it's okay. Thank you for the                          food.               Nadia lights a cigarette. John notices that on both wrists                she has bold red marks from the ties. He freezes.                                     YURI                         She says you are a little shy. I                          think I know this.               John is thrown, panicking that one of them will notice the                marks.                                     JOHN                         So how long will you be in England?                                     YURI                         Plans are for the architects,                          politicians and so forth.                                     JOHN                         You must have a visa or something...                                     YURI                         You're asking for my documents?                                     JOHN                         No, no...               Yuri laughs, translates for Alexei and they both get a big                laugh out of this. Yuri gets his passport out and makes a                big show of presenting it to John. But John keeps glancing                at the marks on Nadia's wrists. We see a close up of her                neck. There is the tiniest blood mark. John sees it and starts                to sweat.                                     YURI                         We are all Europeans here. Europe,                          Tony Blair and Maggie Thatcher!               Yuri raises his glass and they all drink to Tony Blair and                Margaret Thatcher. John drinks his vodka in two hot gulps.                                     YURI                         So. You have nothing to say to your                          Fiancee? Maybe to wife of forty years                          it's understandable. Come on. You                          speak and I will translate.               John looks glazed. The room falls silent.                                     JOHN                         Hello.               Yuri translates -- She replies.                                     YURI                         She says 'Hello' to you. Go for it                          John!                                     JOHN                         Uh. Do you like England?                                     YURI                         Classic!                              (he translates)                         Thank God. She says 'Yes!'               John nods. He watches Nadia tap ash. The wrist again.                                     JOHN                         Uh...               They all wait. Yuri nods encouragingly.                                     JOHN                         I can't think of anything. Hang on.               Nadia speaks in Russian to Yuri.                                     YURI                         She says she has a secret to tell.                                     JOHN                         What?               Nadia speaks. John waits uncomfortably. Silence.                                     YURI                         She says she watched you at the                          airport.               John stops.                                     JOHN                         When?                                     YURI                              (translating)                         "I saw you waiting there, by the                          gate."                                     JOHN                         I...                                     YURI                         "I have these uh..." She explains to                          you... "When I was a little girl my                          father had these beautiful old                          glasses." Like... I don't know the                          word. Like for watching uh... for                          watching the birds.               We see John's face.                                     JOHN                         Binoculars.                                     YURI                         Binoculars. He had these Binoculars                          he has kept from the war.                                                                    CUT TO:               Scene 1 reprise.               EXT. SUMMER MEADOW - DAY               A young girl runs through a summer meadow with a pair of                Russian Army field binoculars, around her neck.                                     YURI (V.O.)                         I would run around with them taking                          pictures of things I liked with my                          mind. If I saw something beautiful I                          would take a picture.               With the binoculars pressed to her face, she spies                butterflies, birds, a rabbit. She stops running and aims the                binoculars up, up, into the sun               INT. JOHN'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Yuri translates.                                     YURI                         The day before I left Russia my father                          gave me the old binoculars. He said                          that when I saw you I was to stand                          far away and look at you with these,                          and to examine your face closely.                          And if you were a bad person I could                          run away.               Nadia looks at the table.                                     YURI                         She says she took a picture.               John watches Nadia looking at the table. She glances up once                and catches his eye.               Alexei suddenly slams his hand down on the table. He raises                his palm. There is an ant squashed there. He shows Yuri.                                     ALEXEI                         Nasyekski.               EXT. JOHN'S GARDEN - NIGHT               The small party has moved outside to the patio, where they                sit around a low wooden table in the mellow candlelight. A                huge late Summer moon hangs over the fields. Alexei tinkles                beautifully on his guitar.               He stops asks a question in Russian.                                     JOHN                         What was that?                                     YURI                         Oh nothing.                                     JOHN                         Tell me.                                     YURI                         No. It is too judgmental.                                     JOHN                         Tell me what he said.                                     YURI                         He says why did you send to Russia                          for a wife.               Silence. John suddenly looks sick.                                     YURI                         You are not ashamed of it? It's no                          surprise to want to love.                                     JOHN                         No. It's not that.                                     YURI                         Do you believe in love?                                     JOHN                         I suppose it's... I mean define your                          terms.                                     YURI                         It's very strange. How many people                          are truly themselves with their love?                          It is the greatest human disaster                          and it is never in the newspapers.                          There are no Marches Against                          Heartache, no Ministries Against                          Loneliness, no Concerts Against                          Disappointment. We look away. And                          still we know in secret that nothing                          is more important to us. The one                          thing we all share but don't say.                          Look John I will show you something.               He takes a plate and starts reaching for the food.                                     YURI                         Here look, something beautiful from                          Russia. Here is Life, there, take                          it.               John accepts the plate.                                     YURI                         Here is bread. Khylep. This is work.                          We all need this, here eat.               John eats.                                     YURI                         Good. But we cannot survive with                          just work, so here is meat and blood.                          Myasa. This is family and country,                          flesh, strength, eat.               John bites the sausage.                                     YURI                         But again this is not life. Here is                          joy and pain. Chyesnok. Without these                          life has no flavour, is too serious.                          Eat.               John nibbles some pickled garlic.                                     YURI                         But this vodka.                              (pause)                         Is love. Only this magic changes you                          inside. The moon and the stars and                          the sun.               Yuri offers John the glass. He looks at Nadia, takes it and                swigs it down in one. He looks across at Nadia, wiping his                mouth, his eyes watering. She looks back at him.               Alexei begins softly singing a song. As he sings:                                     YURI                         This is a love song, a soldier's                          song to his beloved -- Alexei, he's                          Afghanstya, a veteran of Afghanistan.                          He saw terrible things.               They listen to the beautiful, sad voice. For the second verse                Yuri joins in, a slow stirring lament. For the end Nadia                joins in too and the three of them begin harmonising                beautifully. John watches in the candlelight.               John, Nadia and Alexei pose with the cake. Nadia puts her                arm round John and Alexei. With a FLASH! Yuri takes a                Polaroid.               The guitar theme returns as we see the Polaroid on the table                in close up, developing speeded up. John comes into focus,                beaming.               INT. LOUNGE - NIGHT               We track across the sleeping faces of Yuri and Alexei tucked                into their sleeping bags with guitar cases for pillows. John                switches the light off and closes the door.               INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               John and Nadia seen from above lying asleep, with their heads                together, in the moonlight. Nadia whispers something in her                sleep, in Russian. Fast asleep John mutters something in                English. Their sleeping, unintelligible conversation, drifts                on in the night.               INT. BANK - DAY               John sits at his desk in the open plan office. He looks                nervous.               This is because he is wearing Nadia's ring. People pass his                desk, a couple say hello, but they don't notice. He rubs his                chin. Nobody notices.               Eventually his manager approaches.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         Quick word John?               He leans over the desk.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         This is sensitive. Your car. Lovely                          car. Doesn't necessarily give the                          right impression.                                     JOHN                         Ch...                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         To customers approaching the bank                          from the rear                                     JOHN                              (thrown)                         Right.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         You can see why it's sensitive?                                     JOHN                         Uh... Yes.               The manager smiles and taps the desk twice.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         I'll leave it on your desk.               John is left alone.               INT. HALL / LIVING ROOM - DAY               The front door opens and John walks into his hall. The two                rucksacks are still side by side where they were the night                before...               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               He opens the fridge and pours himself a glass of orange. He                stops -- There on the draining board lies the bloody skin of                a rabbit. John jumps out of his skin.               Next to the rabbit skin is a hand-drawn map. A dotted line                winds around the map and ends with an X in a small wood.               He looks at the rabbit skin, with its eyeless sockets.               EXT. FOREST - DAY               John follows a path through a big silent wood, the low sun                flaring and catching his white work shirt.               P.O.V. OF JOHN               through binoculars, a long way off and squinting into the                sun.               Nadia lowers the binoculars and looks past us.                                                                    CUT TO:               John spots some figures lying on the grass in the distance.                He heads towards them, and watches them for a moment from                thirty yards away.               Alexei, Yuri and Nadia sit in a small clearing. A blanket,                cushions, bread and vodka are scattered around. Yuri is                strumming a guitar. Alexei and Nadia are laughing and                chatting. He removes a small twig from her hair and flattens                it under his big hand. John watches the gesture. It's so                intimate they could be lovers.                                     YURI                              (calls)                         John. We can see you hiding.               John steps out of his hiding place and approaches the group.                Alexei has Nadia falling about laughing about something. He                smiles at her then nods to John.               Pieces of cooked rabbit lie in tin foil. Alexei feeds a piece                to Nadia with a big hunting knife. Nadia smiles at John, and                starts knitting.                                     YURI                         How is bank?                                     JOHN                         Fine. I thought you were leaving                          today.                                     YURI                         To be indoors on such a day. It's                          crime.               Nadia stops knitting and takes her shirt off and stretches                back to sunbathe in her black bra. Alexei takes the knife he                has just finished cleaning and holds the cold wide blade                flat above Nadia's bare stomach. Just before pressing it                down he looks across at John. Nadia yelps and sits up. They                laugh, and Yuri joins in. John laughs uneasily.               Alexei notices marks on Nadia's midriff. He asks her about                them in Russian.               John goes white, unable to understand Nadia's explanation.                He has no idea what she told him.               EXT. LAKE IN FOREST - DAY               At sunset, the four run towards a lake in their underwear.                They jump and dive in, and begin splashing each other.               John duck-dives under the water and swims through the sunlit                streaked green water. We see him under the water, swimming                towards us, caught by the sun's rays.               John surfaces, and wipes the water from his eyes. He spots                Alexei and Nadia playing in the water. Alexei grabs her and                throws her in the air and she comes down with a splash.               John treads water nearby. He watches them both hold their                noses and disappear under the surface.               They've both vanished. John ducks under the water.               John's underwater P.O.V.: It's too murky to see anything.               The two surface, breathing hard, laughing. John watches them.               Alexei holds Nadia tight and looks like he might even kiss                her. But instead he ducks her and holds her under the water.               John treads water nearby. She's been under a long time.                                     JOHN                         Hey.               John begins to swim toward Alexei. Just as he gets near,                Alexei lets Nadia surface, coughing and spluttering -- she                shouts at Alexei in Russian, angry.               Alexei makes for her again but she pushes him away, twice,                almost slapping him. She is very uncomfortable. She swims                away.               Yuri admonishes his friend in Russian. Alexei stares at John,                then swims off powerfully back towards the shore.                                     YURI                         He's just having fun. He's maybe too                          strong you know...               John watches Nadia walk out of the lake towards her clothes.               INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT               John walks into his bedroom. Nadia is on the bed with a                dictionary. She puts it down. She speaks very slowly.                                     NADIA                         They go. John. They go.                                     JOHN                         What's wrong?                                     NADIA                         They go.                                     JOHN                         Of course. They go. Yes. Yes.                                     NADIA                         They go.               INT. JOHN'S SITTING ROOM - NIGHT               John stands at the end of the two sleeping bags.                                     YURI                         I understand. I'm so sorry                                     JOHN                         You can stay tonight.                                     YURI                         I have brought you trouble. Maybe I                          should have come alone.                                     JOHN                         Good night.               Alexei stares at John as he backs out of the room.               INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               John closes his bedroom door and slips back into bed. Nadia                is already asleep. John lies back in the moonlight, and stares                at the ceiling.               EXT. GARDEN - DAY               A light summer rain. Drips fall from rose petals.               INT. JOHN'S BEDROOM - DAY               John opens his eyes. He rolls over towards Nadia, but she's                already up and about.               Alone in his bedroom, John holds the now-finished jumper up                to himself. He tries it on. It's a good four sizes too big,                the arms are too long and it hangs down to mid-thigh. He                looks at himself in the mirror and smiles.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. STAIRS / HALL / KITCHEN - DAY               He pads downstairs in his pants, picks up his mail from the                doormat and peers into the living room. The sleeping bags                and guitar cases have gone. About to peruse his mail, his                eye is caught by something else.               There is a small wild deer standing in the living room.                Looking at him. John stares back at it transfixed, when he                hears a scream. The deer starts and bolts out of the patio                doors. John is thrown. It was a woman's scream. He goes back                out and looks down the hall.               Twenty feet away, down the hall, is Yuri, sitting on the                kitchen floor, his back to the cooker. He's crying.                                     YURI                         John. You must call the Police.               Suddenly Alexei steps between them in the doorway. As he                moves out of view, we see he is holding his hunting knife.                John hears Nadia cry out, from inside the kitchen. He drops                his mail and rushes forward.               INT. KITCHEN - DAY               Nadia is tied to a chair. Alexei pulls a gag tight around                her mouth and holds the knife to her throat.                                     JOHN                         What are you doing?               Alexei shouts at Yuri in Russian.                                     YURI                         John, I'm sorry. It's my fault.               Alexei shouts again. Nadia is frozen with terror.                                     JOHN                         What's he doing? What the fuck are                          you doing? Leave her alone.               Alexei addresses John.                                     YURI                         He says sit down. Or he'll cut her.               Alexei and Yuri shout at each other. Nadia begins crying.                                     YURI                         Sit down please.               John sits across the table from Nadia.                                     JOHN                         Tell him to stop and let her go, and                          we'll talk.               The kettle boils. Alexei takes the kettle and holds it over                Nadia's head.               John springs up.                                     JOHN                         Put the fucking kettle down.                                     YURI                         John.                                     JOHN                         Put the fucking kettle down. Tell,                          Yuri, tell him put it down or I'm                          going to make him.               Yuri translates -- Alexei replies.                                     YURI                         He says you scare him so much he                          must go to the toilet in his trousers.                          John, he is a soldier. A trained                          killer. We must do what he says.                                     JOHN                         What? What does he want?               Alexei speaks.                                     JOHN                         What did he say? Tell me!                                     YURI                         He says you are very sad ridiculous                          man. I don't agree of course. And                          that you must pay someone to have                          sex like a prostitute. Nadia is a                          prostitute. I'm sorry.                                     JOHN                         What does he want. The Russian                          shithead. What do you want ?                                     YURI                         He wants money.                                     JOHN                         Tell him to put the kettle down and                          I'll give him money.               Yuri translates this for Alexei. Alexei has a reply.                                     YURI                         He wants a lot of money.                                     JOHN                         I'll give him money. Tell him to put                          the...                                     YURI                         He wants the money from your bank.                                     JOHN                         I'll fuckin' give it to him! We'll                          go down there.                                     YURI                         You don't understand. He wants all                          the money that is in your bank.                                     JOHN                         I've got eight hundred pounds. Oh                          Jesus.               The penny drops.                                     JOHN                         Oh Jesus.                                     YURI                         He is sure you can do this. Of course                          you can not.                                     JOHN                         Oh Jesus. Of course I can't.               Alexei doesn't need the translation he tilts the kettle, and                a small amount of boiling water trickles onto Nadia's hair.                She screams through the gag.               John tries to reach across to her but Alexei draws the knife                and holds it to his face.                                     JOHN                         Just leave her alone.                                     YURI                         I'm so sorry.                                     JOHN                         Leave her alone.               CLOSE UP On Nadia's terrified eyes, imploring John to help                her.               INT. / EXT. JOHN'S CAR - DAY               John drives grim-faced through the morning rain. Yuri is                next to him staring ahead at the road. Alexei is in the back                with Nadia who is still bound and gagged. He's holding his                knife to her ribs.               INT. MULTI-STOREY CAR PARK - DAY               The car parks on the top floor. John turns off the engine.                He looks at Nadia in his rear view mirror but she seems in                shock.               INT. HIGH STREET - DAY               John strides towards us down St. Albans High Street, carrying                the two guitar cases, his raincoat flapping. His eyes look                glazed, the busy street sounds around him muffled.               INT. NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK - DAY               The doors slide apart and John enters his branch. The place                is full of customers. He cheeks himself through the security                door and into the back.               INT. OPEN-PLAN OFFICE - DAY               John walks through the open plan office. His Branch Manager                is there with another bank official, and Clare.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         Ah John. This is Robert Moseley,                          Head of South East New Business.                          Robert, this is John Buckingham.                                     MOSELEY                         Hello John.                                     JOHN                         Hello.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         I thought you could give us the tour                          this morning. Sort of be our Indian                          Guide.                                     JOHN                         Right.                                     MOSELEY                              (i.e. the guitars)                         Do you play?                                     JOHN                         Yes. I do.                                     CLARE                         That's John. He's always surprising                          you with hidden talents.                                     MOSELEY                         I used to be in a band. Keyboards.                          Sort of like very loud, uh -- very                          loud Marillion.               They laugh. Pause.                                     CLARE                              (to John)                         Well, Maestro, give us a tune.               They laugh. Pause.                                     JOHN                         I'll give you a tune later.               The Branch Manager takes John to one side and stage-whispers.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         Take the ball and run with it John.               INT. BANK CORRIDOR - DAY               John leads the team down the corridor past the training room                where his colleagues are busy with Trust and Letting Go.                                     JOHN                         This is uh... This is the uh...               A colleague passes carrying a file.                                     PASSING COLLEAGUE                         Morning John. Give us a tune.                                     JOHN                         I'll give you a tune later.               INT. TRAINING ROOM - DAY               They enter the training room.                                     JOHN                         This is where we're doing Trust and                          uh... Trust and Letting Go.                                     MOSELEY                         We're not doing this till the fourth                          quarter -- Has it, uh -- any results,                          has it been been beneficial?                                     JOHN                         Yes.                                     CLARE                         It's weird at first. Sort of exciting                          and frightening at the same time.                          Wouldn't you say John?                                     JOHN                         Yes.                                     BRANCH MANAGER                         We're starting to see results. This                          is Karen, who's uh... taking uh...                          it.               They say hello to each other and MOSELEY asks her a couple                of questions.                                     JOHN                         Excuse me.               INT. CORRIDOR - DAY               John nips out and fetches his guitar cases. He rounds the                corner, down a couple of steps. He checks himself into the                Safe Area. A Colleague passes him.                                     COLLEAGUE                         Morning John. Hey, Moseley's here.                                     JOHN                         I'll give you a tune later.               INT. SAFE ROOM DOOR - DAY               John punches in the security code. He opens the safe door                and goes inside, closing it behind him. We see his stricken                face peering through the toughened glass.               INT. TRAINING ROOM - DAY               Robert Moseley falls backwards into the arms of an employee.                                     MOSELEY                         It's weird isn't it.               A little bored perhaps, Moseley gazes out through the open                door. He sees...               INT. CORRIDOR - DAY               John bowling out of the safe-room backwards heaving two guitar                cases. One bursts open spilling bundles of fifties onto the                floor.               INT. TRAINING ROOM - DAY               Moseley, the Branch Manager, Clare, and five Trust and Letting                Go catchers all watch...               INT. CORRIDOR - DAY               John scoops up the money, refasten the case and stand to see                them all watching him, as the five Trust and Letting Go                fallers crash to the ground in unison.               EXT. SIDE STREET - DAY               John hauls ass towards us straight down the middle of the                road, a guitar case in either hand, footsteps clapping loudly                on the wet cobbles. Alarms sound, dogs bark.               EXT. STREET CORNER - DAY               He skis around a corner, and sprints up this other street.                We are close by his head, as he sprints one hundred metres.               EXT. CAR PARK ROOF - DAY               Running flat out across the car park. Yuri throws open the                car door and John hurls the guitar cases inside. He dives                in, turns the key in the ignition. The Rover coughs and                wheezes. He tries again. It spits and misfires. The third                time it catches and lives. John grinds the gears and lurches                off.               INT. MULTI STOREY CAR PARK - DAY               The Rover hurtles down the ramps.               EXT. STREET - DAY               It careens down a side-street.               INT. / EXT. MOVING ROVER - DAY               Alexei opens one of the cases and looks inside. He takes a                deep breath and swears in Russian.               He shows what is in the case to Nadia. Her eyes widen.               Alexei gently lowers the gag and kisses her on the mouth.                She returns the kiss hungrily.               John spots them in the mirror and nearly crashes the car.               He looks desperately across at Yuri. Yuri is now pointing                the big knife at John's ribs. The Russian shrugs almost                apologetically.               In the back seat Nadia has freed herself and is beginning to                pull at Alexei's clothes. They begin making out passionately.               John's eyes slowly lose focus. He turns grey, then white. He                drives and we watch the life seep out of him.               EXT. DUAL CARRIAGEWAY - NIGHT               Cars tear through the night along the carriage way, past a                Happy Eater. We pan round, across the motorway to a single                storey run-down Motel.               INT. MOTEL CHALET 17 - NIGHT               A crusty motel chalet. Yuri and Alexei are sitting on a double                bed counting the money. The T.V. is on in the corner with                the sound turned down and there are empty miniatures from                the mini-bar scattered around.               Nadia appears from the kitchenette area. They all seem more                relaxed, more themselves, as if what we've seen before was                an act. For the first time in the film their conversation                appears as English subtitles.                                     NADIA                         So?               Alexei says "SSShhh" He is counting in his head. He stops.                                     ALEXEI                              (to Yuri)                         You first.                                     YURI                         Fifty thousand. Almost exactly.                                     NADIA                         Sixty four thousand, eight hundred.                                     ALEXEI                         There's over eighty thousand here.               They look at each other, absorbing the moment.                                     YURI                         Sweet Jesus...               He lies back on the bed and chuckles.                                     ALEXEI                         Put it in the cases. Split it up.                          And don't forget you owe me £150.                                     YURI                         What for?                                     ALEXEI                         You know what for.                                     YURI                         No I don't.                                     ALEXEI                         I got you those trousers from Paul                          Smith.                                     YURI                         I've been buying you stuff all week.                          I've been buying him stuff all week.                                     ALEXEI                         Such as?               Nadia is smiling at them as they squabble.                                     YURI                         When we went to the Hard Rock Cafe.                          Who paid? When we went to see 'Cats'.                          Who paid?                                     ALEXEI                         Those aren't presents. That's normal                          friendship stuff                                     YURI                         I paid for those guitar cases.                                     NADIA                         What was 'Cats' like?                                     YURI                         It was alright.                                     ALEXEI                         Yeah it was okay.                                     YURI                         Yeah. It was quite good actually.                          Some bits I really liked.                                     ALEXEI                         The sets were good.                                     YURI                         The sets were excellent. Everything                          was big, you know, all the rubbish,                          coke cans, sweet wrappers, dustbins,                          so when you were watching it you                          felt cat size. It was really clever.               Yuri goes into the bathroom, leaving Nadia and Alexei alone                on the bed.               Alexei runs his hand across Nadia's cheek.                                     ALEXEI                              (softly)                         So. How many times did you have to                          fuck him?               INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT               Yuri in the bathroom, he undoes his flies pees. At the other                end of the bathroom, tied to the bidet, gagged, is John.                                     YURI                         How you doing?               John refuses to meet his eye. Yuri flushes and wipes his                hands.                                     YURI                         I'll show you something. It should                          make all this easier I think.               From his back pocket, Yuri takes out an old envelope. He                opens it and removes a dozen or so Polaroids.               John looks down at the first Polaroid. Nadia, Alexei and a                man John doesn't recognise at a birthday party. There is a                cake with candles and everyone is smiling. The next picture                is the same. And the next.               Sometimes Germany, sometimes France, but otherwise the                pictures are the same, each 'fiancee' beaming with his arm                round Nadia, Alexei looking on.               John studies the faces of his fellow dupes and at last comes                to his own picture. Despite himself tears come to his eyes.                                     YURI                         Not all these bastards were like                          you, believe me. You should not too                          feel bad.               Yuri takes John's left hand and pulls off Nadia's ring. He                puts it in his pocket.               INT. MOTEL BEDROOM - NIGHT               Alexei smokes on the bed. Nadia is lying the other way. She                holds her hand out for his cigarette and he passes it. They                have the relaxed air of longtime lovers.               Subtitles again.                                     NADIA                         It's enough isn't it?                                     ALEXEI                         What do you mean?                                     NADIA                         You know what I mean babe, It's                          enough. We can stop.                                     ALEXEI                         Do you want to stop?                                     NADIA                         Yes.                                     ALEXEI                         We'll stop then.               They kiss. He takes her hand, and notices the tie marks on                her wrists.                                     ALEXEI                         What's this?                                     NADIA                         It's nothing. I burnt myself.                                     ALEXEI                         That's not a burn.                                     NADIA                         It is. I did it cooking.               They sit there looking at each other.                                     ALEXEI                         On both wrists?               Nadia looks back at him. The seconds pass.                                     NADIA                         What? I did it cooking.               Alexei studies her face. She pulls a face. He keeps staring.                                     NADIA                         What?               They sit there in silence. Alexei is so big, and she is so                small.                                     NADIA                         Listen, I made you something.               Nadia leans over the bed, and searches in her bag. Alexei                watches her closely. She comes back up with the jumper she                has knitted.                                     NADIA                         Put it on.               He looks at the jumper, then back at her.                                     NADIA                         It's taken me weeks. I want to see                          you in it.               She starts pulling at his shirt. Eventually he pulls the                jumper on. It fits perfectly.                                     NADIA                         Do you like it?                                     ALEXEI                         Yeah.               He is still staring at her.                                     NADIA                         Say thank you.                                     ALEXEI                         Thank you.               She takes his hands. He is still looking at her. He strokes                his hair. He places his big hand around her throat and holds                it there, holding her at arms length. She doesn't react, but                just looks levelly back at him. They sit like this for about                ten seconds, looking at each other.                                     NADIA                         We're going to have a baby.               Alexei seems not to relax. He keeps his hand there.                                     ALEXEI                         What?                                     NADIA                         You heard what I said. I'm pregnant.                          I've been throwing up for weeks.               Alexei removes his hand. Now he seems shocked. He lights a                cigarette.                                     NADIA                         We're having a baby.               Pause.                                     ALEXEI                         A baby? What are we supposed to do                          with a baby?                                     NADIA                         Name it.               She comes to him and holds him. He is still absorbing the                news.               We see Alexei's face over her shoulder, behind her back,                unreadable. Behind his back she rubs her wrists.               INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT               Some hours later, it's dark outside. John still tied to the                bidet. The door opens a crack and somebody slips inside. We                hear the toilet seat go down. As his eyes adjust he can dimly                see Nadia sitting on the toilet. She doesn't look at him. As                she finishes she finally turns and holds his eye. She stands                and slips out the door, leaving him alone.               EXT. DUAL CARRIAGEWAY - NIGHT               Cars crawl by on the road outside, their tail-lights                stretching over the hill.               The shot processes and fades into dawn and light.               The early morning commuters now use the carriageway.               INT. BATHROOM - DAY               Bright sunlight pours through a high window. John is still                on the toilet. He begins to try to struggle free.               After a great deal of fierce deadpan shimmying and pulling,                he succeeds in loosening his bindings. Freeing an arm, he                yanks the duct tape from his mouth and sits there panting.               The first thing he does is take a pee, then he drinks handfuls                of water. He catches his reflection but can't look at himself.               INT. MAIN ROOM - DAY               John collapses in an armchair, rubbing his eyes. He looks                shattered.               The Russians have gone.               INT. MOTEL BATHROOM - DAY               John in the shower, just standing there, letting the water                hit him.               INT. MOTEL MAIN SUITE - DAY               John dries himself in silence. He pulls on his trousers,                sits down to do his socks. One sock on, he walks to the                smaller bedroom. He opens the door and peers inside.               INT. SMALLER MOTEL BEDROOM - DAY               Tied to the radiator, gagged with duct tape, is Nadia.               John looks down at her. She looks away as her eyes fill with                tears.               He sits on the bed facing her. They stay like that for a                long moment before he reaches over and starts untying her                knots. He peels the tape off her mouth. Suddenly he slaps                her across the face.               Her head hits the radiator. Nadia gasps hard from the shock                of the blow. Without warning she slaps his face, equally                hard.               This starts a long silent fight; kicking, hitting, biting, a                real struggle.               Its intensity is almost sexual, but has the edge of real                violence. They end up on opposite sides of the room, both                panting, hurt and beaten.                                     NADIA                              (in English)                         Great. You've split my fuckin, lip.               John lies there on the floor, panting, and he hears the                English words.               Exhausted, John stands, wipes his mouth, and rushes her anew.                Nadia dodges out the way and cuffs him painfully on the ear.                The whole fight starts again and ends only when neither has                the strength to go on. Nadia staggers into the bathroom where                she shuts the door and begins to sob uncontrollably. John                lies on the bed listening to her cry.               EXT. DUAL CARRIAGEWAY - DAY               The mid morning traffic flows by on the dual carriageway.               INT. HAPPY EATER - DAY               Nadia and John sit in silence in the half empty diner. Nadia                has a cut lip and a graze on her chin. John has a Thousand                Yard Stare and a lesion over his left cheekbone.               The Waitress comes over.                                     WAITRESS                         Good morning. What can I get you?                                     NADIA                         I'll have an espresso, with a small                          pastry, a croissant or something.                                     WAITRESS                         We only do a croissant with the                          Continental breakfast.                                     NADIA                         Just get me a coffee.                                     WAITRESS                         One coffee. And for you Sir ?               John doesn't answer.                                     NADIA                         He'll have a coffee.               The waitress leaves them. Nadia lights a cigarette and they                sit in tense silence, the pain of betrayal, and recent                violence, thick in the air.                                     JOHN                         You can't smoke in here.               Nadia ignores him. John bellows                                     JOHN                         YOU CAN'T SMOKE IN HERE!               The diner falls silent, people stare. She takes a last drag                and crushes the butt on the floor. A waitress comes over and                puts down two coffees.                                     NADIA                         I don't expect you to understand.               It seems as if John has no intention of replying. He sips                his coffee, and puts it down. He begins speaking very calmly.                                     JOHN                         Oh, I don't know. In my job as Deputy                          Assistant of New Business at the                          bank would have to listen to the                          problems of a great many individuals.                          This took a lot of understanding and                          sympathy, to try to work out solutions                          to their problems. But, you see, I'm                          not in that line of work anymore.                          Nowadays I'm a bank robber.                                     NADIA                         You don't understand anything.                                     JOHN                         I think that about covers it. I think                          I have grasped the part about you                          being dumped though. That's got to                          hurt, I imagine. That's got to smart                          a bit. I mean strictly in my                          observer's capacity it seemed you                          two were getting on Pretty Fucking                          Famously.               He sips his coffee.                                     JOHN                         Unless. Unless this is part of the                          routine. You get tied up, stick                          around, distract me, they both bust                          in and Steal My Cup Of Coffee.                                     NADIA                         It's makes it easier. Okay.                                     JOHN                         I don't want to know.                                     NADIA                         It makes it faster. If I don't speak                          to the men, they fall faster. It's                          pretty obvious why.                                     JOHN                         That's a relief. It's nice to know                          I'm a regular guy.               Pause.                                     NADIA                         So what are you going to do?                                     JOHN                         I'm going to drink my coffee. Then,                          we're going to the police station.                          Where there will be lawyers, loss of                          job, house, humiliation, gutter press,                          and probably prison.                                     NADIA                         They don't blame you. When a bank                          employee does this they understand.                          You get your life back. Anyway I bet                          you hated that bank.                                     JOHN                         Even so I always felt the decision                          to burst in and rob it very much                          remained with me.                                     NADIA                         Why else would you send off for me?                          If you just wanted sex just go to a                          prostitute.                                     JOHN                         Well as it turns out I did.               She slaps his face. He slaps hers back. The waitress comes                over.                                     WAITRESS                         More coffee?                                     JOHN                         Yes please.                                     NADIA                         No.               She pours for John.                                     JOHN                         Splendid. Thank you.                                     WAITRESS                         Pleasure.               She smiles and leaves them. John watches her walk away.                                     NADIA                         John, I need your help.               This really tickles John. He has to put his coffee down.                                     JOHN                         You must think... I'm the biggest                          pillock... In the world.                                     NADIA                         No I don't.                                     JOHN                         In the world.                                     NADIA                         I know you just want to punish me --                                     JOHN                         I do. I want to very badly.                                     NADIA                         So you're just going to be vindictive                                     JOHN                         In every sense. If at all possible.                                     NADIA                         You can't hurt me more than I'm hurt                          already.                                     JOHN                         Well, Nadia, It it's all the same to                          you, I'd like to give it a bash.               Pause.                                     NADIA                         My name isn't Nadia.               John stares back at her.               EXT. HAPPY EATER CAR PARK - DAY               John drags her by the arm across the car-park towards the                Rover.               EXT. OUTSIDE POLICE STATION               John drags her out of the Rover. She wrestles her arm free                and walks up the steps on her own, with some dignity. John                follows her.               INT. POLICE STATION DUTY DESK - DAY               They sit side by side in the waiting room, not talking. Nadia                looks resigned to her fate. John is tight-jawed, unyielding.               They wait as the the Duty Sergeant deals with a woman who's                lost her hat.                                     NADIA                              (quietly, to John)                         Where's the restroom?                                     JOHN                         What?                                     NADIA                         I'm going to be sick. Where's the...                                     JOHN                         What? No you're not..                                     NADIA                         I'm going... I am... I'm going to be                          sick.                                     JOHN                              (overlapping)                         No you're not. How... Nice one. How                          dumb do you think I am ?               Nadia stands and addresses the Duty Sergeant.                                     NADIA                         Where's the restroom?                                     SERGEANT                         The what, love?                                     NADIA                         The toilet. Where's...                                     SERGEANT                         Down there on the left.               She heads off. John springs up. He seizes her arm as casually                as possible.               INT. POLICE STATION CORRIDOR - DAY               John frog marches Nadia down the corridor to the Ladies. She                wrestles her arm free again and disappears inside.               John lurks outside. He seems certain she's got one leg out                the window RIGHT NOW.               He can't bear it any longer. He looks both ways and nips                inside.               INT. LADIES - DAY               Standing in the Ladies, John hears Nadia in a cubicle,                throwing up. He hears the toilet flush.               Nadia comes out. He looks at her.                                     JOHN                         You're pregnant.               Nadia looks at the floor.               INT. POLICE CORRIDOR - DAY               John walks out of the toilet and stands against the wall of                the corridor. He looks both ways. After a few seconds Nadia                appears in the corridor. They stand there. John isn't looking                at her.               A policeman appears from round the corner, and walks towards                them. He stops, and addresses John.                                     POLICEMAN                         Can I help you?               John looks at the Policeman, then at Nadia. The seconds pass.                                     POLICEMAN                         Sir? Can I help you?               John is still looking at Nadia -- He closes his eyes.                                     JOHN                         No.               EXT. OUTSIDE POLICE STATION - DAY               John walks back to the Rover, Nadia behind. They reach the                car. Nadia looks at John over the roof of the car.                                     NADIA                         What are you doing?               John looks sick. He speaks very quietly.                                     JOHN                         Get in the car.               He gets inside. Nadia is left standing there. She gets in                too.               INT. / EXT. JOHN'S CAR - DAY               John driving with Nadia in the passenger seat. She is looking                across at him.               He is taking no notice.                                     NADIA                         Plenty of women have babies in prison.               John ignores her.                                     NADIA                              (tersely)                         You don't have to do this. I can                          look after myself.                                     JOHN                              (flatly)                         Have you got your passport?                                     NADIA                         What?                                     JOHN                         Shut up. Have you got your passport?                                     NADIA                         Yes.               They drive along.                                     JOHN                         We've got to get off this motor-way.               EXT. MOTORWAY JUNCTION - DAY               From above we watch the car turn off the motorway, around a                roundabout and into a country B road.               INT. CAR - DAY               John is turning the pages in his Road Atlas. He is trying to                drive and map read at the same time. Nadia is looking out of                the window. Soon a big tear rolls down her cheek. She starts                to cry.               John glances up from his map but ignores it. But she keeps                crying. He tosses the map in the back, pulls the car to the                side of the road and switches off the engine. As Nadia cries,                John gazes impassively out of the window. This goes on for                almost a minute, until Nadia pulls herself together, when                without looking across John restarts the engine and pulls                away.               EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY               John's car pulling off a B road, into a slip road into a                garage.               EXT. PETROL STATION - DAY               Stern-faced, John fills the car up with petrol. He eyes the                Closed-Circuit.                                     JOHN                         Give me some money.                                     NADIA                         I don't have any money.               John stops squeezing petrol.                                     JOHN                         What?                                     NADIA                         I said I don't have any.               John stares at Nadia. He eyes the CCTV.                                     JOHN                         Give me your sunglasses.               Nadia passes them and John puts them on,trying to look casual.                He gives the pump a couple more squirts, hangs it up,                nonchalantly sidles up to his door.               In one move he opens it, dives in, turns the key in the                ignition. The Rover coughs. He tries it again. It howls,                barks and sneezes. The attendant comes out onto the forecourt                and starts approaching the yellow Rover.               Miraculously it roars throatily to life, he floors it and                the Rover tears away from the station and off down the road               INT. MOVING CAR - DAY               We see John at the wheel of his Rover, sunglasses on, wind                in his hair, fleeing from the scene of the crime. Nadia                watches him in the late sunshine, but John is too busy making                a getaway to notice.               EXT. COUNTRY LANE - DAY               John's car shimmering as it comes over the brow of a remote                country lane, surrounded by fields and rolling hills.               INT. / EXT. CAR (MOVING) - DAY               Nadia puts a cigarette in her mouth and pops the dashboard                lighter. John takes the cigarette and throws it out the                window, followed by the lighter. Nadia just gazes out of the                window.                                     JOHN                         So, uh, Alexei, which I know isn't                          his name...                                     NADIA                         I don't want to talk about him.                                     JOHN                         Fine.                                     NADIA                         It's none of your business.                                     JOHN                         Fine. Absolutely. Must be                          disappointing though. Must come as a                          hell of a shock.               Nadia ignores him.                                     JOHN                         So uh...                                     NADIA                         Look, if you want to know is he better                          in bed than you then yes he is.                                     JOHN                         Oh Jesus.                                     NADIA                         If what you want to know is does he                          have a bigger cock than you, then                          yes he does.                                     JOHN                              (overlapping -- bigger)                         Of course. Of course. Of course he                          does. Of course. Thank you. Thanks.                                     NADIA                         But, you know, so what?               They drive.                                     JOHN                         It's his baby I take it.               She doesn't answer.                                     JOHN                         Not the kids type then is he? Not                          that broody. You must be pretty                          miffed.                                     NADIA                         He will come back.                                     JOHN                         Excuse me?                                     NADIA                         He left me my passport and ticket.                          It's pretty clear he wants to see me                          again.                                     JOHN                         Yeah. I tend to tie up and abandon                          women I really want to see again                          too.                                     NADIA                         No. But you tend to tie them up.               John freezes. He looks across. Nadia gives nothing back.                                     JOHN                         Fuck off.               Nadia is just looking at him.                                     JOHN                         Fuck off. You started it.               She is just looking at him.                                     JOHN                         I don't want to talk about it.                                     NADIA                         Why not?                                     JOHN                         Shut up. I'm not listening.                                     NADIA                         You don't want to talk about it.                                     JOHN                         No.                                     NADIA                         Okay we won't talk about it.               Nadia looks out the window.                                     NADIA                         We'll pretend it never happened.                                     JOHN                         So. What's it like having to fuck                          men you hate?                                     NADIA                         I don't hate you.                                     JOHN                         Okay. Let's... Okay. Okay. You have                          had sex with people you don't like                          haven't you? For money. To make money.                                     NADIA                         And? What are you saying?                                     JOHN                         And. It's wrong.                                     NADIA                         And who says what is wrong.                                     JOHN                         And that would be Morals. That would                          be one's own moral sense of decency.                                     NADIA                         What's a moral orgasm John? Tell me                          how it feels exactly.                                     JOHN                         So. What then? You just detach sex                          from everything..                                     NADIA                         Whereas "Wet 'n' Wild" is an emotional                          journey. "Tied and Tethered". It's                          pretty moving huh? Like Anna Karenina.                                     JOHN                         Listen. I didn't go rooting around                          in your private stuff.               John remembers he did. Nadia looks across knowingly.                                     NADIA                         Funny. Usually it's the first thing                          they do.               Pause.                                     JOHN                         So what? Do you just switch off in                          your head or do you imagine you're                          with him, or what?                                     NADIA                         Sometimes.                                     JOHN                         Sometimes which?                                     NADIA                         Sometimes neither.                                     JOHN                         Some... What does that mean?                                     NADIA                         There's nothing wrong in liking sex,                          John.                                     JOHN                         I don't like sex. I don't think I'll                          be having sex ever again.                                     NADIA                         Why?                                     JOHN                         Well, it's just that the thought                          trying to charm up an erection in                          front of a woman, or alone for that                          matter, makes me want to die.                                     NADIA                         So now you hate all women?                                     JOHN                         I think it's my safest bet, don't                          you?                                     NADIA                         Oh. I think you will recover okay. I                          think you got what you paid for.               John looks across.                                     JOHN                         What?                                     NADIA                         You...                                     JOHN                         I got what I paid for.                                     NADIA                         You didn't mind too much.               Pause.                                     JOHN                              (quietly)                         It wasn't what I wanted.                                     NADIA                         So what did you want? I think we                          understand each other, no?                                     JOHN                              (quietly)                         You don't understand me.                                     NADIA                         You don't understand you either.               John turns to her.                                     NADIA                         It's no big thing. You are the same                          as most men. You are a man so you                          are a savage. Not a monster, but                          half animal. You put on a tie and                          you go to the bank, but really you                          are a beast. But also you are from                          woman so you have a soul. Half beast,                          half soul. But you hide your beast                          in the bottom of the wardrobe. It's                          not so healthy. It's fucked you up,                          no?               John stops the car.                                     JOHN                         Get out.               She sits there.                                     NADIA                         Excuse me?                                     JOHN                         Get out                                     NADIA                         You are throwing me out.                                     JOHN                         Get out.               She collects her bag from the back seat, her cigarettes,                gathers up her belongings, clicks open the door and gets                out, leaving the shot. John sits there staring ahead. We                hear her voice offscreen.                                     NADIA (O.S.)                         You prefer your women mute.               John turns the key in the ignition. The engine bellows and                screams. Silence.               He tries again. The engine shrieks and wails like a soul in                torment. A terrible, mournful grinding noise. Silence.                                     NADIA (O.S.)                         Car trouble?               John tries to start it. It lets out a whimper, a crying, a                few juddering moving sobs, and dies.               John sits in his dead car. He shakes his head. He rubs his                face. He sits there.               EXT. ROADSIDE VERGE - DUSK               The two of them on a verge ten feet apart. John stares into                the distance.               Nadia studies the map.                                     NADIA                         It's another twenty miles. It's going                          dark.               She gets her holdall from inside the car and stuffs the map                inside.                                     NADIA                         What now?               Nadia scans the horizon with her binoculars. John watches                her.                                     JOHN                         Jesus. You weren't even on the plane.               Nadia lowers her binoculars and looks at John.               FLASHBACK - INT. AIRPORT - DAY               John watches the passengers stream out of the arrivals gate.                A woman is greeted and spun around.               Across the airport, Nadia lowers her binoculars. We pull                back to see she is standing next to Alexei.               They say goodbye in Russian. Even though we don't see                subtitles, it's a telling exchange. She kisses him, and he                watches her leave him and walk across the floor.               Alexei watches Nadia approach John, and see him shake her                hand.               They walk away together.               FLASHBACK - EXT. JOHN'S STREET - NIGHT               Alexei, dressed in a suit, stands outside John's house,                looking up. Nadia is in the window, her lipstick smeared.                They gaze at each other.               EXT. DIFFERENT FOREST - NIGHT               In a clearing, John watches Nadia carry a pile of sticks to                a fire she is building. She lights it with her gun cigarette                lighter, and teases the flames to life.               EXT. FOREST - NIGHT               John and Nadia sit by the fire. She sits wrapped up to her                neck in a blanket.                                     NADIA                         You know, in Russia, there's no work                          for women. It's a different world.                                     JOHN                              (interrupting on                               "different")                         You don't have to say anything                                     NADIA                              (overlapping on "say")                         What? I... I wasn't saying...                                     JOHN                              (overlapping on                               "saying")                         Please, there's no... Oh.                                     NADIA                         I wasn't saying anything.                                     JOHN                         Then okay.                              (pause)                         So how old were you when you met                          him?               Pause.                                     NADIA                         Fifteen. You don't know him. He was                          very kind and strong.                                     JOHN                         Yeah. He's a smashing bloke.                                     NADIA                         The rest of the world, John, it's                          not all like St. Albans.                                     JOHN                         Thank Christ for that.                                     NADIA                         You are pretty naive if you think it                          is.                                     JOHN                         I'm pretty naive? Look at you. You                          have to do all this, and what have                          you got to show for it? Nothing.                                     NADIA                         I don't have nothing.                                     JOHN                         Well what have you got?               Pause.                                     NADIA                         I have my baby.               They sit there in the lapping firelight.                                     JOHN                         Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?                                     NADIA                         No.                                     JOHN                         Have you had any before?                                     NADIA                         No.                                     JOHN                         Are you scared?                                     NADIA                         Not really. Maybe a little.               A fox cries out in the night.                                     NADIA                         Listen. I think it's a fox.               She listens. It cries out again. She gets out her binoculars.                                     NADIA                         It sounds close.               She looks through them and searches the brush. John watches                Nadia with her binoculars. He looks suddenly very sad.                                     NADIA                         I can't see anything. It's too dark.               She puts them back in her bag. John watches her. He sees her                wrist again. She lights a cigarette, and blows the smoke                into the air.                                     NADIA                         What happened between you and the                          blonde?                                     JOHN                         What?                                     NADIA                         The thin... the girl with small eyes.                          The one in your cupboard.                                     JOHN                         It's none of your business. She didn't                          have small eyes.                                     NADIA                         Did she leave you? Come on. It's                          nothing to be ashamed of. Who did                          she leave you for? Your best friend?                          Her boss? A woman? Did she leave you                          for a woman, John?                                     JOHN                         She's dead.               Pause.                                     NADIA                         I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt                          you. I'm sorry. That's awful. Forgive                          me.               Pause.                                     NADIA                         I'm sorry.                                     JOHN                         I don't know why I said that. She's                          not dead at all.               Nadia looks at John.                                     NADIA                         What?                                     JOHN                         I don't know why I said it. I'm sorry.                                     NADIA                         She's alive?               Nadia starts to laugh. Long and loud. We have never seen her                laugh before.                                     NADIA                         She's alive!! She is not dead?                                     JOHN                         Laugh it up.               She starts to cough. She gets on her hands and knees and                coughs like fury.                                     JOHN                         You should stop smoking. You're                          pregnant. You smoke like a fucking                          lab dog.                                     NADIA                         I'm trying to quit.                                     JOHN                         I've got news for you. It's not                          working.                                     NADIA                         I smoke more these days. I smoke                          more when I'm unhappy.                                     JOHN                         Nobody's that unhappy.                                     NADIA                         Maybe I want to die. Don't you want                          me to die?                                     JOHN                         I don't want anyone to die.                                     NADIA                         Except for Small Eyes.                                     JOHN                         Except for Small Eyes.               She laughs again.                                     NADIA                         So why did it end?               John thinks. It looks as if he's going to tell the whole                story. In the end he shrugs.                                     JOHN                         I don't know.                                     NADIA                         What was her name?                                     JOHN                         What's your name?               The fox cries out again.                                     NADIA                         Listen. It's definitely a fox. Now                          I'm scared.               They listen to the fox crying in the night.                                     NADIA                         You know you can come under the                          blanket.                                     JOHN                         It's alright.               The scene from bird's eye view. John lies back and stares at                the stars. Nadia curls up on the other side of the fire, and                hugs herself.               We push down closer and closer until we are on John's face.                The theme returns.               The cricket boys from John's Close stand in a line in the                middle of the street, bathed in flashing blue light. We pan                round and end on John's house.               It is surrounded with Police.               Police cars, Police Vans, plastic police tape "POLICE LINE.                DO NOT CROSS."               John's neighbours press against the tape as officers come                and go.               Inside the house is full of police, ransacking his possessions                and dusting fingerprints. A policeman is standing reading                The English-Russian Dictionary.               We push on upstairs and along the landing to the spare room.               An officer dumps a pile of porno magazines and videos on the                bed. He then spots the belts tied to the bedstead and points                them out to a detective. They exchange a knowing grin. A                photographer steps up and snaps the paraphernalia in a                blinding flash.               The birthday cake is there, half eaten. A Policewoman puts                it in a baggy.               We pan across the bed, across the magazines and underwear in                plastic bags, down below the bed, where we find the photograph                of Nadia with the binoculars.               The young girl smiles hopefully out at us from the past.               Early dawn. A woodpigeon coos. John wakes up next to the                dead fire. Nadia is gone.               EXT. FOREST SLOPE / STREAM - DAY               John slides down a rocky slope. He scans the forest, but                there's no-one around. He hurries through high bracken then                stops suddenly by a large oak.               EXT. STREAM - DAY               In a pool in a stream below, Nadia is washing herself. She                has her back to us.               John watches her for a moment, before his eyes avert, and                his head bows.               EXT. FIELD - DAY               A shimmering sun. A giant combine harvester cuts a wide swathe                through a field of high corn. As it passes we find John and                Nadia coming towards us through the heat haze.               They aren't speaking and both look tired. As they pass we                crane up out of the corn to catch an enormous 757 Jumbo Jet                just above us, coming into land. We pan round to see, half a                mile away, the massive airport beyond.               They walk towards it, two tiny figures.                                                                    CUT TO:               Aeroflot 1311. Boarding Gate 12.               INT. AIRPORT - NIGHT               An attendant pushes a train of trolleys past. Businessmen                talk into mobile phones.                                     NADIA                         I've got an hour. Can I buy you a                          coffee?                                     JOHN                         No. I think I better just go.                                     NADIA                         Okay. Thank you.                                     JOHN                         Whatever.               Nadia hesitates. There's just a touch of regret in this                goodbye.                                     NADIA                         John. These are for you.               She hands him the binoculars case.                                     JOHN                         Yeah. No thanks.                                     NADIA                         Please. Why not?                                     JOHN                         Because it was a lie.               She smiles.                                     NADIA                         No it wasn't.               John shrugs. He takes them.                                     NADIA                         Goodbye.               John nods and turns. Nadia watches him walk away.               INT. / EXT. AIRPORT EXIT - NIGHT               On the other side of the airport, John stands in front of                the exit to the taxi ranks. He's got nowhere to go. Passengers                swirl around him.               He looks at the binocular in his hands. He removes the                binoculars and looks at them. Suddenly he stops. In the case                is a folded note marked John. John holds it in his hands --                Slowly, deliberately, he screws it up, and drops it in the                case like a bin.               P.O.V. OF JOHN               Through the binoculars. Passengers criss-cross, but we find                Nadia sitting alone, waiting for her call.               John lowers the binoculars and gazes across the airport. He                raises them for one last look.               Nadia, glimpsed through the crowd. We spy someone standing                about twenty feet behind her. It is Alexei.               We watch Alexei approach her. She looks up and is completely                thrown.               Yuri stands about ten feet away, in shades.               John lowers the binoculars, horrified. He looks again.               Nadia pulls her arm away. Alexei crouches down in front of                her and puts a hand on her knee, coaxing her.               Alexei takes her by the arm and leads her away.               EXT. AIRPORT - NIGHT               John hurries out of the exit to catch the trio leaving a                different exit fifty yards away, where they get into a taxi.               EXT. AIRPORT - NIGHT               John runs across a car park and over a low fence.               EXT. SLIP ROAD TO AIRPORT - NIGHT               He chases down a slip road, as the taxi rounds the corner                behind us. He takes cover behind a van as they drive past,                and away.               EXT. GRASS VERGE - NIGHT               John runs across a grass verge and another car park. He sees                the taxi rounding the corner and head down the road in front                of him.               John runs as fast as he can up this road, but the taxi is                getting away. Eventually he gives up, and he drives away.               EXT. ROUNDABOUT - NIGHT               At the roundabout it turns round and starts coming back up                the road. John hides behind a car, and watches the taxi pull                up outside a small hotel about fifty yards away. He watches                the trio head into the hotel.               EXT. HOTEL PERIMETER - NIGHT               John skirts around the edge of the hotel. He peers in through                one of the windows. It's the foyer. He heads around the back.               EXT. BACK OF HOTEL - NIGHT               At the back of the hotel he looks through another couple of                windows. Suddenly he drops like he's been shot, and sits on                the grass.               Warily he looks again.               EXT. / INT. THE VIEW THROUGH THE WINDOW               Alexei stands smoking in the middle of the room. Nadia is                sitting in a chair crying.               Alexei kneels again and appeals to her. Nadia is resisting                and yells back, but something Alexei says seems to melt her                resolve.               He holds her face, and kisses it. She turns her face. He                tries again, and this time she accepts the kiss. Slowly she                kisses him back.               EXT. OUTSIDE ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               John stares through the window at the scene.               INT. INSIDE ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               In the room, Yuri pops his head round the door and says                something to Alexei.               Alexei says he's coming. He kisses Nadia again and leaves.               Nadia is alone. She looks very sad and confused. She moves                towards the window and stares out into the blackness.               EXT. OUTSIDE ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               John's face at the window. Almost cheek to cheek with Nadia.               INT. INSIDE ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               Inside the room, looking out. It is pitch black.               EXT. OUTSIDE ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               John watches Nadia walk over to the dresser and search the                drawers. She goes over to the bed and looks under the pillow.                There she finds what she is looking for. Alexei's hunting                knife.               She hears Alexei coming and stands hard against the window.                the huge knife behind her back.               EXT. OUTSIDE ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               John outside. He is four inches from the knife.                                     JOHN                         Oh Jesus.               John ducks down, panting, swallowing hard. At once he springs                up and skirts the building again. He finds a window to the                next suite.               He tries to force it open. Suddenly Yuri's face appears in                the window, cupped by his hands peering out into the                blackness. John drops down holds his breath.               John scrambles back to the previous window. With real effort                he presses it open. He pulls himself up and drops inside.               INT. ALEXEI'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Nadia still stands by the window, one hand behind her back.                Alexei sits on the bed. The scene is subtitled.                                     ALEXEI                         I love you. I don't need to tell you                          that.               Nadia looks at the floor.                                     ALEXEI                         I wouldn't leave my child would I?                          You know that. I was confused. That's                          all.               INT. ALEXEI'S BATHROOM / HALLWAY - NIGHT               John opens the bathroom door a crack. He is at the opposite                end of a corridor from the bedroom. He can hear Alexei's                voice.               Breathing hard, he tiptoes out and stands in the corridor,                his back pressed hard against the wall. He takes one step                down the hall. The floor creaks loudly.               INT. ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT                                     ALEXEI                         It wasn't easy for me. You know what                          I'm like. I needed to know what I                          wanted. Now I know. It's simple. I'm                          happy.               INT. ALEXEI'S SUITE HALLWAY - NIGHT               John takes another step down the hallway. There, by the door                are the two guitar cases full of money. Next to them is                Nadia's bag. Crouching, John opens the bag and searches                inside. He finds what he is looking for; the Silver Cigarette                Lighter-Pistol.               We hear the Russian lovers' voices next door. John is                absolutely terrified, breathing hard and shaking, holding                the little gun.               INT. ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT                                     ALEXEI                         You still love me? Eh? Of course you                          do. Come here. Yuri won't be here                          for a while. Come on babe.               He takes his shirt off -- Nadia glances up -- With horror,                she sees John in the doorway.               Alexei turns to see John stand by the door, holding a little                silver gun.                                     NADIA                         What are you doing here?               John and Nadia look at each other.                                     ALEXEI                         What the fuck is he doing here?               He looks at the little gun.                                     ALEXEI                         That's that cigarette lighter I gave                          you isn't it?               Alexei stands. John takes a step back. Alexei walks calmly                towards John and throws a punch. It catches John right on                the chin and he hits the wall and goes down very fast.                                     NADIA                         Stop.               Alexei turns round to see Nadia holding the knife. He is                dumbstruck.                                     ALEXEI                         What? What are you doing?                                     NADIA                              (to John)                         What are you doing here?               Alexei kicks John in the ribs.                                     NADIA                              (in Russian)                         Stop it!               He looks at Nadia, the girl he came back for, angrily pointing                the knife at him. He suddenly looks completely punctured.                John has struggled up again and stands behind him. They are                both looking at Nadia.                                     ALEXEI                         What. You're what? You're with this                          creep now.                                     NADIA                         Leave him!                                     ALEXEI                         You have. You've actually fallen for                          this prick.                                     NADIA                         No I haven't.               Alexei looks dumbstruck. He laughs emptily                                     ALEXEI                         Babe it's me. I won't let you get                          away.               Nadia stares back at him. The seconds pass. She speaks in a                whisper.                                     NADIA                         I'll kill you if you try.               In the impasse, John picks up a lamp and hurls it at Alexei's                head. It is going to hit him, but reaches the length of its                cord and stops six inches short. In the confusion. Alexei                grabs Nadia's wrist and forces her to the ground. He grabs                the knife, just as John brains him with one of the guitars.                It emits a fruity final chord.               INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR / ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               Whistling, Yuri comes out of his suite, knocks briskly on                the door of Alexei's and enters. We walk with him down the                hallway into the bedroom to find Alexei, heartbroken, tied                and bound to a desk chair.               Yuri murmurs something in Russian.                                     SUBTITLE                         Fuck a duck.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. ALEXEI'S SUITE - NIGHT               Nadia stands at the window and stares at her reflection, or                past it into the blackness.                                     NADIA                         Get their passports.               John finishes tying up Yuri, and removes his passport from                his jacket. Behind Nadia another plane arcs up into the night                sky.               He takes Alexei's passport from his pocket, but Alexei is                only watching Nadia.                                     ALEXEI                         Don't do this.               She carefully places tape across his mouth.               Almost as if having second thoughts she bends down to kiss                his cheek. The 'kiss' suddenly makes Alexei's eyes widen in                pain. As she stands her lips are bloody. She's bitten him on                the cheek. A single streak of blood runs from the gash.                                     NADIA                              (to John)                         Get your money.               John collects the cases and they head for the door. Nadia                stops to look back at Alexei. A final look.               EXT. AIRPORT - NIGHT               The front of the terminal. Taxis pull up and idle at a rank,                bringing travelers to their flights. The automatic doors                slide back and forth.               INT. AIRPORT CHECKING IN DESK - NIGHT                                     ANNOUNCEMENT (V.O.)                         Last Call for Aeroflot flight 1311                          to Moscow. Proceed immediately to                          Gate 12.               John carries the guitar cases full of money. Nadia just has                her small camouflaged hold all. They walk quickly together                in silence and come to a stop at the departure lounge gate                12.                                     JOHN                         Are you okay?               She nods.                                     JOHN                         Okay. Goodbye.                                     NADIA                         Goodbye.               They shake.                                     JOHN                         What will you do now?               Nadia shrugs.                                     NADIA                         Something else.                                     JOHN                         Okay. Promise?               She looks at him.                                     NADIA                         Promise.               They stand around. She takes the last cigarette from a pack.                                     JOHN                         You can probably buy them on the                          flight.                                     NADIA                         I'm quitting. This will be my last                          one. So. Goodbye.                                     JOHN                         Goodbye.                                     NADIA                         You didn't deserve me John Buckingham.                                     JOHN                         Whatever.                                     NADIA                         I'm sorry.                                     JOHN                         Please.               Pause.                                     NADIA                         You prefer your women...               She seems about to say something more when the tannoy                interrupts.                                     ANNOUNCEMENT (V.O.)                         Gate closing for Flight 1311 to                          Moscow. Please have your tickets                          ready.               She leans forward and kisses him. As they kiss, John puts a                guitar case in her hand. Nadia looks down at the case.                                     NADIA                         It's not mine.                                     JOHN                         It's not mine either.                                     NADIA                         It's what you came back for.               John frowns and looks a little embarrassed.               She speaks to him in Russian and we see the subtitles.                                     NADIA                              (in Russian)                         You're a big surprise, you know.               Pause.                                     JOHN                         Yeah, you see when I said I didn't                          speak Russian I wasn't actually just                          making it up.               She leans forwards and whispers in his ear. John looks at                her. He looks to the four corners of the airport. And back                at her.                                     JOHN                         Why?                                     NADIA                         I'm not asking you to marry me.                                     JOHN                         No. What? No. I know.                                     NADIA                         It's more like a date.                                     JOHN                         It's a long way to go for a date.                                     NADIA                         Tell me about it.               Pause. She speaks softly in Russian. We see the subtitle:                                     NADIA                         All that matters is to try...               John frowns.                                     NADIA                              (in Russian)                         We can only try. Say it.               John repeats the phrase in Russian.                                     JOHN                         What does it mean?                                     NADIA                         Maybe you will find out.               Pause. Nadia kneels and opens the guitar case. She stealthily                removes about five hundred.                                     NADIA                         Hurry. I'll wait for you here.                                     JOHN                         Right.               INT. TICKET SALES - NIGHT               John runs across the airport to the ticket desk. He joins a                queue of about three people. He works his way to the front.                                     JOHN                         Is the flight full?                                     OFFICIAL                         I'm sorry Sir. I believe the flight                          is closed.                                     JOHN                         Please check. Is it full? Please                          could you check.                                                                   BACK TO:               INT. AIRPORT - NIGHT               Nadia stands alone holding her unlit cigarette, thinking.                She looks at the two guitar cases at her feet. She looks                across at John, anxiously drumming on the ticket sales                counter. What is she thinking?               INT. TICKET SALES - NIGHT               CLOSE SHOT on the photo of Yuri in his passport.               The Aeroflot desk official holds the passport and studies at                John. With his four day beard there is a resemblance, but                it's far from perfect.                                     OFFICIAL                         You have excellent English.                                     JOHN                         Thanks.                                     OFFICIAL                         How do you want to pay?                                     JOHN                         Cash.               John collects his ticket, turns and heads back to where he                left Nadia with the guitar cases. He suddenly stops.               She's gone.               He looks all around. People swirl about. She's nowhere to be                seen.               John hangs his head. He turns, and walks away.               INT. AIRPORT CAFE - NIGHT               John sits at a cafe table, and watches the people come and                go. He looks strangely calm, resigned.               CLOSE UP: John's fingers uncrumple the note from the                binoculars case. He smooths it on the table, then opens it.               Inside is written a short phrase in Russian:               Kam Kapsi Schta.               John looks at the note. He folds it closed and surveys the                airport for an exit.               Through the crowd, fifty feet away, getting a light off two                policeman; it's her.               Nadia blows out smoke, and speaks to the policeman. John                watches her. He smiles.               Suddenly she turns and points straight at John. The Policeman                look straight at him. As they head towards him, Nadia picks                up the cases and walks away.               John sits frozen as the Police approach.                                     POLICE 1                         Excuse me Sir...               He takes John by the arm. John stands.                                     POLICE 2                         Okay. Come with us now.                                     POLICE 1                         He doesn't speak English. He's                          epileptic or something.                                     POLICE 2                         Can he walk? Can you walk?               The Policeman help John to the front of the gate, where he                is shown to the front of the queue. The Policeman explains                to the airline staff.               We see that Nadia is one behind in the queue. The Police                turn and walk away.               INT. AIRPORT BOARDING GATE - FLIGHT 1311 TO MOSCOW - DAY               John pushes his passport and ticket under the perspex window.                He glances at Nadia, then looks at the young airport official,                the blood beating in his ears.               For a few interminable seconds the official's eyes burn into                John. John turns to Nadia and holds her gaze.                                     JOHN                         Kam. Kapsi. Schta.               The subtitle appears: You've saved me.               Nadia looks down at the floor. She smiles.               CLOSE SHOT: The passport is snapped shut and pushed back                through.               INT. AIRPORT BOARDING CORRIDOR - DAY               John walks without looking back. He turns to see Nadia is                behind him. As they round the corner, she hands him a case.               They walk side by side without speaking.               Both look forward, straight-faced, as it both are thinking                about what it is that they are actually doing. John looks                back once, but he keeps walking. He looks across at Nadia,                but she doesn't look back.               They stop opposite the automatic boarding doors. Nadia turns                to John.                                     NADIA                         My name's Sophia.                                     JOHN                         Sophia. Hello Sophia. Mine's still                          John.                                     SOPHIA                         Hello John.               The doors slide open. John and Sophia walk through, and                disappear.               SFX. The roar of Jet engines.               EXT. AIRPORT RUNWAY - NIGHT               With a deafening roar, an Aeroflot Boeing 757 lifts slowly                from the runway and climbs up into the night sky, where it                becomes a distant star.               EXT. FIELD - DAY               A distant aeroplane in a cobalt blue sky, through binoculars.               The young girl from the very first scene lowers the binoculars                and lets them hang around her neck. She squints up at the                sun.               A voice calls her.                                     WOMAN'S VOICE                         Nadia!               The girl looks round.                                     WOMAN'S VOICE                         Nadia!               She runs past us and we follow to see a couple sitting on                the grass having a picnic.               The girl hurries towards them and we realise the couple are                John and Sophia, the girl her child. She sits down with them.                                         THE END
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+BLACK RAIN by Craig Bolotin & Warren Lewis November 1987 A BLACK SCREEN: Various voices: "Big six"... "That's six the hard way"... "Seven or eleven"... "Play two"... FADE IN: EXT. UPPER EAST SIDE - NEW YORK CITY - NIGHT One of the pristine blocks of brownstones where even the garbage seems gift wrapped. The VOICES continue over as we move in on a particular building where a DOORMAN is holding open the door for a dowager and her poodle. The voices continue: "Hit me"... "Double down"... "Let it ride"... "Hit me"... "Anymore for the come out"... "Card"... In contrast to the outside of this sedate, quiet brownstone, we go inside to find... INT. BROWNSTONE APARTMENT ... a miniature Las Vegas, complete with music, drinks, tuxedoed dealers and croupiers: roulette, craps, Black Jack. Wall to wall people. The fact that casino gambling happens to be illegal in New York doesn't stop these Connecticut slummers, hollow-cheek nightlifers, and junior wiseguys from having a good time. AT THE CARD TABLE NICK CONKLIN, holding a dollar cigar, is trying to pull a winning hand. In his late thirties, Nick has the sort of quiet good looks that takes an extra glance to appreciate. His Moe Ginsburg rent-a-tux is too tight, his ruffled shirt, out of date; Nick could care less. Two other players are still in the game. One of them is a lithe DEBUTANTE surrounded by an entourage of giggling friends and tuxedoed men. The pot is huge. Nick flips two one hundred dollar chips onto the pot. NICK One, and one on top. DEALER House sees. PLAYER ONE (hesitates) I'm out. Disgusted, he throws down his cards. It's down to Nick and the debutante. The cocky deb gives Nick a long look, confident she can win. DEBUTANTE (her eyes still on Nick) I see the deuce, and one to chase them home. She throws her chips on the pot. Nick hesitates, then decides to match it. NICK Call. DEBUTANTE (showing her hand) Ladies, aces wired. Sorry sport. Nick turns over his cards, Jacks and tens, not good enough to win. Elated, the deb gets up from the table and joins her giggling friends. Nick walks over to her. NICK Very nice, Barbie. (pointing toward her boyfriend) Now, I'd take Ken over there and go home. DEBUTANTE Why's that? NICK It's time. That's all. BOYFRIEND The lady wants to play. Someone should teach you to be a better loser, loser. NICK Listen, Ken -- BOYFRIEND My name is not Ken -- NICK -- I'm offering you the benefit of my experience. DEBUTANTE Looks like you have a lot of experience in places like this. It was nice of them to relax the dress code for you. That draws a laugh from her friends. The entourage heads for the bar. CHARLIE SKLOARIS, twenty-three, steps in front of the debutante, blocking her path. She steps to the side. Charlie steps with her. Charlie's pushing it, he's always pushing it. She's not amused. Finally, Charlie lets her pass. He comes up to Nick. CHARLIE Typical New York woman, big attitude, small apartment, no tits. Only two things count to Charlie: his job and his women, but not necessarily in that order. CHARLIE I think she got to you, pappy. NICK (checking his watch) You want a popsicle, go to Good Humor. And don't call me 'pappy.' CHARLIE (glancing at the door) Still, you gotta wonder how she'd look in handcuffs. Nick, wary, eyes this kid. Charlie shrugs, spreads his arms defensively. The SOUND of pounding on the front door. THE DOOR splinters. The bouncer steps back as four helmeted emergency service officers -- the first members of the raiding party -- rush in. Pandemonium. People rush for the exit -- any exit. AT THE BAR Nick and Charlie hold up their glasses. NICK (calmly) Alley oop. They down their drinks, then set them down. Charlie pulls out the Binaca, offering Nick a spritz, but Nick is already pulling out his POLICE BADGE and hanging it around his neck. Charlie quickly follows suit. A HALF DOZEN COPS line the patrons up against the wall. The Asst. D.A., PATTY ZACHARA, climbs onto the crap table. A petite, nervous woman, Patty has dressed in a Channel suit for the occasion. ZACHARA Settle down. Hey, quiet... Please. Not a prayer. NICK SHUT THE HELL UP, GODDAMNIT! That quiets them. NICK My name is Conklin. Let's do this fast so I can go home. Zachara, annoyed, looks at Nick. NICK (softer) It's all yours. ZACHARA (reads) Under section 216 of the New York State Penal code, I serve notice that this premise and it's occupants... NICK catches the Debutante's eye across the room. She smiles at him, he was right. He shrugs, spreads his hands. That's life. A well groomed middle aged man, who we'll come to know as CAVELLO, suddenly bolts from the crowd lined up against the wall. Charlie spins around to stop him -- CHARLIE Whoa -- where do you think you're going, hotdog. Cavello butts him with his head, sending Charlie to the floor. Then, crosses his arms in front of his face and plunges through the WINDOW. Nick, not missing a beat, gives a small sigh as he follows. NICK (sighs) Fabulous... He takes off after him. EXT. STREET UPPER EAST SIDE - NIGHT Nick, short of breath, chases Cavello down the residential street, past the dog-walkers, past the doormen, past the fur-coated women climbing out of taxies... Unfortunately, Cavello has a good half block on him. From nowhere, Charlie blasts past leaving Nick a half block behind, silently cursing his age. AT THE CORNER a limo jerks to a halt, and Cavello jumps in. The limo streaks away. CHARLIE turns to see Nick, hands on knees, gasping for air. CUT TO: INT. LOCKER ROOM - TWO EIGHT PRECINCT - NIGHT Now in their street clothes, Charlie and Nick stand in front of the mirrors. Charlie is working his brush and hair dryer as if his life depended on it. Nick, in contrast, shoves his hair back with his fingers and glowers at himself in the mirror. CHARLIE (over the dryer) ... It's not like you were slow or anything... I think you did just fine. I think you did great. NICK Thanks. Nick turns to leave. CHARLIE Hey, hey, where you goin'? NICK Home. EXT. POLICE PARKING LOT - NIGHT Nick strides out the door. Charlie hurries after him. CHARLIE Wait up. You know the guy who did the Weismuller through the window -- NICK -- Cavello. Ronnie Cavello. Charlie trails Nick to his motorcycle: a Harley hog complete with wide gleaming fenders and twin tanks. The bike is held together with tape and baling wire. CHARLIE You know him? Nick tries to kick-start this behemoth, but it's not easy. NICK He works for Frank Abolofia. Atlantic City. Casinos. CHARLIE So why dive through the glass for a nickel and dime bust? Charlie puts his foot up on Nick's fender to tie his shoe. Nick, spotting an ankle holster peeking from Charlie's sock, grabs Charlie's foot. Charlie teeters. NICK What's this? CHARLIE Let go... Nick pulls out a Beretta 32. CHARLIE Back-up. NICK Get rid of it. CHARLIE Why? NICK It's not regulation. And the only way you're gonna stop anybody with it is to show it to him, and while he's laughing, you can shove it down his throat. CHARLIE (looking at Nick's bike) I'll get rid of it when you get rid of the egg-beater. The Harley comes to life spitting a cloud of blue smoke. Nick puts on his paint-flecked helmet, slides down some ski goggles. CHARLIE Nick, let's go hunting. Bag Cavello. NICK Charlie... Nick pops the bike into gear. NICK ... You still got shaving cream on your ear. Nick rolls out and disappears in a haze of blue smoke. EXT. BELT PARKWAY - VERRAZANO BRIDGE - NIGHT WE FIND Nick, a lonely, solitary figure bobbing in and out of the lights and shadows. The SOUND of wind whips through his helmet; cold air stings his cheeks... The tail lights of Nick's bike disappear into the night. EXT. SUBURBAN STREET - STATEN ISLAND - NIGHT Civil service heaven. Nick hits the cut switch and glides past the manicured lawns and well kept houses of this development. A basketball net in every driveway, a Buick or Chrysler in every garage. One house sticks out. The lawn is brown, paint is peeling off the garage door and newspapers are scattered on the driveway. Nick glides once around the cul de sac looking at the house. His house. It's as inviting as an open grave. He shoots away. INT. EL GRECO DINER - STATEN ISLAND - NIGHT A hanger sized roadhouse, wall to wall red velvet. Nick's the sole figure at the counter, coffee and the Daily News in front of him. A NURSE walks in and sits down a half dozen seats away. Nick look up. NICK Short shift? CONNIE Yeah... I came to save you. If you're hopeless, I'll pull the plug. CUT TO: INT. CONNIE'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - NIGHT Nick and Connie are in bed. They're both looking up at the ceiling. They've just made love. CONNIE It's getting too cold even for me, Nick. NICK Connie... CONNIE All right, how's the new partner? NICK High spirits, desire, commitment. CONNIE You'll take care of that. NICK Give me a break, would you? CONNIE If you give me one. Nick kisses her. The first suggestion of real affection. The SOUND of someone KNOCKING on the door. Reluctantly, they stop. Connie gets up and puts on her robe. NICK Are you expecting anyone? CONNIE I wasn't expecting you. She disappears down the hallway. We HEAR the door open, then telling someone to wait. CONNIE (poking her head in the room) Imagine a small, greasy Boy Scout. CUT TO: INT. CONNIE'S APARTMENT Nick, wearing only his pants, is doing a slow burn. Charlie is holding his hands up defensively. CHARLIE ... I found the goombah... Cavello. He's -- NICK -- I should tear your head off. CHARLIE Whoa, I knew you were going to say that. I absolutely anticipated that, Nick. But I said to myself, Charlie, Charlie, we can move up on this, so go find Nicklaus... He'll be pissed for a moment, but then it'll dawn on him -- NICK -- Hey, I got a better chance of being hit by a bus then moving up. Charlie looks away momentarily, letting it slide. He knows he's on sensitive ground. CHARLIE ... Look... they told me at the Greek's you were here. I'm sorry, I never imagined... CHARLIE (buddy buddy) I like her. She's nice. (lowering his voice) For her age. The bedroom door opens. Connie enters, dumps Nick's clothes on the couch, tosses his gun on top of the pile. Without a word, she goes back inside and slams the door behind her. Nick, pissed, slowly turns to face Charlie. Charlie shrugs. Nick's got nothing better to do than go. CUT TO: INT. LIME HOUSE - CHINATOWN - NIGHT The Lime House is a little piece of Italy in the heart of Chinatown, and tonight, it's packed. Any selection on the jukebox that isn't Frank Sinatra is Jerry Vale. Behind the bar are two fat BROTHERS. One pours drinks, the other dishes out Scungilli. It's three a.m. It's always three a.m. at the Lime House. AT THE BACK TABLE Our man CAVELLO is unloading steaming Scungilli onto an already heaping plate in front of an imperious looking JAPANESE MAN. The Japanese Man, in his mid-fifties, wears a gray suit, and not a strand of his jet black hair is out of place. A Japanese TRANSLATOR, doing his best to translate Cavello's heavily accented English, sits between them. AT THE BAR Charlie is looking straight ahead, afraid Cavello might peg him. Nick is at ease. CHARLIE What are they doing now? NICK Eating Scungilli, just like the last time you asked. CHARLIE Who do you think the Jap is? NICK Maybe Cavello's buying a Subaru. How would I know? CHARLIE I don't blame you for being sore. It'll pass when we bag him. Charlie, trying to relax, gestures toward his foot. CHARLIE Whatdaya think? 'Bostonians'. Eighty-five bucks. (lowering his voice) Girls go for shoes. Second place they look. (off Nick's reaction) Hey, I read it in a magazine. Nick's attention is drawn to a trio walking in the door. NICK (dead serious) Charlie, don't do anything. Promise me? CHARLIE What? WHAT THEY SEE: TWO BODYGUARDS are making a quick sweep of the bar. FRANK ABOLOFIA, s stocky man with silver grey hair, sweeps in behind them. Abolofia has mitts like a meat packer and a fifty dollar manicure. A heavyweight Mafioso. NICK Frank Abolofia. CHARLIE The Wolf? Abolofia walks to Cavello's table. All rise and shake hands. The two hitters take seats at the bar. The two brothers scramble to serve their distinguished guests. NICK (in a whisper) Some party. CHARLIE Maybe we should do something? NICK Charlie, take your gum, stick it under your ass and keep it warm. Nick turns away, resumes his drink. NICK'S POV IN THE MIRROR BEHIND THE BAR: two new Japanese men step in the door. Early twenties, spiky hair, dark Versace suits. NUMBER ONE wears tortoise shell shades. He coolly checks out the room then nods to -- NUMBER TWO who pulls a Spas 12, automatic shotgun from under his coat, and spits out three rounds. A window shatters. Everyone hits the floor. NUMBER ONE slowly walks toward Cavello's table. NUMBER TWO covers the floor. Abolofia's bodyguards show their empty hands. NICK AND CHARLIE on the floor. They don't have the artillery for this guy either. AT THE TABLE Our Japanese businessman knows these people. He eyes them contemptuously. Abolofia has put enough people in this situation to be philosophical about it. He stops chewing. A tiny hand motion to his bodyguards is enough to stop any precipitous action. NUMBER ONE (in Japanese) Give it to me. The Japanese businessman looking straight ahead. A long, silent pause... Then, still not facing him: BUSINESSMAN (in Japanese) Go to hell. Number One slips his fingers beneath his shades, massaging his eyes. IN A FLASH, he pulls a shuto from under his coat. The 18 inch blade gleams like a neon tube. He presses the tip of the blade against the businessman's throat. CHARLIE his hand close around the grip of the Beretta. He unsnaps the ankle holster. The SNAP can be heard across the room. Nick's hand closes around Charlie's and squeezes till the knuckles turn white. CHARLIE (in a whisper) What are you doing? NICK Saving your life. NUMBER TWO levels the scattergun at Nick and Charlie. AT THE TABLE - NUMBER ONE calmly holds the blade at the man's throat as he reaches into the man's jacket and removes a small, rectangular, plastic-wrapped parcel. He feels its weight, then flips it to NUMBER TWO. Abolofia, realizing that whatever is going on doesn't affect him or his, resumes eating. ABOLOFIA You people are wild... Wild. NUMBER ONE backs the blade off. The man raises his napkin to the small wound. A droplet of blood has stained his shirt collar. NUMBER ONE turns around as if to leave. What happens next could be a whim, an after thought. Number One spins around and THRUSTS the blade deep into the man's chest. He withdraws it with a half twist, and in the same motion fatally slashes the translator's throat before the old man's body hits the floor. Blood pours from the businessman's mouth onto his Scungilli, spreading across the white cloth and onto the floor. CAVELLO reaches for a gun under his coat. But NUMBER TWO pumps two rounds into his face. At this range, there's not much left. The killers slowly back out the door, covering the room with the scattergun. The minute the door shuts, Nick leaps up, pulling his shield and revolver. NICK (shouting) Police officers. Everybody stay put. (to Charlie) Get back up. Abolofia's eyebrows rise at this development. Nick bolts out the door leaving Charlie in charge. He's never been in charge before. CHARLIE (nervously showing shield) Police. EXT. THE LIME HOUSE - NIGHT A Lincoln tears around the corner to pick the killers up. Nick flies out the Lime House door and hits the ground. Number Two pumps out shells as fast as he can squeeze the trigger. He's wild. The front windows of the Lime House shatter. The LIMO DRIVER jerks to a halt. Number Two tosses the package to him. Nick empties his revolver. Number Two goes down. The driver floors the accelerator, leaving Number One to take off on foot. Nick follows, reloading as he runs. INT. THE LIME HOUSE Everyone's frozen on the floor. CHARLIE Call 911. Tell them an officer needs assistance. Say ten thirteen. Nothing from the owner who looks at Abolofia. Charlie grabs the owner by his collar and shoves him toward the phone. CHARLIE Do it, you dumb bastard! Suddenly Charlie feels something wet at his feet. He looks down to see that he's standing in a pool of blood from the massacre. So much for his new shoes. He wheels around, then quickly backs out the door. EXT. STREET - DOWN THE BLOCK FROM THE LIME HOUSE Deserted. The wail of police sirens in the distance. Charlie has his gun out. He's drenched in sweat. Where is his partner? CHARLIE NICK...! Shit... SHIT!! CUT TO: ANOTHER STREET - ALLEY - NIGHT Nick, gun drawn, slowly rounds the corner to the alley: it's the ad hoc drugstore for the night. Drugs going up and down in pails, two dozen junkies buying, shooting, slumped on the ground. Everyone scatters -- the one's that can. AN ABANDONED PAIL swings slowly back and forth from three stories up. Nick cautiously moves down the alley, holding the gun in both hands. A Junkie steps out of a doorway, Nick swings his gun and nearly blows him away. NUMBER ONE We see his eyes first as he steps out of the darkness at the back of the alley. From now on we'll call him KOBO. His sunglasses are on his forehead; his hands dropped casually at his side. A very cool character. Kobo slowly raises his hand, and making a gun with his finger, slowly points and "shoots" at Nick... He lowers his hand. NICK On the ground, man. NOW!! Kobo cups his hands around his ear. He doesn't understand English. Nick, keeping his gun fixed, comes up to him and kicks out his legs. Kobo falls flat on his chest. Nick pulls out his cuffs. But Kobo lunges for Nick's ankle and yanks it toward him. Nick stumbles backward; Kobo's on his feet. Before Nick can stand, Kobo lands a brutal kick to the side of Nick's head. Nick gets up, barrels into him. Kobo knees Nick in the solar plexus, then lands two more well placed kicks in Nick's back. It's not that Nick's a bad fighter, it's that this kid is so damn fast. Nick slowly gets to his feet. KOBO lands two more brutal shots to the side of Nick's head. He's a bloody mess. TWO POLICE CARS stop at the end of the alley. FOUR OFFICERS climb out. CHARLIE joins the cops as they run down the alley to find Nick getting pummeled. Charlie shoots at Kobo. Misses. Kobo turns to see the five cops, guns drawn. Nick, on one knee, spits out blood and a few teeth. Kobo calmly slips the shuto out of his coat pocket and drops it next to Nick. The blade gleams in the light. That was next. Nick got lucky. Kobo towers imperiously above Nick. Their eyes lock. We hold then... FADE TO BLACK. FADE IN: NICK'S LIVING ROOM - STATEN ISLAND - MORNING There isn't a stick of furniture, but that's not the half of it. In the middle of the room is a motorcycle on a centerstand. A drop cloth is spread around it, tools neatly aligned. It's a Harley -- but this one is in perfect condition. A phone RINGS insistently from off screen, then stops. NICK (O.S.) Yeah... sure, sure I'll be down. Nick walks in, naked. Every muscle aches. One side of his face is completely swollen. He has a band-aid over his right eye; some blood caked on his earlobe. He stops to twist a spark plug in with a ratchet, but it snaps. CUT TO: INT. EIGHT - THREE PRECINCT - DAY CAPT. OLIVER, early forties, walks between Charlie and Nick as they head toward the Medical Examiner's room. Oliver doesn't face Nick as he speaks; no love lost between these two. OLIVER How big a package we talking about? NICK (holding up his hands) This by this... OLIVER Dope? NICK Not in that company. OLIVER The old man was a Japanese paper manufacturer. Hotel room and rental car were full of it. CHARLIE Full of what? OLIVER (annoyed) Art and stationary paper. Cavello had five hundred thousand in his attache case. Nick rubs the back of his neck in obvious pain. OLIVER One guy do all the damage? NICK Yeah. OLIVER Thought you knew your way around dark alleys, detective. Oliver goes through the swinging doors into the Examiner's room. Charlie shoots Nick a look. Nick let's it slide. INT. MEDICAL EXAMINATION ROOM A TECHIE is showing the night's harvest to Charlie, Nick and Oliver. They're standing over the body of the middle- aged Japanese man. TECHIE ... The old man's suit was Japanese. The hitter's was Saville row. No I.D. We're doing a peel now. AT ANOTHER TABLE Another techie is carefully removing the skin from Number Two's fingertips. Charlie shuts his eyes and turns away, trying not to throw up. TECHIE There's something you got to see. He whips back the sheet, the body is nude. A towel covers the genitals. Except for the feet, hands, neck, and face, the body is covered with elaborate tattoos: flowers and blood, dragons and snakes. TECHIE What's wrong with this picture? CHARLIE (nervously) I got a tattoo. Birdie on the ball. We all got them when we finished basic at Camp Lejune. NICK Charlie. TECHIE I thought you guys were trained observers? They look up surprised. The techie picks up a hand. The third and forth fingers have been neatly amputated. TECHIE Eight fingers. (ironically) Hey, it was a trick question. CUT TO: INT. INTERROGATION ROOM ABOLOFIA is seated in chair next to his LAWYER. Nick, Oliver, and a third detective are grilling him. ABOLOFIA He was with a friend, sure. I shake hands with the guy and a minute later he's bleeding all over my socks. ATTORNEY Will that do officers? My client has had a terrible shock. NICK Yeah, he's not used to seeing other people do the killing. ATTORNEY I won't tolerate harassment! OLIVER What about the package? ATTORNEY We know nothing about it. Silence. Abolofia looks at Nick, then at Oliver. ABOLOFIA Hard to believe a trained police officer could let this kind of thing happen right in front of his face. NICK I did make a mistake. I let the wrong guy get hit. Abolofia doesn't blink an eye, goes for the jugular. ABOLOFIA Cheer up, Nick. I'm sure it's easier to pick a dead man's pocket. Nick springs from his feet. Oliver grabs Nick before he can get close to Abolofia. ATTORNEY That's it, we're through! CUT TO: KOBO the Japanese killer who smashed in Nick's face last night. He's sitting in an interrogation room an hour later with a DETECTIVE and a JAPANESE TRANSLATOR. He won't talk. OBSERVATION ROOM Nick and Oliver watching through the glass. OLIVER Doesn't speak a word of English. And he won't speak Japanese either. No papers. The Japanese embassy is very interested. NICK Why? OLIVER He's wanted in Japan. They want him first. Then we can have him. NICK What? Oliver nods. That's the way it is. ON KOBO he turns and looks at Nick. He can't possibly see him through the one way glass but he knows Nick's there. ON NICK looking at him. ON KOBO making a cutting mark across his forehead, right where Nick's bandage is. It's uncanny. CUT TO: INT. OLIVER'S OFFICE - LATER Nick is sitting in front of Oliver's desk. The sunlight makes him wince; wincing makes his face hurt. OLIVER Japanese embassy talks to state department. State talks to police plaza. They to me and me to you. Shit rolls down hill. Oliver drops a file folder on the desk. Nick opens it: petty cash, vouchers and plane tickets. OLIVER You and Charlie are taking the Jap home, tonight. NICK What...? What if I say no? OLIVER Check your gun before you leave. They're not allowed in Japan. It's a nice, safe country. NICK Why me? OLIVER They said send a detective if I could spare one. (then) I can always spare you. Nick bridles at the insult. Oliver's had a hard-on for Nick for years, and Nick's tired of it. NICK (soft) You got something to say to me, Captain? Oliver doesn't want to get into it. OLIVER Yeah. Have a wonderful flight. CUT TO: THE ORANGE SUN on the tail of a Japan Airlines 747. A driving rain storm. The plane taxies down the runway and disappears into the black rain. INT. AIRLINER Kobo, handcuffed and shackled, is in the center seat. Nick and Charlie sit on either side. Charlie is holding "Bachelors Japan" in one hand. Nick's in a sour mood. CHARLIE ... Nick, you're the one that's always saying you never go anywhere. NICK I was thinking the Poconos, Charlie. Maybe Vegas. CHARLIE What are you missing? Riding your motorcycle to the nurse's house. That shit is sadder than Ethiopia. NICK Beats forty hours on a plane. CHARLIE They say we got to turn around and come right back. That's what they say. I got a plan. The last thing Nick wants to hear -- too late. CHARLIE I call, right? I say I got the dreaded thirty six-hour Asian shits from some raw clam and we stretch it into three days. You and I become a driving force on the local Geisha scene. NICK Not a prayer. CHARLIE (grinning) Hey, come on, big guy like you, cop from New York. You're gonna be the biggest thing to hit town since Godzilla. Nick can't help but smile at this kid. Charlie looks down at the guide book. CHARLIE Says here, it's very impolite to touch someone while you're talking to them... (nudges Kobo) Guess that means you can't talk and screw at the same time, huh, hotdog? What's the matter, no -- speaky-the- language? Understand this: You will never ever fuck with my partner again. Nothing from Kobo who is looking straight ahead. He doesn't understand. NICK Shut-up, Charlie. A beat, then Charlie reads a Japanese phrase from the book. A slight facial response from Kobo. Charlie tries it again. This time Kobo laughs openly. NICK What'd you say? CHARLIE Where is the subway station, please. Kobo keeps laughing; it's obviously not what Charlie said. NICK Get a new book. CUT TO: INT. AIRLINER - LATER The cabin is now darkened. Kobo and Nick are asleep. Not Charlie, he's still at his book, and listening to U2 on his Walkman. Nick rolls over and opens his eyes to see Charlie watching him. He shuts them hoping to avoid talk. Too late. CHARLIE Nick... You up? NICK No. Charlie removes his headphones. CHARLIE Nick, have I been a good partner? NICK Number five with a bullet. Nick shuts his eyes. CHARLIE I just want you to know... I mean anybody who says you ever took has got to deal with me. NICK Go to sleep, Charlie. CHARLIE You didn't take, did you...? You hear things. Nick opens his eyes. NICK I worked the three nine in Queens, Charlie. CHARLIE (surprised) I didn't know. NICK The lieutenant was on the pad along with the rest of the squad. I was new, didn't know shit. When the feathers flew, I got called in front of the special prosecutor. It's on the top of my personnel file. They think I'm dirty or I cut a deal. Doesn't leave you with a lot of friends either way. Nick shuts his eyes. NICK I might as well have done something. I've been paying for it every goddamn day since I got transferred... HOLD on Nick then... CUT TO: INT. NARITA AIRPORT - JAPAN - DAY Nick and Charlie, with Kobo between them, are a strange sight in a sea of Japanese faces. Kobo's hands are cuffed behind his back. Nick also has Kobo cuffed to his wrist. The cops are rumpled, exhausted, showing two days of stubble. Kobo looks sharp and wide awake. A pair of attractive teenage girls walks past them. CHARLIE Whoa. Nick, we're in paradise. A PAIR of white gloved hands belonging to a Tokyo police officer holds up a small, hand letter sign that says: CONKLIN/SKLOARIS. The man holding the sign is NAGASHIMA. Two other police officers in spotless tan uniforms stand at his side. Nick, holding Kobo by his arm, steps up to the police and show his I.D. Nagashima bows. NAGASHIMA Officers Conklin and -- and... (he can't say Charlie's name) ... gentlemen, welcome. I am assistant inspector Nagashima. They show their I.D. NICK You going to take this crap off our hands? NAGASHIMA (confused) Crap...? Oh, the prisoner. Yes. He barks some orders to the officers who immediately take Kobo by the arms and put cuffs on him. Nick unfastens his cuff when they're through. In contrast to Nagashima's gentility, the cops are rough with the prisoner. CHARLIE (extends his hand) Charlie. Kon-ich-iwa. Nagashima shakes his hand. Bows. Charlie bows back. Nick wouldn't bow if his life depended on it. Nagashima hands Nick an official looking document. NAGASHIMA If you will please give this to the customs inspector he will expidate -- expedite you. We have a car and a driver outside. NICK Right. CHARLIE (bows) Arigato. Nick grabs Charlie by the arm and starts for the customs line. NICK Givin' you a book is like givin' a baby a gun. CHARLIE Hey, when in Rome -- NICK In Rome, I'll bow. CUT TO: INT. CUSTOMS BOOTH - DAY NICK and CHARLIE make their way through the crowd toward the head of a long line. They dump their bags on the counter. The INSPECTOR, furious that they have taken cuts in line, barks at them in Japanese. NICK Inspector Nagashima told me to give you this. He hands the Inspector the official looking document. The Inspector scans the paper. Hands it back to them. INSPECTOR (broken English) You must get in line behind the rest. NICK We're cops. Pol-ice-men. The Inspector signals a nearby POLICEMAN. The Inspector says something in Japanese. Hands the policeman the document. The policeman shakes his head, amused, points to the end of the line. NICK Fellas, get serious. From off screen someone CALLS OUT: MAN (O.S.) Nick! Nick and Charlie turn to see KOBO, their prisoner, standing on the other side of the thick plastic divider. The handcuffs are off. The three alleged 'policemen' are heading out the door behind him. It was a set-up: Nick and Charlie have been had. KOBO (perfect English) Thanks for the ride, detective. He slowly backs away from the glass as if he had all the time in the world, finally disappearing in the crowd. CUT TO: NICK AND CHARLIE trying to shove past the customs inspectors who are wrestling them aside. NICK Cops! He's our prisoner! Two more policemen arrive. Nick and Charlie are thrown up against the wall. Out come the cuffs. SNAP! NICK What's going on? We're the good guys! CUT TO: INT. TOKYO POLICE HEADQUARTERS - DAY Fifty identical desks. Fifty identical phones. Fifty identically dressed men in white shirts and ties working under the fluorescent lights of this large open room. We GLIDE PAST the rows of desk to find INSPECTOR OHASHI, mid forties, sitting behind a perfectly arranged desk. Ohashi prides himself on order. Nick and Charlie are standing in front of him. NICK Get me something like an Identi-Kit and I'll give you a description. Ohashi remains poker faced. He continues to arrange papers and apply his hanko (personal seal) to the bottom of a stack of official papers. CHARLIE There must be some witnesses from the airport? Still nothing from the good inspector. NICK What is it, tea time? Still nothing from Ohashi. Finally: OHASHI (quiet rage) You lost a man we wanted for some time. It was very incompetent on your part, officer. NICK Incompetent is letting people waltz through a secure area wearing your uniforms, carrying official documents. Ohashi bows slightly, we're not sure why. NICK I want a gun. OHASHI It is not allowed. NICK We're police officers. OHASHI You're foreigners. NICK Work with me. I want your best detective. Pause. Ohashi returns to his papers. Nick can't believe it. NICK Hey, inspector, I don't intend to take the rap for this. OHASHI (not looking up) Do you know what this is? Ohashi holds up the document that was handed to Nick at the airport. OHASHI It's a laundry list. Go home, detective. Nick studies him for a beat, then turns away. To Charlie: NICK Let's go. CHARLIE Nick, we can't just -- NICK I said let's go, Charlie. Reluctantly they head towards the door, passing long rows of bureaucrats, telephones ringing off the hook. Nick stops at the door, spots a fuse box nearby. He glances back to make sure no one is looking. Nick pulls out his handcuffs. Charlie can't figure out what the hell he's doing. Nick attaches one cuff to the main lever then yanks it down. The lights go out. The fan's stop; so do the typewriters; so does the air conditioning. Dead silence. Nick attaches the other cuff to a pipe, snaps it shut. Now it's impossible to left the main lever. From the far end of the room: OHASHI What are you doing?! Nick drops the key down the water fountain drain. NICK Your best detective, Ohashi. CUT TO: EXT. POLICE STATION - DAY Nick and Charlie cross the street. Charlie's trying to read the name from the piece of paper Ohashi has given them. CHARLIE ... Detective Ich-iro Matsu-moto. Hey, we're getting Mr. Moto on our side. NICK Let's grab some food. CHARLIE First decent idea you've had. Charlie pulls out his 'Footloose in Tokyo" book, flips through the pages. CHARLIE Food... Food, here we go. Tokyo offers a wide variety of food. It's best to sample the local specialties, including sashaimi, soba, and world renown Kobe beef... Nick goes into a restaurant. Charlie drops the book, disgusted with Nick's choice. Charlie reluctantly follows him in. REVEAL it's a Shakey's Pizza restaurant. CUT TO: EXT. HOUSING PROJECT - SHIN OKUBO - DAY Rows of post-modern buildings of odd shaped windows and brightly painted concrete walls. Nick and Charlie are searching for the Japanese cop's building. They can't speak the language; they can't read the signs; and half the buildings don't have numbers. It's a nightmare. CHARLIE This should be it... NICK You said that in the last two places. Charlie holds out the paper to a passing man. CHARLIE Kore? Doku? Kore doku? The man gestures toward the building Charlie was pointing to. NICK Okay, you were right. Charlie grins, satisfied. INT. HOUSING DEVELOPMENT - CORRIDOR - DAY The boys are knocking on a door. Nick turns the handle. It's unlocked. THE APARTMENT A four tatami room. An unholy mess: Food packages, beer bottles, stacks of papers and file folders. Framed pictures of long dead relatives hang on the wall. CHARLIE This the right place? NICK I hope not. A WOMAN now appears at the door. Middle aged, wizened face, in a full traditional Kimono. CHARLIE Konichiwa. Ichiro Matsumoto? The woman babbles bird-like in rapid Japanese. She bows. They're in the right place. CUT TO: EXT. SIDE STREET - MINIMAI MURAMATSU - NIGHT The jammed streets are barely wide enough to get a motorcycle down. It's a bad neighborhood, one of the poorest in Tokyo. We spot the small kimono clad WOMAN, clip-clopping on wooden geta, leading Nick and Charlie through this labyrinth. CHARLIE (looking around) Getting very weird. NICK I'd feel better if we had some heat. CHARLIE Maybe we should bail? Seeing they've stopped, the woman gestures for them to hurry up, then disappears around the corner. NICK (looking at the maze of streets) Think we could find our way back? CUT TO: A GARISH PINK SIGN - PINK SARON BAR A poor man's idea of a bar. The woman points inside, chirps away in Japanese, bows, then hurries off leaving Nick and Charlie on their own. INSIDE PINK SARON Nick and Charlie disappear into darkness as the woven flaps shut behind them. A vintage wurlitzer juke box glows across the room. An Enka plays. (Haunting Japanese blues.) MAN'S VOICE (FROM THE DARKNESS) Big shots from New York. I like your style! ICHIRO MATSUMOTO steps into a pool of light just inches from them. He is a short overweight man looking every minute of his fifty-five years. His white short sleeve shirt is too tight; his narrow tie spotted in the middle; his collar soaked in sweat. He's not drunk yet, but he's been at it a while. Call him Ich. ICH (bowing) Detective Ichiro Matsumoto. I'm the man you're looking for. This is Ohashi's best man? Well, at least he speaks English. ICH The man you are looking for, Kobo, was a member of the Samaguchi-gummi. A Yakuza. Ich nods, offers them what's left of his Sapphoro beer. They shake their heads. Ich finishes it. NICK Where do we start looking for this guy? ICH Where would you look for the mafia? CHARLIE The back room at Lombardi's after the Columbus Day Parade. Under the bed. In the mayor's office. Everywhere. Ich heads for the door without saying a word. NICK Where're you going, Ichiro? ICH (stops, faces them) The mayor's office, under the bed, the back room at Lombardi's. (tucking in his shirt tail) And call me Ich. CUT TO: INT. ICHIBANKAN BAR BUILDING - KABUKI CHO - NIGHT Imagine an ultra modern indoor shopping mall, except there aren't any stores. The only product sold here is pleasure: Bars, hostess clubs, Turkish baths. A post- modern red light district with music piped in and automated doormen. INT. LAS VEGAS WELCOME CLUB Hip, younger Japanese are wedged together at the long chrome bar. The GUYS sport leather jackets and Raybans. The GIRLS are decked out in fifties American party dresses and short cropped hair. Jerry Lee Lewis wails in the background. Nick, Ich and Charlie are at one end of the long bar. Ich is drinking them both under the table. ICH (singing) "Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire." (raising glass for toast) To the killer. Jerry Lee Lewis. NICK (checking his watch) Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Dinky Doo And The Don't's. Let's book, Charlie. If he starts on Motown, we'll be here all night. ICH No, this is the place for the young Yakuza. NICK That's what you said in the last three piss pots. Ich sets down his drink, pours more sake for Nick and Charlie then for himself. He's having a great time. ICH I love you people. The music, the clothes, the movies... Japanese respect only what is Japanese. Nick glances at Charlie. NICK It's incredible. Hit him or something. CHARLIE I don't think he'd feel it. ICH (beginning to slur his words) Americans change everything. When I was young the city was wood and paper... I was ten when the bombers came. I lived underground for three days. When I came up, the city was gone... A ball of fire. Nick gets to his feet. Ich grabs him by the arm, stopping him. ICH It began to rain, Nick. You know what color the rain was? Ich doesn't give him a chance to answer. ICH Black... It was black from the ash. Very impressive. You Americans, you could make black rain. Ich polishes off his drink. An awkward silence. Charlie, wanting to lighten the mood -- CHARLIE (leaning close) Say Ich, between friends, where can I grab some squish around here? Nick sighs, digs in his pocket for some yen for the bill. ICH Squid? CHARLIE Pussy, ass, soft personnel. Ich looks up to see a picturesque, blood-haired American WOMEN in a tight silk blouse and skirt. She works here and has obviously heard Charlie. ICH Ah, Joyce... (in Japanese) How are you tonight? JOYCE (in Japanese) Hello, Ich. Johnny Walker? Ich nods. Joyce's Japanese is impeccable. She's a part- time bartender, translator, model. One of Japan's western wanderers. She's sliding past thirty, but only her weary eyes give it away. She is about to pour Ich another drink. NICK Don't give him any more. JOYCE He gets as much as he wants. Charlie extends his hand to Joyce. She ignores it. CHARLIE Hello hello, Charlie Skloaris. New York City. She refills Ich's glass. CHARLIE My partner and I are cops. (lowering his voice) We're on a very big assignment here. (nothing from Joyce) When do you get off? JOYCE Right when you're being tucked into bed. Cold. ICH You should be nicer to my American friends, Joyce. JOYCE They wouldn't appreciate it, Ich. Trust me. She says something in Japanese to Ich as she eyes the cops. Then, she walks off. ICH Joyce can be nice. CHARLIE (brightening) What'd she say? ICH (big smile) That I should let you pay for the drinks. (raising his glass) Kampai. CUT TO: EXT. ICHIBANKAN BAR BUILDING - NIGHT Charlie and Nick are trying to help a besotted Ich find a taxi, but no one will take him. Ich is shouting half English, half Japanese phrases. ICH ... We got to keep looking. Track him down! Great balls of fire! NICK (frustrated, to a cabbie) What's the problem here? The cabbie ignores them. WOMAN (O.S.) You don't speak the language. I'll drop him off. They turn to see Joyce standing behind them. ICH Ah, Joyce... The rest is slurred Japanese. Joyce speaks to a cabbie in Japanese. The rear door swings open. She helps Ich in. Joyce climbs in. ICH (out the window) See you tomorrow! The taxi pulls away. Nick and Charlie watch it go. NICK Not a prayer. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - FOUR A.M. An early morning wind jostles the red paper lantern and plucks at the tails of dragon-like banners hanging outside the shops. Nick and Charlie are walking down this narrow sidestreet on the way back to their hotel. CHARLIE ... He's a sorry old guy, but I like him. NICK He couldn't find his ass with both hands. A brand new Kawasaki 1000 motorcycle with windshield and full farings gleams under a street light. CHARLIE Now that's the kind of motorcycle I want to see you on. NICK (muttering) Sure, a rice burning crotch rocket... CHARLIE Nick, how we gonna bag this guy without any help? Maybe I should work on that girl Joyce, she speaks the language. Nick glances over at his partner, smiles. But before he can respond -- The DULL ROAR of a half dozen motorcycles in the distance breaks the pre-dawn stillness. TWENTY BOSOZOKU (BIKERS) on their multi-cylinder high tech street bombers, creep around the corner and slowly ride toward Nick and Charlie. We get a better look at them: turbo punk Elvis-samurai hybrids -- some wearing a slipper under their headbands, courtesy of their girlfriends; some in leopard skin pants. And tattoos... They head straight for Nick and Charlie, then, at the last moment, split and float away IN SLOW MOTION, as if the cops didn't exist. Suddenly, the street is empty again. Silent except for the SOUND of the wind beating against paper lanterns, rustling the wind chimes... Hold on Nick and Charlie standing in the middle of the street, realizing just how far away from home they are. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. HOTEL - THE NEXT MORNING A rocket shaped building: a mixture of Dutch Gable and Japanese Minka roof. The mid-day sun beats down on a particular room. INT. HOTEL ROOM Nick and Charlie are sacked out. They never bothered to pull the curtains. THE SOUND OF KNOCKING at the door. ICH (O.S.) Nick! NICK Give us a break... ICH (O.S.) It's Ichiro. Ich. NICK Leave the rice cake outside and go home! But Ich persists. AT THE DOOR As Nick opens up. Ich bows. He's now clean shaven and has put on a clean shirt. ICH There's been a murder. Yakuza. You should come. CUT TO: INT. PRINTING PLANT - DAY The murder scene. NO SOUND. A SERIES OF SHOTS: A BODY FROM THE WAIST DOWN in the claws of six foot working robotic. The tattooed covered legs swing back and forth like a pendulum. THE TORSO is wedged in between two enormous printing rollers. THE HEAD is resting in the middle of a conveyer belt. It's been drenched in black printer's ink which has begun to congeal. WE SLOWLY TRACK PAST Ich, Charlie, and Nick, watching. Charlie has the dry heaves. REAL SOUND as we reveal the full crime scene. Instead of the usual cigar smoke, camera flashes and radio chatter, there is order and quiet. A slow underwater dance. INSPECTOR OHASHI quietly gives an order. Someone turns off the robotic. The severed legs stop swinging. Nick, Charlie and Ich walk over to Ohashi. Ich bows deeply. Ohashi doesn't acknowledge any of them, talks to a man holding a tape measurer. NICK Could you fill me in? OHASHI Why don't you ask your chief detective? Ich looks down at the floor. NICK Because I want you to tell me. OHASHI The young are eating the old, something that usually doesn't happen here. NICK Can we skip the poetry, inspector? Ohashi pauses. Ich looks at Nick as if to warn him he can't speak to Ohashi that way. OHASHI There's a war, detective, between two rival groups. The man who escaped, Kobo, leads the younger group. They did this. ICH Kobo's a wild boy. He was a lieutenant in the Sammaguchi-gummi. OHASHI (in Japanese) Excellent, Officer Matsumoto. How is your investigation going? ICH (in Japanese) Well, sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work with these distinguished gentlemen. He bows. It's pathetic. POLICE LIEUTENANT Looking for clues in the bottom of a sake bottle, Matsumoto? Laughter all around. OHASHI He's an officer of great distinction. Another sarcastic dig. Ich stoically stands and takes it. CHARLIE Hey, Ich has been helpful. OHASHI (ignoring him, to Nick) Have you changed your mind and decided to go home, detective? NICK Not until one of us bags Kobo. (looking at the corpse) And it doesn't look like you're doing so hot. Ohashi coolly flicks the ashes of his cigarette and we -- CUT TO: EXT. PRINTING PLANT - DAY Ich, Nick, and Charlie are threading their way through the crowd toward the subway entrance. TWO BIKERS, their hair slicked back, watch the trio from the top of two different subway entrances. As soon as Ich, Nick and Charlie go down the steps, they climb off their bikes and follow. INT. SUBWAY STATION Nick, Ich and Charlie are riding the people mover that stretches the length of this endless tunnel. They're sandwiched between the legions of SALARYMEN (white collar workers) who all wear identical blue suits and white shirts. Nick looks over at Ich, who is still suffering in silence from the recent humiliation. NICK You know, Inspector, you take shit once, you take shit forever. ICH (beat) I don't deserve Ohashi's respect. NICK Why the hell not? ICH I don't, that's all. Ich looks away, obviously uncomfortable. CHARLIE You cool, Ich? ICH Cool? CHARLIE You all right? You okay? Ich nods. CHARLIE What does Ichiro mean, anyway? ICH (smiling) What does Charlie mean? CHARLIE Hey, all right. Charlie slaps Ich on the back. NICK smiles at Charlie's remark. He can't help but like this wide-eyed goofy kid. Something makes Nick's smile fade. NICK'S POV KOBO, their escaped prisoner, hurrying in the opposite direction. His Kamali suit looks like it just came from the cleaners. NICK Charlie! Charlie spots him. In a flash, the two men jump the railing and charge after him, leaving Ich in their wake. Ich can't possibly make it over the side. He furiously shoves his way through the Salarymen, trying to get to the end of the walkway. CHASE SEQUENCE -- Nick barreling through the mass of faceless Salarymen. -- Kobo, hurrying ahead, occasionally glancing back. -- Charlie catching up to Nick. They've lost him. They spin around. A half dozen tunnels spin out in all directions. -- Nick and Charlie spotting Kobo. He's waiting for them near the turnstile. Nick suddenly realizes it's a set-up. Before he can say anything, Charlie sprints ahead, recklessly shoving people out of the way. NICK (calling after him) It's a set-up...! Charlie! Charlie hasn't heard him. AT THE TURNSTILE Kobo hands a ticket to the turnstile guard and disappears onto the platform. Charlie doesn't have a ticket. The guard points to the automatic ticket machine. Screw it. Charlie leaps over the turnstile. The GUARD blows his shrill whistle to signal the subway police. THE PLATFORM Charlie pushes through the crowd -- a wall of blank faces. Kobo is gone. NICK shoving through the crowd. He spots Charlie. Shouts at him to wait. Charlie can't hear his partner. THE SUBWAY pulls in. An immaculately uniformed CONDUCTOR blows his whistle and waves his white-gloved hands to keep the crowd back. A LEATHER JACKETED BOY shoves Charlie from behind; he stumbles forward toward the track. Someone catches him at the last moment. Charlie turns around to see it's Kobo. Kobo smiles, it's all a big joke. What follows happens in a flash: ON NICK NICK Charlie! Nick is close enough to see, too far to do anything. He's blocked by TWO MORE LEATHER BOYS. He tries to shove past, but they grab him. KOBO holding Charlie by his coat lapels. An express train tears into the station. Kobo casually glances at NICK trying to struggle free. KOBO his eyes still on Nick, drops Charlie in front of the speeding express as if he were a sack of laundry. NICK NICK NO!! A woman SCREAMS. The train barrels through the station. Kobo starts toward Nick. He's next. A pair of SUBWAY POLICEMEN burst through the crowd searching for Charlie because he vaulted the turnstile. NICK manages to break free of the leatherboys holding him. They flee into the crowd as the police close in. ACROSS THE PLATFORM - KOBO slips into the wave of commuters being shoved into a train by white-gloved MEN. It's their job to shove commuters into the already packed cars. Nick goes for Kobo, but the crowd closes in front of him. He can't get through. THE SUBWAY DOORS slam shut. The train pulls out leaving Nick standing on the empty platform. THE LAST CAR streaks past him. Kobo stands in the rear window, getting smaller and smaller until the train disappears down the tracks. ICH Nick! Ich, out of breath, is standing on the platform. Nick looks at him with disgust -- where the hell was he. STAY on Nick, his head bowed, being surrounded by the sea of blue-suited commuters. FADE TO WHITE. FADE IN: NICK'S FACE against a white wall. That's all we see. Ohashi's voice OFF SCREEN. OHASHI (O.S.) ... You ignored me. I don't care about what you want. Get on a plane, detective Conklin. Go home. We HEAR a door open and SLAM shut off screen. Hold on Nick, frozen in place, then: CUT TO: INT. CENTRAL SECTION - TOKYO POLICE H.Q. - DAY Again, the fifty desks, fifty faceless men working. Typewriters CLACKING, phones RINGING. We MOVE down the rows to find Nick sitting behind one of the desks. He's on the phone to New York. OLIVER (V.O.) (PHONE) It's not your job. NICK He was my partner. OLIVER (V.O.) (PHONE) They're blaming it on you. Christ, Conklin, you didn't even tell me you lost the prisoner! NICK I planned on catching him, Captain. OLIVER (V.O.) (PHONE) How? You don't know the place. You don't know the language. Get on the plane. NICK He killed a police officer. OLIVER (V.O.) (PHONE) Your plane's at nine a.m. Be on it. That's orders. Period. Oliver hangs up. A moment of long distance hum cross talk. Nick doesn't move. Pull back through the rows of cops busily working... SOUND FADES. Charlie Parker's alto sax FADE UP as we -- CUT TO: EXT. SHINJUKU - NIGHT The MUSIC continues. The sax screams as the melody is abandoned. Nick is drunk. Roaring angry drunk. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't care. He plows down the street, occasionally grabbing a passerby, then letting them go. Nick begins to laugh. A couple is staring at him, Nick yells at them, but we DON'T HEAR HIM. He stumbles on... drop back to find. ICH following in his wake. He bows and apologizes to the offended. CUT TO: EXT. LAS VEGAS WELCOME BAR - NIGHT Nick is thrown onto the street. He tries to reenter and is thrown out again. We spot JOYCE inside watching; she turns back to her customers. EXT. GINZA - NIGHT Nick is hassling a news vendor who pointedly ignores him and continues selling his papers. Ich appears and apologizes to the news vendor. EXT. STREET - TWO A.M. Nick's sitting on the curb, his head in his hands. People step around him. Across the street, out of Nick's sight, Ich is watching his partner, feeling every barb of Nick's shame. Charlie Parker continues over the slow... DISSOLVE TO: NICK -- asleep, the futon tangled around him. He opens his eyes. A woman is making tea in the kitchenette. This is the kimonoed woman who led Nick and Charlie to Ich the other night. A RADIO is on softly in the background. The Charlie Parker tune we've been listening to over the previous cuts ends, and the announcer comes on: RADIO ... That was the Bird, from the Blue Note years. 1230 hours and 72 degrees in central Osaka. This is specialist Doug Dale, Tapestries in Jazz, on the Far East Network, armed forces radio... Nick slowly sits up to see ICH seated at a low table looking at him from across the room. Nick spots his clothes and luggage stacked in the corner. Nick now realizes he's in Ich's apartment. It's spotless. Everything is now in its proper place. NICK What happened? ICH They made you leave your hotel... (looks away) ... you caused a disturbance. Nick's eyes fall on Charlie's things: his sports clothes, his tour book, his shoes which Ich has stacked on the table. ICH It may be too soon to talk about it. When someone we care for dies we... (beat) ... keep something of their's. A tie, a pen. NICK Why weren't you at the platform? ICH I couldn't keep up. My shame is complete. Nick slowly shuts his eyes, his head pounding. CUT TO: INT. PUBLIC BATH - DAY The neighborhood bathhouse. Thick with steam and neighborhood kids. Nick walks toward the huge pool of water. Ich is beside him. Nick's about to climb in when Ich stops him, hands him a pail and a washcloth and points to the faucets along the wall where a dozen men squat on small stools as they wash themselves. CUT TO: NICK as he pours a pail of water over his head, it runs down his face in slow motion. CUT TO: THE POOL Nick soaking, on one side. Ich is soaking nearby. ICH You must leave? NICK Yeah... ICH I'll get him for you, Nick. Nick looks at this thick bellied, alcoholic cop. Not a very reassuring thought. TWO MEN carrying plastic pails cross in front of the tub. Young, muscular Yakuza, their bodies covered with exquisite tattoos. They stare openly at Nick. One makes a joke. Both laugh obscenely as they slip into the hot tub. NICK Yakuza? Ich nods. Nick eyes them for a long beat, then climbs out of the tub. CUT TO: NICK Nick tossing two bags into a taxi in front of Ich's apartment building. ICH Ich watching Nick through the window from inside his apartment. He glances back and sees Charlie's "Members Only" coat hanging on a hook. When he turns back, Nick's taxi has disappeared. EXT. NARITA AIRPORT The brightest object in the frame is a yellow forklift carrying a jostling aluminum coffin toward the open belly of the cargo plane. Nick watches it from the edge of the tarmac. AIRPORT CHECK IN GATE Nick hands the clerk his ticket. NICK ... Smoking. CLERK Aisle or window? Nick spots a folded newspaper someone has left on the counter. He can't read it, of course, but there's a picture of the subway platform where Charlie was killed, swarming with police. Nick continues to stare at the paper. CLERK Aisle or window, sir? NICK (looks up) I want to cash it in. Yen. CUT TO: ICH'S APARTMENT - DAY Nick steps in, drops the two suitcases. NICK Ichiro? The woman steps out of the kitchen, babbles something in Japanese. Nick doesn't have a clue. CUT TO: INT. LAS VEGAS WELCOME BAR - AFTERNOON Only a handful of patrons. Joyce is straightening bottles behind the bar. NICK (O.S.) What's tricks? She looks up, surprised to see Nick standing in front of her. JOYCE Ich said you left. NICK There was a change in plans. Beat. JOYCE I'm sorry about your friend. Nick's surprised at how fast she heard. JOYCE Dead gaiijin's are big news. NICK Gaiijin? JOYCE An outside person. A foreigner. A barbarian. You, me. (beat) More you. NICK I could use some help. Show me around. I'll pay you for your time. JOYCE I don't give tours. Nick smiles. NICK You can count on the truth from people who don't like you. JOYCE You have a helluva way of asking for help. NICK You have a helluva way of answering. Draw. JOYCE Look, you need Ich. I've been here five years and I still can't read all the street signs. NICK Maybe I'm a quicker learner. JOYCE I don't think so. From OFF SCREEN: ICH (O.S.) Nicklaus-san. Nick turns to see Ich, leaning against the door frame. He's already had a few drinks too many. He's delighted to see Nick. ICH I've continued working on the case! NICK I can see that. Ich ambles into the room, slips down into a chair. He spills the contents of the large manila envelope he's been carrying onto the table: a wallet, a set of keys, playing cards, etc. ICH (signaling to Joyce) Joyce... A drink please. (to Nick) Kobo has disappeared. My superiors don't trust me. Nick walks over to the table and looks at the items. ICH Kobo's. Taken off him when he was arrested in New York. Nick sits down. Joyce gives Ich his scotch. ICH I knew you'd come back. You feel you have a debt you can never pay. But you will, even if it costs you your life. Giri. Honor. Nick picks up various items off the table. NICK How'd you get this? ICH I stole them. Ich drapes his arm over Nick's shoulder. ICH Partners, Nicklaus-san? Ich reaches for his drink. Nick gets there first. He holds it up as if he were proposing a toast, then purposefully spills his drink out. NICK Partners. Ich has just had his last drink on duty. CUT TO: THE TABLE - LATER All the contents of the envelope are spread out on the table: credit cards, matchbooks from New York City, choice clipping from Screw magazine, sugarless gum, cuff links... Nick's holding up a series of photos. CLOSE ON PHOTO of a naked women and Kobo screwing on a Tatami mat. Another photo. Then another. Each photo is more pornographic than the next. Joyce picks them up as Nick sets them down. JOYCE Busy man. Nick holds out several of the same girl in various poses. NICK Know her? ICH (shaking his head) We can ask someone I used to work with. A criminal. Someone I pay money to... NICK A snitch? CUT TO: INT. PACHINKO PARLOR - DAY The largest in Tokyo. Endless rows of men sitting in front of the machines (horizontal pinball games) furiously punching the flippers. The NOISE from the metal balls is deafening. A MAN in a Hawaiian shirt, his arms covered with tattoos, is starting a new game. Ich moves up to the vacant machine beside him, puts in his change. Ich doesn't face the man as they speak in Japanese. The man in the Hawaiian shirt walks off. ON NICK as the man in the Hawaiian shirt walks past him. This is the snitch. Nick glances back at Ich. Ich nods -- they're in business. CUT TO: A CRAMPED ROOM - REAR OF PACHINKO PARLOR We HEAR the clattering of the machines outside. The man in the Hawaiian shirt, mid-fifties and badly in need of a shower, is sitting on the floor studying the photos. Ich and Nick tower above him. The man says something to Nick in Japanese, then continues to study the photos. NICK What's he saying? ICH (looking up) He says they're very nice. He wants to know if you have anymore. Nick sighs. ICH I'll ask him again. Ich asks in Japanese. The man shrugs. NICK My turn. He grabs the man by his shirt collar and shoves him against the wall. The photos spill to the floor. NICK Who is she? He bangs the man's head back against the wall. The man starts babbling in Japanese. Ich, horrified, tries to pull Nick off him. ICH Nick, stop. Nick bangs the snitches head against the wall again. Ich gets Nick away. The man is terrified. ICH This man must be treated with respect. Ich bows to the man, apologizes in Japanese. NICK Aw, for Christ's sake. They continue speaking in Japanese. They bow to one another again. Ich gives the man a glass of water, then motions for him to sit down. Nick, impatient, starts for the guy again. Ich stops him. The snitch holds up one of the photos, and starts babbling. NICK (to Ich) Now we're making progress. CUT TO: INT. SEIBU DEPARTMENT STORE - DAY CLOSE ON A SALESGIRL behind the cosmetic counter. She is wearing the store uniform: blue and white dress and white gloves. A doll. We shouldn't recognize her at first. Then -- INSERT A PHOTO one of Kobo's porno pics. It's the same face. REVEAL NICK holding the photo, standing in the crowded store. Ich is beside him. NICK That's Kobo's girl? He's sure? Ich glances back at the man in the Hawaiian shirt standing by the door. The man nods. ICH He's sure. They watch the girl help a customer choose an eyeliner. ICH Nick, no one's seen Kobo in three days. He might not even be in Tokyo. NICK Only one way to find out... Get her up in the morning and put her to bed at night. CUT TO: INT. SOBA RESTAURANT - DAY NICK is struggling with his chopsticks and bowl of noodles. From O.S. A LOUD SLURPING SOUND. The sound stops, then starts again. Nick can't eat. He sets his bowl down and looks over at ICH slurping his noodles. It is considered polite to slurp soba noodles as loud as possible. Ich stops. Looks at Nick, then resumes his slurping. NICK Think you could keep it to a dull roar? They're sitting by the window across from the Seibu department store watching the entrance. ICH It's good manners. Nick nods. Picks up his bowl. Again the LOUD slurping off screen. Nick starts to eat the noodles. He can't continue with Ich slurping. He sets the bowl down. Ich grins, resumes slurping and we -- CUT TO: EXT. DEPARTMENT STORE - SIX P.M. The SALESGIRLS are lined up at the door bowing and thanking the last customers for shopping in their store. Standard practice. The GIRL whom Nick and Ich have been watching comes out wearing her uniform and heads down the street. NICK AND ICH waiting in the restaurant, get up to follow. CUT TO: THE GIRL stepping out of the laundry carrying her wash. She walks past a doorway where... NICK is standing. ICH now walks past his partner picking up the tail. No acknowledgement between them. EXT. STREET CAR STATION There are dozens of street cars waiting to pull out. The girl is on one of them. Ich has lost her. Nick and Ich hurry from car to car. ICH You said you could keep up with her! 'No problem, Nick-san.' NICK (cutting Ich off) No. Don't say anything. Don't do anything, and for Christ's sake, don't apologize! ICH Nick... Nick hurries toward another car to check it out. NICK What'd I tell you? ICH There she is! They spot the girl sitting in the window of one of the street cars, about to turn onto the main street. The two cops race for the car. Nick leaps on. Ich is a few steps behind. Nick sticks out his hand, pulls Ich up. They stand looking at one another, both breathing hard, both out of shape. CUT TO: NIGHTCLUB DISTRICT - NIGHT Narrow streets with exploding neon ideograph signs as far as the eye can see. We spot our girl hurrying down the street. Nick, a half block behind, is bumping into people, trying not to lose her. She crosses the street and Ich picks her up. Nick drops off. ON A SIDE STREET around the corner the girl disappears into a three story apartment building above an electronics store. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. GIRL'S APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT We're watching our girl inside her apartment. She flips off the TV and climbs into bed. CUT TO: A STOREROOM - NIGHT We've been watching the girl from a window across the street. It's a storeroom full of shipping crates, not much else. Ich is sitting on the floor, legs crossed, back erect, watching Nick. Nick glances over. Ich continues to watch him. Nick returns to the window. ICH You dislike me. Nick keeps looking out the window. NICK Did I say that? ICH You toler -- yes, tolerate me. NICK Are we getting married? Pause. ICH I'm a joke. They sent you to me to make a fool of you. Nick looks over at Ich. Ich is looking away. Nick looks out the window, then back at his partner. NICK You're doing fine, Ich. Now drop it, okay? ICH Sure. The girl switches off her light across the street. DISSOLVE TO: THE STOREROOM - MORNING Ich is sleeping on his back looking like a grounded whale. Nick, exhausted, is sitting by the window his head resting against the sill. NICK'S POV OF THE STREET as the girl, dressed in her store uniform, comes out of the apartment and heads for work. NICK nudges the sleeping Ich with his foot. Ich opens his eyes. NICK Let's book. Ich is groggy, nonplused. NICK Let's go. CUT TO: INT. HALLWAY - GIRL'S APARTMENT BUILDING Ich, tucking in his shirt, comes down the hall to see -- Nick, on his knees, examining the lock on the girl's apartment door. He slides his NYPD card into the jam and lightly raps the knob plate. ICH You can't do this. Nick uses his sleeve to wipe prints off the knob and jam. NICK Call a cop. The door swings open. Nick walks in. CUT TO: INT. GIRL'S APARTMENT A cheesebox with a few vintage pieces of American deco furniture. Ich, very uptight, stands at the door while Nick goes over the place. Nick opens the closet. It's packed with expensive dresses, pants, sweaters... ICH Nick... NICK (facing him) If you're gonna give me a hard time, wait outside. Nick goes through her chest of drawers: on the top, a lot of high quality lingerie. INSERT PHOTO: The girl and Kobo posing in a vintage Corvette. Nick replaces the picture, and carefully rearranges the drawer so it appears untouched. He pulls open another drawer. Then another. Under the jeans and Mickey Mouse T-shirts, he finds: A BANK STACK OF U.S. CURRENCY in hundreds. The bottom of the drawer is lined with stacks. Nick holds them up for Ich to see. NICK Not too shabby for a perfume pusher. Ich, shocked, tries to play it cool. ICH Too bad it's not in yen. Nick shoves the drawer shut. CUT TO: THE GIRL - DUSK - TWO DAYS LATER The GIRL buys fruit from a stand as NICK watches from one end of the block; ICH, listening to his transistor radio, waits at the other. THE GIRL suddenly turns and finds herself facing NICK a few yards away. Nick smiles, then walks into the store, hoping he hasn't been made. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. GIRL'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Rain pours down. INT. STOREROOM - NIGHT Nick, leaning against the wall, watches the girl's apartment across the street. The girl walks in, turns on her light, then disappears into the bathroom. Ich walks in, exhausted, soaked to the skin. He tosses his cap in the corner. Struck out again. ICH Work, lunch, groceries, laundry... Fabulous... NICK (looking back out the window) Four goddamn days. This is going nowhere... A KNOCK at the door. JOYCE (O.S.) It's me. Ich opens the door. Joyce, dressed for work, is carrying two odons (box dinners). Joyce and Ich exchange greetings in Japanese. JOYCE What's the latest? Nick shrugs. ICH We'll get him, Joyce. Joyce peeks out the window. The girl is getting undressed. JOYCE She ever pull down her shades? NICK (right back at her) Sure, but then I just pull out the photos. Ich opens one of the box dinners and sets it on the ledge in front of Nick. ICH (enthusiastically) Chikuwa, Hampen, Kobu, Konnayaku, Ganmodoki -- NICK Ichiro -- ICH (realizing) Broiled fish paste cake, Kelp roll, soybean curd, devils tongue -- NICK Smells like Bayonne at low tide. Joyce hands Ich a flask of hot sake in tinfoil. NICK Whoa whoa... Nick grabs the flask. Dumps it out the window. JOYCE Don't be an ass. NICK He's on duty. JOYCE I paid for that. Nick tosses a few thousand yen on the table. Then, spotting something out the window. NICK Alley oop! Nick grabs his coat and goes out the door. Joyce slips Ich another flask of sake. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - GINZA DISTRICT - NIGHT It's our GIRL standing alone on the corner of the street but you wouldn't know it at first. She's wearing tight leather pants, red leather jacket, earrings, bright red lipstick, and she's dumped the pony-tail, allowing her hair to fall to her waist. NICK AND ICH watching in a doorway down the block. Nick's shivering, his hands thrust in his army surplus jacket. Ich doesn't mind the cold. He's had his sake. THREE BOSOZOKU riding their bikes come around the corner drive past her, then circle back. One of the RIDERS stops to talk to her, then drives off. She hurries off in the opposite direction. ICH Yakuza. NICK Good. Very good... CUT TO: A SUBWAY STATION The girl waits until the last minute, then after glancing back, steps in the car. The train pulls out. The cars race past until we see -- Nick and Ich standing inside of the last car. It disappears into the tunnel. CUT TO: THE SHINZOA DISTRICT - NIGHT The girl, on the move, pushing through the crowd. Drop back to find Ich twenty yards behind. She crosses the street. Nick, pretending to be looking in a store window, picks her up. AROUND THE CORNER Nick has lost her. It's a cul de sac with a dozen buildings. He's standing in the middle of the street. Ich catches up to him. NICK She disappeared... shit! ICH You were too far behind. Nick does a double-take. ICH (recalling Nick's words) Don't say anything more. Don't do anything. And, for Christ's sake, don't apologize! DISSOLVE TO: EXT. STREET - SHINZOA DISTRICT - NIGHT - LATER NICK dropping another cigarette butt to the ground. There's a small pile at his feet. He's leaning against the wall watching one end of the block. TRACK over to reveal Ich, his back to Nick's, watching the other end. Ich glances back at Nick. Nick ignores him. Ich turns back. ICH Nicklaus-san! Nick turns to see the GIRL walk out of a bath house. She's wearing her ponytail again, with a black dress. She climbs into a taxi. CUT TO: EXT. PINK SARON HOSTESS CLUB - NIGHT The girl climbs out of the taxi and goes inside. Nick and Ich are watching from across the street. INT. HOSTESS CLUB Packed with Salarymen from the nearby brewery and hostesses in silk dresses selling cheap champagne at expensive prices. NICK AND ICH Walk in. Everything seems normal. The BOUNCER in a white tux, stops them. This is not a place frequented by Gaiijin. Ich beseeches the Bouncer to let his good friend in, promising that his friend will spend lots of money. Nick, thinking he's in, takes a step forward. The Bouncer shoves him back. NICK Hey, no hands, huh? He bats his hands away. Ich grabs Nick by the shoulders, preventing a fight. ICH You can't come in. They don't want -- NICK Gaiijin. ICH I'll check it out. Nick, unsure, turns to go, but before he does: NICK If I smell one drop of Scotch on your breath, my friend -- ICH You can trust me. Nick hesitates, he's not so sure, then shoves the door open. EXT. HOSTESS CLUB Nick waiting under the pink neon sign. INT. HOSTESS CLUB - LATER Ich is sitting at the crowded bar. A HOSTESS has her arm around his neck. He checks out the room, searching for the girl. He notices two THUGS standing outside a sliding door. Ich finishes his drink. ICH (in Japanese) Let me up. HOSTESS (shoving him down) Sit, sweetie. (to bartender) Another Seagrams! Ich relents. Then, spotting something across the room: WHAT HE SEES: A rice paper door slides open, momentarily revealing a DOZEN men with close cropped hair sitting on tatami mats, playing poker. Some have their coats off, revealing arms covered with tattoos. Yakuza. A hostess, serving drinks, steps but leaving the door partially open. The hostess slides the door open to the adjacent room, but Ich CANNOT see inside. She slides it shut. Ich's hostess wants him to buy another drink, but Ich shakes his head, gets to his feet, and pretending to be drunk, stumbles toward the sliding doors. Ich bumps into a table; slaps a stranger on the shoulder; then starts singing along with Frank Sinatra on the stereo. He's a little too loud, a little off key. The bodyguards eye Ich suspiciously. He stumbles past them, then grabs the sliding door and yanks it open. INSIDE THE ROOM A low table. Kobo is at one end. An older, distinguished, sliver-haired man in his seventies whom we will come to know as SUGAI is at the other. Ich can't believe his eyes: Sugai is the head of the largest Yakuza syndicate in Japan. A half dozen LIEUTENANTS sit on either side of the table. Half are older, dressed in conservative suits; the other half are younger wearing $700 Issy Miyake jackets. SUGAI AND KOBO are having a heated discussion. The GIRL Ich and Nick have been following walks over to Kobo and sits beside him. This makes Sugai even more irate. He's on his feet, red faced and screaming. FOUR GUARDS seeing Ich, pull out their Beretta's. Two more grab him and fling him head first against the wall. ICH (drunken, in Japanese) I have to piss, gentlemen... I'm so sorry but I have to -- The bodyguards hurry him towards the door. EXT. HOSTESS CLUB Nick checks his watch, it's been an hour - where the hell is Ich? Ich comes stumbling up the steps, still affecting his drunken, pigeon-toed walk. Nick, of course, thinks Ich has gotten drunk again. Two of the bodyguards are watching from inside. NICK I don't believe it... (grabs him) Son-of-a-bitch -- Ich, knowing they're being watched, grabs Nick by the sleeve and drags him off still pretending to be drunk. ICH (under his breath) I'm not drunk... NICK We're through. I mean it. This is the end of the line, Matsumoto. ICH Nick -- NICK Shut-up. No longer fearing he's being watched, Ich abruptly stops his affected walk, and sounding very sober -- ICH You shut-up! (then) Kobo is inside. He's with Sugai, the head of the Summaguchi-clan. ACROSS THE STREET Ich is dialing on the police call box as he fills Nick in on Sugai. ICH ... A Godfather. His man was killed at the printing plant. NICK I want to yank Kobo. ICH Not without a small army, Nicklaus- san. Ich quickly speaks on the police phone, then hangs up, pleased with himself. NICK Ich, my name is Nick. Not Nicklaus, not Nicklaus-san, not Nick-san. Nick. ICH San is an honorable title. Ich realizes it's better to drop it. CUT TO: THE HOSTESS CLUB - MINUTES LATER Drunken Salarymen spill out the door. ICH AND NICK are standing across the street waiting for the cops to arrive. Nick freezes. THE GIRL they've been following steps out and lights a cigarette. TIME SLOWS. She looks up and spots the two men through the traffic. Nick turns away, afraid he's been made. When he looks back, she's gone back inside. NICK Shit... Nick races across the street toward the club. Horns BLARE. ICH (doesn't understand) Nick?! IN FRONT OF THE CLUB Nick reaches the curb just as the front doors to the club BURST OPEN. He's too late. Three bodyguards burst out, checking the street. A red and white Debonnaire pulls up. Sugai, surrounded by a half-dozen additional bodyguards, comes out and slips into the car. It tears off down the street. SIRENS AND POLICE CARS from either end of the street peel around the corner. It's a madhouse. The remaining lieutenants and bodyguards fan out, trying to elude arrest. Nick hurries down the steps. INSIDE THE CLUB The patrons are still in place, but the two side rooms are empty. Nick spots KOBO going out the rear entrance. He starts after him but is confronted by the bouncer who stopped him earlier. Nick connects to the guy's jaw before his adversary can raise his hands. The bouncer staggers back. Nick flies out the rear door. CUT TO: EXT. FRONT OF CLUB - NIGHT Several lieutenants and bodyguards toss their guns -- possession is a felony in Japan -- as the police close in. INT. HOSTESS CLUB - NIGHT Ich hurries in, but Nick's long gone. EXT. REAR OF HOSTESS CLUB - NEARBY STREETS - NIGHT SILENCE. The narrow streets are deserted. Nick slowly makes his way down the street. The SOUND of a GUNSHOT. Nick ducks for cover -- it's a car BACKFIRING. He continues on. Nick's POV of a woman giving a man a blow-job in a narrow alley. The man's face is hidden by the shadow. Nick continues on. JAPANESE MAN (FROM THE DARKNESS) People like Charlie are a dime a dozen. Nick turns back to see Kobo as he steps into the light. Kobo tosses a handful of change at Nick. KOBO Keep the change. NICK I'm taking you back. The girl takes off down the block. KOBO Here I am. From across the street, a dozen bodyguards appear from various doorways and alleys. KOBO Charlie was a rookie... Kobo traces his finger across the spot where he cut Nick in New York. KOBO ... But you can take care of yourself. You're 'the biggest thing to hit this town since Godzilla.' Nick glances at the guards, then back at Kobo. He is unarmed. To make a move would be suicide. More POLICE SIRENS in the b.g. closing in. KOBO What's the matter. I'm right in front of you, Nick. (takes a step closer) But I was right in front of you when you let Charlie die. Kobo takes a step forward. His face is inches from Nick's. KOBO Walk away again. Maybe you'll get used to it. Nick doesn't budge. A LONG BEAT, then... Nick turns and slowly walk off. After a dozen yards Nick looks back. The street is empty, except for a street sweeper pushing his wet broom down the block. EXT. HOSTESS CLUB - NIGHT A half dozen bodyguards are being frisked, then shoved into police cars. Ohashi is talking to the enraged nightclub owner. Nick steps up to him. Ich hurries over. ICH Nick! NICK (to Ohashi) A few minutes faster, we might've nailed him. Ohashi doesn't say a word, hands Nick a document. NICK What's this? OHASHI Your visa has expired. Be on a plane in twenty-four hours or you will be deported. NICK While you were hanging out at the visa office, we found the son-of-a- bitch. OHASHI Look. Ohashi directs Nick's attention across the street where a SURVEILLANCE VAN is parked. The rear doors are open revealing a van full of surveillance equipment and cops. OHASHI You ruined an on-going investigation that could have gotten us more than one runner. (to Ich, in Japanese) I want a full report in the morning, officer. Ich bows as Ohashi walks off. NICK Maybe if you'd work with us -- Ohashi ignores him, continues walking toward his waiting car. NICK (shouting) Hey...! (Ohashi keeps walking) HEY, I'M TALKING TO YOU, INSPECTOR! OHASHI (his back toward Nick) Twenty-four hours, detective. Ohashi slips into his car. Nick storms up to the car and slams his fist on the window. NICK Ohashi! Ohashi faces straight ahead, ignoring Nick. Nick takes the extradition paper and spikes it on the car antenna. Ich grabs Nick by his arm, pulling him back from the car. The car pulls away. ICH Nick, stop! Nick whirls, and before he realizes what he's doing, punches Ich below his left eye. Ich stumbles back over the curb and lands on his ass. NICK Damnit, Ichiro, I'm tired of people telling me what I can and can't do. No one ever solved anything sitting on their ass. Nick, beside himself with frustration, watches Ohashi's car disappear down the block. ON ICH looking up at NICK who walks off without looking back at his partner. CUT TO: INT. ICH'S BATHROOM - SEVERAL HOURS LATER Nick, standing beside the tub, dumps a pail of hot water over his head, rinsing himself off. He grabs a towel and walks out of the room. INT. ICH'S APARTMENT Ich, holding an ice pack to his face, is lying on a tatami mat against the wall looking up at the ceiling. An open bottle of Seagrams beside him. Nick stretches out on another tatami on the opposite side of the room and looks up at the ceiling, too. NICK The ice help? Nothing from Ich. NICK Where does this Sugai live? ICH (cold) A resort city, Beppu. NICK I want to go talk to him. ICH What...? Why? NICK Because he knows how to get to our man. ICH He'll never speak to a Gaiijin. NICK I'll be a nice Gaiijin. Nick gets up and goes to the closet. He slides open the door. All of his and Charlie's clothes have been neatly hung up. He shoves Charlie's jacket aside. Something's wrong with the way it hangs. He pulls the jacket out, runs his hand over the coat, feeling something heavy in the lining. Nick rips the lining open. Charlie's .32 Beretta and a spare clip tumble out. NICK The little bastard. God bless him. Ich takes a drink from his bottle. ICH It's very small. NICK Big enough. ICH It's illegal, Nick. NICK It's a new deal. (putting it in his waist band) ... coming with me tomorrow? ICH Sugai's not going to be impressed with your gun, Nick. (beat) No. I won't put myself in danger for you anymore. Nick picks up the liquor cap which rolled across the floor. He tosses it to Ich. Ich reaches for it, but misses. NICK Sure, pal. You've got better things to do. Nick walks out shutting the door behind him. Stay on Ich watching the door, then -- CUT TO: EXT. LAS VEGAS BAR - CLOSING TIME The last customers find their way to the street, some with a little encouragement from a BOUNCER. Joyce steps out. Nick comes up to her. NICK You know where I can get a decent cup of coffee this time of night? I'm buying. JOYCE Somebody must be suffering somewhere, you're being so nice. Joyce takes off down the street. Nick watches her for a beat. NICK I need your help, Joyce. JOYCE Where's Ich? NICK Unavailable. CUT TO: INT. KARAOKE BAR - NIGHT On the stage, a young professional looking man is singing along to "SUMMERTIME" blasting from the stereo. The Japanese way of letting it all hang out. We find Joyce and Nick at a corner table having a drink. JOYCE I've heard of Sugai. I've also heard of the emperor. They're both national treasures. One's a hood. NICK I need someone to translate for me. JOYCE My Japanese isn't that hot... Besides, you'll never get in. NICK It's my last shot. I have to be on a plane home tomorrow night. JOYCE And I'm supposed to care? NICK You could fake it. Joyce finishes her drink, sets it down. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - NIGHT The neon flickers on the rain slicked pavement. Nick and Joyce walk down the deserted street. She's carrying an umbrella. JOYCE You're wrong to sell Ich short. NICK He drinks. JOYCE He's got a reason. Nick shrugs, everyone's got a reason. JOYCE His son hooked up with some bikers. Yakuza kids. A cop shot him running from a robbery. Nick looks over for the first time. JOYCE A father doesn't out live that kind of thing here, much less a police officer... Pause. NICK Where's the wife? JOYCE You met her. Nick looks surprised. JOYCE The woman in the apartment. She won't speak to him. But she won't leave either. Japan... Nice, huh? Before Nick can respond, something catches his eye: What he sees -- A MAN partially shadowed, standing in the alley. Nick grabs his gun. The man steps out zipping up his trousers. It's a drunken Salaryman. Nick lowers his gun. The Salaryman staggers down the street singing to himself. JOYCE Not wound too tight... CUT TO: EXT. JOYCE'S APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT A three story modern building on a quiet street. She's searching for her keys. JOYCE I'd invite you up but I know you'd hate the incense. (as if to explain) I chant. NICK What do you chant? JOYCE 'Nam oyo ranged kyo.' You think it's dumb of course. NICK Not if it works. (holding the door open for her) I'll meet you at the train? JOYCE I don't remember saying yes. NICK I don't remember you saying no. Joyce smiles, heads inside. CUT TO: INT. ICH'S APARTMENT - DAWN Ich is sleeping. Nick slips into his leather motorcycle jacket. He drops Charlie's gun into his pocket. He glances down at Ich, seeing if he's awake. He's not. Nick walks out. Ich opens his eyes. He's been awake the whole time. CUT TO: THE YANAKA CEMETERY - DAY Ich, wearing a blue suit, is pouring water over a simple stone with a wooden dipper. Next, he places incense in a holder and folds his hands in prayer. The photo on the stone is of a young man wearing a school uniform. Ich's son. DISSOLVE TO: A BULLET TRAIN - DAY It's bull's-eye nose cone scuds across the endless rice paddies west of Tokyo. Women in straw hats stand in the knee deep water pruning the rice by hand. Old Japan rubbing shoulders with the new. INT. TRAIN - DAY CLOSE ON NICK looking out the window as the countryside shoots past at 140 mph. From O.S. several children chanting: "Harrow, Harrow." Nick looks over to see three uniformed school children thrusting their notebooks and pens at him. JOYCE is sitting across from Nick. JOYCE They want your autograph. NICK Who am I supposed to be? JOYCE This little guy thinks you're Robert Redford... the other one thinks you're Charles Bronson... NICK Tell them I'm not. She does, but the kids insist. JOYCE They'll never go away. Nick, reluctantly signs. Joyce takes one of the kid's notebooks before passing it back. JOYCE Mick Jagger? Joyce smiles, surprised at his choice. Then, she looks up shocked to see -- ICH carrying a gift wrapped package under his arm. He's wearing his hat, blue suit and tie. Ich sits ACROSS the aisle from Nick and Joyce. He doesn't say a word. Faces straight ahead. Nick looks at Joyce, then back at Ich. NICK I'm sorry, Ichiro. I lost it last night. I shouldn't have hit you. Still nothing from Ich. NICK What's in the box? ICH (still not facing him) For Sugai. Caviar, French cheese, ham... If you come to apologize for interrupting his meeting, Sugai may feel obligated to see you. NICK So I bring some cheese? JOYCE Gifts are expected here. Nick nods, looks back out the window. He'll never understand this country. He looks back to see -- Joyce looking annoyed at him. Nick gets the message. NICK Hey, Ich... Thanks. I'm glad you're here. I mean it. Ich still won't acknowledge Nick. EXT. BULLET TRAIN The Bullet Train disappearing into the foothills. EXT. BEPPU - DAWN Plumes of white steam spindle skyward from every street corner. If you didn't know it was steam, you'd think the city was on fire. Beppu is a resort famous for it's geothermal baths. EXT. SUGAI'S HOUSE The only traditional house we'll see in our story. It's surrounded by a pool of blood red steaming water from the hot springs. AT THE GATE CLOSE ON A 1000 yen bill as it is dropped on the ground. A pair of dice rolls over it. A handful of GUARDS wearing suits and ties are playing craps. OUTSIDE THE GATE Ich is sitting on the ground leaning against the wall, sound asleep. Nick is standing nearby. He checks his watch. Tired of waiting, he walks over to -- JOYCE reading the Manichi Daily. NICK (impatiently) They took the gift an hour ago. The phone rings inside the gate. A guard picks it up. JOYCE (certain it's bad news) All's not lost. There's a famous temple here. We could chant. The guard hangs up, calls out to Joyce. Joyce responds in Japanese. The guard opens the gate. NICK We're in? JOYCE The cheese... INT. A ROOM IN SUGAI'S HOUSE A vast, austere, traditional room with sliding rice paper doors and tatami mats on the floor. Ich and Joyce, drinking tea, are sitting with their feet beneath them in the traditional manor. Nick, smoking, is in a semi-sprawl; using his tea cup as an ashtray. A LIEUTENANT enters. He says something and beckons. They all rise. He says something else. JOYCE (to Nick) Just you. INT. ANOTHER ROOM - SUGAI'S HOUSE Nick enters, ducking his head in the low doorway. the shoji slides shut behind him. The furnishings are minimal but elegant. There's a butsudan, a tokonoma, and a low, long table in the middle of the room. No chairs. Nick sits on the floor. A door slides open at the far end of the room. Sugai, wearing a kimono over western style suit, walks in. Nick stands up to shake his hand. Sugai ignores it, and sits in the traditional position: feet tucked beneath him. SUGAI I'll spare you the ritual. He tosses him a palm sized bundle. Nick catches it. Inside, are brand new greenbacks: hundreds. NICK This supposed to impress me? He sets it down. SUGAI Pick it up. Look at it. Nick hesitates, then picks it up again. He runs his fingers over the face of the bill and snaps the paper. SUGAI Seven years work by the finest engraver. Mass produced, sequentially numbered. The best there has ever been, Mr. Conklin. NICK I'm impressed. But let's use the short form. I'm looking for -- SUGAI -- Kobo... I know. He killed two of my partners. One in New York, one at the printing plant. Sugai fills a cup of tea for Nick and hands it to him. NICK I don't drink tea. Sugai hands it to him anyway. SUGAI I took Kobo from the street. I gave him a home, a future... But my ways were too slow for him... I served seven years in prison for my boss when I was a young man. Kobo wouldn't serve seven minutes for his Oyabun. (sipping his tea) He was supposed to take over this syndicate when I retired. NICK I want him. SUGAI He'll be dealt with. Sugai sets a plastic wrapped object on a table before Nick. Nick recognizes it from the restaurant massacre in New York. CLOSE UP: Nick's fingers tear at the plastic. A block of black iridescent polymer. The negative image of a $100.00 bill. A printing plate. SUGAI Our associates in New York were close to closing a deal with us. NICK The families who control the casinos? SUGAI Yes. Unlike our syndicates, your criminals don't understand the words 'honor' and 'duty'... We can't afford not to deal with them. Sugai takes the plate back. SUGAI Imagine if your families could pay their gambling and drug debts with perfect counterfeit bought for cents on the dollar. NICK The Feds would be onto you in a month. SUGAI Not with these bills. And even if it only took them six months, do you know what our profit margin would be? Nick looks at a child playing near one of the hot pools in Sugai's garden. NICK Why tell me this? SUGAI The other plate is currently in New York, in the hands of Kobo's man. Find it for me. NICK You trust me? SUGAI I'll pay you. Nick laughs at Sugai's audaciousness. NICK (indicating the counterfeit bills) With these? SUGAI Swiss bank deposit. Gold bullion. Whatever you want. You know the city and the police. NICK If I say no? SUGAI You're smarter than Kobo. You know the price of deceit. Think about it. NICK I don't have to. Sugai cools. Without a word he gets to his feet and starts toward the door. NICK I have ten hours to grab my man. ON SUGAI still walking with his back to Nick. NICK (O.S.) You won't get hurt. Sugai turns to see Nick, across the room, pointing the Beretta at his head. CUT TO: INT. ROOM - SUGAI'S HOUSE - MOMENTS LATER The room where Ich and Joyce are waiting. Sugai enters. Their surprise turns to shock when they see Nick behind him holding a gun to the old man's head. ICH No... NICK Let's go. Him first. ICH Nick, you can't do this. NICK It's done. (to Joyce) You don't have to come. She hasn't moved a muscle. INT SUGAI'S HOUSE - ENTRANCE WAY Sugai watches calmly as Nick, Ich, and Joyce put their shoes on. Nick keeps the gun on him. CUT TO: EXT. SUGAI'S COURTYARD Nick steps out of the house. He now has one end of a wire coat hanger loosely wrapped around Sugai's neck, the other end around his wrist. His gun is pressed just beneath Sugai's ear. If nick gets shot, so does Sugai. A handful of guards stand in the courtyard, one is polishing Sugai's Debonnaire car. They spot Nick and Sugai coming, and immediately pull their guns. NICK Explain to them. They shoot me, they kill you. (Sugai hesitates) DO IT! Sugai explains to his lieutenants. They stand helpless as Nick walks Sugai toward the car. NICK Grab the keys, Ich, and get inside. ICH No. NICK Not now, man, okay, not now. Work with me. Ich takes the keys from the man polishing the car. He gets inside. Joyce hurries in bedside him. ICH You don't know what you're doing. Nick slides Sugai in the back seat, carefully reaches over and shuts the door. NICK Start it. ICH (terrified) I can't... JOYCE Slide over. Joyce, furious at Nick, starts the car, gets behind the wheel. Ich gets in on the other side. She spins the car around. The gate opens. They tear off. CUT TO: EXT. STREET - BEPPU - DAY The car bursts through the funnels of steam from the hot- springs beneath the street. It tears down the narrow block dodging traffic. Joyce is concentrating hard on the road. NICK (to Ich) Where's somewhere safe? Nothing from Ich. He's still apoplectic. JOYCE (angrily) You came up with the first part. CUT TO: EXT. KUDAN LOVE HOTEL - BEPPU A four story concrete hotel, strictly for making love. "Love Hotels" exist all over Japan. Each have various themes: western, fifties drive in, Star Wars, etc., each complete with music and lighting effects. INT. HOTEL ROOM Western style. Plastic five foot cacti in front of the western vista on the walls. A hitching post at the head of the bed. Cowboy hats and boots at the other end. Sugai hangs up the phone and turns to Nick and Joyce who are sitting nearby. Ich hangs up the extension. SUGAI Kobo will meet me here tomorrow. Ten a.m. Ich nods, confirming that what Sugai says is true. NICK Good. SUGAI He'll find out you took me. I'm unprotected. He'll kill us. All of us. You don't stand a chance. Ich, knowing Sugai is right, looks at Nick. Nick flips Ich the gun. NICK Not if we're careful. Ich checks to make sure the gun is loaded, then watches as Nick escorts Joyce out of the room. CUT TO: A HOTEL ROOM ACROSS THE HALL Fifties theme. The front end of a pink chevy curves around the bed. A "Drive-In" movie screen along one wall. Nick is dropping change into the vintage Wurlitzer. Joyce steps in, leaving the door open. JOYCE You're out of your mind. I'm leaving. Nick doesn't respond. JOYCE You'll get Ich killed. NICK No one's keeping him here. JOYCE Bullshit, Nick. And don't tell me this is all just about Charlie. It's not. NICK Why would you care? That pushes her over the line. JOYCE Bastard... She moves toward him, enraged. Nick grabs her arm. JOYCE Let go. He won't. JOYCE You're out of your mind. He grips her tighter. CUT TO: THE ROOM - LATER Nick and Joyce, only partially undressed, are making love on the floor. The Drifters singing "Under The Boardwalk" can be heard on the Wurlitzer. The fifties decor, the music, it's all pretty incongruous. CUT TO: EXT. LOVE HOTEL - DAWN Nick is putting Joyce in a taxi. He shuts the door. JOYCE I still think you're a bastard. NICK What if I chant? JOYCE Wouldn't help. (beat) Watch out for Ich. He nods. The cab drives off. Nick watches her taxi until it is out of sight, around a corner, then heads inside. CUT TO: NICK - LATER walking into Sugai's room. Sugai's asleep on the bed. Ich is vigilantly sitting awake in the corner, the gun resting on the table in front of him. NICK Better wake him up. CUT TO: EXT. LOVE HOTEL - LATER Quiet. The wind twirls a discarded newspaper in the parking lot. INSIDE THE LOVE HOTEL - HALLWAY A YOUNG GIGGLING COUPLE step out of a door, arm in arm, and disappear down the hall. STAR WARS MUSIC from one room. HAWAIIAN MUSIC from another. THE CAMERA FINDS the closed elevator door. It opens, Kobo steps out, followed by a half-dozen more men all carrying Sig-Saur assault rifles -- very heavy artillery. CUT TO: SUGAI wearing his hat and coat is sitting on the couch, his back to us, facing out the window. Drop down to -- THE ROOM BENEATH HIM A couple are making love in the Hawaiian theme room. The door burst open. Two men, cradling Sig-Saur rifles in their arms, step in. They aim at the ceiling, blasting into Sugai's room above. THE GIRL starts screaming. The men ignore her and continue to pump bullets into the ceiling. KOBO AND HIS MEN stop in front of every door long enough to blast into the room. They make their way down the hall. A naked man steps into the hallway and is matter-of-factly gunned down. Kobo and his men stop in front of Sugai's room. INT. SUGAI'S ROOM Sugai, wearing his hat, is slumped down on the couch which has been splintered by the bullets from below. OUTSIDE THE ROOM Kobo signals the men. All six open-up through the door. INSIDE THE ROOM The door, what's left of it, is kicked open. The six men step in, shooting in all directions: into the bathroom door, into the closet... Windows shatter, mirrors fall, total destruction. They stop. SILENCE. Kobo walks up to Sugai who is slumped on the couch. He lifts up his hat. It's a cowboy mannequin wearing Sugai's clothes. THE ELEVATOR DOOR opens. A DOZEN of Sugai's men carrying machine pistols come out. THE OUTSIDE BALCONY Nick and Ich lie on their bellies, guns out. INSIDE THE ROOM Kobo's men turn. Sugai's men open-up. Three of Kobo's hitters go down. The others try to flee into the adjoining room. Kobo goes for the balcony. THE BALCONY as Kobo steps out. He steps right into -- NICK who slams the side of Kobo's head with the butt of his gun. THE ROOM Nick and Ich drag Kobo in by his jacket collar. Sugai, very much alive, walks in from the hallway. Nothing is said. Sugai looks at Kobo for a long beat, then walks out. CUT TO: INT. SUGAI'S HOUSE - DAY KOBO standing alone in the middle of a tatami room. His face is badly beaten. His hands are bound. Two guards stand near the wall. Nick and Ich stand across the room. SUGAI wearing a western suit, is asking Kobo questions in Japanese. Sugai barks at him again. Kobo refuses to answer. Sugai pulls up a shuto -- an 18 inch knife -- from it's scabbard. SUGAI (in Japanese) Contact your associate in New York and tell him to hand my plate over to Abolofia. Nothing from Kobo. SUGAI You have betrayed the syndicate and personally dishonored me. I would rather the deal fell through than... The guards walk over and turn Kobo around. His back is to Sugai. Sugai runs the sword across the nape of Kobo's neck drawing blood. The guards tighten their grip on Kobo's arms. NICK can't believe Sugai's going to kill him. Nick starts to get up, Ich stops him. Kobo realizes Sugai isn't just threatening him. KOBO No... I'll arrange it. DISSOLVE TO: THE ROOM - LATER Kobo is led back into the room by two guards. The guards shove him down to the floor. His hands are still bound. Nick walks over and stands above him. He doesn't say a word. Just stands above him. Then, Nick pulls spare change from his pocket and slowly drops the coins, one by one, in front of Kobo's face, like Kobo did to him. He walks away. Sugai steps in. SUGAI Abolofia's person has received the plate. It's done. A door opens at the far end of the room. It's Kobo's girlfriend, the one Nick and Ich had been following. She starts toward Kobo; a lieutenant intercepts her. SUGAI (in Japanese) I wanted you to see him like this. GIRL (in Japanese) Let him go, father. ON ICH realizing she's Sugai's daughter. GIRL (in Japanese) You're too old... SUGAI (in Japanese) That's enough. Sugai turns away and picks up the sword. The guards clutch Kobo. Sugai's going to kill Kobo after all. The girl screams at him to stop. Sugai's oblivious. NICK (O.S.) That wasn't our deal. SUGAI You want him dead too. NICK After a court convicts him. He belongs to me. There's a long pause. Then, something unusual happens. Sugai tells the lieutenant to unfasten Kobo's wrist. When he does, Sugai hands Kobo the sword and demands that he cut off his finger. This is Yubitsume: the ritual act within the Yakuza of slicing the joint of the little finger to atone for a mistake. Kobo, not believing in this ancient tradition, refuses. Sugai nods to a guard who places Kobo's finger on the table. KOBO stares defiantly at Sugai. He doesn't even wince as the blade slices off his finger. The guard hands Sugai the finger in a handkerchief. SUGAI (looking at Nick) If anything happens to Abolofia or my plate, detective... HOLD on Nick then -- CUT TO: EXT. TRAIN - DAY as it bursts out of a tunnel on it's way to Tokyo. INT. TRAIN - DAY Kobo is sitting by the window, his hands cuffed in front of him. Another pair of cuffs chain him to the arm rest. Nick pours a drink from an airline-sized bottle of Scotch. He holds it out to... Ich. It's his first drink in a week. NICK Just one, compadre... Kampai. ICH Kampai. They clink glasses. Ich drinks it down. NICK It took 12 years to make it, you could take five minutes to drink it. Ich slows down. NICK You did great, Ichiro. ICH I called Ohashi, he'll be waiting. (smiling) I like him waiting. Ich gets up. ICH Needs ice. He heads for the bar car, leaving Kobo and Nick alone. Kobo looks out the window at the people working the rice paddies, then back down the aisle at the Salarymen in their identical suits, then at the women separated from them. KOBO Ugly... A couple of thousand years they've been bound by these little rules. Looking in. Always afraid. Ugly little lives... NICK Save it, I already took the tour. KOBO You are a lucky man. Where you come from a man can stand out. It's expected. Here a man is made to look a fool for standing out. Nick isn't paying much attention. KOBO I like your friend, Joyce. You're lucky. NICK Guess I'm on a roll. KOBO She's such a long way home for you. NICK Time, I've got plenty of. A raucous SALARYMAN comes down the aisle, singing an Enka, swaying with the train, bumping into seats. A common enough sight and ignored by the rest of the passengers. The Salaryman stumbles and falls across Nick's lap. NICK (helping him up) Hey, hey, come on, blow... The Salaryman bows deep. Nick ignores it. The man moves on. Kobo looks out the window, the train begins to SLOW as it approaches the next station. KOBO (matter-of-factly) This is my stop. NICK I'm amused. KOBO Don't be. Nick looks up to see Kobo calmly fingering a lock of blond hair tied with black ribbon. Joyce's ribbon. Joyce's hair. KOBO I have her. Nick looks down the car. The drunk Salaryman who stumbled over Nick is quite sober. He made the hand-off to Kobo. Kobo holds out his wrists. Nick hesitates. KOBO (matter-of-factly) I'll kill her. Nick, reluctantly, unlocks both sets of cuffs. The train pulls into the station. KOBO I want the plate from your pal, Sugai. When you get it, you get her. Kobo gets up, starts down the aisle. NICK Sugai won't give it to me, you know that. KOBO Then take it from him. Kobo gets off the train. NICK follows him to the door. THE STATION Kobo get into a waiting Jaguar. Four guards nearby. INSIDE THE TRAIN Nick runs down the length of the car trying to keep the Jaguar in sight as the train pulls out... the car is gone. NICK bursts into the packed bar car. NICK Ichiro?! Everyone turns around. No Ich. CUT TO: EXT. TRAIN - TRAIN STATION - TOKYO It slows into the station. INT. TRAIN Nick shoves past the passengers lined up in the vestibule, ignoring a conductor's angry shouts. INT. TERMINAL - MOMENTS LATER The train stops. Nick flies out and starts running, dodging the crowd. Three uniformed policemen, including Ohashi's assistant, hurry toward him; they're dismayed to find that Kobo is gone. NICK Where's Ohashi? Instead of offering him help, the policemen grab him and slap a pair of handcuffs on Nick's wrists. NICK What the hell are you doing?! CUT TO: HOLDING CELL - TOKYO POLICE STATION Nick, waiting alone in the cell. It's been hours. A door at the end of the hall opens. Ohashi stops in front of his cell. OHASHI Your plane leaves at six. Two officers will escort you. NICK For God's sake, Ohashi, I need your help. Let me out of here! OHASHI You had my help, detective. NICK If anything happens to her while I'm here -- OHASHI -- Do you know where she is, detective? Do you know how to find her? Even where to start? We will find them. NICK I have to get to Sugai. OHASHI Goodbye, officer. Ohashi keeps walking. NICK OHASHI! The LOUD clank of metal on metal. Ohashi's gone. NICK (yelling at the top of his lungs) OHASHI!! HOLD on Nick, his fingers squeezing the bars in rage, then -- CUT TO: EXT. ROAD - DAY Flood rice paddies stretch to the distance on either side of the road. We PAN over to Kobo at a phone kiosk outside a gas station. KOBO (in Japanese) Yes. Do it. INT. SUGAI'S HOUSE - AT THAT MOMENT Kobo's girl, Sugai's daughter, hangs up the phone. She's been on the other end of the line. INT. SUGAI'S ROOM The door swings open. Sugai is sitting on the floor. The girl is carrying a tray of tea. Beneath the tray, we spot something else -- the butt of a short-bladed tanto. CUT TO: EXT. NARITA AIRPORT - TOKYO - DAY A police car rolls through the service gate. We see Nick inside the car along with two police guards. INT. HOLDING ROOM - NARITA AIRPORT A white room. No chairs. Jet engines can be HEARD through the walls. Nick is sitting on the floor, defeated. He doesn't look up when he hears someone enter. ICH (O.S.) I'll tell you one thing. You can't solve a thing sitting on your ass. Nick looks up. Ich is in uniform. A revolver and batton hang from his white web gear. His undershirt bulges through his khaki shirt. He looks ridiculous. Nick has never seen a more beautiful sight. CUT TO: INT. POLICE CAR Ich is driving. Nick is seated behind a cage in the back seat. His hands are cuffed. Ich is driving through the freight area towards a perimeter guard. NICK I was ready to have your ass for taking off on me. ICH I followed them. An hour from the train station. NICK How many men? ICH I couldn't tell. NICK Joyce? ICH I don't know. NICK We need the plate to negotiate with. Ich nods. EXT. AT THE GATE - TOKYO AIRPORT The car slows. Ich speaks rapidly to the guard showing him his papers. The guard takes a good hard look at Nick. Time stands still... He waves them through. Nick can breath again. NICK You know, Ichiro, you just burned your bridges. Ich is silent for a moment. He hands Nick's Beretta back through the partition. So it goes. ICH Rest. Nick looks for Ich's eyes in the rearview mirror. The little cop keeps driving, his eyes on the road. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. STREET - BEPUKU - DAY Nick and Ich are standing outside their car. The Police radio crackles from inside. WHAT THEY SEE: A large crowd gathered outside of Sugai's estate. Police have cordoned off the area. An empty ambulance is parked out front with various other cars: Debonnaire's, Cadillac's... A boy in shorts is endlessly bouncing a ball against the compound wall. Whatever happened is long over. Ich flips off the radio. ICH Someone attacked him. NICK Now we've got nothing to negotiate with. CUT TO: EXT. ROAD - DUSK The police car streaks across endless fields. INSIDE THE CAR Nick is at the wheel. He rubs the sleep from his eyes. Ich is slumped down in the seat watching the road. Ich pulls out a cigarette. Nick lights it for him. NICK Joyce told me about your family. It's tough... Ich looks up surprised. ICH Thank you. (beat) You have one? NICK A wife. She left. ICH I'm sorry. NICK Me too. Ich glances over at Nick, then back at the road. Nicks rubs out his cigarette and presses down on the accelerator. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. KOBO'S HIDEOUT - DAWN A small, contemporary house perched on a dry piece of land. A paved road, lined with dense foliage runs on a berm between the flooded rice paddies. ON NICK AND ICH sitting in the car watching from a hillside turnoff. There's no easy way in. NICK Let's go. Ich hands Charlie his shuto -- an 18 inch long knife. NICK What's that for? ICH Luck. Nick tucks the shuto inside his jacket. NICK Thanks. Nick opens up his door and climbs out. ICH You know, Nick, we can't lose. NICK (stopping) Why's that? ICH Because we're the biggest things to hit this town since Godzilla. CUT TO: THE DIRT ROAD leading to the house lined with foliage. The rice paddies on either side. CUT TO: NICK AND ICH making their way through the waist high water. TWO WORKERS with their hoes make their way into the water. They don't see our cops. OUR COPS making their way along the edge of the road. The SOUND of a motorcycle coming. THE MOTORCYCLE RIDER slows and drops a gear as he turns off the main road and onto the dirt berm toward the house. He's one of Kobo's Bosozoku -- a long way from the streets of Tokyo. The rider comes around the bend to see -- A COP standing in a uniform. Ich. For a moment he doesn't know what to do. Then, he draws a pistol from his belt and accelerates toward Ich. ICH stands his ground as the bike closes in. The biker takes aim. Ich drops off to the side as -- NICK rises from a ditch and swings a hoe at the rider as he passes, catching the man across the face. The rider drops like a swatted fly. The biker's momentum carries it a few yards before it falls and skids to a halt. Nick hurries to the bike. Ich drags the biker off the road, then catches up to his partner. NICK AND ICH raise the heavy bike. Nick mounts. He takes the riders helmet and goggles from Ich, and puts them on. ICH What are you going to do? Nick doesn't know exactly. He taps the bike into gear, it torques like a mule. There's a lot more juice here than he's used to. Nick fishtails for a minute, then gets the hang of it. Ich heads off taking another route. INT. HOUSE KOBO AND SUGAI'S DAUGHTER are putting the last of their belongings into a suitcase. She hands him the plate -- Sugai's plate. Kobo kisses her as he slips it into his breast pocket. The SOUND of a motorcycle approaching from outside. EXT. THE HOUSE Kobo steps out, and not recognizing Nick, raises his hand to greet what he thinks is one of his men. ON NICK bearing down on Kobo. ON KOBO as Nick keeps coming. He is unable to see clearly until Nick is almost on top of him. NICK dumps the bike at the foot of the stairs and leaps on Kobo. Nick and Kobo roll off the narrow porch. Nick breaks free. He isn't fighting fair this time. He slams his foot into Kobo's face and ribs. Kobo tries to get up, but Nick knees him in the chin. A woman cries out in Japanese. Nick turns to see JOYCE standing at the top of the steps. A biker is pressing the muzzle of a Sig-Saur assault rifle on her. Kobo's girl is beside them holding a small pistol. KOBO gets to his feet. The biker tosses Kobo the rifle. Kobo works the charging lever and holds the weapon at his side. He has all the time in the world. Kobo whirls and kicks Nick in the groin. Nick falls to his knees in agony. Kobo towers above Nick as he did in the alley in New York. KOBO Still on your knees, Nick? Kobo walks off, his back to Nick. KOBO There's nothing you can do for me anymore. I have the plate. Sugai's dead. No there is something. He walks up to the steps to Joyce. KOBO You can tell me who I should shoot first. Nick struggles to get to his feet. Kobo turns and faces Nick at the foot of the steps. ICH appears behind Kobo and takes him down with an amazing display of baton work that shows a lifetime of training. He grabs the gun. A biker bursts out of the door. Ich fires, hitting him in the thigh. He drops his gun. SUGAI'S DAUGHTER grabs the gun. NICK tackles her, and wrestles the gun away. She grabs for it. Nick slugs her. A GUN BLAST Ich is hit in the back of his shoulder, falls onto the porch. KOBO the shooter, is holding a pistol -- a Glock 17 automatic. He fires at NICK AND JOYCE who scramble for cover. KOBO continues firing as he climbs onto a motorcycle. He pops the clutch and flies off down the road. Nick fires after him, but Kobo's gone. NICK (to Ich) You all right? ICH Yes... NICK (to Joyce) Call for help. Nick mounts the other bike, and puts the turbo charged rocket into gear. THE ROAD Rain pours down as Kobo turns onto the main road. He opens up the throttle, and in less than a second, he's a screaming dot in the distance. NICK comes around the same corner. His bike fishtails and slides out from under him. FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD Kobo tears past a police car. The police car takes off after him. THE FOOTHILLS A series of steep switchbacks traverse the steep, densely forested hills. Kobo's bike flies up the road. The police car can't keep up, begins losing ground. THE POLICE CAR going flat out, falling further and further behind. Kobo's going to escape. SUDDENLY Nick, bent low, shoots past the cop car. His left arm is scraped and bloody. ON KOBO glancing back, to see Nick gaining on him. Kobo's pleased. He gives it more gas. NICK pulling eight-five... ninety... one hundred. The rain stings his face. It's hard to keep his eye open. THE FOOTHILLS Kobo leaning into one of the steep turns, climbing higher and higher toward the clouds clinging to the top of the peak. NICK is gaining on him. He HEARS something coming up behind him. A BOSOZOKU the one Ich shot in the leg, is closing fast on his tail. ON NICK as the biker draws even. THE BIKER pulls out his long knife and slashes at Nick's shoulder. Nick drops back causing him to miss. The biker drops back. Nick tries to speed up, but the biker sticks with him. He's a good rider, this boy. Very, very good. The biker moves in again, blade drawn. NICK SEES something the biker doesn't. A TRUCK coming around the corner. NICK swerves to avoid it at the last moment. The biker reacts too late and runs -- INTO THE GLEAMING radiator of the two ton truck, and disappears beneath its wheels. ON KOBO around the bend, glancing back. Empty road. He eases up on the throttle -- a free man... He circles back only to see NICK burst around the corner charging toward him at a hundred- and-twenty miles per hour, in the driving rain. KOBO waits and waits. Nick draws closer. Then, Kobo tears off back down the mountain, shooting past Nick. Nick brakes... He slows down, and starts to turn, but the wheels whirl on the gravel and the bike goes into a skid, heading right for the edge of the road. CUT TO: NICK'S MOTORCYCLE flying over the edge of the road, and down the cliff. CUT TO: THE EDGE OF THE ROAD Nick, lying on his stomach at the edge of the cliff, his arm is probably broken. He tries to get up with a one arm push up. It's hopeless. His head falls into a puddle of water. The WHINE of an approaching motorcycle. Kobo has come back for him. Nick, in excruciating pain, struggles for his gun. KOBO bearing down on Nick. NICK struggling to get his gun. Finally he does. But it's caked in mud. If the barrel is stuffed it will explode. Nick has to take the chance. ON KOBO Closer and closer. NICK aims as best he can and fires. The mud caked gun explodes in his hand. Nick screams in agony. KOBO pulls his bike up inches in front of Nick's head. Nick seems to be bleeding everywhere: his hand, his nose, his mouth, the side of his head... Kobo's face and neck is caked in blood from when Nick beat him. The rain pours down. He picks up the gun. Points it at Nick, squeezes the trigger. KOBO (slowly) Bang... bang... He tosses the gun in front of Nick's face. KOBO ... You're dead. The sound of approaching Police SIRENS. Kobo swings the bike around, goes a hundred yards down the road, then swings back. Kobo guns the engine. He gain speed... thirty, thirty- five. NICK struggles to get up. He can't. KOBO opening the throttle. NICK crawling a few inches, that's it. KOBO twenty yards away. NICK reaches into his coat and pulls Ich's 18 inch shuto out. He rolls away at the last moment, slashing Kobo's ankle as he races past. KOBO screams in pain. He tries to stop too suddenly. The bike flips over. Kobo flies into the air then hits the pavement on his side and rolls a few yards down the road. He stops on his back. It's lucky he's alive. The SOUND of fast approaching police SIRENS. THE PLATE has fallen out of Kobo's jacket. It rests in the road, halfway between the two men. KOBO crawls toward it on his belly. NICK mustering all his strength, struggles across the road on all fours. KOBO crawling snake-like. NICK still moving, his arms and legs feel like lead. KOBO'S FINGERS as they reach for the plate. NICK grabs Kobo's wrist forcing him to drop the plate. Nick picks up a rock. It looks as if he's going to smash Kobo's head. Instead, he brings it down on the plate, shattering it in a half-dozen pieces. Nick tosses the pieces in front of Kobo's face. NICK Keep the change. Nick, exhausted, slowly falls onto his back. He looks over at Kobo, their faces are inches apart. Nick makes a slashing mark with his index finger above his eyebrows. The same gesture Kobo made to Nick through the two-way mirror in New York. Nick passes out. His eyes shut... the screen... FADES TO BLACK. BLACK SCREEN The SOUND of three police cars screeching to a halt. The SOUNDS of the police SIRENS winding down. The SIRENS get softer mixing with the SOUND of RINGING phones, CLACKING typewriters, VOICES... FADE IN: INT. TOKYO POLICE HEADQUARTERS Fifty identical desks. Fifty identically dressed men in white shirts and ties work under fluorescent lights. OHASHI is at his desk studying a report. Suddenly, the lights go out. The fan's stop, so do the electric typewriters. Ohashi looks up to see -- ICH walking toward him down the long aisle, his left arm is bandaged, his right hand handcuffed to Kobo on crutches. Ich silently leads the captured man down the long aisle to Ohashi's desk. ICH stops in front of the desk and snaps to attention. ICH Constable Ichiro Matsumoto presents captured prisoner Kobo, Chief Inspector Ohashi. Ich salutes. OHASHI Inspector Ohashi will take charge of the prisoner. Ich uncuffs Kobo and steps aside to reveal -- NICK standing at the far end of the room by the fuse box. He's also bandaged and on crutches. Nick looks at Ohashi without saying a word, then flips the main switch up. The lights and fans start working. He turns and walks out the door. CUT TO: EXT. POLICE COURTYARD - A FEW DAYS LATER A small decoration ceremony. ON ICHIRO getting two golden suns pinned to the lapel of his dress uniform. In the far corner NICK, JOYCE AND Ichiro's wife, dressed in a formal kimono, watch the ceremony. CUT TO: INT. JAPANESE RESTAURANT - TOKYO - DAY Joyce and Nick are sitting alone at a table. Nick's left arm in in a sling. NICK Can't make you change your mind? JOYCE Last time you asked me to come along I nearly got a hole in my head. NICK Might be different in New York. JOYCE Maybe. If I come visit, we can find out. NICK I'd like that. Ich sits down with two fresh bowls of soba noodles. Nick hesitates. ICH You can do it. Nick picks up his chopsticks with his good hand. He begins to slurp the noodles. ICH Louder, pal, louder. NICK Joyce, give the assistant Chief Inspector a drink, would you? As Joyce refills all their cups we... SLOWLY DISSOLVE TO: EXT. EIGHT THREE PRECINCT - NEW YORK CITY - DAY It's raining. A sun shower. INT. POLICE STATION Capt. Oliver is standing by the window watching the rain pour down. OLIVER ... Remember, counterfeiting is the Feds. They'll be all over Abolofia's place. Stick tight. You I.D. the other plate, he does real time. NICK Right. Reveal Nick sitting in front of Oliver's desk, his one arm is still in a sling. Nick gets to his feet. OLIVER (still not facing him) You know, Nick, if you'd held on to that plate, you could've been a very rich man. Oliver turns to face Nick. Nick just looks at him, then: NICK Never crossed my mind. Oliver nods; he believes him. OLIVER Be careful on the run. CUT TO: INT. SQUAD BAY - NIGHT In contrast to the Japanese police station -- it's chaos. Cops are in every imaginable kind of dress, trash cans over flow, a handcuffed prisoner screams abuse to anyone who will listen. THE RAIDING PARTY a dozen men in all, are donning flak jackets and windbreakers with POLICE and TREASURY stenciled on the back. NICK walks in with two heavy bullet proof vests slung over his shoulder. He squeezes past the raiding party to find ICH sitting at a desk, thumbing through a Frommer's guide to New York City. Nick drops one of the vests on the desk. It lands like a ton of bricks. Ich continues to read. A Sergeant walks in. SERGEANT Saddle up. Hard team in the first unit. Conklin, your RMP awaits. The cops and treasury men, grabbing their gear, head for the door. Nick is struggling to get into his vest using one arm. NICK Sure you want to come? Probably better than the Greyline Tour. Ich stands up, shoves the guidebook in his back pocket. He helps Nick fasten the strap in back. ICH You wouldn't make it without me. Nick smiles, takes the Frommer's out of Ich's pocket and tosses it into the trash. Nick hands him a shotgun, takes another one off the rack for himself. We watch from behind as the two men head down the long hallway toward the exit. ICH Think we'll get him, Nick? NICK We can't lose. ICH How can you be so sure? Nick opens the door at the far end of the hallway. They step out into the sunlit rain. NICK Cause you're the biggest thing to hit this town since... Before Nick can finish his line, the door SLAMS SHUT behind them. FADE TO BLACK. THE END
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+                                     BLACK SNAKE MOAN                                         Written by                                             Craig Brewer                               Only one kind of blues...                And that consists between male and female.                - Son House                               EXT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - EARLY DAWN               RAE is naked.               Wrapped around her shoulders is a loose-knit spread that                conceals her slender form. She is in her 20's: a strawberry                blond, with cinnamon freckles spotted across her pale skin.                She is beautiful without trying.               She stares at the distant trees. This is the South; the small                town of FISHERVILLE, TENNESSEE.               Soon Rae will be alone.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - EARLY MORNING               RONNIE is 25 years old. His hair is cropped in a military                issue buzz.               Rae's face is wet with tears as Ronnie gently makes love to                her. She touches his face and sobs like a child.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - LATER THAT MORNING               RONNIE is dressed in his National Guard fatigues, packing up                his gear.               Rae is now wearing a short jeans skirt and a T-shirt with a                gray wolf print ironed on the front. There is a knock at the                door. Rae flinches. Ronnie opens the door revealing GILL                MORTON, Ronnie's buddy from high school.                                     GILL                         Still need a lift?                                     RONNIE                         Yeah. Transmission's shot.               Gill and Rae's eyes meet. Gill sees that Rae is crying.                                     GILL                         Gonna have a smoke.               Ronnie shuts the door and feels a wave of sudden nausea. He                rushes past Rae.                                     RONNIE                         Shit...               INT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - BATHROOM - MORNING               Ronnie is vomiting into the toilet as Rae rubs his head.                Each painful dry heave makes Rae comfort him more.                                     RAE                         Baby...               EXT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - MORNING               Ronnie places his duffle bag in Gill's truck. Rae begins to                cough.                                     GILL                         You sick?               Rae doesn't answer.               Gill backs away, allowing Ronnie and Rae some privacy. The                two lovers stare into each others eyes and then embrace.               Rae peeks over Ronnie's shoulder at Gill with an expression                of dread. Anger seizes her.                                     RAE                         This ain't gonna work.                                     RONNIE                         Rae...                                     RAE                         I don't see why we gotta lie 'bout                          it when you and I know this ain't                          gonna work.                                     RONNIE                              (holds her face in                               his hands)                         Rae don't do this now...                                     RAE                         It's stupid... It's so fucking stupid!                                     RONNIE                         Rae!               Silence. Rae melts. Tears stream down her face.                                     RONNIE                              (reaches in his pocket)                         Look it. I got somethin' for us.                          This is gonna help, okay.                                     GILL                         You gonna miss your bus.               Ronnie removes a small digital watch and fastens it around                her wrist.                                     RONNIE                         This watch here is gonna beep at                          midnight. Every night. That's when                          it comes up on you the hardest, right?               Ronnie holds out his own wrist to show her his identical                watch.                                     RONNIE                         And wherever I'm at, my watch'll                          beep, too. We'll be thinkin' bout                          each other at the same time. Wherever                          we are.               Rae is shaking. He grips her by the back of her neck and                pushes their faces inches away. Eye to eye.                                     RONNIE                         I gotta believe we can do this or I                          ain't gonna make it, Rae.               Rae sees the fear in his eyes. She swallows her own anxiety                and nods.                                     RAE                         Okay... Okay.               They kiss passionately.                                     RONNIE                         I love you.               Afraid of his swelling emotion, Ronnie quickly breaks away                from her.               Rae watches as her love leaves in Gill's pick-up. Compelled                to follow, she absently walks after the truck, down the gravel                drive.               She stops. Silence. She is alone.               An intense wave of sorrow hits, like a kick to her gut. She                gasps for breath as she struggles to hold back the flood of                her tears.               Rae drops to her knees, right there in the gravel drive. Her                hair falls in front of her face, masking her grief.               Her shoulders shudder.               Her middle finger begins to scratch at her thigh repeatedly --                a nervous habit that has always accompanied this burning                sensation that consumes her.                                     RAE                         Shit.               Tears come to her. She's not going to be able to stop it.                                     RAE                         Goddammit, Ronnie...                              (shouting in                               frustration)                         GODDAMMIT!               Rae is gripping the watch around her wrist for comfort. Her                breathing is already out of her control. The dizziness is                already upon her. The familiar burning.               She inhales in gasps, rocking back and forth on her knees.                The late morning cicadas chirp in an undulating frenzy.                                     RAE                              (shaking her head)                         Mm-mm                              (meaning "no")                         Mm-mm... Mm-mm...               The scratching at her leg leaves a red mark. She is dizzy                with anxiety. Her teeth are clenched, her face is flush.                                     RAE                         MM-MM! MM-MM! MMMMMMMMMMMM!                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. MOTEL ROOM - AFTERNOON               TEHRONNE is fucking Rae from behind.               Tehronne is a muscular, dark-skinned, black male in his late                twenties.               Rae's face is crammed up against the mirror in the small                bathroom. Tehronne gets faster and pushes harder -- a stark                contrast to her lovemaking with Ronnie.               Rae comes. A severe coughing fit hits her. She pushes him                away with her ass.                                     RAE                         We're done, right?                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - AFTERNOON               Walking with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, wearing                his only suit and tie, is LAZARUS WOODS (LAZ). He is in his                late fifties, black, a strong face under his old fedora. He                stares across the street into Dunn's Cafe.               ROSE WOODS, black, early forties, stands in the cafe. She                looks confident and resolute in her new green skirt.               A brown Delta Olds pulls up into a parking space in front of                Laz. Stepping out is REVEREND R.L., Laz's longtime friend.                He is also black and in his late fifties.                                     R.L.                         You ain't gonna make a fuss, are                          you?                              (no answer)                         Nothing a man can do when a woman                          make up her mind.                                     LAZARUS                         I never laid a hand on her in anger.                          Not a day. Not even when I's drinkin'.                          But this business got me wonderin'                          what a good shake and slap would do                          for her.                                     R.L.                         That kind of talk is between us.                          Don't you go in there with that shit                          on your tongue.                                     LAZARUS                         I didn't start this, R.L.               Laz tries to stop his lip from quivering: the man is hurting.                                     R.L.                         You wanna pray with me 'fore you go                          in? Laz?                              (R.L. touches Laz's                               arm and bows his                               head)                         Heavenly Father...                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. DUNN'S CAFE - AFTERNOON               R.L.'s prayer is heard as Laz opens the front door to the                cafe. He looks ill. Each step is painful.                                     R.L. (V.O.)                         We do not question your divine plan                          for us, Oh God. But in these times,                          when our spirit lies in shadow. When                          we are lost.               Laz crosses to Rose's booth -- the distance seems to stretch                out into eternity.                                     R.L. (V.O.)                         We ask that you give us strength.                          Give us strength that surpasses all                          understanding. In your name we pray.                          Amen.               Laz sits across from his wife.                                     ROSE                         Can't remember the last time I saw                          you in that suit.                                     LAZARUS                         Your mother's funeral. I's a                          pallbearer, remember?               The waitress is kind and twangy as she asks for their order.                                     WAITRESS                         Can I start you both off with some                          coffee 'fore I take your order?                                     ROSE                         We won't be stayin' long. Coffee'll                          be fine.               The waitress leaves. The sounds of the cafe fill the silence.                                     ROSE                         We leavin' this weekend. Deke got a                          friend in Mobile gonna get him a job                          at the water company...                                     LAZARUS                              (interrupting)                         If you come to talk about that                          muthafucka, I'm gonna get up and                          leave you sittin' pretty in that new                          suit he bought'cha.                                     ROSE                         Think this about money still, ya old                          fool?                                     LAZARUS                         Say what you gotta say, but I ain't                          gonna hear you speak his name to me.                          Not never. You hear?                                     ROSE                         How many times we been over this,                          Laz? How many times?               The waitress places the coffee between them and leaves.                                     ROSE                         Thought we was gonna be friendly                          about this.                                     LAZARUS                         Carryin' on behind my back. Make me                          out to look like a fool to all our                          people. Tell me, what's friendly                          about that?                                     ROSE                         I'm not ready to grow old, Laz. Livin'                          with you. I feel it. Like I'm one                          foot in the dirt. Saw it happen to                          my momma. And that's not gonna happen                          to me. I got living to do.                                     LAZARUS                         And you gonna live it with him?               Rose doesn't answer. Lazarus softens, touching her hand.                                     LAZARUS                         Rose. Folks get sick. But you do                          what you can to get on the mend. Our                          marriage... it just got sick. That's                          all.                                     ROSE                         Talk to me about sick. Ain't been                          right since I moved into that drafty                          house.                                     LAZARUS                         I keep the heat on.                                     ROSE                         That damned, rusty, radiator, bout                          burned the skin off my legs each                          time I passed.                                     LAZARUS                         Kept us warm for twelve years.               It's over. Laz has lost her for good.                                     ROSE                         I deserve better than this.                                     LAZARUS                         Better'n me?                                     ROSE                         Better than what you give.                                     LAZARUS                         Rose... please...                                     ROSE                         Laz... You can't say nothin'...                                     LAZARUS                         If we get with a counselor. At the                          church, maybe they's...                                     ROSE                              (the final interruption)                         I don't love ya no more.               The words are daggers. Laz is wounded beyond concealment.                Rose picks up her purse, preparing to leave.                                     ROSE                         I'm sorry you hurtin'. But, like I                          say, this the only life I got.                              (waits for him to                               respond)                         I said my piece.               She stands and attempts to walk away. Laz grips her tightly                by the wrist.                                     LAZARUS                         God forgive you, for how you done                          me...                                     ROSE                         Let go...                                     LAZARUS                         My Daddy told me that a younger woman                          would bleed me dry. And that's what                          you did. Ya bled me.                                     ROSE                         Let go of my arm...                                     LAZARUS                         Would'a chopped my arm off if you                          asked. And this how you do me!                                     ROSE                         LAZ, I said let...!                                     LAZARUS                         You better pray, gal. You better                          pray...                                     ROSE                              (yanks free)                         Don't you lay a CURSE ON ME!               The whole cafe is silent. All eyes are on Rose.                                     ROSE                              (to customers)                         Yeah, go'on! Look! See if I give a                          shit about any of you people!               And she's gone, right out the front door.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. MOTEL ROOM - AFTERNOON               Tehronne is taking his time hanging his ice around his neck                and wrists as he stands shirtless before the mirror. Rae is                lying on the bed.                                     RAE                         You got any money?                                     TEHRONNE                         Thought you had a man for that.                                     RAE                              (a heavy cough)                         I said we wasn't gonna talk about                          him.                                     TEHRONNE                         What we just did, you askin' for                          money, make a man stop. I ain't                          callin' you no ho. But I ain't gonna                          be played like no trick, neither.                          Remember... you called me.                                     RAE                         Save that hustle talk to them field                          ballers you sell crack to.                                     TEHRONNE                         What'd I tell you?                              (kicks the bed)                         I don't do none of that shit no more.                          I'm in communications now.                                     RAE                         Stolen phone cards and two-ways is                          what you sayin'.               Rae starts coughing.                                     TEHRONNE                         Mobile technology is the new fix for                          these niggaz, I'm tellin' you. I'm                          just lookin' ahead.                              (takes out his wallet)                         Anyways, ain't no money in drugs no                          more with these rednecks popping                          cough pills like they's Skittles.                          Hey, that's what you need, girl. Get                          you some cough medicine. What, you                          sick?                                     RAE                         Just a cough. Sugar and a spoonful                          of Jack'll do it.                                     TEHRONNE                              (takes out money)                         Alright. How much you need, ho?                                     RAE                         The hell you call me?                                     TEHRONNE                         Eh, if the bootie fits...               Tehronne catches Rae's wrist as she goes to slap. He quickly                yanks her arm behind her back and bends her backwards, shoving                his face close to her own. He grips the money in a fist and                cocks it to punch -- all in jest.                                     TEHRONNE                         You gonna get rough? Is that what                          you doin'?               Rae's chest begins to heave with deep breaths. Tehronne looks                down at her legs as she anxiously rubs them together.                                     TEHRONNE                              (shakes his head)                         I swear, I seen some buck-wild bitches                          in my time, but you the illest I                          ever seen.               Rae gets control of the burning. She takes the money.                                     RAE                         Just got a cough.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - DAY               Rae is prancing up the walkway on the square. Two young men                dressed for construction pass Rae.                                     MAN                         It's already noon, Rae. You think                          that skirt should still be on?                                     RAE                              (flips them off)                         If it weren't you could kiss my rebel                          cootch, ya faggot.               The men keep walking as Rae coughs. She turns toward the                Fisherville Grocery.                                     SANDY                         Cough drops or condoms?               Rae stops in her tracks, looking up at her estranged mother,                SANDY, smoking a cigarette outside the grocery store. Sandy                has bleached hair with dark roots. She is in her late-forties:                once a sexy girl, now she's lost all her tread.                                     RAE                              (surprised to see her)                         Didn't know you was workin' here                          now?                                     SANDY                         I just like dressin' up in these                          goddamn blue vests.                              (takes a drag)                         Your money ticket get shipped today?               Rae walks away -- deeply affected by Sandy's presence.                                     SANDY                              (calling after her)                         You let me know if I can be of any                          assistance.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. MELVIN'S FEED STORE - DAY               Laz drives an old green Ford pick-up. He pulls the truck up                to the front of the feed store and kills the engine.               LINCOLN, a 13-year-old black boy, comes out of the open                loading door.                                     LINCOLN                         You won't at the square this mornin'.                                     LAZARUS                         Get me ten bags of mulch.                                     LINCOLN                         Yes'sir.               Lincoln runs off. Laz yanks off his black tie.               EXT. MELVIN'S FEED STORE - LATER               Lincoln slaps the last bag of mulch into the bed of Laz's                truck. Laz hands Lincoln a twenty.                                     LAZARUS                         Keep the change on that.                                     LINCOLN                         Naw... I got it, Mr. Lazarus.                              (makes change)                         You wanna tip me, best do it in butter                          beans. Momma say she need a bag 'a                          yours, none of that store-bought                          junk. That's what she said.               Laz smiles. He takes the change. Climbs in his truck.                                     LAZARUS                         Alright, Lincoln. You come on by,                          I'll load you up.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS'S BARN - LATE DAY               Lazarus steers his tractor toward his small home in a sea of                lush green kudzu. He kills the engine and looks beyond the                nose of his tractor. He lights a cigarette. Below the nose                is the head of a rose garden with a painted sign under it:                Rose's Roses.               Laz inhales smoke and exhales hate. The tractor lunges                forward, trampling the garden, ripping the flowers to shreds.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BOJO'S - EARLY EVENING               MAYELLA is a heavy, forty-year-old black woman. Her blue                neon tube top matches her short pants stretched across her                healthy ass. She is flipping through the juke box selection.                                     MAYELLA                         You gonna put some Luther Vandross                          in here? Shit, he black ain't he?               BOJO is reading a paper behind the bar. He's short and stout,                looking like a sad bull dog.                                     BOJO                         He black alright, he just ain't blue.                                     MAYELLA                         Why you stop havin' dancin' on                          Saturday? Used to have bands... all                          kind's live shit. Like a wake up in                          here, now.                                     BOJO                         Folks can dance when they want. Didn't                          buy that mirror ball for nothin'.                                     MAYELLA                         You seen my snake-skin shoes?               Mayella lifts up her leg and stretches it over the bar with                a provocative flourish. Her shoe is bright blue.                                     MAYELLA                         They're from New York. My niece gets                          'em on the computer.                                     LAZARUS                         They got blue snakes up north?               Mayella turns to Laz sipping a beer at the end of the bar.                                     MAYELLA                         Naw. They got some blue dye, though.                          You think them boots you got on come                          from a black cow?                                     BOJO                         Wanna get on somebody 'bout live                          music, get on ol' Laz, there. He the                          one got this place shakin' back in                          the day.                                     MAYELLA                         Don't gotta tell me. Me and my                          girlfriends use-ta talk 'bout them                          hard fingertips he got pickin' that                          guitar.                                     LAZARUS                         Got'em pickin' peas, not strings.               Mayella moves in close, with the tips of her tits touching                his arm.                                     MAYELLA                         They still hard?                                     LAZARUS                         Mayella. It ain't happened yet. Ain't                          happenin' tonight.                                     MAYELLA                              (retreating with a                               glare)                         I know you hurtin', Laz. I got ears,                          you know. But you should know more'n                          me... ain't no better cure for them                          blues than some good pussy.               Mayella saunters over to the pool table with the others.                                     BOJO                         Whole lotta woman, right there.                                     LAZARUS                         She can still spread it around.               The door opens behind Laz. Bojo sees the man entering.                                     BOJO                         Laz. We friends and all but... promise                          me you'll keep yo cool in my joint.               Laz turns to see the door shut behind his brother, DEKE WOODS.                He is younger than Laz and a bit smaller. Laz turns to Bojo.                                     LAZARUS                         I'm gonna finish my beer.               Deke slowly approaches Laz at the bar.                                     DEKE                         Mind if I sit?                              (no answer)                         Rose said... it didn't go too well                          this afternoon. See, that's not how                          we wanted this to go down. I told                          her, I said, Rose, we ain't leavin'                          till we make peace with Laz. And                          that's God's truth. I laid it down.                                     LAZARUS                         You laid it down.                                     DEKE                         I did.                                     LAZARUS                         Funny. Layin' it down... for my wife.                                     DEKE                         We're not gonna get through this                          clean. But it don't need to get dirty.                          All this... it just come together                          unexpected. You think I want to hurt                          you? I... I'd take a bullet for you,                          Laz.               The dry look on Laz's face could cool the sun.                                     LAZARUS                         You wanna give that a try?                              (to Bojo)                         Bo. You still got that .22 behind                          the tap? My little brother say he'd                          take a bullet for me.                              (into Deke's eyes)                         You come here to ease your heart.                          Well, I ain't gonna give it to you.                          You took her into your bed, now you                          gotta lie in it.               Laz turns back to the bar. Deke begins to turn but stops.                                     DEKE                         I'll always love you, Laz. Till the                          end of my...               In one quick movement, Laz grips Deke by the throat and                smashes the bottom of his bottle into jagged shards.                                     BOJO                         LAZ!               Laz pushes Deke back through the joint and slams him onto                the pool table. He grips Deke's throat and holds the broken                bottle up to his face.                                     LAZARUS                         Cain slew Able. Slew him out of envy.                          And God put his mark on Cain for his                          sin. You want that mark, Deke? Give                          you that peace you come here for?                          I'll give it to you, just say that                          shit again. Say you love me. Go'on!                          Say YOU LOVE ME, NIGGA!               Lazarus slams the bottle down on the pool table, shattering                it. Laz lifts his hand. His own blood leaks from between his                fingers.               He wipes the blood across Deke's face.                                     LAZARUS                         I'm through wit'cha both.               Laz releases Deke and exits. Deke calls after him.                                     DEKE                         What'chu gonna do? Nothin'. YOU AIN'T                          GONNA DO NOTHIN'!               Laz slams the door behind him.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FISHERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL - FOOTBALL FIELD - NIGHT               The bleachers are packed with three generations of fans and                family cheering their boys on the high school football field.               Rae is sitting with her two girlfriends, JESSE and KELL --                two girls who graduated five years ago.                                     JESSE                              (hands Rae a beer)                         Ronnie ship out this mornin'?                                     RAE                         It's so stupid. Says to me that he                          don't want nothin' to do with no                          military career. Says he wants to                          move. Open up an auto shop with his                          uncle up in Knoxville. I said, okay.                          How about now? Let's go.                                     KELL                         He'd be good for that. Shit, Ronnie                          knows cars.                                     RAE                         He get stubborn. Starts talkin' 'bout                          obligation and duty and all that...                          Shit. I just want him to come home...                          I swear, if somethin' happens to                          him...                                     KELL                         He fixed up that Buick for my uncle                          Dale. He say it purrs like a kitten                          every morning.                                     JESSE                         Nothing's gonna happen. Not like                          everybody over there is in the line                          of fire with them Arabs blowin'                          themselves up.                                     RAE                         Can't be thinkin' bout him every                          second of my day. I'll go outta my                          gourd.                                     JESSE                         Why should you waste your life waitin'                          and wonderin'. Not like you're                          married.                                     RAE                              (takes a healthy swig)                         I begged him not to go. And he did.                                     KELL                              (screaming at the                               field)                         PUNT YOU FUCKERS!                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. CONNER'S HOUSE - THE KEGGER - NIGHT               Dirty South rap pounds the ears from a hoopty Olds with a                backseat full of bass. Rae, Kell, and Jesse are walking up                to the rowdy party through the variety of parked cars.               A girl rushes past the trio, vomiting on herself as a friend                comes to her aid.                                     JESSE                         These baby chicks just can't hold                          their Jello shots. I'm tellin' ya.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. CONNER'S HOUSE - THE KEGGER - NIGHT               CONNER is one of the linebackers for the Fisherville Dusters.                A wasted girl sits on his lap as Kell rolls a joint.                                     CONNER                         Tennessee Vols gotta practice indoors                          just so those Florida State sons-a-                         bitches don't spy on their plays                          with satellites and shit.                                     KELL                         Satellites... You mean in space?                                     CONNER                         Uh-huh.                                     KELL                         Good thing you can block, Conner,                          cuz you're dumb as a sack of shit.               Jesse notices Rae coughing. She pulls her aside as Conner                rambles.                                     JESSE                         You wanna go home?                                     RAE                         It gets worse there. Leavin' me to                          my own mind. That's just not good.                                     JESSE                              (pours a shot of vodka)                         Here. Pound this and I'll join you.               Rae and Jesse take a strong shot. It burns.                                     JESSE                         One more. Fuck the chaser.               As they pound one more, Rae notices Gill, Ronnie's friend,                staring at her from across the room.                                     JESSE                         Better?                                     RAE                         Yeah.               BATSON and MARK approach Jesse and Rae. They are both                sophomores, both skinny and harmless.                                     BATSON                         Hey, Jess.                                     JESSE                         Boys.                                     BATSON                         You robotrippin' tonight?                                     JESSE                         I'm just gonna smoke.               Rae peeks at Gill maneuvering through the room.                                     BATSON                              (rummages in his                               pockets)                         Got eight packs of DXM. Oxycontin.                          Got a shit load of Coricidin if you                          want to get out-a-body, n'all.                                     JESSE                         You just trying to get me outta my                          clothes.                                     RAE                         Be right back.               Rae pushes through the crowd of drunken kids to get to Gill.                                     RAE                         It's not like I can't go out and                          have fun with my friends.                                     GILL                         You think I'm Ronnie's spy or                          somethin'? Come tomorrow that dumb-                         ass gonna be halfway round the world                          tryin' to keep his head on his                          shoulders. You think he's gonna be                          thinkin' about you?                                     RAE                         You go to hell.               Rae pushes through the crowd, back toward the others.                                     RAE                              (to Batson)                         How many to fuck me up?               QUICK CUTS of: Batson popping out five red cough pills. Rae                swallowing all five and chasing them with vodka. Conner's                girl falls off his lap. Kell laughs. The laughter echoes and                grows as we:                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. CONNER'S HOUSE - THE KEGGER - HIS PARENT'S WATERBED -                NIGHT               CLOSE ANGLES: We never quite see the whole of what is implied.                Rae's eyes, Jesse's mouth, a boy's shoulder.               The room is packed with bodies. Rae laughs with pleasure as                her eyes attempt to focus. The kid on top of her finishes                and rolls off.                                     JESSE                         What's so funny?               Jesse is straddling a guy in an arm chair, Chinese-eyed and                bouncing. Rae tries to respond coherently as another football                player rolls her over on all fours and takes her from behind.                                     RAE                              (laughing)                         Oh... I'm just on a water bed... And                          it's just... so... Goddamn... funny!               A few coughs. Rae focuses to see a younger guy sitting at                her eye level.                                     RAE                         Hi.                                     BRYAN                         Hey.                                     RAE                         You ain't the kicker, are you?                                     BRYAN                         No, ma'am.                                     RAE                         Cuz let me tell you, you boys gotta                          run the ball more. You get into a                          kicking game, ya'll gonna lose.                                     BRYAN                         Can I put it in your mouth?                                     RAE                         Okay.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - THE BEDROOM - NIGHT               Laz kills the rest of his whiskey. He squeezes his eyes closed                as the liquor burns his throat. He tosses the bottle into a                trash bag he is holding.               Laz continues throwing out all of Rose's make-up and hair                products. With one broad sweep, he cleans off her vanity.               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - NIGHT               Laz opens the front door and tosses the two bags outside.                Stumbling, he kneels next to the coiled radiator against the                wall opposite the door. He talks to it like an old friend.                                     LAZARUS                         Seem like you and me... we drove her                          away. That's what we did. Now we...                              (singing softly)                         Drinkin' muddy water... a'sleep in a                          hollow log...               A thought.               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - THE BEDROOM - NIGHT               Laz pulls out a guitar case from under the bed. He wipes a                layer of dust off and opens it.               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - KITCHEN - NIGHT               He gently cradles the guitar in his big hands and sits at                his kitchen table. Tunes the strings. He closes his eyes,                swimming in drunken sorrow.                                     LAZARUS                         You gonna do this?               Laz plays the blues, Mississippi, Bentonian style: one guitar,                one voice, a mess of pain.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing, his eyes                               closed)                         Just like a bird without a feather,                          you know                          I'm lost without your love.                          Just like a bird without a feather,                          you know                          I'm lost without your love.                          You know I need your love just like                          the angels need heaven above.               The music continues as we:                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. CONNER'S HOUSE - THE KEGGER - THE WOODS OUT BACK -                NIGHT               Lazarus's blues is all we hear as four guys chase Rae through                the woods. She is in her shirt and panties, wearing football                shoulder pads.               She is completely wasted. Lost. The ground rocks back and                forth with each step. Trees pass in a slow-motion haze.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         Well I sure did shot my baby, but I                          did it because she did me wrong.                          Well I sure did shot my baby, but I                          did it because she did me wrong.                          You know the judge called it murder                          now the penitentiary is my home.               Rae grips a tree to steady herself, but a team member tackles                her. The woods spin and distort as someone mounts her with                ease.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         I loved that woman, she said she                          didn't love no one but me.                          I loved that woman, she said she                          didn't love no one but me.               Rae smiles as she lifts her hand up to the stars, passing                the writhing back of the guy on top of her. If she could                just grab a star she would feel safe again.               She tries to snatch one. She can't. Her hand drops as the                boy stands and takes off after his friends tossing the                football.               Rae lies motionless on the ground.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         Yeah but I caught my baby cheating.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - KITCHEN - NIGHT               A tear rolls down Laz's cheek.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         Now my home ain't where it used to                          be.               His guitar groans its last for the night.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. CONNER'S HOUSE - THE KEGGER - FRONT YARD - LATER THAT                NIGHT               Rae is wasted. She is still wearing her shirt, panties and                shoulder pads as she steps over passed-out teenagers.                                     RAE                         Jes? Jesse?                              (trips over a sprinkler)                         Oh shit... Wait... Wait... STOP!                                     GILL                         Stop what?               Rae doesn't look up. The Coricidin is tripping her out.                                     RAE                              (coughing)                         The ground is... turnin' upside down.                          I'm gonna...                              (coughing)                         I'm gonna fall off...               Gill reaches down and pulls off the shoulder pads. The                coughing fit passes.                                     RAE                         Oh. That feels so much better.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. ROAD - NIGHT               Gill's truck flies down the dark road.               INT. GILL'S TRUCK - NIGHT               Rae is looking out the window, drifting in and out.                                     GILL                         Thought you had a skirt earlier.                                     RAE                         I got others.               Gill pulls to the side of the road and kills the engine. He                watches Rae tilt her head from side to side.                                     GILL                         This thing you got... I've heard                          people say, you'd fuck a tree if it                          was handy. I can see that.                              (shakes his head)                         But that nigger Tehronne. Thinks                          he's some player cuz he hustles dope                          and stolen hubcaps. I mean, I can                          see a tree. But that piece of shit?                                     RAE                              (lost in hazy sorrow)                         I begged him. Don't see why he had                          to go...                                     GILL                         I bet you did. Just had to get that                          black cock up in you. I swear to                          God. What Ronnie sees... you disgust                          me.               Gill grabs her legs and spreads them with no resistance. Her                head rolls from side to side on the truck seat as Gill unzips                his pants.               Rae starts giggling.                                     GILL                         The fuck you laughin' at?                                     RAE                              (giggling)                         You don't got half what Tehronne                          got.               Gill flinches upright. A rage builds in his eyes.               EXT. ROAD - NIGHT               From outside the steamed truck window, we see Gill beat Rae                repeatedly.               Silence.                                     GILL                              (muffled from the                               inside)                         Get up! I ain't playin'! OPEN YOUR                          GODDAMN EYES!               Silence.               He opens the truck door, fear in his eyes. Rae isn't moving.                Blood is on her face.                                     GILL                         Oh, Jesus...               A hasty idea. He pushes her out of the truck. She falls to                the dark pavement in a tangle of her own limbs.               The door slams. Gill floors the gas. Rae lies motionless                alone under the stars.               Her watch alarm goes off: Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. A BUS - NIGHT               Ronnie is asleep on the bus, unaware that his watch alarm in                beeping at him.               A Guardsman sitting next to him shakes Ronnie awake.                                     GUARDSMAN                         Hey.               Ronnie silences the alarm. He regards the watch with sadness                and affection.               EXT. FREEWAY - NIGHT               The bus roars past. The red brake lights fade into night.                                                             FADE TO BLACK:               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - KITCHEN - EARLY MORNING               Lazarus has fallen asleep sitting at his kitchen table. His                eyes open. Standing is difficult. The guitar falls to the                floor.               The phone rings. Dizziness hits, but he manages to pick up                the receiver.                                     LAZARUS                         Huh?               INT. CHURCH OF GOD / LAZARUS'S HOME - EARLY MORNING               R.L. is on his cell phone. He is placing hymnals in the back                racks of the church pews.                                     R.L.                         Bojo called. Said you got to see                          your brother at the long end of a                          broken bottle.                                     LAZARUS                         You gonna preach 'bout turnin' the                          other cheek?                                     R.L.                         I think you did alright by God under                          the circumstances.                              (R.L. pauses)                         Your people are here for you, Laz.                          This is your home. No shame in showing                          your face.                                     LAZARUS                         Don't know if God wanna see me.                                     R.L.                         He knows where ya at. Just answer                          the door if he come knockin'.               Laz hangs up the phone.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS'S HOME - LATE MORNING               Lazarus steps out onto his porch. He picks up the trash bags                full of Rose's things and walks down the gravel drive to the                road.               EXT. LAZARUS'S HOME - WHERE THE DRIVE MEETS THE ROAD - LATE                MORNING               Laz tosses the bags inside his trash cans.               He's really hung over this morning. His eyes squeeze shut,                he grips his neck in pain.                                     LAZARUS                         Mmmmmmmmmm... Mm!               His eyes open. They remain fixed beyond us. The pain in his                face is replaced with grave confusion.               Rae lies on the side of the road.               Her T-shirt and panties are damp from the early morning mist,                her face caked with dried blood. Her skin is deathly white,                her mouth open, her eyes shut and swollen.               Lazarus carefully steps toward her. He leans down over her                face.                                     LAZARUS                         Sweet... Jesus...               Rae coughs. Laz flinches.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - LATE MORNING               The door slams against the wall as it swings open. Laz is                carrying Rae, unconscious and limp, in his arms.               He lays her down on the couch by the radiator. He pulls a                quilt over her cold skin. With a twist of the valve the                radiator moans to life.               Laz takes out his bandana and cleans her face. He tries to                wake her.                                     LAZARUS                         Little lady? Miss? You need to open                          your eyes for me. Could ya do that?               Her eyes open slightly -- just slits of white.                                     LAZARUS                         There we go. There we go. Just like                          you doin'. Go'on.               She whispers as she touches her fingers to his cheek.                                     RAE                              (a raspy inhale)                         Teh... Tehronne?                                     LAZARUS                         Tehronne? Tehronne done this?               A labored breath followed by the most pitiful cough fit. Laz                tries to calm her as her lungs fight for oxygen. Laz looks                scared as the coughing stops in a desperate wheeze followed                by silence.               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - KITCHEN - MORNING               Laz pulls the phone off its cradle on the wall and flips                through the phone book.               His fingers scan down the listings and stops on POLICE                DEPARTMENT. He dials and listens.                                     OPERATOR                              (a recorded voice)                         You've reached the Fisherville Police                          Department. Your call will be answered                          in the order it was received. If                          this is an emergency, please, hang                          up and dial 9-1-...               Slam! Fingers hit the phone cradle. Lazarus dials 911.               As soon as he places the phone to his ear, he looks over at                Rae sprawled out on his couch. Her bare legs can be seen                peeking out from under the quilt.               Fear hits him. He slams the phone down again.               Laz crosses to the couch and gently touches her head.                                     LAZARUS                              (softly)                         I'm'a go into town. Get you some                          medicine to fix you up. You just                          rest, okay, gal? You just sleep. Get                          that chill out'cha.               Laz touches the radiator. It burns him.                                     LAZARUS                         God... damn...               EXT. ROAD - AFTERNOON               Laz's Ford roars down the shaded street towards town.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - MACON DRUGS - AFTERNOON               Laz parks his truck in front of MACON DRUGS and heads inside.               An old black man named RED sits on a bench next to an older                white man in his early eighties holding a cane. RED is the                paid caretaker of MELVIN.                                     MELVIN                         How's the squash this year?                                     LAZARUS                         It's good, Mister Melvin. I'll bring                          ya some.               Laz rushes inside.               INT. MACON DRUGS - AFTERNOON               The variety of cough medicine confuses Laz as he examines                them.               ANGELA approaches Laz. She is dressed in a floral print dress                with a white lab coat. Angela has a few extra pounds on her                but she wears it well with her caring face and sweet manner.                                     ANGELA                         Lazarus?                                     LAZARUS                              (startled)                         Oh! Gave me a start.                                     ANGELA                         I'm sorry. It's these soft shoes I                          wear for my back.                                     LAZARUS                         You hurt it?                                     ANGELA                         I'm standing most of my day. They're                          for support.                              (a smile)                         Didn't see you in church this mornin'.                                     LAZARUS                              (tries to lie)                         Been on the crop. May need to get                          some extra hands if I don't want to                          work on Sundays.                                     ANGELA                         Well. It's good to see you.               Angela wants the conversation to continue but Laz remains                silent. She smiles awkwardly.                                     LAZARUS                         Angela?                                     ANGELA                         Yes?                                     LAZARUS                         I need to uh...                                     ANGELA                         Go on, Laz. You can talk to me.                                     LAZARUS                         My little niece... she got this deep                          cough.                                     ANGELA                         You take her to a doctor?                                     LAZARUS                              (struggles to lie)                         No. No, she can't go. Mean to say...                          they's just no money fo'a doctor.                          Her daddy left for a job, and uh...                          give her to me to look on. I just...                              (a pitiful pause)                         I don't know what to do.               Angela thinks for a moment.                                     ANGELA                         You wait right here.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - DAY               Snot and spittle has run down the side of Rae's face -- her                eyelids stick together as she tries to open them.               There is a creak, followed by another. Rae has become aware                that someone is slowly walking up the front porch.               The door opens. Silhouetted in the day's blinding light is a                white man in his 40's. His face is indistinguishable to Rae's                affected gaze.               Is this a dream?               He stands above her and lights a cigarette. The Zippo lighter                clasps shut. The man lowers it to his side where Rae can see                it clearly. A bald eagle is printed on the side, a sight                that makes Rae's eyes open wide in horror.               Her breath grows deeper -- a girlish plea. This is no dream --                it's a nightmare.                                     RAE                         Mm-mm... Mm-mm...               A massive hand slaps down over her mouth. Her crusted eyes                peer above the hairy knuckles. He sucks on the cigarette. A                red cherry blazes at the end. The man pushes the blanket off                of her and grips her panties.               Rae's eyes close. She knows what is next. In his clenched                fist, the panties are ripped off.                                     RAE                         NOOOOO!               Rae flinches awake from the fever-induced nightmare and falls                to the wooden floor, drenched in sweat. Weakened and shaking,                she scampers away, finally collapsing in the kitchen. Her                hand reaches out and lands on the strings of Laz's guitar on                the floor. She grips the steel strings with her trembling                fingers.               A single bass note twangs as she passes out.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. MACON DRUGS - AFTERNOON               Angela stands between the aisles, motioning Laz to approach,                away from the girl at the counter.                                     ANGELA                         Is your niece older than 12?                                     LAZARUS                         Oh, she older than that.               She hands him a white box with cough syrup inside.                                     ANGELA                         My sister got a bad cough with her                          pneumonia. I just copied her                          prescription. You don't need to pay                          anything... just take it. But if she                          gets worse, you give me a call. I                          wrote my number on the box.                                     LAZARUS                         This gonna get you in trouble?                                     ANGELA                         Not if no one finds out.               Laz doesn't know what to say. He puts the box in his pocket.                                     LAZARUS                         Thank you.                              (suddenly awkward)                         Oh. My wife. She had a card here for                          her migraine pills. She ain't gonna                          be around no more... So if you...                                     ANGELA                         I already tossed that out.                              (takes a step closer)                         Somethin' you should'a done to that                          woman long ago... how she treated                          you. Of course, that's none of my                          business.                                     LAZARUS                              (smiles)                         Don't make it less true.               Angela returns the smile.               EXT. MACON DRUGS - AFTERNOON               Laz opens his truck door and stops. At the pool-hall across                the square, Laz sees a green Cutlass with chrome rims.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. POOL HALL - AFTERNOON               Laz enters the empty pool hall. Tehronne is playing a game                with a skinny playa-wanna-be dressed in flea-market Fubu.               CHARLIE, the owner, approaches Laz from the bar.                                     CHARLIE                         Hey, Lazarus. We closed up on Sunday.                                     LAZARUS                         Need a word with Tehronne.                                     CHARLIE                              (calling to the back)                         Yo, T! Laz wanna holla at cha.                                     TEHRONNE                         Come on back, Cuz.               Charlie nods Laz on. He crosses to the back pool table as                Tehronne sinks the 8. Tehronne looks at his friend.                                     TEHRONNE                         Do you call it a game when only one                          man win each time? I think you call                          it a damn shame.                                     LAZARUS                         Word wit'cha. In private.               Tehronne hands his friend the pool cue. The two take a few                steps away to talk.                                     TEHRONNE                         You need some weed?                                     LAZARUS                         Been years since I fooled with that.                              (tries to find the                               words)                         You know a white girl? Dirty blond                          hair, split down the middle like?                                     TEHRONNE                              (smiles)                         That ain't up to me to hook you up.                          Naw what I mean? She her own, you                          know?                                     LAZARUS                         Huh?                                     TEHRONNE                         I don't pimp that.                              (silence)                         You talkin' about who I think you                          talkin' about, you mean Rae. Rae                          Doole. Sexy little split tail, like                          you say. I can't hook you up with                          that. I got two girls. One ain't in                          town, the other one pregnant. So...                          you on your own.                                     LAZARUS                         This Rae... you get with her?                                     TEHRONNE                         Shit. Who hasn't?                                     LAZARUS                         Why you say that?                                     TEHRONNE                         She got a spare minute she'll snatch                          up anyone... but me, I'm different.                          Sometimes she need the real deal, so                          she call me up. Girl got an itch.                          You know... what's a nigga to do?                                     LAZARUS                         She like it rough? You like beatin'                          on her?                                     TEHRONNE                         That ain't my scene. If that's                          somethin' you into...                                     LAZARUS                         Now, hold up.                                     TEHRONNE                         See, that girl is in my favor. You                          heard me, nigga? You fuck with her                          rough, and you got me to fuck wit.                                     LAZARUS                         You collar that dog, boy. I ain't                          gonna hurt nobody. Just wanted to                          know who she was.                                     TEHRONNE                         Like I say, you wanna hook that up...                          I ain't in ya way. That switch of                          hers been all over this town. Got                          that sickness, you know.                                     LAZARUS                         What'chu sayin'?                                     TEHRONNE                         She a freak. Got what you call a                          sexual addiction.               Lazarus looks at him with a furrowed brow. Confused.                                     LAZARUS                         What'chu sayin'?                                     TEHRONNE                         What I'm tellin' you. Girl gotta get                          dick or she go crazy.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - DAY               Laz opens his own door with caution. He turns to see Rae                sprawled in his kitchen in her panties and T-shirt. He rushes                to her side.                                     LAZARUS                         Gal? Miss Rae? Rae, you hear me?               Lazarus lifts her sweaty body off the floor and moves her                back to the couch.               Consciousness briefly returns to Rae in her feverish haze.                                                                  FLASH TO:               CLOSE UP - FLASHBACK               The white-knuckled hand clutched around her mouth.                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - DAY               Rae flinches and flails. She falls to the floor.                                     LAZARUS                         Hold on, now. Hold on!               Rae's eyes are open and filled with fear. She struggles to                flee as Laz holds her in place, trying to reassure her.                                     LAZARUS                         Now, I ain't gonna hurt'cha. Calm                          down, Miss.                              (she fights, coughs)                         Listen... Listen... LISTEN NOW, GAL!                              (Rae settles in his                               grip)                         I ain't gonna hurt ya, hear? Gotta                          get you well. Now, look me... HEY!                          Look me in the eye.               Rae is too weak to talk or move. Laz clutches her small face                in his dark hands.                                     LAZARUS                         Open your eyes. Go'on, now. You need                          to see, ain't no harm here. Ain't no                          harm.                              (Rae calms)                         My name is Lazarus Woods. And I ain't                          gonna let you die.               Rae's eyes roll back.               Lazarus looks terrified as she cranes her head back and                forward. Her mouth opens.               In her sickened state, with the force of something evil and                deep inside, Rae clasps her open mouth over Laz's. A shriek                sounds in his brain as he holds her tighter, allowing the                kiss to grow in intensity. Rae falls to her stomach as Laz                abruptly stands and stumbles across the room. What he sees                chills him to the bone.               Rae is writhing on the floor as if she is possessed -- a                rant of raspy words pour from her mouth.                                     RAE                         ...you don't... touch me... s'no...                          NO! Mm-mm... Mm-MMMMMMMMMMMMM! N-                         N'you FUCK!               Lazarus gets spooked by what he is seeing. He looks to the                mantle. His weathered Bible lies in a coat of dust. He picks                it up as a wave of the burning hits Rae.               She clutches her breast and crotch, rolling from side to                side.                                     RAE                         Mm-mm... mm-mm... Ma-muh... Ma-MUH!                              (sudden anger, shouting)                         See... S... See if'I GIVE... GIVE'A...                          SHIT...                                                                  FLASH TO:               INT. DUNN'S CAFE - MORNING - FLASHBACK               Rose is shouting at the customers in the cafe. Her eyes are                white like Rae's. Her voice is not her own but that of Rae.                                     ROSE/RAE                              (screaming)                         'BOUT ANY OF YOU PEOPLE!                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - DAY               Laz runs out of his own home, not even shutting the door                behind him. He gets half way down his drive, the Bible still                clutched in his hand. He stops.               In a panic, Laz opens his Bible, places it down on the drive,                face up, creating a barrier to evil. He hears a choking cough                inside the house. Rae is fighting for breath beyond the dark                door.               Silence. Laz reaches down and picks up his Bible.               A passage catches his eye. As he reads, the fear vanishes                from his face. His back straightens. His jaw tightens. He                looks back at his house, his faith is renewed.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - THE BATHROOM - DAY               The Bible is slammed down on top of the toilet tank. The                bathtub faucet coughs as Laz twists the cold water knob.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - DAY               The freezer door opens. He snatches four trays of ice.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BATHROOM - DAY               The trays crack. The ice cubes bounce into the tub.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - DAY               Rae's lips are dried and split as she pants, lost in dizzying                fever. Laz lifts her.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BATHROOM - DAY               Laz kneels on one knee to put her into the tub.               A horrible cry from Rae as Laz wrestles with her, keeping                her submerged in the ice cold water.                                     LAZARUS                         I know, child, I know. Gotta break                          that fever now.                              (Rae sobs, struggles)                         Don't mean to hurt'chu. But I ain't                          lettin' you die.                              (holding her down)                         I AIN'T LETTIN' YOU DIE!               Rae is motionless. Exhausted. Her eyes are open but blind.                Her lip trembles. Her body shakes from the freezing water.               Laz rubs the hair from her face gently. He reaches over to                the Bible on the toilet and opens it to read.                                     LAZARUS                         Put fear of the Devil in me, gal.                          Got me spooked like I's a kid, I                          tell you.                              (flips through the                               pages)                         But the good Lord, He showed me what                          to do. He come knockin' like my man                          R.L. say... listen here...                              (Rae sobs like a child)                         This here Matthew. He talkin' on how                          Jesus was healin' the sick. And a                          man come up to the disciples and he                          say...                              (reads deliberately)                         Have mercy on my son, for he is a                          lunatic, and sore vexed...                              (to Rae)                         He got the devil in his mind and                          sores on his skin.                              (reads)                         And he brought the boy to the                          disciples, but they could NOT cure                          him.               Rae's shivering is abating. Her eyes fight to stay open. Laz                touches her forehead to test her temperature.                                     LAZARUS                              (reading)                         Then Jesus answered and said, O                          faithless and perverse generation...                          how long shall I suffer you? Bring                          the boy hither to me. And Jesus                          rebuked the devil.                              (to Rae)                         You hear that?                              (reads)                         Then the disciples say... Why could                          not we cast the devil out? And Jesus                          said unto them...               Rae's eyes begin to close. Laz gently touches her head to                rile her awake.                                     LAZARUS                         Listen now... This what he sayin' to                          us. He say...                              (reads)                         If ye have faith... if ye have faith                          as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall                          say unto a mountain, remove hence...                          and it... shall... move. And                          nothin'... nothin' shall be impossible                          to you.                              (to Rae)                         You hear that? You just need a bit                          of faith. You just gotta believe you                          gonna get well, like I do.               He touches her forehead again. Her eyes close.                                     LAZARUS                         That's better. You coolin' down.                          Okay. You rest. Okay. You rest.               Laz leans against the wall, spent.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - SUNSET               The cicadas sing in a rising chorus as the clouds above fade                from copper to crimson.                                                             FADE TO BLACK.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               The faint echo of Rae's fevered panting.               She lies on the couch wrapped in a quilt, shivering. Her                eyes remain closed, her face drenched with sweat. Laz has                cleaned her facial wounds, using a few Band-Aids.               BOOM!               An explosion ignites the windows surrounding the cabin. Rae                jolts awake, terror pervades her as she gasps at the fire                ball outside the window.               She struggles to her feet and listens. A faint sound can be                heard through the roar of the flames. beep beep... beep                beep... beep beep... beep beep...                                     RAE                              (a whisper)                         Ronnie...               Rae stumbles to the door, weak and dizzy. She grips the door                knob and pulls the door open.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               Rae races outside, tripping down the front porch steps. She                looks off at the blaze in the squash field. She frantically                races toward the fire, the beeping increases.                                     RAE                         Ronnie... RONNIE!               BEEP BEEP... BEEP BEEP... BEEP BEEP... BEEP BEEP...               At the center of the blaze is an upside down Humvee. To the                left of the vehicle, a few soldier's bodies lay scattered.                Rae's legs lose all strength, she collapses and crawls across                the squash plants.               A far away voice is heard over the roaring flames.                                     LAZARUS                         Gal? Gal?               Rae crawls across a fallen soldier, following the sound of                Ronnie's alarm. She struggles to breathe, she almost faints.               She finds a soldier face down. With all her strength she                turns him over. It is Ronnie, wide-eyed and lifeless.               An awful groan comes out of Rae -- crippling sorrow. She                pulls on his vest trying to wake him.                                     RAE                              (sobbing)                         Nn-nn... Nn-nn... no... N'RONNIE!                                     LAZARUS                         GAL! YOU HEARIN' MY VOICE?               Rae looks up. The flaming humvee is gone. She is not pulling                on Ronnie's vest, but the tangled vines of a squash plant.               Laz stands at a safe distance, silhouetted in moonlight.                                     LAZARUS                         You travelin' right now, gal. You                          asleep and you don't even know it.                              (extends his hand)                         Now... come on inside with me.               Rae looks like a terrified child. Her eyes well with tears                as she shakes her head. Laz takes a step toward her.                                     RAE                         Mm-mm... Mm-mm...                                     LAZARUS                         Come on, gal...               She turns and runs away as best she can. Laz chases after                her. He's much older than her and a bit slower, but her                balance betrays her.               Laz wraps his arms around her. Rae screams to the sky.                                     RAE                         NO! NOOO! NOOOOOOOOOO!               And then, stillness. Rae lies limp in Laz's arms, unconscious.               He reaches down and lifts her wrist to his face. The green                screen of the digital watch pulsates with the alarm.               He pushes the side button. The beeping stops. Silence.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - NIGHT               Laz lays Rae back onto his couch. Her eyes open into slits.                She can see Laz's form over her like the man in her nightmare.               Rae grabs Laz's wrist. He flinches with her force.                                     RAE                              (the whisper of a                               child)                         Is'okay... Is'okay...               Struggling with exhaustion, Rae moves Laz's hand to her bare                stomach. She rubs it slowly up and down her form,                suggestively.               Laz slips his hand away and claps it tight over her eyes.                Rae holds her breath, waiting to be molested, her lip                quivering.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing deep and                               soft)                         Goin' over that hill. Goin' over                          that hill. Well, I ain't gonna stop                          until I reach my God's top. I'm goin'                          over the hill. Well I went to the                          valley, I didn't go to stay. Soul                          got happy, I stayed all day. I'm                          goin' over that hill.               Rae relaxes and falls into a deep sleep.               Laz backs away from her, a touch of fear in his heart. The                voice of Tehronne is heard from earlier in the day.                                     TEHRONNE (V.O.)                         She a freak. Got what you call a                          sexual addiction.                                     LAZARUS (V.O.)                         What'chu sayin'?                                     TEHRONNE (V.O.)                         What I'm tellin' you. Girl gotta get                          dick or she go crazy.                                                                  FLASH TO:               INT. POOL HALL - EARLIER THAT DAY - FLASHBACK               Lazarus looks at Tehronne with a furrowed brow, confused.                                     TEHRONNE                         First hooked up with that bitch when                          she was 16. Girl was fuckin' the                          principal and two of her teachers.                          You know coach Reynolds?                                     LAZARUS                         Uh-huh.                                     TEHRONNE                         He tapped that.                                     LAZARUS                         Naw!                                     TEHRONNE                         Go ask him.                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S BARN - NIGHT               Lazarus opens his barn, slicing through the darkness with                his flashlight.                                     TEHRONNE (V.O.)                         She been bumpin' around all her life,                          hookin' up with whoever keep her fed                          and fucked.               He crosses to the other side, pulls on a beaded chain turning                on the single bulb above his work table.                                     TEHRONNE (V.O.)                         I seen her give it up on park benches,                          back of trucks, hoopty hoods, you                          name it.               Laz opens an old wooden box on his work table. He looks                inside.                                                                  FLASH TO:               INT. POOL HALL - MORNING - FLASHBACK               Laz looks ill. Tehronne checks his pager briefly.                                     TEHRONNE                         You ever seen a train run on a woman?                                     LAZARUS                         Nuh-uh.                                     TEHRONNE                         Meanin' like a team of fellas go to                          work on her and she don't even break                          a sweat.                              (puts his pager away)                         She into football, you know. You got                          a letter on your jacket you get that                          pussy in ya lap. I ain't playin'.               Tehronne's friend breaks on the pool table with a sharp crack.                Lazarus is genuinely disturbed.                                     LAZARUS                         How a girl get like that?                                     TEHRONNE                         Like I told you.                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S BARN - NIGHT               Lazarus reaches inside the box and pulls out the end of an                old chain.                                     TEHRONNE (V.O.)                         Girl got a sickness.               The chain rattles as Laz walks backwards, pulling the long                chain from the box. The shouting of his brother can be heard.                                     DEKE (V.O.)                         What'chu gonna do? Huh? Nothin'. YOU                          AIN'T GONNA DO NOTHIN'! NOTHIN'!               The end of the chain snags, yanking the box over.               CRASH!                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE VEGETABLE GARDEN - LATE MORNING               Lazarus is bent over, harvesting his tomatoes.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing to himself)                         Tell me who's that writin'? John the                          Revelator. Wrote the book of the                          seven seals.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               Laz enters his home. He crosses to the kitchen and pours                himself a glass of water.               Dripping with sweat, he steps back into the room, downing                the last of his water. He lowers the glass, noticing Rae                looking at him.                                     LAZARUS                         Hey.               Rae lifts her head off the pillow. Laz comes to her side and                helps her sit up.                                     LAZARUS                         Take it easy now. Don't rush it.                                     RAE                              (a scratchy whisper)                         How long... how long I been out?                                     LAZARUS                         You been in and out goin' on two...                          maybe two days.                                     RAE                              (can't believe it)                         Two days?                                     LAZARUS                         After your fever broke, you'd wake                          up in spells... long enough to get                          that medicine in ya.               Rae sits up on the couch, the quilt wrapped around her waist.                She looks at the cough syrup bottle on the side table.                                     LAZARUS                         Found you on the side of the road.                          Someone took to beatin' on you pretty                          bad. You know who done that to you?               Rae touches the cut over her eye. That evening is still a                blur.                                     RAE                         Where's Ronnie?                                     LAZARUS                         Well I don't...                                     RAE                              (remembering)                         Wait. He left.               Rae lifts her head, revealing tears in her eyes. She gets                mad at herself and wipes them away.                                     RAE                         I don't got any money... for fixin'                          me up and all.                                     LAZARUS                         Don't need none.                                     RAE                         Then I better be on my way. Don't                          wanna put you out no more.                                     LAZARUS                         Think it'd be best if you stayed put                          while we talk.                                     RAE                         Naw'sir... I gotta be on my way.                                     LAZARUS                         Best try gettin' ya wits about you                          'fore you try to...               Rae struggles for balance as she attempts to stand. The quilt                falls away as a heavy chain slides off the couch and thuds                on the floor by her feet.               Rae feels a tug.               She looks down to see a dark chain locked around her thin                waist and coiled on the floor. The opposite end is locked                around the side coil of the radiator.               She is chained to the house, a prisoner.                                     LAZARUS                         Let me say somethin' first...                                     RAE                         Why you got me chained?                                     LAZARUS                         Way I see it, it's gonna take a while                          for you to get right.                                     RAE                         The fuck you been doin' to me?                                     LAZARUS                         I ain't laid a hand on ya but to                          ease yo fever... Remember like I                          say, I found you in the road...                                     RAE                              (yanks at the chain                               around her waist)                         Get this Goddamn thing off me!               Rae stumbles as she moves away from Laz. Laz tries to reassure                her.                                     LAZARUS                         Now, no harm's come to you... and I                          aim to keep it that way. Ain't                          gonna... gonna run a train over ya...                          or however you call it... see... you                          was runnin' wild on me... these fever                          dreams you was havin'... these fits.                          I'd be chasin' you all night.                                     RAE                         Well I'm woke now... you can take                          this off.               Rae waits.                                     LAZARUS                         Gal, you ain't right yet.                                     RAE                         I'm right enough to stand on my own                          two feet. Now take this Goddamn chain                          off...                                     LAZARUS                         How you let men treat ya like they                          do?                                     RAE                         What?                                     LAZARUS                         These men you up under. How you let                          them do ya like that?                                     RAE                              (grips the chain)                         Do me? Do me like this, you mean?                          Like chainin' me up?                                     LAZARUS                         You know what I'm talkin' about.                              (beat)                         All that mess with ya teachers and...                          boys in the backs of trucks.                                     RAE                              (shocked)                         The hell you know about me?! You got                          no right to talk to me about that                          shit! The hell you think you are?                                     LAZARUS                              (interrupting)                         I've saved ya life, gal. I can do                          and say whatever the fuck I want.               Rae begins to feel a pang of panic. She goes to the chain                locked around the radiator. She yanks on it a few times.                                     LAZARUS                         I give ya enough chain so's you can                          get about the house. Get you to the                          kitchen. You need the bathroom, it'll                          reach.                                     RAE                         What do you want?                                     LAZARUS                         We got everything we need. Plenty of                          food. Ya medicine still got a few                          good swallows in it...                                     RAE                         WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!                              (Laz can't answer)                         WHATEVER YOU GONNA DO TO ME, JUST DO                          IT! AND LET ME GO!                                     LAZARUS                         God saw to it to put you in my path.                          And I aim to cure ya of your                          wickedness.               This statement terrifies Rae. The fear can be seen in her                eyes. She backs away -- the chain scrapes across the floor.                                     RAE                         You some kind'a pervert?                                     LAZARUS                         No ma'am.                                     RAE                         Some crazy Jesus freak, gonna fuck                          the spirit into me...                                     LAZARUS                         In my house, you watch that lip...                                     RAE                              (furious, near tears)                         Look it, mister... you wanna have                          your way, you take it. I'll do                          whatever you want. But you gotta let                          me go. You can't do this! You can't                          KEEP ME HERE!                                     LAZARUS                         You sick. You got a sickness... we                          broke that fever... we gonna break                          that hold the devil got on ya.               Rae pushes Laz back and bolts for the door. Laz falls back                against the side table by the couch, toppling the lamp.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME / INT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               The door slams against the house as Rae rushes out in her                wolf shirt and panties -- the chain trailing behind her.                                     RAE                              (screaming)                         HELP!               Laz watches as the coil unravels and snaps taut, yanking on                the old radiator.               Clank! The chain whips Rae down to the ground. Laz watches                as dust flies of the radiator with each tug.                                     RAE                         SOMEBODY!               CLANK!               The fear in Laz's face is replaced with a grin as he watches                his radiator hold firm.                                     RAE                         SOMEBODY HELP ME!               Outside, Rae bucks and screams, yanking on the chain like a                wild mustang. Her bare feet and legs are soiled with fresh                mud and grass as she claws at the ground.               Laz crosses to the radiator and pats it like a proud parent --                his wedding ring clicks against the iron.                                     LAZARUS                              (to the radiator)                         Ain't gonna be moved.               He steps outside with resolve and strength. He picks up the                chain and wraps it around his fist.                                     LAZARUS                         GAL! I ain't gonna be moved on this!               Laz yanks her back, dragging her towards him. He grips the                taut chain with his other hand and yanks her closer.                                     RAE                         LET ME GO!                                     LAZARUS                         You can holla y'self hoarse. Ain't                          gonna bend my will.                              (pulls her closer)                         Right or wrong, you gonna mind me.                              (Pulls her again)                         Gonna suffer you like Jesus say, to                          the FAITHLESS and the PERVERSE                          GENERATION.               Rae is spent. She turns to look at her captor as he wrangles                her back to the porch.                                     LAZARUS                         Now you get up! And you get in my                          house!                                     RAE                         Or what?               Rae spits at Laz. Bad idea.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - LATER THAT AFTERNOON               Rae is screaming and grunting as Laz, standing in his kitchen,                tugs on the chain around the door-jam like he's drawing water                from a well.               Outside Rae struggles to hold onto the porch post. Laz pulls                hard, lifting her lower torso off the ground.                                     RAE                         Stop it! Stop it! IT HURTS!                                     LAZARUS                         Whose doin' is that?               Laz yanks. Rae loses her grip and slams onto the porch.                                     RAE                         Okay... OKAY! I'M COMIN' IN! NOW                          QUIT IT!               The pulling stops. Rae picks herself up. Her knees and hands                are scraped and bleeding. The two stare at each other.                                     LAZARUS                         Say we talk. Just take a seat on the                          sofa. I'll get us somethin' cool to                          drink.               Laz crosses to the kitchen. Rae sits down on the couch,                noticing the fallen lamp on the floor.                                     LAZARUS                         You may not remember. But you spent                          a whole half day in my tub, tryin'                          to cool down. Melted four ice trays.               He finishes preparing the two waters. He crosses into the                front room. Rae is not there.               CRASH! Rae smashes the lamp on Laz's head. The water glasses                shatter as Laz falls to the floor.               Rae picks up a wooden chair and breaks it over his back.                Before she can do any more damage, Laz grabs her by the wrists                and throws her to the couch.               Rae falls to the floor. Laz stumbles on his feet as he                clutches his bleeding head. He loses his cool.                                     LAZARUS                         Wicked little bitch... gonna cut                          me...                                     RAE                         You gonna get a lot more a'that, you                          keep me locked up like this!               Rae freezes as she sees Laz undo his belt buckle. Her breath                starts to quiver as she deeply inhales and exhales.                                     LAZARUS                         Think I'm gonna let you do me like                          that...               Laz whips his belt off and wraps the buckle around his fist.               He stops in his tracks. Rae is panting and shaking. Her middle                finger is scratching at her own thigh.                                     LAZARUS                              (regaining his cool)                         Okay, now... I ain't gonna hit'cha.                              (the burning is                               starting)                         Just lost my cool there.                              (he throws the belt                               away)                         Now take that look out'cha eye.               Her anguished hum can be heard through her clenched teeth as                she rocks back and forth. Her hands wander down to her inner                thighs.                                     LAZARUS                         No, ma'am. You stop that foolishness.                                     RAE                              (shaking her head)                         Hm-mm... Hm-mm...                                     LAZARUS                         I said... STOP!                                     RAE                              (on the verge of crying)                         I CAN'T!               Rae gets dizzy. She rests the top of her head on the floor                and sways back and forth. Laz rushes out the front door.               As the wave hits, Rae twists and turns, wrapping the chain                around her. She grips the radiator with both hands and rests                her face against the side.                                     RAE                         Hmmmmmm... Stop-it!... STOP-IT!               The wave is about to build in to a powerful climax. Rae gasps                for breath.               The door slams open. Laz drenches her with a gallon of cold                well water from a tin bucket. Rae inhales and freezes. Laz                waits and watches.               The burning is gone.               Laz kneels next to her and gently frees her bare ankle from                the tangled chain.                                     LAZARUS                         You hungry?                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - ON THE PORCH - LATER THAT DAY               They are both seated on the front porch with paper plates in                their laps. Laz watches with amusement as Rae tears into her                chicken and gobbles up the vegetables.                                     LAZARUS                         I put some back ache into growin'                          them greens. You should slow down                          and see how they taste.               Rae remains under Lazarus' intense gaze as the cicadas sing.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE VEGETABLE GARDEN - SUNSET               Rae stares off at orange clouds and purple sky. She takes a                step to her left, walking through the parallel rows of squash.               The chain gently rattles behind her. Laz has given her about                20 feet of slack. He holds the chain tight around his fist.               Rae grins, standing proud in her wolf shirt and panties.                                     RAE                         You like this? Walkin' me through                          this field like I's your mule?                                     LAZARUS                         Can't sit all day on that sofa. Need                          to get your legs strong.                                     RAE                              (sassy)                         If I break one you gonna shoot me?               Rae teases Laz by adjusting her panties. She turns back to                the sunset and stretches.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               Rae's smoldering eyes don't leave Laz as he chains her to                the radiator. Laz nervously preaches, trying to avoid the                sight of her bare legs curled up on his couch.                                     LAZARUS                         My Daddy was one of the first mens                          to organize soil conservation in                          these parts. That's a group of                          farmers, you know, each season they'd                          rotate the crop. Know why it's best                          to rotate em like that?                                     RAE                         Uh-uh.               Laz moves in close and starts applying antibacterial cream                to the cut above Rae's eye.                                     LAZARUS                         Cuz once in a while soil need a                          change. Corn take up a lot of nitrate                          in the fertilizer. So next crop what                          ya do is plant ya some soy beans.                          That give off a lot of nitrate. Change                          keeps it all growin' and growin'                          strong.                              (regarding the eye)                         Sting a bit?                                     RAE                         Itches.                                     LAZARUS                         Means ya healin'.                              (a nod)                         So all this farmin' make me think on                          Matthew. Matthew 13. The parable of                          the sower? Man toss seed on rock, on                          the wayside, some fell in thorns...                          you know the story?                                     RAE                         Uh-uh.               Laz starts putting the cream on her scabbed knees. He rubs                them gently.                                     LAZARUS                         The seed that land on good soil is                          for them who hear the word of God...                          and understand the word of God. Not                          enough for you to hear what I'm                          sayin', you gotta understand.                                     RAE                         I know. I get it. What's Matthew                          doin'?                                     LAZARUS                         Gal... Matthew ain't doin' shit...                          this just a story...                              (quelling his                               frustration)                         Look it. I've seen it in nature,                          I've seen it in men. Ya got to change                          up your crop. Cuz that seed ain't                          gettin' in.                              (Rae remains silent)                         Ya gotta cut this shit out. Got no                          cause to be up under these fools,                          ruttin' on ya like you a bitch. Like                          you somebody's dog. No woman... who                          joins in union with Almighty God...                          or man... in the sanctity of                          marriage... should degrade herself...                          and bend to ANOTHER MAN'S WILL!               Rae is aware that Laz is somewhere else, talking to someone                else other than her. There is anger in his tone as he rubs                ointment on her bare, scabbed knees.                                     LAZARUS                              (shouting)                         My God, gal, don't you got no SENSE?                          I ain't sayin' I ain't weak? Shit.                          Playin' guitar in the blood-bucket                          jukes all ya life... a nigga learn                          how to sin, let me tell you!                              (grips her by the                               legs)                         I GOT SIN IN ME! I AIN'T GO'N LIE!                          BUT I GOT RESPECT! AND ALL YOU GOT                          IS BILE, GAL!                                     RAE                         Let go of me...                                     LAZARUS                         GIVIN' UP THAT SWITCH LIKE A TRAMP!                          BEHIND MY BACK AND KILL MY BABY...!               Rae yanks free of Laz's grip, recoiling on the couch.                                     RAE                         GET OFF ME!               Laz awakens from his rant. He blinks and stands. A sudden                shame overtakes him. He crosses into the kitchen to hide by                the sink.               He pours Rae a glass of water and returns to her side.                                     LAZARUS                              (offering her the                               glass)                         Didn't mean to go off on a tear like                          I did. I just got to thinkin' about                          things...               Rae leans up into his face. The glass of water is touching                her chest. Laz remains hypnotized by her eyes.                                     RAE                         Why is it you old men gotta talk so                          much? Like little boys, gotta talk                          yourself into fuckin' me.                              (his knuckles touch                               her skin)                         We can take our time. I'm grown. I                          get it.                              (she leans even closer)                         You wanna give me 'nother bath?               Laz stands and backs away. He quickly leaves the room.               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - THE BEDROOM - NIGHT               Laz looks at himself in the reflection of Rose's vanity                mirror, listening to Rae stir in the next room.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               The cicadas are screaming outside. Rae is beginning to breathe                deep, the burning is coming on.                                     RAE                              (under her breath)                         Goddammit.               She folds her arms over her chest, her middle finger                scratching her elbow. The anxiety is too much. She rolls                over until the chain pulls taut against the radiator.               Rae has wrapped herself in a tangle of chain. Her breathing                relaxes. Her eyes close. She sleeps.                                                             FADE TO BLACK.               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - EARLY DAWN               A train rumbles past in the blue hue of dawn.               Laz pulls his truck next to two other fruit and vegetable                vendors: ARCHIE and GENE.               Archie is an old black man in his early seventies. Gene is a                short white man closer to Laz's age.                                     GENE                         There goes our fortune. We been doin'                          good for ourselves since you been                          away.               Laz sets up his folding table and uncovers his produce.                                     LAZARUS                         Y'all know when Ella Mae's open up?                                     ARCHIE                         You needin' to buy some pantyhose?                                     LAZARUS                         Just some dresses.               Gene looks at Archie and shrugs.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - MORNING               Rae snaps awake. She is wet with sweat from the morning heat.                                     RAE                         Hello? Hey!               Rae drags the chain behind her as she crosses to the front                door and looks outside. No truck.                                     RAE                         I don't believe this shit.               She folds her arms and looks into the kitchen. There on the                table is a covered plate and a small bottle of milk. Rae                reads a note on top of the plate: BE BACK FOR SUPPER.               She pulls off the top plate and finds sausage links, eggs,                biscuits, sliced tomatoes, and sliced peaches.                                     RAE                         Enough to choke a Goddamn horse.               She yanks her chain. It rattles across the floor as she sits.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. ELLA MAE'S WOMEN'S CLOTHING - EARLY AFTERNOON               Laz looks out of place in his faded overalls surrounded by                bright colors of Ella Mae's dress shop.               ELLA MAE is a wide woman with white hair in her late fifties.                                     LAZARUS                         I'm needin' some women's clothes. A                          few dresses. Maybe some shoes. But                          they gotta be nice. They gotta be                          proper. Clothes a woman would want,                          where she could feel and look like a                          woman without... you know, lookin'                          like a tramp or a hussy or somethin'.               Ella Mae turns to her assistant, Rhonda. Rhonda is a 19-year-               old black girl. She turns back to Laz, unsure how to proceed.                                     ELLA MAE                         And, sir... do you have a size in                          mind for what you're lookin' for?                                     LAZARUS                              (points to Rhonda)                         That young lady's size, right'cher.                                     ELLA MAE                         Well, that makes it easier.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BATHROOM - AFTERNOON               Rae sits down in the tub, still wearing her T-shirt and                panties. Looking up at the shower head above she turns on                the cold water and yanks up on the shower knob.               Cold water sprays down over her. She gasps and then relaxes,                laying back in the tub.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. ELLA MAE'S WOMEN'S CLOTHING - AFTERNOON               Laz is at the counter. Rhonda is putting the shoes and clothes                in two shopping bags while Ella Mae rings him up.                                     ELLA MAE                         Well... I hope these will work for                          your niece. She can always come back                          in and swap sizes.               Lazarus points to a small display of fine lotions.                                     LAZARUS                         Mind I ask, what's all this business                          here?                                     ELLA MAE                         These are whipped body creams. It's                          like a lotion.                                     LAZARUS                         For your hands?                                     ELLA MAE                         Some women prefer not to scent their                          bodies with perfume. So now they                          have scented creams. They help                          moisturize a woman's skin.                              (unscrewing a jar)                         This one's my favorite. It's called                          Ginger Souffle. I recommend...                          applying the cream while the skin is                          still damp. So... perhaps just after                          a shower.                                     LAZARUS                              (likes what he smells)                         I'll take a jar of that, too.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - AFTERNOON               Rae rattles into the kitchen, her damp clothes clinging to                her form. She picks up Laz's guitar off the table and places                it in her lap.               She plucks a few random strings out of boredom and smiles.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. MACON DRUGS - AFTERNOON               The same apathetic girl is working the front counter as Laz                enters the drug store with a basket of arranged vegetables.                                     LAZARUS                         Lookin' for Miss Angela.                                     GIRL                         She in the back.               Laz makes his way to the back of the store. He spies Angela                in the back pharmacy, sorting pills for a pick-up. He watches                her work for a moment until, finally, she sees him.                                     ANGELA                         Wait right there.               Laz waits as Angela rounds the corner.                                     LAZARUS                         I brung you a little basket of                          goodies. Fresh squash, tomatoes,                          some okra, butter beans.                                     ANGELA                              (taking the basket)                         You didn't have to do this.                                     LAZARUS                         Just wanted to say how much I                          appreciate you helping me the other                          day. My niece, she's cured up, and I                          got you to thank.                                     ANGELA                         Well that's good. I'm happy to hear                          it.               Angela smiles. There is tension and attraction between the                two.                                     LAZARUS                         Look here. I got somethin' special                          for you.               Angela is flush as Laz moves closer than he has ever been                before. He reaches in the basket for the jar of cream.                                     LAZARUS                         This here is a whipped... body cream.                          And it's got a smell to it. Tell me                          what you think.               Laz holds the jar up to her nose. Angela closes her eyes and                smells. Her expression says enough -- she loves it.                                     LAZARUS                         They call this Ginger Souffle. Best                          if it... if it go on your skin just                          after you been in a hot tub... or                          shower.               Angela takes the lotion from his hand. She is subtle and                demure, but the woman is deeply affected. She smiles.                                     ANGELA                         This was very sweet of you.                                     LAZARUS                         Well. Hope you enjoy it.               Angela watches Laz as he walks out the door. The apathetic                girl moves up behind Angela.                                     GIRL                         Oooooo.                                     ANGELA                         Hush up.               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - MACON DRUGS - AFTERNOON               Laz opens his truck and waves goodbye to Old Red. Melvin is                holding a healthy squash.                                     RED                         You gonna be on the square later on?                                     LAZARUS                         Got all my honey-do's done with. I'm                          headin' home.                                     RED                         Stay cool. It's a hot one.               Laz pulls away in his truck and rounds the corner just as                R.L. crosses the street. He steps over to talk to Red.                                     R.L.                         Hey, Red. Was that Laz just left?                                     RED                         Yes'sir, Rev'rend.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS'S HOME - KITCHEN - AFTERNOON               Rae occasionally strums an awful chord as she sings playfully.                                     RAE                              (trying to sing)                         You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.                          You make me happy when skies are                          gray. You'll never know dear how                          much I love you. Please don't take                          my sunshine away. A voice from outside                          spins her around. The guitar barks                          as Rae slams it down on the table.                                     LINCOLN (O.S.)                         Mister Lazarus?               Rae stays hidden as she peeks out the front window. Lincoln                is standing before the house holding an old picnic basket.                Rae's middle finger begins scraping against the wall.                                     LINCOLN                         Mister Laz... I come for the butter                          beans.               Rae fights her dizziness. She crawls to the radiator as she                hears each creak of Lincoln crossing to the front door.                                                                   FLASH TO               QUICK CUTS               The Zippo with the bald eagle closes. A smoldering cigarette.                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               Rae flinches and grits her teeth as Lincoln knocks on the                door: Knock, knock.                                     LINCOLN                         Ain't seen you on the square. Mister                          Laz, can you hear me?               The burning has started: deep gasps, itching, anxiety.                                     LINCOLN                              (worried now)                         Mister Lazarus?               Rae watches the shadows of Lincoln's shoes under the door.                They wait patiently and walk away.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               Lincoln walks down the porch steps and stops. Thinks.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               Rae inches upward, pulling herself up the radiator so she                can stand. Her panting has waned.               Suddenly the front door swings open.                                     LINCOLN                         Mister Laz, I'm comin' inside...               Lincoln can't believe what he sees. Rae is chained around                the waist, damp and barely clothed. Her eyes bore into Lincoln                like an owl zeroing in on a helpless jackrabbit.               She rips her shirt off in one tug over her head.               Lincoln can't move. The picnic basket hits the floor. His                mouth hangs open in shock as Rae steps towards him and lays                her open mouth on the boy.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               SLAM! Rae shuts the door.               Laz steers his Ford truck up the drive and parks. He takes                his time getting out and removing the shopping bags. He opens                the door and goes inside.               His curses can be heard from outside.                                     LAZARUS                         SHIT BOY! WHAT THE HELL YOU...!               Lincoln is tossed off the porch, clinging to his overalls.                                     LAZARUS                         CAN'T LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR ONE...               Tears and fear come to Lincoln as Laz steps out onto the                porch, fuming with rage.               Lincoln backs away expecting a good beating. He starts running                up the drive but stops as R.L.'s Olds rolls up the drive.                                     LAZARUS                         Lincoln, come on back.               Lincoln darts past Laz and runs into the barn, clutching his                overalls. R.L. stops the car halfway down the drive and steps                out.                                     R.L.                         Was that Lincoln James I seen run                          off?                                     LAZARUS                         He's fine. Just had a bad fall.                                     R.L.                         Why's his britches round his knees?                                     LAZARUS                         R.L., you gonna have to get on. I                          can't have nobody round my place.               R.L. starts walking up the drive.                                     R.L.                         You get a call from Rose?                                     LAZARUS                         This ain't got nothin' to do with                          that woman. Just don't want nobody                          around me now.                                     R.L.                         Somethin' wrong with ya phone? Been                          callin' the last few days.               R.L. stops in his tracks as Lazarus pulls out his hunting                rifle from the rack behind his seat in his truck.                                     R.L.                         Goin' dove huntin'?                                     LAZARUS                         You gotta go, R.L.. I ain't foolin'                          this time.                                     R.L.                         You sayin' that gun's for me if I                          don't?                                     (LAZ CAN'T ANSWER)                         Spell it out, Laz. Man big enough to                          pull a gun best have a tongue in his                          mouth if he ain't got a brain in his                          head.               Laz is struggling. The rifle feels suddenly strange to him.                                     LAZARUS                         You ain't gonna talk me outta shit                          no more. I got my mind made up and I                          ain't gonna be moved on this.                                     R.L.                              (amused)                         Ain't gonna be moved?                                     LAZARUS                         Got no place for preachin' here. Not                          now. So you do as I say...                                     R.L.                              (still stepping closer)                         Or what?                                     LAZARUS                         I told you to TURN BACK!               R.L. pushes his chest up against the rifle and shouts back.                                     R.L.                         YOU GO'ON AND SHOOT ME, KILLA!               Laz's heart is breaking. He is pointing a gun at his only                friend.               R.L. snatches the rifle out of Laz's hands.                                     R.L.                         Ought'a stomp yo ass pointing this                          at me.                              (unloads the rifle)                         Always gotta bring up the preachin'.                          Like you just a sheep in my flock                          and all I'm good for is poundin' on                          a pulpit.                              (gets in Laz's face)                         Dammit, Laz... we may not be blood.                          But we sucked off the same old nurse                          since the day we was slapped on the                          ass. And you gonna point a gun at                          me?               A tear rolls down Laz's cheek. The shame is unbearable.                                     R.L.                         If you in some trouble, than WE gonna                          figure somethin' out. You and me.                              (hands him a bandana)                         Wipe your face!               Laz takes the bandana and wipes the tears away.                                     R.L.                         Now... this got anything to do with                          Rose?                              (Laz shakes his head)                         Then what?                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               The door creaks open. R.L. carefully steps inside. Rae is                sitting on the couch, looking out the window.                                     RAE                              (on the verge of tears)                         I didn't want to.               Rae doesn't respond. R.L. quickly steps outside shutting the                door behind him.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               R.L. shakes his head as Laz follows him off the porch.                                     R.L.                         Are you outta ya GODDAMN MIND?                                     LAZARUS                         Man like you ought not take the Lord's                          name like you just done.                                     R.L.                         A naked woman, chained in ya house?                                     LAZARUS                         I'm tellin' you the truth, dammit. I                          found her beat. Left for dead. So I                          brung her home.                                     R.L.                         Laz, I know about that girl.                              (beat)                         Good number of this town's sinners                          got my ear, you know.                              (shakes his head)                         Oh, Laz. She's had a mess of crabs                          and them STD's. What'chu thinking?                                     LAZARUS                         I haven't laid a hand. On my life,                          R.L., my wick is dry on this.                                     R.L.                         You say she was beat on. You call                          the sheriff on that?                                     LAZARUS                         Put yo'self in my shoes. Say you out                          here, alone, with a beaten, half                          naked, white woman loves to fuck. I                          been toe to toe with the law in this                          town for no more than being black                          and nearby.                                     R.L.                         What's that chain around her for?               Laz briefly looks off at the barn, knowing Lincoln is there.                                     LAZARUS                         Why don't you go'on and ask her. She                          need to talk wit somebody with sense.                          Folks been ruttin' and beatin' on                          this gal all her days. And this is                          how I'm handling it.                                     R.L.                         THIS IS HOW YOU HANDLING IT? THIS IS                          HOW YOU HANDLING IT?               Silence.                                     LAZARUS                         Go in and talk to her. Please.               R.L. nods. Lazarus smiles.                                     LAZARUS                         Good. Makin' steaks for supper. I                          expect you to come.                                     R.L.                         You mean with you and that woman                          chained to ya radiator?                                     LAZARUS                         You treat folks special when they                          company. It's just supper, R.L.,                          shit.                                     R.L.                         One thing at a time, Laz.               Laz walks toward the barn and turns back to R.L..                                     LAZARUS                         Watch y'self in there. That girl'll                          jump on ya junk like a grasshopper.               EXT. LAZARUS' BARN - AFTERNOON               Laz opens the door to his barn wide, allowing the afternoon                light to find Lincoln sitting on an old tire, weeping.                                     LAZARUS                         Did I hurt'chu?               Lincoln shakes his head. Laz carefully sits next to him.                                     LAZARUS                         What happened in there... that won't                          your fault. Ain't a young man alive                          could keep they britches on with                          that girl being in heat like she is.                                     LINCOLN                         Why she got a chain on her?                                     LAZARUS                         That's between her and me. It's                          private. And I don't want you goin'                          off and tellin' ya daddy.                                     LINCOLN                              (in a panic)                         Please don't tell my daddy.                                     LAZARUS                         My mouth is shut, boy. And that's                          how we gonna keep it. Don't go                          braggin' to ya buddies, ya heard me?               Lincoln nods. Laz hands him the bandana R.L. gave him.                                     LAZARUS                         So...                              (a bonding smile)                         That your first time?                                     LINCOLN                         Yes'sir.                                     LAZARUS                         You struck some gold, didn't ya?               Lincoln grins as he wipes the snot from his nose.                                     LAZARUS                         Shit. My first time was with my second                          cousin behind my uncle's barn. She                          weighed two tons, if a pound. Could'a                          done a lot better for myself. You                          sho'nuf did.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - AFTERNOON               R.L. hands Rae a glass of water. She is seated on the sofa,                wrapped in a quilt.                                     RAE                         Thank you.                                     R.L.                              (sits next to her)                         I gotta ask you. Why do you think                          Laz is keepin' you chained like this?                                     RAE                              (shrugs at first,                               then:)                         You know how, like they say, you                          save someone's life, you responsible                          for them. Guess he just don't think                          it's safe for me.                                     R.L.                         So he got it into his head that the                          only thing gonna keep you from endin'                          up bleedin' on the side of the road                          again, without a stitch of clothing                          on is...                              (R.L. yanks on the                               chain)                         You think he's crazy for thinkin'                          that?               Rae struggles to answer. Something is on her mind.                                     RAE                         You a preacher?                                     R.L.                         That's right.                                     RAE                         Can I ask you a question?                              (R.L. nods)                         People always say, you gotta get                          good with Jesus, if you want not to                          go to hell. That you say sorry for                          all you done and... and Jesus would                          let you go on to heaven.                                     R.L.                         You could put it that way.                                     RAE                         But that's so fuckin' stupid.                              (she catches herself)                         I'm sorry. Didn't mean to curse.                                     R.L.                         What's on your mind?                                     RAE                         You can't hurt people... and then                          just say, I'm sorry, and then                          everything just gets washed away.                          Why would heaven want people like                          that. People who... do what they                          want and then... switch.                                     R.L.                         I'm gonna tell you somethin', and                          it's just gonna be between you and                          me.                              (Rae anxiously nods)                         I think folks carry on about heaven                          too much. Like it's some all-you-can-                         eat buffet up in the clouds. And                          folks just gonna do as they're told                          so they can eat what they want behind                          some pearly gates. I can go to                          Shoney's for that.               Rae grins. R.L. leans closer.                                     R.L.                         There's sin in my heart. There's                          evil in this world. But when I got                          no one... I talk to God. I ask for                          strength. I ask for forgiveness. Not                          for peace at the end of my days when                          there's no more life to live and no                          more good to do, but today. Right                          now.               Rae has never had anyone talk to her like this. She is                listening. She is understanding.                                     R.L.                         What's your heaven? What gives you                          peace?               Rae looks at her bare feet. She tries to respond but the                pain in her chokes back the words. Tears come to her.                                     RAE                              (struggling to speak)                         Ronnie.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. GREYHOUND BUS STATION - LATE AFTERNOON               A bus stops at the station. The doors swing open. A few                passengers exit the bus followed by Ronnie.               He is not wearing his uniform.               EXT. GREYHOUND BUS STATION - PHONE BOOTH - LATE AFTERNOON               He drops his duffle bag and pops a few quarters in the phone.                He waits, allows the phone to ring.                                     RONNIE                              (into the phone)                         This is Ronnie again. Don't know if                          you been gettin' my messages but...                          I'm down at the bus station and...                              (struggles)                         I just need you come get me. You get                          this message, I'm on the interstate                          headin' downtown toward the square.                              (sadness hits)                         Rae. I really need you to... come                          find me. Please.               Ronnie hangs up the phone. He remains motionless, fearful                and alone.               He picks up his duffle and walks down the interstate.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - SUNSET               Lincoln stands over the barbecue spraying lighter fluid over                the coals while R.L. peels back the corn husks.                                     LINCOLN                         We gonna eat with her?                                     R.L.                         That's what I was told.                                     LINCOLN                         She still gonna have that chain on?                                     R.L.                         Well... I'm working on that.                              (trying to change the                               subject)                         So... what's goin' on in your life,                          Lincoln?                                     LINCOLN                         I ain't no virgin no more?               Lincoln tosses a match on the coals. They ignite with flame.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - SUNSET               Laz is humming to himself as he finishes chopping up the                potatoes. He wipes his hands and catches Rae standing behind                him.               She looks classic in the floral sundress. She folds her arms,                feeling awkward under Laz's approving gaze.                                     LAZARUS                         Now that's sharp. That is sharp.                          Chain give you any trouble?                                     RAE                         Uh-uh.                                     LAZARUS                         Good. Now I got the steaks on,                          potatoes at a boil, and biscuits                          ready to pop in the oven. R.L. and                          Lincoln out yonder grillin' up the                          corn. What do you know how to make?                                     RAE                         I don't fuckin' cook.                                     LAZARUS                              (a look of                               disappointment)                         Gal, I been around hard-cursin' folk                          all my life. And let me tell you...                                     RAE                         Look it... I put the Goddamn dress                          on, didn't I? I think I'm handlin'                          myself with some... fuckin' restraint                          here... how you got me locked up                          like a dog on a...                                     LAZARUS                         If all you got is filth comin' out'cha                          mouth... people just gonna tune ya                          out.                              (interrupting her)                         Rae. RAE! I'm not fightin' with ya.                          I just know you got more in you than                          junk.                              (a breath)                         Now, you sayin' you don't know how                          to cook anything at all?                              (Rae shrugs)                         You know how to boil water?                                     RAE                         I can handle that.                                     LAZARUS                              (hands Rae a pot)                         Well, get to it.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - AT THE TABLE - NIGHT               The four of them (Rae, Laz, Lincoln, and R.L.) are all seated                at the kitchen table, holding hands as R.L. says grace.               Rae peeks at the others with their eyes closed tight. She                follows their example.               R.L.  We ask that you bless this meal put before us. May the                food nourish our bodies and this fellowship nourish our                spirit. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.                                     LAZARUS & LINCOLN                         Amen.               There is a sudden flurry of activity at the table as the                four begin piling up their plates.                                     R.L.                         Pass them potatoes, Lincoln.                                     LAZARUS                         Y'all let me know if these steaks                          are too dry.                                     R.L.                         This all looks wonderful.                                     LINCOLN                         I skipped lunch.                                     LAZARUS                         Well, dig in, son. Got plenty to                          eat.               Rae's eyes are fixed on R.L. as he picks up a devilled egg.                She looks over at Laz who is aware of her anxiety. He gives                her a wink.               R.L. bites into the egg and moans with delight.                                     R.L.                              (to Laz)                         Mm. MM. Now these eggs got some kick                          to it. What'chu got in this?                                     LAZARUS                              (motions to Rae)                         Ask the chef.               Everyone looks at Rae, surprised. She feels a sudden rush of                fear as she struggles to answer R.L.'s question.                                     RAE                         Cayenne pepper.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAMPLIGHTER BAR - NIGHT               Ronnie is walking by the bar along the interstate. He stops                when he sees Gill's truck.               INT. LAMPLIGHTER BAR - NIGHT               Ronnie adjusts his duffle bag over his shoulder as he enters                the mid-sized bar.               Gill is seated at the bar. He turns to Ronnie along with a                few other locals, one being HERMAN, age 40.                                     GILL                              (surprised)                         Holy shit.                                     RONNIE                              (understanding)                         Yeah.                                     GILL                         Sit down, man. Need a beer?                                     RONNIE                         Sure.                                     GILL                              (to the bartender)                         Marv, let's get Ronnie set up here.               Ronnie sits next to Gill. Herman leans in wanting to be a                part of the conversation.                                     RONNIE                         Hey, Herman.                                     HERMAN                         They buy you that big chicken dinner?               Ronnie stiffens. Gill is confused.                                     GILL                         What?                                     HERMAN                         They got little names for everything                          in the corps when they trying to get                          rid of ya. Don't know what it's like                          in the guard. There's what you call                          a bad conduct discharge, a BCD... we                          all called it the big chicken dinner.                          It ain't the brig but it'll fuck ya                          for life if you wantin' to work for                          the government.                                     RONNIE                         That's not what this is about.                                     HERMAN                         They got another little name called                          ad-sep. That sound about right?               Ronnie looks away. He takes a sip of his beer.                                     HERMAN                         Ad-sep. Administrative separation.                                     GILL                              (to Ronnie)                         How do you get one of those?                                     HERMAN                         Blowin' boys in the head, for one.               Ronnie loses his cool. He lunges at Herman. Gill holds him                back.                                     HERMAN                         Whoa, son! I ain't sayin' shit about                          you. I'm just talkin'.                                     RONNIE                         Well, you don't know what you're                          talking about so why don't you shut                          the fuck up?                                     GILL                         Hey, it's alright, man. It's alright.                              (to Herman)                         Herman. Come on. He just got back.               Herman gets up to leave with his beer.                                     HERMAN                         To get back ya had to've gone                          somewhere.               Ronnie glares at Herman as he moves to the other side of the                bar. Gill moves closer to Ronnie to get the whole story.                                     GILL                         What happened?                                     RONNIE                         They been keepin' a folder on me cuz                          of my stomach. Like how it was just                          before we'd play ball back in school.                          Thought it was just some tic I got,                          or ulcers like my daddy had.                              (takes a drink)                         I can't... shoot. Target practice                          I'm a pro. I tag between the numbers                          each time but...                              (feels a stomach cramp)                         But when there's really loud noises                          around me... somethin' happens. I                          get shaky and... I lose my breath.                          They called it anxiety. Severe                          anxiety. It can be fixed and all...                          just not in time for....                              (another drink)                         It's a long process but... they sent                          me home.                                     GILL                         I guess it could be worse. You could                          be comin' back in a body bag.               Gill doesn't know what to say next.                                     RONNIE                         I can't get Rae on the phone. She's                          not at home... none of her friends                          seen her anywhere.                                     GILL                         She's around. Always is.                                     RONNIE                         I don't know. She's gettin' crazy,                          like she gets. Begged me not to go.                          Got real down. I just think somethin's                          happened. Like she run off with                          someone. You'd tell me if you knew                          somethin', right?                                     GILL                         You been home yet?                                     RONNIE                         Uh-uh. I's hitchin' up the interstate                          when I seen your truck outside.                                     GILL                         You need a ride?                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - NIGHT               Gill's truck rounds the bend and up the gravel drive leading                up to Ronnie's trailer.               The headlights scan across the porch as Gill parks.               INT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - NIGHT               Ronnie is the first through the door, calling out for Rae                before he can turn on the lights.                                     RONNIE                         Rae?               Gill enters. He sees that the trailer is the same as it was                the day he picked up Ronnie, nothing is different.                                     RONNIE                         This don't feel right. Kitchen looks                          just like I left it. I know, cuz I                          cleaned it.                                     GILL                         She ever tell you she was thinkin'                          of taking off?                                     RONNIE                         I just been so mixed up lately, Gill.                          And, you know, with her history, I                          can see how she could get scared...                              (tears)                         ...and run.               Gill is disturbed by Ronnie's sudden flood of emotion and                tears. He crosses to the pantry, already knowing which                cupboard to pull the liquor out of.               He pours two drinks. He hands one to Ronnie.                                     GILL                         Drink. Come on, drink some.               Ronnie manages a few swallows.                                     RONNIE                         Her momma works down at the grocery,                          down on the square. Maybe she seen                          her.               Gill stands over Ronnie, looking down on his pitiful face.                                     GILL                         Ronnie. You can't see cuz you're too                          close to it.                              (Ronnie waits)                         These nervous spells you get. You                          never had that shit back in school...                                     RONNIE                         That's not right, really, cuz I...                                     GILL                              (continuing)                         You joined up in that monkey troop                          cuz you had a plan for yourself.                          Army'd pay for school. You were gonna                          get a degree, maybe somethin' in                          business or agriculture and you were                          gonna make somethin' of yourself.               His words are painful to Ronnie. Gill doesn't hold back.                                     GILL                         And then you had to fall in love                          with the school slut.                                     RONNIE                         Now wait...                                     GILL                              (continuing)                         With all she was doin'. With all the                          shit she kept doing! You stayed stuck                          to that bitch's ass and you wouldn't                          let go.                                     RONNIE                         I know about how she was like. But                          we was different. I's the only person                          she talked to about it. How she's                          abused. Terrible things, Gill, just                          terrible...               Rage suddenly fills Gill. He grabs Ronnie and throws him                against the wall.                                     GILL                         YOU HAD A PLAN! YOU HAD A GODDAMN                          LIFE! AND SHE JUST FUCKED THE GUTS                          OUT OF YOU!                                     RONNIE                         It's not her fault, Gill. She's had                          to take care of me all this time,                          cuz I'd just start throwin' up...                          choking. Just losin' my grip. And                          she listened. She listened to me.                              (Gill releases Ronnie                               and walks away)                         And... I got better. I don't get                          nervous like I used to. And since we                          been together... she been faithful                          to me. Put all that junk behind her...                                     GILL                         The only thing that cunt's had behind                          her is me and half the town fuckin'                          her.                              (Ronnie can't believe                               it)                         Your first night away, I come over                          and drop off the spare keys like you                          wanted me to. You weren't gone two                          hours and she was aching to get me                          inside her. Like she was havin' some                          kind'a fit.               Ronnie can't respond. Tears roll down his face. Gill holds                up the whiskey bottle.                                     GILL                              (pours a drink)                         Don't you think it's funny how I                          know where everything in your house                          is?                              (moves in close)                         I don't care if that hurts you or                          not. Truth is I don't know who you                          are anymore. So fuck it.               Gill turns away. Ronnie grips Gill around the neck from                behind. He bends him back painfully and throws his head up                against the wall.               EXT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - NIGHT               The front door burst open as Gill goes flying down the front                porch. Ronnie cocks a .45 and shoves it into his belt.               Ronnie pins Gill's elbow behind his back and retrieves the                keys from his front pocket.                                     GILL                         You gonna steal my truck?                                     RONNIE                         Make yourself at home. You done it                          already.               Gill watches Ronnie tear down the drive in his own truck.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - NEAR THE BARN - NIGHT               Laz and R.L. are smoking. Laz smiles as he watches Lincoln                and Rae through the kitchen window as they wash dishes and                talk about football.                                     R.L.                         Gotta get that chain off her, Laz.                          Somethin' like this gets out, you                          could land in a heap of trouble.                                     LAZARUS                         I'm dealin' with what God put before                          me.                                     R.L.                         You believe He wants this? A woman                          chained to ya radiator?                                     LAZARUS                         Not like that.                                     R.L.                         Then what?                                     LAZARUS                         She's tied to me, R.L.. We tied to                          each other.               Laz is silent.                                     R.L.                         I can't leave unless I get your word.               Laz looks down at his shoes. He surrenders. He nods.                                     R.L.                         Laz. I got some news you need to                          hear. It's about Rose and your                          brother.                              (this is not easy for                               R.L.)                         She's pregnant. She gonna have a                          baby.                              (silence)                         Her sister told my wife. You know                          how them sewing circles go. Just a                          matter of time till you got word.                          Thought that's why you been keepin'                          to yourself out here.                              (Laz conceals his                               pain)                         I don't know how much of this is to                          make her happy or to hurt you. But                          it is what it is.               Laz struggles with his emotions. He turns to R.L. stone faced                and cold.                                     LAZARUS                         I'm through with them both.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE FRONT DOOR - NIGHT               Laz and Rae wave to Lincoln as he climbs into R.L.'s car.                They pull away, up the drive, and disappear into the night.               The cicadas sing as the two stand in silence: Rae, at peace,                feeling genuine contentment; while Laz looks lost in silent                pain.                                     RAE                         They sure liked them devilled eggs.                                     LAZARUS                         You drink whiskey?                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               A bottle of whiskey is removed from a top cabinet above the                refrigerator. Two small glasses each get a healthy swallow.                                     LAZARUS                         You take it straight?                                     RAE                         Sure.               He hands her a glass. Laz then looks at his as if he struggles                with a decision.                                     LAZARUS                              (holding up the glass)                         To my baby brother. Gonna be a daddy.               Rae nods and downs the whiskey with Lazarus.                                     RAE                         Well, that's good news. So you're                          gonna be someone's uncle.               Laz pours another swig for himself and downs it.                                     LAZARUS                         Want another?                                     RAE                         We drinkin' buddies now?                                     LAZARUS                              (pours two more glass)                         To freedom.               Laz pounds back his third shot.                                     RAE                         Still makin' jokes?                                     LAZARUS                              (pulls out his keys)                         No joke.               Laz pulls Rae closer to him by the chain wrapped around her                waist. He opens the old lock with a key.                                     LAZARUS                         Not my place to change your mind, or                          anybody else's. People gonna do how                          they please. You only get one life...                          should be lived the way you wanna                          live it.               The chain falls to the floor with a hollow thud. Rae looks                confused.                                     LAZARUS                         If you want... I can take you back                          to town now.                                     RAE                         I ain't in a hurry.               The two stare at each other in silence.                                     RAE                         Could you do somethin' for me?                                     LAZARUS                         Anything.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - NIGHT               Rae watches with intense curiosity as Laz tunes his guitar,                sitting at the table.                                     LAZARUS                              (takes another drink)                         Ain't played 'fore nobody in years.               Laz slides his calloused fingers across the strings, spurring                the old guitar into an impressive wail. Rae grips the chair.                                     LAZARUS                              (plays as he remembers)                         Funny how a sound just speak to ya                          heart.               A haunting slide guitar riff barks. Rae has a physical                reaction to the music. She is fascinated and fearful.                                     LAZARUS                              (thinks)                         Wanted me some kids. A whole mess of                          'em. But Rose, my wife... chil'ren                          was for another time.                              (takes a drink)                         They's this one spring... I saw a                          change in her. Her breasts start                          swellin' up. Come a few mornings I                          hear her heavin' in the bathroom. I                          seen it with women before. I knew.               Laz thinks for a moment. Continues playing.                                     LAZARUS                         Come a day, Rose say she had to go                          visit her folks in Jackson. Didn't                          want me to come... so I stayed put.                              (remembers)                         When she come back...                              (hesitates)                         They talk about a woman havin' that                          glow. Couldn't see it no more. She...                          took it away. Cut it out.               The guitar's song turns dark. Laz slides his fingers up the                guitar strings, lingering on low growns.                                     LAZARUS                         One night... While she sleepin'.                          Held a pillow in my hands. I could                          see myself killin' her. What evil in                          my heart make me wanna kill her, I                          don't know? It's that voice in me.                          Each time I think it's gone, he come                          howlin' back. Devil or no, I don't                          know. But I am a haunted man.               Fear spreads across Rae's face. Laz is talking about something                all too familiar.                                     LAZARUS                         Calls me when I'm ailing. When I                          can't find my home, lost in the pines.                          I calls it the Black Snake Moan.                              (he closes his eyes                               and sings)                         Mm-mm... Got no momma now.Mm-mm...                          Got no momma now.It's over late last                          night, don't need no momma now.               Laz stops. He sways back and forth with his eyes closed. Rae                hears the swell of the cicadas. Her eyes dart to the front                door as the familiar creek of footsteps are heard.                                     RAE                         Sing, Lazarus.                              (kneels next to him                               in fear)                         Please keep singin'.               The door swings open. A white calloused hand appears around                Rae's mouth.               She gasps in terror, clutching Laz's leg. The white hand is                gone. Tears come to her. She trembles as Laz sings.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         Mm-mm... Black snake crawlin' in my                          room.Mm-mm... Black snake crawlin'                          in my room.Some pretty momma better                          come and get this black snake soon.               Rae rests her head against his knee.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         Black snake is evil, black snake is                          all I see.Black snake is evil, black                          snake is all I see.Woke up this                          mornin', black snake moved in on me.               Laz concludes the song. Rae raises up to her knees, facing                Laz. Tears have run down his dried face. He opens his eyes.                                     LAZARUS                         My life is gone. Only life I was                          livin'. And I lost it.                                     RAE                         I'm here with you.                                     LAZARUS                         I had love in my heart. And I gave                          it to one woman. And she gone now.                              (his lip quivers)                         Where am I gonna put all this love?               Rae gently touches his cheek. The wind picks up outside.                                     RAE                         You can give it to me.               Rae kisses Laz. He is motionless at first, allowing it to                happen. His hand moves from the neck of his guitar to the                bend in her neck.               The passion intensifies as they squeeze the guitar between                them.               Laz pulls his lips away and holds her head in his hands.                They are so close, they are breathing into each other's                mouths.                                     RAE                         You can't start this and not finish.                          Not with me.                              (kisses him)                         Please...               The guitar clangs to the floor as Laz lifts Rae in his arms.                They kiss, ravenous for each other. He knocks up against the                side table, causing his Bible to fall to the floor, face up                and open. The wind pushes the front door open, slamming it                hard against the wall.               They turn together, kissing, Laz slowly spinning with Rae in                his arms. But Laz is soon distracted by the pages of his                Bible fluttering on the floor. The wind is blowing the pages,                turning them with an unseen hand.                                     LAZARUS                         Wait... I gotta stop...                              (Rae's kisses get                               more aggressive)                         Rae stop...                              (she can't hear, the                               burning has her)                         Dammit, Rae... GET OFF!               It takes a considerable effort to pull Rae away. She falls                to the floor, dizzy and sucking in air.                                     LAZARUS                         This ain't the way for me. I'm sorry.               Rae is struggling for breath. She desperately grabs at Laz.                                     RAE                         Not gonna lie to you, Laz...                              (labored breath)                         This one's a doozy. I don't think...                          I don't think I can stop this.               Her eyes roll back briefly, almost losing consciousness. Laz                catches her and holds her tightly.                                     LAZARUS                         Tell me what to do.                                     RAE                              (Barely able to speak)                         The... chain helps.               Laz grips the chain and wraps it around Rae.               As the burning increases. Laz holds Rae tight across his                lap, his back up against the radiator.                                     RAE                         I seen a man die. He couldn't                          breathe... his heart was... was givin'                          out.                                     LAZARUS                         You just havin' a fit. You ain't                          goin' nowhere.                                     RAE                         He told me... get help. I just stood                          there and watched him... I watched                          him die, Laz. Oh God! GODDAMMIT!               Her legs itch like they are covered in ants. The wave is                hitting her hard. Laz holds her face up to him.                                     RAE                              (like a little girl)                         Oh, Laz... he hurt me. He... hurt me                          so many times.                                     LAZARUS                         No one's gonna hurt you no more.                                     RAE                         You think God forgives people like                          that?                              (crying like a child)                         You think God forgives people like                          me?               Suddenly aware of the rising burn, Rae grits her teeth.                                     RAE                         Hold me. Oh God...               Rae turns away as Laz holds her head in his lap. She bites                down on his middle finger as his hand moves over her mouth.               She is gasping, screaming into his hand.               It hits. Laz holds her.               Rae's open mouth quivers as the sensation peaks. Her shoulders                slump, her chest vibrates. She is crying softly.                                     LAZARUS                         We'll just stay here. Wait till it                          passes.               The pages of the Bible flip to the final pages in the wind.                                                             FADE TO BLACK.               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - MORNING               Laz's truck pulls into his usual spot on the square. Rae is                riding shotgun.                                     RAE                         Where you gonna be?                                     LAZARUS                         Right here. Be here all afternoon.                              (waits)                         You ready for this?                                     RAE                         I'm gonna just get some girl stuff,                          like make-up and... stuff.               Rae looks out the window, a touch of fear.                                     LAZARUS                         This town ain't goin' nowhere. You                          take the time you need.               They both step out of the truck. Gene and Archie watch Rae's                ass as she walks by. They then look back at Laz, incredulous.                                     LAZARUS                         Friend of mine.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. FISHERVILLE GROCERY - MORNING               Rae enters the modest grocery store holding herself tight. A                few harmless shoppers look at her making her feel even more                uncomfortable.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - AFTERNOON               Laz is selling vegetables to a young woman. He is unaware                that Angela has moved up behind him, grinning, carrying a                small basket.                                     ANGELA                         I bet you have loyal customers.                                     LAZARUS                              (turns and grins)                         You liked what I brung ya?                                     ANGELA                         Been eatin' like a princess all week.                          Even got enough for us to take a                          picnic under the gazebo.                                     LAZARUS                         That'd be nice.                                     ANGELA                         I put on the lotion you got me. Can                          you smell it?               Angela steps forward and pulls away her hair from her neck.                She cranes, offering her neck for Laz to smell.                                     LAZARUS                              (smells)                         That's nice, too.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. FISHERVILLE GROCERY - AFTERNOON               Rae is looking at herself in the provided makeup counter                mirror. She looks at the compact in her hand and decides                against the purchase.               She rounds the corner and stops. She sees Sandy on her knees                in the center of the aisle, building a display of tuna cans.               Rae thinks to leave, but stops. She makes a decision to talk                to her. She walks up the aisle and stands above her mother.                                     RAE                         Hey.               Rae kneels down next to her. She's trying to make a                connection.                                     SANDY                         What happened to your face?                                     RAE                         Got in a little accident.                                     SANDY                              (not believing her)                         Yeah.               Sandy stands and wipes her brow.                                     RAE                         Since you workin' on the square now,                          maybe we could get some coffee in                          the morning, if you want.                                     SANDY                         You need money again?                                     RAE                         No. That's not why...                              (a frustrated breath)                         Why we always gotta do this? I mean,                          you and me been at each other as far                          back as I can remember. Wasn't no                          love between us. And I'm your                          daughter. I'm the only family you                          got.                                     SANDY                         You never needed nobody. Always made                          that clear to me.                                     RAE                         Yeah. I know I did. But...                              (struggles with tears)                         I'm tryin' to be dif'rent. I'm tryin'                          to... get some peace, you know?                                     SANDY                         I'm workin' here, Rae. Can you see                          that?                                     RAE                         I just wanted some make-up.                                     SANDY                         All that shit's on aisle 5.               Rae starts walking away. She quickly turns.                                     RAE                         I just think you should'a kept him                          off me, that's all.                                     SANDY                         The hell are you talkin' about?                                     RAE                         Now see? Don't do that. I'll go along                          with all you say about me. But that...                          you can't pretend no more on that.                          Cuz I was just a kid, Momma.                              (a terrible silence)                         I didn't know about any of that stuff                          he was doin' to me.                              (tears well up)                         And you let him do it. Some big nobody                          in your life... and you let him do                          as he wanted... with the only SOMEBODY                          you had.               It is clear from Sandy's reserved anguish that Rae is telling                the truth.               Sandy firmly grips her by the arm and walks her out. Rae                winces in pain like a toddler being led off to a car for a                good whipping.                                     RAE                         I'm sorry... I didn't mean to shout...                                     SANDY                         All my life I been puttin' out your                          fires, with you givin' out your snatch                          to every waggin' dick in this town.                          And you gonna lay the blame at my                          feet? Well, I ain't gonna take that.                                     RAE                         But... Momma... just tell me... not                          gonna be mad... we can just talk                          about it... Be eye to eye on this...                          You don't even got to say you're                          sorry... Just say how you knew...                                     SANDY                         Only thing I'm sorry for is listenin'                          to my parents and having you instead                          of doin' what I should'a done.               Sandy walks back up the aisle returning to her canned tuna.               And then the rage hits Rae.               With each breath Rae grits her teeth tighter. She grabs a                mop off the side aisle and turns around. Sandy is pricing                cans, down on her knees. She doesn't see Rae coming.                                     RAE                         ...tell me you don't know... goddamn                          LIAR!               Rae clocks her over the head, sending Sandy into the display                of cans. Rae hits her again with the mop. She is screaming                in short anguished breaths.               Rae grabs everything she can and dumps them onto Sandy: Bags                of flour, cans, entire shelves of ketchup.                                     RAE                         SAY IT! JUST FUCKING SAY IT!               Mark comes running to the aisle followed by two other                employees. Stunned customers watch in amazement.                                     MARK                         Rae! Rae! What are you doin'?                                     RAE                              (hysterically screaming                               and thrashing the                               mop)                         GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME! GET...                          HIM...OFF!                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - AFTERNOON               Laz and Angela are seated next to each other under the gazebo.                                     ANGELA                         I's thinkin' about singing in the                          choir.                                     LAZARUS                         At church?                                     ANGELA                         Mm-hm. I don't know if I got a good                          voice or not but... practice is only                          on Mondays and Wednesdays, so...                                     LAZARUS                              (grinning)                         You gonna sing me somethin'?                                     ANGELA                         When? Now? Oh. No.                                     LAZARUS                         Come on, just a little somethin'.                          Right here. Go'on now, don't be shy.               Angela blushes. She looks around and then leans in close to                Laz. She sings softly, sweetly, with all her soul.                                     ANGELA                              (singing)                         There is a balm in Gilead to make                          the wounded whole.               Laz is falling in love. She is so beautiful to him, he doesn't                see the people running to the front of the grocery store.                                     ANGELA                              (singing)                         There is a balm in Gilead to save my                          sick, sick soul.                              (opens her eyes, speaks)                         So. You think I should be in the                          choir?               Laz is grinning from ear to ear. He is about to speak but                the commotion outside the grocery catches his attention. His                smile fades.                                     ANGELA                         What? What is it?               Laz bolts toward the grocery as fast as he can.               INT. FISHERVILLE GROCERY - AFTERNOON               Laz rushes past the gawking customers at the end of the aisle.                A few male workers, including Mark, stand at a distance                watching Rae weep on the floor.               Sandy is being helped up by a co-worker -- her head is                bleeding.               Rae rocks back and forth, her face spotted with flour dust,                the mop held tightly in her grip.               Mark tries to step closer but Rae cries out, thrashing with                the mop handle. They retreat.                                     LAZARUS                         RAE? GAL? YOU HEARIN' MY VOICE?               Rae lifts her eyes.                                                                  FLASH TO:               QUICK CUTS               The chain pulling around Rae's waist. The radiator clanking                as it is pulled. Laz's hand holding her head to him as she                cries.                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               INT. FISHERVILLE GROCERY - AFTERNOON               Laz slowly crosses to Rae. She lifts her tear-soaked eyes to                him. He kneels next to her.                                     LAZARUS                         I'll take you home now.               He lifts her up in his arms. She sobs into his chest as he                carries her through the onlookers.               Angela is there. She looks confused and shocked.                                     ANGELA                         This your cousin?               Laz can't lie anymore. His gaze falls to the floor. He leaves                the store without saying anything to Angela.               EXT. FISHERVILLE SQUARE - AFTERNOON               Ronnie has parked Gill's truck on the square. He starts                walking up to the grocery store.               He sees Laz carrying Rae in his arms. She is sobbing into                his chest, blind to all around her. Ronnie freezes in shock                as Laz approaches.                                     LAZARUS                         Move, son.                              (Ronnie is unable to                               move)                         Goddammit, kid, get outta my way!               Laz pushes Ronnie causing him to fall backwards on to the                pavement.               Ronnie watches Laz put Rae in his truck and drive away. A                wave of nausea hits. He turns over and heaves.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - SUNSET               The wooden chimes are deathly still above the porch. The                evening cicadas have begun their chorus.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BATHROOM - SUNSET               Rae is holding her knees to her chest in the tub. Laz sits                next to her, dipping the sponge in the water, gently washing                her back and shoulders.               Laz moves her head back into the palm of his hand to wash                her hair. She stares into his eyes as he squeezes the sponge                on her forehead.                                     RAE                         You took care of your wife, like you                          do me?                                     LAZARUS                         I tried.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               Rae is wrapped in the quilt, laying on the couch. She is                awake and motionless, helpless to her depression.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BEDROOM - NIGHT               Laz sits on the side of his bed. Something is on his mind.               We CUT TO him on his stomach searching for something under                his bed.               Another old guitar case comes out, followed by another, then                another. Finally, Laz stands, an old maroon case in his grip.               He opens the latches on the side and lifts the thin lid,                revealing a gorgeous cream colored electric guitar.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               Rae has not fallen asleep yet. She turns to see Laz entering                the dark room with the maroon guitar case.                                     LAZARUS                         You and me, we night owls. No use                          fightin' this shit.                              (tosses her a dress)                         Get up.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. BOJO'S - NIGHT               Laz's truck groans as it bounces into the crowded parking                lot of Bojo's.               Rae steps out, looking beautiful in her sun dress. Laz slams                the door to his truck, guitar case in hand.               They begin walking inside. Rae's watch goes off. She quickly                turns it off. But a faint echo of the alarm can be heard                behind her. She stops and turns toward the truck. The sound                is gone.                                     LAZARUS                         What is it?                                     RAE                         Nothin'.               They go inside.               Ronnie's hand appears from under the blue tarp in the back                of Laz's truck. He pulls himself out and looks around.               INT. BOJO'S - NIGHT               Laz and Rae stand like strangers by the door. The place is                wall to wall -- people at the bar, people playing pool.               Laz sees the culprit of this show. R.L. is gabbing with Bojo,                a beer in his hand.                                     LAZARUS                         Get'chu at that table up yonder.                                     RAE                         By myself?                                     LAZARUS                         You can handle it.               As Rae makes her way through the crowd of people, Laz marches                over to R.L.                                     LAZARUS                         The hell is this shit?                                     R.L.                         What? I called Bojo, like you say.                          Called up the fellas in the band...                                     LAZARUS                         The fuck are all these people doin'                          here? Been drinkin' in this shit                          hole for years ain't seen this many                          people since I don't know...                                     BOJO                         Shit hole... Hey kiss my ass, Laz.                                     LAZARUS                         Nigga, you go'on kiss my ass. Ya                          both called everybody, didn't ya?               Bojo turns away to another customer. R.L. grins as he removes                a flask. He offers it to Laz. Laz snaps it away.                                     LAZARUS                         There you go, preacher man. Get me                          drunk so I don't stick my foot up yo                          ass.                                     R.L.                         I just know how you get. Good to                          know, them butterflies still in ya                          gut.               Laz and R.L. look over at Rae seated alone at a small table                near the stage.                                     R.L.                         Heard about this morning.                                     LAZARUS                         We ain't here to talk about that                          shit.               Laz surprises R.L. by walking away and up onto the stage.               Rae watches as Laz, shakes hands with some of the band                members. A few whistles from the crowd.               Laz sits down at a chair off to the right of a short mic                stand.               He plugs in.               Rae watches curiously as Laz tunes his guitar -- moans of                electric distortion.               R.L. sits next to her.                                     R.L.                         You in for it, now. He gonna nail it                          to the wall tonight. I done pissed                          him off.               The drummer kicks in. Laz tears into the strings. The entire                place begins to undulate and bounce as Laz returns to the                blues.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         I don't know, but I been around,                          tell me them women shake 'em on down.               Cheers. Rae watches in awe. She's never seen anything like                it. She is surrounded by couples dancing so close they might                as well be naked. But there is also a great sense of safety                as Laz controls the room with his music.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         Yes, I'm goin' Georgia line.                          See if them women sweet like mine.               HERSHEL, a black man in his 30's, asks Rae to dance.                                     HERSHEL                         You wanna cut it up, baby?                                     RAE                              (shrugging)                         Well...               Rae looks up at Laz. Laz smiles and nods. Rae takes the man's                hand and moves out onto the dance floor. R.L. can't be seated                anymore. He stands and stomps his foot.                                     R.L.                              (shouting at Laz)                         Yeah, you know you home, old man.                          You just walked through the door.                                     LAZARUS                              (singing)                         I don't know, but I been told, them                          Georgia women sweet jelly roll.               Rae allows Laz's voice and guitar to take hold of her. Her                face gets wet with sweat as she moves, making love to the                current in the air.               Men are dancing all around her, but now she is in control.                She turns to a young man and shakes, then an old man.               She is free, herself, and above all, safe.               Laz smiles, unaware of Ronnie watching from the window behind                him. There is rage and confusion in his face as he watches                Rae surrounded by dancing limbs.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - KITCHEN - NIGHT               Both Laz and Rae are drinking water from the sink in tall                glasses like they've been stranded in a desert.                                     RAE                         Are you drunk?                              (Laz shrugs)                         Keep drinkin' water and you won't                          get a headache in the mornin'.                                     LAZARUS                         Yeah, gal I been here before.                                     RAE                              (smiling)                         I guess you have.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BEDROOM - NIGHT               Laz is taking off his shoes, getting ready to crash for the                night. He sits down on the side of his bed and takes off his                shirt, leaving his T-shirt on.               Rae is standing in his doorway.                                     RAE                         Laz? Can I sleep with you tonight?                                     LAZARUS                         Don't think that'd be wise.                                     RAE                         I didn't mean it nothin' dirty.                                     LAZARUS                         I know you didn't. But you a grown                          girl. You can handle it. I got to.               Rae understands. She crosses to Laz and kisses him on the                cheek.               Rae then walks down the hall to her couch in the front room.               Laz turns off the light.                                                              CUT TO BLACK:               INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT - FLASHBACK               Rae enters the dark bathroom and shuts the door behind her.                Her hair is shorter, a shaggy bob, bleached platinum blond.               ARTY, always behind the door, attempts to enter, but Rae                pushes the door closed and locks it.                                     ARTY                         Baby, where you goin'?                                     RAE                         I'm gonna pee. I gotta take a break                          and go pee.                                     ARTY                         Now, this isn't fair. You said I                          could do it, too.                                     RAE                         Eat shit and die, Arty. A girl can                          change her fuckin' mind.               Rae finds the light switch. She yelps upon seeing Ronnie                crouched by the tub.               Suddenly feeling violated Rae yanks down on her shirt to                hide the fact that she's not wearing anything else.                                     RAE                         Hey.                                     RONNIE                         Hey.                                     RAE                         You don't gotta get up but... I gotta                          go...               Ronnie attempts to get up but it's too late, Rae has already                squatted on the commode, pinning Ronnie between her and the                bathtub.               Rae is breathing heavy, her focus is scattered. She's coming                up or coming down from a big burn.                                     RAE                              (waiting for pee)                         I think if I just piss... I'll be                          okay.                                     RONNIE                         You feelin' sick?                                     RAE                         I'm just in one of my moods. You                          know how I get.                                     RONNIE                         Yeah, I know.               Ronnie tries to look away, trying to make an awkward moment                less awkward. Rae's anxiety is hitting her.                                     RAE                         I think it'd be better if you talk                          to me.                                     RONNIE                         Yeah?                                     RAE                         Just about anything, you know. It                          can be funny or... not. Just tell me                          somethin'.               Ronnie nervously considers this before agreeing to open his                mouth. He points into the tub.                                     RONNIE                         Well. That's my vomit. I came in                          here to get sick. I thought I'd make                          the toilet but... anyway, I got sick.                                     RAE                         Are you wasted?                                     RONNIE                         No. I just got a messed up stomach.                                     RAE                              (remembering)                         Holy shit!                                     RONNIE                         What?                                     RAE                         Holy shit, Ronnie!                              (smacks him on the                               arm)                         You're a fuckin' rock star.                                     RONNIE                         I'm a what?                                     RAE                         All them people shoutin' your name                          like they were doing tonight! Shit!                          That arm you got'll get'chu on a box                          of cereal...               Ronnie leans over and dry heaves into the tub. It is painful.                Rae leans forward and touches his back, comforting him.                                     RAE                         Hey? You okay, Ronnie?               Ronnie falls back, gripping his stomach, there are tears in                his eyes from the dry heaving. Suddenly emotion hits him.                                     RONNIE                              (through tears and                               clenched teeth)                         Box of cereal... well, Goddamn...                              (looks at his trembling                               fists)                         Everybody keeps sayin' things to me                          take make me feel great. But I don't                          feel great at all. I feel like I'm                          comin' outta my skin. Like I'm losin'                          control of my mind.                              (looks into Rae's                               eyes)                         I'm not like this. I'm not usually                          so... afraid.                              (really starts crying)                         I don't know what's... wrong...               Rae pulls Ronnie to her. He cries into her shoulder. She                gently rubs his wet face and sings her words of comfort.                                     RAE                         Is'okay... Is'okay...               Ronnie begins to calm down. The sobbing abates.               The metal music from the party outside is muffled through                the door. The two hold onto each other in silence.               Rae pees. They both giggle, a welcome release of tension.                                     RAE                         I feel better. Do you?                                     RONNIE                         Yeah, I do.               EXT. LAZARUS' BARN - NIGHT               Ronnie lifts his head from sleep - his memory of Rae has                vanished.               He is leaning against the corner of the barn, his .45 in his                grip. His gaze slowly turns toward Laz's darkened house.               His hand begins to shake.                                                             FADE TO BLACK.               EXT. LAZARUS' HOME - EARLY MORNING               A crow squawks in the rows of corn. A bright morning is                coming.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - THE BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING               Laz is still asleep. The sound of clumsy guitar playing,                accompanied by a tiny voice, can be heard.                                     RAE                              (plucking, trying to                               find the right note)                         You... are my... sunshine.               Laz opens his eyes.               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - EARLY MORNING               Laz quietly creeps into the doorway to watch Rae struggle                with the guitar playing. He could stay there for hours                watching this little girl play his guitar.               Rae looks up and sees Laz. She stops playing.                                     RAE                         Sorry.                                     LAZARUS                         Looks like you know a song.                                     RAE                         Don't know where I learn't it, but...                          it's there in my head.               Laz sits next to her and takes the guitar from her.                                     LAZARUS                              (playing a tune)                         How you feelin' today?                                     RAE                         You know how you feel when you come                          out of a bad hangover? Like your                          eyes can open a little bit more.                                     LAZARUS                         I know that.                                     RAE                         Woke up real early. Sun was shining.                          Just thought I'd mess around, try to                          learn a song.                                     LAZARUS                         Go'on and sing it, I'll play.                                     RAE                         No, you do it. I can't sing.                                     LAZARUS                         Stop that foolishness. Just do as I                          say and close your eyes.                              (Rae closes her eyes)                         Close your eyes. And think about...                          well, for a song like this, I'd say                          you think about what you love.                                     RAE                         What I love.                                     LAZARUS                         Get a good picture in your mind.               Rae's playful smile turns serious. Laz continues playing.                                     LAZARUS                         Think on that. And sing wit me.                              (Laz comes in singing)                         You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.                                     RAE & LAZARUS                         You make me happy when skies are                          gray.                          You'll never know dear, how much I                          love you.                          Please don't take my sunshine away.               Rae opens her eyes with a delightful giggle. Laz continues                playing.                                     LAZARUS                         Good. I know another. It go like                          this.                              (sings)                         Last night dear, as I lay sleeping.                          I dreamed I held you in my arms.                          When I awoke dear, I was mistaken.                          So I hung my head and I cried.                              (to Rae)                         Close your eyes Rae... sing it.               Rae doesn't hesitate to obey. With her eyes closed and Laz                playing, neither can see Ronnie creeping up from the kitchen                with his gun.                                     RAE                              (singing)                         You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.                          You make me happy when skies are                          gray.               Ronnie looks sick with pain as he points the barrel at the                back of Laz's head.                                     RAE                              (singing)                         You'll never know dear, how much I                          love you.                          Please don't take your sunshine away.                              (opens her eyes)                         RONNIE!               Laz spins around knocking away Ronnie's arm. BAM! The gun                fires into the wall. The guitar cracks on the floor.               Rae screams.                                     RAE                         RONNIE STOP! RONNIE!               Laz lunges at Ronnie but Ronnie is faster. He spins Laz around                and slams him to the floor, pushing his gun into Laz's face.                                     RAE                         NO!               Ronnie looks up at Rae, his eyes red with sorrow and rage.                He pushes the gun to the side of Laz's head. Rae cries.                                     RONNIE                         Ain't been a week and you already                          some nigger's whore? Gill told me.                          Told me how you and he... you and                          everybody...                                     RAE                         Ronnie. Please, baby...                                     RONNIE                              (to Laz)                         Did 'ya have fun with her? Sweet as                          a peach, I bet. Huh? Huh?               Laz glares back, not saying a word.                                     RONNIE                         Goddamn it, I ask you a question,                          you better answer it, or I'm gonna                          blast a hole in ya!                                     RAE                         Ronnie...               Rae moves closer. Ronnie points his gun at her and screams.                                     RONNIE                         YOU SHUT UP!                                     LAZARUS                         Careful how you point that gun, boy.                                     RONNIE                              (points gun back at                               Laz)                         Or what? OR WHAT?                                     LAZARUS                         Boy? You here to make a point, or                          you here to kill somebody?                                     RONNIE                         Ain't gonna be callin' me boy when I                          blow your face off.                                     LAZARUS                         You sayin' you'll do what?                                     RONNIE                         You heard me, mother-fucker. I'll                          fuckin' kill..                                     LAZARUS                              (cutting him off)                         BOY! You so green you couldn't stomp                          a baby duck.               Ronnie can't believe what was just said -- mostly, because                it's true. The gun begins to shake in his hand.                                     RONNIE                         You testing me? Huh? You testin' me,                          old man?                                     LAZARUS                         Test. Shit. What kind'a test you                          thinkin'? You mean like, if you a                          man or not? If you a killer? Only                          one way to prove that. You just look                          me in the eye, boy, and you squeeze                          that trigger back.               Ronnie grips the shaking gun. A severe attack is on the rise                as he listens to Laz.                                     LAZARUS                         Ain't that easy, is it? I been in                          some scraps, son, I know. First                          there's that loud crack. Always louder                          than you think. Like it just come-up-                         a-cloud and clapped a mess thunder                          right in ya hand. BAM!               Ronnie flinches. He tries to control his breathing.                                     LAZARUS                         White light. Smell of smoke. Taste                          of my blood and brains in your mouth,                          stingin' ya eyes.               Ronnie almost vomits, but he holds it back.                                     RAE                         Oh, baby... just let me...               Rae moves closer to him, wanting to comfort him but she stops                as Ronnie points the gun at her. His eyes pleading for her                to stay back.                                     RONNIE                         GODDAMMIT, RAE!                                     LAZARUS                         BOY! YOU KEEP THAT GUN POINTED AT                          ME!                              (Ronnie obeys)                         You need to kill a man, all you gotta                          have is a good reason.                              (watches Ronnie fight                               his attack)                         You know she been here with me, don't                          cha? Been all over town, givin' up                          that switch you thought was your                          own.                                     RONNIE                         SHUT UP! SHUT UP!                                     LAZARUS                         Put all your love and dreams into                          one woman... she turn around and                          give it all to another man. That's a                          good reason to paint the wall with                          me, kid. She'd fear ya then. Cuz                          there won't be no more question in                          her mind. She with a real man now. A                          real KILLER!               A flood of tears are streaming down Ronnie's face. The gun                is shaking furiously in his hand.                                     RONNIE                         Don't... don't say that to me...                                     LAZARUS                              (getting fed up)                         Son, I'm grown. Don't got patience                          to suffer you children and this monkey                          junk. I'm too old to play house...                              (looks at Rae and                               then back at Ronnie)                         ...and cowboys. So let's have it.                          End me or get out of my face!               Ronnie looks like a scared five year old having an asthma                attack. Laz barks at him one last time.                                     LAZARUS                         Go'on. Do it.                              (silence)                         DO IT!               The last shout from Laz completely destroys Ronnie. His                shoulders slump. The gun lowers in his grasp. A low sob is                heard as he falls to his knees.               Laz snatches the gun from his hand and stands.                                     RAE                         Ronnie?               Rae inches closer to Ronnie as he kneels over and weeps. She                gently touches his shoulder. He turns his anguished face to                her and tries to speak.                                     RONNIE                         I can't stop... I can't stop... being                          scared. What am I gonna do...               Ronnie hides his face in his hands. Rae throws her arms around                him and holds him tight.                                     RAE                         I got you, baby... I got you...               Laz removes the clip and crosses to the kitchen. He slams                the gun on the sink, opens a drawer and removes the wall                phone.                                     RAE                              (seeing Laz plug the                               phone in)                         What are you doing?                              (Laz dials a number)                         You gonna call the cops? You think                          they gonna help this? They ever help                          you, Laz? Huh?                              (Laz listens on the                               phone)                         DAMMIT LAZ PUT THE PHONE DOWN?               Laz looks at Rae. There is hurt in his eyes.                                     LAZARUS                         Thought you knew me better, gal.                              (into the phone)                         I need you at my house... right now.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. LAZARUS' HOME - NIGHT               R.L. crosses from the kitchen. He hands a glass of water to                Rae seated on the couch. He hands another to Ronnie seated                next to her. R.L. sits before them as Laz lingers in the                doorway.                                     R.L.                              (to Ronnie)                         I imagine there's a lot of good                          between you two. But I want you to                          tell me what's bad. Go'on. And don't                          hold back.               Ronnie is very uncomfortable. He looks at Rae seated next to                him and then back at R.L..                                     RONNIE                         I hate this town. You can't round                          the corner without bumping into                          someone who's got your number.                              (a brief look at Rae)                         We did a lot of dreamin', me and                          Rae. Makin' plans to get out. I'd do                          my tour and... we'd move outta here.                          Go to Chattanooga. And I'd work for                          my uncle.                              (looks down, tears                               come to Ronnie)                         But... when Rae gets like she does.                          And she does the things that she                          always done. Makes me feel like she                          loves this place more'n me.               Rae starts shaking her head, tears come to her eyes. R.L.                raises a hand to silence her.                                     R.L.                         Go on, Ronnie.                                     RONNIE                         All my life people called me shit                          like, sissy and... nervous and... I                          got few things in my life that make                          me feel like... like...                                     LAZARUS                         Like a man.                                     RONNIE                              (surprised)                         Yes. I mean that's it. I wanna feel                          like a man with her. I wanna feel                          like the only man with her.               Ronnie wipes the tears from his eyes with his shirt sleeve.                R.L. turns to Rae.                                     R.L.                              (looks at Rae)                         Now, Rae, we're not here to fix you                          or judge you. Only you and the                          Almighty can do that. But I want you                          to tell me about these spells you                          get.               Rae takes a deep breath. She looks up at Laz. He encourages                her with a nod.                                     RAE                         It starts like this... fire... that                          spreads. Starts in my head. Then                          moves to my stomach. Then it goes                          lower. I can stop it sometimes but                          mostly I just jump on and ride it                          out... then everything'll go back to                          normal, you know. Only thing ever                          took that feeling away was... was...                          when I met Ronnie.                              (the emotion really                               hits hard)                         Cuz I love him so much. He's all I                          got in my life that's special. And I                          like taking care of him and helping                          him when he gets nervous. When I can                          do that for him... it's like I'm                          givin' somethin' of myself that I                          haven't givin' nobody else.                                     R.L.                         Rae, look at Ronnie. And tell him                          how you feel.               Rae turns to Ronnie. Her nose is running as she wipes away                her tears.                                     RAE                         I think... I think we're fucked up.                          Both of us. I know I am. But... that                          don't mean what I feel ain't true.                          It don't mean I can't love. And I                          know, how I been is... is... REALLY                          BAD! So if you want to quit on me...                          I understand. But please... please...                          don't.               Ronnie is very moved by Rae's plea. He touches her face and                wipes away a tear.                                     R.L.                         So. What'chu two gonna do about this?                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. ANGELA'S HOME - DAY               The door opens. Angela looks surprised to see Laz. She is                dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, wearing rubber gloves from                cleaning.                                     ANGELA                         Hey.                                     LAZARUS                         Hey. You wasn't at'cha work but that                          nosey gal up at the counter give me                          your home address. Hope you don't                          mind me comin' over.                                     ANGELA                         What do you need?                                     LAZARUS                         I need ya help again.               Angela notices Rae and Ronnie seated in Laz's truck.                                     ANGELA                         More cough syrup?                                     LAZARUS                         Can I come in?               Angela takes a breath and opens the door wider.               INT. ANGELA'S HOME - DAY               It is a small house, but tidy. Angela motions for Laz to                sit.                                     LAZARUS                         I lied to you. It was wrong. But at                          the time... I didn't know what to                          do. Imagine you got an earful from                          folks about that gal I's carryin'...                                     ANGELA                         Laz... you don't need to explain                          yourself to me...                                     LAZARUS                         Yes, I do. Cuz I feel for you. Mean                          to say...                              (long pause)                         I got feelings for you. And I didn't                          want you to think... I didn't...                              (how to say?)                         I don't want you to go away. There's                          better ways to say what I'm trying                          to say, but... they it is. Don't go                          away.               Angela thinks on this. She rises out of her seat and crosses                to Laz, sitting next to him on the love seat.                                     ANGELA                         Laz. I'm gonna put my trust in you.                          I'm gonna do it knowin' all too well                          I can get hurt like this. And I have                          been hurt. Just like you.                              (beat)                         Woman like me, I got a lot of livin'                          to do. But my days are precious to                          me. They all I got left. Don't want                          no more fuss. I want love in my life.                          You understanding me, Laz?                                     LAZARUS                         I do. God's truth. I do.               They stay locked in each others' sight.               Then, the slowest, most gentle kiss happens between them.                When they separate, Laz is lost in her eyes.                                     ANGELA                         Now what'chu need me to do? Cuz I'm                          gonna go do it.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. POOL HALL - MORNING               Laz enters the pool hall and spots Tehronne. Tehronne motions                him back. Next to Tehronne is an old black man named PINETOP.                                     TEHRONNE                         Yo, this here Pinetop. I think he                          got what you lookin' for.               Pinetop grins and produces a black velvet cloth. He opens it                gently and spreads it out, revealing a long, thin, gold chain.               Laz nods, approvingly.                                     LAZARUS                         That'll do.               EXT. POOL HALL - BACK DOOR - MORNING               Tehronne leads Laz down the back steps.               They both round the corner, revealing an old Chevy Caprice.                It is light brown except for one door that is gray, however                the chrome rims on the car are impressive -- worth more that                the entire car by a long shot.                                     TEHRONNE                         It got some miles on it, but my boys                          say she run good. Got fresh 22's on                          her. Ain't my doin'. That's just how                          it came to me. Don't worry. Nobody                          gonna come lookin' for it. I got the                          pinks... got no problem.                              (hands Laz the keys)                         Ain't gonna have my girl ridin' no                          bus.                                     LAZARUS                              (moved, impressed)                         Don't see generosity much these days.                          Everything always got a catch. Guess                          I'm tryin' to say... thank you.                                     TEHRONNE                         Nobody ever asks me to do shit like                          this for people. And you know what?                          I'm good at it. Naw what I mean?               Tehronne walks back into the pool hall, leaving Laz alone.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. ELLA MAE'S WOMEN'S CLOTHING - DAY               Rhonda has three white dresses over her arm as she hurries                past Ronnie, seated next to the back dressing rooms.               The door doesn't close all the way. He stands and moves in                for a peek. Angela pokes her head out and grins.                                     ANGELA                         What are you doing?                                     RONNIE                              (shrugs)                         Just wanted to see.                                     ANGELA                         You know the rules.                              (vacant look from                               Ronnie)                         You do know the rules, don't you?                                     RONNIE                         Yeah, I know.                                     ANGELA                         Then start taking them seriously.                                     RONNIE                         Yes, ma'am.               INT. ELLA MAE'S WOMEN'S CLOTHING - DRESSING ROOM - DAY               Rae is standing in bra and panties up on a small platform in                front of a tri-divided mirror. Ella Mae takes the dresses                from Rhonda.               Angela sees that Rae is nervous.                                     ANGELA                         It's okay to breathe, honey.                                     RAE                         Yes, ma'am.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - LATE DAY               Ronnie is wearing a brown corduroy jacket. He is attempting                to tie his neck tie in the side mirror of Laz's truck.               Lincoln, also wearing his Sunday best, steps up behind him.                                     LINCOLN                         You Ronnie?                                     RONNIE                         Yeah.                                     LINCOLN                         I'm Lincoln. Guess I'm gonna be your                          best man.                                     RONNIE                              (ultimately accepting)                         Okay.                                     LINCOLN                         You havin' trouble with that tie?                          Cuz I'm pretty good at it.               Ronnie nods. Lincoln steps behind him to tie the tie.                                     LINCOLN                         Gotta do it like this or I get all                          turned around.               INT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - LATE DAY               Laz is wearing the same suit he wore at the cafe with Rose.                He is seated in Ronnie's trailer, outside the back bedroom                door.               Angela steps out from the bedroom with a grin.                                     ANGELA                         She's ready for you.               INT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - BACK BEDROOM - LATE DAY               Laz opens the door, carefully looking around the doorjam. He                sees her standing before the dresser mirror. She looks                beautiful, simple, and elegant.               Rae desperately searches Laz's eyes for approval.                                     LAZARUS                         Now that's sharp. That's real sharp.                          Miss Ella Mae set you up, didn't                          she? You like it?                                     RAE                         I've had nice things before but I                          always ruined 'em somehow.                                     LAZARUS                         Well, this one's yours now. You ready                          to take care of it?               Rae bows her head. She fights back tears.                                     RAE                         I want to. More'n anything. But I...               Laz holds her face in his hands. He speaks softly.                                     LAZARUS                         Now... let's stop that.                              (smiles)                         You and me... we can handle this.                          You hear me, gal? We gonna be just                          fine. Now live ya life. Pull your                          shit together and live your life.               His words are piercing and true. Rae nods, decides.                                     RAE                         Okay.               R.L.'s words are heard as Rae wraps her arms around Laz and                rests her head on his chest.                                     RAE                         I don't want you to let go.                                     LAZARUS                         Maybe I won't.                                     R.L. (V.O.)                         When I was a child, I talked like a                          child. I thought like a child, I                          reasoned like a child.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. RONNIE'S TRAILER - LATE DAY               Ronnie turns toward the trailer. He is in his suit, standing                in his front yard -- Lincoln at his side. R.L. stands to the                side with a Bible in his hands.                                     R.L. (V.O.)                         When I became a man, I put childish                          ways behind me.               Ronnie is amazed with what he sees. Laz leads beautiful Rae                down the steps as Angela tends to her side.                                     R.L. (V.O.)                         Now we see but a poor reflection as                          in the mirror; then we shall see                          face to face. I know in part; then I                          shall know fully, even as I am fully                          known.               Rae holds firm to Laz's arm as they come together on the                green grass to witness and perform this union.                                     R.L. (V.O.)                         And now these three remain: faith,                          hope and love. But the greatest of                          these is love.                              (Looks to Laz)                         Who gives this girl in marriage?                                     LAZARUS                         I do.               Lazarus takes a few steps with Rae, offering her arm to                Ronnie. Ronnie and Laz stay locked in each other's gaze.                                     LAZARUS                         You got her now?               Laz stands next to Angela as Ronnie and Rae face R.L.                together.                                     R.L.                         Ronnie. Rae. I want you to look at                          each other and listen to me carefully.                          Do you understand?                                     RAE & RONNIE                         Yes. Yes, sir.               They both obey -- each with a serious expression.                                     R.L.                         I require and charge you both as you                          stand in the presence of God to                          remember that love and loyalty alone                          will avail as a foundation of a happy                          and enduring home.                              (to Lincoln)                         Go on, hand it to him.               Lincoln steps toward Ronnie and holds up the black velvet.                Ronnie takes the gold chain and carefully wraps it around                Rae's waist.                                     R.L.                         No human ties are more tender. No                          vows more sacred than those you now                          assume.               Laz looks on -- a conflicted emotion of joy and loss.                                     R.L.                         If these solemn vows be kept                          inviolate, the home which you are                          establishing will abide in peace and                          your life will be filled with joy.               Angela reaches over and takes Laz's hand in hers.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FREEWAY / INT. RONNIE & RAE'S NEW CAR - DAY               Ronnie is at the wheel of the Chevy Caprice. Rae sits silently                next to him.               Rae looks out the window as a huge 18 wheeler rolls up on                her side. She tries to ignore it and the tension it brings.               She turns to see that Ronnie is sweating. Another truck is                on his side sandwiching them in. An attack is coming over                Ronnie.               His breath is short. His chest tightens. Rae reaches over                and gently strokes the back of his neck.                                     RONNIE                         I gotta pull over.               He breaks. The two trucks zoom ahead as Ronnie breaks to the                side. Dust flies as the Chevy skids to a stop on the side of                the road.               Trucks zip by shaking the car, as Ronnie tries to get control                of his breathing.               Rae tries to stay calm, stroking the back of his neck as he                struggles for breath. He puts his forehead against the wheel                to stave off the building nausea.                                     RONNIE                              (through clenched                               teeth)                         FUCK!               Fear comes to Rae's face as she notices her middle finger                scratching at the back of Ronnie's neck. She pulls it away                and shoves her hand between her thighs.               Her eyes close as the burning builds. She grips the gold                chain around her waist.                                                                   FLASH TO               QUICK CUTS               The chain, tight around Rae as she struggles. Rae panting                and sweating on Laz's floor. She reaches out. Her hand lands                on the strings of his guitar. A single string is plucked.                                                             FLASH BACK TO:               EXT. FREEWAY/ INT. RONNIE & RAE'S NEW CAR - DAY               Rae opens her eyes -- the low note still sounding in her                head. She places her hand back on his neck. And then, soft                as a prayer:                                     RAE                              (singing)                         You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.                          You make me happy, when times are                          gray.               Ronnie slowly turns and looks at Rae, his head still resting                on the steering wheel. The panting has slowed. Color starts                returning to his cheeks.                                     RAE                              (singing)                         You'll never know dear, how much I                          love you.                          Please don't take, my sunshine away.               The anxiety is gone. Ronnie takes a breath and looks at Rae,                humbled and thankful of her power to soothe him.                                     RAE                         See. We're okay.               Rae is smiling.                                                              CUT TO BLACK:                                         THE END
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+                                   BLACK SWAN                                   Written by                  Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz & John McLaughlin                                                                                 January 11, 2010                                 1 INT. DARK STAGE - NIGHT 1                                                   OPENING CREDITS:                                    A SPOTLIGHT slices black space.                                    In its beam, a DANCER materializes. She is fair-skinned.           Beautiful and pure.                                    The maiden twirls on pointe, a smile on her face, light as           air and carefree.                                    She pauses, her face grows worried. Sensing someone watching.                                    Scared, she peers into the darkness.                                    She moves now, looking, growing more frantic.                                    Then, a SINISTER MAN emerges out of the darkness behind her.           She stumbles backwards, frightened.                                    She tries to escape, twirling away, but he pursues. His true           form is revealed, the demon ROTHBART.                                    He flings his open hand towards her, casting the spell.                                    She wants to scream, but nothing comes out. She looks at her           body, sensing something happening to her. Something           terrifying.                                    She spins, panicking, but it's too late. She disappears           beneath the beast's cape.                                    She emerges as the WHITE SWAN, the iconic protagonist of SWAN           LAKE.                                    CUT TO BLACK.                                                            2 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - MORNING 2                                    In the darkness, a pair of EYES. They belong to NINA, the           same dancer. She lies awake in bed, thinking about her dream.                                    The room looks like it hasn't been redecorated since she was           a teenager. Stuffed animals. Dolls. Pink and frilly.                                    The door opens, throwing LIGHT on her face. Nina looks           towards the door and smiles softly at whoever opened it.                                    Nina sits up and hangs her BARE FEET off the side of the bed.           Like all ballerinas, she's beautiful and her feet are           atrocious. Covered in corns, broken blisters and bunions. She           arches them, doing her first extensions of the day.           2.                                   3 INT. LIVING ROOM - MORNING 3                                    The room is empty of furniture to leave space for dancing. A           large mirror covers the opposite wall entirely.                                    Nina rubs her knees to get them warm, and then begins her           morning exercises, extending and contracting her feet and           legs in precise and rhythmic motions.                                    The skin on her chest stretches tautly over her sternum.           Defined vertebrae run up her back, sinewy muscles contract as           she moves. Her slender neck leads into her hair, contained           in a ballerina's bun.                                    Nina looks serene as she moves, completely in her element.                                    She hears someone fussing about in the kitchen.                                                   NINA                          (WHILE STRETCHING)           I had the most amazing dream last           night. I was dancing the White           Swan.                                    No answer.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Different choreography, like the           Bolshoi's. It was the prologue,           when Rothbart casts his spell.                                    Still no answer.                                    Nina continues to stretch.                                                            4 INT. KITCHEN - MORNING 4                                    Nina sits at the table. An older woman, ERICA, places a           POACHED EGG and a QUARTER-GRAPEFRUIT in front of her.                                                   ERICA           You're in a good mood.                                                   NINA           I'm just excited to get back.                                                   ERICA           Off-season always makes you grumpy.                                                   NINA                          (RE: GRAPEFRUIT)           Look how pink. So pretty.           2A.                                                   ERICA NINA           (inside joke) (inside joke)          Pretty. Pretty.                                   They giggle and Erica resumes packing Nina's shoulder bag          with extra clothing, shoes, snack filled tupperware, duct          tape, ribbon, thread, etc.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Plus he promised to feature me           more.                                                   ERICA           He certainly should. You're the           most dedicated dancer in the           company.                                   Nina smiles, comforted, and begins taking her vitamins.                                   Erica walks over with a SWEATSHIRT and holds it above her.          Nina pulls it over her head and starts to push her arms          through the sleeves.           3.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)                          (NOTICING SOMETHING)           What's that?                                                   NINA           What?                                                   ERICA           There.                                    Erica points to her shoulder. Nina feels and finds a small           SCRATCH MARK.                                    She shrugs and shakes her head.                                    Erica gives her a suspicious look, but lets it go and smiles.           Nina finishes pulling down the sweatshirt.                                    Erica hugs Nina into her chest and kisses the top of her           head.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Sweet girl.                                    Erica releases her and Nina begins eating.                                                            5 INT. SUBWAY TRAIN - DAY 5                                    Nina rides inside a crowded subway, staring absentmindedly at           her faint reflection in the train's window.                                    Suddenly, another train roars by on the opposite track,           snapping her awake.                                    In the next train car, she sees the back of a BALLERINA           standing in the midst of the crowd. Her head bops to music           playing through iPod earphones.                                    Nina moves a strand of hair out of her eyes, and at that           exact moment, the girl in the next car moves in the same way.           Mirroring her.                                    Unnerved, Nina slowly lowers her arm. So does the other girl.           Although Nina can't quite see her face, the girl seems           IDENTICAL from Nina's vantage point.           4.                                    The train jerks to a stop as it arrives at a station. Nina           sees the girl head to the exit. She cranes to see her face,           but her view's obscured.                                    The doors slide shut and the train pulls out. Nina watches           the platform whisk by, keeping her eyes peeled, but she           doesn't see the girl.                                                                           6 OMITTED 6                                                            7 EXT. LINCOLN CENTER - DAY 7                                    Nina emerges from the subway station onto a city street.                                    She arrives at the MAJESTIC-LOOKING THEATER, where a few           other BALLERINAS likewise trickle towards the entrance. They           all look strangely similar: slender, carrying shoulder bags,           wearing leggings and loose sweatshirts.                                    She passes a ROW OF POSTERS featuring the company's prima           ballerina, BETH MACINTYRE.                                    Nina looks at them, a little envious, before continuing on to           the STAGE DOOR.                                                            8 INT. SOLOIST DRESSING ROOM - DAY 8                                    Crammed into a single dressing room, Nina and the company's 5           SOLOISTS get ready for rehearsal. Chatting, sewing ribbon           onto shoes, applying makeup, putting band-aids on blisters.                                    Nina removes a new pair of BALLET SHOES, admires them for a           moment, before cutting off the satin toe with scissors.                                    In the background, catty VERONICA and Russian GALINA gossip.                                                   VERONICA           Can't believe she's back.                                                   GALINA           Of course she is.                                                   VERONICA           She can't take a hint? Company's           broke. No one comes to see her           anymore.                                                   SOLOIST 1           No one comes to see ballet period.           5.                                                   VERONICA           That's not true, I heard the Royal           had one of their best seasons yet.                                                   GALINA           He needs to try something new.                                                   VERONICA           No, someone new.                                                   SOLOIST 1           Like who?                                                   VERONICA           Like someone who's not approaching           menopause.                                   They snicker.                                                   NINA           I think it's sad.                                                   VERONICA           What's sad?                                                   NINA           Beth's such an amazing dancer.                                                   GALINA           So's my grand-mother.                                                   NINA           Fonteyn danced into her 50's...                                                   VERONICA                          (ROLLING EYES)           Yeah, we know.                                   Irked, Nina starts POUNDING the shoes against the floor to          soften the toe.                                   Her eyes are drawn to a NEW GIRL standing in the doorway.          Nina pauses to scrutinize her. She wears vampy make-up, hair          down. Dark and sexy.                                                   NEW GIRL           Soloists?                                   Wary, the girls mumble mmm-hmm's and nod.                                    NEW GIRL (CONT'D)           Great.           6.                                    She slinks past the suspicious group of girls and plops down           at an open spot.                                    NEW GIRL (CONT'D)           Fucking got off the wrong stop and           had to hoof it from 79th.                                    Nina exchanges glances with the other girls, taken aback.                                    The new girl notices the looks, smirks to herself and starts           getting ready.                                                            9 INT. LARGE REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 9                                    Nina wears a look of intense concentration as the entire           company warms up, including the pubescent CORPS MEMBERS and a           handful of MALE DANCERS.                                    LEGS, HANDS, and FEET repeat the same movements all around           her, led by a severe BALLET MISTRESS.                                                   BALLET MISTRESS           To the back, fondu, to the back,           plie. Fourth, fourth, and one and           fifth, to the back...           (to a corps member)           Like this. Push it. Why can't you           do this?                                    Using the mirror, Nina monitors her movements carefully. The           mistress surprises her.                                    BALLET MISTRESS (CONT'D)           It needs to be looser. Relax. Let           it flow.                                    Flustered, Nina nods and tries to follow her instruction.                                    Suddenly, the girls around Nina begin stripping off their           sweatshirts and insulated pants.                                    Nina sees that the intense and brooding director of the           company, THOMAS LEROY, has entered the space. He has the           unkept look of an artist. Magnetic and intense.                                    The ballerinas remove their warm-up gear to show off their           bodies.                                    Leroy walks around the room, judging his flock. Smiles and           glances are thrown his way.                                    He goes up to the ballet mistress, takes her hand and kisses           her on the cheek. Even she manages a smile.           7.                                   He heads to the line of soloists, studying them.                                                   LEROY           We all know the story: virginal           girl, pure and sweet, trapped in           the body of a swan. She desires           freedom, but only true love can           break the spell.                                   He taps a dancer on the shoulder, she lights up. He walks,          then taps another. A selection process of some kind.                                   Nina looks nervous, has an inkling of what it means.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Her wish is granted in the form of           a prince.                                   He nears Nina. She sneaks peeks at him, eager and hopeful.          He acknowledges her with a small nod and a smile.                                   But he walks on without tapping her. She deflates.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           But before he can declare his love,           her lustful twin, the Black Swan,           tricks and seduces him.                                   He approaches the New Girl. Nina watches, threatened.                                   But he doesn't tap her either.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Devastated, the White Swan leaps           off a cliff, killing herself. But,           in death, finds freedom.                                   He taps one more soloist and then CLAPS.                                   The music stops and all the girls face him, attentive.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Good morning, company.                                   They respond "Good morning" in nervous, unsure voices.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           We open our season with Swan Lake.           Done to death, I know. But not like           this. We strip it down. Make it           visceral and real.                                   He pauses for effect.           8.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           And a new production needs a new           Swan Queen. A fresh face to present           to the world.                                    Surprised, the soloists glance at each other, trying to keep           their cool.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           But which of you can embody both           swans? The white and the black?                                    Nina prepares for disappointment.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           All the soloists I touched...           Please go to your scheduled           rehearsals this afternoon.                                    The girls are confused.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           And the girls I didn't touch, meet           me in studio B at five.                                    Nina breathes, realizing the girls he didn't tap are the ones           he's selected, purposefully toying with them.                                                            10 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - DAY 10                                    Hidden inside a nook, Nina has her eyes closed, nervously           HUMMING the score to Swan Lake.                                    She makes small motions with her feet and hands, going           through the choreography in her mind. Preparing for the           audition.                                    A loud CRASHING sound snaps her out of it.                                    She goes out into the hallway to investigate.                                    The door to a PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM is halfway open. Nina           cautiously approaches.                                    Inside, she can see someone moving around the room in a fury,           trashing it.                                    Suddenly, the door swings open and BETH MACINTYRE bursts out.                                    She makes brief eye-contact with Nina.                                                   BETH           What?!           9.                                    Nina just shakes her head.                                    Beth scoffs as she slams the door behind her. She clips down           the hall in the opposite direction.                                    Nina waits until she's gone, then moves closer to the door           and peeks inside, curious.                                    She checks to make sure no one's around and quickly enters.                                                            11 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - SAME 11                                    Large and comfortable. Beth's presence is everywhere.           Photographs, clothing, and personal belongings scattered           across the space.                                    Nina looks at herself in the mirror and smiles, imagining how           great it would be...                                    Then she notices a LARGE VASE lying on the floor. The flowers           have been shredded, water everywhere.                                    She moves to the vanity counter and touches Beth's           belongings in reverence. The items are neatly laid out:           ballet supplies, jewelry, and makeup.                                    Her fingers brush a tube of LIPSTICK. She picks it up.                                    Nina slips the lipstick into her bag and exits the room.                                                            12 INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 12                                    In the middle of her audition, Nina dances Odette's Variation           from Act II of the ballet, a frightened look on her face.                                    Although her movement is incredibly precise, there's a           definite vulnerability. Exactly as the White Swan should be:           fear tinged with melancholy.                                    Leroy waves his arm. The music and Nina stop abruptly.                                    He approaches her and, when he gets close, taps on her           sternum with two of his fingers.                                                   LEROY           So Nina, would you like to be the           Swan Queen?                                                   NINA           If you want me to be.                                    He leans in and talks softly so the other girls can't hear.           10.                                                   LEROY           Well, if I was just casting the           White Swan, she'd be yours.                                   She can't help but smile, flattered. He pulls away from her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           But I'm not.                                   He turns to the PIANO PLAYER.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Maestro, Odile's Coda.                                   The piano player rifles through the song book.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Show me your Black Swan, Nina.                                   Nervous, she glances over at Veronica and Galina, who          anxiously await their turn.                                   She takes a few breaths, then looks towards the piano player          and nods.                                   The music begins.                                   Nina dances a few steps, and then launches into the most          difficult and famous part of Swan Lake: The Black Swan's          Coda. It consists of 32 consecutive fouettes (spins).                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Come on, not so controlled.                                   The music builds in intensity, she pushes herself into the          next turn.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Seduce us! Not just the Prince, but           the court, the audience, the entire           world! The fouettes are like a           spider spinning her web. Come on!           Attack it! Attack it!                                   Leroy runs his hand through his hair, dismayed.                                   A look of worry spreads across Nina's face. Knows she's          blowing it.                                   The door CLANGS open and throws Nina's focus completely. She          stumbles, several spins short of finishing.           11.                                    The New Girl obliviously marches into the room, listening to           an iPod.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)                          (SARCASTIC)           Good of you to join us.                                    The New Girl notices everyone staring and pulls out her           earphones to talk.                                                   NEW GIRL           Sorry.                                                   LEROY           Girls, this is Lily. Straight off           the plane from San Francisco. She's           filling Rebecca's old spot.                                    LILY gives a small wave. Nina eyes her with scorn as she           catches her breath.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Go on, get warmed up.                                                   LILY           I'm good.                                    Lily starts stripping off her layers, revealing her lithe           body. On her back, she has a TATTOO OF LILIES.                                                   NINA           Should I go again?                                                   LEROY           (distracted by Lily)           I've seen enough. Thank you, Nina.                                    She looks down, getting his meaning.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Okay, Veronica. Your turn. The           White Swan's variation...                                    Furious, Nina marches out of the room.                                                            A13 INT. THEATER BATHROOM STALL - NIGHT A13                                    Nina stands up from a kneeled position and flushes the           toilet. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and           exits the stall.                                                                           13 OMITTED 13           11A.                                                  14 OMITTED 14            12.                                                                                                               15 EXT. STREET - NIGHT 15                                    Nina walks along a quiet side street. She clutches her           jacket, for warmth and comfort.                                    Her CELL PHONE starts ringing. She digs it out of her bag and           checks the CALLER ID: MOM. She silences it and puts it away.                                    Up ahead, she sees the sidewalk dead end at a construction           site, and detour into an enclosed PASSAGEWAY beneath the           scaffolding.                                    Nina slows, a little scared, but decides to push on.                                    The passageway is dark. The temporary lighting dim and           flickering.                                    She walks quickly, trying to get to the other side.                                    She hears the sound of soft FOOTSTEPS approaching. She           stops, and the other FOOTSTEPS stop.                                    She looks up and sees the faint outline of a SLENDER WOMAN           standing there, almost ghostlike.                                    Nina starts walking again, keeping her head down, and the           other woman continues as well.           13.                                    As they pass each other, Nina glances at the woman's face and           discovers...                                    The woman looks EXACTLY LIKE HER.                                    But the moment passes as the woman continues walking.                                    Nina stares after her, perturbed.                                    Her cell phone starts RINGING again, piercing the silence.           Nina continues out, ignoring the phone.                                                            16 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - NIGHT 16                                    Nina enters and locks the deadbolt and chain-lock behind her.                                    She turns and is startled to see Erica standing right there.                                                   ERICA           How did it go?                                    Nina looks at her confused. Erica helps take off her coat.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           You were late, so I called Susie in           the office. An audition?! Can't           believe he just sprung that on you.                                    Nina nods.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           So?                                                   NINA           It went okay.                                                   ERICA           Just okay?                                    Erica hangs up her coat, turns and sees Nina tearing up.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Darling?                                    The tears start falling now.                                    Erica goes to her and wraps her in an embrace.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Shhh, shhh, tell me what happened.           14.                                   17 INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT 17                                    Nina lies on the floor, stewing. Her legs straight in the air           to drain the lactic acid in her muscles.                                    ERICA (O.S.)                          (FROM KITCHEN)           I told them it doesn't matter how           talented their daughter is, if she           misses any more classes, she's out.           She forgets half of what I teach           her, and I waste time catching her           up. It's ridiculous.                                    Nina sits up and retrieves a pair of point shoes from her           bag. She considers them for a moment, then starts to put them           on.                                    She stands, takes a breath, and does a single spin, testing           the waters.                                    She takes a breath and spins again, then again, then again.           Each spin is punctuated by a jab of her foot into the floor.                                    THWACK, THWACK. THWACK.                                    She jabs her toe down, hard...                                                   NINA           Ow!                                    She winces in pain and automatically grabs her foot.                                    ERICA (O.S.)           Everything alright?                                                   NINA           I'm fine!                                    Nina leans her back against the mirror and removes her shoe.           Her right big toenail has split, oozing blood.                                    Nina breathes through the pain and puts her shoe back on.                                    She reassumes the position, takes a couple breaths, and           starts spinning again.                                    Her toe jabs into the floor. She winces a little with pain,           but keeps pushing.                                    Her face grows more determined, focused. 20, 21, 22 spins....                                    She starts to look powerful, willing herself to succeed.           14A.                                   At the end of the 32nd spin, Nina jabs her foot down hard.                                   She's done it!                                   Nina looks at herself in the mirror, glazed in sweat, a          slight smile of satisfaction.           15.                                   18 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 18                                    Nina sits on the edge of the bed, as Erica douses some GAUZE           with PEROXIDE and dabs it on the split toenail. Nina reacts           to the sting.                                                   ERICA           Shhh. Almost done...You're working           yourself too hard. We all have off           days.                                                   NINA           If that girl hadn't barged in.                                                   ERICA           I'm sure she didn't mean to.           Remember when you started? If I           hadn't taken you to each of your           classes, you would have been           completely lost.                                                   NINA           I'm gonna talk to him. Tell him I           finished it.                                                   ERICA           He knows you can do the coda. It           won't convince him one way or the           other.                                    Annoyed, Nina lies down, looking away from her mother.                                                    ERICA (CONT'D)            Oh, sweetheart, I know it's            disappointing. When you start to            get older, there's all this            ridiculous pressure. God knows, I            understand.                                     Erica squeezes some arnica gel into her palm and massages it           into Nina's calves.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           But it's alright. No matter what.            You'll probably get to dance the           Pas de Quatre again. That's such a           wonderful part. Or maybe he'll make           you a Big Swan. Either way, you'll           shine.                                                   NINA           I know, mom.           15A.                                   Erica removes Nina's EARRINGS, then opens a JEWELRY BOX          sitting on the night stand and drops them inside. A TOY          BALLERINA spins to TINNY MUSIC.                                   Nina gets under the covers. Erica tucks her in and sits down          on the edge of the bed.           16.                                                   ERICA           Everything will be better in the           morning. It always is.                                    She strokes Nina's hair, humming along to the music.                                    Nina watches the ballerina spin and spin with a determined           stare.                                                                           19 OMITTED 19                                                                           20 OMITTED 20                                                            21 INT. SUBWAY - DAY 21                                    Nina applies the lipstick she stole from Beth, using the side           window as a mirror. The jerky motion of the train makes it           difficult, but she manages.                                                            22 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - DAY 22                                    Nina waits anxiously outside Leroy's office.                                    She hears someone approach, looks up and sees Leroy coming           down the hall.                                    She puts on a nervous smile. He doesn't reciprocate.                                                   LEROY           Yes, Nina?                                                   NINA           Do you have a minute?                                    He doesn't answer, just opens the door to the office and           walks in.                                    She takes a breath and then follows.                                                            23 INT. LEROY'S OFFICE - SAME 23                                    Nina closes the door and faces the cozy, dark space. Large           couch, posters from the ballet on the wall--several featuring           Beth.                                    Leroy lights a cigarette, quietly studying her and not making           this easy. He takes a drag, and exhales.           17.                                                   NINA           If now's not a good time...                                                   LEROY           Now's fine, what is it?                                                   NINA           I just wanted to tell you, I           practiced the coda last night, and           I did it.                                                   LEROY           How thrilling for you.                                                   NINA                          (THROWN)           Well...                                                   LEROY           Okay, Nina, listen, I honestly           don't care about your technique,           you should know that by now.                                                   NINA           Yes, but-                                                   LEROY           Anyway, I've already chosen           Veronica, so...                                   He lifts his hands in the air, "there you go."                                                   NINA                          (DEVASTATED)           I see.                                   She makes a move towards the door.                                                   LEROY           You're not going to try and change           my mind?                                   She looks back at him, uncertain.                                   Leroy nonchalantly stubs out his cigarette.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           You must have thought it was           possible, coming to find me like           this.                                   He pauses, looks her up and down as if trying to decipher          her.           18.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Why are you here? All dolled up?                                                   NINA                          (UNSURE)           I came to ask you to give me the           part.                                                   LEROY           That all?                                   She doesn't know what he means. He comes around his desk and          approaches her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Truth is, when I look at you, all I           see is the White Swan. Yes, you're           beautiful, fragile, fearful. Ideal           casting. But the Black Swan...it's           a hard fucking job to dance both.                                                   NINA           I can be the Black Swan too.                                                   LEROY           Really? She's hungry, volatile. In           four years, every time you dance, I           see you obsess over getting each           move exactly right, but I never see           you lose yourself.                                   Insecure, she looks like she wants to run out of the room.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           All that discipline, for what?                                                   NINA           I want to be perfect.                                   He laughs.                                                   LEROY           Perfection's not just about           control. It's also about letting           go. Surprising the audience.           Surprising yourself. Transcendence.                                   He considers her for a moment.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Very few have it in them.                                                   NINA                          I-           18A.                                   Without warning, he slowly plants a kiss on her mouth.                                   It lasts for a moment, but he suddenly jerks away.                                                   LEROY           Ow! Fuck!                                   He touches his lip, stunned.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           You bit me.           19.                                    She's too scared to respond.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)                          (AMUSED)           I can't believe it. That fucking           hurt.                                    He goes to the mirror to check for damage. He glances back at           Nina.                                                   NINA                          (MUMBLED)           Sorry.                                    She quickly leaves, shell-shocked.                                                            24 INT. LARGE REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 24                                    The company stretch and go through their usual warm-up           routine, a tension in the air. The casting decision still           uncertain.                                    Nina touches her lips, thinking about the encounter. Then           looks over at Veronica, knowing the good news in store.           Veronica notices. Nina looks away.                                                   VERONICA                          (IRKED)           What?                                    Nina shakes her head.                                    A sudden energy sweeps the room, and she hears the sound of           scuffling feet and whispering. "It's up." "She just posted           it." "C'mon."                                    The dancers start exiting into the hallway. Veronica turns to           follow.                                                   NINA           Veronica?                                    Veronica turns around. It's hard, but Nina decides to be a           good loser.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Congratulations.                                    Nina subtly glances at the exiting girls and Veronica           immediately gets it.                                    She excitedly pushes through the crowd of girls, wanting to           see for herself.           20.                                    Knowing the outcome already, Nina continues stretching in the           deserted space, resigned to her fate. She finishes, grabs           her belongings and walks out.                                                            25 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - SAME 25                                    A crowd of dancers surround the bulletin board, jostling to           get a look.                                    Nina starts walking down the hall in the opposite direction.                                    Behind her, she can hear a small commotion and then:                                    VERONICA (O.S.)           Why did you tell me that?                                    She turns and sees Veronica, her face flushed with anger.                                                   VERONICA (CONT'D)           Your idea of a joke?                                                   NINA                          (CONFUSED)           What?                                                   VERONICA           Fuck you.                                    Veronica storms away.                                    The group of girls stares at Nina, making her very self-           conscious.                                    Nina tentatively approaches the bulletin board, to see what           Veronica's outburst was all about.                                    First a few, then more and more of the girls smile at her.           They make room for her as she pushes through.                                    She finally gets to the CASTING NOTICE, finds "Swan Queen"                          AND UNDERNEATH:                                                   NINA SAYERS                                    Stunned, she turns around to face the mass of ballerinas.                                    She sees Lily eyeing her with a flat expression, which turns           into a smile to mask her disappointment.                                    The other girls start congratulating and hugging Nina, some           more sincerely than others.           21.                                   26 INT. THEATER BATHROOM - DAY 26                                    Nina bursts in through the door and heads directly for one of           the stalls.                                    She locks herself in for privacy and dials a number on her           CELL PHONE. She holds it to her ear, anxiously waiting for           the person to answer.                                                   NINA           Hey...Everything's fine...He picked           me, mommy.                                    She waits for a response.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Did you hear me?...Yes, I'm going           to be the Swan Queen.                                    Nina laughs at her mother's response and can't help but start           crying.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I'll be home soon, okay? I just had           to tell you.                                    Nina hangs up and the tears really start flowing. She's           dreamt of this for so long, it's almost too much to bear.                                    She wipes the tears off with the back of her hand and pulls           herself together. She comes out of the stall...                                    Horrified to discover "WHORE" written on the mirror in RED           LIPSTICK.                                    Nina looks around the bathroom, to make sure she's alone.                                    She snags a paper towel and wipes off the insult, smearing           the mirror with red streaks.                                                            27 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - AFTERNOON 27                                    Nina unlocks the door to the apartment.                                                   NINA           Mom?                                    Nina looks around, puzzled she isn't there.                                                            28 INT. ERICA'S BEDROOM - LATER 28                                    Nina opens the door and pokes her head in.           22.                                    But Erica's not in there either. Nina glances at the walls.                                    Where several homemade PAINTINGS hang, all of the same           subject: Nina as a young girl, posing in a tutu. On a desk,           the ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH is clipped to a painting in progress.                                    Out of the corner of her eye, one of the portraits seems to           shift. Nina turns towards it, but the painting's now           perfectly still.                                    Unsettled, Nina withdraws.                                                            29 INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - NIGHT 29                                    Post-shower, Nina's fuzzy reflection stares back in a steam           covered mirror.                                    Nina takes her hand and wipes a streak across, to see herself           more clearly.                                    She looks nervous. The enormity of what's in front of her           setting in.                                    She turns side-to-side, scrutinizing her body. She lifts her           arm and pinches the skin to check her weight.                                    She notices a small cluster of RED BUMPS on her shoulder. A           small RASH.                                    She feels the bumps with her fingers, bothered.                                    She checks the same place on her other shoulder.                                    There's no rash, just faint streaks of SCAR TISSUE.                                    Nina slides the hamper in front of the door to block it.                                    In the mirror now, one of the bumps is scratched and           bleeding.                                    Nina quickly wipes the blood off with her finger.                                    The sound of the front door opening steals her attention.                                                            30 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - NIGHT 30                                    Nina exits the bathroom wearing a robe.                                    In the kitchen, she sees a CAKE with a lit SPARKLER sitting           on the table. Her mother smiles anxiously.           23.                                                   ERICA           My daughter, the Swan Queen.                                    She opens her arms and Nina falls into a hug.                                    She looks at the cake. It has a ballerina sketched with           frosting. Nina hides her disdain.                                                   NINA           Oh, mom.                                                   ERICA           It's our favorite, vanilla with           strawberry filling.                                    Erica picks up a knife and slices into the cake.                                                   NINA           Just a little piece.                                    Erica ignores her and starts cutting a very large piece.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           That's way too much.                                                   ERICA           It's a celebration.                                                   NINA           My stomach's still in knots.                                                   ERICA                          (OFFENDED)           Fine then.                                    Erica grabs the whole cake and heads towards the trash.                                                   NINA                          (GUILTY)           Mom, don't. I'm sorry.                                    Erica hesitates, but returns. She sets the cake back down.                                                   ERICA           I'm just so proud of you.                                    Erica lifts the slice onto a plate.                                                   NINA           It looks yummy.                                                                           31 OMITTED 31           24.                                   32 INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 32                                    First day in the new role, Nina stretches alone.                                    Muffled sounds of other ballerinas chatting and giggling           drift in from the large rehearsal space. Makes Nina feel a           little isolated.                                    DAVID (O.S.)           Hey there...                                    Nina turns and sees DAVID, the high-cheeked, cocky dancer           playing Prince Siegfried.                                                   DAVID (CONT'D)           It is so full, where do I stand.                                    It is his version of a joke. Nina politely laughs.                                                   NINA           Yeah...good luck finding a spot.                                                   DAVID           I am David.                                                   NINA           I know you are. I'm Nina.                                                   DAVID           Yes. Here we go, huh?                                    She nods, nervous.                                                            33 INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - LATER 33                                    David dances around the space, miming a hunt with a cross-           bow.                                    Nina enters, stretches her body to illustrate her           transformation into human, then sees David and acts spooked.           25.                                    She dances away from him, a scared look on her face,           undulating her arms to resemble a bird's flapping.                                    David gives chase, but Nina spins out of his grasp,           disentangles from him.                                    But he eventually snags her, and they come very close           together.                                                   LEROY           Okay!                                    The music stops. Nina breaks out of character and looks at           Leroy, anxious for his reaction.                                    The Russian ballet mistress nods and smiles, clearly pleased.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Okay, Nina. Very good.                                    Nina smiles, relieved. Leroy hops out of his chair and           approaches.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           But I knew the White Swan wouldn't           be a problem. The real work will be           your metamorphosis into the Black           Swan.                                                   NINA           Okay.                                                   LEROY           I saw a flash of her yesterday. Get           ready to show me more of that bite.                                    He gives her an impish smirk. She looks down, embarrassed.                                                            34 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - DAY 34                                    Nina takes a drink from the water fountain. She hears music           emanating from the large rehearsal studio.                                    Curious, she walks to the open doorway and stops to watch.                                    CORPS MEMBERS and a few soloists form two lines on both sides           of the room. In the middle, Veronica dances along with Lily.                                    Nina pays close attention to Lily, sizing her up. Her dancing           is explosive, exudes sex.                                    LEROY (O.S.)           Watch the way she moves...           26.                                    Leroy has snuck up behind Nina at the doorway and gets very           close to her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Imprecise, but sensual. She's not           faking it. Pay attention.                                    Lily makes a small mistake, but cracks up laughing, amused           rather than bothered by her blunder.                                    Nina stares at her, attracted and threatened.                                                            A35 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - DAY A35                                    The company's administrator, SUSIE, shows Nina into the room.                                                   SUSIE           You share with Beth from now on, so           be considerate.                                                   NINA           Thanks, Susie.                                    Awed, Nina looks around the room. She scans Beth's           photographs and personal belongings, and lands on a large           bouquet of FRESH FLOWERS.                                                   SUSIE           Those are for you. From Mr. Leroy.                                                   NINA           Beautiful.                                    Susie leaves.                                    Nina pulls a card out from the flowers and reads. A faint           smile curls her lips.                                    She opens her shoulder bag and removes a SMALL SATCHEL. She           pulls out a pair of DIAMOND STUD EARRINGS and puts them on.                                                            35 INT. PATRON OF THE ARTS APARTMENT - NIGHT 35                                    Leroy pulls Nina through a fundraiser gala, filled with rich           looking PATRONS and some DANCERS from the company.                                    Bewildered, Nina takes in her high-society surroundings,           getting the occasional curious glance as she passes.                                    Leroy grabs a couple CHAMPAGNE glasses off a WAITER'S tray.           He hands a glass to Nina with a smile.           27.                                   He leads her up a staircase to a landing that overlooks the          party.                                                   LEROY           Ready to be thrown to the wolves?           We need their cash, so smile.                                    She smiles, as instructed.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.                                   The crowd turns their gaze towards them. All eyes on her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           As I stand here tonight, I see so           many familiar faces. Your            contribution to the art we all           cherish profoundly goes straight to           my heart and I am very grateful.                                   Polite applause.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Let me begin with a very important           announcement. You all have had the           chance to be enchanted,           transported, sometimes devastated           by the performances of this true           artist of our company. She has been           an exceptional inspiration to my           work, a role model to our dancers           and a deeply satisfying presence on           our stage. You all know who I am           talking about...Beth Macintyre                                   More applause. Nervous, Nina unconsciously picks at her          cuticles.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           As we all know, every great career           comes to an end. Beth is retiring           at the end of the season. She will           be giving her farewell performance           as Melpomene, the role she           originated in my first ballet.                                   People start whispering, stunned by the news. Nina sees Beth          in the crowd, giving a sad smile to the surrounding guests.          Trying to remain dignified.           28.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           She will be greatly missed, but she           will always be remembered. My           little princess.                                    Amidst the mummering, Nina sees Beth quietly sneak out of the           crowd and out the front door. Leroy quickly covers.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           But as we bid adieu to one star, we           welcome another!                                    He looks at Nina. She stops picking her nails, self-           conscious.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           As you know, we open our season           with my new version of Swan Lake.           Taking the role of our new Swan           Queen is the exquisite Ms. Nina           Sayers.                                    Restrained APPLAUSE.                                    Nina steps forward and curtseys. Someone seems to GIGGLE at           her. Insecure, Nina glances towards the source and sees Lily           flirting with a RICH GENT, uninterested in the official           proceedings.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Soon you will have the pleasure of           seeing her perform, tonight we           raise a glass. To all of you, to           Nina, to Beth, to beauty!                                    He downs his drink and the crowd follows suit.                                                            36 INT. LIVING ROOM, PATRON OF THE ARTS APARTMENT - LATER 36                                    PARTY GUESTS surround Nina and Leroy, trying to meet the           company's newest star. Nina basks in all the attention.                                                   LEROY           Dr. Brinson and his lovely wife,           Ellen, tonight's sponsors.                                    She shakes DR. BRINSON'S hand and curtseys to MRS. BRINSON.                                                   NINA           Such a beautiful event.           29.                                    MRS. BRINSON           Not as beautiful as you, dear.                                    Nina demurs. They're replaced by another HUSBAND and WIFE.                                                   LEROY           And this is Mr. and Mrs. Stein.                                    Nina repeats the pleasantries, this time noticing that one of           her cuticles is bleeding. She awkwardly pulls her hand away.                                    Leroy leans in and whispers in her ear.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Relax, you're doing great.                                                   CUT TO:                                                            37 INT. BATHROOM - LATER 37                                    Nina washes her hands. She looks at herself in the mirror and           takes a deep breath.                                    Someone KNOCKS on the door.                                                   NINA           Just a second.                                    She turns off the water and wipes her damp hands on the back           of her neck, trying to cool herself.                                    She checks her finger. No blood, but there's a HANGNAIL.                                    Nina takes hold of the small flap and tries to yank it off.                                    Accidentally tearing a strip of skin from the nail to her           second knuckle.                                    More KNOCKING startles her.                                    LILY (O.S.)           Come on! I'm about to burst!                                    Nina quickly balls up the peeled skin and throws it away.                                    She opens the door.           30.                                   Lily pushes in.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Hey! Look who it is.                                   Lily closes the door behind her and locks it.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           I'm Lily, by the way. Don't think           we've officially met.                                                   NINA                          (RATTLED)           Nina.                                                   LILY           Our New Swan Queen! That is so           huge! You must be freaking out.                                                   NINA           Yeah...                                   Lily slides her PANTIES out from under her dress and puts          them in her clutch.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I should probably get back.                                                   LILY           Stay. Keep me company.                                   Lily starts to refresh her makeup.                                   Nina stays put for a second, uncertain.                                                   NINA           Excuse me.           31.                                    She opens the door and steps out, where she's immediately met           by Leroy.                                    LEROY (O.S.)           Ah, there you are.                                    Lily closes the door behind her.                                                            38 EXT. UPPER EAST SIDE APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT 38                                    Leroy escorts Nina out. It's a couple hours later and she's           tipsy. She stumbles a little and grabs onto Leroy.                                                   NINA           I think I drank too much. All those           toasts...                                                   LEROY           You did well.                                                   NINA           Really?                                                   LEROY           They tried to eat you alive, but           here you are, in one piece.                                                   NINA                          (MELTING)           I guess.                                                   LEROY           I'll get you a cab. Where you           going?                                                   NINA           Oh, Upper West Side.                                                   LEROY           Why don't you come to my place           first? It's on the way.                                    She gives him a coy glance, reading between the lines and           hiding her excitement.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           For a drink. Unless you've had           enough.                                                   NINA           No, that's good.                                    He starts to look for a cab.           32.                                    MRS. BRINSON (O.S.)           Thomas!!!                                   They turn, see Mrs. Brinson, the host of the party, standing          at the door.                                    MRS. BRINSON (CONT'D)           You need to say hello to Karen           Halloway before you disappear.           She's from Texas. Correction: she           is Texas.                                                   LEROY                          (TO NINA)           A minute more of ass-kissing. Wait           here.                                   He runs back inside to say his goodbyes.                                   Nina smiles after him, giddy and anxious.                                   She notices a slender figure watching her from the shadows of          the adjoining doorway. In the dark, she looks like Nina.                                                   NINA                          (CONCERNED)           Hello?                                   Spotted, the figure backs up, seeming to disappear.                                   Nina cautiously approaches, but can't see anyone.                                   She gets closer to the doorway...and someone JUMPS OUT,          startling her.                                   It's Beth, drunk and shivering. Cheeks streaked with mascara.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Beth? What are you doing out here?                                   Beth stares her down. Nina backs up, nervously grabbing her          earlobe.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I was crushed to hear that you're           leaving.                                                   BETH           What'd you do to get the role?           33.                                   Nina shakes her head, confused.                                                   BETH (CONT'D)           He always said you were a frigid           little girl.                                   Her words needle Nina, too close to the truth.                                                   BETH (CONT'D)           So what did you do to make him           change his mind? Suck his cock?                                                   NINA           Some of us don't need to do that.                                   Nina's struck a nerve. Beth starts to come at her.                                                   BETH           You fucking little whore.                                                   NINA                          (GUILTY)           Beth, I'm-                                    LEROY (O.S.)           What's going on?                                   They both turn to see Leroy returned.                                                   BETH           I need to talk to you.                                                   LEROY           You're drunk. You should go home.                                                   BETH           Don't do that! Don't just dismiss           me!                                                   LEROY                          (EXASPERATED)           Poor, poor little princess. Try to           hold it together.                                                   BETH           I'm going to drop by later, okay? I           have something I want to give you.                                                   LEROY                          (IGNORING HER)           Come on.                                   He puts his arm around Nina, starts to lead her away.           34.                                    BETH (O.S.)           A token of my appreciation.                                    He ignores her and raises his arm to hail a cab. As they           enter the cab, Beth calls after them.                                                   BETH (CONT'D)           Make the most of it Nina.                                    Through the cab window Nina looks at Beth, troubled by her           words.                                                            39 INT. LEROY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 39                                    Tasteful but spare loft. Modern and expensive furniture.           Large windows.                                    Nina stands alone, looking around his inner sanctum, wide-           eyed.                                    She explores the pieces of art, the furniture. She touches           some of it, in awe.                                    LEROY (O.S.)           Here.                                    She turns, finds Leroy holding out yet another flute of           champagne. For himself, a scotch.                                                   NINA           Thanks.                                    She looks up at him, expecting him to make a move. Instead,           he walks away, and sits in a chair. He gestures for her to           sit as well.                                    Confused, she sits across from him, alone on the large couch.                                    He takes an unceremonious sip of his drink and studies her.           Uncomfortable, she takes a drink as well.                                                   LEROY           I thought it'd be good to talk           about the role. Ground us a little.                                                   NINA           Yes.                                                   LEROY           The better we get to know each           other, the more productive we'll           be. I don't want there to be any           boundaries between us.           35.                                                   NINA           Me neither.                                                   LEROY           Good. So, do you have a boyfriend?                                   She's caught off guard by his question and just smiles          uncomfortably. He waits for an answer. Finally she manages a          reply.                                                   NINA           No...                                                   LEROY           Have you had many in the past?                                                   NINA           A few. But no one serious.                                                   LEROY           You're not a virgin, are you?                                   Her expression sours at this line of questioning. She shakes          her head.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Then there's nothing to be           embarrassed about, is there?           (she shakes her head)           And you enjoy making love?                                                   NINA           Excuse me?                                                   LEROY           Sex. Do you enjoy it?                                   Blushing and feeling awkward, she takes a sip of champagne.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           We need to be able to talk about           this.                                                   NINA           Okay.                                                   LEROY           So?                                   Nina looks at him, embarrassed, and shrugs.                                   He smirks, and joins her on the couch.           36.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           I have a homework assignment for           you.                                                   NINA           Yes?                                                   LEROY           Go home and masturbate. Live a           little.                                    She blanches, scandalized. He finishes off his scotch and           stands.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           It's late. Lots of work tomorrow.           The doorman will find you a cab.                                    He leaves her alone in the living room.                                                            40 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 40                                    Nina looks at herself in the mirror, removing bobbie-pins, as           Erica folds clothing and puts it away.                                                   ERICA           Sounds like quite an evening. Wish           I could have been there.                                                   NINA           You know I asked.                                                   ERICA           I know, Susie told me. Guess he           wanted you all to himself.                                                   NINA           That's not why.                                    Erica looks adoringly at Nina's reflection in the mirror.                                                   ERICA           I don't blame him.                                    Erica starts to remove Nina's DIAMOND EARRINGS, but pauses.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Where did you get these?                                                   NINA           They're fake.           37.                                                   ERICA           Fooled me.                                    Erica removes the earrings, then walks behind Nina to unzip           her. Nina faces her.                                                   NINA           I can do it.                                                   ERICA           Turn.                                    Nina turns back around, reticent.                                    ERICA (O.S.) (CONT'D)           He must have been at your side all           night, showing you off.                                    Erica finishes unzipping the red dress and sees Nina's           shoulder.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Oh Nina...                                    Remembering, Nina pulls away from her.                                                   NINA           It's just a rash.                                    Erica gruffly pulls Nina to the mirror and turns her around.                                                   ERICA           What are you talking about?                                    Nina checks her reflection and sees the RASH, red and           irritated from scratching.                                                   NINA           It was worse a couple days ago.           It's already getting better.                                                   ERICA           You've been scratching again.                                                   NINA                          NO-                                    Erica yanks her out of the room.                                                            41 INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - NIGHT 41                                    Nina sits on the toilet, stripped to her underwear. She does           her best to cover herself.           38.                                    Erica finishes dabbing her back with HYDROGEN PEROXIDE and           replaces the cap on the bottle.                                    She pulls out NAIL CLIPPERS and cuts Nina's nails down to           their base. Each CLICK makes Nina twitch.                                                   ERICA           I thought you'd outgrown this           disgusting habit.(click) You           haven't done it for years. (click)                                                   NINA           Mom, please.                                    Erica grabs Nina's other hand.                                                   ERICA           It's the role, isn't it? All this           pressure... I was worried it'd be           too much.                                    Nina stares at her, seething.                                                            42 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - LATER 42                                    Nina crawls into bed, avoiding her mother's eyes.                                                   ERICA           Don't be mad at me. You know I love           you, you know I want what's best.           But we have to take care of you.                                    Nina doesn't respond.                                    Erica opens the JEWELRY BOX and the tinny music begins           playing.                                    She hums and starts to stroke Nina's hair.                                    Nina tries to brush her hand away.                                    But Erica brings it back and keeps stroking.                                                            43 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - MORNING 43                                    Nina lies wide awake after a restless night.                                    She slowly reaches down under the covers, down between her           legs, to complete Leroy's "homework assignment."                                    She closes her eyes and starts to maneuver.           39.                                    She suddenly hears a RUSTLING sound and a short SNORE.                                    She freezes and opens her eyes. She slowly sits up in bed and           sees Erica SLEEPING on a chair in the corner of the room.                                    Nina glares at her.                                                            44 INT. LARGE REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 44                                    Nina waits her turn as a row of DANCERS perform grand jetes           diagonally across the room.                                    She watches Veronica perform her leaps. She rejoins the           group, giving Nina a nasty stare.                                    Nina avoids it, looking towards Lily, who gives her a small           smile.                                    Just as Nina's turn arrives, a panicked YOUNG CORPS DANCER           rushes in and makes a beeline for the severe ballet mistress.                                    Nina takes one leap and then stops dancing, sensing           something's wrong.                                    The corps dancer whispers into the ballet mistress' ear. A           look of shock on the mistress' face.                                    The dancer collapses into the older woman's arms.                                    The piano music trickles to a halt.                                    Nina exchanges glances with some of the other dancers.                                    First a few, then more dancers approach the two women,           wanting to find out what's happened.                                    Nina hangs back, filled with a sinking feeling.                                                            45 EXT. LINCOLN CENTER FOUNTAIN - DAY 45                                    Nina sits as Leroy, worse for the wear, stares at the jets of           water.                                                   NINA           What happened?           40.                                                   LEROY           She walked into the street, got hit           by a car.                                                   NINA           Oh my god...                                                   LEROY           I'm sure she did it on purpose.                                                   NINA           How do you know?                                                   LEROY           Everything Beth ever did came from           within. From some dark impulse.           It's what could make her so           thrilling to watch. Even perfect at           times. But also destructive.                                    Nina hesitates, but has to ask.                                                   NINA           Was it right after we saw her?                                                   LEROY           It's not your problem. This has           nothing to do with you.                                    She looks away, not so sure.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Nina, don't let yourself be           distracted. Dance is not           immortalized like music, poetry or           art. It lives for now. For this           moment only. And this is your           moment.                                    She attempts a nod.                                                            A46 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - DAY A46                                    Beth's belongings have already been packed up and cleared.           Guilt-ridden, Nina tries to get ready.                                    She picks up her duffel bag, and removes her SATCHEL. She           unpacks its contents onto the counter: needle and thread,           cigarettes, a makeup compact, and the tube of lipstick.                                    She looks over at the vase of flowers. A few have wilted.                                    She pulls them out to make the bouquet look fresh again.           41.                                   46 INT. HOSPITAL - DAY 46                                    Nina exits the elevator with a BROWN SHOPPING BAG. She walks           down a stark hallway and approaches Beth's hospital room.                                    Members of BETH'S FAMILY surround the bed, blocking Beth from           view.                                    Nina considers going in, but shyly sulks past, drawing the           attention of an OLDER NURSE.                                                   OLDER NURSE           You can go in.                                                   NINA           It's okay.                                    The older nurse gives her a skeptical glance and continues on           her rounds.                                    Nina walks a little further and leans against the wall to           wait.                                    She hears the sound of shuffling feet, looks over, and sees           the group of people exit the room and walk down the hall,           comforting one another.                                    Nina steps out from hiding and goes inside.                                                            47 INT. HOSPITAL ROOM- DAY 47                                    Beth is bandaged and unconscious, attached to MACHINES.                                    Nina stands at a distance, too intimidated to approach at           first.                                    She looks around the room. It is lined with large, EXPENSIVE-           LOOKING BOUQUETS.                                    She removes the flowers Leroy gave her from the brown bag,           and sets them next to the others.                                    Nina slowly approaches Beth's bedside.                                    Beth's face is heavily wrapped with bandages. Only her closed           eyes and pale lips can be seen.                                    She scans down her body, sees a sliver of her thigh, purple           with bruises.                                    Curious, Nina lifts the top edge of the blanket and peeks           underneath.           42.                                    The legs are bloated and horribly bruised, pierced with large           pins to reset the shattered bones.                                    She looks lower and lower, and discovers MAGGOTS feeding on           her ankles.                                    Nina turns away, confronted by the Older Nurse.                                                   OLDER NURSE           What are you doing?!                                    Nina doesn't have an answer. She just stumbles out the door.                                                            A48 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT A48                                    Nina steps out of her apartment into the dim hallway, lugging           a bag of trash.                                    She notices some WOODEN DEBRIS from an apartment renovation           sitting near the trash chute.                                    Nina drops the trash bag in the chute, then picks up a piece           of BROKEN WOOD.                                    She considers it for a moment, and hides it inside the sleeve           of her sweatshirt.                                                            B48 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - LATER B48                                    Nina quietly steps inside and heads towards her bedroom.                                    Through Erica's open bedroom door, Nina can see Erica busily           sewing ribbon onto pointe shoes, humming to herself.                                    Nina quietly slips back inside her room.                                    She removes the wood piece and jams it between the door           closet, creating a makeshift doorjamb                                    She tests it. Holds pretty well.                                    She hears a creek. FOOTSTEPS approach. She removes the wood           and sticks it inside her dresser, not ready just yet.                                    She quickly lies down on her bed and waits to be tucked in.                                    The door SQUEAKS open, and Nina looks towards it.           42A.                                   48A INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 48A                                    Nina, David, and the dancer playing ROTHBART rehearse the           Black Swan and Prince Siegfried's Pas De Deux from Act 3.                                    David lifts her, then sets her down, and they lean-in towards           each other, almost kissing.                                                   LEROY           No, no, not so stiff. Don't be           scared of him.                                    She pulls away from David, not at all coyly. Leroy exhales,           frustrated.           43-46.                                   48B INT. LARGE REHEARSAL SPACE - ANOTHER DAY 48B                                    Nina and David dance the next part of the section, looking           more worn out.                                                   LEROY           Forget about control. I want to see           passion.                                    She still looks tense, not getting it.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Let it out!                                                            48C INT. LARGE REHEARSAL SPACE - ANOTHER DAY 48C                                    Nina practices with an OLDER BALLET MISTRESS. She           demonstrates a movement, and Nina mimics her. The mistress           scrutinizes, unimpressed.                                                            A49 INT. PHYSICAL THERAPIST'S OFFICE - ANOTHER DAY A49                                    Nina is worked over by a PHYSICAL THERAPIST. Every joint and           muscle aches, but Nina breathes through the pain.                                                            49A INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - YET ANOTHER DAY 49A                                    Nina and David finish the section, completely soaked with           sweat.                                    They look at Leroy, heaving breaths.                                                   LEROY           David, answer me this question: are           you interested in fucking her?                                    David snickers, embarrassed, shakes his head.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           No, of course not. No one would be.                                    Leroy comes face to face with her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Nina, your Black Swan still looks           no different than your White Swan.           She's's just as...frigid.                                   49B Suddenly, the lights turn off, throwing them into total 49B           darkness.           43-46A.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Fuck!                                    Leroy angrily marches to the door and whips it open.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           (to someone in hall)           Hey! We're still working in here.           Lights back on.                                    There's a momentary pause, and then the lights return.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Thank you!           (to David, Piano Player)           Okay, you guys can go. Thank you           for your patience.                          (TO NINA)           You stay.                                    David gives her an insinuating glance, then shakes his head.           Very used to Leroy's "methods."                                                   DAVID           Have fun.                                    David and the Piano Player leave them alone.                                   49C Leroy approaches Nina and takes her hands in his. 49C                                                   LEROY           I'll be the Prince.                                    Made nervous by his touch, she nods.                                    He walks behind her and puts his hands on her waist.                                    He starts humming the score. And then they begin.                                    They do a series of lifts and spins, Leroy bracing her.                                    He lets go, she moves away from him.                                                   LEROY           Use each finger, your face, your           tits, everything. Entice me!                                    He grabs her wrist. She spins. He lets go. He grabs her other           wrist, she spins to face him.                                    They get very close.                                    Just before they kiss she dips, pulls away.           43-46B.                                   He grabs her arm again, she spins, then he stops her, her          back to him.                                   He runs his hands down her arms. Slowly, seductively. She          trembles.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Just feel my touch and respond.                                   She turns and leans in close, as though to kiss him... almost          touching lips...but then she tries to push off again. He          tightens his grip, holds her there.                                   She looks back at him, questioning. He looks at her          intently, pulls her to him, and kisses her.                                   She melts and eagerly kisses him back. He pulls away,          momentarily.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Slow down. Open your mouth.                                   She doesn't.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)                          (INSISTENT)           Open it.                                   Nina follows his instruction.                                   The kiss grows more heated and he wraps his arms around her.                                   He pushes her back against the mirror. She whimpers.                                   He runs his hand down her body, then reaches between her          legs. She GASPS, tries to pull his hand out, but he persists.                                   She throws her head back as he kisses her neck. She breathes          deep, emits short MOANS, succumbing...                                   Suddenly, he pulls away from her. She looks at him confused,          flushed and breathing hard.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           That was me seducing you. It needs           to be the other way around.                                   He turns and starts to walk away. She can't believe it.                                                   NINA           Please don't...                                   He ignores her and walks out of the room.           47.                                   50A INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - LATER 50A                                    Nina sits on the floor, head in hands.                                    VOICE (O.S.)           Hey...                                    Nina startles and looks up. Sees the dark figure of somebody           watching her from the doorway. Looks like HERSELF.                                                   NINA           Who's that?                                    Lily emerges from the darkness, dressed to leave.                                                   LILY           You okay?                                                   NINA           I'm fine.                                                   LILY           You sure?                                   50B Lily sits down beside her, oblivious of Nina's desire 50B           to be left alone.                                    She digs out a cigarette from her bag. Offers it to Nina.           Nina doesn't take it.                                                   NINA           We can't smoke in here.                                                   LILY           I won't tell if you won't.           48.                                   Nina reluctantly takes the cigarette, holds it a little          awkwardly, clearly not a regular smoker.                                   Lily sparks a flame for her and then lights one for herself.          Nina puffs, but doesn't inhale. Lily smirks.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Big day's getting closer and           closer, huh? I can't wait. You're           going to be amazing.                                                   NINA           Thanks...                                   Nina wipes off her tears with her hand.                                                   LILY           So, want to talk about it?                                                   NINA           Just had a hard day.                                                   LILY           Leroy play too rough?                                   Nina looks at her surprised.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           He seems like a prick.                                                   NINA           He's brilliant.                                                   LILY           Sure, but not exactly warm and           fuzzy.                                                   NINA           You don't know him.                                   Lily smirks with a realization.                                                   LILY           Someone's hot for teacher.                                   Nina gives her a withering glance.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           It's okay. I don't blame you.                                   Nina stands up.           49.                                                   NINA           I should go. It's getting late.                                                   LILY           Hey, I was only playing.                                    Nina walks towards the door.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Nina?                                    She ignores Lily and exits.                                                                           51 OMITTED 51                                                            52A INT. APARTMENT BATHROOM - NIGHT 52A                                    Nina lies in the bath, eyes closed, concentrating.                                    Her body jostles slightly, moving her hand between her legs,           seeking release.                                    Growing frustrated, she moves more and more aggressively.                                    She abruptly stops and submerges herself under the water,           defeated.                                    She lies still, her arms wrapped around her chest.                                    She opens her eyes, her vision distorted by the water.                                    Suddenly, her blurred Double appears, staring down at her.                                    Nina shoots up.                                    The Double is gone.                                    Nina scans the bathroom, but she is alone.                                    Nina notices some water dropping off her fingers, onto the           lip of the tub.                                    Then a few drops of RED land on the white porcelain.                                    Worried, she examines her fingernails, which have started to           grow back. She discovers blood and bits of skin.           50.                                   52B LATER 52B                                    Out of the tub, Nina checks herself in the mirror. Her           shoulder is streaked with deep SCRATCHES.                                    She grabs a pair of little SCISSORS from the medicine cabinet           and starts trimming her fingernails.                                    She looks up at the mirror and sees her reflection snip off           the tip of her index finger.                                    Nina GASPS and drops the scissors, CLANGING in the sink. Two           of her fingers are bleeding, their tips sliced.                                    ERICA (O.S.)                          (CONCERNED)           Nina?                                    Nina looks at the door, already blocked by the hamper.                                                   NINA           I'll be out in a second.                                    She stays still, hoping she won't try to come in.                                    Footsteps recede and Nina breathes.                                    She runs her hands under some water to clean off the blood.                                                                           53 OMITTED 53                                                                           54 OMITTED 54                                                            55 INT. LARGE REHEARSAL SPACE - DAY 55                                    David and Nina dance the Black Swan's Pas de Deux. Once           again, Nina's rigid and self-conscious.           51.                                                   LEROY           Try it again.                                   They resume dancing. She finishes, out of breath, and looks          at Leroy and the Russian ballet mistress.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Again.                                   The piano music starts up again, and she begins dancing.                                   When she finishes, she looks at him, eager for feedback.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Again.                                   The music starts up again. Nina stays still, frustrated.                                                   NINA           Do you have any corrections?                                                   LEROY           No.                                   She doesn't understand. He gets up from his chair and goes to          her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Lily talked to me. Said she saw you           crying.                                   Nina looks away. Can't believe Lily talked to him.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           She said you were upset and I           should "take it easy" on you.                                                   NINA           I didn't tell her that.                                                   LEROY           Maybe you'd like a break for a day           or two.           52.                                                   NINA                          THOMAS-                                                   LEROY           Or a fucking month.                                                   NINA           She shouldn't have said anything!                                                   LEROY           I don't care! You shouldn't be           whining to her!                                                   NINA           I didn't.                                                   LEROY           You could be brilliant. Taking it           easy would be a betrayal.                                    He walks away from her.                                                   NINA           I'm sorry. I'm sorry.                                                   LEROY           Stop saying that! Stop being so           damn weak!                                    He tosses his chair across the room. SMASHING into the wall.                                                            56 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - DAY 56                                    Furious, Nina heads towards the soloists' dressing room.           Hears them chatting in their usual manner.                                    Nina KNOCKS loudly at the door, interrupting them.                                                   VERONICA                          (RESENTFUL)           Look who's gracing us with her           presence...                                                   NINA           Lily, I need to talk to you.                                                   LILY           Okay...                                                   NINA           Now.           53.                                                   VERONICA           (you're in trouble)           Ooooh.                                    The other girls giggle.                                                   LILY           Shut up.                                    And they do.                                                            57 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - DAY 57                                    Nina leads Lily to a private nook, fuming.                                                   LILY           What's wrong?                                                   NINA           You told Thomas about last night?                                    Lily falters, guilty.                                                   LILY           I ran into him this morning. He           said you guys were having some           trouble.                                                   NINA           Why would he talk to you?                                                   LILY           Whoa your highness, I just told him           you're working your ass off and I'm           sure you'll be great.                                                   NINA           You shouldn't have done that.                                                   LILY           I didn't fucking do anything.                                    Lily takes off. Nina stares after her, at a loss.                                                            A58 INT. SUBWAY - NIGHT A58                                    Nina sits on the subway, going home. She notices that one of           her fingernails has a jagged edge. She removes an EMORY BOARD           from her bag and begins filing it down.                                    A SKEEZY MAN across the aisle ogles her.           54.                                    Nina keeps her eyes down, trying to ignore him. He starts to           sing an OLD LOVE SONG from the 20's.                                    Nina stands and goes to the other end of the car. He           continues singing, undeterred.                                                                           58 OMITTED 58                                                            59 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - NIGHT 59                                    Nina sits on the floor in a loose sweatshirt, sewing ribbon            onto pointe shoes.                                     Erica sits across from her, sewing ribbon onto another pair.                                                    ERICA           Has he tried anything with you?                                    Nina doesn't respond.                                                    ERICA (CONT'D)           He has a reputation...                                    Nina tries to ignore her.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           I have a right to be concerned,           Nina. You've been staying late so           many nights. "Rehearsing." I hope           he's not taking advantage, that's           all.                                                   NINA           He's not.                                                    ERICA           Good. I don't want you making the           same mistake I did.                                                   NINA                          (INSULTED)           Thanks.                                                   ERICA           Not like that. I just mean as far           as my career was concerned.                                                   NINA           What career?                                                   ERICA           The one I gave up to have you.           55.                                                   NINA           You were 28.                                                   ERICA           So?                                                   NINA           And only...                                   Nina bites her tongue.                                                   ERICA           Only what?                                                   NINA           Nothing.                                                   ERICA           What?                                                   NINA                          (DEFIANT)           Nothing.                                   Erica glares at her.                                                   ERICA           How's your skin?                                                   NINA           It's fine.                                                   ERICA           We leaving it alone?                                                   NINA           Yes.                                                   ERICA           Let me see.                                    Nina stares back defiantly.                                                    ERICA (CONT'D)            Take off your shirt.                                                    NINA            No.                                    Erica starts to come towards her.                                    The DOORBELL RINGS.                                    Erica looks at Nina questioningly. Nina shakes her head.           56.                                    Erica goes to the door and cracks it open, keeping the chain           engaged.                                                   ERICA           (to person outside)           Can I help you? (pause) I'm sorry,           she's not in.                                    Erica shuts the door. Nina rushes out to see who it was.                                                   NINA           Who was it?                                    Erica doesn't answer.                                    Irritated, Nina walks around Erica and quickly opens the door           to find out.                                                   ERICA           It's no one.                                                            60 INT. BUILDING HALLWAY- NIGHT 60                                    Nina sees a ballerina walking away from the door.                                                   NINA           Hello?                                    Lily turns.                                                   LILY           Hey.                                                   NINA                          (SUSPICIOUS)           What are you doing here?                                    Nina steps out of her apartment and closes the door.                                                   LILY           I wanted to apologize.                                    Nina just stares, incredulous.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           You were right, I shouldn't have           talked to him about you.                                    Erica opens the door and sticks her head out.                                                   ERICA           Sweetheart?           57.                                                   NINA           Give me a second.                                                   ERICA           Your dinner...                                                   NINA           Mom, please!                                   Erica closes the door.                                                   LILY           She's a trip...                                                   NINA           How did you know where I live?                                                   LILY           I have my ways.                                   Nina looks at her, darkly.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Relax, I got it from Susie in the           office. I feel really shitty. Can I           make it up to you? Take you out to           dinner?                                                   NINA           I don't think-                                                   LILY           A drink?                                   Nina's tempted. Erica pokes her head out again.                                                   ERICA           Sweetie, you need to rest.                                                   LILY           Jesus.                                   Nina pushes the elevator call button.                                                   NINA                          (TO LILY)           Wait.                                   Nina walks to the door, and grabs her coat.                                                   ERICA           What are you doing?           58.                                                   NINA           I'm going out.                                                   ERICA           What?                                    Nina ignores her and shuts the door.                                                   NINA                          (TO LILY)           Let's go.                                                            61 INT. CORNER BISTRO - NIGHT 61                                    A noisy bar and burger joint, packed to the brim. Lily and           Nina sit at a small table.                                                   LILY           Can't believe that's what he called           her. So gross!                                                   NINA           I think it's sweet.                                                   LILY           Little princess? He probably calls           every girl that.                                                   NINA           Only Beth.                                                   LILY           Well, I'm sure she lost the title           after her game of chicken.                                    Nina's smile fades.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Bet he'll be calling you little           princes any day now.                                                   NINA           I don't think so.           59.                                                   LILY           Sure, just gotta let him eat the           pussy.                                   Nina blushes, embarrassed, and Lily cracks up. A WAITER drops          a plate in front of her.                                                   WAITER                          (TO LILY)           Cheese burger, extra bloody.                                                   LILY           Danke schoen.                                                   WAITER           Let me know if it's not juicy           enough.                                                   LILY           Oh, I will.                                   He smiles, keeping his eyes locked on Lily, as he rudely          plops down Nina's plate.                                                   WAITER           Enjoy.                                   Lily watches him go, then notices Nina looking annoyed.                                                   LILY           What?                                                   NINA           Guess I'm invisible.                                   Lily studies her and digs into her purse. Pulls out a SEXY          SHIRT.                                                   LILY           Here, wanna spruce up?                                   Nina gives her a puzzled look.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           I always carry a spare, case I wake           up somewhere unexpected.                                   Lily picks up her ungainly burger and takes a big bite, a          little grease dripping down her chin. Nina cuts into her dry          chicken breast.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Not like you need more attention           these days. How is he?           60.                                   Nina doesn't understand the question.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Thomas?                                                   NINA           I wouldn't know.                                                   LILY           Yeah, right.                                                   NINA           I don't want to talk about it.                                                   LILY           Relax, you're so tense.                                   Lily pulls out a cigarette case and clicks it open. Inside,          CIGARETTES and a couple PILLS.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           One for you...                                   Lily grabs one of the pills and slides it over.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           And one for me.                                   Lily grabs her pill and downs it with a beer.                                   Nina stares at her pill, too embarrassed to admit she doesn't          know what it is.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Don't worry, it's pure. Brought it           with me straight from San           Francisco.                                                   NINA           What is it?                                                   LILY           You're kidding? You never rolled?                                   Nina blinks.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Oh boy. It'll just make you have a           good time. Loosen up. See the night           sky.                                                   NINA                          (CURIOUS)           How long does it last?           61.                                                   LILY           Couple hours. Tops.                                    Nina looks at the pill, thinks about it for a second...                                                   NINA           That's okay.                                                   LILY           Sure?                                    Nina nods. Lily puts the pill back, and SNAPS the case           closed.                                                            62 INT. GRUNGY BATHROOM - NIGHT 62                                    Wearing the SKIMPY SHIRT Lily offered her, Nina rinses her           mouth out with water from the sink, then checks herself out           in the mirror.                                    It's broken and covered with graffiti and stickers. One           particularly bright one says, "Seize the Day-glo."                                    Nina's cell phone RINGS. She checks the ID--"MOM"--and           silences it.                                    Nina puts her SWEATSHIRT back on over the shirt, and exits.                                                            63 INT. CORNER BISTRO - NIGHT 63                                    Nina returns to her table, but when she gets there, Lily is           gone and the table is cleared.                                    She looks around the crowded room, doesn't see her anywhere.                                    She heads towards the exit, and sees Lily at the bar,           flirting with TWO ATTRACTIVE MEN. She's very touchy-feely.                                    Intrigued, Nina stays put, wanting to observe Lily from a           distance.                                    The BARTENDER sets a drink down in front of Lily. The men           compete to pay for it.                                    Lily takes out the CIGARETTE CASE from her purse, and removes           the pill.                                    Nina looks on, suspicious.                                    Lily opens the pill, and dumps its contents into the drink.           She stirs it with her finger.           62.                                   She holds out her finger to one of the men, he sucks off the          liquid.                                   Lily looks over and catches Nina watching. She waves for her          to join them.                                   Nina reluctantly walks to her.                                                   LILY           Heeey, thought we could use some           drinks.                                                   NINA           I'm gonna go.                                                   LILY           This is Tom and this is Jerry.                                   The guys laugh.                                                   ANDREW           Actually it's Andrew.                                                   TOM           Tom.                                                   NINA           Hi.                                                   LILY           You can't leave, I bought you a           drink.                                   Lily holds out the doctored beverage. Nina eyes it, tempted          to go down the rabbit hole...                                                   NINA           I really shouldn't, we're on the           stage tomorrow.                                                   LILY           What, you gonna go home to mommy?           Live a little.                                   Nina grins sheepishly and takes the drink. Lily smiles.                                                   NINA           Just a couple of hours?                                                   LILY           Tops.                                   Nina takes a tiny sip.           63.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Go on.                                    Nina takes another sip and smiles.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Let's go sit somewhere a little           more comfortable. Gentlemen?                                    She gets up and holds out her hands. The two men each grab           one and she leads them deeper into the bar.                                                            64 INT. CORNER BISTRO - MOMENTS LATER 64                                    Nina's drink is half gone. The foursome sits snugly at a           booth. Nina next to Andrew, shyly avoiding his gaze. She           takes another tentative sip of her drink.                                                   ANDREW           You haven't told me who you are.                                                   NINA           Oh, I'm a dancer.                                                   ANDREW           No, I mean your name.                                                   NINA           Nina.                                                   TOM           You two sisters?                          LILY NINA           Yes. No.                                                   ANDREW           Well?                                                   LILY           We're blood sisters.                                                   NINA           We dance in the same company.                                                   TOM                          (PLEASED)           Ahh, ballerinas. So that's why you           look alike.                                                   LILY           Tom and Jerry are gay lovers.           64.                                                   TOM           Very funny.                                                   LILY           Oh, I just assumed.                                                   ANDREW           I've never been to the ballet.                                                   LILY           In that case you're definitely NOT           gay.                                                   TOM           It's pretty boring, isn't it?                                                   NINA                          (OFFENDED)           No, it's not.                                                   LILY                          (FLIRTY)           It's not for everyone. You probably           aren't sophisticated enough.                                                   TOM           You've got some mouth, you know           that?                                                   LILY           Isn't that compliment a little           premature?                                   Lily sips her drink, staring at Tom flirtatiously.                                                   NINA           You guys should come sometime. I           can comp you tickets.                                   Tom laughs, amused by Nina's earnestness.                                                   TOM           Yeah...that'd be neat.                                                   LILY           I think we all need another round.           Bottom's up.                                   She looks at Nina and sucks down her drink, challenging her          to follow suit. Nina takes a breath of courage and empties          her glass.                                   She waits for something to kick in.           65.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Tom, come with me?                                   Lily slips out of the booth and Tom follows, leaving Nina and          Andrew alone. She avoids his gaze, nervous.                                                   ANDREW           So...what are you guys working on           these days?                                   Her cell phone RINGS, interrupting him. She quickly turns it          off and gives him an embarrassed smile.                                                   NINA           Sorry. Swan Lake.                                                   ANDREW           Yeah?                                                   NINA           You know it?                                                   ANDREW           Oh, no, not really. Heard of it           though. What's it about?                                                   NINA           It's about a girl who's been turned           into a swan. She needs love to           break the spell.                                                   ANDREW           Okay.                                                   NINA           Yeah, but her prince falls for the           wrong girl and she kills herself.                                                   ANDREW           So a happy ending, then?                                                   NINA           It's beautiful, actually.                                                   ANDREW           Like you.                                   She starts to feel the initial tingles of the drug.                                                   NINA           Huh?                                                   ANDREW           I said you're beautiful.           66.                                    She giggles.                                                   ANDREW (CONT'D)           That funny?                                    She gives him a flirtatious glance.                                                   NINA           My hands are all sweaty.                                    Andrew touches them. She grabs onto his hands. She looks at           his face. His eyes twinkle at her.                                    Lily slides in next to her. Nina sees her and melts into her           body. Lily hugs her back.                                                   LILY           Uh oh! Looks like someone's           rolling. Let's get you dancing.                                                            A65 OMITTED A65                                                             65 INT. DANCE CLUB - NIGHT 65                                    Nina kisses Tom on the floor of a crowded dance club. The           drug is in full effect.                                    The world has soft edges, colors are vivid and bleed into one           another.                                    Lily twirls her around.                                    Nina attaches herself to her, hungry for the attention. A           cheering section of guys surrounds them.                                    Nina lets loose. Dances with abandon.                                                            66 INT. CLUB BATHROOM - LATER 66                                    Nina makes out with someone, her back pushed up against the           wall. Her eyes are closed, she's shiny with sweat.                                    She opens her eyes, confused to find that it's not Andrew or           even Tom, just a STRANGE MAN.                                    She backs away. He reaches for her, but she swats him off.           67.                                   67 INT. DANCE CLUB - SAME 67                                    She stumbles around the dance floor, looking for Lily, but           only sees a mass of moving bodies.                                    She finally spots a girl that looks like her from behind.           Nina grabs her shoulder and the GIRL spins around. Not Lily.                                                            68 EXT. DANCE CLUB - LATER 68                                    Nina pushes her way out of the club, starting to panic. She           looks around, trying to figure out where she is, but the city           is dark and non-descript.                                    LILY (O.S.)           Nina!                                    Nina turns towards the voice and, with relief, sees Lily exit           the club.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Where you goin'?                                                            69 INT. TAXI - NIGHT 69                                    Nina stares adoringly at Lily, who has her eyes closed,           enjoying the cool air blowing in from her open window.                                    Lily opens her eyes and catches Nina staring. Lily smirks.                                    Using her index and middle finger as "legs," she "walks" her           hand over the vinyl seat, all the way to Nina's leg and pokes           it.                                    Nina watches her hand with a smile on her face, glances at           Lily.                                    Lily smiles back, and then "walks" her hand up the leg, until           it reaches the edge of Nina's dress.                                    Lily looks at Nina questioningly. Nina doesn't protest.                                    Lily slips her hand underneath the dress, gently makes           contact...                                    Nina shudders, but pulls Lily's hand back out and holds it.                                    Lily snickers and looks out her window.                                    Nina looks at their clasped hands, then out her own window,           happy.           68.                                   70 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT HALLWAY - LATER 70                                    Nina quietly opens the front door.                                    Lily GIGGLES. Nina SHUSHES her.                                    They slip off their shoes and tip-toe inside.                                                            71 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - SAME 71                                    Nina eases the door shut.                                    Lily taps her on the shoulder and points towards the hallway.                                    Erica emerges from the darkness, approaching them slowly.           Distraught.                                                   ERICA           Do you have any idea what time it           is?                                                   NINA           Mmm-hmm. Late.                                                   ERICA           Where have you been?                                                   NINA           To the moon and back.                                                   ERICA           You've been drinking.                                                   NINA                          (CORRECT ANSWER)           Ding ding ding.                                    Lily snickers, Nina tries to keep a straight face, but ends           up laughing.                                                   ERICA           What else?                                                   NINA           Huh?                                                   ERICA           What else have you been doing?                                    Nina smiles coyly.                                                   NINA           You want to know their names?           69.                                    Erica grabs Nina's wrist.                                                   ERICA           You need to sleep it off.                                                   NINA           There were two. Tom and Jerry...                                                   ERICA           Be quiet, Nina.                                                   NINA                          (GIGGLING)           I fucked both of them.                                                   ERICA           Shut your mouth!                                    Erica violently jams her fingers over Nina's lips, trying to           silence her.                                    Nina runs into her room and SLAMS the door.                                                            72A INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - SAME 72A                                    She grabs the broken PIECE OF WOOD from the dresser and jams           the door. She backs Lily away, preparing for the storm.                                                   NINA           Don't come in here!                                    Erica tries to open the door, but it gets stuck. She peers           her eye through the crack.                                                   ERICA           What's this?                                                   NINA           It's called privacy! I'm not           fucking twelve years old anymore!                                    Erica struggles a little with the door, but can't get it to           budge.                                                   ERICA           You're not my Nina right now!           70.                                                   NINA           LEAVE ME ALONE!!!                                    Nina SHOVES the door shut.                                    Erica's FOOTSTEPS retreat, followed by the SLAM of her           bedroom door.                                   72B Nina is worked up, breathing hard. 72B                                    LILY (O.S.)           Whoa...                                    Nina turns around and sees her Double smiling at her.                                    Nina flees to the door. Pauses. She peeks back and sees that           it's actually Lily.                                    Relieved, she grabs Lily and kisses her, revved-up.                                    Lily responds with equal force. They claw at each other,           passion exceeding coordination.                                    Lily pulls Nina's shirt off and throws her onto the bed.                                    She straddles Nina, who looks up at her carnivorously.                                    Lily takes her own top off, plunges down and kisses Nina.                                    Nina flips Lily over, becomes the dominant one.                                    Lily scratches Nina's back, over some of the rash.                                    There's subtle movement underneath the skin. Little pin           pricks push up the flesh, trailing behind her hand.                                    Self-conscious, Nina grabs Lily's hand and holds her wrists           down.                                    She bites her neck. Lily smiles, likes the violence.                                    She digs her nails into Nina's hands.                                    Then Lily gets back on top of Nina. The tattooed lilies on           her back undulate and spread out. Morphing into dark wings.                                    She kisses down Nina's body. Further and further...           71.                                    Lily starts to go down on Nina.                                    Nervous, Nina whimpers. Glances down and sees the DOUBLE.                                    She tries to pull away.                                    LILY shushes her.                                    Nina calms back down, seeing that it's her. She takes a           breath and succumbs.                                    Bumps shoot up all over her skin as her breath quickens.                                    She closes her eyes, allows the sensation to invade her body           and CLIMAXES.                                    She breathes her way back to earth. Slowly her eyes open.           She rolls over towards Lily. But Lily is gone.                                    Instead her DOUBLE hovers over her.                                                   DOUBLE           Sweet girl.                                    She SMASHES a pillow over Nina's face.                                                   CUT TO:                                                            A73 OMITTED A73                                                            73 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - MORNING 73                                    Nina lies alone in bed, the sheets and comforter in disarray.                                    She sits up, clutches her head in pain.                                    She looks around, but there's no sign of Lily or the Double.                                    Then her eyes drift to the alarm clock: 11:36.           72.                                    She snaps out of bed.                                                            74 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - MORNING 74                                    Dishevelled, Nina races towards the front door. She sees           Erica brooding at the kitchen table, watching her.                                                   NINA           Why didn't you wake me up?                                    Erica just stares at her, devastated.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I'm moving out.                                    Nina whips out the front door and leaves her.                                                            75 INT. BACKSTAGE - DAY 75                                    Nina races. She hears muffled Black Swan music playing,           rehearsal clearly in progress.                                                   NINA                          (TO HERSELF)           My music.                                    She runs into the wings and sees the full company rehearsing           on stage for the first time...                                    Another girl dancing her part.                                    The girl spins and Nina sees her face. It's Lily!                                    Horrified, Nina runs onto                                                                           76 STAGE 76                                    and makes a beeline for Leroy, looking beyond apologetic.                                    The dancers and piano player stop at the interruption.                                                   LEROY           Keep going. Let's finish the Act.                                    The piano music resumes, and the dancers pick up where they           left off.           73.                                   Nina meets Lily's eyes. She makes a sorry face, but then          continues dancing.                                   Nina is forced to watch from the sidelines as Lily and David          finish the Black Swan's Pas de Deux.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           That was good. Let's take 10, then           we'll move on to Act 4.                                   He turns to Nina and his smile fades.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Get warmed up.                                                   NINA           Thomas, I'm sor-                                   He ignores her, and walks off stage.                                   Lily tentatively approaches with the PRACTICE TUTU.                                                   LILY           Hey...                                   Nina snatches it, avoiding eye contact. She puts it on.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           He wanted to go through the           spacing. Asked me to step in.                                   Nina starts stretching.                                                   NINA                          (LOADED)           I overslept.                                                   LILY           Oops... Least you had a good time,           right?                                   Nina doesn't answer.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Hello?                                                   NINA           You put something in my drink.           74-76.                                                   LILY                          (OBVIOUSLY)           Yeah...                                                   NINA           And took off this morning.                                                   LILY           This morning?                                                   NINA           Yeah, you slept over.                                                   LILY           Uh, no. Unless your name's Tom and           you have a dick.                                                   NINA           But we...                                   Nina stops herself.                                                   LILY           We what, Nina?                                   Lily can read something on her face.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           What, you have some kind of lezzy           wet dream?                                   Nina glances at the dancers, nervous they've heard.                                                   NINA           You're lying.                                                   LILY                          (TICKLED)           Oh my god, you totally fantasized           about me.                                                   NINA           Stop.                                                   LILY           Was I good?                                                   NINA                          (BARKS)           Shut up!                                   Other dancers look over.                                   Nina resumes stretching. Lily just walks away.           74-76A.                                   A77 INT. STAGE - DAY A77                                    Nina dances the end of the ballet, the White Swan's suicide.                                                   LEROY           The Black Swan has stolen your           love. There's only one way to end           the pain.                                    Nina climbs the stairs of the set and arrives at the "cliff,"           stopping at the precipice.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           You're not at all fearful. Filled           with acceptance.                                    Nina looks down. It's a short drop to a stack of pads, but a           HARD FLOOR surrounds it.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           You look at the Prince, then down           at Rothbart, and, yes, up at the           audience...And jump!                                    She hesitates, fearful.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Go ahead. You'll be fine.                                    Nina takes a breath and leaps in a swan dive.                                    She falls...and lands in the pads, unhurt. Slight applause           from the other dancers.                                    LEROY (O.S.) (CONT'D)           Everybody get a drink then it's           notes.                                    Nina lies in the pads, completely exhausted.                                                            B77 INT. BACKSTAGE - LATER B77                                    Nina sits backstage, toweling herself off.                                    She pauses, noticing Leroy and Lily conversing near the           doorway.                                    Lily nods and touches his arm. He smiles warmly, then notices           Nina watching. His serious demeanor returns and he pulls           away. He says goodbye to Lily.                                    Lily follows his gaze and smirks at Nina, rubbing it in,           before exiting herself.           74-76B.                                                  77 OMITTED 77           77-78.                                   78A-B OMITTED 78A-B                                                                           79 OMITTED 79                                                                           80 OMITTED 80                                                            A81 INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT A81                                    Nina kneels in front of the toilet, a finger down her throat.           She gags, but nothing comes up.                                    Her eyes tear up, and she tries again, but still just heaves.                                    Frustrated, she wipes her mouth and flushes.                                                            81 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - NIGHT 81                                    Nina exits the bathroom and approaches her mother's bedroom           door. It's closed, but the light's on underneath.                                    She's about to knock, but hesitates. Through the door, she           can hear the sound of her mother watching an INFOMERCIAL on           TV. An unfamiliar, lonely noise.                                    Nina stands there for a moment, just breathing. She           strengthens her resolve and backs away from the door.                                                            82 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 82                                    Nina collapses on her bed.                                    She opens the JEWELRY BOX sitting on her night stand.                                    She watches the ballerina spin for a moment...                                    Then suddenly SLAMS the lid shut and throws the box hard           against the wall.                                    She shoots out of bed and starts gathering all her childish           possessions--stuffed animals, dolls, keepsakes, etc.                                                            83 INT. APARTMENT CORRIDOR - NIGHT 83                                    Nina shoves her belongings into the TRASH CHUTE, a pile of           her next victims strewn at her feet.                                    She grabs a TEDDY BEAR IN A TUTU, and jams him in.           77-78A.                                   A84 INT. STAGE - DAY A84                                    Nina dances the Black Swan in front of the nearly completed           scenery.                                    A few TECHNICIANS complete last minute touch-ups.                                    Leroy watches from his down-stage post, his focus split           between her and...                                    Lily, stretching with the other ballerinas. She stares at           Nina with a dark expression.                                    Fueled by the competition, Nina pushes herself. Her dancing           becomes more impassioned and aggressive.                                    She finishes the section, breathing deeply, covered in sweat.           The company enthusiastically claps.                                    She stares intently at Leroy, awaiting his response.                                                   LEROY           At last, I saw the Black Swan.                                                            B84 INT. COSTUME SHOP - DAY B84                                    Nina wears the BLACK SWAN COSTUME, facing a mirror. Another           mirror behind her creates an infinite array of reflections.                                    The overworked COSTUMER checks each seam, pulling the costume           taut, analyzing what needs to be taken in and let out.                                    Nina looks uncomfortable, disliking the scrutiny of her body.                                    She hears a sharp RUSTLE. Like someone's scratching.                                    She looks up at the mirror. Her reflection stares back.                                    Behind the first reflection, another Nina has her arm behind           her back, like she's scratching her shoulder.                                    Nina leans to get a better look...                                                   COSTUMER           Sit still, I'm almost done.                                    Nina startles. The reflection has returned to normal, its           hand back at its side.                                    Costumer checks one more thing, makes one more note.                                                   COSTUMER (CONT'D)           Okay, all set.           77-78B.                                    The costumer leaves her to change.                                    Relieved, Nina quickly takes off the costume and starts to           dress in her sweats.                                    She hears someone enter the costume shop.                                    LILY (O.S.)           Hey...Thomas sent me.                                    Nina pauses, recognizing her voice.                                    COSTUMER (O.S.)           Yeah, need to get you measured for           your Swan Queen costumes.                                    Nina steps out from behind the privacy curtain, and finds           Lily waiting.                                                   NINA                          (TO COSTUMER)           What's she doing here?                                                   LILY           He made me your alternate.           (can't help it)           Just in case...                                    Nina pushes past her.                                                            C84 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - DAY C84                                    Nina chases after Leroy, in mid-conversation with the STAGE           MANAGER and two STAGEHANDS.                                                   NINA           Thomas!                                    He stops and faces her.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           She's trying to replace me.                                                   LEROY           (to stage manager,                          STAGEHANDS)           Go ahead. I'll catch up.                                    They continue walking.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           What's going on?           77-78C.                                                   NINA           Lily. You made her my alternate.                                                   LEROY           There's always an alternate, you           know that. Lily's the best choice.                                                   NINA           She wants my role.                                                   LEROY           Every dancer in the world wants           your role.                                                   NINA           No, she's different. She's after           me. She's trying to replace me.                                                   LEROY                          (CONDESCENDING)           Nina...                                                   NINA           Please believe me.                                    He studies her for a moment, not sure what to make of this.                                                   LEROY           Listen, I know it's been a           struggle. But you had a           breakthrough this morning.                                    Nina starts to speak, he holds up his hand to silence her.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Tomorrow is yours. Give a great           performance, and you won't have to           worry about Lily, or anyone else.                                                   NINA                          THOMAS-                                                   LEROY           No more. Go home and rest.                                    Shut down, she watches him walk away.                                                                           84 OMITTED 84           79.                                                                                                              85A INT. PRINCIPAL REHEARSAL SPACE - NIGHT 85A                                    Nina practices the Black Swan, alone with the jaded piano           player, working herself hard.                                    He suddenly stops playing.                                                   NINA           What happened?                                                   PIANO PLAYER           I gotta life, deary.                                    He closes the music book and stands.                                    PIANO PLAYER (CONT'D)           Don't work too hard. It's your big           day tomorrow.                                    Annoyed, she watches him leave.                                   85B She faces herself in the mirror and takes a breath. 85B                                    She resumes dancing without music, her feet CLICKING on the           floor.                                    As she moves, she notices something strange out of the corner           of her eye:                                    The reflection's dancing lags a little behind hers.                                    Nina stops. The sound of her footsteps stops a second later.           She stares at the mirror...troubled.                                    The door to the room BANGS shut.                                    She whips towards it and she's suddenly plunged into           DARKNESS.                                    Freaked, she stumbles towards the door, and pushes out into                          THE           80.                                   86A INT. STAGE - NIGHT 86A                                    Where it's equally dark. Lit only by the stage's "ghost           light," a single bulb on a stand.                                                   NINA           Hey! Hey! I'm still in here.                                    No one answers.                                    She looks at the cavernous auditorium. All those empty           seats, faced towards her. Very overwhelming...                                    She hears a noise in the wings.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Hey! Turn the lights back on!                                    She gets to the other side of the stage, but the wings seem           empty. Quiet.                                   86B Then she hears the faint sound of MUFFLED BANGING. 86B                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           Hello?                                    No one answers.                                    She heads towards the noise. The banging now accompanied by a           GIGGLE.                                                            87 INT. WINGS - SAME 87                                    It's pretty dark but the sound is unmistakable: two people           going at it.                                    Nina tiptoes past some off-stage SETS and LIGHTING EQUIPMENT.                                    And peeks around a piece of SCENERY...                                    Catching a glimpse of Leroy fucking Lily further backstage.           She's wild, clearly enjoying it.                                    Nina looks away, disgusted. She peeks back one more time.                                    Leroy has become the demon Rothbart, ravishing the Double.           She meets Nina's eyes and smiles.                                    Nina jumps back, knocking into a piece of the set. The           lovemaking pauses at the sound.                                    Nina flees.           81.                                   A88 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT A88                                    Nina runs in and quickly jams her belongings into her bag.                                    She notices her reflection in the mirror and removes her           diamond earrings.                                    Then gathers the other trinkets sitting on the counter and           puts them all inside her bag.                                                            B88 EXT. THEATER - NIGHT B88                                    Nina pushes out the stage door, and passes the ROW OF           POSTERS.                                    They now advertise Swan Lake and feature a beautiful           photograph of Nina.                                    Nina stops and looks at them.                                                            88 INT. HOSPITAL - NIGHT 88                                    Nina slowly enters Beth's room, but remains at the threshold.                                    Beth sits in a wheelchair faced towards the window. Sleeping.                                    Nina gets up the nerve and quietly walks further in, trying           not to wake her.                                    Nina pulls out the tube of lipstick from her bag and gently           places it on the hospital table.                                    She pulls out the diamond earrings, sets them down.                                    Followed by the makeup compact, the pack of cigarettes, a           needle and thread, and an emory board.                                    A hand suddenly GRABS Nina's arm.                                    Awake, Beth stares Nina down.                                                   BETH           What are you doing here?                                    Stunned, Nina's unable to answer.                                    Beth follows her gaze to the random items on her table.                                                   NINA           I'm so sorry.                                    Beth begins touching the objects, vaguely remembering.           82.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I didn't mean to make you feel this           way. It's happening to me now.           She's trying to replace me.                                   Beth sees the earrings and it all clicks in.                                                   BETH           You stole all these things?                                                   NINA           I just wanted to be like you.           Perfect.                                   Beth shoots Nina a dark look and turns away.                                                   BETH           I'm not perfect. I'm nothing.                                                   NINA           It's not true.                                                   BETH           Fucking nothing!                                   Beth grabs the emory board and stabs herself in the face.                                                   BETH (CONT'D)           Nothing! Nothing!!!                                                   NINA           Beth?!                                   Nina spins Beth around. She is now a bloody version of THE          DOUBLE! She continues stabbing herself.                                   Nina grabs the Double's hand and struggles to restrain her.                                                   DOUBLE           NOTHING!                                                   NINA           Stop it! Stop!                                   The emory board stabs into Nina's arm.                                   Nina rushes from the room.           83.                                   89 INT. HALLWAY - SAME 89                                    She BANGS into a empty stretcher sitting in the hallway,           causing a CLAMOR.                                    The older nurse looks up.                                    Nina jumps into an open elevator.                                                            90 INT. HOSPITAL ELEVATOR - SAME 90                                    She hits the GROUND FLOOR BUTTON, and hides in the corner.                                    As the doors close, she looks down and sees that, in one           hand, she holds the BLOODY EMORY BOARD.                                    She drops it, disgusted.                                                            91 INT. UPPER WEST SIDE APARTMENT - NIGHT 91                                    Nina runs in and quickly shuts the door behind her. Takes a           breath, and notices some blood still on her hands.                                                            A92 INT. KITCHEN - SAME A92                                    She flips on the light. The room's empty.                                    She goes to the sink and washes her hands.                                    She finishes, and flips the light off as she walks out of the           room.                                    She pauses, rushes back and flips on the light. The Double           stares at her from the corner, her face covered in blood.           Terrified, Nina runs.                                                            B92 INT. BATHROOM - SAME B92                                    She goes straight to the toilet and VOMITS.                                    She hears a creaking sound in the apartment and looks towards           the open door.                                                   NINA           Mommy?!                                    She goes out to investigate.           83A.                                   92 INT. ERICA'S BEDROOM - SAME 92                                    Nina flings open the door, but Erica's not in there.                                    She hears RUSTLING, then WHISPERING.                                    Nina looks around the room. The paintings of herself seem to           move slightly. Blink. Mouths move.                                    They whisper: "Sweet girl" and then start chanting "My turn,           my turn, my turn!"                                    Nina cups her hands over her ears, trying to block it out.                                    She hears a BANG and looks towards the door. No one's there.                                    She glimpses the mirror, which reflects down the hallway. She           sees her Double rushing towards the room.                                    Scared, Nina whips around, just as her mother arrives in the           doorway.           84.                                                   ERICA           What are you doing?                                    Nina pushes past her, in a frenzy.                                                            93 INT. BEDROOM - SAME 93                                    Nina closes the door. Sticks in the broken piece of wood.                                    A pain shoots through her shoulder. She SCREAMS,           instinctively reaching for it.                                    She quickly yanks off the sweater and looks at the vanity           mirror.                                    Her back pulsates unnaturally. Tiny black tips poke through.                                    The door opens and catches on the doorjamb.                                    Erica starts POUNDING.                                                   NINA           GO AWAY!                                    She digs into the open bump on her shoulder with her           fingernails.                                                   ERICA           Open the door!!!                                    Erica violently pushes and pulls, jostling the piece of wood.                                    Nina concentrates, takes hold of the growth and yanks.                                    Blood vessels in her eyes explode, making the white turn red.                                    Nina looks at the object held in her fingers: a sharp, TINY           BLACK SPINE. Like that of a sea urchin. Damp, feathery wisps           hang off of it.                                    The door flings open.                                    Erica rushes in and finds Nina half-naked, her skin inflamed.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Oh my god...                                    Nina starts forcing her out the door. Erica pushes back.           85.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Stop, you're sick!                                                   NINA           Get OUT!                                    She manages to get her all the way out the door.                                    But ROTHBART'S HAND grabs the door frame.                                    Nina SLAMS the door, SMASHING the hand.                                    Erica SCREAMS in pain.                                    Nina slams the door again, and again. The hand now human.                                    She finally gets the door all the way shut.                                    She steps away from it, nervous...                                    She looks down, sees one of her knees SNAP backwards, like           that of a bird. Then the other knee SNAPS back.                                    Nina stumbles and falls.                                    And SLAMS her head into the radiator.                                    SMASH TO BLACK.                                    TINNY MUSIC plays in the darkness.                                                   FADE IN:                                                            94 INT. NINA'S BEDROOM - EVENING 94                                    Nina flutters open her eyes. The world comes into focus and           she sees her mother hovering over her, stroking her hair.                                                   ERICA           Sshh, shhh, it's okay. I'm here.                                    Nina looks around, disoriented. Sees her hands jammed inside           thick socks, held on by rubber bands. Groggy, she tries to           pull them off.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           You were scratching all night.                                    Erica helps remove the socks, her smashed hand wrapped in           bandages.                                    Nina weakly tries to sit up, but Erica pushes her back down.           86.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Rest. Shhh, rest.                                   Nina gives in, too tired to fight her. Her eyes drift to the          source of the tinny music: the open jewelry box. The          ballerina's been broken off, all that remains is a single          amputated leg, spinning morbidly on the base.                                    ERICA (O.S.) (CONT'D)           That's good. Rest.                                   Nina's eyes drift to the alarm clock. It's gone.                                                   NINA           Where's the clock?                                                   ERICA           Don't worry.                                   Nina looks at the dark window.                                                   NINA           It's dark. What night is it?                                   Nina reads Erica's face. Reality clicks in.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)                          (PANICKING)           What time is it?!                                   Nina tries to sit up, but her mother pushes her back down.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I have to go.                                                   ERICA           Don't worry. I called the theater           and told them you weren't feeling           well.                                   Nina freaks, struggles more violently.                                                   NINA           No, I want to.                                                   ERICA           Lie down!                                                   NINA           Get off me!                                   Nina squirms free of Erica's grasp and gets out of bed. She          gets to the door...           87.                                   But the doorknob's been knocked-off, leaving just a metal          post sticking out of the hole.                                                   ERICA           We're staying in here until you           feel better.                                   Nina grips the metal post and pulls and pulls, shaking the          door.                                                   NINA           Where is it?                                   Erica calmly sits down in her CHAIR, waiting for the storm to          pass.                                                   ERICA           This role is destroying you.                                   Nina rifles through her dresser drawers.                                   She notices her mother sitting calmly.                                                   NINA           Move.                                                   ERICA           Nina...                                   Nina grabs her by the wrist.                                                   ERICA (CONT'D)           Stop it.                                                   NINA           You're crazy!                                                   ERICA           What happened to my sweet girl?                                   Nina yanks Erica off the chair onto the floor.                                                   NINA           She's gone.                                                   ERICA           Please, you're not well.                                   Under the cushion Nina grabs the hidden brass DOORKNOB.                                   Erica lunges for her daughter's legs.                                                   NINA           Let go!           87A.                                                   ERICA           You can't handle it!                                                   NINA           I can't?! I'm the fucking swan           queen! You never even got out of           the corps.                                                   ERICA           You fucking ungrateful-                                   Nina jams the knob onto the post, opens the door.                                    ERICA (O.S.) (CONT'D)           Don't leave! Nina!           88.                                   95 EXT. THEATER - EVENING 95                                    Nina approaches the theater with harried steps.                                    Quickly past the row of SWAN LAKE posters.                                    She reaches the side of the building, flings open the stage           door and enters.                                                            96 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - EVENING 96                                    Nina frantically makes her way down the bustling hallway,           chaotic with dancers. Excitement in the air.                                    She nears the soloists' dressing room.                                    Just outside of it, she spots a group of DANCERS excitedly           chatting around a smiling Lily.                                    Nina stops in her tracks.                                    Lily glances in her direction, and her smile quickly fades           into a sneer.                                                   LILY           What are you doing here?                                    The other girls follow her gaze towards Nina, and their           smiles turn to confusion.                                    LEROY (O.S.)           Nina?                                    She turns and finds that Leroy has approached from behind           her.                                                   LILY           You're supposed to be sick.                                                   LEROY           Lily, give us a minute.                                    Leroy pulls Nina towards her room. Lily glares at Nina as she           passes.                                                            97 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - SAME 97                                    Leroy closes the door behind them. He looks at Nina, wheels           spinning.           89.                                                   LEROY           Are you okay?                                                   NINA           I'm fine.                                   Nina goes to her wardrobe, finds her two costumes hanging.          One for the White Swan, one for the Black Swan.                                                   LEROY           Nina?                                   She doesn't heed him, pulls out the White Swan leotard and          sets it on her chair.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           Nina!                                                   NINA           What?                                                   LEROY           I already asked Lily-                                                   NINA           Fuck. Have you announced it?                                   He hasn't.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           After Beth, do you need more           controversy?                                   Leroy smirks at her directness.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           I'm here, Thomas. I'm doing it.                                   He looks at her, considering, and gives her a reluctant nod.          She smiles.           90.                                                   LEROY           The only person standing in your           way is you. It's time to let her           go. Lose yourself.                                    She nods. He takes one last look at her and leaves. She           breathes a sigh of relief.                                    Curious, she cracks open the door and peeks outside:                                                            98 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY (NINA'S POV) 98                                    Leroy has pulled Lily down the corridor to break the news.           Lily takes off, furious.                                                                           99 OMITTED 99           91.                                   100 INT. PRINCIPLE'S DRESSING ROOM - LATER 100                                    Through the PA, music from ACT 1 plays.                                    Nina sits at her vanity in a robe, wearing the full White           Swan makeup and FEATHER CROWN. Pale, with red lipstick and           dark eyeliner, she looks like a porcelain doll.                                    She drops the robe off her shoulder and covers her rash with           white makeup.                                    The STAGE MANAGER'S voice comes through the PA speaker:                                    STAGE MANAGER (V.O.)           Act 2's starting. Ten minutes.                                    She removes a slipper off one foot. Her big and second toe,           and her pinky and fourth toe are stuck together. Puzzled, she           peels them apart.                                    She removes her other slipper and finds the same toes           completely FUSED, forming two large toes with double toenails           on either side of the middle toe.                                    She touches the bird-like foot, concerned, but slips on her           tights and hides the feet.                                                            101 INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHT 101                                    Nina stretches nervously in the wings, awaiting her entrance.                                    She peeks out through a small hole in the wall, sees the           AUDIENCE sitting expectantly in their seats.                                    The music begins and they shift and mummer in anticipation.                                    Nina pulls away, taking deep breaths and clenching her hands,           trying to stay calm.                                    On stage, David enters, beginning the Act. He traverses the           stage, "hunting" with a crossbow.                                                   STAGE MANAGER                          (TO NINA)           Go.                                    Nina takes a last breath and runs on.                                                                           102 STAGE 102                                    Under the spotlight, she begins dancing her intro.           92.                                    David runs towards her and she startles away from him,           afraid.                                    He grabs her and they begin their first Pas de Deux.                                                            103 INT. BACKSTAGE - LATER 103                                    Nina comes offstage, catching her breath. All around her,           CORPS MEMBERS dressed as little swans rush back on stage,           where FOUR LITTLE SWANS begin the Pas de Quatre.                                    Nina looks into the opposite wing and sees Leroy watching           her. He gives her a small, contented nod, then disappears           behind a swarm of dancers.                                    On stage, the Four Little Swans perform. In their identical           makeup and costumes, they look disturbingly alike.                                    During the applause, Nina catches a glimpse of David           backstage, sweaty, laughing and holding someone's hands. Nina           can't see who, her view obscured by moving bodies and limbs.                                    Suspicious, Nina moves to get a better look.                                    Revealing that David's flirting with Lily.                                    Nina tenses.                                    Then the Four Little Swans rush offstage past Nina. She           watches them go, unsettled.                                                   STAGE MANAGER           What are you doing? You're on!                                    He gently nudges her, and she has to run back on.                                                                           104 STAGE 104                                    Nina rushes from the wings, directly into David's arms.                                    All the swans are frozen in two rows on each side of the           stage, looking downstage.                                    David launches Nina into the air, hands around her waist.           93.                                    He slowly turns her around, keeping her held high.                                    From her swirling, bird's eye view, Nina sees the rows of           identically dressed Little Swans glaring at her...                                    Nina freaks, jerking her body.                                    David's grip SLIPS and Nina SLAMS onto the stage.                                    It's a horrific moment that feels like an eternity.                                    Gritting her teeth, Nina looks up around her, sees the faces           of the other ballerinas. Staring at her sadistically.                                    Nina finds Lily, glancing at David. He snaps to and quickly           helps Nina up.                                                   DAVID           What the fuck?                                    She's too freaked to respond.                                    They resume dancing, Nina barely keeping it together.                                    Behind them, Rothbart appears and commands his flock to exit.           The Little Swans start swirling off stage.                                    Leaving Nina and David alone.                                    David tries to pull her in one direction, but the dark hand           of Rothbart summons her, transforming her back into a swan.                                    She pulls away from David, frantically flapping, until she           disappears into the wings.                                                            105 INT. BACKSTAGE - SAME 105                                    As soon as she's off, she breaks down, hyperventilating. The           dancer playing ROTHBART eyes her with concern.                                                   ROTHBART           You alright?                                    She looks up, sees his creepy MASK, and backs away.                                    Rothbart has to go back on stage to finish the Act.                                    Other CORPS MEMBERS surround her, chirping "You okay?, "What           happened?" etc.                                    Dazed, Nina doesn't answer. The music ends and there's a weak           smattering of applause.           94.                                                   STAGE MANAGER           That's intermission! Act 3 in           fifteen.                                    The other dancers scurry to get ready, abandoning her.                                    Nina sees Leroy on stage chewing David out, behind the closed           curtain.                                    David spots Nina, glares at her, and sulks away.                                    Leroy runs his fingers through his hair, his back to Nina.                                    Nina cautiously approaches.                                                   NINA           It wasn't my fault. He dropped me.                                    He can't even look at her.                                                   LEROY                          (RAGING)           What a fucking disaster!                                    He walks away.                                    All alone, Nina sees everyone backstage looking at her.                                    She runs, escaping their stares.                                                                           106 OMITTED 106                                                            107 INT. PRINCIPLE'S DRESSING ROOM - SAME 107                                    She closes the door behind her, ready to cry.                                    She looks up, and finds Lily putting on makeup and wearing           the Black Swan costume.                                                   LILY           Rough start, huh? Pretty           humiliating...           95.                                                   NINA           Get out of here.                                                   LILY           Wow...rude.                                   Lily coyly smiles, and continues applying makeup.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           I'm worried about the next act. Not           sure you're feeling up to it.                                                   NINA           Stop. Just stop.                                                   LILY           How about...I dance the Black Swan           for you?                                   Nina looks into the mirror. Instead of Lily's reflection          there's the Double.                                                   NINA           Leave me alone. Leave me alone.                                                   DOUBLE                          (IN MIRROR)           But it's my turn.                                   Nina's fury rises up from inside.                                                   NINA           Leave me alone!!!                                   She charges...                                   And smashes her into the WALL LENGTH MIRROR, shattering it.          Shards fall everywhere.                                   The Double flips Nina over and wails on her. Punch after          punch.                                   Nina does her best to block the onslaught.                                   They scuffle, knocking things over, bumping into walls.                                   The Double gets her hands around Nina's neck...                                   Gasping for air, Nina tries to pull the hands free, but she's          too strong.           96.                                    Her hands frantically scramble along the surface of the           floor. The fingers barely touch the edge of a MIRROR SHARD,           but can't grasp it.                                    The Double squeezes down.                                    The blood vessels in Nina's eyes BURST again. Her neck starts           to stretch unnaturally. Strength surges through her body and           she lunges...                                    Finally grabbing the SHARD.                                    And DRIVES it into the Double's stomach.                                    Nina glances at her hand, cut by the mirror, then back up.                                    The Double is now LILY. Stunned, Lily looks down and touches           the stab wound.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           It's my turn.                                    Lily coughs up blood and collapses, dead.                                    Nina stares at her, breathing heavily, high on adrenaline.                                    A KNOCK on the door.                                    STAGE MANAGER (O.S.)           Black Swan, places in 5.                                    Nina drags the stiffening body into the wardrobe closet.                                                            108 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 108                                    Nina zips up the back to the Black Swan costume.                                    She deliberately applies the Black Swan makeup. Dark eye           shadow and rouge, maroon lipstick.                                    Dressed in black and wearing the dark make-up of the Black           Swan, she looks fierce.                                    She stares at her reflection, her eyes burning RED. New           rash bumps pop up on her arms, the intensity building within.           97.                                                  109 OMITTED 109                                                                           110 OMITTED 110                                                            111A INT. STAGE - NIGHT 111A                                    Nina bursts onto stage as the Black Swan, accompanied by           Rothbart.                                    She looks powerful, intense as she moves towards David.                                    His face shows his surprise.                                    Nina dances the first Pas de Deux with him. They finish and                          EXIT                                                            111B BACKSTAGE 111B                                                   DAVID                          WOW-                                    She walks away from him.                                    Alone, she looks at her arms, sees black points trying to           push through again.                                    Some fully emerge as shiny BLACK FEATHERS.                                    She just watches them, not panicking, but accepting the           transformation taking place. Even beckoning it.                                    Her second entrance cue is played.                                                   STAGE MANAGER           That's you!                                    She leaps back on                                                            111C STAGE 111C                                    For the Coda. She takes a brief pause, closing her eyes once           more, and then completely lets herself go.                                    She spins with ferocity. More BLACK FEATHERS burst out from           her shoulders and back.                                    At last, she truly embodies the Black Swan.           98.                                    She finishes the Coda, punctuating her last spin with a sharp           step that echoes through the theater.                                    The audience looks on, mesmerized. Too stunned to clap at           first.                                   111D Nina looks down at the stage, her face glazed with sweat 111D                                    She has returned to normal. No feathers. Normal eyes. A           woman.                                    She finally looks up at the audience, and they ERUPT in a           standing ovation.                                    Nina walks to the front of the stage, takes her bow.                                    Nina looks up at the MASS OF BODIES filling the auditorium,           vibrating with applause.                                    Proud, Nina smiles and bows again. Again and again.                                    She finally runs off stage, the applause still going strong.                                                            112 INT. BACKSTAGE - SAME 112                                    Nina enters the wings, other dancers cheer loudly. Even           Veronica and Galina.                                    She pushes past all the smiling faces. It feels very           surreal.                                    She sees Leroy clapping and shaking his head. Blown away.                                                   LEROY           Get back out there! Get back-                                    She stops his mouth with a kiss. The kind of kiss that you           can't stop. Not desperate, but adamant.                                    Finally she disengages, staring at him in the eyes, but           before he can say anything...                                    She turns and rushes back on stage. He's stunned. Like he's           been run over by a truck.                                                            113 INT. BACKSTAGE HALLWAY - LATER 113                                    She walks towards her dressing room, a satisfied smile on her           face.                                    She passes the stage manager.           99.                                                   STAGE MANAGER           Great job. You got fifteen til the           last act.                                    She nods and arrives at her room.                                    She opens the door, makes sure no ones looking, and enters           quickly.                                                            114 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - SAME 114                                    She closes the door behind her, locks it. Turns and sees the           broken glass all over the floor.                                    She eyes the closed wardrobe. A pool of blood drips out from           under the door.                                    She picks up a towel and lays it over the blood.                                    She starts to undress.                                                            115 INT. PRINCIPAL DRESSING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 115                                    Back in the White Swan costume, she re-applies the makeup.                                    There's a KNOCK on the door. She looks towards it, her face           only halfway made-up.                                                   NINA           One second.                                    She goes to the door, opens it just a crack.                                    She peeks through and finds...                                    LILY looking back at her.                                                   LILY           Hey...you were amazing.                                    Nina's petrified.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Seriously. I'm sorry things got so           messed up between us. Just, holy           shit, totally blown away...           100.                                   Nina barely manages a nod.                                                   LILY (CONT'D)           Anyway, wanted to tell you. I'll           let you finish. Merde.                                   Lily turns and walks away.                                   Nina swiftly shuts the door.                                   She turns around, stares at the wardrobe.                                   She steps cautiously towards it, her face repeated          countlessly in all the reflective shards.                                   She lifts the towel from the ground and looks at it.                                   It is clean. No blood. She looks down at the floor. No blood          there either.                                   She slowly opens the door to the wardrobe...                                   And finds it empty. No body whatsoever.                                   She looks over at the broken mirror. Sees her reflection          staring back at her.                                   She stares at it for a long beat, and realizes something.                                   She touches her stomach and winces a little. Pulls back her          hand. It's coated with red liquid. Blood.                                   It's started to soak through the costume, creating a faint          red spot. The fabric is ripped at the center of the stain.                                   She feels inside for confirmation.                                   And discovers a stab wound, in her own stomach.                                   She pulls out the sharp tip of mirror still stuck inside.          Blood begins flowing more rapidly.                                   She drops the mirror.                                    STAGE MANAGER (V.O.)           (On the PA)           White Swan in 5.                                   In a daze, she sits down at the vanity, and finishes applying          the rest of the White Swan's makeup.           101.                                   116A INT. STAGE - LATER 116A                                    Nina dances the final Pas de Deux as the White Swan. Losing           blood by the second, everything is woozy and blurry.                                    She can't do all the steps, but her performance is pained,           making it poignant.                                    A spot of red begins to soak through at the center of her           costume.                                    The music turns ominous, and VON ROTHBART, the evil sorcerer,           comes onto stage.                                    Nina dances away from him, back upstage, towards the cliff.           It's time for her final leap.                                    Her energy fading, she teeters up the stairs of the set. One           step at a time...                                    She gets to the top, takes one last look around, at all the           eyes watching her.                                    She notices a familiar face in the audience: HER MOTHER. She           watches with a profound sadness, tears streaking her cheeks.                                    In the front of Nina's costume, a dark circle has started to           form. Her blood fully seeping through.                                    And Nina leaps...                                   116B INTO BLACKNESS 116B                                    She falls through an endless void, her eyes closed.                                    She slowly twists around in the air, so that she's falling           backwards.                                    She hears something. Soft and muffled.                                    The faint sound of applause.                                   116C She lands slowly and comfortably on PADDING. 116C                                    The sound of applause is now loud, uproarious.                                    A group of BALLERINAS surround the mattress, clapping for           her, each one dressed as a WHITE SWAN.                                    Leroy pushes through the group to get to her.                                                   LEROY           Listen to them! They love you! Get           up, get up!                          (MORE)           102.                          LEROY (CONT'D)           I always knew you had it in you,           little princess. Go take your bow!                                   Nina is too weak to move.                                   Lily pushes her way into the group and GASPS, pointing at          Nina's abdomen.                                   Leroy follows her gaze and discovers the spot of blood, which          has grown in size.                                                   LEROY (CONT'D)           What did you do?                                                   NINA           I felt it.                                                   LEROY           Oh my god.                                                   NINA           ...perfect.                                                   LEROY           Someone, get help.                                                   NINA           Shhh...                                   Leroy looks back at her. She smiles.                                                   NINA (CONT'D)           It was perfect.                                   He understands.                                   The APPLAUSE grows more and more faint. Her eyes glaze over          and everything goes completely SILENT.                                   Nina lies there motionless, a smile frozen on her face.                                   CUT TO BLACK.
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+	    BLADE II -- By David Goyer            EXT. COMMUNITY BLOOD BANK - NIGHT            PULL BACK from a neon red cross ablaze in the cold December            night to REVEAL an inner-city, store-front clinic.  Trash and            leaves blow over wet, snowy pavement.            ANGLE ON a PALE FIGURE standing across the street.  He looks            feverish and strung-out, in serious need of a fix.  This is            JARED NOMAK, 20s.  He starts towards the clinic.            INT. COMMUNITY BLOOD BANK - ENTRANCE - NIGHT            Potential DONORS sit in a waiting area, filling out forms,            leafing through informational material.  A sign in the window            reads: "Se habla Espanol".  Others read: "YOU ARE MAKING A            DIFFERENCE", "GIVE LIFE", and "BECOME A PLATELET DONOR".  We            overhear a bored-looking EMPLOYEE behind the information desk            quizzing someone over the phone:                                EMPLOYEE                      Have you recently visited a tropical                      country?  Uh-huh?  In the past twelve                      months have you gotten a tattoo, non                      sterile acupuncture, or undergone any                      ear, skin or body piercing?            We MOVE PAST the employee to Nomak, waiting.                                NURSE (O.S.)                      Jared Nomak?            Nomak looks up.  We get a better look at his face now - he            has a thin scar running from his lower lip down his chin.  A            childhood accident, perhaps.  A NURSE smiles and motions for            him to join her.  She's carrying a clipboard.                                NURSE (CONT'D)                      Hi.  We're ready for you now.            INT. COMMUNITY BLOOD BANK - HALLWAY - NIGHT            Nomak follows the Nurse into a dimly-lit hallway.  We track            their progress in a convex safety mirror suspended from the            hallway ceiling as they pass all manner of medical supplies --            centrifuges, an apheresis device, etc.                                NURSE                          (referring to her clipboard)                      I see from your questionnaire that you                      don't have any immediate next of kin?                                NOMAK                      Not that I'm in contact with.                                NURSE                      Nobody to call in case of an emergency?                                NOMAK                      No --                          (apprehensive)                      Does that mean I can't be a donor?                                NURSE                      It depends.  We came up with some                      unusual results on your blood test.            Nomak follows the Nurse to a steel door were TWO SECURITY            GUARDS await them.  Both look bored, paying little attention            to the monitor which offers a view of the examining room            beyond.  There is also a small window with safety glass.            GUARD #1 opens the door, following Nomak and the Nurse            inside.  GUARD #2 remains behind, manning the hallway.            INT. COMMUNITY BLOOD BANK - EXAMINING ROOM - NIGHT            The Nurse ushers Nomak into the room, indicating he should            sit in a kind of reclining dental chair with arm and            headrests.  Nomak notices a security camera mounted above.                                NOMAK                          (anxious)                      How unusual?            Beat.  The Nurse sets aside Nomak's file, looking            uncomfortable.                                NURSE                      Your blood has a very rare phenotype,                      one that's quite valuable to people like                      us.                                NOMAK                      Us?  What are you talking about?            A kind-faced DOCTOR enters, nodding to Guard #1.                                DOCTOR                      It's a good news-bad news scenario,                      Jared.  Good news for us, bad for you.            The Doctor and Nurse smile, BARING FANGS.  We realize now            that they are both vampires.  The Guard, too.  He grips Nomak            by the throat, forcing him back into the restraint chair.  As            the vampire Guard does so, his hand brushes against Nomak's            jaw.  The flesh on Nomak's chin briefly separates along the            scar - almost as if it were a seam.            The guard pauses - and Nomak LAUGHS.  Definitely NOT the            reaction the vampires were expecting from a potential victim.            Nomak starts to shake and twitch, like he's going into some            kind of seizure.  The whites of his eyes bleed red.  He            throws his head back, opening his mouth as a PAIR OF RAZOR            SHARP CANINES extrude from his gums.  These are longer, much            more lethal-looking than the fangs of the vampires and --            Nomak lashes out, knocking the Guard backwards.  The Nurse            SCREAMS.  Nomak clamps his mouth onto her throat, SLAMMING            her back against the wall.            The vampire Doctor rushes to the door, scrambling to unbolt            it.  Nomak reaches for him, HOWLING with blood-drunk laughter            as he lifts the Doctor up.  Nomak flings the Doctor about            like a toy, using his body to SMASH the lights, then the            security camera above.            INT. COMMUNITY BLOOD BANK - HALLWAY - NIGHT            We hear SCREAMS and HORRIBLE NOISES coming from the examining            room.  Guard #2 draws a gun and looks to the security monitor            with alarm.  The screen goes black.  He looks to the small            window, trying to peer into the now-darkened room beyond --            SPLASH!  A wave of blood smears across a window.  A HAND            wipes a patch of blood away, revealing Nomak's baleful,            distorted eyes.  Guard #2 starts to back away when --            BANG!  Nomak slams against the other side of the steel door.            BANG!BANG!BANG!  The door begins to bend, hand-shaped            impressions bulging outward as Nomak starts to peel the door            apart like it was an aluminum can.            Guard #2 has seen enough.  He turns and runs even as the door            CAVES INWARD off its hinges.  Forward momentum sends the door            sliding across the hallway floor where it trips up the Guard.            ON THE DOORWAY            as Nomak steps into the hallway.  Because of the lights            above, there are alternating pools of light and shadow in the            hall.  Nomak advances towards us, his face coming in and out            of darkness.                                NOMAK                      Vampires --            With each pool of light, his awful smile seems to distort            further and further, until his mouth seems to be widening all            the way back to his ears.                                NOMAK (CONT'D)                      I fucking hate vampires.            On the floor, the vampire Guard CRIES OUT in fear, helplessly            raising his hands to defend himself.  Nomak HOWLS and leaps            towards him/us, blacking out the screen with his hurtling            form as we --                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. INNER-CITY BACK-ALLEY - NIGHT            BOOM!  A second-story door flies open and FIVE VAMPIRE thug            wannabes come spilling out.  They race down a flight of            stairs, tripping and tumbling over themselves.  In descending            order, they are: RUSH, a pimped-out Vanilla Ice clone wearing            Karl Kani gear, followed by JIGSAW, ST. CLOUD, T-BAG and            SEGURA.            BLADE            exits just behind them, eschewing the stairs completely and            vaulting over the railing.  He unholsters his MACH pistol as            he drops, FIRING it as he lands in a cat-like stance on the            snowy ground below --            BA-BANG!  A silver-tipped bullet punches through T-Bag's            chest.  He turns to ash even as his fellow vamps dash through            the disintegrating cloud that used to be his body.  The            embers melt the snow where they land.            A super-charged foot chase ensues, with hunter and prey            moving at speeds in excess of anything a human would ever be            capable of.  We're talking thirty-five, even forty miles an            hour.            ON BLADE            Running like a bull, condensed vapor streaming from his mouth            and nostrils.  Splashing through puddles of icy water            storming through barriers of plywood and razor wire, leaping            over mountains of garbage bags.            ON THE VAMPIRES            as they flatten a length of cyclone fencing like it was crepe            paper.  They scramble up an obstacle of waste bins, leaping            into the air --            BACK TO BLADE            pulling out his twin-bladed boomerang as he runs.  He flings            the weapon.  It twirls around, catching --            ST. CLOUD IN MID-LEAP            and cutting the vampire completely in half.  As the            disintegrating halves of St. Cloud fall to the side, Blade            storms over the waste bin.            EXT. INNER-CITY - SECOND ALLEY - NIGHT            The remaining vampires stumble into a narrower alley where a            GROUP OF BUMS are warming themselves over a series of oil            drum fires.            Jigsaw slips, TRIPPING over one of the burning oil drums,            catching himself ablaze.  He doesn't give a shit.  He keeps            on running, barreling his way into --            INT. NOODLE FACTORY - NIGHT            -- the back entrance of a cramped, sweat-shop.  Some kind of            noodle factory filled with steam and equipment and YAMMERING            FOREIGNERS and --            -- here comes Blade, hot on the vampires' heels, shouldering            workers aside and --            EXT. NOODLE FACTORY - NIGHT            -- Rush and the remaining vamps spill out onto the street            where a number of motorcycles are waiting for them -- two BMW            R1200 motorbikes and a tricked-out Panhead Harley chopper            with ape-hanger handlebars.            Rush and Segura leap atop their BMWs.  Jigsaw rolls into a            puddle of water, dousing himself, then jumps onto his            chopper.  As the vamps peel out --            BLADE            Bursts from the factory.  Segura revs his BMW, trying to run            him down.  At the last second, Blade pivots aside like a            matador.  Segura circles around for another try.            Blade leaps, somersaulting through the air, then lands on the            back of the bike behind Segura.  SHINGGG!  Blade pulls a            retractable garrotte wire from the sleeve of his jacket and            wraps it around Segura's throat.            With a violent twist, Blade decapitates Segura.  As the            vampire's headless body turns to ash before him, Blade leans            forward and takes the controls of the speeding motorcycle.            WHOOSH!  Blade speeds after the other vamps.            EXT. STREET - NIGHT            Rush and Jigsaw gun their bikes for all they're worth.  Up            ahead, a line of construction barricades are blocking the            way.  The vampires power on through the barricades, then            abruptly brake --            THE OVERPASS            before them is under construction.  There's a twenty-foot gap            in the road where a portion is missing, pieces of re-bar            poking out from the ends of the prefabricated sections.            Rush and Jigsaw consider their options, but then they hear            the ROAR of Blade's engine as he comes SCREAMING over the            rise in the road!            Fuck it.  Rush powers his chopper forward, making the jump,            burning rubber as he lands on the far side.  Jigsaw torques            his handle and follows, rocketing towards the gap.            ON BLADE            as he snaps his hand up -- a trio of Japanese throwing stars            appearing between his fingers like a magician's cards.  He            flings the stars at Jigsaw's bike --            The throwing stars hit Jigsaw's back tire and the bike goes            down, vomiting SPARKS as it slides forward.  Jigsaw is flung            forward like a ragdoll, out over the gap in the overpass and            -- WHUNK!  Jigsaw is impaled on the protruding re-bar!  He            HOWLS, instantly disintegrating as Blade makes the jump!            UP AHEAD            Rush cuts onto an on-ramp, powering his way onto the freeway.            EXT. FREEWAY - NIGHT            Hyper-speed.  Rush slouches low, trying to cut wind            resistance and will his bike faster.  He hazards a look back.            BLADE            is gaining on him like demon of speed.            Rush pulls a TEC-9, FIRING back at Blade.  It's no good.            Blade is nearly upon him, unsheathing his sword from his back            scabbard --            Blade JABS his sword forward into Rush's rear-wheel.  The            bike locks up, flips over, BURSTS INTO FLAMES.  The whole            screaming wreck slews forward, SHOWERING SPARKS --            RUSH            goes flying onto the road, rolling over and over, one of his            legs SNAPPING at a bone-breaking angle.  As he lies there            MOANING, Blade circles around, sweeping past Rush's decimated            bike, retrieving his sward from the burning wreckage.            Blade kills the engine on his own bike and dismounts.  Rush            is pathetically trying to drag his broken body to safety.            Blade approaches, placing his boot heel on the back of Rush's            neck, forcing his face against the asphalt.  He unholsters            his MACH, pointing it at the vampire's bleeding head.            Blade's opening line:                                BLADE                      Tell me where he his now and I'll                      consider you a loose end.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. MOO-COW CREAMERY - MILK FACTORY - NIGHT            CLOSE ON a peeling wall mural -- smiling 30s cartoon cow            winking at us, licking her chops.  The logo reads: "TASTY".            Blade's matte-black Charger RUMBLES into view and parks in            front of the abandoned milk factory.  Blade steps out,            heaving an equipment sack onto his shoulder.            INT. WAREHOUSE - NIGHT            THREE LACONIC VAMPIRE TOUGHS are playing poker at a card            table, dealing out novelty nudie cards.  We hear a NOISE.            One of the vampires approaches a reinforced door.  He slides            open a viewing slot and peers through.  Nobody outside.  The            vampire turns back to his poker buddies, shrugging --                                VAMPIRE                      Nobody's th--            Before the vampire can even finish his sentence, Blade's            SWORD punches straight through the door into his chest.  He            gasps and turns to ash as the sword disengages back out            through the door and --            CRASH!  The door explodes open, sending clouds of burning            vampire embers every which way.  In walks Blade, grinning            wickedly, MACH ready --            As the other two vampires rise - POW!  A silver hollow-point            hits the first one in the neck.  POW!  Another hollow-point            takes out the second.  The vampires drop, turning to ash.            Blade holsters his MACH, striding through vampire ash piles.            The place is eerily quiet here, in stark contrast to the            mayhem of the last few minutes.  Just the steady, low-pitched            HUM of machinery.            Blade starts forward.  Up ahead, a FAINT GLOW is emitting            from behind an area that's been sectioned off with canvas            tarps.  Blade sweeps one of the tarps aside --            THREE LARGE TANKS            are hidden inside.  The first two are empty.  A MAN is            suspended within the third, bobbing weightlessly in a sea of            red plasma.  His long, gray hair floats about his face,            shrouding his weathered features.  We're not sure if he's            sleeping or dead.                                BLADE                      Old man, old man, what've they done to                      you --            Whistler's ace drifts around into view.  Blade shakes his            head in sadness.  He looks about for a way to extract            Whistler, doesn't see any obvious means, then --            CRASH!  Blade kicks through the glass.  Blood and fluids            flood out around him as Whistler's limp body tumbles partly            down, but he's still suspended by the wires and medical            leads.  Blade unsheathes his sword, severing the wires --            Whistler falls into his arms.  Blade cradles him, then -- the            gunsmith's eyes abruptly snap open, flooding with rage.            Blade staggers back as the HOWLING horror that used to be his            mentor wraps his hands around Blade's throat, forcing him to            the ground.  Whistler ROARS, revealing a set of jagged fangs.                                WHISTLER                      Why didn't you finish me off?!?!  I told                      you --            Whistler SLAMS the back of Blade's head against the concrete            floor again and again, punctuating his words with each SLAM --                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      -- TO -- FUCKING -- FINISH -- ME -- OFF!            Blade knees Whistler in the balls.  Whistler lets go, cupping            his groin as Blade heaves him aside.            Blade strips off his gauntlets.  Whistler springs at him            again.  Blade sinks his fist deep in Whistler's stomach.  As            Whistler doubles over, Blade twists Whistler's hands behind            his back, cuffing his wrists together with a pair of titanium            manacles.            Blade pulls a restraint hood from his equipment bag and            quickly slips it over Whistler's head, cinching it tight.            Another beat.  Whistler doesn't stir.  He's down for the            count.  Blade pauses a moment, catching his breath as he            leans on Whistler's still form.  He's exhausted.                                BLADE                      Come on, Whistler.            He rises, heaving Whistler's body over his shoulder.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Let's go home.            EXT. THE CITY - NIGHT            Blade's battered Charger knifes through the snow-dusted urban            blight like a shadow.  Boarded up businesses, tent cities,            doorways bombed with graffiti throwups -- wherever this            godforsaken Gomorrah is, it's definitely a notch down on the            misery scale from the city Blade used to call home.            Up ahead, the sprawl levels out, giving way to an ice-bound            harbor wreathed in fog.            INT. BLADE'S CHARGER - NIGHT            Blade drives on, inured to the sqaulor.  He made peace with            the darkness a long time ago.            EXT. SHIPYARD - NIGHT            The Charger weaves its way through a maze of scrap metal and            rusty shipping containers, homing in on a sprawling warehouse            that's been cordoned off by cyclone fencing and razor wire.            Utlra-violent floodlights illuminate the area, while security            cameras keep a watchful eye.            INT. WAREHOUSE - INDUSTRIAL ELEVATOR - NIGHT            More UV lights flicker on.  We're in a massive loading            elevator/platform which HUMS as it ascends, eventually            reaching its destination with a BOOMING CLANG.  The doors at            the rear glide open.  Blade guides the Charger out.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT            Santa's workshop by way of Soldier of Fortune.  Industrial            equipment is strewn everywhere.  Mills, old furnaces, gutted            vehicles, an ad hoc surgical theater.  We also notice the big            rig which Scud had been piloting.  Because of various leaking            overhead pipes, the floor is slick with a sheen of water.            Blade kills his Charger, looking around as he climbs out.                                BLADE                      Scud!            Blade's voice ECHOES throughout the cavernous room.                                SCUD (O.S.)                      Lock up your daughters, people --            ANGLE ON SCUD            A handlebar moustached, weed-sucking stoner.  Thrift-store            chic, wearing a Jimmy Walker "Dyn-O-Mite!" T-shirt.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      The Dark Knight returns.            Scud is lowering himself down from the ceiling on a rope and            pulley system where he'd been suspended in a safety harness,            doing some kind of electrical wiring job.  He reaches the            floor and unclips himself.  We notice he's wearing a surfer's            charm around his neck that's been strung with vampire fangs.            Scud pulls a half-smoked roach from behind his ear, using a            lighter in the shape of a woman's torso to fire up.  The            flame jets from a hole in one of her tits.  He takes a            Spicoli-sized hit and offers the roach to Blade.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      Little toke of the smokage, B?            Blade slaps it from his hand.                                BLADE                      Knock it off.  We've got work to do.            Blade opens the trunk.  Scud joins him.            WHISTLER            is inside.  Blade unfastens the hood, slipping it off.            Immediately, Whistler sits up, LUNGING at Blade!                                SCUD                      Fuck me!            Blade gets Whistler in a headlock, choking him as he drags            him out of the trunk.  It's like trying to wrestle a rabid            pit bull.  He looks to Scud, annoyed.                                BLADE                      You going to stand there crapping your                      pants or are you going to help me?!            Scud steps forward, tentative.  Together, he and Blade drag            Whistler kicking and SCREAMING across the workshop, forcing            him into a small, cell-like room.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - CELL - NIGHT            WHAP!  Blade throws Whistler onto the concrete floor, pinning            him as Scud quickly slips a series of chains around him which            have been secured to the wall.  The opposite wall is covered            by a series of steel shutters.  As Whistler continues to            thrash, Blade affixes a muzzle to the older man's mouth.                                SCUD                      You got something in mind, Blade?                                BLADE                      Ultra-rapid detox.  They use it on                      heroin addicts, make 'em go cold-turkey                      in one night.            Blade pulls out a pneumatic syringe, plunging an ampoule of            amber-colored fluid into the bottle mount.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Gonna try and OD Whistler on a                      retroviral cure.                                SCUD                      I don't know about this, man --            Blade injects Whistler with the syringe.  Whistler HOWLS in            pain, nearly throwing Blade and Scud off him.                                BLADE                          (to Scud)                      Get back!!!            Scud scurries away.  Whistler's struggles have taken an even            more violent turn.  Blade beats him back down.            Finally, Blade steps on Whistler's neck, pinning his head as            he draws a shotgun from a holster beneath his armpit.  He            shoves it in Whistler's SNARLING FACE.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      If there's anything of you left in                      there, Whistler, listen up now.  Come                      morning, those shutters are going up.                      Either you'll be cured, or you'll fry.            Blade raises his foot from Whistler's neck, quickly backing            out the door.  Whistler THROWS himself at Blade, nearly            tearing the chains from the wall as --            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT            BOOM!  Blade slams the cell door closed.  The door is heavy            steel.  Nevertheless, Whistler kicks against it, threatening            to tear it off its hinges.  Blade throws a heavy cross-bar            over the door.  Then he steps back, joining Scud.            WHUMP!WHUMP!WHUMP!  Whistler hammers the door again and again            and again.  But the crossbar holds.  Blade glances at Scud,            who's looking winded and shaken by the ordeal.                                BLADE                      It's going to be a long night.            Scud nods and exits.  Blade drags a chair across the floor,            setting it in front of the door.  He sits down, shotgun            resting across his knees, holding vigil.  And off that grim,            stoic image we --                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. CITY DUMP - DAY (20 YEARS AGO)            Daylight bleaches the image, almost whiting it out.  A WINO            sifts through refuse, collecting bottles.  Three MUTTS are            tethered to his side with rope.  He reaches for a bottle,            cuts himself on a piece of glass.  As he inspects his wound,            his dogs GROWL.  The Wino looks up --            A BLACK KID (14) is standing atop a mountain of refuse --            wiry and intense, perched there like a predator.  The Wino            glances at his wrist again, the blood, then back up at the            black kid.  Unnerved, the Wino starts to back away, then            turns -- BUMPING right into the black kid, who has moved            beside him with uncanny speed.  (NOTE: this all happens            within a single, continuous shot.)            The boy SLAMS the Wino against the trestle wall and SNARLS,            baring FANGS.  And just as he's about to tear the man's            throat out --            A HAND reaches in from off-screen, pulling the boy back.            It's WHISTLER, twenty years younger and spryer, with a head            full of RAVEN BLACK hair.            Whistler throws the boy into the light, forcing him onto the            ground.  He shoves a .45 against the boy's face and is just            about to pull the trigger when he stops, NOTICING overhead            sun reflected in the boy's eyes.  Whistler looks up and SEES            the sun at high noon, then glances back at the boy in            understanding.  He smiles.                                WHISTLER                      Daylight.  Son of a bitch.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - DAWN            Blade wakes up, lifts his head.  A shaft of sunlight shines            directly down onto him, reflecting back at us from his now            adult eyes.  Blade hasn't moved.  He sits in the chair in            front of the cell door which is now silent.  He stands,            unlocking the cell door.  He heaves the cross-bar away.  The            door GROANS as he opens it.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - CELL - DAWN            Blade enters.  It's dark.  We can just make out Whistler's            figure huddled in the corner like some kind of caged animal,            his lanky, gray hair obscuring his face.            Whistler doesn't stir.  Blade crosses over to the steel            shutters.  For the briefest moments, he hesitates.  Then he            hits the switch, readying his shotgun.  With a HUM, the            shutters rise, throwing a SHAFT OF BLINDING SUNLIGHT over            Whistler.            Nothing happens.  Blade lowers his shotgun.  Whistler slowly            raises his head, fixing Blade with a bloodshot eye.                                BLADE                      How do you feel?                                WHISTLER                      Like a fucking heifer took a dump in my                      mouth.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - BATHROOM AREA - LATER            Whistler stands bare-chested before a corroded mirror,            splashing water from a sink over his face, rinsing off            shaving cream residue.  He inspects his features -- he's            cleaned himself up a bit, trimmed his beard, etc.            He pulls on a fresh shirt, then turns to face Blade, who            stands behind him.                                WHISTLER                      You came back for me.                                BLADE                      Did you think I wouldn't?                                WHISTLER                      Took you long enough.            Blade smiles.  That was as close to a thank-you as this old            junkyard dog is ever going to give.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - BACKSTORAGE AREA - DAY            Whistler has fired up a Lucky Strike.  He's moving through            the storage area where much of his old equipment has been            shelved, pulling tarps off, checking things.  Blade follows.                                BLADE                      Let's just hope you've kicked the Thirst                      for good.  I'll be watching you close.                      You start to back-slide --                                WHISTLER                      You put a bullet in my brain.  Wouldn't                      expect anything else.            Whistler takes a long drag, expelling the smoke slowly,            studying the cigarette in his hand.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      I'll say one thing for doing time as a                      suckhead.  Seems to have knocked that                      cancer of mine back into remission.            Blade nods.  Then Whistler stops, obviously frustrated.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      Where the hell's my lathe?            Just then we hear the SOUND of an industrial lathe firing up.            Curious, Whistler exits into --            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - DAY            The workshop proper.  Scud is working at Whistler's old            lathe, bopping his head along to MUSIC which is playing on a            nearby TV.  The them song to SPEED RACER.  Now he's wearing a            Ron Jeremy T-shirt that says "Daddy".                                TV (O.S.)                      Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer!                      He's a demon on wheels.  He's gaining on                      you so you better look alive.  He's busy                      revving up the powerful Mach Five --            Whistler cocks an incredulous eyebrow at Blade, who has            fallen in beside him.  Scud kills the lathe and approaches.                                SCUD                      Whistler.  Cool beans.  Nice to meet                      you, man.  Heard a lot.  I'm Josh                      Frohmeyer.  You can call me Scud,                      though.  That's what most people do.            Scud offers his hand.  Whistler doesn't take it.  Scud shoots            an uneasy glance at Blade, raising an eyebrow in question.            Is Whistler okay, or not?  Blade nods.  Whistler moves over            to the Charger which has its hood up.                                WHISTLER                      Tell me something, Skid --                                SCUD                      Scud.                                WHISTLER                      Whatever --                          (checking the motor)                      What'd you do to the Charger?                                SCUD                      The pimp-mobile?  Just made a few after                      market modifications.  Nitrous-oxide                      injection system, forged aluminum                      pistons and crankshaft, higher flowing                      fuel pump.                                WHISTLER                      Gave it a more aggressive exhaust                      profile ramping.                                SCUD                      Fuck yeah.  Whole package'll crank this                      betty up another three-hundred                      horsepower.                                WHISTLER                          (cutting him off)                      And you'll burn the damn thing out                      before your next fucking oil change.            Whistler just looks to Blade and shakes his head.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      Where'd you dig up this shit-bird                      anyway?                                SCUD                      Look, what's your problem?            Whistler gets in Scud's face.  Scud looks to Blade for help,            but he just watches, letting the two of them sort things out.                                WHISTLER                      My problem, shitbird, is that I tried to                      blow my fucking head off and wound up                      sucking blood clots for the last year                      and a half!  Now you're standing there                      choking your chicken like we're all                      walking around some fucking candy-ass                      vampire sitcom!            Scud attempts to show some balls, but stammers all the same.                                SCUD                      Hey, you think I don't know what's at                      stake here?  We practically compromised                      our whole operation to save your                      puckered old ass!  And for what?                                WHISTLER                          (grabs Scud's shirt)                      Our operation?!  Our operation?!  I                      built this operation, you fucking turd                      stain.            Just then, however, an alarm starts BEEPING.  Scud checks a            display as Blade readies his MACH.                                SCUD                      Motion sensors.  Looks like Zone Three.                                BLADE                      Human?            Scud checks a series of thermal signature displays.                                SCUD                      Body temp's fifty so I'll guess suck                      head.            Scud looks to a bank of security monitors -- the views break            into static as a FIGURE rushes past them.  He tries a few            keyboard commands.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      I don't understand, I'm not getting                      anything on the surveillance cams.            Whistler makes a few adjustments on the nearest monitor.                                WHISTLER                      They're fried.  Whoever's out there is                      using magnesium flares.  Seems like                      they've got your security system stopped                      out pretty well.            Whistler moves to a rack of weaponry.  As he reaches for CAR            15, Scud moves to stop him.                                SCUD                      Whoa, whoa, easy cowboy - I'm not                      trusting you with a weapon just yet.            Whistler SMACKS Scud in the face with the butt of the CAR-15            and pushes past him.  We hear a CRASH.            ANGLE ON            TWO BLACK, LATEX-CLAD, NINJA LIKE INTRUDERS            Running on all fours, racing upside down across the ceiling            at break-neck speed.  Then they drop, somersaulting down            fifty feet, landing in a cat-like stance.                                BLADE                      Hit the God-lights.            Scud, with his nose now bleeding, activates a series of            stadium-style lights secured to the ceiling.  The entire            place goes white with UV light, the image nearly blowing out.            CLOSE ON FIGURES' FACES            They are wearing metal goggles with iris shut to mere pin            prick openings.            Whistler trains the CAR-15 on --            THE FIRST LATEX CLAD FIGURE            Who is now removing something from a satchel.  Whistler            FIRES.  The Intruder drops the object and cartwheels away.            In the blink of an eye, the Second Intruder has launched            himself at Whistler, hand-springing off the floor, then            kicking him in the mid-section.  As Whistler falls back, the            Second Intruder presses forward.            ON BLADE            Unsheathing his sword, rushing at the First Intruder.            WHAP!  The Intruder traps Blade's forearm, pivoting, planting            a boot in Blade's ribcage.  Obviously, the Intruder is a            serious martial arts student.            WHAP!WHAP!WHAP!  The two of them go at it, unleashing a            flurry of kicks, blocks, and punches.  The Intruder gets            Blade in a back-choke.  He twists out of it, throwing the            Intruder over his shoulder, who neatly cartwheels, springing            back off the wall at Blade again --            Blade ducks beneath one of the Intruder's kicks, then traps            the Intruder's foot, giving it a savage twist.  CRACK!  Blade            backhands the intruder with a blow so strong that it knocks            the Intruder to his knees.  Then the Intruder reaches for a            short sword.  In a heartbeat, the sword is out and against            Blade's throat.  Just as Blade's sword is not against the            Intruder's.  It's a stalemate.                                SECOND INTRUDER                      Stop!!!!!            Blade and the First Intruder freeze.  The Second Intruder            steps away from Whistler, whom he clearly had the drop on,            and tosses the CAR-15 to the ground.                                SECOND INTRUDER (CONT'D)                      We didn't come here to fight.  We came                      to deliver a message.            Blade looks back to the First Intruder.  Then slowly            withdraws his sword.  The Intruder does the same.  Blade            turns off the God-lights.  The UVs fade and normal lighting            returns.  Scud and Whistler pick themselves up off the floor.                                BLADE                      Take off your masks.            The Intruders remove their masks.  The first is ASAD, a            cautious Sufi Muslim possessing a restrained nobility.            The second is a woman, NYSSA.  20-something, with emerald            eyes and strong, darkly exotic features.  Both are Vampire.                                ASAD                      My name is Asad.  This is Nyssa.  We                      represent the Shadow Cabinet.  The                      ruling body of Vampire nation.  They're                      offering you a truce.  They want to meet                      with you.                                SCUD                          (wiping blood from his nose)                      Bullshit.            Blade holds up his hand, silencing Scud's outburst.  He nods            for Nyssa and Asad to continue.            Nyssa slowly crouches and reaches for the object she dropped            - a CD.  She tosses it to Blade.  Still keeping an eye on            them, Blade slips the CD into a reader.  We SEE a slide-show            of video capture shots taken from a surveillance camera.            Nomak tearing into the blood bank staff, etc.                                NYSSA                      For decades you've been the thing we've                      feared the most.  But there's something                      else loose on the streets now --            CLOSE ON            The final still.  A blurry, horrific shot of Nomak's half            turned face and back.  We get a sense of distorted, inhuman            physiognomy.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      Something worse than you.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. BLADE AND SCUD'S WAREHOUSE - ROOFTOP - NIGHT            Blade, Whistler, and Scud stand near the ledge, while Asad            stands a few yards off, talking on a phone.  Nyssa stands            even further away, watching them with distrust.                                SCUD                      This whole deal's giving me a serious                      case of the butt-willies.                                WHISTLER                      Look, kid, they obviously found your                      base of operations.  If it was a trap,                      why flip their dicks by announcing                      themselves?                                BLADE                      I agree.  We play along for now, we                      might wind up learning something about                      how their world ticks.                                WHISTLER                          (grinning at Scud)                      Either that or feeding the worms.            Asad finishes his call and approaches them.                                ASAD                      They're ready to see you now.            As if on cue, we hear the THRUM of helicopters.  Seconds            later, two Bell Jet Rangers appear above them, illuminating            them in their searchlight.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. SKY - NIGHT            We track the helicopters across the night sky.  We SEE            Whistler and Asad in one, Blade, Scud and Nyssa in another.            INT. JET RANGER - NIGHT            Blade and Nyssa sit in the rear of the first helicopter.            Nyssa is studying Blade.                                BLADE                      What?                                NYSSA                      They tell bedtime stories about you.                      Blade the big, bad boogie-man.  Frankly,                      I'm disappointed.                          (Blade raises an eyebrow)                      That you were willing to come along so                      easily, I mean.  Without any assurances.            Blade smiles and opens his coat, gesturing to a bandolier of            plastic explosives secured to his chest.                                BLADE                      Semtex explosive.  Enough to level a                      city block.  How's that for assurance?            The helicopter abruptly banks right, dropping down low.            EXT. HELICOPTER - NIGHT            The Bell Jet Rangers touch down outside a terraced, Frank            Lloyd Wright structure overlooking the ocean.  As Nyssa and            Asad lead Blade, Whistler and Scud towards the facility we            SEE a circular crimson logo encircling a double-helix.            Scud notices a series of RED LIGHT DOTS on his arms and            chest.  He looks up to see DOZENS OF VAMPIRE MARKSMEN on the            roofs above, training their weapons on them.            INT. ELEVATOR CAB - NIGHT            The group rides down.  The elevator stops.  The doors open.            INT. DAMASKINO'S STRONGHOLD - 4-WAY INTERSECTION - NIGHT            Nyssa and Asad lead them into a hub out of which multiple            corridors project.  They take the central corridor.            INT. STEEL CORRIDOR - NIGHT            The corridor ends at a pair of steel security doors.  Nyssa            stands before a biometric scanner, allowing a beam of light            to play over her face.  The scanner acknowledges her identity            and the doors HISS open, revealing a series of security doors            beyond these which successively open into --            A FINAL DOOR            Oak, set into a stainless steel wall.  Incalculably ancient,            elaborately carved.  Brought over from the "Old World."                                NYSSA                      The House of Erebus you encountered                      before were nothing but feudal lords.                      The true power of the Vampire Nation                      lies here --            As they move towards the final door, Whistler shivers.  Scud            watches as his breath escapes from his mouth in a frosty            plume.  Asad takes notice.                                ASAD                      Few warmbloods have seen what's beyond                      this door.            He pushes the doors open into --            INT. DAMASKINO'S LAIR - NIGHT            A crescent-shaped room filled with antiquities: quarry            columns from Middle Kingdom Egypt, stacks of arcane volumes,            Medieval frontispieces.  A Borgia-esque Renaissance portrait            staring down at us with a severe gaze.  Towering over all of            these is a massive Greek Cross carved from stone.  MUSIC            echoes around them -- Boito's Faust.  Standing in the midst            of this is OVERLORD ELI DAMASKINOS, wearing a robe of black            silk.                                NYSSA                      Father --            Damaskinos holds up his hand.  He waits for the music to            crescendo, then turns, his face still hidden in shadow.                                DAMASKINOS                      I hope you don't mind the cold.  When                      one such as myself reaches an advanced                      age, certain precautions are needed in                      order to preserve the flesh.                                ASAD                      Blade, this is Overlord Eli Damaskinos.                                DAMASKINOS                          (in vampire dialect; subtitled)                      Welcome, Daywalker.  I thank you for                      coming.  I've been anxious to meet you                      for quite some time.            Damaskinos draws closer now, stepping into the light.  Bright            eyed with smile like moonlight gleaming off a knife blade.            His skin is impossibly pale, almost marble-like, with            traceries of blue blood pulsing underneath.                                DAMASKINOS (CONT'D)                      And the late Abraham Whistler.  I trust                      your time amongst our numbers was                      agreeable?            Whistler glares at Damaskinos.  The two men stare at each            other a moment, sizing one another up.                                DAMASKINOS (CONT'D)                          (smiling knowingly)                      It has been said, you may have enemies                      whom you hate, but not enemies whom you                      despise.  Be proud of your enemy: then                      his success shall be yours, too.  In                      that regard, I should thank you.                                BLADE                      For what?                                STEVENS (O.S.)                      Eliminating Deacon Frost.            CARTER STEVENS, an officious-looking familiar who has been            quietly watching from the wings now steps forward.                                STEVENS (CONT'D)                      All that unseemly business with LaMagra.                      You did us a favor.                          (offering his hand to Blade)                      Carter Stevens.            As Blade and Stevens shake, Blade notices a vampire glyph            poking out from beneath the familiar's shirt cuff.                                BLADE                      You're human.                                STEVENS                          (with a smile)                      Barely.  I'm a lawyer.                                ASAD                      Mr. Stevens works with the National                      Institute of Health.                          (off Blade's look)                      Given that they monitor the nation's                      blood supply, a strategic alliance                      seemed prudent.                                STEVENS                      We also finance a number of humanitarian                      organizations -- the National Institute                      of Infectious Diseases for one, the                      Human Genome Project...                                BLADE                      Why?                                NYSSA                      Survival.            Blade and the others turn to Nyssa, who uses a complex            mechanical key to activate a holo-projector mounted above the            table.  As she focuses the image, a 3-D DIORAMA of vampire            viral nucleocapsids swirls into view.  The nucelocapsids            begin attacking human red blood cells.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      As you may know, Vampirism is an                      arbovirus, one that's spread through the                      saliva of parasitic organisms --                          (motioning to the hologram)                      In this case, vampires are the vector.                      The virus replicates within the human                      bloodstream, evolving its host into an                      entirely new life-form.                          (beat)                      Unfortunately, viruses evolve too --            As Nyssa talks, one of the viral nucleocapsids changes,            mutating from its original, elegant design into a harsher,            more menacing form.            The mutated nucleocapsid begins feeding on the original            vampire capsids, causing a chain-reaction of mutation.  In            seconds, the holo-image is filled with throbbing, microscopic            horrors which then mutate into  --                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      We've dubbed this new virus the Reaper                      Strain.  And like any good pathogen, it                      appears to have found a carrier -- a                      "Patient Zero".            A rotating 3-D image of Jared Nomak's face.  Eyes red, his            skin in full "blood mode" blush.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      His name is Jared Nomak.                                DAMASKINOS                      Thiavolos, as we used to say in Greece.                      The Devil.  Pure Thirst.  Nothing more.                      He was born a vampire, but he is an                      anomaly.                          (to Blade)                      Like you.  Unlike the rest of us,                      however, he feeds on not just humans,                      but vampires as well.                                BLADE                      Seems like he's doing me a favor, then.                                NYSSA                      You're missing the point.  Their vampire                      victims don't die.  They turn.  They                      become carriers.  If the Reapers                      continue unchecked, there could be                      thousands of them before the month is                      over.  Do the math.            Blade turns to Damaskinos.                                BLADE                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      You want me to hunt them for you.                                DAMASKINOS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      Not alone.                                ASAD                      We've been training a small tactical                      unit -- the Bloodpack.  We want you to                      lead them.                                WHISTLER                      Just how long has this little social                      club of yours been together?                                NYSSA                      Two years.                                BLADE                      Then they weren't created to go after                      your "patient zero".                                NYSSA                      No.  They've been training to hunt you.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - DAWN            Blade, Whistler and Scud enter through the loading elevator.            Blade turns to Whistler.                                BLADE                      What do you think?                                WHISTLER                      Sounds like a plan.                                BLADE                      What do you really think?                                WHISTLER                          (lighting a cigarette)                      These guys are shitting bricks cause                      they're no longer on the top of the food                      chain.  They're going to fuck us the                      first chance they get.            Whistler moves away.  Blade shrugs off his jacket, begins            putting away his weapons.  Scud lingers, apprehensive.                                SCUD                      So you're going to do this?                                BLADE                      Keep your friends close and your enemies                      closer.  Isn't that how the saying goes?            Scud follows Blade's gaze, watching Whistler, who has            collapsed into a chair at the far end of the workshop.  The            grizzled hunter pulls off his leg brace, then massages his            bum knee.  Scud nods in Whistler's direction.                                SCUD                      I'm worried about him.                          (off Blade's look)                      Look, I know he's your friend, but just                      watch him, okay?  Nobody goes cold                      Turkey from the Thirst in a night.            BACK ON WHISTLER            Surrounded by the salvaged parts and massive gears of long            discarded machinery, half-hidden in shadow.  A shaft of            morning sunlight cuts in through one of the windows, slowly            moving across the floor towards his position.  He shifts in            his chair, moving slightly --            Away from the light.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. GAS STATION - NIGHT            It's late.  An ice-encased streetlight HUMS and flickers.            The pumps are vacant.  A heavy blanket of sooty snow covers            the grounds of the station.  The fluorescents of the mini            mart are the only beacon of light in an otherwise fog-bound            night.            INT. MINI-MART - NIGHT            A KOREAN WOMAN (30s) mans the counter.  Her TODDLER sits in a            circular safety walker nearby.  The kind that rolls and is            affixed with toys to keep a baby occupied.  The woman glances            at two surveillance monitors.  On the first monitor we see --            A CAR            pull up to the pumps outside.  A MAN gets out, slides his            credit card through the reader, starts pumping gas.            ON THE SECOND MONITOR            We SEE a FIGURE standing at the back by the Slurpee machine.            The figure turns, approaching.  It's Nomak.  He sets a            package of gum on the counter, looks to the baby.  He smiles,            wriggles his finger.  The child COOS and smiles back.            Unnerved by Nomak, the Korean woman quickly rings the            transaction, gives him his change.  He removes a stick of gum            from the pack, carefully unwraps it, slides it into his            mouth, watching the child all the while.  Finally, he nods to            the woman and leaves.  The door CHIMES as he exits.            Beat.  The woman looks to the surveillance monitors again.            THE FIRST MONITOR            The car is still there, but the man pumping gas is gone.            Puzzled, the woman steps from behind the counter and moves to            the glass doors, looking out --            HER POV            The car's driver side door hangs open.  Even more disturbing,            the hose for the gas pump lies untended on the icy ground,            spilling fuel from its nozzle.            EXT. GAS STATION - NIGHT            The Korean woman cautiously exits the mini-mart.  No one is            in sight.  She hurries to the abandoned car, disengaging the            lock on the pump handle, then setting it back in its cradle.            She looks to the open driver's door.  A FEW DROPLETS OF BLOOD            have stained the snow just outside it.  Then she sees --            A GHOSTLY FIGURE            Standing off in the fog-bound shadows.  The woman looks back            to the mini-mart, then back again to where the figure was            standing.  But the figure is gone!  Growing increasingly            anxious, the woman hurries back.            INT. GAS STATION - NIGHT            The woman shuts the door, locks it.  But she's still just a            target standing inside a well-lit glass box.  She moves to            the safety walker, scoops up her child.            After another moment's indecision, she slides the accordion            style gate down over the doors and windows.  Then she turns            off the lights.  Feeling somewhat more secure, the woman            moves back around the counter and SEES --            An unwrapped stick of gum resting on the tray of the baby            walker.  It wasn't there before.  With a rising sense of            dread, the woman backs away, bumping right into --            NOMAK            He smiles cruelly, the scar/seam in his chin just beginning            to part.  The woman gasps, turns to run --            and bumps into THREE MORE REAPERS.  Gaunt and feral-looking.            All three with shaved heads.            No eyebrows, and hairline scar/seams running down their            chins.  As one, the reapers descend on her.  We hear the            child's TERRIFIED WAIL and we --                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. THE CITY - NIGHT            A sulfur-colored moon shines its baleful light down upon the            icy cityscape as NOMAK'S ROAR echoes through the canyon of            buildings.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - BLADE'S SLEEPING AREA - NIGHT            Blade is just finishing injecting himself with serum.  He            sighs, falling back into the chair he's sitting in, waiting            for the shakes to subside.  He unwraps a piece of rubbing            tubing which he'd been using as a tourniquet, flexes his            hand.            The door to his room opens.  Scud stands there in silhouette.                                SCUD                      Um, we've got company.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT            Blade emerges into the workshop proper with Whistler and            Scud.            NYSSA AND BLOODPACK            Stand before us.  They represent an assortment of ages and            races, their one unifying characteristic being a callous,            almost fanatical disregard for human life.  In short, these            guys are the most stone-cold motherfuckers we've ever seen.                                WHISTLER                      Well if it isn't Snow White and the                      Seven Suckheads.            Their leader, DIETER REINHARDT (30s), is a square-jawed,            chiseled Austrian.  Next to Reinhardt is SNOWMAN, a wire            albino, LIGHTHAMMER, a massive Blackfoot Indian, and PRIEST,            a bald-headed modern primitive with copious piercings and            facial tattoos.  Rounding out the bunch is CHUPA, a blunt            featured Puerto Rican, and VERLAINE, a familiar-looking            curvaceous beauty with bee-stung lips that exudes a predatory            sexuality.            (NOTE: Verlaine looks familiar because she is the twin sister            of Raquel, the bodacious vamp played by Traci Lords that            Blade killed in the opening scene of the first film.)                                REINHARDT                      Check it out, troops.  Count Chocula.            The vampires LAUGH.  Asad quiets them with a look, then            gestures to them in turn.                                ASAD                      Blade, this is Reinhardt.  That's                      Snowman, Lighthammer, Priest, Chupa and                      Verlaine.            Reinhardt advances until he and Blade are nose to nose.                                REINHARDT                      Tell me something, Chief.  Can you                      blush?            A tense beat.  Then Blade flashes a broad smile.                                BLADE                      Alright, you want to play this game?            Blade pulls out one of his silver stakes.  In response, the            vampires reach for their weapons.  But Blade merely twirls it            around his fingers.  Then tosses it to Reinhardt.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      You've been training two years to take                      me out.  Here I am, the big, bad vampire                      hunter.  So do it.                                NYSSA                      What the hell are you doing, Blade?                                BLADE                      We're going to be working as a unit, you                      people will be taking orders from me.                          (spreading his hands wide)                      So let's get it over with.  I'll give                      you a free shot, Reinhardt.            Reinhardt looks to Nyssa, uncomfortable.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Why are you looking at her for?  You                      need permission?   I'm giving it to you.                                CHUPA                      Take him, cabron!            Blade grabs Reinhardt's wrist, pulling the stake against his            chest, fixing the vampire with the deadliest of poker gazes.                                BLADE                      What's wrong, Reinhardt?  You need a                      fucking manual?                                VERLAINE                      Do it, Reinhardt.  Do it!!!            Reinhardt tenses, thrusting the stake forward -- but Blade            has already whirled out of the way, trapping his hand, then            violently twisting it backwards.            Before Reinhardt even knows what's happening, Blade swings            him around into a headlock.  In his free hand he's got a            tiny, barbed flechette.  The barbs spring open like a tick's            gripping mandibles as Blade drives the flechette into the            base of Reinhardt's skull.  Reinhardt HOWLS in pain, but            Blade just tightens his grip, choking off Reinhardt's air.                                BLADE                      Listen up, Adolph, I just popped an                      explosive charge in the back of your                      head.  Silver nitrate.  Rigged to blow                      if anyone tampers with it.  I'll be                      keeping the detonator on me at all                      times.  You so much as look at me                      crosswise and I swear you'll be macking                      your girlfriend's pie with a fucking                      neck stump!  Got it?!            Reinhardt lets loose a choked GRUNT.  Blade releases him,            dropping the GASPING AUSTRIAN to the floor.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Any questions?            No one says a word.                                                                 CUT TO:            WHISTLER            Hefting a heavy ordnance case on the table.  Blade and            company sit on one side, the Bloodpack on the other.                                WHISTLER                          (opening a case of bullets)                      Glaser safety rounds in .38, .45, and                      9mm caliber.  Foil capsules at the tip                      filled with silver nitrate grains.  They                      pack a major kinetic energy dump.  And                      since you suckheads don't like sunlight,                      we've modified the entry lights with UV                      filters --            Whistler flicks on the entry light.  Then notices that Chupa            isn't paying attention.  The vampire is looking at Snowman            who is saying something in sign-language.  Chupa snickers.            Whistler picks up a massive gun with a modified C-mag            (hundred round cylindrical mag).  It has a strange electromag            assembly barrel with shockwave ports running along it.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      This puppy here?  Hyper-velocity                      railgun.  Spits up silver-tipped iron                      core needles at six thousand butt                      humping feet per second.  Like this --            Whistler FIRES -- BA-BANG!  A SONIC BOOM rocks the workshop,            SHATTERING a number of windows and computer monitor screens            as a wad of needle rushes just millimeters past Chupa's face,            embedding in the wall behind him.                                CHUPA                      Hey, hey!  The fuck you doing?!                                WHISTLER                      Getting your attention, Paco.                                CHUPA                      Well you've got it, warmblood.  Now what                      the fuck are you gonna do with it?            Blade clears his throat and stands.                                BLADE                      If you girls are finished flirting, I'd                      like to get started.            MOMENTS LATER            Blade, Whistler, and the Bloodpack are silently suiting up            for war -- strapping on body armor, securing stakes and            knives, CLICKING ammo cartridges into their various weapons.            We SEE them lacing up combat boots, checking rifle sights,            entry lights.  Blade dons one of his EDTA pneumatic            gauntlets.  Whistler loads custom rounds into a shotgun.            Then he reaches to clip on an ammo vest.  But his hands are            shaking slightly and he can't seem to clip the locking            mechanism together.  After a beat, Blade reaches over and            does it for Whistler.  Like a son helping his father.  A beat            passes between them, Whistler and Blade looking at one            another.  Then Whistler nods, satisfied.            As Blade crosses towards Asad and Nyssa, he stops by            Verlaine, sizing her up.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Didn't I kill you already?                                VERLAINE                          (cold)                      That was my sister.            Beat.  Blade smiles coldly.                                BLADE                      This the part where you beat your chest                      and vow revenge?                                VERLAINE                      Something like that.                                BLADE                      Save it for the director's cut.            Blade moves on, stopping before Nyssa.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Where to first?                                NYSSA                      The House of Pain.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT            Blade, Whistler, and the Bloodpack are gathered on a rooftop            overlooking a derelict city block.            THE HOUSE OF PAIN            Rises before them, a Gothic Revival hotel marred by graffiti            scrawls and boarded up windows.  There's a large neon "HOTEL"            sign on the side of the building.                                NYSSA                      From what we can gather, the Reapers                      hunt in packs, targeting places where                      vampires congregate.  So far, they've                      attacked bloodbanks, safehouses,                      underground clubs like this --                                WHISTLER                      I don't see any traffic, no vampire                      glyphs --            Whistler lifts up a pair of night-vision binoculars and scans            the building.            WHISTLER'S POV (THROUGH BINOCULARS)            He scans the graffiti scrawls, doesn't see anything.                                NYSSA                      Look closer.  Because of your efforts,                      we've had to re-think our habits,                      tighten our security.            WHISTLER'S POV (THROUGH BINOCULARS)            Whistler switches to infra-red.  A previously unseen Vampire            GLYPH is now revealed, hidden amongst the haphazard graffiti.            Just beneath the glyph are a pair of loading doors set flush            into the concrete sidewalk.                                WHISTLER                          (lowering binocs; to Blade)                      Let's put this clusterfuck in gear.            Reinhardt reaches for Whistler, stopping him.                                REINHARDT                      You're not going anywhere, greenjeans.                      You won't be able to pass for us.                                WHISTLER                      Like I give a shit.            Before things can escalate, Blade steps between them.                                BLADE                          (to Whistler; sotto)                      He's right.  They'll smell that you're                      human.  Stay here, watch our backs.                                WHISTLER                          (bristling)                      I don't like it.                                BLADE                      I'm not giving you a choice, old man.            Whistler considers Blade's words, then reluctantly nods.            Blade rejoins the vampires.  Reinhardt grins.                                REINHARDT                      You don't keep that dog of yours curbed,                      Blade.  We might have to do it for you.            Blade pulls out the remote for the flechette in Reinhardt's            head, holding it up for view.                                BLADE                      Keep pushing, asshole.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - UNDERGROUND ENTRANCE - NIGHT            Nyssa leads the group into a loading area.  The only light is            coming from a series of burning trashcans.  VAMPIRE SENTRIES            crouch on the steps, watching, smelling Nyssa's group as they            move past.  Adjacent areas are walled off with sheets of            vinyl.  We hear the pulsing, bass-heavy beat of MUSIC coming            from beyond the sheeting, beckoning us onward.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - UNDERGROUND HALLWAY - NIGHT            The MUSIC is louder.  Neon-lit, corridor-long steel counters            line both walls, displaying various surgical instruments            offered as party favors.  As Blade's scans the area, we SEE            the deadly instruments reflected in his sunglasses.  Nyssa            looks to him.                                NYSSA                      This is our world you're entering.  You                      may see things -- feeding.                          (off Blade's inscrutable face)                      Just remember why you're here.                                BLADE                          (cryptic)                      I haven't forgotten.            They reach a steel loading door emblazoned with warning signs            -- the kind that is split horizontally, one-half retracting            into the ceiling, the other into the floor.                                PRIEST                      So what are we looking for, exactly?                                ASAD                      Anyone who looks suspicious.            On that portentous note, Nyssa hits a button.  The hydraulic            doors open on into --                                BLADE                      You gotta be kidding me.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            A high-ceilinged ballroom packed with SWAYING BODIES.            Retrofitted into a trance-dance hall.  Off to the sides,            people are being pierced, tattooed, ritually scarred.  Silver            trays piled high with razor blades are passed through the            writhing crowd.  Everyone looks suspicious.            AN ELABORATE S&M STAGE SHOW            is under way.  Joel Peter Witkin channeled by Julie Taymor.            A SHE-VAMPIRE hangs from the ceiling, her body supported by            steel pins which have been hooked through her flesh.  THREE            PVC-clad spindly FIGURES minister to her.            TWO VAMPIRES            French kiss, exchanging razor blades with their tongues.                                BLADE                          (to Nyssa)                      What is it with you people and pain?                                NYSSA                      We need it.  Sensations are addictive                      and pain cuts the deepest.                          (off his look)                      Tattoos, piercings, tribal scarring --                      because we regenerate, none of it's                      permanent.  So we have to take it to the                      next level. To remind us we're alive.            The Bloodpack fans out through the trancing crowd.            ON BLADE            Drifting through the press of flesh.  Feral faces flash by            us, distorted by the stroboscopic lights.  A SHE-VAMPIRE            latches onto him.  He shoves her aside, keeps scanning faces.            It takes every ounce of his restraint not to cut loose.                                BLADE                      You reading me, Scud?            EXT. STREET - NIGHT            A nondescript van with primer blotches is parked nearby.                                SCUD (O.S.)                      Loud and clear, B.            INT. OPERATIONS VAN - NIGHT            The interior of the van has been outfitted into a mobile "op            center".  Scud sits in a cluttered nest of electronic            ephermera, munching on a bag of White Castle hamburgers.            He's watching a video feed from a camera mounted on Blade's            gear, listening to the Bloodpack's CHATTER coming in from            various audio channels.  In the background, he's also got            Barry White's "Love Machine" playing.                                SCUD                      Everything's copacetic in the Mystery                      Van.  How you doing, Whistler?            EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT            Whistler is atop the roof of a nearby building, outfitted            with a sniper rifle on a tripod.                                WHISTLER                      Walking on sunshine, toke-boy.            WHISTLER'S POV (NIGHT VISION BINOCULARS)            The view pans from the hotel entrance to Scud's van.            Whistler puts down the binoculars, lights a cigarette.  He            takes out a knife and slices open his palm.  He stares at the            blood, his hand slowly trembling.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            Blade works his way through the crowd.  The beat is getting            heavier now, the crowd more energized.  He briefly makes eye            contact with Nyssa, but then she's gone again, disappearing            into the sea of flesh, ducking past one of the vinyl sheets            into a corridor beyond.  Chupa, Asad, Snowman and Priest            remain behind, searching the crowd.            As Blade walks, he notices a series of grates beneath their            feet.  We shift our POV --            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - DRAINAGE AREA - NIGHT            -- and we are below Blade, looking up at him through the            grate.  We are in a blood-encrusted drainage area just            beneath the ballroom that slopes inward towards a large,            octagonal iron culvert.  As we watch, a section of the            culvert rises, a pair of RED EYES peering out from the            darkness within.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - STAIRCASE - NIGHT            Blade follows Nyssa up a narrow staircase into a corridor            lined with gangrenous, peeling wallpaper.  Some of the room            doors are shut, some open.  Clearly, many are occupied.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - KITCHEN - NIGHT            A 1930s industrial kitchen filled with corroded equipment.            Reinhardt, Verlaine, and Lighthammer work their way inward,            searching the area.  Lighthammer carries massive war hammer            like his namesake.            Reinhardt nods to Verlaine, who opens a walk-in, shining her            entry light over an assortment of rusting meat hooks.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - FIRST CORRIDOR - NIGHT            Blade checks more doorways, catching half-glimpses of FLESH,            LEATHER, and STEEL.  He hears SOBBING, MOANS, WHISPERS.            Then, a distinctly HUMAN WHIMPER catches his attention.            Nyssa opens a door onto an empty room.  A vacant stainless            steel examination table gleams in the center, waiting.            Blade pushes open another door.  We SEE a fearful YOUNG WOMAN            crouching in the corner of a soiled room.  A corpulent            VAMPIRE in a leather apron is hosing down the floor.                                CORPULENT VAMPIRE                      Close the fucking door, buddy.            Blade makes eye-contact with the woman.  She's clearly human.            Blade tenses.  The corpulent vampire is getting irate when --                                CORPULENT VAMPIRE (CONT'D)                      I said, close the f--            THUNK!  Blade throws a sliver stake into the vampire's            forehead.  Even as the vampire turns to ash, Blade motions            for the girl to leave and we're out the hallway again, Nyssa            turning around.                                NYSSA                      What was that?                                BLADE                          (poker-faced)                      Nothing.            We SEE the woman duck out the room behind him.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - KITCHEN - NIGHT            Reinhardt, Verlaine, and Lighthammer.  A Styrofoam cup rolls            across the floor, blown by a breeze.  Reinhardt pauses,            notices another walk-in freezer door ajar, moves in that            direction.            Unseen behind them, a door BEHIND THEM slowly swings open.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            Chupa, Asad, Snowman and Priest.  THREE SHADOWED FIGURES are            lurking near one of the exits -- skinhead types, each with a            hairline scar running down their chin.            Asad silently motions to snowman and the others, indicating            figures.  Snowman signs something back.  The vampire trio            starts towards them.            INT. OPERATIONS VAN - NIGHT            Bored to shit, Scud plucks a joint from behind his ear.  As            he fires up his woman torso lighter we HEAR SOMETHING just            outside the van.  Scud kills the Barry White, listening.            Silence.  Then, a FAINT SKITTERING.                                SCUD                      Um, Whistler, you out there?            No response.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                          (more urgently)                      Whistler?            Still no response.  Scud reaches for a handgun and creeps            into the front of the van.  He looks out the windshield --            nothing.  He looks left, then right - nothing.            Unnerved, Scud returns to the back of the van.  He reaches            for the handle of the rear door and abruptly jerks the door            open, aiming the gun out --            There's nothing outside the van.  But then Scud hears the            SKITTERING AGAIN.  His eyes shift apprehensively to the floor            of the van below him.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - FIRST CORRIDOR - NIGHT            As they near the end of the hall, Blade notices a drop-down            attic door in the ceiling above.  He unsheathes his sword and            uses the tip to unlatch the trapdoor.  The counter-weighted            door CREAKS and LOWERS, unfolding a sectioned ladder.  We see            darkness beyond.  As Blade cautiously mounts the stairs --            Nyssa's attention is drawn to a billowing piece of vinyl.  A            BLURRY FIGURE is visible behind it.  Then it moves away.            Nyssa ducks past the vinyl.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            As the music reaches a crescendo, Asad notices MORE SHADOWY            FIGURES by another exit.  And even MORE by a third.  Snowman            signs to Asad again, more urgently this time, as the first            potential Reaper begins to turn and we are --            INT. OPERATIONS VAN - NIGHT            -- back with Scud.  He ducks his head outside, looking            beneath the van.  Nothing there.  Relieved, Scud shuts the            rear door, laughs to himself.            A PAIR OF CLAWED HANDS            Suddenly rip down through the ceiling of the van, peeling it            up and back like it was tinfoil!  A REAPER with a bloody            bandage covering his eye SNARLS down at us.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            The first skinhead figure spins towards us.  It's a Reaper.            All three of them are, eyes wide with bloodlust as they leap            at Asad and the others.            Suddenly, the Reapers are everywhere, blocking the exits,            ripping into their vampire victims, tossing them aside like            toys.  Vampires scream and run, some taking to the walls as a            means of escape, some racing across the ceiling.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - FIRST CORRIDOR - NIGHT            Blade stops half-way up the ladder as he hears GUNFIRE.  He            drops back to the floor, then notices that Nyssa is gone.  HE            pushes through the vinyl curtain and finds -- Nyssa forced            back against the wall, wrestling with --                                SCUD (O.S.)                          (filtered; panicked)                      They're here!!!!            -- Nomak, who swings his head around towards Blade!  Blade            FIRES his MACH pistol point-blank into Nomak's face, blasting            the Reaper backwards --            But Nomak is back on his feet in a split-second, SMASHING            through a window onto the fire escape beyond.  Blade rushes            to the window, looks out --            BLADE'S POV            Nomak is scaling his way straight up the neon hotel sign,            jumping from one letter to the next with lightning speed.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - KITCHEN - NIGHT            A Reaper EXPLODES out from the walk-in, rather than the door            behind them.  He leaps atop Reinhardt, SLAMMING him to the            floor.  Lighthammer swings his hammer, missing the Reaper,            taking out a chunk of the wall instead.            Lighthammer swings and misses again, taking a chunk out of            the floor.  Verlaine empties her automatic rifle into the            Reaper even as --            The Reaper turns on Lighthammer, catching the war hammer,            Reaper's lower jaw disengages and splits open, revealing a            freakishly enlarged esophagus lined with serrated, sharklike            teeth.            All of this takes a split-second.  No time for Lighthammer to            react as the Reaper latches its grossly expanded mouth onto            his throat and begins draining him before our eyes.  The            Reaper SHUDDERS and the whites of his eyes bleed red as an            ecstatic wave washes over him.  His pale flesh, pulsing with            engorged veinwork, becomes flushed, turning crimson as --                                LIGHTHAMMER                      Ohmygodhe'sfuckingkillingmehe's --            Lighthammer's face becomes increasingly pallid!  His face            begins caving inward, shrinking as every millimeter of blood            is vacuumed out of him.            BLOOD VESSELS            Are popping up beneath the Reaper's briefly translucent skin,            becoming engorged and dilated.  The veins continue to swell,            racing up his neck, then branching out over his face, chest,            and arms -- like an instant network of varicose veins.            Verlaine retreats, horrified.  Reinhardt scurries backwards,            then scrambles to his feet, running for his life into --            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            Chaos.  Vampire patrons flee.  The Bloodpack FIRE, unleashing            a hailstorm of bullets, cutting into vampires and Reapers            alike as --            EXT. FIRE ESCAPE - NIGHT            Blade steps out onto the icy fire escape.  CRASH!  Nomak has            dislodged the "H" from the hotel sign.  It comes HURTLING            towards Blade, who ducks back into the center of the "O" to            avoid being hit.  The "H" continues falling, SMASHING down            into the street near the Mystery Van where --            INT/EXT. OPERATIONS VAN - NIGHT            Scud unloads his handgun into the Reaper atop the van.  The            Reaper should turn to ash, but it doesn't!  Scud flees,            DIVING into the front of the van, ducking behind the wheel.            He keys the ignition --            WHAM!  Now the Reaper is atop the hood, SMASHING his feet            through the windshield.  Scud SCREAMS as he slams the van            into the drive and floors the pedal --            WK-KRUNCH!  Scud CRASHES the van against the side of a            building, pinning the Reaper between the van's front bumper            and the crumbling wall.  He keeps his foot on the gas pedal,            GRINDING the van's wheels.            This gambit should cut the Reaper in half, or at the very            least, fatally wound it -- but it only enrages it further.            The Reaper stretches forward across the van's crumpled hood            and resumes BATTERING away at the cracked windshield --                                SCUD                      UV headlights, c'mon, come on!!!            Scud fumbles for the headlights.  They won't go on!  Then he            notices a mess of wiring haphazardly duct-taped together.  He            reaches for the wiring, fiddling with it --                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      FuckmefuckmefuckmeFUCKME!!!!            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - NIGHT            The Reaper nearest Priest turns in his direction.  We            recognize her as the Nurse from the bloodbank.  She LEAPS at            Priest --            Priest fires a Glaser round through the she-Reaper's head.            The Reaper twists in mid-leap, falls to the floor, then picks            herself up again.  Like Scud's Reaper, she seems unaffected            by the custom-made ammo.            ON THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BLOODPACK            Having similarly disastrous results.  The Reapers are            shrugging off their firepower.  Asad leaps, snapping a            Reaper's neck with a spinning heel kick, but the Reaper keeps            coming!            BACK TO THE PRIEST            Alarmed, reaching for a specialized shotgun instead.  The            Reaper continues forward, moving so fast she almost seems a            blur as BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM!  Priest pumps his shotgun            repeatedly.  Two projectiles fire out, chained together by a            length of titanium cable.  The cable catches the Reaper in            the mid-section, cutting it clean in half!            The upper half of the Reaper falls, then rights itself,            landing on its clawed hands.            Impossibly, the she-Reaper keeps coming!  She skitters            towards Priest on his hands like the half-man from Todd            Browning's "FREAKS".            The half-Reaper launches itself at Priest, hitting him in the            chest, knocking him back to the floor.  Priest panics as he            struggles with the thing, trying to fend off its claws and            fangs as it locks its mouth into his arm.  He SCREAMS.                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. VAN - NIGHT            As Scud continues to fiddle with the faulty headlight wiring,            the windshield finally SHATTERS beneath the Reaper's pounding            fists.  It latches onto Scud's collar and pulls him forward            over the wheel even as the seam/scar in its chin splits apart            and the Reaper's enlarged maw flowers open.  Scud is just            centimeters away from having his face being bitten off when --            -- the wires SPARK and the headlights come on, illuminating            the Reaper in a wash of UV light!  The effect is            instantaneous.  The Reaper HOWLS and lets go, then promptly            BURSTS INTO FLAMES.            Scud cups his ear, shouting via the comm system.                                SCUD                      Use your entry lights!  They can't stand                      the UV!!!            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BASEMENT - NIGHT            Asad hears Scud's message as he continues fending off a            Reaper's attack.  Then he manages to get hold of his rifle.            He FLICKS on the UV entry light, aiming it at the Reaper's            face.  The Reaper's head catches fire.  Asad SHOUTS to the            others --                                ASAD                      Use your entry lights!            One by one, the members of the Bloodpack CLICK ON the entry            lights mounted atop their guns.  It's working -- the UV beams            are the only thing that seems to be driving the Reapers back.            EXT. HOUSE OF PAIN - ROOF - DAWN            BOOM!  Blade kicks open the roof access door.  He hurries            outside, followed by Nyssa, who hesitates when she SEES --            THE SUN            beginning to rise beyond the cityscape horizon.  Nomak is            already at the opposite side of the building, moving fast.                                BLADE                          (into com-link)                      Whistler!  He's heading across the roof!                      Take him!            Nyssa falls back into the shadows as Blade continues onward,            unsheathing his sword.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Whistler!!!            EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT            Whistler's sniper rifle and binoculars have been abandoned            and --            EXT. HOUSE OF PAIN - ROOFTOP - DAWN            We're back with Blade as he chases Nomak across the roof.            UP AHEAD            Nomak abruptly stops, having reached the end of the roof.            The nearest neighboring rooftop is too far away and the drop            from this last ledge looks unsurvivable, even for someone            like Nomak.            As Blade cautiously advances, Nomak turns around and smiles --            a wolfish grin, unnaturally wide.  The Reaper's face is            beginning to smoke beneath the rising sun's rays.  In            response, a polarized nictomembrane slides down over Nomak's            irises -- like something you'd see on a crocodile to protect            its eyes from harsh light.                                NOMAK                      Is the enemy of my enemy my friend or my                      enemy?  What do you think, Blade?  What                      am I to you?            Nomak LAUGHS, then LUNGES, scooping up a rusty iron bar that            lies nearby.  He swings it at Blade.  Blade parries and steps            backward, taking a blow to the head in the process, then            another to the side.            The two of them exchange a flurry of blows back and forth            until their weapons lock and they are face to face.  Nomak's            back is to the rising sun, now.  His whole body is beginning            to lightly smoke.            Both men are trembling, straining against their weapons,            using every ounce of strength to keep the other at bay.  And            just when it looks like Nomak is gaining the upper hand --                                NOMAK (CONT'D)                      Athelfiki singenia ex amato.            -- Blade pivots the flat edge of his sword upwards, catching            the light of the rising sun, reflecting it directly into            Nomak's eyes!            Nomak SCREAMS and rears back, his face catching fire.  Then            he stumbles backwards and falls -- right off the ledge of the            roof!  Blade hurries to the roof's ledge and looks down --            But the Reaper is nowhere in sight.  Dumbfounded, Blade            retreats, haunted by the conviction that Nomak is still            alive.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - BALLROOM - DAWN            Blade has returned to the scene of the melee.  The Reapers            have fled, leaving Nyssa and the others to lick their wounds            and survey the carnage.  Quite a few full-body ash outlines            marking the passing of various vampires.  Blade approaches            Nyssa.  She notices his wounds.                                NYSSA                      You're hurt.                                BLADE                          (brushing off her concern)                      I'll heal.                                NYSSA                      What about Nomak?                                BLADE                      He escaped.  You didn't tell me they                      were immune to silver and garlic.                                NYSSA                      I didn't know.            Beat.  Tense.  Does he trust this woman?  No way.                                BLADE                      We lose anybody?                                NOMAK                      Lighthammer and --            Just then, we hear an unearthly SCREAM.            ANGLE ON            Priest, being held down by Chupa and Snowman.  He's thrashing            about, clutching his wounded, infected arm.                                PRIEST                      Oh god, oh God it hurts!  It hurts, it                      hurts, fuck, it hurts.  Ugh!            Priest lets loose an agonized SCREAM as Blade and the others            gather around him.  He's undergoing a horrific change, taking            on the gaunt, vein-engorged features of a proper Reaper.  He            SNARLS and WAILS, GNASHING his teeth like a rabid animal.            Reinhardt and his team look uneasy.  Shaken by their            teammate's downward progression.                                BLADE                      how long since he was bitten?                                NYSSA                      Minutes.            Blade draws closer.  Already, the flesh on Priest's chin is            splitting as a seam begins to form.                                BLADE                      It's already changing him --            Reinhardt paces, annoyed by Priest's WAILING.                                REINHARDT                      Jesus, can't you get him to shut the                      fuck up!?                                NYSSA                          (gravely)                      His blood cells aren't producing oxygen                      anymore.  His own body is suffocating                      him.  These things are like crack                      addicts.  If they don't feed every few                      hours, they'll feed on themselves.            As if in response, Priest starts convulsing.  His flesh            tightens, drawing taut around his increasingly skeletal form.            His screams become unbearable, twisting into a high-pitched            ululation that's making the Bloodpack's skin crawl.                                REINHARDT                      Somebody put him out of his misery for                      fuck's sake!                                VERLAINE                      You kill him!  I'm not killing him!            Asad pulls out his handgun and empties the clip into Priest's            body -- but Priest keeps SHRIEKING.            Unnerved, Reinhardt unsheathes a machete, decapitating Priest            even as the others protest.            The headless body continues thrashing, still making noise            from it's open throat!  If anything, it seems to be            redoubling its efforts.  It LURCHES forward, jerking itself            free from Chupa and Snowman's restraining arms.                                CHUPA                      Mierda!!            The juddering horror that used to be Priest staggers to its            feet.  Reinhardt and his men panic, stumbling backwards.  The            headless monstrosity LUNGES STRAIGHT AT --            BLADE            Without batting an eye, he draws his MACH pistol, briefly            aiming at the on-rushing creature's chest, then adjusting his            aim to one of the blacked-out windows above and behind it.            BAM!BAM!BAM!  Blade shoots out the window and BLAZING SHAFT            OF SUNLIGHT slices down through the darkness, spotlighting            Priest like an ant beneath a magnifying glass.            FWASH!!!  The headless body is incinerated in mid-step.  It            collapses to the floor, just inches before Blade.  One of its            blackened claws feebly grabs Blade's boot, then grows still.            Beat.  You could hear the pin drop in the silence that            follows, every one of the Bloodpack thinking some variation            of "there but for the grace of God go I".  Asad lays a hand            on Nyssa's shoulder, steadying her.            Blade shifts his foot, causing the cinder-like hand gripping            his boot to crumble to dust.                                WHISTLER (O.S.)                      If this is the best you turd-stains have                      to offer, I'm not impressed.            Blade looks over to see Whistler, who is just entering.  He            moves over to him, angry.  Chupa follows, equally pissed.                                BLADE                      I thought you were supposed to be                      watching our backs.                                WHISTLER                      Ran into a little Reaper trouble myself.                                CHUPA                          (approaching, hostile)                      Oh yeah?  Like how little?  In case you                      hadn't noticed, we lost two men while                      you were out farting around.                                WHISTLER                          (poking Chupa in the chest)                      You need to ratchet those 'nads of yours                      down a few notches, paco.            Chupa flushes with anger and flicks his knife across            Whistler's shoulder, opening a gash.  Whistler goes ballistic            and PUNCHES Chupa in the face.  A brief tussle ensues before            Blade and the others can separate them.  As Chupa is pulled            away by Asad, he looks back at Whistler.                                CHUPA                      Listen, hillbilly, you are a cunt-hair                      away from cowboy heaven.                                WHISTLER                      Ain't no thing but a chicken wing,                      buttercup.                                BLADE                          (still suspicious)                      Where were you, Whistler?                                WHISTLER                      I'll show you.            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - DRAINAGE AREA - CONTINUOUS            Whistler, Blade and the surviving members of the Bloodpack            are now gathered around the octagonal iron culvert just            beneath the ballroom.  Whistler turns on a flashlight.  We            HEAR something moving in the darkness.  The group tenses,            then Whistler's flashlight beam reveals --            A REAPER            Cowering by the culvert.  One we recognize.  The other            vampire guard from the bloodbank, now transformed.  He's            shrunken and emaciated, pale.  And although he's obviously            dying, he still HISSES, his fanged mouth snapping            ineffectually at them.  His arm has been trapped -- pinned            under one of the sectional culvert coverings.  It looks like            he's been trying to gnaw it off in order to escape.                                REINHARDT                      What the hell?                                WHISTLER                      I found him like this.  I think he was                      trying to crawl back into that culvert.            Blade looks to the culvert in question.  He pulls back one of            the sectioned covers.  The opening is about two feet wide,            just large enough for a man to gain access.            INT. SEWER/OUTFLOW AREA - CONTINUOUS            Blade drops into the sewer line.  The area is claustrophobic,            damp.  There are torn pieces of insulation hanging from the            ceiling, saturated and dripping with blood.            Blade crouch-walks further in.  We hear WIND.  He shines his            FLASHLIGHT.  A portion of the brick wall looks like it's been            clawed open.                                NYSSA                          (calling down)                      Everything okay?            Blade retreats back to the drain-pipe, pulling himself back            up.  We HOLD for a beat, then drift up to the blood-saturated            strips of insulation.  SOMEONE is crouched in the shadows            there, clinging to the ceiling upside down.            It's NOMAK, red-eyes shining in the darkness.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. DAMASKINO'S LAIR - BATHHOUSE - DAY            We are in a previously unseen portion of Damaskino's vast            bedroom.  An elegantly tiled pool area has been partitioned            off by a series of latticed screens.  In the counterpoint to            this are a series of muted monitors tuned to the pulse of the            world -- CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, etc.            Damaskinos sits in a robe, finishing a meal, his eyes            flicking over the monitors -- tracking current events, market            fluctuations.  We get the sense that the man is a true            polymath.  That he owes his five thousand-plus years of            existence to resourcefulness rather than luck.            Stevens enters, waiting to be acknowledged.                                DAMASKINOS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      Yes?                                STEVENS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      They've made contact with the Reapers.                                DAMASKINOS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      Any casualties?                                STEVENS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      Two so far.            Unconcerned, Damaskinos slices into a piece of raw meat.                                DAMASKINOS                          (reverting to English)                      An inevitability, I suppose.  Nyssa was                      not among them, I trust.                                STEVENS                      No.  This is a dangerous game, you're                      playing, Damaskinos.                                DAMASKINOS                      Any game worthy of being played is.  One                      must be patient.  In this way, I have                      outlived my enemies.  All of them.            Damaskinos steps beyond the screens now, into the pool area --            and although we can't see the water from this angle, we can            see patterns of ruby light flickering off the tiled walls.            Stevens follows, uncomfortable.                                STEVENS                      Blade's too volatile.  You're not going                      to be able to keep manipulating him --            Damaskinos steps into the steaming liquid, which we now see            is BLOOD.  His robe spreads out, floating on the surface.                                DAMASKINOS                      You worry too much, Stevens.  I have                      assurance from our friend inside that                      events are unfolding as scripted.                                STEVENS                      As scripted?  You've already lost two of                      your own.  How many more are you willing                      to sacrifice?            Damaskinos sinks until he's waist-deep in the crimson fluid.                                DAMASKINOS                      As many as it takes.                          (pointing)                      Do you see that jar over there?            Stevens looks to a shelf where a gold and crystal Coptic jar            rests.  A HUMAN HEART floats within.                                DAMASKINOS (CONT'D)                      It contains my human heart --                          (touching a pale scar on his                           chest)                      Something I relinquished a long time                      ago.  Only a fool would appeal to it                      now.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - CELL - NIGHT            The dying Reaper has now been chained inside the cell.  It            WHEEZES and MOANS, clearly in agony.  Blade and Nyssa stand            watch.  Blade grips the Reaper beneath its jaw, turning its            face towards us.                                BLADE                      Recognize him?                                NYSSA                          (nodding)                      From the surveillance footage in the                      bloodbank.  He was one of the guard's                      Nomak attacked.                                BLADE                      Which means he turned about seventy-two                      hours ago.                                NYSSA                      Right.  So why is he dying?  He doesn't                      appear to have any broken bones, no                      entry wounds of any kind -- what's                      killing him?                                BLADE                      Time.            Blade nicks the Reaper's carotid artery with a knife.  CLEAR            SERUM oozes out, no red blood cells at all.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      No hemoglobin left.                      Their metabolisms are too fast.  They                      burn out.  That's why they're having to                      feed so often.  Their systems are self                      destructing.                                NYSSA                      If that's true, what about Nomak?  He's                      been alive longer than the others.                                BLADE                      Nomak's different.  He's the carrier.                          (shaking his head)                      There's something driving him beyond the                      Thirst.  Something we're missing.            As they watch, the Reaper shakes through its final death            throes, then grows still, the nictomembranes over its eyes            slowly sliding down.            MOMENTS LATER - A SERIES OF ISOLATED CLOSE-UPS            A pair of GLOVED HANDS spreads apart the Reaper's eyelids.            In response, the protective nictomembrane slides mechanically            down over the pupil.                                NYSSA (O.S.)                      They appear to have a nictating membrane                      here, like you'd see on a crocodile or                      camel.  Shields the eyes from sunlight.            The hands now part the Reaper's mouth, probing the seam in            the chin, then splitting the mandible apart to reveal the            enlarged esophagus.  The fingers push back on the gums and            the pressure-sensitive fangs extend even further in response.                                NYSSA (O.S.) (CONT'D)                      A bifurcated mandible.  More developed                      masseter muscles and zygomatic bones                      around the mouth allowing for a much                      larger, stronger bite --            PULL BACK TO REVEAL            Blade, Nyssa, and Scud are gathered around the autopsy table.            The rest of the crew linger further back.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      Epidermal layers are thicker, tougher --            Nyssa begins the Y-incision along the chest.  Once again,            CLEAR SERUM oozes out.  She cracks open the thoracic cavity.                                SCUD                      Ho-lee shit.            We SEE inside the abdominal cavity.  A complex, pinkish/gray            parasitic organism has taken over every organ visible.                                NYSSA                      I've never seen anything like this.  The                      Reapers are as different from us as we                      are from you.                          (probing the organism)                      It's almost as if the virus is re-wiring                      their bodies, creating new, parasitic                      organs which consume the old ones.                                BLADE                      Like cancer with a purpose.                                NYSSA                      Exactly.  Look at the digestive system.                      It's been drastically simplified.  Super                      charged.  And this --            She pulls back the lungs -- a calcified structure encasing a            fibrous mass rests where the heart would normally be.  She            taps the calcified structure with a scalpel.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      The heart is completely encased in bone.            She tries to cut into the bony shell and the scalpel snaps.            Scud WHISTLES, impressed.                                SCUD                      Good luck getting a stake through that.            Blade studies the Reaper corpse, then looks to the Bloodpack.                                BLADE                      We've got six hours till sunrise.  Be                      ready by then.                                ASAD                      What happens at sunrise?                                BLADE                      We take up the hunt again.                                CHUPA                      You gotta be fucking joking.                                BLADE                      You've seen what we're up against.                      Daylight's the only advantage we've got.                      They'll be more vulnerable then.                                REINHARDT                          (pointedly)                      And so will we.                                BLADE                      Look, I care about the humans who are                      dying, not you, got it?                                REINHARDT                          (snarling)                      Spare me the race card, OJ.  We're not                      going out into the sun.  It's too risky.                                BLADE                      You don't have a choice.  You're just                      going to have to protect yourselves as                      best you can.            Blade spins and leaves.  Whistler follows.  Nyssa watches            them disappear into Blade's room.  Reinhardt and the other            vampires approach her.                                REINHARDT                      You buying any of this chocolate Elvis                      bullshit?            Nyssa just stares him down, obviously conflicted.                                CHUPA                      This guy doesn't know what the fuck he's                      doing.  We already lost Priest and                      Lighthammer, who's gonna be next?  Fuck                      him.  Fuck his rules.  First chance I                      get, I'm chowing down on that fucking                      HeeHaw sidekick of his.            Snowman signs something to Verlaine.                                VERLAINE                      What do you think, Asad?                                ASAD                          (pointedly)                      I don't think.  I follow orders.            Asad looks to Nyssa once more -- perhaps he's even concerned            now.  She's still staring in the direction Blade left.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - BLADE'S SLEEPING AREA - NIGHT            Blade sits in the shadows, wrapping a piece of rubber tubing            around his arm, injecting himself with pneumatic syringe of            serum.  He shivers, convulses violently, then throws back his            head in relief.  When he does so, he SEES --            Whistler standing in the doorway.  They eye each other a            moment as Blade unwraps the tubing from his arm, puts away            his syringe and serum.  Whistler lights a cigarette, then            nods through a window towards Nyssa and the others.                                WHISTLER                      You ask me, you and Miss Muffet are                      getting a mite too cozy for my taste.                                BLADE                      I wouldn't worry about it.            Blade moves to walk away, but Whistler stops him.                                WHISTLER                      I am worrying.  Seems to me, you're                      starting to get confused as to which                      side of the line you're standing on.                                BLADE                      Pretty hollow words coming from a man                      who spent the last year running with the                      enemy.                                WHISTLER                      What the hell is that supposed to mean?                                BLADE                      It means I'm starting to wonder if the                      vampires still have their hooks in you.                      You've been acting strange ever since I                      gave you the cure.  Reckless, quick to                      anger --                          (beat)                      You said it yourself, Whistler.  Those                      vampires knew our defense system                      backwards and forwards.  Where'd they                      get their intel?            Whistler steps closer, his voice dropping to a lethal,            whisper.                                WHISTLER                      I'm compromised?!  Me?!  I'm not the one                      playing stink-finger with Vampirella out                      there!            Blade stares back at Whistler, calm as a viper.                                BLADE                      You're out of line, old man.            The two comrades in arms stare each other down.  Then,            finally, Whistler backs away.                                WHISTLER                          (quietly)                      We'll see.            Whistler turns and strides exits.  We HOLD ON Blade, torn,            conflicted, watching Whistler retreat.            EXT. BLADE'S WAREHOUSE/SHIPYARD - NIGHT            We SEE a FIGURE emerge from the shadows -- CHUPA.            EXT. CITY SLUM - NIGHT            Chupa walks the night, scanning shadows.            CHUPA'S POV (VAMPIRE VISION)            Like heat-vision, only tinged with crimson.  There are DRUG            DEALERS and bottom feeding WHORES trolling for tricks out            here, BEATING HEARTS and BRANCHING ARTERIES highlighted on            their ghostly silhouettes.            Chupa moves to the mouth of an alley, nodding to a DEALER.                                DEALER                      Lookin' to get hooked up?                                CHUPA                      What you got?            As the dealer glances around to see if anyone's watching --                                DEALER                      Horse, Hawaiian ice.  Whatever you want.            Chupa sniffs the air, glancing at a pulsating vein on the            dealer's neck, and smiles.                                CHUPA                      Whatever, huh?  Well I'm all off the                      hook on that bitch.            Chupa steps into the alley with the dealer.                                DEALER                      So what's it gonna be?                                CHUPA                      Fear.            Chupa is at the dealer's throat before he can finish,            flashing his fangs, shoving him backwards.  Then --                                CHUPA (CONT'D)                      I like a little adrenaline chaser.            WHAP!  A HAND            Grabs a fistful of Chupa's hair, jerking his head back.  It's            Blade.  He yanks Chupa off the dealer.                                BLADE                      What do you think you're doing?                                CHUPA                      Trying to feed, puto baboso!            The dealer takes off as Blade swings Chupa around.  They            exchange a couple of blows, then Blade knees him in the            balls, twisting him around by his arm, dislocating it.            Blade releases Chupa, shoving him forward.  Chupa's broken            arm dangles awkwardly.  Furious, Chupa reaches for his .45            with his good hand -- only to hear the CLICK of another gun            as it's placed against the back of his head.            ANGLE ON NYSSA            Standing behind him, looking grim and determined.                                NYSSA                      Do it and you die.                          (Chupa considers options)                      You heard Asad.  Until this is over,                      these people are our allies.                                CHUPA                      Oh I haven't forgotten about Asad.  I'm                      just wondering if you have.            Chupa re-holsters his gun, then jams his dislocated arm up            against the wall and resets it.  He backs away.  Nyssa            watches him leave, looks to Blade.                                NYSSA                      He's right about one thing.  We do have                      to survive.                                BLADE                      You don't have to hunt to do it.                                NYSSA                      Really?  What are we supposed to do,                      then?  Starve ourselves because we fee                      on others in order to live?  What about                      that scumbag you just let off the hook?                      A nothing.  A drug-dealer.  How do you                      justify saving people like that?            Blade doesn't answer, just moves away.  She follows.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      You know the Thirst better than any of                      us.  You're barely managing to tread                      water yourself.  Living in a constant                      state of pain, having to shoot up that                      serum of yours.  That's not what I call                      surviving, Blade.            Off Blade's stony expression we --                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT            The back of the workshop.  Scud takes a hit of weed then            resumes working on one of the UV entry lights -- it's been            taken half-apart and tweaked-out with cables and a crystal            prism.  Whistler is there too, loading magazines.                                WHISTLER                          (observing Scud)                      The hell are you fiddling with there?                                SCUD                          (proud, succinct)                      Tweaked the phosphor rod, modified the                      collimated beam, wanna concentrate the                      light, get something like a UV laser                      going.                                WHISTLER                          (shaking his head)                      You're wasting your time, already been                      tried.                                SCUD                      Yeah, but you didn't have the Scudster                      working on it, did you?                                WHISTLER                          (testy)                      Nope.  Back then we did not.                                SCUD                          (unfazed)                      So how long have you known Blade,                      anyway?                                WHISTLER                      Going on twenty years now.                                SCUD                      Blade doesn't talk about the old days                      much.                                WHISTLER                      Blade doesn't talk about anything much.                          (nodding to Scud)                      What about you, though?            Scud pulls up his T-shirt.  His abdomen is covered in a            network of horrific scars.  Like something you'd see on the            survivor of a shark attack.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      Pretty.                                SCUD                      I was backpacking.  Hooked up with these                      two chicks who were off to see the                      Burning Man festival.  We were gonna                      take "E", have ourselves a little                      freeball out in the desert.  You know                      the riff, "Dear Penthouse, I never                      thought this would happen to me, but --"            Scud takes a Phillip and adjust some screws on the laser.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      Anyway, halfway through our Three's                      Company marathon, Janet and Chrissy                      started taking chunks out of me.  Woulda                      died too if Blade hadn't shown up and                      staked those mamacitas a new honeyhole.                          (shrugging)                      Things kinda fell in place after that.            Scud jiggles the necklace of fangs around his neck.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      Took myself a few souvenirs, though.            Scud triggers the modified entry light.  The light PULSES            like a series of flash-bulbs going off, creating a            stroboscopic effect as a wafer-thin, super-concentrated BLUE            BEAM OF LIGHT slices through the shadows.  Scud looks to            Whistler and smiles.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      Mmm-mmm.  Poppa's got a brand new bag.            EXT. CITYSCAPE - PRE-DAWN            Beyond the shadowed skyline of monolithic buildings, the            night is beginning to give way to dawn.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - PRE-DAWN            Scud stands before the others.  He looks bleary-eyed but            pleased with the night's work.  The fruit of their efforts            are laid on a work table before them -- a half-dozen UV laser            guns, along with a collection of UV flashbang grenades and a            much bigger explosive device secured into a backpack carrier.            Blade picks up one of the UV lasers.  He sights down the            length of it.  Scud takes a power pack and slaps into the            base of Blade's gun.                                SCUD                      The powerpacks have a limited charge,                      maybe ten minutes of continuous use at                      most.            Nyssa gestures to the flashbang grenades.                                NYSSA                      What are these?                                SCUD                      UV flashbang grenades with plug-in                      phosphor sticks --                          (pointing to a backpack                           carrier)                      This is for the grand finale.  Wired                      together a couple-dozen of those                      puppies.  But I'd be careful where you                      pop your load.  Might end up frying                      yourselves in the process.                                WHISTLER                      What about you?  You're not coming?                                SCUD                      After last night?  Dude, I'm a lover,                      not a fighter.            Asad looks to Blade.                                ASAD                      What good is all this firepower if we                      don't know where they're hiding?                                BLADE                      We won't need to.  They'll come to us.                                REINHARDT                      How?            Blade looks to Nyssa, who tosses Reinhardt an aerosol            cannister.  He sprays a little, then wrinkles his nose in            disgust, gagging.                                REINHARDT (CONT'D)                      This is fucking foul!                                NYSSA                      They're pheromones.  I infused them from                      that Reaper's adrenal glands.  All                      mammals use them to mark their                      territory.  Even vampires.                                CHUPA                      Fuck that!  I'm not spraying some gash                      hound's nut-juice on me!                                NYSSA                      Trust me, the Reapers will key to it.                      If we use this, we'll draw them out.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. HOUSE OF PAIN - DRAINAGE AREA - DAWN            Beneath the ballroom gratings.  A high-angle shot looking            down at the octagonal iron culvert around which Blade,            Whistler, and the remainder of the Bloodpack are gathered.            The mechanized, sectional portions of the culvert covering            are GRINDING UPWARD, flowering open and apart like some blood            and rust-encrusted gateway to Hell.            INT. SEWER/OUTFLOW AREA - DAWN            One by one, the group of hunters descend into the            claustrophobic chamber.  Verlaine is lugs the UV bomb on her            back.  Blade leads them to the clawed-open portion of the            brick wall, then on through.            INT. SEWER LINE - CONTINUOUS            Blade leads the group along a grime-encrusted line which            slopes gradually downward, sloshing through ankle-deep run            off water collected from the city above them.  Tendrils of            mist drift about, cutting their field of vision even further.            Here and there, thin SHAFTS of SUNLIGHT cut down through            cracks in the street above, requiring the vampires to            cautiously circumvent them.            They reach a four-way intersection of tunnels.  Blade pauses.                                BLADE                      Time for Nyssa's pheromones.            Blade opens a statchel.  Inside are a dozen distinctive            aluminum atomizers.  He hands them out to the others.            Whistler triggers a can, spraying a thin mist over his face,            wrinkling his noses in disgust.                                WHISTLER                      Eau de suckhead.  Tasty.                                BLADE                      We'll split into three units.  First                      team that makes contact wins the prize.                      Try to maintain radio silence from here                      on out.            Blade points to Chupa and Whistler, indicating the Eastern            tunnel.  They head off.  Next, Blade directs Nyssa, Asad,            Snowman, and Verlaine down the Western tunnel.  Blade nods to            Reinhardt and starts down the Northern branch.            INT. EASTERN TUNNEL - DAY            It's darker here, no shafts of sunlight slicing down from            above.  Whistler turns on his UV entry light.  Chupa reaches            out with his hand, partially blocking the beam.                                CHUPA                      Turn it off.            As the shifting patterns of light and shadow play across            Chupa's face we SEE his pupils contract and dilate            unnaturally large in response.                                CHUPA (CONT'D)                      We want to attract them, not scare them                      off.                                WHISTLER                      Yeah, but you fangs can see in the dark.                      What am I supposed to do?            Chupa tosses Whistler a pair of night-vision goggles.                                CHUPA                      Bifocals, grandpa.  And try to keep up.            Chupa heads into the darkness, moving with uncanny speed.            INT. TUNNELS - VARIOUS            We intercut between the three teams now, back and forth as            they progress deeper into the city's bowels.            INT. NORTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Blade and Reinhardt trudge along.  The tunnel slopes inward,            forming a V-shaped channel where a trickle of water flows.            Blade notices SOMETHING bobbing in the water.  He nudges it            with his foot and knocks it free.  It's a broken HUMAN TIBIA            which twirls around, then flows past their legs.            A few steps later on, Reinhardt notices SOMETHING ELSE.  He            stoops into waist-deep water, picking up what he thinks is an            isolated HUMAN RIB -- but ends up snagging a tangled mass of            hair, mud, and bones.            INT. EASTERN TUNNEL - DAY            Whistler and Chupa move side by side.  Chupa is anxious, eyes            darting about.  Occasionally, they come upon a transection            with smaller conduits leading off to the right and the left.            Then they reach a stooped, narrower tunnel and have to move            single file.            Suddenly, a BLAST of LIGHT and THUNDEROUS SOUND explodes            above them.  They look up --                                WHISTLER                          (startled)                      Shit!            A subway TRAIN rockets by on a track just above them,            pummeling them with soot and dust.            Unseen by them, briefly illuminated by the flashing subway            lights we see three Reaper faces, pale and haunting, hanging            upside down.            INT. NORTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Blade and Reinhardt reach a dead-end where the tunnel has            caved in.  A BERM OF HUMAN BONES slopes upward from the water            -- skulls and ribs, vertebrae, tibias, metatarsi.  Blade            kneels, inspecting them.  There are gnaw marks on them.                                BLADE                      Must be hundreds of these skeletons                      here.                                REINHARDT                      So?                                BLADE                      So I think you people may have                      underestimated how many Reapers you're                      dealing with.            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL - DAY            As Nyssa, Snowman, Verlaine, and Asad cautiously move            forward, Nyssa GASPS, startled by --            HALF A DOZEN REAPERS laying on the tunnel floor before them            in a stagnant pool of sewage water.  Dead.            INT. EASTERN TUNNEL - DAY            Back with Whistler and Chupa, Whistler is in the lead.                                CHUPA (O.S.)                      Hey,hillbilly.            As Whistler turns around, Chupa SLAMS Whistler in the side of            the head, swiping his night-vision goggles off.  As Whistler            vainly searches for his goggles.                                WHISTLER                      What the fuck you doing?                                CHUPA                      Ain't nobody here but you and me,                      chicken wing.  I'd say this is as good a                      time as any to settle up.            Chupa moves stealthily in darkness, violently KICKING the            older man.  Whistler tries to crawl away, then reaches for            his pheromone atomizer and locks it in the "on-position".  As            Chupa continues to lay into Whistler we SEE the atomizer roll            away, dispensing its contents.            INT. NORTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Blade and Reinhardt by the berm of human bones.                                NYSSA (O.S.)                          (filtered; over comm.)                      Blade.  We've got six Reapers.  They're                      all dead.                                BLADE                      Fry 'em.            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL - DAY            Nyssa nods to Asad and Verlaine.  They train their UV lasers            on the area where the Reaper corpses were -- but the Reaper            bodies are gone.  And so is Snowman for that matter.                                ASAD                      What?  Where did they go?                                VERLAINE                      Screw that, where did Snowman go?            Just then, we hear a NOISE from above.  Nyssa and the others            whip their UV lasers in that direction.                                NYSSA                      Jesus, they were playing possum!            THEIR POV            A HORDE OF REAPERS skitter away from the lights.            INT. EASTERN TUNNEL - DAY            CLOSE ON the pheromone atomizer, the spray petering out.            Whistler is beat to shit, bleeding from his mouth.  Chupa            reaches for his handgun, whipping it out just as --            Whistler's hands brush the damaged night vision goggles.  He            swings them upward.            WHISTLER'S POV (THROUGH GOGGLES)            Whistler has just enough time to register Chupa, the handgun            pointed directly at him/us before noticing SOMETHING ELSE            just beyond Chupa.            A DOZEN REAPERS            Clinging to the ceiling above.  They drop down on Chupa like            a pack of rabid dogs, literally tearing him in half.            INT. NORTHERN TUNNEL - DAY (20 YEARS AGO)            Hearing GUNFIRE and SCREAMS, Blade charges back in Whistler's            direction as --            THE BERM OF HUMAN BONES            EXPLODE apart.  Reapers CHARGE towards them, hitting Blade in            the chest, driving him backwards.  As Blade falls, his entry            light swings upward, illuminating.            ANOTHER REAPER            Drops down atop Reinhardt, knocking his UV gun into the            water.  We SEE even MORE REAPERS converging in on them from            the side tunnels in a cacophony of SHADOW and NOISE.            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL - DAY (20 YEARS AGO)            Verlaine, Nyssa and Asad are FIRING their UV lasers.  The            pumping flashes of their guns throw crazy shadows in every            direction.  Adding to the unbridled chaos of strobing light            and NOISE.  More and more Reapers are swarming towards them,            moving towards us at an unearthly clip!  Nyssa and her            compatriots retreat, running for their lives.            A REAPER            Leaps, landing on Verlaine's back.  It grabs her head and            deftly SNAPS her spine in half with a sickening CRUNCH!            INT. EASTERN TUNNEL - DAY (20 YEARS AGO)            Whistler panics, backing away from the SOUNDS of the reapers            slaughtering Chupa.  He finds his gun, flicks on the UV entry            light --            And just like that, the attacking reapers have vanished.            Whistler whirls about, sweeping the UV beam around, but all            he SEES is darkness.            Then, a bone-chilling WHISPER cuts through the shadows.                                NOMAK (O.S.)                      Whistler.            Whistler spins.  NOMAK RIGHT BEHIND HIM.  As Whistler whips            the UV gun up, Nomak stops it.  The beam is mere millimeters            from the Reaper's face -- close enough to illuminate his            nightmarish features, but not close enough to burn.                                NOMAK (CONT'D)                      If you survive this, tell your master.                      My end is my beginning.            In an eyeblink, Nomak is gone.  Whistler spins, shining the            UV this way and that.  Alone in the dark.            INT. NORTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Blade FIRES his UV into a Reaper's torso.  As the Reaper            incinerates, Blade spins, FIRING at a second Reaper --            ON REINHARDT            Firing his non-UV weapon.  Two Reapers are closing in on him.                                BLADE                      Take mine!            Blade throws Reinhardt his UV laser and unsheathes his sword.            Reinhardt sweeps the lethal beam over the two reapers.            Blade retreats back into the water, calm, letting the            creatures comes to him.  As they close in on him, he slips            the tip of the sword beneath the surface of the water,            waiting --            As one, the Reapers converge on Blade.  He swings his sword            up from the water, hacking away at them, using their own            momentum against them.            Reinhardt considers his options.  He decides to run for it --                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Reinhardt!            Reinhardt races away, abandoning Blade.  Blade reaches for            one of the UV flashbangs clipped to his harness.  He pulls            the pin with his teeth and shoves it into an on-rushing            Reaper's mouth as --            Reinhardt slips on the wet concrete and --            BANG!  Searing LIGHT fills the tunnel, instantly incinerating            the Reaper.            Reinhardt's unprotected face CATCHES FIRE.   He SCREAMS,            falling back into the water, trying to douse the flames.            ANOTHER REAPER lands atop him, dragging him down as --            INT. NORTHERN AND WESTERN TUNNELS - CONTINUOUS            We hear GUNFIRE and SCREAMS coming from all directions.            Blade retreats.  A reaper, fully ON FIRE from the UV            explosion, races towards him.  As Blade decapitates it:                                BLADE                          (shouting into radio)                      Re-group!  Re-group!            Asad and Nyssa also retreat.  Nyssa pulls a pin on a UV            flashbang, throws it behind her.  BA-BANG!  UV light fills            the tunnels and --            INT. SEWER LINE - FOUR-WAY INTERSECTION - DAY            Blade, Nyssa, Whistler and Asad abruptly find themselves back            in the four-way juncture, knee-deep in water.  They quickly            regroup, out of breath, riding adrenaline highs.                                NYSSA                      Where's Chupa?                                WHISTLER                      Forget him, he's chunk-style.                                ASAD                      Same with Snowman and Verlaine.                                WHISTLER                      Guess that perfume of yours did the                      trick after all?                                BLADE                          (quietly)                      A little too well, I'd say.            The others turn to look in Blade's direction.            DOZENS OF RED EYES            are staring out at them from the darkness of the Eastern            Tunnel.  Then we hear a HISSING SOUND coming from the            opposite direction.  Blade and the others spin around --            MORE RED-EYED REAPERS            are closing in on them from the West.  AND THE NORTH.  AND            THE SOUTH!  There must be forty of them in all.                                WHISTLER                      Perfect.  We got the whole fucking                      Partridge family here.            They retreat until they are back to back, each one of them            covering their respective tunnel opening.            A REAPER            Lunges at them from the North.  Asad triggers his UV laser,            scorching the creature.  It HOWLS and slinks backwards.            TWO MORE REAPERS            Attack from the East and the West.  Blade and Nyssa respond            in kind, burning their assailants in mid-air.  But even as            they fire, their UV beams weaken, the flashes of light coming            from their barrels pulsing less frequently.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      Unless anybody has any bright ideas, I'd                      say we're about half a battery away from                      a reaper gang-bang.            The foursome are managing to keep the Reapers at bay, but            just barely.  Blade motions to Nyssa.                                BLADE                      Give me the rest of the pheromones.            Nyssa reaches inside her harness, handing Blade the remaining            atomizers.  He crushes them in his fist, letting the fluid            within spill over his face and chest.                                ASAD                      What are you doing?            The Reapers become even more agitated, HISSING loudly,            pressing in on them closer and closer.  Blade nods his head            back down the Western tunnel.                                BLADE                      Verlaine's body is back there somewhere                      with the UV bomb.  If you train your                      guns in that direction, you'll drive an                      opening in their ranks.  I'll run for                      it.  When the Reapers come after me, you                      make a break for it the other way.            Asad studies Blade with newfound respect.                                ASAD                      You won't make it.                                BLADE                          (hefting his UV gun)                      Then I'll die trying, won't I?                                NYSSA                      Blade.                                BLADE                      Save it.  I don't want to hear your                      words.  Let's do this NOW!!!            The foursome spin, FIRING their UV lasers down the Western            tunnel.  The Reapers SHRIEK, falling to either side, their            bodies burning --            Blade CHARGES FORWARD, firing his dying UV laser.  As he            makes it past the line of Reapers, they start after him,            driven into a frenzy by the pheromones.  The Reapers in the            Northern and Eastern tunnels flood after Blade too, leaving --            Nyssa, Whistler and Asad to contend with the Reapers in the            Southern tunnel.  They discharge their weapons, shouldering            Reapers aside, making a mad dash for freedom.            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL - DAY            Blade runs, splashing and stumbling through the water, just a            hair's breadth ahead of the HOWLING Reaper horde.  Suddenly,            the tunnel widens out into a larger chamber.            INT. SOUTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Whistler and the others FIRE BACK at the small group of            Reapers which have followed them, rather than Blade.            ON WHISTLER            cut off from Nyssa and Asad.  He spots a maintenance ladder            and runs for it, dragging himself up the rungs.  A Reaper            leaps up the ladder after him --            Whistler reaches the top of the ladder, but his exit is            blocked by a manhole cover!  It's STUCK!  Whistler swings up            his shotgun, FIRING into the cover.            The cover is BLOWN UPWARDS, sending a shaft of blinding            sunlight down on the Reaper below him.  As the Reaper            incinerates, Whistler scurries upwards to safety.            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL/CHAMBER - DAY            Blade reaches Verlaine's half-submerged body.  He tears the            backpack carrier off the dead vampire and hefts it onto his            shoulder, charging up an elevated concrete embankment as --            INT. SOUTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Nyssa and Asad find themselves cornered.  Their UV lasers are            shot.  The Reapers are closing in and we're --            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL/CHAMBER - DAY            Back with Blade, the Reapers overrunning him.  They pile atop            one another in a frenzied effort to get to him.  Dozens and            dozens of them.  And still Blade struggles upward, lifting            the UV cluster bomb triumphantly above his head, triggering            the device.            The world goes white.            No explosions.  Just BLINDING, PURIFYING LIGHT leaving us            with a retina-burn image of Blade's silhouette surrounded by            Reapers.  In that brief instant, the Reapers are frozen,            revealed as WRAITH-LIKE X-RAY IMAGES of bone and muscle.            INT. SOUTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            A BLAST-WAVE of LIGHT fills the tunnel, chasing its way            towards Nyssa and Asad, overtaking the Reapers before them.            Asad throws himself at Nyssa, knocking her into the knee-deep            water, shielding her body with his own.            BENEATH THE WATER            Asad still burns, flaring up and disintegrating from the            surface on downward like a piece of liquid-drenched            magnesium, bubbles streaming from his writing body.            INT. WESTERN TUNNEL - DAY            Darkness, then patterns of subtle shadow and light as our            vision slowly returns.  FWASH!  Blade strikes a FLARE.  In            the sputtering aureole, the aftermath is slowly revealed.            Blade crouches, unscathed, as if he were standing ground zero            in the aftermath of Hiroshima.  Scores of Reaper ash-outlines            radiate out from him, some of them flash-seared into the            surrounding brickwork walls like permanent shadows.            INT. SOUTHERN TUNNEL - DAY            Blade slowly makes his way down the tunnel, using the            sputtering flare to guide him.  As before, he sees nothing            but Reaper ash outlines.  But then, Blade sees --            NYSSA            Bleeding and horribly burned despite Asad's sacrifice.  Blade            crouches, scooping her up into his arms.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. HOSPITAL - INNER-CITY TRAUMA WARD - DAY            BANG!  Blade kicks open a pair of doors, hurrying Nyssa            inside.  He's carrying her limp form in his arms, having            wrapped her in a blanket.  Blade himself looks like hell            warmed over -- covered in blood, ash, and grime.            He rushes her towards the ER, navigating through a maze of            PATIENTS and VISITORS.  An ER NURSE approaches.                                ER NURSE                      Sir, you can't just --            WHAM!  Blade shoulders the ER NURSE aside, barreling into the            triage where bewildered DOCTORS and ORDERLIES wait.                                DOCTOR                      What?!                                BLADE                      She needs a hypertransfusion.  NOW!            Blade sets Nyssa down on an operating table, pulling off the            blanket.  She's badly burned and she's lost an enormous            amount of blood.  As we watch, she GROANS, revealing her            fangs.                                DOCTOR                          (aghast)                      God in Heaven.            Just then, a POLICEMAN enters, gun drawn.                                POLICEMAN                      Alright, buddy, step away if --            WHAP!  Blade slaps the cop's gun away and KICKS him in the            chest.  The cop flies backwards, SLAMS into a bank of            equipment, falls.  A NURSE SCREAMS.  In a near blur, Blade            has his MACH out and pressed against the Doctor's forehead.                                BLADE                      Do you want to die?                                DOCTOR                      Not particularly.                                BLADE                          (holstering his MACH)                      Then get your fucking team in gear.            Blade unsheathes his sword, deftly drawing the edge across            his wrist, opening a vein.  He cradles Nyssa's head, pulling            her mouth to the wound on his wrist.  And as she starts to            feed we pull back and --                                                                 CUT TO:            EXT. THE CITY - DUSK            The sun dips towards the horizon.  The shadows of the urban            landscape lengthen and darken in time-lapse.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - SHOWERS - DUSK            Blade stands beneath the showerhead, turning his face up into            the scalding spray, rinsing the blood from his chiseled            physique.  Crimson water circles the drain.            INT. SCUD'S WORKSHOP - BLADE'S SLEEPING AREA - DUSK            Nyssa now rests on a cot.  Peaceful, the color having            somewhat returned to her features.  After a moment, her eyes            flutter open and she takes in her surroundings.  She is in            Blade's austere bedroom -- there are tatami mats, a basin for            water, a well-thumbed volume of Zen koans.            A SHAFT OF SUNLIGHT            cuts through an icy window pane above, angling down near            Nyssa's cot.  Dust motes swirl about it.            Nyssa focuses on it.  Longingly.  Then she raises her arm and            reaches towards it.  Closer, closer -- just barely extending            her hand into the light.  Her fingertips blacken and smoke,            yet Nyssa endures the pain for another moment.  Finally, she            withdraws her hand, inspecting the damage -- then notices            Blade watching her from the doorway.                                NYSSA                      Each day is a little life.                                BLADE                      What?                                NYSSA                      "Each day is a little life.  Every                      waking and rising a little birth, every                      fresh morning a little youth, every                      going to rest and sleep a little death."            She looks back to the sunlight, wistful, sits herself up.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      Anyone else make it?                                BLADE                      I don't think so.            Blade enters, kneeling by the edge of the cot, inspecting her            wounds.  Studiously avoiding her gaze.                                NYSSA                      Thank you.                                BLADE                      For what?                                NYSSA                      It would've been easy for you to let me                      die back there today, but you didn't.                                BLADE                          (shrugging)                      I wouldn't read too much into it.            She reaches for his face.  Blade stops her hand.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      You don't want to go there.                                NYSSA                      Why?                                BLADE                      Because one of us is going to kill the                      other before this ends.                                NYSSA                      It doesn't have to be like that.  We                      don't have to be enemies.                                BLADE                      Get real.  I was useful to Damaskinos as                      long as the hunt was still on.  Now that                      it's over, all bets are off.                                NYSSA                          (pointedly)                      If that's true, then why'd you save me?            Blade stands now, moving to the ice-covered window, troubled            by the question.  Damned if he knows the answer.  After a            beat, Nyssa rises too, keeping to the shadows.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      Why do you hate us so much?                                BLADE                      I am a hunter.  A weapon.  It's what I                      do.  It's in my blood.                                NYSSA                      Well it's in mine, too.  I'm a                      pureblood.  I wasn't turned.  I was born                      this way.  Just like you.  Am I evil                      because I want to survive?                          (beat)                      What about a wolf?  What about any                      predator?            Nyssa pursues Blade, circling around in front of him so he            has to face her again.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      The only difference between you and me                      is that I made peace with who I was a                      long time ago.  I'm not ashamed of what                      I am.                          (beat)                      You haven't been hunting us all these                      years.  You've been hunting yourself.            Blade moves away.  She reaches for his shoulder.  He whirls            on her, angry, traps her hand.  She tires to pull it free but            he grips her wrist tightly, pulling her closer --                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      You're hurting me.                                BLADE                      Pain cuts the deepest, isn't that what                      you said?            And closer, their faces are just inches apart now --                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Reminds you you're alive?            And Blade kisses her, hungrily.  Nyssa responds in kind.  Her            head drops low, her mouth finding the cords of his neck --            sucking at his flesh, then sinking her teeth in deep and --            WHAM!  Blade clamps a hand around her throat, slamming her            head back.  A droplet of blood dribbles from her lips as she            lets loose a breathless shudder.  She's in the ecstatic            throes of the Thirst now, all reason gone.            Blade reaches his other hand to her shirt, ripping it open as            he runs his fingers across her breasts, then over her exposed            rib cage.  He turns her around, forcing her against the wall,            sinking his own fangs into the back of her neck.  She groans            as we --                                                                 CUT TO:            THE TWO OF THEM            Naked on the tatami mats upon which Blade sleeps.  Skin            beaded with sweat.  Breath steaming in the chill air.  He's            atop her, moving inside her with measured thrusts.            Nyssa's limbs are wrapped around him.  She claws at the            expanse of his back with her fingernails.  Her mouth is            locked on Blade's throat, then his is locked on hers.            Together they drink, leeching blood from one another.            PULLING BACK AGAIN            Nyssa clutching greedily at Blade like she never wants to let            go.  Her soul is gone -- transported to that place we drift            to when the euphoria overtake us and we're somehow able to            transcend the horror of our fleeting lives.            Finally, Nyssa GASPS, climaxing as she retracts her fangs            from Blade.  Her head rolls to the side as her pupil --            focused on nothing short of eternity -- dilate unnaturally            large.            LATER            Blade and Nyssa lie in each other's arms, awash in moonlight,            blissfully dead to the world until --            SOMETHING MAKES BLADE STIR            He sits up, listening.  Nyssa stirs beside him.  She moves to            speak but Blade holds up a hand, silencing her.  Together,            they slowly creep towards a nearby window where --            JARED NOMAK'S NIGHTMARE FACE            is pressed up against the icy glass, staring back at them!            Nyssa GASPS.  Blade draws back with a start.  But in the time            it takes to blink, Nomak is gone.  Just then, we hear a            NOISE.  Scud appears in a doorway, groggy.                                SCUD                      What's going on?                                BLADE                      He was here.  Watching us.                                SCUD                      Nomak?                                BLADE                      He wants us to know he's hunting us now.            MOMENTS LATER            Blade is at the computer workstation.  He activates the            footage of Nomak he was viewing earlier.  He fast-forwards to            a specific moment, then plays it back at normal speed.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Nomak said something to me before he                      disappeared the first time --            Blade points to the screen, saying the words as Nomak            silently mouths them.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Athelfiki singenia ex amato.  At first I                      thought he might've been using one of                      the vampire dialects.  But it turns out,                      it's Greek.  Do you know what it means?            Nyssa shakes her head.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      It means "bloodbrother."                                NYSSA                      I don't understand.                                WHISTLER (O.S.)                      Well maybe I do.            Blade spins, his MACH pistol up and ready to fire.  Whistler            sits on the opposite side of the room, watching them as he            smokes.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                          (to Scud)                      Your security's for shit, kid.                                BLADE                      Where the hell have you been?                                WHISTLER                      Just out connecting a few dots.            Whistler rises from his chair.  He flicks his cigarette butt            into the shadows and fixes Blade with a heavy stares.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      Bangin' some vampire chick.  Kind of a                      faux pas in our line of work, wouldn't                      you say?  Hope you double bagged it, at                      least.            Blade is still guarded, not yet ready to lower his MACH.                                BLADE                      What's your problem, Whistler?                                WHISTLER                      Why don't you ask your girlfriend?            Blade looks to Nyssa, but she seems equally perplexed.                                WHISTLER (CONT'D)                      I did some checking on that Carter                      Stevens character.  That familiar of                      theirs who claimed he was with the NIH?                      Turns out he used to work for them, but                      he doesn't anymore.                                BLADE                      Then who does he work for?            Whistler gives Nyssa a rueful stare, then tosses Blade a            research folder.  On the cover is the same red, double-helix            logo we saw at Damaskinos' facility.                                WHISTLER                      Some biotech outfit called Caliban                      Industries.  They've been lying to us                      since day one.  This Nomak fucker didn't                      evolve.  He was designed.            Nyssa look to Blade, imploring.                                NYSSA                      I don't know what he's talking about.                                WHISTLER                      You expect us to believe that?                          (to Blade)                      Who you going to trust, Blade?  Me or                      her?            EXT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - NIGHT            A high-tech, heavily guarded industrial complex nestled            within an expanse of unassuming wooded acreage overlooking            the ocean.            INT. DAMASKINOS' LAIR - NIGHT            Carter Stevens shuts down his computer workstation, then            moves to the heavy oak door, glancing at a medical chart as            he opens it.  When he looks up --                                STEVENS                      You?            A fist PUNCHES Stevens in the face.            BLADE            Stands in the entry way.  Whistler is behind him, holding a            gun to Nyssa.  Scud is there, too.                                BLADE                          (mobing in on Stevens)                      Start talking, bitch.                                STEVENS                      I don't know what you --            Blade spins Stevens around, shoving his face against a glass            case, crushing the man's nose, spiderwebbing the glass.                                BLADE                      Nomak!  You created him!            Blade clamps his fingers around Stevens' broken nose and            twists it with a sickening CRUNCH.  Stevens SCREAMS, caving.                                STEVENS                      Ohgodohgodohgod...                          (in agony)                      Alright, alright.  Yes, we did...                          (gasping)                      PLEASE!  PLEASE!!!            Blade releases him.  Stevens sinks to the floor, cradling his            brutalized face.                                BLADE                      Keep talking, Stevens.  Tell me why.                                STEVENS                          (sputtering)                      The Shadow Cabinet.  For decades they've                      been trying to find a way to rid                      themselves of their hereditary                      weaknesses.  Viral epidemiology,                      immunochemistry.  Recombinant DNA was                      the next logical step.                                NYSSA                          (genuinely horrified)                      No, that's not possible.  They wouldn't                      keep something like this from me...                                STEVENS                      Your father didn't want you to know.                          (haltingly)                      Something went wrong.  The Reaper strain                      was too aggressive.  Then Nomak escaped.                                WHISTLER                      And we're supposed to clean up your                      mess.  Fucking perfect.                                STEVENS                          (defensive)                      Look, the fact that Nomak was                      artificially created didn't make the                      threat any less urgent.  He was still                      out there, spreading the Reaper virus.            But Blade's not concerned about that now.  He's got something            more pressing on his mind.                                BLADE                      The genetic material you spliced into                      Nomak --                          (beat; almost fearful)                      Where did you get it?                                DAMASKINOS (O.S.)                      I should think that would be obvious at                      this point.            ANGLE ON DAMASKINOS            Standing behind them.                                DAMASKINOS (CONT'D)                      We took the genetic material from you.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - ELEVATED CORRIDOR - NIGHT            Damaskinos leads them down a corridor.                                DAMASKINOS                      Jared Nomak is your genetic brother.                      And I suppose if you follow that line of                      reasoning to its logical conclusion,                      then these are your offspring.            Damaskinos reaches to a nearby control panel, pressing a            button.  A pair of massive doors slide apart, revealing:            THE EUGENICS CHAMBER            We are in a vast, multitiered, temperature-controlled chamber            -- equal parts 21st century medical facility and Hammer House            of Horror.            A network of catwalks look down upon the circular chamber,            the center of which is dominated by a massive, steel cask,            which is in turn ringed by a safety railing.  The operation            looks not unlike a small-scale water purification plant, or            perhaps a futuristic distillery.  Only in this instance, the            liquid churning within the cask is HUMAN BLOOD.            TINY EMBRYOS            Each no bigger than a thumbnail, line the walls of the            chamber, preserved in credit card sized cryo-cases.  There            are thousands of them, resting atop one another in racks with            stretch from the floor on upwards.            As Damaskinos removes an embryo from the rack, we see ANOTHER            EMBRYO behind it.  That cryo-case now slides forward with a            WHIR, taking the place of the one which Damaskinos removed.            Like some kind of perverse vending machine.  God knows how            deep they're stacked.  If thousands are visible, there could            be tens of thousands in total.            Damaskinos holds the translucent cryo-case up to the light.            The Embryo within shudders, its tiny heart beating.                                DAMASKINOS (CONT'D)                          (proudly)                      A new breed, begotten from your own                      flesh.  Immune to silver, even sunlight.                          (stepping towards Blade)                      The wolves have lain with the sheep long                      enough.  No more compromises.  No more                      deals.  Only closure.            BOOM!  We hear the tread of HEAVY FOOTSTEPS approaching.  All            eyes turn towards a side corridor.            REINHARDT            enters from the shadows, holding Scud's rail-gun.  Much of            his face has been burnt away, leaving him with a ghastly            death's head mask of blackened muscle and exposed bone.                                REINHARDT                      Put it back in park, Blade.                                BLADE                      Thought you were dead.                                REINHARDT                      Seems like there's a lot of that going                      around these days.            As Reinhardt aims the rail gun at Blade, a DOZEN VAMPIRE            GUARDS appear on the catwalks above, also taking aim.                                REINHARDT (CONT'D)                      Six-thousand feet per second, isn't that                      what Whistler said?  Let's see you dodge                      this one --            Blade does his level best, pulling his MACH, squeezing off a            SHOT even as Reinhardt FIRES.  BA-BANG!  Blade is hit in the            side, spun clear around.  His shot goes wild, hitting one of            the Guards in the head, turning him to ash as Blade himself            falls to the floor.                                NYSSA                      Blade!            Blade GASPS in shock.  The rail-gun needles have ripped a            brutal hole through the side of his chest-plate.  He clutches            at his flank, trying to staunch the blood that's seeping            between his fingers.  As he sits forward, we see MORE            FLECHETTES have embedded in the wall behind him, having torn            completely through him.            Whistler steps forward.  One of the vampire sentries LASHES            OUT, striking him in the face with the butt of his rifle.            Whistler sinks to his knees, stunned.  The guard disarms him.            ON BLADE            Gritting his teeth against the pain.  He reaches inside his            combat harness, pulling out the remote detonator for the            explosive flechette in Reinhardt's skull.                                BLADE                      Kiss your ass goodbye, Reinhardt.                                SCUD                      You're wasting your time, Blade.  The                      flechette's a dud.            Scud crosses over to Reinhardt's side.  Whistler stares at            him in disbelief.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      It was never supposed to explode.  All                      it was supposed to do was make you feel                      like you were in control.            Blade's eyes darken with hatred.  Reinhardt laughs.                                REINHARDT                      Thought you had me on a short leash,                      didn't you, chief?  Only it turns out,                      you're the one that's been on the leash.            Reinhardt digs his claws into his scalp and tugs the barbed            flechette from his skull.  As he does so, Blade's remote            detonator BEEPS to indicate it's being tempered with.            Reinhardt finishes removing it and sighs contentedly.                                REINHARDT (CONT'D)                      That's better.            Reinhardt tosses the fletchette to Scud, who grins, flipping            down his lower lip to reveal a vampire glyph tattooed on it.                                SCUD                      See, I'm one of Damaskinos' familiars.            Blade looks to Nyssa who averts her gaze.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      Yeah, your little cootchie knew.                                WHISTLER                      You little shit.  When did they get to                      you?                                SCUD                      Back when Blade had me hunting down your                      puckered old ass.  What's up with your                      hair, anyway?  Fucking Willie Nelson                      look-a-like?            Scud punches Whistler in the face.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      Man, I so wanted to do that.            Scud shakes his hand, which is smarting from the blow.  He            looks to Blade now, angry.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      And you.  You never cared about me.  I                      gave you everything.  All you cared                      about was digging up the old fuck!  You                      think they scoped out my security                      system?                          (chuckling)                      I let them in.  Dude, I practically gave                      'em the fucking keys.  I've been feeding                      Damaskinos information the whole time.                      Providing them with samples of your                      genetic material -- helping them with                      the Reaper program.  They're close,                      Blade.  Right up against it.  Any day                      now, they're all going to be Daywalkers.                      And when that happens, well, let's just                      say, I don't want to be on the losing                      team.  You may be strong, you may be                      fast, but in the end, you're just too                      human, B.            He pinches Blade's cheek.  Then he stands up.                                SCUD (CONT'D)                      So that's down and dirty.  Got anything                      to say for yourself?                                BLADE                          (weak, but defiant)                      Two things.  One, I was on to you the                      moment they turned you.  And two --                          (raising the detonator;                           smiling)                      I switched that dud of yours back with                      the real one.            Scud has a split-second of terrified, wide-eyed realization            before Blade pushes the button and BOOM!  The flechette in            Scud's hand EXPLODES, blowing his body apart, spraying those            nearest him with blood.  Primarily Reinhardt.                                REINHARDT                      Son of a bitch!            As the others react with varying degrees of surprise and            horror, Reinhardt savagely KICKS Blade across the face.  He            HITS Blade again and again, driving him down to the floor.            Then he bends and tugs the sword from Blade's back-scabbard,            preparing to cut his throat.                                DAMASKINOS                      Reinhardt!            Reinhardt hesitates.  Nyssa takes a step towards Blade, but            Damaskinos stops her.  Damaskinos gestures to his guards.            They haul Blade up and drag him from the lab.  Reinhardt            gestures to Whistler.                                REINHARDT                      What about him, then?                          (crossing to Whistler,                           handcuffing him)                      Me and Hobo Kelly here have a little                      unfinished business.            Damaskinos waves dismissively.  Reinhardt takes Whistler            away.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT            Blade is dragged into a large autopsy room.  The vampire            guards lay him on a steel autopsy table.  He struggles            against them, but he's just too weak from loss of blood.            Eventually they get him secured, clamping his wrists and            ankles into steel manacles which are affixed to the table.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - SECURITY ROOM - NIGHT            CLOSE ON            Blade's sword pommel as the booby-trap blades in the handle            spring out.                                REINHARDT (O.S.)                      Nice.            PULL BACK to reveal Reinhardt holding Blade's sword.  He            gives it a few practiced swings, then runs his thumb along            the blade.                                REINHARDT (CONT'D)                      How many vampires do you think he's                      killed with this thing?            ON WHISTLER            Sitting in the corner, his hands cuffed behind his back.  We            are in a security station filled with surveillance monitors            offering various views of the laboratory complex.                                WHISTLER                      Not nearly enough, Fritz.                                REINHARDT                      Keep talking, warmblood.            Reinhardt KICKS Whistler in the face.                                REINHARDT (CONT'D)                      When I'm through with you, you'll be                      begging for a dirt nap.            Whistler spits blood and glares up at Reinhardt.                                WHISTLER                      Been dead before.  Didn't much cotton to                      it.  Tell you what, chicken shit.  You                      do your worst.  We'll settle up after.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - EUGENICS CHAMBER - NIGHT            Nyssa stands before the banks of vampire embryos, clearly            troubled.  Damaskinos regards her.                                DAMASKINOS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      My child --            Damaskinos moves in close to her, running a finger along her            throat.  She doesn't acknowledge it.                                DAMASKINOS (CONT'D)                          (in English)                      I would hate to think you were losing                      your perspective.  Who do you think God                      favors in the web?  The spider or the                      fly?                                NYSSA                      Nomak said something to Blade in Greek.                      Athelfiki singenia ex amato.  Where did                      he learn that?                                DAMASKINOS                      From his father, of course.                                NYSSA                          (horrified)                      You experimented on your own, son?            Damaskinos slowly tightens his hand around Nyssa's throat.                                DAMASKINOS                      I have fathered thousands of children in                      centuries since I first walked this                      earth.  Make no mistake, Nyssa.  Those                      blood-ties mean nothing to me when                      measured against the ascendancy of our                      race.  Nothing.                          (giving her an extra squeeze)                      If you have any interest in remaining                      alive, you would do well to remember                      that.            Damaskinos releases Nyssa.  She falls, GASPING for breath.            He stares down at her with disdain, then exits.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT            Damaskinos enters, followed by Carter Stevens.  The guards            remain posted at the main entrance of the room.  Damaskinos            approaches, looking down at Blade.            Blade stares back at him, still defiant, but fighting a            losing battle.  He's dying and he knows it.  His breathing is            shallow.  It's an effort just to keep his eyes open.                                DAMASKINOS                      With every century, humans become more                      repulsive to me.  Once, you were souls                      to be taken, corrupted.  But you have                      disgraced yourselves to being nothing                      more than blood and meat.            TWO SURGEONS snap on surgical gloves.  Stevens is enjoying            seeing Blade helpless.                                STEVENS                      We're going to harvest you, Blade.                          (injecting fluid into Blade)                      Bone marrow, organs, everything.  Your                      tissue's too valuable to let go to                      waste.                                BLADE                          (weakly)                      Nomak is still out there.                                DAMASKINOS                      True, but thanks to you, we know his                      weakness.  We can keep him contained.                      It's just a matter of time before we                      hunt him down.                                BLADE                      Too bad you're out of it.            Damaskinos is amused by Blade's seeming lack of concern.                                DAMASKINOS                      And why is that?                                BLADE                      Revenge.  That's what Nomak wanted all                      along.  To pay back the people who                      created him.                                STEVENS                      You may be right.  Fortunately for us,                      he has no idea where this facility is                      located.            Blade smiles, laughing tiredly.                                BLADE                      He does now.                          (off their concerned looks)                      He's been watching me since the tunnels.                      Following me.  I led him right to you.            Blade lifts up his hand, unfurling his previously closed            fist.  There is a deep gash in his palms.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Just like a trail of bread crumbs.            Damaskinos stares at Blade's hand, then looks to the floor.            A line of blood droplets lead back to the doors through which            he entered.                                                                 CUT TO:            A SERIES OF QUICK SHOTS            Various hallways, the helipad outside Caliban industries,            etc.  In rapid succession, we SEE more TRAILS OF BLOOD            DROPLETS.  Then, just as quickly, we are back --            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT            With Damaskinos and company.  Suddenly, the lights above them            flicker then go out.  As emergency lights kick on --            BANG!  BANG!BANG!BANG!  All eyes turn towards a steel            security door which is shuddering -- bulging and bending            inwards as Nomak throws himself against it.            Damaskinos looks to a bank of security monitors which are            flickering back to life now.  We see Nomak's blurred            silhouette from various angles, pummeling the door.  Then --            RIPPPPPP!!!  A portion of the door is clawed open and we see            a glimpse of Nomak's SNARLING FACE.                                NOMAK                          (roaring)                      FATHER!            Damaskinos' eyes widen in terror as he stumbles backwards,            activating an ALARM.  He looks to the guards, SCREAMING.                                DAMASKINOS                      Stop him!            Damaskinos runs for his life, rushing out the opposite door,            quickly followed by Stevens as we --                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - CORRIDOR - NIGHT            Nyssa hears the ALARMS and moves into a corridor lit by red,            strobing emergency lights.  VAMPIRE GUARDS are rushing past.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - SECURITY ROOM - NIGHT            Reinhardt also hears the ALARMS.  He looks to the            surveillance monitors where he SEES Nomak.                                REINHARDT                      Shit!            Behind him, we see Whistler taking advantage of the            distraction.  He folds his legs up under him, working his            cuffed hands over his feet.  When Reinhardt spins back away            from the security monitors --            Whistler is GONE.  A steel grating in the floor lies half            open.  The obvious means of exit.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT            As Nomak continues tearing down the autopsy door, BULLETS            hammer into his back.  He turns, sees a DOZEN GUARDS FIRING            at him, their gunfire chewing the shit out of the concrete            walls around him.  Nomak staggers, but doesn't go down as            CLEAR BLOOD sprays from the body hits.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - MAINTENANCE CONDUIT - NIGHT            Whistler shuffles forward through the narrow conduit on his            elbows.  We hear footsteps.  Through the metal gratings            above, we glimpse TWO FIGURES rushing past --            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - ANOTHER CORRIDOR - NIGHT            Damaskinos and Stevens round a corner, spilling into several            GUARDS.  He shoves his fellow vampires aside.                                DAMASKINOS                      Get out of the way.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT            CLOSE ON a grate moving up from the floor.  Whistler emerges,            rushing to Blade's side.  As he starts frantically releasing            Blade from his bonds, he looks to the ravaged door --            WHISTLER'S POV (THROUGH THE V-SHAPED GAP IN DOOR)            Nomak savages the guards, flinging them into the air.  A            guard's body hits the V-gap in the door and obscures our view            as --            Whistler redoubles his efforts, finally freeing Blade.  He            helps him from the autopsy table.  Blade is sinking, starting            to fade.  Whistler slaps his face, shaking him.                                WHISTLER                      Come on, Blade.  Talk to me!                                BLADE                          (weakly)                      Blood...            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM HALLWAY - NIGHT            Carnage.  A frazetta painting come to life.  Nomak atop dead            guards, draining the last of his victims' blood.  He whips            his face in our direction and ROARS, charging the door --            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT            WHAM!  The door gives way and Nomak enters.  To the right, he            SEES Whistler and Blade exiting.  To the left, he SEES the            security monitors.  Damaskinos and Stevens can be glimpsed in            one of these monitors.            Nomak moves to the left.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - THIRD CORRIDOR - NIGHT            Blade clutches his bleeding side, staggering down the            corridor towards a door marked "Eugenics" with Whistler's            help.  By all rights, Blade should be dead.  But he continues            on, moving towards the door with determination.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - 4-WAY INTERSECTION - NIGHT            CLOSE ON a hand twisting a safety lever on the floor.  PULL            BACK to reveal Stevens manually activating a series of            hydraulic lock-down latches.            CHINK!CHINK!CHINK!  The doors of the Eastern, Northern, and            Western corridors are sealing, lock-down latches clamping            down for extra security.  Even as the Western door seals, we            glimpse Nomak rushing towards it with inhuman speed.            ON STEVENS            panicked, turning towards the open elevator cab where --            DAMASKINOS            is waiting.  But even as Stevens starts towards the elevator,            Damaskinos dispassionately presses the "CLOSE DOOR" button.                                STEVENS                      What are you doing?!!            Stevens rushes towards the closing elevator doors, but it's            too late.  He pounds his fist against them.  Behind him, we            hear a terrible RENDING OF METAL as the Western door gives.            Stevens looks in that direction --            In an eyeblink, Nomak is upon him, SLAMMING his hand over            Stevens' face, crushing it.            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - ELEVATOR CAB - NIGHT            As Damaskinos slides a security card through a reader and            punches in a code, a thin SPRAY OF BLOOD jets across his pale            forearm.  He looks to the elevator doors.  The spray of blood            is coming through the vertical door seal.  The metal doors            SHUDDER violently and then the cab begins to ascend.            Damaskinos retreats to the far corner of the elevator,            breathing a sigh of relief.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - EUGENICS CHAMBER - NIGHT            WHOOSH!  A pneumatic door slides open.  Blade and Whistler            enter.  They are on the second level now, up amongst the            catwalks.  Below them is the churning cask of purified blood.            They have almost reached the end of the catwalk when --            REINHARDT AND HIS MEN            converge on the lab from two directions at once.  Some of the            vampires spill through the door on the second level with            Reinhardt, while others enter on the ground floor.                                REINHARDT                      Stop him!!!            As Reinhardt takes aim at Blade with the shotgun, the other            vampires FIRE.  Whistler is HIT in the leg.  He goes down,            CRYING OUT, then grips Blade's arm, shoving him onward --                                WHISTLER                      GO!!!            ON BLADE            gripping the guard rail for support, dragging himself along.            Reinhardt fires.  A SHOTGUN BLAST hits Blade, grazing him but            otherwise missing him.  As Reinhardt curses and prepares to            fire again --            Blade makes it to the end of the catwalk, pitching himself            out into open space.  Time slows to a crawl as Blade tumbles            downward, plummeting into --            THE BLOOD CASK BELOW            Blade sinks from view, disappearing beneath the churning            slurry of crimson.  A beat passes as Reinhardt and his men            draw closer, apprehensive.  Then, an explosion of BLOOD            gushes over Reinhardt and the others.  They fall backwards,            blinded, slipping --            BLADE            surfaces from the cask in morbidly glorious slow-motion.            Think of Sheen in the end-sequence of Apocalypse Now, only            instead of a river of mud, Blade is covered head-to-toe in            crimson.  Majestic and glistening.  A primordial god.  He            rears back his head, letting loose a triumphal ROAR.            Reinhardt's men hesitate.  One look at Blade's eyes and we            can see he's tapped into a well-spring of fury even he never            knew he had.  The man is super-charged and ready for war.            Blade tears into the vampires, unleashing a blizzard of            martial arts moves.  He powers a right hook into the first            vampire's face, then pivots, launching a devastating spinning            back-fist into the face of a second.  At the same time, he            rips the second guard's security belt from his waist,            twirling it around nanchadku-style to blind a third guard and            capture the wrist of a fourth.            Some vampires FIRE their guns, but Blade is a whirlwind,            shifting and dodging.  BULLETS go wild, hitting circuitry,            EXPLODING APART cannisters of combustible chemicals.  In            seconds, FLAMES are licking across the laboratory floor.            Blade drops, causing a pair of vampires to FIRE their guns at            one another.            Then Blade knocks two more vampires onto their asses with a            foot sweep.  Then he's up again.  Slamming the bridge of a            fifth vampire's nose into his brain with a palm heel strike.            A snap kick, an overhand elbow strike, a knee stamp that            shatter's the vampire's knee cap.  An upward block, a jab, a            cross, a shin kick aimed at a vamp's quadriceps.            Overhand punches, rising punches, parallel punches, spinning            rear elbows, deep kicks, on and on and on and on in an orgy            of super-hero violence until --            WHAM!  Blade cuts the last of the vampire soldiers down,            turning from the creature's disintegrating body to face --            REINHARDT            The vampire mercenary clutches Blade's sword in his hand, but            the weapon provides him with little sense of security given            that he's just seen a dozen of his men slaughtered.  The            automatic sprinkler system is on now, spraying water down            upon Blade and Reinhardt alike.  Blade advances.            Reinhardt's been cornered.  There's nowhere else for him to            run.  Refusing to be cowed, Reinhardt SCREAMS and brings the            sword down at Blade's head when WHOOSH --            But Blade swings his hands upward, slapping them on either            side of the blade, trapping the sword on its downward arc.            Reinhardt strains, trying to tear the sword away from Blade's            grip.  The vampire's eyes widen in fear.  And during that            split-second in which the two men are frozen, connected by            the weapon which vibrates between them, Blade says:                                BLADE                      Tell me something, chief.  Can you                      blush?            TWHISH!  The sword twists free from Reinhardt's grasp,            spinning upward into the air.  Reinhardt stumbles backwards            against the blood cask railing as --            Blade catches the sword on its way down, swinging it around            in one fluid motion, slicing Reinhardt's torso in half, along            with a diagonal axis!  Reinhardt sinks to his knees as the            TWO HALVES split apart, turning to ash before they hit floor.            Beat.  Blade stands beneath the spray of the overhead            sprinklers, rinsing the blood from his body.  He turns            towards the exit, sword in hand.                                                                 CUT TO:            INT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - LOBBY - NIGHT            A set of elevator doors open, disgorging Damaskinos.  Beyond            the lobby windows we can SEE a waiting helicopter, VAMPIRE            SOLDIERS readying it for take-off.  Damaskinos rushes across            the lobby and is almost at the exit when --            CHUNK!CHUNK!CHUNK! A series of steel shutters slam down over            the doors and windows.  Damaskinos tries to tug one of the            shutters upwards, then moves to a keypad nearby.  He starts            hurriedly tapping in a numeric sequence when we hear:                                NYSSA (O.S.)                      I overrode the security codes.            Damaskinos spins around.  Nyssa stands behind him.  She's got            Whistler's rail-gun in her hands.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      We're locked in.                                DAMASKINOS                      Are you insane?  He'll kill us both!                                NYSSA                      Maybe it's better that way.            AS if in response, a GRINDING SHUDDER comes from the elevator            doors.  Damaskinos spins in wide-eyed horror, then --                                BLADE (O.S.)                      What's it going to be, Damaskinos?                      Thiavolos.  The devil you know --            BLADE            enters the lobby from a mezzanine above, sword in hand.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      -- or the devil you don't?            Damaskinos turns back to his daughter, making a last appeal.                                DAMASKINOS                          (vampire dialect; subtitled)                      For God's sake, Nyssa!  Let us out of                      here!            WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!  Nomak pounds away.  The elevator doors are            starting to buckle, then they tear apart completely --            NOMAK            bursts into the lobby, ROARING.  If anything, he is even more            animalistic now, his features having become grossly            distorted.                                NOMAK                          (in vampire dialect)                      Why are you frightened, father?  The                      prodigal son has returned.            Damaskinos scurries backwards, but there's nowhere left to            run.  Nomak descends on him, lifting the vampire into a rib            crushing embrace, chomping his elongated canines into            Damaskinos' throat.            Damaskinos SQUEALS like a child as his life-blood is sucked            out of him.  His body begins to cave inward, shrinking and            twisting until there's nothing left but shriveled husk.            Nyssa hefts the rail-gun and FIRES at Nomak's back.  Nomak            HOWLS, releasing Damaskinos' body, then turns, focusing his            blood-drunk gaze on Nomak.                                BLADE                          (alarmed)                      Get out of here!            But Nyssa stands her ground, rachetting back the slide on the            rail-gun, readying to unleash another barrage of needles.            Nomak CHARGES, moving at unbelievable speed.  She FIRES            AGAIN, aiming at Nomak's chest --            but then Nomak is upon her.  He slaps the rail-gun from her            hands, SMASHING IT TO PIECES.            Then he wraps his hand around her throat, pulling her            forward, sinking his teeth into her neck.  Nyssa SCREAMS.                                BLADE (CONT'D)                      Nyssa!!!            ON BLADE            as he leaps from the mezzanine level, sword extended, like            Beowulf diving to slay Grendel.  He PLUNGES the sword deep            into Nomak's upper torso.  Then DRIVES it in even further --            Nomak releases Nyssa and back-hands Blade across the face,            sending him sailing through the air.  He lands, skids across            the floor --            ON NOMAK            stumbling backwards into the wall.  The sword has sunk so            deep that the tip is actually protruding out his back,            SCRAPING a gash across the wall as Nomak slides towards the            floor.            Nomak GRUNTS, then reaches for the pomeel with his ruined            hand.  He grips the pommel and SNAPS the sword-blade in half.            Then he SLAMS against the wall, forcing the half of the            broken blade that's still embedded in him out back through            the front of his chest.  As Nomak rises to his feet --            Blade is on him again, snap-kicking the Reaper in the chest.            Nomak retaliates.  Blade somersaults out of the way, then            springs back again, KICKING Nomak in the face, BREAKING            Nomak's NECK.  Nomak's head lolls unnaturally sideways for a            heartbeat and then Nomak swings his head around, somehow            righting his neck vertebrae with a snap of his head.            They trade blows, a brutal death-match that seems to defy            gravity.  Blade moves in for a round-house punch, but Nomak            catches his fist, holding it for a split-second, then bending            Blade's hand at an unnatural angle, SNAPPING his wrist bones.            The pain is enormous.            Nomak starts beating the living shit out of Blade, pummeling            him with his fists, gripped by an uncontrollable rage.  He            SMASHES Blade against a marble column, cracking it.  Then he            flings Blade against one of the brushed steel walls - so hard            that Blade's body actually leaves an indentation.            Before Blade can recover, Nomak is in front of him, launching            another kick.  Blade rolls his head out of the way, barely            avoiding Nomak's boot heel which dents the wall.  Nomak kicks            a second time.  Blade avoids Nomak, but third time's the            charm and Nomak lands one squarely in Blade's gut.            Blade falls beneath a flurry of blows, unable to defend            himself any longer.  Blood stains his eyes, obscuring his            vision.  He strikes out blindly, but Nomak has forced him to            the ground, pinning him there.  As Blade struggles to free            himself --            NOMAK            lowers his head towards Blade's face.  The scar/seam in            Nomak's chin splits open and Nomak's lower jaw flares apart,            distending and widening to reveal the awful, glistening hell            maw -- the hollow inner fangs and striated cartilage which            are closing about Blade's face.  Blade twists his head            violently to the right, then glimpses the broken tip of his            sword resting a few feet away.  He reaches for it in            desperation, plunging it up into Nomak's chest.  Nomak HOWLS.            Because the hilt has been broken off, Blade is forced to grip            the cutting edge of the weapon with his bare hands.  It            slices into his fingers --            but Blade just grips the broken sword tighter, ignoring the            pain, driving it deeper and deeper -- until, suddenly, it            penetrates the cartilaginous shell around Nomak's heart and --                                NOMAK                          (in vampire dialect)                      Blood brother.            Nomak smiles, covering Blade's hands with his own.  He looks            blade in the eye, then drives the broken sword home.            Nomak's body stiffens, his eyes grow unseeing, an oddly            serene look spreading across his tortured face.  A patch of            BLACKNESS begins radiating outward from his chest, moving            over his body, carbonizing him from within.  As his blackened            flesh begins to crack, BLUE FLAMES flicker out from the            fissures.  In seconds, Nomak is gone.            Beat.  Blade stands, exhausted.  Then he looks to where Nyssa            rests.  He moves to her side, kneeling beside her.  She            smiles up at him, bravely, but frightened all the same.            Blade inspects the wound on her neck.  It's clearly fatal.                                NYSSA                      How does it look?                                BLADE                          (with genuine sadness)                      Not good.            Nyssa nods.  Blade has only confirmed her existing fears.                                NYSSA                      It won't be long now.  I can already                      feel it burning inside me --            She grips Blade's arm, her eyes welling with tears.                                NYSSA (CONT'D)                      I don't want to become what Nomak was --                          (beat; straining)                      I can't.  I want to die while I'm still                      vampire.            Blade sighs.  The burden is all to familiar to him.                                BLADE                      What do you want me to do?                                NYSSA                      I want to see the sun rise.            ON BLADE            his face a mask of sad resignation.  He lifts Nyssa into his            arms.  She closes her eyes, resting her head on his chest.            EXT. CALIBAN INDUSTRIES - JUST BEFORE DAWN            The shutters over the doors and windows slowly rise.  Blade            shoulders open the front door, moving across the lawn towards            a bluff overlooking the ocean.  A moment later, Whistler            emerges into the light, watching as Blade sets Nysa down on            the grass.  Her eyes flutter open and she looks into --            THE HORIZON            where the faintest glimmer of pre-dawn light brightens the            cloud-swept sky.  It's peaceful.  We can hear the SURF            crashing on the shore below.            Together they wait.            A GLIMMER OF LIGHT emerges over the earth's curvature,            spreading its dazzling radiance out across the skyline.            Nyssa's eyes widen in expectation, her breath catching.  She            looks up at Blade, stroking his face, smiling.                                NYSSA                      Each day is a little life.  Remember?            Blade nods, he's strong for her.  Despite his best efforts, a            tear slides down his cheek.  They kiss then as the sun rises            in full glory, flooding the world with its brilliance.            Blade holds Nyssa tightly to his chest, refusing to            relinquish his grip as her body catches fire.  The end is            blessedly quick -- not a slow-burn of blazing agony, but a            nearly seamless transition from life --            To ash...  Nyssa collapses apart in Blade's arms, billowing            out around him in a cloud of glowing embers.  One moment            she's there, the next she's gone.  Blade remains where he is,            kneeling on the bluff, the wind carrying the last traces of            Nyssa aloft into the sky.  He shuts his eyes.  Turns his face            to the warmth of the sun, surrendering himself to acceptance.            WE RISE UP            isolating Blade alone on the windswept bluff.  After a            moment, Whistler moves to Blade's side.  He rests a hand on            Blade's shoulder, but doesn't say a word.  We keep moving up            and up until the two of them are just a pair of tiny figures            on the rolling coastline.  Then we --                                                            DISSOLVE TO:            A SERIES OF CLOSEUPS            Images of a weapon being forged, all filtered through            shimmering convection waves of intense heat.  We SEE a HAMMER            CLANGING DOWN.  The FIRES of a ROARING furnace.  SPARKS            showering up from titanium slowly being given shape.  Molten            silver.  Acid etching.  And then we PULL BACK to reveal --            INT. BLADE'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT            Blade works before a forge by moonlight, his body dripping            with sweat.  He slips his hand in a protective glove and            grips the red-hot weapon, dousing it in a quench bucket.  As            a cloud of steam envelops Blade, he lifts it up for view.            A NEW SWORD            perfect.  Lethal.  Wrought from titanium, plated in sliver.            As Blade inspects the sword, we hear his earlier words again:                                BLADE (V.O.)                      I am a hunter.  A weapon.  It's what I                      do.  It's in my blood...            Satisfied with his work, Blade smiles --            EXT. FUCKINGHAM PALACE - NIGHT            A shit-hole porno emporium offering the latest in bagged-for            your-pleasure Euro-raunch.            INT. FUCKINGHAM PALACE - NIGHT            Rush, the vampire brother wanna-be from the opening of the            film, is up at the register, exchanging a twenty for a            handful of tokens.  He's humming along to that old E-Rotic            song "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi".                                RUSH                      -- yelling for your tender touch, you                      can never get enough --            We FOLLOW HIM down a hall lined with video booths, serenaded            all the while by the cheesy SYNTH SOUNDTRACKS and faked            ORGASMOGROANS coming from beyond the doors.                                RUSH (CONT'D)                      -- cover me with your love --            Rush stops at "Buddy Booth No. 3 - HOT ONE-ON-ONE ACTION."            INT. BUDDY BOOTH - NIGHT            Rush steps inside.  There's a chair set in front of a            Plexiglas window, an intercom with a phone receiver, box of            Kleenex, and a slot for the tokens.            Rush gets himself situated, picks up the receiver, then            eagerly pops some tokens in the slot.                                RUSH                      Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir!                      Voulez-vous coucher AVEC MOI!!!            With a HUM, the screen in front of the window rises, offering            us a view of the booth on the other side of the Plexiglas.            Only instead of a skanked out booth girl, Rush finds himself            staring in open-mouthed astonishment at --            BLADE            Who flashes an evil smile at us.                                BLADE                      What?  You think I forgot about you?            In a near blur, Blade draws his new sword from his back            scabbard and stabs it RIGHT INTO CAMERA, SMASHING apart the            Plexiglas window as we --                                                          FADE TO BLACK.
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+BLADE RUNNER Screenplay by HAMPTON FANCHER July 24, 1980 Brighton Productions Inc. 1420 No. Beachwood Drive Hollywood, Calif. 90028 **************** INT. TYRELL CORPORATION LOCKER ROOM - DAY 1 THE EYE 2 It's magnified and deeply revealed. Flecks of green and yellow in a field of milky blue. Icy filaments surround the undulating center. The eye is brown in a tiny screen. On the metallic surface below, the words VOIGHT-KAMPFF are finely etched. There's a touch-light panel across the top and on the side of the screen, a dial that registers fluctuations of the iris. The instrument is no bigger than a music box and sits on a table between two men. The man talking is big, looks like an over-stuffed kid. "LEON" it says on his breast pocket. He's dressed in a warehouseman's uniform and his pudgy hands are folded expectantly in his lap. Despite the obvious heat, he looks very cool. The man facing him is lean, hollow cheeked and dressed in gray. Detached and efficient, he looks like a cop or an accountant. His name is HOLDEN and he's all business, except for the sweat on his face. The room is large and humid. Rows of salvaged junk are stacked neatly against the walls. Two large fans whir above their heads. LEON Okay if I talk? Holden doesn't answer. He's centering Leon's eye on the machine. LEON I kinda get nervous when I take tests. HOLDEN Don't move. LEON Sorry. He tries not to move but finally his lips can't help a sheepish smile. LEON Already had I.Q. test this year -- but I don't think I never had a... HOLDEN (cutting in) Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention. Answer quickly as you can. Leon compresses his lips and nods his big head eagerly. Holden's voice is cold, geared to intimidate and evoke response. HOLDEN You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a... LEON What one? It was a timid interruption, hardly audible. HOLDEN What? LEON What desert? HOLDEN Doesn't make any difference what desert -- it's completely hypothetical. LEON But how come I'd be there? HOLDEN Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself -- who knows. So you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling towards you... LEON A tortoise. What's that? HOLDEN Know what a turtle is? LEON Of course. HOLDEN Same thing. LEON I never seen a turtle. He sees Holden's patience is wearing thin. LEON But I understand what you mean. HOLDEN You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon. Keeping an eye on his subject, Holden notes the dials in the Voight-Kampff. One of the needles quivers slightly. LEON You make these questions, Mr. Holden, or they write 'em down for you? Disregarding the question, Holden continues, picking up the pace. HOLDEN The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Leon's upper lip is quivering. LEON Whatcha mean, I'm not helping? HOLDEN I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon? Leon looks shocked, surprised. But the needles in the computer barely move. Holden goes for the inside of his coat. But big Leon is faster. His LASER BURNS a hole the size of a nickel through Holden's stomach. Unlike a bullet, a laser causes no impact. It goes through Holden's spine and comes out his back, clean as a whistle. Like a rag doll he falls back off the bench from the waist up. By the time he hits the floor, big slow Leon is already walking away. But he stops, turns and with a little smile of satisfaction, FIRES at the machine on the table. There's a flash and a puff of smoke. The Voight-Kampff is hit dead center, crippled but not destroyed; as Leon walks out of the room, one of its lights begins to blink, faint but steady. EXT. DESERT - NIGHT 3 The horizon marked by a thin copper line that maybe the end, of the beginning of a day. The train that follows, cuts through the night at 400 miles an hour. INT. TRAIN - NIGHT 4 No clickitty-clack of track-bound noise, it's a long, insulated Pullman of contoured seats and low-keyed lighting, coloured to soothe,and empty, except for the passenger half way down. His eyes closed, head rested against the glass. Ten years ago, DECKARD might have been an athlete, a track man or a welter-weight. The body looks it, but the face has seen some time -- not all of it good. INT. TRAIN - REFRESHMENT DISPENSER - NIGHT 5 Deckard comes down the aisle, slips a coin into the mechanism, receives a beer and returns to his seat. INT. TRAIN - NIGHT 6 Tired of the program, he takes off the headset and drops it next to three empty beer bottles and a sandwich wrapper, adjusts his position and winds up staring at his reflection in the window. Runs a hand over his face, it could use a shave. He leans closer and peers through the glass. Out there in the black a sign flashes past: SAN ANGELES, THREE MINUTES. EXT. PLATFORM - NIGHT 7 The train slides in, smooth as an eel, and stops with- out a sound. Carrying a bag and umbrella, Deckard disembarks ahead of the other passengers and into the sweltering night. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT 8 Deckard has got his coat swung over his shoulder, his shirt already damp, as he walks down the long, hollow passage under orbs of yellow light. EXT. TERMINAL - NIGHT 9 Deckard unlocks his car and gets in. Turns the ig- nition and hits a sensor. The dash console glows and Deckard sits back waiting for the air unit to cool things off. DECKARD (V.O.) It was 97 degrees in the city and no hope of improvement. Not bad if you're a lizard. But two hours earlier I was drinking Acquavit with an Eskimo lady in North East Alaska. That's a tough change to make. It was so good, I didn't want to leave, so I left a day early. A little detached, Deckard taps another sensor on the panel, lights up a cigarette and watches as his mes- sages flash across the viewer stating date, time and caller. The last one is repeated five times. Deckard sighs, switches off the viewer and gets on the radio. DECKARD Contact. This is Blade Runner One calling Com-fast 27. The SOUND OF A CHIME precedes the mechanical female voice that answers. VOICE Blade Runner One, stand by please. A pause. Followed by a husky male voice. VOICE Deckard. DECKARD Yah, Gaff. GAFF (VOICE) Where the hell you been? DECKARD You know where I been. I been on vacation. GAFF Next time you go on vacation, do me a favor, let us know where it is. DECKARD What's up? GAFF Holden got hit. There is a pause. That was bad news. DECKARD Bad? GAFF Severed spine. You'd better get in here. Bryant's waiting for you. DECKARD I'll see you in a minute. The ENGINE REVS, the wipers rake two weeks of dust off the windshield and Deckard jams out of the lot. INT. THE HALL OF JUSTICE - NIGHT 10 An enormous grey vault of a building. A businesslike Deckard strides down a long corridor with his brief- case and police ID pinned to his coat. DECKARD (V.O.) I-X-4-P-D referred to as a Nexus-6, The Tyrell Corporation's new pride and joy. Holden was administering the Voight-Kampff test when one nailed him. The door in front of Deckard slides open and he walks through. DECKARD (V.O.) The Nexus-6 must be fast because Holden was as quick as they come. The report said there were six of them. Three males and three female. Led by a combat model called Roy Batty. INT. INSPECTOR BRYANT'S OFFICE - NIGHT 11 The INSPECTOR is in his fifties. The deep creases in his face, the broken capillaries in his nose say brawler, spoiler, drinker, but the diplomas on the wall say something else. Bryant's kneeled at his safe trying to open it. Deckard it sitting on the edge of the desk reading the print-out. DECKARD (V.O.) They escaped from the colonies two weeks ago. Killed twenty- three people and jumped a shuttle. An aerial patrol found the ship in the desert. No crew. Bryant gets the safe open and brings out a bottle of whiskey. DECKARD (V.O.) Bryant's got a liver problem. A couple years back he handed me a bottle and said have a drink for another man. I been drinking for him ever since. Deckard sets down the report and takes the shot Bryant just poured for him. DECKARD Six, huh? BRYANT Five. Three nights ago one of them managed to break into the Tyrell Corporation. Killed two guards and got as far as the Genetic Sector before he got fried going through an electro- field. DECKARD What was he after? BRYANT There wasn't much left of him, so we can't be sure. But bio- chemical data and morphology records of the Nexus-6 were reported missing. Going on the possibility they might try to infiltrate we send Holden in to run Voight-Kampff tests on the new employees. Guess he found himself one. A grim pause. DECKARD You got a machine on it yet? BRYANT We're using Esper -- a 231 -- that picked up Holden's alarm. Its guess is that all five are in the city. DECKARD Where do we start? Bryant's back at the safe locking up his bottle. BRYANT The Tyrell Corporation has a demo model. Check it out on the Voight-Kampff. There's a chance the Nexus-6 is beyond out ability to detect. If that's the case, everybody's up shit creek. DECKARD What was the cover on the one that got Holden? BRYANT Industrial refuse. DECKARD Garbage man? Bryant nods. DECKARD Did personnel have an address on him? Bryant fishes a piece of paper out of his pocket, copies down a number and hands it over. DECKARD I'll go take a look. Deckard stands and holds up his drink. DECKARD Thanks. Like a sick boy looking out of the window, Bryant watches Deckard down the whiskey. Deckard puts down the glass and turns to leave. DECKARD (V.O.) The big incentive to emigrate was still free labor. If the public found out that their door-prizes might kill them, they might not be so hot to go up there. This was one of the worst one's we had and Bryant was worried. He wanted to tell me to be discrete or something. But I didn't give him a chance. EXT. LEON'S HOTEL ENTRANCE - NIGHT 12 An electrical storm is brewing. Deckard stands out- side the entrance to an old hotel holding an umbrella, as people scuttle into doorways to avoid the sudden downpour. INT. LEON'S HOTEL LOBBY - NIGHT 13 A heavy metal maze of cubicles and perilous iron balconies, peopled with rejects from the surface world; Mato Grosso Indians in white man's clothes and other lower echelon welfare recipients. Drop city is crowded, cramped and darkly alive. Deckard steps out of an elevator and moves through the crowd. A cloud of steam drifts up through a grating as two old men, clad in towels descend a flight of stairs under a neon sign that says bath house. A musty subterranean wind ripples Deckard's clothes as he turns into an alcove. He stops in front of a door that says, MANAGER and pushes the buzzer. It's opened by an emphysema victim with an oxygen tank lashed to his hip. Deckard flashes his ID and speaks some words which are inaudible due to the TUBA MUSIC down the hall. The man grabs a key from his wall, hands it over and shuts the door. INT. LEON'S HOTEL CORRIDOR - NIGHT 14 The companion ways below deck of a big ship are no more bewildering than the ups and downs and ins and outs of this establishment. But Deckard finds the door he's looking for. He pauses a moment, listens, then knocks. He inserts the key and with a hand on his gun opens it. INT. LEON'S ROOM - NIGHT 15 An empty room. A cot and not much else. He steps in and stands quiet as a hunter sensing the signs. For a place surrounded by greasy hovels it is surprisingly clean. Spartan in fact. The towel by the spotless basin is perfectly folded. Deckard runs two fingers over a shelf. No dust. He looks in the waste basket. Wadded up candy wrappers. The bed by the window is neatly made. Deckard looks under it, then runs his hands along both sides of the mattress. The closet. There's one suit in it. He pats it down. Nothing. A show box on the floor. He stoops, takes out what looks like a pen from his pocket and care- fully traces it over the box. Assured of its harm- lessness, he lifts off the lid. It contains a little stack of photos bound with a rubber band. Deckard removes them, goes to the lamp by the balcony window and turns it on. A touching collection of family snapshots. The kind of anonymous stuff sold by the bunch in dusty junk shops. The family dog. Junior on the pony squinting in the sun. Uncle Ben clowning with the kids. The faded polaroid of Christmas morning. Simple pictures of simple folks celebrating the family bond. A curious collection for the likes of Leon and Deckard studies them with interest. EXT. STREET BELOW - NIGHT 16 Oblivious to the cloudburst, a blue-eyed albino stands in the doorway, peddling candy and artificial flowers looking like he'd never been touched by the light of day. Leon is standing behind him, staring up at his room, watching Deckard at the window. He's still wearing his coveralls, but he looks different. His face is more intent, smarter and angry. EXT. STREET BELOW - NIGHT 17 For one seething moment it looks like Leon might mash something, but suddenly he swings away and disappears into the crowd. INT. LEON'S ROOM - NIGHT 18 Deckard pockets the pictures and moves away from the window. EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT 19 Leon's got a neck like a fire hydrant and legs to match, but he's a graceful runner. Looks like he could do it for days. And he could. He's put a lot of alley behind him and he's not out of breath. EXT. CHINATOWN - NIGHT 20 Slowing down he cuts into an opening and comes out onto a narrow street. The Asian Quarter. INT. CHOP SUEY HOUSE - NIGHT 21 A seamy as well as steamy little place. Counter and small tables. Old slant-eyed enders humped over their fuming bowls jabbering and slurping. The only voice coming out clear is from the big three- D TV on the back wall. As the mellow-mouthed TV announcer delivers the message, a Latin-looking beauty in a well-fitted maids uniform does a twirl, flashes a beguiling smile and glides OUT OF FRAME. ANNOUNCER'S VOICE Choose from a variety of seventy nine different personality types. Each and every one a loyal trouble- free companion given to you upon your arrival absolutely free... The Latin beauty is replaced by an impeccable Ray Bolger type gentleman's gentleman who clicks his heels, snaps to attention and struts off to make room for the next. ANNOUNCER'S VOICE To use as personal body servant to tireless field hand -- the custom tailored humanoid robot, designed especially for your needs. The Chinese are paying no attention, but the man and the woman seated at the table by the window are. The woman is pretty, a touch of gray in her hair, kind and blue-eyed. MARY looks like an American dream mom, right out of "Father Knows Best." The man also resembles a tradition: the gym instructor, short cropped hair with the body of a drill sergeant, but the eyes are grey and chilling. ROY BATTY is a presence of force with a lazy, but acute sense of what goes on around him. Leon has just come through the door behind them. Try- ing not to be the bull in a china shop, he approaches their table and kneels . Batty doesn't bother to look at him, which amplifies the note of sarcasm in his quiet voice. BATTY Did you get your precious 'things'? LEON Somebody was already there. BATTY Police. LEON Just a man. BATTY Police man. Leon looks sullen. BATTY Why don't you have a seat. There's one next to him. Leon pulls it over and sits. BATTY Enjoy the view. From the pot on the table, Mary pours tea and they sit so quiet and still in this noisy place that they seem almost invisible. The view they're "enjoying" is through the window. Outside the neon side in the win- dow directly across the street says: HANNIBAL CHEW, MEMBERS. INT. HANNIBAL CHEW'S SHOP - NIGHT 22 Chew is a spindly old man of precision, his veiled eyes are shrewd and Chinese, but the rest of him looks like a Charles Dickens invention. He's got a jewelers' glass stuck in his eye, lurched over a lamp, squinting at something in his hand. After a moment his lips peal back into a sour, belligerent smile. CHEW Well, you're right. This little honey has a couple of defective cones. He snaps off the lamp and swings round to face his client. SEBASTIAN'S face is almost young, but something has gone too far, too fast. Premature old age has made his bones brittle and his co-ordination slow. The house may be dark but there's a light on in it. Se- bastian is a closet genius. CHEW You're a regular perfectionist, Sebastian. Sebastian's apologetic, especially around the acerbic Mr. Chew. SEBASTIAN It's gotta be right for my customer. CHEW Your customer, eh? Chew snickers and beckons. Sebastian follows his down a high narrow hall to a heavy insulated door. There's a moth-eaten full length fur coat hanging by it. Chew tugs it on and they go through. The big door slams shut behind them. INT. COLD STORAGE ROOM - NIGHT 23 Except for the work table with its sharp gleaming in- struments, the room is as barren and sterile as a morgue. The glass-doored compartments in the walls look like crypts. Some of them small as post office boxes. From one of the Chew removes a vacuum, packed box. Carefully separating the seal, he reaches into the purple jell and with a pair of tweezers extracts an eye. Through the jeweler's glass, which he has not bothered to remove, Chew holds the eye up to the light and studies it a moment. His other hand searches through his pockets. CHEW You got a pocket-charger, boy? Quick to accommodate, Sebastian removes a pencil-like device from a row of such things in his breast pocket and steps closer. The back of the eye is touched with the pencil and the pupil moves. Suddenly its staring back at them. CHEW Is that good enough for your customer? Anxious to leave, Sebastian nods. Chew reseals the eye taking his time. He can afford to, he's wearing his coat. CHEW How much is he paying you? In place of an answer, Sebastian clears his throat, stares at the bag like he didn't hear. CHEW Well, when do you get paid? SEBASTIAN Soon as I finish the job. CHEW When might that be? SEBASTIAN Day after tomorrow. CHEW Oh! Day after tomorrow. Sebastian nods. Chew stares at the poor bastard, con- cerned in spite of himself. CHEW The rich hate to pay, Sebastian. A guy like Tyrell keeps you waiting. Pay the little guy last. You should charge twice as much. It'll make him feel better. Sebastian nods his head like that's exactly what he'll do. Chew sees it's hopeless and hands him the bag. SEBASTIAN Thanks, Mr. Chew. Chew pulls the door open for him and Sebastian goes through quick as a dog. EXT. HANNIBAL CHEW'S STORE - STREET - NIGHT 24 Sebastian may lack co-ordination but he got what he came for and there's a hopeful spring to his walk as he heads for his truck. INT. SEBASTIAN'S AMBULANCE - NIGHT 25 It's an old panel job with ambulance siren and lights. The lettering on the side reads "J.R. SEBASTIAN - ANIMOID EXPRESS." Sebastian gets in, starts up the engine and suddenly realizes he's not alone. It's a jolt that causes him to yelp. PRIS is sprawled on the seat next to him, and wakes up with a yelp of her own. They stare at one another for a startled instant, and she jumps out and starts walk- ing. But she's forgotten her little beat-up overnight case. Sebastian puts the truck in gear, drives next to her and opens the door. SEBASTIAN Hey! You forgot your... He holds up the bag. Hesitantly she reaches for it. SEBASTIAN How come you were in my truck? PRIS I was tired and didn't have any place to go. She stares at him, hand on her case, looking lost. Sebastian isn't good at this, but he tries. SEBASTIAN You can get back in if you want... She can't make up her mind. SEBASTIAN Don't worry, I won't hurt you. She gets in. Both of them are silent. People are not Sebastian's medium -- usually he's too shy, but this girl is shyer still, plus they're about the same age -- it gives him courage. SEBASTIAN What's your name? PRIS Pris. SEBASTIAN Mine's J.F. Sebastian. PRIS Hi. So pleased with the way that went, he forgets for a while what comes next. SEBASTIAN Oh! Where do you want to go? She shrugs. That leaves him a lot of responsibility. He throws her side-long glances, but she's not helping. SEBASTIAN You want to go home? PRIS I don't have one. SEBASTIAN Oh. What do you do with a teenage beauty who looks like she's lost out of some "Welcome to Sunny Arizona" poster? SEBASTIAN Where are your folks? PRIS They left. SEBASTIAN What about friends? PRIS I have some, but I have to find out where they are staying. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the dash. Her body would win prizes, from any angle. SEBASTIAN Well, where should I take you? She looks at him,a shadow of enticement in her clear blue eyes. PRIS We scared each other pretty good didn't we? SEBASTIAN We sure did. She giggles and laughs. PRIS I'm hungry, J.F. SEBASTIAN I've got stuff. If you wanna go to my place? PRIS I was hoping you'd say that. Sebastian's face is normally on the grey side, but it just turned red. He turns on the ignition and they pull away from the curb. INT. DECKARD'S CAR - FREEWAY - NIGHT 26 Speeding along the freeway. The terminal in the com- munications console lit. Deckard's right hand just finished a punch-up. The screen flashes back. REQUEST Deckard punches up. Letters flash across the screen: ESPER Screen flashes back: CLEARANCE Deckard punches up. BLADE RUNNER ONE CODE ML-33 Pause. Screen flashes: STAND BY. Deckard's voice has been heard over the preceding. DECKARD (V.O.) Machines can be helpful sometimes, but they can also be a pain in the ass. Ask for a trace on a forger and you might wind up at a steel- mill. I don't mind a bum-steer once in a while -- it's their personalities that usually get me. Somebody once said that man makes machines in his own image. If that's true, whoever made Esper should have been shot. ESPER This is Esper and I'm ready. Go ahead please. Esper's deep melodious voice is anxious to please, and oiled with a touch of self-pity. DECKARD You equipped for random questions? ESPER Why, yes, of course. DECKARD You start. ESPER The five in question are third generation Nexus Sixes, constructed of skin-flesh culture, selected enogenic transfer conversion capable of self-perpetuating thought, para-physical abilities and developed for emigration program. Are you with me? DECKARD How do I stop one? ESPER Unlike a five, they can sustain massive traumas to several parts of the body without debilitating another. Sever a leg and it will perform quicker on the remaining leg than the fastest man can run, DECKARD Okay, but... ESPER I'm coming to that. Vulnerable zone is the base of the skull, the occipital bone. A direct hit is a positive retirement. The communication is interrupted by a BELL which is immediately followed by a stern, MECHANICAL VOICE. VOICE You are in violation of traffic ordinance M-139 statutory freeway limit restricted by one-hundred and eighty kilometers. In his rear view mirror Deckard sees two black-clad motorcycle cops coming up behind him like the hounds of hell. They draw silently alongside. Deckard presses his I.D. to the window. The cop tosses a salute to Deckard and he and his partner accelerate, vanish in the night. And Deckard's car does too. EXT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT 27 A district of silence and ruin. The street is strewn with refuse. The building looks vacant. A ten storey condo gone to shit. The vandals have come and gone long ago. Sebastian's little white ambulance parked at the curb. MR. DEETCHUM, the old Watchman, sitting in the building entry in a straight backed chair, is reading a comic book. INT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 28 Well stocked with items of survival, all labeled and stacked. And shelved along the walls and hung from the ceiling is a menagerie of animoids. Like so many broken toys awaiting resurrection from Sebastian's wise hands. Sebastian is seated at a large work-table, bent over a stereo scope. The tool in his right hand is a sensor probe and he's using it with the delicacy of an en- graver. The object of his concentration is a maze-like chip configuration no bigger than a thumbnail, but magnified under the scope, it looks like an aerial view of a large city. The needle-like sensor probe moves care- fully over the contours of the configuration, testing the bonds. Suddenly a blue flash erupts from one of the junctures. SEBASTIAN Oh! Pris is light on her feet. She's standing behind him with a half-eaten sandwich in her hand. PRIS Whatcha doin'? SEBASTIAN You scared me. But he's happy to see her. SEBASTIAN I'm working. She's changed her dress and made up her face. Looks a little older and sexier. SEBASTIAN You look... better. PRIS Just better. SEBASTIAN Beautiful. PRIS Thanks. He watches her as she prowls around the room, looking at this and that, eating her sandwich. PRIS And you live in this building all by yourself? SEBASTIAN Yeah, I live here pretty much alone right now... Trying to make light of it. SEBASTIAN No housing shortage around here... plenty of room for everybody. She sprawls on the couch studying him. PRIS How old are you? He can't meet her eyes. SEBASTIAN Twenty. PRIS What's your problem? It's not an easy subject. His voice is barely audible. SEBASTIAN Methuselah Syndrome. PRIS What's that? SEBASTIAN My glands. They grow old too fast. PRIS Is that why you're still here? SEBASTIAN Yes. I couldn't pass the test. There is a silence. He steals a glance at her. PRIS I like you just the way you are. Under the desk he bats his knees together. SEBASTIAN Ah, you get hold of your friends? PRIS As a matter of fact I did. They've got some work to do tonight, but they're gonna come tomorrow. SEBASTIAN Good. The implications catch up. SEBASTIAN I can sleep on the couch. A little gray mouse on the shelf above his head bobs up. MOUSE Don't let the bed bugs bite! Taking their cue from the mouse, some of the more talented animoids toot, flap and wheel about. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 29 It's dark except for the glow of the terminal. A tired Deckard sits in front of it. Esper sounds like he's been talking for hours. ESPER Nexus designated Leon: incept date April 10th, 2015 -- to be used in military experiments to determine how hyper metabolism functions in deep space. Nexus designated Batty incept data April 10th, 2015, combat model, level of self-sufficiency, optimum. A long pause. ESPER Here's something you might find interesting. They have been built to emulate the human in every way except in its emotional spectrum. However, after a period of time it is only logical that such a 'mechanism' would create its own emotional responses, hate, love, fear, anger, envy. DECKARD I know all that. ESPER What about a summary then. DECKARD I think we're through for the night. Deckard starts to reach for the panel. ESPER Mr. Deckard. Hesitates. DECKARD Yes? ESPER Do you have something against science? DECKARD Not if it works. ESPER And what in your estimation works? DECKARD The umbrella. Deckard picks up the umbrella and with it stabs the terminal off button before Esper can respond and the machine goes dead. He sits there for a moment then flips on the lamp. Leon's snap-shots are spread out before him. INT. SPINNER - DAY 30 A police marked spinner makes a sharp bank, drops into a steep curve and slides towards the Tyrell Corporation. DECKARD (V.O.) Every government that could was racing to populate their colonial territory. But emigrants needed incentive. Over-population and the greenhouse factor didn't seem to be enough; but owning a human look-a-like had lots of appeal. It was big industry, the competition was stiff and Tyrell was top of the line. EXT. TYRELL CORPORATION - DAY 31 The spinner gently touches down. The hatch drops open and Deckard steps out. DECKARD (V.O.) His claim to fame was making a product more human than human and sometimes the 'more' turned out to be a problem. This wasn't just an escaped andy who broke his owner's arm -- there were twenty-eight people dead and the pressure was on. INT. TYRELL CORPORATION - DAY 32 Deckard walks up to a desk, hands his I.D. to a guard who checks it against a list on a screen. DECKARD (V.O.) But so far they'd always managed to keep it quiet. Not to say that once in a while there wasn't bad publicity. Some fanatic bitching about equal rights for andies or an occasional trade union proclaiming it was aun-American for automatons to take jobs away from humans on the colony. The guard hands Deckard back his I.D., pushed a button and Deckard walks away. DECKARD (V.O.) But what's more American than good old supply and demand? The Government needed them, industry made them and the church backed them. The big religious boys said that Androids, no matter how human, were objects; only God could make people. I'm not religious, but I was inclined to agree. Otherwise I'd be out of a job. The elevator door slides open. The young lady inside would look right standing on a cliff, hair blowing in the wind, looking out to sea in a 19th Century painting. RACHAEL Hello, Mr. Deckard. My name is Rachael. Deckard tips his head to her and steps in. INT. TYRELL CORPORATION ELEVATOR - DAY 33 No woman can be all things to all men, the Rachael comes closer than most. The only trouble is she's all busi- ness. Formidable without really trying. Some beauty is better avoided and Deckard looks straight ahead. INT. TYRELL CORPORATION CORRIDOR - DAY 33A The door slides open and they continue down the corri- dor. RACHAEL It seems your department doesn't believe out new unit is to the public benefit. DECKARD A humanoid robot is like any other machine, it can be a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, it's not our problem. RACHAEL But because your department can't do an adequate job in detecting the miniscule number at large, it's a problem. Correct, Mr. Deckard? INT. TYRELL CORPORATION - AIR-FILTERED CORRIDOR - DAY 33B They pass into a canopied, air-filtered corridor. Deckard doesn't answer the question because he's looking at the animals. Small northern animals in neat "en- vironmental" cages. He looks at the rabbit, the raccoon and the squirrel, but the owl asleep on its perch stops him. The armed guard at the exit never takes his eyes off them. RACHAEL You like our owl? Deckard nods. Rachael claps her hands. The owl opens its yellow eyes and blinks at them. DECKARD It's artificial? RACHAEL Of course not. Hands thrust in her pockets, she strides off towards the exit without looking back. The exit is another tube. Just big enough for two. No room for excess. He tries to ignore her cool appraising stare. RACHAEL You're in a very unique position, Mr. Deckard. You could affect the future of this entire organization according to how you work your little test. Deckard has nothing to say. RACHAEL Are you apprehensive? DECKARD Why should I be? RACHAEL For the responsibility of your power. Being a police bureaucrat, you've got more than your share. The door slides open. Deckard looks down at her. DECKARD You got it wrong, girl. I work with the bureau not for them. He lets it sink in. DECKARD My job isn't to detect malfunctioning andies, it's to eliminate them. The more the better. He walks out of the elevator first. INT. INNER SANCTUM OF DR. TYRELL - DAY 34 The office is dimly lit, but highlights of resilience reside in the luster of the antique furnishings, like glimmers of gold in a darkened mine. Dr. Tyrell is a fragile man of power, with that look of "youth" obtained from steroids and surgery. Dapper and trim, he leans against the desk looking at an old fashioned pocket watch. The only sound is the insidious PERKING of COFFEE BREWING in the background. Tyrell taps a sensor on his desk. The door in front of Deckard and Rachael slides open. They enter a vestibule and face another door, this one befitting the decor of the office, Tyrell slips the watch into his pocket as they enter. RACHAEL Mr. Deckard. Dr. Eldon Tyrell. TYRELL How do you do, Mr. Deckard. Please sit down. Would you care for a cup of coffee? DECKARD Thanks. TYRELL Black? DECKARD Please. Tyrell pours from an old time sylex into small china cups and hands one to Deckard. The congenial light in his eyes could almost pass for warmth -- dragon warmth. TYRELL Somehow, I didn't expect that the man who did the dirty work would be the man to do the technical work. Here you are, Mr. Deckard. He hands Deckard a cup of coffee. TYRELL Is this to be an empathy test? DECKARD Yes. TYRELL Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Plus fluctuation of the pupil, plus involuntary dilation of the iris? Deckard nods. TYRELL May I ask a personal question? DECKARD Go ahead. TYRELL Have you ever retired a human by mistake? DECKARD No. TYRELL But in your profession that is a risk. DECKARD Nothing is infallible, but so far the Voight-Kampff scale bas been foolproof. TYRELL Like you said, Mr. Deckard, a machine can be a hazard. The Voight-Kampff scale is a machine, isn't it? DECKARD One that relies on human interpretation. Where's the subject? TYRELL Sitting next to you. Deckard stares at Rachael, then back at Tyrell. Delighted, Tyrell takes a cup of coffee. Accepting the challenge, Deckard opens his briefcase and starts fishing out the apparatus. THE VOIGHT-KAMPFF 35 Rachael's eye fills the screen, the iris brilliant, shot with light, the pupil contracting. DECKARD'S VOICE Ready. RACHAEL Go ahead. In the soft green glow of the dials, the needles in both gauges are at rest. Dr. Tyrell stands silhouetted behind Deckard, who sits in front of Rachael, a pencil beam trained on her eye. Wire mesh discs are attached to her cheeks. DECKARD You're given a calfskin wallet for your birthday. The needles in both gauges swing violently past green to red, then subside. RACHAEL I wouldn't accept it. Also, I'd report the person who gave it to me to the police. DECKARD You have a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection, plus the killing jar. Again the gauges register, but not so far. RACHAEL I'd take him to the doctor. DECKARD You're watching T.V. and suddenly you notice a wasp crawling on your wrist. RACHAEL I'd kill it. Both needles go to red. Deckard makes a note, takes a sip of coffee and continues. DECKARD In a magazine you come across a full-page photo of a nude girl. RACHAEL Is this testing whether I'm an android or a lesbian? DECKARD You show the picture to your husband. He likes it and hangs it on the wall. The girl is lying on a bearskin rug. RACHEL I wouldn't let him. DECKARD Why not? RACHAEL I should be enough for him. Deckard frowns, then smiles. His smile looks a little like a grimace or the other way around. DECKARD You become pregnant by a man who runs off with your best friend, and you decide to get an abortion. RACHAEL I'd never get an abortion. DECKARD Why not? RACHAEL That would be murder, Mr. Deckard. DECKARD In your opinion. RACHAEL It would be my child. DECKARD Sounds like you speaks from experience. He notes the needles. One goes green and the other remains inert. DECKARD Last question. You're watching an old movie. It shows a banquet in progress, the guests are enjoying raw oysters. RACHAEL Ugh. Both needles swing swiftly. DECKARD The entree consists of boiled dog stuffed with rice. Needles move less. DECKARD The raw oysters are less acceptable to you than a dish of boiled dog. Deckard moves the adhesive discs from her cheeks and switches off his beam. DECKARD Lights please. The lights come on. TYRELL Well? DECKARD If she is, the machine works. TYRELL The machine works. She is. Rachael sits very still. Except her eyes -- they go to Tyrell and hang on. He stares back at her as he speaks. TYRELL How many questions did it take? DECKARD Thirteen. Rachael sits rigidly in her chair, as the ground crumbles around her, her big mermaid eyes locked with Tyrell. His voice is quiet and strong, mesmerizing. She's hang- ing by a thread. Deckard watches with a bas taste in his mouth. DECKARD She didn't know? TYRELL Memory implant. She was programmed. But I think she has transcended her conditioning. I think she was beginning to suspect. Rachael nods fixedly. Careful not to let go her grasp. TYRELL How many questions does it usually take, Mr. Deckard? DECKARD Five, maybe six. Slowly, carefully, Tyrell unlocks his gaze from Rachael and turns towards Deckard, who is starting to put away his equipment. TYRELL You're going to have to be on your toes, my friend. Deckard glances back at him. TYRELL It's a complex problem and we wouldn't want anything to happen to you. Less of a man might shrink at the end of Deckard's look, but not Tyrell. TYRELL For the good of all, I recommend you take Rachael with you. Considering her uniqueness, I'm sure she could prove quite helpful. Deckard almost smiles at the nasty power of Tyrell's style. He turns away and starts packing up the Voight- Kampff. DECKARD No thanks. Deckard is ready to go. TYRELL And how is it one man will be able to cover so much ground? DECKARD Discreetly. TYRELL All pertinent information is being fed into your departmental computer, an Esper 231 -- I believe -- and a photo over-lay packet is being produced. Deckard opens the door. TYRELL Mr. Deckard, I think it would be wise to reconsider my offer. Rachael sits there very pale and expressionless, her feet flat on the floor, alone is the word. Trying to keep the fury out of it, Deckard's voice comes out in a whisper. DECKARD I work alone. On the last word, Rachael glances up at him and Deckard turns away. The outer door slides open and he goes through it. INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT 36 As seen through the windshield from the passenger side of a vintage Dusenberg. The headlights cut through the dark, illuminating a narrow strip of mountain road. A downgrade. A sign slides by stating: "Caution Curves Ahead." Good advice considering the sheer nightmare of a drop to the right and the wall of solid rock to the left. The steady HUM of the ENGINE and the HISS of the TIRES will remain, but the location suddenly changes to: INT. ROOM - NIGHT 37 A pleasant place of soft light and domestic charm. The young lady in the short dress is vacuuming the rug. Her back to the viewer. As she bends over to vacuum beneath the couch, exposing her beautiful ass, an admonishment from a resonant and slightly tired MALE VOICE intercedes. VOICE Let's keep our eyes on the road, Deckard. DECKARD'S VOICE Sorry. Abruptly the VIEW FLASHES BACK TO: INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT 38 The moon is up there slicing through the trees, strobing over the hood of the car. The road is getting steeper and the corners sharper. Rags of mist skim by as the Dusenberg picks up speed. It is becoming a riveting ride, but the passenger's mind moves elsewhere. EXT. WOODS - DAY 39 Swift, soft clouds overhead. In the cold shine of the icy light,the viewer walks down an aisle of maples and beeches, their clean hard limbs deflecting the frosty light, and underfoot the crisp, blue-white snow, melted through in spots, exposing soggy patches of rich brown earth. VOICE Come on, stay with the machine. INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT 40 The Dusenberg is going faster now, headlights eating up the road. Rushing the corners in gut wrenching four- wheel drifts. Not a pleasant sensation if you don't like roller-coasters. The Dusenberg slides out of a corner and faces a couple hundred yards of straightway leading to the next bend. Good place for a breather, but the driver shifts into high and screws on. EXT. LAKE - DAY 41 Cold and gray. The current running strong. The nose of a kayak points through the swells, the viewer paddling for the shore. This is cold remote country, wild and untouched. A sky bluer than the Madonna's cloak. The kayak banks and the viewer steps out, moving over the sandy beach towards a little camp. VOICE We're going to have to start the sequence again if you don't stay with me, Deckard. Concentrate. DECKARD'S VOICE How do you know I'm not? VOICE You're not responding to the stimulus. I can see right here, I'm not getting a reading. DECKARD'S VOICE I'm tired of this. VOICE Almost through. INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT 42 In the Dusenberg the driver turns to look at the passen- ger, his specter-like face obscured by shadow, but by the glint of teeth, he must have just smiled. And the passenger's view snaps back to the road. Suddenly another pair of headlights round the approach- ing bend. Large ones, of a bus or a truck. Blinding. The Dusenberg is going too fast to stop. No room to pass. HORNS BLAST. The Dusenberg brakes, goes into a broadside skid. The hands of the passenger reach out and grip the mahogany dash. Brakes locked, TIRES SCREAMING, skidding. The Dusenberg tears through the railing and plunges into space. The last view of the passenger is pure vertigo. Silence. INT. DOCTOR WHEELER'S OFFICE - AFTERNOON 43 The good doctor is bending over his glass-top desk which resembles a pin-ball machine. Displayed under its surface is a network of crisp electronic symbols and read-outs indicating the results of the test. Deckard detached the patches from his forehead, which it a little damp, but other than that, he looks no worse for wear, stands up to stretch and walks over to the doctor's desk. DECKARD So how did I do? Dr. Wheeler is a thin boney man, aloof but a promise of compassion in his sunken eyes. WHEELER Nerves of steel. DECKARD No rust? WHEELER I didn't say that. Your motivity rate checked out a little slower than last time. DECKARD Meaning? WHEELER Meaning you don't run as fast as you used to. Deckard starts to dress. WHEELER During the road test... DECKARD Yeah? WHEELER Your mind kept wandering. That bothered me. DECKARD Huh huh. WHEELER Considering the nature of your work, that could be unhealthy. DECKARD True. Wheeler studies his "desk" for a moment and his finger comes down on the section illuminating Deckard's simple statistics. WHEELER You got a birthday coming up. Deckard bends over slipping on his shoes. Wheeler looks up, concerned. WHEELER But you haven't put in for emigration. DECKARD Nope. WHEELER You're going to be over the limit. DECKARD Listen, I could make you a long list of complaints about this fucken city but I still rather be here than up there. WHEELER What if you change your mind? DECKARD They'll change the limit before I change my mind. WHEELER You sure? DECKARD Never been more sure of anything in my life. Deckard is ready to go. Looking at Wheeler, a little touched with his concern. DECKARD Why didn't you go? WHEELER Too old. DECKARD But if you could? Wheeler considers it a moment, smiles and shakes his head. WHEELER My job is here. DECKARD Me too. They shake hands and Deckard walks. INT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - LATE AFTERNOON 44 The referee is bouncing around the ring, trying to keep up with the two Mexican light-weights pounding the shit out of each other. If not for the fuzz and the silence, the audio on the holoscope is off, you might think you were ringside at the Garden. It's a good fight but Pris isn't watching. She's got her feet up on the couch painting her toe nails. The room is so quiet you can almost hear the polish. She starts on her fourth toe when a NOISE form above STOPS HER It sounded like a CREAKING of a FLOOR, but so quiet, sudden and over so fast it's hard to be sure. She stares at the ceiling a moment, then glances at Sebastian. On the other side of the room, in his own world, Sebastian is peering into his magnifier, soldering gossamer strands with a laser. Pris has crossed the floor and is closing the door quietly behind her. If the animoids nestled around the ledges of the room are capable of noticing, they'd be the only ones in the room who did. INT. CORRIDOR - SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - LATE AFTER- 45 NOON Pris moving smoothly past the doors, some of them open and warped offering sights and shadow and decay. INT. FIRE STAIRS - SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - LATE AFTER- 46 NOON The gloom in here is like the light of the empty well. Her feet against the metal steps reverberate in the hollow silence. INT. THE FLOOR ABOVE SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - LATE 47 AFTERNOON She's running now, down the hall, stops at the apart- ment directly above Sebastian's and opens the door. INT. APARTMENT ABOVE SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - LATE 48 AFTERNOON Mary turns her head as Pris comes in. She's sitting in a chair. The only piece of furniture in the room. It's broken and tilts at a funny angle. She nods and Pris nods back. Batty is lying on his back, rolling his head slightly from side to side like he's soothing a stiff neck. BATTY What's going on down there? PRIS He's not ready yet. BATTY When? PRIS Tomorrow, he says. Batty nods he can't wait. Pris glances at Mary and gives a frigid little smile. Pris backs out and closes the door behind her. Batty blows air through his nostrils. Like an animal. EXT. DECKARD'S CAR - FREEWAY - NIGHT 49 The sky is streaked with remnants of a lingering dusk. Prisms of light flash over the sheen of Deckard's car as he cuts off the freeway and sweeps down the off- ramp curve. EXT./INT. CAR - STREETS - NIGHT 50 Moving through the dark city streets. Deckard turns a corner and guns it up a long, steep hill. EXT. STREET - DECKARD'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 51 At the top of the hill the car pulls into a drive and disappears into the subterranean garage of a high-rise. INT. CORRIDOR DECKARD'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 52 He's coming down the hall carrying a foil wrapped plastic plate and stops in front of his door. It's riddled with locks. He slips a small device out of his pocket, aims it at the door and the locks unlock, the bolts slide open. He walks in and kicks the door shut behind him. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 53 He slips on the light and crosses the front room. Deckard is a pack rat -- hard to tell if he just moved in or is just moving out. As he enters the kitchen, the SOUND of SOMEBODY BEHIND him causes him to whirl around fast, hand snapped out in front of him, gun already in it. Rachael almost got shot. But she's unruffled, a little pale maybe, but direct as ever. There's a long, chilly moment, then she almost smiles as her eyes move to the plate on the floor. RACHAEL Was that your dinner? Deckard looks down at the over-turned plate and nods. RACHAEL I'm sorry. I called and found out you were on your way home. These were already delivered to your department but I thought you should have copies as soon as possible. She's holding out a cassette the size of a cigarette pack. But it's taking Deckard's adrenalin time to recede. RACHAEL It's the Nexus information you wanted. He takes the cassette, but a man with so many locks must be wondering how they were gotten through so easily. He doesn't even want to ask. DECKARD Thanks. He realizes he's still got the gun aimed at her and sticks it back in his belt and they're left staring at each other. The situation makes awkward silence. At least for him. She's looking at him like she's got something to say but isn't saying it. DECKARD Is there anything else? RACHAEL I know you think it complicates your work, but I'm here to help. DECKARD I've already got more help than I need. RACHAEL I think you need more help than you've got. He doesn't, but she's not backing off. RACHAEL There's two reasons a man rejects help. Either because he's so good at what he does he doesn't think he needs it, or he's so insecure he can't admit it. DECKARD Sounds like I'm an ass-hole either way, but the answer is still no. RACHAEL Two of us might be more effective than one. DECKARD I work alone. She smiles. RACHAEL No you don't. She lets it sink in. RACHAEL You use your equipment, don't you? DECKARD So? RACHAEL So, I'm a piece of equipment. Use me. It's a strong look that passes between them -- a long one. Maybe if he were on firmer ground he might do something about such an offer but... Deckard's eyes follow her down as Rachael bends to the floor and starts picking the food off the rug, put- ting it back on the plate. DECKARD That's okay, I'll get it... He bends down to help, but she's already done it. Their heads a few inches apart. Something in her eyes diminishes the distance even more. RACHAEL Do I make you nervous? DECKARD Yeah. RACHAEL I'm sorry. And she is. And suddenly he is too. She hands him the plate and they stand. She's looking at the floor, almost shy, then she looks up and he's watching her. She says it plain and simple. RACHAEL It's strange to suddenly realize that what you thought was your life is actually someone else's fabrication. Deckard nods. He feels it, but doesn't know what to do about it. DECKARD I can imagine. RACHAEL Can you? I couldn't. These are not some of Deckard's finer moments. But she doesn't seem to notice. RACHAEL A part of me is glad. I think I feel more. I don't like who I was before. Deckard nods, waits the respectable interval and is glad to have a plate to take into the kitchen. In the scrambled sanctuary of his kitchen Deckard looks around for a place to put the plate, but things have piled up on him in here. He contemplates the refrig- erator. DECKARD So why do you think they were after their records. He's a lot more comfortable talking shop. RACHAEL They probably want to find out when they were made. DECKARD Right. He dumps his dinner in the garbage and comes back out. She's writing something on a card. RACHAEL I guess the date of your birth is important if you know you're not made to last. No way he can keep his foot out of it. She looks up and hands him the card. RACHAEL That's my number. If you need me. She goes to the door, opens it but hesitates before going through. RACHAEL You better get better locks -- if you want to keep me out. She looks back at him and smiles -- the smile says she's talking about all kinds of locks. Deckard looks like he might ask her to stay, but... RACHAEL Good night. And she's gone. DECKARD Night. He looks down at the number. It's the back side of a snapshot. He turns it over. The picture of a man and a woman. The little girl between them looks like a six-year old Rachael. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 54 He's sitting in front of his console studying pictures of Nexus Sixes at they appear, blank-faced, hairless and unadorned on his monitor. The over-lay machine is transforming each image with instant attributes; hair, moustaches, teeth, eye colors, age, youth, hats, glasses, etc. All in rapid succession, running the gambit from ominous to beautiful. DECKARD (V.O.) The possibilities were infinite. They could change their appearances but not their future. Like she said, it was short. Longevity is what they were after. The garbage man even wanted a past. Poor fuck. I'd check it out but I knew she was right. The market worked on turn-over. Built-in obsolescence was the name of the game. That meant her too. It was something I didn't want to think about. On top of the monitor there's an open can of beans with a spoon stuck in it. Deckard puts out his cigarette and reaches for them as the PHONE RINGS. DECKARD Yeah. BRYANT Bryant here. Regarding the rundown you requested on job applicants, Esper's concluded that the only irregular category that Tyrell's got is the entertainment section. You better get on it. DECKARD I was just about to have my dinner. BRYANT If you hurry you'll get back before it gets cold. I got a spinner on your roof in five minutes. Good luck. Deckard hangs up and looks at the beans. He didn't want them anyway. He gets up and walks to the bedroom. Looks through the pile of clothes on the floor, finds his ankle laser and straps it on. EXT. CITY - BIRD'S EYE VIEW - NIGHT 55 The spinner skirts through the canyons of the city. Deckard, sitting in the contoured seat, watches the maze of suspension bridges, platforms and catwalks swing by below. The tops of larger buildings shimmer with advertisements and weather announcements. INT. SPINNER - OVER CITY - NIGHT 56 Deckard is cruising low and slow over the city listen- ing to Esper. EPSER Nexus designated Rachael is a prototype. Created for in-house use by special mandate form the Scientific Development Regulatory Committee. Will live conventional term -- no para-physical abilities. DECKARD What is a conventional term? ESPER Four years. Which would make her termination date... DECKARD Never mind. Do they have that knowledge? ESPER Longevity is classified. No. Back to business. DECKARD Okay, gimme a run-down on the three females. ESPER Nexus designated Mary: incept November 1 2017, domestic conditioning non competitive, trained for day care position. DECKARD Next. ESPER Nexus designated Pris: incept data December 13 2017, competitive, programmed to provide pleasure for long term spacers. DECKARD Number three. ESPER Nexus designated Zhora: incept June 13th 2017, athletic conditioning, highly competitive, special abilities in the entertainment field. EXT./INT. SPINNER - LANDING AREA - NIGHT 57 Deckard taking it down. About to pull it in an already crowded lot, but the sign flashes "FULL." Deckard doesn't believe in signs; is about to set it down any- way when a Chicano in a fluorescent coat runs out and waves him off. DECKARD Fuck. Pissed, Deckard veers away and buzzes low over and around the roof tops, all dark and cramped -- not a lot of room around here. EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT 58 Finally brings it down between two buildings hardly enough clearance, but he jockeys the machine into an alley, touches down and runs it slowly along the surface -- parking it by a sign that says "NO PARKING." EXT. STREET - TAFFEY'S BAR - NIGHT 59 Not many people. Wind blowing. A nest of garish small-time clubs. Deckard emerges from one, goes into the next. The pulsing neon over the entry says "TAFFEY'S BAR." INT. TAFFEY'S BAR - NIGHT 60 Crowded in here. BONGO MUSIC. Deckard is at the bar sitting next to a big-bellied man in a black beard who's looking through a viewer. On the small stage in the background AMAZING RAMA is eating razor blades, a part of her juggling routine. Deckard leaves the bar and walks down a hall towards a door at the rear. INT. TAFFEY'S OFFICE - NIGHT 61 Taffey's what's referred to in the trade as a "Chicken Hawk" collector of young girls. It must be so, there's one in the bed. Thin, pale, about thirteen years old, eyes rolled up under her fluttering eyelids, wires attached to her forehead, lying flat on her back in Taffey's crowded little room. Taffey's a little fella with wide hips and narrow shoulders, wears a jet black toupe and has a face like a seal. But at the moment he's not present. There's a KNOCK at the DOOR, then the SOUND of a TOILET FLUSHING. Taffey comes out of the bathroom, heart pounding under his polyester bathrobe, and approaches the door like the guilty fucker he is. He looks through the peeper. Deckard is out there holding up his I.D. DECKARD Taffey Lewis? TAFFEY Yes? DECKARD Can I come in? There is a pause lasting the time it takes Taffey not to think of a way to say no. The door opens and Deckard enters. Except for the drool coming out of the corner of her mouth, and the fluttering eye-lids, Venus doesn't move a muscle. TAFFEY Excuse my niece there... She's studying for an exam. Deckard takes the Identikit hard copies our of his pocket and pushing some junk out of the way, fans them out on the table. DECKARD I'd like you to take a look at these pictures. TAFFEY Of course. Taffey bends down really close, peering at the pictures from about two inches away. TAFFEY You see I lost my contacts a couple of days ago around here somewhere and my sight is a little... What am I supposed to be looking for? DECKARD Do you recognize any of them? He stops at Zhora. TAFFEY This one looks familiar, but I don't know. Naw. There's one came in today looks a little like this one but... DECKARD What did she want? TAFFEY Who? DECKARD The girl that doesn't look like that girl. TAFFEY Nothing. She wanted to know about suck night. DECKARD What night? TAFFEY I didn't know if I wanted to handle her -- I already got a snake act. But my partner goes down there to the Opera House on suck night to book the good ones. DECKARD What's suck night? TAFFEY That's what we call in the trade, audition free-for- alls and most of it sucks. Bit I don't think that's her. DECKARD You talking about the Opera House on the Main? Taffey nods. Deckard goes to the door and turns. DECKARD Book the good ones for where? TAFFEY Lots of places. The tours, the clubs, the Silicone shows, private parties. DECKARD What shows? TAFFEY Silicone Valley. Lots of these science guys never leave that place. We book two shows a month in there. Those big time techs and bio- guys might be real high zoners up here, but when it comes to the arts, they like it loud and lewd. It's starting to get a little gooey. Deckard tips his head good night and backs out of the door. INT. THE OLD OPERA HOUSE - NIGHT 62 Onstage four Mexican acrobats, in matching metallic jumpsuits roll head over heels in their rendition of a human wheel. From the P.A. system the Announcer's voice blares through the cavernous theatre. ANNOUNCER'S VOICE Let's hear it for the Hermano Brothers. Scattered APPLAUSE. Hand in hand, the Hermano Brothers bow deeply, spring up and trot offstage. ANNOUNCER'S VOICE Next we're gonna see a little charmer who keeps her dancing partner in a basket! She comes to us all the way from exotic Casablanca. 'Salome.' The old boys in the pit strike up a tinny version of "In a Persian Market" as SALOME dances onstage. She's a black-haired beauty in a scant belly dancer costume, a couple of pounds overweight but all in the right places. She kneels ceremoniously center stage and sets the basket down before her. Carefully removing the lid, she reaches in and lifts out a four- foot harlequin-patterned python. Grinding her hips to the music, she rises, holding the coiling snake out like an offering. Sounds of approval from the audience. The gold coins covering her breasts jingle and shimmer, as she weaves sensuously around the floor. INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHT 63 To scattered APPLAUSE, HOOTS and WHISTLES, Salome flounces offstage, the snake hung around her shoul- ders, looking limp, and makes her way through the narrow corridor to her dressing room. She's about to enter when: DECKARD Excuse me, Miss Salome. She turns. Deckard's posture and attitude suggest hum- ble, sleazy persistence. He comes closer with his shit-eating grin. DECKARD I'd like to have a word with you if I could. Salome stands almost six feet high in her high heels -- she looks down on him with the haughty suspicion of a chick who knows how to handle cheap hits. SALOME Yeah? DECKARD I'm with the American Federation of Variety Artists... He holds up a hand as if to stop her from protesting. DECKARD Don't worry, I'm not here to make you join -- that's not my department. He glances around like a guy who's not supposed to be there. DECKARD I'm an investigator for the Confidential Committee on Moral Abuses. She nods, taking it a little more seriously. DECKARD There's been reports of management sexually abusing the artists in this place. SALOME I don't know nothing about it. DECKARD You haven't felt yourself to be exploited by the management in any way? She's definitely puzzled. SALOME How do you mean 'exploited'? DECKARD Like to get this position. Did you or were you asked to do anything lewd or unsavory or otherwise repulsive to your person? SALOME Are you for real? DECKARD Oh, yeah. You'd be surprised what goes on around here. I'd like to check the dressing room if I could. SALOME What the fuck for? DECKARD For holes. This guy might be an asshole but he's funny. SALOME I don't believe this. She shrugs and they go in. INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT 64 Musty and cramped. A portable shower, a dressing table and not much else. Salome takes the snake from around her shoulders and lays it on the dressing table. Deck- ard watches it undulate into the warmth of the lights. DECKARD It that mother real? SALOME Of course he's not real. You think I'd be working here if I could afford a real snake? DECKARD It's a good job. SALOME You mean the snake. Deckard nods. There's not much costume to take off but she's doing it. SALOME The best. DECKARD Does it eat? SALOME Come on. His hand reaches out to touch it. As his fingers make contact there's an electric "snap." He jerks his hand back from the shock. SALOME Jeezus! DECKARD Sorry. SALOME Hey! Do your job but don't wreck mine, huh? She slides behind the screen and turns on the shower. Deckard starts creeping around pacing around the room like he's inspecting the walls. DECKARD They have their ways of doing their dirty work without the victim knowing what's going on. His eyes are moving over everything she's got. DECKARD You'd be surprised what a guy'll go through to get a glimpse of a beautiful body. SALOME I bet I would. DECKARD Little dirty holes the bastards drill in the wall so they can watch a lady undress. And to his amazement he actually spots one. It's down low on the wall. Not a good idea to turn his back on work but he can't resist. SALOME And what if somebody did try to 'exploit' me? Who do I go to? Through the hole Deckard is looking at a pair of fat legs. DECKARD Me. SALOME And who do I go to about you? He looks back. She's some out of the shower dripping nude. She's taken off her black wig. Her hair is short and blonde. Deckard recognizes her immediately from the identikit. He stares at her a moment too long. DECKARD Hmmmmm? Deckard grins and she returns it. She takes a towel off the table and starts to dry her body. The snake noses through the cosmetics, tongue flicking trying to get back to its mistress. Absently, she reaches out to stroke the snake and suddenly laughs. ZHORA You ever get the feeling things aren't the way they seem? Her hand closes around the snake's head. Deckard sees it coming but can't move fast enough. She strikes him so hard it knocks him off his feet. Before he hits the floor, she kicks him in the stomach. The snake whistles through the air again as Deckard rolls out of the way. It slams down so hard it ruptures against the floor. He goes for his laser, but she's already out the door. INT. PASSAGEWAY - NIGHT 65 Deckard bounds out of the room and sees her go through a door at the other end of the hall. He sprints after her, arrives at the door and flings it open. Black- ness. The SOUND of her high heels CLATTER down the metal steps. EXT. STREET - OPERA HOUSE - NIGHT 66 It's raining heavily. The front of the Opera House is open only to foot traf- fic these days. A bizarre place on a Friday night, hawkers and whores, the rabble, the poor and the cur- ious mill around the randy-built platforms and brightly lit stands. Zhora, in just a raincoat, is not out of place in this flea market atmosphere. Trying not to run, she slices through the mob as quickly as she can. Deckard is not far behind, dodging and side-stepping, trying to move against the tide of people scurrying for shelter. She comes to an intersection and turns out of the mall onto a less crowded street. She glances over her shoulder as she breaks into a run and runs right into a couple of pedestrians. All three go down. Deckard comes out of the crowd in time to spot her get- ting to her feet. She sees him and runs. The two ped- estrians are in his line of fire. He runs past them and drops to one knee, leveling his laser. DECKARD Stop or you're dead! She doesn't. The beam flashes through the air, but she's already around the corner. With his bottom lip between his teeth, it hurts to move so fast, Deckard jack-legs it into the street and jumps in front of the first car coming. It screeches to a stop. Deckard scrambles for the door, but the guy be- hind the wheel has other ideas. He peels out fast. The next car slows down and swerves trying not to hit him. Deckard goes for the door and before the old ma- tron inside can lock it, Deckard's yanked it open and jumps in. She screams as he pushes her into the pas- senger seat and jams the car into a wrenching about face. The lady squeals like a pig as the momentum plasters her against the door. Deckard slams it around the corner and guns it down the street. It's long and it's empty and it's going by fast. Nothing the old lady cares to see -- she's got her hands over her eyes, whimpering, hoping she'll faint before she dies. Deckard takes the next left so hard he almost lays it over. As the car bounces off the curb he floors it. Zhora's a hundred yards ahead, halfway down the street, trying to make it back into the crowded mall. She's running fast, but the car is faster. As he passes her, Deckard hits the brakes and skids broadside seventy feet. The door flies open and he rolls out FIRING. Zhora's ducking it with no where to go, except... The showcase window on her left EXPLODES as she crashes through. It's a corner shop joined to a series of stores, front- ing the mall. Deckard runs to the opening she's made and pours FIRE through the tunnel of her jagged wake as Zhora breaks through one window after another, getting sliced, getting shot, trying to get away from Deckard's laser. But she doesn't. His last shot burns a hole through the base of her skull. It kills her but doesn't stop her. Her speed takes what's left of her through the last two windows and into the street where she runs into a parked car with such force that she embeds herself in the side of it. Hunched over, breathing hard, Deckard comes slowly for- ward. The crowd starting to gather. There's something for everybody and they're coming from all directions. Deckard moves through them, edging to have a look. It's not a good thing to see. It looks like Salome and the car tries to eat each other. A bloody feast of metal and flesh. Deckard bows his head, sick, exhausted. So much commo- tion he doesn't notice THREE COPS closing in from behind. COP Drop it! Deckard has his back to them. They're fanned out and crouched, ready to fire. Deckard drops his laser. Two of them rush up, spin him around while the third does a frisk. TWO MORE COPS arrive, wary and wild-eyed, pushing the people back -- his is not a good place for cops. Deckard's ankle laser is discovered by the Cop frisking him. With a snarl he pulls it out and hands it back to the SERGEANT covering the action. SERGEANT On your belly! Deckard's not in the mood for it. DECKARD Listen, Sergeant... He's reaching for his ID. The Cop with the rubber billy hits him in the head. One thrill after another. Somebody in the crowd YEOWLS. The last thing Deckard hears as he falls. The Cop reaches inside Deckard's coat for the concealed weapon they missed, but it's an ID card. He looks at it for a moment, then looks up. COP Hey, Sarge, this guy's a cop. An embarrassing situation. SERGEANT Clear this fuckin' crowd. The Cops start pushing. And for one split second one of the crowd looks a lot like Leon. INT. OLD OPERA HOUSE - MEN'S ROOM - NIGHT 67 Your standard low class crapper. Bryant is planted firmly on the cracked tile floor next to the urinals rubbing his face, trying not to pop the clutch in his anger. This is a public place, he doesn't want to yell. BRYANT Just because it's a Nexus 6 doesn't change procedure. A little known fact can become a well-known fact and part of our job, Deckard, is to make sure that doesn't happen. Now how can be do that if you blow one away in front of a fuckin' audience. It's not the sort of question that expects an answer. Deckard's washing his face in the basin hoping it'll all go away. BRYANT Well? Deckard looks up dripping, reaches for a paper towel. Bryant slaps one in his hand. DECKARD She was gonna get away. BRYANT Then let her get away. I thought you were a pro -- you're supposed to be a fuckin' tracker! Bryant takes a couple of deep breaths. BRYANT I'd say you got a little carried away. Deckard's voice is barely audible. DECKARD I didn't like her. BRYANT You didn't like her!? He slams the handle on one of the urinals. BRYANT You start liking or disliking andies it's time to hang it up. The PLUMPING ROARS and SUCKS and DIES. There's nothing to do but nod. Deckard nods. Poor bastard has had a rough night. Bryant pulls a flask out of his coat and hands it to him. Deckard puts it to his mouth and Bryant watches Deckard's Adam's apple like he's count- ing the swallows. Deckard hands it back empty. Bryant caps it, puts it back in his pocket. BRYANT Look, go home. Get some rest. Take an aspirin. DECKARD Yeah. Bryant shuffles out like an old bear. INT. OLD OPERA HOUSE - BAR - NIGHT 68 Cheap whiskey and bad wine. That's the kind of place this is. It's near closing. But still a few at the bar. Alcoholic silhouettes. In the b.g. Deckard comes down the passage from the men's room and stops at the phone. He gets a number out of his pocket and calls it. As he talks he leans against the wall, his body language intimate and chummy. Not much action at the bar other than somebody snoring and a dipso down at the end having a conversation with himself. Deckard hangs up, walks to the bar and straggles a stool. The BARTENDER's a big lady with tits like sand bags and a voice that plays no favorites. BARTENDER I can't protect your drinks, mister; while you was in the potty, this hummer snatched it. Deckard glances at his stool-mate. A huge MAN, slumped over the bar like a beached whale. DECKARD No problem. Gimme another. The whale doesn't move, but it speaks, with a gravelly Russian accent. RUSSIAN Forgive me. I thought was free drink. I will pay. DECKARD Forget it. But the big man's digging through his pockets. Deck- ard's drink arrives and the Russian raises his head. It's a big melancholy face with a glint of warmth in his red-rimmed eyes and a smile that could melt your heart. But it's Leon. LEON I think I have no money. DECKARD It's okay. Forget it. LEON But I would like to buy you drink. DECKARD I'll but you one. What'll you have? LEON Vodka! DECKARD Shot of vodka, please. LEON Thank you very much. DECKARD My pleasure. Deckard brings out his smokes. Offers one. Leon takes it and they light up. The drinks come. LEON Prosit. DECKARD Prosit. Down the hatch. Leon slaps his glass on the bar, reach- es into his pocket, brings out a little match box and slaps that down too. It's done with such pride that Deckard has to look. LEON You want to see my friends? DECKARD Sorry, don't have the time. LEON No problem. Leon smiles broadly and with ceremonious care opens the box and dumps three live cockroaches on the bar. DECKARD Those cockroaches? LEON Ya. Deckard looks interested. One of them starts to scamp- er away, but Leon walls off the next with his huge hand. DECKARD How long you had these guys? LEON Two months. But this one is not guy. It is girl. His girl. Leon leans closer like he doesn't want the cockroaches to hear. LEON Usually Blackie waits until Igor is eating; then, when his back is turned, he tries to take advantage of Anna. Deckard nods, definitely interested. He signals the bartender for another round. The drinks arrive. LEON Prosit. DECKARD Prosit. Down the hatch. Their eyes meet at the bottom. LEON You never saw a cockroach make love? Deckard shakes his head, but he'd like to. Leon smiles slyly. LEON We will try. Leon brings a cube of sugar out of his pocket and puts it on the bar. They both lean down and watch intently. The drinks come and are put away, but the cockroaches are not cooperating. LEON It must be that he is not hungry or maybe she is not hot. Leon is catching the roaches and one by one puts them back in their box. He holds up the last and kisses it. LEON You like to kiss her goodbye. DECKARD No thanks. BARTENDER Make sure you take your girlfriends with you when you leave. What neither of them notices is that between Leon's fingers, his stub of his cigarette is burning his flesh. Deckard lifts his glass, it is empty. LEON I like you. DECKARD I like you too. LEON One more, eh? DECKARD I gotta piss. Deckard gets on his feet, leans forward like a man in a stiff wind and stops. DECKARD I think I'll piss outside. Leon watches his walk a perfect straight line through the bar down the passage and out of the rear exit. EXT. ALLEY - OLD OPERA HOUSE - NIGHT 69 Deckard reels out. The door swings shut and he's sober as hell and moving fast. Around the big trash dumpster alongside the building, he plasters himself against the wall and his gun is out, aimed at the door. He's in a good spot with a perfect line of fire. Moments go by and he's glad for the time to steady himself. The SOUND of his BREATHING, the HUM of the city and the quiet. Suddenly from behind, Deckard is swept off his feet and twirled around in Leon's bear-trap embrace. Leon lets go and Deckard hits the pavement, skidding hard enough to tear clothes and burn skin, but he rolls out of it and comes up with gun in hand; but Leon is so fast he's already there and kicks it out of his hand. Leon moves towards him, backing Deckard against the wall. LEON How come you know where Zhora was so quick? His hand is lightning. It shoots out, grabs Deckard's hair. DECKARD I showed pictures. Somebody recognized her. I went to see. Deckard is pale. The sweat is starting to run. LEON How old am I? DECKARD I don't know. The grip tightens and twists. LEON My birthday is April 10, 2015. How long do I live? DECKARD Four years. He lets go. LEON More than you. Deckard's knees come up fast. Leon's fist comes down faster, like a hammer. LEON Painful to live in fear, isn't it. Deckard is doubled over, hugging his thigh. LEON But that's how it is to be a slave. The future is sealed off, he grovels, he waits. Even hurt, Deckard is fast. He goes for his ankle gun, but Leon's got it out of his hand before he can even raise it and throws it down the alley. Deckard hurls forward, knocking him off balance, and scrambles to get away. Leon grabs him by the foot, drags him back and jerks him off the ground. LEON Sex, reproduction, security, the simple things. But no way to satisfy them. To be homesick with no place to go. Potential with no way to use it. Lots of little oversights in the Nexus 6. He slams Deckard into the wall. LEON I tell you, nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch. Deckard slides down the wall to his knees and huddles, protecting his head with his arms, waiting for the next one. Leon folds his big hands together and raises them over his head, pausing just a second to savor the satisfac- tion of smashing Deckard's skull. The spasm that runs through Leon's face is not from satisfaction. It's the bullet that went through his neck. He hits the ground hard, his big teeth biting the air like a rabid dog. Dead. Rachael is standing in the alley. Deckard lies there looking at her. She comes slowly and quietly forward and drops Deckard's gun by his side. Deckard gets to his hands and knees and tries to get up, but can't quite manage it. He looks up at her, panting, spits blood and almost smiles. DECKARD Like I said, I don't need your help. After a long moment, she bends down to touch him. RACHAEL You look terrible, you know that? INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - BATHROOM - NIGHT 70 He's lying in the tub with a drink, eyes half mast, water up to his chin, bruised and beat, but looking just a little wicked in his balmy luxury. DECKARD (V.O.) I knew a cop once who was involved in a high-speed chase. They shot out one of his tires and he went over a cliff at hundred and fifty miles an hour. They found him in the morning with a broken skull, six fractured ribs and second- degree burns. On the way to the hospital he made a play for the nurse. He takes a drink and clears his throat. DECKARD Hey! I thought you were supposed to be taking care of me. RACHAEL'S VOICE What do you need? He doesn't answer. Lies there sipping his drink. Rachael comes in a little uncertain, a little droll, and stands there looking down at him. DECKARD Don't just stand there looking at me. It's not polite. RACHAEL What do you want me to do? DECKARD Sit. She sits on the edge of the tub. DECKARD Gimme your arm. She's wearing a short-sleeved dress. It's a long, del- icate arm and Deckard holds it, inspecting it like a maestro with a Stradivarius. He looks up at her. DECKARD You ever take a bath with a man before? RACHAEL There's a lot I haven't done with a man before. He's got her hand in the water and had begun to soap her arm. Starting with her wrist and running the bar to her elbow, up and down, slow and slippery. She watches, not quite sure of the ritual. He pulls her closer, and runs his hand up higher, mould- ing and pressing, working around her flesh, up and under her arm into the privacy of her dress. RACHAEL You're getting me wet. Oh, yes. For a moment Deckard stares at her like some furry-legged satyr in rut, the fingers of his other hand rake through her hair and into the water she comes. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - BEDROOM - MORNING 71 The bed looks like it was hit by a storm and Deckard looks like something that was washed up in it. He's spread out flat, face creased and puffed. His eyes squint open, but only for a moment. His hands are more reliable. They search over the bed, but find it bare. He edges his head over the side, looking around for signs, but she's all gone. He gets up in two stages, sits and then stands. Then sits again, resting his head in his hands. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - BATHROOM - MORNING 72 Deckard's got his face in the mirror shaving it. It's been a long night. Nothing a new tongue and a trans- fusion wouldn't put right. He moves a couple of inches to the left so his eyes have a view of the tub. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - LIVING ROOM - MORNING 73 Deckard is on the edge of the couch with the phone on his knees, the card with Rachael's number in his lap and having no luck. RACHAEL'S VOICE Sorry, I am not in at the moment, but if you'll leave your name and number I'll return your call as soon as I can. That's not soon enough. Deckard hangs up, puts the phone on the floor and leans back on the couch. DECKARD Fuck you, then. INT. MR. DEETCHUM'S APARTMENT - MORNING 74 The rooster perched on the chair spreading its scrawny wings, strains from the tips of its toes, crowing at the ceiling. Between crows there's a TAPPING at the door. You might call this a "barnyard" apartment. There's straw on the floor and several hens roosting against the back wall. The front door opens a few inches and Sebastian pokes his head in. SEBASTIAN Mr. Deetchum? Hello? Nobody seems to be home except his chickens. As Sebas- tian enters, closing the door behind him, a goose charges out of the bedroom hissing and honking. SEBASTIAN Now, now, Waddles. Seeming to recognize Sebastian as no intruder, Waddles veers off from the attack. As Sebastian crosses the room a pig peeks out from behind the couch. SEBASTIAN Hello, Wrigley. He goes to the chickens and collects some eggs, putting them into a bowl he's brought. He puts down the bowl and reaching into his pocket carefully counts out the payment and puts the money on a plate. He's about to leave but notices there's no water in the dispenser. SEBASTIAN Mr. Deetchum isn't taking very good care of you people. Pouring from a jug on the table, he fills the dispenser with water, scatters a little grain on the floor, gets his bowel of eggs and leaves. Wrigley grunts and comes out from behind the couch for a long drink. INT. CORRIDOR - SEBASTIAN'S FLOOR - MORNING 75 Sebastian arrives on his floor, walks down the hall to his apartment, opens the door, walks in. INT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - DAY 76 He turns to close door, comes face to face with Roy Batty. Sebastian drops his bowl of eggs. Batty's hand flashes out and catches it. BATTY Whoops. Smiling, Batty hands them back to Sebastian, who is too startled to speak. Pris runs up and gives Batty and Mary a big hug, steps back effusing and smiling, everybody's favorite teen- ager. PRIS This is my Uncle Roy, Sebastian. BATTY Hello, glad to meet you. He pumps Sebastian's free hand. PRIS And my Aunt Mary. Sebastian turns and there's Aunt Mary, modest and warm. PRIS And this is my savior, J.F. Sebastian, everybody. Sebastian stands there with his eggs, bashful and ex- cited, the hero of this little family's warm attention. BATTY Can't thank you enough, Mr. Sebastian. If you hadn't come along... MARY We were worried to death. It's awfully kind of you. Sebastian is nodding and smiling. BATTY We're not used to the big city. Where we come from it's not so easy to get lost. MARY You certainly have a nice place here. BATTY Well stocked. Batty looks around admiringly. Sebastian mumbles some- thing that sounds like "Thank you." PRIS Sebastian doesn't like to go out too much. SEBASTIAN I keep a lot of provisions right here. BATTY I like a man who stays put. An admirable thing to be able to sustain yourself in these times. You live here all by yourself, do you? SEBASTIAN Well, no, not really. There's Mr. Deetchum, he's the watchman, he lives on the first floor. Everybody nods. A long pause. MARY We haven't found it easy, Mr. Sebastian. They glance around the room, waiting for Sebastian to pick up the ball. SEBASTIAN How about breakfast, I was just going to make some. BATTY If it wouldn't be too much of a bother... a little bite to eat would be... SEBASTIAN Oh, no bother, I'd be glad to. BATTY Well, actually MARY We're famished. Sebastian is truly happy. SEBASTIAN Okay, then. You make yourselves comfortable and I'll bring the food right out. He disappears into the kitchen. Batty looks happy with the way things are going. BATTY Charming. Pris comes up close. Her tone muted but demanding. PRIS Well? Batty finds her attitude amusing, which makes her even more pugnacious. PRIS I want to know what's going on. There's a punitive edge to Batty's response. BATTY There's only three of us left. Pris is shocked. Her whisper comes out a hiss. PRIS Then we're stupid and we'll die. BATTY Not if everybody is doing their job here at home. How are things at home? A little spotted pig on the table sits up. PIG Home again, jiggidy jig. They all turn and stare at the pig. Batty is delighted. PRIS I don't trust him. I don't think he knows what he's doing. The BELL-TONE from the microwave goes off in the kitchen. BATTY He knows what he's doing. MARY If he won't cooperate? BATTY Mr. Sebastian is a host who wants to be appreciated. We'll appreciate him and he'll cooperate. INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR AND ROOM - DAY 77 Holden is laid out in an apparatus that resembles an iron lung. A little above his head, facing him, is a bank of bio-feedback lights registering body functions. Deckard is in a chair sitting next to his friend. Holden has lost weight, his face is grey, he can't move his head, but he's smiling like the cat who ate the canary. DECKARD How are you doing, old man? Holden's voice is just a whisper -- the kind of whisper that comes out of the joker at the back of the class. HOLDEN I'm great. I mean, I know I'm not really great, but I feel just great. How you like my new suit? DECKARD Well, you don't have to worry about getting it wrinkled. Holden's eyes close, his smile gets bigger and little spasms of laughter pump out of his mouth. HOLDEN Don't make me laugh. It makes me pee. DECKARD Sorry. HOLDEN Hey, it's okay. I like to pee. So how are you doing? DECKARD I'm doing okay. HOLDEN From what I hear you're doing great. Bryant tells me you're going like a god damn one-man army. Making a lot of money, huh? DECKARD Yeah. (pause) But that's what I wanted to talk to you about. HOLDEN Money? DECKARD No. I got a problem. HOLDEN Let's hear it. DECKARD I think I'm starting to empathize with these Nexus-sixes. Holden giggles. Starts to laugh again. A blue light on the panel begins to turn very bright. They both notice it. DECKARD What's that? HOLDEN I'm taking a piss. They wait for the light to abate. HOLDEN Let me ask you something, Deck. You been having intimate relations with one of these units? Deckard doesn't deny it. Holden smiles like a cherub. HOLDEN That's what I thought... one of the liabilities of the trade -- you has sex with your prey, old buddy. That's bound to create problems, unless you're a black widow. Deckard has to wait for him to stop giggling. DECKARD What about -- not sex -- but love? Holden bites his bottom lip to keep the laugher out of his voice, but he can't. HOLDEN Love is just another name for sex. Love is sexy and sex is lovely -- I don't care what you call it, an android can't have it. DECKARD These aren't just... HOLDEN I know what they are, Deck -- Look, maybe they can pretend to feel, but far as the raw, hot emotions of the old heart -- no way. Holden stops talking for a moment to get some air. HOLDEN Believe me, take it from an old pro, no matter how good we get, we're never gonna make an artificial anything that can feel. It's a contradiction. You might as well go fuck your washing machine. Holden laughs, Deckard doesn't. HOLDEN Just go out there and keep up the good work. Holden's whispers have become harder to hear. HOLDEN Got to save it, Deck, I'm getting sleepy. It's been good talking to you. Deckard stands. DECKARD Thanks. But he's already asleep. Deckard stands there a moment looking at him, then walks out. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT - DAY 78 He's sitting on the couch, glum, contemplative. There's a SOUND. His eyes move to the door. Those locks are opening again. Rachael comes in. Looks surprised to see him. Him too. RACHAEL I told you I'd come back. DECKARD You did? RACHAEL You didn't hear me. You were sleeping. He likes that. RACHAEL Are you glad I'm here? He is. She's spunky. Hasn't seen this place in the daytime. Pleased, he watched her move around the mess. She spots a little framed photograph. Picks it up. It's a man with a shotgun and a boy holding up a quail. RACHAEL Who is this? DECKARD Me and my dad. RACHAEL Where is he? DECKARD Dead. RACHAEL Oh. She puts it down and comes to him. RACHAEL How come you're not on the job? DECKARD I am. Part of my job is to sit on a couch and try and figure things out. RACHAEL How are you doing? DECKARD Not too good. She sits next to him. Pleased as hell, they both sit there staring straight ahead. He looks at her. She looks at him. RACHAEL What do people do in the afternoon? DECKARD If they are smart, they take naps. INT. DECKARD'S BEDROOM - DAY 79 They're under the sheet. Rachael is on her back, look- ing at the ceiling, hair sprawled like sea grass over the pillow. Deckard lies next to her, a man studying a treasure. RACHAEL Do you dream? DECKARD Yeah. Sometimes. RACHAEL I wish I could. His hand moves over her shoulder. DECKARD Wishing is a kind of dreaming. His hand goes under the sheet. RACHAEL I mean asleep. She feels good. He moves closer. RACHAEL Did you cry when your father died? DECKARD Yeah. RACHAEL That's another thing I can't do. He kisses her lightly on the cheek. RACHAEL Nobody is freer than when he dreams. I read that. DECKARD It wasn't very good last night, was it? RACHAEL I don't know, I have nothing to compare it to. I guess I thought there was something more to it. DECKARD What? RACHAEL I don't know... I think I missed something. DECKARD Like? RACHAEL I'm not sure. Is there a secret? Her face is close. She's looking right at him. Her lips are right there. DECKARD I don't know. If there is I'd like to find it. Slowly their lips touch and his arms slide under her body. INT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - DAY 80 Batty, Pris and Mary sit at the table staring at their host. Sebastian is staring back, his fork halfway to his mouth, looking from face to face. Although nothing is being said, he's totally comfortable, as much at home with them as he is with his animoids. BATTY Why are you staring at us? SEBASTIAN You're just all so... so different. Batty nods his head, smiling, sending home the fact and Sebastian is certainly getting it. BATTY What, Sebastian? SEBASTIAN You're androids. A long pause. PRIS What makes you think so? SEBASTIAN You're all so perfect. Sebastian is smiling from ear to ear. SEBASTIAN What generation are you? BATTY Nexus - 6. Sebastian whistles. Mary's head is shaking slightly. Pris gets up and moves to the couch. Batty couldn't be more pleased. BATTY We can trust Sebastian, ladies. He's been working with mechanisms all his life. He's a wizard and a very perceptive man. Sebastian looks like a kid on Christmas Eve. SEBASTIAN Could you... His voice is trembling. SEBASTIAN Show me something? BATTY Like what? SEBASTIAN Like... Like a million things, but he's too excited to think of one. BATTY We're not computers, Sebastian, we're physical. Pris perks up proudly. PRIS I think, therefore I am. BATTY Very good, Pris. Now show him why. It's a command Pris is pleased to obey. She sits quiet- ly a moment, hands folded in her lap, prim and proper. Mary doesn't like these displays, but Batty is beaming. Those hands in Pris' lap suddenly move, almost faster than the eye can see and slam down on either side of her, digging into the material with such ferocity that Sebastian jumps. She plunges into the guts of the couch up to her elbows and comes up holding springs and stuff- ing. Except for the clenched teeth, she is smiling like an angel. Sebastian is riveted, his eyes wide and astounded, like he's just seen the devil. He laughs nervously, glad that the devil is a friend. BATTY We have a lot in common. SEBASTIAN You mean that you can't come here and I can't go there? BATTY Not only that, but we have smiliar problems. Accelerated decrepitude. But we don't want to die quite yet. SEBASTIAN Of course not. BATTY You could help us. SEBASTIAN I don't know much about biomechanics, Roy. I wish I did, but you're out of my league. BATTY If we don't find help soon, Pris hasn't got long to live. Sebastian sneaks a glance. Pris is staring at him with big childlike eyes, Sebastian looks back at Batty, moved but helpless. BATTY What about your friend, the man who owns this building? SEBASTIAN Dr. Tyrell? Batty nods. SEBASTIAN He's not really my friend. I just do a job for him now and then. BATTY Tyrell could help us, Sebastian. SEBASTIAN He could? BATTY His company made us. SEBASTIAN I'd be happy to mention it to him. BATTY Be better if I could talk to him in person. But he's not an easy man to get to. SEBASTIAN No. BATTY When do you deliver your project? SEBASTIAN This afternoon. Batty leans forward and looks right into Sebastian's eyes. BATTY Will you help us? There's no way Sebastian could say no, even if he wanted to. SEBASTIAN Yes. Pris sits up smiling. Mary sighs a breath of relief and Batty leans back nodding in gratitude. BATTY I'm sure glad you found us, Sebastian. What do you think, Mary? MARY I don't think there is another human being in this whole world who would have helped us. BATTY Pris? Pris gets up and comes to Sebastian and kisses him. That has a lot of impact. Sebastian looks around try- ing to keep the tears from coming. BATTY You're our best and only friend. SEBASTIAN Thank you. INT. DECKARD'S APARTMENT BEDROOM - DAY 81 Rachael is lying across the bed in one of Deckard's shirts, her chin over the edge, her eyes moving around the room. Deckard lies next to her. Looking like a man who died a voluptuous death. RACHAEL When was the last time you cleaned this place? DECKARD Hmmm? RACHAEL Have you ever cleaned your apartment? DECKARD Don't be fooled by appearances. RACHAEL It appears to be dirty -- why don't you get somebody? He rolls over to admire her legs. DECKARD Because they would ruin the arrangement. He kisses the back of her thigh. RACHAEL They could clean around the arrangement. DECKARD I don't like people snooping around my stuff. He kisses her other thigh, gets up and goes into the bathroom. DECKARD'S VOICE There's a vacuum in the front room closet is you wanna give it a try. Rachael lies there a moment, then gets up and goes into the front room and opens the closet door. The vacuum is not easy to get to, but finally she wrestles it out. As she starts to plug it in -- DECKARD Oh no, don't do that. He's wrapped in a sheet, watching her from the doorway. RACHAEL But if I don't plug it in how can I... DECKARD Never mind the plug, just go through the motions. RACHAEL But then how can you... DECKARD I don't like the noise. Just practice. Practice makes perfect. She stares at him like he's nuts. DECKARD I'm serious. Go ahead. Show me how you would do it. Reluctantly she makes some half-hearted passes with the thing. DECKARD How about under the couch there. Come on. She bends over to get it. Deckard pulls up a chair and sits down with his chin in his hands. She looks back at him. RACHAEL This feels stupid. DECKARD Good for a smart girl to feel stupid. Part of your education. She drops the vacuum and sits on the floor. Deckard gets up and comes towards her. Her eyes travel halfway down his sheet and she leaves. RACHAEL You're sick, Deckard. DECKARD I never felt better. EXT. TYRELL PRESERVE - DUSK 82 Mansion and opulent grounds. Sebastian's humble truck parked among richer relations, including a spinner and a 1928 Dusenberg. EXT. TYRELL MANSION - DUSK 83 The den. It contains a collection of big game trophies, and among all this sits Sebastian very straight and proper with an "egg" the size of a basketball in his lap. Old Hannibal Chew was right, the rich make you wait. Sebastian stands and carefully makes his way between the trophies to a window with a view of the grounds. EXT. TYRELL MANSION POOL - DUSK 84 Tyrell's young WIFE sits on the diving board watching her husband in the pool with their youngest TOT. And two older LADS swim around trying to outdo each other for their dad's attention. From the sidelines an old servant pauses to watch the fun, then continues with a tray of mugs towards the house. EXT. PLATEAU - DUSK 85 And beyond on a plateau overlooking the grounds, a figure stands watching, waiting like a bird of prey. EXT. TYRELL PRESERVE - DUSK 86 On a gravel path between shrubs of winter roses, Tyrell turns to observe the last quiet light over his kingdom. The moment is sweetened by the LOW PLAINTIVE BELLOW of one of the animals. He strolls by an old gardener who tips his cap, pro- ceeds up the steps and into his mansion. INT. TYRELL DEN - NIGHT 87 Next to a tray of cookies and milk, Sebastian sits pa- tiently with the "egg" in his lap. As the door opens he gets to his feet expectantly. It's STYLES, Tyrell's bodyguard. He could play the Giant in Jack and The Beanstalk. STYLES Okay, I'll take that now. Sebastian would rather put it in the boss's hands, but Styles takes it and is almost through the door when Sebastian stops him. SEBASTIAN Wait! He almost forgot. SEBASTIAN Can't fly without the pilot. Sebastian hands him a little box. Styles stuffs it in his pocket and shuts the door behind him. EXT. TYRELL PRESERVE - NIGHT 88 Motionless and monumental, six buffalo stand like stat- ues in the grass. Suddenly they swing their shaggy heads to watch something pass. In the dark silence Batty stops to look at the curious beasts and then moves soundlessly towards the mansion. INT. TYRELL DINING ROOM - NIGHT 89 It's a medieval-sized hall. The piece de resistance is an 18th Century, English painting of an Arab stallion, gleaming like coal over the CRACKLING fireplace. The entire family is seated at the table which glitters for the festive occasion. Presents gathered around the oldest child. Styles hands the "egg" to Tyrell. A hush falls over the table. This is Dad's big present. Tyrell sets is down before the boy. IAN is a fresh, slim lad who is ten today. He looks up at his father, then, beaming, pries open the "egg's" hinged lid. Tyrell's hand goes to his pocket and the griffon steps out of the shell. IAN Oh! Basically an avian invention, it has wings and plumage, the head of an eagle, the body of a lion and weighs no more than eight pounds. It cranes its neck and testing its balance, stands on one leg and then hops to the edge of the table and into the air. The littlest tot claps her hands as the griffon beats its wings rapidly and rises towards the ceiling. Turn- ing in a forty-five degree, it suddenly drops into a dive. Delighted, the children shriek and scream as the griffon swoops over their crouching heads and sails the length of the hall -- its silhouette flickering briefly over the ancestral portraits of the Tyrell clan. Reaching the end of the room, it banks sharply and flies back towards the table, cups its wings, spreads its tail and comes in for an awkward landing. They're laughing and clapping as it waddles down the table and knocks over a glass and stops in front of Ian. IAN Papa! Did you make this? TYRELL No. We can make man, but not a griffon. He bends down and kisses his wife. TYRELL Have to give the cottage industry a chance too. Pleased he excuses himself and heads for the den. INT. TYRELL DEN - NIGHT 90 Tyrell comes in and sits behind his desk. Sebastian hands down the invoices. Tyrell glances over them and writes out a check. He looks up to hand it over when he sees Batty against the wall, by the door. For a fraction of a second he's shocked, but recovers fast. TYRELL A friend of yours, Sebastian? SEBASTIAN Yes, this is someone who wants to talk to you, Dr. Tyrell. Batty smiles. BATTY The name is Batty. Roy Batty. TYRELL Oh? Very slowly Tyrell's hand moves towards the back side of the desk. BATTY To act without understanding could lead to the very thing the act seeks to avoid. What's in Batty's eyes completes the warning. Tyrell decides to heed it. BATTY A little talk it all I need. Tyrell looks at Sebastian. Considers consequences. Back to Batty. TYRELL Would you like to talk in private then. Batty thinks it over. BATTY Yeah. It might be better if we talk in private, Sebastian. Why don't you go home. TYRELL Here's your check, my boy. Thank you. SEBASTIAN Thank you, Dr. Tyrell. I'll see you later. He slips out closing the door behind him. Opens it again and sticks his head it. SEBASTIAN Was everything okay? TYRELL Just beautiful. He's gone. If Tyrell is scared he's doing a good job of concealing it. TYRELL I'm surprised you didn't come to me sooner. BATTY It's not an easy thing to meet your maker. TYRELL And what can he do for you? BATTY Can the maker repair what he makes? TYRELL Would you like to be modified? BATTY Had in mind something a little more radical. TYRELL What's the problem? BATTY Death. TYRELL I'm afraid that's a little out of my... Batty cuts in with a whisper. BATTY I want more life, fucker. TYRELL Come here. Batty walks forward. TYRELL Sit down. Batty does. TYRELL The facts of life. I'll be blunt. To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system, at least by men, makers or not, it fatal. A coding sequence can't be revised once it's established. BATTY Why? TYRELL Because by the second day of incubation any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies -- like rats leaving a sinking ship. The ship sinks. BATTY What about E.M.S. recombination? TYRELL We've already tried it -- ethyl methane sulfonate is an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen -- it creates a virus so lethal the subject was destroyed before we left the table. Batty nods grimly. BATTY Then a repressor protein that blocks the operating cells. TYRELL Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries a mutation and you're got a virus again... but all this is academic -- you are made as good as we could make you. BATTY But not to last. TYRELL Put it this way. Rolls Royces are made to last -- as least they were. But I'm afraid you're a Ferrari. A high strung racing car -- built to win, not to last. Batty smiles bitterly. TYRELL Also you're too valuable to experiment with. BATTY I am? Tyrell can't help a flash of pride. TYRELL The bast of all possible androids. We're proud of our prodigal son -- glad you're returned. You're quite a prize. Shoulders hunched, Batty looks down, an uncharacteristic note of guilt in his voice. BATTY I've done some questionable things. TYRELL Also extraordinary things. BATTY Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn't let you in heaven for. They share a laugh. In spite of himself, there's a look of relief in Tyrell's face as Batty extends his hand. Tyrell takes it and they shake. The reverence in Bat- ty's eyes caused Tyrell a fatherly smile. The smile turns into a growl as he feels the bones in his hands crack. Before the scream comes out of his mouth, Batty stifles it. Tyrell claws at the iron fingers, but they're sinking into his face. Placing his other hand behind Tyrell's head, Batty squeezes them together and squashes the man's head like a melon. The mess is not small. Palms up, like a surgeon, Batty walks to the drapes and wipes off the gore and without looking back, strolls out of the room. INT. TYRELL - HALL TO KITCHEN - NIGHT 90A Styles is coming down the hall. He sees Batty coming towards him. Styles looks at him curiously, this is not one of the guests. As they close, Batty smiles. BATTY Could you tell me where the bathroom is? Styles doesn't get a chance to answer. Batty's hand has torn into his crotch. The man is lifted off the floor, up the wall and held a moment. Whatever is encased in his pelvis is pulverized. Batty lets go. Styles hits the floor. He died of shock. Grinding his teeth, Batty continues towards the SOUNDS OF THE FESTIVITIES. INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT 91 The birthday cake has arrived, the candles lit. They're waiting for Dad. Mrs. Tyrell looks around to find Batty observing from the doorway. A little startled, a little curious, but ever the cor- porate wife, she smiles. MRS. TYRELL May I help you? Batty smiles back and shakes his head in mock regrets. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT 92 In the sink the faucet is on. The water pink with blood. Batty is washing his hands. A portly maid emerges from the pantry. Batty looks up. She stops, embarrassed at being caught. Her eyes no- tice drops of blood on the floor and follow them to the door. When she looks back, Batty is right in front of her. INT. DECKARD'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 93 Books scattered on the bed. Rachael sitting cross- legged with one in her lap, looking through exquisite shots of nature. Deckard is next to her, watching her like a lover, like a father. DECKARD (V.O.) She'd never seen the great outdoors. Never even seen books on the subject. She went through everything I had, and we talked. And there were subjects we didn't discuss and they were words we didn't say, I couldn't say, like death, like future, like real. But it was hard because she was curious and full of questions. She was more alive than anyone I'd ever known. She looks up stunned by the beauty of a photo, but with no need to comment. It's in her eyes. She stares at him, a revelation taking shape. RACHAEL You and I are good friends, huh? He considers it and she stares at him, smiling at the wonder of it. RACHAEL It's so easy. Convinced and not convinced, he nods his head. She laughs at his solemnity. She's irresistible. Deckard's pretty irresistible himself. RACHAEL Have you ever known anybody a long time? DECKARD You mean a woman? RACHAEL Uh-huh. DECKARD What's a long time? RACHAEL Ten years. DECKARD Nope. Nobody could stand me that long. The CHIME on the PHONE next to the bed GOES OFF. He reaches out and brings it to his ear. DECKARD Yeah. BRYANT This is Bryant. Are you alone? DECKARD Yeah. BRYANT She's not with you? DECKARD Who. A pause. BRYANT Take a number. Canapt 1700, tenth floor, Villa Vita District, Olympia South. DECKARD Got it. BRYANT Okay, here it is. Eldon Tyrell, his family and half his staff were just massacred. The cat is about to get out of the bag. Pressure is definitely on. The Nexus program is terminated. When you finish there, locate Nexus designated Rachael and retire. Deckard says nothing. BRYANT If you don't, we will. It has to be total, Deckard. That's an order from as high as it comes. Got it? DECKARD Yeah. I got it. BRYANT Go. He hangs up the receiver and gets up. She watches him from the bed. The gun goes into his belt. He loads the ankle job and straps it on. She watches every move. RACHAEL Why do you call it retire, why don't you call it murder? DECKARD Because it's not. RACHAEL Don't you think anything that can suffer deserves to be considered? DECKARD Andies only simulate suffering -- if they're programmed for it. RACHAEL Do you think I simulated what happened between us? DECKARD No, I don't. Without looking at her, he puts on his jacket. He's standing in the middle of the floor with his back to her. He turns and they're facing one another. Neither of them moves. DECKARD Don't leave here. Don't open the door, don't answer the phone. RACHAEL What difference will it make? DECKARD Just wait here. He goes to the door. RACHAEL You know what I think? DECKARD What? RACHAEL That some of the folks around here are more programmed then me. He has to laugh. RACHAEL You know what else I think? DECAKRD What? RACHAEL This was the best day of my life. He turns and goes through the door. INT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 94 Sebastian is putting his work table in order, but his mind is not with it and his hands are trembling. Batty, Pris and Mary are on the other side of the room talking: their voices low. MARY Let's go while there is still time. BATTY Where? MARY Anywhere. Batty smiles. BATTY What's the point? MARY Not to be trapped. BATTY You underestimate the trap, Mary. Sebastian has almost reached the door. BATTY Where are you going, Sebastian? SEBASTIAN Just thought I'd... BATTY No, you stay here with us. Out last night together. They all watch. Sebastian walks away from the door. BATTY Think of yourself as a light, Mary. Shine before you're turned off. She's too fragile for that logic, but it appeals to Pris. She and Batty hold a look that burns. Sebastian is by the window. SEBASTIAN Someone is coming here. Batty goes to the window and looks down. BATTY One man. (he smiles) He must be good. MARY Then go get him. BATTY That wouldn't be very sporting. Sebastian looks ready to bolt. Batty puts an arm around him. PRIS I want to do it. BATTY Okay, but don't kill him. Save a little for everybody. A masterpiece. A pause. BATTY Turn out the lights, Pris. EXT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 95 In the dim, nocturnal light, Deckard crosses into the courtyard fronting the building and stops. He looks around. Nobody there, just silence. He comes closer to the building and stands in the sha- dows off to one side of the entry. His head jerks up to the SOUND OF CRASHING GLASS. Sebastian comes hurtling down and explodes into the pavement thirty feet below. Deckard's eyes move up the line of descent, the shat- tered window on the next-to-top floor. INT. SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT LOBBY - NIGHT 96 Not much to see, But Deckard misses none of it as he crosses the floor and positions himself in the spot of least exposure. He looks around. Elevator and stair- well. Close to the wall, he moves towards the elevator, keep- ing an eye on the stairwell door. Stepping to one side, he hits the button. The elevator door slides open. He reaches in, presses a button and as the doors slide shut, Deckard slips a pen between the doors, jamming the operation. Deckard's shoes and soundless as he quickly crosses the lobby floor. He pauses a moment in front of the stair- well door, then pushes it open and: INT. STAIRWELL, SEBASTIAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT 97 Steps into the dark on the other side. Suddenly he spins, dropping to the floor, and FIRES three times in- to the figure hovering to his left. The man is hanging off the floor, his arms locked into the railing, neck broken -- with three holes in his chest... but he was already dead. Deckard stares at the corpse. It's Mr. Deetchum, the old watchman. That RUSTLING SOUND are rats who were feeding on him, scampering for safer places, Deckard gets to his feet. The stairway rectangles ten stories up. As his foot touches the first step, a raw, terrified SCREAM shatters the air. It came from below. It's the cry of a young girl -- it GROWS TO A PIERCING SHRIEK AND ABRUPTLY STOPS. Deckard ejects the half-used cartridge from his laser, inserts a fresh one and quiet as the silence, descends the basement stairs. INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT 98 At the bottom he faces a corridor. The FAINT HUM OF MACHINERY comes from the double doors at the far end. The HUM BECOMES A RATTLE by the time he gets there. Each door is fitted with a small window. Deckard steps to the side and peers through. INT. GYM - NIGHT 99 It's a gym. The mirror-lined walls are cracked and tarnished, the equipment atrophied from lack of use. The heavier barbells have sunk into the floor. Two weight-reducing machines are flapping and grinding away like idiots. Deckard's eyes stop on the woman. She dangles a few feet off the floor, hung by the shoulders through rings suspended from the ceiling. Her head is slung forward, her body limp and slightly swaying. Deckard pushes open one of the doors until it touches the wall. Slowly, he advances toward the hanging figure, keeping an eye on the mirror to cover surprises from the door. He's not breathing hard. His heart isn't pound- ing. Deckard's in his element. Close enough to look up into her face, he stops. It isn't grisly death that causes the reaction in his eyes. It's the innocence of her angel face. It's not something he has time to consider. In the mirror behind him, he sees the door starting to open. Deckard spins. He shouldn't have. Pris' legs snap up, crack the laser out of his hand and clamp around his neck. Slowly, the door swings closed, but Deckard doesn't notice. His carotid artery is no longer sending blood to the brain. He jerks up his foot and reaches down. As his fingers close around the ankle laser, Pris' fingers close around his wrist. Deckard's hand opens like a flower. The laser drops to the floor as his eyes roll back into his head. PRIS Naughty, naughty. She lets go, but before he can fall, she rams a foot into his back. He's propelled fifteen feet across the room, slams into a machine and falls to the floor. Pris flies off the rings and comes at him. Deckard reaches out to pull himself up, but she's al- ready there. Not too hard and just in the right place, she kicks him in the stomach. He goes back to the floor, gagging for air. Oh-so-precisely she reaches out with a long index finger and flips the switch on the machine. It's a flab eliminator with a vibrator belt. Normally an innocuous piece of equipment, but the motor housing on this one is missing. Lots of GRINDING METAL. A bad place for flesh and bone. But that's where Deckard's hand is going. An eight- year-old against a full-down man. In two more seconds his hand will be ground round. Deckard tries to pull his hand loose. It won't come. He yanks hard, but it's welded in hers. His face is twisted and strained as he raises a leg, wedges his foot against her chest and pushes with all his might. The hold breaks. They topple back. Deckard hits the floor gulping to catch his breath. Pris is up and coming for him again. She hovers over him. Deckard rolls out of the way as she comes down like a pile driver. Reflexively Deckard raises his arm to protect himself. Pris just smiles, takes hold of his foot and drags him across the floor. She doesn't like to leave a piece of work unfinished. They're going back to the machine. He goes by a weight-stand of dumbbells and grabs hold. It doesn't stop him. He's sliding over the floor like it was ice, weight stand in tow. Pris gets to the machine, yanks his foot up and forces it toward the opening. Deckard sits up, a five-pound dumbbell in his hand, and clobbers her in the back. It knocks her off balance, but she doesn't let go of his foot. She hooks out with a fist but misses. He gets her with a roundhouse in the face. She goes to the floor and Deckard's up, the dumbbell over his head, coming down with it. Fighting for her life now, Pris drives a foot into his chest. It lifts him off the floor. He flies back across the gym and lands in a heap. No more games. Pris is furious and moving fast. She rips a steel bar out of the wall and, holding it over- head, charges him like a samurai. As she comes down for the kill, she freezes. Deckard landed near the laser. He crawls towards it. As in a nightmare, it takes forever. But he gets there. He reaches out and grabs the laser, rolls over and takes careful aim. She charges towards him, screaming her rage. He FIRES as she comes. The shot amputates her left arm at the shoulder, but her hand doesn't let go of the bar. It dangles crazily in front of her as she charges forward. He PUTS THE NEXT ONE through her neck. Pris hiccups a rope of blood as she flies through the air and crashes next to Deckard. Dead. He lies next to her, chest heaving. Slowly he rolls over and gets to his hands and knees. Panting, he stag- gers to his feet and stands over her, swaying slightly. The sound that escapes his throat is raspy and dry. It might not sound like a war cry, but it is. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT 100 Laser in hand, Deckard kicks open the swinging doors and walks into the corridor, a dangerous man. INT. STAIRWELL - NIGHT 101 Deckard arrives at the main floor landing, checks his loads and continues up the stairs. He's going to shoot the next thing that moves and find out later if he was right or wrong. INT. STAIRWELL - SECOND FLOOR - NIGHT 101A On the next landing he throws the door open. His eyes move down the hall, looking for prints in the dust. None. He continues up the stairs. INT. NINTH FLOOR - NIGHT 102 On the ninth floor he finds what he's looking for. Footprints coming and going from a door halfway down the hall. He stops to the side of it and listens. Silence. Deckard FIRES three quick shots through the door. If somebody were on the other side of it, they aren't now. He kicks the door open and dives through head first and hits the floor in a roll, POURING FIRE into the far corners of the room but the room is empty. There's a kitchen bar, a closet and a bedroom door, both closed. Deckard's breathing is the only sound. No response from either door. Maybe it was a sound, maybe intuition, but suddenly Deckard twists around and FIRES several shots into the closet. The smouldering door slowly creaks open. Mary is huddled in the rear of the closet. Her hand out like somebody about to catch a ball but afraid of it. In her other hand she clutches a button-eyed monkey. Her face is bewildered, frozen in fear, her body riddled with holes. No recognition gap here. Deckard SHOOTS her through the neck to make sure. Mary falls to the floor, like a puppet with her strings cut. Deckard backs away from the pathetic figure in the closet and sits on the sofa, unable to take his eyes off her. Deckard lays the laser down next to him, holds out his hand and looks at it. It's steady. He drops it in his lap, closes his eyes and leans back. A TAPPING from the ceiling. Deckard looks up. A KNOCK -- with the proverbial DOUBLE RAP at the end. A pause. Deckard jumps out of the way as the ceiling gives in. Chucks on concrete and plaster hit the couch where he was sitting. The hole is a couple feet in diameter -- beams cracked through, exposing the apartment above. Silence. Deckard wipes the plaster dust from his eyes and mouth, then whispers: DECKARD Hello, Roy. INT. STAIRWELL - NINTH AND TENTH FLOOR - NIGHT 103 Deckard comes out onto the landing. Taking his time, he climbs the steps to the next floor, the last floor. He SHOOTS the hinges out of the big stairwell door, pushes it with his foot and it comes down with a BANG. The REVERBERATIONS turn into silence. The corridor is empty. INT. CORRIDOR - TENTH FLOOR - NIGHT 104 Moving fast but cautious, he passes each door until he gest to the apartment above Sebastian's. Slowly he turns the know and pushed open the door. INT. APARTMENT - TENTH FLOOR - NIGHT 105 Except for the hole in the middle of the floor, there's nothing to see. Back against the wall, he moves to- wards the bedroom, but stops at the NOISE. It sounds like the HOOTING OF AN OWL and it's coming from the hallway. INT. CORRIDOR - TENTH FLOOR - NIGHT 106 Deckard looks around the corner of the door down the hall. Batty's at the other end. Except for jockstrap and gym shoes, he's nude. BATTY You wanna play? Deckard FIRES. Batty's fast. He ducks into a doorway. Pops out again. BATTY Not very sporting to fire on an unarmed opponent. I thought you were supposed to be good. Aren't you the man?! The makeup on Batty's face is somewhere between a Coman- che warrior and a transvestite. The immensity of his insolence awesome -- the muscles of his body are swol- len, trembling from the thrill of it. BATTY This is how we do it up there, lad! Come on! In a blue of lightning-like action, Batty whips down the hall, zigzagging off the walls towards Deckard so fast that Deckard gets only three SHOTS off before the blur crashes through the wall on his left with a laugh. Deckard stands there a moment -- digesting the impact of it, then edges up to the gaping wall. Batty is be- hind him. He knees Deckard in the back and slaps him in the head. Deckard goes to his knees, then over on his face. Batty kneels next to him. BATTY Not hurt, are you? You better get it up or I'm going to have to kill you. Unless you're alive you can't play. And if you don't play, you don't get to be alive. Deckard's eyes are closed, mouth bleeding. He exhales and makes and effort. He slides his hands up even with his chest and starts to push. BATTY That's the spirit. Like a matador, Batty walks away. By the time Deckard's on his feet, Batty's disappeared through one of the doors. Deckard wipes the blood from his mouth, bends down and picks up his laser, reloads and looks down the hall, towards the jeering voice. BATTY'S VOICE Come on, Deckard, show me what you got! I'm right here on the other side of the door. But you gotta shoot straight 'cause I'm fast! Deckard gets to the door, BLASTS it, kicks it open and FIRES at Batty. But it's only the reflection of Batty. INT. ROOM - TENTH FLOOR - NIGHT 107 The full length mirror on the other side of the room SHATTERS. Batty's next to him, grabs Deckard's hand and steps in closer. BATTY Straight doesn't seem to be good enough. They're face to face. BATTY You don't have a chance, do you? In an exaggeration of weary disappointment, Batty drops his head to the side. BATTY Looks like I'm gonna have to scale it down for you. Give you a handicap. I won't run through any more walls. Okay? I promise to use the doors. Okay? Deckard stares back at him, but doesn't respond. Sud- denly fury storms through Batty. He throws Deckard out the door, knocking him down, grabs him by the collar and rams his head into the wall. BATTY Come on, let's use that brain! INT. TENTH FLOOR CORRIDOR - NIGHT 108 He drags him down the hall, on his knees and bangs his head into the wall again. BATTY Think! We need a little resilience around here! He yanks him further and bashes his head again. BATTY Where are those balls of yours?! Let's see a little bravery! The storm passes. Deckard hangs in Batty's hand like a bag of laundry. BATTY That was irrational of me -- not to mention unsportsmanlike. Won't happen again. He drops him. BATTY I'll be down the hall when you're ready. Betty walks off and disappears through one of the doors. Deckard gets to his knees, leans against the wall a mo- ment, then punches it with his fist. On his feet he's a little wobbly. Holding his breath so he can hear above his own breathing, he listens. No sound. No sign of Batty. The laser is laying nearby. He doesn't bother. Deckard is backing down the hall, quiet as he can. He had a job to do. He would like to have done it, but he's not insane. He gets to the landing and turns. On the first step down, he stops. Batty's on the land- ing below, looking up at him. BATTY Where you going? He wait a moment for Deckard's answer. BATTY No cheating. A promise is a promise. I'll honor the handicapped, but we gotta play on the top floor. You go get your laser gun now. And I'll give you a few seconds before I come. Deckard turns back into the hall. Batty smiles. Deckard's running down the corridor. BATTY'S VOICE One! Halfway down the hall he finds his laser. BATTY'S VOICE Two! Deckard darts into the nearest door. The apartment above Sebastian's, with the hole in the floor. Deckard considers it. BATTY'S VOICE No fair jumping through holes. You might get hurt doing that! THREE! Deckard dashes back into the hall, chooses another door and goes in. INT. TENTH FLOOR APARTMENT - NIGHT 109 His eyes skim over everything, looking for an advantage. He throws open a door. The bathroom. The plumbing is dismantled, walls stripped, revealing brick, nails protruding. Too small. INT. TENTH FLOOR STAIRWELL - NIGHT 110 Batty's coming up the steps. BATTY Five! INT. TENTH FLOOR APARTMENT - NIGHT 111 Deckard's looking for a corner -- a place that covers the angles. He chooses the far side of the room with a line to the door. INT. TENTH FLOOR HALL - NIGHT 112 Batty's coming down the center, listening at the doors. BATTY Six! INT. TENTH FLOOR APARTMENT - NIGHT 113 Deckard's crouched in the corner and aimed. He looks at his hand. It's trembling. BATTY'S VOICE Seven! INT. TENTH FLOOR HALL - NIGHT 114 Batty's standing in front of a door, listening. BATTY Oh, I wonder where he is. Not in here, I don't think. Eight! He goes to the next door. BATTY Maybe here. Doesn't sound like it. Nine! Batty moves to the next. The door to Deckard. INT. TENTH FLOOR APARTMENT - NIGHT 115 Deckard's crouched lower, holding his breath -- talk about a hair trigger... Silence. Batty's FEET are heard CREAKING AWAY. Deckard looks around. Runs a hand over the wall behind him. Batty's FEET COME BACK. A pause. BATTY Ten! The door explodes! A shape hurtles across the room. Deckard pivots, fol- lowing it with RAPID FIRE. It's a TV. He spins back. but Batty's already on him. He gets one SHOT off be- fore Batty's got his hand. There's a hole over Batty's right eye. Blood running down his face, dripping on Deckard. The right side of his face isn't working too good. The corner of his mouth doesn't quite shut -- his voice comes out slurred, a little hollow. BATTY One point for you. The would doesn't minimize his omnipotence, just makes it more malignant. He throws Deckard against the far wall. Deckard FIRES. Hits Batty in the shoulder. BATTY Ho ho! Try it again! He comes at Deckard, jerking back and forth, a cobra in fast motion, faking, weaving, yelping with excitement as Deckard tries to get a shot, FIRING AWAY until his laser's empty. Bloody and crazed, Batty pushes up against him. BATTY What's wrong? Don't you like me? I'm what we've made! INT. TENTH FLOOR HALL - NIGHT 116 He's backing Deckard out the door. Deckard trips and falls. There's fear on his face. The strength is gone. Something is starting to crack. BATTY What's wrong? Aren't you a lover of Faster, Bigger and Better?! Deckard's pedaling backwards over the floor. BATTY It's time to die. Deckard throws the laser at him. It misses. Batty throws his head back and laughs. A one-eyed colossus about to eat the world. Suddenly he stops. His eye moves over the wall. BATTY Ah! He reaches out and pinches something. His lips compress as he yanks it out of the wall. It's a ten-penny nail. He holds it out to Deckard and drops it. Deckard catches it. BATTY That's for you. One side of Batty's face smiles savagely. BATTY Stick it in your ear and push. If that doesn't work, try the eye. Deckard stares at the nail in his hand, then up at his executioner. BATTY Believe me, it'll be better for you than what I'm about to do. Batty watches him, hoping the stimulus might inspire his victim to more action. It doesn't look like it. BATTY Well? Deckard springs to his feet and bolts. But instead of going for the stairwell he turns in the first available door. INT. TENTH FLOOR APARTMENT #2 - NIGHT 117 Provocation accomplished. Batty smiles and walks lei- surely towards the door. Deckard's terrified scream and the SOUND of GLASS CRASHING stop him. Batty speeds up and moves into the room. The window pane is splattered, curtains sucked out, bellowing in the wind. BATTY Crap. He walks up to the window. Deckard comes away from the wall, inching up behind him, laser in both hands, aimed at the base of Batty's skull. Batty starts to lean over, but even before his eyes see the pavement, he knows. He spins... Deckard FIRES again. This one goes home. Batty falls like he was poleaxed, hits the floor dead weight. Deckard starts to tremble. His arms go limp as his head tilts back and he closes his eyes. He can breathe again. On the floor, Batty's hand is crawling toward Deckard's ankle. With the unsuspected abruptness of a man slipping on a banana peel, Deckard comes down. Face knotted in hor- ror, he EMPTIES THE LASER in Batty's body -- but the hand holds on. With a screech of frustration he drops the laser and like an animal claws at Batty's dead fingers -- but the fingers are welded shut. Deckard starts to crawl, pulling Batty behind him. He struggled through the door and stumbles to his feet. INT. TENTH FLOOR HALL - NIGHT 118 Deckard plunges down the corridor dragging Batty along. He falls, gets to one foot, falls again and crawls the last couple feet to the stairwell. INT. TENTH FLOOR STAIRWELL - NIGHT 119 Groaning, he tugs and pulls, hauls and heaves Batty's body to the edge of the landing. He pauses for breath, then lays back, wedging his feet against Batty's shoul- ders and pushes. Inch by inch the body goes over the edge. Then all at once it drops. But the hand holds and the weight of the body takes Deckard with it. As Deckard slides over the edge, he grabs hold of the railing. Deckard's hanging three hundred feet over the basement floor, supporting himself and Batty's corpse -- almost four hundred pounds of stress on his fingers. With his free foot he chops away at Batty's hand, try- ing to break it loose. But it's not working. Deckard's fingers are starting to slip. His face is a mask of agony as he wedges his heel over Batty's thumb. With the help of gravity and everything he's got in his right leg to push with, he pushes. The thumb breaks loose. Batty falls. The SOUND OF HIS BODY HITTING BELOW sounds good, but Deckard doesn't notice. He's in an awkward position. He must reverse the way he's facing to pull himself up. He lets go with his right hand and crosses it over the left. Then turns the left around so he's got an over- hand grip. Like a man doing his last pull-up... the one that can't be done, Deckard pulls himself up, throws a foot over the edge and grapples and heaves and wiggled himself onto the cold solid steel of the stairwell landing. And lies there, body jerking spasmodically, slowly clenching and unclenching his cramped hand, but it's his burning cheek against the cool metal he's most aware of. Dizzy, hot, lungs on fire, he stands -- and putting one foot in front of the other, Deckard descends the stairs. EXT. SEBASTIAN'S BUILDING - DAWN 120 Slowly the door pushes open and Deckard comes out into the morning. The sun isn't yet risen, but the sky has begun to pale. It's a brooding gray stew of a dawn not very pretty, but even though he can't show it, Deckard is glad to see it. For a moment he tilts his head back and takes some breath, then walks across the courtyard towards the street, so dead on his feet he hasn't the energy to fall. Deckard slumps into the shelter of his car. The col- lapses on the front seat. INT. DECKARD'S BEDROOM - DAWN 121 In a corner of the dimness Deckard sits slumped on a chair, facing the pearly gray light of the window. The only SOUND in the room is the soft steady BREATHING that comes from the bed. Quietly he gets up and walks over to her. Rachael lies sleeping, one delicate arm exposed from under the sheet. Deckard stands there, bettered and grim, staring down at her. Moments go by and finally he sits gently on the edge of the bed. Rachael opens her eyes, and looks up at him, she smiles. EXT. COUNTRYSIDE (MONTAGE) - DAY 122 Deckard's car is skimming over the narrow highway. He and Rachael in the front seat. Except for the occasion- al glance, their faces are still and quiet in the cold shine of an icy dream. The clouds overhead are soft and swift. DECKARD (V.O.) She wanted to go to a place I knew. Out of the city. Like one of those pictures she saw. Where there were trees but no buildings. Rachael's face in the window watching the woods stream by. DECKARD (V.O.) We had a good time. She told me a funny story and I taught her a song. A song about monkeys and elephants. And it made us laugh so hard we couldn't sing. EXT. WOODS (MONTAGE) - DAY 123 Deckard and Rachael walking. The land lays white and hushed before them. Down an aisle of maples and beeches. The frosty light slanting through the clean, hard limbs. The crisp, blue-white snow underfoot melted through in spots exposing soggy patches of rich brown earth. Rachael stops and faces him. Her lips are parted, her warm breath turning the cold air to vapor. Looking lithe and fragile by these barren-rooted trees, she stands in the crisp white snow looking at Deckard. Nothing in her retreats, even now her eyes insist on knowing. EXT. WOODS - DAY 124 Deckard walking over the snow. Alone. He walks slowly, mechanically through the cold, unaffected by it. His gaunt face, empty of expression except for the tears running down his pale cheeks. But for the SQUEAK of his wet shoes over the crusted snow, there is no sound. And Deckard recedes into the silence of the freezing white landscape. EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT 125 Deckard's car, solid, THROBBING, GUNNING along like some metal animal. Headlights piercing the dark of the long, flat road. WHISTLING speed of air and tires spin- ning THRUM. And then silence. And the silence astounded by the CRACK OF A GUN. INT. CAR - NIGHT 126 Deckard is behind the wheel, face in shadow, eyes star- ing straight ahead. DECKARD (V.O.) I told myself over and over again, if I hadn't done it, they would have. I didn't go back to the city, not that city, I didn't want the job. She said the great advantage of being alive was to have a choice. And she chose. And a part of me was almost glad. Not because she was gone but because this way they could never touch her. As for Tyrell -- he was murdered, but he wasn't dead. For a long time I wanted to kill him. But what was the point? There were too many Tyrells. But only one Rachael. Maybe real and unreal could never be separated. The secret never found. But I got as close with her as I'd ever come to it. She'd stay with me a long time. I guess we made each other real. And the ruby lights of Deckard's car disappear into the darkness. THE END
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+BLADE ----- by David S. Goyer Darkness, BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAMS. Presentation credits roll as we FADE UP ON: INT. HOSPITAL, INNER-CITY TRAUMA WARD - NIGHT It's 1967, the Summer of Love and -- BOOM! Entry doors swing open as PARAMEDICS wheel in a FEMALE BLEEDER, VANESSA (20s, black, nine months pregnant). She's deathly pale, spewing founts of blood from a savagely slashed throat -- A SHOCK-TRAUMA TEAM swarms over her, inserting a vacutainer into an artery to draw blood, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around her arm -- NURSE #1 (with stethoscope) She's not breathing! SENIOR RESIDENT Intubate her! The RESPIRATORY THERAPIST feeds an endotracheal tube down the woman's ruined throat, attaches that to an Amblu bag -- RESIDENT Blood-pressure's forty and falling -- The woman starts spasming violently. It takes three staff members just to hold her down. SENIOR RESIDENT Jesus, her water's broken -- (calling for help) She's going into uterine contractions -- CAMERA PUSHES IN on the woman as she bolts upright, SCREAMING to wake the dead. We PLUNGE INTO the darkness of her mouth and find ourselves -- INSIDE HER BLOODSTREAM The sound of a HEART BEATING, pounding as we whip-snake through -- CORPUSCLES floating in amber plasma. Erythrocytes, leukocytes, neutrophils and eosinophils. The rhythmic expansion of the artery walls, pulsing with each successive surge of blood as the HEART BEATS FASTER AND FASTER, taking us -- IN UTERO, A CHILD, alive but unborn, shifting in a sea of amniotic fluid, surrounded by the white, protective substance known as vernix caseosa. The HEARTBEAT races like a locomotive now. The unborn child shifts, turns its head towards us -- -- and opens its eyes. CUT TO: A SWORDBLADE cleaving the darkness, radiant light slicing across gleaming Damascus steel. Words acid-etched in the weapon's fine-tempered surface: BLADE Main credits end. EXT. INNER CITY, INDUSTRIAL GHETTO - NIGHT A decaying no man's land populated by condemned buildings and HUNGRY HOMELESS. Steam rises from manhole covers, drifting across the litter- lined streets. Suddenly -- A black Mercedes 850 appears over the crest of a hill, ROARING past us, stereo system belting out FILTER. INT. MERCEDES - NIGHT Raquel, a wasp-wasted woman, sits behind the wheel. 20s, rich, sickeningly attractive. Hungry eyes. Squirming around in the passenger seat is DENNIS, a model/actor boy- toy with a sub-zero IQ and a "fuck me sideways" grin. DENNIS So where we going? RAQUEL It's a surprise. DENNIS I likes surprises. Raquel eyeballs Dennis -- "if looks could devour". RAQUEL What do you have down there, little man? DENNIS Heat-seeker. RAQUEL I'll bet. Raquel slides a manicured hand up his thigh, squeezes his groin. Dennis MOANS. She pulls her hand away, downshifts. EXT. VACANT LOT - NIGHT The 850 threads a narrow alley into a vacant lot, BRAKES hard. Raquel and Dennis climb out. She leads him into -- EXT. MEAT PACKING PLANT - NIGHT Industry never sleeps, and certainly not this grisly facility. Raquel leads Dennis around the back of the plant, where a host of WORKERS are loading refrigerated trucks with product. DENNIS What the fuck are we doing here? Raquel just smiles, heads on into the plant via a loading door. The workers ignore her. INT. MEAT PACKING PLANT - NIGHT Dennis follows Raquel through the bowels of the plant, catching glimpses here and there of carcasses being rendered or hacked apart. Through one partially open door we see what might be a line of BODYBAGS being trundled into the back of a truck via a hook and chain pulley-system. But Dennis doesn't have enough time to be disturbed by the vision, because he's being pulled away by Raquel, led down -- A STAIRWELL We are in the basement now. At the end of the hall is a steel door, with perhaps, just the faintest HINT OF MUSIC heard coming from beyond. Raquel knocks. A "peep-hole" slat opens and a BLACK LIGHT shines into Raquel's eyes. A VOICE behind the door offers a verbal challenge, speaking a language we've never heard, laced with a devilish cadence. Raquel responds in kind. The door opens. Raquel gives Dennis a knowing wink, enters. Dennis follows. INT. CLUB - NIGHT Raquel and Dennis move past a hulking DOORMAN, making their way down a narrow stairway. Dennis is suitably impressed. THE CLUB is elite, underground -- an "abattoir-chic" version of an old-time juke joint with a greasy, dangerous vibe. White-tiled walls and floors for easy hosing, chromed fittings, run-off gutters, drains. No bar. BODIES writhe on the strobe-lit dance floor. A heavy S&M scene. Leather. Latex. Tattoos. Body-piercings. A D.J. wearing head-mounted spotlights orchestrates the tunes on twin- decks. MUSIC assaults us -- a beat so heavy it could jar the fillings from your teeth. Brutal "DARKCORE" along the lines of Prodigy or Underground. Raquel pulls Dennis out onto the dance floor. They sway. A lupine-featured GAULTIER GIRL with a streak of white running through her raven hair moves in behind Dennis, pressing up against him. Rachel Williams as the Angel of Death -- we'll call her MERCURY. Mercury flicks her tongue against Dennis' ear -- it's been pierced with a silver post which clicks against her teeth. Tattooed across her back in black is a swirling, tribal vortex. Dennis is now sandwiched between Raquel and Mercury, the three of them dry-humping their way to every man's glory. The beat gets LOUDER. The action heavier. The atmosphere more narcotic. People are stripping off their clothes, sweating like fiends. It's a virtual orgy. Dennis laughs, reveling in the hedonism. Everything rises to a fever pitch -- DENNIS (over the music) Fuck, I need a drink!!! Raquel just smiles -- then Dennis notices a DROP OF SOMETHING spatter his hand. It looks like blood. Dennis looks up, concerned -- -- MORE BLOOD DROPLETS are falling. Raquel's face is sprinkled with them now. Dennis stops dancing. What is this? Some kind of fucked up performance art? Raquel turns her face toward the ceiling, as if washing herself in a summer shower, now the other club goers are looking up too -- BLOOD SHOWERS DOWN from sprinkler heads in the ceiling, drenching the dancers. The club goers love it, thrusting their heads back, mouths open wide to receive the crimson offering. Horrified, Dennis recoils, turning towards -- RAQUEL, whose face morphs into a preternatural snarl. Her canines extend, tapering to razor-sharp points. Her tongue flicks, lizard-like as fingernails sharpen into claws. All this while the whites of her eyes BLEED RED, pupils oscillating hypnotically. RAQUEL What's wrong, baby? Dennis SCREAMS, pushes away from Raquel, only -- -- Mercury has fangs now too. In fact, everyone in the club does, with the exception of poor Dennis. That's because they're all vampires. Dennis tries to run, but the burly Doorman blocks his exit, brutally smashing his fist into Dennis' face. Dennis falls, dazed. The club-goers close in around him. They make a game of it, shoving him from one person to another, their pale faces leering like twisted jack-o-lanterns. The strobe lights quicken to a seizure-inducing intensity. Dennis spins, tumbling into Raquel's arms. She shoves him forward -- Dennis lands on the floor, falling at someone's boot-clad feet. He looks up. A DARK FIGURE sits in the shadows, unnoticed until this moment. The figure stands, moves into the light as time screeches to a halt -- A BLACK MAN, towers above Dennis, wearing dark glasses and a leather longcoat -- a sneer of cruel contempt etched upon a face tempered by a lifetime of horror. His name is BLADE. Blade whips open his long coat, shrugging it off, revealing an arsenal of high-tech weapons strapped to his body: 6-point adjustable body armor, a modified CAR-15 assault rifle with an ultra-violet entry light, two Casull .454 revolvers, a "Demon" automatic cross-bow, a bandoleer of mahogany stakes, an Indian-style katar punching dagger -- and last, but certainly not least, his namesake -- a silver sword which is secured in a back-scabbard. CLOSE ON BLADE A gaze as cold and pitiless as a midnight sun. The vampire club-goers stare back. Nuclear silence. And then -- All hell breaks loose. With a SNARL, Raquel charges at Blade, moving at superhuman speed, practically a blur -- Blade draws his Casulls, FIRES in multiple directions -- MACRO BULLET SHOT as a round roars through the air towards Raquel. A silver-tipped dum- dum bullet which explodes on contact. WHAM! The round punches a fist-sized hole through Raquel's chest, continuing on into the vamp behind her! Vampire blood fountains. Both creatures tumble forward, their bodies liquefying into puddles of black oil which go gurgling down the run-off drains. Blade continues FIRING, then -CLICK!- magazines empty. Next. He holsters the Casulls, swings up his assault rifle, calmly flicks on the UV entry light mounted above -- MERCURY leaps twenty feet straight up into the air. We've never seen anything move so fast. She CRASHES through a glass skylight, disappearing into the night just as -- -- a shaft of blinding UV "sunlight" cuts across the vampires. They rear back, skin smoking from the light's corrosive effects. Blade opens FIRE, pumping round after round of wooden fragmentation bullets into the crowd -- vampire genocide. The strobe lights flicker as the mayhem mounts. Some of the vampires try to flee, scurrying up the stairs, but the exit quickly becomes clogged with liquefying bodies -- -- then Blade's CAR-15 jams. The remaining club-goers see their opening, surge forward en masse -- Blade drops the rifle, reaches over his shoulder and -SCHINGGG!- unsheathes his sword with a double-handed grip. THE SWORD Four acid-etched feet of blood-soaked Damascus steel. An edge so sharp it could cleave a shadow in two. Blade moves like lightning, hacking his way into TWO CHARGING VAMPIRES. Blade spins again, cuts ANOTHER VAMPIRE clean in half -- ON THE FAR END OF THE CLUB, a LATEX-CLAD VAMP makes a break for it. Blade flings his sword, sending it spinning end over end -- THUNK! The sword punches into the vampire's heart. The hellish creature convulses, dies. Beat. Blade retrieves his sword, then senses -- SOMETHING BIG rising up behind him. In a flash, Blade swings his sword downward, cutting off the vampire's right hand at the elbow. The severed limb falls to the floor -- -- but it doesn't slow the hulking creature down. It SLAMS into Blade. Blade flies backwards thirty feet, tumbling over tables, slamming into the rear wall so hard that plaster rains down from the ceiling. Blade suddenly finds himself wrestling with a feral-faced six-foot- something nightmare named QUINN. The vampire rears back its head, jaws stretching wide. Every inch of his face is covered with ritual scarification patterns and Maori-like tribal tattoos. Blade forces an elbow against Quinn's throat, trying to keep him at bay. With his other hand he reaches to his bandoleer, pulls out a stake -- CRUNCH! Blade shoves the stake through the vampire's larynx. Quinn gurgles, clutches at his throat. Blade rolls out from under, unholsters the cross-bow secured to his leg. With a flick of a switch the arms of the bow -SNAP!- open, drawing the bow-string taut. Blade FIRES -- The bolt hits Quinn in the shoulder, throwing him backwards and nailing him to the wall. As Quinn reaches over with his other hand to pull out the stake -- Blade FIRES AGAIN. A second bolt slams into Quinn's other arm, effectively pinning him like a butterfly to a board. UP ABOVE, mounted in one of the corners, is a security camera. Blade fires a cross-bow bolt straight into the lens. Blade strides over, placing his sword against Quinn's chest. BLADE Where is Deacon Frost? Quinn glares, trying to speak, gagging on the stake still lodged in his trachea -- BLADE Got something in your throat. Blade yanks the stake free. The vampire laughs, air whistling through his ruined larynx. QUINN Fuck you, Day-walker, I ain't saying shit -- BLADE Frost. Quinn responds with a slew of rapid-fire vampire invectives. Blade sees he's getting nowhere fast, calmly sheathes his sword. He unclips a white phosphorous grenade from his combat harness -- QUINN You won't stop him, Blade. The Tide's rising, the Sleeper's gonna -- Blade shoves the grenade in Quinn's mouth, pulls the pin. WHOOSH! Quinn goes up like a roman candle. Blade turns, surveying his work, ignoring the howling pyre behind him: All evidence of the vampires is gone -- with the exception of a few oily-black puddles. Clothes, jewelry -- it's all been burned away by the acidic process of the creatures' accelerated decomposition. DENNIS sits huddled in a corner, having pissed his pants. As Blade approaches, he cringes back -- DENNIS Please don't -- Blade simply grabs Dennis by the jaw, tilting his head upward, rotating it from side to side -- looking for bite marks. There aren't any. Blade moves on, leaving Dennis alone amidst the carnage. As Blade starts up the stairs, he pauses in mid-step -- A COCKROACH scurries out from underfoot. Blade adjusts his footfall, sparing the roach. He continues on up the stairs, disappearing in the smoky haze. CUT TO: INT. CITY HOSPITAL, AUTOPSY ROOM - NIGHT CAMERA FOLLOWS a bagged corpse as it's rolled into the autopsy room by an ASSISTANT. ASSISTANT Brought you a baked potato, nice and crispy. Still warm, too. CURTIS WEBB, the forensic pathologist (30s, white bread, a little on the smarmy side) steps forward, unzips the bag -- It's Quinn, what's left of him, anyway. Burnt to a charcoal briquette, limbs twisted horribly, oozing fluids. Curtis turns his head, grimacing, wafting the air. CURTIS Jesus, that's rank -- Curtis turns back, makes note of the blackened stump where Quinn's arm used to be, the ruined throat -- CURTIS What's his story? ASSISTANT Paramedics said he was still screaming when they found him. Looks like some joker had stapled him to a wall. CURTIS Pretty. CUT TO: INT. HOSPITAL, HEMATOLOGY LAB - NIGHT MICROSCOPE POV of a slide-mounted blood smear stained with Wright stain (blue ink). What we see is a collection of donut-shaped pink things (red blood cells) intermingled with some small blue specks (platelets) and the occasional larger, light-blue blobs (white blood cells). KAREN JANSEN (20s), a fine-featured hematologist with a social life in suspended animation, sits back from the microscope, stumped. Next to her is JULIE WHITAKER, a cheerful chemtech. KAREN You took this off a DOA? Curtis sits on a stool nearby, slowly nodding. KAREN This isn't human blood. CURTIS Then what is it? KAREN I don't know -- (re: microscope) Look at this blood smear -- Curtis takes a look for himself. KAREN The red blood cells are biconvex, which is theoretically impossible. They're hypochromic, there's virtually no hemoglobin in them. (shaking her head) Look at the PMNs, they're binucleated, they should be mononucleated. CURTIS What about the chemistry panel? Karen looks to Julie, who reaches for a computer print-out. JULIE Blood sugar level is three times the norm, phosphorous and uric acid are off the scales. (shrugs) Like the woman said, impossible. Karen removes her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose. KAREN Curtis, it's three in the morning. I'm really not in the mood for one of your practical jokes. CURTIS (insistent) It's not a joke. I've got the stiff sitting in the morgue right now -- look, just come up and see him, okay? Five minutes, that's all I ask. KAREN I thought you promised to give me some distance? CURTIS This is purely professional curiosity, Karen, I swear. Karen rolls her eyes, lets loose a tired sigh. KAREN Five minutes, not a second more. And I don't want to hear a word about "us". CURTIS No problem. INT. HOSPITAL MORGUE - NIGHT The dead of night, not a mouse in the house. Curtis and Karen, each garbed in a mask, stand on either side of Quinn's body, which now rests on the autopsy table. QUINN'S BODY A preliminary exploratory Y-incision has been made across the chest, stretching from shoulder to shoulder, then continuing on down the abdomen. Ribs and cartilage have been cut open to expose the heart and lungs. KAREN You haven't started in on the internal organs? CURTIS Just the blood sample from the pericardial sac. Curtis pauses, studying Quinn's disfigured face -- the features seem much less damaged now -- almost as if the corpse were healing itself. CURTIS That's weird -- KAREN What? CURTIS He looks different now, burns are less extreme, some of these wounds have closed up -- Curtis pulls out a penlight, flicks it on. He leans over Quinn, shining the light into one of his eyes. CURTIS Tell me something, honestly, you ever have second thoughts about us? KAREN (grudgingly) Sometimes -- Curtis looks up from the corpse, grinning beneath his mask. KAREN -- but then I remember what an ass-hole you were and I'm snapped back to reality. CURTIS Jesus, Karen, you're breaking my heart here -- Quinn suddenly bolts up from the autopsy table, sinking his fangs into Curtis' jugular. He snaps the man's neck in two for easier access, sucking in blood like a living vacuum. Karen stumbles backwards, sending autopsy tools CLATTERING. QUINN rises from the table, flinging Curtis' twitching body aside. He curls his blood-soaked lips back, baring viper-like fangs, emitting a GUTTURAL GROWL -- QUINN (crazed by thirst) -- more -- blood -- Karen backs into the corpse drawers, but Quinn is upon her in a half- second, wrapping a hand about her throat. His mouth opens/morphs disturbingly wide as if to swallow her head whole, caustic saliva dripping from his canines -- Karen tries to turn her head away, but Quinn's grip is vise-like. She finds herself staring into his eyes -- pupils pulsing rapid-fire, opening and closing, hypnotic -- As Quinn sinks the tips of his fangs into Karen's carotid artery and starts to nurse -- BANG!!! A load of MAHOGANY buckshot chews into Quinn's side. He HOWLS in pain. Another load catches him full in the face. He drops Karen. She falls to the floor -- KAREN'S POV The sound of RUSHING BLOOD pounding through her skull. Everything spinning. She struggles to move, turns her head, finds herself eye to eye with Curtis' corpse. ON QUINN rising, his face torn up, smoking. WHIP PAN TO -- BLADE, standing at the entrance to the morgue, a streetsweeper auto-shotgun in hand, sizing Quinn up. BLADE Now don't we look dapper? Quinn BELLOWS with rage, ripping one of the heavy steel refrigeration doors from its hinges, flinging it at Blade like it was lawn furniture -- Blade rolls to the side as the door CRASHES against the wall. Quinn runs, moving through the morgue like a human tornado, heading for the windows at the end of the room -- SMASH!!! Out goes Quinn, taking half the wall with him. Blade rushes to the decimated window, looks down -- BLADE'S POV Quinn lands on the roof of an ambulance parked four stories below, caving it in. He springs off, loping across the tarmac on three limbs, then -SCREECH!-THWUMP!- rolling up onto the hood of an oncoming car, before disappearing into the night -- BACK UP ABOVE, Blade spins, SEES Karen bleeding her life away on the floor. She reaches a hand out to him, beseeching -- Blade pulls away from her grasp, takes a step towards the exit -- then hesitates. A flicker of doubt washes across Blade's face. He looks down at Karen once more, wrestling with his conscience, finally making a decision. He kneels, scoops Karen up into his arms. Just then, TWO POLICEMEN rush into the morgue, weapons drawn -- UNIFORM #1 Hold it, ass-hole! Blade ignores them, turning to face the window before him. It's a good thirty feet to the roof of the adjacent building, a parking structure -- and damned if Blade doesn't seem to be considering the jump. The Police close in, agitated. Blade crouches, switches Karen to a one-handed grip -- UNIFORM #1 I said hold it!!! -- and jumps. EXT. HOSPITAL/ROOFTOP PARKING STRUCTURE - NIGHT Blade clears the impossible distance -- almost. He snags the ledge of the adjacent parking structure with his left hand even as Karen slips from the grasp of his right -- -- a last-second save, his fingers clamping around her wrist, is all that stands between Karen and street pizza. She SCREAMS anyway, dangling below him -- Blade GRUNTS, swinging Karen like a pendulum, heaving her up and over the ledge as if she were a sack of potatoes. She lands on her shoulder, clutching it in pain -- Blade heaves himself up, crouching beside her. KAREN (gasping) My shoulder -- dislocated -- Blade places a hand on her shoulder, another around her elbow and without any consideration to discomfort -CRACK!- brutally pops it back in place. Karen SCREAMS again as he scoops her up once more and heads for -- HIS '69 OLDSMOBILE 442, which is parked nearby. Midnight-black. The definitive high- performance heavy-metal muscle machine with an engine big enough to power an Apollo rocket. INT. BLADE'S OLDS - NIGHT Blade sets Karen down in the passenger seat, climbs behind the wheel, keys the ignition. The engine ROARS to life, belching fumes through the dual exhaust. Blade floors it, burning serious rubber as the Olds vanishes from sight. BACK AT THE DEMOLISHED MORGUE WINDOW as the two policemen stare numbly in open-mouthed astonishment. CUT TO: EXT. CITY STREETS - NIGHT Blade pilots the Olds down the streets, moving through a series of increasingly degenerating neighborhoods, coming at last to the sprawling warehouse district. EXT. ABANDONED FACTORY - NIGHT The Olds approaches a mammoth industrial facility that's been cordoned off by cyclone fencing and razor wire. Ultra-violet floodlights illuminate the area, while an army of security cameras keep a watchful eye. INT. BLADE'S OLDS - NIGHT Blade glances at Karen, cursing himself for giving into his emotions. He hits a remote secured to the sun visor -- EXT. BLADE'S OLDS/ABANDONED FACTORY - NIGHT A gate grinds open. We follow the Olds as it cruises around the back of the building, heading down a concrete loading ramp. At the bottom of the ramp, a heavy iron door rises. Blade's Olds disappears into the darkness. INT. ABANDONED FACTORY, INDUSTRIAL ELEVATOR - NIGHT More UV lights flicker on. We're in a massive loading elevator which HUMS as it ascends, eventually reaching its destination with a BOOMING CLANG. The doors at the rear glide open. Blade guides the Olds out. INT. ABANDONED FACTORY, WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT Set up in an old ironworks, the place looks like a cross between an auto junkyard and an armory. Equipment is strewn everywhere -- lathes, mills, old furnaces, gutted vehicles, an ad hoc surgical theater -- all of it jerry-rigged in a brutal, oily-tech. Blade climbs out of the Olds. He opens the passenger door and pulls Karen out, carries her in his arms. BLADE Whistler! WHISTLER (O.S.) Are we bringing home strays now? ABRAHAM WHISTLER (60s) hobbles out of the shadows, leaning heavily on a cane. Gimlet-eyed, bitter, his right leg encased in a metal brace. Though his face is lined with wrinkles and his hair has long since gone gray, we sense he could kick the living shit out of any man half his age. BLADE She's been bitten. WHISTLER You should've killed her, then. BLADE She hasn't turned yet. (pointedly) You can help her. Blade and Whistler stare each other down. Finally, Whistler turns and heads over to the operating theater. WHISTLER No promises. You watch her close. She starts to turn, you finish her off. Blade nods, lays Karen down on the operating table. Whistler turns on an overhead light. Karen is sheathed in sweat, ashen. She's lost a lot of blood. Whistler snaps on a pair of surgical gloves, probes the wound in Karen's neck with an antiseptic swab -- there's capillary damage around the perimeter of the wound, the tissue looks bruised, gangrenous. WHISTLER Localized necrosis. She's borderline. Another hour and she'd be well into the change. Whistler cracks open a smelling salt capsule and waves under Karen's nose. As she starts to stir -- WHISTLER Can you hear me, woman? Karen's eyes open wide. She's scared, disoriented -- KAREN What -- ? WHISTLER You've been bitten by a vampire. We've got to try and burn out the venom, just like a rattlesnake bite -- Whistler reaches for a massive syringe filled with caustic-looking fluid. Karen sees the syringe, resists -- WHISTLER Hold her. Blade forces Karen back. Whistler readies the syringe. WHISTLER (reading her name tag) "Dr. Karen Jansen". Listen close, I'm going to inject you with an antidote made from allium setivum -- garlic. This is going to hurt. A lot. Whistler sinks the needle into Karen's neck and depresses the plunger. "Hurt" doesn't begin to describe what Karen experiences next. Imagine undergoing childbirth while someone pumps battery acid through your veins. Karen SHRIEKS, her body going into uncontrolled paroxysms. The wound on her neck begins to smoke as the antidote attacks the poisonous vampire venom. Karen clutches at Blade's arms, digging her nails in. She stares up at him with unflinching intensity, like a child desperately searching for assurance. ON BLADE, uncomfortable playing the roll of nursemaid. He'd like nothing more than to be done with this, but the only thing he can do is hold Karen while she rides out the seizures. KAREN'S POV growing darker by the moment. The last thing she sees is Blade staring down at her -- then the night closes in. INT. HOUSE OF EREBUS, MEETING ROOM - NIGHT CLOSE ON a monitor featuring footage taken at the vampire club massacre. Blade turns and stares into the camera, fires his cross- bow. The screen cuts to static. A WITHERED, CLAWED HAND moves into frame, holding a remote. With a tap of a button, the monitor goes dark. PULL BACK TO REVEAL a large, minimalist conference room -- the House of Erebus, seat of the vampire race's legislative assembly. Gathered around a massive table are the TWELVE VAMPIRE ELDERS, representing a "rainbow" of racial colors -- names like PALLINTINE, VON ESPER, ASHE, BAVA. Two of them, the FAUSTINAS, are identical twins -- lethal-looking women with alabaster skin. Chilled carafes filled with blood are situated along the table. From time to time, a member will pour themselves a glass, or perhaps, help themselves to the bowls of human finger bones which serve as snacks. At the head of the table is GAETANO DRAGONETTI, current vampire "Overlord". Blood-red eyes, parchment skin stretched over skull-like features. Incalculably ancient, but still deadly and virile as a viper. Dragonetti speaks. He uses the "secret tongue" -- the ancient vampire language which utilizes consonants human vocal chords are incapable of reproducing. DRAGONETTI (subtitled) Blade. Once again, our interests have fallen victim to his ridiculous crusade. He must be destroyed. FROST (O.S.) (in English) You're wrong, Dragonetti. All heads turn. Who would dare such impudence? DEACON FROST, a mere "Underlord" in the vampire hierarchy, steps forward. Strikingly handsome, younger, less conservative than his superiors, fueled with a passionate intensity. Amongst the vampire community he's known as an agitator. He's also the vampire equivalent of a racial supremacist. FROST The Day Walker represents a unique opportunity. We'd be fools to waste it by killing him. DRAGONETTI (subtitled, taking umbrage) Deacon Frost. You refuse to speak our language, you insult the House of Erebus by using the humans' gutter-tongue, have you no respect for tradition? FROST Why should I respect something which has outlived its purpose? This causes quite a stir amongst the other vampires. Frost might as well have slapped Dragonetti in the face. DRAGONETTI (simmering) I see. And what would you have us do with this "half-breed"? FROST Study him. Unlock the secrets of his DNA. He's the key we've been looking for. DRAGONETTI He is an abomination! Dragonetti slams his fist down, toppling a carafe, spilling blood across the tabletop. Frost looks to the others -- FROST Why should we spend our lives cringing from the daylight when his blood offers us an alternative? Enough talk. It's time we stepped out of the shadows! Dragonetti looks apoplectic. ELDER PALLINTINE, a five-hundred year- old vampire inhabiting the body of a prepubescent boy, interjects. PALLINTINE You're out of line, Frost. FROST Am I? Or am I just the first to say out loud what we've all been thinking? The fact that no one answers is telling. Dragonetti glowers at the other Elders, sensing the tide turning. DRAGONETTI The shadows suit us, Frost. We've existed this way for thousands of years. Who are you to challenge our ways? FROST Someone who's sick of living off scraps. The coming age belongs to us, not the humans! (to the others) When the final war between our races comes, who do you want leading the charge? Frost stabs an accusing finger at the Overlord. FROST Some withered up fossil ready to snap like a brittle bone at the first sign of change? Dragonetti GROWLS like an beast, raking his claws across the tyro vampire's face, knocking him to the ground. DRAGONETTI Get out!!! Frost picks himself up, touches the gashes on his cheek. Looks at his fingers, licks the blood from them. FROST Careful, old fang. You might wake up one day and find yourself extinct. Frost smiles at Dragonetti and calmly exits the room. INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP, BLADE'S CELL - DAY ON KAREN as she comes to. Her wounds have been bandaged. She rises, a little shaky, takes in her surroundings -- She's in a spartan room, like a monk's cell. On the wall is a collection of knives and daggers. Some of them wooden, their hilts inscribed with bizarre- looking runes. In the center of these weapons rests -- BLADE'S SWORD, hanging like a cross in a chapel, dominating all else. Karen touches it. Then her eyes drop to a silver locket which dangles from the hilt by a tarnished chain. She reaches for it, opens it -- The locket features a photo, old and faded. It's the black woman we saw in the prologue, Vanessa, standing in the sunshine. Karen moves towards the door, cautious -- INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - DAY We hear VOICES now, coming from beyond a series of black-out curtains. Karen pushes one aside and SEES -- BLADE strapped into some kind of Inquisition-esque restraint chair. His shirt is off, his body slick with sweat. Whistler finishes strapping Blade in, then stands back, holding up a gas-powered pistol injector, hesitant -- WHISTLER I had to increase the dose. You're building up a resistance to the serum -- BLADE (impatient) Just do it, old man. Whistler nods, fitting Blade with a bite guard. Then he presses the pistol-injector against Blade's carotid artery. Blade shakes violently, grinding his teeth through the bite guard, veins cording in his neck. He clutches Whistler's hand, holding it tightly as he fights his way through the hellish seizure. To his credit, Whistler never lets go. Mentor and student stare at one another as the mysterious serum runs its violent course. We understand that these shared moments, oddly private in their horror, are the glue which binds the two vampire hunters together. Finally, Blade slumps forward in his restraints, exhausted. KAREN She draws back, instinctively knowing that she's just witnessed something she shouldn't have. She looks for an exit, SEES another doorway. She makes for it -- INT. WHISTLER'S LAB - TANK ROOM - DAY A dusty, darkened hole of a room, no windows, just shadows, crumbling concrete, rust stains, and -- A LARGE TANK filled with swirling blood plasma, choked with electrical leads and biomedical sensors. SOMETHING floats within, suspended in the murky fluid -- a child , two or three years of age, drifting about like a medical oddity preserved in formaldehyde -- THUMP! The child SLAMS up against the glass. Karen backpedals, startled. Its eyes are open now, pupils blown. It snarls, revealing a mouthful of razored fangs, trailing mouth-slime across the glass as it futilely tries to chew its way through to Karen. Karen stifles a sob, turning and running right into -- BLADE, who now blocks the exit, sword in hand. Karen retreats a step, wary -- BLADE You shouldn't be here. KAREN I'm sorry, I -- WHISTLER (O.S.) Wandered off the beaten path, Doctor? Whistler has entered the room from a second doorway. Karen looks from Whistler to Blade, trapped between them -- KAREN Who are you people? WHISTLER My name is Abraham Whistler. (re: Blade) This is Blade. As for our little homunculus here -- Whistler limps over to the tank, rapping his cane against it. The creature snaps at it reflexively, following the silver tip back and forth like a fish after a lure. BLADE -- he's a vampire. KAREN You're joking -- WHISTLER Not at all. You're looking at a prime specimen of the homines nocturna. Whistler toys with the feral creature, engaging in a certain amount of sadistic delight as its efforts grow increasingly more frenzied. Suddenly, it surges towards the top of the tank, clawing at the lid -- Karen becomes alarmed -- but then a massive ELECTRICAL JOLT shocks the creature back into submission. WHISTLER If Blade hadn't brought you here, you would've wound up like him. Karen brings a hand to her bandaged neck, recalling the events of the previous night. She looks to Blade. KAREN Why did you help me? Blade scowls, his gaze flickering to Whistler. BLADE Stupidity. WHISTLER (appraising her) Maybe not. I did some checking, she's a hematologist. Knowledge like that might come in handy. BLADE It's not worth the risk. We can't trust her. KAREN Why? BLADE Because you're tainted. The venom's still inside you. You could still turn on us. KAREN What happens then? Blade looks to Whistler -- as far as he's concerned, the debate's over. BLADE Then I have to take you out, just like any other bloodsucker. Blade turns and exits. Whistler and Karen follow. INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - DAY Beyond the grimy outer windows, we can see that the day is closing -- long shadows, amber light. Karen lingers in the doorway, reeling from information overload. Blade begins suiting up for his nightly hunt -- strapping on body armor, loading ammunition. He strings the tarnished locket around his neck as if it were an amulet that could ward off evil, then pauses to inspect a modified pistol, sighting down the length of it. BLADE We hunt them, moving from one city to the next, tracking their migrations. They're hard to kill. They tend to regenerate. CLACK! Blade pulls the trigger on an empty chamber, then checks his next weapon -- KAREN (sarcastic) So what do you use, then? A stake? WHISTLER (nodding) Some of the old wives' tales are true -- they're severely allergic to silver, various types of wood. Feed them garlic and they'll go into anaphylactic shock -- Whistler picks up a customized rifle with a UV entry light, flicking on the beam. WHISTLER -- and of course there's always sunlight, ultra-violet rays. Karen shakes her head, incredulous -- KAREN And you honestly expect me to believe all this? BLADE I don't care what you believe. I saved your life once, I don't plan on making a habit of it. You want my advice, you'll be out of the city by nightfall. If you're stupid enough to stay, that's your business. KAREN I can't just leave. I have a life here, a career -- BLADE Not anymore. You've seen one of them. You won't be allowed to live after that. Karen stares at Blade. Whistler gestures to the windows -- WHISTLER There's a war going on out there. Blade, myself, a few others -- we've tried to keep it from spilling over onto the streets. (beat) Sometimes people like yourself get caught in the cross-fire. Whistler shrugs. As far as he's concerned, there's nothing else to say. Karen is still protesting, though. KAREN I can go to the police. I have blood samples back at the hospital. I can show them. BLADE Do it. You'll be dead before you can file the complaint. KAREN That's ridiculous! No one's that powerful. Whistler sighs. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. WHISTLER You're talking about a brotherhood that predates the Catholic Church by thousands of years. Their survival depends on their ability to blend in. Chances are, you've encountered them and not even known it. On the subway, in a bar -- Blade slings his CAR-15 onto his shoulder, impatient. He starts towards the Olds, gesturing. BLADE Get in. You’re leaving. WHISTLER Wait. Whistler tosses a small metal canister to Karen. WHISTLER Consider it a parting gift. Vampire mace -- silver nitrate, essence of garlic. KAREN (in disbelief) So that's it? You guys just patch me up and send me on my way? WHISTLER There is one other thing. I'd buy yourself a gun if I were you. If you start becoming sensitive to the daylight, if you start becoming thirsty regardless of much you've had to drink -- then I suggest you take that gun and use it on yourself. Better that, than the alternative. Karen stares at Whistler, horrified, as we -- CUT TO: INT. THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES - DAY We are deep in the narrow stacks of a sepulchral archive. Exactly what and where this place is will become more clear later on. But for now, the CAMERA DRIFTS through the warren of aisles. Along the way, we catch a glimpse of a HULKING SILHOUETTE cowering behind a series of Japanese shoji screens. Later on, we find -- FROST tucked away in a carrel, surrounded by books and scriptures, with only the SICKLY GLOW of his laptop to provide light. DRAGONETTI (O.S.) What are you doing here? Frost pauses, SEEING Dragonetti emerge from the shadows. DRAGONETTI (outraged) These archives are restricted to members of the House of Erebus. FROST Please. You and the other Elders wouldn't know what to do with these texts if your lives depended on it. (cryptically) Which, of course, they do. DRAGONETTI You're wasting your time, Frost. Far greater scholars than you have tried to decipher these words. Whatever secrets they hold have been lost. FROST Perhaps. Frost studies Dragonetti, a self-satisfied grin on his face. If the act was intended to unnerve Dragonetti, it succeeded, though the ancient vampire would never admit it. DRAGONETTI What are you up to, Frost? Frost shuts the lid on his laptop, rising, drawing intimidatingly close to Dragonetti. FROST'S VOICE Wouldn't you like to know, Old Fang? A beat as the young turk stares his elder down. Dragonetti is the first to lose his nerve. Frost smiles and exits, leaving the old vampire to lick his wounds. CAMERA DRIFTS back to the hulking silhouette, which has been eavesdropping on the conversation. It quivers in fear. INT. BLADE'S OLDS (ON KAREN'S STREET CORNER) - DAY Blade brings the car to a stop. Karen looks at him. His eyes are hidden behind his glasses, his expression stone. BLADE Remember what we said. Keep your eyes open. They're everywhere. EXT. KAREN'S APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY As Karen climbs out, Blade swings the door shut behind her. The Olds ROARS off down the quiet residential street. INT. APARTMENT BUILDING, LOBBY - DAY Karen crosses the lobby, stepping into an elevator. Just as the doors are closing, a WOMAN and TWO MEN duck in alongside her. INT. ELEVATOR - DAY Silence, the uncomfortableness of an elevator ride magnified tenfold. Karen can FEEL the eyes of her fellow passengers upon her. Finally succumbing to paranoia, she hazards a glance -- would she be able to tell if these people weren't human? The woman turns to Karen, smiles -- Karen surreptitiously fishes the "vampire mace" from her pocket, clutching it -- and now one of the men turns to look at her, nodding -- INT. KAREN'S APARTMENT BUILDING, HALLWAY - DAY The elevator doors open. Karen hurries out, heads left, finds herself in a deserted hallway. She looks back -- -- then skips a heartbeat as the trio also step out! As Karen raises the canister of mace -- -- the trio turn and head down to the right. Karen breathes a sigh of relief, shakes her head. INT. KAREN'S APARTMENT - DAY Karen enters quickly, bolting the door behind her. She picks up the phone, dials 911 -- KAREN I need the police. This is an emergency -- As Karen waits to be connected, she moves to the back entrance and checks the locks -- then the windows, then the fire escape -- finally, a VOICE comes on the other end. KAREN Hello? My name is Karen Jansen, I was with Curtis Webb at Mid-Town Hospital last night -- that's right, I witnessed the attack -- (listening) 115 Aurora, apartment 3G. Yes, I'll wait here. Please hurry. Karen hangs up the phone and turns -- A SHAFT OF BRIGHT SUNLIGHT streams in through a window. Karen forces herself to look at it and winces, shielding her eyes. Again, she brings a hand to the bandaged wound on her neck. She moves to the window, pulling the shade down, frightened. KAREN Get a grip on yourself, girl. She sinks down into a chair to wait, setting Whistler's vampire mace aside. Then she shuts her eyes, massaging her temples. We SEE -- A BRIEF FLASH OF Quinn, his mouth opening wide, saliva dripping from his fangs. His pupils pulsating hypnotically. We rush into his gaping maw and -- WHAM! We're back to reality. Karen wakes with a start, looks to the windows -- time has passed, it's getting dark outside -- -- and someone is KNOCKING at the front door. Karen reaches for the vampire mace, then moves to the door. She looks through the peephole, cautious -- KAREN Who is it? KAREN'S POV (FISH-EYE) A POLICE OFFICER stands in the hallway -- 30s, handsome, a knight in shining armor as far as she's concerned. GIDEON Sergeant Gideon. I'm responding to a 911 call. Karen visibly relaxes. She opens the door and steps aside, allowing Gideon to enter. KAREN Yes, that was me, I'm Karen Jansen -- Gideon smiles, takes a quick glance around the room, then studies Karen's face, the bandages on her neck. GIDEON Are you all right? (off Karen's nod) I'm glad you called, Ms. Jansen, we've been anxious to get a hold of you. You disappeared on us for a while. KAREN I know. Listen -- do you have any idea what happened to Curtis, the other doctor? GIDEON (matter of fact) Oh, he's dead. But I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. KAREN (alarmed) Why? Gideon's smile vanishes as he unholsters his gun. GIDEON Because you're dead too. Karen GASPS. She has a half-second to act -- in which she triggers a spray of vampire mace into Gideon's face. Gideon stumbles back, blinded, cursing, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eyes -- Karen expects pyrotechnics -- but the end result is little more than an annoyance. A second later, Gideon is simply blinking, sniffing his fingers, confused -- GIDEON Garlic? KAREN He said it would work against vampires -- Gideon bursts out laughing. GIDEON Who said I was a vampire? Gideon shakes his head, still snickering. He forces Karen against the wall, placing the gun against her head -- GIDEON Thanks for the laugh. You can shut your eyes if you want to. CRASH!!! The front door explodes open as Blade comes flying through it! Gideon tries to bring his pistol up -- but Blade grips the man's hand and squeezes. Gideon SCREAMS as his bones snap like kindling. The pistol falls from his grasp -- Blade fires his fist into Gideon's gut again and again, then flings the officer across the room, sending him SMASHING into a glass-cased cabinet. Bleeding, battered, Gideon struggles to stand -- Blade is all over him, kicking the shit out of the rogue cop until he sinks to the floor in a half-conscious haze. Blade stands over Gideon's limp form, fists clenched, breathing heavily, touching down after his adrenaline high. Finally, he looks to Karen -- BLADE You okay? Karen nods, glances at Gideon -- KAREN How did you know? BLADE Figured they'd send someone after you. Thought I'd wait around and see who showed up. KAREN You used me as bait?! BLADE It worked, didn't it? KAREN But, he could've -- BLADE He didn't. Get over it. Blade kneels next to Gideon. He turns the man's head, inspects the neck, the skin behind the ear -- KAREN But he's a policeman -- BLADE He's a familiar. A human who works for the vampires. See this mark? Blade pushes aside Gideon's hair, revealing a tiny, cryptic symbol tattooed into the man's scalp. BLADE That's a glyph, kind of like a vampire cattle brand. That means Officer Friendly here is someone's property. Any of the other vampire's try to bleed him, they'll have to answer to Friendly's owner -- (studying the glyph) This glyph belongs to Deacon Frost. We've been tracking him for a while now -- KAREN Why in God's name would anyone want to work for them? BLADE Because they're vampire wanna-bes. If they're loyal, if they prove themselves, then their masters will turn them. KAREN And that's a good thing? BLADE For some. Live forever, never get old. The ultimate high. Just then, Gideon MOANS. Blade drags the man up so they're eye to eye. BLADE How 'bout you, Officer? You a good little bloodhound? CUT TO: EXT. KAREN'S APARTMENT BUILDING - DUSK Blade and Karen are now standing by Gideon's police cruiser which is parked outside Karen's apartment. Blade shoves Gideon against the hood of the cruiser. He finds Gideon's keys, moves to the trunk, opens it -- IN THE TRUNK -- A sophisticated medical cooling unit for transporting organs. Blade opens the unit, coolant vapor hisses out. Inside are plastic bags containing blood. BLADE Looks like our friend was blood-running. (to Gideon) Where were you headed? Gideon mumbles through a split lip and chipped teeth -- GIDEON Mphuck you -- WHAM! Blade plants Gideon's face into the hood of the car. Gideon GROANS, coughs -- GIDEON Jesus -- 1227 Brookner -- Holliston Clinic -- Blade releases him, then reaches for his Casull. KAREN What are you doing?! BLADE Preventive medicine. Karen steps in front of Blade, shielding Gideon. KAREN You can't do this, he's human, it's murder. BLADE It's war, now get the fuck out of the way! Karen grabs Blade's arm, wrestling with him, trying to push his hand away. As the two of them struggle, Gideon makes a break for it, stumbling across the lawn. Blade pushes Karen aside, takes aim, FIRES -- -- but Gideon ducks into an alley, disappearing from sight. Blade spins on Karen, enraged -- BLADE God-damnit!!! Do you have any idea what you just did?! He'll warn them. They'll be waiting! But Karen's defiant, she's not backing down. KAREN You were going to kill him. What was I supposed to do?! Shut my eyes and pretend I didn't see what I saw? Blade tears off his glasses. Karen gasps -- BLADE'S EYES aren't human, nor are they vampire. They're something else -- emerald green, laced with swirling flecks of red. BLADE Let me set you straight on something, Doctor. What you've "seen" so far is nothing. The world you live in's just the sugar-coated topping. There's another world beneath it, the real world -- and it's a fucking bloodbath. If you want to survive in it, you'd better pull your head out of your ass. Blade slips his glasses back on, leaving Karen shocked into silence. He heads for his Olds without looking back, climbs in, guns the engine. In seconds, he's gone, tearing off down the street in a cloud of exhaust. EXT. EDGEWOOD TOWERS, PENTHOUSE - DUSK We are soaring through the air above the gleaming city skyline, moving towards the Edgewood Towers whose windows reflect the blood- red sinking sun. INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE, POOL - NIGHT Suffused lighting, elegant tile-work featuring evocative mosaics, the quiet strains of CLASSICAL MUSIC -- MERCURY, the lupine Gaultier girl from the club, glides beneath the water, surfacing at the deep end. We SEE -- FROST lounging in a chair, studying a laptop which rests beside him. On the screen is a digitized image -- a page taken from an ancient manuscript, written in a secret tongue. Officer Gideon waits nearby, cradling his ruined hand, his battered face cast downward like a boy who's been called into the Principal's office. GIDEON Look, I know you're disappointed -- FROST Crestfallen. GIDEON Blade was waiting for me. There wasn't anything I could do. Frost nods, lapsing into brooding contemplation. FROST Tell me something, Gideon, what blood type are you? Gideon hesitates. Is this a trick question? GIDEON I don't really know -- FROST Take a wild stab. A? B? O, perhaps? I'm interested in the antigens here, the agglutination reaction -- Gideon stammers as Frost rises. In the blink of an eye, Frost lifts Gideon from the floor, dangling the Officer over the deep end of the pool by his throat -- FROST I'm going to guess AB positive. Gideon GURGLES as Frost's fingernails pierce his flesh, drawing blood. Then Frost releases him -- Gideon plunges into the pool. Mercury is on him in a heartbeat, tearing him apart like a Great White consuming a piece of chum. The water churns violently around them, clouding with red. When it's over, Mercury rises from the pool, dripping wet, covered from head to toe in a crimson sheen. She kisses Frost hungrily, letting Gideon's blood flow from her mouth to his. Frost flicks a tongue over his lips. FROST AB positive. Give the man a prize. Below them, Gideon's lifeless body sinks towards the pool bottom, his police badge twinkling like sunken treasure. CUT TO: EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT Blade's Olds cruises to a stop. We're in a low-end commercial district -- junky heaven. Blade climbs out, pulling an automatic rifle from the back seat, then heading into an alleyway. EXT. BACK ALLEY - NIGHT Blade makes his way down the alley, cautious -- he SEES mountains of trash, boarded-up windows, overlapping layers of gang graffiti -- a RAT crouching on a trash dumpster, gnawing on a dead pigeon -- -- then a SOUND behind Blade, the scuffle of feet -- Blade whirls, drawing his sword, CHARGING at an approaching shadow, stopping mere millimeters from decapitating -- KAREN, who's been backed up against the wall, her eyes wide with fright. Blade's sword vibrates from the tension in his forearm, having drawn just the slightest taste of blood. BLADE What the hell are you doing?! I could have killed you! Blade lowers his sword. Karen remembers to breathe. She slumps, tracing her fingers over the line where her head almost parted with her body. KAREN I remembered the address. I followed you -- Blade shakes his head, amazed. BLADE Do you have a death wish or are you just stupid? Karen pushes away from the wall, angry -- KAREN Look, if what you say is true, if there's a chance I could turn into one of them, then I've got no choice, do I? I have to work with you. I need to learn everything I can about them. It's the only way I'll be able to find a cure for myself. BLADE There is no cure. KAREN (defiant) You don't know that. Blade turns and moves to the end of the alley, studying the graffiti- covered wall intently -- KAREN What are you looking at? BLADE (gesturing) What do you see here? KAREN Graffiti -- BLADE Look closer. Blade indicates a design amongst the various gang-banger tags that looks something like a post-modern hieroglyphic. BLADE This isn't a gang tag, it's a vampire marking. It means there's a safe-house nearby. A place they can go if dawn is coming. Blade points to a building across the street -- THE HOLLISTON CLINIC, your basic inner-city blood-barter establishment where desperate transients parley their plasma into cash. KAREN (recognizing it) I know this place -- it's a blood bank. BLADE Owned by vampires. There's one of these in every major city, and just like Domino's, they always deliver. (looking to Karen) You telling me you're ready to walk through that door? Karen nods. Blade continues to stare at her, taking her measure -- there's a strength in this woman's eyes, she has the soul of a fighter -- and Blade recognizes it. BLADE All right, then, listen up, Vampire Anatomy 101. Crosses and running water don't do dick, so forget what you've seen in the movies. Blade enumerates the following on his fingers: BLADE You use the stake, silver, or sunlight, got it? Blade holds up one of his Casulls. BLADE Know how to use one of these? Karen takes the weapon from him, eyes all over it. KAREN No. Blade takes the gun back, snorting derisively. BLADE Safety's off, round's already chambered -- (cocking it) Silver hollow-points filled with garlic. You aim for the heart or the head, anything else is a one-way ticket to a pine box. Blade hand it to her again, then starts across the street towards the clinic. Karen follows -- INT. HOLLISTON CLINIC, LOBBY - NIGHT Blade enters, swinging his rifle around for all to see. BLADE Get out. Now. The POTENTIAL DONORS scramble for the exit. Behind the counter, TANAKA, a male nurse, reaches for an alarm button. Blade vaults over the counter, aiming his rifle. BLADE I know you're blood-running. Who's your sponsor? TANAKA I don't know what you're -- POW! Blade backhands him across the face hard enough to loosen his teeth. Karen flinches, stepping forward -- KAREN What if you've made a mistake? Blade pins Tanaka's head to the wall, turning it to the side -- revealing the man's glyph. It's different than Gideon's, looking more like a Japanese kanji character. BLADE What's this? A birthmark? Blade grips Tanaka by his collar, shoving him through a doorway -- INT. HOLLISTON CLINIC, SUPPLY ROOM - NIGHT Karen and Blade SEE supply cabinets, cots, a number of locked refrigeration units. Blade FIRES into the door handle of one of the units, tears it open -- the fridge is stacked floor to ceiling with plastic packets of blood. BLADE (to Karen) Still think we might be wrong? (to Tanaka) How much are you shipping? TANAKA Bite me! Blade opens FIRE, sweeping his rifle around the room, shooting everything in sight. Glass cabinetry shatters, ampoules and vacutainers go flying. Tanaka cowers, arms wrapped about his head. Blade stops shooting. He leans down towards Tanaka, placing the end of his rifle against the man's forehead. Tanaka looks like he's about to wet his pants. BLADE I've got a message for your masters -- the night's no longer safe for their kind. Blade pulls back his rifle, leaving a red indentation mark where the end of the rifle barrel pressed into Tanaka's skin. He starts towards the exit. Karen follows. CUT TO: INT. BLADE'S OLDS - NIGHT Blade and Karen return to the Olds. He keys the ignition, lets the engine idle. They're parked down the street from the blood clinic. Karen looks to Blade, confused -- KAREN You let him go -- (off Blade's nod) An hour ago you were ready to kill a man for less, this one didn't even talk. BLADE He will. Blade points -- THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD -- Tanaka rushes from the clinic, climbing behind the wheel of a Mustang parked nearby. He takes off -- Blade follows the Mustang, CLICKING on a cell-phone scanner mounted on the dash. Numbers flash on the LCD screen as it searches for a signal, then locks onto it. We hear a DIAL TONE, then a number being dialed -- AUTOMATED VOICE (filtered, on scanner) "You've reached a number that is no longer in service. Please consult your operator and try again". TANAKA'S VOICE (filtered, on scanner) It's Tanaka, PIN number sixteen-zero-zero-nine -- A "real" voice comes on the line: VOICE (filtered, on scanner) Yes? Karen looks to Blade, impressed. INT. TANAKA'S MUSTANG - NIGHT Tanaka speeds, shouting into the speaker phone -- TANAKA Get me Pearl! VOICE (filtered, on speaker) Pearl is feeding -- TANAKA Look, I'm not fucking around here! That hunter Frost has been talking about? He was just at the clinic. Tore the goddamn place apart! EXT. THE BLACK PEARL - NIGHT Tokyo town. A black edifice, no windows, secured parking, no signage except for a purple neon scroll above the entrance -- a FLASHING KANJI, just like the glyph tattooed on Tanaka's neck. Tanaka's Mustang pulls into the parking lot. He climbs out, flagging away the valets, heads inside -- WHIP PAN TO Blade's Olds stopping a few blocks down the street. INT. BLADE'S OLDS - NIGHT Blade kills the engine, studying The Black Pearl. BLADE Looks like we hit pay-dirt. This place is crawling with them. (pointing) See the valets over there? They're vampires. So is the doorman. KAREN How can you tell? BLADE The way they move, they way they smell -- Blade continues to scan the area, pointing out a few more likely candidates -- BLADE The whore on the corner, she's one too. So are the two men standing under the streetlight. Blade reaches into the back seat, retrieves his sword and a satchel. He snaps open his shotgun, loads it. Karen continues to study the vampires Blade identified. KAREN So many of them -- I still can't believe they're real. BLADE There are worse things than vampires out there. KAREN Like what? BLADE (pumping his shotgun) Like me. Blade reaches for the door -- EXT. THE BLACK PEARL - NIGHT Blade and Karen climb out. He lets his shotgun fall within the folds of his longcoat and starts across the street -- only to be challenged by a HULKING DOORMAN at the entrance. DOORMAN I'm sorry, sir -- do you have an invitation? INT. BLACK PEARL - NIGHT CRASH! The front door flies open as the Doorman's body sails through. Blade enters, Karen at his heels -- The 'Pearl' is an all-hours strip club cum casino catering exclusively to Japanese zaibatsu clientele. Dimly lit, the air thick with cigarette smoke, deafening MUSIC. Go boards, pachinko machines, sexy little MANGA WAIFS in schoolgirl outfits doling out drinks -- STRIPPERS writhe in the circular "pit" tables surrounded by HOWLING grab-ass men. But that's nothing compared to -- The MAIN ATTRACTION, who's doing a bump and grind down the runway, shaking a body worthy of a schoolboy's wet dream. Her attire? A leather S&M face mask, nipple rings, 6-inch spikes, and a pair of panties to hide her modesty. Blade scans the room -- just in time to see Tanaka ducking into a back hallway. Blade pushes towards the rear of the club. Karen follows. ON THE STRIPPER as she catches sight of Blade and freezes in mid-routine. The stripper pulls off her hood. Long black hair with a streak of white tumbles down her back -- it's Mercury. INT. BLACK PEARL, HALLWAY - NIGHT Blade and Karen head past the bathrooms. At the end of the hall is a door marked "OFFICE". Just then, the Men's door opens, a DRUNK COLLEGE KID steps out, SEES Blade -- KID Hey -- Blade plants a hand over the kid's face, shoving him back into the bathroom as he kicks open the office door -- INT. THE BLACK PEARL, BACK OFFICE - NIGHT Tanaka spins around, startled, tries to throw a punch -- Blade traps Tanaka's arm, levering the man up and over. He CRASHES into a shelving unit, taking the whole thing down with him. Karen winces. Blade grabs a handful of Tanaka's hair, yanks his head up -- BLADE Where's the entrance?! TANAKA I can't -- they'll kill me! Blade rips off his glasses and gives Tanaka an eyeful -- his irises pulse and glow. BLADE I got news for you, butt-boy. You're already dead. TANAKA (terrified) Oh God, shit -- behind the bookcase -- Blade drops Tanaka, moves to the bookcase. He searches the wall a moment, then finds a trigger. Hits it -- the bookcase slides aside, revealing a hidden elevator. As Blade moves to put his sunglasses back on -- BLADE'S POV (IN THE REFLECTION OF HIS SUNGLASSES) We see Tanaka behind him, pulling a handgun out of a desk drawer, swinging it up -- Blade unholsters one of his Casulls faster than any gunslinger in history. He FIRES over his own shoulder, BLOWING Tanaka back against the wall. Blade puts his sunglasses back on, motions to the elevator, then nods to Karen -- BLADE After you. INT. THE BLACK PEARL, ELEVATOR - NIGHT The elevator descends. Then a tone CHIMES, signaling the end of the ride. The doors hiss open -- INT. THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES, HALLWAY - NIGHT Blade and Karen enter the narrow, maze-like "stacks" of the vampire archives, weaving their way through shelves of climate-controlled, digitized records. KAREN What is this place? BLADE Some kind of archive -- KAREN Isn't this all a little high-tech? I thought vampires were more into cobwebs and coffins. BLADE You've been watching too much TV. They've got their claws sunk into everything -- finance, real estate, politics. Probably own half of Downtown. Blade pulls a CD-ROM from the shelves, its spine labeled in indecipherable vampire glyphs. BLADE This must be where they keep their records -- He pauses, hearing a DISTANT WHISPER. Blade signals quiet, silently leading Karen through the stacks towards -- PEARL'S LAIR A vestibule of sorts, leading to a larger bed chamber constructed of rice paper shoji screens and tatami mats. Candles glow within, illuminating a MONSTROUSLY OBESE SHADOW beyond the translucent rice paper walls. The shadow speaks in a tremulous, bird-like voice -- the secret tongue. As Blade draws his sword, the massive shadow freezes -- PEARL'S VOICE (frightened) Lorca, is that you? Blade slides open the nearest shoji screen -- INT. PEARL'S BED CHAMBER - NIGHT Nothing Karen's seen up until this point could prepare her for the archive's curator -- PEARL, a nine-hundred-pound androgynous vampire of Asian origin, lounging amidst pillowed rice mats, wearing a communications headset. Think of a cross between Divine and Jabba The Hutt. Skin the complexion of buttermilk, so corpulent he can barely move, so engorged with blood that he's actually sweating it from the pores of his skin. Pearl is surrounded by a nest of monitors and keyboards which have been affixed to counter-balanced arms -- this way, Pearl can access information without leaving bed. Lying next to Pearl, dwarfed by the vampire's massive size, is the chalk-white body of a recently-drained NAKED BOY. At the sight of Blade, Pearl's eyes widen in fear -- PEARL (into a speakerphone) He's here! FROST'S VOICE (over speakerphone) Congratulations, Day-Walker. BLADE Frost? INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE, POOL - NIGHT Frost paces the length of his pool, wearing a hands-free communications headset, grinning. FROST In the flesh, Blade. I understand you've been looking for me. I'm flattered. INT. PEARL'S BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT As Blade listens, Pearl reaches for his trackball, attempting to delete the document currently on his monitors -- but Blade lunges forward, sinking the tip of his sword into Pearl's fleshy throat. Pearl freezes. BLADE (eyeballing Pearl) Don't be. You're another notch on my sword hilt, nothing else. Frost's DEEP LAUGHTER drifts from the speakerphone. INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE, POOL - NIGHT Frost settles into his chair, enjoying the cat and mouse. FROST You're quick, Blade, I'll give you that. In the space of an hour you've crossed my familiar, destroyed a blood bank -- (beat) Now here you are in the heart of our archives, terrorizing our curator. PEARL'S VOICE He has a knife to my throat, Frost! He -- FROST (cutting him off) You're history, Pearl. Have the good grace to die with some dignity. (beat) Round one to you, Blade. INT. PEARL'S BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT CLICK, the line goes dead. Blade tosses his satchel on the bed, opens it. Inside is a hand-held UV lamp hooked up to a nine-volt battery. Pearl eyes the device, fearful -- PEARL What is that? BLADE A sun lamp. We're gonna play twenty questions. Depending on your answers, you might get to have yourself a tanning session. Blade looks to Pearl's monitor and SEES a digitized image, the SAME MANUSCRIPT Deacon had been studying earlier. BLADE What were you in such a big hurry to delete just now? Pearl hesitates. Blade turns on the lamp. Pearl HOWLS as the harsh light falls upon him. Blade flicks the light off. Pearl cringes, GROWLING, his face smoking profusely. Exposure to the UV rays, even for one short second, has made his face blister like a plague victim's. PEARL (relenting) It's an epistle, a letter Frost has been translating -- it prophesizes LaMagra's return. BLADE And who is LaMagra? Pearl hesitates again -- Blade turns on the lamp for a longer time. Pearl thrashes, covering his face. His hands blacken, the skin sizzling away to expose the finger bones beneath. Karen has to avert her gaze -- Blade turns off the lamp. Pearl SNARLS, his body quivering with poisonous rage. PEARL LaMagra is The Sleeper!!! Blade leans in close so he's eye to eye with Pearl. BLADE Where's the original, Pearl? You must have it around here somewhere. Pearl sweats blood, his flaking, slug-like lips quivering. PEARL The vault -- Blade follows Pearl's eyes to an armored door, then he stands back, handing the UV rig to Karen. BLADE If he moves, cook him. Blade approaches the vault door, sizing up its locking mechanism. He pulls an explosive charge from his combat belt and secures it to the door, arming it with a BEEP! PEARL Please, I'll give you the combination -- you'll damage the documents -- BLADE That's the point. Enraged, Pearl LUNGES from his bed. Karen triggers the UV rig, flash- frying him to a blackened crisp. Pearl quivers, his enormous body smoking like a piece of charred meat. Blade looks back at Karen with newfound respect. She shrugs. KAREN He moved. Blade turns back to the vault, setting off the charge. BOOM! Blade kicks the damaged door in, knocking it clear off its hinges -- INSIDE THE VAULT, ancient papers flutter through the smoky air like wind-borne leaves. Blade and Karen SEE a lucite-encased document -- fragments of an ancient, calligraphied papyrus. KAREN What are these? QUINN (o.s.) Curiosity killed the cat. Blade and Karen spin -- -- QUINN, Mercury, and a number of other vampires stand at the entrance to the vault. QUINN (grins) Hola, amigo. Remember me? Karen triggers the UV light, but Mercury ducks under it, ripping it from her hands, crushing it. In a split-second, the she-demon has her claws around Karen's throat. As Blade reaches for his rifle, the vampires converge on him like quicksilver. They drag Karen and Blade out -- PEARL'S BEDCHAMBER The vampires fling Blade against the wall, pinning him. QUINN You took my arm, Blade. But that's okay, I'm growing a new one -- Quinn lifts up his "arm". A skeletal forearm has grown from the stump. It's got cartilage, sinew, and muscle, but no flesh yet. QUINN Nice, huh? Think I'll ever play the piano again? (shrugging) You can slice him, you can dice him, and the man just keeps on coming. Blade struggles violently, but Quinn is upon him, pounding his fist into Blade again and again and again -- giving him payback with compounded interest. When it's over, Quinn steps back, winded -- Blade's head hangs down. He gasps, wincing, every breath sending a red hot poker to his gut. Quinn grabs a hold of Blade's jaw, forcing his head up. QUINN Stay with me, sweetness, I'm not through with you yet. Quinn pulls Blade's jacket open, sees the bandoleer of mahogany stakes. He tugs one out, admiring it. QUINN Teak. Nice craftsmanship. (to the others) Now here's a man who takes his job just a little too seriously, don't you think? (back to Blade) Which reminds me, Blade, think I owe you one -- Quinn stabs the stake into Blade's shoulder. Blade CRIES OUT, tries to pull free. Karen, who's being held by Mercury, averts her gaze. QUINN Actually, if you want to get technical, I owe you two. As Quinn reaches for another stake, Blade starts to laugh. QUINN What's so funny, bright eyes? BLADE I'm expecting some company. It's then that Quinn notices the micro ear-coil radio receiver in Blade's ear. As we MOVE IN on it, we hear a tiny VOICE squawking from it: VOICE (filtered) Get down! Blade kicks his feet out, sending Quinn flying backwards. He tears free of the vamps holding him and DIVES forward, knocking Karen to the ground just as -- BOOM!!! The wall of Pearl's bedchamber EXPLODES INWARD, knocking Quinn and the rest of his cronies to their feet. WHISTLER stands in the smoking hole where the wall used to be, brandishing his cane in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other. He balances the rifle against his hip like an over-the-hill gunslinger and OPENS FIRE on the vampires. Blade rolls, snatching up a fragment of the parchment which has blown free from the vault. Seconds later, he and Karen are fleeing after Whistler, retreating back through his newly created exit. INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT The three of them find themselves ankle-deep in a flooded sewer tunnel running parallel to the archives. Whistler pauses, wheezing from overexertion. WHISTLER Christ, I'm too old for this. Somebody get me a goddamn wheelchair. Blade leans against the tunnel wall, GRUNTING as he yanks the stake from his shoulder. He then pulls out a light-stick, snapping it, illuminating the area in a GREEN GLOW -- disturbing waves of GLITTERING COCKROACHES. Meanwhile, Whistler pulls another explosive device from his backpack and sets it against the tunnel wall, arming it. KAREN How did you find us?! Whistler taps a tiny radio headset curled around his ear. WHISTLER We keep in radio contact. KAREN (incredulous) You've been listening in the whole time? WHISTLER You think I'd let him run loose without a chaperone? Blade ferrets their rat-holes out, I map them. Then we blow them all to kingdom come. Whistler finishes arming the explosive device. It BEEPS. He turns back to Blade and Karen, referring to a handheld navigation device. WHISTLER There's a subway line due East of here. We'd best make tracks. INT. PEARL'S BEDCHAMBER, ARCHIVES - NIGHT An EXPLOSION rips through the bedchamber, mushrooming outward -- INT. BLACK PEARL - NIGHT The EXPLOSION continues expanding, sending tables, drinks, and zaibatsu clientele flying. INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT As the group splashes through the water, a FIREBALL chases them down the tunnel. They duck into an alcove, narrowly avoiding the flames. Whistler WHOOPS with excitement, loving every minute of it. But his triumph is short-lived, for now we hear -- -- a deafening chorus of HIGH-PITCHED VAMPIRE WAR CRIES coming from behind. Karen hazards a look back -- THE VAMPIRES surge down the tunnel like a pack of hungry wolves on high-octane. There must be a dozen of them now and Quinn is right in the lead. Our trio hustles along, but Whistler stumbles, tumbling and sliding down a washout. The steep incline of the washout makes it virtually impossible for Whistler to climb back up to the main tunnel. KAREN Whistler! WHISTLER Go on, I'll be fine! Karen hesitates, but Blade yanks her down the tunnel -- BLADE He can take care of himself! GO!!! They race through the twisting warren of tunnels, taking one turn after another, the vampires hot on their heels -- INT. SUBWAY TUNNEL - NIGHT Blade and Karen stumble out into a larger subway tunnel, which widens into a station stop up ahead. We can see the RED TAIL-LIGHTS of a train just pulling away from the platform -- Blade and Karen re- double their efforts, lungs burning, legs pumping like mad. Just as the train enters the next tunnel -- -- they leap, dragging themselves up onto the back of the rear- passenger car. Blade SMASHES his fist through the emergency exit window, then lifts Karen up, helping her climb through into the car -- -- but the vampires are still coming! Crawling along the tunnel walls on all fours, limbs a blur, claws striking the concrete and spewing out sparks. Closing fast. Too fast. QUINN springs forward, snagging Blade's ankle with his "good" hand. The vampire's weight threatens to haul Blade down. Blade reaches to his back-scabbard, unsheathes his sword -- THUNK! Blade brings the sword down on Quinn's good arm, cutting it off at the wrist! Quinn falls to the tracks, tumbling head over heels back into the darkness -- THE AMPUTATED HAND, which continues to clutch at Blade's ankle, starts to melt. With a cry of disgust, Blade kicks the thing away. He turns and climbs through the window -- INT. SUBWAY CAR - NIGHT Karen helps Blade inside. He sinks to the floor of the otherwise deserted car, exhausted. He's looking ashen now. The whites of his eyes are shot through with red. Karen gets a good look at Blade's wounds -- the front of his jacket is soaked in blood. She reaches for him -- KAREN You're hurt -- BLADE Nothing that won't heal by dawn. Blade reaches into his jacket and pulls out the small, gas-powered pistol-injector we saw Whistler inject him with earlier. He tries to load one of the ampoules into it, but because of his wounds, he's not having much luck -- BLADE (frustrated) I need help with this -- Karen nods, inserting the ampoule into the gun. Blade shrugs off his jacket, holds out his arm. Karen pauses -- KAREN What am I injecting you with? BLADE (weakly) Serum -- it's a human hemoglobin substitute. Karen locates a vein, presses the injector against it -- Blade tenses, grits his teeth, fights to keep his body thrashing as the serum enters his bloodstream. He grips the wall behind him -- actually digs his nails into the metal surface -- the agony he's going through is excruciating, like nothing we could imagine. When it's over, he slumps forward, spent, vulnerable, flushed with sweat. Karen stares at him -- KAREN You're one of them, aren't you? Blade turns away from Karen, filled with self-loathing. BLADE Not quite. I'm a hybrid. Half-human, half-vampire. Off Karen's surprised reaction, we -- CUT TO: INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT The loading elevator CLANGS to a stop. Blade throws the gate open. Karen helps him out. Now that they're safely back, the last of Blade's strength seems to dissipate. WHISTLER is waiting for them, sitting at a workbench. WHISTLER What took you so long? BLADE Don't even start, old man. Blade throws his sword aside, then moves off into the shadows, disappearing beyond the curtains. Karen looks to Whistler -- KAREN Why didn't you tell me the truth about him? WHISTLER We weren't sure we could trust you. Whistler sighs, removing his glasses. WHISTLER Blade's mother was attacked by a vampire while she was pregnant. Ultimately, she died, but her unborn child lived. Unfortunately, he'd undergone certain genetic changes while in the womb -- Whistler reaches for a pack of cigarettes, pulls one out. He thumbs a match, fires up. Takes a long drag -- WHISTLER I found Blade when he was thirteen. He'd been living on the streets, feeding off the homeless. Apparently the Thirst manifested itself at puberty -- (beat) I took him for one of them at first, almost killed him, too. But then I realized what he was. CUT TO: EXT. EDGEWOOD TOWERS, PENTHOUSE - NIGHT Frost stands at the window, looking out at the glimmering cityscape before him. INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE - NIGHT Frost turns away from window. Quinn, Mercury, and the other vampires from the Black Pearl stand before him. Quinn cradles his amputated stump with his newly grown arm. QUINN He took my fucking hand! Again! FROST You seem to be in the habit of losing them fairly often, Quinn. Maybe the amputee lifestyle just suits you. The other vampires laugh. Quinn stares them into silence. QUINN We need to find him, tonight. Frost claps a hand on Quinn's shoulder. FROST Down, boy. Blade's not going anywhere. I promise. Right now, though, we've more pressing business -- (off Mercury's look) It's time Dragonetti paid the piper. CUT TO: INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT Whistler studies Karen, exhaling another lungful of smoke. WHISTLER Blade's unique, you know. A one in a billion anomaly. He can withstand sunlight, garlic, even silver. But he still has the Thirst. KAREN What happens if he doesn't take the serum? WHISTLER The Thirst overcomes him, just like the others. It's not something he can control. (sighs) The problem is, time's running out. His body's starting to reject the serum. And so far, all my efforts to find a cure have ended in failure -- KAREN No offense, Whistler, but you're not exactly working with state of the art equipment here. You might have missed something. WHISTLER (pointedly) Which is why you're here. We could use someone with your experience. A beat passes between them and Karen knows where she stands now. In for a penny, in for a pound. Whistler reaches for Blade's sword. WHISTLER This used to be mine, you know. It's been passed down through the centuries, from one hunter to the next -- Whistler extends the sword, sighting down the length of it. He takes a few practice parries -- it's obvious he used to be quite skilled in the art of swordsmanship. KAREN Why do you hunt them? WHISTLER Habit, mostly, just like this. Whistler gestures with his cigarette. He finally stubs it out, his wistful reverie vanishing like so much smoke. WHISTLER I had a family once -- a wife, three daughters. Then a drifter named Deacon Frost came calling one evening -- KAREN He killed them? WHISTLER Eventually. He toyed with them first. He made me choose, do you understand? Which order they would die in -- Karen stares at Whistler, horrified. KAREN How did you escape? WHISTLER I didn't. He was cruel enough to let me live. (slapping his brace) Even gave me a souvenir to remember him by. Karen nods -- it's all falling into place for her now. KAREN And now you're using Blade to exact your revenge? WHISTLER (pointedly) Frost's bodycount keeps rising, and I'm not getting any younger, am I? Just then, we hear a SCREAM come from Blade's room, sounding more like the cry of a beast than a man. Karen takes a step towards Blade's room -- WHISTLER I wouldn't go in there if I were you. It's best to leave him alone when he's like this. KAREN I'll take my chances. INT. BLADE'S ROOM - NIGHT Karen enters. It's dark, just a trace of moonlight. KAREN Blade? No answer. Then Karen SEES him -- crouched in the corner of the room like some kind of nocturnal animal. KAREN It's dark in here. BLADE You get used to the darkness. Karen takes a step towards him. KAREN Whistler told me about your mother. Blade clutches the silver locket in his hand. It swings back and forth, like a pendulum. BLADE I can't close my eyes without hearing her scream. KAREN Those aren't real memories. No one has that kind of recall. BLADE I do. I remember from day one. People staring at me, sensing I was different. Watching the fear grow in their eyes, knowing in their hearts I wasn't human. KAREN If you're not human, then why do you bleed like us? I've seen vampire blood, you don't have it running through your veins. Blade looks at Karen, his lambent eyes glowing in the moonlight. BLADE Just get out of here. KAREN Blade -- Blade turns, his eyes glowing with preternatural fury. BLADE I said, GET OUT!!! Karen backs away, startled by Blade's vehemence. She exits, leaving him alone with his demons. He holds up one of his empty serum ampoules, crushing it in his fist. FROST'S VOICE Rise and shine, little wing. EXT. THE BURNING GROUNDS - JUST BEFORE DAWN FADE IN on Dragonetti, his face covered with a black condemned man's hood -- Frost stands before him, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He's dressed from head to toe in a black motorcycle suit -- boots, gloves, a visored helmet tucked under one arm. Mercury and Quinn are standing nearby, similarly attired. We're on a stretch of rocky coastline, tucked away in a secluded cove. Dragonetti has been stripped bare, chained like Prometheus to an ancient standing stone. DRAGONETTI (straining) What is this? Where am I?! Frost steps forward, pulling Dragonetti's hood off. Dragonetti stares at his surroundings, horrified. FROST When was the last time you stopped to appreciate a sunrise, Dragonetti? Three, four hundred years? Frost checks his watch, then looks to the ocean. On the horizon, a sliver of gold appears. FROST How do you like that? Right on time. DRAGONETTI (snarling) The other elders will never let you get away with this! Just then, the TWELVE VAMPIRE ELDERS emerge behind Frost, forming a circle around Dragonetti. All wear business suits, gloves, along with high-tech "sun masks" to protect their faces from the light's lethal rays. They stare at Dragonetti like a silent jury. His face darkens, anger rising -- but there's a desperation in his eyes now too. He speaks in the secret tongue: DRAGONETTI (subtitled) Don't you see, you fools?! He'll betray you too! He's planning on invoking LaMagra himself! The vampires just smile and shake their heads. FROST The wheel turns, old fang. Guess you just got a little too long in the tooth. Dragonetti's cries are cut short as Frost forces the aging vampire's mouth open, ripping out his fangs with his bare hands. Dragonetti GURGLES and SHRIEKS, sounding like a dying animal. Frost turns to face the Twelve now, his eyes bright with victory. He pulls on his motorcycle helmet, as do Mercury and Quinn. Behind them, Dragonetti struggles furiously against his chains to no avail as the first faint rays of daylight fall upon him, channeled inward by the natural formation of the cove -- Dragonetti HOWLS, his skin beginning sizzle and smoke. Then he catches fire like paper beneath a magnifying glass. He thrashes about as his flesh starts to run from his body. THE VAMPIRE ELDERS watch, impassive, protected by their masks -- -- when suddenly, TWELVE FIGURES rise up behind them, clad in bike helmets and black leather, just like Frost. The intruders grip each of the Elders in a strangle hold, ripping their masks off. FROST Dragonetti was right. You were fools to trust me. Frost flips down the visor of his helmet even as -- THE RED SUN rises in all its fiery glory. One by one, the vampire Elder's heads catch fire, skullflesh sizzling away -- burning down the line of them in successively building intensity until all twelve EXPLODE in a conflagration of BLINDING WHITE LIGHT. Frost and his compatriots are blown off their feet by the sheer intensity of the occult blast -- a blast which sends the skeletal bodies of the Elders SLAMMING into the rock wall. When it's over, Frost picks himself back up. We SEE that the only thing left of Dragonetti and the others are -- THIRTEEN SHADOW SILHOUETTES permanently etched onto the rock's surface, just like the bombing victims of Hiroshima. INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - DAY Karen stands at a lab table with Whistler, preparing a number of blood sample vials. They are surrounded by host of new medical equipment -- from centrifuges to genetic sequencers and beyond. Blade emerges from his room, looks to Karen. As if by silent agreement, last night's words go unacknowledged. He straps on his bandoleer of stakes, secures his scabbard. WHISTLER Going somewhere? BLADE China Town. I need more serum. (re: new equipment) What's all this? KAREN I made a trip to the hospital last night, borrowed some equipment. BLADE (sarcastic) For your miracle cure? WHISTLER She's been making real progress, Blade. (to Karen) Show him -- Karen looks to Blade, who shrugs. She opens a refrigerator, removing a syringe filled with blue fluid. KAREN This is sodium citrate. It's an anti-coagulant. We use it to treat blood-clots sometimes. Vampire blood is thinner than humans, though. Watch what happens when I introduce some into a sample -- Karen gestures to the microscope. Blade takes a look -- BLADE'S POV Vampire blood cells swirling about. Karen injects the contents of the syringe onto the slide of cells -- the reaction is immediate. The vampire blood turns black, then begins violently bubbling. Blade lifts his head away from the microscope just in time -- the blood on the slide atomizes, exploding outward in a fine mist which bursts apart the glass lens of the scope. Whistler laughs, thrilled with the results. WHISTLER Can you imagine what a dash of that would do on your sword? Whistler claps his hand on Karen's shoulder in approval, then limps away, quickly busying himself with another project. Blade moves to follow, but Karen stops him -- KAREN Before you go, I'd like to take a sample of your blood. Blade grudgingly rolls up his sleeve. As Karen takes her sample, Blade looks to Whistler. The older man brings a handkerchief to his lips, coughing into it. KAREN Is he sick? BLADE Cancer. Karen watches as Blade's blood flows into the vacutainer. She fills the first, then inserts another. KAREN You care about him, don't you? BLADE We've got a good arrangement, that's all. Whistler makes the weapons, I use them, the vampires die -- end of story. Karen finishes. Blade rolls up his sleeve. KAREN (pointedly) My mother used to say that a cold heart is a dead heart. BLADE Your mother sounds like a Hallmark greeting card. Blade slips his Casulls into a shoulder holster, then shrugs into his leather jacket, donning his sunglasses. BLADE I'd wish you luck, Doc, but I never put much stock in optimism. He heads towards the elevator. EXT. CHINATOWN, STREETS - DAY Blade makes his way down a street lined with vending stalls -- passing MERCHANTS peddling exotic vegetables and cheap curios, butcher shops with rows of roast ducks in the window, tyro GANG- BANGERS lounging at the entrance to a video arcade. BLADE'S POV Even though the streets are crowded, the people seem to make way for him, avoiding eye-contact. Blade turns into a dark alley, ducking into the doorway of a hole-in- the-wall herbalist shop. INT. HERBALIST SHOP - DAY A bell atop the door JINGLES, announcing Blade's arrival. We're in a dusty, cave-like room filled with baskets and bottle-lined shelves featuring things like "Toad Spleen Extract" and "Barking Deer Wine". Joss sticks burn, sending wispy tendrils of incense into the air. At the back of the shop, an elderly CHINESE MAN in a cardigan sits in front of a battered television, watching a boxing match. He's eating a bowl of litchi fruit. On the counter nearby, a SPIDER MONKEY watches attentively. BLADE How's it going, Kam? KAM (re: calendar) You're a week early. BLADE I was in the neighborhood. Kam sets his fruit bowl aside, leads Blade through a curtain into a back room. INT. HERBALIST SHOP, BACK ROOM - DAY Kam hands Blade a leather valise. He opens it -- its lined with tiny ampoules of scarlet-colored serum. Blade pulls one out, holds it up to the light. BLADE Whistler says I'm building up a resistance to it. KAM I was afraid that might happen. BLADE Maybe it's time to start exploring other alternatives. KAM There's only one alternative to the serum. Blade nods. They both know what that "alternative" is. BLADE Yeah. I know. Blade closes the valise and tucks it inside his jacket. BLADE Thanks, Kam. (thinking) One other thing. Have you ever heard of a vampire called the Sleeper? Kam shakes his head. Blade pulls out the parchment he took from Pearl. BLADE I found this in there archives. I need to find someone who can read their language. Kam studies the parchment. KAM I've heard about a woman named Miracia. Some say she's a mayombero, a Santeria witch. Supposedly she lives in that tent community down by the city dump. I'm told she only sees people at night. Blade nods his thanks and heads back through the curtains. EXT. CHINATOWN, STREET - DAY Blade emerges from the alley into the sunlight, then hears his name WHISPERED on the wind. VOICE (o.s.) Blade. Blade spins, scanning his surroundings -- did he really hear his name, or was it just the wind? VOICE (o.s.) Blade. Again, the taunting voice calls him. Blade's gaze finally settles on -- A MAN sitting on a bench in the deep shade, his face obscured by the Chinese newspaper he's reading. There's a LITTLE GIRL sitting stiffly beside the man -- a look of pure terror written on her face. MAN Afternoon, Blade. The man lowers his newspaper. It's Deacon Frost. He's wearing sunglasses, but otherwise, he's seemingly unprotected by the sun. Blade reaches for his .454 -- FROST Easy. Frost's hand rests on the back of the girl's neck. We see his claws extend, caressing the flesh beneath her chin. FROST Wouldn't want our little friend here to wind up on the back of a milk carton, would we? Blade reluctantly lowers his hand. Frost smiles. He takes in a deep breath of air, savoring it. FROST Beautiful day, isn't it? BLADE (confused) How can you be out here? FROST I dabble in pharmaceuticals, medical research. We've developed a type of sun-blocker using octyl salicylate, a few others things. On closer examination we see that Frost is wearing a translucent lotion on his face. He touches a finger to his cheek, rubs some of the lotion between his fingers. FROST It's not very effective in direct sunlight, but it's a start. The goal, of course, is to be like you, "the Day-walker". BLADE I don't buy it. FROST Why not? The future of our race runs through your bloodstream. You've got the best of both worlds, Blade. All of our strengths and none of our weaknesses. BLADE Maybe I don't see it that way. FROST Oh, so it's back to pretending we're human again, is it? Spare me the Uncle Tom routine. You can't keep denying what you are. You're one of us, Blade. You always have been. BLADE You're wrong. FROST Am I? You think the humans will ever accept a half-breed like you? They can't. They're afraid of you. (pointedly) The humans fear us because we're superior. They fear us because in their hearts they know their race has become obsolete. Frost watches the marketers stream past, sneering in contempt. FROST Look at them, just an endless stream of cattle in a mad race to the slaughterhouse. Frost lifts a silver flask to his mouth, taking a swig of blood. He smacks his lips, sighs contentedly -- FROST The pause that refreshes -- (offering it to Blade) Care for some? Smells good, doesn't it? Pungent, with just an irrepressible hint of iron. BLADE Pass. FROST You sure now? I bled a newborn for this. You won't find a drink that's sweeter. It takes every ounce of Blade's self-control to keep from attacking Frost -- and Frost senses this, pressing his sharp thumbnail against the child's jugular. FROST Tell me honestly, do you really get the same rush from that pasteurized piss-serum of yours? (off Blade's look) You're surprised I know about your serum? You shouldn't be. I know everything about you. Frost leans forward, grinning. FROST You can't keep walking the razor's edge, Blade. The day will come -- and soon, when you'll have to choose between our kind and their's. If I were you, I'd take care not to wind up on the wrong end of the fang. A bead of sweat runs down Frost's neck, washing away a minute amount of the sun-blocking cream. The patch of exposed skin instantly blackens. Frost gazes upwards at the sun. FROST Love to continue this chat, but it appears I'm melting. Frost rises, taking the little girl by the hand. Blade follows, his hand resting on the butt of his Casull. BLADE You're not going anywhere. FROST (growling) Watch me. Frost's eyes flicker towards the street -- a CITY BUS is rumbling by. In a heartbeat, Frost hurls the little girl forward -- -- out into the path of the oncoming bus! Blade has a split-second to act. It's Frost or the girl -- and for a moment we actually think he's going to go for Frost -- -- but then he DIVES forward, scooping the girl into his arms, throwing themselves out of the bus' path. The bus misses them by a hair. By the time Blade looks up again -- -- Frost is gone. Blade rises, cursing, scanning the street as market-goers gather around him. WHIP PAN TO -- SOMEONE sitting astride a motorcycle, watching Blade from the roof of an elevated parking garage. The rider is clad from head to toe in a helmet and black leather -- Mercury. EXT. ABANDONED FACTORY - DAY Blade's Olds cruises into the gated grounds. It zips down the ramp way into the loading elevator. BACK BY THE TRAIN TRACKS -- Mercury's cycle rolls into frame. She picks up a radio handset and keys it. MERCURY (into radio) This is Mercury. Tell Deacon I've found their hiding place. CUT TO: INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - DAY Blade enters through the loading elevator, finding Karen and Whistler hard at work. She turns as he approaches -- SEES him back-lit by the sun. She looks pale, the whites of her eyes are streaked with red. BLADE Any progress? KAREN Some. It's been slow -- BLADE You don't look so good. KAREN I'm just tired, that's all. We've been up all night. Blade nods, not buying her explanation. He shoots a glance to Whistler, which doesn't go unnoticed by Karen. KAREN Excuse me. Karen turns, heading for the back of the workshop. INT. WORKSHOP - BATHROOM - NIGHT Karen enters a dingy bathroom, turning on the overhead bulb. She studies her reflection in the mirror above the sink, then grimaces as she peels the dressing from her wound -- the wound is clearly infected, gangrenous. BLADE (O.S.) It's started. Karen spins, startled. Blade stands behind her. He grips her jaw, turning her head so he can better view the wound. BLADE You've got another day or two at most. Karen nods, shaken. As she moves to leave, Blade reaches for her arm, stopping her. BLADE For what it's worth, I'm sorry. KAREN You make it sound like I'm already dead. Blade just stares at her. Finally, she pulls away. EXT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - DUSK CLOSE ON Karen as she moves to the grimy outer windows, watching the sun go down, an unmistakable look of dread creeping over her. CUT TO: EXT. LANDFILL GHETTO - DUSK Windy. Urban desolation. Blade stands on the perimeter of a sprawling cardboard and plywood squatter's ghetto which has sprung up around the city dump. CHILDREN and DOGS forage for salvageable items, while in the distance, dumptrucks grind over the dunes of refuse. MOMENTS LATER, Blade is winding his way through the maze of makeshift homes and ashcan fires. A CROWD quickly closes in around him, suspicious. A BRUTISH MAN steps forward, challenging him -- MAN Extranjero. ¿Quien es? BLADE I'm here to see Miracia. Kam sent me. The man turns to his fellow squatters, WHISPERING. After a heated debate, a GAUNT WOMAN steps forward, motioning -- WOMAN This way. CUT TO: INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT Whistler and Karen sit at a work table. Karen is looking at a blood smear slide through a microscope. KAREN All right, let's start with the basics -- why do vampires need to drink blood? WHISTLER Their own blood can't sustain hemoglobin. KAREN Then vampirism is a genetic defect, just like Hemolytic anemia? Whistler nods. KAREN So what about gene therapy? Whistler looks intrigued. Karen continues. KAREN Basically you'd have to re-write the victim's DNA, alter it so that the DNA will produce proteins capable of generating hemoglobin. WHISTLER How? KAREN With a retrovirus. It's injected into the bone marrow cells, it causes the host's DNA to mutate. They've been using them to treat Sickle-cell anemia. Whistler can hardly believe what he's hearing. WHISTLER You're serious? You actually think this could work? Karen pauses -- we can see in her expression that there's something she's been holding back. KAREN On me, yes. On Blade, I'm not so sure -- (gravely) The problem is, Blade didn't contract the vampire virus from a bite like I did. He was born with it. The irony is, I could probably cure every vampire but him. WHISTLER Then we're back to square one, aren't we? Sooner or later, the Thirst always wins. At that moment, the lights in the workshop flicker, then go out. Karen looks around the room, alarmed. KAREN What happened to the power? WHISTLER (concerned) I don't know, but the back-up generator should've kicked in. A few seconds pass. The back-up generator still hasn't activated. Whistler moves to the window -- WHISTLER UV floodlights are down too. As Whistler reaches for a flashlight we hear the sound of GLASS SHATTERING coming from the other end of the workshop. Whistler shines the flashlight in that direction. We hear more sounds now -- water draining, glass tinkling. Whistler raises a finger to his lips, signaling silence. He edges towards the black-out curtains, Karen falling in behind him. INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - TANK ROOM - NIGHT Whistler and Karen enter, cautious -- THE TANK containing the vampire child has been smashed open. It's empty now, with just the steadily draining blood seeping across the floor in a widening pool -- and a trail of tiny BLOODY FOOTPRINTS leading back out into the main workshop. INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - NIGHT Karen scans the shadows, eyes alert. We hear a WHISPER, then a teasing, childish, GIGGLE. Whistler moves the flashlight in a slow circle, shining the beam over every inch of the room. And just as he's about to complete his circuit -- THE CHILD leaps from where it had been hiding overhead! Karen SCREAMS. Whistler is knocked to the floor, the flashlight spinning from his hand -- The feral child lands atop Whistler, HISSING like a cobra. Its macrocephalic head seems to morph, twisting into grotesque proportions. And just as it's about to strike -- ZZZZING! Whistler withdraws a silver rapier which had been hidden inside his cane. He lunges forward -- WHOOSH! The child takes off like a blue streak, sending test tubes and medical equipment CRASHING to the floor. It zips past Karen -- WHISTLER Get it!!! Karen snatches up the flashlight, chasing after it as Whistler struggles to his feet -- Karen sweeps the flashlight around, catching only fleeting glimpses of the child as it darts through the workshop. She reaches a shelving unit where Whistler's weapons are stored, grabs one of the modified pistols -- Karen tries to draw a bead on the creature. She FIRES, misses, FIRES again -- she's getting more unnerved as the seconds tick by and the creature is moving closer and -- -- suddenly it's right in front of her, flying through the air, fangs bared! The child knocks Karen back against the wall. It's at her throat, sinking its claws into her neck. Karen chokes, forcing Whistler's pistol under the monstrosity's chin -- -- but then the creature morphs again, transforming into a beatific little cherubim of a child -- and Karen hesitates, because the child seems so goddamned human now and its eyes are luminous, pulsing and hypnotic and -- -- suddenly Whistler reaches in from behind, YANKING the vampire child's head back, FIRING a pistol into its skull. The creature slumps -- Karen cries out, disgusted, flinging the corpse away from her. As it continues to writhe -- THUNK! Whistler swings his cane-rapier down on the creature, brutally decapitating it. Finishing the job. Then he looks to Karen, winded. WHISTLER Understand this -- they are monsters. Hesitate for even a moment, and you've lost. FROST (O.S.) Words to live by, Whistler. Whistler spins, eyes wide. He knows that voice. DEACON FROST steps into the pool of illumination thrown off by the flashlight, followed by Mercury and Quinn. FROST It's been a long time, hasn't it, "old friend"? EXT. LANDFILL GHETTO - MIRACIA'S CABIN - NIGHT Blade is led to a plywood cabin crowded with candle-lit altars -- garish pictures of Saints and demons abound, alongside bottles of roots and herbs steeped in alcohol, human bones, voodoo dolls. MIRACIA sits on a sagging couch outside, clutching a deck of well-thumbed Bicycle playing cards. She's ancient, with a mouthful of gold-capped teeth and cataract-clouded eyes. Blind. MIRACIA Is something wrong, my friend? BLADE You're blind -- MIRACIA There are other ways to see. Sit. Blade approaches, uneasy. Miracia deals out the playing cards on a rickety table, setting them in nine piles which take on a cross formation. MIRACIA Perhaps you have brought me something -- an offering for the orishas? Blade tosses a handful of bills on the table. Miracia nods, then flips over the first card in the center pile -- a one-eyed Jack. She sighs, grave -- MIRACIA Hold out your hands. BLADE I didn't come here to get my palms read. I need something translated. MIRACIA Show me. Blade removes parchment fragment from his jacket and sets it on the table. Miracia traces her fingers over the ancient paper, touching her fingertips to her lips. MIRACIA Sangre. Written in blood. She runs her hands over each line as if it were written in Braille. Some of the candles gutter, then extinguish themselves as the wind around them rises. MIRACIA This is an old tongue, from an old world. It concerns LaMagra. BLADE Who is LaMagra? MIRACIA The vampire God. This speaks of His return. Miracia's fingers search the parchment again. MIRACIA "-- there will come a Day Walker." (reading) "His blood will call the Sleeper from beyond the Veil of Tears." Blade stares at Miracia, shaken. BLADE His blood -- ? The old woman nods, reaching for a smoldering cigarette. MIRACIA The Day Walker's blood is a disparador -- a trigger, you see? For LaMagra's return. One need only consume it and the spirit of his ancestors will settle upon him. (reading) "And the Sleeper will rise from the shadows anew, cleansing the world in a Tide of Blood." BLADE (recalling the phrase) "The Blood Tide". MIRACIA (nodding) Yes. The vampire apocalypse. It is said that all who feel its taint will succumb to the Thirst. BLADE How do I stop it? Miracia shrugs, spreading her hands. MIRACIA The Great Wheel turns, my friend. The Dark is rising. How would you fight a shadow? Miracia sits back, slumping into her chair. The candles have burnt themselves down to nothing. MIRACIA I am tired. Dawn is coming. BLADE But I just got here -- MIRACIA You've been here longer than you think. Blade rises, looking to the horizon. Incredibly, dawn is coming. As he stands there, mystified, the wind picks up, sweeping the parchment fragment out of his hand. He tries to snatch it back, but the fragment is quickly borne away. He watches it disappear into the sky, then turns back -- Miracia is gone. Blade glances around him, but she's nowhere to be found. CAMERA PULLS BACK, isolating Blade amidst the ghostly squalor. From our vantage point, he looks like any other homeless phantom. INT. WHISTLER'S WORKSHOP - DAWN Blade steps out from the elevator into the workshop -- The place has been trashed. It looks like a tornado touched down in his absence. Blade pulls out one of his .454s, cautious -- BLADE WHISTLER?! -- and then he stops dead in his tracks. WHISTLER has been strung up by his arms against the far wall, tortured and left for dead. In response to Blade's voice, a MOAN escapes the dying man's lips. Blade rushes to the wall, cutting Whistler down with his sword, gently lowering him to the floor. As he cradles the old man in his arms, Blade sees the primary wound -- two ragged puncture marks along Whistler's throat. BLADE Jesus, Whistler, what did they do to you? Whistler opens his eyes, struggling to speak -- WHISTLER Frost took her -- Whistler spasms and coughs, wincing from the pain. BLADE Don't try to talk -- WHISTLER Listen. You have to -- finish me off. You don't want me coming back. BLADE No, we can treat the wounds -- But Whistler is shaking his hand. WHISTLER Too far gone, you know that. Blade's at a complete loss. BLADE Whistler, I can't. Whistler clutches at Blade's arm, his eyes burning with conviction. WHISTLER Yes you can. Now get on with it. As much as he'd like to deny it, Blade knows that Whistler is right. He pulls a stake from his bandoleer, hesitates. BLADE Whistler, I -- WHISTLER (cutting him off, more gentle now) I know. (forcing a smile) Just be quick about it, will you? Do it right. Blade fights back tears. With a wretched moan, he turns his head and drives the stake into Whistler's chest. Whistler GASPS. Blade wraps his arms around the older man, holding him tight as the life runs out of him, rocking back and forth -- After a while, the rocking stops and Blade lays Whistler on the floor. Then something catches his eye -- A SHARP VIEW-CAMCORDER resting nearby, labeled, "PLAY ME". Blade reaches for the camcorder, cues the tape -- Frost's face appears on the tiny built-in screen. FROST Hello, Blade. By the time you watch this, Whistler will no doubt be winging his way to Heaven, thanks to your capable hands. If it makes any difference to you, he put up quite a fight. Frost touches a deep gash which runs across his cheek. FROST Now, I'm sure you're wondering about Ms. Jansen's well-being. She's alive and kicking -- "ambulatory", as they like to say in the trade. Whether or not she remains so is entirely up to you. (beat) I'll make this as easy as possible for you, Blade. You can find us at the Edgewood Towers. We'll be waiting with baited breath. The tape cuts to static. Blade throws the camcorder against the wall. It shatters into a dozen pieces. Blade turns now, his eyes falling on the medical equipment Karen brought from the hospital. He moves to the refrigerator, removing a canister labeled "SODIUM CITRATE". Then he draws his sword. We can practically see the wheels turning within his mind -- MOMENTS LATER, Blade stands before the open flames of one of the furnaces, heating his sword in the fire. He withdraws it -- it's molten red. Blade turns, dousing the molten hot sword into the sodium citrate canister. The refrigerated liquid reacts with the heat, causing the sword to STEAM and HISS. When Blade withdraws the smoking sword, we SEE that the gleaming steel has changed colors, taking on a bluish tinge, just like the sodium citrate it was immersed in. Blade smiles to himself, satisfied. CUT TO: INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE, INNER CHAMBER - DAY Sparse decor in a Neo-Japanese vein. Minimalist lighting. The walls are glass. Recirculating pumps send a constant stream of water cascading down them. Karen is escorted into the room by Mercury. She gestures to a chair at the end of a long table. Karen sits. FROST leans forward out of the shadows, resting his elbows on the table, hands steepled together. FROST Well, here we are, Doctor. A cigarette appears in Frost's hand. In the blink of an eye, the cigarette is lit, burning. The movements are so quick we barely have time to register them. KAREN Why haven't you killed me yet? MERCURY Deacon likes to play with his food before he eats it. Frost laughs. Karen tries to keep calm. The longer she keeps them talking, the longer she remains alive. KAREN How many of you are there? FROST A few thousand scattered about the globe. In the past, we've had to restrict our numbers for fear of discovery. That won't be necessary after tonight. KAREN What happens then? FROST The Blood Tide. Our long-prophesied holy war against the humans. There's a force, you see -- a spirit that exists in our blood. I've discovered a way to invoke it. KAREN LaMagra -- FROST That's right. The answers were there all along, of course, scribbled down in the forgotten languages of my kind. Waiting for someone with the patience to decipher them. My elders were foolish enough to dismiss them as wives tales. But I knew better. (beat) Imagine my surprise when Blade turned out to be the key which would set that force free. Frost sits forward now, impassioned. FROST LaMagra isn't a physical being. He's a spirit, requiring a flesh and blood host in order to manifest himself. KAREN You. FROST Who better to usher in the Blood Tide? Karen shakes her head, protesting -- KAREN There's no need for any of this. Your condition can be treated. Whistler and I were working on a cure when -- FROST What makes you think we want to be cured? Blood is only part of the equation. The hunt, the killing, that's what the Thirst is really about. KAREN But you use blood banks -- FROST Only as a last resort. Preserved blood is inferior. There's no flavor left to it, no life. (rising from his seat) Fortunately, I've found a way around that particular obstacle. Frost moves to the end of the room. He pushes a button. With a HUM the wall slides open, revealing something Karen wishes she'd never seen -- living blood banks. THREE SEDATED HUMANS have been hooked up to IV feeds which replenish various nutrients as their blood is drained from them. Shunts have been implanted in their forearms which serve as taps. FROST Under these conditions I can keep a donor alive for years, producing anywhere from fifty to a hundred pints of blood. (admiring his charges) Of course, this is just a pilot program, really. Once the Tide comes, we'll need to expand production. So many more mouths to feed -- Karen turns away, overwhelmed by revulsion. KAREN You're a monster. FROST Why? Because we live at another species' expense? Your people farm cattle and veal, don't they? Fattening them up with steroids? It's called evolution, Doctor. Survival of the fittest. Frost stares at Karen with an intense, uncompromising gaze. FROST I have a wake-up call for the human race. You're no longer at the top of the food chain. EXT. SKYSCRAPER ROOFTOP - DAY BLADE'S POV A telephoto view of Frost's penthouse. The windows are polarized, blocking out the sun's harsh rays. Blade lowers a pair of binoculars. He's standing on the roof of a building across the street. He hefts an air-launcher rifle up into firing position -- BANG! An iron spike trailing a steel cable rockets through the air between the two buildings, sinking into the concrete facade of Frost's penthouse. Blade secures his end of the rope. He slips a pulley over the rope, grabs hold of two handles, and leaps off the roof ledge! WHOOSH! Blade slides towards Frost's penthouse, a good twenty stories above street level. A second before he reaches the windows, Blade lets go. Momentum sends him CRASHING through in a shower of glass. INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE - DAY An ALARM is ringing. Sunlight streams in through the broken window. TWO VAMPIRE GUARDS who have been caught in the sudden swath of light are burning up before our eyes. Blade climbs to his feet -- A THIRD VAMPIRE leaps at him. Blade spins, flipping the vampire over his shoulder, sending him straight through one of the other windows -- EXT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE - DAY The vampire tumbles earthward, SCREAMING as the sun's rays ignite his body, falling like a human comet. INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE - DAY Blade unsheathes his sword and heads out into the hall -- INT. FROST'S PENTHOUSE, HALLWAY - DAY To Blade's right is the inner chamber with the "waterfall" walls. As ANOTHER VAMPIRE approaches, Blade readies his sword -- VAMPIRE You think I'm afraid of that toothpick of yours? BLADE You should be. I've made some improvements. And with that, Blade thrusts his blackened sword forward, right through the vampire's chest. The creature SHRIEKS and atomizes -FWOOSH!- flying apart in a fine- beaded spray of blood mist. Up ahead are a set of steel doors with a time-lock mechanism. Blade draws a Casull, BLASTS away at the lock, then shoulders the doors open -- INT. FROST'S SLEEPING CHAMBER - DAY We are in a windowless, vault-like room dominated by a series of high-tech STAINLESS STEEL SARCOPHAGI. Think of a hyperbaric coffin, each unit possessing a small face-plate window through which the sleeping subject can be viewed. Blade unsheathes his sword. He grabs the lid of the first sarcophagus, HEAVING upward. With a PNEUMATIC HISS, the lid rises, belching out a cloud of condensation mist. As the mist clears, revealing the occupant within, Blade raises his sword, ready to plunge it downward -- only it's not Deacon Frost who rests beneath him, it's -- VANESSA, Blade's mother!!! Although some thirty years have passed since the events of our prologue, Vanessa looks exactly the same -- vibrant, beautiful, full of life. Her eyes open. VANESSA Jason. Blade gasps, uncomprehending. BLADE Mother -- ?! Vanessa rises from the sarcophagus, tears staining her cheeks. VANESSA I've missed you so much, Jason. (drawing closer) You have no idea what I've been through, how much I've wanted to see you -- Blade falters, his mind reeling. What he's seeing is incomprehensible -- his mother is dead. Yet, here she is in the flesh, reaching out to him and -- -- flashing a mouthful of viper-like fangs! She SNARLS and strikes, brutally raking her claws across Blade's face, knocking the sword from his grasp -- A TRIO OF BLACK-CLAD VAMPIRES led by Mercury step from the shadows where they'd been waiting all along. They're armed with tasers which they fire en masse -- Blade is hit by the taser darts from all sides. He writhes as electricity courses through him, then collapses in a heap. He labors to lift his head, looking up at Vanessa -- BLADE But you -- died -- VANESSA (a hellish smile) Deacon brought me back. BLADE Fight him -- As if on cue, Frost appears at Vanessa's side, wrapping a proprietary arm about her waist, kissing the nape of her neck. She leans into him -- an act of practiced intimacy. FROST She can't. She's one of my thralls now. She has about as much free will as a puppet on a string. (looking at Vanessa) You love me, don't you, Vanessa? VANESSA Yes. Frost kisses Vanessa hungrily. Then he kneels and reaches into Blade's jacket, retrieving a vial of Blade's serum. FROST What do we have here? Your precious serum? I don't think you'll be needing this anymore. Frost crushes the vial in his fist. Blade struggles to reach Frost, stretching a palsied hand upwards -- BLADE Please -- VANESSA Listen to your father, Jason. It's going to be a better world. Blade stares at Vanessa uncomprehending. FROST Don't look so surprised, Blade. You've spent your life looking for the vampire who fathered you. Well you can rest easy now, you've found him. (gripping Blade's chin) Daddy's here. Blade's eyes widen in shock. Frost simply laughs. FROST It's true, Blade. You've got my blood running through your veins. (smiling) Thirty years ago. A moonlit street, a woman on her way home alone. You were conceived the night I tore my fangs into your mother's flesh. Frost swings his fist into Blade's skull. Everything goes black. CUT TO: INT. ARMORED TRUCK - NIGHT FADE IN as Blade opens his eyes, still groggy, his face beaded with sweat. Feverish. His hands have been bound tightly behind his back with manacles and chains. KAREN sits nearby, watching him. From the steady rocking motion and the SOUNDS of traffic outside, it's evident that they are in the back of a moving truck. KAREN Are you all right? BLADE (weakly) I've been better -- BLADE How long have we been driving? KAREN (shaking her head) I don't know. I woke up just before you did -- As he struggles to sit up, she crosses over to him. Blade shuts his eyes for a moment, fighting a wave of pain. KAREN Is it bad? BLADE (nodding) We get out of this alive, maybe I'll take that miracle cure of yours. Karen doesn't respond. Instead she looks away. How in the world is she supposed to tell him this? KAREN (quietly) It won't work on you. BLADE What are you talking about? Karen forces herself to meet his gaze. KAREN Your condition's congenital, the genetic mutations occurred in utero. All the other victims contracted vampirism after birth. Blade stares at Karen, disbelieving. Who could imagine a more horrifying irony? She's crying now. She can't help it. KAREN I can't cure you, Blade. I can cure myself, but I can't cure you. (beat) I'm so sorry. Blade's head sinks, the last vestiges of hope draining out of him. And then, as if the final stake were being pounded in, the truck lurches to a stop. We hear the ENGINE being killed, then FOOTSTEPS approaching, and then a series of BOLTS BEING SHIFTED as -- -- the back of the truck is thrown open. Frost stands there, grinning, flanked by Mercury, Quinn, Vanessa, and a half-dozen other VAMPIRE ASSOCIATES. FROST Welcome home, children. EXT. THE BANK OF EREBUS - NIGHT Blade and Karen are dragged from the back of the truck, which is revealed now to be an armored car. THE BANK OF EREBUS rises up before them. A towering beaux-arts edifice situated in the heart of the city's high-priced financial district -- one of the many institutions owned and operated by the vampire enclave. Frost starts up the marble steps towards a grand, triple-arched entrance flanked by Corinthian columns. Karen and Blade are dragged along after him. INT. BANK OF EREBUS - ATRIUM - NIGHT Frost leads his vampires into a high-ceilinged atrium, moving towards a bank of elevators -- one of the doors of which is outfitted with a high-tech hand-key ID system. Frost places his palm on the ID screen. The screen GLOWS GREEN, acknowledging his identity. In response, the doors HISS open. INT. SECURITY ELEVATOR - NIGHT Blade and Karen are pulled inside the elevator. The control panel buttons have vampire glyphs, rather than numbers. Frost presses the bottom one. The doors close with a WHOOSH and the car descends -- down, down, down. Frost glances over at Karen, smiling amiably. FROST On its surface, this building houses one of the city's oldest financial institutions -- and for over two-hundred years its served our corporate needs. Look beneath the surface, however, and you'll discover another truth entirely -- The elevator CHIMES, having arrived at its destination. The doors HISS open, revealing INT. THE TEMPLE OF NIGHT A vast, barrel-vaulted chamber lined with recessed tombs stretches out before us -- an underground cathedral of sorts, wrought from alabaster and marble. Restrained. Elegant. Replete with dark splendor. FROST As above, so below. Torches burn in wall sconces, casting everything in a warm, amber glow. Frost takes in the beauty of the place. FROST Welcome to our hall of ancients, Doctor. We call it the Temple of Night. Blade and Karen are led to the middle of the room, where a stone altar rises up from a dais. Blade is roughly thrown to the ground. He kneels there, eyes cast downward. Broken. His system being assaulted by the devastating effects of the Thirst. Quinn and Mercury pick their way through Blade's discarded gear. Quinn picks up the punching dagger, admiring it. Frost turns to Mercury, who's been holding Blade's scabbarded sword. FROST Let's see this sword of his. Mercury draws the sword, handing it to Frost. He sights down the length of it, testing its weight. With a flick of his wrist, he lashes out, slashing Blade's cheek open. FROST Still quite sharp, I see. Blade feebly struggles to rise. Frost clubs him on the back of the neck with the sword pommel. Blade crumples. Karen tries to pull free, but Quinn holds her tight. KAREN Blade -- FROST You're wasting your breath, woman. He can't hear you now. It's the Thirst, you see? It already has him in its grip. Frost reaches down, dragging Blade's head up by his hair. Karen watches on as Frost continues to taunt him. FROST How long has it been since you had your serum? Twelve hours? More? You must be quite thirsty by now. He crouches down so he's eye to eye with Blade. FROST What does it feel like? Is your blood on fire? Are you burning up inside? Give in to the Thirst, Blade. Embrace your true nature. Blade shivers, grits his teeth, it's like he's going through heroin withdrawal. BLADE -- go to hell -- Frost smiles, his eyes burning with an infernal glow. FROST I've got news for you, Blade. We're already here. Frost turns to the others, motioning. FROST Take him to the sanctuary. It's time he was bled. The other vampires retreat, dragging Blade along with them. Karen is left alone with Frost and Quinn. FROST I'd let you watch the proceedings, Doctor, but I'm afraid that privilege is reserved for members of my own race. Don't worry, though, I've made alternate arrangements for you. Frost motions and Quinn drags Karen towards -- THE MOUTH OF A PIT some forty feet deep, its lichen-encrusted stone walls worn smooth over time. As Frost gestures to the yawning darkness beneath them, Quinn forces Karen towards the edge. FROST We call this the Bone Pit. It's where we keep our mistakes, the ones who couldn't successfully make the transition from human to vampire. Frost reaches out, caressing Karen's neck, puncturing the soft flesh beneath her chin with a razored fingernail. FROST They'll feed on anything, given the chance -- animals, corpses, even other vampires. Frost nods. Karen struggles against Quinn, but it's no good. In a manner of seconds, she's falling -- INT. BONE PIT - NIGHT -- making a decidedly rough landing on a heap of bones far below. She GROANS, taking stock of her battered body. UP ABOVE, Deacon watches from the lip of the pit, amused. FROST Of course, a strapping young woman like yourself -- well I think you just might be considered finger food. And with that, he's gone, stepping away from the pit. INT. TEMPLE OF NIGHT - BLEEDING CHAMBER - NIGHT We are in a small, elevated antechamber which is situated above the main vampire sanctuary. BLADE, now weakened to the point of collapse, is being lashed to a rack-like device by iron chains. Mercury and her cohorts move efficiently, quickly securing him. When they are through, the rack is hoisted up into the air via a series of winch-driven chains. With every turn of the winch crank, the chains are drawn tighter, causing Blade to CRY OUT, until at last, he is suspended in mid-air, spread-eagle. FROST approaches, still carrying Blade's sword. FROST It's been a long road, hasn't it? Such a pity Whistler led you so far astray. Frost cocks his head to the side, studying Blade's face. FROST I don't blame you, though. I want you to know that. Even after all you've done. I understand, Blade, I really do. It's the human side of you which has corrupted your reasoning, made you weak. But we'll take care of that, won't we? Blade struggles to lift his head, forcing himself to match Frost's gaze, shaking with hatred. BLADE I'd kill myself -- before I turned into something like you. Frost just smiles and shakes his head. FROST No you wouldn't. I'm going to bleed you dry, Blade. All the poison that makes you human. (drawing closer) When the Tide comes, you'll be begging me put you through the Change. Frost lifts up Blade's sword, methodically slitting Blade's wrists one by one. He makes the cuts lengthwise, opening up the cephalic and basilic veins with surgical precision. Blood wells up from the fresh wounds, running down Blade's forearms, collecting in a cistern beneath his feet. Frost watches the steady, inexorable process, then nods, satisfied. He looks to the others who are gathered behind him, watching on with silent reverence. FROST It's done. We should ready ourselves for the ritual of invocation. Frost leads Mercury, Quinn, and the others from the sanctuary. Blade struggles futilely against his bonds, crying out in frustration, his body eventually sagging from exhaustion. VANESSA (O.S.) There's no use fighting us, Jason. Blade looks up, focusing now on -- VANESSA, who has remained behind. Blade stares at her. As terrible as his physical torment is, his mother's betrayal is infinitely worse. BLADE How could you be a part of this? VANESSA These are my people now. I'm one of them. BLADE You don't have to be. VANESSA You don't understand. I've killed, I've hunted, and I've enjoyed it. She draws closer, caressing her son's face. There's just a hint of creepy eroticism in her action, a dash of incest. VANESSA I wish you could see the world as I do. Deacon opened my eyes. There's no turning back from that. BLADE I don't believe that. VANESSA You will. Time is on our side. Sooner or later, the Thirst always wins. Vanessa turns away now. Blade cries after her -- BLADE Mother! Vanessa pauses, looking back, smiling cruelly. VANESSA Your mother died the night you were born. And with that, she's gone, melting into the shadows. CUT TO: INT. THE BONE PIT - NIGHT Karen rises, wary, taking in her shadowed surroundings. HEAPS OF HUMAN BONES are piled against the pit walls -- skulls, rib-cages, femurs, tibias -- all picked clean of flesh. Some of the skulls have large, canine- like fangs -- the remnants, no doubt, of long-deceased vampires. Suddenly we hear a WHISPER of sorts, the soft CLINKING of bone fragments grinding together -- Karen spins, trying to place the source of the sound. Then she hears the SOUND again. Behind her now, closer. REVENANT (O.S.) Karennnnn -- Karen looks up with a growing sense of dread. A FACE emerges from the darkness. Pallid, cadaverous, shedding its desiccated flesh. Lidless eyes like black marbles slick with Vaseline. A mouth like a raw wound. REVENANT Karreennnnnn. I never thought I'd see you againnnnn. Karen backs away, realizing who she's standing before. KAREN Curtis?! What used to be Curtis SNARLS, knocking Karen back into the drift- pile of bones. It pins her to the ground, kneeling above her, gurgling through its gutted trachea. CURTIS REVENANT Tell, me, Karennn -- ever have second thoughts -- about us? Karen SCREAMS, trying to force the revenant away from her, but it lunges closer, lolling its distended tongue over her mouth in a pathetic approximation of a French kiss. She fumbles behind her, choking, grabbing hold of a human femur, blindly swinging it upward -- CRACK! The blow shatters the Curtis-thing's jaw. It rears back, falling to the side. Karen crawls out from under its weight, swinging the femur again and again -- CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Karen pummels the howling horror, driving it back until the femur actually splinters in half. The creature's head hangs at an awkward angle now, its neck broken -- but still it advances, dragging itself back up. Sobbing, Karen retreats, clutching the splintered femur like a makeshift dagger. Curtis charges at her, a blur of slashing claws. At the last moment, Karen ducks, thrusting the bone dagger up into Curtis' chest -- Curtis impales himself, right through the heart. For one split- second, his eyes widen in surprise -- -- and then he goes into a death-spasm, vomiting up a spray of caustic vampire blood-bile, spattering Karen. She sinks to her knees, GASPING, as the thing that used to be Curtis shrivels up, melting away into burbling puddle. After a beat, Karen rises and moves to the pit wall, running her hands over the lichen-slick surface, searching for a way out. The mortar between the brickwork is ancient, crumbling. Karen looks to the ground, reaching for one of the splintered femurs. She pounds it into the mortar between two bricks -- and it holds, working as a makeshift piton. Karen reaches for another broken femur, lodging it a foot above the first. She hauls her body up now, suspending her weight from the two makeshift pitons. Again, they hold. Trembling from exertion, Karen pulls the right piton free, hanging solely from her left hand now. Though her handhold is precarious, she manages to swing the right hand up again, pounding that piton another foot above the left. In this slow, torturous manner, Karen begins to climb her way up out of the pit. INT. TEMPLE OF NIGHT - BLEEDING CHAMBER - NIGHT Blade hangs from his chains, head slack, eyes half-lidded and lusterless. His skin has grown ashen as his life's blood has been bled away. Mercury appears before him, accompanied by Quinn. She bends in close to kiss Blade lightly on the lips. MERCURY It won't be long now, lover. Quinn draws alongside her, hefting Blade's punching dagger. He places it against Blade's throat, slowly applying pressure. At this point, Blade's too weak to even resist. QUINN We should finish him off. MERCURY (shaking her head) No. Deacon wants him turned. Quinn releases Blade, disgusted. QUINN Fucking waste, if you ask me. As Mercury and Quinn exit, the CAMERA DROPS DOWN to the cistern beneath Blade's feet. We follow the blood which has collected there as it flows into a crude drain and -- INT. SANCTUARY - NIGHT -- emerges from the ceiling of the sanctuary below. The stream of blood is directed down the channels of a spiral column, where it finally pools into a waiting chalice. PULL BACK TO REVEAL the sanctuary in full. A large circular chamber, the perimeter of which is lined with recessed alcoves housing the remains of the vampire ancients, set into the sanctuary walls like cells in a hive. DEACON FROST stands in the center of the chamber, allowing Vanessa to clothe him in ceremonial regalia -- gleaming, centuries-old armor. He pauses, kissing her hungrily. Having finished suiting up, he turns to face the vampires who have been faithful to his cause -- Mercury, Quinn, a host of others. A hush settles upon them. There's an excitement in the air, a sense that something remarkable is about to happen. FROST Tonight is the night we've waited our entire lives for. Tonight, the blood-dimmed Tide is loosed upon the world. Tonight, the Age of Man comes to an end. The vampires bellow out a CHORUS OF CHEERS, their voices resonating off the stone walls like thunder. CUT TO: INT. TEMPLE OF NIGHT - BONE PIT - NIGHT Karen's hands appear over the lip of the bone pit. She heaves herself up, collapsing onto the floor -- -- but there's no time to rest. Even now she can hear the VAMPIRES CHEERING. She drags herself to her feet, letting the voices guide her. CUT TO: INT. ANTECHAMBER - NIGHT Karen slips around a corner, guarded, searching. She SEES Blade strung up before her, seemingly lifeless. Karen studies the chains which bind Blade, following them back to their source at the winch. She releases the brake on the winch crank, sending the chains RATTLING down through the overhead pulleys which suspend them. Blade crumples to the floor, lying still. Karen is at his side in an instant -- KAREN (whispering, urgent) Blade. Blade's eyes flicker open, fixing on her. Inhuman. He's shaking like an alcoholic going into delirium tremens. INT. TEMPLE SANCTUARY - NIGHT Vanessa hands Frost the chalice containing Blade's blood. He lifts it up for all to see. The vampires begin to chant en masse, some long- forgotten invocation in the vampire tongue. FROST (grinning, to himself) "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Frost lifts the chalice to his lips and begins to drink. CUT TO: INT. ANTECHAMBER - NIGHT Blade tries to sit up, gripping Karen's wrist -- BLADE Get out of here -- KAREN I'm not leaving without you. BLADE You don't understand. The Thirst -- He clutches his stomach, experiencing phenomenal pain. BLADE (gasping) -- tearing me -- apart. KAREN I know. Take some of my blood. BLADE No -- KAREN It's the only way. You know that. We'll never get out of here alive if you don't. Blade suppresses a shudder. Simply keeping himself from attacking her takes every ounce of his resolve. BLADE I can't -- I won't be able to stop -- KAREN Yes you will. The human side of you is stronger. I know it is. Karen matches Blade's gaze, steeling herself. The truth is, she's terrified. Blade stares back at her. At this moment, he wants what Karen is offering more than anything he's ever desired. And so he rises -- CUT TO: INT. TEMPLE OF NIGHT - SANCTUARY - NIGHT Frost continues drinking down the blood, when suddenly, a force seizes his body. He throws his head back, eyes rolling to white, flinging the chalice aside. And as the vampire incantation reaches a fevered pitch, we SEE the stone tomb tablets off the vampire ancestors beginning to judder -- as if some force within were trying to break free -- CUT TO: INT. ANTECHAMBER - NIGHT Karen turns her head to the side, baring her neck, offering herself to Blade. Blade opens his mouth. His canines elongate. He lowers his head -- -- and starts to feed. Karen involuntarily stiffens as Blade's teeth puncture her skin and we -- CUT TO: INT. TEMPLE SANCTUARY - NIGHT Frost shakes, possessed by an unseen force. A wind picks up from nowhere, swirling about the chamber, accompanied by a strange HUMMING. Suddenly, one of the tombs BURSTS OPEN. A WRAITH-LIKE SPIRIT rushes outward in a fountain of light, penetrating Frost's body. Then ANOTHER TOMB SPLITS APART. Then ANOTHER, and ANOTHER -- until a torrent of SPIRIT-WRAITHS are surging into Frost, buffeting him about like a scarecrow in a cyclone. Mercury, Vanessa, and the other vampires back away, apprehensive, humbled by what they're witnessing. CUT TO: INT. ANTECHAMBER - NIGHT Blade moans, sinking his teeth deeper. Karen's head rolls back. Her eyes open -- glassy, unseeing -- as a wave of ecstasy overtakes her. She shudders, her breath quickening, falling into a synchronous rhythm with Blade's. Her fingers dig deep into his back, clawing downward, tearing into him -- She's not Karen anymore -- she's a red blood cell, an erythrocyte, spinning in a river of plasma, roaring up Blade's femoral artery, racing towards the pumping chambers of his heart which beats like the deafening breath of God, which blots all other sounds out of existence and we're -- CUTTING BACK AND FORTH NOW between Frost's transformation and Blade's, each of them growing stronger by the second, caught in an ever-increasing feedback loop of expanding energy until -- BLADE NO!!!! Blade tears himself from Karen, his pulse racing as -- CUT TO: INT. TEMPLE SANCTUARY - NIGHT -- the invocation of LaMagra reaches critical mass. Frost is consumed by a hellish force, unable to withstand the onslaught of spirit energy any longer. CUT TO: INT. ANTECHAMBER - NIGHT -- Karen clawing at Blade, tears streaming down her cheeks. KAREN Don't stop -- But Blade grips her by her shoulders, shoving her back. Karen stares at Blade, wide-eyed, as if waking from a trance. She touches the raw wounds on her neck, shaken -- KAREN My God -- Blade rises to his full height. His strength has more than returned, it's been doubled by the infusion of real blood. And there's something else in his gaze now too -- an animal fury that was missing before. Blade has taken one giant step closer to the darkness. KAREN (hesitant) Are you -- all right? Blade pulls at the chains manacled to his wrists, SNAPPING them apart like toys. He flexes his hands -- fingernails lengthening to tapered points. And he smiles, offering us a view of his canines, which have elongated into fangs. BLADE (near-demonic) Never been better. INT. TEMPLE SANCTUARY - NIGHT The aftermath. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, occluding the area where Frost had stood. As it dissipates, Mercury and the others creep forward, apprehensive -- MERCURY Deacon? FROST stands with his back to us, his body trailing wisps of occult fumes. As he slowly turns, we catch a glimpse of his eyes -- burning with an awesome, inner fire. FROST No longer. BLADE (O.S.) Frost!!! All heads turn -- BLADE stands at the balcony overhead, Karen at his side. He leaps from it, somersaulting down to the floor below, landing on his feet like a predatory cat. BLADE Who dies first? FROST (growling, to the others) Take him. Quinn GROWLS, stepping forward, armed with Blade's punching dagger. He offers his second "new hand" up for view. QUINN Grew another hand for you sweetmeat -- (tossing the dagger to his new hand) -- and now I'm gonna kill you with it. Quinn charges. Blade meets the vampire head-on, dropping into a low kick and sweeping the vampire's legs out from under him. He spins behind Quinn -- BLADE Let's see if you can grow a new one of these! Blade hooks a finger through the metal ring at the end of his jacket sleeve, pulling out a retractable strangle-wire which he twists around Quinn's throat. Blade tightens the wire, decapitating Quinn. The headless body staggers about, then drops to the cavern floor. Blade scoops up his punching dagger -- BLADE Next? Mercury and the other faithful vampires charge en masse. Blade launches a spinning wheel kick into the first vamp's face, SNAPPING its neck -- Mercury has Blade's .454 Casulls. She aims them at him -- MERCURY Have a taste of your own medicine! As she FIRES, Blade tucks and rolls, knocking one of the guns from her hand. The guns spins across the floor, where it's scooped up by -- KAREN, who takes aim at an approaching vamp, BLOWING it away. Meanwhile, Blade traps Mercury's other hand, disarming her, flipping her over his shoulder. He hefts his Casull, BLASTING her into eternity -- A bloodbath ensues. Blade moves like speed-personified, FIRING off one, two, THREE HEADSHOTS with brain-numbing accuracy, cutting down the vampires where they stand. It's an orgy of gunpowder smoke and showering bodily fluids and -CLICK-CA-CHING-CLICK!- Blade and Karen have spent their bullets and -- FROST (O.S.) Enough!!! Blade turns to face -- FROST, who's advancing, clutching Blade's own sword in his hand. He thrusts the sword forward -- Blade presses the grip-trigger on his punching dagger -CHING!- the two side blades spread out. We hear the RASP and CLANG of metal on metal as Blade manages to trap the sword-point between two of the dagger blades -- For a moment, both men are eye to eye, their weapons locked together, then, Frost forces Blade backwards -- What happens next is the most blindingly-fast sword fight ever exposed to celluloid. Both men, fueled by super-human speed, lunge and spin across the cavern floor in a blurred ballet of lethal moves. Frost lands a powerful blow on Blade's shoulder, the sword-edge biting deep into the flesh. Blade SCREAMS. Frost withdraws the sword for another strike -- -- until Blade sees an opening and takes it, slicing Frost's left arm off at the shoulder -- The severed arm releases Blade's sword, but the arm doesn't fall! To Frost and Blade's mutual surprise the arm floats in mid-air, bleeding red, quivering like zero-G liquid, then SLURPING back to Frost's arm- stump to re-attach itself! Undaunted, Blade slices the punching dagger into Frost's mid-section, meeting only liquid-like resistance. The moment Blade withdraws his dagger, Frost's flesh seals itself up again. Blade hesitates now, uncertain -- and Frost laughs, understanding what has happened. FROST You're too late, Blade. I'm already changing. Don't you see? The Sleeper has awakened. I'm not just Frost anymore. I'm becoming a god now, blood incarnate. Even as Frost utters the words, his body begins to ripple and morph, bleeding red, taking on the characteristics of liquid. He doesn't walk so much now as flow. He's become a three-dimensional creature of animated blood! A blood demon. ON KAREN, as she watches Frost's transformation, wide-eyed. She SEES Blade's discarded sword, reaches for it -- suddenly, a SHADOW moves on the periphery of her vision -- VANESSA rushes at Karen in a near-blur. The SNARLING hellion is upon Karen in an eye-blink, SLAMMING her down against the temple floor, pinning her. VANESSA Did you think I'd forgotten you, you little whore? BACK TO FROST, who towers above Blade, swaying back and forth in his new, liquid- like form. FROST You can't hurt me anymore. WHOOSH! Frost rises upwards on a spiraling column of blood, HOWLING WITH LAUGHTER, then just as suddenly -- -- splashes back to earth, spreading out in a widening pool. In the blink of an eye, he streams through Blade's feet, re-solidifying behind Blade. Blade spins, swings his dagger -- Once again, Frost morphs into blood-form. He races around Blade in a series of spouting arcs, turning from blood-form to solid and back again in a series of split-second transformations. Blade whirls, striking with his dagger and missing every time -- WHOOSH! Frost suddenly dissipates, SPLASHING away into a million zero-G blood bubbles, vanishing. Blade spins, unnerved, trying to pin-point his foe's next manifestation. BLADE Where are you?! Frost's voice answers from all directions. FROST Everywhere. A DROPLET OF BLOOD spatters the floor at Blade's feet. Blade looks up -- A SHOWER OF BLOOD rains from above, coalescing into Frost as he sweeps down on Blade like a giant bird of prey, crushing him against the temple floor. FROST You want my blood so much?! Take it! Frost's arms elongate and liquefy, flowing into two snake-like spouts of blood -- the rest of Frost remains solid. The blood-spouts twist around Blade's neck, melding together, completely encasing Blade's head in a bubble of blood. Blade claws at the blood-bubble as if it were a solid object that he could dislodge, but his fingers just pass through it! BACK TO VANESSA as she wraps a hand around Karen's throat, choking her. As Karen struggles, she frees a hand, sliding it down to her hip pocket, digging something out -- Whistler's vampire mace canister! She forces it up between them, triggering a jet of TOXIC MIST into Vanessa's face -- Vanessa recoils, HOWLING, her head smoking as if it were doused with formic acid, skin sloughing off from her skull. Karen lunges for Blade's sword -- BACK TO FROST AND BLADE Blade is drowning in Frost's blood. His eyes bulge. Oxygen bubbles stream from his mouth. Frost leans in close, his face a twisted mask of insanity. FROST I was wrong about you, Blade. You were never one of us. You're a traitor to your race. KAREN (O.S.) Get away from him! Frost looks up -- Karen is wielding Blade's sword. She brings it down on Frost, severing the blood-tendrils which envelope Blade. The blood-bubble dissolves instantly, flowing away from Blade's face. He gasps, chokes in air -- Frost backs away, horrified. His blood-tendrils don't reform. Instead, the lay where they fell, solidifying into crystalline powder. KAREN Blade! Karen flings the sword at Blade. THE SWORD spins end over end, its mirrored surface reflecting coruscating pinwheels of candlelight as Blade catches the weapon by its hilt. Blade rises, advancing on Frost, sword outstretched and Frost retreats, uncertain now. BLADE Guess you're not quite as invulnerable as you thought. FROST You're wrong -- a few minutes more, and my transition will be complete. Even your sword won't be able to affect me then. BLADE You don't have a few minutes, Frost. Frost eyes Blade warily, then lunges towards Vanessa, sweeping behind her. Blade follows, but even as he raises his sword to strike, Frost spins Vanessa around, using her body as a shield! Blade hesitates, stopping the sword in mid-strike, catching his mother's gaze -- her face is monstrous now, scarred by Karen's poisonous mace. Piteous, really. Frost smiles, for he's found a final weakness of Blade's to exploit. FROST (laughing cruelly) Just as I thought. Still chained to your mother's breast after all these years. In the same instant, Vanessa's features morph, taking on the angelic, youthful vibrancy she possessed in the locket photo. FROST (gloating) You're too human, Blade. BLADE (steeling himself) It's because I'm human that I can do this. Frost's eyes widen in shock, but he has no time to react, for -- Blade is already LUNGING forward, driving the sword-point through Vanessa's chest, on into Frost's heart! It strikes the stone behind them, SHATTERING and -- Frost and Vanessa HOWL AS ONE, their SCREAMS rising to an unendurable intensity as the two vampires go nova, exploding into an expanding ball of light and ATOMIZING BLOOD. Blade is thrown back off his feet, having to shield his eyes from the backlash of occult energy as a near tidal WAVE of blood surges over him -- EXT. BANK OF EREBUS - CITY STREET - NIGHT Every door and window of the bank is BLOWN OUTWARD from the force of the EXPLOSION. While along the street, manhole covers flip from their moorings, spinning up into the air like dimes, being buoyed by geysers of blood. INT. TEMPLE SANCTUARY - NIGHT Silence, just the steady DRIP-DRIP of liquid draining. The underworld temple gleams with a crimson sheen now. ON BLADE as he stirs. He's been blown clear across the sanctuary by the force of the blast, soaked to the quick by blood. He rises to his feet, retrieving the hilt of his shattered weapon. At his feet -- THE SWORDBLADE lies in pieces. Amidst them, we find the singed remains of the locket -- Vanessa's face barely recognizable beneath the grime. Blade stoops to pick it up. KAREN (O.S.) Blade? Blade turns. Karen moves to him, searching his eyes. Which side of Blade's soul has won out? Human or vampire? Then she SEES the tears rimming Blade's eyes, the first he's shed in a lifetime. Human. They embrace, holding each other that way for a long, long time. And we -- DISSOLVE TO: EXT. ROOFTOP, BANK OF EREBUS - DAWN Blade and Karen stand on the rooftop, watching as dawn slowly creeps across the silent city. KAREN I never imagined I'd be so happy to see the sun rise -- (turning to him) It's over, isn't it? BLADE For them. But for me -- He lifts his face towards the rising sun, letting its warmth wash over his upturned face. BLADE I feel like it's finally beginning. And on that note we leave them -- TWO FIGURES, silhouetted against the new day. FADE TO BLACK. THE END
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+       FADE IN:       SCENE 1 OMITTED       EXT. SAN FERNANDO VALLEY - NIGHT       OPEN on a MOVING WIDE SHOT of a mountain range with the       distant lights of the San Fernando Valley behind it.       BEGIN CREDITS as a NAVY JET drops down into the picture.       PUSH IN on the jet's exhaust flame. Have the words "THE       BLAST" come out of the flame. Then there is a SLIGHT       EXPLOSION and the flame intensifies. The words "FROM THE       PAST" jump out of the exhaust as the jet momentarily       shakes.       INT. JET       The PILOT feels the jet shake. But he looks at his       indicators and everything appears to be normal. He       relaxes.       EXT. JET       We begin with a WIDER REAR SHOT of the jet and allow the       plane to move away. Then SUPER: "LOS ANGELES, 1962"       before continuing the main titles. A popular recording       from that period has been playing throughout.       EXT. CALVIN'S WORK SHOP - NIGHT       Start on a CU of the HAM RADIO ANTENNA, WIND GAUGE and       THERMOMETER attached to the roof of Calvin's shop. (We       can hear military air traffic chatter on Calvin's       Hallicrafter radio.) Then move down to the window where       we see CALVIN Webber tinkering with a gadget at his work       bench. Calvin's very pregnant wife HELEN appears. The       music becomes source.                           HELEN                 For Pete's sake, Calvin!  We've got                 guests!                           CALVIN                 Sorry, honey!  I just got to fooling                 with this darn rheostat.                           HELEN                 Well, put it down and come in!                           CALVIN                 You bet, hon!       They exit the workshop for the house.  Calvin has left       the ham radio on.                           NAVY PILOT (ON                           RADIO)                 Tower, Wolf One is five miles from the                 overhead.                           TOWER (ON RADIO)                 Wolf One, Tower. Report the numbers.                 You're number one for the overhead.                           NAVY PILOT (ON                           RADIO)                 Wolf one.       INT. COCKPIT OF JET - SAME TIME       The YOUNG PILOT looks down at the flashing red light on       his control panel. He speaks into the oxygen mask that       hangs loosely from his helmet.                           PILOT                 Tower. Wolf One. I've got a problem                 here.                           TOWER (OC)                 Say your problem, Wolf One. Are you                 declaring an emergency?                           PILOT                 Stand by. One.       INT. DINING ROOM       DAVE, BETTY, BOB, and RUTH (30's) pass around the buffet       table. Another period song is playing on the phonograph.                           BETTY                 Just remember: don't mention the                 communists!                           DAVE                 Calvin's a great guy, but he's a                 little, you know...                           BETTY                 Nutty.                           RUTH                 What's his wife like?                           BETTY                 Oh, you know, housewife.                           DAVE                 Likes to cook. Pregnant.                           RUTH                 Normal, then.                           BETTY                 Well, I wouldn't go that far.                     (then)                 Helen!       Helen has entered from the kitchen with more food. She       favors June Allison.                           HELEN                 Hi, Betty!  Dave!                           BETTY                 Just look at you!                           HELEN                 Any day now!                           BETTY                 This is my sister and her husband.                           HELEN                 Oh, hi! Welcome!       INT. LIVING ROOM       Calvin is using a cocktail shaker to very carefully make       Rob Roys for the crowd at the bar. It's like watching a       chemist at work. Calvin's a pipe-smoker.                           CALVIN                 So anyhow this duck says to the clerk,                 "I'd like to buy this lip balm."  And                 the clerk says, "Will that be cash or                 a check?"  And the duck says, "Just                 put it on my bill!"       Polite laughter follows, but the guy out of Calvin's       sight-line rolls his eyes.       ANGLE - DAVE AND BOB       with drinks. Helen is in the b.g., rushing around, over-       serving everyone.                           DAVE                 He was the golden-boy professor at Cal                 Tech.  But then he starts inventing                 things.                           BOB                 What kind of things?                           DAVE                 You got me.  Some kind of special                 synthetic rubber.  And some kind of                 automated machine.  Anyhow, suddenly                 he gets rich.  I mean rich!  And quits                 teaching.       ANGLE - CALVIN       as his guests sample their Rob Roys.                           CALVIN                 How's that?                           GUEST                 Just what the doctor ordered!       Calvin gives the man his patented thumbs-up sign.       ANGLE - BETTY AND RUTH       over by the patio doors. We can see Calvin's shop through       the window.                           BETTY                 With all his money they could have                 moved to Beverly Hills, but they                 decided to stay in the Valley.  Calvin                 spends all his time tinkering out                 there in his workshop.  If you ask me                 it's all very strange.                           WOMAN GUEST #1                     (chiming in)                 He dug a huge hole out there for a                 swimming pool. Then he decided he                 didn't want it and filled the thing                 in. And what's that big, high fence                 for?       The women look at Calvin.       ANGLE - CALVIN       with guests (one is called Harold) at the bar.                           CALVIN                 There currently exists a type of neon                 light that lasts five years.  But you                 won't see it on the market. Same is                 true of batteries. I could take your                 simple yacht battery and rig it to                 last a decade, easily.                           HAROLD                 Well, what the heck kind of a                 marketing system can't get great new                 products like that out to the public?                           CALVIN                     (intense)                 A veeeery good one, Harold. Free                 market capitalism may not be a perfect                 order, but it's the best we've got, or                 will ever have.  And why?  Three                 reasons!       Poor Harold.       INT. KITCHEN - SAME TIME       Most of the guests are women, gabbing and helping Helen       out as she removes a pot roast from the oven and busily       jumps around the kitchen.                           WOMAN GUEST #2                 Say, Helen?  What does Calvin think                 about this trouble down in Cuba?                           HELEN                     (rolling her eyes)                 Oh, please don't bring that up!       EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT, MOMENTS LATER       A late guest named RON hurries up the walkway and into       the house.       SCENE 8 OMITTED       INT. LIVING ROOM - A SECOND LATER       Calvin is with another guest.                           CALVIN                 I'd say my baseball card collection is                 as complete as any one I've ever seen.       Ron pushes his way through the crowd.                           RON                 Calvin!  Hey, Calvin!                 		(pointing over his shoulder)                 Kennedy's going toe-to-toe with                 Khrushchev on the television!       Calvin immediately heads for the family room. Others       follow.       INT. FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER       Everyone is huddled around the JFK TV press conference.       There seems to be a lot of smokers. Helen appears       shortly, wearing a hot pad mitten on each hand.                           JFK                 ...this sudden, clandestine decision                 to station strategic weapons for the                 first time outside of Soviet soil, is                 a deliberately provocative and                 unjustified change in the status quo                 which cannot be accepted by this                 country.       Calvin cuts a knowing look at Helen who dutifully returns       it.       EXT. JET - NIGHT       The plane swoops over the Valley and we see the       spectacular lights of L.A. sprawl.  There is a TRAIL OF       SPARKS coming from the jet's engine.       INT. JET COCKPIT       The plane is shaking terribly and the pilot is having a       very hard time controlling it.                           TOWER                 Wolf One -- say intentions.                           PILOT                 I've got secondaries of an engine fire                 and I'll need to find a clear area to                 eject.                           TOWER                 Roger, Wolf One. Can you make it to                 the ocean?       EXT. JET       The trembling plane circles to the west.       INT. FAMILY ROOM       Return to TV.                           JFK                 ...we will not prematurely or                 unnecessarily risk the cost of                 worldwide nuclear war, in which even                 the fruits of victory would be ashes                 in our mouth.  But neither will we                 shrink from the risk at any time it                 must be faced.       INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT/ EXT. HOUSE, MOMENTS LATER       To Helen's embarrassment, Calvin is ushering  all the       guests to the front door. Helen is passing out hats and       purses. She and Calvin speak simultaneously - somewhere       in the middle we cut outside.                           CALVIN                 I'm sorry everyone, but given this                 extraordinary turn of events, I think                 it's prudent that we cut the evening                 short. I'm sure this Cuban thing will                 resolve itself, but in the                 meantime...I'd suggest taking a                 prayerful watch-and-wait stance!                           HELEN                 We'll do this again! Maybe next week.                 Here's your hat. Could I wrap                 something up for you? Did you have a                 coat?       Helen can barely get a "good night" out before Calvin       shuts the door.       ANGLE - DAVE AND BOB       Following their wives out.                 			DAVE                     (sotto to Bob)                 What'd I tell ya?!       Bob whistles softly. Calvin's a nut all right.       INT. FRONT DOOR       Calvin turns to Helen, a grave expression on his face.                           CALVIN                 It's time.                           HELEN                     (misinterpreting, holding her                      stomach)                 Time? Oh, no Calvin. It's not time                 yet. I still have--       He points down.                           HELEN (cont'd)                 Oh, that time! You know Calvin, I'm                 not sure I'm really ready for this.                           CALVIN                 On the contrary, I think we're the                 only ones who are.       He leads her out of shot.                           HELEN (OC)                 Calvin I'm sure everything's going to                 be all right. I just know it is!       EXT. BACKYARD - MOMENTS LATER       Calvin and Helen leave the house; cross the patio; and       hurry to the shop. Back in the house, the record player       has been left on:  "How Much Is That Doggie In The       Window...?"  Helen is carrying the pot roast which is       wrapped in foil.                           HELEN                 Well, I'm certainly not going to let                 the pot roast go to waste. Could you                 just put that seat cover back on that                 lawn chair?       He does.                           HELEN (cont'd)                 Shouldn't we at least turn off the                 phonograph?                           CALVIN                 It shuts off automatically.                           HELEN                 Did you rig it to do that? You're so                 clever.                           CALVIN                 No.  They all do.                           HELEN                 I never know anymore.       The SOUND OF THE TRAINER JET makes a low pass over       Calvin's house.  Calvin sticks his head out the door and       looks up.                           CALVIN                 I bet that's a fighter jet on his way                 to Key West!  Good luck, amigo!       INT. WORKSHOP       They enter. The place is full of tools and gadgets--       mostly construction equipment. The ham radio is still on.                           TOWER                 An emergency has been declared. I                 repeat, an emergency has been                 declared.       Calvin and Helen speak over the Tower who is telling       other aircraft in the vicinity to clear the area.                           CALVIN                 You hear that?!                           HELEN                 Yes.       Calvin unplugs the radio and quickly wraps the cord.                           CALVIN                 We can listen to the rest downstairs!       He pushes aside a table that is hiding a hatch in the       floor and unlocks it by turning the hatch's wheel.  Then       he opens the hatch and reaches inside to turn on a light.       Red submarine light shines up from below.  All the while       he and Helen are chatting:                           HELEN                 Calvin, I wish you would have at least                 let me do the dishes. It's not going                 to be that easy getting all that dried-                 on food off my nice plates.                           CALVIN                 I just hope those plates aren't                 radioactive by tomorrow morning.                           HELEN                 Cheese is particularly troublesome.                           CALVIN                 Worse than your Kraft Holiday dip?                           HELEN                 Oh, much worse. But not as bad as that                 Mexican Jumping Bean dip. You remember                 that?                           CALVIN                 Yeah, yeah. Okay.  Give me the roast                 and watch your step.  I'll come back                 for the radio.       She steps into the hatch and onto a ladder.       INT. JET - NIGHT       The young pilot is bouncing around the now smokey       cockpit.                           PILOT                 Tower, say again!!                           TOWER                 The SAR HELO is airborne with you in                 sight.                           PILOT                 I'm marking the 180 radial for five                 and ejecting.                           TOWER                 Roger, Wolf One.       The pilot rights the plane; points the joy stick; and       reaches for the ejection handles between his legs.       EXT. JET       The pilot ejects.       INT. EMPTY COCKPIT       This is the pilot's POV (were there a pilot.)  We see the       coastline and we notice that the plane is making a... U-       turn, away from the water and back towards the Valley.       EXT. JET       Streaking back to the Valley with a dramatic tail of       sparks.       EXT. THE PARACHUTING PILOT       He notices that his plane is headed directly at him.  It       misses him by a matter of yards.       INT. LADDER - CONTINUOUS       Taking the liberty of a CUTAWAY SECTION, we follow them       down the ladder which is inside a corrugated metal tube.       On either side of the tube we see layers of dirt.                           HELEN                 How long will we have to stay down                 here?                           CALVIN                 I don't know. For this thing to blow                 over, it could take days.                           HELEN                 Days??                           CALVIN                 Rather safe than sorry. That's my                 motto!                           HELEN                 But, what if I go into labor? That                 could happen any time.                           CALVIN                 I've read up on it. I'll deliver the                 baby myself if I have to.                           HELEN                 Now you listen to me Calvin Webber,                 when this baby comes, you're going to                 be out in the waiting                 room smoking yourself to death with                 all the other fathers.                           CALVIN                     (chuckling)                 Yes, dear!                           HELEN                 As long as we've got that straight.       EXT. JET - SAME TIME       It COMPLETES ITS TURN and STREAKS SKYWARD at a 90 degree       angle to the ground... until it SPUTTERS and the ENGINES       STOP.  Then, after a Road Runner-like beat or two, it       begins to FALL DIRECTLY BACK TO EARTH, tail first.       INT. SMALL ANTEROOM - SAME TIME       The Webbers step off a metal ladder and face a vault-like       chrome hatchway.  Calvin opens the six-inch thick door by       pushing another switch on his small box. Helen takes the       roast.       EXT. JET - NIGHT       With only the sound of wind, the jet continues to fall as       the lights of the Valley rush up to meet it.       INT. SHELTER - CONTINUOUS       They step into a darkened room.                           CALVIN                     (with arms spread)                 Home sweet home!                           HELEN                 To you maybe.       Calvin flicks a wall switch and we HEAR A SERIES OF       LIGHTS COMING ON.  The echoes of the sounds suggest a       large, cavernous space.  All we can see is the cinder       block wall behind them and the hatch door, which Calvin       begins to shut by putting his body into it.       Just then there is a TREMENDOUS DOUBLE EXPLOSION FROM       ABOVE which knocks them to the floor. (Note: Helen hangs       on to the roast, trying her best not to drop it.) The       LADDER, CORRUGATED TUBE, ROOF, AND LOTS OR DIRT AND ROCK       BEGIN TO CRASH DOWN INTO THE ANTEROOM. Calvin struggles       to his feet and gets the vault door shut just in the nick       of time.                           HELEN                 What was that?!                           CALVIN                 Are you all right?!       Hanging on to the roast she nods vigorously, trying to be       brave.                           HELEN                 Yes, I think so.       Calvin hurries to a bright RED METAL BOX on the wall.       Next to the box is a LARGE THERMOMETER OR GAUGE that's       labeled "Radiation Count."  There are OTHER GAUGES that       are dropping to zero.                           CALVIN                 Oh, no!  It's happened!  Look at that                 heat!!  All my surface indicators are                 knocked out!  Oh, my Lord...it's                 actually happened!!       INTER CUT - CU OF BOX AND THERMOMETER       The box has a dial on it, next to which is a large lever.       A foreboding sign reads  HATCHWAY TIME LOCKS, USE EXTREME       CAUTION.  Calvin pulls the lever.       BACK TO SCENE       The chrome and steel EXIT HATCHWAY AUTOMATICALLY LOCKS       with great noise, precision and...finality. There is the       SOUND OF A REAR DOOR doing the same thing.                           HELEN                 What's that noise?                           CALVIN                 The locks.                           HELEN                 The locks?                           CALVIN                 To keep us from trying to leave. After                 an atomic blast there's a radiation                 half-life that lasts thirty five                 years.                           HELEN                 Thirty -five years!                           CALVIN                 Then after that it's safe.                           HELEN                 It's safe.       She continues to stare at him.                           CALVIN                 To go up.                           HELEN                 To go up.       She continues to stare at him.                           CALVIN                     (confidently)                 Hey, honey. Don't you worry. We're                 going to be just fine.       Helen bursts into tears.       EXT WEBBER PATIO - DAY       Two police detectives, LEVY and ATKINSON, exit the house.       Uniformed workers carefully carry small pieces of the jet       from the crash site. The detectives lead us to what's       left of Calvin's shop. It's mostly a charred crater.                           LEVY                 According to Caltech, this Webber guy                 was a bonafide genius and a borderline                 nutcase.                           ATKINSON                 Well, he and Mrs. Nutcase must have                 been out here when the plane hit.                           LEVY                 Unless we get a postcard or somethin',                 that's my guess.                           ATKINSON                 What about relatives?                           LEVY                 All back East.                           ATKINSON                 The neighbors over there said the guy                 spent day and night out here. She'd                 bring him sandwiches and hot Dr.                 Pepper.                           LEVY                 He drank it hot?                           ATKINSON                 Yeah.                           LEVY                 Good god.                           ATKINSON                 Yeah.       INT. MASTER BEDROOM - SAME TIME (12 HOURS AFTER BLAST)       Helen awakes alone and still dressed. She sits up and       trys the phone on the night table. It is dead. She hangs       up and exits.       INT. KITCHEN/LIVING ROOM/PATIO       Calvin is making sandwiches from the pot roast. Two empty       Doctor Pepper bottles sit next to the stove where Calvin       is heating the soda. He sees Helen enter the livingroom.                           CALVIN                 Hi, honey! Feeling better?                           HELEN                 No.                           CALVIN                 We have to be strong, sweetheart. If                 not for ourselves, for the child.                           HELEN                 All our friends...       He enters with her sandwich and a cup of Dr. Pepper.                           CALVIN                 Burnt to a crisp.                     (indicating sandwiches)                 I've given you the most well-done cut.                           HELEN                 I'm not hungry.                           CALVIN                 Hot Dr. Pepper! Your favorite!                           HELEN                     (leaving)                 No, Calvin, you're favorite.                           CALVIN                 Really?       She walks out onto the patio. She rubs her arms as if       cold.                           CALVIN                 A bit chilly? Shouldn't be.                 Temperature's a nice 73 degrees.       He follows her out to the patio.                           HELEN                 Maybe I've just got the creeps.                           CALVIN                 How could you?! This is just like                 home!       A reverse angle shows for the first time the rest of the       fallout shelter -- which looks very different from       "home". Perhaps she starts to cry again.                           HELEN                 No. No! Calvin, this is different!                 Believe me!                           CALVIN                 Would you like a tranquilizer?                           HELEN                 You have tranquilizers?                           CALVIN                 I told you! I've got everything!        Helen groans in pain.                           HELEN                 Oh, no.                           CALVIN                 What?                           HELEN                 Uh, oh. Now it's time.                           CALVIN                 Honey?       SCENE 29B OMITTED       SCENE 29C OMITTED       SCENE 29D OMITTED       SCENE 29E OMITTED       INT. VERY WIDE OF THE SHELTER - HOURS LATER       We can only hear Adam's entrance into the world. There is       Helen's pain, followed by Adam's cry, followed by       Calvin's rejoicing.                           CALVIN (OC)                 The first child to be born on earth                 after the annihilation!!       INT. SHELTER - DAYS LATER       SUPER: SEVERAL DAYS LATER       Start on the record player in the living room. The       country and western classic "Hey, Good Looking" is       spinning.       OMIT SCENE 30       INT. SHELTER, BATTERY ROOM - SAME TIME       Calvin walks through checking things over; pleased by       what he sees.  He exits. ("Hey Good Looking" continues.)       INT. SHELTER, FISH FARM - CONTINUOUS       Calvin checks the switch he uses to control the lights.       Then he checks out all the tiny fish swimming in the six       feet by six feet tank.  When he hears a baby's cry he       hurries away.(Music continues)       INT. SHELTER, MASTER BEDROOM       Calvin enters and smiles with great affection at his       family:  Helen and a NEWBORN SON cradled next to her in       bed.                           CALVIN                 Is there a problem?                           HELEN                 No, Calvin.  Babies cry.                           CALVIN                 I've noticed.                           HELEN                 What shall we call him?       Calvin shrugs.                           HELEN (cont'd)                 Well, I was thinking...in light of the                 situation...that we should call him                 Adam.  That's not sacrilegious is it?                           CALVIN                 No.  I think it's just right.                           HELEN                 And I was wondering...if...if I could                 have a...                           CALVIN                 Yes!                           HELEN                 If I...you know...                           CALVIN                 What? Whatever you want, Helen!       She points upwards.                           HELEN                 I want a bedroom ceiling.       They both look up. Then he tells her.                           CALVIN                 You've got it!       Calvin happily gives her his patented thumbs-up sign.       A MONTAGE:  1) CALVIN , IN A LARGE SUPPLY ROOM, PICKS OUT       THE PLYWOOD HE'LL NEED FOR THE CEILINGS. ( 60'S HAPPY,       BUSY SCORE COVERS ALL THIS.)       2) HELEN, CARRIES LITTLE ADAM (THREE DAYS OLD) ONTO THE       FAKE PATIO (WITH THE PLASTIC PLANTS AND THE PLASTIC       GRASS). SHE LOOKS UP AT CALVIN WHO'S ON A LADDER       INSTALLING A CEILING.       SUPER: SEVERAL WEEKS LATER       3) IN THE FAMILY ROOM, CALVIN SHOWS HELEN HOW HE'S RIGGED       A PROJECTOR TO THROW A PICTURE ONTO THE TV SCREEN. SHE'S       THRILLED TO SEE "THE HONEYMOONERS!" MAIN TITLES COME ON.       ADAM, LYING ON A QUILT BY HELEN'S CHAIR, IS ABOUT FOUR       WEEKS OLD. (IT'S IMPORTANT HERE THAT WE SEE A 8MM FILM       BOX WITH THE "I LOVE LUCY" LOGO ON IT)       SUPER: SEVERAL MONTHS LATER       4) TOTAL DARKNESS. THEN CALVIN FLICKS A SWITCH AND A BANK       OF OVERHEAD LIGHTS COMES ON TO SIMULATE SUNLIGHT. UNDER       THE LIGHTS ARE SOIL BEDS ON WOODEN TABLES. CALVIN IS       EXCITED TO SHOW HELEN THE TINY, YOUNG CARROTS COMING UP.       HELEN HOLDS ADAM AT THREE MONTHS OLD.       SUPER: A YEAR LATER       5) IN THE DINING ROOM, HELEN IS SERVING POT ROAST AND       SOME VERY NICE LOOKING CARROTS. ADAM IS SIX MONTHS OLD.       HE WATCHES HIS PARENTS AS THEY SAY GRACE.       6) HELEN "SHOPS" FOR SUPPLIES IN THE LARGE STOREROOM.       ADAM, ONE YEAR OLD, RIDES IN THE SHOPPING CART.(1963)       7) CALVIN NETS A WIGGLING, FULLY GROWN FISH.       8) THE FAMILY WATCHES "THE HONEYMOONERS" TOGETHER. (ADAM       IS STILL ONE YEAR OLD.)       CALVIN ENJOYS HIS PIPE IN THE LIVINGROOM       9) CALVIN EXAMINES THE REAR HATCHWAY AS HELEN APPROACHES       WITH ADAM IN HER ARMS.                           HELEN (OC)                 Calvin?!                           CALVIN                 Right here!                           HELEN                     (arriving)                 We looked all over for you. What are                 you doing back here?                           CALVIN                 Oh, I was just examining this rear                 hatchway.                           HELEN                 Why?                           CALVIN                 No reason.                 		(then, off her look)                 Well, it's pretty clear that the front                 entrance caved in when the bomb went                 off. So, you know, when the time is                 up, we'll have to return to the                 surface using, you know, this back                 entrance.  Which is very nice because                 it has the service elevator!                           HELEN                 Very nice. Unless it caved in, too.                           CALVIN                 Yes.  Well... yes.       A sober beat, then:                           CALVIN (cont'd)                 You wanted to see me?       Helen nods vigorously.                           HELEN                 Watch this!                           CALVIN                 What?       She sets Adam (one year old) down on his wobbly little       legs, steadying him at the shoulders.                           HELEN                 Go to Daddy, Adam. Go to Daddy.       And Adam takes his first step. And then another! And       another! It's a joyous event.       CAMERA LEAVES THEM AND TRAVELS UPWARD THROUGH THE CEILING       AND THEN, AGAIN USING THE DEVICE OF A CUTAWAY, IT       CONTINUES THROUGH DIRT AND SEDIMENT ALL THE WAY UP TO THE       SURFACE-- WHERE THE BACKYARD AVOCADO TREES ARE BEING       BULLDOZED AND THE BACK FENCE HAS ALREADY BEEN TORN DOWN.       THE WEBBER HOUSE FACED A QUIET RESIDENTIAL STREET, BUT IT       BACKED ONTO VICTORY AVENUE (OR ONE OF THOSE VALLEY       AVENUES) AND IN THE LATE FIFTIES AND EARLY SIXTIES THOSE       MAIN THOROUGHFARES WENT COMMERCIAL.       A SIGN tells us that this is the future site of MOM'S       MALT SHOP."       Some WORKMEN with shovels have discovered the REAR       SHELTER DOORS where they have been digging.                           WORKMAN #1                 Hey, Boss!       The construction BOSS comes over for a look.                           WORKMAN #1                 What do you make of this?                           BOSS                 Damn if I know.                           WORKMAN #2                 I bet it's some kinda septic tank.                           WORKMAN #1                 I've never seen a septic tank that                 looked like that.                           BOSS                 Well, don't fool with it. If it is a                 septic tank, I sure as hell don't want                 to open it. We'll just lay the                 foundation over it.                           WORKMAN #1                 Okay.       EXT. WEBBER HOUSE, PATIO (THE REAL ONE) - DAY, SAME TIME       A Realtor steps out with A COUPLE looking to buy the       house.                           REALTOR                 ...and since it's almost certain that                 the Webbers were killed, the bank is                 selling the house and that back parcel                 over there that's been re-zoned                 commercial. It's right there on the                 avenue.                           WOMAN BUYER                 Is that where the plane crashed?       She points out to a LEVEL LAWN where the shop used to be.       We can see the Malt Shop construction crew beyond that.                           REALTOR                 Yep, right there.                           MAN BUYER                 This place gives me the willies.                           REALTOR                 Yeah, I know what you mean. But the                 price is right.       EXT. BACK AT THE MALT SHOP CONSTRUCTION SIGHT -       CONTINUOUS, DAY       The guy driving the heavy front loader lets the bucket       slam to the ground hard.       INT. BACK AT THE SHELTER REAR DOOR - CONTINUOUS       Calvin vaguely hears the noise made by the front loader.       INT. SHELTER, LIVING ROOM - EVENING (1965-66)       SUPER: 1965       Calvin smokes his pipe and enjoys a Manhattan cocktail as       Adam (three and a half) sits in his lap reading the title       page from Alice in Wonderland.                           ADAM                 Al ice in won der lan.       Calvin smiles pridefully over at Helen who works       intensely on the couch making a coffee-can Santa from       instructions in the The Redbook Crafts Collection.                           CALVIN                 Not bad for a three and a half year                 old! I'd like to see the public school                 system match that! I don't care how                 terrific it is!                           HELEN                 Yes, he's very bright, dear. Much like                 his father. But you know, Calvin,                 maybe he's a little...young for                 school.                           CALVIN                 Nonsense. People have no idea what the                 human mind is capable of. Look at us!       Helen ponders that statement.                           ADAM                     (pointing to the book's art                      work)                 Look, Daddy. Alice went down a hole,                 just like us.       Calvin smiles and messes up Adam's hair.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 Will I ever get to go up on top?                           CALVIN                 Yes, you certainly will. And you'll                 find a nice girl and rebuild America.                 Just the way it used to be.                           HELEN                 Oh, Calvin, I'm not sure we should be                 making promises that perhaps can't be                 kept.                           CALVIN                 I believe there will be other                 survivors. In fact, I'm guessing                 there's life on the surface, even now.                 It's not life worth living perhaps,                 but believe me, something's moving                 around up there. And I don't just mean                 the cockroaches.       They both look nervously up at the ceiling.       EXT. MOM'S MALT SHOP (NOW FINISHED) - DAY (1965-66)       CARS PASS BY on the busy avenue.       INT. MOM'S MALT SHOP - CONTINUOUS       CLEAN CUT SURFER KIDS are being served their favorite ice-       cream and malt treats by MOM herself and a young SODA       JERK. Appropriate music comes from the jukebox.                           MOM                 I'm going to need two more banana-                 splits and a cherry coke!                           SODA JERK                 You bet, Mom! Coming up!       Two YOUNG MEN IN BEATLE HAIRCUTS enter. Everyone looks at       them in amazement. (Perhaps there is also a record change       here.)       INT. SHELTER, CLASSROOM - DAY (65-66)       Calvin is building and furnishing a classroom from       materials available to him. He has had the forethought to       bring down the books needed for his child's education.       Little Adam is watching him.                           CALVIN                     (to Adam)                 Nothing in the world is more fun than                 learning new things.       INT. FAMILY ROOM - NIGHT       The family watches the same "Honeymooner" clip they       watched before. Calvin still finds it funny. Helen       wonders about that.       INT. BEDROOM - LATER       Helen is pouring cooking sherry into an empty Listerine       bottle.       EXT. MALT SHOP - DAY (1970-71)       SUPER: 1970       Other buildings have been constructed around the malt       shop. Foot and car traffic are heavier.       INT. MALT SHOP - SAME TIME       The clean-cut kids have been replaced by FLOWER CHILDREN.       Mom hasn't put a lot back into the decor, but she has       made concessions to the fashions of the time. The jukebox       plays something appropriate. Mom and the Jerk are five       years older.                           MOM                 I can't tell the boys from the girls                 anymore!                           SODA JERK                     (stoned)                 Uh...yeah. It's like hard.       Mom gives the Jerk a suspicious look.       INT. SHELTER - DAY (1970-71)       Calvin (40) is giving Adam (8) a boxing lesson. They work       from a "How To" book and use gloves made from living room       pillows. Adam's pretty good. Helen appears and watches       with pride. Then she interupts.                           HELEN                 Boys! Excuse me, but I believe it's my                 turn.                     (holding out her hand)                 Adam?       He goes to her.       INT. SHELTER - MINUTES LATER       The hydroponic garden area is empty. A Perry Como song       begins and Adam and Helen enter waltzing. Adam has       changed shirts and combed his hair. Somewhere, Calvin is       watching with pride. After a while Calvin cuts in. He and       Helen dance beautifully. Then they kiss. Somewhere, Adam       is watching with pride.       INT. MALT SHOP - DAY (1975-76)       SUPER: 1975       The place continues its decline. Acid rock plays loudly.       Mom and the Jerk serve the smallish crowd.                           MOM                 I miss those nice flower-power kids.                 How 'bout you?                           SODA JERK                     (after studying her for some                      time)                 Um...uh...       The acid rock song ends and an early, bad disco hit comes       on the jukebox.                           MOM                 What the hell kind of music is that?!       The Jerk puts his hands to his ears, he so hates the new       music.                           SODA JERK                 Oh, man. I'm like not sure I like                 that.       INT. SHELTER, CLASSROOM  (1975-76)       The room looks like Ricky Nelson's class.  There are twin       pictures of Ike and JFK on the wall.  Adam is eleven.                           CALVIN                 This is what money looks like.  It                 comes like this, in coin, or like this                 in paper.  Or you can have an                 "investment."  These are stock                 "certificates" that we bought in your                 name.  Of course, they're worthless                 now, but at one time they were quite                 valuable.                           ADAM                 They're pretty.  Can I have them?                           CALVIN                 Sure. Now, let's move on to our French                 exam.                           ADAM                 Latin exam, Dad.  It's Tuesday.                           CALVIN                 You're right!  It's Tuesday already!                 By gosh, time flies, doesn't it?!                           ADAM                 Tempus fugit!                           CALVIN                 En arte voluptus.                 Que les bons temps roulÈ!                           ADAM                 Gerade aus dann links!                           CALVIN                 Sorgen sie bitte dafur das die gepack                 sorgfaltic behandeldt warren!                           ADAM                 Haben sie etuas nettes in leder?!                           CALVIN                     (marveling)                 You know, you have a wonderful sense                 of humor, son!  I must say, the acorn                 doesn't fall very far from the tree.                 By the way, it's time I gave you                 something. Come with me.       Adam follows his dad out.       INT. SHUFFLEBOARD COURT - CONTINUOUS       They pass Helen who is absentmindedly poking at the puck       with a stick. She's not having a very good day. She wears       her hair dryer but it's not plugged in.                           CALVIN                 Hi, honey!                           HELEN                 Hi.       INT. BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER       Calvin hands Adam a cigar box. Adam opens it to see       Calvin's remarkable baseball card collection.                           ADAM                 These are wonderful.                           CALVIN                 It's my entire baseball collection.                 It's yours now.                           ADAM                 What's baseball?                           CALVIN                 It's a game, son. I can explain it                 pretty easily. There's a pitcher.                           ADAM                 Like a painting?                           CALVIN                     (chuckling)                 No, son. A pitcher.                           ADAM                 Like one of Mom's?                           CALVIN                 Uh, no. There's a man who throws the                 ball -- to a man who has a bat.                           ADAM                 The nocturnal flying mammal?                           CALVIN                     (slightly pissed)                 No. Sit down.       They do.       INT. SHELTER - NIGHT       Start close on flashing roller skates. Then cut wider to       show Adam roller skating. He passes Helen who has fallen       asleep knitting in one of the lawn chairs. Then Adam       passes Calvin who is on a ladder soldering a leaking       ceiling pipe.       EXT. MALT SHOP - DAY (1991)       SUPER: 1991       TWO PUNKS with spiked green hair enter to the strains of       "My Sharona."       INT. MALT SHOP - DAY (1991)       Mom watches the punks enter. Then crosses to the Soda       Jerk who now has a tattoo on his forehead.                           MOM                 I'm selling this place.  I want out of                 this hell hole!                           SODA JERK                 Could I, like...oh, wow...like,uh...                           MOM                 Buy it from me?                           SODA JERK                 Yeah!  Yeah, that's it!                           MOM                 I'll give it to ya, no money down.                 The neighborhood has gone to hell                 anyway.       She walks off.                           SODA JERK                 Cool.       INT. KITCHEN  (1995)       SUPER: 1995       Helen has prepared a birthday cake. Having no birthday       candles, she's used three votive candles. We can hear       Calvin and Adam talking in the dining room. (She and       Calvin are now in their 60's.)                           CALVIN (OC)                 No, no! The runner on second goes to                 third! He's out there!                           ADAM  (OC)                 Why?                           CALVIN (OC)                 Because he's forced out at third! It's                 a force!                           ADAM  (OC)                 Then why go there?                           CALVIN  (OC)                 Because he must!                           HELEN                 Calvin!                           CALVIN  (OC)                 Coming!       Calvin enters.                           CALVIN (cont'd)                 Yes, dear?                           HELEN                 Get the presents and do the lights.                           CALVIN                 You bet.       Calvin leaves while Helen lights the candles. The whole       shelter goes dark. Calvin returns with two presents       wrapped in whatever is available.       INT. DINING ROOM - CONTINUOUS       Helen and Calvin enter singing Happy Birthday. We see the       ADULT ADAM for the first time in silhouette. His handsome       face is revealed to us when the cake is placed before       him.                           ADAM                 Thank you, Mom! Thanks, Dad!                           CALVIN                 Blow out the candles!                           HELEN                 Make a wish!       He does both. His parents clap. Helen takes one of the       presents from Calvin and gives it to Adam. He unwraps it.       It's a green coat.                           ADAM                 Oh, boy! A jacket!                           CALVIN                 Your mom made that all by herself.                           ADAM                 No kidding!                           HELEN                 No kidding.                     (aside, to Calvin)                 Who else would have done it?                           CALVIN                 And I made these!       He gives Adam the second present. Adam tears off the       paper to find a pair of roller-skates that Calvin has       redesigned. The new skates look kind of like       rollerblades.                           ADAM                 Holy Cow! What the heck are these?!                           CALVIN                 Your roller-skates! I redesigned them!                 I think this new design will work even                 better!                           ADAM                 These are really swell! I mean swell!                           HELEN                 What did you wish for, Adam?                           CALVIN                 If he tells, it won't come true!                           HELEN                 Oh, that's just a bunch of baloney! We                 never believed that in my family!                           CALVIN                 Well, we did in my family!                           ADAM                 I wished I could meet a girl.       His parents don't have a reply for that.                           HELEN                 Oh. A nice one, I hope.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.                           CALVIN                 One who doesn't glow in the dark.                           HELEN                 Calvin Webber! What a thing to say!                           CALVIN                 Well, we'll be going up in two years.                 We'll know then. I'm very hopeful.                           ADAM                     (ardently)                 Me, too.       His parents stare at him for a beat, then:                           HELEN                 Let's eat our cake.                           CALVIN                 Yeah. Let's dig in!       They do.                           HELEN                 Elbows, Son.                           ADAM                 Sorry, Mom!                           HELEN                 You never know. You may someday dine                 at the White House with the president.                           CALVIN                 If we still have one.                           HELEN                 Yes...                           CALVIN                 You know, when we do go up...I'm going                 to miss this old place. How 'bout you,                 hon?                           HELEN                     (after a beat)                 Would you excuse me?                           CALVIN                 Sure.       Helen rises and exits.       SCENE 48 OMITTED       SCENE 49 OMITTED       SCENE 50 OMITTED       SCENE 51 OMITTED       SCENE 52 OMITTED       SCENE 53 OMITTED       SCENE 54 OMITTED       SCENE 55 OMITTED       SCENE 56 OMITTED       SCENE 57 OMITTED       SCENE 58 OMITTED       INT. BATTERY ROOM- LATER, SAME NIGHT       Helen enters and goes into the generator room. Through       the glass we can see (and hear) her scream. Straightening       her hair and feeling much better, she exits as Calvin       strolls by wearing his tool belt. She's headed out.                           CALVIN                 In the generator room again?                           HELEN                 Oh, yes.  It just fascinates me how                 all    these things work.                           CALVIN                 I know exactly what you mean!                     (then)                 Hey, honey?       She turns to him. He gives her his patented thumbs up       sign.                           CALVIN (cont'd)                 Great cake!!       She smiles wanely and leaves. He shuts the generator door       she left open.       SCENE 60 OMITTED       SCENE 61 OMITTED       INT.SHELTER, LIVING ROOM - VERY EARLY MORNING       SUPER: THE PRESENT       The room is quiet and empty.  The star-burst WALL CLOCK       on the paneling says 6:15.       INT. SHELTER, KITCHEN - SAME TIME       Also empty.       INT. STOREROOM - SAME TIME       Also empty.  And with MEAGER SUPPLIES on the shelves.       INT. POWER AND PUMP ROOM - SAME TIME       The old pipes are rusted and patched. Some are leaking       badly.       INT. MASTER BEDROOM - SAME TIME       Calvin wakes up. He looks over at Helen's bed.       ANGLE - HELEN       She wakes up. Then jumps out of bed.       SCENE 67 OMITTED       CLOSE ON THE RED METAL BOX       that has been ticking on the wall for thirty-five years.       Suddenly it STOPS TICKING and a rather annoying ALARM       GOES OFF.  Calvin's hand reaches up and turns it off by       throwing the lever up.       ANOTHER ANGLE shows us the mechanism on the FRONT       HATCHWAY switch to OPEN with a loud, vault-like move.       ANOTHER ANGLE       reveals the family in their pajamas standing in front of       the front hatchway and red box.                           ADAM                 So...we just open this door and go up?       Calvin grabs a handle and using all his strength, opens       the front entrance hatch. And then must jump back when       nothing but earth and rock pour into the room.                           ADAM                 Um...is that supposed to happen?       His parents take a beat then race off like maniacs       through the entire shelter to the back hatch door.  They       knock over whatever gets in their way as they go. Adam       follows.                           ADAM                 Hey, where are we going?!  Is                 everything all right?!       INT. BACK HATCHWAY - MOMENTS LATER       Calvin and Helen arrive followed by Adam who can't       possibly share his parent's deep concerns. Everyone is       out of breath.                           CALVIN                 Should we say a little prayer first?                           HELEN                 Just open the door.       Calvin attempts to open the big hatch, but can't.  Adam       helps him.  Helen pitches in.  Slowly, with lots of       squeaking, the DOOR OPENS. He steps through the hatch and       flips a wall switch.  Red submarine LIGHTS COME ON....       And the service elevator is intact.       INT. ANTEROOM - CONTINUOUS       Helen steps through and embraces Calvin joyfully.  The       old folks break into a dance as Adam enters.                           ADAM                 Well, do we just go on up?!                           CALVIN                     (quickly back to business,                      and way too dramatic)                 No, son! We wait for night.  Now...is                 precisely when... we must be at our...                 most cautious.                           HELEN                     (barely a whisper, but                      definitely tired of his                      B.S.)                 Oh, shit.       Helen's eyes widen and her hand flies up to her mouth.       She is just as shocked as Calvin.                           CALVIN                 Helen-Thomas-Webber!  Maybe we have                 been down here a little too long!                     (to Adam)                 Please excuse her French.                           ADAM                 Shit is a French word?                           HELEN                 Yes, yes it is!                           CALVIN                 It's an archaic colloquialism, roughly                 meaning..."good".                           HELEN                 Yes! That's right!                           ADAM                 Oh.                     (then)                 Well...then...shit!       There is a pause, then:                           CALVIN                 C'est bon, Monsieur.                           ADAM                 Merci!       SCENE 71 OMITTED       EXT. THE MALT SHOP - NIGHT       Cars flash by in a rare L.A. DOWNPOUR.  All that's left       of Mom's is an EMPTY BUILDING with a painted-out front       window and a "For Sale or Rent" sign.  There's ANOTHER       SHOP attached to it CAMERA RIGHT but we can't see what it       is.  The alley way on the left has always been there.       INT. MALT SHOP - CONTINUOUS       TWO DRUNK BUMS are sharing a bottle. One of them is the       Soda Jerk, now a  dissipated middle-aged man (with a       tattoo on his forehead.)                           SODA JERK                 ...all of these things...Alcoholics                 Anonymous...Cocaine Anonymous...Heroin                 Anonymous.                           OTHER BUM                 There's a Heroin Anonymous?                            SODA JERK                 Shut up! All of these things... ask                 you to believe in a power greater than                 yourself! Some sort of God on High!                 Well...I have lifted my eyes skyward a                 time or two... and I have certainly                 not seen anything coming from up there                 except a goddamn airplane -- that I                 can't afford to get on!       The cement FLOOR of the old Malt Shop begins to QUIVER       AND RUMBLE.                           OTHER BUM                 Earthquake!  Another earthquake!                           SODA JERK                 Let her come!  Let's get this over                 with!  And please, if there is a God,                 let it be worse in Bel Air!!       The Other Bum staggers to his feet and SPLITS for a back       window.  Soda Jerk is fearless.  Until finally the       HYDRAULIC DOORS of the back entrance SPLIT THE FLOOR with       an eerie, struggling whine and LARGE CHUNKS OF CEMENT GO       FLYING.  Then up comes RED SUBMARINE LIGHT followed by       Calvin in his BIG YELLOW SUIT with Geiger counter       ticking.                           SODA JERK                 Oh, God!  Oh, God!!  Oh,God, save me!!                 For I have seen the light!!       Calvin raises his hand and yells through his mask.                           CALVIN                 I come in peace!!       The Soda Jerk FAINTS. Calvin, sounding like a deep sea       diver and having to walk like Frankenstein, goes over to       the Soda Jerk and studies his face in the light of his       flashlight.  He is horrified by what he sees.                           CALVIN                 My, gosh...       Calvin looks around the room and heads for the back.  He       moves his Geiger counter around and gets a quiet (safe)       reading. Then he removes a KITCHEN MATCH from a plastic       container and strikes it against the wall.  The MATCH       BURNS, so Calvin takes off his hood and visor and       breathes the air.  It stinks in there.       EXT. MALT SHOP - MOMENTS LATER, RAINING       Calvin (out of the head gear and top of the suit) slowly       pushes the door open and steps out. He's surprised to       find an empty BODY SHOP behind the Malt Shop, where the       avocado trees should be.                           CALVIN                 Where is my backyard?       He points his flashlight around and heads for the ALLEY       to his left.       EXT. ALLEY - A MOMENT LATER, RAINING       DERELICT CARS left over from the Body Shop sit against a       fence. Calvin marvels at the cars, even in their present       condition.  In a TIGHTER SHOT he studies the chrome-       plated word "Toyota."   A HOMELESS MAN arrives to search       through the garbage. Calvin hurries back towards the       avenue.       SCENE 76 OMITTED       EXT. MALT SHOP - TEN MINUTES LATER, RAIN       Calvin emerges from the alley that separates the Malt       Shop from another storefront (perhaps now a rundown Thai       restaurant.)       CLOSER ON HIM       watching the cars fly by on the wet avenue.  Suddenly, a       cross-dressing STREET WALKER steps up to him with a       cigarette.                           STREET WALKER                 You got a light, honey?                           CALVIN                 What?!  A light!  Yes, I've got a                 light!                           STREET WALKER                 Good.       Fumbling, he finally gets her little cigar lighted with       one of his kitchen matches.                           CALVIN                 So...you...survived the blast, did                 you?                           STREET WALKER                 The blast?  Honey, I have survived a                 host of things. Like the song says: "A                 country boy can survive!"                           CALVIN                 Yes, yes, the song.  So tell me...has                 it been...hell up here?                           STREET WALKER                 "Hell up here?"  Honey, it's been hell                 up here, down there and over yonder!                 Hell everywhere.                           CALVIN                 Yes, I can tell that just looking                 around.                 		(then)                 "Boy?"  Did you say you were a                 "country boy?"                           STREET WALKER                 Cute Little Old Man, if you want a                 boy, I can be a boy.  And if you want                 a girl, I can be a girl.  I can be                 anything you want me to be!                           CALVIN                 Really?                           STREET WALKER                 Uh-huh. And it's all yours for the                 remarkably low price of only $200!                 And if you act now, I might even throw                 in some free lawn furniture.                           CALVIN                     (stumbling away from her)                 No, I can't.  I'm sorry!  I have to                 go!  I have to...       He breaks into a trot, heading up the street past a seedy       BAR (used to be the convenience store) just as a       hopelessly DRUNK HAG of a woman is shoved out and told to       stay out.  Calvin watches as the woman stumbles to the       curb where she TOSSES her cookies.  TWO LOW RIDERS HOP BY       full of TAUNTING YOUNG HISPANIC GANG MEMBERS, one of whom       BRANDISHES A PISTOL and, just for fun, points it at       Calvin.  When Calvin sees the pistol he ducks into the       ADULT BOOKSTORE. The young gang member pulls the trigger       and we (not Calvin) see that the realistic-looking pistol       is really a water gun.       INT. ADULT BOOK AND VIDEO STORE       Calvin races in and, gathering himself, addresses the       PAKISTANI MAN behind the counter.                           CALVIN                 Hello!  How are you this evening?!                 Mind if I, you know, browse around?!       The clerk just watches him.                           CALVIN                 Thank-Q very much!       Then Calvin turns and has his first look at the       material...and he GRABS HIS HEART and SCREAMS and FALLS       back KNOCKING OVER a whole ROW OF VIDEOS AND MAGAZINES.       INT. SHELTER, KITCHEN - AN HOUR LATER       Calvin sits at the breakfast table, still breathing hard       and holding his chest.  His family looks on with great       concern.  The anti-radiation suit and gear is piled in       the corner.                           CALVIN                 I'm going to give it to you straight.                 There's no point in beating around the                 bush. There were survivors.                 Apparently,                 the fallout has created....a                 subspecies of mutants.                           HELEN                 Mutants?!                           CALVIN                 It's not a pretty sight. Some eat out                 of garbage cans.  Others are...cover                 your ears, Son, and hum.  I mean that                 literally and I mean right now!       ADAM covers his ears and hums.                           CALVIN                 Others are...multi-sexual.  It                 seems...they can be both masculine and                 feminine...simultaneously.                           HELEN                 No.                           CALVIN                 Yes.                           HELEN                 I don't believe it!       Helen copes by moving around the kitchen doing things       that don't need to be done.                           CALVIN                 Believe it. He tried to sell me his                 body, Helen.                 		(beat)                 They offer lawn furniture as a come                 on!       She slumps, then resumes her needless activity.  Calvin       takes Adam's arm and the son drops his hands and stops       humming.                           CALVIN                 They've done a lot of re-building but                 society, at least as we knew it, has                 utterly collapsed. People throw up in                 the streets. Others point guns.                 There's something terribly wrong with                 the automobiles and...and I...I can't                 tell you the rest.  I just can't.                           HELEN                 Oh my. Oh,my, oh my, oh, my. So,                 what do we do now?                           CALVIN                 We stay down here.                           HELEN                 We do?                           CALVIN                 Yes.                           HELEN                 Excuse me.       She hurries into the living room.       INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS       Helen let's out a silent scream, then hurries back into       the kitchen.       INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS                           HELEN                 For how long?  We've just about run                 out of everything!                           CALVIN                 We'll make do.  I'm of the opinion                 that these mutants will eventually                 kill each other off and then--                           HELEN                     (rising)                 No, Calvin.  We're not going to make                 do.  Not me!  Not Adam.  We're going                 up no matter what!  We deserve it.                 Even if it's terrible!                           CALVIN                 Well, I am the head of this household--                           HELEN                 I want him to at least see the sky!                           CALVIN                 --and we will--                           HELEN                 And the ocean!  A mountain range!                           CALVIN                 --do as I say!       Breathing heavily, Calvin suddenly clutches at his chest       in great pain and collapses.                           ADAM                 Dad!                           HELEN                 Oh, no! Oh, my goodness!   Let's get                 him into the bedroom.       INT. HALLWAY - HOURS LATER       Adam paces.  Then Helen comes out.  Behind her, we can       see Calvin sleeping in his bed. She heads for the living       room. He follows.                           HELEN                 He seems to be doing all right now.  I                 don't know if he's had a heart attack                 or just... a horrifying experience.                 But we  need supplies and I've got to                 stay with him.                           ADAM                 I'll go up.       They go through the living room and cross to the patio.                           HELEN                 I'm afraid you've got to.                           ADAM                 I'll be all right.                           HELEN                     (patting his cheek)                 You're my brave boy.       Helen hands him a pencil and pad. Adam follows her to the       fish farm.                           HELEN                 Just act normal.  If anybody asks,                 simply say you're from out-of-town,                 and that you're in town on business.                 Write that down.       He does.                           HELEN (cont'd)                 I'm going to give you a shopping list                 and some money.  We need just enough                 things to get us through the next year                 or two.  And you'll find most of these                 items at what used to be called a                 grocery store or a hardware store.                 Write that down.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.       At the fish tank, Helen pulls up a slim chain that is       attached to a water-tight aluminum box which she quickly       opens. The box contains $6,000 in wrapped one hundred       dollar bills. Helen takes half of it.                           HELEN                 I don't know how far you'll have to                 travel to find supplies, but if you                 can't get home by nightfall, I want                 you to look for something called a                 Holiday Inn. Write that down. It's a                 hotel. There might still be one                 standing.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.                           HELEN                 Let's get you packed.       She heads back for the house. He follows.                           ADAM                 Right.                           HELEN                     (indicating money)                 I just hope this is still good up                 there.                           ADAM                 Mom?                           HELEN                 Yes?                           ADAM                 I was thinking that, uh...you know,                 while I was up there and all...that                 maybe I could, you know...try to meet                 a girl.  I've, been thinking about                 that a little...just these                 last...fifteen years or so.       They have stopped by the garden.                           HELEN                 Oh, Adam,that would be wonderful if                 you could find a girl. One who's not a                 mutant...and hopefully comes from                 Pasadena. Nothing against Valley                 girls,                 but in my day anyhow, the girls from                 Pasadena, I don't know...always just                 seemed a little nicer.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.       They hug.                           HELEN                 Oh, there's also a thing called a                 liquor store. Write that down.       INT. ADAM'S ROOM - AN HOUR LATER       He is packing. He looks at his cigar box and opens it. He       studies the contents: The Cards, stock certificates, and       an old photo of his parents. He decides to pack the box.       Helen enters with a long shopping list.                           HELEN                 Here's the shopping list and $3,000                 which should take care of everything.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.                           HELEN                 Your father has a few final words for                 you. You know, he'd fight a buzz saw                 for you - he loves you so much. We                 both do.                           ADAM                 Heck, I know that mom! You're my                 parents.       INT. MASTER BEDROOM - MOMENTS LATER       Adam sets down his suitcase and goes to his father's bed.       He sits. At the door, Helen dries her eyes with her       apron.  Calvin indicates that he wants to whisper to       Adam, who drops his ear close to his father's lips.                           CALVIN                 Adam...don't forget...don't forget ...                           ADAM                 Yes, father?! Yes?                           CALVIN                 ...the pipe tobacco.                           ADAM                 Yes, sir.  Is that all?       Calvin nods. Adam rises and starts for the door. But       Calvin remembers something and beckons him back to speak       weakly into his son's ear.                           CALVIN                 Also...stay out of the "Adult                 Bookstore."                           ADAM                 Adult Bookstore.  Why?                           CALVIN                 Poison gas. Invisible. Don't forget.                           ADAM                 I promise. Is that all?                           CALVIN                 One more thing. If you find a healthy                 young woman, bring her back with you.                           ADAM                 I'll try.       And then Calvin closes his eyes and sleeps.       INT. MALT SHOP - SAME DAY       The Soda Jerk has turned the rear exit into a religious       shrine.  He's put flowers and candles and costume jewelry       and religious icons (from all the Majors) on top of and       around the broken cement.  Currently he's on his knees,       rocking back and forth as he prays.       And,lo! There came a rumbling even as from the very       bowels of the earth and a great light showed forth       followed by gates of armor which opened and shut and       delivered up the vision of a young man whose countenance       caused the Soda Jerk to be struck dumb and to fall on his       face and to weep in fear.  And, Adam, taking pity on the       man, put down his suitcase, and went to him, saying:                           ADAM                 Are you all right?                           SODA JERK                 Yes!  Yes!  Oh, Lord!  Yes, oh, yes!                 But  where is the one who came last                 night -- all in yellow?!                           ADAM                 All in yellow?  Oh!  That was my                 father!                           SODA JERK                 Ooooohhhh!!  Of course! The father!                 Forgive me!!  Can you forgive me for                 my wasted life?!  Everything has been                 so awful!!                           ADAM                     (comforting him)                 I know it has been terrible.  But it                 wasn't your fault. And now all the                 decay is over with and things are                 going to get better. You understand?                           SODA JERK                 Yes.                           ADAM                 I've got to go, now.                           SODA JERK                 Of course you do.  I'll stay here and                 pray.                           ADAM                     (picking up his suitcase)                 That's always a good idea! Would you                 like some money? I have a great deal                 of it.                           SODA JERK                 No. I don't need money anymore -- I                 see that now.                           ADAM                 How do I leave here?                           SODA JERK                 The front door is open.  Will you be                 back?                           ADAM                 I promise.       Adam turns and leaves. The Soda Jerk falls to his knees       and shakes all over.       EXT. MALT SHOP - CONTINUOUS       Adam steps out onto the sidewalk and sunlight falls on       him much brighter than anything he has ever seen.  He       looks at it on the arm of his coat and then, slowly, he       looks up at the sky.       INTERCUT - LOVELY CLOUDS AND BLUE SKY       And now it is Adam who is dumbstruck. BYSTANDER #1       appears and sees Adam looking up.                           BYSTANDER #1                 What?  What is it?!                           ADAM                 The sky!!!                           BYSTANDER #1                 The sky?  Where?                           ADAM                     (pointing)                 Up there!!                           BYSTANDER #1                 I don't see anything!                           ADAM                 Just look!!       Adam becomes momentarily interested in a parking meter.       A MOTHER and her CHILD approach from the other direction.                           WOMAN                 What is it!                           BYSTANDER #1                     (pointing)                 He sees something.                           MOTHER                 What?                           CHILD                 I see it, mommy!                           BYSTANDER #2                 Where?!       Several more people are drawn over. A CONVERTIBLE goes by       in the foreground with passengers who are looking up.                           WOMAN                 What is it?                           ADAM                 I have never in my life seen anything                 like this!!!! Nothing even comes                 close!!       Adam continues down the sidewalk,looking up. A BLACK       WOMAN POSTAL WORKER passes by.                           POSTAL WORKER                 Whatcha looking at?                           ADAM                 Oh, my holy stars! A Negro!                           POSTAL WORKER                     (with attitude)                 Say what?!                           ADAM                     (offering his hand)                 How do you do, ma'am.                           POSTAL WORKER                     (leary, but taking his hand)                 I do alright.                           ADAM                 Good!       The Pakistani exits the Adult Bookstore.                           PAKISTANI                 What is it?!  What do you see?!       When Adam looks down to answer the man he sees the "Adult       Bookstore" sign.                           ADAM                 Oh, no!                           PAKISTANI                 What?!                           ADAM                 Poisonous gas!!  Run for your life,                 it's invisible poisonous gas!!!       And everyone does run away, including Adam. The avenue is       left totally deserted.       INT. KITCHEN NOOK - SAME DAY       Helen sits sipping tea, deep in thoughts of concern for       Adam. Behind her Calvin appears in the open window.                           CALVIN                 You know--       Helen is so startled she knocks the tea all over the       place.                           CALVIN (cont'd)                 I just wanted to say that I think he's                 going to be just fine.                           HELEN                     (holding her heart)                 Thank you, Calvin. Thank you very                 much.       Calvin leaves, then comes back.                           CALVIN                 He's smart.                           HELEN                 Yes, dear, I know.       SCENE 85A OMITTED       EXT. CORNER BUS STOP - AFTERNOON, SAME DAY       An L.A. bus comes directly at CAMERA.       ANGLE - THE DRIVER       is startled. He reacts.       ANGLE - DRIVER'S FOOT       slamming down the brake pedal.       ANGLE - ADAM       in profile. The braking bus stops an inch from his nose.       Adam smiles. (Have him head for bus door in this angle.)       ANGLE - THE DRIVER       from over Adam. He is in shock.       INT. BUS - A MOMENT LATER       Start on a MOVING STEADY CAM SHOT on Adam's POV of bus       passengers as he heads for a seat. The passengers look at       him in amazement and some fear.       ANGLE - ADAM       going to his seat; smiling at the passengers. (He is       carrying a $100 bill.)                           ADAM                 Hello! Hi. Good afternoon! Howdy.       Adam finds a seat next to a heavily perspiring young       PSYCHO HEROIN ADDICT.       ANOTHER ANGLE OF THEM       Adam shows the Psycho the $100 bill.                           ADAM                 I tried to give the driver this but he                 wouldn't take it. He seems angry. A                 lot of people do.       The bus pulls out. It gets up to about twenty miles an       hour.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 Oh, boy! Here we go! We're moving!                 Wow.       INTERCUT: PASSENGERS       looking back at Adam with concern.                           ADAM (CONT'D)                 So this is public transportation. My                 Dad says that it becomes more and more                 important because of pollution --                 which is more and more carbon dioxide                 and other hazardous gases in the air.                     (then, confidentially)                 Do you have a gun, by the way?       The increasingly nervous Psycho looks around, then nods       that he does.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 Well, thanks for not waving it around.                 And for not vomitting, for that                 matter. Wow, we're really flying. Say,                 do you know where I could find a                 grocery store?       The psycho shakes his head.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 I have to find that. And a hardware                 store  and a liquour store and a                 standing Holiday Inn. Although, I may                 not need the Holiday Inn. That's still                 kind of up in the air. It depends                 really on how things go.                           PSYCHO                     (pointing)                 There's a grocery store coming up.                           ADAM                 Thank-Q!                     (jumping up)                 Driver! Please stop the bus                 immediately! I have to get off!                     (then an aside to the psycho)                 Do you think I should get a gun?                           PSYCHO                 I don't know...maybe.                           ADAM                     (back to driver)                 Driver! Please stop, sir!       INTERCUT - DRIVER IN THE REAR VIEW       He's not going to stop until he wants to stop.       ANGLE - OLD JEWISH COUPLE PASSENGERS.       who are anxious for Adam to leave.                           OLD JEWISH MAN                 For the love of God! Let him off the                 bus!! Can't you see he's meshugina!       Adam leans in close to the OLD MAN.                           ADAM                 I'm sorry, what did you call me?       The man and his wife take that the wrong way and start to       scream.       ANGLE - THE DRIVER'S FOOT       hitting the brakes.       EXT.- BUS       stopping suddenly. Through the windows we see Adam go       down.       INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS       The back door opens as Adam gets up.                           ADAM                 Thank you, driver! Good-bye, everyone!       Adam exits the bus. Everyone, including the Psycho,       heaves a huge sign of relief.       INT. SUPER MARKET - MINUTES LATER       Adam enters and (after getting over the automatic doors       and the check-out technology) is overwhelmed by the       magnificence of the postmodern California supermarket.       The check-out counters alone are amazing. Seeing others       do it, he takes a cart, placing his suitcase in it.       INT. BAKERY COUNTER       Adam passes the baked goods, paying particular attention       to the elaborate birthday cakes.                           ADAM                 Is that a birthday cake?!                           CLERK                 Yes, it is.                           ADAM                 Gee-ma-nee!       Adam leaves. The clerk turns to a fellow worker.                           CLERK                 Bakersfield.       INT. AISLE       Adam marvels at the abundance and variety. He passes a       mother whose child is riding in the cart and that reminds       him of his own mom -- when she used to let him ride that       way.  Then he is surprised to see a MIDDLE-AGED COUPLE so       casually dressed in public. She (overweight) is in an       unfortunate terrycloth halter-shorts combination.  He       (hirsute) is in a sleeveless undershirt and baggy bathing       trunks.                           ADAM                     (to himself)                 My first mutants.       INT. FRESH PRODUCE       Adam picks up one of those huge California cucumbers that       always amaze Easterners.  He shows it to the JAPANESE-       AMERICAN CLERK.                           ADAM                 Is this because of the radiation?                           CLERK                 What?                           ADAM                 Nothing.       INT. MEAT COUNTER       Adam is looking at the live lobsters as a BUTCHER steps       up.                           BUTCHER                 Help you?                           ADAM                 Yes, please.                     (consulting his Mom's list)                 I'm looking for all beef patties.                           BUTCHER                 Fresh or frozen?       Adam chuckles because he thinks the man is kidding.                           ADAM                 Come on. Frozen. How much are they?                           BUTCHER                 Frozen, they're six-thirty a dozen in                 the three pound box.                           ADAM                 Then I'll need, twelve into nine                 hundred, seventy-five boxes. And                 that's almost...five hundred dollars                 just for the hamburger! And my Mom                 only gave me three thousand dollars                 for everything! The yacht batteries!                 The diesel oil! The birthday candles!                           BUTCHER                 You could have a meat order that big                 delivered to your home.                           ADAM                 Really?!                           BUTCHER                 Sure.                           ADAM                 Well, that's great then!                 Terrific...except...it just occurred                 to me. I don't know where I live! I'm                 lost! I don't know where home is!                     (then)                 Would you excuse me?                           BUTCHER                 Gladly.       Adam hurries away.       SCENE 93 OMITTED       SCENE 94 OMITTED       A MONTAGE       of Adam on another bus. He looks frantically out the       window. We see his POV of shops and stores and people. At       one point he sees two women joggers which he wonders       about. Then he sees two men arguing violently. Gradually       late day turns to night and Adam becomes more and more       depressed. Then he sees something. He is elated. He jumps       up and tells the driver:                           ADAM                 Driver! Stop this bus immediately!                 Please sir!!       EXT. - VENTURA BLVD - NIGHT       The bus stops mid-block and Adam gets off. He crosses the       street causing only one car to hit the brakes. On the       other side of the avenue we see what has gotten his       attention. It's an ADULT BOOKSTORE much like the last one       we saw (probably owned by the same chain.) He's happy but       when he looks next door he sees he's in a different       place. Sad and lost he turns north and starts to walk       until -- a billboard catches his attention. We pan up to       see a billboard for liposuction that features an almost       NUDE WOMAN. Adam is struck by the image and we spend some       time cutting between him and it. Then gathering himself       he turns and begins to walk south.       ANOTHER ANGLE       of him as he passes a BODY PIERCING STORE and wonders       about that. Then he sees something that blows his mind.       WIDER ANGLE       of a STRAY DOG passing by. Adam reacts.                           ADAM                 Oh my. Oh, my goodness gracious! Oh,                 my...Oh. That is so great!! Man alive!       ANGLE - CU OF BASEBALL CARDS STORE WINDOW       A sign says: COMIC BOOKS & BASEBALL CARDS BOUGHT, SOLD &       TRADED.       INT. CARD AND COMIC STORE - MOMENTS LATER       Adam enters with his suitcase in one hand and his cigar       box in the other.  He steps up to the counter where the       owner (JERRY) sits reading the newspaper. He has a       fondness for Navajo jewelry.                           ADAM                 Hello.                           JERRY                     (gives him a look, then goes                      back to reading)                 Hi.       A YOUNG WOMAN enters from the back of the store and goes       to another counter.  Neither man notices.                           ADAM                 The name is Adam Webber and I see you                 buy baseball cards and although these                 are a lot older than the ones in the                 window, I was hoping you still might                 be interested.       He flips open the cigar box to reveal to Jerry riches       beyond his wildest dreams.  Jerry actually moans and then       must pretend the moan was a cough.                           JERRY                 How--how much do you want for the                 Mickey Mantle, rookie season?                           ADAM                 I was thinking of selling all the                 cards.                           JERRY                 Really? No kidding?       He reaches in and looks through the cards.                           ADAM                 See, my problem is, all I have are                 hundred dollar bills and I need                 something smaller.  Ones, fives, tens.                 Like that.                           JERRY                 I see what ya mean. Tell you                 what...I'll give you five hundred                 dollars in small bills for the whole                 box.                           ADAM                 Oh, that would be wonderful!                           JERRY                 Well, we're here to help!       A woman steps into the shot. She has come from the back       of the store and her back is momentarily to us.                           EVE (OC)                 Oh, shit!       Adam turns to her and is immediately awe struck. We       reveal EVE RUSTOKOV. She tosses her lipstick into her       purse. Eve works in the card shop and is on her way out.                           JERRY                 I'm workin' here, Evey-poo.  Don't                 screw me up.                           ADAM                 Bon soir, mademoiselle!                           EVE                 Are you French?                           ADAM                 No.                     (then, thinking fast)                 I'm from out of town.                     (then sensing the need for                      further clarification)                 I'm here on business.                           EVE                 Well, your business must not be sports                 memorabilia, because this one Mantle                 card right here--                     (holds up a card)                 --is worth six thousand dollars all by                 its little self.                           ADAM                 Get out of here!                           EVE                 No, you get out of here.       She closes his cigar box and gives it to him.                           JERRY                 Terrific...you're fired! You know                 that?!                           EVE                 No, ferry--excuse me, Jerry, I quit.       She walks back to the counter to get her coat.                           JERRY                 Oh, no! I fired ya! Just like the hair                 salon guy and the Chevy dealer!  You                 know why you can't keep a goddamn                 job?!  Because you can't keep your                 goddamn mouth shut!  That's why!       Jerry is surprised when Adam suddenly takes his arm       firmly.                           ADAM                 Sir? I would really appreciate it if                 you wouldn't take the Lord's name in                 vain again.                           JERRY                     (looking at Adam's hand)                 Oh, you got a problem with that?                           ADAM                 I have a big problem with that.       Eve sees a fist fight coming. She takes Adam by the arm.                           EVE                 Come on, Heathcliff, I'll walk you to                 the corner.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.  But my name is Adam.                           EVE                 Just come on.       They head for the door and exit.                           JERRY                 Hah!  Adam and Eve!  The perfect                 match!  I hope you two will be very                 happy together!  Mazel-fuckin'-tov!                 Don't try coming back, Ms. Big Shot!                 I'm serious this time! You're finished                 in the hobby business! Take that to                 the bank, why don'tcha!       Adam re-enters.                           ADAM                 I didn't want to leave without saying                 how much I admire your jewelry.                           JERRY                 Hey, smart ass, how 'bout I kick your                 butt?       Adam walks towards the man smiling.                           ADAM                 How 'bout you what?       Jerry takes a nervous step backwards, but Eve steps back       in and pulls Adam out.                           EVE                 I said come on!       Adam exits. Jerry doesn't know what to say.       EXT. CARD STORE - NIGHT       They exit the store.                           ADAM                 Where are we going?                           EVE                 We? I'm going home. And, judging by                 that coat, I'd say you have to get                 back to the barber college.                           ADAM                 No, I'm lost.                           EVE                 You're lost?                           ADAM                 Say,...did you just lose your job                 because of me?                           EVE                 Forget it.  I'm sick of working for                 that dickhead.                           ADAM                 Dickhead?                           EVE                 A walking penis capable of intelligent                 speech.  A dickhead.       A mental picture of that causes Adam to slump against a       store window and drop his box of cards.                           EVE                 What's wrong with you?                           ADAM                 I just had a mental picture of...                           EVE                 Here, pick these up!       Together they pick up the cards.                           EVE (cont'd)                 Where are you parked?                           ADAM                 I came on a bus.                           EVE                 Why doesn't that surprise me?                           ADAM                 I don't know. Why doesn't it?       They rise.                           EVE                 Well, I guess because I'm a little                 psychic...I have this thing.                           ADAM                 Oh, that's nice.                           EVE                 Let me guess something. This is your                 first visit to La La Land. You're                 staying somewhere over in Hollywood                 because, like an idiot, you thought                 that would be an exciting place to                 stay.  Right so far?                           ADAM                     (could be a question, could                      be an answer.)                 So far?                           EVE                 Yes, I'm right?                           ADAM                 Right.                           EVE                 I knew it! So anyhow, you get on a bus                 and before you know it, you're out                 here in the San Fernando Valley                 without a clue.  Which brings us to                 here.  Correct again?                           ADAM                 Again.                           EVE                 Where are you staying? The Holiday                 Inn?                           ADAM                 Yes! Yes! The Holiday Inn! That's                 exactly right!                           EVE                 See? I'm psychic. Not completely, but                 pretty much. That was pretty good,                 wasn't it?!                           ADAM                 It was amazing.                           EVE                 Yeah. Thanks. Anyhow, let me predict a                 bus for you to get on.                           ADAM                 Do you own a car?                           EVE                 I'm not taking you there, Sweetie.                 Rule Number One in North America: No                 strangers in the car.                           ADAM                 If it will make you feel any better, I                 don't have a gun.                           EVE                 You don't?                           ADAM                 Nope.                           EVE                 Well, that changes everything. Get the                 fuck away from me!!  I mean it!!       She races around the corner.  He goes after her.                           ADAM                 I'm sorry!  I said something wrong,                 didn't I!  Please forgive me!                           EVE                 Get away from me!!       She runs into a parking lot.  He follows.                           ADAM                 Wait! Please wait!  I'll make a deal                 with you!  I'll give you a Rogers                 Hornsby, if you'll take me to the                 hotel!                           EVE                 Rogers Hornsby?!?                           ADAM                 He's all yours. I was holding him                 back.       Adam takes a Hornsby card from his coat pocket and shows       it to her.                           EVE                 Rogers Hornsby's worth like four                 thousand dollars!                           ADAM                 So what?!  I've got two of him!                 		(removing more cards from his                 		 pocket)                 And this many DiMaggios and Robinsons.                 I was holding these out, too.       She arrives at her car (dirty GEO) and anxiously unlocks       the driver's door.                           EVE                 So for four thousand dollars, all I                 have to do is drive you to your hotel?                           ADAM                 Yes.                           EVE                 And that's it?                           ADAM                 Yes.                           EVE                 I don't have to take a physical in                 your space ship?                           ADAM                 Heck, no!  What?!                           EVE                 Okay.  What the hell?  You got a deal.                 Get in.       She gets in. He gets in the back seat behind her.                           EVE (cont'd)                 The front seat!       He runs around to the front while Eve chats with herself.                           EVE (cont'd)                 Why am I doing this? What in the hell                 is wrong with me? That's what I'd like                 to know.       SCENE 99 OMITTED       EXT. HOLLYWOOD FREEWAY - MINUTES LATER       Traffic is moving at fifteen miles an hour. The dash       lights fascinate him but the car scares him.  She notices       that he is gripping the seat belt for dear life.                           EVE                 So...Mister Andretti, your first time                 on the freeway?                           ADAM                 It's Webber.  Adam Webber.                           EVE                 Mind if I change the station?                 Better traffic reports on AM.       She switches over to AM and runs by a Perry Como record,       "Round and Round", looking for traffic.                           ADAM                 Wait!  Wait!                           EVE                 What is it?!                           ADAM                 It's Perry!                           EVE                 Perry?                           ADAM                 Perry Como!  You had him!  Go back!                 Go back!                           EVE                 Okay, okay!  Take it easy!       She gets Perry.                           EVE                 How's that?                           ADAM                     (star-struck)                 Oh, I could die...                           EVE                 Over this?                           ADAM                 Yeah! Listen to this part. This is                 where it really takes off!                           EVE                 You are one scary son-of-a-gun.       EXT. FREEWAY       Eve's car splits for the exit ramp.       INT. EVE'S CAR       The sudden speed scares Adam.                           ADAM                 Hey, what are you doing?!                           EVE                 I know a short-cut.       EXT. OFF RAMP       She comes off, catches the light and whips onto the       surface street, tires squealing.       INT. CAR       Adam is hanging onto his seat belt. Eve puts the pedal to       the metal.                           ADAM                 Gee-zooie!!  You better slow down!!!                           EVE                 I can't help it. Perry Como always                 does this to me! I just get so                 cranked!       She turns Perry way up.       EXT. AVENUE       Eve does a dandy job of trading lanes and passing.  The       little Geo's engine screams. Adam's sort of getting into       it.       EXT. HOLLYWOOD HOLIDAY INN - TEN MINUTES LATER       The Geo flies up to a quick stop.       INT. CAR       Eve turns to Adam, who has had A Life Experience.                           EVE                 Card, please.  End of service.       He hands over the card like someone in a post-sex stupor.                           ADAM                 That was...wonderful!  I've never felt                 anything like that in my life.                           EVE                 Yeah, same here. Don't forget your                 suitcase.                           ADAM                 Right.       He gets out with the suitcase, and after shutting the       door leans down to speak to her.                           ADAM                 You know--       She tears off, leaving him there.       INT. HOTEL REGISTRATION - MINUTES LATER       Adam addresses the clerk.                           ADAM                 Good evening. I want to stay at this                 hotel.                           CLERK                 Fill this out please. And I'll need a                 card.                           ADAM                 A card?                           CLERK                 Yes, sir.                           ADAM                 Of course!       Adam gives him a baseball card.       INT. HOTEL ROOM - LATER SAME NIGHT       A BELLBOY ushers Adam in and sets down his bag.                           BELLBOY                 Bathroom's there, TV's over there.                 Remote's on top. Room Service menu is                 on the table.       Adam picks up the phone and listens.                           BELLBOY (CONT'D)                 You dial nine to get out.                           ADAM                     (beat, then)                 Of what?                           BELLBOY                     (beat, then)                 The hotel.                           ADAM                     (beat, then he hangs up)                 I see.  Well, thank you very much.                 You've been very, very nice.       He offers two dollars.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 I was able to get some change                 downstairs and my father taught me                 that it's customary to tip in a                 situation such as this.                           BELLBOY                 Thank you. Your father is a smart guy.                           ADAM                 My father is a genius.                           BELLBOY                 No kiddin'. Well...good night.                           ADAM                 Good night!  Sleep tight.  Don't let                 the bedbugs bite!  That's what my Mom                 always says...                 		(choking up)                 ...who I'm really beginning to miss.                 I'm sorry.  It's my first night away                 from home.                           BELLBOY                 How old are you?                           ADAM                 Thirty-five.                           BELLBOY                 You don't look thirty-five.                           ADAM                 How old do I look?                           BELLBOY                 Twenty-five? Around there.                           ADAM                 I guess living up here makes people                 look older.                           BELLBOY                 Up here on the fifteenth floor?                           ADAM                     (catching himself)                 Yes. Up here on the fifteenth floor.                 Goodnight.                           BELLBOY                 Goodnight.       Adam abruptly shuts the door in the man's face.       He goes to the window and looks out. The height scares       him to death. He jumps back.       INT. SHELTER, DINNER TABLE - SAME TIME       Adam's parents pray.                           CALVIN                 And Lord we ask finally that you send                 an angel to look after and protect our                 beloved son, Adam.  Amen.                           HELEN                 Amen.       She begins to tear up and he pats her hand.       INT. HOTEL ROOM - DAWN       Adam sits by the window watching his first dawn.       EXT. HOLIDAY INN - MORNING       It's another bright, smoggy day.  And here comes Eve,       marching from the parking garage to the hotel entrance.                           EVE                     (skyward)                 What in the hell am I doing here?!                 That's what I'd like to know! Somebody                 tell me that.       INT. FRONT DESK - MOMENTS LATER       Eve is speaking to a DESK CLERK.                           DESK CLERK                 You don't have a last name?                           EVE                 All I know is that his first name is                 Adam.  No!  Adam Webber!  That's it.       INT. ADAM'S ROOM - MOMENTS LATER       He is seated on the bed, transfixed, watching a       television commercial.The PHONE RINGS loudly.  Adam       nearly jumps out of his skin.  After he figures out where       the ringing is coming from, he answers the phone.                           ADAM                     (into phone, after a long                      pause)                 Yes?       INT. LOBBY       At the house phone.                           EVE                     (into phone)                 Hi. This is the woman from the                 baseball card store.  Remember me?       INT. ADAM'S ROOM       Boy, is he glad to hear from her!                           ADAM                 Yes!  Hello!  Hi!  Hot-diggity-dog!                 Thank you for calling me on the                 telephone!!       INT. LOBBY       Eve holds the receiver away from her for a moment.                           EVE                 Good grief. Hey listen, I'm in the                 lobby.                     (pause, then)                 On the first floor! Where the hell                 else would it be?       INT. LOBBY, ELEVATORS - MOMENTS LATER       The doors open and Adam hurries out, looking for Eve, who       he sees and goes directly to, smiling all the while like       a rumpled idiot.                           ADAM                 I am so glad to see you!!  I thought                 I'd never see you again!                           EVE                 Okay, down boy. (holds up the baseball                 card) I can't take this for driving                 you home. I wish I could, but I can't.                 So here, take it back. I could have                 just left it for you at the desk, but                 it's very valuable. Now take it.                           ADAM                 I can't, it's yours.                           EVE                 Take it. damn it!                           ADAM                     (with hand over his mouth)                 Okay.       He takes the card.                           EVE                 Why are you doing that?                           ADAM                 I haven't brushed yet.                           EVE                 Oh. Okay. Well, so long. Enjoy your                 visit.       She heads for the front door.  He goes after her.                           ADAM                 Wait, Eve, please!  Wait.                           EVE                 Please don't follow me.  Don't do it!       EXT. HOTEL - DAY       They exit.                           EVE                 I knew this would happen!  You're like                 a lost puppy!                           ADAM                 Can't you please just talk to me for                 one second?                           EVE                 Okay!  Damn!       She stops, he stops.                           EVE (CONT'D)                 I should have taken the money and run!                 That's what Troy told me to do!  But                 do I listen?  No! Put your hand down!       He does.                           ADAM                 Troy? Is he your husband? Or a                 boyfriend?                           EVE                 No.                           ADAM                     (eyes to heaven)                 Thank-Q!                           EVE                 Oh, stop that!  God! Listen, I know                 you like me.  I can tell. But you know                 what? A lot of guys like me.  Not me,                 exactly. It's more like the legs or                 the butt or the hair.  Or some                 combination of the above.                           ADAM                 I think it's the eyes.                           EVE                 The eyes.  Okay. An eye-man.  Anyhow,                 it never works out.  Okay?  Not that                 you even need to know that!  You look                 like crap, by the way.  What have you                 been doing?                           ADAM                 Watching television in color.                           EVE                 Hey, no kidding?  In color?                           ADAM                 Cross my heart and hope to die.       She looks at him for a beat or two, then abruptly turns       away.                           EVE                 See, ya.                           ADAM                 Why doesn't it never work out?                           EVE                 What?                           ADAM                 Why does it never work out?  You                 and...men?                           EVE                 Why?!  Who the hell knows?!       He follows closely. She stops.                           EVE (cont'd)                 Okay, if you promise to leave me                 alone, I'll tell you.                           ADAM                 ...Okay.                           EVE                 It never works out because I'm into                 legs and butts and hair myself!                 That's why! So I wind up with guys who                 are very good looking, but                 even more shallow than I am, if you                 can picture that.                 Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go                 find another low-paying, demeaning job                 where some guy named Jerry keeps                 telling me how lousy his marriage is.                           ADAM                 Why not go to work for me?                           EVE                 Doing what?                           ADAM                 Selling all my baseball cards.                 And helping me buy enough food and                 supplies to fill several large trucks.                           EVE                 Food and supplies?  Who for?  Like                 starving people?                           ADAM                 Well, they're not starving yet, but                 they need help.                           EVE                 How long would you need me?                           ADAM                 Two weeks.                           EVE                 What's the pay?                           ADAM                 What's fair?                           EVE                 I've got to make at least a thousand a                 week.       He gives her his patented thumbs up sign which of course       is exactly like his father's.                           ADAM                 You got it!                 Wait here while I change.                           EVE                 Sure.       He walks back to the hotel.                           EVE                     (to herself)                 My career's finally taking off...       EXT. MARINE WHOLESALE SUPPLY, MARINA DEL REY - DAY       Heavy-duty BOAT BATTERIES are being loaded into a U-Haul       truck.  The store MANAGER steps up to Eve who is       watching. Adam appears in the bg, thanking and being nice       to the MEN loading the truck. He looks mighty stupid in       another one of his Dad's old outfits.                           MANAGER                 Why would someone need twenty yacht                 batteries?                           EVE                 I just work for the guy.                           MANAGER                 And who does he work for?  The CIA?                           EVE                 Naw...it's some sort of charity                 thing..I guess for starving people                 with yachts.       INT. PRICE CLUB - LATER SAME DAY       Eve and Adam shop with two carts, both full of CASES OF       DR. PEPPER.                           EVE                 Why not buy them milk or something--                 instead of Dr. Pepper?                           ADAM                 They like Dr. Pepper.                           EVE                 Who are these people?                           ADAM                 My Mom and Dad.                           EVE                 Very funny, smart ass.                           ADAM                 Hey!  Pipe tobacco!  I'm going to need                 all of this! This is swell!       He goes over to a huge supply of Prince Albert.                           EVE                     (to herself)                 Swell? Run, Eve.  Run.       EXT. LOADING DOCK - SAME DAY       Eve and Adam watch as a man with a forklift puts a year's       supply of toilet paper into the back of the rental truck.       EXT. GROCERY STORE PARKING LOT - SAME DAY       A crowd has gathered to watch Adam and Eve empty seven       shopping carts full of non-perishable groceries.       ANGLE - 5 MINUTES LATER       Eve goes to get into the truck. Adam hurries by her.                           ADAM                 Wait! Wait!                           EVE                 What?       He opens the door for her. She shakes her head and gets       in.       EXT. HOLIDAY INN - THAT NIGHT       She drives the truck to a stop. He keeps the beat to the       song on the AM radio. It's VolarÈ. Adam loves it. Eve       hates it. They come to a stop and she snaps off the       radio.                           EVE                 Well, another day, another dollar.                     (then)                 Stop staring at me!!                           ADAM                 Sorry.       He gets out.                           EVE                 Pick you up at eight tomorrow morning.                           ADAM                 Hey, you know. I was thinking...                           EVE                 Night!       She pulls away.                           ADAM                 Night!       EXT./INT. U-STORE-IT - NEXT DAY       Adam drags the last 50-pound bag of flour into a self-       storage locker and pulls down the sliding door which he       padlocks.                           ADAM                 We'll have to rent a refrigerated                 truck for the beef and poultry.                           EVE                 It's your life.  And, by the way, it's                 a dandy.                           ADAM                 I guess we'll need another locker.                           EVE                 No problem.  We'll just sell another                 baseball card.                           ADAM                 You know, Eve -- don't get mad, okay? -                 -  but, I'd just be lost without you.                           EVE                 Thank you.                           ADAM                 And, um ...I guess...                 I guess you and I, uh...                           EVE                 Adam?  Don't even think about it.                 Okay?                 I'm sorry.  I know that sounds mean,                 but believe me, it would be meaner if                 I didn't say it. Okay?                           ADAM                 Okay.                           EVE                 Now, let's take the truck back and get                 something to eat.       She hops in behind the wheel.  He (hurt) is a little       slower getting in his side.       EXT. FREEWAY - LATER, SAME DAY       Traffic is moving about forty miles an hour.  Their truck       is in one of the middle lanes.       INT. U-HAUL - CONTINUOUS       Adam screws up his guts and turns to her.                           ADAM                 There's something else I would like                 you to help me with.                           EVE                 Name it.                           ADAM                 Well, this is going to sound a little                 crazy.                           EVE                     (laughing)                 Oh, I'm sure it will!                           ADAM                 Then forget it.                           EVE                 No, no!  I'm sorry!  What is it?                           ADAM                 This is for me.                           EVE                 Think of me as your genie.  Just ask.                           ADAM                 Well... Okay. I would like you to help                 me find a...wife.                           EVE                 A wife?                           ADAM                 Yes.                           EVE                 What for?                           ADAM                 Because I want to get married.                           EVE                 Why?!                           ADAM                 I don't want to be alone.                           EVE                 You can be single and not alone.                 Marriage bites!                           ADAM                 Bites what?                           EVE                 The big one!                           ADAM                 It does?                           EVE                 Sure.                           ADAM                 I didn't know that.                           EVE                 Everybody knows that. Ask my divorced                 sisters. Or ask my divorced mom and                 dad.                           ADAM                 They're all divorced?                           EVE                 Everybody's divorced.                           ADAM                 It didn't used to be that way.                           EVE                 I wouldn't know.                     (then)                 What kind of wife are you looking for?                           ADAM                 One who's not a mutant.                           EVE                 No dogs, huh? Okay.                           ADAM                 And if possible, I'd like to marry                 someone from Pasadena.       She is speechless. Then:                           EVE                 When do you need her by?                           ADAM                 Two weeks.                           EVE                 Well, I could probably get you laid in                 two weeks, but to locate a non-mutant                 wife from Pasadena...that could take                 some                 time.                           ADAM                 That's what I was afraid of.       INT. DINER - LATER, SAME DAY       Adam and Eve are in a booth. The WAITRESS approaches with       sandwiches and drinks.                           ADAM                 What do you mean, you can get me laid?       He and the waitress look to Eve for an answer.                           EVE                 Could we talk about that a little                 later?                           ADAM                 Of course.                           EVE                     (sugary, to waitress)                 Thank you.       The amazed waitress leaves.  Adam automatically lowers       his head and says grace.  Two HAPPENIN' GUYS at the       counter look over and chuckle at the rube.  Eve flips       them a mean bird and mouths the words "fuck you" as Adam       continues to pray. The guys shut up.       EXT. EVE'S HOUSE - LATE DAY       Eve shares a frame Santa Monica bungalow.  It's in a       pretty nice neighborhood on a quiet street.  Her GEO       FISHTAILS into the picture and comes to rest half in the       street, half on the curb.  Adam is driving.                           EVE                 Get out!                           ADAM                 The engine is still running.       She rips the keys out of the ignition.                           EVE                 Now, get out!!                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am!                           EVE                 Stop that ma'am crap!                           ADAM                 Sorry!       They get out.                           EVE                 You almost got us killed!                           ADAM                 I told you I've never driven before!                           EVE                 Never drive again!                           ADAM                 You said it would be easy!                           EVE                 I was wrong!!                           ADAM                 Is this your house?                           EVE                 Yes!                           ADAM                 I like it.       She storms off for the house where a YOUNG MAN is coming       out the front door in a cut-off T-shirt and spandex       exercise shorts.                           EVE                 Swell!       EXT. PORCH       CLIFF is leaving with a cardboard box full of clothes.       He is exceedingly GOOD LOOKING AND IN VERY GOOD SHAPE.       Eve and Adam come up the steps.                           CLIFF                 What are you bitching about now?                           EVE                 What are you doing here?                           CLIFF                 I forgot some of my stuff.                           EVE                 Your stuff?  Let me see that.       She looks in the box.  Holds up a pair of old briefs.                           EVE                 You came back for these?                           CLIFF                 Hey, they're Ralph Laurens.  And who's                 this interesting looking fellow?                           EVE                 This is Adam.  Adam, meet Cliff.                           ADAM                     (offering hand)                 How do you do?                           CLIFF                 I do fine, Adam.  How 'bout yourself?                 		(eyeing Eve)                 You doin' any good?                           EVE                 Go home, Cliff, wherever that might                 be.                           CLIFF                 Shana Gillroy's apartment.  Remember                 her?  The model who went to Harvard?                 Well, I better get going!  Bye, Adam.                 Nice coat!       Cliff smiles and bounces down the steps.                           ADAM                 Why, thank you!  Very nice to have met                 you, Cliff!                 		(then to her)                 May I ask you a question?                           EVE                 He's a former boyfriend. We lived                 together for about six months.  And                 yes, I'll admit it.  I've still kind                 of got a thing for him.                     (entering the house)                 That's what you wanted to know, isn't                 it?                           ADAM                     (following)                 Actually,no. I was wondering why Cliff                 likes to wear another man's                 underpants.                           EVE                     (OC)                 What?!       INT. EVE'S HOUSE - NIGHT       Very good music is playing. Adam listens to one speaker       then crosses to listen to the other. Then he goes back to       the first.       INT.EVE'S KITCHEN - SAME TIME       Eve is pouring champagne into a glass that contains two       sugar cubes.  Next she adds several dashes of bitters.       TROY, HER GAY ROOMMATE, throws together a tray of       appetizers as dinner cooks on the stove.                           TROY                     (sotto)                 Eve!  This guy is un-be-liev-able!                           EVE                 I knew you'd like him.                           TROY                 Darlin', this is X-File stuff!  Think                 about it!  The guy's got all this                 easily negotiable property. He's                 obviously setting something up very                 big.  Like a self-sustaining island                 off the coast of South America, for                 instance. Or perhaps he's the head of                 a cult that's doing weird things with                 poultry and pipe tobacco. I've heard                 worse.       He rushes out with the tray.       INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS       Troy enters with sushi appetizers. Adam is looking at the       ceiling.                           ADAM                 You have very nice ceilings.                           TROY                 I do? Well, thank you! You like                 ceilings?                           ADAM                 Not particularly.                           TROY                 Well, I hope you like these! Fresh sea                 urchin wrapped in seaweed. Or "nori"                 if you prefer. I love sushi.                           ADAM                 I love Lucy!                           TROY                 You nut!       Eve enters with Adam's drink and two white wines.       .                           EVE                 Here you go.  One champagne cocktail.                           ADAM                 Thank-Q!                           EVE                 I thought only hookers drank those                 things.                           ADAM                 Well, I know Mom sure likes 'em!       Eve and Troy look at each other as she hands him his       wine.                           TROY                 Dinner in fifteen minutes. Why don't                 we sit and chat.       They do.                           TROY                 So, Adam...where on earth are you                 from?                           EVE                 Out-of-town.  That's all he'll say.                           ADAM                 It's a very small place. People don't                 even know it's there.                           TROY                 And it's called...?                           ADAM                 Maybe Eve can guess.  She's psychic.                           TROY                 Really?  Since when?                           EVE                     (defensive)                 Since that guy rear-ended me in Palm                 Springs.                           TROY                 Oh, yes.                           EVE                 I even guessed his hotel, didn't I?                           ADAM                 Right on the button.                           TROY                 Well, Dionne Warwick, guess his home                 town.                           EVE                 Give me your hand.                           TROY                     (to himself)                 Oh, my God...       Adam holds out his hand and she takes it, rubbing her       finger slowly and gently around in his palm.  For her,       it's psychic stuff.  For him, it's spine-tingling.                           EVE                 Okay, let's see...I'm not promising                 anything. You okay?                           ADAM                 Um-hum.                           EVE                 I'm seeing...snow... lots of snow.                 Way up North.  Are we getting hot?                           ADAM                 Yes!                           EVE                 You live in...Alaska.  The only way in                 or out of your place is by plane                 and... you've definitely come down                 here for food and supplies and... to                 find a wife!                           ADAM                 Wow.       She tosses back his hand and grabs her wine for a victory       gulp.                           TROY                 That's right?                           ADAM                     (to Eve)                 I've never met anyone like you in my                 life.                           TROY                 She's right?!                           EVE                 Hey, butthead, I'm clairvoyant.                           ADAM                 I've got goose-bumps all over me.                           TROY                 Why not just go to... Nome for                 supplies and a wife?  Isn't that                 closer?                           EVE                 Yeah, right!  That's where you'd go to                 find girls!  Nome.  He's gay, by the                 way.                           ADAM                 Good for you.                           TROY                 Well, we try. Listen, let me just ask                 you a few questions.  When did Alaska                 become a state?                           ADAM                 1959.                           TROY                 Who use to own it?                           ADAM                 Russia.                           TROY                 When did we get it from them?                           ADAM                 1867.  Seward's Folly. We paid 7.2                 million dollars for it. A tidy sum                 then, as well as now. I'm quoting my                 father, of course.                           TROY                 What's the capitol?                           ADAM                 Juneau.                           TROY                 Hello! It's Anchorage!  Gotcha!                           ADAM                 Sorry, that's the largest city.       Troy jumps up and runs out of the room.                           ADAM                 Where's he gone?                           EVE                 He's gone to check your answers on his                 computer.                           ADAM                 He has a computer?                           EVE                 Sure.                           ADAM                 In the house?                           EVE                 No.  We keep it in the backyard.  Of                 course, in the house.  It's in there.                           ADAM                 May I please be excused?                           EVE                 Uh...yeah.       TROY'S OFFICE       He has "Alaska" on his computer screen.  Adam enters and       looks at the computer, which captivates him.                           ADAM                 This must be very new.                           TROY                 Yeah.                           ADAM                 It's so small.                           TROY                 What are you talking about? This is                 the new Mac. You a hacker?                           ADAM                 I don't think so.                           TROY                 You don't have a computer in your                 cabin?                           ADAM                 No.                           TROY                 How do you get through those winters?                 		(reading screen)                 Well, you're right.  Juneau.                 		(then, covering the                 		 screen with his hand)                 What's the highest peak?                           ADAM                 Mt. McKinley.  It's also the highest                 point in North America.                           TROY                     (after peeking at the screen)                 Okay, maybe she is psychic.  Let's go                 eat!                           ADAM                     (indicating computer)                 That would knock my father out.                           TROY                 Yeah?                           ADAM                 Oh, yes.                     (to himself)                 It would probably kill him.                           TROY                 He's a Windows guy then, huh?                           ADAM                 Yes. He likes windows.                           TROY                 Well, I think Windows stink. What do                 you think of that?                           ADAM                 ...I guess it's...just a matter of                 personal taste.                           TROY                 True.       Troy exits. Adam follows.       (EDITORIAL:  Scenes 131, 132, and 133 should follow scene       134 rather than precede it.)       INT. SHELTER, MASTER BEDROOM - SAME TIME       Calvin Webber is sleeping soundly.  Helen stands quietly       at the door looking at him. She finishes off her       champagne cocktail and very quietly shuts the door.       INT. ANTEROOM - MOMENTS LATER       Helen goes into the elevator. Obviously, she's had too       much to drink.       INT. MALT SHOP - MOMENTS LATER       The floor rumbles and the metal doors open emitting the       red light.  Soda Jerk and TEN OF HIS FOLLOWERS stand up       expectantly and anxiously.  Helen appears--and looks at       this terribly odd assortment of people.                           SODA JERK                 Who are you?!                           HELEN                     (beat, then)                 I'm the mother.                           SODA JERK                 It's the mother!!       And they all fall down on their knees and worship her       with much wailing and rejoicing.  Several speak in       tongues. Helen stares at them wide-eyed, presses the       button on the control box, and goes back down.       INT. DINING TABLE - NIGHT       Adam's impeccable table manners serve to highlight Eve's       and Troy's utter lack of same.                           TROY                 But first, you have to start with the                 clothes!                           EVE                 Exactly.                 		(then to Adam)                 You understand that, don't you?  You                 have no chance of meeting a woman                 dressed like that.                           ADAM                 All right.                           EVE                     (to Troy)                 So, what are you seeing?                           TROY                     (looking Adam over)                 I don't know.                           EVE                 Money is no object.  He's got cards up                 the wazoo.                           ADAM                 The what?                           EVE                 Wazoo!  Try to listen.                     (then to Troy)                 Whataya think? Surfer, grunge, hip-                 hop, Euro trash?                           TROY                 You're serious, aren't you?                           EVE                 What's that supposed to mean?                           TROY                 It means that your taste in men's                 apparel is as bad as your taste in                 men.                           EVE                 Well, that's blunt!                           TROY                 I'm sorry. But if the shoe fits.                           EVE                 And I suppose you see him in some sort                 of strapless  thing, don't you?                           TROY                 I see "elegant."                           EVE                 Yeah? Like Ralph Lauren?                           TROY                 That's what I'm sensing.                           ADAM                 The guy with the underpants!                           EVE                 That's boring!                           TROY                     (indicating Adam)                 Not on him.                           ADAM                 I'm not wearing his pants.                           TROY                 Why not? He has great pants.                           ADAM                 I just don't want to.                           TROY                 Okay.                           EVE                 Why don't you take him and pick out                 his clothes?                           TROY                 Alright, I will.                           EVE                     (talking with her mouth full)                 I'm busy tomorrow anyway. I have to                 buy six thousand paper napkins.                           TROY                 What do you think, Adam?                           ADAM                 About clothing?                           EVE                 Yeah.                           ADAM                 Whatever you two want. If you've got                 the time, I've got the wazoo.       Eve and Troy watch him eat for a beat or two.                           TROY                 Isn't it a little tiring to sit up                 straight like that?                           ADAM                 No.                           EVE                 What about holding your right arm up                 like that all the time?                           ADAM                 It's fine. Just give it a try.                 And for gosh sake, Eve, take your foot                 off the chair!       She does. Eve and Troy emulate Adam.       SCENE 135 OMITTED       SCENE 136 OMITTED       EXT. EVE'S HOUSE - DAY       Troy and Adam get out of Eve's car with a lot of       packages. They head for the house.                           ADAM                 I guess a lot of those tall buildings                 we saw this morning are new.                           TROY                 Almost all of them.                           ADAM                 The recovery is very impressive.                           TROY                 The recovery? Oh , yeah! Hey, they                 rebuilt the freeway in six months.                           ADAM                 Amazing. I'm very impressed.       INT. EVE'S HOUSE - SAME DAY       Eve is on the couch doing her toenails when Adam and Troy       enter. Adam is in a casually elegant outfit that looks       terrific. Both he and Troy are carrying lots of other       packages and garment bags. We see names like Gucci,       Armani and Lauren. Eve is visibly impressed by Adam's       makeover.                           TROY                 Well, what do you think?                           EVE                 I think...it...works.                           TROY                 Let me show you the entire trousseau!                           ADAM                 But first let me show her these!       He reaches into a bag and removes a box that contains --       a pair of rollerblades.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 Eve, can I skate around your block?                           TROY                     (making it sexual)                 How 'bout it, Eve? Can he skate around                 your block?                           EVE                     (beat, then)                 No.       SCENE 137A OMITTED       SCENE 137B OMITTED       SCENE 138 OMITTED       EXT. VENICE BEACH - LATER, SAME DAY       There is a most unusual band shell location on the beach       that is completely covered by graffiti. Eve and Troy sit       at one of the many stone tables watching Adam skate all       over the place. He wears spandex workout pants and a T-       shirt.       The starting CRANE SHOT begins on the nearly deserted       commercial section of Venice Beach and then takes us to       the band shell.       ANGLE - CLOSER       of him skating and them watching.                           EVE                 He's going to kill himself.                     (then, to Adam)                 Go skate out on the bike path! It's                 that way!                           ADAM                 Okay!       He heads out of the band shell. We follow him as he       skates into an area that has been given over to the       homeless. They sit around in their sleeping bags and       blankets and cheer (and jeer) Adam when he passes by. He       takes them to be more mutants.       EXT. BIKE PATH - CONTINUOUS       Adam skates to it and is amazed to see two very pretty       girls skating in their tiny bikinis. A nearly nude body-       builder guy goes by on a bike. Then Adam sees the ocean.       ANGLE - WAVES       breaking on the beach and rocks.       EXT. BEACH - MOMENTS       Adam tosses off his roller-blades and walks trance-like       towards the waves.       ANGLE - TROY AND EVE       appear on a dune behind him and watch.       ANGLE - ADAM       Adam raises his arms to greet the ocean, perhaps like a       Plains Indian would. Then he joyously runs into the surf       and dives.       ANGLE - TROY AND EVE       watching.                           EVE                 That water's freezing!                           TROY                 He's from Alaska.       ANGLE - ADAM       He surfaces and throws his fists in the air.       ANGLE - TROY AND EVE                           TROY                 That's why little things mean so much                 to him.       ANGLE - ADAM                           ADAM                 I LOVE THIS!!       Begin the record "YMCA" over this.       INT. EVE'S LIVING ROOM - NEXT DAY       Eve enters from her morning shower to find Troy and Adam       goofing to The Village People song. She gives Troy a       disapproving look.                           TROY                     (defensive)                 What?! He wanted to hear some                 standards!       (My hip daughters tell me that "YMCA" is enjoying a huge       rebirth of popularity at their parties. Apparently they       line dance to it.)       EXT. FREEWAY - SAME DAY       A helicopter shot follows the U-Haul in traffic.       (Continue music.)       EXT. SELF-STORAGE - SAME DAY       Adam and Eve fill a second storage site. (Continue       music.)       EXT. BASEBALL DIAMOND, PUBLIC PARK  - DAY       We see the infield of a gay softball team wheel a double       play.       ANGLE - TROY AND ADAM       Cheering the play with other gay fans.                           ADAM                 I get it! I finally get it! You have                 to see it to understand it!       Music ends.       INT. EVE'S KITCHEN - NEXT DAY (RAIN)       She looks out the back window at the rain and shakes her       head. She exits the back door with an umbrella.       EXT. EVE'S BACKYARD - CONTINUOUS       Eve hurries to Adam who is sitting on a lawn chair in the       middle of the small back yard, enjoying the rain. She       holds the umbrella over her head.                           ADAM                 Hey, Eve!                           EVE                 Have you ever heard the saying, "He                 hasn't got enough sense to come in out                 of the rain?"                           ADAM                 Yep.                     (then watching the rain hit                      the palm of his hand)                 You know, my father -- who is a                 scientist -- says that everything is a                 miracle. Everything. Until recently I                 wasn 't sure what he meant by that.                           EVE                 Yeah? No kidding. Listen, you still                 want to go girl hunting tonight?                           ADAM                 I certainly do!                           EVE                 Okay. But you know, this business of                 finding you a wife -- it's kind of                 ridiculous, don't you think?                           ADAM                     (rising)                 No it's not!                           EVE                 Yes it is. A girlfriend maybe. But a                 wife? I mean...                           ADAM                 Then just help me find a girlfriend!                 That's all I ask.                 I'll give you every single card I've                 got left!                           EVE                 Hey, screw you! Okay? You think I'm                 just somebody you can buy off! Listen,                 let me tell you something--                           ADAM                     (taking her by the arms)                 Would you do it just because you're my                 friend? My very best friend.                           EVE                 Well...yeah. Okay.       He hugs her.                           ADAM                 Thank Q, Eve!       She's uncomfortable with the hug. Wait a minute. No she's       not.       EXT. "THE FORTIES" NIGHT CLUB - SAME NIGHT       This hip, up-market club is based on a 1940's theme.       Establish the YOUTHFUL RICH arriving in their black four-       wheel vehicles and silver Porsches. Coats and ties. Eve,       Troy and Adam arrive on foot. Adam notices the valet       parking.                           ADAM                 Why did you park way back there?                           TROY                 Miss Rustokov refuses to let total                 strangers drive her car.                           ADAM                 Oh. I see.       Eve looks like she owns the place.       INT. NIGHT CLUB ANTEROOM - SAME TIME       As they enter Adam grabs Troy, who is leading the way.                           TROY                 What?!                           ADAM                 Ladies first, Troy! That was close.       Adam and Troy follow Eve in. The club is NOISY AND       HOPPING. The house music is from the 40's. Adam, Eve and       Troy enter a long corridor of booths and walk forward.       Adam's got on that terrific dark suit. Women notice. Eve       notices them noticing.                           ADAM                 My goodness gracious!  This place is                 something!                           EVE                 Look unimpressed.                           TROY                 Bored even.       Adam gives it a shot and goes too bored.                           TROY                 Vaguely bored!       He gets vaguely bored but misses unimpressed by a mile.                           EVE                 Unimpressed, but still interested.       He tries that. It's like watching a neon sign switch back       and forth:  First interested, then not.                           EVE                 No!  Not crazy!                           ADAM                 Do I look crazy?                           EVE                 Yes!                           TROY                 Be loose.       He overplays that.                           EVE                 Just be yourself.                           TROY                 Always good advice.                           EVE                 For him. It doesn't work for the rest                 of us.                           ADAM                 Holy Mo-ly, Miss Pay-o-ly!! This place                 is neat-o!!       Adam enters the main room. Eve and Troy follow.       INT. MAIN ROOM       There is a bar, a seated section, and a dance floor with       a DJ booth. The DJ is in a white dinner jacket and does a       perfect Humphrey Bogart impression as he ad libs his       speel between records.       ANGLE - BAR       JASON and JONATHAN wave when they see Eve and Troy       approaching. They ad-lib hellos. Here, and at the tables,       the recorded MUSIC IS SO LOUD THEY MUST SPEAK OVER IT.                           EVE                 Jason, Jonathan, this is Adam! Adam,                 that's them!       They shake.                           ADAM                 How do you do?! It's very nice to meet                 you, Jason and Jonathan!                     (confidentially, to them)                 My mother always told me that if you                 meet a person for the first time it's                 easier to remember their names if you                 use those names right away.       Jason and Jonathan just stare at him.                           TROY                 He's from Alaska!                           JASON/JONATHAN                     (relieved)                 Oh!       A slightly drunk beauty named SOPHIE appears behind Eve.                           SOPHIE                 Hi, there, Eve, who's the hunk?       Eve hates Sophie.                           EVE                 Get lost, Sophie.       Sophie pushes her way right up to Adam.                           SOPHIE                 Hi. I'm Sophie.                           ADAM                 Hello, Sophie, I'm Adam Webber.                           JASON                 Adam lives in Alaska.                           SOPHIE                 No shit?                           ADAM                 Tu parle Francais? Tu a un tres bon                 accent.                           SOPHIE                 You speak beautiful French!                 J'ai habitÈ a Paris un an.                           ADAM                 Paris!! La ville de lumieres!                 C'est bien rencontrer quelqu'un pour                 pratiquer le francais.                           SOPHIE                 Si tu veux, nous pouvons pratiquer                 beaucoup des choses ensemble.       Eve steps in and takes Adam's hand, drawing him away from       Sophie.                           EVE                 Quit showing off!  We're here on                 business!                           ADAM                 Good-bye!                           SOPHIE                 Non, cherie. A bientot.       Eve leads Adam to a table. Troy follows.                           ADAM                 I thought I was here to meet women.                           EVE                 Not that one!                           ADAM                 I like her.                           EVE                 And don't be so obvious!       INT. TABLE - TEN MINUTES LATER       Adam, Eve and Troy examine female patrons over drinks.       It's white wine for her, imported beer for Troy, and a       Rob Roy for Adam.                           EVE                 What have you ordered?                           ADAM                 It's a Rob Roy. A very popular drink,                 I'm told.       ANGLE - LOVELY BRUNETTE       slinking by.       ANGLE - TABLE                           ADAM (OC)                 What about her?                           EVE (OC)                 No way.                           ADAM                 Why?!  I think she's very attractive.                           EVE                 Adam!  She's got bitch written all                 over her!  You do know what "bitch"                 means, don't you?                           ADAM                 Yes, I have a dictionary. But I can't                 understand for the life of me why you                 would call her that!  Or why Cliff                 would say that about you.                           EVE                 Because we're bitches!  Look at her!                 Look at the expression on her face!                 The walk, the jewelry, the                 fingernails.  Please!                           ADAM                 How 'bout this one?       "This one" is a KILLER BLOND.                           EVE                 Are you kidding?!  You wouldn't even                 be a crumb on her table!  You don't                 see that?!                           TROY                 Eve?!                           EVE                 Well, I'm trying to educate him!  It's                 nothing personal.                           TROY                 Adam,  I think for you, we should go                 for "sweet."                           ADAM                 Okay. I like that.                           EVE                     (swigging her drink)                 Yeah, sweet.  That's a nice way of                 putting it.                           ADAM                     (to Troy)                 What do I say to Miss Sweet when I                 meet her?                           TROY                 Um... Eve?                           EVE                 It's not so much what you say but how                 you say it.  Women like men who are                 unpredictable.                           ADAM                 Really?                           EVE                 Yes, really! Basically, they want what                 they think they can't have.  Same with                 guys.  That's why everybody is walking                 around here sending off "you can't                 have me" signals!       ANGLE OF MEN AND WOMEN       doing precisely that. Then:       BACK TO TABLE                           ADAM                 That's ridiculous.                           EVE                 Maybe. But that's how it works.                           TROY                 Ah-ha! There's " Miss Sweet."  At the                 hors d'oeuvres table!       INTERCUT - MISS SWEET       She's a pretty young thing with a sweet face.                           EVE                 Yeah.  Could be.  Go say hello, Romeo.                 Looks like a healthy non-mutant to me.                           ADAM                     (very serious)                 Okay. All right.                     (then)                 And what do I say?                           EVE                 Say something surprising. And funny.                 Lie, if need be.                           TROY                 Yes! Lying is always a very effective                 dating tool.                           ADAM                 Okay. Thank you, my friends.       Adam rises.                           ADAM (cont'd)                 By the way, that's a great play.                           EVE                 What?                           ADAM                 Romeo and Juliet. I cried at the end.                           EVE                 Did you?       Adam nods and shoves off.                           TROY                 I'm not sure I want to watch this.       Eve puts her hand to her head -- hating herself and still       not  sure exactly why.       ANGLE - ADAM       crossing to Miss Sweet.                           ADAM                     (to himself)                 Surprising and funny. Well, I know a                 duck who bought some lip balm...       INT. HORS D'OEUVRES TABLE       Adam sheepishly approaches Miss Sweet, then gathers       himself:                           ADAM       Hi!                           MISS SWEET                     (not sweet)                 Yes?                           ADAM                     (beat, then)                 I was wondering if you might help me.                 I...I seem to have lost my                 Congressional Medal of Honor somewhere                 around here.       Miss Sweet stares at him for a beat or two, then       chuckles.                           MISS SWEET                 Oh, now, that's a great one!                           ADAM                     (big smile)                 You like it?                           MISS SWEET                     (a little clap)                 Bravo!                           ADAM                 Thank-Q!       They both laugh.       ANGLE - EVE AND TROY       Stunned...as they watch Adam and Miss Sweet. Another       pretty young woman (HEATHER) joins Adam.       ANGLE - ADAM AND GIRLS       Heather is a friend of Miss Sweet's.                           MISS SWEET                 This is my new friend...                           ADAM                 I'm Adam Webber.                           MISS SWEET                 He's really funny!                           HEATHER                 Hi!  I'm Heather!                           ADAM                 "Heather?"  I don't believe I've ever                 heard that name before.       There's a slight beat before both girls laugh.                           HEATHER                 Yeah, right!                           MISS SWEET                 I told you!  He's funny!       ANGLE - EVE AND TROY       More stunned. Eve finds that she very much hates watching       Adam having a good time with other healthy non-mutants.       ANGLE - ADAM AND HIS NEW FRIENDS                           MISS SWEET                 We work on Rodeo Drive.  But we're                 both professional dancers.                           ADAM                 Really?                           HEATHER                 You dance?                           ADAM                 I took a dance lesson everyday of my                 life until a couple of days ago.                           MISS SWEET                 You're kidding!                           ADAM                 No, I'm not! My mom taught me.                           MISS SWEET                 Your mom was a dancer?                           ADAM                 She is a dancer! And a lovely one! You                 would like her very much! Shall we                 dance?                           MISS SWEET                 Sure.       They head for the dance floor.       ANGLE - TROY AND EVE       watching.       ANGLE - THE FLOOR       A jitterbug song comes on and so does Adam.       He and Miss Sweet are a little rough on take-off, but       they hit smooth sailing soon enough. He's terrific at       picking up the new stuff she shows him.       ANGLE - EVE & TROY       They are shocked.       ANGLE - DANCE FLOOR       Heather cuts in on Miss Sweet as the other dancers stop       to watch someone who is so much better than them. The       three of them begin to dance together.       ANGLE - TROY & EVE                           TROY                 You know, he's a very, very good--                           EVE                 Shut up!       ANGLE - DANCE FLOOR/ EVE       Adam dances beautifully with the two women. We CUT BACK       AND FORTH between them and Eve.       ANGLE - DANCE FLOOR       Adam, Miss Sweet and Heather complete their dance with       great aplomb.  Other dancers applaud them. Someone is       WHISTLING LOUDLY OFF CAMERA.  Adam and his dance partners       look over to:       ANGLE - EVE       She is whistling like a guy calling his dog.  Troy is       embarrassed.                           TROY                 Must you...       Eve points at Adam and beckons broadly for him to come       over -- a basketball coach calling her player off the       floor.                           TROY                 What in the hell is wrong with you?!!       ANGLE - DANCE FLOOR                           MISS SWEET                 Is that your girl friend?                           ADAM                 No. Would you please excuse me?                           HEATHER                 If you'll please come back.                           ADAM                 I will certainly try.  And thank you                 both very much for the dance.       He leaves.                           MISS SWEET                 When was the last time you saw manners                 like that?                           HEATHER                 Yeah.  It's like meeting a foreigner                 or something.       ANGLE - TABLE       as Adam comes over. The music is not so loud now.                           EVE                     (to Troy)                 Go to the bathroom.                           TROY                 Right here?                 		(then, off her look)                 Well, you're being so bossy I wasn't                 sure!       Troy rises and exits.  Adam arrives and sits down.                           ADAM                 You wanted to see me!                           EVE                 You're not from Alaska!  Where'd you                 learn to dance like that?!  And there                 are no starving people, are there?!                           ADAM                 Why are you suddenly so mad at me?                           EVE                 Don't change the subject! I want you                 to tell me the truth about yourself.                           ADAM                 I've never lied to you.  I've maybe                 let you believe things that you wanted                 to believe, but I've never lied.                           EVE                 You think I'm some sort of sap?! Don't                 you?!                           ADAM                 No.  I admire you.  I...I fell in love                 with you the first time I saw you.                     (off her look)                 I did. I think that you are the most--                           EVE                 I want to know exactly who you are and                 what you're really up to!                           ADAM                 All right. Let me tell you the whole                 thing. In 1962--                           CLIFF (OC)                 Well, well, well.  Don't we clean up                 nice?       Cliff steps up to the table.  Adam, automatically a       gentleman, rises and offers his hand.                           ADAM                 Hello, Cliff, how are you this                 evening?       Cliff barely shakes his hand.                           CLIFF                 Not bad.       Then he sits in Adam's seat.                           CLIFF                 But I do miss that green sport coat of                 yours.                           ADAM                 Thank you very much. But, Cliff,                 that's my seat. And I was just--                           CLIFF                     (to Eve)                 How 'bout a drink at the bar?                           EVE                     (pause, then)                 Sure.       They rise.  Cliff gestures to the chair.                           CLIFF                 It's all yours.       Eve and Cliff go to the bar.  Adam sits down glumly.  He       looks across the room and catches the eye of Miss Sweet       who is seated at a table with Heather.  A GOOD LOOKING       GUY is hitting on them.  CUTTING BACK AND FORTH between       Adam and them we see Miss Sweet's smile escalate.  Then       she nudges Heather who also looks over and smiles. Adam       smiles back.  Finish with a CLOSER SHOT OF HIS POV of       Miss Sweet's hair, butt and legs.       ANGLE - BAR       Eve and Cliff are in cozy conversation at the bar.       Jonathan, Jason, and Sophie are in the bg.       ANGLE - Troy       returning from the restroom.  He is surprised to see Eve       at the bar with Cliff.  When he looks back at the dance       floor table, Adam is not there.       ANGLE - EVE AND CLIFF       Sipping wine.                           EVE                 So where is your roommate, the model?                           CLIFF                 You know, I don't know.  And looking                 at you, I don't care.  It's been too                 long, Eve.                           ADAM (OC)                 Please excuse this interruption.                           CLIFF                 Oh, brother...       WIDER - BAR       Adam steps closer, looking past Cliff at Eve.                           ADAM                 Eve, I don't mean to be rude, and                 please excuse me Cliff, but Eve, isn't                 Cliff just a butt with hair?                           CLIFF                 What?!                           ADAM                 I'm sorry, and legs. Legs, butt and                 hair.  Well, isn't he?  And shallow,                 as well?                           CLIFF                     (the shallowest guy in the                      world)                 Shallow? I'm shallow?!                           EVE                 Go home, Adam.  Go to your hotel.                           CLIFF                 Yeah. Before I kick your ass.       He gives Adam a shove.                           ADAM                 Cliff, I must warn you. I know how to                 defend myself.                           CLIFF                 Do ya?       Cliff throws a right which Adam calmly blocks and       counters with a short right jab to Cliff's mouth,       snapping his head back.  It's not a big punch, but very,       very quick. It makes Eve mad and astonishes Troy, Jason       and Jonathan.                           EVE                 Stop it, you two!                           CLIFF                     (slightly insecure)                 I guess we shouldn't fight in here.                           ADAM                     (lowering his guard)                 Yes, I agree.       Cliff draws back another right.  Adam flicks out a quick       left to Cliff's cheek, again snapping his head back, but       not his body. (These aren't big movie hits.) Cliff takes       a beat or two then draws back his right fist again.  Adam       pops him in the nose. Cliff drops his right arm to his       side.                           EVE                 Adam?!                           ADAM                 I'm sorry.                           CLIFF                     (increasingly insecure)                 Maybe we shouldn't fight at all.                 Fighting is pretty immature.                           ADAM                     (lowering his guard)                 It certainly is.  I agree with you                 completely.                           CLIFF                 Eve? I'm leaving.                           EVE                 I don't blame you!                           ADAM                     (turning to Eve)                 Eve, I'm sorry.       Seeing an opportunity, Cliff rears back with another       right. Adam deftly pops him in the mouth again with a       short right jab.                           CLIFF                     (deeply insecure)                 Well, good night, everyone.       Troy, Jonathan and Jason say good night to him.  Cliff       walks unsteadily away bleeding from the mouth and both       nostrils. (Hopeful that no one has noticed that he's very       subtly just gotten the crap beat out of him.)                           EVE                 I'm leaving, too.                           ADAM                 But, Eve, I would--                           EVE                 And tomorrow maybe Troy will help you                 out--because I quit!  This is                 ridiculous! You're ridiculous! I'm                 ridiculous!       She exits. Adam looks over at Troy who shrugs.       EXT. EVE'S HOUSE - MIDNIGHT       Troy takes out his keys as he approaches the front door.       But the door opens. Eve stands there in sweats. Agitated.                           EVE                 He go back to the hotel?                           TROY                 Uh..he might of.       INT. EVE'S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS       Troy enters. She slams the door.                           EVE                 What's that mean?                           TROY                 We did not leave together.                           EVE                 Who did he leave with?                           TROY                 What's it to you?!                           EVE                 I'm his pimp. He left with the                 dancers, didn't he?                           TROY                 Hey, you're the psychic. Eve, the                 psychic pimp.  You tell me.                           EVE                 Those sluts!                           TROY                 Yeah. But who's not a slut these days?       He enters the kitchen       INT. KITCHEN       She follows him: He gets something to drink.       .                           EVE                  Where are you going?                           TROY                 To bed.                           EVE                 To bed?                           TROY                 Yeah.  I'm not the one who's in love                 with the guy.                           EVE                 What?!  Now hold on!  Wait one damn                 minute!       Troy exits into his office.       INT. OFFICE       He plops down on the chair.       .                           EVE                 In the first place, I don't fall in                 love with weirdos I've only known for                 four or five days.                           TROY                 Yes, you do.                           EVE                 And I don't fall in love with grown                 men who collect baseball cards!!                           TROY                 Uh, yes, you do.                           EVE                 Or pee in their pants when they see                 the ocean!                           TROY                 Yes, you do!                           EVE                 Or have perfect table manners.                           TROY                     (sitting up)                 You know, I asked him about that. And                 he said that good manners are a way we                 have of showing other people that we                 respect them. See, you'd eat like a                 slob if you                 were alone, but since another human                 being is present, you show that person                 respect by going to the trouble of                 having proper manners. I didn't know                 that. I thought it was a way of                 appearing superior.                     (then)                 Know what else he told me?                           EVE                     (sitting on the bed)                 What?                           TROY                 He thinks that I am a gentleman and                 that you are a lady!                           EVE                 Well, consider the source. I don't                 even know what a lady is.                           TROY                 Exactly! I thought a gentleman was                 somebody who owned horses. Turns out,                 the short and very simple definition                 of a gentleman or a lady is: someone                 who always attempts to make the people                 around him or her feel as comfortable                 as possible. That's it! If you don't                 do that, nothing else matters. The                 cars, the clothes, the houses...                           EVE                 Where did he get all that information?                           TROY                 From the oddest place. His parent's                 told him. I don't think I got that                 memo.                           EVE                 So now I suppose he's trying to make                 those two dancers feel as comfortable                 as possible.                           TROY                 He didn't leave with them.                           EVE                 Well...I admit it. I'm glad to hear                 that.                           TROY                 He left with Sophie.                           EVE                 What?!!                           TROY                 It's true.  She swept him out the door                 whispering little French things into                 his ear.                           EVE                 Oh, no! Not Sophie! No way! Please                 don't tell me that!!                           TROY                 What are you going to do? Go over to                 her place and kick in the door?                           EVE                 You're goddamn right I am!       She exits, then sticks her hand back in.                           EVE (cont'd)                 You coming?!                           TROY                     (cringing)                 I don't think so.                           EVE                 Coward!       She exits.                           TROY                 Gentleman coward, to you.       SCENE 148 OMITTED       EXT. HOUSE - MOMENTS LATER       Eve hurries out of the house leaving the front door wide       open.  She runs down the porch steps, across the yard,       and to her car, which she unlocks with the usual       fumbling.                           EVE                 Come on!  Come on, damn it!       INT. CAR       She jumps in and sticks the key in the ignition.  Adam       appears at the passenger window.                           ADAM                 Hi!       Eve SCREAMS BLOODY MURDER as she throws open her door and       jumps out into the street where she falls down, hurting       her knee.  Adam runs around the car to help her to her       feet. Dogs start barking in several houses.                           ADAM                 Eve?!                           EVE                 Scare me, why don't you?!!?  You                 stupid son of a bitch!!!                           ADAM                 I'm really sorry!                           EVE                 What in the hell are you doing here!!                 You're supposed to be over on San                 Vicente Boulevard having unsafe sex                 with that slut Sophie!!                           ADAM                 I know...and I'm really sorry.                           EVE                 Well, you should be!  Thanks to you,                 my heart is in my neck!                           ADAM                 What?                           EVE                 Goodnight!       Eve marches, with a limp, back to the house.                           ADAM                 Eve, if you'll let me, I can --                           EVE                 Look! I'm limping!  How attractive is                 that?!  What if this is for life?!                           ADAM                 I know first aid!                           EVE                 Well, you had better!!       He chases her up the porch steps.       INT. LIVING ROOM - THIRTY MINUTES LATER       Lights are low and warm.  Adam is attempting to swab the       abrasion on Eve's knee through the tear in her old sweat       pants.                           EVE                 Wait a minute.       She reaches down and gives the knee hole a good rip,       revealing her leg from above the knee to the gym sock.                           EVE                 There.                           ADAM                 Thanks.       He takes the back of her calf in one hand and applies the       antiseptic to her knee with the other.  It stings and she       flinches.                           ADAM                 Steady. Steady.  It's going to be all                 right in no time.       He leans down and blows on the wound.  CU of that.  CU of       his hand on her calf.  CU of her looking down at him,       watching as he blows gently on her knee.                           ADAM                 I went to Sophie's and she was very                 hospitable.                           EVE                 Is that what you call it?                           ADAM                 But it just wasn't where I wanted to                 be so I left as politely as I could                 and found a taxi.  But I asked the                 driver to drop me here instead of at                 the hotel.  There's a song Mister Como                 sings called "On the Street Where You                 Live."  You know it?                           EVE                 Sing it to me.                           ADAM                     (softly, saying it as much as                      singing it)                 "All at once am I--several stories                 high-- knowing I'm--on the street--                 where you live."  It's about a young                 man who is overjoyed just to be                 standing in front of the house of the                 person he loves.       She reaches down, and taking hold of his collar, draws       him to her and they kiss very romantically and at length.       Then:                           EVE                 Adam...dumb question, but humor me.                 Have you ever had sex before?                           ADAM                 No.       She sits up.                           EVE                 How is that possible?       During the following speech CAMERA pushes past him and       lingers on her as she gradually realizes that Adam is       mental.                           ADAM                     (sitting up)                 In 1962, when the bomb was dropped on                 Los Angeles, my parents were in our                 fallout shelter.  That's where I was                 born. We                 only survived because it was a huge                 shelter as fallout shelters go. My                 father worked on it secretly for                 years. When he had to, he used                 contractors, but always from out-of-                 state and always for just a portion of                 the job. He told them it was a secret                 government experiment done through                 CalTech. My Dad's not a liar, but he                 felt in this case he had no choice. Of                 course, it had to be a secret, because                 we had just enough supplies to last                 three people thirty-five years. That's                 also why I have no brothers or                 sisters. The air vent was the really                 tricky part, but he was able to cut                 into a flood control sewer. What I'd                 like to do Eve, is take you down into                 the fallout shelter with me. We could                 live there with my Mom and Dad. My dad                 said if I found a healthy girl I                 should "bring her on down". And you                 look plenty healthy to me.                           EVE                 Uh-huh. Adam?                           ADAM                 Yes, Eve?                           EVE                 I want you to go back to the hotel                 now.  I'll call you a cab.                           ADAM                 Of course.  I shouldn't be over here                 at this hour.       He rises.  She gets up and leads him to the door.                           EVE                 That's right.  And I'll see you in the                 morning in the lobby.  Do you mind                 waiting outside for the taxi?                           ADAM                 Not at all.  And Eve thank you for                 tonight...and for the kiss. My first.                           EVE                 My pleasure.                           ADAM                 It was at least as good as the sky.                           EVE                 Really?  Okay!                           ADAM                 And I think better than the ocean. I'm                 serious!                           EVE                 Neat. Goodnight!       EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS       Adam comes out glowing with happiness. He looks       heavenward. And does his patented thumbs up.       Behind him we hear Eve locking all the locks on her front       door.       EXT. VALLEY AVENUE - DAY       A REFRIGERATED U-HAUL TRUCK lurches down the street.       INT. TRUCK       Adam struggles with the gears as Troy worries about his       driving skills.                           TROY                 Goddamn, Adam!                           ADAM                 Wait a minute!       He promptly pulls over and turns off the engine.                           TROY                 I'm sorry. I took the Lord's name in                 vain again, didn't I?  I'm so sorry.                           ADAM                 No!  There's an Adult Bookstore back                 there!  I'll be right back!       Adam jumps out of the truck and runs off.                           TROY                 Without question, the strangest man                 I've ever met.       EXT. ADULT BOOKSTORE - MOMENTS LATER       Adam runs up.  The bookstore looks familiar.  Adam runs       to the next store. It's a bar.  He runs to the next       store.  It's the Malt Shop.  Adam is thrilled.  He tries       the front door and at first it does not open.       INT. MALT SHOP       The Soda Jerk is leading about twelve followers in       prayers.                           SODA JERK                 Give us a sign!  That's all we ask!                 Give us some sort of sign!       The front door opens and Adam peers in.  He sees the Soda       Jerk; smiles broadly at him and waves.  Then he closes       the       door.  The Soda Jerk grabs his heart and faints.  His       followers rush to his aid.       INT. TRUCK - MOMENTS LATER       Adam jumps in.                           ADAM                 Okay, Troy!  Let's get those all-beef                 frozen patties!                           TROY                 How 'bout we check with Eve first?                           ADAM                 You bet!                           TROY                 So, did you buy a movie?                           ADAM                 What?                           TROY                 A magazine?  A toy perhaps?  In the                 bookstore.                           ADAM                     (concentrating on his                      driving)                 No, I wouldn't go in one of those                 places with a gas mask on.                           TROY                     (laughing in agreement)                 I know what you mean!  I usually wear                 a big hat and dark glasses.                           ADAM                 Does that work?                           TROY                 Yeah...Seems to.       Adam would not have thought that.       INT. EVE'S HOUSE - AN HOUR LATER       Adam springs in, Troy drags in behind him (knowing the       deal). Eve is standing away from the door next to a kind       looking professional woman named Dr.Aron.                           ADAM                 Hi, Eve!                           EVE                 Hi, Adam.  This is, uh....                           ARON                 I'm Nina Aron, Adam.                           ADAM                 How do you do?                           ARON                 Very well, thank you. I'm with the                 County Family Services Department. Eve                 tells me you've been living in a bomb                 shelter most of your life.                           ADAM                 Fallout shelter. There's a difference.                           ARON                 Adam, I'd like to introduce you to my                 associate -- Mr. Brown.       BROWN appears from the kitchen.  He's good-sized man who       dresses casually.  Adam becomes uneasy.                           ADAM                 Hello.       He nods politely.                           ARON                 We want you to come with us so we can                 talk some more about your experiences.                           ADAM                 Come where?                           ARON                 My office.                           ADAM                 For how long?                           ARON                 Well, that depends...                           ADAM                 I thank you very much for the                 invitation, but I'm quite busy today.                 Perhaps I could see you tomorrow.                           EVE                 Adam....you should go with Dr. Aron.                 It's the best thing.  The best thing                 for you. I promise.                           ADAM                 ...All right, Eve.  If you say so.                           EVE                 ...I do.                           ADAM                     (to Aron)                 Could I please just go home?  I was                 lost, but this morning I found home                 and I promise not to bother any of you                 ever again.                           ARON                 Let's go talk first, Adam.                           ADAM                 Yes, ma'am.       The two come forward.  One opens the door and one beckons       for Adam to step out.                           TROY                 Good-bye, Adam.                           ADAM                 Goodbye.       Adam looks back at Eve, who looks away. Adam exits.                           ARON                     (to Eve)                 You'll be hearing from me.       She shuts the door. Troy sits dejectedly.                           EVE                 Well what was I supposed to do?! He                 wants me to live underground with him!                 That's like Silence of the Lambs,                 don't you think?!                           TROY                 I know...I know. You did the right                 thing.       Eve goes to the window and watches as WE SEE ADAM BREAK       FROM BROWN AND RUN OFF with him chasing.                           EVE                 Oh, no!                           TROY                 What?!       She runs out.  He follows.       EXT. STREET       Adam races down the sidewalk.  He cuts left and runs       between houses.  Brown is not as fast.       EXT. EVE'S FRONT YARD       Eve and Troy run out to Aron who is dialing her cell       phone.                           EVE                 Oh, my God!                           ARON                 He'll catch him.                 		(then into phone)                 Hi. This is Nina Aron.  I've got a run                 away and I'm going to need police                 assistance.                           EVE                 No!  Not the police!  Don't call them!                           ARON                 I have to. If a complaint is made and                 the person resists obser--                           EVE                 No, I can't have that! They'll come                 with their cars and their guns and                 their handcuffs--                           ARON                 Calm down, please. This man needs help                 and you need protection from him.                 That's obvious.                           EVE                 You know, I don't think so. I'm                 confused but you know, I don't think                 he'd ever hurt me. I don't think he'd                 hurt anyone.                           ARON                 And now you must let me be the judge                 of that!                           EVE                 I was frightened and I didn't know                 what to think! But you know-I believe                 him. I think he just wants to go home.                 Wherever the hell that is...                           ARON                 Let's all remain calm. That's the key                 thing.       Suddenly Adam appears from the side of the house,       startling everyone. He tosses his hotel key to Eve.                           ADAM                 The key to my hotel room!  I want you                 to have my baseball cards!                 		(running to the truck)                 And please be sure to pay my bill!                           ARON                 Young man, stop right there!       Aron looks around for Mr. Brown.       Adam jumps into the truck. Aron yells for him to stop.                           ARON                 Stop, right now! Get out of that                 truck!                           TROY                 Adam, you really shouldn't try to                 drive that truck!                           ADAM                     (starting the engine)                 Bye, Troy!                           TROY                 Bye, Adam!                           ADAM                 And thanks for always being happy!                           TROY                 What?                           EVE                 Gay.                           TROY                 Oh.                 		(yelling to Adam)                 Well, you're...certainly welcome!       Adam gets the truck in reverse and backs out of the       driveway and into a parked car.                           ARON                 Hey!!! That's my car, you son of a                 bitch!!       Getting the truck in first, Adam has to go down the       sidewalk a bungalow or two before he can get back onto       the street.  He clips two parked cars as he does.  Brown       comes running from the side of the house.  His pants are       torn.                           ARON (cont'd)                 Where the hell have you been?!                           BROWN                 I fell down!                     (to Troy and Eve)                 What's the license number of that                 truck?!                           ARON                 Don't ask them!  They're as fucked-up                 as the other guy!                           TROY                 Let's all just try to remain calm.                 That's the key thing.                           ARON                 How 'bout I just knock the shit out of                 you?!       Brown has to grab her.       EXT. U-STORE-IT - LATER, SAME DAY       Eve and Troy arrive in her GEO to see that the two locker       doors are open and much of the stuff has been carried       off.  Eve drops her head in disappointment.                           TROY                 I guess he took what he could.                           EVE                     (putting her head in her                      hand)                 Good God...you don't think there                 really is a bomb shelter, do you?                           TROY                 Fallout shelter.       She gives him a look.                           TROY (cont'd)                 There's a difference.       INT. SHELTER, PATIO - LATER, SAME DAY       Helen is using the hip-reduction machine while Calvin       reads, How to Win Friends and Influence People. The       distant sound of the hatchway being open gets their       attention.  Then:                           ADAM (OC)                 Mom?!  Dad?!  I'm home!       They jump up and race into the living room, meeting Adam       halfway.   The parents kiss and hug their son before       noticing that he's got the Soda Jerk with him.                           ADAM                 I've got almost everything we need!                 And this nice man...                           SODA JERK                 Archbishop Melker. We met earlier.       He promptly drops to his knees in supplication.                           ADAM                 ...and his church group have                 volunteered to help us bring the                 supplies down.  But we've got to                 hurry.                           HELEN                 Are you in trouble, son?!                           ADAM                 I think I'm being chased by a                 psychiatrist.                           HELEN                 A psychiatrist?!                           SODA JERK                 It happens.                           HELEN                 My goodness! How bad is it up there?!                           SODA JERK                 Horrible.                           CALVIN                 You have something on your forehead.                           SODA JERK                 I know.       INT. ADAM'S HOTEL ROOM - DUSK       Eve and Troy look around.  She opens a drawer and sees       how nicely folded and put away things are.  Troy notices       "TV Guide" and the Gideon Bible sitting out with a page       marker in it.  He opens the night table drawer and takes       out the cigar box.                           TROY                 This it?       Eve nods.                           TROY                 What do you want to do with it?                           EVE                 Give it back to him.                           TROY                 And if we can't find him?                           EVE                 We'll find him.       INT. BATHROOM, ADAM'S HOTEL ROOM       Eve enters and looks at how tidy Adam's toiletries are;       how the comb is just right in the brush; how the tooth       paste (Ipanna in a '61 tube) has been squeezed from the       bottom; and at how he has hung up his socks to dry.  It       makes her very sad.  She picks up the toothpaste and       holds it as if it were his ring.                           TROY (OC)                 Hey, Eve?  Eve?       He enters with stock certificates and sees that she's       very close to crying.                           TROY                 What's wrong?                           EVE                 I don't know.  Everything's so neat.                 It's all just so...goddamn dear.                 		(starting to cry)                 Damn!                           TROY                 See these?  Found them in the box with                 the cards.  These are stock                 certificates.  IBM.  AT&T.  Polaroid.       Instead of taking the certificates, she hands him the       toothpaste and sits down on the bed in a funk.                           TROY (cont'd)                     (looking at the toothpaste)                 Ipana. I think I remember that brand.                     (then)                 Oh, here, you should read this.                 "Trademark, 1961."       He holds out the tube and she takes it to read.       EXT. REAR OF MALT SHOP - SAME TIME       Adam, the Soda Jerk and fifteen followers hurriedly       unload the truck, taking provisions into the back door of       the malt shop.       INT. JASON'S OFFICE - SAME TIME       Their pal Jason is on the phone with Troy.                           JASON                 Purchased in 1958 and '59?  Ten                 thousand shares of each?  They'd be                 worth millions. Hell, I don't                 know...millions upon millions upon                 millions!  How 'bout that?       INT. HOTEL ROOM - EARLY EVENING       Troy is on the phone.  Eve is standing, looking at the       stock certificates.                           TROY                 Thanks, Jason.       He slams down the phone and jumps to his feet.                           TROY                 Millions upon millions upon millions!                 The cards. The stock!  The clothes!                 The toothpaste!  The guy was on the                 level!  And you blew it!  A man walks                 into your life who is the kindest,                 most polite, honest, trustworthy,                 incredibly rich guy you have ever met                 in your life!! And what do you do?!                           EVE                 Have him committed.                           TROY                 Yeah! That's thinking.                           EVE                 He was always so "nice"! How was I                 supposed to know that's a good thing?!                 "Nice" is weird! Nice is...what is                 "nice"? It's not cool! I'll tell you                 that.                     (beat, then)                 Was it ever?                           TROY                 I don't know. I like to think so.                           EVE                 Well, at least I fell for him before I                 found out he was rich! That's new.                     (then)                 Wait a minute! He said today he knew                 where home was. What happened this                 morning?! Where did you go?!                           TROY                 To get some frozen poultry.                           EVE                 Then what?                           TROY                 We came back to the house!                           EVE                 You didn't stop anywhere else?!                           TROY                 No. No, wait a minute. We stopped at a                 porno store.                           EVE                 What?!                           TROY                 An adult bookstore. He was very                 excited about seeing it. You think                 home is under a dirty bookstore in the                 Valley?                           EVE                 Come on.       She heads out.                           TROY                 Trendy address.       They exit.       EXT. ADULT BOOKSTORE - NIGHT       Troy and Eve approach and enter.       INT. ADULT BOOKSTORE - NIGHT       The Pakistani looks up briefly when Eve and Troy enter.       There are two male customers in the bg. Eve taps her foot       on the floor hoping to hear a hollow sound.  But it is       solid.  She and Troy move about the store tapping their       feet and finally jumping up and down.  The Pakistani and       two customers become concerned.                           EVE                     (to Pakistani)                 Have you got a basement?                           PAKISTANI                     (indicating merchandise)                 Believe me, all the really good stuff                 is right here.                           EVE                 Is there a back entrance?                           PAKISTANI                 Are you kidding?  Of course.       He points to the rear of the store.       EXT. REAR MALT SHOP PARKING LOT - NIGHT       The Soda Jerk drives the rental truck away leaving the       lot empty and the door to the Malt Shop closed. Troy and       Eve appear after the truck is gone.                           EVE                 Why would you put a fallout shelter                 under a porno shop?                           TROY                 None of this stuff was here in 1962.                 The Valley was mostly small homes and                 fruit orchards.                           EVE                 Well, we've come a long way, haven't                 we?  I want to go home.                           TROY                 Yeah.  Maybe he'll call.       They turn left to get back to the avenue.       INT. EVE'S HOUSE - NIGHT       The phone is ringing.  Then the recorder answers.                           TROY                 Hi. Troy and Eve are out so leave a                 message. And if you want to leave a                 number don't say it fast! I hate that!                 Say it slow. Thank you.       Beep,                           ADAM                 Uh, Eve...this is Adam.  Look, I just                 wanted to thank you for everything you                 did for me...and I wanted to tell you                 that I...uh...that I wish so many good                 things for you. I wish so hard that                 all of your dreams come true. Um...I,                 uh...       EXT. AVENUE - NIGHT       Eve lets Troy drive.  She clutches the cigar box and       rests her head on the seat as they pull away from the       curb in front of the bookstore.  A low rider passes them       on the left.  Eve sees an old hag being shoved out of the       bar and a homeless man slipping into the abandoned malt       shop and the cross-dressing STREET WALKER making eyes at       passing cars and Adam hanging up the pay phone he just       used.                           EVE                 Adam!!                           TROY                 Where?!                           EVE                 Stop!       She rolls down her window.                           EVE                 Adam!!       ANGLE - ADAM       Turning when he hears Eve yell his name.       ANGLE - EVE       Running from the car.  The cigar box falls to the street       and the contents scatter.  Eve could care less.  Besides,       Troy is there to retrieve everything.       In a series of cuts and slo-mo action the couple race       into each other's arms...to the pleasure of all the       lowlifes mentioned above.  Now the street looks more like       Capra than Scorsese. She's surprised that she wants to       kiss him so bad. He's surprised that he gets so       aggressive.       INT. SHELTER, KITCHEN - LATER, SAME NIGHT       Helen watches Calvin work on the timing device for the       locks with a screwdriver.                           HELEN                 How long will you set it for this                 time?                           CALVIN                 I thought ten years.                           HELEN                 Well, that's...considerably shorter                 than before.  I was wondering, Calvin,                 why set the locks at all.  I mean the                 radiation is gone and...                           CALVIN                 To keep what's up there from getting                 down here! It's not the radiation I'm                 worried about.                           ADAM (OC)                 Mom?  Dad?       They turn to see Adam walking forward with Eve.                           ADAM                 I'd like for you to meet Miss Eve                 Rustokov.       Calvin knows a Russian name when he hears one. But he       chooses not to pursue it.                           EVE                     (stepping forward, offering                      her hand)                 How do you do, Mrs. Webber?  Mr.                 Webber?                           WEBBERS                     (rather dumb-struck)                 Hello.                            EVE                 Uh-huh. I've heard so many wonderful                 things about you.                           HELEN                 Well, please excuse us!  We...we                 haven't entertained a guest in...um...                           CALVIN                 Some time.                           HELEN                 What can I offer you, Eve?                           ADAM                 Mom?  Eve and I have to go.                           HELEN                 What?                           ADAM                 I can't explain it now.  But I want                 you to set the locks for two months.                 You have more than enough of                 everything.  Then we'll be back to get                 you.                           CALVIN                 But, I don't understand.                           ADAM                 And, I'm asking you to trust me                 without understanding why.                           CALVIN                 Well, in that case...of course, son.                           HELEN                 Of course.                           EVE                 They are wonderful parents.                           ADAM                 We have to go.                           HELEN                 No, wait! At least stay for dinner!                           CALVIN                 Yes, please! You must.                           ADAM/EVE                 Well...sure...okay.       INT. BAR - AN HOUR LATER       Calvin mixes drinks just like he did at the party in       1962. Adam is with him.       INT. - KITCHEN       Helen races around, just like she did in 1962, getting       the roast ready. Eve. watches.                           EVE                 Adam said I shouldn't mention the                 Communists.                           HELEN                 Oh, yes! Please, don't mention the                 Communists!       INT. - DINING ROOM       Helen hurries out of the kitchen to take her seat. The       others are already there.                           HELEN                 Eve. I hope I'm not being nosey, but                 are you and Adam...um...dating?                           EVE                 Yes, Mrs. Webber we are.                     (then)                 I'm also from Pasadena.       Helen nearly comes unglued. Calvin is pleased, too. He       raises his tea cup.                           CALVIN                 A toast! To Adam and Eve!       The others also raise their cups and everyone clicks.       Then they drink.                           EVE                     (gagging)                 What is this sh...stuff?!                           CALVIN                 Hot Dr. Pepper! Most people don't know                 how good it is heated up.                           EVE                 You know, they don't, do they?       They begin to eat.                           EVE (cont'd)                 What about grace?                           HELEN                 Oh, my goodness! We almost forgot!                     (then)                 I like your friend, Adam.       They all join hands and lower their heads. Calvin leads       them.                           EVE (VO)                 And you thought your parents were                 weird.       EXT. BEAUTIFUL VALLEY NORTH OF LA - MORNING       Adam and Eve are with a REAL ESTATE BROKER. The broker       unlocks the gate of a chain-link fence and Adam and Eve       step onto the property. The broker's Lexus is in the b.g.                           BROKER                 It's like the Garden of Eden, don't                 you think?       Adam and Eve respond but we can't hear them under Eve's       narration.                           EVE (VO)                 You see, that night, Adam had a choice                 between me and his parents.       SCENE 173 OMITTED       EXT. VALLEY PROPERTY - DAY       Adam and Eve are working with a TEAM OF ARCHITECTS AND       CONTRACTORS at the site of a new home. They have plans       and are discussing dimensions.                           EVE (VO)                 It's truly amazing what you can get                 done when you have unlimited funds.                 Did you know you can have whole houses                 built in just a matter of months. All                 you have to say is this..."I don't                 care what it costs."  And then, of                 course, you've got                 to really mean it, which no one ever                 does.       EXT. NEW HOUSE - DAY       It is under construction.       EXT. MELROSE RETRO FURNITURE STORE - DAY       Adam, Eve and Troy enter.       INT. RETRO STORE       This is great stuff from the fifties and the sixties.       Adam finds things very similar to what he grew up with.       There's a       lamp (or something) that's just like the lamp (or       something) from the Webber living room.                           ADAM                 That lamp is perfect!                           STORE OWNER                     (very faggy)                 I'm holding that for Elton John.                           TROY                     (faggy right back)                 Oh, I think not.       SCENE 176 OMITTED  (REFER TO SCENE 172D)       EXT. STREET IN FRONT OF MALT SHOP (FLASHBACK) - NIGHT       Adam and Eve embracing as Troy picks up baseball cards       and the street people look on.                           ADAM                 Eve, I've got to go back! My parents                 can't handle this up here. And there                 was no bomb, was there?                           EVE                 No.                           ADAM                 See! I can't tell them that!  I can't                 ever let them know. It makes their                 life..well, frankly...                 a joke.  I can't let that happen.  You                 understand?                           EVE                 We can make this work, Adam! Believe                 me! I'm very good at making things                 work!                           ADAM                 My mother's like that.       They kiss again.       INT. MALT SHOP - DAY       Eve and Troy are showing large color drawings to the Soda       Jerk.  In CU we see the Malt Shop exterior all dolled up       with a big lighted sign that says "GIVE ME SHELTER."       There's valet parking and the Adult Bookstore and Bar       have been turned into a Souvenir Center (think Planet       Hollywood).  Another drawing shows fashionable guests       boarding the elevator.                           EVE (VO)                 It took a while to convince Archbishop                 Milker that Adam wasn't God, and he                 was pretty broken up about it, too,                 until I showed him my plans for Los                 Angeles' hottest and most original                 night spot.       Other drawings show dancing on the shelter patio and       guided tours being shown various parts of the shelter.                           EVE                 You'll be a ten percent partner and                 still retain ownership of the                 entrance.                           SODA JERK                 Praise the Lord.  And I mean the real                 one.       EXT. BEAUTIFUL VALLEY NORTH OF L.A. - TWO MONTHS LATER       A 1962 Cadillac leads a 1962 windowless van through       automatic gates that have signs on them saying:  PRIVATE       ROAD and NO TRESPASSING. Troy drives the van. Eve drives       the Cadillac. Adam is her passenger.                           EVE (VO)                 Our idea was to bring Adam's parents                 up to the surface very slowly.  Make                 them very comfortable and then break                 the bad news to them that there was no                 nuclear holocaust. And if that doesn't                 kill them Adam's going to tell his                 father about the Internet.       EXT. EXACT REPLICA OF THE WEBBER HOUSE - DAY       The cars pull up and Adam lets his parents out. They go       bonkers when they see the house.       INT. LIVING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER       The parents enter first. They are thrilled, shocked, etc.       INT. KITCHEN - MOMENTS LATER       As a demonstration, Troy removes a hot cup of coffee from       the microwave.  Helen is happy to see this handy new       device.  Calvin, the inventor, sticks his head into the       machine to investigate its workings.       INT. FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER       Adam demonstrates the VCR to his parents as Troy and Eve       look on.                           ADAM                 You put the tape in here and you get a                 movie -- in your own home.       We see the main title to Natural Born Killers come up on       the screen. Troy and Eve rush forward.                           EVE/TROY                 No!!       INT. ADAM'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME       It has been turned into an office for Calvin.                           HELEN                 This is your bedroom?                           ADAM                 No, Mom, I've turned it into Dad's                 office.                           HELEN                 Well, where are you --                           ADAM                 Eve and I...eloped.  We're married.                           HELEN                 No.                           ADAM                 Yes.                           EVE                 Is that all right?                           HELEN                 It's wonderful, dear! Wonderful!!       They hug.                           HELEN (cont'd)                 Calvin!  They're married!                           CALVIN                     (offering his hand to both)                 That's wonderful. We Webber guys have                 mighty good luck when it comes to                 women.       Calvin points out the computer.                           CALVIN (cont'd)                 What's that thing?                           ADAM                 It's kind of a combination television-                 typewriter-telephone-post office type                 of thing.                     (leading Calvin out)                 I'll show it to you later.       EXT. PATIO - AN HOUR LATER       Adam and Calvin exit the house. They wear baseball gloves       and start playing catch. (Calvin notes the modern       construction of his glove, but does not comment on it.)                           CALVIN                 This is great son, just great. By the                 way, Eve's last name. Rus-to-kov,                 that's not Russian, is it?                           ADAM                 It's Ukrainian. Her grandparents                 immigrated here.                           CALVIN                 Uh-huh.                           ADAM                 Dad, I don't know how to tell you                 this. And I was going to wait a while,                 but I think...Dad,there was no bomb.                 A plane crashed into our backyard. I                 looked it up in old newspapers.                           CALVIN                     (after a while)                 You're sure?                           ADAM                 Positive. The Soviet Union collapsed                 without a shot being fired. The Cold                 War is over.                           CALVIN                 That's what everybody believes?                           ADAM                 Yes, sir. It's true.                           CALVIN                 What? Did the politburo just one day                 say - "We give up?"                           ADAM                 Yes. That's kind of how it was.                           CALVIN                 Uh-huh.       Adam throws the ball, but Calvin makes no attempt to       catch it.                           CALVIN                 My gosh, those Commies are brilliant!                 You've got to hand it to 'em!  "No, we                 didn't drop any bombs!  Oh yes, our                 evil empire has collapsed!  Poor, poor                 us!"  I bet they've even asked the                 West for aid!  Right?!                           ADAM                 Uh, I think they have.                           CALVIN                 Hah!!! Those cagey rascals! Those sly                 dissemblers! Those, uh...                     (he can't think of another                      description, so he moves on)                 They've finally pulled the wool over                 everybody's eyes!                           EVE (VO)                 Have you ever in your life seen a son                 who did more for his parents?       Helen comes out with a tray of champagne cocktails.                           EVE (VO)                 Adam says that this is simply how                 things work.  First the parents take                 care of the children and then the                 children take care                 of the parents. He says historically,                 that's how it works.       INT. LIVING ROOM       Eve and Troy are sitting by the window.  Adam and Helen       come in to offer cocktails to Troy and Eve.                           EVE (VO)                 Whenever Adam gives me such obviously                 incorrect information, I just smile,                 slap him on the knee, and look out the                 window.                 Why spoil his dreams?  They're such                 wonderful dreams.       The CAMERA wanders off of them and shoots out the glass       doors. We see Calvin behind the house...measuring off the       dimensions for a fallout shelter.       EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS       Calvin continues to measure as we pull way back and up.       Perry Como sings "We'll Meet Again".                                                          FADE OUT:                           THE END
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+                           THE BLING RING                             Written by                           Sofia Coppola                                                    Shooting Script                                               White March 06, 2012                                       Blue Revision March 16, 2012  Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.  @KhloeKardashian                                                                2.1   EXT. HOLLYWOOD HILLS MANSION - NIGHT                             1    A Toyota parks and five teenagers get out and walk towards    us, down a quiet residential street in the Hollywood Hills.    One of them, a slightly drunk girl in a pale blue Juicy sweat    suit stumbles.                        DRUNK GIRL (NICKI)                        (laughing)              Shit.                        GIRL 1 (REBECCA)              C'mon. Hurry up.    They come to a gated home. A girl that seems to be the    leader, leans down and pulls on an unraveling part of the    bottom of the chain link fence.    She rolls under, and the others follow.    A loud song kicks in as they put their sweatshirt hoods up in    unison and turn around and walk backwards toward the house.    They've done this before, they have it down.    One checks under the mat of the front door, we follow them as    they go around to the back, checking doors, and find a back    window open.    A guy gives Girl 1 a lift up, we see her bright underwear as    she climbs inside into a laundry room.    She runs around to open a side door for the rest, and they    slip inside.    Once inside, we follow REBECCA into a bedroom dressing area.    She is the 17 yr-old Korean-American ring-leader, who is    totally cool and composed.    She looks over her shoulder at the others with a raised eye-    brow.                        REBECCA              Let's go shopping!    And she pulls open the closet door.    CLOSE UP: grabbing Louis Vuitton bags.    A drawer opens with a few Rolexes, that are scooped in to a    Louis Vuitton duffle bag.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                                 3.1    CONTINUED:                                                    1     An underwear drawer is opened, and picked through.     A medicine cabinet is opened, a hand grabs bottles of     prescription pills and dumps them in a bag.     We see the other kids grabbing things and loading up bags.     Rebecca puts on a hat she finds and looks at herself in a     mirror posing, then gets back to it.                                                          CUT TO:2    EXT. HOLLYWOOD HILLS MANSION - NIGHT                           2     The kids exit with their hoods up, carrying out the Louis     Vuitton bags and other loot, as much as they can carry.                                                          CUT TO:     The kids make their get-away:     One girl, NICKI leans over and throws-up on their way out.     They get into the Toyota and peel out.2A   MAIN TITLES - MONTAGE:                                         2A     THE BLING RING     CLOSE UP: flashbulbs go off.     Titles intercut with montage of Mug shots of attractive     teenagers and news clips.     We see a clip of black & white video surveillance of the     kids' approach to the house walking backwards with hoods up.     Pan across a row of Louboutin platform heels.     We see the glittery view of Hollywood at night.     CLOSE UP: a Facebook page of a party photo of Rebecca in the     hat we saw her try on earlier.     Pan across a pile of quilted Chanel bags.     T.V. image of a starlet on the red carpet posing for     pictures.     CLOSE UP: on a stack of shiny diamond necklaces.                                                          (CONTINUED)                        Revised Blue - 03/16/12                 4.2    CONTINUED:                                                   2     A Facebook page with party photo of one of the girls, Chloe     in a slutty outfit, with tattooed thug, and the quote "Wanna     smoke a bluuuunt".     Pan across Calabassas McMansions.2B   EXT. COURTHOUSE                                                2B     Slow motion- MARC, 16, stylish and good looking, dressed in a     black suit and sunglasses, walks outside the courthouse like     a movie star flanked by paparazzi.     Music and titles end on:2C   EXT. COURTHOUSE                                                2C     NICKI, 17, pretty brunette with long hair, sunglasses and lip     gloss talks to a reporter:                         NICKI                       (Emotional)               I am a firm believer in Karma, and               I think this situation was               attracted into my life as a huge               learning lesson for me to grow and               expand as a spiritual human being.               I see myself being like an Angelina               Jolie, but even stronger, pushing               even harder for the universe and               peace and for the health of the               planet. I want to lead a huge                             *               charity organization. I want to                           *               lead a country for all I know.                            *                                                     CUT TO BLACK     We hear an alarm clock go off.     Title: 1 year earlier                                                         CUT TO:3    INT. NICKI AND SAM'S BEDROOM - MORNING                         3     Nicki and Sam, also pretty, slutty and 17, are waking up in a     messy teenage bedroom.     Clothes are all over the floor, a knot of duvet covers part     of a girl, with legs sticking out, we can see a lotus blossom     tattoo.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                             5.3   CONTINUED:                                                 3                        LAURIE (O.S.)              Girls, time to get up!    Sam struggles to sit up, she's in a tight tank with bed head.    She rolls her eyes.                        SAM              Oh my lord, you were so out of              control last night.                        NICKI              What about you! You were all over              that old guy, the manager...    Sam laughs.                        SAM              Oh yeah. He was totally perving              out.    She starts to slip into skinny jeans.4   INT. KITCHEN - DAY                                            4    Laurie, Nicki's mom, pretty ex-playboy model in her 40's in    Juicy sweatpants and a tank top, gets breakfast ready.    She opens a cabinet as she calls up to them. A little Yorkie    nips at her heels.                        LAURIE              Girls! Time for your aderall! Let's              go!    Emily, 13, sleepily sits down for some cereal.                        EMILY              Mom, they got home so late last              night.    Laurie with wide eyes and a forced calm voice answers her.                         LAURIE              That's none of your concern, I'll              handle it.    She calls up to them again.                         LAURIE (CONT'D)              Girls!    Nicki and Sam wander down to breakfast, disheveled.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                             6.4   CONTINUED:                                                 4                        LAURIE (CONT'D)              What time did you get home last              night?                           SAM              Uh...late.                        LAURIE              You know it's a school night.                           NICKI              We know...    Laurie tries to sound cheerful and in control.                        LAURIE              Let's have our morning prayer and              then we'll meet in the living room              at eight to start today's lesson on              the laws of attraction, OK?    They join hands as Laurie enthusiastically leads them in her    prayer.                        LAURIE (CONT'D)              My chief aim in life is to              continually strive to express my              greatest potential as a spiritual              human being and contributor to the              greater good for our planet and all              those who live on it. I know that              I have the ability to reach my aim              in life, by persistent action and              that the thoughts of my mind will              reproduce themselves in outward              physical reality.              I will channel my energy towards my              aim in life with graciousness and              loving kindness to myself and              others.                        LAURIE AND GIRLS (IN UNISON)              And so it is.                           LAURIE              Wahoo!                                                       CUT TO:                                                                 7.4A   INT. MARC'S ROOM - DAY                                         4A     Marc gets dressed for school. He looks at himself in the     mirror, anxious to start a new school.     He gets his things together.5    EXT. INDIAN HILLS SCHOOL - DAY                                   5     Marc is being dropped off by his mom, Debbie in a modest car.     Kids are entering school for the day. They're the burn out     kids.                         DEBBIE               Have a great day.                            MARC               Thanks.                         DEBBIE               I hope you like it here. It always               takes a little time to get settled               in.                         MARC               Yeah. Ok, thanks, Mom.     He heads in to school.     As he walks up, he can feel kids looking at him.     He sees bunches of kids in groups checking him out.                                                          CUT TO:6    INT. CLASSROOM - DAY                                             6     Marc enters the full classroom. He looks for a seat, kids     stare at the new kid.     A Mexican Goth girl glares at him as he finds a seat in the     back.     The students all look like rejects.                                                          CUT TO:7    INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY                                        7     The bell rings and kids come out of their classes.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                              8.7   CONTINUED:                                                  7    Marc comes out of a classroom and looks for his locker.    We overhear a girl complaining to her friend.                        SCHOOL GIRL              I can't believe it, someone hacked              into my account and changed my              password to cheeze it.                        SCHOOL GIRL 2              No way, that sucks.    The girl bumps into Marc at his locker as she passes.                          SCHOOL GIRL              Watch it.    Rebecca, dressed casually like an off-duty Hollywood starlet,    looks over at Marc. She closes her locker.                        REBECCA              Hey, new kid.    Marc looks up, as she saunters over.                        REBECCA (CONT'D)              You got Shamus for English?                          MARC              Yeah.                        REBECCA              He's the worst. He's a real perv.                        MARC              Oh ok, I'll watch out, thanks.    He laughs, grateful to her for bonding.    They walk down the hall.                        REBECCA              Where you headed?                        MARC              Gym, where's that?                        REBECCA              It's down here... Where are you              from?                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                                9.7   CONTINUED:                                                    7                        MARC              Agoura Hills, but I was away for a              year, did home school...                        REBECCA              Bummer. How'd you end up in the              drop-out school?                        MARC              I got kicked out of the last school              for too many absences. What about              you?                        REBECCA              For having `substances' you're not              suppose to have at school.    She smiles slyly.                        REBECCA (CONT'D)              See you later.    She splits off...then turns back to him.                        REBECCA (CONT'D)              Hey, you want to come to the beach              after school?                        MARC              Yeah, sure.    We walk with Marc, he smiles to himself.                                                      CUT TO:8   INT. CHLOE'S S.U.V. - DAY                                     8    Marc, Rebecca, and her friend Chloe, 17, a rich Calabasas    wanna be thug, drive on the PCH in the smoky car.    Chloe sings along to some rap song like she's from the hood.                                                      CUT TO:9   EXT. BEACH - LATE AFTERNOON                                   9    Marc, Rebecca, and Chloe hang out watching the waves, smoking    a joint. There are other kids around, hanging out.                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                         10.9   CONTINUED:                                              9                        REBECCA              I just have to graduate, so I can              go to F.I.D.M. - Fashion Institute              of Design, the Hills girls all went              there.                        MARC              Cool, and then intern at Teen              Vogue?                        REBECCA              Totes...and then have my own line,              and fragrance, host a show...                        MARC              Yeah, I'd like to have my own              lifestyle brand.                        REBECCA              Definitely.    Some girls walk by.                        BEACH GIRL              Yo wassup, Chloe.                           CHLOE              Yo, Bitch.                        BEACH GIRL              You going to Karly's later?                           CHLOE              Maybe.                        BEACH GIRL              Ok, see you.                           CHLOE              Lates.    The girls pass by.                        REBECCA              My mom and her douchey husband are              out of town, if you guys want to              come over later?                                                    CUT TO:                                                             11.10   INT. REBECCA'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                 10     Music is playing. Kids roam around with beers.     Some kid is smoking out of a big bong, and singing along to a     hip hop chorus.     In a bedroom, Rebecca's older sister SARAH, 19, is selling     little baggies of coke.                         SARAH               It's Fifty.                           KID               Oh c'mon.                         SARAH               You want it or not?     She dangles the baggie like a treat.     He takes it.                           SARAH (CONT'D)               Sucker.                           KID               Fuck off.11   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                  11     There's a bulletin board of fashion tears and pictures of     young starlets- Rachel Bilson, Lindsay Lohan, Audrina     Patridge, some Victoria Secret models.     Rebecca smokes a cigarette, while she and Marc flip through     magazines. They look at pages of starlets in gowns on the red     carpet.     In the background, the TV is on with random celebrity culture     playing     There's a page of `Tweets of the Week' including a picture of     Demi Moore posing in a bikini in her bathroom.                         REBECCA               I can't wait to get out of here.                         MARC               Is your mom away a lot?                         REBECCA               Yeah, she goes on trips a lot for               work...                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                          12.11   CONTINUED:                                             11                           MARC               For what?                          REBECCA               She has a chain of student tutoring               centers...                         MARC               And you're at Indian Hills?                         REBECCA (LAUGHS)               Yeah, I know, exemplary student...               That's so cute, I love that dress.               I love Chanel.     She points at a picture.                         MARC               Yeah, and the shoes are nice...but               she needs to get some better               extensions...                         REBECCA               I know, right? Are those Prada?                           MARC               No, Dior.                          REBECCA               Really?   Hey, what do your parents               do?                         MARC               My mom doesn't work, my dad works               for a film distribution company,               they do a lot of stuff overseas..                         REBECCA               Oh cool, he's in the `biz'..                         MARC               Yeah...it's cool. I get to go to               screenings and stuff.                         REBECCA               Nice...oh she's so cute.                         MARC               But enough with the patent leather               accessories, they look cheap.                         REBECCA               Yeah, totes...                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             13.11   CONTINUED:                                                11     She smiles.                                                       CUT TO:12   EXT. REBECCA'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                 12     Kids hang around drinking and smoking, some jump in the pool.                         REBECCA               Hey, wanna check some cars?                         MARC               What's that?                           REBECCA                           (Sneaky)               C'mon...     They walk out the gate.                                                       CUT TO:13   EXT. VALLEY GATED COMMUNITY - NIGHT                          13     Marc and Rebecca are on an affluent suburban street.     They walk down the sidewalk casually under the street lights.     Rebecca checks to see if a car's door is open. It's not, she     goes on to another. She opens the door of a Lexus, and finds     a small purse in door side pocket, she takes it.                         REBECCA               Sweet. C'mon.     They keep walking and she tries another few cars, until she     finds another open door. She looks around and finds some cash     and a credit card.                           MARC               No way!                           REBECCA               Let's go.     And they head back casually, and cut off into some bushes.                         MARC               That's crazy.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                14.13   CONTINUED:                                                   13                         REBECCA               Yeah, people leave them open with               cash and credit cards...     They walk off into the darkness, smoking cigarettes.                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               Look, we got like 400 bucks...     They disappear into the night.                                                      FADE OUT14   EXT. INDIAN HILLS SCHOOL - DAY                               14     Marc walks out of school to see Rebecca leaning against her     car waiting for him.                         REBECCA               Want a ride?     She has a sly Cheshire cat smile. He smiles and gets in.15   INT. REBECCA'S AUDI - DAY                                    15     They drive in the valley.                         REBECCA               I love that mix you sent me.                         MARC               Oh, cool, anytime...               Where are we going?                         REBECCA               Wherever we want...     She lifts and eyebrow.                         MARC               Okay.                         REBECCA               Do you know anyone that's out of               town?                         MARC               Uh, this kid Evan I met online,               their family went to Jamaica, why?                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                              15.15   CONTINUED:                                                 15                         REBECCA               I went into an unlocked house a few               weeks ago and found a bunch of               cash....where does `Evan' live?                         MARC               Woodland hills.                         REBECCA                       (teasing him)               How well do you know `Evan'?                         MARC               We met up a few times...he was               pretty hot.     He smiles mischievously.                                                         CUT TO:16   EXT. EVAN'S HOUSE - DAY                                       16     They pull up to a nice suburban house.                          REBECCA               This it?                          MARC               Uh huh.     They walk up casually. They go around to the back of the     house and find a side door open. Marc follows Rebecca in.17   INT. EVAN'S HOUSE - DAY                                       17     Rebecca casually looks around, opening drawers, sitting on     the furniture. Marc paces nervously.                         MARC               Fuck...I think we should get outta               here.     Rebecca keeps looking through cabinets and drawers calmly.                         REBECCA               It's fine, it's fine...don't freak               out.     She goes down a hall, Marc nervously follows her.     In a bedroom, Rebecca opens the closet and tries on a jacket.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                             16.17   CONTINUED:                                                17                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               What do you think? It's Balenciaga                           MARC               Uh, Sure.     He can't really focus.     She gets down on the floor and looks under the bed. She pulls     out a box, and opens it.                           REBECCA               Oh, yeah.                         MARC               What is it.     She pulls out a thick stack of cash and smiles.                           MARC (CONT'D)               No way!                                                       CUT TO:18   EXT. EVAN'S HOUSE                                            18     Rebecca gets in a Porsche convertible in the driveway like     it's hers and starts the engine.                         MARC               What the fuck?     Rebecca smiles, and flips her sunglasses from her head, over     her eyes, as she lowers the roof.                           REBECCA               Get in.     Marc gets in.                         MARC               Where'd you get the keys?                         REBECCA                      (Super casual)               I grabbed them on the way out.     She backs out of the driveway like it's no big deal.                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               Hey, call my sister for a bag, will               you, she won't sell to me.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                              17.18    CONTINUED:                                                18      She peels out.                          REBECCA (CONT'D)                How long's Evan in Jamaica?      They drive off, blasting music, their hair blowing.                                                        CUT TO:19    EXT. ROBERTSON BLVD. - DAY                                   19      Rebecca and Marc strut down the street with big sunglasses      on, carrying Starbucks and shopping bags.      They go in to Kitson.20    INT. KITSON - DAY                                            20      Marc and Rebecca shop like pros. They're having the time of      their lives, styling each other and picking stuff out.      They check out their looks in the mirror, and take pictures.      They take two small boxes out of a Tiffany & Co. bag and put      on matching rings.      At the cashier they put a big pile of stuff on the counter.                                                        CUT TO:21    EXT. L.A. STREETS - DAY                                      21      They speed off in Evan's car, music blasting.21A   INT. EVANS'S CAR                                         21A      Marc looks at Rebecca, her hair blowing in the wind. Rebecca      smiles at him.                                                        CUT TO:22    EXT. VALLEY PARTY-POOL AREA - NIGHT                          22      Music plays as Valley kids hang out, smoke pot, play beer-      pong. Chloe saunters by.                          WASTED BOY                Chloe, marry me!                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                18.22   CONTINUED:                                                   22                         CHLOE               Get in line.     She walks up to Rebecca and Marc                          CHLOE (CONT'D)               Beccaaaaaa! Yo, slut we're going to               Les Deux, wanna go? Nicki and Sam               are there.     Rebecca looks at Marc.                         REBECCA               Sure.                                                         CUT TO:23   EXT. HOLLYWOOD NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT                             23     Chloe talks her way in with the cute Mexican door man, ROB.     Marc follows Rebecca and her. Chloe already seems a little     drunk.                         CHLOE               Yo, Rob, what's up?                         ROB               Hey, Chloe - Come on in.                         CHLOE               Is Ricky here?                         ROB               Yeah, he should be around.                                                         CUT TO:24   INT. HOLLYWOOD NIGHT CLUB                                     24     Marc and Rebecca are at a table with Nicki and Sam who are     dressed in skimpy outfits and lots of lip gloss.     Nicki, re-applies lip gloss, as Sam sends a text.     The music is loud and they shout to speak to each other.     (Note: There is constant texting and photo taking through     out.)     Marc is feeling in his element, this is where he should be.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                          19.24   CONTINUED:                                             24     Chloe sits down, holding some drinks.                            CHLOE               Yo, sluts.     Nicki leans over to meet Marc.                            SAM               Chlooeeee!                         CHLOE               `sup...this is my homie, Marc.                         NICKI               Hi, I'm Nicki and this is Sam.                            SAM               Hey, Marc.                         CHLOE               We used to go to school together.                         MARC               Are they sisters?                         CHLOE               They've known each other since they               were like three, they took Sam in,               I don't know what happened to her               mom.                         NICKI               Oh my god, Jude Law totally keeps               texting me...I think I'm probably               going to go meet him later.                         CHLOE               Yeah, I'm sure you're really going               to hesitate on that one.     Sam chuckles.                         NICKI               Bitch, you're just jealous.                         CHLOE               Suck my dick.                         SAM               You did text him like fifty times.                            NICKI               I did not.                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                             20.24   CONTINUED:                                                24     Chloe laughs.     Marc looks around at the glamorous people, he's thinking this     is the life.                         SAM               C'mon Chloe, where's that bottle               service? Let's get that going.     Across the room, a blonde starlet air kisses the D.J.     RICKY, 45, the sleazy club promoter stops by their table.                          RICKY               Girls.     Chloe gets up and throws herself around him.                          CHLOE               Ricky!                         RICKY               Hey, baby, you good? You guys have               everything you need?                          CHLOE               Uh huh.                         RICKY               Nicki, there are some photographers               out here for fashion week you might               want to meet.                          NICKI               Fo' sho!                         RICKY               And this dope music manager, and               some of the entourage producers-               we've got a real party salad               tonight.     An actor, with some friends and a few models, sit nearby.                         RICKY (CONT'D)               Ok, let me know if you need               anything...                         CHLOE                     (seductively)               I'll check with you later, Boo.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                              21.24   CONTINUED:                                                 24     And whispers something naughty in to his ear. He smiles and     moves on.     Marc spots Paris Hilton across the room.                         MARC               Oh my god, that's Paris Hilton.                         NICKI               Yeah, totally, she DJs sometimes...     We see Ricky by a booth near the DJ where Paris Hilton and     friends sit with a big bottle of Moet-Chandon.                                                       CUT TO:     Nicki, Sam and Chloe dance - Nicki and Sam do a sexy sister     act, throwing their hair around.     Sam gives Rob, the door guy, a flirty look.     Marc and Rebecca chill in their booth looking around the room     like this is it. He takes a picture of them together.                                                       CUT TO:25   FACE BOOK PAGE:                                              25     The computer screen fills the frame as we see Marc updating     his page with a photo of him and the girls hanging out in the     nightclub booth.                                                       CUT TO:26   INT. MARC'S ROOM - NIGHT                                     26     Marc lies on his bed thinking about his cool new friends and     lifestyle, a little smile goes across his lips.                                                       CUT TO:27   EXT. INDIAN HILLS SCHOOL - DAY                               27     Marc struts up to school. Rebecca, Chloe and some kids     hanging out meet him and they go in together.                         CHLOE               I literally thought I was going to               die.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                22.27   CONTINUED:                                                   27                          REBECCA               Homie...                         MARC               Yo, bitches.                         CHLOE               Dawg, wassup?     Marc hands Rebecca a Starbucks.                         MARC               I thought you might want one.                         REBECCA               Oh, you're the best.     Marc smiles.                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               I love your shirt.                          MARC               Thanks.     Marc looks over at Rebecca as they walk into school.     Marc's P.O.V. - we see Rebecca move in slow motion, the wind     blows her sunlit hair.                         MARC (O.S.) (CONT'D)               I loved her, I really did. She was               the first person I felt like was my               best friend...I loved her almost as               a sister, that's what made this               situation so hard.                                                       CUT TO:     T.V. screen: Victoria Secret models preening down a runway     fill the screen.28   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - DAY                                    28     Marc and Rebecca hang out in her room, looking at magazines     and stuff on the computer.     The Victoria Secret show is on the TV in the background.     Marc is looking at a gossipy website.     We see on screen: TMZ news of Mischa Barton DUI arrest and     mug shot.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               23.28    CONTINUED:                                                 28                          MARC                        (reading)                Misha Barton got a DUI...Paris                Hilton is hosting a party Thursday                night at the Cosmopolitan in                Vegas...                           REBECCA                Where does she live, can you find                her house?      Marc types onto the computer.                          MARC                2342 Briar Summit...      He pulls up a Google Maps image of her house, they're able to      look around it. Rebecca's eyes light up.                          REBECCA                Let's go there!                Do you think we could find a way                in?                          MARC (CONT'D)                Looks like you could get in going                up the hill behind her house.                          REBECCA                I bet she'd leave her keys under                her mat.                                                        CUT TO:28A   EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                 28A      We see over Marc and Rebecca's dark figures, Paris' mansion      glowing up on a hill.                                                        CUT TO:      CLOSE UP: A doormat is lifted to reveal a key on a Swarovski      crystal pink Eiffel Tower key ring.29    EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                   29      Rebecca and Marc open the door with the key and go in.                                                               24.30   INT. PARIS' HOUSE                                            30     They walk in the quiet house and turn on the light, as little     spider monkeys in a cage jump toward them and screech.     Rebecca and Marc jump back, he yells. Rebecca glares at him     to be cool.                         MARC               Oh my fucking god.                         REBECCA               They're her pet monkeys. Hi guys.     She leans forward and makes a cute face at the monkey who     hisses at her.     They continue through the house looking around.     They pass a gilded gold-framed couch with pillows with Paris'     photo silk screened on them.     They pass a wall of photos of Paris Hilton and her many     magazine covers, as they go upstairs. Marc is nervous,     Rebecca is cool and focused.     He paces and is on the look out, while she looks for stuff.                         MARC               Let's get the fuck out of here.                         REBECCA               It's fine, it's fine...let's keep               going.     They go into her dressing area. It's a mess, clothes all over     the floor.     Rebecca picks up some small purses and finds crumpled fifties     and hundred dollar bills that she takes.                         MARC               She's so messy.     Rebecca looks through her underwear drawer, takes a bright     pink bra.     She takes a Louis Vuitton Camo bag and stuffs some things in     it.     Rebecca sits on her bed, and looks around.     Marc paces nervously.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                25.30   CONTINUED:                                                   30                         MARC (CONT'D)               C'mon, let's get out of here.                         REBECCA               You're tripping out. This is fine,               it's ok, why are you tripping out?     Rebecca casually descends the stairs as if she lives there.     Marc follows her down, into Paris' night club room.     There are pictures of her all over the walls, and a stripper     pole on a little platform. Pink furry pillows line the     banquette.     Marc takes a bottle of vodka. Rebecca looks around the room,     takes it all in.31   EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                    31     They leave, closing the door behind them. They see a security     patrol car drive by, and jump in some bushes.     The patrol car stops and flashes a light around the bushes.     Rebecca and Marc freeze in their hiding spot. Marc is     freaking out, he thinks this is it for him. He tries to     breath quietly. Rebecca calmly waits.     Finally the flashing lights stop, and the car moves on.     Marc and Rebecca sit in the dark, Marc breaths again.     They wait for a while.                         REBECCA               C'mon.     They sneak out through the backyard, and run down a hill     behind the house.                         MARC               Oh my fucking god.     We see them as small figures running across the empty     hillside.                                                       CUT TO:32   EXT. VALLEY PARTY-TENNIS COURT - NIGHT                       32     Kids hang out, and drink on a tennis court.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                26.32   CONTINUED:                                                   32     Rebecca and Marc are with Chloe, Nicki and Sam.                         NICKI               No way, I totally want to go to               Paris'!                         REBECCA               Yeah, it was sweet, we hung out in               her night club room...I got this.     She shows them a sparkly diamond tennis bracelet.                         NICKI               Oh my god, no way.                         CHLOE               You are so sick! O.G. Motherfucker!     Rebecca laughs, and cheers Marc with their plastic cups.                         SAM               No way, how'd you get in?                         MARC               Her key was under the mat, it was               so chill, we just walked in.                         REBECCA               We can all go back, we just have to               check when she's going out to               something...                                                         CUT TO:     A computer screen: Photo of Paris Hilton on gossip website     that says "Paris hosting Skyy vodka party at LIV in Miami".                                                         CUT TO:33   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - DAY                                     33     Nicki, Sam and Rebecca try on outfits for Marc, he helps     style them, while he's looking online, telling them celebrity     tidbits. Nicki and Sam love taking their tops off...                         MARC               Lindsay got another D.U.I... Here               try this vest with that...     We see some news footage of Lindsay Lohan with cops on     computer screen.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                             27.33   CONTINUED:                                                33     Nicki shows Marc an outfit - tight jeans and a vest.                         NICKI               What do you think?                         MARC               Try your hair back.     She pulls her hair back, and poses for him.                         MARC (CONT'D)               Yeah, that looks classy.                         SAM               I don't know if I'd go that far.     Sam puts on a skimpy leopard dress and zebra pumps. Nicki     looks at her.                         NICKI               Leopard and Zebra - seriously?                         SAM               What?                         MARC               Yeah, def, you can't wear zebra and               leopard. You have to choose one.                         SAM               Ok, fine....at least I don't look               like I'm thirty-five.     Sam blows smoke from a joint out the window.     Nicki is entranced with herself as she puts lip gloss on in     the mirror. Someone hands her a joint.                         NICKI               Let's go to Paris', c'mon,     She takes a drag-pause and then exhales.                         NICKI (CONT'D)               I want to rob...                                                       CUT TO:34   INT. NICKI'S HOUSE- DAY                                     34     Nicki sits at a table with a tape recorder in front of her.     She's dressed like a school girl.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                28.34   CONTINUED:                                                   34                         NICKI                  (holding back tears)               I didn't know what they were doing.               I thought they were my friends...it               all comes back to bad choices, who               you have as your friends, and I               know the truth will come out.                                                     CUT BACK TO:35   EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                      35     Nicki, Sam, Chloe and Marc follow Rebecca as they sneak up     and go in the house.     Rebecca opens the door with the key, the bejeweled charm     dangling from the key ring.     Sam and Nicki look at each other impressed, and they follow     her in.                                                         CUT TO:36   INT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                      36     They follow Rebecca into Paris' dressing area.                         NICKI               No way!     Rebecca opens a closet door and there's a room full of shoes.                         NICKI (CONT'D)               No fucking way.                         CHLOE               That's so chill.                         NICKI               Look at all her Louboutins.                         CHLOE               Her feet are big.     Nicki and Sam start trying shoes on and grabbing bags. They     take photos of themselves with outfits on in her closet.     Sam finds a note and reads it out loud.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                               29.36   CONTINUED:                                                  36                         SAM               "Ciao Paris, Keep the glamour               alive! Un Bacio, Donatella."     Marc puts on a pair of pink heels and runway walks for the     girls who love it. He grabs a little LV rolling suitcase, and     does a runway look with it coming around a corner, pulling     the suitcase in heels and a scarf like a `60s Pan Am     stewardess.     Rebecca notices something on the far wall of the closet and     pushes on the back wall of shoes - the wall opens to a secret     safe room.                            REBECCA               Sweet.     There's an open safe and Rebecca and Marc get down to see     what's in it, they find cash, some jewelry and naked photos.                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               Look at these!                         MARC               We could sell these.                         NICKI               Let me see!                            CHLOE               Oh shit!                         SAM               What's all over her?                         MARC               Some bad tanner...     Back in closet area:     Nicki tries on a pink mini dress, and shows it to them.                         NICKI               What do you think?               It's Herve Leger.     Sam and Chloe scream.                            NICKI (CONT'D)               What?!     Sam's holding a Louis Vuitton dog carrier.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                30.36   CONTINUED:                                                   36                         SAM               There's actually an old dog turd in               here.                         NICKI               Ew, put that back.     Nicki grabs a big bag and throws some stuff in it, and walks     around with it swinging from her wrist like it's hers and     she's out shopping.     Rebecca is filling a bag, too... and looking through her     drawers.                                                       CUT TO:37   INT. PARIS' BATHROOM                                         37     Rebecca opens a pink make-up bag and starts putting on Paris'     make-up.     She opens the medicine cabinet. She looks through some     prescriptions and takes a bottle.     She puts on some of Paris' pink lipstick and pouts in the     mirror.                         MARC               C'mon let's get the fuck out of               here.                         REBECCA               Alright, alright...in a sec.     They take some more stuff and head down the stairs laughing.                          REBECCA (CONT'D)               Oh wait, you have to see her night               club room.38   INT. PARIS' NIGHT CLUB ROOM                                  38     The kids make themselves at home.     Sam and Nicki goof off on the stripper pole.     Chloe makes herself a cocktail.     Rebecca flicks on some party light setting and lounges on a     sofa with some pillows with Paris' face on them.     Marc paces nervously.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                31.38   CONTINUED:                                                   38     Sam is filming Nicki with her phone, she mugs and talks to     the camera.                         NICKI               Ciao!     We see Nicki on Sam's phone.                         NICKI (CONT'D)               Keep the glamour alive!     Sam and Nicki take pictures of themselves with a life size     Paris cut-out.                                                          CUT TO:39   EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                      39     Laughing, they run down the hill behind the house.                                                          CUT TO:40   OMITTED                                                        4041   INT. HOLLYWOOD NIGHT CLUB -NIGHT                               41     Rebecca, Marc, Chloe and Nicki are having a great time on a     busy night at the club.     Nicki's wearing a pink mini-dress dress she stole from     Paris'. The others are decked out in stuff they got from     there as well. Some of them are dancing.                                                          CUT TO:     In a hallway, Sam is making out with the hot Mexican door     guy, Rob.                                                          CUT TO:42   INT. CHLOE'S S.U.V. - NIGHT                                    42     Chloe's driving wasted, with Rebecca and Marc in the car.     They're blasting music, high from their night.     -Suddenly Chloe crashes into another car, air bags go off in     their faces, with that awful sound of a car crash.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                32.42   CONTINUED:                                                   42     They sit there silent, flashing police lights flood the car     as a siren blares.                                                       CUT TO:43   INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT                                  43     Flashes go off as Chloe gets mug shots taken. She has her     toughest face on.                                                       CUT TO:44   EXT. INDIAN HILLS SCHOOL - DAY                               44     Rebecca and Marc hang out in front of school while Chloe     brags about how hard core she is.                         CHLOE               Man, I was off the charts, it was               craaazzay - they didn't know how I               was driving let alone still alive.                         REBECCA               That's fucked up.                         CHLOE               Yeah, I have to pick up trash for               fucking forever...                         MARC               That sucks...                         CHLOE               What are you guys doing later?                         REBECCA               I don't know, there's a party at               Madison's...I'll let you know,               lates.                                                       CUT TO:45   INT. MARC'S ROOM - EVENING                                   45     Marc's feeling good, listening to music and putting outfits     together in his room, American Gigolo style, laying out     combinations on his bed, holding things up in the mirror.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                33.45   CONTINUED:                                                   45     He gets a text on his phone and looks at it: LET'S GO TO     PARIS                                                       CUT TO:46   OMITTED                                                      4647   INT. PARIS' NIGHT CLUB ROOM                                  47     Rebecca and Marc hang out like it's their place. They listen     to music on the club professional sound system.     Marc opens a drawer and finds diamond encrusted gun lighter.     He leans over and lights Rebecca's cigarette.     She smokes and they look through her stuff. The dog sits next     to her.                                                       CUT TO:48   INT. PARIS' HOUSE FOYER -NIGHT                               48     As Marc and Rebecca are leaving, the Yorkie sees them out.     Rebecca picks up the little dog and starts to leave with it.                         REBECCA               C'mon Teacup.                         MARC               You can't take her dog.                         REBECCA               She likes me...and I could probably               get like five hundred for her.     Marc looks at her like she's too much.                         MARC               Come on Rebecca, leave her dog, it               would be too noticeable anyway.                         REBECCA               Yeah, I guess... bye Teacup.     She sets the little yorkie down, and they hit the lights.                          Revised Blue - 03/16/12            34.49   EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                   49     As they leave, Rebecca checks a door handle of an expensive     sports car on the street. It opens, and she reaches in a door     pocket.                         REBECCA               Shut the fuck up.     She holds up a big bag of coke and smiles.                           MARC               Oh shit.                                                       CUT TO:50   INT. REBECCA'S AUDI - NIGHT                                 50     Rebecca and Marc drive around singing along to their favorite     song, high, having the best time of their lives. When the     song ends, they play it again...and again.     They take bumps and keep going.     The music fades down and off (we still see them singing their     hearts out).                         MARC (O.S.)               We were acting insane, but it all               felt so glamorous and wonderful.                                                       CUT TO:51   T.V. CLIP FILLS SCREEN:                                     51     Coverage of The Hills 3 premier. There are clips of              *     celebrities posing on the red carpet as flashes go off in     front of a backdrop with LG logos and other sponsors.     We see a blonde, with a hand on hip pose, then she turns and     look at the cameras over her shoulder.     Then there's an interview with reality T.V. star, Audrina     Patridge:                                                        *                         REPORTER (O.S.)               What are your favorite hot spots in               L.A.?                                                       (CONTINUED)                          Revised Blue - 03/16/12               35.51   CONTINUED:                                                   51                         AUDRINA               Hot spots? Well, we love Lola's, we               go there all the time, it's a               Martini bar, and I like the Dime,               and we always go to Les Deux, cause               all our friends are always               there...it's like the spot to go               to.                         REPORTER (O.S.)               So have you toned down the partying               since you have a boyfriend?...                         AUDRINA                         (Laughs)               Uh, well, sure, a little...                                                       CUT TO:52   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - EVENING                                52     Rebecca and Marc are watching The Hills premier on TV.     Marc is also looking at stuff on a laptop.     His screen is filled with shots of Audrina Patridge in            *     different looks at various events.     She's in a bikini in one, a sexy dress, a skimpy naughty     Halloween costume.                          REBECCA               Oh my god, I literally love               Audrina's style...can you see where               she lives?     Marc types in her name and a few things, and before you know     it he has a photo and map of her house up on the screen.                         MARC               She's going to Demi & Ashton's               Oscar party Sunday.     Rebecca smiles.                           REBECCA               Perfect.                                                       CUT TO:                                                             36.53   EXT. AUDRINA'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                53     In a wide shot, we see Rebecca and Marc as small figures     enter a glass house on a hill. They run around and leave     with bags of stuff.54   OMITTED                                                     5455   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                 55     Rebecca, Marc, Sam and Nicki are looking through clothes.     There are piles of bags and designer clothes on Rebecca's     bed.     Nicki and Sam are squealing and trying things on, Marc is     styling them, and taking pictures of them posing in their     `looks'. Nicki puts on some crazy Louboutins. He tells them     how great they look.     Nicki and Sam dance in front of the computer screen watching     as they film themselves.     Marc goofs off around dancing with them, acting like a big-     shot pimp flanked by his girls.                                                       CUT TO:56   CLOSE ON COMPUTER SCREEN:                                   56     We see targeting in on a Tudor house in the hills, the camera     zooms in and shows side views, next to a map.                                                       CUT TO:57   EXT. FOX/GREEN HOUSE - NIGHT                                57     Rebecca, Marc and Chloe approach a house with their hoods on.     Nicki, Sam and Emily join them.     Rebecca looks over at Emily.                         REBECCA               Wait. Who are you?                         NICKI               This is my little sister, Emily.                         REBECCA               Oh. How old are you?                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               37.57   CONTINUED:                                                  57                           EMILY               Thirteen.     She looks at her like "old enough".                           REBECCA               C'mon.     They look around, trying doors and windows.     Rebecca finds a dog door at the back of the house.                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               Can you fit through there?     Emily crawls through, opening a door for the others to come     in.                         CHLOE               I'm staying on look-out.58   INT. FOX/GREEN - NIGHT                                      58     The kids go through the closets and drawers, Rebecca opens a     suitcase on the floor - it's filled with jeans and t-shirts.     Nicki looks in the closet.                         NICKI               I like this Rick Owens jacket.     Nicki throws on the leather jacket, and keeps going.     Marc hears a sound outside.                         MARC               Did you hear that?                         REBECCA               It's fine, it's fine.                         MARC               I think I heard someone.                          REBECCA               There's no one outside, calm the               fuck down.                         MARC               I hear helicopters.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                               38.58   CONTINUED:                                                  58                         REBECCA               We're in L.A., there are always               helicopters...don't be such a               little bitch.     Rebecca pulls some designer bags off a shelf, as if she hit a     jack pot.     Sam looks through racks of clothes as if she's in a boutique.     Emily tries on shoes.                         SAM               Ew, what are these oils for?                            EMILY               Gross.     Sam looks through the medicine cabinet and grabs a handful of     prescription bottles. She reads the labels, tossing anything     uninteresting.                         SAM               What's Alprazolam?     Nicki answers from the other room.                            NICKI               Xanax.                            SAM               Oh good...     She drops it in her bag.     Marc loads up a bag, and paces around, on the look-out.                         MARC               Jesus Christ, let's hurry the fuck               up.                                                       CUT TO:     Nicki approaches the bed in the master bedroom, and lies down     on it, feeling what it feels like, looking around.     She picks up a picture in a silver frame and looks at a     couple on the beach: Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green.     Nicki rolls over and off the bed, looking under it, she finds     a box, and opens it to find a gun.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                 39.58    CONTINUED:                                                   58      She picks up the gun.                          NICKI                Look what I found!                          SAM                Let me see that.      Sam starts dancing with the gun, waving it around.                          MARC                Oh shit, be careful with that                thing. Is it loaded?      Sam raises it to her lips teasingly.                          SAM                Maybe.                                                           CUT TO:59    EXT. HILLSIDE - NIGHT                                          59      The kids run past the glittery view.                                                           CUT TO:59A   EXT. CHLOE'S MOM'S CAR                                      59A      Sam throws her head out the car window and screams in an      adrenaline rush.                                                           CUT TO:60    INT. ROB'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                                     60      Rob, from the club, is asleep in his bed in the small dark      room.      Sam climbs in through a window into his room, back-lit from a      street lamp.      He looks over and sees Sam dancing around for him in jean cut-      offs with the gun.      She climbs on him in bed, and drags the gun over him, he      grabs her and throws her under him, the gun in her hand goes      off and fires a bullet into his closet.      Dogs start barking, and we hear a voice call.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                40.60   CONTINUED:                                                   60                          ROB'S MOTHER (O.S.)                Robert? What's going on?                          ROB                It's nothing, Mom.     CLOSE UP: Rob squeezes Sam's wrist, and her hand drops the     gun.     CLOSE UP: He takes off her shorts, her ankles wiggle out of     them.     She disappears under the sheets.                                                       CUT TO:61   INT.   NICKI'S HOUSE- DAY                                    61     Laurie is bringing out a foam board with magazine photos     collaged on to it. She's wearing a tight tank top with an     Indian symbol and brown velour sweat pants.                          LAURIE                Girls, time for school!     Sam, Nicki and Emily come sit on the coach with sari fabric     thrown over it and ethnic-looking pillows. Nicki flips up her     Ray-bans slowly. Sam has messy hair, she looks like she got     home late. She's eating a bowl of cereal, Nicki's on her     Blackberry.     The room is filled with Buddha statues and Balinese wood     carved furniture and candles.     The girls are flipping through magazines.                          LAURIE (CONT'D)                Put the phone away...ok you guys,                today's lesson is about character                development. In "The Secret" we                talk about the law of attraction                and we want to be careful about the                people we surround ourselves with                because we become the average of                those people. So we're going to                make a visual board of people who                are demonstrating good character,                like Angelina Jolie. So what are                some qualities you admire about                her?                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                                41.61   CONTINUED:                                                   61                         SAM               Her husband.     The girls chuckle.                         LAURIE               Ok. What else?                         NICKI               Her hot bod.                         LAURIE               Ok, the bod is not a               characteristic.                         NICKI               How long do we have to do this for?                         LAURIE               Until we're finished with this and               then we're going to do some flower               essence work.     The door bell rings, and Nicki goes to answer it.     A young guy delivering water, comes in with big bottles.                            LAURIE (CONT'D)               Who is it?                         NICKI               Water delivery.     Nicki poses against wall as he passes, flirtatiously. Laurie     zips up Nicki's hoodie that's showing off her cleavage.                         LAURIE               Ok, back to work.                                                         CUT TO:62   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - DAY                                     62     CLOSE UP: a computer screen:     We see news caption: Orlando Bloom's shooting a movie in New     York, He's with Victoria-Secret model/girlfriend, Miranda     Kerr.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                             42.62   CONTINUED:                                                62                         MARC (O.S.)               Orlando Bloom's shooting a movie in               New York, he's there with Miranda               Kerr.     There's a picture of the actor and model on the red carpet.     Then we see typed in: Orlando Bloom's address.     A map comes up.                         REBECCA               I want to get some Victoria Secret               model clothes.                         NICKI                     (Chewing gum)               Let's do it.                                                       CUT TO:63   EXT. ORLANDO BLOOM'S HOUSE                                   63     The gang of them approach a fence, there's some wire fence at     the bottom that's unraveling, they pull on it and it opens     enough for them to squeeze through.     They approach the house and scatter around to find a way in.     Rebecca opens the front door, it's unlocked.                           REBECCA               You guys.     They follow her in.                                                       CUT TO:64   INT. ORLANDO BLOOM'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                         64     They sneak into the bedroom and start looking through stuff.     The girls go through a woman's closet, trying on clothes,     grabbing stuff.     Marc opens a drawer in a closet, and finds seven Rolex     watches and a thick stack of hundred dollar bills. He scoops     them into a bag.     CLOSE UP: a girl's hand goes through a drawer of lingerie.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                             43.64   CONTINUED:                                                64     We see a high-tech security camera globe in ceiling, a red     light turns on.     Rebecca hangs out on a sofa smoking a cigarette, while she     looks through a box of photos and trinkets, as if she's at     home.                                                       CUT TO:65   INT. ORLANDO BLOOM'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                     65     As they're headed out with all of their loot, Rebecca grabs a     piece of art off the wall.                         MARC               What the fuck are you doing?                         REBECCA               I've got a new room at my Dad's in               Vegas, I need some stuff to               decorate it, I might stay with him               a while...here, hold this.     She hands him the art off the wall, and rolls up a little rug     on the floor.                         MARC               Are you fucking serious?     Rebecca gives him a nonchalant look, and takes it out with     her under her arm, carrying a big bag on her other side.     Marc watches her and follows her out.                                                       CUT TO:66   INT. REBECCA'S AUDI - NIGHT                                  66     We see their P.O.V. out the windshield on the dark street,     headlights illuminating their way. It's quiet in the car.                         MARC               If I ever became not your friend               anymore, would you rob me?                         REBECCA               I would never do that to you.                                                       CUT TO:                                                                44.67   CLOSE UP: SCREEN IS FILLED WITH GOSSIP GIRL SHOW FOOTAGE      67     We see Leighton Meister close up and in slow-motion,     atmospheric music from scene before continues over the image.                                                         CUT TO:     Rachel Bilson and Nicole Ritchie sitting at the front row of     a fashion show on fashion T.V. watching models go by.                                                         CUT TO:     Kim and Kourtney Kardashian trying out a stripper pole at     home on their reality show.                                                         CUT TO:     Lindsay Lohan in a skimpy dress exiting a club.                                                         CUT TO:68   INT. REBECCA'S ROOM - NIGHT                                   68     Rebecca is entranced watching a Golden Globes red carpet re-     cap on the T.V.     We see styled starlet after starlet pose for cameras, they     put their hands on their hips, and do over the shoulder looks     to cameras as flashes go off.     Amanda Seyfried, Anne Hathaway, Blake Lively, Kim     Kardashian...     A journalist interviews a starlet.                         JOURNALIST (O.S.)               Who are you wearing?                         STARLET               I'm wearing Armani Privee.                         JOURNALIST               And the jewelry?                         STARLET               My jewelry is by Chopard.                         JOURNALIST               And what about your shoes?                         STARLET               Louboutins.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                             45.68   CONTINUED:                                                68                         JOURNALIST               Well, you look beautiful, are you               excited for tonight?                         STARLET               Thank you, yes, I'm so excited to               be here.     And she moves on, and another starlet talks about her outfit.                                                       CUT TO:69   INT. MARC'S ROOM - NIGHT                                    69     Alone in his room, Marc pulls a drawer out from under his bed-     it's filled with designer clothes and bags. He just looks at     it all and touches it.     We see him lying on the bed, with a fur vest as a pillow, and     stuff out, wearing Paris Hilton's pink patent leather heels.     There's a knock at the door.                         DEBBIE (O.S.)               Marc?                         MARC               Oh one second, Mom.     He scrambles to puts it all away quickly.                         DEBBIE (O.S.)               It's time for dinner.                         MARC               Ok, I'll be right there.     He stuffs things back under the bed, and makes a call on his     cell.                         MARC (CONT'D)               Hey, Chloe.                         CHLOE (O.S.)               Yo Home Skillet, what's going on?                         MARC               Did you talk to Ricky about the               Rolexes.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                             46.69   CONTINUED:                                                69                         CHLOE               Yeah, yeah, he's got connects,               bring them by later.                                                       CUT TO:70   INT. NICKI'S HOUSE- NIGHT                                    70     It's dinner at their house- with Laurie saying grace. Her     boyfriend, HENRY sits next to her and Sam, Nicki and Emily     are at the table. Laurie bows her head.                         LAURIE               We look to the universe and Divine               Spirit to show us the way. I am so               grateful for this opportunity to               have dinner together as a family.               And so it is.                         GIRLS (IN UNISON)               And so it is.     Laurie takes a sip of white wine, and passes a plate.                         LAURIE               So, how did your audition go?                         NICKI               It was alright.                         SAM               I think it went really well, they               said they want to do a test shoot.                         LAURIE               That's good, that's good.                         HENRY               What's it for?                         SAM               Axe body spray.                         HENRY               Uh huh.                         NICKI               And we have a go-see for the BCBG               runway show!                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                        47.70   CONTINUED:                                           70                         LAURIE               Great! That's a cute top, is that               new?     Nicki's shirt has a Chanel logo on it.                         NICKI               Oh, yeah, our friend Marc, he's a               stylist, he let us borrow some               stuff for the auditions.                         LAURIE               Oh, that's nice.                         NICKI               Yeah, his dad has a production               company he helps style for.                         LAURIE               Oh, what's it called?                         NICKI               I don't remember.                         SAM               Something -international?                         EMILY               Mom, can I be excused?                         LAURIE               Are you done?                         EMILY               Yeah, and I want to finish my               flower essences.                         LAURIE               Ok, sweetie. I'm thinking about               doing a silent retreat.                            SAM (SARCASTICALLY)               Good luck.     Sam and Nicki chuckle.                         HENRY (SUPPORTIVELY)               I think that's great, honey.                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                             48.70   CONTINUED:                                                70                         NICKI               Uh, Mom, we have to get going,               we're meeting this manager tonight               who could be really helpful.                         SAM               Yeah, He knows a lot of               photographers...and producers.                         LAURIE               OK, OK, that sounds good. Just be               back by eleven.                         NICKI               Uh huh.     She laughs.     The girls get up from the table.                         SAM               Yeah, right.                         LAURIE               Eleven. It's a week night.                         SAM               (Under her breath with a chuckle)               Eleven my ass.                                                       CUT TO:71   INT. NICKI AND SAM'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                        71     Nicki and Sam are cracking themselves up in their underwear,     smoking a joint, exhaling out the window and picking out     slutty outfits. They check themselves out in a full length     mirror.                         SAM               I know, I'd totally do him....but               did you see how small his hands               are?                         NICKI               Ew, no.                         SAM               Yeah, that could be gross.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                              49.71   CONTINUED:                                                 71                         NICKI               Yeah.                         SAM               Dude, we have to get in that               video...Does this look good?                         NICKI               Yeah, I mean, do you feel good in               that?                          SAM               I just want to look hot, but not               desperate.                         NICKI               Totally. I think you look hot. Let               me see a different top...     She slips on a silky camisole, and turns in her tight jeans.     We can see a lower-back tatoo peeking out.                         SAM               Does my butt look good in these               jeans?                         NICKI               Your butt looks awesome.     (She says this with the importance of giving a really serious     compliment)                                                       CUT TO:72   INT. HOLLYWOOD NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT                           72     Marc follows Chloe into Ricky's private office.73   INT. NIGHT CLUB OFFICE                                      73     Ricky hangs out, leaning back in a chair.                         CHLOE               Ricky, you remember Marc.                         RICKY               Sure, sure I do. Come on in, Marc.               What can I do for you.     Marc opens a bag on his desk with the pile of Rolexes.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                             50.73   CONTINUED:                                                73     Ricky looks at him with a poker face.                         MARC               Can you sell these?     Ricky chuckles.                         RICKY               Where'd you get them?                         MARC               Uh...I found them.                            RICKY               I see.     He enjoys dragging this out, making Marc squirm.                         MARC               What do you think, can you take               them?                         RICKY               I don't know...I can see...tell you               what, I'll give you five grand for               them.                         MARC               Aren't they worth more?                         RICKY               Not stolen ones.                         MARC               Ok, yeah. Thanks.                            RICKY               Sure, kid.     He smiles and goes to his safe.                                                        CUT TO:74   INT. CLUB BATHROOM                                           74     Marc and Nicki snort coke off the back of a little clutch bag     on the back of the toilet.                                                        CUT TO:                                                                51.75   INT. NIGHT CLUB OFFICE                                         75     Chloe straddles Ricky on his desk chair, making out with him.     She holds out her arm and takes a picture on her phone. A     little blackberry flash hits them, with her in a slutty pose     up next to him.                                                          CUT TO:76   INT. HOLLYWOOD NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT                              76     Marc and the girls, all done up sit in a booth and get bottle     service. A big bottle of vodka is brought over.     CLOSE UP: They leave a stack of cash.                                                          CUT TO:     Marc and the girls dance in slightly slow-motion.     We hear dreamy, almost ominous tonal music as they dance     instead of the club music. They sway in a dreamy trance,     light gleaming around them, outlining their hair.                         MARC (O.S.)               When we went out, we got in               everywhere and everyone loved               us...and we had so many beautiful,               gorgeous things.                                                          CUT TO:77   INT. MARC'S GRANDMA'S BASEMENT                                 77     CLOSE UP: pan over his beautiful, gorgeous things.     Marc is stashing a bunch of his loot in a basement.     We see him take a last look at a Louis Vuitton suitcase     packed full of luxury bags and designer fashion.     Quilted Chanel bags in every color, Louboutin patent leather     platform heels, Marc Jacobs crisp shirts.     He touches them, and makes sure they're all tucked away     carefully, before closing it up.     We see there are several Louis Vuitton suitcases, he slides     this one away next to them, and pulls a tarp over them in the     corner and leaves them by some old Christmas decorations.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                              52.77    CONTINUED:                                                77      He turns off the light and heads up the stairs.                                                        CUT TO:78    INT. MARC'S GRANDMA'S HOUSE - DAY                            78      Marc's little old grandma shuffles about in a house coat with      a plate of cookies, as he rushes out.                          MARC                Bye, Grandma.      He gives her a kiss on his way out.                            GRANDMA                Bye now.      He shuts the door.                                                        CUT TO:79    EXT. ROBERTSON BLVD. - DAY                                   79      In the bright light, Marc, Rebecca, Sam, Chloe and Nicki      strut down the street with big sunglasses, lattes and      shopping bags...just like reality stars. They are have a more      jaded attitude now.                                                        CUT TO:80    EXT. PARIS' HOUSE - NIGHT                                    80      The kids plus Rob enter the house. Rebecca leads them in as      if it's her place.80A   INT. PARIS' BEDROOM                                         80A      Rebecca lounges in her bedroom, as the other girls try on      things.      Sam puts on a skimpy top and shows Nicki.                          NICKI                Sexy biatch.      Nicki looks in a mirror as she tries on a fluffy white fur      jacket.                          NICKI (CONT'D)                J'adore Dior.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                               53.80   CONTINUED:                                                  80     The girls are wearing Paris' jewelry and they're hanging out,     making drinks as if they live there. One of them's in a fur     vest.                         ROB               How many times have you guys been               up here?                         MARC               I think this is like the 5th time.                         ROB               And she never noticed?                         REBECCA               We never take enough for it to be               obvious...and c'mon, it's Paris               Hilton.                         ROB               She's so messy.                         MARC               I know, right?     Rob opens drawers, until he finds a box full of jewelry. He     pulls out some diamond necklaces.                         ROB               Here we go.                           SAM               Oh, shit.     The other kids gather around, as he holds them up.                         ROB               C'mon, let's get the fuck out of               here.                                                          CUT TO:81   OMITTED                                                        8182   INT. MARC'S ROOM - DAY                                         82     Marc styles Nicki, dressing her up in a look.                          MARC               Or you could wear the Chloe sandals               with this.                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                                54.82   CONTINUED:                                                   82                            NICKI               Oh, yeah.     Nicki smokes something off a little piece of tin foil,     exhaling out the window.     His phone rings.                         REBECCA (O.S.)               Turn on KTLA.                            MARC               What?                            REBECCA (O.S.)               Now.     Marc turns on the TV and finds the channel- to see news     footage of them from a surveillance camera sneaking into     Audrina Patridge's house. He freaks out.                         MARC               No fucking way, no fucking way.                          REBECCA (O.S.)               Calm the fuck down, they can't tell               who it is.                            MARC               Oh my god.     He starts crying.                            NICKI               Oh, shit.                          REBECCA (O.S.)               It's fine, it's fine, you can't see               who it is.     On TV:                         NEWSCASTER (O.S.)               Audrina Patridge posted this on her               web site, asking for anyone who has               any information about the break-in               to contact police at the number               below.                            MARC               Oh my god.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               55.82   CONTINUED:                                                  82     He stumbles and knocks something over that makes a loud     crashing noise.     There's a knock on the door.                           MARC (CONT'D)               Oh shit.     Nicki cracks the door open coyly. Marc's dad who looks like a     teamster looks at her.                         MR. HALL               Is everything alright in there?                         NICKI (CUTESY)               Yes, Mr. Hall, sorry if we're               making too much noise.     Marc calls out.                         MARC               Everything's fine.                           MR. HALL               OK.     Nicki smiles and shuts the door.                                                         CUT TO:83   INT. POLICE STATION                                           83     We see the surveillance   video being viewed, it's rewound and     studied on a loop. They   zoom in and the grainy image fills     the frame as we see the   kids entering and leaving with loot.     They zoom in and freeze   on a face.                                                         CUT TO:84   INT. MARC'S ROOM - NIGHT                                      84     It's late at night, the lights are off, Marc looks up at the     ceiling, he's tired, but can't sleep.                                                         CUT TO:85   EXT. BEACH - LATE AFTERNOON                                   85     Rebecca, Marc and Chloe hang out sitting on rocks, smoking.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                             56.85   CONTINUED:                                                85     It's beautiful there, with a water fall that some kids jump     off of, and stoner kids hanging around. The rocks are covered     in graffiti.                         CHLOE               I'll probably go over to Sagebrush               later...                         REBECCA               Cool, who's playing?                         CHLOE               I don't know, I think some local               bands...     Rebecca checks a text.                         REBECCA               I want to go to Rachel Bilson's,               she's in Paris for fashion week.                         CHLOE               Don't you think you should chill               out a little bit?                         MARC               Yeah, that news thing totally               freaked me out.                         REBECCA               Nothing happened, there's no way               you can tell who that is...C'mon,               will you find her house for me,               please?     She gives him a pleading baby pouty look.                         REBECCA (CONT'D)               I want some Chanel...                         MARC               I don't know.                         REBECCA               C'mon, you're my best friend,               please. Let's go get some stuff.                                                       CUT TO:                                                             57.86   INT. REBECCA'S AUDI - NIGHT                                  86     Rebecca drives and talks on speaker phone with Marc next to     her.                            REBECCA                  We're going to Rachel Bilson's,                  wanna come?                            NICKI (O.S.)                  Hells yeah, text me where...is she                  still dating Hayden Christensen?                            REBECCA                  I don't know.     Marc nods.                            REBECCA (CONT'D)                  Marc thinks so.     Marc does a bump.                                                        CUT TO:87   EXT. RACHEL BILSON'S HOUSE - NIGHT                           87     We follow Rebecca, Marc, Nicki, and Sam as they meet up in     the dark as they approach the house.                            REBECCA                  C'mon.     They approach the house and look for a way in.                            MARC                  What if there are cameras?                            REBECCA                  There aren't, just keep your hat                  on...and chill out. It's fine.     They go around the house and find a side door open.     Rebecca leads the way in.     They enter the dark house, and find her bedroom.                                                              58.88   INT. BILSON'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                               88     They look through her closet.     Rebecca stands in the doorway of the bathroom that opens on     to a dressing area.     She looks through drawers, takes a make-up bag, and looks     through the medicine cabinet.     She finds a necklace on the counter - a gold chain, with an     `R'. She puts it around her neck and clasps it as she looks     at herself in the mirror.     Nicki and Sam grab designer purses and clothes.   A cat comes     up to them.                         SAM               She has so many Chanel bags.                         NICKI               I love this one!                         SAM               That's so cute.     They load up bags, try on shoes.     Rebecca closes the bathroom door.                         MARC               What are you doing in there?                         REBECCA (O.S.)               When you have to go, you have to               go.                         MARC               Are you fucking crazy? How are you               so relaxed?     We hear the toilet flush, and Rebecca comes out casually with     some stuff with her.     She looks around the closet.     Some headlights flash, as a car pulls up outside.                         MARC (CONT'D)               Oh fuck, someone's here.                         REBECCA               Don't freak out, let's go you guys.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                59.88   CONTINUED:                                                   88     They quickly head out a window onto the roof, as we hear     someone entering the house.     Over the empty room, with stuff all over the floor, we hear     someone calling from entrance.                         WOMAN'S VOICE (O.S.)               Hello? Hello?                                                       CUT TO:89   EXT. HOLLYWOOD HILLS- NIGHT                                  89     The kids scramble and run in the dark, until they find a     street. We hear coyotes howling.                         MARC               Oh my fucking god.                         NICKI               That was so close!                         REBECCA               Everything's cool, c'mon.90   EXT. HOLLYWOOD HILLS STREET - NIGHT                          90     They climb up and onto a street. Someone walks by with their     dog.     The kids try to look casual, just walking down the street.                         NICKI               Hi.                         DOGWALKER               Hello.     They walk, with a few bags.                         REBECCA               You guys wait here, I'll get the               car.     She walks off, and the rest of them sit on the curb. Marc and     Nicki smoke cigarettes.                         MARC               That was fucked up.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               60.90   CONTINUED:                                                  90                            NICKI               I know!     She opens a big tote bag, and pulls out a little Chanel     Mademoiselle quilted bag.                         NICKI (CONT'D)               Look a Mademoiselle bag! How cute               is this?!                         SAM               That's so cute. Did you get me one?     Rebecca pulls up in her car and they get in and drive off.                         MARC (O.S.)               I think the biggest problem was               after the Audrina thing-nothing               happened-it gave Rebecca that self-               boost that, oh, this is okay. I can               get away with this. And I think               her projecting that onto me made me               think that it was going to be okay.                                                       CUT TO:91   INT. VALLEY PARTY- NIGHT                                     91     Music blasts, as the kids make their way through the crowded,     smoky party.     Sam and Nicki sport their new Chanel bags.     Some guys play beer pong.     Some drunk girl comes up to Rebecca.                            DRUNK GIRL               Yo, Becca.                            REBECCA               Yo.                         DRUNK GIRL               I heard you went to Paris Hilton's.                            REBECCA               Yeah.                         DRUNK GIRL               And you took some stuff.                                                       (CONTINUED)                                                               61.91   CONTINUED:                                                  91     Rebecca just looks at her like `yeah?'.                         DRUNK GIRL (CONT'D)               That's so dope. Paris Hilton...                           REBECCA               Lates.     Rebecca keeps going to a keg. They get some beer in red     plastic cups and look around.     Chloe, wasted, comes up to them and they scream.                           CHLOE               Whores!                           SAM               Chloooee.                         CHLOE               Where've you been tonight?                         SAM               We went to Rachel Bilson's house.                         CHLOE               No fucking way!                         NICKI               Yeah. It was chill...     She poses with her new bag. A flash goes off as Marc takes a     shot of her with his phone.                           CHLOE               Sick!     Some drunk party girl passing by chimes in.                         PARTY GIRL               You went to Rachel Bilson's?!                         NICKI               Yeah, she's in Paris at fashion               week. We just went in...                         PARTY GIRL               Shut the fuck up.                                                        CUT TO:                                                                62.91A   MONTAGE:                                                   91A      CLOSE UP: Rebecca snorting a line of coke.      Music kicks in:      Stealing-snorting-shopping montage      The editing pace gets faster and faster, almost on a loop of      stealing, snorting coke in dressing room, while shopping at      Kitson, stealing, snorting, shopping, Starbucks...dancing at      a Valley party. The kid's photos are mixed in.                                                        CUT TO:92    EXT. VENICE BEACH BOARDWALK - DAY                           92      We see Marc, Rebecca, Sam and Nicki with beach chairs and a      vendor's table set up covered in designer "it" bags. There      are about 30 Chanel, some Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton and      Balenciaga bags.      Mark wears a sun hat, the girls in big sunglasses take money,      they look like kids at a lemonade stand.                                                        CUT TO:93    EXT. VALLEY PARTY-POOL AREA - NIGHT                         93      We see them wasted, taking party pictures of each other      decked out in their stolen designer wardrobes.                                                        CUT TO:94    INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT                                 94      We see over some detectives to computer screens with      Rebecca's Facebook page with party shots of Marc, Nicki and      Sam posing in their outfits.      CLOSE UP: Rebecca's Facebook page of her in a party shot, we      zoom in slowly to the gold "R" necklace around her neck that      we saw her put on at Rachel Bilson's.                                                        CUT TO:                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                63.94    CONTINUED:                                                  94      CLOSE UP: on video footage of Lindsay Lohan in slow-motion,      getting out of a car at a night club surrounded by Paparazzi      flashes.                          MARC (O.S.)                Rebecca's like biggest conquest was                Lindsay Lohan. She was her ultimate                fashion icon.                                                         CUT TO:95    EXT. LINDSAY'S HOUSE - EVENING                               95      We follow Marc, Rebecca, and Nicki as they go up to the      house. Chloe waits behind.                          CHLOE                I'm staying on look out.      Marc follows, but stops before they approach it.                          MARC                I don't think we should do this. If                there are cameras, it's gonna be                like Audrina's, it's gonna get out.                          REBECCA                C'mon, Lindsay's gone, I wanna do                this, this is our opportunity.      Marc looks at her.                          REBECCA (CONT'D)                Let's just go, no one's here,                you're on camera, but it doesn't                matter, you'll be fine, Audrina's                was fine...C'mon Marc- pretty                please...                          MARC                OK, but this is it.      She smiles, and they head around to the back of the house.      They look around and find a side door open.      They follow Rebecca in.95A   INT. LINDSAY'S HOUSE - DOWNSTAIRS                          95A      Marc follows her in.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                              64.95A   CONTINUED:                                              95A                          MARC                I don't know, I think we should get                out of here.                          REBECCA                You're already here. You might as                well come up and get something for                yourself.                                                        CUT TO:96    INT. LINDSAY'S HOUSE                                         96      Rebecca and Nicki are freaking out over her clothes. Marc      looks nervous, but goes along with them.      Marc looks through the medicine cabinet and takes a      prescription bottle.      He reads label, and opens it, popping one in his mouth. He      screws the top back on and puts it in his pocket.      Marc paces and keeps a look out.                          REBECCA                Marc, do you like this dress, would                this be good on me?                          MARC                Yeah, sure.      Marc paces.                          REBECCA                Oh my god, this is the dress she                wore to the Cosmopolitan opening!                          NICKI                Oh my god, that's so cute.      She shows them a jacket.                          NICKI (CONT'D)                What do you think?      They load up bags, in fashion heaven.      Nicki takes an Ed Hardy skull sculpture.      Rebecca finds a little Louis Vuitton rolling suitcase, she      rolls behind her.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                             65.96   CONTINUED:                                                96     CLOSE UP: on a Rolex with a baby blue face as a hand takes     it.                                                       CUT TO:     At a dressing table, Rebecca sprays herself with Lindsay's     perfume - slight slow motion as she sprays her neck while     looking at herself in the mirror, lit by the vanity table     lights. There's a fetishistic feeling about the way she     sprays the perfume and watches herself in the mirror.                                                       CUT TO:97   VIDEO SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE:                                  97     We see them leave Lindsay Lohan's through the grainy black     and white footage of a surveillance video.                                                       CUT TO:98   EXT. BURBANK AIRPORT - DAY                                   98     Marc is dropping Rebecca off.                         MARC               When are you coming back from               Vegas?                         REBECCA               I don't know, I'm just going to               stay with my dad until things calm               down with my mom...I need a change               for awhile, I'll call you from               there. Will you hold on to some of               my stuff for me?                         MARC               Yeah, sure.     She kisses him on the cheek, and gets out of the car, putting     on big Lindsay Lohan sunglasses.     He watches her walk off, wearing a jacket we saw her take at     Lindsay's, and rolling Lindsay Lohan's Louis Vuitton suitcase     behind her.                         KATE (O.S.)               Why do you think Rebecca was so               obsessed with these women and their               clothes - enough to steal?                                                       (CONTINUED)                         Revised Blue - 03/16/12                66.98    CONTINUED:                                                  98                          MARC (O.S.)                I just think she wanted to be part                of, like, the lifestyle. Like, the                lifestyle that everybody kind of                wants.      Rebecca disappears down the long airport terminal hallway.                                                       FADE OUT98A   INT. TV STUDIO - TMZ news flash:                            98A      We see the security camera footage from Lindsay Lohan's      house.                          FEMALE T.V. REPORTER                Lindsay Lohan gave police the                security footage from the night of                March 23rd when her house was                burglarized. Comparing the clips,                it looks like these are the same                burglars as in the Audrina Patridge                     *                security video, and L.A. P.D. are                investigating the connection of the                Hollywood hills burglaries. If you                have any information please contact                the L.A.P.D.                                                        CUT TO:99    FACEBOOK PAGES:                                              99      We see Rebecca's facebook page, party photos, her and the      other girls wearing the stolen fashion.      We hear the voice of a girl over the phone:                          DRUNK GIRL (O.S.)                Marc and Rebecca were bragging                about it at a party, they said they                had been in Rachel Bilson's house                and Lindsay Lohan's. They said they                went to Paris Hilton's like eight                times...                                                        CUT TO:                                                              67.100   POLICE STATION                                              100      On a monitor -new surveillance video is side by side with the      footage from earlier video. They zoom in and freeze on images      when they match up identifying some of the figures to be      alike.      We hear a voice over the phone.                          TEENAGE GIRL (O.S.)                That's Marc Hall, Rebecca Ahn and                Chloe, I don't know her last name,                and Nicki Moore.                                                        CUT TO:101   COMPUTER SCREEN:                                            101      We see Rebecca's page linking her to Marc as a friend, and      the other kids' pages, linking them as friends. We see party      photos of them in Paris Hilton's nightclub room, Nicki and      Sam posing in lingerie, a photo of Sam with a Chanel bag.      Chloe's page of her in vulgar sexy poses with Ricky, with      captions -"Wanna smoke a bluuuunt".                                                        CUT TO:102   INT. MARC'S HOUSE- EARLY MORNING                            102      We hear loud banging, as Marc's mother, in her robe goes to      the door.                          DEBBIE                One minute...                          MAN'S VOICE                L.A.P.D. Open the door.      She fumbles nervously to open door.      She opens the door to big cops in dark uniforms with guns      pointed at her.                                                        CUT TO:103   INT. MARC'S ROOM - MORNING                                  103      Marc's lying in his bed, when his mom comes in terrified.                                                        (CONTINUED)                         Revised Blue - 03/16/12              68.103   CONTINUED:                                              103      We hear dogs barking outside.                          DEBBIE                    (shaking)                You need to get dressed, they want                you to come outside.      Marc knows this is it.      He throws his arms around her and breaks down crying like a      little kid.                          MARC                Mom!                          DEBBIE                Whatever it is, we'll figure it                out, honey.      She holds him, until a cop enters and pulls him aside, we      follow them into the living room.                                                        CUT TO:104   INT. MARC'S HOUSE- LIVING ROOM - MORNING                    104      Big cops in uniform stand tall, with intimidating dogs by      their side.                          COP                Are you Marc Hall?                          MARC                Yes...      They handcuff Marc. The dogs bark, Marc's mom cries.      Marc holds his head low as they read him his Miranda rights.                          COP                                           *                You have the right to remain                            *                silent. Anything you say can and                        *                will be used against you in a court                     *                of law.                                                 *      Marc's dad talks to police in tough guy, confrontational way.                          MR. HALL                What's going on here, what's this                about?                                                        (CONTINUED)                         Revised Blue - 03/16/12          68A.104   CONTINUED:                                           104                          COP                Sir, I'm going to have to ask you                to step aside.      He continues reading Marc his rights.                         *                          COP (CONT'D)                              *                You have the right to speak to an                   *                attorney present during any                         *                questioning. If you cannot afford a                 *                lawyer, one will be provided for                    *                you.                                                *                                                      (CONTINUED)                                                               69.104   CONTINUED:                                               104      One police officer walks by carrying out pink pumps sealed in      a plastic bag.                                                        CUT TO:105   INT. MARC'S ROOM - DAY                                    105      Police search the room, they find designer clothes and      accessories under the bed that they bag as evidence.                                                        CUT TO:106   EXT. MARC'S HOUSE- DAY                                    106      They shove Marc in the back of the police car in the driveway      of the modest suburban house. His dad has his arm around his      mom, who watches crying in her robe.                                                        CUT TO:107   INT. POLICE CAR - DAY                                     107      CLOSE UP: on Marc, feeling like a piece of shit, as the car      drives away with him.                                                        CUT TO:108   TMZ FOOTAGE ON T.V.                                       108                          TMZ REPORTER (O.S.)                Suspect Marc Hall, was arrested                today in conjunction with the                Hollywood Hills burglaries that                occurred over the past few months.                It is believed that the gang                referred to as "the Burglar                Bunch'...109   INT. NICKI'S HOUSE- DAY                                   109      Cops bang on door.                          COP (O.S.)                Open up, L.A.P.D.      Laurie is hysterical in her Juicy sweat suit as she opens the      door. Her Yorkie barks.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                 70.109   CONTINUED:                                                 109      A big gold Buddha statue stands near the entrance.                          LAURIE                Yes?                          COP                Is this the residence of Nicolette                Moore?                          LAURIE                Yes, what is this about?                          COP                We have a warrant to search your                house. Everyone needs to come                outside.      The girls yell from upstairs.                          NICKI (O.S.)                Oh my god, what's going on!      Laurie, who looks terrified, tries to remain calm and      centered.                          LAURIE                Girls-You need to come downstairs,                now.                          POLICE OFFICER                Ma'am, we need you to secure your                animals.                          EMILY                What is it?!      Police go into her room to search.                          EMILY (CONT'D)                I don't understand?! What's                happening?!      The police bring out a Louis Vuitton suitcase and designer      bags and clothing from her room.                                                           CUT TO:      The girls come into the living room. The Yorkie keeps      barking. Nicki is wearing the same baby blue Juicy sweat      pants as in the surveillance video.      They handcuff Nicki and bring her outside.                                                           (CONTINUED)                                                                 71.109   CONTINUED:                                                 109                          POLICE OFFICER                We need you all to leave the                premises and wait outside.110   EXT. NICKI'S HOUSE- DAY                                     110      Suburban neighbors come out to watch as Nicki is told to      face the wall, handcuffed.      Laurie, and the rest of the family are outside in their robes      and pajamas. Nicki and Emily are crying.      There are 4 police cars, and police officers all around.                          POLICE OFFICER                You have the right to remain                silent.      He reads the Miranda rights as he puts Nicki under arrest.                          NICKI                I want a lawyer! Call my lawyer!      They put Nicki in the back of the police car. A neighbor kid      takes a photo with his phone.                          NICKI (CONT'D)                Mom!      The girls are all crying and freaking out.                          EMILY                What's going on?! Why are they                taking her?!      Sirens scream as they pull away.                                                        CUT TO:111   INT. NICKI'S HOUSE- DAY                                     111      Laurie , Emily and Sam in their robes and pajamas come back      in to their livingroom.                           LAURIE                Girls, we need to have a prayer                circle right now. We need to center                ourselves.      Laurie takes their hands and she and Emily, Sam and Henry      form a circle holding hands.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                              72.111   CONTINUED:                                              111                            LAURIE (CONT'D)                  I know that right here and now                  there is one mind, one presence,                  and I trust and know that this                  whole experience right now is                  strictly for the higher good of                  each and every outcome, I give                  thanks and this is the Truth.                            SAM & EMILY (IN UNISON)                  And so it is.                            LAURIE                  And so it is.                                                        CUT TO:112   EXT. REBECCA'S HOUSE - DAY                                  112      Police knock on the door of the well-kept home with a BMW in      the driveway.      Rebecca's mom, a put together middle-aged Korean business      woman opens the door.                            REBECCA'S MOM                  Hello, how can I help you?                            POLICE OFFICER                  Is this the home of Rebecca Ahn?                            REBECCA'S MOM                  I'm her mother, but she's staying                  with her father in Nevada.                            POLICE OFFICER                  Ma'am, we'll need to get her                  current address.      She nods.                                                        CUT TO:113   EXT. ROB'S HOUSE - DAY                                      113      In a working class Mexican neighborhood, Rob is led out of      his house in handcuffs and put in a police car.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                              73.113   CONTINUED:                                              113      His small Mexican mother in her house dress watches      emotionally with Rob's 12-yr-old and 8-yr-old little sisters      in pajamas, as they take him away.                                                        CUT TO:114   EXT. RICKY'S CONDO- DAY                                  114      Ricky looks pissed, being led out of his condo in a kimono      robe and socks, way too early in the day for him. Police      officers follow with a jackpot of illegal substances, zip-      locs of large amounts of mushrooms and guns. A pitbull on the      lawn barks at the cops.                          RICKY                What the fuck, man...                                                        CUT TO:115   INT. CHLOE'S HOUSE - DAY                                 115      Chloe and her parents are at the breakfast table. They sit in      an upper middle-class beige dining room, her mother in cream      work out clothes and her father in a suit, reading the paper.      Chloe texts on her black berry while she eats cereal.      Two small white dogs lay at her mother's feet as she drinks a      fruit smoothie. Sirens interrupt the scene, as they approach      the dogs start barking.                                                        CUT TO:116   EXT. CHLOE'S HOUSE - DAY                                 116      Cop cars are parked in front of a beige Calabassas McMansion      with a Lexus in the driveway. Chloe, in sweats, is led out in      handcuffs.                                                        CUT TO:117   INT. POLICE STATION - DAY                                117      Marc is being questioned by detectives in a small room. He      has photos of the other kids in front of him.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                          74.117   CONTINUED:                                          117                         MARC               We knew he was out of town through               the internet, you'd google his name               and see "Orlando Bloom is shooting               a movie, he's with Miranda Kerr in               New York." We walked in, it was               unlocked, there was no alarm.                         DETECTIVE (O.S.)               The door was unlocked?                         MARC               Yeah, I've never even broken a               window.                         DETECTIVE               How did you find the Rolexes?                         MARC               We found a safe at the bottom of a               closet with the Rolexes and like               five thousand dollars...I'll give               everything back that I still have,               and I'll find a way to repay them,               I'm really sorry about what I did.                          DETECTIVE               Did you know Rebecca was leaving               the state?                         MARC               I just thought she was going to               stay at her dad's cause she wasn't               getting along with her mom and step               dad.                         DETECTIVE               You didn't know she was crossing               state lines with stolen property,               and leaving you holding the bag?                         MARC                  (Sad and betrayed)               I thought she was just visiting her               dad.                                                     CUT TO:                                                                  75.118    INT. MARC'S MOM'S CAR- DAY                                  118       Debbie is driving him home in silence. Marc looks out the       window taking it all in, thinking about Rebecca and how it's       all over.       A song comes on the radio that we heard earlier when they       were having fun together, he holds back tears.                                                         CUT TO:118A   INT. MARC'S ROOM - DAY                                     118A       We see over Marc's shoulder to his computer screen as he goes       to Rebecca's Facebook page.       What we've seen earlier as a page full of pictures and       messages is now blank, with only Rebecca's ID photo and an       icon of a lock with the message: Rebecca only shares some       information publicly. If you know Rebecca, add her as a       friend or send her a message.                                                         CUT TO:119    EXT. REBECCA'S DAD'S HOUSE LAS VEGAS - DAY                  119       We see police cars approach a small house in the desert.       Police knock on the door, and Rebecca opens it.                                                         CUT TO:120    INT. REBECCA'S DAD'S HOUSE LAS VEGAS - DAY                  120                           DETECTIVE                 We have a warrant to search the                 premises. Are you Rebecca Ahn?                           REBECCA                 Yes.       The detective reads Rebecca her Miranda rights.       She is calm and collected.                           DETECTIVE                 Do you understand your rights?                           REBECCA                 Yes.                                                         (CONTINUED)                        Revised Blue - 03/16/12           76.120   CONTINUED:                                          120                         DETECTIVE               Do you know why we're at your home               serving a search warrant?                         REBECCA               Yes.                         DETECTIVE               Why do you think we're here?                         REBECCA               My friend Marc was arrested and he                  *               called me from jail and told me the               police had done a search warrant at               his home.                         DETECTIVE               Do you know why?                         REBECCA               I've been watching TMZ and they've               been saying I'm a `person of               interest' in these burglaries.                         DETECTIVE               Were you involved in any of the               burglaries to these celebrities?                         REBECCA               No, I wasn't.                         DETECTIVE               Is there going to be any property               from any of those burglaries in               this residence?                         REBECCA               No.                         DETECTIVE               Have you been in any of the               celebrity's homes that have been               burglarized?                         REBECCA               No.                         DETECTIVE               Could any of your fingerprints of               DNA be found in any of the victim's               homes?                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                                 77.120   CONTINUED:                                                 120                          REBECCA                No.                                                        CUT TO:      Some police look through Rebecca's room, her closet.      They check a label and hold up some items of clothes they've      been looking for.      CLOSE UP: they open a box and find the Paris Hilton nude      photos from the safe.                                                        CUT TO:121   INT. REBECCA'S DAD'S HOUSE LAS VEGAS - DAY                  121      The police enter the living room with the found items and      address the detective.                          POLICE OFFICER                We've located a jacket and jeans                that match the description by                Lohan, and personal photographs of                Paris Hilton.      Rebecca's face goes white, and she loses her composure.                          REBECCA                If I tell you where everything is,                would you let me go? Hypothetically                let's say I may know where this                property is located and who has it,                how could that help me?                          DETECTIVE                The detectives on this case are                trying to recover hundreds of                thousands of dollars worth of                property for the victims and I'm                sure they would say if your                cooperation helped them locate it.                          REBECCA                I want to help you out, but I don't                want to do anything without talking                to my attorney.      As the police continue to search, a box is open on the coffee      table with pot and a pipe.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                 78.121    CONTINUED:                                                121                           DETECTIVE                 Is this your marijuana?                           REBECCA                 Yes, I have a prescription for it                 and bought it in California.       The police pack it up with other evidence.                           DETECTIVE                 You're being arrested for stolen                 property and L.A.P.D. detectives                 will be filing charges in their                 jurisdiction for burglary.       They handcuff her and escort her out.                                                         CUT TO:122    INT. POLICE STATION - DAY                                  122       Rebecca is being questioned by the L.A. Detective in a small       room.                           REBECCA                 Did you speak to any of the                 victims?                           DETECTIVE                 I've spoken to all of the Victims.       Rebecca's eyes light up.                           REBECCA                 Really?! What did Lindsay say?                                                         CUT TO:       MUG SHOTS: Flashes pop and we cut to each mug shot: Rebecca,       Marc, Nicki, Chloe, Rob.                                                         CUT TO:122A   TMZ FOOTAGE ON T.V.                                       122A       We see Facebook party photos of Rebecca and the others.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                              79.      CONTINUED:                          TV REPORTER (O.S.)                Rebecca Ahn, thought to be the                ringleader was arrested, and awaits                her hearing with the other members.                Stay tuned for the latest on the                Bling Ring.123   EXT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT                              123      Paparazzi and video cameras surround Nicki and her sisters as      they rush to get in their car. Harsh video camera lights      shine in their faces in the darkness.                          MALE TMZ REPORTER                How do you think you'll do in jail?      She keeps moving, with her hood up and sunglasses on.                             NICKI                Oh my god!                          LAURIE                This is crazy.      Laurie drives them away in her black S.U.V.                                                        CUT TO:124   INTERNET VIDEO CLIP:                                     124      A low-res video camera shows Lindsay Lohan get out of a big      S.U.V and approach a courthouse in a tight white dress and      big sunglasses as she passes a row of photographers. She      looks like she's at a premier.      Title: Actress Lindsay Lohan arrives at an LA court house      after being charged with felony grand theft over a necklace.                                                        CUT TO:125   INT. NICKI AND SAM'S BEDROOM - DAY                       125      Nicki is trying on court looks for Sam. She has on a Peter-      Pan collared shirt, mini skirt and heels, with her hair up in      a bun, she turns from the mirror to Sam.                           NICKI                Does this look conservative, is                this good?                                                        (CONTINUED)                           Revised Blue - 03/16/12              80.125   CONTINUED:                                                125                          SAM                If you like a secretary-style                hooker.                            NICKI                Shut Up.                                                *      She changes her skirt to a little bit longer one.                          NICKI (CONT'D)                How about this?                          SAM                That's better...you need lower                heels.                          NICKI                Oh, Yeah, where are my kitten                heels...bitch, you're so fucking                lucky you weren't on that video...                          SAM (CONT'D)                I know, that sucks.                            LAURIE (O.S.)                Nicki!                                                          CUT TO:126   INT. NICKI'S HOUSE- DAY                                    126      Laurie calls up to Nicki, the Yorkie barks at the door.                          LAURIE                Nicki! Kate from Vanity Fair is                here.                                                          CUT TO:127   INT. NICKI'S LIVING ROOM - DAY                             127      Laurie sits next to Nicki as she speaks to KATE, a polished      journalist from N.Y. A tape recorder sits in front of Nicki.      Nicki's two lawyers, SHANNON a brunette in her early 40's, in      a suit and pearls and ADAM, middle-aged lawyer-type, sit with      them.                          KATE                What do your parents do?                                                          (CONTINUED)                                                          81.127   CONTINUED:                                          127                         NICKI               My mom does a lot of things, she's               a minister, she's been a masseuse,               she's an energy healer...My dad is               a director of photography on T.V.               shows, he's been in the industry               forever....                         KATE               And how is Sam related?                         NICKI               We've adopted her, we met in ballet               class when we were little.                         LAURIE               I was friends with her mother--                         NICKI               Mom, this is my interview. I met               her when my parents divorced. Now               she lives with us, my mom's home               schooled us all for a while.                         LAURIE               The philosophy of `The Secret',               it's based on the law of               attraction, but my great-               grandmother and grandmother both               studied this philosophy. It's man's               relationship to the Divine, that's               what energy science means.                         NICKI               Since I was young I learned about               every religion.                         KATE               So, Sam was in your ballet class,               did she have parents?                         NICKI               She had a dysfunctional background,               we both did...                         LAURIE               And I met her mom--                         NICKI               Can I talk please?! The reason we               related so well is my dad is a               recovering alcoholic and Sam's mom               is..                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                          82.127   CONTINUED:                                          127                         LAURIE               A practicing...                         NICKI               A practicing drug addict and               alcoholic and our moms became best               friends and...                         LAURIE               And then she went off the deep end,               she was on the verge--                         NICKI               Please! I told you that if you're               going to be here you had to be               quiet! That's why I didn't want you               here because you talk!                         KATE               So, basically you took her in.                         NICKI               Yes, we took her in about 6 years               ago.                         SHANNON               But let's get back to Nicki.                         KATE               So Adam here told me you do charity               work.                         NICKI               Yes, we do a lot of stuff through               our church, it's Agape Church.                         LAURIE               It's the religious science               philosophy being taught at Agape               Church.                         NICKI               My other sister, Gabby is on a trip               with them now helping build homes.               And they do a yearly trip to Africa               where they build wells and schools               for kids.                         KATE               Which country?                                                     (CONTINUED)                                                              83.127   CONTINUED:                                              127                          NICKI                Uh, I can't remember exactly which                country... We do bake sales and                feeding the homeless, that kind of                stuff.                          KATE                Ok, so it's a little bit of a                disconnect with these positive                pursuits and what's happening now.                          ADAM                Nicki, I don't want you to answer                that comment.                          NICKI                I think that I'm a firm... I have a                good statement to say.                          KATE                She can speak generally.                          NICKI                I'm not gonna speak about the case,                what I was going to say is that I'm                a firm believer in karma and I                think this situation was attracted                into my life as a huge learning                lesson for me to grow and expand as                a spiritual human being.      Nicki is getting emotional as she speaks, her voice quivers.                          NICKI (CONT'D)                I don't think the universe chose a                better person than me because from                this it's not just affecting me,                it's affecting the media and                everyone and I think I'm meant to                bring truth to all this....I                believe that I am an old soul.                          LAURIE                Yes, she is.                           SHANNON                We have gotten to know Nicki and                her family and we feel Nicki is an                extremely focused, honest person                who has a lot to provide to the                community.                           (MORE)                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                 84.127   CONTINUED:                                                 127                          SHANNON (CONT'D)                And we agree that there hasn't been                a disconnect, that there were                circumstances that happened but                Nicki herself continued to stay on                her plane despite the tumultuous                experiences happening.                          KATE                What's your goal or life plan if                you have one?                          NICKI                I do, I think my journey is to be a                leader and push for peace and for                the health of our planet--      Nicki starts to get teary eyed.                          SHANNON                Nicki has expressed to me a lot of                her humanitarianism.                          NICKI                It's my main goal. God didn't give                me these talents and what I look                like to sit around and just be a                model or famous. I want to do                something people notice, that's why                I'm studying business, so I can be                a leader and take a stand for                people.                                                        CUT TO:128   INT. LAWYER'S OFFICE - DAY                                  128      Over Kate's shoulder, we see Marc speaking into her tape      recorder, with his lawyer at his side.                          MARC                I met Rebecca in school after I                moved back and went to Indian                Hills, I went there because I had a                lot of absences. I didn't want to                go to school, I had a lot of self-                loathing and anxiety issues, I felt                that I was ugly...                          KATE                You're not ugly.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                                  85.128    CONTINUED:                                                 128                           MARC                 I know I'm not ugly, but I never                 thought I was an A-list looking                 guy.I Went to Indian Hills to learn                 and be with my peers, I felt so                 self-conscious I didn't look as                 good as everyone else.                           KATE                 And now you're a star.       Marc laughs.                           MARC                 On my Facebook page recently I had                 800 friends requests, I accepted                 them all, I didn't even look at                 them, then I noticed someone had                 created a fan page for me. If it                 had been for something I had done                 to help the community or benefit                 something I'd love it, but it's                 just kind of awkward for me that                 these people are loving me for                 something that's looked down on in                 society... It's kinda showing that                 America has some sick fascination                 with a Bonnie and Clyde kind of                 thing.                                                         CUT TO:128A   FOOTAGE ON TV                                              128A       ON T.V. / Headline: Hollywood's "Burglar Bunch" allegedly       targeted A-list stars.                           TV REPORTER                 After months of break-ins to the                 Hollywood homes of celebrities                 including Lindsay Lohan and Paris                 Hilton, police say they have                 finally cracked the case. Could a                 group of Tinsel Town teens be                 behind a multi-million dollar                 heist? Mike Van Freen has the                 details.       We see a montage of the kids, and the victim's homes and       celebrities on the red carpet.                                                         (CONTINUED)                                                                 86.128   CONTINUED:                                                 128                          REPORTER                Could these teenagers be at the                center of a celebrity crime spree?                Police say they have stolen                millions in cash, art and jewelry                from the mansions of Orlando Bloom,                Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and                countless other stars.                                                        CUT TO:129   EXT. COURT PARKING LOT - DAY                                129      It's a sunny L.A. day.      Laurie, Nicki, Sam and Emily get out of their black S.U.V.      dressed for court.                          NICKI                Can I have a 5 mg adderal.      Laurie hands her a pill from her purse, as they stop to do a      quick prayer on their way.                          LAURIE                Just remember what we went over                with Shannon, they can't prove you                were in any of those houses.                          NICKI                I know, mom.      Laurie smooths her skirt, as she stands straight in high      heels. They take hands and bow their heads.                          NICKI (CONT'D)                I know right here and right now                there is one mind, one power and                one presence.                          EMILY                Mom, shouldn't we go?                             NICKI                Stop!                             EMILY                Stop what?                          NICKI                Stop talking.                                                        (CONTINUED)                         Revised Blue - 03/16/12              87.129   CONTINUED:                                              129                          LAURIE                She's praying.                          NICKI                I know I'm always protected and                karma cleanses my journey. Thank                you Lord, so much for this truth.                And so it is.                          SAM,EMILY & LAURIE                And so it is.                          LAURIE                ... You rock girl!                                    *      She hugs her and they break like a football team, and head to      court.                                                        CUT TO:130   EXT. COURTHOUSE - DAY                                    130      Nicki, dressed as a sexy school girl walks up with her mother      and sisters. Her lawyer, Shannon, is dressed for success.      They are flanked by paparazzi and video camera crews.      Nicki stops to make a statement. Shannon stands by her side,      getting in the shot.                          NICKI                This is a very difficult time for                myself and my family. Thank you for                respecting my privacy, I look                forward to my day in court.      She does a flirtatious eye roll and saunters past the cameras      in her kitten heels.                                                        CUT TO:      We see Chloe enter the courthouse with sunglasses on, flanked      by lawyers surrounded by paparazzi and video crews.      She keeps her chin up defiantly and makes her way in.                                                        CUT TO:      Marc walks in with dark sunglasses, wearing a suit,      surrounded by camera men. They shout his name to get a shot.                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                              88.130   CONTINUED:                                              130                          MALE TMZ REPORTER                How does it feel to be a rat?      Marc keeps walking, lawyers by his side, music takes over the      sound and it becomes slow motion. Flashes go off and he makes      his way through the mayhem.                                                        CUT TO:131   INT. COURTHOUSE - DAY                                       131      We see Marc, Chloe, Nicki and Rob sitting in a row, dressed      for court.                                                        CUT TO:132   INT. COURTHOUSE HALL - DAY                                  132      Rebecca, dressed for court, walks with her mother, who's hair      is pulled back severely. She's dressed in a dark suit and      tinted glasses. They are flanked by lawyers. She speaks      coldly to her in Korean, Rebecca answers her in English.                          REBECCA'S MOM (IN KOREAN)                Sit up straight, and speak up when                you answer questions.                          REBECCA                Ok.                          REBECCA'S MOM (IN KOREAN)                What were you thinking? While I was                working to support you and your                sister. I gave you every thing...                You've never done anything right.                                                        CUT TO:133   INT. COURTHOUSE - DAY                                       133      Rebecca enters with her mom and lawyers and is brought to a      row of seats with Marc, Nicki, Chloe and Rob.      She is seated next to Marc, but doesn't look at him. Marc      looks over at her, but she stares ahead.      The court room door closes.      BAM- we hear the sound of a gavel banging over black.                                                        (CONTINUED)                         Revised Blue - 03/16/12                 89.133   CONTINUED:                                                 133                          JUDGE (O.S.)                Nicolette Moore, you are found                guilty on one count                                     *                of first degree residential                burglary.                                                        CUT TO:      The court room door flies open and Rebecca, Marc, Chloe,      Nicki and Rob are descended on by the press.                      *                          JUDGE (CONT'D)                                *                Marc Hall, you are found guilty on                      *                4 counts of first degree                                *                residential burglary.                                   *      Flashes and coverage continues as they leave. Nicki sobs, we      freeze frame on her through a paparazzi's long lens for a few      frames and then continue. A distressed Laurie follows like a      protective Lioness.      Marc looks in shock and keeps his head low, and Rebecca looks      pissed as they are led out.      We see news cameras descending on them.                          JUDGE (O.S.) (CONT'D)                Marc Hall, you are found guilty,                with a charge of 6 counts of                residential burglary. You are                sentenced to 4 years in state                prison and restitution of $800,000.      News coverage takes over from the voice of the Judge.134   EXT. COURTHOUSE - DAY                                       134      From the view of a TMZ-style low-res video camera: They leave      the courthouse in the mayhem. We see Nicki, Marc and Rebecca      trying to get out with press and lawyers surrounding. Nicki      cries, Laurie's freaking out.                          TV REPORTER                Rebecca Ahn and Marc Hall were both                sentenced to 4 years in state                prison. Chloe Taynor and Robert                Hernandez were each sentenced to a                year.      We watch them leave as we hear the voice of another reporter.     *                                                        (CONTINUED)                        Revised Blue - 03/16/12            89A.134   CONTINUED:                                            134                         REPORTER (O.S.)                          *               Members of the Bling Ring were                     *               sentenced today for their roles in                 *               the rash of break-ins that netted                  *               more than three million in high-end                *               goods. Rebecca Ahn and Marc Hall                   *               were both sentenced with four years                *               in state prison, Chloe Taynor and                  *               Robert Hernandez will face one year                *               each, and Nicolette Moore was                      *               sentenced to six months in county                  *               jail.                                              *                                                     FADE OUT.                                                              90.135   EXT. LOS ANGELES POLICE STATION - DAY                       135      It's a sunny afternoon. We see Marc handcuffed to criminals      being led onto a white bus that reads: County of Los Angeles      Sheriff's department.136   INT. PRISON BUS - DAY                                       136      Marc sits next to a big, hard-looking criminal.      CLOSE ON Marc's face as he looks out the window, while the      bus pulls away. Light streams in on his pale face. He looks      out as the Los Angeles streets go by.      Cut back to Marc's young face looking out the window, music      starts, and the bus drives out of frame.                                                 FADE TO BLACK.137   ON T.V. - E ENTERTAINMENT NEWS                              137      Nicki, in full hair and make-up sits in front of a draped      curtain back drop talking to an E journalist.                          INTERVIEWER                We're here with Nicki Moore, who                just served 30 days for her                involvement in the Bling Ring, and                shared a cell block with one of the                victims- Lindsay Lohan. There were                reports that Lindsay was crying,                with you being next to her, did you                actually hear any of this?                          NICKI                I could hear her crying the first                day, which is hard when you're                trying to be strong, I just tried                to really keep to myself..., I just                tried to get through the day , the                days are so long you're woken up at                5:30.                          INTERVIEWER                And how'd she look?                          NICKI                She got to keep her extensions in,                most girls were talking about oh- I                had to take my weave out...she was                in orange like all of us...                                                        (CONTINUED)                                                               91.137   CONTINUED:                                               137                         INTERVIEWER               Were you nervous you were next to               her because you were accused of               being a part of that group that               allegedly robbed her house.                         NICKI               Yeah, it was hard for me there were               tabloids and on T.V.s in there               people were watching the story and               they were showing the surveillance               video and stuff... and little do               people know that when that video               came out I was actually in contact               with her manager to tell her who I               believed the people were who robbed               her house... and eventually when               I'm able to tell my story people               will know the truth.                         INTERVIEWER               So that's nerve wracking she could               think you robbed her house.                         NICKI               She could've, but you               know...yeah...Anyway, you can               follow everything about me and my               journey at Nickimooreforever dot               com.                                                    CUT TO BLACK.
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+                              BLOOD AND WINE                              Written by                            Nick Villiers                                                   SECOND DRAFT                                              DECEMBER 12, 1994          FADE IN:          A PAIR OF HANDS          men's hands, nicely groomed, hold a small white terry          towel spoiled by blood-red spots. The hands rinse the          towel in a copper bar sink. The stains soften but stay.          A tan jacket sleeve, spotted the same way, moves INTO          FRAM. The hands dab the wet towel at the spots, with no          more success, and throw it into the sink. It falls half          in, still dripping the stains a drop at a time to the          floor.          ALL IN CLOSEUP          The owner of the hands walks to a wine rack, opens a          bottle of white wine, drizzles the wine on the jacket          sleeve. The stains disappear. He hangs his jacket on a          hook and walks from                         THE CELLAR          and up the narrow stairs. His FOOTFALLS ECHO against the          unadorned cement block walls. We see his shape, mid-          forties, powerful, his shirt pulled out. He's carrying          the open bottle by the neck.          2 INT. WINE STORE - NIGHT          Still seen from behind, the man emerges from the cellar          into a contrastingly elegant space with a wood-beamed.          ceiling, vaguely European. He walks along a narrow aisle          of wooden diamond bins. As the space widens his foot hits          something in his path. He bends to find a shoe. He          glances about nervously. There are shutters on the          storefront windows. Shoe in hand, he tightens the          shutters. We see his profile, a good-looking man.          He walks toward a brighter room at the back of the store,          the Tasting Room. Now he retrieves a pair of women's          trousers from the floor, and as he straightens up we see          his entire face, genial, venial, redeemed by his smile.          ALEX GATES. He speaks nonchalantly toward the room.                         ALEX          Twenty people tonight. I got a          South Beach widow, a plastic surgeon --          they actually came together.                         (A BEAT)          These people -- all they really want          is something to brag about at dinner          parties.          He swigs from the bottle of white wine, grimaces, detours          behind the counter, and spits the mouthful into the          plastic lined wastebasket. He throws the bottle away.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               2.                          2                         2 CONTINUED:          There's a basket of baguettes on the counter. Alex breaks          off an end and chews it to rid his mouth of the taste of          the wine. Still chewing, he walks toward the tasting          room.                         ALEX          There I was, passing the wine,          passing the bread, I suddenly felt          like the priest at Masst Or maybe          Mass started out as a wine tasting,          and Jesus was a salesman. what do          you think?          He goes into          THE TASTING ROOM          It seems empty except for a large wooden table, folding          chairs in disarray, open bottles clustered at one end of          the table. A chalkboard on the wall has CHATEAU          BEYCHEVELLE written across it at the top, vintages listed          underneath. The woman's voice that replies is          Gabriella's.          GABRIELLA (0.S.)          (with a throaty laugh)          Maybe I should get dressed.          Leaning against the corner is a woman wearing only her          panties and a shirt. In her mid-twenties she has striking          South American looks. GABRIELLA VASQUEZ. She's sipping          red wine from a plastic glass.                         GABRIETM          I don't want to spoil a religious          experience.                         ALEX          -- Ever heard of Georges Duboeuf?          He throws away some of the glasses.                         ALEX          Duboeuf has a nose and a palate --          like a gift from God. He can taste          a single grape before the harvest...          and describe the beaujolais it's          going to produce.          She laughs.                         GABRIELLA          Oh, you have competition.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               3.                          2                         2 CONTINUED: (2)                         ALEX                         (SLIGHTLY ANNOYED)          You know how many bottles I have in          this store? Open any one of 'em,          I'll tell you the vintage and          vintner, b          lindfolded.          He bends down to pick up the chunks of baguette strewn on          the floor. He doesn't see her slip off her panties.          She walks behind him, twirling them into a tight band.          She whips them over his eyes. He laughs.                         GABRIELLA          Okay. Show me.                         ALEX          Victoria's Secret 95.          She passes her glass under his nose.                         ALEX          Gabriella, I picked these wines.                         GABRIELLA          So what is it?                         ALEX          All I can smell is your perfume.          She laughs.                         GABRIELLA          I'm not wearing any.                         ALEX          I even bought it for you.          She opens her shirt. She's not wearing a bra. She lowers          her breast to the glass and then to his mouth.                         GABRIELLA          Tell me now.          He kisses her wet breast.                         ALEX                         (WITHOUT HESITATION)          Beychevelle '83. Lot of body. Very          aggressive.          He pulls off the panty blindfold, kisses her on the mouth          softly, then fully.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               4.                          2                         2 CONTINUED: (3)                          GABRIELLA                          (LOW)           -- I lo e y u, Alex.                          V O                         3          3 INT. WINE SHOP - NIGHT (LATER)          Alex is unlocking the door for Gabriella. Dressed, she          looks younger. They're awkward with each other.                         GABRIELLA          Don't think you have to say it          because .1 say it, Alex.                         (SMILING BRIGHTLY)          Doesn't mean anything..                         ALEX          It means something to me.                         GABRIELLA                         (EASED)          We're good together, aren't we.          Alex lets out a breath.                         ALEX          Oh, yeah... We're pretty good.          He kisses her goodbye, unlocks the door. She goes out to          her Honda Civic. Alex doesn't wait to see her drive off          before he heads back to finish cleaning up the tasting          room.                         4          4 INT. TASTING ROOM - NIGHT          Alex straightens the last chair and starts to extract air          from the open bottles. He hears a quiet CLANK of METAL.          Instantly alert, he reaches for his jacket and turns off          the-light.                         5          5 INT. WINE SHOP - NIGHT          Behind the cash register Alex opens a drawer and takes out          a revolver. ze thumbs the safety off. The NOISES RECUR,          like someone trying to break in through the back door from          the parking lot. Alex slings his jacket casually over the          gun.                                                                                                               5.                          6          6 EXT. WINE SHOP - NIGHT          Alex throws open the back door; he's counting on the          element of surprise.                         HIS POV          His red Cadillac convertible is idling nose.to the chain          locked across the parking lot. A MAN in his twenties,          whose tropical shirt fairly glows under the security          lights, is using a pair of bolt cutters on the chain.                         ALEX                         (ADVANCING)          You think you're gonna steal my car,          asshole?          The younger man whirls around.                         YOUNG MAN          You scared me, man.          A middle-aged man, a REPO MAN, calls out lazily from          behind the wheel.                         REPO MAN          This is not your car, sir. This car          belongs to the Star Leasing Company.          Alex buries the gun in the rear of his waistband as though          he's rubbing his stiff back and cranks his smile to a          higher wattage than the security lights.                         REPO MAN          I can collect either the money or          the car. Given how much you owe, I          figure it's the car.          The younger man has almost hacked through the chain.                         ALEX          Pop the. trunk.                         REPO MAN          We inventory the property at the          yard.          He keeps his eye on the chain, ready to gun the engine as          soon as the exit is clear.                         ALEX          I just want to show you something.          Worked by the combination of natural curiosity and Alex's          charm; the repo man pops the trunk and gets out of the          still-running car.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               6.                          6                         6 CONTINUED:          In his hand he has the locking "Club" Alex usually uses to          secure his. steering wheel. He's not stupid. Amused, Alex          takes a step back, palms up.                         YOUNG MAN          What are you doing?          The repo man ignores him and looks in the trunk.                         ALEX          Do you drink?                         REPO MAN          Not on the job. What is this,          booze?                         ALEX          Two cases of single malt whiskey          aged in the barrel before he was          born.                         REPO MAN          The Caddy's overdue.                         ALEX          So are you. Drink it with the kid.          Teach him what smooth is. Enjoy          yourselves. Isn't that worth a few          days' breather...                         (A BEAT)          My accountant's a fuck-up. So am I,          maybe, for not firing him.          The bolt cutters clip through. The chain falls.                         YOUNG MAN          We're clear.                         7          7 INT. CADILLAC - NIGHT          Alex is driving fast, top down, Samba MUSIC loud on the          STEREO. He keeps time on the wheel as the Miami skyline          cruises by.          EXT. CADILLAC - NIGHT          Alex turns into the garage of an expensive condominium          building before the gate has slid all the way open. The          TIRES SQUEAL as he powers the car around the corner.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              7.                         8                         8 CONTINUED:          A DUCATI MOTORCYCLE          hogs his space. Alex lays the car in tightly. He has to          squeeze out the door. He bumps the Ducati. It starts to          topple; he grabs it before it goes over.                         9          9 INT. CONDO - NIGHT          Alex lets himself in. The entry ALARM starts to BEEP. He          turns it off and resets it. The light has been left on in          the kitchen.                         10          10 INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT          JASON, a handsome, troubled 17-year-old with long, dark          hair, is filing barbs off a pile of fishing hooks on the          center island. He looks harder and wiser than his years.          Tackle is strewn everywhere. Some spaghetti remains in          the pot it was cooked in and Jason's knife is standing          upright in it. Alex walks into the kitchen. He makes an          effort to be pleasant, although he's irritated by the          mess, by the motorcycle.                         ALEX          It's late, Jason.                         JASON          I'm going out tonight.          Alex exhales.                         ALEX          You can't'fish all night and work          all day.                         JASON          Working for you doesn't exactly tax          my mind.                         ALEX          No wonder you drop bottles.                         JASON          Fire me.                         ALEX          Do you do it on purpose?                         JASON          Fishing bought me my bike.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               8.                          10                         10 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          I almost knocked it over trying to          get out of the car.                         JASON                         (SARCASTIC)          I wasn't sure you were coming home.                         SEVERS          The TOASTER OVEN DINGS. Jason takes out a muffin,          it in two with his fishing knife.                         ALEX          Use a regular knife.                         JASON          This has a better edge. Feel it          (pointing it at Alex,                         BLADE FLAT)          -- feel it.          Their voices are rising.                         ALEX          Pointed, it's a fucking weapon. Put          it away.                         JASON          Hell with you.          Jason exits to the stairs.                         ALEX          And keep your voice down. Your          mother's asleep.                         STAIRS                         JASON          If you got home on time once in a          while, maybe she could skip the          chemical help.          Alex is also on the stairs.                         ALEX          You have no idea, none, zip, what          goes on in a marriage.                         JASON          Yeah, well, I'm learning more than          I want to.                         (CONTINUED)'                                                                                                               9.                          10                         10 CONTINUED: (2)                          LANDING UPSTAIRS           SUZANNE (O .S=.. )          Now what are you arguing about?                         SUZANNE          is a pretty young woman in her late thirties with a sense          of humor and irony. She's chemically relaxed, but not          stupefied. She pulls a robe around herself, modest in          front of her son; and although her body's not spectacular,          like Gabriella's, she has a trim. athletic build.                         JASON          It's not an argument.                         ALEX          I asked him to clean up downstairs.                         SUZANNE                         (SOOTHING ALEX)          Maybe he hadn't finished-                         ALEX          A modicum of cooperation, you know?                         JASON          A modicum. What's that. Modicum my          ass.          He pushes past his mother toward his own room. Suzanne          follows him down the hallway, leaving. Alex behind.                         SUZANNE          I don't like that tone from: you.                         JASON          Then go to bed.                         ALEX          Hey!                         JASON                         (RIGHT BACK)          What!                         SUZANNE          It's too late for this.                         ALEX          Jason has gone into his room. He slams the door.                         CHOOSES          enters his bedroom. Suzanne, alone for a-moment,          to enter Jason's room.                                                                                                               10.                          11          11 INT. JASON'S ROOM                         SUZANNE          He's my husband.                         JASON                         (SOFTLY)          I know, Mom.                         SUZANNE          -- I still love him.                         JASON          Whatever.          She walks out.                         12          12 INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT          Alex stands under water as hot as he can stand, parboiling          himself. Eyes squeezed shut, he lets out a long breath.          His life demands more energy than he has anymore. He          soaps himself thoroughly.                         13          13 INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT          Suzanne hears the front DOOR SLAM. Jason's DUCATI STARTS          UP and ACCELERATES away. Alex comes out of the bathroom          in a towel.                         SUZANNE                         (FONDLY)          Lie down, I'll give you a back rub.          She stumbles slightly against the bed, catches a bed post          for balance, flops back on the bed with a laugh.                         SUZANNE          -- maybe I'd better lie down.          He bends down to kiss her, then heads for the television.          Suzanne props herself up on her elbows. He pops a          cassette into the VCR: porno, she assumes. She does her          best.                         SUZANNE          I liked the twin nurses. There was          kind of a story.          Alex brings the remote control back to bed.                         ALEX          You'll like this one better.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               11.                          13                         13 CONTINUED:          He hangs his towel on a doorknob, slides into bed, starts          the tape, which begins with sweat-slick dancing girls at          Carnival. To Suzanne's astonishment, it turns out to be          a travelog.                         SUZANNE          Rio?                         ALEX          I've been so busy. We could sneak          away for a week.. Would you like          that?                         SUZANNE          If we really go. Last time I          packed, we went nowhere.                         ALEX                         (SLEEPILY)          Last time was different.                         SUZANNE          (watching the tape)          The beaches -- I thought we had a          beach. I read how the hotels keep          spotters on the roof with scopes, to          keep thieves away from the guests.          They can look at every inch of your          body through the scope.          (with a low laugh)          Do you mind that I like that? Alex?          He has fallen asleep. Tenderly she draws the sheet to his          shoulder and settles down to watch the rest of the tape.                         DISSOLVE TO:          14 EXT. BOAT - DAWN 14          On the flying bridge of an old fishing boat, Jason eases          the throttle to idle speed. The engine quiets down. The          SWELLS SLAP harder against the wooden sides. The boat          dips and dances to the music of the water.          Jason swings down the ladder. He sets up his linis to          troll. The starry dome of the sky is starting to brighten          around its rim. Jason leans on the transom and stares at          the flat, silvery wedge of wake. He breathes out a word.                         JASON          :. Bite...                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               12.                          14                         14 CONTINUED:          Nothing happens. He doesn't move. Then the top of one of          the rods shivers slightly, goes still. Jason delicately          fingers the rod like a blind man reading Braille, to feel          for vibration. A smile pulls at his mouth. He steps          behind the rod. The fish hits.                         JASON                         (CALLING OUT)          Henryl Fish ont          The line screams out. Jason's ready. He sets the hook.                         JASON          Time to go to work, man! C'mon.           A tall, black drifter appears from-below, still yawning,          scratching. HENRY, 33. He wears a red Panama hat that's           weathered his head for some time.                         HENRY          Who we got?                         JASON          Let's find out.          He hauls back on the rod, the line rises from the ocean,          they both recognize the fish at the end.                         HENRY          Fucking sharks. Miami's fished out          of the good stuff. Damn.          He spits over the side. Jason grins.                         JASON          This one's got more to worry about          than you do.          He starts to reel in the fish. Henry moves to the wheel.-                         HENRY          Just shoot 'Jaws' in the water. I          want to know the sucker's good and          dead 'fore he sets a fin in my boat.          You got a barb on that hook? .                         JASON          Oh, yeah.          Jason braces for the fight.                                                                                                               13.                          15          15 EXT. DOCK - MORNING          Jason and Henry are cutting the shark with the speed and          dexterity of professionals.                         HENRY          The Gulf, man, that's the place.          And what makes you think fifty-fifty          is right? My boat. My gas.                         JASON          My skill.          (slicing off the fins)          ... My fins.                         16          16 EXT. FISH MARKET - LONG SHOT - MORNING          Jason and Henry slap their catch onto the Fishmonger's          slippery counter. The market's noisy, men shouting. We          see the negotiation from a distance.          17 EXT. DOCK - DAY (MINUTES LATE) 17          Jason and Henry walk through the hubbub.                         HENRY          You cool?                         JASON          I'm cool.                         HENRY          We cool.          Jason guns his Ducati.          18 INT. WINE STORE - DAY 18          Alex comes out of his office.                         ALEX          Rob, has Jason shown up?          A man's French-accented VOICE answers him from the store.          ROBERT (O.S.)          Not yet.                         ALEX          You have his paycheck there?                         ROBERT          All ready.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               14.                          18                         18 CONTINUED:           Alex takes it, and rips it up.                          19          19 INT. CHINESE RESTAURANT - DAY          The Chinese CHEF in the busy, steamy kitchen is inspecting          the shark fins Jason has brought him. Jason is anxious to          finish business and go.                         CHEF          You no like my company? Fine. Who          cares. Bring me more fin, you          retire. You no want to retire?          Good. Don't charge starving Chinese          so much for these things.                         JASON          You ever caught a shark?                         CHEF                         (BIGGER)          You ever cook one?                         JASON          Lemme -- lemme show you something.          Jason pulls up the sleeve of his denim jacket to display          a fresh gash across his arm.                         JASON          He was already gaffed onto the side          of the boat, good as dead. Two          hours dead! And I was still too          close to the mouth. Revenge is the          last instinct to go, did you know          that?          The chef shrugs and shows his thumb, missing a joint.                         CHEF          -- Work's a dangerous thing.          (smiling with lots of                         TEETH)          Nice fin, Jason.          He tosses the fins in a cauldron of boiling water, slaps          the CASH REGISTER on the side. It RINGS.                         20          20 EXT. RESTAURANT - DAY          Jason jams on his helmet and starts his. motorcycle, guns          it down the street.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              15.                         20                         20 CONTINUED:                         MIAMI SKYLINE          Jason weaves through traffic, expert enough to take          chances that goose the adrenalin.                         21          21 EXT. WINE SHOP - DAY          Robert and Alex are loading cases of wine into the trunk          of the Caddy when Jason skids into the parking lot. He          takes off his helmet.                         ALEX          Just get in the car.                         22          22 INT. CADILLAC - DAY (TRAVELING)          Jason has fallen asleep while Alex drives. Alex picks up          Jason's hand. Jerking awake, Jason tries to pull away,          but his reflexes are sleep-slowed. Alex sniffs Jason's          fingers, wrinkles his nose, lets Jason have his hand back.                         ALEX          You stink.                         JASON          I washed.                         ALEX          There's Wash IN Dries in the glove          compartment.          Jason opens the compartment, finds the packets, opens one,          rubs his hands.                         ALEX          ... I'm trying here, Jason -- I          really am. When you didn't want to          go to college, I took your side, I          said fine -- I mean, I -didn't finish          college, and I've done all right.          I gave you a job', a steady check,          which is more than anybody else has          done. And what do I get back?          Shit. I've tried to teach you the          business -- the care, the finesse...          Jason laughs dismissively.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               16.                          22                         22 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          Well, look at it this way, Jason,          someday you'll have your boat and          I'll have my vineyard, and the best          part '11 be they're nowhere near each          other.                         JASON                         (SATISFIED)          I'll send you a Christmas card.                         ALEX          Save the stamp.           They turn into the driveway to an expensive development.                          23          23 EXT. SECURITY BOOTH, CORAL GABLES - DAY          The Cadillac rolls to a stop at the ate. A tough, but          amicable-looking armed guard in his forties, MIKE, opens          the window of the air-conditioned booth. His RADIO is          tuned to the FOOTBALL GAME.                         ALEX          Hi, mike -- what's the score?                         MIKE                         (CHECKING THE                         APPOINTMENT BOARD)          Dolphins down by nine, minute forty          to go. It's over.                         ALEX          Don't underestimate Marino.          Mike ticks off the appointment, raises the gate.                         MIKE          I told you, they don't have it this          year.          With a wave of acknowledgment for Mike, Alex.. drives onto          the grounds.                         ALEX                         (YELLING BACK)          ‚Ä¢ Judas!          Grinning, Mike routinely writes down the license plate          number.                                                                                                               17.                          24          24 EXT. CADILLAC - DAY          Alex cruises past a collection of oversized villas, and          turns into the driveway of the gaudiest. He and Jason          climb out of the car. Alex opens the trunk. He loads two          wine cases into Jason's arms, takes the third himself.          They haven't said a word to each other.                         25          25 EXT. VILLA - DAY          Alex rings the intercom with his elbow. Gabriella's VOICE          CRACKLES in response.          GABRIELLA (V.O.)          on the intercom)          Who is it?                         ALEX          Wine delivery.          The INTERCOM CLICKS off. They hear FOOTSTEPS approaching.          The door opens. Jason's eyes focus. He's hooked.          Gabriella is smiling at Alex. She has her arms full of          clean burp cloths.                         GABRIELLA          Oh, the boss himself!                         ALEX          (with a modest chuckle)          How are you?          She glances politely toward Jason, not at all expecting          what she sees. A circuit connects between them.                         ALEX          Gabriella takes care of Baby Reese.                         (TO GABRIELLA)          This is my stepson, Jason.                         GABRIELLA                         (VERY CORRECT)          How do you do.                         JASON          Hi.                         GABRIELLA          Is the wine for the boat? Come          through the house.                                                                                                               18.                          26          26 INT./EXT. VILLA - DAY           They follow her inside. Jason takes in the richness of           the place, but is more focussed on Gabriella. They exit                         TO T           he lawn which leads to a dock.                          27          27 EXT. REESES' BOAT DAY          A sleek, ocean-going yacht is tied up at the dock, the          crew unobtrusively at work. FRANK REESE, a powerful,          confidant man in his mid-sixties, is sitting with his          INSURANCE AGENT at a table on deck where policies are          spread out next to a jewelry box. Reese's expensive 35-          year-old wife DINA has turned her chair to sun her legs          while she plays with the BABY.                         DINA          -- what's the point of having it, if          I can't wear it, Frank?                         AGENT                         (DEFERENTIALLY)          You can wear it anywhere you like,          Mrs. Reese -- except out of the          country.          Gabriella leads Alex and Jason aboard. Frank likes Alex          and is glad to see him. Alex can't help glancing at          Dina's long legs.. She smiles.                         FRANK          Alex, should we insure the wine          while we're at it?          His arms tired,'Alex is happy to set down the case.                         ALEX          Aren't you covered on your home          policy?                         GABRIELLA                         (TO JASON)          I'll show you, come on.                         AGENT          How much wine are we talking about?          Jason follows Gabriella down below, the VOICES on the deck          fading.          DINA (O.S.)          Why bother insuring it? Let's drink          it instead.                                                                                                              19.                         28          28 INT. BOAT - DAY          It's quiet inside, not tasteful but impressive, like          everything else of the Reeses. Jason takes a stab at          conversation.                         JASON          Big boat.          Gabriella laughs and looks over her shoulder at him.          They're both kids.                         GABRIELLA          ugly, isn't it.          He grins and relaxes, looks around.                         JASON          The fittings are definitely -- yeah          on the ugly side. But damn, she's          solid.                         GABRIELLA          Oh, a boat type.                         JASON          (proud, defensive)          I like.boats.          Gabriella shows him the climatized, built-in wine closet          next to the galley. He starts to rack the bottles while          she watches. He talks to stop her from leaving.                         JASON          So where you headed?                         GABRIELLA          I'm not going, 'I can't go.                         JASON          They don't want to take the baby.                         GABRIELLA          I‚Ä¢don't have a green card, I can't          leave the country. Baby goes with          an American nurse. I house-sit.          It's fine.                         JASON          You don't like them.          Gabriella laughs.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              20.                         28                         28 CONTINUED:                         GABRIELLA          God. I'm obvious. I just don't          like working for people, but that's          life.          He chafes under authority the same way she does.                         JASON          Doesn't have to be.                         GABRIELLA          Maybe not with a rich stepfather.          He laughs.                         JASON          Worst kind.                         GABRIELLA                         (CORRECTIVELY)          No.                         (A BEAT)          You don't appreciate what you have,          Jason. It's very poor where I came          from.                         JASON          Where's that?                         GABRIELLA          Venezuela. Do I look it?                         JASON          I don't know, I never been there.                         GABRIELLA          Well, I don't. My mother's Indian.          The India kind of Indian.                         (LAUGHS)          Imagine a house where the father          asks 'What's for dinner' in Spanish,          and the mother answers 'Curry' in          Hindi. 'Que hay para cenar' she          says, 'Murgee, masala, ghaal.' He          says, 'No es importante.' No wonder          I'm nuts.                         JASON          You don't seem too nuts.          She laughs.                         GABRIELLA          You don't know mel                         (OOR1TINUED )                                                                                                              21.          28 CONTINUED: .( 2) 28           They're suddenly both very aware that they're alone           together.                          29          29 EXT. BOAT, THE DECK - DAY           The agent is putting a magnificent diamond necklace in a          velvet pouch that he fastidiously cinches and ties.          Alex looks away from it to take a bottle out of the          remaining case on deck.                         AGENT          -- so back to the safe it goes --          Dina lifts up the baby and smells its bottom.                         FRANK          Dina, that's disgusting.                         DINA          The alternative is using your          fingers, Frank. which offends you          more?          Alex laughs. Frank pushes back his chair.                         FRANK          Don't encourage her, Alex. Her          mouth is big enough.          Dina is hurt.                         FRANK          (to the agent)          I'll show you that painting in our          stateroom.          The agent follows him away.                         ALEX          (kindly; to Dina)          Do you want to see the label?          She hides her hurt by not looking at him.                         DINA          Just open the bottle, Alex. Pour us          both a glass. I'm not allowed to          drink alone.          When she turns her head and looks at him, she's flirting.                                                                                                               22.                          30          30 INT. BOAT - DAY          Jason has almost finished storing the wine. Gabriella is          sitting on a bar stool at the galley,. listening to him,          snared by the quiet passion in his voice.                         JASON          -- when you're skimming along the          water, nothing between you and the          bottom of the sea but a layer of          wood, your thoughts... end. All          that noise inside your head?          Gabriella nods, understanding exactly.                         JASON          . . . Stops.          Dina's VOICE booms over the INTERCOM, startling both of          them. The BABY is FUSSING. Gabriella makes a gesture of          apology to Jason.          DINA (V.O.)          Gabriella? Are you down there?                         GABRIELLA          Yes, Mrs. Reese.          DINA (V.0.)          The baby needs you. And bring a          pacifier for Frank.                         GABRIELLA          Right there.          She slides off the stool.                         JASON          You should come out with me          sometime.          She smiles without answering and goes topside. His eyes          follow her. A Deckhand comes down the ladder with the          remaining case of wine for him to stock.          31 EXT. BOAT - DAY 31          Gabriella. lifts the fussy baby from Dina, her hands sure          and calming. She coos nonsense to his little ear as she-          reaches for the diaper bag and slings it over her arm.                         GABRIELLA          He.'s ready for his nap.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               23.                          31                         31 CONTINUED:          Frank and the agent return from another section of the          boat.                         FRANK          You doing up to the house,          Gabriella?          (off her nod)          Want to take this with you?          He sweeps the policies into a large manila envelope, drops          the 'pouch in with them, ties the string, hands it to her.                         FRANK          Put it on my desk.          He looks at his wife with her glass, Alex with his glass,          and doesn't like it. His voice hardens slightly.                         FRANK          Are we all set, Alex?                         ALEX          I'm going to check the storage room,          see what else'll travel. I know I          put some vintage Armagnac in there,          maybe some Porto?          He heads down the gangplank.                         FRANK          He's a vendor, Dina. It's like          drinking with the help.                         DINA                         (DISARMING HIM)          Did you pick the wine, sweetie?          It's lovely.          Frank grins, pleased. His hand curves around her          shoulder. He has forgotten about the other vendor          present, the agent.                         AGENT                         (AWKWARDLY)          So I'll messenger over the rider for          your signature --          Frank laughs out loud, in a better mood:                         FRANK          -- You still here?          Dina laughs, too.                                                                                                              24.                         32          32 INT. VILLA, UPSTAIRS - DAY          Gabriella settles the baby on his side, the only Reese she          likes. She starts to close the shutters. Lullaby MUSIC          is playing on the baby's TAPE DECK.          IN THE HALLWAY          She closes the nursery door as softly as possible. A          man's hands go around her throat. Her gasp dies          stillborn. It's Alex, kissing her.ear, holding Dina's          diamond necklace to her neck.                         ALEX                         (MURMURING)          Did he ever come on to you?                         GABRIELLA                         (ANGRY)          Don't sneak up on me that way!                         ALEX          Look how beautiful you are. He's an          idiot if he didn't.          Now she sees the necklace.                         GABRIELLA          What are you doing?          She snatches the necklace away from him and fairly runs          down the hall to Frank's study.          IN THE STUDY          She tries td stuff it in the pouch. Alex is right behind          her.                         GABRIELLA          You're going to get me fired and          deported.                         ALEX          Just put it on for a minute. Look          at yourself.          She slaps at his hands half-heartedly, but it's so          tempting.                         ALEX          See what you deserve.                         GABRIELLA                         (SUCCUMBING)          We're both crazy.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               25.                          32                         32 CONTINUED:          Alex moves her hair away. She lets him hook the necklace          around her neck. He reaches over to open the closet door,          fitted out now as a file cabinet, but with the original          closet mirror still in place. The safe is visible.          Gabriella stares at her reflection, Alex behind her,          watching her. The necklace changes her posture. She          angles her chin slightly, twists back her hair. Diamonds          suit her.                         GABRIELLA                         (TITILLATED)          It's vulgar.                         ALEX          into her ear)          Not against your skin.          He starts to pleat her T-shirt loose from her jeans. She          doesn't resist. They watch each other in the mirror.          JASON (O.S.)          -- Alex? They're waiting for you!          Alex blows out a frustrated breath.                         ALEX          Ah... shit...          He hurriedly unhooks the necklace and puts it back in the          pouch, gathers up the insurance papers and Polaroids that          had spilled and slides them back in the envelope with the          pouch.' Gabriella is tucking in her T-shirt. She closes          the closet door.          Jason's VOICE is closer, more impatient, at the bottom of          the stairs.          JASON (O.S.)          Alex!          33 INT. VILLA, STAIRCASE - DAY 33          Alex appears at the top of the stairs, surprising Jason.                         ALEX          I was in the bathroom.          He walks down the stairs. A wooden case of liquor is by          the terrace doors, where he left it.                         ALEX          Give me a hand, will you? I'm not          as young as you are.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               26.                          33                         33 CONTINUED:          He goes out the door ahead of Jason, leaving him to carry          the case. Jason hears a DOOR CLOSE upstairs as he lifts          the case. He looks up.                         HIS POV          Reflected in the tall entry mirror, Gabriella's back as          she walks away down the hall.                         RESUME SCENE          His face tightens. He follows Alex.          34 INT. RESTAURANT BACK ROOM - NIGHT 34          A poker game is breaking up. Five players, Alex among          them. He's done all right. DAVE -- an older man -- has          lost. He tosses down his cards.                         DAVE          I'm out, I'm home.                         ALEX                         (SYMPATHETICALLY)          You play for the possibilities,          Dave. So do I. Or else why get up          in the morning.          VICTOR SPANSKY neatly stacks his modest winnings. He's          tall, thick-shouldered, 55, with a gray crew-cut, tinted          glasses, and a smoker's cough. He does nothing in a          hurry.                         VICTOR                         (TO DAVE)          You didn't lose that much.                         ALEX          There's an optimist in every game.                         DAVE                         (PISSED)          Alex, I don't appreciate --                         ALEX          (overriding htm,                         UNRUFFLING HIM)          No, I'm saying... the guy who          sits down at the table with a          loser's attitude... loses even if he          wins -- which he won't. He's got no          juice flowin'.                         (MORE)                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               27.           34,                         34 CONTINUED:                         ALEX (CONT'D)          He's got peepee in his veins! Life          for that guy's a habit and stained          pants. You know what I mean?          Dave laughs, feeling better.                         DAVE                         NOT                         ALEX          Try.                         DAVE          Good night.          They all AD-LIB "Good night," "See you next week," etc.,          as they file out. Alex and Victor are the last in the          room. Alex puts on his jacket.                         VICTOR          Paltry pickings tonight.          Alex looks at the small amount of cash on the table.                         ALEX          You want to cut for what's here.          Victor chuckles..                         VICTOR          Sure. Why not.          He pushes his cash forward into a pot with Alex's. Alex          fans the deck across the table.                         ALEX                         (CONVERSATIONALLY)          What-are you doing with your life,          Victor?.          Victor makes a small gesture, indicating the cards.                         VICTOR          This, more or less.          He pulls a card -- he has good hands -- and turns it up.          A king of spades. A smile tugs at his mouth.                         VICTOR          Beat that.          Alex produces the Polaroid of Dina's necklace from his          inside jacket pocket.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               28.                          34                         34 CONTINUED: (2)          He flicks it on the table next to Victor's king. Victor's          gaze clicks from the photo to Alex, back to the photo. He          slowly reaches out and picks it up.                         VICTOR          Very pretty. I remember when it          was the cover of the auction          catalogue. The Duchess of Windsor's          baubles. Bought for a young wife,          I remember. Who I'm sure worked          just as hard as the Duchess.                         ALEX          it's appraised at a million three          hundred thousand dollars.          a laugh.          Victor tosses the photo back on the table with                         VICTOR          And they say there's no inflation.                         ALEX          I have access.          Victor shakes his head no.                         VICTOR          I'm retired.                         ALEX          And broke.                         VICTOR          I don't need that much.                         ALEX          Bullshit. You need as much as I do.          Victor's eyes blink behind his glasses.                         VICTOR          What kind of access? For          curiosity's sake.                         ALEX          I have a friend in the house.                         VICTOR          A girlfriend. How sweet.                         ALEX          IÔøΩcan distract her.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               29.                          34                         34 CONTINUED: (3)          VICTOR .          I don't trust women, as a svecies.          I'd;have a spotless record if it          weren't for a woman.                         ALEX          She'd never know, I don't want her          to know... I like her too much.                         VICTOR -          I don't trust amateurs, either..          He gets up and walks to the door.                         VICTOR          Don't take it personally,. Alex. I          don't trust the phone company,, the          jury system, or the Israeli          government. So why should I trust          you.                         ALEX          Because I know a good thing when I          see it.          Alex flips over a card. It's the king of clubs.                         ALEX          Victor...          Victor has been distracted by Alex's proposition. Now he          comes back to scoop up his money. Alex sweeps the cards          back into a stack, leaving only the photo on the table.                         ALEX          ... But this is fifty-fifty..                         35          35 INT. CONDO, JASON'S ROOM - NIGHT          Mid-masturbation, Jason is distracted by the BEEPING of          the entry ALARM. He glances at the bedside clock that          reads 12:30. His excitement subsides,. he rolls onto his          stomach.                         36          36 INT. CONDO, DOWNSTAIRS - NIGHT          Alex detours toward the dark kitchen.                                                                                                               30.                          37          37 INT. CONDO, MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT          Suzanne is reading in bed. The door opens slightly. She          looks over, her mouth draws in. A bottle of champagne          wags around the door, followed by Alex and a pair of          champagne flutes.                         ALEX          I saw the light still on. I'm glad          you're up.                         SUZANNE          (eyeing the champagne)          What'd you do this time?          He's too pumped to take offense.                         ALEX          C'mon, c'mon, be nice.                         SUZANNE          Whenever you open champagne -- it's          such a giveaway.          He pours her a glass.                         ALEX          I told you I was playing poker          tonight.          He hands her the glass. She takes a sip.                         SUZANNE          You know, I've-never actually seen          you play poker -- maybe poker          doesn't even exist. Maybe it's just          a cover story men use.          He laughs.                         ALEX          I won.                         SUZANNE          Hey; lightning strikes.          He fills his glass.                         ALEX          Let's not get into this, honey.          Her voice is tired.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               31.                          37                         37 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE          I was charging the groceries today,          and they kept the card. We'd been          cancelled.                         ALEX          I know --          He reaches for his wallet.                         SUZANNE          I felt about as big as an ant.          Alex takes out a credit card.                         ALEX          I got you a new one.                         FROM HIS          He holds out the card, which she slowly takes          fingers.                         SUZANNE          It's the third time this year.                         ALEX          Everything's about to change.          Suzanne has heard that too often from him.                         SUZANNE          Alex, what are we doing together?          We don't talk --                         ALEX          all the time!                         SUZANNE          -- we don't fuck -- we don't even          eat dinner together anymoret                         ALEX          I am making an effort heret                         38          38 INT. JASON'S ROOM          Jason throws himself out of bed and turns on his STEREO,          cranks the volume. He doesn't want to hear their VOICES.                         39          39 INT. MASTER-BEDROOM          Alex and Suzanne hear the MUSIC. He rubs his hand through          his hair.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               32.                          39                         39 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          Did you never have a fight with his          father?                         SUZANNE          (hard, flat)          No.                         ALEX          -- A saint. I should've guessed.          Must be at the right amid of God          this very minute.          Suzanne doesn't bother replying. She turns off the light,          pulls the sheet to her shoulders. Alex sits down on the          window seat to enjoy the champagne in the dark.                         40          40 INT. WINE SHOP, ALEX'S OFFICE - DAY          Alex is on the phone.                         ALEX "          -- the humidifier wasn't holding a          steady percentage, there may be a          problem with the regulator -- so I'd          better check it right away.                         (SMILES)          ... Sure, this afternoon's fine.          Hanging up, he rocks back in his chair and squeezes his          eyes shut. Then he rests his forehead against the heels          of his hands for a moment, considering what he's          considering.          41 INT. WINE SHOP - DAY 41          Alex walks through. Jason's on a ladder stocking the          shelves.                         ALEX          You want to hand me down a good          cognac? I'm going out to the          Reeses.                         (REJECTING JASON'S                         CHOICE)'          No, gimme the Pierre Ferrand.          Jason starts down the ladder.                         JASON          I'll deliver it for you.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               33.                          41                         41 CONTINUED:          Alex is surprised and pleased by Jason's sudden          helpfulness.                         ALEX          He wants to talk.          He dusts off the bottle.          42 INT. VILLA - DAY - 42          Alex follows Dina down a narrow service hall to the wine          room. She talks without looking back at him.                         DINA          -- enough of an investment in there --                         ALEX          -- not to want to take a chance,          with a month away. That's what I          thought.          AT THE WINE ROOM                         DINA                         (NEUTRALLY)          A month alone with Frank.          Alex chuckles as he starts to inspect the humidifier.                         ALEX          Second honeymoon.                         DINA          The first one was bad enough.          She's standing too close to him, but he has no room to          maneuver away. He fiddles with the box.                         ALEX          -- It may need a part replaced.                         DINA          Nice suit. You always dress well,          Alex.          She brushes the lint off his jacket and leaves her hand          there.                         ALEX                         (GENTLY)          --,Dina... this is not a great idea.          Used to getting her way, she's not easily dissuaded.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               34.                          42                         42 CONTINUED:                         DINA                         (SEDUCTIVELY)          How can you tell?          She moves up against him. Alex can't will himself to          resist. His knee automatically separates her legs. He          reaches out to close the door.                         43          43 INT. VILLA, THE HALLWAY - DAY          Gabriella is-returning from the laundry room with an arm          load of clean crib sheets. Knowing Alex and Dina are          inside the wine room, she stops and knocks on the door.                         GABRIELLA          Mrs. Reese? The baby's ready for                         YOU-          A long moment later, the door opens. Dina and Alex are          reassembled, but there's a tension and a breathlessness          about them Gabriella recognizes.                         DINA          -- Thank you, Gabriella.          Dina spies some interaction between Gabriella and Alex,          and her pretty face hardens.                         DINA          Did you leave him by himself?                         GABRIELLA          Just to get his sheets.                         DINA          That's the maid's job.                         GABRIELLA          He's in his playpen.          Dina sweeps out.                         DINA          Baby jail.          She looks over her shoulder to make sure Gabriella is          behind her.                         DINA          Are you coming?                         (TO ALEX)          Thanks, Alex. You'll walk yourself          out?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              35.                         43                         43 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          Have a good cruise. I'll take care          of this.                         DINA                         (BRIGHTLY)          See you in a month.          Alex watches the two women move down the hall.          GABRIELLA AND DINA          turn the corner.                          DINA           You're not very happy here, are you.          BACK TO ALEX           as he yanks a wire loose from the humidifier.                          44          44 EXT. VICTOR'S APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY          Alex climbs the open stairs, heads down the cantilevered          walkway, knocks at Victor's door.          For an instant Alex doesn't recognize the uniformed          repairman who opens it: Victor, disguised.                         VICTOR                         (TICKLED)          Like it?                         45          45 INT. APARTMENT - DAY          By daylight the apartment looks shabby.                         VICTOR          I think I look younger, don't you?                         ALEX          You look ridiculous.                         VICTOR          Fine. I don't have an ego.          (zipping up his                         UNIFORM)          -- As long as I don't match my mug          shots.          A shadow of anxiety passes over Alex's face.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               36.                          45                         45 CONTINUED:                         VICTOR          You want to change your mind?                         ALEX          No.          Victor opens the front door.-                         VICTOR          After you.          As Alex walks toward the door, he catches sight of a free-          standing hospital respirator in the bedroom. He looks at          Victor, who waits for him with an unchanging smile. They          go out together.                         46          46 EXT. SECURITY.GATE - DAY          The Cadillac pulls up, Alex driving, Victor beside him.          Mike is not in the guard booth, the gate is closed.                         47          47 INT. CADILLAC - DAY          They wait in the heat.                         ALEX          -- Is your makeup melting?          Offended, Victor reaches over to honk the horn. Alex          stops him, opens the driver's door.          48 EXT. GATE - DAY 48          Alex goes into the booth, finds the appointment board,          checks off "Gates Wine -- Repair," and presses a button          that opens the gate.          49 INT. CADILLAC - DAY 49          Alex slides back behind the wheel. Victor is resting his          head on the back of the seat.                         VICTOR          Brilliant, Alex. We've violated the          law before we even get started.                                                                                                              37.                         50          50 EXT. REESE VILLA - DAY          Down the side of the house, the dock. can be seen, empty.          Alex rings the front bell. victor is carrying a tool kit.          There's no answer. Alex rings it again.                         VICTOR          Tell me we're at the wrong house.          Alex raises a hand to wave, Victor turns.                         THEIR POV                         GOLF          Mike, the guard, is rolling toward them on a security          cart. He pulls over.                         RESUME SCENE                         ALEX                         (ALL CHARM)          There you are, Mike.                         MIKE          Don't flip the gate like that.                         ALEX          I was helping you out. I checked          off the appointment, didn't you see          it?          He rings the doorbell again.                         MIKE          They sailed out this morning.                         ALEX          I know., but the nanny's supposed to          be here --          Victor rolls his eyes, unseen. The nanny.                         MIKE          -- The Venezuelan? They fired her.          (with a snigger)          Don't pay to be too good-looking in          these jobs.          Victor interrupts the gossip. He -sounds exactly like a          repairman.                         VICTOR          I got a schedule to keep, Mr_ Gates.          Is this gonna be another day?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               38.                          50                         50 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          It can't wait.                         (TO MIKE)          He'll lose his entire wine          collection if the humidifier isn't          fixed.                         MIKE                         (TO VICTOR)          What's your name?                         VICTOR          Harold Freeman.          Mike notes the name "Harold" stitched onto his coveralls.                         MIKE          Okay. Stay here. I'll get the          keys.          He rides away on his cart. Victor sits down in the shade          to wait. He stifles a cough.                         VICTOR          Dear God. A cop on the job.                         ALEX          You all right?                         VICTOR          (a little too sharply)          Why wouldn't I be?                         51          51 INT. WINE STORE, CELLAR - DAY          Jason is filling a wine order when he hears a woman's          VOICE murmuring upstairs, and recognizes Gabriella's.                         52          52 INT. WINE STORE - DAY          Jason comes up out of the cellar. Gabriella is passing a          note to Robert.                         GABRIELLA                         (MID-SENTENCE)          -- where he can reach me.                         JASON                         HI          She turns her head, and he sees that she has been crying.          His smile goes.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               39.                          52                         52 CONTINUED:                         GABRIELLA                         (EMBARRASSED)          Hi, Jason.                         JASON          You looking for Alex? You missed          him.                         ROBERT          I told her.          The PHONE RINGS. Robert answers it; wine business. He's          out of the conversation.                         GABRIELLA          I was supposed to let him into the          Reeses'.                         JASON          So now you're in trouble.                         GABRIELLA          No, I'm not.          She's walking toward the door.                         JASON          Then why've you-been crying?                         GABRIELLA          I just got fired, all right?          She goes out.          53 EXT. STREET - DAY 53          Jason follows her toward her car parked down the street.                         JASON          Congratulations.                         GABRIELLA          You don't know anything!                         JASON          You hated it there!                         GABRIELLA                         (INFURIATED NOW)          I liked.the money! I liked having          a.roof!                         (MORE)                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               40.                          53                         53 CONTINUED :          GABRIELLA (Copt' d )          Now I have to go stay at my cousin's          place -- my cousin, her husband,          their four kids, and two cats. I          hate cats.                         JASON          What's wrong with cats?                         GABRIELLA          They shed on the couch I'll have to          sleep on. You know how long it took          me to find that job? Everybody          thinks they're running for office.          You don't have papers, they don't          even want to meet you. And the only          real way to get legal is to get          married. Do you understand?          He opens her car door for her.                         JASON          So let's go get married.          Gabriella looks at him. They connect.again; it scares          her.                         GABRIELLA          ... Are you old enough to vote?          She slides behind the wheel.                         JASON                         (TARTLY)          You're not too much older. Are you          going past the wharf? You can gimme          a ride.          He's already walking around the car to get in the other          side. Gabriella smiles in spite of herself and reaches          over to unlock the door for him.                         GABRIELLA          (as he climbs in)          Aren't you working?                         JASON          It's my lunch break..                         GABRIELLA          Well, let's not tell the boss I          stole you.                                                                                                               41.                          54          54 INT. CAR - DAY (TRAVELING)          Gabriella drives fast and well.                         JASON          Did you do something? Or was it          just...                         GABRIELLA                         (NODDING)          Just. They said they.were --          downsizing.          Jason laughs.                         JASON          Like they're a factory?                         GABRIELLA          The size of their staff? It is.                         JASON          Hang a left.                         GABRIELLA          Not for the wharf.                         JASON          I know. Just turn!          She whips the car through the turn, narrowly missing          another car.                         GABRIELLA                         (SHOUTING)          Idiot!                         JASON          -- Cool.          She laughs; she's starting to relax.          55 INT. REESES' WINE ROOM - DAY 55          Alex and Mike watch victor checking out the humidifier,          making a meal of the diagnosis. He notices the wire Alex          sabotaged but doesn't remark on it.                         ALEX          Can you fix the thing, Harold? Or          does it have to be replaced?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               42.                          55                         55 CONTINUED:                         VICTOR          I'll tell you after I see the          condition of the pipes. Coolant          might be leaking. Where's the attic          access?                         56          56 INT. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - DAY          Victor's legs disappear up into the attic as he hauls          himself off a step stool and up through the hatch in the          ceiling. Mike and Alex watch him go. victor is heard          COUGHING.          VICTOR (O.S.)                         (DISTANTLY)          Goddamn fiberglass --          His head drops through the hatch.                         VICTOR          -- Either of, you know how to kill          the water to the house?                         MIRE          Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.          Mike starts down the stairs. Alex signals to Victor that          he's going with him and follows Mike away. Victor waits          until he hears the DOOR CLOSE before dropping down through          the hatch and heading for Frank's office.                         57          57 EXT. MIAMI RIVER - DAY          Gabriella watches Jason walk with a long stride toward          Henry's boat. She likes the way he moves. Henry is          nearby drinking beer with some Haitians. Jason talks to          him for a moment. Henry glances down the walkway to          Gabriella, then hands Jason his. keys. Jason gestures to          Gabriella to come down.                         58          58 ' EXT. VILLA - DAY          Mike is shutting off the water while Alex watches when          another GUARD, mid-30's, turns the corner.                         GUARD                         (TO MIKE)          What are you doing?          Mike looks up, wet and muddy.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               43.                          58                         58 CONTINUED:                         GUARD          I been waiting for you. My shift.          His uniform is crisp, and his nature is alert and          suspicious.                         MIKE          The valve's stuck.                         GUARD          That's the sprinkler valve.          Mike climbs out of the bushes with injured dignity.                         MIKE          Okay, you do it.                         GUARD                         (QUIETLY)          Is he the homeowner?                         ALEX                         (CHEERFULLY)          No.                         59          59 INT. FRANK'S OFFICE - DAY          Victor, wearing surgical gloves, is in the file closet          cracking the safe. He has re-wired the alarm wire with          electrical clips to avoid breaking the circuit. He smears          the sweat off his forehead and leans back in close to the          dial, rotating it carefully back and forth until the          tumblers fall. It opens. victor sifts through papers,          foreign currency.          ALEX (O.S.)                         (CALLING OUT)          Harold?          Victor hears the FOOTSTEPS coming up the stairs. He keeps          searching, but the pressure tells, and his breathing          becomes a wheeze.                         60          60 INT. LANDING - DAY          The new guard follows Alex onto the landing. They hear a          DOOR SHUT. The guard instinctively touches his gun.                         ALEX          Down there, wasn't it?          The guard doesn't let him change direction.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               44.                          60                         60 CONTINUED:                         GUARD          Keep going.                         61          61 INT. HALLWAY - DAY          victor drops down onto the stepstool in front of them as          they round the corner.                         VICTOR                         (BREEZILY)          You can turn the water back on.          It's not the pipes.          Wearing work gloves, he repositions the hatch cover.                         GUARD          Nobody's supposed to be in the house          unaccompanied.                         ALEX          Is that our fault?                         GUARD                         (GRUDGINGLY)          No.                         ALEX          All right, then.          The guard glances up at the hatch. In that moment victor          winks at Alex; he scored.          62 EXT. HENRY'S BOAT-- DAY 62          Jason drops anchor in turquoise waters off a sand bar, no          other boats around. Gabriella takes in the idyllic          surroundings.                         JASON          You can learn on the fish around          here, but you can't eat 'em.          They're junk fish.                         GABRIELLA          Will you teach me?          He laughs.                         JASON          Oh, you think you're ready for that          kind of commitment?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              45.                         62 CONTINUED: 62          She grins and shrugs.                         GABRIELLA          I'm only investing an afternoon.          She takes in the landscape, breathing in the lovely          isolation.                         GABRIELLA          Where are we?                         JASON          My father used to bring me here.          She hears something in his tone.                         GABRIELLA                         (GENTLY)          No more?          Jason concentrates on securing the boat.                         JASON          He's dead. He drowned in a storm.          She shivers involuntarily.                         JASON          He was a fisherman.                         GABRIELLA          I don't know if I would like boats          after that.          He smiles.                         JASON          I feel close to him when I'm on the          water.                         GABRIELLA          How old were you?                         JASON          -- Eight. I'd just turned eight.          She takes his hand. He tightens his fingers through hers          and looks out at the horizon, trying to control the          emotions her sympathy has roiled. Gabriella senses this.          She puts her arms around him, kisses him on the cheek.          They stand, holding each other. Then Jason, on impulse,          kisses her on the lips.                                                                                                              46.                         63          63 INT. VICTOR'S APARTMENT - DAY          The KEY is heard in the LOCK, the door opens, Victor and          Alex come in, giddy with success. Reverentially, Victor          unpacks-the necklace and holds it up for them both to          admire; the object of desire.                         VICTOR                         (BREATHING OUT)          - Beautiful. Unusual cut. Look at          the fire. Hold it up to the light.          He hands the necklace to Alex, who lifts it up to look at          it. Victor reaches into a drawer. In itHttheeree'ss a gun          and a camera. He takes out the camera.          necklace. The flash jerks Alex's          picture of Alex with          gaze from the                         ALEX          What the fuck are you doing??                         VICTOR          I always take a photograph of the          goods. To avoid any disagreement in          the sale. The insurance photo is          hopeless. You ask yourself how do          they stay in business.          Alex advances on him.                         ALEX          You put me in the shot.                         VICTOR                         (MODESTLY)          Speaking of insurance.          Alex is closing on him. His voice is low and menacing.                         ALEX          Give me the film, Victor._          victor's hand glides into the drawer. Alex sensibly stops          short.                         VICTOR          ,(pleasantly)          We'll tear it up together whet. we          have the money. Honor among thieves          is a myth, you know.          victor's hand reappears, holding not a gun but an airline          ticket, which he gives to Alex.                         ALEX          What's this supposed to be?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                                             47                         63                         63 CONTINUED:                         VICTOR          I thought it over. I can't move it.          I'm on parole. I'm known. You're          not. So you'll fly to Newark, take          a shuttle into the city, catch a          cab, take a walk, find an address,          I'll give you the name -- pas.de          probleme, as they say in Bordeaux.          He's being condescending.'                         ALEX          Meaning you're too chickenshit to do          it yourself.                         VICTOR          Maybe I am. All right, I am.                         ALEX          Fuck...          He looks at the ticket.                         ALEX          I don't fly economy.                         64          64 EXT. BOAT - DAY          Jason is standing behind Gabriella, helping her cast. His          arm grazes her breast.                         JASON          You can do anything you want out          here -- you can swim nude, you can          Her laugh cuts him off.                         GABRIELLA          I am not taking my clothes off.                         JASON          (flustered, irritated)          That's not what I meant.                         ONTO          He reels the line out of the water. Gabriella climbs          the rail. She's barefoot. The breeze blows her thin          dress against her legs.                         JASON                         HEY          She dives into the water. He kicks off his shoes, dives          in after her.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              48.                         64                         64 CONTINUED:                          HAS HIS           When they are together, they thetboatÔøΩ,ela ughing           i ng her nkl t           arm under her breasts, pull i o          together.                         JASON          Hey, quit laughin'. I'm saving your          life here.                         65          65 INT. WINE STORE - DAY          The store is closed. Robert has gone home. Alex opens          the cash drawer and takes out all the money, fattens his          wallet. He spies the message from Gabriella. He reads          it, picks up the phone, punches in the number she wrote.                         ALEX          ... May I speak with Gabriella?          Puedo hablar con Gabriella?          (making a face)          No, yo no quiero dejar un mesajo,          gracias. Voy a llamarla mas tarde.          ...Si. Buenas tardes.          He hangs up and speed-dials a number from the typed list          on the wall.                         ALEX          ... Hey, Ted -- it's Alex Gates. I          need a couple of tickets to New York          for tonight, first class.          (his jaw tightens)          Don't sweat the account, I'll pay                         CASH --                         66          66 EXT. BOAT - DAY          Jason is sprawled half across Gabriella on the deck of the-          boat, a seat cushion under her head. He has his hand in          her panties. She clutches his wrist and pulls his hand          back into sight. He lifts his head to look at her.                         GABRIELLA                         (SOFTLY)          I can't.          He sits up, offended.                         JASON          You waited long enough to tell me.          Gabriella arranges her clothes.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               49.                          66                         66 CONTINUED:                         GABRIELLA                         (FLARING)          Because it felt good, and I'm an          idiot!          He fondly touches her face with the back of his hand.                         JASON          No, you're not.          She scrambles to her feet.                         GABRIELLA          I want to go back now. Can we go          back, please?                         JASON          ... Sure.          He stands up and moves to the helm, his legs stiff with          injured dignity.          Gabriella sits down on the bench, the cushion clutched in          front of her.          Jason sneaks a look back at her. With her hair wet and          her makeup washed away, she looks younger than he does.          She's resting her chin on the edge of the cushion.          He switches on the engine and eases the boat forward over          the anchor, engages the power winch. The CHAIN starts to          CLANK.                         JASON          I'm sorry.          She turns her head toward him.                         GABRIELLA          What?                         JASON                         (LOUDER)          I'm sorry!                         GABRIELLA          Me, too.                         67          67 EXT. MIAMI RIVER - DUSK          A bridge has parted. Underneath, the boat makes its way          on the opalescent water.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              50.                         67                         67 CONTINUED:          Skyscrapers swagger down either side of the river, their          windows bright squares against the darkening sky. The          signal BELL SOUNDS.                         68          68 INT. GABRIELLA'S COUSIN'S HOUSE - NIGHT          The dinner hour. The table in the mean little house is          too crowded and too noisy; the television on the buffet          can hardly be heard. Gabriella's Cousin and her Husband          are arguing in Spanish, in a good-natured marital way, the          Kids too busy teasing each other to notice. One Kid gets          up to raise the volume on the TV set even louder.          Gabriella carries her plate into the kitchen to escape the          noise. The Husband makes a gesture to his Wife that says          Gabriella's snooty.                         69          69 INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT          Gabriella stands at the counter, listlessly finishing her          dinner. The PHONE RINGS. She answers it.                         GABRIETMA                         HELLO --                         70          70 INT. CADILLAC - NIGHT          Alex talks into the visor speaker-                         ALEX          I got your note. Fuck the          Reeses. We're taking a trip, honey.          Pack a bag. I'll pick you up in an          hour.                         71          71 INT. COUSIN'S HOUSE - NIGHT          The tension drains from her face; rescued.                         GABRIELLA          Where are we going?          ALEX (V.O.)          Does it matter?          GABRIET‚Ä¢T.A                         (LAUGHING)          Not Anywhere you are, I want to be          there.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              51.                         71 CONTINUED: 71          ALEX (V.O.)          Ohio.                         GABRIELLA          Sure.          ALEX (V.0.)          Don't worry, it's not Ohio.          She laughs.          72 INT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT 72          Suzanne turns onto their street, pulls into the garage.          She sees Alex's Cadillac already parked.          73 EXT. CAR - NIGHT 73          She locks her car and walks toward the elevator, carrying          a department store shopping bag. The garage is darker          than she likes. Her HEELS ECHO against the cement walls.          She walks a little faster.          74 INT. CONDO - NIGHT 74          Suzanne lets herself in. Alex didn't set the alarm. She          sets the bag on the couch, next to his jacket. She's been          a wife too long not to tidy up after him. She picks up          the jacket to brush it and hang it correctly, and glimpses          the airline tickets tucked in the inside pocket. Suzanne          smiles, moved. The tickets to Rio. She takes a peek to          see the dates. Her face changes. She drops the jacket in          a heap on the floor. She hears ALEX MOVING around in the          bedroom above and starts up the stairs, her rage climbing          with every riser. She can hear him HUMMING.          75 INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT 75          Alex zips his passport into an outside compartment where          he can reach it. He has almost finished packing. As he          reaches for his underwear, he startles. Suzanne is          leaning against the door frame.                         SUZANNE                         (CONTROLLED)          Where are you going?          Alex recovers quickly.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              52.                         75 CONTINUED: 75                         ALEX          Napa. I got a problem with a          supplier. Boutique wineries --          they're all owned by ex-lawyers.                         SUZANNE          Via New York?          She holds up the tickets.                         ALEX          I need to see the wholesaler.                         SUZANNE          You're amazing, you really are. Now          how are you going to explain 'Miss          Vasquez?'                         ALEX          Honey, I don't have to. I will, out          of courtesy. It's Mrs., and she's          fifty years old, Suzanne. She's the          agent.                         SUZANNE          God, I could even believe you, if I          wanted to.                         ALEX                         (HARDER)          I don't want to fight with you on my          way out the door. I don't have time          for this.          Yanking the tickets out of her hand before she can react,          he pushes past her with his bag. She follows him down the          stairs.                         SUZANNE          I put Terry's life insurance money          into that store -- and you spend it          on your goddamn girlfriends while my          checks bounce.          Alex whirls around at the bottom of the stairs.                         ALEX          I worked my ass off for you with          that store. Eight years of twelve-          hour days and one-day weekends! So          don't tell me I haven't treated you          well.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              53.                         75 CONTINUED: (2) 75          He picks his jacket up off the floor and shrugs it on.          Suzanne snatches his car keys off the coffee table.          Infuriated, he grabs for his keys, but she holds them away          behind her back.                         SUZANNE          -- You're going to talk to me!                         ALEX          When I get back.                         SUZANNE          With more of your fucking lies! I          hate you! Wasting my          (slapping at his arm          with her free hand)          -- life!                         ALEX          Sssh, calm down --          She tries to slap him again, but he gets hold of her hand.                         ALEX          -- Give me my keys, I need my keys.          I don't want to hurt you.                         SUZANNE          That's all you ever do!          He twists her hand up behind her back, forcing her onto          the sofa.                         SUZANNE          Go to hell!          He smothers her into the cushion and twists her hand up          and up. She grips his keys tighter.                         ALEX          (breathless from the                         STRUGGLE)          Open your hand, Suzanne.          Pinning her down, he painfully pries open her fingers.          She drives her elbow into his face.                         SUZANNE          You sonofabitch!          He hits her back, her nose starts to gush, the keys drop          to the-floor. He bends to pick them up. Suzanne seizes          a standing metal ashtray and savagely swipes him across          the temple.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               54.                          75                         75 CONTINUED: (3)          The blow sends him sprawling to the floor; he doesn't          move. She is stunned by what she has done. In a panic          she races up the stairs, the heel of her hand to her nose          to staunch the bleeding.                         76          76 INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT          Suzanne spills everything out of Alex's suitcase and          starts throwing in her own clothes, blood-spotting them in          her haste.                         77          77 INT. JASON'S BEDROOM - NIGHT          Suzanne jerks out his drawers so fast that she dumps them          on the floor. She pulls his suit out of the closet along          with an armful of other clothes.          78 INT. CONDO, STAIRS - NIGHT 78          Suzanne drags two suitcases clattering down the stairs.                         ALEX          hasn't moved. Suzanne drops to her knees beside him and          squeamishly lifts his wallet out of his pocket, snatches          the cash, lets the wallet fall back beside him. Her          breathing is so rapid and shallow it sounds like whimpers.          79 EXT. CONDO - NIGHT 79          Suzanne backs out the door pulling the suitcases, right          into Jason. She cries out in fright.                         JASON          -- Hey, hey.                         SUZANNE                         (FRANTIC)          -- Don't go in therel We're                         LEAVINGS          He sees the blood smeared all over her face, her clothe:,,          and charges past her.                         SUZANNE                         - JA-SONII                                                                                                              55.          80 INT. CONDO - NIGHT 80          Ready to kill, Jason is shocked to see the job apparently          already done for him. He bends over Alex to see if he's          dead, and is equally sorry and relieved to find out he          isn't.          SUZANNE (O.S.)          I won't wait for you!          Jason takes the stairs two at a time.          81 INT. JASON'S ROOM - NIGHT 81          He yanks his map of the Gulf off the wall and grabs his          fishing gear.          82 INT. CONDO, DOWNSTAIRS - NIGHT 82          Alex's unconscious body blocks the closet. door. Jason          tries to open it anyway, but Alex is 'too heavy. Seizing          hold of him, Jason drags him away from the door. The          jewelry pouch spills out of Alex's pocket. Jason doesn't          see it. The HORN BLARES, outside. Jason pulls his rod out          of the closet. As he steps over Alex, he spots the pouch,          the drawstring loose enough to let the necklace protrude.          The HORN BLASTS again. Jason swoops up the pouch.          83 EXT. CONDO.- NIGHT 83          Jason runs for the car with his gear and climbs in.          Suzanne peels away before the door is completely closed.          84 INT. CAR - NIGHT (TRAVELING) - 84          Jason and Suzanne. She can't look at him. She          concentrates on her driving.                         JASON          What the hell happened in there?                         SUZANNE          Is he dead?                         JASON          Not enough. What'd you hit him          with?                         SUZANNE          -+ The ashtray.                         (MORE)                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               56.                          84                         84 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE (CONT'D)          (a laugh bubbles out of                         HER)          Jesus, an ashtray.                         (LAUGHING HARDER)          He-doesn't even smoke!          On the verge of hysteria, she's laughing so hard, she can          hardly drive. Tears run down her face, muddying the dried          blood; she's a holy mess.                         JASON          Pull over, pull over.          He wrenches the wheel and steers the car to the curb.                         JASON          I'm driving.                         85          85 EXT. CAR - NIGHT          He gets out and lopes around the car to the driver's side.          The car recedes down the highway.                         86          86 EXT. GABRIELLA'S COUSIN'S HOUSE - NIGHT          Gabriella is sitting on the front step with her suitcase,          waiting. She rubs her legs as though she has been there          a long time. The DOGS are BARKING inside.                         87          87 INT. CONDO - NIGHT           The PHONE is RINGING. Alex still hasn't moved.                          88          88 EXT. GAS STATION - NIGHT          Jason is waiting behind the wheel.          Suzanne gets back in the car. She has pulled a cotton          sweater over her bloody clothes and washed her face.          She's presentable again, and subdued. He starts the          car...          89 INT. CAR - NIGHT (TRAVELING) 89          . drives.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               57.                          89                         89 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE          Did you figure out where we're          going?                         JASON          We'll head for the Gulf, see what we          like.          He sounds like her contemporary, not her kid.                         SUZANNE          . I remember your dad saying the          sand was as white as the whites of          God's eyes, on the Gulf.                         JASON          Do you still miss him?          Slowly she shakes her head no.                         SUZANNE          I can't see his face anymore. I          can't hear his voice.                         (DREAMILY)          -- But when you come home from          fishing -- with the sea and the salt          and the engine oil? It's like he's          walking through the door. I love          that smell -- I can still smell him.          She watches the highway posts clack past.          90 INT. CONDO, KITCHEN - NIGHT 90          Victor is soaking a dishtowel under the faucet. He wrings          it out.                         VICTOR          Mugged-by your wife. How ironic.          91 INT. CONDO, LIVING ROOM - NIGHT 91          Victor comes into the room with the wet towel and throws          it at Alex, who is sitting now on the couch. Alex catch:s          it, holds it to his bloody head.                         ALEX          I'll fucking kill her.                         VICTOR          When do the Reeses come home?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              58.                         91 CONTINUED: 91                         ALEX          Not for a month. Plenty of time.          Victor sighs.                         VICTOR          How long a drive is it?                         ALEX          To the Gulf? Three hours.          He removes the towel from his head.                         VICTOR          You're going to need stitches. Do          you have a sewing kit?                         ALEX          I'll stop at my doctor's.                         VICTOR          I darned my own socks in prison.          92 EXT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY 92          Suzanne and Jason cross the parking lot toward the coffee          shop, which anchors a suburban surface mall. He notices          a jewelry store. They reach the restaurant. He opens the          door for Suzanne.                         JASON          Order something for me, okay? I'm          stiff, I need to walk around.          He's already walking away. Concern and exasperation          cancel each other; she goes inside.          93 INT. JEWELRY STORE - DAY 93          Jason approaches the cheerful, elderly JEWELER repairing          an earring behind the case. The man puts away his smile.          Jason's long hair and leather jacket offend him.                         JASON          My grandmother asked me to bring in          a necklace of hers --          Jason takes the velvet pouch out of his pocket, unlaces          it, spreads out the necklace on the counter. He leans          forward on his elbows while the jeweler examines it with          a loupe. When the jeweler looks up, he's angry.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              59.                         93 CONTINUED: 93                         JEWELER          Your grandmother lets you carry          around a million dollars worth of          jewelry? Go put it back where you          found it.          The jeweler pours the necklace back in the pouch, cinches          it closed, slaps it on top of the case.                         JASON          -- Those aren't real diamonds.                         JEWELER          Tell your grandmother to bring it          in.          The jeweler BUZZES the door to release it. Jason grabs          the velvet pouch, strides out.          94 INT. RESTAURANT - DAY 94          The WAITRESS unloads plate after plate on the table where          Suzanne is waiting for Jason.                         WAITRESS          -- pan san, strawberry waffle, eggs          over, side of wheat toast, ham          steak, hash browns, fruit cup, two          O.J.'s,, coffee, milk --                         SUZANNE'          -- Extra syrup?          Jason returns.                         JASON          We'll starve.          The waitress laughs as she strolls away.                         SUZANNE          I'm hungry.          He's worried about the jeweler.                         JASON          Let's pack it up, picnic on the          beach someplace.                         SUZANNE          (with a grin)          What a romantic.                                                                                                              60.          95 EXT. CAR - DAY 95          As Jason and Suzanne reach the car, he sees the jeweler on          the sidewalk now, outside the store, gesticulating to a          sign painter.                         JASON                         MOM --          He wants to tell her he took the necklace.                         SUZANNE                         (BREEZILY)          -- No, 1111 drive.          The jeweler happens to glance in their direction. Jason          ducks into the car, unnoticed.          96 EXT. PIER - DAY 96          Jason and Suzanne are sitting on a small, rickety pier,          eating from the takeout boxes open on their laps.                         SUZANNE          -- I feel... exhilarated.                         JASON          Adrenalin does that.                         SUZANNE          -- It ain't adrenalin, it's freedom.          And she slips her wedding ring off her finger and hurls it          overhand as far as she can. It drops into the sea.                         SUZANNE                         (EXULTANT)          I don't want one goddamn thing of                         HISS          She eats with gusto. Jason is staring at the water.                         JASON          I can't believe you did that.          97 INT. CAR - LATE DAY (TRAVEL?NG) 97          Suzanne is driving now. She glances over at Jason          sprawled low in the seat.                         SUZANNE          You're quiet.          She doesn't think he's going to answer her.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                                             97                         97 CONTINUED:                         JASON          I didn't even say goodbye.                         SUZANNE          It'll work itself out. People          manage. We're here. This is what          you always wanted.                         JASON          -- How much money do we have?          Suzanne doesn't reply.          98 EXT. MOTEL - LATE DAY 98          At the reception window Suzanne is checking in with the          MOTEL OWNER, a solidly-built, ruddy woman in her fifties          who shouldn't wear sleeveless blouses. Suzanne has her          wallet open. Her fingers hesitate at the credit card.                         OWNER          There's a cash discount. Ten          percent.                         SUZANNE                         (SMILING)          Sounds like cash.          She starts to count it out.          99 EXT. MOTEL POOL - LATE DAY 99          Ensconced at a table under an umbrella, Jason is writing          on a paper towel.          JASON (V.O.)          Dear Gabriella. I don't know if          you'll get this letter. I don't          know if I'll send it. All I know is          that for some reason I need to write          it...          SUZANNE AND THE OWNER          cross the parking lot.                         SUZANNE                         (CALLING)          Jase!          He crumples the paper towel. She holds up the keys for          him to see.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              62.                         99 CONTINUED: 99                         OWNER                         (ENVIOUSLY)          I should have given you the king-          size.          Suzanne isn't offended.                         SUZANNE          He's my son.          The owner gives her a startled glance.                         OWNER          You look great!          Suzanne laughs.          100 EXT. MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT 100          Jason is sitting on the lawn chair outside the room door,          working on his letter again under the yellow bug light.          The Coke MACHINE HUMS noisily next to him.          JASON (V.0.)          That day on the boat made me realize          I understand the sea better than I          do the world.          101 INT. MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT 101          Suzanne stirs awake, disoriented, spooked.                         SUZANNE          Jason?          She sits up in bed. Jason comes in from outside.                         JASON          I'm right here.          Suzanne shoves her fingers through her damp hair, swallows          to clear her voice.                         SUZANNE          ... I dreamed I was in jail. You'd          come to see me, you were on the          other side of the plastic -- like at          the bank?. And you were talking, but          I couldn't hear you. I put my ear          to the holes and I couldn't hear          you, but your mouth was moving.                         (MORE)                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               63.                          101                         101 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE (CONT'D)          And then I realized you couldn't          talk anymore. He'd cut your vocal          cords, like that dog next door.                         JASON          What dog?          She lies down again.                         SUZANNE-          When you were a kid?                         JASON                         (GENTLY)          -- I'm on watch. Don't worry.                         102          102 EXT. CAR - DAY          The. car speeds north. Alongside, the Gulf shimmers under          the mirror of the sky.          JASON (V.O.)          -- I know what lure to use to catch          any fish in the water, but what's          the lure for a woman? Truth? Lies?          103 INT. ANOTHER MOTEL - DAY 103          A tint combed through her hair, the plastic cap tied in a          rakish bow, Suzanne lays out what remains of her cash by          denomination. She records the amount in a pocket notebook          she's using as a ledger.          JASON (V.0.)          One morning, just as the sky started          to lighten --          104 EXT. PIER - DAY 104          Jason is fishing.          JASON (V.0.)          -- I caught a fish that had three          hooks grown through his lips. Three          times he'd gotten away. He kept          taking the hook.                                                                                                              64.          105 EXT. PIER - DAY (LATER) 105          Jason is gutting and skinning his catch.          JASON (V.0.)          It occurs to me that you're the          fisherman, not me. I can feel the          tension of the line. I've taken the          hook just like he did.                         CUT TO:          A MAP OF THE GULF 106          Coastal towns have been crossed out, one after the other.          107 INT. MOTEL ROOM - DAY 107          Alex, stitches in his head, pores over the map while          Victor talks on the phone. He circles a new town on the          Gulf, farther north.                         VICTOR          -- eight-faceted cut... quite          unique... could be the whole piece          or individual stones, preference for          the whole piece. Will you put out          the word?...                         (LAUGHING)          No, I'm consulting for the          insurance company, isn't life          strange? -- Love and kisses.          He hangs up. His cheeriness vanishes. He coughs, more          like a gag, and heads for the bathroom.          108 INT. BATHROOM - DAY 108          Victor spits blood in the sink. Then, after catching his          breath, squirts medicine down his throat with his inhaler,          exits.          109 INT. MOTEL ROOM - DAY 109                         VICTOR          I've called the whole network of          fences from here to Tampa.                         ALEX          Let's hope we'll find her before she          sells.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              65.                         109 CONTINUED: 109          Victor picks up a chair and smacks it down.                         ALEX          Hey! What's wrong?                         VICTOR          This is not a water-view suite in          Marbella! Did you notice? There's          no fruit and champagne from the          management. I don't see Swiss          chocolate on the pillows. My          masseuse is not at the door. And I          am fucking dying, Alex!                         ALEX                         (SHOCKED)          Jesus. Victor.                         VICTOR          I don't intend to cough to death in          a county clinic because you screwed          up!                         ALEX                         (QUIETLY)          That's not fair. The plan was for          you to move the necklace. I          wouldn't have had the goddamn thing.          Come on... sit down... try to relax.          He reaches for victor's cigarettes and crumples the          package in his fist. Victor looks at his ruined smokes.                         VICTOR          I'm not good at giving up things.          110 ‚Ä¢ INT. DOCKSIDE RESTAURANT - DAY 110          Jason eats a sandwich at a'table, working on his letter.          JASON (V.0.)          I want to take you out with me when          the wind's blowing whitecaps and the          current's running against the wind,          just to hear your hair slap against          your skin. When will I see you?          He glances up.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               66.                          110                         110 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE          her hair a better, brighter color under her chef's hat, is          cooking on the grill behind the counter, kidding the          customers, enjoying herself. The greasy-aproned OWNER          pats her rump as he goes by, not for the first time.                         SUZANNE          Long arms, short dick, they always          say.          One of the Fishermen guffaws. The owner looks pissed. So          does Jason who witnessed it all.                         OWNER          (aside; to Suzanne)          Can I see you in the office after          lunch, please?                         SUZANNE                         (NOT INTIMIDATED)          About what?          111 INT. MOTEL - DAY 111          Suzanne luxuriates in a. bubble bath, a glass of wine in          her hand, the bottle next to the tub. She's talking to          Jason through the closed door.                         SUZANNE          I was not-fired, you jerk. I quit.          112 INT. MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT 112          Jason is prying a diamond out of the necklace with his          fishing knife.          SUZANNE (O.S.)          (with a laugh)          For about a minute it was very          satisfying.                         JASON          (concentrating on the                         WORK)          You did the right thing.          113 EXT. SECOND JEWELRY STORE - DAY 113           Jason has put on his suit, changed his looks. He sizes up          the store.                                                                                                              67.          114 INT. STORE - DAY 114          Jason scans the case as he approaches the JEWELER.          JEWELER.          Help you?                         JASON          Do you buy estate diamonds?                         JEWELER          Sure.          Jason takes out a zip-lock bag and lays it on the counter,          one of the diamonds inside. The jeweler takes it out with          respect and holds it under his loupe. If Jason's nervous,          it doesn't show.                         JASON          It belonged to my mother.          The jeweler's heard every version. He doesn't care.                         JEWELER -          .Price is the same. I can give you          eighty-five hundred.          115 EXT. BEACH - DAY 115          The classified section already folded and marked beside          her, Suzanne has propped herself on her elbows. She's          looking out to sea. Talking heads bob like buoys, the          waders. She notices, some distance away, a man in a suit          walking along the beach. The image amuses her. He's          moving in her direction. She finally recognizes Jason and          raises her hand.                         SUZANNE                         (CALLING OUT)          Hey, sailor...          She puts on her hat to cut the glare. From under the brim          she admires his approach.                         SUZANNE          (as he reaches her)          ... Look at you. What's the          occasion?          Jason squats down beside her and balls up the classifieds.                         JASON          You don't need another grab-ass job.          I been out talking to peoplel                         (MORE)                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               68.                          115                         115 CONTINUED:                         JASON (CONT'D)          There's charter outfits a coupla          towns up the coast. (NAMES OF          TOWNS). They need skippers, they          need crews.          She stands up, brushes off the sand, rolls up her towel.                         SUZANNE          So we're packing.          They start walking together. From the water a MAN calls          out to Suzanne.                         MAN          Hey, I thought you were coming back          in.          She smiles and waves goodbye.                         SUZANNE          ... Too bad. I kinda liked that                         GUY-          She and Jason keep walking. He no longer looks like a          boy.                         116          116 INT. BAR - NIGHT          Alex is smelling his brandy in a booth. He looks          defeated. Victor swings onto a bar stool. He takes out          a wallet photo of Suzanne and Jason and passes it across          to the BARTENDER.                         VICTOR          Seen them, by any chance?                         BARTENDER          Why are you asking?                         VICTOR          My wife and son. He's been selling          fish around these parts.          He's totally believable. The bartender feels for his pain          and takes another look at the photo, shakes his head no.                         BARTENDER          She's a little classier than our          usual clientele, y'know?                         VICTOR          Maybe you could pass it down anyway.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               69.                          116                         116 CONTINUED:          The bartender takes the photo.                         BARTENDER          Sure, man.                         VICTOR          joins Alex in the booth. Victor raises his hand. Alex          instinctively pulls his head back.                         VICTOR          Don't move.          He leans across the table and plucks the last stitch out          of Alex's wound. Alex winces.                         VICTOR          It's been irritating me all day.          Did I hurt you?          Threat implied. Alex stares him down.          MALE VOICE (O.S.)          Hey, I know this kid --          Alex and victor glance over to the bar and see Henry.          He's looking at the photo Victor passed around.                         HENRY          Hunches a catch like a depth finder.          Victor is already out of the booth.          VICTOR AND HENRY          Henry senses money to be made.                         HENRY          Who are you?                         VICTOR          His father.                         HENRY          I thought his father was dead.          (shaking his head)          Well, you look bad all right, but          not dead.                         VICTOR                         (DEFENSIVELY)          Hungover, that's all. I'm his          stepfather.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               70.                          116                         116 CONTINUED: (2)                         HENRY          (with a chuckle)          Oh, man, now I see why he blew town.          victor's insulted enough to lose his patience and his          poise.                         VICTOR          The question before us is where did          he go.          Henry says nothing. He wants to be paid. Victor whips          out a fifty-dollar bill from his top pocket. Henry          reaches for it, but victor holds it back, wanting an          answer first.                         HENRY          He wouldn't be on the Gulf. He          hated the Gulf.          Alex has moved up to the bar to listen behind him,          unnoticed. He shakes his head at victor.                         HENRY          He's down in the Keys somewhere.          Victor puts the fifty back in his own pocket. Henry          stands aggressively.                         HENRY          That ain't cool in my book!          In a swift, unexpected move, victor jams Henry back down          on his bar stool. The bartender starts toward them. Alex          slips out the door. The stool and Henry are toppling          over. Victor catches them both, sets Henry upright.                         VICTOR                         (EVENLY)          Now sit there,. and calm down.          Victor is ill, but not weak. Henry looks away, the          classic signal of submission.                         VICTOR          Thank you.                         117          117 EXT. BAR - NIGHT.          Alex is waiting for victor outside.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               71.                          117                         117 CONTINUED:                         ALEX                         (PLEASED)          They can't be too far.          Victor stares at him.                         VICTOR          I never understand your optimism.                         ALEX          Or he wouldn't have lied.          HENRY (O.S.)          Hey, mister!                         ALEX                         (TO VICTOR)          I think you made a friend.          Victor turns around, Alex keeps walking.                         HENRY          is in the doorway to the bar.                         HENRY          What's it to you if I see the kid?          Victor smiles.          118 EXT. DRYDOCK - LONG SHOT - DAY 118           From a distance we see Jason follow a beefy, jeans-wearing           salesman into the building.          119 ' INT. DRYDOCK - LONG SHOT - DAY 119          The Salesman walks Jason past the vertical rows of boats,          stacked from ceiling to floor, extolling the virtues of          his stock. Jason inspects a modest boat, takes out cash.          120 EXT. GULF - BOAT - DAY 120          Jason is helming a classic wooden fishing boat, THE          HERCULES II, old and not too big, but with good lines.          He's purely happy.                                                                                                               72.                          121          121 EXT. WATER - DAY          Jason steers toward the beach and drops anchor. There's          a cabin among the palmettos. No car.                         122          122 INT. CABIN - DAY          Jason comes into the cabin.                         JASON          (just to be sure)          Mom?          The cabin is silent. He uses his fishing knife to pop          loose a section of the cheap wall paneling. Behind it, a          square of sheet rock has been sliced away between the          studs to accommodate the pouch. He drops the pouch in his          tackle box. A CAR is heard pulling up. Jason frantically          starts to jam the paneling back in place. It won't hold.                         123          123 EXT. CABIN - DAY          Suzanne takes a flat of geraniums out of the trunk and          sets them on the porch. She opens the door.                         124          124 INT. CABIN - DAY          Just as Suzanne steps through the screen door, Jason sees          that his tackle box is open, the velvet pouch in plain          sight. He kicks the top closed, bends to lock it.                         SUZANNE                         (CASUALLY)          They'll think you stole it.          He looks up at her, caught. She's walking toward the          kitchen sink to wash the nursery dirt off her hands. She          looks out the window at the boat again.                         SUZANNE          Nice boat.          (over her shoulder)          Are you allowed just to run around          with it?          'His tension ebbs. He picks up his tackle box.                         JASON          I forgot my tackle box.                         SUZANNE          -- Don't take advantage, Jason.          They trusted you with the job.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               73.                          124                         124 CONTINUED:           He kisses her quickly.                          JASON           It's not a problem.           He escapes out the door.                          125          125 INT. MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT          Alex is sitting on the bed, dialing a number. He can see          Victor shirtless in the bathroom. (His scars surprise          us). Victor is trying with effort to suppress a cough.                         126          126 INT. CONDO, KITCHEN - NIGHT          Gabriella is cooking herself dinner.                         GABRIELLA          Hello?          She's greedily grateful to hear Alex's voice.                         GABRIELLA          -- Hi! I saw on the news there's          rain in San Francisco. Are you wet          and miserable?                         127          127 INT. MOTEL - NIGHT          Exhausted, Alex stretches out on the bed to talk to her.                         ALEX          Napa's farther north.          Victor comes out of the bathroom. He's waiting for news.          128 INT. CONDO - NIGHT 128          She leans on the counter, flirting with his voice.                         GABRIELLA          Tell me you love me.          ALEX (V.0.)          I love you.          Her smile vanishes.                         GABRIELLA          Who just laughed?                                                                                                              74.                         129          129 INT. MOTEL - NIGHT          Alex holds the phone out to Victor.                         ALEX          She wants to talk to you.                         VICTOR          Oh, please. Why?                         ALEX          Just fucking say hello, okay?          Victor takes the phone.                         VICTOR          Hello, dear.          Alex snatches the phone back from him.                         ALEX          Happy? Satisfied? I'm working.          130 INT. CONDO - NIGHT 130          His harsh tone unsettles her.                         GABRIELLA          I miss you.          ALEX (V.O.)          Are there any messages?          She carries the phone to the counter where she keeps mail          and any messages and starts to leaf through the stack.          Her eye falls on a crumpled light blue envelope; she moves          it out from the pile. It has been forwarded several          times. And it's addressed to her.                         GABRIELLA          It's lonely here.          There's no return address. She slits it open with her          thumbnail. A trickle of sand falls out.          ALEX (V.O.)          What about the messages?                         GABRIELLA          I'm looking!          Instead, she opens the letter.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               75.                          130                         130 CONTINUED:          JASON (V..O.-)`          Dear Gabriella. I've started this          letter a dozen times --          ALEX (V..0. )          Gabby?          She puts down the letter and quickly- finds the message          memo.                         GABRIELLA          Here it is. Mr. Raines called from          (NAME OF TOWN). He said you-Id know          what it was about. Do you,- need the          number?          131 INT. MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT 131          Sitting up, Alex signals success to Victor and writes down          the number.                         ALEX          Thanks, honey. I'll call-you          tomorrow. G'd'night .          He hangs up, excited. Victor has already started to pack.                         ALEX                         (TO VICTOR)          And you had no faith..                         VICTOR          I'll save the party hats until it's          in our hands.          132 INT. CONDO - NIGHT 132          Gabriella is reading the second page of Jason's letter.          JASON (V.0.)          I look out at the flat blue sea, and          the darker bl ue where the Gulf          deepens and I want you next to me.          ‚Ä¢I want to walk across the. sugar sand          and wade into the water with you          until the current lifts us and          floats us, nothing weighting us down --          as'light and thoughtless as fish.          Will I ever see you?... Love,:          Jason.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              76.                         132                         132 CONTINUED:          She's deeply moved. And it occurs to her that she has          picked the wrong man.                         133          133 EXT. VICTOR'S CAR - DAY                         NEAR THE          Modest, nondescript. Victor parallel parks          jewelry store with his usual careful manner.                         134          134 INT. CAR - DAY          Victor and Alex kid each other without rancor for the          moment.                         ALEX -          I miss the Cadillac. Top down. Air          on.                         VICTOR                         (LAUGHING)          You have pimp's tastes, Alex. At          least my car's inconspicuous.          Alex starts to get out. Victor doesn't.                         ALEX          You all right?                         VICTOR          A lot of these jewelers might know          my face. It's risky.                         ALEX          How about for me?          Victor takes out the photo of Alex with the necklace and          holds it up for him.                         VICTOR          Nobody's seen this yet.                         ALEX          You're sick. I'll do it.          Alex throws open the door and barrels out of the car.                          ¬Ä¢ 135          135 INT. JEWELRY STORE - DAY          The jeweler who bought the diamond from Jason lays it on          a velvet pad for Alex, who's posing as the insurance          investigator.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              77.                         135                         135 CONTINUED:                         JEWELER          (with a shrug)          Said it was his mother's.                         ALEX          A seventeen-year-old kid waltzes in          with a diamond as big as your          toenail, and you don't wonder?? You          shouldn't have touched iti You know          that! All right, okay. When we          recover the rest of the necklace,          I'll be back. Do not, do not sell          it. I'll see what I can do for you,          Raines.                         JEWELER          i appreciate that.                         136          136 INT. BAR - DAY          Victor and Alex are having a beer near the wide-screen TV.          A game is on.                         ALEX          Smart lady. She lets Jason make the          sale. They get caught, he's          underage, and she don't know a          thing. I gotta give her credit.                         VICTOR          You have interesting taste in women.          Alex's gaze wanders to the game, but he can't get          interested.                         137          137 EXT. VICTOR'S CAR - DAY          It barrels up the highway, passing the same landmarks          Suzanne and Jason did.                         138          138 INT. CAR - DAY (TRAVELING)          Victor is driving, Alex reading the map. He circles a          town name. Victor cranes to see it.                         139          139 EXT. DOCKS - LATE DAY          A storm is blowing in, and Jason walks quickly along the          docks to his boat and swings aboard.                                                                                                               78.                          140          140 EXT. BOAT - LATE DAY          The waves have already started to slap against the sides          of the boat. Jason tosses over his fenders and secures          them to protect the boat from the pilings. He starts          toward the cabin. The lock has been popped. The door is          slightly ajar. He hears a NOISE inside. He draws his          knife.                         141          141 INT. CABIN - LATE DAY          Jason throws open the door. A figure is bent over in the          galley. It turns, and by the light of the refrigerator          Jason recognizes Henry.                         JASON          Jesus, Henry... What the hell you          doing?... How'd you know this was my          boat??                         HENRY          I saw you cast off. Good little          sport boat you got, too. Oh, whoa --          hear that?                         JASON                         (PARANOID)          Where -- what??          Henry rubs his stomach.                         HENRY          Right here, man. I ain't been          eating my share since my fishing          partner ran off. Without so much as          goodbye/good luck.          Jason blows out a breath.                         JASON          It's complicated.                         HENRY                         (NODDING)          Always is.          The boat is rockirg now. The WIND has picked up. They          hear the CLANKING and RUBBING of the other boats. Jason          starts checking all the hasps and latches while Henry eats          the sandwich he made.                         JASON          So why are you on the Gulf?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              79.                         141                         141 CONTINUED:                         HENRY          My baby finally sank on me. Right          at the dock. I thought I'd work          charter for awhile.          (moving to help Jason          with the latches)          -- Need a crew?                         JASON          I don't know. Maybe.                         HENRY          That's not why I came looking for          you.          Jason is checking the engine. Out of Henry's sight, he          surreptitiously reaches inside a hidden compartment.                         HIS HAND          wraps around the concealed pouch and withdraws, reassured.                         JASON          secures the engine hatch.                         HENRY          A guy offered me fifty bucks to tell          him where you were. Sick old          motherfucker. Big as God. Tried to          say he was your stepfather.                         JASON                         (CAREFULLY)          Maybe it was.                         HENRY          No, no, no, no -- this guy was not          any kind of family man, if you know          what I mean. So you're in some deep          shit, because he wasn't a cop          neither.                         JASON          -- What'd you tell him?          Henry chuckles.                         HENRY          Lots of ways to make fifty bucks.          Misunderstanding, Jason shoves him up against the counter.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               80.                          141                         141 CONTINUED: (2)                         JASON          You gonna lean on me, Henry?? Is          that the plan?          Henry is hurt and offended.                         HENRY                         (WITH DIGNITY)          No, man, I wouldn't stoop that low.          And if I'd taken the fifty, I          wouldn't have to be eating your          shitbag sandwich neither.          Jason steps back, ashamed of himself. He sits down to          recover. Henry looks at him with a friend's concern.                         HENRY          You -- um -- you moving contraband,          Jason?          Jason shakes his head no.                         HENRY          This guy struck me as a serious          problem.          A few raindrops spatter the windows. Jason makes for the          cabin door.                         JASON          Take care of the boat?                         HENRY          (with a grateful smile)          Not likely to sink two of 'em.                         142          142 EXT. DOCKS - DUSK          Jason lopes along the quay, toward the businesses at the          far end. The sky is about to open.                         143          143 INT. FISH MARKET - DUSK          Working behind the counter, Suzanne leans on her elbows,          chatting up a customer. Jason comes through the back          door. She turns.                         JASON          -- Mom, come on.          He catches her hand and tows her toward the back door.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               81.                          143                         143 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE                         (ALARMED)          What's wrong, what's happened?                         JASON          We"gotta go...          She anxiously follows him out the door.                         THE CUSTOMER          leans back to see around the snack rack that blocked our          view of him.          It's Victor. A paper bag under his arm, he goes out the          front door.                         144          144 EXT. FISH MARKET - DUSK           The rain is sheeting down. Cars fishtail slightly on the           grease not yet washed from the streets.                         VICTOR           reaches his car with a long stride; he can't run.                          145          145 INT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT (TRAVELING)          Suzanne is driving. 'Jason has told her. He glances at          her sideways. She takes a long breath. The rain speeds          up. She switches on the wipers.                         SUZANNE          ... I should have gone through his          pockets myself. It didn't occur to          me. I was in such a panic. If I'd          found the necklace, Jason? I'd have          taken it, too.                         146          146 EXT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          She stops at a light.                          147          147 INT. VICTOR'S CAR - NIGHT          Victor and Alex spot Suzanne's car idling at the          intersection. Victor is eating an apple from the bag.                         ALEX          There.                                                                                                               82.                          148          148 INT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          As she accelerates, Suzanne reaches over to pat Jason's          hand.                         JASON          -- I'm sorry.          She glances in the rear view mirror. Headlights.                         SUZANNE          It's okay. I'm the one who hit the          bastard.                         HER POV          A small bridge ahead is almost ready to pivot to let a          boat pass. She stamps down on the gas pedal. The car          rockets forward.                         149          149 INT. VICTOR'S CAR - NIGHT          The bridge gate is lowering. Victor guns the car under          the gate and across the pivoting bridge just as the gap          opens.                         VICTOR          What a thrill.                         THEIR POV          Jason's white face is turned toward them in Suzanne's car.                         ALEX          Easy, easy -- he'll see us.                         VICTOR          It's raining too hard.                         150          150 INT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          Jason looking out the back window sees only the headlights          and rain.                         JASON          Still with us.                         SUZANNE          Maybe it's just a tourist cruising          around with his head up his butt.          Neither of them believes that.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               83.                          150                         150 CONTINUED:                         SUZANNE          ... How about Mexico? The Sea of          Cortez? Your father fished for          marlin there. The biggest catch he          ever had.           sharp left,           She sees a side road coming up. She hangs a           skidding into the turn, traction holding.                          151          151 INT. VICTOR'S CAR - NIGHT          Victor can't make the turn in time.                         ALEX                         TURN1                         VICTOR          Relax. She's not going anywhere.          He brakes and calmly reverses in the rain.                         ALEX          I just need to talk to her.                         VICTOR          Last time you talked, she almost          crushed your skull.                          (TRAVELING) 152          152 INT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          Suzanne is driving fast.                         SUZANNE          Anything?                         JASON                         (CHECKING)          Not a_car in sight.                         SUZANNE          You sure?                         HIS POV          The headlights turn onto the road.                         SUZANNE           hears his silence and looks back herself just as he looks          forward.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              84.                         152                         152 CONTINUED:                         JASON          Mom! Face the road! You're          drifting!          She looks back as now bright headlights light them up. A          truck HORN BLASTS.                         SUZANNE          -- Shit!          She 'spins the wheel to avoid a head-on, but in so doing          she clips the curb and loses control. She throws an arm          across Jason to protect him.           The car rolls onto its top, scraping across the road.                          153          153 EXT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          The upside-down car rips through a fence, slides down off          the road. The engine dies. The only SOUND is the          SPINNING back TIRE and the WINDSHIELD that now caves in.                         154          154 EXT. ROAD - NIGHT          Victor swerves to the side of the road. Alex leaps out of          the car and runs toward the wreck. Victor follows at a          slower pace, opening his umbrella. He's still eating his          apple. He sees a neighboring house light come on in          response to the crash.          AT THE WRECK          Alex is trying to open the jammed door when Victor reaches          him.                         VICTOR          We don't have much time.          Through the window they can see Suzanne and Jason, both          unconscious, limbs entangled, covered in glass. Suzanne          is hemorrhaging from a gash in her side. Her leg twitches          in spasm.          Car headlights pass by on the road.                         ALEX          We need to get some help!                         VICTOR          Already on the way, I'm afraid.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               85.                          154                         154 CONTINUED:          Alex kicks out what remains of the back side window and          slithers into the car. Victor calls in after him.                         VICTOR          Open the trunk, please.           He walks toward the back.                          155          155 INT. CAR - NIGHT          With the car upside-down, Alex has to reach under the seat          to press the trunk release.                         156          156 EXT. CAR - NIGHT          The car is rocked far enough forward on its hood to enable          the trunk to open. The contents cascade onto Victor. He          starts his search, the apple gripped between his teeth.                         157          157 INT. CAR - NIGHT          His own breathing noisy and shallow, Alex brushes the          glass away from Suzanne's face.                         ALEX          -- Oh, Christ...          He lifts her shirt to see how badly she's cut and presses          the heel of his hand against the gash to try to stop the          bleeding. Her blood spurts through his fingers. With his          other hand he pats down her body.                         SUZANNE                         (BARELY CONSCIOUS)          Jase...          Alex checks Jason for her, searching his limp body at the,          same time.                         ALEX          I think he's okay, Suzanne. Just'          tell me where it is.          She can't answer. He opens the glove compartment and          feels inside. He goes through her purse.                         ALEX          Goddammit!          Leaning over the seat, he fumbles with her clothes. He's          trying to make her comfortable.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               86.                          157                         157 CONTINUED:          Then he reaches down her bra, into her panties, searching.          Her voice is faint.                         SUZANNE          Don't...                         ALEX                         (GENTLY)          Sssh, I have to. Don't be scared.          I'm not going to hurt you.                         158          158 EXT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          SIRENS begin to be heard, closing. Victor bends down next          to the car.                         VICTOR          Alex, c'mon, get out of there.                         159          159 INT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT          Alex roars at victor.                         ALEX          She's dying, for chrissake!                         (TO SUZANNE)          Hear the sirens? Help's coming.          Just tell me where it is and let me          get out of your lives.          She whispers something. He leans in close.                         ALEX           What? --          ‚Ä¢ She mumbles something indecipherable. He puts his ear          close to her mouth. The SIRENS are bearing down.                         SUZANNE          (only a breath)          ... Fuck you.          VICTOR (O.S.)          We're out of time, Ale7. You can          stay if you want, but I've left.          160 EXT. SUZANNE'S CAR - NIGHT 160          Alex's feet pop out through the window. He's trying to          shimmy himself backward out of the car, harder than going          in, the principle of a lobster trap.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               87.                          160                         160 CONTINUED:                         ALEX                         HELP MET          Victor grabs his ankles and pulls. Alex starts to          reemerge.                         161          161 INT. VICTOR'S CAR - NIGHT (LATER)          Parked down the road in a row of onlookers, Alex and          Victor watch the fire department, working under portable          lights, pry.Jason and Suzanne out of the car.                         ALEX          ... I didn't mean for this to          happen.                         VICTOR          As soon as they see her license          they'll call you in Miami.          Alex nods. He can't look away from the scene.          FADE TO BLACK.                         162          162 INT.-HOSPITAL ROOM - NIGHT          Jason is semi-conscious. His eyes flutter open for a          second in the dark, then he sinks again.                         163          163 INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY          Jason resurfaces. Alex is half-asleep in the chair, his          bloody clothes changed. The newspaper droops from his          fingers. Jason's voice cracks from disuse.                         JASON          what are you...          He swallows painfully. Alex smiles and gets up from the          chair. He dreads what he has to tell him.                         ALEX          Hey, there... how do you feel?                         JASON          Where's my mother?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              88.                         163                         163 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          (dodging the question)          I flew straight back from Napa when          I heard. You hit your head pretty          hard.          Jason struggles to sit up, his equilibrium not fully          restored.                         JASON          Where's Mom? -- How's Mom?          Alex sits down on the bed with him to break the news.                         ALEX                         (QUIETLY)          I'm sorry, Jason... I'm so sorry.          Jason stares at him. He hasn't absorbed the fact.                         ALEX          She didn't make it as far as the          hospital.          Horror and rage flood Jason's face.                         JASON          N000!          He seizes the empty I.V. stand and hurls it at Alex, who          throws up his arm protectively. Jason tackles Alex under          his guard, smashing him into the metal dresser. Alex's          head snaps backward, cracking the mirror.                         JASON          -- You killed her, you fuckl          Alex tries to hold him, eventually in a forced bear-hug.                         ALEX          -- Don't, don't --                         (CALLING OUT)          I need someone in here!                         JASON                         (WEAKLY)          Let go of me!          Alex holds him close. He collapses in Alex's arms.          An ORDERLY hurries in, followed by a Nurse.                         ORDERLY          We'll take care of him.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               89.                          163                         163 CONTINUED: (2)           Alex hesitates, then goes out.                          164          164 INT. ADMISSIONS OFFICE - DAY          Alex is conferring quietly with a staff member behind the          counter.          165 EXT. SUZANNE'S CABIN - DAY 165          Victor picks the lock. Alex doesn't follow him inside.          166 INT. CABIN - DAY 166          Victor hits every spot where amateurs hide their          treasures.          A SERIES OF CUTS 167          A) Victor's hand lifts the tub drain.          B) Victor feels the back of a dresser.                         VICTOR                         (CALLING OUT)          It'd be nice to have some help.          C) Victor unscrews the trap under the kitchen sink.          D) Et cetera.          168 EXT. CABIN - DAY 168          Alex is sitting on the stairs, staring out at the Gulf.          He gives no indication of having heard Victor.          169 INT. CABIN - DAY 169          Victor lays his cheek along the living room wall to          eyeball it for irregularity. A smile hoists his cheeks.          He pops the paneling loose. His smile collapses. The          niche carved between the'studs is empty. He rests his          head against the wall.                                                                                                              90.                         170          170 INT. HOSPITAL - DAY          Alex walks down the corridor to Jason's room. He taps on          the door. There's no answer. He pushes open the door.          The room is empty, the bed stripped.          Alex barrels out of the room to confront the tired young          DOCTOR he sees walking down the hall.                         ALEX          Where's my son??                         DOCTOR                         (PUZZLED)          I released him this morning.                         ALEX          You let an underage boy with a head          injury walk out of here by himself??                         DOCTOR          It was only a concussion. He's          fine. He said you were in the          lobby.           Nothing to be gained, Alex whirls around and strides away.                          171          171 EXT. ROAD - DAY           Jason is running down the road, his face contorted.                          172          172 EXT. BEACH - DAY          Jason keeps running onto the sand. He kicks off his shoes          and plunges into the water and swims. Swims until he's          exhausted and gasping. He tips his head back in the water          and screams his grief to the pitiless sky.                         173          173 EXT. STREET - NIGHT           A truck pulls over, Jason swings down and waves goodbye.                          174          174 EXT. CONDO - NIGHT          Jason appears, walking down the street. He looks into the          garage. Seeing Alex's Cadillac, he smiles a tight smile.                         175          175 INT. CONDO - NIGHT          Jason unlocks the door and starts turning of f the alarm          before the door is wide enough open to trip the delay.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              91.                         175                         175 CONTINUED:          The lights are off. He closes the door and starts up the          stairs.          IN THE HALLWAY          His hand goes into his pocket as he advances on the master          bedroom. He takes out his knife.                         176          176' INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT          He moves toward the bed.                         JASON          Wake up, Alex. I want to see your          face.          The sheets stir. Jason raises his knife to strike. But          it isn't Alex in the bed, it's Gabriella. She lets out a          strangled scream. He whips the sheet off her with his          other hand. She's naked.                         GABRIELLA          Jason!          (her eyes on his knife)          -- Don't hurt me. Please.                         JASON          Where is he?                         GABRIELLA          He went to get you! He's not coming          back until tomorrow.          She timidly pulls the sheet over her body. Jason yanks it          off her so hard it flaps loose from the corners. He          touches her belly with the length of his knife, the blade          ‚Ä¢ flat to her skin. She freezes.                         JASON          His car's here.                         GABRIELLA          It's been here since he went to          Napa.                         JASON          I keep hearing about Napa. Did you          ever call him there?          She shakes her head.                         JASON          You don't know where he was.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              92.                         176                         176 CONTINUED:          She swallows to clear her voice. Her- eyes haven't left          the knife.          GABRIELLA.          Why would he lie to me?          Ever so lightly Jason's fingertips find her skin.                         JASON          You didn't waste any time,. did you.          You moved right in.          GABRIELLA.          You don't need the knife.. Put. the          knife down.          She knows men and children well enough to demand, not beg.          Jason has almost forgotten he still. has the knife against          her. He lifts it and folds it and puts it away.                         JASON          I'm going to wait for him, and. I'm          going to kill him.          His hand drifts along her body. She doesn't resist.                         GABRIELLA          They'll lock you up.                         JASON          Yeah.                         GABRIELLA          'Away from the sky and the air and          the sea and the current running          against the wind?' That was a very          beautiful letter.          Jason moves onto the bed, on his knees. beside her.                         JASON          Did you show it to him? You two          have a laugh about it?                         GABRIELLA          I never mentioned itl          Jason's hand curves around her throat,. a, caress, a threat.                         JASON          Did you tell him how to find: us-?          Gabriella knocks his hand away from her throat.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               93.                          176                         176 CONTINUED: (2)                         GABRIELLA          Not He wasn't interested, he didn't          care.                         JASON          Sure, he did.                         GABRIELLA          He was glad she left.          Jason lies down alongside her.                         JASON          He had us followed.                         GABRIELLA          W-why?          He shrugs; he doesn't trust her.                         GABRIELLA          How do you know?          She thinks grief has driven him crazy, and he sees that.                         JASON          I'm not crazy.          Gabriella lays her hand over his on the bed, to comfort          him.                         GABRIELLA          ... I'm so very sorry about what          happened to your mother.          His hand skitters away and lights on her ribs.                         JASON          Her loss, your gain.          Furious, Gabriella forgets her caution. She slaps him          hard enough to throw his head sideways. Jason rolls on          top of her and pins her down.                         JASON          Her home, her bed -- her life.          He lowers his mouth to Gabriella's neck. His kiss is          surprisingly gentle. His knee works her legs apart.                         GABRIELLA          . Don't do this for revenge.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               94.                          176                         176 CONTINUED: (3)                         JASON          Let's finish what we started.          Slowly, he kisses her. She lets her mouth respond: a          sweet kiss, in spite of the circumstances.          His fingers scissor her nipple.                         JASON          Just don't tell me that you love me.          He peels off his T-shirt.                         GABRIELLA          (in a whisper)          I love you.          He gives her a hard look. She holds his gaze and pushes          his jeans down until he finally kicks them off and they're          both naked. They begin to make love.                         GABRIELLA          Wait.          Jason doesn't understand. She gently pushes him back.                         GABRIELLA          This way.          She turns on her stomach and guides him back into her.          Jason moves now rapidly.                         GABRIELLA          Slowly.          Her hand on his ass guides the pace. She hasn't had a          young man in a long time.                         GABRIELLA                         (IN SPANISH)          What are you doing to me?                         (IN ENGLISH)          Don't come, not yet.          They move as one, their passion enveloping them.          He makes her come first. Then, when her boay flattens, he          also comes and he's lying on top of her, his face          alongside hers, their breath gentling. Finally, they lie          side.by side.                         GABRIELLA          Will you get me a towel? With warm          water.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               95.                          176                         176 CONTINUED: (4)          He kisses her and gets up. If she didn't love him before,          she does now.                         177          177 INT. THE BATHROOM          While he runs the water to'warm it, he looks at himself          naked in the mirror. His face crumples. He no longer          knows what he's doing.                         178          178 INT. MASTER BEDROOM          He brings the towel back to Gabriella, who wipes herself.          Her mood, too, has sobered.                         GABRIELLA          (after a moment)          Are you going to kill me, too?                         JASON                         (REPELLED)          No!                         GABRIELLA          You'll have to. I'll know. I'll be          a witness. I'll know you planned          it.                         JASON          -- Would you do that?                         GABRIELLA                         (SOFTLY)          I like-you too much to let you kill          him.          Jasonstarts to put on his clothes:                         GABRIELLA          I need him, Jason.                         JASON                         (FURIOUS)          You don't -- you don't!                         GABRIELLA          I'm not going back to Caracas! You          don't know how we live there.          She pulls the pillow in front of her to hide her          nakedness. He touches her shoulder; she shrugs him away.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               96.                          178                         178 CONTINUED:                         GABRIELLA                         (GROWING FRANTIC)          You have to leave now, Jason.                         JASON          What are you talking about? This is          my home. I'm home.          She stares at him. His face is set. She can't persuade          him. Jason thinks of his next step, a plan.                         GABRIELLA                         (COLDLY)          This is not your room, though, is          it.          Jason starts toward the door.                         JASON          You're never going to marry him,          Gabriella.                         GABRIELLA          Watch me.          He closes the door with a solid CLICK. She starts to cry,          and still crying, she pulls the sheets off the bed, she          has to change the sheets.                         179          179 INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT           Jason leans against the wall, his eyes squeezed shut,           listening to her CRY.                          180          180 EXT. CONDO - DAY           Alex carries his suitcase toward the condo.                          181          181 EXT. CONDO DOOR - DAY           Alex puts his key in the lock, opens the door.                          ALEX           (as he goes in)           Gabby?                         182          182 INT. CONDO - DAY          Alex is too astonished to say a word. Jason and Gabriella          are having lunch at the kitchen table.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               97.                          182                         182 CONTINUED:          Alex sets down his suitcase.                         ALEX          I've been looking for you for two          days!          Jason relishes this.                         JASON          You should've called home.          Alex advances.                         ALEX          How'd you get here?                         JASON          Hitchhiked.                         GABRIELLA          (too bright and                         NERVOUS)          Are you-hungry? Have you had lunch?          Alex doesn't even hear her.                         ALEX          Why didn't you wait for me?          Jason eats without answering.                         ALEX          And what about all your stuff, and          your mother's?          Jason swallows, wipes his mouth.                         JASON          She doesn't need it anymore, and I          don't want it.          Gabriella brings Alex a cup of coffee.                         GABRIELLA          How about a sandwich?                         ALEX                         (SNAPPISHLY)          I'm not hungry. Jesus.                         JASON          You haven't even said hello to her.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              98.                         182 CONTINUED: (2) 182                         ALEX          (with great control),          Hello, Gabby.                         JASON                         (PROMPTING HIM)          'Did you miss me, honey?,                         ALEX          What are you doing.          Jason gets up from the table. He's wearing workout          clothes.                         JASON          Nothing.          He walks out of the condo. Alex and Gabriella are left          alone together. She jumps in before he can say anything.                         GABRIELLA          He just lost his mother, Alex. You          can't expect him to act normal.          He steps up beside her and moves her hair off her          shoulders.                         ALEX                         (GENTLY)          Did you try to make him feel better?                         GABRIELLA          (right back at him)          Yes. I gave him sonlething to eat.          She walks out and up the stairs to the bedroom.          183 INT. MASTER BEDROOM - DAY 183          Alex comes into the room. She's sitting on the bed.                         GABRIELLA                         (SOFTLY)          ... I feel like I made her die.          Alex sits down beside her and takes her hand.                         GABRIELLA          I wanted her to go away so bad... I          used to wish she'd die. And then          she did.          He lets go of her hand.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               99.                          183                         183 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          Oh,. please. I don't need two          children in the house.          (noticing her mouth)          -- What happened to your mouth?          Gabriella's hand jumps to her lip.                         GABRIELLA          Oh. -I bit my lip.          He takes her lip between his and nuzzles it.                         ALEX                         (TENDERLY)          Where? Here?... Better?          She tries to laugh and nods. He holds her close.                         ALEX                         (CONVERSATIONALLY)          where'd Jason go?                         184          184 INT. CONDO WEIGHT ROOM - DAY          Jason is working out alone in the little gym when in the          mirror he sees Alex come through the door. He keeps          lifting. Alex sits down on the bench beside him. Jason          ignores him.                         ALEX          You have something that belongs to          .me, Jason -- and I want it back.                         JASON          It's not yours.                         ALEX                         (HARDER)          Either way.          Jason continues to lift. Finally:                         JASON          Did you know the thing's worth over          a million dollars? What a fucking          stupid way to spend money.                         ALEX          I was holding it for someone. These          are dangerous people.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              100.                         184                         184 CONTINUED:          The bar wobbles with Jason's laugh.. Alex moves behind and          spots him, unnecessarily.                         ALEX          Don't screw around with me, Jason.          He's in a position to crush Jason's windpipe. Jason          shoves the barbell up in his face, finishing the set and          re-racking. He reaches for his towel and wipes his face,          his expression hidden.                         JASON          I don't know where it is anymore.          You killed the only person who did.                         ALEX          It was an accident! What did I have          to do with it?          Jason wads up his towel and throws it at Alex.                         JASON          There was a car following us!                         ALEX          Did you see who was in it?          Jason shakes his head no.                         ALEX          I met one of these guys. Tall,          weird-looking fucker with.a gray          crew-cut.          (letting out a breath)          These people you don't steal from.          Whoever was following Suzanne is          going to come after you, too.          Haven't you figured that out?          For the first time Jason wavers.; it's a plausible          alternative, but one that makes him guilty instead.                         JASON          Who are they?          Alex fastidiously drops the towel in the hamper.                         ALEX          Doesn't matter. Give the necklace          back to me, and we'll split the          handling commission.          His ingratiating smile offends Jason. He doesn't trust          Alex. He shakes his head.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              101.                         184                         184 CONTINUED: (2)                         JASON          She never told me where she kept it.          Alex doesn't believe him either. His hand. rests on a          dumbbell, and for a murderous instant he's about to pick          it up and use it on Jason. He lifts his hand away.                         185          185 INT. VICTOR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT          Victor is lying on his bed, the respirator beside him,          while he talks on the phone to Alex. He looks dreadful.                         VICTOR          Nice boy like that, the money means          diddlyshit. And, personally, I          suspect he'd rather die than tell          you. So get a blowtorch, and use it          on the girl until he cooperates.                         186          186 INT. ALEX'S.DEN - NIGHT          Alex sits hunched over the desk, the phone in his hand,          thinking.          VICTOR (V.0.)          .. Just as an example, Alex.                         ALEX          He's gonna make a move.          VICTOR (V.0.)          When he does, I'll be there.                         ALEX          Okay.          He hangs up and rocks back in his chair.          187 INT. VICTOR'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 187           Victor attaches his mask, breathes in oxygen. He turns          off the light. His breathing deepens.          188 INT. ALEX'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 188          Gabriella has already gone to bed. The lights are off.          Alex slides into bed beside her with a soft groan. He          reaches for her comfort.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              102.                         188                         188 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          (muffled against her                         SKIN)          I'm never leaving you again.          He starts to caress her.                         GABRIELLA          -- I'm already asleep, honey.                         ALEX                         (LIGHTLY)          Wake up.          She realizes he isn't going away. She rolls onto her          back. Her arms go around him.- Alex kisses her, long and          deep.                         GABRIELLA          Can he hear us?          Alex's tone turns. Jason is causing him another problem.                         ALEX          I think he's probably figured out          why we sleep in the same bed, Gabby.                         ¬Ä¢ GABRIELLA          He misses his mother.                         ALEX          ... So do I.          Gabriella props herself up on her elbow.                         GABRIELLA          What?          ALEX .          I wish she was alive and happy and          someplace else.          Gabriella lies down again and makes herself comfortable          against him. He tries again to interest her body.                         ALEX          We need to go somewhere, just us.                         GABRIELLA          Where?                         ALEX          I'm buying a vineyard in France.          Have you ever been to Paris?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              103.                         188 CONTINUED: (2) 188          She rolls onto her stomach, indirectly blocking his          frontal exploration.                         GABRIELLA          No.          Alex scoots down next to her, his hand takes possession of          her ass.                         ALEX          We'll stay at the Ritz, we'll eat          our way through every three-star          restaurant in town -- a new dress          every night -- would you like that?          Gabriella laughs in wonder and turns onto her side to face          him. They fit themselves together like an old married          couple.                         ALEX          (getting caught up in          his own fantasy)          -- We'll drive down through Burgundy --          follow the Rhone into Provence, wind          up on the Riviera -- Monte Carlo --                         GABRIELLA          -- Princess Stephanie.          He gives a rueful laugh; she's younger than he easily          remembers.                         ALEX          They have tables at the casino where          you play baccarat and the bets start          at a hundred bucks.                         GABRIELLA          (with a chuckle)          You won't be able to afford it.          You'll have spent all your money on          my clothes and my jewelry.          (slipping her leg                         BETWEEN HIS)          Ohl Remember Dina's necklace?          Alex's eyes go cold and watchful, although she doesn't          notice.                         ALEX          Sure.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              104.                         188                         188 CONTINUED: (3)                         GABRIELLA          I'll wear something like that and          then if you lose you can throw it on          the table to cover your bet, like          James Bond.                         ALEX          James had an expense account.          He rolls onto his back, she lays her cheek on his graying          chest. He no longer wants to make love.                         ALEX          What made you think of the necklace?          She's drifting toward sleep.                         GABRIELLA          I looked good in it, didn't I?          He pats her shoulder without answering. He won't sleep          for a while.                         189          A SEA GULL          flaps away with a SCREECH that startles us.                         190          190 EXT. DOCKS - DAY          Jason. is walking along the docks. He turns suddenly.          Victor melts into the doorway of a shed, but not before          Jason has glimpsed him. Jason walks faster. A couple of          Fishermen he knows call out greetings. He hops onto a          docked boat.                         191          191 EXT. BOATS - DAY          Jason jumps from boat to boat. He pushes them apart so he          can't be followed.                         192          192 EXT. WHARF - DAY          When he leaps ashore again, he has shaken Victor. Or so          it seems.                         193          193 INT. CONDO - DAY          Gabriella answers the phone.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               105.                          193                         193 CONTINUED:                         GABRIELLA                         HELLO --                         194          194 INT. MARKETPLACE - DAY          Jason'son a pay phone.                         JASON          (into the phone)          -- Come meet me, I gotta talk to          you. I'm at the Haitian          marketplace. You know where it is?          GABRIELLA (V.0.)          I can't just -- what am I going to          tell him.                         JASON          An thing you want. Don't drive,          take a cab --          (as she laughs at what          sounds like silliness)          -- I'll wait for you.          Jason hangs up. He looks around. He doesn't see Victor          watching from the trinket stand.          Be walks to the counter where he has already ordered          coffee and pie. He picks up his fork. He can't eat.          There's a folded newspaper left behind by another          customer. He pulls it over.                         WAITRESS          Refill, hon?           He doesn't even hear her.                          195          195 INT. CONDO - DAY           Gabriella goes out the door.                          196          196 EXT. CONDO TERRACE - DAY          Foot up on the lowest crossbar of the balcony railing,          Alex leans on his crossed arms and watches her step into          a cab. He's pleased.                         HIS POV          Gabriella waves to him.                                                                                                              106.          197 INT. MARKETPLACE - DAY (LATER) 197          Gabriella walks through the stalls, looking for Jason and          spies him at the counter. The paper is folded beside him.          She sits down next to him.                         GABRIELLA          Okay. Here I am. What is it? Do          you know how much a cab costs?                         JASON          I saw a guy following me... I          thought you weren't safe. I was          going to tell you to go stay at your                         COUSIN'S --           She starts to swivel off the stool to leave. He grabs her          hand.                          JASON                          (HARDER)          -- Hey!                         GABRIELLA          I'm so sick of this. You'd say          anything!          He hands her the newspaper.                         GABRIELLA                         WHAT --                         JASON          Read it.          198 INSERT: THE HEADLINE 198          at the bottom of the page reads, "Duchess of Windsor          Jewels/Stolen From Socialite," with a picture of the          Duchess herself in her glory days, necklace around her          throat.                         GABRIELLA          reads the headline and starts to laugh.                         GABRIELLA          There is such a thing as justicel          Dina's necklace. Couldn't happen to          a better person.                         JASON          Alex stole it.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              107.                         198                         198 CONTINUED:                         GABRIELLA          You really hate him.                         JASON          The reason I know is because I stole          it from him.          Her eyes widen.                         VICTOR          his face concealed among the candles is trying to figure          out what drama is going on between Jason and Gabriella.          He can read their faces, but not their lips.          JASON AND GABRIELLA                         GABRIELLA          ... The sonofabitch. That's why he          went out with me. He was trying to          use me!          (the thought hits her)          They'll think I'm part of it! The          maid who got fired??                         JASON          You weren't a maid.                         GABRIELLA          What difference does it make??                         JASON          We're going to the Gulf.           He throws money down for the check.                          199          199 EXT. MARKETPLACE - DAY           Jason guns the motorcycle into the street, Gabriella holds          him tight.           Victor's car merges into traffic several cars behind them.                          (TRAVELING) 200          200 INT. VICTOR'S CAR - DAY          victor is enjoying himself a bit. He fiddles with the          RADIO, finds MUSIC he likes.                                                                                                              108.                         201          201 EXT. CAR - DAY          The RADIO MUSIC playing, Victor weaves through traffic.          He keeps the motorcycle in sight.                         202          202 EXT. MOTORCYCLE - DAY          Jason checks in his mirrors.          IN THE MIRROR-          He catches sight of victor's car, the same one that was          following his mother.                         JASON          accelerates. Gabriella nuzzles his neck.          203 INT. CAR - DAY (TRAVELING) 203          Victor makes a face; he thinks he has been spotted. Jason          is getting harder to follow. The music ends; An          ANNOUNCER describes what it was, gives the time. There's          a BEEP. The NEWS THEME starts up. "On the hour every          hour, we give you all the news you need..." The announcer          continues with the lead stories, including the recently-          discovered jewel theft.                         204          204 EXT. STREET - DAY          Jason jams the motorcycle TOWARD us, PAST us. Behind,          Victor's car suddenly squeals through a U-turn.                         JASON          looks back.          205 INT. CONDO, LIVING ROOM - DAY 205          The shutters have been closed, Alex is lying on the couch          in the dark, having a nap. He's awakened by a nasty          wheeze. Victor is standing over him.                         ALEX          A man with your breeding usually          rings the doorbell.                         VICTOR          There was, is, no time.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              109.                         205 CONTINUED: 205                         ALEX                         (SITTING UP)          You heard the news.          Victor pulls one of Alex's golf clubs out of the bag as          though to admire it.                         VICTOR          I know you keep money here          somewhere.                         (A BEAT)          Your stash. Give it to me.          Alex spreads out his hands.                         AALEX          Vic, Vic --          The golf club catches him in the midsection. Alex cries          out. The blow folds him forward onto his knees.                         VICTOR          The. cops are about to drive up your          street.          He brings the club down on Alex's bare foot.                         ALEX          (through teeth clenched                         WITH PAIN)          There's nothing here to.give you.                         VICTOR          Where is it?          He clips Alex on the other leg as he tries to crawl away.          The physical effort shortens Victor's breathing. His          cough sprays blood. He tightens his grip on the club.                         ALEX "          Believe me -- I swear to God, I                         DON'T --          Victor raises the club over Alex's head, and brings it          down on the coffee table instead. The glass-explodes. He          has to push the words out through a‚Ä¢coughing spasm.                         VICTOR          I refuse to die in a fucking prison          clinic!          Alex staggers to his feet. Victor is struggling for          breath. Alex jerks the golf club away from him and tosses          it on the floor.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               110.                          205                         205 CONTINUED: (2)          He puts his arm around victor's waist and helps him to the          sofa.                         ALEX          Come on, this is pitiful.          Victor drops onto the sofa. He gags on the blood in his          throat and desperately draws in air.                         ALEX          What a mess.          He picks up a sofa pillow to arrange it for him. Victor          gives him a grateful smile. Alex presses the pillow down          over his face before he can react. His feet flail. Alex          has to lie on top of him to hold him down. A couple          making out on the couch. The GUN THUMPS to the floor.          Victor's movements slow, and stop. Alex takes no chances.          He keeps the pillow jammed down until there's no          possibility of trickery. Satisfied, he rolls Victor's          dead body onto the floor, steps over it, and with steady          hands he opens a bottle of very expensive wine. He pours          a glass.                         ALEX                         (QUIETLY)          At least you got to die in your own          clothes, Vic. That's something.                         206          206 EXT. TRUCK STOP - NIGHT          A few Truckers make remarks as Gabriella walks toward the          bank of phones. "Hey, pretty lady." "Possibility?"          "She's not your type." She doesn't mind swinging her hips          a little for their benefit.                         207          207 INT. CONDO - NIGHT          The PHONE is RINGING. Alex sits in a chair in the dark.          Then he crosses to the phone, picks it up and waits for          the caller to speak.                         208          208 INT. PHONE BOOTH - NIGHT          Gabriella is watching for Jason. INTERCUT as needed.                         GABRIELLA          (into the phone)          I'm with him.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                                             208                         208 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          What took you so long.                         GABRIELLA          He has a boat, Alex! It's on the          boat. The dumb shit wants to turn          it over to the cops. You know          what'll happen to me.          Alex is taking his passport out of his desk.                         ALEX          Just tell me how to find you.           He opens another drawer. There's a gun inside.                          209          209 INT. TRUCK STOP - NIGHT          Jason comes out of the men's room. He doesn't see          Gabriella for a moment. A couple of truckers block his          view. Now he catches sight of her. She's coming from the          direction of the phones, a can of soda in her hand. Their          eyes meet. She smiles and waves the can, hurries to meet          h1m.                         210          210 EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT           The motorcycle cruises up the coast road. The surf glows           with plankton.                          GABRIELLA           presses her cheek against Jason's back.                          211          211 EXT. DOCK - NIGHT          Jason secures the motorcycle. He puts his arm around          Gabriella, they walk down the dock to his boat. He helps          her aboard.                         JASON                         (CALLING OUT)                         HENRY --          Henry emerges from the cabin. He eyes Gabriella.                         HENRY          Oh, my.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               112.                          211                         211 CONTINUED:                         JASON          This is Gabriella. She's my          contraband.          She looks quickly at Jason, who smiles. Henry reaches out          to shake her hand.                         HENRY          Kid's a sucker for dark skin.          212 INT. BOAT - NIGHT 212          Gabriella and Jason tenderly make love in the swaying          cabin.          213 EXT. BOAT - NIGHT 213          On watch, Henry finds his gaze sliding to the NOISY          dockside BAR, its beer sign beacon-bright. The SOUNDS          BELOW embarrass him. He makes up his mind. He swings off          the boat and heads toward the bar. He doesn't notice          Alex's Cadillac idling in the alley. The headlights click          off, the motor goes silent. The BOATS CREAK against the          slips.          214 INT. BOAT - DAY 214          Jason wakes up with a start. He senses something. He          slides out from under the sleeping weight of Gabriella's          arm and pulls on his jeans, reaches up to open the cabin          hatch.                         HIS POV          Alex's foot swinging. More of him comes INTO SIGHT as          Jason climbs to deck. The financial pages open on his          lap, he's drinking a Styrofoam cup of coffee and eating a          donut; the rest of the bag of donuts is next to him.                         ALEX          Good morning! I brought donuts.          Jason is struck silent. He sits down on the side of the          boat, his arms around his ribs.                         ALEX          Oh, it's not as bad as all that.                         JASON          She fucking called you.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                               113.                          214                         214 CONTINUED:          Alex shrugs.                         ALEX          She has some residual loyalty, yeah.                         (MODESTLY)          Which I didn't expect either.          Jason moves to the helm, switches on the engine. Alex          quickly finishes his donut. He brushes off his fingers.                         ALEX          Where are we going?                         JASON          I'm going fishing. Get off if you          want.                         ALEX          No, it's a beautiful day for a boat          ride. Give us a chance to talk.          He makes himself comfortable.                         JASON          Then make yourself useful and cast          off the stern line.          Alex moves to the stern while Jason casts off the bow          line.                         ALEX          This one?                         JASON          There's not a lot of choice.          Alex casts off. Jason backs the-boat into position. He          sees Henry asleep in the doorway of the marine supplies          store next to the shuttered bar. Alex rejoins him.                         ALEX          -- If we could manage to ignore the          personal history here, I think we          could work something out between us.          Jason turns the boat toward the open sea.                         ALEX          You want Gabriella? This is the way          to have her. Life costs, Jason.          Love costs. And you love her more          than I do.                         (MORE)                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              114.                         214                         214 CONTINUED: (2)                          ALEX (CONT'D)          (as Jason glances at                         HIM)          So stake yourself to a life          together. Give her what she needs --                         (SEEING GABRIELLA          before Jason does)          -- Hi, honey.          Gabriella comes up onto deck. She glances bewildered at          the ocean around them.                         GABRIELLA          Why are we --                         JASON          -- Shut up! Just shut up!          She sits on the bench, her face tight and angry.                         ALEX          He's feeling like you let him down.          .She gives Alex a look that silences him. He reaches for          another donut. The SOUNDS of the ENGINE and the HULL          hitting the waves substitute for conversation.          215 EXT. BOAT - DAY (LATER) -215          Jason finishes setting the lines.                         JASON          -- Okay. I'm ready to listen.          He sits down beside a pole and looks over at Gabriella,          who has put on a hat. She's staring out to sea.                         JASON                         (TO GABRIELLA)          Alex wants to make me an offer.          She gives no sign of having heard him.                         ALEX          We're giving you a hard choice,          Gabby. Two rich men.          Gabriella swivels her head slowly.                         GABRIELLA          I don't want either one of you.          A line quivers. Jason reels in a little.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              115.                         215                         215 CONTINUED:                          JASON           Something's going to bite, just                          ABOUT --           (his biceps tightening)           -- now.          And the bait is taken at the moment he said. The line          reels out very, very fast. He lets the fish run with it.          Gabriella has turned around to watch. Now Jason reels in          a little, making the line taut, testing the weight.          He yanks back. The line rises from the ocean, bringing to          the surface a big, dark green fish. _                         ALEX          Jesus! What the hell is that?                         JASON          Hammerhead. Young. Male.          Jason plays the shark until it's close to the boat and          thrashing for its life. Gabriella's scared.                         GABRIELLA          Help him, Alex.                         ALEX          I'd just get in his way.          His hand comes to rest on her shoulder as Jason expertly          reels in the bucking hammerhead. She shrugs away from his          hand. Jason has hooked a ten-foot, three-finned sea beast          with a spade-shaped head and black eyes on each side. He          attaches the line to a winch and winds it up onto the          deck. It twists wildly, knocking things over until it          slows down and finally lies very still. His chest heaving          with the effort, Jason looks around. Alex has disappeared          without either of them noticing.          216 INT. CABIN - DAY 216          Alex is searching frantically.          JASON (O.S.)          No luck?          Alex whirls around. His gun materializes in his hand.          Jason retreats a step.                         JASON          Is this your backup plan?                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              116.                         216                         216 CONTINUED:                         ALEX          No.                         JASON          You want it so bad, it's yours.          He pulls out the necklace and hurls it away from Alex.                         ALEX                         (MOANING)          You little prick.                         217          217 INT./EXT. CABIN - THE NECKLACE          skitters along the deck. The shark's body stops it from          dropping out the open gate in the transom.                         ALEX          scrambles toward the necklace.                         GABRIELLA          Don't let him have it! He'll kill                         USL          Jason grabs her-and holds her with both arms to keep her          from going any closer. Alex turns his head, puzzled,          warned. Too late. The shark suddenly thrashes, its jaws          snapping around him. Gabriella screams with Alex. He          FIRES his GUN over and over until it's empty. The shark          continues to tear at him.                         ALEX          Help me, help.mel!          Gabriella runs down into the cabin. Much as he hates          Alex, Jason can't let him die. like this. He charges.          forward and straddles the shark, jams the blade of his          knife into the primordial brain. He twists the handle          once. The shark dies instantly. Trembling with          adrenalin, Jason gets off its back. With his elbows Alex          drags himself out of the jaws. He's badly mangled.. The          shark slowly changes color to a dull brown.                         ALEX          You knew it wasn't dead.          Jason squats down beside him to access his injuries.                         JASON          Mom didn't take the necklace.          did.                         (CONTINUED)                                                                                                              117.                         217 CONTINUED: 217          Alex struggles to stay conscious.                         ALEX          Then you killed her yourself.          Jason slowly nods.                         JASON          And you were in the car behind us.          Gabriella drops down beside them. She has a flare gun, no          longer needed, and sheets from the cabin to stop the          bleeding. She starts to tear them up. She's crying          slightly.                         GABRIELLA          We were supposed to turn him ini I          didn't think you were going to kill          him!                         JASON          Well, I didn't.          Alex manages to laugh.                         ALEX          Jesus. You set me up. You had her          call me.                         (TO GABRIELLA)          Shit... I believed you.          Jason pushes to his feet and heads for the cockpit.                         JASON          I'll get on the radio.          Gabriella wraps the strips of sheet tightly around what's          left of Alex to bandage. She smears away the tears so she          can see and leaves blood tracked across her face. She          looks down to see his bloody hand clutching the necklace.          They look at each other.                         JASON          has the microphone in his hand. He's setting course.          Gabriella appears behind him. She's holding the flare          gun. She puts it back where she found it, and steps          beside him and puts her arm around his waist. He lays his          arm over her shoulders and holds her close while he uses          the radio.                         JASON          This is Hercules II, calling the          Harbormaster...                                                                                                              218 EXT. BOAT - DAY           The boat heads back to port.                          219          219 EXT. DOCK - DAY          At an unused pier Gabriella leans back against the line to          hold the boat in place. Henry and Jason carry Alex off          the boat and lay him on the planks. SIRENS can be faintly          heard. Jason leaps back on the boat. Henry pushes them          off.                         CLOSER ANGLE                         HENRY          You cool?                         JASON          I will be.                         HENRY          See ya.          He and Jason wave goodbye. The boat moves out. Henry is          left with Alex.                         ALEX          (weakly; to Henry)          What's your name?                         HENRY          No way --                         ALEX          (still the salesman)          -- No, listen, listen -- this is          worth a fortune.          (thrusting the necklace                         TOWARD HIM)          Play the possibilities.                         HENRY          Yeah. Good advice.          And he walks away fast.                         ALEX          Wait, don't go! Come back here.          Come on back!          Henry's gone. Alex rolls onto his belly and starts          dragging himself down the dock, too much of an optimist to          give up hope in a hopeless situation.
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+ON BLACK: "A MAN MUST LOOK AT HIS LIFE AND THINK LUXURY." FADE IN: EXT. GUARJIRA, COLOMBIA - 1989 - DAY A majestic panorama of the lush green slopes that are the Columbian highlands. A faint chopping sound IS HEARD and then another. WHOOSH. WHOOSH. The view changes and tiny dots appear on the hillside vegetation. WHOOSH. CLOSER We realize the dots are people. Workers swinging long steel machetes in slow methodical rhythm. WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WE SEE the South American Indian MEN clearly now. Their tar stained teeth. Their gaunt faces riddled with crow's feet. Their jaws chewing away on huge wads of coca leaves as they collect the harvest. EXT. DIRT ROAD - COLOMBIA - DAY Old rickety trucks carrying the huge green tractor-sized bales speed along the narrow road. EXT. CLEARING - COLOMBIA - DAY The bundles are undone and Columbian women separate out the leaves. Tribes of underweight workers carry armload after armload of the harvest and ritualistically dump them into a gigantic cannibal pot which sits on top of a raging bonfire. The leaves are being boiled down and a huge plume of smoke streaks the sky. Wizened Indios brave the heat and shovel ashes into the pot to cool the solution. INT. JUNGLE - COLOMBIA - DAY A primitive but enormous makeshift lab contains all the equipment. The machinery. The solutions. The over-sized vats. Dark-skinned bandoleros smoke cigarettes and sport automatic weapons at all the points of entry. The coca is now a "basuco" paste and is being sent in for a wash. INT. LABORATORY - COLOMBIA - 1989 - DAY A conveyor belt pours out brick after brick of pure cocaine hydrochloride. The bricks are wrapped, tied up, weighed, and stamped with a "P" before being thrown into duffel bags. EXT. JUNGLE AIRSTRIP - COLOMBIA - DAY A small twin-engine Cessna is loaded with dozens of duffel bags and the plane takes off. EXT. VERO BEACH AIRFIELD - NIGHT The Cessna touches down. EXT. WORKSITE - WEYMOUTH - 1966 - DAY The worksite is busy. George is amongst other workers, working a summer job. As George is taking five, he looks across the sight to Fred, who is sweeping up debris. A long way from being the boss. INT. COLLEGE ADMISSIONS OFFICE - WEYMOUTH - 1966 - DAY George stands in line to register for college, wearing his Brooks Brothers suit, bowtie, and freshly Bryllcreamed hair. The room is crowded and the line is long. Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" blares out of one of the kid's transistor radios. George looks around the room. He is uncomfortable. He catches his reflection in the shiny glass partition and stops. He doesn't like what he sees. Something is not right. He looks like everyone else. Same cookie-cutter hair, same cookie-cutter clothes, same cookie cutter faces. He's a carbon copy. REGISTRATION WOMAN Next. It's George's turn but he doesn't hear it. "Twenty years of schooling and they put you on a day shift." The words hit him like a tone of bricks as he continues to stare at his own reflection. GEORGE (V.O.) I was standing there, and it was like the outside of me and the inside of me didn't match, you know? And then I looked around the room and it hit me. I saw my whole life. Where I was gonna live, what type of car I'd drive, who my neighbors would be. I saw it all and I didn't want it. Not that life. EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - WEYMOUTH - 1966 - DAY George sits with Fred. It's breaktime and Fred eats from a lunch box. GEORGE There's something out there for me, Dad. Something different. Something free form, you know? Something for me, and college just isn't it. FRED That's too bad. You would have been the first one in the family. GEORGE I know. FRED Alright. You want me to get your old job back? Because I could, you know, I could put in that word. GEORGE No, Dad. I don't want to...I mean, I just don't want... It's obvious to Fred that his son doesn't want to be like him. FRED What are you going to do? GEORGE I'm going to California. EXT. BELMONT SHORES APARTMENT - 1968 - DAY SUPERIMPOSE: MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIFORNIA 1968 George and Tuna, now 21-years old, struggle with their bags. Their new place is a tackily furnished, two-story apartment with small balconies and a view of the ocean. As George and Tuna struggle with the bags, two California beauties appear on the balcony next door: BARBARA BUCKLEY, 20, and MARIA GONZALES, 21. GIRLS You guys need some help? George and Tuna share a look. TUNA I don't know about you, but I think we're gonna like it here. EXT. MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY SERIES OF SHOTS Barbara and Maria introduce George and Tuna around to the Manhattan Beach regulars. They are immediately accepted despite their ill fitting shorts and Tuna's unhip black socks. The beach scene is one big party. Lots of beer, music, bikinis, and good times. By the end of the day, George and Tuna have a hundred new friends. GEORGE (V.O.) California was like nothing I'd ever experienced. The people were liberated and independent and full of new ideas. GEORGE (V.O.) (CONT'D) They used words like "right on," "groovy," and "solid." The women are all beautiful and seemed to share the same occupation. WOMAN #1 I'm a flight attendant. WOMAN #2 I'm a flight attendant. WOMAN #3 I'm a flight attendant. The weed comes out and is passed around. Pipes. Joints. Bongs. In SLOW MOTION, Barbara takes a huge hit of grass, grabs George's face, french kissing him, and giving him a huge shotgun. INT. BELMONT SHORES APARTMENT - 1968 - DAY George and Barbara are sleeping late. Their bodies intertwined beneath the sheets. A slam of the front door wakes them up. It's Tuna. TUNA Hey, wake up. Come on, you two lovebirds. Hurry, I want to show you something. George and Barbara shake cobwebs out and stumble into the kitchen to find Tuna holding a brown paper shopping bag. TUNA (CONT'D) Figured it out. GEORGE Figured what out? TUNA You know how we were wondering what we were going to do for money? Being how we don't want to get jobs and whatnot? Well, check this out. Tuna takes the paper bag and empties its contents on the kitchen table. It's a grey mound of stocky, seedy marijuana. Barbara examines the reefer. BARBARA Tuna, this is crap. TUNA I know it's not the greatest. It's commercial. BARBARA It's garbage. GEORGE It's oregano. You got ripped off, pal. What are you gonna do with all this? TUNA We sell it. I got it all figured out. We make three finger lids and sell them on the beach. We move all of it. We've made ourselves a hundred bucks. Or a lot of weed for our head. What do you think? Not bad, huh? I got the baggies and everything. BARBARA You can't sell this to your friends. TUNA Man. Fuck you guys. I have this great idea and you guys have to be all skeptical. BARBARA Look, if you really wanna score some dope, I got the guy. EXT. THE WHIPPING POST - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY George, Barbara and Tuna stop outside the front door. GEORGE Are you sure this guy is cool? BARBARA You'll see for yourself. TUNA A beauty parlor for men? Sounds pretty queer. They walk in. INT. THE WHIPPING POST - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - CONTINUOUS George, Tuna and Barbara enter. The Whipping Post is California's first male hair salon. George looks around at the customer's being pampered. Haircuts, pedicures, manicures. GEORGE Nothing like this back home. BARBARA Derek! DEREK FOREAL is a curious man. Daringly effeminate, especially for the sixties, he is always surrounded by beautiful women. As he sees Barbara, he stops his haircut and runs to embrace her. DEREK Barbie! Derek's female entourage rush over as well. Kisses all around. DEREK (CONT'D) So, this is the new man, huh? He's cute! George and Tuna stick out there hands. GEORGE George. TUNA Tuna. DEREK Tuna, oh my. Enchante, George. Barbie, he's yummy. He looks like a Ken doll. Oooh, Ken and Barbie. It's perfect. Alright, girls, give me five minutes. Derek makes dismissing gestures and the girls scatter. DEREK (CONT'D) Everyone, shoo! You, too, Barbie. I want to talk to the boys alone. After the girls leave, Derek closes the partition and his playful demeanor changes. He's all business now. DEREK (CONT'D) What can I do for you guys? GEORGE We want some grass. DEREK I know what you want. But, first of all, are you cops? GEORGE No. DEREK Because if you are, you have to tell me. If not, it's entrapment. GEORGE We're not cops. We're from Massachusettes. I mean, does he look like a cop? DEREK I guess not. Okay. You know, you're very lucky you're friends of Barbie's. If you weren't, I'd never talk to you. Derek pulls a television-sized brick of quality marijuana out from under a sink and sets it down in front of George. GEORGE What the fuck is that? DEREK It's your grass. TUNA Wow. That's more than we had in mind. DEREK I don't nickel and dime. You want it or not? George and Tuna look at each other. GEORGE We'll take it. EXT. MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY SERIES OF SHOTS Summer on the beach. It's one big party. George and Tuna are on the beach. They are the new kings. They smoke pot and drink brews. George and Barbara get close as do Tuna and Maria. Slowly, George's clothes and hair start to look better, cooler. George and Tuna hanging out with the SURFERS. George and Tuna hang with Barbara, Maria and SOME GIRLFRIENDS in bikinis. George and Barbara hang together at the life guard stand. George and Tuna on the strand with HIPPY PROFESSORS selling half-ounces. Derek, Tuna, George, Barbara, Maria and the Elves play volleyball. Barbecue at Belmont Shores apartment with George, Barbara, Derek, Tuna, Maria and different Elves. George and Tuna sell half-ounces to BIKERS. Derek is having a party out of a mini-van in the beach parking lot. George, Barbara, Tuna and Maria are there. EXT. MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - SUNSET George and Barbara sit by the water, watching the waves crash into the sand. The sky is streaked with purple and red. GEORGE This is it for me. BARBARA What is? GEORGE Just everything. You. California. The beach. This spot right here. I feel like I belong here, you know? It just feels right. BARBARA You happy, baby? GEORGE Yeah. I am. EXT. WORKSITE - WEYMOUTH - 1966 - DAY The worksite is busy. George is amongst other workers, working a summer job. As George is taking five, he looks across the sight to Fred, who is sweeping up debris. A long way from being the boss. INT. COLLEGE ADMISSIONS OFFICE - WEYMOUTH - 1966 - DAY George stands in line to register for college, wearing his Brooks Brothers suit, bowtie, and freshly Bryllcreamed hair. The room is crowded and the line is long. Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" blares out of one of the kid's transistor radios. George looks around the room. He is uncomfortable. He catches his reflection in the shiny glass partition and stops. He doesn't like what he sees. Something is not right. He looks like everyone else. Same cookie-cutter hair, same cookie-cutter clothes, same cookie cutter faces. He's a carbon copy. REGISTRATION WOMAN Next. It's George's turn but he doesn't hear it. "Twenty years of schooling and they put you on a day shift." The words hit him like a tone of bricks as he continues to stare at his own reflection. GEORGE (V.O.) I was standing there, and it was like the outside of me and the inside of me didn't match, you know? And then I looked around the room and it hit me. I saw my whole life. Where I was gonna live, what type of car I'd drive, who my neighbors would be. I saw it all and I didn't want it. Not that life. EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - WEYMOUTH - 1966 - DAY George sits with Fred. It's breaktime and Fred eats from a lunch box. GEORGE There's something out there for me, Dad. Something different. Something free form, you know? Something for me, and college just isn't it. FRED That's too bad. You would have been the first one in the family. GEORGE I know. FRED Alright. You want me to get your old job back? Because I could, you know, I could put in that word. GEORGE No, Dad. I don't want to...I mean, I just don't want... It's obvious to Fred that his son doesn't want to be like him. FRED What are you going to do? GEORGE I'm going to California. EXT. BELMONT SHORES APARTMENT - 1968 - DAY SUPERIMPOSE: MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIFORNIA 1968 George and Tuna, now 21-years old, struggle with their bags. Their new place is a tackily furnished, two-story apartment with small balconies and a view of the ocean. As George and Tuna struggle with the bags, two California beauties appear on the balcony next door: BARBARA BUCKLEY, 20, and MARIA GONZALES, 21. GIRLS You guys need some help? George and Tuna share a look. TUNA I don't know about you, but I think we're gonna like it here. EXT. MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY SERIES OF SHOTS Barbara and Maria introduce George and Tuna around to the Manhattan Beach regulars. They are immediately accepted despite their ill fitting shorts and Tuna's unhip black socks. The beach scene is one big party. Lots of beer, music, bikinis, and good times. By the end of the day, George and Tuna have a hundred new friends. GEORGE (V.O.) California was like nothing I'd ever experienced. The people were liberated and independent and full of new ideas. GEORGE (V.O.) (CONT'D) They used words like "right on," "groovy," and "solid." The women are all beautiful and seemed to share the same occupation. WOMAN #1 I'm a flight attendant. WOMAN #2 I'm a flight attendant. WOMAN #3 I'm a flight attendant. The weed comes out and is passed around. Pipes. Joints. Bongs. In SLOW MOTION, Barbara takes a huge hit of grass, grabs George's face, french kissing him, and giving him a huge shotgun. INT. BELMONT SHORES APARTMENT - 1968 - DAY George and Barbara are sleeping late. Their bodies intertwined beneath the sheets. A slam of the front door wakes them up. It's Tuna. TUNA Hey, wake up. Come on, you two lovebirds. Hurry, I want to show you something. George and Barbara shake cobwebs out and stumble into the kitchen to find Tuna holding a brown paper shopping bag. TUNA (CONT'D) Figured it out. GEORGE Figured what out? TUNA You know how we were wondering what we were going to do for money? Being how we don't want to get jobs and whatnot? Well, check this out. Tuna takes the paper bag and empties its contents on the kitchen table. It's a grey mound of stocky, seedy marijuana. Barbara examines the reefer. BARBARA Tuna, this is crap. TUNA I know it's not the greatest. It's commercial. BARBARA It's garbage. GEORGE It's oregano. You got ripped off, pal. What are you gonna do with all this? TUNA We sell it. I got it all figured out. We make three finger lids and sell them on the beach. We move all of it. We've made ourselves a hundred bucks. Or a lot of weed for our head. What do you think? Not bad, huh? I got the baggies and everything. BARBARA You can't sell this to your friends. TUNA Man. Fuck you guys. I have this great idea and you guys have to be all skeptical. BARBARA Look, if you really wanna score some dope, I got the guy. EXT. THE WHIPPING POST - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY George, Barbara and Tuna stop outside the front door. GEORGE Are you sure this guy is cool? BARBARA You'll see for yourself. TUNA A beauty parlor for men? Sounds pretty queer. They walk in. INT. THE WHIPPING POST - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - CONTINUOUS George, Tuna and Barbara enter. The Whipping Post is California's first male hair salon. George looks around at the customer's being pampered. Haircuts, pedicures, manicures. GEORGE Nothing like this back home. BARBARA Derek! DEREK FOREAL is a curious man. Daringly effeminate, especially for the sixties, he is always surrounded by beautiful women. As he sees Barbara, he stops his haircut and runs to embrace her. DEREK Barbie! Derek's female entourage rush over as well. Kisses all around. DEREK (CONT'D) So, this is the new man, huh? He's cute! George and Tuna stick out there hands. GEORGE George. TUNA Tuna. DEREK Tuna, oh my. Enchante, George. Barbie, he's yummy. He looks like a Ken doll. Oooh, Ken and Barbie. It's perfect. Alright, girls, give me five minutes. Derek makes dismissing gestures and the girls scatter. DEREK (CONT'D) Everyone, shoo! You, too, Barbie. I want to talk to the boys alone. After the girls leave, Derek closes the partition and his playful demeanor changes. He's all business now. DEREK (CONT'D) What can I do for you guys? GEORGE We want some grass. DEREK I know what you want. But, first of all, are you cops? GEORGE No. DEREK Because if you are, you have to tell me. If not, it's entrapment. GEORGE We're not cops. We're from Massachusettes. I mean, does he look like a cop? DEREK I guess not. Okay. You know, you're very lucky you're friends of Barbie's. If you weren't, I'd never talk to you. Derek pulls a television-sized brick of quality marijuana out from under a sink and sets it down in front of George. GEORGE What the fuck is that? DEREK It's your grass. TUNA Wow. That's more than we had in mind. DEREK I don't nickel and dime. You want it or not? George and Tuna look at each other. GEORGE We'll take it. EXT. MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY SERIES OF SHOTS Summer on the beach. It's one big party. George and Tuna are on the beach. They are the new kings. They smoke pot and drink brews. George and Barbara get close as do Tuna and Maria. Slowly, George's clothes and hair start to look better, cooler. George and Tuna hanging out with the SURFERS. George and Tuna hang with Barbara, Maria and SOME GIRLFRIENDS in bikinis. George and Barbara hang together at the life guard stand. George and Tuna on the strand with HIPPY PROFESSORS selling half-ounces. Derek, Tuna, George, Barbara, Maria and the Elves play volleyball. Barbecue at Belmont Shores apartment with George, Barbara, Derek, Tuna, Maria and different Elves. George and Tuna sell half-ounces to BIKERS. Derek is having a party out of a mini-van in the beach parking lot. George, Barbara, Tuna and Maria are there. EXT. MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - SUNSET George and Barbara sit by the water, watching the waves crash into the sand. The sky is streaked with purple and red. GEORGE This is it for me. BARBARA What is? GEORGE Just everything. You. California. The beach. This spot right here. I feel like I belong here, you know? It just feels right. BARBARA You happy, baby? GEORGE Yeah. I am. INT. BELMONT SHORES APARTMENT - 1968 - DAY George walks in to find Tuna and Maria sitting with KEVIN DULLI, an old friend from back east. He's sitting in front of a water pipe and coughing his ass off. TUNA Look what the cat dragged in. GEORGE Holy shit, Dulli. What the hell are you doing here? KEVIN Well, I'll tell you. I was walking down the beach, minding my business, when who did I see but this fucking guy. I didn't know you guys were living in California. GEORGE Yeah, but what are you doing out here? KEVIN I'm on vacation. On my way back to school. GEORGE This calls for a joint. You want to do the honors? KEVIN No, man. I'm too fucked up. TUNA Nice weed, huh? KEVIN Fuck yeah. I never seen nothing like it. I'm fucking wasted. GEORGE Right on. KEVIN G-d, I'm stoned. I'm stoned. I'm really... GEORGE Stoned? KEVIN I wish there was shit like this back home. GEORGE Yeah? KEVIN Shit, yeah. Do you know how much money I could make if I had this stuff back east? TUNA No shit, Kevin? KEVIN That's right. GEORGE Yeah? KEVIN When there's something to move, it's too easy not to. Do you know how many colleges are in a twenty mile radius? U. Mass, Amherst, B.U.... TUNA Smith. Hampshire.... KEVIN Right. And Holyoke. There are a hundred thousand rich kids with their parents' money to spend, but there's never anything available. Nothing good, anyway. I'm paying four hundred dollars for shit. INT. THE WHIPPING POST - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - DAY Derek, George and Barbara sit around. The blinds are drawn. GEORGE The way we figure it, Barbara flies to Boston twice a week. Two bags per flight. Twenty-five pounds in each bag. DEREK You're kidding, right? That's a hundred pounds a week. GEORGE Yeah, I know, it's a lot of weight. BARBARA We're gonna call it California sinsemilla. Sounds exotic. GEORGE I'm telling you, Derek, it will sell. DEREK I don't know... GEORGE Here's the best part. We can charge five-hundred a pound. DEREK Come on, George, no one is going to pay that. GEORGE It's already been negotiated. It's done. The money is there waiting. Derek looks at Barbara. She nods. DEREK Goodness. GEORGE Goodness is right. If you do the math, that's over thirty grand a week profit. I want you to be my partner on this, Derek. Fifty-fifty. That's fifteen thousand a week for you, my friend. In your pocket, free and clear. DEREK And I only deal with you? GEORGE Barbara and me. No one else. Derek thinks about it. BARBARA It's gonna work, Derek. DEREK I don't know. East coast. Airplanes. It all sounds pretty risky. GEORGE She's a flight attendant. They don't check her bags. EXT. LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - 1968 - DAY George drops Barbara off in her uniform curbside. They kiss and she walks away with two big, red Samsonites. She checks them with a SKYCAP and tips him. EXT. SKY - 1968 - DAY A huge jet goes right to left through frame. INT. LOGAN AIRPORT - GATE - BOSTON - 1968 - DAY Barbara is greeted by KEVIN DULLI with a hug. A baggage claim check is slipped into Kevin's hand. BARBARA Any message? KEVIN Keep it coming. INT. LOGAN AIRPORT - BAGGAGE CLAIM - BOSTON - 1968 We see Barbara's two red Samsonites being taken off the belt by Kevin. INT. LOGAN AIRPORT - GATE - BOSTON - 1968 Same scene repeated, except different clothes on all. Maybe Kevin is dressed a little better. KEVIN More. INT. LOGAN AIRPORT - GATE - BOSTON - 1968 The same scene repeated, same things changed again; now Kevin is definitely dressed a little better. KEVIN I need more. BARBARA What do you want me to do? I can only take two bags, and I can't fly back here everyday. KEVIN I know, but I've got a feeding frenzy on my hands. Tell George this is small potatoes. We're missing out on some serious cash. You tell George. He'll think of something. EXT. WINNEBAGO - 1968 - DAY MUSIC CUE: Tuna drives the big Winny. Maria rides shotgun. Barrelling cross-country, it's a party on wheels. EXT. WHITE OAK LODGE - AMHERST - 1968 - NIGHT Kevin and his girl, RADA, are the welcoming committee as the RV pulls into the parking lot. They wave, slap the sides of the Winnebago, and greet the prodigal sons with hugs and handshakes. INT. WHITE OAK LODGE - AMHERST - 1968 - LATER George's room is rustic and plush. A log fire burns and empty champagne bottles adorn the surroundings. The girls have taken to each other. The music is loud, and they dance while the boys do business. Kevin counts out the money. It's stacked in piles all over the table. KEVIN Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, nine. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, a thousand. It's all there. Wow. A hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. TUNA Jesus Christ, I'm getting a boner just looking at it. But George isn't paying attention. His wheels are turning. KEVIN What's the matter, George? Something wrong? You look like you just fucked your mother. TUNA Cheer up, man. Half this money is ours. We're fucking rich. GEORGE It's not enough. KEVIN What? TUNA What the fuck are you talking about, man? GEORGE The set-up is wrong. We're doing all the legwork, and at the end of the day, we're still paying retail. We're getting middled. KEVIN So? GEORGE So, we need to get to the source. TUNA Source? What about Derek? GEORGE He's getting middled, too. And Derek's our partner. What's good for us is good for him. KEVIN Okay. So we need a source. Where do we start? GEORGE Who speaks Spanish? EXT. PUERTO VALLARTA - MEXICO - 1968 - DAY MUSIC CUE. SUPERIMPOSE: PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO We PAN OFF the beautiful waters of Puerto Vallarta. This is a local beach on a Saturday afternoon. The girls on the beach are drinking coco-locos and swimming. SERIES OF SHOTS - THE GANG LOOKING FOR A CONNECTION George with a bartender. Tuna and Dulli with cabbies. George and Derek talking with a local man, RAMON, at a corner bar. Barbara, Maria and Rada talk with local girls. EXT. OCEANA BAR - PUERTO VALLARTA - 1968 - DAY TUNA This is bullshit, George. We're never going to find anything down there. KEVIN You know, he's got a point. We're fucking Americans. We stick out like sore thumbs. DEREK I don't think so. GEORGE You guys are such babies. You want to go home, go. Me, I'm not going to stop until I find the fucking motherlode. RADA Georgie, we're gonna get busted if we keep this up. GEORGE We're not gonna get busted. KEVIN George, we'll wind up in a Mexican prison getting fucked up the ass by one of Maria's relatives. MARIA Hey, fuck you, Dulli. I'm not Mexican. I'm Italian. BARBARA You're Italian? KEVIN Yeah, right. Gonzales. What is that, Sicilian? TUNA As far as I'm concerned, we're on fucking vacation. He grabs Maria, runs and does a huge belly-flop into the water. They all laugh. SERIES OF SHOTS. George and Barbara with local musicians on the beach. George and Derek at a cab stand. George talks with a bellboy in the lobby of a local hotel. INT. COCOS FRIOS BAR - PUERTO VALLARTA - 1968 - DAY George, Barbara, Tuna, Derek, Maria, Kevin, and Rada are at the bar. Ramon comes up to George, they briefly discuss and George follows him out of the bar. EXT. STREETS - PUERTO VALLARTA - 1968 - DAY George and Ramon climb into a beat up V.W. bug and take off. EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - PUERTO VALLARTA - 1968 - DAY Fields and Farms. The V.W. bug pulls up to an old ranch. They get out of the bug and are greeted by SANTIAGO and his THREE SONS. SANTIAGO Ramon tells me you are looking for some mota. GEORGE Yes, I am. Santiago moves to a tarp and pulls it back to reveal many bales of green, seedless sinsemilla. SANTIAGO For instance, something like this? GEORGE Very nice. I'll take it. SANTIAGO Ha ha ha. You are funny. Really, how much will you be needing? GEORGE All of it. As much as you've got. A couples thousand pounds. I'll be back in a week with a plane. SANTIAGO Listen, Americano, it is very nice to meet you, but maybe we are going too fast. You take a little and then come back. GEORGE I don't need a little. I need a lot. SANTIAGO Marijuana is illegal in my country, and I believe in yours, as well. We must be careful. GEORGE What if I brought you, let's say, fifty thousand dollars? Would that eliminate some of your concerns? SANTIAGO Amigo, you bring me fifty-thousand dollars, and I have no more concerns. EXT. SANTA MONICA AIRPORT - 1968 - DAY A pair of boltcutters snaps the chain off a single-engine Cessna. TUNA I can't believe we're stealing a plane. KEVIN Don't be such a pussy. GEORGE It's fine. We're not stealing it. We're borrowing it. And try to look natural. We've got company. A MECHANIC working on the adjacent plane is giving them the hairy eyeball. GEORGE (CONT'D) Be cool. The three boys nod their heads in acknowledgement and give a small wave. The mechanic smiles and waves back. INT. CESSNA - 1968 - DAY The engine is on and the propeller is spinning. Kevin is at the controls. Tuna is not making the trip. He pokes his head in before shutting the cockpit. TUNA You guys are fucking insane. George reads from a flight manual. GEORGE Alright, pull back the throttle... The engine screams. GEORGE (CONT'D) Not that far, only halfway. You sure you know what you're doing? KEVIN Relax. I've flown with my old man a million times. And he always told me, the taking off part is easy, it's the landing you've got to worry about. EXT. SANTIAGO FARM - MEXICO - 1968 - DAY The plane tries to land. It's a clumsy one. The Cessna is tipping and touching, first one wheel, then another, almost sideways before straightening out and stopping. George and Kevin hop out of the plane. They are greeted by Santiago and the Mexican contingency. AMIGOS Hola, George! Bienvenido! George hands out presents to everyone. He's like Santa Claus, giving gifts to every man, woman and child. They love him. Santiago pumps George's hand. SANTIAGO Good to see you, Jorge. You are a man of your word. GEORGE Actually, I've got some news. That fifty thousand I promised you, I couldn't get it. George throws Santiago a duffel bag. GEORGE (CONT'D) So I brought you sixty. EXT. DRY LAKE BEDS - TWENTY-NINE PALMS, CA. - 1968 - DUSK Rada sits in the Winnebago and keeps flashing the headlights. Barbara, Tuna, and Maria stand on top of the Winnebago waving big, white towels. The plane descends from the sky and touches down, making another extremely shaky landing. INT. FOREAL'S HOUSE - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1968 - NIGHT It's on the water and beautiful. The furnishings are distinctly Derek Foreal. It's a surreal scene. The holiday decorations are up, TOPLESS WOMEN in elf outfits sip champagne, and a thousand pounds of cannabis lays on the living room floor. GEORGE Are you sure you want to do this in front of everyone? DEREK Don't be ridiculous, these are my babies. George empties the pot all over the floor. DEREK (CONT'D) George, you're a genius. We're rich. Come, children. The girls dive on top of Derek, caressing and kissing him. DEREK (CONT'D) George, get my camera. Derek poses with a load of marijuana like it's a new fur. DEREK (CONT'D) Take a picture of me, George. Take a picture of me with my new friends. It'll be a fabulous Christmas card. INT. VILLA - PUERTO VALLARATA - 1970 - DAY A Mexican Real Estate Agent shows Barbara and George a sprawling Villa in Puerto Vallarta. It's amazing. White marble on the water. George looks at Barbara. GEORGE Should we buy it? BARBARA Are you kidding? GEORGE We'll take it. EXT. VILLA - PUERTO VALLARATA - 1970 - MAGIC HOUR The team is there. All of them. George, Barbara, Kevin, Rada, Tuna, Maria and Derek with a couple of new senorita friends. They all wear identical Mexican sombreros. A MEXICAN BOY approaches them with a camera. MEXICAN BOY Picture? They pose, their arms thrown around each other in camaraderie, and FLASH. The picture freezes and WE DISSOLVE. INT. THE BUGGY WHIP - WEYMOUTH - 1972 - NIGHT George is taking Barbara and his parents out to dinner. The Buggy Whip is Ermine's favorite. ERMINE I just can't get over the size of that ring. I just love it. Fred, look at it. Tell me you don't love that ring. FRED I'm just happy that George has found someone he cares for. ERMINE Yes. Of course. But, I'm talking about that ring. It's something else. Let me tell you. BARBARA George has exquisite taste. ERMINE What is that, two carats? That's got to be two carats. BARBARA I don't know. ERMINE Yes. It's at least two carats, darling. Treasure it. FRED Hard to imagine being able to afford a ring like that on a construction salary. All eyes turn to George, who fumbles. GEORGE Well, you know. It's um... ERMINE Oh, shut up, Fred. Shut your big fat mouth. You don't buy it all at once. It's called layaway. FRED Layaway shmayaway. ERMINE That's right. Layaway. Something you wouldn't know anything about, you cheapskate. FRED Who's the cheapskate? ERMINE You, you big old tightwad. He still has his communion money. Tell him, George. Tell your father about layaway. GEORGE Yeah, layaway. ERMINE The boy is happy, Fred. Don't be such a killjoy. FRED Killjoy? George looks to Barbara, whose nose is bleeding. GEORGE Honey, your nose! BARBARA Oh my G-d, I'm so sorry. ERMINE Barbara, here, take my napkin. BARBARA Thanks. I'll be okay. GEORGE You wanna split? BARBARA Yeah, I don't feel so well. GEORGE Okay, guys, we're gonna leave. Let's get the check. EXT. THE BUGGY WHIP - WEYMOUTH - 1972 - LATER George and Barbara exit the restaurant. GEORGE Are you sure you're okay? You're pale. BARBARA I feel like shit. Me and my frigging nosebleeds. GEORGE I'm taking you to the doctor when we get home, and I don't want to hear any arguments. BARBARA Would you be bummed out if I didn't go to Chicago with you? GEORGE No, not at all. Sure. You're right. You fly home and get some rest. BARBARA Nice first impression. A nose bleed in front of your parents. GEORGE Oh my G-d, how embarrassing were they? I wanted to shoot myself. BARBARA Oh, they weren't that bad. I mean, they were kind of cute. GEORGE Promise me that we'll never be like them. I don't want to wind up like that. BARBARA Relax, baby. We're going to wind up like us. INT. POLICE STATION - CHICAGO - 1972 - DAY SUPERIMPOSE MUG SHOTS of George. Left, right, center. George sits handcuffed to a chair. Piles of marijuana bricks roll past him. GEORGE (V.O.) I had a little problem in Chicago. Something about trying to sell a truckload of dope to an undercover officer. So I applied the three rules of the game under if and when arrested. INT. COOK COUNTY COURTHOUSE - CHICAGO - 1972 - DAY George and his COURT APPOINTED ATTORNEY stand before the JUDGE at the arraignment. GEORGE (V.O.) Rule one: don't fight. A trial will cost you a fortune in lawyer's fees and the jury will chop off your balls and hand them to you on a platter. JUDGE George Jung, you have been accused of possession of six-hundred and sixty pounds of marijuana with intent to distribute. How do you plead? GEORGE (V.O.) Rule two: plead not guilty and get bailed out of jail. GEORGE (CONT'D) Your honor, I'd like to say a few words to the court. The court appointed attorney puts his head in his hands. JUDGE By all means. GEORGE In all honesty, I don't feel like what I've done is a crime and I think it's illogical and irresponsible for you to sentence me to prison. None of the real criminals of the world ever end up behind bars. I mean, when you think about it, what did I really do? Cross an imaginary line with a bunch of plants? You say that I'm an outlaw, you say that I'm a thief, but where's the Christmas dinner for the people on relief? George stops when his attorney stamps on his foot. The court officers roll their eyes and the judge smiles. JUDGE Those are very interesting concepts you have, Mr. Jung. Unfortunately for you, the imaginary line you crossed is real, the plants you brought with you are illegal, and what you did constitutes a crime. The judge slams his gavel. JUDGE (CONT'D) Bail is set at twenty-thousand dollars. EXT. COOK COUNTY COURTHOUSE - CHICAGO - 1972 - NIGHT George walks out, free on bond, to find Barbara waiting for him. She doesn't look so good. BARBARA Surprise. GEORGE Baby, you didn't have to come. BARBARA What, and miss all the fun? C'mon, not a chance. So, what's the verdict? GEORGE Lawyer says he can plead it down to five years. I'll serve two. BARBARA Two years. George, I can't wait that long. GEORGE What? You're not going to wait for me? BARBARA George, I went to the doctor. I don't have two years. GEORGE (V.O.) Which brings me to rule number three: which says, fuck rules one and two, skip bail and take off. EXT. RENT-A-CAR - 1972 - DAY George hits the gas and the car screams down the road. EXT. VILLA - PUERTO VALLARTA - 1973 - GOLDEN HOUR George and Barbara sit on the veranda drinking champagne and watching the sun go down over the Pacific. Barbara is completely bald. Rail thin, eyes sunken. But it doesn't matter. They're having a great time. They laugh and hold hands and laugh some more. EXT. CEMETERY - PUERTO VALLARTA - 1973 - DAY Everyone is there. All in black. Barbara's casket is lowered into the ground and George climbs to his knees to push the first dirt on the grave. GEORGE (V.O.) Time is such a funny thing. I look at where I am now, and in here, time inches along. So slow, it hardly seems like it moves. But back then, time went fast. EXT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - NEW YORK - 1999 - DAY George pushes dirt along the edge of a flower root. Still planting those sunflowers, he presses down firmly, standing before him is Barbara, still beautiful and young with flowing locks. George raises his hand and makes a small wave. Barbara opens and closes her hand. Bye bye. GEORGE It went too fast. George looks down and Barbara is gone. No Barbara. EXT. JUNG HOUSE - BACKYARD - WEYMOUTH - 1973 - NIGHT George hops the fence like he did when he was a boy and goes in the back door. INT. JUNG HOUSE - KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS Ermine looks at George blankly. GEORGE Hi, Mom. Ermine just keeps looking at him. GEORGE (CONT'D) Surprised to see me? ERMINE Take your boots off. You're tan. GEORGE Mexico. ERMINE Yeah. We heard all about it. I want you to know I'm deeply sorry about your girlfriend. GEORGE Barbara. ERMINE Yes, Barbara. She was very pretty. GEORGE Thank you. Have you been getting the money I sent you? ERMINE You mean the drug money? Yes, I got it. Ermine's hands are trembling. She is emotional. She hugs George ferociously, not letting go. ERMINE (CONT'D) G-d, son. GEORGE Okay, Mom. It's okay. Where's Dad? George turns around to see Fred's beaming face. INT. JUNG HOUSE - KITCHEN - LATER George and Fred sit at the table, a bottle of Scotch sits between them. The glasses are raised. GEORGE May the wind always be at your back and the sun always upon your face... FRED ...and the winds of destiny carry you aloft... BOTH ...to dance with the stars. The glasses clink and the drinks are sucked down. INT. JUNG HOUSE - LATER The bottle is dwindling. George and Fred are feeling it. FRED You alright? George nods. GEORGE Just low. FRED You loved her, didn't you? You really loved her. GEORGE Yeah, Dad. I really did. What am I gonna do? FRED Tough spot. The glasses are refilled. GEORGE You mad at me? FRED Not mad. GEORGE Yeah, you are. I can tell by the way you look at me. FRED I just don't know what you're thinking. I don't understand your choices. You know, the police are looking for you. GEORGE I know. I'm great at what I do, Dad. I mean, I'm really great. FRED Let me tell you something, son. You would have been great at anything. Something outside catches George's eye. A light. A reflection. A movement. George is up and on the move. FRED (CONT'D) Where are you going? EXT. JUNG HOUSE - NIGHT The front door opens and FEDERAL AGENTS pour into the house. INT. JUNG HOUSE - CONTINUOUS George is up the stairs in a flash. ERMINE George! INT. GEORGE'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS George slams the door behind him, moves over to the window, and opens it. Cops everywhere. He's trapped. Out of options, he folds. He moves to the corner and sits down, turns on the train set. A KNOCK on the door is heard. FBI Agent, JAMES T. TROUT. TROUT George Jung, you are under arrest. FRED Open the door, son. EXT. JUNG HOUSE - LATER They lead George outside in handcuffs. Ermine and Fred watch. ERMINE I had no choice. George stops and looks at his mother, for the first time realizing her betrayal. ERMINE (CONT'D) Don't look at me like that. What was I supposed to do? You're in our house. What, was I supposed to be an accomplice? As George is led to the police car, Ermine follows. ERMINE (CONT'D) You don't think people know you're a drug dealer? Everyone knows. It's no secret. How do you think that reflects on me? Every time I go out, I'm humiliated. I see the stares. I hear the whispers. How do you think that makes me feel? Did you ever once stop and think of me? George's head is pushed down as he is put in the squad car. He looks up at his mother. ERMINE (CONT'D) So you go to jail. It's for your own good. You need to straighten your life out. INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - 1974 - DAY SUPERIMPOSE: George is being led through a series of gated corridors. GUARD Prisoner in. As he walks, he takes in the faces of the other inmates. He arrives at his cell and notices he has a ROOMMATE. GUARD (CONT'D) Prisoner in. The cell door opens and George steps inside. There are books and papers spread out over both bunk beds. George watches as his cellmate quickly clears everything off the top bunk. Apparently, the papers are private. George puts his things down and the little man proffers his hand. He is dark, polite and Colombian. DIEGO DELGADO My name is Diego Delgado. How do you do? INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - MESS HALL - 1974 - DAY George pushes his tray through the cafeteria line. Diego is behind him. DIEGO If you don't mind me asking, what is the reason you are in this place? GEORGE What? DIEGO Your offense? Why are you here? GEORGE I don't want to talk about it. DIEGO Intriguing. I see. Would you like to know my crime? GEORGE Not really, no. DIEGO No? GEORGE I don't like a lot of conversation, Diego. DIEGO Me, too. Too much blah, blah, blah, blah is no good. But we are roommates, okay? And we must talk to each other. I am arrested for stealing cars. For the grand theft auto. Okay? So, now it is your turn. Now you will tell me, okay? You will tell me why you are here? George says nothing. He keeps eating his food. DIEGO (CONT'D) Oh, come on, George. If we are to be friends, we must trust each other. GEORGE Murder. DIEGO Ah, yes. The murder. INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - GEORGE'S CELL - NIGHT George lays on his bunk, smoking. Diego is on the bottom bunk, furiously writing on a notepad. He flips through his books and rustles his papers. George peeks over the side to see what Diego is doing. GEORGE What do you got there, Diego? DIEGO Nothing. Just a little project. GEORGE What kind of project? DIEGO Never mind. Not for you to worry. GEORGE I thought you said we were roommates. That we should talk about everything. DIEGO You have your intrigues. I have mine. This is a happy day for me, George. Nine months from today, I will be in Medellin sipping champagne. In nine months, I am free. How much time do you have? GEORGE Twenty-six months. DIEGO Twenty-six months? For murder? I must be your lawyer. GEORGE I've got to get out of here, Diego. DIEGO Only two ways I know to leave here early. One is to escape. GEORGE What's the other one? INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - CLASSROOM - DAY George is trying to teach basic education to the inmates. The room, mostly black and hispanic, is hostile. They don't want to learn. GEORGE Alright, let's open our books. INMATE #1 Man, fuck you. INMATE #2 We ain't opening shit. INMATE #1 You just the warden's boy. We on to you. You just trying to knock some time off, asskissing motherfucker. Diego watches as the room reacts with laughter. This ain't going to be easy. GEORGE Alright. You're right. I want to get out of this shithole as fast as I can. And I don't want to do this any more than you do. But for me to walk early, some of you have to graduate. You, forget about it. You're hopeless, go to sleep. The room laughs again. INMATE #3 Damn, homeboy, you got ruined. GEORGE But the rest of you could get diplomas and get jobs when you're on the outside. The room looks at him. They ain't buying it. INMATE #1 Shit, I'm in for life. INMATE #2 I'm a criminal. I ain't getting no motherfucking job. GEORGE We can learn some criminal shit, too. Alright, I'll make you a deal. What if half the time, we learn about George Washington, and the other half, I'll teach you how to smuggle drugs? INMATE #2 Man, you don't know dick about smuggling no drugs. GEORGE I was arrested in Chicago with six hundred and sixty pounds of grass. I think that qualifies me. Diego looks up from his desk, suddenly very interested. INMATE #1 How did you get a hold of six-hundred and sixty pounds of dope? GEORGE Flew it in from Mexico on a single engine Cessna. Now, do we have a deal or not? They react. They're in. GEORGE (CONT'D) Alright, the first thing you need to know about smuggling drugs is that it's easy. The DEA are a bunch of losers. They couldn't find their dicks in a whorehouse. They don't know what the fuck they're doing... Diego watches George winning over the room. He listens intently to George's every word. His wheels are turning. INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - GEORGE'S CELL - NIGHT Lights out. Diego and George lay in their cots. George is tired. Diego is not. DIEGO George? Hey, George? I listen to what you say to the class today about the smuggling. You are a magico, ah? George doesn't respond. DIEGO (CONT'D) I never believed you were a murderer. I knew. I knew you are a magico. I have seen it in you. It's in your spirit. GEORGE I'm tired, Diego. Go to bed. DIEGO You like to make the boundaries disappear. It's not only the money, is it, George? The adventure is part of the victory. It's the thrill, ah? GEORGE Good night. DIEGO In my country, I am a magico. A man with a dream. A man on the rise. To take nothing and make it something, okay? I have failed my dream, but I will accomplish. That is why I am in your country. Yes, I lose my freedom. But they do not take my dream. Do you have a dream, George? GEORGE I would if I could get some sleep. DIEGO Yes, you have a dream. And maybe you accomplish your dream. But yet you failed. Why? GEORGE Because I got caught. DIEGO No, my brother. GEORGE Because they caught me? DIEGO You failed because you had the wrong dream. Diego climbs off his bunk and looks George square in the eye. DIEGO (CONT'D) George? What do you know about cocaine? INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - MESS HALL - DAY GEORGE I don't know, Diego. I've got a good thing going already. Everybody smokes pot. It's easy. Cocaine is a rich man's drug. It's too expensive. DIEGO No, no. That is where you are wrong. For us, it is cheap. In Medellin, we buy for six-thousand dollars a kilo. IN Miami, we sell for sixty. George's interest is piqued. GEORGE That's over fifty-thousand dollars profit per kilo. DIEGO And that's wholesale. Cut it a few times and retail, you're looking at two, three-hundred thousand. GEORGE Oh my G-d. DIEGO Yes. And a kilo of coca is smaller than a kilo of your precious marijuana. Everything is the same, George, except instead of thousands, you are making millions. GEORGE Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. DIEGO Now do you see what I am saying? GEORGE Getting it here is no problem. Trust me. I'll fly it in myself if I have to. What about supply? How much can we get? DIEGO Don't worry. We will talk of everything. We have the time. You arrive here with a Bachelor of Marijuana, but you will leave with a Doctorate of Cocaine. INT. DANBURY F.C.I. - GEORGE'S CELL - NIGHT Diego and George pouring over Diego's plans. Discussing, planning, plotting. DIEGO What type of planes do you have? GEORGE Four passenger, single engine Cessna. DIEGO How many kilos can we fit in these planes? GEORGE I don't know. A hundred, hundred and fifty. How many miles is it from Colombia to Miami? DIEGO Fifteen hundred. We'll have to stop somewhere to refuel. GEORGE We'll refuel in the Bahamas. I know someone there. DIEGO Great. I love the Bahamas. EXT. LIQUOR STORE - WEYMOUTH - 1976 SUPERIMPOSE: JULY, 1976. George is at a payphone. He drops in about a million quarters until he is finally connected. GEORGE Diego Delgado, please? DIEGO Allo? GEORGE Diego? It's George. DIEGO George, hallo! Today is the day, ah? Are you out? GEORGE Yeah, I'm out. DIEGO Congratulations, brother. I've been waiting for you. GEORGE How are we doing? DIEGO Perfect, George. Perfect. Everything is fine down here. Everything is all set up. GEORGE Do we need a plane? How does this work? When do I see you? DIEGO Slow down, George. Slow down. Fred exits the liquor store carrying two bottles of Dom Perignon. As he catches George's eye, he lifts the bottles showing them off. George holds up his finger, indicating he'll be just a second. DIEGO (CONT'D) You need to come down here, everybody meets everybody. Ho ho ho. Ha ha ha. We do one for good faith and then we talk about airplanes. GEORGE I can't go anywhere, Diego. I'm on parole. I can't leave the state. DIEGO But you must. It's the only way. GEORGE I just got released five minutes ago. DIEGO George, are we gonna do this or not? EXT. BASSETERRE HOTEL - ANTIGUA - POOLSIDE - 1976 - DAY George steps outside and spots Diego. Their eyes meet. Diego looks different, relaxed. He wears a straw hat, shorts, and sports a healthy tan. The two men embrace. GEORGE Good to see you, Diego. DIEGO Yes. Look around you. The sun. The water. The women. It's better than Danbury, no? Come on. I have some friends I would like you to meet. EXT. BASSETERRE HOTEL - ANTIGUA - POOLSIDE - 1976 - DAY Diego and George sit with five other Colombians, most notably, a man named CESAR ROZA. The mood is not friendly. DIEGO Fifteen kilos. Seven and a half in each suitcase. You receive a hundred thousand dollars upon delivery. GEORGE Okay. CESAR Not so fast. I would like to go over the details. GEORGE What details? I put the coke in the false bottoms and take it through customs. CESAR Tell me about the suitcases. What is the make and the color? DIEGO Samsonites. Red. No tags. Cesar thinks about it. CESAR Hmm. I see. Will there be clothes in the suitcase? GEORGE What? Yeah, sure. CESAR Whose cloths? Your clothes? GEORGE My clothes, your clothes. What does it matter? CESAR I would like to know the contents. Every detail is important. GEORGE What are we doing here, Diego? This guy's a clown. He's talking about clothes. CESAR I demand to know everything. I do not trust six-hundred thousand dollars of coca to someone I don't know. GEORGE It's a lousy fifteen kilos. I piss fifteen kilos. CESAR The coca is my responsibility! GEORGE You're a fucking amateur! DIEGO Gentlemen, please. There is no need to be impolite. Cesar, this will be fine. You have my word. George, Cesar is just being thorough. That's all. CESAR Very well. But just remember, Mr. Jung. I will be with you the whole way. And I will be watching. INT. LOGAN AIRPORT - CUSTOMS - 1976 - DAY George carries the two Samsonites over to customs inspections. It's a long walk. George's heart beats hard. The sound is audible and grows with every beat. BA-BUMP. BA BUMP. Cesar lurks at the baggage carousel. GEORGE (V.O.) When you're carrying drugs across the border, the idea is to remain calm. The way I do it is to think of something pleasant, a fun party, a moment of triumph. A sexual encounter. I actually project myself to that place. Anything to keep your mind off the fact that you're going to jail for a very long time if they find the fifteen kilos of cocaine in your suitcases. George stands in front of the customs agent. He tries his best to look relaxed as the agent reviews his documents. CUSTOMS AGENT On vacation? GEORGE Yes. CUSTOMS AGENT On vacation for only one day? BA-BUMP. BA-BUMP. The heartbeats are very loud. GEORGE (weak smile) My brother's wedding. Imagine that, huh? George's breathing is labored and his swallowing reflex doesn't seem to be working. Cesar passes through, eyeballing George the whole time. CUSTOMS AGENT Open your bags, please. George opens the Samsonites. Super dry mouth. BA-BUMP. BA BUMP. The beats are deafening now. Cesar nervously monitors the situation from the payphones. CUSTOMS AGENT (CONT'D) Whose clothes are these? GEORGE Mine. The customs agent holds up a woman's undergarment. Cesar throws up his hands in frustration. CUSTOMS AGENT And this? GEORGE What can I tell you? Different strokes. George winks at the customs agent, who shakes his head before finishing the inspection. CUSTOMS AGENT Alright, go ahead. EXT. LOGAN AIRPORT - PAYPHONES - CONTINUOUS George moves to the payphones, sets down the two suitcases, and pretends to make a call. Not inconspicuously, Cesar grabs the bags and walks quickly out of the terminal. INT. BASSETERRE HOTEL - ANTIGUA - 1976 - DAY Diego, Cesar, George and JACK STEVENS, a silver haired executive type, lounge around the mini-suite. Cesar still has that crazy look in his eye. DIEGO Three-hundred kilos it is, then. A beautiful Latin woman enters and kisses both Diego and Cesar. Her name is INEZ, and friendly she is not. DIEGO (CONT'D) Has everyone met Inez? This is George. I've told you about him. And this is friend, Jack Stevens. The men proffer their hands, but she just looks at them like ants before sitting down next to Diego. DIEGO (CONT'D) Try to be more respectful, darling. My apologies. But she is mistrustful of Americans. Shall we proceed? Let's hear it again, Mr. Stevens. STEVENS I'll fly down on a Friday, refuel in the Bahamas, and then to Medellin. INEZ Friday? Inez addresses Diego and Cesar only. She speaks in Spanish. The conversation is about "Why Friday?" Inez has some problem with it. Diego explains. And Inez is reassured. DIEGO Please, continue. GEORGE We make the pick-up, refuel once more in the Bahamas, and fly back on Sunday with the mom and pop traffic. CESAR Why are you speaking? GEORGE Excuse me? CESAR You. Your responsibility is over. You do not fly. You are not a pilot. You are not a distributor. You introduced us to Mr. Stevens and the use of his airplane. That is all. You make a percentage. A generous one. And you're lucky to get that. GEORGE I see. How much? CESAR Padrino will pay ten-thousand per kilo. For everyone. For you, and you, and you. He indicates George, Diego and Jack Stevens. CESAR (CONT'D) There is no negotiation. Three-million dollars. That is all. STEVENS I want two. GEORGE Gee, Jack, a million each had such a nice ring to it. STEVENS No way. I'm doing all the work. Taking all the risk, and it's my plane. Diego and George look at each other. STEVENS (CONT'D) Hey, you guys don't have to do shit. Just sit back and collect your money. GEORGE You good with this? Diego nods. GEORGE (CONT'D) Alright. This is too much for Inez to handle. She starts screaming machine gun Spanish. Something about a "lousy two-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars," and how Diego is "such a coward" to give away all his money. Diego is embarrassed but tries to remain calm. DIEGO You will watch what you say. Especially around George. He is my brother and he speaks as good Spanish as you. But Inez is wild. She starts in again, a log of "Putos (SOB's)", and "Cojones" and "Maricones (gay/sissys)." Even Cesar is uncomfortable. Diego stands. DIEGO (CONT'D) Okay. That's enough. INEZ Get your hands off me. Inez takes a swing at Diego and catches him full across the face. Time stops in the room. Question. What will Diego do? Answer: SMACK! Diego swings back and a full scale is on. Cesar continues the conversation. It's surreal. As if Diego and Inez weren't beating the shit out of each other right in front of them. CESAR Do you have pictures of your kids? STEVENS What? CESAR I'll need to see them. Also need their names and the names of their schools. We are trusting you with ninety million dollars worth of coca, Mr. Stevens. Without your children, there is no deal. Stevens thinks about it. Kids as collateral. Inez and Diego are still duking it out. But Diego finally gets the upper hand and drags her into the bedroom. STEVENS Fine. So if that's all, I'll be leaving now. Cesar walks him to the door. CESAR Don't forget the pictures. Diego calls from the other room. DIEGO (O.S.) George. George, come in here. INT. LA BELLE MER - BEDROOM - LATER Diego has put Inez in the bathroom and is holding the door closed. She pounds and kicks and screams in frustration, but he pays no attention. DIEGO What's the matter, George? GEORGE What's the matter? We're moving three hundred fucking kilos and we're making dogshit. DIEGO A million dollars for our first run is not bad, George. GEORGE It is bad. It's chump change. We might as well be hauling suitcases across the border. We're getting screwed. DIEGO I know. GEORGE And what happens when these guys stop paying? Sooner or later, these guys are going to cut us out. Then where are we? DIEGO That's my George, always thinking. The door is yanked open to reveal Inez. She is in a rage. Diego slams it in her face. DIEGO (CONT'D) This is only part of the business, George. A very small part. Don't worry, there is so much more to do. Which reminds me, I need a favor from you. I must go to Colombia. GEORGE What is it, George? Because I have to get home. I've got a parole officer waiting for me. DIEGO I need you to go to Miami. EXT. VENETIAN KING APTS. - MIAMI - 1977 - DAY George gets out of a taxi to find SEVERAL COLOMBIAN MEN hanging around outside an apartment. He checks the address and moves over to the men. GEORGE I'm George. Friend of Diego's? The Colombian men are not impressed. They grab George and pull him inside. INT. VENETIAN KING APTS. - CONTINUOUS George is pinned against the wall and the Colombian men all start screaming at him in Spanish. There seems to be a problem. A man, ALESSANDRO, steps forward. He is the one who speaks English. ALESSANDRO QUIET! Callate! Where's Diego? GEORGE I don't know. He sent me. I'm George. ALESSANDRO Oh, I see. George. Well, that explains everything. Open your mouth, George. George's puzzled look is replaced by a gun barrel in his face. Alessandro presses it against George's front teeth. ALESSANDRO (CONT'D) Now, you listen to me. Are you hearing me? George nods. ALESSANDRO (CONT'D) You see this? He indicates two duffel bags stuffed with fifty kilos of cocaine. ALESSANDRO (CONT'D) I've been holding this shit for him for three weeks. You tell Diego I don't appreciate it. You tell him I want my money by Friday. Can you do that? GEORGE Um-hmm. INT. JUNG HOUSE - GEORGE'S ROOM - DAY George sits on his bed, reading. Two duffel bags are tucked away in the closet. Ermine pokes her head in. ERMINE You have a phone call. George picks up the phone. DIEGO (O.S.) George. GEORGE Jesus Christ, Diego, where are you? It's been eleven days and these guys want their fucking money. DIEGO (O.S.) Bad news, George. I'm in Colombia. GEORGE Well, you better get here fast. I'm sitting on... George notices Ermine is loitering in the hallway, eavesdropping. GEORGE (CONT'D) Hi, Mom. George acknowledges her before shutting the door in her face. GEORGE (CONT'D) I'm sitting on fifty fucking keys. Get your ass up here. INT. CARCEL DE VARONES - MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA - CONTINUOUS It's a South American prison. Diego is on the pay phone. DIEGO It's a little hard to get away right now. I'm afraid you're on your own. INT. FOREAL'S HOUSE - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1977 - NIGHT George and Derek sit in the living room with MR. T, a hippie ish looking professor. On the table sits various paraphernalia. Scales, beakers, test tubes, and a hot box. George and Derek watch as Mr. T scoops some of George's cocaine and sets it onto the two-inch metal plate. MR. T What we're doing is measuring the purity. Pure coke melts out a hundred and eighty-five, a hundred and ninety degrees. Cutting agents melt much lower. About a hundred degrees. Quality product starts melting at a hundred and forty degrees. That's what I'm hoping for. Mr. T turns the dial. 120. 130. 140. MR. T (CONT'D) Good. 150. 160. MR. T (CONT'D) Jesus Christ. 170. 180. MR. T (CONT'D) Holy fucking Mary! Jesus, fuck me running! Where did you get this shit! At one-hundred and eighty-seven degrees, the white powder dribbles off the hotplate and melts away. MR. T (CONT'D) Damn! Can I do a fucking line?! Mr. T puts his nose in the powder. George pulls Foreal aside. GEORGE What did I tell you? DEREK It's great and everything, but what am I going to do with all this? GEORGE Sell it? DIEGO Jesus Christ, George, I don't see you in two years, and you show up at my door with a hundred and ten pounds of cocaine? GEORGE Just sell it, Derek. DEREK Alright, but it's gonna take me a year. INT. THE WHIPPING POST - MANHATTAN BEACH - 1977 - NIGHT Money everywhere. All over the floor, the counters, the chairs, and even in the sinks. George and Derek count the money patiently, writing the dollar amount in yellow high lighter on the top of each stack, before wrapping it with a rubber band. DIEGO Thirty-six hours. I can't believe it. Everything is gone in thirty-six hours. GEORGE I think it's fair to say you underestimated the market there, Derek. DIEGO Touche. GEORGE But to the victor belong the spoils. George divides the money. There's a hell of a lot. GEORGE (CONT'D) Half a million for you. Half a million for me. One-point-three five for the Colombians. DEREK Nice doing business with you, George. GEORGE Not bad for a weekend's work, huh? INT. AIRPORT - MIAMI - DAY Immaculate in his white turtleneck and sunglasses, George walks with two aluminum cases. He is greeted by Alessandro and his thugs. ALESSANDRO Greetings, Mr. George. GEORGE Where do you guys want to count? ALESSANDRO On the plane. GEORGE What plane? We going someplace? Where we headed? You have your money. It's all there. What the fuck is going on? They usher him away. EXT. OLAYA HERRERA AIRPORT - MEDELLIN - DAY SUPERIMPOSE: MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA The lear jet lands. EXT. DESERTED SUGAR FACTORY - LOS RIOS, COLOMBIA - DAY The blazer pulls into a long driveway. They approach a gate where SHIRTLESS TEENAGERS with MAC-10's stand guard. The gate opens. YOUNG SOLDIERS open the door for George and roughly usher him over to a Jeep within the confine. They frisk him top to bottom. Diego is leaning against another Jeep and waits for George to be released. DIEGO George, good to see you, my brother. GEORGE What the fuck is going on? When did you get out of jail? DIEGO Pablo used his influence. Now, George, watch what you say. Everybody hears everything. A lot of things get said and done that, well, let's just say this isn't America. Life is cheap here, you know? No offense, but you know what I'm saying? GEORGE Yeah. Keep my mouth shut and let you do the talking. DIEGO Right. Now who is the person in California? The connection? GEORGE Just a friend. DIEGO Who? I need to know. Ah, never mind. We'll talk about it later. GEORGE Yeah. You do the talking. The sound of a young man, a MALETON, struggling can be heard in the distance. From another area, PABLO ESCOBAR emerges. He is singular in purpose. He is handed a pistol and moves quickly over to the man and quietly speaks a few words. And then, without emotion, he shoots the maleton in the head. George and Diego, who is visibly shaken, watch. Escobar is handed a towel, and he wipes the splattered blood off his hands, as he moves back. LARGE COLOMBIAN MAN He will see you now. (to Diego) Not you. DIEGO There must be some kind of mistake. LARGE COLOMBIAN MAN No mistake. Mr. Escobar will see Mr. Jung alone. You are to wait here. George hesitates. DIEGO It's alright, George. You go. LARGE COLOMBIAN MAN This way, please. The large Colombian man escorts George towards the area where the maleton was just shot. George looks back at Diego as he is led away. ESCOBAR So, this is the man who takes fifty kilos and makes them disappear in one day? GEORGE Actually, it was three. ESCOBAR The man who gives us the airplanes. The man from America. The mafia. Chicago. Boom boom. Hollywood. You are going to open for us the gates of Hollywood, George? GEORGE It would be my pleasure. ESCOBAR Good. Very good. Welcome, my friend. Welcome to my country. Escobar moves over to embrace George. George returns it, and their hands come together. George can't help it. He reflexively looks at his hands. Escobar understands. ESCOBAR (CONT'D) The man in the garden. He was full of courage. GEORGE Un sapo? ESCOBAR Un rata - no good. But he could have run, fled the country. Gone to the policia. But then his wife, his children, his parents, his friends, many people would die. GEORGE Yes. ESCOBAR But, never mind. I am thinking we can do much together. This problem with Diego, the stolen car, the jail, is very silly business. To release him from the carcel, it causes me much inconvenience. The fifty kilos could have been a big problem. And I don't like problems. GEORGE With all respect, Padrino. Diego is my partner. I do not do business without him. Escobar looks at him with a cold stare. But George doesn't flinch. His face reveals nothing. Finally, a smile breaks across Pablo's lips. ESCOBAR I like you, George. You are loyal. That is good. That is rare. Maybe crazy. Yes. I can tell already. You are like me. I look at you and I see myself. It's in the eyes, no, George? GEORGE Yes, it is. ESCOBAR So, you are wanting to sell the cocaine for me in your country, George? GEORGE Yes, sir. As much as you can give me. ESCOBAR As much as I can give you? Ha ha. Very good. I like that. Come, George. Let us drive. We have much to talk about. Diego watches the two men walk outside. Escobar throws an arm around George's shoulder. Pablo hops into a Jeep and motions for George. The bodyguards come running. But Pablo waves them away. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - COLOMBIA - DAY Escobar pulls the Jeep off the road and parks it. Before them is a stunning panorama. ESCOBAR I like to come up here. To make the decisions. To be one with nature. GEORGE It's beautiful. ESCOBAR People tell me that I am crazy. That my business will never work in your country. What do you think, George? Escobar looks out over the vista, allowing George the time to respond in full. GEORGE What do I think? I don't want my answer to be influenced by what I want, so I'm going to have to say I don't know. ESCOBAR Yes. I do not know, either. What do you want, George? GEORGE I want money. ESCOBAR Yes. Money. Which is what, George? GEORGE Freedom. ESCOBAR Power? GEORGE Yeah, maybe. ESCOBAR Family. GEORGE Sure. ESCOBAR Beautiful girls? GEORGE Keep them coming. ESCOBAR Keep them coming? Ah, yes. Ha ha. You are right. But money. GEORGE Money. ESCOBAR And Diego? GEORGE Diego is my brother. Escobar looks at George a long time. He's inscrutable. ESCOBAR Good. Take care of him, George. I'm fond of him, but he is sometimes like a baby. Keep an eye on him, okay? EXT. DESERTED SUGAR FACTORY - ENTRANCE - DAY Diego is a little pissed off for being left for so long. He taps his foot and picks at his fingernails. Escobar and George pull up in the Jeep. Diego leaps to his feet. DIEGO Padrino. Escobar wraps his arms around Diego in an embrace. ESCOBAR Diego, mijo. I've made a decision. We are going into business and I would like to start right away. MONTAGE - GEORGE AND DIEGO TAKING OVER THE WORLD The following images are overlaid with snow falling and money dropping through frame. CLOSE SHOTS of George and Diego on the phone, wheeling and dealing, hands counting cash, and lines being drawn off mirrors. The effect is surreal and dreamy. INT. WAREHOUSE - DAY A duffel bag is unzipped, revealing bricks and bricks of cocaine. Each marked with a "P." A knife punctures one of the bricks. A mound of white powder is brought up to a man's nose. It's George who samples, and then it is sampled by the man he is doing business with. The shot widens TO REVEAL all the participants and dozens and dozens of duffel bags. A handshake seals the deal. STILL PHOTOS Handshake after handshake after handshake. INT. MIAMI HOUSE - NIGHT George and Diego counting cash. It's everywhere. All over the floor, in two-foot stacks. MORE STILL PHOTOS Various transactions completed. INT. MIAMI HOUSE - NIGHT George and Diego count. It's ridiculous how much money there is. The stacks are now waist high and spill into other rooms. Inez is there, pacing the floor and rapid-fire talking on the phone. MORE STILL PHOTOS George and Diego, the Banditos. Cigars. Champagne. Arms around each other in camaraderie. In Diego's yellow Ferrari. With Inez, sunning on a yacht. More coke and more transactions. When the deals are with Derek Foreal, Diego is always notably absent. INT. MIAMI HOUSE - NIGHT The money is so high, it almost reaches the ceiling. There is nowhere to put it. George and Diego sit at the coffee table, dwarfed by the stacks of bills. There is a discrepancy in the count. GEORGE Three million. I counted it twice. DIEGO It's two-point-five, George. I am sure. George starts to pick up the money. GEORGE I'm calling it three. DIEGO We're half a million off. GEORGE Fuck it. I'm not counting it again. DIEGO Weight it. If it's sixty pounds, it's three. If it's fifty, it's two-point five. GEORGE I don't give a shit. Close enough. George moves down the hall looking for a place to stack the money, but there is no more room. GEORGE (CONT'D) Where do I put this!? DIEGO Try the back bedroom. George opens the back bedroom door to find wall-to-wall money. It's packed. GEORGE There's no room. DIEGO Try the closet. No luck there, either. George drops the money on the floor and moves back into the living room. GEORGE We've got to do something about this. INT. BANCO DE FEDERALE - PANAMA CITY - DAY SUPERIMPOSE: PANAMA CITY, PANAMA George and Diego watch as their money is hauled into a huge wall safe. Armed Panamanian soldiers stand guard. The Panamanian officials and the BANK PRESIDENT oversee the proceedings. GEORGE Are you comfortable with this? DIEGO George, we've got sixty-one million dollars. It's either here or someplace else. We've got to put it somewhere. Unless you want to launder it. GEORGE And keep only forty-percent? No thanks. DIEGO Then relax. It's a federal bank. Guaranteed by the government. And Senor Noriega has very lenient banking principles. No questions. No problems. All the pesados keep their money here. Even El Padrino. What do you worry? Everyone knows we are with Escobar. Who is going to fuck with us? INT. BANCO DE FEDERALE - PRESIDENT'S OFFICE - DAY George and Diego sign papers. The bank president congratulates them and hands them documentation. GEORGE I love it. BANK PRESIDENT I'm sorry. GEORGE I give you thirty-million dollars and you give me this little book. MORE STILL PHOTOS Diego and Inez's wedding. The ceremony. The ring. The kiss. The lineup with all of the bridesmaids. George is the best man, and the only American. INT. BILTMORE HOTEL - BALLROOM - NIGHT A huge reception. All the pomp and circumstance Colombian money can buy. Politicians. Policemen. And every smuggler north of Colombia. George sits with Diego and Inez at the table of honor. Inez is opening presents. Diego's tipsiness is a little out of character, but hey, it's his wedding day and a little champagne never hurt anyone. He drunkenly throws his arm around George's shoulder. DIEGO I'm married, George. Me. I can't believe it. Can you believe I'm married, George? GEORGE You're a lucky man, Diego. DIEGO I love you, my brother, do you know that? GEORGE I love you too, man. George notices MIRTHA showing teeth across the room. GEORGE (CONT'D) I'll be right back, Diego. INEZ Look, honey, a power boat. DIEGO Great, baby, great! They kiss. George walks across the dance floor directly towards Mirtha. GEORGE Hello. MIRTHA Hello. GEORGE Do I know you? MIRTHA I don't think so. GEORGE Why are you smiling? MIRTHA Why are you smiling? GEORGE I don't know. My name is George. MIRTHA I know who you are, El Americano. Mister George. GEORGE What is your name? Cesar arrives. CESAR Mr. Jung, I see you've met my fiancee, Mirtha. He kisses her. GEORGE Mirtha. CESAR Diego needs to see you right away, please. Excuse us, Amorcito. They leave. George looks back, Mirtha is giving him more teeth. George arrives at the table. Various greetings. AUGUSTO Pleased to meet you finally, George. I am Augusto Oliveras. GEORGE My pleasure, Augusto. Diego has told me much about you. RAMON OCHOA Congratulations on your conquest of the West Coast. How much bigger can we get? GEORGE Sky's the limit. We're just beginning to tap the market. If it's accepted by actors and musicians, the rest will follow. They all agree. Mirtha still gives George the teeth from across the room. Diego returns to the table. AUGUSTO We are talking about George's West Coast operation. DIEGO Ah, George's mystery man. RAFAEL OJEDA Yes, where is this man? When do we meet him? DIEGO You don't meet him. George keeps this a secret. He's here meeting everyone, goes to Colombia and meets Pablo, but still keeps his secrets. Even from his brother. JUAN CARLOS "THE GUAPO" Come on, George, we're all in this together. EMILIO OCHOA Yes, George, there's enough for everybody. GEORGE I think Padroni is happy with the current situation. Will you please excuse me? George exits after Mirtha. INT. BILTMORE HOTEL - BALLROOM - CONTINUOUS George steps into the empty lobby looking for Mirtha. He can't find her. She appears from the shadows and startles him. George embraces her and plants one on her. MIRTHA You better know what you're doing, George. You're playing with fire. GEORGE I like fire. MONTAGE - MUSIC CUE - LIVING THE GOOD LIFE CLOSE UP - George does a huge line, left to right. CLOSE UP - Mirtha does a huge line, right to left. EXT. MIAMI DRAG - DAY A stretch limo flies by, left to right. The windows are open and Mirtha and George whoop it up as they go by. INT. MIAMI NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT George and Mirtha out on the crowded dance floor, grooving to the Salsa rhythms. STILL PHOTOS Champagne bottles in hand, George and Mirtha on the tarmac running from the limo to the waiting private plane. EXT. FIVE STAR HOTEL - LOS ANGELES - DAY George and Mirtha poolside, wearing shades, getting some sun. She blows him a kiss from the adjoining lounge chair. He blows one back. She licks her lips and it's on. He's out of the chair, pouring champagne over her tan body, and licking it off. She squeals with delight. A table gets knocked over as they cause a commotion. A hotel manager comes over, but George hands him a wad of cash and he quickly fucks off. INT. MIAMI NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT - MAGICAL REALITY The dancing is in SUPER SLOW MOTION now. Passionate, carnal, intimate. STILL PHOTOS George buys gifts for Mirtha and she shows them off for the camera. A fur. A ring. A house. INT. EASTHAM HOUSE - DAY Overhead shot of George and Mirtha's bedroom. It's completely covered with money. Completely covered. George and Mirtha make love on the sea of cash. As CAMERA PULLS UP we see money slowly falling from the ceiling. INT. SILVER STAR WEDDING CHAPEL - LAS VEGAS - 1978 - DAY There is no white dress. There is no tuxedo. George and Mirtha haven't even taken off their sunglasses. MIRTHA I do. They kiss. Mirtha wipes her red nose. MIRTHA (CONT'D) I need a fucking drink. INT. EASTHAM HOUSE - CONTINUOUS George moves to the bedroom. Mirtha is pregnant and she's showing. She's also bent over a mirror with a straw in her hand. George opens the door and takes her by surprise. GEORGE Jesus Christ. MIRTHA Oh, don't be such a fucking hypocrite. I quit smoking, didn't I? GEORGE Put that shit away, they're here. INT. EASTHAM HOUSE - DOWNSTAIRS - LATER Mirtha and George lead Fred and Ermine from room to room, showing off the house. The decor is, well, eclectic. It doesn't match the architecture. ERMINE It's all so beautiful. MIRTHA What do you think, Dad? FRED Yeah. Nice. ERMINE Look at this credenza. If you don't mind me asking, how much is something like that? It's got to cost a fortune. GEORGE (quickly) It's a family heirloom. ERMINE I've seen those in magazines. They're not cheap. GEORGE Mirtha comes from a very wealthy family. ERMINE Oh, I see. MIRTHA Come on. I'll show you the rest of the house. George and his father move outside. EXT. GROUNDS - CONTINUOUS George and his father walk. GEORGE So, business is going good. I've got this import/export thing going on in Miami that's been very profitable. With my investments... FRED Don't bullshit me, George. I don't see you very much, I don't want to waste the time. They move along the rear of the house. Classic cars line the driveway. FRED (CONT'D) You come from my body, remember? You're my baby boy. The same kid who would jump off a mountain if someone told him he couldn't do it. You haven't changed much. I know the things you do. Not everything. But I get the picture and I don't care. I don't like it. It's not what I would have chosen for you, but it's your life. It doesn't have anything to do with me. He turns and looks at his boy. FRED (CONT'D) You're like your mother. You love money. GEORGE Dad. FRED No, it's good. You have a family. It's good if it makes you happy. It's nice to have nice things. Are you happy, son? GEORGE Yeah, Dad. I'm happy right now. INT. HOLIDAY MOTEL - LITTLE HAVANA - 1978 - DAY Diego puts a straw in his nose and snorts a big gakker. His eyes are wide, his pupils dilated, and a weapon sticks out of the back of his pants. He knocks the dust off his nose before moving outside. George is on the porch, smoking a cigarette. DIEGO Three years. How long have we been in business? Three years. Does she get to meet your connection? Was she good enough? GEORGE Shut up, Diego. They're going to be here any minute. I'm trying to concentrate. DIEGO I'm very angry with you, George. Very angry. You don't take me to California, but you take your bitch wife? A woman? I understand you love her, but it was you and me who started this. You and me. GEORGE What do you need my connection for, Diego? What are you going to do with it? DIEGO What do I do with it? Nothing. It's for peace of mind. It's for the principle. George doesn't have time for this. He checks the cylinders on his weapon and runs over possible scenarios in his mind. But Diego won't get off the soap box. GEORGE Jesus fucking Christ, Diego. I ain't telling you. It's just business. Now, shut up. You're driving me crazy. DIEGO I'm driving you crazy? No. You're driving me crazy. We had a dream. What happened to our dream? A black sedan pulls up and FIVE PUERTO RICAN MEN approach the room. George and Diego greet them and lead them inside. It's game time. The atmosphere is charged with danger and everyone is acutely aware of everything. The guys sit down, their guns bulging through the inside of their suits. The suitcases are opened. The rules are the same. No English. No raising voices. No sudden movements. George offers their leader, TONY, beers for his men, and is politely declined. The count starts. George and Diego riff through ten thousand dollar bundles. Diego is still acting pissy. He's mumbling to himself, making faces, slamming the money all around. The guys keep a close eye on him. Diego finishes a stack, throws one of the bags on the ground. The conversation is in Spanish unless otherwise indicated. TONY Algun problema? GEORGE No no no... no problema, amigo. El dinero esta todo aqui. Lleves las "llaves" y mas tarde lo contaremos. Okay? No problem. TONY Que problema? Nosotros esperamos. The pressure is getting to one of the hoods. His name is BENNY. He's got a crazy eye and he seems ready to snap. George resumes the count, but Diego won't get off it. DIEGO (English) You embarrassed me, George. You make me look very bad. BENNY Que esta diciendo? GEORGE Nothing. Todo esta bien. DIEGO (English) Everything is not alright. I bring you in, and you slap my fucking face! GEORGE This is not the time, Diego. The men all reach for their pieces and all hell starts to break loose. TONY Hay algun problema? Hablame! DIEGO (English) You fucked me in front of my whole family! GEORGE Fuck you...I didn't fuck you. BENNY Maldita sea, que diablos esta diciendo? GEORGE Esta todo aqui, amigo...take the keys. Take 'em and go. TONY Que esta pasando aqui, jefe? DIEGO Sientese ye no se meta en lo que no le importa. The guns are out and pointed. It's out of control now. GEORGE Take it easy! Everything's okay! DIEGO Que es lo que quieren de me, hijueputas campesinos? George steps forward with the keys. GEORGE Take the fucking keys! BLAM! Courtesy of Benny, George is hit. The shoulder, the collarbone. It's hard to tell. GEORGE (CONT'D) Estoy bien, okay? Everything is alright. There's no problem. Okay? This never happened. No one has to know anything about this. Diego, I want you to calmly tell them where the fucking coke is. Do it now. DIEGO Es un Ford blanco junto a una pick-up. Tony very carefully takes the car keys. GEORGE No problem, gentlemen. Goodbye. The men slowly back out the door. George looks at Diego. GEORGE (CONT'D) Derek Foreal. DIEGO What? GEORGE Derek Foreal. Derek Foreal. Derek fucking Foreal. Alright? The answer to all your dreams. Are you happy now? EXT. LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - DAY George and Diego exit the terminal. George's arm is in a sling. The familiar sight of Derek Foreal is Lincoln Continental. The three men come together, and Diego and Derek are introduced. The men's hands come together and the FRAME FREEZES on their handshake. EXT. EASTHAM HOUSE - UPSTAIRS - DAY Fred pulls into the driveway in his new car and honks the horn. Fred and Ermine get out of the car. FRED Hello, hello. INT. OLIVEROS MANSION - MIAMI - NIGHT It's a New Year's Eve party. A lavish Colombian celebration. George and a very pregnant Mirtha move through the crowd to find Augusto. AUGUSTO I'm so glad you two could make it. Mirtha, look at you. So beautiful. You look like you're about to burst. MIRTHA Thanks. I am. Where's Martha? AUGUSTO I don't know. Drunk somewhere. Try the bar. And if you find her, tell her to come, it's almost midnight. As Mirtha leaves, Augusto throws his arm around George's shoulder. AUGUSTO (CONT'D) It's good you came down, George. We need to discuss a few things. DIEGO Where's Diego? AUGUSTO He's not here, George. GEORGE Yeah, well where is he? And who is this Norman K. guy? That's all anyone is talking about. Norman K. Norman K. Do I know him? Augusto lets out a big laugh. AUGUSTO Norman Cay is not a person. He is an island, George. In the Bahamas. From what they say, it is free and it's Diego's new home. GEORGE What? Augusto throws an arm around George's shoulder. AUGUSTO Let us walk. From what I understand, Diego has bought a hundred and sixty acres, a marina, a hotel, and an airstrip. GEORGE Motherfucker works fast. AUGUSTO The word is that soon he is to be king of the middle empire. He is doing multiple runs right now and using the island as a jump-off point. GEORGE He what? AUGUSTO Yes. Jack Stevens is already a very busy man. Along with many others. You shouldn't stay away so long. GEORGE That's impossible. We can't be up and running. Who's distributing? Augusto says nothing. But the ball is dropping in Times Square. 10, 9, 8, 7... GEORGE (CONT'D) Oh, no. Happy New Year. Streamers, confetti, and champagne. George marches through the kissing guests and over to a phone. He's steaming. The music is up, so he has to scream. GEORGE (CONT'D) Hello, Derek? This is George. Am I wearing lipstick? I said, am I wearing lipstick? Because when I'm getting fucked, I want to make sure my face is pretty. You're buying directly from Diego, aren't you, you son of a bitch? INTERCUT Derek Foreal in full New Year's regalia, complete with party hat. DEREK I don't want to get caught in the middle of this. That's between you and Diego. George's face scrinches in pain. DEREK (CONT'D) It's nothing personal, George. Just business. GEORGE Yeah. I understand. Just business. Right. Fuck you. The song ends, and George is left standing there screaming. GEORGE (CONT'D) I bring you in, and this is how you repay me? You little homo! Hey, Derek? Derek? INT. OLIVEROS MANSION - DINING ROOM - 1979 - LATER It's late. The family is all there. Fifteen, twenty strong. Cuban coffees all around. MIRTHA Que va hacer? AUGUSTO Que queres decir. Que es lo que el va hacer? Pues, no va hacer nada. MARIA Alguna cosa tiene que hacer. FAMILY MEMBER #2 De otra manera, es un marica. FAMILY MEMBER #3 Un hijueputa FAMILY MEMBER #1 Maricon. FAMILY MEMBER #2 Mira, vos sos responsable por el exito de Diego. FAMILY MEMBER #3 El se esta burlando de vos. Debes hacer algo, hombre. MARIA No Puedes hacer ni un culo. AUGUSTO El no va hacer nada. Hay un problema. Aqui, hubo un error y nosotros lo vamos ha arreglar. BLANCA No le escusches a mi yerno. A el solo le importa la plata. Blanca reaches into her purse, pulls out an ice pick folded in a piece of linen cloth, and puts it down in front of George. BLANCA (CONT'D) Vos lo tenes que matar, ahorita mismo. De lo contrario vas a quedar como un marica sin horror. FAMILY MEMBER #3 Mejor dicho vos sos un aculillado. FAMILY MEMBER #1 Maricon. BLANCA Sabes que, vos no tenes pantalones. Nadie te va a respetar. Usa esto. Deja solo un huequito tan pequeno, que ni sangre le va a salir a ese malparido del Diego. AUGUSTO Blanca, por favor. MIRTHA Mama, vos sos bien antigua. Como lo va a matar con un picahielo. Eso era en su tiempo, estamos casi ya en los ochenta. El lo va a meter un tiro, lo va a volar, le va a hechar un hijueputa carro encima. AUGUSTO Dejen la maricada pues! No jodan! Nadie va a matar a nadie! George, debemos hablarle al Patron, es la unica manera, mano. GEORGE No, no, no, no yo puedo arregarlo solo. EXT. NORMAN CAY - BAHAMAS - 1979 - DUSK George cruises through the turqoise water of the Caribbean in a sport fisherman. Before him is Norman Cay. White sand beaches. Beautiful. Pristine. EXT. NORMAN CAY - DOCKS - DUSK Waiting for him is Cesar. CESAR Good to see you, George. It's been a long time. INT. THE YACHT CLUB - SUNSET The Yacht Club is a tavern style bar that juts out over the water. The crimson sky streaks the windows. Diego looks like Che Guavera. His hair is long, and a graying beard sticks through his gaunt face. The bar has been taken over by Diego's BANDITOS. Automatic weapons and PROSTITUTES accent this drunken setting. George is escorted through the door by Cesar, and the room quiets. All eyes on Diego and George. Diego rises. DIEGO George, I am happy to see you. How are you, my brother? GEORGE No more brothers, Diego. DIEGO Of course we are brothers. Why do you say that? You hurt me, George. GEORGE You fucked me, Diego. DIEGO I did not. GEORGE You went behind my back and you cut me out. DIEGO No, I never. I would not do that, George. Never. GEORGE I talked to Foreal, Diego. There is a pause. Diego's goons ready their weapons as Diego scoops up a cringer with his pinky and sniffs. DIEGO Maybe you are right. I did betray you a little bit. One of the men says something in Spanish and everyone laughs. George is furious. He starts to tremble and his face turns red. DIEGO (CONT'D) Oh, boo hoo, boo hoo. So sad, George. I stole your California connection. So what? Who introduced you to Pablo Escobar? Me. Who introduced you to your fucking Colombian wife? Me. Who protected you when my friend Cesar Roza wanted to slice your fucking throat, huh? Who mad you millions and millions of dollars? Me. And what do I get in return? This? Accusations? I have always given you everything, George, but that is over now. This is my operation. My dream. So go home, George. Go back to your stupid little life. You can sell half grams to your fucking relatives for all I care. Because you are out! George lunges at Diego and is immediately grabbed. GEORGE You'd better kill me now, Diego, because you're a dead man. DIEGO George, don't be so emotional. This is business. Besides, I can't kill you, you are my brother. They lead him away. EXT. YACHT CLUB - CONTINUOUS George is getting the shit kicked out of him. His teeth broken, kicked in the head, the body, the groin. His arm stomped. Blood and broken bones. It's a king size beating. The men prop him up and Cesar reaches back and hits him with a haymaker. CRACK. George's nose is broken. Blood spurts everywhere. George is dropped to the ground, spit on, and left for dead. CESAR Say "hi" to your pretty wife for me. EXT. HACIENDA LOS NAPOLES - COLOMBIA - POOL - DAY A beautiful, sprawling estate. A family barbecue, Colombian style, is in full swing. Kids play soccer. Zoo animals run wild together. George is led outside by TWO OVER-ARMED BODYGUARDS. Pablo sees him and gives George a big hug. ESCOBAR George, you look terrible. GEORGE Yeah, well... ESCOBAR Diego? GEORGE Yeah. ESCOBAR Please. Sit down. We'll drink some scotch. GEORGE I didn't come here to drink scotch. ESCOBAR I see. I'm sorry about this, George. I'm not happy about this situation. It's bad. You now know who your Brutus is. GEORGE You know why I'm here. You know what I have to do. I came here for permission. Out of respect, Pablo. This is bullshit, he's making me look like a punk. ESCOBAR It is very difficult. Diego makes me a lot of money. If Diego goes so does the money. You were an excellent teacher, George. When the student has learned well, the teacher is no longer necessary. We must remember we have wives, friends, familia. Even familia that has not been born. But sometimes, we must forget as well. I am like you. I must teach the lesson. We want to teach the lesson. But we cannot. We must remember that life is the teacher. GEORGE You're saying life will take care of Diego? ESCOBAR Life will take care of everybody. Diego, me, you. It is the teacher. GEORGE I get it. I'm really pissed, Pablo. You know the DEA knows about Norman's Cay. For Chrissakes, Diego worships Adolf Hitler and John Lennon, that's fucked up! ESCOBAR I'm sorry, George. GEORGE Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? You and me, Pablo? Are we good? ESCOBAR Of course, George. We are beautiful. We are brothers. Real brothers. Not like Diego. We started this, George. Escobar embraces George for a moment, and then George starts to move away. ESCOBAR (CONT'D) And, George? The vengance? It is best served cold. INT. EASTHAM HOUSE - GEORGE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT Mirtha is sleeping. She's so big, she looks like she's gonna explode. George sits on the bed and rests his hand on Mirtha's face. He looks like the Elephant Man. MIRTHA George. Oh, Jesus Christ, George. Look at you. GEORGE Shhh, honey, never mind. It's alright. It's over. I quit the business. I'm out. MIRTHA Pablo said no? GEORGE Pablo said no. It's all over. And I'm never going back. I have you. We have the baby. And there's nothing else. It's just the family now. Shhh. Sleep now. EXT. EASTHAM HOUSE - DAY Fred, Ermine and Mirth are waiting for George in the car. Mirtha's water has broken. Ermine honks the horn from the back seat and screams out the window. ERMINE George, it's time! George! George! INT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS George is high and in a panic. He races around, trying to get a suitcase packed and find his keys. GEORGE Coming! He finally gets it together, but before he runs out the door, he does one last blast. INT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - HYANNIS - MATERNITY - DAY Mirtha is on the birthing table and screaming in pain. She's crowning. George wears hospital scrubs and a surgical mask. He and his saucer pupils hold Mirtha's hand in comfort. The baby comes, and DOCTOR MICK BAY slaps it's behind and cuts the cord. Tough ass Mirtha breaks down and sobs hysterically. But something is wrong with George. The color drains from his face. He grabs his chest and falls over onto the floor. The MEDICAL STAFF attends to him. GEORGE (V.O.) Watching my baby girl born did something to me. They talk about religious experiences, I didn't believe in religion. But when Kristina Sunshine Jung came into this world, something in me changed. I looked at her and I knew right then that I could never love anything but my daughter ever again. It sounds sappy, but it was like, click, I knew what I was put on this planet for. It was the greatest feeling I ever had followed by the worst feeling I ever had. NURSE He fainted. MIRTHA George! The doctor grabs George's wrist. DR. BAY He's in tachycardia. George, your heart is racing. Have you been using drugs? GEORGE Coke. DR. BAY Cocaine? How much? GEORGE I don't know. Maybe eighteen grams. DR. BAY In how long? A week? GEORGE Today. DR. BAY Oh, Jesus, Get me a 12-lead e.k.g. and start an i.v. stat! This man is having a heart attack. INT. CAPE COD HOSPITAL - HYANNIS - LATER George lies in the recovery room, sedated, tubes everywhere. He's hooked up to IV's, monitors, and machines. Dr. Bay enters. DR. BAY I've reviewed your toxicology report three times, George. I've never seen anything like it. Eighteen grams. The lethal dose is a gram and a half. You should be in the Guiness Book. George cracks a faint smile. DR. BAY (CONT'D) It's not funny, George. You should be dead right now. Absolutely. I cannot come up with one logical explanation for why you're still breathing. I'm not here to give you lectures, I've got no moral interest in what you do. But, take it easy, George. Stay with us a while. You've got a daughter now. INT. EASTHAM HOUSE - DAY Kristina is crying. Daddy George to the rescue. He picks her up, cuddles her. Gives her a bottle and she quiets. EXT. EASTHAM HOUSE - FRONT YARD - 1980 - DAY A one-year-old Kristina is being coaxed by George to take her first steps. GEORGE Come on. Come on, honey. You can do it. Come to Daddy. Kristina tries, stumbles. Gets up again. She looks like a drunk, but she's doing it. GEORGE (CONT'D) Good girl! Mirtha enters. She's all pinned out, dressed in Ungaro, Cartier, and dark sunglasses. GEORGE (CONT'D) Look, Mirtha. She's walking. MIRTHA She did that before. GEORGE No. These are her first steps. Watch her. MIRTHA Yeah. I know. She did that before. GEORGE But this is... MIRTHA I said, I've seen it before. GEORGE Alright. MIRTHA Can you lift the furnace. I need money. GEORGE Where are you going? MIRTHA Out. MONTAGE - SERIES OF SHOTS - 1980-85 HOME MOVIE STYLE & PHOTOGRAPHS The years go by and they are SUPERIMPOSED as they pass. George, clean and sober, enjoying family life. Healthy and happy. Mr. Mom. Mirtha looks worse and worse as her habit becomes bigger and bigger. As George and Kristina grow closer and closer, Mirtha is stepping out on the town. Blowing money right and left. Shopping with Mirtha, buying clothes, furs, and diamonds. As Kristina gets older, WE SEE her birthday parties. George and Kristina wearing paper hats and eating ice cream. She's two years old, she's three, four, five, six... INT. EASTHAM HOUSE - 1985 - NIGHT The Eastham house is all done up for a party deluxe. Fully catered, with bartenders, waiters, music, the works. And of course the three c's, champagne, caviar and Colombians. George is laughing with Augusto and Martha Oliveros, but when Derek Foreal appears in the doorway, George excuses himself and walks over. DEREK Happy Birthday, George. Mirtha invited me. GEORGE Yeah. She told me. DEREK Look, I'm sorry about everything. I feel like an idiot. You were right. I did fuck you. And then Diego fucked me. Cut me out, too. GEORGE I heard. DEREK I lost sight of everything. Forgot who my friends were. GEORGE It's in the past. I'm out of the business now, so forget about it. No hard feelings. We need to move on. And besides, I'm sorry, too. DEREK You? GEORGE For calling you a homo. DEREK That was out of line. George throws his arm around Derek's shoulder. GEORGE Good to see you, Derek. Mirtha runs in with a giant crystal punch bowl filled with mother of pearl. She holds it over her head triumphantly. MIRTHA Now let's fucking party, motherfuckers! Let's have some fucking fun. DEREK Jesus, is that Mirtha!? A very underweight Mirtha nervously runs around the party, shoving coke up everyone's noses. She is gakked to the gills and out of control. Her pupils a mile wide. DEREK (CONT'D) Christ almighty, George. Feed her a cheeseburger or something. What does she weight, eighty pounds? GEORGE I know. She needs to slow down. She's going to blow an O-ring. Singing. The birthday cake is brought in, the candles are blown out and everyone cheers. Mirtha runs over to her husband, still holding the cocaine. She's sweaty, her hair matted down on one side. MIRTHA Happy birthday, baby. Do a line. She tries to push a line up his nose. GEORGE No, that's alright. MIRTHA Oh fucking relax. Let your hair down for once. It's your fucking birthday, for Chrissakes. You're such a fucking pussy. I swear to G-d, I married this big time drug dealer and wound up with the maid. Mirtha's loud now and making a scene. He thinks about it. GEORGE No honey, I'm alright. AUGUSTO A toast! To Mister George Jung. Mr. I 95, north and south. My brother-in-law. Happy birthday! Everyone raises their glasses. EVERYONE To George! A party guest comes running inside. PARTY GUEST Cops! They're all over the place. The WAITERS, in their white jackets, exchange knowing looks. The BARTENDER comes out from behind the bar. BARTENDER Freeze! In an instant, all of the waiters' guns are out. WAITER Massachusetts State Police Department! Everybody on the floor! EXT. EASTHAM HOUSE - LATER Police cars everywhere. All the party guests are filed out the door, and are being led away. Mirtha is dragged out, spitting and screaming. George, in handcuffs, is pushed to a squad car. He looks through the window to see a FEMALE POLICE OFFICER escorting Kristina out of the house. INT. M.P.D. - INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT George, still dressed in his party clothes, sits at a desk. TWO DETECTIVES set a confession in front of him. GEORGE What's this? DETECTIVE #2 It's your statement. How it was all yours, the pound of coke was for personal use and none of the guests had any idea it was there, yeah, right. George looks through the papers. GEORGE I want my kid out of protective custody. Now. No fucking around. My wife and my kid on a plane tonight. I sign when they call me safe and sound. DETECTIVE #1 No fucking way. GEORGE Fuck you, then. I sign nothing. The detectives ponder. DETECTIVE #2 Do it. Detective #1 walks to the door. DETECTIVE #1 George? You better get yourself a good lawyer this time. We're gonna nail your ass to the wall on this one. GEORGE Oh hey, one more thing? DETECTIVE #1 What's that? GEORGE Get me a six pack. EXT. EASTHAM HOUSE - GARAGE - NIGHT It's the middle of the night. George walks through a dark and lonely house. He goes to the furnace, opens it up and sees that there are only five stacks left. GEORGE Fuck. EXT. JUNG HOUSE - WEYMOUTH - PORCH - MORNING George pulls up to the front. GEORGE Hi. FRED I heard. Ermine, your son is here. ERMINE (O.S.) Tell him I don't want to see him. Tell him he's not welcome here. GEORGE Mom. Ermine's back is to George. She won't look at him. ERMINE Don't you dare step one foot in this house. You're not my son, you hear me? I don't have a son anymore. She disappears into the house. The sound of a door slamming. FRED She's angry. It's all over the news. GEORGE Yeah. Listen. I'm going to be going away for awhile. FRED You're not going to trial? GEORGE No. FRED Good. They stand there and look at each other for a while. There's a lot to say but nothing's coming out. George hands Fred a gym bag. GEORGE Give this to Mom, will you? FRED Money. You and your mother. All the time chasing it. I never understood it. GEORGE Give it to her, Dad. It'll make her happy. FRED Yeah, I know. This is it, isn't it? The two men throw their arms around each other and hold on to one another in the doorway of the old house. GEORGE Tell Mom, you know... FRED I'll tell her. George breaks away and moves to the T-bird. FRED (CONT'D) Take care of yourself. INT. BANCO DE FEDERALE - PANAMA CITY - 1985 - DAY George walks through the bank. INT. BANCO DE FEDERALE - PANAMA CITY - CONTINUOUS George sits at a desk in front of a Panamanian BANK EMPLOYEE. He slides his bank book across the table. GEORGE I'd like to make a withdrawal. The employee opens the book and gets a funny look on his face. Nervous. BANK EMPLOYEE Excuse me, please. He gets up and moves to the BANK MANAGER. They move to another MANAGER TYPE. And another. And then everyone disappears behind closed doors. Finally, the BANK PRESIDENT emerges and moves over to George. BANK PRESIDENT I'm afraid there is a problem, Mr. Jung. The banks have gone through a change, a nationalization. I'm afraid your funds have been appropriated by the Panamanian Government... George starts to shake. The bank president tries to explain, but whatever he says is unimportant. George is paralyzed. INT. APARTMENT - LIBERTY CITY, FLORIDA - NIGHT An inexpensive one-bedroom furnished apartment. It ain't much, but it's home. Mirtha has just received the news and is losing her mind. Clara Blanca is cooking dinner. MIRTHA What are we going to do?! What are we going to use for money?! GEORGE Please, Mirtha. I'll start working for Augusto. I'll talk to him tonight. I'll do something. MIRTHA Don't touch me. Tell me. Just answer the question. What do I spend? What? How will we live? Kristina sits there. She hears everything, so does Clara Blanca. GEORGE Not in front of the kid. MIRTHA Don't give me that shit. You just better do something. She storms into the bedroom and slams the door. George stands there. Awkward silence. George goes to Kristina. GEORGE Everything's gonna be okay, sweetheart. Don't be upset. KRISTINA What's happening to us? Tough question to answer. GEORGE I don't know. KRISTINA Are we gonna split up? GEORGE No, never. Don't even think about that, it's impossible. I love your mother. And you are my heart. Could I live without my heart? Could I? Kristina nods "no." They embrace. INT. GEORGE'S THUNDERBIRD - MIAMI - NIGHT The car moves along I-95. George is driving while a jacked up Mirtha does a speed bump. A cop is following in the distance. It is not okay. GEORGE There's a fucking cop behind us, Mirtha. Be cool, will ya. MIRTHA Fuck you, George, just fucking drive. GEORGE Hey, why don't you just put a "I'm doing cocaine" sign on the car. What is your fucking problem? MIRTHA My problem? We're broke, that's my fucking problem. And you're a fucking spy. GEORGE What? MIRTHA That's right. Always spying, always judging. Everyone's laughing at you, you fucking pussy. You let Diego fuck you in the ass. Maybe you are a fucking faggot. You must be fucking Diego because you're not fucking me. Mirtha grabs nuts. GEORGE Those are my nuts! George tries to fend her off. The car swerves all over the road. It's turned into a full scale fist fight. The red lights of Florida's finest come up behind them and George is pulled over. EXT. I-95 - CONTINUOUS Mirtha leaps out of the car, teary eyed, crazed and bloodied. The policemen step from their car. MIRTHA He's a fugitive and a fucking cocaine dealer! There's a kilo in his trunk right now! Take this sorry motherfucker to jail! George sits behind the wheel. He knows it's over. INT. M.C.I. WALPOLE - VISITING AREA - 1989 - DAY SUPERIMPOSE: FOUR YEARS LATER Visiting day. Inmates sit across from their families. Mirtha is sitting at the glass. George walks to his seat. MIRTHA I'm divorcing you, George. I'm getting custody of Kristina. And when you get out next week, you're going to pay support and that's the end of it. Alright? There's someone else. I'm sorry. George just looks at her. His face is stone. But he is moved. MIRTHA (CONT'D) You should have taken better care of me, you know? You've been away a long time. Four years. Say something. GEORGE What do you want me to say? I'm in prison. You should know. You put me here. MIRTHA Fuck you, George. I knew you'd say something like that. Always thinking about yourself. She moves away and drags nine-year old Kristina into the room. Kristina yanks her arm away and they get into a heated argument. Through the glass, George can't hear the words but it's clear that Kristina doesn't want to be here. GEORGE My baby. She's so big. Mirtha forces Kristina over to the glass and keeps showing her, prompting her to talk. Kristina stares at George through the glass. Cool. Defiant. Angry. She picks up the phone and speaks, every word an accusation. KRISTINA I thought you couldn't live without your heart. She drops the phone, walks away, and doesn't look back. INT. PHONE BOOTH - MIAMI STREETS - DAY George puts in the quarters. GEORGE Hello, Derek? It's George. Yeah. Yeah, I am. I'm in Miami. I'm looking to do something. I want to put together a crew. Do you know anybody? Leon? I don't know him. What's his last name? Alright. Give me the number. EXT. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - MIAMI - DAY Nine-year old Kristina Jung leaves school. George, fresh out of prison, moves across the street to meet her. KRISTINA What are you doing here? GEORGE Nothing. I just wanted you to know I was out. I just wanted to see you. KRISTINA Well, here I am. See? GEORGE How are you doing? KRISTINA George, you just can't show up, tell me you love me, and have everything be okay. GEORGE Dad. KRISTINA What? GEORGE You can call me Dad if you want. KRISTINA I don't want, alright? It's not funny. I'm really pissed off, George. You blew it, now leave me alone. GEORGE Kristina, c'mon, I'm sorry. I'm going to make this right. I've got a few things going on... KRISTINA What do you want from me? GEORGE Just to walk with you. I want to be your dad again. KRISTINA Do what you want, it's a free country. She walks away. He follows. INT. THE PALM LOUNGE - MIAMI - DAY George sits at the bar with a man named LEON MINGHELLA. LEON It's a four-man operation. Two on the ground. Two in the air. GEORGE Who's the co-pilot? LEON You're looking at him. We provide the plane, transportation cost, U.S. landing spot, and take it to wherever you want it to go. You provide the pick up point in South America, and are responsible for payment. You assume all the bust risks. We take sixty-five percent of all transportation fees, ten percent of the gross, plus our expenses. This is not a negotiation, so if this is okay with you, we can talk further. If not, we can forget we had this conversation. GEORGE Sounds fine. I'll need to meet everybody. LEON They're over at the booth. Leon leads George over. LEON (CONT'D) Gentlemen, this is George. George, this is Ben, G.G. and... George's eyes widen as he looks at the last man. It's Kevin Dulli. GEORGE Holy shit, Dulli! KEVIN Georgie, oh man, hold the mayo! GEORGE (V.O.) That was it. Seeing Dulli after fourteen years sealed the deal for me. The rest was just details. My end was roughly five-hundred thousand. Kristina and I could have a good life for five hundred grand. Start over somewhere. One final score. That's all I needed. INT. OLIVEROS MANSION - MIAMI - DAY AUGUSTO Three-hundred kilos is a very big load, Georgie. Why don't we start small? GEORGE No. I have the space. I figured it out. This is what I want to do. AUGUSTO Alright. I'll ask Pablo, tell him it's for you. I don't think there will be a problem. GEORGE Five-thousand per kilo. AUGUSTO Ha ha. That's too much, Georgie. Those days are over. The rate is one-thousand dollars. Inflation, you know? GEORGE This is a one time thing, Gusto. One and I'm out. Give me a good price for old time's sake. What do you think? EXT. RESIDENTIAL STREET - MIAMI - DAY George and Kristina walk through the neighborhood. He carries her books. GEORGE Let me ask you something. If you could go anywhere in the world, anywhere, where would you want to go? KRISTINA You mean, like a trip? GEORGE Yeah, sure, whatever. Kristina thinks about it. KRISTINA I don't know. Maybe California. George is amused by her answer. GEORGE California? You can go anywhere in the world. India. Tibet. Australia. Paris. And you choose California? KRISTINA Yeah. GEORGE What is it? A Disneyland thing? KRISTINA No. I just kind of like the sound of it. GEORGE California, huh? KRISTINA California. They turn a corner and arrive at Kristina's house. Mirtha is standing in the doorway. GEORGE Go on inside now. I want to talk to your mom alone. He kisses his daughter goodbye. KRISTINA Bye, Dad. See you in the morning, okay? GEORGE I'll be here. George moves over to Mirtha. It's been a while. MIRTHA What do you want? GEORGE You knew I was seeing Kristina, right? MIRTHA Yeah. She told me. You walk her to school. GEORGE Yeah, so I've been thinking. I love her, y'know? I kind of want to have her. I've been away for so long. Make up for the missed time, you know? MIRTHA I haven't seen one dollar from you. You haven't paid me one cent in child support, alimony. GEORGE Yeah, well. I'm working on that. I've got something going. MIRTHA Yeah? I better see some money out of it. GEORGE Yeah, you will. Of course. Mirtha looks at her ex-husband. It's not all bad. MIRTHA Hey, look. You start paying, who knows what will happen. You're a good father, George. I always gave you that. But you've got to talk to her. GEORGE Yeah. MIRTHA She's getting big. Getting her own ideas. GEORGE I know. Well, that's all I really wanted to say. So, okay, then. He moves down the steps and heads for the sidewalk. MIRTHA Hey, George. You okay? GEORGE Yeah. I'm fine. I'm good. INT. THE PALM LOUNGE - DAY The restaurant is filled with the team. They discuss, argue, re-examine every little detail. KEVIN We take off from Lauderdale, Sunday, refuel, and be in Medellin by Monday. LEON Overnight, refuel, and back Wednesday night. GEORGE Where are you coming in? BEN Vero Beach. G.G. It's good. It's small. LEON Then we drive it to the Lauderdale house where it stays until pick up and payment the next morning. You want to go over it again? GEORGE No. All set. Piece of cake. INT. GEORGE'S STUDIO APARTMENT - MIAMI - NIGHT George is cooking dinner for Kristina. He's only got a hot plate so it's slow. The table is set with plasticware. Kristina chops the salad. GEORGE I'm thinking about getting out of town this week. You want to come with me? KRISTINA Where are you going? GEORGE I don't know. Maybe California. KRISTINA You swear? GEORGE Yeah. Go out there, check it out, see what it's like. I've got some stuff to do this week, but I'm thinking maybe Thursday. Thursday after school. KRISTINA You know I can't. Mom will never let me go. GEORGE You let me take care of your mother. You just pack your bags. KRISTINA But I've got school. GEORGE There's schools in California. KRISTINA You swear? GEORGE That's right. Three o'clock. Thursday. At your mother's. You and me. It's a date. KRISTINA I don't believe you. GEORGE I swear. On my life. KRISTINA Swear on my life. GEORGE I swear on your life. EXT. VERO BEACH AIRFIELD - DUSK George, Ben and G.G. wait on the tarmac. George is pacing. The sound of a Cessna is heard and soon it is dropping out of the sky. The plane lands and taxis over. Kevin and Leon stick their fists out of the airplane in triumph. The men quickly unload the plane into the trunks of two Broncos and the back of a truck. INT. FT. LAUDERDALE HOUSE - NIGHT WE FOLLOW the duffel bags out of the Bronco into the house. The boys sit around as George samples the product. KEVIN Are we good? GEORGE Are we good? Yeah, we're good. We're beautiful. We're perfect. This is A grade, one-hundred percent pure Colombian cocaine, Ladies and Gentlemen. Disco shit. Pure as the driven snow. Good riddance. He looks the boys over. GEORGE (CONT'D) You saved my life, Dulli. You'll never fucking know. All you guys. Everyone just got a raise. Instead of ten percent, you get fifteen. LEON Jesus, George, fifteen percent. That's an extra two-hundred large. GEORGE I don't give a shit. Split it up. Have a great life. I'm done. I'm out. Starting over. Cheers. They clank. George gets up and does the Snoopy Dance to the bathroom. GEORGE (CONT'D) Yeah! Unbelievable. Dulli, pour us another round. I gotta hit the head. George leaves the room. The camera slowly pans back to the guys. Something doesn't look right. They have not moved. They look bummed. Leon looks at G.G. LEON What? G.G. I feel bad. BEN Me too. He's not such a bad guy. KEVIN Fuck you guys. All of you. I've known him for thirty fucking years. Fucking George. LEON Yeah, I like him, too. But what's done is done. So let's not get all sentimental about it, okay? The CAMERA PANS BACK SLOWLY to the bathroom door, George comes back into the room, dancing. He goes and sits down with the guys. GEORGE (laughing) Dulli, I was just thinking about that time we landed in Mexico. You've gotten a lot better since then, huh pal? Remember that fucking landing strip? Huh? George is the only one smiling. No one is looking at him. GEORGE (CONT'D) Hey, what's wrong fellas? Why the long faces? He looks at each one. He slowly realizes something's up. He looks to Dulli finally. GEORGE (CONT'D) (defeated) No. C'mon, Dulli. The front door busts down, agents pour in. The CAMERA SWISH PANS to George. Lights out. Slow motion. Slow dolly into XCU. EXT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - NEW YORK - 1999 - DAY George has tears in his eyes. He is frozen. Paralyzed by the memories. GEORGE Oh, no. INT. FT. LAUDERDALE HOUSE - 1989 - DAY The voices from the bust can be heard as the CAMERA PUSHES SLOWLY into George's face. Surreal. GEORGE (V.O.) I was busted. Set up by the FBI and the DEA. That didn't bother me. Set up by Kevin Dulli and Derek Foreal to save their own asses. That didn't bother me. Sentenced to sixty years at Otisville. That didn't bother me. EXT. MIRTHA'S HOUSE - MIAMI - 1989 - DAY Nine-year old Kristina Sunshine Jung sits on the front porch as the sun goes down. Her bags are packed and ready to go. GEORGE (V.O.) I had broken a promise. Everything I loved in my life goes away. INT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - 1989 - DAY George is led into a small room and greeted by his lawyer, ARCHIE ZIGMOND. ZIGMOND Here's the deal, George. You're not getting out. I tried to get you furloughed, but your mother squashed it. Said it would only upset him. I'm sorry. George takes it in. Blinks. The years have not been kind. GEORGE How's he doing? ZIGMOND Well, he's out of the hospital, but there's not much anyone can do for him. It's just a matter of time. Listen, I brought a tape recorder in case you wanted to say something to him. That way he could hear your voice. GEORGE Right. Zigmond sets the tape recorder down and leaves the room. George stares long at the machine. He pushes the record button and looks at the red light. GEORGE (CONT'D) Hello, Dad... EXT. JUNG HOUSE - DAY A sixty-nine year old Fred shuffles from his house to the blue LTD. He gets in, turns the key, and puts his son's tape into the deck. GEORGE (V.O.) You know, I remember a lifetime ago, I was about three-and-a-half feet tall, weighing all of sixty-pounds, every inch your son... EXT. JUNG HOUSE - 1953 - DAY Six-year old George runs through the leaves to the truck and rides to work with his father. GEORGE (V.O.) ...those Saturday mornings going to work with my Dad. We'd climb into that big yellow truck. I used to think it was the biggest truck in the world. INT. FRED'S LTD. - 1989 - CONTINUOUS CLOSE ON FRED visibly moved. GEORGE (V.O.) I remember how important the job we did was. How if it weren't for us, people would freeze to death. I thought you were the strongest man in the world. FLASHBACK - VISUALS MATCH DIALOGUE Ermine as Loretta Young. Fred Jung and his son tossing a baseball. Tuna and George driving off in the black Oldsmobile convertible. The FBI arresting George in his old bedroom. GEORGE (V.O.) (CONT'D) Remember those home movies when Mom would dress up like Loretta Young? And the ice creams and the football games? Waino, the Tuna, and the day I left for California only to come home with the FBI chasing me? INT. JUNG HOUSE - GEORGE'S BEDROOM - 1973 - NIGHT James J. Trout pulls a handcuffed George's boots over his socks as Fred and Ermine watch. GEORGE (V.O.) And that FBI agent, Trout? When he had to get on his knees to put my boots on? You said... FRED That's where you belong... INT. FRED'S LTD. - 1989 - CONTINUOUS A choked up Fred repeats the words. FRED ...you sonofabitch. Putting on George's boots. GEORGE (V.O.) That was a good one, Dad. That was really something. Remember that? INT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - NEW YORK - 1989 - DAY George's eyes well up and he sparks a cigarette, as he keeps trying to tell his father goodbye. GEORGE (V.O.) And that time you told me that money wasn't real? Well, old man, I'm forty two years old. I finally learned what you tried to tell me so many years ago. INT. FRED'S LTD. - 1989 - CONTINUOUS Tears come crashing out of the old man's stoic face. GEORGE (V.O.) I finally understand. You're the best, Dad. I just wish I could have done more for you. I wish we had more time. EXT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - NEW YORK - 1999 - DAY A vision of Fred Jung sits on the ground before his fifty-two year old son. GEORGE I guess I kind of lost sight of things. "May the wind always be at your back and the sun always upon your face, and the winds of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars." Love, George. FRED That was a beautiful message. GEORGE I meant every word of it. FRED Did you know I died two weeks after you sent me that tape? The apparition of Fred disappears and George is left alone once again. GEORGE Yeah, Dad. I knew that. INT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - NEW YORK - 1990 - DAY George is led into the room where THREE FBI MEN await him. One of them is named FRED GARCIA. GARCIA How are you doing, George? GEORGE What do you guys want? GARCIA You hear about your old friend, Diego? GEORGE What about him? Garcia tosses a newspaper onto the table. The Miami Herald. Inside is a full page letter addressed from Diego Delgado to Vice President George Bush. In the letter, Diego offers to make a deal. In exchange for immunity, Diego will rat out the entire cocaine business. Americans, Colombians, Noriega, Escobar, everybody. Just let him free. GEORGE (CONT'D) What the fuck? Is he going to walk? GARCIA He's going down, George. It's election year. We're not making any deals. FBI GUY #1 He's never getting out. Orders from the top. GARCIA So, how would you like to help us put him away? FBI GUY #2 We've done our homework. We know you hate this motherfucker. GEORGE I don't think so. GARCIA Don't be stupid, George. We've got him. We've got him dead to rights. But like I said, this is top priority so we're handing out free passes on this one. And the first one's got your name on it. Cut your sentence in half, maybe more. GEORGE No thanks, fellas. You've got the wrong fucking guy. I'm not a rat. INT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - VISITOR'S ROOM - 1990 - DAY George sits in the chair behind the plexiglass. Mirtha enters and takes a seat on the other side. GEORGE Mirtha, what's going on? Everything okay with Kristina? MIRTHA Kristina's fine. GEORGE Is she here? Is she coming? MIRTHA Is she here? George, Kristina hates you. You fucked her over one too many times. And I'm not here to socialize. Did you hear about Diego? GEORGE Yeah. MIRTHA Well, I got a call from Pablo. He said this thing with Diego is a disaster. He's giving up lab locations, names, bank accounts, he was very pissed off. Pablo said to take him down. His exact words were "Fuck Diego." GEORGE He wants me to testify? Is that what he's asking me to do? MIRTHA George, he wasn't asking. Mirtha gets up and starts to move away. GEORGE Mirtha, how are you doing? MIRTHA Better than you. INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY - JACKSONVILLE - 1990 - DAY George, Archie Zigmond and two armed guards walk down the corridor. GEORGE Hey, Arch, you think the judge will let us get a cocktail after this is all over? ZIGMOND I'll see what I can do, George. GEORGE Thanks, Arch. They walk into the crowded courtroom. INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY - JACKSONVILLE - 1990 - DAY Packed. Nuts. Standing room only. The courtroom buzzes as George is led down the center aisle and is handed off to the bailiff. Over this we hear... CLERK Sir, please state your name. GEORGE I'm George Jung. Spelled J-U-N-G. CLERK Thank you. PROSECUTOR Mr. Jung, do you know Diego Delgado? GEORGE Yes, I do. PROSECUTOR Do you see him here in the courtroom? GEORGE Yes, he's sitting right there at the end of the table. PROSECUTOR Let the record state the witness has identified, Diego Delgado. The following sound bytes are dissolved together in montage style... PROSECUTOR (CONT'D) Mr. Jung, can you describe the circumstances of how you began talking about cocaine with Mr. Delgado? GEORGE Shortly after I arrived at Danbury Federal Correctional Institute I related to Diego that the crime I was in for was smuggling marijuana. Diego told me he had high level connections in Colombia and they needed to find someone to help them transport cocaine into America... GEORGE (CONT'D) The first run was fifteen kilos, which we smuggled into Logan Airport in hard shelled suitcases. GEORGE (CONT'D) We wrapped the cocaine in kitchen cabinet paper, and duct tape, that way if there were any dogs in customs... GEORGE (CONT'D) I introduced Diego to a pilot named Jack Stevens, who helped us fly 300 kilos of cocaine per week into the United States via twin-engine Cessnas. Jack would fly into North Carolina, we'd meet him there and drive it down to different distribution points... GEORGE (CONT'D) I never met Pablo Escobar. Diego Delgado was my only connection to cocaine from Colombia... GEORGE (CONT'D) Diego convinced me to keep most of my money in a Panamanian bank. Diego had a close relationship with Manuel Noriega. In exchange for allowing us to keep our money there, we paid him a percentage. GEORGE (CONT'D) There was an 85% chance that if you snorted cocaine between 1977-1984, it was ours. Initially with my LA connections, we invented the marketplace. In 1977, there was no other real competition. GEORGE (CONT'D) The first year we made about 100 million dollars between us. It was an expensive operation. Eventually we built up to three different pilots doing multiple runs per week, connections on both coasts, everything was running smooth. We were like a corporation... GEORGE (CONT'D) he was very anti-government. He talked about revolution, forming his own country or island, he was looking for power as well as money. I was just looking for money. GEORGE (CONT'D) He disliked the United States, thought it was a police state. He hoped that by flooding the country with cocaine, it would disrupt the political system and tear down the morality of the country. GEORGE (CONT'D) Well, yes, Derek Foreal was my connection, I met him back in 1968 when I first moved to Manhattan Beach. It was Foreal's marijuana connections that kicked off our cocaine market. GEORGE (CONT'D) Yes, it was my idea to bring the kilos to Los Angeles. When Diego finally got Derek Foreal's name from me, it was only a matter of months before he'd cut me out. GEORGE (CONT'D) I'm not sure how my relationship with my daughter and ex-wife have anything to do with this trial. I mean we're here to talk about Diego Delgado, aren't we? CALIBANOS Yes, we are Mr. Jung. We come out of the montage, the defense attorney Diego Delgado, Joe Calibanos, a sleazy-Greek-like-ex-basketball weight lifter guy is now doing the questioning. CALIBANOS (CONT'D) Mr. Jung, you're a convicted felon, correct? GEORGE Yes, I am. CALIBANOS Do you have any agreement or understanding whatsoever with the United States government in regards to your testimony? GEORGE No, I cam here out of my own volition. CALIBANOS Excuse me? GEORGE Something about vengance being best served cold. CALIBANOS Really. Are you getting paid, Mr. Jung? GEORGE Excuse me? CALIBANOS Mr. Jung, don't you have an agreement or understanding with the United States Government in connection with your testimony in this case? GEORGE I'm doing sixty years at Otisville, no chance of parole. Even if they cut my sentence in half I'll be seventy-three years old. That's some fucking deal. I don't know if the parole board, the judge, the pope or Jesus Christ himself can get me out of here. I have a really bad record, I'm not sure what's going to happen. CALIBANOS So you do have an agreement with the United States Government, Mr. Jung, correct? George can't respond. Looks to Diego. Looks from the jury, the judge, George is on the spotlight and it's uncomfortable. He feels suddenly sleazy. CALIBANOS (CONT'D) I thought so. No more questions. Silence. The judge tells George he can step down. Calibanos laughs quietly with associates. George is bummed. He walks by Diego. They look at each other. GEORGE You shouldn't have taken the 30 million, Diego, I was out. George is lead away. CLERK The court calls Mr. Jack Stevens. Jack Stevens is lead to the stand. WE SLOWLY DISSOLVE TO: INT. CAR - 1999 - DAY The green of the New York State countryside drifts by as a brown Mazda moves along Highway 19. Behind the wheel is a beautiful 20 year old woman wearing dark sunglasses. She drives absently, her mind somewhere else. INT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - VISITOR'S ENTRANCE - 1999 - DAY The woman is buzzed through the double doors. She moves to the MAN behind the desk and takes off her sunglasses. KRISTINA I'm here to see my father. ADMISSIONS OFFICER Name? KRISTINA Kristina Sunshine Jung. EXT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - LATE AFTERNOON The GUARDS are rounding up the other prisoners and escorting them inside, but George is still planting sunflowers. GUARD Hey, George, five more minutes, buddy. INT. VISITOR'S ENTRANCE - CONTINUOUS The admissions officer looks up from his paperwork. ADMISSIONS OFFICER Jung. Kristina grabs her papers and moves to the counter. ADMISSIONS OFFICER (CONT'D) Belongings in here. Kristina empties her pockets and deposits her possessions into a locker box. She is handed a key. ADMISSIONS OFFICER (CONT'D) Feet on the blue line. Kristina stands on a blue piece of tape and the admissions officer buzzes open the giant metal door. But Kristina doesn't move. ADMISSIONS OFFICER (CONT'D) Miss? He presses the buzzer again, but she just stands there. ADMISSIONS OFFICER (CONT'D) Miss? Something wrong? EXT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - CONTINUOUS George turns around as a GUARD taps him on the shoulder. GUARD George? George, come on. You've got a visitor. George looks up to find Kristina being buzzed through the gate. She moves through the open area and onto the grass quickly. SLOW MOTION: Father and daughter come together at last in a long embrace. GEORGE I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. KRISTINA It's alright, Dad. GEORGE I didn't mean to... KRISTINA I know, Dad. I know... He hugs her hard. GEORGE I fucked up. KRISTINA Shhhh. GEORGE I love you. I love you so much. You've got to know that. You've got to know. KRISTINA I know, Dad. I love you too. GEORGE After everything. After everything, the only thing left out of my whole life is you. Kristina looks at her father, smiles, and disappears. There was no Kristina. The guard continues to tap. GUARD George? George, come on. It's getting dark. George looks up to find a prison guard. His name is GUS, and he helps George to his feet. GEORGE But I have a visitor. GUS Not today, George. Time to go back. GEORGE But I want to put her name on the list for tomorrow. My daughter. GUS Okay, George. GEORGE Because she's visiting me. GUS We'll do that tomorrow, okay? It's lockdown time. The shadows grow long, and Gus leads George down a cement path that cuts through the grass. The huge structure of Otisville looms dark against the sky, and Gus and George take the long walk back. EXT. OTISVILLE F.C.I. - NEW YORK - DUSK Standing outside the fences, Kristina smokes a cigarette as she watches her father being led away. After a few moments, she turns around, walks to her car and gets in. Time to go home. And as the brown Mazda pulls out of the driveway, the taillights turn red, growing smaller and smaller, until they finally disappear. THE END.
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+				B L U E   V E L V E T				   screenplay by				    David LynchFADE IN:FOLDS OF BLUE VELVET UNDULATE EVER SO SLOWLY.WITH TITLES									DISSOLVE TO:1. EXT. BEAUMONTS' FRONT LAWN - DAYBlue skies. PAN SLOWLY DOWN to clean white picket fence, with beautiful red roses in front of it. Birds CHIRP in the distance. A faint sprinkler SOUND is heard. Very sweet MUSIC is playing.									DISSOLVE TO:2. EXT. TREE - DAYA songbird SINGS in the tree.									DISSOLVE TO:3. EXT. CROSSWALK - SHADY STREET - DAYA very clean uniformed, smiling POLICEMAN with arms outstretched allows clean happy SCHOOL CHILDREN to cross the street safely.									DISSOLVE TO:4. EXT. SHADY STREET - DAYA bright red gorgeous fire engine is moving very slowly down the street.We MOVE IN to see the happy face of a FIREMAN.									DISSOLVE TO:5. EXT. FLOWER GARDEN - DAYYellow tulips sway in a warm afternoon breeze.									DISSOLVE TO:6. EXT. BEAUMONTS' FRONT LAWN - DAYThe same white picket fence with roses in front of it. PANNING SLOWLY now away from the roses down to the rich green lawn and over to the sprinkler which goes around and around shooting water droplets sparkling in the light. This is slightly SLOW MOTION and DREAMY.									DISSOLVE TO:7. EXT. BEAUMONTS' FRONT LAWN - DAYCLOSER ON WATER DROPLETS. The water droplets are somewhat abstracted as they dance in the light.PAN DOWN now to the green grass, traveling along the grass. The MUSIC becomes fainter as we MOVE SUDDENLY under the grass, now as if in a dark forest. SLOWLY MOVING THROUGH. The grass is like great timbers.It is GETTING DARKER and ominous SOUNDS come up as we discover black insects crawling and scratching in the darkness.FADE TO:8. EXT. BEAUMONT'S FRONT LAWN - DAYMR. BEAUMONT is watering flowers and grass with the hose.He is dressed in khaki trousers, canvas shoes, old white shirt, straw hat and dark glasses.CLOSE - MR. BEAUMONTwatches his watering, then looks up.The sky and the neighborhood are reflected in his dark glasses.  He moves his false teeth around a little in his mouth, jutting out his chin in the process.  He's thinking about who knows what.He looks back down at his lawn.CLOSEUP - WATER ON GRASSThe water hits the grass and mats it down.WIDER - MR. BEAUMONTmoves the hose over a bush and gets a kink in it.Water stops coming out of the nozzle and there is a LOUD HISSING NOISE of water under pressure.CLOSEUP - KINK IN HOSELoud HISSING NOISE.Mr. Beaumont goes around the bush and is undoing the kink when he is suddenly hit with a tremendous seizure.CLOSEUP - MR. BEAUMONTHe's doubling over and falls to the ground.  He continues to grasp onto the hose.Water shoots crazily onto the driveway and his car.Mr. Beaumont seems to be in tremendous pain. 									CUT TO:9. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - DAYMrs. Beaumont is curled up on the couch, smoking a cigarette and watching T.V.  It's a daytime soap.CLOSEUP - MRS. BEAUMONTTakes a big drag of her cigarette and luxuriously french inhales a huge quantity of blue smoke.  She's enjoying her show.									CUT TO:10. EXT. BEAUMONTS' FRONT LAWN - DAYCLOSEUP - MR. BEAUMONTHis teeth are crooked in his mouth now as he tries to scream.No sound is coming out.WATER SOUND is loud.WIDER - MR. BEAUMONTWater is still spraying out over the driveway and onto the car and into the yard beyond.A small boy, GREGG, appears wearing only white underpants and a white t-shirt.  He holds a large red popsicle.Gregg waddles around looking at the crazy water show.  He holds his hand out to get it wet in the spray.  This makes him screw up his face in a laugh.He waddles over and looks at Mr. Beaumont on the ground.Mr. Beaumont seems to be worse now, unconscious, but still gripping the hose tightly. His clothes are sopping wet.11. EXT. GREGG'S HOUSE - DAYScreen window of Gregg's house. Gregg's mother calls out but remains looking at a bowl she is holding in her hands.					GREGG'S MOTHER					(calling out)Gregg. Billy's waiting for his teddy.She then turns to look out.					GREGG'S MOTHER					 (continuing)GREGG! Billy's waiting for his teddy, honey.									CUT TO:12. EXT. BEAUMONTS' FRONT LAWN - DAYGREGG'S MOTHER P.O.V. THROUGH SCREEN WINDOWIN THE DISTANCE, she sees Gregg's back, a bush, some legs with wet khaki trousers and water squirting up in the air.				     GREGG'S MOTHER (V.O.)			TOM!!!									CUT TO:13. EXT. COLLEGE CAMPUS BUILDING - NIGHTTRAVELING along sidewalk, bushes, to lighted windows of an auditorium. MUSIC is heard.14. INT. COLLEGE AUDITORIUM - NIGHTA dance is going on.  Sixties MUSIC plays, performed by a live band on stage.  College kids dance.A COLLEGE BOY enters the auditorium, urgently looking for someone.  He quickly approaches a GIRL.					COLLEGE BOY			Louise? Where's Jeffrey? His mother's on			the phone - it's an emergency.					  LOUISE			He disappeared to the men's room a little			while ago. I'm getting very tired of 			waiting - let's go find him.15. INT. JANITOR'S QUARTERS - COLLEGE - NIGHTWe MOVE INTO the face of JEFFREY. He is hiding behind a furnace.  He is fascinated by a sight beyond in the darkness of this basement room.He sees a male student trying to rape his girlfriend.  She is crying and telling him to stop but the boy keeps forcing her down toward the ground. forcing her clothes off her.  Jeffrey at this point hears his name being called.  Each time he hears his name the caller is closer.  The boy is nowhurting the girl.  Before Jeffrey leaves the furnace room he yells out:					 JEFFREY			Hey, shit head. Leave her alone. Don't 			force girls!The couple looks up but cannot see Jeffrey.  The boy is scared and releasesthe girl who promptly pulls farther away, crying.Jeffrey leaves the furnace room.16. INT. HALLWAY - COLLEGE - NIGHTLouise and the college student see him and move quickly toward him.				     COLLEGE BOY			Jeffrey, your mother's on the phone. It's			an emergency.					  LOUISE			Thanks for keeping me waiting so long.As Jeffrey moves quickly toward the telephone.				 	 JEFFREYI'm sorry, Louise.17. INT. PHONE/HALLWAY - COLLEGE - NIGHTThe phone dangles on its cord in the foreground as Jeffrey moves toward it in the background.  Louise slowly follows Jeffrey, but stays in back of him.  Jeffrey picks up the phone.					 JEFFREY			Hello. Mom? What's wrong with Dad?. 			What's happening?. Come home? Sure I will.18. INT. BEAUMONT'S BEDROOM - NIGHTMrs. Beaumont sits talking on the phone in a dark quiet bedroom.				    MRS. BEAUMONT			I mean, for good, Jeffrey.									CUT TO:19. INT. PHONE/HALLWAY - COLLEGE - NIGHTCLOSEUP - JEFFREY					 JEFFREY			For good?. I can't. Mom. Not right in			the middle of the term.									CUT TO:20. INT. BEAUMONT'S BEDROOM - NIGHT				    MRS. BEAUMONT			     (now looks very tired and 			      poor health)			Jeffrey. honey. Your father's condition			is serious. It's going to cost so much.			We just won't have the money to keep you			in school. I'm telling you this now, so 			that you can get your things together and 			check out of school, honey, or whatever you 			have to do. it'll save you another trip back.			You're going to have to work at the store.										CUT TO:21. INT. PHONE/HALLWAY - COLLEGE - NIGHTCLOSEUP - JEFFREY					 JEFFREY 			    		 (crying)Mom.Louise looks at Jeffrey crying, then turns away.  Jeffrey hangs up the phone.									CUT TO:22. INT. BEAUMONT'S BEDROOM - NIGHTMrs. Beaumont hangs up her phone. just next to the phone traveling into a shadow is a winged termite.FADE TO:23. INT. GIRLS DORM LOBBY - COLLEGE - NIGHTJeffrey is waiting in a girls dorm lobby for Louise. Girls are milling around.  Louise gets off an elevator with some other girls.  She forces a smile at Jeffrey as she comes toward him.					 JEFFREY			Can't you come to the damn airport?					  LOUISE			Jeffrey. I can't. I really can't. I			have to go to that class tonight. I can't			get out of it. I really can't. I love			you, Jeffrey. I'll miss you.					 JEFFREY			Alright. I'll call you in a couple of days,			you know. I'll let you know how things are.					  LOUISE			Okay. I'll be here. You better git-going. I			gotta go too sweetie. I hope your father's 			okay. I love you. I'm sorry, Jeffrey.					 JEFFREY			I love you too, Louise. Damn it. I'll see you.They kiss.									CUT TO:24. EXT. LANDING STRIPA PLANE TAKES OFF									DISSOLVE TO:25. EXT. ANOTHER LANDING STRIPA PLANE LANDS26. EXT. AIRPORT - NIGHTJeffrey comes walking out of the airport, where his Mother and AUNT BARBARA, who is a very absent-minded little woman with very thick glasses, are waiting for him.  They are parked illegally and another car is honking at them.  Their trunk is open in anticipation of Jeffrey's things.  They are waving and yelling at Jeffrey to get his attention.  He finally joins them and kisses his Mother, then his Aunt.					 JEFFREY			Hi Mom. Hi Aunt Barbara.They AD LIB hellos.				    MRS. BEAUMONT				  (a bit concerned)			Where's all your things, Jeffrey?					 JEFFREY			This is it.Mrs. Beaumont looks at Jeffrey.					 JEFFREY			I sent a trunk home yesterday. This is 			all I have.				     AUNT BARBARA			You look good, Jeffrey. Did you have a nice 			flight?					 JEFFREY			Yeah. How's Dad?				    MRS. BEAUMONT			He's alright. We'll tell you on the way home.27. INT. BEAUMONT'S CAR - NIGHTThey get in the car.  Aunt Barbara is driving.  She is not a good driver and makes Jeffrey nervous.  He watches her every move from the back seat.They drive on surface streets.  Many gas stations, traffic lights, bars.				    MRS. BEAUMONT			He had a cerebral hemorrhage and they think			there's some sort of clot, or tumor, or 			something in there. They're doing all sorts			of tests. On the surface, he looks pretty			good, but there are problems. They think he			may have to stay in two weeks now, at least.			You can go see him though tomorrow, Jeffrey.				     AUNT BARBARA			They tore down the A & P, Jeffrey. Did you			see that?					 JEFFREY			Aunt Barbara that was 5 years ago.									CUT TO:28. EXT. BEAUMONTS' HOME - NIGHTThe car pulls into the Beaumonts' driveway. The neighborhood is quiet anddark.									CUT TO:29. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTJeffrey, Aunt Barbara, and Mrs. Beaumont enter the living room.  Mrs. Beaumont turns on a table lamp.  A cold circle of light hits the light blue rug.				     AUNT BARBARA			Home again, home again, jiggidy jog.They look at Jeffrey.  He looks at them.									CUT TO:30. INT. JEFFREY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTJeffrey enters his small attic-type bedroom, turns on the overhead light, and sets his suitcase down.  He goes to his desk and leans across it to look outside.JEFFREY'S P.O.V. - EXT. STREETThe street is dark, except for a pool of light from a street light.CLOSEUP - JEFFREYA breeze of cold powerful string MUSIC blows as we watch Jeffrey stare intospace.31. INT. BEAUMONTS' KITCHEN/HALLWAY - DAYMrs. Beaumont is calling upstairs to Jeffrey.				    MRS. BEAUMONT			Jeffrey, breakfast is ready.				    JEFFREY (V.O.)					(calling)			Be right down.Mrs. Beaumont joins Aunt Barbara at the breakfast table in the kitchen.				     AUNT BARBARA			This is marvelous jam. Are you going this 			morning?				    MRS. BEAUMONT			I think Jeffrey would like to see his father			alone.Jeffrey comes down the stairs.  Everyone says their "good mornings," and Jeffrey sits down to breakfast.					 JEFFREY			What time are visiting hours?				    MRS. BEAUMONT			I've made arrangements with Dr. Gynde for			10:30. But Jeffrey, you'll have to walk 			over; I need the car this morning.					 JEFFREY			Well. Okay.				    MRS. BEAUMONT			Jeffrey, when you see your father.					 JEFFREY			Yeah?				    MRS. BEAUMONT			He doesn't know you're out of school. He			thinks it's a vacation for you.					 JEFFREY			What?				    MRS. BEAUMONT			It would be too much for him. So please			let him think as he does, that you're 			home just to see him.					 JEFFREY			Thanks a lot, Mom.				    MRS. BEAUMONT			.Jeffrey!. Nobody wanted you to leave school and go to work in the store. maybegoing back to school will be an option oneday. I hope so.				     AUNT BARBARA			I think it's important not to get depressed.			Depression is a terrible thing. They say it			can bring on illness.					 JEFFREY					 (angry)			Aunt Barbara. I'll try not to get depressed.									CUT TO:33. INT. HALLWAY - HOSPITAL - DAYJeffrey follows a nurse to a hospital room.				     NURSE CINDY			Please wait outside while Dr. Gynde prepares			him to see you.					 JEFFREY			Prepares him?She peers into the room.  Jeffrey does too.34. INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAYAll he can see are curtains surrounding a bed and stacks of medical machinery.  Doctor Gynde comes out from behind the curtains and walks to Jeffrey.					DR. GYNDE			Hello Jeffrey.					 JEFFREY			Hello, Doctor Gynde. How is he?					DR. GYNDE			He's fighting hard. Jeffrey. it's very			important that your father doesn't try			to move. he's been immobilized. It would			be very painful for him. sit close. you do			the talking and moving. He knows you're 			here. He became very emotional. I don't 			think he likes the idea of you seeing him			like this.Nurse Cindy goes to the bed.  She begins to pull the curtains back revealing Mr. Beaumont.				    NURSE CINDY				(smiling a big smile)			Mr. Beaumont! Your son is here to visit you.Then we see Mr. Beaumont.  He has numerous tubes and needles going into different parts of him.  A stainless steel device holds his head perfectlystill.  Nurse Cindy picks up a tray and leaves.					 JEFFREY			    (shocked but concealing it)			Hi Dad.				     MR. BEAUMONT			 (speaking as plainly as possible,  but sounds like mumbling)			Hey Jeff.Jeffrey goes to him and puts out his hand to shake his father's hand but remembers his father cannot move.  Jeffrey pats him on the shoulder.					 JEFFREY			Looks like they've got you strapped in			pretty good.				     MR. BEAUMONT			 (lips moving but hardly any sound)			uh uh.					 JEFFREY			Are you feeling okay?				     MR. BEAUMONT				    (more mumbling)			uh uh.Tears well up in Mr. Beaumont's eyes.  Before Jeffrey can stop him he reaches for Jeffrey's hand, then struggling against tremendous pain he manages to form words.				     MR. BEAUMONT			 (more plainly but under strain)			Good to see you, son.					 JEFFREY				 (holding back tears)			It's good to see you, Dad.Jeffrey squeezes his father's hand.35. EXT. VACANT FIELD - DAYJeffrey is walking down a dirt road on his way home.  He kicks up little clouds of dust as he walks.  He has some time to think about things. He sees a green bottle in the distance. He gathers up a few more rocks and pitches them one by one at the bottle.  He misses.He looks for a few more good rocks to throw and while looking through sometall grass and weeds, he sees something strange.He looks closer.  It is a HUMAN EAR, covered with crawling ants.Jeffrey immediately stands up and looks around.  All he sees are houses - some laundry drying - a very peaceful scene.  No one seems to be around -No one seems to be watching him.He looks again at the ear.We are so close we can hear ants racing frantically around the ear into it.There is dried blood on part of it.Jeffrey finds a brown paper bad and using a twig, he pushes the ear onto it.  Again, he stands up and looks around.IN THE DISTANCE, a MAN goes into the back door of a house.  Nothing more.Jeffery hurries off, carrying the bag with the ear in it.									CUT TO:36. EXT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - DAYJeffrey goes up the front steps...37. INT. POLICE DEPARTMENT - DAY... and to the Reception Desk.  A POLICE OFFICER is standing behind the counter.					 JEFFREY			Hello. could you tell me if Detective			Williams is still working here?				    POLICE OFFICER			He's up in Room 221. Right up the stairs.									CUT TO:38. 	INT. ROOM 221 - POLICE STATION - DAYJeffrey enters Room 221 and sees the desk marked, "DETECTIVE J.D. WILLIAMS," however, the desk is empty.  TWO MEN are talking at the end of the room; one of them comes toward Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			Are you Detective Williams?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Yes.					JEFFREY			My name is Jeffrey Beaumont - I live near			you. I believe you know my father, Tom			Beaumont - Beaumont's Hardware Store?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Sure I do. I understand he's in the			hospital. How is he?					JEFFREY			He's alright, I guess. I hope. They're			doing tests, that's why I'm home from 			school. I was over at the hospital this			morning and I was going home and in the			field behind our neighborhood. there			behind Vista, I found an ear.				DETECTIVE WILLIAMS				(matter of factly)			You did? A human ear?					JEFFREY			Yeah. I've got it here in this bag. I			thought I should bring it to you.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Yep, that's right. Let's take a look at it.Jeffrey opens the bag and lets Detective Williams look inside.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS					  (continuing)			That sure looks like a human ear, doesn't			it?. Let's run it down to the Coroner's			Office and see what they make of it. Then,			I want you to show me exactly where you			found it.									CUT TO:39. INT. CORONER'S OFFICE - DAYJeffrey, Detective Williams, and an OLD CORONER'S OFFICER are looking at the ear, which is sitting in a medical dish on a table.					CORONER'S OFFICER			The tests will take awhile. Meanwhile,			we'll check the morgue records. I don't			recall anything coming in minus an ear.The Coroner's Officer turns to Jeffrey.					CORONER'S OFFICER					   (continuing)			Now if you'd found a jaw or let's say, a			heart, or even an arm, we would assume			that there was a corpse, however, a finger			or an ear. the person may very well be 			alive somewhere.					JEFFREY			What can you tell about the person from the			ear?					CORONER'S OFFICER			Well. when the tests are done, quite a lot			. Sex, blood type, whether or not the ear			came off a dead person. Right now, I know			what you know. It's a real human ear. The			human was, or is, Caucasian.			. also. It looks like the ear was cut off			with scissors.40. EXT. VACANT FIELD - DAYJeffrey is out with Detective Williams and a CREW OF OFFICERS who have roped off the area and are doing a grid search.A POLICE PHOTOGRAPHER is also there taking flash pictures all around the field, especially where Jeffrey has told them he found the ear.Detective Williams takes Jeffrey aside.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			By the way, Jeffrey, this story isn't going			to the press and I'm going to ask you to 			consider all you've heard strictly 			confidential. Do not discuss this business			with anyone, but me, or other police			personnel. Got it?					JEFFREY			Got it. Thanks for letting me in on as much			as you did.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Come on. I'll drive you home. It's on my way.									CUT TO:41. INT. BEAUMONTS' KITCHEN - NIGHTMrs. Beaumont and Aunt Barbara are doing the dishes. The news is on a small portable television.  There is a broadcast on the mounting crime wave.INSERT T.V. SCREENA series of murders are being discussed and a police drawing mug shot is shown on the screen of the suspect who is at large.									CUT TO:42. INT. JEFFREY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTJeffrey is sitting at his desk daydreaming.  He suddenly picks up the phone, hesitates, then dials.					JEFFREY			Hello?. LOUISE WERTHAM please. Louise?			. is she there?. Louise?				    (very happy)			Yeah! How are you? He's okay. in the			hospital for tests.				   (very serious)			I miss you so much.				    (smiling now)			What have you been up to?. Louise, I don't			know. I've got to see how my father is			. It costs a fortune in that hospital.			When did he ask you to that?. Look. I			can't stop you. Go ahead. Just go ahead			. I may never be back, go. ahead. Look			Louise, stop trying to explain everything.			Just do it. let's talk again in a couple			of days or somethin', okay?. Yeah, I still			love you. Goodbye Louise. Goodbye.Jeffrey sits alone in his room, thinking things over.									SLOW DISSOLVE TO:43. INT. CORONER'S OFFICE - NIGHTCLOSE UP - EAR IN MORTICIAN'S DISHVERY SLOWLY, we MOVE very close to the ear, gliding slowly around the crevices approaching the dark hole.  A huge, low rushing of air SOUND, THEN DARKNESS.									SLOW DISSOLVE TO:44. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTLow light.  Jeffrey enters the room.  Aunt Barbara and Mrs. Beaumont are watching television.  Aunt Barbara is knitting.					JEFFREY			I'm going out for awhile.					MRS. BEAUMONT				   (looks at her watch)			Do you want the car?					JEFFREY			No, I'm just gonna walk around.					MRS. BEAUMONT			Alright.					AUNT BARBARA			Jeffrey. you're not going down by Lincoln,			are you?					JEFFREY				   (yelling back)			No. I'm just going to walk around the			neighborhood. Don't worry.Aunt Barbara and Mrs. Beaumont continue watching the television.INSERT T.V. SCREENOn T.V. we see a man's shoes.  He is sneaking slowly up some stairs.									CUT TO:45. EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHTJeffrey walks along the dark streets.  The same sombre MUSIC plays low and slow.Some of the houses have a few lights on, some are dark.  Some windows have a slow uneven blue flashing light, indicating the television is on inside.Jeffrey continues walking through the night.  In the trees, the shadows continuously re-arrange themselves in mysterious, sometimes frightening patterns.46. EXT. WILLIAMS HOME - NIGHTJeffrey finally comes to the house he's been looking for.He goes up the front walk.  Now, at the last minute, he feels a little foolish and has second thoughts about knocking on the door.He looks in a window.  Inside, he sees a nicely-lit living room.  He goes ahead and knocks.  A very pleasant-looking middle class WOMAN answers the door.					JEFFREY			Hello. uh. my name is Jeffrey			Beaumont. Is Detective Williams in?					MRS. WILLIAMS			Oh, yes, Jeffrey. Come in. He'll be back any minute now. You're welcome to wait. Is it urgent?47. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT					JEFFREY			I just wanted to ask him a few questions,			that's all. Maybe I better go.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Really, he'll be home soon, would you like			a cup of coffee?					JEFFREY				   (thinks a bit)			Alright.48. INT. WILLIAMS' KITCHEN - NIGHTShe leads him back to the kitchen where she has him sit at the kitchen table.  She pours him a cup of coffee.					MRS. WILLIAMS			I was sorry to hear about your father. I			know your mother from church. It's such a 			shame.					JEFFREY			Yeah, I know.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Would you like a piece of cake?					JEFFREY			No. No thank you.					MRS. WILLIAMS			It's a real good chocolate cake. Duncan			Hines' devil's food. real good.					JEFFREY			Yeah. okay.49. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTOut in the living room, SANDY WILLIAMS and her BOYFRIEND, MIKE SHAW, come up from the basement.  They are both carrying books.Sandy is a very good looking, high school senior and Mike is a big, handsome football player type.50. INT. WILLIAMS' KITCHEN - NIGHT					MRS. WILLIAMS			Sandy?.Sandy and Mike come into the kitchen.  Jeffrey has a big piece of chocolate cake in his mouth.					MRS. WILLIAMS					 (continuing)			Jeffery, this is my daughter, Sandy, and.			her boyfriend, Mike.They all say "Hi" to one another.					SANDY			Mike's gotta go.				  (to Jeffrey)			Nice to meet you.					MIKE			Yeah, nice meetin' yuh.					JEFFREY			Yeah. It was nice meeting you too.They leave and go out the front door.					MRS. WILLIAMS					  (smiles)			He comes over to study.					JEFFREY				      (smiles big)			Yeah.The front door opens.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS (V.O.)			Pam?					MRS. WILLIAMS			In the kitchen, John!Detective Williams comes into the kitchen surprised to see Jeffrey.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Oh. Hello, Jeffrey. what's up?He kisses his wife.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Come into the study a minute.					JEFFREY				      (getting up)			Excuse me, Mrs. Williams.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Certainly.Jeffrey follows Detective Williams into his study.									CUT TO:51. INT. DETECTIVE WILLIAMS' STUDY - NIGHTDetective Williams' study is filled with filing cabinets.  The desk has two phones and is covered with papers and folders and a picture of Mrs. Williams and Sandy.  The police radio is asking for Detective Williams as they enter.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS					   (to Jeffrey)			Shut the door.Detective Williams speaks through the radio while Jeffrey shuts the door.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS				      (continuing; in radio)			Detective Williams here. yeah. Tell him			to go to Sergeant Milton. yeah, copy.			     (clicks off radio, turns to Jeffrey)			Well, Jeffrey, you found something which is			very interesting to us. Very interesting.			I know you must be curious to know more.			     (scratches the middle of his back)			But. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask			you not only not to tell anyone about your			find, but also not to ask more about the 			case. One day. when it's all sewed up, I'll			let you know all the details. Right now, 			though. I can't.					JEFFREY			I understand. I'm just real curious like			you said.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			I was the same way when I was you age. I			guess that's what got me into this business.					JEFFREY			It must be great.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			And it's horrible too.				   (a cold look comes over 				    Detective Williams)			I'm sorry Jeffrey. That's the way it has to			be. Anyway. I'm sure you do understand.Jeffrey studies Detective Williams' face as they walk back to the living room.52. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHT					JEFFREY 			       (calling into the kitchen)			Mrs. Williams? Thanks for the cake.					MRS. WILLIAMS			    (coming out from the kitchen)			Oh, you're welcome. Nice to finally meet			you, Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			Say "goodnight" to Sandy.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			We will. Good night.Jeffrey leaves and they shut the door behind him.53. EXT. WILLIAMS HOME - NIGHTAs Jeffrey leaves the light of the front yard and enters onto the dark sidewalk, he hears Sandy call out behind him.					SANDY			Are you the one that found the ear.Jeffrey stops and turns around.  Sandy comes up to him.					JEFFREY			Yeah, how did you know?					SANDY				     (coyly)			I just know, that's all. I remember you			from Central.54. EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHTThey slowly walk down the street together.					JEFFREY			Oh yeah?					SANDY			You were pretty popular. Didn't you run			for some office?					JEFFREY			Yeah I did. treasurer. Shouldn't you be			studying or something.					SANDY			Am I bothering you?					JEFFREY			No. You're not bothering me. You a senior?					SANDY			Yes.					JEFFREY			How is Central these days?					SANDY			Terrible. boring.					JEFFREY			What else is new?. right?					SANDY			Yeah. What are you doing now?					JEFFREY			I'm home from school. My father's in the			hospital.					SANDY			That's too bad.					JEFFREY			What do you know about the ear?. anything?					SANDY			Didn't my father tell you not to talk about			it?				  (she smiles)					JEFFREY			Come on. you brought it up. Do you know 			anything?					SANDY			I don't really know much but bits and pieces			. I hear things. My room is right above my			father's office. The ear. there's no corpse			in the morgue missing an ear, and it did come			off a living person. That's direct from the			Coroner's Office. The person is unknown. 			There are a couple of cases I get mixed up on, 			but I think there are some people who were 			brought in for questioning on a murder case 			that could have something to do with the ear. 			I heard some of the same names.					JEFFREY			Do you know who was brought in for 			questioning?					SANDY			There were at least three, maybe four. But			a name that keeps coming up is this woman			who lives in an apartment building very			close to your house and also close to the 				field where you found the ear. There's 			also a business man over by the Franklin			factory district that was questioned. and			a musician. and some others.					JEFFREY			Were all these people questioned this			afternoon?					SANDY			No. this has been going on for some time			. several months. About six months ago			some parts of bodies were found down by			the river. They were from people who were			reported missing. They never found one			complete body. only parts.					JEFFREY			The ear is from a missing person maybe?					SANDY			Maybe so.					JEFFREY			It's a strange world isn't it? Do you know			what building the woman lives in?					SANDY			Yeah. It's close by. that's what's creepy.			They've had her under surveillance for a 			couple of months, except I don't know what			they've found out because my father isn't			in charge of her.					JEFFREY			I guess you have to get back home soon?					SANDY			Not really, why?				(then she understands)			You want to see the building?. Come on,			I'll show you.									CUT TO:55. EXT. LINCOLN STREET - NIGHTJeffrey and Sandy walk through the light of a street light.  The street sign "LINCOLN ST" can be read.  They walk into darkness and continue down to an apartment building on the right side of the street.					SANDY			    (nodding toward building)			That's the building. She lives on the			Seventh Floor. Don't stop to look long			. the police are watching.					JEFFREY			Where are they?					SANDY			I don't know. you're not supposed to see			them. They're supposed to see you.They begin walking slowly back to Sandy's house.					JEFFREY			Did they find out anything when they			questioned her?					SANDY			I don't know. like I said, she's not my			father's case.					JEFFREY			Oh yeah. What about those other people?			. Anything?					SANDY			My father is watching the businessman.			The businessman had a partner who 			disappeared. left his whole business and			family, his wife and two kids. They think			he's been murdered.					JEFFREY			You really do hear a lot, don't you?					SANDY			Yeah, I guess so.			    (they continue walking)			What are you going to do now that you're 			home?					JEFFREY			I have to help out in my father's hardware			store. they're giving me sort of my own 			hours for a while. which is nice.					SANDY			Still, it must be kinda rough.					JEFFREY			It's not bad. but it's bad enough.			it's a lot worse for my father.				(Jeffrey points to a house)			I used to know a kid who lived there and who			had the biggest tongue in the world.Jeffrey and Sandy both laugh.					SANDY			What happened to him?					JEFFREY			I don't know. he moved away. 									CUT TO:56. EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHTA LONG SHOTJeffrey and Sandy walking and talking, sometimes laughing in the distance,while the MUSIC theme, haunting yet warm, plays over.57. EXT. WILLIAMS HOME - NIGHTThey arrive back at Sandy's home.CLOSER ON JEFFREY AND SANDYin front of Sandy's home.					SANDY			I've gotta go in.					JEFFREY			Thanks for the tour. It was nice talking			to you.Sandy just looks at him shyly before she turns to go up the front walk.					JEFFREY				    (continuing)			I guess I'll see you sometime.					SANDY			I guess so. Like you said. It's a 			strange world.					JEFFREY				      (smiles)			Yeah. Good bye.Jeffrey watches as Sandy goes inside her house.  He watches her house for a moment and sees her cross the living room.  He turns and walks away.  Again, the MYSTERIOUS CHORDS OF MUSIC swell up as Jeffrey walks through the night.									CUT TO:58. INT. BEAUMONT'S HARDWARE STORE - DAYJeffrey is poking around in the back room.  He picks up some bug spraying devices.  He yells out to an old black man who works in the store.					JEFFREY			Hey, Ed, okay if I borrow these bug spraying			rigs later on?Ed peers into the back room.  Spots Jeffrey.					ED			Listen Bud. If you need to spray for bugs			they're yours.  It causes me no pain.					JEFFREY			Okidoke Ed. Thanks.									CUT TO:59. EXT. BEAUMONT'S HARDWARE STORE - DAYJeffrey puts the stuff in the trunk of the car.  There are several "Awake" magazines there too.  He gets in the front seat and drives off.									CUT TO:60. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR - DAYJeffrey driving.  He looks at his watch.  It is 3:30.61. EXT. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL - DAYJeffrey is parked across the street from the school.  High school kids are pouring out the front door.  In a moment he sees Sandy come out with two or three other girls.  They walk down the sidewalk away from Jeffrey.He starts the car and slowly follows them to the corner, where he pulls up alongside of them. very close. Sandy suddenly recognizes him.					JEFFREY			You hungry or thirsty, or both?					SANDY				   (taken back)			I don't know.					JEFFREY			I'd like to talk to you about something.					SANDY			Just a minute. pull over and wait a 			minute.Sandy pulls her girlfriends away from Jeffrey's car and says something to them.  There is some whispering and giggling and then,					SANDY				  (to the girls)			Please, don't say anything to Mike.			promise?The girls promise.  Sandy goes around and gets in the car.					JEFFREY			I don't want to cause any trouble.					SANDY			I'm here, aren't I?					JEFFREY			    (smiling as though he knew)			I guess Mike's got some sort of sports			practice in the afternoon.					SANDY			Ooooo, you are smart. Just don't get too			smart.									CUT TO:62. INT. DINER - DAYJeffrey and Sandy are sitting in a booth.  Jeffrey's grilled cheese on white bread and a coke have just arrived along with Sandy's coke.					SANDY			Alright, now tell me. What is it?					JEFFREY			There are opportunities in life for gaining			knowledge and experience. sometimes, in			some cases. it's necessary to take a risk.			I got to thinking. I'll bet a person could			learn a lot by getting into that woman's 			apartment. you know. sneak in and hide			and observe.					SANDY			You said it was a strange world. 			and you're the strangest part of it. Are 			you crazy.she is possibly involved in 			murder. This gives me the creeps.					JEFFREY			Settle down. I have a plan which I think			will work. There is very little for you			to do, but I do need your help.			.Aren't you curious about my plan?					SANDY			  (thinking and intrigued, plus she   			   is beginning to like Jeffrey)			It wouldn't hurt to hear the plan, I guess.					JEFFREY				  (getting excited)			Alright. the first thing is to get into her			apartment and open a window that I could 			crawl into later.					SANDY			Now, how are you going to do that?					JEFFREY			Right out in the car I happen to have some			old overalls and a bug spraying rig. I will			go to her apartment and be the pest control			man. I will spray her apartment. After a 			few minutes you will knock on her door, 			drawing her attention away from me and I 			will then jimmy a window.					SANDY			What will I say when she comes to the door?					JEFFREY			You will be a Jehovah's Witness. I have a 			few "Awake" magazines for you. You don't 			have to keep her very long. a few seconds 			is all I'll need. Whatiya think?					SANDY			I don't know. it sounds like a good 			daydream, . but actually doing it is too			weird. too dangerous.					JEFFREY			Let's just try the first part. If that			goes well, we'll see about the rest. No one			will suspect us, because no one would 			believe two people like us would be crazy			enough to do something like this.					SANDY			You've got a point there.									CUT TO:63. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/LINCOLN STREET-DAYJeffrey and Sandy are in the car.  Jeffrey is struggling to put on the old overalls.					JEFFREY			Now. we'll walk over so there's no license			plates and you give me at least three 			minutes. I can stall if it's more, but I			need time to find a good window .alright?					SANDY			Alright.					JEFFREY			Let's go.64. EXT. LINCOLN STREET - DAYThey get out of the car. Sandy has the "Awake" magazines.					JEFFREY			Okay, I'm going ahead. Wait a minute,			what's her name?					SANDY			Oh bother. Dorothy Vallens, Seventh			Floor.  Look on the mailbox for her number,			bright boy.					JEFFREY			Thanks. Dorothy Vallens. Okay. good			luck . three minutes, no sooner.					SANDY			Alright. Good luck, yourself.Jeffrey takes off in the direction of the apartment building.									CUT TO:65. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - DAYJeffrey walks up the front steps and goes in the double outer doors.66. INT. LOBBY - APARTMENT BUILDING - DAYHe looks up and down the mailboxes and finally finds "D. Vallens, Apartment Number 710."Jeffrey goes into the lobby.									CUT TO:67. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - DAYJeffrey climbs the stairs.  An OLD LADY is making her way down the stairs.She sees Jeffrey and his rig.					OLD LADY			Well, it's about time you came.Jeffrey forces a smile at her and after she's gone.					JEFFREY				    (to himself)			That's a good sign.He keeps climbing.  He arrives at the Seventh Floor. and finds Number 710. He knocks and waits.  He looks around. the hallway is empty.DOROTHY VALLENS opens the door.  She is a very beautiful woman in her late thirties.  She has a beautiful full figure, dark eyes, black thick wavy hair.  Full red lips.  Right now, however, she looks a bit tired and a bit frumpy in an old terrycloth robe.					DOROTHY			Yes? What is it?					JEFFREY			Pest control. gotta do your apartment.					DOROTHY			Oh God, that stuff stinks.					JEFFREY				 (as he goes in)			Nope. it's new stuff. no smell.					DOROTHY			Oh yeah, that's good.68. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - DAYJeffrey goes all around the baseboards, spraying.  All the while he's getting a good look around the apartment.There is a window above the kitchen sink out to the fire escape.  Jeffrey looks around to see what Dorothy is doing and she is watching him spraying.The apartment is smaller than he thought, so he sprays the kitchen very slowly and makes believe the sprayer is jammed.Suddenly, there is knocking at the door.					DOROTHY			What is this. Grand Central Station?She opens the door.  Jeffrey looks. It's not Sandy. A MAN, with a yellow sports coat, is standing there.  Jeffrey begins to sweat, because the MAN looked around Dorothy to see him.  Dorothy says something to the Man which Jeffrey cannot hear.The next time Jeffrey looks up, the Man is gone.  The whole thing looks to be turning out badly when Jeffrey spots a key on the counter.  On a long shot, he steals it just as the front door shuts. He wraps things up and gets out.					JEFFREY				    (to Dorothy)			That oughta do it.					DOROTHY			Yeah.69. 	INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - DAYJeffrey leaves.  Out on the stairs, he finds Sandy with her "Awake" magazines.					SANDY			Are you alright?					JEFFREY			Yeah. let's get outta here. What			happened?As they go downstairs,					SANDY			I was just about to go to the door, when			that man did my job for me. Was it alright?					JEFFREY			Yes and no. Did you recognize him?					SANDY			No. I only saw his back. He went down 			another stairwell at the end of the hall.					JEFFREY			I didn't get a good look at him either, but			he sure looked at me. I didn't have time to 			get a window, but I found this key.				 (he shows it to her)			Pretty nifty, huh?					SANDY			Yeah, if it opens the door.					JEFFREY			Yeah.70. 	INT. LOBBY - APARTMENT BUILDING - DAYThey get to the door of the apartment building.					JEFFREY			You go first.71. EXT. LINCOLN STREET - DAYThey leave the building separately.  When Jeffrey gets to the car, Sandy isn't there.  He looks around.  He starts the car and drives off.There, up ahead, he spots her.  He pulls over and she gets in.					SANDY			So. what's next?					JEFFREY			Pretty clever. Are you game for more?					SANDY			I owe you. since I goofed up this one.					JEFFREY			You didn't goof it up, but. you still			owe me one. I want to sneak in tonight. 			It's Friday. do you have a date tonight?					SANDY			Yes. I do.					JEFFREY			Well, it's Friday night and you're a 			beautiful girl. I guess you would have			a date. that does that.72. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/WILLIAMS HOME - DAYJeffrey is driving Sandy home.					SANDY			You really want to do this, don't you?					JEFFREY			I don't want you to get involved, really,			I mean, I do, but if something went wrong			I mean, like you said, they may be involved			in murder.They pull up in front of Sandy's house.					SANDY			   (making up her mind - against    			    her better judgment)			I'll tell Mike I'm sick. There's a game			tonight anyway and he'll never miss me.			Afterwards he can go out with the guys.			Just so the record is kept straight though,			I love Mike. What do want me to do?					JEFFREY			    (studies her a moment, then)			First of all, we'll have a nice dinner.			Try to find out where Dorothy sings.					SANDY			I already know. The "Slow Club." It's on			Route 7.					JEFFREY			Great. I'll pick you up around eight			o'clock. Is that good?					SANDY			Yeah, but don't pick me up. my father may			think it's strange. I'll walk over to your			house. I'll be there at eight o'clock.					JEFFREY			Okay. You better get out before someone			sees us.Sandy gets out of the car and without turning around walks into her house.  Jeffrey calls out after her.					JEFFREY			See ya!									DISSOLVE TO:73. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTINSERT T.V. SCREENThe television is on.  Some crime show is playing, but the SOUND is very low.The FAMILY DOCTOR is over and is giving Mrs. Beaumont an injection of medicine.  Aunt Barbara is sitting nearby.					DR. GYNDE			That will take care of you, Frances, for			another week. I don't want you to overdo			things either. Take it very easy.					AUNT BARBARA			I'll see to it, Bill.					DR. GYNDE			Good.					MRS. BEAUMONT			I feel fine.					DR. GYNDE			That's not the point. You're under a great			deal of stress. don't overdo it. don't			be foolish.Jeffrey enters the room - to say goodnight.					JEFFREY			Doctor Gynde. my whole family's sick.			What's going on?					AUNT BARBARA			I'm not sick.Jeffrey points to his head and makes a circular "crazy" gesture.  They all laugh, except Aunt Barbara.					AUNT BARBARA					(continuing)			We'll see who stays in my will.They laugh again.					JEFFREY				  (to his mother)			Can I use the car tonight?					MRS. BEAUMONT			Of course, Jeffrey.They say their goodnights.74. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR - NIGHTJeffrey and Sandy are looking at each other.  Jeffrey turns back to driving.Sandy watches Jeffrey drive then she turns and watches the stores and shops go by.When she is turned away, Jeffrey turns and look at her.  Sandy is thinking.					SANDY			What's the plan.					JEFFREY			First of all, we're going to the Slow Club			to see Dorothy Vallens. We'll watch her for			awhile. I'd like to hear her sing anyway,			and then also we'll know she is there and			not in her apartment.					SANDY			Brilliant.					JEFFREY			Then we'll drive back to her apartment and 			I will plant myself there.					SANDY			This is not my usual Friday night!									CUT TO:75. EXT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHTThe SLOW CLUB is a sleazy night club on the outskirts of town.  It has a dirty trash-strewn parking lot in front of it, where Jeffrey and Sandy park.  They get out of the car and enter the club.									CUT TO:76. INT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHT					SLEAZY MAITRE D'					(French accent)			Good evening. two?					JEFFREY			Yeah. Could we get a small table in the			back?					SLEZY MAITRE D'			Surely, come this way.They follow him and are seated.					MAITRE D'			May I get you something to drink?					JEFFREY			I'd like an ice-cold Heineken.					SANDY			    (she might as well)			That sounds good.					JEFFREY			Two.					MAITRE D'			Two Heinekens, thank you.The Maitre d' leaves.On stage a FAT COMIC is telling jokes.  The jokes are tailored for this kind of working-class crowd.  The people are laughing.  The place is almost full.  Jeffrey and Sandy are taking it all in.					JEFFREY				    (to Waiter)			When does Dorothy Vallens come on?					WAITER				(flustered; overworked)			I don't know. pretty soon. Who knows.After the Waiter leaves,					SANDY			That guy was filled with information.They pour their beers.					JEFFREY				 (raising his glass)			Here's to. an interesting experience.					SANDY			I'll drink to that.They drink.									DISSOLVE TO:77. INT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHTLater. Jeffrey and Sandy have just finished dinner.  The M.C. is arranging a floral art deco microphone and a SAXOPHONE PLAYER, a BASS PLAYER, and a DRUMMER are on stage.					M.C.				 (very low key)			Ladies and gentlemen. The Blue Lady.			Miss Dorothy Vallens.There is quite a round of applause, even though most people continue laughing, talking, and drinking.  Dorothy Vallens comes out on stage.She smiles. The house lights are still up. As she sings the first lines of "BLUE MOON" the house lights go down and a blue spot light comes up on her as she sings the word, "Blue." This is a very sexy and slow version of the song.During the song, Jeffrey and Sandy look at one another with the thought that this is the woman whose apartment they are about to break into.Jeffrey and Sandy leave as Dorothy starts her next song, "BLUE VELVET."  They hear the first few lines before they get out the door.78. EXT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHTThey hurry to the car, get in, and drive off.									CUT TO:79. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR - NIGHTJeffrey and Sandy drive through dark areas of the city.  They don't talk as they drive, but again they sneak glances at one another.80. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/LINCOLN STREET - NIGHTThey turn in to the street where Dorothy Vallens lives and glide to a stop close to the building.  Jeffery cuts the engine.It is very quiet.  Both are looking around to see if anyone is out or watching.  Jeffrey tries to look up out the front windshield to the Seventh Floor.  It is dark.  Sandy moves.  Every tiny sound is heard.  Sandy looks at Jeffrey for some time, then back at the building.					SANDY			Jeffrey, I don't think you ought to do it.					JEFFREY			Why not?					SANDY			It's crazy and dangerous. My God. I 			shouldn't have told you.					JEFFREY			It'll be okay. I don't think you should			wait out here though. I think you should 			go home. Can you drive this car?					SANDY			Yeah. but.					JEFFREY			Leave it in the front of your house for me.			okay?					SANDY			O.K.					JEFFREY			Could you wait a little while. this key may			not fit.					SANDY			. I wish you wouldn't do this.  It doesn't			make any sense. Let's go somewhere and 			have some coffee.					JEFFREY			I'm going in, Sandy. I'll see you tomorrow			and tell you how it went.					SANDY			I. I don't want to see you tomorrow.			Mike's coming over.					JEFFREY			Oh, okay. can I call?					SANDY			Okay. yeah, call.					JEFFREY			Look. it can wait till Sunday.					SANDY			Call tomorrow. It's okay. Good luck. I hope			you can sneak out okay. You're going to 			wait until she's asleep?					JEFFREY			Yeah.					SANDY			I'm going to wait here until she comes.					JEFFREY			Are you sure?					SANDY			I'll honk four times so you'll hear it and			know she's on her way up. Okay?Jeffrey nods.					JEFFREY			Okay. thanks.					SANDY			I don't know if you're a detective or a 			pervert.					JEFFREY			That's for me to know and for you to find			out. I'll see you. I mean call you. okay?					SANDY			Okay, okay. Bye.Jeffrey gets out of the car and shuts the door.  He looks in one more time at Sandy.  They stare at each other silently.Jeffrey can see her lips in the black darkness of the car.  Sandy watches him cross the lawn and go into the apartment building.  She slides over andsits in the driver's seat.									CUT TO:81. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTJeffrey hurries up the stairs to the Seventh Floor.SOMEONE comes out of an apartment just as Jeffrey gets to the Seventh Floor.He goes up another flight of stairs to the Eighth Floor and waits until the man goes downstairs.Jeffrey then goes back to the Seventh Floor and goes to Door 710.  He takes out the key and looks around. No one.  He inserts the key.  It fits.  He turns it.  The door opens.82. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTHe quickly enters the very dark apartment and shuts the door.  It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.  Soon he finds his way around.  He decides on the closet to hide in.  However before he goes in to the closet he slowly surveys the apartment as well as he can in the darkness.  He goes down the hallway to the back bedroom.  Across the hallway he opens another door and is surprised to find an empty child's room.  In the child's room he sees a small pointed hat with a propeller on top.  The kind that plays music when the propeller turns.  The hat is sitting silently on the bed post.  He quietly closes the door.  He returns to the closet.  Once inside, he checks out how much he can see. Through the slats he has a view of half the apartment.  This is where he will stay.  He moves around some to relax.  He takes several deep breaths. He looks at his watch.  It says "10:17."83. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/LINCOLN STREET - NIGHTSandy sits in the car, carefully watching the apartment building and street.84. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTIn the closet, Jeffrey shakes his shoulders and moves around some to stretch his muscles which are getting tired.  Again, he takes several deep breaths.  He looks at his watch - it says 12:45.					JEFFREY				    (to himself)			Oh no, hurry up Dorothy. Come on!. and I			gotta pee. Great. it's now or never.Jeffrey sneaks out of the closet and makes his way across the bedroom to the door of the bathroom.  His foot hits the door and it makes a loud noise.  He freezes.85. INT. DOROTHY'S BATHROOM - NIGHTHe moves again into the bathroom.  He starts to pee.					JEFFREY			Heineken.									CUT TO:86. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/LINCOLN STREET - NIGHTSuddenly Sandy sits up alert.87. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTA car drives up and a MAN helps Dorothy Vallens get out.  They walk into the building.									CUT TO:88. INT. DOROTHY'S BATHROOM - NIGHTJeffrey instinctively has flushed the toilet and because everything else is so quiet the water SOUNDS seem very loud.89. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/LINCOLN STREET - NIGHTSandy begins to honk the horn.90. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTUnable to hear the warning horn, Jeffrey nonchalantly leaves the bathroom as the tank is still filling.SUDDENLY, he hears something. a key going in the door.  He bolts toward the closet.  He flies inside it and is swinging the door shut as the front door opens.Just as suddenly, the toilet tank gets full and the water shuts off - SILENCE, except for Dorothy Vallens at the front door.					DOROTHY (V.O.)				(we're watching Jeffrey trying to   				 control frightened breathing in			  the dark closet)			Thanks Jimmy, see you tomorrow. You want a			drink, or something?					JIMMY (V.O.)			I better get back. thanks anyway.					DOROTHY			Goodnight.					JIMMY			Goodnight now.The front door shuts and the living room lights go on.  Jeffrey can see Dorothy come toward him.  She walks RIGHT UP, almost to his face, when the phone RINGS.She turns immediately and goes to answer it.  Jeffrey almost passes out. He thought he'd had it.  He overhears.					DOROTHY				    (on the phone)			Hello. yes. yes sir, Frank. Let me			talk to him. Please Frank, sir. I like			to sing Blue Velvet. Don? It's okay.			Don't worry. Don??. can you hear me?			Is little Donny OK? Is he there? Don? You			mean Meadow Lane? Frank?! What's the			matter with him? I know. When? Okay. In			an hour. I'll be sweet. Momma loves you.			Okay Frank, sir.She hangs up the phone hard and puts her head in her hands.					DOROTHY				    (to herself)			Frank, you son of a bitch!She goes and sits down and starts chewing a fingernail.  She nervously gets up again and looks at a framed photograph for a moment then hides the photograph under a pillow on the couch.  She puts on a record, "FOR YOUR PRECIOUS LOVE."  She sits back down and chews her nail again, listening to the MUSIC; she starts to cry.  She stops herself and takes the record off.  She starts taking off her stocking.  She then takes off her dress.Underneath, she has on a bra and panties.  She crosses the living room, goes down the hallway into the bathroom.Jeffrey can't see her too well now.  She takes off her panties in the bathroom.  She is now naked.  She looks at herself in the mirror.  We see Jeffrey's face as he watches her.  She disappears from view completely and we HEAR her start a SHOWER.									DISSOLVE TO:91. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJeffrey's face.  He sees Dorothy - in a towel - come toward him again.  He quickly moves back into the closet as far as he can.She opens the door, reaches in and gets a blue velvet robe.  She doesn't see Jeffrey even though he isn't well hidden.  She closes the door.  It CLICKS shut.Jeffrey is in almost total darkness.  He listens.  He can HEAR WALKING around, then silence.  He hears the kitchen sink WATER RUNNING.He HEARS her WALKING AGAIN.  Now he can see her.  She sits down on her bed.  She looks up.  Just as Jeffrey shifts his weight.  She looks at thecloset strangely, but then calmly picks up a book and thumbs through it.  She slowly gets up.Jeffrey doesn't know what is up.  He looks but she walks out of view.SUDDENLY, he hears a DRAWER OPEN, and just as suddenly, the CLOSET DOOR FLIES OPEN, and there she is with a pistol pointed right at him.  When she realizes that SOMEONE IS REALLY THERE, she SCREAMS ONCE, very loud.					DOROTHY				 (crazy scream, then)			GET OUT OF THERE!! GET OUT!! Put your			hands up, on your head. GO ON!! Get down			on your knees - DO IT!! What are you 			doing? Who are you? What's your name?.			WHAT'S YOUR NAME?					JEFFREY			Jeffrey.					DOROTHY			Jeffrey. Jeffrey what?					JEFFREY			Jeffrey nothing.					DOROTHY			You tell me!! Let me see that wallet.				 (reads his license)			Jeffrey Beaumont. What're you doing in			my apartment, Jeffrey Beaumont?					JEFFREY			I wanted to see you.					DOROTHY			What? Are you kidding me? Who sent you 			here?					JEFFREY			Nobody.					DOROTHY			Shit. You better tell me something.					JEFFREY			I was. an experiment. Just to see if			I could do it.					DOROTHY			An experiment? Hey, I've seen you before.					JEFFREY			I sprayed your apartment. I took your key.			I really didn't mean to do anything but 			see you.					DOROTHY			Tell me what you saw tonight. TELL ME.					JEFFREY				 (scared, nervous)			. I saw you come in, talk on the phone.			get undressed.					DOROTHY				   (interrupting)			The phone. What did you hear on the phone			. Tell me. Word for word.					JEFFREY				 (trying to remember)			You said hello. to Frank. You wanted to 			talk to someone?. Don?. and little Donny.			You said something about Momma loves you.			and something about a Meadow Lane.			something in an hour. I don't remember			any more.Dorothy stares at Jeffrey studying him for some time thinking.					DOROTHY			That's right. That's what I said. You			have a good memory. Then what?					JEFFREY			Well.					DOROTHY			THEN WHAT?					JEFFREY			Then you got undressed.					DOROTHY			How many times have you sneaked into girls'			apartments and watched them undress?					JEFFREY			    (quietly; feeling guilty)			Never before this.					DOROTHY			How'd you like it if someone sneaked into			your house and watched you.				   (gets an idea)			Get undressed. I want to see you.					JEFFREY			No. Come on.					DOROTHY			NO, you come on. Take off your pants. I			want to see you.					JEFFREY			Look. I'm sorry. Just let me leave.					DOROTHY			No way.Dorothy moves to the kitchen counter and gets a knife.  She goes to Jeffrey.  Now she has a knife and a gun.  He's scared.					DOROTHY			Get undressed. I want to see you.Jeffrey begins to undress. First he takes off his shoes and socks, Then his shirt.  He undoes his belt and unzips his pants and takes them off.  Now he is only in his underwear.					DOROTHY			STAND UP.He does.					DOROTHY				    (continuing)			Come closer.Dorothy has a strange look on her face.  She reaches out and pulls Jeffrey's underpants down to his knees.  She looks at him.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			What do you want from me?					JEFFREY			   (quietly, getting very hot)			I . I don't know.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			What do you want?Dorothy is getting very DREAMY and begins to talk in a childlike voice.  She opens her robe and pulls Jeffrey to her breasts.					DOROTHY			Don't move. don't look at me.Jeffrey's eyes close with nervous ecstasy as Dorothy begins touching him.					DOROTHY			Do you like that?					JEFFREY			Yes.He tries to touch her.					DOROTHY			Don't move or I'll kill you.She looks at him.					DOROTHY				   (continuing)			Do you like talk like that?					JEFFREY			No.					DOROTHY			Lie down on the bed.He lies down.  He looks frightened.There's a KNOCK, KNOCK on the door.  Dorothy looks VERY frightened.  She quickly moves a finger to her lips in a "quiet" sign and whispers to Jeffrey.					DOROTHY				 (whispers, frantic)			Shut up. Hurry! Go in the closet. Don't			say anything or you'll get killed. I mean			it.KNOCKING is heard louder at the door.  Jeffrey picks up all his clothes and gets in the closet.  He's naked and hiding in the closet.  Dorothy closes her robe and glides to the front door.Jeffrey sees FRANK come in.Frank is medium height and stocky with a burr hair cut.  He is wearing a tight blue t-shirt and an old black sports jacket.  He's got on a pair of blue jeans and boots.  He has a raw, mean sexuality - a "bomb about to go off" - presence. He comes into the room slowly, always looking at Dorothy.  He sits on the couch.					DOROTHY			Hello, baby.					FRANK                      (annoyed, condescending)			Shut up. It's daddy. shithead.					DOROTHY			Hello, daddy.					FRANK			  (can't-you-remember-			   anything-attitude)			. my bourbon.Dorothy goes into the kitchen to get Frank his drink.  As she passes the closet, Jeffrey can see the fear in her face.She returns with a small glass of bourbon and hands it to Frank.  Frank sips on it.					FRANK			. sit down. get your chair.Dorothy brings a small chair over from the wall and sits down.  She adjusts her robe.					FRANK				 (studying her)			. spread your legs.Dorothy slowly spreads her legs.  She can see Jeffrey staring out of the darkness of the closet at her.					FRANK			wider.She opens her legs wider.  Frank looks at her crotch and drinks his bourbon.  He stares at the floor for a moment, then slowly looks back at Dorothy, her body - her crotch.Dorothy looks up at the ceiling, waiting.  Frank suddenly reaches to his belt, where he has a small canister and a mask.  He opens a valve on the canister and places the mask over his nose and mouth.  The canister is filled with helium, which makes Frank's voice very high and strange sounding.  The result is frightening.					FRANK				   (high voice)			. mommy.Dorothy jumps.  She keeps looking at the ceiling.					FRANK			   (continuing, with high voice)			. MOMMY!.					DOROTHY				    (frightened)			. mommy's here.					FRANK				  (high voice)			Baby wants to fuck.Then, Frank's voice goes to normal.					FRANK			(normal voice, but loud - like    			 an army order to himself)			GET READY TO FUCK!Frank goes to Dorothy and kneels down in front of her.  He takes one more gasp of helium.					FRANK				   (high voice)			Baby wants blue velvet.Dorothy opens her robe and gives a part of the robe to Frank.					DOROTHY				   (whispering)			Okay.Frank slowly movesFrank slowly moves his mouth to the robe and runs his lips along the texture of the velvet.  His hands rub the velvet and feel Dorothy's body underneath.  His hands start feeling her breasts as he sucks and bites the velvet robe.Dorothy is very frightened but she is getting hot in spite of her fear.  Then Frank, in a sort of sickening way, pulls Dorothy down to rug.  He warns her.					FRANK			Don't look at me!He begins stuffing part of the robe into her mouth.  Then, he pushes her arms back and she keeps them back, letting Frank have his way.  Frank sucks and bites the velvet coming out of her mouth, while he pinches and feels her breasts in a strange, compulsive, timidly sickening way.  Dorothy is moaning.  Frank is breathing very heavily. He feels her crotch.					FRANK			Don't look at me!!!			     (heavy breathing)			Daddy's home.He starts stuffing the robe in his mouth now and he gets on top of Dorothy.He starts humping her and pulling her nude body up and down him.  Faster and faster, then he has a climax in his pants.  Dorothy's head is falling back.  She can see Jeffrey blurred in the distance - in the closet.  Cautiously, she looks sideways at Frank.					FRANK				    (screaming)			Don't look at me!!!He slugs her in the face.  His nose is running and he's stifling sobs from deep within him.  On his hands and knees, he moves away.  The robe pulls out of his mouth.  His breathing is even heavier now.  He stands and begins to move around the apartment.  He goes to a wall, turns off the lights, then turns and walks into the bathroom, all the while breathing big, heavy breaths, trying to stop the crying.  Dorothy moans softly.It gets very quiet and still for a moment.  Then, Jeffrey hears Frank with his high helium voice talking to himself in the bathroom.  The high, strange sound reverberates in the distance.  Jeffrey can't make it out - soon, he hears Frank's high laughing.  Frank comes back into the living room.  The mask is around his face.  All his breathing - every sound is high . He laughs a little and crosses the darkened room to the door.					FRANK			Stay alive baby. See you next Christmas!Frank leaves and shuts the door.  The apartment is silent except for Dorothy's moans.  Jeffrey is stunned.  He doesn't move.  He watches Dorothy in the half-light.  She rolls over and starts crying.  The crying is deep and genuine.Slowly, Jeffrey emerges from the closet and goes to her.  He bends down and touches her.  She flinches and turns to see him.  She turns back sobbing.  He tries to get her up.					JEFFREY			Why don't you come lie down. Come on, I'll			help you.She struggles up with Jeffrey's help and he takes her over to the bed.  She falls down on her side, turned toward the wall.  He covers her with the sheet.					DOROTHY			Don't.			    (referring to the sheet)			I don't like that. What do you want?					JEFFREY			Nothing. Are you alright?					DOROTHY			Sure I'm alright.			   (she starts crying again)					JEFFREY			I'll go then.He starts to put on his underwear.  They're inside out.  He tries to turn them around.					DOROTHY			Don?					JEFFREY			No.					DOROTHY			Don. Hold me. I'm scared. Hold me.			Please.Jeffrey turns to her.  He studies her.  He reaches out and takes her shoulders.  He moves down and holds her.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			Thank you. honey.					JEFFREY				    (whispering)			It's okay. It's okay.They lie together for a long silent moment.					DOROTHY			Do you like the way I feel?					JEFFREY				    (hesitates)			Yes.					DOROTHY			See my breasts?  . See?Jeffrey looks.					JEFFREY			Yes.					DOROTHY			See my nipples?					JEFFREY			Yes.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			You can kiss them if you want. Fell them			. They're getting hard.Jeffrey starts to move closer.  Dorothy closes her eyes.					DOROTHY				    (continuing)			Go ahead. I don't mind.Jeffrey can't help himself.  He licks and sucks her nipples and feels her breasts.  They both are getting very hot.					DOROTHY			Feel me.Jeffrey is all over her now.  Dorothy suddenly seems to recognize him.					DOROTHY			You can hit me, if you want to.					JEFFREY			No. please. I won't.Dorothy arches back and whining she throws her head back hard against the wall.					JEFFREY			Stop it!She moves and won't let him feel her anymore.  She holds his hands away.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			Do you like me?					JEFFREY				    (whispering)			Yes, I like you.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			You can be my special friend and come and			put that in me.They start making love.  Suddenly, Dorothy starts crying.					JEFFREY			What's the matter?Suddenly Dorothy slaps Jeffrey in the face. very hard.					DOROTHY			Get off me.Jeffrey gets off her, pressing his hand to his face.  Dorothy goes into the bathroom crying all the way.  Jeffrey sits, confused.Suddenly Jeffrey hears a horrible scream from Dorothy.  A true scream of horror.  He rushes into the bathroom to see what is wrong.92. INT. DOROTHY'S BATHROOM - NIGHTShe is just flushing something down the toilet.  The water SOUND rushes.  He turns to her.  She is trembling and in a state of shock.					DOROTHY			I made it go down the toilet.					JEFFREY			What?He looks in the swirling water. It looks like an ear revolving around and around then whatever it is disappears.					DOROTHY			I made it go down the toilet.Jeffrey looks up. he sees written with a bar of soap the words "look down" on the mirror.He looks down into the sink.  At the bottom he sees a small clot of blood and a smear of fresher blood.Jeffrey suddenly remembers mentally Frank's high helium voice reverberatingin the bathroom.93. INT. DOROTHY'S BATHROOM - NIGHTFLASHBACKFrank in bathroom.94. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTFLASHBACKFrank at door saying "see you next Christmas."95. INT. DOROTHY'S BATHROOM - NIGHT					JEFFREY				   (inner voice)			Next Christmas. Is he Santa Claus who has			left a present for Dorothy? What was it?			An ear? Another ear?!!				(out loud, to Dorothy)			What was it?					DOROTHY			(strangely - extremely frightened  			 now that Jeffrey may have left it)			Do you know?					JEFFREY			No.					DOROTHY			  (breathing heavily, strangely)			You don't?					JEFFREY			No. What is happening?					DOROTHY			Maybe you don't know. I know you though.			You're Jeffrey Beaumont and I know where			you live and I know ways to get you and I			know ways to kill you.					JEFFREY			Please don't talk like that. You're upset.			I'm not helping you. I'm sorry for what I			did. I better go.					DOROTHY			Go then. I can't let you put it in me now			but I want you. I like you.						JEFFREY			Then don't talk about killing.					DOROTHY			Did I say that?. I didn't mean it. or did I?				     (laughs)			Sometimes I think it would be fun.				  (strange smile)			Go ahead, you better leave now. I can't			open myself to you now. I'll tell you a little			secret.				  (she leans close)			I want to die.					JEFFREY			Don't say that.					DOROTHY			It's a secret so don't tell anyone. Some day			I'll show you where. I've gotta go to sleep 			now.					JEFFREY			 (frightened by her craziness)			O.K.He takes another look at the blood in the bottom of the sink.  He takes another look at the beautiful dark troubled eyes of Dorothy Vallens, and turns, goes through the hall to the living room.  He crosses slowly to the door, suddenly he turns back and enters the hallway going down to the bathroom.  He stops and looks at Dorothy who is turned away from him.  She stares into the sink.  Jeffrey notices that a square of fabric has been cut from the bottom of her blue velvet robe					JEFFREY			I'm leaving now.She is whispering something to herself.					DOROTHY				 (very faint whisper)			Help me. help me. please help me.Jeffrey doesn't know what he can do.96. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJeffrey turns back, goes through the living room.  He looks around and sees the empty bourbon glass of Frank's.  Suddenly he remembers the photograph that Dorothy hid.  He picks up the pillow and sees a picture of a smiling man and a small boy standing next to him wearing a pointed hat with a propeller. He turns the photo over and finds an old marriage license.  It reads: Dorothy Vallens to Don.					JEFFREY (V.O.)			Don. Oh my God.He hides the photo again.  He sees Dorothy's telephone.  He memorizes the number - moving his lips with each digit.  He goes to the front door and opens it quietly.97. EXT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTHe looks out into the hall.  It's empty.97A. INT. HALLWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTHe quickly goes to the back stairway and down the stairs.  These steps are cement and his feet make echoing sounds which seem very loud.  He goes through a door marked "EXIT".98. EXT. LINCOLN STREET - NIGHT. and comes out, crosses a lawn and goes out onto the sidewalk.He walks along taking in deep cleansing breaths.  He looks at his watch.  2:30.  He feels so confused, exhilarated, so uneasy.  He secretly worries about what he's gotten into.99. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTJeffrey enters the house. THE CAMERA RUSHES along the rug in the dark to a foot.  The lights come on.  PAN UP the leg to Mrs. Beaumont waiting in a chair, staring.					JEFFREY				     (startled)			God. you scared me.					MRS. BEAUMONT			Is something wrong? What's happened to 			your face?					JEFFREY			Nothing. I'm fine.					MRS. BEAUMONT			You can't just stay out half the night and			carry on, Jeffrey. There's got to be some			order, Jeffrey. I thought it would have			been nice to call your father when you got 			home but now it is much too late.FADE TO:100. INT. JEFFREY'S BEDROOM - DAYJeffrey gets out of bed and goes to the phone.  He dials a number.					JEFFREY			Louise Wertham, please. okay.					(waits)			Louise?. Jeffrey. Hi. What's up?					(pause)			MARRIED?! Good night! Louise! Are 			you kidding?				    (long pause)			Well, Louise, I wish you a lot of			luck and if things don't work out, I think you should go into comedy.Jeffrey hangs up the phone hard.  He shakes his head.101. INT. BEAUMONTS' HARDWARE STORE - DAYJeffrey's drinking a cup of coffee behind the counter in the store.  He thinks.  He takes another drink of coffee and sets the cup down.  He clasps his hands behind his back and begins pacing up and down.					JEFFREY				(to himself, out loud)			How can I help her? I can't tell her to go			to Detective Williams. She'll think I'm a			policeman. She has my address. She can go				there. if she has to. I'll tell her. and 			her. and she thinks I'm Don. her husband?			Where the hell is Don? - maybe he died.Jeffrey dials the phone.					JEFFREY			Hello?. Mrs. Williams?. This is Jeffrey			Beaumont. Fine. Okay. Is Sandy there? 			Okay. Hi Sandy. Can you talk? He is?.			Well, I guess I'll talk to you later on.			It went okay. I'll tell you about it.			Dinner?. Tomorrow night? Seven o'clock,			yeah, sounds good. Okay. he's still in			the hospital. Okay, yeah. See you 			tomorrow. thanks.102. INT. HOSPITAL LABORATORY - DAYThe searching, mysterious MUSIC plays over while,A DOCTOR is looking at various blood samples under a powerful microscope.  Various sophisticated gadgets are seen in CLOSEUPS.					JEFFREY (V.O.)			This is what my father's disease looks like?					DR. GYNDE			Yes.The BLOOD is seen in CLOSEUP. Cells are moving.The Doctor makes a change in magnification.  The cells are huge - then, even bigger.  They are so big we can hear them moving.103. EXT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHTThe parking lot is half-full.  A strong wind is blowing trash around.  Jeffrey parks his car.104. INT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHT. and enters the club. He speaks to the Maitre d'.					JEFFREY			A table in back, please.					MAITRE D'			CertainlyDorothy is singing her opening song as the Maitre d' seats Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			I'll have an ice-cold Heineken.					MAITRE D'			One Heineken, certainly, sir.Jeffrey surveys the place after the Maitre d' leaves.  It is very dark and smoky inside.  He has trouble seeing, but suddenly he spots Frank sitting with some other GUYS watching Dorothy sing.  They are sitting two tables away.Frank is totally captivated by Dorothy's singing and is very serious-looking.  He looks right up to her eyes.  In his hand he works a small piece of blue velvet cloth with his fingers.  Again her first number, "BLUE MOON," segues into "BLUE VELVET."  This song she sings mainly to Frank.  When it is over Frank continues watching Dorothy and everyone else applauds loudly.Jeffrey drinks up his Heineken and goes back outside.EXT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHTHe looks around at all the cars but none stand out as Frank's.  He gets into his car and pulls out across the street, re-parks the car and waits.									DISSOLVE TO:106. EXT. "SLOW CLUB" - NIGHTTraffic roars past Jeffrey and in the distance several people exit the SLOW CLUB.  Among them are Frank and his friends.  They get into a black Ford Fairlane and drive out of the parking lot - down the highway.  Jeffrey starts his engine and moves out after them.  He has to gun the car up to sixty-five to catch up with them.107. EXT. CITY STREETS - NIGHTThe mysterious MUSIC plays.He follows them to an intersection where they turn off to the right.  He waits at a light right behind them.  Inside they are lighting cigarettes.  The light turns green and Frank takes off.  Jeffrey follows them through a dark area down by the docks.  He follows them up a narrow street through dark factories.108. EXT. FRONT STREET - NIGHTDark, low MUSIC now.Up ahead, Frank parks his car.  Jeffrey quickly pulls over and kills his lights and engine.  He watches Frank and his friends enter an old apartmentbuilding next to a bookbinding factory.  They disappear within.  The electric lines above buzz loudly.Jeffrey gets out of his car and walks up the deserted street.  He reaches Frank's car which is making popping and clicking NOISES as it cools down.  He looks at the license plates - walks a few paces ahead and then writes itdown in his notebook.  He continues on to the apartment building.109. 	INT. LOBBY - FRANK'S BUILDING - NIGHTInside he looks at the names on the mailboxes.  He sees a name - Frank Booth.  The name gives him the chills.  The apartment number is 26.In the distance, he hears footsteps.  He quickly leaves.110. EXT. FRONT STREET - NIGHT. and crosses the street down to his car.  He gets in and waits.  Frank comes out of the building and crosses to his car.					JEFFREY			     (out loud to himself)			I'll bet I know where you're going.He follows Frank as he pulls out.									DISSOLVE TO:111. 	EXT. DINER PARKING LOT - NIGHTJeffrey discreetly parks just after Frank kills the engine on his car.  He watches Frank leave the parking lot.112. EXT. VACANT FIELD - NIGHTHe follows Frank through the same vacant lot where he found the ear.  He seems to use the lot as a secret short cut to Dorothy's apartment.113. EXT. DINER PARKING LOT - NIGHTJeffrey goes back to his car to wait.									DISSOLVE TO:114. EXT. DINER PARKING LOT - NIGHTA storm is building.  There is a roar of thunder as Frank slams his car door as he gets in.  His mouth twists into a smile as he guns the engine and leaves.  Jeffrey waits till Frank is safely gone.					JEFFREY			       (thinking out loud)			I shouldn't go in. I shouldn't. but I'm			too curious. and I have to try to help her.He then gets out of his car as the wind is building.115. EXT. VACANT FIELD - NIGHT. and runs through the vacant lot.116. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT. to Dorothy's building.117. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTHe goes up to the seventh floor and knocks twice on 710.  A moment passes, then the door flies open.Dorothy looks as if she was expecting Frank to be coming back.  Dorothy LOOKS BAD.					JEFFREY			Hi. can I come in?					DOROTHY			  (looking around the hallway)			Yeah. hurry up though.They go inside.118. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT					JEFFREY			Are you alright?Dorothy breaks down crying.					DOROTHY			No. I'm not.Jeffrey goes to her.					DOROTHY			Why are you here. whatiya want?					JEFFREY			. I. uh.					DOROTHY				   (still crying)			I looked for you in my closet tonight.				  (a little laugh)			It's crazy, I don't know where you came			from but. I like you.					JEFFREY			That's not crazy. I like you too.Dorothy looks up.  They stare at each other for some time.					DOROTHY			I liked being with you last night.					JEFFREY			. same here.There is a loud knocking on the door.					DOROTHY				(she starts to stagger)			Oh shit.					JEFFREY				    (frightened)			Frank? .can you stand up?					DOROTHY			I'm alright. go hide. This won't 			take long. Be quiet.Jeffrey gets in the closet and Dorothy closes the door.  She holds her head collecting her fragile self.  Dorothy goes to the door and opens it.It's the Man with the Yellow Sports Coat - tonight he's wearing a purple sports coat and light blue double knit pants.  His eyes are glazed and his face is broken out in a sweat.					YELLOW MAN			Frank gone?					DOROTHY			Yeah. but get outta here. He's comin'			back.					YELLOW MAN			Bull.					DOROTHY			Alright, suit yourself.					YELLOW MAN			He's comin' back?. What for?					DOROTHY				     (shaking)			'Cause he's comin' back, that's what for.			Frank's got you really loaded tonight.					YELLOW MAN				    (getting upset)			Yeah, maybe so. Frank's got me. and you.			and really it's all thanks to Don. isn't			it. remember that. Your husband was the			one who started fucking my mind with drugs.					DOROTHY			Oh he forced you, huh?					YELLOW MAN			He's the reformed dealer though who wanted			to turn himself in. he's the one that caused			Frank to come and Frank's fucking us real			good. I just feel so horny. I'm supposed to			be here watching you why can't I be here 			fucking you. Listen. I know his cock's the 			size of a pin - let me give you the real 			thing. let me wet my whistle, baby.					DOROTHY				 (cool, but real mad)			No way. get out. I'm gonna tell Frank.			I'm gonna tell him what you said.					YELLOW MAN			Okay, I'm goin'. You'll see. I'll get you.Dorothy kicks the door after he closes it, then she chains it.  Jeffrey comes out of the closet.					JEFFREY				 (talking softly)			Nice guy.  Who's he?					DOROTHY			Who's it, you mean.SUDDENLY, Dorothy starts to shake and cry.Jeffrey grabs her and shakes her and holds her tight to him.  She starts sobbing again.					DOROTHY				    (continuing)			Oh God. Don!!! Why can't I just die.					JEFFREY				(quietly, soothing her)			There you go again. stop saying that.			You can make it.					DOROTHY			I can't. I can't. You think you know 			so much.					JEFFREY			Take it easy. What's goin' on anyway?.			Why are you in so much trouble?Dorothy is sobbing and Jeffrey is holding her.  There is a long silence and she calms down.  					DOROTHY				   (whispering)			I. don't. okay. Just don't. just be			with me.				(now very strangely)			Oh God. Come with me. Who are you.			Come up here.Dorothy takes Jeffrey through the kitchen and out the back.119. INT. BACK STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT. to a back stairway leading to the roof.120. EXT. ROOFTOP - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTThe storm is closer and the dark clouds move violently in front of a full moon.  The wind continues to moan.  They move to the roof top and Dorothy leads Jeffrey through the chimneys to the edge of the building.  A very sad forlorn version of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - creeps through the wind.					DOROTHY				 (as she stares down)			Look.					JEFFREY				(turning to her quickly)			No.					DOROTHY			(continuing to look down, her    			 eyes widening - she whispers)Falling.					JEFFREY			No. Please, Dorothy. Why are you in so			much trouble?He moves closer to her.					JEFFREY				    (continuing)			Who is Don?					DOROTHY			      (very crazy and angry)			Don?. Are you in with them?					JEFFREY                            (whispering)			No. But you're in very big trouble.					DOROTHY			Why are you so interested? Why do you			keep asking me?					JEFFREY			I came back to help you. You said do I			let girls sneak into my house. You know			where I live. if you need to. come to 			where I live. O.K.?					DOROTHY			Who are you? Maybe I'll need to. you like			me, huh?					JEFFREY			Yes.					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			. or do you just want me? I'm going to let			you enter me now.					JEFFREY			No. I should go.					DOROTHY			Please. please stay.She makes him kiss her. he really likes it.  Once again, Jeffrey and Dorothy get VERY HOT.  Dorothy and Jeffrey lie down on the roof.  Dorothy cries out suddenly and bangs her head hard again and again against the roof.					JEFFREY			Why Dorothy?We move very close to Jeffrey's ear as Dorothy's lips come up and whisper into it.					DOROTHY			Don? I have to make it hurt. I want			there to be nothing again. Don!!!				(as she slams her head         			 again and again)She reaches up and clutches Jeffrey then pulls him down with a feverish kiss.  Lightening cracks above them and the wind howls.FADE TO WHITE:FADE DOWN TO:121. EXT. LINCOLN STREET - NIGHTJeffrey leaves the pool of light from a street light and walks into darkness.  He continues down the sidewalk.  He looks up at the starry sky.The stars are so far away - the feeling is cold and lonely.									DISSOLVE TO:121A. Darkness: There are bell tones sounding, and as each one sounds pin pointsof light appear on Mr. Beaumonts distorted dream face.  He is trying to speak.  He's trying to say "Jeffrey."121B. Another dark image appears.  A robin sits in a tree at night.  Very close.There is a slow low reverberating chirping sound.121C.Now Dorothy's apartment building at night.  A very low angle looking up to the roof.  Suddenly a pinpoint of red appears coming toward us from the roof.  It flies toward us very fast growing larger until we see it is a red high-heeled shoe.  As it fills the screen it becomes red lips of Dorothy's which open into a scream.121D.Jeffrey wakes in his room - terrified.122. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTJeffrey is talking with Aunt Barbara in the semi-dark living room.					JEFFREY			Will you tell Mom when she gets home from 			the hospital that I've gone to dinner at			Sandy Williams' house?					AUNT BARBARA			Okay honey. that sounds nice. Jeffrey.			I think you've got termites in the house.					JEFFREY			Oh yeah?. Have you seen any?					AUNT BARBARA			I've seen a few.					JEFFREY			Well, I haven't seen any. I wouldn't worry			about it. Look. I better go.					AUNT BARBARA			Okay honey.Jeffrey leaves and Aunt Barbara moves about tapping on the walls.  She moves into a dark area and taps.  Something falls.  She reaches down.In EXTREME CLOSEUP we see a termite walking by her shoe on the thick carpet.  Then in EXTREME CLOSEUP we see Aunt Barbara's fingers pinch the termite and bring it up in front of her thick glasses for a look.  She looks at the termite, then looks back at the walls.We GLIDE ALONG the dark walls of the house.									CUT TO:123. INT. WILLIAMS' DINING ROOM - NIGHTThey all sit around the dining room table.  They have their heads bowed in a prayer before dinner.					SANDY			We thank you in the name of the Father, the			Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.They start passing food around.					MIKE			Like I was saying. if you toss the ball like			this, with your fingers just down here, that			thing'll spin like a beauty. real straight.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS					  (teasing him)			Yeah? Then how come nobody caught anything			last week?.					MIKE				 (not laughing)			'Cause we had a bad day.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			You play any sports, Jeffrey?					JEFFREY			No.					MIKE			Looks like you'd make a good runner.					JEFFREY			Well.					MIKE			I mean, you don't exactly have the build			for a football. I mean. no offense.Jeffrey looks around and sees Sandy looking at him.  She then gives a stern look to Mike.  Then Mike and Sandy both look at Jeffrey.					JEFFREY				   (not offended)			No. you're right.					MIKE			I mean. some guys play anyway but they			usually get slaughtered.					JEFFREY			Yeah, well I never wanted to get 			slaughtered much.					MIKE				(not getting any humor)			Well, most guys don't. I mean that's the			point. You all mind if I take my vitamins?					MRS. WILLIAMS			No, Mike. but there are vitamins in the			food, you know.Everyone laughs.					MIKE			Yeah, but I gotta supplement that. I gotta			take a bunch of zinc too. The body is like			a machine. EVERYTHING has got to stay in 			perfect tune for perfect health. That's 			what I'm interested in.Sandy looks at Mike.					MIKE			Oh yeah. and a few other things.Everyone laughs again.					SANDY			We've got some Heinekens.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Yeah. I like Bud myself.					SANDY			I'll get it. Mike, whatiya want?					MIKE			I guess another glass of water.Sandy and Jeffrey share a look.									DISSOLVE TO:124. INT. WILLIAMS' BASEMENT - NIGHTMike and Sandy are sitting on a couch in the basement.  Jeffrey is sittingon a chair nearby.  The television set is on.					MRS. WILLIAMS				    (calling downstairs)			Who wants dessert? It's blueberry pie. and			ice cream.Jeffrey and Sandy say "yes."					MIKE			None for me, thanks.Jeffrey looks over at Sandy.  Mike sees this.  There is more tension growing.					MIKE				 (referring to T.V.)			What are watchin' this junk for?					SANDY			You can change it if you want to.					MIKE			I don't know why we have to watch T.V.					SANDY			Mike. We don't have to watch it. Come			on.Mrs. Williams comes downstairs carrying a tray with dessert.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Here you are. Would anyone like coffee?					JEFFREY			That sounds great!					MRS. WILLIAMS			Anyone else?. Alright Jeffrey, just a 			minute.Mrs. Williams goes back upstairs.  Jeffrey and Sandy start eating their dessert.  Sandy watches Jeffrey happily wolf down his pie.  Mike stands up.					MIKE			I'll be right back.He leaves as if he's going to go upstairs.  Once around the corner he stops and listens to see what Jeffery and Sandy will say to one another.					SANDY			Well, how did it go?. What happened?					JEFFREY			Well. I've found out some things.			nothing really for certain. There are some			strange people involved.					SANDY			What did you see?					JEFFREY			Well.			  (looking around, feeling funny)			Maybe we should discuss this somewhere			else. you know what I mean?Just then, Mrs. Williams starts down with the coffee for Jeffrey.  She sees Mike at the bottom of the stairs.  This seems strange to her.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Mike?. Are you alright?Mike starts upstairs.					MIKE				   (mumbling)			Yes.Downstairs, Jeffrey and Sandy hear that Mike was close by.  Mrs. Williams and Mike pass on the stairs and Mrs. Williams enters the basement.  She throws Sandy a concerned look.  Just then, Mike calls downstairs.					MIKE			Sandy?. Could I talk to you a minute?					SANDY				   (calling up)			Sure. just a sec.				   (to Jeffrey)			Excuse me.125. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTUpstairs, Mike is by the front door.					MIKE			Come on out a minute, okay?					SANDY			Okay.They leave.125A. INT. WILLIAMS' BASEMENT - NIGHTDownstairs Mrs. Williams picks up some dishes.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Please excuse me a moment, Jeffrey, and I'll			get to the dishes.					JEFFREY			Sure thing. please don't worry about me.			Can I help you with the dishes?					MRS. WILLIAMS			Nice of you to offer, Jeffrey, but certainly			not. just relax and enjoy your coffee.			I'm sure Sandy will be back soon.Detective Williams comes to the top of the stairs and calls down.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Jeffrey?					JEFFREY			Yes?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			If you want to come up a minute, I'll show			you some pictures.126. INT. DETECTIVE WILLIAMS' STUDY - NIGHTJeffrey enters Detective Williams' study.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS					   (continuing)			Take a look at these. These are the photos			of the vacant lot where you found the ear.			You might find them interesting.Jeffrey begins going through the pictures.  They are 8 X 10 black and white prints.  Mostly they are pictures of weeds, but they look quite beautiful in an abstract way.  As he goes through them.					JEFFREY			These are beautiful. How's the case 			coming?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Okay.					JEFFREY			Anything you can tell me?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			The criminals are winning.					JEFFREY			Is that why you say it's horrible?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Yes.					JEFFREY			I guess you've seen some bad things.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Yes I have - so bad I wouldn't poison			your mind by telling you.					JEFFREY			Why do you do it?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			I won't let the bastards get me up against 			the wall. It's an act of defiance.					JEFFREY			Yeah. I get it.Suddenly Jeffrey sees something in the black and white photos.  A piece of cloth in the grass.  Carefully he asks.					JEFFREY			What is this? What color is it?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS				     (leaning over to see)			Blue. It's Blue Velvet.Sandy comes into her father's study looking upset.  Detective Williams puts the photos away.					SANDY			Can I use the car for a while?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Sure. What's up?					SANDY			I want to buy Jeffrey a Dairy Queen.					JEFFREY			A Dairy Queen?				(he holds his stomach)			Oh yeah? Sure, that sounds great.									CUT TO:127. INT. WILLIAMS CAR/NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHTJeffrey gets in and Sandy starts the car.  She pulls out.  They drive away.					JEFFREY			What's with Mike?					SANDY			He got a little jealous.					JEFFREY			I'm sorry, I didn't.					SANDY			It's okay. Don't worry about it.The car glides along.Jeffrey and Sandy smile at one another.  They drive on.					SANDY			You want a Dairy Queen?					JEFFREY			No way. I'm about to blow up.128. INT. WILLIAMS CAR/CHURCH - NIGHTSandy laughs as she pulls the car curbside in a quiet street by a church.The church pipe-organ music drifts softly into the night.					SANDY			You want to tell me about it?					JEFFREY			. OK. It's a strange world, Sandy.			this is what I have found out. What I 			think I have found out. Dorothy Vallens			is married to a man named Don. they have			a son. I think the son and the husband			have been kidnapped by a man named 			Frank who has now cut off both of Don's 			ears. I think he is holding them to make 			her do things for him. I think she wants 			to die. the ears were for her a warning 			to stay alive. there is another man 			involved. I call him the "yellow man".			you saw his back the other day in the hall 			at her door. I don't know what he does but 			I think he's on drugs supplied by Frank. 			Frank is a very dangerous man.					SANDY				    (quietly)			Wow. Should you tell my father?					JEFFREY			I don't see how I can. and I can't prove			any of this. I got all this information			illegally. also it could get you in			trouble.					SANDY			You saw a lot in one night.					JEFFREY			. Actually. I've been in twice.					SANDY				     (uneasy)			Twice. without her sensing anything?					JEFFREY					(lying)			Yes.					SANDY				    (pausing)			Did you see her undressed?					JEFFREY			Yeah. I mean. a little, . you know.					SANDY			Yeah?					JEFFREY			    (a searching, slight smile)			That doesn't bother you, does it?					SANDY			Who, me? Why should it?					JEFFREY			     (seeing some jealousy and             		and happy for it)			That's what I thought.					SANDY			You're sure right. It is a strange world.					JEFFREY			Why are there people like Frank. Why is			there so much trouble in this world.?					SANDY			I don't know. I had a dream. in fact. the			night I met you.				(she reflects silently on                          this before proceeding)			. in the dream the world was dark because			there weren't any robins. you know, birds.			robins stood for love. and all of a sudden			thousands of robins flew down and brought			this blinding light of love. and it felt			like that love would be the only thing that			would make any difference. I guess. until			the robins come there is trouble.					JEFFREY			Yeah I guess so.			       (he turns to her)			You're a neat girl.					SANDY			So are you.				     (laughs)			I mean you're a neat guy. We better			get back.					JEFFREY			I guess so. you want to help me watch			Frank?. I'm going to stake out Frank's			place tomorrow. with a camera.Sandy starts the car and pulls out into the street.  They begin driving back.129. INT. WILLIAMS CAR/NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHT					SANDY			No, silly - I'm still in school you know.			but I'll meet you after school and you 			can tell me what you've learned. You better			be careful, Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			I will.  I'll pick you up on the same 			corner at three thirty-five, okay?They pull up in front of Jeffrey's house.					SANDY			Okay. be careful.					JEFFREY			Okay, Sandy.130. EXT. BEAUMONTS' HOME - NIGHTJeffrey gets out of the car.  He goes around to her side and looks down at her in the car.  She looks very beautiful.  He stands there for a moment.					JEFFREY			Can I give you a kiss good night?					SANDY				(pauses, trembling)			You better not, Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			Okay. okay.					SANDY			Goodnight.					JEFFREY			See ya tomorrow.Sandy slowly drives off.  Jeffrey watches her go then turns and goes inside his house.131. INT. BEAUMONTS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTThe house is very dark and quiet.  Jeffrey finds a note by the one table light is on.  The note is from his mother.  It reads, "Jeffrey hope you enjoyed yourself. See you at breakfast. Love Mom."  A postscript is writtenon the note by Aunt Barbara.  "Jeffrey, honey, I found these. Love, Aunt Barbara."  Jeffrey sees that Aunt Barbara has left him two dead termites.  He picks one up and studies it.  Again we see a huge CLOSEUP of a termite in the half-light.  Jeffrey shakes his head in amusement.132. INT. JEFFREY'S ROOM - NIGHTJeffrey paces nervously.  He picks up the phone and mouthing the numbers he dials Dorothy's number.  There is a "click" but no one speaks.  Jeffrey instinctively speaks.					JEFFREY			Hello?					FRANK (telephone V.O.)			Speak to me Fucker.Jeffrey hangs up immediately.  He's scared.					JEFFREY				   (to himself)			Stupid!! So stupid. now she might be in			even more trouble with Frank. I hope not.			I hope not. tomorrow I have to find out			more about Frank.133. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/FRONT STREET - DAYJeffrey has a camera taped and rigged to the dashboard aimed at the front door of Frank Booth's apartment building.  The camera is covered with a cardboard shoe box.  Jeffrey is eating a sandwich which was wrapped in wax paper and is waiting and watching.A LADY steps out of the building and begins walking down the steps.  Jeffrey reaches over and removes the shoe box and quickly takes two pictures.We see a MAN walk down the street and turn up the steps.  Jeffrey shoots, but really only gets the back of the man.JEFFREY			Damn!He replaces the cardboard box and continues eating.									DISSOLVE TO:134. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/FRONT STREET - DAYLater in the day.  Jeffrey sits waiting.  He looks at his watch.  It says 2:00.As he looks up he sees Frank getting out of a car with another man. the Yellow Man.  They head for Frank's building.  Jeffrey hurriedly removes the shoe box and begins snapping pictures.  They mount the steps and disappear within the old dark structure.					JEFFREY			Wow.									DISSOLVE TO:135. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/FRONT STREET - DAYJeffrey's watch - the hand - time lapses around to 3:00.					JEFFREY			     (out loud to himself)			Fifteen more minutes.Just then, he sees movement and takes the box off the camera.  He starts shooting as TWO MEN come out the door.  It is the Yellow Man and a man whois very well dressed with wavy hair and a mustache.  He carries an alligator-skin briefcase FRANK HAS DISAPPEARED.  Both are talking together and now laughing.  Jeffrey takes five or six pictures and then tries to cover the camera as they approach.  The box falls.  The Yellow Man looks, but Jeffrey gets the box back in time and pretends to be looking in the glove compartment.The two men walk right by Jeffrey and get into the car behind his.  Jeffrey decides to follow them.  He waits a few seconds and starts off.136. EXT. CITY STREET - DAYThey drive through town.137. FACTORY BUILDING - DAY. to a large factory building, park and go up a flight of metal stairs on the side of the building.  Jeffrey steps into the shadows and watches them.  At a metal landing they stop.  He sees them standing on their tip toes in order to see something in the distance.  The man with the alligator briefcase is laughing with the Yellow Man at what he sees.  He grips the Yellow Man on the shoulder.  Jeffrey cannot see what they see from his vintage point.  He looks at his watch. "3:25".					JEFFREY			You gotta wait for me Sandy. I'm on a real roll.He quickly takes a picture of the two of them on the staircase.138. EXT. ALLEY - DAY. then he goes down an alley in the direction they were looking.  At the end of the alley he turns left and stops short.139. EXT. COLD STORAGE COMPANY - DAYHe sees a crowd of people, an ambulance, and two police cars.  He walks closer.  Through the crowd he sees a broken window.  Hanging in the windowis a dead man.  Blood is dripping out of a huge wound to the head.On the sidewalk in front of the building a woman is lying in shock.  Her legs have been brutally broken and are angled back toward her head in horrible positions.  Jeffrey stands next to two black guys.  Suddenly one of the police officers start pushing everyone away.  Jeffrey turns to them.					JEFFREY			What happened?					GUY #1			He was blown away man. can't you see?					GUY #2			That cracker was the biggest dealer in 			this section of the city, brother. the			police are going to find more drugs in			there than you can believe. It's a 			speedball heaven in there.					JEFFREY			Oh yeah? What about the woman?					GUY #1			Probably just a whore he happened to be			with at the time.					JEFFREY			Man oh brother.					GUY #1			This is the way the world is my man. take			a good look.Jeffrey takes a last look before checking his watch and hurrying off.									CUT TO:140. EXT. CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL - DAYJeffrey drives up to the corner where Sandy is standing.  She is frantically looking around.  Jeffrey stops for her.					SANDY			    (looking beyond the car)			GO ON!!!. GO!Jeffrey looks around.  A big FOOTBALL PLAYER is running up to a chain link fence across the street, but it's too late - Mike sees Jeffrey.  Everything stops for a moment.  Then, Mike runs off.					SANDY			Oh great.141. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL - DAYSandy goes around and gets in the car.					SANDY				   (continuing)			You were late.					JEFFREY			I'm really sorry.					SANDY			What am I going to do?					JEFFREY			You want to go talk to him?					SANDY			Yeah, but. I don't think it's going to do			much good. Let's go. I'll try to talk to 			him later.									CUT TO:142. INT. DINER - DAYJeffrey and Sandy are sitting in the diner in a different booth, but having the same things as before.					SANDY			You know, that cheese is practically			all chemicals.					JEFFREY			That's what makes it so good. You wanta			hear what I saw today?					SANDY			Shoot.					JEFFREY			Number one. I saw the Yellow Man go into 			Frank's building, laughing with Frank.			Now. the only trouble is. what does this			prove?					SANDY				    (thinking)			Nothing really, but it's interesting.			they know each other. they seem to like			each other.					JEFFREY			Maybe. But I think the Yellow Man is on 			drugs. I think Frank supplies him.					SANDY			Oh yeah?					JEFFREY			Number two. I saw the Yellow Man come out.			This time with a well-dressed man with an			alligator briefcase. They drove down this			factory building and stood on a staircase			looking at something in the distance. 			Number three. now get this. In the distance			was a murder. a drug dealer shot to death			and a woman with her legs broken.					SANDY			Jeffrey!!					JEFFREY			Then these guys told me the police will			find a huge amount of drugs inside the 			dead man's place.					SANDY			I can't believe what you are finding out.			Are you going to continue with this. Are			you going back to her apartment?					JEFFREY			Yeah.					SANDY			Jeffrey?. Why?					JEFFREY			I'm seeing something that was always hidden.			I'm involved in a mystery. I'm learning.			and it's all secret.					SANDY			You like mysteries that much?					JEFFREY			Yeah. you're a mystery. I like you.			very much.Jeffrey stands up and moves to her side of the booth.  They stare at each other.					SANDY			Oh yeah?Jeffrey leans over and kisses her gently.  She pulls away.					SANDY			Don't. please, Jeffrey.Jeffrey looks at her for a moment.					JEFFREY			You worry about me really?					SANDY			Yes. is that so surprising?. Yeah I			worry. a lot. I got you into this.									CUT TO:143. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTJeffrey winds his way up the staircase of Dorothy's apartment building.  He hesitates before crossing to Dorothy's door.  He knocks on the door and Dorothy opens it.					DOROTHY			Come in.					JEFFREY			Hello.144. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTDorothy closes the door.  She chains it.They kiss.  The kiss gets hotter.  The feeling begins.They move down the hall to the back bedroom.  They've never made love there.  As they hurriedly undress Jeffrey sees the pointed child's hat with the propeller.  He picks it up and spins the propeller.  It makes a bit of music.  Dorothy shrieks as she lurches toward Jeffrey grabbing his hand, stopping him from turning the tiny propeller.  She gains some control of herself.  Jeffrey releases the hat into her hand.					DOROTHY			It used to make me laugh .but.					JEFFREY			I'm sorry .maybe I better go Dorothy.					DOROTHY			Yes. Frank-					JEFFREY			Frank is coming?					DOROTHY			No. how could he?. Don't go. You think			I'm crazy, don't you? I want you to stay.					(crying)			. don't hate me.					JEFFREY				   (very nervous)			I sure don't hate you.					DOROTHY			I'm not crazy.				     (thinking)			I know the difference between right 			and wrong.					JEFFREY			That's good.Jeffrey moves to get out of bed.					DOROTHY				    (she poses)			Do you like my body?					JEFFREY			Sure I do.She moves closer to him, towards his back touching it with her tongue.  She gets down in a pose and holds it.					DOROTHY			I'm a statue. you can feel me.you			can do anything you want.Jeffrey's hands find her flesh and move about.									DISSOLVE TO:Jeffrey and Dorothy are making love in her bed in almost total darkness.					DOROTHY				     (dreamily)			What do you want to do?					JEFFREY			I'm doing it.					DOROTHY			Are you a bad boy?					JEFFREY			Whatiya mean?					DOROTHY			Do you want to do bad things?				   (very dreamy)			Anything. anything.					JEFFREY				  (whispering hot)			What do you want?					DOROTHY			I want you to hurt me.					JEFFREY			No. I told you. I don't want to hurt you.			I want to help you. I think I know some of			what is happening to you. 				  (she doesn't react)			. Dorothy? Frank has your husband and son.			Dorothy? Doesn't he? You have to do 			something Dorothy. go to the police.					DOROTHY			No police!!!.			 (pushing herself back against			  the headboard; then frantic)			No police!!Suddenly, Dorothy gets very odd.  She turns into a little girl.  She hasa frightening little girl smile.					DOROTHY			You like to open me. don't you?					JEFFREY			Yes.					DOROTHY				(thinking with a grin)			What if I told Frank that you opened me?For just one quiet moment we see the stairway to Dorothy's apartment.  It is empty.  Then back to Jeffrey and Dorothy.					JEFFREY			That wouldn't be too good, would it?					DOROTHY			Frank would open you.					JEFFREY			Okay. I know you've been scared. now you			want to scare someone.					DOROTHY			    (smiles very strangely)			Does that scare you?					JEFFREY			Shut up.					DOROTHY			Beeeee careful.					JEFFREY				  (scared and mad)			Come on Dorothy.					DOROTHY			What if Frank came over here and found us?The curtains in the kitchen bellow out with an eerie gust of wind.					JEFFREY			Look, snap out of it, will ya?					DOROTHY			Kiss me.They kiss.					DOROTHY				    (continuing)			Do you love me?					JEFFREY			Do you love me?					DOROTHY			I asked first.					JEFFREY			Sometimes I think I do.					DOROTHY			And sometimes you think you don't?! Well,			get away then!She bolts up.					JEFFREY			Wait a minute. Wait. Whatiya want? For			cryin' out loud!					DOROTHY			Just get outta my bed.She hits out at Jeffrey and strikes him in the face.  Jeffrey struggles with her to keep her from hitting him again but she breaks loose and slamsout at his face again.  He pushes back hard and her head actually hits thewall.  She smiles through the pain.					JEFFREY			Oh God. are you alright.She falls on him and smothers him with kisses.					DOROTHY			See. see how you hurt me? Now. Open			me. enter me.Jeffrey moves on top of her in the darkness.We move very close to Jeffrey's ear as Dorothy's lips come up and whisperinto it.					DOROTHY			I love you Don with all my heart.					JEFFREY			No. it's not Don.But he can't stop himself or her from making love.					DOROTHY			Come inside me. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.				   (very frantic)			Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.The movement subsides.  There is silence in the room, except for breathing.					JEFFREY			I didn't mean to hurt you.					DOROTHY			Shhhhhh. Now I have your disease.					JEFFREY			You. what?					DOROTHY			You put your disease in me. your semen.			it's hot and full of disease.					JEFFREY			There's no disease, I can tell you.					DOROTHY			Men are crazy. then they put their			craziness into me. then it makes me			crazy. then they aren't so crazy for			awhile. then they put their craziness			in me again.				  (starts crying)			. it's burning me. but I love you. I			do, I do. Did you know that? Did you			know that I love you?					JEFFREY				 (very apprehensive)			I'm glad you do.					DOROTHY			There's so much I want to tell you. I'm in			so much darkness though with things moving.			there is darkness sucking me. It's kissing			me and darkness is entering me. in every			hole. It's opening me to a death.					JEFFREY			Dorothy. no!					DOROTHY				    (whispering)			If I die, then they'll be free. It's 			getting late, isn't it? I can tell. it's			a cold feeling when it's late. It's warm			then it gets cold. Jeffrey. I feel it 			getting cold.					JEFFREY			You called me Jeffrey.					DOROTHY			I did. are you?					JEFFREY			Yes.					DOROTHY			Why are you here?				(Jeffrey gets on top    				 of her again)			Hmmmmmmmm!!!! Ok.					JEFFREY			No. not really.			     (they kiss - very hot)			but also because I really want you 			to be alright.Dorothy stops and looks at him - she holds his face.  She starts to cry.					DOROTHY			You do .you really do.She continues holding his face - looking in his eyes crying openly.  he pulls him down to her.					DOROTHY			Jeffrey. Jeffrey. Jeffrey.Jeffrey smiles.					JEFFREY			I guess I should go.					DOROTHY			I want you to stay with me.					JEFFREY			I think I better go.146. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTLater.  Jeffrey is dressed and Dorothy comes out of the bathroom in her robe.  She is combing her hair.  One or two lights are on now.  She looks at Jeffrey and smiles, brushes some of his hair back from his face.					DOROTHY			You're my special friend, aren't you?				     (whispers)			I have you inside of me still.				     (big smile)			It helps me. I need you.Jeffrey doesn't know what to say.  He starts walking toward the door with Dorothy beside him.					JEFFREY					(lying)			I'll call you.					DOROTHY			Okay. soon? Do you think I'm too fat?					JEFFREY			What?					DOROTHY			I'm getting a little bit fat. I hate that.					JEFFREY			You look beautiful to me.She pats her hips.					DOROTHY			Right in here. fat, fat, fat.Dorothy takes the chain off the door and opens it.  The hall is empty.  There is some noise on the stairs.  Suddenly, Frank and TWO FRIENDS of his come into view on the stairway.					JEFFREY				    (to Dorothy)			Oh no.					DOROTHY			    (her eyes glaze over -        		     she's gone again)			No. 				(calling out to Frank)			Hi baby.					FRANK			Who's this fuck?					DOROTHY			He's a friend. from the neighborhood.			we were just talking.					FRANK				   (to Jeffrey)			From the neighborhood?				     (slowly)			Shut the fuck up.				   (to Jeffrey)			You like telephones? Huh?. You wanta go			for a ride?					JEFFREY			No thanks.					FRANK			No thanks. what does that mean?					JEFFREY				 (very carefully)			I don't want to go.					FRANK			Go where?					JEFFREY			On a ride.					FRANK			A ride?. Hell, that's a good idea. okay,			let's go. Hey, let's go.Frank grabs Jeffrey and pulls him along.					FRANK			     (continuing to Dorothy)			Come on. We're goin' for a joy ride.147. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTFrank takes Jeffrey on a wide-eyed terror walk down the stairway.									CUT TO:148. INT. FRANK'S CAR/CITY STREETS - NIGHTFrank and Dorothy are in the front seat.  Jeffrey is sandwiched between two very dirty strange guys in the back.  Frank is driving very fast and very crazy.  Sitting next to him on the front seat is a police radio which periodically blares out police reports.  At the lights, when they turn green, Frank lays rubber.					FRANK			Where you wanna go? I know!. We gotta see			Ben. We gotta, right?					PAUL				   (laughing)			Yeah. we gotta see Ben. The car roars through a seedy street lined with bars and clubs.  Liquor and sex shop signs glow in hot neon colors.  They are blurred visions because of the speed of Frank's car.Driving music plays.Frank careens dangerously down various narrow streets, just barely makingturns.  The Ford bounces off several curbs.  Dorothy occasionally steals a glance back at Jeffrey.  She squeals out loud - sometimes with glee, mostly in fear.Raymond and Paul laugh with Frank, yell out or light cigarettes.149. EXT. "BARBARY COAST" - NIGHTFrank finally gets to where he's going - a corner bar - and skids to a hault.  They all pile out.  Frank grabs Jeffrey.					FRANK			Come on. I wancha to meet a frienda mine.			Raymond, get enough beer for Ben too.					RAYMOND			Okay Frank.					FRANK				   (to Jeffrey)			What kinda beer do you like?					JEFFREY				   (just says it)			Heineken.					FRANK			FUCK THAT SHIT. PABST BLUE RIBBON!!!He grabs Jeffrey and pushes him into the bar.150. INT. "BARBARY COAST" - NIGHTMoving fast now, they go through this dark frightening place.  Frank has Jeffrey by the neck forcing him faster.  In the back there is a black man fondling a white girl near a doorway.151. INT. BACK ROOM - "BARBARY COAST" - NIGHTThey go through the door to a back room.  A few naked girls are there nearbeds with curtains around them.  One girl lies on her bed with dried vomitaround her head and pillow.  Suddenly Frank spots his friend Willard.  He runs toward him violently and grabs him by the throat.					FRANK			Hey shithead. that's the last time I get			you high and watch you freak out - 			motherfucker you tore my coat and I lost			my lucky piece of blue velvet, man.152. 	INT. DETECTIVE WILLIAMS' STUDY - NIGHTFLASHBACKto the black and white photo of a piece of cloth in the weeds in the vacant lot.					JEFFREY (V.O.)			What color is it?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS (V.O.)			It's blue. blue velvet.153. 	INT. BACK ROOM - "BARBARY COAST" - NIGHTRESUME GROUP					WILLARD			Hey Frank I'm sorry buddy.					FRANK			Yeah?. get ready for a love letter. 			When you least expect it.					WILLARD			Frank. please man.					FRANK			A big love letter.Frank pushes him down on the bed with the dried vomit whore.  They leave Willard.154. INT. STAIRS AND LANDING - BEN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT... and go up a flight of dirty wooden steps.  Frank bangs on a door at the first landing.  Raymond joins him with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.					FRANK			Hey Ben. OPEN UP. It's Frank.A tall, slender man with a smoking jacket and a mustache opens the door.  It's BEN.  His voice is very horse from years of smoking.					BEN				(very gracious)			Frank. Come in.					FRANK			Hey, I brought some friends. and some			beer.					BEN			Fine. Welcome. Come sit down.155. INT. BEN'S APARTMENT - NIGHTThe apartment is very large.  All the furniture is over-stuffed.  In the room there is a very much over-weight WOMAN dressed in black and a greasy-looking COUPLE.  On the couch, a YOUNG WOMAN plays with a large doll.					FRANK			   (getting higher all the time)			Suave. goddam are you suave, you fucker.			You want some beer?					BEN				    (smiling)			Certainly Frank.				 (to the fat woman)			Darling, get some glasses. We'll have 			some beer with Frank. Won't you sit down?Everyone kinds of mills around.  Paul sits down in a chair and starts laughing at some private joke in his head.					FRANK			Shit Ben! How the shit are ya?					BEN			Fine Frank. Fine. How are you?					FRANK			Fuckin' good, real fuckin' good. You know			this little tid bit, Dorothy, and this thing, 			here, (referring to Jeffrey) is a neighbor. 			What the shit we're doin' with a neighbor, I 			don't know. goddam!!!(referring to Ben) This 			is the suavest guy I know. look at you. You're 			one beautiful fucker, Ben. I love this jacket			and that cigarette holder of yours. shit, that			is too fuckin' much. Where's those glasses. 			this beer's gonna get too warm. I can't stand			fuckin' warm beer. it makes me puke.					BEN			Darling, where are the glasses?. Oh.			here they are.The Big Lady brings the glasses in and sets them on the card table.  She looks worried.  She gives a helpless pleading look to Ben.					FRANK			Raymond! Where's the fuckin' beer?					RAYMOND			Right here Frank. You want me to pour it?					FRANK			No, I want ya to fuck it. Shit, yes.			pour the fuckin' beer.					RAYMOND			There ya go.					FRANK			Good, let's drink up.					BEN			To your health, Frank.					FRANK			Shit. let's drink to something else.			let's drink to fuckin'. Say here's 			to your fuck Frank.					BEN			If you like Frank. Here's to your fuck.			cheers.Frank's friends, Paul and Raymod, laugh.					FRANK				  (laughs loud)			Cheers. Suave man. you're so fuckin'			suave. WE LOVE BEN! Here's to Ben!.Frank slaps Jeffrey in the face.					FRANK			Hey neighbor. Here's to Ben.					JEFFREY			    (stunned, grabbing his face)			Here's to Ben.					FRANK			Do you see, Ben?. I can make him do			anything I fuckin' please.Ben goes to Jeffrey.					BEN			Thank you neighbor. let me see your			face. did he hurt you?Jeffrey shows him.					BEN				  (continuing)			Oh. my.Suddenly Ben slugs Jeffrey in the stomach.  Jeffrey doubles over.					BEN				(continuing again)			Is that any better?Frank almost dies laughing.  Everyone else joins in.  Ben turns to Frank.					BEN			Frank, I have something for you. Excuse			us everyone.					FRANK			EXCUSE US por favor! Hey. let Tits see			her kid.As Jeffrey tries to catch his breath, he sees tremendous emotion fill Dorothy's face.  She rushes forward.  Raymond grabs her by the arm and takes her into another room.  Jeffrey hears her crying out.  He hears a small boy.					DOROTHY (V.O.)			Donny, oh my Donny.					DONNY (V.O.)			Mommy!155A. INT. BACK ROOM - BEN'S APARTMENT - NIGHTDorothy is sobbing and clinging to Donny.  He is crying and gripping her like a small monkey would grip its mother.  Suddenly Donny breaks away, screaming.DONNY			Mommy. You left me. you stopped loving me.					FRANK			  (coming back into Ben's living room)			Okay. let's hit the fuckin' road. we're			givin' our neighbor a joy ride. let's get			on with it. Bye, Ben. Ya wanna go on a 			joy ride with us, anyone? You?				 (looking around)Dorothy rejoins the group.  She's in a state of shock.  Frank pinches hercheek.					FRANK				   (continuing)			No smile for Frank? No? Okay, fuck it.			Let's go. Oh you wanna come with Raymond?Raymond has picked up the greasy girl.					BEN			See you Tuesday, Frank.					FRANK			Right Ben. LET'S GO FUCK. I'll fuck			anything that moves.156. EXT. "BARBARY COAST" - NIGHTThey leave and pile back into the car.157. INT. FRANK'S CAR/CITY STREETS - NIGHTNow there are four in the back.  Raymond starts necking with the Greasy Girl.  They speed on into the night.  Frank drives through various dark streets.158. INT. FRANK'S CAR/HIGHWAY - NIGHT. then out onto a highway and goes over 100 mph down a two-lane highway.					FRANK				   (to Jeffrey)			Hey? . You like to walk.					JEFFREY			What?					FRANK			Let's take our neighbor out. Let him			fuckin' walk back.				     (laughs)As Frank is driving Jeffrey sees Dorothy nervously look at the road and surrounding countryside, then questioningly at Frank.  She senses somethingabout where they are going.					DOROTHY			Where are we going, Frank?					FRANK			Hey. Tits. I'm taking your neighbor to 			the country. maybe something for you too.					DOROTHY				   (very anxious)			Frank?					FRANK			You want to see him too, right?					DOROTHY			Yes, but.					FRANK			Then, shut up!Frank sees Dorothy look back at Jeffrey.					FRANK				   (continuing)			Hey. What's this fuck got to do with			anything.159. INT. FRANK'S CAR/DIRT ROAD - NIGHTFrank angrily swerves the car off onto a small dirt road bouncing down it, screeching to a halt near an orchard of trees.  He turns violently around to Jeffrey.					FRANK			What are you lookin' at?					JEFFREY			Nothing.					FRANK			   (locks eyes with Jeffrey;       		    long pause)			Don't look at me, Fuck. I shoot when I see			the whites of the eyes.				(takes helium)			You like me?.Jeffrey is quiet.					FRANK				 (still high voice)			Look at these. What are these?					DOROTHY			Come on, Frank. Let's go. Please.Frank is doing something to Dorothy's chest but Jeffrey can't see.					FRANK			Don't say PLEASE, Fuckhead. WHAT ARE			THESE?					DOROTHY			Those are my breasts.					FRANK			Can I feel 'em?					DOROTHY			If you want to.Frank takes helium.					FRANK			Baby wants to pinch 'em.She winces and tries to pull away.					FRANK				   (continuing)			What's the matter? Give 'em back. They're			just a little red, that's all. let me feel			'em again. Come here.Frank pulls her over and starts to pinch her again.  It really hurts her and she is frightened and in pain.					JEFFREY			Hey. leave her alone.Frank pretends not to hear Jeffrey and pinches Dorothy's breasts real hard.She stifles a scream.  Jeffrey gets mad.  He hits Frank hard in the face. Everyone is deadly silent as Frank turns to Jeffrey.  Frank stares at Jeffrey.					FRANK			NEXT! . out of the car fuck. HELP HIM			OUT, RAYMOND!!160. EXT. FRANK'S CAR/DIRT ROAD - NIGHTFrank gets out and presses his face against the rear window.  His distortedface is hideous.  He opens the back door.  Raymond and Paul grab Jeffrey and pull him out of the car.  The Greasy Girl laughs nervously.					DOROTHY			Frank. he didn't mean it. Leave him			alone. come on. He didn't mean it.					FRANK			Shut up. Gimme your lipstick.				    (takes gas)			. Hey, pretty, pretty.Dorothy doesn't move fast enough so Frank dumps her whole purse out on thefront seat and grabs the lipstick and a flashlight.  He puts lipstick heavy onto his lips.While Raymond and Paul hold Jeffrey.  Frank kisses Jeffrey all over the mouth.  Jeffrey tries to hit Frank and pull away, but Raymond and Paul have a hold of him.  Jeffrey looks very strange with these big blotches of red lipstick on his face and mouth.					DOROTHY			LEAVE HIM ALONE!! FRANK!!Frank slams the front door shut to muffle Dorothy.  He grabs Jeffrey and presses his frightened face against the front window.  Then, the back window.  Then, he flops Jeffrey up on the hood with Paul's help and pressesJeffrey's face against the rear window.  Inside the car, this show is crazy and scary.  Then, Frank takes Jeffrey over to the side of the car again.					FRANK				   (to Jeffrey)			You're fuckin' lucky to be alive.			LOOK AT ME!Raymond pulls Jeffrey's face back so he's looking at Frank.  Dorothy and the Greasy Girl watch in terror.					FRANK			Don't be a good neighbor to her or I'm 			gonna send you a love letter. straight			from my heart, fucker. You know what a 			love letter is? It's a bullet. straight			from my gun, fucker. Once you get a love			letter from me, you're fucked forever.			Understand, Fuck?					JEFFREY			Yes.					FRANK			I'll send you straight to hell, Fuck!Frank takes a small square of blue velvet out of his pocket and begins feeling Jeffrey's face with it.					FRANK			 (continuing; breathing heavily)			You feel good. feel my muscles.Raymond makes Jeffrey raise his arm and Jeffrey feels Frank's biceps.					FRANK				  (continuing)			You like that?                      (to Raymond and Paul)			Hold him tight for me.Suddenly Frank starts hitting Jeffrey in the face.  Dorothy screams at thecar window.CUT TO BLACK:161. 	EXT. DIRT ROAD - DAYNO SOUND. THEN A MOAN.JEFFREY'S P.O.V. of rocks on the ground.He slowly picks up and looks around.  The car is gone.  He is swollen, bloody, and covered with lipstick.  His pants have been pulled down and "FUCK YOU" has been written with lipstick on his legs.He struggles to his feet and pulls his pants up.  He fastens his belt and begins limping up the dirt road highway.									CUT TO:162. EXT. PHONE BOOTH - HIGHWAY - DAYJeffrey dials.					JEFFREY			Yellow Cab? Is this Yellow Cab? I need a 			cab. on Route 7.				  (he looks around)			. Just by Meadow Lane.163. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTFLASHBACKJeffrey remembers Dorothy mentioning "Meadow Lane" on the phone.164. INT. FRANK'S CAR - NIGHTFLASHBACKJeffrey remembers Frank saying "You want to see him too, right?" and Dorothy saying, "Yes. but."165. EXT. PHONE BOOTH - HIGHWAY - DAY					JEFFREY				    (continuing)			Meadow Lane. There's a big Nehi sign.			Okay. I'll wait, don't worry, . I've			got to get home, don't I?									DISSOLVE TO:166. INT. JEFFREY'S ROOM - DAY Jeffrey is sleeping.  His face is swollen and bruised.  The clock says 4:30 p.m.									DISSOLVE TO:167. INT. JEFFREY'S ROOM - NIGHTThe clock says 1:30 a.m.  Jeffrey goes into the bathroom.  Looks at his puffed face and takes two aspirin.  He stumbles back to bed.									DISSOLVE TO:168. INT. JEFFREY'S ROOM - DAYThe clock says 7:30 a.m. and Jeffrey gets up and stretches.					JEFFREY			Owww.His muscles are very sore.									CUT TO:169. INT. BEAUMONTS' KITCHEN - DAYAt the breakfast table.  Aunt Barbara and Mrs. Beaumont are staring at Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			I don't want to talk about it. Everything's			okay now. I don't want to talk about it.					AUNT BARBARA			Sometimes it helps to talk things over. 			for instance, many marriages are saved by.					JEFFREY			    (interrupting, smiling        	  	     at Aunt Barbara)			Aunt Barbara. I love you, but you're not 			gonna get it.He holds his fist up.									DISSOLVE TO:170. JEFFREY'S ROOM - DAYJeffrey dials the phone.					JEFFREY			Mrs. Williams? Hi, this is Jeffrey 			Beaumont. fine and you? Good. Is Sandy			there? Good, thanks. Sandy?. Can you			talk? Good. I'm through with this 			business. I'll explain, but it got a 			little out of hand. I'm lucky to be			able to call you. anyway. I promise 			I'll tell you everything .How are you?									CUT TO:171. INT. SANDY'S BEDROOM - DAYSandy on her phone.					SANDY			We broke up. No. It's okay. It's okay.			Jeffrey?. Jeffrey?. Hey, Jeffrey?.			Do you want to go to a party with me			Friday night?. He won't be there, don't			worry. It'll be real nice. This Friday.			You don't dance? Well, I'll teach you,			silly.									CUT TO:172. INT. JEFFREY'S ROOM - DAYJeffrey on his phone.					JEFFREY			Great. Hey. I've got a bit of a			problem. I know some things. that			could help your father but you 			might get into trouble.INT. SANDY'S BEDROOM - DAY					SANDY			Jeffrey. are they important things?			Well forget me - you have to tell 			him. Jeffrey. I mean it.INT. JEFFREY'S ROOM - DAY					JEFFREY			Ok but I promise I won't mention you.			Okay? .I'll see him at the police 			station. okay? See you Friday night,			if not before.									DISSOLVE TO:173. INT. POLICE STATION - DAYJeffrey climbs the stairs up to Detective Williams' office.174. INT. ROOM 221 - POLICE STATION - DAYHe rounds the corner and steps inside the office, when he stops short withfear.  Detective Williams is not there, but sitting at a desk next to Detective Williams' desk is the Yellow Man.  Their eyes lock.Jeffrey freezes.					JEFFREY			Excuse me.Jeffrey turns away as quickly as possible and goes over to a water coolerand gets a drink, keeping his back to the Yellow Man.  He shakes with fear.  He slowly turns around.  The Yellow Man is studying some papers onhis desk.Again the Yellow Man looks up.  This time he is slightly suspicious and hecooks his head.  Jeffrey cannot move.Finally, Jeffrey is able to step away.  As he leaves the Yellow Man's lineof sight, Jeffrey catches the names on the door.					DETECTIVES				     J.R. WILLIAMS					    AND					T.R. GORDON					JEFFREY				    (inner voice)			Gordon. Gordon. a police inspector.			wait a minute. wait a minute.175. EXT. COLD STORAGE COMPANY - DAYFLASHBACKJeffrey remembers the black guy saying: "The police are going to find moredrugs in there than you can believe."					JEFFREY			    (continuing, inner voice)			The police. the police. Gordon.177. INT. BEN'S APARTMENT - NIGHTFLASHBACKJeffrey remembers Frank's voice in the distance: "Gordon went right up to them - in broad daylight of course - 'cause he's the man, right? And he took all those drugs away."178. INT. ROOM 221 - POLICE STATION - DAY					JEFFREY			     (continuing, inner voice)			Took all those drugs away. Gordon			took those drugs away.									CUT TO:179. EXT. WILLIAMS HOME - NIGHTJeffrey walks through the darkness, carrying the photos.  He stops in front of Detective Williams' house and hesitates.  Jeffrey's face has a troubled look.  He approaches the front door.He hesitates again before finally knocking.  Detective Williams answers the door.  Sandy is in the background.  When she sees the look on Jeffrey'sface, she knows why he's there.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Jeffrey! Come on in.					JEFFREY			Hi. Hi Sandy. I'm sorry to bother you,			but I've got to talk to you.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Okay. come on in. Looks like you had a 			bad face lift.					JEFFREY			  (with a goofy smile to Sandy)			Yeah.180. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTSandy gives him a concerned look.  Jeffrey follows Detective Williams to his study.181. INT. DETECTIVE WILLIAMS STUDY - NIGHTHe closes the door behind him.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Okay?					JEFFREY			Okay. I gotta tell you. I've. discovered			some things. .Anyway I have to show you			some pictures and tell you some things 			about them. The first picture is this.He shows him the picture of Frank and studies Detective Williams' face as he sees it.					JEFFREY				    (continuing)			This is Frank Booth. His address is on			the back of the photo. He, in my opinion,			is very sick and dangerous. This photo 			here is of Frank with another man as they			went into Frank's apartment.Jeffrey casually hands the photo over and watches Detective Williams' face extra carefully.  Detective Williams doesn't flinch, yet his eyes slowly glide upwards to meet Jeffrey's.					JEFFREY				    (continuing)			And that man came out with a third man - 			this well-dressed guy. here's the photo.			I think a girl named Dorothy Vallens is			in trouble with these people. I think			Frank has taken her husband and her son.					JEFFREY				    (continuing)			I have no hard proof of any of this. Her			address is also on the photos. I think			these people are involved with drugs. and			murder. I think Frank is killing drug			dealers and.			     (he decides not to tell Detective   				Williams everything)			. and somehow Frank is getting all their			drugs. I had to tell you I got slightly			more involved in this than you wanted me			to, but it's over now for sure. .I had to			tell you about these things in case it 			could help.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Well now Jeffrey, how did you come to get			so involved?					JEFFREY			I can't tell you the whole story. I. I			took it upon myself. I can't say more.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Is Sandy part of this?					JEFFREY			No. not at all.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS				    (referring to the photos)			Who knows you have these?					JEFFREY			Only you. and the photo lab.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			You're all through with this now?					JEFFREY			Yes sir. I sure am.Detective Williams studies Jeffrey, then the photos.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			For now. Alright. you better be. And			Sandy better not be involved with this,			I can tell you. Be prepared to come in 			for further interrogation on this later.					JEFFREY			Yes sir.Jeffrey leaves the study.182. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTIn the living room, Jeffrey looks at Sandy.					SANDY			Everything okay?					JEFFREY			Yeah. I think so. I just had to tell him			some of what I knew. Is Friday still on?					SANDY			You didn't tell him about me?					JEFFREY			No.Detective Williams comes out of his study and sees the two of them talking.He sees some nervousness.  Sandy quickly changes the subject.					SANDY			I should never had gotten you going on this.				(changing, smiling)			Yes Jeffrey. Friday's on!					JEFFREY			Okay. great!									CUT TO:183. EXT. BEAUMONTS' FRONT LAWN - DAYJeffrey waters the flowers and bushes as his father had done.  His facelooks much better.									DISSOLVE TO:184. INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAYJeffrey sits and visits with his father.  His Mother and his Aunt Barbara are there too.									DISSOLVE TO:185. INT. HOSPITAL LAB - DAYCLOSEUPS of cells moving - dark cells move in - the picture gets dark.									DISSOLVE TO:186. EXT. WILLIAMS HOME - NIGHTJeffrey is driving over to Sandy's.He has to park across the street because a police car is sitting in frontof the Williams' house.  Its lights are slowly revolving on top. The engineidles. a Man is inside. his head down, studying some papers.Jeffrey barely notices all this, as he heads for the door.Mrs. Williams answers the door and Sandy is behind her in the dining room.					MRS. WILLIAMS			Hello, Jeffrey. Come in.187. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTJeffrey enters and crosses the room to Sandy.					JEFFREY			You all set?Detective Williams comes in arranging some papers which he begins placingin a briefcase on the dining room table.  Just then a man comes up to thedoor which is still open.  Jeffrey turns to see.  It is Detective T.R. Gordon, the Yellow Man.  All the color instantly drains from Jeffrey's face.					YELLOW MAN				    (yelling inside)			Hey John - get a move on!!Detective Williams turns.  He sees Detective Gordon.  He turns again.  He sees Jeffrey's expression.  Sandy hasn't seen it yet.Detective Williams goes to Jeffrey.  He looks him straight in the eye.  Healso positions himself between Jeffrey and T.R. Gordon.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Easy does it Jeffrey. Behave yourself.			don't blow it.Sandy becomes curious and moves over to Jeffrey and her father.  Jeffrey decides to trust Detective Williams.  The Yellow Man (T.R. Gordon) yells again.					YELLOW MAN			Come on John, get it in gear pal!					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			So long Jeffrey. You two have a nice			night, okay?					JEFFREY			Okay.					SANDY			What is it?					JEFFREY			Just some fatherly advice.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			That's right.Jeffrey and Sandy head for the door.  The Yellow Man's and Jeffrey's eyesmeet once more.  The Yellow Man cocks his head. thinking.  No recognition.					SANDY				 (to her mother)			Goodnight mom.			     (to the Yellow Man)			Goodnight Tom.					T.R. GORDON-YELLOW MAN			Goodnight, Sandy.188. EXT. WILLIAMS HOME - NIGHTThey cross the yard to the car.  Jeffrey helps Sandy in, then goes aroundand gets in himself.  They are both dressed very nicely.189. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHTJeffrey starts the car and pulls out.					SANDY			What was that all about?					JEFFREY			Nothing. really! It's good to see you.					SANDY			It's good to see you.					JEFFREY			Where to?					SANDY			Just go over to Gelford and up to Vista.			It's not far. Can you tell me any more			about what you learned?					JEFFREY			I'd rather not talk about it. I'll tell			you about it sometime.					SANDY			It's okay.					JEFFREY			... You look beautiful.					SANDY			Thank you. Whatiya say we just enjoy the 			evening?					JEFFREY			I like that idea. that's a real good idea.									CUT TO:190. INT. PARTY BASEMENT - NIGHTJeffrey and Sandy go downstairs to a basement which is dark and crowded with kids dancing and talking.  Jeffrey and Sandy are holding hands.  Jeffrey feels a little out of place.A COUPLE OF GIRLS raise their eyebrows and give approving looks to Sandy.The music is loud, fast dancing music.					SANDY			You want to dance?					JEFFREY			I can't dance fast.					SANDY			Really?					JEFFREY			Really. you want to dance with someone			else?					SANDY			NO.					JEFFREY			Let's wait for some slow one.					SANDY			Just a minute.Sandy leaves Jeffrey for a moment and Jeffrey watches her make her way through the crowd to a GIRL by the record player.  Sandy confers with thegirl.  Sandy comes back to Jeffrey.					SANDY			Don't worry. I took care of it. You			want something to drink?Just then, the music goes slow.					JEFFREY			You want to dance?					SANDY			Okay.They begin to dance.  At first, further apart, then, they make the mistakeof looking in each other's eyes and they move very close together.  They move around to another look.  Then they kiss.  They kiss for the entire rest of the song.  Between songs and during the entire next song.  They finally, as they say, come up for air.					SANDY			I love you, Jeffrey.They kiss again.  Then they dance and look at each other.  Then they hugeach other.  As they hug, Jeffrey closes his eyes.					JEFFREY		               (inner voice)			I really do love you.									DISSOLVE TO:191. INT. PARTY BASEMENT - NIGHTLater.  Jeffrey gives Sandy a little kiss while they're over by the cokes.  They're having a drink.  Sandy introduces Jeffrey to some of her friends.  She is very proud of him.  They are both very happy.  They look at each other and kiss again.									DISSOLVE TO:193. INT./EXT. PARTY HOUSE - NIGHTLater.  The party is breaking up.  Kids are beginning to go upstairs and go out the front doors to their cars.  Jeffrey and Sandy are coming up stairs arm in arm.  They say goodnight to the PARENTS in the living room and leave through the front door.  They can't take their eyes off one another.  They are totally oblivious to the THREE GUYS in a car across the street.As soon as Jeffrey gets Sandy and himself in his car, he starts it and moves off.  194. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/NEIGHBORHOOD STREETS - NIGHTThe dark car comes to life with a loud low roar and peels out with a scream.  It follows Jeffrey and Sandy for a way, then it roars up behind them swaying back and forth, honking its horn and trying to ram Jeffrey's car in the rear.Jeffrey looks frantically in the rear view mirror.  Sandy turns around infear.  Jeffrey guns his car and races down the street.					SANDY			Oh my God. What's wrong?					JEFFREY			Frank!!He swerves around the corner.  Up ahead, a car is pulling out of a driveway.					JEFFREY                     (continuing; referring                       to the car ahead)			Come on. MOVE IT!Jeffrey swings hard around another corner and heads up a dark street, passing "Lincoln St."					JEFFREY			I can't outrun this guy.He floors the car and flies down another street very fast.					JEFFREY			My father has a gun at home.					SANDY			No.					JEFFREY			Sandy. this guy is a killer!! I promise			you.Sandy turns back to take a look.  Jeffrey swerves the car again; he bangsit off a curb as he rounds a corner.  A hub cap goes flying off rollingnoisily down the street.					SANDY			Try to get to my house. then my father			can.CLOSEUP ON JEFFREY195. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTFLASHBACKHe remembers Detective Gordon, the Yellow Man, at Sandy's house.196. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/NEIGHBORHOOD STREETS - NIGHT					JEFFREY			No!!Jeffrey floors the car again. but the car behind him is fast and gains on him.  It swerves back and forth in the rear view mirror.  Now it swerves and roars up alongside Jeffrey's car.  Sandy screams.					SANDY			It's Mike! It's Mike!Jeffrey looks over.  It is Mike.  Out of enormous sense of relief he starts laughing.  He slows instantly and so does Mike.197. EXT. BEAUMONTS' HOME - NIGHTHe pulls slowly up in front of his house, his head back laughing.  Mike swerves his car in front of Jeffrey's and jumps out.					MIKE				(out of the car; very drunk)			Hey come here, you stole my girl, you			bastard. I'm gonna kick your ass, right			in front of your stupid house.					SANDY			... Stop it Mike.					MIKE                           (to Sandy)			You shut up. nobody's talkin' to you.			Hey who's that Jeffrey? Your mother?Everyone turns and looks.  Slowly out of the darkness comes a nude woman.  It is Dorothy.  She is totally in shock, bloody saliva is dripping from her mouth.  She is bloody, swollen and bruised all over.  She is totally different, drained of her sexuality.  She has been ravaged.					JEFFREY			Dorothy! ... Dorothy!					SANDY			Dorothy Vallens?					JEFFREY			Yes.He jumps out of the car, gets a hold of her and helps her back.  Mike comes after him.					MIKE                        (going for Jeffrey)			Hey, you ivy league shit. COME HERE!					JEFFREY	                  (pushing Mike off)			Later Mike. I gotta take care of someone			who's hurt here, in case you haven't 			noticed.					SANDY			Mike, go home.Mike's friends are dazed, watching Dorothy staggering beside Jeffrey.  Mike steps back as Jeffrey puts Dorothy in the car.  Jeffrey stands backup and glances at Mike.					MIKE                       (dull, very drunk)			Hey, I'm sorry. Hey.Jeffrey gets into the car.					JEFFREY			Yeah. okay, Mike.Jeffrey shuts the door.  Dorothy is sandwiched between him and Sandy in the front seat.					SANDY			Take her to my house. My dad can get an			ambulance faster than anyone. Do you have			anything to put around her?					JEFFREY     				  (starts the car)			No. Is Detective Gordon going to be at			your house?					SANDY			Probably not. no. Why?					JEFFREY			OK. Let's get her over to your father's.					SANDY                   (looking quickly from                     Dorothy to Jeffrey)			Right. Watch out for Mike, there.Mike and his friends are getting in Mike's car.  Mike is trying to start the engine.  He does and clumsily throws the car in reverse.  He screechesout and screeches to a stop.  Then he guns away forward and shoots crazilydown the road.					JEFFREY			Here we go.They drive off.198. INT. BEAUMONTS' CAR/NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHT					DOROTHY				   (looking over)			Oh God. Jeffrey is that you?Sandy looks at Jeffrey questioningly.					JEFFREY			Yeah, it's me.					DOROTHY			Oh God, Jeffrey. is that you? Oh God.Sandy is confused. how do they know each other?									CUT TO:199. EXT. WILLIAMS' HOUSE - NIGHTJeffrey and Sandy take Dorothy up the walk.  Sandy opens the door.200. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTThey enter the living room.  Mrs. Williams comes in from the kitchen.					SANDY			   	    (hurrying)			Is Dad home?					MRS. WILLIAMS				    (shocked at sight)			No.					SANDY			You better call him and get an ambulance			too.Dorothy is clinging to Jeffrey.  Mrs. Williams goes to call.Sandy moves closer.  Jeffrey looks at Sandy and she returns the look.					DOROTHY				      (crazy)			Where have you been?				     (screams)			Oh God. they hurt him, Jeffrey. Jeffrey,			Jeffrey, Jeffrey, hold me. HOLD ME. 			Oh God.					JEFFREY			It's okay. it's okay.					DOROTHY                        (like a little girl)			My secret lover.Mrs. Williams comes in.					MRS. WILLIAMS			The ambulance will be here in a minute. 			I left word for John. The police are on 			their way.					DOROTHY                             (screams)			Don't get the police. Oh God, ...Jeffrey			I CAN'T STAND IT!! STOP IT. STOP IT.			LOVE ME,She looks up at Mrs. Williams.					DOROTHY                            (continuing)			I opened myself to him. He put his 			disease in me.She presses herself tight to Jeffrey.					DOROTHY                            (continuing)			Tell me its okay. I opened myself to			you. Okay, okay, okay, okay?Mrs. Williams watches with confusion and worry for the hurt this is causing Sandy.  Sandy is crying now and turns away.					JEFFREY			Sandy? ...Sandy, please.					MRS. WILLIAMS			I'll get a coat for her. She leaves the room hurriedly.					SANDY				     (crying)			Jeffrey? .What's going on?					JEFFREY			Shh. I'll tell you.					DOROTHY				     (quietly)			They hurt his head.					JEFFREY			Who, Dorothy?					DOROTHY				     (whispers)			Don. help him. HELP HIM!! DONNY!!!!A huge, roaring wind sound comes up.Dorothy starts screaming.201. EXT. WILLIAMS HOUSE - NIGHTThe SCREAMS DISSOLVE INTO a SIREN as it roars to a stop in front of the Williams' house.202. INT. WILLIAMS' LIVING ROOM - NIGHTDorothy clings to Jeffrey.  Her eyes are turning a dull, milky white.  Theeffect is horrifying.  She is in shock.Sandy is still crying, while she moves back and watches Jeffrey.  Jeffreyturns to look at Sandy.					SANDY				     (crying)			I still love you Jeffrey.Mrs. Williams comes to put a coat around Dorothy.  Mrs. Williams is shaking.The Paramedics enter the house.									DISSOLVE TO:203. EXT. WILLIAMS' HOUSE - NIGHTThe PARAMEDICS are loading Dorothy into the ambulance on a stretcher.  Dorothy is moaning.  A sickening, warm wind comes up and howls through the neighborhood.					JEFFREY			I should go with her, Sandy.					SANDY			Go ahead.					JEFFREY			... Sandy?.					SANDY			Go ahead!Jeffrey turns slowly and gets into the ambulance.INT. AMBULACE - NIGHTJeffrey's head is very close to Dorothy's.  Dorothy is saying something, mumbling.					DOROTHY			Hold me, Don.					JEFFREY			Don?. Where is he?					DOROTHY			   (straining her eyes to                      focus on Jeffrey)			HELP HIM!! Promise me you'll help him!					JEFFREY			I promise, Dorothy. I promise.					DOROTHY			Hold me. I'M FALLING!She bolts up screaming directly into Jeffrey's face.  Her beaten face and milky eyes are a study in horror.									CUT TO:205. INT. PAY PHONE - HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - NIGHTJeffrey finishes dialing.					JEFFREY			Mrs. Williams?. Is Sandy there? Please.				   (long wait)			Sandy? (pause) Sandy, please. 			      (he closes his eyes)			. forgive me. I love you.									CUT TO:206. 	INT. SANDY'S ROOM - NIGHTSandy with red eyes in a darkened room.					SANDY			  (in phone, struggling		  	   to keep from crying)			I forgive you. I just couldn't watch. 			I love you Jeffrey. I love you. Is she 			okay?. How horrible. What?									CUT TO:207. 	INT. PAY PHONE - HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - NIGHTJeffrey on pay phone.					JEFFREY				     (in phone)			Please get to your father and send him and			the police to Dorothy's apartment right			away. Be sure your father comes. Something			is happening over there. They're hurting			someone. the guy she loves. Tell them to			hurry. I'm going over right now.					SANDY (V.O.)			No Jeffrey!!					JEFFREY			Yes I'm going. I have to. I love you. I			will, believe me.									CUT TO:208. INT. CAB - NIGHTDriving through the night.208A. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTJeffrey arrives at Dorothy's apartment building and pays the driver.  He gets out of the cab and looks around.  No police.  Quiet.  The building looks just the same standing there in the dark.  The dim lights in the front entrance.  Jeffrey moves up to the front doors and enters.  No one.									CUT TO:209. DETECTIVE WILLIAMS' STUDY - NIGHTSandy is trying to get her father on the police radio.					SANDY				 (over the radio)			No. he only wants my father to come over.			It's very important. he said someone was			hurt and he wants Detective Williams there.			well, find him!!210. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTJeffrey slowly climbs the stairs.  His shoes squashing the carpet make mall crushing sounds as he climbs higher into the building.He arrives at the Seventh Floor and stops.  A high-pitched whine can be heard faintly.  It gets louder as Jeffrey crosses to Dorothy's apartment door.  He gets his key out and inserts it.  Turns it.  With a loud click the door swings open and the high whine becomes piercing.  He sees something and jumps back.211. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTIt is Detective Gordon, the Yellow Man, standing in the center of the room.FLASHBACKHe plays the look into the apartment again in his mind and again.CLOSER ON DETECTIVE GORDONSomething is wrong with him.  He is bleeding from the head.  He stands almost motionless. in shock.Jeffrey peers into the room again.  He enters carefully and lets the door close behind him.  He very cautiously moves forward into the room.  Slowlyhe moves closer to a hideous sight.  Standing in the middle of Dorothy's apartment is T.R. Gordon, the Yellow Man.  He is in an extreme state of shock.  He is bleeding badly from a huge wound at the top left of his head.  His eyes focused on something only his twisted inner mind see.  Sitting in one of Dorothy's chairs is a dead man with no ears. only half-healed bloody wounds at each side of his head.  A bullet hole in the center of his forehead.  The T.V. is crushed in but it is turned on and it is the television that produces the high electrical whine.  Jeffrey moves forward again and kicks the television cord out of the wall.  The high whine stops instantly.  Silence except for the Yellow Man's labored breathing.Suddenly there is a loud "radio voice" coming from the Yellow Man's policeradio which is turned "on" in his jacket pocket.  Jeffrey's heart leaps and just as suddenly the Yellow Man throws his arms out wildly knocking a floor lamp to the ground and crushing out its light.  Jeffrey's heart goeswild at this sight and he jumps back but the Yellow Man is silent and motionless again.  The radio talks again.					RADIO VOICE #1			Get back and stay down.					RADIO VOICE #2			. It's apartment eight.Music. LOVE LETTERS STRAIGHT FROM MY HEART. begins to play.  Jeffrey watches the Yellow Man and listens to the radio.					RADIO VOICE #2					 (continuing)			I'm sending Jack and Pete to the roof.			It's.					RADIO VOICE #1			Hey.Sounds of shots.					RADIO VOICE #1					 (continuing)			He's shooting. from the second window.					RADIO VOICE #3			Stay in place.					RADIO VOICE #2			Jack. get up there quick. can return			fire?.					RADIO VOICE #3			I think he's alone. but return fire to			second window only.Many shots.We see Jeffrey's face in CLOSEUP.									CUT TO:212. EXT. FRONT STREET - NIGHTThe real scene is before us.  Police cars line the street along with a huge fire truck and several ambulances.  Special police marksmen are crouched behind cars and behind a stone wall opposite Frank's building.  Screams are heard from within and police radios blare.  Shots are being fired into a black window.  Once in a while a shot is returned.  Two policeman are dead and one is being loaded onto an ambulance.					POLICEMAN #1			He hasn't fired a shot for six minutes.			maybe we got him. get on the radio. get			Detective Williams. ask him if we can			rush the son of a bitch.A policeman runs off. more shots are fired into the building but none are returned.  The policeman comes running back.					POLICEMAN #2			It's in the works already. we're in 			there. they're goin' down the back stairs 			now. It won't be long. and they'll have			us rush 'em from here. one whistle and			we go.Suddenly there is a long barrage of gunfire into Frank's apartment.  Then a loud whistle.					POLICEMAN #1			That's it. let's go.Police race across the street to Frank's building.213. INT. FRANK'S APARTMENT - NIGHTPolice kick the door in and rush into the apartment.  It's empty excpt fora large dog which has been shot.  The dog growls and cowers back in a corner.  Every now and then it limps on bloody legs back and forth.214. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJeffrey hears the radio.  He hears the policemen talking at Frank's place.  He hears that Frank is gone.  He decides to leave Dorothy's apartment.					JEFFREY			 (speaking to T.R. Gordon who doesn't			  hear him because he's almost dead)			I'm leaving now. I'll let them find you			all on their own. find all this horror			on their own.				     (whispers)			Good bye.He goes out and closes the door.215. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTThe door clicks shut.  He makes his way quietly down the hall to the stairway. thinking.  He starts down the stairs.					JEFFREY			So. Frank escaped.He rounds the corner on a landing on the stairway and goes down another floor. and another.  At the next landing, something out the window catcheshis eye.  He notices a man get out of the car.  He recognizes the man.  It is the well-dressed man he saw with the alligator briefcase.  Jeffrey watches the man come toward Dorothy's building.  Then his eye goes back to the man's car.  It is Frank's car.  He notices the man is carrying a police radio.					JEFFREY				    (to himself)			Frank's car. Is this man a cop? He has a 			radio!. So did Frank though and he's no			cop. that's for sure. and he's driving 			Frank's car. who is he?The man enters the building at the front entrance directly below Jeffrey.Jeffrey starts climbing back up the stairs. thinking faster.					JEFFREY			What happened that day?.216. EXT. FRONT STREET - DAYFLASHBACK:Jeffrey remembers Frank and the Yellow Man go into Frank's building.217. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT					JEFFREY (V.O.)			They went in together.218. EXT. FRONT STREET - DAYFLASHBACKJeffrey remembers the well-dressed man come out with the Yellow Man.219. INT. STAIRWAY - APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT					JEFFREY			and out came. No it couldn't be. But I			think it is!! It's Frank!!Jeffrey runs like mad up to Dorothy's apartment.  He looks back once and sees the well-dressed man hurrying up the stairs.CLOSEUP on well-dressed man's face. It is Frank, underneath a very good disguise.Jeffrey has trouble getting the key out of his pocket.  He fumbles with itand it drops to the floor.Frank climbs the stairs.Finally the key goes in and Jeffrey frantically opens the door.  He rushesinto the room.220. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTThe horror and strangeness of the scene within strikes him again.  He rushes to the Yellow Man and takes the police radio out of his pocket.  He runs into the back of the apartment - to the back bedroom where he crouches down behind a double bed.					JEFFREY				  (into the radio)			Detective Williams!! Detective Williams!!					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS				         (over radio)			Detective Williams here. Is that you,			Jeffrey?					JEFFREY			Yes it's me!!! Frank is on his way up 			to Dorothy's apartment.			     (thinks; hits himself in the                              forehead; inner voice)                        Oh no. Frank has a radio and is hearing                        everything we say!!			      (thinks some more - fast)			Detective Williams. hurry. I'm in the 			apartment. hurry. I'm hiding in the back			bedroom.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			We're ten minutes away and moving as fast			as we can.221. EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET - NIGHTSandy runs frantically down a dark street.  We see a street sign which says "Lincoln."222. INT. DOROTHY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTJeffrey drops the radio under the bed and runs back to the living room.  He leaps safely into the closet just as Frank opens the apartment door andenters.  Jeffrey freezes with fear in the darkness of the closet.  Frank is smiling.					FRANK			 (calling pleasantly in the direction   of the back bedroom)			Hey neighbor. shit for brains. You forgot			I have a police radio. I know where your			cute little butt is hiding. Here I come!			Ready or not!He starts down the hall to the back bedroom.  The police radio which Jeffrey planted under the bed and Frank's radio both start broadcasting. Frank turns his radio off - now only the one under the bed plays.					FRANK			Hey fuck. I can hear you radio! .Hey			you stupid fuck. you got about a 			second to live.Jeffrey watches Frank reach inside his coat for his gun.  He watches Franksneak to the back bedroom area.  Jeffrey turns and looks at the Yellow Man.  He gets an idea. He quickly rushes out of the closet - feels inside the Yellow Man's coat for his police gun.  It's there.  He gets it but it causes the Yellow Man to moan and leap some in another almost death-spasm.  Jeffrey takes the bloody pistol and races back inside the closet frantically catching his breath.  Just then he hears Frank in the back room.					FRANK (V.O.)			           (helium voice)			Hey pretty pretty.Jeffrey then hears three or four shots - deadly sounding coming from a pistol with a silencer attached.					FRANK (V.O.)			Hey fuck, where are you?Jeffrey sees a furious Frank come storming out of the back room and come slowly up the hall - directly toward him.Jeffrey raises his pistol - very slowly.  Frank enters the living room.  He looks around.  The Yellow Man moans.  Frank makes a face and blasts the remainder of the Yellow Man's head away and this time the Yellow Man fallsdead to the floor.  Jeffrey tenses in the silence which hangs in the air.  Frank looks to the kitchen. all around the living room.  He looks at the closet.  He smiles - he slowly goes right toward Jeffrey - smiling.  Jeffrey points the pistol.  His finger moves to the trigger.  He squints his eyes.  He doesn't want to kill a man. any man.  Frank comes right to the closet door and throws it open, when Jeffrey hears Sandy scream.					SANDY (V.O.)			Jeffrey!!Frank and Jeffrey lock eyes as Jeffrey pulls the trigger.  He yells Sandy'sname and Frank's head is blown off.We see Sandy's frightened face.  We see policemen racing up the stairs in Dorothy's apartment.223. EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHTWe see cop cars with lights revolving, radios blaring.224. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - POLICE STATION - NIGHTThe large room is crowded with policemen and members of the F.B.I.  Everyone is talking excitedly.  Jeffrey and Sandy are sitting by DetectiveWilliams in wooden chairs near the center of the room.  We hear bits of conversation.					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS				         (to Jeffrey)			Because of your information I alerted			internal affairs to check out Detective			Gordon.  I had to keep on with him as 			if nothing was different.  He slipped 			off on his own when he found out we were			going to raid Frank's place.					 JEFFREY			Does Dorothy know her husband is dead?					DETECTIVE WILLIAMS			Not yet.					JEFFREY			Oh my God. Is her son OK?					F.B.I. MAN			We're looking for him. In your opinion,			why did Frank kidnap Dorothy's son and			husband?					JEFFREY			He became obsessed with her. She hated			him. He had to have her. He kidnapped			them to control her. to make her do 			things. Then she wanted to commit 			suicide so he started cutting off ears			as a warning to her to stay alive. I'm			not kidding. Frank loved blue. blue			velvet. He had to have Dorothy cause			her whole life was blue.					F.B.I. MAN			You seemed to see some very interesting			things on your little escapade with 			Dorothy Vallens.					JEFFREY			Yeah. I guess I did.				 (He turns to Sandy  with a worried look)			What's going to happen to me?					F.B.I. MAN			We're going to leave that up to Detective			Williams. I'll tell you though. you're 			okay. you shot a real son of a bitch.					JEFFREY			Yeah. I sure know that. Yeah, but how			many more are out there?FADE TO BLACK - DARKNESS225. EXT. BEAUMONTS' BACK YARD - DAYA huge low roaring sound comes in.SLOWLY WE COME UP OUT OF A HUGE DARK HOLE. We see we are rising out of an ear but still among the crevices.  They look enormous.  We move up and float above the ear and traverse across a cheek to an eye.  Jeffrey's eye. His face is bathed in light.All sorts of springtime-in-the-garden sounds are heard.We suddenly see that Jeffrey is sleeping in his back yard. Detective Williams is with Mr. Beaumont working in the garden in the distance.  The sprinkler is turning.  Sandy comes out on the back porch and calls.					SANDY			Jeffrey. Lunch is ready.Jeffrey opens his eyes.  He looks around confused for a moment.  He sees Sandy.					JEFFREY			Okay. I'll be right in.Sandy goes back inside.  Suddenly, a big red ROBIN chirps loudly above.  Jeffrey looks up at it sitting in the cherry tree.  The Robin and Jeffrey seems to exchange a special look.Jeffrey smiles up at the fat bird.He gets off the lawn chair and walks away from us toward the back door of the house.  As he passes his father and Detective Williams:					JEFFREY			How ya doin' Dad?					MR. BEAUMONT				     (distant voice)			Hey Jeff. I'm feelin' so much better.					JEFFREY			Good deal Dad.He and Detective Williams share a smile.226. INT. BEAUMONTS' KITCHEN - DAYJeffrey enters the kitchen and sees Sandy standing with Aunt Barbara by thekitchen window.  Beyond, in the living room Mrs. Williams and Jeffrey's mother turn toward the kitchen when they hear the screen door slam.A large Red Robin has just flown down to the window still carrying a big bug in its mouth.					SANDY			    (Referring to the bird)			Look Jeffrey.					JEFFREY			  (As he joins Aunt Barbara and			   Sandy to look at the robin)			Yeah. I just saw him outside. Maybe			the robins are here.					AUNT BARBARA			I don't see how they do it. I could			never eat a bug.					JEFFREY AND SANDY				          (smiling)			It's a strange world, isn't it?									CUT TO:227. 	EXT. FLOWER GARDEN - DAYYellow tulips sway in a warm afternoon breeze.									DISSOLVE TO:228. EXT. SHADY STREET - DAYA bright red gorgeous fire engine is moving very slowly down the street.We MOVE IN to see the happy face of a FIREMAN.									DISSOLVE TO:229. EXT. CROSSWALK - SHADY STREET - DAYA very clean uniformed, smiling POLICEMAN with arms outstretched allows clean happy SCHOOL CHILDREN to cross the street safely.									DISSOLVE TO:230. EXT. TREE - DAYA songbird SINGS in a tree.We are in a beautiful park.  Slowly we move down and a little hat with a propeller comes into view.  The hat is on the head of a small child who isdancing slowly toward Dorothy.  She is laughing.  When the boy gets withinarms reach they embrace.  We move close to Dorothy's smiling face.  Tearsof happiness come into her eyes, but there is still a distant look as we hear Bobby Vinton sing the last lines of his song."and I still can see Blue Velvet through my tears."Blue Velvet dissolves in and takes over the image.					THE END
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+                                 "BODIES, REST & MOTION"                                      Screenplay by                                       Roger Hedden                                    Based on a play by                                       Roger Hedden                                      SHOOTING DRAFT                               THE SCREEN IS BLACK               FADE IN:               INT. SHOPPING MALL - DAY               THE CAMERA LOOKS DOWN ON three levels of escalators                transporting a smattering of Southwestern shoppers -- some                in cowboy hats.               AS CREDITS ROLL               A SERIES OF ANGLES of shoppers being conveyed up and down.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. ARIZONA DESERT - SUNSET               A beautiful vista -- cacti and sage dot the landscape as it                rises to mountains in the distance.               END CREDITS               THE CAMERA PANS revealing an island of modern culture --                malls and more malls, parking lots, and fast food franchises.               FADE IN TITLE: ENFIELD, ARIZONA               A brown Pinto pulls out of a parking lot and into rush hour                traffic.               INT. PINTO - DUSK               BETH WALKER is driving. She looks younger, but she's twenty-               eight. She has a strong face and flashing intelligent eyes.                She's wearing a WAITRESS UNIFORM from Friendly's. She's deep                in thought.               Beth pulls up to stoplight and stops.               SOUND: A gentle toot of car horn.               Beth looks up, startled.               BETH'S POV               SID, a pleasant looking twenty-four year old, is in a pick-               up truck next to her. He smiles and points up toward the                traffic light.               BETH               She looks up toward the traffic light.               TRAFFIC LIGHTS               They're red except for one with a lit green arrow.               BETH AND SID               She pantomimes that she's in the wrong lane and wants to go                straight.               Sid pantomimes that he'll let her cut in front of him.               SOUND: Horns honk impatiently.               THE INTERSECTION               Beth pulls away in front of the pick-up truck. The HONKING                continues. Sid looks back at the honking car, cheerfully                waves to it.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. CAROL'S HOUSE - NIGHT               A tiny well-kept Spanish style home in lower middle class                residential section.               INT. CAROL'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               It's neat and smartly furnished -- discount Swedish modern,                framed deco posters, some nice plants. The only problem is                it seems a little more like a well-designed waiting room                than a home.               There's an empty ice bucket, several empty liquor bottles,                and a swinging metal ball thingabobby on a chrome and glass                coffee table in front of leather sofa.               CAROL AND NICK are curled up together on the sofa, drinks in                hand.               They're both in their late twenties. Carol's dressed in the                casually stylish clothes worn by women who work in shopping                mall boutiques.               Nick's clothes are frumpled, a knit tie loose around his                neck. They've achieved a state of contemplative drunkenness.               Carol sips her drink. Nick sips his drink. Carol sips her                drink. Nick brings his glass to his lips, hesitates...                                     NICK                              (flatly)                         We're moving.                                     CAROL                         What?                                     NICK                              (enunciating)                         We're going to move.                                     CAROL                              (after a beat)                         When?                                     NICK                         Two days.                                     CAROL                         In two days?!                                     NICK                         Yeah.               Carol shakes her head in weary disbelief.                                     CAROL                              (covering her hurt)                         Thanks for the news...               She knocks back her drink. Nick broods.                                     NICK                         I haven't known for long. I just                          decided.                              (ruminating)                         What do I need that makes me make                          these decisions?               Carol stares at him. He knocks back his drink.                                     CAROL                         You got me.               She pours herself another drink.                                     CAROL                         What does Beth say?                                     NICK                         Beth?...                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S CAR - NIGHT               She stops at an intersection.                                     NICK (V.O.)                         Whatever makes me happy. That's what                          she says...               Headlights flash from behind her. She turns and looks.               BETH'S POV               Sid's smiling from his truck right behind her. He flashes                his lights again.               INT. BETH'S PINTO               Beth looks up in the rearview mirror, amused.               REARVIEW MIRROR               Sid turns off, disappearing into the night.               BETH               Surprised to find herself vaguely disappointed, she drives                on.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. CAROL'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS               It's small, prefab, and tidy. It has a counter with shutters                that open onto the living room. Nick is kneeling, going                through bottles in a cabinet.                                     NICK                              (w/ drunken desperation)                         I know this place.               Nick stands, with an almost empty bottle of Johnny Walker                Red.                                     NICK                         I know what happens here.               He pours himself a drink. Carol shuts the cabinet.                                     NICK                         I know what's going to happen.               Nick opens a cabinet under the sink and tosses the empty                bottle in the trash. He begins to pace. Carol shuts the                cabinet and follows him with her gaze.               As Nick speaks, he gestures grandly with his drink, liquor                splashing unnoticed over the sides.                                     NICK                              (bursting with                               frustration)                         The same job, same scenery, same                          people... I've been in this town for                          years... Years!!                                     CAROL                              (flatly)                         Three years.                                     NICK                              (in despair)                         Oh, Carol...                                     CAROL                         I know...               He stops and slugs back his drink.                                     NICK                         Forever -- it seems forever.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S PINTO - CONTINUOUS               Beth pulls up to a stoplight, her face blank with thought.                She's suddenly lit by the flash of headlights going on and                off. She looks up and smiles.               EXT. INTERSECTION - CONTINUOUS               Sid's pick-up truck is facing her across the intersection.                It slowly pulls up beside her and stops.               He smiles and gives a little wave of his hand.               Without knowing why, she smiles and waves back.                                     BETH                              (sweetly but firmly)                         Good-bye.               She drives away. Sid stares after her.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. CAROL'S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Carol lifts the end metal ball on the thingabobby and releases                it, starting the chain reaction. She stares at it clacking                back and forth as she speaks.                                     CAROL                         How long a drive is it?               Nick paces.                                     NICK                         Fourteen hours.                                     CAROL                         That's not bad.                                     NICK                         In a car? It's a fuckin' nightmare.               Carol stops the metal ball. She releases two balls, starting                a new chain reaction.                                     NICK                              (griping)                         And there's no radio in Utah. It's                          all religious programs.                                     CAROL                         Get saved.               Nick slumps on the sofa beside her.                                     NICK                              (flatly)                         No thanks.                                     CAROL                         Hey. Think about this. You take a                          detour and go through Vegas -- you                          and Beth stop, see a show, have a                          nice romantic dinner -- play the                          slots, get the free drinks...                                     NICK                              (interrupting)                         Too much money. The show. The meal.                          The slots. Then the hotel -- that's                          another hundred down the toilet.               As Carol speaks she pokes at Nick. He fends off her blows.                By the end of her speech she is on top of him mock-strangling                him.                                     CAROL                              (jabbing Nick)                         No, you skip the hotel. It's night,                          the highway's empty -- you can make                          good time. You start speeding. You                          get stopped in Utah by the cops --                          you flunk the breathalizer, they                          haul you in. The judge is Mormon --                          you get fifteen years, you go to                          prison, but at least your life has                          taken a direction!               Nick and Carol collapse into laughter. The front door opens.                                     BETH                              (calling in)                         I'm here!               Beth steps in. Carol quickly lets go of Nick's neck and gets                off him.               NICK AND CAROL               Embarrassed, they both smile self-consciously.               There's an awkward instant followed by too much cheerfulness.                                     CAROL                              (chipper)                         Hi!                                     NICK                         Hi, honey.                                     CAROL                         Hi.               BETH               stands in the doorway, awkwardly conscious of having                interrupted something.                                     BETH                              (w/ forced cheer)                         Hi.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FRONT LAWN - NIGHT               Nick and Beth are standing in the lawn, lit by the glow of                the porch lamp.               Both sides of the street are lined with nearly identical                tiny faux Spanish houses.                                     BETH                         G'night.               THE FRONT DOORWAY               Carol waves.                                     CAROL                         G'night.               ANOTHER ANGLE INCLUDING NICK, BETH, AND CAROL                                     NICK                              (calling out)                         Pizza Hut, tomorrow?                                     CAROL                         Okay.                              (to Beth)                         I've got the short shift -- you want                          me to come over, help pack?                                     BETH                         Great... I'm really sorry we didn't                          tell you sooner. He just decided.               CAROL               smiles to herself, a trace of sadness in her eyes.                                     CAROL                         I understand.               She shuts the door.               NICK AND BETH               She starts to walk across the lawn. She stops and stares at                Nick, who's staring out into the night, oblivious to her.                                     BETH                         I'm tired. I'm going to bed.               He turns and looks at her.                                     NICK                         What's your problem?                                     BETH                         I haven't got a problem.                                     NICK                         Okay.               He walks up to her and past her -- when she doesn't fall                into step, he stops.                                     NICK                         You agreed to try Billings.                                     BETH                         I know.                              (in Nick's words)                         Billings, Montana. City of the future.                                     NICK                         Yeah and I read that a while ago --                          so the future's probably already                          there.               She smiles and shakes her head.                                     NICK                              (defensively)                         It's not like you're leaving anything                          behind. A good job or something.                                     BETH                         Just some friends.               He puts his arms around her waist from behind, and nestles                her against his body.                                     NICK                         You'll make new friends.                                     BETH                         I know.                              (after a beat)                         I'm not eight years old. I know I'll                          make new friends.                                     NICK                         Then what is it?               She pulls away from him and starts walking to the house next                door. He falls into step with her.                                     BETH                              (uncomfortably)                         I, umm... I... It embarrasses me.                          When you talk about something with                          Carol that happened before me. She's                          my best friend. It embarrasses me                          that you used to live with her.                                     NICK                         That was years ago.                                     BETH                         Three years.                                     NICK                         That's right.                                     BETH                         I know...                                     NICK                         And we're moving. She won't be your                          best friend anymore.               They arrive at their front door. Beth takes out her keys.                Nick stops her hand and kisses her. She kisses him back.                                     NICK                         Living with someone isn't such a big                          deal.               She nods and looks to the lock.                                     NICK                         Anyway... I live with you now.               Beth looks to Nick. He stares out at the night.                                                                    CUT TO:               CLOSE-UP: COFFEE-MAKER               The coffee-maker clock hits nine o'clock. The coffee maker                clicks on with a rattle. Steam starts to spew out.               The coffee-maker makes horrible gurgling sounds.               INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS               The kitchen is small and a little grimy, its furnishings                fatigued.               Nick stares at the coffee-maker in disbelief. He's dressed                in a dress shirt, untied necktie, and slacks. He's carrying                a sportscoat with a Sears' employee name-tag attached.                                     NICK                              (calling out)                         Beth!... Beth!!               Beth walks into the kitchen, wearing a robe and carrying the                paper.               Nick points accusingly at the coffee maker as water pours                down from around its top.                                     NICK                         It's... it's raining!                                     BETH                         It does that.               She drops the paper on the kitchen table and gets a mug off                the counter.                                     NICK                         Since we got it?                                     BETH                         No.                              (pouring herself a                               cup)                         Lately.                                     NICK                              (throwing his jacket                               on a chair)                         Shit.                              (agitated)                         What's wrong with it?                                     BETH                         Water comes out.                                     NICK                         Shit.                              (unplugging the coffee                               maker)                         I hate this shit! It never kept the                          coffee hot. And now this.               He angrily wraps the cord around the coffee-maker.                                     BETH                              (blowing on her coffee)                         It still works.                                     NICK                              (adamant)                         No. It doesn't. Water comes out.                                     BETH                         Okay.               She sips her coffee. She flips open a box of Dunkin' Donuts.                                     NICK                         I could've gotten a new one. On my                          discount. Now it's too late.                                     BETH                         Do you want a donut?                                     NICK                              (exasperated)                         No. I want an appliance that works.               Beth shrugs and takes a donut out of the box. She leans                against the counter, eating the donut.               Nick walks past Beth and jams the coffee maker into the trash.                                     NICK                         This coffee maker was junk.               Nick pushes a button on the blender. It makes a horrible                GRINDING WHINE. He unplugs it.                                     NICK                         This blender's junk. Our t.v. is                          junk!               He jams the blender into the trash.                                     NICK                         I don't know why we're even bothering                          to pack.                                     BETH                              (through a mouthful                               of donut)                         You got me.                                     NICK                         The t.v. gets no channels.                                     BETH                         And it's fifteen inch.                                     NICK                              (shaking his head)                         I can't believe we don't have a big                          t.v.                                     BETH                         We don't watch much.                                     NICK                         But at our age...               They stare at each other. Nick picks the almost full pint                bottle of scotch off the counter and puts it in his jacket                pocket. Beth takes another donut.                                     BETH                         Why don't you take one?                                     NICK                         I'm not hungry.                                     BETH                              (offhandedly)                         Not a donut. A t.v.                                     NICK                         Take a t.v.?                                     BETH                         It's your last day.                                     NICK                         Like a bonus.                                     BETH                         Yeah.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. NICK AND BETH'S CARPORT - MINUTES LATER               Beth is holding a donut and her coffee mug. Nick tosses his                jacket into the front seat of his old sedan.                                     NICK                         I might do it.                                     BETH                         I say do it.                              (after a beat)                         Sears can afford to give you a bonus.                                     NICK                         Maybe they are.                                     BETH                         What do you mean?                                     NICK                         Maybe when I get my check today,                          there'll be a bonus in it.                                     BETH                              (evenly)                         Nick. They fired you.                                     NICK                         Yeah...                                     BETH                              (flatly)                         There's no bonus.                                     NICK                         Yeah... That's true.                              (shaking his head)                         And I sold a lot of teevees for                          them...               Beth sips her coffee, waiting for Nick to decide.                                     BETH                              (calmly)                         You should take a t.v.               Nick looks at his watch.                                     NICK                         I should go.                              (sarcastically)                         Don't wanna be late on my last day.               He kisses Beth, surprising her. He presses against her. He                takes the donut from her hand and takes a bite.               Beth kisses Nick, his mouth still full of donut.                                     BETH                         Mmmmm...               He kisses her fully, then breaks the kiss.                                     NICK                         I gotta go.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. MALL PARKING LOT - MORNING               About hundred cars dot the vast parking lot.               Nick swings into a parking spot and gets out of the car. He                tosses his jacket on the roof and crouches, tieing his necktie                using the car's outside mirror.                                     MAN'S VOICE                         You livin' in your car or what?               NICK'S POV - IN THE MIRROR               CHIP, a big redheaded guy in his late thirties, wearing a                jacket and tie, is grinning at the crouched Nick. Nick's                reflection grins back.                                     NICK                         Just waiting for the last second to                          put on the noose.                              (tightening the tie)                         So Chip -- what's new?               NICK AND CHIP               Nick straightens up and grabs his jacket. They start walking                toward the mall.                                     CHIP                         Nothing much.                              (broaching the subject)                         I heard you're leaving.                                     NICK                         Yeah. I'm outta here.               They approach the employees entrance.                                     CHIP                         They can you?                                     NICK                         That's what they think.                                     CHIP                         Yeah?                                     NICK                         I was gonna quit anyway -- this way                          I get unemployment.                                     CHIP                         Good deal.               Nick opens the door.                                     NICK                         Yeah... recession insurance...                              (Chip enters)                         This way I'm not stuck waiting around                          for the lay-offs to start.               Nick follows Chip in.                                     CHIP                              (a hint of panic)                         Lay-offs?               The door shuts behind him.                                                                    CUT TO:               CLOSE-UP - NEWSPAPER               The front page of the Phoenix Sun-Times -- the headline reads                "Misery Index Soars".               Beth's hand comes INTO FRAME and crumples the page.               INT. KITCHEN - MORNING               Beth stuffs the paper in a glass and wraps the glass in                another piece. She's sitting on the floor, surrounded by                dishes, newspaper, and cardboard liquor boxes. She adds the                wrapped glass to a box.               She hears the SOUND of a CAR DOOR SLAMMING, looks up, then                returns to her packing. She reaches behind herself into the                trash, pulls out the blender, and begins to wrap it.               At the SOUND of the FRONT DOOR opening, followed by a curious                METALLIC CLUNKING, she stands and hurries through the swinging                door to the living room.               INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               The living room is sparsely furnished -- a sofa, a coffee                table, a bookcase cluttered with a handful of paperbooks, a                couple of boardgames, a dying cactus, etc. A crappy old                fifteen inch t.v. on a t.v. tray. WE SEE this for a moment                before...               A paint-splattered cloth is unfurled FILLING THE SCREEN.               It gently floats down, revealing a PAINTER and his shopping                cart overloaded with supplies. He's dressed in paint-               splattered clothes. A paint-splattered Red Sox cap is pulled                low over his eyes, obscuring his face.               Beth stares in disbelief. Without seeing her, the painter                backs up, his attention focused on spreading the dropcloth.                                     BETH                         Who are you?                                     SID                              (not looking up)                         The painter.                                     BETH                              (agitated)                         What are you doing?                                     SID                         Painting.               The painter looks up from the drop-cloth, ready to deal with                this obstacle. He freezes. His face lights up.               It's Sid.                                     SID                              (extremely pleased)                         Well, good morning...                                     BETH                              (recognizing him)                         You...                                     SID                              (extending a hand)                         Sid. Nice to see you again.               Beth stares in agitated disbelief.               With his untaken extended hand, he pulls a long strip of                masking tape from a roll around his wrist, masking one side                of the door frame from top to bottom.                                     BETH                         Why are you here?                                     SID                         Realty office likes a fresh coat                          between tenants.                                     BETH                              (pointedly)                         We're still here.               He stands on his tiptoes and puts a strip of masking tape on                the top edge of the doorframe.                                     SID                         I've done this house before.                              (admiringly)                         I did a nice job.               He masks the remaining side of the door frame.                                     BETH                         Can't you come back tomorrow?                                     SID                         Tomorrow's Sunday.                                     BETH                         Yeah...?                                     SID                         The new people move in on Sunday.                              (conversationally)                         Where are you moving to?                                     BETH                              (wearily)                         Billings, Montana.               Sid moves to a window.                                     SID                              (incredulous)                         Why?                                     BETH                         It can't be worse than Enfield,                          Arizona.               Sid pulls a strip of tape off the roll.                                     SID                              (smiling)                         I've lived in Enfield my whole life.               He holds out the end of the masking tape.                                     SID                         Could you hold this?               Beth takes it. He walks backwards, easing a long strip of                tape off the roll.                                     SID                         I use this to mask. Have you ever                          used masking tape to mask?               He tears the tape off the roll and sticks it to the top of                the baseboard in one corner.                                     BETH                         No. I haven't.               Crouched, he waddles across the room toward Beth, applying                the masking tape to the baseboard. He gets to Beth, stands                up, takes the tape off her fingers, and presses it into place.                                     SID                         A house like this, it's real easy.                          Hardly needs a paint job.                                     BETH                         You can skip it. I won't tell.                                     SID                         It needs a fresh coat...               He hands her the end of the tape again and begins another                baseboard.                                     SID                         ...a little color.                                     BETH                              (naturally curious)                         What color is it gonna be?                                     SID                         Off-white.               He goes along the floor pressing the masking tape to the                baseboard.                                     BETH                         It's already off-white.                                     SID                         No. It's white. It's just dirty.               Beth looks at the walls. He's right.                                     SID                         Now if it was my house, I would choose                          a color...               Beth kneels down, holding the tape, as he arrives at her end                of the wall.                                     SID                         I would not choose off-white.               Beth holds out the tape. They are kneeling next to each other.                                     BETH                         What would you choose?                                     SID                         The color of your eyes.                              (pause, without looking)                         Hazel.               Beth stares at Sid. Sid looks to Beth. Smiling, he takes the                tape from her fingers.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. PIZZA HUT - AFTERNOON               An oasis in the center of a packed mall parking lot. Carol                hurries toward the front entrance in a snappy skirt and blazer                combo, a Bullock's name tag attached to her lapel.               INT. PIZZA HUT - CONTINUOUS               Nick is sitting at a booth, a beer in front of him, lost in                thought.               Carol arrives, drops a gift-wrapped box on the table, and                scoots into the booth.                                     CAROL                         Sorry I'm late, the new girl's a                          moron.                                     NICK                              (looking to the present)                         What's that?                                     CAROL                         Going away present.               Nick takes it.                                     NICK                         Thanks.               He quickly unwraps it.                                     NICK                              (happily)                         A map!                                     CAROL                         I thought you might need it.                                     NICK                              (unfolding it)                         I do! I had a map -- I lost it.               He spreads the map out over the table.                                     CAROL                              (organized)                         Let's highlight your route.               A MAP               of the Western half of the U.S.A. fills the FRAME. Carol's                hand, holding a bright red felt-tip pen, ENTERS FRAME.                                     CAROL (O.S.)                         Here's Enfield.               She circles it. Nick's finger ENTERS FRAME.                                     NICK (O.S.)                         Here's Billings.               Carol circles Billings. Nick's finger starts to trace the                route.               Carol's pen follows, marking the route. Halfway to Billings,                Nick's finger abruptly stops. Carol stops the pen at the                same point.                                     NICK (O.S.)                         Look at this -- right there -- that's                          the town I was born in.               NICK AND CAROL               He looks to her for a reaction.                                     NICK                              (emphatically)                         Where I grew up. Where my parent's                          live... Isn't that a coincidence?                                     CAROL                         Visit them.                                     NICK                              (shaking his head)                         Oh... no...                                     CAROL                         You're going to be driving by.                                     NICK                         No...                              (shaking his head)                         They're not near the interstate.                              (sort of chagrined)                         I haven't even called them in years.                                     CAROL                         You might as well visit.                                     NICK                              (adamantly)                         No.                              (shrugging)                         I wouldn't know them.               Nick starts to fold the map -- very unsuccessfully.                                     NICK                         Shit.                                     CAROL                         Let me.               Nick hands her the map. She deftly folds it in one motion                and hands it back to him.                                     NICK                         Thanks.               He leans over the table and kisses her. She stands.                                     CAROL                         I'm starved.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH AND NICK'S LIVING ROOM - AFTERNOON               Two of the walls gleam with fresh paint.               Sid is painting with long-handled roller.               Beth, enters, hesitates, and then -- consciously ignoring                him -- walks by with a packed box and adds it to the stack                by the front door.                                     SID                         I'm lucky I don't have to kill them.                                     BETH                              (not a line she was                               expecting)                         What?                                     SID                         If they were dark, I'd have to put a                          layer of kill down first.               Beth starts back to the kitchen. Sid and THE CAMERA FOLLOW.                                     SID                         So the dark paint wouldn't shine                          through the off-white.               INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS               The dishes are mostly packed.                                     BETH                         Oh.               She picks up two empty liquor boxes.                                     SID                         Kill's an oil based paint.               Beth carries the boxes out of the kitchen -- Sid and THE                CAMERA FOLLOW.               INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Beth walks right on through followed by the talking Sid and                THE CAMERA.                                     SID                         It covers the old paint so that you'd                          never know it was there, but it gives                          off fumes when it's drying.               Beth goes into the small hallway, Sid and THE CAMERA FOLLOW.               INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS               Beth walks toward the bedroom, Sid right behind her.                                     SID                         Noxious fumes. They would find us on                          the floor unconscious.               They enter the bedroom, THE CAMERA FOLLOWING.               INT. BEDROOM               There's a queen-sized bed, a bureau, a mirror, and a closet.               Beth takes the boxes to the closet.                                     BETH                         They?               Sid sits on the bed, checking it's firmness.                                     SID                         The "they" that find people...                                     BETH                              (interjecting)                         Nick.                                     SID                         ...unconscious.                                     BETH                              (flatly)                         Nick.                              (after a beat)                         The man I live with.                                     SID                              (smiling)                         I guess he'd be the "they".                                     BETH                         He'd find us. And he'd be surprised.               Sid gets off the bed and with a grin, gingerly pats out the                wrinkles he's made in the bed spread.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. MALL PARKING LOT - AFTERNOON               Nick and Carol are walking away from the Pizza Hut, across a                huge parking lot, toward a large mall. Cars circle past them,                searching for close spots.                                     NICK                              (doggedly)                         It was the drive that killed us. San                          Antonio to Seattle is just too many                          hours in a car. If we'd have flown,                          we would've made it.                                     CAROL                              (shaking her head)                         No...                                     NICK                         Things were all right in bed.                                     CAROL                         But the rest of the time they were...                          awful.                                     NICK                              (hurt)                         Really?                                     CAROL                              (flatly)                         Nick. We couldn't stand each other.                          We stopped in Enfield and just stayed.                                     NICK                              (after a beat)                         Why didn't you go on to Seattle? It                          was your car.               Carol stops. On her face, the answer to his question is clear --                she was stuck on Nick then and she's still stuck on him now.               But she'd never let him know that.                                     CAROL                              (dryly)                         Big trees scare me.               She starts walking. Nick hurries up beside her. They walk                side by side for a few paces before the shotdown Nick comes                up with a new ploy to win favor.                                     NICK                              (casually)                         I'm thinking about stealing a t.v.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. NICK AND BETH'S BEDROOM HALLWAY - AFTERNOON               Beth's taking extra sheets and towels from the linen closet                and packing them in liquor boxes.               Sid enters from the living room.                                     SID                              (cheerfully)                         I'm done in there. I won't paint the                          ceiling 'til you've moved the                          furniture out.                                     BETH                         I don't think we're going to take                          much of the furniture.                                     SID                         No?                                     BETH                         It's ugly.                                     SID                         I kind of like the sofa.                                     BETH                         It's a sofa bed.                                     SID                         You're not going to take it?                                     BETH                              (flatly)                         It weighs two thousand pounds.                                     SID                         Can I have it?                                     BETH                         It's yours.                                     SID                         Excellent.               INT. THE LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               The furniture is kind of ugly, but the walls look great. The                whole room seems brighter, almost magically more cheerful.               Sid runs into the room and flops onto the sofa. He settles                in and sighs contentedly.               The front door BURSTS open. Sid leaps up.               Carol races into the room.                                     CAROL                              (excited)                         Nick's gonna steal a t.v.!               She sees Sid and freezes.                                     CAROL                         Who are you?                                     SID                         The painter.               Beth hurries into the living room.                                     BETH                              (excitedly)                         He's really gonna do it?                                     CAROL                         He says yes.               Carol glances pointedly at Sid then returns her attention to                Beth.                                     CAROL                              (conspiratorilly)                         We've got to talk.                                     SID                              (piping in)                         About the crime?                                     CAROL                              (sharply)                         There's no crime.                                     SID                         Nick's gonna steal a t.v.                                     CAROL                         That's just an expression.                                     SID                         I've never heard that expression.                                     CAROL                              (witheringly)                         It's making the rounds. College                          students use it.                                     SID                              (to Beth)                         Where's he stealing it from?                                     BETH                         Sears.                                     CAROL                              (incredulous)                         You want him to know?                                     BETH                         He knows. He doesn't care.                              (to Sid)                         Do you care?                                     SID                              (enthusiastically)                         I'm interested. Crime's interesting.                          I read the papers.                                     BETH                         It's not a crime.                                     CAROL                         It's justice.                                     BETH                         Poetic justice.                                     SID                         How?                                     BETH                         They fired him.                                     SID                              (deducing)                         He's got motive.                                     CAROL                              (exasperated)                         Who is this guy?!                                     BETH                         The painter.                                     SID                              (helpfully)                         Sid.               He holds out a hand to shake. Carol stares at his outstretched                hand.                                     CAROL                              (point blank)                         No.               Carol takes Beth by the arm and leads her away from Sid. She                stares back over her shoulder at Sid.               Taking the hint, he begins to stir a can of paint, assuming                an air of indifference. Carol turns her attention back to                Beth.                                     CAROL                              (purposefully)                         He needs you at the store.                                     BETH                              (tinged w/ apprehension)                         He needs me?                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. SEARS TELEVISION DEPARTMENT - CONTINUOUS               Nick is standing next to RORY, a precocious eight year old                boy who's staring at a soap opera on a big screen t.v. As                Nick and Rory talk, the soap ACTOR and ACTRESS passionately                embrace.                                     NICK                         You lookin' or buyin'?                                     RORY                         Lookin'. I hate television.                                     NICK                         Yeah. What do you like?                                     RORY                         Movies.                                     NICK                              (shaking his head)                         No...                                     RORY                         I do.                                     NICK                              (laying it out)                         You see... you go to a movie, you're                          there.               Rory listens attentively.                                     NICK                         You watch t.v., you're thirteen places                          at once. As many channels as you                          get, that's as many places as you                          are. You get cable? You're forty                          places at once. You get a satellite                          dish?...                                     RORY                         You're all over the world.                                     NICK                         Exactly.               In the BACKGROUND, on the big screen t.v., the soap actress                breaks the embrace and points a gun at the actor.                                     NICK                         You're everywhere.               The soap actress shoots the actor. He stares at her in                overacting disbelief and slumps to the floor.                                     NICK                         It's called freedom.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Carol watches as Sid whistles cheerfully, ripping the long                strips of masking tape off the trim.                                     CAROL                              (w/ attitude)                         This is what you do?                                     SID                         I also mow lawns.                                     CAROL                         Which is your career?                                     SID                         Painting. I'm an inside person.                              (confidentially)                         Mowing grass is seasonal.                                     CAROL                              (dryly)                         That is true.               Sid wads the tape into a big ball.                                     SID                              (disarmingly)                         You've got a nice tan.                                     CAROL                              (not disarmed)                         I work on it.               Sid shoots the tape ball into his shopping cart of supplies.                                     SID                         Do you want to get stoned?               Carol thinks for a moment. It's been a long time and she's                not crazy about him being there.                                     CAROL                              (after a beat)                         Yeah.               Sid takes a joint out of his shirt pocket.                                     SID                         This kind of painting -- for people                          I won't know -- it's boring.                              (lighting the joint)                         It's not very good. It's homegrown.               He takes a drag.                                     CAROL                         Yeah?                                     SID                         But it'll get you fucked up.               He hands the joint to Carol.               CAROL               takes a drag on the joint like an old pro.                                     SID (O.S.)                         It'll take you someplace.               Carol chokes back wheezes and then explodes in a coughing                fit.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. APPLIANCE CENTER - LATER               Nick and MAJOR JENKINS, a uniformed military man in his late                forties, are standing in front of a wall of silent color                televisions. On the t.v.s a nearly identical pairs of LOCAL                ANCHORS smile their way through the news.                                     NICK                         Have you thought about American?                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         No.                                     NICK                         I own an American set. I'm very                          satisfied.                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         I want Japanese.                                     NICK                         I'll tell you...               Nick put his arm around the man's shoulder and guides him                toward a display case.                                     NICK                         ...the thing is, a hundred and fifty                          dollars gets you very little in the                          way of Japanese technology.                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         Oh.               They stop at the case. Nick points.                                     NICK                         It would get you that t.v.               CLOSE-UP               A tiny two inch Casio television playing "Gilligan's Island".               NICK AND JENKINS               Nick looks to see the Jenkin's reaction. Jenkins stares                dumbfounded at the tiny t.v. He looks to Nick.                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         It's for my parents.                                     NICK                         Your parents?                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         Yes. They live with me...               Beth enters the FRAME. Nick doesn't see her.                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         ...and they want Japanese.               Nick stifles a strange urge to giggle. Beth tries to subtly                get Nick's attention.                                     MAJOR JENKINS                         Is there a problem?                                     NICK                              (controlling the                               giggles)                         No... I, uh, just never think of                          adults as having parents.                                     MAJOR JENKINS                              (flatly)                         They do.                                     NICK                              (agreeably)                         I know...               Beth fake coughs to get his attention. Nick sees her.                                     NICK                         I'm an adult, I have parents.               Nick turns to Beth with a burst of salesman cheer.                                     NICK                         Oh, Miss, I've got your receipt!               Beth approaches them, still not sure what Nick's up to.                                     BETH                              (acting cheerful)                         Oh... great!               Nick holds out the receipt.                                     NICK                         This is all you need.               Beth takes the receipt.                                     BETH                              (puzzled, but playing                               along)                         Thanks...                                     NICK                              (personably)                         Now you just take this receipt out,                          give it to the guys at the loading                          dock and they'll give you your brand                          new beautiful television set.                                     BETH                              (thrown)                         I get the t.v...?                                     NICK                              (cheerfully)                         Out back. They'll help load it in                          your car and everything.                                     BETH                              (flatly)                         I get the t.v.                                     NICK                         Out back.               Nick turns his full attention to the man.                                     NICK                         Think about American. They're mostly                          Japanese parts anyway.               Beth stares at Nick, amazed that he's managed to come up                with a plan that has her taking the television.                                     BETH                         Excuse me, I just...                                     NICK                              (interrupting,                               pleasantly)                         Miss... I'm helping this customer                          here, perhaps you might...                              (firmly, a salesman's                               put-off)                         You might want to see someone else.                                     BETH                              (pointedly)                         You can't help me?                                     NICK                              (after a beat, then                               w/ finality)                         Not really.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. SEARS - CONTINUOUS               Beth rides down on the escalator, the receipt clenched in                her hand, surrounded by other shoppers, as a tinny Muzak                version of the "Theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show" drones                on in the background.               Conflicting emotions cloud her face.                                                                    CUT TO:               CLOSE-UP - A HUGE T.V. BOX                                     SID (O.S.)                         How'd you do it?                                     BETH (O.S.)                         Nick sold a demo, wrote it up like a                          new set, and gave me the receipt.               As Sid's jacknife ENTERS FRAME and zips through the packing                tape, THE CAMERA PULLS BACK to reveal...               INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               The sun is low, giving the room a golden glow.               Sid and Beth are sitting on the sofa, the t.v. box on the                floor in front of them.               Sid opens the television box. Slowly, he pulls out the sheets                of bubbled packing plastic. He pops several of the bubbles.                                     SID                              (savoring the bubble                               plastic)                         Excellent.                                     BETH                         Maybe I should just leave it packed...                                     SID                         C'mon! You stole it. You gotta see                          it! Hold the box.               Beth holds the box. Sid starts to lift out the television.                                     SID                              (urgently)                         Wait!               Beth looks to him, anxiously.                                     SID                         I thought I heard the police.               Beth listens, nervously. Sid grins.                                     BETH                         Ha ha ha.                              (an amused realization)                         You're stoned!                                     SID                              (innocently)                         Me?                                     BETH                         You're being silly and you've got                          bunny eyes.               Embarrassed, Sid pulls Visine from a pocket and drips it in                his eyes as he speaks.                                     SID                         I'm a little stoned... not that                          stoned.                                     BETH                         No?                                     SID                         No.                              (after a beat)                         Carol's really stoned.                                     BETH                         You got Carol stoned?                                     SID                         Very stoned.                                     BETH                         I didn't think she liked you.                                     SID                         She doesn't. But she likes getting                          stoned.                                     BETH                              (smiling)                         She does.                                     SID                         There's nothing like drugs to create                          a quick and shallow friendship.               Beth laughs.                                     SID                              (rubbing his hands)                         Let's look at the loot.               Sid pulls the t.v. up and out of the box. He sits back on                the sofa, the t.v. in his lap.               The t.v. is spectacular -- huge, metallic, and ultra-modern.                                     SID                              (very impressed)                         Jesus... you didn't fool around.                                     BETH                              (w/ mixed emotions)                         This is the nicest thing I've ever                          owned.               Beth stares at the television. Sid stares at Beth. She meets                his eyes, then looks quickly back to the television.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT./EXT. SEDAN - ENFIELD'S MAIN DRAG - DUSK               Nick is driving. His face is beaded with sweat as he drags                heavily on a cigarette. He pushes the buttons on his radio,                getting NEWS BROADCASTS.                                     NEWSMAN'S VOICE                         And in Canton, Ohio today, a man                          opened fire in a mall, killing nine                          and wounding seventeen others. Initial                          reports indicate the young man was a                          disgruntled employee...               Nick turns the radio off.               He pulls the scotch bottle from his jacket and takes a slug.               He jerks his necktie loose and slips it over his head. He                tosses it into the back seat.               NICK'S SEDAN               swerves into a vast mall parking lot.               EXT. MALL PARKING LOT - MINUTES LATER               Through the flow of traffic, WE SEE Nick standing at a                payphone on the outside wall of a Red Lobster Restaurant.               Nick speaks urgently into the phone, punctuating his                conversation with edgy body language. Abruptly, he hangs up.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. CAROL'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS               Carol hangs up a wallphone. She leans against the                refridgerator, her expression a controlled blank. She turns                her head and looks out her kitchen window.               CAROL'S POV               Through Nick and Beth's living room window, WE SEE Sid                struggling under the weight of the t.v. as Beth laughingly                gestures where she wants it.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH AND NICK'S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Beth and Sid are kneeling on the floor in front of the t.v.               Playing on the t.v. a rock video featuring girls, guitars,                and the endless highway.                                     BETH                         It's a beautiful picture.               Sid takes the remote from Beth and turns the VOLUME UP very                loud.                                     SID                              (enthusiastically)                         Nice speakers!               Carol enters through the front door, unseen by the mesmerized                t. v. viewers.                                     BETH                              (happily)                         Yeah!                              (w/ happy disbelief)                         Fuckin' Nick...               Sid and Beth stare at the television, completely engrossed.                Carol stares at them for a long moment.                                     CAROL                              (over the din, dryly)                         Hi, kids.               Startled, Sid and Beth jump back. They look at each other                and laugh.                                     BETH                              (cheerfully)                         Come see!               Beth turns the VOLUME DOWN as Carol comes and looks at the                t.v.                                     CAROL                              (impressed)                         I should have had him steal me one,                          too.                                     BETH                         You can come over and watch.               Carol looks to Beth, a quizzical expression on her face.                                     SID                              (to Beth, quietly)                         You're moving.                                     BETH                              (w/ a tinge of sadness)                         Oh. Right.                              (to Carol)                         Sorry.                                     CAROL                         Forget it...               Beth turns off the t.v. There's a moment of awkward silence                as they all stare at the blank screen.                                     CAROL                              (breaking the silence,                               pointedly)                         How's the painting going?                                     SID                              (shaking his head)                         Too many distractions. I'll be at it                          all night.                                     CAROL                         You have bad work habits.                                     SID                         Not when I'm actually working.                              (standing)                         I better get set up in the kitchen.               He goes to his shopping cart of supplies. Carol and Beth                stare at the television.               The television stares back at them, gleamingly modern.                                     CAROL                         It makes teevee seem very futuristic.                                     SID                              (at the kitchen door)                         That's 'cause you're stoned.                                     CAROL                         I'm hardly stoned.               She looks to Beth. Beth is grinning.                                     CAROL                              (mitigating)                         It was homegrown.                                     BETH                              (teasing)                         Want some Visine?                                     CAROL                              (flatly)                         No.                                     SID (O.S.)                              (calling out)                         It gets the red out.               The Visine comes flying INTO FRAME. Carol fumbles, then                catches it.                                     CAROL                              (dryly)                         Thank you.               Carol tilts back her head and manuevers the Visine.                                     CAROL                         Shit. Missed the eye, got the face.                                     BETH                         Need help?                                     CAROL                         Yeah.               Beth goes to her and takes the Visine.                                     BETH                         Okay.                              (holding Carol's arm)                         Tilt your head back.                                     CAROL                         Beth...                                     BETH                         Stop fidgeting.               She puts a drop in one eye. Carol flinches.                                     CAROL                         Got it.                                     BETH                         Next eye.                                     CAROL                         Wait a second.               Carol blinks and wipes a Visine tear off her cheek.                                     CAROL                              (nodding to the                               kitchen, in a                               conspiratorial whisper)                         He really wants to get in your pants.                                     BETH                              (smiling)                         My pants are taken.               She tilts Carol's head back.                                     BETH                         Why don't you go for him?                                     CAROL                         He likes you.               Beth puts a drop in Carol's eye. Carol flinches and rubs her                eye.                                     BETH                         I wish Nick would get back and help                          with the packing.               She sighs, cheerfully exasperated.                                     BETH                         He's probably getting drunk with the                          stockboys...                              (after a beat)                         That's what he's probably doing.               Carol braces herself.                                     CAROL                         Beth...                              (pause, then w/                               difficulty)                         Listen...               They stare into each other's eyes.               After a long moment Carol averts her eyes and looks down.                                     BETH                              (simply)                         He's gone.                                     CAROL                         Yeah.                                     BETH                              (badly shaken)                         Where'd he call from?                                     CAROL                         He said the highway.               Beth takes a deep breath, controlling her emotions.                                     BETH                         I have to do something.                                     CAROL                         I'll help.                                     BETH                         I've got to be out of here Sunday.                          That's tomorrow.                                     CAROL                         You can come to my place.                                     BETH                              (stunned)                         He's gone.               Beth sinks onto the arm of the sofa to support herself.                                     CAROL                              (gently)                         He's an asshole.               CLOSE-UP: BETH               The truth makes its way deeply into her.                                     BETH                              (a half whisper)                         Fuckin' Nick...                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT               The lightly traveled highway cuts a straight line through                the desert.               Nick's sedan pulls off into a service station with a giant                teepee beside it.               EXT. SERVICE STATION               The wind is roaring, kicking up swirls of grey dust in the                flourescent light of the service station.               A TEENAGE NAVAJO boy is filling Nick's tank. Nick leans                against the car staring at the giant teepee.                                     NICK                         Nobody lives in that, right?                                     NAVAJO TEEN                         Gift shop. But it closed at seven.                                     NICK                              (cheerfully shrugging)                         I got no one to shop for.               A gust of wind sends dust into Nick's eye.                                     NICK                         Shit.                              (rubbing his eye)                         Fuckin' wind...                                     NAVAJO TEEN                         Yeah.                                     NICK                              (sincerely)                         What does it mean?                                     NAVAJO TEEN                         High pressure field coming in --                          should bring some nice weather.                                     NICK                         No. The wind itself, you know what I                          mean, you're an Indian...                                     NAVAJO TEEN                              (correcting him)                         I'm a Navajo.                                     NICK                         Yeah, so you're in tune with this                          stuff...                                     NAVAJO TEEN                              (checking the pump)                         It's thirteen bucks.                                     NICK                              (his train of thought                               broken)                         Oh... right.               Nick pulls a bill out of his wallet and holds it out.                                     NICK                         Here's a twenty.               The Navajo Teen takes the bill and takes a wad of bills from                his pocket.               Nick stares out at the moonlit desert and the mountains rising                in the distance.                                     NICK                         So what does the wind mean? Like as                          an omen or something, you know --                              (making his voice                               mystical)                         -- a change is coming to the people. --                          the spirit of freedom is walking the                          land.                              (flatly)                         That kind of meaning...                                     NAVAJO TEEN                              (handing him money)                         Fourteen, fifteen and five makes                          twenty.               He opens Nick's car door for him.                                     NAVAJO TEEN                         The wind is. It's the wind like I'm                          a Navajo.                                     NICK                         That's it?               The Navajo teen nods.                                     NICK                         Shit.               He gets in the car, his mood darkening, and pulls his door                shut with a slam.                                     NICK                              (out the window)                         It would be better if meant something.               The Navajo teen shrugs. Nick starts the engine.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. A BAR IN ENFIELD - NIGHT               A dimly lit room filled with raucous customers and lots of                neon beer signs. Waitresses in red dresses tote pitchers of                brew to the thirsty throng. At the far end a band plays a                foot-stompin' good time tune about a trucker on his way to                see his woman.               THE CAMERA MOVES through the crowd and discovers Carol and                Beth sitting at a small table, an almost finished pitcher of                beer between them.               They speak loudly to be heard over the din.                                     CAROL                         He said he needs to be alone again.                          Learn about himself. Make a fresh                          start in a new town.               Beth shakes her head then takes a sip of her beer -- it tastes                bitter in her mouth and she puts her glass down in disgust.                                     CAROL                              (after a beat)                         He's sorry.               Beth stares at her beer. Carol puts a hand comfortingly on                Beth's arm.                                     CAROL                         He said he would have called you,                          but your phone's disconnected. 'Cause                          you're moving.                              (after a beat)                         He's always been an asshole.                              (after a beat)                         You'll be all right.                                     BETH                         Yeah...                                     CAROL                              (gently)                         I'm here.                                     BETH                         I know that.               A big-haired WAITRESS approaches the table.                                     WAITRESS                         You ready for another?               Carol looks to Beth.                                     BETH                         Oh... uh, no...                                     CAROL                         We're fine.                                     WAITRESS                         Is Nick coming in?               Carol throws the waitress a look that could kill. Beth takes                a deep breath.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT./EXT. NICK'S SEDAN - HIGHWAY - NIGHT               Nick stares at the road ahead. He takes rapid drags on a                cigarette. The RADIO is barely audible over the ROAR of the                WIND through the open windows.                                     PREACHER'S VOICE                              (covered by static)                         "And he arose and came to his father,                          but when he was still a great way                          off, his father saw him and had                          compassion, and ran and..."               Nick turns the radio off.               He fumbles the cigarette into the ashtray.               He takes a pint of scotch from the front seat, uncaps it,                takes a slug, takes another slug, recaps it, and drops it                back on the seat.               He stares at the road. He looks down to the front seat and                finds the map. He splits his attention between the road and                unfolding the map. The wind catches the map.               The map billows up, covering his face. Losing control of the                car, Nick slaps it down.               A car HORN blares.               Nick jerks the car back into his lane, bats the map down                again, and pulls off to the side of the road.               He stops the car and slams the shift into park.               He opens his door a crack, turning on the dome light. He                smooths out the map on the dashboard.               Billings and Enfield are marked with Carol's big red circles.               CLOSE-UP - THE MAP               Nick's finger traces from Enfield toward Billings along the                route Carol highlighted with the red felt-tip. Halfway to                Billings, the red line stops. Nick's finger stops.               NICK               He stares at the map.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Beth comes in the front door. The sound of Sid whistling                comes softly from the kitchen.               Beth stares at the t.v. for a moment then strides purposefully                toward the kitchen.               INT. BETH'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS               Sid is standing on the counter masking the top sill of the                kitchen window. There's half a donut hanging from his mouth.               Beth comes through the swinging door.                                     BETH                              (forcefully)                         You've lived here your whole life?               The half-donut falls from the startled Sid's mouth.                                     SID                              (after a beat)                         Yeah.                                     BETH                              (increduously)                         You've never gone anywhere?               He picks up the half-donut.                                     SID                         Travelling has no allure for me.                                     BETH                         None?               Sid climbs down and sits on the counter, dropping the half-               donut back into the donut box.                                     SID                         Maybe through time.                                     BETH                              (smiling)                         That's not offered.                                     SID                         So I stay here.                                     BETH                         Why?                                     SID                              (the simple truth)                         It's my home. I belong here.                                     BETH                         I'm serious.               So was Sid -- but he realizes Beth doesn't believe it can be                as simple as that.                                     SID                         My father says if you stay in one                          place long enough your luck knows                          where to find you.                                     BETH                              (wryly)                         Maybe that's my problem.                                     SID                              (carefully)                         Maybe it is...               Sid holds out the box of donuts to her.                                     BETH                         Thanks.               She takes a donut and fiddles with it.                                     BETH                         You think your father knows the truth?                                     SID                         He's a bartender.                              (smiling)                         He's lived here his whole life.                                     BETH                         Has his luck found him?                                     SID                         Not yet.                              (after a beat)                         But it's probably very close.               Beth smiles weakly. Abruptly, she drops her donut back in                the box.                                     SID                              (cautiously)                         Are you all right?                                     BETH                              (apologetically)                         Must be the paint fumes...               She opens up the back door and steps out. Sid stares at the                empty doorway.               EXT. BACK STOOP - CONTINUOUS               Beth stands in the moonlight, staring out at the stars.                                     BETH                              (contemplatively                               dubious)                         You find what you want here?               Sid steps out behind her.                                     SID                         It seems that way.                                     BETH                         Yeah?                                     SID                              (simply)                         I found you.                                     BETH                         Oh. No...               She walks out into the backyard. Sid follows her.                                     SID                              (earnestly)                         We never met before last night...               The moonlight through the orange trees casts a magical air                about the backyard. Beth stops by a swingset.                                     SID                         ...but we know each other.               Beth stiffens.                                     BETH                         No...               She walks away from him. He watches her intently.                                     SID                         Leave it behind.               She looks to him.                                     BETH                         Leave what behind?                                     SID                         Unhappiness.                                     BETH                              (amused)                         That was a bad answer.                                     SID                              (seriously)                         No. It was true.               Beth stares at Sid.                                     BETH                         It's not.                                     SID                         Come hold me.                              (after a beat)                         Come hold me, and you'll be happy.                                     BETH                              (dryly)                         I'll find happiness. Right. In your                          arms.                                     SID                         Yes.                                     BETH                         In you.                                     SID                         Yes.                                     BETH                         But I won't. I have to find happiness                          in myself.                                     SID                         No. That's wrong.                              (going toward her)                         People tell you that, but it's wrong.               She turns away from him. He stands behind her, close.                                     SID                         I've lived with people who have that                          happiness from within. That happiness --                          it's just them being pleased with                          themselves. It's not enough. It's a                          lonely thing.               She turns and faces him. The moonlight casts a pale glow                over them.               She stares in his eyes for a long moment. She steps back                from him.                                     BETH                         You're showing how young you are.                                     SID                         No. I'm not. I'm showing you a way.                          You know that. And you know me.                              (after a beat)                         And I know you.               She walks away from him, back to the swingset.                                     BETH                         I don't know you.               Sid follows and takes her arms, turning her to face him.                                     SID                         You know.                                     BETH                              (after a beat,                               defensively)                         I know you want to fuck me.               He pulls her very close. He lets go of her arms so she is                standing against him, unrestrained.                                     SID                         Is that what you know?               Beth stares at his face for a long time.                                     BETH                         I know...               She kisses him, suddenly, long and slow.                                     BETH                              (whispering)                         I know you.               They kiss, pulling each other tight.               They lose their balance and stagger against the swingset,                kissing passionately. Beth pulls back.                                     BETH                              (w/ fierce intensity)                         I know you.                                     SID                         That's right.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. TWO-STORY SUBURBAN RANCH HOUSE - NIGHT               A canopy of stars hangs over it.               INT. NICK'S SEDAN - CONTINUOUS               Nick is parked, staring at the house. The roadmap is on the                seat beside him. He takes a drink from a half empty pint of                scotch. He screws the cap on and drops the bottle on the                map.               He steps out of the car, unsteadily.               EXT. RANCH HOUSE'S FRONT LAWN - CONTINUOUS               Nick walks toward the door. He stops, stares at the door and                starts back for his car. He stops, shakes his head, and walks                quickly to the front door.               FRONT PORCH               Nick stands, staring at the door. He knocks. He waits                impatiently, then pounds on the door. On his third pound the                lights in the house suddenly go on.               OVER NICK'S SHOULDER               The door abruptly opens.               MR. AUGUST, an eighty year old man, stands in the doorway.                HE wears pajamas, slippers, and a long robe. He is over six                and a half feet tall.               NICK AND MR. AUGUST               Nick, startled, steps back. Mr. August stares at him. Nick                composes himself.                                     NICK                         Excuse me...               Mr. August stares at him.                                     NICK                         Excuse me... I'm... I'm looking for                          my parents.               Mr. August calmly puts his hands over his ears, and slowly                shakes his head.                                     NICK                         My mother, my father... they...               ELIZABETH, a fifteen year old girl steps out from behind Mr.                August. She seems very small next to Mr. August. He puts a                hand on her shoulder. She stares at Nick.                                     NICK                              (uncomfortably)                         Hello.                                     ELIZABETH                         Hello.                                     NICK                              (exhaling in relief)                         Oh... good...                              (to the point)                         This is my house. I, uhh... mean                          this is the house I grew up in.               Nick looks past them into the house.                                     ELIZABETH                              (nodding to Mr. August)                         This is his house now.                                     NICK                         Nice to meet you.               He holds out a hand to Mr. August, who slowly shakes it.                                     ELIZABETH                         He's deaf.                                     NICK                              (loudly)                         Nice to meet you.                                     ELIZABETH                         He's stone deaf.                                     NICK                         Oh.                              (uncomfortably)                         Yelling doesn't help.                                     ELIZABETH                         No.               Nick breaks the handshake. Mr. August smiles at him. Nick                looks to Elizabeth.                                     NICK                         My name is Nick, Nick Brennan.               He waits for her to introduce herself. She doesn't.                                     NICK                         Did you know the Brennans?                                     ELIZABETH                         No.                                     NICK                         They lived here. They used to live                          here. I used to live here with them...               Elizabeth stares at him. Nick tries his salesman charm.                                     NICK                         What's your name?                                     ELIZABETH                         Elizabeth.                                     NICK                         No...                                     ELIZABETH                         Yes.                                     NICK                         I know an Elizabeth.                              (quietly)                         I call her Beth.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS               Bathed in moonlight, Sid and Beth make tender passionate                love.               Sid has never wanted someone so much and Beth has never felt                so wanted.               Beth clings to Sid as if she were afraid of being swept                away... and then she is.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. MR. AUGUST'S DINING ROOM - LATER               A chandelier casts a gently sparkling golden glow.               The CAMERA TILTS down to reveal...               Mr. August, Elizabeth and Nick, sitting at a large antique                dining room table.               Nick is eating a sandwich, an untouched glass of milk in                front of him. Mr. August and Elizabeth watch him, expectantly.                Nick notices this.                                     NICK                              (swallowing)                         This is a good sandwich.                                     ELIZABETH                         Thank you.                                     NICK                              (abruptly nodding                               toward Mr. August)                         When did he move here? Would he know                          where the people before him went?                                     ELIZABETH                         No. He wouldn't remember.                                     NICK                         You're sure?                                     ELIZABETH                         Yes. He doesn't remember anymore.                                     NICK                         Oh.                              (taking a deep breath)                         He can't help me.                                     ELIZABETH                         No.               Nick looks around the familiar room, struck by the absurdity                of the situation.                                     NICK                              (with wry awareness)                         I've lost my parents.               Nick smiles weakly at Elizabeth.                                     ELIZABETH                              (matter-or-factly)                         Did you lose them both at the same                          time?                                     NICK                         Is that like a joke?                                     ELIZABETH                         No.                                     NICK                         Then yes. I lost them both at the                          same time.                                     ELIZABETH                         I lost mine one at a time.                              (after a beat)                         Last year.               Nick realizes she's talking about death.                                     NICK                         I'm sorry. That's tragic. I should...                                     ELIZABETH                              (interrupting)                         Six months apart. Body failures.                          Separate body failures.                                     NICK                         I'm really sorry.                              (standing)                         I should go.               Mr. August slowly stands as Elizabeth follows Nick toward                the foyer.                                     ELIZABETH                         First my father's heart kept starting                          and stopping.                                     NICK                              (nodding)                         Attacks...               IN THE FOYER               Nick edges toward the door followed by Elizabeth and Mr.                August.                                     ELIZABETH                         My mother and I were with him in the                          hospital and he'd grab at us, he'd                          grab my arms and hold on.                                     NICK                         That's very sad...                              (after a beat, backing                               toward the door)                         I've really gotta be going. I, uh...                          thank you again for the sandwich.                          Delicious...                                     ELIZABETH                         Right before my mother died, she                          said -- "Elizabeth. You're adopted."               Nick stops in his tracks, his hand on the doorknob.                                     NICK                         Have you found your real parents?                                     ELIZABETH                         No. Two are enough to lose.               Nick stares at her -- the sad truth of her statement sinking                in.                                     ELIZABETH                         I'm not alone. I have my Grandfather.               Nick looks down. He is alone. He has no one.                                     NICK                              (opening the door)                         Listen...               He looks into her eyes.               Elizabeth suddenly grabs his arm.               He stares at her, not knowing what to do. She holds his arm                tightly for a moment, then lets go.                                     ELIZABETH                         I'm sorry.               She steps back from Nick, against her grandfather.                                     ELIZABETH                              (in explanation)                         He's stone deaf.               Nick stares at Elizabeth.                                     NICK                         I have to go.               And he hurries out the door into the night.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Beth is sitting up in bed, Sid leaning back against her, her                arms wrapped around him.                                     SID                              (after a beat)                         I'd like to stay right here...                                     BETH                         I have to be out tomorrow.                                     SID                         In this moment... Enjoying this                          moment.               They both lie perfectly still. A flicker of sadness crosses                Beth's face.                                     BETH                              (hushed)                         The moment's gone.                                     SID                              (shaking his head)                         It can go on as long as we want.               Beth leans him back, cradling him in her arms. She stares at                him, a quizzical expression on her face.                                     BETH                              (skeptically)                         Have you ever been in a relationship?                                     SID                         No.                              (after a beat)                         I was married... but it wasn't really                          a relationship.                                     BETH                              (incredulous)                         You weren't married...                                     SID                         Two years. Right out of high school.               Beth ponders this for a moment.                                     BETH                         Do I remind you of her?                                     SID                         No.                                     BETH                              (relieved)                         Thank God.               Sid runs his hands over her body.                                     SID                         You have beautiful skin... her skin                          was polka-dotted.                                     BETH                         Freckled...                                     SID                         When we were kids we called her                          "Spot".                                     BETH                              (laughing)                         What happened?                                     SID                         She disappeared.               Beth looks to Sid. He's staring off.                                     BETH                              (after a beat)                         Was she ever found?               A flicker of loss crosses his face.                                     SID                         No. Not by me...                              (looking to Beth)                         I didn't go look.               Beth stares at him, uncertainly. He leans up and gently traces                circles on Beth's skin.                                     SID                         She wanted to meet someone new. I                          asked her "why?" -- she said, "Because                          he won't know me from before. Just                          now. Just what I am now."               Beth looks to him, puzzled.                                     SID                         I knew her... on playgrounds... in                          Sunday School... all those grades --                          I knew her as she changed. But she                          was still the same person. All the                          times I knew her, she was still her.                              (after a beat)                         She can't get away from that.               He holds Beth tightly.                                     SID                         You stay in one place, and all those                          things that are you... are there.                          She didn't understand that if you                          leave, they're still there, in you --                          but they stop being clear. You stop                          knowing who you are, and what you                          want.                                     BETH                         You've stayed here and you know who                          you are?               He moves away from Beth.                                     SID                         I see the lawns I mow, houses I've                          painted, faces I know... my parents...                          And I'm constantly reminded of who I                          am.                                     BETH                         And you know what you want.                                     SID                         I want you.                                     BETH                         Oh.                                     SID                         I want to be inside you.                                     BETH                         Good.                              (after a beat)                         Come here and put it inside me.                                     SID                         No... I want to be able to put myself                          inside of you.                                     BETH                         Doing this is as close as you get.               Beth pulls Sid close, bringing him into her.                                     BETH                         Come here.                                     SID                         I love you.               She holds him tightly.                                     BETH                         Come inside me.               Sid arches away from her.                                     SID                         Beth?                                     BETH                         Yes?                                     SID                         What do you want?                                     BETH                              (uncertainly)                         I want... I want...               Beth pulls Sid back to her.                                     BETH                              (w/ quiet urgency)                         Come inside me.               They hold each other tightly.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT./EXT. NICK'S SEDAN - NIGHT               Nick looks like hell -- his eyes red, his hair a mess. The                nearly empty scotch bottle is on the dashboard.               The car windows are open, the roar of the wind competing                with the blasting radio.               Nick suddenly jerks the wheel over.               EXT. ABANDONED REST STOP - CONTINUOUS               The sedan screeches off the highway into the abandoned rest                area.               It stops facing a battered phone booth -- the engine turns                off but the headlines stay shining on the phone booth.               IN THE SEDAN               Nick turns off the radio. It is suddenly very quiet -- only                the occasional lonely DRONE OF A TRUCK passing on the highway.                He takes a deep breath.               INT. PHONE BOOTH - MOMENTS LATER               Nick is standing in the phone booth, harshly lit by his                headlights.                                     NICK                              (into the phone)                         Could you give me the number for                          information in Arizona?... Thank                          you.               Nick dials with drunken concentration.                                     NICK                              (into the phone)                         Enfield. Carol, Carol, umm...                              (mortified)                         Carol... Carol Something... Shit!               He hangs up. He hits himself in the head in angry disbelief.                He hurriedly dials zero and listens for a moment, desperately                summoning up all his salesman charm.                                     NICK                              (into the phone)                         Hello Janet, thank you for being my                          operator. I hope you can help me, I                          need to call my home.               Nick listens impatiently.                                     NICK                         Well, I'll tell you my number, but                          there's a problem. My phone's been                          disconnected, not because of bills,                          I mean we paid all our bills. We                          were hardly ever even late. We were                          very good customers, but we're moving,                          so we had the phone disconnected.                          But now I need to call... the woman                          I live with. She's still there and                          I've got to let her know where I am.               Nick listens, shaking his head emphatically.                                     NICK                         I don't know any of the neighbors. I                          know one, but I can't remember her                          last name.                              (he listens, frustrated)                         No. No. No. You see you have to be                          able to help me, this is not a prank,                          it's my home phone, this is an                          emergency.                              (he listens, then                               urgently)                         Yes it can, it can be done. Someone                          there can hook the phone back up.                          It's not like a phone guy came to                          our house to disconnect the phone,                          nobody came to our house, someone                          just flipped a switch somewhere,                          somewhere there where you work, or                          plugged something into a computer                          and our phone stopped working!                              (he listens)                         They turned it off, they can turn it                          back on!                              (he listens, starting                               to panic)                         I know it's the week-end! I know!                          Call them at home! They'll have a                          computer at their house, they'll                          have a phone thing to hook it up to                          the real computer! That's how these                          people live! They'll be glad to do                          it!...               Nick listens. Suddenly all his energy drains away.                                     NICK                              (crestfallen)                         No. No. I can't have the police go                          to the house. That won't work, there                          are circumstances.                              (desperately)                         It's you... you've got to help me!                          Please! I've gotta call home! I can't                          wait. It could be too late! Janet!!                          You've gotta help me! Please! You                          can reconnect me. Please!! Don't                          hang up! Don't hang up!!               He hurls the receiver at the phone.                                     NICK                         You fucker!! You heartless...               Nick doubles over, retching, clutching the side of the booth.                                     TELEPHONE RECORDING                         "If you'd like to make a call, please                          hang up and try again. If you need                          help..."                                                              CUT TO BLACK:               FADE IN:               INT. BETH'S BEDROOM - MORNING               Sid is sprawled out over the bed, sleeping, Beth nestled                against him. She stirs and cuddles closer.               Suddenly she realizes it's not Nick. She pulls away,                orientating herself. She quickly scoots out of bed and                hurriedly pulls on a pair of jeans.               The alarm clock CLANGS.               Beth looks about for the alarm. She tensely scatters some                boxes. She dumps one, finds the alarm and shuts it off. She                stares at the clock and drops it into a box.                                     SID (O.S.)                              (cheerfully)                         Morning.               Beth cringes slightly and turns to face Sid.               SID AND BETH                                     BETH                              (attempting a smile)                         Hi.                                     SID                              (grinning)                         Hi.                                     BETH                         I didn't want to wake you.                                     SID                              (cheerfully)                         I'm awake. I'm a morning person.                                     BETH                         I'm not.                                     SID                         Then why don't you come back to bed?                                     BETH                         I've got to pack.                                     SID                              (sitting up)                         Where do we start?                                     BETH                              (firmly)                         No.                              (softening)                         You paint.               She looks around the room littered with boxes and piles of                clothes.                                     BETH                         I'll manage.                                     SID                              (cheerfully)                         Whatever you say.               Sid gets out of bed, wrapping the sheet around himself. Beth                stares at the room. She suddenly trembles. She steadies                herself on the bed table.                                     BETH                         Oh God...                                     SID                              (concerned)                         What?               Beth avoids his eyes, glancing around the room.                                     BETH                              (an outpouring)                         I'd be so much happier if I could                          blame this on Nick, but it always                          happens to me. I'm always left with                          nothing.                              (taking a deep breath)                         It doesn't matter if I leave the guy                          or if the guy leaves me -- I'm left                          with nothing. I never do anything                          for myself. I never acquire anything.                          I mean Nick didn't take from me. He                          stole a t.v. and left it for me. He                          didn't take my things, he didn't                          take our things... he didn't even                          take his clothes! And I'll still                          leave this house with nothing!                                     SID                         He took three years from you.                                     BETH                         No...                              (meeting his eyes)                         He didn't take 'em. I mean, when he                          cared about me, he cared about me.                          And he was really good in bed.               She glances away from Sid toward the bed.                                     BETH                              (after a beat)                         I didn't expect more.               She turns away from Sid and the bed. Sid moves toward her.                                     SID                              (carefully)                         Beth...               Beth summons up all the composure she can manage.                                     BETH                              (referring to the                               cluttered room)                         I can't face this.                              (looking to Sid)                         I'm gonna finish up the kitchen...                              (heading for the door)                         ...get some momentum...               She goes out the bedroom door. Sid stares after her.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. ABANDONED REST STOP - MORNING               Nick's sedan is parked in the same place as the night before.               A YOUNG MAN with long hair ROARS into the rest stop on a                Harley-Davidson, his life's possession strapped on the back.               He stops the bike between Nick's car and the phonebooth,                idling the engine, loudly. He looks to the phonebooth, the                receiver dangling. He turns to Nick's sedan.                                     YOUNG MAN                         Phone work?               NICK               Awakened by the ROAR, Nick has wearily leaned his head out                the window.               Nick stares at the young man.                                     NICK                              (after a beat)                         No.               Drained, Nick rests his head on the steering wheel.               OFFSCREEN, the motorcycle starts up and zooms away. A silence                falls over the rest stop.               Without raising his head from the steering wheel, Nick starts                the car.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S BEDROOM - MORNING               Sid is making the bed.                                     CAROL (V.O.)                              (gleefully                               conspiratorially)                         How was he?                                     BETH (V.O.)                              (sheepishly)                         He's twenty-four.               Sid pulls up the blanket and fluffs the pillows.                                     CAROL (V.O.)                         A little weak on tenderness, but                          long on juice?                                     BETH (V.O.)                         Long on conversation.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BETH'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS               The cupboards are all open and bare. A half dozen boxes are                neatly stacked. Beth is sitting on the floor packing the                final dishes. Carol holds out a mug of coffee.                                     CAROL                         Did you need talk?               Beth stands and takes the coffee.                                     BETH                         Yeah. I guess I did.                                     CAROL                         Good.               Beth sips her coffee, gazing out the kitchen window.               BETH'S POV               The backyard. In the light of day it's lost its magical                quality. The grass needs cutting and is marred by brown                patches. The swingset looks pathetically rusted and                dilapidated.               CLOSE-UP: BETH               Her face clouds over.                                     CAROL (O.S.)                              (cheerfully)                         So what are we doing?               BETH AND CAROL               Carol is staring at Beth staring out at the backyard.                                     BETH                         Christ...               She turns to Carol.                                     BETH                              (w/ an edge of                               desperation)                         I gotta get out here. I was in Tucson                          two years before you and Nick got                          here.                              (in disbelief)                         I've been here five years...                                     CAROL                         Yeah...                                     BETH                         This state's driving me crazy.                                     CAROL                         So what are you gonna do?                                     BETH                         I've got no money.                                     CAROL                         I've got some.                                     BETH                              (chagrined by self-                              awareness)                         I can't take it. I mean you're being                          great, but I can't take it. I'm gonna                          be gone, we won't see each other,                          and I won't send the money. I won't.                          I know... I won't get around, I'll                          forget, I won't do it.               She looks around the room in disgust.                                     BETH                              (agitated)                         Shit. I'll sell all this shit. I                          don't want any of it, just my car                          and my clothes...                                     CAROL                              (carefully)                         Okay...                                     BETH                              (shaking her head)                         I'm sorry... I shouldn't have fucked                          this kid last night. I should have                          slept. Now I've got all this stuff                          to do, and I'm tired, I'm churned                          up, I'm in a fuckin' mood.                                     CAROL                         Let's do things, get you busy.                                     BETH                         Yeah.                                     CAROL                         You get all the stuff you wanna sell,                          and I'll make some tag sale signs.                                     BETH                         No one'll buy my stuff. It's all                          junk.                                     CAROL                         That's what people buy at tag sales.                          Broken appliances, ugly knicknacks.               Beth looks at the semi-packed boxes.                                     BETH                              (laughing)                         I guess I do have stuff to sell.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. BETH'S FRONT LAWN - DAY               Boxes full of a motley collection of knickknacks, housewares,                and crummy appliances are spread out on the lawn.               In the BACKGROUND a couple of M.T.V. influenced teens are                checking out the knickknacks and goofing on them.               MRS. DOTSON, a woman in her late forties wearing a NURSE'S                UNIFORM is poking through the odds and ends.               Beth and Carol hovering near her.               Mrs. Dotson picks up the coffee maker, examines it, and puts                it down. She picks up the blender, examines it, and puts it                down.                                     CAROL                              (impatiently)                         Is there something specific you're                          looking for?                                     MRS. DOTSON                         Yes.                              (sheepishly)                         Actually everything... I don't have                          anything.                                     BETH                         Nothing?                                     MRS. DOTSON                         I just moved to town.                              (hesitating then                               confiding)                         My husband passed away, and I, umm,                          didn't want to have our things...                          they were too familiar.               Beth realizes why she's selling all her stuff -- it's too                familiar.                                     BETH                              (abruptly)                         You can have it all for three hundred.                          The stuff in these boxes and                          everything inside.                                     MRS. DOTSON                              (taken aback)                         Oh, my, I don't know... everything?                                     BETH                         Everything.                              (hesitating)                         Except the t.v.               Mrs. Dotson searches Beth's face with a kind gaze. Beth smiles                nervously.                                     BETH                              (apologetically)                         The t.v.s not for sale.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT/EXT. NICK'S SEDAN               Nick's smoking, looking haggard. Between drags, he anxiously                taps a tempo on the steering wheel with his cigarette holding                hand.               NICK'S POV               The highway and the desert stretch out before him, the heat                waves of late afternoon shimmering above the blacktop.               In the distance, the giant teepee souvenir shop rises out of                the horizon like a mirage.               NICK               An idea strikes him and his lips tighten into a small                determined smile.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. TEEPEE GIFT SHOP - AFTERNOON               A couple of vacationing families and a busload of elderly                sightseers poke through the stunning assortment of Native                American souvenirs.               Nick stands at the counter talking to a plump elderly NAVAJO                WOMAN.                                     NAVAJO WOMAN                         Maybe some nice turquoise jewelry.                                     NICK                              (shaking his head)                         I don't think she really wears                          jewelry.               A little boy stares at the disheveled Nick. His mother hurries                him away.                                     NAVAJO WOMAN                         Maybe a nice Navajo rug?                                     NICK                              (incredulous)                         As a present? No.               He points past her.                                     NICK                         What about that?               THEIR POV               A huge beautifully feathered ceremonial headdress.               NICK AND THE NAVAJO WOMAN                                     NICK                         That would make her laugh.                                     NAVAJO WOMAN                              (not amused)                         That's authentic -- it's very                          expensive.                                     NICK                         You got something like it but fake?                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. FRONT LAWN - LATE AFTERNOON               Beth and Mrs. Dotson are standing beside the now empty                blankets.               In the BACKGROUND, Sid and Carol are packing boxes into Mrs.                Dotson's car.               Mrs. Dotson has begun to fill out a check.                                     MRS. DOTSON                         I'm sorry, what's your name?                                     BETH                         Can you just leave the name blank? I                          won't have an account, so I'll have                          to find someplace to cash it for me.               Mrs. Dotson looks at her. They stare into each other's eyes.                                     MRS. DOTSON                              (after a beat)                         All right.               Mrs. Dotson hands Beth the check. Beth sticks it in her back                pocket. After an awkward moment she extends her hand.                                     BETH                         Thanks a lot.               Mrs. Dotson takes her hand. Sid and Carol walk up to them.                                     SID                              (cheerfully)                         You're set.               Mrs. Dotson lets go of Beth's hand. They turn to Sid and                Carol.                                     MRS. DOTSON                              (warmly chagrined)                         You did all the work...                                     SID                              (good-naturedly)                         Sure.                              (mischieviously)                         Now I've gotta finish painting, but                          Carol here would be happy to help                          you unload.               Carol starts to protest and then checks herself for Beth's                sake.                                     CAROL                              (trapped, dryly)                         Of course. I'll follow you in my                          car.                                     SID                              (to Mrs. Dotson)                         And I'll be by tomorrow with my truck                          and the big things.               He heads into the house. Beth stares after him. Mrs. Dotson                touches her shoulder, lightly, getting her attention.                                     MRS. DOTSON                              (to Beth)                         Thank you.                              (smiling)                         You've given me a home.               She looks to Carol.                                     CAROL                              (nicely)                         I'll be right along.               Mrs. Dotson walks off toward her car.                                     CAROL                              (to Beth)                         This had to be history's most                          efficient tag sale.               Beth laughs, distractedly.                                     BETH                         Yeah... I'm sorry Sid stuck you with                          unloading.                                     CAROL                         No problem.                              (smiling to herself)                         He kinda bites my butt, but he's                          okay.                                     BETH                         He is.               Beth suddenly embraces Carol.                                     BETH                         Listen.                              (breaking the embrace)                         I'll probably be gone before you get                          back.                                     CAROL                         I thought maybe we could be roomies                          for a while. You know, while you                          figure out what's next.                                     BETH                              (shaking her head)                         I can't.                              (after a beat,                               admitting her feelings)                         He gets to me... too much. If I don't                          go I'll end up with staying with                          him.                                     CAROL                              (gently)                         You've done worse.                                     BETH                         Sure.               They look at each other and start to laugh. Their laughter                builds -- a release of the strain of the last two days.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. NICK'S SEDAN - INTERSTATE - DAY               Nick's driving fast, completely focused on the road ahead,                the wind ROARING through the open windows.               A cheap plastic Indian headdress with brightly colored                synthetic feathers is perched on his head.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS               Sid's finished painting -- the room gleams. He pulls a                dropcloth off the bureau, then another one off of Beth's two                packed suitcases.                                     BETH (O.S.)                              (softly)                         Sid?               Sid turns and looks, smiling.               SID'S POV               Beth is standing in the doorway, a weariness having settled                over her. She steps into the room.               BETH AND SID                                     SID                         Hi.                                     BETH                         I'm sorry about selling the sofa                          bed.                                     SID                         I didn't really need one. When my                          friends get drunk, they throw up and                          sleep on the floor.                                     BETH                         But I gave it to you.               He puts his arms around her.                                     SID                         You gave me a lot more.                                     BETH                         No.                              (holding him tightly)                         It was all even in this department.                                     SID                              (softly)                         ...Feel me?                                     BETH                              (whispering)                         I know... You're hard again.               Holding her tightly, Sid runs his fingers down her spine.                                     SID                         I want you all the time.                                     BETH                              (torn)                         Shit.               She kisses him. They kiss, long and hard. Abruptly, she breaks                the embrace and moves away from him.                                     BETH                              (ironically self-aware)                         I just fleeced a widow.                                     SID                              (protesting)                         No...                                     BETH                         It was all junk.               She shivers.                                     BETH                         Shit. I've got to get some aspirin...                              (shaking her head)                         I didn't drink enough to be hung                          over.               She walks away from Sid, out of the bedroom.               INT. BETH'S BATHROOM - MOMENTS LATER               Beth gulps down aspirin. She stares at herself in the mirror,                wearily searching.               IN THE MIRROR               Sid appears in the doorway, his reflection small next to the                reflection of her face.                                     SID                         You just feel bad for her like I                          feel bad for her... 'cause her husband                          died.                                     BETH                              (doubting this)                         Yeah?               ANGLE TO INCLUDE SID AND BETH                                     SID                         That's about the saddest thing there                          is... losing someone you love.               Beth is struck by a certainty that she's never lost anyone                she's loved because she's never really loved anyone.                                     BETH                         It's never happened to me.               Sid hesitates, then speaks his heart.                                     SID                         If you died, I couldn't stand life.                                     BETH                         I...               She steps forward and kisses him. She steps back.                                     BETH                              (businesslike)                         I've got to go now.               She walks out of the bathroom. Sid and THE CAMERA FOLLOW as                she hurries though the living room toward the bedroom.               IN THE LIVING ROOM                                     BETH                         The new people'll be here.               She disappears down the hall to the bedroom.                                     SID                              (following)                         Go to my house.                                     BETH (O.S.)                         No.               IN THE BEDROOM               Beth picks up her suitcases. Sid steps into the doorway.                                     SID                         While you find a place.                                     BETH                         No. I gotta get out.               She heads to the bedroom door.                                     SID                         I can talk to the realtors, I know                          they've got a place in Agawam.               Beth stops.                                     BETH                              (shaking her head)                         No... Agawam?... no. I don't know                          where I'm going. Somewhere else.               She walks past him into the hallway. Sid and THE CAMERA                FOLLOW.                                     SID                         You can call me when you get there.                          I'll give you my number.               IN THE LIVING ROOM               She stops and puts down the suitcases.                                     BETH                              (gently)                         Sid. I'm going away. You're making                          me way too important. You met me                          yesterday.               He goes to her.                                     SID                         And today I love you.               She steps back, shaking her head.                                     BETH                         Jesus... one day...                                     SID                         That doesn't matter. You know that.                          It can take a second.               Beth loses control, upset with herself for having mixed                emotions, upset with her life, and upset he's making this                more difficult.                                     BETH                         No! That's... that's a fuckin' animal                          thing, I've done that.                                     SID                         Not with me.                                     BETH                         I meet men, go home with them and                          just stay. No decision involved --                          it's just what I do. And then I don't                          have to live my life, I just lead                          theirs. I can't keep doing that.                                     SID                              (adamant)                         We're not that way!                                     BETH                         What way are we?                                     SID                         We're passionate. We're comfortable.                                     BETH                         It's been passionate, it's been                          comfortable. But it hasn't been...                          important.                              (after a beat)                         Like you're making it!                                     SID                              (urgently)                         It is important! You know that.                                     BETH                         No! It was a night! It wasn't real.                          It was fun, it was some great fucking!                          But it's just something that happened!                          It's not real!                                     SID                         It didn't "just happen"! You know                          we're it! I'm the one for you!                                     BETH                         The "one"?! I've had lots of "ones"!                          I look like a baby but I'm twenty-                         fuckin'-- eight years old! You're                          just the latest!                                     SID                         No. I'm the last. You've found me.                          And it can go on forever.                                     BETH                         No!                              (her heart breaking                               for him)                         Oh, Sid... Forever?                              (shaking her head)                         You have to understand -- it's just                          talk.                                     SID                         It's not.                                     BETH                              (defiantly disbelieving)                         It is. C'mon, these things you say...                          c'mon! What?! If I died you couldn't                          stand life? That's... that's...                                     SID                         That's true.                                     BETH                         No.               Beth can't bear the risk of opening her soul to believe him --                and she can't bear to hear the outpouring of his soul without                believing him. So she ends it.                                     BETH                              (after a beat, harshly)                         You won't know when I die. You won't                          be there.               She picks up her suitcases and heads for the door.                                     SID                              (following her, certain)                         You'd want me there. If I wasn't                          there it wouldn't matter who was.                          You'd be alone.                                     BETH                         No.               He grabs her arms and spins her to face him.                                     SID                              (imploring)                         Beth... Beth... you love me...                                     BETH                              (defiantly)                         No!                                     SID                         How do you feel? Think! You love me.               She stares at him, breathing deeply, gathering herself. He                lets go of her arms and steps back.                                     BETH                              (her words carefully                               chosen)                         I care about you.                                     SID                         You have to be with me.                                     BETH                         No.                              (pause)                         I care about you. But I'm an adult.                          I can say no.               They stare at each other.                                     SID                              (w/ controlled anger)                         That's what makes you an adult?                                     BETH                              (unwavering)                         Yes.                              (pause)                         I can say no.                              (pause)                         No, I won't do that. No, I won't                          have that. No, I can't.                                     SID                              (needing to hear her                               say it)                         You can say no to me?                                     BETH                         Yes.               He looks away from her. She stares at his back.                                     BETH                         I'm going.               She steps toward the door.                                     SID                         Beth!               She stops.                                     SID                              (after a beat)                         Have someplace to go.                                     BETH                              (simply)                         I don't.               She opens the door.                                     SID                         Why don't...                                     BETH                              (interrupting)                         Don't tell me what to do.               She goes out the door. Sid goes to the door.               EXT. THE FRONT LAWN - CONTINUOUS               Beth makes her way to her car. Sid stands in the doorway,                watching.                                     SID                         What are you gonna do?               She turns and faces him.                                     BETH                         I don't know.               Beth tosses her suitcases in the backseat. She gets into the                car and starts the engine.               Sid stands, willing her to stop the car.               Beth pulls out to the end of the driveway.               INT. BETH'S PINTO               She looks up at the rearview mirror.               BETH'S POV               Sid is framed in the doorway of her old home, waiting,                trusting that she can't leave, that they are destined.               BETH               Her eyes well with tears. Her face sets with resolve.               THE HOUSE AND DRIVEWAY               The car pulls out and disappears down the road. Sid stands                in the doorway for a long moment. He steps back into the                house and shuts the door.                                                          SLOW DISSOLVE TO:               INT. NICK'S CAR - DUSK               Nick is driving, the cheap headdress still perched on his                head. Crumpled empty coffee cups are scattered about the                front seat. He reaches up and turns the rearview mirror.               REARVIEW MIRROR               Nick's face stares back at him. It's not a pretty sight.               NICK               Nick reaches into the back seat, fishes and comes up with                his necktie. He slips the still-knotted necktie over his                headdress and tightens it around his neck.               Nick looks back to the road and suddenly swerves off an exit                ramp. The CAMERA LINGERS on the Exit Sign -- "Enfield AZ.".                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. KITCHEN - DUSK               Sid silently goes through the motions of pulling the masking                tape from around the window sills of the freshly painted                room, his face a stony mask.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. BETH'S HOUSE - CONTINUOUS               Nick's car screeches to a stop in front of the house. He                leaps out of the car and runs toward the front door.               INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               The front door flings open. Nick charges into the room.                                     NICK                              (calling out)                         Beth!                              (bellowing)                         Beth!!!               Sid steps through the swinging door into the living room.                Nick freezes.                                     SID                              (coldly)                         She's not here.                                     NICK                              (desperately)                         Where is she?                                     SID                         She's gone.                                     NICK                         Shit!                              (a moment of manners)                         Excuse me.                              (exploding)                         Shiiiiit!!                              (confrontationally)                         Who are you?                                     SID                              (coldly)                         The painter. You're Nick.                                     NICK                              (startled)                         Yeah.                                     SID                         The Indian chief.                                     NICK                              (puzzled)                         What?               Then Nick, remembering the headdress, rips it off his head                and furiously tears it apart -- scattering a flurry of plastic                feathers. He hurls what's left of it across the room.                                     NICK                         Shit!                                     SID                              (accusingly)                         You're too late. She's gone.                                     NICK                              (angrily)                         I got that. Where'd she go?                                     SID                         She didn't say.                                     NICK                         Shit!                                     SID                              (bitterly)                         She didn't know.               Nick runs out the front door.               EXT. NICK'S FRONT LAWN - CONTINUOUS               Nick runs out into his lawn.                                     NICK                              (running; under his                               breath)                         Be at Carol's... be at Carol's...               The CAMERA FOLLOWING he races up to Carol's front door and                leans on the doorbell -- a loud tight buzzing.               He pounds on the door, then stops, gasping for breath. No                one's home. He turns, leaning against the door for support,                staring out at tract house neighborhood.                                     NICK                              (spent)                         I'm too late...               Suddenly he bolts for his car.               Nick yanks his car door open and disappears into it. In a                second he emerges with the bottle of scotch.               It's empty. He eyes it for a moment then hurls it as far as                he can down the street -- it shatters explosively.               He races to his front door and stops dead in his tracks at                the open doorway.               INT. NICK'S LIVING ROOM               Sid has covered the floor and remaining furniture with drop                cloths and is applying even strokes to the ceiling with a                long handled roller.               Nick steps in and stares at Sid and his own nearly empty                drop-cloth covered home.                                     NICK                              (at the top of his                               lungs)                         This really bothers me!               Sid stares at him.                                     SID                              (after a moment, with                               mock politeness)                         Will you do me a favor?                                     NICK                              (spitting out the                               word)                         What?                                     SID                         Act normal.               Nick advances on Sid.                                     NICK                              (adamantly)                         Listen! I don't want to be normal. I                          don't have to be, I don't! This is                          my house. You're in my house. And                          I'm tired of going to my house and                          finding strangers!               They're face to face in a stand-off.                                     SID                         It's not your house. You're gone.                          I'm painting --               He puts the long handled roller right in Nick's face.                                     SID                         -- for the new people -- whose house                          it's going to be.                              (pause)                         You're gone. They're not here yet.                          I'm here.                              (calmly)                         I guess that makes this my house.               Nick ponders this logic, Sid's size, and the roller in his                face.                                     NICK                              (politely)                         May I look around?                                     SID                              (w/ a stony politeness)                         Sure. Make yourself at home.               Nick wanders around the nearly empty room, then, after a                beat...               ...he pulls a dropcloth off an object in the corner, revealing                the television.                                     NICK                              (dismayed)                         Nooo... she left the television.                                     SID                         Yeah.                                     NICK                         Too bad.                                     SID                              (pointedly)                         She didn't seem to want it.                                     NICK                         That's foolish. That t.v. is a                          remarkable thing.               They both stare at the television.               The sweep of HEADLIGHTS turning into the driveway cross their                faces. They both race to the door.               EXT. FRONT LAWN - CONTINUOUS               Carol gets out of her car. Nick hurries toward her.                                     CAROL                              (flatly)                         You came back.                                     NICK                              (a little chagrined)                         Yeah.                                     CAROL                         Is Beth here?                                     NICK                         No. Do you know where she went?                                     CAROL                         No.                                     NICK                         Shit.                                     CAROL                         You're too late.                                     SID                              (from the doorway)                         She's gone.                                     NICK                              (to Carol, exasperated)                         Who is this guy?                                     CAROL                              (walking past him                               toward the house)                         Beth's new boyfriend.                                     NICK                              (exploding)                         What?!                                     CAROL                              (stopping)                         You heard me.                                     NICK                              (to Sid)                         Is this true?!                                     SID                         Not really.               He turns and walks back into the house.                                     NICK                              (to Carol)                         Not really?               He races after Sid.               INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Sid is painting the ceiling. Nick bursts through the door.                                     NICK                              (to Sid)                         Not really?! What?                              (w/ "say it ain't so"                               attitude)                         Did you fuck her?                                     SID                         I don't tell.                                     NICK                         Jesus! The next day!                              (bitterly disillusioned)                         That's the world, huh? They don't                          even wait a day anymore.                                     CAROL                              (stepping in the                               doorway)                         You left her.                                     NICK                              (defensively)                         I didn't fuck anyone.                                     CAROL                              (witheringly)                         You didn't find anyone.                                     NICK                              (hurt)                         No... I didn't leave her for another                          person, I left her for another place.                              (pause)                         Which I think is a little more                          excusable.                                     SID                         I don't.                                     NICK                         Well it's none of your fuckin'                          business!                                     SID                              (threateningly)                         I think it is.                                     NICK                         Cause you fucked her? No! That gives                          you no business in my life.                                     SID                         If you hadn't gone, I'd be done by                          now. I'd be home.                                     NICK                         Be glad you have a home, asshole!                                     CAROL                         Let it drop, Nick!                                     NICK                              (outraged)                         Why?!                                     CAROL                         He was nice to Beth when you treated                          her like shit.               Nick stares at her -- knowing what she says is true.                                     NICK                              (protesting weakly)                         I came back...                                     CAROL                              (busting him)                         Nick. This is me. You didn't come                          back for Beth's sake -- something                          just didn't work out like you had                          planned.                                     NICK                              (defensively)                         You see -- you don't know everything                          about me -- I didn't really have any                          real plans!                                     CAROL                         He was sweet to her. They were sweet                          with each other.               Nick stares at her.                                     CAROL                         Beth looked young with him. They had                          a real connection.                                     NICK                              (after a beat, dryly)                         And I brought them together?               He exhales loudly and holds his head in his hands.                                     NICK                         It seems I'm blessed... in what I                          do. I do wrong, and it turns out                          right... that I've done right. So it                          really doesn't matter what I do.               Nick takes a deep breath.                                     NICK                         Hey!               Sid ignores him.                                     NICK                              (after a beat)                         I said "hey!"               Sid looks at him.                                     NICK                              (flamboyantly sarcastic)                         I hope you're very happy together!                                     SID                         She's gone.                                     NICK                              (glancing to Carol,                               pointedly)                         She is, isn't she?                              (to Sid)                         If you two were such the happy couple                          why the fuck did she leave, Romeo?                                     SID                         After three years with you, she wanted                          to be alone.                                     NICK                         I was already gone! This is not about                          me and Beth, there is no me and Beth!                          This is about you! Why didn't you go                          with her?                                     SID                         It wasn't offered.                                     NICK                              (advancing on him)                         People aren't going to offer you                          anything! You have to take what you                          want.                                     SID                         You can't take another person. They                          have to give themselves to you.                                     NICK                              (in his face)                         That's very wise, but not very true.                              (relentlessly)                         I sell televisions. People don't                          know what they want. You have to                          show them.                                     SID                         I couldn't show her.                                     NICK                         Go after her!                                     CAROL                         Leave him alone!                                     NICK                         No. He's not alone, he's with us.                          She's alone. She's out there alone.                              (after a beat, quietly)                         Just hoping she's closer to what she                          wants...                                     CAROL                              (sardonically)                         And what is that?                                     NICK                              (exploding)                         I don't know!               Nick throws his arms in the air and storms up to Carol's                face.                                     NICK                         How would I know?! What do I know?!               Carol doesn't flinch. He steps back.                                     NICK                              (w/ a sweeping gesture)                         I know that what I want isn't there.                              (pointing to his chest)                         It isn't here.                              (gesturing wildly)                         It isn't inside! It isn't outside!                              (spent)                         It doesn't exist.               He turns on Sid.                                     NICK                              (forcefully)                         But you want her, and you aren't                          doing shit about it!                                     CAROL                         There isn't anything he can do.                                     NICK                         He can go after her.                              (to Sid)                         Go after her!                                     SID                         I can't. She...                              (torn)                         My life is here.                                     NICK                         What kind of man won't fuck up his                          life for the women he loves? Go find                          her!!               He stares at Sid.                                     CAROL                         He wouldn't know where to look.                                     NICK                              (groping)                         She'd she'd she'd...                              (triumphant)                         She'd head for her parents!                                     CAROL                         What?                                     NICK                         She'd head for her parents. Believe                          me.                              (pause, then flatly)                         They're in Florida. That's east.               Nick stares at Sid, waiting.                                     SID                         I...                                     NICK                              (businesslike)                         You start driving east on route forty.                          Keep going east and around eleven                          start checking every roadside motel.                          The budget ones... You do that all                          night, you'll find her.                                     CAROL                         How do you know she's on the highway?                                     NICK                         When you don't know where you're                          going, you drive on the highway.               Sid looks to Carol, then around the drop cloth covered room.                                     NICK                              (cheerfully)                         I'll finish painting.                                     SID                              (to Carol)                         Do I have a chance?               Nick and Sid both look to Carol.                                     CAROL                              (after a beat, shaking                               her head)                         You've got a chance.                                     SID                              (determined)                         Then I'm gone.               Sid races out the door.               Nick tosses a self-satisfied smile at Carol and walks past                her to the door.               SOUND               Sid's truck engine roars to life.               NICK'S POV               Sid peels out, driving up onto the lawn past Nick and Carol's                cars, out onto the street and out of sight.               THE DOORWAY               Carol steps into the doorway beside Nick.                                     CAROL                         So.                              (dryly)                         Start painting.               Nick looks back into the room.                                     NICK                              (after a beat)                         Fuck the ceiling.                              (walking in)                         Who looks up that often?               Carol follows him into the room. Nick slumps on the sofa,                staring at the blank t.v.                                     MAN'S VOICE                              (happily)                         This is it!               A MAN and a WOMAN, both slightly portly Mexican-Americans in                their late forties, wearing their Sunday best, step over the                threshold and kiss.               The man is carrying the woman cradled in his arms.                                     CAROL                              (politely)                         Hello...?                                     MAN                              (surprised, breaking                               the kiss)                         Oh. Hello.               The four stare at each other in awkward silence, the woman                still cradled in the man's arms.                                     MAN                         I'm sorry. We thought it was going                          to be empty.                                     NICK                              (flatly)                         It is.                                     WOMAN                              (cheerfully)                         We're here to move in.               The man puts her down on her feet.                                     WOMAN                         Are you the couple moving out?                                     CAROL                         No.                                     NICK                         No...               Nick and Carol look to each other, at a loss. Nick looks                back to the couple.                                     NICK                              (improvising)                         We're your new neighbors. From next                          door.               Carol throws him a look.                                     MAN                         Well.                              (putting on a good                               face)                         It's nice to meet you.               He holds out his hand to shake. After an instant of awkward                hesitation they all shake hands with too much enthusiasm.                                     WOMAN                              (cheerfully, while                               shaking hands)                         It is... and it's so nice of you to                          greet us.                                     CAROL                         Thank you.               They finish the handshakes -- there's an awkward pause.                                     NICK                         Actually, we're here for the t.v.               He waits, half expecting this statement to be challenged. It                isn't.                                     NICK                              (confidently)                         The people who left here -- our old                          neighbors -- left us that t.v.               They all look at the t.v.                                     MAN                         Oh. It's very nice.                                     CAROL                         Yes. It is.               There's an awkward pause.                                     CAROL                              (going to the t.v.)                         Well, dear... we should carry it                          home.               Nick and Carol lift the t.v.                                     WOMAN                         Do you need help?                                     NICK                         We can manage.               They move toward the front door, Carol going backwards.                                     CAROL                         Thanks anyway.               Nick looks to make eye contact with Carol. He can't. She's                looking back over her shoulder for obstacles. He smiles and                glances toward the couple.               Nick and Carol go out the door, lugging the t.v.                                     WOMAN                              (calling out)                         Nice meeting you.               The man and woman look at each other. They look around the                room.                                     MAN                         They're not done painting.                                     WOMAN                         They'll finish.               She stares out the front door.                                     WOMAN                              (whimsically)                         I wonder where our furniture is?               She looks back to him. He's staring at the ceiling.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. THE LAWN - CONTINUOUS               They're lugging the t.v. across to Carol's -- Carol backing                up and Nick going forward. They arrive at the front door.               Nick takes most of the weight of the t.v., while Carol fumbles                with her key into her front door lock with her free hand.                                     CAROL                         You're not going to be their new                          neighbor.                                     NICK                         It was just something to say.               Carol gets the door open.                                     CAROL                         Good.               Carol backs into the house, leading the way.               INT. CAROL'S FOYER - CONTINUOUS               They lug the t.v. toward the living room.                                     CAROL                         You look terrible.                                     NICK                         Yeah? Well, I had a big day.                              (after a beat)                         I went to my parent's house. Like                          you said to. And there was this                          ancient man, this giant man in the                          doorway.               They step into the living room.               INT. LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS               Carol leads them to a corner.                                     NICK                         And I thought, "It's my father. My                          how he's aged."                                     CAROL                         You were drunk...               They gingerly put the t.v. down.                                     NICK                         Not at the house. At the house I was                          stone sober.               Nick slumps down onto the sofa. Carol watches him, puzzled.                                     NICK                         He was very tall. He was too tall to                          be my father. He was wearing a long                          overcoat, and I thought, "it's a                          trick, he's on my mother's shoulders".               He smiles at the memory.                                     NICK                         And then out from behind him came                          this beautiful young girl... Beth.                                     CAROL                         Beth?...                                     NICK                              (lost in reverie)                         And they sang to me. They sang "London                          Bridge is Falling Down"...                              (singing softly)                         "Falling down, falling down.".               Nick looks to Carol. She stares at him.                                     NICK                              (seriously)                         It was very touching.                                     CAROL                         I'm sure.                                     NICK                              (defensively)                         It was.               Carol sits beside him.                                     CAROL                         Nick?...                                     NICK                         Yeah?                                     CAROL                         What you've been doing... you can't                          do anymore.               Nick looks to Carol, puzzled.                                     CAROL                         You just can't do it.                                     NICK                              (after a beat,                               agreeably)                         Okay.                                     CAROL                              (very skeptically)                         Okay?                                     NICK                         Yeah. I understand.                                     CAROL                         No. I don't think so.                                     NICK                              (defensively)                         I understand.                                     CAROL                              (determined)                         It's not like you can't do it.                                     NICK                              (interjecting)                         I'll stop.                                     CAROL                              (urgently)                         It's that I don't want you to do it.                                     NICK                         I've stopped.               She stares at Nick. He avoids her stare. She takes his face                in her hand and makes him look at her.                                     CAROL                              (staring in his eyes)                         Nick.                              (emphatic)                         I don't want you to do it.               Nick stares in her eyes.                                     NICK                              (calmly, after a beat)                         Okay.               She lets go of his face.                                     CAROL                         Shit.                              (after a beat, wryly)                         I hate talking to you.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. SID'S TRUCK - NIGHT               Through the windshield we see Sid driving slowly, looking                out at motel parking lots. Their neon signs reflect in the                windshield.               EXT. STRIP OFF THE HIGHWAY               Gas stations, fast food joints and motels.               Sid and his truck pull away from the strip and up onto the                on ramp.               EXT. HIGHWAY - CONTINUOUS               Sid and his truck pull onto the highway.               CREDITS ROLL               As Sid's taillights disappear down the barren highway.                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
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+                         BODY HEAT                   An Original Screenplay                             by                      Lawrence Kasdan            FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLYTHIRD DRAFTOctober 6, 1980Converted to PDF by SCREENTALKwww.screentalk.org    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               1.FADE IN:EXT. NIGHT SKYFlames in the night sky. Distant SIRENS. PULLING BACK,we see that the burning building is mostly hidden by dense,black shapes that define the oceanside skyline of MirandaBeach, Florida. We're watching from across town. Thesound of a bathroom SHOWER comes to a dripping stop atabout the same time we see the naked back and head of NEDRACINE. We continue to PULL BACK INTO --RACINE'S APARTMENT - NIGHTRacine, dressed in undershorts, is standing on the smallporch off his apartment on the upper floor of an old house.Racine lights a cigarette and continues to stare off atthe fire. We've passed him now, into the bedroom of theapartment, and the shape of a young woman, ANGELA, flashesby, drying her body with a towel.                          ANGELA (O.S.)           My God, it's hot. I stepped out of           the shower and stared sweating again.           ... It's still burning? Jesus, it's           bigger! And I thought you were making           me hear those sirens.                  (she giggles)           What is it?                          RACINE           The Seawater Inn. My family used to           eat dinner there twenty-five years           ago. Now somebody's torched it to           clear the lot.Angela reappears briefly, gathering her clothes.   Shesits on an unseen bed to get dressed.                             ANGELA (O.S.)           That's a shame.                          RACINE           Probably one of my clients.                             ANGELA (O.S.)           I'm leaving.                          RACINE                  (back still turned)           It's four a.m.On the bed, Angela snaps on her bra.                          ANGELA           I go on duty at Miami Airport at           seven.                          (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               2.                         ANGELA (CONT'D)          I wouldn't mind having breakfast...          What do you care? You're watching          the fire. You're done with me. I'm          just getting into my uniform here...She is, in fact, slipping on the blouse of her Avis Rent-a-Car uniform. There's a smile on her lips as she buttonsup, watching Racine.                         ANGELA          You've had your fun. You're spent.                 (trying for a                  straight face)          I'll just slip into my uniform here          and slip away.                         RACINE          My history's burning up out here.                         ANGELA          Hey, I don't mind. I'm leaving.          Why do they make these damn skirts          so hard to zip...Now, for the first time, Racine turns to look at   her.She is sitting on the edge of the bed, half into   heruniform. Racine smiles broadly at the  sight and   movesinto the room. He pushes her back and  they both   disappearfrom sight, fabric rustling.                         RACINE          Where's your hat?                         ANGELA (O.S.)          Hey... hey...                 (giggling)          ... don't wrinkle it!                         RACINE (O.S.)          'You're spent.' Where'd you hear          that?We are left looking out over the porch at the night. Andwe go back there, across the rooftops, to the flames.INT. COURTROOM - DAYAn Assistant County Prosecutor named PETER LOWENSTEIN hasbeen conferring at the bench with JUDGE COSTANZA and nowthey both wait as Racine comes into view to join them.The Judge is irritated.                         JUDGE COSTANZA          Mr. Racine, I do no longer care          whether these alleged toilets were                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             3.                         JUDGE COSTANZA (CONT'D)          ever actually en route from Indiana          or not. I think we're wasting our          time here. It's pretty clear your          client has attempted to defraud the          county in a not very ingenious manner.                 (he nods at                  Lowenstein)          The Assistant Prosecutor has made          what I consider a generous offer.          And given that you've failed to          generate even the semblance of a          defense --                         RACINE          Judge Costanza, perhaps when I've          presented all --                         JUDGE COSTANZA          Yeah, yeah. If I were you, I'd          recommend to your client that held          quickly do as Mr. Lowenstein here          has suggested -- plead nolo          contendre, file Chapter Eleven and          agree never to do business with          Okeelanta County again.Racine is surprised and pleased.                         RACINE          You would look favorably on that?                         JUDGE COSTANZA                 (nods)          He can walk. But don't test my          patience for even five more minutes.          If he hesitates, I'll nail him.                         RACINE          I'll talk to him.Racine starts to turn.                         JUDGE COSTANZA          Mr. Racine. Next time you come into          my courtroom I hope you've got either          a better defense or a better class          of client.Lowenstein smiles.                         RACINE          Thank you, Your Honor.Racine goes back to his client, a Businessman of enormousconfidence and extravagantly untrustworthy appearance.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                4.INT. STELLA'S COFFEE SHOP - FIRST STREET - DAYRacine and Lowenstein are seated at the counter. Racinedrinks beer while Lowenstein drinks a tall iced tea veryrapidly and signals for another. This place is acrossthe street from the courthouse/police station and thereare plenty of lawyers and cops around, several of whomacknowledge Lowenstein and Racine with pats or nods.A single unit air conditioner is blowing away above thedoor, but it can't compete with the blasts of hot airthat come in with each new patron. All of these people,like the pedestrians outside the window, have strippeddown to essentials In the infernal heat. The lawyers allcarry their Jackets, but even so their shirtsleeves aresweaty. The town is sizzling.                         LOWENSTEIN          -- I think I've underestimated you,          Ned. I don't know why it took me so          long. You've started using your          incompetence as a weapon.                          RACINE                 (smiles)          My defense was evolving. You guys          got scared. Costanza doesn't like          me. What'd I do to him?                          LOWENSTEIN          He's an unhappy man, Thinks he should          be Circuit Court by now. Here he is          in a state with really top-notch          corruption and he's stuck with the          county toilets.                 (he drinks)          I'm surprised you weren't in on that          toilet caper. Could have been that          quick score you've always been          searching for.                          RACINE          Maybe Costanza was in on it.   That's          why he was mad.STELLA, the owner of the coffee shop, writes and placesseparate checks in front of the two men.                         STELLA          What's the word from the hallowed          halls of justice? Anything juicy?                         LOWENSTEIN          Maybe Stella was in on it.                 (finished his tea)          Stella, when you gonna get a real          air conditioner in here.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               5.                         STELLA          You don't like it there's lots of          other places.                         LOWENSTEIN          They don't have you. Gotta go.He stands fishing for change, but Racine takes his checkand places it with his own. Lowenstein nods and moves forthe door.                         LOWENSTEIN          You can't buy me. No sirree, I don't          come cheap.Just before he reaches the door he does a strange thing --he takes several graceful dance steps in the Astairemanner.                         A VOICE          Lowenstein, you're a fag.Lowenstein spins out the door, where he is blasted by theheavy air. His body droops as he disappears.                         STELLA          Why does he do that?                         RACINE          He's pretty good, that's the weird          part.                         STELLA          Did you hear about Dr. Block?                          RACINE          No.   Do I want to?                          STELLA                 (leans toward him,                  confidential)          Agnes Marshall.                         RACINE                 (the thought                  disgusts him)          That must have been Mrs. Block's          idea, some kind of punishment.                         STELLA          It was! How'd you know? Christ,          you're plugged in better than me.          So you must know about Mrs. Block's          friend in Ocean Grove.Racine winces, gets up, and puts money on the counter.He lights a cigarette.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              6.                         RACINE          Stella, this is beneath even you.          Things must be slow.Stella agrees with a shrug as Racine heads for the door.                           STELLA          It's the heat.EXT. FIRST STREET AND MAIN STREET - DAYRacine makes his way up First to the corner of Main andcrosses diagonally to his building on Main. He is well-known here, greeted through glass by many of the shopowners. The heat dominates much of the pantomimedconversation. Racine goes in a doorway and heads up thestairs to his office.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine's secretary, BEVERLY, is behind the desk in themodest reception room. She's a pretty girl barely pasttwenty. She pushes some phone message slips toward Racineand nods toward the sofa. A middle-aged woman client,MRS. SINGER, sits there clutching a walking stick. Herface suddenly is contorted in pain. Racine glancesmeaningfully at Beverly then turns his full solicitouscharm on Mrs. Singer.                         RACINE          Mrs. Singer, I would have gladly          come to the house.He helps her up and leads her slowly to his office.                         MRS. SINGER          No. no, the doctor says I should          walk and I had some shopping. Not          that that quack knows what he's          talking about. I tell you, Mr.          Racine, I'm not sure his testimony          is going to be very useful.                         RACINE          Don't worry about it. I'll find you          a doctor who's more understanding.          Is it bad today?                         MRS. SINGER          Oooh, you can't imagine. Nothing          can make up for the pain they've          caused me.                         RACINE          How well I know. We'll sue those          reckless bastards dry. Excuse my          language.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 7.As Mrs. Singer disappears into the office, Racine flashesa grin at Beverly.                         MRS. SINGER          Don't apologize. That's the kind of          attitude you've got to have these          days...EXT. THE BEACHFRONT - NIGHTThe hottest January in fifty years has brought the crowdsto the beach in search of relief. But they've beendisappointed. Even the breeze off the ocean seems blownfrom a hair dryer. Still, the nights are a trifle betterand the Beachfront, the penny arcades, the ice cream standsand bars are busy, even now in the middle of the week.Racine comes out of a bar and lights a cigarette, idlywatching the passing parade. There is a free band concertin progress at the band shell. Racine wanders in thatdirection.EXT. THE BAND SHELL - NIGHTThe Miranda Beach High School Orchestra is playing to afull, sweating house; the audience is a sea of orangeprograms fluttering away as fans. People come and gofrequently.The atmosphere is as innocent and informal as the musicthe band is playing now.Racine leans against the back rail, smoking, his eyesplaying over the scene with no expectations.Then, down near the center aisle, a WOMAN rises. As theband plays on, this extraordinary, beautiful woman, in asimple white dress, moves down the aisle. She moveswonderfully. The dress clings to  her body in the heat.Racine watches, mesmerized, as she walks directly towardhim. She passes within a few inches of him, her eyeslowered. Racine's body sways a moment as she goes by, asthough buffeted by some force. But they do not touch.She goes out onto the Beachfront walkway.EXT. THE BEACHFRONT WALKWAY - NIGHTThe Woman, MATTY, has walked to the rail. She standsthere now lighting a cigarette. She presents her faceto the ocean, hoping for a breeze.    We move in on her,with Racine.Racine lights a new cigarette and smiles at her. Shelooks at him and, for an instant, her eyes race over hisbody, then she looks back at the ocean.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              8.                         RACINE          You can stand here with me if you          want, but you'll have to agree not          to talk about the heat.She looks at him, and there is something startling aboutthe directness of her gaze. When she speaks, she is coolwithout being hostile.                         MATTY          I'm a married woman.                            RACINE          Meaning what?                         MATTY          Meaning I'm not looking for company.She turns back toward the ocean.                         RACINE          Then you should have said -- 'I'm a          happily married woman.'                         MATTY          That's my business.                            RACINE          What?                            MATTY          How happy I am.                         RACINE          And how, happy is that?She looks at him curiously. She begins walking slowlyalong the rail. He walks too.                         MATTY          You're not too smart, are you?Racine shakes his head "no."                         MATTY          I like that in a man.                         RACINE          What else you like -- Ugly?   Lazy?          Horny? I got 'em all.                         MATTY          You don't look lazy.Racine smiles.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              9.                         MATTY          Tell me, does chat like that work          with most women?                         RACINE          Some. If they haven't been around          much.                         MATTY          I wondered. Thought maybe I was out          of touch.She stops again at the rail as a small breeze blows infrom the ocean. She turns her back to it and, with hercigarette dangling from her lips, she uses both hands tolift her hair up off her nape. She closes her eyes asthe air hits her. Racine watches very closely.                         RACINE          How 'bout I buy you a drink?                         MATTY          I told you. I've got a husband.                         RACINE          I'll buy him one too.                         MATTY          He's out of town.                         RACINE          My favorite kind. We'll drink to          him.                         MATTY          He only comes up on the weekends.Matty lets her hair fall and again begins moving downwalkway. She drops her cigarette and steps on it.                         RACINE          I'm liking him better all the time.          You better take me up on this quick.          In another forty-five minutes I'm          going to give up and walk away.                         MATTY          You want to buy me something?   I'll          take one of these.They have come upon a Vendor selling snow cones.                         RACINE          What kind?                         MATTY          Cherry.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             10.                         RACINE                 (to Vendor)          Make it two.The Vendor scoops and pours as Racine lays some change onthe cart.                         RACINE                 (to Matty)          You're not staying in Miranda Beach.                 (she shakes her                  head "no")          I would have noticed you.                         MATTY          Is this town that small?Racine hands her a snow cone. They walk over to the rail.Racine watches her eat the snow cone with enormousinterest.                         RACINE          Pinehaven. You're staying up in          Pinehaven, on the waterway.                 (she gives him a                  look, surprised)          You have a house.                            MATTY          How'd you know?                         RACINE          You look like Pinehaven.                         MATTY          How does Pinehaven look?                            RACINE          Well tended.She looks out at the ocean.                         MATTY          Yes, I'm well tended, all right.          Well tended. What about you?                         RACINE          Me? I need tending. I need someone          to take care of me. Rub my tired          muscles. Smooth out my sheets.                            MATTY          Get married.                         RACINE          I just need it for tonight.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               11.For the first time, Matty laughs. A moment later, shespills the snow cone over the front of her dress. Itmakes a bright red stain against the white. The thinmaterial clings to the line of her breast.                           MATTY          Good.    Nice move, Matty.                           RACINE          Matty.    I like it. Right over your          heart.                         MATTY          At least it's cool. I'm burning up.                         RACINE          I asked you not to talk about the          heat.                         MATTY          Would you get me a paper towel or          something? Dip it in some cold water.Racine starts toward the restroom nearby.                           RACINE          Right away.    I'll even wipe it off          for you.                         MATTY          You don't want to lick it?This causes a momentary hitch in Racine's retreat, butthen he hurries off.INT. MEN'S ROOMRacine comes in, snaps some paper towels from the rackand turns on the water. The room is full of smoke. Afifteen-year-old Boy is leaning against the wall. Afterlooking Racine over a second, he brings the smoking jointhe's been holding behind his back into view and takes atoke. He nods at Racine, who nods back and stands upwith his wet towels. As he walks out, Racine takes adeep breath.EXT. THE BEACHFRONT - NIGHTRacine comes out of the structure. And stops. Matty isgone. Racine  looks around without much hope. Finally,he puts a wet paper towel to the back of his neck. Webegin to HEAR a strange, measured thumping, and then --EXT. THE BOARDWALK (82ND STREET) - DAWNRacine is running. The THUMPING is the sound of Racine'sbattered running shoes hitting the weathered wooden planksof the Boardwalk.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             12.Racine wears old gym shorts and a torn tee-shirt with"F.S.U." fading from the front. The raised wooden walkworks its crooked way through lush, tropical vegetation,first coming close to the wide, white beach, then juttingback inland, swallowed by greenery, then shooting outagain toward the sea. Racine hits this last stretch attop speed and launches himself flying out onto the gleamingsand.EXT. BEACH - DAWNRacine is running on the sand now, on a raised, hardenedsection that bisects the beach. His shoes make a weirdwhooshing SOUND each time they break the compacted surfaceand sink an inch below. The sun is just rising from theocean to his right, yet the day is already broiling.Racine's shirt is drenched. The WHOOSHING is hypnotic,steady; his expression indicates that it is just thissound which keeps him going.EXT. THE BAND SHELL/THE BEACH - DAYFurther on, Racine runs by the Band Shell where he'd seenMatty.EXT. THE PIER - DAYThe THUMPING returns, as Racine runs the long, straightpier directly out to sea, toward the rising sun. Alifeguard boat with an outboard motor is on the left ofthe pier. Racine watches it as he runs until it disappearsbeneath him, then reappears on his right and turns out tosea, so that it is running beside him. Racine speeds up,really kicking, racing the boat to the end of the pier.The Lifeguard on board isn't even aware of Racine, but hebeats the runner nonetheless, then veers off to continuehis business.Racine pulls up, breathing hard. He walks it off a bit,watching the boat, then turns and starts walking backalong the pier. He reaches into the waistband of hisshorts and takes out a pack of cigarettes.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine is behind the desk. Occupying the two seats infront are a married couple rapidly approaching divorce.They are arguing now, each trying to convince Racine oftheir view. Racine nods occasionally, looking from oneto the other. But he is also looking between them, throughthe open door out to the reception room, where hissecretary Beverly is kneeling before the lowest drawer ofa filing cabinet. Her back is turned and her jeans aretight across the bottom. There's nothing especiallyprovocative about her pose. She's just there. Workingaway.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 13.Racine walks across his office and closes the door.   Hegoes back to his seat. The couple continues.EXT. THE BAND SHELL - NIGHTAnother concert going on, a trio   of musicians. Racinemoves down the sidewalk away from   the audience. He looksaround as he lights a cigarette.    She is nowhere in sight.Racine opens the door to his car,   a nicked-up red '64Stingray.EXT. PINEHAVEN - DAYRacine drives past a neat sign --"You are enteringPINEHAVENPlease drive carefully"There's money here. Many of the homes are not visiblefrom the street -- only their gates announce theirpresence. Those that can be seen are sprawling and lavish.The Waterway appears to the left. A large white yachtcruises slowly by.INT. RACINE'S APARTMENT - DAYRacine sits in bed smoking a cigarette. At the mirror, aNurse in a fresh white uniform steps into her white shoesand begins attaching her cap with bobby pins.INT. COCKTAIL LOUNGE - PINEHAVEN - NIGHTDark. Almost classy. The place is half full. Matty isdrinking at the end of the bar, her cigarettes next toher glass. The bar chairs near her are empty.Racine comes in, looks around, walks over and sits in theseat next to her. She looks up, surprised.                         MATTY          Look who's here. Isn't this a          coincidence?Racine looks at her, almost as though he can't place her.But he doesn't push that effect hard. He lights acigarette.                          RACINE          I know you.                         MATTY          You're the one that doesn't want to          talk about the heat. Too bad. I'd          tell you about my chimes.                         RACINE          What about them?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               14.                         MATTY          The wind chimes on my porch. They          keep ringing and I go out there          expecting a cool breeze. That's          what they've always meant. But not          this summer, This summer it's just          hot air.                         RACINE          Do I remind you of hot air?The Bartender has come up.                         RACINE          Bourbon, any kind, on the rocks.                 (to Matty)          Another?She thinks, then nods her agreement.    The Bartender movesaway.                         MATTY          What are you doing in Pinehaven?                         RACINE          I'm no yokel. Why, I was all the          way to Miami once.                         MATTY          There are some men, once they get a          whiff of it, they'll trail you like          a hound.The Bartender brings their drinks and leaves.                         RACINE          I'm not that eager.                         MATTY          What is your name, anyway?                         RACINE                 (offers his hand)          Ned Racine.                          MATTY          Matty Walker.She takes his hand and shakes it. Racine reacts strangelyto her touch and doesn't let go right away. She gentlyfrees it, then refers to his look as she picks up herdrink --                         RACINE          Are you all right?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                  15.                          MATTY                 (laughs)          Yes. My temperature runs a couple          degrees high. Around 100 all the          time I don't mind it. It's the engine          or something.                         RACINE          Maybe you need a tune-up.                         MATTY          Don't tell me -- you have just the          right tool.                         RACINE          I don't talk that way.                         MATTY          How'd you find me, Ned?Racine gives her a look.                         RACINE          This is the only joint in Pinehaven.                         MATTY          How'd you know I drink?                         RACINE          You seemed like a woman with all the          vices.                          MATTY                 (smiles)          You shouldn't have come. You're          going to be disappointed.Racine looks out over his drink.    Several of the Men inthe place are looking at them.                         RACINE                 (referring to the                  men)          What'd I do?                         MATTY                 (indicating Racine's                  chair)          A lot of them have tried that seat.          You're the first one I've let stay.                         RACINE                 (spotting a few                  more)          You must come here a lot.                         MATTY          Most men are little boys.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             16.                         RACINE          Maybe you should drink at home.                           MATTY          Too quiet.                         RACINE          Maybe you shouldn't dress like that.                         MATTY          This is a blouse and a skirt. I          don't know what you're talking about.                         RACINE          You shouldn't wear that body.Natty leans back in her seat and glances down at herself.She's magnificent.                         MATTY          I don't like my body much.   It's          never been right.Racine has been looking at her body too. With her line,he just laughs. Matty watches him, then leans over herdrink. Her tone is different.                         MATTY          Sometimes, I don't know. I get so          sick of everything, I'm not sure I          care anymore. Do you know what I          mean, Ned?                         RACINE                 (he's not sure)          I know that sometimes the shit comes          down SO heavy I feel like I should          wear a hat.Matty laughs, studies him.                         MATTY          Yeah, that's what I mean.Ratty drains her glass and stubs out her cigarette.                          MATTY          I think I'll get out of here now.          I'm going home.                           RACINE          I'll take you.                           MATTY          I have a car.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                   17.                         RACINE          I'll follow you. I want to see the          chimes.                         MATTY          You want to see the chimes.                         RACINE          I want to hear them.She looks at him a long time.                          MATTY          That's all.   If I let you, that's          all.                         RACINE                 (gestures his                  innocence)          I'm not looking for trouble.                         MATTY                 (very serious)          I mean it. I like you.    But my life          is complicated enough.Racine again accepts.                         MATTY          This is my community bar. I might          have to come here with my husband          some time. Would you leave before          me?  Wait in your car? I know it          seems silly...                         RACINE          I don't know who we're going to fool.          You've been pretty friendly.She gives him a look and then slaps him hard!     Everyoneturns toward them.                         MATTY                 (steadily)          Now leave me alone.She stands up, takes her purse and her cigarettes, andwalks to the other end of the bar, where she sits down.Racine watches her with amazed eyes. He stands up andthrows some money on the bar.                         RACINE                 (angry)          Lady, you must be some kind of crazy!He stalks out of the bar.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                    18.INT. RACINE'S CAR - NIGHTCLOSE on his face as he drives. His look is intense,expectant. He's feeling lucky as he watches up ahead.RACINE'S POV out the windshield. Matty's shiny Mercedes450 SEL is gliding down the road ahead of him. She putson the blinker, slows and turns into a gated drive. Thedrive is canopied by heavy trees, the vegetation crowdingthe road with a primeval lushness. The headlights createsinuous welcoming shadows. It is as though Racine wereentering some separate, parallel, jungle world. Eventuallythe house comes into view.                            RACINE (O.S.)          Jesus.Matty's car swings around in the parking area and stops.Racine pulls the Stingray up next to it, facing the otherway. He watches Matty slide her long legs out of thecar. She glances at Racine and for an instant there is ahint of self-consciousness under the weight of his gaze.We begin to HEAR the soft tinkling of chimes.EXT. THE WALKER HOUSE - FRONT TERRACE - NIGHTRacine follows closely behind Matty as they go up thestairs. At the door, Matty turns suddenly and looks atRacine.                         MATTY          Remember your promise.Racine agrees. Matty looks him over a moment, then turnsto unlock the door.INT. ENTRY HALL/SECOND FLOOR HALL - NIGHTMatty comes in and puts her purse on a hall table as Racinemoves forward to look around. Despite the night gloom,it's clear the place is expensively decorated in a mannerentirely consistent with the exterior of the house. Fineantiques, carefully chosen fabrics, and a meticulousselection of accessories have given the place the look ofan affluent home of Thirties America. And yet the overalleffect is almost contemporary, so burnished are the woods,so fresh all the elements. It works.                         RACINE          Just like my place.Matty gives him a searching look, then      leads   him up thestairs, flipping on only an occasional      light   in theirpath. In the second floor hall, Matty       moves   to the frontof the house. Racine glances into the       gloom   that hidesMatty's bedroom.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              19.                           RACINE          No help?                         MATTY          She goes home nights.                         RACINE          You're not nervous alone?Matty pauses at the doors to the porch, unlocking them,and looks at Racine as though she barely understands thequestion.                           MATTY          No.EXT. SECOND FLOOR PORCH - NIGHTThe TINKLING is distinct out here. Matty and Racine comeout onto the porch. There are about thirty wind chimesof various, lovely designs -- crystal, metal, wood hangingat intervals from the rim of the wide porch awning,completely encircling Matty and Racine.Halfway down the long lawn is a white gazebo. Beyond it,the waterway is shimmering in the moonlight. At the edgeof the water is a small boat house.Racine walks along under the chimes, looking up at them.A smile plays across her face. He looks back at Matty,                         RACINE          You do have chimes.He looks out at the boat house.                           RACINE          What's that?                           MATTY          A gazebo                           RACINE          No, out there.                           MATTY          Boat house.                         RACINE          What is in there?                           MATTY          Boat.Racine moves back and stands very close to her. He looksat her in the moonlight, but she concentrates on thedistant water.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 20.                         MATTY          It's a mess. There's a row boat, a          lot of lounge chairs... things like          that.Racine puts his hand up under her hair, on her nape. Shecloses her eyes at his touch, then moves away, as thoughby an act, of will, to the door, half opening it.                         MATTY          I think you should go now.                         RACINE          I just got here.                         MATTY          You've seen them. Please go.Racine steps toward her, but she ducks inside and movesthrough the intermittent light of the hall and down thesteps. Racine follows her.INT. ENTRY HALLMatty stops at the entry hall, leaning against the wall.                         RACINE          You didn't bring me here to see your          wind chimes.He puts an arm on each side of her, caging her againstthe wall. She looks up at him.                         MATTY          Yes, I did. I said what I meant.          Do you ever do that?                            RACINE          No.     not very often.He kisses her light on the forehead.   Again she reacts,but fights it.                         RACINE          I don't think you want me to go.                            MATTY          Yes... Please.He kisses her lightly on the nose.                         RACINE          There's nothing to be afraid of.                         MATTY          There is for me.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                21.Matty slips under his arms and quickly steps out the frontdoor. She stands just outside watching him. Racine shakeshis head, goes out there.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - NIGHTRacine stops next to Matty.    She doesn't move away.                         MATTY          Thank you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't          have lot you come.Racine looks at her a long time.                         RACINE          You're not so tough after all, are          you?                           MATTY          No...    I'm weak.She kisses him on the lips and steps quickly inside thefront door. She closes it, looks through the window athim, then moves away.EXT. PARKING AREA - NIGHTRacine stands looking at   the door a  few moments. Then hewalks to his car. Again    he stops.   He looks back at thehouse. The wind picks up    a bit and  the TINKLING of thewind chimes gets louder.    And then  louder.Racine goes back up onto the porch fast.    He goes to thefront door and looks through the window.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - NIGHTRACINE'S POV. Matty is standing at the bottom of thestairs in the hall. She is looking directly at the frontdoor. Frozen in the spot.Racine tries the door. It's locked. He shakes it hard,but it's solid. He looks to his left. There are windowsdown the wall there. He moves to them. They go into theliving room but their shutters are closed. He looksthrough a broken slat at Matty, who watches him from thesame spot, through the living room door. Racine triesthem. They won't budge. Racine moves to his right pastthe front door, to the windows off the dining room. Hepushes at them as his eyes lock with Matty, who watchesfrom the hall. The windows won't move, Racine spins andpicks up the nearest object, a wooden rocking chair. Helifts it, turns and smashes the big window. Glass showersinto the dining room.Matty watches.    She hasn't moved.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                22.Racine pushes the broken window out of his way.    He comesin, like a violent gust of wind.INT. HALLRacine crosses the dark living room  fast. As he reachesMatty, she lifts her arms to match  his embrace. Theycome together hard and tight. They   kiss. And kiss again.Her hands travel over his body, as  though she's wantedthem there for a long time.They turn once slowly along the wall, into the dimness ofthe central hall. Then he rotates her body away fromhim, holding her close.                           MATTY            Yes, yes...Then she is just nodding. Racine puts his face deep intoher hair, closing his eyes as the smell of her washesover him.Matty turns in his arms and kisses him hard.    Racine pullsher close to him and they sink to the floor.                           RACINE            That's right... that's right.CLOSE ON Matty's face, a look that might be anguish. Shebites her lip in expectation. Racine moves over her.                           MATTY            Please, please ...She pulls him tightly to her, clinging like a drowningwoman.                                               DISSOLVE TO:INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTRacine and Matty lie under a sheet on her big bed.    Hereyes are closed. There are more wind chimes on the    secondfloor of the verandah, which is off this room, and   Racineis listening to their TINKLING. Racine looks over    inthat direction.RACINE'S POV. The moonlit, sheer white curtains on thewindow roil to a light breeze. Racine's gaze travelsover the luxurious bedroom; here too, it is in the Thirtiesstyle. Their clothes are haphazardly thrown across adivan and on the floor nearby. A delicate fern sways inthe wind. Finally, he is looking at a lovely writingdesk against the far wall. Some tissue-thin stationeryflaps in the breeze, kept in place by the weight of apen. Then, as he looks, the paper stops flapping and thechimes gradually STOP TINKLING. Racine looks toward thewindow. It is still open, but the air had died.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               23.The curtains hang still.Racine's face.   The world has stopped.                          MATTY (O.S.)                 (softly)          I didn't want this to happen. But I          didn't try hard enough to stop it...          Because I wanted you. I wanted you          here, like this ... This is bad for          me. I know it. Now nothing's going          to be the same anymore.FROM ABOVE THEM, we see them framed by the bed.EXT. STREET IN FRONT OF WALKER HOUSE - DAYNear the front gate of  the Walker place, a heavyset, middle-aged woman, BETTY, THE  WALKER'S HOUSEKEEPER, has beenwaiting on a bus stop  bench. Now she lifts her tiredbody to board a public  bus.Down the Street, just around a corner, Racine watches hergo. He puts the Stingray in gear and drives to theWalkers.EXT. WALKERS' BOAT HOUSE - SUNSETLights are going on across the waterway, sending shimmerstoward the boat house.INT. WALKERS' BOAT HOUSE - SUNSETWe're looking out a dusty window at the waterway. WeHEAR Racine and Matty disentangle and roll apart o.s.,Racine grunting his exhaustion. After a moment, Racinerises up into frame, looking happy. He looks down towhere he was and rests against the wall.                         RACINE          I like this place. It's got a nice          feel.                         MATTY (O.S.)          You were on top.                         RACINE          So it could use a better mattress.          See to it, will you?                           MATTY (O.S.)          Yes sir.Racine turns and stares out at the ocean. Matty rises upbehind and hugs him from the back. She kisses his shoulderblades and presses her cheek against his spine.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                24.                         RACINE                 (reacting)          Hey, gimme a break here.    It takes a          little while.                          MATTY                 (ignoring him,                  laughs)          It's your fault.                         RACINE                 (smiling)          It takes me a good thirty seconds.                           MATTY          Are you sure?    I just want to make          sure here.She pulls him down.On the lounge cushions that are spread across the floor,Matty rolls on top of Racine. Racine reacts withexaggerated pain to the roughness of the cushions.                         RACINE          Jesus, I think you're right --                 (he rolls over her)          -- you better be on the bottom.                         MATTY          No, you misunderstood --                 (she rolls over                  him)          -- this is my new saddle, and I just          want to --                          RACINE          Wow!   No, I must object --Laughing, they roll again and we're on Racine's face aswe:                                                   CUT TO:INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTRacine's face; he is still rolling, but he is alone. Hehas just rolled off the bed. He lies there like a deadman.                            RACINE                    (finally, breathless)          Enough.INT. MASTER BATHROOM - NIGHTRacine is at the sink, having just washed his tired face.He opens the medicine cabinet and looks at all the    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               25.toiletries of Matty's husband. He selects a cologne, isimpressed by its expensive look, and slaps a little onhis jaw.  He doesn't like the smell. He closes the cabinetand moves back into the bedroom.INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTMatty, wrapped in a thin white terrycloth robe, isstripping the bed of its sheets. Racine watches fromacross the room.                            RACINE             What are you doing?                            MATTY             I've got to wash these.                            RACINE             You're afraid of your maid?                            MATTY             That's right. My mother told me             "knowledge is power."                            RACINE             This is an interesting interpretation.             Is that why you've started smoking             my brand?Matty straightens with an armload of sheets.                            MATTY             No one must know. Promise me, Ned.             No one.He promise with a gesture.INT. RACINE'S APARTMENT - DAWNRacine comes in, beat. He throws his jacket across achair. Out the windows to the porch, the sun is risingout of the Atlantic. Racine goes there and closes thecurtains. In the gloom he walks to his bed and sits onthe edge, kicking off his shoes. He picks up his alarmclock and begins setting it.EXT. WALKER HOUSE - LAWN/GAZEBO - NIGHTRacine has just parked his car and is walking back acrossthe lawn. Matty is standing in the gazebo, her backturned, looking out at the Waterway.She is dressed in white and from here she looks very muchas she did when they first met. There are wind chimeshanging from the gazebo.                            RACINE             Hey, lady, wanna make love?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              26.The lady in question turns around, surprised. It is notMatty at all. It is MARY ANN. She's attractive, but alittle cheap-looking. She looks him over.                         MARY ANN          I don't know. Maybe This sure is a          friendly town.Racine is nonplussed.   He doesn't know what to do.                          RACINE          I'm sorry.                         MARY ANN                 (mock hurt feelings)          You are? You mean the offers no          good?Racine comes up on the porch.                         RACINE          I feel like a jerk.Mary Ann gives him a salacious smile.                          MARY ANN          Maybe you were supposed to deliver          it next door?                 (a beat)          You must be looking for the lady of          the house.Unbeknownst to either of them, Matty has been watchingfrom the lawn. Now she moves up into the gazebo. In herright hand she has an envelope, well-filled and sealed.EXT. INTERSECTIONA block away from the station, the patrol car races towardan intersection. Suddenly, a WOMAN steps into the street,pushing a baby buggy. Pat slams on the brakes, and thecar skids sideways toward the intersection, where it rocksonto two wheels and stops just a few yards short of thebuggy. Sam sticks his head out the window.                          SAM          Are you crazy, lady?     Didn't you          hear the siren?The woman dives to the ground as the BABY sits up in thebuggy -- he is a midget with a cigar in his mouth and atommy gun in his hands. Pat jerks Sam to the floor justas the midget opens fire.The midget riddles the car with bullets. Headlightsexplode, windows are smashed, the grill is torn to shreds,and steam mushrooms into the air.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                27.All four tires are flattened, a bumper is sheared off,and still the blasting goes on.There's almost nothing left of the patrol car as a darksedan wheels into the intersection to pick up the womanand the midget. The sedan speeds away, and Pat and Samclimb out of the rubble, unhurt but very shaken.                                                 CUT TO:INT. TRACY'S CARSiren off, Tracy cuts the motor and silently glides intoCullen Park, stopping just under a low-hanging weepingwillow.EXT. BOATHOUSEApproaching the boathouse carefully, Tracy takes out hispistol. The front door is ajar. Tracy pushes it, and itcreaks open. He enters cautiously.INT. BOATHOUSEThe boathouse is dark, lit only by moonlight and parklights that shine through the windows. Tensely, Tracylistens for sounds, then moves very carefully past stackedup rowboats and canoes.Traced against a window at the far end of the boathouse,Tracy sees the silhouette of a man. Gripping his pistol,he moves silently toward that silhouette, closing in onit while keeping alert for movement.                         MATTY          Ned, this is Mary Ann.Matty hands the envelope to Mary Ann, who puts it in herpurse.                         MARY ANN                 (smiling)          We were just meeting. Ned made me          feel very welcome.                         RACINE          I'm an idiot. Nice to meet you.          Are you staying in town?                         MARY ANN          No, no, just passing through. Nice          area. A little hot for my tastes.                          RACINE          It's unusual.   We're famous for our          cool breezes.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              28.There is a pregnant pause as Mary Ann looks him over,fighting some private amusement.                         MATTY                 (to Mary Ann)          Do you want to stay for dinner?                         MARY ANN                 (negative)          Got to go, got to go.She pecks Matty on the cheek, then steps close to Racineto shake his hand.                         MARY ANN          You two have fun now.She's smiling as she leaves the gazebo and walks acrossthe lawn. Matty  takes Racine's arm as they watch MaryAnn get into her little sports car, which has been pulledup close to the house. She pulls out waving.                         RACINE          I didn't see her car. I'm sorry.    I          got to be more careful.Matty turns to him and puts her arms around his neck.                         MATTY          Mary Ann's an old friend. She's          like a sister to me. She wants me          to be happy.EXT. LAWN/LAGOONS - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty's Mercedes has been pulled out onto lawn next tothe lagoons which border the grass.  Racine and Matty canbe seen, intermittently rising into view in the back seat,grappling, then disappearing again.  Matty is giggling.                         RACINE (O.S.)                 (not in a jovial                  mood)          You know, this has never been one of          my pleasures. Car. I considered          the time I spent making it --                 (grunts, sits up)          -- like this ... penance for some          sin.                         MATTY (O.S.)          What sin?                         RACINE          I never knew. Maybe worshipping          women instead of God. But it never          did anything for me.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                29.                         MATTY (O.S.)          Not even a Mercedes?                 (Racine shakes his                  head)          With genuine calf skin upholstery?                         RACINE          No.                         MATTY (O.S.)          Not this?Matty rises up, wraps her arms around his neck and kisseshim deeply. She pulls him out of sight.                                               DISSOLVE TO:INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTAn ashtray, full to overflowing, on the rug next to Matty'sbed. And, above it, Matty's hand, clutching the sheetson the side of the bed.                                               DISSOLVE TO:INT. MASTER BATHROOMRacine and Matty lie together in the full bathtub. Onthe floor beside the tub is the container that catchesthe ice from a refrigerator's automatic icemaker.                         RACINE          You're killing me.                         MATTY          Is there any more ice?   I'm burning          up.Racine gropes for the ice container and dumps the remainingice cubs Into the tub with them. Matty snatches one outof the water and holds it to her forehead.                         MATTY          He's coming up tomorrow.Racine knows.                         MATTY          I can't stand the thought of him...          He's small and mean... and weak.Racine watches some water run through his fingers. Hecradles her head in an embrace that has nothing to dowith sex. She looks sad.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              30.EXT. GROUNDS - WALKER'S PLACE -- NIGHTThe Middle of the Night. A light FOG has rolled in.Racine is walking slowly through the shadows of the heavyfoliage. He stops beside a rubber tree.RACINE'S POV. The Walker House. In front sits a hugewhite Cadillac. All the lights in the house are out.The wind chimes TINKLE softly.Racine lights a cigarette.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine stands at the window staring down at the busy MainStreet. He is far away.INT. ENTRY HALL - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTRacine has just entered.   Matty is calling from somewhereout of sight.                         MATTY (O.S.)          Just do what I say! Go into the          living room.                         RACINE          Come on! It's been three days.      I          want to see you --                         MATTY (O.S.)          I'm going to make it up to you          tonight. But you must behave.      Now          go!                          RACINE          I'm going.   I'm going.INT. LIVING ROOMRacine goes into the living room and sits down on thecouch.                           RACINE          I'm here.                           MATTY (O.S.)          Good.Matty comes in carrying a tray with two drinks on it.And she is dressed in the uniform of an airline stewardess,complete all the way to her little cap. She cannot keepa straight face, despite her efforts. Racine begins tolaugh.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                31.                         MATTY                 (choking back her                  giggles)          Good evening, sir... welcome to...          to Flight 413 ... nonstop to ...She hands him a drink, but he takes it and the tray andputs them on the floor. He pulls her down across hislap. They are both laughing hard. He kisses her.                         RACINE          What do you take me for?                         MATTY          Don't you like it?                         RACINE          You think I'm a kid?                         MATTY          You don't like it? I thought you          went for this stuff.He pushes her back across the sofa.                           MATTY          Wait ...   wait ... I want to tell you          about the   thing... the thing that          will drop   from the ceiling... in          case the   cabin suddenly depressurizes --          oho...EXT. DRIVING RANGE - NIGHTA dozen Golfers are practicing, spotted along the  row ofhitting pads under floodlights. Most are drenched   withsweat from their exertion in the muggy air. Their   randomlytimed swings send streaking white bullets into thedarkness. But what is hypnotic, what so captures   a hotnight in sound, is the irregular CRACKING of clubs  meetingballs: CRACK, CRACK-CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK!In the darkness of the overlooking parking lot, behind ahigh fence, sits the Stingray, with Racine in the driver'sseat and Matty close beside him. They sit in silence.                         MATTY                 (finally)          What are we doing here?                               RACINE                    (hushed)          Listen!                 (CRACK, CRACK)          I love that sound.Matty listens, but her eyes are on Racine.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                32.                         MATTY          I want to be in bed.                         RACINE          Is that all you ever think about?Racine watches the Golfers, listening intently.    Then hesees that Matty is crying. He comforts her.                          RACINE          Hey!   I'm kidding.Matty looks straight ahead and her tone is somber.                         MATTY          Yes ... that's all I ever think about          ... You and me. Your body near mine,          close. I'm not right when you're          not with me. I get the shakes. And          each time, when I first see you, I          shake even more. For a while. And          then I get calm. I feel safe ...          I've never been this way. I can't          remember how I lived before.He knows it's true. It's the same for him. He wipes hercheeks with his hand. CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, CRACK.EXT./INT. WALKER HOUSE (SERIES OF SHOTS) - NIGHTWATERWAY/BOAT HOUSE -- The water laps against the pier.Gently. The quiet sound almost overpowered by theinsistent buzz of the night insects. The CAMERA MOVEStoward the house.LAGOON/GAZEBO -- A giant palmetto bug leaps from a lilypad into the water, creating a tiny ripple. The CAMERAMOVES toward the house.STAIRWELL/HALLWAY -- Quiet and dark. The CAMERA MOVESalong the shiny white posts of the stairs. Upward.INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTRacine and Matty are in bed. Matty is sound asleep, herback close to Racine. But he is not asleep. He is proppedup, looking down at her. We've never seen his face likethis before. Never this open, never so much in repose.She stirs, and then is still again. He touches her hairlightly. She sleeps.INT. STELLA'S COFFEE SHOP - DAYSame courthouse/cop crowd as before. Racine finishes asandwich at a table as Lowenstein sits down with two tallglasses of iced coffee, both of which he drinks down.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               33.                         RACINE          You look terrible. Don't you sleep?                         LOWENSTEIN          I had a dream last night that was so          boring it woke me up. I was afraid          to go back to sleep. Where the hell          have you been?                         RACINE          What do you mean, I been around.                         LOWENSTEIN          I've barely seen you for a month.          Wait a minute -- it's some new quiff,          isn't it? What's wrong with me.Racine dismisses this with a gesture.                         LOWENSTEIN          You've never been shy about that          stuff.At this moment, DETECTIVE OSCAR GRACE, a   big, powerfulblack man comes in. He's a plainclothes    cop in shirtsleeves, his jacket in his hand. As he    passes Racine onhis way to the third seat at the table,   he squeezesRacine's shoulders with his huge hands,   by way of greeting.                         RACINE          Oscar.                        GRACE          Hey. You weren't at the Y last week.          We lost.                         LOWENSTEIN                 (about Racine)          He's getting discreet. I can't          believe it.Stella comes over.                         GRACE          Whatcha got in pie today, Stella?                         STELLA                 (glancing behind                  her)          Cherry, cherry... and cherry.                         GRACE          What do you recommend?                         STELLA          I like the cherry.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                34.                          GRACE          Bring it on.   And a gigantic Coke.                         LOWENSTEIN          I'm really disappointed, Racine.          I've been living vicariously off you          for years. If you shut up on me,          I'll have just my wife.                         RACINE          There's nothing to tell.   I lead a          lonely life.                        GRACE          Right. And it's gonna snow later          today --                         LOWENSTEIN          ... And people are basically decent..                 (looking around                  the restaurant)          ... Must be someone I know. Let's          see -- someone in uniform...Grace laughs. Racine shakes his head in mock exasperation.                         LOWENSTEIN          ...no Army personnel around.          Waitress... Could it be...                 (like Brando in                  "Streetcar," but                  soft)          ...Stella!Stella arrives with Grace's order. Lowenstein looks herover as a possible for Racine, but shakes his head. Stellalingers. Lowenstein spots someone, speaks to Racine in aloud, excited whisper.                         LOWENSTEIN          I know, I know -- you finally got to          Glenda.Across the restaurant, GLENDA, a Meter Maid, is talkingwith some other women.                         LOWENSTEIN          How was it? Did she let you into the          no parking zone?                         STELLA          I'll have you know Glenda is seriously          involved with a narc from Palm Beach.                         RACINE                 (smiling his                  innocence)          There you are.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org           35.                         LOWENSTEIN          A narc from Palm Beach? Is that his          hobby?                         RACINE          How's the cop business, Oscar?                         GRACE          Real good. Always starts hoppin' in          weather like this. When it gets hot,          people try to kill each other.                         STELLA          It's true. I could tell you some          people who'll be dead if we don't          get a break soon.She leaves.   The three men exchange amused looks.                         GRACE          We've got more of everything bad          since the wave started. It's the          crisis atmosphere. People dress          different, feel different, sweat          more. They wake up cranky and they          never recover. Look at Lowenstein.                 (a flash of smile)          Things are just a little askew. Pretty          soon people think the old rules aren't          in effect. They start breaking them.          Figure no one'll care, cause it's          emergency time... time out.He takes a big bite of pie.                         LOWENSTEIN          Oscar, I just don't understand how          you could be doing advanced          theoretical thinking like that and          still be stuck working in our little          town.                         GRACE                 (good-humored)          Lowenstein dreams of bigger things.                         LOWENSTEIN          Assistant County Prosecutor isn't          the end for me, fellows.                         RACINE          Hell, no. Someday -- Deputy County          Prosecutor.                         LOWENSTEIN          When the truth comes out about some          of the dirt I've been involved in,                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                36.                         LOWENSTEIN (CONT'D)          my future in this state will be          unlimited.Glenda the Meter Maid passes their table on her way out.She has eyes only for Racine.                         GLENDA          Hello, Ned.                         RACINE          Hi, Glenda.She goes out. Lowenstein and Grace look at Racine, thenat each other. Grace smiles hugely.EXT. LIGHTHOUSE/SAND DUNES - NIGHTThe big beacon turns in the distance, throwing anintermittent bridge of light across the water toward us.The undulating dunes stretch off as far as we can see.Racine's Stingray is parked on the dirt access road. Belowit, Racine and Matty sit close in the warm sand.                         MATTY          Don't say it, if you don't mean it.          Please, Ned, don't.                         RACINE          I do. I want you with me.She looks at him a long time. There is real joy in herface. And tears in her eyes. We're very close to thoseeyes as she wipes the tears away. Racine puts an arm aroundher. She looks out at the lighthouse.                         MATTY          I'm going to tell Edmund I want a          divorce. I won't stay any longer. I          would have, if you hadn't come along.          The life is comfortable. I was          willing to go on. But you've reminded          me of what it can be... I know now          that these last three years I've          been living half a life. It's my          fault, I don't deny it. You have to          let yourself be bought. I did. I          let it happen. I've lived so much of          my life with nothing. When you have          no money, you have no choices. I          don't care what they say -- money is          freedom. That's something they don't          teach you in school. But I found          out. And when Edmund came along when          I saw a chance to stop struggling I          took it. I'm not ashamed.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org          37.                           MATTY (CONT'D)          He got   what he wanted... he has a          knack   for that. But no more. I'm          ready   to walk away from the money.          I have   to be with you.                         RACINE                 (kisses her, smiles)          It is conceivable I'll make a buck          someday.                         MATTY                 (hugs him closer)          Oh, I know you will, darling. I didn't          mean that. I know you will. But it          doesn't matter. It's you I want.          That's all.                         RACINE          Anyway, you'll come out all right.                            MATTY          Of the divorce?                           RACINE          Yeah.    He's ripe.Matty is silent for a long beat.                          MATTY          No.   I signed a pre-nuptial agreement.                            RACINE          What?                         MATTY          He insisted. He blamed it on his          sister Roz -- she's always hated me --          but I know he wanted it too.                            RACINE          How is it?                         MATTY          Bad. I get some money for a year.          Not much. That's it. But I don't          care, Ned. Not if I can be with you.She searches his face, almost frightened.                         MATTY          Does it matter, Ned? Tell me the          truth please. I'll understand, I          swear to you.                         RACINE          The truth? I wish you were going to          be loaded. Does it matter? No. No.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               38.They kiss.                            MATTY             God, you've made me happy.                    (she pulls away)             It's time for your present.She jumps up and runs back to the car. Racine walks backthere as Matty takes a wrapped package out of the car.She hands it to Racine, who leans against the car to unwrapit.                            MATTY             From now on, when it starts coming             down on you, I'll be there to protect             you.Racine opens the box and smiles broadly. It is a hat afedora in the classic style.                            MATTY             Put it on! I'll bet I guessed the             size right.Racine puts on the fedora. It fits. He looks simultaneouslyold-fashioned, a visitor from the Forties, and also verychic, a present-day fashion plate. But most of all, helooks exactly right. Matty squeals in glee at the sight.                              MATTY             I love it.                              RACINE             I want to see.Racine tries to see his reflection in the car's side viewmirror but he has trouble. Matty, very animated in herdelight, steps up and kisses him quickly.                            MATTY             Look in my eyes. Can you see yourself?Racine tries for a moment, then gives up with a laugh.                              MATTY             Here!Matty opens the door of the Stingray and sits in thepassenger seat with her legs out. She rolls up the windowin that door as Racine stands before it. The glass capturethe moonlight to make a perfect mirror. As the windowgoes up, Racine's reflection appears on the glass, posingin his hat. At the same time, Matty's face disappearsfrom view.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               39.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine lies on the couch. He spins the fedora Matty gavehim on his finger, Beverly comes up and leans against thedoorjamb. She's wearing a tee-shirt and tight slacks; shelooks good. She watches him for a moment.                         BEVERLY          Big weekend planned?                         RACINE          Nope, Small weekend. Tiny little          weekend.                         BEVERLY          There's jazz tonight at the beach...          if you're not doing anything...                         RACINE          Beverly, do yourself a big favor and          forget it.                         BEVERLY          Forget what?                         RACINE          Whatever you're thinking.She shrugs.. She turns back to her desk, unconvinced.INT. BAR - NIGHTBusy weekend crowd. Racine sits drinking alone at thebar. He signals for another.EXT. STREET IN FRONT OF WALKER PLACE - NIGHTRacine drives slowly by, head craning to peer into thedarkness. We begin to HEAR the thumping again --EXT. THE PIER - DAYRacine has been running. Walking now,  breathing hard, hetakes his cigarettes from his shorts.  At the end of thepier he folds his body over the rail  so that it looks asthough he will topple over the edge.  But he does not; helights up and looks down there.RACINE'S POV. The water following against the thickpilings. Then, TILTING UP, UP, AND OVER, past the ocean'shorizon to the perfect blue sky, which fills the screen.Racine is looking straight up, blowing his own clouds.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               40.INT. RACINE'S APARTMENT - DAYRacine lies smoking in bed, bathed in sweat, a beer nearby.A fan is pointed at him, but it's blowing hot air. Helooks at the telephone.EXT. PORCH OF RACINE'S APARTMENT - NIGHTFog. Thick and heavy. Racine's cigarette glows in it ashe sits in the gray limbo. The phone in the apartmentRINGS.INT. RACINE'S APARTMENTRacine comes in from the porch and picks up the phone.                            RACINE             Yeah.                            MATTY                    (filtered)             Come to me.                            RACINE             Did you tell him?                            MATTY                    (filtered, after a                     pause)             No... I couldn't.Racine's face relaxes. He looks relieved.                            RACINE             Okay, I'm coming.EXT. SECOND FLOOR PORCH - WALKER PLACE - NIGHTSame thick fog. The wind chimes TINKLE softly. Lightseeps out from Matty's bedroom windows, half-revealingRacine and Matty lying together on a lounge. Matty is inher white terrycloth robe, Racine just shorts.                            RACINE             How do you know?                            MATTY             I saw the will once. He showed it             to me. He was trying to prove             something ... how much he loved me             or something.                            RACINE             How'd he get so fat?   Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              41.                        MATTY         The stock market, investments, real         estate. He doesn't tell me anything,         but I've picked up a little. I know         they own a lot of land along the         shore here.                           RACINE         Who's "they"'                        MATTY                (she doesn't know)         He's never introduced me to anyone.         I'm not sure if they're all         legitimate.                        RACINE                (snorts at the                 odds of that)         I wonder what they call themselves.         Maybe I've heard of them.                        MATTY         They own that old place in Miranda         Beach, The Breakers... I know that.                        RACINE                (surprised)         The Breakers? I thought Hermie Fisher         owned that land.                         MATTY                (shrugs)         Edmund mentioned it once.Racine lights another cigarette and gazes off into thefog, thinking. Matty presses her cheek against his chestand closes her eyes tight.                        MATTY         Ned, it scares me to talk about these         things.                           RACINE         Why?                           MATTY         You know.                           RACINE         No.    I don't.                        MATTY         Let's just not, okay? Let's not         think about all he's got.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                42.                         RACINE                 (pressing)          What is it, Matty? Tell me exactly          what frightens you.                         MATTY          I'm afraid... because when I think          about it, I wish that he'd die. That's          really what I want. It's horrible          and ugly and It's what I most want.Racine looks off into the night for a few beats, then helifts her face so he can look into her eyes.                         RACINE          That's where we're at, isn't it,          Matty?                         MATTY          What do you mean?                         RACINE          That's what we're both thinking --          how good it'd be for us if he were          gone. It'd be real sweet for us.                         MATTY          Don't talk about it, Ned. Please          don't. Talk is dangerous. Sometimes          it makes things happen, it makes it          real.                         RACINE          Don't let it scare you. Because he's          not gonna die. There's nothing wrong          with him, is there? There's no reason          to think he's gonna die, is there?Matty shakes her head "no," lays it in his chest again.                         RACINE          That's right. So we might as well          forget about it, It's not gonna just          happen to make things nice for us...          It won't just happen.Racine lifts her head and kisses her on the mouth.                         MATTY          I'm afraid, Ned.                         RACINE          Maybe that's a smart way to be now,          Matty. Maybe we both should be.Racine takes a last drag on his cigarette and flicks itout into the fog,    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                43.                         RACINE          The only thing wrong with your husband          right now... is us.INT. BAR - PAY PHONE AT BACKAgain, Racine is getting no answer.   He gives up, goesback to his seat at the bar.EXT. TELEPHONE BOOTH - MAIN STREET - DAYLate afternoon. Racine, sportcoat slung over his shoulder,listens to repeated ringing at the other end of his call.He's surprised there's no answer. People drag by, makingtheir way home from work in the heat. Finally, Racinehangs up.Racine comes out of the phone booth. He has nowhere togo. He ambles down the street. A few people say hello.He walks diagonally across the street toward a restaurantcalled "Tulio's."INT. TULIO'S RESTAURANT - DUSKThe best restaurant in Miranda Beach. Racine slips onhis jacket as he comes in the door. He waves to theHostess across the dining room, indicating he'll be alonetonight. She signals a short wait. He steps toward thebar, bringing him suddenly face to face with Matty.                          RACINE          Well, well.   Hello to you --The panic which shoots across her face, cuts him off inmid-sentence, a split second before EDMUND WALKER appearsbehind her. Matty's face goes calm and she smilespolitely.                           MATTY                   (to Racine)          Hello.She turns to her husband. He is not what Racine expected.He may, in fact, be mean, as Matty described him, but helooks neither small nor weak. A handsome man, he is biggerthan Racine and in terrific shape. Dressed in an expensivesummer suit, he radiates vigor and controlled physicalpower. He wears sleek, metal-framed glasses.                         MATTY          Darling, I'd like you to meet Mr.          Racine. I'm sorry. I don't know your          first name.                           RACINE          Ned.He offers his hand and Walker encloses it firmly in his.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                44.                           WALKER          Edmund Walker.    Nice to meet you.                         MATTY          Mr. Racine is the lawyer I told you          about.                 (Walker doesn't                  remember)          You remember. He had a client who          wanted to buy the house. I told him          we weren't selling.                           WALKER          Right.                         RACINE          That hasn't changed, has it?                         WALKER          No, we're very happy with it.                          RACINE                 (nods)          I can understand that.    It's a          terrific place.Walker nods, looking at Racine carefully.    He motionstoward the dining room.                         WALKER          Are you going in?                         RACINE          I was just going to grab a bite.                           WALKER          Join us.                         RACINE          No. Thanks very much, but I don't          want to interfere with --The Hostess has come toward them.                         WALKER          Don't be silly. Come on.                 (to Hostess)          We have room for three, don't we?The Hostess nods and leads the way. Walker gestures Mattyahead, then puts a big hand behind Racine's elbow andushers him into the dining room.                         WALKER          I've heard this place is great. But          you can't get near it on the weekends          and I don't get down during the week          much.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               45.                            RACINE          Is that right?                                                  WIPE TO:LATERThey have finished their salad at a table toward the back.A Waiter comes and takes away their dishes. Walker hastaken off his glasses and is cleaning the lenses with alovely handkerchief. He does this cleaning with enormouscare and inordinate relish. His manner is a mix of gruffcharm and hinted menace. There's something dangerousabout the man and it's perfectly distilled in his smile,which is quick, frequent and vaguely threatening.                         WALKER          I was a lawyer. Still am, I guess.          But I don't practice. Went to          Columbia. You?                            RACINE          F. S. U.                            WALKER                 (nods)          Good school.  I got bored with it          quick. I guess I didn't have the          temperament.  I wanted to make the          money faster.  Is there a living in          it here?                         RACINE          I can afford to send my shirts out.          And eat here once a month, if I don't          order an appetizer.Walker smiles, re-folds his handkerchief carefully andputs it back in the cheat pocket of his jacket.                         WALKER          I figured an honest lawyer doesn't          make much and the other kind was too          slimy for me. I'd rather be upfront          about shafting somebody.                            MATTY          Edmund, really.     It's Mr. Racine's          profession.                         RACINE          That's all right. I don't like it          much.                         WALKER          What's to like. That's the way of          the world. Most people despise their          jobs.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              46.Walker picks up a wine bottle and pours more into each oftheir glasses, emptying it.                            RACINE          Do you?                            WALKER          No. I love it.     But it's not a job.                         RACINE          What is it, exactly?Walker signals to a distant Waiter for another bottle ofwine. He does it with a small flick of his finger.                            WALKER          Various things.     This and that.          Here and there.                         RACINE          You don't have to be specific.                         WALKER                 (that smile again)          Finance, basically. Venture capital,          Investments, real estate. We're          into a few things.                          RACINE          Yeah?   Around here?                          WALKER          Some.   We own some things here.                         MATTY          Edmund's company owns The Breakers.                            RACINE          Is that right?For a second, Walker's eyes flick over Matty like a whip.                         WALKER          It's not that simple. We have an          interest in a few places along the          shore. For the land. You know.          Someday. There's no explaining it          to her.                         MATTY                 (to Racine)          I'm too dumb. Woman, you know.She picks up her purse and stands up with a good-humoredsmile. The men rise.                         MATTY          I'll be right back.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             47.Then maybe we can talk about pantyhose or somethinginteresting.She walks away. Walker watches her go with a satisfied,possessive grin. They sit.                         WALKER          She's something, isn't she?                           RACINE                 (nods)          A lovely lady.                         WALKER          Yes, she is. I'm crazy about her.          If I ever thought she was seeing          another guy... I don't know.                 (he takes a sip of                  wine)          I'd understand how it could happen.          Her being the way she is. I'd          understand it. But I think I'd kill          the guy with my bare hands.                         RACINE          That's understanding.Walker looks at Racine and laughs. As he begins to speak,he focuses intently on Racine. He seems to be trying tocommunicate something other than what he's saying.                         WALKER          You wouldn't believe the dorkus she          was with when I met her. The guy          came to us with a business          proposition. We're always looking          for opportunities. If the conditions          are right. We're willing to take an          occasional risk, if the downside          isn't too steep. But this guy hadn't          done his homework, he didn't know          the bottom line. That's how I knew          he was full of shit. You've got to          know the bottom line. That's all          that really counts.Again Walker takes off his glasses. He holds them up tothe light and then rubs them again with his handkerchief.                         WALKER          He didn't have the goods,  this guy.          He was like a lot of guys  you run          into -- they want to get  rich, they          want to do it quick, they  want to be          there with one score.He puts his glasses back on, stares at Racine.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              48.                         WALKER          But they're not willing to do what's          necessary. Do you know what I mean?Racine looks at him in silence for a moment.                        RACINE          I'm not sure. You mean, lay the          groundwork? Earn it?                         WALKER          No. I mean do what's necessary.          Whatever's necessary.The two men stare at each other a few beats.                         RACINE          Yeah. I know that kind of guy. I          can't stand that. It makes me sick.                            WALKER          Me too.                         RACINE          I'm not like that.Walker ROARS with laughter. A huge, powerful burst thatshakes the table. And Racine laughs with him.EXT. WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty's bedroom window, from a distance.  The light goesout, Racine is watching from the shadows of the gazebo.He stares up there. The TINKLING of the  wind chimes risesand rises. It crests and begins to fade,  replaced by theWHOOSHING.EXT. BEACH - DAWNRacine runs south along the beach. The WHOOSHING slows.He is looking at something. He takes out his cigarettesas he slows to a walk. When he is directly across fromwhat he's staring at, he sits in the sand, He lights up.RACINE'S POV - "THE BREAKERS," an ancient wooden beachhotel, of medium size, sits at the edge of the beach. Itis closed down, boarded up, deteriorating horribly in theocean air.EXT. MAIN STREET - DAYLunchtime. Racine is headed toward his office, briefcasein hand. Beverly appears out of the noon crush; she'sgoing the other way in a hurry.                         BEVERLY          There are some messages on your desk.          Be back in an hour. Got to run.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               49.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine comes into the reception room from the hall. He'ssurprised the door is unlocked. He crosses the room andopens the door to his office.Matty is sitting in one of the chairs in front of hisdesk. She jumps up at the sight of him and moves up toembrace him.                           RACINE          Jesus!    Did Beverly see you?Matty kisses him on the mouth, then shakes her head "no."                         MATTY          I waited till I saw her leave.      Please          don't be angry with me.                        RACINE          Angry? I'm not angry -- How'd you          get in?                         MATTY          It didn't lock. Oh. Ned, hold me.          Please just hold me, God, I love          you.Racine reaches over and locks the door to his office.                         MATTY          He left this morning.      I had to see          you.                            RACINE                    (kissing her)          I know.                         MATTY          I couldn't call. I'm afraid to call.          I was afraid you wouldn't let me          come.                         RACINE          Yes, that's right. You can't call.          Never call. We have to be very          careful now about the phone. The          phone company keeps records.                         MATTY          I'm careful. I hated it, Ned. I          hated sitting there with the two of          you. I thought I was going to scream.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              50.                         RACINE                 (distracted,                  thinking)          You did good.                 (finds his thought)          You've called my apartment from the          house.                           MATTY          No, never.                          RACINE          No?   Those two times --                         MATTY          I went to phone booths. I'm afraid          of him, Ned. I'm always afraid.                         RACINE          That's good. We have to be careful          about the phones now.                         MATTY          Why, Ned, why do you say this now?                         RACINE                 (in his own thoughts)          We could account for a couple calls.          We've had some contact. That would          make sense.Matty grasps his face in her hands and looks into hisface.                           MATTY          Why, Ned?    What's happened?                          RACINE          Because we're going to kill him.    We          both know that.Matty's face looks different than we've seen it. There'sa fire burning behind there and the heat it's throwing isbringing her equal portions of dread and relief. Shestares at him,                         RACINE          That's what you want, isn't it? We          knew it was coming. It's the only          way we can get everything we want,          isn't it?Matty's nod is barely perceptible.                         RACINE          The man's gonna die for no reason          but we want him dead.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                51.                         RACINE (CONT'D)          He doesn't deserve it. Let's not          ever say that. We're doing it for          us. And you're going to inherit          half of everything he owns. That's          what the will says, right?Again, the tiny nod. He pulls her head close, so hedoesn't have to look into her eyes anymore.                         RACINE          That's it then. We're gonna kill          him. And I think I know how.Matty reacts to this.                         MATTY          It's real, then?                         RACINE          Yeah, it's real all right, and if          we're not careful, it's gonna be the          last real thing we do.EXT. FISHING HARBOR - STREET ACROSS FROM DOCKS - NIGHTMatty sits at the wheel of her Mercedes at the curb. Shesmokes her cigarette nervously. Racine walks over to thecar from the docks and leans down to the window.                         RACINE          I know where he is. It's not far          from here. I don't want you with          me.                          MATTY          I thought we settled that. I'll          wait in the car, but --                 (she puts a hand                  on him)          -- I want to take the risks with          you. We're both doing this.Racine gives her a look of resignation and moves aroundthe car.INT. TEDDY LAURSEN'S WORKSHOP - NIGHTTEDDY LAURSEN, rock'n roll arsonist, is keeping the beatand mouthing the words along with the Bruce Springsteentape on his workbench. Teddy is in his mid-twenties,dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. His arson workshopis located in the basement of an old building. All aroundhim are the tools and supplies of his trade: wire, rope,cans, vises, alarm clocks, chemical containers, and ahuge assortment of mechanical implements. He keeps allhis small accessories in dozens of cigar boxes, unlabeled.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             52.He knows where everything Is. Teddy is watching Racine,who is kneeling on the floor before a compact incendiarydevice. Teddy winces at the way Racine clips two wirestogether. He reaches over to turn down the tape slightly,then squats down next to Racine to demonstrate the propermethod.                          TEDDY          Whatsa matter, you can't think with          a little music?                 (demonstrating)          Like this, I said.Racine nods then duplicates the clipping. Teddy goesback to his stool, slapping the beat of the music on histhigh. Racine pulls out the alarm lever on the clockattached to the device and stands up. He throws a lookto Teddy and Teddy nods that, yes, the device is now set.                         RACINE          That's it?                         TEDDY                 (nods to the music)          It's fast. It's hot. It's simple.          You can use the clock or rig it to          something that moves. It starts big          and it'll go with just the mag clips.          If you want more, splash a little          accelerator around.                         RACINE          Just regular gasoline?                         TEDDY          Regular, unleaded, supreme -- whatever          you like, counselor. I got to tell          you, though, this mama has a big          drawback.                         RACINE          What?                         TEDDY          It's easy to spot, even after the          meltdown. They'll know it's arson.                         RACINE          I don't care about that.                 (looks at Teddy)          That's all there is to it?Teddy is offended.                          TEDDY          No. No-no-no-no. That ain't all          there is to it.                          (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org        53.                           TEDDY (CONT'D)          You gotta get in, you gotta get out.          You gotta pick the right spot and          the right time. And you gotta try          not to get famous while you're in          the act.                 (gestures at the                   device)          If that was all there was to it, any          idiot could do it.                         RACINE          Sorry.                         TEDDY          Hey, now I want to ask you something,          Are you listening, asshole, because          I like you?                 (Racine nods)          I got a serious question for you.          What the fuck are you doing? This          is not shit for you to be messing          with. Are you ready to hear          something? See if this sounds          familiar. Anytime you try a decent          crime, there is fifty ways to fuck          up. If you think of twenty-five of          them you're a genius. And you're no          genius. You know who told me that?Racine remembers telling Teddy that.                         TEDDY          Listen, man, maybe you should let me          do it for you. Gratis. I'll do it.          I wouldn't even be on the street if          it weren't for you.Racine looks him over, shakes his head "no."                         RACINE          Thanks.                         TEDDY          I hope you know what you're doin'          you better be pretty damn sure about          it. If you ain't sure, don't do it.          Of course, that's my recommendation          anyway -- don't do it.                 (he puts a hand on                  Racine's shoulder)          Because I tell you, Counselor, this          arson, this is serious crime.Racine looks at him.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              54.INT. ENCLOSED SIDE VERANDAH - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTRacine sits smoking, watching Matty fill their tallhighball glasses with ice at the bar.                         MATTY          I don't know why he's so crazy about          her. Maybe because he never had any          of his own. She's a cute little          girl, all right, but other than          that... I know this, though, her          mother has worked plenty hard to          keep Heather on Edmund's mind, Always          bringing her around, reporting          everything she does in school. That          Roz is a smart one. And you know          that anything Heather inherits goes          straight to Roz. Heather won't even          get a look at it. That's the part I          can't stand. That's why it seems so          wrong to have half of it go to her.She hands him his glass and stands next to him, her handplaying with his hair.                         RACINE          That's the way it is.       There's nothing          we can do about it.She kneels beside him.                         MATTY          Are you sure, Ned? I've been thinking          about it. Maybe there is. The will          is with his lawyer in Miami I know          that. What if I could get him to          bring it home? He did it once, he'd          do it again. If I could swing it,          couldn't we rewrite it? Change it.          Then when he dies, I could find the          new one. We could just change it a          little. Every little change would          mean a lot to us, End. You're a          lawyer. You know how to write it.          It wouldn't seem so odd. I could          say he brought it home and we talked          about it and decided to make some          changes up here. And I knew you          already --Racine is shaking his head.                             RACINE          No.   Forget it.                         MATTY          I just don't see why Heather should          take half --    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                55.Racine puts down his drink and turns to look down at her.                            RACINE             Listen to me, Matty. Nothing strange             can happen in his life right now,             not one thing out of the ordinary.             That's vital, that's the main thing.             If anything does, the chances double             that we get caught. You and I are             walking out there on the edge every             second now. One false move and we're             gonna fall off. It'll be all over.             You've got to remember that all the             time.                    (he studies her                     face)             You'll get half of everything and             it'll be plenty. No matter what it             is, we're gonna be satisfied. We're             not gonna get greedy. If we do,             we'll get burned. You gotta believe             me, baby, the odds that we'll get             burned are good enough without looking             for trouble.She studies him with frightened eyes, then nods heragreement and lays her hand in his lap.                            MATTY             You're right, darling.   I'm sorry.             I know you're right.EXT. "THE BREAKERS" - NIGHTMiddle of the night. No one in sight. Now comes the onlymovement -- a Miranda Beach Police Patrol Car drives slowlyup the street next to the old hotel and turns south onOcean Avenue. When it is gone, all is dead again.EXT. THE BEACH - NIGHTRacine has   watched the patrol car from the  darkness ofthe beach.   Now he sits in the sand again,  his back againstthe raised   bank of sand on which he runs.   He lights aflashlight   and makes a notation in a small  notepad.INT. "THE BREAKERS" - NIGHTRacine's footsteps creak through the blackness. Then hisflashlight reveals a corridor in the crumbling basementof the old hotel. Racine is not the first to have violatedthe premises -- scattered about are beer cans, whiskeybottles, beds made of newspapers, the remains of food.Rats CHITTER and scamper in the shadows. A lizard scootsover the pipes.Racine goes through a doorway and is in what used to be asupply area at the bottom of a stairway.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                56.Scattered about are empty wooden food crates. The wallsare lined with tall wooden shelves; one of these units istipped over across the room, Racine shines his light inthat direction and sees what caused the shelves to fall.One of the beams which cross the ceiling has rotted looseand dropped one end to the floor.Racine has found what he wanted.EXT. WALKER HOUSE - PARKING AREA - MIGHTWe're CLOSE ON RACINE'S WATCH; it reads 2:30.                          RACINE          Okay.   Gotta go.Racine, at the wheel of the Stingray is looking at hiswatch. Matty is leaning down to the window dressed onlyin a robe.                          MATTY          Be careful.                         RACINE          I'm just going for a ride.   I wish          it was all this dangerous.She kisses him deeply.                          MATTY          I love you.He looks at his watch again and pulls away.     Matty standswatching.EXT. FROM PINEHAVEN TO "THE BREAKERS" - SERIES OF SHOTS -NIGHTRacine drives his murder route. The roads are almosttotally deserted. Intermittently he passes signs welcominghim to the towns as he travels south.A. The first stretch of his trip, Racine travels on adeserted back road with overhanging trees. A TeenageHotrodder passes him and he is alone again. As he turnsoff the road, he checks his watch.B. He drives through a neighborhood of neat houses. Nolife.C. He turns onto a four line interstate. More traffichere -- long haul truckers, late night drinkers.D. He drives across a graceful drawbridge, rimmed bylights, over a canal.E. He drives toward the ocean beside a pretty lake in apark. A patrol car passes the other way. Racine checkshis watch.F. At "The Breakers." Racine follows the same path asthe police car he'd watched.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                  57.INT. COUNTY JAIL - CORRIDOR OUTSIDE VISITING ROOM - DAYA seedy-looking Thief is brought out of the visiting roomby a Uniformed Deputy, followed by Racine, briefcase inhand. Racine shakes the Thief's hand. The Deputy leadsthe Thief away down the hall. Racine glances at hisdeparting client, then heads in the other direction.Before he has gone too far a heavy, metal, barred door atthe other end swallows up the Thief with a piercing CLANG!Racine jumps. He puts a hand against the wall.INT. BED - MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTRacine and Matty, just their heads on one pillow, inchesapart. They look at each other in silence. Finally --                           RACINE          And?                           MATTY          The side door.                           RACINE          And?                         MATTY          Two A.M. I send him down.                         RACINE          We won't talk again after     I leave          here tonight. I'll be in      Miami by          noon Friday. You won't be      able to          reach me. When I see you      again,          he'll be dead.Matty nods.   She begins to cry.     Racine touches her.                         MATTY          I'm so frightened.So is Racine.INT. RACINE'S STINGRAY - INTERSTATE 95 - DAYRacine looks off to his left.      Miami rises out of theflat horizon.EXT. INTERSTATE 95 - DAYThe red Stingray whips off the Interstate toward theskyscrapers of Miami.EXT. BUDGET RENT-A-CAR OFFICE - DAYRacine, on foot now, comes down the sidewalk and entersthe office.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                  58.INT. WALKER HOUSE - DAYMatty unlocks the door side of the house.    She tests itonce from the outside.EXT. EMPTY LOT - MIAMI - DAYA Real Estate Agent leans against his car reading anewspaper at the front of a huge, empty lot beneath acauseway. There's a big "For Sale" sign up.Racine pulls up in the Stingray. The Real Estate Agentthrows his paper in his car and goes over to shake handswith Racine. They turn to look at the lot.EXT. ENTRANCE - SHERATON HOTEL (MIAMI) - DAYRacine pulls up in the Stingray. He takes an overnightbag from the car and goes inside as a Parking Attendantwheels the Stingray into an underground garage.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - WALKER HOUSE - DAYMatty sits on the porch drinking a highball. She stubsout another cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and looksat her watch. Her foot swings nervously.EXT. ROUTE ALA - NEXT TO BEACH - DUSKEdmund Walker's big white Cadillac zips north.INT. FRONT DESK - SHERATON HOTEL (MIAMI) - NIGHTRacine jokes with the female clerk at the desk.    She likeshim; she'll remember him.INT. SECOND FLOOR WINDOWS - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty watches the lights of Edmund's Cadillac come up thedrive.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty comes to the end of the porch, a big, welcomingsmile on her face.Edmund is getting out the driver's side.                         WALKER          Hello, sweetheart. Have I got a          nice present for you.The passenger door of the Cadillac swings open. Prettynine-year-old HEATHER KRAFT pops out with a grin.                            HEATHER          Hi, Aunt Matty!    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               59.Matty's smile fades for an instant, but she manages toput it back.                          MATTY          Heather.   What a surprise.INT. DINING ROOM - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty, Edmund and Heather have a late dinner.    Edmund andHeather joke together, Matty joins in.INT. CORRIDOR - SHERATON HOTEL (MIAMI) - NIGHTA "DO NOT DISTURB" sign is still swinging on Racine'shotel room door as he slips into the stairwell at the endof the hall.INT. SIDE DOOR - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty appears, quickly looks and tests the door, thenhurries away.EXT. SIDE STREET - MIAMI - NIGHTRacine unlocks a rented, gray Oldsmobile and gets in.INT. SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTThrough an open door, Edmund can be seen kissing Heathergoodnight in the guest room. He gets up, comes to thedoor and switches off her light. He starts to close herdoor, but she speaks to him. He nods and leaves the doorhalf open.INT. RACINE'S RENTED OLDSMOBILE (INSERT CU) - NIGHTRacine's face, intermittently lit by the road lights, isset, intense. We MOVE IN on it and --                                             DISSOLVE TO:INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTMatty's face, her head on a pillow, turned away from herhusband, away from the bedroom door. Her look is just asintense as Racine's. Her eyes are focused on -An alarm clock on the nightstand -- 1:15.There is the SOUND of a car somewhere outside and Mattyreacts to it silently. She listens with her whole being.The wind chimes TINKLE.EXT. SIDE DOOR - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTRacine's hand takes hold of the doorknob. He tries it. Itwon't open.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                60.Racine's face. Puzzled. He gives an irritated glanceupward. Then he moves along the wall.INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTThe alarm clock -- 1:42.Matty watches. Matty listens. She tries to confirm thatWalker is sleeping without looking there. Matty begins tomove her legs slowly toward the side of the bed, to getout.Suddenly, the bed lurches. Matty gasps and whips her headaround to look. Edmund is standing next to his side ofthe bed in his undershorts. He puts on his glasses andlooks at her.                         WALKER          Jesus, take it easy. I thought I          was tense.                         MATTY          What are you doing?                         WALKER          I can't sleep. I'm going down and          get something to drink.Matty watches with panicky eyes as Edmund moves towarddoor. When she speaks, her voice is different, husky.                           MATTY          Edmund.He turns to look at her.   She moves once on the bed,languidly.                         MATTY          I can't sleep, either.He peers at her in the darkness.                         MATTY          Lock the door, darling.Edmund studies her, then walks over and locks the door.                                                 WIPE TO:INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTEdmund's alarm clock - 2:05. Edmund rolls into view, hisbreath ragged. Matty's hand is on his chest.Edmund looks at her and laughs.                         WALKER          You trying to kill me?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                61.Matty, flat on her back, smiles weakly and looks at theceiling. Again, the mattress moves. She looks at Edmund.He has pulled on his shorts and is walking toward thebathroom.                         WALKER          I'm going downstairs.     Do you want          anything?He disappears into the bathroom. Matty slips out of bed.She is wearing a silky nightgown. She hurries to thebedroom door.                         MATTY                 (calling softly to                  him)          I'll go down with you.She opens the door and steps into the hall.INT. SECOND FLOOR HALL - NIGHTMatty looks across the hall toward the open door to theguest room; it is dark. She hurries to the stairs, peeringdown into the darkness. She starts down the steps.INT. FIRST FLOOR HALL - NIGHTMATTY'S POV as she comes down the steps. Each shadow,doorway, and alcove threatens to erupt with life.Matty reaches the bottom of the stairs and peers around.She starts back along the dark hall of the house just asEdmund comes out of the bedroom upstairs; he is still inhis undershorts. He reaches the top of the stairs as Mattymoves back along the hall. The alcove under the stairs isin black shadow. Matty is focused on it.Just as she reaches it, the lights in the hall snap on.Racine is standing under the stairs, poised to strike thefigure in the hall with a heavy wooden plank about twofeet long. Matty gasps at the sight, but it is covered by --                          WALKER                 (at the top of the                  stairs)          Christ, woman, did you ever hear of          turning on the lights?Racine doesn't breathe. Matty is frozen in the spot,directly in front of Racine and five feet below Edmund,who now starts down the steps.                            MATTY          Edmund... wait!    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                62.                           WALKER                 (stops)          What is it?                         MATTY                 (whispering up at                  him)          Put on a robe or something. What if          Heather wakes up and comes down.Edmund frowns, goes back up the stairs.                         WALKER                 (grumbling)          Damn. She's not going to wake up at          2 o'clock in the morning...Racine and Matty lock eyes.   Racine slips back throughthe alcove door.EXT. PARKING AREA - WALKER HOUSE - DAYMatty watches Heather give Edmund a big   goodbye kiss andrun off to talk to Betty, the Walker's   Housekeeper, whois sweeping the front terrace. Edmund    gets in theCadillac. Matty leans down and kisses    him goodbye.                         WALKER          You don't really mind, do you?                 (Matty shakes her                  head)          Roz will pick her up on Friday. And          don't worry, Roz won't stay overnight.                         MATTY          She can do whatever she wants.                         WALKER                 (gives her a                  skeptical look)          Listen, I don't know if I'll be able          to come up next weekend. I'll know          more later. I'll call you.He gives her a once-over, proprietary look and drivesaway, honking once to Heather, who waves.HEATHER'S STAY/RACINE'S WEEK - SERIES OF SHOTSA. Matty sits on the dock dangling her feet in the wateras Heather plays in an inner tube.B. Racine stands at his office window, staring down atthe traffic on Main Street. He wipes the sweat from hisbrow with his finger.C. At night, Matty comes upstairs with a highball in herhand. She pauses and looks across the hall to the half-open door of the guest room. There is just blacknessthere; no way to know if Heather is asleep or watching.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             63.Matty goes out the hall door to the verandah and sitsdown with her drink. The wind chimes TINKLE.D. At night, Racine runs sweating along the Boardwalk,footsteps THUMPING.E. Daytime. Matty is in a phone booth in a gas station,speaking urgently. She hangs up.F. In his office, Racine hangs up, disgruntled. Hisfeet up on his desk, he has been toying with the fedoraMatty gave him. Now he sails it across the office at thehook of a coatstand. It hits and bounces off onto thefloor. Racine gets up, walks over and picks it up. Hewalks away from the coatstand, then turns and floats thehat through the air to land on the hook. From his newposition, he can see out into the reception area. Beverlyis working at her desk. Racine watches her smallmovements. Beverly looks up and sees him.G. Evening. Heather is happily watching television inthe enclosed side verandah in the Walker house. Matty isin a big chair. She watches Heather, not the television.She puts a cigarette in her mouth then reaches out tostrike a wooden match against the rough surface of theporcelain match holder. As it bursts into flame, itbecomes --H. The flame at the end of Racine's match. He is drinkingalone at a bar and now lights another cigarette.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty comes out. She's wearing a light, simple shift.She walks over to a small table and begins putting somedirty dishes and glasses on a small tray. Suddenly, Racinetakes her into his arms from behind. She GASPS in terror;he turns her to him. He is wearing only cut-off bluejean shorts and his body is wet, glistening. His hair issoaking, slicked straight back. He looks different. Shesees who it is and kisses him deeply. They whisper --                          MATTY          My God, you scared me. You shouldn't          be here. Heather's still here.          She's upstairs.                            RACINE          -- Asleep.                         MATTY          I miss you so badly.       But it's too          dangerous.                         RACINE          She won't wake up now.                            MATTY          You're all wet.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                64.                         RACINE          I've been out there waiting for two          hours.                            HEATHER (O.S.)                 (sleepy)          Aunt Matty?The door from the house squeaks open and Heather puts onefoot onto the porch; she looks only half-awake as shepeers into the gloom. Racine has turned at the SOUND andfor one moment he is sideways to her, his head turned inher direction.Heather's eyes suddenly discern the scene. Racine turnsaway at the same instant that Heather stumbles backwardsthrough the door and out of sight. Heather's FOOTSTEPSpatter swiftly away.Matty and Racine look at each other.INT. SECOND FLOOR HALL - NIGHTMatty comes up the stairs and looks toward the guest room.The door is closed.INT. TERRACE BREAKFAST AREA - WALKER HOUSE - DAYMorning. Matty sits with coffee and toast at the table.The Walker's Housekeeper moves about in the kitchen.Heather comes in and takes her place opposite Matty. Sheseems perfectly normal. But she doesn't look Matty inthe eye.                         HEATHER          Good morning, Aunt Matty.                 (to the Housekeeper)          Hi, Betty.Matty watches over her coffee as Heather butters a muffin.                         HEATHER          Is there any more of that strawberry          stuff?EXT. PARKING AREA - WALKER HOUSE - DAYROZ KRAFT, Edmund Walker's sister, closes the passengerdoor of her station wagon behind Heather. Matty standsnearby.                         ROZ          What do you say?                            HEATHER          I did.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               65.                            MATTY          She did.Roz gives Heather a look.                         HEATHER          Thank you, Aunt Matty.Roz walks around the car and gets in.                            ROZ          Thanks, Matty.     We appreciate it.                            MATTY          Any time, Roz.     She's a pleasure.Roz smiles, waves and pulls away.    Matty watches them go,worried.INT. RACINE'S APARTMENT - NIGHTThe lights are out. There's enough moonlight pouring inthe open windows to see Racine sitting on the bed in hisshorts, his back propped against some pillows at theheadboard. A fan WHIRS on a table. He lights anothercigarette and takes another drink; a bottle of bourbonsits on his nightstand. From where he sits, he can seethe ocean. There is a KNOCK at the door.                            RACINE          Yeah?                            MATTY (O.S.)          It is me.                            RACINE          It's open.Matty comes in.  She peers into the darkness until shesees him. She  locks the door and turns to face him. Sheis dressed in a pale silk suit and blouse, very carefullyput together.  She looks as good as she ever has; sheseems to create her own light.                         MATTY          Why haven't you answered your phone?                          RACINE          You took a chance coming here.          Where's Edmund?                         MATTY          He's not coming up this weekend.          Why haven't you answered?                         RACINE          I didn't want to talk.     I just wanted          to think.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                66.                         MATTY                 (nods; then, after                  a moment)          Can I get in with you?Racine just stares at her.                         MATTY          I don't know what Heather will tell          Roz. Maybe nothing. Maybe she'll          be embarrassed or afraid. Maybe          she'll think she imagined the whole          thing.                         RACINE                 (chuckles without                  humor)          Maybe we all did.                         MATTY          We'll know if she does tell. Roz          will report to Edmund quick enough.          It's exactly what she's always wanted.Matty disappears for a moment into the shadows.                         MATTY          I've been thinking, too.                         RACINE          And what have you got?Matty emerges from the darkness and sits on the edge ofthe bed next to Racine. She looks into his eyes.                         MATTY          I think we should give it up. We          haven't done anything criminal, yet.Racine has been thinking along the same lines.    He stubsout his cigarette.                         RACINE          It's not too late to back out.                          MATTY          That's right.   I don't think we can          do it.                         RACINE          What do you mean?                          MATTY          Things have already started to go          wrong. I feel like we got to the          edge and looked over and, well, it          was too much. We'll just have to          live with that.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org            67.She sits down on the bed.                         MATTY          I'll divorce him. And     we won't have          his money. Part of me     wants it so          bad. I'd be lying if I     said I didn't.          But it's the worst part    of me, the          weakest part.She leans back against him.                         MATTY          All that matters is that we're          together.                         RACINE                 (after a moment)          You don't think I can pull it off.                         MATTY          It's not you, it's us. I'm sure          I'll make some mistake.                         RACINE          That's not what you really mean, is          it, Matty?                            MATTY          Yes it is.                         RACINE                 (very calm, flat)          No, it isn't. You think he's too          much for me. You think I'll fuck it          up, get us caught.Matty turns toward him.                         MATTY          No, darling. Don't talk that way.          It's not true.Racine studies her face.                        RACINE          No? Well that's what I've been          thinking.                         MATTY          You're wrong. Don't think that,          ever! I know you could do it.                 (moving closer)          But all I care about is you. The          money doesn't matter.                         RACINE          It does in this world, the one we're          living in.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                68.Matty presses her head against his chest.                         MATTY          Why torture ourselves about it?Racine laughs; he doesn't know what's funny.                         RACINE          When's he coming back?                           MATTY          Friday.                         RACINE          That'll be it, then. Nothing will          stop us.                         MATTY          Is that what you really want?     Are          you sure?                           RACINE          Yeah.    I wasn't before, but I am          now.Racine reaches over her, gets another cigarette and lightsit. After he takes a deep drag, she takes it from himand takes a puff too.                         RACINE          This time you're going to know how          to reach me. I don't want any more          surprises.                                          SLOW DISSOLVE TO:EXT. CITY STREET - MIAMI - DAYRacine locks up   a rented Ford on a side street and walksback two cars to   where his Stingray is parked. As hebends to unlock   the Stingray, he looks around and a passingcar catches his   attention.RACINE'S POV, PANNING with the car as it drives by him.There is only one thing extraordinary about this particularcar. The driver, hunched and intent on the road ahead,is a Clown, in full costume and makeup.Racine watches as the car disappears.   For a moment, Racinelooks like a dead man.INT. MASTER BATHROOM - WALKER HOUSE - DAYMatty is reclining in the soapy water, slowly scrubbing.She HUMS to herself.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                69.EXT. HILTON HOTEL - MIAMI - DUSKA Parking Attendant takes Racine's Stingray, as Racinegoes into the lobby.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - WALKER HOUSE - DUSKMatty is leaning against one of the posts that flank theporch stairs. Headlights pass across the front of thehouse and Matty's body. She smiles a welcoming smile tothe unseen Edmund.EXT. TWO-LANE HIGHWAY - NIGHTA light fog is settling into the dips of the road. NowRacine's rented Ford appears out of one such depressionand moves into a clear stretch.INT. RACINE'S RENTED FORD - NIGHTRacine eyes the fog with concern.EXT. WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTThe FOG is much heavier here. It rolls in past the housein thick waves. The only light burning is on the frontporch. The wind Chimes TINKLE softly.EXT. SECOND FLOOR PORCH - NIGHTThe wind chimes TINKLE, nudged by the same breeze thatfloats the FOG around them.INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTThe alarm clock -- 1:50.Again, Matty lies on her side, turned away from Edmund,eyes wide, watching the clock. Again, the bed movessuddenly! Matty rolls over to look.Edmund is sitting up in bed, putting on his glasses.                            MATTY          What's wrong?Edmund motions for her to be silent.                         WALKER                 (whispering)          I think there's someone downstairs I          heard something.He swings out of bed; he is in his undershorts.                            MATTY          Are you sure?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                70.Again he silences her. He walks silently over to his.closet and disappears inside.                         MATTY                 (whispering)          Should I call the police?                          WALKER                 (low, from the                  closet)          Will you be quiet? I'm going to          nail the bastard.Edmund comes out of the closet checking the safety on ashiny nickel-plated .38 revolver.                          MATTY                 (aghast)          Edmund, what's that?                         WALKER          Will you be quiet?                         MATTY          I've never seen that.                         WALKER                 (at the bedroom                  door)          I've got a surprise for this fucker.                         MATTY          Edmund, be careful!But he is already out the door, silently. For a momentMatty is frozen, then she slides out of bed.INT. SECOND FLOOR HALL - NIGHTEdmund has stopped at the top of the stairs. He listensfor sounds from below. He starts down the steps in thedark.INT. STAIRWELL - NIGHTEdmund comes slowly down the steps, his gun pointing here,then there in his perfectly steady grip. The thrill ofthe hunt is in Edmund's eyes. The downstairs is thickwith ominous shadows. At the bottom of the steps, hestops and listens again. He moves in two quick steps tothe entry hall and looks into the living room and diningroom. He seems to hear something at the rear of the house.He turns and moves back along the central hall, veryslowly. The alcove under the stairs is pitch black.Edmund points his gun at that approaching space and stops.He listens. The TINKLING of the wind chimes rises weirdly,making it hard for him to hear.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                71.Edmund's hand reaches out to the wall.   His fingers findthe light switch. He flips it.For a second, we are blinded by the glare. In the nextInstant, as we see that the space below the stairs isempty, Matty screams from the top of the stairs --                          MATTY          He has a gun!Edmund thinks she is warning him.   He spins to look.                          WALKER          Where?Suddenly, Racine bursts from the hall closet, the woodenplank raised above his head. He brings it down fast towardEdmund's head.Edmund reacts instinctively, raising his arm, the armthat holds the gun, to protect himself. The wooden planksmashes down -- half its force taken by Edmund's forearm,half by his head. The gun BLASTS once.One small window in the front door shatters and the bulletcontinues into the night.Edmund's revolver slides across the hall floor into acorner.Edmund is on the floor, blood pouring from his scalp.But he is coming on like a crazed beast. His glassesaskew, but still on his head, he has grasped Racine aroundthe legs. With a powerful lunge, he pulls Racine's legsout. Racine crashes to the hall floor, losing the woodenplank.Matty, frozen at the stair railing, cries out.Edmund is pulling Racine toward him with all his might,crawling up Racine's body as they both slide on the woodfloor. Edmund reaches out one huge hand, and pulls Racineeven closer.Racine puts his left hand into Edmund's face, his thumbflat against the lens of Edmund's glasses and pushes hishead back. The glasses fly away and Racine loses hishold. Edmund comes on.Racine's right hand gropes -- gropes -- finds the woodenplank. He swings it up.The wooden plank describes a perfect arc into our view,and then out, finding its mark with a HORRIBLE THUD.Matty, up the stairs, turns away.Racine falls back on the floor.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               72.EXT. TRUNK OF WALKER'S CADILLAC - NIGHTThe trunk is open like a giant maw. A sheet of plastichas been spread across the inside. Edmund's body flopsdown inside. He has been dressed, his shoes and watchput on. Racine drops the blooded wooden plank beside thebody, then throws a blanket over the corpse and slams thetrunk. Racine turns to Matty who stands, fully dressed,shaking in the foggy air.                           RACINE            The cars at the end of the drive.            Spend the fifteen minutes cleaning            up inside, then come. You're gonna            have to be careful in this fog.                   (he looks at her)            Are you all right?She nods.                           RACINE            Fifteen minutes.Racine gets in the Cadillac and pulls away.INT. CADILLAC - ON DESERTED BACKROAD - NIGHT                                                 WIPE TO:The first stretch of Racine's route to "The Breakers"looks different in the dense FOG. Racine has to take itslowly.He consults his watch. A branch from one of theoverhanging trees looms up abruptly in the windshield,like a grasping arm. Racine flinches.EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHTRacine drives through the silent neighborhood. The  housesare invisible in the FOG, their presence indicated onlyby an occasional glowing light. Suddenly, a police  SIRENpierces the night, followed by the appearance of a flashingred light on the street behind the Cadillac.INT. CADILLAC - NIGHTRacine's eyes jump to the rear view mirror and the flashingred light growing in it. Racine pulls over. The policecar slows as it reaches the Cadillac, pulls alongside,and then speeds on ahead, SIREN squealing. A light goeson in the house in front of which Racine has stopped. Hepulls away.EXT. FOUR-LANE INTERSTATE - NIGHTThe Cadillac pulls up to the interstate from the sidestreet.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 73.As on the other night, there is more traffic here.   Butit is moving slowly in the FOG.INT. CADILLAC - NIGHTRacine has to cross two lanes of traffic to go south. Hepeers out through the misted windshield. He starts topull out and a sports car appears from nowhere, doingfifty, sitting on his HORN. Racine hits the brakes. Assoon as it has passed, there is a lull. Racine fishtailsacross the road just ahead of a truck and moves south.EXT./INT. CADILLAC - INTERSTATE - NIGHTThe traffic on Racine's side of the interstate has slowed.There's an accident up ahead. The police car that passedRacine is on the scene, but the lone Cop is not enough.Some Passing Motorists have pulled over to help with thewreck and direct traffic. The FOG is aglow with flashingred and white lights and burning flares. A Man signalsfor Racine to stop. The cars in the opposite lanes areallowed to pass through. Racine keeps his head down.A STOCKY TRUCKER comes out of the glowing FOG and walksup to the Cadillac. He leans down into the driver'swindow.                         STOCKY TRUCKER          Hey, man, do you have any flares?                            RACINE          Uh -- no.     I don't think so.                         STOCKY TRUCKER                 (irritated)          Could you check your trunk? We got          kinda of a mess here.                         RACINE          I don't have them. I told you.The Stocky Trucker gives him a disgusted look and standsup.                         STOCKY TRUCKER          Don't put yourself out.The Man in the road ahead signals for Racine to pull aroundinto the opposite lanes and move on.TRACKING along beside the Cadillac, Racine moves slowlythrough the nightmare scene. Figures move by carryinglights and tools. The Injured CRY OUT in pain. Threecars are meshed in crumpled steel. A clutch of Onlookersare outlined against the beams of headlights... Racinemight as well be driving into Hell.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             74.EXT. BRIDGE OVER CANAL - NIGHTHere is relief. The  Cadillac moves all alone across thebridge. The lights  penetrate the FOG at orderly intervals,barely illuminating the bridge. A huge FOG HORN fillsthe air from not far way.EXT. "THE BREAKERS" - DELIVERY DRIVEWAY - NIGHTThe deserted hotel looms ghostly in the FOG. The Cadillac,lights out, rolls silently to a stop in the half-hiddendelivery driveway.INT. "THE BREAKERS" - SUPPLY AREA - NIGHTRacine, carrying only a flashlight, has made his way tothe supply area he visited before. His beam probes darkcorners, responds to random CREAKING. Satisfied that heis alone, he moves a wooden crate and reaches into thehole in the wall which it hid. He brings out Teddy'sincendiary device and places it on the floor in the middleof the room.EXT. "THE BREAKERS" - DELIVERY DRIVEWAY - NIGHTRacine grunts under the weight of Edmund's corpse, flungover his back. He stumbles back toward the hulking hotel.The trunk of the Cadillac is closed.INT. "THE BREAKERS" - CORRIDOR - SUPPLY AREA - NIGHTRacine sits down hard. He is streaming with sweat underthe enormous dead weight. He adjusts the plastic sheetso that Edmund's bloody skull won't contact the wall.Racine gathers his strength and half-lifts, half-dragsthe body down the corridor, his silhouette that of atwisted, double-headed monster. His flashlight glowsfrom ahead at his destination.IN THE SUPPLY AREA, Racine has dropped Edmund's body oversome tipped shelves. Now he lifts the  heavy ceiling beamhe spotted earlier. He has to change  its angle only twofeet in order to let it drop -- now -- on Edmund's head.Racine walks over to the incendiary device. He pulls outthe lever and straightens up. As he does he looks down aconnecting hallway. He sees movement. He snatches upthe flashlight and the wooden plank and rushes down thathallway.AT THE END OF THE HALLWAY, Racine slides to a halt,breathing hard. Again he sees the movement. A horrible,sweaty figure confronts him -- there is a broken mirrorattached to the wall. Racine looks at himself a longmoment and the tension seems to drain away...Someone speaks in the shadows!    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                75.Racine jumps and spins toward the sound,   which is only alittle more than a MOAN. His flashlight    seeks out thesource - a RAGGED BUM is stirring in his   sleep on a bedof newspapers. He wears an old baseball    cap.Racine looks at him a long time, trying to decide what todo. He looks back  in the direction of the supply area.He looks at the Bum settling again into a deep sleep. Helooks for one final second at himself in the mirror.EXT. "THE BREAKERS" - BEACH - NIGHTRacine appears at a run from the fog. He has the Bumwith him, grasped firmly at the neck of the collar andthe seat of his pants. Racine is forcing the Bum to runalong with him. The Bum is mightily confused, not leastby the fact that Racine has jammed the baseball cap allthe way down over his nose -- he can see nothing. Racinelets go, hurtling him across the sand.                         RACINE                 (a low growl)          Get the hell out of here and don't          come back.The Bum is sprawled in the sand. The baseball cap hascome off. He watches Racine's dark figure recede in thefog.                         RAGGED BUM                 (a whisper)          Come on back here and fight like a          man!INT. RENTED FORD - SIDE STREET - NIGHTMatty sits fidgeting in the front seat, trying to peerthrough the soupy FOG. She sucks on an unlit cigarette.Racine appears at the driver's window. Matty gasps.     Heis a horrible sight. He gets in the driver's seat.                          MATTY          Thank god.   I thought --Racine grabs her and pulls her down out of sight, bendinghis body low over her.                          RACINE          Shh!The windows are suddenly illuminated by the beams ofheadlights. They grow brighter and a police patrol car,red light slowly revolving on the top, passes next to theFord and moves off quietly in the FOG.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 76.                           RACINE                   (whisper)            They're right on time and I'm running            late.He rises slowly and watches the patrol car disappear.EXT. STREET IN FRONT OF WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTThe Ford stops at front of the drive.INT. RENTED FORD - NIGHTRacine and Matty break from a kiss.    He moves her awayfrom him.                           RACINE            We won't talk for a long time.She nods.   They look at each other.   She gets out.EXT. INTERSTATE 95 - SERIES OF SHOTS - NIGHTThe rented Ford speeds through the foggy night.INT. RENTED FORD - NIGHTRacine's face. He knows that for the first time in hislife, he's really done it. There's no turning back.Racine does something that he's going to be doing for therest of his life. He looks in the rear view mirror.INT. "THE BREAKERS" - SUPPLY AREA - NIGHTEverything is as Racine left it. Edmund's body liesbeneath the beam. It is barely discernible in the gloom.The only bright spot in the room is the incendiary device,its shiny surface catching some errant sliver of light.And then it explodes with a harsh SHRIEK. And the lightof the magnesium chips is white, blinding. The chips areout in all directions to the waiting puddles of gasoline.The light goes from white to yellow as huge flames engulfthe room. The flames ROAR. We watch them for a fewmoments and then --                                        SLOWLY DISSOLVE TO:EXT. SECOND FLOOR PORCH - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTMatty stands in the FOG, one arm wrapped around a post ofthe porch. Above her the wind chimes TINKLE. Shestruggles to hear something else. Finally she does hearit and her face relaxes and she looks at peace. Listeningto soft, distant SIRENS.                                             FADE TO BLACK:    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                77.FADE IN:INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYThe fedora hangs on the coatstand. Racine works at hisdesk, reading over a long contract. The sun is cuttingthrough the Venetian blinds behind him in glaring stripsand, as he leans back in his chair, he finds it impossibleto read his document. He gets up, goes to the window andadjusts the blinds so that his desk goes dark in the shade.As it does, the PHONE RINGS. Beverly answers out in thereception room, her conversation muffled through theslightly cracked door. She hits a hold button and yells,as is her informal custom.                           BEVERLY           Ned.   Miles Hardin. Do you want           him?                          RACINE           Who is he?                          BEVERLY           She says he's a lawyer from Miami.Racine picks up his phone.                          RACINE           Hello.                           SECRETARY                  (filtered)           Mr. Ned Racine?                          RACINE           Yes.                          SECRETARY           Miles Hardin calling.The Secretary goes off and Racine is left holding. Hewaits five long beats and seems about to hang up when aVoice comes on, very dry and cold.                          HARDIN                  (filtered throughout)           Mr. Racine.                          RACINE           Yes.                          HARDIN           This is Miles Hardin of Morris and           Dale in Miami.                          RACINE           Yes.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                78.                         HARDIN          As you know, we represented Edmund          Walker.                             RACINE          Yes.Hardin seems to expect more of a response.    Racine issilent.                         HARDIN          Yes, well, Mrs. Walker has submitted          the new will you wrote up there.Racine closes his eyes for a moment. The blood drainsout of his face. He puts a hand out toward his desk.                             RACINE          Yes...    I see.                         HARDIN          And frankly, Mr. Racine, I think we          may have a problem.                           RACINE          Uh-huh.    What problem is that?                           HARDIN          Well, I'd   rather discuss  it in person.          In fact I   think it might  be best if          we could   all get together  down there.          That is,   if you wouldn't  object.                         RACINE          No no, that would be all right.                         HARDIN          Good. We have a relationship with a          firm in West Palm -- Shiller,          Hastings.                             RACINE          I know of them.                         HARDIN          I've arranged to have the use of          their offices. I thought we might          try to make it tomorrow, say ten          o'clock. Would that be possible for          you?                         RACINE          Yes, I think so.                         HARDIN          Good. Mrs. Walker told me she would          be back down there by then.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 79.                         HARDIN (CONT'D)          And I've asked Mrs. Kraft, Mr.          Walker's sister, to join us, also.          I'll see you then.                            RACINE          Right.                            HARDIN          Good-bye.Hardin clicks off. Racine hangs up slowly. He stares atthe phone a long time. He gets up, his mind racing. Hegoes to the window and parts two of the blinds with hisfingers. The sun makes him squint.INT. RECEPTION AREA - DAYRacine opens the door from his office.                          RACINE                  (to Beverly)          Will you get me Mrs. Edmund Walker,          please.Beverly wrinkles her brow, spins her Rolodex.                         BEVERLY          I don't have her. Should I?                         RACINE          I thought the temporary put her in.          She came in while you were on          vacation. Look it up. They were in          Pinehaven, I think.He closes the door to his office.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine sits at his desk.    The phone BUZZES.   He picks itup.                          BEVERLY                  (filtered)          I get no answer at the Pinehaven          number.                           RACINE          Okay.    Try again later.INT. SHILLER, HASTINGS LAW OFFICES (WEST PALM BEACH) -DAYA Secretary leads Racine DOWN A HALLWAY of the richlyappointed offices and ushers him into a --    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               80.LARGE CONFERENCE ROOM, opulent, with a big skylight.Seated around the room are Matty, Roz Kraft, and much   toRacine's surprise, his friend Peter Lowenstein, Matty   isdressed in chic black, MILES HARDIN comes around the   bigdesk to shake Racine's hand. Hardin is an impressive    guyin a $500 suit. He greets Racine with icy eyes and acordial look.                         HARDIN          Miles Hardin, Mr. Racine.                          RACINE          How are you?                         HARDIN          I don't think you know Mrs. Kraft.                          RACINE                  (shakes her head)          No.   I don't. My condolences.                          ROZ          Thank you.Racine comes up to Matty and takes her hand.                         RACINE          Mrs. Walker, I'm very sorry about          your husband.                         MATTY          Thank you, Mr. Racine.                         HARDIN          You know Mr. Lowenstein.They shake and Lowenstein gives him a cheerful grin.                          RACINE          Hello, Peter.                          LOWENSTEIN          Hi, Ned.Racine shakes his hand. Hardin motions Racine into achair and moves back around the desk.                         HARDIN          I asked Mr. Lowenstein to join us          because he's handling the inquiry          into Edmund's death for the County          Prosecutor's office. He and I have          discussed this matter and he's made          is possible for us to speak very          frankly here today. Off the record,          so to speak.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               81.                         HARDIN (CONT'D)                 (to Racine)          As I've told Mrs. Walker, I was more          than a little surprised by the          existence of this new will. Edmund          hadn't mentioned anything about it          to me.Hardin looks at Racine a beat, but Racine has nothing tosay.                          HARDIN          Mrs. Walker explained to me that          when she and her husband decided to          make some minor changes, they just          took care of it up here for          simplicity's sake. And, indeed, as          you know, the new will is almost          identical to the old but for the          disposition of a few items.                  (to the group in                   general)          At the risk of oversimplifying, the          thrust of the will is to divide the          estate in almost equal parts between          Heather Kraft and Mrs. Walker. Would          you agree with that assessment, Mr.          Racine?Racine nods.                          HARDIN          Mmmm. And you witnessed the    signing          by Edmund Walker along with   this          Miss --                  (glancing at papers                   on the desk)          -- Mary Ann Simpson on July   twenty-          first. Apparently, it will    be          impossible for us to contact   Miss          Simpson.                         MATTY          Mary Ann is a lifelong   friend of          mine. She  happened to   be visiting          on her way to Europe.    I'm sure when          she returns she'll get   in touch with          me.                         RACINE                 (eyeing Hardin)          Although it's certainly not required.          The witnesses to the signing of a          will are not commonly available when          the will is entered into probate.          It's not standard by any means.Hardin glances at Lowenstein, who watches impassively.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               82.                         HARDIN          Edmund Walker's death was not          standard.                         ROZ                 (to Hardin)          Pardon me. I'm sorry. I'm confused.          Is there some question about the          authenticity of the will?Racine would like to kiss Roz; instead he turns with aquestioning look to Hardin.                         RACINE          I'm confused, too. Do you have a          problem with the witnessing or the          signatures? What is it you're getting          at?                         HARDIN                 (almost wistful)          No, there doesn't seem to be any          problem here. This is Edmund Walker's          last will and testament. I'm afraid          the problem is elsewhere.He reaches into his coat and brings out a gold cigar case.                         HARDIN          Would anyone mind if I smoked?No one does. In fact, Racine, Matty and Roz allimmediately produce their own packs of cigarettes. Theeffect is comical and everyone in the room laughs at thegroup reflex. Roz notices that Lowenstein is not lightingup and offers him one of hers.                         LOWENSTEIN          I don't need my own. I'll just          breathe the air.Roz smiles and tilts her head to blow a stream of smoketoward the ceiling. We TILT UP with it as the white smokeintrudes the clear air and --                                                  WIPE TO:The same space, thick with smoke, and TILT DOWN to theassembled group, all of whom are focused on Hardin, exceptfor Lowenstein, whose glance dances about the rapt faces.                         HARDIN          Everything's in order up to there.          The problem comes in the language of          the bequest to Heather. It's a          technical matter.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               83.                         HARDIN (CONT'D)          In writing the will, I'm afraid Mr.          Racine violated what's known as "the          rule against perpetuities.Hardin watches Racine, who reacts minutely.                         HARDIN          It's a small thing, but it's the          law. It forbids an inheritance to          be passed down indefinitely for          generations. Many general          practitioner lawyers don't fully          understand it. It doesn't come up          much for them, because wills this          complex are usually handled by estate          departments in larger firms. Handled          by lawyers who specialize in this          type of work.Matty turns a confused look to Roz who returns itsympathetically. Hardin notes it.                           HARDIN          I know this is terribly confusing,          but if you'll bear with me... I          spotted the problem right away, but          since Edmund's intent was clear, I          thought it in everyone's best interest          to try and get the will admitted          into probate anyway, even though it          was technically incorrect. I knew          that a probate judge in Miami would          spot the mistake right away. That's          all they do all day, they're expert.          So I thought I'd bring it up here to          Okeelanta County -- since Edmund had          the residence here -- and see if I          could get lucky with a judge who          didn't know estate law quite so          well...                  (dryly, he can't                   resist)          Perhaps find one with the same kind          of training as Mr. Racine.Racine watches him, his mind racing ahead too fast tobother being insulted. Lowenstein can't help a small,wincing smile. Now Hardin gets to his payoff and thereis no amusement in his tone.                         HARDIN          Unfortunately, my plan backfired. I          ran into a judge who'd had other          dealings with Mr. Racine. A Judge          Costanza.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                84.                         HARDIN (CONT'D)          In fact, it seems there were problems          with an estate in a case four years          ago. Very different problems, it's          true. But on a will Mr. Racine          prepared. It was quite a mess.          Accusations of carelessness, a          malpractice suit...                 (to Racine)          I think he called it the Gourson          case?Racine watches him dully, then concentrates on taking outa cigarette.                         ROZ          Once again, Mr. Hardin, you've lost          me.                         MATTY          Yes, what does all this mean?                         HARDIN          It means, I'm afraid, that Edmund's          will is invalid. Edmund Walker died          interstate, as though there were no          will at all.Roz looks at Matty with panicky eyes.                         MATTY          So... what happens now?Hardin looks her over coldly.    He doesn't believe shedoesn't know,                            HARDIN          You don't know?                         MATTY                 (irritated)          No, I don't.                         HARDIN          Perhaps Mr. Racine would like to          tell you.Racine is recovering. He gives Hardin a quick, ugly look,then turns toward Matty, and speaks quietly.                         RACINE          In the state of Florida, when a person          dies without a will, and there are          no children and no surviving parents,          then the spouse inherits everything.It seems to take a long moment for Matty to fully digestthis. It takes not quite as long for Roz.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                  85.Her face goes through several transformations: confusionto disbelief to despair, then on in the direction ofoutrage.Lowenstein's eyes are flashing around at the faces.    Heseems genuinely amused.                          MATTY          My god.   You mean... it's all mine?Hardin is an unconvinced audience.   He nods.                         HARDIN          Though that was clearly not your          husband's intention.                          MATTY          My god.                         HARDIN          He intended Heather to benefit --                         MATTY                 (looking between                  Hardin and Roz)          Of course, of course, I understand.          Of course.                         HARDIN          As you can imagine, Mrs. Walkers          given the circumstances of Edmund's          death, none of this is going to          happen... how should I say it...          simply.Matty seems still in shook.                         MATTY          ... Of course...EXT. PARKING LOT BEHIND SHILLER, HASTINGS (WEST PALMBEACH) - DAYMatty, Racine, Roz, Lowenstein and Hardin stand talkingin a little cluster near the building. They say theirgood-byes with much handshaking. Matty lays a reassuringhand on Roz's arm and kisses her on the cheek. As shebreaks from the crowd, Racine walks with her. The othersstand talking a little longer. Racine takes off his jacketin the blazing Heat. He is very aware of the little groupbehind them as he walks with Matty to her Mercedes. Whenthey are out of earshot --                         RACINE          You look good in black.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                86.                         MATTY          I've missed you so badly.   I need          you.                         RACINE          At first I couldn't figure out when          you got ahold of my stationery and          stuff. It finally came to me...          Edmund's signature must have been a          snap. And you knew I wasn't gonna          challenge mine --                         MATTY          Please stop. I don't blame you for          hating me right now.                         RACINE          You've really done it, Matty.    You          really have.Behind them the group breaks up, Hardin goes back intothe building and Lowenstein walks Roz the short distanceto her car. Matty reaches the door of her car and turnsto Racine.                         MATTY          Will you come to the house tonight?She takes his hand and shakes it for show.                         MATTY          I want you more right now than I          ever have. I know how you must feel          about me. But please come tonight.                         RACINE          I hope you haven't done us in.Matty gets into her car.At the far end of the parking lots Lowenstein has beenwatching them as he makes his way to his car. Now, as hemoves between two rows of cars, he executes a few niftydance steps, just like Fred Astaire.EXT. RACINE'S BUILDING - DAYRacine, jacket over his shoulder and briefcase in hand,leaves the Stingray at the curb and goes into the bighouse of which his apartment is the top floor.INT. STAIRWAY - RACINE'S BUILDING - DAYRacine trudges up the dark steps in the heat. As heapproaches the door to his place, he senses that someoneis there. He tries the knob and the door swings openslowly, revealing Peter Lowenstein, reading a book at thebookcase and, lounging out on the porch, Detective Oscar    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                87.Grace. The three look at each other a beat and then Racinecomes in,INT. RACINE'S APARTMENT - DAYRacine gets rid of his briefcase and jacket as Grace comesin from the porch.                         RACINE          Hi, guys. Just come on in, make          yourself at home.                         GRACE          Sorry about that.                         LOWENSTEIN          Not me. The door was unlocked,          inviting illegal entry. It's behavior          like that makes Oscar's job so hard.                         RACINE          Sorry, Oscar. Would you guys a beer?                         LOWENSTEIN          No thanks, I already had one.Oscar indicates "no" as Racine takes one from therefrigerator for himself and begins unbuttoning his shirt.                         GRACE          I've gotta bring my wife up here.          She thinks our house is the hottest          place in the county.                         RACINE          It ain't great this time of day.There is a pregnant pause as Racine takes off his shirtand leans against the refrigerator.                         GRACE          Ned, how did you get involved with          this Matty Walker?                         RACINE                 (takes a drink)          What do you mean?                         GRACE          I mean she's poison, man. Tell me          what you know about her old man's          death.                         RACINE          What read in the paper. He died in          the fire. Looks like arson--    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             88.                         LOWENSTEIN          Was arson.                         RACINE          Okay, was arson. You don't know if          he was setting it and messed up...          or if that's just what someone wanted          it to look like.                         GRACE          Nah, he didn't set it.   Somebody          offend him.                         RACINE          His people owned the place or          something?                         GRACE                 (nods)          That's right. A very rough group of          fellows, too. They're arguing with          the insurance company right now.          It's possible they wanted to cut old          Edmund out. I'm sure they're not          too broken up over his departure.                 (grimaces)          But this just doesn't seem like a          neat way to handle something like          that.                         LOWENSTEIN          It's not their style. They're very          smooth. They'd rather destroy you          than kill you. And they hate          publicity.Racine takes it in, sucks on his beer.                          GRACE          Course guys like that make a lot of          enemies. Coulda been a grudge match          from the outside, I suppose.                 (he looks at Racine)          But me, I'm kinda interested in the          grieving widow.Racine looks a little skeptical. He thinks about it as hemoves to a chair.                         LOWENSTEIN          Her sister-in-law's got plenty of          ideas along that line, too. She          could barely contain herself today,          I could tell.                 (he cackles)          But she wants to wait and see how          Matty treats her on the estate. She          doesn't want to blow it.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             89.                         GRACE          How'd you get involved?                          RACINE                 (shrugs)          They asked me to re-do the will. I          met with her and Edmund. It was          pretty simple. This Mary Ann Simpson          witnessed it with me. Walker didn't          seem to think it was any big deal.                         GRACE          That's it?                         RACINE          That's it.                         GRACE          What was this Simpson's story?                         RACINE          I don't know... old friend of theirs,          good-looking broad. She was just          passing through.                         GRACE          On her way to Europe?Racine shrugs, he doesn't know.                          GRACE          The passport people can't find any          record of that.Lowenstein and Grace look at him a long time.                         GRACE          What do you think? About the wife?Racine considers a moment.                          RACINE          I suppose it's possible. I don't          know much about her, except --                 (he grins)          -- what I've seen. Wouldn't shock          me, either way.                         LOWENSTEIN          I've got a feeling she's very bad          news. Take some incredibly          intelligent advice and stay away          from her.                         GRACE          He's right for once.They both get up to leave. Racine watches from the chair.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                90.                         RACINE          Well, I'm sorry, guys.    I'm afraid I          can't do that.                           GRACE          Why not?                         RACINE          First of all, did you get a look at          her?They did. Racine grins. He stands up and comes right upto them.                         RACINE          That wouldn't be quite so meaningful,          except that today she started coming          on to me. And maybe you haven't          heard but the lady is about to come          into a great deal of money.They look at him with some concern.                           RACINE          The fact   is, she's invited me out to          her place   tonight. And I'm going.          And I'll   keep on going as many nights,          or days,   or weekends, as she'll have          me.                         LOWENSTEIN          Ned, that lady may have just killed          her husband.Racine smiles cheerfully and puts a reassuring arm aroundLowenstein's shoulder, leading him to the door.                         RACINE          Peter, she's not gonna inherit          anything by killing me.Lowenstein is out the door now. He looks at Racine inwonder. He shakes his head and goes down the steps.Racine turns, smiling, to Grace, but Oscar is grim.                         GRACE          Ned, you've messed up before. You'll          mess up again. That's your nature.          But they've always been small-time.          This might not be. She's trouble,          Ned. The real thing. Big-time, major          league trouble. Watch yourself.Racine reassures his friend with touch and Oscar leaves.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                91.INT. WALKER HOUSE - ENTRY HALL - NIGHTMatty closes the front door behind Racine and wraps herarms around him. She kisses him hard and long on the mouth,then starts on his neck. He begins to push her away butshe clings to him, eating him up.                         MATTY          I know. I know. I know you'd          probably like to kill me. I know.          But please... you can hate me...          punish me... hurt me if you want,          but don't talk yet.She takes his hand and drags him to the steps and leadsthe way up, her eyes on him always.                         MATTY          Please, Ned.He lets her lead him up the stairs.INT. MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTThey lie in bed. The wind chimes TINKLE outside.                         MATTY          ... Mary Ann and I left Wheaton          together and went to Chicago. We          didn't know what we were doing. I          got in bad trouble with drugs. Speed.          Really bad. I did things...                 (she looks up at                  him)          Whatever's the evilest thing you can          think of me now, I did worse things          then. There's nothing lower than          the animal I was then. Worse than          you can imagine. I thought I would          die. I prayed I would... And then          a man helped me. He got me clean.          He didn't want much in return,          either... He was a lawyer and he          put me to work in his office. I          learned a lot there. One time I          even thought I might go to law school.          ... That's where I picked up the          business about making a will invalid.          That happened to him once. I swear          I would never have used that if I'd          known about your case... I was afraid          to tell you, Ned. I knew you wouldn't          let me do it. I'm greedy, like you          said. I wanted us to have it all.She moves up over him and looks into his face.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 92.                         MATTY          I don't blame you for thinking I'm          bad. I am. I know it. I'd          understand if you just cut me off          now. If you never trusted me again.          You'd probably be smart. But you          must believe one thing. I love you.          I love you and need you. I want to          be with you forever.She puts her head on his chest as Racine lights acigarette.                         RACINE          They already think you're involved.                            MATTY          I don't care.                            RACINE          Great.                         MATTY          There's nothing we can do about it          now. In a little while we'll either          have the money or we won't. It's          out of our hands.Racine thinks about this awhile.     He exhales a stream ofsmoke.                         MATTY          I fired the housekeeper. We can          stay together as long as we want.          We're all alone here now.                                     SLOW, SLOW DISSOLVE TO:INT. WAITING ROOM - DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAYLowenstein makes Heather and Roz comfortable in the waitingroom, then goes through the gate partition, nods at theCop Clerk on duty, and goes into Oscar Grace's office, re-closing the door behind him.INT. GRACE'S OFFICE - DAYIt's cramped, hot, cluttered. There is one other doorout of the office. Grace has his feet up on his desk.He's nursing a bottle of Coke and looking at Racine, whostands across the office, leaning on a file cabinet andglaring between sentences. Racine gives Lowenstein anugly look then returns his attention to Grace. Racine isangry, but in control.                            RACINE          That's right.                            (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               93.                         RACINE (CONT'D)          I've been down there a lot lately.          Isn't that amazing? Miami. Jesus.          I'm handling the purchase of some          property down there. I'll be going          back in the future... if that's all          right, if it's still legal to go to          Miami.There is silence.   Lowenstein looks between them, speaksto Grace.                          LOWENSTEIN          He is mad.                         RACINE          Nooo. No, I'm not mad. Why should          I be mad just because my friend here,          who I've know for years, wants to          know of my whereabouts on the night          of our recent local murder?                         LOWENSTEIN          It's not so recent anymore.   Maybe          he's feeling some pressure.Grace is pained by all this, but his tone is scolding,defensive.                         GRACE          You brought this on yourself, man!          I don't run this department, you          know. There are people watching          this thing. They hear you're out          there banging the widow every night;          it tends to call attention to you.          So don't give me shit.Lowenstein goes to Oscar's desk and takes a pull from thebottle of Coke.                         RACINE          That's my business!                         GRACE          This whole damn case is getting crazy.                         LOWENSTEIN                 (to Grace)          Did you tell him about the glasses?Grace, exasperated, indicates that he didn't.                         LOWENSTEIN          Seems Walker always ware glasses --          steel-rimmed glasses. He was a real          fanatic about them.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 94.Racine is still staring at Grace.    He barely seems to payattention.                         LOWENSTEIN          But there were none on the scene.          Coroner says they should've been          there. He says that even after the          fire the frames should've been seared          into his -- well, you don't want to          hear the details.                            RACINE          So what?                         GRACE          So it's looking more and more like          he was killed somewhere else and          brought there in his own car. Your          honey, his wife, says he left the          house in the middle of the night          driving himself to some mysterious          meeting. Is that vague enough for          you?                         RACINE          Look, what is this? What do you          want? Am I supposed to be an          undercover agent for you guys, or          something?                         LOWENSTEIN          Interesting choice of phrase.                         RACINE          How 'bout tonight I ask her? 'Say,          did you kill your husband? My friends          were just wondering...'                         LOWENSTEIN          Hey, that's an idea. Ask her where          the glasses are, where she did it...          Anything else I'm forgetting, Oscar?                            OSCAR          Just one thing.Lowenstein looks at him a long moment.    Racine watchesthem.                         LOWENSTEIN          Oh, yeah! Right, right. You'll          love this, Ned, this latest          development. Maybe you'll be able          to work up a little sympathy for us,          see why Oscar here has a tendency to          get carried away. Tell him, Oscar.          This is rich.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               95.                         OSCAR          This is from the sister-in-law, the          Kraft woman. She's been driving me          batty lately. She's convinced she          ain't gonna be out into the will.          It seems that a couple weeks before          the murder, Walker's niece stayed up          there for a while with your friend          Matty. One night she waxes up, goes          to see her aunt and catches the lady          with some guy.The three men look at each other.   Lowenstein breaks intolaughter.                           LOWENSTEIN          Do you get it?    In the act or some          fucking thing!                         GRACE          We haven't got all the details yet.          Mrs. Kraft is bringing the little          girl up here today to tell us her          story.                         LOWENSTEIN                 (to Grace)          Oh, they're here. I ran into them          on the way in. They're waiting          outside.                         GRACE          Christ. I'm not sure I'm up to          dealing with this scene.There is a long pause.   The other two look at Racine.                         GRACE                 (to Racine)          Listen, you probably don't want to          see the Kraft woman right now. She's          a little wild. Why don't you slip          out the back way here?Racine looks first at Lowenstein, then at Grace.                         RACINE          Are we done here?                         GRACE                 (nods, looking at                  his notes)          I've got it all here. And, Ned, I'm          sorry I had to ask.Racine is neutral.   He indicates the front entrance.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                 96.                            RACINE            I'll go out this way. I've had a            lot of experience with disgruntled            people.                    (to Lowenstein)            I'll be over to Stella's, if you            want to have some lunch.Lowenstein nods.   Racine opens the door and goes out ofthe office.INT. WAITING ROOM - DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAYRacine walks out of Grace's office. Lowenstein watcheshim go. Heather is absorbed in a magazine and Roz isdistracted with her cigarette. Racine could keep onwalking, but instead he walks over to Roz. She jumpswhen he speaks to her.                           RACINE            Hello, Mrs. Kraft.She seems confused about how to act toward him.   Heatherlooks up casually. Racine shakes Roz's hand.                           ROZ            Hello, Mr. Racine.                           RACINE            How are you making out?                           ROZ            We're all right, I guess.Racine crouches in front of Heather and smiles at her.                           RACINE            You must be Heather.She nods.   He shakes her hand.                           RACINE            I'm Ned Racine, Heather. I've heard            a lot about you. It's nice to meet            you.Heather nods uncertainly.                            HEATHER            Thank you.                           RACINE            I'm sorry our town is so hot for            your visit.                            HEATHER            It sure is.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               97.                         RACINE                 (smiles, stands)          Goodbye.                          ROZ          Goodbye.Racine walks away.   Heather watches him go.   Roz turns toHeather.EXT. MAIN STREET - DAYRacine walks down the sidewalk and enters Stella's CoffeeShop.INT. STELLA'S COFFEE SHOP - DAYAs Racine comes in the front door, Stella is leaning overthe counter in a gossipy huddle with a Cop and Glenda,the Meter Maid. When Stella notices Racine, she breaksoff suddenly and moves away. The Cop and Glenda see Racineand go back to their food with great deliberateness.Racine takes all this in and settles at the other end ofthe counter.                         STELLA                 (too boisterous)          Hi, Racine. How you doing today?                         RACINE          I'm fine, Stella. I'm fine.    What's          the latest? Any hot news?                         STELLA          Nothing much doing. What'll it be?                         RACINE          What's the special?                          STELLA          Veal outlets.                         RACINE          What day'd you cook 'em?                         STELLA          They're fresh this month.Racine signals for her to bring it on.   He swivels aroundand looks out at the Court House.                                                  WIPE TO:LATER.Same shot. Lowenstein appears on the sidewalk across thestreet. He crosses over to Stella's and comes in.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                98.He spots Racine and comes over to the counter with a lightdance-walk, breaking into actual dance only as hePirouettes before landing in the stool beside Racine.Racine is almost done with his lunch.                         LOWENSTEIN                 (to Stella)          The usual, my sweet.                         STELLA (O.S.)          Two ice teas for Fred Astaire.Lowenstein looks at Racine and smiles.                         LOWENSTEIN          Are you ready to hear something wild?                         RACINE          I don't know. I may have had my          share for the day.                         LOWENSTEIN          No, this is right up your alley.Stella puts the two ice teas in front of Lowenstein.Lowenstein has to give her a look before she backs away.Lowenstein leans in confidentially toward Racine.                         LOWENSTEIN          Little Heather comes out onto the          back porch, and this dude is out          there with her aunt, see? And he's          turned away with his pants or shorts          or whatever dropped, so he's mooning          the little girl, right. And he and          your friend are going at something          which Heather couldn't quite figure          out.Lowenstein begins to shake with laughter; he almost fallsoff the stool. Racine is confused. Lowenstein recovershis balance and lowers his voice again. There are tearsin his eyes.                         LOWENSTEIN          Poor little Heather! She's never          seen one angry before. But it made          quite an impression on her.          Yessirree! That's all she can          remember.Lowenstein starts to choke with laughter.    He takes adrink. Racine is smiling now, too.                         RACINE          That's it?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                99.                         LOWENSTEIN          One other thing. She says the guy's          hair was greasy. He wore it slicked          back. "Like a Cuban," she says. I          loved that!                 (he laughs again)          Can you imagine poor Heather? She          hustled back to bed after getting a          gander at that. And listen to why          she got up in the first place, this          is the capper. She had a nightmare!          Christ, can you imagine what kinds          of dreams she had the rest of the          night?Lowenstein rocks with laughter.    And Racine does too.INT. ENTRY HALL - WALKER HOUSE - DAYMatty has been pushed roughly across the entry hall. Herback hits hard against the wall at the front of the centralhall. She rubs  her wrist where the skin is red and lookswith frightened eyes at Racine.                            RACINE          Don't say that.     Don't say you don't          have them.                          MATTY          I swear to you, I don't.     What's          wrong with you?                         RACINE          They had to be here when you cleaned          up that night. Think about it, think          hard. They've probably got my prints          on them.                          MATTY          I must have missed them. I wasn't          looking for them. I thought they          were on Edmund.                         RACINE          So where could they have gone?                         MATTY          I don't know.                 (suddenly, a look)          Betty!                         RACINE          The housekeeper?                 (Matty nods,                  thinking)          Where would she have put them?     You've          been through his things.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              100.                         MATTY          She might have taken them.Racine thinks that's crazy.                         MATTY          Listen to me. That's why I fired          her. After Edmund's death she started          acting strange. She was always          watching me, listening to my calls.                         RACINE          That's crazy. You imagined it. I          know, I've been imagining things,          too. Plenty.                         MATTY          No, Ned, not with her I wasn't. I          could tell there was a difference.          Maybe she know about us. Maybe she          wants something.                         RACINE          Don't you think we would have heard          from her by now?Matty walks over and sits at the bottom of the steps.She looks up at him.                         MATTY          I don't know what to think. I'm          worried. But it's not about the          glasses. Or your friends. It's us.                           RACINE          I'm sorry.                         MATTY          Your first reaction is to accuse me.          What's happening to you? I don't          know if we can hold on like this.Racine sits next to her.   He rubs his eyes.                         MATTY          Hardin called today. He said          everything should be cleared up by          next week. I'll get the money                 (a caustic smile)          He apologized for the delay.                         RACINE          They've been stalling. They're          draggin it out, hoping they'd come          up with some way to implicate you.Matty turns and leans against him, looking into his face,full of love.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                101.                          MATTY          But they haven't been able to. Soon          it'll be all ours. That's why we've          got to hold together, Ned. It won't          be long, then we'll get away from          here. Out from under all this.                 (a beat)          All we have is each other. I'd kill          myself if I thought this thing would          destroy us. I couldn't take it.His arms enclose her.INT. REGISTRATION DESK - HILTON HOTEL - MIAMI - DAYOscar Grace has been talking to the Desk Clerk, who nowdisappears and returns with the Hotel Manager.INT. BOOKKEEPING OFFICE - HILTON - DAYOscar and the Hotel Manager watch as a Data Clerk extractsa sheet of freshly-printed billing information from acomputer. He points to a section of the read-out.EXT. PARKING STRUCTURE - HILTON HOTEL - DAYOscar talks to the Parking Attendant who handled Racine'sStingray. Oscar looks around the structure.INT. CORRIDOR - HILTON HOTEL - DAYThe door to a hotel room is open in the foreground, butOscar is down the hall looking at the door to thestairwell.INT. MIAMI POLICE DEPARTMENT - DETECTIVE BUREAU - DAYOscar sits across the desk from a Plainclothes Cop, whois talking on the phone. The Plainclothes Cop hears whathe wants on the phone and nods to Oscar, tapping a spoton a list that lies before him. Oscar gets up and looksto see where he's pointing.EXT. HERTZ RENT-A-CAR OFFICE - DAYOscar can be seen inside, talking to the Attendant onduty.EXT. REAL ESTATE OFFICE - NIGHTOscar, totally beat, sits in his car. The Real EstateAgent we saw with Racine comes up, unctuously usheringTwo Businessmen. As he shows them inside, Oscar approacheshim, getting out his I.D. He and the Real Estate Agentshake hands.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                102.EXT. THE MOON AND THE OCEAN - NIGHTIt's the middle of the night. Bright under a full moon.And very quiet. The surf can be heard LAPPING at the beach.And then we hear HUMMING.EXT. THE PIER - NIGHTNo sign of life. Still the HUMMING; it's a Broadway showtune.EXT. END OF THE PIER - NIGHTLowenstein is there, all alone, silhouetted in themoonlight. He uses the rail like a ballet bar, returningto it each time he finishes a small combination of dancesteps. The moves are not extravagant, there is nothighkicking. Just a nice, smooth little combination thatLowenstein is repeating, again and again.He HUMS his own accompaniment. Then, softly at first,from the distance, comes the THUMPING of running shoes onold wood. It grows as Lowenstein completes anotherrepetition. When the THUMPING has gotten close, it slows,then stops raggedly. Lowenstein looks that way.                           RACINE (O.S.)                   (out of breath)          Peter?                           LOWENSTEIN          Hi, Ned.Racine walks up, dripping sweat, already extracting hiscigarettes from his shorts.                         RACINE          What are you doing here?                         LOWENSTEIN          I've been looking for you.                           RACINE          Yeah?                           LOWENSTEIN          Yeah.    You always run this late?                         RACINE          Nah. I'm going to Miami tomorrow.          I'm not gonna have time.                         LOWENSTEIN          What's in Miami?                         RACINE          I'm closing this real estate deal          I've been working on.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                103.Lowenstein nods and turns to lean over the rail. Racineoffers him a cigarette. Lowenstein accepts and Racinelights both of theirs. Lowenstein glances at Racine'spack as Racine puts it away.                          LOWENSTEIN          You're some kind of health nut.                 (Racine smiles)          Matty Walker smokes that same brand.          I noticed that.                         RACINE          Is this gonna be one of those          conversations? Maybe I should have          my lawyer present.                         LOWENSTEIN          Buddy, your lawyer is present.They look at the ocean.                         LOWENSTEIN          You know, that Edmund Walker was a          bad guy. The more I find out about          him, the happier I am he's dead. I          figure it's a positive thing for the          world.                         RACINE          You're not known for being a          hardliner.                         LOWENSTEIN          Mmm. I have my own standards. I try          to keep them private.                 (he looks at his                  cigarette)          As far as I'm concerned, I don't          care who killed him. And I don't          care who gets rich because of it.                 (shakes his head)          But Oscar, Oscar's not like that.          His whole life is based on doing the          right thing. He's the only person I          know like that. Sometimes it's a          real pain in the ass. Even for him.Lowenstein glances at Racine, but only for a moment.                         LOWENSTEIN          Oscar's unhappy right now. He's in          pain.                          RACINE          Why is that?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                104.                          LOWENSTEIN          Because he likes you. He likes you          even better than I do.                 (long pause)          That's why he's been busting his          butt trying to locate this Mary Ann          Simpson. They finally found her          place in Miami yesterday, but the          woman herself was gone... looked          like she left in a hurry.                 (a beat)          Oscar thought any story she could          tell might help you. He thinks you          need help.Racine turns around, drapes his arms back along the railand lets his head loll, like a tired runner.                         LOWENSTEIN          Someone's putting you in deep trouble,          my friend. From about three thirty          to five AM on the night Walker was          killed, someone called your hotel          room repeatedly. The hotel didn't          want to put them through, but whoever          was calling convinced them it was an          emergency. The phone rang and rang,          but you didn't answer.Racine looks at him.                         LOWENSTEIN          Don't say anything. Save it for some          Other time. It gets worse.                 (he stamps out his                  butt)          Now someone's trying to give us          Edmund's glasses. We don't know who.          We don't know what the glasses will          tell us. But our negotiations are          continuing.Lowenstein steps away, toward the street. He looks sad.                         LOWENSTEIN          I wish I knew what to tell you, Ned.          But I don't have any good ideas.He turns and walks away.                           LOWENSTEIN          I'll see ya.Racine watches him go. He takes out his pack of cigarettesand extracts one. He stares at the pack in his hand.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                105.EXT. FRONT TERRACE - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTThe house is dark. Racine tries the door a last time.(He's still in his sweaty running clothes.) No good. Noone here. Racine peers inside one final time. He is lookingthrough the new glass in the same little window shot outby Edmund's gun. The wind chimes TINKLE loudly.EXT. INTERSTATE 95 - DAYRacine's Stingray whips south in the morning light.INT. RACINE'S CAR - DAYRacine is shaved and showered and wearing a tie, but hedoesn't look fresh. His mind is elsewhere. He looks offto his left. Miami sits on the horizon.INT. ELEVATOR - SKYSCRAPER - DAYThe elevator is packed with lawyers. They're heading outto lunch. They wear expensive suits. Racine is backedinto a corner. He watches them, as though from a distance.He looks different from them.INT. LOBBY - SKYSCRAPER - DAYThe lawyers pile out of the elevator. A few carrybriefcases. Racine finally appears. He too carries abriefcase. He looks across the huge lobby at the entranceto a restaurant/bar.INT. RESTAURANT/BAR - SKYSCRAPER - DAYRacine sits at the bar with a drink. Once more, he glancesdiagonally to the end of the bar, at a guy in a three-piece suit. The guy seems to be looking at Racine wheneverhe isn't watching the front entrance. Finally the guy cancontrol himself no longer. He picks up his drink and walksaround the bar to the space next to Racine. His name isMICHAEL GLENN and he's bright, successful and irritating.The two men are on the edge of remembering each other.                         GLENN          We know each other, don't we?                 (Racine smiles,                  uncertain)          I'm Michael Glenn. With Bashford,          Hillerman.The smile fades from Racine's face.                           RACINE          Ned Racine.It comes back to Glenn in a flash. He wishes he hadn'tcome up.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             106.                         GLENN          Christ, I've done it again.                 (embarrassed,                  indicates the                  entrance)          I'm just meeting some people.Racine nods. Glenn looks him over, smiles; he'singratiating.                         GLENN          Hey, this is silly. You're not still          mad about that Gourson business?                 (Racine shrugs,                  takes a drink)          We had to do it. Costanza practically          insisted we sue you. Listen, nobody          at our place likes malpractice against          other lawyers.                           RACINE          Forget it.Glenn remembers something. He smiles confidentially.                         GLENN          I tried to make it up to you.Racine looks at him blankly.                         GLENN          Did you ever meet a lady named Matty          Walker? You'd remember her. A very          hot number.                           RACINE          Matty Walker?                         GLENN                 (glances at the                  entrance)          Yeah. I met her at a party. She said          she was going up there and she wanted          to know about lawyers. I gave her          your name.                           RACINE          When was this?                         GLENN                 (trying to remember)          I don't know... long time. Maybe          September.Racine stares at him. Glenn sees his party at the entrance.He offers his hand.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                107.                             GLENN           Oops, gotta go.                          RACINE           Did you tell her about the Gourson           case?                          GLENN                  (a slimy grin)           Hey, I was trying to get you work.He starts to move away. Racine grabs him by his tie andpulls him back hard. The people nearby turn in alarm.Racine speaks very quietly to the startled Glenn.                          RACINE           Did you tell her about Gourson?                          GLENN           Jesus, are you nuts?Racine twists his grip on Glenn's tie. Glenn starts tochoke.                          GLENN           Maybe I told her how we met. Yeah,           maybe.Racine lets him go.EXT. FRONT OF WALKER HOUSE - DUSKRacine's Stingray tears up the drive and SQUEALS to astop in the parking area. Racine looks at the house fromthe car. It looks deserted as before. He pulls the Stingrayonto the lawn and drives all the way around the house,then out the drive through his own dust.EXT. PORCH - RACINE'S APARTMENT - NIGHTRacine stares out at the ocean. He lights another cigaretteand lifts a glass of bourbon to his lips. Suddenly, helaughs, short and harsh. But the smile fades quickly.INT. RECEPTION AREA - RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine comes in carrying his briefcase. Beverly looks himover critically; he doesn't look so good.                          BEVERLY           Is there something wrong with your           phone?                          RACINE           Just off the hook. What?    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                108.                         BEVERLY          Teddy Laursen is in County. He's          very anxious to talk to you. He          sounded bad.Racine nods, turns back to the door.                         BEVERLY          Hey, are you all right?Racine stops for a moment and looks at her. He smiles andgoes out.INT. COUNTY JAIL - VISITING ROOM - DAYTeddy Laursen sits across the table from Racine. Teddy,too, looks a little ragged. Nervous.                         TEDDY          I don't know. It's a thing in          Lauderdale. Something must've gone          wrong, but they're not telling me.          I'm a little worried.                           RACINE          I'll find out.                         TEDDY          No, no. That's not why I called you.          In fact, I got me another lawyer.Racine watches him.                         TEDDY          I think it would be better. You know          Schlisgal.                         RACINE                 (nods, confused)          He's good.Teddy looks around nervously. Racine waits.                         TEDDY          This broad came to me last week. A          real looker. She said you told her          how to reach me, I figured you musta,          she knew all about it.                 (Racine nods)          She said you wanted another one.Teddy searches Racine's face, trying to see if the storywas true. He's not surprised that it's not.                          TEDDY          Yeah, I was afraid of that. But I'm          a slow thinker.                          (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org             109.                         TEDDY (CONT'D)                 (lowers his voice                  even more)          She had me show her how to rig it to          a door, with a little delay. Does          any of this mean anything to you?Racine looks at him blankly.                         TEDDY          Then I'm glad I told you. Watch your          step.                           RACINE          Thanks, Teddy.Racine pushes his chair back. Teddy seems torn about sayingmore. He forces himself to --                         TEDDY          Racine... Don't thank me yet. These          guys here, they've been asking me          about The Breakers.                 (reads Racine's                  look)          I haven't told 'em shit. But I don't          like the look on their faces.Racine gets up.INT. RACINE'S OFFICE - DAYRacine listens to the endless ringing on the other end ofhis call and slowly hangs up. The phone rings in thereception room and Beverly picks it up, then hits thehold button.                         BEVERLY                 (yells)          Ned. It's Mrs. Walker. Do you want          her?                           RACINE          Yeah.                   (he picks up)          Hello.                         MATTY                 (filtered throughout)          Hello, Ned. Can we talk?Racine swivels in his chair so that he can see Beverly inthe reception room. Beverly is just replacing the receiveron the hook and for a moment, she gives Racine a strange,ambivalent look. Racine watches her as she goes back towork and speaks quietly into the phone.Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org         110.                     RACINE      Okay. Where are you?                     MATTY      I'm in Miami. I've been running around      like crazy and I could reach you      before I left.                     (a pause)      Ned, everything's going to be all      right.                     RACINE      Tell me.                     MATTY      I've got the money. I've taken it      and sent it somewhere safe. It's all      ours now.             (Racine says nothing)      But that's not the best part.                     RACINE      What's the best part?                     MATTY      The glasses. I got them back. That      is, they should be ours by now.      Betty had them. She wanted money.      That's why I had to come down here.      She made it all very difficult, but      I think it worked out.                     RACINE      Do you have them?                     MATTY      No. She wouldn't do that. She's      putting them in the boathouse. In      the top drawer of the dresser in the      boathouse. They should be there      now, if she's kept up her end.                     RACINE      Yes.                     MATTY      I think you'd better get them right      away. I don't trust her.                     RACINE      In the boathouse.                     MATTY      That's right. The top drawer of the      dresser. Oh. Ned, we're going to be      all right. I'll leave here as soon                     (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              111.                         MATTY (CONT'D)          as I can. I should be there by seven-          thirty. I can't wait to see you,          darling. We've made it.Racine is silent.                         MATTY          Are you all right?                           RACINE          Yes.                         MATTY          Good-bye, sweetheart.She clicks off. Racine puts down the phone and stares atit.INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - COUNTY JAIL - DAYTeddy Laursen watches as Oscar Grace and another Detectivecome into the room. They look grim.                         GRACE          Teddy, this is Detective Knapp from          the Fort Lauderdale Arson Squad.          He's brought some very bad news about          that fire. Seems there were two people          who didn't get out.Teddy reacts. It's the first time for him.                         GRACE          I know, Teddy. It's not like     you.          And I'm willing to make that     clear          to anybody who'll listen. But     you're          going to have to help me out     on this          Breakers business.Teddy looks at him. Teddy is hurting.INT. RACINE'S CAR - DUSKRacine drives. The Stingray passes the sign --                     "You are entering                         PINEHAVEN                    Please drive safely"The town looks well tended.EXT. BOAT HOUSE - WALKER HOUSE - DAYRacine comes down the lawn. He walks slowly toward theboathouse. His walk is unsteady. Racine moves around tothe front of the boathouse and steps onto its wooden porch.      Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org              112.Racine's focus is on the doorknob of the closed door.But he moves past it to the window. The curtains havebeen carefully drawn across it; it is impossible to seebeyond them into the boathouse. Except... except for onelittle slice at the bottom of the window where the curtainsare held apart a fraction of an inch by something. Racinecrouches down to look through the crack.WHAT RACINE SEES. The curtains are being held apart thislittle bit by a wire. A wire which is attached to thewindow and runs tautly back into the gloom of theboathouse. Racine shifts his head an inch and he can seeanother wire. It originates from that same spot back inthe gloom and runs toward the door, although Racine, withthis limited view, cannot actually see where the wire isattached. But Racine is not really trying --Racine has rocked back on his heels away from the window.He stands up and steps away from the boathouse. You mightcall it a stagger.INT. GRACE'S OFFICE - POLICE STATION - NIGHTLowenstein is in a chair. Grace is turned away, lookingout the window at the dark street. They both look dejected.After a long silence --                            LOWENSTEIN            Stupid. That's always been the            problem.                   (a beat)            Her mind encompasses his.                           GRACE            I better go get him.EXT. REAR OF WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTThe house looms darkly. Racine has packed the Stingray inthe black shadows of the big tree behind the house, hidingit. He starts to walk back around the driveway side ofthe house when something catches his eye at the other endof the house. He walks over there.Close to that far wall, in shadow as deep as the one hehas just used is, to Racine's surprise -- Matty'sMercedes. Racine stares at the car.EXT. RACINE'S BUILDING - NIGHTGrace comes out of the house and walks to his car,thinking.INT. EDMUND'S CLOSET - MATTY'S BEDROOM - NIGHTRacine pushes aside some clothes and reaches up to a highshelf. He feels around until he's got what he wants.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                113.He pulls down the wooden case and opens it. Inside isEdmund's .38 revolver.EXT. DRAWBRIDGE ACROSS THE CANAL - NIGHTGrace's car is among a dozen held up by the raiseddrawbridge. A sailboat is gliding slowly through. Graceis outside his car, leaning against it.EXT. GAZEBO -- WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTClose on Racine's watch -- ten-o-five.The wind chimes on the gazebo TINKLE. Racine sits smokingin the shadows. He takes another drink from a glass ofliquor. All the lights on the lawn, gazebo and boathouseare off. Racine hears something and peers toward thedriveway. Headlights move very slowly up the drive towardthe house. It is Edmund's Cadillac, glowing in themoonlight.The Cadillac stops in front of the house and for severalmoments nothing happens. Then Matty gets out of the carWaterway.She is wearing the same white dress she was wearing whenRacine first saw her and she is luminous in the moonlight.Racine watches from the blackness of the gazebo. Silently.Matty walks twenty feet past the gazebo and stops whenshe can make out the boathouse in the gloom. She staresat it a moment then turns back toward the house.Racine steps to the edge of the gazebo. Matty seemsstartled for only a split second.                            MATTY          Hello, darling.                            RACINE          Hello, Matty.                         MATTY          Where's your car?                         RACINE          In the back. With yours.                         MATTY          Why haven't you turned on the lights?                            RACINE          I could see.Matty comes up the steps and puts her arms around him.She closes her eyes as she hugs him. They are one figuremelded in the gloom.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               114.                         MATTY          It's all ours now, Ned. We could          leave tonight if we wanted. It's          over.                          RACINE          Yes, it is.                          MATTY                 (voice changed)          What's this --?Suddenly she backs away from him, down the steps, herwhite dress moving back into the bright moonlight fromthe shadow of the gazebo. She looks up at Racine.                         RACINE          It's Edmund's gun. You remember it,          don't you?He has it in his hand now. He looks it over casually, butthe barrel is toward her.                         MATTY          What is it, Ned? What's happened?                         RACINE          I think you know.                          MATTY          No.   I swear to you, I don't!                         RACINE          It's the glasses, Matty.                         MATTY          Weren't they there? Didn't she bring          them?                         RACINE          I didn't see them.                         MATTY          She promised she'd bring them.                         RACINE          Maybe I missed them. The way you          missed them that night.                         MATTY          Ned, I don't know what you think,          but you're wrong. I haven't done          anything to hurt you. I love you.          You've got to believe me.                         RACINE          Keep talking, Matty. Experience shows          I can be convinced of anything.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                115.EXT. STREET NEAR WALKER PLACE - NIGHTGrace's car moves up the street past the gated drives.EXT. BACK LAWN - NIGHTRacine is at the bottom of the gazebo steps now. Mattyhas backed away, toward the Waterway.                         MATTY          I did arrange to meet you. But, Ned,          it all changed. You changed it. I          fell in love with you. I didn't plan          that...Racine laughs, short and bitterly.                          RACINE          You never quit, do you? You just          keep on coming.                         MATTY          How can I prove it to you? What can          I say?                         RACINE          The glasses, Matty. Why don't you go          down there and get them?Matty is silent. She starts to speak, but nothing comesout. Now there is real fear in her eyes.                         MATTY          But you said they weren't there.                         RACINE          I said I didn't see them.EXT. DRIVEWAY - WALKER HOUSE - NIGHTGrace's car moves down the drive.EXT. BACK LAWN - NIGHTRacine has moved closer to Matty, away from the house.They are only six feet apart. Tears are now rolling downMatty's cheeks.                         MATTY          I'll go, Ned. I'll go and look for          them.She turns and starts walking toward the ocean. Just asshe is about to disappear into the shadows, she turnsback to him.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                116.                         MATTY          Ned... no matter what you think, I          do love you.AT THE CORNER OF THE HOUSEGrace has gotten out of his car. He starts toward thefront door, but sees Racine out on the lawn. He heads outin that direction, but stops as Racine steps into a brightspot of moonlit lawn and the gun's shiny silverplate glintsin the light. The gun is pointed at the retreating Matty.Grace pulls his own gun from a shoulder holster and raisesit. He is about to call out, when Matty disappearscompletely in the gloom. Racine lowers the revolver wearilyand stares out toward the boathouse. Grace lowers hisgun and looks out there too. He moves slowly forward.Close on Racine's face. It's changing now. It's not justthat he's very tired. The hardness is going out of hislook. As the seconds tick by, and Matty does not reappear,he begins to lose faith in his view of the world. He beginsto be afraid. Afraid for Matty. Even now.A sudden breeze starts the wind chimes TINKLING loudly.                         RACINE          No, Matty! Stop! Don't go in! Matty.Racine breaks into a run, dropping the revolver on thegrass. He has taken two big strides when --There is a sound like the ROAR of a dragon, and the roofof the boathouse lifts and then disappears in a huge BALLOF FLAME. The air is  sucked around Racine's body, whippingat his clothes, as he stumbles on the lawn and fallsforward.Grace steadies himself against the side of the gazebo.Racine knows horror. He struggles to his feet and stumblestoward the fire. His body is silhouetted against theleaping, ROARING flames in the night sky.                                       SLOW DISSOLVE TO:INT. RACINE'S CELL BLOCK - FLORIDA STATE PENITENTIARY -NIGHTAbsolute quiet. We move above cell after cell, dark withsleeping convicts.We stop at Racine's cell. It is dark like the rest. Racineis in there alone. We move down close to his sleepingform. He looks thinner.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                117.Suddenly he wakes with a start! His eyes snap open wide;he is totally and instantly awake. He talks to himself,with true amazement.                         RACINE          She's alive.INT. VISITORS CENTER - FLORIDA STATE PENITENTIARY - DAYGrace sits on the other side of the glass from Racine.They talk on telephones. Grace's eyes are sad; they sayhe thinks Racine is going crazy.                         RACINE          But what if that was someone else's          body in there? What if it was already          there when I got there -- dead and          waiting for me. Maybe her friend...          Mary Ann.                         GRACE          Her teeth were left, man. We sent          them back to Illinois. The          identification was positive. That          was her, that was Matty Tyler Walker.          That was her and she's dead.                         RACINE          You're not listening to me. What if          she's been using this other girl's          name? Since she met Walker three          years ago, since she first spotted          him and decided to take him... one          way or another. Maybe Walker -- or          any of us -- never knew her real          name.                         GRACE          Why would she want to hide her          identity?                         RACINE          I don't know. Maybe there was          something in her past, something so          bad she was afraid it would queer it          with Walker if he found out -- that          he'd never marry her.Grace is unreceptive to this. But Racine is charged.                         RACINE          Let's say she's living as the other          girl, this girl from her past. Someone          whose history she knew and could use          any way she wanted. And there's only          one person in the world who knows          the truth.                         (MORE)    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                118.                         RACINE (CONT'D)                 (he leans in)          And then just when Matty's got me on          the line, when she's finally going          to collect, that one person shows          up. That girl. Finds her. And          threatens to expose her. So Matty          starts paying her off. Maybe she          even promises to cut her in on          Edmunds' money. Now she's got to          share it with two people.Racine peaks, tapping the glass between them as though itwere all there for Grace to see.                         RACINE          But when Matty sees a way to get rid          of both of them at once. A way to          solve all her problems and get clear,          with no one looking for her. At the          boathouse. You find two bodies, me          and this girl. Two killers dead.          Case closed.Oscar isn't buying.                         RACINE          You can't find the money, can you,          Oscar? Doesn't that tell you          something?                            GRACE          It tells    me she moved it and we can't          find it.    And that don't mean shit.          It could    be sittin' in any bank in          the world    waiting for a dead lady to          come for    it.Racine, calmer now, shakes his head "no."                         GRACE          Do you hear what you're saying? It's          crazy. This Matty would've had to          been one quick, smart broad.Racine confirms Grace's fears with a look that can onlybe called half-crazed. There's the glimmer of a ruefulsmile.                         RACINE          Oscar, don't you understand? That          was her special gift she was          relentless.                 (much quieter)          Matty was the kind of person who          could do what was necessary. Whatever          was necessary.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org                119.These words have no special import to Grace. He looks atRacine without hope.                         GRACE          Racine, you got to face something.          You killed Edmund Walker, man. And          you're going down for it. Two people          are dead. And no matter how you want          to figure it, you ain't bringin'          either of 'em back to life.Grace gives him a long look, then hangs up the phone. Hestands up and walks away. Racine sits and stares.                                             DISSOLVE TO:INT. RACINE'S CELL BLOCK - DAYRacine, bearded now, comes to the front of his cell toget his mail. A Trustee hands through a book-size manilaenvelope, which has been neatly opened by the prisonauthorities. Racine looks at the return address and becomesvery intense. He sits on his cot and slides out a book. Aletter is clipped to the front. Racine scans it quicklyand begins looking through the book.It is an old high school yearbook. Racine's fingers areshaking slightly as they leaf quickly past black and whitescenes of youthful innocence among the Wheaton High SchoolCougars of 1966.He reaches the individual pictures of the seniors and hihurries through the O's and R's to the T's.Racine's eyes are darting over the pages. Suddenly theystop. He has found her entry. We see it too --MARY ANN TYLERHome Economics "Matty"TRI-Y 29 39 4. CHORUSAmbition -- "To Graduate"The picture is not great. The pretty face is a littlecheap-looking. It is not the Matty he knew. It is herfriend from the back verandah, Mary Ann.Racine's eyes dart. He thinks. Then, he flips back a fewpages. He finds what he wants --MARY ANN SIMPSONEnglishTRI-Y 2, 3, 4; CHORUS 2, 3, 4HOMECOMING PRINCESS 3, 4; SWIMMING 2, 3Ambition-- "To be rich and live in an exotic land."We're very close on the type of her ambition when we panup the page to her smiling face. Her smile is so big, sheseems almost to be laughing.    Converted to PDF by www.screentalk.org               120.Racine's face. That's the woman he loved.Back to her picture. We're moving in on it. Closer. Closer.And then through it --To her real face, this Matty, this Mary Ann, alive andfine in the sun of --EXT. A HIGH PATIO - AN EXOTIC LAND - DAYOne shot, very close on that lovely face, moving aroundit in a tight half-circle that barely lets us glimpse thesun-drenched, foreign town far below and the tropicalfoliage that surrounds the patio. For one brief moment,she seems to be crying. But no, it is not a tear. It is alittle drop of sweat. She wipes it from her cheek as sheturns to an unseen male COMPANION, who has spoken to herin Spanish. She wipes her eyes and looks off at him.                         COMPANION (O.S.)          Hace Calor.                         MATTY          What?                         COMPANION (O.S.)          It is hot.                         MATTY          Yes.She turns her face to the sun.                                               FADE OUT.                        THE END
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+THE BODYGUARD Written by LAWRENCE KASDAN   Clean Shooting Draft       February 1992  FOR EDUCATIONAL   PURPOSES ONLY    SCREEN IS BLACK    In the darkness we hear dripping water, the echoing    approach of two sets of footsteps. There is the sound of    a sudden, quick scuffle, a heavy fall of bodies.    THREE BOOMING GUNSHOTS. Two from one gun, one from    another. So fast and close, they're barely distinguish-    able. The sound of the SHOTS ECHOES against concrete    walls and dies away. Silence.    SLOW, SLOW, FADE IN:1   INT. UNDERGROUND GARAGE (NEW YORK) - NIGHT                   1    FRANK FARMER'S FACE -    mid to late 30s, peers intently over a smoking gun.     He    is The Bodyguard.    ANGLE - HIT MAN    dead on his  feet, leans against a car. A gun drops    heavily from  his hand. His life ebbs as he slides slowly    down the car  door to his knees then falls forward, face    down on the  cement floor.    A SLOW PULL BACK reveals that FRANK is lying on top of    KLINGMAN. Protectively pressed body to body on the    filthy cement floor of the garage. Klingman, a handsome,    50-year-old arbitrageur, gasps in barely controlled fear    as his Armani suit soaks up a black pool of oil. There    is no movement.    The two men are lying near the right front fender of a    black limousine. Blood spreads from the body of the hit    man, a few yards away. Klingman starts to raise himself    up but Farmer keeps him pressed to the floor, still    alert for any further threat.    MAIN TITLES BEGIN.    A beat, and VOICES are heard O.S.   Farmer wheels, snub-    nosed .357 aimed at them.                            FRANK               Freeze!    ANGLE - DOORWAY TO GARAGE    A uniformed chauffeur freezes in his tracks.   Farmer    lowers his weapon and speaks.                            FRANK                      (calm, but an order)               Call 911.                                                                     2.     CAMERA has CRANED UP TO a high, almost-frozen WIDE SHOT of     the scene. It TRACKS AWAY INTO darkness.2    EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT                                   2     Passing traffic reveals the storefront of a TV showroom.     Inside, behind the reflections of the city lights, all     the TV sets are showing the same picture, the glittering     image of a woman singing. (We will recognize the woman     as Rachel Marron.) We cut tighter and tighter on the     image until it is almost broken up into its scanning     lines. Through the city noise comes the sound of her     song "I have Nothing."2A   INT. DAN'S APARTMENT - DESK TOP - NIGHT                    2A     A battered old desk.  Scattered across the top -- a pile     of blank white paper, a jar of glue, a stack of     magazines, a pair of scissors, a TV remote control,     softly in the b.g., a TV is playing the same image we saw     in the store window, the same song.     Hands appear. Male hands. They open a drawer and remove     a pair of translucent rubber gloves. Carefully they put the     gloves on. The SNAPPING of the rubber is the only sound.     The hands pick a magazine off the stack: Screen Stars.     They put the magazine down and pick up the scissors. A     headline on the cover reads: "RACHEL MARRON'S GREATEST     TRIUMPH!" The scissors start to cut. Meticulously they     excise the name "RACHEL MARRON" from the page. With the     care of a surgeon.3    EXT. HOLLYWOOD PREMIERE - NIGHT                            3     A tumultuous crash of screaming, pushing bodies. Arms     stretch out, cameras flash, sunguns flare, microphones     are thrust forward. A deafening cacophony of "Rachel!     Rachel! Rachel! Over here! Over here! This way,     Rachel! Rachel! Rachel!" We cannot see the object of     this frenzy. We catch a brief glimpse of an attractive,     well-dressed young woman (NICKI), exiting with the other     celebrities, as she is pushed and casually jostled aside     by the mass of surging fans and media. Her face is calm     and impassive as she watches from the sidelines.5    INT. KLINGMAN'S OFFICE DEN - NIGHT                         5     In a paneled room tastefully hung with a few choice paint-     ings that reflect Klingman's success as an arbitrageur,     he pours two snifters of brandy as he speaks with Farmer.                                                                   3.                          KLINGMAN             Your hands ever shake, Frank?                           FRANK             Sometimes.   It's just adrenaline.                          KLINGMAN             ... How did you know?                          FRANK             I saw him washing the car.                          KLINGMAN             I saw him.                          FRANK             They don't wash cars on the             parking levels.    He hands a glass of brandy to Frank, who looks at it.                          KLINGMAN             You know, I'd like you to stay on.    He passes a small sealed envelope to Frank.                          FRANK             I'm not good in permanent             positions, my feet go to sleep.    The two men smile at each other. They raise their glasses    in a joint salutation -- Klingman drinks. Frank doesn't.6   INT. DARKENED ROOM - DESK TOP - NIGHT                      6    The rubber-gloved hands are glueing the word "TIME" onto    a message that is taking the classic form of a ransom    note. Each word has been cut from a different page and    is in a different typeface. The note is being assembled    with such care that it has an unusually neat appearance    and is quite easy to read. It reads:             MARRON BITCH -- YOU HAVE EVERYTHING             I HAVE NOTHING. THE TIME TO DIE IS ...7   EXT. CHARITY CONCERT - EVENING                             7    A blur of hands and faces. Excited fans. Pieces of paper,    autograph books, notes are thrust forward INTO the CAMERA.    Again, a mass chanting "Rachel! Rachel! Rachel!"    Hands of Rachel's entourage accept some of the proffered    items.    In CLOSEUP, we see Rachel's hands signing "Best wishes,                                                                     4.     Rachel Marron" on an out-stretched open palm. In the     midst of the urgent forest of hands and paper, a be-     ribboned black doll is thrust forward, bearing the legend     "RACHEL, WE LOVE YOU."8    EXT. FRANK FARMER'S HOUSE - EVENING                        8     SLAM of a CAR DOOR. Frank gets out of a cab with two     suitcases. His house is a modest stucco affair on a     small lot. He goes up the walk and puts down his suit-     cases. He looks at rampant foliage and overgrown grass.     Supermarket circulars cover his doorstep. He picks up a     few and fishes a bunch of keys from his pocket. A     curious neighbor peers from behind a net curtain. As the     door opens, we are aware of a further pile of mail     inside. Frank's feet push the letters aside and go     inside. The door shuts.10   INT. FARMER'S KITCHEN - NIGHT                              10     Farmer has carefully set a place for himself at the table     in a breakfast nook. A bottle of red wine is open with a     glass beside it.     At the stove he stirs and flavors a Boeuf Bourgignon and     reads a Time magazine. He adds a splash of wine. He     lifts the pot from the stove and tries a piece of meat.     At the table, he looks at the place setting and absently     eats another piece of meat. Finally he sets the pot on     the plate and eats from it directly while glancing     through the magazine.11   INT. DRESSING ROOM - CLOSEUP - CORNER OF DRESSING TABLE    11     Lots of people are schmoozing in the dressing room.     There's a loud buzz of excited chatter. Hands are stack-     ing flowers, good luck messages, cards and cables by the     mirror. Through the blur and bustle, we glimpse the doll     with its embroidered ribbon message "RACHEL, WE LOVE YOU."     Hands casually move it to one side, among the flowers     resting on the small portable TV set. On the screen is     an image of Rachel performing on stage, acknowledging     applause, bowing.     The doll EXPLODES, SHATTERING the TV, the MIRROR and the     LIGHT BULBS.     The SCREEN GOES BLACK, amid SHOUTS, SCREAMS and     CONFUSION.     TITLES END.                                                                      5.12   EXT. FRANK FARMER'S HOUSE - BACK YARD - DAY                 12     Frank lounges in his shorts under the single tree, sun-     glasses on, a glass of iced tea by his side. Strains of     "DON'T WALK AWAY RENEE" come from a beat-up transistor     RADIO.     An old-fashioned lawn sprinkler lazily waves water back     and forth over the freshly cut grass.  Throwing knives     lay scattered nearby. A wooden post is  sticking out of     the ground in front of the fence at the back of the yard.     BILL DEVANEY, fiftyish, a distinguished-looking black     gentleman, stands nearby trying to engage Frank in a     conversation that up to this point hasn't been going well.     He's Rachel's personal manager.                           DEVANEY              So, you won't protect Rachel Marron              just because she's in show business?                           FRANK              I don't do celebrities.                           DEVANEY              But the biggest money's in show              business people.     Frank says nothing. His  eyes are  closed behind the sun-     glasses. Devaney picks  up one of  the throwing knives.     He holds it carefully by the blade  and throws it. It     misses the post by three feet and  clatters against the     fence.     Frank opens his eyes, sees what's going on and closes his     eyes again.                           DEVANEY                     (picking up another                      knife)              Do you really do these things?                           FRANK              Isn't she the one who collects              dolls?     This is enough to distract Devaney from his knife-throwing.                           DEVANEY                     (exasperated)              Farmer, Rachel Marron is one of the              most famous people in America. She's              won every music award invented. She's              got the number one song in the country              right now and she'll probably be              nominated for an Oscar in her very                                                           6.         first picture. And you want to know         'Isn't she the one...?' Christ,         man, where've you been?                      FRANK         You mean she doesn't collect dolls?                        DEVANEY                  (defeated)         Yes.    She collects dolls.                      FRANK         I thought I knew who she was.Devaney tries to size up whether Frank is kidding him ornot. Frank's face betrays nothing. Devaney gestures witha knife.                      DEVANEY         You're probably deadly with these         things, aren't you?                       FRANK         Deadly.                       DEVANEY         Show me.Frank doesn't move.                      DEVANEY         Why are you resisting this job?         $2,000 bucks a week.                (no response)         $2,500.                      FRANK         There are several good men         available for that kind of money.         Have you talked to Fitzgerald or         Racine? Portman?                       DEVANEY         Yeah.   Portman was interested...He senses an opening and sits down beside Frank for whathe takes to be the first serious talk.                      DEVANEY         ... but we're told you're the best.                      FRANK         There's no such thing.                      DEVANEY         Farmer, we're talking about a         very frightened lady. With a                                                                 7.         seven-year old son. Believe me,         I wouldn't be here if I didn't         think this was for real.                (long pause)         Farmer, she begged me to get you.Frank sits up finally and looks at Devaney a long time.He picks up five throwing knives and stands up.                      FRANK         All right. I'll come and I'll look         the situation over. If I take it,         it's three thousand a week.                      DEVANEY                (whistles)         Okay. You must be very deadly         for three grand a week.Frank is now about twenty feet from the wooden post.     Hethrows one of the knives. It misses the post andclatters against the fence.                        FRANK         Shit.Devaney's face drops.   Frank examines the next knife.                      FRANK                (mumbling)         I know it's something like...The second knife gets away from him at the top of his arcand disappears into some bushes about three feet fromDevaney. Devaney stands up in a hurry and moves behindFrank.                        FRANK         Sorry.Frank raises his hand to throw again, then stops andmotions Devaney off to the side.                      FRANK         Better not stand right behind me.Devaney smiles weakly. Frank lets the third knife gowith one smooth motion.The knife sinks an inch into the center of the post.     THUMP.Frank's hand arching again.     Throwing the remaining knives.Both knives stick in the post forming a straight verticalline with the first one.                                                                     8.13   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - WAVERLY LANE (BEL AIR) - DAY          13     Frank stops his nondescript Chevy across the quiet street     from the closed, unmanned gate at the bottom of the Marron     driveway.     FRANK'S POV     as he looks over the gate, the wall, the heavy vegetation     and the rising grounds beyond.     (NOTE: The use of the term FRANK'S POV, is not to be     taken simply as a camera direction. Rather, it re-     presents a recurring attempt to make the audience see in     the special way Frank sees. Frank lives by constant     vigilance, heightened awareness. It is his genius and     his burden. The audience must be put in the position of     looking, searching, scanning with him.)     He has a curious sense of being watched, a kind of prick-     ling on the back of his neck. As he looks around, a     black Toyota 4X4, parked some way down the road, drives     rapidly off -- too fast to get a clear look. He watches     it go.     Frank pulls up   to the gate and gets out of his car. He     grabs a bar of   the gate and pulls. The whole gate     rattles. Frank    gets back in his car and pushes a button     on the intercom   box at the side of the gate. A MAN'S     VOICE CRACKLES   out of the BOX. Transmission is terrible.                             MAN'S VOICE (V.O.)              Yes?                           FRANK              Frank Farmer to see Miss Marron.                             MAN'S VOICE (V.O.)              What?                           FRANK              Alexander Graham Bell to see Miss              Marron!                           MAN'S VOICE (V.O.)                     (obviously has not heard)              Have you got an appointment?                           FRANK              The atomic number of zinc is 30.                             MAN'S VOICE (V.O.)              All right.     There is a LOUD BUZZING and the gate swings arthritically     open.                                                                     9.14   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - DRIVEWAY - DAY                        14     FRANK'S POV     as he moves up the winding drive through heavily land-     scaped grounds. Plenty of potential hiding places. The     mansion is at the top of the hill. The grounds behind     the mansion fall away.15   EXT. MANSION - CIRCULAR DRIVE/ENTRANCE AREA - DAY          15     The mansion is huge. On and on it goes. Frank drives     PAST the garage area where HENRY, the chauffeur, is     polishing the mascot on the limousine. One of his arms     is bandaged. Henry peers at Frank, puts down his cloth     and walks toward the entrance where Frank is parking.     Frank gets out, looks around. A painter's truck is     parked nearby, two painters unloading equipment from it.                           HENRY              Can I help you?                           FRANK              Are you the man on the intercom?                            HENRY              No.   Can I help you?                           FRANK              My name is Edison. I have an              appointment with Miss Marron.                            HENRY              Oh.   And that was arranged by...?                           FRANK                     (impressed)              Mr. Devaney.                           HENRY              Go right ahead, Mr. Edison.                           FRANK              What happened to your arm?                           HENRY                     (looking at his arm)              A doll.     He goes back to the limousine.     Frank RINGS the DOORBELL, although the door is not shut.     EMMA, a fiftyish housekeeper, appears. A man in cover-     alls comes out past her, carrying a length of timber.                                                                     10.                           FRANK              Henry Ford, to see Mr. Devaney.                           EMMA              Come in, please.16   INT. MARRON MANSION - DAY                                  16     Frank steps into the foyer with Emma. She is a warm,     matronly woman who does a fine job running the house     without standing on custom.                           EMMA              I'll tell you quite honestly,              Mr. Ford, I don't know where              Mr. Devaney is. Did he say he'd              be here?                           FRANK              Yes.                           EMMA              Then he probably is.   Let me look.     She leads Frank into a large, unused formal parlor. There     are dustsheets over the furniture and the walls are being     repainted. On a number of TV screens scattered around,     Rachel's latest video (the one we saw in the opening     titles) is continuously playing. The sound of the song     itself -- "I HAVE NOTHING" -- comes softly from concealed     speakers.                            EMMA               Please make yourself at home. Can               I get you anything?     Frank demurs and Emma disappears back through the foyer.     Frank watches her go, then moves off into the house in     the opposite direction. It's obviously undergoing a     major redecoration. Painters, decorators and designers     come and go, oblivious to Frank's presence.17   INT. MARRON MANSION - VARIOUS ROOMS - DAY                  17     The deeper Frank walks into the house, the warmer and     more lived-in rooms appear.18   INT. MARRON MANSION - SUN ROOM - DAY                       18     Frank steps into a tiled room that overlooks the pool     area. One wall is all glass. On the opposite wall are     shelves containing the trophies of Rachel Marron's career:     A Tony award, three Grammy's, gold and platinum records,     other statuettes and plaques. Among the framed photo-     graphs of Rachel accepting awards etc., is one of her and                                                                     11.     her small son, FLETCHER, dressed in a tuxedo. Both are     goofing off for the camera with obvious affection. Frank     looks down at the pool.     FRANK'S POV     Dwarfed by the pool, the only person in sight is seven-     year old Fletcher, the little boy from the photograph,     dark-haired and fragile. He is crouched at the side of     the pool with the remote control unit for a foot-long     speedboat which is cutting across the water. A nanny     sits, some way off, embroidering.     Frank's attention is distracted. A heavier BASS MUSICAL     BEAT comes from somewhere nearby in the house, another     Rachel Marron number, but this time up-tempo and bouncy.     Frank follows the sound.19   INT. FAMILY ROOM - DAY                                     19     Frank walks into the rear of the room that the noise is     coming from.     It is large and comfortable with plenty of seating, a     bar, a wall of stereo gear and a projection booth. It     is packed with people, props and video equipment. There     is lots of activity, a general air of barely-organized     chaos. MUSIC BLARES out.     A group of six dancers, is rehearsing an energetic dance     number for a music video, directed by their choreographer     RORY. Sunlight throws them in a silhouette against the     glass wall at the end of the room. A video cameraman     circles them, taping the rehearsal, which appears on a     large-screen TV behind them.     In one corner, a pretty black girl is being pinned into a     proposed costume for the video. Several people are stand-     ing around, tending to the video and playback gear. All     the chairs face the far end of the room and it isn't     immediately apparent how many more people are hidden among     the big cushions.     As Frank sits on the barstool at the back, a large swivel     chair turns to reveal Devaney. He waves to Frank and     makes his way over to him.     On the other side of the room, a brawny, heavyset man in his     late thirties rises to look at Frank. He has a twenty inch     neck. Devaney signals to him  that everything is all right.     The brawny man looks at Frank a moment more, then sits down.     Frank looks around the room. A shelf laden with vitamins.     Guitars of various makes. A flute. A gold record being     used as a coaster. People smoking and chatting through     the rehearsal.                                                              12.In one of the chairs, a pretty  woman in her  mid-thirties(NICKI, the woman we saw at the  premiere) is  knitting.She glances occasionally at the  dancers. A   man sits nextto a phone busily discussing a  contract with  someone atthe other end of the line.The music climaxes and abruptly stops. The dancers holdtheir dramatic final poses for a second, then relax again.APPLAUSE. The CLAPPING from the front sofa is loudest.Then LAUGHTER.From elsewhere in the room comes the voice of the VIDEODIRECTOR.                      DIRECTOR (O.S.)         Playback, everybody!Rachel's voice comes from the sofa.                      RACHEL (O.S.)         Come here, Rory!The choreographer skips to the sofa and disappears fromsight. Sound of kissing, laughter.The video rewinds on the big screen and the dancers gatherround it expectantly.                      RACHEL (O.S.)         Sugar, that's gonna be great.    I         love the ending...Devaney moves to the front of the room. The PLAYBACKSTARTS behind him. There are several overlappingconversations going on.                      DEVANEY         Rachel...                      RACHEL (O.S.)         Nicki, how'd you like the number?         You like the end routine?                      DIRECTOR (O.S.)         Rachel. You wanna see it back         from the beginning or just the         ending...NICKI, responds to Rachel's question.                      NICKI         It was just great, Rory...But Rachel is already replying to the video director.                                                               13.                      RACHEL (O.S.)         I wanna see it all. Tony?      I'll         bet Tony loved it.The brawny man, Tony, shrugs and stands to look at Frankas he speaks.                       TONY         Ehh!                      RACHEL (O.S.)         Don't worry, Rory. Tony doesn't         appreciate great art.The pinned-up girl has been brought forward for Rachel'sapproval, elbowing Devaney a little to one side.                      DRESS DESIGNER                (showing the costume)         What do you think, Rachel?                      DEVANEY         Rachel, Frank Farmer is...                      RACHEL (O.S.)         Devaney, do you think this is me?                      DEVANEY                (not looking)         It's terrific...Devaney is now facing the unseen Rachel.                      DEVANEY         Rachel, Frank Farmer is here.Devaney nods in Frank's direction.     Nicki looks at Frank.                       RACHEL (O.S.)         Who's here?                      DEVANEY         Frank Farmer.                (getting no response)         The bodyguard.                      RACHEL (O.S.)         I think Rory should be my         bodyguard.                (to dress designer)         Let's see the back again...                      DEVANEY         Rachel, raise your butt out of         there and meet this man.RACHEL MARRON finally rises from the sofa.     It's a bit of                                                             14.a shock to see that she is only about thirty years old.A young woman. Not beautiful, not ugly. Unique only inthat she is immediately interesting. A Superstar.                      RACHEL         Well, I'm up.Rachel and Frank look across the room at each other.Frank comes forward.                      DEVANEY         Frank Farmer, Rachel Marron.Rachel offers her hand and they shake.    Rachel looks himup and down.                      RACHEL         You don't look like a bodyguard.                      FRANK         What did you expect?                      RACHEL         I don't know. Tough guy maybe.                      FRANK         This is my disguise.                      RACHEL                (smiling)         Well, his timing's good.                      DEVANEY         This is Nicki, Rachel's sister         and personal secretary.                      NICKI         Nice to meet you, Mr. Farmer.                      DEVANEY                (indicating)         ... Tony Scibelli.Tony nods but makes no move to shake hands.Rachel dismisses the Dress Designer.                      RACHEL                (to designer)         The back's still not right...SPECTOR, still on the phone, offers a perfunctory wave.                      DEVANEY         ... Sy Spector, Rachel's publicist.                                                              15.                      RACHEL         Can we get you a drink?                      FRANK         Orange juice.                       RACHEL         Straight?   Nicki.Nicki goes to the bar. Rachel sits and motions forFrank to sit opposite her.                      RACHEL         Rory, I'll be with you in a second.Rory gets up, and goes over to his dancers at the bigscreen video.                      RACHEL         Listen, this whole thing is Bill's         idea... This sudden obsession with         protecting me. Tony has always         handled my security and we've done         just fine.                      SPECTOR (O.S.)                (into the phone)         Yes, I'll hold but not long...                      RORY (O.S.)         Rachel, you want to run through         your steps before we go again...?                      RACHEL         I'll be with you in a second.Nicki hands Frank his orange juice.   She looks at Frank asshe speaks.                      NICKI         I think Bill's right, Rachel. It's         time you took more precautions.Spector enters the conversation.                      SPECTOR                (one hand covers                 the phone)         Nicki, I'm sure Mr. Farmer would         tell you the number of nuts         writing fan letters jumps every         time Rachel is on the cover of         a magazine.                      DEVANEY         Not like this.                                                             16.An ASSISTANT hands Rachel a small sheaf of phone messages,some papers for signature and a pen. Rachel checksthrough them and signs as she talks.                      RACHEL         Relax guys, I said I'd do  it. You         see what I'm dealing with  here?         I'm willing to go along,  as long         as we all understand each  other.         I'm not going to let this  alter         my life one little bit.                (to assistant)         Who was this?                      ASSISTANT                (overlapping Devaney)         Oh. That was Clive's office.         They called three times...                      DEVANEY         Honey, that's not going to be a         problem.                      DEVANEY (CONT'D)                (to Frank)         Rachel runs a very informal         household, we're all on a first         name basis...Spector has finished up on the phone and jumps in.                      SPECTOR         ...And I'm sure you'll blend in         just fine. You can select whatever         alarm systems you want for the         house. Some kind of improved         security for the gate. What else,         Rachel?Rachel stands and starts to wander over to Rory andthe dancers.Frank looks at Devaney.   Devaney doesn't like the tonethis is taking.                      RACHEL         I think I'm safe when I'm here at         the house so I guess the main thing         will be when I go out. Tony will         be able to fill you in on all that.         You two will have to work something         out. I don't want both of you         falling all over me everywhere I         go. The most important thing is         this -- I will not allow Fletcher         to be affected by this thing...                                                              17.Rory puts his arm around her waist and stands behind her,starting to run through her steps with her in slow motion.                      SPECTOR                (punching phone)         I was just going to cover that.         We'll have to tell the child you         have some other function...                      RACHEL         I don't want him to think   he's in         prison. So the house and    grounds         must not be altered in any   way.         He shouldn't be aware that   you're         here. Is that clear?Frank looks at her a long time, glancing up at Devaneyonce.                      FRANK         Miss Marron...                      RACHEL         Rachel.                      FRANK         There's been a mistake. A         misunderstanding. If you'll show         me the quickest way out, we'll         save each other a lot of trouble.Frank's on his way. Someone brings a silver headpiece ona stand to Rachel. She ignores it, still looking at Frank.                      TONY         You can go past the pool.                      DEVANEY         Shut up, Tony.                      FARMER         Nice meeting you.                      DEVANEY         Farmer, will you wait a minute?                      SPECTOR         Bill, I don't think we should be         begging this guy for his services.                      DEVANEY         Sy, I'm handling this.Rachel looks on coolly as Frank slides open the glass door.                      DEVANEY         Farmer, will you wait a minute?                                                                      18.20   EXT. MARRON GROUNDS - BACK LAWN - DAY                       20     Frank is walking rapidly away from the window wall, down     the slope. Devaney is scurrying to keep up.                           DEVANEY              Farmer, will you wait a minute? I              should have told you more. I'm              sorry but I was afraid she wouldn't              go through with it. I thought I'd              let the two of you work it out...              come to an understanding.                            FRANK              We did.     Frank starts to walk off.   Devaney is grasping at straws.                           DEVANEY              She's not a bad person, and whether              she knows it or not, she needs you.                     (a beat)              You've come this far... Would you              just wait here for one minute. I              want to show you something. Please,              Farmer.     Devaney runs back to the house.21   EXT. POOL AREA - DAY                                        21     Fletcher, happy to have someone to talk to,  walks up to     Frank with his remote-control speed boat.   Frank would     like to walk away, but Fletcher blocks his  way. Frank     looks at Fletcher's frail little, nut-brown  figure. The     watching nanny continues her embroidering,  some way off.                            FLETCHER              Hi!                           FRANK                     (continuing to walk)              Hi.                           FLETCHER              How are you today?                           FRANK                     (wants to keep walking)              All right. How 'bout yourself?                           FLETCHER              Oh, I'm fine. Do you like boats?                                                             19.Frank gives up.    He's not going to get out of here.   Hestops.                         FRANK         No.     I don't like boats.                         FLETCHER         You don't!     Why not?                      FRANK         Oh, I don't know.                      FLETCHER         Sure you do, but you don't want         to tell me.Frank considers him, then slips out of his sport coat.He crouches down so that he is eye-level with Fletcher.                      FRANK         You're a smart kid.Fletcher nods.                      FRANK         I'll tell you. One time I was         stuck on a boat with some people         for four months.                        FLETCHER         A lifeboat?                      FRANK         Nope. A big white yacht.      Do you         know what a yacht is?                         FLETCHER                   (thinks about this)         Yeah.     My mom rented this huge         yacht    once, and we took a trip.         It was    great. Everyone threw up         except    me. I love 'em.                      FRANK                (standing to leave)         Well, nobody's perfect.Fletcher squints up at him, the sun in his eyes.                      FLETCHER         You're the bodyguard, aren't you?Frank is surprised.                      FRANK         What do you know about it?                                                                     20.                           FLETCHER              I've got ears.                           FRANK              I'll remember that.     Devaney trots into the pool area, out of breath. He is     holding a bulging manila file. As he sees Fletcher, he     holds the file casually at his side.     Frank sees Fletcher looking at the file.                           DEVANEY              How are you, Fletch?                     (to Frank)              I'm glad you waited.    Let's go              over here.                           FRANK                     (to Fletcher)              Nice meeting you.     Fletcher looks after them silently.22   EXT. PATIO - DAY                                           22     Devaney slides the file across the table at Frank, open-     ing it. Inside are letters of every size and condition.     Repeatedly throughout this scene Frank's gaze is drawn to     Fletcher, who has started his boat again.                           DEVANEY              This is just in the last six months.                           FRANK                     (looks at the pile)              Have you ever tried having these              professionally assessed?     Devaney shakes his head no.     Frank begins to look through the letters, flipping them by     the corner of the page. From many different sources, some     are scrawled, some typed, some assembled from cutouts.     Many are soiled and torn, others immaculate. Occasionally,     one will have a photo of Rachel with crude markings on it.     Spector enters sucking on a popsicle. He comes to stand     over Frank's shoulder, peering nonchalantly at the piles     of letters.                           SPECTOR              Devaney says you were in the Secret              Service.     Frank nods.                                                            21.Frank goes through them quickly, with an expert eye. Hesometimes pauses to read one more carefully. A few heremoves from the stack and places in the center of thetable.                      SPECTOR         Ever guard the main man?                      FRANK         I was two years with Carter and         four years with Reagan.Frank sets another letter in the center pile.   He stops,smiling at it.                      FRANK         This is a little old lady in         Akron. She's written to         everybody I've ever worked for.He continues to turn until something stops him. Severalletters are paper-clipped together. They are the pasted-up type we saw being assembled on the desk top.                      SPECTOR         Reagan got shot.His chatter is beginning to annoy Frank.                      FRANK         Not on my shift.Spector emits a gratuitous laugh, acknowledges the joke.                        SPECTOR         That's good.Frank goes back to his letters.   He taps the stack inthe center of the table.                      FRANK         At first glance, these don't         bother me. But keep them. You         never know.He separates one letter from the others.                      FRANK         This could be something.Devaney searches Frank's face.                      DEVANEY         You think it could be the same         guy? The one who rigged the doll?                                                                      22.                           FRANK              I don't know. Did you tell Miss              Marron about it? Does she know              about the doll?     Devaney and Spector exchange looks.   This is evidently a     sore point between them.                           SPECTOR              We said there'd been some electrical              problem while she was on stage.              Short circuit. Look, she doesn't              need that kind of worry right now.              It would upset her.                           FRANK              What about the police?                           SPECTOR              There was no reason for the police.              No one got hurt.                           FRANK              What about the chauffeur?                           SPECTOR              It was nothing. It was just our              people there.     Frank turns and watches Fletcher by the pool.   Devaney's     eyes are still on Frank's face.                           DEVANEY              Sy, I think we should show him              the room.23   INT. ROOM - DAY                                             23     Frank follows Spector and Devaney into the room. He     glances around, taking in the murals, the decor, the     kitsch attempt at fornicatorial splendour right from     the pages of a tabloid layout.                           FRANK              Is this her bedroom?                           SPECTOR              Yes.                           DEVANEY              No. She sleeps in a room next to              Fletcher's down the hall. Sy had              this done for a magazine layout,                           SPECTOR              'Superstars in their Boudoirs.'                                                     23.         Did you see it?                      FRANK         No.                      DEVANEY         Rachel never liked it.                      SPECTOR         She didn't have to like it...Devaney gently lays the cut-out letter on the bed.                      DEVANEY         We found the letter here.                      FRANK         Somebody was in here?                      DEVANEY         Somebody broke in and ...         masturbated on the bed.                      FRANK         And she doesn't know about this         either?Devaney shakes his head.                      SPECTOR         Are you kidding? This would really         freak her out.                      DEVANEY         What do you think?                      FRANK         Someone penetrates the house, gets         upstairs and jerks off on the bed         ... I'd say that qualifies as a         problem.                      DEVANEY         What kind of problem?                      SPECTOR                (agitated)         Of fuck, we don't need this now...                      FRANK         This house is wide open.                      SPECTOR         Excuse me?                      FRANK         I said this house is wide open                                                                     24.              and you people have no clue what              real security is or what it takes              to achieve it.                           DEVANEY                     (does a quick read                      on Frank)              Frank, I totally respect what              you're telling me. Tell me how              you want to work and I'll              accommodate you.                           FRANK              Look, I can't protect her. I won't              be responsible for her safety if              she doesn't know what's going on.                           DEVANEY              I'll talk to her, I'll make her              understand. I can do that.                            SPECTOR              No.   I'll talk to her.     Spector exits the room in a huff.24   EXT. MARRON HOUSE FRONT - DAY                              24     Frank emerges with Devaney and crosses toward his car.                           DEVANEY              ...She won't give you any static,              Frank, you've got my word on that.     Frank is still focused on Fletcher.                           FRANK              Sure she will.                           DEVANEY              So what job's perfect? You're              a bodyguard, aren't you?     Slowly, Frank faces him.                            FRANK                      (quietly)              Yeah.     As they reach the car, Devaney is relieved.   He dares a     perfect smile.                           FRANK              Devaney, if you ever lie to me              again, I'll take you apart.                                                                     25.25   INT. MARRON MANSION - FRANK'S ROOM - DAY                   25     Henry Dupres is leaning against the doorjamb. The room     is comfortable, a guest bedroom. Frank flops one     battered suitcase onto the bed and opens it. He pulls     open some drawers in the dresser and starts putting away     his clothes.                           HENRY              Why'd you say your name was              Edison?                           FRANK              I wanted to see how hard it              was to get in.                           HENRY              And it wasn't, was it?     Henry unconsciously flexes his fingers, easing the muscles     in his hands. Frank notices and pulls out a small tube of     ointment from a pouch he's unpacking. He hands it to Henry.                           FRANK              Put this on your arm.    It'll help              the ache.     Henry takes it but is noncommittal.                           FRANK              I'll bet you can fill up a whole              day just washing the cars and              driving Rachel Marron around town.                           HENRY              That's my job.                           FRANK              We're adding to your duties.                           HENRY              Huh?                           FRANK              You're my new assistant.     Frank removes three boxes of cartridges from the suitcase     and puts them in the back of a dresser drawer as Henry     watches.                           HENRY              Says who?                           FRANK              Henry, I've spent a lot of time              guarding people all over the world                                                                   26.              and I've found one thing to be              true. No matter how incompetent              the assassins, no matter how much              they miss their target by, there's              one person who always gets hit.                           HENRY              Who?                           FRANK              The cocky black chauffeur.     Henry considers this for a moment and smiles.     OVER scenes 26-28, we hear the VOICE of CNN's MARTIN     GROVE from "Showbiz Today."                           MARTIN GROVE (V.O.)              It's Oscar time again, folks, and              with Academy members marking their              ballots today for this year's              nominations; some canny tipsters in              Vegas have announced their picks              for the Awards.                           MARTIN GROVE (V.O.)(CONT'D)              Echoing the prevailing buzz in              Hollywood, the Vegas Hilton is              gambling on one sure thing at              least. Newcomer Rachel Marron              is tipped at 3 to 1 to lead this              year's Best Actress runners.                           MARTIN GROVE (V.O.)(CONT'D)              The sultry singer made a notable              acting debut last fall in Queen              Of The Night, singing the hit song              'I Have Nothing'. The lady may              end up eating her words if she              takes home that statuette March              20th...26   EXT. PERIMETER OF ESTATE - VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY           26     The fortification of the estate begins as Frank and     Henry walk the grounds. Frank talks and points, Henry     takes notes on a pad. Frank gestures at the stonework     of the gate, points at the top of the stone wall along     Waverly Lane. At the tall hedges which separate the     estate from its neighbors, Frank gestures to take in     the entire length of the hedged border. Henry stops     in amazement. Frank keeps walking.27   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - POOL AREA - DAY                     27                                                                     27.     Fletcher stands at the edge of the terrace, staring down     across the rear grounds.     FLETCHER'S POV     Frank and Henry are down there conferring about the     fence.     RACHEL     appears beside Fletcher, looks down there too, then leads     her son purposefully away. Fletcher isn't happy about it.28   INT. MARRON MANSION - VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY                  28     Frank tours the house with Emma and Henry. Frank opens     various doors, fidgets with locking mechanisms. Emma     finds it all exciting.29   INT. MARRON ESTATE - POOL HOUSE/BALLET STUDIO - DAY        29     A small room at one end of the pool house has been fitted     with a wall mirror and ballet exercise barre. A STEREO     plays exercising MUSIC.     Nicki, dressed in leotards, is doing pre-aerobic stretch-     ing exercises. Frank appears outside the window. Nicki     waves him in. Unseen by Frank, a huge St. Bernard lays     in the front of the door. He muscles his way in, the dog     never moves, just slides along the floor as Frank pushes     the door open. Frank looks the room over.                           FRANK              Unusual tactic for a guard dog,              but effective.     Nicki smiles, gesturing him in.                           NICKI              You can look around if you like.     Frank indicates it won't be necessary.   Nicki stops     working out.                           FRANK              I'm sorry to disturb you.                           NICKI              That's all right. It's an excuse              to rest. It's my private place.              I'm the only one who works out              around here.     Frank glances at photos on one wall. Most are of Nicki     from years ago; some show her performing with a band.                                                                     28.                           NICKI              My own ego wall. No platinum              records.     Frank spots a picture of two girls.                           FRANK              You and Rachel?                           NICKI              When I was a kid, I put a little              band together. We played high              school dances, stuff like that.              Then Rachel joined the act. As              you can imagine, she was quite a              little entertainer. Even then,              she had a way of stopping the show.              So I kind of quit. Professionally,              anyway.                           FRANK              You never went back?                           NICKI              It was pretty obvious who the              star in our family was.     Frank looks back at the picture.    Nicki smiles.30   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - GARAGE AREA - DAY                     30     Frank and Henry walk toward the closed garages.                           HENRY              That depends on what you call a              'hint.'                           FRANK              I don't want anyone on the street              to be able to look at the cars and              know who owns them.     Henry leans in a doorway and hits a master switch. The     three doors of the garage start to rise in sequence.                           HENRY              I don't think there's anything              here you'd call a 'hint.'     One at a time the doors go up to reveal:     First garage -- the Cadillac limousine we've seen earlier.     License: RACHEL 2     Second garage -- a gray Mercedes.    License:   RACHEL 3                                                                     29.     Third garage -- a Jaguar XKE in an outrageous pink. No     other car in the world is this color. License: RACHEL 1     Frank looks at Henry, who is laughing and shakes his head.     He walks toward the Jag.     Frank releases the hood. He looks inside for a moment,     then reaches into the guts of the engine. He fiddles for     a second, then stands up holding some wires and slams the     hood shut again. He gestures toward the other two cars.                           FRANK              Get new plates for those two.31   EXT. GATE AREA - DAY                                       31     The fortification continues as workmen use a bulldozer to     clear away the stonework around the entrance.32   EXT. DRIVEWAY OF MARRON ESTATE - DAY                       32     Sitting beside Henry, Frank teaches him how to spin the     limo in a 180 degree 'skid turn,' sending up clouds of     dust. A group of roadies watching bursts into spontan-     eous applause.33   EXT. GATE AREA - DAY                                       33     Fletcher sits on the grass about halfway to the house,     watching the activity with delighted interest.     He turns as he spots something beyond the hedge.     FLETCHER'S POV     Workmen put up a seven-foot cyclone fence. Across the     road, a black Toyota 4 X 4 is stopped. It slowly pulls     away. We can't see inside it.34   EXT. GATE AREA - DAY                                       34     One worker pries a small boulder out of a hole with a     crowbar. His partner picks up the rock and tosses it     on a small pile of rocks. The boulder bounces down the     backside of the pile.35   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - DAY                                35     Rachel, looking out her window at Fletcher and the work-     men, sees the rock stop a yard from him. Fletcher     scrambles away, much as a kid might dance back from a                                                                     30.     wave on a beach.   The sight disturbs Rachel.                             RACHEL              Fletcher!    C'mon. Back in here!     As she speaks, some workmen test the remote control on a     window shutter. It descends in front of Rachel's face.     She is not amused. Fletcher passes Frank on his way to     join Rachel. He mutters almost under his breath.                           FLETCHER              I think he's got a black 4 X 4. Could              be a Chevy. More like a Toyota.     Frank stares at Fletcher, then looks back to the street.36   INT. F.B.I. LOS ANGELES OFFICE - CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY     36     The room is dark. An opaque projector throws an image     onto a screen; it is a letter threatening Rachel's life.     We hear voices. One is Frank's; the other two belong     to special agents RAY COURT and TERRY MINELLA.     The letter is one of the pasted-up threats we saw being     assembled earlier. It reads:              MARRON BITCH -- YOU HAVE EVERYTHING              I HAVE NOTHING. THE TIME IS COMING              WHEN YOU SHALL DIE...     Reading as fast as possible, we pick up some vicious     threats and obscenities, but we don't have time to read     it all before we...                                                CUT TO:     FRANK'S FACE     illuminated by the screen.                              COURT (O.S.)              This    is another of the ones we              think    are worth pursuing. Lots of              work    went into it. No prints.              We're    doing lab work on it. It              could    be nothing.     MINELLA'S FACE     is illuminated above the projector.                           MINELLA              This is the one you think is tied              to the doll?                           FRANK (O.S.)              That's what her manager thinks.                                                                     31.                           COURT (O.S.)              This 'I Have Nothing' business is              a natural with the record and              movie and all.     The projector light goes off and the room light goes on.     The room is practically bare.     Ray Court, a prematurely white-haired, career civil     servant, raises the window shade. Sunlight streams     in. On Court's lapel is a tiny P.T. Boat pin.     Terry Minella, a slight, dark 35-year-old, offers Frank     a cigarette; Frank declines, Minella lights up.                           COURT              I sort of lost track of you after              Washington.                             FRANK              Yeah.                           COURT              How's the private stuff?                             FRANK                       (noncommittal)              Fine.                           COURT              Big money, I bet? Huh?     Frank shrugs.    Court looks at Minella knowingly.37   INT. FEDERAL BUILDING - DAY                                37     Minella and Court walk Frank to the lobby.                           COURT              Shit. I knew it. It is big money.              Fuck! You need an assistant? I'm              ready to get out. I've lost my              tolerance for assholic behavior.              You should see the jerk we're              covering now...                           COURT              'Hellfire Henry' Kent...                             MINELLA              Shh!    Somebody wants to pop him...                           COURT              Which isn't exactly surprising,              considering what the shithead's                                                                     32.              been saying.                           MINELLA              Yeah!  Do everyone a favor...                     (he coughs,                      ironically)              As you know, we're nonpolitical              these days.     The three men laugh easily together.   They have reached     the lobby doors.                           COURT                     (to Frank)              We'll put this stuff through              Washington. Behavioral Sciences              should have something in a few days.                           FRANK              Thanks.                     (a pause)              Ray?                             COURT              Yeah?                           FRANK              Why am I getting all this              cooperation?                           MINELLA              She's a big star. Important              people care about her.                           COURT              Politics and show business are              practically the same these days...              Got any crowd photos we can use?                           FRANK              I'm trying to keep her away from              crowds.                             COURT              Good luck.38   INT. THE IVY - DAY                                         38     It's busy. Lots of customers arriving, leaving and     seated at tables. Waiters criss-cross the terrace. Near     the entrance, Rachel is saying goodbye to a middle-aged     WOMAN. Frank stands nearby with Nicki. The Woman says     something to Rachel, who turns and looks at Frank.     Rachel whispers something to the Woman and they both     laugh. They kiss and Rachel moves toward the entrance.                                                                    33.                           WOMAN                     (an afterthought;                      phony)              Goodbye, Nicki. So great to see you.     Nicki waves and follows Rachel. Frank stays very close     without seeming to walk with Rachel.     A little girl darts into their path and approaches Rachel.     Rachel glances at Frank, who has stopped with her, then     she signs an autograph for the girl. The girl's mother,     close behind her, hands a small camera casually to Nicki     to be photographed as she and her daughter pose with     Rachel. Frank watches Nicki quietly comply.     Rachel, Spector and Frank all reach the front entrance     together, and Frank slips out first, glancing around.     Rachel comes out and passes within inches of him.                           RACHEL              I'm surprised you didn't plug them.39   EXT. THE IVY - DAY                                        39     Rachel attracts the usual stares from passersby. As     they reach the limousine, Frank continues scanning the     street. Tony stares at him, uncomprehending.                           TONY                     (impatiently)              Hey, let's go.     Frank takes a last look then gets into the front seat     next to Tony.                           FRANK                     (across Tony)              O.K. Henry, let's go.     Tony looks at Frank, eyes narrowing.     From across the street, we see the limo pull away. As     the shot clears, the dark shape of another vehicle     appears, slowly moving into frame over the top of the     camera.40   INT. FRONT SEAT OF LIMO - DAY                             40     Frank sits beside Tony, next to the door.   Tony speaks     to him in a near whisper.                           TONY              Let me set you straight on a few              things. For starters, I love this              lady... What I do for her I do for                                                           34.         love. I'm not some hired fuckin'         gun who is out to make her life         miserable.While Tony speaks, Frank's eyes dart to the side mirror;his gaze never leaves it.FRANK'S POV - BLACK TOYOTAappears in the rearview mirror.BACK TO SCENE                      TONY         I do things the way she likes.         Her happiness is everything to me.Frank speaks while concentrating on the mirror.                      FRANK         No problem. I'd like to know how         you handle things, Tony.                      TONY         I handle things fine, Frank. You         watch me and you'll learn something.                      FRANK                (to Henry)         Turn left.                        HENRY         Is that him?Frank shakes his head, he's not sure.   Tony reacts.                      TONY         Hey, what's going on?                        FRANK         Shortcut.FRANK'S POV - TOYOTA IN REARVIEW MIRRORAs the limo turns, the 4 X 4 follows them into the turn.ANGLE - FRANKwhispers to Henry.                      FRANK         Slow down, very slow.                      HENRY         You want me to do a one-eighty?                                                                    35.                           FRANK              No, just slow down.     The car slows.     ANGLE - SPECTOR AND RACHEL IN BACK     They look up from some papers.                           SPECTOR              Why are we stopping?    Are we here?     Behind them, THROUGH the rear window, the 4 X 4 can be     seen. Sensing something, it makes a sudden TIRE-     SCREECHING left turn, disappearing behind them.41   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - DAY                                  41     The limo enters the gate where workmen are rigging a     large fence.42   INT. LIMO - DAY                                           42     Frank speaks to Henry.                           FRANK              Stop here... Take them to the              house.     Frank jumps out and jumps a hedge, racing toward the lawn     and work area.     ANGLE - TONY, RACHEL AND SPECTOR     As the car pulls away they see Frank running wildly across     the property.                           TONY              What's with him?43   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - DAY                                  43     As Frank comes through some bushes, he suddenly catches a     glimpse of the 4 X 4 through the trees. It starts to     accelerate.     As it pulls away (it is too far to record the license     number), he breaks into a full run toward the other end     of the property.     Leaping hedges, Frank crashes through tropical vegetation.     CRASHING through a bamboo forest, he scurries down a     steep wooded slope toward the road below. The 4 X 4 can     be glimpsed through the trees as he runs to head it off.                                                                    36.     A retaining wall about   14 feet high rises from the road     to the slope. Without    a pause, as the car speeds beneath,     Frank leaps and drops   the full distance to the road. The     4 X 4 ROARS PAST just   missing him and turns a corner.     Hitting hard, Frank allows his knees to take the force of     the fall, deliberately rolling once before he springs     into a crouched upright position.     But the 4 X 4 speeds around a corner and is gone.44   INT. MARRON ESTATE - DAY                                  44     The fortification  continues as workmen tighten screws,     install electrical  wiring, test alarms. As Frank watches     over the work, we  see him show Henry how to wear a SURV     KIT communications  system.                           FRANK              Keep this loose.     Fletcher comes to take a look too.   He peers up at Frank,     expectantly.                           FLETCHER              Tell me about the car?                              FRANK              Toyota.     Black.                           FLETCHER              Four wheel drive? Late model?     Frank nods.   Fletcher looks pleased.                           FRANK              One snag though.     Fletcher's face falls.                              FLETCHER              What?                           FRANK              360,000 of them in Los Angeles.    I              checked. Nice work, though.                           FLETCHER                     (shrugging)              Well, nobody's perfect, Frank.              Are they?                     (gesturing to the                      SURV KIT)              Can I try that?                                                                     37.45   EXT. MARRON ESTATE POOLSIDE - DAY                          45     Rachel has been watching Fletcher and Frank down the     hill. Now she leans back on the chaise lounge where     she is sunning, trying to listen to a new song on a     Walkman.     There is the SCREECHING howl of a DRILL on METAL from     the direction of the house. Rachel jumps up and yells     toward the house.                           RACHEL              Shut up you assholes!46   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - DAY                                46     A mild-looking OLD LOCKSMITH is working on Rachel's     window. Rachel walks in from the pool, starting to     peel off the swimsuit. She stops, startled, as she sees     him. This is the last straw. She blows up.                           RACHEL                     (clutching the                      swimsuit)              You! You! Out! Out!        Now!   Out              of here! Get out!     Terrified, the Old Locksmith drops his tools and begins     backing out of the room.                           OLD LOCKSMITH              Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I'm a real              fan of yours, Miss Marron.     Still angry, but disarmed, Rachel makes a face.                           RACHEL              Then you can take your tools with you.     She turns to the window, in what she imagines is     Frank's general direction, and, like a little girl,     suddenly sticks out her tongue.47   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - GATE/GUARD HOUSE - DAY                47     In a BIG CLOSEUP ON a black and white TV screen, we see     Devaney's immaculate convertible Mercedes 500SL as it     roars up the drive. Frank, Henry and Fletcher watch in     the newly-erected guard house. The area is greatly     changed. There is a uniformed guard with an impressive     array of switches, lights and phones at his command.     There are several TV screens; one of them shows a series     of endlessly-panning shots from cameras at the rear of                                                                     38.     the grounds. On the other, the Mercedes kicks up dust     from the last few curves in the drive. Fletcher shakes     his head. He's seen it all before.                           HENRY              Is that Devaney?                           FLETCHER                     (to Frank)              She's got him by the short ones,              doesn't she, Frank?     Frank squelches a smile at Henry.   Where did he learn     that?                           FRANK              Yeah, she makes him nervous.     They watch as Devaney SCREECHES to a STOP, gets out and     hurries inside.48   INT. FAMILY ROOM - DAY                                     48     Nicki is cutting fruit at the bar. Rachel, very tense,     is taking the fruit and dropping it into a yogurt drink     she's making in a blender.     Rory, her choreographer, stands behind her, massaging her     neck and shoulders. Spector is perched on a bar stool     like a vulture. Devaney hurries into the room; Nicki     gives him a look.                           RACHEL              I want him gone.                           DEVANEY              What is it now?                           NICKI              He told Rachel no Sunday brunch              at Charlie's.                           DEVANEY              No Sunday brunch. That's why you              called me up here?                           RACHEL              That is not it! It's my money              and my life and I want him out              of here.                              DEVANEY              Where is he?     Nicki indicates through the glass door.    Devaney walks     over to it.                                                         39.                      NICKI         On the patio.                      RACHEL         He's through messing with my life.                      DEVANEY         Rachel, I'm getting goddamn sick         of running up here every time he         steps on your toes.                (leaning out the                 glass door)         Farmer! Would you come in here         a minute?Devaney walks back toward Rachel.                      RACHEL         Did you know he was nuts?                      SPECTOR         Do you know who couldn't get         past the gates yesterday?                        RACHEL         Who?                      SPECTOR         Robin Leach, that's who.Rory sniggers into the back of Rachel's hair, fightingoff a laugh. Rachel has difficulty keeping a straightface, too. Spector glares at them as Frank enters fromthe sliding door.                      SPECTOR         You think that's funny? The         man talks to 20 million people         and he can't even get in here.                      FRANK         Did he have an appointment?Devaney turns to him.                      DEVANEY         Farmer, what is this about         brunch at Charlie's? Rachel's         been going there every Sunday         for the last five years.                      FRANK         I don't want her doing anything         she's always done.                                                           40.                      RACHEL                (mimicking him)         'I don't want her doing anything         she's always done.' The guy's a         fanatic.                      DEVANEY         So are the guys he's protecting         you from.                      RACHEL         Excuse me if I don't faint.                      NICKI         Think of Fletcher --Rachel turns ON the BLENDER, drowning out Nicki's voice.Frank looks at Rachel coolly. She stares at himpetulantly, then turns OFF the BLENDER.                      RACHEL         Do you know he's got the phones         bugged?                      SPECTOR         Oh Jesus, Bill.                      RACHEL         Maybe he gets off listening to my         calls. All that heavy breathing...                      DEVANEY                (interrupting)         What do you want from my life?                      RACHEL         I want some peace around here.                      SPECTOR         That's right.Devaney looks at Frank imploringly.                      FRANK         We're almost done.                      RACHEL         And I want to be able to eat         brunch with my friends.                      FRANK         Go on Tuesday this week.Spector looks at him as though he were a Martian.                                                                       41.                            SPECTOR                      (stretching it out)               Tuesday -- morning -- brunch.               Where did you find this guy?      Rachel turns ON the BLENDER and stares at Frank.48A   EXT. THRIFT SHOP - VALLEY - DAY                             48A      Rachel's limousine is parked opposite the shop.    It's      a decidedly downscale area. A little way  off, a   group      of unemployed youths hang around, eyeing the limo   with      interest. Henry sits  at the wheel. Tony  stands   by the      open window, leaning against the car.                            HENRY                      (looking at the                       youths)               I wish Rachel didn't keep coming               here. It makes me nervous.                            TONY               Me too. 'Cept I'm not nervous               'cos I got you with me.49    INT. THRIFT SHOP - CLOSE ON CLOTHES HANGER - DAY            49      SCREECHING as it's slid along a metal rack.      Rachel is shopping for bargains, moving along racks of      discarded clothing.                            RACHEL               Louise, you've got too much great               stuff.                            OWNER                      (from the back of                       the shop, laughing)               Take it all, darlin'.      Frank leans casually against a wall, not watching Rachel,      but watching the shop, watching the street outside.      Rachel finds something she likes.                             RACHEL               Wooo!   Let me try this on.      She flicks a glance to Frank; he's not looking at her.      She pulls back the curtain of the makeshift changing      booth, then stops dramatically.                                                            42.                      RACHEL                (to Frank, indicating                 the open booth)         Farmer, do you want to come in         here with me? Just to be safe?Frank glances at her, then resumes his surveillance ofthe shop. Rachel's head bobs up and down above thecurtain as she changes.                      RACHEL         You probably won't believe this,         but I have a reputation for being         a bitch.Frank says nothing. He gazes outside through the store-front window and sees Henry and Tony horsing around nextto the limo. A few small boys stand around the car. Oneof them is climbing onto the hood.                      RACHEL         I didn't used to be. But you get         known for being a certain way --         a way people think you are -- and         pretty soon you get like that.         Can't help it.Frank smiles knowingly.   Rachel notices.                      RACHEL         You don't think so? You're such         an expert on famous people?                      FRANK         I've seen a few.                      RACHEL         And you disagree?                      FRANK                (very flat)         You can be as you choose to be.         It's an act of discipline         sometimes, but it can be done.Rachel stops in her tracks... then opens the curtains andlooks at herself in the mirror. Also reflected in themirror is Frank.                      RACHEL         That why you never stay with one         of your clients? They too         undisciplined for you? Or is it         you're afraid you'll start to         care about them?                                                         43.                      FRANK                (without interest)         That's right.Rachel turns to Frank.                      RACHEL         Can't you answer straight just         once? Why don't you talk to         me? I'm not such a bad lady.                      FRANK         You're too clever for me.   I can't         keep up.Frank continues to search the shop and street with hisgaze. Rachel steps closer to him.                      RACHEL         Look at me, Farmer!Frank turns and looks at her.                      RACHEL         You don't approve of me, do you?                      FRANK         Disapproval's a luxury I can't         afford. Gets in the way.                      RACHEL         Don't like emotions getting to you,         huh? Never mix business with         pleasure?                      FRANK         That's right.It's a stand-off. After a moment, Rachel motions toan outfit on a rack just behind him.                      RACHEL         Grab that would you?Frank takes a beat.   Looks out the window.                      FRANK         I'm here to keep you alive... not         to help you shop.Fuming, Rachel sizes things up, then grabs it herself,whipping the curtain shut behind her.A smile plays across Frank's face.                                                                     44.50   INT. DARKENED ROOM - CLOSEUP - NIGHT                       50     We see a man's hands remove a video cassette from its     sleeve. The cover reads "RACHEL MARRON - THE #1 HITS."     The CASSETTE is gently eased into the slot of the video     player.     Rachel's image appears on the screen, singing softly,     intensely, passionately into the camera. WE TRACK INTO     the image, as if a little hypnotized by it.     ANGLE FRANK     Frank sits alone in his room, lit by the glow of the TV,     dressed in a business-style blue suit and tie. He's     watching Rachel's videos. Scattered around the video     player are a collection of other Rachel Marron CD's,     tapes and videos. Frank has been noting down lyrics on     the yellow legal pad on his lap. Some of the phrases     are circled.     As he watches, we see a subtle change in his expression.     It is as if he really were looking at Rachel for the first     time, here, watching her sing. For a second, she seems to     be singing to him alone, passionate and vulnerable.     He opens a small box and removes a tiny enamelled Russian     Orthodox-type cross. He fastens the clasp, checking that     it holds, then looks back to the screen.51   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - NIGHT                                 51     Rachel's SONG PLAYS OVER the moonlit estate.52   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                              52     The room is surprisingly bare and simple, almost empty     apart from Rachel's collection of old and faded dolls     on the shelves and on the bed. Rachel is getting dressed     for the evening. A hairdresser stands behind her,     fussing with her hair. Rachel hears the MUSIC coming     from outside and moves to the window. (The hairdresser     moves with her, still busy with the brush.) Gazing     across the garden, she sees the light in Frank's room     and hears her own voice singing out from there too.53   EXT. MARRON HOUSE - NIGHT                                  53     Frank is showing Henry how to check the underside of the     limo with an angled mirror on a stick. Both are crouched     beside the vehicle. A noise makes them look up. Rachel,     dressed to the nines and looking very sexy, emerges from     the house with Spector and Devaney. Spector's carrying a     videotape. Tony follows as they head for the car, where                                                          45.Frank and Henry are waiting. Fletcher stands in thedoorway, flanked by uniformed security guards. He wavesat Frank.                      FRANK                (to Henry)         I thought it was dinner.Henry shrugs.                      FRANK                (to Spector)         Are we going somewhere else?                      SPECTOR         The Mayan, Frank.                      FRANK         What's the Mayan?Spector starts to climb into the limo.                      SPECTOR         It's a club, Frank. Come on,         Henry, let's go.                      FRANK         Spector, you've got to tell me         about these things.                       SPECTOR         I just did.He disappears inside the limo.Rachel tugs at Frank's lapels, looks him up and down,brushing something off his shoulder. Frank's annoyed.                      RACHEL         Nice suit, Frank.Rachel is about to get in.                       FRANK         Rachel.He removes something from his pocket, a small enameledcross.                      FRANK         I want you to keep this.Rachel looks at it, both flattered and confused.                       RACHEL         For me?   It's beautiful.                                                                     46.                           FRANK              It's fitted with a radio              transmitter. When you close the              clasp, it sends a signal. If              there's ever a problem and we're              separated, just press it and I'll              know you need me.     Rachel doesn't know how to respond. She's stuck for     words. Spector pokes his head out impatiently.                           SPECTOR              Okay, she knows how it works,              let's get going.     Rachel manages a quick smile to Frank as she gets in the     back. Frank gets in the front beside Tony. The limo     pulls out.54   INT. LIMO - NIGHT (LATER)                                  54     Frank rides beside Tony in the front seat. The RADIO     PLAYS SOFTLY in the b.g. In back, Rachel, Spector and     Devaney are drinking champagne. Tony burps, smiles     at Frank.                           RADIO D.J. (V.O.)              You're listening to K.R.O.K., the              rock of L.A. and yes we have.                           (MORE)                           RADIO D.J. (V.O.)(CONT'D)              We told you we'd crack the case              of the mystery guest... and if              you are one of the few who hasn't              heard, it's Rachel at the Mayan.     Franks turns UP the VOLUME.                           RADIO D.J. (V.O.)              Rachel Marron, tonight, appearing              as Billy Thomas' very special              guest. But if you don't have a              ticket, you can forget going              down there. Police are asking              us to ask you to stay away. So              everybody, please stay cool,              stay tuned and we'll try to get              you some interviews after the              show. Remember, you heard it              here on K.R.O.K. -- the station              that delivers.     Frank looks back at Spector who silently mouths --                                                                       47.                           SPECTOR              It wasn't me.     The car turns a corner and there it is, The Mayan only     fifty yards ahead, a mob of fans spilling out of the     club, off the sidewalk and into the street.                              TONY              Fuckin' a.     Spector whoops with uncontrolled delight from the back of     the limo. Frank stares ahead in disbelief. The NOISE     of the CROWD can be heard as they pull up front.55   EXT. THE MAYAN - NIGHT                                       55     The mob reacts to the sight of the approaching limo which     turns into the parking area and heads for the backstage.     Faces of the fans are at the windows leering at Rachel.     Many are grotesquely painted. Some go into a wild frenzy     as Rachel's limo pulls up. There is a punch-up and a man     is beaten back. Someone has a video camera. Its quartz     light shines in through the limo windows. Everybody     squints at the glare.56   EXT. BACKSTAGE ENTRANCE - NIGHT                              56     As Rachel's car pulls up, the beaten man dances weirdly     at the curb with blood streaming from his nose.     A pair of security guards try to hold them back.    As her     limo stops, a chant begins.                            CROWD              Rachel!   Rachel! We want Rachel!     Others join in as the mob presses forward.     The instant she exits the car, her expression goes public     -- a wide, show-biz smile. Sandwiched between Spector and     Devaney, with Tony in front and Frank at the rear, Rachel     makes her entrance.     A young man breaks the barrier   moving toward Rachel.     Frank grabs him by one of his   belt loops, gracefully     guides him all the way across   and slips him under the     opposite cordon into the arms   of a security guard.57   INT. RACHEL'S DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT                          57     Rachel steps into a room set for a star's arrival.     Flowers are on every surface that will hold them. One     huge arrangement is so big it has to be placed on the                                                                     48.     floor. Frank checks them all with a magnometer wand     before letting Rachel sit down. He goes out, closing     the door, watchful.58   INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHT                                     58     Frank's eyes search the crush of people, milling around     outside the dressing room. A few feet away, Spector talks     to a JOURNALIST who's carrying a tape recorder.                           JOURNALIST              ... and this is my exclusive?                           SPECTOR              I swear I thought she'd talk to              you. Maybe later. What can I              say.     Frank is checked out by a strange-looking women in     Vampyra Drag.59   INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT                                 59     Rachel sits in front of the mirror putting on the silver     headpiece we saw earlier. She notices a small spray of     lilies-of-the-valley among the floral arrangements.     An envelope marked "Rachel" is attached to it. She     reaches forward and opens it.     We see the note as she unfolds it.              MARRON BITCH - YOU HAVE EVERYTHING              I HAVE NOTHING - PREPARE YOUR SOUL              FOR DEATH - THE TIME TO DIE IS...     We see the shock in her face.60   INT. STAR'S SUITE - NIGHT                                  60     Spector, Frank, and Devaney are there. Rachel seems     dazed, unfocussed. Devaney hands the note to Frank.                           DEVANEY              He sent another one.     Rachel immediately picks up on this.                           RACHEL              What do you mean 'another one'?     Frank quickly shoots a look at Spector.                           FRANK              They didn't tell you.                                      49.             RACHELTell me what?             DEVANEYThere were some letters before,Rachel... same kind of thing,threats, oddball stuff...             SPECTORWe didn't want to worry you...             DEVANEY... and somebody got into thehouse...             RACHEL       (starting to panic)Someone was in my house?              SPECTOROkay.   Let's not get hysterical...             FRANKLet's get her out of here.             RACHELSomeone was in my house?             SPECTORIt was weeks ago. You were out oftown...             RACHELWhile Fletcher was there?             SPECTORListen, Fletcher is okay. Thehouse is like Fort Knox now.Right, Frank?             FRANKWe should get her out of here.Right now!             SPECTORThere's no way anyone could...             RACHELNo way anyone could what?             SPECTORNo, wait... look everybody calmdown. Calm down.             DEVANEYSy.                                                                      50.                           SPECTOR              Let's just see how she is.                     (to Rachel)              How do you feel, honey?     Someone comes through the door with some flowers.   Frank     eases them out and gently closes the door.                           FRANK              I can't protect her out there.                           RACHEL              Do you think he's out there?     Devaney can't answer.   She turns to Frank.                           RACHEL              He's here, isn't he?                             FRANK              He might be.                           SPECTOR              We don't know that. Frank, we              don't know that.     Rachel is enraged.                           RACHEL              But you know he was in my house...              oh my God.                           DEVANEY              Let's go home, Sy. We'll have to              make an announcement.                           SPECTOR              Fine, you make it, they'll tear              the fucking place apart.61   INT. ONSTAGE - NIGHT                                        61     A lone mike stands onstage. The crowd's growing im-     patient. A RHYTHMIC CLAPPING begins. Devaney walks     timidly onstage. He's not happy to be there. He reaches     the mike and taps it with a finger.                           DEVANEY              Excuse me... hello... I've got              an announcement to make. I'm              sorry but... due to circumstances              beyond...     Voices shout. "Where's Rachel?"... a groan begins.     A chorus of boos fills the room. He raises his hands.                                                                    51.     More voices.62   INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHT                                    62     Frank guides Rachel toward the stage exit. A roar from     the audience begins. "Rachel! Rachel! Rachel!" It     grows louder as they near the exit. Rachel's expression     is a combination of fear and humiliation. When they have     almost reached the exit, she stops.                              RACHEL              Wait...                           FRANK              Rachel... don't do it.    It's not              worth it...                           RACHEL                     (cutting him off)              No fucking freak is gonna chase me              off stage.     She pulls away from him.    Farmer starts after her, closely     followed by Spector.63   INT. STAGE - NIGHT                                        63                           DEVANEY              I'm afraid that...     A great gush of applause from the audience. Devaney's     befuddled. He doesn't see Rachel walking up behind him.                           DEVANEY              Rachel won't be able...     Rachel stands beside him beaming. She bows. Claps back     to her fans. Devaney retreats. Rachel gestures in his     direction.                           RACHEL              Bill Devaney, ladies and gentlemen,              thank you, Bill. Hey, everyone.              Hello! Isn't Billy Thomas the              greatest. He's asked me to sing              a song. I hope you don't mind.     The crowd roars its approval.     Frank nervously scans the room. Rachel smiles and moves     along the stage. MUSIC starts in the b.g. Masking     obvious fear, she starts to sing.     As she takes one hand from the microphone, her fingers     tremble. She clasps it again to hide her anxiety.                                                                   52.      ANGLE - RACHEL - SHOT FROM BEHIND      shows her alone and vulnerable, bathed in light, center-      stage.      Rachel snatches a quick glance at Frank then looks back      to her silent audience.      ANGLE - FRANK      He scans the audience intensely, face to face.63A   EXT. MAYAN - BACKSTAGE DOOR - NIGHT                        63A      Rachel's limo stands waiting. CAMERA PULLS BACK to      reveal a black Toyota 4 X 4 parked among the other cars.63B   INT. MAYAN - NIGHT                                         63B      Rachel approaches the end of her song, her voice coming      ever stronger. Spector comes up to Frank in the wings,      positioning himself combatively between Frank and his      view of Rachel.                            SPECTOR               Are we having a communications problem               here?                            FRANK               What?      Spector's presence is a distraction. Frank steps to one      side for a better view of Rachel. Spector moves too.                            SPECTOR               Apparently, I didn't make it clear               to you how things go around here.                            FRANK               You told me you were going to               tell her. And you didn't.                            SPECTOR               I didn't think she could handle it.                            FRANK               But she handled it fine.      Frank continues to peer past Spector's shoulder, his      vigilance undiminished. Soothed and nurtured by the      obvious admiration of her audience, Rachel's fear is      beginning to vanish. The song is taking over. Spector      changes tack, becoming confidential, "man-to-man."                                                                     53.                           SPECTOR              Look. Frank, I know what you're              saying. I know you want to do              what's best for her. I understand              that. You have a job to do here.              But you have to understand that              Rachel has a job to do too. And              that's what she's doing - out              there. She's working, Frank.              That's what she does and that's              where she does it. She's hot              right now. This is the time for              her. If she doesn't get out there,              she's dead. Forget about crazy              death threats, if she doesn't              sing, she's dead anyway... Look,              handled properly, this thing could              be good for a million dollars'              worth of free publicity.     Frank grabs him by the collar and slams him up against a     wall of curtain ropes.                           FRANK              One word.                           SPECTOR              It could clinch her the nomination.                           FRANK              One word in print about any of              this...     Spector nods, half-gasping. Frank tightens his grip.     Frank's attention is drawn by a renewed roar from the     crowd.                           SPECTOR              Trouble with you is you don't              understand the sympathy vote.64   INT. STAGE - NIGHT                                         64     Rachel scans the crowd, spread before her like a surreal     mural.     Camera flashbulbs explode like crazy through the glare.     The thundering adoration is like a stimulant. She darts     a look to Frank and gives him a fierce "naughty girl"     smile.                           RACHEL                     (turning back to                      crowd)              You like that? Would like to              hear another? Billy?                                                                     54.     From the wings, Billy Thomas gives her the nod to go for     it. It seems to be alright with everyone. The band     starts playing a dance beat.                           RACHEL                     (on the prowl)              I think my feet are trying to              tell me something... wanna see a              new video?     The crowd explodes. They know what song is coming.     They start to move with Rachel.                           RACHEL                     (dancing, talking)              I want to dance...     She skitters to the other side of the stage, baiting her     fans. Her new video explodes across the video wall     behind her. The crowd surges forward.     Two security guards nervously tense up, watching the     crowd. When one fan tries to climb onstage, Frank     reaches out and unbalances him, so that the man falls     back into the audience. Another man climbs the stage on     the other side. One of the guards darts out like a     ballboy at a tennis match, pushes the fan back and     scurries to the far side to resume his vigilance. The     crowd is getting even more excited, pressing closer,     trying to touch Rachel.     The security guards move in, but Rachel gestures for     them to back off.     ANGLE - FRANK     Frank's task has suddenly become impossible. A forest of     hands and faces start to engulf Rachel. Anyone could be     the killer. Frank's eyes  dart over them all, his gaze     intense, as if trying to hold them off by sheer willpower.     RACHEL'S POV     Looking offstage at Frank. His frustration is almost     intoxicating to her. She struts over the lip of the     stage. A man leaps up from audience to join her. Frank     starts forward. Rachel gestures to him to hold back,     waving him off.65   INT. WINGS - NIGHT                                         65     Spector stands well out of Frank's reach, staring at Rachel     onstage. He catches Frank's attention, yelling back     defiantly.                                                                     55.                           SPECTOR              Look at her, fucking great.66   INT. ONSTAGE - NIGHT                                       66     Rachel dances erotically with the man -- bumping and     grinding, sinking to her knees. The crowd roars     approval.     Frank quickly sizes up the scene. He speaks into a SURV     KIT microphone in his sleeve. Across the room we see     Henry listening, pushing an earpiece to his ear. Henry     quickly scurries to an exit. Frank starts moving toward     the stage. At that moment, the lucky man Rachel's     dancing with grabs her around the waist and spins her     gleefully, like the dance partner she has been pretending     to be. One of security guards rushes forward to extri-     cate her. The spinning man inadvertently bumps hard     into the guard and the man loses his grip on Rachel.     She flies out of his grasp and tumbles off the front of     the stage -- into the adoring arms of a half dozen fans.     The audience goes wild. This is the kind of thing     Rachel was famous for when she was starting out. The     scene resembles a rugby scrum... with Rachel the ball.     Frank sees Rachel being passed over the heads of fans --     deeper into the audience. Her dress is ripped and torn     apart. The silver headpiece is dislodged and disappears     into the crowd.     CLOSE ON RACHEL     Fear fills her face. She's gone over the edge, literally     and figuratively. She's lost control. Tony and the     security guards are fighting to get to her, slamming     bodies out of the way. In the b.g., the video continues     on its serene, uninterrupted way.     FRANK'S POV     He spots a fire extinguisher in the wings.     BACK TO SCENE     Frank grabs it and heads to center stage. He aims the     extinguisher at the crowd between Rachel and the stage.     The chemical foam does its job, scattering fans.     Frank leaps onto the floor, kicking a wild-eyed young     blond man in the chest as he fights his way to Rachel,     taking her in his arms. Tony runs ahead of Frank, knocks     a fan off the stage and waves for Frank to follow.                                                                       56.                            FRANK               Tony, not there.                            TONY               I'll take care of this.     He heads for the door.                            TONY               Just follow me.     He turns and heads out to the sidewalk like a bull.67   EXT. THE MAYAN - NIGHT                                       67     Tony bursts out the front door and begins cutting a     swath through the crowd. Rain beats down.                            TONY               Make way here. Outta the way!     A burly street regular gets a shove from Tony and comes     back hard. The  crowd immediately sides with him, yells     encouragement.  But Tony is the better man and sends him     sprawling. The  rest of the way to the curb opens up.     At the parking area Tony discovers there is no limo and     turns in bewilderment to Rachel. But she is not there.     A couple of people laugh.68   EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT                                           68     Rachel and Frank emerge from the darkness between two     garbage bins and get into the limo Henry has waiting there.     The car moves out with a SCREECH of tires, narrowly missing     Spector as he staggers out of the building.                           SPECTOR               Hey! What the fuck... Farmer!               Farmer! Come back here...     The limo skids around the corner and speeds off up the     street, leaving Spector in helpless fury -- apoplectic and     speechless.69   INT. LIMO - NIGHT                                            69     Frank turns and looks at Rachel.    She is diminutive,     doll-like, alone in the center of   the large limousine     seat. Her  hands rise to her face   and her body begins to     shake with sobs as she sits there   alone in the tattered     remains of her dress.     Frank turns away to avoid staring at her, but he feels                                                                     57.     uncomfortable.   Henry senses what is going on and     speaks softly.                           HENRY              Never done that before.                           FRANK              It's been a long night.70   INT. THE MAYAN - NIGHT                                     70     The crowd is thinning out. A dim worklight is burning     somewhere backstage. The auditorium is a mess; the     cleaning crew has begun to work on the debris from the     riot. FOOTSTEPS APPROACH, walking, pausing, as if looking     for something.     Lying on the floor in big CLOSEUP we see a small  fragment     of Rachel's dress. The FOOTSTEPS STOP by it. A    hand     picks it up gently and lifts it OUT OF FRAME. We   hear the     sound of a deep lingering INHALATION of breath.   The feet     move on.71   INT. MARRON HOUSE - NIGHT                                  71     Fletcher is asleep in his bed. Frank waits as Rachel     glances in. Then she moves away. Opening the door to     her room, she steps back, allowing him to enter ahead.72   INT. RACHEL'S ROOM - NIGHT                                 72     Frank moves quickly into the room, checking the window     and French door. Rachel waits silently by the door.     All is clear. He steps back to the door. As he     approaches her she begins to tremble.     He gently reaches out and takes her in his arms. Slowly     holding her he leads her to bed, moving aside some of     Rachel's dolls, laid out on the pillows.     Her hands go automatically to her dress but they are     shaking so badly she cannot undo it. Frank gently does     it for her. She willingly allows him to undress her and     not a word is spoken between them. As she sits naked     still trembling, he pulls down the covers and guides her     gently into bed.     As he adjusts the covers she reaches up and takes hold of     his hand. He looks down, stroking her forehead like a     child's.                           RACHEL              Aren't you going to ask me why I              behave like that?                                                                    58.                            FRANK              I know why.73   INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT                                      73     Frank sits alone at a table in the huge kitchen, care-     fully cutting and eating a peach.  The door at the other     end of the room slams open and Tony stalks in, soaking     wet. He has just made his way home  from the MAYAN and he     is boiling. He sights on Frank and  moves toward him fast.     Frank just watches until Tony is almost upon him. As     Tony reaches out to lift him by his shirt, Frank spins     low out of his seat. Tony's legs are knocked out from     under him. He lands hard on his back and finds himself     looking up at Frank, who holds him down with the chair he     was sitting on, like a lion tamer, a leg strut pressed     against Tony's throat. Frank looks down at him question-     ingly, as if to ask, "Had enough?"     Tony scowls and nods. Frank lifts the chair away. Tony     stands up and faces him. Frank turns away and Tony     throws a punch at his head, barely catching him as Frank     ducks and moves in under it. He hits Tony twice and     throws him against a cabinet. Tony gets up slowly, looks     around and grabs a carving knife from a hook on the wall.     He holds it in front of him threateningly.     Frank shakes his head. He's getting irritated. He picks     up the knife he's been using on the peach and flips it in     his hand so he's holding it by the blade. With the same     fluid motion we've seen earlier, he throws it at Tony.     It sticks in the wall an inch from Tony's ear. Tony     does a slow take and then lowers his blade. Frank picks     up his dirty dish and takes it to the sink. He glances     at Tony.                           FRANK              I don't want to talk about this              again.74   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - DRIVEWAY - DAWN                      74     Frank has been talking to the uniformed guard in the gate     house and now begins walking up the drive toward the man-     sion.     The grounds are quiet, beautiful, misty.     We see him from behind some foliage, as if he's being     covertly observed, stalked. A twig snaps and he turns     sharply. It's Rachel. She's dressed in a soft jumpsuit     and starts jogging out from behind the bushes towards him.                                                            59.The suit softens her appearance; she looks lovely. Hermanner, too, has altered; she is charming -- friendly andvery girlish.                       RACHEL         Hey!   Gotcha, didn't I?                         FRANK         Hey.                      RACHEL         You're probably wondering what I'm         doing.                (as Frank nods)         You didn't know I jogged, did you?Frank shakes his head.                      RACHEL         What's the matter? 'Fraid I'll         get picked off in my snazzy running         suit?                     FRANK         No. I'm afraid I'll have to jog         with you.They both smile.                        RACHEL         Great.    I guess I can't do it.Rachel stops pumping, gasps for air, and for one moment,rests a hand on Frank's arm to support herself. Sheremoves it quickly.                      RACHEL         Will you walk with me a little?Frank nods and they cut off across the grounds.                      RACHEL                (hard for her)         I know this is kinda late, but         thank you. I'm really glad you're         here.                (she looks at him)         I'm going to try to cooperate.                      FRANK         That would be good.They walk in silence for few moments. When Rachelfinally speaks, she sounds genuinely unsure of herself,nervous. It's very appealing. And if it's an act, she'sa terrific actress.                                                                   60.                           RACHEL              Farmer... I have this problem.              This minor little problem. You              see, I'd like to go out for an              evening. Just me and a guy. You              know...                     (makes a funny face)              ... like a 'date.' But I can't go              out on a date because you have to              be with me every minute. I mean,              what if he invited me up to his              place afterwards? Are you going              to come, too?                     (a beat)              So the only thing I can figure is              for you to take me out.                     (pause)              So... that's what I was wondering              ... you know. What do you think?              But only if you want to.     Frank is bemused.                           RACHEL              Only if you want to... I'm not so              bad...                     (looks at him)              God, this is embarrassing. I'm              gonna run up ahead there. You              decide.     She runs up the hill to the pool area, which is now above     them. He walks up after her.75   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - BALCONY - DAY                       75     Nicki is yelling from a window on the second floor of     the mansion. Fletcher peers out with her.                             NICKI (O.S.)              Rachel!    Sandy Harris is on the              phone!     Rachel and Frank look up.                           RACHEL              Tell her she'll have to wait,              babe. I'm getting fixed up here.     AT WINDOW - CLOSE ON NICKI     She watches Frank and Rachel, her expression neutral.     She turns away. Fletcher continues to watch his mother     with Frank.                                                                       61.76   INT. DAN-DEE CAR WASH-O-RAMA (L.A.) - WASH TUNNEL -          76     DAY     The SOUND is DEAFENING. A wet car comes out of the     tunnel of machinery. In the distance, glimpsed through     the spinning brushes, Henry talks to a couple of workers     as he waits for the limo to be cleaned.     Hands appear with a large chamois cloth, moving easily     and fast over the hood and windshield. A black in his     early twenties is finishing the exterior of the car.     A second pair of hands appear.    White hands in rubber     gloves. They open the  driver's   door and push a vacuum     suction hose inside.  The hands   switch ON the car RADIO,     loud. Loud enough to  hear over   the din outside the car.     The hose works its way over the   front seats.                           D.J. (V.O.)              ... And here's another biggie              from a lady very much in the news              these days, Miss Rachel Marron...     We see the owner of the hands. It is the young blond     man Frank kicked aside at the MAYAN. His name is DAN.     His face is impassive.                           D.J. (V.O.)              ... the hit song from the movie...              Queen Of The Night... I Have              Nothing.     The song begins and Rachel's voice fights the din. In     the back of the car, Dan's hose probes around, nosing     into all the crevices of the upholstery. It sucks up a     crumpled pre-signed photograph of Rachel from the gap     beside the rear seat. The hose is switched off and the     gloved hands retrieve the picture.77   INT. LOCKER ROOM - WASH-A-RAMA - DAY                         77     Tight, shabby facilities. Dan opens the combination     padlock to his locker and deposits the crumpled photo     inside.     As the hands remove the rubber gloves, the inside of the     locker is revealed. Pasted over every inch of the locker     are pictures of Rachel Marron. One tabloid shot of her     dancing with the word "whore" scrawled across it. Taped     to a single sheet of white paper in the center, like a     holy relic, is the torn scrap of Rachel's dress from the     MAYAN. The hands pin up the newly-acquired photo next to     it.                                                                    62.84   INT. FBI LABORATORY - DAY                                 84     Special Agent Court is seated next to a white-coated     technician. The technician is leaning over one of the     neatly pasted-up death threats we have seen earlier.     With a scalpel, he lifts the word "whore" from out of the     message. He sets it on a white sheet, then brings the     blade back and scrapes at the residue of the dry glue on     the letter.     INSERT - B&W SHOT OF TOSHIRO MIFUNE WIELDING HIS SWORD,     CUTTING DOWN HIS ATTACKERS85   EXT. KOKUSAI THEATRE - NIGHT                              85     Frank and Rachel exit with a small crowd.    Rachel wears a     scarf and tinted glasses. The combination    goes a long     way toward disguising her. They pause at    one of the dis-     play windows. Inside is a poster for the    movie, Yojimbo,     a large picture of Toshiro Mifune looking   scruffy and     fierce.                            RACHEL               Well, he didn't look like he               wanted to die to me.                           FRANK              There's a big difference between              wanting to die and having no fear              of death.     They walk down the sidewalk.                           RACHEL              And because he had no fear of              death, he was invincible?                           FRANK              What do you think?                           RACHEL              Well, he sure creamed 'em all in              the end.                           FRANK              Yeah, it was a good movie.     They walk off down the sidewalk.                           RACHEL              How many times have you seen it?                           FRANK              Sixty-two.                                                                 63.86   INT. RESTAURANT - NIGHT                                       86     It's a bit of a dive, but the food is good and the atmos-     phere is great.                           RACHEL              Your kinda place?     Frank nods.                            FRANK              Yeah.                           RACHEL              Your kinda music?     As she smiles:                            FRANK              Absolutely.                           RACHEL              You figure no one can get by you              here?                           FRANK              If someone is willing to swap his              life for a kill, nothing can stop              him.                            RACHEL              Great.   What do I need you for?                           FRANK              He might get me instead.                           RACHEL              And you're ready to die for me?                           FRANK              That's my job.     Rachel looks at him.                           RACHEL              And you'd do it? Why?                           FRANK              I can't sing.                           RACHEL              Maybe there's some glory in saving              a president or something, but just              anyone...                           FRANK              You mean like you?    It's a matter                                                         64.          of conditioning and discipline.                       RACHEL          I don't trust discipline. At the          crucial moment I'd cop out.                       FRANK          That happens.                       RACHEL          But not with you, Fierce Frank.                         FRANK          It happens.A beat.                       RACHEL          Have you ever liked anybody?                       FRANK          What do you mean?                       RACHEL          Like me -- a girl.Frank knows what she's driving at. But he's not at allhappy to relinquish this information.                       FRANK          A long time ago.                       RACHEL          What happened? Do you mind if I          ask?                       FRANK          Do you mind if I don't answer?                       RACHEL          I don't want to pry...Frank smiles at that.                       RACHEL                 (begins to laugh,                  can't help herself)          She didn't die did she? You          weren't like... protecting her and          she got killed?Frank is silent, grim.    Rachel looks stricken.                         RACHEL          Oh, my god!    That's it, isn't it?                                                                   65.                           FRANK              Nobody's perfect.     Rachel is taken aback.                           RACHEL              Oh Frank, I'm sorry.     Frank laughs.                           FRANK              No... Nice try though.                     (pause)              It was less dramatic than that.              She didn't love me anymore. Can              you imagine such a thing?     Frank puts a smiling spin on this last; it's pretty     charming. Rachel looks at him.                           RACHEL              No, not really.     A SONG comes on the JUKEBOX -- 'WHAT BECOMES OF THE BROKEN     HEARTED.' Frank smiles as Rachel begins to sing.                           RACHEL              So, is this a full service date,              Frank?     Frank's wary.                           RACHEL              I'm just asking you to dance.87   INT. DANCE FLOOR - NIGHT                                 87     Frank and Rachel navigate a tiny dance floor. Frank is a     surprisingly good dancer and is comfortable being this     close to her.     Rachel hums softly, picking up the words to the song.   As     we listen to the lyrics something clicks in her head.                           RACHEL              You like this?                              FRANK              Yeah.     A beat, then Rachel bursts out laughing.                            FRANK                      (reddening)              What?                                                                      66.                           RACHEL                     (trying to compose                      herself)              I'm sorry... It's just that...              It's so depressing.     Now they're both laughing.                           FRANK                     (grinning)              It is, isn't it.     Suddenly a dish drops to the floor. Frank, still dancing,     makes a smooth quick turn that puts his body between     Rachel and the noise. His head turns to locate the source     of the noise.                           RACHEL              Don't worry, I'll protect you.     They drift back into the music, Rachel singing, Frank     watching.88   EXT. FRANK'S HOUSE - NIGHT                                  88     Frank's car is parked in the driveway.    A light goes on     in a basement window.89   INT. FRANK'S HOUSE - BASEMENT                               89     Frank hangs back, drink in hand, as Rachel explores the     basement. Frank has fitted it out as a combination gym/     target range/weapons workshop. The place has a kind of     unfussy order about it, a simplicity.                           RACHEL                     (almost to herself)              It's very quiet here.     She walks to some shelves -- a random selection of     books, football and karate trophies, framed citations     and other memorabilia. She glances at a dusty framed     photo of a football team.                           RACHEL                     (reading)              West Virginia University Football.              God, look at you.     She looks at Frank, quizzically.                           RACHEL              What'd you play?                                                           67.                        FRANK         End.                      RACHEL         Were you tough?                        FRANK         No.    Fast.Rachel puts down her drink and moves toward a samuraisword that is mounted in its scabbard on the wall. Shelooks at it, peering closely.                      RACHEL         You some kind of a samurai, too?Frank smiles.                      RACHEL         They said you were in the Secret         Service. What made you get out?Frank moves away and sits on a sofa against the wall.                        FRANK         Money.Rachel looks around at Frank's modest home.                      RACHEL         I can see your tastes are         extravagant.She looks at Frank and then back at the sword.   Shereaches out to touch it.                        RACHEL         May I?Frank nods. Rachel takes it off its mount carefully,unhooks the scabbard and begins to slide it off.                      FRANK         Watch yourself.Rachel slides the scabbard off. The naked blade isbreathtaking. Rachel holds the sword out before her.She walks toward Frank, then stops and looks over theblade at him.                      RACHEL         You're a hard one to figure, Frank         Farmer.He stares at her. She steps closer, so the blade is onlyabout a foot from his face.                                                                      68.                           RACHEL              It seems to me a bodyguard must              know little peace.     Frank stands up so that the point of the sword is only     about an inch from his chest. He reaches out over the     blade to Rachel's neck and unties the silk scarf she is     wearing there. One hand draws the scarf away. The other     hand lingers for a moment on her neck, then lifts away.                            FRANK              Watch this.     He has raised the scarf over his head, in   the space     between them. With two hands he spreads    it out and then     lets it go. Slowly, billowing, the scarf    floats down     over the blade and is cut in two. These    two pieces float     slowly to the floor.     Frank takes Rachel's wrist and moves the sword away to     the side. They are both holding it as Rachel presses her     body against Frank's and they begin to kiss.90   INT. FRANK'S HOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT                        90     Their lovemaking is INTERCUT with SLOW MOTION black and     white images of Samurai warriors from the movie,     Yojimbo.91   INT. FRANK'S HOUSE - BEDROOM - LATER                        91     They lie nude under a sheet.                           RACHEL              I've never been this safe before.     Frank smiles.                           RACHEL              No one could get by you.                           FRANK              Right now it might not be so hard.     Rachel laughs, kisses him and buries her head down into     his shoulder. Frank stares across the bed at the samurai     sword lying on the floor. Some of Rachel's clothing is     draped in a heap across it. The torn pieces of her scarf     lie nearby. HOLD ON Frank's look.                                                 SHOCK CUT TO:92   INT. FRANK'S BEDROOM - NEXT MORNING                         92     The roller-blind is raised with a sharp, snapping sound.     Frank is moving around the room, getting dressed. Rachel                                                            69.is still in the bed behind him, woken by the noise of hisactivity.                     RACHEL         What? What is it? What are you         doing?Frank keeps moving, looking for his shoes.                         RACHEL         Frank?                      FRANK         Rachel, I don't want to get         confused about what I'm doing         here.                      RACHEL         I'm not confused.Frank finds his shoes.                      FRANK         You pay me to protect you, that's         what I do.Rachel sits up.                     RACHEL         What? Have I done something         wrong?                         FRANK         No, nothing.                      RACHEL         Then what is it?She lifts the sheet seductively and looks over the topof it.                      RACHEL         Do you want me to beg?                      FRANK         No, I want you to do without.She stops.                      RACHEL         What's going on, Frank?                      FRANK         I want to keep it straight in my         head what job I'm doing.                                                              70.                      RACHEL         And what is that exactly?    Making         me feel like shit?                      FRANK         No, I'm sorry. This is my fault.                      RACHEL         Don't apologize for godsake. Just         tell me what I did. I'm a big         girl.                      FRANK         You didn't do anything. It was me.         I involved myself with my client.Rachel picks up on the word.                      RACHEL         Your "client"?                      FRANK         I made a mistake.                      RACHEL         What mistake?... You don't find me         attractive anymore.                      FRANK         Christ! I've told you why. I         can't protect you like this.                       RACHEL         And what?   That's it for me?                      FRANK         Yeah...                      RACHEL         I don't believe it.He automatically checks the gun as he slips it into theholster.                      FRANK         You can live with that or you can         fire me.                      RACHEL         But I can't fuck you.Frank turns and looks at her.    This is hard for him, too.                      RACHEL         I don't believe this...         I'm asking you?... Let me tell         you...                                                                     71.     She stops suddenly and, with a roar of combined frus-     tration, humiliation and rage, she lurches from the bed     in search of her clothes. Frank shuts his eyes in morti-     fication and pain.93   EXT. MARRON ESTATE - POOLSIDE - EARLY MORNING              93     A nanny sits in the early morning mist, embroidering.     Frank is kneeling with Fletcher beside the pool. He's     putting new batteries into Fletcher's boat. Fletcher     watches him as he tears off the wrapping from the     batteries, much preoccupied.                              FLETCHER                        (watching him)                 She's real mad at you, isn't she?     Frank stops what he's doing and just looks blankly at the     batteries in his hands. There's a beat of silence.                              FLETCHER                 She told me she doesn't understand                 why you're so shitty to her...     Frank's shoulders droop and he lets out an imperceptible     sigh. He gently resumes fitting the batteries, still     not looking at Fletcher. In the quiet of early morning,     it's almost like a confessional.                              FRANK                 I've spent a lot of time learning                 not to react to things like other                 people do. It's my job. But it                 doesn't always work, Fletcher...                 it doesn't always work.                              FLETCHER                 I don't think I understand.                              FRANK                        (looks at him)                 I'm an old man compared to you,                 pal, and I don't understand either.                 And I'm starting to get the                 feeling I never will.     There's a crunch of footsteps behind him.       He looks     around.     With a big flourish, a copy of Daily Variety is put down     in front of us, front page upwards.                             NICKI (O.S.)                 Ta Da!                                                                    72.     Frank takes in that it's Nicki then glances at Variety,     lying on the concrete beside him. Splashed across the     top, the headlines announce the day's news of the     Academy Award nominations. Rachel's name is among the     Best Actress nominees. The Hollywood Reporter follows.     Frank picks up Variety and stares at it. Nicki stands     beside him with the morning's mail under her arm.                           NICKI                     (looking at him)              Thought you'd like to know.              Everyone said she was a sure thing.              Of course, you know all about that.     She raises an eyebrow, gives him a look. Frank looks     steadily back at her. She drops a small pile of mail     beside the magazines... several letters and a small     packet. She's embarrassed by Frank's gaze.                           NICKI              I'm sorry. That was out of line.              It's none of my business... Here's              today's question marks for you.     She turns and walks briskly back to the house. Frank     watches her go, then looks slowly down to the pile.     From across the pool, Fletcher watches silently, then     pushes his boat out into the deep water.94   INT. SQUIRREL HILL PRODUCTIONS - JANITOR'S ROOM - DAY     94     Frank is investigating the small packet, with a surgeon's     precision, checking it with a stethoscope and a metal     detector, sniffing at it.     It has been addressed in the normal way, except that     Rachel's name has been cut out of a magazine and pasted     above the address. He begins carefully slicing away the     wrapping. Inside is a cardboard box. The contents are     still hidden by packing paper. He picks it away with     tweezers. Suddenly there is a LOUD BUZZING from the box     and movement in the paper. Frank drops the box into a     bed of sand in a sink surrounded by sandbags.     The movement slows and stops. Frank extracts the item --     it is a wind-up mechanical beaver with a hand-painted     sign hung around its neck:                     WE LOVE YOU, RACHEL                     YOUR FANS IN BEAVER, PA.                     SALLY AND KATE.     The beaver's TEETH CLICK in Frank's hand.     We see Frank's face. This may just have taken years off     his life. He holds his hand out straight, palm downwards,                                                                   73.     and looks at it.   No tremor.   Just checking.     Spector's voice suddenly shouts from the next door office.                            SPECTOR (O.S.)              Farmer!   Get in here!95   INT. SQUIRREL HILL PRODUCTIONS - RACHEL'S OFFICE - DAY   95     The office is filled with congratulatory balloons and     flowers heralding the morning's news. Spector's secretary     is taking congratulatory phone messages at a desk in the     b.g. Two assistants are struggling in through the door     with a large basketed floral arrangement.     Spector confronts Frank across his desk.                           SPECTOR              Put together a list of   your              expenses. Your total    billing...              Let me have it in one   hour and              I'll see that a check   is cut.                           FRANK              Don't you ever say what's on your              mind?     Spector cannot believe he's being so addressed --     especially in front the staff. The assistants stop in     their tracks and look.                           SPECTOR                     (almost shouts)              What's on my mind is that you're              fired, Frank. She missed all her              interviews yesterday because of              your little date. Do you realize              she stood up Barbara Walters?              First you fuck up her career...     Behind Spector, out of his line of sight, Rachel and     Devaney appear in the doorway with more cards. They     also stop and listen.                           SPECTOR              ... and now you're fucking with              her head.                           FRANK              That's between us.                           SPECTOR              You think so? You forget who signs              your check. You don't understand              the role I play around here.                                                              74.                       FRANK         No.   I understand.Spector stiffens, then decides not to take this one on.                      SPECTOR         Get your shit together and be out         of here by noon.                        DEVANEY         Frank stays.Spector looks round, sees that Devaney and Rachel havebeen listening. Rachel is silent. With a curt nod ofhis head, Spector gestures to the assistants to leave theroom. Devaney weighs in.                      DEVANEY         With this high a profile, Rachel         needs protection now more than         ever. If he goes, you can forget         Miami...                      SPECTOR         She's signed the fucking contract,         Bill. You want me to read it to         you?Rachel is watching them both.                      DEVANEY         Fuck the contract. If he goes,         she's not singing a note. It's         too dangerous.                      SPECTOR         Oh. 'Fuck the contract.' Great.         Why don't you let Rachel speak for         herself? I think she has some say         in this.                      RACHEL                (flatly)         Frank stays.Spector considers her for a beat, then looks at the others.The secretary interrupts from the back of the office.                      SECRETARY (O.S.)         Mr. Schiller calling on line one...Spector ignores her, still holding his look at Devaney,Rachel and Frank.                      SPECTOR         Well, I guess this is democracy in         action.                                                             75.Rachel nods. Spector, turning to take the call, flashesher a "little boy" look.                     SPECTOR         I gave in. That's not easy for         me. Don't I get a hug?Rachel is stone-faced.   Spector covers by picking up thephone.                      SPECTOR                (into phone)         Yeah?... Sure, put him on... Ben         how are you?... uh huh...Frank and Rachel look at each other in silence.                      SPECTOR         ...The Ambassador? What the hell         are you trying to pull, Ben?         Rachel always gets the         Presidential... I don't care what         you thought...Devaney leans to Frank as Spector's conversation continuesin the b.g.                      DEVANEY         Do you know the Fontainebleau         Hotel in Miami Beach?Frank nods.                      DEVANEY         How does the Ambassador Suite         compare to the Presidential for         us?Frank thinks only for a moment.                      FRANK         It's on the twentieth    floor in the         south wing. There's a     service         elevator right there.     Mainly         ocean windows. Should     be no         problem.                      SPECTOR                (into phone)         ... I'm aware of that, Ben, but         let me just remind you people         that you invited us...Frank turns toward the door.                                                                     76.                           RACHEL                     (to Frank)              Hang around, Farmer. We might              need your vaunted expertise.     She reaches forward and hits a button on Spector's desk,     throwing the call onto a speaker.                           RACHEL                     (sweetly)              Hello, Ben honey.                           SCHILLER (V.O.)              Rachel, congratulations, you must              be thrilled at the...                           RACHEL                     (across him)              Ben. I hear you've got me in the              annex next to the kitchen.96   EXT. FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL (MIAMI BEACH) - HELICOPTER SHOT 96     - DAY     We COME STREAKING IN OVER the ocean TOWARD the towering     white Fontainebleau.     ON the SOUNDTRACK, we hear JOHN TESH'S VOICE filling the     viewers in on the latest Hollywood dirt.                           JOHN TESH (V.O.)              ...It's off to Sun City today for              Best Actress nominee Rachel Marron.              Rachel's giving two AIDS charity              concerts this week at Miami's              Fontainebleau Hotel. A thousand a              plate no less. And rumor has it              that the lovely lady has unseated              the governor of Florida himself.              Seems there was a showdown on              who'll get to lounge in that big              Fontainebleau penthouse tonight.     As we CIRCLE the top floor, we see a tiny figure on the     balcony.                           JOHN TESH (V.O.)              Well, sleep tight in the              Presidential Suite, Rachel. Who              says a nomination isn't as good as              winning...97   EXT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - BALCONY - DAY                    97     Frank looks up at the disappearing helicopter then down                                                                   77.     over the edge and around the corner. He leans slightly     against the wrought iron railing. It sways precariously.     Frank catches himself.                            FRANK              Thuringer.     Frank kneels and inspects the fixture that anchors it to     the cement balcony: the cement crumbles around it, a     weld joint is broken on the side. THURINGER, the hotel     security chief, joins Frank on the balcony. Frank shakes     the railing.                             THURINGER              God damn.    I'll get someone right              on it.98   INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - DAY                            98     Frank walks quickly across the living  room of the lavish     suite.  Two uniformed security guards  are making a sweep     of the room with POLICE DOGS. Frank   checks the drawer of     a side table and then seals it with a  peel-off security     tape.  Thuringer is waiting near the  entrance hall.     Frank nods to him.                            FRANK              Okay.   Let's go.99   INT. HALLWAY - 15TH FLOOR - DAY                          99     This is a semi-private corridor; several hotel employees     are steam-cleaning the carpet. Frank looks at them, then     Thuringer.                           THURINGER              It's okay, they've been cleared.     He shows his clipboard to Frank. As the two men walk     along the corridor, the guest elevator opens and a     twelve-year-old boy in a bathing suit (MARK KATZ) steps     out, accompanied by his nanny. In the background, hotel     security men are checking fire-extinguishers and closets.                           THURINGER                     (to Frank)              The Katzes of St. Louis. Very              prominent. Come every year. An              elderly couple and three              grandchildren. A nurse and a maid.     They pass the little boy as he reaches the door of the     Katz suite with his nanny.                                                                  78.                            THURINGER               Hi, Mark.                            MARK               Hi.      Frank smiles and nods to the nanny.                            THURINGER                      (to Frank)               Theirs is the only suite on the               floor.      The two men reach the service elevator and the emergency      exit door at the end of the hall. Frank opens the stair-      way door and goes inside. Thuringer follows.                            THURINGER               As you asked, the rooms below have               been kept vacant.100   INT. STAIRWAY - DAY                                       100      The doorway closes behind the two men. Frank tries it;      it's locked. They continue down the stairs.105   INT. KITCHEN - DAY                                        105      Frank and Thuringer walk into and along the edge of the      busy kitchen.109   INT. OFFSTAGE AREA - DAY                                  109      Frank walks ahead of Thuringer. He looks around and      pauses at the edge of the stage. Then he steps out on a      stage. A piano tuner is at work in the corner.110   INT. ON STAGE - DAY                                       110      FRANK'S POV -      as he looks out at the mammoth room.      Frank stands center stage and looks around. The naked-      ess of this spot gets to him. He shakes his head and      looks at Thuringer. Thuringer smiles.                            FRANK               What a silly job this is.                                                                     79.111   INT. FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL - LOWER LOBBY - DAY                 111      Behind the glass doors that lead to the pool, bright      quartz lights clock on. A camera crew stands waiting.      Someone mimes a "we're rolling" sign with his hands.      Inside Rachel waits with Spector and BEN SCHILLER, the      tough, fat fellow who owns the place. Frank is at her      elbow.                            SPECTOR               O.K. Rachel. It's showtime!               They're rolling. Let's go.                            FRANK               Is this really necessary?                               SPECTOR               Yes.   It is.                            RACHEL               Quit bitching, Farmer. This is               the part you do get paid for.      Rachel sweeps out the door.    The camera crew hurries to      keep up with her.112   EXT. POOL AREA - DAY                                         112      This place is crowded with hundreds   of guests basking on      chaise lounges. A sea of sun-baked    faces virtually as      far as the eye can see. The sight    of the crowd and the      presence of the news crew seems to   push Rachel to a      whole new adrenaline level.      Rachel walks among them, moving swiftly, evaluating the      bodies displayed before her in words and expressions,      playing to the camera.                           RACHEL               Oh my God. Look what they're               wearing. Mother, hide your eyes...      Heads turn to look.                            RACHEL               I couldn't wear that suit... Honey,               you're naked... Of course, if I               had a body like that...      There is a murmur of recognition from some of the guests.      She pauses to shake a hand, and now all the guests      throughout the pool area are aware that Rachel Marron is      among them.      People stand on chairs, scramble for pens and paper, run                                                            80.to get a closer look. Lounges collapse, drink GLASSES areBROKEN, flower tubs are trampled. A lot of pushing andshoving starts - too much for the video crew, who abandonthe filming attempt.                     SPECTOR         Great, babe. They got what they         needed. Let's get back inside.Frank increases his pace to keep by Rachel's side, gentlyeasing a path for her. Schiller scurries behind inFrank's wake.Rachel turns suddenly as a tall good-looking lifeguardappears in the throng. She eyes him appreciatively.                      RACHEL                (to lifeguard)         You look like a man of good taste         to me. Come to my party tonight.                (to Schiller)         Ben, make sure this boy gets to         my party.Schiller nods. Rachel glances at Frank, making sure hegets the point, and then she's off again. The thronggets tighter. Frank's having to work harder, steeringher towards the door back into the hotel. The familiarchant starts up: "Rachel, Rachel." It's starting toresemble the frenzy of the opening scene. This time,amid the thrusting hands and clamoring faces, a fewbewildered elderly guests look dazed as they are shovedforward. A child starts crying, lost in the mess of legsand Bermuda shorts. A distraught mother tries to reachhim. Someone is jostled into the pool as the crowdsurges again.Amid the chaos, whistles and scattered applause.   Racheldrinks it all in.                      RACHEL                (over her shoulder)         Thank you. Thank you. Come         tonight and give till it hurts.With a final surge, Frank makes it to the door with hisparty. The door closes shut behind them. A mass ofdistorted faces pushes onto the glass. The party walkson briskly.                      RACHEL                (to Spector)         I'm beginning to wonder about your         judgement, Sy. Why do I have to         keep paying my dues if I've         already arrived?                                                                      81.                             SPECTOR                       (very fast)                Kick me, beat me... whatever makes                you feel good. But let's not                pretend you don't like it. We're                too close for that. Whipping                people into a frenzy is why you                got into it in the first place.       Rachel's eyes lock with  Spector's -- there's a real connec-       tion and understanding  here that she spends a lot of time       denying. Frank sees it   as clearly as Spector, whose tone       becomes almost soothing  --                             SPECTOR                And it's nothing to be ashamed of,                either, not for a second. It's a                gift... and only a handful are                given it. Many call but few are                answered.                             SPECTOR (CONT'D)                Don't fool with the blessing,                Rachel. The magic is sustained                through its use.                             RACHEL                Now you're going to tell me about                magic? Give it a rest will ya...                             SPECTOR                I'm done. Not another word...                       (a crooked smile)                ... I know you like to be reminded                sometimes.       Rachel looks away.   It's true.   He's good at his job.113    INT. GRAND CENTRAL ROOM - ON STAGE - NIGHT                113       In the spotlight, all alone, Rachel Marron works her magic.       She sings, as it was meant to be sung, "I Have Nothing."       One person does not look at Rachel. He stands in a       corner in front of the stage easily in the shadows. His       eyes continually scanning. Picking up every movement.       All alone. Watching.113A   EXT. FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL - NIGHT                          113A       Fireworks explode over the water.                                                                     82.114   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                  114      In the living room, the first night party is in full      swing. Crowded. Smoky. Noisy. Fireworks burst outside      the windows. People clap.      A mixed bag of upscale partygoers: women in party      dresses, men in open shirts, etc. A black pianist is      playing. Two bars at either end of the room. Waiters      work the room with platters of canapes.115   INT. RACHEL'S SUITE - OUTSIDE MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT      115      Tony sits in a chair watching TV, a drink in his hand,      oblivious to all. The lifeguard shuts Rachel's door be-      hind him and makes his way down to the party. He pauses      at the head of the stairs, checking out the party, and      grabs a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Frank      catches the movement; the two men briefly lock eyes. The      lifeguard responds with a knowing smile.116   EXT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE SUITE - NIGHT                        116      Thuringer has set up a checkpoint through which all      guests are passing.      As they get off the elevator, they walk up to a desk      manned by one of Thuringer's uniformed guards. When      their names have been checked off a master list, they      walk past another guard wielding a metal detector. No      one likes it, but they all do it.      Most of the local TV stations have sent camera crews.    The      handheld cameras move among the guests, their bright      lights flaring. FLASHBULBS POP. It's a local media      event.      Frank squints as a quartz light shines straight in his      face.      A tall, fit, athletic-looking man raises his arms; is      cleared by the metal detector. He is GREG PORTMAN.117   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                  117      Portman makes his way through the crowd to the bar. His      eyes scan the suite. His gaze settles on Frank checking      out the people who filter in. Portman appears next to      Frank.                            PORTMAN               Hello, Farmer.                                                           83.                      FRANK         Portman.                      PORTMAN         Buy you a drink?                      FRANK         Orange juice. It's been awhile.         You on the job?                      PORTMAN                (nods)         Technically I'm off duty,   but the         Governor may show up here   later,         so I thought I'd give it   a light         check.                (smiles)         Someone else is covering   him right         now.                      FRANK         How old is she?                      PORTMAN         Maybe eighteen. You working?Rachel makes her entrance, and poses self-mocking on thelanding above the crowd, accepting applause. She hassucceeded in under-dressing everyone in the room. Sheis a star. Frank nods in her direction... that's hisclient.                      PORTMAN                (impressed)         No kidding? I'd call that a step         up from the President. Probably         sings better too.                       RACHEL         Thank you.   Thank you.   You're         so right.SCATTERED LAUGHS.                      RACHEL         I want everyone to have a good         time and drink as much of Ben         Schiller's liquor as you like.Rachel descends into the crowd, laughing and blowingkisses.                      PORTMAN         Handful.Frank's look says if you only knew the half of it.                                                           84.                        PORTMAN           I heard you had to take someone           out in New York.Frank remembers.                        PORTMAN           I lost track of you after the           Reagan thing.                          FRANK           Yeah.                        PORTMAN           It wasn't your fault, Farmer.           You weren't even there.A pause.                        PORTMAN           I got a call a couple of months           ago. That guy you were covering           in New York. He said you'd           recommended me.                          FRANK           Surprised?                          PORTMAN           A little.                        FRANK                  (smiles)           I never doubted your skills.                        PORTMAN                  (laughs, good-                   natured)           No. Only my qualifications for           the priesthood. You were always           clear about that. Anyway, I           appreciate it. I had to turn it           down but I appreciate it.Portman notices Rachel looking at him, as she makes herway to them. Rachel takes Frank's orange juice and sips.Makes a very funny face.                        RACHEL           That's orange juice!Rachel gives Portman an approving once-over.                          RACHEL           Who are you?                                                                   85.                            PORTMAN               Greg Portman.                            RACHEL               I take it you've met my bodyguard?                            PORTMAN               We used to work together.                            RACHEL                      (suddenly more                       interested)               Ah... Well, well, well.    And what               do you do now?                            PORTMAN               Same thing as Farmer.                            RACHEL                      (looking between                       them)               Two samurai, eh?      Frank and Portman eye each other.                            RACHEL                      (to Portman)               Are you working now?                            PORTMAN               Not right now.                            RACHEL               Good.                      (she takes his arm)               'cause I'm the only one in the               room who needs protection.      She gives Frank a look and leads Portman into the crowd.118   EXT. LIVING ROOM BALCONY - LATER                           118      Rachel's taking a breather on the balcony, drinking cham-      pagne, talking to Portman and another couple. Everybody's      high and happy. Conversation bubbles.      FRANK'S POV      Rachel leans into Portman; heads together, they whisper      intimately. Rachel laughs, then for a brief moment, turns      her head to look directly at Frank. Her look is petulant,      defiant. Portman does not see this.119   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                   119                                                                    86.      Tony helps himself to a handful of canapes, he turns at      the sound of a COMMOTION out on the balcony. Someone's      horsing around, spraying champagne from a bottle over      everyone. A woman screams. Frank   bolts for the balcony.121   EXT. ON BALCONY - NIGHT                                           121      Rachel and Portman are poised precariously halfway over      the railing. Frank's hand shoots out, grabs Rachel's      wrist and tugs at the pair of them.      Portman regains his balance first and pulls Rachel back      from the edge.                            FRANK               What happened!                            PORTMAN               Somebody tripped. It's okay.                            RACHEL                      (looking at Portman)               Thank God I had a bodyguard here.      She grasps the railing and looks over.      RACHEL'S POV      Staring down twenty stories of distance between her and the      pool area.      Way, way below her, her champagne GLASS hits the tile      with a MUFFLED SHATTERING sound.                            RACHEL               It's a long way down, Frank.                      (to Portman)               You saved my life.      Frank eyes the newly-welded anchor fixture.   It has      held.      Rachel takes Portman by the arm.   The front of her dress      is stained with champagne.                            RACHEL               Maybe someone will keep an eye               on me while I change.      She leads Portman past Frank and up the stairs toward      her bedroom. Frank and Portman lock eyes. Portman      shrugs; he feels badly for Frank.122   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                    122                                                                   87.      Frank walks to the bar taking a drink from his glass. He      looks in the mirror behind the bar and sees Rachel and      Portman in the hall outside her bedroom. She turns her      head to look directly at Frank's reflected face. Assured      that Frank is watching, she takes Portman's hand and leads      him into her room.      Frank sets his glass down and the bartender refills it      with orange juice. A stunning WOMAN IN GREEN glides down      the bar and stands very close to Frank.                            WOMAN IN GREEN               I've been watching you all night               from across the room.                            FRANK               Why don't you go back there and               keep watching?      Frank looks at Rachel's doorway, sipping his juice.123   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                              123      Rachel and Portman are kissing, with some heat.      Portman's hands are starting to explore her body.124   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                   124      Frank still looks at Rachel's doorway, thinking. After      a moment, he walks across the room to the sliding doors      that lead to the balcony outside.125   EXT. BALCONY - NIGHT                                       125      Frank steps outside. No one there. The moonlight re-      flects off the ocean. The SURF sounds a STEADY BEAT.      It is peaceful and quiet. A relief.      On the Katz's balcony, forty feet away, little Mark Katz      is leaning against the railing, staring at Rachel's      suite. Frank smiles at him.                            FRANK                      (softly)               Go to sleep.      Frank looks out at the ocean. After a pause, in the      background, Mark slips inside the Katz suite.126   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                              126      Rachel and Portman are still locked in the clinch.      Realizing what she's doing, Rachel suddenly pulls back,                                                                   88.      catching herself.                            RACHEL               I'm not doing this.                            PORTMAN                      (still holding her)               I think you are.      She steps out of his embrace.                            RACHEL               I said I was grateful.   Thank you               and good night.      She looks to the door that leads back to the party. The      SOUNDS of CELEBRATION CONTINUE outside. She starts to      cross to the door.                            RACHEL                      (cool)               Please go now.      Portman moves toward her as she opens the door, reaching      for her arm.      Then he sees, through the doorway, Tony standing in the      hall talking to a woman. Tony looks up at the sound of      the door and sees them both. Rachel slips quickly out      of Portman's grip.                            RACHEL               Mr. Portman was just leaving us,               Tony.      Portman hesitates, then smiles at Rachel and Tony and,      with a quick peck on Rachel's cheek, slips past them back      to the party.      Rachel briefly scans the party crowd over Tony's shoulder      but she doesn't see Frank. The door closes, leaving her      alone in the room again. She reaches for a bottle of      Scotch and raises it to her mouth, drinking straight      from the bottle.127   EXT. BALCONY - NIGHT                                       127      Frank looks out at the ocean.      ECHOING on the soundtrack, we hear the song 'WHAT BECOMES      OF THE BROKEN HEARTED' that Rachel and Frank danced to.      It sounds slow and sweet and a long way away.      Frank stares out at the ocean. Totally divorced from      everything in the suite behind him, in the world around      him. There is only the moon and the ocean. For this                                                                     89.       one moment, his guard is down.127A   INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - LIVING ROOM - DAY                127A       A chambermaid is Hoovering the floor. Rachel steps out       of her bedroom. She looks terrible. Hungover, she is       wearing sunglasses and a loose smock. It is noon of the       following day.130    INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - KITCHEN - DAY                    130       Frank is sitting at the kitchen table eating a sandwich.       Behind him, in the dining room, a Cuban maid has set a       place with breakfast. She is pouring orange juice as       Rachel walks in.       Rachel sits down at the table as though the walk in had       been a terrible effort. She looks at the breakfast with       distaste and picks up the coffee. Frank continues to eat.       Rachel looks at him.                               RACHEL                         (nasty)                  What the hell are you looking at?                         (pause)                  You probably never had a heavy                  night in your whole, goddamn                  disciplined life.       Frank looks at her, continues to eat.                               RACHEL                  You know, Farmer, you're a self-                  righteous son-of-a-bitch.       Frank has to smile at this, which makes Rachel even       angrier.                               RACHEL                  Don't laugh at me, goddamit!   And                  don't you dare judge me.                               FRANK                  Give me a break, will ya? I                  didn't tell you to fuck everybody                  in the hotel!132    INT. CLEANING SUPPLY WAREHOUSE - DAY                       132       Special  Agents Court and Minella are watching the general       manager  of the supply house as he pries the top off a huge       canister  marked "INDUSTRIAL DETERGENT." The general       manager  lifts the lid to reveal white powder.                                                                    90.      He talks animatedly and gestures around the warehouse.      Court listens, nodding. Minella spoons some of the      powder into a plastic bag and seals it. OVER this we      hear Court's voice, filtered as on a telephone line.                              COURT (V.O.)                 It matches the traces in the glue,                 Frank. We're getting to him.We're gonna nail this fucker.133   INT. FONTAINEBLEAU - LOBBY - DAY                            133      Frank is on the courtesy phone.                             FRANK                Yeah, well, don't take too long,                Ray.                              COURT (V.O.)                Hey, Frank.   It's good money,                isn't it?      Frank hangs up.134   INT. 20TH FLOOR HALLWAY - OUTSIDE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE -      134      DAY      The elevator door opens and  Frank steps out. He      walks toward the entrance to  the suite and is      immediately alarmed by what  he sees: there is no      uniformed guard by the front  door. He unlocks the      door and goes inside.135   INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - ENTRANCE - DAY                    135      Frank comes in and looks around quickly.      FRANK'S POV - LIVING ROOM      Looking over living room, hallways, balcony.    No one in      sight. Nothing disturbed.      Devaney comes out of Rachel's bedroom, a panicked look      on his face.      BACK TO SCENE      They face each other across the gulf of the living      room.                             FRANK                Where is she? Where's Tony?                                                                     91.                            DEVANEY               I don't know. I thought you were               with her.138   INT. SUITE - LIVING ROOM - DAY                               138      Frank is at the telephone; he punches out three      numbers.                            FRANK                      (into phone)               Thuringer, this is Farmer. Where's               your man on the door to the suite?                      (listens)               Well get someone up here.      Frank hangs up the phone, looks at Devaney.                            FRANK               He doesn't know.      They look at each other, worried. Frank walks out onto      the balcony, looks round and down, comes back in. He      heads for the front door.                            DEVANEY               Where are you going?139   INT. SUITE - ENTRANCE HALL - DAY                             139      Frank is almost at the door. We hear LAUGHTER. A key      turns in the lock. Rachel and Tony come through the      door in high spirits, their arms full of shopping bags      and packages.      Frank stops dead and    watches. Rachel glances at him and      goes into the living    room. Tony looks at him meaning-      fully and follows.     Frank reflects for a moment, then      pulls the front door    closed, oh so gently.140   INT. SUITE - LIVING ROOM - DAY                               140      Rachel drops packages around and goes to the bar, pours      herself a drink. Tony takes some packages to Rachel's      bedroom.                            RACHEL               Hello, Devaney.                            DEVANEY               Rachel, where the hell have you               been?                                                                      92.                             RACHEL                Tony and I went over to Bal                Harbour. Did a little shopping.       Tony comes back, a smile playing across his lips.    Frank       watches near the entrance.                             DEVANEY                We were worried.                       (looks at Frank,                        talks to Rachel)                You know you're not supposed to do                that.       Frank and Rachel look at each other.                             RACHEL                Farmer, you work here! Do you                understand that? You work for me.                             DEVANEY                Rachel.       Frank turns and heads for the door.    Devaney looks at       him anxiously.                             DEVANEY                Farmer, where are you going?                             FRANK                I'm gonna check the route.    As                usual.       He opens the front door. A uniformed guard is standing       outside. Frank goes out and closes the door.                             RACHEL                Did Fletcher call?       Devaney, staring after Frank, shakes his head "no."141    INT. SERVICE ELEVATOR - DAY                                  141       Frank's face shows the tension and the anger.    The ele-       vator descends.141A   INT. KITCHEN - DAY                                           141A       Frank walks along the edge of the kitchen, looks over       the workers. A kitchen worker is in Frank's path. He       looks up, sees Frank's face and scurries out of his way.142    INT. BASEMENT - SERVICE CORRIDOR - DAY                       142                                                                 93.Frank walks along checking the corridor.        At each door-way, he stops, looks inside.One room is dark. He flicks on the light. Near the dooris a pile of wooden crates, placed unnaturally out fromthe wall.  Frank walks over and looks inside. They arediscarded vegetable crates. Frank goes back to the doorand yells toward the kitchen.                          FRANK            Gomez!   Louis Gomez!He waits impatiently. No one comes. Two quick steps andhe is back at the CRATES, throwing them violently intothe corner where they CLATTER loudly to the floor. Frankwalks on along the corridor.He stops, noticing something around the side.He investigates.An ENORMOUS CUBAN is sitting on some boxes in theshadows. He doesn't bat an eye when he sees Frank.                         FRANK            What are you doing?                         ENORMOUS CUBAN            Is none of you fuckin' business.                           FRANK            Move it.The Enormous Cuban gets slowly up from the boxes.        Hetowers over Frank.                         ENORMOUS CUBAN            Shove it up you ass, motherfucker.Frank has had   enough for one      afternoon. He hits theCuban low and   hard. The man       crumples forward, hurt,but manages to   enfold Frank      in an awesome bear hug. Hisweight carries   them backward      in Frank's direction.The Cuban continues      moving in that direction, but Frankis no longer in his      grasp. Instead, incredibly, Frankseems to have passed      through the man's body and flickedhim into the corner      of the stairwell.The Cuban hits the wall hard. Jarred but not lost, hecomes up and out wielding a long mop as if it were abaseball bat.Frank steps in and      under the man's long arms and hits himfour times around      the chest and jaw. Each of Frank'shands lands twice,      their movement is barely visible.The solid THUDDING      tells the story. Frank strikes both                                                                    94.       the Cuban's ears simultaneously with cupped hands.       The Cuban goes down, stunned. Frank, his expression       fierce, is upon him immediately. Frank's arms entwine       the Cuban's and he begins to lift him roughly. At the       end of the corridor, a woman screams.                       CLEANING WOMAN (O.S.)                Stop! Please. Don't hurt him.                Please stop!       Frank looks up. A hotel CLEANING WOMAN, carrying her       purse, is running towards them, tears already on her       face.                             CLEANING WOMAN                Don't hurt my husband, mister.       He                not up to nothing.       Frank lets the Cuban down gently and stands up. Dis-       gusted with himself. Breathing hard, he leans back       against the wall. The Cleaning Woman falls to her knees       and hugs her husband protectively.                              FRANK                I'm sorry.       Frank steps away, rubs a hand through his hair, tries to       collect himself.       He's standing amidst dumpsters and discarded food boxes.       He looks up and sees a marquee.       RACHEL MARRON.   TONITE.   BENEFIT CONCERT.    8 P.M.145A   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                              145A       Rachel is seated at her dressing table applying her       makeup for the evening's performance. The telephone       RINGS as she begins to work on her hair.                              RACHEL                Fletcher?       No response.                             RACHEL                Baby, is that you? It's mommy,                honey.                             DAN (V.O.)                       (eerily distorted)                Guess again, whore! Fuck you and                fuck Miami. I'm coming for you.                I know where you are and I'm                coming for you...                                                                   95.      Rachel is paralyzed by fear, unable to hang up the phone.146   INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT              146      Frank comes in the front door. He's had it. Devaney,      who has been sitting alone in the living room, stubs out      a cigarette and stands to meet him. Frank doesn't pause.                            FRANK               I'm through. I'll get you back to               L.A. and that's it. The guy with               Fletcher can cover you till you get               a replacement.                            DEVANEY               She got another call, while you               were downstairs and she answered it               herself. It was him, Frank. Same               guy.                            FRANK                      (moving toward                       balcony)               I don't care.                            DEVANEY               Farmer, it really shook her up.               She thought it was going to be               Fletcher calling her from L.A. I               think she'll be reasonable now.                            FRANK                      (across him)               Save it, Devaney. The people who               hire me don't have to be convinced               to save their own lives.      Frank reaches the sliding door that leads to the balcony.                            FRANK               Call me when she's ready to go               down.                             DEVANEY               Farmer --      Frank goes out on the balcony and slides the door closed      behind him.147   EXT. BALCONY - NIGHT                                       147      Frank looks out at the ocean. The breeze washes over his      face. A huge brightly-lit yacht is sailing by, close to      shore. Frank looks at it reflectively.                                                              96.He senses another presence and looks to his right.Rachel sits huddled in a balcony chair. The bright  moon-light illuminates her as she looks out to sea. She  iswearing one of her spectacular show gowns, her hair hasbeen brushed, and her stage makeup has been applied.   Buttonight it hasn't come together. It doesn't work.   Sheholds a cigarette and the breeze keeps it glowing.  Thisis the only time we've seen her smoke.                      RACHEL         Farmer... Nothing that's happened         between us matters... I understand         now... You're going to have to         believe me, because I'm not going         to beg.She takes a long drag on her cigarette.                      RACHEL         It wasn't what he said... it was         the way he said it... he was so...Her voice cracks.   She stops and tries to compose herself.                      RACHEL         I need you... I'm afraid... and I         hate it. I hate my fear...                (a beat)         Please protect me... Protect         Fletcher... If anything happened         to him...Frank looks at her. Tears are destroying her elaboratestage makeup. She wipes them away with her hand.                      FRANK         I can't protect you like this.         It's impossible. The odds are on         his side.                      RACHEL         I'll do whatever you say.This is the first time Frank has ever heard Rachel saythat. He studies her, then looks out at the ocean.                      FRANK         I want to take you away for         a while.Rachel nods.                      FRANK         Somewhere people don't know about.She nods again, agreeing.                                                                   97.                            FRANK               No Spector or Devaney or Tony.      He looks at her, reading her face for any hesitation.      There is none.                            FRANK               If you cross me up this time, I'll               kill you myself.      Rachel smiles, weakly but with obvious relief.148   EXT. HERB FARMER'S HOUSE (BEND, OREGON) - LAKE SIDE -      148      DAY      A large, old, two-story house sits at the top of a slight      rise, surrounded on three sides by thick, rolling woods.      Sloping gently down from the house to the lake fifty yards      away is a broad expanse of lawn.  Snow lies on the ground      and in the trees. At the edge of  the lake, a dock and      boathouse. An entrance road cuts  out of the trees.      A little TERRIER skitters to the edge of the drive      BARKING.      A van emerges from the trees, tires CRUNCHING through the      snow.      Frank's father, HERB, steps onto the front porch. He's      in his mid-60's, lean, tan and fit. He's wearing a plaid      shirt, jeans and cowboy boots.      The van stops in front of the house. Frank steps out      from the driver's seat and eyes his dad.                            FRANK               Lake's a little low.                            HERB               Fill up soon enough when she thaws.                      (glancing at the van)               They all in trouble?                               FRANK               Just one.149   INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY                                     149      Herb squats on the floor with Fletcher. Together, they      are happily playing around with the fluffy terrier.      Fletcher squeals with delight as the dog licks his face.      Henry brings the remaining luggage through. Rachel and      Nicki stand with Frank near the archway. All eyes are on                                                                      98.      Fletcher, Herb and the dog.       Rachel eyes the dog      skeptically.                            RACHEL               That's going to protect us?                            FRANK               He's a trained noisemaker.                               RACHEL               Terrific.                            FRANK               I don't like big dogs. They don't               know who they're eating.150   INT. KITCHEN - LATE AFTERNOON                                 150      Herb stands beside a butcher block, cutting vegetables      for the evening meal with a practiced hand. Rachel      watches, drink in hand, looking around the kitchen. It      has been neatly organized.                            HERB               Katherine had this place organized               just the way she wanted it.                      (seeing her                       questioning look)               Frank's momma.      There's the COUGH and SPUTTER of an outboard MOTOR from      outside. Rachel looks from the kitchen window and sees      Fletcher and Frank in the small skiff by the dock.      Fletcher tugs again on the starter cord.       At the third      tug he tumbles backwards onto the seat.                            RACHEL               Fletcher doesn't swim well.                            HERB               I guess he'd better stay in the               boat then.                      (his smile puts                      her at ease)               Frank tells me you're a singer.                            RACHEL               That's right.                            HERB               I'm afraid we're a little out of               touch here. I'm sorry.      Rachel waves this off.                                                                   99.                            HERB               You must be very successful to               need Frank.      Rachel smiles and looks out of the window.                            RACHEL               It's so quiet here.                            HERB               Frank came back and stayed six               months after the Reagan thing.      Rachel's questioning look encourages Herb.                            HERB               Frank wasn't there the day he was               shot. He never got over that.                      (a long pause)               We buried Katherine that day.      Rachel looks out again at Frank and Fletcher in the boat.151   EXT. ON LAKE - SUNSET                                      151      Fletcher, Rachel and Frank are chugging across the golden      water in the skiff. Fletcher sits at the back, operating      the outboard, controlling the movements of the boat. He      wears a life vest. Rachel watches him proudly. Fletcher      locks the throttle into place and takes his hands off it      for a laughing moment with a "Look, Mom, no hands"      gesture.      Rachel looks to Frank and smiles, the wind blowing her      hair.      WIDE ON LAKE - DUSK      CAMERA is DOWN at water level by the lake's edge. In the      distance, the small boat skims across the surface. A      light mist is coming up.152   EXT. BOATHOUSE - DUSK                                      152      Henry helps Fletcher tie up the boat for the night.   It      is much foggier now and almost dark.                            FRANK               I don't want anyone going out in               it until you've checked it over               first. Okay? Every time.      Henry nods.                                                                   100.                             HENRY               Every time.                             FRANK               Every time.      In the distance, Rachel and Fletcher have just reached      the house where Nicki scoops up Fletcher and spins him      round and round in a circle. She hugs him close and      kisses his hair.  After a few moments, Fletcher squirms      free and runs to catch up with Rachel.153   INT. HALLWAY - LATER                                       153      Rachel, munching on a raw carrot, browses a row of family      photographs. The sounds of dinner being prepared come      from the kitchen.      We see the history of the family in the pictures; Frank      as a ten-year-old baseball player with a younger Herb;      Herb as Police Chief of Bend, Oregon, being given a civic      award; Frank as a college football wide receiver; Herb      and Katherine Farmer, all dressed up and being introduced      to Jimmy Carter by Frank; the picture-perfect family home      in Oregon with Katherine tending flowers.      Rachel notices a photo of a smiling Henry Kissinger,      talking to some female reporters. There standing      shoulder-to-shoulder with him, are Frank and Portman.      Portman's also smiling at the women, flirting. Frank is      in a familiar pose, alert, unsmiling, vigilant. Rachel      looks at the two of them for a second.      Frank steps from the kitchen with an orange juice and a      drink for Rachel in his hand. He watches her for a      moment as she studies the photo.      She turns and sees him. They lock eyes for several      seconds. She smiles as he hands her the drink.                            FRANK                      (inclining his head                       toward the photo)               Portman sometimes had trouble               remembering what his job was.               Supper's ready.      We can see from Rachel's face that she feels embarrassed      about her behavior in Miami.154   INT. DINING ROOM - LATER THAT NIGHT                        154      The meal has been enthusiastically consumed. Fletcher's      manhandling a chicken leg, his face covered with crumbs      and drippings. Rachel shakes her head, laughing.                                                                 101.                            HERB               ... And I never hit him. Ever.               To this day.                      (to Frank)               That's true, isn't it?                      (to Rachel)               That's very unusual for my people.               So what happens? When he's ten               years old, he complains about it?               Can you believe that?                            FRANK               Oh, for Chrissake! I'm going to               tell her about the time you               stripped in court.      Frank gets up smiling and takes some dishes into the kitchen.                            HERB                      (to Frank)               I don't care. I'm proud of that.                      (to Rachel)               Anyway, he's ten years old and               he's just started playing tackle               football. He comes to me and               tells me he's afraid of getting               hit, right? And he thinks it's               because I never hit him. 'Why don't               you ever hit me?' he says to me!155   INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT                                    155      Frank puts down the dishes in the darkened kitchen.                            FRANK                      (back over his                       shoulder)               If you're lucky, maybe he'll               tell you about my first jockstrap.      As he speaks, he peers out through the window at the      lake. We hear Herb's voice continue from the other room.                            HERB (O.S.)               He got over it: Turned into a               helluva wide receiver. He               couldn't stand being afraid. When               he found something that scared               him, he'd just do it 'til the fear               went away.156   INT. DINING ROOM - NIGHT                                156                                                                   102.                            HERB               His mother was the same way.      Rachel smiles at him, thinking, then looks through at      Frank in the kitchen, still peering out of the windows.      Nicki watches Rachel.157   INT. LIVING ROOM - LATER                                   157      Herb delicately lifts  a chessboard from the top of a      cabinet and walks it  over to the table: A half-finished      game. He leans over   and blows on the pieces -- sending      a small cloud of dust  into the air.                            HERB               Come on, son, you can run but you               can't hide.      Herb pulls up a chair and smiles as Frank appears from      the kitchen, a bowl of popcorn in his hand. Frank takes      a place across from his dad by the fire. The others      gather round.                              HERB               Your move.      Frank studies the board.   Rachel lowers her head into a      cupped hand, fascinated.                            RACHEL               How long has this game been going               on?      Frank picks up a knight, thinks, sets it back down.                              FRANK               Three years.      Nicki takes the bowl of popcorn and squats down with it      beside Fletcher. Fletcher peers intently at the board      as he chews on a handful.                            HERB               He had me on the run there that               first year.      Frank picks up his rook, scratches his forehead with it.      He turns to Fletcher.                            FRANK               What do you think?      Fletcher finishes a mouthful of popcorn, wipes his mouth.                            FLETCHER               Knight to king-four.                                                                   103.      Frank, Herbert and Rachel turn in synch and stare at the      boy.                            FRANK               City kid.      Herb pats his leg, gesturing to Fletcher to take a place      on his lap.                            HERB               Come over here, Fletcher, sit by               me.      Fletcher goes over and joins him.                            RACHEL               Well, that's it for me, I'm               going to bed.      She rises. Frank follows her up the stairs.   Nicki      watches them go.158   INT. UPSTAIRS HALL - NIGHT                                 158      Frank stops at the end of the hallway, checking the lock      on the window, the little terrier is at his heels.      Rachel pauses outside the door. Frank gestures for the      dog to stay. The dog sits in the middle of the hallway      looking from one to the other. For a few seconds neither      speaks.      Frank smiles.                            FRANK               Good night, Rachel.      Rachel accepts this. She smiles in return and touches      him on the arm, very tenderly.                            RACHEL               Good night, Frank.      Rachel turns, goes to her room and closes the door.159   EXT. FARMER HOUSE - NIGHT                                  159      Details are barely distinguishable in the fog. We hear      the gentle LAPPING of the LAKEWATER against the dock.160   INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                   160      Fletcher is asleep, snuggled on Herb's lap by the fire.      Herb is also asleep. Frank fetches a blanket and gently                                                                104.      covers them both.    He puts out the light.161   INT. ENTRANCE HALL - NIGHT                              161      Frank steps quietly into the hall. Nicki is standing      in the shadows. She watches as Frank goes through the      ritual of locking the front door, several ways.                            NICKI                      (softly)               You're very thorough.      VARIOUS SHOTS - AROUND INTERIOR      Frank makes a circuit through the rooms of the first      floor, checking windows and doors. Nicki tags along.                            NICKI               What's happening between you               and Rachel?      Frank glances at her.                            NICKI               Come on. One minute she's got               magnetic hands, the next she hates               you. I can't figure out what it               is now.                            FRANK               You follow all her moves this               closely?                            NICKI                      (smiling)               It's a living.                            FRANK               No, it isn't.      He moves away into the next room.    She hesitates a      moment, then follows.                            NICKI               You think my life is pretty               sickly, don't you?                              FRANK               No.                              NICKI               You must.    I do.      Frank steps into a tight, dark, little window alcove,      checks the windows.                                                             105.                      FRANK         Why don't you change it?                      NICKI         Is it that easy?Frank turns from the window to find Nicki blocking his exit.She moves close to him and kisses him, her hands on hisshoulders. The kiss ends and they look at each other.                      FRANK         You're a lovely woman.                      NICKI         But you don't want me.Frank's look affirms it.    Nicki is embarrassed, angry.                      NICKI         I'm surprised. Thorough fellow         like you. Why stop at one sister         when you can fuck them both?                      FRANK         I make my mistakes.                      NICKI         But you didn't say no to the boss.She starts to turn away from him, but his hands are on hernow, holding her close, refusing to let her turn away.Their faces are very close.    It is tight and near here.                      FRANK                (with force)         No, don't go away, Nicki. Don't         leave me with that. Tell me about         it. Tell me how long you've been         second. Tell me how she has a         child and you don't. Tell me         something. But don't turn away         and try to stick it on me.Nicki twists in his grip.    He holds her tight.                      NICKI         I don't need this from you.                      FRANK         Maybe I need it.     I'm fed up with         people telling me    they have no         control over their    lives. If you         hate your life so    much, turn it         around.                                                                     106.                             NICKI                It's not so simple.                             FRANK                Yes it is. You can walk out that                fucking door anytime you want.                I'll unlock it for you.       Nicki looks up into his face.    Tears start in her eyes.                               NICKI                Let me go.       He releases her, looks at her.                                FRANK                Okay.     It's not my business.       He moves away, OUT OF FRAME.    We HOLD ON Nicki, a long       time.162    EXT. LAKE - DAY                                             162       Bright sun. Frank and his father walk along the lake       shoreline, stooping here and there to finger animal       prints in the snow and mud.                             FRANK                Raccoon... deer...?       Herb nods.       Their attention is drawn to soft singing up by the house.162A   EXT. PORCH - DAY                                            162A       Nicki absently sings an old gospel tune as she tosses       breakfast scraps to a group of hungry ducks gathered by       the porch.162B   EXT. LAKE - DAY                                             162B                             HERB                I've never heard church music in                the middle of the week before.162C   EXT. PORCH - DAY                                            162C       Nicki's soft voice is joined by Rachel's strong harmony,       and the two men watch as Rachel comes out to join her       sister on the porch, startling Nicki. Both sing for a       moment, together. Then Nicki stops, embarrassed. Rachel       gives her a hug.                                                                    107.162D   EXT. LAKE - DAY                                            162D       Herb and Frank are about to return to the house. They       stop short. There, at their feet, is a line of human       foot prints, from heavy snow boots, leading away into       the trees. Frank looks at Herb, suddenly alert.                              FRANK                 Where's Fletcher?       Henry appears at the porch of the house, carrying a       fishing rod as he comes out. At that instant, the sound       of the OUTBOARD MOTOR CRACKLES through the air. Frank's       head snaps toward the boathouse. Henry, in the distance,       looks quickly at the boathouse, then to Frank.                             HENRY                       (shouting)                 Frank! I haven't...       But Frank is already moving, leaping from the porch       and starting to run flat out toward the boathouse       and dock.       Rachel turns to look.       The skiff appears out of the boathouse, Fletcher at the       motor, the boat's lone occupant. The boat moves slowly       away from the boathouse, parallel to the dock.       Frank is running toward the water with everything he's       got, his face contorted. The sound of the OUTBOARD       drowns out his voice as he yells.                               FRANK                 Fletcher!   Fletcher!       IN BOAT       Fletcher, intent on his piloting, neither hears nor sees       Frank running down the lawn behind him. The boat is       approaching the end of the dock.       DOCK       Frank finally makes it to the dock and continues to       sprint after the boat. His weight rattles the boards       as he runs.       IN BOAT       Fletcher passes the end of the dock and gives the       throttle a little twist.       DOCK                                                             108.Frank reaches the end of the dock at a full run and divesdirectly at the rear of the moving boat. Frank's bodyflies out over the boat. He knocks Fletcher out of hisseat and into the water on the other side of the skiff.                         RACHEL                   (screams)           No!   He can't swim!IN WATERFrank holds the terrified, shaking Fletcher in his arms.Fletcher begins to cry. Frank paddles with him towardthe dock. The empty boat swerves, then continues outtoward the center of the lake.DOCKHenry and Rachel are already    at the end of the dock. Nickiand Herb are running toward    it. Rachel is livid, hysterical.Henry peers out at the boat,    which continues to bounceinnocently across the water,    defining a broad curve.                        RACHEL           Fletcher, baby. Are you all           right? Baby.Fletcher, spluttering, is handed up to Rachel by Frank.Rachel hugs Fletcher to her. Herb bends down to checkhe's breathing properly, wrapping the boy in his jacket.                        HERB           He's all right.Henry helps Frank up out of the water.    Frank sits onthe end of the dock, breathing hard.                        RACHEL           What are you doing? You out of           your mind? You're crazy!                  (to Fletcher)           You're all right, baby.                  (back to Frank)           You could have drowned him!Frank and Henry look out toward the boat which has cometo a stop out in the middle of the lake.                         FRANK           I'm sorry.   I got careless.Henry looks at Frank.    He feels terrible about notchecking the boat.                        HENRY           Frank, I'm sorry. I should have...                                                                     109.                             HERB                It's okay, Henry.       Herb puts his hand on Fletcher's head.                             HERB                You all right now, son?       Fletcher nods, his crying ends raggedly.   Frank begins       to stand up.                             HENRY                How do we get the boat back?       Out in the center of the lake, the BOAT BLOWS UP.    Every-       one on the dock jumps.       Nicki screams.       Frank sits down again. He shakes his head. On an       impulse, he stretches out his hand, palm downward.   It's       trembling slightly.162E   INT. BEDROOM - DAY                                          162E       Rachel and Nicki hurriedly pack their bags.   Fletcher       hovers nearby.162F   EXT. SHED/GARAGE - DAY       162F       Frank slides out from under the van. The hood is up.       Henry stands nearby. Frank goes to the driver's seat.                             FRANK                       (to Henry)                Back off.       Henry moves away from the van.   Frank inserts the key in       the ignition.162G   EXT. PORCH - DAY                                            162G       Herb comes out of the house, fast. His eyes scan the       woods as he heads towards the shed.                                HERB                Frank!       Henry turns and motions to Herb to stay away.162H   INT. VAN - DAY                                              162H                                                                        110.        Frank takes a moment, then turns the key.    Nothing.   The        van is dead.162-I   EXT. LAWN - DAY                                               162-I        Henry and Herb watch.    Frank gets out of the van.   He        walks to Herb.                              HERB                 Someone's cut the phone lines. It                 could be anywhere between here and                 town.                              FRANK                 Both the cars are dead. And I                 can't see how it was done.        Frank and Herb exchange a look.                              FRANK                 Who could know we're here? This                 place has nothing to do with her.                              HERB                 Maybe it has to do with you.        Frank looks at him.                              HERB                 We can't walk out of here at                 night with them.        Frank shakes his head.                              FRANK                 We'll button down tonight and                 walk out at first light.162J    EXT. FARMER HOUSE - NIGHT                                     162J        There is a light ground-mist. The moon shines down        down brightly but the house is totally dark.162K    INT. HOUSE - MONTAGE - NIGHT                                  162K        The terrier dog listens in the upstairs hallway. Herb        watches from an upstairs window. Rachel lies in bed,        clutching Fletcher tightly.164     INT. LIVING ROOM - MIDDLE OF NIGHT                            164        Frank has been sitting in a chair in the center of the        living room for two hours. Listening. Now we listen                                                                   111.      with him. At first it seems silent, but slowly we become      aware of a subtle symphony of sounds. An old house sur-      rounded by WOODS. There are lots of NOISES. But they      are regular, innocent.      Frank is aware of a new noise, a gentle sobbing coming      from nearby. He picks up his gun from the table beside      him and goes into the kitchen.166   INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT                                       166      Nicki is sitting with her head in her hands at the kitchen      table, sobbing. There's a nearly empty bottle beside      her. Frank is instantly on the alert but makes no sign.                            NICKI                      (crying)               I was an idiot last night.      There is a long pause.                            NICKI               What do you think about today?                            FRANK                      (gently)               I think this is no maniac.   He               knows what he's doing.      There is a long, long silence.   Nicki continues crying.      Finally --                            NICKI               You're right. He does.                            FRANK               Tell me about it.      She doesn't reply.                            FRANK               Who is it, Nicki?                            NICKI               He almost got Fletcher today...                            FRANK               How do we stop him?                            NICKI               ...my darling Fletcher...                               FRANK               Who is it?                               NICKI                                                           112.         I don't know.   I don't know.Frank goes to her, treats her gently, like a doctor.                      FRANK         You can call him off.                      NICKI                (shaking her head)         He doesn't even know who hired him.         He doesn't know who I am and I         don't know who he is.                      FRANK         How'd you do it?She seems on the edge of hysteria. Frank takes her facein his hands, strokes her hair, brings her back from thebrink.                      FRANK         How?                      NICKI         ...I went to a bar in East L.A. I         asked around... I talked to a         man...                      FRANK         Name?                      NICKI                (vague)         ...Armando... He arranged it.         That's all I know...                      FRANK         Is it all paid for?                      NICKI                (nods)         ... and then some... Till it's done.                      FRANK         He keeps going until he kills her?Nicki nods again, lowering her face into her hands.                      FRANK         What's the name of the bar?                      NICKI         I'm not sure... I was very stoned.                      FRANK         How 'bout the letters?                                                                  113.                            NICKI                      (desperately)               No, no. You don't understand.               The letters came first. I don't               know who's sending them... but               they're reading my mind... Those               were my thoughts. I hate her. It               made me think I could do it... But               I could never hurt Fletcher.               Never.                      (begging him)               You've got to stop it!                            FRANK               We will. You and me. Tomorrow               we're going back to L.A. We're               going to find the bar, we're going               to find Armando.      He starts to rise.    She stops him.                            NICKI               Don't you even want to know why?                               FRANK               You told me.     She has everything.      Frank stands up and begins to move across the room. Nicki      puts her face in her hands and is silent for one moment.      Suddenly, Frank freezes, listening.                            NICKI               What if we can't --      Frank motions her into silence. We strain to hear what      Frank hears. Silently, Frank goes to the door, crouch      ing. He listens. There again is a DISTANT GROWL from      the DOG upstairs.      Frank lifts his gun from the table, turns to Nicki.                              FRANK               Stay here.    Don't move.      Nicki's face shows true terror.      Frank is out the door.168   INT. STAIRS - NIGHT                                      168      Frank runs up them fast.    Two at a time.169   INT. SECOND FLOOR HALL - NIGHT                           169                                                                      114.       Frank travels close to the wall, very quickly. He stops,       listens. The TERRIER looks at Frank but still GROWLS.       Frank throws open Rachel's door. Rachel gasps in       surprise and clutches at Fletcher. Frank hears a noise       behind him, whirls round him and drops to a knee, weapon       ready to fire!       It's Herb, stepping out of his room, carrying a police-       issue pistol.                             HERB                It's me!       Rachel's voice comes from her room.                             RACHEL (O.S.)                What's happening?       The terrier suddenly starts barking loudly.171    INT. FIRST FLOOR HALLWAY - POV - MOVING SHOT - NIGHT         171       We're in someone's POV moving along the hallway. Nicki       steps out of the kitchen a few feet ahead and looks in       terror toward the CAMERA.                             NICKI (O.S.)                No, no... stop... I'm the one                who...172    INT. SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY - NIGHT                            172       Frank and Herb spin around.    Rachel calls from her room.                             RACHEL                Frank?172A   INT. FIRST FLOOR HALLWAY - NIGHT                             172A       A GUNSHOT BLASTS Nicki against the wall, her hand still       delicately raised in a classic gesture of restraint.172B   INT. SECOND FLOOR HALLWAY - NIGHT                            172B       Frank's head spins to Rachel's doorway, then immediately       back to Herb. He starts to move towards the stairs,       fast.                             FRANK                       (to Herb)                Stay with Rachel!       Henry's head appears round the doorway of Herb's room.                                                                    115.173    INT. STAIRS - NIGHT                                        173       Frank is rapidly down the stairs, gun in hand.173A   INT. FIRST FLOOR HALLWAY - NIGHT                           173A       Frank finds Nicki's body slumped against the wall.   He       checks her. She's dead. The door beyond is open.     The       wind blows in. Outside it's foggy.                             FRANK                       (yelling)                Dad?                              HERB (O.S.)                We're okay!                             FRANK                Stay with Rachel!       The DOG continues to BARK upstairs. Frank sees a slight       movement outside and window to his right. A split-second       moment of decision. He heads off rapidly down the hall,       away from the open door.175    EXT. FARMER HOUSE - NIGHT                                  175       The fog is thick. Frank swiftly emerges from the back       door and stops, dead still, listening. There is only the       RUSTLING of TREES.175A   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                              175A       Herb is by Rachel's bed.                             RACHEL                What's happening? Where's Nicki?                              HERB                Be quiet!175B   EXT. FARMER HOUSE - NIGHT                                  175B       Frank listens. Suddenly he hears RUNNING FOOTSTEPS, a       body breaking through the bushes. Frank heads off       towards the sound at a run.176    EXT. WOODS - NIGHT                                         176       INTERCUT - FRANK AND FIGURE                                                                    116.       The move fitfully through the eerie, beautiful scene.       In and out of the fog. Stop, listen,  wait, go. Two       wary, interchangeable animals. Frank  disappears into       the fog. When the figure reappears,  Frank is moving       faster, closing the gap.       The figure, seen in CLOSEUP for the first time, is wear-       ing a dark-colored ski mask.  His breath billows out of       the mouth hole, whitening in the cool March air. He       hears Frank APPROACHING and points his gun in the       direction of the FOOTSTEPS.  He does not fire. SILENCE.       Frank stops and rests on his haunches. Listening, he       hears the intruder move. The sounds have stopped up       ahead. Close.       The figure peers into the fog, gun up.   He's ready,       confident. He waits. Nothing.       Frank, from his crouch, does something brand-new. He       raises his gun into the fog in a two-handed grip, ready       to fire. He holds it easily. And then he does something       really strange: Frank closes his eyes. After a beat, we       hear MOVEMENT. Frank, eyes still closed, swings his gun       15 degrees and FIRES TWO BLASTS.       The man jumps away from a small tree that has splintered       six inches from his shoulder. His eyes are wild behind       his ski mask. Frightened, he suddenly crashes away in       the opposite direction. We FOLLOW. There is ANOTHER       SHOT from Frank very close to the man.176A   INT. RACHEL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                              176A       Herb is at the window. There is anguish on his face as       he hears the SHOTS. He wants to go to his son's aid but       knows he cannot leave Rachel.       Rachel and Fletcher are huddled in the bed, terrified.       Fletcher clutches at the DOG, which is still BARKING.       Henry stands by the bed, gun in hand.176B   EXT. WOODS - NIGHT                                         176B       Frank moves quickly through the woods, passes the       splintered tree. We STAY WITH him and hear the ENGINE       of a CAR ROAR to life and TIRES PEEL OUT of the dirt.       Frank breaks out of the woods in time to see the red       lights at the back of the car as it fishtails around a       bend. He EMPTIES his GUN at it. We hear GLASS       SHATTERING, but the car keeps going.176C   INT. PHONE BOOTH - COUNTRY ROAD - EARLY MORNING            176C                                                                  117.       Snow is falling. In the b.g. we see the flashing       lights of a police car. Frank is on the phone to       Minella.                             MINELLA (V.O.)                But, Frank, this doesn't make                sense...                             FRANK                What do you mean?                             MINELLA (V.O.)                We already got him.                              FRANK                What?   Where?179    INT. F.B.I. HEADQUARTERS (LOS ANGELES) - EARLY MORNING   179       Minella is talking with Frank on the phone. He's looking       into an observation room through a one-way window.                             MINELLA                Here, last night. You should see                his locker, Frank. The guy's                obsessed with Rachel Marron...                             FRANK                You're sure it's him?                             MINELLA                Forensics say it's 100 percent                positive I.D... And he's got a                black Toyota 4 x 4. Ray's with                him now.       MINELLA'S POV       Sitting in the observation room at a table talking to       Ray Court is Dan. He looks frightened and confused.179A   INT. PHONE BOOTH - COUNTRY ROAD - EARLY MORNING          179A                             FRANK                Well, whoever you got down there                wasn't here last night. This was                a professional...                             MINELLA (V.O.)                This is crazy... What do you want                to do, Frank?                             FRANK                How long can you keep him?                                                                   118.                            MINELLA (V.O.)               Well technically all he's done is               write some letters. 48 hours               maximum. You know the deal.181   EXT. MARRON MANSION - DRIVEWAY - DAY                       181      Rachel's black limousine moves slowly up the winding      drive, followed by a black Mercedes limousine. Behind      the cars, the gates close on a large press contingent      gathered outside, held back by a large number of police      and security guards. A light drizzle is falling.      The two cars pull up to the entrance, Henry at the wheel      of Rachel's. Frank gets out of the front and opens the      back door. Devaney and Spector help Rachel and Fletcher      out of the car. They are all dressed in black. A few      other mourners, including Emma, get out of the Mercedes.      Rachel, red-eyed and weary, takes Fletcher under her arm      and goes inside. She does not look at Frank.182   INT. FAMILY ROOM - NIGHT                                   182      A hand takes a pitcher of orange juice from the refriger-      ator and pours some into a large glass. They uncap a      bottle of vodka and pour a huge portion into the orange      juice.183   INT. FAMILY ROOM - NIGHT                                   183      It has grown very dark in the family room. Frank is      sitting all alone, perfectly still, in one of the over-      stuffed chairs, the vodka bottle on a table next to him.      He stares off into space. A small voice comes out of      the darkness.                            FLETCHER               You okay, Frank?      Frank acknowledges Fletcher's small presence standing      to the side of the big chair. He doesn't look at him      directly.                            FRANK               Yeah, Fletcher, I'm okay.     How               'bout you?                            FLETCHER               I couldn't sleep... It was so               scary, just thinking about it...      He looks at Frank.                                                                    119.                            FLETCHER               Do you feel scared, Frank?                            FRANK               Yeah, Fletcher, I do.      Frank puts his hand gently on Fletcher's head, but he      does not look at him.                            FRANK               Everybody's afraid of something,               Flethcer. That's how we know we               care about something, when we're               afraid we'll lose it.                            FLETCHER               What are you afraid of?                            FRANK               I think you should try to go back               to sleep now, pal.                            FLETCHER               Tell me, Frank, please. Is it the               man who killed Nicki? Are you               afraid of him?      Finally, Frank turns and looks at Fletcher.    Frank is      pretty far gone. He shakes his head "no."     He realizes      that that kind of fear had never occurred to   him, and      recognizing that fact sets him back into his   thoughts.                              FLETCHER               Then what?    What are you afraid               of?      Frank doesn't have the will to resist anymore.    He lets      his hand drop away from Fletcher.                            FRANK               I'm afraid... of not being there...      Fletcher stares at him, uncomprehending.                            FRANK               It's late. Do you want me to take               you back to your room?      Fletcher shakes his head "no," just barely.    Then he      disappears.185   INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT                                        185      Frank, silhouetted, moves toward the stairway to the main      level. There is light up there.                                                                  120.186   INT. STAIRWAY - NIGHT                                    186      Frank begins climbing the stairs. When he has gone a      quarter of the way up, Rachel appears at the top and      begins walking down.      At first she doesn't see Frank; when she does she      hesitates a moment, then continues down. They meet and      try to sidestep each other, but twice they go in the      same direction, unable to get around. Rachel, already      emotionally ravaged, cracks. She begins slapping Frank      hard about the face and torso. One of the first blows      knocks the GLASS from his hand; it SMASHES loudly against      the wall. He raises his arms in a half-hearted attempt      to protect himself from the onslaught. She cries as she      hits him.                            RACHEL                      (hysterical)               You, you, you... You brought this               pain into my house... Now you're               here! Where were you then? Why               didn't you save her? It was your               job to protect me and she died               doing it... It was me they were               after. And you let them kill her!                      (she gasps for air)               She never did anything to anyone.      As she loses the strength and the will to hit him, her      blows become sloppy, weak. She sinks to the steps,      sitting on them, sobbing.                            RACHEL               She never hurt anyone. She was               good.                      (she looks at him;                       entreats him)               You saw her. She never wished               anyone any harm. Did she? Did               she?      Frank looks at her, shakes his head "no." Rachel puts      her head in her hands and is silent for a few moments;      her crying slows.                            RACHEL                      (finally, quietly)               She never hurt a soul.                      (long pause)               ... I didn't love her well enough.               I didn't take care of her...                      (a beat)               ... She gave me only love.                                                                     121.       She sits quietly on the steps in the gloom. Frank watches       for a long moment, then softly continues on his way.186A   EXT. POOL AREA - MARRON ESTATE - DAY                      186A       It's bright sunshine. Fletcher is splashing noisily in       the pool with a few other kids. His nanny waits       patiently at the side, towels at the ready.       At one side of the pool, Rachel sits, lost in thought,       mourning her sister.       At the other side sits Frank, also thoughtful. He, too,       is trying to adjust to the tragedy for which he bears       some of the responsibility.       The SHOUTS and LAUGHTER of the kids continue.187    EXT. MARRON ESTATE - GROUNDS - LATER THAT NIGHT           187       The guardhouse at the main gate is brilliantly illumi-       nated in the distance. The guard patrols at his station.       Inside, the T.V. screens flicker and glow.       Perched on the top of a slight   hill, Frank sits alone and       motionless under a big tree.    He gazes down at the gate-       house, his face lit softly by   the glow from its lamps.       All around him the rest of the   estate is quiet and       tranquil in the moonlight.       After a moment, another silhouetted figure slowly ap-       proaches and stands beside him. It's Rachel.                             RACHEL                I guess you've heard what's                happening.       Frank nods.                             RACHEL                Mind if I sit down?       Frank shakes his head. They sit side by side for awhile,       both lost in thought. Rachel seems very calm.                             RACHEL                It isn't over yet, is it?       Frank shakes his head.                             FRANK                He knows he still hasn't got you.                             RACHEL                So he'll come again?                                                          122.                      FRANK         It's possible.                       RACHEL         The Oscars?                       FRANK         Maybe.Rachel takes this philosophically.     She tugs at thegrass, thinking.                      RACHEL         When I was back in Squirrel Hill,         I started betting my friends         fifty bucks each that someday I'd         win an Oscar. You can understand         how important it is that they see         me up there if I win.She looks at him and smiles.                      RACHEL         If everyone of those pikers comes         through, it could add up to a lot         of money.                      FRANK         I think it's very dangerous.                      RACHEL         I know. But I can't stay up here         on my hill forever.They are silent for awhile.     Rachel lies back on thegrass, stares at the sky.                      RACHEL         I didn't get to this place in my         life by doing the smart thing         every time.                (as Frank nods)         How 'bout you, Frank Farmer? Out         there on the edge... did you ever         do something that didn't make too         much sense, except maybe inside         you? In your stomach somewhere?         Something that wasn't smart?                (looks at him)         I'll bet you have plenty. I'll         bet you do. Nobody gets really         good without it. And you're good.         I know that.She sits up beside him.                                                                       123.                            RACHEL               I don't know why all this has               happened to me...                      (a beat)               ... but I do know that none of               it's your fault. I hope you can               hear me, because this is how I say               I'm sorry.      Frank accepts.                            RACHEL                      (relieved)               So... I'm going to go see if I win               an Oscar. And I won't worry about               it at all. Because I've got you               to protect me.      Frank almost smiles.                            FRANK               That's right.      He looks at her a long time, then takes her in his arms.      He kisses her and lays her down. His body moves over      hers. Like a bodyguard, protecting her from the night.188   EXT. THE PANTAGES THEATRE - NIGHT                           188      The chaos and razamatazz of Oscar night.   Crowds, limos,      cameras, searchlights...189   INT. RACHEL'S LIMO - FRONT OF THE PANTAGES - NIGHT          189      The limo is waiting in a line of limos to reach the red-      carpeted entrance to The Pantages Theatre.      Frank and Tony sit in front with Henry. In the back a      spectacularly-gowned Rachel sits flanked by Devaney and      Spector, both of whom, like Frank, are wearing tuxedos.     Up      ahead, they can all see the hubbub at the entrance: TV      cameras, lights, photographers, arriving guests, two      bleachers full of fans. The glare from the arc lights      is almost blinding.                            DEVANEY               We'll go straight back to the               Green Room. Right, Frank?      Frank nods.                            DEVANEY               Got that, Tony?                                                                  124.                            FRANK               Tony knows what he's doing.      Tony looks at Frank, surprised and not a little pleased      with the unexpected support.                            RACHEL               I wish you boys would relax a               little. Nothing bad's gonna               happen out there, alright?                      (the old Rachel)               Unless I lose the fucking award.      She looks around at the men, all are tense.                            RACHEL               Jesus, what a crew.      Rachel leans forward and flips down the mirror on the      panel in front of her and checks her appearance. The      limo moves up.                            RACHEL               Screw it. I'm through worrying.               When your number's up, it's up.               Right, Farmer?      The limo is almost at the red carpet.   Frank slips out      the front door of the moving limo.190   EXT. LIMO - NIGHT                                         190      More quartz lights click on.      The TV cameras all focus on the door of the limo as Frank      steps out of the way.      FRANK'S POV      as he surveys the busy scene. A microphoned M.C. peers      into Rachel's limo and walks toward it.                            M.C.               ... Miss Rachel Marron!      ON TV CAMERA MONITOR we see Rachel wave to the crowd.                            M.C.               Everyone wishes you the best               tonight, Rachel.      Frank leads the small procession down the red carpet.      Fans reach out asking for his autograph.      FRANK'S POV                                                                 125.      as his glance darts around: high into the bleachers,      ahead in the distance, to the door, to the side at      photographers nodding to the massed security men with      their walkie-talkies.      Rachel's smile is convincing, lovely, professional.      Spector, Devaney and Tony look strained.      As they enter, a WIDE SHOT from across the street shows      their limo pulling ahead as the next car pulls up. The      CAMERA TRACKS SIDEWAYS to reveal the rear fender of a      Toyota 4X4 parked in the foreground.191   INT. GREEN ROOM - NIGHT                                      191      It is large and has been fitted with a bar and buffet.      Formally-dressed presenters and hosts mill about, laugh-      ing and talking. Many greet Rachel.      A TV monitor hangs from the ceiling in one corner. On      it, the Academy Awards continue. An elaborate dance      number is just concluding. The audience applauds.      Beside the monitor, a large clock with a ticking second      hand.      A harried associate producer SKIP THOMAS, comes up to      Rachel, settled in an armchair. Tony stands nearby,      Frank leans against a far wall.                            SKIP               Hello, Rachel. I need to get you               straight on your responsibilities.                             RACHEL               Sure, Skip.      Skip takes a typewritten sheet from a sheaf in his hand      and gives it to Rachel. He consults a clipboard as he      speaks. There, laid out minute by minute, is the order      of the evening's events. Each one has a precise time      printed beside it, including those that involve Rachel.                            SKIP               Now, it's Best Sound, then another               song, then you. At precisely               (looks at his clipboard) -- 8:07,               you'll be presenting with Clive               Healy. Those are your lines. The               prompter's straight ahead and --               we pray -- working perfectly.      Rachel nods.                             RACHEL                                                                  126.                  Fine, you'll be a big shot                  someday, Skip.      Skip smiles and walks off, glancing up at the clock.      7:43. CLIVE HEALY, a slim British actor appears, bows      and kisses Rachel's hand.                               CLIVE                  I understand it's my great honor                  to escort you onstage.                               RACHEL                  That's right, Clive. And I don't                  like it one bit that you look                  skinnier than me.      TV MONITOR - The show is progressing, flashing out across      the world.                               PATRICIA                  ... And the award for Best                  Achievement in Sound goes to Kay                  Colvin and Mychal Smith for Hot                  And Cold.      Applause.                               KAY                  Thank you so much. I want to thank                  our producers, Karen Golden and Ed                  Gorsuch, as well our sound crew --                  Richard Goodman and Blair Forward.                  I'm too excited -- but they're the                  real winners tonight. Thank you!                               MICHAEL                  This is wonderful. This is like,                  the happiest moment of my life.                  I'd like to thank our wonderful                  sound crew for all the evenings                  and weekends they sacrificed, the                  incredible wizards down at Distant                  Thunder Sound Studios, Roger and                  Greg for hiring us and my family                  for being so patient. We did it!                  Thank you!                                                     TIME JUMP:192   INT. GREEN ROOM - NIGHT                                       192      The celebrities in the Green Room drink, eat and talk.      Rachel is deep in a giggling, girlish conversation with      another actress. Skip Thomas approaches Rachel again.                              SKIP                                                                        127.                  Rachel.    One more song, then you.      Rachel nods, goes back to her conversation.       Frank steps      up to Tony.                               FRANK                  I'm going to have a look around.                  I'll come back for her. Stay                  alert.      Tony nods, watches Frank go.193   INT. BACKSTAGE AREA - NIGHT                                     193      Frank moves down the hall from the Green Room toward the      stage. Stagehands, technicians, performers speak in      hushed tones. TV monitors are mounted throughout the      area. On screen a distinguished-looking actor named      REARDON is serving as temporary master of ceremonies.      Frank walks along, checking the route, looking up into      the flies. He rounds a corner and is face to face with      Portman.                                FRANK                  Portman.   What are you doing here?                               PORTMAN                  I'm on the job.                                FRANK                  Who?                                PORTMAN                  Him.      Portman points at a nearby TV monitor.      On screen,      Reardon is introducing the next song.                               REARDON (V.O.)                         (on TV screen)                  My mother has always thought I was                  the star of every movie I've been                  in. You remember 'Night Of The                  Stranger'?      Applause.                               REARDON (V.O.)                  You probably don't remember me in                  that. My mother can tell you                  about it. To this day, she thinks                  it's about a desk clerk at the                  hotel where what's-his-name is                  hiding out from the cops.                                                                     128.      Laughter.                               REARDON (V.O.)                  Now it's time to hear the final                  nominated song, from the film                  'Queen Of The Night' -- 'I Have                  Nothing.' And here to sing it for                  us, the multi-talented Miss Sandra                  Castle!                               PORTMAN (O.S.)                         (during the above)                  Short-term gig... but quite                  profitable... Listen, Frank, I'm                  sorry about Miami. You know,                  nothing really happened... I felt                  bad for you... I wanted to say                  something, but you disappeared...      (NOTE: "I Have Nothing" fanfare. Dancers onto stage.      First section of song, commencing with shortened chorus      then first verse (Total 1 Minute)      Reardon walks off the stage ten feet from where Frank and      Portman are standing, glances at them and moves off down      the hall.                               PORTMAN                  Back to work. I'll probably see                  you at the Governor's Ball.      Portman walks off after Reardon.    Frank watches him,      thoughtful.      ON TV MONITOR - Sandra Castle sings "I Have Nothing" with      great feeling. The lyrics recall the text of the death      threat.      FRANK'S FACE      suddenly wary.    No rational cause.   Something in the air.      THE CLOCK - 7:58194   INT. GREEN ROOM - NIGHT                                          194      Rachel's face as she watches Sandra Castle on the monitor.      She is at a makeup table. MUSIC is LOUD.      The celebrities in the Green Room are impressed with      Sandra's performance. There is spontaneous applause.      Rachel turns to the room.                               RACHEL                  I want that broad run out of town.                                                                   129.195    INT. BACKSTAGE - NIGHT                                    195       Frank calls Tony on his SURV-KIT.                              FRANK                 Tony, you there?                              TONY                        (O.S.)                 Yeah, Frank.                              FRANK                 Tony, I've got a feeling this is                 the night. I think he's gonna go                 for her in front of all the                 cameras. The kind of thing only a                 lunatic would do. That's how he                 wants it to look. Except he isn't                 a lunatic. He's very clever. I                 need you to help me.                              TONY                        (O.S.)                 I'm with you, Frank.       There's no more competition between them.       Three sound technicians appear at Frank's side, very       agitated.                              TECHNICIAN                        (to Frank)                 You can't use that thing back                 here. The  breakthrough's killing                 our radio mikes... We'll have to                 disconnect you.       Reluctantly, Frank disconnects his earpiece.195A   INT. GREEN ROOM - NIGHT       195A       Tony fiddles with his earpiece.                              TONY                 Frank?... Frank?       Technicians approach Tony, too.195B   MONTAGE                                                   195B       Big finish of song and dance number (total 40 seconds).       Applause and dancers off.                                                                   130.196   INT. GREEN ROOM - NIGHT                                          196      Frank walks past Tony. Tony holds up the earpiece in      frustration. Frank nods. He walks over to Rachel. He      seems tense and she senses it. And like a tangible      thing, his anxiety is passed over to her. She is      frightened.                            RACHEL                      (spooked)               What's wrong?      Skip Thomas appears at her side.                            SKIP               Rachel... Clive. Let's go, okay?      Clive Healy comes over. Rachel must tear her eyes away      from Frank. Tony floats up behind them. Skip regards      him with irritation and turns to Frank.                            SKIP                      (indicating Tony)               Really. Must we have everyone?               We have our own men at the door.                              FRANK               Tony stays.      Skip looks at Rachel for a response.                              RACHEL               Yes!    I want him.      Skip shrugs.    Clive takes Rachel's arm.                            CLIVE               Come, Rachel, let us brighten the               firmament.      Rachel forces a smile, but her eyes follow Frank as he      starts to lead the way out of the Green Room. On an      impulse, she reaches for something from the makeup table      and presses it into her hand. It's the Russian Orthodox      cross. She clutches it like a talisman and follows      Frank. Tony brings up the rear.197   INT. BACKSTAGE AREA - NIGHT                                197      The group moves down the hall from the Green Room, past      the stage right wings. Behind the scenery to the back      of the stage.      FRANK'S POV - STAGEHANDS                                                            131.in blue, celebrity guests, technicians. His eyes examineeach curtain, corner and recess. He looks above him.CLOSEUP ON RACHEL'S FACE as she looks around nervously.HER BODYis tense on Clive's arm.   Clive pats her arm soothingly.                        CLIVE           Try to relax, Rachel. I know           you must be very excited.Skip leads them to a set of temporary stairs behind thescenery; they lead to the center of the top tier.Production aides with clipboards and headphones wait upthere.THE CLOCK - 8:05                        SKIP                  (pointing)           Rachel, you'll go in there and           Clive, you over there. You'll           meet on the landing.They both nod, but Rachel is distracted, tense.                        SKIP           Watch your step going down.           Someone spilled some water.Clive and Rachel climb the stairs. Rachel turns oncemore to look anxiously at Frank. She clutches the crossbut he doesn't see.Frank watches them ascend. He signals Tony to staythere until Rachel goes on. Frank moves off toward thestage left wings.ON TV MONITOR - we see Reardon, acting as Master ofCeremonies, doing the introductions.                        REARDON (V.O.)                  (on screen)           I used to have an outfit just like           that... And to present the Best           Song award we have our debonair           friend from England and the lady           who has everything -- Clive           Healy and Rachel Marron!A red camera light clicks on.MUSIC UP, APPLAUSE, as we see Clive and Rachel make theirentrances on the TV monitor.                                                                    132.198   INT. STAGE LEFT - NIGHT                                           198      Frank swiftly adjusts his position so he can still see      the stage. As he does, he glances under the scaffolding      that supports the set.199   INT. ON STAGE - NIGHT                                       199      Rachel and Clive reach the podium. Clive is all smiles.      Rachel is trying, but is obviously distracted.      FROM BEHIND THEM      As the applause dies away, we see  what they see: TV      cameras, an orchestra in the pit,  the huge audience, and      the bright glare of the lights.   At the front of the      podium is the transparent plastic  of the teleprompter;      their lines can be clearly seen,  printed out and moving      vertically.                            CLIVE                      (reading from the                       prompter)               Well, Rachel, I know that you only               came tonight to present this award               and you'll want to leave as soon               as we're done.      Rachel's lines appear on the prompter, but she does not      start reading them immediately. They stop moving on the      screen. Rachel's face, her eyes darting about. There      is an awful silence.      RACHEL'S POV - BRIGHT RED LIGHT      on the nearest TV camera. The teleprompter, now showing      Clive's lines. The light. A man in the first row of      the audience.      CLOSE ON HER HANDS as they squeeze the cross.                            CLIVE (O.S.)               Over the course of the evening               we've heard five smashing songs               and the names of the artists who               created them.200   INT. STAGE LEFT - NIGHT                                           200      Frank, watching Rachel, hears the barely audible CLICKING      start from the tiny receiver on his belt. He's puzzled.      His eyes dart to Rachel's hand and he sees the cross.      He knows what she's going through. Her hand is shaking                                                                    133.      badly.201   INT. ON STAGE - NIGHT                                       201      She sways. Clive supports her as discreetly as he can,      smiling out at the audience.      FROM BEHIND Clive and Rachel, we watch as Clive picks up      Rachel's lines from the prompter, AD LIBBING to make them      fit.                              CLIVE                 And I know that no matter what                 anyone thinks, you have no                 personal favorites.      Thin laughter. The audience is starting to sense that      something is wrong with Rachel.                              CLIVE                 The Best Song nominees are:                 "Clock On The Wall" from 'The                 Dining Room Table' -- By Dana S.                 Lee and Sara Spring. 'Give                 Me Your Trust' from 'Out Of the                 Gloom' -- By David Siegel and                 Barbara G. Gordon. "I Have                 Nothing" from 'Queen Of The Night'                 -- By Nancy Garbor. "Maybe Soon"                 from 'Maybe Soon' -- Anne Trop and                 Ben Glass. And "Reflections Of My                 Heart" from 'Hot And Cold' -- By                 Leslie Moraes.                                                  QUICK CUT TO:      RACHEL'S POV      An usher near the wall shifts his weight. The orchestra      conductor turns to look at her. A musician turns his      sheet music. The dark at the back of the balcony. The      teleprompter.      CLOSE ON FRANK      as he alone hears the CLICKING -- monitors her distress      and fear.      ON STAGE                              RACHEL                        (blurting her                         prompter lines)                 All right, Clive, let's find                 out --                                                                       134.      The teleprompter operator has been thrown off and now      takes a moment to get it moving again.                               RACHEL                         (reading)                  -- let's find out who the winner                  is.                               CLIVE                  The envelope. Rachel, shall I do                  the honors?      INTERCUT --      RACHEL'S POV - CLIVE'S HANDS      work at the envelope, tearing, freeing the flap.       His      fingers work to pull out the contents.      RACHEL'S FACE      watching. The CLICKING is almost deafening -- like a      heartbeat.      THE CLOCK      The second hand ticks in enormous CLOSEUP.       It's 8:07.202   INSERT - (BLEACHED OUT) ENORMOUS CLOSEUP - MAN'S FINGER        202      on a trigger.203   INSERT - (BLEACHED OUT) ENORMOUS CLOSEUP - A BULLET            203      drifts lazily towards us out of the muzzle of a gun in      ultra SLOW MOTION.204   INSERT - (BLEACHED OUT) - HANDS                                204      bring out one of the pasted-up death threats with the      familiar opening lines -- 'MARRON BITCH -- YOU HAVE      EVERYTHING. I HAVE NOTHING.'      CLOSE      as Clive pulls the card out of the envelope.       It reads:                           "I HAVE NOTHING"                              Music by      Rachel gasps, stifles a scream.                               CLIVE                  And the winner is "I Have Nothing"                                                                         135.                  from 'Queen Of The Night' music                  and lyrics by Nancy Garbor.      Rachel loses control, backs away from the podium and runs      off stage right. The audience applauds the winner.                               NANCY GARBOR                  This is so exciting. I can't                  begin to describe what it feels                  like to stand here -- with this!      APPLAUSE.                               NANCY GARBOR                  First, I want to thank Rachel                  Marron. Without her support,                  encouragement and determination                  to help get an unknown songwriter                  heard, I wouldn't be standing here.                  A lot of people talk about how                  they're going to help others once                  they make it themselves, but Rachel                  really follows through. I'd also                  like to thank Helen Pollak, a                  wonderful producer, who never got                  fed up with me.205   INT. OFF STAGE LEFT - NIGHT                                    205      Frank sees Rachel run off the opposite side of the stage      and heads over there, around the back of the scenery.206   INT. ON STAGE - NIGHT                                          206      Clive, the professional, stands holding the envelope.         He      glances off after Rachel, mystified.207   INT. STAGE RIGHT WINGS - NIGHT                                 207      A cluster of people   surround Rachel, comforting her.      Frank comes up. He    does not try to force his way through      to Rachel. People    begin to move away, the cluster thins.      Two stars move off   toward the back of the stage.                               STAR #1                  I always said she was nuts.    I've                  always said that.      Clive Healy comes up.                               CLIVE                  Is she all right?      He is assured that she is.       Clive goes out to his seat                                                               136.in the audience. As the people move off, Rachel becomesclearly visible to Frank. Tony is standing next to her,but another man has his arm around Rachel, comforting her.Rachel's face is tear-stained and she dabs at it with ahandkerchief. She is recovering fast. Past her fear,she is now very embarrassed. Her voice is strong.                      RACHEL         Christ, what an idiot I am.         Jesus. What the hell's the matter         with me?Frank moves up closer, and exchanges looks with Tony,who is confused by Rachel's behavior. Rachel turnstoward Frank and, in so doing, brings the man comfortingher around to face Frank. It is Reardon.                      RACHEL         Farmer, you've made me a raving         lunatic.Frank barely hears Rachel, so struck is he   by Reardon'spresence. Frank looks around them quickly    for Portman.Rachel looks at Frank with irritation and   turns backtoward the Green Room. A production aide    signals Reardon.                      REARDON                (to Rachel)         I have to go back out.   Are you         okay?                      RACHEL         Thank you for your help, John.         I'm fine.Rachel walks off toward the Green Room with Tony.Reardon starts to walk out toward the stage. Frank stopshim. Reardon is irritated.                      FRANK         Where's Portman?                      REARDON         Who?                      FRANK         Portman.                      REARDON                (breaking away)         Never heard of him.Reardon walks out on stage. Frank is left standing alone.All the weariness comes back, all his senses start to hum.Frank looks around, then moves off toward the Green Room.                                                                   137.208   INT. GREEN ROOM - NIGHT                                        208      Rachel sits at a makeup table.   Skip Thomas approaches,      clipboard in hand.                            SKIP               Rachel, I'm sorry, but if you're               going to be in your seat for the               Best Actress award, you've got               to do it now.                            RACHEL               Skip, I'm moving as fast as I can.               For chrissake, go twitch somewhere               else.      Skip backs off.   Spector and Frank join the group.                            SPECTOR               Honey, everything's fine. No one               noticed anything. Everybody in               this building is ready to jump out               of their skin from nerves.                            RACHEL               Bullshit, you saw me. Farmer's               made me a raving lunatic --                            FRANK               Something's going on you should               know about --                            SPECTOR               You're making her crazy.   You're               making us all crazy.                            FRANK               Rachel, I know who it is. He's               here tonight. I think he's...                             RACHEL               Shut up...      This is the last straw. She throws down the powder and      stands up fast, makeup and purse flying. The powder com-      pact bursts over the cross lying on the table. Everyone      in the Green Room looks at her.                            RACHEL                      (hissing at him)               Shut up, you maniac! You never               stop. Now you've made an ass of               me in front of a billion people.               And you won't quit.      They stare at each other and everyone else stares at them.                                                                 138.      Rachel walks swiftly out the door of the Green Room.      Frank sits for a moment, then stands up. The bodyguard      follows his charge to the door. He whispers hurriedly      at Tony as they leave.                              FRANK                 Tony, it's Portman.   Remember?   The                 guy from Miami...      Spector grabs Tony's sleeve, pulling him back.                              SPECTOR                 After tonight, you're back in                 charge.                             TONY                 What?                              SPECTOR                 He knows nothing about show                 business.      Tony squares off with Spector.                              TONY                 You are an asshole.209   INT. ONSTAGE - NIGHT                                     209      Reardon is just introducing TOM WINSTON, the actor who      will announce the Best Actress award.      BEST ACTRESS INTRO (TOTAL 1 MINUTE)      (Reardon back on stage to applause, Reardon linking      material (maybe gags.) Reardon intros Winston. Play on      Winston to applause.)210   INT. MAIN AUDITORIUM - AISLE                             210                              REARDON                 Presenting the Best Actress award,                 we have the man who last year                 received the top honor an actor                 can achieve for his performance in                 "South Of Waco". Ladies and                 gentlemen, Tom Winston!      APPLAUSE      Frank watches, his eyes scanning, searching the vast      theatre, squinting as he tries to see beyond the glare      of the klieg lights and the cameras.                              WINSTON                 Thank you, John, thank you, Academy.                                                             139.            It brings back some great memories            to be standing here again. Last            year I figured something out.            While it is a great honor to be            nominated, actually winning caps            the evening very pleasantly.LAUGHTERWINSTONon stage, speaking and then listing the nominees.FRANK'S POV - RACHEL, DEVANEY AND SPECTORin their seats, up the aisle toward the back of thetheatre, high into the gloom of the balcony.ANGLE ON STAGE                         WINSTON            Tonight we give this award not to            the best actress, but to the best            performance by one of five            exquisitely talented artists...FRANK'S FACE - searching.TV CAMERA - focused on the audience.    Its red light goeson.ON SCREENRachel's face, expectant, nervous on the screen.FRANK'S POV - THE PATHRachel would have to take to the stage, the steps to thestage, the faces of the ushers near the stage, theconductor, ready to play theme music.                         WINSTON (O.S.)            ...And the nominees for best            performance by an actress in a            leading role are -- Constance            Simpson for Hot and Cold...BACK TO SCENEAPPLAUSE. Frank slips through the curtained doorway thatleads to the backstage.                         WINSTON (O.S.)            ...Ellen Pearson for Maybe Soon...More APPLAUSE.                                                                  140.211   INT. BACKSTAGE - STAGE RIGHT WINGS - NIGHT                211      Frank comes up swiftly. He stops behind a curtain, six      feet from the path the winner will take. Tony is there.      Frank speaks to him and, as he does, he puts a hand on      Tony's arm. They both look across the stage, past      Winston into the wings on the other side.      FRANK'S POV      In the wings of the opposite side of the stage, half      hidden by a curtain, a TV cameraman is hoisting his      lightweight portable camera onto his shoulder. His back      is to us.                               WINSTON (O.S.)                  ... Rachel Marron for Queen Of The Night...      APPLAUSE.      ANGLE ON FRANK                               FRANK                  Tony, I want you on the other                  side... and check out that guy.                  He's not supposed to be there...      Tony trots off quickly.      FRANK'S POV      The cameraman half-turns toward us, peering past the      curtain into the audience. For a split second, we      glimpse his face. It's Portman. Then someone crosses      quickly in front of him and he's gone.                               WINSTON (O.S.)                  L.C. Dean for I Dream Of Peace                  ...and Evelyn Gardner for                  The Harper Plan...      APPLAUSE.      BACKSTAGE      Frank draws his gun. He glances quickly to Tony, but      Tony's already on his way, trotting round the labyrinth      behind the set.      Frank automatically raises his sleeve to call to Tony,      then realizes his communications are useless. He tries      to see where Portman has disappeared to, but he daren't      lose sight of Rachel.      ONSTAGE - WINSTON                                                                     141.      with envelope.                             WINSTON                And the winner is... Rachel Marron                for Queen Of The Night.                                                   FLASH CUT TO:      FRANK'S FACE      grim.   He looks past the curtain to Rachel.      FRANK'S POV - AUDITORIUM      Deafening applause in the main auditorium. A stunned      Rachel stands. Devaney and Spector kiss her. People      nearby reach out to touch her. Rachel walks along her      row. The orchestra plays "I Have Nothing."212   INT. BACKSTAGE - OPPOSITE WINGS - NIGHT                      212      A mass of drapes and flats. Behind them, the cameraman      is fixing something to the side of his camera. His back      is to us. Tony comes up briskly behind him, unable to      see his face.                             TONY                Hey! You! What the fuck you                think you're doin' back here...      With amazing speed, the cameraman - Portman - wheels      around, simultaneously jabbing two outstretched fingers      from his free hand straight into Tony's eyes. Tony      cries out, his hands flying to his face.      Portman's hand moves swiftly again, jabbing to a nerve      behind Tony's ear, Tony drops like a sack.      Glancing rapidly around, Portman sees all other eyes on      the auditorium. He pulls the curtain around Tony's      body - obscuring it.      He then removes his own "SECURITY" ID and fixes a      laminated "PRESS" ID to his lapel.213   INT. BACKSTAGE - STAGE RIGHT WINGS - NIGHT                   213      Frank gestures animatedly to the head of security and      several guards. The music and the applause drown out      his words and we do not hear them. The guards rush off      backstage and into the auditorium.214   INT. MAIN AUDITORIUM - NIGHT                                 214                                                            142.Rachel walks along her row. Hands reach out to her.Some people stand in their seats around her. A crane-mounted TV camera swoops down between Frank and his viewof Rachel, obscuring her for a brief instant.CLOSE ON FRANK'S FACEDesperately scanning, seeking.   Suddenly his facefreezes.FRANK'S POVAs Rachel reaches the center aisle and starts to walktoward the steps, there in the far aisle, his face almosthidden, is Portman -- the camera, hand-held on hisshoulder, moving level with Rachel, 20 feet behind her.Frank raises his gun.AISLERachel walks down the aisle toward the side steps. Tearsin her eyes. Thunderous applause. Security guards inthe side aisles look around in all directions. Theycan't see anything.FRANK'S POVTIGHT ON Portman, now almost completely obscured behindthe members of the audience, as more and more of themstand to applaud Rachel.PORTMAN'S POVALONG THE SIDE OF THE CAMERA. Rachel keeps appearing anddisappearing behind the heads of the audience.FRANK IN THE WINGSDesperate to get a clear shot at Portman but unable tofire without hitting a bystander.FROM STAGE RIGHT WINGS - FRANK'S POV OF RACHELas she  approaches the podium, steadily, controllingherself  as she mounts the steps. The outline of her bodybecomes  difficult to see against the glare of the foot-lights  and the lights at the side of the auditorium.FRANK'S FACEHis eyes squint against the dazzle.ON STAGE - PODIUMRachel approaches Winston.   The applause and music is                                                                     143.      deafening.      FRANK'S FACE      He can't see Portman past the glare. He can't fire into      the audience. He knows Rachel is now at her most vulner-      able. There is only one thing he can do to protect his      charge.      BACKSTAGE WINGS      Frank runs on stage at terrific speed and leaps through      the air at Rachel, twisting his body as he does.      ON STAGE - PODIUM      Rachel turns her head, sees Frank leaping at her and      gasps out with a mixture of fury and terror.                              RACHEL                 No!      CLOSE ON PORTMAN      The silenced PISTOL taped to the side of the camera FIRES.      ONCE. TWICE.      ON STAGE      Frank and Rachel tumble over on the floor. The podium      topples. There are screams from the audience.      AUDITORIUM      Pandemonium breaks out. Men run on stage from all      directions. Guns are drawn. Everyone is shouting. TV      cameras whip-pan in all directions, security men shout      into walkie-talkies.                                                   QUICK CUT TO:215   INT. MOBILE TV CONTROL VAN - NIGHT                           215      Chaos on all screens.                              TV DIRECTOR                 What the fuck?                              OTHER VOICE (O.S.)                 Go to commercial...216   INT. MAIN AUDITORIUM - NIGHT                                 216      CLOSE ON PORTMAN                                                                   144.      Totally calm and, as he gambled, invisible in the commo-      tion. Camera still on his shoulder, he slowly backs      away from the scene. Ushers and uniformed security men      rush past him towards the stage. People leap from their      seats. A woman screams piercingly behind him. Portman      doesn't blink.217   INT. STAGE - NIGHT                                         217      Dozens more helpers pour onto the stage around Frank and      Rachel. Rachel starts to rise on all fours and sees, as      hands reach out to help her, the blood on Frank's shirt.      He has taken the hits for her. But he's still on the      job, gaze alert. Without taking his eyes from the audi-      torium, his left arm stretches out, with some pain, to      push Rachel back down. The right arm, gun in hand,      sweeps the auditorium. Where is Portman? Frank can't      see past the mob.      Ushers fall on Frank in a heap, trying to disarm him.      Security men try to pull them off. Rachel shouts,      trying to make herself heard above the noise.                             RACHEL                He's my bodyguard. Get off him!                He's O.K...      FRANK'S POV - SERIES OF SHOTS      A SERIES of SWIFT LOW ANGLE SHOTS through legs and faces.      One brief glimpse that could be Portman. A cameraman      turns. It's not. Frank is desperate, pushing away a      helping arm. The chaos mounts. SIRENS WAIL outside.218   INT. MAIN AUDITORIUM - NIGHT                               218      CLOSE ON PORTMAN      He turns away from the stage as four cops pound past him.      He walks away. Suddenly, for one brief second, his face      loses its composure as he looks to the side door.      PORTMAN'S POV      Hysterical audience members jostle for the exit, screaming      and shouting. It's like a football scrum. Cops and secur-      ity men pushing and pulling. His escape route is blocked.      CLOSE ON FRANK'S FACE - HIS EYES      Briefly glimpsed through blurred, frenzied, f.g.   Still      seeking his target, biting his lip in pain.      PORTMAN                                                                  145.      Cool again, he turns back to the stage, seeking an      alternative escape route, camera still providing cover.219   INT. ON STAGE - WINGS - NIGHT                             219      A lumbering figure, blood streaming from one eye, his      .38 drawn and outstretched. It's Tony staggering to the      edge of the stage, straight towards his attacker.                             TONY                       (bellowing)                 Frank! Frank! Over here!      ON STAGE      Frank and Rachel's heads swivel in unison at the sound,      looking towards the far aisle.      PORTMAN      Against the side wall at the front, Portman's eyes      desperately scan for the source of the voice. He sees      Tony, his pistol takes aim.      FRANK'S POV      For a split second, two running figures f.g. pass and      cross leaving a momentary clear line to Portman.      ON STAGE      Frank FIRES.   ONCE.   TWICE.      PORTMAN      Frank's bullets hit home. The first slams Portman in the      chest, knocking him against the wall. The second hits      the CAMERA on his shoulder, EXPLODING it around his face.      FEMALE ACADEMY MEMBER      Blood spatters her white Armani dress and the shirt-      front of her escort. Portman's body slumps forward in      her lap, pinning her back in her seat. He's dead. His      pistol drops onto a pair of shiny, black leather pumps.      ON STAGE      Frank holds his aim steady, reluctant to look away. He      half turns to Rachel, wincing with the effort. She's      unhurt. He has fulfilled his promise to her.      Rachel throws her arms around Frank and hugs him, tears      streaming down her cheeks.                                                                    146.      Frank Farmer's face. Sad and weary. His guard is      finally down. Nothing more can happen. He slowly lowers      the gun, closes his eyes and lets his head fall onto his      chest.      ANGLE ON SPECTOR      In the midst of the commotion of medics, security men,      police and ushers, Spector bends down and gently retrieves      the gold envelope and the card bearing Rachel's name.      There are splatters of blood on it. He tries to wipe      them off with the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.220   EXT. THE PANTAGES THEATRE - NIGHT                          220      A chaos of press and public, ambulance and police lights      flashing, SIRENS WAILING.      ANGLE ON PART OF CROWD      Police and paramedics surrounding a man on a stretcher --      it is Frank -- Rachel walks at his side, clutching his      hand as he is rushed to an ambulance. Tony, a dressing      over his eyes, is also helped out by paramedics. Among      the gathered crowd, we focus in on one face. It is Dan,      pushed back to the sidelines and unable to see what is      happening. He slowly turns and walks away. CAMERA      CRANES to a HIGH WIDE SHOT of the scene.221   EXT. AIRPLANE TARMAC - DAY                                 221      A buffed-out charter turboprop stands on the tarmac as      the last pieces of equipment of Rachel's band are loaded      aboard from a truck. A limousine pulls up and Rachel      gets out with Tony and Court, who is clearly acting as      her bodyguard.      She greets some members of the band and others who will      be part of her entourage. A roadie has her luggage      removed from the limo and loaded aboard the plane.      Devaney is trying to hurry her on board. Spector is      conspicuous by his absence.      As Rachel and the others prepare to get onto the plane,      Tony, wearing a dark leather eyepatch, reacts to      something O.S.      Frank approaches from the nearby parking area. He is      pale. Under his clothes it can be seen that his torso is      still taped. He smiles as Tony. Their handshake becomes      a quick abrazo.                             FRANK                       (indicating eyepatch)                How's it going?                                                           147.                      TONY         Under control. But it won't be         the same... ya mutt.Tony fakes a glancing blow to Frank's chin. Over by theplane, Fletcher spots Frank and tugs at Rachel's dress,till she turns to look. Fletcher runs up to Frank andhugs him around the knees. Rachel approaches and Tonymoves back toward the plane.Devaney waves in Frank's direction, tapping his watch toindicate they are late. Frank waves and smiles.Rachel's surprised to see Frank, but clearly happy.Fletcher is ecstatic.                      RACHEL         You shouldn't be here.Frank laughs.    There is a pause.                      RACHEL         So, you're quitting show business?                        FRANK         Yeah.                      RACHEL         Too bad. You had talent.      What         are you going to do?                      FRANK         I thought I might hole up with my         dad.                (pats bandaged torso)         Finish that chess game.Rachel nods approvingly.                      RACHEL         Get him when Fletcher's not         around.                      FRANK                (ruffling Fletcher's                 hair)         That's the idea.Fletcher grins.   Rachel starts to cry.                      FRANK         So, how's the new guy?                      RACHEL         He's got white hair, Frank.                                                                    148.                            FRANK               He's very good.                            RACHEL               Why'd you have to get me an old               man?                            FRANK               I don't trust you.                            RACHEL               Yeah... well, give me a kiss and               let's get this over with.      Frank gives her an awkward hug.   They kiss.                              FRANK               'Bye Rachel.      Rachel turns quickly. She almost runs up the boarding      ladder. Frank remains watching her. Fletcher looks back      over his shoulder as they disappear into the plane.222   INT. PLANE - DAY                                            222      Rachel takes a seat beside Fletcher.   Devaney leans over      the aisle.                            DEVANEY               That wasn't so bad.                      (he sees her tears)               You okay?      Rachel is in her own world. Devaney passes the word to      get moving. The ENGINES WARM UP. Rachel turns and sees      Frank still standing there looking at her.223   INT. COCKPIT - DAY                                          223      The pilot's hand pushes forward on the throttle.224   EXT. PLANE - DAY                                            224      The nosewheel starts to taxi.    The plane moves forward.225   INT. PLANE - DAY                                            225      Rachel's face at the window.                              RACHEL               Wait...226   EXT. TARMAC - DAY                                           226                                                            149.The steps start to fold down out of the plane, but notfast enough for Rachel.She jumps the last six feet, staggering slightly as theplane's jet wash hits her, whipping her clothes and hair.Without pausing, she runs to Frank who takes her in hisarms. They embrace and kiss. They kiss again and again.Finally, slowly, Rachel draws back, her eyes are filledwith tears.                        RACHEL           Remember when you said you'd risk           your life for me?Frank tries to break in, but she won't let him interrupt.                        RACHEL           I didn't really believe it then.           Nobody means what they say. But           you did, Frank. You did it. You           laid it all on the line for me.Frank tries to speak, she puts her hands to his lips.                        RACHEL           Don't wreck this for me. I don't           want to hear any bullshit about           you just doing your job. You did           more than save my life, Frank.           You showed me a way to be. And I           love you for it.                  (a beat)           There, I said it.                  (looks at him)           I'll never forget what it felt           like to be under your eye. Never.                        FRANK                  (smiles)           I won't be forgetting you either.She presses something into Frank's hand.                        RACHEL           Here... I want you to keep this.           If you ever need me, you just put           this on and no matter where you           are I will find you.  I promise.She gives him a quick kiss and walks back toward theplane, her eyes holding Frank's. Frank opens his palmto reveal the little enamel cross.ON FRANKas the engines roar and the plane turns to taxi out.                                                                   150.      The ROAR of the plane becomes APPLAUSE.227   EXT. CONCERT - NIGHT                                       227      Rachel's face in FULL FRAME, bathed in light and the      applause of a huge audience.                            RACHEL               Thank you... Thank you... Now I               want to sing you an old song, but               it's a new favorite.      As the music begins, Rachel stands alone in front of the      band, mike in hand.                            RACHEL               You know, this song used to make               me feel sad... But it doesn't               anymore.      Rachel pauses.   The audience is still.                            RACHEL               Now it just reminds me of someone               very special... This is for him.      Rachel begins to sing the song 'WHAT BECOMES OF THE      BROKEN HEARTED' - slow and sweet.      It's the song she and Frank danced to.    As a VERSE      TRAILS OFF --228   INT. CLERMONT HOTEL (IOWA CITY) - NIGHT                    228      It is a Rotary Dinner.      The CAMERA TRACKS ALONG the front of the head table which      runs from one side of the room to the other.                            ROTARY PRESIDENT (O.S.)               Our speaker this evening, the               honorable congressman from the               fifth district, Galen Windsor, has               been a lone, courageous, voice...               he alone has challenged those who               have linked organized crime with               legitimate business throughout our               state.      STILL TRACKING, we see the Rotary  President as he nods to      a distinguished-looking gentleman  one seat to his right.      On the wall a sign identifying the  hotel and a club      banner which reads -- "THE ROTARY  CLUB OF IOWA CITY."      The CAMERA CONTINUES to TRACK and  the Rotary President      goes OUT OF FRAME.                                                                  151.                            ROTARY PRESIDENT (O.S.)               But first our benediction will be               delivered by Reverend Phillip               Hardy of the First Presbyterian Church.      STILL TRACKING we see the Reverend get up as the men      around him bow their heads.                            REVEREND HARDY               Heavenly Father, please bless us               today as we meet in friendship and duty.      STILL TRACKING as we REACH the end of the table.                            REVEREND HARDY (O.S.)               And Lord, whatever dangerous               endeavors those among us may take,               let them never be without your               sanctuary.      The CAMERA STOPS. Standing against the wall behind the      table is Frank. As the Reverend's prayer goes on, all      heads are bowed to receive the benediction. All heads      but Frank's. The CAMERA MOVES IN TIGHT ON his face.                            REVEREND HARDY               ... For all we know in our hearts               that even though we may walk               through the valley of the shadow               of death, you are with us...               guiding and protecting us. Amen.      The Reverend's final words segue into Rachel's song.      Frank's searching gaze around the room is arrested for      a moment as though reacting to Rachel's voice.229   INT. CONCERT - NIGHT                                     229      Rachel ends a phrase. She dabs at the corner of her eye      as she continues the song that still binds them together.230   INT. ROTARY CLUB DINNER - NIGHT                          230      VERY CLOSE ON FRANK      His expression, so intense in the opening scene of the      film, is softer now. Rachel's voice continues as Frank      carefully scans the room.                                                FADE OUT:                              THE END
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+This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 14-26. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - 2000 - NIGHT Dark night. Most street lights shot out. Just one or two of the eerie vapor lights left on the block. A MIDDLE-AGED AFRICAN-AMERICAN MAN carries his single bag of groceries. The man listens and watches carefully, as he negotiates the darkness between the few pools of light on the street. We won't see his face until he reaches the next pool of light, but he walks with shoulders hunched in fear. Moving down the block, all shops abandoned. Broken windows. Rats. The man almost trips over a vague shadow passed out and crumpled in an abandoned doorway. It's the crackhead we saw mumbling himself into the nod-off zone. He's still faintly singing a part of the bones song as the man passes. He stops in the light. And we see it's SHOTGUN: 20 years of fear and loathing etched on his face. He freezes, listening for a second to the crackheads wheezing mumbles - no - it's something else he's listening for -- and hearing. From behind him a low wheezy sound, like some huge panting dog. He stops. And it stops. He walks on and it follows: As he hurries to the next pool of light and safety, his ears strain for the nearly silent padding and wheezing steadily following. Suddenly, he hears that panting closer and closer until it's nearly right behind him. He starts running, though he hasn't yet seen anything. Only heard the mongrel hot on his heels. FOLLOW WITH SHOTGUN As he stumbles, careens, and wheezes through the streets and alleys, terrified. Winded, he eventually stops, his hand trembling into his shopping bag, seeking a weapon. And we see the building he's paused beside: Bones' place. Pockmarked by age. Like the face of some furious old man. Now he can almost feel the dog's breath on the back of his neck...Shotgun spins, whipping a bottle of milk out of the bag and hurling it into the darkness behind him. The bottle smashes against the wall of Bones' building. For a second, silhouetted against the now whited wall, the tall, too tall, shape of the skinny black dog. Without waiting to see what he hit, Shotgun takes off running to reach his building across the street. The sound of the dog's nails skittering across the street right behind him -- -- and he just makes it -- INT. SHOTGUN'S BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Inside, safe, panting for breath. Then starts running up the stairs... EXT. SHOTGUN'S BUILDING - CONTINUOUS From outside his third floor window, we see Shotgun run into his apartment, slam down his groceries on the counter, grab an old rifle from under his bed and hurry to his open window. INT. SHOTGUN'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS He scan/aims out his window across the street to the now desolate building where Bones once lived. Finger on the trigger, eyes scanning the shadows for the dog. Mumbling quotations from the Bible about canines, some of which are handwritten and taped up on his walls and mirrors: SHOTGUN "Thou shalt not bring a dog into the house of the Lord thy God, for they are an abomination." Deuteronomy. Suddenly, something moving on the empty street catches his eye. HIS ANGLE ON The Black Dog emerging from the shadows in the street. Our first good look at the beast. Long clawed paws, all teeth and tongue and a curved bony rib cage like it hasn't eaten in 20 years. It's long black head seems almost to be throbbing, moving from within, almost subliminally we see a weirder, demonic, more skeletal dog face just beneath the black fur... Or is it just the buzzing light from the vapor lamps? SHOTGUN (CONT'D) (as he aims his rifle) "They return at evening: snarling like dogs and prowling the city..." Psalms 59, vs. 6... The dog stands in the pool of light, offering a perfect shot. Shotgun smiles, aims, and then fires, making -- EXT. BONES BUILDING - CONTINUOUS -- a direct hit! But the dog doesn't move. Unfazed. The bullet must have missed. Or else gone right through him. The long-faced dog just looks up at Shotgun like it was laughing at the fool. And has been for years. Shotgun reaches for the spilled groceries on the counter. Shoving aside bread and canned goods and other edible necessitates, and finds a half-dozen boxes of rifle rounds. He calmly reloads the rifle. And the sound of another shot echoes in the night over... EXT. AROUND THE CORNER - CONTINUOUS Two frat boys, JASON and PALMER, driving a too nice car in a too bad part of town. Palmer at the wheel while Jason makes a call on the cellular. PALMER Great. Gun shots. JASON Just a backfire. PALMER Like you'd know. Face it. We're lost. JASON Take a left, no, I mean a right. Okay, stop for a second. They stop in the middle of a block. Jason on the phone. JASON (CONT'D) We're here. Where the hell are you? STANK (on phone) Back here. At the end of the block. He turns around and sees behind them, TWO GUYS standing on the far corner. One's on the phone. STANK (CONT'D) (on phone) You got the cash? JASON You got the shit? STANK (on the phone) Yeah, but you got to come the rest of the way on foot. Leave your car and walk over here. EXT. STREET - SAME They exit the car, looking all around them with more than a touch of paranoia. As they walk nervously down the block, they join the two on the corner. It's STANK and WEAZE, both 17. JASON Let me see it. STANK Let me see it. JASON (hands him the money) Where is it? STANK I can't carry it in my pocket, man. And I can't go get it for you cause you might be a cop. You gonna have to pick it up yourself. Jason and Palmer aren't sure about this. By the sphincteral look on his face, Palmer would rather forget about it. STANK (CONT'D) Don't worry. It's just round the corner. Halfway down that block, you can't miss it. Top step of the front stairs, there's a loose stone. Go on, I ain't shitting you. JASON Fuck it. Alright. EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - CONTINUOUS They walk around the corner and enter a bleak block with at least half the lots burnt out. PALMER Is it too late for me to officially register my growing certainty that this is an extremely bad idea? Farther down, in the center of one side of the street, stands a particularly ominous abandoned building. Bones' building. Jason ignites a Zippo, and they see one loose brick. Jason pulls it out and behind it sees a glint of baggy. JASON Easy as pie. And twice as tasty. He opens the bag. It's filled with rock cocaine. ANGLE - ACROSS THE STREET On the third floor, Shotgun sits in his straight-backed chair in front of the open center window drinking coffee, cradling his rifle on his lap. Sees the frat boys picking up their shit. Then he looks out at Bone's 'tomb': Dark blank windows staring back at him; the building's front door covered with broken vertical boards with jagged pieces missing, looking almost like a jack-o-lantern's grin. Shotgun then looks back down at the boys below. From behind them they hear their car alarm go off. PALMER Someone's screwing with the car! But from the other way come cops, in a plain wrap car, a hand reaching out and putting the spinning blue light on the roof. No place to run. No place to hide for the boys. They reach for the door of the shuttered building -- and it opens! SHOTGUN Yo. You two, get the hell away from there! But they ignore him and disappear into the darkness inside the gaping maw of Bones' building. Shotgun shakes his head sitting back down, cradling his rifle. SHOTGUN (CONT'D) Fools. INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Inside, the boys huddle in the darkness behind the door, waiting for the cops to pass. The boys look around the decayed Gothic interior lit only by the eerie glow of the sodium vapor lights outside. What we last saw as the ornate 70's luxury lobby in Bones' day, is now a horror show. Walls torn and stained. Mold grows in patches on the wall and ceiling. Huge cobwebs hang. The furniture's all broken. A gnawing tearing sound makes Palmer spin: a rat sticks its head up through the rotted cushions of the couch. PALMER Let's get the hell outta here. Jason shushes him as the room is filled with the flashing blue light of the cop car trawling slowly down the street. From inside they hear the sounds of a car door slamming and cop shoes walking. JASON Oh fuck, c'mon... He gropes his way in the darkness to a staircase. Palmer is right behind him as they slip upstairs, deeper into the gaping darkness of the abandoned building. While below them the door opens and cop lights and cop voices penetrate the gloom. OLDER COP ...not going in there. Waste o' time. YOUNGER COP I saw 'em go in. And from the boys' high vantage point up the stairs we see the first cop walk in with flashlight drawn. WHILE INSIDE THE COP CAR - CLOSE ANGLE All we see are two meaty hands unwrapping a wax-paper covered pork chop sandwich. The cop, face in shadow, brings the drip ping sandwich up over his huge belly towards his face. INSIDE BONES' BUILDING The frat boys hold their breath while rats run across their feet. Jason slamming his hand over Palmer's mouth to keep him from screaming. DOWN BELOW The young plainsclothes cop steps deeper into the room, and shines his flashlight at the stairwell. UPSTAIRS Jason pulls the reluctant Palmer further up the stairs, to the third floor as below them they hear the cop coming up. Jason pulls Palmer through the nearest door and into: INT. JIMMY BONES' OLD PAD - CONTINUOUS The rotted remains of what was once Jimmy Bones' master bedroom. The room he was betrayed and slaughtered in. DOWNSTAIRS The cop begins to head up the stairs. Visible behind him, down through the open front door, is the plain wrap car. The older cop inside, mouth fulla sammich, loudly says: FAT OLDER COP Forget it! No way they're in there. Trust me. I've been working down here twenty years. No one goes in there. FROM THE FAT OLDER COP'S POV We watch as the younger cop returns to the car, giving up. And when he climbs in, we reverse and reveal who the older cop is: LUPOVICH, the cop who helped kill Bones. But he's decayed and expanded into a Hank Quinlan-like mountain of corrupt cop flesh. Too many pork chop sandwiches. LUPOVICH Let's get the hell outta here. INT. JIMMY'S OLD PAD - SAME From upstairs, the boys see the blue light of the cop car recede as the car pulls away down below. Palmer reaches for the door. He wants out. But in the darkness, he can't find the door. PALMER Gimme some light. Behind Jason we see a shape, a shadow, a tall silhouette, a man-shaped deeper darkness forming within the darkness. Jason lights his lighter. And in the flickering we see behind him that this room now contains a portion of hell: It's not just the chipped paint and peeled rotted wall paper, or the cracks and gaps in the broken old ceiling mirror. All surfaces seem to be a swirling, shifting pattern in which we can dimly and subliminally make out faces as if people were trapped on the surface of things. Exactly like the glimpse we had beneath the world when Jimmy died... The floor, the walls, the furniture, everything in it -- made out of the wracked and twisted devouring and devoured forms of dead souls. Their faces, hollow pleading eyes and howling mouths visible like flowing grain in wood. And in the center of it all stands the dark silhouette of Bones, impossibly tall and thin, stretching malevolently out across the room like a living shadow. But the boys don't see this as they're finding the door. We see Bones shadow arching towards them while they fumble. Palmer finally opens the door to the sound of a deep rumbling growl from the darkness on the other side. And in the open door stands the black dog. They boys jump back. But breathes easy. PALMER (CONT'D) Just a dog... And the black dog leaps up at them -- teeth flying right for the boys' throats. And in the flickering ghastly light we see its demon face breaking through. The dog sinks his long teeth into Jason's arm. He flails and drops his lighter, still lit, on the floor. As soon as he does, the dog releases Jason, and disappears as fast as it appeared, back into the darkness. The two kids panic, Jason shaking and bleeding, looking around, waiting for the dog or something else to attack, seeing back through the doorway into the room from hell. Behind them we see that tall man-shaped shadow. The Bones shadow is oblivious to the two frantic boys, intent only on the small flickering flame of the lighter still burning where it fell against the lower wood paneling of the wall. A thin trail of black smoke as the flame barely begins to catch on the chipped lead-filled flammable paint. THE BOYS RUN And stumble down the hall away from the horror, while back in the room the Bones-shadow watches as the lighter flickers and dies out. Other than a slightly blackened spot, the wall is unburned. The black shadow shudders in rage, arches back and hooooowls in frustration, its mouth abnormally large. The shadowy head snaps in the direction of the boys -- ready to vent it's wrath, and for a subliminal second we see in the head, the hellish face of Jimmy Bones. The boys round the second floor landing and fly down the last flight of stairs. Jason's foot breaks through a rotted floorboard and for a second, it appears as though rotten hands are just below the stairs, grabbing at his foot and leg. He yelps in terror, pulling his foot back as they continue towards the front door, the Bones-thing's woofer-busting howl roaring down from the third floor. THE SHEER INFINITE ADRENALINE RUSH Of pure horror and the desperation to survive drags the boys off the stairs as they tear across the floor and hurl themselves out the front door into the night air... Jason falling and lying on the stoop. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Across the street, Shotgun sees the boys in the doorway. Then, as a nearly dead vapor light suddenly flickers and comes to life, the shadows created on Bones' building make it look almost like a demonic face. Gulping for air, laughing hysterically at their survival, the frat boys pause. Jason sits back on his butt, checking his wound. The doorway behind them just a black hole in space. PALMER (bumping fists together) Damn, bro. That was close! THEN SUDDENLY Something - it happens so fast we're not sure just what grabs sucks-pulls Palmer back into the black doorway hole. Jason, still prone, tries to crawl away but whatever got his friend now sucks him in too. His fingernails scraping along the stoop in frenzied desperation. WITH SHOTGUN When he hears the boys pitiful screams and whimpers from across the street, he leaps to his feet and tries to see into the dark of the doorway across the street. But he can only hear what is happening to the unlucky frat fellas: Moans and the sound of flesh torn, and swallowed, and their last dying screams. UP AND DOWN THE BLOCK The screaming reverberates. Faces appear in some windows. While in others, shades are drawn and the lights go out... BACK WITH SHOTGUN Mumbling to himself: SHOTGUN "For outside are dogs and sorcerers..." Revelation 22, vs. 15. Tears welling in his eyes that he angrily flicks away. LOOKING AT THE BUILDING It still has the shadowy look/shape of Jimmy Bones, now shifting again as the vapor light on the street sputters out again, plunging the street into near darkness. The body of Palmer no longer visible below. When he looks back, the building seems just an old building again. Then there's movement in an upper window, catching his eye. Shotgun sees the tall, shadowy silhouette. The figure is elongated, can't tell if it is a man, or the distorted shadow of a man. It beckons to Shotgun. SHOTGUN Just tightens his grip on his rifle and speaks as if the shadowy thing across the street could hear him. SHOTGUN (CONT'D) You still mad? Still want me? Come on and get me. THE SHADOW Shakes its head. As if it can hear him. And again mutely beckons to him. ON SHOTGUN SHOTGUN (CONT'D) Oh, right. You can't. You're trapped there. Well ain't that too bad. Ain't that just too damn bad. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 1-2. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. FADE IN: EXT. SOUTH SIDE OF TOWN - 1979 - DAY In the ghetto. A thriving street. Shops and apartments. Storefronts, newsstands. Life in the hood. A sleek black Buick Electra 'deuce and a quarter' floats down the avenue, Curtis Mayfield-style... INT. BUICK ELECTRA - DAY Behind the fur-covered steering wheel: SHOTGUN, a broke-nosed bodyguard for the man in the back seat: JIMMY BONES - 28. His street. His world. Cool, handsome, respected. Dressed very fly, but not excessive. Long black coat, black silk shirt, and matching wide-brimmed hat. His left hand sports a big diamond ring while his right hand toys with a long silver razor, polished and oiled to perfection so that the long glinting blade can swing back and forth, or lock into position. EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - DAY Bones steps out from the car on to his street like a benevolent feudal lord or a popular Mafia Don. QUICK CUTS OF JIMMY: -- greeting and soul shaking every man, woman and child on the block: they display a mixture of fear/love and respect. -- coolly taking down numbers in a notebook: soothing to the losers, encouraging to the wary, tough with the welchers. -- and handing out a rare win to an astonished old man standing in his pajamas in the doorway of an old tenement.: BONES Don't spend it all in one place. Spread it around. And shop local. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 13-14. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. We see Pearl standing at the sink, scrubbing the blood stains on her, washing her hands, washing and washing them... CREDITS ROLL OVER: Her hands, washing becomes time passing. Years, decades, the building and the surroundings decay... And still the dark, skinny dog prowls the shadows. Just one more reason we no longer see anyone walk the street at night. The 90's end -- And Bones' building stands worn and naked with burnt-out lots on either side. And the street feels like a ghost town. In the evil colored light of the gaseous street lights, Bones' own shadow stretches and distorts across all three stories. His shadow face filling a window. As in and around the building and out in the ruins on either side, the black dog still walks. AND FINALLY RETURN TO WEATHERED HANDS STILL WASHING THEMSELVES IN HOT WATER -- To the PRESENT. Pull out and reveal Pearl, skin drawn, eyes heavy, now 20 years older, washing her hands. And then drying them. CREDITS END This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 26-31. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. CLOSE ON: INT. KRUSHED KLUB - NIGHT Two raging black screaming skulls engulfed in eye-scorching fluorescent green fire: The decals on the front panel of a Gemini Executioner, a hi tech mixer. Four hands at the controls. Throbbing, shifting twisted beats. We're in a Northside dance club: Pull out to reveal BILL, 20, and MAURICE, aka Space Cowboy and Intergalactic Gangster of Love, 20. The two boys DJ-ing. They're accompanied by the crooning voice and dancing body of Bill's step-sister TIA, 29. Bill's black. Tia's white. And Maurice is not of this earth. Bill's turntablizing: his hands dance between two competition style direct drive turntables tilted side by side, playing them like an instrument. While Maurice plays in and around and out of Bill's rhythm, with his 6 top-loaded computerized CD players, the boys hand the beat back and forth and up and down, building outrageously, till Maurice tips it over the top. MAURICE Goodness gracious grande bolas del fuego! The floor is jammed with underground dance scenesters, college students and spaced-out shoegazers tripping on Ketamine, dancing with their invisible friends. The bar's surrounded by a sea of hands waving money, demanding drinks. Our boys are popular. And the club is making a lot of green tonight. See someone checking out all the money, counting heads: PATRICK, 23, Bill's older brother. The money man. EXT. BACK ON THE SOUTH SIDE - NIGHT Stank and Weaze are cruising around in the frat boys BMW, laughing their asses off. INT. THE KRUSHED KLUB - PRE-DAWN Live show's over. And a chill mix tape plays while the boys pack their gear. Across the club, Patrick's arguing with the club owner, MOE. Just now handing Patrick a couple bills. Patrick's not happy. EXT. KRUSHED KLUB - CONTINUOUS The guys and Tia stumble out with all their equipment, loading it and themselves into Patrick's over-sized SUV. Patrick right behind them. They gather around to split their fee. PATRICK Well, the bad news is we only made 25 bucks each. TIA How could that be? The box was packed! PATRICK Moe's terms. MAURICE We practically paying him for the privilege of playing his club. BILL So what the hell's the good news? PATRICK I just accelerated my top secret long term plan for our world domination. MAURICE Sqweeep. We innerup this programme to bring you this special news bulletin -- (human teletype sounds) "Aliens from Reticula 3 have hijacked Patrick Peet and injected moly headcheese into his skull filling his entire brain cavity with cosmic slop..." PATRICK I was planning on waiting until I got the place cleaned out, but -- like the man says, carpe diem. Patrick hands Bill and Tia each a flyer: The Restaurant Brothers Ill Bill and DJ Maurice -- a.k.a. The Space Cowboy Playing at Illibent. Fridays. TIA Illibent? Who's club is that? PATRICK Ours! BILL What're ya talkin' about, OURS? Patrick beckons them into the car. EXT. BLACKSTONE - DAY Patrick pulls up to the abandoned lot next to Bones' building. In broad daylight the building looks even stranger. The lines don't matchup. Weeds and broken glass, rusted autoparts, and empty abandoned shopping carts in tangled heaps like ruins in the lot beside the building. BILL Looks like a damn graveyard round here. PATRICK I'm telling you, this neighborhood is coming back. MAURICE Yeah. But just where the hell has it been? They step up to the front of the building. BILL Damn. That is the ugliest building I have ever seen. PATRICK Naw. I think it's... I dunno. Something about it just buzzes me. MAURICE That would be the after effects of that Reticular inseminoid encounter you had. Patrick opens the door and steps inside. PATRICK Welcome to the Ill Zone. INT. THE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS The darkness broken only by sunlight streaming through grimy windows reveals the decaying interior of the building. We can see now nothing's been moved since the late '70's. Old furniture, carpets, pictures - late '70's Gothic. TIA Damn it's cold in here! BILL It's eighty degrees outside. And it's gotta be barely fifty in here. MAURICE And damp, too. Let's not forget damp. PATRICK Whattaya think? Can you picture it? Over there the bar, and in here -- the dance floor. BILL Possible...maybe...could be. Patrick leads them to the stairwell going up and down around the old elevator cage/shaft. PATRICK I got a great deal on it. They couldn't give this place away. Just dead meat stanking up their books for twenty years. They come to the elevator shaft, no elevator in sight. PATRICK (CONT'D) The last owner on the lease before the bank was back in '79. Some dude named Jimmy Bones. Empty ever since. Maurice looks down the elevator shaft and gets immediately dizzy, almost plunging to his doom - pulled back by Bill. MAURICE Jimmy Bones? PATRICK Yeah, you heard of him? MAURICE You haven't? PATRICK Not that I remember. MAURICE He was a local legend back in the '70's. There was a song, Stagolee kinda deal: "This is the ballad of Jimmy Bones/Black as night and hard as stone..." PATRICK I was born near here. My dad's from here. He never mentioned it. BILL Bones! How baddass is zat? This is the place for us. Patrick, you get platinum props, man. Platinum. MAURICE Yeah, in the land of the blind the one eye'd are king. BILL What's your problem with Crippled Dick? MAURICE Look around, this place is a dump! Naw, it'd have to work to be a dump. PATRICK You gotta use your imagination. MAURICE "This is Patrick..." (makes the sound of egg cracking, the sizzling as it lands in the skillet) "...And this is Patrick on crack." Imagination, my butt. Even the space cowboy can't... PATRICK (interrupting) Why don't y'all check out the rest? I'm going downstairs and see if I can get the furnace fired up. Warm this place up, you'll see. It has serious potential. MAURICE Potential toxic dump site. INT. STAIRS - CONTINUOUS Mia, Bill and Maurice all climb the stairs as Maurice lights a joint with a little box of stick matches. BILL Are you nuts? MAURICE The man said just to use my imagination. (takes a huge hit) Let's see...yeah, I get it. Potential. I can see it now. The first major urban theme park. Village Ghetto land. Kinda like Legoland, but made entirely from broken glass, hypodermic needles and crack vials. Totally E-ticket. BILL Keep smokin', fool. Tia checks out the second floor while Bill and Maurice continue up the stairs to the third floor. Bones' old crib. WITH BILL AND MAURICE Behind them, barely subliminal glimpse - a manshaped darker shadow within a shadow. Bill feels a cold wind from nowhere. And hears a whispery sound seemingly carried in the breeze. HOLLOW ECHOES It ain't eh money. It's the big fat floating what if... BILL What did you say? MAURICE I didn't say nothing. HOLLOW ECHOES Take him down to the storm clear. Bury him. BILL You didn't hear that? "Take him... " Something. "Bury him" or... MAURICE Take who where? What you smokin'? BELOW ON THE SECOND FLOOR Tia's checking out a bedroom. Hears a light tinkling in a closet. She opens it: empty except a row of rusty metal hangers, holding the moldy remains of Bones old suits. DOWNSTAIRS IN THE BASEMENT - PATRICK Is there a flashlight, poking around. Trying to find the metal knob to turn on the gas. Eerie as hell down there. Out of the corner of our eyes we see a shadow moving, looming. A scurrying sound and Patrick turns his flashlight in the other direction: we glimpse a bloated rat. Behind him, the shadow we glimpsed grows, elongates. Patrick notes another door. This one padlocked. Sensing someone or something behind him, Patrick turns with the flashlight. Nothing there. But the Bones-shadow is behind him again. Again he feels something and again he turns the flashlight around: nothing. Except the Bones-shadow is again...behind him. Shaking it off, Patrick heads for the old heater, pulling out matches to light the pilot as Bones-shadow stays behind him. BONES POV Bones watches as Patrick reaches around the gas heater. When Patrick strikes a match head, the Bones-shadow moves even closer to him as Patrick reaches in and lights the pilot. When Patrick steps back, Bones-shadow grows and stretches, spreading like an ink stain, reaching across to where the pilot flame flickers. In profile, the shadow-mouth blows...but no breath comes out. The flame doesn't even flicker. Bones tilts his head back and lets loose an eerie bellow of frustration in a subliminal flash we see a howling mouth, bigger than any human mouth, howling within the shadow-face. The sound echoes all through the basement rooms as Patrick walks back upstairs. He slaps a nearby plumbing pipe. PATRICK Go on old pipes, groan all you like. Just please don't burst. That I can't afford. FOLLOW WITH BONES POV As disappointed in whatever he hoped blowing out the furnace pilot would do, he steps into the rusted remains of the old elevator and the POV begins to levitate. INT. ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS Bones' POV rises straight up as if still in a working elevator. It rises and we follow up from the basement to the empty first floor, past the second floor to: THE THIRD FLOOR Where we're still inside, floating in the elevator cage. Then the POV moves through the metal bars and floats towards Bill, who's approaching the door of the room where Jimmy died. As Bill reaches to open it, Bones' POV floats closer - and closer - right up on Bill's back now. Bill feeling the hairs on his neck suddenly rising. Then he hears: HOLLOW ECHOES Go on. It won't kill you. Bill turns around to check with Maurice. BILL You had to hear tha... But Maurice is gone. And he doesn't see the shadow there behind him. Bill leans in to the door, listening... HOLLOW ECHOES I ain't gonna be the only one with this nigger's blood on my hands... BILL What the f--? A hand jolts him from behind. He spins -- it's just Maurice. MAURICE 'S up? BILL Nothing. Contact paranoia. Must be buggin' from hanging with you. They turn to walk back down. Maurice stops to re-light his joint when the Bones-shadow reaches out to grab his wrist. But it's no good. The shadow hand passes right through, Maurice pauses for an instant as if he felt something. Maurice lights his roach, and the match burns closer and closer to his fingertips. Then singes them and he drops the match. Maurice then heads downstairs after Bill. The shadow remains behind, staring at the still burning match on the wooden floor. He bends down, staring intently as if willing it to burn, his hands urging it on, the flame suddenly rising. But then the match sputters harmlessly out. The shadow turns back towards the boys downstairs. WHILE ON THE SECOND FLOOR Tia explores the rest of the floor. Hears a sound, like a whimpering, from behind another door. She slowly eases open the door then jumps back -- Inside, the dog. It growls low and mean, the black fur on the back of it's neck rising. It's eyes burning too red and bright. Tia freezes. The dog growls deeply at her. And as he does we see the Bones shadow rising behind her. It seems to lean in and over her, and the dog stops growling. Tia cautiously holds her hand outstretched with the burger for the dog to smell. Bones' shadow from lingers behind her, perhaps simply enjoying the first sight in hellish eons of a beautiful girl. TIA How'd you get locked in here? And for how long? Poor baby... The dog leaps up - but not to rip her throat out. Instead it snatches the burger and wolfs it down in one gulp. TIA (CONT'D) Poor boy. You must be starving. INT. FIRST FLOOR - CONTINUOUS Bill looks skeptical, Maurice outraged. Patrick firm. BILL You want us to move in here? PATRICK That's the only way we'll get the place fixed up in time. MAURICE Yeah right, and which ever of us is still alive at the end of the week inherits all Vincent Price's cash. PATRICK Look, you guys want to play college radio, high school reunions, and some fool's club once a week for the rest of your lives, that's cool. But I think we can do better. BILL You soundin' like the old man now. PATRICK I believe in you guys. You are the real shit. And you know it. Now I'm putting everything I got into this cuz I think we can make it happen, but you gotta put a little in too. Now all I"m asking is that everybody do their part. We'll move some shit in, and take shifts, or all crash together here -- BILL Pat's right. It'll be fun. MAURICE Yeah, fine. But Mars Needs Women. If I gotta sleep in a spookhouse, surround me with chicks who are more scared than me. Speaking of which... Tia's coming down the stairs. Maurice watching her legs appreciatively as she descends. BILL (rips Maurice's skull) Tia ain't a chick. She's family. And don't forget it. PATRICK Let's get going. Go home, pick up what we need, then crash here. TIA Look who I found. She comes in with the dog padding silently behind her. MAURICE Damn, that's the nastiest dog I ever seen. Nothin' but skin and bones. TIA Yeah, call his skinny ass "Bones." "Bones" grins, all teeth with its tongue hanging out. They walk out the front door, the dog slipping out with them. EXT. BLACKSTONE - ACROSS THE STREET - CONTINUOUS Shotgun watches from the window as the group exits the building with the dog. Seeing the cur he instinctively reaches for his gun. But the dog's surrounded by kids. SHOTGUN Hey, watcha doing with that dog? BILL He yours, sir? SHOTGUN Hell no! BILL Then what do you care? SHOTGUN Take my advice. And shoot that dog. Or let me. BILL Alright. Yes sir. Anything you say. Tia, Bill and Bones the dog pile into the van as Pearl and her daughter CINNABAR, 21, walk by. The daughter's as fine now as her mother was then. Pearl sees the dog in the van and her head snaps to the gang. PEARL Don't feed that dog. BILL You people really don't like dogs. PEARL Some holes can't be filled. Some hungers can't be satisfied. MAURICE (way under his breath) And some people need their medication tweaked. PEARL I'm not joking boy. Don't feed it. It'll only make it hungrier. Pearl walks a little faster, trying to draw Cinnabar away from the kids and the dog. But Cinnabar lingers a few paces behind her mother and catches Patrick's eye. He's stunned, and before he can speak, Maurice speaks for him. MAURICE Need any help with those bags, Ma'am? PEARL No thanks. PATRICK no really, let us help. We're new in the neighborhood, gonna be neighbors. CINNABAR You moved into this block? MAURICE Not really to live, just to play. PEARL That building? MAURICE Gonna be le hot shit. (to Pearl) Pardon my Francais. Dance club. The Resurrection Brothers play there. Heard of them? PEARL Should I? CINNABAR Are they on the radio? PATRICK Naw. But they will be. They're the best. CINNABAR How do you know? PATRICK I manage them. PEARL And you bought the building? Pearl studies their faces, especially Patrick's. PEARL (CONT'D) You look mighty familiar to me. You sure you're not from around here? PATRICK I was born near here. But after my mother died, my dad moved. I grew up out in Rossmore Park. PEARL You're pretty black to be growing up in Rossmore Park. EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - DAY They stop in front of a storefront - same old palm reading sign. But the name is different. Now it's "SISTER PEARL - READER AND ADVISOR." Pearl enters the building while a lingering Cinnabar catches a look on Patrick's face. CINNABAR Guess it's not Rossmore Park. Thanks for the help. PATRICK Anytime. Be seeing you. Patrick is still checking her out. And we can see from a window, Pearl is still checking him out. While Maurice is checking out the wacky window design. MAURICE Yeah, well if she got psychic powers, how come she's working here on Desolation Row? EXT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - DAY A run-down storefront, fronted by a crude faux-Parisian Black Cat Facade. A "private club", the local boss' HQ. INT. BLACK CAT CLUB - CONTINUOUS Inside, the lights are dim and clouds of cigarettes and cigar smoke float over worn out old pool tables. Most of the tables are empty. An older man wearing sunglasses lines up a careful shot on a corner table. It's Eddie Mack. 20 years after doing Bones, he rules the hood. What's left of it, anyway. Before he can shoot, Stank and Weaze breeze in, Stank holding some car keys up in his hand. STANK Say Eddie. Distracted, Eddie hits the eightball and scratches. He snaps the pool cue over his knee. MACK Goddamnit! How many times I told you -- STANK We got a gift for you, Eddie. Fresh new BMW. MACK That you stole off those white boys was down here last night? Are you crazy? Everybody from hell to breakfast heard that screamin' on Blackstone last night! STANK But -- MACK How many times I told you, no psycho shit. There gonna be psycho shit, I'm the one that does it. WEAZE We didn't do nothing, Eddie. MACK You gon tell me you didn't ginsu those punks and steal their ride? WEAZE That's all we did, steal their ride. MACK Get that car the hell away from here, now! I spend a lot of money to keep the cops cool. But this is the kinda shit that pisses everybody off. STANK We just thought... MACK No more thoughts from your asses. Or I will burn your asses and snort the ashes. Hear me? EXT. ROSSMORE PARK - EVENING The guarded entrance to the gated community. Bill and the others roll up to the gate in their van. Barney Fife pokes his head in the window and stares at 'em suspiciously. They all "smile" back. GUARD Okay, go on ahead. BILL I been living here my whole life, and that hillbilly still has to check me out each time. MAURICE Hey, it's his job. Keeping indesirables outta the hood. EXT. THE PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS They pull into the huge multi-car driveway in front of their house. Not quite a mansion, but damn close. INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS The kids are all sitting around the kitchen, watching Tia fix some meaty concoction to feed the dog. The dog stares at her expectantly. Jaws dripping in anticipation. An older, distinguished looking black man walks in. PATRICK Hey, Dad. And we see their father is... Jeremiah. Though now a prosperous banker, twenty years ago he was the man who set Bones up. He enters with NANCY, his white second wife, Tia's mother. JEREMIAH Not only do I have to feed the three mouths I got, and that bottomless pit they call Maurice, I gotta feed this stray, too? At the sound of Jeremiah's voice, the dog looks up right at him and unleashes a low, rumbling growl. TIA Shhh, Bones. It's not nice to bite the hand that feeds you. JEREMIAH What did you call that dog? NANCY (moving on) Just what are you feeding him? I didn't know we had dog food. TIA We don't. I used that meat you had in the bowl. NANCY Tia, that was the prime rib I was marinating for dinner. They look at the dog eating enough beef to feed six people. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 1-4. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. EXT. FURTHER DOWN THE BLOCK - TIME CUT Bones is back in the car. Shotgun rolling on down the street and round the corner. Bones sees a young black man leaning into the window of a police car. It's JEREMIAH PEET, Bones' right-hand man, trying to do business. And make sure his three year old son keeps from running into the street. The cop in the car eating a sloppy sauce-drippin' pork chop sandwich, watches. BONES Hold up S-G. Give him a toot. Jeremiah speaking low and rapid to the cop who says nothing, just wipes his greasy lips on a handkerchief. Then Shotgun hits the car horn, which plays a James Brown style trumpet riff. Jeremiah steps over to Jimmy's car. Jeremiah's son cautiously following. JEREMIAH 'Sup Jimmy B. Shotgun. (to his son) Get back on the curb! Now! BONES Go easy on Jay Bird. I can remember when we was his age... The boy makes eye contact with Bones, who motions he's got a dollar for him. The boy nervously takes it from Bones and then runs back to the curb under his father's harsh eye. JEREMIAH It's all arranged for tonight. Eddie Mack's gonna be there. And Offisa Korruptsky, too. BONES They get about twelve and a half minutes. Tops. JEREMIAH Trust me, Jimmy, there's big money behind this. Not just big. BIG. Like big business big. Big corporation big. Big government big. Our little acre alone'll net hundreds a thousands. Nothing but net. BONES Nothing but net? Could be a swish. Or a muthafucking air ball. JEREMIAH One simple word, three little letters. Yes. That's all it's gonna take and we could move out of this dump, get the real deal. Big houses, legit business... BONES That's your dream, Homes. Not mine. I don't want to leave this street. Ever. The status quo is totally cool with me. PEARL Maybe I oughtta get there a little early. For good luck. BONES Don't need luck tonight. I'm just letting 'em have their say before I say no. PEARL (worried) Let me see your hand. BONES All that shinin' and "reader and adviser" mess. That was your mama's bag. I don't know about the readin' but you both can sure 'nuff advise. PEARL (swats his hand) My mama's bag and my granma's bag, and a long line of mamas before her. BONES Sounds like mama needs a brand new bag. She takes his hand in hers. PEARL Such fine hands. You shoulda been a musician. You got the fingers. She strokes his hands. PEARL (CONT'D) Left hand's the past. Your right's the present. And the future. But it's not written in stone. It's written in flesh and blood. And flesh and blood will change. See? There's something here, a new line, right across your life line. BONES Must be my clothes line. No? How bout my phone line? PEARL No baby. I'm serious. Cancel that meeting. I got more fruit that needs checking. Come home with me now. BONES Don't you worry about a thing. This hand's gonna be stroking the back of your neck tonight. The car pulls away, the little boy waves good-bye... JEREMIAH (under his breath) 'Cause you got all the status. And I got nothing but quo... This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 48-49. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. EXT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - NIGHT A cop car pulls up. Out the passenger side come two skinny legs, followed by a bowling ball gut. Lupovich... LUPOVICH (to the cop in the car) Wait here. And don't touch my fucking sandwich. INT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - CONTINUOUS Lupovich makes his entrance and bellies across the club towards Mack. LUPOVICH Not your style. Is it Eddie? Killing off your customers? MACK I ain't killed nobody. (gives a menacing glance to Stank and Weaze) Shall I rack 'em? Play a game, Lupe? LUPOVICH No time for eightball. I got your tip. He tosses a bag of crack rocks on the pool table. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) Confiscated their whole stash. Mack hands him a wad of cash. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) Fair enough for the shit. But I think a little bonus is due for knocking out the competition. MACK You was just doing your job. LUPOVICH Last thing you need's for me to start doing my fucking job. Mack hands him another wad of Bills. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) That's more like it. Cost of doing business. Maybe you can deduct it on your taxes. INT. JEREMIAH'S HOUSE - NIGHT Patrick talking to the others, Jeremiah asleep by now. PATRICK When we got a line of hundred paying guests and another couple hundred inside dancing, that's when I'll tell him. And I can't wait to see the look on his face. INT. THE PEET DINING ROOM - LATER Around the table, Chinese food containers. Tia's still sneaking meat to the dog under the table. The TV on in the corner. Jeremiah's topping off his dinner with XANTAC -- high blood pressure medicine. His normal dyspeptic mood not improved by the conversation the kids are having. PATRICK And how do you think crack got into the ghetto? By magic? Who flew it in? Like the man said "we don't own that many planes." Jeremiah increasingly uncomfortable with the subject matter. JEREMIAH Don't poison your mind with that ghetto paranoia. That's all just ways of people justifying their own failure. BILL Dad, the man has been lying to us for a hundred years. I mean, where is my forty acres and a mule? JEREMIAH You wouldn't know a mule if it bit you in the ass. And personally, I don't need a mule. I got a Lexus. And nobody gave it to me -- TV ANCHOR (on TV) There's a lead tonight in the strange disappearance of those two State College fraternity brothers. There car, a 1999 BMW, was found abandoned this afternoon in an inner-city neighborhood. ON TV We see flashes on the news of various streets of the hood, including a shot of Bones block and building. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 61-64. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. INT. SOUTH SIDE SAVINGS AND LOAN - DAY Jeremiah swears a painted smile on his face as he shakes the just entered Lupovich's hand. They seem, for all the world, like old friends as he leads him back to his office. INT. JEREMIAH'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS But the minute they are in his office, Jeremiah's friendly demeanor drops like a mask. JEREMIAH What the hell do you want? LUPOVICH Just a visit with my old pal, Jay-bird. JEREMIAH Don't call me that. Lupovich looks around the expansive office and paws the photos and knicknacks on Jeremiah's desk. LUPOVICH You certainly traded up. (picks up a wedding picture nearby) ...the trophy wife. Nice lookin'. JEREMIAH Keep your hands to yourself, willya? LUPOVICH I been watching you. You done good. Invested wisely. Respectable businessman now. Just like you always wanted. JEREMIAH And you? Still a pig. Just a much fatter one. LUPOVICH No reason to get nasty. Yeah, I've stayed in the organization. But then again I never got the percentage you did. JEREMIAH Or you didn't know what to do with it. LUPOVICH Maybe so. Maybe so. But that ain't why I came to see you. You sold the building. JEREMIAH What building? LUPOVICH Don't shit a shitter. Our building. What did you call it? His 'tomb'? We had an agreement. You were supposed to sit on it. Not sell it -- JEREMIAH I didn't sell it. LUPOVICH Well, somebody bought it. That's what I heard. Jeremiah buzzes. JEREMIAH Claire? Could you come in here. An assistant manager, CLAIRE, enters. JEREMIAH (CONT'D) Did we sell any properties on... Blackstone recently? CLA Matter of fact, we did. 5606. JEREMIAH To who? CLA I only met with the broker. The structure was listed almost worthless and had never even had a bid, I thought you'd be pleased to see it sold to someone who wants to improve the neighborhood. Anything wrong? JEREMIAH No, of course not. Good work. Thanks a lot. She leaves. Lupovich is still holding the picture of Jeremiah's wife. JEREMIAH (CONT'D) You're right. One of my associates sold the building last month. LUPOVICH That's a Bozo no-no. Jay-bird. JEREMIAH Look, even if anyone found anything there, it's twenty years ago. They could never connect it to us. LUPOVICH You better hope not. Cause it's like they say, four can keep a secret, if three are dead. He puts down the photo with a wink. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) Nice rack. How old is -- JEREMIAH That's it. Get out. Now! Jeremiah advancing on Lupovich, who chuckles and walks out. BILL Hey, that's... He's stopped by a kick under the table from Patrick. JEREMIAH That's what? BILL That's some terrible shit. JEREMIAH Clean your mouth, or I will. Those boys had no business messing down there. Go places you're not meant to be -- that's what you get. BILL But that's your old hood, Pops. JEREMIAH Yeah, and it took some doing to get out of there. Just be glad I did and you can start life from here instead of down there. PATRICK But maybe we're the ones who should be down there. Doing something. Making it better. JEREMIAH Can't be done. That place already died and gone to hell. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 52-54. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. SERIES OF ANGLES - A MONTAGE Quick cuts of the moon, the sun, Bones neighborhood, Patrick and the gang cleaning up the building. And finally, at dusk... EXT. BONES' BUILDING - MORNING Patrick's on a ladder replacing glass in the upper windows. From down the block, we see Cinnabar heading out of her mother's house, holding her portfolio. The corners of papers sticking out, splashes of color visible. Patrick sees Cinnabar about to walk beneath his ladder. PATRICK Careful. That's bad luck. CINNABAR That place is already bad luck. PATRICK Why? CINNABAR No. It goes way back. Or so my Momma says. PATRICK What else does she say? CINNABAR Nothing. You'd think she was crazy. And she is a lot of things, not all of them nice, but crazy Momma's not. PATRICK Way I figure, everything our parents tell us is part true and part total B.S. And our whole job is figuring out for ourselves which is which. CINNABAR My momma says every house is two houses. Every street, two streets. There's a whole city, a whole world, kinda beside, on top, just below this one. The city of the dead. PATRICK Like right now, there's actually like hordes of dead people shambling around us? Fingers rotting off? CINNABAR Maybe. But there's an invisible wall, a fabric that kinda keeps things separate. PATRICK Lucky thing. CINNABAR Yeah. But when something bad happens, something really bad -- the wall breaks. The fabric tears. PATRICK The dead get out? CINNABAR Or the living fall in. Who knows. PATRICK And you believe her? CINNABAR If I did, I wouldn't come within fifty yards of your door. She sees her bus pulling up at the corner and runs for it, leaving only her smile with Patrick. She passes Maurice and Bill, pulling up. Bill has to pull Maurice's dog like attention away from the way Cinnabar's bottom moves as she walks down the street to focus at the matter at hand: unloading their shitload of equipment.This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. EXT. BLACKSTONE - LATER Maurice and Bill carrying speakers and racks and lights and turntables while Shotgun, in his lawn chair across the street, glares at them. After the last equipment is loaded, they lock the car. Shotgun still watching. Bill pulls out a six pack of beer. He offers one to Shotgun who, after a beat, accepts it. Maurice surreptitiously turns on his small hi-7 camera. Holding it under his arm, but it's on. MAURICE You ever hear of Jimmy Bones, sir? SHOTGUN What business is it of yours? MAURICE Just wondered. We heard he used to live in our building. Shotgun says nothing. BILL Is it true? SHOTGUN Yeah. He lived there. And died there, too. BILL Died there? How? SHOTGUN How the hell should I know? MAURICE What was he like? SHOTGUN Bones? He was something. He could be cold as ice or warm as blood. But he never turned his back for a brother. His eyes drift up to the building. SHOTGUN (CONT'D) Always there. Maurice goes in. Bill lingers behind. SHOTGUN (CONT'D) Hey, kid. BILL Yeah? SHOTGUN Take my advice. Get the hell out of there. It's a bad place. Always has been. EXT. BLACKSTONE AVE. - DAY Bill and Maurice walk around interviewing folks about Bones. Bill with the DAT recorder, Maurice with the vidcam. We see this through Maurice's shaky video camera: grainy VIDEO SHOTS: An OLD WOMAN. OLD WOMAN ...and every Tuesday, he'd roll by in his car and drive me with all my laundry to the laundromat so I wouldn't have to carry the clothes. -- a dude in a wheel chair. Drinking outta paperbagged bottle with a wino hanging on the corner. WHEELCHAIR MAN Jimmy Bones? Yeah, I knew that motherfucker. People make out like he was some kinda damn Robin Hood. Bullshit. I saw him cut some muhfucker's tongue once with that razor of his...dropped it right into that jar of dill pickles they used to have on the counter in the bar. WINO When I was a kid he used to slip twenties into my pocket so I could buy toys and shit. (now to Maurice/at camera) Bones was awrright. He was solid. And then one day, he just wasn't around no more. Don't pay to ask too many questions 'round here. INT. THE BUILDING - THAT NIGHT Upstairs, inside what was once Bones' bedroom. Beneath the cracked ceiling mirror, Bill lies on the airmattress. He's listening with headphones to a minidisk player. Eyes closed, head nodding to the beat. Around him, we see something strange. The room shifts. It's the same room. But changed. It looks like it did when the frat boys were trapped in here. Or in the instant after Jimmy's death: all surfaces seem to be a swirling, shifting pattern in which we can dimly make out faces, as if people were trapped on the surface of things. Then the faces and bodies begin to step out of their surfaces and into the room. So as Bill, eyes still closed, rocks to the hypnotic beats in his headphones, we see the room around him begin to fill with figures. -- all twisted dead human forms emerging out of the surfaces of floor and walls. We hear a low murmur of ghost voices, different languages. And as the track ends, the sound cuts through Bill's headphones and his eyes snap open. But the room is empty. And completely normal. Bill pulls off his head phones. Ears strain to listen. BILL Tia? Patrick? That you? The sounds return, fainter, and form above. Bill looks up, and for a fraction of a second in the mirror, Bill sees the crowded eerie hell of the other version of the room. Bill jolts out of bed and to the door, whips it open, and someone dark looms right there. But it's just Patrick. BILL (CONT'D) Shit. PATRICK Spooked? Bill looks back into the room, normal now. Glances up at the mirror, just a cracked reflection of the empty room. BILL No. Well, yeah. Maybe just a little. PATRICK Yeah, there is a strange vibe here. He stops. Both brothers look at each other, waiting for the other to admit he's seen or felt something's here. BILL Where's the others? PATRICK Maurice left. Tia's taking a bath. INT. BATHROOM - CONTINUOUS The bathroom is entirely wood lined, like some '70's hot tub paradise. The room dominated by a large two person tub. Tia lights four small scented candles on the counter. The wind through the open window blows the curtains. She shuts the window and then steps gingerly into the steaming bathtub. She lies down in the bath, with her back to the door. The four candles throwing varying shadows of her. Then one of the shadows becomes...the shadow of Bones. All it's attention is focused on one lit candle. The one closest to the curtain. Slowly the Bones' shadow's fingers start to caress the curtain to make it move, ever so slowly, closer and closer to the candle. The drapery reaches out, straining, straining towards the candle flame. Tia soaks with her eyes closed, enjoying the moist heat. Bones' shadow fingers more and more urgently drawing the flame towards the curtain, the curtain towards the flame. And soon the corner of the drape just reaches the little flickering flame. And in an instant the drape is on fire. INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS Patrick and Bill still talking in front of the bedroom, down the hall from the bathroom. PATRICK ...we just been in the damn suburbs too long. Their conversation interrupted by screams from down the hall... from the bathroom! INT. BATHROOM - CONTINUOUS The drapes are fully ablaze now, flames lick at the wooden walls. Tia leaps out of the tub, screaming, trying to throw bathwater at the burning drapes. Patrick and Bill crash through the door. Patrick rips the drapes from the wall and throws them into the bathtub. INT. LIVING ROOM - LATER Tia shivers in her bathrobe. Bill and Patrick with her. TIA There wasn't any draft. That window was closed. PATRICK We're all tired. Everybody makes mistakes. Tomorrow in the daylight, everything's gonna look different. INT. BUILDING - DAY Ladders, drop-cloths and the beginnings of new paint on the old torn walls. They're all eating take out burgers. PATRICK I thought you were bringing the Colonel? MAURICE The Gangster of Love don't eat no fried chicken. PATRICK Why not? He eats everything else. MAURICE Just what army do you think the Colonel was in? (whistles Dixie) Everybody knows the whole chicken distribution network is owned by the Klan. "Special recipe". I'm telling you. There's something in the batter. Say it makes a black man sterile. BILL AND TIA Bull. Shit. MAURICE Word. I saw it on Sixty Minutes. PATRICK Maurice, even if it was true, what are you worried about? Last time I checked, you weren't black. I'm not sure what the hell you are. But I know you aren't a black man. MAURICE I am the future. I am all colors. All races. All creeds. I am the melting pot. I am the tossed salad. I am post racial. PATRICK Post-toasted's more like it. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 44-46. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. EXT. SOUTH SIDE - CONTINUOUS Outside, angle on Bones' building down the block. CLOSER To the building - we can hear sounds coming from inside the house. Like dim drums, some kind of rhythm. INT. SUBURBAN KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS Where the dog eats and eats... EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Even CLOSER. The sound is a little louder, a little more disturbing. INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS Where the dog eats and eats. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Standing now right in front of it we hear a rhythmic cacophony from inside, growing louder as the dog eats and we: INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS The sound is deafening. It's the sound of every door in the empty house swinging maniacally on its hinges. Beating the air like wings. Opening and slamming shut again and again. Every door except ONE DOOR. The padlocked door to the sub basement. EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - CONTINUOUS Some older folks, one very old man with a cane, two old black women, arms linked. A middle-aged husband and wife. All enter. INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS Dim light. Cloth covered table. Everything set for a seance. PEARL Welcome, brother. Welcome, sisters. Make yourselves comfortable around the circle. We'll begin in a minute. She walks upstairs to Cinnabar's room. INT. CINNABAR'S ROOM - CONTINUOUS She enters the room where Cinnabar is drawing a still-life assignment by a window overlooking the fire-escape. PEARL Aren't you going to join us? CINNABAR I have to finish this for class. PEARL You got a vision, girl. Just like I got. Just like my momma had. And the good Lord didn't give you that vision just for painting pretty pictures. That's just wasted time. CINNABAR You mean as opposed to your life? She regrets it halfway out her mouth. And a thousand-fold more when she sees the look on her mother's face. CINNABAR (CONT'D) I'm sorry, Momma. Maybe next time. PEARL I don't want you meeting around that house. You stay away from those kids. And away from that dog. CINNABAR They seemed alright. Bring a little life to that old building. PEARL Nothing but a wide world o' pain locked in there. CINNABAR Have you ever been inside? PEARL Maybe once upon a time. But that was long ago. Back before... before it became what it is. CINNABAR And what's that? PEARL Just a bad place. And the doorway to worse. Cinnabar, as far too often, not understanding much of what her mother says to her. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT Pearl reaches into an old bureau drawer and pulls out an old photo: Jimmy Bones with his arm around her. She sits down at her table with a drink and just looks at the picture of herself and her lover when the world was innocent and young. She downs her glass and wipes her tears away. OUTSIDE - DOWN THE BLOCK In the upper window of the Bones Building we see his silhouette, staring down the block towards Pearl. INT. JEREMIAH'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS Bones the dog slinks into the kitchen. Sniffing the air. Still hungry. Always hungry. His big black paw actually opens the refrigerator. With his long nose he digs into the meat drawer. Inside he finds plastic wrapped raw hamburger meat. He pulls it out and drops it on the floor. Tears it open and gorges himself on the raw meat. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS The house looms malevolently in the moonlight. INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Bones' POV again in his rusted elevator cage. The POV floats down through the house into the basement. BASEMENT Bones' POV looks at the padlocked door. Then passes right through it. INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS In the deeper darkness of the dirt cellar we see the Bones shadow hovering over a slight mound in the dirt. INT. JEREMIAH'S KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS The black dog wolfs down the last of the hamburger meat. INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS And as he does, the ground seems almost to breathe, or glow. Bones plunges his long shadow-hands right into the earth as if he could touch what was beneath and raise it up. He remains like that, shadow hands buried in the dirt, head tilting back and howling. EXT. OUT ON THE STREET - CONTINUOUS Shotgun up in his window, still, holding his gun. Hears the howling. He looks around, expecting to see his nemesis, the black dog. But only darkness. EXT. JEREMIAH'S GATED COMMUNITY - NIGHT Jeremiah's mansion stands in the moonlight. Its faux Gerogian splendor in stark contrast to Bones' building in the old neighborhood. INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS The house is dark and quiet. All are asleep. The dog moves silently through the house sniffing at doors. INT. MASTER BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS The dog silently noses the door open and stealthily enters and pads softly over to Jeremiah's side of the bed. Where it stares intently at the sleeping Jeremiah, who begins to toss and turn. He settles again on his back. His head tilted back, his soft, vulnerable throat exposed. The dog steps closer to the bed. We can almost feel the dog's hot fetid breath inches away from his throat. The dog stares at Jeremiah. And for just a second the long doggy face wavers and changes: in shifting shades of black, a ragged red demonic face ripples beneath the black fur -- and looks for an instant as if it were about to lunge and rip out Jeremiah's throat! But at the last second it freezes. Head cocks and ear lifts as if hearing something in the wind. Its master's voice, perhaps. And then the dog reverts to normal and pads out of the room as silently as it entered. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 60-62. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Cinnabar stops outside the building. She's about to knock when she instinctively freezes. We can almost see the hairs standing up on her neck one by one. She looks around -- what is it? A sound, like a moan. Is it her name? Or just the wind. Suddenly, with a creak, the door swings open. She takes a hesitant step into the building. Suddenly she jumps, as a door to her left flies open. It's just Patrick. She laughs in relief. CINNABAR Just thought I'd see if you needed any help. Patrick too surprised and tongue-tied to respond, so Tia helps him out. TIA Good. We do need help. First you can help us eat lunch. Cinnabar follows Patrick into the room, with a last tense look over her shoulder -- still the feeling something's there. INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Tia's feeding the insatiable dog. Handing quarter-pounders to it, the thing scarfing 'em as fast as she can unwrap them. Then, for a second, it stops. And looks up. And just stares at something it knows is there -- but we humans can't see. TIA Watcha looking at, poochie? Cinnabar follows the dog's glance. She sees nothing...or is there something for a second there in the corner? REVERSE - BONES-VISION POV Is staring back at her, and at the dog. Cinnabar pulls her sweater around her shoulders. CINNABAR I hate it when dogs do that. Like they're looking right out of the world. The dog continues scarfing down burgers, having him his way. Cinnabar looks warily at the beast. Who stares right back at her while wolfing down the burgers. BONES-VISION/POV Steps through the rusted metal into the old elevator shaft and we follow it as it floats down. INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS As the dog above eats we again see Bones' shadow form looming over the seeing dirt, the dirt moving ever so subtly, and for a subliminal second the dirt seems to be glowing. INT. THE BUILDING - LATER They're all painting. Maurice spins some tunes to accompany them. It's a funky Tom Sawyer paint party. The kids defer to Cinnabar, who's got a wild pallette, and a wild brush. The place is coming alive with color. This portion of the screenplay is originally pages 65-72. It is presented out of order to reflect the final film. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. INT. BONES' BUILDING - LATER THAT DAY In Bones' old room, Patrick rolls over the faded stained old shag carpet with a huge carpet cleaner. ANGLE ON The transparent tubes of the cleaner fill with disgusting red fluid and carpet fibers. TIME CUT TO: Patrick stands back and surveys his work. The carpet looks perfect. Old, a little faded, but clean. No stains. With a smile of satisfaction he rolls the cleaner out of the room and closes the door behind him. We remain in the room. ANGLE ON The now clean carpet. Suddenly we see glutinous red liquid seeping back up through the shag, until the stain is right where it was. Wet and fresh. Then we see it spread and move, in the shape of a body and the path by which it was dragged out of the room. The door opens again, and Patrick steps in to show off the freshly painted room clean rug to Cinnabar and the others. He's brought up short by the sight of the stain. PATRICK Must be something seeping through. From the floor. They roll the carpet back, thinking there must be something on the floor. The floor beneath the carpet is wet too, but can't tell if it's from the rug or vice-versa. He puts his hand down on the wood. A low rhythmic rumbling. PATRICK (CONT'D) Do you feel that? The others place their hands on the floor. TIA Yeah. It's. Throbbing. BILL Like a heartbeat. MAURICE "Like a heartbeat/Like a love beat." Listen to the Di Franco twins there. Just the plumbing or something, fool. PATRICK Maybe there's a pipe underneath the floor. It leaked and stained. They just look at him. PATRICK (CONT'D) You got a better explanation INT. BASEMENT - LATER Patrick and the others in the basement listening to some very strange sounds: groans, thumps, throbs. MAURICE Sounds like we got the Invisible Scratch Piklz hiding in our pipes. Patrick traces the piping with the wrench, he comes to a triple corner, where three small pipes all come together. PATRICK I think these bring the water down from the bathroom. Into this... A larger pipe that goes down the wall and disappears beneath the floor. The thumping sounds emanate from here. He puts his finger along the seam of the joint. He pulls it away, red. PATRICK (CONT'D) Check it out. The same shit that was in the carpet. Told you it was from the plumbing. He lifts the wrench to tighten the seal. The metal groans. Then snaps. Sending a thick spray of foul smelling red sludge shooting out of the seam, right into Patrick's face. PATRICK (CONT'D) Damn, I knew these pipes were wacked. He turns the wrench the other way, re-tightening. The sound seems to move now through the piping. Then the red sludge sprays out of the next three joints, smearing the others. The pounding, throbbing sounds begin to bounce around the room, as if something were actually moving through the pipes until it returns to the central large pipe and moves down, disappearing beneath their feet. Then a rasping bark calls their attention. Bones the dog sits by the padlocked door, panting. Grinning. Patrick smashes the old lock with the large wrench and opens the door to reveal another set of stairs leading down into a deeper storm cellar where the sound disappeared. INT. STORM CELLAR STAIRS - CONTINUOUS As they go, the temperature drops. A cold, damp sheen appears on their skin. Then comes a thick glutinous buzzing sound. TIA What is that? Flies. The stairway walls are thick with furry black flies. MAURICE (stopping) Ugh. Muchos moscos, man. This is too much. BILL Just some flies. MAURICE Some flies? I think this qualifies as way more than "some." CINNABAR What a smell. MAURICE Hey, what you expect? Where there's smoke there's fire. And where there's flies, there's shit. The stairs end in a dark, damp dirt cellar and the remnants of the terminus of the old elevator shaft. MAURICE (CONT'D) Oh yeah, I guess this would be that space that was so perfect for a recording studio. BILL Maurice, man, shut the fuck up. PATRICK Yeah, well, Maurice is right. It's gonna take more work than I thought. But we can still do it. We'll lay a real floor in here. Put damping on the walls. Totally controlled sound. Be perfect. No one could hear shit up on the street. Behind them the dog is digging in the dirt. Furiously. MAURICE Yeah, perfect. Really excellent. We can make our first record where no one can hear us scream. Be afraid. They're not paying any attention to the dog's incessant digging. Only Cinnabar is. She's staring at it. CINNABAR Oh god... And she sees, in the deepening muddy hole at the dog's paws, at first glimpses and then the full view, a rotted human corpse. Really just a skeleton. With something sticking out of its chest. Cinnabar shrieks, while the guys try very hard to act real cool. BILL Hello. Who're you? Maurice bends and pulls out the now blood rusted razor. MAURICE Boys and girls, Moms and Dads. Children of all ages, I'd like you to meet... Jimmy Bones. BILL What the hell you talking about? MAURICE (singing) "This is the story of Jimmy Bones/Black as night and hard as stones/Gold plated deuce, like the King of Siam/Got his switchblade loose, and a diamond on his hand..." There's the switchblade and there's the diamond. Don't know where the deuce is parked. He points to one of the bony hands. The left one. On the third finger is Jimmy's big diamond ring. BILL You think that's really him? MAURICE Damn. It's so...fresh. And he's right. Oddly for an old skeleton, there are strands and bands of wet, raw flesh. Maurice lifts the hand wearing the ring. He starts top pull it loose from the finger. TIA Boy, put that thing down. You can't take that. Might be evidence. PATRICK Evidence of what? TIA Somehow I don't think he stabbed himself in the chest, then buried himself too. Cinnabar sees something. Bright color beneath the body. Bends down to a piece of cloth poking out from beneath the bones. The dog growls viciously as she reaches down to the scrap of color poking up. Tia restrains the hound the best she can. PATRICK Get your damn dog, girl! The cloth is the corner of a dress...the dog suddenly lunges for Cinnabar's hands, ripping at them. She pulls back. PATRICK (CONT'D) Shit! Damn dog. We gonna have to do something about you. TIA What we have to do is call the police. MAURICE Right. Call the police. We'll have no problem getting our permits then. TIA We can't just leave it here. PATRICK Yeah, we can. Least till after this weekend. He ain't going nowhere. We'll deal with it then. BILL Whatever, let's just get the hellout of here. They all start to leave except Maurice and Cinnabar. He's loitering by the body, eyeing the ring. She's staring into the dark corner of the sub-basement. HER POV IN THE DIM LIGHT She sees something wavering, a shadow-mirage, Bones. PATRICK (O.S.) Cinn? CINNABAR What? Oh yeah. Coming. She follows the others upstairs. Bones watches her form as she climbs the steps, and -- -- for a second from BONES POV we see her mother, when she was young. Bones looks now at Maurice. Who checks to see if the others are gone. Then Maurice hurriedly bends down, and while holding his face back away from the stench attempts to pull Bones' ring off his finger. But it's stuck. He tugs again, harder, and rips the corpse's finger off. MAURICE Oh fuck. Oh fuck is right. Bones' shadow rears as it sees this desecration. Maurice slips the ring off the finger stump. MAURICE (CONT'D) (to the corpse) Sorry, but you wont' be needing this. He places the finger back by the hand. And pockets the ring. MAURICE (CONT'D) Or this. INT. BUILDING KITCHEN - LATER THAT NIGHT Tia fills a bowl with dry dog food. But Bones the dog turns his head away and just whimpers. TIA Picky mutt. She pulls out a package of raw hamburger, dumps it into the bowl, then leaves. Behind her, the dog tucks into his chow. INT. THE STORM CELLAR GRAVE - CONTINUOUS The lock broken, the door stands ajar. And as the dog gorges upstairs, something very strange is happening down here. Flesh is growing on the bones. Bit by bit, red, wet strips of muscle and flesh appear and spread over the corpse. The shadow looks down at his semi-reconstituted corpse. It almost looks like him, minus the skin. But it still has a long ways to go. Still, mere strips of muscle and flesh on the skeleton. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT Her usual small crowd arrives for her seance, all hoping this will be the night they reach their loved ones' spirits. From outside, through the window, we see Pearl greet and seat each of them around the table. She starts lighting candles. INT. BONES' PAD - NIGHT Patrick and Cinnabar sipping a little Remy in his room. Alone at last. Awkward. Intimate. He refills her glass. CINNABAR She doesn't want me here. With you. In this house. PATRICK Believe me, my old man'd rupture his spleen if he knew we was down here. All he talks about is the medal he deserves for building us a life as far from this 'hood as possible. CINNABAR He probably thinks he's saving you from something. I'm sure that's what my mother thinks. PATRICK I'm sure I can make your mother like me. But then do I gotta worry 'bout your father? Suddenly their banter is dead. Her face looks stung, like he'd slapped her. CINNABAR I don't know anything about my father. I never met him. Momma won't talk about him, either. He puts his arms around her, and she melts into him. INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT Pearl and the others seated in the dim room around a circular table. They are holding hands. Only candle light. PEARL We should begin with a hymn. INT. BONES' BUILDING - NIGHT - UPSTAIRS In Bones' old room, the temperature between Cinn and Patrick goes from PG to R. The two kiss passionately, deeply -- Cinnabar loses herself for a long beat -- then as if swimming up from the bottom of a deep pool, she pulls herself back. CINNABAR I can't. Not yet. PATRICK It's alright. If you want to go home... CINNABAR No, I want to stay with you guys. But I can't. I mean I'm not ready. PATRICK Don't worry about it. I'll stay with the boys. EXT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT From outside, through the open window, we can hear the strains of singing coming from her window. INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS We float around the members of Pearl's circle. See objects on the table flickering in the candlelight. PEARL The spirit world is all around us right this minute. And the departed are pressing in around us. Still singing, they all glance about them in darkness as if they can make out the spirits around them. Over the low bass of their hymn-singing, her voice cuts in. Uncoiling and rising like smoke in the air: it's a beautiful voice and it does seem to open a window in the air. INT. BONES' ROOM - CONTINUOUS Cinnabar gets into bed and turns off the light. Pitch dark in there, can't see a thing. As she's drifting off to dreamland, she hears what sounds like the door quietly opening and someone slipping into the darkness of the room, we just stay on her face. It's cold in the place. And spooky. So she doesn't mind when she feels what she assumes is Patrick slip in bed beside her. Though we see only a shape sliding under the covers. CINNABAR (half-asleep) It's okay, just don't get funny on me. It's warmer this way. INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS Suddenly, the curtains fly open. And Pearl's voice suddenly stops... and the flame on the candle shoots up, scorching the ceiling before returning to normal. PEARL Someone's with us. Who's joined the circle? OLD MAN Lordy...what's that smell? OLD WOMAN Look. The flowers. The flowers whither. They retch from some smell. PEARL Knock once for yes. And twice for no. Is there someone who wishes to send a message? Table rocks once. PEARL (CONT'D) A message for one of us in the circle? Table rocks once. PEARL (CONT'D) Is it for miss Lillian? Table rocks twice -- "no." PEARL (CONT'D) Is it a message for Mr. Abernathy? Table rocks twice -- "No" again. She goes around the room, inquiring for each of them. Each time the table says "No." Until there is only her left. An eerie pause. PEARL (CONT'D) Is the message for me? The table starts bucking wildly. And suddenly Pearl's neck SNAPS back like it's been caught in a whip. Her mouth opens and a low moan escapes. But sounds nothing like her voice. A deep wind through an organ tube with swarming bees and squealing hogs mixed in. Everyone around the table just stares at her in alarm. As her eyes widen. Go super close on her eyes and we see a reflection in her pupil, not of the room she is in, but the Jimmy's building twenty years ago. INT. BONES' BUILDING - PAST/PRESENT INTERCUT with her face back in the seance staring wide mouthed in her trance. The sound of her heart pounds like the deepest dub track. Total dislocation for her as she sees Jimmy's old room, as it was -- but also sees it as it is now, and with her daughter, Cinnabar, lying underneath the covers of the big, round bed. And lying close beside her, another figure beneath the covers. Whoever is there snuggles closer to Cinnabar. She responds as he presses against her, then wakes up. CINNABAR (laughing low) Cut it out. But he doesn't. The movement beside her is undulant. Strong, erotic, she almost gives into it. And still laughs as she says: CINNABAR (CONT'D) No, no Patrick. Stop. The figure in the bed presses urgently against her, in a rocking movement which catches her up in it. She can't help it, she begins to respond to the urging behind her. Pearl's eyes widen as the whole room shifts and becomes one fetid Necropoliptic texture. The bed retains its shape but liquefies, seems to become one with the floor and the walls, all made of a kind of thick, bloody-mud in which the trapped faces and distorted limbs of the dead twist and moan. Meanwhile, on that strange bed, the figure behind Cinnabar seems to wrap soft limbs around her, locking her in embrace. CINNABAR (CONT'D) Cut it out. But it doesn't cut out. It builds. Strong. Erotic. Insistent. She almost gives in to it. CINNABAR (CONT'D) No, no Patrick. Stop. But the movement is more insistent. And rougher. She starts to protest louder when she feels a hand, or something, steal across her mouth to muffle her objections. Pearl tires to reach across her vision to grab her daughter and help her, but she can't. INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - CONTINUOUS Back at the seance, Pearl's back is arched like a bass fiddle string bowed, and then drops. Released. Back in her chair. The instant she's returned to herself she's out of her chair and out the door. INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS Cinnabar struggles with something in the bed, the covers pulled tight against her face, she can't scream. She twists and wrenches herself about, finally striking behind her with a flailing fist, twists her face free and screams: CINNABAR Patrick! Stop!! Across the room the door suddenly opens -- it's Patrick. PATRICK What's wrong? ANGLE - AT PATRICK'S FEET The black silhouette of the DOG slips out the door. PATRICK (CONT'D) Are you alright? Cinnabar looks wildly around the room -- she's alone in the big bed. No one attacking her. And she sees Patrick in the doorway. But then who - or what - was in the bed? Suddenly, her mother yells from below. PEARL (O.S.) Cinnabar!!! Cinnabar lurches out of the bed over to the window. Down below, her mother's going nuts at the entrance, pounding on the door and practically running over Bill who's opening the door. PEARL (CONT'D) Outta my way, boy. Cinnabar? I'm coming! BILL Why don't you hang on and I'll see if she's here. PEARL I know damn well she's there. INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Cinnabar races down the stairs with Patrick, bewildered at her heels. Cinnabar runs out the door and straight into her mother's arms, burying her face in the protective bosom of her mom. Pearl wraps her frightened daughter in her arms and turns her to home. Pearl looks up at the boys standing stunned in the doorway. PEARL You might as well just dig down six feet of muddy earth and sleep in your own grave than stay another night in that house. She turns back towards her place, still holding the sobbing Cinnabar. Bill and Patrick stand stunned in the doorway. BILL You sure got a way with women, bro. What happened up there? PATRICK Damned if I know. EXT. BLACKSTONE - DAY Up on a ladder, the boys put on the finishing touches and then HANG a new NEON SIGN over the door. Looks pretty cool. TIA Yes! We're in business. INT. JEREMIAH'S CAR - LATE AFTERNOON Heading south on Lake Shore Drive, a tensely smiling Patrick in the front seat with Jeremiah. JEREMIAH Where are we going? You know I hate surprises. PATRICK A little business move I made. On my own. I think you're gonna approve. EXT. CAR - CONTINUOUS Heading off the main road into the ghetto. But as they head further and further south, Jeremiah's getting uneasy. JEREMIAH What are we doing down here? PATRICK Like you always said, Pop, look for the undervalued. Now they are on the old street. As they drive down the street, Jeremiah's getting more and more agitated. EXT. BLACKSTONE - CONTINUOUS They park and get out. He looks up and down the street, oddly frightened. PATRICK I bet you didn't even know your bank owned the place. I did it through a broker so you wouldn't know it was me. I couldn't wait to see your face when I fixed it up. It's the building. Freshly painted, with the neon sign. But Jeremiah's face shows nothing like what Patrick expected. Nothing but a horrified, angry disgust. JEREMIAH Is this some kind of sick joke? Jeremiah's so angry he almost smacks Patrick. JEREMIAH (CONT'D) Listen to me, boy. I didn't work all my life to get out of this neighborhood for you to move right back in! PATRICK I thought you'd be psyched. Just trying to do what you did. Take nothing and make something out of it. JEREMIAH No one'll ever come here. Shut it down. Don't worry, the bank'll buy it back. I'll take care of it. PATRICK You'll take care of it? Not this time. No way. I bought it fair and square. And we open tonight. JEREMIAH Bullshit! Bullshit!! You're selling it back! That's an order! Jeremiah is furious out of all proportions. Some of the others on the block have stuck their noses out to see what the fuss is. Then Jeremiah comes eye to eye with Pearl, standing across the street, watching, worried out of her mind. Then he looks up and sees Shotgun in the window. Feeling trapped, humiliated. He wants out of this street. Out of those glances. JEREMIAH (CONT'D) You all are coming back to the house, now! Nobody moves. Jeremiah walks back to his car and pulls away. Patrick, frozen, turned to stone by rage and hurt and shame. Another car pulls up. Several young people inside. They look around a little dubiously. CLUBBER Man, I think we're lost. You guys know where Illibent is? They all look at each other. Silent. Until Maurice answers by flipping a switch igniting the neon sign for the first time. Illibent shines in brilliant blue gas letters. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. DOWN THE BLOCK - LATER The deuce and a quarter stops in front of a storefront. A young Nefertiti in platforms and dashiki picks fresh fruit and vegetables from the small grocery. PEARL VAUGHN. BONES Pull over. I'll walk the rest. Pearl's picking ripe fruit. Jimmy steps in, catches her hands, and the melon in them, in his hands. BONES (CONT'D) Naw, all wrong. First, start at the belly button. He strokes his thumb over the end of the cantaloupe, leaning in to her. BONES (CONT'D) Gotta be an in-ey and gotta be smooth. If it's ragged, it was picked too soon. Won't ever be ripe. Second, it's got to have just a little give, here. (his hands on her hips) At the edges. And last, but not very far from least... (now only a breath apart) You gotta get your nose in it and give it a gooooood, looooong sniff. PEARL I don't know whether to chill you and serve with cottage cheese, or rip you open and eat you right here. She chooses the latter, they kiss. EXT. STREET - TIME CUT Jimmy's walking Pearl home; an apartment above the storefront of her mother's fortune telling business. BONES Listen, Baby, I gotta TCB this evening. So come over 'bout eight. We should be finished by then. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - LATER Jimmy arrives home to be greeted on the steps of his building by soul shakes and black hand fives from the corner boys hanging out front. INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS Follow Bones into the lobby with people waiting to see him for favors, etc. Rooms on either side, doors open allowing us to glimpse his crew, taking orders over the phones. An old fashioned metal cage elevator, with an equally old fashioned operator waits to take Mr. Jimmy up to his pad. We ride up with him, the king in his castle. INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS The elevator lets him out in his main room. A '70's love pit. Mirrored ceiling, circular bed. Thick shag carpeting. Jimmy nods at Shotgun, who lowers the needle into classic vinyl groove of some prime Funkadelic ("Nappy Dug-out"). Jimmy splashes cologne on his face and looks contentedly out the window at all his people, at his kingdom below... EXT. BONES' BUILDING - LATER - DAY The cop we saw with Jeremiah, LUPOVICH, and the wannabe player EDDIE MACK (wearing an old Superfly suit, and sleek black driving gloves) pull up in front of the old stone building. INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS Shotgun mixes drinks at the bar and hands them to the just arrived guests, Jeremiah, Officer Lupovich - looking stiff in plain clothes - and Eddie Mack in his purple suit. JEREMIAH Hey Jimmy, you know Eddie Mack, don't you? BONES We met. MACK Yeah, we used to do the after-school b ball at Kenwood. What it is? BONES What it will be. JEREMIAH And Officer Lupovich. Bones says nothing. Just nods at the cop. MACK You got a nice crib here. BONES I do alright. Everybody's happy. MACK But things change. You gotta think ahead. LUPOVICH They got lotteries all over now, Bonesy. Coming here too, maybe next year. Bones' look sez: Bitch, don't call me that again. JEREMIAH Half our old customers are gonna be getting their people to cross state lines to pick up lotto tickets. MACK Besides, there's more money to be made in the gin than the juice. What do anybody want with numbers anyway? BONES What else? Money. MACK It ain't the money - it's the high. The big fat floating 'what if?' And it's way more profitable. Nobody ever wins. So you never have to pay out. BONES But a two dollar bet is cheaper than a twenty-dollar bag. MACK Yeah, but I ain't talking horse. I'm talking about a five-dollar kick in the head that's a quick ticket to heaven. And the fools keep coming back for more. BONES Those 'fools' are my people. MACK Ain't no big thang. It's just a po' man's free base. Here, check it out. Eddie pulls a little rock of crack out. Jimmy takes it in his hand and sniffs it. Then shrugs and hands it back. BONES I ain't interested. And if you gonna sell it, don't sell it round here. MACK Just try it. BONES I said, no thanks. MACK Go on. It won't kill you. SHOTGUN Back off, Huggybear... MACK It's like this, Jimmy. There's a wave coming. A big ass Krakatoa, East of Java wave. And either you gonna be on top of the wave up there in chocolate heaven, or you gonna be buried 'neath the muddy undertow. BONES That's cool. Totally wide-screen sci-fi. Forward thinking. I respect that. But that ain't my life. I'm here and now. Comfortable as a bed bug on a cold night in a warm nappy dugout. I'm maintaining. That's what it's about for me. And your twelve and a half-minutes is up. Jimmy just walks away from him. Meeting over. Eddie and Lupovich and Jeremiah all look at each other, frustrated. MACK Fine. Let's go, Loopy-Lou. Jimmy ain't into it. Gonna skip the money train and take the bus. His loss. Lupovich turns but then spins back around with a .45 in his hand and it's pointed at Jimmy's forehead. Jeremiah didn't expect this - or did he? JEREMIAH Everybody just be cool. Jimmy, man, I think you oughtta hear the deal. BONES I don't need to hear the deal. I don't need any partners. I don't need new product. And I sure as hell don't need this motherfucker's 'mattie in my face. MACK Just try it, Jimmy. That's all... He hands him the rock. And a little pipe. LUPOVICH You heard the man. Try it. Bones keeps his eye on him as he lights the lighter and takes a deep puff. Then lets out a deep cloud of smoke. His eyes go a bit glazed. And from his POV we see the room start to tilt on its axis as everything goes wobbly. Just then, the door opens and Pearl steps in, distracting Lupovich for an instant. In one eternal crack fueled fast-and-slo-mo second: Jimmy sees his chance, he pulls his razor, but too slow -- Lupovich turns, the razor no more than lightly slices his arm, and he pulls the trigger on Jimmy Bones... Pumping three shots into Jimmy's abdomen, knocking him to the ground. Shotgun grabs his gun, but too late. He's covered. MACK Ain't worth it, Blood. Just drop it. And kick it here. Pearl in screaming shock. Her lover bleeding on the carpet. LUPOVICH Tell her to stop screaming. Bones is bleeding, and still tripping bad. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) I said stop that bitch screaming or I'll spread her like butter. Shotgun gently puts his hand on Pearl's mouth to quiet her. BACK IN BONES' FUCKED-UP POV: Looking down he sees his own blood pouring out, a thick divine river of many colors. Looking up, they all stand wavering above him, hungry demons, their voices distorting. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) Get his razor. I ain't gonna be the only one with this nigger's blood on my hands. Mack plucks Bone's silver razor right out of his hands. LUPOVICH (CONT'D) Take the gloves off. Everybody leaves a print. We hang out together. Or we hang separately. Cut him. And cut him good. Eddie pulls his glove off and enjoys himself as he shoves the razor into Jimmy. MACK What it is? What it will be, muthafucka. LUPOVICH Now you. JEREMIAH No way man... LUPOVICH You cut him, or I shoot you. Make your choice. Jeremiah gets down near Bones. Bones stares right into his eyes, as his life blood pours freely, weakly lifts his arm to his best friend's face. BONES Jay bird...help me...like brothers. Jeremiah feels Lupovich's gun behind his head. Hears it cocked. JEREMIAH Sorry, my brother. BONES Since we was just grasshoppers... JEREMIAH You always told me, it's a dog eat dog world. And he thrusts Bones' razor right between the ribs. Bones' eyes tighten, but never lose their lock on Jeremiah's eyes. His mouth moves as if he's trying to speak. Instead, he spits a bog of blood right into Jeremiah's face. A shaken Jeremiah hands the bloody razor to Shotgun. JEREMIAH (CONT'D) Just do it. He won't even feel it. Bones' eyes bore into Shotgun's. Shotgun hesitates. Eyeing his gun on the floor, feeling the one on the back of his neck -- calculating his chances. Then Shotgun slices him. Bones flinches, he definitely still feels it. Shotgun hands the razor back to Eddie. LUPOVICH Now you, girlie. PEARL I won't. LUPOVICH Same deal all around. Or die with him. She takes the razor and slowly kneels beside her dying lover. Her hands trembling. There's no way she can do it. Lupovich brings the gun to the back of her head. PEARL I can't. I won't. Go ahead. Shoot me. I'll be better off. Bones reaches one hand round the back of her neck, weakly storking her there... And with his other hand, Bones takes her wrists and pulls her hand towards him, burying his razor in his heart. His eyes roll back and his hand falls away and he's gone. She drops her hand from the razor which remains sticking out of his chest, a river of blood pouring from around it. BONES POV As his spirit rises and rises, up to the ceiling, looking down on them as they stand watching his body bleed to death. Pearl just stands there completely covered in his blood. Then in a frantic daze tears her dress off. Jeremiah gently takes her bloody dress. From above, Bones can hear them speaking below, but it's as if they were speaking far away. JEREMIAH Too risky to take him outside. Take him down to the storm cellar and bury him. And get rid of this too. (tosses Pearl's bloody dress) Let this whole damn building be his tomb. Shotgun and Lupovich drag Bones' body out of the room, leaving behind a deep wet blood stain in the shag carpet. BONES POV As he stares down in horror at all this. Above him, it seems he can see right through the ceiling to the night sky, and a swirling light opening above his head. NOW HIS POV Is floating upward towards the light, but then he looks BACK DOWN Staring down at the sight of his body in a deep puddle of blood, and his murderers removing his woman's dress covered with is blood. As he sees this, his (and ours) POV changes, becomes darker, yet clearer; too sharp, razor sharp as some softness, perhaps life itself, drains out of it. Bones sees his best friend Jeremiah and Lupovich together dragging his body out the door, leaving a thick wet stain behind him. We can hear Jimmy's last wail of rage twist and distorts in the air, becoming another deeper voice within the voice... And then he (and we) plunge back down to the ground, right to the dark, wet stain in the carpet... Hit it and go down through an instant's glimpse into the black sea beneath the foundation of the world: Necropolis. Where space itself seems to be made of pale bloated, gnawing, writhing things. Bodies perpetually devouring themselves and each other. We see through this dog-eat-dog nightmare, back out through the blood stain as through a key hole slowly closing. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. EXT. CLUB - LATER A line out front. PATRICK Be cool. Everybody's gonna get in. Patrick alternates between tending the crowd and throwing anxious glances down the block towards Cinnabar's home. Torn between exhilaration at seeing his dream come true and disappointment that Cinnabar's not there to share it. People chomping to get in. Across the street Shotgun watches with dismay. Patrick hears voices down the street. Looks up to see Cinnabar walking towards the club. His smile freezes when he sees Pearl right behind her. Trying to stop Cinn. PEARL ...I've seen things. In there. Last night. You did too. Don't tell me you didn't. You were crying like a baby. CINNABAR You said the vision, the images. They're just that. Just pictures. They can't hurt you. That's what you always said. PEARL I lied. CINNABAR All the more reason I should be here. PEARL Please. It's for your own good. CINNABAR You said bad things hurt places. So maybe good things heal them. Good things are happening here. Maybe for the first time ever. And maybe that's all it takes. Pearl sees she can't stop Cinn. Any more than her mother could have stopped Pearl when she was her age. PEARL I hope so, child. I really hope so. She can only watch as Cinnabar gives Patrick a big hug and follows him and the rest of the crowd into the club. INT. THE BUILDING/CLUB - CONTINUOUS The place is unfinished. But all the cooler for it. The bar is crude. Cheap beer and jug wine. But the crowd don't mind. The place is alive. The boys are on fire. A packed floor of dancers move as sound and image break beat, and Maurice's voice erupts in deep dub reverb. MAURICE The gangsta of love is in the house. Hits the reverb and it echoes. ECHO (O.S.) In the house...house...house... ON SCREENS Throughout the house, the video interviews the guys did and mixed like audio samples with old blaxploitation clips and other video oddities the boys came up with. MAURICE Ill Bill is in the house...house...house ... house. And over Maurice's Gothic drum and bass, Bill starts turntabling some seriously dark funk. INTERCUT WITH THE BLACK DOG coming ominously down the third floor stairs. MAURICE (CONT'D) Jimmy Bones is in the house...house... house... This is the story of Jimmy Bones. Black as night and hard as stones. The dog now on the second floor stairs. BILL ...Bones ol' Bones so mean and bad, whupped his mamma, shot his dad. MAURICE Saw Bones ol' Bones on top of the hill. Rolling fat jays outta hundred dollar bills. TIA ...Lord he never worked a day and he never will... Bill builds, lets the record spin, then pops the kill button. The tune fades in a distorted way as he start/stops/start/ stops it, forcing the sound backwards and forwards... ...as Maurice twiddles dials and distorts it all further -- it's spooky, but way funky. NEW ANGLE - THE BLACK DOG Is now in the house too. Walking through the throbbing crowd, making a path right through them, most of the dancers paying it no mind, it's just another part of the trippy scene. Or do they even see it? We can't tell. CLOSER ANGLE - ON THE DOG And it's single-minded concentration. Staring straight ahead as it moves through the crowd towards Maurice, who for a second, notices the dog coming but making nothing of it. REVERSE - THE DOG'S POV What it's staring at. Bones' old ring on Maurice's finger. NEW ANGLE - MAURICE'S POV When he looks back, he sees not a dog, but a beautiful black woman, a Dark Lady, who only has eyes for him. Dancing seductively, drawing a crowd as she moves, she stares straight ahead at Maurice. Maurice's joint droops from the corner of his mouth as he realizes "YES!", this world-class beauty is most definitely flirting with him. The Dark Lady's still throwing him deep looks as she dances off the floor and then disappears up the stairs, making Maurice lean into Bill. MAURICE Can you take a little extended solo right about now, funk soul brotha? BILL Go for it. Maurice heads upstairs, sure that his short DJ career is already paying off big time. INT. UPSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS Maurice slips into the darkness of the room and closes the door behind him. MAURICE Hey, baby. Time for a little meat beat manifesto. In the darkness he can't see where she is. Just hear a deep breathing, almost panting. MAURICE (CONT'D) Ahhh, tantric breathing. I'm in love. He can't see her. Or anything in the dark room. Finally his eyes adapt to the dark and he sees a dark shape by the bed. MAURICE (CONT'D) That's it, honey. Don't need to speak. Jesuis le Gangsta de l'amour. El Gaucho della Cosmos. We will speak zee international language of love... He pulls out a lighter to light his joint (and see where she is) but when he does it's not her beautiful dark features he sees, but: For the blink of an eye, it's totally blank face, except for a HUGE MOUTH with liver lips, pink gums and wolfen teeth. When it exhales, out comes a noxious cloud of tiny insects. And then in the blink it's the raging black dog leaping open jawed at his face. Maurice screams and drops his light in fright. He starts crawling towards the door and the overhead light switch. While trying to fend himself from the wailing teeth and claws of the canine creature... INT. THE CLUB - CONTINUOUS Maurice's screams are inaudible. Just another faint part of the complicated mix. Maurice's voice, a sample loop, is part of the boys' mix. MAURICE (O.S.) (voice in music mix) "Jimmy Bones is in the house...house... house." INT. UPSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS Furious flashes and glimpses of savage teeth and claws ripping Maurice. INT. THE CLUB - CONTINUOUS Bill's extended turntablism rocks the house. Tia replaces Patrick behind the bar while Cinnabar drags him on to the dance floor. INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS Bones-vision moves/floats all the way down to the basement. He squats over his own corpse. Before our eyes (INTERCUT with flashes of the demon-dog feasting on Maurice upstairs), more and more flesh grows on the bones of Bones. INT. DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS Bill signals Patrick, calling him over. BILL Where's the gangsta of love? PATRICK Probably stoned out of his gourd in some corner. BILL Well, go find his lazy ass. I scratch any more tonight I'm gonna have carpal tunnel syndrome. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. INT. UPSTAIRS - CONTINUOUS Patrick walks upstairs - we fear he will be next. PATRICK Yo. Maurice. Where are you? He tries a door. Nothing. Then he hears noises from the third floor. INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS Patrick opens the remaining bedroom door on a nightmare tableaux. Maurice lies in a pool of blood. His body shakes and shudders spasmodically as the dog feasts on his liver. Patrick starts for Maurice but the dog growls to keep him back away from its precious food. Patrick backs up a step. Almost out of his mind with terror. He really loses it when the dog, in SLO-MO, looks up and directly at him. It seems to be wearing Maurice's face and speaks with a twisted version of his (Maurice's) voice: DOG/MAURICE The gangsta of love don't eat no fried chicken... And before Patrick can even freak, the dog has returned to it's normal dog face, and it lunges at Patrick, taking a sizeable bite out of his arm. Patrick leaps back out the door, with only a fast glance back at the thing in the room -- The dog is not following him. It's standing. Over Maurice's remains. Growling low, it begins to shudder uncontrollably to bulge and ooze. The gore covered dog quivers and swells and bulges and finally explodes into a shower of pulsating maggots, flying all over the room and all over Patrick's eyes and in his mouth. INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS The body is now done. It looks whole again. Even strong and young. If still gray and cold until Bones lies down, curls up into the body filling the rejuvenated corpse with the vital life force of his vengeful rage. Bones/The Body opens his eyes, stands up not tottering as before but filled with strength. He looks as good as new, except for the tattered clothes. ON THE DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS The dancers can't hear Patrick screaming or running down the stairs. They're just groovin' along to Ill Bill and the funk. Until the maggots start oozing and pouring through the ceiling onto their hair and faces and clothes, into their drinks at the bar and onto their pizza slices. Then Patrick comes into the room screaming and all hell breaks loose as the sight of him, plus the maggots, sends everyone tearing for the exits. Seeing his brother in terror, Bill slams the tone arm screeching the needle across the record, leaving only the psycho drum and bass playing on the other channels of the mix. INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS Meanwhile, down below, the freshly embodied Bones studies the gas furnace. This time when he bends down to blow out the light -- wooosh, he blows it out. He reaches under the tank and the gas hisses out. Then he eyes his old razor on the floor. With a confident, strong grip, he picks it up and now, finally -- BONES IS BACK IN BUSINESS. INT. DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS Hell-maggots still falling onto people, maggots on the floor making people slip and fall as they jam the exits. Screaming chaos, people trying to break windows to get out faster... Patrick looks across the chaotic room and sees Cinnabar and Tia cringing under a table. Trapped there. Bill in the doorway trying to get people out. INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS At the top of the stairs, leading up out of the sub basement, Bones smashes the bulb of the hanging light. Then flips the light switch -- the spark ignites the gas behind him. It causes a fiery explosion in the lower basement. The fire's light seems the very glow of hellfire behind Bones as he marches up the stairs, razor in his hand. INT. DANCE FLOOR - CONTINUOUS Patrick, trying to stay low, crawls his way to where his sister and Cinnabar are trapped. Fire begins to burn through from the kitchen and up through the floor. The room is filling with smoke. Bill's helping those trampled in the rush to get out. Bill himself bleeds badly from his neck. Patrick runs with Cinnabar and Tia toward the door. And as the smoke fills the room, through the haze we see: Bones step into the room. His arm raised with the razor. And he flings it out, like a boomerang, the razor flies around the room. It swoops down through the smoke at the remaining kids, hacking at them through the smoke, like some savage bird, though it doesn't seem intent on slaughtering them, but rather herding them out. Bill and Patrick pull Cinnabar and Tia out the door -- they're the last in the room. Suddenly the razor stops, freezes in mid-air and zips back into Bones' waiting fist - just like a boomerang. Razor held high, Bones advances on them, steadily, cool as ice amidst the now fully burning house. EXT. STREET - CONTINUOUS Shotgun, Pearl and a few others have run out into the street to watch the fire. In the distance, sirens already wail. Pearl holds her breath until she sees Cinnabar safe. Looking for an instant, they all see Bones as the room is engulfed in flames. See him raise his fists in a rage. Or is it in triumph? Before his figure is obscured by falling debris. Sirens wail as fire trucks pull up and the men start unrolling a hose. But freeze at the cocking of the shotgun. SHOTGUN Unh-unh. Let it burn. The rising flames illuminate the faces of spectators. Especially shotgun and Pearl, who for the first time in 20 years, look each other straight in the eyes. SHOTGUN (CONT'D) We shoulda done this a long time ago. PEARL I don't know. Her flame-reflecting eyes telling us her fear: this may be a huge mistake. INT. BONES' HOUSE - CONTINUOUS In the burning room, we see Bones, oblivious to the flames, climbing the stairs. INTO HIS HOLD ROOM WHERE He comes to what's left of Maurice. Finds his hand bloodied and barely attached to the wrist, and on it -- Bones' ring. BONES You won't be needing this. Bones slips it onto his stump of a finger. INT. POLICE STATION - CONTINUOUS Patrick and the others sit ashen-faced under questioning by cops and arson investigators. INVESTIGATOR Flying razor, big black man, spontaneous explosion. I got just one question: what the hell narcotic were you all on? PATRICK We never did that. Only...Maurice was into it. COP That's the one you left behind? BILL Yeah. My man Maurice. The Space Cowboy. The Gangsta of Love. He breaks down. Just then, Jeremiah walks in with a lawyer. JEREMIAH None of you say another word. INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - CONTINUOUS Cinnabar is crying, Pearl holding her. PEARL It's alright, baby. CINNABAR Who was he, Momma? He tried to kill us. PEARL If he was trying to kill you, you'd be dead. CINNABAR Who? Who is he? What is he? PEARL Your father. He was your father. INT. CAR - LATER THAT NIGHT Jeremiah drives his still shocked and silent brood back to safety behind the gates of Rossmore Park. JEREMIAH I don't want any of you ever back down there again. You hear me? And this time you'll listen to me. Or I'll let them throw your asses in jail. I mean it. INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - CONTINUOUS Cinnabar, listening to her mother, is told what happened. PEARL You got his hands. Beautiful hands. I didn't even know. That night. When they - we - killed him, that you were already alive inside me. Life's like that. Grows right out of death. CINNABAR But if it's him. If he's really come back, won't he know us? Love us? PEARL Sure, if it was really him. But it isn't that simple. Jimmy's body died a long time ago. And his soul is long gone, and all that's left is that ravening, hungry spirit in the blood that soaked into the house itself, I suppose. CINNABAR But how do you know? Maybe he just wanted to see us? And now he's gone again. And you've all killed my father for the second time. Cinnabar runs crying out of the room. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. EXT. BACK ON THE STREET - PRE-DAWN The building is finished, just a blackened shell. Remnants of the staircase lead up to fragments of the upper floors. Smoke still billowing from the empty center of the ruin. Silhouetted in the smoke and the low light of the rising sun: a tall, dark figure, not of then, nor quite of now. It is Bones. Taller, thinner, darker and more menacing then ever. But unmistakably Bones. He steps out of the rubble. And looks across the street, up at Shotgun's lit window. INT. SHOTGUN'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS Shotgun's hand shakes as he pours another shot. Then downs it. He turns to the window and freezes at what he sees. Bones face is just outside the window. The second story window. Smiling in at him. Shotgun is petrified. But then he picks up his gun and shoots at the face in the window. BONES (O.S.) Free at last, free at last. Shotgun whirls and there stands Bones behind him now. SHOTGUN It wasn't my fault. I didn't know what they'd planned. BONES Shush. It don't matter now. SHOTGUN No. Really, Jimmy. Remember, man. It's me. I was on your side. Don't you remember? He just walks towards the terrified Shotgun, closer and closer, leaning right over his shotgun, his face coming just inches from Shotgun's face. BONES Take a look at what I remember, brother... His big brown eyes fill Shotgun's vision, and in what now seem to be the gigantic pupils in Bones' eyes, Shotgun sees the old apartment, and there it all is again and again. Shotgun sees himself hesitating, almost risking it all and instead giving in, stabbing Bones -- he can't look away. Then Bones closes his eyes. Shotgun sobbing now. SHOTGUN I had no choice, Jimmy. What else could I do? BONES You coulda died with me. Died trying. Shotgun is cradling his weapon, hands shaking. He points it at Bones and pulls the trigger. Bones doesn't even flinch as the pellets rip through him. BONES (CONT'D) Feel better? Bones' impossibly long fingers hold his long rusty razor. He waves the razor in front of Shotgun, the rusty blade swinging free back and forth, hypnotically, with a rasping sound. BONES (CONT'D) You gonna be free and clear, Shotgun. All debts paid... And then in one swift motion, on the back stroke, Bones' hand and razor slash across Shotgun's throat. Shotgun doesn't even have time to scream, we just hear his breath and blood escaping from the new opening across his neck. Bones bends down and cradling his old friend, whispers gently into his ear. Singing, perhaps. We can't quite hear. BONES (CONT'D) See you on the other side, brother. Bones gets up and moves around the room, standing before the window and looking down at the neighborhood he used to own. For a second he sees the old neighborhood, everybody hanging out. Then he blinks back to reality. He looks down the block and sees Pearl's reader and advisor sign. INT. JEREMIAH'S HOUSE - DAY Bill in a kind of shock can only lie in his bedroom, staring at the ceiling. Tia's out in the living room, sitting on the couch weeping in her mother's arms. Patrick's in the bathroom tending the bloody scratches on his back and arms. He's frightened. And angry. He storms out of the bathroom, down the hall to his father's office. INT. JEREMIAH'S STUDY - CONTINUOUS As Patrick slams the door behind him, Jeremiah hides a stack of papers and photos beneath a pile on his desk. PATRICK Did you do it? JEREMIAH Sure, son. I went down there and torched the place myself. PATRICK You could have had it done. You didn't want us there. JEREMIAH I wouldn't have risked killing you to get you out. I was trying to protect you. PATRICK From what? Jeremiah can't answer. But Patrick's not leaving it alone. PATRICK (CONT'D) Why? Why did you give a shit about the building? Why did you care that we were there of all places? JEREMIAH It's...it's a bad neighborhood. As you can see now. PATRICK Bullshit, Dad. Don't front me. For once. Just tell me the truth. I came from there, too. JEREMIAH You were just a kid. PATRICK I saw your face. You knew that place. You knew those people. JEREMIAH That's the past. It's dead. PATRICK Dead? I don't think your past is dead. (points to the bandages) It's alive. And it bites. EXT. BLACKSTONE STREET - NIGHT That night we see a walking shadow. The long tall black clad Bones. Heading down his old block. Alone. As he moves, his face changes, at times demonic and intent. But periodically that shifts as if a mask slipping off to reveal a similar but different face below. More human, lost, pained, confused, and we see why: FROM BONES' FUCKED UP UNDEAD POV: The dark and desolate street he walks down keeps flashing for brief instants into the street of twenty years ago. One moment, people nodding to him, waving, blowing kisses. And then suddenly, it's the empty burnt block it is now. Bones' face shifts, cracking, one second the hungry ghost. The next, he's the old Bones who once ruled this 'hood. He sees, down the block, the old palmistry sign. It's Pearl's place. For a second, the face of the real Jimmy Bones triumphs and he smiles. Then hears voices behind him. Stank and Weaze. They see a tall, thin figure in some very fine looking, long duster. STANK Looking to score? BONES Unh-unh, little brother. I got a natural high. A supernatural high. STANK Hey, Eddie Mack don't like no wackos on his street. Go be Rain Man on some other bitch's block. BONES (sorta singing) Big Bad Eddie Mack? Got shit for brains and that's a fack. Hey-heh... WEAZE Yeah. But he got a baaaad coat. Whataya say, bro? I check out your coat? BONES Sure. Here it is. Suddenly, out from the depths of his shadow, flies the edge of Bones' razor and the blade slashes Stank in the face. Cutting a sideways, smart aleck smile in his cheek. Weaze pulls a gun and shoots Bones. Bones jolts a little as the bullet imbeds itself in his stomach. But he takes it like a punch and looks up. BONES (CONT'D) Cut that shit out. He grabs one of the boys in each long hand and hoists them up to his height and pins them against the wall. BONES (CONT'D) You tell my old friend Mackie, I'll be seeing him. Soon. Real soon. STANK Wh-wh-whooo? BONES Bones. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. INT. PEARL'S PARLOR - NIGHT Pearl sits alone, drinking. Maybe crying a little. Her hands shuffle large tarot cards. She lays her own spread. First card face down. Second card face up. THE LOVERS. And across it the third is laid: the crumbling Tower. Then she slips the first card, the down-turned card out and flips it face up. Death. Suddenly a long black shadow falls over the table. PEARL (without looking up) Welcome back, lover. She finally looks up at him. PEARL (CONT'D) Not so bad. You're not quite him. But you're not the shaggy demon I expected, neither. His face quivers and we see from his POV: Pearl - then and now. Again, then and now. PEARL (CONT'D) You look confused. The dead often are. 'Course, so are the living. Take me. I been confused a long time. Least twenty years. Maybe if I hadn'ta walked in at that moment. Or maybe if I hadn'ta let you go at all. I figure one way or the other, I killed you. So it's only fair: kill me, lover. I don't mind. I'll even help you. The way you helped me. She grabs his hand, tries to stab herself with his razor. But he resists. Pulls his arm free. PEARL (CONT'D) No? That mean there's something more left of you than just that hungry spirit? What are you going to do now? Kill us? Kill us all? BONES No. Not...not you. You I forgive. She hurls herself at him. Slapping him. Slamming her fists against his shadowy chest. PEARL Forgive me? The hell with you, Jimmy. Cause I don't forgive you, I don't forgive you for dying. And for being so goddamn stubborn. Or for haunting my dreams. And I don't forgive you for anything you're about to do. He looks down at her. His face wavering between the true face of Jimmy Bones and the angry Bones ready to kill her. Then he wraps his arms around her and they kiss. She faints, the cards in her fist fluttering to the floor. He lays her gently down. When suddenly Cinnabar throws the door open. She and Bones make eye contact. She sets eyes for the first time on the father she's never known. And in the blink of her eye, he's gone. She runs to where her mom lies on the floor. EXT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - NIGHT Stank and Weaze with Eddie Mack, who's getting a manicure from a coke whore. MACK You boys been hitting the pipe? WEAZE No, Eddie. It's just that, I dunno. He was tall, and thin, and like a shadow, his face was just a blur. All I remember is the voice. It was smooth and low and it didn't seem to be comin' out of his mouth. MACK Then how'd you hear it, fool? WEAZE It was just like in my head. MACK Maybe I oughta open a couple holes in that head and let all them voices out. You'll feel better, I promise. STANK No, Eddie, man. Wait. But he's not about to shoot him. He leans over and snorts a line of white powder off the mirrored tray. MACK I told you not to lie to me. Now what the hell happened? COKE WHORE (needs a hit) What about me, baby? MACK Shutup, bitch. Now what, he just said to tell you what? He was back? Who was back? STANK Bones. At the very sound of the name, Mack freezes. Then with sudden coke-fueled ferocity, he whips around and starts smacking the shit out of Stank, breaking his nose. The coke whore cheering Eddie on. Wanting to see more action. MACK Bones? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Get the fuck out of here. Both of you, 'fore you hear my voice up in yo' head. INT. PEARL'S STOREFRONT - NIGHT Cinnabar pours some bourbon into a coke for her mother. But Pearl just grabs the bottle and takes a straight hit. PEARL He'll kill them. He'll kill every last one of them. CINNABAR Who? PEARL Eddie Mack, that cop. And Jeremiah. And even when he's done, who knows. He won't be satisfied. Just like that demon dog. Feed it, and it just grows hungrier. Feed his hunger for revenge - he just wants more. Who knows where it'll stop. That kind of hunger ain't never satisfied. CINNABAR Aren't you gonna do something about it? PEARL Like what? I got a little power, sure. A touch of the shining, a little of the sight. But no more than you do. We're not witches. I can't wiggle my nose or say a magic word and make him go away. Besides, maybe they deserve it. Maybe we all do. CINNABAR I don't. Patrick doesn't. And his brother and sister don't. And they're in the house with him. PEARL (long beat) Fine. Maybe I got nothing to lose. 'Cept you. INT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - NIGHT The lights are low and only the glow of the jukebox and the sounds of Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes as Mack and his manicurist get down on the pooltable, beside an ornate mirror laden with two gold '45s and an ounce of cocaine. Which they are both doing to excess. Mack's wearing nothing but a black hat and black satin briefs (not a pretty sight). Working now on her blouse. MACK Bones, my ass. (sings while unbuttoning the manicurist's blouse) "...if you don't believe he's laid to rest/You count the holes in his motherfucking chest..." She laughs and gets up. COKE WHORE That tickles. I want to hear that again. He watches her sashay to the other room where the juke box is. Then bends over the mirror to do a new line. From the other room, the song changes. A deep menacing rolling funk number. MACK That's it, baby. Gimme the rolling bass and I'll tickle your tweeter all night long... INT. CLUBROOM - CONTINUOUS "Baby's" standing wide-eyed next to the jukebox, staring at Bones, his razor pressed against her quivering lips. INT. BLACK CAT POOL CLUB - CONTINUOUS Mack's wondering where she is. MACK C'mon, baby! He walks doing a little funky Rufus Thomas shuffle to the music. He steps into the club room. It's dark, lit only by the jukebox. But it's empty. MACK (CONT'D) Bitch. Nobody walks out on Eddie Mack. Then he sees something. Her legs on the floor, sticking out behind the jukebox. He walks towards her, slowly... Then sees the deepening pool of blood pouring across the floor right towards him. Whatever happened to her, she's beyond his help now. MACK (CONT'D) Muthafucka! He whips around but can't see anyone. He strides defiantly back into the pool room. MACK (CONT'D) C'mon. I take you all on. Mack picks up the two gold plated revolvers off the mirror with coke on it. Suddenly all the coke moves on its own. The many grams piled there, all merge into one pile. MACK (CONT'D) What the...? He bends down to check it out. And the coke actually flies straight up off the mirror with the force of a punch and shoots like a fire hose straight up his nose. He reels back, choking. Coughing. After having probably an ounce fly straight up his snot-locker. Blood pouring out his nose. Wobbly now. He hears a low echoing laughter through the club, and the sound of the cue ball breaking and sending pool balls spinning 'round the table. MACK (CONT'D) Who's there? Bones stands by the pool table, under the overhanging light. He pulls out his razor and with one savage slice, splinters the pool cue in two. MACK (CONT'D) Bones? Jimmy Bones? That you? You're dead. I killed you and I stuck your dead ass in a hole in the ground wrapped in nothing but your bitch's bloody rags. Now I'll count the holes in your muthafuckin' chest. And I'll add a few more. He fires both guns at Bones, while backing away. Bones don't feel a thing. He just picks up the mirror and holds it up facing Mack. BONES This it? Your big-ass tidal wave. Mack sees his own terrified face staring back from the mirror, belling hanging over his briefs, coke and blood clotted on his face. BONES (CONT'D) Look like the wave's long gone and nothing but oil scum, dead fish, and yo' ugly ass left on the beach. Mack shoots wildly at Bones. At the mirror - blasting it into shards. But Bones stands unscathed. And the shards of broken mirror do not fall to the ground. They remain in the air, forming a living room swarm of razor sharp glass. Mack turns and runs, waaaaay too fucking late, as the swarm of glass shards fly like angry wasps right at him Eddie's thrown forward by the sheer force of them, and is skewered throughout his body by all the glass fragments. Pinned -- face mashed against the wall. BONES (CONT'D) (Mack's voice) "I'm taking a five dollar kick in the head that's a quick ticket to heaven." Mack pinned to the wall. Bleeding from everywhere. Snot blood-coke mess drips out his nose. Bones pulls Mack's head back by his hair and slides his razor into the half inch between his Adam's apple and the wall. As the juke box changes song, we hear a liquid slice and a scream slip into a gurgle. Bones' long hands drip blood as he ties something to his belt. We don't quite see what it is, not until we catch the sight of Eddie Mack's headless remains pinned to the wall. INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT Lupovich is at his desk, finishing off a huge Polish sausage. Talking on the phone. A cop named SAL is nearby, tidying up. LUPOVICH I know it. The old slaughterhouse. (hangs up) Hey, Sal. That little weasel we popped today? He's got something for us. I knew he would once he thought about it. SAL Shit, that was fast. LUPOVICH 12-year olds. They scare easy. Anyway, he's gonna tip their stash. Come with me. SAL I'm on my way home. Can you handle it yourself? LUPOVICH Oh, no. Please don't make me go by myself. I'm scaaaaaaaaaared. SAL Fuckin' comedian. See you tomorrow. EXT. ALLWAY - NIGHT Bones walks the night with a slicing stride. His legs stretching too far and somehow covering long distance in an instant. And in slo-motion, like a nightmare, marionette, a walking shadow, or some great black grasshopper. MACK'S SEVERED HEAD (O.S.) (as if swinging back and forth) Bones! Bones, you muthafuckah! What the hell you done to me? Bones stops for a moment and looks down at his waist and we see Mack's severed head tied to Bones' belt. Severed, yet seemingly alive. BONES Not half what I'm planning on... MACK'S SEVERED HEAD This some sick fucked up shit. What you want with my head? BONES Just using it to carry your soul. MACK'S SEVERED HEAD My soul? Fuck you. Look, I killed you. You killed me. Fine. Now... Bones got no time to argue. He bends and picks up a handful of fetid city garbage. MACK'S SEVERED HEAD (CONT'D) ...we're even. No need to get all meta fucking-phys-i-gack... And shoves it into the still talking mouth of Mack. EXT. SOUTHWEST SIDE - NIGHT Bright, loud summer night. Blues coming from inside a blues bar, the guy playing "Killin' Floor". Lupovich heads toward the Armor building. From a distance, he sees a young runner emerge from a passage on the farside of the building then set off to meet his mark. Lupovich heads for the passage, the music following him. Lupovich looks around to make sure no one is watching. Then slips into a passageway leading to the old slaughterhouse. A scary walk through inky darkness, scattered with broken glass and scurrying rats and lit only by the eerie red light spilling like blood out of the open door into the old slaughterhouse at the end of the way. Lupovich reaches the back, right next to the old loading dock where the still-livestock were unloaded. He enters the door, disappearing into the red darkness. INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS The room, large and open, soaked in the sodium vapor that streams through the tall windows from the streetlights. There are a few blood rusted meat hooks still there, backlit, hanging from the ceiling. Graffiti covers the walls with arcane tags and symbols. The floors are caked with a sticky grime turned black in the orange haze. In the far corner burn three red votive candles. Behind the candles lies a crumpled brown paper bag. The stash. Lupovich starts over to the corner, twitching at the gross sound of his shoes sticking to the layers of old coagulated blood on the killing floor. Behind him, framed for an instant int he doorway - a tall, sharp shadow, a walking razor - Bones! The walk is tense. Somehow the music has followed him here and is echoing and wailing in the walls around him. He gets to the corner, and reaching over the candles, opens the top of the paper bag. Jackpot. Five ziplocks of the rocks. He hears a noise. Lupovich fumbles for his gun and at the same time reaches to snatch the stash bag. His wrist touches the candles flame and it burns. LUPOVICH Shit! Fuck! He hears another noise, a blade scraping on concrete, right behind him. Now the music blends with the echoing squeals of the hogs once butchered on the cutting line. Lupovich hears another noise, a blade scraping on concrete, right behind him. Now the music blends with the echoing squeals of the hogs once butchered on the cutting line. Lupovich turns and there, towering over him, stands Bones. And just as startling, there's Mack's laughing severed head swinging from his belt. Lupovich can only choke on his terror, and while his mouth is open, Bones shoves a glass pipe into it. Brandishing his razor, Bones packs a rock into the bowl and torches it. He holds the razor to Lupovich's throat. BONES (in Mack's voice) "Just try it...go ahead...it won't kill you." Lupovich, trembling, takes a massive hit of the crack deep into his lungs. The music and the sounds of the dying pigs attack him as the coke fills his lungs and then his blood and then his brain, his eyes starting to bug. Bones then knocks the pipe from his lips and seals his hand over Lupovich's mouth and nose. He can't exhale. The sounds get louder, the grafted walls come alive. Bones removes his hand revealing Lupovich's nose is fused shut, and his mouth is simply gone, the skin flat where the mouth used to be. Lupovich's gotta lung full of crack, and no way to exhale. Severed Mack laughs insanely as he sees Lupovich's eyes bulge as his lungs start to strain under the agony. His frenzied suffocation is nothing but pure torture. While he is still kicking with the fear and the drug rush, Bones drags Lupovich to the middle of the room. With one arm, Bones lifts the fat cop up and hooks him to one of the meat hooks above. BONES (CONT'D) (in Lupovich's voice) "I ain't gonna be the only one with this nigger's blood on my hands..." As Lupovich squirms, Bones takes his blade, and shoves it in just below Lupovich's sternum. And a spray of blood paints Bones and Mack's hanging head. Thick crack smoke emerges from the wound and floats, foglike, out of the chest cavity. Bones then yanks the blade southward and slices the cop's belly wide open. We hear Lupovich's guts spill out on the floor. MACK'S SEVERED HEAD Was that really necessary? Can you wipe my fucking face? I can't see a goddamned thing. The dope smoke wafts in the room four feet off the floor. The song immolates itself. Blood drips. And Bones adds another weight to his belt. EXT. ROSSMORE PARK - NIGHT Just round the corner from the entrance to the gated suburb. Cinnabar and Pearl. On foot. PEARL We'll have to sneak in. CINNABAR No we won't, Momma. I'll just have them call and tell Patrick it's us. PEARL Girl, they build gates like that to keep people like us out. Cinnabar walks up to the guard at the gate. He picks up the phone to check. INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS Phone rings. Patrick grabs it. But his father's already on the other end. GUARD (on phone) A young lady to see you. A Miss Vaughn... JEREMIAH No. Sorry. Send her away. EXT. ROSSMORE GATE - CONTINUOUS The rent-a-cop hangs up the phone and shakes his head. GUARD Sorry Miss. CINNABAR Can't I call? And talk to them. GUARD Sure. But not from here. Nearest public phone would be back a few miles. Outside the mall. Cinnabar sees it's useless to argue and walks away. Shocked and hurt. Back to where her mother stands in the shadows outside the gates. PEARL Told you so. Alright. We tried. Let's go home. CINNABAR Mother! No. Hear a voice from the other side of the gate. PATRICK Cinnabar? Walk around the north side. There's an opening there. EXT. MAIN GATE - CONTINUOUS As they sneak around the other side, a dark figure steps right up to the main gates. The rent-a-cop wakes up fast when he sees Bones standing in front of him. After all, how often does he come face to face with everything he is there to keep out? He hitches his belt in best John Wayne style. GUARD Can I help y-- ...but then he notices the two-severed heads swinging from Bones' belt. All three of them smile. MACK'S SEVERED HEAD Can Jeremiah come out and play? EXT. NORTH WOODED SIDE - CONTINUOUS The other outer edge of the sub-development. Patrick leads them in through some bushes and behind some of the pipe and power systems of the subdivision. CINNABAR Why couldn't you just tell him to let us in? PATRICK My old man calls the shots. He built that gate and these damn walls. PEARL (to Cinnabar) You sure we oughta save him? Why not just let see how safe his gates and walls keep him when his past comes calling? PATRICK Save him? What are you talking about? INT. JEREMIAH'S STUDY - CONTINUOUS Jeremiah locks the door to his study. Then he pulls out the stack he hid on his desk. A dusty manila envelope. Inside photos: the old days. His first wife. His first life. Back in the old neighborhood. Him and his best friend Jimmy Bones as children, teenagers and as adults. BONES (O.S.) Hey, brotha! What it is? And Bones stands right behind him. Severed heads hanging from his belt. BONES (CONT'D) What it will be. JEREMIAH How did you get in here? BONES Time like this, is that what you really want to know? How I got the fuck in here? EXT. MAIN GATE - CONTINUOUS A car drives up to the gate. But no guard comes out to check it out. The driver of the car honks. But no response. Just the aimless squawk of the radio in the booth. Can't really see into the tooth. The windows are splattered and obscured by deep red stains. INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS Patrick runs in with Cinnabar and pearl, past a startled Nancy. PATRICK Where's Dad? NANCY His study. Who're your friends? But they run right past. Though Pearl gives a kind of half wave 'hi-hello.' Patrick runs down the hall to his father's study. The door's locked. From the inside, he pounds on it. PATRICK Dad? Open up. Dad?? Bill and Tia stick their heads out to see what all the racket is. PATRICK (CONT'D) C'mon. We got to get in there. Bill and Patrick slam against the door. Finally it gives way and they both tumble through the broken door into the room. INT. JEREMIAH'S STUDY - CONTINUOUS But it's empty. Jeremiah's not there. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - NIGHT A strange, greenish fog up and down the street emanating from the burnt out shell of the building. INT. BONES' BUILDING - CONTINUOUS High in the center, where the master bedroom once was, we see a kind of mirage forming. Another image of the room still there, vaguely, luminescent in the night. INT. PEET HOUSE - CONTINUOUS They're in shock. BILL We can't go back there. Are you crazy? You saw -- PEARL It's the only way. It's possible your father may not be dead yet. They look around at the mess in the room. Over turned chair. Signs of struggle. Spatters of blood. PEARL (CONT'D) Your father was his best friend. He loved Jeremiah. So he must hate him the most of all now. He'll take his time. But even if it is too late. If your father is dead. It's not over. The door has to be closed. BILL Well, close the fucking door by all means. But don't expect me to go down there and do it. PEARL I don't. She gets up to go. Cinnabar stands too. PATRICK You ain't going down there. Not alone. I'll go. BILL Fine. But I'm bringing a couple of friends. He steps out of the room and comes back with a gun and a knife in a sheath on his belt. PEARL They won't do you no good. Bill with a defiant "well, it can't hurt" look. Nancy appears in the doorway as they hurry out, seeing Bill with the gun in his hand. NANCY What are you doing? I've just called the police and 911. PATRICK Then we need to get out of here. We can't try to explain this to them. We'll be back. Hopefully with Dad. Nancy clings to Tia as the rest of them hurry down the hall. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. INT. BONES' BUILDING/NECROPOLIS VERSION - ETERNAL NIGHT It is Bones' old bedroom. The Necropolois version. The floor, the walls, the furniture, everything in it -- formed out of the wracked and twisted shapes of dead souls. This is that same version of the room we've glimpsed before. And it remains, even when the real room has burnt away. INT. BONES' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS Bones there in the flesh, with Jeremiah on his knees. Bones untying the heads from his belt. BONES You two bitches were just meat, never had any idea smarter than getting yourself a little more. But my brother Jaybird, here. He was smart. He didn't just want more. He wanted more with compound interest. Bones shoves the screaming severed heads through the undead wall of the Necropolis. SEVERED HEADS POV For only a flashcut moment, we see the heads see coming at them - reaching for them. Laughing at them. The undead. BONES (CONT'D) Time for him to collect his interest. Jeremiah's gonna have the unique experience of seeing his reward, tasting it while he's still alive. Bones wraps his long arm around Jeremiah's neck in a brotherly choke hold. Jeremiah terrified. EXT. LAKE SHORE DRIVE - NIGHT Pearl, Cinnabar, Bill and Patrick speed south by car. PEARL ... see there ain't just two parts to a person. There's three. Body-Soul and Spirit. The spirit lives in the blood. It's the wanting that holds body and soul together, and sometimes, the wanting lives on. Jimmy's blood must still be in the house. PATRICK But the place burned to the ground. PEARL The blood is still there. We just gotta figure out where. CINNABAR In his grave there was a cloth or a dress or something. Covered with blood. PEARL My God. My dress. We have to find it. And burn it. And shut the door. Bill and Patrick look at Pearl like she might be crazy. Then they see Cinnabar next to her, glaring back at them. INT. BONES' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS Bones has Jeremiah on his feet now, leading him towards the wall of the undead. Suddenly, hands shoot out of the wall, only inches away from Jeremiah's face! He twists and turns to stay away from them, but the long nails on one of the hands claw at his cheek. While hungry mouths open from the palms of hands. BONES (keeping Jeremiah out from hands' reach) I don't understand it. You were my Man. Since we was grasshoppas. I always looked after you. You had a piece of everything I had. JEREMIAH I didn't want a piece of yours, I wanted my own. BONES And the hell everybody else, right? Bones pushing Jeremiah's face towards the grasping hands. JEREMIAH Wait, Jimmy. Think about it. You woulda done the same thing if you was me. BONES No brother. I wouldn'ta. I never done a man - any man. Let alone a brother like that. Course, as you can see, no good deed goes unfucked. Now the question is, if the good get fucked, what we got saved up for the bad? You about to find out. Bones rams Jeremiah's head (his eyes closed in fear) through the Necropolis wall. INT. NECROPOLIS WALL - CONTINUOUS Jeremiah's head inside now. Eyes still closed, head bobbing in the jelly-like base that holds what he sees when he dares to open his eyes. Hideous malformed faces, genetic anomalies, the kinds of faces that wound up in side-shows in less enlightened times. All laughing and leering and glaring at Jeremiah. FULL C.U. - LUPOVICH'S FACE AND HEAD The skin peeling away like congealed jelly. Lupovich tries to talk to Jeremiah or to scream but nothing comes out. Except for a hideous wobbling bubble. For a subliminal moment, Jeremiah sees a figure trapped inside the bubble. His own figure, silently screaming to get out. NEW ANGLE Suddenly, Jeremiah is screaming for real as Bones has just yanked his head back out of the wall. BONES It's a trip, ain't it? Bones sounding almost sympathetic to Jeremiah. Almost. This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. EXT. BONES NEIGHBORHOOD - NIGHT Suddenly, as they round a corner onto Blackstone, they see tendrils of an eerie greenish fog. It seems to be emanating from the still smoking remains of Bones' house. Or perhaps it is just the smoke, tinged only by the gaseous street lights. PEARL We've got to hurry. We've got to shut the door. They're getting out. Then there's a shape and a thump! The real terror of thinking your car just hit a human being. Then a face appears in the car window. Just a homeless guy shaking an angry fist at them. Quickly, he's gone in the fog. Straining to see, Patrick stops, grabbing a flashlight from his glove box. They all get out. Making their way through the fog, glimpsing in darkened doorways, eerie shapes, perhaps more of the dead out of Necropolis. EXT. BEHIND THE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS They arrive at the back side of the ruined building. PATRICK There was a storm door, to the cellar. They search frantically in the dark amongst the tall weeds abandoned junk and burnt rubble. INT. BONES' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS Jeremiah still with Bones, looking for a way out. JEREMIAH What will it take? What do you want? Just tell me, Jimmy! BONES Aw that's easy. I want my life back. Can you swing that, my brother? JEREMIAH You know I can't. BONES Then fuck it!!! In a righteous fury, Bones headlocks Jeremiah again and rams his head through the Necropolis wall. OVER JEREMIAH'S SHOULDER - HIS POV As he's back inside face to face with living dead mutations, with Lupovich's head coming at him, it's mouth suddenly opening to ten times its normal size, swallowing Jeremiah whole. BACK WITH BONES Watching with some pity as the rest of Jeremiah, his legs and feet are pulled into the wall and gone. Accompanied by the disappearing screams of the last of Jeremiah. BONES (CONT'D) (sadly) Dog eat dog, brother. Dog eat dog. EXT. BEHIND THE BUILDING - CONTINUOUS They search for the cellar door. The night air is shattered by a scream, at once very close and infinitely far. Finally: BILL Here! He's found a chipped gray storm door. Patrick easily kicks in the rotten wood revealing a dark tunnel of stairs leading down beneath the ruins of the building into the sub-basement. PATRICK It's not safe down there. The fire started down there. The whole thing could collapse. PEARL Then your father's a dead man and Jimmy Bones is gonna be around a long time. Patrick steps down into the darkness of the cellar, his flashlight on. INT. STORM CELLAR - CONTINUOUS The group stoops low as they descend the stairs. Beneath wood supports, the dirt is reclaiming it, already a constant trickle of dirty falling from between the boards. In the dim, Patrick leads them, walking through a mass of spider infested webs and, just ahead, is the sub-basement where they originally found the body. INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS Throwing debris aside, they come next through a small door at the bottom of the stairs and enter the sub-basement. Nearby is the elevator shaft, a gaping hole in the ruins - but recognizable as such. The ceiling above them is nearly collapsed, and over most of the room, the accumulated debris and ruin from above has simply fallen through. And what remains of the ceiling is still shifting, groaning, coming apart. Patrick shines his flashlight down to the ground, until: PATRICK Here. He's found the hole that was Bones' hastily dug grave, but there's nothing in it now but swarming white maggots. PEARL Is it there? She gets down on her hands and knees as Patrick shines the light, but after a few frantic moments of digging, it's clear: PEARL (CONT'D) It's gone. He got it. Just then the sound of tremendous strain and creaking of wood. And the ceiling starts to give way. They all scramble for shelter, and then it gives way completely -- completely blocking their way out. They're trapped. BILL NO!!!!!! They all look in every direction for some glimpse of hope - of a way out. There is none. Then they hear behind them: a resonant "DING!" TURNING - THEIR POV Where moments before there was a gaping, ruined elevator shaft, there is now a fully functioning elevator just as it was in 1979, the doors opening to them in eerie slo-mo. Pearl starts towards the open car. The others trying to hold her back. PEARL It's alright. Let me. She walks closer, peering into the dark recesses of the elevator. Maybe again a flash of visible movement inside. Closer ever closer, until Pearl, almost entranced, steps in. And once inside, there's no one, or no thing, there. Pearl is about to tell them "It's okay..." when suddenly the doors of the elevator slide-slam shut. CINNABAR Mama!!!!! Then they hear the elevator chain start to move and the elevator starts to rise. Cinnabar screaming louder. INT. THE ELEVATOR - CONTINUOUS Pearl stands there, summoning all her courage for what she knows she's going to have to face. Watching the elevator arrow as it climbs to the number three. INT. SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS Patrick and Bill beat on the door and try to pry it open. Then they try jamming jagged boards into the opening, but still to no avail. PEARL'S POV As a moment later, the car stops and the doors open onto: INT. BONES' PAD - CONTINUOUS Down to the last detail, exactly as it was 22 years ago, the night Bones died. Music playing (the Delfonics "Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time...") The only new detail are the dozens of candles romantically burning everywhere. BONES (O.S.) Hey, baby. Pearl feels a soft touch on the back of her neck and spins, finds Jimmy right behind, almost nuzzling her. His face hidden, though, in darkness. Holding something in his hand, behind his back. PEARL (still with her back to him) Jimmy, you've got -- BONES I've got what I want. Turn around baby, look at me. Look at your man. She turns slowly, and we don't know what to expect. Something horrible or something beautiful. Finally, she's face to face, and it's Jimmy just as he was, 22 years ago. All traces of the demonic are gone. Pearl melts as the Delfonics swell, Jimmy holding her close. BONES (CONT'D) I want you to do something for me, baby. PEARL What? We see what he's holding: the dress. Rotted and blood clotted and ruined. BONES I always loved you in this dress. He holds it up for Pearl to see and from: HER POV The dress is brand new and beautiful. She's finally entranced. INT. THE SUB-BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS Patrick, Bill and Cinnabar have managed now to pry open the elevators outer doors. They step inside on the soft ashen ground and look up: THEIR POV The shaft goes all the way into eternity. But along the tacked walls, they see hand and footholds put there for workers. PATRICK We can climb out. BILL Climb out to where? PATRICK Anywhere but here. One by one they start to climb, Bill first. As they climb, they become aware of light on the first floor level just ahead. BACK IN BONES' CRIB Pearl steps into the frame to look at herself in a floor length mirror on Bones' closest door. PEARL'S POV - IN THE MIRROR Not only the dress, but she too looks exactly as she was 22 years ago, skin smooth as cocoa butter, eyes free from worry and pain. Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" as Jimmy takes her in his arms and starts to slow dance her in the midst of all those candles. PEARL Where are we, baby? BONES Where we'll always be... PEARL But. BONES Hush, baby. Pulls her closer, closer, until her last misgivings are gone. Whatever purpose she came with lost in the power of having the impossible. INT. THE ELEVATOR SHAFT - CONTINUOUS The three still climbing handhold by handhold, knocking loose dirt in each others' eyes. Bill is just now reaching the first floor level, trying to force open the outer doors. Suddenly, an ominous sound: the chain/mechanism of the elevator as they see it starting to descend towards them. Panicking, Bill tries with all his might. As the elevator inches closer and closer -- Until Bill finally manages to get the doors open. They all scramble to safety just as the elevator slides by them. NEW ANGLE After they catch their breath, they look up and around to find themselves -- INT. THE NECROPOLIS - CONTINUOUS A distorted M.C. Escher-like feel to the place. Where up seems to be down, down up, and left is right. Not helped by behind only lit by the eerie flickering gaseous lamps outside, and the moonlight falling through the skylight. Then, slowly through the gloom, they begin to perceive that the walls are clotted and congealed, teratomic masses of distorted flesh; faces, limbs, eyes, mouths, all trapped - all contorted in agony. At first they seem to be frozen in the walls, like the ruins of Herculaneum. But then we see -- They are slowly writhing, moving. Hands grasping, teeth and rotted jaws widening, and worst of all, the eyes staring out. PATRICK Is this Hell? BILL (gripping the gun) Or just Hell-adjacent... CINNABAR Ain't no Heaven. Ain't no Hell. There's just the world of the dead, my momma always talked about. Like she said, the door is open, and we're seeing right through our world into this one. We just have to remember what was really here. And follow it. Those stairs should take us to the second floor. As they approach the stairs they can hear faintly above the drone/moan of the dead, the soft music playing in Bones' crib. ANGLE AS They start up the stairs into the darkness. Patrick first, Cinnabar in between him and Bill. Patrick still holding his flashlight, but it's starting to flicker a little. More of the same horror along the stairway walls, eyes looking at them, hands caress Cinnabar's hair, another hand shooting up from the stair floor and grabbing Bill's thigh. Bill stabs the hand with the knife on his belt. And the hands shoot back down. BACK IN BONES' CRIB The Munch-like dance of death goes on, Bones stroking the back of her neck. BONES Just like I told you this morning, I'd be stroking your neck tonight. Pearl absolutely lost. BACK ON THE STAIRS The three still ascending when Patrick's flashlight suddenly cuts out. Total darkness. PATRICK Shit. A faint sound: Patrick shaking the flashlight. Nothing but the sound of breathing, both human and non-human. PATRICK (CONT'D) Thing worked fine a minute ago. Batteries were brand new -- Then as suddenly as it went out, the flashlight comes back on, illuminating a horrible sight: Maurice. Standing right there, a few feet in front of them. BILL Maurice! Maurice puts a finger to his lips and beckons them to follow. The boys want it to be Maurice. But Cinnabar knows better. CINNABAR That's not Maurice -- But with the beam of the flickering flashlight, they follow the shadowy figure up the steps. Then Maurice gets a bit to far ahead, and they can't see him for a beat. PATRICK Maurice. Hold up, man. Then after a silent beat, just Maurice's hand appears back out of the darkness, beckoning them onward. Then the flashlight cuts out again. They're back in the darkness. PATRICK (CONT'D) (as he shakes the flashlight) Okay, we're on the second floor. I feel it. No more steps. The sound of Patrick cursing and shaking the batteries around in the torch. Eventually it comes on again. Up ahead, they still barely see Maurice, his back to them, face in one quarter profile, leading them towards the next flight of stairs at the end of the hall. They follow. Closer and closer to the stairs, Maurice going eerily in and out of their vision. The flashlight dies again. Darkness. Patrick shakes it and it comes back quickly. Then just as quickly dies again! A shake and it's lit again -- just as Bill is stepping into the corner where Maurice disappeared. FLICKERING HORROR As the dog leaps at them from the corner, all teeth and slavering jaws! Everyone scrambles for their lives, and the flashlight falls to the floor. LOW ANGLE FROM THE FLOOR - JUST BEHIND THE FLASHLIGHT We see the skewed horror: as the dog tears at Bill, as his gun skitters across the floor; as Patrick grabs the gun and fires, and we get a bit more illumination from the exploding gunpowder. But it does no good. Bill screams in terror as he's torn to pieces, and then the flashlight goes out and again, we're in Stygian darkness. The sound of Bill dying and a long silence. PATRICK (CONT'D) Bill?! Cinnabar? Cinnabar?! No answer. At first. Finally in husky voice: CINNABAR I'm here. PATRICK Bill! Bill?! CINNABAR Patrick, he's... PATRICK Okay, okay. Listen: From somewhere comes the sound of the music from Bones' crib. PATRICK (CONT'D) Here, find my hand. The stairs are right near here. I saw them. Let's just walk up there. CINNABAR I can't find you. PATRICK Here! Silence. As we expect the worse, expect something else to take her hand. But then: CINNABAR Is that you? Pause -- the music from Bones' crib still beckons to them. PATRICK Yeah. Come on. Don't let go. We're in near total darkness as they climb the stairs, maybe a bit of moonlight now coming in from the roofless third floor they're approaching. All we can hear is their footsteps and their breathing as they walk the rest of the way up the stairs and emerge into: BONES' CRIB - THEIR POV Both amazed to see Pearl as young and beautiful as Cinnabar is, clinging to the dashing Jimmy dancing to the spectral sounds of some soul classic from back in the day. Cinnabar entranced by the vision. ANGLE AS Pearl opens her dreaming eyes and sees them, smiling and beckoning Cinnabar to come join her. Cinnabar begins to. Patrick watches her until he hears something O.S. calling to him. It sounds a million miles away and yet right in his ear. And it sounds like Jeremiah. JEREMIAH Paaatrick... This portion of the screenplay contains scenes that do not appear or occur elsewhere in the final movie. In order to maintain the integrity of the screenplay, it has not been edited. PATRICK'S POV He turns and looks at the wall -- subtly surging from beneath the surface of the wall he sees flashes of faces and hands, mouths twisted in torment. He moves to the wall, drawn by the strange sight and the recurring sound... JEREMIAH (CONT'D) (as if a million miles away) Patrick. Help me. It's coming from within the wall. INTERCUTTING Now, while Cinnabar is advancing towards her mother and father across the room -- Patrick, at the wall, tries to place his ear near it in order to hear where the voice is coming from. While Cinnabar is now within Bones' reach. Pearl steps back to allow Jimmy to embrace Cinnabar. They're reunited. BONES Welcome home, baby girl. Pearl watches as Bones caresses his daughter's cheek. Patrick now close to the wall -- trying to hear the faint voice calling to him. JEREMIAH Please...help me... PATRICK Dad? Suddenly something enormous presses out from the wall. Patrick stumbles back as his father's head and torso press out from the wall, stretched in straining effort. JEREMIAH Help me. I'm so sorry. But please, help me... PATRICK Daddy? Jeremiah, or what he's become embedded into the wall, his face stretched, mouth huge and hollow eyes dripping bloody tears. JEREMIAH Please. Help me. I'm scared. Patrick in anguish. JEREMIAH (CONT'D) It hurts. I don't want to spend forever like this. Jeremiah's arm reaches out from the wall, grasping towards Patrick, who reaches out to his father -- When suddenly with frightening speed Jeremiah grabs it, and wrenches Patrick to him, pulling Patrick flush up against the wall, even starting to suck him in to the wall. PATRICK No!!! As Patrick struggles and writhes and twists to get free from his father's grasp, he can see back across the room to the others. He sees the room as it really is - he can see what's really happening. Pearl, not in a new dress, but in a horrible tattered, blood encrusted old dress, standing next to a rotting cadaver that's stroking Cinnabar's cheek and holding her close... Jeremiah pulling Patrick into the wall, into the Necropolis itself. Patrick, though, just as concerned with Cinnabar as with himself, yelling at her across the crib. PATRICK (CONT'D) Cinnabar! Stop! But Cinnabar doesn't even turn her head. She just steps into her father's embrace. But Pearl does seem to hear something. She looks back at Patrick, beneath the illusion of the room she sees him being pulled into the awful wall, and can hear him more clearly now. PATRICK (CONT'D) No! Cinnabar, no!!!! Slowly, Pearl turns and looks into the mirror and she gets a full-length view of herself: a woman in ruined tatters of her old, rotted dress. Then, coming into her view in the mirror is her only daughter -- dancing with a decayed corpse. PEARL Noooooo! Pearl whirls and rips Cinnabar away from Bones, who at first sort of chuckles to himself. But he stops laughing when Pearl grabs the nearest candle and presses the flame to her breast. In a terrible whoosh, the dried old dress and Pearl are engulfed in flames. BONES NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Bones runs to Pearl and throws his arms around her, trying to smother the flames any way he can. PEARL (to Patrick and Cinnabar) Get out!!! Go!!! Cinnabar in a shattered daze on the floor, sees her mother in flames. Patrick desperately tries to escape his father's death grip. Finally, with horrible sound, Patrick wrestles free from the wall, and from his father. He lurches free from them and makes it over to Cinnabar and drags her out the door just as the room dissolves around them. As the flames destroy the dress and the last vestiges of Bones' blood on it, the room begins to turn to ash. An eerie wind from nowhere begins to howl, blowing the ash and smoke from the dress and from the dissolving walls. Cinnabar taking one last glance at the funeral pyre that was her mother and Bones now, too, sees them almost lost in a shroud of flame and ash. ANGLE AS Patrick and Cinnabar run down the corridor and back down the stairs, the moon overhead and the flames from Bones crib giving everything a flickering hellish cat. Everything behind and above them crumbling to dust. The floor and then the stairs and all the howling bodies trapped inside. ON THE FIRST FLOOR They reach the open elevator shaft. PATRICK We gotta jump! CINNABAR I can't! Everything around them rumbling and crumbling. PATRICK We have to! Patrick jumps and lands in the muddy ashes, dazed but unhurt. LOOKING UP He sees Cinnabar peering over the edge in fear. Then, behind her, he can hear a low rumbling growl. He sees Cinnabar turn and scream -- Ashes and falling debris then temporarily blind hen he wipes his eyes and looks up, Cinnabar is gone from view. PATRICK (CONT'D) Cinnabar! Where are you!? He immediately climbs back up the shaft when he sees Cinnabar standing at the edge of the shaft above him. PATRICK (CONT'D) Cinn! Jump!! And she jumps, landing right next to Patrick, who quickly gets her to her feet. PATRICK (CONT'D) Let's go!!! They run out of the shaft and into the sub-basement just as the elevator and shaft dissolve into ash. A hurricane wind blowing down and out of the shaft now. Mixed with the sound of all the screaming, moaning souls in the Necropolis. Patrick in a fury to live tears away the boards and debris blocking the exit. He pulls Cinnabar out with him and they walk up the cellar stairs, step into the dawn, weary, beaten down but not dead. EXT. BONES' BUILDING - DAY They've made it out of the Inferno. Like Dante said "Thus we emerged again to see the stars." No stars here, just the glorious dawn. Patrick stops, feels the new sun on his face. Breathes clean air again for the first time. PATRICK We made it... Then from behind or above or somewhere we can hear what might be a low, low chuckle. Jimmy Bones' chuckle. BONES (O.S.) Dog eat dog, boy. Dog eat dog... Patrick turns and spins in mounting horror. There, behind him, right where Cinnabar was standing... The black dog. It leaps right at the camera, filling the frame with huge teeth and bloody red tongue. WE FREEZE. FADE TO BLACK. END CREDITS
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+                      "BONNIE & CLYDE"                             by                David Newman & Robert BentonFADE IN.INT. BEDROOM.  CLOSE-UP OF BONNIE PARKER.  DAYBlonde, somewhat fragile, intelligent in expression.  She isputting on make-up with intense concentration andappreciation, applying lipstick and eye make-up.  As thecamera slowly pulls back from the closeup we see that wehave been looking into a mirror.  She is standing before thefull-length mirror in her bedroom doing her make-up.  Sheoverdoes it in the style of the time: rosebud mouth and soforth.  As the film progresses her make-up will be refineduntil, at the end, there is none.The camera pulls back and continues to move very slowlythroughout the first part of this scene.  As the cameracontinues to move away, we see, by degrees, that BONNIE isnaked.  Her nudity is never blatantly revealed to theaudience, but implied.  That is, she should be "covered" invarious ways from the camera's P.O.V., but the audience mustbe aware of her exposure to CLYDE later in the scene.  Thisis the only time in the film that she will ever be thisexposed, in all senses of the word, to the audience.  Herattitude and appraisal of herself here are touched withnarcissism.The bedroom itself is a second-story bedroom in a lower-class frame house in West Dallas, Texas.  The neighborhoodis low income.  Though the room reveals its shabbysurroundings, it also reveals an attempt by BONNIE to fix itup.  Small and corny objets d'art are all over the tops ofthe bureaus, vanity tables, etc. (Little glass figurines andporcelain statuettes and the like.)BONNIE finishes admiring herself.  She walks from the mirrorand moves slowly across the room, the camera moving withher, until she reaches the screened window on the oppositewall.  The shade is up.  There are no curtains.  She looksout the window, looking down, and the camera looks down withher.EXT. BEDROOM.  BONNIE'S P.O.V.  DAY.Over her shoulder, we see the driveway leading to the garageconnected to the house.  There is an old car parked in thedriveway, its windows open.  We see a man walking up thedriveway, somewhat furtively.  He is a rather dapper fellow,dressed in a dark suit with a vest, a white collar, and astraw boater.  It is CLYDE BARROW.  Obviously, he is aboutto steal the car.  He looks it over, checking around him tomake sure no passers-by are coming.  He peers inside thefront window to see if the keys are in the ignition.  Hestudies the dashboard.  BONNIE continues watching, silently.Finally she calls out.                                                            2.                         BONNIE            Hey, boy!  What you doin' with my            mama's car?EXT. DRIVEWAY.  DAY.CLYDE, startled, jumps and looks to see who has caught him.Obviously frightened, he looks up and his face freezes atwhat he sees.EXT. WINDOW.  CLYDE'S P.O.V.  DAY.We now see what he is looking at: at the open window,revealed from the waist up, is the naked BONNIE.  She looksdown, an impudent half-smile on her face.  She doesn't moveor make any attempt to cover herself.EXT. CLOSE-UP OF CLYDE - DAY --- whose face changes from astonishment to an answeringsmile of impudence.  (Seeing what he has, he realizes thatthis girl is clearly not going to scream for the police.Already they are in a little game instigated by BONNIE,sizing each other up, competing in a kind of playfularrogance.  Before they speak, they have becomecoconspirators.)Close-up of BONNIE, still smiling.  Finally she speaks.                         BONNIE            Wait there!INT. BEDROOM.  DAY.Running from the window, she flings open a closet and grabsa dress, and shoes.  She slips on the shoes, and flings thedress on, running out the door as she does.  The cameratracks with her, moving as fast.  As she runs down thestairs she buttons up the dress.EXT. DRIVEWAY.  DAY.She flies out the door, slamming it behind her, runs off theporch (all this has been one continuous movement since sheleft the window, in great haste) and continues quickly intothe driveway.  Four feet away from CLYDE, she stops on adime.  They stand there, looking at each other, smiling thesame challenge.  For a few seconds, no one speaks, then:                         BONNIE                   (putting her on)            Ain't you ashamed?  Tryin' to steal            an old lady's automobile.                                                            3.                         CLYDE                   (with the same put-on)            I been thinkin' about buyin' me one.                         BONNIE            Bull.  You ain't got money for            dinner, let alone buy no car.                         CLYDE                   (still the battle of                   wits going on)            Now I got enough money for cokes,            and since it don't look like you're            gonna invite me inside--                         BONNIE            You'd steal the dining room table            if I did.                         CLYDE                   (he moves from his spot)            Come to town with me, then.  How'd            that be?                         BONNIE                   (starting to walk                   onto the sidewalk)            Goin' to work anyway.EXT. STREET.  MOVING SHOT.  DAY.The camera tracks.  It is a hot Texas afternoon, all whitelight and glare.  As they walk the block to town in thisscene, their manner of mutual impudence is still pervading.                         CLYDE            Goin' to work, huh?  What do you do?                         BONNIE            None of your business.                         CLYDE                   (pretending to give                   it serious thought)            I bet you're a...movie star!                   (thinks)            No...A lady mechanic?...No...A            maid?--                         BONNIE                   (really offended by that)            What do you think I am?                                                            4.                         CLYDE                   (right on the nose)            A waitress.                         BONNIE                   (slightly startled by                   his accuracy, anxious                   to get back now that                   he is temporarily                   one-up)            What line of work are you in?  When            you're not stealin' cars?                         CLYDE                   (mysteriously)            I tell you, I'm lookin' for suitable            employment right at the moment.                         BONNIE            What did you do before?                         CLYDE                   (coolly, knowing its effect)            I was in State Prison.                         BONNIE            State Prison?                   (she shows her surprise)                         CLYDE            Yeah.                         BONNIE                   (herself again)            Guess some little old lady wasn't            so nice.                         CLYDE                   (tough)            It was armed robbery.                         BONNIE                   (sarcastically)            My, my, the things that turn up in            the driveway these days.They reach the corner and turn.  They are on:EXT. MAIN STREET.  DAY.--a small-town street of barber shops, cafes, groceries, etc.At the moment, it is deserted.  They continue walking downthe empty street.  CLYDE looks the place over.  Tracking.                                                            5.                         CLYDE            What do y'all do for a good time            around here, listen to the grass            grow?                         BONNIE            Guess you had a lot more fun up at            State Prison, huh?CLYDE laughs, enjoying her repartee.  They continue walking.At a hydrant, CLYDE stops.                         CLYDE                   (showing off, but seriously)            See this foot?                   (pointing at his                   right foot)            I chopped two toes off of it.  With            an axe.                         BONNIE                   (shocked)            What?  Why?                         CLYDE            To get off the damn work detail,            that's why.                   (stopping)            Want to see?                         BONNIE                   (a lady of some sensitivity)            No!...                   (turning a cute)            I surely don't intend to stand here            and look at your dirty feet in the            middle of Main Street.They continue walking in silence past a few stores, eachplanning what next to say.                         BONNIE            Boy, did you really do that?                         CLYDE            Yeah.                         BONNIE            You must be crazy.                                            DISSOLVE TO:                                                            6.EXT. GAS STATION.  DAY.Gas station up the block.  BONNIE and CLYDE are seen leaningagainst the soft drink chest, their profiles silhouetted bythe bright sun.  They are drinking cokes.  As they begin totalk, the camera moves in closer to them.  CLYDE takes offhis hat and rubs the cold coke bottle across his forehead.BONNIE watches him.                         BONNIE            What's it like?                         CLYDE            Prison?                         BONNIE                   (very interested)            No, armed robbery.                         CLYDE                   (he thinks it a silly question)            It's...I don't know...it isn't like            anything.                         BONNIE                   (thinking she's heard                   proof that he's a liar)            Hah!  I knew you never robbed bo            place, you faker.                         CLYDE                   (challenged)            Oh, yeah?                   (studies her, then                   makes up his mind to                   show her)Close-up.  Gun.  Day.  He reaches in his jacket and pullsout a gun.  The camera moves to a closeup of the gun,glinting in the sunlight.EXT. STREET.  DAY.The camera pulls back to show BONNIE looking at it withfascination.  The weapon has an immediate effect on her.She touches it in a manner almost sexual, full of repressedexcitement.                         BONNIE                   (goading him on)            Yeah, well you got one all right, I            guess...but you wouldn't have the            gumption to use it.                                                            7.                         CLYDE                   (picking up the                   challenge, proving himself)            You just keep your eyes open.EXT. LITTLE GROCERY STORE ACROSS THE STREET.  DAY.The camera remains just behind BONNIE's shoulder so thatthroughout the following scene we have BONNIE in the picture,looking at what we look at.CLYDE goes into the little store.  We remain outside withBONNIE watching.  For a minute nothing happens.  We canbarely see what is going on in the store.  Then CLYDE comesout, walking slowly.  In one hand he holds the gun, in theother a fistful of money.  He gets halfway, to BONNIE andsmiles broadly at her, a smile of charm and personality.She smiles back.  The moment is intense, as if a spark hasjumped from one to the other.  Their relationship, whichbegan the minute BONNIE spotted him in the driveway, has nowreally begun.  CLYDE has shown his stuff and BONNIE is"turned on."Suddenly the old man who runs the grocery store comesrunning out into the street, completely dumbfounded.  Hestands there and says nothing, yet his mouth moves in silentprotest.  CLYDE points the gun above him and fires.  It isthe first loud noise in the film thus far and it should be ashock.  The old man, terrified, runs back into the store asfast as he can, CLYDE quickly grabs BONNIE's hand.  Thecamera swings with them as they turn and begin to run downthe street.  A few yards and the stores disappear entirely.The landscape turns into that arid, flat and unrelievedwestern plain that begins where the town ends.EXT. STORE.  AT THE EDGE OF TOWN.  DAY.A car is parked at the back of the store.  As soon as theyreach it, CLYDE motions and BONNIE gets in.  CLYDE runs tothe front, lifts up the hood and crosses the wires to makeit start.  As he stands back, BONNIE calls to him:                         BONNIE            Hey, what's your name, anyway?                         CLYDE                   (he slams the hood)            Clyde Barrow.He runs over to the door, opens it, shoves her over, andstarts up the engine.  The entire sequence is played at anincredible rapid pace.                                                            8.                         BONNIE                   (loud, to make                   herself heard over                   the gunning motor)            Hi, I'm Bonnie Parker.  Please to            meet you.EXT. ROAD.  DAY.VROOM!  The car zooms off down the road, doing 90.  The fastcountry breakdown music starts up on the sound track, goingjust as fast as the car.EXT. CAR.  DAY.The car, still speeding, further down the road.  We zoomdown and look in the rear window.  CLYDE is driving, we seefrom behind.  BONNIE is all over him, biting his ear,ruffling his hair, running her hands all over him--in short,making passionate love to him while he drives.  The thrillof the robbery and the escape has turned her on sexually.EXT. CAR.  ANOTHER ANGLE.  DAY.The camera pulls back and above the car.  The car starts togo crazy in a comical fashion, manifesting to the audiencejust what is happening to the driver controlling it.  Thecar swerves all over the road.  The car comes to a suddenhalt.  The car starts again.  It swerves this time almostright off the road before it straightens out.  It jumps andjerks.  Another car comes down the road the other way andCLYDE's car swerves so much as to make the other guy driveright off the road into the dirt.  It is almost Mack Sennettstuff, but not quite that much.INT. CAR.  BONNIE AND CLYDE.  DAY.BONNIE grabs the wheel and turns it sharply.EXT. CAR.  DAY.It hairpins off the road onto a shoulder beneath some trees.INT. CAR.  BONNIE AND CLYDE.  DAY.--still settling to a stop.  BONNIE and CLYDE appear to benecking heavily now, punctuated by BONNIE's squeals ofpassion as she squirms and hops about like a flea, trying toget to CLYDE.  The floor gear-shift is keeping their bodiesapart, however.  In exasperation, BONNIE takes the gearshift and shoves it forward out of their way.  She plungesonto CLYDE, burying him from view.                                                            9.                         BONNIE                   (kissing, biting)            ...You ready?...                         CLYDE                   (muffled, laughing)            ...Hey, wait...                         BONNIE                   (giggling herself)            Aren't you ready?  Well, get ready!BONNIE has obviously touched him.  With savage coquetry shetears into her clothes and his.                         BONNIE                   (muffled)            C'mon, honey, c'mon, boy...let's            go...let's...                         CLYDE                   (muffled)            Hey...hey, wait a minute...quit            that now, cut it out.                   (sharply)            I said, cut it out!He shoves her rudely away, slamming her into the far cardoor.  Suddenly it looks as if they've been fighting.  Bothunbuttoned and unglued, they stare silently at one another,breathing heavily.  CLYDE gets out of the car, clearlyshaken.  Despite the fact that he may have encountered thissituation many times before, it's one that no twenty-one-year-old boy in 1932 is sophisticated enough to dismisseasily with bravado.BONNIE remains seated in the car.  She seems terriblyvulnerable.  She fumbles about for a cigarette, too confusedto figure out what didn't happen.  CLYDE turns back andreaches through the car window from the driver's side,lighting it for her.  BONNIE casts CLYDE a fishy stare, thenaccepts the light.                         CLYDE                   (trying to be casual,                   even insouciant)            Look, I don't do that.  It's not            that I can't--                   (his voice cracks,                   the match burns his                   fingers, and he bangs                   his head onto roof of                   car, and he goes                   right on)            --it's just that I don't see no            percentage in it.                         (MORE)                                                           10.                         CLYDE (CONT'D)            I mean there's nothin' wrong with            me, I don't like boys.BONNIE doesn't know what she thinks, and CLYDE is trying togauge her reaction--whether she feels rejected or repelled.In fact, it's both--along with a little latent fascination.                         BONNIE                   (finally, spitting                   out smoke)            Boy...boy...boy...                         CLYDE                   (a little annoyed)            Boy, what?                         BONNIE            Your advertising is dandy.  Folks'd            just never guess you don't have a            thing to sell.                   (a little afraid)            You better take me home, now.                         CLYDE                   (getting back into car)            Wait!                         BONNIE            Don't touch me!She gets out of car, leaving CLYDE draped across the frontseat, reaching after her.                         CLYDE                   (almost shouting)            If all you want's stud service,            then get on back to West Dallas and            stay there the rest of your life!This stops her.  Now CLYDE pours it on, with an almostmaniacal exuberance that becomes more controlled as he getscontrol of BONNIE.                         CLYDE            But you're worth more'n that, a lot            more, and you know it, and that's            why you come along with me.  You            could find a lover boy on every            corner in town and it doesn't make            a damn to them whether you're            waiting on tables or picking            cotton, so long as you cooperate.            But it does make a damn to me!                                                           11.                         BONNIE                   (turning, intrigued)            Why?                         CLYDE            Why?  Because you're different!            You're like me and you want            different things.BONNIE is hooked now.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            You and me travelin' together, we            could cut clean acrost this state,            and Kansas, too, and maybe dip into            Oklahoma, and Missouri or whatnot,            and catch ourselves highpockets and            a highheeled ol' time.  We can be            somethin' we could never be alone.            I'll show you...when we walk into            the Adolphus Hotel in San Antone',            you wearin' a silk dress, they'll            be waitin' on you and believe me,            sugar, they're gonna know your last            name.He stops, having begun to woo her to something more intensethan a casual, physical coupling.                         BONNIE            When'd you figure that all out?                         CLYDE            First time I saw you.                         BONNIE            How come?                         CLYDE                   (intensely, with real honesty)            'Cause you may be the best damn            girl in Texas.Close-up.  BONNIE.                         BONNIE            Who are you, anyway?                                            CUT TO:                                                           12.INT. ROADSIDE CAFE.  BONNIE AND CLYDE.  DAY.BONNIE and CLYDE seated in booth, now C.U. CLYDE.  The soundtrack bridges the scene: the question that BONNIE has justasked is now suddenly rebutted by CLYDE, as he points afinger at her.                         CLYDE                   (not answering her,                   preferring to lead                   the conversation)            I'll tell you about you.He loves doing this and he does it well.  The more heenvisions BONNIE's life, the more instinctively accurate hebecomes.  She grows more and more fascinated, like a childwatching a mind reader.                         CLYDE            Lessee...You were born somewheres            around East Texas...got a big old            family, right?...You went to            school, of course, but you didn't            take to it much 'cause you was a            lot smarter than everybody else            anyway.  So you just quit.  Now...                   (thinking, playing it                   for all it's worth)            ...When you were sixteen...no,            seventeen, there was a guy who            worked in...uh...Pull back taking in BONNIE, favoring CLYDE.                         BONNIE                   (fascinated)            Cement plant--                         CLYDE            Right.  Cement plant.  And you            liked him 'cause he thought you was            just as nice as you could be.  You            almost married that guy, but            then...you thought, no, you didn't            think you would.  So you got your            job in the cafe...                   (getting closer to                   home now, hitting                   them right in there)            And every morning you wake up and            you hate it.  You just hate it.            And you get down there and you put            on your white uniform--                                                           13.                         BONNIE                   (enthralled)            Pink.                         CLYDE            And the truck drivers come in to            eat greasy burgers and they kid you            and you kid them back, but they're            stupid and dumb, boys with big            tattoos all over 'em, and you don't            like it...And they ask you for            dates and sometimes you go...but            you mostly don't, and all they ever            try is to get into your pants            whether you want to or not...and            you go home and sit in your room            and think, when and how will I ever            get away from this?...And now you            know.BONNIE is half-mesmerized by his talk.  A waitress comeswith their food.  A cheap, gaudy dame, she has spit curls oneach temple in the style of the times.  CLYDE looks at herand at BONNIE, who also wears spit curls.  As soon as thewaitress leaves:                         CLYDE                   (pointing at her hair)            Change that.  I don't like it.Without a word of protest, BONNIE immediately reaches in herbag and takes out a mirror.  She holds it up and with theother hand, brushes back her spit curls into her hair.  Shenever again wears them.  When she has pushed them back shelooks at CLYDE for his approval.  He nods his okay.  Shesmiles, puts back her mirror and begins to eat her food.She's ravenously hungry and eats with total concentration onher plate.  CLYDE doesn't touch his food, just watchesBONNIE eat for a minute.                         CLYDE            God, you're a knockout.EXT. ROADSIDE CAFE.  DAY FOR DUSK.CLYDE and BONNIE emerge from the cafe into the early evening.They move toward the car they have stolen.  Just beyond sitsa newer model car.  BONNIE is surprised to see CLYDE headtoward the newer car.                         BONNIE            Hey, that ain't ours.                                                           14.                         CLYDE            Sure it is.                         BONNIE            But we came in this one.                         CLYDE            Don't mean we have to go home in it.She walks amazed around the new car and gets in beside him.He turns the key and they pull away from the cafe.INT. ABANDONED FARM HOUSE.  A WIDE SHOT OF THE PARLOR LIVINGROOM.  DAY.The room is bare.  In the middle BONNIE is waking, havingslept on a couple of car seats covered with an old piece oftattered blanket.  There are windows behind her.  She looksabout bewildered.                         BONNIE            Clyde...She starts to panic and runs to the window.                         BONNIE                   (continuing)            Clyde...At another window CLYDE appears.                         CLYDE            Hey, lady.                         BONNIE                   (chagrined at her fear)            Where you been keeping yourself?                         CLYDE            Slept out by the car.                         BONNIE            Oh...These accommodations ain't            particularly deluxe.                         CLYDE            No...If they're after us, I want            the first shot.  Come on, you got            some work to do.BONNIE moves to the door and out of the house.                                                           15.EXT. FARM HOUSE.  FRONT YARD.  DAY.On the door is a sign which reads:INSERT:PROPERTY OF MIDLOTHIAN CITIZENS BANK -- TRESPASSERS WILL BEPROSECUTED.Wide angle.  Across fence.  Day.  On the dilapidated picketfence six old bottles have been placed.  As BONNIE joinsCLYDE he turns and fires six quick shots.  The bottlesdisappear.                         BONNIE            You're good.                         CLYDE            The best.                         BONNIE            And modest...                         CLYDE            Come on.  Got you all set up over            here.Wider angle.  They move around to the side of the buildingwhere CLYDE points to a tire hanging by a rope from a tree.He means that to be BONNIE's target.  He hands her a gun.                         CLYDE            Set her spinnin'.BONNIE fires.  She misses.                         CLYDE            Again.  Come down slow with it...BONNIE fires again and hits the tire.  She smiles and blowsthe smoke from the barrel in pride and self-mockery.                         CLYDE            Ain't you something?  I tell you            I'm going to get you a Smith and            Wesson, it'll be easier in your            hand.  Now try it again once...BONNIE sights.  As she is about to fire, a man appearsaround the corner of the building.  A FARMER.  She fires andhits the tire.                         FARMER            Heighdo.                                                           16.CLYDE whirls at the sound.  He grabs gun from BONNIE becausehis is empty.  He aims at FARMER.                         FARMER                   (frightened)            No sir...no sir.  You all go right            ahead.CLYDE watches him warily.                         FARMER                   (continuing)            Used to be my place.  Not any more.            Bank took it.CLYDE and BONNIE start to move toward the farmer.  All threemove around to the front of the building.  At a distance wesee an Okie car loaded with belongings.  A WOMAN with a BABYin arms sits in front.  A smaller BOY stands outside the car.                         FARMER            Yessir, moved us off.  Now it            belongs to them.                   (He points at the                   foreclosure sign.)                         BONNIE            Well, that's a pitiful shame.CLYDE shakes his head sympathetically.  He loads the emptygun.                         FARMER                   (bitterly)            You're damned right, ma'm.He looks up to see an OLD NEGRO who has come from a distanceshack and now stands near CLYDE's car.                         FARMER                   (nodding toward Negro)            Me and him put in the years here.            Yessir.  So you all go right ahead.            We just come by for a last look.He stands a moment looking at the house and then turnsaround toward his family in the car.  CLYDE and BONNIE lookafter him.  CLYDE spins and fires three fast shots into thefore-closure sign.  The FARMER stops and turns, looking atCLYDE.  CLYDE offers the gun to the farmer.  He looks at it,then accepts it.  He slowly takes aim at the sign and fires.It pleases him.  He looks at CLYDE and BONNIE who smile.                                                           17.                         FARMER            You all mind?BONNIE and CLYDE are puzzled.                         FARMER            Hey, Davis!  Come on over here.The NEGRO moves toward them.  Now BONNIE understands.  Shetakes the second gun from CLYDE and hands it to DAVIS.DAVIS looks from BONNIE to the FARMER and toward the house.The FARMER fires again.  This time at a window.  He nods toDAVIS.  DAVIS slowly raises the gun and fires at anotherwindow.  It shatters and they can't keep from laughing.  TheFARMER returns the gun as does DAVIS.                         FARMER                   (continuing)            Much obliged.He extends his hand.  CLYDE shakes it.                         FARMER            Otis Harrison.  And this here's            Davis.  We worked this place.                         CLYDE                   (formally)            Miss Bonnie Parker.  And I'm Clyde            Barrow.Across farmer's car.  Wide shot.  Day.  The FARMER turns andmoves toward his people.  DAVIS moves toward his shack.CLYDE and BONNIE in the b.g.Close angle.  BONNIE and CLYDE.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            We rob banks.BONNIE turns quickly to look at CLYDE.  He smiles and nods.                                            FADE OUT.FADE IN.EXT. A LONG, COUNTRY ROAD.  DAY.A car is driving down it.  It is the next day.  BONNIE isdriving, CLYDE beside her.                                                           18.INT. CAR.  DAY.                         CLYDE            You just stay in the car and watch            and be ready.                   (he is playing it                   cool, knowing she is                   scared.  He thinks                   he's James Cagney)            Okay now?                   (he hands her a gun                   from the glove compartment)            You just be ready if I need you.BONNIE's hands are tense on the wheel.  Her face shows hownervous she is now that the time has come.                         CLYDE            Scared?                         BONNIE            No.They drive in silence.                         CLYDE            What are you thinkin' about?                         BONNIE            Nothin'.EXT. BUSINESS STREET OF A LITTLE TOWN.  DAY.We are still in the car.  BONNIE pulls over and stops by thebank.  CLYDE is frozen in his seat.  We can see that, forall his talk, he is scared, too.                         BONNIE            What are you waitin' for?That gets him.  CLYDE throws the door open and jumps,practically dives out the door.  The camera follows hismotion right inside the bank, tracking very fast.INT. BANK #1.  DAY.Something is very screwy here.  The bank is dark, the TELLERis half asleep over his books.  CLYDE approaches, thruststhe gun at him.                                                           19.                         CLYDE                   (with a swagger)            This is a stickup.  Just take it            easy and nothin' will happen to you.            Gimme the money.                         TELLER                   (looking up with no                   fear, his voice calm                   and conversational)            Heighdy.                         CLYDE                   (nonplussed at this)            Gimme the money!                         TELLER            What money?  There ain't no money            here, mister.                         CLYDE                   (totally befuddled at                   the turn of events)            What do you mean there ain't no            money?  This here is a bank, ain't            it?The camera pans around the bank.  We see that it is empty,dusty and shuttered.                         TELLER            This was a bank.  We failed three            weeks ago.                         CLYDE                   (furious)            What?  What??In a rage, he goes behind the partition, grabs the tellerand pushes him ahead with the gun.  CLYDE is fuming.  Heforces the teller out the front door.EXT. BANK #1.  DAY.--showing BONNIE in the car.  She is terrified as she seesCLYDE and the TELLER coming at her.  She doesn't understandwhat is happening.                         CLYDE                   (shoving the teller forward)            Tell her!  Tell her!                                                           20.                         TELLER                   (acting like a man                   who has had his sleep                   interrupted by lunatics)            As I was tellin' this gentleman,            our bank failed last month and            ain't no money in it.  I sure am            sorry.BONNIE's reaction is one of hysterical relief andappreciation of what's funny in the situation.  She laughsuproariously, she can't stop laughing.  This makes CLYDEmadder than ever.  He shoves the teller to the ground.INT. CAR.  DAY.Completely humiliated, CLYDE gets in the car, shoving BONNIEover.  She is still laughing.  BONNIE starts the car.  CLYDEpoints his gun out the window.Close shot.  Bank window--whereon is lettered: ASSETS-$70,000.INT. CAR.  CLYDE AND BONNIE.  DAY.Angle to include bank window.  CLYDE aims and puts a bulletthrough each of the zeros.  We see each zero shot through.Then the entire window hangs there for a second and suddenlycrashes.  On the soundtrack, BONNIE's laughter.                                            CUT TO:INT. CAR.  DAY.--still driving.  BONNIE has still not fully recovered fromher mirth, but is quieting down because she sees that CLYDEis really mad and can't be pushed too far.                         CLYDE                   (steaming)            We got $1.98 and you're laughin'.She tries to stop.EXT. STREET.  DAY.The car pulls down another street of shops in another littlehick town.  A grocery store ahead.INT. CAR.                         CLYDE            Keep it running.                                                           21.INT. GROCERY STORE.  DAY.There is an old CLERK behind the counter, and standing inthe b.g., almost out of our vision, is a BUTCHER--an enormousgiant of a man.  CLYDE steps up to the counter.                         CLYDE            Give me a loaf of bread, a dozen            eggs and a quart of milk.The CLERK gets the order and puts it in a bag.  He ringsopen the cash register preparatory to asking CLYDE for themoney.  CLYDE pulls his gun.                         CLYDE            This is a stickup.  I'll take all            the money in that drawer now.He reaches over the counter into the cash drawer and grabsthe bills.  He smiles.  Suddenly looming beside CLYDE is theBUTCHER, brandishing a meat cleaver.  Camera looks up atthis formidable sight as the cleaver comes crashing down,missing CLYDE and sticking in the wooden counter.  He grabsCLYDE around the chest in a bear hug and actually lifts himoff the ground.  The struggle is in silence.  CLYDE isterrified, fighting wildly to get free.  The gun in CLYDE'shand is pinned, because the man has CLYDE's arm pinned tohis thigh.  CLYDE tries to raise the barrel at an upwardangle to shoot, finally he is able to do so.  He fires.  Thebullet enters the BUTCHER's stomach.  The BUTCHER screams,but reacts like a wounded animal, more furious than ever.He still holds CLYDE in a fierce hug, staggering around thestore, knocking into shelves and spilling cans.  CLYDE ishysterical with fear.  He shoots the BUTCHER again.  TheBUTCHER falls to his knees, but still he doesn't releaseCLYDE.  In a panic, CLYDE drags the man to the door, tryingto get out.EXT. GROCERY STORE.  DAY.BONNIE sees CLYDE and the BUTCHER holding his legs.  She isterrified.  CLYDE drags him out on the street.  The BUTCHERwon't let go.  CLYDE, in real panic, aims the gun at hishead and fires.  Click.  Out of bullets.  In blind fury, hepistol-whips the BUTCHER's head with two terrific swipes.Finally the BUTCHER lets go.  Hysterical, CLYDE jumps awayand leaps into the car on the other side.  BONNIE still atthe wheel.                         CLYDE            Get the hell out of here!They drive-off at top speed.                                                           22.INT. CAR.  DAY.CLYDE is shaken.  He speaks haltingly, panting; trying toget control of himself.                         CLYDE            Damn him, that big son of a bitch...            He tried to kill me... I ain't got            eyes in back of my head... I didn't            want to hurt him.  It wasn't a real            robbery... Some food and a little            bit of dough.  I'm not against him.            Damn!EXT. SPEEDING CAR.  DAY.The car is speeding down an open road.  Suddenly it beginsto buck and cough.  There is something wrong with the motor.CLOSE SHOT.  C.W. MOSS.  EXT. FILLING STATION.His cherubic cheeks are puffed up as he blows into the fuellines of CLYDE's car.  There is a distinctly flat sound.Reaction: CLYDE and BONNIE.  CLYDE stands by the hood.BONNIE remains seated in the car.  CLYDE is covered withsweat and grease--clearly he has gotten in his licks on theengine without success.  Neither he nor BONNIE seemsimpressed by the noise C.W. is making.Another angle.  C.W.--as he screws back the fuel line andmoves between BONNIE and CLYDE to the ignition, turning theengine over.  It purrs beautifully.  CLYDE is astonished.                         CLYDE            What was wrong, anyway?                         C.W.                   (moving back to screw                   on gas cap)            Air bubble--clogged the fuel line.C.W. now stands between BONNIE and CLYDE.                         C.W.                   (continuing)            I just blowed her away.CLYDE still can't get over it.                         CLYDE            You just blowed it away.C.W. belches.  He is embarrassed before BONNIE.                                                           23.                         C.W.            'Scuse me, ma'm... Anythin' else I            can do for you?CLYDE nods vigorously, looking across C.W.'s back to BONNIE.BONNIE gets the message.                         BONNIE            Well...I'm not sure...                   (she looks around)            Say, them little red things there            stickin' up?  Are they gas pumps?                         C.W.                   (he's not too bright)            Sure.                         BONNIE            Isn't that interesting?  How does            that there gasoline get in my            little old car?                         C.W.                   (trying to be helpful)            Well, y'see, there's this tank            underground, and the gas comes up            this tube into the pump and into            your car, M'am.                         BONNIE            My, you're a smart fellow.  You            sure know a lot about automobiles,            don't you?                         C.W.                   (he has no idea he's                   being toyed with)            Yeah, I do.                         BONNIE            Well, would you know what kind of a            car this is?                         C.W.                   (touching it)            Yeah, it's a Chevrolet 8-cylinder            coupe.                         BONNIE            No, no.                         C.W.            Sure it is.                                                           24.                         BONNIE            No, this is a stolen Chevrolet 8-            cylinder coupe.C.W. jerks his hand off it as if he touched a hot stove.                         CLYDE                   (getting in the conversation)            You ain't scared, are you?                   (to Bonnie)            I believe he is.  What a pity.  We            sure coulda used a smart boy who            knows such a great deal about            automobiles.                   (suddenly business-                   like, to C.W.)            You a good driver, boy?                         C.W.                   (getting quite confused)            I guess so.                         CLYDE                   (pretending to cool                   on him)            No, I don't think so.  He's better            off here...                         BONNIE            What's your name, boy?                         C.W.            C.W. Moss.                         BONNIE            What's the C.W. for?                         C.W.                   (reluctantly)            Clarence Wallace.                         BONNIE            I'm Miss Bonnie Parker and this is            Mr. Clyde Barrow.   We... rob...            banks.                   (C.W. reacts with                   wide eyes)                         CLYDE                   (swiftly, testing his mettle)            Ain't nothing wrong with that, is            there, boy?                                                           25.                         C.W.                   (nervously)            Uh, nope--                         BONNIE                   (with a put-on sigh)            No, he ain't the one.                         CLYDE            Unless, Boy, you think you got            enough guts for our line of work?                         C.W.                   (affronted in his                   dumb way)            What do you mean?  I served a year            in the reform school.                         BONNIE            Oh, a man with a record!                         CLYDE                   (laughs)            Now look here, I know you got the            nerve to short-change old ladies            who come in for gas, but what I'm            askin' you is have you got what it            takes to pull bank jobs with us?                         BONNIE            Mr. C.W. Moss?                         C.W.                   (anxious to prove himself)            Sure, I could.  Sure I could.  I            ain't scared, if that's what you            think.                         CLYDE            Prove it.C.W. walks away from the car.  Camera remains where it was.We see him walk inside the gas station office, open the cashdrawer, close it and come out.  He emerges with a fistful ofmoney.  He walks over to BONNIE's window, sticks his handinside and drops the money on her lap.  We see the billsflutter down.  Not a word is spoken.  BONNIE moves over intothe middle.  C.W. opens the door and gets in behind thewheel.  For a moment we see them all sitting there, eachsmiling their little smile.  CLYDE starts to hum a hillbillytune quietly.  The sound track picks it up (banjo andviolin, etc.) and as the music swells, they drive off downthe road.                                                           26.INT. HOSPITAL ROOM.  DAY.A small room with a bed.  On it, covered by a sheet whichhumps like a mountain over his enormous stomach, is theBUTCHER.  His head is propped up on a pillow and he sips aliquid through a bent glass straw.  Camera is on the leftside of the head of the bed, seeing the BUTCHER in a three-quarter profile.  On the opposite side of the bed stands auniformed patrolman who is in the act of flashing mug-shotphotos for the BUTCHER to identify his assailant.  Thelawman holds a stack of them in front of them, swiftlychanging the cards like a grade-school teacher with herflash cards.  At each picture, the BUTCHER grunts negativelyand goes on sipping from his glass straw.  One picture, two,three go by.  The fourth picture is a mug shot of CLYDE.Again the BUTCHER grunts 'no,' without hesitation.  As thenext picture comes into view, we                                            DISSOLVE TO:EXT. MOTEL.  NIGHT.--on a painted wooden sign, lit by one attached light, whichreads: "MOTOR COURT".INT. ROOM IN MOTOR COURT.  NIGHT.--in darkness.  Camera is close on BONNIE.  She is awake andrestless.  O.S. comes the measured snoring that we willthink comes from CLYDE.  BONNIE raises up and kneels overClyde.  She needs him.  Clyde seems to snore on.  Cameradrops between them and we see that the snoring actuallycomes from C.W.  BONNIE drops back on her pillow.  We cutclose on CLYDE.  He is awake.INT. CAFE.  DAY.BONNIE, CLYDE and C.W. seated in a booth in a cafe.  TheWaitress brings the food and serves everybody.  We see C.W.With great concentration, as he does everything by relatingto the immediate action he happens to be involved with, hetakes the sugar shaker and begins methodically sprinklingsugar over all his food.  He sugars the meat, the beans, andthe beets.  BONNIE and CLYDE watch this performance withfirst, amazement and second, disgust.  They can't believewhat they see.                         BONNIE                   (incredulously)            C.W., what are you doing?  Why do            you do that?                                                           27.                         C.W.                   (beginning to eat it)            Why not?                         BONNIE            It's just disgusting, that's why.                         C.W.                   (chewing)            Not to me it ain't.                         BONNIE            But...but it makes everything sweet!                         C.W.            Yeah, I know.With a resigned expression, BONNIE turns away and begins toeat.  Suddenly a look of consternation crosses C.W.'s face.                         C.W.            Damn!  No mayonnaise!He gets up and goes down to the counter on the other end ofthe restaurant, out of our vision, apparently planning toput mayonnaise over the sugar.  The minute he is out ofearshot, BONNIE gets CLYDE's attention.                         BONNIE            Clyde, why does he have to stay in            the same room as us?CLYDE seems not to have heard the question.  He takes up thesugar shaker and spreads a thin field of sugar on the darktable surface.  He will sketch his plan in the sugar.                         CLYDE            Lemme show you about tomorrow.                         BONNIE            Why?                         CLYDE            Now C.W.'ll be waitin' right            outside in the car.  Here is the            teller's cage.  Four of them and            over here the desks and what have            you...                         BONNIE            Why, Clyde...                         CLYDE            Hmmm??                                                           28.                         BONNIE            In the same room with us?                         CLYDE            Hell, where else?  Ain't gonna            spread out all over the state...The harshness of his tone concerns him and he recovers witha smile.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            Not yet, anyway.  Now, the door to            the bank is here now.  You cover me            from there.                         BONNIE                   (takes his hand to                   her face)            Just that I love you so much.                         CLYDE            You're the best damn girl in Texas.C.W. comes back with the mayonnaise; looks at the table.                         C.W.            Hey, you spilled the sugar.Three shot.                         CLYDE                   (eating)            The layout for tomorrow up in            Mineola.                         C.W.            Mineola?  Gosh, that's four, five            hundred miles from here!                         CLYDE            So what?  We take U.S. 85 to Willis            Point, don't you know, and cut over            on State Highway 28 at Kaufman,            keep on goin' till we hit the farm-            to-market road that connects to 105            and that's right up by Mineola.  On            a Saturday afternoon...EXT. SMALL KANSAS TOWN.The car driving into a small Kansas town.  It is Saturdayafternoon, sunny.  The streets are filled with people, cars,wagons.  C.W.                                                           29.is driving, BONNIE is in front with him, CLYDE is in theback.  C.W. looks scared to death at the idea of robbing abank.  The car pulls up in front of the bank, double-parked.BONNIE and CLYDE get out.EXT. CAR.  DAY.                         CLYDE            Keep it running.BONNIE and CLYDE enter bank.INT. BANK #2.  DAY.Cut to the interior of the bank.  BONNIE and CLYDE come in,assume the class positions--she at the door where she cancover the bank, CLYDE at the first teller's cage.                         CLYDE                   (in a very quiet voice)            This is a stickup.                         TELLER            What?                         CLYDE            This is a stickup.This time everyone in the bank hears it.  The people gaspand pull back.  CLYDE slowly edges toward the door and prodsBONNIE forward.  She carries a paper sack.  CLYDE motionsher to go from cage to cage and get all of the money.BONNIE begins doing so, while CLYDE keeps his gun trained oneverybody.  We see BONNIE get the money from the firstteller, the second teller, then...EXT. SMALL TOWN STREET.  DAY.A car parked in a tight spot has just pulled out.Close-up C.W.  Day--who suddenly looks delighted to see aparking space.EXT. CAR - STREET.  DAY.Immediately he methodically begins to back in.  It's a tightspot and he has to cut the wheel, pull forward, cut somemore, pull back and so on.  The scene, for the audience,should be nervous and funny.                                            CUT TO:                                                           30.INT. BANK #2.  DAY.Inside the bank, BONNIE and CLYDE have filled the sack.They run out the door, the camera tracks with them.EXT. SMALL TOWN STREET.  DAY.They run for where the car was, but it isn't there.  Thenthey see C.W. has parked it.INT. CAR.  DAY.                         CLYDE            Let's go!  Let's go!C.W. suddenly realizes what a stupid thing he's done.EXT. CAR.  STREET.  DAY.C.W. tries to shoot out of the parking spot, but he can't.He has to go through the business of backing up, cutting thewheel and all of it.  The scene is one of pure pandemoniumand chaos.INT. CAR.                         CLYDE            Come on!  Get it out!EXT. CAR.  DAY.A policeman arrives and begins firing at car.  C.W. gets thecar halfway out of the spot, scraping fenders in the process,and the car is almost out when suddenly a face looms up atthe window--a dignified, white-haired, celluloid-collaredman, obviously a bank official who has leaped onto therunning board.  His screaming can barely by distinguishedfrom all the noise.                         MAN            Stop!CLYDE fires through the window.Close-up (special effects).  The face of the man explodes inblood.  Then he drops out of sight.EXT. CAR.  DAY.The car shoots off down the road, doing ninety.  Police arefiring at the escaping car; BONNIE and CLYDE are shootingout the back window; C.W. is almost having a nervousbreakdown at the wheel.                                                           31.EXT. STREET.  A MOVIE HOUSE.  DAY.A police car that had been chasing CLYDE and BONNIE's carcomes down the street.  It is obvious that the cops havelost them.  They are searching the street for a sign ofCLYDE's car.  They pass a movie house whose marquee reads:"GOLDDIGGERS OF 1933."  They slow for a moment, decide thatis not a probable place to look.  They drive off.INT. MOVIE HOUSE.  WIDE ACROSS AUDIENCE AT SCREEN.The opening musical sequence of "Golddiggers" is on thescreen.  Ginger Rogers sings "We're In The Money."  Amongthe audience we cannot make out our three people.  It is asmall audience and thinly dispersed.Tight shot at audience.  Camera pans the audience while onthe track we hear the music of the song.  First of our groupwho becomes visible is C.W.  He is staring at the screen andeating bites from a candy bar in each hand.  Camera pansfurther and we see that CLYDE is in the row behind C.W. anda few seats to one side.  CLYDE is nervous and keeps watchingthe entrance doors.  He is in a rage.  He shifts in his seat.                         CLYDE            Boy, you gotta be poor in the head.            You...!  Count of you I killed a            man.  Murder...you too.Shot from behind CLYDE.  Shooting toward screen.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            Dumb ass stupid.C.W. turns to CLYDE and nods agreement.  This infuriatesCLYDE even more.  He slaps the back of C.W.'s head.                         CLYDE            Ever do a dumb thing like that            again, I'll kill you boy!Angle at BONNIE.  She has been watching the movie; is nowdisturbed by the noise.  She turns back to CLYDE from herseat on the aisle.                         BONNIE            Ssshh!  If you boys want to talk            why don't you go outside?She smiles at her joke and turns back to the screen to themovie which she is obviously enjoying enormously.                                                           32.INT. CHEAP MOTEL BATHROOM.  CLOSE-UP BONNIE.  DAY.On the right of the screen, f.g., BONNIE stands at the sinkfixing her make-up in the mirror.  The make-up has becomemore conservative.  On the left, further back, is a bathtuband in it sits C.W.  His head and knees peek over the gray,soapy water.  He is engaged with his usual single-mindedconcentration, in washing himself, carefully scrubbing hisarms, not a thought in his head.  BONNIE finishes her make-up and regards herself quizzically, tilting her head to lookat herself at different angles.  She is smoking a cigarette,and really, studying herself.                         BONNIE            What do you think of me, C.W.?                         C.W.            Uh...well, you're just fine, I            guess.  Uh, well, course you're a            real good shot...and...uh...well,            sometimes you look pretty as a            painting.Camera stays with BONNIE during all this, watching her lookat herself as she listens to C.W.'s evaluation.  She has anarcissistic concern at the moment and as she hears himenumerate her values, she thinks about each in turn anddecides yes, that's true.                         C.W.            Hey, uh, Bonnie...could you get me            that washrag there?Responding automatically, BONNIE turns and walks to a towelrack, pulls the washcloth off and starts toward C.W. whensuddenly she stops with a smile on her face and a suddenmotion.  Teasingly, she holds the washcloth out at arm'slength.                         BONNIE                   (coyly)            Why'nt you come get it?                         C.W.                   (not even realizing                   what's on her mind)            Huh?                         BONNIE                   (wiggling the                   washcloth like a                   bull-fighter's cape)            Whyn't you come get it, C.W.?                                                           33.Suddenly C.W. looks mortally embarrassed as he realizes whatthat would entail.                         C.W.            Aw, Bonnie, come on, gimme it.BONNIE tries another tack.  She begins sauntering overslowly, teasingly, still holding out the treasured washcloth.                         BONNIE                   (pertly)            All right, I'll bring it myself.As she moves closer to the tub, C.W. realizes that she willbe able to peer down into the tub and see him and hefrantically reaches up with one hand and yanks the washclothinto the tub, causing a great splash.  BONNIE, somewhat thevictim of the splash, jumps back and away.  Recovering hercomposure, she looks at C.W. who is slunk down in the tublike a gross September Morn.  She has tried him and he hasfailed; she realizes now that he was no choice for her; noreal man, even if he might perform sexually.  He is a lump.This irritates her; his very presence is demeaning toherself and CLYDE.                         BONNIE                   (irritated with                   herself for even                   thinking of such a thing)            You simpleton, what would you do if            we just pulled out some night while            you was asleep?                         C.W.                   (trying to give the                   right answer, but                   obviously faking it)            Oh, I wouldn't know what to do.            But you wouldn't do that.  You            couldn't now.BONNIE realizes, with some weariness, the inevitable truthof what he's said; thus resigned, she says patronizingly:                         BONNIE            That's right, C.W.  We'll always be            around to take care of you.Pointedly, she throws her cigarette in his bath-water,"Sssssssssss."  She turns and leaves the bathroom, slammingthe door behind her.                                                           34.INT. BEDROOM.Camera goes with her into the connecting bedroom.  CLYDE issitting on the edge of the bed cleaning the guns and oilingthem.  He is quiet and preoccupied and takes no note ofBONNIE's present condition.  The moment she enters, he looksup.                         CLYDE                   (quietly)            Bonnie, I want to talk to you.  Sit            down.BONNIE sits, a little taken off balance by his seriousmanner.  But she listens quietly.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            This afternoon we killed a man and            we were seen.  Now nobody knows who            you are yet, but they're going to            be after me and anybody who's            runnin' with me.  Now that's murder            now and it's gonna get rough.                   (BONNIE nods.  CLYDE                   continues speaking                   carefully and gently.)            Look, I can't get out, but right            now you still can.  You say the            word and I'll put you on the bus to            go back to your Mother.  'Cause you            mean a lot to me, honey, and I            ain't going to make you run with me.            So if you want, you say the word.BONNIE, moved by his offer, has tears in her eyes.                         CLYDE                   (as he pauses)            Why?  We ain't gonna have a minute's            peace.BONNIE doesn't like him in this mood.  She tries to josh himout of it.                         BONNIE            Oh, pshaw.                         CLYDE                   (trying to make her                   see the seriousness                   of it)            Bonnie, we could get killed.                                                           35.                         BONNIE                   (death has no reality                   for her)            Who'd wanna kill a sweet young            thing like me?                         CLYDE                   (amused in spite of himself)            I ain't no sweet young thing.                         BONNIE            Oh, Clyde, I can't picture you with            a halo, and if you went to the            other place you'd rob the Devil            blind, so he'd kick you right back            to me.Close-up.  CLYDE--touched deeply, realizes that this was alovely thing to say to him.INT. MOTEL BEDROOM.They kiss.  They are near the bed on which are some gunsthat CLYDE has been cleaning.  The kiss moves toward reallove making.  They are on the bed and push the guns aside.Some fall to the floor.  CLYDE breaks the embrace after ithas reached a high pitch.  He moves away from the bed towardthe window.  BONNIE follows him and embraces him from therear.  They are miserable.  BONNIE frees him and returns tothe bed.  She falls on it face down.  A gun presses into herface.  CLYDE sits in the window, the light silhouettes him.He turns his face toward the glass and rests his head on thewindow pane.  BONNIE turns to him from bed.  She smiles acomforting smile at him.  She rolls over onto her back.  Thegun is now under her head and moves it.  She sits up andgestures to CLYDE.  He remains at the window.  She stares athim.  She looks toward the bathroom.  She looks back atCLYDE.  She is moved and pained for him.  She touches hercheek with the gun and waits for him to be able to look ather.  Finally he does.  Her look eases him and he almostsmiles.INT. BUCK'S CAR.  DAY.Shot of little fuzzy doll tied by a white shoestring to therear-view mirror of a car.  The car is moving; the doll isbouncing up and down.  In the front seat are BUCK andBLANCHE BARROW.  BUCK is a jovial, simple, big-hearted man.A little chubby, given to raucous jokes, knee-slapping andbroad reactions.  He is, in many ways, the emotional oppositeof his brother.  It doesn't take much to make him happy.BLANCHE, his wife, is the direct opposite of BONNIE.                                                           36.She is a housefrau, no more and no less, not terriblybright, not very ambitious, cuddly, simpering, madly in lovewith BUCK and desirous of keeping their lives on the straightand narrow.  As the scene begins we hear and then see BUCK,driving, singing "The Great Speckled Bird."  BLANCHE issitting next to him looking at a movie magazine, appearingfairly miserable.                         BUCK                   (singing)            "What a beautiful thought I am            thinking            Concernin' that great speckled            bird,            Remember his name is recorded            on the pages of God's Holy word..."                         BLANCHE            All right, now you did foolish            things as a young man, honey-love,            but you went and paid your debt to            society and that was right.  But            now you just gettin' back in with            the criminal element.                         BUCK            Criminal element!  This is my            brother, darlin'.  Shoot, he ain't            no more criminal than you are,            Blanche.                         BLANCHE            Well, that ain't what I heard.                         BUCK            Now word of mouth just don't go,            darlin', you gotta have the facts.            Shoot.  Why he and me growed up            together, slept and worked side by            side.                   (laughing)            God, what a boy he was!                         BLANCHE            He's a crook.                         BUCK                   (chidingly)            Now you stop bad-mouthin' him,            Blanche.  We're just gonna have us            a little family visit for a few            weeks and then we'll go back to            Dallas and I'll get me a job            somewheres.                         (MORE)                                                           37.                         BUCK (CONT'D)            I just ain't gonna work in your            Daddy's church--That's final.                   (laughing it off, singing)            "What a beautiful thought I am            thinking            Concernin' that great speckled            bird..."                                            CUT TO:EXT. CABIN.  THE FRONT OF THE MOTEL.  DAY.BUCK's car drives up to the cabin, honking the horn wildly.The door of the cabin opens and CLYDE comes running out.  Heis overjoyed to see his brother.  BUCK jumps out of the car,equally delighted.  They hug each other.                         CLYDE                   (hugging him)            Buck!                         BUCK            Clyde!  You son of a bitch!They laugh happily and begin sparring with each other,faking punches and blocking punches--an old childhood ritual.There is a great feeling of warmth between the two brothers.CLYDE is more outgoing than we have ever seen him before.                         CLYDE            How's ma?  How's sister?                         BUCK            Just fine, just fine.  Send their            best to you.                         CLYDE                   (patting Buck's stomach)            Hey, you're fillin' out there.            Must be that prison food.                         BUCK            Hell no!                   (laughing)            It's married life.  You know what            they say, it's the face powder that            gets a man interested, but it's the            baking powder that keeps him at            home.                         (MORE)                                                           38.                         BUCK (CONT'D)                   (he explodes with                   laughter and so does                   Clyde, who loves                   Buck's jokes)            Hey! you gotta meet my wife.  Hey,            honey, c'mon out here now and meet            my baby brother.Camera swings to car.  We see BLANCHE still sitting there,her face obscured by the glint of sun on the windshield.Slowly, she gets out of the car, still carrying the moviemagazine.                         BLANCHE                   (suspiciously, quite                   the grand lady)            Howdy-do.                         CLYDE                   (shaking her hand)            Howdy-do.  It's real nice to know            you.BUCK beams with pleasure, thinking they must like each other.BONNIE comes out of the cabin, standing on the steps.  Thescreen door slams behind her.Close-up.  BONNIE.  Day--expressionless, looking it all over.EXT. CABIN.BUCK and CLYDE notice nothing of this.  BUCK bounds over toBONNIE, all jollity.                         BUCK                   (grabbing her)            Well!  You must be Bonnie!  Now I            hear you been takin' good care of            the baby in the family.  Well sis,            I'm real glad to meet you!                   (he hugs her; BONNIE                   just lets herself be hugged)            Say...                   (breaking the hug)            I'd like you to meet my wife,            Blanche.                         BONNIE                   (stiffly)            Hello.                                                           39.                         BLANCHE                   (stiffly)            Hello.There is an awkward pause.  Suddenly the screen door opensand C.W. comes out, dressed in his long underwear.  BLANCHEcan hardly stand it.                         CLYDE            Everybody, this is C.W. Moss.            C.W., my brother Buck and his wife,            Blanche.                         C.W.                   (friendly)            Heighdy, y'all.He pumps BUCK's hand vigorously and then goes to BLANCHE.With his characteristic one-track intensity, he decides toact just as friendly as he can with BLANCHE, ignoring thefact that he's standing there in his underwear.  BLANCHE,however, is not ignoring it.                         C.W.            Well how do, Mrs. Barrow.  Or can I            call you Blanch?  I sure am pleased            to meet you.                   (shaking her hand;                   Blanche is slowly                   going crazy with mortification)            Did you have a hard time findin' us            here in this neck of the woods?            Well, you sure picked a good day            for it.  Say, you got a Screenland            there!  Any new photos of Myrna Loy?            She's my favorite picture star.BLANCHE is starting to edge over to BUCK in sheer panic atthis strange, young man in his BVD's but C.W. takes nonotice of it.BLANCHE finally grabs BUCK's arm.  BONNIE watches it all,smirking.                         BUCK            Hey, lemme get the Kodak!BUCK goes to his car and gets a folding Brownie camera.                         CLYDE                   (lighting up a cigar)            Hey, C.W., go put your pants on.            We're gonna take some pictures.                                                           40.                         BUCK            Y'all hear about the guy who            thought Western Union was a cowboy's            underwear?BUCK and CLYDE and C.W. laugh heartily.  C.W. goes into thecabin.  BUCK pushes BLANCHE and CLYDE together, posing themfor a picture.                         BONNIE            Lemme get one of my bride and my            brother.                         BLANCHE                   (getting kittenish,                   and overdoing it)            Buck!  Don't take my picture now.            I'm just a mess from driving all day.                         BUCK            Oh honey, now you look real fine.BONNIE watches BLANCHE's behavior with hardly-veiled disgust.BUCK snaps the picture as BLANCHE is just about to move outof it.                         BLANCHE                   (with unbecoming                   girlish outrage)            Did you take my picture?  Oh Buck!            I declare--BUCK laughs and goes to BONNIE, takes her by the arm andmoves her next to CLYDE and BLANCHE.  He lines them up,steps back and takes their picture.  CLYDE is the only onesmiling.                         CLYDE                   (pulling out his gun                   and posing like a                   movie tough)            Hey, Buck, get one of this.BUCK does.                         BUCK                   (giving Clyde the camera)            Clyde, you do one of me and my            missus.He puts his arm around BLANCHE.  CLYDE takes the picture.                                                           41.                         CLYDE                   (throwing her a challenge)            Let me take on of Bonnie.BONNIE grins at him and responds with amused arrogance.                         BONNIE                   (she yanks the cigar                   from Clyde's mouth,                   smokes it and poses)            Okay.CLYDE snaps the picture.  Everyone but BLANCHE laughs.  C.W.comes out dressed.                         BUCK                   (drawing Clyde aside)            Hey, brother, let's you and me do a            little talkin'.                         CLYDE                   (handing C.W. the camera)            Here, C.W., take the girls' picture.INT. CABIN.  DAY.They walk into the cabin.  Camera goes with them.  Bedroomis dark, shades pulled down.  There is an aura of boys'clubhouse secret camaraderie in the following scene:                         BUCK                   (as soon as the door                   is shut; conspiratorially)            It was you or him, wasn't it?                         CLYDE            Huh?                         BUCK            That guy you killed.  You had to,            didn't ya?                         CLYDE                   (they are protecting                   each other)            Yeah, he put me in a spot, so I had            to.  He didn't have a Chinaman's            chance.                         BUCK            But you had to--                         CLYDE            Yeah.  I had to.                                                           42.                         BUCK                   (like two kids                   keeping a secret from Mom)            Don't say nothin' to Blanche about            it.                         CLYDE            Hey, that time you broke out of            jail, she talk you into goin' back?                         BUCK                   (it is obvious he had                   hoped Clyde hadn't                   known about it)            Yeah, you hear about that?                         CLYDE            I won't say nothin' to Bonnie about            it.                         BUCK            I appreciate it.                         CLYDE            Yeah...say, what d'ya think of            Bonnie?                         BUCK            She's a real peach.There is now a long pause--a lull in the conversation, as ifthey asked each other all the questions and are now out ofthings to say.  It is too much for BUCK, the natural enemyof silence, who suddenly claps his hands together and burstsout animatedly:                         BUCK            Boy, are we gonna have us a good            time!                         CLYDE                   (matching his merriment)            We surely are!                         BUCK            Yessir!                   (a pause, then:)            What are we gonna do?                         CLYDE            Well, how's this--I thought we'd            all go to Missouri.  They ain't            lookin' for me there.  We'll hole            up someplace and have us a regular            vacation.  All right?                                                           43.                         BUCK            No trouble, now?                         CLYDE            No trouble.  I ain't lookin' to go            back to prison.                         BUCK            Hey, what's this I hear about you            cuttin' up your toes, boy?                         CLYDE                   (ironically)            That ain't but half of it.  I did            it so I could get off work detail--            breakin' those damned rocks with a            hammer day and night.  Sure enough,            next week I got paroled.  I walked            out of that god-forsaken jail on            crutches.                         BUCK            Shoot--                         CLYDE            Ain't life grand?EXT. ROAD.  DAY.We see the two cars, one behind the other, driving down amain road.INT. FIRST CAR.  DAY.CLYDE is driving.  BUCK sits next to him.  No one else is inthe car.                         BUCK            And the doc, he takes him aside,            says, "Son, your old mama just            gettin' weak and sickly layin'            there.  I want you to persuade her            to take a little Brandy, y'know, to            pick her spirits up." "Why, doc,"            he says, "you know my mamma is a            teetotaler.  She wouldn't touch a            drop." "Well, I tell you what," the            doc says, "why don't you bring her            a fresh quart of milk every day            from your farm, 'cept you fix it up            so half of it's Brandy and don't            let on!" So he does that, doctors            it up with Brandy, and his mamma            drinks some of it.                         (MORE)                                                           44.                         BUCK (CONT'D)            And the next day he brings it again            and she drinks some more--and she            keeps it up every day.  Finally,            one week later, he brings her the            milk and don't you know she just            shallows it all down, and looks at            her bag and says, "Son, whatever            you do, don't sell that cow!"CLYDE and BUCK explode in laughter.INT. SECOND CAR.  DAY.At the top of the laugh, cut to the int. of the second car,riding right in back of them.  The atmosphere is completelyunlike the cozy and jolly scene preceding.  We have deadsilence.  BONNIE is driving, smoking a cigarette, grim.BLANCHE--seated as far away as she can get from BONNIEwithout falling out of the car--makes a face at the cigarettesmoke, rolls down the window for air.  C.W.'s in the backseat, just staring.                                            CUT TO:EXT. GARAGE APARTMENT.  DAY.A residential street in Joplin, Missouri, showing a garageapartment above a double garage.  Camera sees BUCK talkingto a dapper gent with keys in his hand.  BUCK pays him.  Theman tips his hat and walks off.  BUCK gestures and Clydedrives a car into the driveway.  C.W. follows, drivingBUCK's car with BLANCHE.  CLYDE stops beside BUCK.  BUCKleans into CLYDE's car and says:                         BUCK            I give him a month's rent in            advance.  We're all set.  Let's get            inside.CLYDE calls back to C.W. in the following car.                         CLYDE            Pull up and unload the stuff.                         BUCK                   (on the running board                   of moving car)            Honey-love, I'm taking you into our            first home.BLANCHE giggles.  The two cars pull up before the garage andthe people start to descend.                                                           45.INT. GARAGE APARTMENT.  DAY.A winded BUCK enters and puts down BLANCHE.  As othersbehind him carry in their things and disperse throughoutapartment.                         BLANCHE            Oh look, it's so clean, Buck.  And            a Frigidaire...not an icebox!                         BUCK            He give me the grocery number.He goes to the phone.                         BUCK                   (continuing)            Lemme see, eh 4337...Operator...            please ma'm, may I have 4337...if            you please?                         BLANCHE            Oh...they got linoleum on the            counter.  Ain't that clever!                         BUCK            Hello, Smitty's grocery...I'd like            to order a mess of groceries.  Oh            yeah...eh 143 Hillsdale Street.            Lessee, about 8 pounds of porkchops,            4 pounds of red beans...a can of            Chase and Sandborn...uh.                         BLANCHE            Oh, isn't this something, Daddy!                         BUCK            Sshh.  Uh...quart of milk...uh 8            bottles of Dr. Pepper and that's            it, I guess.  No...no.  Uh...a box            of Rice Krispies...Bye now.                                            CUT TO:INT. LIVING ROOM.  DAY.Open on BONNIE and CLYDE.  He is cleaning guns.  She iswatching something off screen.  We hear a clicking sound.                         BLANCHE (O.S.)            My, you need a haircut, Daddy.  You            look like a hillbilly boy.                                                           46.A look of disgust crosses BONNIE's face.  CLYDE, who hasbeen watching her, smiles.  The clicking sound increasessuddenly.                         BUCK (O.S.)            Gotcha!BLANCHE whoops.  Camera cuts to see that BUCK and C.W. areplaying checkers and BUCK has just beaten him.                         C.W.            Again.                         BUCK            Boy, you ain't never gonna beat me            but you keep tryin' now.He starts to set up the game again.                         BLANCHE            Jest like an ol' man.  Plays            checkers all the time and doesn't            pay any attention to his poor            lonely wife.She ruffles his hair again.                         BUCK            Cut it out now, honey.  I'm gonna            teach this boy a lesson he'll never            forget.Camera cuts to BONNIE, watching with disgust.  Then slowly,a wicked little smile edges across her face.  She watchesfor a moment more, then she rises and with the most ingenuouslook she can muster up, beckons to CLYDE to follow her intothe bedroom.  A little puzzled, CLYDE follows.INT. BEDROOM.BONNIE closes the door and immediately begins fussing withCLYDE's hair, doing a scathing imitation of BLANCHE.  Thoughher miming expresses her irritation at being closeted withthe Barrow menage, it is also a peach doing an imitation ofa lemon--and it is disarmingly sensual... Indeed the mimicryallows BONNIE to be physically freer with CLYDE, and allowsCLYDE to respond without anxiety, without self-consciousness.We should have the distinct--if momentary--feeling thatCLYDE could suddenly make it with BONNIE.                                                           47.                         BONNIE                   (doing an unmerciful imitation)            Oh, Daddy, you shore need a haircut.            You look just like a little old            hillbilly boy, I do declare.                   (she has her other                   hand toying with the                   buttons on his shirt,                   her hand slipping                   under, fluttering                   across his bare chest)            Oh mercy me, oh my stars!CLYDE laughs, and BONNIE tugs at the shirt--she kneels onthe bed over CLYDE, who quite easily drapes across it.                         BONNIE                   (a little louder)            Oh, Daddy!  Yore such a slowpoke!She's letting her hair fall loose, its golden ends brushingup and down CLYDE's body.                         CLYDE                   (amused, but cautionary)            Hush up a little.  They're in the            next room.                         BONNIE                   (a mock-pout, but                   with an edge to it)            Shoot, there's always somebody in            this room, the next room and ever'            other kind of room.CLYDE has his arm around BONNIE, and she's almost drapedacross him--but in the direction of the length of the bed,so their bodies almost form a crooked cross.  She digs anelbow into his stomach.                         CLYDE            Oof!...now that ain't no nice way            to talk about my brother.                         BONNIE                   (imitating Blanche                   again with baby talk)            I ain't talking about your brother.Suddenly BONNIE straightens up to a kneeling position again,and cocks her head.  When she speaks now it is with a simpleplaintiveness.                                                           48.                         BONNIE            Honey, do you ever just want to be            alone with Me?                   (sensing Clyde's                   sensitivity to the                   sexual implication)            I don't just mean like that...I            mean do you ever have the notion of            us bein' out together and alone,            like at some fancy ball, or, I            don't know, where we walk in all            dressed and they announce us and            it's fancy and in public, but we're            alone somehow.  We're separate from            everybody else, and they know it.CLYDE looks up to BONNIE, affectionately.  He runs his handcarelessly down her body.                         CLYDE            I always feel like we're separate            from everybody else.                         BONNIE                   (it's terribly                   important to her)            Do you, baby?Suddenly there is a ring at the door.  BONNIE and CLYDEfreeze.INT. LIVING ROOM.BONNIE and CLYDE run out into the living room, camera goingwith them.                         BONNIE                   (to all)            Quiet!  I'll get it.BONNIE goes down the stairs and reaches the front door.                         BONNIE            Who is it?                         VOICE            Groceries, M'am.EXT. GARAGE APARTMENT.She opens the door.  A young man is there with the two bigsacks of groceries.                                                           49.                         BONNIE            How much?                         YOUNG MAN            Six dollars and forty-three cents.BONNIE pays him and goes to take the bags from him.                         YOUNG MAN            Here, M'am, them bags is heavy.            Let me carry 'em up for you.                         BONNIE                   (curtly)            No thanks, I'll take 'em.She takes the heavy bags and hefts them up and turns andwalks up the stairs.  They are obviously very heavy for her.Closeup the delivery boy's face, looking puzzled at thisbehavior.  BONNIE reaches the top steps, and voices are heard.                         BUCK'S VOICE            What was it?                         CLYDE'S VOICE            Quiet.  Open the door.                         BONNIE            C'mon, c'mon...Close-up.  The DELIVERY BOY.  A look of suspicion comesacross his face.                                            DISSOLVE TO:INT. GARAGE APARTMENT.Close-up of BONNIE--seated in the living room.                         BONNIE                   (reading from a pad;                   in a recital voice)            It's called "The Ballad of Suicide            Sal."                   (she pauses for                   effect; then begins:)            "We each of us have a good alibi            For being down here in the 'joint';            But few of them really are justified            If you get right down to the point.            You've heard of a woman's glory            Being spent on a downright cur'."                                                           50.                         BUCK'S VOICE (O.S.)            You write that all by yourself?                         BONNIE            You want to hear this or not?As she reads, the camera pans around the room picking outeveryone's reaction.  CLYDE is looking and listeningseriously.  BUCK is grinning.  C.W. is blank.  BLANCHE is inthe kitchen cooking.                         BONNIE            "Still you can't always judge the            story            As true, being told by her.            Now 'Sal' was a gal of rare beauty,            Though her features were coarse and            tough--"                         BUCK            Yeah, I knew her.  She was cockeyed            and had a hare-lip and no teeth!BONNIE flashes him a look that could kill.  He shuts up fast.She continues:                         BONNIE            "Now 'Sal' was a gal of rare            beauty,            Though her features were coarse and            tough;            She never once faltered from duty            To play on the 'up and up'."Still listening, CLYDE gets up from his chair and walksslowly past the living room windows.  The camera angledslightly above him, sees down the street.  We see two policecars quietly pulling up.  One of them parks sideways in thedriveway to block escape from the garage, the other stays onthe street.  CLYDE turns and looks out the window.                         BONNIE                   (o.s. as we see out                   the window)            "Sal told me this tale on the            evening            Before she was turned out free,            And I'll do my best to relate it            Just as she told it to me--"                         CLYDE                   (seeing it)            It's the law.                                                           51.As soon as CLYDE calls out, BLANCHE drops the frying pan onthe floor and begins screaming.  Camera cuts back to theliving room.  Everyone else leaps into action.  Guns beginblazing from everywhere; we rarely see who is shooting atwhom.EXT. GARAGE APARTMENT.  DAY.The police, down the stairs into the garage--we follow themwith a hand-held camera tracking rapidly.EXT. STREET.  DAY.BLANCHE, however, in utter panic, just runs right out thefront door, and begins running down the quiet residentialstreet, going nowhere, anywhere.EXT. GARAGE APARTMENT.  DAY.BUCK, crouching, shooting with one hand, gets the garagedoor open.  A policeman fires.  BUCK fires back and the copfalls dead in the street.  BUCK, firing, dashes to thepolice car blocking their escape and releases the hand brake.CLYDE, BONNIE and C.W. leap into their car, gun the motor,still shooting madly.  Two more police fall dead or wounded.One policeman is hurled through a fence by the blast of asawed-off shotgun.  BUCK jumps into the car with the others.They now begin to bump the police car with their car.  Thepolice car picks up speed as they push it and it tears intothe street right at the group of firing police.  The gang'scar turns into the street toward the running BLANCHE.BONNIE and CLYDE are in front; BUCK and C.W. in the backseat firing back at police.  The car pulls alongside thewildly running BLANCHE; the back door is flung open and inalmost the style of a cartoon, two hands reach out and lifther off her feet and pull her into the car.  They speed away.                                            CUT TO:INT. CAR.  DAY.The inside of the car, still speeding.  BLANCHE is hysterical.C.W. is still firing out the window.  The pursuing policecar's driver is shot and the car crashes into a tree.  Thegang is not being pursued now, but CLYDE is driving at 90.BLANCHE is moaning and crying.  BONNIE, in front, turnsaround furiously.                         BONNIE            Dammit, you almost got us killed!                                                           52.                         BLANCHE                   (crying)            What did I do wrong?  I s'pose            you'd be happier if I got shot.                         BONNIE                   (at her bitchiest)            Yeah, it would of saved us all a            lot of trouble.                         BLANCHE            Buck, don't let that woman talk to            me like that!                         BUCK                   (caught in the middle                   of a bad situation,                   knowing Blanche is                   wrong, but trying to                   soothe her)            You shouldn't have done it, Blanche.                   (quietly, cont.)            It was a dumb thing to do.                         BLANCHE                   (switching tactics)            Please, Buck, I didn't marry you to            see you shot up!  Please, let's go!            Let's get out of here and leave.            Make him stop the car and let us out!                         BUCK                   (still quietly)            Can't.  I killed a man.  We're in            this now.                         BLANCHE                   (loud and shrill)            Please!  Please!                         BONNIE                   (exploding)            Shut up!  Just shut up your big            mouth!  At least do that, will ya,            just shut up.                         CLYDE            Cut it out, Bonnie.BONNIE is affronted.  BLANCHE continues sobbing.                         BONNIE                   (curtly)            Stop the car.  I want to talk to you.                                                           53.Without a word, CLYDE stops the car.EXT. ROADSIDE.  DAY.BONNIE and CLYDE get out and walk fifteen feet away from thecar.  Both are irritated and touchy.  Camera follows them.                         CLYDE                   (coldly)            What is it?                         BONNIE            Get rid of her.                         CLYDE            Can't do that.  She's Buck's wife.                         BONNIE                   (snapping her words)            Get rid of both of them then.                         CLYDE            Why?  What's the matter with you            anyway?                         BONNIE            She's what's the matter with me, a            damn stupid back country hick            without a brain in her head.                   (contemptuously)            She ain't nothin' but prunes and            proverbs.                         CLYDE                   (really pissed-off at Bonnie)            What makes you any better?  What            makes you so damn special?  You're            just a West Dallas waitress who            spent half your time pickin' up            truck drivers!This hits home with BONNIE.  He has said the unforgivable.                         BONNIE                   (raising her voice)            You talk to me like that!  Big            Clyde Barrow, just the same as your            brother, an ignorant uneducated            hillbilly.                   (with deadly archness)            Only special thing about you is            your peculiar ideas about            lovemakin'--which is no love makin'            at all.                                                           54.CLYDE stiffens.  The two of them stand silent and tense,almost quivering with anger.  They have stripped each otherraw.  CLYDE turns and looks back at the car.  Everyone iswaiting, watching them.  He breathes a deep sigh, like a mancounting to 10 to hold his temper.                         CLYDE            Look, Bonnie--He can't finish.Close.  BONNIE.  She drops her head into her hand for amoment, comes up a little more relaxed.  She looks at CLYDEand her eyes reflect the realization of the pain she hasinflicted on him.  She softens.                         BONNIE            Clyde...honey...I didn't mean all            that, honey.  Blame it on all that            shootin', I just felt so bad...sure            enough...Clyde?                         CLYDE            Okay...Okay, hon...let's get            movin'...He turns and begins walking back to the car.  BONNIE walksalongside him.  On the few steps back, she regains all herdignity and acts aloof from the others waiting for her.  Shereaches the car.  CLYDE opens her door for her and she getsin like a great lady.  He walks around to his side, gets in,and they drive off.WIDE SHOT.  EXT. CAR.  DAY.A very wide shot.  We see CLYDE's car driving along a woodedroad.  For a moment that is all we see, then we shouldbecome aware that far in the distance another car isfollowing CLYDE's.Close. Rural mail box.  On the opposite side of the road,CLYDE's car swings across the road and CLYDE, who is driving,snatches a newspaper which protrudes from the box and handsit into the car.  They drive out of the shot.  Camera holdsand soon the following car enters the shot.  The man drivingis a Texas ranger.  He drives slowly.  He drives out of theshot.INT. CLYDE'S CAR.BUCK is reading from the paper.                                                           55.                         BUCK                   (jubilantly)            Hey, y'all, listen to this here:            Law enforcement officers throughout            the Southwest are frankly amazed at            the way in which will-of-the-wisp            bandit Clyde Barrow and his yellow-            haired companion, Bonnie Parker,            continue to elude their would-be            captors.  Since engaging the police            in a gun battle on the streets of            Joplin Missouri and slaying three            of their number...                         BLANCHE            Oh, Lord...We notice CLYDE is wincing.                         BUCK            ...the Barrow gang has been reported            as far West as White City, New            Mexico, and as far north as Chicago.            They have been credited with            robbing the Mesquite Bank in the            aforementioned White City, the J.J.            Landry Oil Refinery in Arp, Texas,            the Sanger City National Bank in            Denton, Texas on three different            occasions.  In addition to these            robberies, the fast travelling            Barrows have been rumored to have            had a hand in the robbing of two            Piggly Wiggly stores in Texas, and            one A&P store in Missouri, though            Chief Percy Hammond, who first            identified Clyde Barrow's brother,            Buck, as a member of the gang,            expressed some doubt that these            last robberies were committed by            the Barrow Gang alone.                         BONNIE            Go on.                         C.W.                   (finally)            Clyde, we ain't goin' to see a            restroom for another thirty miles.            Why don't you just stop here?CLYDE looks relieved.                                                           56.EXT. WOODED AREA.  DAY.He pulls the car to a stop, gets out and goes off into thewoods.  We watch him vanish behind the trees.INT. CAR.BUCK still scanning the newspaper.                         BUCK                   (with a laugh)            Hey now, here's something!  Listen            here: Lone Cop Arrests Two Officers            In Hunt For Barrow.  Police Officer            Howard Anderson's heart turned            faster than his motorcycle when he            forced to the side of the road a            roaring black V-8 sedan in which            were three men and a blondheaded            woman yesterday afternoon.Everybody laughs.  As BUCK continues to read, his voiceremaining on the soundtrack.EXT. CAR.The camera goes outside the car and pulls back, way back, toreveal a police car quietly driving up behind the car.  Thecar stops a good distance away and one man gets out, theonly occupant of the car.  He is tall, dressed in theuniform of the Texas Ranger.  He draws his gun and slowlyapproaches the car from the rear.  On the soundtrack BUCK'svoice continues; as we see all this taking place.                         BUCK            When he saw several machine guns in            the car he was certain he'd caught            Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and            maybe Buck Barrow and the third            unidentified member of the gang.            It took a lot of telephoning and            explaining to convince the            motorcycle cop that his captives            were two highway patrolmen and a            blonde-haired stenographer from the            Highway Patrol--.  Haw!  Haw!                   (everybody busts up                   with laughter)In the meantime, on screen, the lawman is slowly approachingthe back of the car.  Suddenly, cut to shot of CLYDE comingout of the woods, behind the lawman.  His gun is tucked inhis pants.  In a second, he sees what is happening.                                                           57.BUCK's voice is continuing:                         BUCK            Anderson was held up as an example            for every other Texas peace officer            today. "That was a mighty brave            thing," explained Highway Patrol            Chief L.C. Winston.CLYDE whips out his gun.  The following scene is playedexactly like a classic fast-draw in an heroic Western.                         CLYDE            Sheriff!BRYCE spins around.  Both men fire instanteously, but CLYDEhas the draw on him, and the aim.  The gun goes flying fromthe SHERIFF's hand.  A really razzle-dazzle display ofgrandstand marksmanship from Clyde.Immediately the gang leaps from the car and surrounds theman, guns drawn.                         C.W.            Boy!  What a shot, Clyde!                         BUCK            Sweet Jesus, I never seen shootin'            like that!The gang grabs the man and takes his handcuffs from his belt.CLYDE makes him lean on the car's hood, arms extended, legsspread, while he frisks him.  In general, everyone isexcited over the capture.  BONNIE takes the sheriff's gunand delicately places it on the radiator grill like anobject d'art.                         CLYDE                   (examining the man's                   wallet, really surprised)            Well, now, getta load of this.  I            want y'all to know we are in the            custody of Cap'n Frank Bryce, and            Frank here is a Texas Ranger.Rev. angle across hood--so BRYCE's face, not visible toCLYDE or anyone else behind him, is in foreground.  Hisgnarled, powerful hands tremble slightly on the hood, as thothey might crinkle the metal like so much tissue paper.  Hiseyes stare toward camera relentlessly, unblinking, butwithout passion.  They are shark's eyes.  They have witnessedmuch carnage, devoured it, and are still wide open for more.                                                           58.                         C.W.            Sure 'nough, Clyde?                         BUCK            Say there, peacemaker.  I believe            you got your spurs all tangled up.            You're in Missouri, you know that?CLYDE has been going thru the man's  credentials.  Not sopleasantly:                         CLYDE            You didn't know you was in Missouri?                         C.W.            He's lost, this here Texas Ranger.CLYDE claps BRYCE's hands behind his back, handcuffs him,spins him around.                         CLYDE                   (a little pissed)            --he ain't lost...them banks are            offerin' extra reward money fer us,            and Frank figured on easy pickin's,            didn't you?                   (he suddenly knocks                   Bryce's hat off)            Didn't you?BRYCE flinches involuntarily.  BUCK suddenly grows wary atCLYDE's mood.  CLYDE leans into BRYCE, looking up.                         CLYDE            --Now you ain't hardly doin' your            job, Texas Ranger.  You oughta be            home lookin' after the rights of            poor folks, not out chasin' after us.He suddenly hefts BRYCE's huge bulk onto the fender.                         BUCK                   (trying to be casual)            Easy there, Clyde.  Why take is so            personal.                         CLYDE                   (to Bryce)            Reg'lar laws is one thing.  But            this here bounty hunting, we got to            discourage that.BLANCHE looks very uncomfortable.  She starts to saysomething, but BUCK intervenes.                                                           59.                         BUCK            Like how, Clyde?--A tense moment.  CLYDE can't think of anything right away.                         C.W.                   (trying to be helpful)            Shoot him.BONNIE shoots C.W. an angry glance--it's just what the gangdoesn't want.                         C.W.                   (trying again)            ...hang him?...Reaction--BONNIE carefully gauging the moment to intervene.                         BONNIE                   (suddenly)            --uh-uh.  Take his picture.CLYDE's not sure he's heard right.  Neither is C.W.                         C.W.            Take his picture?                         BONNIE                   (pointedly ignoring                   C.W., brightly)            Then we'll let the newspapers have            it--so's everyone can see Captain            Frank Bryce of the Texas Rangers            with the Barrow gang--                   (moving demurely to Bryce)            --and all bein' just as friendly as            pie.                         BUCK                   (grasping                   possibilities immediately)            ...yeah, yeah...                         BONNIE                   (continuing right on,                   coyly picking up                   Bryce's gun from grill)            --why we 'bout the friendliest            folks in the world.  Texas Ranger            waves his big ol' gun at us, and we            just welcome him like he's one of            our own.                                                           60.                         CLYDE                   (grinning widely)            Buck, get the Kodak!                         BUCK                   (relieved and excited)            Hot dog!                         CLYDE                   (to Bryce)            We're mighty proud to have a Texas            Ranger in the family.BRYCE is obviously not pleased with this turn of events.Following dialogue is overlapped, ad-libbed, etc.  A senseof mounting glee at the kind of vengeance they are going toexact.New angle.  BUCK is fiddling with the camera, setting up theshot with CLYDE.  BUCK's following speech should be heard,b.g., to CLYDE's speech below it.                         BUCK            ...keep him set on the hood,            there...more to the sun, like            that...yeah...when all his ranger            friends see this...I bet he's gonna            wish he was dead!                         CLYDE                   (to Bryce)            ...see what come o' your            mischief?...not doin' your job?            Down in Duncanville last year poor            farmers kepts the laws away from us            with shot guns...you're s'posed to            be protectin' them from us, and            they're protectin' us from you.                   (giggling)            --don't make sense, do it?                         BUCK            C'mon, now, Clyde, you and Bonnie            first.  Move into him, right close,            right friendly.                         CLYDE            All righty                   (to Bryce, whose                   hands are tied,                   hemmed in by them both)            Don't move, now, hear?                                                           61.CLYDE grandly puts an arm on BRYCE's shoulder, BONNIE,looking up admiringly from the other side.  BUCK takes thepicture.  BONNIE immediately hops onto the hood, next toBRYCE.                         BONNIE            How's this? "Captain Bryce and new            found friend."She coyly loosens his tie, tousles his hair, and plants abig kiss on him while still ogling camera.                         CLYDE            ...yeah, yeah...quick, Buck, get            it...                         BUCK            ...I'm gettin' it, I'm gettin' it.Quite suddenly BRYCE, whose simmering intensity we should bemore sensitive to than the gang is, spits on Bonnie.  BONNIEhalf-screams in disgust, but CLYDE is on top of BRYCE in aflash, half-strangling on his own fury.  He pulls BRYCE offthe fender by the handcuffs, spinning him around crazilylike a lasso.  BRYCE is literally ricocheted off the car bythe force, and, with CLYDE hanging on by the cuffs, plummetsdown the embankment to the sandy beach below, both menfalling, spinning.  BRYCE rises shakily.  He tries to walkaway.  CLYDE grabs him again by the handcuffs and hurls himout into the water.  BRYCE smacks into a tree stump pokingout of the shallows and goes down.  CLYDE is on top of him.Meanwhile, BUCK has rushed down into the water, tries topull CLYDE off BRYCE.                         BUCK                   (frantic)            I got the picture.  I got the            picture...                         CLYDE                   (oblivious)            Lemme be, lemme be...BRYCE reaches the surface and CLYDE tries to throw him intodeeper water.  He hitches BRYCE over a moldy skiff, knockingaside one of the oars.  BUCK upends BRYCE into the skiff andkicks it spinning.  CLYDE picks up an oar and hurls it likea boomerang, ass over end at the skiff.  It kicks up a spray.                         BUCK                   (holding tightly to                   Clyde, yelling)            I got the PICTURE!                                                           62.Reaction.  CLYDE waist deep, breathing heavily.                         CLYDE            ...All right, all right...                   (to Bryce, yelling)            WE GOT YOU...HEAR?... REMEMBER...            YOU... YOUR FACE...WE GOT IT...WE            GOT YOU...WE GOT YOU...WE GOT YOU...BRYCE, battered and handcuffed, stares back with mindlessmalice from the lazily spinning skiff to the hystericalspectre of CLYDE, screaming his madness across the water.                                            DISSOLVE:INT. BANK.Inside the bank.  In contrast to the previous inept bankrobbery scene, this one goes admirably well, the gangperforming slickly and without a hitch.  As they enter,dripping wet, CLYDE makes a general announcement to everyoneto the bank.                         CLYDE            This is the Barrow gang.                   (the people turn and freeze)            Everybody just take it easy and            nobody will get hurt.CLYDE covers the door.  BONNIE and BUCK go to the tellers'cages and get money.  BUCK goes inside, emptying out thecash drawers.  Cut to BONNIE filling the sack.Cut to a close-up of a burglar alarm button.  Slowly a handcrawls up the wall and a finger slowly moves to push thebutton.  When the finger is about one inch away, suddenly agun appears in the frame and gently taps the hand away.  Thecamera pulls back to reveal BUCK smiling at a lady teller.                         BUCK            Don't do nothin' silly now.Cut to CLYDE standing near the door, training his guns onthe entire bank.  A farmer stands a few feet away, somebills clutched in his hand.                         CLYDE            That your money or the bank's?                         FARMER            Mine.                         CLYDE            Keep it, then.                                                           63.Across the floor, the bank guard in the corner takesadvantage of CLYDE's distraction to go for his gun.  CLYDEspots it and fires a shot that just knocks the bank guard'shat off without harming him.                         CLYDE                   (to the guard, who                   has practically                   frozen in fear)            Next time I'll aim a little lower.They finish robbing the bank.  They start to exit.  Near thedoor stands a guard with his hands raised.  He wears sunglasses of the period.  As they leave BUCK snatches the sunglasses from the guard's head.                         BUCK            Get a good look at us!  We're the            Barrow boys.EXT. BANK.  DAY.The gang runs wildly into the street where the car waits,motor running.  As they leap into car, BUCK throws the sunglasses into BLANCHE's lap.                         BUCK            Happy birthday.They zoom off.  Shots are heard.  BONNIE, BUCK and CLYDEbegin firing at the bank guards who are pursuing them.  Theguards fire back.Close-up.  BLANCHE sitting in the back seat with her fingersstuck tightly in her ears, eyes shut, trying to overcome herpanic.  A funny image, but one that also awakens pity.  Thenext sequence is carried out in cross-cutting.                                            CUT TO:The street in front of the bank.  Police car pulls up andthe excited crowd gestures in the direction of the departedgang.  The siren starts.                                            CUT TO:INT. GANG CAR.  DAY.The siren heard now in the far distance.                         BUCK                   (to C.W. at the wheel)            Kick it in the pants, C.W.                                                           64.                         CLYDE            We got to make that state line!                         C.W.                   (driving like a wild                   man, but adlibing loudly)            Can't get more'n this out of a            Plymouth!                                            CUT TO:INT. BANK.The gang has left a legacy of celebrity behind.  We see thebank guard whose hat was shot off being interviewed by areporter.  He is seated in a chair, his shirt open at thecollar and a woman teller is fanning him.                         BANK GUARD                   (enjoying the limelight)            Then he saw me goin' for my gun.            Clyde Barrow himself, I mean.  And            suddenly I was starin' into the            face of death!                         WOMAN TELLER            Tsk, tsk.A photographer steps in.                         PHOTOGRAPHER            Just look this way, Mr. Hawkins.The bank guard hurriedly buttons up his collar and smiles asthe flashbulb goes off.                                            CUT TO:EXT. GANG CAR.Still speeding along, the siren more distant.                                            CUT TO:INT. BANK.The bank president and a policeman are posing for thatclassic picture where both stand flanking a bullet hole inthe wall and point proudly at it.  The flashbulb goes off.                                            CUT TO:                                                           65.INT. POLICE CAR.Two men in police uniforms following BONNIE and CLYDE.                         FIRST POLICEMAN            Step on it, Randolph.  We gotta            catch 'em 'fore they reach the            state line!                                            CUT TO:INT. BANK.FARMER is describing BONNIE and CLYDE to passersby who doteon him as though he'd just had contact with a portion of thetrue cross.  FARMER is aware of his position.                         FARMER            Clyde?...he looked like, well he            looked real...clean...and Bonnie,            she's too much a lady ever to be            caught with a cigar in her mouth...I            don't care what you heard before.            I saw 'em right here, not twenty            minutes ago...                   (gravely)            --and all's I can say is, they did            right by me, and I'm bringin' me a            mess of flowers to their funeral.                                            CUT TO:INT. GANG'S CAR.Car slows up perceptibly as CLYDE says:                         CLYDE            Okay, relax.  We're in Oklahoma now.            Slow down.                                            CUT TO:INT. POLICE CAR.                         FIRST POLICEMAN            Turn around.  Don't waste no more            gas.                         SECOND POLICEMAN                   (a young eager beaver type)            Ain't we gone to catch 'em?                                                           66.                         FIRST POLICEMAN            Hell, they're over the State line.            That's out of our jurisdiction.                         SECOND POLICEMAN            Why don't we get 'em anyway?                         FIRST POLICEMAN            I ain't gone to risk my life in            Oklahoma.  That's their problem.                                            CUT TO:EXT. CAR.Now the gang's car is seen traveling down a long, narrowcountry road surrounded by cornfields.                                            CUT TO:EXT. ROADSIDE BY WOODS.  DAY.They get out, taking the various bags of money with them,and dump the lot on the hood.  There is not an impressiveamount of money.                         CLYDE                   (disappointed)            Hell.  That ain't much, is it?                         BUCK                   (commiseratingly)            Times is hard,                         CLYDE            Well, let's get to it.He begins dealing and splitting the money out on the hood ofthe car, as they gather around.                         CLYDE            This is Clyde Barrow.                   (lays down a bill)            Buck Barrow...                   (lays down a bill)            Bonnie Parker...C.W.                   (goes back to the                   first again and lays                   out another round)            Clyde, Buck...Bonnie...C.W. Clyde,            Clyde again...Buck...Bonnie...C.W.BUCK and BLANCHE stand watching.  BLANCHE looks fretful.She nudges BUCK and whispers to him.                                                           67.BUCK whispers something back to her.  Meanwhile, CLYDE'scounting still goes on.                         CLYDE            Bonnie...C.S....Clyde...                         BUCK                   (very ill at east in                   this position he has                   been forced into)            Um...eh...Clyde?                         CLYDE            Hah?BUCK is clearly embarrassed.                         BUCK            Uh, Clyde...well...what about            Blanche?Everyone reacts with stunned amazement at BLANCHE's nerve inwanting to get her cut.                         BONNIE                   (incredulous)            WHAT?BLANCHE sees she has to rise to her own defense, and sherises to the occasion with spirit and verve.                         BLANCHE            Well, why not?  Say I earned my            share!  Same as everybody.  I            coulda got killed same as everybody,            and I'm wanted by the law same as            everybody.  Besides I coulda got            snake bit sleepin' in them woods            every night!                   (building it up)            I'm just a nervous wreck and that's            the truth.  And I have to listen to            sass from Miss Bonnie Parker all            the time.  I deserve mine!Close.  BUCK.  Day--looking at CLYDE, his face full of weaksmiles and embarrassment at his wife.                         CLYDE                   (with a sigh)            Okay...okay...hold your horses,            Blanche.  You'll get your share.                                                           68.BONNIE is livid but says nothing.  CLYDE, the leader hasdecided.  C.W. looks indignant, like a hog who's just beengiven a bath.  CLYDE begins counting all over again in nearsilence.                         BUCK            Married a preacher's daughter and            she still thinks she's takin' the            collection.Everyone now laughs, but BLANCHE.  CLYDE continues counting.                         BUCK                   (to Blanche)            Well, don't spend it all in one            place now, hear?                         BONNIE            She'll be doin' right well to spend            it at all.BONNIE turns and ambles away from the car.  After a momentCLYDE stops counting and moves after her.  He's prepared fora fight, stands behind BONNIE's arched back trying to gaugethe degree of hostility there.                         CLYDE            Bonnie?No answer.                         CLYDE                   (a little defensive)            Look, Bonnie, I've said it and I            guess I'll keep sayin' it before            we're thru--Blanche is Buck's wife            and Buck is family.He waits expectantly.                         BONNIE                   (finally, utterly                   without malice)            --she's such a silly-Billy...BONNIE looks plaintively to CLYDE.                         BONNIE            My family could use some of that            money.                                                           69.                         CLYDE            Them laws have been hangin' round            your mamas house 'til all hours,            Bonnie.  It's just too risky to go            there.                         BONNIE                   (exploding)            Well, where can we go?  We rob the            damn banks, what else do we do?CLYDE cannot really answer.  Suddenly C.W. starts yelling:                         C.W.            CLYDE!  CLYDE!  CLYDE!CLYDE flinches at the sound.  C.W. comes bounding over, asrude an assault on their sensibilities as he can be.                         CLYDE                   (wincing as they are                   nose to nose)            I hear you, C.W.                         C.W.            This ol' heap's gushin' oil!  We            got to swipe us another set of            wheels right away, or we won't get            anywhere.  Look here.He reaches down under the pan of the car and scoops a gooeyhandful of slick black oil which he holds before their faces.                         C.W.            See?CLYDE nods slowly.  He looks back to BONNIE.  He sees.                                            DISSOLVE:EXT. SUBURBAN STREET.A residential neighborhood on a suburban street.  A ratherwell-to-do neighborhood.  The camera is up on a porch of awhite frame house, looking toward the street.  On the porch,sitting in the swing in the left f.g. are a MAN and a WOMAN.She is about twenty-nine, he is about thirty-six.  He issitting with his back to us, embracing the WOMAN.  They arespooning, making low, loving murmurs.                         WOMAN            Oh, now...now, dear...                                                           70.                         MAN            Mmmm...sweet thing...We see in the distance two cars parked in front of the house.His and hers.  Suddenly we see another car drive up (BONNIEand CLYDE) and somebody gets out.  Then the whole gang getsout, ditches the one car and gets in one of the parked cars.All the while the couple on the porch is busy spooning.  Thecar begins to roll slowly into the street.  The WOMAN notices.                         WOMAN            Say, isn't that your car, Eugene?                         MAN                   (still nuzzling her)            Mmmmmm...huh?                   (he looks, leaps from                   the swing)            That's my car!  Hey!The MAN and WOMAN run down the front steps and front walk tothe second car.  They jump in and take off, giving chase.INT. CAR.  DAY.The WOMAN is driving (it's her car).  The MAN is furious.                         EUGENE            I'll tear 'em apart!  Those punks!            Steal a man's car right out from            under him!  Wait till I get my            hands on those kids, Velma, I'll            show 'em!They continue driving, furious, the man cursing and muttering.We see through their windshield the other car way in thedistance.                         VELMA            What if they have guns, Eugene?                         EUGENE                   (realizing the                   possibility, he                   suddenly stops being                   mad and turns chicken)            We'd better get the police and let            them handle this.                         VELMA            Right.                                                           71.                         EUGENE            Turn around and let's get back to            town.  We'll go get the sheriff.They are by now on a narrow dirt road and the WOMAN has toexecute a U-turn.  It takes her about seven cuts to turn thecar around in the narrow space.  They start back to town.                                            CUT TO:INT. BONNIE AND CLYDE'S CAR.BUCK looks out the rear window.                         BUCK            They stopped chasin' us.  They            turned around.Close-up.  CLYDE grinning mischievously.                         CLYDE            Let's take 'em.BUCK and C.W. laugh appreciatively at the reversal.  CLYDEturns the car around.  He performs the U-turn in the samenarrow space in one, swift, smooth, beautiful turn.                                            CUT TO:INT. THE OTHER CAR.VELMA looks in the rear view mirror and sees that now she isbeing chased.                         VELMA            Oh, my Lord, they're comin' after us.                         EUGENE                   (in a panic)            Step on it, Velma, step on it!Close-up.  Accelerator.  VELMA jams it down to the floor.The car speeds.EXT. ROAD.  THE CHASE.  DAY.BONNIE and CLYDE's car gaining on them, gaining on them,gaining on them and finally overtaking them, coming up andahead, forcing them to the side of the road.Med. shot.  The MAN and WOMAN's car.  Terrified, they rollup their windows, lock their doors and huddle together.                                                           72.EXT. ROAD.The Barrow gang piles out of their car and walks over,having a merry time.  They surround the car and press theirfaces against the window, flattening their features, makingmenacing gestures at the shaking pair inside.  We see thisfrom the point of view of the MAN and WOMAN inside the car.CLYDE pulls out a gun, makes as if to shoot, but he iskidding.  They all laugh uproariously, especially BUCK whois delighted with CLYDE's prank.  All of this we see inpantomime from inside the trapped car.EXT. CAR.                         CLYDE            C'mon, get out!  Get out of there,            I said.They come out, hands held high, shaking with fear.  Theyhave practically turned to jelly.                         CLYDE                   (ordering them into                   the other car)            Get in here.INT. OTHER CAR.  DAY.They get in and the gang gets in.  Seven people are nowjammed inside.  CLYDE drives, BONNIE next to him, C.W. nextto her.  In back, BLANCHE, then EUGENE with VELMA (ofnecessity) sitting on his lap, and then BUCK.  As will beseen, the reason the Barrows have kidnapped the couple issimply that they wanted company.  Living as they do, seeingonly each other day after day, they long for diversion andnew faces.  So the atmosphere in the car will shortly changeto one of friendliness and jollity, and it will getprogressively more so in the series of cuts which advancethe time.  As the car starts up at the beginning, however,the MAN and WOMAN are terrified.                         BUCK            What's your name?                         EUGENE                   (hesitantly)            I'm Eugene Grizzard.                         VELMA            I'm Velma Davis.                                                           73.                         BUCK                   (just as friendly as                   he can be)            Well, howdy!  We're the Barrow gang.            That there is Clyde drivin' and I'm            Buck.The MAN and WOMAN almost faint from fear; clutch at eachother.  The gang all laugh at this.  VELMA and EUGENE beginto realize that they are not going to get hurt and that theBarrows are friendly to them.                         BONNIE            Look, don't be scared, folks.  It            ain't like you was the law.  You're            just folks like us.                         EUGENE                   (agreeing over-enthusiastically)            Yeah, yeah, that's the truth.                         CLYDE            I expect you been readin' about us.The MAN and the WOMAN answer simultaneously with what theythink is the right thing to say under the circumstances.                         EUGENE            Yes.                         VELMA            No.They glare at each other.                         EUGENE                   (meaningfully)            Yes, Velma, we have too.                         BONNIE                   (laughing at the contretemps)            Well, you two must be in love, I bet.EUGENE and VELMA blush, get shy for a second.  BONNIE smiles.                         BUCK                   (gleefully, clapping                   his hands)            Well, when you gonna marry the            girl, boy?Everyone chuckles heartily.                                            CUT TO:                                                           74.INT. CAR.  LATER.--still driving, same positions, but some time has elapsed.The atmosphere is now completely convivial and the captivesare enjoying their new friends.  As the scene starts, BUCKis finishing his joke.                         BONNIE            So then she drinks her milk down            again, every drop.  And she looks            over at her son and says, "Son,            whatever you do, don't sell that            cow!"The couple laughs with great amusement, but everyone else inthe car doesn't laugh--this is the tenth time they've heardthe joke.                                            CUT TO:INT. OF CAR.--getting on toward evening.  All are thoroughly relaxes andchatting.                         BONNIE                   (to Velma)            How old are you, honey?                         VELMA            Thirty-three.A sudden look of surprise registers on EUGENE's face.INT. OF CAR.  NIGHT.It is now night.  Everyone inside the car is eating.Apparently they stopped somewhere along the way for food.In the crowded interior, it is like a party--food is beingpassed back and forth, laughter and gaiety, increasingwarmth between the couple and the Barrows.  The car hasbecome a little society on wheels, dashing through the blacknight down the highway.  Inside there is a small world ofhappiness and fun.BUCK is unpacking the food and passing sandwiches and drinksaround the car.                         VELMA            Now I ordered some French fries,            didn't I?                                                           75.                         BUCK                   (passing her some)            Yeah, here you go.                         CLYDE            Take it easy on those French fries,            Velma.  Ain't that right, Eugene?                         EUGENE                   (studying his hamburger)            This isn't mine.  I ordered mine            well done.  Who's got the other            hamburger?Close-up.  C.W. who has already taken a bite of the other one.                         C.W.            Oh, is this supposed to be yours?He extends the bitten burger out to EUGENE.Full shot.                         EUGENE            That's okay, forget it.CLYDE laughs at this.                         BUCK                   (chewing)            Haw!  I sure am havin' a good time!            How 'bout you folks?  Ain't you            glad we picked you up?                         CLYDE                   (laughing)            Hey, maybe y'all ought to join up            with us.That idea strikes everyone as being very amusing.                         EUGENE                   (laughing)            Ha!  Wouldn't they be surprised            back home to hear that?                         VELMA            Yeah.  What would Martha and Bill            say if they heard that?                   (she roars with laughter)                         (MORE)                                                           76.                         VELMA (CONT'D)                         EUGENE            Lordy!  They'd throw a fit!                   (roars with laughter)                         BONNIE                   (laughing)            What do you do, anyway?                         EUGENE                   (as his laugh begins                   to fade)            I'm an undertaker.Suddenly everyone freezes.  A shudder, as if the cold handof death had suddenly touched the occupants of the car.  Theatmosphere changes to cold, deadly, fearful silence inexactly one second.  It is a premonition of death for theBarrows, and they react accordingly, BONNIE especially.Close-up.  BONNIE.                         BONNIE                   (tautly, in a flat voice)            Get them out of here.EXT. ROAD.  NIGHT.The car brakes to a sudden stop.  The rear down is opened,the MAN and WOMAN flung out into the darkness.  The cardrives off into the lonely night.From this point on, the audience should realize that deathis inevitable for the Barrow gang, that it follows themalways, that it waits anywhere.  It is no longer a questionof whether death will come, but when it will.EXT. WOODS.  MORNING.Moving with CLYDE he tears through the brush, snagging hisclothes, calling BONNIE's name.  CLYDE's search is sodesperate here that for a moment we might think he isfleeing from something rather than looking for something.In a moment he emerges onto the road.  The car, with C.W.driving, and BUCK and BLANCHE beside him, is patrollingslowly up ahead of him.CLYDE spots it and runs toward it.  Hold on this angle untilhe catches up with it and leaps onto the running board.                                                           77.Moving shot.  Car.  Morning.  CLYDE, now on the runningboard, his head poked into the car, his face apple red andsweating.                         CLYDE                   (breathing heavily)            ...see anythin', Buck?BUCK is shocked at his brother's desperation, but makes noovert comment on it.                         BUCK            --not yet, boy.                         CLYDE                   (with an edge of                   paranoia, as if the                   three of them might                   be withholding                   something from him)            --and nobody saw her leave, or            heard anythin'                   (almost a threat)            ...C.W....?EXT. CAR.  MOVING SHOT.  DAY.CLYDE gets the point.  For the very first time we see CLYDe,the leader, helpless as he hangs onto the running board.                         CLYDE                   (lamely)            ...Well, where do you think she            could've gone?...Buck?...Buck?                         BUCK                   (amazed and a little frightened)            Jesus, I don't know...CLYDE looks helplessly at his brother, then drops off therunning board and continues on foot, running along, scanningthe fields--the car keeping up beside him as he runs and wetruck before both car and CLYDE.Angle on car through windshield.  Reaction shot.  Day.  BUCKturning to BLANCHE, shrugging his shoulders, speechless.Reverse angle through the windshield.  Day--at CLYDE, whohas suddenly seen something begins gesticulating wildly,almost--from car's POV, a little comically.                         CLYDE            There!  There!  There!                                                           78.He starts running off into a cornfield.Another angle--picking up CLYDE as he kicks his way into thecornfield, knees pumping high, knocking down the stalks.  Hestops and picks up the stocking he had spotted, takes it andmoves on.Still another angle as CLYDE has picked up a freshly beatentrail through the cornfield.  He picks up one of BONNIE'sscarves, now.  As he runs on, he clears a knoll and BONNIE,her yellow hair unmistakable even at this distance, comesinto view.  She's far off in the cornfield, stalking off,looking neither to right nor left, carrying a brown papersack that has split, from which she has occasionally lostclothing.  CLYDE screams, "BONNIE." She apparently doesn'thear.Angle on cornfield.  Day.  As CLYDE gets closer.  BONNIEherself suddenly breaks into flight, the paper bag splittingcompletely, the remaining clothes spilling out.  There is areal chase where they each try to get the advantage.  CLYDEis so exhausted from his run that he has real troublecornering her as they maneuver up and down the rows of corn.Finally CLYDE catches up.Extreme close-up.  BONNIE & CLYDE.  Day.  As they tumbleinto the stalks of corn, mowing them down.                         BONNIE            Leave me alone!  Leave me alone!                         CLYDE                   (holding her, kissing                   her frantically)            Hey...hey, hey, baby, hey, Bonnie,            hey baby...                   (calming her down)            ...Hey, hey now...just where did            you think you were goin'?...BONNIE doesn't answer.Up angle.  POV CLYDE.  As he's momentarily distracted byBUCK's laughter as he's in the cornfield picking up BONNIE'sclothing.  CLYDE waves an impatient it's all-right-wave.  Heturns back to BONNIE who he still holds tightly.                         CLYDE                   (still frantic)            --Huh.  Bonnie?  Where?  Where?                                                           79.                         BONNIE            I don't know!  You're hurting me, I            was just scared is all...and my            mama's been on my mind, and she's            gettin' so old...BONNIE hesitates, beginning to feel a little foolish now.                         CLYDE            Boy, don't ever leave without            sayin' somethin'.  You really            scared me, Bonnie.                         BONNIE            But I mean it, though.  I want to            see my mama.  Please, Clyde.Two shot.  BONNIE and CLYDE.  Day.                         CLYDE                   (enormously relieved,                   kissing her)            Okay, sweetheart.                                            DISSOLVE TO:EXT. SIDE OF A ROAD.  VERY LONG SHOT.  DAY.--of three or four cars parked on the side of a road inTexas.  A light rain is falling.  There are a lot of peoplegathered around, but the sound is an indistinct mixture oftalk, laughter, etc.There follows a quick montage of cuts which isolate specificmoments in the family reunion, thereby implying the entiretone of the proceedings.  The sense of family pervades.Montage.  BONNIE and MOTHER.  BONNIE's mother, an old woman,grabs her and hugs her and cries.Montage.  BONNIE, CLYDE, MAN.  A man, an uncle perhaps,stands with BONNIE and CLYDE, arms around them both, huggingthem to his sides tightly.Montage.  BONNIE and sister.  BONNIE's sister hands them ascrapbook of clippings.                         SISTER            Here you are, we been cuttin' and            pastin' everything we could find            about you in the papers.                                                           80.CLYDE, BONNIE, BUCK and BLANCHE all look at the scrapbook.We see a page of it, showing newspaper articles with thephotographs the gang took back at the motel.                         BUCK            Hey look, here's that one I took of            you, Clyde.  That came out just fine!Montage.  BONNIE, CLYDE, MAN.  BONNIE and CLYDE are posingfor a comic snapshot.  A silly looking male relative isposing, pointing a gun at them.  They have their hands inthe air and are grinning broadly.  (The effect should befunny and simultaneously frightening.)Montage BUCK, SMALL BOY.  BUCK is sitting with a littlefour-year-old on his knee, bouncing him up and down andsinging.  Both are having a fine time.                         BUCK                   (singing)            Oh, Horsey! keep your tail up, keep            yer tail up, keep yer tail up, Oh,            Horsey! keep yer tail up, Why don't            you make it rise.Montage--C.W.  A hand off camera thrusts a sandwich at C.W.He opens the bread to see what's inside it, then eats it.Montage--BONNIE & SISTER.  BONNIE sits stock-still while hersister gives her a permanent in the back seat of a car.  Hesister pauses, setting down the curling iron.  She strokesBONNIE's yellow head with her hand, as though she were awild animal that had paused long enough to be petted.BONNIE turns to see her sister's expression.  They embrace.Montage--Family picnic--Favoring CLYDE, MOTHER & BONNIE.CLYDE, in his best theatrical manner has been playing hostin the sand pile, perhaps using some sort of towel acrossthe arm or around the middle.  The party is beginning tobreak up now as used paper plates and crumpled napkins areblowing across the sand and the group is finishing up onEskimo pie.                         BONNIE'S UNCLE                   (rising)            Where y'all headed from here?                         CLYDE                   (right back)            I don't know, what y'all got in            mind?  At this point we ain't            headin' to anywhere, we're just            runnin' from.                                                           81.CLYDE laughs, in fine spirits.Reaction--BONNIE.  She doesn't.                         BONNIE'S SISTER'S VOICE            C'mon, down, Litte Tom!  We're            goin' home.  Little Tom?  Mathew,            fetch Little Tom.                         BONNIE            Don't go yet, Mama.                         UNCLE'S VOICE                   (cutting in)            C'mere, c'mere you little corn            roller.Wide angle.  As Uncle sweeps up the laughing little Tom.Reaction--BONNIE.  BONNIE turns with increased urgency toher MOTHER, who, having been hefted to her feet by BONNIE'ssister, has turned to CLYDE, who gives her a big, boyish hug.                         MOTHER            ...you know, Clyde, I read about            y'all in the papers and I'm jes'            scared.                         BONNIE                   (to Clyde)            Sugar, make mama stay a while yet.                         CLYDE                   (ignoring Bonnie, as                   does Mother,                   ebulliently, even joshing)            Now Mrs. Parker, don't y'all            believe what you read in the papers!            That's the law talking there.  They            want us to look big so's they'll            look big when they catch us.He knows he's stumbled onto the wrong thing, but he bouncesright along--it's his style.                         CLYDE            --and they can't do that.  Why, I'm            even better at runnin' than robbin'            banks--aw shoot, if we done half            the stuff they said we did, we'd be            millionaires, wouldn't we, old            sugar.                         (MORE)                                                           82.                         CLYDE (CONT'D)                   (he turns to Bonnie                   who continues to                   stare at her Mother)            And I wouldn't risk Bonnie here            just to make money, uncertain as            times are.  Why one time I knowed            of a job where we could of make            $2000 easy, but I saw the law            outside and I said to myself, why            Bonnie could get hurt here.  So I            just drove right on and let that            money lay.He waits for a response, as does BONNIE.  BONNIE's MOTHERsmiles, a little abstractedly.                         MOTHER            ...Maybe you know the way with her,            then.  I'm just an old woman and I            don't know nothin...She trails off, looking nowhere in particular.  CLYDE takesher reaction to mean that he's overwhelming her with hisconfidence, and continues to pour it on.                         CLYDE            We'll be quittin' this just as soon            as the hard times is over, Mother            Parker, I can tell you that.  Why            me and Bonnie were just talkin' the            other day and we talked about when            we'd settle down and get us a home,            and Bonnie said, "I couldn't bear            to live morn'n three miles from my            precious mother." Now how'd you            like that, Mother Parker?BONNIE's MOTHER has undergone a funny sort of transformationduring CLYDE's speech--as if something had suddenly comeinto focus before the old woman's eyes.                         MOTHER            Don't believe I would.  I surely            don't.                   (to Bonnie)            You try to live three miles from me            and you won't live long, honey.                   (to Clyde)            You'd best keep runnin' and you            know it, Clyde Barrow.                   (matter of fact)            Bye, baby.                                                           83.She hugs BONNIE who can barely respond.  We move in for acloseup of BONNIE as her various relatives, young and oldcome by to squeeze, kiss and hug her with a chirpy littlechorus of Bye, Bonnie!  Bye, Bonnie, bye, bye, bye.                                            DISSOLVE:EXT. PLATTE CITY MOTEL.  PLATTE CITY, IOWA.  DAY.Hold on the outside long enough to see the unusualstructures: two little motel cabins connected by twoidentical garages, an entirely symmetrical structure.INT. PLATTE CITY MOTEL BEDROOM.  WITH BONNIE.  DAY.--as she tries, against heavy odds, to file and trim hernails in a corner of the room.  The odds are; CLYDE on auke, b.g., BUCK, and BLANCHE--gathered around C.W. who sitsin the only stuffed chair in the room.  Their o.s.raucousness is clearly shattering to BONNIE who, at a keymoment in the scene, ends up spearing her cuticle with afile, spurting a little board and a lot of temper.Other angle.  CLYDE--BUCK--BLANCHE--C.W.  Day.  A nakedlightbulb (the lampshade has been removed) glares down onC.W.'s chest--where a pair of bluebirds have been tattooedwith a rocco flourish.  BUCK and BLANCHE are vastly amused--rather BLANCHE takes delight in BUCK's delight.                         BUCK            How long have ya had it?                         C.W.                   (like some docile                   animal submitting to inspection)            --just got it.                         BUCK                   (to Blanche, who                   stares fascinated as                   one of C.W.'s pectoral                   muscles contracts and                   the wings flutter)            Touch it, honey!  Go on!BLANCHE squeals with amusement.  BUCK takes BLANCHE's handand places it on the bluebirds.                         BLANCHE                   (titillated with delight)            Oh, no, Daddy!  No!Reaction BONNIE.  Day--as the file digs into her cuticle onBLANCHE's squeal.  With barely controlled rage:                                                           84.                         BONNIE            What are you all doin'?INT. MOTEL BEDROOM.  GROUP SHOT.  FAV. BONNIE.  DAY.                         C.W.                   (insensitive to                   Bonnie's stare)            Playin' with my tattoo, Bonnie.                         BONNIE            Well, why don't you all go play            with it somewhere else?New angle.  Motel bedroom.  Day.                         BLANCHE            What's bothering her?                         CLYDE                   (sees something coming)            Not now, Blanche.                         BUCK                   (who doesn't want to                   be victimized by                   Bonnie's temperament)            What's bothering her, Clyde?                         BONNIE                   (exploding)            I said go somewhere else!She picks up the first three objects she can find on thedresser and hurls them--an ashtray, a Gideon Bible, and aflower pot--at the little group.  The pot goes shatteringinto the wall.  Everyone ducks.                         CLYDE                   (straightening up,                   matter-of-fact)            Bonnie's hungry, C.W. I saw a            chicken place a few miles back.            Who all wants to go get some food?INT. MOTEL BEDROOM.  GROUP SHOT.  DAY.                         BLANCHE                   (rising from her                   chair, a little                   shaken at Bonnie's outburst)            I sure do.  I'm plenty tired of            sittin' around here anyway.                                                           85.                         BUCK                   (not making a move to                   get up)            You can't drive, honeylove.                         C.W.                   (reluctantly)            I'll go.CLYDE makes a face to BONNIE pretending there's somethinggoing on between C.W. and BLANCHE.  BONNIE tries to keepfrom being amused.  C.W. moves out with BLANCHE.  BUCK risesto go next door.                         C.W.            What's everybody want?                         CLYDE            Just five chicken dinners, and get            somethin' for dessert.                         BUCK            See if they got peach ice cream.                   (he grins and pats                   his stomach)All finally exit, leaving BONNIE and CLYDE alone.EXT. CAR AND STREET.  DUSK.C.W. and BLANCHE go out.  We go with them.  They get in thecar and drive off.  BUCK enters his cabin.INT. MOTEL BEDROOM.  BONNIE AND CLYDE.  DUSK.CLYDE reaches her, and for a moment both stare with fanaticintensity at each other, BONNIE trying desperately to keep astraight face.  They are nose to nose, unblinking.  CLYDEgives her a big raspberry, waggling his fingers in his earslike a kid.  She laughs.                         BONNIE            I hate you all.                         CLYDE            I hate y'all, too.                         BONNIE            no, I really hate you.She turns away from him, wilts onto the bed.                                                           86.                         BONNIE                   (eyes brimming)            Oh, baby, I've got the blues so            bad...CLYDE moves behind her, begins to massage her back.  Thereis something very delicate about the way he touches her; itsuggests CLYDE's sensitivity to her mood rather than anydegree of physical intimacy.                         CLYDE            Bonnie?...is it your mama, what            your mama said?                         BONNIE            What mama?...she's just an old            woman now...I have no mama...BONNIE rolls over on her back, stares up at CLYDE, tearssplaying across her face from the move.                         BONNIE                   (quietly)            ...so funny...I thought when we            first went out, we were really            goin' somewhere...but this is it--            we're just goin', huh?She has addressed this last directly to CLYDE, but there isnothing rhetorical about it--it is a real question.  CLYDEdoesn't answer for a moment.  Then:                         CLYDE            Do you care about where we're goin'?BONNIE clearly finds this hard to say:                         BONNIE            Not as long as you care about me.                         CLYDE                   (quite simply)            Why I love you, sugar.It's the first time he's said it to her, and BONNIE isoverwhelmed.  She wraps her arms around CLYDE's middle, andsnuggles into him, like a child.  Neither we nor CLYDE cansee BONNIE's face now, and her voice is muffled by his chest.                         BONNIE'S VOICE            --enough to die with me, baby?...            'cause I think that's where we're            goin'...I surely do.                                                           87.CLYDE is both touched and amused by the plea.  He strokesher head lightly.  Really meaning it.                         CLYDE            --wherever.                                            DISSOLVE:INT. CAR.BLANCHE, her tense and agitated self growing increasinglymore so lately, lights a fresh cigarette off the butt of theone she has been smoking.                         C.W.                   (conversationally)            You sure smokin' all the time lately.                         BLANCHE                   (quick to take                   offense, snaps)            So what?                         C.W.            Nothin'.BLANCHE, sick of it all, drops her head in her hand with asigh.                         BLANCHE            Oh, God...C.W. looks at her, finally decides to say something thatoccurs to him.                         C.W.            Whyn't you go back home to your papa?                         BLANCHE                   (it's been her dream)            Oh, if I could!  If I could just do            that one thing!  Oh, there's no            tellin' why this all happened.  I            was a preacher's daughter.                         C.W.            When church is your pa affiliated            with?                                                           88.                         BLANCHE                   (much more interested                   in talking about herself)            Baptist...oh, and he thought the            world of Buck, my daddy did, even            knowing that Buck was serving time            in jail.  He forgave him for that            'cause he paid his debt to society.                         C.W.            We were Disciples of Christ.INT. FRIED CHICKEN CAFE.The camera remains stationary in this scene, in this position.A lunch counter sweeps down the center of the screen.  Weare at one end of the counter.  In the f.g., a DEPUTY sitsdrinking coffee, absorbed in his cup.  In the b.g., at theother end of the counter, by the Exit door, BLANCHE and C.W.are being handed their order by the counterman.                         BLANCHE            Hey, C.W., I ain't got my money.            Give me some, will you?The DEPUTY turns his head and looks over there.  C.W. openshis jacket to reach in his pocket for money.  As he openshis coat, his gun is clearly seen tucked in his pants.Camera zooms in to tight close-up of gun.Close shot.  DEPUTY--his face tense.  Sound of door closingshut, as C.W. and BLANCHE leave.                         DEPUTY                   (to counterman)            Get Sheriff Smoot on the phone.                                            DISSOLVE TO:INT. PLATTE CITY MOTEL ROOM - NIGHT.On C.W.'s moonlit chest and face, tattooed bluebirds heavingand occasionally snoring in the night.  Behind him the roomis dimly lit by flickering candles that are placed out ofsight on the floor.  The shapes in the room--the bed isgutted and only the box mattress remains--dresser, lampshades, etc., are grotesque in the flickering light.  O.s.sounds of BONNIE and CLYDE, BONNIE giggling and CLYDEwhispering something we can't quite hear.Move across the room toward the gutted bed.  Move gigglingfrom the floor beneath the box mattress--for a moment itshould appear as if something perversely sexual may be goingon between BONNIE and CLYDE.                                                           89.                         BONNIE'S VOICE            Ready?                         CLYDE'S VOICE                   (a little embarrassed)            Aw Bonnie--                         BONNIE'S VOICE                   (coaxing)            C'mon!CLYDE's arm wielding a Tommy gun, clears the bed.  With themuzzle, CLYDE knocks the swivel mirror on the dresseroverhead, bringing BONNIE and CLYDE into view.Closer angle mirror--BONNIE and CLYDE.  Night.  BONNIE liesstiff as a statue on the white mattress, impeccably dressedfor her funeral.  Candelabras made of empty beer bottles lieat her head and feet.  BONNIE's hands and face are powderedand painted a waxen white.  She wears a garish silk bow inher hair which it, for this occasion, curled like a littlegirl's.CLYDE sits up, beer bottle in one hand, Tommy gun in theother, derby hat cocked--and just a little unsure of thewhole thing.  He takes a swig--BONNIE stops him, tryingterribly hard not to change her position.                         BONNIE            Lie down now, honey.                         CLYDE            I've done enough!Angle on mirror--BONNIE and CLYDE.  Night.                         BONNIE                   (with patience, to a child)            You have to lie down...it's the            only way we can tell what we'll            look kike together.She giggles again, more than a little gassed herself.  CLYDEclamps a big cigar between his teeth and abruptly lies downbeside her.  CLYDE is both amused and annoyed.                         CLYDE                   (staring up at                   himself talking with                   cigar clenched                   between his teeth)            Whatta you think?                                                           90.                         BONNIE                   (it suddenly strikes her)            That's not the right tie!                         CLYDE            What?                         BONNIE                   (rising, weaving a little)            You can't wear polka-dots on an            occasion like this.                         CLYDE            Well what--                         BONNIE            Stripes.  Don't go away now.She weaves her way over to the dresser, takes a swig from abottle there herself, checks her makeup, and returns withthe tie.  Holding against his chest to try it out she almostfalls into him.  CLYDE steadies her.                         BONNIE            Perfect.She tries to tie it for him, and clearly has trouble withthe knot.                         CLYDE            OK, o.k.  If we're gonna do this,            at least I can tie it myself.  Lie            down before you fall down.INT. MOTEL BEDROOM--BONNIE AND CLYDE.  NIGHT.She does, with some play-acting, exaggerated obeisance toCLYDE's command--reaching up at the last moment like azombie and snatching an artificial flower from BLANCHE's hatwhich still lies on the dresser.  CLYDE lies down now.  Theylook into the mirror again.                         CLYDE                   (grudgingly)            Better?                         BONNIE            Much.This tickles CLYDE despite himself and he laughs--BONNIEbegins to sing to him--performing for both CLYDe and her ownimage in the mirror--like some hoydenish vaudevillian.                                                           91.During the course of the song she will rise and take CLYDEwith her who finally joins in when they tip-toe over andbegin to serenade C.W.                         BONNIE & CLYDE                   (to the lugubrious                   strains of the Death March)            "Did you ever think when a hearse            went by,            That somebody you or I may die?            They'll wrap you up in a big white            sheet            and bury you down just about six            feet,            The worms crawl in, the worms crawl            out,            The worms play penuckle on your            snout.            Your eyes fall in, your teeth fall            out,            Your face turns green and the pus            runs out.During this last they have been hovering over C.W.'stwitching face, like a couple of tipsy ghouls, whisper-singing into his ears.  C.W. finally blinks, doesn't evenbother to look at them.                         C.W.            I'm gonna die if I don't get some            sleep.  Quit singing that.Reaction--BONNIE and CLYDE.  Night.  They smile, go back andlie down.  Looking at their images:                         BONNIE            All right, shut your eyes now.                         CLYDE                   (playing along with her)            No, you first.                         BONNIE            One for the money.                         CLYDE            Two for the show.                         BONNIE            Three to get ready--                         CLYDE & BONNIE            Four to Go.                                                           92.As they approach four we should feel that somehow when theyshut their eyes, they really will die.  They shut them onGO, and screen goes black.EXT. PLATTE CITY MOTEL.  NIGHT.Ranged across the lawn are six police cars, loaded withpeace officers.  Four men come out and, guns drawn, walkcautiously over to the room on the right--BUCK and BLANCHE's.INT. PLATTE CITY MOTEL.  BUCK'S CABIN.  NIGHT.There is a knock on the door.  They sit bolt upright in bed.Before BUCK can say anything, BLANCHE puts her hand over hismouth to shut him up.                         BLANCHE                   (calling out)            The men are on the other side.EXT. PLATTE CITY MOTEL.  NIGHT.The four lawmen, among them the DEPUTY from the cafe, edgetheir way across the lawn, past the first garage, past thesecond.  Before they reach the door of BONNIE and CLYDE'scabin, the window smashes and there are blasts of gunfire.One cop is hit and falls, the others run back to the carsfor cover.  BONNIE and C.W. are at the window, firingsteadily.CLYDE--running into the garage to get the car.  They mustescape.  All they can do is escape, and all they have isthat one car in the closed garage.Outside.  Two of the lawmen fall to the ground, shot.  Asthe remaining two run back for cover, we see a blindinglight rolling up in a space between the six cars.  It is anarmored truck, with mounted guns and and spotlight, advancingtoward the cabin.Inside the armored truck.  Two men in the seat.  Sounds ofgunshots coming from everywhere, piercing light.  Frominside the truck, we suddenly see the windshield shatteredfrom bullets fired by BONNIE and C.W.  The driver is hit,and he slumps over the wheel.  His body hits the horn, whichstarts blasting and continues throughout the battle.  Theother man, quickly, ducks under the dashboard for protection.Inside the garage.  CLYDE standing by the car.  He holds theBrowning Automatic.  The garage door is shaking from theimpact of bullets, shattering.  His gun already firing(automatic clip) before he gets there.  CLYDE in a crouchruns to the garage door, flings it up, and runs back insidethe car.  Now the door is open and he can get the car out.                                                           93.One hand on the wheel, one hand shooting, he rolls the carout onto the driveway.  The battle is raging from all sides.EXT. STREET.The car stops.  CLYDE keeps shooting.  The door of the cabinflies open and BONNIE and C.W. come charging out, gunsblazing away.  C.W.  fires the Thompson sub-machine gun,BONNIE fires two pistols with automatic clips.  They run ina crouch, tryingto get inside the car in front of their door.They make it.Camera pans across the motel to the other door.  It opens,BUCK and BLANCHE come out, holding a double bed mattress infront of them for protection.  This makes their runningawkward--the mattress is heavy.  BLANCHE carries the frontend, BUCK the back with one hand, the other firing his gun.They get halfway to the car and then BUCK is hit, shot inthe head.  He falls to the ground; BLANCHE and the mattressfall too since she has lost balance.  Both are under themattress.CLYDE dashes out of the car and drags BUCK into the backseat.  BLANCHE follows, hysterical.  All guns on all sidesare still firing.  They fling themselves into the car andfrom a standing start, the car starts out at 60 mph down thedriveway.  One of the lawmen stands blocking the way with adouble-barrele rifle, but the car keeps coming, about to runhim down.  He jumps out of the way and fires at the side.The glass cracks and we see BLANCHE fling a hand to herface, which is bloody.  A piece of glass has lodged in hereye.  We hear her scream.  The horn is still blasting.INT. THE CAR SWERVING MADLY.CLYDE manages to keep it on the road.  They drive away.EXT. STREET.The police run back to their cars to give chase, calling outto each other, unable to believe that the gang could possiblyhave gotten away.INT. CAR.  NIGHT.as it is speeding down the highway.  Crazy, mad hillbillymusic on the soundtrack.  Packed inside this car right nowis more sheer human misery and horror than could be believed.It is hell in there, hell and suffering and pain.  The caris a complete mess.  C.W. is sobbing.  Everyone is hysterical.BLANCHE is shrieking with pain and concern for BUCK.  BUCKis alternating between groaning and passing out completely.BONNIE is yelling at everybody to shut up.                                                           94.Only CLYDE, driving with both hands clenched on the wheel,is silent.  The car is doing 90.EXT. SUBURBAN STREET.  NIGHT.The car from the outside, a half hour later.  They haveeluded the police.  They are barreling down the road at topspeed on a nice suburban street with proper homes.  It isthe middle of the night, utter silence.  CLYDE stops thecar, points to ca car in a driveway--it is a beautiful,shiny new and expensive automobile.  C.W. runs out, runs upthe driveway, peers inside, gets in, quietly backs it downthe driveway and pulls behind the gang's bullet-riddledgetaway car.  Suddenly they both zoom off down the roadtogether.INT. OF THE NEW CAR.  NIGHT.C.W. driving alone.  He is crying, mumbling, wiping his eyesand nose with one hand while he controls the wheel with theother.EXT. RING OF FIRS.  NIGHT.A wide field in the country.  This is Dexter, Iowa.  It isquiet.  We see, in a long shot that takes in everything,that this is a meadow surrounded by a ring of trees, a denseforest that circles them.  The meadow, however, is large.The two cars drive into the middle of the field, headlightson.  They stop and the Barrow gang gets out.  They are inhorrible shape--we can finally have a look at them.  Half-dressed in their pajamas, bloody, dirty, in tatters.  Thosethat can stagger out do so, others are carried.  A far shotof all this.Closer shot.  Moving closer to them, we see CLYDE and C.W.lay BUCK down on the ground.  CLYDE begins to administer tohis wounds as best he can, mostly just wiping him off.  BUCKis semi-conscious.  All are in a semi-daze.  BLANCHE fallsto her knees, still clutching her eyes.  She is totallyhysterical.                         BLANCHE            Oh, God, please help us!  Dear            Father in Heaven, get us out of            this and Buck will never do another            bad thing in his life!                   (she continues                   moaning, praying, sobbing)BONNIE walks over to the group, looking at BUCK, C.W. goesover to her.  Two shot--BONNIE and C.W.                                                           95.                         C.W.            He ain't got a chance.  Half his            head blown off.Camera pulls back to take in BLANCHE.                         BLANCHE            My eyes!                   (she SCREAMS)            God, I think I'm blind.                   (in the headlights)            ...light hurts so bad...BONNIE walks over to the car and comes back with thesunglasses BUCK had given BLANCHE.  Moving her out of theglare, she helps BLANCHE put them on.  BONNIE now has an armaround BLANCHE, and BLANCHE shivers into BONNIE gracefully.BONNIE is a little repelled by BLANCHE, but comforts her outof genuine feeling for her.                         BLANCHE                   (clinging)            Please, please get us to a doctor!            Tell Clyde to get us to a doctor.            We'll die here.                         BONNIE                   (helping with glasses)            --here, hon'.BONNIE looks silently up to CLYDE.  CLYDE is looking dumblydown at his mangled brother.                         BLANCHE                   (going on)            Clyde, Clyde, please get us to a            doctor.Though BLANCHE cannot see it, CLYDE has knelt down to theside of BUCK, taking BUCK's hand and with his other hand hasbegun smoothing BUCK's hair back, away from the wound.                         BLANCHE            He's your brother!                         BONNIE                   (gently, knowing                   CLYDE will not and                   cannot answer BLANCHE)            Buck can't be moved, now, hon'.BLANCHE's answer to this is hysterical sobbing, buryingherself into BONNIE, mumbling half-coherent, muffled prayersbetween the sobs.                                                           96.With BUCK and CLYDE.                         BUCK                   (weakly)            Clyde?...Clyde?...                         CLYDE            Right here, boy.                         BUCK            I believe I lost my shoes...maybe            the dog hid 'em...                   (he lapses into                   unconsciousness again)CLYDE has begun to cry a little, continues to smooth backBUCK's hair with ritualistic regularity.Wide angle.  Night.  Camera pulls away, way back to wideshot of the entire field, showing the group in the center ofthe darkness, lit by the headlights.Match dissolve into early dawn, camera still on the wideshot.  The field is lighter, though the trees still loomblackly around it.  The two cars, one almost a shatteredwreck, the other bright and shiny and new, are parked in thecenter.  The sky is light, but the trees cast a dark shadowon the field.  The gang is just sitting around.  BLANCHEweeping next to BUCK, C.W. sitting on the running board of acar, staring.  BONNIE standing and smoking.  CLYDE stillwith BUCK.All is quiet.EXT. WOODS.  DAY.From the edge of the woods, a man in a white shirt emergesfrom behind a tree.  The camera swings abruptly to get him.He calls out to the gang.                         MAN            Surrender!It is a total surprise.  BONNIE, CLYDE and C.W. all grabtheir guns and fire several shots; they are not firing thebig guns now, but the pistols.  The man lingers there for amoment--he looks strange, white, luminous, like anapparition--and then he vanishes into the woods.  Silence,long enough to make you think it was perhaps an illusion.Then there is a volley of gunfire--a noise so large as to bealmost an impossible sound--coming from the woods, allaround, everywhere.                                                           97.A ring of little white puffs of smoke emerge from the woods;from every tree a puff of smoke.  The camera pans in acircle.  Behind every tree is a man with a gun.  There areat least 150 people out there--peace officers, farmers withhunting rifles, kids with squirrel guns, everyone who wantedto come along and catch BONNIE and CLYDE.  Their number isso large because this time they want no possibility of thegang making what seemed by them supernatural escapes.From this point on, the sound of guns is unnaturally muffledon the sound track.  We hardly hear them at all..it is likea dream.Without a word, all of the gang including the half-dead BUCKmaking his final effort, scramble for the nearest car.  Theyrun, throughout this battle, crouched, like animals--theironly thought, to get away, to escape.  To fight it out wouldbe ludicrous.From the moment the Barrows start in motion, there isshooting again from the edge of the woods.  We see themscrambling towards the car, in an extreme long shot,surrounded by the ring of smoke.                                            CUT TO:INT. OF THE CAR.All of them inside.  CLYDE is at the wheel.                                            CUT TO:EXT. CAR.Med. Long shot of the car moving.  The sound track goes tocomplete silence.  We see the car looking for an avenue ofescape.  It veers towards a tree, a man steps out frombehind the tree and fires, the car jerks and veers towardanother tree, again a man steps out and fires and so on.The car performs its eccentric dance, all in utter silence(no sound of the motor, nothing).  The film should have thefeeling of slow motion, as the car swerves and loops alongthe edge of the woods.  Not once do any of the Barrows fireback.  Another man steps out and aims.INT. CAR.Close-up.  CLYDE.  At the wheel-shot in the arm.  He grabshis arm in pain, loses control of the wheel.                                            CUT TO:                                                           98.EXT. CAR.--out of control (still silent).  It smashes into a treestump.  The picture stops, freezes for three beats.  We holdthe image of the moment of crash, with pieces of metalcrumpling and flying into the air, suspended there by thestop-film.                                            CUT TO:INT. CAR.Sound partly up again, but never at its realistic volume.From inside the smashed car, we peer out the window acrossthe field and see the other car.  The thought strikes theaudience at the same time it strikes the gang--they must getto that car.Med. shot of the second car, sitting in the field, shiningin the sun.  The lawmen also realize what must be done--cutoff this escape.  Though BONNIE, CLYDE and the others areheading toward it, they suddenly train all their fire on thecar rather than the gang.The car fills the frame of the screen.  Bullets begin to hitit.  It starts to quiver under the impact.  For the nextminute, we see the car die in front of our eyes.  We see thebeautiful machine fall to pieces--windows smash, tires tornapart, body riddled.  The death of the car is as painful towatch as the willful death of a human being.  The executionis paced deliberately to show the ritualistic tempo of thedestruction.EXT. WOODS.The camera pulls back, way back and slightly above everythingto reveal the entire field.  On the left of the screen,BONNIE, CLYDE and C.W. are scrambling toward the edge of thewoods.  In the center BUCK and BLANCHE have taken coverbehind a fallen log.  In the foreground, police begin toemerge from the woods.  The camera zooms rapidly in withthem toward BUCK.  BLANCHE is screaming.                         BLANCHE            Don't kill him!  Don't kill him!            He's dying!BUCK is making a last feeble attempt.  The zoom continuespast BUCK until it comes tight on his hand, a lawman's footsteps on his hand.  BUCK falls over.  He dies.  BLANCHEscreams.                         BLANCHE            Don't die, Daddy.  Don't die!                                                           99.She goes berserk.  Five men, one hardly a teen-ager, grabher and hold her as she writhes and cries.  She is stillwearing the sunglasses.                                            CUT TO:EXT. WOODS AND STREAM.  BONNIE, CLYDE, AND C.W.  DAY.They have reached the edge of the woods.  Camera tracks withthem as they run.  From all around come the sounds of theposse.  The three get in through the pines and come finallyto a deep stream.  They jump in and start across, runningawkwardly in chest-deep water.  They are half way acrosswhen the police appear on the bank behind them, shooting.Close-up.  BONNIE.  Day--as she is struggling through thewater.  A bullet hits her in the shoulder.  We must see thisbullet clearly, we must see it go in her flesh so that wecan feel it.Tight close-up of BONNIE's face as she screams.  It is thefirst time she has been hurt, and the scream is pure animalpain.  She cries out.EXT. STREAM AND CORNFIELD.  DAY.CLYDE, who has almost reached the other side, comes back andgets her.  He drags her out of the water and into a cornfieldthat starts growing on the opposite bank, C.W. helping.  Hehalf-carries half-runs with her into the cornfield, as thefield gets deeper and thicker.They stop for a second.                         CLYDE                   (panting, to Bonnie)            Saw...saw a farm...up ahead...gotta            get...a car...He starts to give over the wounded BONNIE to C.W.                         BONNIE            Baby, no...But CLYDE has not heard this last.  Working on pureadrenaline now, he struggles onward.  Camera tilts upslightly so we can see CLYDE as he essays his way toward afarmhouse with a car in the distance.  After a few momentshe disappears and we can hear only the cracking of thestalks as that sound too diminishes,Full shot.  Cornfield.  Day.  Silence.                                                          100.Close.  C.W. and BONNIE.  Obviously some time later.  Theyboth lie prostrate in the field, listening.  C.W. licks hislips.                         C.W.            Maybe--                         BONNIE            Shhh!They wait for another long moment, picking up only thetiniest sounds.                         BONNIE                   (finally)            Oh, no.                         C.W.                   (nervously)            What?  What?                         BONNIE                   (as though it were                   the most logical                   thing in the world)            I can't die without Clyde.  I just            can't.C.W. looks at her as if she's gone crazy.  After anothermoment the corn begins to tremble, and we hear the o.s.sound of an approaching car.With C.W. Day--tentatively lifting his head up to clear thecorn stalks.  With him we see the car looming larger,bearing down on us, splitting the corn stalks.  The carfinally comes to a stop a few feet in front of C.W.  BONNIEis on her feet, and CLYDE tumbles out of the car, practicallybefore it's stopped, sweeping BONNIE into him.  For a momentboth are in their knees a few feet from the running board ofthe car, simply holding onto each other and not moving.                         C.W.                   (tugging at both of                   them frantically)            C'mon!  C'mon!  C'mon!                                            ABRUPT CUT:INT. CAR.  ABOUT A HALF HOUR LATER.  DAY.They have gotten away, but are still escaping.  C.W. isdriving.  He is bare-chested.  CLYDE is beside him in front,his arm bleeding.  He falls in and out of consciousness.BONNIE is stretched out in back.                                                          101.Her shoulder has been bandaged with C.W.'s shirt.  She isunconscious.INT. CAR.  LATE DAY.CLYDE comes half-awake and looks over at C.W.                         CLYDE            Head out, C.W.                         C.W.                   (determinedly)            I'm goin' home to my daddy's farm.                                            DISSOLVE TO:EXT. ROAD WITH CAMPSITE.  THE SAME EVENING.C.W. is driving down the road, hell for leather.  Nearing acampsite, where there are about six Okie cars and pick-uptrucks all loaded down, with a number of poor familiesseated around a campfire, cooking.  C.W. jams on the brakes.He gets out, looking totally exhausted.Reaction shot.  The faces of the Okies, looking at thissudden presence in their midst.Back to C.W.                         C.W.                   (about to drop)            Can y'all spare me a little water?EXT. CAMPSITE.  FULL SHOT.One man, the leader of the group, dips a cup of water andapproaches C.W. suspiciously.  He comes close enough to makeC.W. reach out for the water, but withholds it from him.                         MAN            Who are you, boy?                         C.W.            Name's Moss.This seems to be enough for the man, who gives him the water.As C.W. gulps it down, the man begins to circle the car,peering into it suspiciously.  Suddenly he starts and hiseyes open wide.                         MAN                   (in really hushed and                   reverent tones)            It's Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.                                                          102.He stands there struck dumb, staring.  Those of the otherswho have heard him begin to come over.  Without a word theymove quietly to the car and stare in.INT. CAR.BONNIE is out in the back seat; CLYDE is semi-conscious inthe front seat.  He looks up through half-closed eyes.EXT. CAR.We see a woman pour a bowl of soup at the campfire and bringit to C.W.  He accepts it.A man rolls a cigarette and lights it.  Then, very gingerly,as if afraid to really touch him, he reaches through thewindow and places it in CLYDE's lips.  It hangs there, CLYDEunable to drag on it or remove it.Children peer through the back window.C.W. finishes his cup of soup.  He hands it and the cup ofwater back to a woman in the crowd.Quietly, moving together, the Okies step back.  C.W. walksto the driver's seat, gets in and shuts the door.  He startsup the car.The people push a bit closer for a last look.  CLYDE, unableto do more, nods his head in a barely perceptive gesture byway of saying "thank you" t ot the people.  The cigarette isstill dangling from his lips.The car moves off.  A YOUNG BOY pulls on his FATHER's shirt.                         BOY            Who was they, Pa?                         MAN            That was Bonnie and Clyde, the bank            robbers.A woman, nearby, smiles sweetly.                                            DISSOLVE TO:EXT. MOSS FARM.  MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.The car pulls up outside the slightly ramshackle farm ofMALCOLM MOSS, C.W.'s father, in Arcadia, Louisiana.  Itsits, for a moment, in the dark.  Then C.W. honks the horn.A few seconds pass, and the porch light comes on.  OLD MANMOSS comes out in his pajamas and peers into the darkness.He is a fat man with gray hair.                                                          103.                         MALCOLM            Who's there?                         C.W.                   (calling back)            Daddy?                         MALCOLM            Who's there?  Who is it?                         C.W.            It's C.W.  It's Clarence.                         MALCOLM            Clarence!He runs down the steps, down the path to his son.  Theygreet each other, hugging for a second, looking each otherover.                         MALCOLM            God, it's good to see you, boy!He holds C.W. at arm's length to study him, and suddenly hescowls at something he sees by the light of the porch.                         MALCOLM            What's that on your chest?                         C.W.                   (puzzled)            Huh?                   (realizing what he means)            It's a tattoo...I'm in trouble.            I'll tell you about it later.  My            friends are hurt.  Help me get 'em            in.MALCOLM goes to car and looks inside for a moment.  He walksback to C.W.                         MALCOLM            Jesus, what happened to them?  You            in trouble, son?                         C.W.            Yeah.  That's Clyde Barrow and            Bonnie Parker.                   (reaction from Malcolm)            We been shot.  Help me get 'em            inside.  We gotta help 'em.They go to the car and drag the unconscious BONNIE out andbegin carrying her up to the house.                                                          104.                         MALCOLM            Why'd you get yourself marked up?            A tattoo!  What in hell made you do            a damn fool thing like that?They reach the house.                         C.W.            C'mon, Pa, open the door.INT. SHERIFF'S OFFICE IN DEXTER.  DAY.Although the scene begins with a full-screen close-up of anewspaper clipping with a photo, it is just a blurry-gray,crowded scene of BLANCHE's capture.  Really impossible tomake anybody out in the crowd.  Camera stays on photo as wehear voice over of two men talking: a sheriff and his deputy.                         BILLY            I was in the bunch that took 'er.            See here?  Can you make me out?            Here I am, see here, right behind            Joe Boyd here.                         PETE            Sure enough, Billy, is that your            head there?Camera pulls away, BILLY, a young deputy--cold, intense,humorless and square, carefully folds up the clipping andputs it in his wallet.                         BILLY            Still can't figure how we let them            other two get away.                         PETE                   (an older, more                   genial type)            Yeah, seems as how nobody can get            'em somehow.                         BILLY                   (sullen)            Yeah...well, maybe this boy'll be            the one to do it, this Hamer guy.            Boy if he can't do it, Sheriff,            ain't nobody but the whole U.S.            Army can do it.                                                          105.                         PETE                   (with a new note of                   enthusiasm, gets up                   and walks to the                   window--turning to Billy)            You hear he quit the Rangers on            account of Texas got that woman            governor.  Said he wouldn't work            under no woman.                         BILLY                   (respectfully)            Yeah, that's somethin' all right.            Say, how many they say he shot            anyway in his day?                         PETE            Sixty-five they say.                         BILLY            Son of a sea-cook!The door opens.  We see, full shot and then fast close-upFRANK HAMER.  It should be a complete shock to the audience--this is the man kidnapped by the gang earlier and partiallydestroyed by BONNIE.HAMER is dressed in his Ranger outfit and hat, and again hehas that quality of sinister frenzy beneath his calm manner.His attitude toward these lawmen is sheer condescension,friendly only out of convention, really superior andcontemptuous of lesser workers in his field.                         HAMER                   (with politeness                   arising from condescension)            Excuse me, am I in the right place?            Is this Sheriff Smoot?PETE and BILLY jump up from the chairs and walk over toHAMER, hands extended.  They are quite impressed by meetingin the flesh.                         PETE                   (mispronouncing his name)            Frank Hammer.  I sure am pleased to            meet you!                   (shakes his hand)                         HAMER            Hamer.                                                          106.EXT. MOSS FARM.  CLOSE SHOT NEWSPAPER.  DAY.A coil of rope snaps into and through the paper, splittingit and revealing C.W.'s startled face.  CLYDE strides theporch angrily, snapping the rope.BONNIE and MALCOLM are seated along with C.W.  ThroughBONNIE has her arm supported by a sling and CLYDE has hisshoulder bandagedm it is evident by CLYDE's heady indignationand BONNIE's attentiveness that both are well on the way torecovery.                         CLYDE                   (still snapping rope)            FLED?  What do they mean, fled?            How in the nama God could I leave            my brother to die when he was            already dead when I left him?                   (livid)            He was shot in too many pieces to            pick off the ground!  Fled...what            do they know, the papers or the            police?...Suddenly he moves upon MALCOLM with enormous intent, as ifby pounding the point home to the one relative strangeramong them, he will justify it all.  MALCOLM momentarilyflinches, then listens with intense deference.                         CLYDE            Why, while we were all lyin' around            here, near dead, they had us            holdin' up the Grand Prairie            National Bank!  They hung that one            on us just for luck, I guess.CLYDE shakes his head, still thinking this over.  Abruptly,to BONNIE, with deadly seriousness:                         CLYDE            Tell you what.  Soon's we get well,            we're gonna take that bank!He breaks into a wicked grin, but then reels, catchinghimself on the porch railing.  He's obviously dizzy fromexertion and anger.  BONNIE starts--then sees CLYDE is incontrol.                         CLYDE                   (remarking on his own dizziness)            Whooooooo, boy...                   (kneeling, to Bonnie)            They don't know nothin'--do they,            sugar?                                                          107.                         BONNIE                   (assuring him)            You did all you could, hon'.            Nobody coulda done more.C.W. has been studying hard on the torn paper, b.g.  Suddenly:                         C.W.            Hey.  How come I'm always called            the "Un-identified sus-spect?"Group shot.  Porch.  C.W. has trouble with this last phrase.BONNIE laughs.  This picks up CLYDE's spirits once more.                         CLYDE                   (to C.W.)            You can just thank your lucky stars            that's all you are.  So long's they            don't have your last name, you're            home safe.                         MALCOLM                   (toadying to Clyde,                   talking to Clarence)            Mr. Barrow's lookin' out for your            interests, boy.                         C.W.                   (impressed)            Oh...Hey, Pa, how you like havin' a            coupla big deals stayin' with you?                         MALCOLM                   (friendly as can be)            Ain't that somethin' for me?                         CLYDE                   (back in good mood, expansive)            Well now, you been real nice to us,            and I tell you what, let us pay you            forty dollars for your hospitality,            what do you say?                         MALCOLM                   (protesting vehemently)            No, no, no.  I don't want your            money.  I'm just pleased to have            your company.  Any friend of my            boy's...                         C.W.                   (abruptly)            Hey, Pa, let's have supper.  I'm            hungry.                                                          108.                         MALCOLM                   (smiling)            Yeah...okay, Clarence...                   (to Clyde)            You're welcome here, now you know            that.INT. MOSS HOUSE.They go into the house.  Camera goes with them.  As soon asthey are out of earshot from BONNIE and CLYDE, MALCOLM turnson C.W. displaying an entirely different demeanor from theone he presented outside.                         MALCOLM                   (indicating tatto                   which flutters                   through C.W.'s open shirt)            You look like trash, boy, marked up            like that.  Cheap trash.                         C.W.                   (protesting)            Bonnie says it looks good.                         MALCOLM            Bonnie, what does she know.  She's            just cheap trash herself.  Look            what they do to you, and you don't            even get your name in the paper--            just pictures put on your skin, by            "Bonnie and Clyde"--                   (more to himself)            --why they're a coupla kids.                         C.W.            But, Daddy--                         MALCOLM            I'm just glad your ma ain't alive            to see that thing.C.W. peeks at it, peering down at his chest, trying to bringthe bluebirds into focus, puzzled.                         C.W.            I don't see what's so bad about it...INT. HOSPITAL.  MED. SHOT OF THE ROOM.Seated in a soft chair, looking directly at us, is BLANCHEBARROW.  Her eyes are completely covered with a whitebandage.  She wears a hospital gown.  The room is white andbright.                                                          109.Med. shot.  HAMER in the doorway.  The nurse leaves.  Hereaches in his pocket and pulls out a white handkerchief.He puts it over his mouth to disguise his voice, afraid shewill remember it from the kidnap.  Quietly, almost ontiptoes, HAMER walks over to BLANCHE.  He gets inches awayfrom her face.  She still doesn't know he is there.                         HAMER                   (quietly, but                   suddenly, his voice                   muffled by the handkerchief)            Blanche Barrow.She starts to her feet, then adjusts to his presence.  Sheis a bit panicked.  BLANCHE is now a defeated human being.Her voice and manner bespeak great weariness, sorrow andstill a touch of her old high-strung hysteria.  But most ofthat is gone now, like everything else that was really vitalin her life.                         BLANCHE            What?  What?  Who is it?                         HAMER                   (in a monotone, a                   relentless questioner)            You know your husband's dead.                         BLANCHE                   (her voice flat and expressionless)            I know.                         HAMER            You're going to prison.                         BLANCHE            I know it.                         HAMER            Where's the rest of 'em?                         BLANCHE            I don't know.                         HAMER            Where's the rest of 'em?                         BLANCHE            I just don't know.  I don't know.                         HAMER            How'd you get in with them?                                                          110.                         BLANCHE                   (starting slow, but                   warming up to the                   subject, she begins                   to talk and talk for                   the sake of airing                   her troubles)            I didn't mean to.  I didn't.  Buck            said we was just goin' to visit, we            wouldn't be doin' no robbin' and            stealin', and then we went to            Joplin and all of a sudden they            started shootin'.                   (hysteria begins to                   creep into her voice                   as she relives it all)            And we run off, God, I was scared.            And then it was run all the time,            and I wanted to go, I begged to go,            but Clyde and Bonnie and C.W.--                         HAMER                   (seizing on it)            C.W.  C.W. who?                         BLANCHE            C.W. Moss.                                            FADE OUT:FADE IN:EXT. CAR ON THE MOSS FARM.  A DIRT PATH NEAR THE BARN.  DAY.It is pouring rain, middle of the afternoon, BONNIE andCLYDE are inside the car, sitting.  They have lived so muchin cars that they tend to still spend much of their time init rather than in a room.  There they are themselves.INT. CAR.BONNIE is in the back seat, her legs wrapped in a plaidblanket, writing poetry.  She looks like Elizabeth BarrettBrowning.  With one essential difference--her arm is in asling and she is wearing bandages on the shoulder.  CLYDE isin the front seat, reading a newspaper.  He is also partiallybandaged.  On the dashboard is a box of ginger-snaps whichhe eats while he reads.  They look domestic.                         CLYDE            Want a ginger-snap, Bonnie?                                                          111.                         BONNIE                   (busy, absorbed)            No, hum-umm.                   (then she realizes                   his nice gesture and                   smiles warmly at him)            But thanks anyway, Clyde.                   (she takes it all in,                   her situation, and                   looks content and cozy)            It's real nice here, just the two            of us like this.                         CLYDE                   (more interested in                   his paper)            Uh-huh.                   (something in the                   paper catches his interest)            Look here, honey, remember this?He holds up the paper; there is one of the photos from themotel, the one showing BONNIE smoking.  She looks up at itwith mild interest.                         BONNIE            Yeah, at the motel.                         CLYDE                   (studying the picture)            You sure don't resemble that no more.Close-up BONNIE.  She doesn't.  She has become totallyfragile, the essence of herself.  She is writing on a pad.CLYDE and BONNIE.                         CLYDE            What you writin' this time?                         BONNIE                   (intensely)            I'm writing a poem about us.  I'm            writing our story.                         CLYDE                   (this appeals to his ego)            Oh, are you?  Let's hear it.  If            it's good, I'll mail it in to the            Law and it'll be printed in all the            papers again.                         BONNIE            Just let me finish this line.                                                          112.She does so.  CLYDE munches a cookie.                         BONNIE                   (continuing)            Okay, here it is.Close-up.  BONNIE--as she reads intensely.  At the beginningof this montage, the camera remains on her face.  Behind herwe see the rain on the window.                         BONNIE                   (reading)            "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde"            You've heard the story of Jesse            James--            Of how he lived and died:            If you're still in need            Of something to read            Here's the story of Bonnie and            Clyde.            Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow            Gang            I'm sure you all have read            How they rob and steal            And those who squeal            Are usually found dying or dead.            They call them cold-hearted killers;            They say they are heartless and            mean;            But I say this with pride,            That I once knew Clyde            When he was honest and upright and            clean.            But the laws fooled around,            Kept taking him down            And locking him in a cell,            Till he said to me,            "I'll never be free            So I'll meet a few of them in            hell."            The road was so dimly lighted;            There were no highway signs to            guide;            But they made up their minds            If all roads were blind,            They wouldn't give up till they died.                                            CUT TO:                                                          113.INT. POLICE STATION.  DAY.The manuscript is lying on the police blotter.  HAMER picksit up and continues reading it.  He reads it in a haltingway:                         HAMER            The road gets dimmer and dimmer;            Sometimes you can hardly see;            But it's fight man to man,            And do all you can,            For they know they can never be            free.            From heartbreak some people have            suffered;            From weariness some people have            died;            But take it all in all,            Our troubles are small,            Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.Close-up of a newspaper page.  The poem is printed all theway down the length of one column.  On the sound track,BONNIE's voice picks up the recitation:                         BONNIE'S VOICE (O.S.)            If a policeman is killed in Dallas,            And they have no clue or guide;            If they can't find a fiend,            They just wipe their slate clean            And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.INT. CAR.  CLOSE-UP OF BONNIE.  DAY.The day is sunny and we see it through the car window.  Shecontinues reading, but now she reads it directly from thenewspaper:                         BONNIE            If they try to act like citizens            And rent them a nice little flat            About the third night            They're invited to fight            By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.            Some day they'll go down together;            They'll bury them side by side;            To few it'll be grief--            To the law a relief--            But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.                                                          114.BONNIE finishes the poem, as camera pulls back slightly toshow that it is a different day, different clothes and thebandages are gone.  As she stops, she has an expectant andsomewhat self-satisfied look.Close-up of CLYDE.  His eyes are wide, his mouth open, hisface shows surprise and delight and he is on the verge of agiant laugh.                         CLYDE                   (in gleeful wonder)            Damn!  That's me!A great laugh comes bursting from him.  Camera widens totake in BONNIE.  She is both startled and delighted by hisresponse.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            In that poem!BONNIE giggles.                         CLYDE                   (continuing; it is                   all starting to come                   out now--his                   realization that he                   has made it, that he                   is the stuff of                   legend, that he is an                   important figure)            A sub-gun's rat-tat-tat!                   (he begins to laugh loudly)            Right in the paper!Close-up BONNIE.  Now laughing too, with a great feeling ofjoy.Two shot.  BONNIE and CLYDE.                         CLYDE            Jesse James!  You hear 'bout old            Jesse, now you goin' to hear 'bout            Clyde!He puffs up with air and explodes like a steam valve.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            Pshhhhhh!He grabs BONNIE and chuckles delightedly.                                                          115.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            Damn, Bonnie!  You musta been one            hell of a waitress!Close-up.  BONNIE--laughing, her eyes filled with tears.CLYDE's hand wipes them away.Two shot.                         CLYDE                   (shaking his head                   back and forth like a                   puppy, just so much                   glee in him that he                   can't hold it)            Oooooh, that Clyde!  That's my boy,            that Clyde!He looks at her with love and delight, hugs her tightly.                         CLYDE            Bonnie...                   (she hugs him back)            The Poem of Bonnie and Clyde!                         BONNIE                   (laughing at the                   mistake, happy)            The Story.                         CLYDE            The Story of Bonnie and Clyde!  Oh,            child, you really did tell that            story!He pulls her to him, his face inches away from hers, aboutto kiss her.  She is waiting, expecting... Suddenly, he letsout one wild laugh almost into her mouth.He kisses her.  She kisses back.  They are chuckling,giggling.  They grow more ardent; they pull back and laughagain.  They begin to make love.EXT. ARCADIA STREET.  ICE CREAM PARLOR.  DAY.Bright afternoon.  Camera across the street from an icecream parlor.  Sign about it: "EVA'S HAND-PACKED ICE CREAM."A large plate glass window fronts the store, and through itwe can see the people inside seated at tables and booths.Prominent in our vision is MALCOLM MOSS, seated, facingcamera.  He is seated across from another man, but we seehim from the back.                                                          116.MALCOLM is obviously doing a lot of talking and then somehard listening; gesticulating and looking disturbed.  Aftera bit of this, he rises from the table and begins walkingtoward the door.  The other man rises and turns.  We now seethat it is FRANK HAMER.MALCOLM and HAMER come out onto the sidewalk, squinting inthe sunlight.  MALCOLM mimes some social pleasantries by wayof saying "goodbye," but HAMER's face shows no emotion ofrecognition of the gesture.  He turns and walks away,walking out of the frame.MALCOLM stands where he is, in front of the ice cream parlor.By the expression on his face, we can see that he is ratherdisturbed by what he has heard and that he is still grapplingwith the problem.                                            DISSOLVE TO:BONNIE and CLYDE.  They lie where they were with onedifference--they are now wrapped in the blanket.  CLYDE'spants are wadded up and tangled with his shoes at the baseof the blanket.                         CLYDE                   (chuckling, apparently                   quite pleased)            Damn!...damn...damn!He casts a sidelong glance to BONNIE, wanting some sort ofovert reaction from her.  She's just smiling slightly.CLYDE's underlying anxiety begins to surface.                         CLYDE                   (not looking at her)            Hey, listen, Bonnie, how do you feel?                         BONNIE                   (watching him                   steadily, her slight                   smile growing)            Fine.                         CLYDE            I mean you feel like you're s'posed            to feel after you've uh...                         BONNIE            Just.                                                          117.                         CLYDE                   (doesn't know what                   the fuck to say,                   desperately wants her approval)            Well, that's good, ain't it.            Reason I ask is, I uh... Well, I            figger it's a good idea to ask.  I            mean how else do I tell if I did it            the way...                         BONNIE                   (stopping him, with                   great warmth)            Hey.  You done just perfect.CLYDE looks at her for the first time, tremendously relieved.He can see she means it.  Now his buoyancy, utterly,unchained breaks through:                         CLYDE            I did, didn't I?  I mean I did, I            really did.  I did it, I did, I            mean this was my first time and it            was just like rollin' off a log            when it comes right down to it, it            was easy, I mean I didn't even have            to try...Lovingly, laughing, altogether overwhelmed with himself,CLYDE pulls BONNIE into him.  He kisses her, wants to makelove again, but then pulls back and keeps chattering atsixty miles a minute.  He's waited twenty-three years totalk about this, and he's got the perfect audience.                                            DISSOLVE TO:INT. KITCHEN.  MOSS FARM.  TWILIGHT.After dinner.  There are four empty plates, but only C.W.and MALCOLM in the kitchen.  C.W. is scraping the bottom ofa wilted "EVA'S HAND-PACKED ICE CREAM" carton.  MALCOLMstudies his son's quiet intensity in this direction for amoment, then moves very close, whispers when he speaks.                         MALCOLM                   (whispering)            Boy, they expect you to go downtown            with 'em tomorrow?                         C.W.                   (out loud, licking                   his ice cream)            Who?                                                          118.                         MALCOLM                   (raising his own                   voice, infuriated by                   his son's obtuseness)            Bonnie and Clyde!...                   (he slaps the carton                   out of C.W.'s hands;                   whispering again)            Bonnie and Clyde.                         C.W.            Sure, I always go with them.MALCOLM thinks hard about this.                         MALCOLM            ...better go then, you better go,            better go...                   (forcing C.W. to sit                   at table)            --but when they get back in the car            to come on home, don't get in with            them.                         C.W.                   (genuinely puzzled)            Why, Daddy?                         MALCOLM            You just listen to your Pa fer once!            Cain't you do that?  I'm yore            Daddy, I'm your kin, not Clyde.                         C.W.                   (still confused)            Well, what should I tell 'em? "I            can't get back in the car with you?"MALCOLM is ready to kill--his son's obtuseness and his fearof CLYDE is whipping him into a quiet frenzy.                         MALCOLM                   (squeezing C.W.'s arm)            No, you tell them nothin', hear?                   (hesitates, then)            I made a deal and got you off with            a coupla years!                         C.W.                   (a piercing treble)            Made a deal with who, Daddy?                                                          119.MALCOLM hauls off and whacks C.W. across the top of his headwith the flat of his hand, then momentarily holds his handover C.W's mouth.                         MALCOLM                   (we can see his own fear)            ...the law.  Just don't get back in            that car.                   (eyeball to eyeball)            And whatever you do, don't let onto            them, hear?C.W. suddenly smiles, as if he knew something.                         C.W.                   (expletive)            Whew!... You think them laws are            gonna catch Bonnie and Clyde in town?C.W. returns to the ice cream carton--MALCOLM lets him,figuring he better find out what he can.                         MALCOLM            What do you think, Clarence?                         C.W.                   (matter of fact)            They ain't gonna catch 'em.  Don't            matter whether I let on or not.                         MALCOLM                   (playing along)            Mebbe.  Just you be off'n the            streets of that town when they go            to get in their car.                         C.W.                   (looking directly at Malcolm)            Nobody catches Clyde.  Clyde's got            a sense, don't you know that, Daddy?            Nobody catches Clyde.MALCOLM knows better, but for just a moment he stares at hisson, fearing that maybe C.W., for all his limitations, has asense about CLYDE's sense.  C.W. has finished with thecarton and crumples it, licking the last remnants of creamoff his fingers.INT. BEDROOM.  MOSS FARM.  NIGHT.BONNIE and CLYDE's bedroom, the middle of that night.  Bothare wide awake, lying on opposite sides of the double bed.Both are staring into the night, disquiet.                                                          120.                         CLYDE                   (suddenly)            Bonnie?  Bonnie, will you marry me?There is a silent gasp from BONNIE, a barely perceptiblestiffening.  Then she talks in a voice falsely formal, stillstaring up at the ceiling.                         BONNIE            How could I do that, Clyde?  You            know it's impossible.  We'd have to            go to a Justice of the Peace and            the Justice of the Peace is a            lawman.  We couldn't even take out            a license.                         CLYDE                   (with a chuckle)            Hey now, you sound like you been            givin' it some thought on your own.                         BONNIE                   (with a grim irony,                   her voice getting                   more and more emotional)            Oh no, I never gave it thought.  I            haven't thought about it at least            ten times a day, I haven't thought            about it every minute of my life            since I met you.                   (suddenly her voice                   cracks into tears)She flings herself violently across the bed and buriesherself into CLYDE's chest, her knees drawn up, her headtucked down into him, her body shaking with sobs.                         CLYDE                   (a bit startled by                   this, attempting to                   hold her, awkwardly,                   and placate her.  He                   puts his arm around her)            Bonnie...are you crying, honey?BONNIE nods yes and slowly gets control over her tears.                         BONNIE                   (her face still                   buried in CLYDE's                   chest, she whispers)            Clyde, why do you want to marry me?                                                          121.CLYDE thinks a minute and then grins.                         CLYDE                   (in an attempt to be humorous)            To make an honest woman out of you.BONNIE is silent.                         BONNIE                   (finally, in a voice                   charged with                   anticipation and dream)            Clyde...what would you do, what            would you do it some miracle            happened and we could walk out            tomorrow morning and start all over            again, clean, with no record, with            nobody after us?CLYDE thinks about it a minute.                         CLYDE            Well...I guess I'd do it all            different.  First off, I wouldn't            live in the same state where we            pull our jobs.  We'd live in one            state and stay clean there, and            when we wanted to take a bank, we'd            go to another state...and...Suddenly he realizes that he has said the worst thing hecould have, that it was not the answer BONNIE wanted to hear.He looks down at her, his voice anxious.                         CLYDE                   (continuing)            Bonnie?She is silent.                         CLYDE            Hey, Bonnie?But she does not answer.EXT. ROADSIDE.  EARLY MORNING.We see MALCOLM jacking up the back wheel of his pickup truckwhich is parked on the side of the road in a wooded area.                                            CUT TO:                                                          122.EXT. ARCADIA STREET.  MID-MORNING.A street in Arcadia.  The car is parked.  BONNIE and CLYDEwalks toward the car carrying big bags of groceries andsupplies and put them inside.                         CLYDE                   (looking around)            What happened to C.W.?                         BONNIE            He stopped off in that hardware            store to get light bulbs for his            daddy.CLYDE opens the door of the driver's seat and sits down.INT. CAR.  ARCADIA STREET.  DAY.                         CLYDE            Boy, my feet are sweatin'.He takes off his shoes.                         BONNIE                   (kidding around)            You plannin' to drive with your            shoes off?                         CLYDE            Sure, why not?He reaches in his shirt pocket and takes out his sunglasses.As he goes to put them on, one of the lenses falls out.                         CLYDE            Damn!He puts them on.                         BONNIE                   (laughing)            You gonna wear 'em?                         CLYDE            Sure, drive with one eye shut.BONNIE gets in the car, rummages around in one of the bagsand pulls out something wrapped in tissue paper.  Sheunwraps it and puts it up on the dashboard, displaying it.It is a little porcelain shepherdess holding a crook in herhand, worth about thirty cents.                                                          123.                         BONNIE                   (admiring it)            Isn't that the prettiest thing, hon?            Just look here, you can see every            little fingernail on her hands.She shows him.                         CLYDE            It is a pretty thing, honey.CLYDE turns on the radio and gets some hillbilly music.They are singing "Little Church in the Valley."  He beatstime on the steering wheel, getting a little impatient.BONNIE puts her shepherdess away and begins looking in thegrocery sack.                         BONNIE            We got any peaches?  I sure could            go for a peach right now.She burrows in the bag and comes out with a peach.  Shetakes a big bite.  The juice drips down the side of hermouth.  She looks beautiful.                         CLYDE                   (he stops drumming                   his fingers, suddenly                   has an idea)            Whyn't we do it tomorrow?                         BONNIE            Do what?                         CLYDE            Tomorrow's Sunday, ain't it?  We            could drive all night and be on            that golf course tomorrow morning!                         BONNIE            You sure you feel up to it?                         CLYDE                   (enthused)            Yeah, why not?                   (now feeling anxious                   and excited, he is                   impatient to move)            Where is that boy?  He's gone too            long.                                                          124.                         BONNIE                   (humming to the radio)            He'll be here.                   (holding the peach to him)            You take a bite, hon.                         CLYDE                   (getting worried)            No, it's takin' too long.  What if            something happened?                         BONNIE            Nothin' happened.                         CLYDE                   (more urgently)            Go take a look, see what's keepin'            him.Not too delighted with the chore, BONNIE goes off.  Weremain with CLYDE, getting anxious.  The music plays on.BONNIE comes back, hurriedly, now anxious herself.                         BONNIE            He ain't there.CLYDE jumps into action, slams his door.                         CLYDE            C'mon, let's go.BONNIE gets in.  They drive off.INT. STORE.  CLOSE-UP C.W.  DAY.--hiding inside a store, peering out through a curtainedwindow at them driving away.  His expression is disturbed;his face half in shadow.EXT. ROAD.  DAY.BONNIE and CLYDE's car coming down the road.  Camera seesfrom CLYDE's P.O.V.  MALCOLM standing in the road, wavinghim down.  The pickup truck, its back jacked up, is parkedbeside him on a shoulder of the road.INT. CAR.  DAY.                         BONNIE            What's wrong?                         CLYDE            I don't know.                                                          125.EXT. ROAD.CLYDE reaches the spot, pulls off the road and stops the car.He gets out.  Camera pulls back.  CLYDE talks to the oldman, BONNIE stays in the car.  Cut to a shut down the trenchof the law, tense.Suddenly, a truck loaded with chickens comes riding down theroad from the opposite direction.  HAMER sees it from a longway away and realizes that he cannot afford to let anythingpass between him and his quarry.  He decides the time is now.He leaps up from the trench and yells at CLYDE.                         HAMER            Barrow!The OLD MAN dives under his truck to hide.  The shootingstarts.We see the chicken truck.  Two men in the front seat.  Theysee ahead of them an incredible shooting match and, interror, they jam on the brakes and leap out of the truck.They run as fast as they can into the meadow, away from thetrouble.The gun fight takes just seconds during which law fireseight-seven shots at BONNIE and CLYDE, giving them absolutelyno chance.  The sound is rapid, deafening.At no point in the gun fight do we see BONNIE and CLYDE inmotion.  We see, instead, two still photographs cut into thesequence: one of Clyde, half out of the car, taking carefuldead aim with his gun, just as he did in the teaching scene:one of BONNIE, in terror, a pack of cigarettes in her handclutched tight, looking as fragile and beautiful as she canbe.The noise stops at once.  Utter silence.  It has been amassacre.  BONNIE and CLYDE never had a chance to return thegunfire.  We see the car, a complete shambles.  We never seeBONNIE and CLYDE dead, though for a moment we discern theirbodies slumped in the car.The camera pulls above the car until it is on a level withthe opposite side of the road.  Then, slowly, the six lawmenstand up in the trench.  On the faces of the five deputies,horror and shock at what they have just done.  HAMER,however, registers no emotion.  His face is a blank.  Helights a cigarette.  Slowly, slowly, the five men begin toedge closer to the car to see the result.  Music, the wildcountry breakdown music, begins on the sound track.                                                          126.Before they reach the car, the camera swings away from them,past them, and zooms out and above into the meadow where thetwo truck drivers are standing--tiny, distant figures.The truck drivers begin to walk toward the camera, comingback to the road to see what happened.  They get closer andcloser to the camera until they have reached a middledistance and, as they continue to walk at us, it is--                           THE END                                            CUT TO BLACK.  </NOSCRIPT></TITLE><SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!--Ad Bannerfunction popupPage() { var windowopts = "location=no,scrollbars=no,menubars=no,toolbars=no,resizable=yes,left= 50,top=50,width=490,height=130"; popup38625 = open('/prohost/banner.html',"MenuPopup",windowopts); popup38625.focus();}popupPage();//  Ad Banner--></script>
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+                               BOOGIE NIGHTS                                     by                            Paul Thomas Anderson1 EXT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHTCAMERA holds on this PACKED disco on Van Nuys Blvd.TITLE CARD: "San Fernando Valley, 1977"A CADILLAC SEVILLE pulls up to the valet area and CAMERA (STEADICAM) movesacross the street, towards the car, landing close;From the Seville steps, JACK HORNER (50s) and AMBER WAVES (early 30s).CAMERA follows them (this is one continous shot) as they pass the crowd,greet a DOORMAN and enter --INSIDE THE NIGHTCLUB. Twice as packed inside as outside. Music is fullblast. Amber and Jack are greeted by;MAURICE t.t. RODRIGUEZ (30s). Owner of the nightclub. Puerto Rican. Wearinga suit and fifteen gold chains.                                  MAURICE              Jackie-Jack-Jack and Miss Lovely Amber Waves --                                   AMBER                                Hi, Maurice.                                    JACK               You bad ass little spick. How are you, honey?                                  MAURICE                    Pissed off you ain't been around --                                    JACK                           -- I been on vacation.                                  MAURICE                     Don't stay away this long from my                     club ever again, Jackie-Jack-Jack.                                    JACK                                 I promise.Maurice takes Amber's hand and gives it a kiss.                                  MAURICE                You are the foxiest bitch in ten countries.                                   AMBER                           You're such a charmer.                                  MAURICE                                 (to Jack)                    I got you all set up at your booth.              I wanna send over some clams on the half shell.                                    JACK                                 Beautiful.                                  MAURICE                     Just remember, Jack: I'm available                     and ready. Cast me and find out --                                    JACK                             Yeah, yeah, yeah.Amber and Jack head off towards the booth. CAMERA stays with Maurice,follows him to the bar area, where he shouts some orders to a WAITER.                                  MAURICE                      Clams on the half shell to Jack                       and Amber -- over there -- go!The WAITER takes off to the kitchen, Maurice walks onto the dance floor andgreets three people;REED ROTHCHILD, 20s, tall and skinny, BECKY BARNETT, 20s, black girl insilk, BUCK SWOPE, 20s, black guy in cowboy gear.                                  MAURICE                           Hello there, kiddies.                              REED/BUCK/BECKY                           Hi, hey, hi, Maurice.                                  MAURICE                            Having a good time?                                   BECKY                                 Excellent.                                  MAURICE                            Great, great, great.Maurice moves away to greet some more people. CAMERA stays with Reed, Beckyand Buck, does a 360 around them. Reed and Becky Disco Dance. Buck doessome Cowboy-Type Moves.Moments later, the WAITER carrying clams on the half shell passes andCAMERA picks up with him, follows him to Jack's booth, where he presentsthem;                                   WAITER                          Compliments of Maurice.                                    JACK                                 Thank you.                                   AMBER                      Can I get a Marguerita, please?                                    JACK                             Seven-Up, here --The WAITER exits, CAMERA PANS with him for a moment, leading to a younggirl wearing rollerskates, ROLLERGIRL (aged 18). She always, always wearsrollerskates. CAMERA PANS with her back to Jack's booth.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                    Hi.                                    JACK                               Hello, honey.                                   AMBER                              (to Rollergirl)                       Did you call that girl today?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 I forgot.                                   AMBER                   If you don't do it tomorrow, then it's                  the weekend and you'll never be able to                            get in to see her --                                 ROLLERGIRL                                    OK.Rollergirl scratches her crotch as she speaks. Amber notices;                                   AMBER                       What's the matter down there?                                 ROLLERGIRL                              I gotta go pee.                                   AMBER                               Well go, then.CAMERA stays with Rollergirl, following her across the dance floor. Shepasses Buck, Becky and Reed, says hello, dances a moment, then continues on-- into the clearing off the dance floor, heading for the bathroom. Shepasses something, CAMERA moves away towards this something:A bus boy cleaning a table, EDDIE ADAMS, aged 17. CAMERA moves into a CU --blending to SLOW MOTION (40fps) for a moment.(Note: In the text Eddie Adams will be referred to as Dirk Diggler.)ANGLE, JACK'S TABLE.Jack turns his head, looks across the dance floor and sees this kidcleaning the table.ANGLE, DIRK DIGGLER.He looks up, catches Jack looking back at him, then turns away, disappearsinto a back room.CAMERA DOLLIES in on Jack, who at that moment, is approached by a figureentering FRAME. Short, buffed out LITTLE BILL (late 40s). This is Jack'sAssistant Director.                                LITTLE BILL                                   Jack.                                    JACK                             Hey, Little Bill.                                LITTLE BILL                         Whatsa schedule look like?                    Are we still on day after tomorrow?                                    JACK                        I wanna do it the day after                          the day after tomorrow.                                LITTLE BILL                       For sure? 'Cause I wanna call                 Rocky, Scotty, Kurt and all those guys --Jack's attention is with the backroom that Dirk entered. He stands andheads away.                                    JACK                   Absolutely. But I wanna keep it small.                  I wanna keep a small crew on this one --                                LITTLE BILL                             -- a relaxed deal.                                    JACK                                  Exactly.                                LITTLE BILL                         Do you have a script yet?                                    JACK                      Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day --Jack is off across the dance floor.CUT TO:2 INT. BACKROOM/KITCHEN - MOMENTS LATER                                    JACK                                    Hey.                                    DIRK                                    Hey.                                    JACK                               How ya doin'?                                    DIRK                                   Fine.                                    JACK                              How old are you?                                    DIRK                  I have a work permit, I got the paper --                                    JACK                         No, no, no. Not like that.                       How long have you worked here?                                    DIRK                                  A month.                                    JACK                        Maurice give you a job here?                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.                                    JACK                            How much he pay you?                                    DIRK                  I'm not supposed to say how much I make.                                    JACK                          He's a friend of mine --                                    DIRK                        Well you'll have to ask him.                                    JACK                   You live around here, Canoga - Reseda?                                    DIRK              Um . . . no . . . do you know where Torrance is?                                    JACK                            How do you get here?                                    DIRK                              I take the bus.                                    JACK                          So what do you wanna do?                                    DIRK                                   What?                                    JACK                   You take the bus from Torrance to work                 in Reseda, why don't you work in Torrance?                                    DIRK                              I don't want to.                                    JACK                               . . . ok . . .                                    DIRK                       So . . . you want five or ten?                                    JACK                             . . . what . . . ?                                    DIRK                       If you wanna watch me jack off                     it's ten bucks. If you just wanna                         look at it then it's five.                                    JACK                     Guys come in, ask you to jack off                          for them, ask to see it?                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.                                    JACK                         Have you done it tonight?                                    DIRK                               Couple times.                                    JACK                          And you can do it again?                                    DIRK                     If you want, if you got ten bucks.BEAT. Jack extends his hand.                                    JACK                                 I'm Jack.                                    DIRK                            Eddie. Eddie Adams.                                    JACK                    Eddie Adams from Torrance. I'm Jack                             Horner, Filmmaker.                                    DIRK                                  Really?                                    JACK                    I make adult films. Erotic pictures.BEAT, THEN;                                    DIRK                 . . . I know who you are. I read about you                  in a magazine. "Inside Amber," "Amanda's                          Ride." You made those --                                    JACK                   So you know me, you know I'm not full                            of doggy-doo-doo --                                    DIRK                                Yeah . . . .                                    JACK                         So why don't you come back                         to my table, have a drink,                            meet some people --                                    DIRK                    I'd love to but . . . I'm working --                                    JACK                You need money, you have to pay the rent --                                    DIRK                 . . . No . . . I mean, yeah. I need money.                   But I don't pay rent. I live at home.                                    JACK                      Tell me how old you are, Eddie.                                    DIRK                        . . . I'm seventeen . . . .                                    JACK                 You're a seventeen year old piece of gold.                                    DIRK                                Yeah, right.                                    JACK                    Why don't you come back to my table,                     have a drink, meet some people --                                    DIRK                        I can't do that to Maurice.                                    JACK                        You're a good worker, yeah?                                    DIRK                      I'm sorry, I do know you, I know                   who you are, I'd love to have a drink                 with you and I know you're not full of --                                    JACK                             -- doggy-doo-doo.                                    DIRK                        Yeah, yeah. But I just can't                      walk out on Maurice. I'm sorry.BEAT, THEN;                                    JACK                    It seems to me, beneath those jeans,                      there's something wonderful just                           waiting to get out --Jack leaves.3 EXT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT (LATER)The club is closing, Maurice is locking up and turning the lights off outfront. CAMERA hangs around with Buck, Becky and Reed. (Director's Note:Reference improv. Notes)Jack and Amber cruise past in his Seville, say so long and head up Van NuysBlvd.They pass Little Bill who walks to his old Station Wagon, rips a parkingticket off the windshield and gets behind the wheel.Dirk Diggler exits the club from a side door and heads off --CUT TO:4 OMITTED5 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/LAUREL CANYON - NIGHT - LATERJack and Amber enter the house. It resembles the Jungle Room at Graceland.He heads for the kitchen, she makes a drink . . .                                    JACK                         You want somethin' to eat?                          I'm onnamake some eggs.                                   AMBER                            I'm goin' to sleep.                                    JACK                  Goodnight, honey-tits. Sleep beautiful.CUT TO:6 INT. AMBER'S BEDROOM/JACK'S HOUSE - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATERECU, AMBER. She does a quick line of coke. BEAT. She takes a valium, lightsa cigarette, then picks up the phone;                                   AMBER            Tom . . . hi . . . yeah. I know it's late, but . . .                                   (beat)                     Yeah. Is Andy there? Is he . . . ?                   I'd like to say hello, I'd like to say                      hello to my son and that's all.                                   (beat)                       Lemme tell you something, Tom.                  Lemme tell you something you don't know;                      I know a lawyer, you understand?                      You might think I don't but I do                     and I'll take you to court . . . .                                   (beat)                  No . . . please don't, Tom, Tom, Tom --Dial tone from the phone. She hangs up.7 INT. LITTLE BILL'S HOUSE - NIGHTLittle Bill enters his house quietly, turns on a small light to help guidehim down a hallway.FROM A BEDROOM DOOR we hear the sounds of MOANING AND GROANING. Little Billwalks to the door, hesitates, then opens --CUT TO:8 INT. LITTLE BILL'S BEDROOM - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTLITTLE BILL'S WIFE and a BIG STUD are doing it on the bed. They stop amoment and casually look at him.                                LITTLE BILL                        What the fuck are you doing?                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                   The fuck does it look like I'm doing?                  I've got a cock in my pussy, you idiot.                                  BIG STUD                          Will you close the door?                                LITTLE BILL                   Will I close the door? You're fucking                             my wife, asshole.                                  BIG STUD                             Relax, little man.                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE              Just get out, Bill. Fucking sleep on the couch.                               (to Big Stud)                           Keep going, Big Stud.Big Stud continues. Little Bill watches a moment in a haze then closes thedoor.CUT TO:9 INT. DIRK'S PARENTS HOUSE/TORRANCE - NIGHTDirk enters quietly, walks a hallway and goes into his room.CUT TO:10 INT. DIRK'S ROOM - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTDirk enters his room and begins to remove his clothes. He turns the volumelow on his stereo. He stands in front of his mirror, does a few flexes,some dance moves, some karate moves, etc. CAMERA DOES A SLOW 360 PAN AROUNDTHE ROOM. Posters on the walls of Travolta, Pacino, a 1976 Corvette, BruceLee, Hawaii, a Penthouse centerfold, Luke Skywalker, etc. CAMERA LANDS BACKON DIRK.                                    DIRK                               That's right.FADE OUT, CUT TO:11 OMITTED12 OMITTED13 INT. DIRK'S HOUSE/KITCHEN - MORNINGDirk eats breakfast. His MOTHER (mid 40s) stands, washing a dish. HisFATHER (50s) enters, dressed in suite. He crosses the kitchenINSERT, CUFather, stubble on his face, places a kiss on the cheek of Mother.                                   FATHER                               Good morning.                                   MOTHER                 . . . Jesus. Please, okay? Shave if you're                    gonna do that, it scratches my face.Father takes a seat at the breakfast table, looks to Dirk.                                   FATHER                  How's that work, you get home late, huh?                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.                                   MOTHER                    If you wanna work in a nightclub you                should . . . if it's so important . . . you                          should find one closer.                                    DIRK                              . . . yeah . . .They eat in silence.                                    DIRK                          I've gotta get to work.                                   MOTHER                         . . . at a car wash . . .                                    DIRK                                   What?                                   MOTHER                    You work at a car wash, school never                              occurred to you?Dirk stands up, places his plates in the sink and exits.CUT TO:14 OMITTED15 OMITTED16 INT. HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM - DAYA crowded high school geometry classroom. In the back of the class, sittingat a desk is Rollergirl. A TEACHER walks about, handing out the final exam.Rollergirl looks it over; a lot of questions, diagrams and generallyconfusing material. She looks across the room;Two BOYS are looking at her and chuckling to themselves. One guy looks tothe other and makes a "blow job" gesture.She looks away, they continue their gestures and giggling. Other studentsnotice and smile.CAMERA ARRIVES CU. ON ROLLERGIRL. She stands up, heads for the door -- theteacher calls after her -- but she's gone.CUT TO:17 INT. SUPER-DUPER STEREO SHOP - DAYA semi-high end stereo store in the valley. Buck, dressed in his usualcowboy-digs, is talking to a CUSTOMER about a stereo unit. The manager, askinny-white guy with a mustache and mustard suit, JERRY (30s) is standingnearby.                                    BUCK                       -- so basically you're gettin'                     twice the base, cause of the TK421                  modification we got in this system here.                                  CUSTOMER                  I don't know - do I need that much bass?                                    BUCK                       If you want a system to handle                        what you want -- yes you do.                    See this system here. This is Hi-Fi.                    "High Fidelity." What that means is                  that it's the highest quality fidelity.                                  CUSTOMER                             It's the price --                                    BUCK                         I have this unit at home.                                  CUSTOMER                            . . . really . . . ?                                    BUCK                      Yes. But -- I've got it modified                    with the TK421, which is a bass unit                    that basically kicks in another two,                     maybe three quads when you really                   crank -- lemme put another eight track                    in so you can get a better idea what                            I'm talkin about --Buck ejects the Eight Track that was playing and puts in his own of acountry western song.                                    BUCK                     Hear that bass? It kicks and turns                   and curls up in your belly, makes you                   wanna freaky-deaky, right? If you get                    this unit as it is -- it won't sound                   like this without the modification --                     and we do that for a small price.The Customer listens another moment, then;                                  CUSTOMER                          Thank you for your time.                                    BUCK                                No problem.The Customer exits and Jerry approaches Buck.                                   JERRY                          . . . the fuck was that?                                    BUCK                                    Wha?                                   JERRY                       Have I told you? Huh? Have I?                                    BUCK                              What? I don't --                                   JERRY                     Alright: A.) You play that country                    western-crap and no one's gonna buy                     a stereo. You throw on some KC and                the Sunshine Band, a guy looks a particular                way -- and you've seen the profile sheet --                    you throw on some Led Zeppelin. No.                   Instead, you play this twingy-twangy,                   yappy-dappy music. What kinda brother                  are you anyway, listening to that shit?                                    BUCK                            Hey, Jerry, look --                                   JERRY                    No, you look. I gave you a job here                      because I thought your film work                     might bring some nice pussy in the                     place -- and it has -- but I can't                     have anymore fuck ups -- you dig?                                    BUCK                                   Yeah.                                   JERRY                      Alright. Go unload the new 484's                            from the back room.Buck goes to the back room.CUT TO:18 INT. SHERYL LYNN'S BEDROOM - DAY - LATERDirk is in bed with a young neighborhood girl, SHERYL LYNN PARTRIDGE. Herroom is decorated in pastels with equestrian things all around. Horsemodels, trophies from riding, blue ribbons, etc.                                    DIRK                            I have to get back.                                SHERYL LYNN                                 Once more.                                    DIRK                        I have to get back to work.                                SHERYL LYNN                           Give it to me, Eddie.                                    DIRK                   Don't make me pounce you, Sheryl Lynn.                                SHERYL LYNN                          Ohhhh-baby, baby, baby.                                    DIRK                               I'll do it --                                SHERYL LYNN                                  Promise?                                    DIRK                                 That's it.Dirk jumps up and starts bouncing up and down on the bed, naked andflapping. She stares at his crotch, shakes her head;                                 DICK (OC)                                   What?                                SHERYL LYNN                            You're so beautiful.                                 DICK (OC)                                 Yeah . . .                                SHERYL LYNN                      Do you know how good you are at            doing this, Eddie? Having sex . . . fucking me . . .                             making love to me?Dirk looks down. BEAT.                                    DIRK                  Everyone has one thing, y'think? I mean:             Everyone is given one special thing . . . . right?                                SHERYL LYNN                               That's right.                                    DIRK                Everyone is blessed with One Special Thing.Dirk kneels down to her;                                    DIRK                I want you to know: I plan on being a star.                  A big, bright shining star. That's what                    I want and it's what I'm gonna get.                                SHERYL LYNN                                  I know.                                    DIRK                  And once I get it: I'm never gonna stop                    and I'll never, ever make a mistake.They Kiss.CUT TO:19 INT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHTNightclub is in full swing on a Friday Night. CAMERA hangs with Dirk for awhile as he buses tables.ANGLE, JACK'S BOOTHRollergirl comes over to speak with Jack. He whispers something in her ear.She nods, "I understand," and rolls away --CUT TO:20 INT. HOT TRAXX/HALLWAY - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTCAMERA follows on the heels of the rollerskates as they move down thehallway and into --THE KITCHENDirk is washing dishes. He looks up and spots Rollergirl. She lifts a skateup just a little . . . She rolls closer to Dirk and pulls him intoA CLOSET SPACEShe goes down on him, unzips his pants and pulls out his cock. Shehesitates. DOLLY IN CLOSE ON HER FACE. She smiles up at Dirk.CUT TO:21 OMITTED22 EXT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT - LATERClosing hour. Dirk exits a side door and starts walking. Jack, Amber andRollergirl in the Seville pull along side him;                                    JACK                                Hey. Eddie.                                    DIRK                                Hello. Jack?                                    JACK                           Yeah. You wanna ride?                                    DIRK                           I'm goin' pretty far.                                 ROLLERGIRL                     You remember me? Couple hours ago?                                    DIRK                         Yeah . . . I remember you.                                   AMBER                           Come with us, sweetie.                                    DIRK                                   Okay.Dirk gets in the backseat of the car with Rollergirl.CUT TO:23. INT. CANDY'S COFFEE SHOP - NIGHT - LATERIn a booth, after the meal. Dirk and Rollergirl on one side, Jack and Amberon the other.                                    JACK                  This thing here, I mean, you understand                    one thing and that's this: It costs.                 I mean, this stuff costs good ol' American                    Green. You got film, you got lights,               you got sound, lab fees, developing, synching,                   editing -- next thing you know you're                 spending thirty/forty thousand a picture.                                    DIRK                           That's a lot of money.                                    JACK                  Hell yes it's a lot of money, but lemme                  tell you something else: You make a good                 film and there's practically no end to the                    amount of money you can make, Eddie.                                   AMBER                        Have you seen Jack's house?CAMERA HOLDS ON AMBER. She watches Dirk.                                 DIRK (OC)                                    No.                                 JACK (OC)                               He'll see it.                              ROLLERGIRL (OC)                               He'll see it.                                 JACK (OC)                 Eddie: You got ten, fifteen people around                and that's just to make sure the lighting is               right . . . shit, this is not an operation for                the weak, and lemme tell you something else:               When all is said and done, you gotta have the              juice, you understand? I mean . . . you can work               on your arms, your legs, workout morning, day,               noon, night, the whole deal, but when it comes             right down to it . . . what we need is Mr. Torpedo               Area, y'understand? Mr. Fun Zone? Okay, let's               say you got that: right? And You Do Got, Yeah?He looks to Rollergirl. She smiles. CAMERA OFF AMBER NOW.                                    JACK                 I can go out -- tonight -- the reputation                    I got: I can find myself 15/20 guys,                cocks the size of Willie Mays Baseball Bat:                  Do I want that? No. Do I need that? No.                               I need actors.                                   AMBER                       Uhhh-ohhh . . . here we go --                                    JACK                   -- Alright, yeah, I need the big dick,                   and the big tits -- that GETS them in                   the theater. What keeps them in their                    seats even after they've come? Huh?                         The beauty and the acting.              If you're able to give it up and show the world:                     No, not just your cock. Fuck that.                   What I'm talking about is showing your               insides, from your heart . . . you understand?                    Hey, Sure: GET THEM IN THE THEATER.               That's one thing. I don't want 'em showing up,                 sitting down, jacking off and splitting on                 the story. I don't want to make that film.                I wanna make the thing that keeps 'em around            even after they've come . . . what happens when you                    come? You're done, you wanna split.                   My idea, my goal: Suck 'em in with the         story . . . they'll squirt their load and sit in it . . .                      Just To See How The Story Ends.                  Sometimes we make these films, we wanna                 make people laugh a little, then get into              it and fuck heavy: That's good and that's fine.                 But I got a dream of making a film that's                  true . . . true and right and dramatic.                                    DIRK                . . . Right . . . right . . . I understand.                                   AMBER                     Don't listen too hard to all this,                   honey . . . it's just nice in theory.                                    JACK                      It's a dream to be able to find                            a cock and an actor.                                 ROLLERGIRL                     Dream, dream, dream, dream, dream.                                    DIRK               If you don't have dreams you have nightmares.HOLD. Amber, Jack and Rollergirl look at Dirk.CUT TO:24 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/LIVING ROOM - NIGHTCAMERA DOES A 180 AROUND THE MAIN PART OF THE HOUSE, LANDS THE ANGLE WITHDIRK. He's sitting on a couch, hands folded across his lap. OC we hearJack, Rollergirl and Amber moving about and talking.                                 JACK (OC)                       Did you want a Fresca, Eddie?                                    DIRK                                 No thanks.                                    JACK                            You're sure . . . ?                              ROLLERGIRL (OC)                      . . . you're out of limes, Jack.                                 JACK (OC)                      Check in the studio fridge . . .                                 AMBER (OC)                             I'm going to bed.                                 JACK (OC)                             Good night, honey.                                 AMBER (OC)                Good night, Jackie. Don't stay up too late.                  Good night, Eddie. I'm glad you came by.She leans into FRAME and gives Dirk a good-night kiss.                                   AMBER                               You're great.                                    DIRK                                 Thank you.CAMERA PANS WITH AMBER AND LEADS TO AN ANGLE WITH JACK. HOLD.                                    JACK                      She's the best, Eddie. A mother.                     A real and wonderful mother to all                            those who need love.                                 DIRK (OC)                             She's really nice.                                    JACK                     So what do you think . . . I think                    we ought to be in business together.                                 DIRK (OC)                             . . . yeah . . . ?                                    JACK                      What do you think of Rollergirl?                                 DIRK (OC)                    She's . . . she's really great . . .                                    JACK                   Would you like to get it on with her?                                 DIRK (OC)                                 Have sex?                                    JACK                                   Yeah.                                 DIRK (OC)                      Yeah, I'd love to. I mean, yes.                       She's . . . she's really foxy.                                    JACK                           Bet your ass she is --Rollergirl enters back into the house. CAMERA SWING PANS OVER:                                 ROLLERGIRL                   You're officially out of limes, Jack.                                    JACK                      I'll get you some more tomorrow.                     Come over here a minute. Sit next                        to Eddie on the couch there.                                 ROLLERGIRL                       Here We Go! Are We Gonna Fuck?                                    JACK                                Yes you are.                                 ROLLERGIRL                        Oh, wait, wait, wait, then.She rolls over to the Hi-Fi system and picks a record. She sets the needleon the turntable and rolls over to the couch -- in one swift motion rippingher clothes off.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 You ready?                                    DIRK                                  Are you?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 Ohhh-yeah.They kiss. They lean back on the couch. Dirk stops a moment.                                    DIRK                    Are you gonna take your skates off?                                 ROLLERGIRL                        I don't take my skates off.                                    DIRK                                   Okay.                                 ROLLERGIRL                         Don't fucking come in me.                                    JACK                    Don't come in her, Eddie. I want you                   to pull it out and jack off, make sure                        you aim it towards her face.                                 ROLLERGIRL                              Fuck you, Jack.                                    JACK                          Towards her tits, then.CAMERA HOLDS ON JACK. OC sounds of Dirk and Rollergirl making out on thecouch. SLOW ZOOM INTO CU. ON JACK.CUT TO:25 INT. DIRK'S HOUSE - EARLY MORNING - LATERDirk enters quietly, walks down the hallway, passing the kitchen. HisMOTHER is there, looking at him. HOLD, THEN;                                    DIRK                                    Hi.                                   MOTHER                              Where were you?                                    DIRK                                  Nowhere.                                   MOTHER                     Shut up. Shut up. Where were you?Dirk walks down the hall towards his room.                                   MOTHER                   You see that little slut girl you see?                            Sheryl? Sheryl Lynn?                                    DIRK                              Don't say that.                                   MOTHER                    Does it make you feel like a stud to                   see trash like that? Huh? What is she?                             Your girl-friend?                                    DIRK                          She's not my girlfriend.                                   MOTHER                     She's a little whore and a little                   piece of trash . . . I know you're not                        the only one that she sees.                                    DIRK                What . . . what're you . . . you don't know.                                   MOTHER                  I've heard things about her. That girl.                   Don't think I don't know what goes on              when I'm not here . . . I wash your sheets, kid.                  I know she's been here. Or are you doing                    some other thing in there? With your                    music and your posters on the wall?CUT TO:26 INT. BEDROOM - MORNING - THAT MOMENTDirk's FATHER is sitting on the edge of his bed, listening the fightoutside.                                MOTHER (OC)                   Why don't you go to your little whore,                    Sheryl Lynn. Your little GIRLFRIEND.                                 DIRK (OC)                               Maybe I will.                                MOTHER (OC)                   Oh yeah? Yeah, what are you gonna do?                                 DIRK (OC)                        I dunno, I'll do something.27 INT. HALLWAY - MORNING - THAT MOMENT                                   MOTHER                   You can't do anything. You're a loser.                  You'll always be a loser -- you couldn't                  even finish high school because you were                  too stupid -- so what are you gonna do?                                    DIRK                    I'll do something . . . I'll do it.                    I'll go somewhere and do something,                  maybe I'll run away where you can never                                  find me.                                   MOTHER                        Go ahead. Go ahead and fuck                             that little GIRL.Dirk heads for his room, Mother follows.29 INT. DIRK'S BEDROOM - MORNING - THAT MOMENTDirk heads for a drawer and starts to grab some clothes.                                   MOTHER                      What do you think you're doing?                                    DIRK                          I'm getting my stuff --                                   MOTHER                      -- you think that's your stuff?                 That's not your stuff . . . you didn't pay                     for that -- it's not yours because                       you didn't pay for it, stupid.Dirk stops. His Mother looks to the posters on his wall.                                   MOTHER                     None of this stuff is yours. This:She starts to rip his posters from the wall. Dirk stands. CAMERA begins aSLOW DOLLY INTO CU.                                MOTHER (OC)                 If you're gonna leave, you leave with what               you've got: Nothing. Y'see . . . you treat me                    like this and this is what you get.                 That's fair. Huh? You wanna live that way?                 Fuck that little whore. I've taken care of                you all your miserable fucking life . . . .CAMERA ARRIVES CU. ON DIRK. He's starting to cry.                                MOTHER (OC)             . . . you pay for it . . . you owe me for all the              shit I've done for you in your life . . . . you              little fucker . . . you understand? Think you're               gonna be this? Huh? These god damn posters --                  you're not gonna be this -- you're gonna                    be shit . . . because you're stupid.                                    DIRK                              I'm not stupid.                                   MOTHER                                Yes you are.                                    DIRK             Why are you so mean to me? You're my mother . . .                                   MOTHER                               Not by choice.                                    DIRK                        Don't. Don't be mean to me.                                   MOTHER                   You little fucker, I'm not being mean                   to you, you're just too stupid to see.                                    DIRK                  You don't know what I can do. You don't                  know what I can do or what I'm gonna do                   or what I'm gonna be. You don't know.                   I'm good. I have good things that you                  don't know and I'm gonna be something --                   you -- You Don't Know And You'll See.                                   MOTHER                           You can't do anything.                        You'll never do anything --                                    DIRK                            Don't be mean to me.                                   MOTHER               YOU LITTLE FUCKER, I'M NOT BEING MEAN TO YOU!Dirk CHARGES at his Mother and SLAMS her against the wall.                                    DIRK                    AND YOU DON'T BE MEAN, AND YOU DON'T                           TALK TO ME . . . . NO.CUT TO:29 EXT. DIRK'S HOUSE/TORRANCE - MORNINGDirk CHARGES out of the house and runs off down the street. Mother appearsin the doorway, watches him leave, slams the door --CUT TO:30 OMITTED31 OMITTED32 OMITTED33 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - DAYJack, Amber, Rollergirl, Reed, Buck and Becky. They're setting up for apool party. Cases of beer, soda and chips all around.Dirk comes walking up towards the front door . . . Jack opens up, CAMERAPUSHES IN . . . Jack opens his arms;                                    JACK                  Eddie Adams from Torrance! You made it,                 you made it, my darling, come on in here.                       I want you to meet someone --CAMERA follows with Jack and Dirk as they move to the pool area and findReed, who's setting up the bar.                                    JACK                      Reed, honey, I want you to meet                    a New Kid On The Block, Eddie Adams.                                    DIRK                          Hi . . . I'm Eddie . . .                                    REED                Hi, Eddie. I'm Reed. You live on this block?                                    DIRK                                  No, no.                                    REED                      Oh, I thought Jack said you did.                              You wanna drink?                                    DIRK                                   Sure.                                    JACK                     Eddie, I want you to hang out for                     a while, I don't want you leaving                      this party . . . understand me?                                    DIRK                                   Sure.Jack leaves. Reed looks to Dirk.                                    REED                                Marguerita?                                    DIRK                                   Great.BEAT. Reed fixes the drink.                                    REED                          Can I ask you something?                                    DIRK                                  Uh-huh.                                    REED                              Do you work out?                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.                                    REED                    You look like it. Whadda you squat?                                    DIRK                                    Two.                                    REED                               Super, super.                                    DIRK                                    You?                                    REED                                   Three.                                    DIRK                                    Wow.                                    REED                       No b.s. Where do you work out?                                    DIRK                    Torrance. In Torrance, where I live.                                    REED                   Cool. Cool. You ever go to Vince's out               here -- no you couldn't, I would've seen you.                                    DIRK                 I've always wanted to work out at Vince's.                                    REED                        Here we go . . . taste that.Dirk sips the Marguerita.                                    DIRK                               Rock and Roll.                                    REED                         Thanks. What do you bench?                                    DIRK                             You tell me first.                                    REED                                 You first.                                    DIRK                                 Same time.                                    REED                                   Cool.                                    DIRK                                   Ready?                                    REED                                   Ready.                                 DIRK/REED                     One . . . Two . . . Three . . . .SILENCE.                                    DIRK                          You didn't say it . . .                                    REED                           . . . neither did you.ANGLE, POLAROID CAMERA.It sits on a table top. It's suddenly snapped up by Rollergirl. CAMERAfollows her and the Polaroid out to the pool area where she snaps photos ofReed and Dirk. (Flash to Developed Polaroids.)CUT TO:34 EXT. JACK'S DRIVEWAY - AFTERNOON - LATERThe driveway is PACKED with cars now and the party is in full swing. A BigBlack Cadillac comes down the driveway. A LIMO DRIVER gets out, moves tothe back and opens the door. From the car steps:THE COLONEL JAMES (mid-60s). Heavy-set in a tan suit. Wrap aroundsunglasses. The Porno Film Distributor. His LADY FRIEND (aged 16) stepsfrom the car and smiles;                                  COLONEL                           You look great, honey.                                LADY FRIEND               Is there gonna be coke at this party, Colonel?                                  COLONEL                                    Yes.Jack is right there to greet the Colonel.                                    JACK                        Colonel, hello and welcome!                                  COLONEL                    Hello, Jack. This is my Lady Friend.                                    JACK                              Hello, darling.                                LADY FRIEND                      Do you have coke at this party?                                    JACK                    Well I'm sure we can find you some.                                  COLONEL                         Find her some coke, Jack.                                    JACK                  We will, we will. Thanks for coming by.They exit. CAMERA follows the Limo Driver into the pool area --CUT TO:35 EXT. POOL AREA/JACK'S HOUSE - THAT MOMENTCAMERA follows the Limo Driver for a while, then moves away, to find;Maurice and Amber. They're sitting down, speaking.                                  MAURICE              . . . y'see, Miss Amber, I'm just a poor fellow                  from Puerto Rico. I have the club, yes,         that's one thing . . . but soon . . . the club goes . . .             I die . . . and what do I have? I've got nothing.                                   AMBER                                  Uh-huh.                                  MAURICE                    I want something to send back home.               Something to send back to my brothers and say:               Look At Me. Look At The Women I've Been With.                                   AMBER                So what . . . do you want me to talk to him?                                  MAURICE              Yes . . . I mean . . . y'know . . . what do you                           think I'm askin' here?                                   AMBER                       . . . you wanna be in a movie?                                  MAURICE                  Please. Tell him I won't be bad. Please.                                   AMBER                          I'll see what I can do.CAMERA moves away, through the party, to find Buck and Becky.                                   BECKY                . . . because it's old . . . it's old deal.                                    BUCK                         Lemme tell you something:                                   BECKY                  He was obviously pissed about the music.                                    BUCK                       What's wrong with it, y'know?                                   BECKY                     Look, Buck: The cowboy look ended                           about six years ago --                                    BUCK                            -- it's comin' back.                                   BECKY                     No it's not. It's over, it's dead.                                    BUCK                 You don't know what you're talkin' about.                                   BECKY                   I'm just saying and it seems like your                   boss at the stereo store is saying the                               same thing --                                    BUCK                               -- what, what?                                   BECKY                              Get a new look.                                    BUCK            Yeah . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . you get a new look.                                   BECKY                      The look I've got is just fine.                                    BUCK                             What's your look?                                   BECKY                           Chocolate Love, Baby.                                    BUCK                                Yeah, right.OC we hear the new song start to play.                                   BECKY                   OH SHIT! TURN IT UP! I LOVE THIS SONG!Becky leaves. CAMERA moves away to find:The Colonel's Lady Friend approaches a Young Stud, who's wearingbikini-speedos and holding court over a table of coke.                                LADY FRIEND                             Excuse me . . . ?                                 YOUNG STUD                                    Yes?                                LADY FRIEND                           May I please join in?                                 YOUNG STUD                              Most certainly.CUT TO:36 EXT. JACK'S HOUSE/DRIVEWAY - DAY - MOMENTS LATERLittle Bill and his Wife get out of his Station Wagon and enter the partyfrom the driveway. She's dressed up. He's dressed down.                                LITTLE BILL                     Just don't embarrass me, alright?                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                              Fuck you, Bill.                                LITTLE BILL                     I work with these people, alright?                     These are my coworkers, so just --                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                                  Bite it.                                LITTLE BILL                        Don't make me do something.                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                         Ohhh . . . I'm so scared.She moves away. Rollergirl passes and takes a SNAPSHOT.CU. THE POLAROID - DEVELOPEDLittle Bill in sort of an angry-confused-surprised face.                                 ROLLERGIRL                         What's wrong, Little Bill?                                LITTLE BILL                     Nothing. How are you, Rollergirl?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 I'm fine.                                LITTLE BILL                              Is Jack around?                                 ROLLERGIRL                             He's in the house.Little Bill leaves. CAMERA follows Rollergirl around as she mingles andsnaps more Polaroids.CUT TO:37 INT. JACK'S OFFICE - DAY - THAT MOMENTJack and the Colonel are sitting, drinks in their hand. The Colonel smokesa cigar.                                    JACK                   The idea is this: Amber is a director                 of porno films and she's down on her luck.                   She hasn't had a hit in a year. She's             desperate. Her landlord is threatening to kick her             out, so she's desperate for a big dick hit, right?                                  COLONEL                             Yes. Good dilemma.                                    JACK                   Yes. So she calls up all the agencies                   in town and says: "Send over your best                   actors, I'm casting a porno picture."                   Well, the story goes and develops with                     Amber auditioning various men and                 women . . . the whole thing wraps up with                  the Landlord, I'd like to get Jeremy if                   he's still in town to play the part --                     he comes in -- the landlord says:                   You better pay rent or you're through.                   Well, Amber does one helluva suck job,                 ass fuck, come in the face, sort of thing                          and fade out - the end.                                  COLONEL                               That's great.                                    JACK                   There's a kid, a young man, I met him                    last night: His name is Eddie Adams.                He's here, he's at the party. He's something                      special and I want to cast him.                                  COLONEL                          What films has he done?                                    JACK                          This would be his first.Little Bill pokes his head into the office, sees the conversation andquickly apologizes and exits. The Colonel looks to Jack;                                  COLONEL                Casting is up to you, Jack. You wanna do it?                Then do it. If it has big tits, tight pussy                 and focus: I'm happy. You tell the stories                    you wanna tell, make yourself happy.CUT TO:38 EXT. JACK'S HOUSE/POOL AREA - DAY - THAT MOMENTReed and Dirk are swimming. Dirk gets up on the diving board.                                    REED                              Do a cannonball.                                    DIRK                        No, no. Watch this Jacknife.Dirk runs and jumps --                                    DIRK                                 JACKNIFE.He lands in the pool and swims to the surface.                                    DIRK                              How did it look?                                    REED                           Great. Check this out.                            (gets on the board)                       This is gonna be a full-flip.Reed runs, jumps, goes for the flip but lands FLAT ON HIS BACK.CUT TO:39 INT. POOL/UNDERWATER - THAT MOMENTReed lands. CAMERA moves in on his face. He's in SERIOUS PAIN. He floatsdown for a moment . . . .CUT TO:40 EXT. POOL AREA - THAT MOMENTEveryone at the party is looking . . . holding their breath and waiting . .. Reed comes to the surface.                                    REED                                   Ouch.The party people turn back to their conversations . . .                                    DIRK                     You gotta try and bring your legs                         all the way around . . . .                                    REED                                   Yeah.41 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/THE PARTY - DAY - THAT MOMENTCAMERA follows behind Little Bill. He's walking around, looking for hiswife. He greets a few people here and there.He runs into a big guy, ROCKY (late 30s). He's a CREW member.                                LITTLE BILL                           How you doin', Rocky?                                   ROCKY                         Good, good, what's wrong?                                LITTLE BILL                          Nothin'. Nothin' at all.                                   ROCKY             Do you have the schedule for the shoot, or . . . ?                                LITTLE BILL                              Yeah. You're on.                                   ROCKY                                Is it here?                                LITTLE BILL           Yeah, it's gonna be here, but it's a simple one . . .CAMERA picks up with the Lady Friend and the Young Stud with the coke . . .ZOOM after them down a long hallway towards a BEDROOM door. They close thedoor in the CAMERA'S FACE.CUT TO:42 INT. JACK'S KITCHEN - DAY - THAT MOMENTMaurice and Buck are talking;                                  MAURICE                      Hey, hey, hey, my point is this:                                    BUCK                                   What?                                  MAURICE                            You know what I say?                                    BUCK                                 What-What?                                  MAURICE                             Wear What You Dig.The PHONE RINGS. Maurice picks up the phone.                                  MAURICE                                   Hello?                                   (beat)                      I'm sorry . . . I can't hear you                 that well . . . say again . . . ? Maggie?                                 (to Buck)                          Is there a Maggie here?                                    BUCK                           I don't know a Maggie.                                  MAURICE                                (into phone)              I think you might have the wrong number . . . .       Your mother? I'm sorry . . . wait . . . just . . . wait . . .Maurice sets the phone down, looks to Buck.                                  MAURICE                        Watch that a minute . . . .CAMERA follows him as he walks out to the pool area --                                  MAURICE                                (calls out)                          Is there a Maggie here?No one at the pool area responds so he walks back inside to the phone. Buckis still watching it closely.                                  MAURICE                                (into phone)                  I'm sorry . . . there's no Maggie here.                Okay . . . okay . . . no problem . . . Bye.                                    BUCK                                What was it?                                  MAURICE                      Some kid lookin' for his mother.CUT TO:43 INT. BATHROOM/JACK'S HOUSE - THAT MOMENTAmber is sitting in the bathroom, on the toilet. She reaches to the window,sets aside the curtains and looks.AMBER'S POV: Looking out to the pool area. Dirk dives off the board anddoes a perfect FLIP in SLOW MOTION.CUT TO:44 EXT. JACK'S HOUSE/DRIVEWAY - MOMENTS LATERCAMERA follows Little Bill. He spots six people in a semi-circle aroundsomething. He walks over -- inside the semi-circle, on the pavement, LittleBill's Wife is getting fucked by some BIG DUDE.                                LITTLE BILL                       . . . the fuck are you doing?She looks up at him, smiles.                                 WATCHER #1                   What does it look like they're doing?                                LITTLE BILL                              That's my wife.                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                               Shut up, Bill.                                 WATCHER #2                            Yeah, shut up, Bill.The other WATCHERS join in telling Little Bill to "Shut up." He walks awayand CAMERA follows him until he's approached by a big man, KURT LONGJOHN(late 40s). He's the cameraman.                               KURT LONGJOHN                                Little Bill.                                LITTLE BILL                           Hey. Kurt. What's up?                               KURT LONGJOHN                           What's wrong with you?                                LITTLE BILL                    Ah . . . my fuckin' wife, man, she's                  over there . . . she's got some idiot's                    dick in her, people standing around                 watching -- it's a fuckin' embarrassment.                               KURT LONGJOHN                    Yeah. Yeah. I know. Anyway, listen:                                LITTLE BILL                                  -- yeah.                               KURT LONGJOHN               For the shoot -- I wanna talk about the look.           I wanted to see about getting this new zoom lens . . .                                LITTLE BILL                                   Right.                               KURT LONGJOHN                  I wondered if we'd be able to look into                  getting some more lights, too, y'know --                                LITTLE BILL                       Jack wants a minimal-thing --                               KURT LONGJOHN                   Right, well, very often, minimal means                 a lot more photographically than I think,            well . . . then I think most people understand . . .                                LITTLE BILL                               I understand.                               KURT LONGJOHN                    No, no. Hey. I know you understand,                   I was talking about some other people.                                LITTLE BILL                     Well, I think what Jack is talking                  about is minimal, not really "natural,"                             but minimal . . .                               KURT LONGJOHN                OK . . . fine . . . I was just saying . . .                                LITTLE BILL                              I understand --                               KURT LONGJOHN                   -- 'cause I'm just trying to give each                          picture it's own look --                                LITTLE BILL                       Can we talk about this later?                               KURT LONGJOHN          Oh, yeah . . . you have to go somewhere . . . or . . . ?                                LITTLE BILL                     Well, no, yeah . . . I mean . . .                               KURT LONGJOHN                  'Cause I was hoping to, y'know, for the                  shoot tomorrow, we could send Rocky down                         and he could pick it up --                                LITTLE BILL                                   Kurt.                               KURT LONGJOHN                 No. Hey. Gotcha. You've gotta go somewhere                 so -- hey -- what the fuck? It's only the              photography of the movie we're talkin' about --Little Bill looks at him. HOLD.                                LITTLE BILL                       Are you givin' me shit, Kurt?                               KURT LONGJOHN                     NO, NO, HEY. No way, Little Bill.                                LITTLE BILL                 My fucking wife has a cock in her ass over                 in the driveway, alright? I'm sorry if my                thoughts aren't with the photography of the                  film we're shooting tomorrow, Kurt, OK?                               KURT LONGJOHN                          OK. No big deal. Sorry.                                LITTLE BILL                                  Alright?                               KURT LONGJOHN                                  Gotcha.Little Bill leaves. Kurt stands alone a moment. He walks over to thedriveway and watches Little Bill's Wife get fucked.CUT TO:45 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/HALLWAY - DAY - LATERCAMERA follows HAND-HELD behind Jack, the Colonel and his Limo Driver asthey walk quickly down a hallway that leads to a bedroom.CUT TO:46 INT. BEDROOM - THAT MOMENTJack, the Colonel and Limo Driver BURST into the room --REVERSE ANGLE: On the floor of the room, the Colonel's LADY FRIEND is lyingnaked. She's passed out and she has blood pouring from her nose. The YOUNGSTUD is naked, holding her in his arms. He looks up at the men who justentered.                                 YOUNG STUD                            I think she's sick.                                  COLONEL                           What the fuck is this?                                 YOUNG STUD                           I didn't do anything.                                    JACK                             Is she breathing?                                 YOUNG STUD                I don't know. I think she did too much coke?                                  COLONEL                       Duh. Do you think so, smarty?                                LIMO DRIVER                        She's definitely overdosing.                                  COLONEL                       Oh . . . what the fuck . . . .The four men look at the girl. The Colonel turns to his Limo Driver.                                  COLONEL                  Alright: Johnny. You're gonna take care                    of this for me. You listening here?                                LIMO DRIVER                                   Yeah.                                  COLONEL                   I want you to pick her up, get her in                    the car, take her down to St. Joe's.                                LIMO DRIVER                                   Okay.                                  COLONEL                    Listen, though: You drop her off in              the front, I don't want this . . . y'understand?                          I don't need this, here.                                LIMO DRIVER                                  Gotcha.                                  COLONEL                      Make sure no one sees the limo.                                LIMO DRIVER                                  Got it.                                  COLONEL                  Young Stud, I want you to help my driver                      Johnny here get her in the car.The Young Stud starts to cry hysterically.                                  COLONEL                                 (to Jack)                           What the fuck is this?                              (to Young Stud)               Hey . . . hey . . . pal . . . get a grip, man.                                 YOUNG STUD             I'm sorry . . . it's just . . . it's just . . . .                                  COLONEL                                   What?                                 YOUNG STUD                         I . . . I . . . I . . . .                                  COLONEL                                Spit it out.                                 YOUNG STUD                     This is twice in two days a chick                             has O.D.'d on me.                                  COLONEL                Well maybe that means you oughta think about                 getting some new shit, what do you think?                                 YOUNG STUD                                 Yes, sir.                                  COLONEL                 Jesus Christ. Now be a man, deal with the                     situation and get her in the car.The Lady Friend starts to go into CONVULSIONS.                                  COLONEL                Y'see that, all this fuckin' conversation --                                 YOUNG STUD                             Please don't die!                                LIMO DRIVER                                C'mon, pal.The Limo Driver and Young Stud carry her naked, convulsing body to theBlack Limo out front. CAMERA holds with Jack and the Colonel.                                    JACK                                Close call.                                  COLONEL                                    Yes.They exit.CUT TO:47 EXT. POOL AREA - DAY - THAT MOMENTCAMERA is with Reed and Dirk. They're sitting in two pool chairs, drinkingtheir drinks and talking. A nervous young kid in red swimming trunks,SCOTTY J. (mid-20s) comes over and interjects --                                 SCOTTY J.                                 Hey Reed.                                    REED                        Hey -- Scotty, how are you?                                 SCOTTY J.                              Y'know, y'know.                                 (re: Dirk)                                Who's this?                                    REED                   Eddie -- meet Scotty J. He's a friend,                       he works on some of the films.                                    DIRK                             Nice to meet you.                                 SCOTTY J.                     You too. Are you gonna be working?                                    DIRK                                   Maybe.                                    REED                                 Probably.                                 SCOTTY J.                   That's great. That's great. Where did                 you meet Jack? 'Cause I work on the films,                y'know, sometimes, that's why I'm wondering                            if you, you know --                                 JACK (OC)                   EDDIE! EDDIE! Come over here a minute.Dirk spots Jack calling him and stands, looks to Scotty J.                                    DIRK                                 Excuse me.                                 SCOTTY J.                                Yeah, okay.                                    DIRK                             Nice to meet you.CAMERA DOLLIES IN A LITTLE ON SCOTTY J.                                 REED (OC)                       You wanna take a seat, Scotty?                                 SCOTTY J.                   Uh . . . I dunno . . . is it alright?                                 REED (OC)                                   Yeah.                                 SCOTTY J.                      Thank you. It gets a little hard               mingling around . . . y'know . . . talking to                   people and stuff . . . it's sort of --                That kid Eddie is really good looking, huh?ANGLE, JACK, THE COLONEL AND DIRK.Dirk approaches and the Colonel smiles. They shake hands.                                    JACK                        This young man is interested                              in the business.                                  COLONEL                     Well, you're in good hands if you                       get involved with Jack, here.                                    DIRK                                  Oh yeah?                                  COLONEL                   I can't give you much advice that Jack                  probably doesn't know, but I can advise,                  maybe you think about your name . . . ?                                    DIRK                         My name . . . yeah . . . ?                                  COLONEL                Think about something that makes you happy,            something that also gives some pizzaz . . . y'know?                                    DIRK                                   Right.                                    JACK                 The Colonel pays for all our films, Eddie.                  He's an important parts of the process.                                    DIRK                            Well, great. Great.                                  COLONEL                  I look forward to seeing you in action.                   Jack says you've got a great big cock.                                    DIRK                   . . . um . . . yeah, I dunno, I guess?                                  COLONEL                               Can I see it?                                    DIRK                                  Really?                                  COLONEL                                  Please.Dirk unzips his pants. CAMERA on the Colonel. He looks down, then up:                                  COLONEL                             Thank you, Eddie.                                    DIRK                                No problem.Dirk exits. The Colonel turns to Jack;                                  COLONEL                    Jesus Christ. Jesus Lord in Heaven.CAMERA picks up with Dirk, who runs for the pool and DIVES IN . . . .CUT TO:48 INT. POOL - THAT MOMENTCAMERA MOVES IN AS DIRK LANDS IN THE WATER, FLOATS TO THE BOTTOM, THENPUSHES OFF, TOWARDS THE SURFACE. TIME LAPSE TO NIGHT.CUT TO:49 EXT. DRIVEWAY/JACK'S HOUSE - NIGHT (LATER)The party is coming to a close and people are trying to get in their carsand get out of the driveway.CAMERA hangs with Little Bill and his Wife.                                LITTLE BILL                  Thanks for fucking up this party for me.                              I appreciate it.                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                           Oh Fuck Off. Will You?                                LITTLE BILL                               You Fuck Off.                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                                Yeah, right.CAMERA MOVES TO FIND: THE YOUNG STUD AND THE LIMO DRIVER.They're sitting by the limo. The Young Stud is crying.                                LIMO DRIVER                      Hey, hey, hey. I mean: How were                           you supposed to know?                                 YOUNG STUD                                 I wasn't.                                LIMO DRIVER                  That's right. So what did you do wrong?                                 YOUNG STUD                                  Nothing?                                LIMO DRIVER                  Nothing is absolutely right, Young Stud.                                 YOUNG STUD                          Thank you for your help.                                LIMO DRIVER                                No problem.The Colonel and Jack approach. The Colonel now has ANOTHER YOUNG LADYFRIEND, picked up from the party.                                  COLONEL                             You ready, Johnny?                                LIMO DRIVER                                 Yes, sir.                                  COLONEL                            How you doin', pal?                                 YOUNG STUD                               I'm okay, sir.                                  COLONEL                   Don't worry about it. She'll be fine.                                 YOUNG STUD              She died in the limo on the way to the hospital.                                  COLONEL                            I didn't hear that.                                 YOUNG STUD                                   What?                                  COLONEL                 You never told me that and what happened,                        never happened. You got me?                                 YOUNG STUD                                 I get you.                                  COLONEL                         Now go home. Sleep it off.The Young Stud exits.                                    JACK                        Thanks for coming, Colonel.                                  COLONEL                             Great party, Jack.The Colonel and the new Lady Friend get in the car.CUT TO:50 EXT. JACK'S HOUSE/POOL AREA - NIGHT (LATER)The party is over. Amber and Rollergirl are inside playing cards. Scotty J.is cleaning up, Dirk and Reed sit in the JACUZZI, looking up at the stars.                                    REED                    . . . you wanna hear a poem I wrote?                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.                                    REED                               Okay. Um . . .                         "I love you. You love me.                         Going down the Sugar Tree.                       We'll go down the Sugar Tree.                       And See Lots of Bees. Playing.                       Playing. The bees won't sting.                            'Cause you love me."                                    DIRK                         That's fucking great, man.Jack approaches in a bath robe, holding a towel.                                    JACK                                Howdy-boys.                                 DIRK/REED                                 Hey, Jack.Jack removes his robe and climbs in the Jacuzzi.                                    JACK                                Good party?                                    DIRK                               It was great.                                    JACK                      Good. You had a good time then?                                    DIRK                         Excellent time. Thank you.                                    JACK                       What this place is for, right?                                    REED                                   Right.                                    JACK                   Ahhhh . . . this feels good. Bubbles.                      Turn those bubbles higher, Reed.                                    DIRK        Jack . . . I was thinking about my name . . . y'know . . . ?                                    JACK                                   Yeah?                                    DIRK                   I was wondering if you had any ideas.                                    JACK                 I've got a few . . . but you tell me . . .                                    DIRK                 Well . . . my idea was . . . y'know . . .                    I want a name . . . I want it so it               can cut glass . . . y'know . . . razor sharp.                                    JACK                                  Tell me.                                    DIRK                When I close my eyes . . . I see this thing,              a sign . . . I see this name in bright blue neon                lights with a purple outline. And this name                 is so bright and so sharp that the sign --          it just blows up because the name is so powerful . . . .FLASH ON:A BRIGHT NEON SIGN IN BLUE LETTERING, WITH A PURPLE OUTLINE:                                DIRK DIGGLER                                 DIRK (OC)                          It says, "Dirk Diggler."The NEON SIGN FLASHES, BUZZES, THEN BURSTS INTO AN ELECTRIC FLAME.BACK TO:51 EXT. JACUZZI - THAT MOMENTBack to Reed and Jack. They look at Dirk.                                    JACK                    Heaven sent you here to this place,                     Dirk Diggler. You've been blessed.Dirk smiles. Reed smiles. Jack looks up and closes his eyes.FADE OUT, CUT TO:52 INT. JACK'S GARAGE/FILM STUDIO - DAY. . . . The film crew sets up lights and other equipment around a small"office" set. The crew consists of: Kurt Longjohn, Director of Photography.Rocky, Gaffer/Grip. Little Bill, Assistant Director. Scotty J. Is workingas a utility/sound man.Jack is sipping coffee, conferring with Kurt about lighting.                                    JACK                                 How close?                               KURT LONGJOHN                    Give me twenty to thirty. I've got a                    couple tough shadows to deal with --                                    JACK                    Okay, but not too long, Kurt, right?                 Remember, there are shadows in real life.Little Bill approaches.                                LITTLE BILL                          You wanna go over this?                                    JACK                            Yeah. Let's . . . .                                LITTLE BILL                           (reading from script)                     Okay. Set up is . . . here we go:                1.) Amber talking to Becky about auditions.                 They make the phone call to the agency to                           send over some actors.                   2.) Enter Reed to audition for Amber.                     They go at it. Becky just watches.                 C.) Becky goes to the bathroom to jack-off               and is interrupted by Amber. They get into it.                             E.) Enter Dirk --                                 (looks up)                            Who's Dirk Diggler?                                    JACK                       The kid, Eddie, from the club.                                LITTLE BILL                    Good name. Anyway: 4.) Dirk enters.                     Meets with Becky. They go at it --                                    JACK                I wanna change that -- that should be Amber.                   Dirk should be auditioning with Amber.Little Bill makes a note. Jack walks over to Becky, who's sitting in achair, shaving her pubic hairs.                                    JACK                              Becky, honey --                                   BECKY                                   What?                                    JACK                     What're you doing? We're shooting                             in twenty minutes.                                   BECKY                           I'm shaving my bush --                                    JACK                                    Now?                                   BECKY                      It only takes two seconds, Jack.                                    JACK                                Fine, fine.Jack continues to get everyone ready.                                    JACK                   Alright everyone, let's go, let's go,                    we need to shoot this first scene --                         we need to get one off --CUT TO:53 INT. BEDROOM - DAY - LATERDirk is sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed up in a brown suit and hishair is brushed back, parted down the middle. He paces a little, does somedeep breathing, looks over script, etc. Scotty J. enters.                                 SCOTTY J.                        Hey. Hi. Dirk. Dirk Diggler.                                    DIRK                                    Hi.                                 SCOTTY J.                       I'm supposed to come get you.                        Tell you they're ready, now.                                    DIRK                                   Okay.                                 SCOTTY J.                           You look really good.                                    DIRK                                 Thank you.                                 SCOTTY J.                           You look really sexy.                                    DIRK                                  Thanks.                                 SCOTTY J.                             I like your name.                                    DIRK                                  You do.                                 SCOTTY J.                             It's really cool.                                    DIRK                                  Thanks.                                 SCOTTY J.              OK . . . well . . . whenever you're ready . . .                          I'll see you out there.Scotty J. exits. Dirk stands, takes a deep breath. CAMERA follows as heexits the room and walks through the house and into --54 INT. GARAGE/FILM SETThe crew is ready and waiting. Jack is there to greet him.                                    JACK                               Ready, champ?                                    DIRK                               Let's do this.They walk through the scene with Amber.                                    JACK                  So we know the scene, we know the thing.                    You're gonna start outside the set,                   through that door, I'll call your name             and action, that'll be your cue . . . come through                the door, straight to the desk, right here,                    boom, you and Amber do the scene --                                    DIRK                     Do we go straight into having sex?                                    JACK                              Is that alright?                                    DIRK                    It would be better I think, y'know,                     so we don't break up the momentum                              or something --                                    JACK                                   Amber?                                   AMBER                                   Good.                                    JACK                     So we'll just go straight through.                                    DIRK                                   Okay.                               KURT LONGJOHN                         Are we doing a rehearsal?                                    JACK                        Eddie, you want a rehearsal?                                    DIRK                     It's okay . . . I can do it . . .                                    JACK                                   Great.                                    DIRK                                   Jack?                                    JACK                                   Yeah?                                    DIRK               . . . can you . . . um . . . will you call me                         Dirk Diggler from now on?                                    JACK                         Yes. I'm sorry, yeah, yes.Jack exits. Amber and Dirk huddle in the corner a moment.                                   AMBER                Do you want to practice your lines with me?                                    DIRK                                 I know it.                                   AMBER                           You look great, honey.                                    DIRK                Does he want me to keep going until I come?                                   AMBER                Yeah. You just come when you're ready . . .                                    DIRK                            Where should I come?                                   AMBER                             Where do you want?                                    DIRK                           Wherever you tell me.                                   AMBER                     Come on my tits if you can, okay?                       Just pull it out and do it on                      my stomach and tits if you can.                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.She touches her hand softly to the side of his face. (30fps)                                   AMBER                          Are you alright, honey?                                    DIRK                 This is great. I'm ready. I wanna do good.               I wanna do this good . . . let's try and do it                       really sexy . . . you want to?                                   AMBER                                   Okay.Little Bill takes Dirk and walks him off the set, explaining things onelast time to him . . . CAMERA HOLDS ON DIRK. Little Bill walks away andhe's left standing alone a moment, waiting for his cue behind a closeddoor. SILENCE. HOLD.                                 JACK (OC)                          and . . . action, Dirk.CAMERA blends to SLOW MOTION (30fps) and FOLLOWS Dirk through the door andinto the set -- lights flare into CAMERA/DIRK and we focus in on Amber,seated behind a desk. CAMERA blends back to 24fps.KURT LONGJOHN'S 16mm CAMERA POV:Dirk enters. A light shines straight at him. He walks into a two shot withAmber at the desk. BEAT, THEN:                                   AMBER                            Hello. Are you John?                                    DIRK                                Yes, ma'am.                                   AMBER                  Your agency recommends you very highly.                                    DIRK                     I'm a really hard worker. You give                    me a job and I won't disappoint you.                                   AMBER                      What special skills do you have?                                    DIRK                 Well, I spent three years in the Marines.                    I just got back from a tour of duty.                                   AMBER                              You're kidding?                                    DIRK                    No I'm not. It got really hard being                        surrounded by guys all day.                                   AMBER                  When was the last time you had a woman?                                    DIRK                                A long time.                                   AMBER                              That's terrible.                                    DIRK                  But I'm back now and I'm ready to pursue                             my acting career.                                   AMBER                Well as you may or may not know, this is an                 important film for me. If it's not a hit,                 I'm gonna get kicked out of my apartment.                        My landlord is a real jerk.                                    DIRK                                  Really?                                   AMBER                     Why don't you take your pants off?              It's important that I get an idea of your size.                                    DIRK                                No problem.Dirk starts to remove his pants . . . just before they come off we go to:JACK AND THE REST OF THE CREWKurt Longjohn takes his eye away from the viewfinder for a moment. Rockyfrowns slightly. Scotty J. is in shock. Reed and Becky smile.Amber looks from Dirk's cock to his face.                                   AMBER                      I think that you have the part,                but why don't I make sure of something . . .16mm CAMERA'S POV:for the first time, we see Dirk's cock. It hangs about 12 inches. Amber'shand reaches and grabs hold of it --                                   AMBER                           This is a giant cock.So they go at it . . . taking each other's clothes off and climbing up onthe desk . . . OUR CAMERA is hand held, moving around, looking at the crewfilming and Dick/Amber making love . . . .They continue for a while. Jack whispers something to Kurt, then walks overto Dirk and Amber, quietly interrupts;                                    JACK                                 Guys . . .                                    DIRK                            Is everything cool?                                    JACK                     Hang in there, everything's cool,                      I just wanna change the angle --                            You're doin' great.Amber looks to Dirk. They hold still;                                   AMBER                        You're doin' so good, Dirk.                                    DIRK                             Does it feel good?Amber smiles. Jack and Kurt have set up a new angle;                                    JACK                Okay -- we're back, we're ready -- action --They continue for a bit, getting faster and a little harder;CU. DIRK AND AMBERthey're face to face. Following in sotto:                                   AMBER                              You're amazing.                                    DIRK                           You feel good, Amber.                                   AMBER                           Are you ready to come?                                    DIRK                                    Yes.                                   AMBER                                Come in me.                                    DIRK                                   What?                                   AMBER                          Don't worry, I'm fixed.                          I want to come in me --Amber and Dirk come together. HOLD. They kiss and smile.                                    JACK                         CUT! FUCK! YES! YES! YES!THE CREW APPLAUDS THE PERFORMANCE. Everyone gathers around. Dirk is givinghand shakes, high fives, etc.CAMERA PANS over to Little Bill and Jack who step aside a moment. Followingin sotto;                                    JACK                              That was great.                                LITTLE BILL                      Yes it was. What do you want to                      do about the come shot? We could                go to the stock footage -- get a close up --                                    JACK                       It's not gonna match, we don't                      have a cock that big on film --Dirk hears this and turns to Jack and Little Bill.                                    DIRK                                   Jack?                                    JACK                                 Yes, Dirk?                                    DIRK                 I can do it again if you need a close-up.Everyone in the room looks at Dirk. HOLD.MUSIC CUE. CONTINUES OVER CUT AND THE FOLLOWING SCENES:55 INT. JACK'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT - LATER Sequence "A"The entire cast and crew together.ECU - CHAMPAGNE BOTTLES POPECU - ROLLERGIRL'S CAMERA.she snaps POLAROIDSECU - DEVELOPED PICTUREScast and crew smiling, holding thumbs up. Dirk in the middle.CUT TO:56 INT. RESEDA SHOE STORE - DAYCAMERA TRACKS ALONG a row of shoes. Dirk, Reed and Scotty J. are in thestore, picking some out. Dirk falls in love with a pair of half-boots,zip-up style --CUT TO:57 INT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHTCAMERA BEGINS ON THE SHOES, DOES A QUICK BOOM UP TO A CU. ON DIRK. He'sdancing with Rollergirl. They talk about his shoes.QUICK DISSOLVE TO:OVERHEAD ANGLE, JACK'S TABLE.Jack is eating Clams on the Half Shell and talking to Amber. The Colonel issitting with a NEW LADY FRIEND. CAMERA begins a BOOM DOWN as Scotty J.enters FRAME and begins talking the Colonel's ear off.QUICK DISSOLVE TO:ANGLE, MAURICECAMERA follows behind him as he shouts orders to waiters and busboys andbouncers --QUICK DISSOLVE TO:ANGLE, BECKYShe's hanging out near the bathroom with a GIRLFRIEND and flirting withsome YOUNG GENT, who's a body-builder type.QUICK DISSOLVE TO:INSIDE THE DJ BOOTH. A couple young girls surround the DJ, who is a BLACKMIDGET, wearing headphones, dancing and doing coke with the girls. He setsup another RECORD on the turntable. CAMERA DOLLIES IN QUICK ON THE RECORD,NEW MUSIC CUE.CUT TO:58 INT. MOTEL ROOM FILM SET - ANOTHER DAYCast and Crew shooting a new film with a Spanish-theme. Jack watchesRollergirl and Dirk who are on a WATERBED. They block the scene.                                    JACK              What we can do is make it all one thing, right?               You can go from being on top -- below and then                  move and shift to the side -- pump away                         there for a while, then --Dirk gets on the bed with Rollergirl and tries a move.                                    DIRK             If she . . . Rollergirl . . . if you wrap your leg        around . . . other one . . . your left leg . . . right . . .                     up around my neck. And over. Good.                     We can go right into Doggy Style.                               KURT LONGJOHN                 Is the movement of the waterbed a problem?                                    DIRK                Not at all, Kurt. Matter of fact, I dig it.CUT TO:59 OMITTED ** Director's Note: 2nd Unit/TBABURN TO:60 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/KITCHEN - DAYJack is reading "Oui." Dirk, Reed and Amber listen.                                    JACK                  Jack Horner has found something special                   in newcomer Dirk Diggler. It's another             stellar, sexual standout from Horner and Company.              Diggler delivers a performance worth a thousand              hard-ons. His presence when dressed is powerful                            and demanding . . .CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON THE PAGE, TRACKS ALONG THE WORDS. CAMERA catchesglimpses of the words on the page, ". . . Diggler . . ." ". . . sexualstandout . . ." ". . . supple ass . . ." Continue w/STILL PHOTOGRAPHS fromthe film.SPLIT SCREEN TO:61 INT. STUDIO CITY HAIR SALON - DAYCAMERA DOLLIES DOWN THE LINE OF HAIRSTYLISTS. Dirk is getting a fluffy newhair style. Reed stands nearby and watches;                                 JACK (VO)                 . . . when stripped to the bone, Diggler's                 more eruptive than a volcano on a bad day.                Amber Waves ripe-cherry lips do a wonderful                  job of handling Diggler's wide load and                Reed Rothchild's stiff biceps do a slapping               good job with Becky Barnett's supple ass . . .THREE-WAY SPLIT TO:62 "A CLIP FROM THE FILM, 'SPANISH PANTALONES." (16mm)This is filmed on the Motel Room Film Set. Reed is wearing speedos and asombrero. Becky is naked. He slaps her ass. Dirk is facing CAMERA, Amber iskneeling down, covering his crotch giving him a blow job. CU. Dirk for themoney shot.FOUR WAY SPLIT TO:63 INT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHTDirk is disco dancing with Rollergirl and Becky and Reed.                                 JACK (VO)              . . . but it's Diggler that remains the standout               in this film. It's easy to predict, after only            two films, that's Diggler's suck-cess can only grow                            and grow and grow --END FOUR WAY SPLIT, STAYING WITH DIRK DANCING IN THE CLUB. Dirk, Reed,Rollergirl, Buck, Maurice and Becky begin doing a DANCE NUMBER. (Completew/choreographed moves, etc.)CUT TO:64 OMITTED65 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/AMBER'S BEDROOM - NIGHTAmber is on the phone. Dirk is sitting with her, holding her hand.                                   AMBER                      Please let me talk to him, Tom.                      Please. I just want to say hello              and that's all -- I'm not. I'm completely sober.                      I'm not -- Tom -- Tom -- Tom --Dial tone from the phone, she hangs up --                                   AMBER                        I don't know what to do now.CUT TO:66 INT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB/BACKROOM - DAYMaurice slips a PHOTOGRAPH and a letter into an envelope and seals it up.The VO is in Spanish, with SUB-TITLES.                                MAURICE (VO)                Dear brothers: I'm sending you a picture --CUT TO:67 INT. APARTMENT BLDG./PUERTO RICO - DAYMaurice's two BROTHERS rip open the letter and check out a picture ofMaurice standing next to Rollergirl.                                MAURICE (VO)                    -- this is my girlfriend. I had sex                    with her last night. Isn't she hot?                    I get chicks like this every night.CUT TO:68 OMITTED69 INT. KARATE STUDIO - DAYBuck, Dirk and Reed dressed in Karate-gear, are taking lessons. Buck speaksabout the ancient history of Karate.CUT TO:70 INT. DEPARTMENT STORE - DAYCAMERA TRACKS ALONG A ROW OF SUITS. Dirk picks one out, tries it on andpays for it in cash. CAMERA then PUSHES IN through a series of QUICKDISSOLVES on SUITS hanging individually on the wall.CUT TO:71 OMITTED72 EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY - DAYCAMERA moves with Jack's Big Van and Little Bill's Station Wagon thatfollows.CUT TO:73 INT. JACK'S VAN - MOVING - DAY (music over into radio)Amber is driving the van, Buck is in the passenger seat trying to figureout why the radio isn't working and speaking;                                    BUCK                       If you were to open a business                     specializing in, like, Super-Super                    Hi-Fi Stereo Equipment -- forget it,                    you're in the money. I mean, there's                     no limit to the technology that's                             comin' out now --                                   AMBER                                  Really?                                    BUCK                               That's a fact.                                   AMBER                      So what's wrong with this radio?                                    BUCK                 I think it's . . . uh . . . it's a wattage                problem . . . yeah . . . we've got too many                 watts per channel going into the front two                          speaker . . . yeah . . .IN THE BACK OF THE VAN:Reed, Dirk and Jack are huddled, speaking intensely;                                    JACK                               -- what else?                                    DIRK                     That's it for now. I mean: I look                     at this character Holmes has come                    up with -- and -- look -- I just --                                    JACK                                  Tell me.                                    DIRK                I don't like to see women treated that way.                This guy he plays, "Johnny Wad," it's always                about slapping some girl around or whatever.              It's not right, it's not cool and it just . . .                isn't sexy. It isn't sexy like it should be.                                    REED                   We could make it more of a James Bond                 character. This guy that's world traveled.                                    JACK                                I like that.                                    DIRK                        Reed could play my partner.                                    JACK                             I like this a lot.                                    DIRK                    We could make it really good, Jack.                 Honestly. If you direct it . . . we could                  make a whole series, with a whole story.              This is exactly what we've always talked about.                                    JACK                           I know it. I know it.                                    REED                             We should do this.                                    JACK                  Alright. When we get back. We'll set up                  the typewriter and we'll see what we can                come up with. I'll talk to the Colonel when                 we get to Vegas. But Dirk, you gotta work                             on him too, okay?                                    DIRK                               Right, right.                                    JACK                -- if we don't put every element into this,                        it's just not gonna work --                                    DIRK                                  Exactly.                                    JACK                        Now: What's this guy's name?                        This character? Do you know?                                    DIRK                         His name is Brock Landers.                                    REED                   His partner's name is Chest Rockwell.                                    JACK                        . . . those are great names.CUT TO:74 OMITTED75 INT. ALADDIN HOTEL/CASINO - BANQUET ROOM - NIGHTThe "2nd ANNUAL ADULT FILM AWARDS." Behind a small PODIUM and in front of apacked to capacity CROWD of porn filmmakers is --AMBER. She's about to open an envelope.                                   AMBER                     And the award for "Best Newcomer"             goes to . . . Yes! My baby-boy . . . DIRK DIGGLER!JUMP CUT TO:COLONEL JAMES. He's on stage, rips open an envelope.                               COLONEL JAMES                      . . . the award for "Best Cock"             goes to . . . Here We Go Again . . . DIRK DIGGLER.JUMP CUT TO:A Porn Actress, JESSIE ST. VINCENT (early 20s). She opens;                                   JESSIE              And The Award . . . for Best Actor Goes To . . .                  I've seen his movies and I can't wait to                work with him, I can't wait to get that big                 cock in my mouth, my ass, my pussy or any           which way he'll give it to me . . . Mr. Dirk Diggler!The Audience Applauds wildly. Dirk, dressed in a jean outfit, makes his wayto the stage and accepts the award from Jessie. He turns to the crowd.                                    DIRK                Wow. I dunno what to say . . . I guess. Wow.                 I guess the only thing I can say, is that                 I promise to keep rocking and rolling and               to keep making better films. It seems we make         these movies . . . and sometimes . . . they're considered            filthy or something by some people . . . but I don't               think that's true. These films we make can be        better . . . they can help . . . they really can, I mean it.              We can always do better -- and I'll keep trying           if you keep trying so let's keep ROCKING AND ROLLING.AUDIENCE APPLAUDS. Jessie St. Vincent comes over and plants a deep, wetkiss right in his mouth;                                   JESSIE                                You're hot.Amber, in the audience, sees the kiss and frowns. Dirk raises the awardhigh above his head and does a karate move --76 INT. ITALIAN RESTAURANT SET - DAY (16mm) Sequence "B"TITLE CARD READS: "1978". . . Jessie St. Vincent walks across the restaurant to the bar. KurtLongjohn and his camera crew track with her. Dirk, in character with hishair slicked, chewing on a toothpick and smoking a cigarette, wearing asuit and sunglasses is sitting at the bar. She speaks to the Bartender(played by Maurice).                                   JESSIE                       Shot of Tequila, straight up.                                  MAURICE                                Yes, ma'am.                                   JESSIE                                 (to Dirk)                  I've been in this place twenty minutes,                            just to get a seat.                                    DIRK                                 You alone?                                   JESSIE                    Yeah. Just visiting L.A. Some people                 told me the food in here was really good.                                    DIRK                   Good. No, it's not good. It's probably                   the BEST place to eat in Los Angeles.                              It's excellent.                                   JESSIE                    I certainly hope so. I could die of              starvation before I get something in my mouth --JUMP CUT TO:77 INT. BEDROOM SET - NIGHT - SCENE CONTINUED IN CLIP FORM (16mm)This bedroom set is decorated as Brock Landers pad. Jessie St. Vincentunzips Dirk's pants . . . (porn music in b.g.)                                    DIRK                        You said you were hungry --                                   JESSIE                                 Starving.                                    DIRK                         Well, go ahead and feast.She pulls his cock out of his fly, looks at it. CAMERA sees this.                                   JESSIE                             Ohhh. It's true --                                    DIRK                                   What?                                   JESSIE                          You're Brock Landers --CUT TO:78 EXT. VARIOUS VALLEY LOCATIONS - DAY - FILM CLIP (16mm)TITLE SEQUENCE FROM "Brock Landers: Angels Live In My Town." Dirk isrunning STRAIGHT TOWARDS CAMERA in a JEAN OUTFIT. He stops, does a KARATEKICK and turns -- FREEZE FRAME.TITLE READS: DIRK DIGGLER as BROCK LANDERSVarious other footage of Reed, running down the street, firing a gun andknocking people down. FREEZE FRAME.TITLE READS: REED ROTHCHILD as CHEST ROCKWELLFinally, over a WIDE ANGLE SHOT OF VENTURA BLVD;                  "BROCK LANDERS: ANGELS LIVE IN MY TOWN"MATCH CUT TO:79 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - EDITING ROOM - DAYCAMERA PULLS BACK and WHIPS around from the Steenbeck image to find; Jackand Kurt Longjohn, working on the film.                                    JACK                  Good, good, it's close. Let's head trim                  Dirk's spin, lose Reed with the revolver                and switch the main title card -- it should                        really fly towards camera --CUT TO:80 INT. DIRK'S NEW HOUSE/STUDIO CITY HILLS - DAYCAMERA (STEADICAM) begins on Reed who's doing a MAGIC TRICK in the livingroom for Scotty J. and Becky. Jessie is oil painting.Dirk and Amber enter FRAME and CAMERA follows them through the house. Dirkis giving her a tour, explaining what type of leather couches he has, whatsort of history he knows about the wood used to build the house, showingher a painting on the wall of himself that was done by Jessie St. Vincent,etc. They move into --THE KITCHENMaurice and Rollergirl are deep in conversation. He's trying to convinceher that she should take a picture with him without her clothes on so hecan send it to his brothers in Puerto Rico.CAMERA stays foreground with their conversation while Dirk shows Amber theback deck area of the house --(Director's Note: Sound covers the four talking simultaneously.)Rollergirl stops arguing with Maurice;                                 ROLLERGIRL                          Fuck it, fine, let's go.She rips off her bikini top, sets the POLAROID on the counter, hits thetimer, rolls back and poses with Maurice --CU - DEVELOPED POLAROIDthe image is of their waists - the Polaroid framing was too low.Dirk and Amber come f.g. and CAMERA leads them --                                    DIRK                And around this corner is the big surprise.                     The main thing I wanna show you --They move down a hallway and into --THE GARAGEIt's dark for a moment, Dirk hits the garage door and it starts to open . .. LIGHT POURS INSIDE on their faces --                                    DIRK                            Isn't it beautiful?CAMERA holds CU images of a BRAND NEW 1978 CORVETTE. It's candy apple redwith super trimmed out designs, etc. CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON DIRK.                                   AMBER                          You deserve this, baby.                                    DIRK                      This is it -- this is the thing.                      This is the most beautiful thing                        I've ever seen in my life --They get in the car and go for a ride.CUT TO:81 INT. ITALIAN RESTAURANT SET - NIGHT - FILM CLIP (16mm)Dirk and Reed, in character look at each other and say;                                    DIRK              So we solved the case and the women are safe --                                    REED                             Just another day.                                    DIRK                               That's right.                                    REED                     C'mon, Brock. Let's go out and get                   some of that Saturday Night Beaver --They smile. FREEZE FRAME. TITLE CARD READS: Directed by Jack Horner.MATCH CUT TO:82 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - EDITING ROOM - DAYCAMERA PULLS BACK and WHIPS around from the Steenbeck image to find Jackand Kurt Longjohn;                                    JACK                   This is the best work I've ever done.                               KURT LONGJOHN                          It's a real film, Jack.                                    JACK                               It feels good.                               KURT LONGJOHN                              You made it fly.                                    JACK               This is the one they'll remember me by, baby.CUT TO:83 OMITTED ** Director's Note: 2nd Unit/TBAQUICK DISSOLVE TO:84 OMITTED ** Director's Note: 2nd Unit/TBAQUICK DISSOLVE TO:85 OMITTED ** Director's Note: 2nd Unit/TBABURN WHITE TO:86 INT. ALADDIN BANQUET ROOM - NIGHTThe "4th ANNUAL ADULT FILM AWARDS." Dirk walks up to the podium to acceptanother award.CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON EACH OF OUR PRINCIPLES SO FAR IN SLOW MOTION: Reed.Jack. Amber. Little Bill . . . then PAN to his Wife. Kurt Longjohn. Rocky.Becky. Jessie St. Vincent. Scotty J. Maurice. Buck. Colonel and another newLady Friend. Rollergirl. Finally, Dirk. He speaks into the microphone;                                    DIRK                                 Thank you.FREEZE FRAME ON DIRK. End Sequence "B"WIPE TO:87 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - NIGHTCAMERA starts on a huge banner strung across the house. It reads:                        "Goodbye 70's -- Hello 80's"CAMERA roams through the party. This is a bigger, better and more insaneparty than we have seen so far . . . .CAMERA hangs with Becky and a tall, heavy-set black guy JEROME.                                   BECKY                          . . . right, right . . .                                   JEROME              Yeah . . . y'know . . . as far as I'm concerned,                 it's about love. Y'know? You love someone                   and how hard can the world be? I mean,               people will come and go and so will problems,               and ultimately, if you have love on your side                 and in your soul, whatsa problem gonna be               that takes your attention away? Y'understand?                                   BECKY                   I do . . . I do. That's really sweet.                                   JEROME                             My name's Jerome.                                   BECKY                                 I'm Becky.                                   JEROME                          Nice to meet 'ya, Becky.                                   BECKY                              What do you do?                                   JEROME                         I'm in the auto industry.                                   BECKY                                  Really?                                   JEROME                         Yeah. I'm regional manager                              for "Pep Boys."                                   BECKY                               That's great.                                   JEROME                      You've got a nice smile, Becky.                                   BECKY                                 Thank you.CAMERA hangs with Kurt and Rocky who are discussing technology and thefuture . . .CAMERA hangs with Reed, who's doing some Magic Tricks for Jack andexplaining some facts about "the world of illusions."CAMERA hangs with Dirk and Jessie St. Vincent.                                   JESSIE                 Because sometimes I feel like an outsider               to the whole thing. Y'know . . . I see you and                 Amber and your relationship and I dunno --                                    DIRK                     No, no, Jessie. You shouldn't feel                             like an outsider.                                   JESSIE                  I know my tits aren't as big and I know                  my pussy isn't as tight as all the other                  girls in this industry but I still feel                   like I've got something that works --                             I can paint, too.                                    DIRK                               Yes. Yes. Yes.                                   JESSIE                  I dunno. I was just never really secure.                When I was a kid, I was never really secure                with myself that much -- I guess that's why            I try and act like I'm all care-free and everything.                                    DIRK                 I know what you mean, sometimes I'm like,                 "What am I doing?" "What the hell is wrong                             with me?" Y'know?                                   JESSIE                              I know, I know.                                    DIRK                        But then . . . I think . . .                                   JESSIE                       -- it's just fun. It's great.                                    DIRK                    It is. It's the best. I mean, look:                      I couldn't be happier than where                   I am today, right now, at this moment.                                   JESSIE                     You are so fucking awesome, Dirk.                                    DIRK                   Who says you don't have a tight pussy?                                   JESSIE                       I don't know. No one, I guess.CAMERA hangs with Scotty J. and Amber. He re-counts;                                 SCOTTY J.                    So I was all, "What's your problem?"                    And he was all, "Nothing." So I was             like . . . really . . . y'know . . . I was fuckin'                     pissed, Amber. So then I was all,                   like, "What are you gonna do?" Y'know?                     And he was all, like acting tough,                 y'know, with his friends around and stuff.              So I was just all . . . like . . . "Forget it."                             And I walked away.Amber's attention moves to Dirk talking with Jessie St. Vincent.                                   AMBER                             Excuse me, Scotty.CUT TO:88 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/KITCHEN - NIGHTCAMERA hangs with The Colonel, a NEW LADY FRIEND, who's doing some cokefrom a bowl and Maurice, who's begging for a part in a movie. The Colonel'sattention turns across the room;COLONEL'S POV: A tall man in a white suit, FLOYD GONDOLLI (mid 50s), isstanding with two dirty-looking BOYS and two similar GIRLS.The Colonel walks over, CAMERA WHIP PANS over to Floyd Gondolli;                                   FLOYD                                The Colonel!                                  COLONEL                    Floyd Gondolli, great you could make                  it . . . great . . . great . . . great.                                   FLOYD                        How are you? You look happy.                                  COLONEL                                 I'm fine.                                   FLOYD                         Meet Boys: Tommy and Pete.                        Meet Girls: Angie and Cyndi.                           TOMMY/PETE/ANGIE/CYNDI                                    Hi.                                  COLONEL                           Hello. Happy New Year.                                   FLOYD                  These are the next stars . . . the real                            people in the world.                                  COLONEL                    I think we should do that talk with                    Jack now, whadda 'ya say? Maybe iron             this thing out before we start the new year . . .                                   FLOYD                                Let's do it.Floyd turns to the kid he is with and speaks very slowly to them;                                   FLOYD                Tommy-Pete-Angie-Cyndi. Uncle Floyd is gonna              split for a minute to do a little business talk.The Colonel and Floyd walk away.CUT TO:89 EXT. POOL AREA - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTDirk is talking with Jessie St. Vincent. Amber comes over and takes a seaton Dirk's lap.                                    DIRK                                Hey, Amber.                                   AMBER                    What are you talking about out here?                                    DIRK                                  Nothin'.                                   AMBER               Do you wanna come with me for a little while?                                    DIRK                                   Where?                                   AMBER                      A surprise, surprise, surprise.                                    DIRK                                 Let's go.They excuse themselves from Jessie and walk off into the house. Jessielooks across the party and sees Buck. CAMERA moves away, towards him --He's sitting alone, wearing a new-style, Commodores look. A few beats later-- Jessie enters frame.                                   JESSIE                                 Hey, Buck.                                    BUCK                         Hey, Jessie, how ya doin'?                                   JESSIE                             You sitting alone?CUT TO:90 EXT. JACK'S DRIVEWAY - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTA guy in white jeans, black leather jacket, TODD PARKER (late 20s). Heexits his 280z and flashes smiles at various party people. CAMERA followshim to the POOL AREA where he sees;                                    REED                                Todd Parker.                                    TODD                          Rockin' Reed Rothchild.                                    REED                               You made it --                                    TODD                 Yeah . . . yeah. This is an amazing party.                         Fuckin' chicks everywhere.                                    REED                                  You bet.                                    TODD                    I wouldn't mind havin' some of that                            action over there --Todd points out a BIKINI PARTY GIRL.                                    REED                         Want me to introduce you?                                    TODD                       Sure. Introduce her to my lap.                                    REED                             You got off work?                                    TODD                        I don't dance Sunday nights.                Who's Corvette is that out in the driveway?                                    REED                                It's Dirk's.                                    TODD                   That car is jammin' -- Nosed, Racked,                    Dual Camms, Ten Coats of Hand Gloss,                      Candy Apple Red Laquer -- WHOA.CUT TO:90A EXT. POOL AREA - THAT MOMENTBuck and Jessie St. Vincent sitting/talking.                                    BUCK                       I'm pretty happy with it . . .                                   JESSIE                 . . . It's a great look for you, I think.                                    BUCK                      It's sort of original, I think.                                   JESSIE                                   Right.                                    BUCK                     What were we talking about before?                                   JESSIE                       Um . . . oil painting . . . ?                                    BUCK               No . . . yes, I mean . . . but we were talkin'                                about . . .                                   JESSIE                             Oh! Oh! "Sunsets."                                    BUCK         Oh yeah! I was saying: I like sunsets too . . . but . . .                                   JESSIE                            Sunrises are better.                                    BUCK                                  Exactly.                                   JESSIE               I thought I was the only one who thought that.                                    BUCK                               I think that.                                   JESSIE                     I never thought we'd have so much                              in common, Buck.                                    BUCK                 Yeah, yeah . . . hey, have you ever heard                            of my stereo system?                                   JESSIE                                    No.                                    BUCK                     Y'know I'm thinking of opening my                              own business --                                   JESSIE                                  Really?                                    BUCK                   It's my dream. Hi-Fi Stereo Equipment                     at a discount price -- it's called                        "Buck's Super Stereo World."                                   JESSIE                        That's a fucking great idea.CUT TO:91 INT. JACK'S OFFICE - MOMENTS LATERJack, Floyd Gondolli and the Colonel sitting.                                   FLOYD                   . . . so let's talk about the future.                    So let's talk about what video means                     to this industry -- and let's talk                  about how all of us -- not one of us --                 but all of us will profit. I've been doing                theater work in San Francisco and San Diego                   for as long as you've been doing stag                            and hardcore, Jack.                                    JACK                       I know you're history, Floyd.                                  COLONEL                       No one's doubting your history                        or your credentials, Floyd.                                   FLOYD                      Then why the resistance? I mean:                    This industry is going to be turned                         upside down soon enough --                                    JACK                             Then why help it?                                   FLOYD                    Why not be prepared? The money comes                  from the Colonel, the talent comes from                  you, Jack. I've got a connection to the                 equipment and the mail order distribution,                 not to mention those kids I got out there                    who are hot-fuck-action to the max.              This is the future. Video tape tells the truth.                                    JACK                  I have a stable of actors and actresses.                     They're professionals. They're not                    a bunch of fucking amateurs. They're                   proven box office and they get people                  in theaters (where films should be seen)                     and they know how to fuck well --                                   FLOYD                       That's right, Jack and by that                    same token, you're the one with the                      power here. The video revolution                  is upon us -- and our role is critical.                 We have an obligation to use our resources                     and talent to help make it fly --                                    JACK                You come in here, at my party, tell me about                 this and that -- tell me about the future,                  tell me about -- video and amateurs and               all that -- well lemme tell you something now:                   I will not shoot films on video and no                   I will not loan out my actors who are                       under contract to me. Period.                                   FLOYD              Wait a minute, Jack. I'm not a complicated man.                  I like cinema. In particular, I like to                  see fucking on film. I don't want to win                 an Oscar and I don't want to re-invent the               wheel -- I enjoy simple pleasures like butter                    in my ass and lollipops in my mouth.               That's me -- call me crazy, call me a pervert,                  but this is something I enjoy. One other               small thing I want to do in this life is make              a dollar and a cent in this business -- I'm not              trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you stay                       one step ahead of the game --                                    JACK                   We're repeating ourselves now, Floyd.                                  COLONEL               Jack, I think this is about cost and future --                                    JACK                  The future is as bright as we make it --                it shouldn't be sacrificed for a few dollars                that can be saved shooting on video tape --                if it looks like shit and sounds like shit,                           it probably is shit --                                   FLOYD              I think you're one gin past this conversation --                                    JACK                    No . . . no. I'm crystal clear here.                                  COLONEL                    Jack, please understand that this is                 not an argument . . . this is a fact of --                                    JACK                             . . . What . . . ?                                  COLONEL                     This is not an argument, but a --                                    JACK                            What are you saying?                                  COLONEL                      What do you mean, Jack, c'mon --                                    JACK                       Are you telling me that you're                          working with this shit?                                  COLONEL                    I think that there is a serious case                  to be made for the price and the gamble                on the whole idea of a home video market --                Jack: Two, three years from now, everyone's                   gonna be able to walk into their local               supermarket and buy or rent a videocassette --                                    JACK                   True film fans won't watch that shit.                 It doesn't look good and more importantly                       it doesn't make sex look sexy.                                  COLONEL                    It doesn't have to look good, Jack.                      Film is just too damn expensive.                     The theaters are already planning                      converting to video projectors.                                    JACK                           I haven't heard that.                                   FLOYD                                 It's true.                                    JACK                    We've got ten minutes until the New                Year and I don't want it to start like this                  so I'm leaving now. We will or we won't                continue this conversation some other time.Jack leaves. Floyd looks to the Colonel. HOLD.CUT TO:92 INT. AMBER'S BEDROOM - NIGHTDirk and Amber enter. She sits him on the bed.                                   AMBER                  I wanted you . . . to just . . . to come                     in and give me a minute so I could                       tell you how much I love you.                     It's gonna be a new year and we're                      gonna start things and do things                     and I want you to know how much I                     really care for you, honey. I care             for you so much . . . you're my little baby . . .                                    DIRK                             Thank you, Amber.                                   AMBER                     You're the best thing in the world                     that's happened to me since my son             went off . . . and I just . . . I love you, honey.                                    DIRK                           I love you too, Amber.Amber continues to talk as she sets up more lines of coke.                                   AMBER               Fucking 1980 . . . y'know? Can you believe it?                                    DIRK                  I can't . . . it's like . . . next thing                   we know . . . it's gonna be 1990, then                        2000 . . . can you imagine?                                   AMBER                 Goodbye to 1979 . . . hello to 1980 . . .                           (handing him a straw)              Make sure you snort it back quick and hard . . .                                    DIRK                              . . . wh . . . ?                                   AMBER                        Really fast, like this . . .She demonstrates. Dirk hesitates a moment, then leans down and does a lineof coke.                                    DIRK                                 It burns.                                   AMBER                         It's good, though, right?                                    DIRK                     It's in my throat . . . uch . . .                                   AMBER               It's the drip . . . the drip's the best part.                                    DIRK                            Tastes like aspirin.                                   AMBER                     Do one more in the other nostril.                                    DIRK                . . . I need a glass of water, I think . . .                                   AMBER                         One more, then the water.Dirk does another line.                                    DIRK                        Do I look cool when I do it?Amber is right there to KISS him very hard on the mouth. HOLD.CUT TO:93 INT. JACK'S HALLWAY - THAT MOMENTDirk and Amber emerge from the bedroom and walk back to the party . . . .Amber stops to say hello to some people . . . . Dirk keeps walking . . .CAMERA follows him outside . . . Scotty J. approaches . . . .                                 SCOTTY J.                                 Hey, Dirk.                                    DIRK                        Scotty. Hey. What's up, man?                                 SCOTTY J.                  . . . fuckin' New Year's, y'know, right?                                    DIRK                                   1980.                                 SCOTTY J.                       Right. Did you see my new car?                                    DIRK                             You got a new car?                                 SCOTTY J.                              Yeah. Wanna see?                                    DIRK                                   Sure.CAMERA FOLLOWS them outside, they pass Reed and Todd who are standing nearthe BBQ pit --                                    REED                    Hey, Dirk, c'mere and meet someone.                   This is Todd, my pal from the thing --                                    DIRK                                How are ya?                                    TODD                              We finally meet.                                    REED                      Remember I told you about Todd?                      He works over at the Party Boys                               Strip Club --                                    DIRK                      Oh, cool, cool. You're a dancer?                                    TODD                          Yeah, I got some moves.                                 SCOTTY J.                        -- Dirk? Are you coming -- ?                                    DIRK                            Yeah, okay, Scotty.                                 (to Todd)                  I'll see you around. We can talk later.CAMERA continues with Dirk and Scotty J. Out to the DRIVEWAY. They checkout the USED CANDY-APPLE RED TOYOTA COROLLA.                                 SCOTTY J.                                This is it.                                    DIRK                                   Cool.                                 SCOTTY J.                             Wanna get inside?                                    DIRK                           When did you get this?                                 SCOTTY J.                                 Yesterday.                                    DIRK                       It's great. It's really great.                                 SCOTTY J.                     Yeah, you wanna take a ride, or --                                    DIRK                       Wait a minute, wait a minute,          waitaminute . . . fuckin' hell . . . how much time left?                                 SCOTTY J.                             Six minutes . . .                                    DIRK                Oh, shit! Let's get back inside, come on --Dirk starts to walk away . . . Scotty watches him go . . . Suddenly: ScottyCHARGES Dirk from behind and starts to KISS his neck. Dirk stumbles, pusheshim away and turns:                                 SCOTTY J.                    I'm sorry, Dirk. Please. I'm sorry.                                    DIRK                          . . . why'd you do that?                                 SCOTTY J.                        You look at me sometimes --                                    DIRK                                  -- What?                                 SCOTTY J.                        I wanna know if you like me.                                    DIRK                          . . . yeah . . . Scotty.                                 SCOTTY J.                              Can I kiss you?                                    DIRK                        . . . Scott . . . I don't --                                 SCOTTY J.                         -- Can I kiss your mouth?                           Please. Please let me.                                    DIRK                                    No.                                 SCOTTY J.                      I'm really sorry. I didn't mean                       to grab you . . . I didn't --                                    DIRK                               It's alright.                                 SCOTTY J.                           . . . I'm sorry . . .                                    DIRK                            . . . it's alright.                                 SCOTTY J.                           Do you wanna kiss me?                                    DIRK                                  Scotty.                                 SCOTTY J.                       No, no. Forget it. I'm sorry.                     I'm really sorry, I'm just drunk.                          I'm outta my head, okay?                                    DIRK                               . . . yeah --                                 SCOTTY J.                  I'm just crazy, you know? Crazy. Right?                       I'm so wasted, drunk, drunk --                                    DIRK                         You wanna go back inside?                                 SCOTTY J.                         Do you like my car, Dirk?                                    DIRK                          What . . . ? Yeah. Yeah.                                 SCOTTY J.                    I wanted to make sure you thought it                 was cool or else I was gonna take it back.                                    DIRK                                    Oh.PAUSE. Dirk hesitates . . . then turns and walks back into the house.                                 SCOTTY J.                                (to himself)                             I love you, Dirk.CUT TO:94 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATERJack calls out to the crowd of Party People.                                    JACK                  WE GOT TWO MINUTES, PEOPLE! TWO MINUTES!CUT TO:95 INT. HALLWAY - THAT MOMENTCAMERA follows Little Bill as he walks the hallway to a closed bathroomdoor. He opens it.OVER LITTLE BILL'S SHOULDER, INSIDE THE BATHROOMLittle Bill's WIFE is getting FUCKED DOGGY STYLE by yet ANOTHER YOUNG STUD.She looks at him.                             LITTLE BILL'S WIFE                  You should be taking notes, Little Bill.                             ANOTHER YOUNG STUD                         This is a fresh cunt, pal.Little Bill stands a moment, then closes the door. CAMERA LEADS him as hewalks back through the party . . . outside to the pool area and into thedriveway for his Station Wagon.He takes the keys from his pocket, unlocks the passenger side door, reachesinto the glove compartment and takes out a .38 REVOLVER and AMMUNITION.CAMERA FOLLOWS him now as he heads back across the driveway, back throughthe pool area, loading the gun as he walks . . .People begin counting off to the New Year --                                PARTY PEOPLE                      10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . .Little Bill walks into the house, down the hallway --                                PARTY PEOPLE           . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .Little Bill arrives at the Bathroom door and SMASHES IT OPEN: His Wife andthe Young Stud are still fucking . . .                             PARTY PEOPLE (OC)                           . . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!Little Bill FIRES THE REVOLVER INTO HIS WIFE'S NAKED STOMACH. He FIRES THEGUN AGAIN, STRIKING THE YOUNG STUD IN THE HEART.THEY BOTH COLLAPSE AND FALL TO THE FLOOR OF THE BATHROOM. BLOOD SPLATTERSLITTLE BILL . . . .. . . EVERYONE IN THE PARTY JUMPS AT THE SOUND OF THE GUNSHOTS . . .. . . LITTLE BILL FIRES ANOTHER SHOT INTO HIS WIFE . . .. . . BLOOD AND SMOKE FILL THE BATHROOM . . .. . . LITTLE BILL TURNS AROUND, FACES THE PARTY PEOPLE AND SHOVES THEREVOLVER IN HIS MOUTH AND PULLS THE TRIGGER . . .BLOOD AND BRAINS SHOOT OUT THE BACK OF HIS SKULL AND HE COLLAPSES, FALLINGOUT OF FRAME.TITLE CARD READS:                                   "80s"FADE OUT.OVER BLACK, WE HEAR THE VOICE:                                 AMBER (OC)                      . . . what about your character,                   "Brock Landers," and what some people              might consider violent attitudes towards women?CUT TO:Sequence "C"96 INT. DIRK'S HOUSE/BALCONY - DAY - DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE (16mm)Dirk is doing an interview. He's unshaven, thin and sweating, wearingsunglasses. He speaking quickly to Amber OC. (1982)                                    DIRK               violence . . . ? No, what? I mean, if there's                 something in this series of movies that's               like action or violence or whatever -- that's                the movie. Y'know? Look: I'm not saying that             these movies are for the whole family, but they've               gotalotta action and sometimes the characters                 are women who are -- say -- spies or drug                 smugglers or working for some organization                that my character is trying to . . . defeat.                We've made twenty of these films in the past         um . . . um . . . five years, since 77 . . . and this kind                 of talk has only come up in the past year           or so . . . I mean: What's the problem? So -- y'know.CUT TO:97 INT. BROCK LANDERS BEDROOM SET - NIGHT - 16mm FILM CLIPDirk is in his underwear, asleep in bed. An actress named KC SUNSHINE playsin the scene with him as an Indian woman, wrapped in a sheet. She enters,holding a knife, coming towards Dirk . .                                 AMBER (VO)               If Brock Landers is slick with a gun, he does                   so only in the vein of good and right.              Brock protects the values of the American ideal                  and fights for causes that instill pride              in a society where morals are hard to come by --Dirk wakes in the scene, struggles with KC Sunshine, knocks the knife fromher hand and pins her down. The scene plays;                                    DIRK                               WHO SENT YOU?                                KC SUNSHINE                       GET THE FUCK OFF ME, ASSHOLE.                                    DIRK               LAY STILL, I'LL PUNCH YOU IN THE GODDAMN FACE.                                KC SUNSHINE                                 FUCK OFF.Dirk SMACKS her then starts to KISS her breasts softly.CUT TO:98 INT. ALLEY WAY - NIGHT - 16mm FILM CLIPIn the scene, Dirk has Becky (playing a PROSTITUTE) up against a wall. He'sright in her face, holding his fist up . . . The scene:                                    DIRK                         I'm onna ask once more and                   I'm onna ask you nice . . . WHERE THE                         FUCK IS RINGO, YOU BITCH?                                   BECKY                                 Fuck you.Dirk SLAPS her across the face.                                   BECKY                    Ohhh . . . do it again, mayble I'll                        get my pussy wet next time.BUCK arrives playing a PIMP and aims a REVOLVER at Dirk.                                    BUCK               HEY CRACKERJACK, WATCHYOU DOIN' WIT MY WOMAN?Just then: REED appears with a GUN aimed at Buck.                                    REED                      Make another move, motherfucker                     and give me a good goddamn reason                             to blow you away!99 OMITTED100 OMITTED101 OMITTED102 OMITTED ** Director's Note: Rollergirl's Interview/TBA103 OMITTED ** Director's Note: Jessie's Interview/TBA104 OMITTED105 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/EDITING ROOM - DAY - DOCU FOOTAGEJack and Dirk are sitting behind a Moviola for the interview with Amber.Dirk speaks very quickly . . .                                    DIRK                BLOCK . . . uh . . . an idea or a movement.                  Jack will put the final touches on what                 the camera needs for editing -- but, uh --                  He allows me to block my own sex scenes.              . . . and . . . he gives me flexibility to work                with the character and develop, y'know . . .                    I don't know of any other directors                 that would let an actor -- uh -- do that.                                    JACK                 I don't let you block your own sex scenes.Jack and Amber laugh. Dirk laughs a little less.CUT TO:106 EXT. VENTURA BLVD. - DUSK - DOCU. FOOTAGEFootage of Dirk walking along the street as the sun goes down. Ambernarrates.                                 AMBER (OC)                 For Dirk Diggler, the future is something                to look forward to, not to fear . . . He is                a creative man of many interests . . . film,             poetry, karate, music and dance . . . he is a man             of passion and mystery . . . He Is A Man Of Lust.FADE OUT, CUT TO:End Sequence "C".107 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/EDITING ROOM - NIGHT (May 82)Dirk and Amber, sitting in front of the Steenbeck. She flips it off andlooks to him;                                   AMBER                            It's my poem to you.                                    DIRK                     It's great. It's so great, Amber.                        You're a director now. Shit.                           Have you showed Jack?                                   AMBER                   Just you. I wanted to show you first.                                    DIRK                       It's so fuckin' good. Really.                                   (beat)                    Maybe you might want to think about                   cutting that part when Jack says that                          thing about -- y'know --                                   AMBER                            Blocking the sex --                                    DIRK                                  -- yeah.CUT TO:108 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATERDirk and Amber walk out and into the living room, CAMERA SWINGS 180 OVERTO: Jack and Reed, sitting at the kitchen counter;                                    JACK                                How was it?At that moment the PHONE RINGS, CAMERA WHIPS OVER to the phone. It ringsagain. Jack picks it up. DOLLY/ZOOM IN QUICK.                                    JACK                     Hello? Colonel? Wait, wait, wait.                      Yes. Calm down. Calm down. Okay.                       Right Now -- Yes -- Right Now.He slams the phone down.CUT TO:109 INT. POLICE STATION - HOLDING AREA - NIGHTThe Colonel is sitting in handcuffs, crying his eyes out. Jack sits acrossfrom him, speaking through the glass.                                  COLONEL             . . . she was fifteen . . . fifteen . . . I didn't                   know . . . Jack, you gotta believe me.                                    JACK                               I believe you.                                  COLONEL                 I told her not to do so much coke, but she                wouldn't listen, she just kept doing it and                doing it like she was a vacuum. Like she had                 a vacuum in her nose or something . . . .               . . . next thing I know . . . she's got blood          coming from her nose and . . . jesus . . . her, jesus --                                    JACK                                   What?                                  COLONEL                      It was coming out her ass, Jack.                                    JACK                   Okay. It's gonna be okay. Just relax.                  The bail is a hundred thousand dollars.                     I don't have that kind of cash --                                  COLONEL                      -- I don't have any money left.                                    JACK                         What do you mean? Nothing?The Colonel shakes his head a little, doesn't answer.                                    JACK                         Well . . . what . . . how?                                  COLONEL                        I spent it . . . I spent it.                                    JACK                      The films . . . or . . . I mean?                                  COLONEL                    I spent it, alright? This shit gets                   expensive. Between you shooting film,                      the coke, the limos, the houses.                       It goes, alright? I spent it.                                    JACK                        Alright, okay. Don't worry.                                  COLONEL                      I can't have this happen to me.                           I'm a good man, right?                                    JACK                                Yes you are.                                  COLONEL                   I didn't know -- I didn't know she was                gonna die right there with me or I wouldn't                            have picked her up.                                    JACK                Right. You know; you've done nothing wrong.                 I mean, look; You were just there, right?           You didn't . . . I mean . . . you didn't do anything.                                  COLONEL                  They found something in my house, Jack.                                    JACK                                   What?                                  COLONEL                           . . . something . . .                                    JACK               . . . what are you saying? What did they find?                                  COLONEL                   . . . it's my fuckin' weakness, Jack.                They're . . . so small and cute I can't help               myself, Jack. I can't help it when they're so              small and cute. I just want to watch, I don't do            anything, Jack. I've never touched one of them . . .                                    JACK                           Jesus Christ, Colonel.                                  COLONEL                  You look at me like I'm an asshole, now.                                    JACK                       . . . I . . . I don't . . . ?                                  COLONEL                     I'm going to jail for a long time.                                    JACK                    -- it's okay, Colonel. It's gonna be                  fine in the end . . . . I promise . . .                                  COLONEL                           Are you promising me?Jack doesn't answer.                                  COLONEL               Take it back, Jack. Don't promise me anything.              You can't help me. I'm done. I'm going to jail.        I've done wrong and I'm going to jail for a long, long time.They hold a look for a moment. A few OFFICERS come and start to escort theColonel away. He leans in, speaks sotto;                                  COLONEL                   Listen to me, Jack: And I'm gonna tell                    you this for you. Am I your friend?                                    JACK                                   What?                                  COLONEL                        Answer me, am I your friend?                                    JACK                                    Yes.                                  COLONEL                    So remember that I'm your friend and               listen to what I tell you now: Give in, Jack.               You've gotta give. For you, for your business                 and your livelihood -- accept the future.                   Don't fight it, because you can't win.               Look for the new blood, go to Floyd Gondolli,                  go to video, give up your battle -- the                         filmmaking is over, Jack.The Officers take him away. Jack watches him leave. DOLLY IN CLOSE ON JACK.CUT TO:110 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/OFFICE - DAYCAMERA HOLDS A LOW ANGLE, LOOKING UP AT JACK, KURT and ROCKY. They lookinto CAMERA. HOLD.                                    JACK                             Well there we go.                               KURT LONGJOHN                                   Yeah.                                   ROCKY                      Lot of stuff on there to learn.                                    JACK                                 That's it.                               KURT LONGJOHN                            No turning back now.                                    JACK                                The future.                               KURT LONGJOHN                               That's right.                                   ROCKY                           The quality is, uh --                                    JACK                        It's not what we're used to.                               KURT LONGJOHN                       We can make it work, I think.                                   ROCKY                         It's . . . potential . . .                               KURT LONGJOHN                                    Yes.                                    JACK                         You can't beat the price.                               KURT LONGJOHN                               No you can't.                                    JACK                    This is the future and we can't deny               it anymore because the past is too expensive.                               KURT LONGJOHN                                I'm scared.                                   ROCKY                                  Me too.                                    JACK                          It's gonna make us rich.                               KURT LONGJOHN                                    Yep.                                   ROCKY                   It's a rather pretty thing, isn't it?REVERSE ANGLE: A new VIDEO CAMERA is sitting on the table in front of them.This is the thing they've been discussing.                               KURT LONGJOHN                   We can still tell good stories, Jack.                                    JACK                   No. It's about jacking off now, Kurt.                     No more stories . . . that's over.CUT TO:111 INT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT (Dec. 82)BECKY looks into CAMERA;                                   BECKY                                   I do.JEROME looks into CAMERA;                                   JEROME                                 I do too.CU - BLACK AND WHITE SNAPSHOTBecky and Jerome kissing. Jack as Best Man. Amber as Bridesmaid.CAMERA on the dance floor; Becky, dressed in a WHITE BRIDAL DRESS andJerome, dressed in a TUXEDO. Reed is dancing with them.                                   BECKY                     They made Jerome regional manager                  of the new "Pep Boys," they're building                  in Bakersfield. We're gonna move there.                                Buy a house.                                    REED                    That's great, guys. That's so great.                                   JEROME                  It's gonna be a great opportunity to run                  the store my way. Y'know. Get those guys                   off my back and run the store my way.CAMERA picks up and follows Dirk who walks over to Jack's table --ANGLE, JACK'S TABLEJack is sitting with a handsome young kid, JOHNNY DOE (aged 18.) Dirkarrives;                                    JACK                  . . . and it's tough is what I'm saying.                                 JOHNNY DOE                                   Right.                                    JACK                   Hey, Dirk -- here you are. You havin'                                a good time?                                    DIRK                                  Uh-huh.                              (re: Johnny Doe)                                Who's this?                                 JOHNNY DOE                    Hi . . . I'm Johnny Doe. You're Dirk                     Diggler -- it's great to meet you.                                    JACK                 Dirk, meet Johnny Doe . . . New Kid On The                  Block. He's interested in the business.Dirk nods his head, picks up his sunglasses from the table and walks offacross the dance floor. Jack turns back to Johnny Doe;                                    JACK                 He's pretty tired, Johnny. He's also shy.                  Anyway: What I'm saying to you is this:                It costs money, you got ten, fifteen people                  standing around, and that's just to make                       sure the lighting is right --Jack continues chatting with Johnny Doe, he looks away for a moment.JACK'S POV: Dirk meets up with Todd Parker and they walk out the door.(40fps)Jack turns back to Johnny Doe. Continue a bit with party stuff/etc. Jackhas his dance w/Becky.CUT TO:112 EXT. JACK'S POOL AREA - DAY (Jan. 83)CAMERA begins with Kurt and Rocky standing nearby the VIDEO CAMERA. Reed iswatching them try and figure it out.Jack is waiting patiently, working on a crossword puzzle. Johnny Doe isswimming in the pool.Rollergirl moves past and CAMERA follows her into --CUT TO:113 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - DAY - THAT MOMENTDirk is dressed in Speedos and a headband for the scene and laying out somecoke on the table. Rollergirl arrives, she does some. The television in theb.g. is tuned to MTV which is playing "Video Killed the Radio Star."                                 ROLLERGIRL                             This stuff burns.                                    DIRK                               It's crystal.                                 ROLLERGIRL                      That's why. Shit, why didn't you                tell me -- you don't need to do that much --                  You only have to do bumps with crystal.                                    DIRK                  Yeah, well . . . mind your own business                       or get your own or whatever --                                 ROLLERGIRL                    You don't have to be mean about it.Rollergirl skates off. Dirk looks out the window, sees Johnny Doe swimming.Amber is speaking to him. CAMERA DOLLIES IN A LITTLE (30fps) ON DIRK.CUT TO:114 INT. BEDROOM - THAT MOMENTMaurice is sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking and sweating. Rollergirlenters and moves to a closet.                                  MAURICE                      Hey . . . Rollergirl . . . hey.                                 ROLLERGIRL                               What's wrong?                                  MAURICE                                   Where?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 With you?                                  MAURICE                           Me? -- Nothing -- Why?                                 ROLLERGIRL                           You look like a wreck.                                  MAURICE                      Shit no, I'm cool as a cucumber.Rollergirl takes off her clothes and gets into her BIKINI.                                 ROLLERGIRL                   It's your big day -- bein' in a movie.                                  MAURICE                                   Yeah.                                 ROLLERGIRL                          What you always wanted.                                  MAURICE                       I'm very thankful to Jack for                           giving me the chance.BEAT.                                  MAURICE                                Rollergirl?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   What?                                  MAURICE                          My dick is really small.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   What?                                  MAURICE                         My dick . . . it's small.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 How small?                                  MAURICE                               Really small.                                 ROLLERGIRL                          Well . . . uh . . . so?                                  MAURICE                            So I can't do this.                                 ROLLERGIRL                            Can you get a boner?                                  MAURICE                             I don't think so.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 Well . . .                                  MAURICE                          Please. Can you help me?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                    How?                                  MAURICE                                  I dunno.                                 ROLLERGIRL                        If you've got a small dick,                 there's really nothing I can do, Maurice.                                  MAURICE                       . . . right . . . right . . .                                 ROLLERGIRL                            Just go for it, man.                                  MAURICE                             What do you mean?                                 ROLLERGIRL                Just go for it . . . who cares if you've got                 a small dick. It's how you use it, right?                You can get a boner, I bet. I know you can.                                  MAURICE                                  I guess.                                 ROLLERGIRL                             Be a man about it.                                  MAURICE                 Right. Right. I have to be a man about it.             I have to do this . . . I have to show my brothers               in Puerto Rico the lifestyle that I'm living.                       I can do it . . . I can do it.                                 ROLLERGIRL                              You'll do fine.                                  MAURICE                                   Right.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   C'mon.                                  MAURICE              No . . . no . . . I wanna stay here for a bit --                                 ROLLERGIRL                       Okay . . . I'll be out there.She exits. HOLD with Maurice a moment.CUT TO:115 OMITTED116 INT. BATHROOM - DAY - THAT MOMENTDirk enters, closes the door, looks in the mirror;                                    DIRK             . . . yeah, yeah, yeah . . . You look good, ready.Dirk does some quick KARATE moves, then turns his BACK TO THE CAMERA. Heunzips his pants, looks down at his cock. His body starts to move a little,slowly at first then faster as he tries to masturbate.                                    DIRK              C'mon . . . c'mon . . . c'mon . . . I'm a star.                   I'm a star, I'm a rock and roll star.                         And My Cock Can Get Hard.              C'mon . . . c'mon . . . c'mon . . . I'm a star.                    I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star.The DOOR to the Bathroom is SUDDENLY OPENED by Scotty J. who catches Dirkin the mirror with his pants down, speaking to himself;                                    DIRK                            -- what the fuck --Scotty exits quickly. Dirk pulls up his pants and exits --CUT TO:117 EXT. JACK'S HOUSE/POOL AREA - DAY - MOMENTS LATERJack is still sitting in the same spot. Johnny Doe is drying off. Dirkcomes charging out --                                    DIRK                            I'm ready to shoot.                                    JACK                          We need twenty minutes.                                    DIRK                   No. I'm ready now. It's gotta be now.                                    JACK                              Twenty minutes.                                    DIRK                        Fuck it. Hey, no, hey, Jack.                 I'm ready now . . . my cock is ready now.                   I'm ready to fuck . . . let's go now.                                    JACK                   Yeah, well . . . NO. Get me. You wanna                        start something here, Dirk?                                    DIRK              I wanna start fucking . . . who is it gonna be?                                    JACK                                   What?                                    DIRK                    Who do you want to fuck, me or him?Dirk points at Johnny Doe.                                 JOHNNY DOE                               Me . . . what?                                    DIRK                                  Shut up.                                 JOHNNY DOE                        I didn't do anything to you.                                    DIRK                    You're not an actor, man. You got no               business being here -- you're not an actor --                                 JOHNNY DOE                                 Yes I am.                                    DIRK                  No: I'm an actor, man. I'm a real actor.                                 JOHNNY DOE                                  Shut up.Dirk MAKES A QUICK KARATE-TYPE MOVE TOWARDS JOHNNY DOE, WHO FLINCHES, BUTQUICKLY GETS INTO A KARATE STANCE OF HIS OWN.                                 JOHNNY DOE                              HEY, MAN, DON'T.                                    DIRK                             SHUT UP. SHUT UP.                                    JACK                       Dirk, you need to settle down.                        Go inside, have a drink and                   mellow this off . . . you understand?                                    DIRK                            I'm ready to shoot.                                    JACK                               Well I'm not.                                    DIRK                    I'm not gonna tell you again, Jack:                                    JACK                             -- Get outta here.                                    DIRK                             . . . What . . . ?                                    JACK                    Get off my set, get outta my house.                                    DIRK                           . . . you . . . what?                                    JACK                                   Leave.                                    DIRK                                    No.                                    JACK                        You don't want to do this --                         the state you're in, Dirk.                                    DIRK                       Whatta you mean, state? State?                     State of California? Yeah, I'm in                          the state of California.                                    JACK                               Jesus Christ.                                    DIRK                      What are you, Jack, Jack, hey --                                    JACK                 You're high and you need to sleep it off.                        You've been up for two days.                                    DIRK                      I haven't been up for two days.                                    JACK                     Whatever. You're high and you need                     to come down. Sleep it off, Dirk.                                    DIRK                        YOU DON'T TELL ME ANYTHING.                                    JACK                          Get the fuck outta here.                                    DIRK                         YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.                                    JACK                                 Yes I am.                                    DIRK                           ARE YOU THE KING? HUH?                                    JACK                      Jesus Christ. MOVE. GET OUT. GO.Jack starts to prod Dirk a little with a slight PUSH.                                    DIRK                      DON'T YOU FUCKIN TOUCH ME, MAN.Jack SLAPS Dirk across the face. HOLD. Dirk is shocked. Everyone hasstopped what they're doing by now and is watching nervously. Amber comesover.                                   AMBER                 Dirk, honey, why don't we go for a walk --                                    DIRK                  YOU SHUT UP, TOO. YOU'RE NOT THE MOTHER                  OF ME OR MY BOSS. YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER.                                   AMBER                            Dirk, please, honey.                                    JACK                                  Reed --Reed comes over to the fight.                                    JACK                  Take him home, Reed. I don't need this.                                    DIRK                      No. No. I wanna shoot the scene.                  I'm ready to shoot the scene. I'm fine.                                    JACK                           I don't want you here.                                    DIRK                    Look . . . it's over . . . alright.                   I'm done . . . now I'm ready to shoot.                    I'm calm, my cock is cool and ready.                                    REED                        Why don't we go home, Dirk?                                    DIRK                     I'm the one with the cock, I'm the               one with the big fucking cock, so let's go --                                    JACK                        You listen to me now, kid --                                    DIRK                   DON'T CALL ME A KID. I'LL FUCK YOU UP.                 YOU WANNA SEE ME KICK SOME ASS? YOU WANNA                   FUCK WITH ME, I KNOW KARATE. SO C'MON.                                    REED                       Dirk, let's be cool, let's --                                    DIRK                    I'm the biggest star here -- THAT'S                      THE WAY IT IS: I WANNA FUCK. AND                 IT'S MY BIG DICK, SO EVERYBODY GET READY.                                    JACK                                Not anymore.                                    DIRK                         WHAT? What "not anymore"?                                    JACK                                 Your dick.                                    DIRK                            WHAT, WHAT? SAY IT.                                    JACK                I've seen you push thirteen inches, you'd be            lucky if you could manage six today -- all the coke                 you got in you. You're not ready to fuck,                  your dick's not getting hard today, kid.                                    DIRK                  DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT ME LIKE THAT, JACK.                                    JACK                        Alright: You're fired. Okay?                       You understand? You're fired.                          Get outta here now. NOW.                                    DIRK                     WHAT? WHAT IS THAT? WHAT IS THAT?                                    JACK                     Just leave, Dirk. Leave RIGHT NOW.                                    DIRK                      My cock is READY. YOU WANNA SEE?                  HUH? YOU WANNA SEE MY BIG FUCKIN' COCK?Suddenly, blood begins to pour violently from his nose. He cups his handover his nose, hides his embarrassment;                                    DIRK                      FUCK THIS, FUCK THIS, FUCK YOU.                   FUCK ALL OF YOU. YOU'RE NOT MY BOSSES.                         NO ONE IS THE KING OF ME.Dirk runs away, gets behind the wheel of his Corvette and tears off,bleeding all the way --Reed, Jack, Amber, Scotty, Johnny Doe and the rest of the crew watch himgo.FADE OUT.118 OMITTEDCUT TO:119 INT. RECORDING STUDIO - DAY (Mar. 83) Sequence "D"Dirk stands in front of a microphone wearing headphones. The ENGINEER inthe booth speaks;                                  ENGINEER                        Okay . . . Dirk, you ready?                                    DIRK                           I was born ready, man.                                  ENGINEER                     Okay . . . Dirk Diggler Demo Tape,                   "You Got The Touch," take seven . . .The BAND kicks in and Dirk begins to sing his song. It's a cross betweenKenny Loggins/Survivor and any "Rocky" anthem.                                    DIRK                 YOU GOT THE TOUCH . . . YOU GOT THE POWER.                 YEEEEAAAHHHH. AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE,              YOU NEVER WALK, YOU NEVER RUN, YOU'RE A WINNER.CUT TO:120 INT. RECORDING BOOTH - LATERDirk, Reed and the Engineer are mixing. The song PLAYS.                                    DIRK                  Is the bass taking away from the vocals?                                  ENGINEER             Well . . . a little . . . but not really too much.                                    DIRK                  Let's take down the bass and let's take                               up the vocals.CUT TO:121 INT. RECORDING STUDIO - LATERDirk is singing. Reed is playing guitar on a BALLAD called, "FEEL THEHEAT." CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON THEM.                                    DIRK               THE HEAT WILL ROCK YOU, THE HEAT WILL ROLL YOU                            BABY DON'T YOU KNOW                     MY HEAT WILL MOVE YOU IN YOUR SOUL                            C'MON, C'MON, C'MON                      LOVE ME TODAY, LOVE ME TOMORROW                    ALL DAY, ALL NIGHT, YOU FEEL MY BEAT                                 REED/DIRK                      FEEL, FEEL, FEEL . . . MY HEAT.CUT TO:122 INT. RECORDING BOOTH - CONTINUEDDirk, Reed and the Engineer. Scotty and Todd are sitting around, makingphone calls, eating the free food, etc.                                  ENGINEER                        So . . . what do you think?                                    DIRK                   Well I think that . . . maybe we could                      speed it up a little -- it's --                                  ENGINEER                      It's a ballad. I thought that --                                    DIRK                  We'll just speed it up a couple octaves.                   . . . cause that might make it cooler,             people like it when slow songs . . . y'know . . .               when they're a little fast . . . it's cooler.CUT TO:123 INT. JACK'S LIVING ROOM - DAYJack is directing a scene with an AMATEUR PORN ACTRESS and JOHNNY DOE.They're on the couch in Jack's living room. Johnny Doe has adopted more ofa celebrity attitude.                                  AMATEUR                      Is he gonna fuck me in the ass?                                    JACK                           Is that what you want?                                  AMATEUR                             It would be nice.                                    JACK                        Johnny: Fuck her in the ass.                                 JOHNNY DOE                            Lock and Load, Jack.He takes a seat behind the VIDEO CAMERA and says;                                    JACK                 Alright, friends; let's get it over with.DISSOLVE TO:124 EXT. BAKERSFIELD HOUSE - NIGHTEstablishing shot of a small little house with a white picket fence. Fromthe house we hear the sounds of SCREAMING AND VIOLENCE.CUT TO:125 INT. BAKERSFIELD HOUSE - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTBecky is crouched in the corner of the kitchen. Jerome is standing aboveher, dressed in his Pep Boys uniform.                                   JEROME                 YOU FUCKIN' WHORE, YOU'RE A FUCKIN' WHORE.                                   BECKY                          Please, Jerome, don't --                                   JEROME                  You probably liked those big cocks, huh?                                   BECKY                                  Don't --                                   JEROME                  I'll tell you about a big cock -- yeah,                 you want my cock to be bigger, don't you?                                   BECKY                        No, baby, please, please --Jerome SMACKS Becky in the face --DISSOLVE TO:126 INT. VALLEY BANK - DAYBuck is dressed like a regular joe in a suit, holding a briefcase on hislap, sitting patiently. Jessie St. Vincent is sitting with him, holding hishand. He's approached by a middle aged white male BANK WORKER. CAMERADOLLIES IN.                                BANK WORKER                                 Mr. Swope?                                    BUCK                          Yeah, that's me. Hello.                                BANK WORKER                 You have a copy of your loan application?                                    BUCK                                 Yes I do.                                BANK WORKER                         Good. You wanna follow me?CUT TO:127 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/AMBER'S BEDROOM - DAYCAMERA DOLLIES IN ON Rollergirl and Amber. They're playing backgammon andtalking on Amber's bed, doing coke and smoking cigs.                                   AMBER                     I was gonna take a poetry class at                          Everywoman's Village --                                 ROLLERGIRL                          Oh, oh. I wanna do that.                                   AMBER                       We'll do it then. It's Monday,                        Wednesday, Friday at three.                                 ROLLERGIRL             Do you think I should -- I was thinking something?                                   AMBER                                   What?                                 ROLLERGIRL                   I was gonna see about taking the GED.                         Do you know what that is?                                   AMBER                       For High School, to graduate?                                 ROLLERGIRL                     Yeah. It's like -- so I can get my                    diploma -- 'cause I feel bad that I                   never did it. I think you were right.                          I think you're right --                                   AMBER                   You should do it. That would be great                    for you -- you know -- cause if you                 wanted, Rollergirl, you could do anything.Amber turns her head to something OC. AMBER'S POV: Jack is directinganother scene in the living room between TWO YOUNG PORN ACTRESSES with fakebreasts who we have never seen before.Amber motions to Rollergirl, who gets up and SLAMS THE DOOR.CUT TO:128/128A INT. DIRK'S HOUSE - DAY (2x)Dirk, Reed and Scotty J. are sitting around. Todd enters holding anenvelope. DOLLY IN SUPER-QUICK.                                    TODD                                 I'm back.                                    DIRK                              Perfect timing.They move to a table and anxiously set out some coke.CUT TO:129 INT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - DAYCAMERA DOLLIES IN ON MAURICE. The club is closed and empty. Maurice sits atthe bar, writing a letter. An envelope and a videotape are placed nearby.Following is SUB-TITLED;                                MAURICE (VO)                      Dear brothers: Here's an example                      of me with women in Los Angeles.                I sleep with women here all the time . . .CUT TO:130 INT. APARTMENT BLDG./PUERTO RICO - DAYMaurice's two BROTHERS rip open the envelope, read the letter and slip thetape into their VCR that's wired to a crappy black and white television.CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON THE BROTHERS.                                 BROTHER #1                          (in Spanish, sub-titled)                                Oh my God --                                 BROTHER #2                          (in Spanish, sub-titled)             -- it's so . . . so . . . it looks like a peanut.CUT TO:131 INT. VALLEY BANK - DAY - CONTINUEDCAMERA DOLLIES IN ON BUCK. He's speaking to the BANK WORKER.                                    BUCK                   That's what Buck's Super Stereo World                 is all about -- the customer. People wanna                 know what they're getting into technically                  and I have the specific technical hi-fi                background to answer any technical question                 that someone might have -- I've been into                sound equipment for long enough to know what               a guy wants when he walks right in the door --              and that's the personal touch that Buck's Super                       Stereo World is gonna have --CUT TO:132 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/AMBER'S ROOM - DAY - CONTINUEDAmber and Rollergirl are sitting in front of a pile of coke that's laidouton top of a big book . . .                                   AMBER                   I miss my two sons -- my little Andrew                  and my Dirk -- I miss them both so much.             I always felt like Dirk was my baby, my new baby.                            Don't you miss Dirk?                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   Yeah.                                   AMBER                   He's so fucking talented. The bastard.                  I love him, Rollergirl, I mean; I really                           love the little jerk.                                 ROLLERGIRL                     I love you, Mom. I want you to be                     my mother, Amber. Are you my Mom?                    I'll ask you if you're my mother and               you say, "yes." OK? -- Are you my mother -- ?                                   AMBER                              Yes, honey. Yes.They cry and hug and laugh and do more coke, smoke more cigs, etc.CUT TO:133 INT. RECORDING STUDIO - DAYCAMERA DOLLIES IN QUICK. Dirk and Reed are violently haggling in an officeof the Recording Studio with the MANAGER.                                    DIRK                    C'mon, man, c'mon, c'mon, alright --                                  MANAGER                    I can't let you take the tapes until                         the bill is paid in full.                                    DIRK                         That makes a lot of sense.                                    REED                      Wait, wait, wait. How can he pay                     the price of the demo if he can't                  take the demo tapes to a record company?                                  MANAGER                    That's not my problem. My job is to               collect payment before we hand over the tapes.                                    REED                     You can't get a record contract if               the record company can't hear what you've got.                                    DIRK                OK: Wait a minute -- have you heard my tape?                   Huh? Have you heard it? I'm guaranteed             to get a record deal because my stuff is so good.                     Once that happens, I'll pay you --                                  MANAGER                 It's not gonna happen. This is a Catch-22,                   I understand. You're saying this thing                and I get it but I just won't let it happen.                                    DIRK                               A catch-what?CUT TO:134 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/AMBER'S ROOM - NIGHT - CONTINUEDAmber and Rollergirl, pacing around the room, talking, crying, etc.                                   AMBER                   I don't wanna do this anymore, honey.                           I can't. I just can't.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   What?                                   AMBER                  Have fun now, let's keep going and going                  and going tonight -- because it's over.                         There's too many things --                                 ROLLERGIRL                                Okay. Okay.                                   AMBER                               Let's go walk.                                 ROLLERGIRL                       I don't wanna leave the room.                                   AMBER                  Me either. OHHHHHHH. I love you, honey.                                 ROLLERGIRL                              I love you, Mom.They laugh and laugh and laugh and smoke, talk, walk.DISSOLVE TO:135 INT. VALLEY BANK - DAY - CONTINUEDBuck and Jessie across the desk from the Bank Worker, who looks up from thefile and says;                                BANK WORKER                     Mr. Swope . . . we can't help you.                                    BUCK                    . . . I have all the papers, all the                 things in order, yes? I mean, it's all --                                BANK WORKER               Yes. But we can't give you a loan. I'm sorry.                                    BUCK                             . . . why . . . ?                                BANK WORKER                  . . . Mr. Swope: You're a pornographer.                    And this bank is not in business to                           support pornography --                                    BUCK                   I'm not a pornographer, I'm an actor.                                BANK WORKER                                 I'm sorry.                                    BUCK                 No, no, no, please. This is . . . this is                    a new business for me, a real thing                  that I want to do and a real thing that             I can do, please, I mean -- this is not a joke --                                BANK WORKER                                 I'm sorry.                                    BUCK                 Please, now, please, just wait one minute                here -- because there's gotta be some way --                                BANK WORKER                           . . . I'm sorry . . .                                    BUCK                          Well this is not fair --                                BANK WORKER                  This financial institution can't endorse                  pornography, you've got to understand --                                    BUCK                               I'm an actor.                                BANK WORKER                           Please. Now I'm sorry.DISSOLVE TO:136 INT. HORNER PRODUCTIONS - VAN NUYS - DAYCAMERA (STEADICAM) follows Jack around his new OFFICES. Posters of hisfilms with Johnny Doe, Amber, Rollergirl, Buck and some others we've neverseen cover the walls.A WAREHOUSE area is shipping out boxes of VHS VIDEOCASSETTES. CAMERAbreezes past an EDITING ROOM where Kurt Longjohn and Rocky are sitting infront of two 3/4 machines, cutting a new Jack Horner film with Johnny Doedoing some Karate-moves reminiscent of Dirk Diggler.Jack continues walking into the RECEPTION AREA where TWO UNIFORMED POLICEOFFICERS are standing.                                  OFFICER                                Jack Horner?                                    JACK                             Yeah, what is it?                                  OFFICER                     There was an accident yesterday --CUT TO:137 INT. DIRK'S HOUSE - ANOTHER DAYDirk is in his bedroom. CAMERA ZOOMS/DOLLIES in SUPER QUICK on him doing aline of coke. Reed comes into the room, quick;                                    REED                              Oh, fuck, Dirk.                                    DIRK                                   What?                                    REED                       You know that kid Johnny Doe?                                    DIRK                                    No.                                    REED                          Y'know, the kid from --                                    DIRK                              What about him?                                    REED                     He died. He got in a car accident.                    Couple nights ago . . . and he died.                    He like, went through the windshield                     or something. Fuckin' shit. Dead.                                    DIRK                                 For real?                                    REED                   Yeah. He's dead. Can you believe that?                                    DIRK               That's gotta hurt, goin' through a windshield.                              It's tough luck.Dirk does another line of coke. The PHONE RINGS and Dirk answers.DOLLY/ZOOM IN QUICK.                                    DIRK                     Hello? Becky? Becky -- what? What?SPLIT-SCREEN;138 INT. BECKY'S HOUSE/BAKERSFIELD - DAY - THAT MOMENTBecky is locked in her bedroom on the phone with Dirk. OC outside thebedroom, we can hear Jerome YELLING and SCREAMING.                                   BECKY                   I think Jerome is gonna kill me, Dirk.                      Please. Please come and help me.                                    DIRK                   Well . . . where are you, I don't know                              where you are --                                   BECKY                       I need you to save me, Dirk --                  if he catches me on the phone, I'm dead.                                    DIRK                           Tell me where you are.                                   BECKY                 . . . okay . . . okay . . . OH SHIT. He's                     coming in -- okay -- okay -- meet                      me at Denny's in Bakersfield --                       on Colfax Blvd. Please hurry.                                    DIRK                   Okay. I'm comin' right now, right now.               I'm comin' right now to kick some ass, Becky.SPLIT SCREEN/CAMERA stays with Becky are she hangs up the phone. The DOORto the BEDROOM IS SMASHED OPEN by Jerome -- he GRABS her by the hair of herhead and throws her across the room and into the KITCHEN.                                   BECKY                  Please don't do anything to me, Jerome.                           Please. Please. I ask.                                   JEROME                 Think you're Miss Fuckin' Movie Star with                  a dick in your mouth? Huh? You're gonna                tell me -- tell it to me or I'm gonna break                             your fuckin' jaw.                                   BECKY                      I don't know what you want me --                                   JEROME                  -- I want you to tell me that you liked                getting fucked by those men in those movies.                I want you to tell me that you loved getting               shit in your face -- YOU FUCKIN' SAY IT, CUNT.                                   BECKY                           . . . I liked it . . .                                   JEROME                           Do you like big dicks?                                   BECKY                    I don't know what you want me to --                                   JEROME                                  SAY IT.                                   BECKY                                    Yes.Jerome LEANS DOWN AND PUNCHES BECKY IN THE FACE. HOLD. He catches hisbreath and walks out of the kitchen.Becky, crouched in a corner, bleeding from her nose and mouth, reaches fora large FRYING PAN on the floor --CUT TO:139 INT. DIRK'S HOUSE - DAY - THAT MOMENTDirk grabs his keys and his jacket and heads for the door . . .                                    REED                              Where you goin'?                                    DIRK                        Gotta go kick some ass, man.He stops a moment and heads back into his bedroom . . . grabs his coke in anewspaper fold and makes a dash for the door --CUT TO:140 EXT. DIRK'S HOUSE - DAY - THAT MOMENTDirk exits and gets in his car QUICK. DOLLY/ZOOM IN FAST.CUT TO:141 INT. BECKY'S HOUSE - DAY - CONTINUEDCAMERA DOLLIES in front of Jerome as he walks out of the kitchen. In theb.g., Becky appears with the frying pan in her hand . . .She SMASHES THE FRYING PAN ACROSS THE BACK OF JEROME'S SKULL. He falls . .she STANDS OVER HIM, STRIKING HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN.                                   BECKY                    DON'T -- YOU -- EVER -- TOUCH -- ME.She runs out the door --CUT TO:142 EXT. BAKERSFIELD HOUSE - EVENING - THAT MOMENTBecky runs from the house and off down the street. HOLD.CUT TO:143 INT. DIRK'S CORVETTE - MOVING - MOMENTS LATERDirk is driving quickly through Laurel Canyon and trying to do a fewthings; 1) He's trying to light a cigarette with matches, 2) He's trying tofind a cassette tape to play and 3) He's trying to brush his hair in therearview mirror . . . .CU. DIRKThe cigarette falls from his mouth and he leans down, OUT OF FRAME to pickit up . . . . the car starts drifting towards a TELEPHONE POLE that isfifteen yards ahead . . . Dirk gets the cigarette, comes up INTO FRAME,looks ahead and blinks;Dirk's Corvette SLAMS INTO THE TELEPHONE POLE.CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON DIRK, BEHIND THE WHEEL. He shakes his head, looksaround in a daze. A PEDESTRIAN runs over;                                 PEDESTRIAN                             You alright, pal?                                    DIRK                 My fuckin' car, my car . . . my Corvette.                                 PEDESTRIAN                 Holy shit, you slammed right into this --Dirk puts the car in reverse and backs away.                                 PEDESTRIAN                  I don't think you should dirve this car.                                    DIRK                                 Fuck you.Dirk drives off with the front of the Corvette SHREDDING along thepavement.CUT TO:144 INT. BAKERSFIELD DENNY'S - NIGHT (LATER)Becky is sitting at the counter. A few seats over from her is an older man,MR. BROWN (late 60s). He wears an old gray suit,                                 MR. BROWN                          Are you alright, ma'am?                                   BECKY                                   What?                                 MR. BROWN                        Are you going to be alright?                 You seem . . . you've been sitting there.                     A while now. And I want to know if                        you're going to be alright.HOLD. Becky looks down.                                 MR. BROWN              Do you want to order something? A bowl of soup?                                   BECKY                       My friend was supposed to come                    here and get me, but he hasn't come.                                 MR. BROWN                  Yes. Well, why don't you let me buy you                 some soup while you wait for your friend?                                   BECKY                          No. No. I'm not hungry.                                 MR. BROWN                    Please. Please. I want to help you.             This is not . . . this is something . . . you see,                    an act of kindness, I'm trying to do               something good . . . to help you . . . for no             other reason . . . other than . . . just to help.Mr. Brown reaches into his pocket, takes out a quarter and places it on thecounter in front of Becky.                                 MR. BROWN                   Why don't you try calling you friend?BEAT. Becky looks at the quarter. CAMERA HOLDS ON QUARTER.                               MR. BROWN (OC)                        Use the quarter, young lady.CUT TO:145 INT. DIRK'S GARAGE - NIGHTDirk rants and raves, verging on tears, circling the car. Scotty, Reed andTodd are now home and looking at the damage;                                    REED                          How fast were you going?                                    DIRK                           Fuck, I dunno. Ninety.                                 SCOTTY J.                           Ninety miles an hour?                                    DIRK                    Shit, yeah. I'm lucky I'm not dead.                                    TODD                          This is a lot of damage.                                    REED                          At least it's driveable.                                    DIRK                      It's nove driveable, look at it.OC we hear the PHONE RINGING. Scotty moves to get it.                                    DIRK                Just let it ring, we gotta deal with this --                                    REED                       At least it still works, Dirk.                                    DIRK                    You can't just drive a Corvette down                    the street looking like that, Reed.                         C'mon, man. Be reasonable.                                    REED                         How you gonna pay for it?                                    DIRK                     -- I'll find a way to pay for it.                        This is top priority, Reed:                        My car has got to get fixed.                                    TODD                    It could be like two/three thousand                       dollars worth of damage, Dirk.                                    DIRK                                    So?                                    TODD                                  I dunno.                                    DIRK                We gotta get those fuckin' demo tapes, too.                I mean it . . . let's go kick that guy's ass               or something . . . if we could get those demo                  tapes, then we get the record deal, then                   the Vette gets fixed. You cannot drive               a Corvette down the street looking like this,                              you just can't.CUT TO:146 INT. DENNY'S - NIGHT - MOMENTS LATERBecky is sitting in a booth across from the Mr. Brown. She's crying.                                   BECKY                     I don't know where to go. I don't                 have anywhere to go, I can't get anywhere.                                 MR. BROWN                  It's alright. It's alright, young lady.                                   BECKY                    I'm so sorry to make you hear this.                                 MR. BROWN                            I want to help you.                                   BECKY                                No, I can't.                                 MR. BROWN                    You need help. You need someplace to                   sleep and to wash. I want to help you.                                   BECKY                             You're a nice man.BEAT.End Sequence "D" CUT TO BLACK:147 OMITTED148 OMITTED149 OMITTED150 OMITTEDTITLE CARD: "Six Months Later"CUT TO:151 OMITTED152 OMITTED153 OMITTED154 OMITTED155 INT. HEARING ROOM - COURT BUILDING - DAYAmber is sitting in a room with a long desk, a few chairs and fluorescentlights. A middle aged female JUDGE enters and greets her;                                   JUDGE                         Hello. You must be Maggie?                                   AMBER                                    Yes.                                   JUDGE                     I'm Kathleen O'Malley. The judge.                                   AMBER                                    Yes.                                   JUDGE                        You have a lawyer with you?                                   AMBER                           No. I don't. I do not.They sit in silence. The Judge looks over a couple of files. Moments later,Amber's ex-husband, THOMAS (late 30s) steps in with his LAWYER. They alltake seats.                                   LAWYER                               Hello, Judge.Introductions happen, etc. BEAT. The Judge looks over some files;                                   JUDGE                    You've been divorced for six years.                                   AMBER                              Yes. Since 1977.                                   JUDGE                                (to lawyer)                 And the agreement on the money settlement                             was taken care of?                                   LAWYER                                    Yes.                                   JUDGE                     So. What we're talking about then              is coming to an agreement on custody of Andrew?                                   AMBER                                    Yes.                                   JUDGE                    What was decided during the divorce?                                   LAWYER                  Initially, Andrew went with his father,                and visitation was given to his mother on --                             (looks at a paper)                   from Saturday Noon to Sunday at seven.                  With his mother entitled to bring Andrew                    to her home or any reasonable place.                                   JUDGE                                 (to Amber)                        Was that the understanding?                                   AMBER                                    Yes.                                   JUDGE              And why wasn't that visiting privilege honored?                                   THOMAS                         Well, it was for a time --                                   AMBER                           I only saw him twice.                                   THOMAS                 It said, "reasonable place," and I didn't                  think a house of drugs and prostitution                         and pornography was that.                                   JUDGE                     I'm sorry, what is it that you --                                   THOMAS                 My ex-wife is involved in the pornography                business -- I didn't think that environment                        was a safe place for my son.                                   AMBER                    This is not right. My son was never                    exposed to pornographic material or                  drugs or any of these things, my husband                              just assumed --                                   THOMAS                         I saw it with my own eye.PAUSE. Amber has no response. The Judge looks down at the file.                                   JUDGE                   Did you register this as a complaint?                                   LAWYER                   My client didn't officially register,                    but I think the circumstance called                     for something immediate -- for the                            safety of the child.                                   JUDGE                          How old is the boy now?                                   THOMAS                                He's twelve.                                   AMBER                       He'll be thirteen next month.                                   JUDGE                           Where do you live now?                                   THOMAS                    We live in Long Beach. I have a job                  there and my new wife is home with him.                                  (pause)                  You see, the problem is, Judge, is that               my ex-wife is a sick . . . she is a very sick                  person and she needs help. She deals in                       drugs and sex for a living --                                   AMBER                             I don't do drugs.                                   LAWYER                    Your honor, she has been in and out                   of trouble with the law on quite a few                  occasions regarding this sort of thing.                                   AMBER                            No. No. Not anymoreCAMERA HOLDS ON AMBER. She watches the Judge. OC there's the sound ofpapers shuffling.                                 JUDGE (OC)                        Have you ever been arrested?                                   AMBER                                    Yes.                                 JUDGE (OC)                      When was the last time you were                 arrested . . . what was the charge . . . ?CAMERA DOLLIES IN CLOSE ON AMBER.CUT TO:156 EXT. ALLEY - BEHIND THE COURT BUILDING - DAY - LATERAmber leans against a wall, crying her eyes out. HOLD.CUT TO:TITLE CARD, OVER BLACK: "Sunday, December 11, 1983"157 INT. LIMOUSINE - NIGHT - MOVINGCAMERA'S POV is a CAMCORDER operated by KURT LONGJOHN. JACK, dressed in atuxedo, sits in the back of the limo with ROLLERGIRL, who's wearing afull-length fur coat, lingerie underneath.                             JACK (into CAMERA)                Okay, okay, okay. Welcome to the experiment.                This is Jack Horner, coming to you from the                 inside of a limousine that at this moment                 is heading West down Ventura Blvd. I have                 with me -- a little princess in the world                of adult film -- the lovely Miss Rollergirl.                                 ROLLERGIRL                            Hello, hello, howdy.                                    JACK                  Are you ready to do what we're gonna do?                                 ROLLERGIRL                      Ready, ready. Ready like Freddy.                                    JACK                     We are On The Lookout. That's what                     we'll call this -- On The Lookout.                  We're just gonna drive on down Ventura,                    heading west, like I said -- and see                   what we find. Maybe we find some new,                    young stud who wants to take a shot                   and get hot and heavy with Rollergirl                 back here in the limo -- and we'll capture                  it on video. This is a first, ladies and                    gentleman. A first in porn history.                    Who knows what could happen . . . ?              Maybe we come across some guy, maybe some girl?                 See if they'd like to get soft and sticky?CUT TO:158 EXT. EL PUEBLO MOTEL - NIGHTEstablishing shot of a crap motel in Studio City. Dirk's DAMAGED CORVETTEis parked out front with a U-HALL connected.CUT TO:159 INT. EL PUEBLO MOTEL - THAT MOMENTDirk, Reed, Todd and Scotty J. have moved into a small motel with two bedsand a fold-out couch. Scotty is sitting on one bed watching televisiondressed in his UNION 76 GAS STATION UNIFORM.Dirk is getting dressed, Reed is trying to get his attention;                                    DIRK                          Where the fuck is Todd?                                    REED                         C'mon, Dirk, seriously --                                    DIRK                  What? I dunno, okay? Okay. I don't know.                                    REED                         We have to sell your car.                                    DIRK                          I will not do it, Reed.                                    REED                      What else is there to do, Dirk?                         Huh? We have nothing left.                                    DIRK                     I worked way too fucking hard for              that car . . . what am I supposed to do . . . ?                                    REED                        It solves all our problems.                                    DIRK                I will not sell my Corvette: Simple as that.                Where the fuck is Todd? Where are my jeans?                                 SCOTTY J.                         What are you looking for?                                    DIRK                                My jeans --                                 SCOTTY J.                       The cool ones with the thing?                                    DIRK                       All my jeans are cool, Scotty.                                   SCOTTY                                   Sorry.Todd enters and holds up an ENVELOPE.                                    TODD                                  Got it.                                    DIRK                       Where the fuck have you been?                                    TODD                          Getting some shit . . .Dirk notices that Todd is wearing the JEANS he was looking for.                                    DIRK                           What the fuck is that?                                    TODD                                   What?                                    DIRK                       Those are my jeans, Todd. I've                          been looking for those.                                    TODD                       You said I could borrow them.                                    DIRK                             I never said that.                                    TODD                             I thought you did.                                 SCOTTY J.                         Can I come with you, Dirk?                                    DIRK              Give me my fuckin' jeans back, Todd. Seriously.                                    TODD                                   Sorry.Todd gets out of the jeans and gives them over to Dirk, who puts them on asReed and Scotty look on;                                    REED                     Dirk, please -- we gotta deal with                           this money situation.                                    DIRK                             Yeah, yeah, yeah.                                 SCOTTY J.                         Where are you goin', Dirk?                                    DIRK                                 Goin' out.                                 SCOTTY J.                             Can I go with you?Dirk is out the door.CUT TO:160 INT. LIMO - PARKED - NIGHT - CONTINUEDThe limo is pulled over and Jack is speaking through the window to someYOUNG COLLEGE STUDENT, wearing a backpack. (This kid is one of the boys whowas making sexual gestures to Rollergirl earlier in the movie).                                    JACK                              What do you say?                                COLLEGE KID                          I dunno -- you mean it.                                    JACK                    Anything you wanna do -- you do it.                      Do you see this young lady here?                                COLLEGE KID                                   Yeah.                                    JACK                           You like what you see?                                COLLEGE KID                                   Sure.                                    JACK                   Then get in here and do what you want.The College Kid gets in the car, sits next to Rollergirl, who nods hello.She may or may not recognize him. Jack gets in the seat opposite (behindthe CAMERA).                                    JACK                               You a student?                                COLLEGE KID                          Um . . . um . . . yeah.                                    JACK                   Oh, great. Where do you go to school?                                COLLEGE KID                    Um . . . uh . . . do I have to say?                                    JACK                 No, no. Anyway. How'd you like to go round               with Rollergirl? Have you seen her film work?                                COLLEGE KID                       . . . yeah . . . yeah I have.                              (to Rollergirl)                   We watch your films in my frat house.                  I go to CSUN. The fuckin' guys are never                           gonna believe this --                                    JACK                     Alright . . . fantastic cool . . .                                COLLEGE KID                   I think we met once before, actually.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                  Really?BEAT.                                COLLEGE KID                I know you . . . we went to school together.                      We went to high school together.              . . . you're Brandy, right? Brandy's your name.Rollergirl looks caught. Jack looks surprised to hear this . . .CUT TO:161 EXT. STUDIO CITY/ALLEYWAY - NIGHT (LATER)Dirk is standing in an alleyway. HEADLIGHTS FLOAT ACROSS A WALL, CATCHING AGLIMPSE OF DIRK. A small Toyota drives up and stops next to Dirk. A FIGUREinside the car speaks;                                   FIGURE                                   Hello.                                    DIRK                                    Hey.                                   FIGURE                        Are you waiting for someone?                                    DIRK                    . . . yeah. I'm waiting for someone.               I'm not sure if they're gonna show up though.                                   FIGURE                         You wanna wait in the car?BEAT. Dirk gets into the Toyota. It drives about fifty yards down the alleyand makes a turn into --CUT TO:162 EXT. EMPTY PARKING LOT - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTThe Toyota with Dirk pulls around and parks.CUT TO:163 INT. TOYOTA - PARKED - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTCAMERA holds a profile 2-shot on Dirk in the f.g. and the driver in theb.g. The driver is a young SURFER kid in his late 20s.                                   SURFER                                  I'm Joe.                                    DIRK                                   Dirk.                                   (beat)                           Do you know who I am?                                   SURFER                               . . . No . . .                                    DIRK                          My name is Dirk Diggler.                                   SURFER                No . . . I mean . . . you're a guy . . . I'm                          helping you out . . . .                                    DIRK                                   Yeah.                                   SURFER                      So . . . what do you want to do?                                    DIRK                       I'm . . . it's what you want.                                   SURFER               . . . I wanna watch you. I mean, I'm not gay.                    I just wanna. Maybe you can jerk off                 a little and I can watch. Maybe I'll join                    in, but for now I just wanna watch.Dirk nods his head a little. HOLD.                                    DIRK                               Twenty bucks.                                   SURFER                          Ten is all I have . . .CUT TO:164 INT. LIMO - MOVING - MOMENTS LATERThe limo is moving now. Jack is sitting behind the CAMERA. The LIGHT heldabove the Camcorder SHINES brightly on them.Rollergirl and the College Kid struggle in the seat. He has some troubleremoving his pants and she tries to help a little, but it's pretty obviousshe's not enjoying this. Jack tries to coach them from the sidelines;                                    JACK                     Alright, there, pal; make it look                    good, make it sexy -- don't just ram                        your way up and in there --The College Kid doesn't respond.                                    JACK                    Hey, hey, hey . . . take it slow and                         make it kinky, kid. C'mon.                      Think of Miss Lovely Rollergirl                     as a beautiful instrument that you             need to play . . . c'mon now . . . slow down . . .                   Pretend you're just a wonderful stud,                   pretend you're a wonderful stud that's            just ready to melt her pussy . . . hey, kid . . . ?                   Are you listening to me? Hey -- hey --                                COLLEGE KID                       Just let me do my thing, man.                                    JACK                              Cut. Stop. Cut.The College Kid looks a little pissed, Rollergirl pushes him off;                                 ROLLERGIRL                           This is stupid, Jack.                                    JACK                    I know . . . this isn't working out.                                COLLEGE KID                                 That's it?                                 JACK (OC)               Yeah, that's all. Sorry for the inconvenience.The College Kid pulls his pants on.                                COLLEGE KID                   You got me hard -- you could at least                      jack me off or something, lady.                                 ROLLERGIRL                         What the fuck did you say?                                COLLEGE KID                        It's not so cool to leave me                              with a hard on.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                 Fuck you.                                COLLEGE KID                     Nice life you've got here. Should                    be proud of what you've become . . .The College Kid laughs a little, heads out of the car, turns back to Jackand says:                                COLLEGE KID                    Your fuckin' films suck now anyway.ANGLE, CU. JACKCAMERA DOLLIES IN A LITTLE IN SLOW MOTION. He freaks out.Jack CHARGES out of the limo TACKLING the College Kid to the Ground. Hestarts to BEAT the shit out of him . . .CUT TO:165 INT. TOYOTA - PARKED - THAT MOMENTDirk zips his pants open. The Surfer kid's eyes watch closely. Dirk pullsout his cock and the Surfer kid looks surprised, speaks sotto;                                   SURFER       . . . holy shit . . . that's nice . . . that's . . . big . . .Dirk nods, looks down.                                   SURFER                      Why don't you jerk it a little,                   get it hard? I wanna see it get hard.Dirk's hand touches his cock and he starts to masturbate a little. TheSurfer kid watches. CAMERA BEGINS A PAINFULLY SLOW ZOOM INTO PROFILE XCU.ON DIRK.                                   SURFER                    . . . maybe . . . do it harder . . .Dirk does it harder and faster.                                   SURFER                             Get your hand wet.                                    DIRK                            . . . be quiet . . .Dirk tries to do it faster and harder.                                   SURFER                 . . . c'mon . . . c'mon . . . c'mon . . .Dirk tries harder and faster but only gets more frustrated. He verges ontears, looks to the Surfer Kid.                                    DIRK              I can't . . . I can't get it hard . . . I can't.                                I'm sorry --SUDDENLY:A PICK-UP TRUCK carrying THREE PUNK KIDS SLAMS ON ITS BRAKES IN FRONT OFDIRK IN THE TOYOTA. Dirk looks up in shock, turns his head to the SurferKid who says;                                   SURFER                You shouldn't do this sort of thing, faggot.Surfer PUNCHES Dirk in the face . . .CUT TO:166 EXT. VENTURA BLVD. - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTJack continues to BEAT the College Kid and yell at him;                                    JACK                       YOU HAVE SOME FUCKING RESPECT.                  YOU LITTLE PRICK. YOU HAVE SOME GODDAMN                    RESPECT FOR THAT GIRL. SHE'S A STAR,                  A WONDERFUL CHILD AND A STAR. You think                  you're worthy to fuck her -- you're not                 worthy to TOUCH her -- the way you fuck --                 who taught you? WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FUCK                  THAT WAY? YOU'RE AN AMATEUR. AN AMATEUR.He KICKS the College Kid again and again . . . CAMERA DOLLIES IN ONROLLERGIRL as she watches. She rolls over . . . stands a BEAT over theCollege Kid . . . and then goes crazy . . . she SMASHES his face with herROLLERSKATES over and over and over;                                 ROLLERGIRL                 YOU -- DON'T -- EVER -- DISRESPECT -- ME.She breaks down CRYING and SCREAMING . . . Jack pulls her off . . .CUT TO:167 EXT. PARKING LOT - THAT MOMENTThe FOUR SURFER PUNKS drag Dirk from the car and proceed to beat the shitout of him. Kicking and punching him, calling out;                                  SURFERS                      Little Fuckin' Fag. Donkey-Dick.                       You don't do this. You don't.They continue to yell and scream and kick and punch Dirk and eventuallypeel out of the parking lot. Dirk moans and cries and holds his stomach inpain. He coughs up some blood and vomit . .CAMERA PANS away from him, looking out of the alleyway, toward VenturaBlvd. HOLD WIDE ANGLE ON THE STREET, EMPTY FRAME, THEN;The WHITE LIMO carrying Jack and Rollergirl cruises PAST.ANGLE, IN THE STREEET, MOMENT LATER.The WHITE LIMO drives PAST CAMERA LFT. HOLD, THEN; BUCK'S CAR enters inCAMERA RT. And we PICK UP AND PAN with it into --CUT TO:168 EXT. DONUT SHOP/VENTURA BLVD. - NIGHTBuck's car pulls up and parks in front of the donut shop. CAMERA DOLLIES INCLOSE. Jessie is in the passenger seat, Buck leaves the engine running;                                    BUCK                          What do you want, honey?                                   JESSIE           I want . . . um . . . apple fritter . . . Jelly . . .              And uh . . . chocolate with sprinkles . . . and                           a bear claw, too . . .Buck gets out of the car and we reveal that she is SIX MONTHS PREGNANT.Buck looks down;                                    BUCK                      How's my little kung-fu fighter?                                   JESSIE                    He's kicking ass inside my stomach.                                    BUCK                               That's a boy.CUT TO:169 INT. DONUT SHOP - NIGHTBuck enters and looks at some donuts, helped by the DONUT BOY behind thecounter. A MIDDLE AGED MAN in a camouflage baseball hat sits in the cornereating a donut and some coffee, reading 'Guns and Ammo.'                                 DONUT BOY                              Can I help you?                                    BUCK                   Yeah . . . I'm gonna get a dozen . . .The Donut Boy gets a box and Buck starts to point out;                                    BUCK             Lemme get two bear claws . . . apple fritter . . .               Two chocolate . . . two sprinkles . . . gimme                some of those glazed . . . how many is that?At that moment a PUERTO RICAN KID walks in, pulls a REVOLVER from hispocket and points at the Donut Boy.                              PUERTO RICAN KID                  Empty the safe. Behind the soda machine.                                    BUCK                               Jesus Christ.The Puerto Rican Kid SWINGS HIS AIM at Buck.                              PUERTO RICAN KID                  Don't talk . . . shut the fuck up . . .                          (aims back at Donut Boy)                      Okay . . . empty the safe . . .Donut Boy starts to empty the safe, putting the money in a paper sack . . .Buck is frozen . . .The MIDDLE AGED MAN in the corner reaches into his coat pocket and pullsout an extremely BIG GUN . . .The Middle Aged Man SHOOTS the Puerto Rican Kid in the BACK . . .. . . the Puerto Rican Kid turns and returns FIRE, hitting the Middle AgedMan with a bullet in the FACE . . .. . . The Middle Aged Man gets another wild SHOT off before he expires andthat bullet hits the Donut Boy in the CHEST . . .So: The Donut Boy is dead, The Puerto Rican Kid falls to the floor dead andthe Middle Aged Man is face down dead in his donut and coffee . . .Blood is ALL OVER Buck . . . he stands for a long moment . . .CU. THE BAG OF MONEY ON THE FLOORCU. BUCK.He looks at it. SLOW ZOOM IN. BEAT.Buck leans down, picks up the BAG FULL OF MONEY and walks out of the donutshop.FADE OUT.TITLE CARD, OVER BLACK: "One Last Thing"170 INT. EL PUEBLO MOTEL ROOM - NIGHTReed, Todd and Dirk sit around a table. Dirk is bandaged. Scotty J. ismingling around the background. CAMERA DOES A SLOW 360 AROUND THE TABLE.                                    TODD                 Alright. I think this could be the thing.              Something to help us score a little extra cash.                 I think if we decide to do this, we gotta                          be one hundred percent.                                    REED                                  I agree.                                    TODD                     This guy's name is Rahad Jackson.                   He's got more money than God and twice                  as much coke, crack and smack. He'll buy               just about anything anybody wants to sell him.               He just likes people hanging out at his house                               and partying.                                    DIRK                            How do you know him?                                    TODD                      He used to come into Party Boys                  once in a while. Mutrix introduced me --                                    DIRK                      And how would we do it, exactly?                     I mean, how would it all go down?                                    TODD                       It's like this: I call him up,                tell him I got half a key of quality stuff.                                    REED                       Do you have his phone number?                                    TODD                Yeah. So we call him up, give him the price.                                    DIRK                                 How much?                                    TODD               Half a key for like . . . five thousand bucks.                           Split it three ways --                                    DIRK                    That's enough to get my Vette fixed.                                    TODD                    That's right. So we set up the deal,                    dump half a kilo of baking soda in a                  bag and walk over to his house -- BOOM.                  Right there -- this could be a nifty bit                             o' hustle-bustle.                                    REED                          Do you have his address?                                    TODD               Fuckin', Reed, yeah I have his address, c'mon.                                    DIRK                          What if he tests it out?                                    TODD                                 He won't.                                    DIRK                              How do you know?                                    TODD                 I know he won't. I'm positive. Believe me.                                    REED                          It's a pretty good idea.                                    DIRK                        I think we should go for it.Scotty J. comes over to the table.                                 SCOTTY J.                   You guys should be careful with this.                                    DIRK                                  Scotty?                                 SCOTTY J.                                   What?                                    DIRK               Just . . . y'know . . . mind yer own business.                                 SCOTTY J.                                   Sorry.ECU - Baking soda poured in a plastic bag.ECU - The plastic bag wrapped in a brown paper sack.ECU - Dirk's car keys grabbed off the table.CUT TO:171 OMITTED172 EXT. RAHAD JACKSON'S HOUSE - NIGHTThe Corvette pulls up in front of a tacky one-story house in the hills ofStudio City. The Corvette stops and CAMERA DOLLIES IN QUICK. Dirk, Reed,Todd sit in the parked car. In sotto;                                    DIRK                                   Okay.                                    TODD                          You guys ready for this?                                    REED                                   I am.                                    TODD                                   Dirk?                                    DIRK             Me? Yeah . . . yeah, I'm ready. I was born ready.                                    TODD                                  Alright.Todd takes out a .45 AUTOMATIC PISTOL and loads a cartridge.                                    DIRK                           What the fuck is that?                                    TODD                              It's a big gun.                                    DIRK                              I know, but why?                                    TODD                   Just in case, just in case. Let's go.They pile out of the damaged Corvette and walk up. CAMERA (STEADICAM)follows them.                                    REED                                I'm nervous.                                    TODD                               It'll be okay.                                    REED                     Let's get in and out, in and out.                                    TODD                  Not too quick -- that looks suspicious.                          Lemme do the talking --They arrive and ring the doorbell.CUT TO:173 INT. RAHAD JACKSON'S HOUSE - NIGHT - THAT MOMENTA really big fat black BODYGUARD comes to the door and opens up:                                 BODYGUARD                             Hello. Come on in.The bodyguard leads them down a hall and into a tacky and spacious, sunkenLIVING ROOM.They're greeted by a man in a silk robe, slightly open to show some bikinibriefs and a thin sheen of sweat covering his body: RAHAD JACKSON (late40s).Off in a corner of the room, a YOUNG ASIAN KID is casually throwing someFIRECRACKERS around.Rahad is DANCING around by himself to NIGHT RANGER, "SISTER CHRISTIAN." Hespots the men;                                   RAHAD                     Hello, friends. Which one is Todd?                                    TODD                  That's me. We met before at the club --                                   RAHAD                         Oh, yeah. Come on in here.                                    TODD                    These are my friends Dirk and Reed.                                   RAHAD                 Great to meet you. You guys want something                  to drink -- or a pill -- or some coke --                               or some dope?                               DIRK/REED/TODD                         No thank you, thanks, no.                                   RAHAD               So what do we have, we have, something, yeah?                                    TODD            Here it is . . . half a key . . . it's really good,                        if you wanna test it out --                                   RAHAD                    Oh, wait a minute, I love this part:                               (sings along)                     "SISTER CHRISTIAN, THERE'S SO MUCH                    IN LIFE, DON'T YOU GIVE IT UP BEFORE                     YOUR TIME IS DUE . . . IT'S TRUE!"                                 (to Dirk)                          This song is so amazing.                         Anyway: What's the price?                                    TODD                      We were thinking five thousand.                                   RAHAD                    That's good. No problem, cool, cool.The Bodyguard brings over a PAPER BAG FULL OF CASH and hands the bag toTodd in exchange for the PAPER BAG FULL OF BAKING SODA.Reed watches the Bodyguard take the bag and notices something. REED'S POV:a SHOULDER HOLSTER holds a .45 Automatic Pistol.Rahad does an air guitar solo to the Night Ranger song . . . he walksacross the room, picks up a COKE PIPE and looks to the guys;                                   RAHAD                          You wanna play baseball?                               DIRK/REED/TODD                               No thank you.Rahad strokes the pipe while dancing. Dirk looks across to an open bedroomdoor.DIRK'S POV: Through the crack in the door, we can see a bloody, batteredYOUNG BLACK WOMAN in a silk robe . . .she's followed by another YOUNG WHITEGIRL in nothing.                                 RAHAD (OC)                             Check this out --He takes out a nickel plated REVOLVER and loads a single bullet, spins thechamber and puts it to his head and sings;                                   RAHAD                    SISTER CHRISTIAN -- OH THE TIME HAS                    COME . . . AND YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE                     THE ONLY ONE TO SAY . . . OK . . .He pulls the trigger . . . Click . . . he smiles and casually speaks;                                   RAHAD                      I put a mix tape together of all                my favorite songs . . . This is song number               three . . . I love putting mix tapes together,               you know . . . if you buy an album or tape or                something, those guys put the songs in their              order and they try and say how you should listen                    to the songs, but I don't like that.                   I don't like to be told what to listen                  to, when to listen to or anything . . .The Night Ranger song FADES OUT . . . BEAT . . . Rahad smiles at the AsianKid who's casually throwing some firecrackers around.                                   RAHAD                            (to Dirk/Reed/Todd)                     He's Chinese . . . he loves to set                           off firecrackers . . .REO SPEEDWAGON, "CAN'T FIGHT THIS FEELING," begins to play.                                   RAHAD                   I CAN'T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANY LONGER                  AND YET I'M STILL AFRAID TO LET IT FLOW.                  WHAT STARTED OUT AS FRIENDSHIP HAS GROWN                 STRONGER -- I ONLY WISH I HAD THE STRENGTH                             TO LET IT SHOW --                                    DIRK           Well . . . I think maybe . . . we better get going --                                   RAHAD                      No, stay. Hang out. We'll party.                                    DIRK                         No, we really gotta split.                     We have to be somewhere and we --Dirk and Rahad continue to haggle about leaving/not leaving. CAMERA BEGINSA SLOW DOLLY INTO A CU ON TODD.                                    TODD                           We're Not Leaving Yet.Dirk and Reed look at Todd. He stands up.                                    TODD                 We're here now and we want something else.                Hey -- Hey. We Want Something Else From You.                                   RAHAD                                   What?                                    DIRK                    Todd -- what the hell are you doing?                                    TODD                   In the master bedroom, under the bed,                   in a floor safe . . . You understand?The Bodyguard turns his head. Dirk and Reed are confused;                                    DIRK                  Todd . . . what the fuck, man, c'mon --                                    TODD                  Shut up, Dirk. I told you I got a plan.                             I got a good plan.                                   RAHAD                         Are you kiddin' me kittie?                                    TODD                    No I'm not. I'm not kidding. We want                   what's in the safe. We want what's in                   the safe in the floor under the bed in                            the master bedroom.                                    DIRK                          Todd -- don't be crazy.                                 (to Rahad)                 Sir -- we don't know anything about this.                   This is not the thing that we wanted.                                    TODD                          SHUT THE FUCK UP, DIRK.The BODYGUARD reaches into his coat . . .. . . Todd pulls his REVOLVER quickly and AIMS at the Bodyguard.                                    TODD                         Don't reach for your gun.. . . Rahad reacts by AIMING HIS GUN AT TODD . . .                                   RAHAD                     You don't wanna do this, friendly.                                    TODD                        You've only got one bullet.Rahad PULLS THE TRIGGER . . . a bullet FIRES from the gun and strikes Toddin the SHOULDER . . . the gun in his hand falls to the floor and hestumbles back . . .. . . The Bodyguard takes this moment to GRAB HIS OWN GUN from the holsterand FIRE off shots at Dirk and Reed . . .. . . Bullets graze past them and they DUCK FOR COVER . . .. . . The GIRLS in the bedroom SCREAM and SHOUT at the gunfire . . .. . . A STRAY BULLET HITS the ASIAN KID in the heart, but he doesn't fall .. .. . . TODD reaches hold of his gun, crouches for cover and FIRES a bulletSTRAIGHT INTO the Bodyguard . . . who falls back DEAD . . . Todd looksright and sees:RAHAD scuttles into the bedroom with the women . . . Todd looks over hisshoulder to Dirk and Reed;                                    DIRK                     WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, TODD?                                    TODD                          He went in the bedroom.                                    DIRK                   ARE YOU CRAZY? WHEN DID YOU GO CRAZY?                                    TODD                     He's got cash and coke in the safe                     under the bed -- if we leave here                          without it we're fools.                                    REED                     Let's just split, let's just split                     right now, Todd. Don't be stupid.                       This wasn't part of the deal.                                    TODD                  I'm goin' in that bedroom and get what's                       in that safe. Are you coming?                                    DIRK                     Fuck no. Todd. Don't. Don't do it.Todd gets up and heads for the bedroom with his revolver at the ready . . .he inches closer to the door and twists the door knob, then KICKS THE DOOROPEN;. . . Rahad is standing right there, holding a SAWED OFF SHOTGUN. He pullsthe trigger . . . Todd blinks . . .. . . Rahad's SHOTGUN BLAST blows Todd BACK and UP in the air about fifteenfeet . . . he FALLS to the ground with a HOLE in his STOMACH about the sizeof a basketball . . . Rahad calls out to Dirk and Reed;                                   RAHAD                   C'mon out, little puppies. You want to                  come and see, come and see, to get what                        is coming down. Coming down.Rahad peers out from his bedroom, sees a sliver of Dirk behind the wall.Rahad FIRES HIS SHOTGUN . . . which cuts right past Dirk's head and SHREDSthe wall near him . . .Reed and Dirk make a DASH for the front door . . .. . . Rahad FIRES another shot . . .. . . a BLAST BREEZES PAST THEIR HEADS . . .Dirk and Reed make it OUTSIDE . . . Rahad chases after them . . .CUT TO:174 EXT. RAHAD'S HOUSE - THAT MOMENTReed and Dirk make a dash for the Corvette -- they're steps away when aSHOTGUN BLAST BLOWS INTO THE PASSENGER'S SIDE DOOR --Reed heads away from the car -- makes a run diagonally across the streetfor shelter behind some SHRUBS and TREES -- (he gets lost from CAMERA)Dirk gets around to the driver's side of the Corvette, shielded andcrouched -- he opens the door and starts to get in --ANOTHER SHOT BLOWS THE PASSENGER'S SIDE WINDOW OUT.GLASS SPRAYS IN HIS EYES AND HIS HAND SLIPS DOWN, RELEASING THE EMERGENCYBRAKE OF THE CAR -- WHICH BEGINS TO ROLL DOWN THE STREET--Dirk stumbles back from the car. He looks to the house:Rahad is about to FIRE the shotgun again . . .. . . he looks down the street: the Corvette is ROLLING away and picking upspeed as it goes down the hill --Dirk gets on his feet and makes a run for the car, Rahad FIRES . . .. . . Dirk catches up with the car, hops in -- gets the key in the ignitionand starts it up, peels off down the street --CUT TO:175 INT. DIRK'S CORVETTE - MOMENTS LATERDirk pulls around and stops a moment. He looks around -- he looks back inhis rearview mirror.                                    DIRK                           Fuck -- Fuck -- Fuck.CUT TO:176 EXT. STREET NEARBY - THAT MOMENTReed is running FULL-SPEED down a residential street, in and out ofbackyards and over fences, dodging attack dogs, etc.CUT TO:177 INT. RAHAD JACKSON'S HOUSE - THAT MOMENTRAHAD storms around his house, the SHOTGUN in his hand. The two batteredYOUNG WOMEN are shaking and shivering in a corner --                                   RAHAD           What the fuck . . . what the fuck . . . what the fuck.Rahad rants and raves incoherently, sets down the shotgun for a moment totake a hit from his crack pipe. A DISCO song is playing LOUDLY and Rahad isdancing. HOLD, THEN:ANGLE, A WALL IN THE HOUSEa red flash hits the wall . . . then a blue flash hits the wall.ANGLE, RAHADhe looks at the wall and sees the red-blue flash.CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON RAHAD. He smiles.More RED-BLUE FLASHES hit the house and the SOUNDS of POLICE ACTION startto BUILD . . .                                   RAHAD                       It's coming down, coming down.. . . RAHAD PICKS UP THE SHOTGUN, SMASHES THE WINDOW AND FIRES OFF A SHOTTOWARDS THE OC POLICE ACTION . . .. . . OC POLICE FIRE BACK ABOUT ONE MILLION BULLETS THAT RIP INTO RAHAD,SENDING HIM BACK, STUMBLING ACROSS THE HOUSE, FURTHER AND FURTHER . . .BULLETS RIP INTO THE TWO GIRLS, KILLING THEM.OVERHEAD ANGLE, STRAIGHT DOWN:Rahad's dead body falls next to Todd's dead body . . . a BEAT later, theAsian Kid finally falls over, face down next to them . . .QUICK FADE OUT, CUT TO:178 OMITTED179 OMITTED180 INT. DIRK'S CORVETTE - MOVING - NIGHTHOLD CU. ON DIRK. He's driving fast. Paranoid and freaked. The car startsto sputter . . . slows . . . Dirk panics when he sees the gas tank . . .ECU. The Gas Tank Display. The orangle needle is on, "E."CUT TO:TITLE CARD: "Fourteen Miles Later"CUT TO:181 EXT. STREET/OUTSIDE LOS ANGELES - DAWN (LATER)Dirk's car is out of gas. He pushes the car off the main boulevard and downa side street.CUT TO:182 EXT. SIDE STREET - THAT MOMENTDirk pushes his car down a small cul-de-sac, hops in and pulls theemergency brake.He looks around a moment. HOLD. CAMERA DOLLIES IN CLOSE ON HIS FACE. Helooks at the street signs.OVERHEAD ANGLE, INTERSECTION.Dirk walks to the middle of the intersection and looks up at the signposts.It reads, "Troost Street."He walks down this street, looking at the houses. He walks a full twoblocks down, stops, looks: He's standing in front of his PARENTS HOUSE. Itlooks just the same.A young PAPERBOY rides past and throws the paper, hitting Dirk in the head.He hesitates, then walks up the steps;CAMERA MOVES IN SLOWLY ON THE DOOR, LANDS IN A CU. OVER HIS SHOULDER. Heknocks. Moments later . . . the door opens; A young woman in a bathrobewith a BABY on her hip opens the door. This is SHERYL LYNN, who we metearlier.                                SHERYL LYNN                                    Yes?                                    DIRK                                . . . hello.                                SHERYL LYNN                              Can I help you?BEAT.                                SHERYL LYNN                            Eddie . . . ? Eddie.Dirk hesitates a moment, then recognizes Sheryl Lynn.                                    DIRK             . . . what are you doing here? Where's my mother?                                SHERYL LYNN                    Eddie . . . I can't believe it . . .                                    DIRK                   . . . I'm looking for my mother . . .                   I'm looking for my father and mother.                                SHERYL LYNN               Eddie, honey . . . my God . . . you just . . .                                    DIRK                     Why are you in this house? I don't                     want to see you, I want my mother.                                SHERYL LYNN                     I live here now. With my husband.                                    DIRK                              Where's my mom?                                SHERYL LYNN                           You should come in --BEAT. HOLD CU. ON DIRK.                                    DIRK                   No . . . no. Jesus Christ, I know what                            you're gonna say --                                SHERYL LYNN                    Eddie, I can tell you what happened,                    just let me tell you inside here --                                    DIRK                        Just tell me. Just tell me.                                SHERYL LYNN                       They passed . . . last May --The baby starts to cry. Dirk doesn't move;                                    DIRK                             . . . how . . . ?                                SHERYL LYNN                   Eddie, come inside right now, please.                                    DIRK                             YOU TELL ME, LADY.                                SHERYL LYNN                    There was no way to find you, to get             in touch with you. To tell you all these things --                                    DIRK                          TELL ME RIGHT NOW, YOU.                                SHERYL LYNN                       Eddie, it was out of the blue                and there was a man and he was speeding and                      he was drunk and they didn't --CUT TO:183 EXT. INTERSECTION - DAYA little Station Wagon enters the intersection with the right of way but isIMMEDIATELY AND POWERFULLY CRUNCHED by a SPEEDING MALIBU that barrels intothe intersection.The STATION WAGON is THROWN fifty yards away. A HORN blows . . .CAMERA DOES A SLOW DOLLY IN TOWARDS THE STATION WAGON. Dirk's MOTHER andFATHER are SOAKED IN BLOOD.CAMERA DOES A SLOW DOLLY IN TOWARDS THE SPEEDING MALIBU. Half in/halfthrough the windshield of this car is JOHNNY DOE.QUICK FADE OUT, CUT TO:184 EXT. DIRK'S HOUSE/TORRANCE - THAT MOMENTBack to the scene. HOLD ON DIRK.                                SHERYL LYNN                     It was just some drunk kid, Eddie.                                    DIRK                          -- why do you live here?                                SHERYL LYNN                    My husband and I bought this house.                                    DIRK                         Why? Why did you do that?                                SHERYL LYNN                              Eddie, please --                                    DIRK                    This is my house. THIS IS MY HOUSE.                    What the fuck? What the fuck are you                    doing here? I don't want to see you,                 I need to see my mother. I want my mother.CUT TO:185 INT. SHERYL LYNN'S HOUSE - MOMENTS LATERCAMERA HOLDS IN THE KITCHEN. Sheryl Lynn makes breakfast with the baby onher hip. Her HUSBAND sits nearby in his bathrobe, watching the situationand keeping quiet.Dirk is on the phone in the living room. WE HEAR ONLY MUFFLED BITS FROM HISCONVERSATION.                                    DIRK                                (into phone)            . . . Scotty. It's Dirk . . . yeah . . . yeah . . .               lemme talk to him . . . Reed . . . yeah. Yeah.                                   (beat)          Are you sure . . . ? Yeah, okay . . . in a little . . .Dirk hangs up, looks at Sheryl Lynn and her husband.                                SHERYL LYNN                           Is everything alright?Dirk nods. She sets him up with a cup of coffee.                                SHERYL LYNN                   You made something of yourself, Eddie.She smiles, nods, points to the living room.                                SHERYL LYNN                  I have all of your tapes . . . I've seen                  all of your films . . . I knew you'd do                      something special with it . . .Dirk looks and sees that she has a collection of about 100 videotapes on ashelf . . . the Husband looks a little depressed . . . the Baby cries . . .DOLLY IN A LITTLE ON DIRK.CUT TO:186 INT. JACK'S HOUSE - MORNING (LATER)CAMERA holds on the hallway that looks towards the front door. It opensslowly and Dirk steps inside. He takes his sunglasses off and stands amoment.OC we hear some noises coming from the kitchen. Sounds of someone cookingsomething. The SOUND from the television.A few moments pass and Jack enters the HALLWAY and FRAME. Jack and Dirkstand a moment, looking at each other in silence. Dirk looks down, fiddleswith his sunglasses, loses it;                                    DIRK                          Can you please help me?HOLD.CUT TO:187 INT. JACK'S OFFICE - DAY - MOMENTS LATERDirk has broken down in Jack's arms. Jack hugs him and pets his head. AMBERenters, brings Dirk a glass of water and sits next to them on the couch.CAMERA DOLLIES IN SLOW.                                    JACK                      It's alright, boy. It's alright.FADE OUT.188 EXT. DOORWAY - DAY "Sequence "E"CAMERA holds on a doorway. Buck steps out, dressed in a BREAK DANCERoutfit, looks INTO CAMERA:                                    BUCK                       Did I hear somebody say DEALS?CAMERA CONTINUES BACK TO REVEAL the store front of "BUCK'S SUPER COOLSTEREO STORE," with a huge banner that reads, "Grand Opening."                                    BUCK                     This weekend and this weekend only                  Buck's Super Cool Stereo World is making                    Super-Cool Deals on ALL name brands.REVERSE ANGLE: AMBER and KURT LONGJOHN are standing next to a VIDEO CAMERA,filming a COMMERCIAL for Buck's store.                                    BUCK                     We're open, we're ready -- all you                   need to do is walk over, get down and                             come inside us --                                   AMBER                              Cut. Excellent.CUT TO:189 INT. HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM - DAYCAMERA DOLLIES IN ON ROLLERGIRL. She's sitting at a desk, deep in themiddle of taking the GED test. She starts to drift, looking out the window. . . then back to the test.CUT TO:190 INT. BAKERSFIELD RETIREMENT HOME - DAYCAMERA DOLLIES IN ON BECKY. She's wearing a UNIFORM and working with agroup of OLD FOLKS in the retirement home. She feeds Mr. Brown some soupand smiles.CUT TO:191 INT. JAIL CELL - NIGHTTHE COLONEL sits in a jail cell with a large black man, TYRONE.                                  COLONEL                                  Tyrone?                                   TYRONE                               Yes, Colonel.                                  COLONEL                                  Tell me.                                   TYRONE                         You know that I love you.                                  COLONEL                         I like hearing you say it.                                   TYRONE                    You're my bitch. You always will be.BEAT. THE CAMERA DOLLIES IN ON THE COLONEL. He smiles.CUT TO:192 EXT. HOT TRAXX NIGHTCLUB - DAYMAURICE is standing out front with his two BROTHERS who are fresh off theboat . . . they're unveiling a new sign in front of the club -- the sheetdrops to reveal;"RODRIGUEZ BROTHERS NIGHTCLUB"CUT TO:193 INT. NIGHTCLUB/CABARET - NIGHTCAMERA moves across the small audience to the stage where REED is doing aMAGIC SHOW. He's wearing a leotard and floating some brass rings inmid-air. He snaps his fingers and they drops into his hands -- he takes abow and does a little dance.CUT TO:194 INT. HOSPITAL/DELIVERY ROOM - DAYCAMERA is HAND-HELD as JESSIE ST. VINCENT is screaming and kicking her waythrough labor. BUCK is holding her hand. SCOTTY J. is with them, filmingthe whole thing with a VIDEO CAMERA.                                    BUCK                     C'mon, honey, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon.                                   JESSIE                 JESUS MOTHER FUCKING CHRIST ALMIGHTY HELL.We hear a BABY pop out, kicking and screaming.                                   DOCTOR                       Yes, yes, Jessie. It's a boy.CUT TO:End Sequence "E"195 EXT. JACK'S DRIVEWAY - DAY (June 84)An EQUIPMENT TRUCK backs up towards CAMERA. ROCKY, SCOTTY J. and KURTLONGJOHN enter FRAME and lift the back up to reveal; a whole set of VIDEOEQUIPMENT. They begin to unload it . . .STEADICAM PULLS BACK and Jack enters FRAME, smiling and walking back intothe house . . . this is one continous shot . . . as he moves through,interacting with:MAURICE is cooking some stuff up in the kitchen. Smoke everywhere.                                    JACK                      Maurice, honey, turn the fan on.                                  MAURICE                          It smells good, though.                                    JACK                     It's stinkin' up the whole house.ROLLERGIRL is skating around, listening to headphones.                                    JACK                   Rollergirl, honey, please, I just had                             the floors redone.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   What?                                    JACK                   Your skates on the wood floor, please.                                 ROLLERGIRL                                   What?                                    JACK                 Are you going deaf? Turn the music down --                                 ROLLERGIRL                  Jack, I can't hear a word you're saying.BUCK is setting up a new audio/video system in Jack's living room. Heexplains some technical information about the new format of "compactdiscs."                                    JACK                 Just do me a favor and make it work, Buck.                                    BUCK                  Did I talk to you about the modification                             you're gonna need?                                    JACK                         Don't. Don't do it, Buck.                                    BUCK                      Jack -- you stick with the bass                    you got and it's not gonna be loud.                                    JACK                    I don't listen to it loud, alright?                     I just wanna hear something, okay?Jack continues out to the POOL AREA. REED is swimming with the BABY. JESSIEST. VINCENT is doing an oil painting of them.                                    JACK                       Look at this, he's a swimmer!                                   JESSIE                               (to the baby)                   Can you say hello to your Uncle Jack?                                    JACK                                (to Jessie)                  He's not gonna piss in the pool, is he?                                   JESSIE                             I don't think so.JACK walks back in the house, down the hallway, CAMERA PANS to a PICTURE onthe wall of LITTLE BILL then PANS back to Jack,who continues down the hallinto --AMBER'S BEDROOM.She's sitting in front of her make-up table. He sits next to her;                                   AMBER                               Are we ready?                                    JACK                              Plenty of time.                                   AMBER                          What are you looking at?                                    JACK                      I'm looking at you, my darling.                                   AMBER                              You're staring.BEAT. He leans in, gives her a kiss on the cheek and says;                                    JACK                 You're the foxiest bitch I've ever known.CUT TO:196 INT. JACK'S HOUSE/BEDROOM - DAY - THAT MOMENTDirk is sitting in a jean costume, script in front of him for the new film,working on the lines. He's cleaned up a bit, hair slicked back. He looks inthe mirror;                                    DIRK                     I've been around this block twice                    looking for something . . . a clue.                 I've been looking for clues and something              led me back here . . . yeah . . . so here I am.                                   (beat)                         Coulda been me who was at                Ringo's place when the shit went down . . .                                   (beat)               Hey . . . I know how it is . . . cause I been               there . . . we've all done bad things . . . .                    We all have those guilty feelings in                    our hearts . . . you wanna take your                   brain out of your head and wash it and                 scrub it and make it clean . . . well no.                                   (beat)                  But I'm gonna help you settle this . . .                                   (beat)                     First we're gonna check for holes,                   see what we can find . . . then we're                   gonna get nice and wet . . . so you're                        gonna spread your legs . . .                                   (beat)                   That's good . . . so you know me, you                     know my reputation . . . thirteen                      inches is a tough load, I don't                    treat you gently . . . That's right:                             I'm Brock Landers.                                   (beat)                     So I'm gonna be nice and I'm gonna                        ask you one more time . . .                                   (beat)                          Where the fuck is Ringo?Dirk stands up, unzips his pants and lets his cock hang out. He looks atthe REFLECTION of it in the mirror;                                    DIRK                    I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star.                     I'm a star. I'm a star, I'm a big                            bright shining star.He puts his cock back in his pants, does a final karate kick and walks outof the room, closing the door behind him.                                    END                          NEW LINE CINEMA PRESENTS                               BOOGIE NIGHTS                          Written and Directed By                            PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON                                Produced By                                LLOYD LEVIN                                 JOHN LYONS                            PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON                               JOANNE SELLAR                             Executive Producer                              LAWRENCE GORDON                           Co-Executive Producers                              MICHAEL DE LUCA                                LYNN HARRIS                                Co-Producer                                DANIEL LUPI                          Director of Photography                               ROBERT ELSWIT                            Production Designer                               BOB ZIEMBICKI                                   Editor                               DYLAN TICHENOR                              Costume Designer                                MARK BRIDGES                                  Music By                                MICHAEL PENN                                 Casting By                              CHRISTINE SHEAKS                                DON CHEADLE                                   played                                 Buck Swope                               HEATHER GRAHAM                                   played                                 Rollergirl                                LUIS GUZMAN                                   played                            Maurice TT Rodriguez                             PHILIP BAKER HALL                                   played                               Floyd Gondolli                           PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN                                   played                                 Scotty J.                                THOMAS JANE                                   played                                Todd Parker                                 RICKY JAY                                   played                               Kurt Longjohn                              WILLIAM H. MACY                                   played                                Little Bill                               ALFRED MOLINA                                   played                               Rahad Jackson                               JULIANNE MOORE                                   played                                Amber Waves                             NICOLE ARI PARKER                                   played                               Becky Barnett                               JOHN C. REILLY                                   played                               Reed Rothchild                               BURT REYNOLDS                                   played                                Jack Horner                               ROBERT RIDGELY                                   played                             The Colonel James                               MARK WAHLBERG                                   played                                Dirk Diggler                               MELORA WALTERS                                   played                             Jessie St. Vincent                                NINA HARTLEY                                   played                             Little Bill's Wife                                MICHAEL JACE                                   played                                   Jerome                                JACK WALLACE                                   played                                   Rocky                                  JOHN DOE                                   played                              Amber's Husband                               JOANNA GLEASON                                   played                               Dirk's Mother                              LAUREL HOLLOMAN                                   played                                Sheryl Lynn                               JONATHON QUINT                                   played                                 Johnny Doe                              STANLEY DESANTIS                                   played                               Buck's Manager                                Dedicated to                               ERNIE ANDERSON                                (1923-1997)                                Dedicated to                               ROBERT RIDGELY                                (1932-1997)                        A LAWRENCE GORDON PRODUCTION                 IN ASSOCIATION WITH GHOULARDI FILM COMPANY                          A.P.T. ANDERSON PICTUREDANIEL LUPI Unit Production ManagerJOHN WILDERMUTH First Assistant DirectorADAM DRUXMAN Second Assistant Director                                    CASTMAURICE T.T. RODRIGUEZ Luis GuzmanJACK HORNER Burt ReynoldsAMBER WAVES Julianne MooreHOT TRAXX WAITER Rico BuenoREED ROTHCHILD John C. ReillyBECKY BARNETT Nicole Ari ParkerBUCK SWOPE Don CheadleROLLERGIRL Heather GrahamEDDIE ADAMS/DIRK DIGGLER Mark WahlbergLITTLE BILL William H. MacyHOT TRAXX CHEF Samson BarkhordarianLITTLE BILL'S WIFE Nina HartleyBIG STUD Brad BraedenDIRK'S MOTHER Joanna GleasonDIRK'S FATHER Lawrence HuddSTEREO CUSTOMER Michael SteinBUCK'S MANAGER Stanley DeSantisTEACHER Patricia ForteHIGH SCHOOL/COLLEGE KID Kai LennoxSHERYL LYNN Laurel HollomanJOHNNY, LIMO DRIVER Jason AndrewsTHE COLONEL JAMES Robert RidgelyCOLONEL'S LADY FRIEND Amber HunterYOUNG STUD Greg LaurenWATCHER #1 Tom DorfmeisterWATCHER #2 Jake CrossKURT LONGJOHN Ricky JaySCOTTY J. Philip Seymour HoffmanROCKY Jack WallaceHOT TRAXX DJ Selwyn Emerson MillerCOLONEL'S HOT TRAXX GIRLFRIEND Jamielyn GamboaBECKY'S GIRLFRIEND Melissa SpellBECKY'S GIRLFRIEND'S FRIEND Raymond LaborielJESSIE ST. VINCENT Melora WaltersAWARDS CEREMONY BAND Jon BrionBrian KehewRobin SharpAudrey WiechmanRAPHAEL Tim 'Stuffy' SoronenJEROME Michael JaceFLOYD GONDOLLI Philip Baker HallFLOYD'S KIDS (BOYS) Alexander D. SlangerThomas LenkFLOYD'S KIDS (GIRLS) Lexi LeighLaura GronewaldTODD PARKER Thomas JaneMUGSY, JACK'S BARTENDER Vernon Guichard IINEW YEAR'S EVE YOUNG STUD Tony TedeschiKC SUNSHINE Leslie ReddenMINISTER Gregory DanielJOHNNY DOE Jonathon QuintNICK, THE ENGINEER Michael PennBANK WORKER Don AmendoliaSUMMER/SKYE (JACUZZI GIRLS) ThemselvesBURT, STUDIO MANAGER Robert Downey, Sr. (A Prince)JUDGE Veronica HartLAWYER Jack RileyAMBER'S HUSBAND John DoeSURFER Cannon RoeSURFER PUNKS Mike GuntherMichael Raye SmithMichael Scott StencilDONUT BOY Dustin CourtneyMAN WITH GUN Allan GrafPUERTO RICAN KID Jose ChaidezRAHAD'S BODYGUARD B. Philly JohnsonRAHAD JACKSON Alfred MolinaCOSMO (RAHAD'S BOY) Joe G.M. ChanTYRONE GoliathMAURICE'S BROTHERS Israel JuarbeGeorge Anthony RaeDOCTOR Eric WinzenriedHOT TRAXX DANCERS Sharon FerrolAnne FletcherScott FowlerMelanie A. GageEddie GarciaSebastian LaCauseLance MacDonaldDiane MizotaNathan Frederic PrevostLisa E. RatzinDee Dee WeathersDarrel W. Wright
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+                                                                 THE BOOK OF ELI                                                                  Written by                                              Gary Whitta                                                                                                            June 21, 2007                              A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.                                                          -                                                                     Emil Cioran                    EXT. FOREST - DAWN                    Bare as all hell. The trees stripped of their bark and white          like ghosts. Some torn violently from their roots and felled.                    STARK GRAY SUNLIGHT shafts between the trees, clouded by a          creeping fog that obscures the true color of everything. A          LIGHT SNOW flutters. The world monochrome, lifeless and cold.                    A CAT prowls across the dead earth. Barely recognizable as          the domestic breed it might once have been. Its fur mangy and          rank, body rib-thin from starvation. Entirely feral.                    It moves slowly, cautiously. Sniffing the air, scanning the          forest, alert. Trusting nothing of its surroundings. It paces          across a leaf-strewn clearing, closing stealthily on:                    A DEAD MAN, splayed face-down in the earth. His feet bare.          Face frozen in a grim death mask. A GAPING GUNSHOT WOUND in          his head, the dried blood caked around it matting his hair.                    As the cat moves closer, approaching warily:                    P.O.V. FROM ACROSS THE CLEARING                    About thirty yards away. Someone is watching. Waiting. SLOW,          DEEP BREATHS, heard through a GASMASK RESPIRATOR.                    CLOSE ON A PAIR OF INDUSTRIAL GOGGLES                    The MIRRORED LENSES reflecting the forest clearing, locked          onto the cat. The slow, metered breathing continues.                    THE CAT slows, but continues pacing toward the corpse. More          cautious than ever. It inches forward, sniffing at the body.                    ON THE WATCHER. Crouched behind the mangled stump of a felled          tree. Concealed beneath a camouflaging mesh of leaves, twigs          and bracken. A "ghillie suit" of the kind used by snipers.                    THE CAT sniffs at the dead man's hand, frozen by death in a          grotesquely contorted claw. The animal still unsure. Looks          around again, checking its surroundings for predators.                    THE WATCHER moves almost imperceptibly. The leaves covering          him rustle ever so slightly as we hear - just barely - the          familiar creaking sound of a BOW STRING BEING DRAWN TAUT.                    THE CAT hears it. Looks up, alert. Staring right at the          watcher, but he is too well camouflaged to be seen. An          interminable, tense BEAT - is the prey going to flee?                    Finally, the cat turns its attention back to the carcass,          nibbling gingerly at the flesh of the man's fingers.                                                                            2.                              THE WATCHER looses the arrow. It sails across the clearing          and SKEWERS THE CAT clean through. It drops to the ground.                    THE WATCHER STANDS, shaking off the ghillie suit, revealing          him to us for the first time.                    He wears a weather-beaten knee-length duster. Hooded sweater          with more layers beneath that. Torn pants and scuffed work          boots. Everything filthy and battered from years of wear.                    Along with the goggles, his face remains obscured by a          DISPOSABLE PAPER DUST MASK and a CRUDELY-FASHIONED FUR HAT          with dangling ear flaps that may once itself have been a cat.                    Around his neck he wears a silver SAINT CHRISTOPHER PENDANT          hanging from a frayed twine cord.                    His name is ELI.                    He shoulders the bow and walks across the clearing. Crouches          beside the dead cat and pulls out the arrow. Wipes the blood          from the shaft, then reaches down to collect the body.                    Suddenly the cat SCREECHES AND FLAILS WILDLY! Eli recoils,          falling backward, stunned, as the cat - MORTALLY WOUNDED BUT          FIGHTING TO THE DEATH - bites and claws desperately at him.                    Eli struggles violently with the cat, wrestling it to the          ground and grabbing up a HUNK OF FALLEN BRANCH. He holds the          writhing animal down and CLUBS IT until it lays still.                    He sits back, breathing harder than the dustmask will allow.          He yanks it down, revealing the dirty, unshaven face beneath.          Impossible to tell his age, but certainly not a young man.                    For a moment he just sits there. Then bundles up the dead cat          and returns to the mangled tree stump. Folds away his ghillie          suit into a nearby RUCKSACK which he hauls up onto his back.                    A canteen dangles from the backpack, a SHOTGUN strapped to          its side. Eli reaches down for his final possession - an old          SAMURAI SWORD in a scabbard which he slings across his back.                    He gazes up at the sky. A snowflake drifts down and lands on          his cheek. He reaches up and brushes it away, leaving a BLACK          SMEAR on his face. Not snow after all, but some kind of ASH.                    EXT. FOREST ROAD - DAY                    Eli emerges from the treeline onto the cracked and ruptured          asphalt. Lined by more of those ghostly, stripped-bare trees.                                                                              3.                              He sniffs the air, breathing it in. Checks the road in both          directions. Deserted. A few yards away is the rusted, burned-          out chassis of a CAR. He heads toward it.                    The car rests half on the road, half in the adjacent ditch.          Stripped of its tires and engine. In the driver's seat is a          MUMMIFIED BODY. A BULLET HOLE piercing its forehead.                    Eli regards the body dispassionately. Tries the door handle          but it's jammed. He yanks on it harder and eventually          wrenches it open. He leans in and checks the man's feet.                    They're bare. No shoes or socks. Eli curses under his breath.                    He leaves the car behind and heads on down the road. As he          walks away, we see that the sole of one of his boots has worn          loose, held in place now only by a rubber band.                    EXT. ROAD - DAY                    Eli continues down the road. He ambles along slowly, a man in          no hurry. A man who has been walking a long time.                    The road has since emerged from the forest. Passing now          through a wasteland of dead scrub brush and urban junk.                    The sun beats down from directly overhead. The sky has no          color to it, paper-white. The unfiltered sun's stark light          leaves everything seeming bleached-out, over-exposed.                    CRANE UP as Eli walks on. On the horizon is the silhouette of          a CITY. Or what was once a city. Columns of BLACK SMOKE rise          from within, casting a deathly pall over the skyline. BURNED          AND BROKEN SKYSCRAPERS jut out like tombstones.                    Eli reaches a fork in the road and stops. The road he's on          appears to wind off in the direction of the ruined city on          the horizon. The other fork continues on into the wasteland.                    After a brief pause, Eli changes direction and heads off down          the other fork, away from the city.                    EXT. ABANDONED TOWN - DAY                    Little more than a main street lined with storefronts. Eli          walks steadily along, side-stepping rubble and debris.          Ignoring the petrified corpses lying in the street.                    He passes by abandoned stores, every one picked clean. Empty          shelves, smashed windows. Looted and burned. He doesn't even          look inside, knowing already that he will find nothing.                    Until he comes to a store that does cause him to stop. An old-          fashioned sign squeaks on rusted hinges in the breeze.                                                                              4.                                        ED'S SHOES - GENTLEMEN'S AND LADIES' FOOTWEAR                    He steps into the doorway and pushes open the door. It swings          open on its one remaining hinge before splintering away from          the frame and crashing to the floor in a cloud of dust.                    INT. SHOE STORE - CONTINUOUS                    Eli steps inside. Like all the others, the store has been          cleaned out. Shoe racks and empty boxes strewn over the          floor. The whole place reeking of dead, musty air.                    Eli looks around, just to be sure. Drags his sheathed sword          idly along the empty racks as he checks them. Nothing.                    As he turns back for the door, his foot nudges against a shoe          box. It's not empty. He crouches down, flips the lid off          hopefully... and pulls out a LADY'S HIGH-HEELED SHOE.                    He strokes the shoe leather with his hand. Shakes his head          grimly, then tosses the shoe back into the box and leaves.                    EXT. ABANDONED HOUSE - DAY                    On the outskirts of town. In disrepair - peeling paint,          broken windows, damp-stained walls - but habitable.                    Eli stands in the front yard, surrounded by brownish,          overgrown weeds. Thinking it over. Turns to face the setting          sun. It will be dark soon. He turns back toward the house.                    INT. ABANDONED HOUSE - DAY                    The front door is sent CRASHING OPEN with a hard kick,          revealing Eli silhouetted in the fading sunlight. The shotgun          unhitched from his pack and held ready. He moves inside.                    Another dead place. Flies buzzing in the still, dank air.          Everything covered in a thick layer of dust but otherwise          largely preserved. An eerie snapshot of a world long gone.                    KITCHEN                    Every cupboard empty. Eli checks each one, poking around in          the dark corners with his sword, but finds nothing but dust.                    He opens the freezer, checks inside. Empty save for a small          ICEBOX. The lid stuck fast with mildew and gunk. Eli digs at          it with his grimy fingernails and manages to pry it open.                    Inside are the wizened, petrified remains of a HUMAN HAND.          Floating in slimy, discolored water. The smell vile and thick          enough to make Eli retch. He quickly jams the lid back on.                                                                            5.                              BEDROOM                    A wooden bedframe stripped clean. The dresser drawers have          been emptied and lie strewn across the floor. Eli moves          toward a large walk-in closet and opens the door.                    No clothes inside - just the near-fossilized corpse of a MAN          HANGING BY A NOOSE. Twisting gently back and forth.                    Unfazed, Eli crouches down and checks the man's feet. An old          pair of Converse All-Stars hang limp from the man's skeletal          ankles. Eli calmly sets about unlacing them.                    He checks the size; they're a fit. He upturns each shoe and          shakes the old flakes of mummified flesh from them. Discards          his ruined boots and puts on the sneakers, laces them up.                    He walks around, pacing up and down, getting a feel for the          new shoes. They feel good. For the first time, he smiles.                    LATER                    Eli sits in the corner, roasting the carcass of the dead cat          over a small CAMPFIRE. He cleans the animal's pelts as he          watches it cook. Pokes at the meat with a pen-knife, checking          it for done-ness. It appears ready to eat.                    He clasps his hands together in prayer.                                        ELI                    Dear Lord, thank you for your                    generosity in providing us today                    with this bountiful feast.                    He speaks QUIETLY, his voice barely above a whisper. Even so,          we catch the accent - a RASPY, OLD-WORLD MIDWEST DRAWL, like          John Wayne or some other long-forgotten western icon.                                        ELI                    Thank you for the many gifts that                    you have given me. Thank you for                    your protection and your guidance.                    Thank you for bringing me this far.                    I know my long journey's end is                    near. I ask now only for the                    strength and the courage to                    complete the task that you in your                    infinite wisdom saw fit to bestow                    upon me over all men. I won't let                    you down. Amen.                    He signs a cross over himself, then uses the knife to saw off          a chunk of meat. Takes a bite, savoring the taste with great          relish. To him, it's grade-A filet mignon.                                                                            6.                                                  ELI                    Hey. You hungry?                    It appears as though he is talking to himself... until a RAT          emerges from his coat pocket, whiskers twitching keenly. Eli          offers it some meat. The rat gnaws enthusiastically at it.                    SUNDOWN                    The last of the waning sunlight shafts through the bedroom's          broken window. Eli rummages through his backpack, pulls out a          SMALL PACKAGE wrapped in cloth and tied fast with string.                    He sits back in his corner and carefully unwraps it. It's an          OLD LEATHER-BOUND BOOK. The binding cracked and pages dog-          eared, thumbed through a thousand times and more.                    Eli gazes lovingly at it. Lets his fingers play across the          beat-up old leather cover. A cherished thing.                    He begins to read, half-hidden in the shadows of the fading          sunlight. Silently mouthing the words as he reads them.                    MANY PAGES LATER                    Eli closes the book and parcels it back up as before.          Replaces it in his pack, then reaches in for something else.                    A CAR BATTERY. Old and streaked with acid stains. Attached to          a tangled bunch of ELECTRICAL WIRING and JUMPER CABLES. Eli          reaches into his pocket and produces:                    AN IPOD. Badly beat-up, the case pretty much held together          with duct tape. But functional. Eli attaches the battery          cable to the iPod and places the headphones in his ears.                    The music plays. Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor.          Eli rests back against the wall and pushes the volume way up.                    THE MUSIC SWELLS. Eli's fingers dance and swoop in the air,          as though conducting an orchestra, as he is transported by          the music to another world, a world far from this one.                    MORNING                    Sunlight shafts through the window. Eli sits slumped in the          exact same position, headphones still in his ears. Asleep.                    The rat scurries up Eli's chest and licks his face. Slowly,          he wakes, realizing he fell asleep with his music still on.          Checks the battery. It's dead, drained overnight. He frowns.                    He gets to his feet, moves to the window and checks outside.          All seems quiet. He loads up his backpack and weapons.                                                                            7.                                                  ELI                    Come on now.                    The rat scurries up his leg, onto his duster and disappears          into the breast pocket. Eli turns and moves out.                    EXT. ABANDONED HOUSE - MORNING                    The gate squeaks shut behind Eli as he exits the front yard.                    He breathes in the air, turns to feel the warm morning sun on          his face. Then turns away from it and walks on down the road.                    EXT. ROAD - DAY                    The landscape barren and featureless, road lined with dead          trees. Eli walks along the warped and broken asphalt.                    The road is strewn with burned-out cars and debris from a          world long dead. A warped metal sign by the side of the road          reads: LITTER REMOVAL NEXT TWO MILES BY: "CIRCUIT CITY".                    Up ahead is a HUNCHED FIGURE by the side of the road. Eli          arrives to see that it's a YOUNG WOMAN. Bone-thin, dressed in          filthy rags. Skin plagued by an unpleasant rash.                    The SHOPPING CART she was pushing has overturned into a          roadside ditch, spilling its contents. Blankets, tins of          food, old clothes. She's on her knees trying to gather it up.                    She looks up as she sees Eli approaching. Instantly cowers          from him, raising her hands to protect herself. Terrified.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    Oh. Please don't hurt me. Here,                    take anything you want. You want                    some food? Take it.                    She offers him a can of pet food with a trembling hand. Eli          stands there looking at her. His expression impossible to          read behind the mirrored goggles.                                        ELI                    I'm not going to hurt you.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    That's what the last guys said.                    Eli bends down and picks up a couple of the cart's spilled          contents. Steps forward and offers them to her.                                        ELI                    Here.                                                                              8.                              She blinks. Unsure. Cautiously she reaches out and takes it.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    Could you help me? The wheel came                    off. I can't fix it. Maybe if I                    could get it out of the ditch. But                    I can't.                    Eli looks at the cart. It has come to rest in the ditch just          inches from a THICK BRACKEN HEDGEROW that lines the road.                    He looks again at the girl. Her faded blouse is unbuttoned,          revealing a little cleavage. Her skirt torn along the leg,          showing more than a little thigh. Almost deliberate.                    He sniffs the air. Watches the hedgerow warily. Just like the          cat he hunted, his senses heightened and on alert.                    Behind the hedge, THREE ROADSIDE BANDITS are crouched,          waiting to pounce. Each armed with a crude blunt weapon. They          exchange anxious looks.                    ELI sniffs the air again - then backs away from the girl.                                        ELI                    One good thing about no soap any                    more. You can smell the road agents                    a mile off.                    The girl's face falls as Eli backs up. The three bandits          EMERGE FROM THE HEDGEROW, brandishing their weapons. A couple          of them wear old sunglasses and goggles similar to Eli's.                    The BANDIT LEADER grabs the girl by a fistful of hair as he          passes, yanking her painfully to her feet.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    Dumb bitch. What did we tell you?                    He pushes her away, she crumples to the road in a heap.                    Eli backs away, but TWO MORE ARMED BANDITS drop from hiding          in the trees behind, cutting off his escape, surrounding him.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    What you got there in the pack?                                         ELI                    Nothing.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    Yeah, that's what they all say. How                    about you take it off real slow and                    tip it out so's we can take a look?                                                                            9.                              BANDIT #2 notices the shotgun strapped to the pack.                                        BANDIT #2                    He's got a gun.                                         BANDIT LEADER                    Shit, it ain't loaded. They never                    are. Ain't that right, old man?                        (BEAT)                    Open the fucking pack or die.                                        ELI                    I can't do that.                    The bandit leader steps forward aggressively. Now within          striking distance of Eli. He grins, teeth filthy and rotten.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    Want us to do it for you? We can                    get it off real easy after we've                    hacked your fucking arms off.                    Eli remains perfectly calm. And though he speaks with a soft,          even tone, there is something formidable about his voice.                                        ELI                    It's real important you boys listen                    to me and understand. The man I                    work for, you do not want to cross                    him. See, I'm under his protection.                    You stand in my way, you stand in                    his. And he will cut you down with                    a righteous fury - through me. For                    I am his faithful instrument.                    BEAT. The bandit leader looks at Eli incredulously... and          then LAUGHS. The other bandits laugh along nervously.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    What the hell are you, some kinda                    preacher?                                        ELI                    Something like that.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    Well I got news for you, preacher                    man. Whatever kinda God you reckon                    yourself to be working for, he left                    these parts a long time ago. He                    ain't here to protect your ass. Now                    take off the pack and set it on the                    ground.                                                                           10.                              Eli doesn't move, doesn't say a word. The bandit leader takes          another step forward and shoves him in the shoulder.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    You fucking listening to me?                                        ELI                    I hear you. You lay that hand on me                    again and you will not get it back.                    The other bandits exchange nervous looks. This is not how          it's supposed to go.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    All right, I had just about enough                    of this shit...                    He lunges forward, grabs the shoulder strap of Eli's pack.                    If you blinked, you missed it. But somehow Eli has now drawn          his sword. A RIVULET OF BLOOD snakes down along the blade and          drips onto the asphalt.                    Bandit leader's hand is still gripped firmly around Eli's          shoulder strap. But it's no longer connected to his arm. The          SEVERED HAND hangs there from the strap, dripping blood.                    Bandit leader staggers backward and raises the bloody stump          where his hand once was. Looks at it in shock and horror.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    What... you just... he just cut my                    fucking hand off! My fucking hand!                    Eli pries the hand loose from the strap and tosses it onto          the road as bandit leader's legs give out and he slumps to          the asphalt. His eyes dart around, as though confused.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    What you standin' around for? Kiss                    him!                                        BANDIT #3                    What's he talkin' about, kiss him?                                        ELI                    He's in shock. He means "kill him".                    A tense BEAT. And then the four remaining bandits ATTACK ELI          ALL AT ONCE, weapons flailing.                    Eli flourishes the sword. A BLUR, TOO FAST TO FOLLOW. But          it's clear he is possessed of an inhuman level of skill.                                                                              11.                              It is over in moments. The four bandits LAY SLAIN IN THE          ROAD, blood pooling out onto the asphalt.                    The bandit leader crawls toward his severed hand, a few yards          away. Eli steps in and kicks it out of his reach.                                         ELI                    I told you you wouldn't be getting                    that back.                    Bandit leader looks up to see the figure of Eli bearing down          on him, silhouetted ominously against the sun. He looks for a          moment like an avenging angel, something not of this world.                                        BANDIT LEADER                    Who are you?                                        ELI                    My name is Eli.                    And with that, Eli runs him through with his sword.                    He turns to see the young woman slumped in the road, sobbing.          She cowers again as he approaches, certain that she is next.                    He WALKS PAST HER. Sheathes his sword, then pulls out the          shopping cart from the ditch and rights it. The woman watches          incredulously as he gathers up her supplies into the cart.                                        ELI                    Take it and go on your way. And                    don't fall in with men like these                    again. No good can come.                    She looks at him, puzzled.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    Why are you doing this?                    Eli says nothing. Walks back to the slain bandits, crouches          beside them and begins searching their bodies.                    He takes a scarf from around the neck of one. Finds a Zippo          lighter on another, checks that it works and pockets it.                    LATER                    The five bodies are lined neatly in the ditch, half-covered          with dirt. The best burial they are going to get.                    Eli stands before them, head bowed in prayer. He speaks          quietly and quickly, a speech he has given many times.                                                                             12.                                                  ELI                    God, the father of mercies, through                    the death and resurrection of his                    son has reconciled the world to                    himself and sent the holy spirit                    among us for the forgiveness of                    sins.                    The young woman stands a few yards away, watching him,          transfixed. She has never seen anyone like him.                                        ELI                    Through the ministry of the church                    may he give you pardon and peace,                    and I absolve you from your sins in                    the name of the father, and of the                    son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.                    He turns and walks away down the road, passing the woman.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    Thank you. You're... a good man.                                        ELI                    There are no good men on the road.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    Where are you going?                                        ELI                    West.                                        YOUNG WOMAN                    Can... can I come with you?                    He doesn't even turn back to look at her.                                        ELI                    No.                    He walks on, into the horizon.                    EXT. FREEWAY OVERPASS - DAY                    Straddling the desert like a giant, crumbling monument to a          long-dead civilization. Eli steadily climbs his way up.                    He comes to an abrupt stop as we realize suddenly that the          overpass has COLLAPSED at mid-point. RUSTED IRON RODS jut out          from where the roadway has been severed.                    Eli just stands there at the edge for a moment, feeling the          wind whip around him, his coat fluttering in the breeze.                                                                           13.                              The overpass's collapsed section is now just a MOUNTAINOUS          PILE OF RUBBLE that leads down to the road below.                    Eli steps onto the rubble. About to make his way down when he          FREEZES. He hears something. The faintest of sounds. He takes          cover, peering down at the road beneath the overpass to see:                    TWO PEOPLE walking together on the road. We see everything          from ELI'S P.O.V. - too far to make out much detail, but          apparently it is a MIDDLE-AGED COUPLE.                    The man pushes along an OLD WHEELBARROW covered by a tarp as          the woman, seemingly his wife, walks alongside. The barrow's          rusted wheel gives out a plaintive, rhythmic SQUEAK.                    Eli ducks down again as he hears something else. This time          much louder. The menacing growl of MOTORCYCLE ENGINES.                    FOUR BIKES IN TOTAL. Riding out of the horizon, closing in on          the couple. They see the bikes coming and panic. Try          desperately to steer the barrow off the road.                    The bikes screech to a halt and the FOUR RIDERS dismount.          Brandishing a variety of weapons. The couple make a run for          it but they're quickly chased down and tackled to the ground.                    The woman SCREAMS and struggles helplessly as the bikers          swarm over the man like a pack of predatory animals.                    The woman is pulled to the ground and the clothes stripped          from her. Eli turns away. He knows what comes next.                    Eli listens as the woman screams and screams. He reaches for          his shotgun... hesitates... then withdraws his hand.                                        ELI                    It ain't your concern. Stay on the                    path. It ain't your concern. Stay                    on the path.                    Eli repeats it like a mantra. He clearly wants to intervene,          but will not permit himself to. Instead, he simply sits and          waits grimly as the woman continues to scream for help. And          then finally, suddenly, is silenced.                    Down below, the bodies of the man and woman lay dead and          bloodied in the dirt. The bikers tear the tarp from the          wheelbarrow, spilling its contents onto the asphalt.                    They ferret through the items, scavenging a few items - we          don't see what - and stuffing them into an old cloth satchel.          They leave the rest strewn in the road and ride off in the          direction they came, dust pluming in their wake.                                                                           14.                              Eli waits until the sound of the motorcycles has receded into          the far distance before emerging from his hiding place.                    EXT. ROAD BENEATH OVERPASS - DAY                    Eli crouches on one knee before the murdered couple. He signs          a cross over their ravaged bodies as he mutters a prayer          under his breath. Then stands and continues on down the road.                    EXT. ROAD FORK - DAY                    More desolate wasteland as far as the eye can see. The road          forks again here. Eli arrives at the junction and stops.                    The road Eli is on leads further into the west. The other          fork heads toward a SMALL TOWN just visible on the horizon.                    A HAND-PAINTED SIGN has been driven into the dirt nearby. No          words, just a series of CRUDE PICTOGRAMS. A BED. A PLATE OF          FOOD. A WATER FAUCET. AN ARROW points toward the town.                    Eli pauses, thinking it over. Retrieves the iPod from his          pocket. Clicks the button, but no response. He sighs.                    He turns and heads down the other fork, toward town.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - OUTSKIRTS - DAY                    A primitive, sprawling village of tents and barn-like          structures. Built from corrugated iron, rotted wood, molded          plastic, tarpaulin - materials scavenged from the old world.                    HUDDLED RESIDENTS are dressed in little more than rags, many          wearing goggles like Eli's to shield their eyes from the sun.                    Eli stands at the edge of town. Reluctant to enter, but he          braces himself and walks on in. And as he rounds a corner,          entering the center of town, an astonishing sight:                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - CONTINUOUS                    The broad thoroughfare now all that remains of whatever town          once stood here. Many of the old storefronts still largely          intact but patched up with salvaged materials. The asphalt          street warped and cracked, parking meters bent and smashed.                    It's a lot like the abandoned town Eli passed through          earlier, except VERY MUCH ALIVE - BUSTLING WITH TOWNSFOLK.                    It's at once a familiar and also a disturbing sight - like an          old Norman Rockwell painting of classic small-town America,          but filtered through the devastating eye of an apocalypse. An          unsettling juxtaposition of the old world and the new.                                                                           15.                              The centerpiece of the town is a GRAND THEATER at the head of          the main street. THE PALLADIUM. Like the rest of the town,          badly damaged and shoddily fixed-up. But still standing.                    Eli walks down the street and approaches a BLACKSMITH,          hammering out a metal plate over an anvil outside his store.                                        ELI                    You got an engineer or a fuelman                    around here?                    The blacksmith doesn't look up from his work but motions          toward a storefront at the far end of the street.                                        ELI                    Thanks.                    Eli heads down the street. Stopping when he comes across a          STATUE erected in the center of the road. A TALL MAN crudely          fashioned in clay. One hand placed paternally on the head of          a SMALL CHILD, the other outstretched toward the sun.                    As he observes the statue, Eli notices that passing residents          take a moment to PAUSE AND GENUFLECT before it. Worshipping.                    Curious, Eli reaches up and runs his hand over the statue's          face. Then hears SHUFFLING FEET behind him and turns as a          PARADE OF EMACIATED MEN AND WOMEN trudges past. Roped          together at the waist, each man leading the one behind.                    Heads shaved, thin from malnutrition. And each one BLIND.          They gaze at the ground with pale, dead eyes. They carry          picks, shovels and other tools - a sightless CHAIN GANG.                    Eli watches as the pathetic parade shuffles past, herded like          cattle by a brutish CHAIN GANG BOSS who swats at them with a          stick to keep them moving and indicate direction.                                        CHAIN GANG BOSS                    Come on, move it!                    The gang boss glares at Eli as he passes by. Eli doesn't          return the look, just continues crossing the street as the          blind are herded away. Headed toward a wooden building with a          pictogram of a LIGHTNING BOLT suspended above the door.                    INT. ENGINEER WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS                    Whatever this place once was, it's now a kind of POST-          APOCALYPTIC RADIO SHACK. Shelves display a variety of goods.          Engine parts. Old electrical wiring. Small appliances.                    An old ELECTRIC GENERATOR rumbles noisily, powering strings          of multi-colored CHRISTMAS LIGHTS that hang all around.                                                                            16.                              Behind the main counter a convoluted Rube Goldberg-esque          STILL is running. An ENGINEER in a leather apron pours the          remnants of a can of motor oil into the still's funnel.                    Attached to the still is an old MOTORCYCLE MIRROR. In its          reflection the engineer sees Eli checking out the store.                    Without turning around, he reaches surreptitiously behind the          counter for something.                    Eli turns toward the counter - to find the engineer training          a PUMP-ACTION SHOTGUN right at him.                                        ENGINEER                    I don't know you.                    Eli slowly raises his hands.                                        ELI                    I'm not from around here.                                        ENGINEER                    No shit. Who are you?                                        ELI                    I'm just a customer.                                        ENGINEER                    A customer with a shotgun?                    He nods toward the shotgun visible on Eli's backpack.                                        ENGINEER                    You come in here to rip me off?                    The engineer's hands tremble, his finger tight on the          trigger. This man needs to be talked down carefully.                                        ELI                    No. I'll set it down. Okay?                                        ENGINEER                    Slowly!                    Eli nods. Unhitches the pack and sets it down, steps away.                                        ENGINEER                    You carry a gun in the outland, you                    don't bring one into town less you                    live there. Don't you know that?                                        ELI                    I'm sorry, I forgot. I've been on                    the road a long time.                                                                              17.                              This seems to make the engineer more suspicious of Eli.                                        ENGINEER                    Show me your hand.                                           ELI                    I'm not a-                    The engineer jerks the shotgun at Eli nervously.                                        ENGINEER                    I said show me your fucking hand!                    Eli raises his hand and holds it outstretched, palm faced          downward. The engineer watches it closely for any sign of          ticks or tremors, but Eli's hand stays steady as a rock.                                        ELI                    I'm not one of them.                    The sight of the steady hand seems to reassure the engineer a          little. Finally, he lowers the shotgun.                                        ENGINEER                    What do you want?                                        ELI                    I'm just passing through. I need                    some help. I can pay.                                        ENGINEER                    What kinda help? And what kinda                    pay?                                        ELI                    I'm going to get something out of                    my pack. Okay?                    The engineer raises the shotgun nervously again.                                        ELI                    I know, I know. Slowly.                    The engineer watches him like a hawk as Eli opens up his pack          and pulls out the car battery. When he sees it, he gasps.                                           ENGINEER                    Holy shit.                    Eli places it on the counter. The engineer looks it over with          awe, like it's a priceless historical artifact.                                        ENGINEER                    Where'd you find this?                                                                           18.                                                  ELI                    Years ago, in the outland back east                    aways.                                        ENGINEER                    Does it work?                                        ELI                    Yeah, it just needs a charge. Can                    you do it? I got the cables.                                        ENGINEER                    Depends if you also got the coin.                    Eli pulls the Zippo lighter from his pocket. The engineer          picks it up, sparks the flint, watches the flame flicker.                                        ENGINEER                    It'll take a couple hours. There's                    a bar across the street you can                    wait, they just opened up.                                        ELI                    I'll wait here.                                        ENGINEER                    You don't trust me?                                        ELI                        (SMILES)                    I don't know you.                    INT. PALLADIUM - AUDITORIUM - DAY                    This once grand theater have been largely gutted - seats torn          out, fixtures and fittings stripped, curtains ripped from the          stage. But still, there's a sense of grandeur to this place.                    Looking out over the stage, a ROYAL BOX - once the most          prestigious seat in the house - has been converted into an          OFFICE of sorts. Seats removed and replaced by an ORNATE          MAHOGANY DESK facing inward, a CHANDELIER suspended above it.                    The whole set-up is gaudy and ostentatious - the work of          someone who wants to project an aura of power and wealth, but          has no taste whatsoever.                    A TALL MAN is seated in a battered leather armchair behind          the desk, deeply involved in an OLD PAPERBACK BOOK.                    The book's cover is faded and partially torn away, the title          still just visible: 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE.                                                                             19.                              The man is OLDER than most we've seen. His skin weathered by          the elements and by a long life's experience. One of the very          few people we've seen in this world close to Eli's age - and          unlike everyone else we've seen, he appears healthy and well-          groomed. A rich mane of hair, full set of teeth.                    He wears a tattered SUIT AND TIE. None of it matches,          everything scavenged from different outfits and eras. But he          looks almost civilized. Respectable. His name is CARNEGIE.                    He looks up from his book at the sound of a POLITE COUGH O.S.                    REDRIDGE stands before him. Tall, powerfully built.                                        CARNEGIE                    What is it?                    His accent is like caramel. A RICH, DEEP-SOUTH DRAWL.                                        REDRIDGE                    Survey team just finished up their                    inspection. It ain't good.                    Carnegie lowers his book. Concerned.                                        CARNEGIE                    How bad is it?                                        REDRIDGE                    Pressure is down again, and going                    by the new rod they sank levels're                    lower than they've ever been.                    Carnegie stands. Thinking. This is bad news.                                          CARNEGIE                    How long?                                        REDRIDGE                    Hard to say. Six months, maybe. A                    little longer if we're careful. But                    we're already-                                        CARNEGIE                    Halve the rations.                                        REDRIDGE                    We just halved `em last-                                        CARNEGIE                    So halve them again!                    BEAT. Carnegie stares Redridge down. Nobody but nobody          questions his orders.                                                                           20.                                                  REDRIDGE                    You're going to have to say                    something. Folks were none too                    happy last time. Gonna be worse                    now, you can count on it.                    Carnegie sighs, rubs his brow. He knows Redridge is right.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - DAY                    A LARGE CROWD OF TOWNSFOLK - several hundred strong - has          assembled outside the Palladium theater. AN ARMED CREW OF          CARNEGIE'S GOONS keeps watch over the crowd.                    Carnegie stands on a BALCONY above the theater marquee. He          treats the balcony like a pulpit, speaking through a          MICROPHONE connected to an old PA SYSTEM that carries his          words to the far reaches of the crowd.                                        CARNEGIE                    I want you all to remember how far                    we've come together. And how far we                    still can go, if only we believe.                    When I brought us here to this                    oasis - this promised land - we                    knew there would be hardships. Knew                    there would be sacrifices. But we                    also knew that we were creating for                    ourselves a world where we could be                    safe from the horrors of the                    forsaken lands beyond our borders.                    The crowd listens intently, hanging on Carnegie's every word.          He is an incredibly charismatic and persuasive speaker - his          cultivated image and inspiring, confident delivery remind us          of a TELEVISION EVANGELIST.                                        CARNEGIE                    And I want you all to remember                    above all that it is not the water                    with which we have been blessed                    that is the true lifeblood of this                    town... but faith.                    This sends a MURMUR OF DISCONTENT through the crowd. Many          don't like where they suspect this may be going. Carnegie          senses this and dials up his rhetoric - delivering it now          with the fire-brand passion of an old-time baptist preacher.                                        CARNEGIE                    It is our faith that sustains us,                    brothers and sisters! Hallelujah!                                                                           21.                              The crowd is divided. Many return the "Hallelujah" with          varying levels of conviction. Others are not convinced. But          Carnegie continues unabated, selling it harder than ever.                                        CARNEGIE                    And mark me, the ultimate                    validation of that faith is coming!                    The sacred Word of Our Lord that                    formed the world before and will                    reform it once again is coming to                    this town to bring it succor, bring                    it nourishment, bring it new life!                    For the Almighty Himself has spoken                    unto me and promised it!                    Carnegie is such an impassioned and inspiring speaker it's          almost impossible not to get caught up and swept away by his          words. His apparently unshakable belief is infectious.                                         CARNEGIE                    In the meantime, He has asked us                    all to be patient. To walk the hard                    road of the faithful just a little                    longer. And to do that, we must                    give just a little more.                        (BEAT)                    Water rations will be halved until                    further notice.                    This sends a much broader ripple of discontent through the          crowd - this news has not been received well at all. Some          still "keep the faith" but many more are perturbed by this.                    Carnegie motions for the crowd to settle down.                                        CARNEGIE                    I understand your frustration. The                    road to salvation is a difficult                    one - but what lies at the end of                    that road is a greater glory,                    beyond anything you can imagine.                    A DISCONTENTED VILLAGER steps forward, pushing through the          crowd and jabbing his finger angrily up at Carnegie.                                        DISCONTENTED VILLAGER                    We've heard this all before! When                    are you going to-                    Carnegie's goons quickly move in and efficiently SILENCE THE          MAN, removing him from the crowd. Dissent is not tolerated          here. Carnegie goes on speaking as if nothing had happened.                                                                           22.                                                   CARNEGIE                    I know each and every one of you                    will understand the necessity of                    this action. It was faith that                    built this town - and faith that                    will sustain it even through the                    dark times that may lie ahead. But                    it is always darkest before dawn -                    and the new dawn is coming.                        (BEAT)                    May God go with you all.                    Carnegie steps back inside, leaving the crowd to talk among          themselves, clearly mixed about what they have heard.                    As the assembled townsfolk disperse, FOUR MOTORCYCLES roar          into town and pull up outside the Palladium.                    As the riders dismount, one detaches a CLOTH SATCHEL from his          bike's cargo rack. The four riders head inside. They each          have long, straggly hair and brutish expressions.                    We recognize them now as the BIKER BANDITS who killed the          couple on the road under the freeway overpass.                    INT. PALLADIUM - SECOND FLOOR - DAY                    Carnegie emerges into the second-floor hallway from the          balcony, mopping his brow. Exhausted and stressed from his          grand theatrical display, and from its mixed reception.                    Redridge climbs the stairs to meet him.                                         REDRIDGE                    One of the road crews just rolled                    into town.                    Carnegie looks at his cracked old wristwatch.                                        CARNEGIE                    Of course they did, the bar's open.                    Outlanders, always looking for                    answers at the bottom of a bottle.                                         REDRIDGE                    Not these guys.                        (BEAT)                    These guys say they got something.                    That gets Carnegie's attention.                                        CARNEGIE                    Get them up here now.                                                                           23.                              INT. PALLADIUM - MAIN LOBBY - DAY                    What was once a grand, gilded entrance foyer has, like the          rest of the theater, been largely gutted. But it's still          impressive - a spacious bar area with a grand staircase          leading up to a second floor, entrance to balcony seats, etc.          FADED OLD THEATER POSTERS still hang from the walls.                    The place has been shabbily converted into a kind of SALOON.          Old ripped-out theater seats arranged around tables. A          FIREPLACE sputters dimly.                    A MANGY TABBY CAT walks across the straw-laden floor. A dozen          or so CUSTOMERS in the place, a mixed, rough-looking bunch.                    Redridge emerges from an upstairs room and nods to a group of          his MEN who are holding the bikers at the foot of the stairs.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - CARNEGIE'S BOX                    Carnegie checks his reflection in a CRACKED HAND MIRROR,          licks his palm and slicks his hair back. He adjusts his tie          as Redridge's men usher the bikers into his "office".                    Carnegie wheels around and flashes a smile at them. Just as          when he gave his balcony address, Carnegie is in performance          mode - charismatic and slick like a campaigning politician.                                        CARNEGIE                    Gentlemen! It's truly a delight to                    see you again! I understand your                    latest excursion into the outland                    has been a profitable one?                    The bikers exchange looks. They understood maybe half the          words in that sentence. The lead biker - named HOG - speaks.                                        HOG                    We did good.                                        CARNEGIE                    Well, let's see, shall we?                    Hog tips the satchel's contents out onto Carnegie's desk.                    BOOKS. About a dozen different volumes of all shapes and          sizes. Carnegie rifles excitedly through the collection.                    We see various titles as he sorts through them. Treasure          Island. The Da Vinci Code. A volume of encyclopedia. The          Diary of Anne Frank. Tuesdays with Morrie.                    In amongst the books are a few MAGAZINES. An old issue of          OPRAH magazine. A torn copy of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED...                                                                           24.                              ...And a NEWSWEEK. The cover graphic illustrates OPPOSING          NUCLEAR ARSENALS over a world globe. On one side the STARS          AND STRIPES, on the other flags indicating a SINO-ISLAMIC          ALLIANCE. The headline reads: "IS THERE NO TURNING BACK?"                                        CARNEGIE                    No. No. No. No. No.                    As Carnegie rejects each book with growing disappointment and          frustration, it's clear he's looking for a specific volume.                                        CARNEGIE                    It's not here.                                        HOG                    These ain't worth nothin'?                                        CARNEGIE                    When you bring me the book I asked                    you for, it'll be worth something.                    The bikers exchange more looks. An unspoken conversation.                                        HOG                    We been doin' this a long time now.                    Had to make a whole lotta corpses                    to bring you all these books. You                    want us to keep at it, reckon it's                    worth more than a few free glasses                    of that swill you call liquor.                    Carnegie's guards bristle, ready for a confrontation.          Carnegie just smiles, always ready to smooth things over.                                        CARNEGIE                    Gentlemen, gentlemen. I urge you                    once again to take the long view                    here. When we find this book - and                    believe me, we will find it - we                    are going to build a new world. A                    world far greater, far more                    righteous than this one. And you                    and I are going to be perched right                    on top of it, looking down upon it,                    masters of all creation!                    As always, his carefully stage-managed rhetoric is delivered          with the utmost conviction, every word dripping with passion          and persuasion. He's a master salesman, a true huckster.                                        CARNEGIE                    And you know, I think you're                    absolutely right.                              (MORE)                                                                           25.                                        CARNEGIE (cont'd)                    That is worth more than a few                    glasses of liquor. A whole lot                    more.                    He steps forward and looks Hog right in the eye. His gaze          like a laser beam, utterly disarming.                                        CARNEGIE                    The book I want is out there                    somewhere, just waiting to be                    found. Once there were millions of                    copies - you only need to find one!                    Find it and bring it here. And I                    promise you, you will be rewarded                    beyond anything you can imagine.                    It's impossible not to be swayed by this guy. He's just so          full of fiery passion and infectious belief, you almost want          to reach into your pocket and hand over your wallet.                    Hog snatches up his empty satchel.                                        HOG                    This better not be bullshit.                    He turns and marches to the door, the other bikers following.          The guards escort them out, only Redridge remains.                    Carnegie slumps back into his chair, frustrated, pissed off.                                        REDRIDGE                    Might help if they knew just what                    they were looking for.                                        CARNEGIE                    Not one of them can read. How would                    they even know when they found it?                                        REDRIDGE                    So how's about you just tell me?                    Carnegie and Redridge lock eyes. BEAT.                                        REDRIDGE                    Two years now you been sending                    these crews into the outland.                    Burning up gas we can barely spare.                    For a goddamn book? What the hell                    kinda book can be worth all this?                    Carnegie ignores him. Stands, walks toward the door. Redridge          sighs, gestures toward the books piled on Carnegie's desk.                                                                           26.                                                  REDRIDGE                    What about these?                                        CARNEGIE                    Put them with the others.                    INT. PALLADIUM - MAIN LOBBY - DAY                    Redridge stands by the marble fireplace, tossing the books          into the fire. The flames flicker and leap around the books          as their pages blacken and are consumed by the fire.                    INT. ENGINEER WORKSHOP - DAY                    Eli watches as the engineer charges the battery with the gas          generator, which chugs noisily.                    He licks his lips, dry as sand. Unscrews his canteen to take          a drink, but it's down to its last few drips.                                        ELI                    What's this place across the                    street? They got any water?                                        ENGINEER                    We got our own underground spring                    here. Only fresh water in a hundred                    miles - if's you can pay for it.                    Eli thinks a while longer. Then stands and stuffs his shotgun          inside his pack, shoulders his gear and makes for the door.                                        ELI                    I'll be back.                    Eli stops in the doorway and turns back to the engineer.                                        ELI                    If that battery ain't here when I                    get back, I will use this gun on                    your kneecaps and I will put this                    building to the torch and I will                    watch it burn to the ground with                    you alive inside it. So help me                    God.                    And with that he turns and leaves. The engineer gulps. Not a          hint in Eli's voice that he didn't mean every word.                    INT. PALLADIUM - CARNEGIE'S BEDROOM - DAY                    This old second-floor DRESSING ROOM has been converted into a          bedroom, simply furnished.                                                                             27.                              A WOMAN stands in front of an old DRESSING ROOM MIRROR, the          bulbs around the frame burned-out and broken. She washes her          face in murky water in an old PORCELAIN BOWL on the dresser.                    Her name is CLAUDIA. Early 30s, pretty. She gazes into the          mirror as she dries her hands, but it's so cracked and warped          it's near impossible to see a reflection.                    The door opens and Carnegie enters. He still looks steamed.          Claudia doesn't turn to look at him, keeps facing the mirror.                                        CLAUDIA                    Is that you, honey?                    Carnegie says nothing. Just paces angrily up and down.          Finally Claudia turns to face him.                                        CLAUDIA                    Something wrong?                                        CARNEGIE                    More books came in from the road                    today.                                        CLAUDIA                    Oh? It's been a while.                                        CARNEGIE                    And it'll be a while longer. Just                    another pile of useless junk. If we                    don't find the right one soon - if                    I can't give these people what they                    want to hear...                    Carnegie trails off, the thought too awful to contemplate.          Claudia adopts a sympathetic expression, supportive.                                        CLAUDIA                    You'll find what you're looking                    for. It's out there somewhere. You                    just have to have faith.                    This seems to anger Carnegie. He wheels on her.                                        CARNEGIE                    Faith? Is that what you think we're                    missing around here?                    She detects the aggressive tone in his voice and goes quiet,          head bowed. Carnegie moves toward her angrily.                                        CARNEGIE                    My old man used to have faith. He                    had it in spades. My mother, too.                              (MORE)                                                                              28.                                        CARNEGIE (cont'd)                    You know where it got them? You                    know where it got me?                    He's in her face now. Claudia avoids eye contact, submissive.                                        CARNEGIE                    Faith is for the weak. It's for                    them out there, the sheep. This                    world is what you can see and touch                    and taste. It's what you make it.                    All these years with me, you still                    don't have any grasp of that?                    What's wrong with you, woman?                    He's shouting now, and she's trembling, afraid to speak.                                           CLAUDIA                    I'm sorry.                    Carnegie realizes he's frightened her. He softens.                                        CARNEGIE                    No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to                    scare you. Hey. You okay?                    He lifts her chin up, wipes away a tear.                                        CARNEGIE                    You just get me all riled up with                    that kind of talk. It's not what I                    need from you right now.                        (SMILES)                    You know what I need right now?                    He puts his hands on her lustfully. It's clear she's not in          the mood, but she halfheartedly responds anyway. More out of          a sense of wifely duty than reciprocated passion.                    As they kiss, Carnegie pushes her excitedly against the wall          and feverishly begins unbuckling his pants.                    INT. PALLADIUM - MAIN LOBBY - DAY                    The original customers have now been joined by the four          bikers, who sit at their own table drinking a clear and          pungent moonshine-type liquor from a shared jar.                    Eli enters. All eyes are on him immediately, regarding him          with guarded interest as he pulls up a stool at the bar.                    The BARTENDER approaches, looks him up and down. Suspicious.                                        BARTENDER                    Outlander? Let me see-                                                                           29.                              Eli raises his hand as before. Holds it outstretched, steady.                                        BARTENDER                    What'll it be?                    Eli places the canteen on the bar.                                        ELI                    Water.                                        BARTENDER                    That's the good stuff. Gotta eat                    into my own ration to sell it - so                    I don't sell it cheap.                    Eli takes off his scarf and puts it on the bar. The bartender          takes it and looks it over. Not particularly impressed.                                        BARTENDER                    That'll get you maybe half-way.                    The bartender spies Eli's silver Saint Christopher pendant.                                        BARTENDER                    What about that?                    Eli stuffs the pendant inside his shirt. No way that's for          sale. Instead, he reaches into his coat and produces the fur          pelts he skinned from the dead cat, lays them out on the bar.                                        ELI                    That's the best I got.                    The bartender takes a pelt and examines it. The mangy cat          leaps up onto the bar and approaches. Sniffs at the pelts          with suspicion and HISSES at Eli.                    Eli shoos the cat off the bar with a wave of his hand. At the          biker's table Hog watches this, not happy about this.                    Satisfied with the pelts, the bartender gathers them up along          with the scarf, then turns away toward the back room.                                        BARTENDER                    Solara!                    A TEENAGE GIRL emerges from the back. No older than 16 or 17.          Dressed in unflattering work clothes, face grimy, blonde hair          tied back in a ponytail. But even through all this, it's          clear she is a strikingly beautiful young woman.                    The bartender takes Eli's canteen and hands it to Solara          along with a RATION CARD he keeps around his neck.                                                                           30.                                                  BARTENDER                    Take this out back and get it                    filled.                    Solara takes the canteen, pausing for a moment to look Eli up          and down. Unsure quite what to make of him, but intrigued.          There's something about him she can't put her finger on...                    He doesn't look back at her. She turns and exits.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - CONTINUOUS                    Solara exits via the Palladium's STAGE DOOR and walks across          the busy street to where TWO OF CARNEGIE'S ARMED MEN stand          guard around an ENCLOSURE OF CHAIN-LINK FENCE TOPPED WITH          RAZOR WIRE. TOWNSFOLK wait in line with bowls and buckets.                    One of the guards recognizes Solara and lets her cut to the          front of the line. He punches two holes in her ration card          and lets her inside the chain-link enclosure.                    Inside is an OLD RUSTED SPIGOT attached to a pipe emerging          from the earth. Solara cranks hard on the handle - it takes a          few pulls before the water comes, and then only at a weak          trickle; it will take a while to fill the canteen.                    INT. PALLADIUM - MAIN LOBBY - CONTINUOUS                    As Eli sits at the bar, a SHADOW comes into view and looms          large over him. Hog is standing behind him, glaring, cutting          a menacing figure in his armored cycle leathers.                    Solara senses trouble brewing and moves off, taking Eli's          canteen away into the back room.                                        HOG                    That was my cat.                    Eli doesn't turn. Just looks straight ahead. Impossible to          read him behind those mirrored goggles. Utterly inscrutable.                                        ELI                    Fine specimen.                                        HOG                    I saw you push him off the bar.                                        ELI                    I didn't push him.                                        HOG                    You raised your hand at him.                                                                           31.                                                  ELI                    Sorry. It won't happen again.                    The bartender looks at Hog nervously.                                        BARTENDER                    Hey, how about another drink, Hog?                                        HOG                    That cat's been comin' in here for                    nigh on two years. It got more                    right to be here than you. Who the                    fuck do you think you are?                                        ELI                    I don't want any trouble.                    Hog grabs him by the arm.                                        HOG                    Well, that's too bad, `cause-                    Blink. Suddenly Hog's head is pinned to the bar by nothing          more than Eli's thumb. Pressed deep into a nerve cluster in          his neck. Eli leans in close as Hog whimpers, paralyzed.                                        ELI                    I know you. Murderer of innocent                    travelers on the road. You're going                    to spend eternity drowning in a                    lake of fire for the things that                    you've done. Did you know that?                    The other bikers stand and approach, the OTHER CUSTOMERS          following suit. Eli senses the trouble gathering behind him.                                        ELI                    You go on back to your table and                    I'll be on my way. All right?                    It's all Hog can do to just barely nod his head. Eli releases          his thumb. Hog staggers backward, gasping for breath.                    Eli stands and makes toward the door, but the bikers and          other patrons have moved to block his exit.                                        BURLY PATRON                    You push Hog, you push all of us.                    Eli sighs, looks down at the floor. He's been pushed one time          too many today. For the first time, we see anger in his face.                                                                              32.                                                  ELI                    Cursed be the ground because of                    you. By toil shall you eat of it.                    Thorns and thistles shall it sprout                    for you. From the ground were you                    taken. For dust you are.                    The patrons look at Eli strangely. Who is this guy?                    Eli reaches back and draws the samurai sword. Carves a line          in the dirt at his feet with the tip of the blade.                                        ELI                    And to dust you shall return.                    INT. PALLADIUM - CARNEGIE'S BEDROOM - DAY                    Carnegie has Claudia pinned against the wall, his pants          bunched around his ankles, ass bared as he pounds away at          her. Not making love. This is mechanical, loveless sex.                    Claudia stares vacantly over his shoulder into space as          Carnegie thrusts into her again and again. Deeply          uninterested, just waiting for it to be over.                    Suddenly, we hear a CRASH O.S. Carnegie stops and listens.                                        CARNEGIE                    Did you hear that? What was that?                    Claudia sees an opening to get out of this.                                        CLAUDIA                    Maybe you should go check.                    BEAT. Carnegie keeps listening. Then comes another CRASH.                                        CARNEGIE                    What in the hell is going on?                    He pulls up his pants, grabbing a RIFLE propped by the door          as he rushes out. Claudia just stands there for a moment,          then reaches down and pulls up her panties.                    She moves from the wall and makes her way across the room,          feeling her way with her hands, gazing off into nothingness.          Only now do we finally realize that she is BLIND.                    INT. PALLADIUM - MAIN LOBBY - CONTINUOUS                    Carnegie emerges from the bedroom onto the balcony. Looks          down over the railing - and is stunned by what he sees.                                                                           33.                              CHAOS in the bar below. Eli cutting a one-man swath of mayhem          through the dozen brawlers. Most already lie dead. TWO MORE          MEN ATTACK Eli and are effortlessly felled by his sword.                    Carnegie rushes hurriedly along the landing, banging loudly          on the doors of the upstairs rooms.                                        CARNEGIE                    Get your asses out here!                    ON ELI. Surrounded by the dead, only one man left standing.          Hog. He backs away as Eli circles him like a predator. Sword          held ready, the blade glistening with dark red blood.                    SOLARA re-emerges from the back room with Eli's refilled          canteen. She stops and emits a horrified GASP when she sees          the bloody carnage laid out in the bar before her.                    She watches, mortified, as Eli moves toward the helpless,          terrified Hog, going in for the kill. Raising his sword...                    Suddenly, Solara steps forward and CRIES OUT:                                           SOLARA                    Stop!                    Eli FREEZES. Sword hanging in the air, poised to strike. He          turns his head to where Solara stands behind the bar.                                        SOLARA                    Please don't.                    BEAT as Eli considers. He looks back at Hog, still completely          at his mercy... and then LOWERS THE SWORD.                                           ELI                    Go.                                        HOG                        (CONFUSED)                    ...What?                                        ELI                    It ain't for me to judge you. Your                    time for that's gonna come. Believe                    me. Now go on. Get out of here.                    Hog stumbles backward through the door, into the sunlight.          Eli moves toward Solara, who stands petrified behind the bar.          Reaches out and gently pries the canteen from her loose grip.                                           ELI                    Thank you.                                                                              34.                              In the exitway, Hog turns back inside, grabbing up a BROKEN          BOTTLE from the bloody floor as he goes.                    Hog rushes Eli from behind. Solara sees him coming and goes          to SCREAM - but before any sound can come, Eli flips his          sword backward and Hog runs right onto it, SKEWERING HIMSELF.                    BEAT. Hog just stands there for a moment, eyes wide, frozen          in shock. His fingers go limp, dropping the bottle.                    He slides off the sword and collapses to the floor, dead.                    Eli wipes the sword clean and sheathes it. Looks around at          the bloodied, fallen bodies. Then back at Solara.                                        ELI                    I'm sorry for all the mess.                    As he turns and heads toward the door:                                        CARNEGIE (O.S.)                    Hold it right there.                    Accompanied by the sound of MULTIPLE GUNS COCKING.                    Carnegie is on the landing, training his rifle down at Eli.          Alongside him, FIVE GUNMEN do the same. They've got him cold.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - CARNEGIE'S BOX                    Carnegie sits at his desk, the huge auditorium and stage area          visible behind him. Eli stands before him. Around him are the          other gunmen, who keep their weapons trained on him.                    Standing at Carnegie's side are REDRIDGE and CLAUDIA.                                        CARNEGIE                    So, who are you?                                        ELI                    Nobody. A walker in the outland.                                        CARNEGIE                    I've met walkers before. Not a                    particularly civilized bunch. Some                    have even taken to eating their own                    kind, did you know that? You                    wouldn't be one of those savages                    now, would you?                    Carnegie's gunmen look him over, inspecting him warily.                                        CARNEGIE GUNMAN                    He ain't got the shakes.                                                                            35.                              Carnegie's confident gaze remains fixed on Eli throughout.                                        CARNEGIE                    Good. This is a civilized town.                    Under God. Do you know what that                    means?                    Eli can't help but react at the mention of that word.                                        CARNEGIE                    It means we have laws here. Laws                    set down long before any of us ever                    walked this earth. And one of them                    is, you don't eat the flesh of your                    brother. Else you're no better than                    an animal. And not welcome here.                    Eli doesn't respond. Just stands there in Carnegie's gaze.                                        CARNEGIE                    So what's your business here,                    friend? Walkers don't usually come                    into town less they want something.                                        ELI                    I had a battery needed charging and                    a canteen needed filling. I didn't                    come here looking for trouble.                    Barely noticeable, Carnegie gestures to one of the gunmen,          who nods in acknowledgement and leaves.                                        CARNEGIE                    Well, you sure as hell found it. Do                    you know who I am?                                        ELI                    No.                                        CARNEGIE                    My name's Carnegie. I own this bar.                    I own the whole town. You've never                    heard of me?                                        ELI                    That's you out there on the street.                                        CARNEGIE                    Remarkable likeness, isn't it?                    You'd never guess half the men who                    built it were blind. A small                    tribute from a grateful people. I                    was deeply touched.                                                                           36.                                                  ELI                    You had slaves build you a monument                    to yourself?                    The mention of that word rankles Carnegie. He walks around          the desk toward Eli, waves an admonishing finger at him.                                        CARNEGIE                    Don't call them slaves. That's an                    old word. I'm not a slaver. I'm                    trying to help these people.                    Carnegie can't help himself - once again he is in his natural          element, spinning the argument his way, pitching. Selling.                                         CARNEGIE                    In the outland the sightless are                    preyed upon like sick animals. Here                    at least they're protected. They do                    the essential work others don't                    want. And in return they eat, they                    drink, they survive. Last year, a                    couple of them even got married -                    performed the ceremony myself.                        (BEAT)                    You see, I'm not exploiting these                    people - I'm saving them! Any one                    of them is free to leave whenever                    they wish. But here they stay. And                    they thank me every single day for                    their salvation!                    An impressive, impassioned performance. He sounds just like          an old-school TV evangelist. But Eli is unmoved.                                        ELI                    It's none of my business what you                    do here. Like you said, it's your                    town. I just want to be on my way.                                        CARNEGIE                    What's your name, walker?                    Eli doesn't respond. Just stands there.                                        CARNEGIE                    All right, I guess we just call you                    Walker. Don't see too many folks                    your age these days. You lived in                    the world before? You can read?                                        ELI                    I read every day.                                                          37.                                        CARNEGIE          That's good. Good man. We educated          folk, we need to stick together, if          we're ever going to rebuild this          world. People like you and me,          we're the future.                              ELI          What do you want with me?                               CARNEGIE          Straight to the point. I like that.          Fact is, you could be in a lot of          trouble. This is a peaceful town.          You walk in here, armed, and the          next thing a dozen of my good          citizens are dead. I've hanged men          for less. I could hang you.              (BEAT)          Or, you could come work for me.                              ELI          What?                              CARNEGIE          I never once saw anyone handle          themselves the way you did down          there in that bar. I don't know          where you learned it, but I sure as          hell could use it.                              ELI          I'm not interested.                              CARNEGIE          People who work for me can live          better than any walker ever          dreamed. Real beds, clean water,          hot food. Women, even. You could do          a lot worse, my friend.                              ELI          I'm not your friend. And I'm not          staying. I got someplace I need to          be. Out west.                              CARNEGIE          West? There is nothing west. It's          all gone, a long time ago.                              ELI          I've been told different.                                                                              38.                                                  CARNEGIE                    By who?                    Eli doesn't reply. Carnegie smiles, dials up the charm.                                        CARNEGIE                    All right, look. I'm going to make                    you an offer of goodwill. Stay the                    night, think it over. Try a little                    local hospitality. We'll talk again                    in the morning. If you're still not                    interested, you're free to go. No                    hard feelings.                                        ELI                    Thank you for your offer. But I'd                    prefer to just leave right now. So                    you can either let me out of here,                    or I can kill my way out.                    The gunmen bristle, exchange nervous looks. Carnegie appears          unfazed. He smiles. BEAT. He looks to the gunman at the door.                                        CARNEGIE                    Let him go.                    The gunman opens the door. Eli turns and exits.                    INT. ENGINEER WORKSHOP - DAY                    The engineer stands behind the counter, looking worried. His          heart sinks when he sees Eli enter.                                        ENGINEER                    Oh, shit...                                        ELI                    How's my battery?                                        ENGINEER                    It's, uh... it's gonna take a                    little longer than I thought.                                        ELI                    How much longer?                                        ENGINEER                    It's gotta charge overnight. You,                    uh, you can always stay here in                    town, pick it up in the morning.                    Eli leans in a little closer. He smells a rat.                                                                              39.                                                  ELI                    You remember what I said would                    happen if I came back here and you                    didn't have my battery?                                        ENGINEER                    It's right here! It's just gonna                    take a while longer. I swear.                    Eli looks at the engineer. Hard to be certain, but he's          pretty sure he's lying. Somebody got to him.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - CARNEGIE'S BOX                    A VIOLENT COMMOTION is heard from down the hall. Suddenly one          of Carnegie's henchmen comes flying into view as he is THROWN          HARD INTO A WALL and slumps to the floor, unconscious.                    Eli storms into the box, pissed. MORE GUARDS rush in behind          him. Carnegie, seated behind his desk, waves the guards off          as he stands to greet Eli, smiling ingratiatingly as ever.                                        CARNEGIE                    I knew you'd reconsider.                                        ELI                    Yeah? How'd you know that?                                        CARNEGIE                    None of the walkers I've seen come                    here from the outland were ever                    what you'd call smart. I mean all                    those years out there alone on the                    road, some with their brains half-                    fried from eating each other - it's                    understandable why you people                    aren't the brightest bulbs in the                    box. But I never met one so dumb                    that he'd turn down a meal and a                    bed if it was offered.                                        ELI                    So you didn't send someone across                    the street to the engineer?                                        CARNEGIE                    Engineer? I don't know what you're                    talking about. If there's something                    wrong, maybe I can help.                    Carnegie is a practiced liar. Much more difficult to read.                                                                           40.                                                  CARNEGIE                    This is Redridge. He's kind of my                    right-hand man around here.                    Redridge - one of the two men who chased Eli into the room -          steps forward. He regards Eli with a distrustful eye.                                        CARNEGIE                    He'll show you to your room.                    INT. PALLADIUM - GUEST BEDROOM - DUSK                    Redridge opens the door and ushers Eli inside.                    It's another of the dressing rooms converted into a bedroom,          less well-appointed than Carnegie's own. A threadbare rug.          Bed with relatively clean sheets. A sink for washing.                                        REDRIDGE                    Enjoy your stay. There'll be                    someone outside your room all                    night. If you need anything.                    Redridge smirks and closes the door, leaving Eli alone. Eli          paces across the room. Finally sits down on the creaky old          bed. Trying to figure out how he managed to get stuck here.                    He unshoulders his pack, sets it down. Lies down on the bed.          It's been a while since he felt a real bed on his back.                    A KNOCK at the door. Eli gets quickly to his feet.                                        ELI                    Hello?                    The door opens and CLAUDIA enters. Carrying a metal tub of          water in both hands and, atop that, a dinner tray.                                        CLAUDIA                    I have this for you. Water for                    washing and some food.                    Eli just stands there. Totally unfamiliar with this kind of          situation, it's been too long. She smiles, embarrassed.                                        CLAUDIA                    Well... are you going to take it?                                        ELI                    Oh. Thank you.                    He takes the stuff from her, sets it on the table.                                                                           41.                                                  CLAUDIA                    You're very welcome.                    We get the impression that Claudia is as unfamiliar with this          kind of polite interaction as Eli. But she likes it.                                        CLAUDIA                    It'll be dark soon.                    She strikes a match and lights the oil lamp on the table. The          room is lit by its flickering glow.                                        CLAUDIA                    Can I get you anything else?                                        ELI                    No, thank you.                                        CLAUDIA                    Well. Have a good night.                    As she turns for the door:                                        ELI                    You're Carnegie's woman?                                        CLAUDIA                    Why do you ask?                                        ELI                    Just making conversation is all.                    Haven't had one of those in a                    while. Not a real one, leastways.                    Claudia smiles. Neither has she.                                        CLAUDIA                    He found me in the outland. I was                    sixteen, my family had been...                    well, they were gone. There was                    just me and my baby.                                        ELI                    You had a baby?                                        CLAUDIA                    I'd met some men on the road. Bad                    men. They...                    BEAT. She trails off, struggling with this unhappy memory.          Eli gets it, raises a hand reassuringly.                                        ELI                    It's all right.                                                                            42.                                                  CLAUDIA                    I was on the road for a year after                    that. I couldn't feed myself, let                    alone my little girl. And then Bill                    found us and he promised he'd take                    care of us. He told me he was going                    to make a place where we could be                    safe. And he did. He did all that.                    He built this whole town. He kept                    us safe. And he raised that child                    like she was his own. He's been so                    good to both of us. He saved us,                    really.                    There's a bittersweet quality to Claudia's words. As though          there is more to the story than she is telling.                    Eli pulls out a chair at the table, offers it to her.                                        ELI                    You want to eat some?                    She smiles and sits. Eli sits across from her.                                        ELI                    When did you go blind? In the war?                    You get caught in a flash?                                        CLAUDIA                    No, I was born this way. I think                    I'm lucky like that.                                        ELI                    Lucky?                                        CLAUDIA                    It's not like I ever knew what I'm                    missing. I was already used to                    being like this by the time... by                    the time it all happened. So I got                    around pretty good even when I was                    on my own. And now it's easy. I                    know every creaky old floorboard in                    here, and it's not like I ever go                    any place else. Bill would never                    allow it. He worries about me so                    much.                    Again, bittersweet. The sense that Claudia feels trapped.          Thinking about it begins to upset her. She gets up.                                        CLAUDIA                    I should go. He'll be wondering                    where I am.                                                                           43.                              Eli stands, escorts her to the door and opens it.                                        CLAUDIA                    Thank you. I enjoyed our                    conversation.                                          ELI                    So did I.                    Eli closes the door, then sits back at the table.                    INT. PALLADIUM - CARNEGIE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                    Carnegie washes, looking at himself in the old dressing-room          mirror. He sees Claudia enter the room in its dim reflection.                                        CARNEGIE                    You took your time in there. How                    long does it take to deliver a                    plate of food and some water?                    A subtly accusing tone. It makes Claudia nervous.                                        CLAUDIA                    He wanted to talk.                                        CARNEGIE                    Oh? What about?                                        CLAUDIA                    Nothing really. He asked me what it                    was like to be blind.                                        CARNEGIE                    He tell you anything about him?                                        CLAUDIA                    No. I don't think he likes to talk                    about himself much.                                        CARNEGIE                    Yeah, I got that.                    Claudia moves to the bedside, begins to undress.                                        CLAUDIA                    I don't think he's going to change                    his mind by morning. I don't think                    he's going to stay.                                        CARNEGIE                    What makes you say that?                                                                          44.                                                  CLAUDIA                    Just strikes me as the kind of man                    who's of a mind, is all. Doesn't                    seem like the type to go changing                    it once it's set.                                        CARNEGIE                    Well, we'll just see about that.                                        CLAUDIA                    You saw him. He's not like the                    others. You won't be able to smooth-                    talk him and wrap him around your                    finger like you usually do.                                         CARNEGIE                    Who said anything about me?                        (BEAT)                    I'm sending Solara.                    Claudia reacts suddenly to this. Shocked and angry.                                        CLAUDIA                    You're doing what?                              CARNEGIE                    You know how often these walkers                    get laid? Never. Least not by                    anything living or willing. Girl                    like her can be very persuasive.                                        CLAUDIA                    You can't send her in there with                    him. He's dangerous, he's a killer!                                        CARNEGIE                    You went in there readily enough.                                        CLAUDIA                    That's different. Solara's just a                    child, she can't-                    Carnegie sighs, tiring of this.                                        CARNEGIE                    She's a grown woman now, Claudia.                    Sooner or later you're going to                    have to accept that. She has to                    earn her keep around here, same as                    the rest of us.                                        CLAUDIA                    By working as a whore? That's all                    you think she's fit for?                                                                              45.                                                  CARNEGIE                    We've each been given a talent to                    help us make our way in this world.                    Some people's gift is more evident                    than others. Solara's sure as hell                    is.                    Claudia looks at Carnegie in disgust.                                        CLAUDIA                    What kind of a man are you?                    Now it's Carnegie's turn to get angry. He rounds on her          menacingly. She backs off as he approaches.                                        CARNEGIE                    I'm the kind of man who'd pull a                    helpless blind girl off the road, a                    girl who'd been beaten and raped,                    and give her a place where she can                    live without fear! Without me you'd                    be just another no-eye, lying dead                    in the outland, picked clean by the                    buzzards, or shoveling dirt down                    there with the others. That's the                    kind of man I am!                    He has her against the wall, his face just inches from hers.                                        CLAUDIA                    I don't live without fear. I                    haven't for a long time now.                    Carnegie calms himself, backs off. Claudia goes to leave.                                        CARNEGIE                    Where are you going?                                        CLAUDIA                    I'm not going to let you do this.                    Carnegie surges forward and pins Claudia to the wall.                                         CARNEGIE                    You're not going to let me?                        (BEAT)                    Nobody tells me what I can and                    can't do in my own town. Nobody. I                    built this world, and I am God                    here! So don't go thinking about                    screwing with my plans. You know                    how this works. Solara goes against                    me, you get hurt. You go against                    me, she gets hurt.                                                                           46.                              He releases his grip on her.                                        CARNEGIE                    So let's not see anybody get hurt.                    Okay?                    He speaks more softly now. As he strokes his hand tenderly          through Claudia's hair, a tear runs down her cheek.                    INT. PALLADIUM - GUEST BEDROOM - NIGHT                    Dark outside, but the room is brightly lit by the glow of the          oil lamp. Eli sits up on his bed, quietly reading the old          leather-bound book from his backpack.                    Another KNOCK at the door. Eli jumps up and hurriedly hides          the book inside his shirt.                                         ELI                    Come in.                    The door opens to reveal Solara. Looking very different than          she did before. Cleaned up and wearing a flowery summer          dress, blonde hair let down over her shoulders. Stunning.                    Unlike everyone else we have met, she seems - physically, at          least - totally unscarred by the horrors of the times. Far          too beautiful a thing to belong in a world like this.                                        SOLARA                    Hi. Can I come in?                                        ELI                    Someone was already here with food                    and water. I got everything I need.                                        SOLARA                    You sure about that?                    She glides into the room, closing the door. She's good. Very          seductive. Eli is totally disarmed in her presence.                                        SOLARA                    It's too bright in here. Mind if I                    turn it down a little?                    She doesn't wait for an answer. Moves to the table and turns          down the oil lamp. A darker, more seductive lighting scheme.                                        SOLARA                    That's better. I'm Solara. You're                    Walker, right?                                                                             47.                                                  ELI                    No. My name's Eli.                                        SOLARA                    That short for something? Elias?                                         ELI                    Elijah.                                        SOLARA                    Elijah. I never heard that one                    before. It's kinda cute.                    She sits on the bed, kicks her legs playfully. Her light          cotton dress revealing in all the right places. The          silhouette of her body bathed in the seductive glow of the          oil lamp. No red-blooded man on earth could resist her.                                        ELI                    Look, I don't mean to be rude. But                    I'm really not interested.                                        SOLARA                    You sure about that? It gets mighty                    lonely out there on the road.                    She leans over on the bed, resting on her elbow. Her hair          cascades down. God damn, she looks good.                                        SOLARA                    If you're worried about money, this                    is all paid for. The whole night.                                        ELI                    It's not that. You're a very nice                    girl. But I'm not that kind of man.                    She slides off the bed, approaches him. Begins to work the          buttons of his shirt.                                        SOLARA                    They're all that kind of man.          He moves her hand away. Gently pushes her back a step.                                         ELI                    I'm not.                    She is stunned. No man has ever turned her down before. And          then she seems a little insulted.                                        SOLARA                    They told me you were crazy. Maybe                    they were right.                                                                           48.                              Eli opens the door for her.                                        ELI                    I'm sorry. Good night.                    Suddenly all her other emotions give way to fear. She moves          to the door and slams it shut again. Looks Eli in the eye.                                        SOLARA                    Please don't make me leave. I have                    to stay the night. If I don't...                                        ELI                    If you don't, what?                                        SOLARA                    He'll hurt my mom.                                        ELI                    Who will? Carnegie?                    She nods, fighting back a tear. This angers Eli.                                        ELI                    Maybe he and I oughta have words.                    He goes for the door handle, but she stops him.                                        SOLARA                    No! Please, don't!                                        ELI                    He's hurting you. He's hurting your                    mother. He's-                                        SOLARA                    He's my dad.                    BEAT. Eli moves his hand away from the door.                                        SOLARA                    Look, if you want to help me, just                    let me stay here tonight. We don't                    have to do anything. I'll sleep on                    the floor. Tomorrow you can tell my                    dad that we had a good time. I'll                    be no trouble, I swear.                    She looks up at Eli imploringly. Transformed. No longer the          teenage sex kitten. Now she's just a frightened little girl.                                        ELI                    You want to have a conversation?                                                                           49.                              She smiles, wiping the tear from her cheek.                    LATER                    Eli and Solara sit together on the bed. A silent BEAT. At          first, it appears as though they have nothing to say.                                          ELI                      You know, you don't have to be                      afraid of me. What happened down                      there in the bar...                                          SOLARA                      I'm not afraid of you. I know you                      didn't start that trouble. When I                      first saw you, I knew you weren't                      the type to go looking for it.                                          ELI                      How'd you know that?                                           SOLARA                      My mom says I'm a good judge of                      character. She says I can read                      people. That I know a good man when                      I see one.                    She smiles. Eli is surprised to find himself smiling back.                                          SOLARA                      So... you're pretty old, right?                    Eli smiles, amused by the bluntness of the question.                                          SOLARA                      I'm sorry. I just mean, I haven't                      seen too many people your age. How                      old are you exactly?                                          ELI                      You know, I don't rightly remember.                                          SOLARA                      But you're old enough. I mean, you                      remember what it was like? In the                      world before?                    Eli nods.                                          SOLARA                      What was it like?                    Eli thinks about this. Dredging through old, old memories.                                                                              50.                                                   ELI                    Better than this.                        (BEAT)                    People lived longer back then.                    Longer than me. Some were more than                    a hundred years old.                    Solara smiles like she's having her leg pulled.                                         SOLARA                    Come on.                                        ELI                    I swear, it's true. Nowadays it's                    not the same. If you're sick or                    you're weak or you're old you won't                    last long out on the road.                                        SOLARA                    So how come you have?                    BEAT. Eli thinks. Should he or shouldn't he?                                        ELI                    Can I read you something?                                        SOLARA                    Wait. You can read?                    Eli pulls the book from his shirt. Solara's eyes widen.                                        SOLARA                    And you have a book?                              ELI                    Not just any book.                    For the first time we see that it's a KING JAMES BIBLE. An          embossed GOLD CROSS on its old leather cover.                    Eli opens it up, scans the page with his finger until he          finds the passage he's looking for.                                        ELI                    The Lord is my shepherd. I shall                    not want. He makes me lie down in                    green pastures. He leads me beside                    still waters. He restores my soul.                    He leads me in the paths of                    righteousness.                    ON SOLARA as she listens to Eli read. Transfixed.                                                                            51.                                                  ELI                    Though I walk through the valley of                    the shadow of death, I will fear no                    evil. For you are with me. Your rod                    and your staff, they comfort me.                    You prepare a table before me in                    the presence of my enemies. You                    anoint my head with oil. My cup                    runs over. Surely goodness and                    mercy shall follow me, all the days                    of my life. And I will dwell in the                    house of the Lord forever.                                        SOLARA                    That's beautiful. Did you write                    that?                                          ELI                          (SMILES)                    No.                                        SOLARA                    What book is it from? Is it poetry?                                        ELI                    I guess you could think of it that                    way. It's from the Holy Bible.                                        SOLARA                    I never heard of it. What's it                    about?                    BEAT as Eli thinks. How on earth to answer that?                                        ELI                    It's about love, and forgiveness,                    and life and death, and mercy, and                    revenge, and the beginning and the                    end of the world. I guess it's                    about a little bit of everything.                                           SOLARA                    Can I see?                    She reaches out for the book but he snatches it away.                                        SOLARA                    What? I'm not going to do anything.                                        ELI                    I'm sorry. I'm charged to protect                    this book. I can't trust it with                    anyone. Not even for a while.                                                                           52.                                                  SOLARA                    What's so special about that book?                    BEAT. Eli runs his fingers across the embossed gold cross on          the beat-up leather cover.                                        ELI                    It's the last one. There are no                    other books like this. All the                    others are gone - destroyed by the                    war or in the burnings that came                    after. This is the only one that                    survived until now. The last one                    anywhere.                                        SOLARA                    How can you know that?                                         ELI                    I just know.                        (BEAT)                    For a long while after it happened,                    I just wandered on the road like                    most everybody else. There were                    still a lot of people around back                    then, in the beginning. I didn't                    really know what I should do or                    where I was going. I was just                    moving from place to place, trying                    to stay alive. And then one day I                    heard this voice. I don't know how                    to explain it, it's like it was                    coming from inside me. But I could                    hear it, clear as day. Clear as I                    can hear you talking to me now.                                        SOLARA                    What did it say?                                        ELI                    It led me to this place, I don't                    really know where. And I found this                    book buried deep under some rubble.                    No way no-one was ever going to                    find it if they didn't know exactly                    where to look.                                        SOLARA                    But you knew because the voice told                    you?                                        ELI                    That's right. And that voice told                    me to carry the book west.                              (MORE)                                                                         53.                                         ELI (cont'd)                    It told me that a path would be                    laid out before me, that I'd be led                    to a place where this book would be                    safe. It told me I'd be protected                    against anyone or anything that                    tried to stand in my way. If only I                    would have faith.                        (BEAT)                    That was twenty-five years ago. And                    I've been walking ever since.                                        SOLARA                        (SKEPTICAL)                    Because a voice you heard in your                    head told you to.                                        ELI                    I'm not crazy. I didn't imagine it.                    I know what I heard.                                        SOLARA                    So who was it? The voice?                    BEAT as Eli considers his answer.                                        ELI                    A very important, very powerful                    man.                                        SOLARA                    More powerful than my dad?                                        ELI                        (SMILES)                    I should say so, yes.                    BEAT. The two of them sit in silence for a moment.                                        SOLARA                    Would you teach me to read?                                        ELI                    What?                                        SOLARA                    I never learned. No-one around here                    knows how. Only my dad, and he                    won't teach me. I think he likes                    being the only one who can read. I                    think it makes him feel powerful.                                        ELI                    I think you're probably right.                                                                           54.                                                  SOLARA                    So would you teach me?                                        ELI                    I'm sorry. I'm leaving tomorrow.                    And I won't be back this way, ever.                    She looks down, sad. She likes this guy. She doesn't want him          to leave. Eli can sense her sadness.                                        ELI                    Are you hungry?                                        SOLARA                    I guess a little.                                        ELI                    There's some food on the table over                    there. Let's eat.                    She walks over to where the dinner tray is covered by a small          cloth. She whips it away - to reveal ELI'S RAT nibbling on a          piece of cheese. Solara SHRIEKS and backs away.                    The rat scurries down the table leg and leaps up onto Eli's          shoulder, just as afraid of her as she is of it.                                        ELI                    It's okay, it's okay. He's with me.                        (to the rat)                    Don't be afraid, pal. This is                    Solara. She's our friend.                    Solara approaches warily. Reaches out and strokes him. The          rat scurries up her arm. She almost shrieks again.                                        ELI                    It's okay. It means he likes you.                                           SOLARA                    It does?                              ELI                    Trust me, if he didn't like you,                    you'd know about it.                    Solara pets the rat on her shoulder. Then:                                        SOLARA                    Did you really mean that?                                           ELI                    Mean what?                                                                           55.                                                  SOLARA                    That I'm your friend.                    BEAT. Eli finds himself surprised that he admitted such a          thing. When is the last time he had someone he could call a          friend? He can't even remember.                                        ELI                    Sure.                    She smiles. Giggles as the rat's whiskers tickle her ear.                    Eli breaks the cheese in two and gives half to Solara. She's          about to eat but stops as Eli clasp his hands in prayer.                                        ELI                    Our father, we thank you for this                    meal which you have been so                    gracious to place before us.                    Unsure of what to do, Solara mimics Eli, putting her hands          together and bowing her head.                                         ELI                    We thank you for a warm bed and a                    roof over our heads on a cold night                    such as this.                        (BEAT)                    And we thank you for the gift of                    friendship in these hard times.                    Solara looks at him, touched by that.                                         ELI                    Amen.                        (BEAT)                    You say that last part too.                                        SOLARA                    Amen. And now we eat?                                        ELI                    And now we eat.                    They sit and eat together, sharing the simple meal.                    PULL OUT from the window as they eat, away from the theater.          Away from the town and its flickering points of torchlight.          Moving farther and farther away until the entire town is          consumed by the darkness of the world.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - DAWN                    The pale sun rises over the town. To establish:                                                                              56.                              INT. PALLADIUM - DINING ROOM - MORNING                    What was once the theater's COSTUME ROOM - OLD MANNEQUINS          still stand around in the corners, creating an eerie feel.                    Carnegie and Claudia sit at a DINING TABLE, eating breakfast          in silence. A third place is set, but no-one is seated there.                    Solara enters and sits down without a word.                                        CARNEGIE                    Good morning, Solara.                    Solara doesn't say anything.                                        CARNEGIE                    I said good morning, Solara.                                        SOLARA                    Morning, dad.                                        CARNEGIE                    How was your night? Did you sleep                    well?                    Claudia appears perturbed by Carnegie's subtle probing.          Solara flashes him a frosty look.                                        SOLARA                    I did like you asked. Isn't that                    what you really want to know? Just                    come out and say it.                    Carnegie glares at her sternly.                                        CARNEGIE                    You don't speak to your father like                    that. When I ask you a civil                    question, I expect a civil answer.                    Solara lowers her head, scorned. Carnegie continues eating.                                        CARNEGIE                    Did he say anything?                                        SOLARA                    No. We didn't talk much.                                        CARNEGIE                    Well, do you think you managed to                    change his mind about staying?                                        SOLARA                    I don't know. He said he had to go.                                                                           57.                              Carnegie puts down his food, looks angrily at her.                                        CARNEGIE                    So he did talk? What else did he                    say? Come on, I want all of it!                                        SOLARA                    That's all he said. That he was                    going to be leaving this morning.                                        CARNEGIE                    We'll see. This is my town, nobody                    leaves until I say they leave.                    He glances knowingly at Claudia.                                        CLAUDIA                    Solara, honey, eat something.                    She looks at the food on the plate before her. Then closes          her eyes and clasps her hands in prayer.                                        SOLARA                    Our father, thank you for this meal                    which you have been so gracious to                    place before us.                    Claudia and Carnegie freeze. Carnegie stares at her, agape.                                        SOLARA                    Thank you for my mother. Please                    watch over her and keep her safe.                                          CARNEGIE                    Solara...                                        SOLARA                    Thank you for all the-                                          CARNEGIE                    Solara!          She snaps suddenly out of it, looks at her father.                                        CARNEGIE                    What the hell are you doing?                    She doesn't respond. Looks embarrassed.                                         CARNEGIE                    God didn't put this food on the                    table. Do you hear me?                        (BEAT)                    Who put this food on the table?                                                                           58.                              Solara says nothing, just looks down at the table.                                        CARNEGIE                    I said who put this food on the                    table?                                        SOLARA                        (SOFTLY)                    You did.                                        CARNEGIE                    Who taught you that?                                        SOLARA                    Eli taught me.                                        CARNEGIE                        (PUZZLED)                    Who the hell is Eli?                                        SOLARA                    The walker. That's his name.                                        CARNEGIE                    And he taught you how to say those                    words? How did he know them?                                        SOLARA                    He had them written down in a book.                    This piques Carnegie's interest greatly.                                        CARNEGIE                    What kind of a book?                    He barks the question at her. Solara is rattled.                                        SOLARA                    I don't remember! It was an old                    leather book. It had kind of a...                    thing on the front of it.                                         CARNEGIE                    Show me.                    Solara makes the SIGN OF A CRUCIFIX with her index fingers.          Carnegie's eyes widen; he can barely believe it.                                        CARNEGIE                    He had a bible?                                        SOLARA                    That's what it was. A holy bible.                    Daddy, what's wrong? Did I...                                                                           59.                              Carnegie BOLTS SUDDENLY FROM THE TABLE, overturning his chair          and sending his plate of food crashing to the floor.                    INT. PALLADIUM - LOBBY BALCONY - CONTINUOUS                    Carnegie races across the landing, toward the ARMED GUARD          posted outside Eli's bedroom. The guard steps aside as          Carnegie flings the door open and barges inside.                    INT. PALLADIUM - GUEST BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Empty. No sign of Eli or his gear anywhere. The window is          WIDE OPEN, the curtains fluttering gently in the breeze.                    INT. ENGINEER WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS                    His hands shaking, the engineer disconnects Eli's battery          from the generator and places it on the counter.                    Eli stands on the other side of the counter with his SHOTGUN          TRAINED RIGHT AT THE MAN'S HEAD. He takes the battery from          him and stuffs it into his backpack.                    EXT. PALLADIUM - CONTINUOUS                    Carnegie races from the lobby entrance and looks up at the          open window to Eli's room. He could have easily jumped.                    Redridge emerges onto the street behind him.                                        REDRIDGE                    Something wrong, boss?                                        CARNEGIE                    Something wrong? Something wrong?                    The walker's gone!                                        REDRIDGE                    That can't be. I had a man outside                    his room the whole time.                                        CARNEGIE                    He jumped out the window, you                    idiot! You didn't think to put a                    man outside the fucking window?                        (beat; fuming)                    Find him. Now!                                        REDRIDGE                    Boss, he could be anywhere. He...                        (REALIZATION)                    A battery. Didn't he say something                    about a battery?                                                                            60.                              They turn to face the engineer's storefront - just as ELI          EMERGES ONTO THE STREET, shotgun still in his hand.                    EVERYBODY FREEZES. Like a wild west stand-off. Redridge's          fingers play over the butt of the pistol on his hip.                    BEAT as time hangs perfectly still for a second... and then          ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.                    Redridge draws and FIRES, SHATTERING A PARKING METER just          inches from Eli and showering quarters all over the sidewalk.                    Eli rushes along the sidewalk, RETURNING FIRE. The shot wings          Redridge in the shoulder. He goes down, wounded.                    Carnegie dives for cover as FOUR MORE GUNMEN rush from the          theater. Carnegie waves frantically in Eli's direction.                                        CARNEGIE                    Go! Go!                    They spot Eli sprinting away and rush off in pursuit.                    Carnegie gets to his feet and storms back inside the theater.                    INT. PALLADIUM - DINING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Solara and Claudia watch through the window. Turn suddenly          when they hear the door slam open behind them.                    Carnegie stands in the doorway, glaring at them.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - CONTINUOUS                    LOCAL RESIDENTS scream and rush to and fro in panic as Eli          darts along the boardwalk.                    CARNEGIE'S GUNMEN pursue, firing their rifles wildly on the          run. The bullets splinter wood, pierce barrels and crates,          narrowly missing Eli as he dashes, keeping his head down.                    Eli aims the shotgun and FIRES without even looking. The shot          HITS A GUNMAN SQUARE IN THE CHEST, dropping him to the dirt.                    Eli hits the deck, diving for cover behind a JUNKPILE as more          gunfire ricochets all around him. He takes a moment to          collect himself, reloads the shotgun.                    The three remaining gunmen close in on the junkpile warily.                    Eli signs a cross over himself with the shotgun, looks to the          sky and offers up a silent prayer. Then emerges from around          the junkpile back into the street. All three gunmen OPEN          FIRE, their bullets whipping past on either side of him.                                                                           61.                              In one swift motion Eli raises the shotgun and FIRES. Three          shots in quick succession. And then there is silence. Smoke          wisps from the shotgun's sawn-off barrel.                    The three gunmen LIE DEAD IN THE STREET. One hit square in          the chest. The other two each have maybe one half of their          heads remaining.                    Eli looks around. He's right at the end of the main road, the          perimeter where the town meets the open desert. He's free.                    And then, A GIRL'S SCREAM. Distant but unmistakable.                    Eli whips around. In the upstairs window of the theater,          Carnegie shoves Solara roughly against the wall. Barking          angrily at her, shaking her.                    Eli looks at the road. Then up at the theater. Then back to          the road again.                                        ELI                        (quietly; to himself)                    It ain't your concern. Stay on the                    path.                    But he sounds less resolute now than before. Until today this          was always a simple decision for him to make. But now...                                          ELI                    Dammit...                    He marches back toward the theater, stepping over the fallen          bodies of the gunmen, re-loading his shotgun as he goes.                    EXT. PALLADIUM - CONTINUOUS                    Redridge finally manages to clamber back up to his feet,          wincing as he clutches his painful shoulder wound.                    He looks up just in time to see Eli coming right at him.          Without breaking stride, he COLD-COCKS Redridge in the jaw          with the shotgun, sending him back to the deck, out cold.                    INT. PALLADIUM - DINING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Eli kicks the door wide open, finds Carnegie holding Solara          against the wall. She sobs, terrified. Eli levels the shotgun          at Carnegie's head.                                        ELI                    Let her go.                                                                           62.                                                  CARNEGIE                    That cannon of yours casts a pretty                    wide net. I don't reckon you can                    hit me without hitting her.                                        ELI                    I reckon you're right.                    He holsters the shotgun. Then in the same fluid motion draws          a PISTOL from his belt that we never even knew he had.                                        ELI                    This, though? With this I'll shave                    the hairs clean off your balls at a                    hundred paces. You believe me?                    Carnegie releases his grip on Solara, steps away, hands up.                                        CARNEGIE                    I believe you. I have to say I'm                    surprised to hear that language                    coming from you, though. I mean,                    you being a holy man and all.                    BEAT. Eli glances at Solara.                                         CARNEGIE                    She told me all about it. Told me                    all about the bible, too.                        (BEAT)                    Can I see it?                                        ELI                    No.                    Carnegie takes a small step forward. Suddenly, his whole          demeanor changes, and he now looks at Eli imploringly.                                        CARNEGIE                    You know, I've been searching for a                    book like that one for years. All                    I've ever wanted was to bring the                    word of God to these poor                    unfortunates here. To shine its                    light upon them and give them                    something in this wretched world                    that they could believe in.                    Something to live for! It's why I                    built this town, did you know that?                    All we've been missing is the word                    to show us the way. And now, praise                    the Lord, you've brought it to us.                                                                           63.                              Carnegie takes a step closer. He appears entirely sincere -          but then he is very good at doing so.                                        CARNEGIE                    It's not right to keep that book                    hidden away, all to yourself. The                    word is meant to be shared with                    others. It's meant to be spread!                    Isn't that what you want? I could                    help you do that. You and me, we                    could do it together.                    BEAT. Eli seems to be considering what he's heard carefully.                                        ELI                    The Lord himself told me that if I                    carried this book west, one day I                    would find the place where it was                    needed. Where it would be safe.                    Where it belonged.                    Carnegie smiles broadly... and then with a sudden blur of          movement Eli PISTOL-WHIPS him to the floor.                                        ELI                    But this ain't it.                    He turns to Solara and offers her his hand.                                         ELI                    Come on.                    EXT. PALLADIUM - CONTINUOUS                    Eli emerges from the theater, leading Solara onto the street.          RESIDENTS part before them, staring at Eli with astonishment.                    Eli passes the statue of Carnegie - and STOPS. Something          about that thing is bothering him.                                        SOLARA                    What? What is it?                                        ELI                    You shall not make for yourself any                    graven image...                    He turns, drawing his samurai sword and in the same fluid          motion SLICING across the base of the statue.                    BEAT. And then the STATUE TOPPLES from the neat cut just          below the knees, CRASHING DOWN to the ground and SHATTERING.          The assembled residents GASP at this defiant display.                                                                              64.                              Eli sheathes his sword and takes Solara by the hand again.                                        ELI                    Now we can go.                    CRANE UP over the main street as they both head out of town.                    EXT. ROAD - DAY                    The town barely visible on the distant horizon behind Eli and          Solara. Eli walks as he always has, his pace steady and slow.          Still, Solara lags along behind. She's already tired.                                        SOLARA                    Where are we going?                                        ELI                    I told you where I'm going. You're                    free to go wherever you want.                    She stops in the road.                                        SOLARA                    Wait... I'm not coming with you?                                        ELI                    You're only going to slow me down.                    Eli doesn't stop walking. Solara is forced to catch up.                                        SOLARA                    So what the hell was all that about                    back there?                                        ELI                    The man was hurting you. I don't                    like that, so I put a stop to it.                    Now you're free. He can't hurt you                    any more.                        (off her stare)                    No need to thank me.                                        SOLARA                    Thank you? For what? What am I                    supposed to do now?                                        ELI                    Whatever you want. That's what                    being free is.                                        SOLARA                    Whatever I want. Except go with                    you.                                                                             65.                                                  ELI                    I have to get where I'm going. I                    can't be worrying about someone                    else along the way.                    Solara is incredibly hurt by this. Blinks back a tear.                                        SOLARA                    I thought you were my friend.                    BEAT. Eli stops and turns back to face her.                                        ELI                    It's dangerous in the outland. I                    wouldn't want you to get hurt.                                        SOLARA                    I'll be safe so long as I'm with                    you. I know it.                    Eli sighs. He's not getting through to her. So now comes the          harsh truth of it:                                        ELI                    You don't want this life. I gotta                    do what I gotta do. Don't have no                    choice in it. But you do. And I                    can't let you choose this. You                    don't want to be like me. You don't                    want to spend your life alone.                    Solara steps closer, her eyes pleading.                                        SOLARA                    If I came with you, I wouldn't be                    alone. And neither would you.                    A long BEAT as Eli considers this. For a moment it appears as          though Solara might have won him over. But then:                                        ELI                    I'm sorry. Look, maybe it's best                    you just go on back to town.                    He turns and walks off, leaving her in the road. She stands          there, furious, screaming at his back as he walks away.                                        SOLARA                    Fine! I'll do just that! I had a                    life there! A family! I didn't ask                    you to save me! I didn't ask you                    for anything!                                                                           66.                              He doesn't turn or acknowledge her at all. Just keeps walking          off into the horizon. Getting smaller all the time.                    Solara stands there in the road, weeping. All alone.                                        SOLARA                        (SOFTLY)                    Fine.                    She turns and walks back in the direction she came.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - BARNYARD - DAY                    A small, penned-in area to the rear of the Palladium          containing an eclectic bunch of farmyard animals. Goats,          sheep, geese, pigs. Mostly mangy, sad-looking specimens.                    Carnegie stands in the yard, tossing handfuls of animal feed          from a nearby sack onto the ground. He watches with          satisfaction as the animals gather at his feet to feed.                    Claudia emerges from the theater with an ice-pack.                                        CARNEGIE                    Thank you, darling.                    Carnegie applies it to his jaw, red and swollen from Eli's          pistol-whip. Redridge appears nearby, his arm in a sling.                                        REDRIDGE                    He killed four of my men and walked                    out of town without a scratch. They                    shot off a hundred rounds at him                    and he didn't get hit once. I never                    even heard of anything like that.                    Carnegie doesn't appear to be listening. He is lost in a          world of his own as he tends to the farm animals.                                        CARNEGIE                    You know, I always thought of                    myself as a shepherd. Bringing                    together the wayward and the lost.                    Tending to my flock. But all the                    things I want to do, I can't do                    them on my own. The one thing I've                    needed is the one thing that's                    always been missing. Then one day                    it walks right into town - so close                    I can almost touch it - and then                    walks right on out again.                    Carnegie finally looks up from his animals, at Redridge.                                                                           67.                                                  CARNEGIE                    I want you to put a crew together                    and go out after him.                                        REDRIDGE                    He's not going to work for you. I                    think he's made that plain.                                        CARNEGIE                    I'm not interested in him any more.                    I only want the book he's carrying.                                        REDRIDGE                    If I'm gonna risk my ass hunting                    down this maniac in the outland, I                    need to know it's gonna be worth                    it. I need to know what's so                    special about this goddamn book.                    BEAT as Carnegie considers this.                                        CARNEGIE                    You have no idea. You're too young,                    you don't remember the world                    before. But I do. I remember.                    He turns back to his animals, summoning up old memories.                                         CARNEGIE                    When I was a kid my parents used to                    read that book every goddamn day.                    My mother, she'd read it along with                    this smooth-talking preacher on the                    TV screen. They used to be able to                    beam these guys right into your                    house, into every house in the                    world, through the air. Like magic.                        (BEAT)                    She worked two jobs and she sent                    every spare penny she had to that                    fucking guy on the TV. My old man,                    he'd read that book, then he'd get                    liquored up and kick my ass, tell                    me all about the power and the                    glory and how I was going to burn                    forever in hell for the sins I was                    born with. He made sure he beat it                    into me good.                    He snaps out of his reverie and looks at Redridge.                                        CARNEGIE                    Don't you see? It's not just any                    book.                              (MORE)                                                                           68.                                         CARNEGIE (cont'd)                    It has the power to motivate                    people. It can give them hope, it                    can terrify them. It can shape                    them. Control them.                        (BEAT)                    Do you remember how I built this                    town? It wasn't done with force,                    and it wasn't done just with water.                    It was done with the power of                    words. I created this place out of                    nothing, because people believed in                    a promise that I sold to them.                    Those guys on the TV, they were                    richer than you could ever dream,                    and it was all built the same way.                    With words. With promises. And with                    that book.                        (BEAT)                    That book is a weapon. Aimed right                    at the hearts and minds of the weak                    and the desperate. Just imagine                    what I could do with it.                                        REDRIDGE                    Boss... we're running out of water                    and the people are running out of                    patience. You're trying to tell me                    that a book is going to keep them                    in line?                                        CARNEGIE                    Oh, it'll do much more than that.                    The water in this town may run dry,                    but faith - that springs eternal!                    And that faith will help turn this                    town into a city. And this city                    into a nation. It will help me                    build a new world. In my image.                    People will come from far and wide                    to hear what's inside of it.                    They'll follow me anywhere just to                    get a taste of it. And they'll do                    whatever I tell them.                    As usual, Carnegie's slick rhetoric has worked - Redridge has          totally bought into it. Claudia, however, looks appalled.                                         REDRIDGE                    And what if this book don't work?                    What if it don't say what you want                    it to say?                                                                           69.                                                   CARNEGIE                    Oh, it'll say what I want, I can                    promise you that. Because I'm going                    to rewrite it. I'll keep the parts                    that work for me and make the rest                    whatever I need it to be.                        (BEAT)                    A new bible, for a new world.                    He reaches out and takes Claudia by the hand.                                        CARNEGIE                    What do you think, darling? A whole                    new world, to do with as we will.                    Won't that be grand?                    She smiles halfheartedly, but it's clear she is mortified.                    Carnegie turns back to Redridge.                                        CARNEGIE                    Find that book.                                        REDRIDGE                    He has half a day on us already.                                        CARNEGIE                    So use the motor pool.                                        REDRIDGE                    There ain't much gas in reserve.                                        CARNEGIE                    Whatever there is, use it.                    Redridge nods and goes to leave.                                        CLAUDIA                    What about Solara?                    BEAT. In all this excitement about the book, she had been          completely forgotten about.                                        CLAUDIA                    She's still out there. With him.                                        CARNEGIE                    Right. Right. Of course. Bring her                    back, too, if you can. But-                                        REDRIDGE                    The book. I know.                                                                              70.                              Redridge turns and leaves. Claudia scowls at Carnegie, but he          doesn't even notice, just goes back to feeding his animals.                    EXT. DESOLATE ROAD - DAY                    Solara wanders the road. She's tired. The sun beats down          mercilessly. Nothing but desolation and wasteland all around.                    She comes to a FORK IN THE ROAD. Stops at the junction,          unsure. Was this here before? She doesn't remember.                    There are no signs. Both paths look the same. Which one is          which? She turns and looks back, looks around. She's lost.                                        SOLARA                    Shit. Shit.                    She alternates her finger between the two paths. Eeny-meeny-          miney-moe. Picks a path and follows it, headed down the road.                    EXT. ROAD - DAY                    Eli walks on. Slow and steady. His gaze, as ever, fixed          firmly on the horizon. Takes a swig from his canteen.                    Suddenly, he STOPS and stands stock still in the center of          the road. Impossible to know what he's thinking.                    He stands there for a long time.                    EXT. WASTELAND GAS STATION - DAY                    Solara comes upon an abandoned CHEVRON STATION. She doesn't          remember passing this. Looks back up and down the road.                                        SOLARA                    Where the hell am I?                    There's a RUSTED CAR parked at one of the pumps. Like every          other car we've seen, stripped of its tires and engine.                    She walks around to the driver's side. A PETRIFIED FEMALE          BODY lies on the ground, half-in, half-out of the car.                    Solara claps her hand to her mouth and recoils, horrified.                    In the dead woman's hand is a dusty bottle of MINERAL WATER.          Solara hesitates. Not wanting to get closer. But so thirsty.                    She braces herself, grimacing, and tries to take the bottle,          but the dead woman's hand is closed tight around it. She          pulls harder and wrenches it free. In the process she falls          on her butt and flips the corpse over onto its back.                                                                            71.                              In the other woman's arm, she has a SKELETAL BABY cradled to          her bosom. It seems to be staring right at Solara.                    Solara SCREAMS and frantically shuffles backward away from          it. Gets to her feet and runs across the forecourt.                    She stops by the station shop and rests against the wall,          hyperventilating, heart pounding. Trying to get it together.                    She inspects the water in the bottle. It looks clean.          Unscrews the cap with shaking hands and takes a sip.                    She SPITS IT BACK OUT, coughing. It's rank. Undrinkable.                    INT. WASTELAND GAS STATION - FOOD COURT - DAY                    Solara enters. Gloomy inside. Comprehensively looted. Empty          shelves coated in thick sheets of dust.                    She moves further in, searching for something, anything. But          the place has been gutted. There's nothing. She checks the          wall of dead refrigerators. Shattered glass, all empty.                    She's never known desolation and emptiness like this. It's          beginning to scare her. She wheels around in a panic.                                        FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)                    Hello?                    Distant, calling from outside. Solara hears it and freezes.                                        FEMALE VOICE (O.S.)                    Hello? Can anyone help me?                    EXT. WASTELAND GAS STATION - CONTINUOUS                    She runs out across the forecourt, onto the road.                    A FEMALE FIGURE is hunched by the side of the road about          fifty yards up ahead. Hard to see what she's doing from here.                                        SLUMPED FEMALE                    Hello? Is anybody there?                    Solara starts walking toward her.                    The woman has her back to Solara. She's on her knees,          muttering to herself. Gathering objects up from the road.                    As Solara moves closer, we see that the woman is struggling          with an UPTURNED SHOPPING CART. Stuck in a roadside ditch,          its contents spilled out next to a few BRACKEN BUSHES.                                                                             72.                              We see her face now. It's the SAME YOUNG WOMAN from before.          The same shopping cart. The same trap.                                          SOLARA                      Are you all right?                    The woman looks around, sees Solara standing nearby. She's          shocked to see that it's a girl.                                          YOUNG WOMAN                      Oh. Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. You                      go along, I'll be okay.                                          SOLARA                      You look like you need some help.                                          YOUNG WOMAN                      No, really! I'm fine. Really... I                      need a man to help. Not you. You                      just keep along. Please.                    The woman seems anxious to get rid of her. Tries to indicate          the threat silently with her eyes, but Solara doesn't get it.                                          SOLARA                      It'll just take a minute.                    She steps into the ditch and starts to haul the cart out.                                          YOUNG WOMAN                      Really, it's fine! Please!                    Too   late. THREE ROAD BRIGANDS POUNCE FROM THE BUSHES. Every          bit   as brutish and horrifying as the group that Eli killed on          the   road in our opening. They grab Solara and drag her from          the   road into the desert, screaming and kicking all the way.                                          YOUNG WOMAN                      Let her go! She ain't got nothing!                    The BRIGAND LEADER looks Solara up and down lustfully.                                          BRIGAND LEADER                      I ain't too sure about that.                    Solara is reviled by the man. He's filthy, his stench          overpowering. One eye missing, just a dark, empty socket. He          licks his lips, revealing a mouth almost devoid of teeth.                                          YOUNG WOMAN                      This wasn't the deal!                    The brigand leader lashes out and grabs her by the throat.                                                                              73.                                                  BRIGAND LEADER                    Shut your mouth, bitch. You oughta                    be grateful you're getting a break.                    He releases her. She slumps to the dirt, whimpering.                                        BRIGAND LEADER                    Never did care much for that dried-                    up old snatch anyhow.                    He looks back to the struggling Solara.                                        BRIGAND LEADER                    This one, though... this one looks                    fresh. You a virgin?                    She says nothing, just sobs helplessly.                                        BRIGAND LEADER                    Well, let's find out.                    He unbuckles his pants, lets them drop to his ankles.                    We hear a sound. It's hard to place. Something like a THHUP.                    The brigand leader is frozen in shock. His face goes pale,          the blood draining from it. The two bandits holding Solara          look at their leader in dismay. Staring down at his crotch.                    A quiet whimper escapes from his lips as he looks down.                    There is an ARROW IMBEDDED IN HIS CROTCH. What was once down          there is now just a bloody mess of mangled meat. More blood          streams down his thighs. A real horror show.                    He staggers backward, shrieking. Hands shaking. Staring down          at the awful wound from which the long arrow shaft extends.                    The two other brigands release Solara and whip around,          scanning the horizon. They see nothing. One of them has a          RIFLE. He unslings it and aims it frantically around.                    Then they both see it. Coming right at them. The most          terrifying thing either has ever seen.                    ELI, WALKING TOWARD THEM FROM THE ROAD, OUT OF THE SUN. His          silhouette distorted in the rippling heat. An avenging angel.                    He pulls another arrow and draws it back as the rifle bandit          trains his weapon on him, finger tightening on the trigger.                    Eli SHOOTS. The arrow sails through the air and RIGHT INTO          THE RIFLE BARREL. The feathers at the end of the shaft          plugging the muzzle tight.                                                                            74.                              Rifle bandit pulls the trigger. The gun EXPLODES, BLOWING HIS          HANDS CLEAN OFF. He falls to the ground, screaming.                    Eli only had two arrows. He shoulders the bow and draws his          sword. All the remaining brigand has is a small knife. The          two now square off at arm's length. A hopeless mismatch.                    BEAT. The knife brigand hesitates, trembling. And then RUSHES          ELI WITH THE KNIFE. Eli deftly sidesteps, flourishes the          sword. So quick it almost seems like he didn't move at all.                    The knife bandit staggers forward a couple more steps. His          hand goes limp and drops the knife.                    And then his HEAD FALLS BACKWARD like a Pez dispenser. Almost          completely decapitated, but not quite. Blood fountains from          the neck stump as his body falls to the dirt.                    Eli moves to the other two bandits who lay horribly wounded          on the ground, but still breathing. He stands over their          fallen bodies. They stare back up at him, helpless.                    He crouches down between them in the dust.                                        ELI                    I offer you both one final chance                    in this life to seek forgiveness                    for your sins so that your souls                    may find salvation. Will you say                    with me the act of contrition?                    The brigand leader defiantly spits blood at him.                                          BRIGAND LEADER                    Fuck you.                    Eli sighs. Stands and looks down on him without pity.                                        ELI                    Some might think it'd be most                    fitting to leave you here like                    this. Let you die slow in the sun.                    But I know better. I know where                    you're going. And the sooner you                    get there, the sooner you'll get                    what's coming to you.                    He plunges his sword into the bandit leader, finishing him          off. Pulls the arrow from his crotch and wipes it clean.                    He turns to the other man, raising his sword.                                          RIFLE BANDIT                    Wait!                                                                             75.                              Eli pauses, sword hovering over him, poised to strike.                                        RIFLE BANDIT                    I want to say it. I want to be                    forgiven.                    Eli crouches once more by his side.                                        ELI                    Repeat after me. Oh God, I am                    heartily sorry for having offended                    thee, and I detest all my sins.                    The bandit follows along with Eli, mouthing the words          quietly. The life ebbing from him with each moment.                                        ELI                    I firmly resolve, with the help of                    thy grace, to confess my sins, and                    do penance, and to amend my life.                    Amen.                                        RIFLE BANDIT                    Amen...                    His eyes roll back as his final breath leaves him. Dead. Eli          signs a cross over his body, then stands and walks away.                    Solara sits on the ground nearby, a wreck. Eli approaches and          gathers her up in his arms. She clings on to him tightly.                                        SOLARA                    You came back for me.                                        ELI                    What are friends for?                    She laughs, a tear rolling down her cheek. Grips him tighter.                    He helps her up and escorts her back to the road.                                        ELI                    This is the deal. You keep up. You                    pull your weight. You fall behind,                    I can't help you. Okay?                                        SOLARA                    Okay.                    She looks back at the young woman still slumped in the dirt.                                        SOLARA                    What about her?                                                                              76.                                                  ELI                    There's nothing can be done for                    her.                    They walk on down the road.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - DAY                    METAL GARAGE DOORS roll back to reveal darkness within.                    A PAIR OF HEADLIGHTS fires up. Full beam right at us.                    A VEHICLE roars out of the darkness onto the street. Heavily          modified with plate armor and turret-mounted weapons. But its          original form still recognizable underneath.                    It's a HONDA ODYSSEY minivan. Once the #1 choice of soccer          moms, transformed now into an armored personnel carrier.                    Another minivan roars from the garage behind it. A DODGE          GRAND CARAVAN, similarly customized and armed to the teeth.                    THREE MORE CARS follow. As eclectic an assortment as you          could imagine. A MINI COOPER. FORD EXPLORER. A PRIUS. Each          adorned with plate armor and weapons.                    In the lead Minivan is REDRIDGE, heavily armed. He nods to          the DRIVER, who guns the engine.                    The fleet of armored vehicles moves out, kicking up a great          funnel of dust in their wake as they roar out of town.                    EXT. DESERT - DAY                    Late afternoon. The sun hangs low on the horizon. We're far          from the road. Nothing but scrub brush and a few PRAIRIE DOG          BURROWS dotted around.                    A PRAIRIE DOG pops its head up, scans the horizon. Sniffing          the air, whiskers twitching... and is SKEWERED BY AN ARROW.                    Thirty yards away, one of the pieces of scrub brush appears          to COME ALIVE. And then we realize it is Eli's GHILLIE SUIT,          camouflaging both he and Solara beneath it.                    Eli casts off the camouflage net and walks toward the dead          prairie dog. Solara just stands there, appalled.                                        SOLARA                    You killed it! That cute little                    thing!                    Eli picks up the dead animal by the scruff.                                                                              77.                                                  ELI                    It's good eating, is what it is.                    He yanks out the bloody arrow. Solara looks away.                    When she turns back, Eli is standing right there, holding the          dead animal in front of her face. She YELPS in surprise and          staggers backward, falling on her butt.                                        SOLARA                    That's not funny.                                        ELI                    If you're going to be on the road,                    you can't be picky about what you                    eat. You eat what's there to eat.                                        SOLARA                    I'm not eating that.                                        ELI                        (SHRUGS)                    More for me.                    EXT. WASTELAND CAVE - DUSK                    Eli and Solara sit in the mouth of a desert cave, around a          flickering campfire. The prairie dog roasts on a spit.                    Eli digs his knife into the carcass, the blade comes out          clean. It's done. He clasps his hands together and gazes down          penitently at the ground.                                        ELI                    Father, we thank you for your                    generosity in providing us with                    this meal. Bless this food to our                    use and us to thy service, and keep                    us ever mindful of the needs of                    others. Amen.                    Eli carves off a piece of meat. Juicy and succulent. He bites          into it, teasing Solara by making a show of how good it          tastes. He feeds a piece to the rat perched on his shoulder.                    Solara tries to appear uninterested, but she's starved.                                        SOLARA                    What does that taste like?                    He takes another bite, thinks on this as he chews.                                        ELI                    Tastes like chicken.                                                                           78.                              She tries to fight the temptation to try it... but she can't.          She reaches out and tears off a piece. Sniffs at it, takes a          small bite... then quickly wolfs down the rest. Eli smiles.                    As she eats, she gestures toward Eli's Saint Christopher.                                        SOLARA                    What is that?                    Eli reaches up and touches his hand to it.                                        ELI                    It's a Saint Christopher medal.                                        SOLARA                    Who's Saint Christopher? Is he a                    character from your book?                    Eli smiles and shakes his head.                                        ELI                    Christopher was a man who lived a                    long time ago. He wanted to be a                    good man, he wanted to help people.                    So he would stand by a river that                    had no bridge and carry people                    across. He was a big strong man and                    there was no one he couldn't carry.                    Solara listens, rapt. Eli is a good storyteller.                                        ELI                    Then one day a young child came to                    the river and asked to be carried                    across. Christopher tried to carry                    him but he was too heavy. He was                    just a small boy but he was heavier                    than any man he had ever carried.                    The boy explained that he was the                    son of God, and that he was so                    heavy because he bore all the sins                    of the world. After that,                    Christopher was able to carry him                    across and when they got to the                    other side the boy baptized him in                    the river. And that's how he became                    a saint. Later on, he was known as                    the patron saint of travelers.                                        SOLARA                    What is a saint, anyway?                                                                           79.                                                  ELI                    It's someone who spent their life                    doing good things for others.                    Enough that God himself took a                    special interest in them.                    Solara looks at Eli tenderly, with admiration.                                        SOLARA                    Someone like you.                    Eli looks away, down at the ground. He appears sad.                                        ELI                    No. Not like me. Saints ain't                    killers. And I done too much of                    that. Spilled too much blood.                    BEAT. No words, just the flickering firelight.                                        SOLARA                    Will you read me some more from the                    book?                                        ELI                    It's late. You should get some                    sleep. Maybe tomorrow.                    LATER - NIGHT                    The fire down to its last embers. Eli sleeps next to his          pack, half-hidden in the looming shadows of the cave. His hat          and goggles hung up for the night on the hilt of his sword.                    Solara sleeps nearby... then opens her eyes. Not asleep after          all. She looks over at Eli - his face hidden in shadow and so          impossible to tell if he's asleep or awake.                                        SOLARA                    Eli?                    No response. Quietly, she moves forward, kneeling by his          side. She opens his coat and checks the pockets. Empty.                    She goes deeper, peeling back the layers of clothing,          stealthily frisking him. She finds something on his lapel,          hidden under several layers, that causes her to stop.                    It's a RECTANGULAR PLASTIC BADGE. The red, white and blue          colors faded and worn. It reads:                                         WELCOME TO WAL-MART                                 MY NAME IS "ELI"                               HOW MAY I HELP YOU?                                                                            80.                              She stares at it for a moment, not knowing what to make of          it. Then moves on, continuing to pat him down.                    Whatever she's looking for is not here. She turns her          attention to the backpack. Slowly, carefully, opens it up.                    There it is. THE BIBLE, wrapped carefully in its neat little          package of cloth and twine. She reaches in for it.                    Suddenly, ELI'S HAND SHOOTS OUT AND GRABS HER BY THE WRIST.          She cries out, startled. Eli sits up, his face just a dark          shape in the shadows. For the first time he appears a little          scary to Solara.                                        ELI                    What are you doing?                                        SOLARA                    You scared me! I thought you were                    asleep.                                        ELI                    On the road you sleep with one eye                    open. I asked you what you were                    doing.                                        SOLARA                    I just wanted to see the book.                                        ELI                    You want to see the book, you ask                    me. Nobody touches it but me. Ever.                    Until it gets where it's going. Do                    you understand?                    He's very forceful. She nods, a little afraid of him.                                        ELI                    Tell me you understand!                    He grips her wrist tighter.                                        SOLARA                    Okay! I understand! Ow!                    Eli releases her wrist. Takes the pack from her and closes it          up. Pulls it closer to him and lies back down.                                        ELI                    It's no use to you anyway. You                    don't know how to read it.                                                                           81.                                                  SOLARA                    Well... now we have the time, maybe                    you can teach me.                                        ELI                    Maybe. Get some sleep.                    She lies back down beside him, but doesn't close her eyes.          She just lies there, watching him.                    EXT. WASTELAND - DAWN                    The sun rises out of the east. And out of the sun comes the          FLEET OF ARMORED VEHICLES. Racing side-by-side down the road.                    The lead vehicle comes to a halt. A door opens and Redridge          gets out. MORE ARMED MEN emerge from the other vehicles and          follow him as he marches into the wasteland by the roadside.                    The DEAD BRIGANDS are splayed out in the dirt where Eli slew          them. A FLOCK OF BUZZARDS is picking their bones clean.                                        REDRIDGE                    He's been here.                    Redridge looks at the footprints in the dirt headed from the          bodies and back onto the road. Two sets of tracks.                                        REDRIDGE                    The girl's with him.                    He moves back to the cars.                                          REDRIDGE                    Move out!                    The other men hold for a moment, still looking at the half-          eaten bodies in the dirt. Redridge turns back.                                        REDRIDGE                    I said move out!                                        CARNEGIE GUNMAN                    I heard this guy's protected                    somehow, some... power from up                    above. That there ain't nothing on                    this earth can touch him.                                        REDRIDGE                    He's just a man. You put a bullet                    in him, he'll go down like any                    other. I don't want to hear no more                    of this superstitious horseshit!                                                                           82.                              Hesitantly, they make their way back to the vehicles. The          cars gun their engines and move on down the road, past the          abandoned Chevron station. Dust pluming in their wake.                    EXT. ROAD - DAY                    Eli and Solara walk together, passing by a few burned-out          buildings. It appears we might be headed toward a town.                    Solara looks up at the sweltering sun. Then around at her          surroundings. Nothing but devastation and decay.                                        SOLARA                    You say you've been walking for                    twenty-five years. Have you ever                    considered that you might be lost?                                           ELI                    No.                                        SOLARA                    But how can you know? How can you                    know this is the right way?                                        ELI                    I told you. My path has been laid                    out before me.                                        SOLARA                    Yeah, but laid out by who?                                        ELI                    By Almighty God.                                        SOLARA                    Well if this God guy's so mighty,                    how come it's taking you so long to                    get where you're going? Doesn't he                    know the way?                    Eli wheels around and jabs a scolding finger at her.                                        ELI                    You want to stay on this road with                    me, don't ever let me hear you take                    his name in vain like that again.                    Solara is surprised by the severity of his reaction.                                           SOLARA                    Sorry.                    Eli resumes walking.                                                                            83.                                                  ELI                    God has a reason for everything                    being the way it is. It's not                    always apparent to us. But it is                    his plan nonetheless.                                        SOLARA                    So, is he talking to you right now?                    Telling you where to go?                                        ELI                    It's not like that. It's kinda hard                    to explain. I'm guided by faith.                                        SOLARA                    I don't know what that word means.                    BEAT as Eli thinks on how to explain it.                                        ELI                    It means you know something even                    though you don't know it.                    Solara thinks about this, shakes her head.                                        SOLARA                    That doesn't make any sense at all.                                        ELI                    It doesn't have to.                    They walk on.                    EXT. HOUSE - DAY                    On the outskirts of a small town that lies in ruins. Almost          every building burned or reduced to rubble.                    Except for one SMALL HOUSE. The building is damaged and worn          but in mostly decent condition. It stands out among its          surroundings for being the only structure still intact.                    The windows are BARRED. The outer structure fortified with          SHEET METAL and other custom patch-ups. The whole plot          surrounded by a CHAIN-LINK FENCE TOPPED WITH RAZOR WIRE.                    Eli and Solara crouch behind a pile of rubble nearby.                                        SOLARA                    I don't get it. It looks almost...                    normal. Like nothing ever happened.                    How can it still be out here?                                                                            84.                                                  ELI                    I don't know.                                        SOLARA                    Maybe we should look inside. There                    might be food.                    BEAT as Eli considers. Then stands and unhooks his shotgun.                                        ELI                    Stay behind me.                    They approach the house cautiously. Arrive at the perimeter          fence. There's a gate held in place by a PADLOCK.                    Eli pulls a pair of BOLT-CUTTERS from his belt and snips the          padlock free. Swings open the gate with a metallic SQUEAK.                    They move inside, up the garden path. Though the soil in the          yard is dead, it's been carefully raked and tended. WEEDS          arranged in thoughtful patterns, like real flowers.                                        SOLARA                    This is weird.                                        ELI                    Yeah.                    Eli steps forward, his foot planting on a CRACKED PAVING          STONE that shifts almost imperceptibly under his feet.          Accompanied by a barely audible SOUND. He looks down.                                        ELI                    Shit.                                        SOLARA                    What?                    A ROPE NOOSE suddenly whips around their feet, tightening at          their ankles and YANKING THEM UPSIDE-DOWN INTO THE AIR. Eli          drops his shotgun to the ground.                    They hang there for a moment, twisting in the breeze.                    The front door to the house SWINGS OPEN to reveal...                    AN ELDERLY COUPLE. The woman's gray hair tied into a neat          bun. The man bald, squinting through wire-frame glasses. They          look like the couple from Grant Wood's "American Gothic."                    Instead of a pitchfork the man holds a 12-GAUGE RIOT SHOTGUN          which he keeps trained from the hip on Eli and Solara.                                                                           85.                              They step outside, regarding their new visitors carefully.          The man seems more suspicious than his wife. He drags Eli's          shotgun toward him with his foot, hands it to his wife.                                        ELDERLY MAN                    Who are you?                                        ELI                    My name is Eli. This is Solara.                    We're travelers, that's all. We                    don't mean you any harm.                                        ELDERLY MAN                    You cut my padlock. I saw you.                    Trying to break into our house.                                        ELI                    I'm sorry. We didn't think anybody                    lived here. We thought it was                    abandoned, like all the rest.                    This seems to annoy the man.                                        ELDERLY MAN                    Take a look around you. Look at                    this yard. Does it look abandoned                    to you?                    Clearly he's proud of the work he's done with the pitiful          means at his disposal.                                        ELI                    No, sir. I... like what you've done                    with the place.                                        ELDERLY MAN                    What's your business here?                                        ELI                    No business. We're sorry to have                    troubled you. If you'll let us down                    we'll happily be on our way.                    The wife steps forward, she's much warmer, less guarded.                                        ELDERLY WOMAN                    George, look at them! They're not                    robbers or road agents! One of                    them's just a girl!                                        ELDERLY MAN                    Seen that before. Oldest trick in                    the book.                                                                             86.                                                  ELDERLY WOMAN                    Oh, stop! It's no trick. Let them                    down!                    The woman glares at him. The husband reluctantly accedes and          moves to the concealed trap apparatus. Releases the rope,          dropping Eli and Solara to the ground in a heap.                    The old woman helps them to their feet. They shake off the          noose from their ankles.                                          ELDERLY WOMAN                    I'm so sorry about my husband. We                    so rarely get visitors these days,                    he's suspicious of everybody.                         (BEAT)                    I'm Martha and this is my husband                    George. Would you care for some                    tea?                    Eli and Solara exchange a look. What the hell is this?                    INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - DAY                    It's like something out of the world before. The interior is          almost perfectly preserved. Chintzy couches. A mahogany          table. A TV set in the corner. Lace curtains. Unreal.                    Eli and Solara sit on the couch, feeling self-conscious and          looking entirely out of place in this cozy environment.                    George sits across from them on the couch, scowling at them          inhospitably. The shotgun resting across his lap.                    Martha emerges from the kitchen, carrying a tray laden with a          tea pot and old china cups. Cracked and faded, but intact.          She places the tray on the coffee table and sits.                                        MARTHA                    I'm afraid we don't have any cake                    or biscuits for the tea. They ran                    out some time ago.                    She lifts the tea port and pours into the cups. But it's not          tea, only water. Somewhat murky water. Eli and Solara stare          at the cups, unsure. Martha gestures toward them.                                        MARTHA                    Please.                    They raise their cups and take a sip. Martha watches eagerly.          It's clearly a thrill for her to be doing something as          civilized and elegant as serving "tea" to guests.                                                                           87.                                                  MARTHA                    How do you like it?                                        ELI                    It's.. uh...                                        SOLARA                    It's very good.                    Martha smiles, delighted. She lifts her own cup to her lips.          HER HANDS TREMBLE, the cup rattling against the saucer.                                        ELI                    Have you always lived here?                                        MARTHA                    For almost forty years now. This                    home is our pride and joy, isn't                    it, George?                    George just grunts. Not interested in conversation.                                        MARTHA                    We refused to leave, even during                    the troubles. We said, didn't we                    George, we said if we're going to                    die anywhere, we're going to die                    right here, in our own home.                                        ELI                    I don't understand how you've                    survived out here this long.                                        MARTHA                    Well, George is something of a                    handyman, aren't you, dear? He did                    a lot of work on the place, making                    it safe. We may be old, but we're                    resilient. We've had more than a                    few who've tried to take this place                    from us. Haven't we, George?                                        GEORGE                    Yes. Yes we have.                    He stands and moves toward the back door. Opens it up and          beckons Eli and Solara to come look.                    EXT. HOUSE - BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS                    Eli and Solara stand in the doorway, looking out on the yard.          Solara is horrified by what she sees.                                                                           88.                              The entire back yard is a GRAVEYARD. Maybe twenty human          graves dug shallow into the earth. Some were dug long ago,          others look like they're very recent.                                        SOLARA                    Are these... graves?                                        MARTHA                    Of course. It would be uncivilized                    not to bury them. We're not                    barbarians.                                        GEORGE                    Plus, it's good for the soil.                                        MARTHA                    Come on back inside. I think I                    might be able to rustle up some                    sandwiches.                    George and Martha go back inside, leaving Eli and Solara          gazing at the little graveyard.                                        ELI                    We have to get out of here.                                        SOLARA                    They look so sweet... I would never                    have believed they were killers.                                        ELI                    They're worse than that.                                           SOLARA                    What?                                         ELI                    They didn't just kill these people.                        (BEAT)                    They ate them.                    Solara is stunned.                                           SOLARA                    They what?                              ELI                    There's a disease in the outland.                    Spread by eating human meat. It                    affects the brain. Dementia, loss                    of motor function. Did you notice                    the old woman's hands shaking?                    She's got it. They've both got it.                                                                           89.                                                  SOLARA                    Oh my God...                    INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Eli and Solara re-enter. Solara looks at George nervously.          He's still carrying that shotgun.                    Martha's voice drifts in from the nearby KITCHEN.                                        MARTHA (O.S.)                    I found some meat for those                    sandwiches! Are you hungry?                                        SOLARA                    No! Thank you!                                        ELI                    We really must be going.                                         GEORGE                    So soon?                    An unnerving glint in his eye. Eli moves toward the door.                                        ELI                    Yes, I'm afraid so.                    As he gets to the door, George moves to intercept. Hard to          tell if he's blocking his path or moving to open the door for          him. A tense BEAT.                    Martha emerges from the kitchen.                                        MARTHA                    Are you sure you won't stay?                                        ELI                    Yes. Thank you again for the tea.                    Eli stares George down. Reluctantly, George steps aside. Eli          opens the door and escorts Solara outside.                    EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS                    Eli and Solara emerge into the sunlight. Walk down the garden          path. And FREEZE IN THEIR TRACKS.                    THE ARMED VEHICLES ARE COMING. Driving toward them out of the          horizon in a hazy cloud of dust.                                        SOLARA                    Oh no... it's my dad. It's his men.                                                                           90.                                                  ELI                    Are you sure?                                        SOLARA                    I recognize the cars.                                        ELI                    Back inside.                    Eli bundles Solara back into the house. George stands in the          doorway, squinting at the approaching convoy.                    INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    George follows them back in, furious.                                        GEORGE                    What did you bring upon us?                                        MARTHA                    George? What's wrong?                                        GEORGE                    A whole convoy of armed                    degenerates, that's what's wrong!                    Coming here for them! And they led                    them right to us!                    Martha rushes to the window, pulls aside the lace curtain.          Outside she sees the armored vehicles SCREECHING TO A HALT.                    The men spill out from the vehicles and take cover behind          them, locking and loading weapons.                                        MARTHA                    Oh no they don't...                    She rushes across the room, teeth gritted with determination.                                        GEORGE                    Martha, what are you doing?                                        MARTHA                    I finally got this house just the                    way I want it. I'm not going to let                    anybody tear it apart!                    She goes to the couch and yanks off the seat cushions.          Underneath is a WOODEN LID which she throws open to reveal:                    A HUGE CACHE OF WEAPONS. Automatic rifles. Shotguns. Pistols.          Grenades. And enough ammunition for everything.                                                                           91.                              She pulls out an M-60 MACHINE-GUN, slings the strap over her          shoulder and locks in a CHAIN OF BULLETS. She looks like a          post-apocalyptic Martha Stewart.                                        SOLARA                    Where did you get all this stuff?                    George pulls out an AK-47, slots in a magazine.                                        GEORGE                    Took `em off them who came looking                    to take the place from us. Built up                    quite the stash over the years.                    He offers a .44 MAGNUM to Solara.                                        GEORGE                    You know how to fire a gun?                                        SOLARA                    My daddy showed me once.                                        GEORGE                    Just like riding a bike.                                        SOLARA                    I never rode a bike.                    George sighs, turns instead to Eli.                                        GEORGE                    How about you, you know how to-                    Eli is already reloading his shotgun, checking the barrel.          Readying the weapon in the practiced manner of an expert.                                        GEORGE                    Never mind.                    EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS                    Redridge steps forward, raises a BULLHORN.                                        REDRIDGE                    We know you're in there! Come on                    out with your hands up and your                    weapons on the deck and nobody                    needs to get hurt.                    SILENCE. No sign of activity inside the house.                    Redridge turns back to his men. Their hands trembling. They          didn't sign up for this, and they're not ready for it.                                                                              92.                              Redridge turns back to the house. Into the bullhorn:                                        REDRIDGE                    All right, look. I'm gonna make it                    easy on y'all. Bring out the girl                    with the book.                    INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Eli is crouched beneath the window. George and Martha have          taken up positions at other windows, peering out.                                        REDRIDGE (O.S.)                    That's all we want. The girl and                    the book. The rest of you's can go                    your way.                                        SOLARA                    What are we going to do?                    BEAT as Eli thinks.                                        ELI                    Hand me my pack.                    EXT. HOUSE - DAY                    Redridge waits. Still no sign of a response. His nervous          gunmen exchange worried looks.                                        CARNEGIE GUNMAN #2                    They ain't comin' out. They-                    Redridge raises his hand to silence him. Looks up as an          UPSTAIRS WINDOW slides open.                    A CLOTH PACKAGE is tossed from the window. It lands in the          dirt outside the perimeter fence a few yards from Redridge.                    Cautiously, he approaches. The package is wrapped in cloth          and tied up with twine. It looks like Eli's bible.                    He picks it up and tugs at the twine, untying it. Folds away          the cloth wrapping. Looks for a moment in puzzlement at the          object, at the words written on the front of it.                                          THIS SIDE TO FACE ENEMY                    It's a MINIATURE CLAYMORE MINE. The small red light on top of          the unit ILLUMINATES WITH A BEEP. Armed.                                        REDRIDGE                    Holy shi...                                                                              93.                              He drops the package in the dirt and races for his life back          toward the vehicles.                                          REDRIDGE                      Get down! Everybody get down!                    He dives across the trunk of the Explorer into cover as THE          MINE EXPLODES, SHATTERING EVERY WINDOW OF EVERY VEHICLE. The          lightweight Mini Cooper takes the main brunt and EXPLODES,          cartwheeling through the air, a burning wreck.                    Redridge looks around. Three men lie dead already. Flaming          wreckage all around him. Suddenly, it's a war zone.                    MACHINE-GUN FIRE ERUPTS FROM THE HOUSE, peppering the          vehicles' armor. The gunmen cower behind cover.                                          REDRIDGE                      Damn you, return fire!                    Redridge aims at the house and OPENS FIRE. Inspired by his          example, the others follow. A HAIL OF BULLETS CRISS-CROSS          BACK AND FORTH. The house's faded paint facade is shredded.                    INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Martha continues firing wildly with the M-60. Screaming at          the top of her lungs, loving every minute of it.                                          MARTHA                      Come and get it, you god-damn sons                      of mother-fucking bitches!                    George and Eli also open fire from their windows,          periodically ducking to take cover from incoming fire.                    Solara sits across the room, in the corner, sobbing.                                          ELI                      It's all right. We're going to be                      all right. Trust me.                    MORE GUNFIRE splinters the window frame above his head.                                          ELI                      You remember what I told you about                      faith?                    She nods.                    Eli peeks out and FIRES OUT THE WINDOW, dropping one of the          enemy gunmen with a crack shot. Ducks back down as the return          fire impacts around him.                                                                           94.                                                  ELI                    We're going to get out of this                    alive. Both of us. I know.                                        SOLARA                    Because God told you?                                        ELI                    Because God told me.                    Amidst all the chaos and gunfire, George has been listening          to this exchange.                                        GEORGE                    What about us?                    BEAT.                                        ELI                    He didn't mention you.                    BEAT. George chambers a round and RESUMES FIRING.                    EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS                    Redridge's men continue the hail of gunfire. Six of them dead          now, six more still standing. No lessening of fire from          inside the house. They're losing.                    Redridge races between the vehicles, ducking from gunfire          until he makes it to the back of the Dodge Caravan. Pops the          trunk and pulls out a ROCKET-PROPELLED GRENADE LAUNCHER.                    He sets it on his shoulder, rests on the trunk to steady his          aim. And FIRES. The rocket screams toward its target, tearing          through the chain fence and TEARING AN ENTIRE CORNER FROM THE          HOUSE in a fiery explosion.                    INT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS                    Filled with smoke. The sounds of COUGHING.                    Dazed, George pushes his way through the smoke, waving his          arms to clear it. A BLOODY GASH on his forehead.                                        GEORGE                    Martha? Martha!                    He finds her lying on the tile floor in what remains of the          kitchen. Or at least her top half. The rest of her is gone.                    George slumps to his knees with tear-filled eyes. Takes his          wife tenderly by the hand for a moment.                                                                              95.                              Then the anger returns. He gets up and turns, consumed now by          a wild fury. Firing with rage over the torn brick wall. He          CLIPS ANOTHER GUNMAN IN THE HEAD, killing him.                    George moves back toward the LIVING ROOM, firing as he goes.                    EXT. HOUSE - CONTINUOUS                    Redridge moves between the cars again, staying behind cover.          George's hail of gunfire has them pinned down.                                        REDRIDGE                    We got any more of those RPGs?                                        CARNEGIE GUNMAN #3                    That was it.                                        REDRIDGE                    Screw this.                    Redridge jumps into the driver's seat of the minivan, turns          the key in the ignition. Jams the accelerator down with the          butt of his rifle, then shifts the transmission into DRIVE.                                           REDRIDGE                    Get clear!                    The gunmen leap clear as the minivan HURTLES TOWARD THE          HOUSE, engine roaring. CRASHES THROUGH THE CHAIN FENCE.                    INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Eli looks up from cover and see the van coming RIGHT AT HIM.          He dives clear as the van CRASHES THROUGH THE WALL INTO THE          LIVING ROOM. It SMASHES INTO THE FAR WALL, finally coming to          a stop.                    More dust and debris, more coughing. Eli tries to get up, but          winces in pain. Puts his hand to his side, it comes back WET          WITH BLOOD. A bad wound. He covers it with his coat, stands          and moves through the smoke.                                           ELI                    Solara?                                           SOLARA (O.S.)                    Eli!                    He finds her in the smoke. She embraces him.                                        ELI                    Are you all right?                                                                           96.                                                    SOLARA                    I'm fine.                    As the smoke clears, Solara sees George PINNED AGAINST THE          WALL BY THE MINIVAN. His body crushed. Dead.                                          SOLARA                    Oh God...                                        ELI                    Come on. We're going out the back.                    We're running.                    As he helps her to her feet, we hear the sound of MOVEMENT          THROUGH THE RUBBLE.                    They turn around. The gunmen are ENTERING THE HOUSE, passing          through the smoking hole left by the minivan.                    Eli reaches for his sword. Met by the sound of MULTIPLE GUNS          COCKING. Redridge steps out from among the gunmen. Smiles.                                        REDRIDGE                    Go ahead and try it, holy man. You                    ain't that fast.                    EXT. HOUSE - DAY                    Eli and Solara are shoved out of the house at gunpoint and          marched past the torn perimeter fence to the vehicles.                    Eli has been stripped of his weapons and backpack. Redridge          faces him and points a pistol at his head.                                        REDRIDGE                    Where's the book?                    BEAT. Eli doesn't answer. Redridge cocks the pistol.                                        REDRIDGE                    I ain't playing.                    Redridge stares him down. Eli just stares right back. Totally          unflappable. Redridge motions to his men.                                        REDRIDGE                    Check the pack.                    The gunman carrying Eli's pack opens it up and tips its          contents out onto the ground. The ghillie suit, battery, some          old canned goods, other odds and ends. No sign of the book.                                        CARNEGIE GUNMAN #4                    It ain't here.                                                                           97.                                                  REDRIDGE                    It's gotta be.                    Redridge holsters his gun and frisks Eli, going through his          pockets. Finds nothing. He opens Eli's coat and checks the          inside pockets. Digs around deep inside.                                        REDRIDGE                    Hello, what have we here?                    And then suddenly he SHRIEKS IN PAIN. Yanks his hand out to          reveal ELI'S RAT, TEETH SUNK DEEP INTO HIS FLESH.                    Redridge flails around violently, trying to get the rat off          him, but it won't let go. His hand is bleeding badly.                                        REDRIDGE                    Fuck! Get it off! Get it off me!                    He finally manages to shake it free. It hits the floor dazed.          Redridge STOMPS ON IT with his boot, reducing it to a bloody          smear in the dirt. Eli lowers his head in sadness.                    Redridge clutches his bloody hand, glares at Eli furiously.          Pulls his gun again and marches right up to him, pressing the          muzzle tight against his forehead.                                        REDRIDGE                    If you don't got the book, what                    fucking use are you?                    His finger tightens on the trigger.                                          SOLARA                    Wait!                    She breaks from the gunmen holding her and rushes toward          Redridge. Reaches inside her dress and PRODUCES THE BIBLE.                                        SOLARA                    It's here! I've got it! Please                    don't kill him.                                          ELI                    Solara...                                        SOLARA                    It's just a book, Eli. No book is                    worth giving up your life for.                                        ELI                    You're wrong.                                                                             98.                              Satisfied, Redridge takes the book. Runs his hand over the          leather cover, gazes admiringly at the gold-embossed cross.                                        REDRIDGE                    You did good, sweetheart. Your                    daddy would be proud. He knew you'd                    come through for him.                    Solara looks at Eli guiltily. She feels terrible.                                        SOLARA                    He said he would hurt my mom. If I                    didn't help him.                                        REDRIDGE                        (SMILING)                    Daddy's little girl...                    Solara stands between him and Eli. Deadly serious now.                                        SOLARA                    I want you to let him go.                                        REDRIDGE                    What?                                        SOLARA                    You've got what you came for. You                    don't need him. Let him go.                                        REDRIDGE                    He's killed a dozen of my men.                                        SOLARA                    If you hurt him, I'm not coming                    back with you. You'll have to drag                    me kicking and screaming.                    Solara glares at Redridge. He sighs. He can tell she means          it. It's not worth the aggravation. He turns back to Eli.                                        REDRIDGE                    Take your shit and get out of here.                    Eli gathers up his stuff into his pack. Shoulders it and goes          to pick up his sword, but Redridge puts his boot on it.                                        REDRIDGE                    No weapons.                    Eli still has a half-dozen guns trained on him. He turns and          walks away, toward the road. As he passes Solara:                                                                             99.                                                  ELI                    I told you we'd both live. Now do                    you have faith?                    A tear runs down Solara's cheek as she watches him walk away.                    Redridge grabs her by the arm and pulls her toward the          vehicles as his men load up and prepare to move out.                    IN THE REARMOST VEHICLE                    Solara sits in the back seat, staring out the rear window as          it drives down the road at the tail end of the convoy.                    She watches as Eli moves away down the road, getting smaller          and smaller until he is just a speck on the horizon.                    She bursts into floods of uncontrollable tears.                    LATER                    Solara in the back seat, calmer now. The tears dried on her          cheeks. She sits staring blankly at the DRIVER in front.                    And then she LUNGES VIOLENTLY FORWARD. Clawing and biting at          the driver, who struggles to fight her off. His hands come          off the wheel and the car FISHTAILS WILDLY.                    REDRIDGE'S VEHICLE                    The DRIVER sees something odd in the rear-view mirror.                                        DRIVER                    What the hell...?                    Redridge turns to see the car behind VEERING ERRATICALLY then          SLAMMING ON THE BRAKES, stopping in the middle of the road.                                        REDRIDGE                    Stop, stop!                    The car screeches to a halt. Redridge watches through the          rear window as the driver's side door opens and the driver is          KICKED OUT ONTO THE ASPHALT.                    The door closes again, the engine revs and the car TURNS          AROUND, racing back down the road in the direction it came.                                        REDRIDGE                    Shit. Turn around!                                        DRIVER                    We ain't got the gas for it!                                                                             100.                                                  REDRIDGE                    She's getting away!                                        DRIVER                    We got the book! And we got barely                    enough gas to make it back as it                    is! We can't go chasin' her!                    BEAT. Redridge knows he's right.                                         REDRIDGE                    Stupid little bitch...                        (BEAT)                    Drive on.                    The car moves on, following the rest of the convoy.                    EXT. HOUSE - DAY                    Solara screeches the car to a halt outside the smoking          wreckage of the besieged house. She runs from the vehicle to          where ELI'S SWORD lies in the dirt and grabs it up.                    EXT. ROAD - DUSK                    Solara races down the road in the car, pedal to the metal.                                        SOLARA                    Come on, come on...                    Eventually, she sees him. At first just a dot on the horizon.          But unmistakably Eli. By now, she'd know him anywhere.                    Suddenly the engine SPLUTTERS. She checks the fuel gauge; the          needle deep in the red. She pounds the wheel in frustration.                                          SOLARA                    No... No!                    The car grinds to a halt, dead. She flings open the door and          leaps out of the vehicle, rushing after Eli on foot.                    ON ELI. As always, his pace steady and slow. The sun directly          ahead of him as it sets on the horizon. Headed always west.                    Solara is running up behind him, a hundred yards back.                                          SOLARA                    Eli! Eli!                    He doesn't stop or look back. Just keeps on walking.                    She finally catches up with him, breathing hard, exhausted.                                                                            101.                                                     SOLARA                    Eli...                                        ELI                    Thought you'd gone back to town.                                        SOLARA                    I can't go back there. Eli, I'm so                    sorry.                                           ELI                    For what?                                        SOLARA                    For what? I betrayed you! I gave                    them the book!                                        ELI                    You did what you believed you had                    to.                                        SOLARA                    You're not mad at me?                    BEAT.                                        ELI                    I forgive you.                    She continues walking alongside him. Trying to process this.          This kind of compassion is totally foreign to her.                    She holds out the sword, offering it to Eli by way of          atonement.                                         SOLARA                    Here. I thought you might still                    need this.                    Eli seems appreciative that she would think to return it to          him. He takes it and slings it over his shoulder.                                           ELI                    Thank you.                                        SOLARA                    What are you going to do now?                                        ELI                    Same as always. Keep heading west.                                        SOLARA                    Why? I mean, you don't have the                    book any more.                                                                            102.                                                  ELI                    But I still have my faith.                    They walk on together, into the sunset.                    EXT. NORTHERN CALIFORNIA - MONTAGE - DAY                    Eli and Solara follow the road through burned-out towns and          retail neighborhoods. Gutted and dead, like every place else.                    But something is different here. Things are greener. Tufts of          grass here and there. They attract Solara's attention.                                        SOLARA                    What's that?                    Eli reaches down and runs his hand through the grass.                                        ELI                    It's grass. It used to grow all                    over the place.                                        SOLARA                    How come it's here?                                        ELI                    I don't know. Less poison in the                    air this near to the ocean, maybe.                    They keep walking. Eli groans, clutches his side. Does his          best to hide his pain from Solara. She notices anyway.                                        SOLARA                    What's wrong?                                        ELI                    Nothing. Just a cramp.                    EXT. FREEWAY - NIGHT                    They walk on through the night. Eli stops and sniffs the air.                                           SOLARA                    What?                                        ELI                    Do you smell that?                                        SOLARA                    Smell what?                                        ELI                    Salt in the air. We're close to the                    ocean. We're almost there.                                                                          103.                              EXT. CALIFORNIA ROAD - DAWN                    They keep on along the road. A shallow uphill incline. They          follow it uphill, finally reaching its crest, where they stop          and take in the view before them.                    THE PACIFIC OCEAN. Straddled by the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE - the          once-great structure has partially collapsed from decades of          neglect and disrepair. The span sags and hangs low over the          ocean, the asphalt cracked and ruptured.                    On the other side of the bay, SAN FRANCISCO - or the little          that remains of it. The city has been almost TOTALLY          DESTROYED - entire areas reduced to rubble, the few buildings          still standing looking on the verge of collapse.                    Solara looks at it all in horrified awe. Eli, unperturbed,          keeps on moving, still clutching his side.                                         ELI                    Come on.                    EXT. GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE - DAY                    Eli and Solara make their way south across the bridge, side-          stepping the fractures in the road.                    EXT. SAN FRANCISCO RUINS - DAY                    Eli leads Solara through the rubble of what used to be San          Francisco. It's like walking through the wreckage of 9/11's          Ground Zero, but a hundred times the scale. Horrifying.                    They pass by the wreckage of a HOTEL, nothing but the lobby          still standing. A HILTON sign protruding from the rubble.                    Eli uses his sheathed sword as a walking stick, poking around          ahead of him for loose rubble underfoot. He steps carefully.                                        ELI                    Watch your footing. Step where I                    step.                    EXT. SAN FRANCISCO - FINANCIAL DISTRICT - DAY                    More buildings are still standing here, but they're nothing          more than great dead monoliths. Solara looks up at the          blasted skyscrapers - she's never seen anything like it.                    The buildings loom over her like giant tombstones. It scares          her - like walking through the graveyard of a dead world.                                        SOLARA                    This... this is the world before?                                                                          104.                                                  ELI                    What's left of it.                    They keep walking, passing the TOPPLED TRANSAMERICA PYRAMID.                    EXT. SAN FRANCISCO - FISHERMAN'S WHARF - DAY                    Once a bustling oceanside tourist spot, now a ghost town.                    Eli and Solara walk along the litter-strewn street, passing          the old RIPLEY'S BELIEVE-IT-OR-NOT and WAX MUSEUMS. The          celebrity mannequins are still in fair condition, but slumped          at their feet are CHARRED HUMAN SKELETONS.                    Eli is struggling now. He looks pale from the blood loss. His          breathing labored. Solara takes him by the arm to help him.                    EXT. SAN FRANCISCO - PIER 39 - DAY                    A dead, ruined place, like everywhere else. We hear the sound          of SEAGULLS nearby - the only sign of life at all.                    Eli and Solara walk along the pier, until they reach its end.          The original end has long since collapsed into the sea, but a          RICKETY HAND-MADE ROPE BRIDGE has been affixed to the pier's          sheared-off edge.                    Eli and Solara stand at the pier's end, looking out to sea.                                        ELI                    Do you see that?                                        SOLARA                    I see it. Is that it?                                           ELI                    That's it.                    Reveal now that the rope-bridge leads out across the bay to:                    ALCATRAZ ISLAND                    Looking much the same as it always has, old and dilapidated.          The coastal fog shrouding it gives it an ethereal look. It          feels almost like a mythic place - the "promised land" Eli          has sought for so many years.                    A tattered STARS AND STRIPES still flutters in the breeze          atop the prison lighthouse.                                                                            105.                              EXT. BAY ROPE BRIDGE - DAY                    Eli and Solara make their way carefully across the bridge. It          feels highly unstable and sags low over the bay, the waters          below close enough to lap around their ankles.                    EXT. ALCATRAZ ISLAND - DAY                    Eli and Solara arrive at the prison gates. Securely locked.          As they inspect it for a possible way to enter:                                        VOICE (O.S.)                    Who goes there?                    They look up. A GUARD in paramilitary fatigues is stationed          in one of the perimeter towers. Training a rifle on them.                                        ALCATRAZ GUARD                    Identify yourselves!                    In the opposite tower ANOTHER GUARD has his rifle trained on          them too. Eli looks up, raises his hands.                                        ELI                    My name is Elijah Stone. I have a                    message for your boss. I need you                    to tell him that I have a King                    James Bible in my possession.                    BEAT.                                        ALCATRAZ GUARD                    Remain where you are! Do not                    attempt to move or you will be                    fired upon!                    Keeping the gun trained on them, the tower guard uses his          free hand to talk into a WALKIE-TALKIE RADIO. We don't hear          the conversation. All Eli and Solara can do is wait.                    The guard puts away his radio and shouts back down:                                        ALCATRAZ GUARD                    Be prepared to surrender any                    weapons at the gate!                    BEAT. And then the massive front gates SLOWLY OPEN ON          MECHANICAL RUNNERS with the low groan of rusted iron.                    Eli and Solara look at each other, then step gingerly inside.                                                                          106.                              INT. ALCATRAZ - MAIN GATES - CONTINUOUS                    As soon as they step inside they are SURROUNDED BY DOZENS OF          HEAVILY-ARMED SOLDIERS. Not U.S. military, more like a semi-          official militia. But every bit as deadly.                    Eli and Solara raise their hands. A pair of SOLDIERS take          Eli's pack and sword, pat them both down for other weapons.                                        SOLDIER                    They're clean.                    The soldiers before them part - to reveal a THIN, BALDING MAN          wearing spectacles. He wears Kevlar body armor over his tweed          jacket and tie. Professorial, academic.                    He approaches, shakes Eli's hand vigorously - very excited.                                        THIN MAN                    Welcome, both of you. I'm Professor                    Lombardi. I'm the curator here.                                        ELI                    Elijah Stone.                                           SOLARA                    Solara.                                        LOMBARDI                    Solara. What a delightful name. Is                    that by any chance Shakespearean?                                        SOLARA                    I, uh, I think it's Japanese.                                           LOMBARDI                    Wonderful.                    He turns back to Eli.                                        LOMBARDI                    Is it true what they tell me? You                    have a King James Version?                                        ELI                    Been carrying it with me for twenty-                    five years.                    Solara looks at Eli, puzzled. Lombardi finds it hard to          contain his excitement.                                        LOMBARDI                    My goodness. I can't tell you how                    exciting this is. Well, come, come!                              (MORE)                                                                          107.                                        LOMBARDI (cont'd)                    I'll give you the nickel tour and                    then we can all sit down and take a                    look at it.                    He leads them across the courtyard into the prison buildings.                    EXT. DESERT TOWN - MAIN STREET - DAY                    Redridge's remaining vehicles drive back into town and come          to a halt outside the theater. Redridge emerges from his car,          carrying the bible. Walks up to the Palladium and enters.                    INT. ALCATRAZ - CELL BLOCK - DAY                    What was once a cell block is now an IMMENSE LIBRARY. Stacked          floor to ceiling with books. Lombardi shows Eli and Solara          around. Behind them, a pair of ARMED GUARDS follow closely.                                        LOMBARDI                    Yes, we've been doing this for some                    time now. Collected over thirty                    thousand volumes from generous                    donors all across the nation. We                    even have a printing press that we                    hope to have operational soon.                    Solara is stunned as she surveys the endless stacks of books.          She's never seen anything like it.                                        SOLARA                    You turned the whole prison into a                    library?                                         LOMBARDI                    Well, not exactly. We're more like                    a storage facility. We're holding                    these books here in trust, if you                    like. When society gets back on its                    feet and no longer needs us to                    preserve these volumes, they'll be                    here waiting.                        (BEAT)                    I must ask you, how did you hear                    about us? We've been doing                    everything we can to get the word                    out, but we always like to know                    where our benefactors come from.                                        ELI                    I was sent here by God.                    Lombardi raises a quizzical eyebrow.                                                                           108.                                                   LOMBARDI                    Is that right? Well, it's good to                    know we're getting such high-                    profile referrals these days.                        (BEAT)                    I must say, I am so excited that we                    finally have a King James. You                    know, we have a Talmud here, we                    have two Korans, we even have that                    Scientology book. But never a                    Christian bible, until now. I                    honestly believed it was the one                    book I'd never see again, after                    what happened...                    BEAT. Lombardi appears sad for a moment.                                        LOMBARDI                    May I ask what condition it's in?                                        ELI                    It's a little beat-up. But it'll do                    the job.                                        LOMBARDI                    Well, then. What say we take a look                    at it?                    Lombardi looks at Eli with anticipation. So does Solara,          interested to know where this is going to go next.                    Eli winces in pain, puts his hand to his side.                                        ELI                    Is there someplace we could sit?                                        LOMBARDI                    Of course. Right this way.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - CARNEGIE'S BOX                    Redridge appears. Carnegie looks at him eagerly.                                        CARNEGIE                    Did you get it?                    Redridge holds the bible up proudly. Carnegie beams.                                         CARNEGIE                    Show me.                    Redridge hands it over. Carnegie sits back in his chair,          running his hand lovingly over the battered leather cover.                                                                             109.                                                  CARNEGIE                    The new world begins here...                    He opens the book and looks inside.                    BEAT. And then he looks up at Redridge, confused.                                        CARNEGIE                    What the fuck is this?                    INT. ALCATRAZ - CAFETERIA - DAY                    Eli, Solara and Lombardi sit at one of the long lunch-room          tables. The two armed guards keep watch nearby.                                        ELI                    Do you have something you can write                    with?                                        LOMBARDI                    Mmm? Oh, yes of course!                    He pulls a pen from his pocket, motions to one of the guards.                                        LOMBARDI                    Could you please bring us some                    writing paper?                    The guard nods and moves toward the door. As he does so:                                        ELI                    Bring a lot of it.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - CARNEGIE'S BOX                    Carnegie looks at the open bible, jaw hanging loose, his          complexion ashen. Like he's just been slapped in the face.                                        REDRIDGE                    What? What is it?                    INT. ALCATRAZ - CAFETERIA - DAY                    The guard brings a THICK SHEAF OF WRITING PAPER to the          cafeteria table, sets it down by Lombardi.                                        ELI                    Are you ready?                                        LOMBARDI                    What exactly am I writing?                                                                           110.                                                  ELI                    Pay close attention and write down                    every word exactly as I say it.                    Eli removes his goggles. Solara can't believe what she sees.                    His eyes are pale, milky-white, dead. TOTALLY BLIND.                                        ELI                    The First Book of Moses called                    Genesis. Chapter one, verse one. In                    the beginning God created the                    heavens and the earth. Verse two.                    The earth was without form, and                    void; and darkness was on the face                    of the deep. And the spirit of God                    was hovering over the face of the                    waters. Verse three. And God said,                    "Let there be light," and there was                    light.                    Lombardi hurriedly writes down every word.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - CARNEGIE'S BOX                    Carnegie sits at his desk, still in shock. Eli's bible sits          open on the desk before him.                    A BRAILLE BIBLE.                    Claudia is ushered in by a guard.                                        CLAUDIA                    What's wrong?                    He rushes forward and thrusts the bible into her hands.                                        CARNEGIE                    You told me once that you know how                    to read this. This blind language.                                        CLAUDIA                    Well, a long time ago, when I was a                    little girl...                                        CARNEGIE                    You're going to read it for me.                    Every word. And I'm going to write                    it down. Start at the beginning.                    As Carnegie hunts on his desk for a paper and pen, Claudia          opens the book and trails her fingertips across the raised          lettering.                                                                          111.                              For a moment there is a glimmer of recognition... a faint          smile... but then it fades as Carnegie turns back to her,          eagerly clutching the writing materials.                                         CLAUDIA                    I'm sorry. It's been so long. I                    don't remember. I don't remember                    any of it.                    Carnegie is aghast. BEAT as the anger swells within him,          threatening to explode...                                        CARNEGIE                    God fucking dammit!                    He swipes violently at the bible, knocking it out of          Claudia's hands. He grabs it up and tries to rip it in two,          but it's too thick to tear. Red-faced with rage, he tosses it          out over the box balcony. It lands somewhere in the dark          auditorium below, between the rows of gutted theater seats.                    As he paces angrily back past Claudia:                                        CLAUDIA                    Bill, is there something-                                        CARNEGIE                    Just go. Just get out of my sight.                    He slumps in his chair, exhausted and furious. Claudia sadly          turns and leaves him alone with his thoughts.                    INT. ALCATRAZ - CAFETERIA - NIGHT                    Some considerable time later. Great stacks of paper have been          filled with Lombardi's handwriting.                    Lombardi's pen races across the paper, struggling to keep up          with Eli's recitation.                    Solara is curled up on a nearby bench, asleep. Eli's coat          covering her to keep her warm.                    Eli clutches his wound painfully as he continues to recite.          He looks paler now than ever. Close to death.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    Dear Lord, thank you for giving me                    the strength and the conviction to                    complete the task you entrusted to                    me. Thank you for guiding me                    straight and true, through the many                    obstacles in my path.                              (MORE)                                                                          112.                                        ELI (V.O.) (cont'd)                    And for keeping me resolute when                    all around seemed lost.                    EXT. ALCATRAZ - EXERCISE YARD - PRE-DAWN                    The prison yard shrouded in the dim light just before dawn.                    Solara crosses the yard. She looks more mature somehow.          Determined and strong. She carries with her ELI'S SWORD - and          something else, tucked under her arm.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    Thank you for your protection and                    for your many signs along the way.                    She stops in a nondescript corner of the yard.                    At her feet is a SHALLOW MOUND OF DIRT. At the head of the          mound, a SIMPLE TOMBSTONE.                    She kneels and places a SINGLE FLOWER on the grave.                    INT. PALLADIUM - CARNEGIE'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                    Lit only by the pale moonlight, barely enough to see by.                    Carnegie sleeps soundly in bed. Next to him lies Claudia,          wide awake. She checks that Carnegie is sound asleep, careful          not to wake him before she creeps out of bed and exits.                    INT. PALLADIUM AUDITORIUM - NIGHT                    Claudia is on her hands and knees in the darkness, searching          blindly in the aisles and beneath the theater seats.                    She finds Eli's bible in some litter strewn on the floor.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    Thank you for the good that I have                    done. For whatever light you were                    able to shine into the darkness of                    this world through me.                    Sitting in the darkness, Claudia opens the book and runs her          fingers across the braille, reading. And though we can barely          see in the dim light, we see the smile on her face. The joy.                    EXT. ALCATRAZ - EXERCISE YARD - DAWN                    As Solara kneels by the grave, we see now that she wears          Eli's SAINT CHRISTOPHER PENDANT around her neck.                    The tombstone reads:                                                                          113.                                                   HERE LIES ELIJAH STONE                                DIED AUGUST 21, 2048                            FAITHFUL SERVANT TO THE LORD                                AND FRIEND TO SOLARA                    She unsheathes Eli's sword, plants it in the ground before          his grave. Takes the BOOK from under her arm and opens it up.                    It's a NEW BIBLE. Crudely typeset from Lombardi's original          transcription and printed on the prison press.                    She opens it up and begins to read a passage from the bible          over Eli's grave. We don't hear what she says.                    As Solara finishes her reading and closes the bible, LOMBARDI          appears behind her.                                        LOMBARDI                    You know, you don't have to leave.                    You're welcome to stay here with                    us. You'll be safe.                                         SOLARA                    Thanks.                    She stands, pulling Eli's sword from the earth.                                        SOLARA                    But I gotta do what I gotta do.                                        LOMBARDI                    Where will you go?                    BEAT. Solara looks at the sword, her fingers playing across          its hilt. The blade glimmers in the light of the rising sun.                    There is a determined, purposeful look in her eye.                                         SOLARA                    Home.                    EXT. ALCATRAZ ISLAND - DAWN                    The sun rises through the fog on the horizon.                    The great iron gates grind open. Solara emerges from inside          the prison, steps out onto the island rock.                    She is dressed in a flak jacket, combat pants and boots.          Eli's old pack across her back. Hair tied in a neat pony          tail. Atop that, Eli's ragged fur hat.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    Thank you for the friend I made.                                                                          114.                              In her hand she clutches a copy of the newly-printed bible.          Eli's sword slung over her shoulder.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    Please watch over her as you                    watched over me.                    MONTAGE as Solara walks back along Fisherman's Wharf...          through the San Francisco rubble... across the Golden Gate          bridge...                                        ELI (V.O.)                    Thank you for allowing me finally                    to rest. I'm so very tired. The                    time of my departure is at hand and                    now I surrender my soul into your                    care, at peace in knowing that I                    have carried out your will. That I                    have done right with my time on                    this earth.                    EXT. ROAD - DAY                    ...and finally back onto a desolate road leading off into the          desert wasteland. She looks up and down the road, then turns          and heads toward the sun on the horizon. Headed east.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    I have fought the good fight. I                    have finished the race.                    As she walks away into the sun, her lonely silhouette on the          road reminds us of Eli as we saw him so many times before.                                        ELI (V.O.)                    I have kept the faith.                    She grows smaller and smaller as she walks into the distance,          until she consumed by the rising sun and we                                                                    FADE OUT:           
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+                                   ALL SAINTS DAY                                    Written by                                    Troy Duffy                                                                                       September 1, 2007                              EXT. BOYLESTON STREET, BOSTON -- MORNING                    The boulevard is empty, eerie silence. No cars, no people. A man          walks down the middle of the street, long trench, dark shades.          Though he does not speak, we hear...                                           MAN V.O.                     There's two kinds of people in this                     world when you boil it all down. You                     got your talkers and you got your                     doers.                    We recognize this man as ROCCO. He crosses Copley Square toward the          looming dome of the Trinity Church.                                           ROCCO V.O.                     Most people are just talkers. All they                     got is talk. But when all's said and                     done, it is the doers who change the                     world. And when they do that, they                     change us. That's why we never forget                     them...So, which one are you? Do you                     just talk about it? Or do you stand up                     and do something about it? Because                     believe you me all the rest of it is                     just coffee house bullshit.                    FADE TO BLACK...                    EXT. DEEP COUNTRYSIDE -- DAY                    SUBTEXT:   "Ireland"                    From behind we see two men perched atop a boulder. A flock of sheep          encircles them. Their army sacks and shotguns are nearby. They roll          their own cigarettes with effortless synchronicity and light up.          CONNOR and MURPHY MacMANUS (30's) now have long hair with heavy          facial growth. Rugged. Piercing eyes. Looking to the horizon...                                           MURPHY                     Looks like a storm's comin'.                                           CONNOR                     Aye.                    EXT. FIELDS -- LATER                    MOODY MUSIC: The brothers drive the flock across jewel green hills.          Murphy cuts a sheep from a thicket and sets it off.                                           POPPA M V.O.                     Peace, they say, is the enemy of                     memory. So it had been for my boys.                                                                                     2.                              Connor shares some jerky with a sheep dog as the flock surges.                                          POPPA M V.O. (CONT'D)                    For some time now, their past had felt                    like a dream to them...faded and worn.                    Murphy touches the faded Celtic Cross tattoo on his forearm. Connor          sees. The music takes us to a secluded, pioneer-esque ranch.                    CLOSE ON: POPPA M's (58yrs) face as he coughs and watches his sons          approach from his rocking chair on the porch.                                          POPPA M V.O. (CONT'D)                    And then suddenly, as if not a day had                    passed...it was back. I could see it                    in their eyes.                    INT. FARMHOUSE -- NIGHT                    Poppa M and his sons eat a rustic dinner.   It storms outside.                                          POPPA M V.O.                    I could feel it, heavy in their                    presence. Something calling them back.                    Poppa M looks to his boys who just keep eating. DIP TO BLACK...                    INT. FARMHOUSE, FRONT PORCH -- NEXT MORNING                    Very early dawn, shadowy morning light. Connor and Murphy sip          coffees and look out into the rain. Lightening lights up the flock.                    Through the open door behind them, Poppa M stokes a warm fire.                    Connor touch the Celtic Cross tattoo on his forearm. The boys look          at each other as the rain suddenly stops and all the "little sounds"          of morning cease. Something's amiss. Thunder. Ominous music as...                    EXT. BOSTON, TRINITY CHURCH -- NIGHT                    From behind, we see a man with a CREW CUT, staring at the dome of          the Trinity.                    SLO-MO, CLOSE ON: Crew Cut's boots as he paces toward.    The          threatening music bleeds over to...                    EXT. FARM -- MOMENTS LATER                    Just inside the trees, a pack of wolves stalk the sheep flock...                    SLO-MO, CLOSE ON:   A wolf's paws as it paces toward...                    We intercut between BOSTON and IRELAND as chaos erupts...                                                                                     3.                              BOSTON:    Crew Cut quickly enters the church.                    IRELAND:    The wolves burst from the tree line.                    BOSTON: A frantic priest in his 50's weeps and begs as Crew Cut          slams him to his knees with a .9 mm to his head.                    IRELAND:   The wolves savagely attack the screaming sheep.                    BOSTON:    Muzzle flash, blood splatters on the altar.                    IRELAND: BOOM! BOOM! Connor and Murphy blast shotguns at the          wolves. One is hit, the rest retreat. The boys perform mercy          killings on the wolf and one sheep.                    Everything calms as Poppa M rushes up with a mag light and stops.          He coughs roughly. Moody choral music begins...                                            POPPA M V.O.                      "And they cried out, How long O'Lord                      dost thou not judge and revenge our                      blood upon them that dwell on the                      earth?"                    EXT. FIELD -- LATER                    The boys toss the wolf carcass onto a bonfire.     It rains again.                                            POPPA M V.O.                      And God said, "All will fear the wrath                      of the lamb. For the great day of                      their reckoning hath come."                    Poppa M looks across the blaze to his sons. Connor and Murphy stare          into the fire, bathed in the light of angry flames.                                  POPPA M                      "And they that holdest my name shall                      come with the shaking of the earth and                      the roiling of the oceans."                    EXT. FARM -- NIGHT                    Downpour. A rugged old jeep tears through the mud. It stops at the          farmhouse. Poppa M and the boys come out onto the porch. A dark          figure with a fedora and rain slicker exits the jeep and hurries to          the porch. Meet Uncle SIBEAL (62yrs). He wears a priest's collar.                                            SIBEAL                      Something's happened.                                                                                     4.                              EXT. CHURCH -- MORNING                    Breaking news. REPORTER #1 is live from outside a church.   Squads,          coroner's vans, CSI etc. Police hold back crowds.                                          REPORTER #1                    There is no new information on the                    victim found slain this morning inside                    Trinity Church. As you can see the                    size of the crowd here has increased                    substantially over the last couple of                    hours. People are demanding answers as                    to how a priest could be murdered in a                    church. But perhaps more shocking, we                    have confirmed that the body was                    ritualized with pennies in the eyes.                    Many remember this as the grisly                    calling card of the prolific vigilante                    killers known as the Saints, who went                    on a murder spree here in Boston.                    NEWS FOOTAGE:   People scream as they run out of a courthouse.                                          REPORTER #1 V.O.                    A rampage that ended six years ago,                    when the Saints brazenly walked into                    open court...                    NEWS FOOTAGE:   A body is wheeled out on a gurney.                                          REPORTER #1 V.O. (CONT'D)                    ...and executed Mafia Don, Poppa Joe                    Yakavetta before a courtroom of                    terrified witnesses, then simply                    disappeared without a trace.          Grainy, unclear security footage of three men walking the court          halls, two in heavy black jackets, one in a trench...                                          REPORTER #1 V.O. (CONT'D)                    The now legendary security camera                    footage from that harrowing day, our                    singular tiny glimpse of these infamous                    and controversial killers.                    We are back with Reporter #1 at the church.                                          REPORTER #1                    As police have yet to confirm the                    Saints' possible involvement, the                    ominous question hangs heavy in the                    air. "Are they back?"                                                                                   5.                              INT. FARMHOUSE -- NIGHT                    Sibeal, Poppa M, Connor and Murphy sit around the table.   The boys          have a look of controlled anger. Presently...                                            MURPHY                    The priest.    Did they release his name?                                          SIBEAL                    No. But I made a few calls, still got                    some friends in the diocese there.                    McKinney. Father Douglas McKinney.                    The boys flash with recognition.                                          SIBEAL (CONT'D)                    You knew him?                                          CONNOR                    Knew of him. Everybody did. A regular                    Mother Theresa. Youth hostels, soup                    kitchens. Even made it into the                    newspapers sometimes.                    Sibeal considers this.    He genuflects and turns.                                          SIBEAL                    Listen boys. I think it's best that ya                    just stay put and we'll try ta figure                    out what...                    Connor and Murphy are out the door and headed for the barn.          Confused, Sibeal looks to Poppa M, who just sips his coffee.                    INT. BARN -- MOMENTS LATER          MOODY MUSIC: The boys begin to look more like "themselves" as the          they cut their hair and beards with sheep sheers.                    The brothers lift a chest from a hole in the barn floor. They load          guns and money into black duffel bags and place their signature          rosaries around their necks, clasping their hands in prayer...                    INT. TRINITY CHURCH, ALTER -- MOMENTS LATER                    Detective GREENLY (38yrs) is alone on the alter. Police line all          around as Greenly stares at the body like the detective has seen a          ghost. He turns and nervously staggers toward the front vestibule.                    INT. VESTIBULE -- SAME TIME                    Detectives DOLLY and DUFFY are scared.   In hushed tones...                                                                                     6.                                                    DUFFY                    We need to keep our heads, here.   It's                    probably not even them.                                          DOLLY                    Of course it ain't them but that                    doesn't really matter, does it. Our                    skeletons just came screaming out of                    the closet. We're fucked.                                          DUFFY                    We're not fucked.                    Greenly enters from the church proper.   Dolly and Duffy turn.                                          GREENLY                    We are totally fucked!                    EXT. RAPID FLASHBACK SEQUENCE, "ACCESSORY TO MURDER"                    Greenly, disguised as a correctional officer, lets Connor, Murphy          and Poppa M out of a paddywagon. FLASH!                    The Saints enter the Suffolk Courthouse, undetected.   FLASH!                    Dolly, dressed as a civilian, pulls the fire alarm.    FLASH!                    The Saints execute Poppa Joe Yakavetta before many terrified          witnesses, the alarm blaring in the b.g. FLASH!                    INT. BACK TO PRESENT, VESTIBULE -- MOMENTS LATER                                          GREENLY                    ...and not just fucked, like elephant                    dick, pounded in the ass, no reach                    around, jungle fucked!                                DUFFY                    Now's not the time to panic, Green                    beans!                                          GREENLY                    Oh, I disagree. Now's the perfect time                    to panic. We're all Accessories to...                                          DOLLY                    Don't you fucking say it!                    They all argue over one another. OFFICER #1 peaks his head in the          front door. The detectives grind to a halt.                                          OFFICER #1                    Her E.T.A. is ten minutes.                                                                                     7.                              EXT. GRAVEYARD -- MORNING                    CLOSE ON:   a gravestone.   "Paul M. Smecker,    1956 - 2003"                    We reveal a pair of sexy female legs, expensive "Jimmy Choo" heels.          From behind we see the woman rest a rose at Smecker's Grave. "Legs"          turns and walks toward a waiting squad car in b.g.                    EXT. CHURCH -- MOMENTS LATER                    Dolly, Duffy and Greenly stand outside in the entry way of the          church. Though still on edge, they have calmed.                                            DOLLY                      I didn't even know he had a protege.                      What is this bullshit?                    Duffy whips out his trusty note pad.                                            DUFFY                      Special Agent Eunice Bloom, 32 years                      old. Smecker plucked her right out of                      class at Quantico.                                            GREENLY                      Smecker hand picked her? Aw, man.                      This brawd's gonna be a nightmare.                                            DUFFY                      She was assigned to OCD two years back.                      She can shoot a gun, set three course                      records during her training.                                           GREENLY                      Great. A bull dike, Annie Oakley wanna-                      be. We gotta get rid of her.                                  DUFFY                      She is also an authority on the Saints                      case. Which means Smecker must have                      walked her through it.                    The cops suddenly flush with fear.                                            DOLLY                      And the hits just keep on comin'.                    INT. FARMHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    Sibeal waits as Poppa M thinks, then shakes his head.                                                                                 8.                                                    POPPA M                    Naw...I'm in no condition.   I'd just                    slow 'em down.                                          SIBEAL                    Well, are ya at least gonna try ta talk                    them out of this?                    Poppa M shakes his head.                                          SIBEAL (CONT'D)                    We don't even know what this is yet!                    Somebody could just be tryin' ta get                    away with murder here!                                          POPPA M                    Aye. Only there's about a thousand                    easier ways ta do that. Trust me.                    Someone's callin' them out, Sibeal. Ya                    kill a priest in a church and make it                    look like they did it. Bring 'em back                    with a vengeance. Don't know who.                    Don't know why. But someone thinks                    he's real fuckin' clever. Only one                    problem with his little plan.                                            SIBEAL                    What's dat?                                            POPPA M                    It worked.                    Fear and frustration burst from Sibeal.                                          SIBEAL                    Jesus Christ! D'er's too much we don't                    know and if you're won't at least try                    ta talk some sense into them, I will!                    The door opens and in comes Connor and Murphy. Sibeal notes the          change in appearance. The boys stand at the kitchen table's          opposing end, hands in their pockets. Their resolve fills the room.                    The brothers face off with Poppa M and Sibeal: a bizarre board          meeting. Poppa M cocks a brow at Sibeal who clears his throat.                                          SIBEAL (CONT'D)                    Exactly what do you intend to do?                    Silence. Nobody moves. Connor withdraws a hand from his pocket and          looks down. He flips a penny on the table. It clatters to a stop.                                                                                    9.                                                     MURPHY                     Every last motherfucker that had                     anything to do with it.                    EXT. CHURCH -- LATER                    A squad pulls up.    Dolly, Duffy and Greenly turn.                                            DOLLY                     Game time.   How are we playing this?                                           DUFFY                     Feds love to pull the divide and                     conquer routine. We hard line her.                     Stick together on this. Agreed?                                            DOLLY                     Agreed.   We're a brick wall.                    They all nod and stiffen their resolve.                                           GREENLY                     Let's rock this bitch.                    Rockin' music fades in as a uniform opens the squad door.                    SLO-MO:   EUNICE BLOOM (32yrs) exits the squad and moves toward.                    She is simply delicious: sexy, blonde hair, a woman's business          suit, short skirt, brass rimmed specs. Each detective's face drops.          Soon she is before them. Music cuts. She smiles and speaks with a          southern drawl a la Doc Holiday.                                           EUNICE                              (POINTING)                     You hafta be Detectives Dolly and                     Duffy. Am I right?                              (extending hand)                     Eunice Bloom. A pleasure.                    Dolly and Duffy shake and manage a nod.    Greenly is still enamored.                                           EUNICE (CONT'D)                     And you must be Greenly. Smecker                     always said you were the funny one.                                           GREENLY                     T'sup...I mean, what? Yeah, well,                     funny as in ha ha, though not like                     funny as in gay cuz...I'm not...played                     high school football.                    She chuckles.   Dolly and Duffy fume.                                                                                      10.                                                    DOLLY                    Look, with all due respect, Agent                    Bloom...                                           EUNICE                    Special.                                           DOLLY                    Excuse me?                                          EUNICE                    You see there's a "special" before my                    "agent." If we are going to address                    each other formally, I'd prefer if you                    popped it in there. Makes me feel, I                    don't know...special. Of course, I'd                    hoped we could be a little more                    personable. In fact, I'd like you to                    call me Eunice.                    The cops are dumbfounded.      Duffy snaps out of it.                                          DUFFY                    O'kay, Eunice. I don't see why the                    fuck the Fed is...                                          EUNICE                    Whoa, whoa, "fuck?" This isn't a                    "fuck" situation, is it? I can see a                    "God Damn" or two but why skip all the                    way to "fuck" right off the bat? Let's                    start slow and work our way up to it.                                          DUFFY                    What is the Fed's interest in this?          The detectives harden, brick wall.     Eunice furrows her brow.                                          EUNICE                    Their interest, Detective, is capturing                    the men responsible for the murders of                    22 of Boston's finest criminals. Y'see                    public perception is that these boys                    stepped in, did our jobs for us and                    then disappeared into thin air as we                    fecklessly searched for them. The FBI                    tends to take exception to such things.                    They coulda sent anyone. They sent me.                    Why do you think that is?                             (BEAT)                    Well, since we've broken the "Fuck                    Barrier," allow me to be blunt.                                (MORE)                                                                                   11.                                EUNICE (CONT'D)                    It is because I am so fucking smart                    that I make smart people feel like                    retards. Now, we seem to be getting                    off on the wrong foot here. I'd                    appreciate a bit of cooperation. Let's                    chalk it up to paying respect to the                    memory of a dearly departed mutual                    friend. A man who taught me everything                    I know.                    After a moment of consideration, the cops concede with nods.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Lovely.                             (re: crowd)                    Now what's with the circus?                                          DUFFY                    The victim was killed late last night.                    When people gathered for morning mass,                    they found the front entrance chained                    and padlocked. A locksmith came out,                    cut the chain and surprise, surprise.                    Cell phones. Half of them called the                    cops. Half of them called the media.                    But regardless...word's out.                    Eunice turns and looks over the crowd.                                          EUNICE                    And it looks like that's just the way                    somebody wanted it. What say we scrape                    the shit off this cow's ass, fellas?                    Detective Greenly? Escort a lady onto                    the crime scene?                                           GREENLY                    What?   No, yeah, no.   Of course.                    Greenly escorts her as Dolly and Duffy walk behind, mystified.                                          GREENLY (CONT'D)                    Do you want a cup of coffee or                    something?                                          EUNICE                    Never touch the stuff.                    INT. VESTIBULE -- MOMENTS LATER                    Eunice stands, looking down the aisle at the altar. Behind her, the          Detectives are curios as Eunice slides on pink latex gloves.                                                                                  12.                              She puts in ear plugs and all ambient sound ceases.   She starts          slowly down the aisle...                    TOTAL SILENCE AS...Eunice inspects the smashed door of a          confessional booth. She looks over the body closely then turns from          the altar and walks to the detectives. She pulls her earplugs and          all sound returns.                                          EUNICE                    It wasn't them...but I'm sure you boys                    already knew that.                    The detectives nod.                                          DUFFY                    The two "V's." The victim and venue                    don't add up.                                          EUNICE                    Let's go with the venue first. Our                    perpetrators are devout. They would                    never commit such an act on sacred                    ground. And as for the victim?                                          DOLLY                    All their vics were criminals. Clearly                    not the case here. So, it wasn't them                    which means this is a local matter and                    it falls under our jurisdiction. No                    need for Federal involvement so with                    all due respect...we'll see you later,                    Special Agent Bloom.                    Eunice stands right in front of Dolly.                                          EUNICE                    Man, I hate it when people say that.                    "With all due respect." Because it is                    inevitably followed by a disrespectful                    remark. I'll give you an example.                    With all due respect, Detective, this                    matter falls under whatever                    jurisdiction I fuckin' say it does.                    Dolly fumes.   Duffy and Greenly share an "oh shit" look.                                          DUFFY                    Uh, so...let's just...what can you tell                    us about the shooters?                                                                                 13.                                                    EUNICE                    Shoo-ter. Singular. And I can tell                    you that he is left handed and how                    shall I put this delicately...? He's a                    short bastard.                                          DOLLY                             (FACETIOUS)                    One guy, lefty, short.   Got it.                    Eunice furrows her brow.                                          EUNICE                    I'll show you what I'm talking about.                    INT. CHURCH, ALTAR -- MOMENTS LATER                    Close up on Greenly's enraptured face. We pull back and see he is          on his knees before Eunice and staring longingly between her legs.                                          EUNICE                    Detective Greenly, you're the victim.                                           GREENLY                    David.   You can call me David.                                          EUNICE                    Very well, David.                    Duffy and Dolly stand behind Greenly, chest to chest, each mimicking          guns to the back of the kneeling cop's head.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    The Saints' signature stance. Copley                    Plaza Hotel four years ago. Two men of                    identical height put Yuri Petrova on                    his knees and each dropped iron to the                    back of his head.                    This is torture for Greenly and he turns his head from Eunice's          crotch. She immediately adjusts him back into place.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Eyes front, David. The position of the                    victim and the angles produced by the                    killers' stance created a unique                    scenario. The bullets criss crossed in                    the skull and exited the eye sockets.                    Here, this did not occur. The rounds                    moved on a straight trajectory through                    the back of the victim's head and out                    the front. Which happens when...                                                                                 14.                              Eunice circles around, positioning herself between Dolly and Duffy.          She aims both hands to the back of Greenly's head.                                          DUFFY                    ...one guy's holding two guns to the                    back of your head.                                         EUNICE                    One guy.                    INT. FLASHBACK, CHURCH -- NIGHT BEFORE                    Crew Cut holds two guns to the back of the pleading priest's head.          He fires and McKinney falls. Crew Cut steps forward and we see his          face in the light. Piercing, ice blue, sociopathic eyes. WHIP PAN!                    INT. BACK TO PRESENT, CHURCH -- MOMENTS LATER                                          EUNICE                    Now, the victim falls forward.   If you                    please, David.                    Greenly lays flat on his stomach.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    The killer approached the body from the                    left side...                             (Eunice approaches)                    ...and flipped him to the right.                                          DUFFY                    Left handed.                                          EUNICE                    Yep, southpaw.          INT. FLASHBACK, CHURCH -- NIGHT BEFORE                    Crew Cut flips the body, showing little respect. He pulls out two          pennies and looks at them. He chuckles. WHIP PAN...                    INT. BACK TO PRESENT, CHURCH -- MOMENTS LATER                                          DOLLY                    But you said he was wicked short.                                          EUNICE                    The Saints were later determined to be                    five foot eleven inches tall. It's                    just dumb luck that the Russian and                    McKinney are the exact same height.                    Eunice kneels, putting her pointer fingers just below Greenlys eyes.                                                                                    15.                                                      EUNICE (CONT'D)                      The rounds exited Petrova's eye balls.                      Here they came out the lower cheek.                    She slides her fingers to Greenly's lower cheeks.    He's putty.                                            EUNICE (CONT'D)                      Three, four inches below the eyes.                                            DOLLY                      That puts him at five, seven-ish.                      That's not uncommonly short.                    Eunice stands and points the a broken down confessional booth door.                                            EUNICE                      The killer posed as a late night                      confessor. Once the victim entered the                      booth the killer had him isolated. No                      escape. Short stuff exits his                      confessional and kicks in the door of                      the priest's chamber...                    INT. FLASHBACK, CHURCH -- NIGHT BEFORE                    Crew Cut exits his confessional and kicks in the priest's door.       He          pulls the terrified cleric out. Close on a gash in the door.                                            EUNICE V.O.                      ...leaving a crescent shaped                      indentation which indicates that this                      cowboy was wearing a boot with a                      pronounced heel.                    WHIP PAN!          INT. BACK TO PRESENT, CHURCH -- MOMENTS LATER                                            EUNICE                      Gave him a couple inches. We're                      looking at about five foot five,                      gentlemen.                                            GREENLY                      That's wicked short.                                           EUNICE                      Wicked.                    EXT. OPEN SEA -- DAY                    We drift over open sea to a huge cargo freighter, the Killian          Farris, plodding toward Northeast.                                                                                   16.                              INT. SHIP'S DRY STORAGE LOCK -- MOMENTS LATER                    Connor and Murphy stack grain.    A MEXICAN SEAMAN (23yrs) appears...                                          DECK HAND                    They're brawling in the hold!    Better                    get your bets in now!                    INT. SHIP'S HOLD -- MOMENTS LATER                    Seamen cheer as a large, ruffian GIANT (33yrs) and a Latino fight.          David and Goliath. Meet ROMEO (30yrs), pony tail, shorn sides and a          perpetual smile. Romeo's hands are chained behind him.                    Romeo bobs, weaves and fakes, avoiding many punches. The Giant          spews angry French all the while. The boys step up as money moves          and men bet. Connor to the same Mexican Seaman in Spanish.                                          CONNOR                    Why are his hands chained?                                          MEXICAN SEAMAN                    Romeo's fast, man. He says the                    Frenchman can't lay a hand on him.                                          MURPHY                    But he can't hit him back.                                          MEXICAN SEAMAN                    That's the bet. He's got to last five                    minutes.                                          MURPHY                             (to Connor, English)                    This guy's fuckin' crazy.          The brothers whip out money and give it to the Sailor.                                          BOTH                    Fifty on the Mexican.                    We track with the fighting. Tattooed across Romeo's back, "LA          RAZA." Nearby, French ROUGHNECKS #1 and #2 scream in their native          tongue to the Giant and he stops and rests.                                          ROMEO                    You should never fight a Mexican,                    Frenchy. Pound for pound, the toughest                    mother fuckers on earth. Know why? We                    like pain. We like it, Pierre. I mean                    think about it, "tabasco sauce." What                    kinda fucked up people would even                    invent that shit?                                                                                  17.                              The Giant swings but Romeo slides under his legs. Cheers! Romeo          jumps up, swinging his hands under his feet, still bound but in          front of him now.                                          ROMEO (CONT'D)                    Don't be scared. Remember, I can't hit                    you. I ain't gonna hit ya.                             (avoiding blows)                    Ain't gonna hit ya. Ain't gonna...                    Romeo catches his opponent's wrist and wraps his chain around. A          kick in the stomach drops the Giant to his knees. Romeo locks the          man's head between his legs, scissor hold.                                            ROMEO (CONT'D)                    Ooooo.    Found the loophole, bitch!                    The Giant falls. Romeo keeps his wrist locked as he chokes him out.                                          ROMEO (CONT'D)                    Aughtta be a lawyer! Got the 'fine                    print on y'ass! Pursuant to! Pro                    bono! Pari Pasu! I'll knock you out                    on contingency, mother fucker.                    The Giant passes out and Romeo stands to cheers.   Roughneck's #1 and          #2 fume as Romeo takes a bow. The boys clap.                    INT. HATCHWAY -- MOMENTS LATER                    Romeo emerges from the head, chains still on. Roughnecks #1 and #2          move down the hatchway toward him, wielding metal pipes. He looks          at his chains.                                           ROMEO                    Oh, shit.   FIRE! FIRE!          The brothers emerge from the shadows, cutting them off.                                          ROUGHNECK #1                    Out of zee way!                    The boys speak French. At first, the Roughnecks are surprised but          the argument escalates. The Roughnecks swing their pipes and in a          brutal display, the boys dispatch them quickly, leaving one          unconscious and the other gasping for air. The boys turn...                                            ROMEO                    Whoa!    Uh, merci, uh, si vous plait.                                          MURPHY                    Just protectin' our investment.   Ya                    made us fifty bucks.                                                                                    18.                                                       ROMEO                       Oh, thank, God. Irish, huh?   Finally                       some class. I'm Romeo.                                             CONNOR                                 (shaking hands)                       Connor.                                              MURPHY                       Murphy.   Why were you yellin' "fire"?                                             ROMEO                       I heard you were supposed to on t.v.                                             CONNOR                       That's if you're gettin' raped.                                             ROMEO                       Oh...I'd be more inclined to go with                       something like, "THAT DOESN'T GO THERE,                       MAN!"                    They laugh as they move to the semi-conscious Frenchman.                    LOW ANGLE:    looking up at our trio, Romeo is in the middle.                                             ROMEO (CONT'D)                       We saved your entire fucking country in                       World War Two! Gee...thanks for the                       statue!                    Romeo's foot smashes to camera, blacking us out.                    INT. VESSEL, BERTH -- NIGHT                    The boys slumber, side by side in hammocks.     We pull close on them.          Silence. They whisper in unison...                                             BOTH                       Quis praesumis profanus apud Dominus?                                (SUBTITLES)                       Who dares trespass in the house of God?                    Their eyes pop open.                    INT. BERTH -- LATER                    Murphy rigs a needle to an ink pen. Connor clicks on a hot plate.          The boys listen intently to a tiny hand radio nearby.                                             RADIO ANNOUNCER V.O.                       People are still in shock as Father                       McKinney was a beloved local cleric.                                   (MORE)                                                                                  19.                                RADIO ANNOUNCER V.O. (CONT'D)                    His selfless contributions to the                    community too numerous to list. In                    related news, second generation crime                    boss, Concezio Yakavetta has not                    commented on whether he fears for his                    own safety.                    The boys flash with recognition.                                           BOTH                    Yakavetta?                    INT. HIGH CLASS HOME, DINING ROOM -- NIGHT                    Rich, Italian decor, long table, laden with food. CAPOS 1-6 sit in          utter shock, looking to their boss, CONCEZIO YAKAVETTA (37yrs) who          heads the table.                                          CONCEZIO                    So, there it is. I want everyone to                    feel free to share their thoughts.                    He returns to eating. A moment of silence then the Capos burst into          anger. Capo #1 slams a fist down and stands, silencing the lot.                                          CAPO #1                    I can't believe none of us were                    consulted on this! The disrespect!                    We'd have never okay'd such a thing!   A                    priest! It's an infamita!                                          CAPO #2                    Yeah! Are we not Catholics, for Christ                    fucking sakes?!                                          CAPO #3                    And just for simple revenge?! There's                    no business in it! You've put us all                    at risk here! The cops could be all                    over us!                                          CAPO #4                    Forget the cops! What about these                    Saints fuckers?! These guys were long                    gone! And now you're trying to bring                    the devil right back to our doorstep?!                    Concezio wipes his mouth, stands and adjusts his cuffs.   He slowly          circles the table as he speaks.                                                                          20.                                                    CONCEZIO                    Six years ago, with the backing of an                    adoring public, these vigilante fucks                    put my father on his knees and executed                    him...in public. Mi Patrigno, a blood                    relative and benefactor to all of you.                    Poppa Joe made you rich and his murder                    remains un-revenged...                    A few roll their eyes at this verbal blunder.                                          CONCEZIO (CONT'D)                    This too, is infamita. These homicidal                    maniacs nearly wiped this family out.                    It's taken a lot of time to build                    ourselves up again, brick by brick.                    And now that we've re-acquiesced our                    original power, can we really afford to                    have these guys pop out of the woodwork                    someday and try to finish the job when                    we least expect it? Now, for those of                    you who have forgotten, let's recap.                    These fuckers walk into rooms full of                    gangsters...                             (denotes surroundings)                    Outnumbered, outgunned. They kill                    everyone...and leave.                    Some look as if they are starting to get his point.                                          CONCEZIO (CONT'D)                    You think I don't know that each one of                    you's been waking up in night sweats                    over this the last couple years? These                    sons of bitches prison fucked us with                    no lube, wiped their dicks on our                    drapes and walked away! And we been                    living in silent fear ever since. Oh,                    we don't talk about it. Rape victims                    often don't. But it's there. Knowing                    they're still out there, somewhere.                    Thinking...what if?                    Fear and realization.                                          CAPO #4                    Concezio is right. Pretending you                    don't got a problem don't solve                    nothing.                    Heads nod in shameful agreement.                                                                                  21.                                                    CONCEZIO                    Thank you, Doctor Phil. So, let's take                    a moment to look at the serendiplious,                    diperous, serendip...                             (FRUSTRATION)                    ...type situation we find ourselves in                    here. There's a good chance they'll                    show. No catching us with our pants                    down this time. We can deal with them                    proactivitously. The cops were                    embarrassed by these guys too. With a                    second bite at the apple, they got                    every reason in the world to crank up                    the heat. And as for their doting                    public. I'd imagine they're gonna lose                    a few fans.                    Heads nod all around.   Sold.                    INT. BERTH -- LATER                    Murphy sits, bare chested on a crate. With the rigged pen, he          tattoos his brother's back. Connor cooks something, in a pot, on          the hot plate. The resin of anger is evident.                    TATTOOS: Murphy's back has the crucified feet of Christ and          Connor's shows Christ's downcast head on the cross.                                          CONNOR                    The prodigal son, huh?   He wants us,                    he's fuckin' got us.                                          MURPHY                    But why would he do something so                    public?                                CONNOR                    Think about it. People figure we did                    it. Makes it more likely someone will                    drop a dime. Way easier to get to us                    in prison, isn't it, now.                    The berth door is slightly ajar. In pops a bottle of Whiskey, then          Romeo's head. He's expecting a cheer but the brothers have their          backs to him. He's instantly taken by their ink.                                          MURPHY                    But how would anyone recognize us?                                          CONNOR                    You don't remember those sketches on                    the news channel?                                                                       22.                                                    MURPHY                    Shit. That's right. Y'know, every                    time they show those composites on TV                    and then they catch the guy, it looks                    nothin' like him. But ours?                                          CONNOR                    Just our luck. We get Leonardo fuckin'                    Divinci as a sketch artist.                    Romeo listens with suspicion.                                          MURPHY                    Maybe we should dye our hair.                                          CONNOR                    What?                                         MURPHY                    Yeah. These guys are always dyin'                    their hair. You know, like in "The                    Fugitive." It's covert and shit.                      Connor smirks privately.                                          CONNOR                    What color would you dye it?                                          MURPHY                    I don't know...lighter, I guess.                                          CONNOR                    Y'mean...blonde?                                          MURPHY                    I didn't say that!                                CONNOR                    California, surfer boy, gay, gay                    blonde?!                                          MURPHY                    I'm warnin' ya!                                          CONNOR                    Just keep your hands off my ass back                    there and, "stay gold, Pony Boy."                    Connor laughs heartily.                                          MURPHY                    Fuck you!                                                                                   23.                              Murphy stabs the ink pen into his brother's shoulder.                                          CONNOR                    AAAAAH!                    Connor bolts up, knocking over the pot. Hot water and pennies          spread across the floor. Connor pulls the pen out.                                          CONNOR (CONT'D)                    You motherfucker!                    Romeo steps inside and sees the pennies.                                          MURPHY                    Serves ya right!                    The boys are just about to fight when...                                          ROMEO                    Oh, shit.                    The brothers snap their heads toward.   A stunned Romeo points to          them, then the pennies.                                          ROMEO (CONT'D)                    I know who you are. You guys are the                    fuckin'....                                          MURPHY                    SHUT IT!                    Murphy moves behind Romeo, shuts the door and shoves him in.                                          ROMEO                    Oh, this is so fucking cool, man. I'm                    from Boston. I love you guys. Shit,                    everybody does! I mean, holy fucking                    shit! Maybe I could get in on this,                    you know? Bring some La Raza ta this                    thing. Spice it up a little. Hey, is                    it true you guys say a prayer before                    you grease somebody?                    Connor pulls a gun. The boys jump on Romeo and pin him to the          floor. Murphy clasps a hand over Romeo's mouth. Connor puts the          gun to Romeo's head. Their faces glaze over, religious ecstasy...                                          CONNOR                    And an awesome wailing was heard                    throughout heaven...                    Romeo's eyes go wide and muffled cries of terror are heard.                                                                                24.                                                    MURPHY                    ...as the terrible hand of the Lord                    struck upon the earth.                                          CONNOR                    And as Almighty God created you...he                    now calleth you home.                    He pulls the trigger - "click."                                          CONNOR (CONT'D)                    Ooops. Busy signal. We'll hafta                    calleth back.                                          MURPHY                    Let's have a shot while we're waitin'.                    The boys laugh, snatch the bottle.   Romeo is in shock.                                          ROMEO                    That shit was NOT funny, man!                    The brothers laugh harder. Romeo rolls on his side and slides a          hand down the back of his pants. He seems relieved.                                          ROMEO (CONT'D)                    Oh, thank you, Jesus. Thought I                    greased my drawers.                    INT. BERTH -- LATER                    The boys and Romeo smoke and pass the bottle around.                                          CONNOR                    No.                                ROMEO                    But I got conex all over Bean Town.                    Romeo'll hook you up like a tow truck!                                          MURPHY                    No.                                          ROMEO                    Why not?!                                          MURPHY                    We don't hafta give you reasons.                    Forget it.                                          ROMEO                    It's because I'm Mexican, isn't it!                                                                        25.                                                    CONNOR                    How dare you, sir, insinuate such a                    thing? The fact that you're a greasy                    spic's got nothin' ta do with it.                    The boys laugh.                                          ROMEO                    I'm gonna let you have that one. Look.                    I can do this. It's not rocket                    science. You two find bad guys doing                    bad shit and you kill them, right?                                          CONNOR                    It's not that simple.                                           MURPHY                    Yes it is.                                          CONNOR                    S'pose you're right. I'd sorta hoped we                    were a little more artistic than that.                                          ROMEO                    Well, you ain't. Can't you guys see                    it? This shit's fate, man. Like                    preordained type shit. Mea fucking                    Culpa! Why do you think you just                    happened to be in that hatchway today?                                          MURPHY                    Oh, don't start gettin' all super                    fuckin' natural on us. We saw those                    guys goin' in there!                                          ROMEO                    Ah, ha! That's what you say. I say it's                    because Jeeeeesus wanted it that way!                                           CONNOR                    Oh, no.                                          ROMEO                    Fine. Then what exactly do you intend                    to do when you hit U.S. soil?                                          CONNOR                    We'll go after all Yakavetta's people                    and operations till we get to the man                    himself.                                          MURPHY                    Yeah, work our way up the food chain.                                                                                26.                              The brothers seem pleased with themselves.                                          ROMEO                    So, what's your first gig?    What's the                    first thing you gonna do?                    The boys look to one another.   They're stumped.                                          CONNOR                    Well, I don't suppose we have a                    succinct plan, y'know, per se.                                          MURPHY                    Yeah. It's not fully developed yet,                    y'know, as it were.                    A slow smile splits Romeo's face.                                          ROMEO                    You two need to chill in the green                    room, sip on some Pellegrinos and let                    your manager handle the details. And                    you better get my Cub Scout badge                    ready. Cuz if you want to kick                    Yakavetta in the nuts, let him know                    you're in town...Romeo's got an ace in                    the hole for you.                    INT. / EXT. NEWS FOOTAGE, MAN ON THE STREET INTERVIEWS                                          HOT DOG VENDOR                    These guys have gone "mad dog" here.                    They need to be put down.                                          CAB DRIVER                    I think it's disgusting.   I wish they'd                    have stayed gone.                                          PEDESTRIAN                    I don't believe it for a second!   No                    bleep-in way the Saints did it!                    INT. BOSTON P.D., WAR ROOM -- MORNING                    The CHIEF (50's) sits, arms folded. The detectives are present.          Eunice stands before a wall adorned with crime scene photos,          reports, Concezio and his Capos.                                          EUNICE                    And that's all she wrote. Everything                    points in the same direction.                    She taps Yakavetta's picture on the wall.                                                                        27.                                                    CHIEF                    Why would Yakavetta want them back                    here? Him of all people.                                          DUFFY                    To have them executed. Revenge.                    Oldest motive in the book.                                          GREENLY                    The Saints killed his daddy six years                    ago, right? He was inside when that                    happened doing a nickel for extortion.                                          DOLLY                    Yeah. From inside he could only do so                    much. Since he got out nine months                    ago, the Yakavetta's have regained                    their original strength. Looks like                    their clearing all their open accounts.                    The Chief rubs his chin.                                          CHIEF                    Well...it's a theory.                                          EUNICE                    More than just a theory, Chief.                    She nods to Duffy.                                          DUFFY                    C.I.'s came back. Cold hits all                    around. Concezio Yakavetta and his six                    Capo Regime, all blood relatives, have                    disappeared.                               CHIEF                    So?                                          GREENLY                    So, it fits. He's gone to the                    mattresses with his top brass. He's                    protecting them till this is over.                                          EUNICE                    And word's been put to all his                    lieutenants that the Saints are to be                    taken out, on sight.                                          DOLLY                    That means his resources on the streets                    are battening down the hatches, waiting                    for them to show.                                                                                    28.                                                    CHIEF                    Look, I been stone walling the media on                    this thing but the Mayor's been riding                    me like a rented mule here. I got half                    of New England thinking the Saints                    whacked a priest and the other half                    thinking their innocent. Its a powder                    keg. I'm talking riot gear at Celtics                    games, here. I could clear them of                    this murder, take the piss right out of                    this thing, keep the peace in the                    Commonwealth. Gimme one good reason                    why I shouldn't go public right now.                                          EUNICE                    Walk with me, Chief.    Let's talk.                    He stands and she takes his arm as they exit.     Duffy quietly closes          the door and turns. Hushed tones...                                          DUFFY                    This is not good.   She's gunning for                    the boys hard.                                          DOLLY                    This brawd, trying to put a feather in                    her cap is gonna get us locked up.                                          DUFFY                    Just calm down.                                          GREENLY                    And you know they'll send us to the                    Hoag. We put half those deranged sex                    freaks in there. I hope you guys like                    cock sandwiches. Cuz we'll be eating                    them for breakfast, lunch and dinner!                    INT. PRECINCT HALL -- SAME TIME                    The Chief and Eunice walk down the hall.                                          EUNICE                    I understand you got a job to do,                    Chief. But if Yakavetta even sniffs                    that we're onto him, he puts a bullet                    in Napoleon's head, plants him at the                    bottom of the ocean and walks. This                    pint sized killer is the only thing                    that puts Yakavetta right in the middle                    of this. It is imperative that we find                    this man.                                                                                  29.                              The Chief looks as if he is sold.                    INT. WAR ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER                    In hushed tones.                                          DUFFY                    We need to figure what we're gonna do                    when the boys show and start doin' what                    they do best. Cuz that's when the                    shit's really gonna hit the fan.                                          DOLLY                    That's another thing. Everyone's                    assuming that they're going to come                    back. I mean, we got no way of knowing                    that for sure.                                          GREENLY                             (ray of hope)                    Yeah. That could totally happen.    They                    could not come back.                                          DUFFY                    What dream world did you two just slip                    into?!                    They argue.   Duffy snaps a photo of the dead priest from the wall.                                          DUFFY (CONT'D)                    Point blank! We know the boys. Is                    there any part of you that thinks                    they're are just going to let this                    slide? Believe this. They are either                    on their way...or they're already here.          EXT. BOSTON, DOCKS, PARKING LOT -- NIGHT                    CLOSE ON: Connor, Murphy and Romeo peaking over a concrete wall.          Three sets of eyes.                    Our trio is atop a dumpster, peaking over at the loading dock.          Chinese Gangsters supervise unloading of crates onto a flatbed.                                          ROMEO                    It's been all over the papers the last                    two years. Yakavetta's in bed with the                    Chinese. They're using international                    shipping routes to smuggle it in. This                    is Little Yaka's shit.                    Connor and Murphy smile.                                                                               30.                                                    CONNOR                    Let's follow 'em down the rabbit hole,                    Alice.                    Murphy claps Romeo on the shoulder.                                          MURPHY                    You just scored a few points, Rome.                                          ROMEO                    Well, dust off my "Members Only"                    jacket.                             (pulls set of keys)                    Cuz the kid has also supplied the ride!                    INT. CAR -- LATER                    Murphy looks displeased. We hear a stressing motor. Romeo drives,          Murphy sits shotgun. Connor is in back, loading guns. Pull back to          reveal our trio rides in a '68 VW Bug. It is green with patches of          Bondo, exposed engine, low-pro rims, neon runner board lights - a          low riding "work in progress."                                          MURPHY                    I thought you said your car was                    inconspicuous.                                          ROMEO                    I don't like words that got 'spic'                    right in the middle. Besides, it                    is...where I live.                                          MURPHY                    Where's that? Pimpville?                                          ROMEO                    Hey! I hail from a colorful people.                    Besides, you wouldn't know style if it                    pitched a tent in your ass!                             (looks into rear view)                    What do you think of the ride, Conman?                                          CONNOR                    The only way I could be more                    embarrassed right now is if I was                    ridin' a moped.                                          MURPHY                    Yeah...while fuckin' a fat girl.                                          CONNOR                    Yeah...rollin' through the gym at my                    high school reunion.                                                                                 31.                                                       ROMEO                      All right!   I get the fucking point!                    INT. WAREHOUSE -- LATER                    CHINESE GANGSTERS #1-#5, shovel mounds of coffee grounds out of          crates and pull kilos of white powder. Machinery noise in b.g.                    EXT. WAREHOUSE -- SAME TIME                    CLOSE ON:   Three sets of eyes peaking over oil drums.                    Our trio watches as a DOCK WORKER (22yrs) drives a forklift,          unloading the crates from the flatbed and driving them through the          huge open bay doors. The boys and Romeo huddle up.                                            CONNOR                      O'kay, here's the plan.                    EXT. "THE PLAN," WAREHOUSE -- NIGHT                    The "Queen" classic, Another One Bites the Dust, presides over this          fantasy sequence. The boys, looking more "quaffed," do a pointless          slow motion walk toward the forklift, throwing up their collars.                    Romeo, also looking polished, executes a "Dan Tana" pistol whipping          on the Dock Worker who perfectly out of frame.                    INSIDE WAREHOUSE: The lift pulls to a stop before the gangsters,          crate on the forks. Romeo is behind the wheel.                    SLO-MO: Connor and Murphy pop from the crate and fire on their          Asian foe, hitting each squarely in the chest.                    SLO-MO: The boys leap down and light cigs as Romeo does the "one          arm action star hang" off the side of the lift in b.g. WHIP PAN...          EXT. WAREHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                                            CONNOR                      We skin out, go ta Doc's for a shot of                      Irish. We're home in time for tacos.                    Murphy looks unsure.     Connor turns to his brother.                                             CONNOR (CONT'D)                      What?                                            MURPHY                      Well, it's...uh...you know, it's...                                                                                  32.                                                    ROMEO                    It's genius. I can even drive an F-                    lift, man. Got my class "D" license                    and everything.                                          CONNOR                    Now, dat's the spirit.                                          ROMEO                    I need a gun.                                           CONNOR AND MURPHY                    Forget it.                                          ROMEO                    What the fuck? I'm in on this shit,                    man! I'm working here!                    The boys look to each other. Murphy shrugs. Relenting, Connor          pulls a metallic object and shoves it in Romeo's hand.                                          CONNOR                    You can consider yourself a fuckin'                    pledge until we say different.                    Romeo holds up the gun in displeasure, a tiny .22 caliber lady's          purse pistol. Murphy snickers.                                          ROMEO                    Can I consider myself your girlfriend,                    too?                                          CONNOR                    That's what you get.   Is there a                    problem?                               ROMEO                             (beat, fuming)                    It's fine.                    Connor scopes the warehouse.   Murphy claps Romeo on the shoulder.                                          MURPHY                    Don't worry, Rome.   Shit like this                    builds character.                                          ROMEO                    Yeah, the character of a little bitch.                                          MURPHY                    Now, dat's just unprofessional.                    He turns and joins his brother as Romeo continues sulking.                                                                                 33.                                                    MURPHY (CONT'D)                    What do we think?                                          CONNOR                    I think Yakavetta murdered a good man                    just to send us a message.                                          MURPHY                    Well...let's send him one back.                    As they spirit themselves off.   DISSOLVE TO...                    INT. WAREHOUSE -- LATER                    CRIME SCENE: Crime scene workers toil. We do not see specifics of          the scene, just enough to see the place is trashed and the bodies.                    Greenly prowls the scene with his iPod playing. His musical choice          is the 80's Nightranger standby, "Motoring." He riffs on air guitar          while assessing. Dolly and Duffy look on...                                          DOLLY                              (re: Greenly)                    Why?                                          DUFFY                    I don't know.                    EXT. WAREHOUSE -- SAME TIME                    Eunice walks toward the crime scene with the CHIEF (50's).                                          CHIEF                    Your boss, John Kuntsler called. Tells                    me you got a problem with authority.                                EUNICE                    Absolute horse pucky, Chief.                    Unfortunately, authority's developed a                    problem with me.                                          CHIEF                    And what's that?                    They enter the...                    INT. WAREHOUSE -- CONTINUOUS                                          EUNICE                    Well, y'see, I am currently in                    possession of a vagina.                                                                                     34.                                                    CHIEF                    Oh, Jeez, that's not...                                          EUNICE                    So you spoke to Kuntsler.      Anything                    else.                    They reach the Detectives.      Greenly, still rockin', doesn't notice.                                          CHIEF                    If it's confirmed that the Saints are                    back and too many bodies start showing                    up with pocket change...                             (re: his eyes)                    ...he's gonna pull you and step in.                                          EUNICE                    Message delivered, Chief.                                            CHIEF                    Listen.    I'll fend him off.    Just work                    fast.                    She smiles and nods.   Greenly removes his ear pieces.                                          GREENLY                    It's not them.                    INT. WAREHOUSE -- LATER                    Eunice as she kneels at a body.      She stands and pulls her ear plugs.                                           EUNICE                    It's them.                    Greenly looks emasculated. Dolly and Duffy smirk at him. Eunice          stands and prowls the scene, intense, intrigued, in her own world...                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    A wise man once told me. Where a man's                    actions are firmly bound to an                    unshakable faith one's worst nightmares                    become sudden, terrifying reality.                    Pennies in eyes.    Hands crossed on bodies.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Y'can almost smell the brimstone,                    can'tcha?                                          DOLLY                    What do you think happened here?                                                                                 35.                                                    EUNICE                    Oh, this was a plan that fell to                    pieces. A lot here doesn't make sense                    which is why it makes perfect sense. I                    believe things in our fair little city                    just got downright biblical.                    EXT. FLASHBACK, WAREHOUSE -- EARLIER                    On the flatbed, the brothers shovel coffee out of the final crate          which rests on the forks of the lift. Below them stands the Dock          Worker holding his bleeding head. Romeo covers him with his 22.                                          DOCK WORKER                    You didn't have to bash me in the                    skull.                                          ROMEO                    Sorry, man. We got a plan going, here.                    Technically, I was supposed to knock                    you out.                                          DOCK WORKER                    Christ! You got a gun. You could have                    just pointed it at me and said SCRAM!                    Connor points his gun at the Dock Worker.                                            CONNOR                    SCRAM!                                            DOCK WORKER                    You got it!                    He runs off.   Romeo turns up to them.                                ROMEO                    So, let's not let this one, small                    incident get in the way of...                                          CONNOR                    Shut up and get behind the fuckin'                    wheel!                    Romeo hops into the driver's seat.                                          MURPHY                    Well, at least the plan is off to a                    winning start.                                          CONNOR                    Go fuck y'rself.                                                                                    36.                              They pull wrapped white kilos.    Connor dips in a finger and tastes.                                          CONNOR (CONT'D)                    It's heroin.                                          MURPHY                    How the fuck would you know?                                            CONNOR                    Fuck you.    I know shit.                    INT. WAREHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    Romeo's winging it, jerky moves, grinding gears as the forklift          staggers across the mammoth warehouse toward the gangsters at the          opposing end. The crate blocks Romeo from view. He's driving blind          as the rickety crate jiggles on the forks.                    INSIDE CRATE:   Connor and Murphy are sardined, back to back.                                            MURPHY                    Jesus!    What the fuck's he doin'?!                                          CONNOR                    He can't see where he's goin'!                    Murphy peaks through a crack.                                            MURPHY                    Shit!    Tell him to go left, now!                    Connor puts his mouth to a knot hole.                                            CONNOR                    Go left!    Go left!                                 ROMEO                    What?!                    Connor sticks his finger out the hole and points. Romeo wrenches          the wheel and they narrowly avoid machinery. The crate rocks...                                          MURPHY                    I can't fuckin' believe I let you talk                    me into this! This is a stupid plan!                                          CONNOR                    I didn't notice you throwin' out any                    ideas, ya creative asshole!                                           MURPHY                    Fuck you!                                                                                  37.                              The boys start elbowing each other in a close quarters scrap while          hurling obscenities.                                           ROMEO                    Hey!   What's goin' on in there?!                    INSIDE CRATE: Murphy suddenly stops, eyes wide as he looks through          the crack. They are headed for a "Mechanic's Well."   A long,          rectangular cement hole in the floor six feet deep.                                          MURPHY                    Jesus Christ! Tell him to stop!                    Connor slams his mouth to the knot hole.                                           CONNOR                    BRAKES!   BRAKES! BRAKES!                    A few of the Chinese turn as Romeo slams on the brakes, screeching          to a halt just before the well. The crate slides right off and          falls in, disappears from sight. CRASH!                    A large cloud of coffee dust plumes.   A wide eyed Romeo is exposed.          The Asian gangsters stare in shock.                    Hard techno music! Suddenly, Romeo whips it in reverse, cranks the          wheel guns it and navigates the well. Speeds toward the gangsters.                    MECHANIC'S WELL: (SLO-MO) The brothers burst from the debris,          covered in coffee grounds and white powder. They draw their weapons          and walk toward the ramp at the well's opposing end.                    The Chinese pull and start firing. Romeo dives off and rolls behind          some machines. The lift continues on target.                    The brothers emerge and tear right in, firing at the gangsters.          Romeo fires his useless 22. In the ensuing fire fight the brothers          kill all but Chinese Gangster #3.                    The forklift crashes through the table with the stacked heroin.                    SLO-MO: The brothers slam the final Gangster to his knees and level          to the back of his head and recite the following in synchronicity...                                          BROTHERS                    And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my                    Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended                    forth from Thy hand, that our feet may                    swiftly carry out Thy command. So, we                    shall flow a river forth to Thee and                    teeming with souls shall it ever be.                                (MORE)                                                                                   38.                                    BROTHERS (CONT'D)                        In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus                        Sancti.                    POP!   POP!    They kill him.   DIP TO BLACK...                    INT. WAREHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    Haunting music. Black and White film as Connor and Murphy take          great care in ritualizing the bodies. They place pennies in eyes          and cross hands over chests. WHIP PAN...                    EXT. BACK TO PRESENT, WAREHOUSE -- NIGHT                    Bodies are wheeled out in the b.g. as Dolly and Greenly talk          privately with Eunice.                                              DOLLY                        Just got a call from my best snitch.                        Never steered me wrong. He says its                        this guy.                                  (hands Eunice mug)                        "Gorgeous" George Tuffano. He's                        trusted bruglione to Yakavetta but not                        blood. He's been left control of the                        streets. He's running all of it.                    Eunice looks over the mug shot.                                              GREENLY                        They call him "Gorgeous" cuz he likes                        his silk suits and jewelry. He's even                        got the 'out of season' fake bake going                        on, a real peacock, this guy.                                              EUNICE                        Yeah, I heard of this rodeo clown.          Duffy approaches, hands Eunice a tiny bullet in a baggy.                                              DUFFY                        Ballistics just dug it out.                    They all look perplexed.                                              EUNICE                        A twenty two? You gotta be kidding me.                        That's like bringing a knife to a                        gunfight.                                              GREENLY                        Yeah, or like bringing a really small                        gun...to a gunfight.                    They all blank stare Greenly for a moment.        Moving on.                                                                                 39.                                                    DUFFY                    I don't know. Ballistics is reading                    three shooters. This is one of them.                                          EUNICE                    Well, I'm having a hard time believing                    that one of the three most lethal                    individuals on the planet just switched                    over to bird shot.                                          DOLLY                    Maybe we're reading it wrong. The                    priest was a frame job, right?                                          DUFFY                    Yeah, maybe somebody's trying to                    eliminate some competition here.                    Eunice considers this.   The Detectives seem hopeful.                                          EUNICE                    No, sir. It's them. But we just might                    have ourselves a change in the line up,                    here.                    The detectives all look at one another nervously.                                          GREENLY                    Fine, they're back.   What's the plan?                                          EUNICE                    Hell, we've just been called up to the                    big show. We are tracking multiple                    perpetrators, gentlemen. The plan? We                    keep our ear to the ground and try to                    figure out where Yakavetta's hiding.                    Napoleon. We find him and flip him.                    And as for the Saints...I'm gonna have                    me a face to face with these boys one                    way or the other.                    She walks off.   The cops look terrified.                                          DOLLY                    Holy...fucking...shit.                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- NIGHT                    We see the hands of an OLD MAN (70) as he mists flowers in this lush          environment. He ambles to a shop table, wearing a metal leg brace,          circa 1950's and a corrective shoe, Polio. We do not see his face.                                                                                      40.                              CLOSE ON: small black and white TV on table.     Breaking news.    Live          from the crime scene...                                            REPORTER #3                      Law enforcement has confirmed the                      Saints are back!                    This gives way to...                    INT. / EXT. NEWS FOOTAGE                    The Saints pencil composites are shown.     From the studio...                                            REPORTER #1 V.O.                      It's confirmed. The five drug                      traffickers all involved in the heroin                      trade were victims of the Saints.                    STATIC!   CHANEL CHANGES!    Bodies are wheeled out...                                            REPORTER #2 V.O.                      ...several having close ties to the                      Yakavetta Crime Family, confirming the                      long suspected merger of the Chinese                      Triad and the Mafia.                    EXT. ALLEY -- LATER                    CLOSE ON:   A metal door opens revealing DOC (60's).                                           DOC                      BOYS!                    The brothers and Doc hug and greet as he ushers them in with Romeo          in tow. The bar is closed, empty.                                  DOC (CONT'D)                      Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I saw da nuh,                      nuh, news channel. Are ya boys all                      right?!                                            CONNOR                      Sound as an Irish pound, Doc.                                            MURPHY                      Is it too late for a shot?                                            DOC                      Oh, the Lord told me you'd be comin!                      He said, "Doc, they're comin" and I was                      ta get everting ready. So I did.                      Everting's ruh, ruh, ruh, it's all set.                                                                                41.                                                     ROMEO                    Uh, hem!                                          MURPHY                    Oh, this is our Mexican.                                          DOC                             (shaking hands)                    How are ya, lad? They call                    me...FUCK!...ASS!                                          ROMEO                    Nice to meet you, Fuck Ass, I'm Romeo.                    INT. UPSTAIRS STORE ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER                    Doc turns on the lights and they all enter. There is a far more          ornate and ancient bar up here: gothic pool table, dusty boxes,          cots set up, blankets, towels, hot-plate etc.                                           THE BROTHERS                    Holy shit.                                          DOC                    The place used ta be an old speak easy                    in the forties. I only use it for                    storage, now.                    Murphy is already opening a bottle of Irish.                                          ROMEO                    This is so fucking cool.                                          DOC                    Nobody even knows it's up here. You'll                    be safe.                             (POINTS)                    You can get in and out the fu-fu-fire                    escape.                                          ROMEO                    You know what this is? This is our                    hide out, man! We got a hide out!                                          CONNOR                    What are you, fucking five years old?                                          MURPHY                    Hey, Rome, we got sheets and                    broomsticks. You could build yourself                    a fort.                                                                                 42.                                                    ROMEO                    Fuck the both of you!                    INT. "HIDE OUT PARTY MONTAGE" -- NIGHT                    Festive music. A brisket boils on the hot-plate. Romeo and the          boys drink and relate the evening's antics to Doc. Dissolve to...                    Later, they all enjoy an impromptu dinner on the pool table. The          eating does not slow their banter and laughter. Dissolve to...                    Later, music fades. Silence as Connor and Doc stare each other down          across the pool table. Neither flinches. Murphy and Romeo watch          with intrigue as Doc stiffles his urge to pop off.                                          DOC                             (CONCENTRATION)                    Not this time, ya little shit.                                          CONNOR                    We'll see, old man.                    A moment passes and Doc is literally shaking.                                          CONNOR (CONT'D)                    Would somebody please come over here                    and...                                         DOC                    FUCK!                                          CONNOR                    ...me up the...                                         DOC                    ASS!          The boys and Romeo burst into hysterics.   Doc rages.                    EXT. / INT. "BELLA SANTE SALON" -- MORNING                    Eunice enters the swanky salon and moves across the lobby.                    INT. MASSAGE ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER                    "Gorgeous" GEORGE (47yrs) is face down as a female masseuse works          his back, incense, mood music. Eunice silently slides in flashing          her badge, a finger to her pursed lips.                    Uneasy, the woman continues her work as Eunice lotions her hands.          She covertly replaces the masseuse and motions her out of the room.          Eunice digs in as the fatted mobster moans with pleasure.                                                                                 43.                                                       GEORGE                    Oh, yeah.     Someone's been eating their                    Wheaties.     Yeah, get after it, girl.                    Eunice grabs a large massage paddle with rubber fingers. She whips          George's towel off, winds up and smacks him on his bare ass, HARD!!                                            GEORGE (CONT'D)                    AAAAAH!                    George involuntarily jerks and rolls off the table.                                          GEORGE (CONT'D)                    WHAT THE FUCK!?                    He bolts to his feet.                                          GEORGE (CONT'D)                    You fucking bitch!                    He rounds the massage table, arms outstretched. Eunice draws her          side arm and sticks it in his face, halting him dead.                                          GEORGE (CONT'D)                    Whoa, whoa, whoa.                                          EUNICE                    What did you just call me?                                          GEORGE                    Who are you?                                          EUNICE                    Why, I'm a lady, George. That fact                    alone demands a certain amount of...                             (cocks hammer back)                    ...cordiality.                                          GEORGE                    I'm, I'm sorry I called you that.                                          EUNICE                    Well, how courteous of you to                    apologize. Courtesy is so important.                    Don't you agree?                                          GEORGE                    Y, yeah...I'm with that.                                           EUNICE                    Good.   Now sit your fat ass down.                                                                                44.                              George sits. Eunice reholsters, wiggles her skirt straight and sits          on the massage table. George looks at her legs as she slowly          crosses them. Trepidation as he covers his genitals. Eunice smiles          as she flashes her FBI credentials. George relaxes.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                             (with intent)                    Where is...Concezio Yakavetta?                                          GEORGE                    I don't know.                                          EUNICE                    Yeah. There's a lot of stuff you don't                    know, Hoss. For instance, why aren't                    you safely tucked away in some ivory                    tower with all the other big wigs,                    sucking on cannoli and shrimp cocktail?                    Why are you the one he left on the                    streets, George?                                          GEORGE                    Someone's gotta run our legitimate                    businesses. Someone's gotta make sure                    that...                                          EUNICE                    Someone's gotta chum the waters.                                          GEORGE                    That's bullshit and I ain't saying                    another fucking word to you.                                          EUNICE                    Good. Then you can just listen. The                    jig is up. We know Concezio had that                    priest killed.                    George snaps his head to Eunice in shock, then recovers.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Oh, surprise, surprise. Another thing                    you don't know, I reckon. But why                    would he tell you? You and your guys                    on the streets, you're his bait. Y'all                    just got thrown into a meat grinder.                    Eunice goes to leave but stops and turns back.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Gorgeous George, huh? Expendable                    George is more like it.                             (BEAT)                                (MORE)                                                                                45.                                EUNICE (CONT'D)                    By the by, you got a pretty nice ass                    for a fat man.                    EXT. ESTABLISHING SHOT, "EL CAVA" RESTAURANT -- DAY                    A Mexican joint, tucked away down by the docks.                                          ROMEO V.O.                    You wanna find something in Boston that                    don't wanna be found you go to the                    Oracle, ese. My Uncle Cesar is hooked                    up with the Underground.                    INT. RESTAURANT -- SAME TIME                    The boys, Romeo and UNCLE CESAR (58yrs) sit in a booth. Cesar is          noble looking, silver hair. Silence as he looks them over.                                          CESAR                    Word is, Yakavetta's gunning for you                    boys hard. The whole city's on edge.                    I even heard he posted a reward like                    Jesse James style and shit. Any of his                    guys that take you out gets his palm                    crossed, two hundred and fifty grand.                                           ROMEO                    Whew.   A quarter of a mill for us?                                          CESAR                    Us? What the fuck are you talking                    about "us?"                    They begin to argue in Spanish.                                          ROMEO                    Uncle, why do you have to disrespect me                    in front of them?!                                          CESAR                    Cool it, Mr. Big Shot! A year ago you                    were washing my pots and pans!                                          ROMEO                    Well, I don't wash fucking pots                    anymore! I'm part of this, Uncle!                                          CESAR                    Hey! This isn't my first bar-b-que!                    Now shut up and stop interrupting! Let                    me talk to them and I'll figure out                    whether your in on this or in your own                    fucking fantasy world!                                                                                 46.                              Romeo swallows his anger.   Murphy speaks Spanish.                                           MURPHY                    He's in.   All the way in.                    Cesar looks at Murphy surprised.   In English.                                          CESAR                    Is my nephew pulling his weight?                    Connor nods while tapping his chest.                                          CONNOR                    Mucho corazon.                    Cesar looks to his nephew with a new found respect and touches his          hand. Romeo is very affected by this. Back to business.                                          CESAR                    Gorgeous George is running the show for                    Little Yaka. Drugs, prostitution,                    sharking, the whole cha cha. If                    anybody knows where he is, it's that                    fat fucking pedico. I'll put it out on                    the wire.                    INT. THE GREEN MACHINE -- LATER                    Romeo quietly weeps as he drives. The brothers are "highly aware"          and give respectful silence. As Romeo sniffles we show slow motion          remembrances of Cesar nodding and giving Romeo a look of respect and          then touching his nephew's hand.                    Back in the Green Machine - an excruciating amount of time passes.          Murphy tries to break the ice.                                MURPHY                    Hey, uh, maybe we should...                                           CONNOR                    Shut up.   Romeo's crying.                    A moment of silence....then all three burst into laughter.                                          ROMEO                    You fucking assholes!                    INT. PRUDENTIAL BUILDING, LUXURY APARTMENT -- DAY                    A sprawling high rise apartment, overlooking Boston: buffet table,          plasma screen, etc. The Capos are taking advantage of the          amenities. Concezio's not here. Capo #5 - #6 fill their plates...                                                                                    47.                                                    CAPO #5                    That shipment of "H" was gonna square                    our books for six months. Shit.                                          CAPO #6                    We always bounce back. Besides, look                    at the bright side. Better the chinks                    than us, right.                                          CAPO #5                    I guess.  Like the boss said...                             (Concezio impression)                    "This is war. There's gonna be                    casuwalities."                    They laugh. Suddenly, George enters with an overnight bag.      The          Capos are confused. Feigning a capitol mood...                                          GEORGE                    Oh! Like the Roman Empire in here!                    Where's all the concubines and shit?                    George laughs. Nobody else does. He looks at the food table.      We          pull close on shrimp cocktail and cannoli. A look of dread.                                            CAPO #3                    George.    What gives, here?                                          GEORGE                    I need to see the Boss, right away.                                          CAPO #4                    Jimmy the Gofer!                    In hustles JIMMY THE GOFER (20's), skinny, weak looking.                                CAPO #2                             (to Jimmy)                    Il cortina.                    Jimmy draws back a large curtain, exposing a steel panic room. Next          to the vault door, is a video screen which displays the unamused          face of Concezio. His voice booms over loudspeakers.                                          CONCEZIO                    Get over here!                                           GEORGE                    Whoa!                    George hustles over.   He stands before the screen, confused.                                                                                 48.                                                     GEORGE (CONT'D)                    Uh.   Hey, Boss! I just came by to...!                                          CONCEZIO                    Push the talk button, numb nuts.                                          GEORGE                    Oh.                             (he does)                    Can you here me? Over.                                          CONCEZIO                    I can hear you fine, Smokey and the                    Bandit. Now, what the fuck are you                    doing here?                                          GEORGE                    Everything's in motion. All our guys                    are gunning for these Jesus Freaks. I                    figure, no need for me to be on the                    streets no more. So, which room do I                    take, eh?                                          CONCEZIO                    You stupid motherfucker! I told you,                    you're on the streets till this is                    over! Now get the fuck outta here!                    A terrified George hustles for the door.                                          CONCEZIO (CONT'D)                    And don't come back here till I tell                    you to, you fat fucking waste of space!                    George trips over his luggage.   The Capos giggle.          INT. HOTEL ROOM -- EVENING                    Cheap, depressing room. Crew Cut, in his underwear, repairs a          broken rosary chain with string and puts it on.He pulls a shoe box          from a shopping bag. The brand is "Hushes." Slogan: "Measure up          to your dreams."                    He puts on one shoe. Crew Cut stands before the mirror going up and          down on the one shoed foot, noting the height that has been added.          The shoe has been cleverly constructed to disguise the higher heel.                    EXT. AUTO BODY -- EVENING                    We are out back, among scrap cars. George talks with JO JO RHAMA          (38yrs). Jo Jo is built like a fire plug and clearly a hoodlum.                                                              49.                                           JO JO          A priest.   The sick fuck.                                GEORGE          And he leaves all of us on the streets          holding the bag while him and his are          living it up at the Taj fuckin' Majal,          not a care in the world.                                JO JO          So, until the Saints get popped, we're          all lambs to slaughter?                                GEORGE          Yeah! And he don't care how many of us          they wipe out in the meantime!                                JO JO          What do you need me to do, Skipper?                                GEORGE          Spread the word to all the brugliones.          No bullshit. From your mouth to their          ears.                                JO JO          Everyone? North and South?   That could          get a little dicey.                                GEORGE          Fuck their old grudges. All of them          are in this, like it or not. Tell them          everything we discussed.                                JO JO          Even the panic room thing?                        GEORGE          Sure.                                JO JO          Good. That's a nice ice breaker.          They'll get a kick outta that. I          didn't even know those things were          real. I thought they made that shit up          for that movie? With that brawd and          that kid? With those guys in that          house?                                  GEORGE          Panic Room?                                                                                  50.                                                    JO JO                    Naw, the other one.                                          GEORGE                    Stop fuckin' around! This is serious                    shit, here! Tell 'em we meet tomorrow                    night. I'll call you with the                    location.                    EXT. AUTO BODY -- MOMENTS LATER                    POV of binoculars as we see George exit the front of the auto body.                    INT. HOTEL ROOM -- SAME TIME                    Crew Cut looks through his binoculars as he continues to bounce up          and down on his special shoe. He smiles at the site of George.                    INT. BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT, WAR ROOM -- NIGHT                    A table laden with clip boards, bagged evidence, reports, etc.          Eunice finds a baggy with a tiny wooden bead in it. Greenly enters.                                          GREENLY                    Tap's up and running on George's cell.                                          EUNICE                             (holds up baggy)                    What's this?                                          GREENLY                    Rosary bead. They found it pushed into                    the carpet near the victim. Father                    McKinney wasn't wearing a rosary so                    it's probably been there a while.          Duffy comes in with a stack of papers.   He heaves it down.                                          DUFFY                    The results on all 864 prints found at                    the scene. All match churchgoers or                    clergy but one. The partial on the                    priest's watch is still unidentified.                    Eunice looks perplexed.   Dolly enters, sipping coffee.                                          EUNICE                    That's horse shit. Everyone gets                    printed nowadays. They're inking up                    snotgobblers in kindergarten, now.                                                                                   51.                                                    DOLLY                    It's a brick wall anyway. We know                    Napoleon was wearing gloves. Lab got                    zilch off the chain and lock. The                    pennies came up clean too.                                          EUNICE                             (FRUSTRATED)                    I'm gonna go powder my nose.                    Greenly stares at her ass as she exits.                                          GREENLY                    Aw, man. Daddy would knock that out                    like Mike Tyson.                    Eunice suddenly re-enters the room with emergency.                                           GREENLY (CONT'D)                    What?!   I didn't say nothing!                    Eunice is absorbed a photo on the wall of the priest's hand.                                          EUNICE                    McKinney wore his watch on his left                    hand.                    She turns and holds up the baggy.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Where was this found exactly?!                    Duffy goes to a mock up of the victim's body position on the wall.                                          DUFFY                    Right here, off his left elbow.   Where                    are you going with this?                                          EUNICE                    Dolly, get on the phone! Find out                    which wrist he wore his rosary on and                    if he was wearing it that night!                    Duffy, run that partial through DMV!                    David put it through INTERpol! Just                    get an I.D.! Now! Come on! Vamoose!                    They all dart out. With fire in her eyes, she looks closely at a          picture of the priest's wrist watch on the wall.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    You took your glove off, didn'tcha                    Cowboy. Now, why would you go and do a                    damn fool thang like that?                                                                                 52.                              INT. FLASHBACK, CHURCH -- NIGHT                    Crew Cut finishes ritualizing the priest and looks deeply at his          victim. He removes a glove and places his tiny hand next to          McKinney's large one. Silent rage. Bare handed, Crew Cut snatches          the priest's rosary from about his wrist, breaking the bead chain.                    INT. MAUSOLEUM -- MORNING                    The brothers and Romeo walk through the Mausoleum. They approach a          grave slate with respect. The name reads, "David Della Rocco."          There is a picture of him. Murphy narrows his eyes and leans in.                                          MURPHY                    What the...did they use his mug shot?                                            CONNOR                    What?   No.                                          MURPHY                    You remember how he told us he was                    embarrassed cuz the guy had to hold up                    all his long hair behind his head?                                            CONNOR                    Aye.                                          MURPHY                    Look at that.                    We see Murphy's finger denote a bad "airbrush" job.                                          MURPHY (CONT'D)                    That's an arm.                    Connor looks close.                                CONNOR                    Oh...that's fuckin' harsh.                    The boys look at one another, then bust out laughing.                                          MURPHY                    Y'er one of a kind, Roc.                                          ROMEO                    So, am I as good as this guy, or what?                                          CONNOR                    You, sir, are no David Della Rocco.                    A sound. Instantly, the boys turn and level weapons. There stands          ROY (32yrs) thick glasses, geeky. He drops his flowers.                                                                                    53.                                                    ROY                    Whoa!  Whoa! Whoa! Holy shit!                             (beat, recognition)                    HOLY SHIT! You're the Saints! I'm                    Roy, it's an honor. Huge fan!                    The boys reholster and look to one another.    Disapproval.                                          CONNOR                    We're developin' quite the cult                    following in the old neighborhood.                    The boys continue to chat with Roy as Romeo answers his cell.                                            ROMEO                    Que pasa.                    It's Cesar.                                          CESAR                    I got that info you wanted, mijo.                    INT. TANNING SALON -- NIGHT                    The Salon Manager approaches the back door with keys in hand.                                          CESAR V.O.                    The place is Tropical Tan on Bunker                    Hill. It's where the fat fucking juedo                    gets his fake bake at. He's got a                    secret appointment. Once a week, never                    misses. Eight o'clock, tonight.                    The Manager lets George slip in. He steels into a tanning room.A          Mexican towel boy has spied George. He picks up a phone...          INT. MAUSOLEUM -- MOMENTS LATER                    Romeo snaps his phone shut and turns to the boys.                                            ROMEO                    We got him.                                          ROY                             (re: Romeo)                    Who's this, your new sidekick?                             (extends hand)                    Pleased to meet you. I'm Roy.                                          ROMEO                    How would you like me to sidekick you                    in the ass, Roy?                                                                                 54.                                                      CONNOR                                (GIGGLING)                    Let's go.                    The three walk for the door, leaving Roy behind.                                          ROY                    I, I didn't mean to...                                          ROMEO                    I'm sick of this shit! I've been                    breaking my balls, here and I get                    second banana billing! I...                                          MURPHY                    I, I, I. There is no "I" in team, ya                    selfish prick.                                           ROMEO                    Yeah?!   Well, there's an "I" in "Fuck                    you!                    EXT. GRAVEYARD -- MOMENTS LATER                    Moody music as our trio walks through the gravestones.                    INT. "TROPICAL TAN," TANNING ROOM -- NIGHT                    The brothers and Romeo sneak up to the tanning bed. George sings a          Sinatra tune as his fat stomach props the cover up like a half open          clamshell. Suddenly, Murphy leaps up and sits on the cover. George          is being crushed beneath his weight. Connor kneels.                                          CONNOR                    Lovely voice. We'd like ya ta sing for                    us. What do ya say?          George struggles and nods. Murphy hops off. George spills out, hot          pink Speedos. On all fours and breathing heavy...                                          GEORGE                    It's getting hard to be a fucking                    gentleman of leisure, here!                    The boys pull weapons and throw him against the wall in a Jesus          Christ pose, pinning his hands with their guns.                                          MURPHY                    We want the shooter you motherfuckers                    used on that priest.                                          GEORGE                    I don't know who it is.                                                                                55.                              The boys cock back the hammers on their weapons.                                          GEORGE (CONT'D)                    It's the truth! Concezio didn't tell                    no one what he was doing cuz he knew                    nobody would have o'kay'ed it! The                    shooter's an independent contractor!                    That's all I know!                                          CONNOR                    Where's Yakavetta hidin'?                                          GEORGE                    The Prudential! Fortieth floor!   Jesus                    Christ!                    A ringing phone is heard. Romeo pulls George's Blackberry from          nearby. He tosses it to Connor. Text message, "WHERE?"                                          CONNOR                    You meeting someone tonight, George?                                           GEORGE                    Yeah.   The brugliones.                                          MURPHY                    The what?                                          GEORGE                    Yakavetta's racket chiefs. Street                    guys.                             (suddenly brightens)                    Your kind of guys. You could take a                    real bite outta crime here, huh? I                    could help you.                                CONNOR                             (re: phone)                    What's this?                                          GEORGE                    Nobody forgot what you guys did to us                    last time. They're staying indoors. I                    give out the location an hour before.                                          ROMEO                    My Uncle's place is closed tonight.    I                    got the key.                                          MURPHY                    It's down by the docks.   Dead as a                    doornail at night.                                                                                     56.                                                    CONNOR                    Yeah. You could set off fourth of July                    fireworks in dat place and nobody would                    hear. How's Mexican for you, George?                                          GEORGE                    No difference to me. I think I just                    shit my Speedos, anyway.                    INT. EUNICE'S MERCEDES -- NIGHT                    Eunice drives.   Her cell rings.   She checks the I.D. then...                                          EUNICE                    How do, David?                    Greenly is at his desk.   Alternating coverage.                                          GREENLY                    Hey, DMV came up dry on the partial.                    INTERpol's still working it. Should                    only be another couple of hours.                                           EUNICE                    Lovely.   Anything else?                                          GREENLY                    Yeah. Nothing big. We just dumped a                    text message from George's cell. Just                    two words. "El Cava." It's a Mexican                    joint down by the docks. He sent it to                    his enforcer, Jo Jo Rhama. Guess                    gangsters gotta eat too, huh?                                          EUNICE                    I think I'll drop in on their supper,                    see if I can shake them up a little.                                          GREENLY                    You need a body guard?                                          EUNICE                    No thank you, Mike Tyson.    Bye now.                                          GREENLY                    Bye.                    She hangs up and we are left with Greenly.   Red handed.                                          GREENLY (CONT'D)                    Oh, shit.                                                                                  57.                              INT. "EL CAVA," KITCHEN -- LATER                    Close up, three shot. George, looking very uncomfortable, is          flanked by the brothers. He is positioned to covertly view the          restaurant from the kitchen.                    We see NORTHSIDE BRUGLIONEs #1 - #3 and SOUTHSIDE BRUGLIONES #1 and          #2 are at the bar.                                          GEORGE                    Just two more to go. Uh...You guys are                    gonna let me go, right?                                          MURPHY                    We'll see, won't we.                    George grimaces.   Looks as if he'll cry.                                          GEORGE                    Jesus, this is some embarrassing shit.                    We see the three men from behind. George is still in his Speedos,          which now have a pronounced shit stain in back.                    INT. EL CAVA, BAR -- MOMENTS LATER                    Romeo, frazzled and in a busboy uniform, has got two blenders of          margaritas going. The Brugliones mow through appetizers.                    Northside doesn't interact with Southside and there is an empty bar          stool between them. N.S. Bruglione #1 slides Romeo a platter.                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #1                    Yo, spicaroo. More nachos and mas                    salsa, capisce?                                S.S. BRUGLIONE #1                    Hey and I need a refill there, pepe?                                          ROMEO                    Si, muchachos.                    SOUTHSIDE BRUGLIONE #3 enters behind everyone.   All suddenly turn,          going for their guns.                                            S.S. BRUGLIONE #3                    Whoa!    Easy...Jesus.                    Everyone calms. S.S. Bruglione #3 gives a respectful nod to the          Northside guys but sits with his own.                                                                                   58.                              INT. EL CAVA, KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER                    We do not see George just below frame as the boys are "working on          him" in some way, putting on finishing touches. Romeo barrels in.                                          ROMEO                    These dagos are getting antsy and I'm                    getting Spicaroo'd and Pepe'd. The                    kid's about to go Poncho fucking Villa                    out there!                                          CONNOR                    Stick it out. Waitin' on one more.                    EXT. PARKING LOT -- MOMENTS LATER                    Jo Jo exits his Cadillac and walks toward El Cava.   There is a          "closed for private function" sign on the door.                    INT. JACKED UP SUV, NEARBY -- SAME TIME                    Crew Cut watches Jo Jo.   He dials his cell.                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    From behind we see the Old Man gardening.    He answers a ringing          phone, nearby. We do not see his face.                    INT. SUV -- MOMENTS LATER                    The following conversation is in Italian.                                          CREW CUT                    He is not with them.                                          OLD MAN                    Are you certain?                                          CREW CUT                    Yes. It is only the sons. They have a                    Spaniard with them. They will                    slaughter everyone.                                          OLD MAN                    Let them. If you kill the sons...the                    father will come.                    Crew Cut develops a sinister smile.                    INT. EL CAVA, KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER                    Connor watches Jo Jo greet the others.    He turns to Romeo who is          angrily cooking up a storm.                                                                                 59.                                                    CONNOR                    The gang's all here.                    Without missing a beat, Romeo slams the hot pans into a dish sink.          He stands fuming with his hands on his hips.                                          ROMEO                    Gimme my fucking bee bee gun.                                           MURPHY                    Naw.   You've earned your stripes, Rome.                    Murphy throws him a .9 mm.   Romeo smiles.                    INT. BAR -- MOMENTS LATER                                          JO JO                    So....where's Gorgeous?                    Suddenly, George comes rolling out of the kitchen, unconscious and          tied, face down, to a bus cart. There is writing on his back.          Everyone pulls their weapons and moves toward.                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #2                    What the fuck is going on, here?                                          S.S. BRUGLIONE #2                    Where's that spic barkeep? Yo, Pepe!                    Where you at?!                    As the gangsters achieve the cart, the brothers creep over the bar          in the b.g. Brugliones look down on George, painted on his back...                                          S.S. BRUGLIONE #3                    "Erin go brah?" What the hell does                    that mean?          Connor and Murphy are standing 25 feet behind them.                                          MURPHY                    It's Irish for "You're fucked."                    Hard core music as the Brugliones turn in horror. Everyone begins          firing and we have slow motion gunplay to pulsating music.                    Several are chewed up as chests explode and they are blown into          George on the cart, knocking it over. George comes to.                    Romeo appears and tears in, sending several more crashing into the          salad bar.                    Murphy, while firing, dives back over the bar as bottles explode.          Connor rapid fires as he dives into a booth.                                                                                   60.                              The boys rise and lay out a second barrage, blasting the rest into          buffet tables and a soda fountain. The music cuts.                                          ROMEO                    Viva La Mejico, bitches!                    George bolts up.    The bus cart is still tied to his fat belly.                                          GEORGE                    Uh, I've seen the light! You guys have                    really turned me around on this! I'm                    like born again and shit! I swear!                                          MURPHY                             (to Connor)                    What do ya think? Let him go?                    Connor slips one bullet in a revolver, spins the barrel and snaps it          shut. He points it to George's forehead. George weeps in earnest.                                          CONNOR                    We'll let God decide if you get a                    second chance.                    He slowly cocks the hammer back, pulls trigger, "click."                                          CONNOR (CONT'D)                    Well, praise the Lord.                    The terrified ex-gangster staggers toward an exit while wriggling          out of his bonds. Just as he touches the door.                                           CONNOR (CONT'D)                    George?                             (George turns)                    All good boys go to heaven.          George nods and exits. Romeo is confused as our trio gathers.          Connor tosses the bullet he palmed to Romeo and he nods.                                          MURPHY                    Now, that was, perhaps the finest                    example of spiritual guidance that I                    have ever had the good fortune ta                    witness.                                          CONNOR                    Well, thank you very much.     Mysterious                    ways. Mysterious ways.                    SLO-MO: Suddenly, Eunice bursts through the kitchen door and levels          her weapon at the brothers and Romeo. Romeo levels back.                                                                                61.                              Eunice fires as the boys dive on Romeo. Crew Cut is revealed behind          our trio, firing from the shadows. Eunice and Crew Cut exchange          fire as the boys reload.                    Eunice hits Crew Cut in the side. The assassin has a moment of          outrage but persists firing as he makes a hasty exit.                    In the confusion it is a few moments before anyone realizes he is          gone. Silence falls. Presently, Romeo and the boys bolt up. Romeo          goes for the door and the boys level at Eunice.                                          CONNOR (CONT'D)                    Drop the gun! Drop it!                    She "places" her gun on a nearby table.                                          EUNICE                    Easy fellas. I'm alone.                    The boys are before her as Romeo returns.                                            ROMEO                    He's gone.                                            CONNOR                    Who are ya?                                          EUNICE                    My name is Eunice Bloom...and I'm your                    new guardian angel. A torch was passed                    to me by a mutual friend, gone but not                    forgotten.                    The boys reholster.    She drops her arms.                                          MURPHY                    We heard about Smecker.    He was a good                    man.                                           CONNOR                    Aye.   You have our condolences.                                          EUNICE                    And you have mine.                    They shake.                                            CONNOR                    CONNOR                                            MURPHY                    Murphy.                                                                           62.                                                    EUNICE                    Very well...Connor, Murphy.                    The boys nod.   Romeo points to the front door.                                          ROMEO                    Who the fuck was that guy?!                                          EUNICE                    That, I suspect, was the shooter you                    boys have been looking for.                    The boys look at each other.   Frustration.   Anger.                                          ROMEO                    Fucking...what the fuck?! Who the fuck                    is this brawd?! And what the fuck's                    going on, here?!                                          EUNICE                    Let's speed this up before your new                    sidekick's got to dig any deeper into                    his impressive vocabulary.                    The boys chuckle.                                          ROMEO                    Oh, no you didn't.                                          EUNICE                    I am an FBI agent who is controlling                    this investigation from within, in                    order to ensure that you gentlemen                    never see the inside of a prison cell.                    I am conspiring to do this with three                    like minded individuals who have aided                    you in the past. Though I have yet to                    inform them of my agenda because, well,                    girl's gotta have her fun.                                          MURPHY                    Dolly, Duffy and Greenly?                                          EUNICE                    The very same.                                          CONNOR                    How are the lads?                                          EUNICE                    Two of them are scared.   One's just                    horny.                                                                                   63.                                                    MURPHY                    Bet'cha I can guess which one.                                          EUNICE                    Bet'cha can but let's save it for                    group. Right now, we have a big                    problem.                                          CONNOR                    What's that?                    Eunice denotes the bodies.                                          EUNICE                    This...simply won't do. We made a                    deal. The big fish step in if your                    body count gets too high and...                             (re: carnage)                    ...you have been very naughty boys.                    Rockin' music overtakes as we DISSOLVE TO...                    INT. EL CAVA -- LATER                    With Eunice directing them, the boys and Romeo restage the crime          scene. With a squeegee they move pools of blood across the linoleum          floor and re-position bodies.                    The boys wrap Jo Jo's body in a tarp and put it in the Green          Machine. Romeo creates blood splatter with a turkey baster.                    Romeo and the brothers place the guns they used in the hands of dead          gangsters as Eunice drops bullet casings in carefully chosen spots.                    Romeo and the brothers leave with the utensils used to rig the          scene. The music fades, leaving Eunice in the center of...          INT. EL CAVA -- LATER                    Silence. She removes her ear plugs and the sound returns. We are          on a very different looking scene. CSI, forensics, even Dolly and          Duffy wait with baited breath. Greenly is not present.                                           EUNICE                    O'kay.   Here's how it all went down.                    Dolly and Duffy open their notepads.                    INT. FLASHBACK, EL CAVA -- NEVER                    Northside stands facing off with the Southside. All brugliones are          frozen in place. Eunice saunters down the middle. Cool music...                                                                        64.                                                    EUNICE                    A secret gathering of the Brugliones.                    The topic of discussion? Weak                    leadership and betrayal.                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #1                    Yakavetta's hiding from these Jesus                    Freaks and making us look like pussies.                                          S.S. BRUGLIONE #1                    And he's hanging all of us out to dry                    to boot.                    A pause as they size each other up.                                           N.S. BRUGLIONE #2                    All right.   I'll be the first to say                    it.                                          EUNICE                    The enemy of my enemy is my friend.                    So, even with all their old                    vendettas...                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #2                    ...I say fuck the Yakavettas.                                          EUNICE                    And there it is. Guess what comes                    next.                    Eunice points to men as he moves down the line.                                           EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Red Rover.   Red Rover.                                S.S. BRUGLIONE #2                    We're taking over.                                          EUNICE                    Ah. Easier uttered than accomplished.                    The North End and the South End may as                    well be the Hetfields and the McCoys.                    These fellas...they just don't get on.                    All the Brugliones yell over one another.                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #3                    Fuck you! The North End built that                    racket from the ground up!                                                                                 65.                                                    S.S. BRUGLIONE #3                    South End's been carrying your fucking                    asses for years!                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #3                    15 percent?! In your dreams, asshole!                                         S.S. BRUGLIONE #3                    Whoa! Just went up to twenty, fuck                    stick!                    S.S. Brulione #1 flashes a gun in his waist band.                                          S.S. BRUGLIONE #1                    You want some of this, you mutt?!                    N.S. Bruglione #1 pulls his weapon.                                          N.S. BRUGLIONE #1                    Let's see what you got!                    They all pull and level at one another. They freeze in place and          all yelling ceases as Eunice walks down the middle.                                          EUNICE                    Oh, the cliche. A Mexican stand off in                    a Mexican restaurant.                    Eunice looks deeply at all the men as she turns a slow circle.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    They cut each other to pieces...and                    nobody walked away. Who knows who                    fired first. Could have been any one                    of them. But somebody let it loose.                             (pointing to men)                    And duck, duck, duck...                    Eunice stands before S.S. Brulione #2.                                         EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Goose.                    BOOM! They all start shooting as Eunice stands in the crossfire          unaffected. Men fall dead and we see the relevance of each thing          Eunice did to doctor the scene. WHIP PAN...                    INT. BACK TO PRESENT, EL CAVA -- LATER                                          EUNICE                    Yakavetta's lost control of the                    streets.                               (MORE)                                                                                    66.                                EUNICE (CONT'D)                    They're fighting over his throne.      This                    was not the work of the Saints.                    Heads nod agreement.   Greenly enters and flashes a file to Eunice.                    EXT. EL CAVA -- MOMENTS LATER                    Press clamors for the story in the b.g. Eunice and the detectives          are in a private spot. Greenly excitedly hands her the file.                                          GREENLY                    INTERpol came through.                    Eunice opens the file.   Picture of Crew Cut.    Dolly and Duffy read          over her shoulder.                                          GREENLY (CONT'D)                    You were right. Five foot five.       Gotta                    be the shooter.                    Eunice smiles and speaks to Crew Cut's photo...                                          EUNICE                    Are you ready for your fifteen minutes,                    Sweetheart?                                          GREENLY                    That ain't all. Short stuff's work                    visa was signed by a sponsor that                    doesn't exist and look at the date.                    Two months after Nine Eleven.                                          EUNICE                    Someone maneuvered it through the                    system using false information during                    the highest alert in U.S. history.                                DOLLY                    Yakavetta's just a gangster. He ain't                    got the juice to pull that off.                                          EUNICE                    You're darn tootin' he don't.                                          GREENLY                    INS red flagged it like a motherfucker.                    It's a shit storm.                                          EUNICE                    Something stanks like manure.                    The cops nod.   Eunice turns and starts to move away...                                                                                 67.                                                    EUNICE (CONT'D)                    We got someplace to be! Let's go!                    INT. MERCEDES -- MOMENTS LATER                    Eunice drives.    The Detectives look nervous.                                          DOLLY                    What is this? Where are we going?                                          EUNICE                    It's time to revisit the scene of the                    crime.                    EXT. MCGINTY'S PUB -- LATER                    Eunice pulls to a stop. At the sight of the place, the cops turn          white as a ghost. All exit the vehicle and walk toward.                                          GREENLY                    It's after hours. I mean, if you                    wanted a drink then...                                          EUNICE                    37 bodies later and we're finally back                    where it all began. Y'ever heard of                    the southern expression, "We have an                    elephant in the living room?"                    She knocks on the door.   The cops are mortified.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Hope you fellas brought some peanuts.                    Doc opens it and lets them all into...          INT. MCGINTY'S -- CONTINUOUS                    Connor and Murphy are seated at the bar. They turn.   The cops are          dumbfounded. Duffy turns to Eunice, mystified.                                          DUFFY                    You knew all along.                                            CONNOR                    What?    Ya don't call.   Ya don't write.                    Dolly actually drops to his knees in abject relief. Greenly laughs          and plants a kiss on Eunice's cheek. Doc pours shots. Eunice          smiles as all her guys hug and make merry. DISSOLVE TO...                                                                                68.                              INT. MCGINTY'S -- LATER                    Doc smiles from the bar as the group raises for a toast.                                          MURPHY                    I'm glad we got the band back                    together...                             (re: Romeo)                    ...even though our new bass player's                    kind of a retard.                    They all laugh, cheers and drink. Conversations buzz all around.          Eunice chats with the boys as she sips a cosmo.                                          CONNOR                    So, where'd you learn ta shoot like                    that?                                          EUNICE                    My Daddy was an old six gun shooter.      A                    real cowboy.                                          MURPHY                    Guess that makes you a cowgirl, eh?                    Thanks. Saved our asses.                                          EUNICE                    Don't mention it. Now, we have a                    little business to go over before you                    celebrate in earnest.                    She hands the INTERpol file to the brothers.                                          CONNOR                    This is the guy?                                EUNICE                    That's the guy. He's a Sicilian                    immigrant, name of Ottilio Panza.                                            MURPHY                    Five, five?    He's short bastard isn't                    he?                                          EUNICE                    Yes...and well put. He'll be front                    page news in the morning but we have to                    assume Yakavetta already knows we've                    ID'd his guy. We can't give him time                    to 'Plan B' us.                                                                           69.                                                    MURPHY                    We're hittin' him tomorrow night.   Dat                    soon enough?                    Everyone else cuts their conversation and listens.                                           EUNICE                    Should be.   Where's it gonna happen?                                           CONNOR                    The Pru.                                          DOLLY                    The Prudential Building?   What are you,                    cracked?                                          GREENLY                    Why don't you just do it on center ice                    at a fucking Bruin's game?!                                          CONNOR                    Dat's where the man is so dat's where                    we're goin'. No guts no glory, Green                    Beans.                                          MURPHY                    In fact, we could use a few extra                    hands...that is if you fellas can still                    get yer Irish on.                                          GREENLY                    Hey, I got balls for days, pally.   I'm                    a fucking sack-o-matic.                    They all chuckle.                                 DOLLY AND DUFFY                    We're in.                                          EUNICE                             (to all)                    Well, you boys have fun. Connor,                    Murphy? Escort a lady to the door?                    They each offer an arm and move her toward the door.                                          CONNOR                    Y'sure you don't wanna hear the plan?                    I'm not tryin' ta brag or nothin' but                    this one's a real Picasso.                                           MURPHY                    Aw, Jesus.                                                                                  70.                                                      CONNOR                    Hey.                                          EUNICE                    School night. Got some homework to do.                    Besides, I'd like to critique your                    masterpiece with a fresh eye.                    She stops at the door and turns.    Her face shows concern.                                            MURPHY                    What is it?                                          EUNICE                    Something ain't right with this whole                    thing. Panza knew you were in there                    tonight and he just let it happen.                    Didn't lift a finger. I mean, if he's                    working for Yakavetta, why would he                    stand by and just watch all his guys                    get taken out?                                          MURPHY                    That is...interestin'.                                          CONNOR                    You think maybe we got another fox in                    the hen house here?                                          EUNICE                    Starting ta look that way. Somebody                    pushed that visa through. Could have                    ourselves a gen-u-ine 'Ghost in the                    Darkness,' here.                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- LATER          Crew Cut lies on the shop table. He's lost a lot of blood and is in          shock. Using gardening utensils, the Old Man removes the bullet.          We see his face for the first time. Unremarkable. In Italian...                                          CREW CUT                    They still live...What if he does not                    come? What if...                                           OLD MAN                    Shhhhh.   He will come.                    INT. BASEMENT -- NIGHT                    The Irish GUN DEALER (30's) from the first film leads the brothers          and Romeo through a basement to a large, steel vault door.                                                                                 71.                                                    GUN DEALER                    Expanded my operation, since I saw ya                    last. Word got out who may or may not                    have outfitted ya. Turns out ya got                    quite the underground followin'.                    He swings the vault open. Romeo and the boys stand in angelic light          at the gates of Heaven. Cheesy music as they enter...                    INT. VAULT -- CONTINUOUS                    Expanded indeed. Gleaming weapons everywhere. Sheer awe.          Something catches Romeo's eye and he moves off. To boys...                                          GUN DEALER                    Please, gentlemen. Preferred customers                    select from my private reserve.                    He withdraws two Mahogany boxes.                                          GUN DEALER (CONT'D)                    If I may make a suggestion.                    He lifts the lids. In each box is a pair of Desert Eagle .50 cal          "Black Outs". The triangular barrels have been fitted with matching          triangular silencers. The boys are mystified.                                          MURPHY                    I feel like that kid who found the gold                    ticket in the candy bar in "Willy Wonka                    and the Chocolate Factory."                                            GUN DEALER                    Charlie.                                          CONNOR                    Yeah...Charlie.                             (picks up gun)                    And I want an Oompa Loompa now, Daddy,                    now.                    He pulls a few duffel bags.                                          GUN DEALER                    Full accessory packages.      I'm sure                    you'll find them useful.                    Romeo suddenly appears and slaps down a metal box.                                          ROMEO                    I'll take these.                    The boys look to him.    He sniffles.   Red eyes.                                                                                 72.                                                    MURPHY                    Have you been crying again?                    Romeo snaps to him, eyes wide in challenge.                                          ROMEO                    Yeah!  Tears of joy!                              (to Dealer)                    How much?                                          GUN DEALER                    You guys are on the house.                                         MURPHY                             (to Romeo)                    Let's see.                    Romeo withdraws two gold plated .45's, intricately engraved, pearl          handles with a Mexican flag. The boys snicker.                                           ROMEO                    What?                                           CONNOR                    Nothin'.                                          ROMEO                    Are you saying I look gay?!                                            MURPHY                    No.    You just hail from a colorful...                                          ROMEO                             (to Dealer)                    You don't know me. You think these                    make me look gay?          Romeo poses.    The Dealer shrugs.                                          GUN DEALER                    You look like you might have seen one                    up close.                    EXT. COMMON HOME -- MORNING                    This is a common home at the end of a cul de sac. The Old Man picks          up the paper on his front stoop and shuts the door.                    He opens the paper with shock. A big picture of Crew Cut on the          front, "SAINTS INNOCENT, NEW SUSPECT IN PRIEST'S MURDER" He reads          frantically. "New evidence discovered at the crime scene..."                                                                                 73.                                                     OLD MAN                    Evidence?                    He ambles into the house and to a...                    INT. BEDROOM -- CONTINUOUS                    The Old Man moves to Crew Cut's bedside. He sees the rosary about          the slumbering man's neck and rips it off. Crew Cut bolts awake!                                          OLD MAN                    Foolish, arrogant boy!   What have you                    done?!                    He whips Crew Cut with the rosary, until he cowers in the corner,          weeping profuse apologies in Italian.                    INT. PANIC ROOM -- AFTERNOON                    Monitors show angles of the apartment outside. This small space is          equipped for single living. Yakavetta is frazzled, baggy eyed in a          robe. Jimmy the Gofer sits quietly as Concezio babbles to himself.                                          CONCEZIO                    That wiley old fox not as clever as we                    thought. Or maybe he played me from the                    git. Y-you think he played me?                                          JIMMY                    Uh, Boss. Maybe you aught not to be                    telling me this stuff. I'm just...                    Concezio smacks him across the face.                                          CONCEZIO                    A little sensitivity, huh? You                    heartless cocksucker! I need to                    vindicate my feelings here! I can't                    tell those goombas outside! They'll                    serve up my balls over a plate of                    fucking spaghetti!                    INT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- MOMENTS LATER                    The Capos huddle up.   Hushed tones.                                          CAPO #4                    Fuck that. We got a mutiny on our                    hands. Every ten cent wanna be with a                    gun is moving on us all over town.                                                                                     74.                                                    CAPO #3                    Yeah and our fearless leader ain't even                    come out of his little pussy room yet.                    With this, the panic room door slides open and Concezio emerges          holding a bag. He dumps a bunch of cell phones on the coffee table.                                          CONCEZIO                    I want each of you to call your top                    button man. The best you got. I want                    them all here tonight. We rip this                    city a new asshole. It's time for us                    to reconnoiter our strength on the                    streets. We seize the day starting                    now...Carpel Tunnel, gentlemen, Carpel                    Tunnel.                    All are relieved and words of approval flow.                                          CAPO #5                    Glad to see you back among the living,                    Boss.                    Nearby, Jimmy knocks over a bottle of wine, CRASH! Concezio dives          back into the panic room. The door slides shut. DISSOLVE TO...                    EXT. THE PRUDENTIAL BUILDING -- NIGHT                    Dolly drives a laundry truck into the Pru's loading dock area.                    INT. LAUNDRY TRUCK -- NIGHT                    Dolly backs it up to the dock and pulls to a stop.   He turns.                                           DOLLY                    God speed.          Romeo, in a laundry uniform, emerges from the back pushing a loaded          laundry cart. He enters a...                    INT. UTILITY HALL -- MOMENTS LATER                    At the hall's opposing end, two maintenance workers move toward.          Romeo sees and quickly puts his head down. Soon, Romeo and the          maintenance men converge. They turn, entering opposing elevators.                    INT. ROMEO'S ELEVATOR -- CONTINUOUS                    As the doors close, Romeo looks into the opposing elevator. The          maintenance men are Duffy and Greenly, ball caps, duffel bags.                                                                                 75.                              As the elevator ascends, Romeo swipes off the laundry, pulls the          false top. The brothers pop out in their usual garb. Weapons          emerge and they gear up. Romeo looks unsure...                                          MURPHY                     What.                                          ROMEO                     Nothing.                                           CONNOR                     Out with it! What the hell's the                     matter with ya?                                           ROMEO                     Nothing! It's just...this is some                     heavy shit.                                           CONNOR                     Ya did fine at your uncle's place.                                           ROMEO                     Yeah, but we're going off a new script                     here. I'm just having a...period of                     adjustment.                                           MURPHY                     You're about to have a period of                     gettin' yer ass beat!                                           ROMEO                     Hey! You two ain't the only ones                     rollin' with no health insurance! Just                     let me do my thing. I'm absorbing this.                                           CONNOR                     This is not the time for you to be                     absorbin' shit! Now, if ya freeze up                     when you get in there just point yer                     gay guns at 'em and fer Christ sakes,                     at least try ta look cool!                                           MURPHY                     I thought you were all hot fer dis!                                           ROMEO                     Oh, I'm hot! I'm fucking red hot! The                     kid's flamin' like Matt Damon in the                     Grande Camens!                    Ding!   Romeo has a look of dread.                                                                                  76.                                                    CONNOR                    This is you. Be on time.                    Romeo firms himself up as the door opens.                                          ROMEO                    I'll be there.                    Romeo exits with the cart. The boys remain.    The doors close.          Connor and Murphy look at each other.                                          CONNOR                    You ready fer dis shit, my dear                    brother?                                          MURPHY                             (cocking .50 cal)                    Let's do some gratuitous violence.                    FLASH TO WHITE...                    INT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- NIGHT                    A demolished environment. The towering windows are blown out,          providing a threatening view of the city below. Here, Eunice          stands, looking out over the panorama.                                          EUNICE                             (to herself)                    On a sultry Saturday in September the                    Saints saved seventeen souls...try                    saying that five times fast.                    She turns and walks the marble floor which is like a runway, lined          with pulverized statues. A long table of ravaged food extends.          Crime scene personnel toil. Ritualized bodies everywhere.   Greenly          is by the panic room. He pushes the "talk" button.                                          GREENLY                    Come on. There's nothing to be afraid                    of. It's all over.                             (TURNS)                    He won't come out.                    He joins Dolly and Duffy who stand on the periphery. Eunice is dead          center, absorbing the scene when suddenly, FBI Agent JOHN KUNTSLER          barrels in with his G-MEN #1 - #3.                                          KUNTSLER                    Special Agent Bloom! You are hereby                    relieved of all obligation to this                    investigation.                                                                                     77.                              He holds up his I.D.   A collective groan from crime scene personnel.                                          KUNTSLER (CONT'D)                    That's right, kids. This crime scene                    is now under the full jurisdiction of                    your beloved federal government. As of                    now, you will all report to me, Special                    Agent John Kuntsler.                    The detectives look to Kuntsler's G-men as if squaring off.                                          KUNTSLER (CONT'D)                    Don't let us interrupt you. Just don't                    forget to turn over everything you                    find. We have people standing by ready                    to take credit for all your hard work.                    He chuckles as all return to work.   Kuntsler turns to Eunice.                                          KUNTSLER (CONT'D)                    So, how ya doin', Bloomy?                                          EUNICE                    Just fine...Cunty.                    Kuntsler's shit eating grin disappears.   He leans in.   Hushed tones.                                          KUNTSLER                    Nice little science project you got                    going with these three goofballs.                             (re: detectives)                    You trying to turn them into your own                    little junior G-men? Well, you can put                    sprinkles on shit, Bloom, but it's                    still shit. So, you and your Keystone                    Cops can all go home now and let the                    professionals handle this?                                          EUNICE                    Boy. I'd love to hear a gen-u-wine                    professional's assessment of a crime                    scene. How 'bout you, detectives?                    Dolly, Duffy and Greenly chorus the affirmative. Kuntsler looks          unsure then phonies up some bravado. Looks around...                                          KUNTSLER                    O'kay. Seems pretty obvious. The door                    was broken down. We've got our point                    of entry. The assailants fired in this                    direction.                             (points toward windows)                                (MORE)                                                                        78.                               KUNTSLER (CONT'D)                    Explains the windows. The victims                    were...                                          EUNICE                    There are three inaccuracies in what                    you just said. Number one, David.                                          GREENLY                    If the windows were shattered by                    gunfire coming from inside the room,                    the glass would have been blown                    outward. As you can see, most of it is                    on the inside.                    Kuntsler looks.   Sure enough.   His eyes widen.                                          EUNICE                    Number two, Dolly.                                          DOLLY                    Blood splatters in the direction of the                    rounds fired. If the assailants                    discharged toward the windows, the                    blood would follow suit. Here, the                    majority of splatter is in the opposing                    direction.                    Kuntsler looks.   Sure enough.                                          EUNICE                    Number three, Duffy.                                          DUFFY                    Trick question. There is no number                    three. He only fucked up twice.                                          EUNICE                             (WHISTLES)                    Looks like Bloomy aced her science                    project.                    Kuntsler's men look embarrassed.                                          KUNTSLER                    That was just off the...I would have                    seen the blood thing...I haven't even                    had time to...                                          EUNICE                    Why don't you let me take a crack at                    it, John? Won't cost you nuthin'.                                          KUNTSLER                    And just why would I do that?                                                                                 79.                                                    EUNICE                    Cuz, tonight...mamma's right on time.                    FLASH TO WHITE...                    INT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- EARLIER                    Eunice, alone, saunters before the huge windows which are now          intact. Concezio holds court nearby. He is shaved and dressed.          His Capos sit around in a loose semi-circle. There are six          dangerous looking men standing shoulder to shoulder before them.                                          EUNICE                    This evening's topic of discussion?                    Desperate times require desperate                    measures.                                          CONCEZIO                    Desperate times require...some, you                    know, some desperate shit. Starting                    tonight, every one of you fat fucking                    slobs is back on the streets and                    earning your daily bread.                    A chorus of protest.                                          CONCEZIO (CONT'D)                    Shut the fuck up!                              (they obey)                    We got no choice. You motherfuckers                    better get in touch with your 'inner                    gangster'. It's time to knock the dust                    off your ball bats! You break bones!                    You smash heads! You do whatever you                    gotta do!                                EUNICE                    Which brings us to the relevance of our                    new guests.                                          CONCEZIO                             (to button men)                    Each one of you is to stick to the guy                    that called you here like glue. You                    arm yourselves to the teeth, pick your                    own crews. These bible banging psychos                    will make an attempt. It's your job to                    blow their souless hearts out of their                    chests.                                          EUNICE                    It's time to reclaim the streets with                    an iron fist.                                                                                  80.                                                    CONCEZIO                    We gotta take back what's ours with                    some sincere ironfistery.                    WHIP PAN...                    EXT. BACK TO PRESENT, ROOF OF PRUDENTIAL -- NIGHT                    Eunice walks the roof with Kuntsler et al in tow.                                          EUNICE                    Let's explain the glass, now.   Why is                    most of it inside the room?                    They halt before a window washing scaffold.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    Here's why...or it will be "why" in a                    moment. Y'see, these boys. Well, to                    put it simply, they tend to get                    reeeeal...                    FLASH TO WHITE...                    EXT. FLASHBACK, SCAFFOLD -- NIGHT                                           CONNOR                    Creative!   It's a creative plan!                    Duffy, Greenly and the boys descend the tower. Greenly works the          controls as Duffy helps the boys tie on harnesses.                                          MURPHY                    It's ridiculous! Probably based on                    some stupid shit ya saw in a movie!                    And here I am AGAIN all tyin' myself up                    with rope! What is the deal with you                    and rope?! Honestly!                                          CONNOR                    It happens ta be a useful thing!                    The boys start yelling over each other.   Duffy turns to Connor.                                          DUFFY                    You didn't get this from a movie...did                    you?                    Murphy regards his brother, "well?"   Pause.                                                                                81.                                                    CONNOR                    The "Eiger Sanction," Clint Eastwood!                    And it worked like a fucking charm for                    him!                    INT. JANITOR CLOSET -- SAME TIME                    Romeo peeks out a cracked door at a Mafioso guard. LLOYD (33yrs), a          janitor, gagged and duct taped to a hand truck. He has a shiner.          Romeo looks through his wallet.                                          ROMEO                    O'kay Lloyd Cranston of 135 Liberty                    Lane, apartment 3C.                             (shows him wallet pic)                    Lovely wife and kids. How old are                    they? Nevermind. Here's the                    situation, Lloyd. Me and a couple of                    friends of mine are fittin' to do some                    killin' here tonight. I'm talking                    bullets and blood, custom-wholesale                    slaughter. You following me, Lloyd-O?                             (Lloyd nods)                    Good. Now, I've run into a little                    snag. I need to figure out a tag line.                    You know, something cool to say when                    it's all over like..."I'll be back,"                    but mine, y'know? I need to own this                    one. I think this'll help me get                    through the quote, unquote event. I'm                    going to take your gag off and you and                    me are going to riff a little, o'kay?                    Let's have fun with this.                    Lloyd nods and Romeo rips off his gag.                                LLOYD                    I can't believe you! I'm a fucking                    janitor. What do I know about bullets                    and slaughter and shit?                                          ROMEO                    Not riffing, Lloyd! Now, I need an                    "Hasta La Vista" line, toute fucking                    suite and you're gonna help me think of                    one!                    EXT. SCAFFOLD -- LATER                    Eunice stands alone on the end of the scaffold.                                                                                 82.                                                    EUNICE                    And you can count on it like the U.S.                    mail. Through rain, sleet, hail or                    snow...something always seems to go                    wrong for these poor sons o' guns.                    The scaffold suddenly stops.                                          CONNOR                    What the fuck?                                          GREENLY                             (hitting controls)                    I don't know! It just stopped!                                          MURPHY                    Well, get it fuckin' goin' again!                                          GREENLY                    It won't turn back on!     It just died!                                          BROTHERS                    OH, SHIT!                    The boys look over the edge.     Long way down.                                          CONNOR                    How much time?!                                          DUFFY                             (looks at watch)                    Sixty Seconds!                                          MURPHY                    We gotta go now!                                DUFFY                    What are you talking about!?                                          CONNOR                    If we're even a few seconds late,                    Romeo's dead! We gotta go!                             (looking up)                    We're down thirteen stories!                                          MURPHY                    Eleven more to go!     Ball park it!                    They start counting out lengths of rope by feeding them through          their hands and extending their arms out to the sides.                                          BROTHERS                    One floor, two, three...                                                                                    83.                                                    MURPHY                             (MIFFED)                    The fuckin' Eiger Sanction.                    INT. JANITOR CLOSET -- SAME TIME                    Lloyd struggles to think.                                          LLOYD                    Uh..."Take that, suckers!"                                          ROMEO                    Not cool enough.                                          LLOYD                    Uh, "Merry Christmas, mother fuckers!"                                          ROMEO                    Too sacrilegious.                                          LLOYD                    Oh God, uh, how about "Eat it!"                                          ROMEO                    What are we at, a buffet, now?                                          LLOYD                    Good God, man! I'm a...                                          ROMEO                    Hang on, you might be onto something                    with the buffet thing, like with food,                    y'know? Let's brainstorm on that idea                    for a minute.                    EXT. SCAFFOLD -- SAME TIME          The boys' ropes are secured and they each pull a Rambo knife.                                         MURPHY                    TIME?!                                          DUFFY                    JESUS CHRIST! SEVEN SECONDS...SIX...                    FIVE...                    INT. HALLWAY -- SAME TIME                    Romeo, pushing his cart, jives down the hall toward the guard,          singing "La Couca Racha." The guard puts out a halting hand.                                          DUFFY V.O.                    FOUR...THREE!...TWO!...                                                                                   84.                              WHIP PAN...                    INT. BACK TO PRESENT, LUXURY APARTMENT -- NIGHT                                            EUNICE                      One...thing has always amazed me.                    Eunice stands dead center.   Everyone watches...                                            EUNICE (CONT'D)                      How quiet it gets. You ever noticed                      that? It's hard to imagine that just a                      few hours ago, it was the God damn O.K.                      coral in here.                    FLASH TO WHITE...                    FANTASY SEQUENCE:   Cool Country Western music!                    CLOSE ON:   A pair of cowboy boots pacing toward.                    Eunice stands before the looming windows.    The immaculate food table          stretches before her.                    She is now in full cowgirl regalia: Leather chaps, rawhide coat,          boots, cowboy hat and a pair of gleaming six guns on her hips.                    With the brim of her hat slung low, Eunice bursts into twirling          gunplay with her Colts. She spins them all around, flipping them,          catching them, etc. She holsters and stops.                                            EUNICE (CONT'D)                      One thang I'm gon guarantee ya...                    EXT. SCAFFOLD -- SAME TIME          First, Connor jumps off, then Murphy.    They fall down and out in          slow motion, knives in hand.                    INT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- MOMENTS LATER                    Eunice rolls the chamber of one of her Colts along her arm.                                            EUNICE                      We gon have us a good time...                    INT. OUTSIDE WINDOWS -- SAME TIME                    The boys snap to a stop and swing in, toward the building.    With          their free hand they each pull a .50 cal.                                                                                   85.                              INT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- MOMENTS LATER                                           EUNICE                     ...in the old barn tonight!                    The Country Western music goes hard core!                    SLO-MO: Two bullet holes pierce the windows behind Eunice as she          levels her Colts. The mammoth panes shatter but stay in the frame.                    SLO-MO: All gangsters bolt upright as their plasma screen explodes          with the boys' rounds. Some pull weapons.                    INT. HALL -- SAME TIME                    Romeo pulls his .45's and takes out the guard.   He kicks in the door          and rushes in...                    INT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- MOMENTS LATER                    SLO-MO: The brothers smash through the glass.    They fire as they          swing over Eunice's head.                    SLO-MO: Eunice leaps onto the table as the boys cut their ropes in          mid air with the Rambo knives. The brothers land on their knees.          Their momentum carries them, sliding on either side of the table.                    SLO-MO: Eunice runs along the table top, crushing food and keeping          pace with the boys as all three let the led out.                    SLO-MO:   The gangsters and button men return fire in chaos.                    SLO-MO: Gangsters are torn up as they are blown over furniture,          into walls. Romeo blasts. Slow motion gun battle.                    SLO-MO: Yakavetta runs toward his panic room. At the last second,          Jimmy the Gofer hip-checks him and dives in. The door slides shut.                    For a few moments the gun battle rages around Eunice who stands in          the center rapid firing at the gangsters.                                           EUNICE                     YEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAW!!!                    Soon it is over. The brothers slam Concezio to his knees and level          to the back of his head. As he begs for his life...                                           BOTH                     And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my                     Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended                     forth from Thy hand, that our feet may                     swiftly carry out Thy command.                                 (MORE)                                                                                      86.                                BOTH (CONT'D)                     So, we shall flow a river forth to Thee                     and teeming with souls shall it ever                     be.                    Romeo watches in awe.                                           BOTH (CONT'D)                     In Nomine Patris, e Filii, e Spiritus                     Sancti.                    Boom.   Concezio drops.   Romeo's been waiting, guns up and...                                           ROMEO                     "Who ordered the whup ass fajita!?"                                            MURPHY                     What?                                           CONNOR                     Whup ass fajita?                    The brothers turn to each other.                                           CONNOR AND MURPHY                     That's fuckin' stupid.                    Eunice whistles in sympathy as she lifts her brim with a Colt.                                           EUNICE                     Hold up, now.                    Everything freezes in place.     Eunice shuffles over to Romeo.                                           EUNICE (CONT'D)                     Was that the best you could do?                                           ROMEO                     It's just...I couldn't think...I                                            EUNICE                     Shhhhhh.                              (whispers in ear)                     Ya broke down the door, didn'tcha?                    Romeo snaps his head toward the entry with inspiration in his eyes.          QUICK CUT: He breaks down the door. QUICK CUT: The brothers shoot          Yakavetta. QUICK CUT: Romeo, guns up and once more with feeling...                                           ROMEO                     Ding dong, motherfucker, diiiing dong!                    The brothers look at Romeo, then to each other.                                                                                 87.                                                     MURPHY                    Exactly.                                          CONNOR                    You said it.                    WHIP PAN...                    INT. BACK TO PRESENT, LUXURY APARTMENT -- LATER                    Eunice stands before the panic room door.   She is totally          disheveled. She swipes her hair back.                                          EUNICE                    And that, gentlemen...is the sound of                    the fat lady singin'.                    Everyone stands in shock, Kuntsler, his G-men, the detectives even          crime scene workers. Greenly whispers to Duffy...                                          GREENLY                    Should we...clap or something?                                           DUFFY                    Shut up.                    Suddenly, the panic room door slides open and Jimmy yanks Eunice          inside. The door shuts. Everyone rushes toward.                                           KUNTSLER                    Hey!                    Duffy bangs on the door.                                            DUFFY                    Eunice!    Oh, shit!    Eunice!          Greenly slams the talk button.                                          GREENLY                    If you hurt her, you piece of shit, I                    will kill you! Do you fucking hear,                    me? I'll kill you!                    Greenly wheels around, facing Kuntsler.                                          GREENLY (CONT'D)                    Get a hostage negotiator down here and                    put some stank on it! He could be in                    there all...touching her and shit!                                                                                  88.                              INT. PANIC ROOM -- CONTINUOUS                    Eunice has Jimmy pinned face down to the couch, arm twisted behind.                                           JIMMY                    I'm sorry!   I'm sorry!   I wasn't gonna                    hurt you!                                          EUNICE                    You bet your ass you weren't.                                          JIMMY                    Just lemme explain. I have                    information, like pertinent                    information. Ouch! Look, I was                    listening to you out there and that's,                    like, exactly what happened. That's                    what made me think you were the person                    to talk to.                    Eunice lets him go and stands.   Jimmy sits up.                                          EUNICE                    Yakavetta had a partner, didn't he.                    Jimmy looks scared.                                           JIMMY                    Yeah.                                          EUNICE                    You saw this fella?                                          JIMMY                    Yeah. It was only one time and just                    for a second but I think I could ID                    him. I don't know his name, though.                    Concezio always called him the "Old                    Man" accept one time when he called him                    something else, like he fucked up and I                    wasn't supposed ta hear it.                                          EUNICE                    What was it?                                          JIMMY                    He called him...the Roman.                    EXT. LUXURY APARTMENT -- MOMENTS LATER                    Panic room door opens and Eunice emerges with Jimmy in tow.                                                                                 89.                                                    GREENLY                             (re: Jimmy)                    Did this little motherfucker...?                                          EUNICE                    Easy, David. I'm fine. C'mon gents,                    we're leaving. This is the Fed's                    problem, now.                                          KUNTSLER                    Hey! What happened in there?      What was                    said to you, Agent?                    Jimmy is cuffed by two uniforms.                                          EUNICE                    You got him in custody. Ask him                    yourself. You're the professional.                    She walks out and the detectives follow.                                          DOLLY                    Yeah, professional moron.                    EXT. PRUDENTIAL BUILDING, GROUND PLAZA -- NIGHT                    There are coroner vans and moderate police activity here as Eunice          talks with the detectives who all seem perplexed.                                          DUFFY                    I got no idea. That's just weird. The                    Roman? What do you think it means?                                          EUNICE                    Feels like our ghost ta me.                                DOLLY                    What do we do now? I mean, the                    brothers ain't goin' nowhere until we                    get Panza or they do.                                          EUNICE                    We've all had enough excitement for one                    night. Let's sleep on it.                    EXT. ALLEY ACROSS FROM PLAZA -- SAME TIME                    Crew Cut watches Eunice and the detectives from the dark alley.    He          has shaved his head bald, giving him a sinister look.                                                                                  90.                              INT. MCGINTY'S -- LATER                    The place is empty except for Connor and Murphy having a celebratory          shot at the bar and cleaning their weapons.                                          MURPHY                    When's Romeo returnin' to the "hide                    out?'                                          CONNOR                    Soon as he's done apologizin' to his                    uncle for wreckin' his restaurant.                                          MURPHY                    And he should be sorry.   The                    disrespect.                    They chuckle as a loud knocking is heard.   As Doc peeps through the          spy hole and unchains the front doors...                                          DOC                    Hold your damn horses!                    He lets Greenly in and locks it behind him. Greenly takes a few          steps in, stops and grabs his crotch with both hands.                                          GREENLY                    Sack-o-matic, I said!                    As the boys guffaw, BOOM! A shotgun blast through the door sends          Greenly to the floor with a gaping wound in his back.                    Crew Cut bursts in with a smoking pig nose shotgun hanging from a          shoulder strap. He pulls two Sigs and rapid fires at the brothers.                    The boys jump over the bar frantically try to reassemble their          weapons. Connor and Murphy check their clips.                                          MURPHY                    I got nothin'!                    Connor racks his .50 cal and looks in the chamber.                                          CONNOR                    One in the hole.                    They see a shotgun behind the bar. Murphy grabs it.   Just as they          are about to stand, they hear Doc cry out.                                         DOC                    Boys!                                                                                 91.                              They stand and level. Crew Cut has Doc from behind, .9mm to his          temple. Thick accent...                                          CREW CUT                    Put dem down! Throw dem over!                    The boys do not flinch. Crew Cut pushes his gun into Doc's temple          hard. He cries out in pain.                                          CREW CUT (CONT'D)                    Throw dem over!                    The boys toss their guns over the bar. Crew Cut levels toward them,          holding Doc in place. He whispers in Doc's ear.                                          CREW CUT (CONT'D)                    Brothers, eh? Which one first?      This                    one?                             (re: Murphy)                    Dee other, eh?                    He cocks back his hammer. A silence POP! rings out from the          shadows. Crew Cut's hand is hit. He drops, crying out in pain.                    SLO-MO: Poppa M emerges from the shadows and moves to Crew Cut with          a smoking, silenced Walther pistol in hand.                    The brothers have just a moment of shock before Greenly chokes up          some blood. They jump the bar and rush to him.                                          MURPHY                    Jesus Christ!                                           CONNOR                    Doc!   Call da fuckin' ambulance!          As they hold Greenly and beg him to hold on, we move to Poppa M          standing over Crew Cut. Crew Cut looks up at him in awe.                                          CREW CUT                    You.                                          POPPA M                    Where is the Old Man?                                          CREW CUT                    Never.                    Poppa M pulls two .38 revolvers. He snaps the rotary chambers out,          puts one bullet in each gun, spins the chambers and snaps them shut.          He holds them out to Crew Cut. The boys weep, oblivious to this.                                                                                   92.                                                    MURPHY                    Just hold on.                                          CONNOR                    Hang in there, brother.     They're                    comin'.                    Greenly struggles to speak.                                          GREENLY                    Naw, boys...it's over. Don't                    worry...proudest day of my life.                    He seizes violently and dies. The brothers are in anguish. Crew          Cut picks a .38 and stands. He and Poppa M level to each other's          foreheads. Crew Cut is excited. Poppa M is calm, tranquil. The          brothers bolt up in shock.                                            BROTHERS                    Da!                                            POPPA M                    Easy, boys.                    The boys watch in horror, trying to figure it out. Poppa M motions          for his opponent to go first. Crew Cut cocks his hammer back with a          "click." The brother's eyes go wide.                                          MURPHY                    What the fuck's he doin'?                    Crew Cut pulls the trigger, "click!"                                          BROTHERS                    JESUS CHRIST!          Connor rushes over and grabs up the shotgun.                                          CONNOR                    I'm gonna blow this mother fucker's                    brains out, right now!                    He cocks it and levels to Crew Cut's head.                                            POPPA M                    CONNOR!                    Connor stops.   Poppa M holds out his free hand.   Halt.                                          POPPA M (CONT'D)                    Son...Daddy's workin'.                    Connor lowers the gun.    Poppa M pulls back the hammer, "click."                                                                                     93.                                                     POPPA M (CONT'D)                     Where is he?                    Crew Cut is unsure of himself. He thinks. Shakes his head.       The          brothers focus on Poppa M's gun as he tenses on the trigger.                                            CONNOR AND MURPHY                                (WHISPER)                     Come on.                    Crew Cut clenches up, bracing for impact. Poppa M pulls, "click."          The brothers drop to their knees and pray hard. Crew Cut recovers.          He smiles, pulls back the hammer. In Italian...                                           CREW CUT                     Make me famous.                    "Click!"   Crew Cut's eyes widen in fear.                                            POPPA M                                (pulling back hammer)                     Where?                    The brothers pray faster as Crew Cut thinks in horror.                                             CREW CUT                     FUCK YOU!!!                    BOOM!   Crew Cut falls dead.                    INT. UNCLE CESAR'S HOUSE, KITCHEN -- LATER                    The boys sit at the kitchen table with Poppa M.      Romeo is propped up          on a counter, nearby. Cesar sets out coffee.                                           POPPA M                     I'm so sorry, boys.      This is all my                     fault.                    Cesar takes Romeo and leaves, giving them some privacy.                                           MURPHY                     What are ya talkin' about, Da?                    Poppa M strokes the faded "butterfly" tattoo on the back of his          hand. Presently...                                           POPPA M                     I was an immigrant to the U.S. in 1958.                     I was sixteen. I came to New York                     where my father, Jacob MacManus, was a                     cobbler.                                 (MORE)                                                                                 94.                                POPPA M (CONT'D)                    Had a little shop and I was to learn                    the family business. Mafia was                    everywhere in those days.                    INT. FLASHBACK, COBBLER SHOP -- DAY                    Italian THUGS #1-4 talk to JACOB MacManus (43yrs). In these          flashbacks we will refer to young Poppa M as "Noah." NOAH (16)          works in back but watches.                                          POPPA M V.O.                    Simple extortion...protection money.                    But your grandfather was proud.                                          JACOB                    I can't help ya with dat, lads. Ya got                    problems with your shoes, I'd be happy                    to have a look, got fair prices.                                          POPPA M V.O.                    I just...watched.                    Noah stands shaking as he watches his father beat to death. We fade          into later as he holds his father's body, wailing. An Italian kid          with a leg brace, LOUIE (18yrs), staggers in and hobbles to Noah.                                          LOUIE                    Il ochio de dio! We gotta call the                    polizia, Noah! We gotta call somebody!                    EXT. FUNERAL -- MORNING                    Noah, Louie and a priest are the only ones present at this modest          affair. Louie weeps. Noah is emotionless.                                          POPPA M V.O.                    I buried my father, then I buried the                    men who killed him. Louie, my best                    friend, helped me...                    INT. KITCHEN -- NIGHT                    Noah holds a knife to Thug #1's throat at a card table. He has THUG          #2's head pinned to the table top with a .38 cal. Nearby, Louie          holds a large .44 magnum with shaking hands. Seated Thugs #3 and #4          hands raised, are scared as they look at Noah's dead eyes.                                          THUG #3                    Come on, kid. It was an accident.                    We can work dis out. Whatever you want.                                                                                   95.                                                    THUG #4                    He ain't gonna do shit.                             (to Thug #3)                    I'll take two.                                          THUG #3                    What da fuck's da matter with you?                    Can't you see...                                          THUG #4                    I see just fine. Deal.                                          THUG #1                             (in Italian, to Louie)                    You're Italian, kid. Help us out here.                    Put one in the back of his head and you                    get anything you want!                                          LOUIE                    I, I, I...am his friend.                                          THUG #4                    Fuck him and fuck his friend. Deal the                    cards! He ain't got the balls.                    Noah shoots Thug #2 then cuts Thug #1's throat. The other Mafiosi          scream in horror. Louie kneels and weeps. Noah shoots Thug #3 in          the heart and calmly takes aim at Thug #4. He shoots him in the          throat and he is blown to the floor, grasping his bleeding neck.                    Noah rounds the table and takes aim. The man is choking on his own          blood. Noah slowly lowers his gun and just watches.                    INT. COBBLER SHOP -- AFTERNOON                    Louie works on a pair of shoes.   They are both a bit older.                                POPPA M V.O.                    It started out slowly. Just the ones                    who were a threat to us.                    MAFIOSO #1 and #2 talk to the stoic Noah.                                          MAFIOSO #1                    Come on, kid. It's good for you, good                    for us. We'll move it right out the                    back of the place.                                          MAFIOSO #2                    It'll never touch you. You got the                    word of the Bonnavese family on that.                    No response from Noah.   Dead eyes.                                                                                     96.                                                    MAFIOSO #1                    What's da matter with you, eh?                    We see Louie peeking through the curtains.                                          LOUIE                             (WHISPERING)                    Easy, Noah...easy friend.                                          MAFIOSO #2                    What are you, stupid or something?                    He smacks Noah across the face.                                                                    CUT TO:                    EXT. WOODS -- NIGHT                    Noah and Louie bury the bodies of Mafioso #1 and #2.      Louie stops          and rests. He watches Noah and thinks.                    INT. COBBLER SHOP -- DAY                    "CLOSED" sign in the door.   Noah and Louie eat sandwiches.                                          POPPA M                    Then one day...                                          LOUIE                    Why should we not help others who                    suffer these Mafia thugs?                    Noah puts down his sandwich. Louie talks to Noah with passion,          m.o.s. and he listens while nodding his head.                                          POPPA M V.O.                    Then it began.                    Over dialogue and music we see the following images...                    Noah cuts out a chalk sketch on a large sheet of shoe leather.                    Louie helps Noah make a "serious looking" leather vest.                    Louie hobbles in with a sack.   He dumps a bevy of handguns on a          table. All different makes.                                          POPPA M V.O. (CONT'D)                    Louie would pick the marks and plan                    everything in detail.                    Louie draws a map on a note pad and speaks m.o.s.                                                                                 97.                              Holsters and bullet belts are sewn into the vest.                    Noah loads the vest with guns as Louie tightens the buckles, stands          back and looks Noah over. Ominous.                                          POPPA M V.O. (CONT'D)                    And I would go in and do the jobs.                    A mob boss and two body guards wait for an elevator. The doors          open. Insides is Noah, dark jacket, English Mac (hat). He opens          his coat, revealing the vest. He draws two weapons, executes them          all and calmly hits a button. The doors close.                                          POPPA M V.O. (CONT'D)                    I would execute, over and over again,                    those who had taken my father from me.                    We do a montage of Noah killing Mafiosi in many different ways.                                          POPPA M V.O. (CONT'D)                    So it went for years.                    EXT. BACK TO PRESENT, KITCHEN -- LATER                    We pan to the gaping mouthed brothers.                                            MURPHY                    Jesus.                                          CONNOR                    So...how'd ya end up inside, Da?                                          POPPA M                    Back in '75, I did a hit, came out and                    the police were waitin' for me. He set                    me up, 25 to life.                                MURPHY                    Wait...why did he set you up?                                          POPPA M                    Can't wait ta ask him.                                          CONNOR                    Why didn't ya flip on him? Cut down                    yer time? The guy fucked ya.                                            POPPA M                    I couldn't.                                          CONNOR                    Why the hell not?                                                                                    98.                              INT. FLASHBACK, PRISON PHONE VISITING AREA -- NIGHT                    A picture of a woman with two babies is slammed to the glass.                    EXT. BACK TO PRESENT, KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER                                            POPPA M                      He'd learned of the birth of my sons.                    Connor and Murphy hang their heads.      Connor looks up.                                            CONNOR                      Do you know Louie's full name?                                            POPPA M                      Aye.                    The boys look at each other.                    EXT. SIDE WALK OUTSIDE MCGINTY'S -- SAME TIME                    Greenly's bagged body is about to be loaded into an ambulance.          Eunice stops the EMTs, unzips it and touches his face. She weeps          and then crushes into Dolly's chest.                    He holds her and cries too as Duffy watches in anguish. Eunice's          cell rings. She ignores it and Dolly pulls it from her pocket and          tosses it to Duffy, never letting go of Eunice.                                            DUFFY                      Hello.                    Alternating coverage.                                             CONNOR                      It's me.   Put Eunice on.          Connor hands the phone to Poppa M.      DISSOLVE TO...                    INT. POLICE STATION -- LATER                    Eyes still red from crying, Eunice covertly works at a computer.          She types. Soon a picture of the Roman comes on up. Eunice looks          at his face with trepidation and then...                                            EUNICE                      I hope they do it slow...you piece of                      shit.                    INT. ILLEGAL BOOK -- LATER                    CLOSE ON:   An old time phone being carried to a rear table.                                                                                     99.                              We drift by a poker game and young Italian thugs, betting horses and          sports. T.V.s and smoke are abundant.                    The phone is set on a back table. PATRONAZZI (75yrs), an ancient          Italian man drinking espresso picks up.                                            PATRONAZZI                    Si.                    It's the Old Man.    In Italian, alternating coverage...                                          OLD MAN                    Hello, old friend.                                            PATRONAZZI                    Many years.    Are you in need?                                          OLD MAN                    Yes. I am making marinara and alas, I                    have run out of tomatoes. To help an                    old friend...how many can you spare?                    Patronazzi looks up.    Slowly, many of the young thugs turn.                                          PATRONAZZI                    I am in good supply of tomatoes.                    INT. UNCLE CESAR'S HOUSE, LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT                    The boys slumber. We push in on their staggered profiles.       They          simultaneously take a deep breath. FLASH TO WHITE...                    INT. DREAM SEQUENCE, FENWAY PARK -- DAY                    The boys stand in a huge cement access corridor of Fenway Park.        It          is empty and quiet as a church. A man walks toward them. They          struggle to see. Presently, we reveal ROCCO. He passes them.                                             ROCCO                    Come on.     The game's starting.                    The brothers follow him.    Red Sox emblems are abundant.                                          ROCCO (CONT'D)                    Funny thing about the Red Sox. We                    never gave up hope, y'know? It's what                    kept us going all those years. And                    they did it. They finally fuckin' did                    it. What are we all gonna do now, huh?                    They emerge into the stands.    Perfect baseball field, empty park.                                                                                 100.                                                    ROCCO (CONT'D)                    I lost a lot of money on 'em. But I                    gotta admit. Always felt                    better...betting the underdogs.                    Rocco walks on.   The boys follow.                    EXT. BASEBALL DIAMOND -- MOMENTS LATER                    The boys stand on the mound.   Rocco walks a circle around it.                                          ROCCO                    So, how's things going?                    The boys drop their heads.                                          ROCCO (CONT'D)                    Yeah. I know. It's rough having your                    faith shaken.                    The brothers have a pained expression.                                          ROCCO (CONT'D)                    But it happens to all of us.                             (BEAT)                    You know what's always tripped me out?                    How hundreds of years ago, a bunch of                    desperate gamblers in leaky ass ships,                    crossed the ocean blue. They had no                    clue what was on the other side of it.                    Took real balls. But they sailed into                    infinity and made it all the way to the                    shores of the New fucking World...                             (re: surroundings)                    ...and all they had was their faith.                    I'm always surprised how so many people                    miss the simple fact that faith...is                    the reason all of us are even here.                    You can't underestimate the power of                    it. Shit, you were the ones that                    taught me that.                    Rocco looks to his left and right.   Secretly.                                          ROCCO (CONT'D)                    Listen, your my boys so I'm gonna give                    you some inside. The Sox are gonna do                    it again this year. The line in Vegas                    is huge. Put everything you got on it.                    The boys look to each other.   Eyes wide.                                                                                 101.                                                    MURPHY                    Maybe we should.                                          CONNOR                    You're sure, Roc? You know this?                    Rocco smiles.                                            ROCCO                    No...I   just have faith. And for a                    second   there, you almost did too.                    Y'see,   it's contagious. And if enough                    people   catch it...look out, baby.                    A roaring cheer arises, shaking the very foundations of the arena.          The boys turn in awe. The stands are still empty.                    INT. LIVING ROOM -- LATER                    They jolt awake and look to each other.                                          CONNOR                    While the wicked stand confounded...                                          MURPHY                    ...call me with Thy Saints surrounded.                    EXT. BOSTON COMMONS, JOGGING TUNNEL -- MORNING                    Poppa M stands before Eunice.   She hands him an envelope.                                          EUNICE                    He lives in York Maine. About 30                    minutes from here. Better go quick. I                    logged on to an FBI database to get the                    info. Homeland Security does internal                    monitoring now. Only a matter of time                    before they flag it.                                          POPPA M                    Will they know it's you?                             (she nods)                    Will you be all right, dear?                                          EUNICE                    I hear Costa Rica's nice.                    She looks at him as her eyes well up with tears.                                          EUNICE (CONT'D)                    I never thought I'd ask this of another                    human being but please...kill this man.                                                                                  102.                              She is overcome and weeps.   Poppa M holds her.                                          POPPA M                    It ends taday.                    INT. FBI HEAD QUARTERS, BOSTON BRANCH, KITCHENETTE -- LATER                    Kuntsler pours a coffee. G-man #2 comes in holding a piece of paper.                                          KUNTSLER                    Anybody word from Bloom, yet?                                         G-MAN #2                    Nothing.                                          KUNTSLER                    I want that little Bayou Bitch in here.                    Something stinks about this whole                    thing.                                          G-MAN #2                    I'm having D.H.S. dump her IP and check                    for flags. See if she's been poking                    around.                    INT. TRINITY CHURCH -- LATER                    Poppa M, the brothers and Romeo walk kneel at the altar before a          memorial to McKinney: Candles, pictures, cards, flowers etc.                    As they pray, a dozen or so church patrons who are in the pews begin          to realize who they are. Our foursome stands and walks back down          the aisle. They make eye contact with a few people.                    When the Saints are gone, the churchgoers gather in the aisle and          stare at the front door in disbelief. Excited whisperings. One guy          opens his cell phone. Then he thinks...and closes it.                    INT. FBI HEAD QUARTERS -- MOMENTS LATER                    G-man #2 excitedly gives Kuntsler a file.   His eyes widen.                    INT. INTERROGATION ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER                    Kuntsler slaps the file down in front of Jimmy who is cuffed to a          metal table. He looks at a picture of the Roman. Fear.                    INT. SUV -- MOMENTS LATER                    Kuntsler and his men speed along sirens blaring.    Into walkie...                                                                                103.                                                    KUNTSLER                    This is S.A.I.C., Jonathan Buford                    Kuntsler! Security code A4153B! I                    need an immediate R2 law enforcement                    override clearance!                                          FEDERAL OPERATOR V.O.                    What is your specific request, Agent?                                          KUNTSLER                    Everyone in the tri-state area with a                    gun!                    INT. DEAD END STREET -- SAME TIME                    The Roman's common, two story home looms in the b.g. at the end of a          cul-de-sac. Walking down the middle of the street, is Poppa M:          black trench, hat, dark shades. He opens the door and enters the...                    INT. COMMON HOME -- CONTINUOUS                    Poppa M listens, far off scratchy music. He moves quietly through          the house, stopping at the foot of the stairs...listens. He removes          his rosary, hangs it on the banister and moves on, pulling a weapon.                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- SAME TIME                    The Roman, swirls a tomato in a plate of salt and bites into it.          Beside him, a horned phonograph plays 40's Jazz. Behind him, we see          that the greenhouse is merely an extension of the home.                    The Roman sits in front of a sunken fire pit at a low flame. Across          the pit, an empty chair. Extended before him is a stunning garden,          standing in stark contrast to the common house: vines, flowers,          cobblestone walks, fountains. The center piece is a Turkish pool          with pure white Lillys afloat.          Poppa M slowly approaches the Roman from behind. He holsters his          weapon and sits. The Roman halts the phonograph.                                          POPPA M                    Hello, Louie.                                         ROMAN                    Noah.                    Long pause.                                          POPPA M                    We haven't much time.                    The Roman smiles and gestures the surroundings.                                                                                  104.                                                    ROMAN                    My garden. She is beautiful, yes?     Ah,                    but you. You are blind to beauty.     You                    are a destroyer, Noah.                                          POPPA M                    You know my reasons.   You know why I                    did what I did.                                          ROMAN                    But do you? You think it was for your                    father? No. You were born a killer.                    Death...is in the very blood that runs                    through your veins.                                          POPPA M                    No.                                          ROMAN                    Then explain this.                    The Roman flicks a photo over. It lands in Poppa M's lap.    It is          the picture we saw earlier. A woman holding two babies.                                          ROMAN (CONT'D)                    You were not there to raise them. Not                    a single day. Yet, how closely they                    follow in the footsteps of their                    father. They have inherited your                    blood, Noah...your anger.                    Poppa M looks at the photo deeply.                    EXT. BEHIND GREENHOUSE -- SAME TIME                    Outside, back wall of greenhouse.    THUGs 1-5 from Patronazzi, hunker          down here. They are all armed.                                          THUG #1                             (whispered into walkie)                    Remember, not a scratch on the Old Man.                    INT. PARLOR, UPSTAIRS -- SAME TIME                    We look out the bay windows. It is a straight shot down the slanted          roof to the roof of the greenhouse. THUGS 6-8 stand quietly inside.                                           THUG #6                    Got it.   Wait for the signal.                                                                                  105.                              INT. HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    A gloved hand grabs up Poppa M's rosary.    Connor pockets it as he          and Murphy silently climb the stairs.                    INT. / EXT. VARIOUS LOCATIONS -- SAME TIME                    S.W.A.T. teams load into vans.   Squad cars speed through traffic.                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    Poppa M tosses the picture into the fire.                                           POPPA M                    And you?   What are you?                    The Roman denotes his garden.                                          ROMAN                    I am a creator. You see? Our very                    natures stood in opposition as old as                    the story of the scorpion and the frog.                                          POPPA M                    Why...did you sell me out, Louie?                                          ROMAN                    You can never understand.                                          POPPA M                    25 years....try me.                                          ROMAN                    I wanted to join with them. They were                    building an empire. Creating something                    and I was helping them! I used you,                    Noah, to eliminate their problems, to                    destroy their competition, to cut out                    their cancers. I earned my place among                    them.                    Poppa M looks around.                                          POPPA M                    Is this your place among them? Because                    all I see is a an old man, sitting in a                    garden.                                          ROMAN                    Alas, the scorpion and the frog both                    lost everything, yes? I should have                    paid more attention to the story.                                (MORE)                                                                                   106.                                ROMAN (CONT'D)                    Without you...I was no longer useful to                    them. They cast me out!                    INT. SUV -- MOMENTS LATER                    Kuntsler barks into a walkie...                                          KUNTSLER                    The location is to be surrounded and                    secured upon arrival! Nobody goes in!                    He suddenly looks out his window to the sky.    In the distance, two          other copters fly in the same direction.                                          KUNTSLER (CONT'D)                    Are those fucking news choppers?!                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                                          POPPA M                    Why the priest, Louie?     Why all this?                    Why, now?                                          ROMAN                    Because I knew it would bring you and                    your sons. You would destroy the                    Yakavettas and clear my way. This                    time, I will take what is rightfully                    mine. Just a little piece, for my old                    age. After all, I have never been a                    greedy man.                    The Roman puts the needle back on the record.    Jazz plays.                    INT. PARLOR, UPSTAIRS -- SAME TIME                                           THUG #6                    That's it!   Move!                    Another Thug opens the bay windows.    Thundering music!                    INT. NEIGHBORING ROOM -- SAME TIME                    BIRD'S EYE VIEW: Looking down on Connor and Murphy.    They rapid          fire their huge .50 cals through the wall.                    INT. PARLOR -- SAME TIME                    SLO-MO: The heavy rounds blast through the wall and massacre the          three Thugs as they are about to exit.                    INT. BACK OF GREENHOUSE -- SAME TIME                    All following visuals in slo-mo with slamming music...                                                                                 107.                              Poppa "M" stands, throwing open his trench and revealing his leather          vest, a six gun rig in the front. The Roman in awe.                    The double doors crash in and men barrel through as Poppa M turns,          pulls two weapons and fires upon them, hitting one.                    The boys crash through the glass ceiling of the greenhouse on either          side of Poppa M. They fire as they fall, hit the ground and roll.                    Romeo bursts into the fray from inside the house, blasting away with          his gold .45's, a shotgun hanging on his back.                    The garden is being torn apart as the brothers, Poppa M and Romeo          hit their marks and the hit squad returns fire. The boys dive          behind fountains which are then pulverized.                    The gun battle rages around the Roman who remains seated in the very          mouth of madness. His heart breaks as his sanctuary is shredded.                    Romeo fires as a large rack of wine behind him is torn apart.                    Murphy fires over a statue and bodies crash into the pool.                    Connor stands, firing in a Jesus Christ pose.                    Poppa M drops his empty weapons and pulls two more, laying down a          second barrage.                    Romeo is simultaneously hit in the leg and shoulder. He falls,          dropping his .45s. He struggles to fire the shotgun.                    Poppa M takes one in the chest.                    Connor is wounded in the shoulder but continues firing.                    Murphy is hit in the leg but continues firing.          The boys and Romeo manage to take out the last of the Thugs, who are          blasted into the Turkish pool. It is over. The music fades...                    EXT. FRONT OF HOME -- MOMENTS LATER                    Squad cars screech to a halt as the chopper lands behind them.          Kuntsler exits, shouting orders. Many officers level over their          hoods as S.W.A.T. piles out and moves toward.                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    The Roman looks around, tears in his eyes.   The boys hobble to their          failing father who is on his knees.                                         CONNOR AND MURPHY                    Da?                                                                                  108.                                                       POPPA M                     Boys.    Help me up.                    They get him to his feet. Poppa M turns to the Roman. He levels a          revolver toward the seated man. With his last bit of strength...                                           POPPA M (CONT'D)                     I'll see you in a minute, Louie.                    Poppa M fires one right between the Roman's eyes.    Poppa M crumbles.          His sons lay him down.                                           CONNOR                     Oh, no, no, no.                    Poppa M smiles as he looks up at the sun through the blown out glass          ceiling. A plume of butterflies escape.                                           POPPA M                     It's a beautiful day.                                             MURPHY                     Aye.    It is...it is, Da.                    He dies. The brothers weep. Nearby, Romeo is slumped and bleeding,          on the edge of consciousness. A strange calm comes over the          brothers as they stand and look to one another.                    S.W.A.T. can be heard surrounding the perimeter. The boys look to          Romeo. He smiles at them and nods. The brothers turn and walk into          the house. The echoed voice of Poppa M.                                           POPPA M V.O.                     And shepherds we shall be...                    EXT. STREET -- MOMENTS LATER          Cops level over their squads.      Media descends.                                           POPPA M V.O.                     ...for Thee, my Lord, for Thee...                    INT. HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    SLO-MO:   the boys move toward the front door.                                           POPPA M V.O.                     Power hath descended forth from Thy                     hand...                                                                                    109.                              INT. VARIOUS LOCATIONS -- SAME TIME                    We cut to people around the country glued to their t.v.s      Crowds          hush in bars, airports, stores.                                            POPPA M V.O.                      ...that our feet may swiftly carry out                      thy command...                    EXT. FRONT OF HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    The door opens and the boys walk out, guns down.                                            POPPA M V.O.                      So, we shall flow a river forth to                      Thee...                    INT. GREENHOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER                    Romeo raises a weak hand as S.W.A.T. moves cautiously through a          battle field of dead bodies.                                            POPPA M V.O.                      ...and teeming with souls shall it ever                      be...                    EXT. FRONT LAWN -- MOMENTS LATER                    SLO-MO: The boys stop in the middle of the lawn and look out over          the massive presence. A policeman yells in his bullhorn, m.o.s.                    SLO-MO, CLOSE ON:    The brothers' guns fall to the grass.                                            POPPA M V.O.                      In Nomini Patri...          SLO-MO:    The brothers drop to their knees.                                            CONNOR                      ...e fili...                    SLO-MO:    The brothers put their hands behind their heads.                                            MURPHY                      ...e Spiritu Sancti.                    DIP TO BLACK.    The music fades...                    SUBTEXT:    "Seven days Later"                    INT. / EXT. NEWS FOOTAGE                    STATIC!    CHANNEL CHANGE!                                                                                 110.                              Crowds flood a cemetery.    Poppa M's casket is lowered...                                             REPORTER #2                       ...hundreds took off work today to say                       good bye to the man Boston is calling                       simply, "The Father."                    STATIC!   CHANNEL CHANGE!                    News desk.    Insert of Romeo.                                             SALLY MCBRIDE                       ...still in a coma. The condition of                       Romeo Mata, the young Hispanic American                       allegedly operating with the Saints                       remains critical.                    STATIC!   CHANNEL CHANGE!                    Outside Eunice's home.                                             REPORTER #2                       ...the search continues for missing                       Special Agent Eunice Bloom. As of yet,                       law enforcement has turned up nothing                       but have not ruled out foul play.                    STATIC!   CHANNEL CHANGE!                    New footage of the aftermath at the Roman's home.                                             REPORTER #3                       The young men, who's names Police are                       not releasing to the public have yet to                       utter a word since their capture. Even                       to their court appointed attorneys.          STATIC!   CHANNEL CHANGE!                    A mob of protesters chant, "Set them free."                    INT. T.V. TALK SHOW, "BOSTON BANTER" -- DAY                    Five guests, BALLPLAYER, COMEDIAN, ACTOR, POLITICIAN and a HOST are          seated in the midst of an "audience in the round." The format is          similar to "Politically Incorrect."                                             BALLPLAYER                       It doesn't change anything. What they                       did is still more important. It's                       still the issue.                                                                                 111.                                                    COMEDIAN                    They deserve medals.                                          POLITICIAN                    They deserve the death penalty.                    Arguments erupt.                    INT. PRISON HOSPITAL -- DAY                    The arguments are heard as the boys awaken in their hospital beds at          the same moment.                                          PRIEST V.O.                    Only God can judge!                                          ACTOR V.O.                    Oh, save it for group, father!                    They are bandaged and hooked to machinery.                                          BALLPLAYER                    Well, I know this! They certainly                    don't belong in prison.                    The boys turn and look out the windows at a group of cons in the          yard, staring up at them.                                          HOST V.O.                    Oh, I don't know.                    Connor and Murphy's faces split with evil grins.   They mimic guns at          the cons and gesture as if shooting them.                                          HOST V.O. (CONT'D)                    Maybe that's just the place for them.          FADE TO BLACK...
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+                                   THE BOONDOCK SAINTS                                        Written by                                        TROY DUFFY                                   Shooting Script:  White August 28, 1997                               INT.  GOTHIC CHURCH  10:00 A.M.  ST. PATRICK'S DAY               DOWNTOWN BOSTON               As we open we see the inside of an enormous church. A young                looking PRIEST in his mid-thirties is finishing the delivery                of the Lordís Prayer. In the back of the church, in the last                pew, there are two who kneel on the cold, stone floor.               They do not stand to sing, nor do they offer signs of peace                when told, but they pray. They grip and rub their rosaries.                They mutter their words in Latin.               CONNOR and MURPHY MacMANUS (mid-twenties) are shrouded in                thick waist length navy P-coats, worn leather boots and the                hungry clothes of the poor. The boys heads are shaved and                they have facial hair.                                     MONSIGNOR                              (dismissing young                               priest)                         Thank you Father Macklepenny, for                          coming all the way across town to be                          our guest speaker today. I hope you                          found our little parish to your                          liking.               Macklepenny takes his seat on the alter along side the regular                priests of the church. The MacManus brothers suddenly stand,                as all others remain seated. Each church goer between them                and the aisle shifts his/her position to allow the boys                passage, as if on command. The two turn and begin to stride                for the alter, eyes down, determined.                                     ANNABELLE MACMANUS (V.O.)                              (thick Irish accent)                         They've never been like anyone else.                          From the moment they were born, of                          the same womb, on the same day, they                          just had their own way, my boys did.                          And I always knew that one day they                          would do something of true greatness.                          I just never expected they would                          bring about such a... such a                          reckoning.               The MacManus brothers are fraternal twins. As Annabelle                MacManus speaks, Macklepenny is taken aback as he scans the                congregation amazed to find that he is the only one who thinks                this out of the ordinary.               The monsignor begins his sermon. Macklepenny rises to stop                the boys from this disgraceful disturbance.               The elder clergyman finds Macklepenny's arm, keeping him                seated while shaking his head. Macklepenny's confusion gives                way to awe as he watches the brothers step onto the altar,                brush by the six seated priests, and approach the enormous                crucifix.               They both fall to their knees and kiss the feet of Christ.                They rise and as abruptly as they came, they turn and head                back down the aisle for the front door. They stop at the                rear of the church, turning to listen to the sermon.                                     MONSIGNOR                              (loud, authoritative)                         ...and I am reminded of this holy                          day of the sad story of Kitty                          Geneviese. This poor soul cried out                          time and time again for help but no                          person answered her calls. Though                          many saw, not one so much as called.                          Her assailant wiped the bloody knife                          off on her lifeless little body.                          They watched as he simply walked                          away. Nobody wanted to get involved.                          Nobody wanted to take a stand... We                          must fear evil men and deal with                          them accordingly but what we must                          truly guard against, what we must                          fear most                              (beat)                         Is the indifference of good men.               The MacManuses turn and walk out the door.               EXT. CHURCH STEPS  SUNNY MORNING               The boys put on their dark glasses and pause at the top of                the steps to light up their cigarettes. They both roll their                cigarette butts along their tongues and screw them into their                lips. In this unique way they light up, seemingly oblivious                to their synchronicity and mimic.                                     CONNOR                              (Irish accent)                         I do believe the Monsignor finally                          got a point.                                     MURPHY                              (Irish accent)                         Aye.               They leave.               INT. NOLAND'S MEAT PACKING PLANT  4:00 P.M.  SAME DAY               Murphy, wearing a white blood soaked smock and apron stands                around the corner of the entrance to the loading dock. He                grips a gigantic, bloody slab of meat and smirks. Connor                flips his cigarette out the loading dock and passes his                brother's hiding place. He notices the workers have stopped,                and are looking at him.                                     CONNOR                         What?               Murphy slaps Connor square in the face with the bloody slab.               Connor's face is caked with blood as he stands stunned. He                then leaps on Murphy, sending him into a pile of nearby                hamburger. He grabs a large cow tongue from a nearby heap                and begins slapping Murphy in the face with it as they both                laugh and the workers cheer.               Their boss, McGERKIN approaches with a very large woman.               Her head is clean-shaven. The two are still laughing, out of                breath, they turn.                                     MCGERKIN                         Boys this is Rose, Baum, Gurtle...                          Gurtle.                                     ROZ                         Rozengurtle Baumgartner.                                     MCGERKIN                         You'll be training her today, and do                          a good job.                                     BOTH BOYS                         Aye.                                     CONNOR                              (wipes hand and extends                               it)                         Pleased ta meet ya Rozie.               She points to a tattoo on her neck that reads untouched by                man.                                     ROZ                         I prefer to be called Rozengurtle by                          men.                                     CONNOR                              (taken aback)                         Okay then... let's get ya started.               Connor exits with Roz.                                     MURPHY                         Christ, that's the largest woman                          I've ever seen.                                     MCGERKIN                         It's self-imposed affirmative action.                          If we hire big, fat, angry lesbians,                          then the leftist groups representing                          big, fat angry lesbians, won't think                          we're violating their rights.                                     MURPHY                         Well, how politically correct you                          are. That's good stuff.                                     MCGERKIN                         Hey, those people can shut ya down.                          They'll sue you into the ground                          claiming they were put under mental                          duress, inner pain. and sufferin'.                                     MURPHY                         Well, as long as we're hirin' fat                          lesbians, give your ma a call.               Murphy laughs as he jogs away.                                     MCGERKIN                         Fuck you Murphy.               INT. NOLAND'S MEAT PACKING PLANT  CUT STATION  SAME DAY               Rozengurtle and Connor stand in front of a bunch of co-workers                who are cutting meat as it goes by on assembly.                                     CONNOR                         Okay, just cut off as much fat as                          you can as it goes by and the rule                          of thumb here is...                                     ROZ                         Rule of thumb?                                     CONNOR                              (questioningly)                         Yeah?                                     ROZ                         Do you know where that term comes                          from? In the early 1900's it was                          legal for men to beat their wives as                          long as they used a stick no wider                          than their thumb.               Connor holds up his thumb and stares at it.                                     CONNOR                         Can't do much damage with that.                          Perhaps, it shoulda been the rule of                          wrist. Ha!                              (he elbows her)                         Rule of wrist.               She returns an icy stare. He hands her the knife. The co-               workers all seem wary of Roz.               Murphy stands on one side of Roz, Connor on the other,                surrounded by a tight group of workers. Everyone is within                ear shot of one another, cutting meat as it goes by. Knowing                glances are shared by everyone. It is an uncomfortable mood.                                     CONNOR                         Hey Murphy?                                     MURPHY                         Aye.                                     CONNOR                              (slight smirk)                         How many feminists does it take to                          screw in a light bulb?                                     MURPHY                         How many?                                     CONNOR                         Two. One ta screw it in and one ta                          suck my cock.               Everyone burst out laughing. Rozengurtle jabs a knife in a                piece of meat and turns to Connor. She pushes him and starts                walking toward him. He starts backing up, laughing.                                     ROZ                              (angry)                         I knew you two pricks would give me                          problems. Give me shit cause I'm a                          woman. I'm not gonna take your male                          dominance bullshit!                                     CONNOR                              (trying to calm her,                               but still chuckling)                         Oh, come on now Rozengurtle. I was                          just tryin' ta get a rise outta ya.                                     MURPHY                         Yeah. Just tryin' ta break the ice                          is all.                                     ROZ                              (to Murphy)                         Fuck you...                              (to Connor)                         ...and fuck you!                                     MURPHY                         Oh, come on its St. Patty's Day.                          It's all in good fun.               Employees gather around all the excitement.                                     ROZ (V.O.)                         Baumgartner sound Irish to you, fuck                          face?                                     CONNOR                         Now look Rozengurtle, we're sorry.                          Just relax.               She reaches back and punches Connor full force in the face.               He takes the hit very well. He stops backing up.                                     CONNOR                         Why don't you save all your aggression                          for protests and marches and what                          not.               She suddenly drives her boot into his crotch, sending him to                the floor reeling with pain. Two female co-workers leap to                his aid.                                     ROZ                         You fuckin' slaves. Kowtowing to the                          needs of men! Get up! Get the fuck                          up! Leave him there.               Rozengurtle begins to turn, raising her fist to Murphy.               Murphy winds up and punches her square in the face. She lands                on her back. The on-lookers are stunned as he walks over and                stands above her.                                     MURPHY                         Guess you'll have ta change that                          tattoo now, won't ya Rozie!?               INT. HALLWAY  MACMANUS' TENEMENT APT  BUILDING  DAY               The brothers get to the top of the stairs. Connor is hunched                over and moving slowly. Murphy giggles.                                     CONNOR                         Fuck you.               Connor flicks his cigarette butt out the large open loading                doors at the end of the hall. The red brick buildings stretch                down the alley both ways. The glowing butt falls to a filthy                resting place, directly next to a dented green dumpster with                half the paint job scraped off.               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APARTMENT  EARLY EVENING               This is a decrepit, illegal loft. The boys enter, hang their                rosaries by the door and begin taking off their clothes.               Connor sits naked on the couch and gently places a bag of                ice on his crotch. Murphy stands naked in the open quantity                shower. Murphy turns on the water and sticks his hand in the                stream.               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APT  EARLY EVENING               Connor, still seated, cracks open a Guinness and sips it                lovingly. The phone rings.                                     CONNOR                         Hello.                                     MOM (V.O.)                         Connor, is that you?               Something is obviously wrong in her voice.                                     CONNOR                              (interested)                         Mother, is that you?                                     MOM (V.O.)                         Is that worthless brother of your                          there? I want you both ta hear this.                                     CONNOR                         Ma, what's wrong?               Murphy shuts off the water.                                     MURPHY                         No fuckin' hot water man. That...                                     CONNOR                         Shut it. It's Ma.               Murphy sees the concern in Connor's eyes and takes a step                closer.                                     MOM (V.O.)                         It's all your fault. Both you little                          bastards. I was a fool to believe                          you would bring me any peace. The                          day your Da left us when you were                          almost too young to remember, he                          said the two of you would do me right                          and make me proud, but he was wrong                          and I got nothin' ta live for.                                     CONNOR                         Mother, what are you sayin'? You're                          talkin' crazy here.               Murphy is drawing closer with concern.                                     MURPHY                         What's the matter with her?               INT. ANNABELLE MACMANUS' HOUSE  IRELAND  NIGHT               A wrinkly female hand grabs a large revolver resting next to                a half empty bottle of Hennessey.                                     MOM                         I finally found your Da's army                          revolver, Connor.               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APT  EARLY EVENING                                     CONNOR                         What the hell are you doin' with                          Da's gun!?                                     MURPHY                              (widening eyes)                         What the...?                                     MOM (V.O.)                         I got it ta my head now.                         I got it ta my head now.                                     CONNOR                         What?! What are you doin'?                                     MOM (V.O.)                         I want ta tell ya one last thing                          before I pull the trigger.                                     CONNOR                              (screaming)                         Pull the trigger?! Have ya lost it                          woman?! Now just calm down here.                                     MURPHY                              (eyes widen)                         Oh my god!                                     MOM (V.O.)                         I...                                     CONNOR                         No ma! No!                                     MOM (V.O.)                         BLAME...                                     CONNOR & MURPHY                         Oh Jesus, No! No! Oh God! No Ma!                                     MOM (V.O.)                         YOU...!               Connor and Murphy are both screaming in panic.               EXT. ANNABELLE MACMANUS' BACK STOOP  NIGHT               Mom stands on the back stoop holding the door ajar with her                hip. She holds the phone receiver up in her left hand and                the gun directly next to it, in her right. She squeezes off                a loud shot toward the heavens.               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APT  EARLY EVENING               As soon as the deafening sound pierces through the receiver,                Connor instinctively jumps up to a standing position. The                bag of ice bursts as it hits the floor and spreads across                it. He throws the receiver and covers his ears with both                hands.               The phone then falls to the ground, skipping through the                cubes as the boys dive for it screaming. The two naked,                hysterical boys fumble for the phone, flailing on their                stomachs in the field of ice. They finally catch it and both                put their ears to the receiver in panic. As they scream MA                intermittently, the pauses get longer and longer.               INT. ANNABELLE MACMANUS' APARTMENT  NIGHT               Mom's got her hand covering her mouth, face red from holding                back laughter, as she walks back into the house. She can                take it no longer and she bursts out with hearty guffaws.               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APARTMENT  EARLY EVENING               The boys are relieved, but angry.                                     CONNOR                              (grabs his balls,                               rolls over)                         Aaaww, shit!... evil woman!                                     MURPHY                         Lord have mercy. That was a good one                          ma.                                     MOM (V.O.)                         Oh, Jesus! No ma! Christ ma! No!               Murphy holds the receiver in the air. Mom's still laughing.                                     MURPHY                              (to Connor)                         Oh, she's quite proud of herself.                                     MOM                         Okay, seriously, both you listen ta                          me now.               They both put an ear to the phone.                                     CONNOR                         All right, we're both here.               Mom pauses and cackles endlessly once again.                                     MOM                              (finally)                         It's only 11:00 here boys so I got                          lot's more drinkin' ta do with your                          worthless relatives down at the Anvil.                                     MURPHY                         Just called ta torture us did ya?                                     CONNOR                         How's Uncle Sibeal?                                     MOM                         Well, you know how it is with him.                          Always complainin' he's never turnin'                          a profit on St. Patty's. Whole damn                          family goes down there with no money,                          cause we know he can't bear ta charge                          us.               They all laugh.                                     MOM                         But he's been havin' himself a nip                          or two as well... Been up the                          waitress' skirt all night, poor girl.                                     MURPHY                         Well you tell him ta take it easy                          with that. He's gotta learn ta respect                          women the way Connor does.                                     CONNOR                         Oh, Jesus.                                     MURPHY                         I gave him his first lesson in                          sensitivity toward the fairer sex                          just today.                                     CONNOR                         Don't even do it, ya bastard.                                     MURPHY                              (laughs)                         He got beat up by a girl.                                      CONNOR                         If that was a girl I want ta see                          some papers. She had ta be just                          preoperative for Christ sakes.                                     MOM                              (dogmatically)                         Lord's name.                                     BOTH                              (genuflecting,                               impassionate)                         Mother Mary, full of grace.                                     MOM                         What did you do, Connor?                                     CONNOR                         Well, we tried ta make friends and                          she gave me a shot ta the nuts.                                     MOM                              (aghast)                         What... the dirty bitch! I hope ya                          trounced her a good one!                                     CONNOR                         Well, I didn't but...                                     MURPHY                              (shaking his fist)                         Don't worry, I respected the hell                          out of her for ya, Ma.               Mom laughs.                                     MOM                         Well listen, I know how my boys take                          ta scrappin' when they take ta                          drinkin'.                                     BOTH                              (semi-condescending)                         Yes mother.                                     MOM                              (light-hearted anger)                         I mean it now. I carried the two of                          you little bastards around in my                          belly at the same time you ungrateful                          pissants. Ya ruined my girlish figure                          in one fell swoop, and then ya sucked                          me dry.                              (grabbing her breast)                         My tits are saggin' down ta my ankles.                          I trip over em for Christ sakes, now                          ya listen ta me, NO FIGHTEN!               The boys laugh.                                     MOM                         Promise me boys.                                     MURPHY                         We promise.                                     CONNOR                         Yeah, we promise.                                     MOM                         Well, there's my boys.                              (pulls back curtain,                               looks out window)                         Shit. I gotta go. Looks like I caused                          a ruckus with that shot. Half the                          damn neighborhood is comin'.                                     MURPHY                         All right, love ya ma. Listen, before                          ya go just give us the goods, eh?                                     CONNOR                         Yeah. It's been twenty-seven years.                                     MOM                         Still bickerin' over that, huh?                                     CONNOR                         Come on, ma. Out with it. Who came                          out first?                                     MOM                         All right, I suppose you have the                          right ta know.               The boys stand shoulder to shoulder, naked. They peer into                the distance, ears to the phone, awaiting this most important                information.                                     MOM                         Are ya ready?                                     BOTH                         Aye.               Slight pause as mom slams a shot of Hennessey.                                     MOM                              (yells)                         The one with the biggest cock!               Mom slams down the phone and lets out a throaty laugh. The                boys sign angrily. Connor walks over and hangs up the phone.                                     CONNOR                         Crazy woman.               When he turns, he notices Murphy is fixated on his brothers                crotch. A triumphant smile spreads across his face.                                     CONNOR                         Don't start. I've had ice on mine.               EXT. AN ALLEY  MORNING               PAUL SMECKER, F.B.I. agent, is lead by the Boston Chief of                Police through a jungle of ravenous reporters, police lines                and uniformed officers. He is impeccably dressed in a deep                red suit. He is smiling, confident as he walks. He is a very                good-looking, slender man.               He looks intently, for a moment, at four uniformed officers.               They approach two dead bodies, laying next to a dented green                dumpster with half the paint job scraped off.               One man, IVAN CHECKOV, lays on his stomach, closer to the                dumpster than the other. The ass of his pants has been burnt                out and a large cotton bandage is in its place.               The other, VLADDY, has a blood soaked bandage around his                head and is on his stomach as well. There are hundreds of                pieces of porcelain of various sizes everywhere. Three plain-               clothed homicide detectives, DUFFY, DOLLY and GREENLY hover                close to the bodies. Dolly and Duffy listen to GREENLY, an                obvious rookie, give his over-confident theory of what took                place.               The chief is about to interrupt them, but Smecker holds him                back with a smile. The two wait and watch in a position,                where the unsuspecting detectives have their backs to them.                                     GREENLY                              (thick Boston accent)                         ...so these guys are just kickin'                          the shit out of each other. This guy                               (points to Vladdy)                         Picks up an old kitchen sink that                          some one threw out and crushes this                          guy                               (Checkov)                         With it. All right, so it makes a                          big bang and alerts their friend,                          who's standin' look out around the                          corner. So he comes over and gets                          into it with this guy,                               (Vladdy)                         He's angry at him, right? They get                          into an altercation in which the                          look out guy crushes this guy by                          jumpin on him. And look at the damage                          here.                              (Vladdy)                         I mean this guy's fuckin' hamburger                          man. His spine is crushed. He's all                          twisted and shit. That guy had to be                          one big mother fucker. Huge, 3-400                          pounds, fuckin huge.               Smecker listens.               The Chief is embarrassed.                                     GREELY                         Or, okay. Check this out. Say these                          two don't even know the huge guy.                          They're just staggerin' home from a                          bar this morning, still all fucked                          up from St. Patty's last night. So                          they figure they'll take a short cut                          down the alley and this big mother                          fucker, he's just waitin'. And what                          could be more perfect for strong arm                          robbery? Two drunk guys all bandaged                          up. They're already injured for Christ                          sakes. He takes a blunt object and                          whacks the guy with the bandage on                          his head, right? Cause he's smart.                          He knows the guy with the bandage on                          his ass, he ain't going nowhere.                          Matter of fact, this guy's probably                          helping his friend with the rectal                          problem along. They're limping around                          like a couple of decrepit old broads.                          So once this guy's out of the picture                              (denotes Vladdy)                         this poor asshole, he tries to run.                          But look how far he gets fore the                          huge bastard catches up with him.                          Only a few yards. And what does he                          do? He gets creative. He picks up a                          sink and crushes the poor mother-                         fucker. Then, he ain't done yet. He                          comes over here, jumps on this guy's                          back and crushes him to death.                              (Vladdy)                         He steals their shit and beats it!                          Thanks for comin' out!                              (beat)                         And look at this print...               Greenly points out a large foot print on Vladdy's back.               Some detectives nod in agreement. Smecker chuckles as he                shakes his head.                                     GREENLY                         That's one big fuckin' shoe!... and                          think about it. Of all the ways to                          kill a guy, crushin' him to death.                          That's very particular. You don't                          get many of those. I dunno. I feel                          something big here. I wouldn't be                          surprised if we see more of these                          turning up.                                     SMECKER                              (stepping into the                               open)                         Brilliant. So now we got a Huge guy                          theory and Serial crusher theory.                          Top fucking notch.                              (to Greenly)                         What's your name?                                     GREENLY                         Detective Greenly. Who the fuck are                          you?               Smecker saunters up to Greely and pulls his I.D. out of the                breast pocket of his sport coat and lets it hang. The large,                light blue letters, F.B.I. can be easily seen.                                     SMECKER                         That's who the fuck I am.               All the detectives seem disgruntled and look to the Chief                for an explanation.                                     CHIEF                         Listen, I gotta go by the numbers on                          this one. I.D. just came back on                          these guys. They've got connections                          to the Russian mob. That makes it a                          federal matter and Agent Smecker,                          here, is heading up the investigation                          with our full cooperation.                                     SMECKER                              (transfixed on Greely)                         Why don't you get me a cup of coffee.                                     GREENY                         What the fuck?                                     SMECKER                         CafÈ latte.                                     GREENLY                         Who the...                                     SMECKER                         Twist of lemon!                                     GREENLY                              (to Chief)                         Chief, what the fuck is this?                                     SMECKER                         Sweet-n-low!               Greenly looks helplessly to the Chief, who simply nods. He                storms off the scene, upset. Smecker turns his back on                everyone and puts earphones in. He reaches down and hits                play. The choir song "Agnus dei" overtakes. He begins to                investigate. He kneels at the bodies for a moment then stares                at the opposite brick wall. He picks up a piece of porcelain                and scrapes it with his thumb.               He quickly cocks his head toward the sky and begins to chuckle                as he says Jesus Christ, under his breath. He brushes some                paraffin on each of the dead men's hands. Duffy and Dolly                watch defiantly. They start to smile at one another as they                collectively realize his homosexuality. He is slightly                effeminate buy not overly fey.                                     SMECKER                              (loudly)                         Mitchell, Langley!               Two uniformed officers approach.                                     MITCHELL                         Yes sir.                                     SMECKER                         Find the manager of this building.                          See if he has had any complaints of                          water coming down in any apartments,                          starting just this morning. If he's                          not there, knock on every door                          starting from the third floor up.                          Langley, you take this building,                          same thing.               Mitchell and Langley exit.                                     SMECKER                         Chaffey, Newman.               Two more uniforms approach.                                     CHAFFEY                         Yes sir.                                     SMECKER                              (to Chaffey)                         Look in the trash around their hands.                          See if you can find me two bullet                          casings. 45's, if my eye serves me                          right. Don't disturb them. Mark them                          as they lay. Newman, root through                          this shit.                              (points to the mountain                               of garbage)                         If this was a sink find me some metal                          parts. Gimme a faucet or a drain                          cover or something.               The two begin their tasks. Chaffey finds a casing near                Checkov's hand, hidden under the edge of the pile.                                     CHAFFEY                         Got it. It's a 45.               The homicide detectives are surprised as Chaffey looks for                the second shell. Smecker lights up a smoke.                                     SMECKER                         Chief, could you get ballistics down                          here and tell them they have to dig                          a 45 slug out of a brick wall.               He points to a bullet hole in the opposing and tattered wall.                                     SMECKER                         ...and locate another that's been                          fired through a dumpster.               He points to another bullet hole at the dumpster's base.                                     CHIEF                         I got the best ballistics guy in the                          world. He's mobile. Got all his stuff                          right in the van. Can have him down                          here in 10 minutes.                                     DOLLY                         How did you know that?                                     SMECKER                         Paraffin came up positive. And bullet                          holes are usually a big clue.                                     CHAFFEY                         I can't find the second one, sir.                                     SMECKER                         Look under the body.                                     CHAFFEY                              (obeys)                         Got it.               Smecker turns to detectives with a smirk.                                     SMECKER                         You guy's ready for this?               They both nod.                                     SMECKER                         This was no gangland assassination.                          Though creative, it was way too                          sloppy. Something went wrong here.                          This has personal written all over                          it. Now, these men were crushed and                          the first natural reaction the body                          has to such trauma is to tense up.                          So now the two shots fired here were                          reflex rounds. These guys weren't                          shooting at anything, but they were                          just about to.               Mitchell returns.                                     MITCHELL                         Agent Smecker,                              (pointing to MacManus                               building)                         This is all illegal loft housing so                          there's no manager on the premises                          but I found a lady on the fourth                          floor said she's had water dripping                          down on her whole place. Started                          just this morning.                                     SMECKER                         Fourth floor huh? Then we're heading                          to the fifth. Let's go up and see                          just how right I am.               INT. MACMANUS' APT. BUILDING  FIRST FLOOR  MORNING               The detectives pile into the elevator, Smecker last. Greenly                has rejoined them. Smecker sips his latte.                                     DUFFY                         So what are you thinkin' here?                                     SMECKER                         Really want to know?               All the detectives chant the affirmative. The doors close.               INT. MACMANUS' APT. BUILDING  ELEVATOR  FIFTH FLOOR  MORNING               As the doors open, all the detectives chorus their disbelief.                                     GREENLY                         No way. You know how big a guy's                          gotta be to do that? Fuckin' huge.               Smecker turns to Greenly in disbelief.                                     SMECKER                              (beat)                         Oooo. I might be wanting a bagel                          with my coffee.               Smecker exits the elevator leaving the three silent detectives                with that thought.                                     GREENLY                              (to Dolly)                         I ain't getting him no fuckin' bagel.               The detectives exit the elevator.               INT. MACMANUS' DOORWAY  INSIDE APT  LOOKING OUT TO HALL                 MORNING               Smecker appears first, glancing in momentarily. The detectives                pile in behind him. They survey the situation in total awe.                                     SMECKER                              (to Greenly)                         We'll start the ass kissing with                          you.               EXT. MACMANUS' APT. BUILDING  FRONT STEPS  MORNING               Smecker saunters out, detectives on his heels.                                     MITCHELL                              (approaches Smecker)                         Agent Smecker. I know this                          neighborhood pretty good. There's a                          bar called McGinty's down the block.                          It's a good bet they were there last                          night.                                     SMECKER                              (turns to detectives)                         Good work, Mitchell. I'll check that                          out myself.               Duffy starts walking down the street. A REPORTER is hot on                his heels.                                     REPORTER                         Hey, Duffy. What the fuck happened                          here? You owe me. This is the one I                          want.                                     DUFFY                         Let's go get a cup of coffee. You                          ain't gonna fuckin' believe this                          one.               Smecker is standing on the front steps in front of uniformed                officers and homicide detectives.                                     SMECKER                         I want A.P.B.'s put out. I want more                          uniforms on the streets. One thing's                          for sure, wherever these guys are                          they're hurting.               INT. EMERGENCY ROOM  DAY               A potent song takes our ears as The MacManus brothers sit in                the E.R. They have already received care. Their faces are                beaten and there are bandages and dried blood in various                spots. Connor's injuries exceed Murphy's. They are both clad                in only their leather boots, boxer shorts and worn out old                bathrobes.               Young kids wait for medical attention, as their knife wounds                bleed. Two nuns in the corner console a third, whose robes                are ripped and face is beaten. A woman toward the end of the                hall is so badly beaten she is unrecognizable.               As the song builds to a more harrowing chorus, a man enters.               His clothes suggest he's a pimp. He is not injured. He looks                around as he stands, perturbed, at the end of the hall.               He reaches over and grabs the beat up woman by the hair and                begins to drag her out. She is kicking and screaming from                the floor, grabbing at his wrists as he hauls her away.               (Slo-mo) The boys, instantly furious, stand and begin to go                toward the action, but Connor's legs give out on him and he                falls to the floor. Connor, still trying to go after the                pimp, crawls towards him. Murphy helps his brother to his                chair and hold him tight.                                     MURPHY                         Okay. Just calm down. Take it easy.                          He'll have his day. He'll have his                              (turns)                         FUCKIN' DAY!               Music fades.               INT  EMERGENCY ROOM  DAY  FEW MINUTES LATER               An old Irishman enters the E.R. DOC (70 yrs.) has a serious                facial twitch and is prone to blinking uncontrollably. He                has a mild stutter. He also has Tourette's Syndrome and is                apt to yell his two chosen swear words every now and then,                first fuck! and after a slight pause, ass! He rushes up as                they stand to greet him. Murphy holds Connor up.                                     MURPHY                         Thanks for comin', Doc.                                     DOC                              (Irish accent, squeaky                               voice)                         J-Jesus. What the fuck happened? Are                          ya b-boys all right?                                     CONNOR                         We're alive.                                     DOC                         An F.B.I. agent came by the bar. He                          left me his c-c, he left me his c-c,                          he left me this.               He hands them a card with Smecker's name on it. They survey                it with interest.                                     DOC                              (extremely loud)                         Fuck!..........Ass!               Everyone in the E.R. looks at Doc in shock. Connor and Murphy                don't even avert their eyes from the card.                                     DOC                         What are you going to do?                                     CONNOR                         We're going to turn ourselves in. It                          was self defense.                                     DOC                         y-y-yeah that's what he said.                                     MURPHY                         How the fuck's he know that? We                          haven't spoken to anyone yet.                                     DOC                         Don't know. He didn't say.               The boys look puzzled. Murphy helps Connor down to his seat.                                     MURPHY                         Listen Doc, we need a favor.                                     DOC                         A-anything.               Murphy hands Doc a partially filled garbage bag.                                     CONNOR                         Hold this shit for us, Doc. We'll be                          comin back for it when we get out.                                     DOC                         Right.               Doc exits, say one more "Fuck,...Ass", on the way out.               INT. BOSTON POLICE STATION  PRECINCT OFFICE  DAY               The station is abuzz with the story. Connor and Murphy's                names are on all tongues. A legend starts. Every available                officer is in the room along with the homicide detectives.               Smecker walks right down the middle.                                     SMECKER                         First of all, I'd like to thank                          whichever one of you donut munching,                          barrel-assed dip-shits leaked this                          to the press. That's just what we                          need now, some sensational story in                          the papers making these guys out to                          be super heroes, triumphing over                          evil. And let me squash the rumors                          now. These two aren't heroes.                              (rolls his eyes)                         They are two ordinary men who were                          put in an extraordinary situation                          and they just happened to come out                          on top. Yes, nothing from our far                          reaching computer system has turned                          up jack shit on these two. All we                          know is what we found out from their                          neighbors. And the general consensus                          is that they're... angels.                              (pause)                         But angels don't kill and we got two                          bodies in the morgue that look like                          they've been...               Smecker looks to Greenly. Dripping with sarcasm.                                     SMECKER                         ...serial crushed by a huge fuckin'                          guy.               Some of the cops and homicide detectives laugh and chide                Greenly.                                     CHAFFEY                         Are these me considered armed and                          dangerous?                                     SMECKER                         Well, not armed. If they had guns,                          they'd have used them. But dangerous?                          Oh yeah.                                     MITCHELL                         What makes you think they're                          dangerous? They were just protecting                          each other.               EXT. BOSTON POLICE STATION STEPS  DAY               The two are limping up the precinct stairs. Connor is draped                over Murphy who helps his brother along, they are still                attired as in the E.R.               INT. BOSTON POLICE STATION  PRECINCT OFFICE  DAY                                     SMECKER                         Look, look! I'm not saying one way                          or the other. Just be careful and go                          by the protocol on this one.                                     CHAFFEY                         Any tips on where these guys may be?                                     SMECKER                              (to Officer Mitchell)                         Any word back from the E.R.s?                                     MITCHELL                         No help at all. Swamped from St.                          Patty's. Packed with drunk, bloody                          Irish.                                     SMECKER                         Just hit the bricks nice and hard.               Grunt police work is going to bring this one in.                                     GREENLY                              (talking loudly)                         These guys are miles away by now.               The brothers quietly enter in the back of the room. All the                officers are seated with their backs to them. Smecker and                the brothers make eye contact. He knows who they are. They                don't interrupt Greenly.                                     GREENLY                         But if you want to beat your head                          against a wall, then here's what you                          look for. These guys are scared like                          two little bunny rabbits. Anything                          in a uniform or flashing blue lights                          will spook them. So the only thing                          we can do is put a potato on a string                          and drag it through South Boston.               There is light chuckling from the police at this crack.                                     MURPHY                              (loud)                         You'd probably have better luck with                          a beer.               Everyone turns and looks.               INT. INTERROGATION ROOM  BOSTON POLICE STATION  LATER               The boys sit in two chairs at a plain table with a recording                device on it. They are very serious and alert. Mitchell enters                with coffee for them. He shakes their hands and says he really                respects what they did. Surprised, they thank him. Chaffey                enters with donuts and a repeat performance of respect. Slowly                officers start to gather around the interrogation room door.               INT. INTERROGATION ROOM  BOSTON POLICE STATION  DAY LATER               There are at least 20 officers and detectives packed in the                tiny room. The MacManus' visit with the excited cops. All                are in high spirits.               The room is loud as Smecker walks in.                                     SMECKER                         What the fuck is this!? This isn't a                          fuckin' tea party. Get out! Only                          thing I want in here is them.               They all file out. Smecker and the boys look each other over.                                     SMECKER                         This conversation is going to be                          recorded. Just answer to the best of                          your knowledge.               Smecker reaches for the record button. Murphy puts out his                hand to stop him.                                     MURPHY                              (politely)                         Excuse me, sir.               Murphy turns to his brother and speaks in Latin, in hushed                tones. It is subtitled in English.                                     MURPHY                         "What do we tell him about the guns                          and money?"                                     CONNOR                         "We just got up and left. Bum musta                          rolled them before the police got                          there."                                     MURPHY                              (to Smecker)                         Okay. We're ready.               Smecker in intrigued with this tiny display. He hits the                record button.                                     SMECKER                         You guys are not under oath, here. I                          am assuming you knew these two guys                          from before, huh?                                     CONNOR                         We... met them last night.                                     SMECKER                         They had some pretty interesting                          bandages. Know anything about that?               They look at each other.               FLASHBACK. INT  MCGINTY'S PUB  NIGHT  ST. PATRICK'S DAY               McGinty's's is packed to the walls with drunken Irish. A lot                of faces are recognizable from Noland's Meat. Connor is in                front of the bar. He and Doc are staring at each other as if                waiting for one man to give in. Connor has his arms across                the chests of Murphy and some friends, holding them in place.                They are interested in the competition.               PRESENTLY...                                     CONNOR                              (presently, imitating                               Doc's voice)                         Would someone please come over here                          and...                                     DOC                         Fuck!                                     CONNOR                         me up the...                                     DOC                         Ass!               Everyone falls down laughing. Doc is angry and starts throwing                ice at them. DAVID DELLA ROCCO makes his way through the                crowd. Rocco is thirty-two years old. He has shoulder-length,                dark hair and a full beard and mustache that wrap around his                big smile. He charges up to the bar and yells to Doc.                                     ROCCO                         Hey! Fuck! Ass! Get me a beer!               This sends everyone even further into laughter. Doc throws                two huge fists full of ice at him. He backs away laughing.               The boys get up off the floor and have a huge group hug with                Rocco as they all scream each others names.               They all laugh and commence drinking.               INT. MCGINTY'S PUB  NIGHT               The bar is trashed. It's mostly empty now except for the                brothers, Rocco, Doc and four friends. Everyone is very drunk,                including Doc.                                     ROCCO                              (trying to connect                               with Connor)                         ...It's not that I'm homophobic. I'm                          just afraid of faggots.               Connor pauses then bursts out laughing. Doc calls everyone                to gather round.                                     DOC                         I got some bad news. Looks like I'm                          gonna have ta close d-down the bar.                          The Russians have been buying up                          buildings all over town, including                          this one... Fuck!... Ass! And they're                          not letting me renew my lease. I got                          'til the end of the week to come up                          with 26,000 dollars, or they take                          the place. I left them a note telling                          them not to show their faces t-                         tonight. They been pressuring me ta                          close and take the last few days ta                          get all my shit outta here but it's                          my right to stay open ta the last.               Long pause as everyone absorbs. They are upset.                                     ROCCO                         Let me talk to my boss, may I can...               He is cut off by everyone who obviously opposes Mafia                involvement.                                     DOC                         L-l-listen I don't want anyone ta                          know until the last possible moment.                          So you guys keep your traps shut. ya                          know what they say; People in glass                          houses sink ships.               Everyone has quizzical looks on their faces.                                     ROCCO                         Y'know Doc, I gotta get you a, a,                          like a proverb book or something.                          This mix and match shit's gotta go.                                     DOC                         What?               Everyone chuckles.                                     CONNOR                              (imitating Doc)                         A p-penny saved is worth two in the                          bush.                                     MURPHY                              (imitating Doc)                         Don't c-cross the road if ya can't                          get out of the kitchen.               Everyone laughs heartily. Just then, three large Russians in                suits enter. The obvious leader, CHECKOV, stands in front                with VLADDY behind one of Checkov's shoulders, with another                guy behind the other shoulder. They mean business. The                laughter fades.                                     CHECKOV                              (thick Russian accent)                         I am Ivan Checkov. You will be closing                          now.                                     MURPHY                              (after a long pause)                         This is McCoy... we find Spock and                          we got enough for an away team.               Everyone laughs. Ivan is angry.                                     CHECKOV                         Oh, how extraordinary. A bunch of                          Irishmen... and they are being drunken                          idiots. You are killing the                          stereotype. I'm in no mood for                          discussion.                              (points to Doc)                         You! You stay. The rest of you go                          now.                                     DOC                         Why don't you make like a tree and                          get the fuck outta here!               The locals roll their eyes at Doc's blunder.                                     CONNOR                         Calm down, Doc. I'm sure they're                          reasonable fellows.               He and Murphy each grab a Guinness and a shot of Hennessey                and they approach the Russians with the peace offering.                                     CONNOR                         Listen fellas, Y'know he's got 'til                          this week's end. Ya don't have ta be                          hard asses, do ya?                                     MURPHY                         Yeah, it's St. Patty's day. Everyone's                          Irish tonight. Now, why don't ya                          pull up a stool and have a drink                          with us?                                     CHECKOV                         You insult me. I would never drink                          that sewage. Especially with you                          people. You are fools.               Checkov slaps the beer to the floor.                                     CHECKOV                         This is no game! If you won't go, we                          will make you go!               The boys look at each other, remembering what Mom said.               They still hold the shots.                                     CONNOR                         If ya want a fight, you can see you're                          outnumbered. We're trying ta be civil                          here, so I suggest you take our offer.                                     CHECKOV                         I make the offers, ass-hole.               Rocco pushes off the bar. He's had enough.                                     ROCCO                              (standing between the                               two brothers)                         Hey, there Boris. What would you say                          if I told you that your pinko, commie                          mother sucked so much dick...               Wham! Ivan punches him in the face. He is quickly down and                out. Connor and Murphy's faces turn to stone as they speak                the next few lines in flawless fluent Russian with English                subtitles.                                     CONNOR                         "Now, that wasn't too polite, was                          it?"                                     MURPHY                         "I'm afraid we can't let that one                          go, Ivan."               Checkov is completely taken aback. All the Irish are fairly                impressed as well.                                     CONNOR                         I don't think Ma would mind.               They clink the glasses together, throw back the Hennessey,                ball up the thick glasses in their fists, drop to one knee                and both deliver a devastating blow to each of Checkov's                quads. Murphy on the left, Connor on the right. He's down                for the count, writhing on the floor.               The boy's each take a Russian guy and start fighting as the                others start kicking and spitting on Checkov. This is a bar                brawl, lots of punches don't connect. Connor dismantles his                man quickly. Murphy is still fighting as all the Irish try                to jump in and help Murphy but Connor goes into psycho mode,                pushing them all back.                                     CONNOR                         Let the boy go. He knows what the                          fuck he's doing!               They all back off and start to cheer him on. Murphy and Vladdy                are ripping each other apart. Vladdy backs him against a                wall and pulls back, exhausted, for one good punch. Murphy                reaches up behind his head with both hands and pulls two                bottles of wine from a wall rack. He swings them toward each                other with Vladdy's head as the mid-point. The bottles                haphazardly connect, one on each side of his head. He crumples                to the ground in an explosion of glass and wine.               There is shock and silence.                                     CONNOR                         Nicely done, boy!               INT. MCGINTY'S PUB  NIGHT  A FEW MINUTES LATER               They have Ivan Checkov tied down to the bar on his stomach.               Connor stands with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips                next to Ivan. He pours Hennessey all over Checkov's buttocks.               They all cheer. Ivan's face is battered as Rocco wakes and                approaches. He punches Checkov in the face in complete rage.               Two friends subdue him as all chuckle.                                     CONNOR                         Now, like my fine brother says, on                          St. Patty's everyone's Irish. And                          this piece of shit is about to be                          initiated.               As they cheer, Connor lights up his smoke and tosses the                match on Ivan's butt.               The Hennessey is instantly ablaze and Checkov is screaming                and wiggling in horror. Some just stand there stunned, but                most of the remaining onlookers leap to Ivan's aid. They                furiously pat him out and turn on Connor.                                     FRIEND #1                         Are ya tryin' ta kill him, ya fuck?               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APT  EARLY NEXT MORNING               Connor and Murphy, fairly beat up, sit up on their beds.               They wear tattered bathrobes and boxer shorts. They put their                feet down into their leather boots. The boys examine the                extent of one another's injuries and reflect on their                hangovers. They both laugh and grab their heads in pain.               Boom! The door breaks open and in hobbles Checkov and Vladdy,                guns drawn. Checkov is all beat up and the ass of his pants                is burnt out. A bulky bandage covers his buttocks. Vladdy                has a large bandage around his head. The boys stand in                surprise.               Ivan smashes Connor in the forehead with his gun, sending                blood gushing down his face as he falls to the floor. Murphy                helplessly yells his brother's name as he is brought to his                knees by Vladdy. Ivan positions Connor on his knees before                the toilet, which is open to the room. Checkov puts his foot                on Connor's head and proceeds, as he struggles, to hand cuff                him to the old toilet. So now Connor is bleeding and hugging                the commode with his hands cuffed behind the bowl base.                                     CHECKOV                              (almost whispering)                         I was going to kill you. But I'm                          not... I'm going to kill your brother.                          I'm going to take him down to the                          dumpster and I'm going to shoot him                          in the head. Then I'm going to throw                          his dead body in the garbage.                              (looks at this watch)                         Trash guys are coming in 10 minutes,                          gotta go.               Checkov walks towards the door and says "let's go" to Vladdy.                                     MURPHY                         It was just a bar fight. You guys                          are fuckin' pussies!               Vladdy pulls him to his feet and leads him away following                Checkov.               Connor, blood running from his face, listens to absolute                silence for just a moment. Suddenly his face reads the gravity                of the situation. In a split second he turns into an animal.                He's yelling, pulling, tugging and growling.               His body is a whirlwind of motion. The skin on his wrists                bleeds profusely.               EXT. ALLEY  MORNING               Vladdy and Checkov lead Murphy out back into the alley.               Murphy is on his knees next to the dumpster. Checkov has his                gun to the boy's head. He acts like he's going to pull the                trigger, but he stops. Vladdy is standing twenty feet away                with his back to them keeping a look out, gun in hand.               INT. CONNOR AND MURPHY'S APT.  MORNING               Connor becomes so venomous, that he pulls the entire toilet                right out of the floor.               INT. TO EXT.  MACMANUS' TENEMENT  LOADING DOORS  MORNING               (slo-mo) Connor steps out onto the sill of the huge, open                loading doors. He is five stories up. His muscles ripple                with the weight of the toilet. His face is barbaric.               EXT. ALLEY  MORNING               From his kneeling position, Murphy can see his brother perched                50 feet overhead. He does not let his face betray him.                                     CHECKOV                         I hope your conscience is clear,                          Irishman.               EXT. MACMANUS' TENEMENT  LOADING DOORS  MORNING               (slo-mo) Connor bends his knees and heaves the toilet upward                and swings one arm directly beneath it. He is no longer                tethered around the basin. He holds it at a cocked angle.               The heavy porcelain tank cover slips off the toilet.               He tosses the toilet in a left and outwardly trajectory,                then he jumps off the sill to the right. He is sailing through                the air about twenty feet behind, and to the right of the                toilet, cuffed hands above his head, robe up like a cape                behind him. Murphy screams               EXT. ALLEY  MORNING               (slo-mo) Checkov begins to laugh heartily. The tank top lands                pristinely on a garbage bag just behind Murphy. Ivan's look                turns to one of terror. Bam! He is crushed by the toilet.                Boom! His gun goes off, punching a hole in the dumpster near                the bottom. Vladdy hears the bang and crouches as he turns                to see a wave of tiny porcelain bits.               Connor lands squarely on Vladdy's back. His gun discharges                firing a hole in the brick of the opposing wall. He is                savagely crushed against the ground. Connor bounces off and                hits the wall, landing in the garbage completely unconscious.               Murphy takes his hands from his head. There is dead silence.               He runs to his brother, pulls him from the trash and checks                his vital signs. He seems okay. Vladdy, still alive, slowly                crawls for his gun, inadvertently covering his own bullet                casing. Murphy goes over, picks up the tank cover and clubs                the man to death with two hard and fast blows, then throws                it up and behind him. It lands in the dumpster with a                resonating boom.               Murphy quickly takes everything from the scene; guns, money,                wallets, watches and a pager. He shoves it in a garbage bag                and throws Connor over his shoulder and runs out of the alley.               BACK TO PRESENT. INT. BOSTON POLICE STATION INTERROGATION                ROOM  AFTERNOON               Smecker stares astounded at Connor and Murphy. The boys                examine Smecker for a reaction. He slowly builds to a chuckle.                The brothers join in.                                     SMECKER                              (gathering himself)                         So, how is it that you guys are fluent                          in Russian?                                     CONNOR                         We paid attention in school.                                     SMECKER                         Know any other languages?                                     MURPHY                         Aye. Our mother insisted on it.                          French.               Murphy speaks flawless French with subtitles.                                     MURPHY                              (subtitled)                         How do you think he figured all this                          out without talking to us?                                     CONNOR                         Italian.               Connor speaks flawless Italian with subtitles.                                     CONNOR                              (subtitled)                         I have no idea. Maybe someone saw                          and talked.                                     MURPHY                         German.                              (subtitled)                         Not in our neighborhood, man. A                          hundred percent Irish. No one talks                          to cops. Period.                                     CONNOR                         Spanish.                              (subtitled)                         Then I guess he's just real... real                          good.                                     SMECKER                         What are you guys doing working at a                          fucking meat packing plant?               The brothers laugh. Chaffey enters.                                     CHAFFEY                         Ah, Agent Smecker, we have a problem.                                     SMECKER                         What?                                     CHAFFEY                         The press is everywhere outside.                          They're going nuts for these guys.                          What do you want to do?                                     SMECKER                         You're not being charged. It's up to                          you. Do you want to talk to them?                                     CONNOR                         Absolutely not.                                     MURPHY                         No pictures, either.                                     SMECKER                         Well, we could try the bag over the                          head thing. Walk you right out the                          front.                                     CONNOR                         Our mother can see through bags.                                     MURPHY                         Aye, she can.                               (beat)                         Any way we can stay here?                                     CHAFFEY                         Sure, we have an empty holding cell,                          They can... can they stay?                                     SMECKER                         Well, we'll have to check with your                          mother, but it's ok with me if your                          friends sleep over.               They all chuckle. Chaffey is embarrassed. Smecker stands.                                     SMECKER                         Time to feed the dogs.               Smecker leaves.                                     CONNOR                         He's a nice guy.               Murphy speaks with the characteristic gay man's lingering                "S".                                     MURPHY                         Yes... he is.               They laugh.               EXT. BOSTON POLICE STATION  FRONT STEPS  EARLY EVENING               The police chief is standing on the front steps of the police                station making a statement to the ravenous press: cameras                and pushy reporters. Agent Smecker stands slightly behind                him.               Rocco stands amidst the sea of reporters as the chief begins.                                     CHIEF                         This is our official statement. The                          MacManus brothers are not being                          charged with a crime. It was a clean-                         cut case of self defense. We have                          thanked them for their cooperation                          and we thank you, the media, for                          your tireless pursuit of the truth.               The press is ablaze with questions. Smecker turns and walks                down the precinct steps, passing Rocco, who carries a bunch                of folded clothes, and heads for the police station. Smecker                glances in Rocco's direction, barely noticing the man who                has already passed him.               INT. MACMANUS' CELLS  EARLY EVENING               Rocco approaches the wide open cell as Chaffey and Mitchell                play cards with the brothers. Happy to see each other the                boys and Rocco embrace. He hands them their clothes.               INT. MACMANUS' CELL  NIGHT               The boys are in a tight cell with a bed on each side. They                are in their own clothes now. The brothers are fast asleep.               Suddenly, they lurch forward, throwing their chests out,                lips tight, still asleep.               INT. POLICE STATION BATHROOM  NIGHT.               An officer turns on the faucet of a sink and begins to wash                his hands. We go down to the pipes beneath the porcelain                basin. An old leak seeps water through a crack in the floor.               INT. MACMANUS' CELL  NIGHT               A water leak starts on the ceiling. It drips faster and                faster. The water begins to follow a water damaged crack                along the ceiling. It slowly spreads in two directions.               The brothers struggle for air in their sleep. Then slowly,                and at the same time, they each reach up one arm apiece and                simultaneously curl their hands as if grabbing something.               Their straining faces are brought from darkness to light as                they sit up quickly, face to the ceiling.               Their eyes open wide and they each draw their first breath                as drops of the creeping water land on their foreheads.               They look at each other across the room in shock as the drips                of water still fall between them.                                     CONNOR                         Destroy all that which is evil...                                     MURPHY                         ...so that which is good may flourish               INT. MANMANUS' CELL  NEXT MORNING               Murphy and Connor sleep. Murphy awakes to a beep, beep, beep.               He removes Checkov's pager from the pocket of his bathrobe.               INT. PRECINCT OFFICE  MORNING               Connor and Murphy enter as Greenly, Dolly, Duffy, Chaffey                and Mitchell are having coffee and donuts. They greet each                other warmly. Connor grabs a pen and walks to the hallway.                                     CONNOR                         Be right back...                                     DUFFY                         We would be honored, sir, if you                          would join us peasants, in a donut.               Duffy hands Murphy a jelly donut and a cup of coffee as Dolly                spreads a copy of the Boston Globe in front of Murphy. The                headlines read "The Saints of South Boston." All the                detectives chuckle as Murphy is momentarily absorbed. He                takes the paper.                                     MURPHY                         Saints?                                (beat)                         I will not accept this pizzle until                          my feet have been properly anointed.               They laugh.               INT. PRECINCT OFFICE  MORNING               Connor cradles the receiver of a pay phone between his cheek                and shoulder. He pockets the pager. As the phone rings, he                readies his pen. The other end of the line picks up and a                thick Russian accent instantly begins speaking. Connor                responds by speaking a few words in Russian before he realizes                it's a recorded message. He begins writing. He hangs up the                phone and smiles as he lights up a cigarette.               INT. POPPA JOE YAKAVETTA'S OFFICE  DAY. A.K.A. THE JOKE.               Rocco, still sporting a shiner, enters an office. There are                papers everywhere and it is a cluttered mess of telephones,                filing cabinets, lamps and chairs. Rocco clutches a brown                paper bag as if it is made of gold. POPPA JOE YAKAVETTA,                Rocco's boss, is on the phone. He is in his late forties.               He's always comfortably dressed; sleeves rolled up, collar                unbuttoned.               VINCENZO LIPAZZI swaggers across the office to Rocco. He is                in his late thirties. He goes out of his way to look like                Elvis; open shirt, gold chains and medallions. He is                overweight and has a bouffant hairdo, accompanied by Elvis                shades. Vincenzo flips a half dollar in his hand constantly.               Rocco and Vincenzo hate each other. Yakavetta talks on the                phone.                                     VINCENZO                              (hushed)                         Well, it's the funny man. Give it                          here, package boy.                                     ROCCO                              (a bit defiant)                         Joey Bevo said it was important.                          Said I had to give it to him myself.                                     VINCENZO                              (snatching the package)                         Gimme the fuckin' thing. Now sit the                          fuck down!               Rocco obeys like an angry child. Vincenzo puts it in front                of Yakavetta. He sits on a filing cabinet and flips his coin.                Vincenzo giggles and whispers as he pokes fun at Rocco.               The two of them resemble kids behind the teacher's back.                                     VINCENZO                              (hushed)                         I'm Rocco. I'm the funny man. Heee                          Hee. I'm so fuckin' funny. Hee Hee.                                     ROCCO                         Fuck you Vincenzo.                                     VINCENZO                              (hushed)                         Tell me a joke funny man. Hee Hee.                                     ROCCO                         I caught your show down at the velvet                          room at the Holiday Inn, loved it                          when you busted into Viva Las Vegas.               Vincenzo's face drops he gets up and starts walking toward                Rocco. Roc points at him from a seated position. He's scared.                                     ROCCO                         Hey, hey, hey...               Suddenly Yakavetta jumps to a standing position. He yells.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Fuck you! I could snap my fingers                          and have you dead in four hours,                          rotting in a truck off of Boyleston!                          You insignificant little fuck! I                          always get my fuckin' money!               He slams the phone down. Rocco and Vincenzo are shocked but                try to look composed.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Fuckin' 90's are killin' me. I                          shouldn't a done that. You're not                          supposed to tell a guy you're gonna                          kill him anymore. I gotta tip-toe                          through the tulips with these                          assholes. I prance. I'm a prancer.                          It's what I do... sucked all the fun                          right out of this job.               As he speaks he unwraps the wax paper in the bag. Rocco looks                over his shoulder. It's a sandwich. He's embarrassed.               Vincenzo smirks at him.                                     ROCCO                         Poppa Joe, you want me to go now?                                     YAKAVETTA                         Yeah. Thanks, Rocco. See ya.               Rocco starts for the door. Vincenzo begins whispering in                Yakavetta's ear.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Hey, Rocco, wait. Come back here.                                     ROCCO                         Yeah boss?               Vincenzo continues whispering for a few more seconds, long                enough for Rocco to see. Vincenzo's lips are tight. His teeth                grind.                                     YAKAVETTA                         I always see you talking to the boys                          and making them laugh. They always                          come around telling me what a crack                          up you are. What is it they call                          you?                                     ROCCO                              (totally intimidated)                         The... The funny man.                                     YAKAVETTA                         The funny man. Well, I got a new job                          for you, just for now. Roc, I'm having                          a real shitty day. I'm depressed.                          Tell me a funny story or a joke.                                     ROCCO                              (terrified)                         Uh. Okay... um... you hear the one                          about the, no fuck that one... uh...                          oh! oh! Well... shit. Okay, there's                          a white guy. He's walkin' along the                          beach and he finds a, a pot, y'know                          and ah, he rubs it and this genie                          pops out. But this genie, he's a                          ni... he's a black guy.                                     YAKAVETTA                         He's a nigger.                                     ROCCO                         Yeah. And uh, he's pissed off. He                          says, "Why you crackers always gotta                          find my mother fuckin' pot? And he                          tells him he's gonna grant all his                          three wishes but he's gonna give all                          the black guys...                                     VINCENZO AND YAKAVETTA                         Niggers!                                     ROCCO                         Sorry! Sorry! All the niggers on the                          planet get double what he wishes                          for. "I'll take a million dollars,"                          he says. Genie give it to him and                          says every nigger on earth just got                          two million. "I don't care gimme a                          yacht." Poof there it is.                              (intimidated, losing                               steam)                         E-every bl... every nigger just got                          two yachts. Genie goes...                              (gives up)                         I'm sorry Poppa Joe. I can't. This                          joke sucks.               Yakavetta takes a long pause.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Continue the joke.                                     ROCCO                              (deflated)                         He says, "What's your third wish?"                          And the guys says, "I-I want you to                          beat me half to death."               There's a long tense pause. Suddenly, Yakavetta throws his                head back and roars with laughter. Vincenzo joins in. Rocco                lets out a semi-audible sign of relief and gradually starts                laughing himself.                                     YAKAVETTA                              (still in guffaw)                         Very good stuff, Rocco. Very good                          stuff. Tell me another one.               Rocco returns to terror. Yakavetta erupts again pointing at                Rocco.               INT  COMMON BOSTON HOME  ANTEROOM  TWILIGHT               Connor and Murphy give a huge Irishman guns, money and gold                watches. He hands them two big black duffle bags and motions                for them to help themselves as he counts the money. They                enter a well equipped arsenal. They are giddy as they go on                their first shopping spree. They toss in masks and gloves.               They toss in four identical black finished 9mm handguns with                silencers.                                     CONNOR                         Know what we need, man?... some rope.                                     MURPHY                         For what?                                     CONNOR                         Charlie Bronson's always got rope.                                     MURPHY                         What?                                     CONNOR                         Yeah, these guys always got a lot of                          rope strapped around em in the movies                          and they always end up using it.                                     MURPHY                         Oh, you've lost it, haven't ya?                                     CONNOR                         I'm serious.                                     MURPHY                         Me too. That's stupid. Name one thing                          we're gonna need it for.                                     CONNOR                         I don't know they just always need                          it.                                     MURPHY                         What is all this "they" shit? This                          ain't a movie.               Connor pulls a large hunting knife from Murphy's bag.                                     CONNOR                         Is that right, Rambo?                                     MURPHY                         All right, get the stupid fuckin'                          rope.               INT. SMECKER'S BEDROOM  NIGHT               Paul Smecker lies in bed with his young lover, Reuben (mid-               twenties). He has an innocent, feminine look and a GQ air                about him. The two have just had sex and Reuben is far more                excited about it than Smecker.               Reuben pants and gestures that it was a wonderful experience.               Smecker watches TV.               Reuben reaches over and affectionately places a hand on                Smecker's chest. Paul tosses it off with indifference.               Reuben has a pouty look. The phone rings.                                     SMECKER                         Uh,huh.                               (pause)                         Room number.               Reuben throws an arm over Smecker's abdomen and places his                head on Paul's bare chest as if to now force affection.                                     SMECKER                         We got a time of death?               He is visibly miffed with Reuben's sudden display. He tries                to pull the arm away but Reuben holds tight.                                     SMECKER                              (sighs)                         What's the body count?                 Smecker is annoyed. He slaps Reuben semi-gently once on his                exposed cheek. Reuben closes his eyes and holds even tighter.                                     SMECKER                         Uh, huh.               He bites his lower lip in anger and smack Reuben again on                the same cheek, hard. Reuben jumps to a sitting position                holding his cheek. He is shocked and hurt.                                     SMECKER                         I'll be down there in a bit. Keep                          the press out.               He hangs up. Immediately to Reuben, semi-angry.                                     SMECKER                         What are you doing?                                     REUBEN                              (beat)                         I was just trying to cuddle.                                     SMECKER                         Cuddle?...                               (yelling)                         What a fag!               INT. PLAZA HOTEL  HALLWAY  NIGHT  12:30 A.M.               Smecker saunters down the hall, his usual confident smile.               He is impeccably dressed in a brightly colored suit. Greenly                stands directly outside an open door at the hall's end. A                steady flow of detectives and forensics filter in and out.               Smecker halts before Greenly and looks straight into his                eyes.                                     SMECKER                              (intrigued)                         He's struck again, hasn't he, Greenly?                                     GREENLY                         Why do you always disrespect me like                          that?                                     SMECKER                         Respect is earned, Greenly, never                          given. Guys like you should have to                          follow me around squabbling for the                          scraps from my table.               INT. PLAZA HOTEL  SUITE LIVING ROOM  NIGHT               Smecker and Greenly walk into a large sunken living room                with high ceilings. There is a huge white shaped pit couch                in the center with seven dead bodies draped across it. All                the bodies have been turned so they are either seated or on                their backs and bright new pennies have been place in their                eyes. There is one corpse directly in the middle of the living                room, making eight. This victim (THE FAT MAN) is overweight                and is lying in debris made up of sheet rock and broken wood                which spreads thinly for a five foot radius around him.               The victims' body positions are in a circle with the fat man                as the hub. Smecker is instantly engulfed. The regular                homicide detectives are on hand with their I.D.s hanging out                of their breast pockets. They see Smecker and back off.               Duffy wears an especially loud tie. Smecker lights up a smoke.                He circles around and sees another body behind the couch,                which makes nine. The victim is on his back, with pennies                stuck in his eyes.                                     SMECKER                         How many bodies, Greenly?                                     GREENLY                              (still Dejected)                         Eight.               Smecker's eyes widen as he turns to Greenly.                                     GREENLY                              (catching himself)                         No! Shit! I didn't see that one.                          Nine! Nine!               Smecker takes a beat. He addresses the detectives.                                     SMECKER                         While Greenly's getting coffee,                          anybody else want anything?                                     GREENLY                              (as he walks to the                               door)                         Shit! Shit!               Smecker surveys the scene.                                     SMECKER                         So Duffy, got any theories to go                          with that... tie.                                     DUFFY                              (looks down)                         These guys were pros. I think they                          were coming for one target, the fag                          man, he was the...                                     SMECKER                         The what man?                                     DUFFY                              (surprised)                         The fat man.                                     SMECKER                         Well, Freud was right. So you think                          they came for the fag man, huh? And                          what do you base this upon?                                     DUFFY                         He was the only one done right. Two                          in the back of the head.                                     SMECKER                         And the pennies?                                     DUFFY                         New hitman wants to leave his mark                                     SMECKER                         That's a possibility. Y'know you                          Boston cops are perking up. That's                          two sound theories in one day, neither                          of which deal with abnormally sized                          men.                               (pause)                         Another possibility is that they                          were placed there with religious                          intent.                                     DUFFY                         Yeah. Some cultures still put pennies                          in the eyes of the dead, or silver.                                     SMECKER                         The Greeks. The Italians.                                     DUFFY                         The Sicilians.                                     DOLLY                         What's the symbology there?               Smecker tosses the Idiot glance to Dolly.                                     SMECKER                         Symbology? Well, now that Duffy has                          relinquished his King Bone Head crown                          I see we have an heir to the throne.                          I'm sure the word you were looking                          for was symbolism. What's the                          symbolism there? Let me explain it                          to you. In Greek and Roman mythology                          when you died you would have to pay                          the toll to Charon, the boatman who                          ferried you across to the gates of                          judgment. This made sure the dead                          came to atone for what they did during                          their lives, Detective...               Smecker looks at his I.D.                                     SMECKER                         Dollapoppaskalious.               The detectives are impressed.                                     DOLLY (DOLLAPOPPASKALIOUS)                         Holy shit. You're the first one that's                          ever got that.                                     SMECKER                              (aside)                         Yeah, well... I'm an expert in name-                         ology.               The detectives chuckle.               INT. PLAZA HOTEL  SUITE LIVING ROOM  NIGHT               Smecker is chain smoking. His clothes appear unkempt. His                eyes show emotion at every new found clue. The detectives                watch closely. He is hunched over the body of the fat man                probing his wounds with his gloved fingers. Greenly has re-               entered. He defiantly holds a cup of coffee but is too                intimidated to interrupt Smecker. He sets it down and folds                his arms.                                     SMECKER                         I've seen burns like these before.                          They used silencers. Look at these                          entry and exit wounds. They're                          identical.               He stands up and gives a lesson to the now eager detectives.               He points his two index fingers to the back of his own skull.                                     SMECKER                         The two bullets went in here, through                          the top of the skull, criss-crossed                          and exited through the eyeballs.                          This one clue tells us three distinct                          facts. Number one... Duffy.                                     DUFFY                         They shot him at a downward angle.                              (makes connection)                         They put him on his knees.                                     SMECKER                         Excellent! Number two. Greenly.                                     GREENLY                         Uh.                               (thinking hard)                         Shit, I, uh...                                     SMECKER                         It tells us that he was the last to                          die. All these men                               (fans across the                               corpses with his                               hand)                         Were carrying. They came in, dropped                          all in seconds and then took their                          time with fag man. Didn't they,                          Duffy?!                              (psychotic laugh)                         They sure as fuck did!               A wide-eyed Duffy joins with Smecker, by nodding his head.               Smecker is seducing all of them.                                     SMECKER                         And number three, Dolly.                                     DOLLY                         Uh... two shooters!                                     SMECKER                         Fan-fuckin-tastic!               Greenly and Duffy want to know how.                                     SMECKER                         Now stay with me, boys. What did                          they do to make two such identical                          wounds? Did one guy put him on his                          knees, pop a cap in, sit him back up                          and shoot him again the same way?                          No. Two men of similar height dropped                          this guy down, each put some iron to                          his head and boom! That's all she                          fuckin' wrote!                                     DUFFY                         What about one guy with two guns?                                     SMECKER                         Possible, but unlikely. The angles                          are too extreme. A guy holding two                          guns to the back of your head is                          gonna shoot straight ahead. He                          wouldn't cock out his elbows, makes                          no sense. Besides, you telling me                          one guy came in here and killed eight                          men with eight extremely well aimed                          shots in just a few seconds? No way.                          Had to be at least two.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  SUITE LIVING ROOM  NIGHT  LATER               Smecker is now a complete mess. His hair is totally frazzled.               He is sucking on cigarettes long and hard. His clothes are                completely disheveled.                                     SMECKER                         Television,... television is the                          explanation for this.               Smecker points toward the ceiling revealing a huge gaping                hole in it just above the living room.                                     SMECKER                         You see this is bad television.                              (again pointing out                               the hole in the                               ceiling)                         The little assault guys creeping in                          through the vents and coming in                          through the ceilings. That James                          Bond shit never happens in real life.                          Professionals don't do that. So we've                          got this up here, which has novice                          written all over it. And all this                          down here that's simply a perfect                          textbook assassination. So here's                          our two possibilities. We either                          have rank amateurs that got lucky or                          consummate professionals that fucked                          up.               The detectives nod in agreement. They are now completely                taken in by Smecker's spell.                                     SMECKER                         Join me in a drink, gentlemen.               They go over and grab seats at the bar. Smecker mixes himself                a gin and tonic on the other side. He is calming down now                and going back into cool mode. He starts to tuck his clothes                back in and fix his hair. He leans over the bar and sips his                drink. The three detectives lean in.                                     SMECKER                         With the exception of my coffee boy,                          you Boston detectives are starting                          to show signs of intelligence. So, I                          am going to make you privy to some                          information that you would not                          normally be. These men are all Russian                          mob. Not like those two peons in the                          alley the other day. These guys are                          all syndicate bosses and underbosses.                          I have a dossier on every man in                          this room. Since the Iron Curtain                          has gone down, the Russian syndicates                          have started to come here. And in                          the spirit of Glasnost the Soviets                          have opened their borders to the                          mafia. But the Italians, they're not                          convinced that the grounds in mother                          Russia are fertile enough for                          organized crime yet. So they ain't                          ready to commit. The Russians are                          coming here anyway. They are                          unwelcome. What we have here,                          gentlemen, is possibly the beginning                          of the first international mob war...                          unless I've totally missed something.               All their faces read the gravity of the situation.                                     SMECKER                         Now, what is this going to look like                          to those who do not know what I just                          told you?                                     DUFFY                         It's gonna look like the bad guys                          are killing each other.                                     SMECKER                         And is there an American, shit is                          there a man seated among us that                          hasn't thought about it many times,                          let's just put them all on an island,                          give them guns and let them kill                          each other. This is our wet dream                          come true. You can expect federal                          and local law enforcement to go only                          deep enough to satisfy the law, then                          bury it from here on out.                                     DOLLY                         So, what do we do now?                                     SMECKER                         That depends. You either do your job                          or get ethical.               INT. ROCCO'S APARTMENT  NIGHT               Rocco comes out of the bathroom. He storms out to his small,                round, living room table at which the boys are seated. He is                wearing a white, polyester shirt with gold trim that is a                uniform of some kind for perhaps a chain of restaurants. It                is unbuttoned all the way down and his white t-shirt is                hanging out. He is wearing a name tag that reads "Jaffar".               He is upset. He slams down a chair across from the brothers                who are sitting there cleaning guns and silencers. All the                accouterments of death are sprawled before them. They are                smoking as they carefully disassemble their firearms.                                     ROCCO                         This better be good.                               (viciously ties his                               hair back)                         Talk!               The boys look at each other.               FLASHBACK EXT.  SIDEWALK  DOWNTOWN BOSTON  NIGHT               The boys are walking across Copley Square. Connor looks at                the note he wrote at the police station. They stand on the                sidewalk and light smokes. They are in their regular garb;                thick naval P-coats, jeans and leather boots. They each carry                a mid-sized, black, duffle bag. They are serious and business-               like. They scan the Plaza Hotel from across the street. The                elite exit and enter the hotel. Connor glances at his pocket                watch. It's 8:45.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  ELEVATOR  NIGHT               They enter. They look ahead, stone-faced, as the elevator                climbs.                                     MURPHY                         Nervous?                                     CONNOR                         A bit.                                     MURPHY                         Me, too.               The elevator stops at the lobby level. Nine, well-dressed                men enter. Their faces are not shown. The boys move to the                back wall.               One guy says something quickly to another in Russian. The                other gives a one word Russian response. They boys look at                each other. As the elevator climbs, their eyes focus.               The door opens. As the men exit the elevator, each face is                seen individually, all are victims from Smecker's crime scene.               The elevator goes up half a floor. They hit the stop button                and rummage in their bags. They suit up; black gloves and                black masks. They strap on four 9mm. pistols with silencers,                in shoulder holsters, one under each arm. Connor takes a                large coil of black rope and drapes it around himself. He                looks at Murphy and at the rope in his bag. Murphy is too                excited to argue.                                     MURPHY                         You and your fucking rope.               He puts it on. They drop to their knees, making the sign of                the cross. Then, up through the ceiling they go.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  ELEVATOR SHAFT  NIGHT               They stand on top of the elevator before a long air shaft.                                     CONNOR                              (smiling)                         See. I told you there'd be a shaft.                                     MURPHY                              (smiling)                         Just like on TV.               They jump into the air shaft.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  AIR SHAFT  NIGHT               They start crawling with Connor in front and Murphy behind.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  SUITE  NIGHT               The plump boss is standing in the middle of the sunken living                room.               His eight Russian comrades are around him seated on the U-               shaped pit couch. They speak Russian, but no subtitles are                seen. The fat man yells. He's mad about something.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  AIR SHAFT  NIGHT               Connor is taking lots of random turns, left and right. He is                starting to look a bit confused.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  SUITE  NIGHT               The fat man is really yelling at them now. He is screaming                and pointing at each man.               They seem to be taking it seriously.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  AIR SHAFT  NIGHT               Their brows are drenched with sweat. Murphy crawls up next                to Connor. There is only enough room for the two to lie on                their sides facing each other.                                     MURPHY                         Where the fuck are you going?                                     CONNOR                         We'll find it. Just calm down.                                     MURPHY                         No, fuck you. This rope is bullshit.                          I'm sweatin' my ass off draggin'                          this stupid thing around. Must weigh                          30 pounds.               Murphy takes off the rope.                                     CONNOR                         We're doing some serious shit here.                          Now, get a hold of yourself, asshole.                                     MURPHY                         Asshole!? I'm not the rope-totin'                          Charlie Bronson wanna-be that's                          getting' us lost!                                     CONNOR                         Sh, sh! Fuck you!               Connor grabs Murphy's shirt.                                     MURPHY                         No, fuck you!               The boys get into a close quarters battle. An occasional                insult is thrown as feet kick and fists fly. They begin to                get tangled in their own rope. The seam of the duct breaks                and a tangled mess of rope and MacManuses pour out.               INT.  PLAZA HOTEL  SUITE  NIGHT               They crash through the ceiling right above the fat man's                head. The rope gets caught and slams the boys to a halt,                hanging them upside down, back to back about six feet above                the floor. They are turning in circles. The boss is balled                up in the fetal position on the floor. The shocked Russians                say only a word or two in panic before the MacManus brothers                react, reaching for their guns. The Russians start to reach                for their guns. It's too late. The boys draw and fire as                they spin. Taking four shots apiece.               There are eight dead Russians. Chests explode as they fall                back on the couch in a loose circle. One victims is blasted                over the couch.               They notice the fat man directly beneath them. Murphy grabs                his Rambo knife, reaches up and cuts the rope. They land in               a heap, scramble over to the doomed man and place him on his                knees. They each put a gun to the back of his head and recite                this prayer in perfect unison.                                     BOTH                         And shepherds we shall be. For thee,                          my Lord, for thee. Power hath                          descended forth from thy hand that                          our feet may swiftly carry out thy                          command. So we shall flow a river                          forth to thee and teeming with souls                          shall it ever be. E nomini patri, et                          Fili e spiritu sancti.               With the silenced pop from their guns we cut the sound and                go to black and white. (Slo-mo) Choral music starts with                Latin script being read in the background. They take their                rosaries out. They slowly walk around, mumbling prayers as                they care for the dead. They gently turn over the bodies                that were on their stomachs. They brush the hair back from                the victims faces. They place pennies in the eyes of al the                corpses. When they finish their ritual, they pull off their                masks and look at each other. They start to grin and look                around. They work each other into a healthy chuckle.                                     CONNOR                              (looks up)                         That was some good fuckin' rope.               They both laugh.                                     MURPHY                         That was way easier than I thought.                                     CONNOR                         Aye.                                     MURPHY                         On TV ya always get that asshole                          that jumps behind the couch.                                     CONNOR                         Yeah, and ya gotta shoot at him for                          ten minutes.                                     MURPHY                         Oh, we're good man.                                     CONNOR                         Yes, we are.               They are already striding for a suitcase full of money.               Murphy picks up a wad of bills.                                     MURPHY                         I love our new job.               Just then, there's a knock at the door. They snap into action.                They stand at each side of the double doors, looking through                the peepholes. They see Rocco on the other side dressed as a                hotel employee. He wears a polyester shirt with gold trim                and a name tag that reads Jaffar. He has a good cart in front                of him.               They look at each other and grin. Murphy nods. As they open                the door, Murphy grabs the food cart and pulls it in.               Connor seizes the mortified Rocco and pulls him in, slamming                the door shut behind him. They run, dragging him and then                throw him in the midst of the bodies. They put their guns                right in his face.                                     ROCCO                         Oh, God! Don't kill me! We're on the                          same side! The boss musta sent you                          in as back up, huh? Oh, shit, please!                          I'm Rocco. I'm the funny man.                              (almost crying)                         They call me the funny fuckin' man!                                     CONNOR                              (attempting to hide                               accent)                         Where's your gun?                                     ROCCO                         Chest pocket.                               (they take it)                         Shit!                                     CONNOR                         This is a six-shooter.                                     MURPHY                              (hiding accent)                         Nine bodies.                                     CONNOR                         Oh, you're good. What were you gonna                          do? Laugh the last three to death,                          funny man?                                     ROCCO                         Poppa Joe said there was only two.                          In and out.                              (trying to make friends)                         Boy, you guys sure did a good job.                          You're good, huh? Cool masks. Where'd                          you get them?                                     CONNOR                         Let's do him right here.                                     MURPHY                         Right now.                                     ROCCO                              (screaming like a                               baby)                         Don't kill me. Oh shit, please no.                          I'm Rocco. I'm the funny man!... the                          funny man... the funny.               The boys put their faces close to his and demask. They start                laughing but Rocco just lays there, wide-eyed, in shock.               They boys saunter to the bar. Rocco takes a long beat.                                     ROCCO                         What did you do?! Fuckin'... what                          the fuckin' fuck! Who the fuck, fucked                          this fuckin'? fuck. How did you two                          fuckin', fucks?......... FUCK!!!                                     CONNOR                         Certainly illustrates the diversity                          of the word.               The brothers laugh.                                     ROCCO                         What the fuck are you doing here?                          What, huh!? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? ANSWERS!                          I WANT FUCKIN' ANSWERS!                                     CONNOR                              (slaps his face)                         Get a hold of yourself, man.               Rocco is silent and surprised. Murphy, also surprised, looks                at Rocco. All is quiet.                                     MURPHY                         Yeah, get a hold of yourself.               Murphy jokingly slaps Rocco a second time. Rocco instantly                jumps on Murphy, cursing and punching. The brothers burst                into laughter as they subdue Rocco. As he calms down, they                release him.                                     CONNOR                         Listen, we gotta get outta here now.                          We'll take separate exits and meet                          at Rocco's.               Murphy puts the two suitcases in his duffle bag and the two                brush by Rocco who is still unsatisfied with his explanation.                                     ROCCO                         Fuck!               BACK TO PRESENT  INT.  ROCCO'S APARTMENT  NIGHT               Rocco has removed his hotel jacket.                                     ROCCO                         Anybody you think is evil?                                     CONNOR                         Yes.                                     ROCCO                         Don't you think that's a little                          psycho? A little weird?                                     CONNOR                         Weird, huh?... Know what I think is                          weird? Decent men with loving families                          go home every day after work. They                          turn on the news and see rapists,                          murderers, and child molesters all                          getting out of prison.                                     MURPHY                         Mafiosos getting caught with 20 kilos                          and walkin' on bail the same day.                                     CONNOR                         Little girls catchin' stray bullets                          in their heads, playin' hopscotch in                          their front yards. And everyone thinks                          the same thing... Someone should                          just go kill those motherfuckers.                                     MURPHY                         Kill em all. Admit it, even you've                          thought about it.               Rocco ponders this as the boys continue to clean their                weapons.                                     ROCCO                         You guys should be in every major                          city.               The boys chuckle. Rocco steadily works himself into a humorous                frenzy.                                     ROCCO                         This is some heavy shit. This is                          like Lone Ranger-heavy man. Fuck it!                          There's so much shit that pisses me                          off. You guys should recruit 'cause                          I am sick and fuckin' tired of walkin'                          down the street waitin' for one of                          these assholes to get me, y'know?                                     MURPHY                              (chuckling)                         Hallelujah, Jaffar.                                     ROCCO                         So you're not just talkin' mob guys.                          You're talkin' anyone, right? Even                          like pimps and drug dealers and all                          that shit?               The boys look at each other and nod.                                     ROCCO                         Well fuck, you guys could do this                          every day.                                     MURPHY                         We're like 7-Eleven. We ain't always                          doing business, but we're always                          open.                                     CONNOR                         Nicely put.               INT.   ROCCO'S APARTMENT  NIGHT  ONE HOUR LATER               The three are partying hard. There's a pizza surrounded by                Guinness cans as they whoop it up, sitting at the round table.               Rocco wears one of the masks. They're all drunk. The house                cat is lounging on the table comfortably.                                     ROCCO                         You fuckin' guys. You ruined me. I'm                          fuckin' done. Permanent package boy.                                     MURPHY                         Who says that? You could take credit                          on it.                                     ROCCO                         What are you serious?                                     MURPHY                         Yeah, fuck it. If you think about                          it, it's all you can do really. You                          can't tell him it was us. Go in                          braggin' and shit.                                     CONNOR                         Climb the corporate ladder, boy. Don                          Rocco.                                     ROCCO                         Fuck it! I'm doing it. I deserve it.                          I've been working for those fat                          bastards since I was in high school                          and look at this place.               The boys nod in agreement.                                     ROCCO                              (working into a frenzy)                         They're fuckin' me man! Hey, they                          can suck my pathetic little dick.                          And I'll dip my nuts in marinara                          just so the fat fucks can get a taste                          of home while they're at it. That's                          it, it's done, I'm doing it.               Rocco slams his fist down on the table next to Murphy's gun.               The gun goes off with a bang! and blows the lounging cat                right off the table. A softball-sized hole is blasted in the                wall as a large splatter of blood sprays the area surrounding                the hole. Everyone is in shock for a second.                                     MURPHY                         I can't fuckin' believe that just                          happened!               INT.  ROCCO'S APARTMENT  NEXT MORNING  11:30 A.M.               The three are passed out all over the apartment. Rocco                awakens. He stumbles past the wall with the large, round,                pink stain on it. There is a crooked picture hanging in the                middle of it.               Rocco staggers to the kitchen and throws water in his face                over a sinkful of dirty dishes. Connor awakens, grabs his                jacket and follows Rocco out.               EXT.  ROCCO'S FRONT STEPS  CONTINUOUS                                     CONNOR                              (hung over)                         Donna's gonna be angry about her                          cat.                                     ROCCO                         Shit. She's on every drug know to                          man. She'd have sold that thing for                          a dime bag. Screw her.                               (beat)                         But I do kinda feel like an ass-hole.                                     CONNOR                              (chuckles)                         You sound real remorseful.               Connor lights up two smokes and hands one to Rocco.                                     ROCCO                         She ain't been around in weeks anyhow.                                     CONNOR                              (beat)                         Listen. Something's been bothering                          me about last night.                                     ROCCO                         What?                                     CONNOR                         Well... what if your boss knew how                          many guys were supposed to be there...                          in that room?                                     ROCCO                         What are you saying?                                     CONNOR                         Think about it man. Nine men, six                          bullets.                                     ROCCO                         You think they sold me out? No way.                                     CONNOR                         He probably knew you'd end up nailing                          the fat guy, maybe one or two more,                          but he had to know you weren't walking                          out of there. Figure it out. Shooter's                          dead on the scene. No in-depth                          investigation. It'd slide right off                          his back. 'Cause as much as I love                          ya, you're not exactly Don Corleone.                          What would he be losing? A thirty-                         five year old delivery boy?                                     ROCCO                         No, no. That's just not the way things                          are done. Besides, how's he know I                          don't just get in there see there's                          too many and just serve em their                          fuckin' food and beat it?                                     CONNOR                         He knows you, man. He knows all you                          want is to move up. That's all. A                          smooth hitter woulda gone in there,                          seen it was a wash and slipped out.                          But a guy like you? Knowin' this is                          your only chance? Waitin' eighteen                          years?                                     ROCCO                         No. No man. That's... that's... you                          don't know what you're talking about.                          That's bullshit. I know these guys.                          I mean, thanks for your concern, but                          that just ain't the thing of it.                                     CONNOR                         Do me a favor and roll it around for                          a bit on your way in.                                     ROCCO                         No, look. No rolling. Nothing needs                          to be rolled.               Murphy stumbles enters scene with Rocco and Connor.                                     MURPHY                              (to Rocco)                         Where are you goin'?                              (to Connor)                         Did you tell him?                                     CONNOR                         Yes.                                     MURPHY                              (to Rocco)                         Then what the fuck?                                     ROCCO                         Hey. You don't know that shit for                          sure.                                     MURPHY                         Oh, Jesus. You're such a fuckin'                          retard!                                     ROCCO                         Fuck you!                                     MURPHY                         Use your brain for once. Is it so                          unbelievable they don't care about                          you? You are fuckin' dead, you go in                          there today. Dead!                                     ROCCO                         Oh yeah. You two fuckin' Micks know                          what's going on, huh?                              (flips them off)                         Fuck you!                                     CONNOR                              (trying to calm him)                         Hey, this ain't a thing you should                          gamble on, Roc.               A girl rides by on a bicycle, they pause as she rides between                them.                                     MURPHY                         Fuck it! What kind of flowers ya                          want at your funeral? Ya dumb Wop.                          This is the last time I'll see you.                          Bye-bye ya stupid son of a bitch.                                     ROCCO                              (walking away)                         I'll be back at 9:00.                                     CONNOR                         Hey. You get in there and start                          getting a bad vibe, get the fuck out                          quick.               INT.  ROCCO'S APARTMENT  LATE AFTERNOON               Connor picks up the place as Murphy watches t.v. The phone                rings.                                     MURPHY                         Hello?                                     ROCCO (V.O.)                         Hey Murph.                                     MURPHY                         Roc. You okay?                                     ROCCO (V.O.)                         Yeah. Anybody call for me?                                     MURPHY                         No. You sure you're okay?                                     ROCCO (V.O.)                         I'm fuckin' fine.                              (beat)                         Catch you on the flip side.               Rocco hangs up. Just then DONNA and her friend RAYVIE enter                the apartment. They are consummate junky sluts who are very                doped up and giddy.                                     DONNA                              (trying hard)                         Here kitty, kitty...... kitty.               INT.  SIN BIN  SMALL ROOM  NIGHT               Smecker ascends the three, small steps up to the round room.               A NUDE DANCER sits there on the couch in a robe. She is crying                as she is being consoled by Detective Duffy. This small room                is where men watch girls through a large glass window.               In this room a dancer performs on a floor a few feet above                the three private booths where each man watches from his own                booth. She appears as if on stage. All three windows are                shattered and there is blood on the wall of all three booths.               We see assorted body parts in each booth, but no faces.                                     DOLLY                              (approaches Smecker)                         She was in here when it went down.                                     SMECKER                         Can she I.D. them?                                     DOLLY                         They were wearing masks.                                     SMECKER                         Of course they were. How many?                                     DOLLY                         Three.               Smecker looks at Dolly surprised.                                     DOLLY                         Only two did the shooting.                              (beat)                         So what are you thinking, Russian                          retaliation?                                     SMECKER                         Nah, too quick half their                          infrastructure got taken out at the                          Copley plaza. Besides, if you're a                          hitter, you're either working for                          the Russians or the Italians. There's                          no riding the fence. Our little theory                          from last night just got blown to                          shit. Something... new is going on                          here.               Smecker sits next to the girl. He has Compassion. She Cries.                                     SMECKER                         Probably shouldn't work another shift                          for awhile.                                     DANCER                         Fuck this job. I'm getting out of                          the porno business and I don't care                          who I gotta blow to do it.               INT.  SIN BIN  SMALL ROOM  NIGHT               The bodies have been removed and chalk outlines replace them.               The bullet holes in the walls have been marked either A or                B. The detectives watch Smecker. He is a mess. His clothes                are disheveled and his hair is frazzled.                                     SMECKER                         After talking to the dancer we know                          that their mark was the guy in the                          middle booth. After she watches them                          whack him, she passes out.                              (pause)                         Why the two extra victims?                                     GREENLY                         Witness?                                     SMECKER                         No way they could have seen it.               Smecker hits an orange button on the wall and a black steel                door with a money slot comes slamming down in front of the                first booth. He does the same thing to the last booth, leaving                the middle one open. Both doors possess peep holes.                                     SMECKER                              (sarcastic)                         Allow me to enlighten you gentlemen                          to the protocol of the porno industry,                          as I'm sure you've never been in one                          of these places before. A man goes                          into the booth, puts the money in                          the slot. The dancer gets it on the                          other side. She hits the button,                          door goes up, now there is only glass                          between you and it's                              (makes a masturbatory                               gesture with hand)                         little fireman time.                                     DUFFY                         No way they could have seen it?                                     SMECKER                         Those doors were down... which means                          this. They looked down in through                          the peep hole, saw these guys and                          opened the doors from the inside.                          Pop, pop, pop, right through the                          glass. Why?                                     DOLLY                         Maybe the three of them had something                          in common.                                     SMECKER                         No. This guy is big time.                              (points to middle                               booth)                         These two are street-walking scum.                                     GREENLY                              (kidding)                         Then that's what they had in common.                          They were all bad guys... now they're                          all dead bad guys.               Smecker seems side-tracked and ponderous at Greenly's                observation. He hits the orange buttons and raises the doors.                                     SMECKER                         We got another thing to think about                          here. We got us a genuine Kennedy                          assassination style bullet theory.                          Two guns were used here, guns A and                          B. The guy in the middle was done                          with both. But this guy...                              (denotes right booth)                         ...he was killed with bullets from                          gun A only. And this guy...                              (denotes left booth)                         ...gun B only. But ballistics dug                          two slugs out of the wall from over                          here where the victim was done with                          A.               Smecker points to two bullet holes in the wall of the booth                on the left. Each is marked "B". He walks over to the right                booth where in the exact location are two identical holes                marked "A".                                     SMECKER                         And it's the same story over here.                          Why the crossover?                              (beat)                         Theories.                                     DOLLY                         That's just fucking weird. I have no                          idea.                                     DUFFY                         Jesus. I just can't think anymore.                          That scene over at the coffee shop                          today tapped me out.                                     SMECKER                         What?                                     DUFFY                         A guy went nuts over off of                          Commonwealth today. Shot three guys                          to death in a coffee shop in broad                          daylight. Fled the scene. Don't have                          much on him.                                     SMECKER                              (angry)                         Why was I not informed of this?                                     GREENLY                         They weren't related. The guy used a                          38. No pennies. Totally amateur.                                     SMECKER                         Who were the victims?                                     GREENLY                         A couple of peons for the mob and...                                     SMECKER                              (livid)                         Oh that's just BEAUTIFUL! All the                          scumbags in the quiet city of Boston                          start dropping dead and you think                          it's unrelated?! Greenly, the day I                          want the Boston Police doing my                          thinking for me, I will have a fucking                          tag on my toe! Now, get me a squad                          car and get me over there. I want                          the crime scene photos and any witness                          statements. NOW!               Smecker storms from the room. The detectives begin to follow.               Smecker comes barreling back in, shoving them out of the                way. He looks at the bullet holes in the walls marked "A and                B" again. Something has clicked.                                     SMECKER                              (wide-eyed)                         Oh... it looks like we got us a                          cowboy.               INT. LAKEVIEW LUNCH  NIGHT               Smecker surveys photos and papers, as he smokes profusely.               He stands next to a table in the back where chairs are knocked                over. Body chalk and blood stains are everywhere. The                detectives seem like they don't want to be there, again.                                     SMECKER                         The shooter knew these guys, huh?                                     DOLLY                         How do you figure?                                     SMECKER                         Friends, Gentlemen. They were friends.               Smecker flashes them a photo of a dead body. The victim is                shot in the head and face down in his plate of food. His                hands are on the table in front of him.                                     SMECKER                         These guys were packing. Not one                          hand near a gun. It's simple human                          behavior. Someone you don't know                          approaches you, you put your hand on                          it. This guy's got his hands on the                          table. He's eating his food, for                          Christ sakes. They were friends.               Smecker looks over the bar.                                     SMECKER                         These two fucking scenes are related.                          Too many coincidences. Same day?                          Five hours apart? Dead mobsters on                          both scenes. Now, why did he kill                          the bartender?                                     DUFFY                         Crime of passion. He just went nuts.                          He would have shot everyone in here.                          He just ran out of bullets.                                     SMECKER                         Duffy. This look like a fucking post                          office to you? This guy came in here                          with intent. Maybe he didn't know                          exactly what he was gonna do but he                          had a pretty good idea. The bartender                          wasn't a fucking accident.                                     DUFFY                         Well, we didn't get any help on that.                          A lot of people saw it. Nobody's                          talking.                                     SMECKER                         Fucking figures. Look, are you guys                          seeing the pattern here? We got big                          questions at both of these crime                          scenes, with no answers. WHY did                          they kill the guys in the other two                          booths? WHY did he do the bartender?                          It would seem unnecessary, even                          stupid.                              (angry)                         God, I hate cold crime scenes! I'm                          fucking leaving now. And do me a                          favor, tell me when the next guy                          dies, cause these guys are not done                          yet.               He storms to the entry way.               INT.  LAKEVIEW LUNCH  ENTRY WAY  NIGHT               Smecker walks across the street, still angry, and goes to a                payphone. There's an extreme close-up on his hand as he puts                in a quarter. As the quarter jingles in...               FLASHBACK  EXT.  STREET IN FRONT OF LAKEVIEW LUNCH  DAY               ...there is a close-up on a hand pulling back from the coin                slot. The hand moves up to pull a cigarette from its                possessor's mouth. It is Rocco. He dials the phone.                                     MURPHY (V.O.)                         Hello?                                     ROCCO                         Hey, Murph.                                     MURPHY (V.O.)                         Roc. You okay?                                     ROCCO                         Yeah. Anybody call for me?                                     MURPHY (V.O.)                         No. You sure you're okay?                                     ROCCO                         I'm fuckin' fine.                              (beat)                         Catch you on the flip side.               He goes across the street and enters Salamone's.               INT.  ROCCO'S APARTMENT  DAY               Donna and Rayvie are laying on the couch. Connor is spit-               shining his boots by the window. Murphy lights his cigarette                on the gas stove and pours some salt in a pot of water with                a handful of pennies boiling to a shine in it. Rocco bursts                through the door, hysterical. Tears are streaming down his                face.                                     ROCCO                         Pack your shit! We gotta get outta                          here! We gotta get out!                                     CONNOR                              (hopping into his                               boots)                         What happened?                                     ROCCO                         I killed em! Oh, Jesus! I killed em                          all!!                                     DONNA                         Rocco?                                     MURPHY                         Hey, hey. Just calm down. Tell us                          what happened!                                     ROCCO                         No! Fuck you! You start getting                          excited! We gotta fucking go!                                     DONNA                         Rocco!                                     CONNOR                              (packing up gear)                         Who did you kill?                                     MURPHY                              (packing up gear)                         Holy shit. Who? How many?                                     ROCCO                              (rummaging through                               his drawers)                         Hurry the fuck up!                                     MURPHY                         This is some crazy shit, man!                                     ROCCO                         Those cocksuckers sold me out!                                     CONNOR                         Did I fuckin' tell ya, Rocco? They                          pull on you first?                                     DONNA                         ROCCO!                                     ROCCO                         What did I fuckin' do?... in the                          middle of the Lakeview.                                     CONNOR                         Lakeview the deli? Oh, shit!                                     MURPHY                         Ha! Ha! Roc, you got a jumbo set of                          coconut balls man!                                     DONNA/RAYVIE                         ROCCO!                                     ROCCO                              (turns in rage)                         What?                                     DONNA                              (softly)                         Where's my cat?                                     ROCCO                              (slight pause)                         I killed your fuckin' cat, you druggie                          bitch!                                     DONNA                              (shocked, hurt)                         You... oh god, why?                                     ROCCO                         I felt it would bring closure to our                          relationship!                                     DONNA                              (crying)                         You killed my... my...               She stops, unsure of the cat's name.                                     ROCCO                              (screaming)                         Your what?! Your fuckin' what?!                                     DONNA                         My, my...                                     ROCCO                              (puts his gun to his                               own head)                         Your what, bitch? I'll shoot myself                          in the head, you can tell me that                          cats name! Go ahead... Your what?                          Your precious little...                              (waiting for her                               response)                                     DONNA                              (flustered, crying)                         Pee...Per...Man.                                     ROCCO                         Peeperman? WRONG? What color was                          it?!!!                                     DONNA                         It was... It was...                                     ROCCO                         Male or female, bitch?!!                                     RAYVIE                         Don't you yell at her you fuckin'                          prick!                                     ROCCO                         Shut your fat ass, Rayvie! I can't                          buy a pack of smokes without running                          into nine guys you fucked.                                     DONNA                         Don't you yell at her!               Rocco rummages through her purse and finds her car keys.                                     ROCCO                         All right, let's get the fuck outta                          here!               They exit. Rayvie and Donna are hugging each other, crying.                                     RAYVIE                         Is my... I mean it's not really...?                                     DONNA                         No. No. It's not fat.               INT.  CAR  EARLY EVENING               Rocco is in the back. Connor is driving.                                     ROCCO                         Those rat fucks! All of them were                          all laughing at me man!                                     MURPHY                         You sure you killed them?               INT.  FLASHBACK  SALAMONE'S  DAY               Rocco is standing at the back table while his cohorts remain                seated. They are OLY, and VINNIE.                                     ROCCO (V.O.)                         Fuckin-A-right I did. I had a goddam                          turkey shoot over there.                                     VINNIE                         I'll bet it was a test. Vincenzo                          came in here shooting his mouth off.                          He was makin' sure we knew. But we                          did what we were supposed to, eh? We                          kept our mouths shut. You did your                          part. They know we're goodfellas                          now. We'll get taken care of.                                     ROCCO                         What? Did everyone know? Next thing                          you'll tell me Sal was in on it.               Rocco looks at Sal the bartender who reaches for the phone.                                     OLY                         Fuck. Vincenzo told Sal first. That                          fat fuck knew before we did.               They all start laughing together.                                     OLY                         At least we got our funny man back.               They all laugh as Rocco pulls his gun and shoots Oly in the                head. He lands face down in his plate of food. He shoots                Vinnie in the chest then turns on Sal. He yells "Funny, funny,                funny" as he pumps the remaining rounds into him.               INT.  BACK TO PRESENT  DONNA'S CAR                                     CONNOR                         Anybody see ya?                                     ROCCO                         Fuck, man! I may as well have posted                          flyers. Right out in public, man.                                     MURPHY                         Liberating isn't it?                                     ROCCO                              (smiles at last)                         Y'know it is, a bit.               The boys laugh.                                     ROCCO                         Stop the car!               Connor pulls over directly in front of a pink neon sign that                says The Sin Bin.                                     ROCCO                         Vincenzo, that fat motherfucker,                          Yakavetta's right hand. He's the one                          who set me up. Then he went around                          shooting his mouth off, telling                          everyone I was as good as dead. He                          goes in there every Wednesday night                          around 10:00, he jerks off in the                          same booth to the same titty dancer.                          Never misses.                                     MURPHY                         So?                                     ROCCO                         So let's kill the motherfucker. I                          mean, what are you guys... like that's                          your new thing right?                                     CONNOR                              (looks at Murphy)                         Yeah, well...                                     ROCCO                         Oh, what the fuck? How do you guys                          decide who you're... I mean, who                          makes the cut? Is there a raffle or                          something?                                     MURPHY                         Well, truth be known, those first                          ones just kinda fell into our laps.                                     ROCCO                         Well, what'ya do?                                     CONNOR                         I guess we really don't have a system                          of deciding who.                                     ROCCO                              (excited, yelling)                         MEEE! ME! I'm the guy! I know                          everyone, their habits, where they                          hang out, who they talk to. I know                          where they fuckin' live. We could                          kill everyone!                                     MURPHY                              (to Connor)                         So what do you think?                                     CONNOR                         I'm strangely comfortable with it.               EXT.  ALLEY BEHIND SIN BIN  NIGHT               Rocco, Connor and Murphy are looking very serious as they                smoke outside the rear door, in the alley. A drug dealer in                a hooded Boston Bruins jacket emerges from the opposing alley.               He stops a 13 year-old kid. The kid is scared as the drug                dealer slaps him. The kid give him money and the drug dealer                stuffs a small baggie in the boy's shirt. He lets him go and                withdraws into the alley.               As the boys and Rocco watch this from the opposing alley,                they begin to head for them, but Vincenzo's car pulls up                across the street. Rocco stops the boys and denotes Vincenzo.               The boys head in the front door. Rocco moves back into the                alley.               INT.  SIN BIN  NIGHT               Vincenzo enters and shuffles past the bar where the brothers                stand. He walks through a bead curtain at the back of the                busy porno house. The boys follow him.               INT.  SIN BIN  HALLWAY  NIGHT               They go to the back, open the exit door and let Rocco in.               The three wind down long dark hallways with Rocco leading                the way until they reach a green door. The boys stand, side                by side, directly in front of it. Rocco is just behind them.               The three pull identical 9mm.'s and the boys pull on their                masks. Rocco puts on a mask that he made from a dock worker's                cotton hat. He looks ridiculous.                                     MURPHY                         Okay Roc, this is...               He turns and is instantly taken with laughter at Rocco's                appearance. Connor turns, and has the same reaction.                                     ROCCO                         What? You guys got masks.               They are now pointing and laughing.                                     MURPHY                              (through laughter)                         You look like Mush Mouth from Fat                          Albert.                                     ROCCO                              (takes off mask)                         Fine! Fuck it! When we're done she                          can I.D. me. I don't care. Just tryin'                          to be professional, but no...                                     CONNOR                              (still laughing)                         No. No. It looks good. C'mon, put it                          back on. It's good.               He begrudgingly puts it back on. They reassume their position.                                     CONNOR                              (imitating mush mouth)                         Okay Roc. You sure you're O-B-kay-B?               INT.  SIN BIN  SMALL ROOM  NIGHT               They burst into the room, climb up a few steps and are in a                small round room with a couch in it. A topless dancer sits,                smoking and drinking coffee, on the couch in front of three                big black steel doors with money slots in them. Rocco seizes                her, puts a hand over her mouth and a gun to her head.                                     ROCCO                         Which one is he in?               She points to the middle door.                                     ROCCO                              (takes his hand off                               her mouth)                         What's his routine?                                     DANCER                         H... h... he jerks off in there.                          Th... then he puts money through the                          slot and I raise the door.                                     MURPHY                         How?               She points to an orange button. Each door has a button to                the left of it.                                     ROCCO                         Then what?                                     DANCER                         He watches me do my thing and f-                         finishes himself off.               INT.  SIN BIN  CENTER BOOTH  NIGHT               We see the fuzzy reflection of a cheap porno movie being                reflected in Vincenzo's Elvis style sunglasses. He is shaking                as he masturbates.                                     VINCENZO                              (grunting, muttering)                         Don't you talk to me like that, you                          dirty little... give it to daddy...                          give it ta da King... garbage mouth,                          garbage mouth.               INT.  SIN BIN  SMALL ROOM  NIGHT               Rocco is looking through the peep hole down on Vincenzo. He                still holds the terrified, crying dancer.                                     ROCCO                         Oh man. He is some sicko.               They back up and focus on the money slot. A hundred dollar                bill comes through. Connor gives it to the dancer.                                     CONNOR                         You've earned this.               The boys begin to recite their prayer. Rocco is smiling and                excited, he still hangs on to the now hyperventilating dancer.               They press the button. The door goes straight up. Vincenzo                has one moment of shock before the MacManuses decimate him                through the glass with silenced bullets. The glass silently                spiders and begins to fall in spots. His chest explodes,                sputtering medallions and bits of gold chain inside the booth.               The dancer faints and Rocco lays her down gently.               The boys step down in the boot and begin their ritual.               Rocco watches intently, intrigued. They finish and turn around                to see Rocco is immersed in grabbing one of the unconscious                dancer's breasts. They pull up their masks.                                     CONNOR                         What the fuck are you doing?                                     ROCCO                         I-I'll tip her.                                     MURPHY                         We've teamed up with a sex offender.                                     CONNOR                         So, when are you getting a plastic                          fuck doll?                                     ROCCO                         All right. I'm sorry. I'm pathetic.               He gets up and starts tossing money on her as the boys giggle.               Just then two more bills come through the slots of the other                two doors, which have remained closed. Murphy looks through                left peep hole, Connor the right. Smiles spread across their                faces and they look at each other. They switch and each looks                through the other guy's peep hole.                                     ROCCO                         What? What is it?                                     CONNOR                         This place is like a scumbag yard                          sale.                                     MURPHY                         We gotta come down here once a week                          and clean house.               Rocco looks in one. He says "Oh, wow" as he crosses and checks                out the other one.                                     ROCCO                         You sure about this guy?               The boys look at each other affirmatively.                                     ROCCO                         Oh man. You gotta let me do these                          guys. I'm such a moron. I gotta make                          up for the tit thing.                                     CONNOR                         No way. I've been waitin' for this                          asshole.                                     ROCCO                         Aw, c'mon. I gotta clear my family                          name here. I've brought shame to the                          house of Della Rocco.                                     MURPHY                         Give the guy a shot.                                     CONNOR                              (thinks it over)                         Rocco, this is the real deal. We                          must kill without hesitation, without                          guilt or remorse. Evil man, dead                          man.               Rocco gets serious and nods his head. Connor replaces the                clip in his gun and hands it to Rocco. Murphy does the same.               He stands with one in each hand, aiming one gun at each door.               The boys both place a finger on the appropriate orange                buttons, as Rocco slowly cocks his head back. With wide eyes                he thrusts his head forward. The doors fly up. Rocco fires                both guns yelling "Yeah, take it, take it!" Both the drug                dealer from outside and the pimp from the emergency room are                destroyed. Rocco then crosses his arms and fires two more                shots from each gun. On the opposing walls of each booth two                identical bullet holes appear.                                     ROCCO                         Wyatt-fuckin'-Earp, man!               INT.  SIN BIN  JUST OUTSIDE THE PRIVATE BOOTH  MINUTES LATER               Rocco shuts the door.                                     ROCCO                         You guys gotta teach me that prayer,                          man. That's some good shit.                                     CONNOR                         Forget it. It's a family prayer. My                          father, his father before him that                          sort of shit.                                     ROCCO                         C'mon!               INT.  RITZY RESTAURANT BATHROOM  NIGHT               An old man appears to look at himself in the mirror of an                empty but very upper class bathroom. His eyes are very glazed                over. He puts a large leather case on the counter near the                sinks. A red and white blind stick hangs off his right                forearm.               Yakavetta enters, crosses behind him and stands next to him.               AUGUSTUS (72 years) sniffs the air. A look of angry                realization overtakes his face.                                     AUGUSTUS                         Fuck you.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Hey, Augustus, I need your help, I                          got a serious problem here. I'm not                          screwing around.                                     AUGUSTUS                         I bounced you on my knee at family                          reunions, for Christ sakes. Your dad                          and me ran the whole east coast                          syndicate you snot-nosed little prick.                          And when you took the wheel, who was                          beside you?               Augustus begins to remove items from his suitcase. First a                plate. He sets it down next to the sink. Then assorted                colognes, cigarettes and chewing gum. He begins arranging                them in neat rows, always feeling with his guiding hands.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Hey, I just...                                     AUGUSTUS                         Don't start with your shit. Don't                          you talk to me. Oh, hey Uncle Gussy,                          thanks for years of service. Here's                          a gold watch and a job sniffing other                          guys' shit eight hours a day. What                          am I, a retired bus driver?                                     YAKAVETTA                         I need Il Duce.                                     AUGUSTUS                         The Duke?                               (beat)                         What did you do?                                     YAKAVETTA                         This kid, this package boy could                          bring down the whole east coast. If                          he decides to turn states he could                          dismantle us... totally. But it looks                          like for now, he's content with just                          killing us one by one. And even worse                          the kid is good at it. I mean I had                          a prodigy on my hands the whole time                          and didn't even know it.               Yakavetta puts an envelope of money in the plate.                                     AUGUSTUS                         Listen kid, I think you better                          understand who you're dealing with                          here.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Yeah. I was only twelve or thirteen                          when you guys used to talk about                          him, like he was a ghost or something.                                     AUGUSTUS                         Your dad and I used him three times                          over twenty years, only when                          everything went totally fucked.                          Believe me kid, you don't want this                          guy unless you are 100% sure you                          need him. He is... a fuckin' monster.               INT.  PRISON PROCESSING ROOM  DAY               This is a gigantic three tiered room with guards on all tiers.               They all cock their shotguns.               A PRISONER is shackled barefoot to a small metal cart on                wheels. His hands are cuffed before him with a chain linking                his hands and feet. A guard is pulling the cart through the                prison to the parole board room by a long chain. The cons                have their mirrors out to get a better look. His face is in                shadow as he bows his head.               A metal cage is lowered around him from the ceiling. The                parole board looks him over. A stenographer sits poised                                     MR. COBB                              (English accent)                         Do you feel you have been                          rehabilitated?               No response is given by the prisoner. The stenographer looks                at MR. COBB who gives her the nod. She begins typing though                no words are spoken.               INT.  RITZY RESTAURANT BATHROOM  DAY                                     AUGUSTUS                         I've had this guy in front of me,                          and I couldn't tell you what he looks                          like, sounds like. He is the Picasso                          of assassins, kid. He plants hair                          samples, blood. Puts skin under                          fingernails. He is a fucking genius.                          Only one problem. He's been rotting                          in prison for twenty-five or thirty                          years. Don't even know if he's still                          alive. Or if he's even up to it.               Augustus hands him a piece of paper he scribbled on.                                     YAKAVETTA                         There's ways around that.                                     AUGUSTUS                         Go find one.               INT.  PAROLE PROCESSING ROOM  DAY               A large piece of paper is placed on the table and stamped                with the words parole granted across it.               INT.  HOTEL ROOM  BOSTON  DAY               The prisoner, Il Duce enters. He is clad in a long dark trench                coat with the collar pulled up, dark round glasses and a                dark hat. He puts a suitcase on the bed.               He walks over to the window. He slowly puts his hand outside                and watches the sun bounce off it. Tears begin to flow from                beneath his glasses as he breaks down. He begins to take off                his clothes as he weeps, casting them aside.               EXT.  HOTEL ROOM FIRE ESCAPE  BACK ALLEY  DUSK               The Duke is fully naked, except for a hotel blanket which is                wrapped around his waist, sitting on the fire escape. He                smiles and is still misty-eyed as he beholds the sun setting.               Scattered around him are all the furnishings of freedom;                Snickers bars, all kinds of empty candy wrappers, Coke cans,                and many assorted magazines.               INT.  COFFEE HOUSE  NIGHT  2:00 A.M.               Rocco and the brothers sit in an old Boston coffee house.                                     ROCCO                         Let's talk some business here. I                          know a sick fuck... makes the ones                          we been doing look like altar boys.                          Worst night of my life when I met                          this guy.               FLASHBACK  EXT.  SUBURBAN BEAVER CLEAVER-TYPE HOUSE  DUSK               Rocco waits in a late model Chevelle in front of a white                house. A man exits the house and walks across the sprawling                front lawn. Rocco leans over and says How ya doin', man?               The man doesn't respond and sits in the passenger seat.               During the following scenes we FLASHCUT between bits of                Rocco's experience that night to the coffee house and catch                bits of dialogue as he explains.                                     ROCCO                         The guy never says a fuckin' word to                          me. We're driving for 25 minutes.                          Never a sigh, no throat clearing,                          nothing. And his face, blank man.                          Just nothing there.               EXT.  DECREPIT HOUSE  NIGHT  CONTINUED               FLASHCUT: They pull up to a house in a scummy, Boston Logan                Airport neighborhood. Rocco gets out and sits on the hood                smoking as the man makes his way up the walk.               INT.  DECREPIT HOUSE  CONTINUED               Two tough looking wiseguys walk across a hallway cocking                shotguns. They disappear into a room.               FLASHCUT : He quietly enters the house and pulls a large                bright-blue plastic tarp from his coat and spreads it across                the floor in the hallway. We hear the sound of Sega video                games being played. He pulls out two pistols with silencers                and walk.               He disappears into the living room. Two white flashes and                the sounds of silencers. A hookerish looking mom enters frame                in the B.G. in the kitchen. She is talking on the phone. She                disappears from view. The man reappears and walks to the                kitchen. A white flash and the sounds of silencer.               He walks right down the hall and halts right in front of us                and listens. He goes into the room the wiseguys had entered.               We hear a second of male voices in protest. Two flashes of                light and the sounds of silencers. A dog is heard barking.               The man reappears in the hall and walks to its end, through                the kitchen. He opens a pair of sliding doors and steps out                of our view. A flash of white light and the sound of a                silencer.               EXT.  DECREPIT HOUSE  NIGHT  CONTINUED               Rocco is out front listening as the barks abruptly cease.               INT.  DECREPIT HOUSE  NIGHT  CONTINUED               FLASHCUT : The man drags a dead dog across the kitchen floor,                leaving a streak of blood. FLASHCUT : He drags the bodies of                two kids, two men and the woman down the hall toward us                leaving the hall carpet streaked with blood.                                     ROCCO                         I didn't see what he was doing while                          he was in there.               FLASHCUT : The man pulls out a large hunting knife and                disappears into each room. The sounds of hacking are heard.               He reappears holding different pieces of bloody debris. A                telephone, a piece of carpet, pieces of drywall. He takes a                mop and cleans off the blood on the linoleum of the kitchen                floor.               He walks toward us and stabs the mop in right before camera.               It stays standing.               FLASHCUT : We see from his p.o.v. a pile of broken bodies,                bloody debris and a dead dog with a mop sticking out the                top.               EXT.  DECREPIT HOUSE  NIGHT  CONTINUED               FLASHCUT : The man steps outside and motions Rocco in.               FLASHBACK  EXT.  BACK FACTORY LOT  NIGHT               Rocco's face is now expressionless as the two load the last                body in the furnace and toss the dog in, unloading from                Rocco's trunk. They shut the furnace door and there is just                the low hum of a furnace and the light wind blowing.                                     THE MAN                         I have a poker game at the house                          every Saturday with a couple of guys                          you know. Why don't you come down?                          Wife makes a hell of a bar-g-que.                                     ROCCO                              (pause)                         Yeah... yeah, I'd like that. Tell me                          something. What did they do?                                     THE MAN                         I don't know.               BACK TO PRESENT  INT.  COFFEE HOUSE  NIGHT               Rocco is looking down in silence.                                     ROCCO                         Worst day of my life, man.                                     MURPHY                              (pause)                         Well, I'm sold.                                     CONNOR                         Don't worry, Roc. We'll do this guy                          right and you'll feel a lot better.               INT.  ROCCO'S MOM'S KITCHEN  NEXT DAY  1:00 P.M.               The three burst in, all yelling at each other. They are all                bleeding profusely from gun shot wounds. Connor turns on the                gas stove and slams a new clothing iron down on the burner.                He has wrapped the cord around the handle so it won't burn.                They have all ripped their clothes haphazardly and have made                tourniquets to nurse their wounds.                                     CONNOR                         Who the fuck was he, Rocco? I know                          you fuckin' know!                                     ROCCO                         Fuck you! I told you I never saw him                          before!                                     MURPHY                         Well he sure as fuck knew you!                                     ROCCO                         Fuck you both! Ya ask me, he was                          aiming at you!               The scene fades into total silence as they viciously argue.               They then take turns hold each other down as they cauterize                their wounds with the hot iron. Two guys will hold a third                down and force a wadded up pillow case in his mouth, as they                burn him               EXT.  BOSTON SUBURBAN BEAVER-CLEAVER TYPE HOUSE  SAME DAY                5:00 P.M.               Smecker sits on the balls of his fee on a sprawling front                lawn. He looks out to the street and sees a forensics                technician kneeling before a new, gray Ford Taurus riddled                with bullet holes. The man marks a sea of different-sized                bullet casings that stretch for thirty-five feet down the                sidewalk. He circles two blood stains on the side walk with                orange chalk.               Smecker turns and looks at the front of the house. It is                peppered with bullet holes, all seemingly concentrated on                the front stoop area. Men try to lift blood samples off the                white paint around the door. He stands and Dolly, Duffy and                Greenly are ready with pens and notebooks behind him.                                     SMECKER                         Okay. Here's what happened.               FLASHBACK  INT.  PARKED FAMILY VAN  SAME DAY  NOON               Connor, Murphy and Rocco sit in a parked van, down the street                from the Beaver Cleaver house. The three are sitting next to                each other in the longer back seat. They have a counter in                front of them with all their guns and accessories on it.               The clicking of bullets into clips, and smacking of clips                into guns are heard. Smecker sits in the captain's chair                directly across from them, calmly smoking a cigarette. They                finish their preparation. Rocco holds up his guns.                                     SMECKER                         They waited in a parked car down the                          street for the kid to leave.               Murphy spies a young boy peddling his bike out of the                driveway. He goes to the front of the van.                                     MURPHY                         There he goes.                              (turns back to them,                               pulls his guns)                         Okay, gentlemen. Are we ready to                          bring this man into the light? Are                          we ready to truly do the work of the                          Lord?                                     CONNOR                              (cocks his pistol)                         A-fuckin'-men!                                     ROCCO                         This is so fuckin' cool!               EXT.  SUBURBAN BEAVER CLEAVER TYPE HOUSE  DAY               Connor, Murphy, and Rocco make a frenzied exit from the van                and walk across the front lawn, each carrying a black duffle                bag and clutching a mask. The garage is opened a crack.               They pull it up all the way. The sun shines in on Smecker                who stands there smoking.               INT.  SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  GARAGE  DAY               They enter and close the door behind them                                     SMECKER                         They went in through the garage. The                          kid says he leaves it open when he                          takes his bike out.               They dive into their bags and suit up with leather gloves,                masks, navy P-coats and their guns.               INT.  SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  DAY               The three open the door and enter the house and walk                deliberately down the hallway.                                     SMECKER (V.O.)                         Now, they know the wife is the gate                          keeper. She knows the code.               EXT. SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  BACKYARD  DAY               They walk with the terrified woman around the pool to a steel                door pool house entrance. There is a number pad next to the                door. Rocco positions her in front of it.                                     ROCCO                         Don't fuck with me lady. I'll kill                          you.               She slowly punches in the numbers. Smecker is standing there                smoking.                                     SMECKER                         The wife says she doesn't know what                          happened after she hit the code. She                          just remembers going down. But,                          judging by the burn mark on her back,                          I think what they did...               Rocco pulls a stun gun and zaps her with it. She goes down.                                     SMECKER                         ...was use a stun gun on her.               Connor reaches for the knob but Rocco stops him. They wait,                guns drawn and focus on the door knob.                                     SMECKER                         Now the guy knows a friend is coming                          to the game. And they know that this                          door can only be opened from the                          inside. So they wait... and when                          that door opens, man...               The knob turns and they kick it in.               INT.  POOLHOUSE - DAY               They burst in and line up shoulder to shoulder, guns aimed.               Smecker stands beside Rocco with his thumb and forefinger                extended to mimic guns. Five mafiosos sit around a poker                table in front of time. Two men are playing pool to their                left. Rocco quickly scans the room.                                     ROCCO                         All of them.               They begin firing. Men are dying, their chests exploding.               Smecker moves his hands like firing guns and yells over the                noise.                                     SMECKER                         Nobody was ready for it. Devastation,                          panic! This was like shooting fish                          in a fuckin' barrel!               Smecker points to the pool table as the two players dive                under it.                                     SMECKER                         Now these guys dove under the table.                          The trajectory on the bullets show                          they came from straight across. So                          this means one of our shooters...                          dropped to his knees...               Smecker drops to his knees in perfect synchronicity with                Rocco. They are side by side and leaning back.               Rocco fires and the men under the table skip around as they                are riddled with bullets. Smecker's mimicking hands follow                him perfectly with each shot. The boys and Rocco demask.               Rocco goes around to all the bodies and looks earnestly at                each one, as Connor and Murphy pick up bullet casings.                                     ROCCO                         Shit!... Shit! He ain't here.                                     MURPHY                         What the fuck do you mean?                                     ROCCO                         I mean he ain't here.                                     CONNOR                         Look again for fuck sake!                                     ROCCO                         I know what the fuck he looks like!                                     SMECKER                         Something went wrong. Right here.               INT.  POOLHOUSE  BATHROOM  DAY               The man they came for gets off the toilet and pulls up his                pants. He is expressionless. He pulls a towel rack from the                wall.               INT.  POOLHOUSE  DAY               The door behind Rocco begins to open outward. As the door                swings open, Rocco tries to angle a gun around to shoot the                man who is opening it. But as soon as the man sees his hand,                bam! he comes down on it with the towel rack. Rocco pulls                back in pain dropping his other gun but the gun fires, as                the man's blow connects. The shot pierces his stomach and                sends him against the wall. He holds his abdomen in pain.               There is a moment of recognition between the man and Rocco.               Rocco is terrified as the man dives on him and they begin                fighting. Murphy jumps to help, but Connor pulls him back.               They both stand in front of the pool table about thirty feet                from Rocco.                                     CONNOR                         Let the boy go!               He is now being choked, as he glares at them in disbelief.                                     MURPHY                         C'mon Roc!                                     SMECKER                         Now, one of these guys is a real                          sicko. He knew this man. He wanted                          him to suffer, to feel every second                          of a painful death.               As Rocco is wrestling and punching on the floor. He looks                up.                                     ROCCO                         Help me you assholes!                               (they continue to                               cheer)                         He's gonna fuckin' kill me!                              (he fights harder)                                     SMECKER                         This guy is one bad motherfucker.                                     ROCCO                         I don't wanna die!!!!!               Murphy is aching to help but Connor is more steady. A man                who has been shot starts to regain consciousness. Connor                turns his back to shoot him (slo-mo). Murphy sees his                opportunity, pulls the cue ball from the table, and rolls it                silently across the carpet toward Rocco.               Connor fires with his left hand and as the casing ejects                from the gun he catches it in mid air and makes the sign of                the cross. Rocco is on his back, the man is straddling him.               They both have each others throats and are trying to strangle                one another. When the ball is within arms reach, Rocco slams                his hand down on it and knocks his assailant in the skull.               He straddles him and begins to mercilessly beat his face in                with the cue ball, yelling "You sick fuck!"               He finally stops, gets up, runs toward the boys, and throws                an exhausted punch at Connor who just lays Roc down on the                pool table and says, "Nicely done, boy". Murphy tends to                Roc. Connor checks out the man and seems surprised.               Murphy takes the bloody cue ball from Rocco's hand and                polishes it off on his jacket, making sure Connor cannot                see. He replaces it perfectly on the table. Smecker now stands                in front of the table with the cue shining in the background.                                     SMECKER                         I've never seen wounds like these                          before, but whatever he used on this                          guy, it was a blunt object and they                          took it with them.               Smecker exits to the left as Greenly enters from the right,                following Smecker out. He walks by the table furiously                scribbling in his notebook. Connor, Murphy and Rocco exit                the room, pennies in the eyes of all the corpses in the                background. Rocco holds two duffle bags full of poker money.               Greenly stops, picks up the cue ball and looks at the dead                man. He shakes his head and says, "Nah".               EXT.  SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  FRONT LAWN  DAY               Smecker stands in the middle of the front lawn. His hair is                a mess. He's chain-smoking. His clothes are disheveled.               His eyes are psychotic. He points to the parked Taurus as                six men in dark suits appear in a fuzzy, out-of-focus shot.               They line up shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk.                                     SMECKER                         They exited out the front door. And                          they had no fucking idea what they                          were in for.               EXT.  SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  FRONT LAWN  DAY               Rocco, Connor and Murphy walk toward the front door.               EXT.  SUBURBANK "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  SIDEWALK  DAY               (Slo-mo) Two black leather boots slowly walk up the sidewalk                and stop in front of the new, gray Ford Taurus then turn                toward the house. Il Duce removes a white balloon filled                with a few ounces of fluid from the pocket of his black trench                coat. He throws it on the walk, the blood splatters. He picks                up the remnants of the balloon and puts them back in his                pocket and stands there waiting, looking at the house.               EXT.  SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  FRONT STOOP  DAY               The boys come out, Rocco in the middle and slightly ahead of                them. They look out to the walk, stunned.                                     SMECKER                         Now they are staring at six guys                          with guns drawn. It was a fucking                          ambush.               Our three heroes stand, their jaws dropping as their point                of view reveals the Il Duce, standing alone, his hands folded                in front of him.               Suddenly, he throws open his trench coat to reveal a special                leather vest beneath. Six guns, all different, are holstered                on the front of it: three on each side extend from just below                his collar bones to his abdomen. Connor and Murphy don't                hesitate. They each draw one of their now unsilenced guns                from their shoulder holsters and aim, one arm over each of                Rocco's shoulders. The Duke draws his top two weapons and                aims.                                     SMECKER                         And this was a fucking bomb dropping                          in Beaver Cleaverville! For a few                          seconds this place was Armageddon!                          There was a fire fight!               They all start shooting at once. The noise is deafening.               The Taurus is being pierced and the front of the house is                splintering as it is riddled with bullets. Smecker is still                in the middle, hands raised to the heavens, turning circles.               Rocco's pinky finger gets shot off, sending blood splattering                against the house. He dives in the bushes reeling. He pulls                a gun and starts firing.               Murphy catches a bullet in the arm and dives for the bushes                as well. Il Duce with lightening speed, drops the guns and                pulls the next two down as he walks to his right about ten                feet. He commences firing and the casings hit the sidewalk,                all different calibers and sizes are dropping down the walk.               It's him and Connor and nobody is backing down. They both                grind their teeth as they fire rapidly at each other. At the                same moment, The Duke gets hit in the arm and Connor takes a                bullet in the leg. The firing ceases for a moment.               Connor remains steady and Il Duce looks down at his arm and                his own blood splattered on the sidewalk.                                     IL DUCE                         No!... No! No!...               He drops the guns and pulls the last two as he moves to the                right. He fires with wrath as he screams the word No over                and over. Rocco and Murphy return fire from the bushes yelling                and swearing, as Connor does the same from his position on                the stoop.               The Duke turns and runs, leaving a sea of casings, and guns                that extend for 35 feet down the walk. There are also two                blood stains.               In a frenzy the boys and Rocco get up and withdraw some spray                bottles from their bags. The begin spraying all their own                blood stains on the stoop and the front of the white house.               They then pick up their things and run off.               EXT. SUBURBAN "BEAVER CLEAVER" TYPE HOUSE  FRONT LAWN  DAY               Smecker comes back to reality and lights a cigarette in front                of Dolly, Duffy, and Greenly.                                     GREENLY                         What if it was just one guy with six                          guns?                                     SMECKER                         Why don't you let me do the thinking,                          huh, genius?               He turns to the forensics guys at the front of the house and                begins to walk over to him.                                     SMECKER                         What is taking so long with those                          blood samples?                                     FORENSICS WOMAN #1                         I can't get a good sample. There is                          variable here I'm not seeing.               Smecker puts his finger through a big blood stain on the                door and smells it.                                     SMECKER                              (in shock, and rage)                         They used ammonia... none of this                          shit is any good... Fuck... You know                          what this means?! Even if we get                          suspects in this case, we got                          nothing... Nothing!               He starts kicking the bushes and trying to tear them with                his hands as he rages. The police and forensics all back                off.                                     SMECKER                              (screaming)                         Who the fuck are they?! I've never                          seen any-fucking-thing like this in                          my whole fucking life. Who the fuck                          are they?!!               He backs against the building and slides down to a sitting                position in the bushes as if he has given up. He raises his                head and there he sees Rocco's pinky finger lying undiscovered                in the bushes. He pulls a small plastic bag from his pocket                and scoops it up. He shoves it back into his pocket and races                off.                                     DUFFY                         What? That's it?!               INT.  ROCCO'S MOM'S KITCHEN  NIGHT               Rocco, Connor, and Murphy are sitting around the table.               They are numb with pain and silently sipping beers. Suddenly,                Smecker comes on the news making an announcement that he is                heading up the investigation to find the three of them.               Rocco shuts it off.                                     CONNOR                         Shit.                                     ROCCO                         What?                              (points to TV)                         What, that guy?                                     MURPHY                         That's the guy that got us off the                          hook with the "Checkov" thing.                                     CONNOR                         And he is one smart man.                                     ROCCO                         They got nothing.                                     CONNOR                         This guy is very sharp. If he hasn't                          figured us out yet, he will.                                     MURPHY                         You bet your ass he will.                                     ROCCO                         Well, I'd say that makes him a lia-                         fuckin-bility.               The boys look at each other.                                     CONNOR                         He isn't to be touched.                                     MURPHY                         He's a good man.                                     ROCCO                         Okay... whatever.                              (looking at the bloody                               mess)                         My Mom's gonna kill me.               INT.  SMECKER'S BEDROOM  NIGHT               Smecker is sitting at a computer terminal. He has just hooked                into the F.B.I.'s computer network with his authorization                code. He is disgusted as he puts on surgical gloves and finger                prints the severed finger onto a scanner. He waits for a                moment. Rocco's face and rap sheet come up on his screen. He                is in disbelief.                                     SMECKER                         No. This is all wrong. David Della                          Rocco?               FLASHBACK  EXT.  POLICE STATION FRONT STEPS               Rocco on the steps of the police station when Rocco brought                the boys their clothes.               BACK TO PRESENT  INT.  SMECKER'S BEDROOM  NIGHT               He picks up the phone.                                     MARIA (V.O.)                         Boston Police Department.                                     SMECKER                         Yeah. Maria, this is Smecker. Could                          you find me the visitor's list for                          the day the MacManus brothers were                          in and read me all the names?               She reads a few names then hits David Della Rocco.                                     SMECKER                         Okay, thank you.               He hangs us, puts in a smoke, and knocks his head back in                deep thought.               INT.  GAY BAR  NIGHT               Smecker is drinking like a fiend. He is disturbed and rowdy.               He's a bad drunk. He downs a shot and motions for another                one. The BARTENDER comes over.                                     BARTENDER                         You've had quite a bit, Paul. Are                          you sure you...                                     SMECKER                         Pour the drink, faggot-ass!               He obeys. A good looking gay man comes up and whispers in                Smecker's ear and points to the back room.                                     SMECKER                         Okay... But I don't cuddle.               They proceed to the back. Smecker is stumbling.               EXT.  STREET IN FRONT OF CHURCH  EARLY MORNING               Rocco pulls Vincenzo's car to the curb and the MacManus'                exit.                                     ROCCO                         Hey! We gotta talk about this early                          morning church shit.                                     MURPHY                         We have to go now.                              (giggles)                         We're on the lamb.               EXT.  STREET IN FRONT OF THE GAY BAR  EARLY MORNING               Smecker staggers out of the bar. He is an absolute wreck.               Rocco exits a package store just down the street. He is                opening a new pack of cigarettes. He is surprised when he                sees Smecker at the other end of the block. He follows the                stumbling agent, fumbling for his gun.               EXT.  STREET IN FRONT OF CHURCH  EARLY MORNING               Paul sees a church and reflects for a moment before crossing                the street and going in, Rocco a safe distance behind.               INT.  CHURCH  EARLY MORNING               Connor and Murphy are at prayer in the back of the church.               It is mostly empty because of the early hour.               Connor looks up and sees Smecker and Rocco way up in the                front. His eyes are ablaze. He is up and walking and does                not bother Murphy, who remains penitent. There are two                confessional booths with a priest booth in the middle.               Smecker goes in the booth on the far left. Rocco tries the                door, it's locked. A middle-aged PRIEST slips a key in the                priests booth and opens the door. Rocco shoves him in and                goes in behind him. Connor has quickened his pace. He tries                both doors. They're locked. He goes into the confessional on                the right.               INT.  CHURCH  PRIEST'S BOOTH  EARLY MORNING               Rocco puts his gun to the priest's head.                                     ROCCO                         You gonna do what I say, got it?                                     PRIEST                         Yes.                                     ROCCO                         I'm sorry you're gonna hafta see                          this. Don't look at me!                                     PRIEST                         I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't see.                                     ROCCO                         Shut up! Shut the fuck up!               INT.  CHURCH  CONNOR'S CONFESSIONAL  EARLY MORNING               Connor is furiously working his fingers through the lattice                work to open the slider to the priest's booth from his side.               INT.  CHURCH  PRIEST'S BOOTH  EARLY MORNING               Rocco takes the priest and puts his face in front of the                slider to Smecker's booth, gun to the back of his head.                                     PRIEST                         Don't do this my son.                                     ROCCO                         Open it!                                     PRIEST                         Have you no fear of God?                                     ROCCO                         That's who I'm doing this for, now                          open the fuckin' thing.               Connor gets the slider open. Rocco's long hair hangs just                inches from Connor's face. Connor puts his thumb and                forefinger through, desperately reaching for a lock of Rocco's                hair. Rocco jostles the priest and puts the gun hard to his                head.                                     ROCCO                         Father, I'll do you right here.                                     PRIEST                              (slowly obey,                               whispering)                         God have mercy on my soul.               Rocco starts to move the priest aside and put his gun to                Smecker's now open slider.               Just then Connor snags a piece of Rocco's hair and pulls him                back hard and fast by it, until his head slams into the                lattice work. Rocco grabs the priest back into position.               Connor grabs a nice wad of Rocco's hair with his left hand,                so that the side of Rocco's face is now pressed to the                lattice. Connor then puts a gun to Rocco's head.                                     CONNOR                              (hard whisper)                         You little fuck. Let him go. I'll                          drop you right here.                                     ROCCO                         Okay, just calm down. He could hurt                          us, brother. He could ruin the whole                          thing.                                     CONNOR                         Let him go or I will deliver you,                          right now.                              (pulls hammer back)                                     ROCCO                         You won't do it Connor, you won't.                          You love me man.               INT.  CHURCH CONFESSIONAL BOOTHS  EARLY MORNING               Smecker wakes up from a drunken stupor. He looks through the                slider window at the barely discernible face of the now crying                priest.                                     SMECKER                              (slurred, loud)                         Hello? You there?                                     PRIEST                         Y-Yes my son.                                     ROCCO                              (whispers)                         Do your thing Father. Don't fuck                          this up.                                     PRIEST                              (whispering to Rocco)                         What do you want me to say?                                     ROCCO                         Just be natural, goddamit.                                     PRIEST                         How long since your last confession,                          my son?                                     SMECKER                         Oh, Christ, uh, I've never confessed.               The priest can hear Connor and Rocco whisper, but Smecker                cannot.                                     SMECKER                         According to the dogma of the Catholic                          church, I should probably burst into                          flames right here in this booth. But                          I've come here for advice, not                          salvation.               Connor and Rocco stop and listen now.                                     PRIEST                         Why have you come to a church for                          council if you're not religious?                                     SMECKER                              (ponderous)                         Why have I come to a church? I never                          have before. I guess I just... felt                          I should.                                     PRIEST                         What is it my son?                                     SMECKER                         It's ethics. I put evil men behind                          bars, but the law has miles of red                          tape and loopholes for these...                          cocksuckers to slip through. I've                          found out there are these two young                          men who fix the situation with an                          iron fist. As if they have God's                          permission. But what they do is wrong                          and I should arrest them...                          technically.                                     PRIEST                         God's permission? God doesn't...               Rocco shakes the priest.                                     SMECKER                         But in this day and age I believe                          what they do is... necessary. I feel                          it is... correct.                                     PRIEST                         You believe?                                     SMECKER                         Yes.                                     PRIEST                         You feel?                                     SMECKER                         Yes.                                     PRIEST                         You feel? A soul is what gives you                          feelings. Happiness, guilt, right or                          wrong. It is a conduit through which                          the Lord speaks to us. You felt that                          your answers would be here in the                          house of God today. You feel these                          men are necessary. The Lord has spoken                          to you twice this day.               Rocco and Connor show their individual looks of surprise.                                     SMECKER                              (sarcastically)                         Has he now?                                     PRIEST                         You have entered the house of the                          Lord of your own free will speaking                          of beliefs and feelings. Is it so                          much to believe that God has brought                          you here?                                     SMECKER                         I guess not.                                     PRIEST                         It is easy to be sarcastic about                          religion. It is harder to take small                          hints from God, your feelings and                          listen to them... to take a stand.               The look of surprise on Rocco and Connor's faces show that                the priest is doing a hell of a job.                                     SMECKER                         You're right.                                     PRIEST                         Those who do not act are in a constant                          state of ethical indecision.                                     SMECKER                         I want to stand for what I believe                          in, father.                                     PRIEST                         Then you must find out what your                          beliefs are.                                     SMECKER                         I believe these young men are right.                                     PRIEST                         You know them personally?                                     SMECKER                         Yes.                                     PRIEST                         Do you think they would harm an                          innocent man, for any reason?                                     SMECKER                         No. They would never do that.               The priest starts to show signs of anger as he starts turning                to Rocco.                                     SMECKER                         Well, the two Irish guys wouldn't.                          But the Italian guy, he might. He's                          kind of an idiot.               Fear returns to the priests face. Rocco presses the gun hard                to the priests head and jostles him.                                     ROCCO                              (whispers to priest)                         Goddam right, I am.                                     SMECKER                         I'm beginning to see. I've been doing                          my job... well for fifteen years and                          it's just not enough. All the things                          I wish I could do, these guys are                          doing. Millions of dollars in tax                          payers' money wasted on shit like                          wire taps and surveillance. Theses                          boys go in and take care of it for                          the price of a bullet.                              (looks up)                         Ww-what do you think I should do?                          Because I'm a law man.               Rocco jostles the priest again.                                     PRIEST                         The laws of God are higher than the                          laws of man.                                     SMECKER                              (the clouds have lifted)                         Yes! Yes! I was thinking that, too.                          No. I was feeling it. All I needed                          was to hear you say it! Amen! I'll                          help them.                                     PRIEST                              (whispers)                         Forgive me father.                                     SMECKER                         Thank you, Father, thank you.                              (he attempts the sign                               of the cross but                               screws it up)                         Whatever. Goodbye, amen.               Smecker exits and they all let go after a brief pause. Rocco                turns and starts fixing up the priest's ruffled suit.                                     ROCCO                         I wouldn't have, uh, killed you,                          Father.                               (signs cross)                         Dominus Ominus. Remember, you're                          bound. You can't talk about this...                          to anyone.                                     PRIEST                         Just go!               INT.  CHURCH  EARLY MORNING               Rocco exits the booth and shuts the door behind him. Connor                is standing outside, hands on his hips. Rocco smiles at him                as Connor fumes.                                     ROCCO                              (giggling)                         The Lord works in mysterious ways.               Connor slaps him in the back of the head and kicks him in                the ass. Rocco's still giggling as they exit.               INT.  PHONE BOOTH  UPTOWN  LATER                                     SMECKER                         That's all you can give me?               INT.  PHONE BOOTH  DOWNTOWN  CONTINUOUS               We shoot alternating coverage between the two locations.                                     CONNOR                         Well, the light caught the side of                          his face for a second. And it looked                          like he had a gray beard, maybe...                          late fifties, early sixties.                                     SMECKER                         So you're telling me it was one guy                          with six guns? A-and he was a senior                          fucking citizen?                                     CONNOR                         I think it's better if we find this                          man before he finds us again.                                     SMECKER                         I'll see what I can do. How do I get                          in touch with you?                                     CONNOR                         We're going to hit Poppa Joe tonight,                          right in the comfort of his own home.                          Then we move on to New York. It's                          getting a bit hot for us here.                                     SMECKER                         Be careful.                                     CONNOR                         I'll call you tonight, afterwards.                              (hangs up)               INT.  RITZY RESTAURANT BATHROOM  NIGHT               Smecker stands beside Augustus, just the way Yakavetta did.                                     AUGUSTUS                         I don't know who he is. Nobody does.               Smecker tosses an envelope of cash in his plate, just as                Yakavetta did.                                     SMECKER                         What did he bring him in for?                                     AUGUSTUS                         Needed an outsider. The package boy                          knows everyone. He'd spot our hitters                          a mile away.                                     SMECKER                         Just for him?                                     AUGUSTUS                         Well he's the one shooting up all                          his guys, right? He's scared of the                          kid. Says he's real good, got every                          available gun in the city up there.                                     SMECKER                         Up where?                                     AUGUSTUS                         Up his house. I don't know what's                          going on but I know it's gotta have                          something to do with this kid.                                     SMECKER                         Oh fuck!                              (runs out)               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  BASEMENT HALL  NIGHT               There are several bodies in the hall, some with pennies in                their eyes, some without. Down the dark basement halls there                is more gore. The boys and Rocco can be heard screaming from                a room in the basement. Yakavetta's voice is heard yelling                and in command.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  BASEMENT ROOM  NIGHT               Connor, Murphy, and Rocco are all hand cuffed to chairs in                the seated position. Their clothes are ripped and they have                been beaten severely. Blood covers them. Rocco has been                uncuffed and two men hold his open hand up as Yakavetta puts                a pistol at the base of his remaining pinky finger. Several                other hold him down as he and the boys scream in tough                protest.                                     YAKAVETTA                              (yelling)                         You gonna tell me what's going on                          here?! Huh! You little fuck! Gimme                          some answers!               They all yell for him to fuck off. Although Rocco is                terrified, he is holding out. Yakavetta fires and Rocco's                finger is gone. The blood splatters on Connor's face. Rocco                screams in pain saying fuck you through his sobs. After re-               cuffing Rocco, Yakavetta and his goons exit.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  BASEMENT HALL  NIGHT               Yakavetta is in the hall with four men. GENO (35 yrs.) very                big. CHAPPY (22 yrs.) wears sunglasses even in the dark,                trying to look cool. HOJO (28 yrs.) is slick and good-looking.               Another Mafioso cohort is with them as well.                                     YAKAVETTA                         What do you guys think?                                     GENO                         They're tough. No way they're gonna                          talk.                                     HOJO                         I know Rocco. He ain't smart enough                          for this shit. These other guys are                          the brains. He's just a player.                                     YAKAVETTA                         There's only one way to get them to                          talk.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  BASEMENT ROOM  NIGHT               He walks back into the room. He saunters up to Rocco very                nonchalantly and shoots him in the chest. His chair is blown                back to the floor. The boys are screaming and crying as                Yakavetta walks out.                                     ROCCO                              (struggles to talk)                         You guys?                                     CONNOR                              (crying)                         We're here brother.                                     ROCCO                         You gotta keep going.                                     MURPHY                              (sobbing)                         We'll keep going, Roc.                                     ROCCO                         You'll make it outta here. You can't                          ever stop, not ever.               As Rocco dies, they fall into prayer.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  FRONT FOYER  NIGHT               Yakavetta lights up a cigar and talks to his men.                                     CHAPPY                         Once you set him in motion, you can't                          call him off. He thinks it's still                          on.               Yakavetta stops as if terrified with a thought.                                     YAKAVETTA                         Oh Jesus Christ!                                     HOJO                         What? I...                                     YAKAVETTA                         Hey, I don't have my name spray                          painted on the front of this house.                          There are no big pictures of me                          anywhere. If this guy thinks the job                          is still a go then I got green money                          says the mother fucker's out in the                          bushes already. I'm fucking gone!                          I'm leaving you guys to deal with                          this.               The four guys are left alone. They all look far from confident                except for Geno.                                     GENO                         One fucking guy, so what.                                     HOJO                         Why don't you take the front.                              (points)                         You guys cover those other exits and                          if you see him, don't flag him down,                          just kill the mother fucker. I'm                          going back down to work on these                          pricks.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  BASEMENT ROOM  NIGHT               Murphy has scootched his chair in front of Connor's. He has                his back to Connor.               He stretches his neck over and bites at the collar of his p-               coat. He gathers as much of the material in his mouth as he                can. He starts to yell, "Do it!" but it is muffled.               Connor, still sobbing, begins to kick his brother's left                hand repeatedly. He turns it into a bloody piece of broken                meat as Murphy screams through the shirt. Finally, it is                broken enough and Murphy pulls it through the cuff.               He stands and breaks the chair into pieces and grabs the                sharpest piece. Hojo enters and Murphy shoves the sharp stick                up through the bottom of his chin into his head. He drags                him around the room yelling mumbo jumbo into his face as                Connor jumps up and down in his chair in rage, wanting a                piece of the action.               Murphy throws the man down and Connor proceeds to viciously                kick his dead body. The two have turned into barbarians.               Murphy removes the man's two guns, shiny nickel-plated 45s.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S FRONT FOYER  NIGHT               There is a knock at the door. Geno jumps with fright and                then looks out the peep hole. He sees a well-formed pair of                woman's breasts in a cheap dress. He opens the door. A                stunning blonde stands before him. She looks like a hooker.               She wears a short, hot pink dress and a white scarf around                her neck, as well as six inch platform heels.                                     SMECKER AS WOMAN                         Joey Bevo sent me over. As                          entertainment.               The woman speaks and it is apparent that this is actually                Smecker in drag.                                     GENO                         Listen baby. Tonight ain't the night                          for this shit.                               (beat)                         Bevo's so great. Always sending us                          hot girls.                                     SMECKER                         You look like you could use a quickie.               Smecker kisses him full on the lips and rubs up against him.               Geno is convinced. He brings her inside.                                     GENO                         Hey, Chappy!                                     CHAPPY                              (Chappy, emerges way                               down the hall)                         What the fuck?                                     GENO                         I ain't been laid in a week. Take                          five minutes.                                     CHAPPY                         If I die cause you're getting a piece                          of ass, I'll come back and beat you                          to death with a big rubber dick.                                     GENO                         Don't worry about it.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  NIGHT               He takes Smecker into a small bathroom adjoining the foyer.               They are instantly in the throws of passion. They grope each                other and Smecker cleverly avoids any contact with his crotch.                Smecker lies down on the floor and starts to wiggle and                seductively touch himself. Geno stands over him, straddling                Smecker's hips as he undoes his pants. Suddenly, Smecker                grabs both of Geno's ankles and has him locked in position.                He repeatedly kicks Geno in the balls from his lying position                on the floor. The guy falls on his back unconscious. Smecker                uses a silencer, shoots him in the head.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  HALL  NIGHT               He starts to whisper, "It's on now. It's on now. Too far."                as he walks down the hall, striding in his high heels, wig                back in place. He thoughtlessly blows Chappy away as he passes                his position and runs down a long hallway. He turns a corner                and points his gun at the Mafioso cohort but pauses.               He is already sitting with his throat cut. Smecker looks                puzzled as Il Duce withdraws from the shadows behind him.               The Duke pistol whips Smecker. He's out.               INT.  YAKAVETTA'S HOUSE  BASEMENT ROOM  NIGHT               Connor and Murphy are on their knees in front of Rocco, whom                they have sat back up in the chair. They are gently placing                pennies in his eye and sobbing as they begin to recite the                prayer. As they speak, Il Duce watches. He then begins to                whisper the prayer right along with them. Their words match                up perfectly. He leans against the wall, holsters his guns,                and withdraws a cigarette.               He rolls it along his tongue and twists it into his lips.               The boys are still reciting as he strikes a match. They react                instantly. Still kneeling they each point a nickel-plated 45                toward The Duke. They turn in time to see the light from the                match illuminate his face. Il Duce pauses then he strides                into the room and proceeds to recite the last half of the                prayer.               He stops between the kneeling boys and finishes off the                prayer. The boys are stunned as they realize this is their                father. He makes the sign of the cross over Rocco. Then he                looks down to the upturned faces of his sons. He places a                hand on each of their cheeks.               INT.  CHEAP BOSTON HOTEL ROOM  NIGHT  3 MONTHS LATER               Both sleeping boys throw their arms out, mimicking a crucified                Christ. Their father turns, sees this, turns back.               The boys wake with a start. Connor looks to his father, who                is already staring at him.                                     CONNOR                         How far are we going with this, Da?                                     FATHER                         The questions is not, "how far?" The                          question is, "Do you possess the                          constitution, the depth of faith to                          go as far as is needed?"               INT.  COURTHOUSE  BACK FOYER AREA  MORNING               Smecker opens the door from the inside and lets the MacManus                father and sons in. He walks one way they walk the other                through the grand courthouse halls.               INT.  COURTROOM  MORNING               The media, with their cameras and notebooks, are at the back                of the courtroom. Yakavetta is testifying on the stand. He                is cocky. The judge warns Yakavetta that he will have no                more of this behavior in his courtroom.                                     MEDIA MAN 1                              (whispering to #2)                         Look at his charisma. He's the next                          John Gotti.                                     MEDIA MAN 2                         He'll walk. Even with all this                          evidence.                                     MEDIA MAN 1                         Look.                              (points to the left                               and right sections                               of courtroom seating)                         All Yakavetta's people are on the                          right. All the families of the men                          he has killed are on the left.                          Everyone wants some justice.                                     MEDIA MAN 2                         Look at him. He doesn't have a care                          in the world. He's gonna walk.               INT.  FOYER TO COURTROOM  DAY               The MacManusus stand in the foyer. There are a pair of doors                that go to the outside hallway and a pair that go to the                inside courtroom. There is an armed guard directly inside                the courtroom, in front of the doors.               The door opens a crack and Connor waves the guard into the                foyer and starts talking to him. Then dad zaps him with a                stun gun. The guard is on the floor, incapacitated and                drooling as the boys handcuff him.               Connor pulls out a length of chain and drapes it through the                door handles that lead from the hall into the foyer. He locks                them in with a padlock.                                     FATHER                         How long do these put a man down                          for?                                     MURPHY                         Ten minutes.               The father zaps the incapacitated man a second time as he                lay.                                     FATHER                         Twenty is a bit better.               They suit up, Connor and Murphy in their usual masks and                gloves, Dad is already in his usual dark hat and glasses.               The boys start for the courtroom door but dad gently holds                them back. He takes a moment, then slowly removes his hat                and glasses. His sons look at one another and then remove                their masks. The three look into each others eyes for a                moment.               INT.  COURTROOM  DAY                                     JUDGE                         Due to the lack of hard evidence......               The three burst in, guns drawn, and are walking down the                aisle.                                     FATHER                         All media to the back! Drop the                          cameras! Drop 'em!               Terrified, they all obey. Connor and Murphy pull Yakavetta                from the witness booth by his hair and place him on his knees                just before the judge's bench. They face him toward the                occupants of the courtroom. The father walks up and motions                for the judge, who is now banging his gavel and shouting in                protest, to come off the stand.               As soon as he is within arms reach, dad takes him by the                collar and drags him down the aisle all the way to where the                media stands in horror. He turns and walks back down the                aisle.                                     FATHER                              (loudly)                         You people have been chosen to reveal                          our existence to the world. You will                          witness what happens here today and                          you will tell of it afterwards.               All eyes to the front.                                     YAKAVETTA                              (looking to his                               comrades)                         Fuckin' do something!               The father keeps them covered. He passes the front, he looks                and sees a VIRGINAL-LOOKING WOMAN with her head down crying                into her hands. She is on the left side. He gently tilts her                chin forward, her eyes fixated on a faded blue butterfly on                the back of his hand.                                     FATHER (WHISPERS)                              (whispers)                         You must watch dear. It'll all be                          over soon.                               (she obeys)               The father takes out a flask. He pours the booze on the judges                bench and set it ablaze. Fire alarms start to sound.               Connor and Murphy jump up on the lawyers' tables. Murphy on                the prosecution side, Connor on the defense. The father has                his sawed-off to the back of Yakavetta's head.                                     CONNOR                              (yelling over the                               alarm)                         Now, you will receive us.                                     MURPHY                              (yelling over the                               alarm)                         We do not ask for your poor or your                          hungry.                                     CONNOR                         We do not want your tired and sick.                                     MURPHY                         It is your corrupt we claim.                                     CONNOR                         It is your evil, who will be sought                          by us.                                     MURPHY                         With every breath we shall hunt them                          down.                                     CONNOR                         Each day we will spill their blood                          till it rains down from the skies.                                     MURPHY                         Do not kill, do not rape, do not                          steal. These are principles which                          every man of every faith can embrace.                                     CONNOR                         These are not polite suggestions.                          They are codes of behavior and those                          that ignore them will pay the dearest                          cost.                              (points to Yakavetta)                                     MURPHY                         There are varying degrees of evil.                          We urge you lesser forms of filth                              (pointing to                               Yakavetta's people)                         Not to push the bounds and cross                          over into true corruption... into                          our domain.                                     CONNOR                         For if you do, there will come the                          day when you look behind you and see                          we three. And on that day you will                          reap it.                                     MURPHY                         And we will send you to whatever God                          you wish.               Connor and Murphy jump off the table. They approach Yakavetta                and stand on either side of their father. All three men hold                guns to his head and recite the prayer. As they speak, the                right side of the courtroom screams in protest. The left                watches in wide-eyed terror, although some men encourage                them to do it. The MacManus' read the prayer. They do not                falter as the flames rage behind them.               Yakavetta, accepting his fate, closing his eyes. Peacefully,                he does the sign of the cross. The all fire at once. The                room explodes in confusion. The three exit the back.               INT.  LONG CEMENT HALLWAY  SUBLEVEL OF COURTHOUSE               The MacManuses are all shackled and in blue jumpsuits of the                Boston lock-up facility with bags over their heads. Duffy is                in full uniform with a shotgun behind them. Smecker is leading                the prisoners down the hall. He flashes his F.B.I.                identification to every cop he encounters.               INT.  COURTHOUSE INSIDE GRANDE FOYER STEPS  DAY               The media is in a frenzy. Little bits of the story are known.               The people from the left and right sides of the courtroom                are yelling and pushing each other as cameras and microphones                try to pick up the news. Finally all the focus comes to the                virginal woman who had been sitting in the front row. All                lights, cameras and microphones are on her.                                     REPORTER 2 (V.O.)                         Yes! Were you in the courtroom miss?                          Did you see?                                     WOMAN (FRAIL)                              (frail)                         Yes. I was there.                                     REPORTER (V.O.)                         How do you feel about what they did?               (Slo-mo) She sees at the grande hall's end Smecker leading                the three out, bags still over their heads. She sees Dad's                butterfly tattoo. She knows.                                     WOMAN                         I guess we all know what is right                          and wrong. We all know. Nobody needs                          to be convinced of what he was...                          I'm going home now to have my first                          real full night's sleep.               The people who had been on Yakavetta's side of the courtroom                threaten her and force their way through the crowd toward                her, thus causing the two sides to fight. Everyone, even                reporters are in it. The camera tilts up ending on the statue                of the Blind Lady of Justice.                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
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+                     BOTTLE ROCKET       screenplay by Wes Anderson and Owen WilsonEXT. ALLEY. DAYANTHONY and DIGNAN walk down an alley behind a conveniencestore. Anthony's nineteen. He's got on a red jacket with anEnco patch. Dignan's twenty. He has a buzz-cut and wears ashort-sleeved terrycloth shirt. He carries a vinyl tennisbag. It's got a pouch for a racquet but no racquet in it.                         DIGNAN            What color hair does he have?                         ANTHONY            Black hair. Paul Michael Glaser.                         DIGNAN            Making Hutch David Soul?                         ANTHONY            Right. The blond guy.                         DIGNAN            OK. That's wrong.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, it's --                         DIGNAN            Plus where's Huggie Bear?                         ANTHONY            He's not there. Huggie Bear isn't            in every single episode.                         DIGNAN            I think you might of dreamed this            one, Anthony.                         ANTHONY            No. It's a real episode. The killer            is leading him across the city by            calling different pay phones.They climb over a high wooden fence.EXT. BACKYARD. DAYThey walk through somebody's backyard.                         DIGNAN            Why?                         ANTHONY            As part of his plan. I don't know            why.                         DIGNAN            See, that's what I'm saying. It has            the logic of a dream.                         ANTHONY            The point is the killer always            goes, May I speak to Starsky? He            says his name.                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            What does Starsky say?                         ANTHONY            He says. This is he.                         DIGNAN            This is he?                         ANTHONY            No. This is he.They climb another fence. There's big house on the other side.INT. HOUSE. DAYAnthony and Dignan are inside walking through the foyer.Anthony goes up the stairway quickly and quietly.Dignan walks to the master bedroom. Goes in the closet andgrabs a box. Looks inside. Dumps it into his bag.Anthony goes into a bedroom. Looks in a dresser and takesout two watches. Digs through some socks and finds some cash.Dignan goes in the study. Opens a drawer and closes it.Opens another and lifts out a set of thin leather coin books.Anthony's in a kid's room. Looking at posters of a footballplayer and John McEnroe on the walls. He grabs a walkman anda calculator. Then suddenly stops moving. He crouches down.Looks at a shelf of dozens of little metal soldiers. They'rein formations with different uniforms.Dignan is walking down the hallway as Anthony comes down thestairs. They walk to the door and go out.INT. DINER. DAYA twenty-four hour diner. Anthony and Dignan are eating atthe counter.                         ANTHONY            Did you see what I meant about the            window?                         DIGNAN            Kind of. Except we've already got            the keys.                         ANTHONY            That's true. But what if they            change the locks?                         DIGNAN            Would they do that?                         ANTHONY            Who knows? That's why I filed it            down.Dignan nods.                         ANTHONY            Now that window can never be locked.            It's impossible.                         DIGNAN            See, your mind is very good with            the more mechanical details.            Whereas my strength would be --A good-looking WOMAN about forty-five years old interruptsthem.                         WOMAN            Can I use your Tabasco?                         ANTHONY            Sure.Anthony hands her a bottle of Tabasco off the counter. Shewalks away. Down the counter.                         ANTHONY            You don't see many women who like            Tabasco.They watch her for a minute. Dignan looks away.                         ANTHONY            She's really kind of hot.                         DIGNAN                   (looks back at her, nods)            She's an attractive older woman.EXT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAYA huge house with a wide lawn. BOB, who's about twenty-six,wearing black jeans and a V-neck T-shirt, is spraying down abattered 1972 Mercedes with a garden hose. He's got hisshirt off and a towel around his neck. Dignan has anexpression of intense concentration as he looks at the car.                         BOB            Well, what do you think?                         DIGNAN            I don't know, Bob. What about one            of those?Dignan points to a new BMW and a Lexus in front of the garage.                         BOB            I'm not allowed to drive those.                         DIGNAN            Not even for emergencies?                         BOB                   (a little angry)            No.                         DIGNAN            I thought your parents were in Italy.                         BOB            They are.                         DIGNAN            So who's going to know?                         BOB            My brother.                         ANTHONY            Future Man.                         BOB            Who?                         ANTHONY            Futute Man. You know. Cause he            looks like he's from the future.                         DIGNAN            He looks like he was designed by            scientists. For desert warfare.                         BOB            That never would of --                         DIGNAN            Let's cut the bullshit.Silence. They all look at the car. Pause.                         ANTHONY            It's got a V-8, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            What do you think the cops have?INT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAYThey're sitting at the coffee table in Bob's great bigliving room. It's got high ceilings and two Persian rugs.They're eating sandwiches and chips.                         BOB            If you're that worried, maybe we            should just steal one.                         DIGNAN            What are you talking about, Bob?                         BOB            Can you use a coaster.Bob slides a coaster under Dignan's glass.                         ANTHONY            Did you ever steal a car bdfore?                         BOB            Yeah. I've stolen two cars before.            One Jaguar. And one Trans-Am. With            T-Tops. That Trans-Am was fun to            drive.                         DIGNAN            You stole a Trans-Am.                         BOB            Yes. I did.                         DIGNAN            OK, Bob.                         BOB            It's true, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            Well. What do you want to do? You            want to steal one or just drive            your car?                         BOB                   (thinks for a minute)            I'll just drive my car.INT. DELI. DAYAnthony's playing pinball at a machine in the back of alittle grocery store. Dignan's watching.                         DIGNAN            Anthony, we'll get two hundred for            the coin collection alone. That's            less than what it's appraised at.                         ANTHONY            But Dignan, do you really know that            much about rare coins?                         DIGNAN            I know about money, Anthony. I know            the value of money. Plus the            earrings are worth three times that.Anthony looks at Dignan. Dignan points at the pinball machine.                         DIGNAN            Your ball.Dignan tries to hit the flipper.                         ANTHONY            I told you not to take the earrings.Anthony keeps looking at Dignan. Dignan doesn't look up fromthe machine. Anthony turns and walks away.                         DIGNAN            You got another ball.Dignan watches him go.                         DIGNAN            I'm playing your game.EXT. SIDEWALK. DAYThey're walking fast down the sidewalk.                         ANTHONY            The list, Dignan. I know you            remember the list because you            signed it. "Things Dignan was not            supposed to touch."                         DIGNAN            Every valuable item in the house            was on that list.                         ANTHONY            That doesn't make any difference. I            bought those earrings for my mother            on her birthday. They have a very            special value for her.                         DIGNAN            Yeah, but I can't be sorting            through that shit in the middle of            a burglary. There's just not time            for it.                         ANTHONY            Then you shouldn't of gone in            there, Dignan. Maybe we should of            robbed your house. Did you ever            think of that?Dignan stops walking. Anthony looks back at him. Pause.                         ANTHONY            What?Dignan turns and starts walking the other way.                         ANTHONY            Where are you going?                         DIGNAN            I don't appreciate you ridiculing me.                         ANTHONY            How was I ridiculing you?                         DIGNAN            You're making fun of my family. You            know there's nothing to steal from            my mom and Craig. You know exactly            what you're saying.                         ANTHONY            That's not what I meant, Dignan.They both see something. They keep walking. Dignan looksback down the sidewalk.                         DIGNAN            Did you see that?                         ANTHONY            Yeah, I saw it.                         DIGNAN            I'm lookout.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, it's got an alarm.                         DIGNAN            I don't think so. Just reach on in.                         ANTHONY            That sets it off.                         DIGNAN            No, just do it real quick.                   (starts down the sidewalk)            I'll meet you down there.Dignan cuts into an alley. Anthony turns back. Looks at aparked car. Looks left and right. Walks to the car andreaches in the half-open window.An alarm goes off. Anthony unlocks the door and opens it.Leans inside. Grabs a wallet off the seat.A MAN standing on the sidewalk watches Anthony get out ofthe car. Anthony looks at him, then walks down the sidewalknot too fast. He turns down an alley and runs.EXT. ALLEY. DAYAnthony comes around the corner and meets Dignan beside adumpster. The alarm is still ringing in the distance.Anthony starts looking through the wallet.                         ANTHONY            It had an alarm.                         DIGNAN            Yeah, I heard that.                         ANTHONY                   (counting the money)            Five, seven, eight dollars.He looks at Dignan.                         DIGNAN                   (taking the wallet)            Holy shit. What'd I tell you?                         ANTHONY            Eight dollars.                         DIGNAN            That's not bad.Anthony keeps looking at Dignan. Dignan smiles. He handsAnthony a five dollar bill. Anthony looks at it. He takes it.He puts it in his pocket. Dignan puts out his hand to shake.Anthony waits a second. He shakes Dignan's hand for just asecond and walks down the alley. Dignan smiles and walksbehind him.INT. HAMBURGER PLACE. NIGHTAnthony and Dignan are sitting at a table with Bob.                         ANTHONY            What do herbs have to do with it? I            don't understand the --                         BOB            Pot is an herb. It's just like any            type of gardening.                         DIGNAN            How much could you grow?            Realistically.                         BOB            As much as I want. When these            plants bud I'll probably have about            six thousand dollars worth of weed.                         DIGNAN            Six thousand dollars? Come on, Bob.                         BOB            You should take a look. I have an            entire crop in my backyard.                         ANTHONY            In your backyard? How do you            protect them?                         BOB            It's private property. Plus I have            Hector.                         ANTHONY            Hector woudn't do anything.                         BOB            But he's got a loud bark. That's            the most important thing is a loud            bark.                         DIGNAN            If it's that easy why doesn't            everybody grow them?                         BOB            Good question.Bob looks at Anthony and Dignan. He suddenly gets worried.                         BOB            Don't you guys tell anybody about            my plants.                         DIGNAN            You're paranoid, Bob.                         BOB            Yeah, but don't tell anybody.                         ANTHONY            Could you grow cinnamon?                         BOB            I don't know. Sure, I guess.                         ANTHONY            You could make your own cinnamon            toast.Bob looks at Anthony for a second. He looks at Dignan. Backat Anthony.                         BOB            Are you a fag?                         LITTLE RICHARD            You're the faggot.Bob turns around to see LITTLE RICHARD, short but muscular,wearing a down vest and a baseball cap.                         BOB            Little Richard. I don't believe it.            They'll let anybody in this place.            Sit down.Little Richard sits down.                         BOB            Dignan and Anthony, this is Little            Richard. He's crazy. Totally nuts.                         LITTLE RICHARD                   (smiling)            I don't know about that.                         BOB            Little Richard. Trust me. You're            insane. Jesus, this guy used to            carry a percussion bomb around in            his trunk. You do not want a guy            like that loose on the streets.                         LITTLE RICHARD            It seemed like a good idea at the            time.                         BOB            The one and only Little Richard.                         DIGNAN            Are you named after THE Little            Richard?                         LITTLE RICHARD                   (stares at Dignan)            Ha! Ha! Ha! Why don't you stick it            up your ass. Great group of guys            you're hanging out with.Little Richard goes out the door.                         DIGNAN            What was that all about?                         BOB            I can't believe you said that.                         DIGNAN            What did I say?                         BOB            I told you he's crazy.                         ANTHONY            But he didn't say anything.                         DIGNAN            Hang on a second.Dignan gets up and walks out of the restaurant. Anthony andBob look at each other. They start to get up.EXT. HAMBURGER PLACE. NIGHTAnthony and Bob go out the door. Dignan is walking over to astation wagon. Little Richard is getting in.                         DIGNAN            Little Richard. Wait a second. Hang            on. I didn't mean to --Little Richard opens his door hard into Dignan's legs, thengets out fast and takes off his shirt. Dignan tries to hithim but doesn't connect. They grab onto each other and startknocking around. Another GUY gets out of the station wagon.Two more GUYS rush out the door of the burger place. Anthonyand Bob stand back, nervous.                         ANTHONY            Let them fight.                         BOB            Let them fight.They all watch. Dignan keeps trying to punch Little Richard,but he's hanging onto him too tight. They keep spinningaround together, moving down the sidewalk.                         DIGNAN                   (calling out)            Anthony.Anthony looks at the other guys then moves toward Dignan.                         ANTHONY            OK. Break it up. Break it up.Little Richard lets go of Dignan. They separate.                         DIGNAN            I separated my shoulder.Dignan is holding onto his arm. He kind of moans.                         ANTHONY            OK. Hang on.Anthony grabs hold of Dignan's arm. Everybody's watching.                         DIGNAN            Just pull straight up.Anthony pulls up hard on Dignan's arm. Dignan tries not toyell, then suddenly he's OK and relieved.                         ANTHONY            Is it back in?                         DIGNAN                   (moving arm slowly)            Yeah.                         GUY #1            OK, man. Let's go.                         DIGNAN            No. I'm not fighting anymore.                         ANTHONY            His shoulder went out, man. It's            over.                         GUY #2            You guys better get out of here.Guy #2 pushes Dignan. Anthony turns and pounds him in theface. Right on the nose. The guy goes crosseyed. He fallsdown with his legs all tangled-up in a strange position.Everyone stands there stunned. Anthony takes a step back. Helooks up. He and Dignan take off. Bob stands there. Frozen.Everyone looks at him. Bob looks at Little Richard.                         LITTLE RICHARD            Bob?Bob takes off.INT. CAR. DAYThe next day. They're driving with Bob. Dignan's up front.He's banged-up from the fight.                         DIGNAN            The guy is fucking insane.                         BOB            I warned you, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            You said it like it was a big joke,            Bob. Like he's wild.                         BOB            No, I was saying crazy like a            lunatic.                         DIGNAN            I know that now. He's a fucking            psycho.                         BOB            Well, don't blame me. I told you.                         DIGNAN            I do blame you, Bob. And woah. Look            at her.There's a beautiful GIRL on the sidewalk. They drive past her.                         DIGNAN            Loop around real fast.                         ANTHONY            Just turn right here.Bob immediately turns and they drive past the girl again.They don't say anything as they go past her. They all justlook at her. They drive on.                                            CUT TO:A minute later. They've looped back. They're looking for thegirl.                         DIGNAN            Where'd she go?                         BOB            Maybe she turned.                         ANTHONY            There she is.She's on a side street. Bob hits the brakes hard. The girllooks back at them. They back up a few feet and turn downthe street. They drive slowly toward the girl.                         ANTHONY            Bob, don't be so obvious.The girl keeps looking back at them.                         DIGNAN            I think we might of scared her.                         BOB            Let's just go.They come up, beside the girl. She looks right at them,still walking.Her expression is angry and also a little scared.They drive away.                         DIGNAN            You blew it, Bob.INT. COFFEE SHOP. DAYAnthony, Dignan, and Bob are meeting with TEMPLE. Temple isin his mid-fifties, short, heavy, completely expressionlesswide face. They listen intently as he briefs them on theintricacies of firearms.                         TEMPLE            A gun is a firearm. A pistol is a            firearm. But anything you hold in            your hand is a weapon. A knife. A            wrench. A ballpoint pen.                         ANTHONY            A ballpoiht pen?                         TEMPLE            Anyone who tells you a ballpoint            pen is not a weapon needs intensive            psychiatric treatment. You can            stick them in the esophagus. You            give them a ballpoint tracheotomy.They nod seriously. Temple laughs.EXT. FIELD. DAYThey're standing behind Temple's car in the middle of anopen pasture. The trunk is open. Temple's got some guns inmetal cases. They draw targets on pieces of paper. Anthonydraws a man running on his target. They fire a bunch ofdifferent pistols. The last one they shoot's a .44 Magnum.They buy it.INT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAYThe TV room. There are two big couches and a nice giant TV.The doors are open onto the balcony. The .44 is on thecoffee table. Dignan is sitting there with a map and somediagrams laid out. Anthony and Bob are on either side of him.Dignan's pointing at a notebook page with the heading"Escape Route."                         DIGNAN            OK. Escape route. The most important            thing you can have is an escape            route. Just in case somebody's            tailing us. Or even chasing us, as            the case may be --                         ANTHONY            You think we're going to be chased?                         DIGNAN            That's a good question. No. I don't.            I'm just being hypocritical here.            However, I will say --Bob reaches for the .44.                         BOB                   (quietly)            I'm going to take a look at this.                         DIGNAN                   (puts hand on gun)            Hang on This is important, Bob.            Anthony and I are responsible for            the internal situation. The money            and the people. You're responsible            for the external situation. The            streets and the getaway.                         BOB                   (nods)            That's my responsibility.                         DIGNAN            That's your domain.                         BOB            OK.Anthony is making a little man out of a scrap of paper.                         DIGNAN            Now. One thing we need to discuss            is timing. Timing is absolutely            crucial. What are you doing? Anthony!                         ANTHONY                   (looks up)            Nothing. Go ahead.Bob picks up the gun.                         BOB                   (to himself)            How many bullets can that hold?Dignan grabs the gun away and sets it down out of Bob's reach.                         DIGNAN            Bob.                         BOB            I'm paying attention. I just want            to look at it for a minute.                         DIGNAN                   (screaming)            What's your fucking problem? You're            a shithead!                         BOB            I just want to see how much bullets            it takes.Anthony picks up the gun off the table. He clicks the action.                         DIGNAN            Anthony, give me the fucking gun!                         ANTHONY                   (pulling away)            No, Dignan. It's not your gun. It's            all of ours.                         BOB                   (quietly)            I paid for it.                         DIGNAN            God DAMMIT.Dignan stands up, grabbing his papers.                         DIGNAN            You two just don't give a shit, do            you?Dignan starts out of the room. Anthony stands up.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, calm down.                         DIGNAN                   (turns back, screaming)            You're out! I'm not working with            either one of you!                         ANTHONY            Dignan! Stop!Dignan stops. Looking at Anthony.                         ANTHONY            Calm down. Take a deep breath.                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            You're right. You're right.Dignan sits back down and starts spreading out his papersagain. Freezes. Looks at Bob. Bob's looking at the gun. Boblooks at Dignan. Bob looks away. Nobody moves.EXT. DECK. EVENINGAnthony and Dignan have moved outside to the hot tub.Anthony pets Bob's dog HECTOR. Bob's brother FUTURE MANwalks up the path from the driveway with his blondecheerleader GIRLFRIEND.                         FUTURE MAN            What are you guys doing?                         ANTHONY            Nothing. We're just --                         FUTURE MAN            You seen my brother?                         DIGNAN            He's inside.Future Man goes inside. His girlfriend stands there on thedeck.                         GIRLFRIEND                   (smiles)            Hi.                         ANTHONY & DIGNAN            Hi.She stands there, looking across the yard. Anthony andDignan sit there in the hot tub, looking around. We hearFuture Man's loud voice inside:                         FUTURE MAN            Goddammit, Bob! Get your shit            together.Future Man comes back out. He stops by the hot tub.                         FUTURE MAN            What are you guys up to tonight?                         ANTHONY            Nothing much.                         DIGNAN            Just hanging around.Future Man walks back out the gate.                         GIRLFRIEND            Bye.She follows Future Man. Anthony and Dignan watch them walkaway. Bob comes back out with some drinks. He looks shaken.                         DIGNAN            What'd Future Man want?Bob shrugs and gets in the hot tub. They sip on their drinks.Bob's got a Heineken.                         BOB            He doesn't get it. Held never            understand what we're trying to            accomplish here. It's too dangerous            for him.                         DIGNAN            Well, in reality it's not that            dangerous, Bob. It's only dangerous            if you don't know what you're doing.                         BOB            Yeah, but what if some nut pulled            gun on you?                         ANTHONY            The only nut with a gun is going to            be Dignan.Anthony gets out of the hot tub and dives in the pool.                         DIGNAN                   (whispering, very serious)            You know, Bob, Anthony did kill            someone. He electrocuted our            janitor senior year.                         BOB            He electrocuted someone?                         DIGNAN            It was an accidental. I don't want            to go into the details. It was just            one of those senior pranks that            didn't really go right. I mean,            obviously, since Swifty's dead.            That's why Anthony never graduated.                         BOB            His name was Swifty?                         DIGNAN            Yeah. One of the nicest old guys            you'd ever know.                         BOB            That's too bad.                         DIGNAN                   (nods)            You know, when somebody gets            electrocuted, their skin starts            smoking. At least Swifty's did.INT. CAR. NIGHTAnthony, Dignan, and Bob are sitting in Bob's car, parked inthe dark. Bob's at the wheel. Anthony and Dignan are in theback. Anthony has on a dark blue ski cap. Dignan's wearing abaseball cap with the brim pulled down low. He puts a pieceof adhesive tape across his nose and hands the roll toAnthony.                         BOB            What are you doing?                         DIGNAN            I'm putting a piece of tape on my            nose.Anthony tapes his nose. They stare out the windshield. Thealarm on Dignan's digital watch goes off.                         DIGNAN                   (immediately, dead serious)            Let's get lucky.EXT/INT. BOOKSTORE. NIGHTAnthony and Dignan walk through the shadows in front of ahuge bookstore. The lights are on inside. They watch for aminute and then go to the front door. Dignan hides behind apost. Anthony knocks on the glass. An EMPLOYEE appears.                         ANTHONY            I left my sweater inside.The employee shakes his head. He can't hear through the glass.                         ANTHONY            Do you have a lost and found?The employee unlocks the door and opens it an inch.                         EMPLOYEE            We're closed.                         ANTHONY            I left my sweater in there.                         EMPLOYEE            Oh. I see. Come on in.Anthony goes inside. Dignan comes out from behind the post.                         EMPLOYEE            We're closed, sir.                         DIGNAN            Where's that guy going?                         EMPLOYEE            He left his sweater.                         DIGNAN            Well, I left some money in there.                         EMPLOYEE            Where?                         DIGNAN                   (pulls out the gun)            In the cash relister. Step away            from the door.Dignan goes in. They walk through the store.                         ANTHONY            Where's the manager?                         DIGNAN            Where's the other stocker?                         ANTHONY            There's another stocker, right?                         DIGNAN            We know there's another stocker.                         EMPLOYEE            Rob?Dignan points the gun at the employee.                         DIGNAN            Where is he? Where is Rob?                         EMPLOYEE            I don't know. Maybe in literature.            That's his section.                         DIGNAN            You got that?                         ANTHONY            Sure. Literature. The classics.The MANAGER is locking the door of his office.                         ANTHONY            Is that the manager?                         DIGNAN                   (to manager)            Unlock that door.                   (to Anthony)            Check the aisles.Anthony starts walking through the store, checking down eachaisle. He picks up a copy of The Air War on Hitler's Germanyand takes it with him. He goes through literature and seesROB in travel, kneeling in front of a low shelf with acarton of books beside him.                         ANTHONY            Rob?                         ROB                   (looks up, a little puzzled)            Uh-huh?                         ANTHONY            Why aren't you in literature?                         ROB                   (hesitates)            It's all full up.Dignan is in the office with the manager and the firstemployee. He's pointing at a drawer.                         DIGNAN            Open it up.The manager opens it. It's full of office supplies.                         DIGNAN            OK. Open the other. Let's go.The manager opens the other drawer. It's full of cash.Dignan looks at the manager. He looks back at the cash.                         DIGNAN            Put it in one of those.Dignan points at some bookstore bags. The manager picks up alittle one and starts to put the money in it.                         DIGNAN            A bigger one, you idiot.                         MANAGER                   (glares at Dignan)            Don't call me an idiot, you punk.                         DIGNAN            I'm sorry. But that bag's too small.                                            CUT TO:Anthony waiting outside the office door. Rob, the firstemployee, and the manager are sitting against the wall inthe office. The manager's got an intense, angry look on hisface, staring at Dignan. Dignan hands Anthony five littlebags full of money and starts to close the office door.                         DIGNAN            OK, guys. Just...Sit tight.Dignan closes the door.INT. CAR. NIGHTAnthony and Dignan jump into the car.                         DIGNAN            Go. Go. Drive slow.Bob drives. Pretty slow. Anthony and Dignan keep lookingback out the rear window. They're nervous. Nobody saysanything for a block or two.                         BOB            What happened?                         DIGNAN            Shhh. Slow down, Bob. Drive natural.                         BOB            This is natural.                         DIGNAN                   (looks at speedometer)            That's good. Keep it at forty.                         BOB            Did we get it?                         DIGNAN            Be cool, Bob. Be cool.                   (quickly)            Make that light.They keep driving. Breathing hard.                         ANTHONY            Holy shit.                         DIGNAN            We got it. We got it.                         BOB            How much is there?                         DIGNAN            Don't count it.EXT. HAMBURGER PLACE. NIGHTA picnic table in front of a hamburger place. Dignan isstanding up with his drink in his hand.                         BOB            Was Dignan screaming like, Get me a            bag!                         DIGNAN            No. I was calm.                         ANTHONY            What about what that guy said?                         DIGNAN            Oh, shit. That was scary. In the            middle of the robbery. The manager            looks at me. Right in the eye. And            goes, I'm going to remember you.                         BOB            Are you serious?                         ANTHONY            Yeah. He said that.                         DIGNAN            I swear to God. In a very quiet            voice.                         ANTHONY            Like he meant it.                         DIGNAN            Yeah.                         ANTHONY            Like he would find Dignan. One day.                         DIGNAN            Like I'm going to hunt you down and            kill you.Dignan stands there a minute and lets this sink in. Then hefinally sits down and they all eat their burgers.                         BOB            You really think he'll remember you?                         DIGNAN                   (smiles)            No. All he'll remember is a guy            with a piece of tape on his nose.They laugh smugly.EXT. 7-11. NIGHTAnthony, Dignan, and Bob come out of a 7-11. Bob's got aslurpee. He's carrying the WWII book.                         BOB            See you.                         ANTHONY            See you, Bob.                         DIGNAN            Hang on, Bob.Dignan goes up to Bob and hugs him. Bob's not smiling.                         DIGNAN            That was really good driving.            Seriously. I mean it.Bob nods and starts walking away, down the sidewalk.                         DIGNAN            We'll see you later, Bob. Good            driving.Anthony and Dignan sit on the curb. Anthony's drinking amilk. Dignan's still watching Bob walk alone down thesidewalk.                         DIGNAN            What's wrong with him?                         ANTHONY            What do you think?                         DIGNAN            Anthony, he sat in the car and            watched a 4-11 in progress. He got            what he deserved.                         ANTHONY            He was the driver, Dignan. He did            what he's supposed to do.                         DIGNAN            I didn't realize you were so            sensitive to Bob's feelings.            Considering I did the plans, you're            actually lucky you got --                         ANTHONY            Don't even say it, man.INT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAYDignan and Anthony are following Bob through his house. Bobis playing his electric guitar, not plugged in.                         DIGNAN            Bob, will you please listen?                         BOB            I don't want to talk about it.Bob strums more intensely. They're walking through thekitchen.                         DIGNAN            Look, I admit I was wrong for not            telling you before the robbery that            your share wouldn't be as equal as            ours. But the fact remains me and            Anthony were much more exposed to            danger.Bob has now come to the big glass patio doors where Hectorsits outside, looking in. Bob keeps playing as he looks atHector.                         DIGNAN            I mean, Jesus Christ, Bob. You            didn't have some vicious lunatic            screaming, "I'm going to remember            you!"                         BOB                   (smiles slightly,                   keeps playing)            That's true. That would give me            nightmares.                         DIGNAN            Bob, I've got nightmares.Bob stops playing. He looks at Dignan.                         BOB            You'll probably have them the rest            of your life.                         ANTHONY            What was that?Anthony opens the door to the patio.                         DIGNAN            What?They hear breaking glass somewhere as they follow Anthonyonto the patio. A voice yells out.                         VOICE            Motherfucker!                         ANTHONY            What's going on?Bob sets down his guitar as they go out of the yard to seewhat's happening.EXT. BOB'S HOUSE. EVENINGAnthony, Dignan, and Bob go around to the front. Bob'sneighbor PHIL runs down the driveway with a wrench in hishand. Phil is short and heavy, wearing a golf shirt. He'sgot a bloody nose.                         BOB            Phil. What happened?                         PHIL                   (hysterical)            Motherfucker. I'll kill him.                         BOB                   (looks around,                   suddenly concerned)            Who?PHIL'S GIRLFRIEND comes running out the front door.                         PHIL'S GIRLFRIEND            I've called the police. Oh, my God,            Phil.She reaches to hug him.                         PHIL            Don't touch me! I swear to God I'll            get that guy.                         PHIL'S GIRLFRIEND            I know you will, Phil. There was            nothing you could do. All you had            was a golf club.                         ANTHONY            You're bleeding, man. Sit down.A couple of NEIGHBORS have come over from across the street.                         NEIGHBOR            What happened?                         PHIL'S GIRLFRIEND            Some black man beat Phil up.                         PHIL            He didn't beat me up. He attacked me.                         PHIL'S GIRLFRIEND            He took two hundred dollars.                         ANTHONY                   (to Phil)            Tilt your head back.Later. It's dark out now. There's a police car parked acrossthe street and another pulling over, lights rolling. One ofthe OFFICERS walks across the yard, shining a flashlight inthe bushes. Dignan is talking with one of the other officers.                         DIGNAN            He was probably on drugs.                         OFFICER            They usually are.Two other cops are getting a statement from Phil. Anthonyand Bob are listening. Some neighbors are milling aroundtalking.                         PHIL            As soon as I opened the door I saw            him. A black guy. Looking through            my dad's tool box. I wanted to trap            this guy. So I closed the garage            door.                         COP            And that's when he hit you?                         PHIL                   (looking up to sky                   and concentrating)            He struck me. I fell down. He took            my wallet. Then he opened the            garage door and ran away.                         COP            How'd the window break?                         PHIL            I hit it with the golf club.Dignan's still talking to the other cop.                         DIGNAN            How long do you have to go?                         COP            26 weeks.                         DIGNAN            And what does that cover?                         COP            Social issues. Crime prevention.                         DIGNAN            Hand to hand combat?Dignan suddenly looks toward Bob's backyard. The cop nods.                         COP            Ground defense.                         DIGNAN            Did you hear that?                         OFFICER            What?                         DIGNAN            Shhh.Anthony's looking up into the treetops.                         BOB            What the fuck is Dignan doing with            that cop? He loves them.                         ANTHONY            There's a million places to hide            around here.                         BOB            Oh, yeah. They'll never catch the            guy.                         ANTHONY            I hope not.                         BOB            Phil probably provoked him.                   (looking at Dignan)            Where's he going?Dignan and the officer are walking over to the backyard.                         DIGNAN            No, it was a rustling sound.                         BOB'S VOICE            The dog. Look out for the dog.                         OFFICER            Is this dog going to bite?                         DIGNAN            No. Shit no.Dignan jumps the fence. The cop looks over and shines hisflashlight. Dignan's petting Hector. Hector's calm.                         DIGNAN            See? I don't know what he's talking            about.Bob starts walking across the street.                         ANTHONY            Where you going?                         BOB            Move.As Bob walks away he is looking back, past Anthony, towardthe backyard.                         ANTHONY            What's wrong?Anthony turns to look.In the backyard. Dignan is looking in the bushes.                         DIGNAN            He probably went into the next yard.            Shine the light over here.Dignan looks across the yard at the officer. The officer isshining the light on the marijuana plants. He looks at Dignan.                         DIGNAN            Those are...Dignan sprints across the yard and over the gate.                         OFFICER            Halt! Sir!Anthony and Bob are standing in the shadows across thestreet. They see Dignan come racing down the driveway. Theofficer is yelling behind the gate.                         OFFICER            Bill! He's running!The other officers are running from their cars.                         DIGNAN            The prowler! That way!The officers run past Dignan, toward the back. Anthony andBob take off as Dignan runs by. The three of them run fullspeed down the street, cutting across yards, between houses.They throw themselves over fences and scramble through bushes.                         DIGNAN            Way to go, Bob!                         BOB            I told you they were there.                         DIGNAN                   (about to explode)            So it's my fault?                         ANTHONY            Be quiet.INT. BOB'S CAR. DAYBob's at the wheel, Dignan in front, Anthony in the back.They're driving fast down the interstate, past fields andfarmhouses. Dignan's drawing out a route in felt tip pen ona Texaco roadmap.                         DIGNAN            In all probability nothing would of            happened. But why take the chance?            That's why I ran. I mean how many            plants were even back there? Five?            Ten?                         BOB            There were more than that.                         ANTHONY            Why don't you just tell them the            truth. Those belong to my neighbor            Phil.                         BOB            I don't know. I personally don't            need that shit in my life right now.                         ANTHONY            Nobody does.                         DIGNAN            Obviously. That's why we go on the            road. The thing about cops is they            have short attention spans.EXT. GAS STATION. DAYDignan fills up the tank and checks the oil. Bob tests thetire pressure. Anthony does the windows.                         DIGNAN            Can I get that credit card from you?                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            I don't like to use that credit            card, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            Why not?                         ANTHONY            Because my mom gets the bill.                         DIGNAN            She's not going to notice, Anthony.                         ANTHONY            I don't want to use it.                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            Well, then cut it in half.                         ANTHONY            I keep it for emergencies.                         DIGNAN            Anthony, we're on the run. This is            an emergency. It's only fair that...Anthony gets in the car. Pause. Dignan reaches into hispocket and takes out a wad of cash. He counts some. Standsthere a minute. Goes inside to pay.INT. CAR. DAYAnthony stretches out across the backseat on pillows,playing electronic football. Dignan reads Bob's WWII book.Bob eats a Ding-Dong and smokes a cigarette.EXT. FIREWORKS STAND. DAYA fireworks stand on the side of the highway. The car'spulled over and they're buying roman candles, M-80's, andBlack Cats from a KID wearing a baseball cap way back on hishead.As they get back on the highway Anthony lights a romancandle and fires it from the window. Dignan lights an M-80and throws it out of the car.EXT. LAKE. DAYThey drive to a big lake. A dog splashes in and swims for atennis ball. Anthony does some nice dives. Dignan swingsfrom a rope out over the water and lets go. Bob sits on abench.EXT. CAR. DAYLate afternoon. They're driving on the interstate. Anthony'sgot a copy of Runner's World magazine.                         ANTHONY            Here's mine right here. See?Anthony lifts up his foot so Dignan can compare his shoewith the picture.                         DIGNAN            See if mine are in there.                         ANTHONY                   (looks at Dignan's shoes)            Dignan, those aren't running shoes.                         DIGNAN            Yes, they are.                         ANTHONY            Look at the treads on those.                         DIGNAN            What about them?                         ANTHONY            They obviously weren't designed for            racing.                         DIGNAN            Well, those treads stink. You'd            blow a knee out racing on those.                         BOB            Will you guys shut up? God. It's            like having two little kids in the            car.                         ANTHONY            OK, Dad.                         DIGNAN            Really. OK, Dad. But seriously,            Anthony. These are fast shoes.                         ANTHONY            You've never had a pair of fast            shoes in your life, Dignan.                   (to Bob)            In fifth grade Dignan used to wear            cowboy boots for P.E.                         DIGNAN            That's real cool, Anthony. Yeah, I            wore boots. My parents wouldn't buy            me any $200 running shoes like            yours. I wasn't spoiled.                         ANTHONY            Don't call me spoiled, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            You were spoiled rotten.                         BOB            Enough. Jesus Christ.EXT. SIDE OF HIGHWAY. DAYAnthony and Dignan are lined up to race on the side of theroad.                         ANTHONY                   (yelling)            You want to say it, Bob?Fifty yards away, Bob's sitting on the hood of the carparked on the shoulder. He's reading a magazine. He shakeshis head without looking up.                         ANTHONY            I'll just say it.                         DIGNAN            I'll say it.                         ANTHONY            OK. Go ahead.                         DIGNAN            On your marks...                   (waits a second, says                   very fast:)            Get set go.They take off. Dignan has the jump, but Anthony pulls pasthim. A car blows by going the other way and they keep racing.Anthony's out in front as they pass Bob sitting on the car.Bob's watching. Dignan raises his fists into the air.                         DIGNAN                   (points at Anthony)            You owe me fifty bucks.                         ANTHONY            Bob?                         BOB            Anthony won.Bob gets in the car.                         DIGNAN            Bob wasn't even looking.EXT/INT. MOTEL. DAYA Holiday Inn. Bandera, TX. Bob's car is parked in front.Inside: Dignan, Bob, and Anthony are checking in. There's ateenage GIRL behind the counter. Dignan pays cash. The girlhands over the keys. She's looking at Dignan's shirt:                         GIRL            Was that shirt made from a towel?                         DIGNAN            What?                         GIRL                   (seeing his reaction)            It's just terrycloth, isn't it?                         DIGNAN            Yeah. I think so.EXT. MOTEL. DAYThey're walking along the balcony, looking for their room.Anthony has on his backpack. Dignan's got his tennis bag.Bob's got two large suitcases, a carry-on, and a garment bag.                         ANTHONY            Look, man. She didn't know anything            about shirts.                         DIGNAN            No, I'm not saying her. I'm just            saying, I don't know.                         ANTHONY            It's a great shirt. Don't worry            about it.They find the room and unlock the door.INT. CAR. NIGHTDriving in a small town. Bob's behind the wheel. Dignan's infront. Anthony's in back.                         DIGNAN            Armored trucks are very difficult            to steal, Anthony.                         ANTHONY            I know. But once you get inside            you're home free.                         DIGNAN            Right.. Get back to me on that one.            Once your plan is worth a shit.                         ANTHONY            It's not a plan. It's just --                         DIGNAN            Actually. If you knew the exact            route, you could plant explosives            under a manhole cover and blow it            up as it went over.                         ANTHONY            Yeah, but you wouldn't have the            truck if you blew it up.                         DIGNAN            True.There's a car stopped in front of them. A couple of girlsare standing beside it, talking to the driver. Bob can't getaround.                         DIGNAN            What the fuck is this?Dignan leans over and holds down the horn for about fiveseconds. The guy in the car sticks hi s hand out the windowand shoots the finger at them. Dignan sounds dead serious:                         DIGNAN            Ram him, Bob.Bob waits for a nervous moment. He does two quick honks. Theguy's reverse lights go on.                         DIGNAN            Hit him!Bob hits the gas and slams into the car. He puts his car inreverse and backs up a couple of feet. He leans forward andsees the back of the guy's car. It's all smashed up. The guygets out of his car, shaken up, and looks at them. Hisexpression is confused. Bob punches it and flies backwardsdown the street. The guy stands beside his car and watchesthem.                         DIGNAN            Shit, Bob. What the fuck did you do            that for?                         BOB            He wouldn't move.They go around the corner. Bob shifts into first and goes.                         BOB            Is he chasing us?                         DIGNAN            I don't know.                         ANTHONY            Speed up, Bob.INT. MOTEL ROOM. NIGHTThey're unlocking the door. They go inside.                         BOB            You think he got my license plates?                         ANTHONY            He looked too shaken-up.                         DIGNAN            I'm sure he did. We'll have to get            new plates.                         BOB            It's registered in my mother's name.                         DIGNAN                   (shakes his head)            What the fuck possessed you?                         BOB            You're the one who kept saying ram            him.Dignan's walking into the bathroom.                         DIGNAN            I meant tap him. As a warning.Dignan closes the door. Anthony lies down on one of the beds.Bob just stands there.INT. MOTEL ROOM. MORNINGThe next day. Dignan and Bob are still asleep. Bob's on afolding bed. Anthony's sitting at the table, reading anewspaper eating some cereal from one of those little boxeswhere you cut open the sides.EXT. MOTEL POOL. DAYAhthony's swimming laps. He stops and hangs onto the sidefor a minute. Across the pool he can see a good-lookingMexican MAID about twenty years old standing beside her cartlooking at him. He waves. She waves and gets back to work.A little while later. Anthony's sitting in a chair by thepool, letting the sun dry him off. He's wearing just aswimsuit. Dignan and Bob are fully dressed, standing besidehim.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, I can't get my hair cut.            That's just not possible, all right?                         DIGNAN            Then you're going to have to dye            it, Anthony. We've got to hide our            identities. Especially after Bob            crashed the car.Bob has no reaction to this.                         ANTHONY            No, Dignan. I'm sorry. I can't do            that.                         DIGNAN            Even if it's the difference between            some trooper recognizing us and            throwing us in prison or not?Silence.                         DIGNAN            Well, Bob, Samson has decided that            his hair is more important than our            safety.                   (screaming)            My friend, that is a reckless            decision! Let's go, Bob.Dignan starts walking away.                         DIGNAN            Bob. Are you coming?                         BOB            See you in a little while.                         ANTHONY            See you, Bob.INT. MOTEL ROOM. DAYAnthony's wearing a bathrobe, sitting on one of the beds.The maid unlocks the door and looks inside. She sees Anthonyand starts to go back out.                         ANTHONY            No, it's OK. Come on in.She goes in and starts cleaning up. Anthony sits down in oneof the chairs and makes conversation.                         ANTHONY            It's hot out, isn't it? Yeah. This            is a nice little town. So, what, do            you do all these rooms yourself? Or            what? I'm Anthony.He puts out his hand. She shakes it.                         ANTHONY            What's your name?                         MAID            Inez.                         ANTHONY            Inez?She nods.                         ANTHONY            Let me give you a hand with that.He helps her make the beds.EXT. MOTEL HALLWAY. DAYAnthony walks with Inez from room to room, helpinq her cleanup.                         ANTHONY            How do you say nineteen?                         INEZ            Dies y nueve.                         ANTHONY            Right. Yeah. Yo soy dies y nueve.            How old are you?INT. MOTEL ROOM. DAYInez opens the door to one of the room.. They go in to cleanit.                         ANTHONY            Are you ever scared of finding a            dead body in one of these rooms?                         INEZ                   (laughs)            No.                         ANTHONY            It could happen. This is the exact            kind of place where it happens. But            I don't want to scare you.Anthony picks up a magazine off somebody's suitcase. Heflips through it. Inez takes it out of his hands and puts itback on the suitcase.INT. BATHROOM. DAYInez is putting a new bar of soap in the shower. Anthonypicks up some wet towels off the floor. It's cramped in there.                         ANTHONY            People think because they're in a            hotel they can act like a slob.            It's bad manners.Inez takes the towels. She pulls the shower curtain shut.                         ANTHONY            Were you born in Mexico?                         INEZ            Cuba.                         ANTHONY            Oh, really? That's interesting. Do            you prefer Cuba or the United States?Inez is trying to get out of the bathroom but Anthony's inthe way.                         INEZ            Scuse me.EXT. MOTEL HALLWAY. DAYInez is pushing the cart. Anthony has his hand on the cart.                         ANTHONY            These towels are still warm.He picks one up and holds it to his face.                         ANTHONY            I guess from the dryer.He hands the towel to Inez. She holds it to her face.                         ANTHONY            I've never met anybody from Cuba            before.Inez says a few sentences of very fast Spanish. Anthony nods.Inez knocks on the door of a room.                         INEZ            Housekeeping.A WOMAN about thirty-five years old opens the door.                         WOMAN            We're just checking out.The woman goes back into the room. Inez follows her.INT. MOTEL ROOM. DAYThe woman's packing a bag on the bed. Anthony comes in. Thewoman looks at him. 8he's about to say something whenAnthony takes the liner out of the trashcan. The woman'sHUSBAND comes out of the bathroom. Anthony picks up somestuff off the floor.                         HUSBAND            Hi.                         ANTHONY            Hi.Anthony follows Inez into the bathroom. The husband looks athis wife.INT. BARBERSHOP. DAYDiqnan's sitting in the waiting area of a barbershop readinga newspaper. We can see Bob out the window, talking on a payphone. He hangs up and comes inside.                         DIGNAN            You can go first, Bob.                         BOB            My brother's in jail.                         DIGNAN            What are you talking about?EXT. BARBERSHOP. DAYThey're standing next to the spinning striped pole.                         BOB            The weed.                         DIGNAN            But it's not his. How can they            arrest Future Man?                         BOB            They said he's a drug dealer.Bob looks off into the distance. Sickened.                         DIGNAN            Those assholes. We got rapes.            Murders. Violent crimes every            second. And this is what they come            up with.                   (shaking his head)            They're just fucking him because            he's from a prominent family.INT. DINER. DAYThey're sitting at a table, waiting for their order.                         DIGNAN            I don't think they can make it            stick, Bob. I mean, what do they            actually have on Future Man?                         BOB            Well, the marijuana crop is a good            start.                         DIGNAN            That could be anybody's.                         BOB            They also found my two beam scale            in the garage.                         DIGNAN            Since when is it a crime to have a            scale in your house? Everybody has            a scale.                         BOB            The cops say it's a special kind of            scale drug dealers use in selling            marijuana.                         DIGNAN            So tell them the truth. What do you            use it for?                         BOB                   (pause)            I was just going to use it to see            how much I had.Dignan mulls this over for a minute.                         DIGNAN            How long has he been in there?                         BOB            I don't know.                         DIGNAN            Then how come they haven't set the            bail yet? That's unconstitutional.                         BOB            We'll have to see when we get back.Dignan looks at Bob for a minute.                         DIGNAN            What do you mean get back?                         BOB                   (pause)            Well, obviously, we got to go back.                         DIGNAN            Bob, that makes no sense.                         BOB            Dignan, he's my brother. I can't            just leave him there.                         DIGNAN            This could be a trap.                         BOB            Come on, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            Don't "Come on, Dignan" me.                         BOB            I'm going back.                         DIGNAN                   (louder)            Not in that car you're not.                         BOB            Watch me.                         DIGNAN            Good luck, since I got the keys.Bob glares at Dignan. Dignan shrugs. The waitress bringsover some glasses of water, ice clinking. Nobody saysanything while she sets them down. She walks away.                         BOB            Give me the keys, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            I can't do that, Bob.                         BOB            Dignan. You're going to give me            those keys or you're going to get            hurt.                         DIGNAN            Don't threaten me, Bob.                         BOB            Goddammit, Dignan! It's my car! If            you don't give me my keys, I swear            to God --EXT. STREET. DAYDignan drives the car slowly alongside: Bob walking down thesidewalk, staring straight ahead. Dignan's, got his windowdown.                         DIGNAN            Look, Bob. I understand your            loyalty. You're a good person. But            right now you're not using your            best judgement.Bob keeps walking.                         DIGNAN            Future Man would not want you to go            to jail I promise you. Just get in            the car and we'll talk about it.No reaction. Bob keeps walking straight ahead.                         DIGNAN            Future Man would never go to jail            for you, I'll tell you that.                         BOB            His name's not Future Man, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            I know it's not.                         BOB            You don't even know his name.                         DIGNAN            Yes, I do.                         BOB            What is it?                         DIGNAN            Just get in the car, Bob.                         BOB            What's his name?                         DIGNAN            OK, Bob. I don't know his name. You            know why? Because I don't care.            He's Future Man. But I care about            you. And to me it doesn't make            sense to go back to the scene of a            crime. Will you get in the car, Bob?            This is stupid.Bob stops walking.                         BOB            It's not your decision and he's not            your brother, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            That's right. I only have one vote.            We'll go talk with Anthony and            figure it out.Pause. Bob gets into the backseat. Dignan looks back at himfor a minute.                         DIGNAN            You're going to ride in the back?Bob nods and looks out the window.                         DIGNAN            Come on, Bob. Get in front.Bob exhales and gets out. He gets in up front. Dignan looksat him for a minute.                         DIGNAN            You've got a beautiful walk, Bob.                         BOB            Let's go.INT. MOTEL ROOM. NIGHTDignan and Bob open the door and go in. Inside: Inez and twoother Hispanic MAIDS are sitting at the table by the window.One's about seventeen and a little heavy, the other's in hermid-thitties. There's a bunch of glasses and a bottle of rumon the table. One of the maids is cutting up a banana. Inezsmiles at Dignan. Dignan looks puzzled.                         DIGNAN            Hi. How's it going.Suddenly there's a loud crunching, grinding sound. Dignanand Bob are startled. They look around the room. The soundstops.Anthony comes out of the bathroom carrying the pitcher froma blender. It's full to the top with yellow liquid. He seesDignan and Bob and stops. Pause.                         ANTHONY            I thought you guys went to get your            hair cut.                         DIGNAN            No. We didn't.Silence.                         ANTHONY            We're making banana daqueris.Anthony holds up the pitcher. Dignan looks at it. Nods. Pause.                         ANTHONY            This is Inez. Carmen. Anita.                         DIGNAN            Hi.                         ANTHONY            Inez, this is --                         DIGNAN            Jerry.                   (pointing to Bob)            And this is my associate Cornelius.A strange expression crosses Bob's face.                         DIGNAN            May I have a word with you, please?                         ANTHONY            Sure.EXT. MOTEL HALLWAY. NIGHTOutside the room. Dignan closes the door. There's threehousekeeping carts in the hall.                         DIGNAN            What the fuck is going on here?                         ANTHONY            What. What's the matter?                         DIGNAN            Anthony, we're on the run from the            law here. Did you tell these people            your real name?                         ANTHONY            No. I didn't. Dignan, they don't            speak English.                         DIGNAN            They don't?                         ANTHONY            No. Not really. Inez speaks a little.                         DIGNAN            Which one was that?                         ANTHONY            On the left.Dignan cracks open the door and looks inside.                         ANTHONY            She's from Cuba.                         DIGNAN            No kidding.                         BOB            Dignan.                         DIGNAN                   (closes the door)            Anthony. Bad news.EXT. MOTEL POOL. DAYThey walk around the motel.                         ANTHONY            How long are they going to hold him?                         BOB            I don't know. I don't know anything.            Except Phil says they got him. And            he's in jail.                         DIGNAN            He needs to hire an attorney.                         ANTHONY            No, no. Look. OK. Let's stay here            until we find out what's going on.                         BOB            Anthony, I --                         ANTHONY            And if Future Man doesn't get let            out of jail in 48 hours, then we go            back. All right?                         DIGNAN            Now that makes sense. We'll hang            out for a couple of days. Get a            little R&R. Make sure Future Man's            OK and then get back on the road.                         ANTHONY            As long as he gets out OK.                         DIGNAN            Obviously. That's a given.                         ANTHONY            Bob?                         BOB            What?                         ANTHONY            Is that OK?Pause. Bob looks at Dignan. Looks at Anthony.                         BOB                   (shrugs)            Yeah. I guess so.They shake hands and start back to the room.                         DIGNAN            See, now we've got a plan.                         ANTHONY            Don't worry about it, Bob.INT. MOTEL ROOM. NIGHTAnthony, Dignan, Inez, Carmen, and Anita are sitting crowdedaround the little table by the window in the motel room.They've got banana daqueris and a bottle of wine. Moonlightcomes through the window. Bob is standing up in front ofthem with a banana daqueri in his hand. He's singing a bluesnumber acapella. He's got a good voice.INT. MOTEL ROOM. NIGHTDignan and Bob are playing slapjack with Carmen and Anita.Everyone's got their hands ready as  Carmen turns one cardthen the next. Bob's having a conversation in fluent Spanishwith them about Las Vegas. He's talking about the rules atdifferent casinos: Bally's, Caesar's, the Desert Inn.Dignan's paying close attention to the deck. A jack comes upand he slams it.EXT. MOTEL POOL. NIGHTThere's a light in the pool. Anthony and Inez are swimming.Anthony swims around her with his eyes just above the water.He goes under and comes up grabbing onto her. She laughs.                         INEZ            Does my skin feel soft, Anthony?                         ANTHONY                   (passionate)            God, yes. Like silk.Inez starts to giggle.                         ANTHONY            What?                   (starts laughing)            What?                         INEZ            Like silk?                         ANTHONY            God. That does sound corny.  Oh,            your skin feels so soft and silky.            But it really kind of does.He kisses her.                         DIGNAN            No lifeguard on duty. Swim at your            own risk.They look up. Dignan's standng at the other side of the pool.He smiles.                         DIGNAN            You know, I did save Anthony from            drowning once, Inez. Tell her,            Anthony.                                            CUT TO:Dignan sitting with his feet in the pool. Anthony and Inezare sitting on the steps beside him, in the shallow end.                         DIGNAN            See, one day we were playing hot            box over at my next door neighbor            Mr. Langston's house and Anthony            fell in the pool and got knocked            unconscious. I had to dive in and            save him.                         ANTHONY            This was in fourth grade.                         DIGNAN            Mr. Langston performed            cardiopulmonary recitation. CPR.            I've never said this before, but            frankly I thought Anthony was dead.            The veins in his face were all            sticking out. His skin was blue. He            truly did look dead.                         ANTHONY            After that my parents never let me            go to Dignan's again.                         DIGNAN            They blamed my family for everything.            They always said Mr. Langston saved            Anthony's life.Dignan stares wistfully across the pool. Anthony looks athim for a minute.                         ANTHONY            But if it wasn't for Dignan I            probably would of died.                         DIGNAN                   (nodding, whisper voice)            Yes...It's true.They're all quiet for a minute. Inez hangs onto the side.INT. MOTEL ROOM. NIGHTBob's sitting in the room by himself, close to the TV,watching a war movie.EXT. MOTEL. DAYThe next morning. Dignan bursts out the door of the motelroom. He runs across the parking lot.                         DIGNAN            Son of a bitch.Dignan runs back into the room. He comes out with Anthony.                         DIGNAN            He's gone. He stole the car.                         ANTHONY            Where was it parked?                         DIGNAN            Right here.Anthony looks around the parking lot.                         DIGNAN            That coward. Son of a bitch.                         ANTHONY            Maybe he just went to the store.                         DIGNAN            He took his stuff. He's gone.                   (pause)            I should of seen this. I should of            expected it. Bob doesn't have any            character.Anthony puts his hands in his pockets. Looks out at thehighway.                         ANTHONY            He went back for his brother.                         DIGNAN            We said 48 hours.                         ANTHONY            That's a long time to be in jail.They stand there in the empty parking lot. Anthony goesinside.INT. MOTEL ROOM. DAYIn the room. The blinds are pulled. Anthony's sitting at theend of a bed. Dignan's pacing around the room.                         DIGNAN            We'll get him. Don't worry about            that. We'll go back. We'll find him.            And we'll blow up his car. Or do            something. I promise you.Anthony gets up and walks to the bathroom. He shuts the door.Dignan follows him over to the sink and sits on the counter.                         DIGNAN            I mean, let's face it. Bob was dead            weight. We're a lot better off            without him.                   (pause)            But who could expect it? Just like            that. Steals the fucking car. What            kind of person pulls that --Anthony opens the door and walks out.                         ANTHONY            Bob didn't steal the car. He told            me he was going. He had to go help            his brother.Anthony sits back down on the bed. Dignan's shocked.                         DIGNAN            When'd he tell you?                         ANTHONY            This morning.                         DIGNAN            Where was I?                         ANTHONY            You were asleep.                         DIGNAN            He told you and you let him do it.                         ANTHONY            He told me because he wanted to            know if I wanted to go.                         DIGNAN                   (hesitates)            If you wanted to go? What were you            going to do? Just leave me here by            myself?                         ANTHONY            Well, I didn't do it, did I?                         DIGNAN            So when you were saying Bob's at            the store and acting real suprised,            that was just an act. You were            just --                         ANTHONY            Bob went to help his brother. I            understand that and I can't help it            if you don't.                         DIGNAN            I understand that if I had a few            more friends like you and Bob I'd            be dead.                         ANTHONY            If you say so.INT. DINER. DAYAnthony and Dignan are sitting at a booth. Anthony's got aroadmap spread out on the table. There's a long silence.                         DIGNAN            If you'd gone with Bob you'd            probably be in Weatherford by now.            Of course I'd be here frantically            worrying thinking you must of got            kidnapped.                         ANTHONY            I didn't realize you had such an            incredible ability to feel sorry            for yourself, Dignan.                         DIGNAN            Well, the world is a little bit            colder today.Anthony sits there thinking for a second, stating into space.Then he looks back at his map. He draws some lines in twodifferent colors of felt tip pens.                         ANTHONY            You want to look at the map?Pause. Dignan kind of looks at the map, without leaningforward. Anthony turns the map more in Dignan's direction.Dignan leans forward, looking.                         ANTHONY            See. Here's where we are.They look at the map for a minute. Dignan looks out thewindow.                         DIGNAN            I didn't know he had it in him.                   (pause)            I guess you could say the child has            become the father of the man.EXT/INT. MOTEL/TOWN. DAYAnthony runs down the sidewalk, cuts across the street, andgoes around the side of the motel. He pulls off his jacketas he goes up the stairs. He spots Inez's cart. He walksover to the room she's cleaning. She's in there making thebed. Anthony closes the door and grabs her by her belt.She's laughing and he pushes her onto the bed. He unbuttonsher dress. She jerks a sheet out of the way. It swings inthe air.Then we see Anthony and Inez walking down the sidewalk. He'sgot one arm wrapped tight around her shoulders and she's gothers around his waist. They're talking while they walk,going past people in the town.They watch each other walking reflected in a window.EXT. MOTEL. EVENINGDignan is doing the butterfly in the pool. Anthony and Inezwalk over and wait for him at the end of the pool.                         ANTHONY            We're going over to this bar if you            feel like going.                         DIGNAN            No. I'm going to swim. I'll see you            later.Dignan treads water. Inez looks at Anthony.                         ANTHONY            Why don't you come with us.                         DIGNAN            OK.Dignan gets out of the pool.INT. MEXICAN BAR. NIGHTAnthony, Dignan, and Inez are drinking beers with limes andsalt. The mood is good and they're getting drunk. Anthonyand Inez dance. Then Dignan and Inez. Mexican-style, stompingtheir feet and clapping. There's a scruffy dog in the barand he barks at the dancers. Anthony kisses Inez and theywhisper to each other. Dignan orders another beer and movesover to the pool table. A skinny Mexican MAN puts his armaround Dignan's shoulder. He's drunk and slurring his words.So's Dignan.                         MAN            Hello, my friend. You in the Army,            yes?                         DIGNAN            No. I just have short hair.                         MAN            Is that your chiquita?                         DIGNAN            No, my friend knows her.                         MAN            She Chicano, yes?Dignan nods.                         MAN            You like Chicanos?                         DIGNAN            Sure.He says something in fast Spanish to the people at his tableand they smile.                         MAN            Play pool? For one cerveza.Dignan nods. The guy racks up the balls. They start shooting.Dignan makes a hard shot.                         MAN                   (smiling)            You a good pool player.                         DIGNAN            Got a little lucky.                         MAN            Where's your friend? He go with the            chiquita?Dignan looks over to the bar. Anthony and Inez are gone.                         DIGNAN            I don't know.                         MAN            She is a good looking woman.Dignan ignores this. They keep playing. Dignan finally makesthe eight ball. The man shakes Dignan's hand and holds on.                         DIGNAN            Guess I'll get another Tecate.                         MAN            Si. Tecate. You like to fight?                         DIGNAN            What?                         MAN            Fight. You know.He pulls Dignan in and with his other hand fakes a hard punch.                         DIGNAN            No. Just pool.                         MAN            You Hoto?                         DIGNAN                   (pulls away)            Fuck you. You a Hoto.                         MAN                   (smiles)            No. Me no Hoto. Tecate?                         DIGNAN            Right.INT. BATHROOM. NIGHTThe bathroom is very small with one bare light bulb. Dignanstands at the urinal, muttering to himself.The door opens and Dignan turns around just in time to seethe Mexican man throw a hard punch. He hits Dignan in thestomach, punches him in the face. Dignan goes down hard. Theguy kicks him and curses in Spanish.                         MAN            Pinche cabrone. Puta madre.The bartender comes in with a bat in his hand and startstalking fast and angry in Spanish. The guy gets out.INT. MOTEL ROOM. NIGHTDignan's sitting in bed, watching TV. He's got a fat lip anda big bruise over his eye. Anthony's sitting in a chairbeside him. Inez brings over a glass of water and some icein a washcloth. She gives the ice to Dignan for his eye. Sheputs the glass of water on the nightstand where there's somefast food layed out for Dignan: burger, fries, an apple pie.Inez goes into the bathroom, closes the door, and turns onthe water. Anthony's sitting there with his hands clasped,not looking at the TV.                         ANTHONY            I can't believe he just jumped you.                         DIGNAN            Can you hand me those french fries.Anthony hands him the fries. Dignan watches the TV.                         ANTHONY            I wish I'd been there.                         DIGNAN            Would of been nice.Anthony looks at Dignan.                         ANTHONY            Man. I'm sorry. We just went for a            walk --                         DIGNAN            I don't really feel like talking            about it. The only thing I feel            like is getting the fuck out of            this place.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            We need a car.For the first time Dignan looks away from the TV, at Anthony.                         DIGNAN            I have an idea for that.                         ANTHONY            What?                         DIGNAN            Inez has a master key to all these            rooms, doesn't she?                   (pause)            Doesn't she?                         ANTHONY            I don't think we can do that.                         DIGNAN            I know we can. It's real simple. We            go into a room, grab some car keys            and --                         ANTHONY            What I'm saying is she wouldn't go            for that.                         DIGNAN            She doesn't need to know.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            I don't know, Dignan. I just --                         DIGNAN            Look. I'm ready to get the fuck out            of here. It's real torture for me            to be here. Getting the shit kicked            out of me by Mexicans.                         ANTHONY            Shh.                         DIGNAN            No one to back me up. Now I have a            good idea. So unless you come up            with something better --                         ANTHONY            Dignan. I can't do that. All right?            I just can't.The bathroom door opens.                         DIGNAN            Then you better think of something.Inez comes back in.                         INEZ            How are you, Jerry?                         DIGNAN                   (staring at TV)            I feel great, Inez.                         ANTHONY                   (kisses her)            I'll see you later.Inez goes outside. She closes the door.                         ANTHONY            I don't think we need any keys,            Dignan. I think I can hotwire a car            for us.                         DIGNAN            You don't know how to hotwire.                         ANTHONY            Yes, I do. Bob taught me.                         DIGNAN            Bob taught you how to get            electrocuted.                         ANTHONY            No, I'm serious. He made me a            diagram.EXT. SIDEWALK. DAYDignan's standing on a corner alone. He looks sullen.EXT. SIDEWALK. DAYAnthony walks down an alley. He goes past a beat-upconvertible. He stops, hands in his pockets. He looks bothways.He cuts back to the car, opens the door, and slips inside.INT. STOLEN CAR. DAYAnthony's behind the wheel. He hand signals a turn and pullsup next to Dignan. Dignan shakes his head as he looks at thecar. He gets in. They drive through the town. The wind'sblowing hard. Anthony smiles at Dignan. Dignan tries not tosmile.                                            CUT TO:Dignan sitting in the parked car with the motor running. Inthe side mirror he's watching Anthony and Inez. Anthony'ssaying goodbye. He walks back to the car and gets in. Heputs it in gear and they drive off.                         DIGNAN            What'd you say to Inez?Anthony shrugs.                         DIGNAN            "I'll come back for you. I love            you, Inez."Anthony is silent.                         DIGNAN            "I'm going to take you away from            all this windexing and making beds."Silence. Dignan exhales and looks out the window.EXT. HIGHWAY. DAYThe car is on the shoulder, raised up on a Jack with thehood open. Anthony's looking underneath the car. Dignan'sstanding in the middle the road with his hands in hispockets. No cars in sight.Anthony starts messing around under the hood. He tests somewires and connections. He steps away from the car.                         ANTHONY            Man, I don't know anything about            cars.Dignan stares down the road.                         DIGNAN            You really know how to pick them.Anthony walks over to Dignan. He stands beside him for aminute.                         ANTHONY            I think we better go home.                         DIGNAN            Don't panic, Anthony.                         ANTHONY            I'm not. But there's --                         DIGNAN            You can't just run home every time            things get tough. First of all,            we've got enough dough to --                         ANTHONY            Our money situation is not good.                         DIGNAN                   (clapping him on the back)            You're so spoiled. What is "not            good" to you? Only a few hundred --                         ANTHONY            We've got sixteen dollars.                         DIGNAN            That's not correct.Dignan stares at Anthony.                         DIGNAN            Give it to me.Pause. Anthony reaches into his pocket and pulls out themoney. Dignan takes it. He counts it. He looks at Anthony.                         DIGNAN            Sixteen dollars.                         ANTHONY            I know.                         DIGNAN            Where's the rest?Dignan stares at Anthony. Pause.                         ANTHONY            I had to give some to Inez.                         DIGNAN            How much?                         ANTHONY            $383.Dignan frowns slightly. Pause. He screams:                         DIGNAN            What!Pause. Dignan runs at the car and kicks the door as hard ashe can. It makes a big dent. He runs down the shoulder andgrabs a big rock. He runs at the car and smashes the rockthrough the windshield. He stands still. He turns to Anthony.He walks back over to him, yelling.                         DIGNAN            You gave $383 to the goddamn            housekeeper! What the fuck is your            problem?                         ANTHONY            She needed it.                         DIGNAN            A $500 tip! For the housekeeper!                         ANTHONY            Her name's Inez. Stop calling her            the housekeeper.                         DIGNAN            That's what she is!                         ANTHONY            I know that. But --                         DIGNAN            You're in love with the fucking            housekeeper!                         ANTHONY            Shut up!                         DIGNAN            What are you going to do, get            married? Have a bunch of little            idiot janitor brats! And go around            scrubbing the --Anthony slaps Dignan hard in the face.                         ANTHONY            Stop!                   (pause)            Now listen to me.Dignan punches Anthony is the face. Follows it up with oneafter another. Anthony ducks and puts his arms out. He fallson one knee. Dignan immediately turns and walks to the car.Anthony stands up. He's got a bloody nose. He stares atDignan. Not angry. Just weary.Dignan pulls his tennis bag out of the car. He shuts thedoor and walks down the highway.Anthony walks to the car and takes out his backpack. Hepulls it tight around his shoulders. He looks down thehighway at Dignan. Then turns and walks the other way, intothe distance.                                            BLACKOUT.FADE IN:EXT. GOLF COURSE. DAYA cold day on a nice country club course. Anthony watchesBob hit a hard slide straight into the rough. Bob standsthere in a frozen follow-through. Then he suddenly swingshis club and hums it down the fareway. He starts to walkback to the golf cart.                         ANTHONY            Bob, where you going?                         BOB            I'm not playing any more golf.                         ANTHONY            Why not?                         BOB            Cause I'm not getting any better.            It's a waste of time.                         ANTHONY            You've only been playing for two            weeks, Bob. It takes a long time to            learn this game.                         BOB            You think I'm improving?                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            Yes. You just got to stick with it.Bob looks down the fareway. He takes a deep breath andstarts walking toward his club about twenty yards away.INT. GOLF CART. DAYIn the cart. Bob's driving. There's a brief silence.                         BOB            You don't have to talk about it if            you don't want to.                         ANTHONY            No, I don't mind.                         BOB            I know it must of been a bad            experience. But it doesn't sound            like it was your fault.                         ANTHONY            Well, I didn't mean to electrocute            him. But the whole operation was my            idea.MONTAGE: Electronics wizardry. Splicing wires. Buzzingelectrodes. A filament lights up blue. Pliers and clippersrewire a circuit breaker, short out the P.A. system,electrify doors and windows. Anthony continues in VOICEOVER.                         ANTHONY (VO)            It took six months of research. I            did all the wiring myself. Switched            AC to DC. Doubled the voltage.            Shorted out the generator. The            whole school was shut down.                         BOB (VO)            That's pretty complicated for a            senior prank.                         ANTHONY (VO)            I don't like that word prank, Bob.            I was trying to do something more            than a prank.EXT. SCHOOL. DAYA large school building. Tall oak trees and benches in theshade. Green and blue lights blink in the windows. Whiteflashes and loud jolts of energy dance from room to room.Mozart plays in the distance.Students begin to swarm out into the yard.                         ANTHONY (VO)            I wanted to create an event.            Something everyone would remember.            And at first it worked perfectly.            The whole school was standing            around outside. Kids running all            over the place. Everybody laughing.EXT. GOLF COURSE. DAYAnthony and Bob are standing on the seventeenth green.                         ANTHONY            Even the school custodian Swifty            thought it was great. He kept            laughing and shaking his head the            whole time he tried to disconnect            the generator. And then suddenly                   (snaps his finger)            total silence except for Swifty            hanging off the generator with his            leg stuck to it being electrocuted.Anthony stares down the fareway.                         ANTHONY            Actually he died of a heart attack            brought on by the shock. He was an            older guy.INT. GOLF CART. DAYAnthony and Bob are driving back to the clubhouse.                         ANTHONY            I felt terrible. I'd known Swifty            since first grade. He was Dignan's            medicine man for Indian Guides.            They called each other Rattlesnake            and Killer Whale. Whenever Dignan            came to visit me he would act like            he and Swifty weren't that good of            friends, but that was just to make            me feel better. The whole rest of            the school had turned against me.EXT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAYAnthony and Bob are sitting by the pool, drinking beers.Future Man's swimming laps even though it's cold out.                         ANTHONY            At first they were going to charge            me with manslaughter. That's partly            why I was in custody so long. Sixty            days.                         BOB            Sixty days?                         ANTHONY            Yeah. One minute you're studying            Great Expectations and the next            minute you're drawing the Holy Mary            for some kid who tried to stab his            girlfriend.                         BOB            Why were you drawing the Holy Mary?                         ANTHONY            Prison tatoos. I got to be pretty            good. It's not like drawing on paper.                                            CUT TO:Future Man toweling off. He wears a Speedo swimsuit. Hewalks over to Bob and Anthony. Anthony's just finishing adrawing of a leaping jungle cat in black and red ink onBob's shoulder.Future Man stops and looks at them with no feeling.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            It's a panther.Pause. Future Man looks at Bob.                         FUTURE MAN            How's that 700 bucks coming?                         BOB            I'm working on it.                         FUTURE MAN            Hard to find it sitting by the pool            drinking beer and bullshitting.He walks inside.                         ANTHONY            I thought he didn't have to pay            anything because of the technicality.                         BOB            Yeah, but he still has the            aggravation. Three days sitting in            a cell.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            Were you adopted, Bob?                         BOB            Why do you say that?                         ANTHONY            Well, because you guys don't look            alike.                         BOB            No. I wasn't adopted.Long pause.                         ANTHONY            Was Future Man adopted?                         BOB            Jesus Christ! No.INT. CAR. DAYDignan and APPLEJACK are sitting in, a '72 Monte Carlo bythe curb two houses down from Bob's. Applejack is a smallblack man with white hair. It's hard to tell exactly how oldhe is. Around sixty-five.                         DIGNAN            There's a lot of valuable shit in            there, Applejack. The silver and            the china. The crystal. And the            grandfather clock. Goddammit, I bet            that clock's worth ten grand.                         APPLEJACK            Why the fuck do we need to blow up            the car? It doesn't make any            goddamn sense.                         DIGNAN            Just settling an old score. You            might say revenge.                         APPLEJACK            That sounds like a lot of bullshit            that'll land us in jail.                         DIGNAN            We might have to take that chance.            Cause I feel pretty strongly about            this.                         APPLEJACK            Is that Buckethead?Anthony is walking Hector down the driveway.                         DIGNAN            Get down.Anthony does some stretching exercises in the driveway.                         APPLEJACK            Is that him?                         DIGNAN            Wait a second.They watch Anthony and Hector start down the street.                         DIGNAN            That's Anthony.                         APPLEJACK            That's your friend Anthony?                         DIGNAN            Yeah.                         APPLEJACK            What's he doing here?                         DIGNAN            Looks like he's staying with            Buckethead. That's what I figured.            He's probably got his own room.            Let's see where he's going.Applejack puts the car in gear. They drive slowly.                         DIGNAN            Don't get too close.Anthony looks back.                         DIGNAN            Stop. He saw us.Anthony keeps jogging with Hector.                         DIGNAN            Wait. Did he see us?                         APPLEJACK            We're going too slow. It looks like            we're following him.Anthony goes around a corner, down an alley.                         DIGNAN            Speed up.They pull down to the end of the alley. Anthony and Hectorare racing down the alley.EXT. ALLEY. DAYDignan gets out of the car.                         DIGNAN            Anthony!Anthony looks back. He stops running.                         DIGNAN            Wait up.Dignan jogs down the alley. He stops a few feet away fromAnthony.                         DIGNAN            Where you going?Anthony points down the alley.                         ANTHONY            Just walking Hector.Dignan looks down the alley. He looks at Anthony. Pause.                         ANTHONY            When'd you get back?                         DIGNAN            Ah. Couple days ago.Pause.                         DIGNAN                   (under his breath)            You want to shake hands.Anthony puts his hand out. They shake. Pause. Anthony looksdown the alley.                         ANTHONY            Who's in the car?                         DIGNAN            That's Applejack. You want to meet            him?                         ANTHONY            Sure.They walk to the car.                         DIGNAN            This is Applejack.They shake.                         ANTHONY            Nice to meet you, Applejack.                         APPLEJACK            You're Anthony?                         ANTHONY            Yeah.                         APPLEJACK            I hear you're a good thief.Anthony shrugs and smiles. He nods.EXT. HAMBURGER PLACE. DAYA hamburger place with no other customers. Anthony, Dignan,and Applejack are sitting at an outdoor table. It's cold andtheir jackets are zipped up tight.                         APPLEJACK            I'm just sitting at this bar            drinking my drink when this fine            chick walks by. She was a living            doll. And the big motherfucker who            came in with her sees me looking,            when he walks by he steps on my            foot. Doesn't say shit. Just takes            a seat with his lady. Well, I            holler out to him, If I was as big            as you, ain't no way in the hell            you'd of stepped on my foot like            that. He just laughed. He says,            Little man, take your foot and put            it in your pocket. I said, No, how            about I take my foot and I stick it            up your ass? Man, we went to war            right there. I hit him so hard I            knocked his nuts in his watchpocket.            But this motherfucker wouldn't go            down. Then all the sudden, out of            nowhere, Dignan came up behind him            and smashed a bottle on his head.            And that big old boy went down.            That's how I met Dignan. Good cat            to have on your side. He'll go to            war with you. He don't give a fuck.Applelack and Dignan slap hands.                         DIGNAN            Applejack would of got him anyway.            This was just the quicker war.                         ANTHONY            You really hit a guy with a bottle?Dignan takes a little notebook out of his pocket.                         DIGNAN            Pretty much. He kind of fell into            me. But wait a second.Dignan opens the notebook on the table.                         DIGNAN            I want you to look at this.                         ANTHONY            What is it?                         DIGNAN            It's big, Anthony. Real big. It's            called Hinckley Cold Storage.                         ANTHONY            What's Hinckley Cold Storage?EXT. HINCKLEY COLD STORAGE. DAYAnthony, Dignan, and Applejack are standing in front of amassive structure with ladders and towers and huge doors.Applejack's car is parked behind them. There are truckslined up along the loading docks. A big sign says HinckleyCold Storage.                         DIGNAN            Mr. Henry has an inside source. We            call him Steve. That's where we get            our information.                         ANTHONY            Who's Mr. Henry?                         DIGNAN            You'll meet him this afternoon.            He's helping us set it up.                         APPLEJACK            Did you ever hear of the S. Cooper            Trust robbery?                         ANTHONY                   (shakes his head)            Uh-uh.                         APPLEJACK            S. Cooper Trust,in San Francisco?                         ANTHONY            Uh-uh.                         DIGNAN            Mr. Henry pulled that job in 1965.            It's famous. Applejack was the            wheel man. Did you use this same            car, Applejack?                         APPLEJACK            Hell, no. This is a '72. I was            driving a '63 Pontiac.                         ANTHONY            What exactly is this place? Freezers?                         DIGNAN            Right. Freezers. Imported foods.Anthony stares at Hitckley Cold Storage.                         APPLEJACK            Let's go, Abdul-Shabazz.                         ANTHONY            Abdul-Shabazz?                         DIGNAN            Just a nickname.EXT. WAREHOUSE. DAYAnthony, Dignan, and Applejack are standing on the sidewalkat the front door of an old warehouse. Dignan knocks on thedoor, then tries the bell. They all wait.                         ANTHONY            What time did he say to be here?                         DIGNAN            Right now.Dignan looks in the window. He tries the door. It's locked.                         APPLEJACK            I can knock a man out with a six            inch punch.                         ANTHONY            What do you mean?                         APPLEJACK            Feel this.Anthony puts his hand up. Applejack does a short, hard jab.Anthony shakes his hand out.                         ANTHONY                   (whistles)            You could give somebody a concussion.                         DIGNAN            Let me feel that.Dignan puts his hand up. Applejack nails it.                         DIGNAN                   (grabbing his hand)            Ow. Shit.A drop of water hits Dignan on the head. He looks up. Morewater falls on him. He gets out of the way. Everyone looksup. There's a man on the roof. He laughs, hysterically. Theystare up at him.                         MAN            How's the weather down there?                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            Mr. Henry?                         MAN            Come on in!                         DIGNAN            It's locked.                         MAN            No, it's not.Dignan shrugs. He goes over to the door. Mr. Henry pourssome more water on him.A minute later: a steel garage door opens and the man stepsoutside. He is tall, about sixty years old with white hairclipped short and a trim goatee. He wears black trousers,black shoes, no shirt, and a string of animal teeth aroundhis neck. This is MR. HENRY. He puts a towel around Dignan'sshoulders and pats him on the back.                         MR. HENRY            Dignan. Good to see you. Good to            see you Applejack.                   (looks at Anthony)            Who are you?                         DIGNAN            This is Anthony Adams, Mr. Henry.                         MR. HENRY            This is no good.Mr. Henry stares hard at Dignan. He looks to Anthony. Helooks back to Dignan.                         MR. HENRY            This is no good, bringing him here.            What are you thinking? What the            shit, man? Are you crazy?Mr. Henry stares at Dignan. He looks to Anthony.                         MR. HENRY            I'm pulling your leg. Abe Henry.They shake hands. Mr. Henry points to ROWBOAT, a tall, olderblack man standing in the doorway. Rowboat wears a whitewindbreaker.                         MR. HENRY            This is my business manager, Rowboat.                         ANTHONY            Nice to meet you.                         MR. HENRY            That's a sharp jacket.                         ANTHONY            Thanks.INT. WAREHOUSE. DAYThe second floor of the warehouse is one huge room paintedall white. Mr. Henry and Anthony are playing ping-pong.Dignan watches. Rowboat-and Applejack are on the far side ofthe room playing chess.                         ANTHONY            It's hard to get much spin with            this kind of paddle.                         MR. HENRY            It's called a racquet, Anthony, and            you're holding it wrong. That's            ghetto play. Hold it like this.Anthony changes his grip. Mr. Henry serves. The ball clicksback and forth. They're both solid players. Anthony whips ashot crosscourt and wins the point.                         MR. HENRY            You know, your form is for shit,            but you've got a hell of a talent.                         ANTHONY            Thanks.Mr. Henry serves. Anthony returns. Mr. Henry suddenly firesa scorching shot down the line. Anthony watches it clickpast him. He looks to Mr. Henry.                         ANTHONY            Nice shot.Mr. Henry smiles. He looks to Dignan.                         MR. HENRY            Is he in?                         DIGNAN            I don't know. Are you in, Anthony?Anthony stands there silent. He looks to Applejack andRowboat. He looks to Mr. Henry. Then Dignan.                         ANTHONY            Yeah, I'm in.Mr. Henry puts down his paddle. Stares at Anthony. Smiles.                         MR. HENRY            OK, kid. Let's go talk about cops            and robbers.INT. WAREHOUSE. DAYThe ground floor is crammed with cars. Some have been takenapart. Some are shiny and perfect. Anthony and Dignan walkamong the cars and junk with Mr. Henry. They've each gotcoffee in a styrofoam cup.                         MR. HENRY            Every once in a while some cat            comes to me. He wants to know how I            made it. How did I become a success?            The first thing I tell them is:            follow your instincts. Let your            instincts guide you. The second            thing I tell them is, for Christ's            sake: you got to know your grammar.                         ANTHONY            Grammar.                         DIGNAN            What do you mean grammar?                         MR. HENRY            The basic grammatical rules of            robbing.                         ANTHONY            You mean like techniques?                         MR. HENRY                   (nods)            Technique. That's right. Seventy-            five percent of your job is crowd            control. Seventy-five percent. Do            you believe that?                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            Yes, I do.EXT. ROOFTOP. DAYOn the roof of the warehouse. They're standing near theedge, looking out. Mr. Henry is smoking a joint. He's got ona black beret. Anthony and Dignan are listening to him talk.                         MR. HENRY            On the other hand you got to have            the right equipment. I don't care            if you're Harry Houdini. You can't            pick a lock without a hairpin.Dignan nods.                         ANTHONY            I'd like to live in that place.            Hinckley Cold Storage.                         MR. HENRY            Yeah. Convert it into lofts. OK.            Pop quiz. What's the single most            important aspect of your job?                         DIGNAN            The grammar?                         MR. HENRY            Crowd control. Crowd control. Wake            up, guys.                         DIGNAN            Oh, yeah.                         MR. HENRY            You're going to need a boxman for            this one. But that can be arranged.                         ANTHONY            You mean a safecracker?                         MR. HENRY            Yeah. And I'll tell you who we're            going to want: Kumar Banijamali.                         DIGNAN            Is he good?                         MR. HENRY            He's damn good.INT. KUMAR'S ROOM. DAYKUMAR is about sixty-five with white hair. He's short andwears a pale-green button-down shirt, dark trousers, andsandals. His room is small and has everything he needs in it.Books. Little TV. Possessions from all over the world.Kumar sits on his bed. Anthony and Dignan sit in woodenchairs. Kumar stares out the window. They sit for a longsilence.                         DIGNAN            So what do you think of the plan,            Mr. Kumar?Kumar shrugs. Pause.                         DIGNAN            We'd love to have you on the team.Kumar nods. He looks at a plant growing by the window.Silence.                         ANTHONY            What is that? An orchid?Kumar shakes his head. Sighs deeply. Long pause.Kumar suddenly stands up and unbuttons his shirt. He throwsit on the bed. He undoes his trousers and takes them off.Anthony looks at Dignan. Kumar takes off his socks, then hisshorts. He is naked. He walks over to his dresser and takesout a small satchell. He looks around the room. Right atAnthony. He walks quickly toward him. Anthony gets nervous.Kumar grabs Anthony's shoulder and lifts him up a little. Hepulls a towel out from underneath Anthony. He puts his handon Dignan's shoulder as he walks to the door, into the hall.                         KUMAR            Good plan.He goes out. Anthony and Dignan sit there for a minute.They're a little disoriented.                         DIGNAN            What do you think?                         ANTHONY                   (nods)            He seems pretty good.INT. BOB'S HOUSE. NIGHTThe foyer of Bob's house. The doorbell is ringing. Bob walksin wearing a velour robe. He opens the front door. Anthonyand Dignan are standing on the dootstep. Dignan and Bobshake hands. It's a little awkward.                         BOB            Hey, Dignan. How's it going?                         DIGNAN            Not bad.                         BOB            Come on in. What you been up to?                         DIGNAN            Not a whole lot, Bob.They walk through the house.                         BOB            It's too bad about what happened on            the road.                         DIGNAN            Yeah. It is.                         ANTHONY            Let's not even talk about it.                         BOB            It was stupid.                         DIGNAN            Right. It was extremely stupid.                         BOB            I don't expect an apology and I            don't even want one. I just want us            to --                         DIGNAN            I can't fucking believe this guy.            An apology, Bob?                         BOB            Man, I don't want to go into this.                         ANTHONY            Yeah. Let's keep it --                         BOB            Cause you would of let my brother            rot in jail.                         DIGNAN            You said 48 hours!                         BOB            I never agreed to that.                         DIGNAN            Bob, you're lying!                         BOB            Bullshit.                         DIGNAN            All right! Backyard! Right now!Dignan walks straight to the back door and goes out. Hestands on the deck.                         DIGNAN            Let's go, Bob!Anthony gets up and tries to calm Dignan down.                         ANTHONY            Dignan. Take it easy.                         DIGNAN            Bob!Bob is slowly moving toward the back door.                         BOB            No, Dignan. This is stupid.Bob is standing just inside the back door.                         ANTHONY            Yeah. Dignan. Look. Let's just --Dignan grabs Bob's shirt and pulls him out the door.                         ANTHONY            Stop, Dignan!Anthony breaks them up. He stands in front of Bob, shieldinghim.                         ANTHONY            He doesn't want to fight.                         DIGNAN            Get out of the way.                         ANTHONY            No, Diqnan. This isn't --Dignan gets around Anthony and lands a glancing punch.                         DIGNAN            Come on!                         BOB            I don't want to fight you, Dignan.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, we're friends. Take it easy.Dignan lands another punch. He grabs Bob's shirt and pullshim around. Then he starts landing punches. One. Two. ThenBob nails Dignan in the shoulder. They grab onto each otherand start fighting hard. They're about the same strength.After a couple of seconds Anthony tries to break it up.                         ANTHONY            Dignan. Dignan.All the sudden Dignan stops fighting.                         DIGNAN            All right. Stop.Dignan puts his arms around Bob.                         DIGNAN            No fighting.Dignan turns to Anthony. There's tears in his eyes.                         DIGNAN            No fighting. It wasn't Bob's fault.                         ANTHONY            Easy, Dignan. It's OK.They all catch their breath for a minute. Dignan hugs Bobagain.                         DIGNAN            It wasn't your fault, Bob. You had            your brother.                         BOB            I didn't have any choice.They stand there another minute.                         DIGNAN            I'm sorry, Bob.                         BOB            That's OK.                         ANTHONY                   (starting to laugh)            Shit, Dignan.                         DIGNAN                   (smiles)            What the fuck are we doing out here?                         ANTHONY            I don't know, Dignan. You went crazy.                         DIGNAN            I'm sorry, Bob.                         BOB            That's OK.                         DIGNAN            Look. We want you on the job.EXT. COUNTRY CLUB. DAYThe restaurant at Bob's country club, People are dressed forgolf and tennis. The waiters wear white jackets. and blackbow ties. The whole crew sits at a big table by the frontwindow.                         MR. HENRY            Let me get this straight. You don't            play golf and you don't play tennis.            So why do you belong to a country            club?                         BOB            You got me.                         MR. HENRY                   (shakes his head)            You're a piece of work, Bob.A black waiter about thirty-five, JACKSON, stops by the table.                         JACKSON            How you doing, Bob?                         BOB            Hey, Jackson. How's it going?Jackson refills their water glasses.                         JACKSON            You keeping out of trouble?                         BOB            I'm trying.                         JACKSON                   (looks at others at table)            This boy's a troublemaker. He used            to tear this place apart.Mr. Henry laughs. Bob smiles sheepishly. Jackson standsthere for a minute looking around the room.                         JACKSON            Your brother was up here the other            day. He said you ran away from home.                         BOB            He said what?                         JACKSON            He said you ran away from home.                         BOB            No. I didn't run away. I went out            of town.Jackson nods.                         DIGNAN            Bob.Bob looks at Dignan. Dignan's looking across the room.There's Future Man and his friend CLAY fresh from a round ofgolf. They're standing on the other side of the room,looking across at Bob. They're smiling. Jackson picks up twoempty plates and walks away. Future Man and CLAY walk toBob's table.                         FUTURE MAN            Fancy seeing you here, Bob.                         BOB            Yeah. Hey, Clay.                         CLAY            Hi, Bob.                         FUTURE MAN                   (smiling)            So what's shaking?                         BOB            Nothing much.Future Man looks at Anthony and Dignan. His smiles fades.                         FUTURE MAN            How's it going.                         ANTHONY            Fine, thanks.Future Man looks at the rest of the crew. His smile comesback. Mr. Henry smiles.                         FUTURE MAN            John Mapplethorpe.                   (shaking hands with                   crew across table)            How are you. Hi.                         MR. HENRY            Good to know you, John.                         BOB            Jackson says you told him I ran            away from home.Clay laughs. Future Man smiles.                         FUTURE MAN            I might have mentioned it.                         BOB            John, I'm twenty-six years old I            didn't run away from home.                         FUTURE MAN            I know, Bob. You were on a secret            mission.                         BOB            I'd appreciate it if you didn't go            around telling people lies about me.                         FUTURE MAN            Right. I'm sorry.                   (looks at Clay)            You've got a reputation to think            about.Clay smiles. Bob shakes his head. Mr. Henry stands up.Everyone looks at him. He's got a cold but calm expression.                         MR. HENRY            The world needs dreamers, son.                         FUTURE MAN            What?                         MR. HENRY            The world needs dreamers. To            relieve the pain of consciousness.Future Man nods. Pause. Mr. Henry doesn't sit down.                         FUTURE MAN            Well, we'll see you later, Bob.                         MR. HENRY            Pleasure to meet you, John.                         FUTURE MAN                   (hesitantly)            Nice to meet you.Future Man and Clay walk away. Mr. Henry sits down.                         MR. HENRY            I hope this doesn't offend you, Bob.                   (looks closely at Bob)            Your brother is a cocksucker.Bob smiles. They all smile.                         BOB            No. That doesn't offend me.EXT. HINCKLEY COLD STORAGE. DAYDignan's hidden in some bushes, watching the Hinckley ColdStorage building with binoculars. Anthony's crouched besidehim taking notes in a notebook.                         DIGNAN            OK. Man in blue jeans just left by            southwest door. He is entering a            white van. What time is it?                         ANTHONY            Eleven fifteen.                         DIGNAN            OK. Mark that down.                         ANTHONY            I did.Dignan keeps watching through the binoculars. He suddenlylooks back at Anthony.                         DIGNAN            God. Isn't this great? Working on            the job. Got a wheel man. Got a            safecracker. Good friends with Mr.            Henry.                         ANTHONY            Yeah. It's pretty good.                         DIGNAN            It's like we've finally arrived.Anthony nods. He's writing something.                         DIGNAN            What are you writing?Anthony shows him a little flip cartoon of a guy polevaulting.INT/EXT. PLANNING SEQUENCE. DAYWe see the team assembled around a table. They're drinkingcoffee and looking at pictures, charts, maps, diagrams,tools. Dignan passes out some walkie talkies.They test out some smoke cannisters on the roof. Dignanthrows one down. They all run for cover.Applejack and Dignan drive fast through a slalom course in adeserted parking lot.We see Kumar working on a safe. He wears a stethoscope andlistens to the tumblers. He turns the dial. Dignan is timinghim with a stopwatch.Kumar opens the safe. He looks at Dignan. Dignan nods with aserious expression on his face.EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS. DAYAnthony and Mr. Henry are jogging along railroad tracks inthe warehouse district. Anthony wears a blue T-shirt andshorts. Mr. Henry looks like a boxer in grey sweats with thehood up and a crisp white towel wrapped around his neck andtucked into his sweat top. He's wearing black Chuck Taylors.They've both got smooth running styles, though every twentyyards or so Mr. Henry rolls his shoulders and gives a quickflurry of punches. An older woman rides a bicycle across thetracks. She's not pretty, but she's got a strong face.Pioneer stock.                         MR. HENRY            Look at that woman. She's what?            Fifty? Fifty-five? But she hasn't            let herself go. I appreciate an            older woman who has a commitment to            her body.                         ANTHONY            So do I.They watch her ride down the street.                         MR. HENRY            Tell me something. What the hell            kind of name is Dignan?                         ANTHONY            I'm not really sure. I think it's            Irish. Or maybe --                         MR. HENRY            I guess what I'm trying to say is            what the hell kind of person is            this Dignan?                         ANTHONY            What do you mean what kind of            person? He's a good person.                         MR. HENRY            Sure, sure. He's a great person,            and I'd call bullshit on anybody            who said differently. But I wonder            if the kid has the goods                   (taps his temple)            up here.                         ANTHONY                   (long pause)            I don't think you're giving him            enough credit. I know sometimes he            doesn't think an idea through. He            gets too excited. But --                         MR. HENRY            As far as I can tell he hasn't            thought his life through. He'd be            fine cutting my grass or parking my            car. But business?                   (looks at Anthony)            You I can work with. You I could            groom. Dignan's not going to make it.Anthony stops running. Mr. Henry stops ahead of him andlooks back, jogging in place. Pause.                         ANTHONY            You're wrong about Dignan.Mr. Henry stops jogging in place.                         ANTHONY            And you're wrong if you think, I'd            turn my back on a friend.                         MR. HENRY            Hold it.Mr. Henry walks to Anthony and puts his hand on his shoulder.Anthony knocks it off.                         MR. HENRY            Anthony. I want.to say one thing to            you.Mr. Henry looks Anthony right in the eye.                         MR. HENRY            Congratulations. You passed the test.                         ANTHONY            What do you mean?                         MR. HENRY            The Abe Henry double-cross test.            You just made a perfect score.Anthony has to recover.                         ANTHONY            That was a test?                         MR. HENRY            Take a deep breath.Anthony takes a deep breath. Mr. Henry massages Anthony'sshoulders. He takes Anthony's head in his arms and does aquick pull to one side: cracks his neck. Then the other side.                         MR. HENRY            How does that feel?                         ANTHONY            It feels good.Anthony rubs his hands on his neck and moves his head around.                         ANTHONY            Did Dignan take the test?                         MR. HENRY                   (pause)            Yes, he did.                         ANTHONY            How'd he do?They start jogging again.                         MR. HENRY            Well, he agreed 100% that Bob            should be dropped. And he also            agreed you were a liability. But he            felt his talent would make up for            your weaknesses.                         ANTHONY            That sounds like Dignan.They veer away from the tracks, picking up the pace, andhead into a field toward Mr. Henry's warehouse.EXT. ROOFTOP. NIGHTThey're having a party at Mr. Henry's warehouse. There aretables and a BBQ on the roof, with white Christmas lightsstrung up and music playing. Anthony, Dignan, Bob, Kumar,and Mr. Henry are there. Plus a couple of young GIRLS,eighteen or nineteen years old. Mr. Henry's got a name tagthat says, Hi, my name is Mr. Henry. Everyone's mingling onthe rooftop. Rowboat is at the grill. Applejack comes up thestairs with a grocery bag under his arm.                         MR. HENRY            Woah. There he is. Applejack! What            it is.Mr. Henry and Applejack shake hands.                         APPLEJACK            Is my car OK out there?                         MR. HENRY            I love it. He always wants to know            if the car's OK. Get a hot dog.                         APPLEJACK            I don't eat pork.                         MR. HENRY            Super K. Kumar. Come here.Mr. Henry goes over to Kumar and throws his arm around him.                         APPLEJACK            I don't know why the fuck we're            having a party. The damn job's not            over yet.                         DIGNAN            Well, this isn't really a party per            se.                         APPLEJACK            You don't celebrate til it's over.                         DIGNAN            True.Dignan's solemn for a minute. He takes a bite of a hot dog.                         APPLEJACK            What the fuck are you doing?Dignan hesitates. He takes the hot dog away from his mouth.He's embarassed. Applejack shakes his head, disgusted. Hewalks away.                         ROWBOAT            What was that all about?                         DIGNAN            Ramedan.Anthony and Mr. Henry are standing together in a doorway. Mr.Henry's got a martini.                         MR. HENRY            I'll tell you, Anthony. Times like            this I get philosophical. What does            it mean? What's it all about? Are            you afraid to die?                         ANTHONY            Me?                         MR. HENRY            No, that door over there.                         ANTHONY            I don't want to die.                         MR. HENRY            Are you afraid?                         ANTHONY            Yeah. I mean, I don't think about            it all the time. But once in awhile            I kind of go, Woah. Man.                         MR. HENRY            Exactly. Woah.                         ANTHONY            Death.                         MR. HENRY            The fear of death, The pain of            consciousness.                   (taking a sip)            Did you mix this martini?                         ANTHONY            No. Bob did.                         MR. HENRY            Bob. Bob. That's a palindrome.                   (laughs uproariously)            I love palindromes.                         ANTHONY            Are you afraid to die, Mr. Henry?                         MR. HENRY                   (looks right at him)            Anthony, I'm petrified.Bob is talking to the other girl.                         BOB            Is that sugarless gum you're chewing?                         GIRL 2            I'm not chewing gum.                         BOB            Would you like a piece?                         GIRL 2                   (smiles brightly)            Sure. Thanks.Kumar and Applejack are sitting at a table.                         KUMAR            If someone could copy my life story.            If I had someone, man, to just            write what I talk. I have so many            stories. Bestseller, man.                         APPLEJACK            I've been all over the Goddamn            country. I've seen things.                         KUMAR            I used to go to Vegas and do            headstands.                         APPLEJACK            No kidding.                         KUMAR            Easy.Kumar does a handstand.INT. WAREHOUSE. NIGHTAnthony, Dignan, and Bob are sitting at the table in Mr.Henry's office. Dignan's got plans and diagrams spread out.There's music playing in the next room and we can hearpeople talking outside the door.                         DIGNAN            Come on, Bob.                         BOB            I know it, man. Hang on.                         DIGNAN            Jesus Christ.                         ANTHONY            Give him a second.                         BOB            Hopscotch. The code name is            hopscotch.                         DIGNAN            Good.Mr. Henry looks in the door. He's got a glass of wine in onehand and a bottle and empty glasses in the other.                         MR. HENRY            Join the party, fellas.                         DIGNAN            We're just going over a few things.Mr. Henry looks at the plans on the table. He sets down thethree glasses and pours some wine.                         MR. HENRY            I'll tell you something, Dignan. It            is possible to overplan. You don't            want to turn the crew into robots.            Right?Dignan nods seriously.                         MR. HENRY            You got to have fun with it.            There's no point if you're not            having any fun. Would you like me            to be there tomorrow?                         DIGNAN            Yes.                         MR. HENRY                   (immediately)            Why?                         DIGNAN            Well, I think --                         MR. HENRY            No, if I go out on this job, then            it's just another score by Mr.            Henry. And I don't see it like that.            This is your job. Your creation. I            want you to try this.They all try the wine. Mr. Henry watches their reactions.                         ANTHONY            This is good.                         MR. HENRY            I want to ask a favor, boys. One            day, when I'm long gone and all but            forgotten, make one last toast to            Abe Henry. And remember me as a            friend.They drink.EXT. ROOFTOP. NIGHTBack on the roof. Bob and Dignan are sitting at a table withone of the girls. Applejack is dancing with another. Kumar'stalking to Reudi. Anthony and Mr. Henry are standing at theedge of the roof, looking out at the city. Mr. Henry'ssmoking a joint.                         MR. HENRY            Well, that's just it, Anthony. A            lot of criminals have problems.            Some of them are alcoholics. Some            have drug problems. Others dome            from broken homes. I see a real            need for healing.Mr. Henry passes the joint to Anthony. Anthony smokes it.                         MR. HENRY            But you're thieves. It's what you            are.                         ANTHONY            Yeah.                         MR. HENRY            It's an esoteric journey.Anthony passes the joint back to Mr. Henry.                         MR. HENRY            We're renegades from despair.                         ANTHONY                   (nods)            Can I ask you something, Mr. Henry?                         MR. HENRY            Absolutely.                         ANTHONY            Why'd you want to help us?                         MR. HENRY                   (inhales, pause,                   holding in smoke)            Because I was like you once. And            there was no one there to help me.Mr. Henry exhales the smoke. He hands the joint to Anthony.Anthony takes a hit. They stare out at the darkness.INT. BOB'S HOUSE. NIGHTAnthony and Dignan are sitting in the kitchen. Anthony's goton a t-shirt and boxers. Dignan's wearing a bathrobe. Allthe lights in the house are out except one in the kitchen.Anthony's drinking a glass of milk. Dignan's got orange juice.                         DIGNAN            Next week we'll be drinking piña            coladas.                         ANTHONY                   (nods)            Hopefully this trip'll go a little            smoother than the last one.Dignan nods.                         ANTHONY            Or I might end up with a broken nose.                         DIGNAN            Did that hurt?Anthony shrugs. There's a long silence.                         DIGNAN            This'll be a good trip.Anthony nods. Pause. He smiles slightly.                         ANTHONY            I'll try not to hold you back            tomorrow.                         DIGNAN            I don't think you will.                         ANTHONY            I don't want to be too much of a            liability.                         DIGNAN            Look, you're going to do fine. It's            OK to be scared.                         ANTHONY                   (laughs slightly,                   shaking his head)            I don't think I ever said this to            you. But it meant a lot to me the            way you were after that Swifty            stuff happened.Silence. Dignan's a little embarassed.                         ANTHONY            He was a nice guy.                         DIGNAN                   (shrugs)            He was all right.They both sit there for a minute. Quiet. Anthony sips hismilk.                         ANTHONY            Do you like Inez?                         DIGNAN            As a person?                         ANTHONY            Yeah. As a girl.                         DIGNAN            Yes. I do.                         ANTHONY            So do I.Bob comes into the kitchen in his bathrobe looking haggardyet wired. Anthony and Dignan look at him. He goes to therefrigerator. He takes out a chocolate cake and a carton ofmilk. He pours himself a glass of milk. He goes over to thetable with the cake and sits down. He cuts himself a pieceof cake. He swallows two pills, one at a time, each with along drink of milk. The pills are big capsules and hestruggles a little when he swallows.                         ANTHONY            You OK, Bob?                         BOB                   (snaps)            No, I'm having a heart attack. Of            course, I'm OK. What's that supposed            to mean?                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            Nothing. I was just asking.                         DIGNAN            Jesus, Bob.Bob senses that's he's over-reacted. He backtracks.                         BOB            No, I know. I'm just saying. I feel            fine. You want a piece of cake?                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            Sure.Bob starts to cut him a piece.                         DIGNAN            I'll take one of those, too, please.EXT. HINCKLEY COLD STORAGE. DAYAnthony is positioned behind some bushes, across from thebuilding. He's wearing a black parka. He looks through somebinoculars. Re pulls out his walkie talkie.                         ANTHONY            Bird Dog to Scarecrow. Bird Dog to            Scarecrow.                         DIGNAN (VO)            Go ahead, Bird Dog.                         ANTHONY            You're all clear.                         DIGNAN (VO)            Roger.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            We all set?                         DIGNAN (VO)            Hang on a second.Anthony waits a second.We see Dignanr Applejack, and Kumar getting out of the car.                         DIGNAN                   (into walkie talkie)            OK. Let's do it.Dignan starts to move out. He remembers something. Says backinto his walkie talkie:                         DIGNAN            Let's get lucky, Bird Dog.Dignan, Applejack, and Kumar start across the parking lot.Dignan's got on a business suit. Applejack has on sunglasses.Kumar is carrying a leather satchel.They go in the side door and down a narrow passageway. Theyget into the freight elevator and go up. Bob's voice comesthrough on Dignan's walkie talkie.                         BOB (VO)            Scarecrow?                         DIGNAN            Yeah?We see Bob: standing on the loading dock behind the building.He's wearing an extremely heavy wool jumpsuit with a hood.                         BOB            Everything OK?                         DIGNAN (VO)            Yeah. We're in the elevator. How's            it look back there?                         BOB            It looks pretty good. There's            nobody back here.                         DIGNAN            Stand by. Bird Dog?We see Anthony: still in the bushes.                         ANTHONY            Uh-huh?                         DIGNAN (VO)            Take your second position.                         ANTHONY            OK. Roger.Anthony gets up and starts out across the parking lot, handsin his pockets, not too quickly.Dignan, Kumar, and Applejack get off the elevator.                         DIGNAN            OK. Six minutes.Applejack goes one way down the hall. Dignan and Kumar gothe other. They turn the corner. They go down a widepassageway.                         KUMAR            Where did he go?                         DIGNAN            Who? Applejack?                         KUMAR            Why did he go that way?                   (points back down hall)                         DIGNAN            He's going to watch the back            stairwell, remember?                   (pause)            Don't worry about it.Dignan and Kumar come up to a door. Dignan slides a crowbarout of his jacket. He snaps open the door. They go in. It'sa small office with a desk and a little safe in the corner.Dignan clears everything off the desk with one quick sweepof the arm. He puts down the briefcase and opens it up. It'sfull of tools. Kumar unzips his satchel and takes out a rollof tape. He immediately sets to work on the safe. Dignansteps back out the door and closes it.                         DIGNAN                   (into walkie talkie)            Bird dog? You in position?We see Anthony on top of a fire escape, about four stories up.                         ANTHONY            I'm in position, Scarecrow.                         DIGNAN (VO)            Any activity?                         ANTHONY            Not at all. The place is totally            deserted.                         DIGNAN (VO)            Good. It's supposed to be.                         ANTHONY            I've got a great view up here. I            can see all the --                         DIGNAN (VO)            Stand by, Bird Dog.We see Dignan standing in the hall, outside the office.                         DIGNAN            Jacknife. Come in, Jacknife.                   (pause)            Hello? Bob? Are you there?We hear the sound of an elevator moving.                         DIGNAN                   (beat)            Bob? What the fuck is going on?            Anthony? Who's in the elevator?We see Anthony on the fire escape.                         ANTHONY            I don't know.                         DIGNAN (VO)            Check the fucking elevator. It's            moving.Anthony goes in a little door. Down a passageway. Through afreezer. Into a corridor. Past the freight elevator, whichis open on this floor. Then around a corner to a smallerelevator as it opens: Bob's inside.                         ANTHONY            What are you doing?                         BOB            My walkie talkie's busted. 1 can't            tell what's going on.                         ANTHONY            Let me see it.                   (fiddling with it)            Did you drop it?                         BOB            No.Dignan's still standing in the hall as Anthony and Bob comearound the corner. Dignan yells at them down the hall.                         DIGNAN            What's happening? What's going on?                         ANTHONY            It was Bob. His walkie talkie's            busted.                         BOB            I couldn't hear anything.                         DIGNAN            Who's watching the door? What the            fuck are you doing? Get back in            position.The elevator starts whirring again.                         DIGNAN            Who did that? What the fuck is that?                         ANTHONY            It's going back down.                         DIGNAN                   (pannicking, into                   walkie talkie)            Applejack! What's happening?                         APPLEJACK (VO)            What?                         DIGNAN            Bob! Get back in position!For just a second we hear the sound of music playing.Everyone freezes. FOUR GUYS, two of them in jumpsuits likeBob's, step out into the corridor. They've got bags fromJack in the Box. They're drinking drinks and shakes. One ofthem is holding a jam box. They stop. Dignan pulls out hisgun.                         DIGNAN            Don't move! Get up against the wall!Anthony and Bob pull out their guns and hold them on thefour guys.                         DIGNAN                   (into walkie talkie)            They're back! Get down here!                   (not into walkie talkie)            What are you doing here?                         GUY IN JUMPSUIT            We work here.                         DIGNAN            Time!                         ANTHONY                   (checks watch)            Two minutes.Simultaneously: Kumar opens the door. Applejack comesrunning down the hall with his gun out.                         APPLEJACK            Where'd they come from?                         ANTHONY            The front stairs.                         APPLEJACK                   (to Bob)            Where were you?                         BOB            My walkie talkie broke.Applejack reaches in his pocket and pulls out a dark bluenylon stocking. He pulls it over his head. Dignan, Anthony,and Bob immediately do the same. Anthony's is red.Dignan steps into the office with Kumar.                         DIGNAN            What's the story?                         KUMAR            Can't get it. It won't...                   (make s gesture)                         DIGNAN            What can we do?Kumar looks at his tools. Moves them around on the desk.                         DIGNAN            OK. Fuck it.He goes back into the hall.                         DIGNAN            Let's go. Fuck it.TWO GUYS with a cart stop at the end of the corridor.                         ANTHONY            Freeze!                         DIGNAN            Nobody move!                         ANTHONY            Get against the wall!Bob's gun goes off. Everybody looks at him. Dead silence.Bob looks around like it must have been somebody else's gunthat went off.                         ANTHONY            Jesus, Bob.                         BOB            I didn't do anything.Applejack falls to his knees. He drops his gun.                         ANTHONY            Applejack? Are you OK?Applejack clutches his arm and rolls onto his side.                         DIGNAN                   (shouting)            What's wrong with Applejack?                         BOB            He's having a heart attack or            something.                         DIGNAN                   (screaming)            Let's go!Dignan throws down his smoke cannister. Bob and Anthonyautomatically throw down theirs. Smoke instantly fills thehall.The hostages stand completely clear of the smoke. They watchAnthony, Dignan, and Bob rush around blindly in the haze.                         DIGNAN            Help me move him.                         ANTHONY            Careful. Check his pulse.Anthony holds all the guys at gunpoint. Dignan and Bob carryApplejack down the hall, into the elevator.                         DIGNAN            Is he breathing?                         BOB            I think so.An alarm starts ringing.                         DIGNAN            Jesus Christ.  What the fuck is that?                         BOB            I didn't think there was an alarm.                         DIGNAN            Take him to the car, Bob.Dignan runs back down the hall to Anthony.                         DIGNAN            Who tripped the alarm?                         ANTHONY            It's the fire alarm.  Somebody            pulled the fire alarm.                         DIGNAN            Where's Kumar?                         ANTHONY                   (looking around)            I don't know.                         DIGNAN            Jesus Christ, Anthony.  Did you            lose him?                         GUY ON FLOOR            He's in the freezer.                         DIGNAN            What?                         GUY ON FLOOR            He went in there.                         ANTHONY            What for?The guy on the floor kind of shrugs.  Anthony crosses thehall. He pulls open one of the big freezer doors. Kumar isstanding there with his bag and the briefcase.  You can seehis breath in the air.                         ANTHONY            What are you doing?                         DIGNAN            Let's go. Come on.They go down the hall to the freight elevator.  They startdown.                         ANTHONY            What were you doing in there?Kumar shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders.EXT. HINCKLEY COLD STORAGE. DAYThey go out the front door, across the parking lot. Kumar'slagging behind.                         ANTHONY            Wait for Kumar.                         DIGNAN            Come on, Kumar.They come up to the car. Anthony tries the door. It's locked.Bob comes running around the side of the building.                         BOB            The elevator broke.                         DIGNAN            Where's Applejack?                         BOB            He's stuck between two floors.                         ANTHONY            You're kidding.                         DIGNAN            Applejack's stuck in the elevator?                         BOB            Yeah.                         ANTHONY            Who's got the car keys?Everyone looks at everyone else.                         BOB            Applejack drove.                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            Run. Run. Let's go.Bob takes off at a sprint. Kumar follows him.                         ANTHONY            Jesus, Dignan.Anthony pulls off the red stocking and throws it down. Hetries the other doors on the car.                         ANTHONY            What the fuck happened to the the            plan?Dignan pulls off his stocking. Anthony starts walking fastacross the parking lot. Dignan stands still by the car.Staring straight ahead.                         ANTHONY            Come on.                         DIGNAN            I'll see you there.                         ANTHONY            What?                         DIGNAN            I'll see you there.                         ANTHONY            What are you talking about?                         DIGNAN            I'll get him.                         ANTHONY            There's not enough time.                         DIGNAN            Yes, there is. Let's get organized.Dignan starts toward the building. Anthony moves after him.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, it's too late.                         DIGNAN            I don't think so.Dignan and Anthony look at each other for an instant. Dignanturns and sprints back into the building.Anthony stands alone in the parking lot.                                            CUT TO:a bedroom with big French windows. No furniture.                                            CUT TO:a wood-panelled study. Stripped bare.                                            CUT TO:an elegant dining room. Cleaned out.EXT. BOB'S HOUSE. DAYA GUY in a moving company uniform carries a Louis XIV chairout the front door of Bob's house, down the path to thestreet. Two other MOVERS pass him on the way. They've got adolly.The guy carries the chair into a huge moving van. It's fullof furniture and paintings.Mr. Henry and Rowboat are standing in the street. Rowboat'ssmoking a cigarette, writing on clipboard. Hector standsbehind them in the grass. Mr. Henry takes out two cigars. Heholds one out to Rowboat. Rowboat shakes his head. Mr. Henryshrugs and lights one for himself.                         MR. HENRY            You know, Rowboat. People who smoke            cigarettes die. People who smoke            cigars just keep on going.Rowboat nods, smoking. Mr. Henry looks at Hector. He points.                         MR. HENRY            Sit.Hector sits. Mr. Henry smiles a broad smile. The movers gobuy with a beautiful Moroccan divan.EXT. HINCKLEY COLD STORAGE. DAYDignan comes out the front door pulling Applejack, semi-conscious, to the car. Dignan loans Applejack against thedoor. He checks Applejack's pockets for the keys. He looksaround on the ground.He hears sirens in the distance. He looks across the parkinglot. Two squad cars screech in off the street.Dignan takes off into the building.INT. HINCKLEY COLD STORAGE. DAYDignan sprints down the corridor. Races up the stairs. Runsdown hall after hall.Two COPS appear out of the elevator.                         COP            Freeze!Dignan ducks into a stairwell. He runs down the stairs andinto another corridor. He can hear cops yelling from twodifferent directions. He crosses a catwalk. Cuts through anoffice. Pulls open a door and goes into one of the freezerrooms.Cops come yelling down the hallway. Dignan runs through thefreezer room and tries the other door. It's stuck. ThreeCOPS come inside. Dignan instantly puts his hands up in theair.                         COP #1            Drop the fucking gun!                         COP #2            Don't move!Dignan drops the gun. The cops rush him. They nail him intothe wall. Get him in a headlock, pulling hard.                         COP #3            You're caught, buddy.They pull him into the hallway.                         COP #1            Put your hands behind your back.                         DIGNAN            I'm not going to do anything.                         COP #3                   (squeezing his neck)            Why'd you try to run, buddy? Don't            you know what freeze means? Don't            you speak fucking English?                         COP #1            Take it easy.They put him face down on the floor and cuff him.                         COP #1                   (to Dignan)            Calm down.They move him down the corridor. Dignan's nose is bleeding.He looks terrified.Applejack is sitting propped up against the wall. He's gotan oxygen mask on his face and a team of paramedics and copsaround him. Somebody's taking his blood pressure. Anotherone's giving him an IV.                                            CUT TO:Anthony running down a sidewalk. He drops his gun in atrashcan without slowing down. He crosses a bridge and runsinto the the trees.                                            BLACKOUT.FADE IN:EXT. COUNTY JAIL. DAYThere's snow in the air. The prison yard is wide with drygrass and concrete. It's split up by chain link fences.Guards sit in the towers.Dignan's wearing an inmate jumpsuit. Anthony and Bob walkwith him across the yard. They've brought along two bags offood from a hamburger place.                         DIGNAN            I said to the DA, That cop who hit            me must of given me CRS disease.                         BOB            What's that?                         DIGNAN            That's just what the DA asked. CRS            is a disease where you can't            remember shit.Dignan smiles.                         ANTHONY            Like amnesia.                         DIGNAN            Can't remember shit. CRS.                         BOB            Oh.Anthony kind of smiles.                         DIGNAN            Tell Mr. Henry I said that.Anthony nods. Silence. They walk past a bunch of guyslifting weights on the other side of a fence.                         DIGNAN            So is Mr. Henry going to come by            and see me or anything?                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            I don't think so. I mean. Actually,            he robbed Bob's house.                         DIGNAN            He did?                         ANTHONY            Yeah.                         DIGNAN            You got to be kidding me.                         ANTHONY            I'm not kidding.                         DIGNAN                   (pause)            What'd he get?                         ANTHONY            Pretty much everything.                         DIGNAN            The grandfather clock?                         BOB            He got everything.Dignan nods. Pause.                         DIGNAN            Wow.                   (pause, looks at Bob)            Sorry, Bob.Bob shrugs, looking at the ground. Dignan looks to Anthony.                         DIGNAN            You think Applejack knew?                         ANTHONY                   (shrugs)            We haven't heard from Applejack            since he got out of the hospital.            His case got dismissed.Dignan's stunned to hear this.                         DIGNAN            Why?                         ANTHONY            We're not sure.                         BOB            We think Mr. Henry maybe --                         ANTHONY            His health isn't very good, you            know. They take that into account.Pause. Dignan nods.                         DIGNAN            No. That's true.Long silence.                         ANTHONY            Mr. Henry never gave you a test,            did he?                         DIGNAN            What do you mean?                         ANTHONY            Nothing.                                            CUT TO:a picnic table in the prison yard. There's frost on theground. They're eating lunch.                         DIGNAN            You're living on a sailboat?                         ANTHONY                   (nods)            It belongs to Bob's uncle.                         DIGNAN            How big is it?                         ANTHONY            Oh, I'd say about --                         BOB            It's in the driveway.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            Temporarily.                         DIGNAN            Where?                         ANTHONY            Behind Bob's house.Long pause.                         DIGNAN            Does it float?                         ANTHONY            We're not sure yet. It's going to            need some repairs.Dignan nods.                         ANTHONY            So how is it in there?                   (pointing at cell block)                         DIGNAN                   (shrugs)            What can I say? It's jail. You            don't sleep when you want to. You            don't eat when you want to.                         BOB            Do you have your own room?                         DIGNAN            We don't have rooms, Bob. We have            cells.                         BOB            Do you have your own cell?                         DIGNAN            No. I have a cellmate. His name's            Carl.                         ANTHONY            What's he in for?                         DIGNAN            He stole a tractor.                         BOB            Do they let you --                         DIGNAN            I don't really want to talk about            it, Bob.Long pause.Anthony takes a sip from a milkshake. Dignan unwraps thefoil from a cheeseburger. He takes a bite.                         DIGNAN                   (with his mouth full                   of food)            This sure beats the shit out of the            shit they crap out in this joint.Anthony and Bob laugh. Dignan takes another huge bite.                         DIGNAN                   (smiling)            I might have to have another one of            these.                                            CUT TO:Dignan in handcuffs behind a chain link fence. He's standingin line with some other inmates.                         DIGNAN            Thanks for coming.Anthony nods. They stand there in silence. The line movesforward a few steps. Anthony and Bob walk with Dignan on theother side of the fence. The line stops. Pause.Dignan leans toward the fence.                         DIGNAN            Hey.He motions for them to come closer to the fence. He whispers:                         DIGNAN            I think I may have found a way out            of here.                         ANTHONY                   (pause)            You're kidding.                         DIGNAN            No. I'm not.                         ANTHONY            How?                         DIGNAN            Shhh. Wait for my instructions.                         ANTHONY            Dignan, I --The line starts moving. Anthony and Bob walk with Dignan onthe other side of the fence.                         DIGNAN            When we go through the next gate            you'll have 30 seconds to take out            the tower guard.                         ANTHONY            What?                         DIGNAN            Have the car running at the north-            west checkpoint. Bob and I'll --                         ANTHONY            Dignan, I --The line starts moving faster.                         DIGNAN            Scale the barricade and tunnel            through no man's land. And Bob.            Remember:                         ANTHONY            Scale the --                         DIGNAN            Shield me from the bullets. They            won't shoot civilians. Ready?                         BOB            Hold on --                         DIGNAN            Here we go.                         BOB            Wait a second --                         DIGNAN            Now!Anthony and Bob look all around in a panic. They look toDignan.Dignan shuffles along with the rest of the inmates. He looksat Anthony and Bob. He smiles. He shrugs.                         DIGNAN            So long.Bob and Anthony slowly half-smile. They wave to Dignan asthe line of inmates turns away. Anthony looks to Bob. Bobsmiles.The line of inmates stops about fifty feet away. Dignanlooks back. Anthony looks at him. Dignan's expression haschanged. He wasn't expecting them to see it. His eyes lookcold. Anthony puts his hand on the fence. Dignan turns andthe line of inmates disappears into the cell block.Anthony stands there in silence.. He lets go of the fence.He walks with Bob down the long path in the cold air.                                            FADE OUT.
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+                                           BOUND                                         Written by                                   Larry & Andy Wachowski               FADE IN:               Inside a closet.               It is a large closet with double doors, a crisp line of light                cutting down through the center of the darkness.               As we begin to descend, voices echo in our head.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         I had this image of you, inside of                          me, like a part of me.               We move past a shelf filled with hatboxes and handbags.  It                is a woman's closet.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         You planned this whole thing, didn't                          you?                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Where's the fucking money?               We glide over the tightly packed hangers, close enough to                feel the different fabrics and descend past the dresses to                the racks of high heels.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         We make our own choices, we pay our                          own prices.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         All part of the business.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         All part of the business.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         What choice?               We slide along the delicate taper of a stiletto heel and                reach the bottom of the closet, where we find a pair of black                Dr. Martens boots that are tied together with a white rope.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         I want out.               We move up the boots and we see it is a woman who is bound,                lying motionless on the floor of the closet, the rope coiling                tightly around her wrists.               The crack at the bottom of the door lights her face.  She is                gagged and unconscious, a trickle of blood running down her                forehead.  Her name is CORKY.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Like a part of me.                                                                    CUT TO:               INT.  ELEVATOR - DAY               Leaning against the back of the elevator is Corky, a very                butch-looking woman with short hair and a black leather                jacket.  She is a lesbian and wants people to know it.               As the doors begin to slide shut, a woman yells.                                     WOMAN                         Wait!  Hold the elevator.               Corky pushes the "open" button.  A couple steps into the                elevator.  His name is CAESAR, a middle-aged Italian, wearing                an expensive suit and sunglasses.               She is VIOLET; a piece of sexual candy that would melt in                your mouth.               She hears it again, a guttural sound.                                     CORKY                         Thanks again for this opportunity,                          Mr. Bianchinni.  Goodbye.               She hangs up the phone and walks toward the wall.               As she gets closer, we hear a bed rocking, tapping against                the wall.               The man's breathing grows more and more labored until finally                it swells --                                                           DISSOLVING INTO:               INT.  BATHROOM - MORNING               The whining motor of a high-powered drain-rod.               The spiral cable whips wildly, spiraling deeper into the tub                drain, black goo splattering everywhere.               The machine is so loud Corky almost cannot hear someone                pounding on the apartment door.               Killing the motor, she stands and goes to the door.               Behind the door is Violet, wearing jeans, a white T-shirt                and cowboy boots.                                     VIOLET                         Hi.  My name is Violet.  We sort of                          met in the elevator --                                     CORKY                         Yeah, sure.  I'm Corky.                                     VIOLET                         I heard you working in here and I                          just wondered if you'd like a cup of                          coffee?               She is holding two cups of coffee: one black, one with cream.                                     CORKY                         Sure.  Come on in.  Give me a minute.               Violet steps inside as Corky goes back to the bathroom to                wash off the drain dreck.                                     VIOLET                         What happened to Rajeev?               Corky calls from the bathroom, scrubbing her hands vigorously.                                     CORKY                         Who?                                     VIOLET                         Rajeev, the man who usually works on                          the building.                                     CORKY                         Oh, he went home to India, but as                          far as I know he'll be back.               She wipes her hands on her overalls, returning to the main                room.                                     VIOLET                         So this is temporary for you?                                     CORKY                         Pretty much.  One day at a time.               Violet hands her the cup of black coffee.                                     VIOLET                         I guessed you were straight black.                                     CORKY                         Good guess.               They both sip from the piping hot mugs.                                     CORKY                         Mmmm ...  thanks, I needed this.                                     VIOLET                         My pleasure ...  but to be honest, I                          did have a slightly ulterior motive                          here.  I was wondering if I could                          ask a small favor?                                     CORKY                         A favor?                                     VIOLET                         Yeah, see, I'm kind of a night person,                          so I was wondering if it wasn't a                          terrible inconvenience if you could                          wait a bit before using power tools.                                     CORKY                         Oh, I'm sorry --                                     VIOLET                         No, it isn't your fault.  The walls                          here are just so thin.                                     CORKY                         Are they really?                                     VIOLET                         Yes, it really causes problems.                           Sometimes it's like you're in the                          same room.  But if it's too much                          trouble, I understand ...                                     CORKY                         No, no trouble.  There's other work                          to do.                                     VIOLET                         You're doing everything yourself?                                     CORKY                         Yeah.                                     VIOLET                         That is so amazing.  I'm in awe of                          people who can fix things.  My dad                          was like that.  We never had anything                          new.  Whenever something broke he                          would open it up, tinker with it and                          it would work.  His hands were magic.               She looks at Corky's hands cupped around the mug.                                     VIOLET                         Yeah ...  I bet your car is twenty                          years old.               Corky smiles.                                     CORKY                         Truck.                                     VIOLET                         Truck.  Of course.                                     CORKY                         '63 Chevy.                                     VIOLET                         I knew it.               VIOLET SIPS                                     VIOLET                         So, how do you know the owner, Mr.                          Bianchinni?                                     CORKY                         I don't, really.  I was referred to                          him.                                     VIOLET                         Oh, really.               Corky suddenly feels she has revealed something.                                     CORKY                         Do you know him?                                     VIOLET                         No, but Caesar does.  He likes him.                           Says he's a good Italian.                                     CORKY                         Caesar is your husband?                                     VIOLET                         Oh no, no.  I'm not the marrying                          kind.               Smiling, she says nothing else.                                     VIOLET                         I should be going.  You can drop the                          cup off anytime.                                     CORKY                         Thanks.                                     VIOLET                         My pleasure.               CORKY watches her leave.               EXT.  THE WATERING HOLE - NIGHT               A dirty bar hidden away on a dark street, its cracked, moon-               white sign the only evidence it exists.               Corky's truck swings into a space in front of a couple of                large motorcycles.  She flips her collar and heads for the                door.               INT.  THE WATERING HOLE - NIGHT               The smell of leather and cigarette smoke fills Corky's nose                as she crosses to the bar.                                     BARTENDER                         Well, well ...               Corky sits as the fat bartender waddles over.                                     BARTENDER                         Been awhile, Cork.                                     CORKY                         Five years, two months, sixteen days.                           How you doing, Sue?               Corky puts a cigarette in her mouth and lights it.                                     SUE                         Like shit.  Now that we're all caught                          up, how about a drink?               Sue opens the refrigerator and pulls out two Old Styles.                                     CORKY                         Thanks.               They click the bottles together and drink.                                     SUE                         You got a job yet?                                     CORKY                         Yeah.  Some plumbing, painting and                          shit.               Sue laughs.                                     SUE                         I mean a J-O-B.  A real job.                                     CORKY                         Not for me, Sue.  I'm straight and                          narrow.  I'm just here to get laid                          or drunk and hopefully both.               Corky gets off the stool.                                     CORKY                         Thanks for the beer.               Looking around, she sees a woman alone at one of the back                tables.  Through the smoky din, she bears a slight resemblance                to Violet.               The woman is dressed all in black, including a leather jacket.               Smiling, Corky slides into the chair beside her.  There is                no one smoother.                                     CORKY                         Hi.                                     WOMAN                         Hello.                                     CORKY                         You know ...  that outfit would look                          great on my bedroom floor.               The woman smiles just as someone taps Corky on the shoulder.               She turns and is face-to-face with a large bull of a woman                in a heavy leather Chicago Police jacket.  She is more wide                than fat.                                     WOMAN COP                         Hey, Jesse.  What's happening here?                                     CORKY                         Nothing ...  yet.                                     WOMAN COP                         Who's this?               Her coat opens as she puts her hands on her hips.  A service                revolver is clipped to her belt.               She squints at Corky, her head nodding in recognition.                                     WOMAN COP                         Wait, I know you.                                     CORKY                         I don't think so.                                     WOMAN COP                         I didn't know you were out.               Corky smiles at the woman in black.                                     CORKY                         When you get tired of Cagney and                          Lacey, come find me.               She heads for the exit.               EXT.  CITY STREET - NIGHT                The neighborhood would be politely described as "rough."                Corky's truck does not stand out parked alone on the littered                street.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               It is a hole but it is home.               Corky is lying on her futon staring up at the ceiling, a                beer resting on her stomach; a folk singer quietly croons                from the radio.               We see the ceiling, a circle of light hovering over the small                desk lamp.  We move in on the spot, which slowly fills up                the screen until there is nothing but the white light.               Suddenly a wet paint roller loaded with white paint cuts a                swath across the ceiling.               MATCH CUT TO:               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - DAY                 Corky is painting the ceiling.  The folk ballad has become                an angry Riot Grrrl anthem.               She is working hard, the roller sucking back and forth.                 Sweat covers her face.               Dropping the roller down, she reloads it in the tray when                the phone rings.  She stops and answers it.                                     CORKY                         Hello?  Oh, hi, Mr. Bianchinni ...                           yes, everything is going fine.  I                          got the tub drain all cleaned out.               She listens for a moment.                                     CORKY                         What apartment?               She glances at the main wall.                                     CORKY                         All right, all right, I guess I could                          take a look.  Yeah, you're welcome,                          goodbye.               She hangs up and looks again at the wall, feeling...  curious.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               Corky knocks and after a moment Violet opens the door.  She                seems surprised.                                     VIOLET                         Oh no.  Shit.  I didn't know he would                          call you.  God, you must think |I'm                          a total nuisance.                                     CORKY                         Not exactly.                                     VIOLET                         I'm sorry, I usually would call                          Rajeev, but I didn't know what to do                          so I called Mr. Bianchinni.                                     CORKY                         He said you lost something.                                     VIOLET                         Yeah, come on in.               She steps back and Corky walks inside.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Violet leads her through the apartment.  It is expensively                furnished with very masculine tastes; a lot of gray and black                leather.                                     VIOLET                         I was doing some dishes and just as                          I pulled the stopper my earring fell                          in.               Corky looks at her blankly.                                     VIOLET                         It's one of my favorites.  That's                          why I got upset.  I know it probably                          seems ridiculous to you.               An eyebrow goes up.                                     VIOLET                         I'm sorry, look, forget it.  I                          shouldn't have called...                                     CORKY                         I told Bianchinni I would take a                          look.  Is it that sink?               Violet nods.               She opens the sink cabinet and pulls out a pair of channel                locks from her back pocket.  The teeth of the channel locks                open and bite onto the pressure nut.                                     CORKY                         Do you have a pot or a bucket?                                     VIOLET                         Sure.               She hands one down to her.  Corky slides it under the curved                pipe.               As she works, Corky feels herself staring at Violet, at the                hem of her dress curving tightly around her thighs.               Water begins to trickle into the pan.               The nut slides loose and Corky tips the trap.  Water splashes                into the pan with a soft metal "tink."                                     VIOLET                         Did you find it?               Corky fishes into gray water and pulls out the earring.               Violet screams, a huge smile on her face, half-falling as                she tries to hug Corky.                                     VIOLET                         I can't believe it!  You did it!               Corky leans back under and replaces the trap.                                     VIOLET                         Thank you so much.  You have to let                          me pay you something --                                     CORKY                         No.  Mr. Bianchinni asked me to do                          it.  I did it.               Corky checks the drain by running the water.                                     VIOLET                         If you won't take money, how about a                          drink?  It's getting late.  You can't                          work all night.               Corky eyes her for a moment.                                     CORKY                         Okay, one drink.                                     VIOLET                         What do you want?                                     CORKY                         A beer?                                     VIOLET                         A beer.  Of course.               She smiles and turns to the bar.                                     VIOLET                         Sit down.               Corky sits on the black leather couch and Violet returns                with two bottles of Heineken.  Corky sneers.                                     VIOLET                         Thanks again.               They clink the bottles and swig.                                     VIOLET                         You seem uncomfortable.  Do I make                          you nervous, Corky?                                     CORKY                         No.               She looks at Violet, then takes another long pull on the                bottle.                                     VIOLET                         Thirsty, maybe.               Violet smiles, her eyes again talking for her.                                     CORKY                         Curious, maybe.                                     VIOLET                         Curious?  That's funny, I'm feeling                          a bit curious myself right now.               Violet notices the tattoo on Corky's arm.                                     VIOLET                         That's a great tattoo.               She reaches over and touches it.                                     VIOLET                         Beautiful labrys.               Corky is a bit suprised that she knows what it is.  She nods,                rubbing it as if trying to hide it.                                     VIOLET                         Are you surprised that I know what                          it is?                                     CORKY                         Maybe.                                     VIOLET                         I have a tattoo, would you like to                          see it?               She moves closer, sliding over the leather cushions as she                opens the front of her dress.                                     VIOLET                         A woman in upstate New York did it                          for me.               She is not wearing a bra.                                     VIOLET                         Here.  Do you like it?               Set against the soft white skin of her breast is a bright                green-stemmed violet.                                     VIOLET                         It took her all day to do it.  She                          promised me it wouldn't hurt, but it                          was sore for a long time after.  I                          couldn't even touch it.               Corky looks up from Violet's breast to her dark eyes.                                     VIOLET                         But now I love the way it feels.               She runs her fingers softly over the slightly scarred skin.                                     VIOLET                         Here, touch it.               Corky feels the blood pounding in her ears as Violet takes                her hand and places it on her breast.                                     CORKY                         What are you doing?               Violet looks at her.                                     VIOLET                         Isn't it obvious?  I'm trying to                          seduce you.                                     CORKY                         Why?                                     VIOLET                         Because I want to.  I've wanted to                          since I first saw you in the elevator.               Corky watches her, trying to figure her out even as her thumb                presses into Violet's nipple.               Inhaling sharply, Violet closes her eyes; she can feel Corky                staring at her.                                     VIOLET                         You don't believe me.  But I can                          prove it to you.               She takes Corky's wrist and begins pulling her hand down her                body.                                     VIOLET                         You can't believe me because of what                          you see ...               She forces Corky's hand between her legs, up under her dress.                                     VIOLET                         But you can believe what you feel.               Violet opens her eyes, a wanton smile on her lips.                                     VIOLET                         You see ...  I've been thinking about                          you all day.               Corky's forearm flexes and Violet moans.               With both hands, Violet takes hold of Corky's forearm.                                     CORKY                         You planned this whole thing?               Violet's head swims; she is unable to breathe.                                     CORKY                         You dropped that earring down the                          drain on purpose, didn't you?                                     VIOLET                         If I say yes, will you take your                          hand away?                                     CORKY                         No.                                     VIOLET                         ...  yes.               Now it is Corky who smiles.               Violet shivers, her thighs rubbing, her hips thrusting against                Corky's hand.                                     VIOLET                         Please, Corky ...  please ...               Her eyes barely open.                                     VIOLET                         ...  kiss me.               In a single motion, Corky takes hold of the back of her neck                and covers Violet's open mouth with her own.               With her hand still stuffed between Violet's legs, Corky                lays her back onto the couch as the kiss becomes more --               More desperate, more hungry until --               We hear the front door unlock and open.                                     CAESAR                         Violet?               Violet's eyes pop open and she pushes Corky back.                                     CAESAR                         Violet, you home?               They scramble to compose themselves.                                     VIOLET                         Yeah.  In here, C.               He comes around the corner and in the dim light sees the two                figures sitting close on the couch.                                     CAESAR                         What's this?               He mistakes Corky for a man.                                     CAESAR                         What the fuck is this?               Violet stands as Caesar barrels toward the couch.                                     VIOLET                         I didn't expect --                                     CAESAR                         What the fuck is going on?               Corky stands and turns, Caesar suddenly realizing that she                is a woman.                                     CAESAR                         Oh, shit ...                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, this is Corky.  Corky, Caesar.                                     CAESAR                         I'm sorry, Christ, I thought ...                           it's fucking dark in here.               He reaches to the wall for the lights.                                     VIOLET                         She is working for Bianchinni.               Caesar extends his hand.                                     CAESAR                         Oh, right, right.  Don mentioned                          that to me.  Hi, welcome to the                          family.               Corky shakes his hand.                                     CAESAR                         You're helping Rajeev?                                     CORKY                         No.  Rajeev's in India.                                     VIOLET                         She's doing the work herself.                                     CAESAR                         No shit.  Bianchinni hired you?  You                          know he's a good friend of mine.                           |Family, really.                                     CORKY                         That's what Violet said.               He looks at her as if he knows something.                                     CAESAR                         So, you just got out?                                     VIOLET                         Jesus, Caesar!                                     CAESAR                         What?  It ain't no big fuckin' deal.                           I know who Don hires.  Did you know                          he did time himself?               Corky shakes her head.                                     CAESAR                         Thirteen fucking years.  See, there                          ain't no secrets here.               Corky doesn't like this man.                                     CAESAR                         How many'd you do?                                     CORKY                         Five.               He whistles.                                     CAESAR                         Not bad.  What for?                                     VIOLET                         That's none of your goddamn business,                          Caesar.                                     CAESAR                         You're right.  You don't have to                          tell me, if you don't want to.  I                          just hope you understand you're among                          good people here.               He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a thick fold of                money and peels several hundreds.  Corky stares at it.                                     CAESAR                         Come on, come on.  if you understand                          what I'm talking about you're going                          to take the money.  if you don't,                          I'm going to have to worry about                          you.               Corky takes it.  Caesar smiles.                                     CAESAR                         Good.  I hate to worry.  I got ulcers.                                     CORKY                         I should be going.                                     CAESAR                         What?  How about a drink?                                     CORKY                         My brushes, I have to clean my                          brushes.  Thanks, though.                                     CAESAR                         Another time.                                     CORKY                         Sure.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT                Close on the paintbrush, Corky's fingers pushing through and                separating the black bristles under the running water.               When the brush is clean, she flicks it dry and resets the                edge.               She goes to the sink to wash her hands when she stops,                noticing her left hand.               It is the hand that was between Violet's legs.               She is about to smell her finger when she sees herself in                the mirror.                                     CORKY                         What are you doing?               She drops her hand.                                     CORKY                         What am I doing?  I'm fucking up,                          that's what I'm doing.               She scrubs her hands clean.               EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT                It is late, the area burnished with amber street light.                 Corky walks from the building to her truck.               She climbs inside and slides the key into the ignition, when                suddenly the passenger door opens and --               Violet gets in.  Stunned, Corky stares at her.                                     VIOLET                         I had to see you.                                     CORKY                         Look, I don't think this is a good                          idea.                                     VIOLET                         I wanted to apologize.                                     CORKY                         Don't apologize, please.  I can't                          stand women who apologize for wanting                          sex.               Violet smiles.                                     VIOLET                         I'm not apologizing for what I did --               She slides across the seat.                                     VIOLET                         I'm apologizing for what I didn't                          do.               She kisses Corky, and if Corky is trying to resist, we can't                tell.               The windshield is beginning to steam when Violet, panting,                breaks the kiss.                                     VIOLET                         Do you have a bed somewhere?               Unable to speak, Corky reaches over and starts the engine.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               The sex.               There is nothing flower-scented or out-of-focus about it.               It is sweaty, slippery, body-grinding, bed-squeaking lesbian                sex --               Pungent and potent --               And when it is over, neither woman can move.               Finally, Corky's eyes flutter open.                                     CORKY                         I can see again.               Violet smiles.               Slowly, Corky gets up and goes to the fridge.  She grabs a                beer and presses it to her sweating forebead.               After a moment, she lowers it, gently pressing the cold can                elsewhere.  Eyes closed, she lets out a long "Ahh."               Violet hears the sizzle-pop of the beer as Corky returns to                the bed.               She holds the beer to Violet's lips and tilts the can,                watching Violet's throat as she drinks.               Violet's eyes open.                                     VIOLET                         ...  I needed that.                                     CORKY                         Tell me about it.               Corky hands her the beer as Violet sits up a bit.                                     CORKY                         Caesar's Mafia, isn't he?                                     VIOLET                         You have to ask?                                     CORKY                         No.                                     VIOLET                         Funny, nobody calls it that anymore.                           Caesar calls it "The |Business."                                     CORKY                         How did you meet him?                                     VIOLET                         They took over a club I was working                          at.  Caesar started managing it.                                     CORKY                         He's a launderer?                                     VIOLET                         Basically.                                     CORKY                         How long have you been with him?                                     VIOLET                         Almost five years.                                     CORKY                         Five years is a long time.                                     VIOLET                         Yes, it is.               Corky stares at her beer.  She knows what Violet is thinking.                                     CORKY                         The redistribution of wealth.                                     VIOLET                         What?                                     CORKY                         Isn't that what you wanted to know?                           What I did time for?                                     VIOLET                         The redistribution of wealth?                                     CORKY                         That's what I tell someone when I'm                          trying to get them in my bed.                                     VIOLET                         I'm already in your bed.                                     CORKY                         My cellmate would say she did her                          time for getting caught.  She was                          always more honest than me.               Corky sips her beer.                                     CORKY                         I started stealing when I was little.                           We were piss-poor, which is not an                          excuse, just a fact.               It isn't like her to talk about this, especially with someone                she just met.                                     CORKY                         The first time I remember so vividly.                           A bunch of us kids were at Waxman's                          Drugstore, when Mr. Waxman, who was                          a mean old prick, always worrying                          about us robbing him, dropped a roll                          of quarters.               We can almost hear the coins tinkling on the tile floor.                                     CORKY                         I can still hear that sound, those                          quarters, because right then something                          clicked inside of me.  Some instinct                          took over and as everyone, including                          Waxman, dove down, I reached up and                          emptied the cash register.               Violet smiles.  She likes this woman.                                     CORKY                         I gave most of the money to my mom.                           I told her I found it at the                          trainyard.  She was so happy she                          cried, calling me her lucky charm.                           Fifteen years later, I guess my luck                          ran out.               Sbe swallows that with beer.                                     CORKY                         Sometimes I tell myself that I didn't                          have a choice, that stealing was                          surviving.  Usually I can admit that's                          bullshit.  I did it because it was a                          way out.  It was easy and I was good                          at it, real good.               She glances at Violet.                                     CORKY                         I don't usually talk this much.  I                          guess I have been rehabilitated.               Violet laughs.                                     VIOLET                         You didn't have to tell me if you                          didn't want to.                                     CORKY                         I guess I wanted to.                                     VIOLET                         I'm glad you did.                                     CORKY                         So am I.               EXT. PARKING LOT DAY                Corky gets out of her truck carrying her tools.  Grinning                like someone who has been well-laid, she whistles off to                work.               EXT. LOBBY - DAY                Between the main doors she sees a man.  His name is SHELLY                and he is an overdressed accountant.               He is very nervous, talking to someone through the intercom.                                     SHELLY                         I know he's gone.  Please.  I have                          to talk to you.               Fiddling with her keys, Corky recognizes the voice that                answers him.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         What do you want, Shelly?               Shelly glances over his shoulder at Corky, answering in a                hushed voice.               SHELLY               I have to leave.  Tonight.               For a moment the intercom is silent.  Then the door buzzes                and Shelly pushes inside.  Corky follows him to the elevator.               INT.  ELEVATOR - DAY               Corky glares at Shelly and begins pumping the trigger of her                circular saw.               Shelly hides behind his sunglasses, watching the elevator                numbers go up.  The doors open and he scurries out.               INT.  HALL - DAY               She watches him enter Caesar's apartment, her smile now                completely gone.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - DAY               It is later.  Through the wall we listen to the same sound                as before of two people making love.  We drop down and find                Corky's brush, still wet with paint, abandoned in her tray.               INT.  BEDROOM - DAY               Her face glistening with sweat, Violet climaxes, letting the                orgasm spread through her like melting butter.                                     VIOLET                         I had this image of you, inside of                          me ...               She flattens her palms against the soft cradle of her pelvis.                                     VIOLET                         Like a part of me ...               As she opens her eyes, we see that her lover is Corky.  Violet                watches as she gets off the bed and begins to get dressed.                                     VIOLET                         You are so beautiful.               Corky does not answer as she yanks her pants on.  Violet                sits up.  She can feel that something is wrong.                                     VIOLET                         What's wrong?                                     CORKY                         Nothing.               Violet pulls the sheet around her.                                     VIOLET                         Yes there is.  I felt it this morning                          when I brought you the coffee.                                     CORKY                         Shit, here we go.                                     VIOLET                         You didn't want to see me, did you?                                     CORKY                         If there is one thing I can't stand                          about sleeping with women, it's all                          the fucking mind reading.                                     VIOLET                         What are you afraid of?                                     CORKY                         I'm not afraid of anything.                                     VIOLET                         I don't understand - ?                                     CORKY                         I know!  You can't understand, because                          we're different, Violet.  We're                          different.                                     VIOLET                         We're not that different, Corky.                                     CORKY                         How can you sit in that bed and say                          that?                                     VIOLET                         Because it's the truth.                                     CORKY                         Let me guess.  This is where you                          tell me that what matters is on the                          inside.  That inside you, there is a                          little dyke just like me?                                     VIOLET                         Oh no, she's nothing like you.  She's                          a lot smarter than you.                                     CORKY                         Is that what her daddy tells her?                                     VIOLET                         I know what I am.  I don't need to                          have it tattooed on my shoulder.                                     CORKY                         What are you saying?  That you don't                          have sex with men?                                     VIOLET                         I don't.                                     CORKY                         For Christ's sake, Violet!  I heard                          you!  Thin walls, remember?                                     VIOLET                         What you heard wasn't sex.                                     CORKY                         What the fuck was it?                                     VIOLET                         All my life, everyone has been telling                          me that when I have sex, I'm not                          really having sex.  Not real sex.                           But they're wrong.  I know what is                          and isn't sex and what you heard was                          definitely not sex.                                     CORKY                         What was it then?                                     VIOLET                         Work.               That knocks Corky back.                                     VIOLET                         You made certain choices in your                          life that you paid for.  You said                          you made them because you were good                          at something and it was easy.  Do                          you think you're the only one that's                          good at something?               Violet stare pins Corky to the wall.                                     VIOLET                         We make our own choices and we pay                          our own prices.  I think we're more                          alike than you want to admit.                                     CORKY                         What about that guy this morning?                                     VIOLET                         You mean Shelly?                                     CORKY                         Don't tell me, you're a workaholic.                                     VIOLET                         No.  Shelly knows what I am.  He saw                          me in a bar with another woman.                                     CORKY                         I suppose he just wants to watch.               That's all Violet can take.                                     VIOLET                         Fuck it!  I think you better leave.                                     CORKY                         I think so, too.               Violet turns away.                                     VIOLET                         Try not to steal anything on the way                          out.               That stings but Corky walks out without looking back.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               It is dark now.  Corky is standing above the paint tray that                has skinned over.  She picks up the brush.  It is dry with                paint.                                     CORKY                         Shit.               She throws the brush across the room.               EXT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY               A green-and-white street sign juts in the foreground of                Caesar's upscale apartment building.               The sign reads: "FRANKLIN STREET."               EXT.  PARKING LOT - DAY               The rusty Chevy glides to a stop in a parking space near the                service entrance.  In its payload is a boxed bathroom vanity                and sink.               Corky climbs out of the cab and into the back, unhooking the                bungee cords that hold down the boxes.               She looks up as a black Lincoln Town Car screeches into a                spot not far from her truck.  THREE SERIOUS-LOOKING MEN get                out, leading a fourth, Shelly.               He is the only one who seems to notice Corky.               They enter the building, the door closing behind them.               INT.  BATHROOM - DAY               Corky's legs jut out from the old wicker vanity as she                finishes detaching its anchors and pipe work.               She stands, giving it a yank and pulling it away from the                wall, when voices begin to filter in from the next-door                apartment.               She listens - a rising string of warbling sobs drowned out                by an angry voice.                                     ANGRY VOICE                         Shut the fuck up!  You piece of shit!               We hear a scream.                                     ANGRY VOICE                         You're going to tell us!  You're                          going to fuckin' tell us!  just a                          matter of fuckin' time!               Each sentence is punctuated with grunts and thuds.                                     ANGRY VOICE                         Where is it?  Where the fuck is it?!               We begin to close in on Corky as she listens to each thud,                watching something that disturbs her.                                     ANGRY VOICE                         You shit!  You piece of shit!               With each thud the water in the toilet shimmers like a struck                cymbal.  As we move closer, the sound swells until --                                                              MATCH CUT TO:               INT.  CAESAR'S BATHROOM DAY               Where blood splatters the toilet, heavy drops hitting the                water and spreading like inverted mushroom clouds.                                     ANGRY VOICE                         Did that hurt?  News flash, fucko:                          I'm just getting started.               The angry voice belongs to JOHNNIE MARZZONE.  Shelly is                kneeling in front of the toilet, hands tied behind his back                with electrical wire.               Johnnie Marzzone is a flashy young man in Armani slacks,                silk shirt and silver-tipped cowboy boots.  His tie is tucked                in, as if torture were a fine-dining experience.               Caesar and two other men are crammed in the small bathroom.                                     JOHNNIE                         You got nerve trying to fuck us!                           Nobody fucks me!  Nobody fucks my                          father!  Nobody!  Nobody!               Shelly screams as Jobnnie repeatedly rams his face into the                toilet.                                     CAESAR                         Whoa, whoa.  Come on, he's making                          too much noise.                                     JOHNNIE                         You hear that, bitch?  Be quiet!                                     CAESAR                         Here, put this in his mouth.               Caesar hands a towel to Johnnie, who stuffs it into Shelly's                mouth.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - DAY               Like Corky, Violet can hear the beating.  She is trying to                block it out but cannot.               Standing at the bar, she runs the blender, grinding ice cubes,                trying to drown out the sounds of the bathroom.               The bathroom door opens.                                     JOHNNIE                         Prick!  I can go all night!  All                          night!               Caesar steps out, shutting the door, masking the sounds behind                him.  Violet moves toward him.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, I'm leaving.                                     CAESAR                         What?  Oh, come on, I didn't use one                          of the good towels.               The door opens again as someone else steps out.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, I'm serious.  This is too                          much.  I have to get out of here.                                     CAESAR                         Why?  'Cause you know him?               She nods.                                     CAESAR                         You women are so fucking sensitive.               He takes hold of her.                                     CAESAR                         But I don't want you to go.  I like                          you here.  You know this isn't easy                          for me, either.               He embraces her.  Over his shoulder she sees MICKEY MALNANO                in the hallway, staring at her.               He is an older man, hair graying, built like a fireplug.                 Sinewy mass strains at his Brooks Brothers suit.                                     CAESAR                         Now why don't you go watch some TV                          or something?                                     MICKEY                         Are you okay, Violet?                                     CAESAR                         Mickey, why is Johnnie here?  You                          know how I feel about that fucking                          psycho.               Mickey continues to stare at Violet, who looks up at him                with her big doe eyes.                                     MICKEY                         Caesar, didn't I tell you to get                          something?                                     CAESAR                         Sure, Mickey.  Sure.               He goes to the kitchen.               Mickey moves closer to Violet, lifting her chin the way a                father would do to his little girl.                                     MICKEY                         You shouldn't have to see this.  Why                          don't you get out of here?  Go for a                          walk.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar wants me to stay.                                     MICKEY                         Don't worry about Caesar.  I'll handle                          Caesar.  You just get out of here,                          okay?               She smiles.                                     VIOLET                         Thanks, Mickey.               Caesar returns from the kitchen.  He is holding a pair of                tin snips.  Mickey takes them.                                     MICKEY                         Thanks, C.  Now let's end this thing.               Violet watches them return to the bathroom.               INT.  BATHROOM - DAY               Mickey takes off his coat and hands it to a large man named                LOU.  He slaps Johnnie on the back.                                     MICKEY                         Hey, Johnnie, ease up, okay.               Johnnie hits Shelly once more.                                     JOHNNIE                         Prick.               Johnnie checks his hair in the mirror, carefully.  Then he                begins putting on the rings he had removed for the beating.               Mickey kneels down next to Shelly's ear and motions to Lou,                who lifts Shelly's bound arms.                                     MICKEY                         Shelly, I'm going to ask you ten                          times.  You understand?  Ten times.               Mickey grabs Shelly's pinky finger, putting it between the                metal blades.                                     MICKEY                         One.  Where is our money?               Shelly whimpers, red-faced and sobbing.  There is a sick                crunch and Shelly howls into his gag as his pinky finger                bounces to the floor amid the expensive leather footwear.                                     CAESAR                         Aw ...  Christ.               We hear Caesar retrieve a tissue and his hand enters the                frame, scooping up the pinky.               He plunks the severed finger into the toilet and it sinks to                the bottom.               Caesar drops the toilet seat down and flushes.               INT.  BATHROOM - EMPTY APARTMENT - DAY               Corky can't stand it anymore.  She throws her tools down,                leaves the bathroom and finds --               Violet waiting in the main room.  Both women stand apart in                silence.               Violet seems on the verge of saying something but doesn't                know how to start.  Her lip begins to quiver; her eyes search                the room, returning to Corky each time.               The violence in the next room can still be heard.                                     CORKY                         Violet?  Are you all right?               Almost unnoticeably, Violet shakes her bead.  Corky puts her                arm around her.                                     CORKY                         Come on.  Let's go.               INT.  BAR - DAY               It is the kind of bar businessmen drink at in the afternoon.                 Dark wood and padded leather.               The bartender, joking with a cluster of men, does not notice                Corky as she moves up to the bar.                                     CORKY                         Excuse me.               The bartender glances over.                                     CORKY                         Draft beer and a TNT.               Corky eyes the men, who stare into their drinks.               The bartender says nothing as he puts the drinks in front of                her.               Corky heads for her table, ignoring the whispers and snickers.               Corky and Violet, the only women in the room, sit close                together at a far corner table.               Violet's voice is hushed.                                     VIOLET                         Shelly was skimming from the business.                           He came to see me yesterday because                          he was afraid Caesar figured it out.                           He wanted to run but he wanted me to                          come with him.                                     CORKY                         Even though he knew about you?                                     VIOLET                         Yes.                                     CORKY                         He was in love with you, right?                                     VIOLET                         That's what he told himself.  But it                          wasn't even about me, it was about                          Caesar.  He wanted what Caesar had.                           That's how they are.  I understand                          them.               She glances around the room; a man at the bar smiles at her.                                     VIOLET                         For Shelly, taking the money was a                          way to take from Caesar.  He could                          have run at any time, but he didn't                          because he didn't want out.                                     CORKY                         Sounds like he wanted to get caught.                                     VIOLET                         Maybe he did.  He would brag to me                          all the time.  He was never afraid                          of Caesar because he didn't know                          him.  Not like I do.               Two men sit down near them, laughing.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar lives for these moments.  He                          tells me it's just the business, but                          I know it's more than that.  He likes                          it.  The violence.  I'll catch him                          in the bathroom mirror touching his                          scars.  He says they remind him who                          he his.  They're all like that.                           Except maybe Mickey.                                     CORKY                         Mickey?                                     VIOLET                         He's the part of the business that                          the rest of them pretend to be.                           |But Mickey doesn't like it like                          they do.  I suppose that's why he's                          good at it.               Violet stares at her glass, at the melting ice.                                     VIOLET                         I used to be able to block it out.                           I would tell myself that I wasn't                          really there so nothing really                          mattered.  But I can't do it anymore.               She downs the last of her drink.                                     VIOLET                         I've been making the same mistake                          Shelly made.  But now I know what |I                          want.               She turns to Corky.                                     VIOLET                         I want out.  I want a new life.  I                          see what I've been waiting for, but                          I need you, Corky.                                     CORKY                         For what?                                     VIOLET                         You made a choice once.  Do you think                          you would make that same choice again?                                     CORKY                         What choice?                                     VIOLET                         If those quarters fell to the floor,                          would you still reach up to that                          cash register?               Corky stares at her, knowing where this is going.  She glances                around the crowded bar.                                     CORKY                         Not here.               EXT.  ALLEY - NIGHT               Corky's truck sits in a gravel parking lot.               INT.  CORKY'S TRUCK - DAY               Through the back window of the truck, Violet and Corky are                silhouettes against the street light.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar is going to get the money and                          bring --                                     CORKY                         How much money?                                     VIOLET                         Shelly said it was over two million                          dollars.               Corky quietly swallows that pill.  It begins to rain.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar will bring it to the apartment                          to count and go through |Shelly's                          books to figure out how he did it.                                     CORKY                         Wait a minute.  Wait a minute.  Do                          you have any idea what you are saying?                           You are asking me to help you fuck                          the mob.               Violet nods.                                     CORKY                         These people are serious, Violet.                           If you want to know how serious, ask                          Shelly.  They're worse than any cop                          because they have lots of money and                          no rules.  You fuck them, you've got                          to do it right.                                     VIOLET                         That's why I need your help.  You                          said you were good.                                     CORKY                         I am, but ...               She knows Violet is challenging her.                                     CORKY                         All right, let's say for the moment                          that I believe everything you are                          saying.                                     VIOLET                         You think I'm lying?                                     CORKY                         I didn't say that, but since you                          did, let's say that you are.  It                          would have been easy to set Shelly                          up.  You could have got him killed                          knowing that Caesar would bring the                          money to the apartment.               Violet stares, her face poker-blank.                                     CORKY                         All you would need to keep yourself                          clean would be someone unconnected,                          someone like me.                                     VIOLET                         Is that what you think?                                     CORKY                         I'm just making a point.  You have                          no idea what you're asking.  How                          much trust two people need to do                          something like this.               She moves closer to Violet, the sound of the rain beating                against the metal cab.                                     CORKY                         For me, stealing is a lot like sex.                           Two people that want the same thing                          sit in a room and they talk, they                          start to plan and it's like flirting,                          a kind of foreplay, because the more                          they talk about it, the wetter they                          get.               She stops.                                     CORKY                         The difference is, I can have sex                          with someone I just met, someone I                          hardly know, but to steal I need to                          know someone like I know myself.                                     VIOLET                         Do you think you know me like that?                                     CORKY                         I think ...               They are close enough to kiss.                                     CORKY                         We're going to find out.               Corky pulls back.                                     CORKY                         But first, I want to see this money.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Violet springs from the couch as the front door crashes open,                Caesar charging in.  He is doubled over, clutching something                to his stomach.               He rushes to the kitchen, dumping a bloody bundle into the                double sink.  There is blood everywhere, smeared up and down                Caesar's front.                                     VIOLET                         Oh my God ...               Violet takes a step toward him, unsure of what has happened.                                     CAESAR                         Don't worry.  It ain't mine.               He pulls a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the cupboard.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, what happened?                                     CAESAR                         It was unbelievable!  Un-fucking-                         believable!               He pours himeslf a shot, belting it back.                                     CAESAR                         Goddammit, look at this shirt!  It's                          ruined!               He begins unbuttoning the bloody shirt.                                     CAESAR                         It started when Shelly took us to                          the money.  I tell you, Mickey Malnato                          knows his shit, he does.  Shelly                          takes us right there.               He throws down another shot.                                     CAESAR                         So Shelly's down on his knees and                          he's pulling out this bag of money                          from a safe in the floor and I'm                          staring at it like "holy fuck!" I                          mean, look at it --               He tears open the bloody bag, wet money bricks spilling out.                                     CAESAR                         And all I can think is how the fuck                          did he do this when - Bang!  Johnnie                          caps him.  Blood sprays everywhere,                          all over the money.  We've no idea                          if this is even all of it.               Caesar is exasperated.                                     CAESAR                         And right then I go through the roof                          and - Boom!  I belt the dumb fuck as                          hard as I can.  I didn't care whose                          son he was, I just wanted to hit him                          again.  Knock some sense into that                          dumb son of a bitch.               He looks at the pile of bloody money.                                     CAESAR                         Just look at this mess I got to deal                          with.                                     VIOLET                         What are you going to do with it?                                     CAESAR                         I told them to run it through the                          cycles.  But I guess Gino has plans                          for it because he's coming here                          tomorrow night to pick this shit up.               Searching through a sink cabinet, he can't find what he needs.                                     CAESAR                         Where the hell's the laundry                          detergent?                                     VIOLET                         Ummm ...  in the linen closet.               Caesar walks down the ball to the bathroom.  Violet's eyes                do not move from the pile of money.               Corky seems to come from nowhere.  She whispers.                                     CORKY                         Come to my place in the morning.                           Early, okay?               Violet nods.               INT.  CLOSET - NIGHT               Corky's hands twitch, and then flex against the ropes that                bind them.               A reflex echoes through her body, muscles spasm and limbs                jerk against their bonds.               As if in a dream, she struggles, trying to get free, fighting                toward the edge of consciousness until --               She seems to succumb, slipping back into stillness.               We move toward her face, her closed eyes as we again hear                the voices in her head.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         You're having second thoughts.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               Violet is on the bed, Corky at the window.                                     CORKY                         ...  no.               She turns to Violet.                                     CORKY                         You said he washed the money?                                     VIOLET                         Yeah.                                     CORKY                         Then what?  Exactly.                                     VIOLET                         He hung it up.                                     CORKY                         What?                                     VIOLET                         To let it dry.               She begins to focus on the memory.                                     VIOLET                         It was unreal ...               Moving in on her face.                                                              MATCH CUT TO:               Benjamin Franklin's face on a hundred-dollar bill.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Franklin's face rotates as we pull back, seeing rows of bills                carefully paper-clipped to lines of string.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Hundreds, paper-clipped everywhere                          like leaves.               Eyes filled with green, Violet turns inside the laundry lines                of money until she sees Caesar.               Wearing his undershirt, he is across the room standing at                the ironing board, ironing every single bill.               He seems to have one eye on her, one eye on his work.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Then one by one, he ironed all of                          it.               He sprays starch across several bills and presses the steaming                iron to them.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         Did he sleep?               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Violet is in bed, unable to sleep, listening to the machine-               shuffle of Caesar's bill counter.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         No.  But neither did I.               We move past her, floating toward the wall.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         All night long I listened to that                          sound.               INT.  OFFICE - NIGHT               We drift across Caesar's desk, past bricks of bound bills,                as Caesar folds the paper tape around another stack.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         What sound?               He hits the counter again and we hear the sound, now very                loud as hundreds blur by, fluttering beneath us.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         The sound of money.               The sound rolls into thunder --               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               That seems to shake the apartment.                                     CORKY                         And where is it now?                                     VIOLET                         In his office.  I saw it this morning.               INT.  OFFICE - DAY               Violet cautiously enters the office with a cup of coffee.               Working furiously at the computer, Caesar jumps when he sees                her, bloodshot eyes animal-wide.               He checks his watch as she sets the coffee in front of him.                                     VIOLET                         I need to go to the store.               He nods automatically, back in his work, as she sees the                briefcase filled with perfect rows of hundreds.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         It's in a case, on his desk.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         Does the case lock?               We see the open top with its silver flip-over locks.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               Violet is trying to remember.                                     VIOLET                         Yes.                                     CORKY                         Good.               Corky begins to pace, ordering the information in her head.                                     CORKY                         All right, now, tell me about Johnnie.                                     VIOLET                         Johnnie?                                     CORKY                         It sounded like he and Caesar don't                          like each other.                                     VIOLET                         Like each other?  They hate each                          other.                                     CORKY                         Why?                                     VIOLET                         It started way before I was around.                           I think basically it's because he                          thinks Johnnie is a complete idiot.                           But Johnnie runs Chicago because                          Gino is his father.                                     CORKY                         Who is Gino?               Violet suddenly feels that she has made a mistake.                                     VIOLET                         Gino Marzzone.                                     CORKY                         Marzzone?  As in Angelo Marzzone,                          head of the Marzzone family?                                     VIOLET                         That's his brother.                                     CORKY                         ...  shit.               Corky covers her mouth.                                     CORKY                         Gino Marzzone is coming tonight to                          pick up the money?                                     VIOLET                         Yeah.                                     CORKY                         And Johnnie is his son, that's Johnnie                          Marzzone?                                     VIOLET                         Yeah.                                     CORKY                         Sweet Jesus.               Eyes wide, she paces, pulling at her lip, mumbling.               Suddenly she freezes as it clicks into place.  She looks at                Violet.                                     CORKY                         It's perfect.               She's pacing again.                                     CORKY                         Gino Marzzone is coming to your                          apartment.  It's a big deal, isn't                          it?  That means Caesar will be ready.                           He doesn't want to look like an idiot.                           Gino has been there before?                                     VIOLET                         Yeah, twice.                                     CORKY                         What happened?                                     VIOLET                         Not much, really.  Caesar was nervous,                          kept cleaning the apartment.  |The                          first time, he picked out the dress                          he wanted me to wear.               Something occurs to Corky.                                     CORKY                         Does Johnnie hit on you?                                     VIOLET                         Johnnie hits on anything in high                          heels.                                     CORKY                         Has Caesar ever seen him?                                     VIOLET                         He does it right in front of him.                                     CORKY                         It's getting better and better.                           Keep going.                                     VIOLET                         Gino doesn't know English, or at                          least he pretends he doesn't, so he                          doesn't talk much.  He gets right to                          the point.  Both times they talked                          for about five minutes, had one drink                          and then they left.                                     CORKY                         What did Gino drink?                                     VIOLET                         Scotch, Glenlivet.  I remember that                          Caesar made a huge deal about it.               Corky smiles, the wheels rolling.                                     CORKY                         All right ...               She turns from the window and gets onto the bed.                                     CORKY                         I have an idea to make this work.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - DAY               Violet is getting dressed, lining her lips with lip-pencil.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         You'll go back and get ready, take                          your time, make it real.               As she works on her face, we see the room behind her and the                discarded dresses scattered about.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         The more attractive you are, the                          more believable it will be.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               Corky breaks her thought-train.                                     CORKY                         What time did you say they would be                          there?                                     VIOLET                         The plane is in at seven, so I'd say                          about eight.                                     CORKY                         Any bodyguards?                                     VIOLET                         Gino travels with a big man named                          Roy.  Caesar calls him the driver.                                     CORKY                         Fine.               INT.  OFFICE - DAY               Caesar again checks his watch.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         At some point Caesar is going to                          quit.  I'd guess sometime around                          six, making sure he's got time to                          get ready.               The watch reads 6:10.  Caesar rubs his eyes, his temples.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - DAY               Violet is at the bar in a sexy dress and high heels.                                     CAESAR                         Un-fucking-believable, what this guy                          did.  Shelly is one smart-ass                          mothefucker, I mean, he was one smart-                         ass motherfucker.               He laughs as Violet smiles, handing him an enormous drink.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         As soon as he is done, you'll be                          right there to put a big drink in                          his hand.               He takes the drink.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         We want him to come down, to relax,                          feel in control again.                                     VIOLET                         Poor boy, has to work so hard.               She gives him a woman's sympathy pout; he knows what it,                loves it anyway.               Smiling, he slides his hand down over her ass.                                     CAESAR                         You look good enough to eat.               She smiles and waits for the kiss she knows is coming.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               Both women are starting to feel it, to believe it.                                     VIOLET                         Where will you be?                                     CORKY                         Waiting in the apartment next door.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT               Corky sits on the floor of the dark apartment.  She has taken                off her boots, which are beside her.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Waiting for what?               Through the wall we can hear the shower.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         For the shower.  That will be our                          signal.               Corky opens a thin box filled with needle-thin lock picks.               She selects several and slips them into her multi-pierced                ears like earrings.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         When he's done with his shower, you                          will go to the bar.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               In slow motion, Caesar drops the shower plunger and water                chokes from the faucet.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Behind the bar, Violet pulls out the bottle of Glenlivet.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         You'll get out the Scotch that Gino                          drinks.               Violet steps out from the bar, her eyes on the bedroom, when                the bottle slips from her hands.               We watch it slowly fall --                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         And as you do, the bottle will slip                          from your hands.  -- and shatter                          against the hardwood floor.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         An accident.                                     VIOLET                         Shit!  Oh shit!               Caesar yells from the bathroom.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         What happened?!               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Hearing Caesar, Corky gets up, moving quietly toward the                door.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         V!  What the fuck was it?!  Violet?               INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Caesar enters, a towel wrapped around him, hair still                dripping.                                     CAESAR                         V, what?  You can't hear me?               Violet looks terribly upset as she begins to clean up.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, it slipped ...  I was trying                          to get ready ...               Caesar realizing what happened.                                     CAESAR                         Oh, fucking Christ ...  You gotta be                          kidding me!               He rushes at her.                                     CAESAR                         Fuck!  Fuck!  How did you ...  Awwww                          goddammit!                                     VIOLET                         I'm sorry.  It was an accident.               She stands up.                                     VIOLET                         Don't worry, I'll get some more.                                     CAESAR                         There's no time.                                     VIOLET                         Don't be silly, Caesar.  It'll take                          five minutes.               She turns him back toward the bedroom.                                     VIOLET                         I'll clean this up and be back before                          you're even dressed.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               Violet opens her door, stepping into the hall where Corky is                waiting.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         When you open the door, I'll be there.               They pass each other in silence, Violet stepping out as Corky                slips in.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         What if he sees you?                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         He won't.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Caesar is working intensely on his fingernails.  We glide                over a set of gleaming metal manicure tools.  We see his                hand as he delicately applies a coat of clear polish to a                nail.               Through the open door, we see Corky moving almost casually                across the living room.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               Corky is looking for something.                                     VIOLET                         You can't know for certain that he                          won't see you.                                     CORKY                         Trust me, Violet.               She finds a black duffel bag from one of her tool buckets.                                     VIOLET                         I'm just asking, what if?                                     CORKY                         If he does ...               Corky slips her hand in between the mattress and box spring,                pulling out a gun.                                     CORKY                         Then I won't have a choice, will I?               She tosses the gun on the bed.               INT.  OFFICE - NIGHT               The black case is lying on the desk, locked shut.  Corky                moves around the desk, dropping down behind it.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         When I'm inside, I will get the money.               From her earlobe, she chooses the right pick, sliding out                the silver tool.               It takes only a second and the first lock pops open.               She is working on the other lock when the door is pushed                open and Caesar walks in.               Corky drops down, grasping for her gun --               As Caesar, wearing only underwear, enters.  He blows on the                drying polish on his fingernails before delicately selecting                a suit from his closet.               The gun ready, Corky, pressed against the desk, waits until                he leaves.               She lets her breath out, then pops the second lock, unzips                the black duffel bag and quickly empties the case, filling                the bag with fat money bricks.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         I'm going to need something ...               Finished, she zips up the bag and looks about.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         ...  to fill the case.               Sbe sees a stack of newspapers hidden near the desk.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         Yeah, you should hide it near the                          desk before you leave.               She fills the case, then closes it.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         At that point --               She thumbs the locks shut and they snap, unnaturally loud,                into place.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               They are both on the bed.                                     CORKY                         There is no going back.                                     VIOLET                         When I get the Scotch, how do I know                          you won't take off?                                     CORKY                         The same way I'll know that you went                          to Scotch.  Trust.               Their faces are close, eyes still trying to read each other.                                     VIOLET                         I still don't see how I'm going to                          get clean with the money in the                          apartment.  Everyone will think I                          did it.                                     CORKY                         Not Caesar.                                     VIOLET                         Why?                                     CORKY                         Because of what you are going to                          tell him.  You have to make it as                          real as you can.  The moment you                          open the door with the Scotch in                          your hand, you will be covered, and                          that moment is the most important                          moment in the plan.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               The door bursts open.  Violet enters quickly, carrying a                bottle in a thin brown bag.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         If it's real enough, he'll believe                          it, because deep down he'll want to.                                     VIOLET                         C!  Shit, I'm sorry!               Caesar wanders out, tightening his tie.  She looks at her                watch.                                     VIOLET                         They were early.                                     CAESAR                         What are you talking about?                                     VIOLET                         They just left, didn't they?                                     CAESAR                         What are you, drunk?               He smiles, grabbing the bottle from her.                                     VIOLET                         You mean they weren't up here?                                     CAESAR                         No!  They're still on their way.                                     VIOLET                         That doesn't make any sense.                                     CAESAR                         Why?                                     VIOLET                         Because I just saw Johnnie downstairs.               Caesar turns.                                     CAESAR                         What?                                     VIOLET                         I was getting out of the car when I                          saw him in the Mercedes.                                     CAESAR                         It couldn't have been.                                     VIOLET                         It was him.  I'm positive.                                     CAESAR                         It's impossible!                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, I know Johnnie.  It was him.                           I screamed when I saw him.  I couldn't                          believe I missed them.  I knew you                          were going to be upset so I thought                          I'd apologize and give Gino the                          Scotch.  I honked a couple of times                          but he didn't stop.               She watches him, her words caving in around him.                                     CAESAR                         But Gino's plane doesn't get in for                          another half-hour.               Violet thinks.                                     VIOLET                         Actually, I didn't see Gino in the                          car.               His eyes dart.  His forehead beads with sweat.  He turns                toward the office.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY               Violet is staring at Corky's mouth.                                     CORKY                         If Caesar hates Johnnie like you                          say, then the second he opens the                          case he'll know, in his gut, that                          Johnnie just fucked him.  He'll                          realize that he has no choice.  He                          can't touch Gino or Johnnie.  There's                          only one way out.               She pauses.                                     CORKY                         He'll have to run.                                     VIOLET                         If he runs, everyone will assume he                          took the money.                                     CORKY                         You'll be clean and we'll be rich.               INT.  OFFICE - NIGHT               Caesar stands over the desk, afraid to open the case.               INT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT - DAY                                     VIOLET                         Jesus, that's beautiful.                                     CORKY                         Thank you.                                     VIOLET                         If you're this goddamn smart, how                          did you ever get caught?                                     CORKY                         Every job like this has moments where                          things don't go so well and everyone                          starts thinking about their own ass.                           It's in those moments that everything                          comes together or falls apart.               She looks dead at Violet.                                     CORKY                         I had a partner and she fucked me.                                     VIOLET                         I won't.                                     CORKY                         I think we're going to find out.               INT.  OFFICE - NIGHT               The key turns and the locks pop.  When Caesar sees the                newspaper, the whole world begins to spin.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar?               His chest collapses onto itself while his hands ball into                fists.                                     CAESAR                         No no no no ...               She moves around the side of the desk and sees the newspaper.                                     VIOLET                         Oh God ...               He slams the case shut, his head hanging down.               After a moment he looks at her, like a little boy about to                cry.                                     CAESAR                         ...  I've been set up.               He seems ready to scream but can't say anything.                                     VIOLET                         Johnnie?               The name is like water hitting hot oil.                                     CAESAR                         That fuck!  That rat-fuck!  Little                          shit rat-fuck!               He starts punching the desk, each blow harder than the last.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky can hear him pounding.  She looks down and smiles.                 Between her legs is the open bag stuffed with money.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar is choking on his own rage.                                     VIOLET                         Why?  Why would Johnnie do this?                                     CAESAR                         Jesus Christ, Violet!  Open your                          fucking eyes!  Johnnie hates me like                          I hate him!               He starts to pound his fists against his own head.                                     CAESAR                         I hate that little fuck!  I hate                          him!  I hate him!  I should've done                          him!                                     VIOLET                         But you know he did it.                                     CAESAR                         So what?!  So fucking what?  Use                          your head, Violet.  The money is                          gone.  Gino is coming here to get                          it.  You think he's going to believe                          me if I tell him his piss-hole son                          stole it!  Is that what you think?                           I don't.  You know what I think?  I                          think I'm a dead man.  I'm one in                          the brain.  That's what I think!                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, what are we going to do?               He grabs hold of his chair, using it to support himself                                     CAESAR                         I know what he wants me to do.  He                          wants me out of here.  He wants me                          to run.               She watches him, his body rocking against the chair.                                     CAESAR                         If I run, then everyone will think I                          took the money and he walks away                          with two million clean.               The words squeeze out like tears.                                     CAESAR                         God, I can see him right now driving                          to get Gino.  I can hear him laughing,                          fucking laughing, laughing at me.               He swings the swivel chair over his head and smashes it down                on the desk.  Again and again.                                     CAESAR                         Laughing at me!  Laughing at me!               The chair falls and he stands alone, covering his face to                hide his tears.                                     VIOLET                         C ...               She goes to hold him.                                     CAESAR                         Don't touch me!               He backs into the corner of the room.                                     CAESAR                         Just leave me alone!  I got to think!               Violet watches him trying to wipe the tears and sweat from                his face.                                     CAESAR                         Got to think this through ...                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, maybe we should run --                                     CAESAR                         Violet, please!                                     VIOLET                         I mean it, Caesar, forget Johnnie,                          forget the money, let's just go now,                          before it's too late --                                     CAESAR                         Goddammit, Violet!  Would you just                          leave me the fuck alone!  Please!                           Leave!  Now!                                     VIOLET                         All right, Caesar.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Violet enters, closing the door quietly behind her.  She                looks at the wall, then goes to the bed and picks up the                phone.               As she dials, we move along the phone cord, following it                down to the jack in the wall.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               We move out from another jack, following a different cord.               Corky is sitting with her back to the wall.  The black phone                beside her barely rings once before she answers.               She waits, saying nothing.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         It's me.                                     CORKY                         What happened?               INT.  BEDROOM NIGHT               Violet whispers, her hand cupped over the mouthpiece.                                     VIOLET                         He totally freaked.  I've never seen                          him like this.  He's out of his                          fucking mind.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         That's okay, as long as he believes                          it was Johnnie.                                     VIOLET                         Believes it!  Jesus, it's driving                          him crazy.  He wants to kill him.  I                          don't know, Corky, I don't know what                          he is going to do.  I'm getting                          nervous, really nervous.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT                                     CORKY                         It's all right, Violet.  It's working.                           All we got to do is wait him out and                          see what he does.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         What if he doesn't run?                                     CORKY                         That means he probably will kill                          Johnnie.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Oh, Christ, I got to get out of here!                                     CORKY                         Listen, if he doesn't run, all you                          have to do is break down, go to your                          bedroom and pack some things, start                          crying, saying you love him but you                          can't do it.  You're sorry but you                          have to leave and just walk out.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT                                     VIOLET                         okay, all right.                                     CORKY (V.O.)                         We're almost there, Violet.  just                          hang on.               Violet hears him.                                     VIOLET                         He's coming ...               She hangs up quickly just as Caesar bursts in.                                     CAESAR                         I got it!  I know what I got to do!                           I got to get the money.                                     VIOLET                         The money?  The money's gone.                                     CAESAR                         No.  Johnnie's got it.  All I got to                          do is get it back.                                     VIOLET                         But it could be anywhere.                                     CAESAR                         He didn't have that much time.  He                          had to pick up Gino.  I bet you he's                          got it with him.  I bet it's in the                          car.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky presses against the wall, trying to hear.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar is pacing.                                     CAESAR                         He didn't see you, did he?                                     VIOLET                         No.                                     CAESAR                         See, right now he doesn't know that                          I know, that's why he put the paper                          in the case.  He wants me to hand                          the case to Gino.  Then there is no                          doubt it was me.  Gino will put a                          bullet in me himself.  But it ain't                          going to happen.  I won't let it!                           Johnnie ain't going to fuck me!  Not                          like this!  No way!                                     VIOLET                         This is insane!               She throws open her closet.                                     CAESAR                         What are you doing?               She grabs a suitcase from under the bed.                                     VIOLET                         I'm leaving!  This is crazy!  I don't                          want to be involved.  I don't want                          anything to do with this shit!               She starts yanking the dresses from the closet.                                     CAESAR                         You can't leave.                                     VIOLET                         The hell I can't!                                     CAESAR                         I need you ...                                     VIOLET                         Bullshit!  You don't need me!  You've                          never needed me!  I can't help you!                           Understand?!  I have to get out.                                     CAESAR                         Violet, I won't let you leave.               She turns and sees that he is holding a gun.                                     CAESAR                         If you're not with me, Violet, then                          I have to assume you're against me.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, this is crazy.                                     CAESAR                         Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.  Maybe                          you dropped the Scotch by accident.                           Maybe you didn't.               Now it is her turn to feel the world spin.                                     CAESAR                         It would have been so easy to let                          him in as you went out.                                     VIOLET                         You don't, you can't believe that                          ...                                     CAESAR                         I've seen the way he looks at you.                           He's always wanted you.  Maybe two                          million dollars finally bought you.               She slaps him hard.  He stares at her.                                     CAESAR                         I'm sorry, Violet, but it has to be                          this way.               He moves past her, picks up the dresses and returns them to                the closet.                                     CAESAR                         I hope you understand.  I want to                          trust you, I want to believe you,                          but I don't have any other choice.               He shuts the closet.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                Caesar is at the bar, drinking the Scotch.  The gun in front                of him.  Across the room, Violet sits, staring holes through                him.               They wait in silence.                                     CAESAR                         You sure you don't want a drink?               Violet says nothing.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               In the dark, Corky sits, her face, her posture very similar                to Violet's.               She is concentrating, her mind somewhere else, when the door                buzzer sounds.               She turns her head and hears Caesar faintly answering the                intercom.               Corky stands just as --               INT. CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                Violet stands.               Caesar faces her for a moment, then shoves the gun into his                belt behind his back.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky watches through the door peep as three men pass by.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               There is a knock and Caesar opens the door.               GINO MARZZONE is an old Italian whose face is a mask of                irritated indifference.               ROY, his enormous driver, is behind him.               Caesar smiles, greeting them in Italian with open arms.               Johnnie is the last inside.  He has tape over his broken                nose.  He smiles and hugs Caesar.                                     JOHNNIE                         You shouldn't have hit me.                                     CAESAR                         You want to get into this now?                                     JOHNNIE                         No, no, Caesar.  Not now.               He smiles again, patting him on the shoulder, then throwing                a fake punch.               Caesar sees Gino with his bright Italian smile, flattering                Violet, kissing her.                                     GINO                         Hey, Caesar!  You take care of this                          girl, or I find out!                                     JOHNNIE                         You are as radiant as ever, Violet.               As he bends to kiss her hand, she sees Caesar watching them.                                     CAESAR                         Glenlivet, right, Gino?                                     JOHNNIE                         I'll have whatever Violet's drinking.                                     VIOLET                         I'm not drinking.                                     JOHNNIE                         Then neither will I.               This makes Violet very uncomfortable.                                     VIOLET                         No, I'll have a Tanqueray and tonic.                                     JOHNNIE                         Caesar, make that two TNTs.               Caesar's hand shakes as he pours Gino's Scotch.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT                Pacing in her socks, Corky tries to think through several                possible situations.  She stops, staring at the bag of money.               The idea of its sitting out in the open suddenly bothers                her.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar hands Violet and Johnnie a drink.  He stares at her.                 She stares back.                                     JOHNNIE                         Salud, eh.  Roy, Violet, Pop, Caesar.               Caesar watches Johnnie, suspecting everything he does.               Johnnie reaches into his pocket and takes out a cellular                phone.                                     GINO                         No, Johnnie.  No goddamned phones.                           Not now.                                     JOHNNIE                         Pop?                                     GINO                         Caesar, come here.  Sit.  We talk                          now.  You too, Johnnie.               Each man sits on either side of Gino.                                     GINO                         Caesar, look at me.  Johnnie tell me                          what happened.  Caesar, you gotta do                          me a favor, a personal favor.  For                          me, eh?  You gotta start respecting                          Johnnie the way you respect me.  You                          understand?  Good.               Caesar sees Johnnie smiling at him, but when Gino turns, the                smile disappears.                                     GINO                         And you, Johnnie.  You gonna stop                          acting stupid.  You gotta earn this                          respect that Caesar's gonna give.                           You understand?  Good.  Done.  Now,                          where's my money?               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky drops a hefty bag, knotted tight, into an open five-               gallon bucket of paint.               As she picks up a paint stick, we see a second bag beside                another bucket.               She pushes the first bag down until it disappears, enveloped                by the milk-white liquid.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar puts the briefcase onto the coffee table.               Gino looks up at Caesar, very serious, with his hand on the                case.                                     GINO                         We know how this was done, eh?                                     CAESAR                         Yeah, I know.               He looks dead at Johnnie.                                     GINO                         It won't happen again, eh?               Caesar shakes his head.                                     GINO                         Good.               Gino throws down the last of the Scotch.                                     GINO                         Done.  We go now.                                     JOHNNIE                         Jesus Christ, Pop.  You got two hours                          until your plane leaves.               Gino checks his watch, shouting in Italian.  Johnnie shouts                back until Gino throws up his hands, refusing to listen.                                     GINO                         Caesar!               He gestures to his empty glass, then folds his arms, leaning                back.  Caesar gets the bottle.                                     JOHNNIE                         So Caesar, what did it total out at?                                     CAESAR                         Two point one seventy-six.               Johnnie whistles as Caesar pours Gino another Scotch.                                     JOHNNIE                         Unbelievable.  Can you believe that,                          Violet?                                     GINO                         Hey, Johnnie ...               In Italian tells him to shut up.                                     JOHNNIE                         Come on, Pop, all I want to know is                          one thing.  Just one thing after he                          made such a big deal out of it.  I                          bet it wasn't a big deal.  Was it,                          Caesar?                                     CAESAR                         What's that, Johnnie?                                     JOHNNIE                         The money I bet it was nothing to                          get it clean, after you made such a                          fucking big deal ...                                     GINO                         Johnnie, what did I say?                                     JOHNNIE                         Pop, this is important to me.  It's                          a simple question.  if he would just                          answer the question, that's the end                          of it.                                     CAESAR                         Where is this going, Johnnie?                                     JOHNNIE                         Just admit it, Caesar.                                     CAESAR                         Admit what?                                     JOHNNIE                         That you overreacted.  That you lost                          it.  Not me.  It was your mistake.               Caesar sees it so clearly now.                                     CAESAR                         All right, Johnnie, you want to play                          it this way, I can play it this way.                           You want to know who made a mistake,                          why don't you open the case.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar ...                                     CAESAR                         Shut up, Violet!  This is between me                          and Johnnie.               He pushes the case toward him.                                     CAESAR                         You want to do this now, let's do                          it.  Open the case.  Open the fucking                          case.               Johnnie stares at him, feeling that something is very wrong.                                     CAESAR                         That's right, I know.  I fucking                          know.                                     JOHNNIE                         Know what?                                     CAESAR                         Open the case!                                     JOHNNIE                         All right!  Where's the key?                                     CAESAR                         You don't need a key.               He tries but it's locked.                                     JOHNNIE                         How the fuck can I open it?                                     CAESAR                         The same way you did before.                                     JOHNNIE                         What are you talking about?               Caesar smiles and tosses the key onto the table.                                     CAESAR                         There you go, Johnnie.               He reaches for the key.  Caesar stands up and gives Violet                his drink.                                     CAESAR                         Get me another.               He can see the fear on her face as she goes to the bar.               Time drips.               The key turns.  One lock pops.               Then the other.               Tbe case opens like a scream and Johnnie sees the newspaper.                                     JOHNNIE                         What the ...               Before anybody can move, Caesar whips around with his gun.               Roy jumps off his stool, his drink crashing to the floor.                                     CAESAR                         Don't!  Don't fucking move!               Nobody can believe what is happening.                                     GINO                         Caesar?  What is this?                                     CAESAR                         Ask Johnnie!  Ask your rat-fuck son!                                     JOHNNIE                         What the fuck?               Caesar levels the gun.                                     CAESAR                         You don't think I'll do it, do you?                                     JOHNNIE                         I think you're fucking crazy!                                     CAESAR                         Where is it?                                     JOHNNIE                         Where's what?                                     CAESAR                         The money!                                     JOHNNIE                         Caesar, I don't know what you're                          thinking here, but if you don't put                          down that gun --               He stands up.                                     CAESAR                         Sit down!               He does.                                     GINO                         Caesar!                                     CAESAR                         Gino, your son stole this money to                          set me up and I can prove it.  Violet!               She doesn't know what to say.                                     CAESAR                         Tell them!  Tell them!                                     VIOLET                         For Christ's sake, Johnnie, do what                          he says.                                     JOHNNIE                         This isn't happening ...               Boom!  Caesar blows a hole in the couch right between                Johnnie's legs.  Johnnie screams.                                     CAESAR                         The next one blows off your dick.                                     JOHNNIE                         You're a dead man!  A fucking dead                          man!                                     CAESAR                         Where is it?                                     GINO                         Enough!               Gino jumps up.                                     CAESAR                         No, Gino!                                     GINO                         You aim a gun at me?!  Do you know                          who I am?!  I am Gino Marzzone.  You                          understand?               He starts walking toward Caesar.  Roy moves around for a                good angle.                                     CAESAR                         Sit down, Gino!                                     GINO                         No, Caesar, gimme the gun.                                     CAESAR                         Stay away!               He backs up as Gino walks straight to him.                                     GINO                         We're family, Caesar.                                     CAESAR                         No!                                     GINO                         Gimme the gun.                                     CAESAR                         I can't.  I can't.                                     GINO                         Give it to me.               He reaches up and takes bold of the barrel.  Caesar looks                resigned as he shuts his eyes.                                     GINO                         Good man.               Close on Gino's hand holding the gun barrel as --               Caesar fires.               From behind the gun we watch Gino's grip yanked free, time                melting away as he falls, blood bubbling from his chest, his                eyes wide in disbelief.               His body hits the floor and the room erupts.               Roy dives, drawing his gun as Caesar continues to fire,                pumping the trigger.               Violet drops behind the bar as Jobnnie screams, falling                towards his father.               Blood spurts from Roy as two bullets hit, his gun clattering                and sliding across the floor.               Johnnie lunges at Caesar as Caesar turns and fires, hitting                Johnnie everywhere; blood and meat spray and speckle                everything around him.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               The gun continues to fire as Corky clutches the phone,                whispering.                                     CORKY                         This is an emergency!               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Crunched down behind the bar, Violet listens to the only                sound, repeating in the unnatural quiet:               Click.  Click.               Click.               Rising, she peers over the edge of the bar.               Caesar is standing in the aftermath.  His gun is still aimed                at Johnnie as he pulls the trigger over and over.               The bodies are still, blood silently pooling around them.               Blinking the sweat from his eyes, Caesar sees Violet.                                     CAESAR                         I had to do it, Violet.  You saw it.                           I had no choice.  It was Johnnie.                           That lying fuck.  He made me do it.               He looks down at Jobnnie, hate rising like bile.                                     CAESAR                         You lying rat-fuck.  You think you                          can set me up?  Is that what you                          think?  You stupid fuck.               Kicking the body, be causes a series of sickening wet noises.                                     CAESAR                         I'm a dead man?  I'm a dead man?                           Guess again, fuck-face.  Who's dead?                           Who's the dead lying rat-fuck?  Take                          another guess, take another fucking                          guess!               He stops, panting, unable to catch his breath.  Violet is                afraid to even look at him.               Blood creeps along the edge of the floorboards.               Caesar tries to clear his head, mopping the sweat from his                face.  He bends down and starts searching Johnnie's pockets.               He finds his keys.                                     VIOLET                         What are you doing?               Lost in thought, he goes to Gino.  Throwing open the coat,                he sees the airplane ticket.  There is a bullet hole in it.               He checks the times and then his watch.                                     CAESAR                         ...  maybe three hours.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, what are you going to do?                                     CAESAR                         What do you think we're going to do?                           We have to find the money.                                     VIOLET                         What?                                     CAESAR                         Once we have the money, then none of                          this ever happened.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, you just killed Gino Marzzone.                                     CAESAR                         No I didn't.  Not if his body                          disappears and not if the money is                          still here.  Then they never showed                          up.                                     VIOLET                         What happened to them?                                     CAESAR                         I don't know.  We may never know,                          but I'm going to guess it was a job,                          maybe the Karpoli family.               He smiles.                                     CAESAR                         All part of the business.               He picks up Roy's gun and stuffs it in his belt.                                     CAESAR                         We just got to find the money.  Once                          we do, everything is going to be all                          right.               In the distance, the wail of a police siren can be heard.               EXT.  PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Through the window they see a squad car, lights blaring,                roll up in front of the building.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                     VIOLET                         Oh, no.               He turns back to the carnage.                                     CAESAR                         Fuck.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, what are we going to do?                                     CAESAR                         They're just cops.  Stall them as                          long as you can.               Caesar flies into action.               Grunting, he hauls Gino's body up, drags it to the bathroom                and throws it into the tub.  He returns for Johnnie's body.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Standing near the bathroom, Corky hears the metal echo of                the tub.  Looking at her tub, she imagines what he is doing.               Through the wall, she hears the door buzzer.               INT. CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               The buzzer sounds again as Violet sees him lift Roy's body.                                     CAESAR                         Answer it!               He heads back to the bathroom, dropping Roy onto the other                two.               The three bloody bodies fill the tub.               We see Johnnie's arm hanging over the edge as Caesar snaps                the shower curtain around, hiding them.                                     VIOLET                         Hello?                                     COP #1 (V.O.)                         This is the police, ma'am.               She cuts them off using the intercom.                                     VIOLET                         The police?               Over her shoulder she sees Caesar moving the furniture,                clearing the area around the heavy bloodstains.                                     COP #1 (V.O.)                         We had a report of gunfire, so if                          you could --                                     VIOLET                         Gunfire?  Is this a joke?               Violet sees Caesar hurry to his office.                                     COP #1 (V.O.)                         No joke, ma'am.  Please open the                          door.                                     VIOLET                         How do I know you are cops?               INT.  OFFICE - NIGHT               Caesar seizes the beautiful oriental rug in his office and                yanks it up, overturning furniture.  Dragging it out, he                slams the door behind him.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Violet looks at Caesar, who is working with the calm, single-               minded focus of a machine.                                     COP #1 (V.O.)                         Ma'am, you have to open the door.                                     VIOLET                         All right.               She buzzes them in as Caesar throws the rug like someone                making a bed, letting it fall to the floor and cover most of                the blood.               INT.  LOBBY - NIGHT               The cops are waiting for the elevator.  After a moment, the                door slides open.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Violet moves away from the intercom as Caesar begins arranging                the furniture on the rug.                                     CAESAR                         Get me a wet towel.               His words push her to the bathroom.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Stuffing a towel into the sink, she turns on the water.  She                does not even look at the shower curtain.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               The elevator opens and the cops step out.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar grabs the television remote, hits "on" and jacks the                volume until it is obviously loud.               Violet returns and he snatches the towel from her.               INT.  HALL               As the two cops walk down the hall, they hear the television.                 They look at each other, already knowing what happened.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Like a maniac, Caesar wipes at any blood still visible until                there is a knock on the door.  He grabs Violet by the arm.                                     CAESAR                         If you're thinking about doing                          something stupid, remember I just                          killed Gino Marzzone.  You understand                          what that means?               She nods.                                     VIOLET                         They're just cops.               There is another knock, much louder.               Violet goes to the door as Caesar rips off his blood-soaked                jacket and shirt.               He drops down behind the bar Leaving the chain on, Violet                opens the door.  Tbe cops smile.                                     COP #1                         See?  We're for real.                                     VIOLET                         I'm sorry, it's just you hear stories.                                     COP #1                         You did the right thing.               Crouching, Caesar wipes vigorously at the blood on his hands                and face.               Violet opens the door.               Caesar crams the bloody wad under the bar sink.               Just as the cops enter the living room, Caesar stands, looking                comfortable in no shirt, with ice cubes in his hands.                                     CAESAR                         Hey, hey, Chicago's finest.               He plunks the ice into a glass and walks from behind the bar                                     CAESAR                         How's it going tonight, fellas?                                     COP #1                         Pretty good, sir.               Caesar turns his head.                                     CAESAR                         Huh?  I'm sorry, I can only hear in                          this ear.               Tbe cops look at each other again.               Wiping his wet hand on his pants, Caesar shakes hands with                each of them.                                     CAESAR                         I'm Caesar and this here is my Violet.               They smile at Violet as Caesar puts his arm around her.                                     CAESAR                         Violet said something about gunshots?               Violet sees the gun wedged in the back of his belt.                                     COP #2                         Yes, sir, a neighbor in the building                          called in.                                     COP #1                         I think we know what happened.                                     COP #2                         It was probably just the television.                                     CAESAR                         The television?               He looks at Violet.                                     CAESAR                         Honey, why didn't you say something?                           Turn it off.               Violet walks across the rug and turns off the TV.                                     CAESAR                         Fuck, this happened before.  It's                          this shitty ear.  Born with it.  The                          batteries wore out in my aid.  I'm                          sorry.                                     COP #1                         It's all right, sir.                                     COP #2                         No big deal.                                     CAESAR                         Hey, can I get you guys a beer?                                     COP #1                         Not on duty, sorry.                                     CAESAR                         Oh, right.                                     COP #2                         But, uh, would you mind if I used                          your bathroom?               Caesar's face tightens.                                     CAESAR                         Yeah, why not?  It's right there.                                     COP #2                         Thanks.               He heads for the john.               Violet watches Caesar back up to the bar, moving behind it.                                     CAESAR                         I'm going to make myself a drink, if                          that's okay?                                     COP #1                         Go right ahead, sir.               INT.  BATHROOM NIGHT               Cop #2 enters, walking right past the shower curtain.  We                hear his sigh as he starts to piss.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Cop #1 walks onto the rug, looking around, turning to Violet.                                     COP #1                         This is a beautiful place.                                     VIOLET                         ...  thank you.               She stares at his shoes on the rug.               Watching everything, Caesar takes a sip of his drink.  He                slips his gun out and holds it at his side.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               There is a bulge in the shower curtain where we imagine                Johnnie's arm is hanging.               Slowly we slide down to the bottom edge of the plastic                curtain, where a drip of blood forms and --               Plips into a small red spot on the white tile floor.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Close on the heel of the cop's black shoe, where we can almost                see the blood seeping up through the oriental rug.                                     COP #1                         Is this a condo?               Violet nods.               Everyone turns when Cop #2 busts out of the bathroom.                                     COP #2                         Okay, let's roll.               Cop #1 walks across the rug to the hardwood floor.  He turns                to Caesar.                                     COP #1                         Try to keep the extra batteries for                          your aid around.                                     CAESAR                         Good idea.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky hears the cop say goodbye to Violet.  The door closes.                 She isn't sure what she should do.               Over her shoulder, she notes the bucket of paint.  She lets                the cops leave.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar puts on a new shirt, the gun stuffed in his pants.                                     CAESAR                         Let's go.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky rises at the sound of Caesar's door closing.               We track her along the wall to the foyer as she follows the                faint sounds of Caesar and Violet's footsteps.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               As they pass by, Violet looks up to the door of the empty                apartment, straight at the peephole.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT Corky is pressed against the door, eye                at the peephole.               She sees that Violet is afraid as the two women seem to speak                to each other with their eyes.                                     CORKY                         ...  shit.               EXT.  PARKING LOT - NIGHT               Caesar is on his knees, searching under the seats of Johnnie's                Mercedes.  Unable to find the money, he is ready to snap.               From the main doors, Corky slips out of the building.  Hiding                behind a column, she sees Violet and Caesar across the lot.               Corky moves behind the parked cars, the gun squeezed in her                hand.               Violet edges away, on the verge of running, looking toward                the busy street.               Standing, Caesar pounds on the car.                                     CAESAR                         Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, someone could see us out                          here.               Ignoring her, be tries to think.                                     CAESAR                         Get in.               Still too far from them to do anytbing, Corky sees Caesar                slam the trunk.                                     CAESAR                         Get in!  It's got to be at his house.                           That's the only other place it could                          be.               Violet looks around the lot, looking for some way out.                                     CAESAR                         Violet!  Now!               Corky can only watch as Violet gets in and the car rips away.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Alone, Corky stands over the bucket of paint.  She kicks it                with her boot-toe.                                     CORKY                         Two million dollars, Cork ...  Two                          million dollars ...               She sighs, wondering how long she can make herself wait.               EXT.  JOHNNIE'S BROWNSTONE - NIGHT               The BMW is parked in front.               INT.JOHNNIE'S BROWNSTONE - NIGHT               Close on Caesar, as he rakes his sweaty hair back, his face                knotted in torment.                                     CAESAR                         Okay, I come in ...               He turns as if he just came in through the front door.               We see Johnnie's home has been laid to waste.  The furniture                is broken, cushions split open, pictures shattered, holes                punched in the drywall -- even the carpeting has been torn                up.               Caesar doesn't look much better.                                     CAESAR                         I've got the money ...               Huddled in a corner, Violet watches him.                                     CAESAR                         I can't wait to see the look on                          Caesar's face when he finds out.               Caesar moves from the front door, trying to get into Johnnie's                head.                                     CAESAR                         Now I don't have much time ...               He takes a couple of steps into the room.                                     CAESAR                         Got to put it someplace safe ...               He looks at a closet.  It's gutted, searched 10 times already.                                     CAESAR                         ...  put it ...               A couple more uneasy steps and he looks at a large over-turned                rolltop desk.                                     CAESAR                         ...  got it ...               He starts looking around the room as if he is seeing for the                first time that it is destroyed.  He is near the breaking                point.                                     VIOLET                         C?               His voice cracks.  There is nowhere else to look.                                     CAESAR                         Where did I put it?               He explodes.  A terra cotta lamp sails across the room.                                     CAESAR                         Where's my fucking money?!  Fucking                          cocksuckers!  Where the fuck is it?!               He smashes his forehead into the wall, denting the drywall.                                     CAESAR                         Ow.               He holds his head, sinking to the ground.                                     VIOLET                         C?               She sits next to him, putting a hand lightly on his shoulder.                                     VIOLET                         It's not here, Caesar.                                     CAESAR                         Where, then?                                     VIOLET                         I don't know.  it could be anywhere.                           We don't even know if he was alone.                           Please, Caesar, we don't have much                          time.  Let's get out of here.               He knows what he has to do.  Digging through the debris, he                finds the phone.                                     VIOLET                         What are you doing?                                     CAESAR                         We're going to need some time.                                     VIOLET                         Who are you going to call?               Already dialing, he does not answer                                     VIOLET                         Caesar?               Ceaar takes a deep breath, mustering composure.                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         Yeah?                                     CAESAR                         Hey, Mickey.                                     VIOLET                         Oh, God.                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         Caesar?  What the fuck time is it?                                     CAESAR                         Mick, I know it's late, but there is                          a problem.  They haven't shown up                          yet.                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         What?  They ain't there?                                     CAESAR                         No.  I don't know where they are.  I                          even called over at Johnnie's, but                          no answer.                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         Okay.  Let me call around.  I'll see                          what I can do.  Don't go anywhere,                          okay?                                     CAESAR                         Okay, sure, Mick.                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         Caesar, you still got the money?               Caesar looks at Violet.                                     CAESAR                         Yeah, Mick.  I've got the money.                           I'm staring right at it.                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         Good.  Sit tight.  I'll call you.               He hangs up.               INT. CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                Caesar drags himself in.  Violet closes the door behind them.               Caesar moves into the room where it happened.  He is dizzy                and confused and does not want to be here.               Violet turns him around.                                     VIOLET                         I'll start packing.  You know what                          you have to do.               She turns him toward the bathroom.  He nods.                                     CAESAR                         I can use Johnnie's car, dump it in                          Lake Michigan ...  I need plastic                          bags ...  tape and rope ...                                     VIOLET                         Just hurry.               Nodding, he heads for the kitchen.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Violet enters and goes straight for the phone.  She looks at                the blank wall as she dials.                                     VIOLET                         Please, Corky ...               The phone rings.               When Corky answers, Violet almost collapses with relief.                                     VIOLET                         Oh, thank God.                                     CORKY                         I'm still here.                                     VIOLET                         I was so afraid you ...                                     CORKY                         You don't quit on me, Violet, and I                          won't quit on you.               INT.  KITCHEN - NIGHT               A box of Hefty bags tucked under his arm, a coil of                clothesline in his hand, Caesar searches through several                cabinets.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Violet glances at the door.                                     VIOLET                         Corky, it worked!  He's going to                          run.  He needs to take care of the                          bodies to buy himself time, but as                          soon as he leaves, it's over.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky falls against the wall.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         just a little longer and it's ours.               INT.  KITCHEN - NIGHT               Mumbling to himself, Caesar walks out of the kitchen, heading                for the bedroom.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Violet reaches out and touches the wall, as if she were                touching Corky.                                     VIOLET                         Corky, I have to tell you something                          ...               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky turns to the wall.                                     CORKY                         I know, Violet.  I know.               Her fingers gently touch the wall as we travel up and over,                where we see they are actually touching the wall in the exact                same place.                                     CORKY                         It's why I'm still here.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Suddenly, Violet hears Caesar.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Violet?               As he opens the door, she slams down the phone.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               The line cuts off.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Fear and panic paralyze Violet as Caesar drops everything,                grabbing for his gun.                                     CAESAR                         Who was that?               He levels the gun at her.                                     CAESAR                         Who the fuck was that?               She stands and be rushes at her, grabbing her by the throat.                                     CAESAR                         Was that Mickey?  Did you call Mickey?                           Did you?!               She shakes her head and he throws her on the bed.  The gun                aimed at her, he picks up the phone and --               Hits the redial.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Unsure of what happened, Corky hears the phone ring and                answers it on reflex.               Listening, she waits.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Caesar listens, waiting as long as he can.                                     CAESAR                         Mickey?  Is that you?               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky hangs up, jumping away from the wall.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Caesar hits the redial again.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Panicking, Corkydoesn't answer it, but as it rings very loud                in the empty apartment, she realizes her mistake.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Turning slowly toward the wall, Caesar hears the phone ringing                in the empty apartment.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Corky rips the plug out of the wall.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               The line goes dead.                                     CAESAR                         Who is that?  Who is over there?!                           Tell me!               She tries to get away, but he grabs her and slaps her to the                ground.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT               Corky hears Violet scream and that does it.  Gun in hand,                she flies at the door.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               The door to the empty apartment slams shut and Caesar, hearing                it, starts to run --               But Violet reaches out, catching his ankle, sending him                crashing to the dresser.                                     VIOLET                         Run!  Just run!               INT HALL - NIGHT               The door to Caesar's apartment is locked.  Corky falls to                one knee, whipping two lock picks from her earlobe.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Caesar raises the gun to pistol-whip Violet and she screams.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               Working the lock, Corky hears Violet's scream cut off.               She feels the tumblers click, and rotates the cylinder.               A shadow stirs under the crack of the door as she hears                something that sounds like footsteps.  Corky freezes.               Corky presses down low against the door beneath the peephole.               She can almost feel Caesar beyond the door, but grits her                teeth and turns the doorknob.               INT.  APARTMENT - NIGHT               The door cracks open and Corky slips in, gun-first.  As she                moves into the room, we see Caesar behind her.               He puts his gun to her head.                                     CAESAR                         Drop the fucking gun or die!               Corky hesitates.                                     CAESAR                         Drop it!               She does.                                     CAESAR                         Turn around.               Rising from her crouch, she turns and he recognizes her.                                     CAESAR                         You!?  Holy fucking Christ!  You                          gotta be kidding me!               He starts to laugh when she strikes --               Knocking the gun, she punches him, slamming him back against                the door as --               She twists, diving, grabbing her gun, just as --               He steps and kicks her full in the face.               INT.  CLOSET - NIGHT               Still unconscious, Corky's head jerks, reacting to the kick.                 We see the dried blood caked to her check where his kick                split the skin.  She is again swimming toward consciousness.               We hear water splash, her face flinching as we move closer,                the sounds and voices echoing.                                     CESAR (V.O.)                         Wake up!  Come on, you fucking dyke!               We hear Caesar slapping her.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Wake up!               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Corky's face is dripping with water as her eyes slowly blink                open.               Coming into focus is Caesar, standing over her with an empty                glass in one hand.                                     CAESAR                         Good.               Except for the gag, she is bound as we have seen her bound                in the closet.               Caesar yanks out his gun and puts it to her head.                                     CAESAR                         I know everything now so I don't                          want to hear any "I don't know"                          bullshit, you understand?               She sees Violet on the bed, also bound hand and foot.                                     CAESAR                         God, I should have seen this coming!                           The second I met you, I knew it.                           Everyone knows your kind can't be                          trusted!  Fucking queers make me                          sick.               The gun digs into her cheek.                                     CAESAR                         But you tried to fuck the wrong guy.                           And I swear to you that I'm going to                          kill you for it.               He thumbs back the hammer.                                     CAESAR                         Where is the money?                                     VIOLET                         Don't tell him --                                     CAESAR                         Shut up, Violet!                                     VIOLET                         He can't kill you --               He aims the gun at Violet.                                     CAESAR                         Violet!                                     VIOLET                         Not until he has the money!               He fires and she jumps as the bullet punches through the                wall behind her.               His point made, he puts the gun back to Corky's head.                                     CAESAR                         Now, where the fuck is my money?                                     CORKY                         Lick me.                                     CAESAR                         Where is it?                                     CORKY                         Either pull the trigger or get that                          thing out of my face.               Blood temperature rising again, Caesar pulls the gun back                and slaps her with it.                                     CAESAR                         Stupid cunt!                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, stop acting like an asshole                          and think --                                     CAESAR                         Don't try to tell me what to do.                                     VIOLET                         You need the money just like we do.                                     CAESAR                         Shut up, Violet.                                     VIOLET                         Let us go and we'll make a deal.               He rushes at her, grabbing a fistful of her hair.                                     CAESAR                         Shut the fuck up!               He looks at Corky.                                     CAESAR                         What did you do to her?!  This isn't                          my Violet!               He looks at her as if unable to recognize her                                     CAESAR                         What did she do to you?                                     VIOLET                         Everything you couldn't.               He shoves her down.                                     CAESAR                         You ungrateful bitch!  You had nothing                          before I met you.  You were nothing!               He stomps around the room.                                     CAESAR                         Who gave you this place?  This                          apartment?               He throws open the closet.                                     CAESAR                         Who gave us all of this?  I did!  I                          gave you everything!  I gave you                          this life!  I made you, Violet.  I                          saved you.               He seems to believe what he is saying.                                     CAESAR                         I saved you.                                     VIOLET                         Ha!  What a load of crap.  Look at                          yourself, Caesar.  You're a thug.                           |You launder money for the mob.  You                          rent women like you rented this                          apartment.               He doesn't want to hear this.                                     VIOLET                         Saved me?  You don't even know me.                           You used me, Caesar, just like I                          used you.  All part of the business.                                     CAESAR                         You betrayed me!                                     VIOLET                         You murdered Gino!                                     CAESAR                         I had to.  You made me.                                     VIOLET                         Bullshit, you killed him.  Not me.                           You did it because you couldn't stand                          the thought of Johnnie fucking you.                                     CAESAR                         Shut up!               He slaps her.                                     CAESAR                         Okay, you want business, I'll give                          you the fucking business.               He leans closer.                                       CAESAR                         I'm going to make you beg just like                          Shelly did.  Just like Shelly!               He storms out of the room.               Corky looks up at Violet.                                     VIOLET                         I'm sorry, Corky ...                                     CORKY                         Don't be sorry.  Help me.               She pulls at the ropes as Violet slides off the bed.               INT.  KITCHEN - NIGHT               Caesar throws open the broom closet and grabs the clippers                that Mickey used to cut off Shelly's finger.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               The two women are back-to-back, fingers working at each                other's knots when Caesar bursts into the room.                                     CAESAR                         Oh, no no no.               Grabbing Corky by the boots, he drags her and flips her so                that she can now see Violet.               He drops down onto Violet putting the clippers in front of                her face.                                     CAESAR                         Hey, Violet, you remember these?               Her eyes widen with terror.  She starts to scream when he                stuffs a towel in her mouth.               Laying against Violet, he turns to Corky.                                     CAESAR                         I'm going to start with her so you'll                          get a good idea what's coming.               He takes hold of Violet's pinky finger, stretching it out.                                     CAESAR                         I'm going to ask you where the money                          is.  Every time you don't give me an                          answer, I'm going to cut off one                          finger.                                     CORKY                         No.                                     CAESAR                         When I reach ten, then I'll start                          with you.               He puts the finger between the blades.                                     CAESAR                         Where is the money?               Corky sees Violet thrashing helplessly.  She has no choice.                 Her mouth opens as --               The door buzzer rings.               Caesar is distracted, trying to think who it could be.                                     CAESAR                         ...  Mickey.               He sees the phone, where he dropped it, lying off the hook.               The door buzzer rings again, more insistently.  Corky sees                him momentarily unnerved.               He looks back at her.                                     CAESAR                         I said where --               He starts to cut and Corky screams --                                     CORKY                         No!  I'll tell you!               He stops, the door buzzing continuously.                                     CORKY                         It's over there in the empty                          apartment.               As she speaks, the sound of the door buzzer changes.                                     CORKY                         I put it inside one of the paint                          drums.               He is not looking at her; listening, he realizes that Mickey                is buzzing the other apartments.               CAESAR stands as the buzzing stops.  He pulls out his gun                and aims it at Corky.                                     CAESAR                         I promised I would kill you.               He cocks it.                                     CORKY                         You can't kill me yet.                                     CAESAR                         Why?                                     CORKY                         I could be lying.               His hand start to shake with ftustration.  He is beginning                to hate this woman more than he ever hated Johnnie.               Taking a deep breath, he eases back the hammer.                                     CAESAR                         You're going to wish to God you hadn't                          done that.               He kicks her again, snapping her head back.               After he leaves, Violet looks over and sees Corky lying                unconscious.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               Caesar tries to open the door to the empty apartment but it                is locked.                                     CAESAR                         Fuck.               At the end of the hall, the elevator "dings." Just as the                door opens, Caesar jumps back into his apartment.               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - NIGHT                                     CAESAR                         Son of a bitch ...               His mind a racing blur, he locks the door and runs back to                the bedroom.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               With another towel, he gags Corky and drags her into the                closet.  In her pocket, he finds the key.               He closes the doors, then hangs up the phone.               Grunting, he hauls Violet up over his shoulder --               When there is a knock on the door.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Carrying Violet, he hurries to the kitchen, where he throws                Corky's gun into the freezer.  Mickey is banging on the door                as Caesar heads for the bathroom.               INT.  BATHROOM               Dropping Violet onto the floor, he reaches behind the curtain                and turns on the shower.                                     CAESAR                         Mickey will get in.  I know he will.               We hear the water hitting the bodies while Caesar starts                tearing off his clothes.                                     CAESAR                         Violet.  I can kill you right now if                          that's what you want.  If you want                          to live, then you have to help me.                           I need you to make Mickey believe                          that everything is normal.               He picks up his gun.                                     CAESAR                         Tell me, do you want to live?               She stares hard at him and his gun, then nods.                                     CAESAR                         Good girl.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               We move toward the door as the lock clicks open.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Violet's hands are untied.  She pulls off the gag and the                ropes at her feet.               Naked, Caesar sticks his head under the shower spray, wetting                everything.               INT.  LIVING ROOM               Still dripping, Caesar walks into the room, a towel wrapped                around his waist, another towel in his hand.               Mickey and Lou are standing in the middle of the room.               Caesar jumps.                                     CAESAR                         Jesus Christ!               Caesar holds his chest, laying it on a bit thick.                                     CAESAR                         Holy fuck, Mickey!  You scared the                          shit outta me.               He sees they both are holding their guns.                                     CAESAR                         What is this?  what are you two doing,                          sneaking in here with your peckers                          in your hands?  You gonna do me,                          Mick?  Is that it?               Mickey smiles, putting his gun away.                                     MICKEY                         No, Cease.  There was no answer.                                     CAESAR                         I thought I heard someone knocking.                                     MICKEY                         I was buzzing, I was knocking, but I                          guess you couldn't hear me on account                          of being in the shower.                                     CAESAR                         Yeah, it was Violet's idea.  I was                          so wound up about Gino, she was trying                          to help me relax.                                     MICKEY                         That Violet is one nice lady.  Wish                          someone would help me relax.                                     CAESAR                         Shit, Mick, come on in, let me get                          you a drink.  Sit down, Lou.               Behind the bar, he sets down the towel be was holding and we                see the gun hidden inside it.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Violet watches through a sliver of open door, her mind already                working.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Caesar is making the drinks.                                     MICKEY                         We was worried about you, Cease.                                     CAESAR                         Me?  Why?                                     MICKEY                         We went over to Johnnie's place just                          to check it out and it was busted                          up, Bad.               Caesar hands him a drink.                                     MICKEY                         I started thinking maybe it's about                          the money so I call you, but all I                          get is the busy signal.  I figure                          the phone is off the hook, that's                          why I come rushing over here.                                     CAESAR                         Oh Christ, the phone ...  That was a                          fucking stupid thing to do, wasn't                          it?                                     MICKEY                         Hey, if Violet was helping me relax,                          I'd probably do the same thing.               Mickey smiles as he sips his drink.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Violet stands and goes to the shower curtain.  She reaches                in and turns off the water.  Steadying herself, she pulls                back the curtain, exposing the wet, bloody bodies.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Mickey is looking at the furniture.                                     MICKEY                         Cease, can I ask you something?                                     CAESAR                         Yeah.                                     MICKEY                         Why'd you move all the furniture                          around?               The knot in Caesar's stomach tightens.                                     MICKEY                         Let me guess.  That was Violet's                          idea, too.               He laughs, and Lou laughs with him.                                     CAESAR                         Actually, yeah, she was nervous about                          Gino coming, wanted everything to                          look right.  You know women, Mick.                                     MICKEY                         Sure, Cease.  They make us do stupid                          things, don't they.               Caesar smiles feebly.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Violet has pulled up Johnnie's body and is digging through                his coat pockets, searching for something.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Mickey sees the briefcase still on the coffee table.                                     MICKEY                         Is that the money?                                     CAESAR                         Yeah, that's it.               Caesar puts his hand inside the towel as Mickey walks across                the rug.                                     MICKEY                         That fucking Shelly.  I gotta hand                          it to the guy, but Jesus, if I were                          him I would have bailed a long time                          ago.  I mean, how much money does a                          man need?               Talking to Lou, be picks up the case and walks back, somehwo                moving right between the wet spots.                                     MICKEY                         I remember I was just staring at all                          this goddamn money, Shelly down on                          his knees, and the next thing I know,                          Johnnie just blows his head off.               He slaps the case up onto the bar.                                     MICKEY                         What a fucking mess.  Johnnie's                          laughing his ass off and that's when                          Caesar lost it and - Boom.  He                          coldcocked him.  Fucking coldcocks                          Johnnie Marzzone.               He thumbs the latches but the case is still locked.                                     MICKEY                         Hey, Caesar, where's the key?                                     CAESAR                         The key, yeah, the key's in my pants                          in the bathroom.                                     MICKEY                         Fuck it, I don't need the key.               Caesar takes the smallest breath.                                     MICKEY                         I didn't need a key to get in here,                          did I?               He pulls out a lock-pick and starts working the lock.  The                muscles in Caesar's forearm bulge as he tightly squeezes his                gun.               He is slipping toward that same desperate choice.  He is                going to attack when --               Across the room, the phone rings.               Everyone looks at it.                                     MICKEY                         Who the hell could that be?               The phone is near the couch.  Caesar doesn't want to let go                of the gun.               The phone continues to ring.                                     MICKEY                         You gonna answer it?               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Violet has Johnnie's cellular phone.               Watching through the cracked door, Violet sees Caesar cross                to answer the phone.                                     CESAR (V.O.)                         Hello?                                     VIOLET                         Hello, Caesar.  This is Gino.               Caesar looks toward the bathroom.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         What?                                     VIOLET                         You're blowing your only chance.                           Act like I'm Gino.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Caesar's eyes light up.                                     CAESAR                         Holy shit, I don't believe it!  We've                          been going crazy over here, Gino!                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Good boy.               Mickey jumps up.                                     CAESAR                         It's Gino!  It's Gino!                                     MICKEY                         Where in the hell is he?               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT                                     VIOLET                         We were in a car accident --                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         They were in a car accident.                                     VIOLET                         But everybody is all right.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                                     CAESAR                         They're all fine.  Just bruises and                          shit.                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         Now you listen to me, asshole, I                          know your gun is behind the bar ...                                     MICKEY                         Un-fucking-believable.  I called                          those highway patrol dumb fucks.                                     CAESAR                         Ssh!  I can't hear Gino!                                     VIOLET (V.O.)                         We make a deal or I come out and                          hand this phone to Mickey.                                     CAESAR                         I'm listening.               INT.  BATHROOM - NIGHT               Violet has her robe over her dress, wrapping her hair in a                towel, making sure the bruise on her forehead is hidden.                                     VIOLET                         I want what's mine, half the money.                           We get rid of Mickey, no one else                          dies.  No one.  Say yes, I understand.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Yes, I understand.                                     VIOLET                         Tell them I'm at St. Mary's off the                          Kennedy, in the waiting room, but                          stay on the phone until I come out.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Sure, Gino, sure.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Violet come out of                the bathroom.                                     CAESAR                         St.  Mary's off the Kennedy, sure.                           Okay, Gino.               Mickey sees Violet.                                     VIOLET                         Mickey?  What are you doing here?                                     MICKEY                         Violet, it's Gino and Johnnie.  They                          were in a car accident.                                     VIOLET                         Oh my God.  Was anyone hurt?                                     MICKEY                         I think everything is okay.               Caesar hangs up.                                     CAESAR                         They're at St.  Mary's in the waiting                          room.               Mick is already on the way.                                     MICKEY                         I can't fit them all in my car so                          give me your keys.  You drive my                          car, Lou.               Caesar sees Violet walking toward the kitchen.                                     CAESAR                         Sure, Mickey, sure.  Violet!               She stops, looking straight at the freezer.                                     CAESAR                         Go grab my car keys from my pants in                          the bathroom.               She turns to him.                                     CAESAR                         Please, help us out, Mickey wants to                          get going.               She turns to the bathroom.                                     MICKEY                         They might want to go straight to                          the airport and back to Miami, so I                          better take this.               He grabs the briefcase.                                     MICKEY                         You got the key?                                     CAESAR                         Oh yeah.  Violet!               INT.  CLOSET - NIGHT               Where Corky remains bound, still unconscious.  We hear the                name echo in her head.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Violet!               Suddenly, her eyes blink open.                                     CAESAR (V.O.)                         Violet!               Her eyes blink again as she tries to focus.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Violet hands Mickey the keys for the car and the case.                                     MICKEY                         Thanks, V.               He kisses her on the cheek.                                     CAESAR                         Call me as soon as you get him.                                     MICKEY                         Leave your phone on the hook.               Mickey and Lou leave.  Violet is staring at Caesar, standing                near the door.               In his right hand he is holding the other towel.  He smiles.                                     CAESAR                         Now that's teamwork.                                     VIOLET                         I should have let him kill you.                                     CAESAR                         You know he would have done you,                          too.                                     VIOLET                         I knew I couldn't trust you.               He drops the towel, raising the gun.                                     CAESAR                         I said I'd let you live and I will.               He smiles again.                                     CAESAR                         Maybe.               INT.  CLOSET - NIGHT               Corky is wide awake, thrashing-mad, biting her gag, struggling                to get free.               INT.  LIVING ROOM - NIGHT               Caesar pulls his pants on.                                     CAESAR                         Time to find out if the dyke was                          stupid enough to lie.               Caesar drags Violet througb the front door.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               The closet doors burst open as Corky fights her way out.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               Caesar sees the buckets of paint.               He rips the lid from the nearest and kicks it over.  Paint                spills out across the floor.               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Suddenly Corky stops; something has caught her eye.  We drop                down, focusing on what she is staring at --               The clippers.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               He kicks over the second bucket and the bag tumbles out with                the rushing flow of paint.                                     CAESAR                         Yes!               He turns to Violet, who is already running out the door.                                     CAESAR                         No!               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               Violet turns down the hall, bare feet beating against the                floor.               Caesar slices out of the room behind her.                                     CAESAR                         Violet!               He aims the gun as she hurls her self into the emergency                door.                                     CAESAR                         Fuck!               INT.  STAIRWELL - NIGHT               She flies, hands on the rail, spiraling down each flight as                he charges after her.                                     CAESAR                         Goddammit, Violet!  Stop!  Now!               INT.  BEDROOM - NIGHT               Straining, Corky's fingers curl around the handle of the                clippers.               INT.  LOBBY - NIGHT               Violet smashes through the door, but instead of turning to                the main doors, she runs straight for the elevators.               She pounds the button and waits.                                     VIOLET                         Come on.  Come on, please.               She hears Caesar coming just as the elevator opens.               Caesar crashes out of the stair door, running toward the                exit.  When he doesn't see Violet, he turns to the sound of                the elevator --               And catches a glimpse of her as the doors close.                                     CAESAR                         Oh, you bitch.  You fucking bitch.               Taking a really deep breath, he throws open the door to the                stairs.               INT.  ELEVATOR - NIGHT               Violet takes Johnnie's cellular phone from the robe pocket                and dials a number.               Mickey answers on the car phone.                                     VIOLET                         Mickey!  Oh God, Mickey!                                     MICKEY (V.O.)                         Violet?               Whispering, she acts terrified.                                     VIOLET                         He made me help him, Mickey, God, I                          was so afraid.  It was Caesar, all                          Caesar.  You have to help me.  He's                          coming - Oh God!               She hangs up, eyes blazing.               INT.  STAIRWELL - NIGHT               Sweat pouring off him, Caesar climbs the stairs.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               The elevator opens, Violet bolts out.  She runs down the                hall, past the empty apartment, back to her door.                                     VIOLET                         Corky?               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT - NIGHT               She rushes to the bedroom, where she finds the coils of cut                rope.                                     VIOLET                         Corky!               She looks at the wall separating the apartment.               INT.  HALL - NIGHT               Caesar half-falls out of the stair door, drenched with sweat.               INT.  EMPTY APARTMENT               Gun ready, Caesar throws open the door.               Spread out like a pond of milk is the spilled paint, but --               The money is gone.               Leading away from the white pool are boot prints and the                drip trail of the plastic bag.               The tracks lead to the bathroom.               Caesar kicks open the bathroom door and finds the bag of                money next to Corky's empty boots.               Over his shoulder we see Corky already swinging a massive                pipe wrench.               At the last second he is able to duck, falling to the ground                as --               The doorjamb splinters with a terrible metal crunch.               Before he can recover and shoot, she brings the wrench down                on his arm.               He screams as the gun hits the floor.               She kicks it, sending it skidding, hydroplaning across the                paint pool to the other side, leaving a jet trail of white                swirls and spirals on the wood floor.               They fight, Corky raining blows onto his back and flailing                arm until --               He catches her foot, flipping her as he clambers up.               Scrambling across the paint, slipping, crawling for the gun                when --               Violet bursts in, pointing the gun from the freezer.                                     VIOLET                         Stop!               Caesar, on hands and knees, looks at her, then at his gun                still out of reach.                                     VIOLET                         It's over, Caesar.  I called Mickey.                           He's on his way.               Violet stands for long time, the gun trained carefully on                him as he rises from the floor.               Panting, Caesar watches her like a mad dog.                                     VIOLET                         Get out of here, Caesar.  If you                          want to live you had better start                          running.               He smiles.                                     CAESAR                         All these years and you still don't                          know me, Violet.               She glances down and sees the paint-covered gun.                                     CAESAR                         But I know you.               He turns to the gun.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, don't.                                     CAESAR                         What are you going to do, V?  Shoot                          me?  Kill me in cold blood?  I don't                          think so.  I'll tell you why.  If                          you had it in you to pull that                          trigger, you would have done it a                          long time ago.  If I was you, I would                          have killed me the minute I brought                          the money home.  But you didn't and                          I know why, because you don't want                          to kill me.  Do you, V?  Do you?                           No, I know you don't.                                     VIOLET                         Caesar, you don't know shit.               Violet fires --               The bullet hits Caesar in the shoulder, knocking him off                balance.  Another doubles him over as blood speckles the                pool of paint.               She empties the gun into him.  His body arcs back, falling,                splashing into the paint.               Caesar's blood bubbles out bright red against the glistening                white.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT.  CAESAR'S APARTMENT - DAY               It is empty and clean.  In the bedroom, only a few hangers                are left dangling in the open closet.               EXT.  PARKING LOT - DAY               Mickey is standing with Violet, next to his Lincoln Town                Car.                                     VIOLET                         I will never understand it, Mickey.                           You didn't even call the police.                                     MICKEY                         I told you, the family doesn't want                          the police around.  We want to take                          care of it ourselves and we will.                           I'll find him.  I swear I will.                                     VIOLET                         I know you will.                                     MICKEY                         Sure you're going to be okay?  I                          mean, if you're having second                          thoughts, my offer still stands.                                     VIOLET                         Thanks, Mickey, but I need to get                          out, you know?  Get away from all of                          this.               Mickey nods.                                     VIOLET                         But thanks.  Thanks for everything.               She hugs him and he kisses her.  Then he gets in his car.                 Violet watches him drive away and knows that she is free.               EXT.  CORKY'S APARTMENT               Corky sitting on stoop, patient, like a rock.               She looks up as she hears high heels, and smiles at --               Violet standing there, new outfit.               Corky stands in front of her.                                     CORKY                         Hey.                                     VIOLET                         Hey.                                     CORKY                         How'd it go?                                     VIOLET                         I'm here, aren't I?               Corky nods.                                     CORKY                         I guess we should get out of here.               Violet nods.               Corky digs out alarm keys, aims, fires.  Violet turns, looks.               New truck.               Violet turns to Corky, eyebrow cocked.                                     CORKY                         Thought we might need a getaway car.               Smiles, they get in.               INT.  TRUCK               Corky admires truck.                                     CORKY                         You know what the difference is                          between us, Violet?                                     VIOLET                         No.                                     CORKY                         ...  Me neither.               Lean for kiss, as dolly in.               Guns engine.               Zoom.                             THE END
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+                            THE BOUNTY HUNTER                                Written by                                         Sarah Thorp                                                                                                Sept 28, 2007                                                          First Draft          EXT JERSEY CITY- DAY                    Dec 21st. Clear sky, snow on the ground. Cold as fuck. With          the sounds of laughter and music, we MOVE IN ON:                              INT NEWSPAPER OFFICE- DAY                    An office Xmas party in progress, not a pretty sight: tipsy          receptionists laugh and spill drinks on the rug, red-faced          reporters loosen their belts and burp cocktail weiners...                    MOVING QUICKLY THROUGH THE PARTY TO AN OPEN OFFICE DOOR.          Arriving just in time for the door to SLAM in our face.                              INT OFFICE- DAY                    A woman stomps back over to her desk and picks up her pen.          MEET CASSIDY DALEY (dirty blond, striking, manic energy). Ink-          stained fingers, notepads in every pocket: Cass doesn't have          time for office parties, she's working.                    Her door cracks open and STEWART (almost as good looking as          he thinks he is) appears, holding a Kahlua bottle.                                        CASS                    I'm working, Stewart.                                        STEWART                    Come on, take a break. (enticing)                    I've got Kahlua...                    Cass picks up a stapler and LAUNCHES it at Stewart's head.          Stewart DUCKS OUT just in time. The phone rings. Answering:                                        CASS                    Cassidy Daley. Talk to me.                                        JIMMY (O.S.)                    It's Jimmy. Tell me you love me.                                        CASS                    Depends on what you got.                                        JIMMY (O.S.)                    I've got a confirmed place and                    time.                    Cass is on her feet, excited.                                        CASS                    I love you! So, when? Where?                                                                             2.                                                  JIMMY (O.S.)                    You think I'm gonna say this shit                    over the phone? I could get killed.                    Just meet me at the usual place.                    Oh, and Cass? This one's gonna cost                    an extra hundred.                    CLICK. He hangs up. Cass drops the phone, grabs her stuff.                              INT NEWSPAPER OFFICE- DAY                    Cass races for the elevator, Stewart hot on her heels:                                        STEWART                    Where ya going?                                        CASS                    Hooters. I go there for the hot                    wings.                                        STEWART                    Please. Nobody goes there for the                    hot wings. You got a tip.                                        CASS                    You got a hundred bucks on you?                    Stewart considers this, then hands her 5 20's.                                        STEWART                    Now are you gonna let me in on it?                                         CASS                    Sorry. No can do. I have to protect                    my source.                                        STEWART                    You know what? We need to talk                    about our relationship.                                        CASS                    We don't have a relationship. We                    made out 3 years ago in the copy                    room. I was drunk. I was broken-                    hearted. I would have made out with                    the xerox machine.                                        STEWART                    Yes, but you made out with me.                                        CASS                    I have to go.                                                                             3.                              She exits. He shouts after her:                                        STEWART                    I want in on that story!                              EXT STREET/JERSEY CITY- DAY                    Cass driving like a maniac, doing the one thing she loves:          TRACKING A STORY...                              EXT DUNKING DONUTS PARKING LOT- DAY                    MOVING IN ON- A BEAT-UP HONDA CIVIC (JIMMY'S CAR) IN THE BACK          CORNER OF THE LOT...                    INT JIMMY'S CAR- DAY                    JIMMY (20's, goatee, Mets baseball hat, nervous) sits in his          car, rolling a cigarette while he waits for Cass.                    Jimmy puts the cigarette in his mouth and pulls out a          lighter. Just as he flips the lighter open, HIS FRONT          WINDSHIELD EXPLODES. A MAN HOLDING A TIRE IRON (MAHLER,          heavyset, crew-cut, rarely speaks, all business) reaches          through the broken window, AND DRAGS JIMMY OUT OF THE CAR...                              EXT DUNKING DONUTS PARKING LOT- DAY                    Cass drives into the lot and pulls up next to Jimmy's car.                                        CASS                    Hey, Jimmy, I...                    She realizes he is not in the car. THEN SHE SEES THE BROKEN          GLASS ALL OVER THE DRIVER'S SEAT.                                           CASS                    Jimmy?                    SCREECHING TIRES behind her. Cass glances up and sees JIMMY'S          BASEBALL HAT IN THE BACK WINDOW OF A GREY CHEVY. The Chevy is          racing out into traffic. Cass throws her car into reverse...                              INT CASS' CAR- DAY                    Cass tries to follow the grey Chevy, but GETS STUCK AT A RED          LIGHT. Shit. She looks around, decides fuck it, and HITS THE          GAS. Her car leaps into the intersection. SIRENS.                                                                             4.                              Cass looks into her rearview mirror: A PATROL CAR IS RIGHT          BEHIND HER, signalling for her to pull over. Up ahead, the          Chevy is getting away.                    Cass debates: pull over? Or follow the story? No contest. SHE          SLAMS ON THE GAS AND HER CAR SURGES OUT OF FRAME...                              EXT STREET- DAY                    Cass' car SPEEDS down the street, A COP CAR IN CLOSE          PURSUIT...                              INT CASS' CAR- DAY                    Cass is losing sight of the Chevy. She races around traffic          and is suddenly HEADED STRAIGHT FOR THE SIDE OF A MOVING VAN.          She panics, WRENCHING the wheel to the right...                              EXT STREET- DAY                    CASS' CAR JUMPS THE CURB, CROSSES A LAWN, AND SKIDS TO A HALT          ON THE FRONT STEPS OF A CHURCH. THE COP CAR RACES UP AND          BLOCKS HER IN.                              EXT CHURCH- MOMENTS LATER                    Cass is out of her car now, arguing with a cop who has her by          the arm:                                        CASS                    Let go of me, I'm a reporter, I'm                    warning you...                    The cop pulls her towards his squad car. Cass leans over and          SINKS HER TEETH INTO THE COP'S HAND. The cop screams.                    FREEZE FRAME.                    CHIRON: "24 HOURS LATER"                    CLOSE ON- A NEWSPAPER COLUMN WITH CASS' PHOTO: windswept          hair, head tilted coyly, smile that says "I'm on top of the          world. Beneath the photo, the byline: "CASSIDY DALEY".                    Someone whistles "We Wish You a Merry Xmas" as a MARKER          improves on the photo: MOUSTACHE, BUCK-TEETH, PIMPLES. Then a          MATCH enters frame, and SETS THE PHOTO ON FIRE.                                         VOICE                    Milo!                                                                               5.                              PULL BACK TO REVEAL:                    INT CRYSTAL'S BAR/JERSEY CITY- LATE AFTERNOON                    Holding the flaming photo, MEET MILO: rumpled shirt, messy          hair, looks like he slept on the floor. The bartender          (CRYSTAL, 50's, Eastern European) scowls at him:                                        CRYSTAL                    What did I say about the fires?                                        MILO                    You said "please set fires in my                    bar". Wait, no, that's not right.                    "Please don't set fires in my bar".                    (off her look) Ok, jeez, you try to                    get in the holiday spirit...                    He drops the flaming photo to the floor, pours his drink on          it, then GRINDS IT TO PIECES WITH HIS SHOE.                                        CRYSTAL                    Shouldn't you be working?                                        MILO                    That's the beauty of my job,                    Crystal. Tracking down idiots is                    something you can do pretty much                    anywhere. See, there's one...                    He points to A DRUNK DRAPED OVER THE JUKEBOX, MOURNFULLY          SINGING ALONG TO CHRISTINA AQUILLERA'S "I AM BEAUTIFUL".                                        MILO                    And there's another one...                    Pointing to A WOMAN TRYING TO RIP A PAY PHONE FROM THE WALL.                                        MILO                    And there's...                    Glances at the TV, which is showing LIVE FOOTAGE OF AN XMAS          PARADE. Looks closer, recognizes someone, groans:                                        MILO                    I don't believe it. That idiot. (to                    Crystal) Save my seat.                    Tosses back his drink and SPLITS.                                                                                6.                              EXT CRYSTAL'S BAR- LATE AFTERNOON                    Milo climbs into a Cadillac: dents, patches of rust, cracked          windshield, bumper askew.                    RACK TO: half a block away, A DARK SEDAN IDLES AT THE CURB.                              INT DARK SEDAN- LATE AFTERNOON                    The man behind the wheel (DWIGHT, large, babyfaced, Metallica          t-shirt) eats a hoagie as he watches Milo get into his car.                                        DWIGHT                    There you are, you dipshit.                    He takes a last bite then tosses the sandwich and pulls away          from the curb, tailing the Cadillac.                              EXT JERSEY CITY- LATE AFTERNOON                    MOVE IN ON- the parade we just saw on TV. Baton twirlers in          Santa Hats. Men dressed like reindeer, pulling a sleigh. A          boys choir singing "Joy to the World", the kids dressed like          orphans that escaped a Broadway musical.                    A beautiful scene, if you like that sort of thing.                    RACK TO- the Cadillac, half a block away, cruising sideways          into a spot just beneath a "TEMPORARY TOW-AWAY" sign. MILO          climbs out of the car. Shoves his way through the crowd to          the curb, cracking open a can of Pabst.                    Milo does not like this sort of thing. He scans the crowd          impatiently.                    Meanwhile, THE CAR THAT WAS FOLLOWING HIM parks half a block          away. DWIGHT emerges and heads for:                    MILO, who has just found what he's looking for. The reindeer          are passing him and he makes eye contact with RUDOLPH, who          does a double-take.                                        MILO                    Yeah, you. Rudolph. Come here, you                    fucking ding-dong.                    Milo takes a step towards Rudolph and DWIGHT APPEARS IN          MILO'S PATH, BLOCKING HIM.                                        DWIGHT                    We have to stop meeting this way.                                                                                7.                                                  MILO                    Not now, Dwight.                                        DWIGHT                    You owe my boss money.                                        MILO                        (LAUGHING)                    Hey, I owe everybody money.                    Suddenly, DWIGHT PUNCHES MILO IN THE GUT. Milo doubles-up,          gasping, then BRINGS HIS HEAD UP QUICK, CATCHING DWIGHT ON          THE CHIN. Dwight goes flying sideways and MEETS A POLICE          BARRIER FACE-FIRST. Ouch.                    The barrier tips over, knocking over the one next to it. THE          REST GO LIKE DOMINOS. Milo turns to see that RUDOLPH HAS          DISAPPEARED. Then he catches sight of the ANTLERS, working          their way through the crowd. Milo lunges after him and          Rudolph drags other reindeer with him as he tries to avoid          Milo. THE SLEIGH FLIPS. Santa tumbles from the sled. PACKAGES          RAIN DOWN ON REINDEER LIKE SHRAPNEL.                    All of a sudden, IT'S THE XMAS FROM HELL: BLOODY REINDEER          STUMBLING AROUND, SANTA UNCONSCIOUS IN THE GUTTER, KIDS          SCREAMING, PARENTS PANICKING. Meanwhile, MILO IS GAINING ON          RUDOLPH, who picks up one of the packages and throws it. IT          CRACKS MILO IN THE HEAD. Just what Milo has been waiting for:                                        MILO                        (BEAMING)                    I am so happy you did that.                    Milo TACKLES RUDOLPH TO THE GROUND. Around them, people          scream and scatter. One boy bursts into tears:                                        BOY                    That man is killing Rudolph!                    SIRENS. Uh-oh. Cops SWARM the scene, surrounding Milo and          Rudolph, GUNS DRAWN. The LEAD COP (GELMAN, short, over-          zealous) steps forward:                                        GELMAN                    Release the reindeer!                    Release the reindeer? Milo looks around. He's got 8 or so          guns pointed his way and Rudolph gasping at his feet. MILO          STARTS TO LAUGH. Gelman bristles:                                        GELMAN                    Hands behind your head, asshole!                                                                               8.                                                  MILO                    Take it easy, skippy, I'm just                    doing my job.                    Milo flashes his ID. Gelman inspects it, rolls his eyes.                                        GELMAN                    Bounty hunter. Figures. Why don't                    you get a real job?                                        MILO                    So I can be like you patrol boys                    and sit around all day with my                    thumb up my ass?                    Gelman turns bright red.                                        GELMAN                    What did you just say?                    Suddenly, a sergeant (BOBBY, late 30's, obnoxious but          likeable, Milo's ex-partner) marches onto the scene, takes          one look at Milo and laughs.                                        BOBBY                    Milo Boyd. I shoulda known.                                        GELMAN                    Sarg, you know this asshole?                                        BOBBY                    Yeah. I know this asshole. Guy used                    to be one of us.                    RACK TO- DWIGHT, NOSE BLEEDING, MELTING BACK INTO SHADOW...                              EXT STREET- MOMENTS LATER                    Milo drags Rudolph through the crowd towards his car. Bobby          follows, shaking his head, bemused expression on his face.                                        BOBBY                    Look, Milo, I know this is a tough                    time of year for you...                                        MILO                    This isn't a tough time of year for                    me. It's Christmas. Who doesn't                    love Christmas?                                        BOBBY                    ...and I try to be sensitive to                    your situation...                                                                              9.                                                  MILO                    What situation? Being a man who                    works his own hours and has his                    freedom and lives the high life?                                        BOBBY                    ...because I realize you're                    unhappy.                                        MILO                    Unhappy? Are you kidding me, Bob?                    Look at me: I'm the happiest man                    alive.                    Just then, they come to where Milo left his car. IT'S GONE.          Bobby squints at the huge "TOW-AWAY" sign:                                        BOBBY                    That sign is pretty hard to see.                    And with that, Milo loses it:                                        MILO                    AAAHHH!                    He rips the sign off the pole. Stomps on it. Kicks it. Tries          to shred it with his teeth. Hmm. He doesn't really seem like          the happiest man alive. Rudolph, to Bobby:                                        RUDOLPH                    Take me to jail. Please?                              INT BOBBY'S CAR- EARLY EVENING                    Bobby's car is decorated with photos of his many children,          all of whom look exactly like him, even the girls, poor kids.                    Milo's in front by Bobby, Rudolph's handcuffed in the back.                                        BOBBY                    Ok, I got one for ya: why doesn't                    Santa have any children? Cause he                    only comes once a year and when he                    does, it's down a chimney.                    Rudolph snickers. Milo does not. Bobby glances at Milo.                                        BOBBY                    So. Have you talked to her lately?                                        MILO                    Talked to who?                                                                            10.                                                   BOBBY                    Katie Couric, motherfucker, who do                    you think?                                        MILO                    I haven't talked to her in three                    years, why would I talk to her now?                                        BOBBY                    Well, for one thing, so you can                    stop taking out your rage on                    innocent bystanders.                                        RUDOLPH                        (piping up from the back)                    Talk to her, man. For real.                    Milo reaches back, gags Rudolph with his own scarf.                                        BOBBY                    Do what you want. But this kind of                    shit will eat a hole in your                    intestines, you don't deal with it.                              EXT POLICE STATION/JERSEY CITY- EARLY EVENING                    They pull up. Milo exits the car, pulls Rudolph from the          back. Bobby leans out.                                        BOBBY                    Hey, why don't you come by the                    precinct tomorrow for our Xmas                    bash?                                        MILO                    I'm not invited. I'm not a cop                    anymore, remember?                                        BOBBY                    Fuck that, I'm inviting you.                                        MILO                    I don't know, Bob. I'm sorta busy.                                        BOBBY                    That's what I'm worried about.                    (sighing) Just...take it easy, Ok?                    Bobby really seems worried, but Milo waves him off. Bobby          drives over, parks by other cop cars. Gets out, mingles with          some cops. Laughter, inside jokes. Milo watches from afar.                                                                             11.                                                  RUDOLPH                    You should go to that party, man.                    Seriously. You need it.                                        MILO                    Do I look like I need advice from a                    grown man in antlers?                    Milo gags Rudolph and drags him into the station.                    FADE TO BLACK. OVER BLACK:                                        VOICE                    Milo. Hey. Princess...                    INT SID'S BAIL BONDS/JERSEY CITY- MORNING                    Hazy pieces: a tilting clock on the wall. A battered metal          desk. Filing cabinets, spitting up papers. A man, SID (wound          sorta tight, Milo's best friend) peers down at us:                                        SID                    You're drooling on my sofa.                    Milo unsticks his face from the leather couch, wobbles          upright. Are the walls throbbing, or is it just him?                                        SID                    You do have an apartment, don't                    you? With a bed of some kind?                    Milo grunts. Sid hands him a coffee.                                        SID                    Heard you shut down 5th Street                    yesterday. Gave every kid in the                    county the gift of nightmares.                                        MILO                    Hey, I'm a giving kind of guy.                    Anyway, what do you care? I brought                    your guy in, right?                    Milo holds out his hand, palm up. Sid COUNTS MONEY INTO HIS          PALM.                              EXT SID'S BAIL BONDS/JERSEY CITY- MORNING                    Swearing under his breath, Sid is trying to stuff a Xmas tree          into the back of a station wagon. At least half of the tree          is hanging out of the back. Milo drinks a beer and watches.                                                                           12.                                                  SID                    You gonna give me a hand, or just                    stand there killing your liver?                                        MILO                    Is that a trick question?                    Sid glares at him. Milo sighs, puts down his beer, and grabs          part of the tree.                                        SID                    So I told her, fine, I'd handle                    Xmas this year. I mean, what's to                    handle? You buy a tree, some gifts,                    cook a ham, hang some lights. An                    idiot could do it.                                        MILO                    Well, we'll soon find out.                    Sid checks him out.                                        SID                    You have plans for the holiday?                                           MILO                    The usual.                                        SID                    Gonna drink some cheap whiskey and                    put your fist through a wall?                                           MILO                    Jealous?                    The tree is definitely not going to fit. They let it go, and          Sid pulls out a small hand saw.                                        SID                    Then forget it.                                        MILO                    Forget what?                                        SID                    I've got an open bond, but your                    thing sounds like more fun. I'll                    give it to Doug instead.                    Sid starts hacking away at the tree.                                                                           13.                                                  MILO                    Whoa. Hold up, Heidi. What the                    fuck. I want the job, I'm in the                    hole.                                        SID                    You're always in the hole.                                        MILO                    What's your point?                                        SID                        (SIGHING)                    The truth is, I'm not sure you're                    the right person for this job. It                    could be a total disaster. On the                    other hand, when one friend sees                    another friend stagnating in his                    own filth, he has to do something,                    right?                                        MILO                    Hey. I just woke up. I was gonna                    shower.                    Sid drops the saw. With one final shove, the tree is in.          Phew. Sid slams the back shut.                                        SID                    Ok. But remember: you asked for it.                    He reaches into his pocket and extracts A FOLDED PIECE OF          PAPER. Hands it to Milo. Milo unfolds it, gives it a quick          look. A second look. A third.                    TIME STOPS. THE WHOLE STREET GOES SILENT.                                        MILO                    No.                                        SID                    Yes.                                        MILO                    No.                                        SID                    Yes.                                        MILO                    No.                                        SID                    Are we done yet?                                                                    14.                                                  MILO                    Is this a joke? Because if it is,                    I'm gonna have to kill you.                                        SID                    It's not a joke.                                        MILO                    She got arrested? And then she                    jumped bail?                                        SID                    Apparently the whole thing started                    with some reckless driving, and                    ended with her assaulting a police                    officer.                    Milo gives him a questioning look.                                        SID                        (EXPLAINING)                    She bit him.                    Milo snorts.                                        MILO                    Yeah. That sounds like her.                    But here's my question: why the                    hell did you post her bail?                                        SID                    Hey, I know she dumped you...                                        MILO                    Whoa. She did not "dump me".                                        SID                        (QUICKLY)                    Ok, whatever, I...                                        MILO                    No, not "whatever". I dumped her.                                        SID                    The point is, I'm aware you guys                    have issues, but I'm running a                    business here. A person needs bail,                    I don't have time to check with you                    first.                                        MILO                    Well, had you checked with me                    first, you wouldn't be out of a                    bond right now.                                                                             15.                                                  SID                    I'm not out of a bond if you go                    pick her up. It's five grand to                    bring her back by 9am, Xmas day.                                        MILO                        (SLOWLY)                    You're telling me it's five grand                    to go pick up my ex-wife and bring                    her to jail. (beat) On Xmas.                                        SID                    You're a good listener.                    Milo takes a deep, calming breath. Then he EXPLODES into          whoops and hollers. He throws himself into a snow bank and          thrashes around. He does a Fred Astaire around a lamp post.                                        SID                    I take it you're interested.                    Milo grabs Sid and pulls him into a crushing bear hug.                                        MILO                    I love you! You're the best friend                    a guy could ever have!                                        SID                    Ok, take it easy...                    TERESA (mid 40's, overly made-up, popping gum) pokes her head          out the front door:                                        TERESA                    Sid, you got a DUI on line one.                    (off their looks) What's going on?                    Milo drops Sid, grabs Teresa, and gives HER A LONG, INTENSE          KISS. He releases her. She stumbles back a bit.                                        TERESA                    Ok. (beat) Can I have my gum back?                                        MILO                    Right. Sorry.                    He reaches into his mouth, extracts her gum and hands it to          her. She retreats back inside. Milo beams at Sid.                                        MILO                    You know what this is, don't you?                    Karma! Payback! You know how they                    say "What goes around comes                    around"? Turns out it's true!                              (MORE)                                                                              16.                              MILO (cont'd)                    (checking the paper) That middle                    initial stands for Rhonda, by the                    way. She tells people it stands for                    "Rachel", but that's a lie.                    Sid shakes his head.                                        SID                    I can't believe you guys broke up                    over a stupid article.                                        MILO                    We didn't break up over a stupid                    article. We broke up because she is                    a cheating, manipulative liar.                                        SID                    Are you sure you can handle this?                                        MILO                    Why wouldn't I be able to handle                    this?                                        SID                    Let's face it: you're not exactly                    rational around her. I mean, if I                    was a cop working a case and some                    reporter came snooping around, I'd                    say "no comment". Not "no comment,                    but care for a cocktail"? And then                    a month later, running off to some                    love shack called "Caveman's Cabin"                    and tying the knot? Who does that?                                        MILO                    That's not even close to what                    happened. For one thing, it was                    called "Cupid's Cabin". And for                    another, that was before I knew how                    conniving she was. Now I know. So                    all I have to do is track her down,                    cuff her up, and bring her in.                    (checking his watch) And I've got,                    what, two days? Shit, man. Easy as                    pie.                    Famous last words. Sid is regretting his decision as he          watches Milo go dancing down the street...                    CHRIRON: "DEC 23RD. 9:00AM. 48 HOURS TO GO."                    With the sound of multiple ringing phones, cut to:                                                                              17.                              INT WAREHOUSE/ATLANTIC CITY- DAY                    QUICK TRACKING SHOT OF LORRAINE (50's, bleached blond, built          like a trucker), as she talks on the phone and paces the          room, giving us glimpses of a major illegal bookie operation:          TV screens everywhere, a huge blackboard posting odds, men on          computers, several heavily armed private security guards...                                         LORRAINE                         (into phone)                     You tell him I know where he lives.                     I know where his bimbo wife takes                     her yoga classes, I know where his                     idiot son shoplifts after school,                     so he can pay me my money or...                    She comes to a sudden stop at:                                         LORRAINE                     What the hell happened to you?                    REVEAL DWIGHT, the guy who tried to collect from Milo,          SPORTING TWO BLACK EYES AND A BROKEN NOSE.                                         DWIGHT                     Milo Boyd. Fucker head-butted me.                                         LORRAINE                         (not interested)                     Yeah? Did you get the money?                    He did not. Lorraine scowls. "LUCK BE A LADY" KICKS IN:                              EXT- DAY                    Milo gets his car out of impound.                              INT BARBERSHOP- DAY                    Milo gets a cut and a shave.                              EXT BARBERSHOP- DAY                    Milo gets his shoes shined.                              INT MILO'S APT- DAY                    A freshly showered and shaved Milo packs for the job, singing          at the top of his lungs:                                                                              18.                                                  MILO                    Luck be a lady...                    He puts an empty duffle on the bed and starts filling it:          MACE, PEPPER SPRAY, TASER GUN, HANDCUFFS...                                        MILO                    Toooo....NIIIIIGHT!                    He stares at his collection and smiles:                                        MILO                        (to his weapons)                    I told you this day would come.                    Milo zips up the bag.                              EXT MILO'S APT- DAY                    Milo tosses the duffle in the backseat. He pulls out the job          sheet and inspects it. CASS' CELL PHONE NUMBER IS LISTED.          Pulls out his cell phone, then hesitates. He glances around          and sees a PAY PHONE ACROSS THE WAY.                    Pockets his cell phone and crosses to the pay phone.                              EXT STREET- DAY                    CASS, expensive leather jacket, boots, dark glasses, trying          to be incognito. Hurrying towards her car when she sees SOME          COPS EXIT A DINER up ahead. She slips into a doorway, waiting          for them to pass, when her phone rings.                    She checks it ("PAY PHONE") and answers:                                          CASS                    Jimmy?                    SPLIT-SCREEN                    Nope, NOT JIMMY. Milo doesn't speak. Cass listens for a          moment. She can hear breathing. What the fuck? An evil grin          crosses Milo's face. Cass goes pale.                    Milo takes a step forward. Cass takes a step back. Milo          LUNGES and CASS DROPS HER PHONE AND BOLTS OUT OF FRAME.                              EXT PAY PHONE- DAY                    Milo smirks at the receiver.                                                                             19.                                                  MILO                    You better run, you crazy bitch.                              INT SID'S BAIL BOND'S- DAY                    Sid shuts his door, then speaks into his phone, low:                                        SID                    Yeah. He took the job. But if this                    thing goes bad, I'm blaming you.                    He hangs up.                              EXT STREET- DAY                    Milo sips from a coffee cup and watches:                    MILO'S POV- THE FRONT DOOR OF A FANCY BROWNSTONE. A woman          with a toy poodle emerges from the building, struggling with          the heavy door..                              EXT BROWNSTONE- DAY                    Milo appears next to the woman and holds the door for her:                                        MILO                    Nice dog. Very compact.                    The woman exits and Milo enters.                    CLOSE ON- PANNING SHOT PAST DOORS: 301, 302, 303...                    INT APT HALLWAY- DAY                    Milo stops in front of 303, and knocks on the door.                                           MILO                    Candygram.                    No answer. Milo glances around, then works the lock...                              INT APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- CONTINUOUS                    Milo slips inside, pulling the door shut behind him. It's          dark and quiet. He glides through the room, scoping it out.          The place is huge, white rug and couch, flat screen TV.                    And lining the bookshelves are FRAMED ARTICLES, AWARDS,          PHOTOS OF CASS WITH VARIOUS PUBLIC FIGURES: the home of a          successful and dedicated journalist.                                                                              20.                              Milo is halfway across the room when he realizes he has left          a set of MUDDY PRINTS across the formerly pristine white rug.                                        MILO                    Whoops.                              EXT APARTMENT/BACK DOOR- DAY                    Cass enters frame. Nervous looks all around as she tries the          knob. Surprise: THE DOOR SWINGS OPEN. She hesitates.                              INT APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    NOW THERE ARE FOOTPRINTS CRISS-CROSSING THE FLOOR, RUNNING UP          OVER THE COUCH, ETC. Looks like Milo had a little field day          here. He is taking a closer look at the shelves: no photos of          a boyfriend, family, pets: IT'S ALL WORK.                    He picks up one of the framed articles with the headline          "LOCAL REPORTER WINS AWARD FOR BREAKING UP 13TH STREET DRUG          RING". There's a photo of CASS SHAKING HANDS WITH THE AN          IMPORTANT-LOOKING OFFICIAL.                    Milo's face clouds over.                              INT APARTMENT/KITCHEN- SIMULTANEOUS                    Cass slips inside and the door swings shut behind her with a          soft CLICK.                              INT APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    Milo's head whips around. SOMEONE'S IN THE KITCHEN. Big grin          as he replaces the frame and draws his gun. A couple careful          steps across the room and a floorboard CREAKS.                              INT APARTMENT/KITCHEN- SIMULTANEOUS                    Cass startles. SOMEONE'S IN THE LIVING-ROOM. Grabs a heavy          saucepan off the stove. Grips it like a weapon, soft-foots it          towards the hallway...                              INT APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    Milo reaches the hallway entrance. Positions himself up          against the wall, waiting...                                                                              21.                              INT APARTMENT/HALLWAY- SIMULTANEOUS                    Cass tiptoes down the hallway, saucepan at the ready...                              INT APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    Milo holds his breath. A SHADOWY FIGURE STEPS INTO THE ROOM.          Milo puts his gun to their head:                                        MILO                    `Allo, love.                    RACK TO- THE PERSON'S FACE. IT'S NOT CASS, IT'S STEWART.                              INT APARTMENT/HALLWAY- SIMULTANEOUS                    Cass takes a breath and LUNGES...                              INT APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    ...SWINGING THE PAN, SCREAMING LIKE A BANSHEE:                                        CASS                    HIIIII-YAAAA!!!                    THE PAN CONNECTS SOLIDLY WITH A CAT. Cat goes flying, bounces          off wall, lands on the coffee table, fangs bared.                                        CASS                    Whoops.                    So, if we didn't know already: CASS AND MILO ARE IN DIFFERENT          APARTMENTS.                              INT CASS' APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    Stewart is trying to explain himself to a skeptical Milo:                                        STEWART                        (poor liar)                    ...so, I heard a noise in here and                    became concerned...                                        MILO                    Wrong. Try again.                                        STEWART                    Ok, the truth is she asked me to                    pick up her dry-cleaning...                                                                           22.                              Milo just waits.                                        STEWART                        (CRACKING)                    Ok, Ok, look, she's working a big                    story that was supposed to be mine,                    and I want it back.                    Milo considers this.                                        MILO                    You sleeping with her, Stu?                                        STEWART                        (turning red)                    You mean, like, at this moment?                                        MILO                    Yeah, that's what I mean. Are you                    sleeping with her at this very                    moment?                                        STEWART                    We have a history, yes.                                        MILO                    A "history", huh? (snorting) Good                    luck with that.                              INT JIMMY'S APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    Cass tries to coax the terrified cat out from under the sofa:                                        CASS                    Here, kitty kitty...                    Suddenly the LANDLADY (as wide as she is tall) pops her head          in the door, startling Cass:                                           CASS                    Aahh!                                        LANDLADY                    You're not Jimmy.                                        CASS                        (recovering quickly)                    Oh. No. I'm looking for him.                                        LANDLADY                    Under the sofa?                                                                    23.                                                  CASS                    Maybe you can help. I'm his                    girlfriend.                                        LANDLADY                        (SKEPTICAL)                    You're LaKeesha?                    Oh. Whoops.                                        CASS                    Yes. That's my name. LaKeesha.                                        LANDLADY                    Maybe I should call the cops.                                        CASS                    Wait! Ok, look: Jimmy's in trouble.                                        LANDLADY                    What kind of trouble? Money                    trouble? Drug trouble? (lower) Sex-                    change trouble?                    "Sex-change trouble"?                                        CASS                    Something like that. All I know is,                    he's missing.                                        LANDLADY                    I've had a lousy week, too. My                    cousin Linda fell off a cruise                    ship.                                        CASS                    Oh. I'm sorry.                                        LANDLADY                    Hey. A grown woman outta know how                    to swim.                                        CASS                    I hear ya. Anyway. Mind if I take a                    quick look around?                    The landlady thinks this over.                                        LANDLADY                    Jimmy's behind on his rent. I bet                    his girlfriend would want to take                    care of that.                    ON CASS- Dammit.                                                                            24.                                                  CASS                    I bet she would.                              INT CASS' APARTMENT/LIVING-ROOM- DAY                    Milo explains, as he pokes around:                                        MILO                    The thing is, Stu, she'll make you                    think she's interested in you, when                    really all she's interested in is                    the case you're working on, because                    she wants to launch her big hot-                    shot career.                    It is just dawning on Stewart:                                        STEWART                    Wait a second: you're Milo. She                    talks about you all the time.                                        MILO                        (immediately interested)                    Really?                                        STEWART                    Oh yeah, dude. She hates you.                    Milo turns an angry red.                                        MILO                    Oh, she hates me?                                        STEWART                    Yeah. She says you're the most                    selfish, immature, stubborn...                                        MILO                        (INTERRUPTING)                    I'm selfish? I'm immature? You know                    what? Forget it. I'm not even gonna                    dignify this with...whatever.                                        STEWART                    Hey, man, I'm on your team.                                        MILO                    No you're not, Geraldo. I don't                    allow reporters on my team.                    Milo tosses some papers around on her desk furiously.                                                                             25.                                                  MILO                    And for the record: I'm the one who                    hates her. Just so that's clear.                    He picks up the phone and checks the last dialed number: it          comes up "CAESAR'S CASINO". Milo smiles.                                        MILO                        (to himself)                    That figures. Run home to mommy.                    Milo erases the number, then heads for the door.                                        MILO                    Well, nice meeting ya, Stu.                                        STEWART                    Wait, where are you going?                                        MILO                    I'm going to pick up your                    girlfriend. But don't worry, if she                    ever gets out of jail, I'm sure                    you'll be very happy together.                    Milo exits. Stewart hurries to the phone and checks it, but          Milo erased the number. Shit. Stewart RACES to the window.                    STEWART'S POV: MILO EXITING THE BUILDING, HEADED FOR HIS CAR.                              INT JIMMY'S APARTMENT- DAY                    Cass is about to give up when she spots, peeking out from the          bookshelf, A PLAIN ENVELOPE MARKED "CASSIDY DALEY". She slips          the envelope into her pocket just as the landlady appears:                                        LANDLADY                    Time's up. Find anything?                                        CASS                    Nope. Not a thing.                                        LANDLADY                    Oh, well. Don't worry, hon. He                    probably just went away for the                    holidays.                              EXT ATLANTIC CITY- DAY                    The sun sparkles off the casino windows. It looks fun.          Exciting. A great place for the holidays.                                                                            26.                              SUDDENLY, THE WHOLE SCENE TURNS UPSIDE-DOWN, AND A MAN STARTS          TO SCREAM...                              EXT TRUMP CASINO HOTEL ROOM- DAY                    IT'S JIMMY, being dangled off a 25th floor balcony by Mahler,          who barely breaks a sweat.                                        JIMMY                        (PANICKING)                    Ok, ok, I told one person about the                    Xmas Eve job, but she doesn't even                    have all the details, I swear!                    Mahler lets go of one of Jimmy's feet. Now Jimmy is hanging          by one ankle. He starts to scream again.                                        MAHLER                    Gimme a name.                              INT CADILLAC/JERSEY CITY- DAY                    Milo gets in, on the phone with Sid:                                        MILO                    ...and this loser she's dating                    looks like he buys his clothes from                    Kmart.                              SPLIT-SCREEN:                    Sid is at home, trying to get the hacked up Xmas tree to          stand up straight. His 5 and 6 year old sons beat on each          other in the background.                                        SID                    Why do you care?                                        MILO                    I don't. I just think it's funny.                                        SID                    Hilarious. Listen to me: you guys                    made a terrible couple.                                        MILO                    I know that. You don't have to tell                    me that.                                                                           27.                                                  SID                    Relationships aren't about                    competition, they're about                    compromise.                                        MILO                    You mean like when your wife wants                    to do one thing, and you want to do                    another, and you compromise by                    doing what she wants?                                        SID                    Exactly. Now just get her here.                    Cause I can't afford to lose this                    bond.                                        MILO                    No worries. In fact, I already know                    where she is and I'm gonna go pick                    her up right now.                              EXT CADILLAC- DAY                    The cadillac pulls away from the curb.                    RACK TO- A SKY-BLUE HYUNDAI, STEWART CROUCHED AT THE WHEEL.          Stewart pulls into traffic, FOLLOWING THE CADILLAC.                              EXT HIGHWAY- AFTERNOON                    The Cadillac on route to Atlantic City, the Hyundai not far          behind.                                        VOICE                    Milo Boyd. Ex-cop, current bounty                    hunter...                              INT WAREHOUSE/ATLANTIC CITY- AFTERNOON                    RAY (small, wiry, slightly demented-looking) reads from his          laptop while Lorraine paces behind him, swinging a golf club.                                        RAY                    ...lives in Jersey City, drives a                    68 Caddy. Been in the hole on and                    off with us the past 3 years. We                    checked his place, his hangouts, no                    luck.                                                                             28.                                                  LORRAINE                    This is no good. We let this guy                    slide, suddenly everybody thinks,                    hey, it's the holidays! All debts                    are cancelled! Get the word out, I                    want this guy brought here so he                    can pay what he owes us, Dwight can                    break something of his, and we can                    all enjoy our Xmas.                    Ray nods and picks up the phone.                    PUSH THOUGH THE WINDOW, ACROSS THE CITY, AND DOWN TO:                    EXT CAESAR'S CASINO PARKING LOT- AFTERNOON                    A HALF MILE AWAY AT CAESAR'S, Milo is pulling into the          crowded parking lot.                    CHIRON: "1:00PM. ATLANTIC CITY. 44 HOURS TO GO."                    Milo exits his car and heads inside. STEWART, feeling super          sly, pulls up to a space near Milo's car, but another car          slips into the spot.                                        STEWART                    That's my space, you asshole!                              EXT CAESAR'S CASINO DRESSING ROOM- AFTERNOON                    Milo knocks on the door. A woman in heavy makeup (LOIS, Cass'          mother) opens the door, takes one look at Milo, SLAMS the          door shut. Milo waits. After a moment, Lois opens it again.                                        MILO                    Happy to see you, too.                                        LOIS                    How dare you...after what you did                    to my baby...                    Lois bursts into tears and collapses into Milo's arms.                                        MILO                    Ok. What say we do this inside?                              INT CAESAR'S CASINO DRESSING ROOM- MOMENTS LATER                    Men running around in gowns and feather boas. A completely          recovered Lois sits by a make-up mirror, adjusting a wig.          Stuck to her mirror is a PHOTO OF MILO AND CASS, ARMS AROUND          EACH OTHER, SMILING. Milo gives the photo a dirty look.                                                                           29.                                                  MILO                    What happened to the pirate show?                                        LOIS                    I got sick of it. Now I'm a female                    impersonator.                                        MILO                    But...you are female.                                        LOIS                    That's why I'm so good at it. Help                    me with this.                    She stands and wiggles into an evening gown. Milo struggles          with the zipper.                                        MILO                    Where is she, Lois? I need to talk                    to her.                                        LOIS                    Oh, Milo, where did it all go                    wrong? Do you have any idea what it                    means to waste a woman's child-                    bearing years? It's criminal. Every                    month her eggs are jumping out of                    her ovaries like sailors abandoning                    a sinking ship. I mean, I know you                    were mad about that article...                                        MILO                    I wasn't mad about that article. In                    fact: what article?                                        LOIS                    Listen to me, Milo: Cassidy may be                    a strong independent woman on the                    outside, but on the inside she's                    just a girl who wants to be                    protected and loved by her man.                    What happened between the two of                    you devastated her.                                        MILO                    Devastated her right to the top.                                        LOIS                        (BEAMING)                    She has done well, hasn't she?                              (MORE)                                                                            30.                              LOIS (cont'd)                    I must admit, it makes me proud to                    think that my little girl, whose                    only friend growing up was an                    imaginary orphan with a tin leg                    named Leslie, now gets invited to                    tour the White House...                    Milo's jaw hits the floor.                                        MILO                    She got to tour the White House?                    Now he really wants to take Cass to jail.                                        MILO                    Tell me where she is, Lois.                                        LOIS                    Oh, who knows. She was running                    around like a chicken with its head                    cut off, said she was on the                    biggest story of her career. Said                    she was going somewhere to think.                    Milo thinks this over, then a grin breaks out on his face.                              EXT CAESAR'S CASINO PARKING LOT- AFTERNOON                    Stewart has finally found a parking space, and is exiting his          car when he sees Milo come out and jump into the Cadillac.                                        STEWART                    Dammit.                    Stewart hurries back into his car.                              EXT ATLANTIC CITY RACETRACK- AFTERNOON                    Stands mobbed with people, horses galloping down the track,          dust rising in their wake. MOVING IN ON...                              EXT STANDS- AFTERNOON                    Surrounded by people cheering, CASS IS HARD AT WORK. Notebook          open, phone to ear, lap holding the plain envelope, ripped          open, contents exposed: A PIECE OF PAPER THAT SAYS: "ATLANTIC          CITY. XMAS EVE. SPARROW."                    She has underlined "Sparrow" and made a list: "Person's name?          Company? Hotel? Casino?"                                                                             31.                                                  CASS                        (into phone)                    No one with that name? What about a                    casino? Nothing? Thanks.                    She clicks over to an incoming call, "PRIVATE CALLER":                                        CASS                    Jimmy?                              SPLIT-SCREEN:                    STEWART, at the mobbed track entrance, lost and frustrated:                                        STEWART                    No, who's Jimmy?                                        CASS                    Look, Stewart, I'm busy.                                        STEWART                    Ok. (casually) Where are you, by                    the way? I mean, exactly.                                        CASS                    I'm in Miami, if you must know. I'm                    on the beach building a sand castle                    and drinking from a coconut...                    Someone taps her shoulder. She glances up and sees: MILO,          SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HER, GRINNING. She slowly closes her          phone, not bothering to say goodbye.                                        MILO                    Hello, Cass.                                        CASS                    Hello, Milo.                    A MILLION DIFFERENT EMOTIONS CROSS CASS' FACE. Surprise,          anger, anxiousness. All the mixed emotions you have when you          suddenly run into THE MAN WHO BROKE YOUR HEART.                                        MILO                    Fancy meeting you here.                                        CASS                    Yeah. Fancy that.                    Strange, charged moment as they look at each other. Then they          have a casual contest:                                                                         32.                                                  MILO                    How are you?                                           CASS                    Fine. You?                                        MILO                    Swell. Nice day.                                           CASS                    Bright.                                           MILO                    Brisk.                                           CASS                    Crisp.                                        MILO                    Invigorating.                                        CASS                        (can't hold out anymore)                    What are you doing here?                    Milo smirks.                                        MILO                    "Building a sand castle, drinking                    from a coconut". Man, once a liar,                    always a liar.                    Cass immediately stands.                                        CASS                    You know what? I don't have time                    for this, I'm working.                    She grabs her stuff. Milo blocks her with his leg.                                        MILO                    Working? Hey, me too.                                        CASS                    Congratulations. Move your leg.                    Milo doesn't budge. Spelling it out for her:                                        MILO                    What I do is, I track down                    criminals. People who jumped bail.                    Idiots who decided to go on the run                    after biting police officers. I                    find them, and I take them to jail.                                                                            33.                              Cass stares at him, eyes wide:                                        CASS                    Now, hold on just a second, Milo...                                        MILO                    Tell you what: I'll give you more                    than a second. I'll give you 10.                    For old times sake.                    Milo moves his leg, kicks back, starts to count.                                        MILO                    10...9...8...                    Cass stares at him, her jaw working, trying to decide what to          do. Then, all of a sudden, she BOLTS. Milo smiles. THE          LOUDSPEAKERS ANNOUNCE: "AND THEY'RE OFF!"                              EXT RACETRACK PARKING LOT- AFTERNOON                    Cass jumps into her car and turns the key. NOTHING. She tries          again, then hears soft laughter. MILO IS SEVERAL YARDS AWAY,          HER BATTERY IN HIS HAND.                                        MILO                    Strike one.                    Cass leaps from the car and runs.                              INT STADIUM- AFTERNOON                    Cass runs for the elevator. It opens and people exit,          REVEALING MILO:                                        MILO                    Strike two.                    Cass turns heel and bolts.                              EXT STADIUM- AFTERNOON                    Cass races out, flagging a taxi. Milo pulls up:                                        MILO                    Strike three. Get in.                                        CASS                    I'm not going to jail, Milo.                                                                               34.                                                  MILO                    I beg to differ.                    She heads for the cabs. Milo exits his car, GUN IN HAND.                                        CASS                    Oh please. Like you're gonna shoot                    me.                                        MILO                    Nope. (loudly) I'm gonna shoot a                    cab driver.                    Head whip around in his direction. THEN EVERY CAB IN THE          PLACE GOES OFF-DUTY. Cass stomps her foot, furious.                                        CASS                    Chicken shits.                    Cass marches back over to Milo.                                        CASS                    Ok, look: let's talk about this.                                         MILO                    Ok.                    With that, Milo sweeps her up into his arms. AND THEY FIND          THEMSELVES FACE TO FACE. BREATHING ON EACH OTHER. THEIR LIPS          INCHES APART.                    Cass stares at Milo. Is he gonna kiss her? Again, she feels          weird. Confused.                                        CASS                        (UNCOMFORTABLE)                    Listen, Milo, I'm not sure we                    should...                    Suddenly, MILO DUMPS HER IN THE TRUNK OF HIS CAR.                                        CASS                    Hey, wait a minute!                    He smiles at her, waves, then SLAMS down the lid.                    CUT TO BLACK. Well, now she knows exactly how she feels:          FURIOUS:                                         CASS (O.S.)                    Bastard.                    CHIRON: "2:00 PM. ROUTE 9 NORTH. 43 HOURS TO GO".                                                                           35.                              And immediately: A PHONE RINGS.                                        CASS (O.S.)                    Great. Perfect timing.                    A match is struck, illuminating the trunk as Cass scrambles          for her phone. Trying to sound professional:                                        CASS                    Cassidy Daley.                              SPLIT-SCREEN:                    CLOSE ON- JIMMY, head tilted back, tense smile on his face.          PULL BACK a little to reveal the GUN MAHLER IS HOLDING UNDER          HIS CHIN.                                        JIMMY                    It's me. Jimmy.                                        CASS                        (exhaling with relief)                    Shit, Jimmy, I thought you were                    dead.                                        JIMMY                    Don't be silly. (hurrying on)                    Listen: you didn't happen to go to                    my place and find that envelope I                    left, did you?                                        CASS                    I did, but I don't really get it,                    what's "Sparrow"?                                        JIMMY                    It doesn't matter. Did you tell                    anyone else about this story?                                        CASS                    Are you kidding? You think I want                    to share a story like this?                                        JIMMY                    Ok. Good. Cause the truth is, there                    is no story. I made the whole thing                    up. So you should just drop it...                                        CASS                    Uh-uh, no way are you backing out                    on me now, Jimmy. This story is way                    too good...                                                                           36.                              Mahler nudges Jimmy.                                        JIMMY                        (QUICKLY)                    Where are you?                                        CASS                    I'm at the Atlantic City Boardwalk.                    Actually, I'm in the trunk of my ex-                    husband's car. Long story. More                    importantly, where are you?                                           JIMMY                    I'm...                    CLICK. MAHLER DISCONNECTS THE PHONE.                    ON CASS- she stares at her phone. Uh-oh:                                        CASS                    Jimmy? Hello?                    Suddenly, MUSIC KICKS IN and we hear MILO SINGING AT THE TOP          OF HIS LUNGS:                                        MILO (O.S.)                    Deck the halls with boughs of                    holly, fa la la la laaaa...                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    Now Milo really is the happiest man alive. He pulls out his          cell phone, dials:                    SPLIT-SCREEN:                    Teresa removes her gum, sticks it on her mouse-pad, answers:                                        TERESA                    Sid's Bail Bonds.                                        MILO                    Guess who's in my trunk?                                        TERESA                    Is that some sort of perverted                    innuendo? Who is this?                                        MILO                    Aw, come on, Teresa, you know it's                    me. Put Sid on.                                                                           37.                                                  TERESA                    Sid's busy shopping. (snorts) He                    thinks he can handle Xmas.                                        MILO                    Ok, just tell him I got her and                    I'll be back in 2 hours. I want a                    bonus for bringing her in so quick.                                        TERESA                    Yeah? I want a bonus for getting                    through the holidays without                    stabbing anyone with a fork.                                        MILO                    Don't be such a pessimist. You                    still have time.                    His phone beeps. IT'S CASS CALLING FROM THE TRUNK.                                        MILO                    Gotta go. I got another call.                    He clicks over.                                        MILO                    Tina's Thai massage! Where every                    ending is a happy one!                    SPLIT-SCREEN:                    Cass rolls her eyes.                                         CASS                    You're disgusting. Let me out of                    the trunk.                                        MILO                    Hmm. Nope. By the way, your                    boyfriend Stewart's been following                    me. Unfortunately, I had to ditch                    him at the track.                                        CASS                    Why is Stewart..? (realizing) And                    wait: who said he's my boyfriend?                                        MILO                    Aw, don't be embarrassed. These                    things happen. You were drunk when                    you guys hooked up, right?                    Cass turns bright red. She was drunk when they hooked up.          Changing tactics, she tries to flatter him:                                                                            38.                                                  CASS                    You know what, Milo? I shouldn't                    have run from you like that. I                    was...I don't know. You caught me                    off-guard. The truth is, I'm kind                    of in some trouble and I could                    really use your help.                                        MILO                    Bad news for you, then. I wouldn't                    help you if you were the very last                    baby sea turtle in the world,                    dragging its tiny weak body across                    the burning hot sand while sea                    gulls circled overhead. I'd just                    pull up a chair, sip a pina colada,                    and let nature take its course.                    Long beat. Suddenly, CASS STARTS TO SOB. LOUD, HYSTERICAL          SOBS. Milo listens for a moment, out of a purely clinical          interest, then:                                        MILO                    Hey, I used to be a sucker, but no                    more. You can cry til the cows come                    home, for all I care.                    Cass instantly stops crying and slams her phone shut.                    CUT TO BLACK. Then, the sound of a trunk opening, and WE ARE          INSIDE A CAR TRUNK, LOOKING UP AT: MAHLER.                              EXT TRUMP CASINO PARKING LOT- AFTERNOON                    Mahler reaches into his trunk and REMOVES HIS HANDGUN. Checks          the cartridge, pockets the gun. Slams the trunk shut.                    He climbs into his front seat, and as he pulls out of the          lot, we see CASS' NEWSPAPER PHOTO THAT HAS BEEN RIPPED FROM          THE PAPER, on the passenger seat.                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    Milo drives along happily humming when, suddenly, A SMALL          TRAIL OF SMOKE drifts over his shoulder. What the hell...? He          glances into the rearview mirror and:                    SMOKE IS POURING OUT OF THE TRUNK!                                        MILO                    Holy shit! (calling out) Hey, um,                    Cass? (no response) Cassidy?                                                                            39.                              Still nothing. Milo jerks the car to the right, and SLAMS on          the brakes.                              EXT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    The car screeches to a halt on the embankment. Milo leaps out          of the driver's door and races to back, fumbling with his          keys. SMOKE CONTINUES TO POUR OUT OF THE TRUNK.                                        MILO                    It's Ok, hang on, I'm coming...                    Gets the key in, pops the lid and sees: CASS, HANDKERCHIEF          OVER HER NOSE, PACK OF FLAMING MATCHES IN HAND. Cass tosses          the matches and handkerchief, AND PUNCHES MILO IN THE BALLS.                    Milo groans and crumbles to the ground. Cass jumps out of the          trunk and stands over him:                                        CASS                    You know something, Milo? You're                    one of the most gullible...                    BAM, Milo grabs her ankle and JERKS and Cass hits the ground.          Next thing you know, IT'S WWF TIME, THE TWO OF THEM ROLLING          IN THE DIRT.                    Milo gets her pinned, but Cass grabs his ear and TWISTS:                                           MILO                    AAAAHHH...                    He pulls her arm behind her back...                                        CASS                    Ow ow ow...                    ...and she jerks her head back, SMACKING him in the nose.                                        MILO                    Son of a...                    He gets her in a BEAR HUG...                                           CASS                    AAGH...                    ...and she BITES him.                                           MILO                    OW...                                                                            40.                              Finally, he has her on her back, TRAPPED. He gets his face          right over hers and STARTS TO LET A GLOB OF SALIVA FALL FROM          HIS MOUTH TOWARDS HER FACE.                                        CASS                    NOOOO! Uncle, uncle, uncle!                    Milo collapses onto the ground next to her, laughing. She          looks at him and she starts laughing too.                                        CASS                    Dirty fighter.                                        MILO                    Me? I'm the dirty fighter?                    They both laugh harder. Then Milo stands and offers her a          hand. She takes it, and he helps her up. Awkward pause as          they look at each other.                                         CASS                    Should we...I don't know...hug, or                    something?                                        MILO                    Sure. What the hell.                    He opens his arms. She moves closer. They hug. Milo feels her          hands moving towards the gun in his belt. He smirks. CLICK.          HE SNAPS SOME HANDCUFFS ONTO HER WRISTS.                                        CASS                    Hey. I had to try, right?                                        MILO                    Get in the car.                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    They are driving along, both a little dishevelled, ONE OF          CASS' HANDS CUFFED TO THE PASSENGER DOOR. They pass casinos          as they head out of Atlantic City.                                        CASS                    Your windshield's cracked.                                        MILO                    Thanks, Captain Obvious.                    Cass turns to inspect him more closely.                                                                            41.                                                   CASS                    And you look like shit, Milo. What                    have you been doing, sleeping on                    the floor?                    Milo has been sleeping on the floor.                                        MILO                    I enjoy sleeping on the floor.                    Matter of fact, I love sleeping on                    the floor. I love everything about                    my life. Great job, good friends,                    hot girlfriend...                                        CASS                    You have a girlfriend?                                        MILO                        (he does not)                    Yes I do.                    Cass is skeptical:                                        CASS                    Really? What's her name?                                        MILO                        (the first name that pops                         into his head:)                    Teresa. Rocking hot body. Likes to                    cook pasta for me and perform strip-                    teases.                                        CASS                    Wow. Is she missing a chromosome?                                        MILO                    Oh, she has all her chromosomes,                    believe you me.                    Cass thinks this over, then counters:                                        CASS                    Well, my life is great, too.                                        MILO                    I can tell. You and Stewart make a                    great couple, by the way. You and                    me made a terrible couple. But you                    two? Like peas in a pod.                    About to deny that she and Stewart are a couple, it occurs to          Cass: Milo seems a little JEALOUS. She jumps on this:                                                                            42.                                                  CASS                    You know what I like about Stewart?                                        MILO                    I can't imagine.                                        CASS                    He's not you.                                        MILO                    Not even on his best day.                                        CASS                    Or his worst.                                        MILO                    I'll bet he has a lot of those.                                        CASS                    Still betting, huh?                                        MILO                    You can't win if you don't play.                                        CASS                    Or, in your case, even if you do.                    He shoots her a sharp look. She stares back, waiting.                                        MILO                    I win all the time.                                        CASS                    Really? I hadn't noticed.                    Ok. That is definitely a challenge.                                        MILO                    You know what? Seeing as how I'm                    about to come into five grand...                    Milo makes a SUDDEN TURN OFF THE HIGHWAY and pulls into the          parking lot of BALLY'S CASINO.                                         MILO                    I think I'll do a little betting                    right now.                                        CASS                    Don't you have to take me back?                                        MILO                    Please. I have two days. A monkey                    could get you back in two days.                                                                           43.                              Again: famous last words. Milo exits the car. Cass smiles to          herself. This is obviously what she hoped would happen. She          glances around, spots THE DUFFLE in the back seat. PEEKING          OUT OF THE TOP OF THE DUFFLE IS THE TASER GUN. Hmm...                              EXT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    Milo opens her door.                                        CASS                    Aren't you afraid I'll get away?                                           MILO                    Nope.                    He uncuffs her from the door, CUFFS HER TO HIS OWN WRIST.                              EXT HIGHWAY- AFTERNOON                    Stewart is heading back to the city, cursing his bad luck,          when he happens to glance over and see MILO AND CASS HEADING          INTO BALLY'S CASINO.                                        STEWART                    Damn, I'm good!                    He makes a quick turn off the highway and into the Bally's          parking lot.                              INT BALLY'S CASINO- AFTERNOON                    The clerk at the chips cage recognizes Milo as he and Cass          APPROACH:                                        CLERK                    Merry Xmas, Mr Boyd!                    Behind the clerk, a FEMALE CLERK perks up at this name...                                        CLERK                    What a nice surprise! Let's hope                    your luck is better today.                    Milo glances at Cass.                                        MILO                        (QUICKLY)                    Sure, if there's such a thing as                    better than great, which is how my                    luck has been lately. Great.                                                                            44.                                                  CLERK                        (AWKWARD)                    Oh. Yes sir. Of course. My mistake.                    While the clerk is counting out chips, WE NOTICE BEHIND HIM          THE FEMALE CLERK PICKING UP THE PHONE...                              INT WAREHOUSE- LATE AFTERNOON                    Lorraine on the phone, listening intently. Then she hangs up,          grinning.                                        LORRAINE                    The idiot just showed up at                    Bally's.                                         DWIGHT                        (QUICKLY)                    I'm on it.                                        LORRAINE                    Uh-uh. Not you. (calling out) RAY.                    RAY appears next to her.                                        LORRAINE                    Go get this asshole.                    Ray cracks his knuckles, smirks at Dwight, and exits.                              INT BALLY'S BLACKJACK TABLE- LATE AFTERNOON                    Milo sits at a blackjack table, pulling Cass into a seat next          to him.                                        MILO                    Prepare to observe the master.                    He bets while Cass sits next to him, scheming:                                        CASS                    Ok, how about this:                    She uses her free hand to pull out her wallet:                                        CASS                    If I give you all the cash in my                    wallet, will you let me go?                                        MILO                    Hmm. Lemme see...                                                                           45.                              He takes the cash from her and thinks for a moment.                                        MILO                    Nope. Guess not.                    Milo adds her cash to his bet on the table.                                        MILO                        (to the dealer)                    Hit me.                                        CASS                    I'd really like to.                    The dealer deals the cards.                                        DEALER                    Dealer wins.                                        CASS                    Nice going, master.                    Milo quickly lays out some more money. A WAITRESS (smells          like an ashtray) appears:                                        WAITRESS                    And for the couple over here?                                        MILO                        (QUICKLY)                    We're not a couple.                                        CASS                        (just as quick)                    Why would you think we were a                    couple?                                        MILO                    We used to be together. Back when I                    was young and foolish.                                        CASS                    And I was confused.                                        MILO                    And I was slumming.                                        CASS                    And I was drunk.                    The waitress looks back and forth between them.                                                                           46.                                                  WAITRESS                        (BORED)                    Great story. I have to get back to                    work now.                                        MILO                    Wait. Champagne! I'm celebrating.                    The waitress rolls her eyes and leaves. Milo turns to see he          has lost more money.                                        MILO                        (under his breath)                    Son of a bitch.                    Ok. Cass has had enough of this. She leans closer:                                        CASS                    Look, Milo, the truth is...my Mom                    is in the hospital.                    Milo perks up.                                        MILO                    Oh? Old Lois not feeling up to par?                                        CASS                    She might be really sick. That's                    why I had to jump bail.                                        MILO                        (overly sincere)                    Taking care of her, huh? Putting                    aside your career for a loved one?                    Golly, that's so you.                    "Golly"? Cass stares at him, realizing:                                        CASS                    You've already been to see her.                                        MILO                    Impressive. No wonder you got all                    those awards. So lemme guess: the                    real reason you jumped bail is                    cause you're on a story.                    Cass narrows her eyes:                                        CASS                    Stewart. Stewart told you.                                                                           47.                                                  MILO                        (CAUGHT)                    I would have figured it out on my                    own, trust me.                                        CASS                    I wouldn't trust you if you were                    the last man alive.                                        MILO                    You think about that much? Me being                    the last man alive? Am I naked in                    this fantasy?                    Cass takes a deep breath. This is getting her nowhere. But          she is clearly hesitant to give him the real story.                                        CASS                    Ok, you're right. I'm on a story.                    A very important story. It just so                    happens that I'm possibly about to                    uncover a whole ring of dirty cops.                    Milo snorts.                                          CASS                    What?                                        MILO                    Please. Isn't the whole "dirty cop"                    thing kind of old? Maybe you should                    do a story about something people                    are interested in. Like internet                    porn. Or lesbians.                                        CASS                    I'm serious, Milo. This is gonna be                    big. And here's what I'm willing to                    do (magnanimous): I'm willing to                    credit you in the article.                                        MILO                    Oh, sure, like you credited me in                    the 13th Street Article?                    Cass stares at him.                                        CASS                    Why on earth would I have credited                    you? I worked my ass off for that                    story.                                        MILO                    That's one way of putting it.                                                                          48.                                                  CASS                    What's that supposed to mean?                                        MILO                    Forget it. I don't want to be in                    your article. In fact, I would                    rather eat a bowl of broken glass                    than have my name in any way                    associated with one of your lousy                    articles...                                        CASS                    Fine. Forget I mentioned it.                                        MILO                    I already have.                                        CASS                    I mean, you're not a cop anymore,                    right? What do you care if people                    were murdered?                                        MILO                    Please. Nobody was murdered.                                        CASS                    Just my source.                                        MILO                        (SUSPICIOUS)                    Oh yeah? How? Bullet to the back of                    the head?                                        CASS                    Well...                                        MILO                    Dumped in a reservoir?                                        CASS                        (FLUSTERED)                    I don't know.                                        MILO                    Car accident?                                        CASS                    Ok, ok, maybe he wasn't murdered                    yet. But I wouldn't be surprised                    if...                    Milo breaks out into loud guffaws. Cass is furious.                                                                             49.                                                  CASS                    Maybe this whole thing sounds like                    no big deal to you...                                        MILO                    You know what it sounds like? It                    sounds like you're going to jail.                    Cass can't believe this.                                        CASS                    Milo, listen, you have to believe                    me, come on, you know me...                                        MILO                        (getting red)                    Exactly! I do know you. Which means                    I know you are a deceptive, cold-                    hearted bitch who is going to jail                    where she belongs.                    Wow. That was pretty harsh. Cass looks at him, stunned. They          stare at each other in silence.                    The waitress arrives with the drinks:                                        WAITRESS                    Champagne. So. What are we                    celebrating?                                        CASS                        (GRIMLY)                    I have to use the bathroom.                                        WAITRESS                    Alrightee, then. Cheers.                              EXT BALLY'S CASINO PARKING LOT- LATE AFTERNOON                    Stewart taps his steering wheel restlessly, watching the door          of the casino for signs of Cass and Milo. Waiting in this          parking lot is boring. Finally, he exits his car. Sidles over          to Milo's car. Checks the door handle.                    IT'S UNLOCKED. Stewart glances around, then climbs in.                              INT BALLY'S CASINO BATHROOM- LATE AFTERNOON                    Cass enters and Milo follows:                                        CASS                    Can I have some privacy, please?                                                                            50.                              Milo checks the room. Looks like there is no escape from          here. He UNCUFFS HER, but then:                                        MILO                    I'm gonna have to frisk you.                                        CASS                    Get it over with, then.                    Milo checks her pockets. Her ankles. Her legs. He goes behind          her and checks her shoulders. Her back. He reaches around and          checks her belly.                                        MILO                    You gain a little weight?                                        CASS                        (snapping back)                    You lose a little hair?                    Milo reaches higher and:                                        CASS                    Yeah. Right. I'm hiding a weapon in                    my breasts.                    Milo backs off, turning red.                                        MILO                    Make it quick.                    He exits. As soon as he is gone, CASS PULLS MILO'S TASER GUN          FROM HER CLEAVAGE.                              INT CADILLAC- LATE AFTERNOON                    Stewart is rummaging around inside Milo's car when he looks          up and sees: RAY, standing there, smiling at him.                                        STEWART                    Shit, man, you startled me. (beat)                    Can I help you?                                        RAY                    Night-night.                    Suddenly, Ray GRABS STEWART'S HEAD AND SMASHES IT INTO THE          STEERING WHEEL, KNOCKING HIM OUT COLD.                              EXT CASINO BATHROOM- LATE AFTERNOON                    Milo checks his watch, then raps on the door.                                                                              51.                                                  MILO                    You almost done in there?                              INT CASINO BATHROOM- LATE AFTERNOON                    Cass squints at the taser gun, trying to read the tiny          instruction label on the side:                                        CASS                    "Put open end in direct contact                    with skin. Press button..."                                        MILO (O.S.)                    Hello? Ok, that's long enough, I'm                    coming in...                    He comes in and SHE JAMS THE TASER GUN INTO HIS NECK AND HITS          THE BUTTON. HE SCREAMS AND HITS THE FLOOR. SHE SCREAMS, DROPS          THE TASER GUN, AND FLEES.                              EXT CASINO- LATE AFTERNOON                    CASS RUNS OUT, BANGS INTO SOMEONE...                                         CASS                    Sorry...                    ...and keeps going. She hurries to the curb and tries to flag          down a ride.                    RACK TO- SEVERAL YARDS AWAY, THE PERSON SHE BUMPED INTO IS          STARING AFTER HER. IT'S MAHLER. Mahler compares her to the          newspaper photo he is holding. Yup: THAT'S HER.                    Cass glances around, keeping an eye out for Milo, and SPOTS          MAHLER STARING AT HER. Suddenly, he starts heading towards          her. Cass backs up slightly, nervous. WHO IS THAT GUY?                                        VOICE                    Need a lift?                    Cass looks around. A trucker has pulled up next to her.          Relieved, she quickly climbs on board.                    RACK TO- MAHLER, WATCHING THE TRUCK PULL AWAY. He doesn't          seem worried. He turns and heads for his car.                              INT TRUCK- LATE AFTERNOON                    Cass is fixing her hair, pulling herself together.                                                                            52.                                                  CASS                    He says we made a terrible couple.                    Which is true. I know that. I'm the                    one who thought that first. I'm the                    one who came up with that. The fact                    is, I don't want to be with someone                    who can't admit he was wrong.                                        DRIVER                    So you're available.                    Cass looks at him. He smiles coyly.                                        CASS                    Available for what?                                        DRIVER                    I have a waterbed in my trailer.                                        CASS                    I hope you don't think you're                    telling me something that interests                    me.                                        DRIVER                    You know what I want for Xmas?                    The driver mouths something at her we can't see. Cass leans          over and SMACKS HIM AS HARD AS SHE CAN.                              EXT HIGHWAY- LATE AFTERNOON                    The truck SCREECHES to a halt by the side of the road. Cass          gets booted out the passenger door. The door is slammed shut          behind her. Cass gives the guy the finger as he drives off.                    She turns to see a car headed her way. She starts flagging it          down. But wait... Yup, IT'S MILO. Shit. She looks around, but          where's she gonna go? Meanwhile, as Milo nears, HE SEEMS TO          BE SPEEDING UP. Cass stares. He keeps coming, an evil look on          his face. IT LOOKS LIKE HE IS GOING TO RUN HER OVER.                    She turns and STARTS TO RUN.                              INT CADILLAC- LATE AFTERNOON                    Milo is laughing.                                        MILO                    You better run.                                                                            53.                              EXT FIELD- LATE AFTERNOON                    Cass runs into a field. Milo drives off the road and follows.          He gets her cornered by a pen. He looks triumphant. She          scowls. Then she throws open the pen, REVEALING A HUGE BULL.          Now she looks triumphant. He scowls.                    CUT TO- BULL RAMS INTO MILO'S CAR, SLAMMING MILO'S FACE INTO          THE STEERING WHEEL. CASS LAUGHS. THE BULL TURNS AND NOTICES          CASS FOR THE FIRST TIME.                    CUT TO- BULL CHASES CASS. MILO LAUGHS. CASS RUNS FOR THE CAR.          MILO LOCKS THE DOORS.                                        CASS                    Hey, it's locked!                                        MILO                        (GRINNING)                    I know.                    THE BULL IS SPEEDING THEIR WAY:                                        CASS                    Open the door, you son of a bitch!                    Finally, Milo opens it. She DIVES INTO THE CAR AND SLAMS THE          DOOR just before the BULL RAMS INTO THE SIDE OF THE CAR.                    Cass and Milo watch, stunned, as the bull looks at them for a          moment, THEN TOPPLES OVER, UNCONSCIOUS. Milo and Cass hear a          strange sound, and look over to see A SMALL HERD OF BULLS,          GETTING READY TO CHARGE.                                         CASS                    Uh-oh...                    MILO HITS THE GAS AND THEY FLEE THE SCENE, THE HERD OF BULLS          IN MAD PURSUIT. CASS AND MILO ARE BOTH NOW LAUGHING          HYSTERICALLY...                    CHIRON: "5:00 PM. ROUTE 9 ADJACENT. 40 HOURS TO GO."                              INT WAREHOUSE- EARLY EVENING                    Lorraine waves Dwight over.                                        LORRAINE                    Ray's got something to show you.                                        RAY                    Merry Xmas.                                                                            54.                              Ray THROWS open the bathroom door to reveal: A VERY          DISGRUNTLED STEWART, HANDCUFFED TO THE TOILET. Stewart blinks          up at them, disoriented.                    Lorraine hands Dwight THE GOLF CLUB.                                        LORRAINE                    Pick something and break it.                                        STEWART                    Whoa, wait just a minute...                    DWIGHT WHACKS STEWART IN THE SHIN WITH THE CLUB. STEWART          SCREAMS.                                        LORRAINE                    Feel better?                                        DWIGHT                    You know, I do feel better. (beat)                    Who is this guy, anyway?                    Lorraine and Ray stare at him.                                           LORRAINE                    Milo Boyd.                                        DWIGHT                    That's not Milo Boyd.                                        RAY                    He was in Milo Boyd's Cadillac.                    They all look at Stewart, who moans in pain.                                        LORRAINE                    Both of you go this time, and make                    sure you get the right guy. I don't                    have time for this shit.                    RAY AND DWIGHT EXIT.                                        STEWART                    What about me?                    Lorraine considers him for a moment, then SLAMS the bathroom          door in his face.                              INT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    Milo and Cass are back on the highway, both looking a little          worse for wear. Milo's nose is swollen, Cass' clothes are          muddy.                                                                           55.                              Milo MOVES HIS WEAPONS FROM THE DUFFLE INTO HIS OWN JACKET          WHILE HE DRIVES. He smirks at Cass.                                        CASS                    Clever. (noting all the weapons)                    Wow. You were gonna use all that                    stuff on me?                                        MILO                    A guy can dream, can't he?                    NOW HIS JACKET IS FULL OF WEAPONS. He turns his attention          back to the road. Cass studies his profile.                                        CASS                    Ok, look, Milo, let's just clear                    the air, Ok? So maybe it was a                    mistake, thinking we could be                    involved while working on the same                    case...                                        MILO                    Hey, I know it was a mistake. Don't                    think you're telling me something I                    don't know, cause you're not.                                        CASS                        (deep breath)                    Ok. Fine. But can we just put aside                    our differences for two seconds?                    Because back at the casino, I think                    I saw someone following me.                                        MILO                    Sure that wasn't me?                                        CASS                    I don't think so. This guy was                    lacking your trademark smell of                    booze and KFC.                                        MILO                    Ha ha.                    Milo surreptitiously sniffs himself.                                        CASS                    Anywho. If these dirty cops have my                    source hostage somewhere...                    Milo starts to laugh. Cass flushes:                                        CASS                    What's so funny?                                                                            56.                                                  MILO                    You think dirty cops are trying to                    kill you? Look, I know you think                    you're hot shit and everything, but                    I'm pretty sure the only one around                    here who might want to kill you is                    me.                    Cass SEES A DARK CHEVY in the rearview mirror, gets a look at          the driver and goes pale.                                        CASS                    Oh no.                                        MILO                    What?                                        CASS                    Behind us. It's him. The guy I saw                    back at the casino.                    Milo glances into the mirror, checking the guy out.                                        MILO                    Yeah? He doesn't look like a cop to                    me.                                        CASS                        (freaking out)                    Speed up!                                        MILO                    Would you just calm down for a                    second and...                                        CASS                    NO!!                    Cass kicks a leg over and SLAMS HER FOOT ONTO THE GAS. The          car LEAPS forward...                                        MILO                    Jesus christ...                    Milo tries to push her foot off the gas while they wrestle          for the wheel. THE CAR DOES A CRAZY ZIG-ZAG BACK AND FORTH...                                        MILO                    LISTEN, YOU MANIAC...                                        CASS                    MILO...                                                                             57.                                                  MILO                    ...LET GO...                                        CASS                    MILO...                                        MILO                    ...NO ONE IS TRYING TO KILL YOU...                                        CASS                    MILO!!!                    She points past him. Milo turns to see MAHLER DRIVING BESIDE          THEM, GUN POINTED AT MILO'S HEAD.                                        MILO                    SHIT!!!                    They both duck as Mahler starts firing. GLASS SHATTERS ALL          AROUND THEM. MILO PULLS OUT HIS GUN and STARTS FIRING BACK...                              EXT HIGHWAY- EARLY EVENING                    BOTH CARS VEER WILDLY FROM LANE TO LANE AS MILO AND MAHLER          FIRE AT EACH OTHER...                    CLOSE ON- THE CADILLAC'S REAR TIRE, AS IT GOES FLAT FROM A          BULLET...                              INT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    MILO GRIPS THE WHEEL AS THE CAR STARTS TO DRAG AND LOSE          GROUND. Cass is hunched over in the passenger seat, excited          and frightened at the same time.                    Mahler pulls alongside them again and Milo WRENCHES the wheel          to the left, SLAMMING THE CADILLAC INTO MAHLER'S CAR.          Mahler's car goes skidding across the road, hits a ditch and          FLIPS ONTO ITS SIDE.                              EXT HIGHWAY- EARLY EVENING                    The cadillac SPEEDS away, leaving Mahler's car behind.                              EXT HIGHWAY- EARLY EVENING                    The Cadillac is parked on the shoulder, Milo changing the          tire, Cass standing by the passenger door, still handcuffed,          EXCITED:                                                                            58.                                                  CASS                    I told you they were trying to kill                    me!                                        MILO                    Yeah, well, no one's killing you                    until I get you to jail.                    Cass whips her head around to look at him:                                        CASS                    You're still taking me to jail? But                    it's the cops who are after me.                                        MILO                    First of all: that guy was not a                    cop. Second of all, we just left                    him unconscious in a ditch. You'll                    be fine.                                        CASS                    But...this is important! This is my                    job!                                         MILO                    And this...(pointing between them)                    is my job.                                        CASS                    Milo, you don't understand what's                    going on!                    Milo rolls his eyes and straightens up.                                        MILO                    I'll lay it out for you: some loser                    with a minor sheet calls you up and                    says, hey, I've got a big story for                    you, you interested? It'll only                    cost you a couple hundred bucks,                    and I'll tip you onto some criminal                    activity, it's your chance to                    expose some bad guys and write the                    story of your life. Then the moron                    gets himself caught, he's probably                    in cold storage somewhere, and now                    you think the bad guys are after                    you. (beat) See? I get it. I just                    don't care.                    Milo finishes with the tire, throws the jack in the back, and          heads back around to the driver's seat.                                                                           59.                              Cass watches him closely, getting an idea. She reaches into          her pocket and pulls out the paper from Jimmy.                                         CASS                         (CASUALLY)                    If only I knew exactly when and                    where this deal was going down.                    Course, if I can't figure out that                    part, then you definitely can't                    figure out that part, because we                    both know I'm much smarter than                    you.                    Milo flinches, then forces a laugh.                                        MILO                    Please. My brain can dance circles                    around your brain.                                        CASS                    I don't even know what that means.                                        MILO                    Case closed.                                        CASS                        (SHRUGGING)                    Fine. Guess we'll never know.                    Milo hesitates. Then decides: fuck it. He strides around the          car and SNATCHES the paper from her hand. He reads:                                        MILO                    "Atlantic City. Xmas Eve. Sparrow."                    What's "Sparrow"?                                        CASS                    I knew you couldn't figure it out.                                        MILO                        (QUICKLY)                    It's a business.                                          CASS                    No.                                          MILO                    Casino.                                          CASS                    Nope.                                          MILO                    Stripper?                                                                           60.                                                  CASS                    I don't think so. What kind of                    strip bars have you been going to,                    anyway?                    Milo stares at the paper, wracking his brain. Cass sighs          loudly and SNATCHES the paper back.                                        CASS                    Oh, well, forget it, I knew you                    couldn't do it.                                        MILO                    Please. I could crack that story                    and still get you to jail on time.                                           CASS                    Oh yeah?                    Cass stares him in the eye and says the magic words:                                           CASS                    Wanna bet?                    Milo stares at her. She stares back. Long beat. Milo's face          is red. He clenches his fists. He unclenches them. Fuck. He          thrusts out his hand:                                           MILO                    You're on.                    They shake.                                        MILO                    I have to make a call.                    He starts to walk away.                                        CASS                    Hey. Aren't you going to uncuff me?                                        MILO                    Why? You going somewhere?                                           CASS                    Um...no.                                        MILO                    Then you don't need to be uncuffed.                                                                            61.                              INT CADILLAC- MOMENTS LATER                    Cass sits in the passenger seat and watches in the rearview          mirror while Milo paces behind the car, on the phone.                                        CASS                        (to herself)                    Asshole.                              EXT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    Milo is talking to Sid:                                        MILO                    So there's just gonna be a little                    delay...                    SPLIT-SCREEN:                    INT MALL- EARLY EVENING                    Sid's at the mall. On Dec 23rd. With all the other desperate,          last-minute shoppers. In other words, HE'S IN HELL.                                        SID                    I don't get it. Why are you helping                    her?                                        MILO                    But that's the beauty of it, Sid,                    I'm not helping her, she only                    thinks I'm helping her.                                        SID                    Yeah? If you're not helping her,                    what are you doing?                    Milo notices Cass watching him and turns his back slightly.                              INT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    Cass narrows her eyes:                                        CASS                        (to herself)                    What is he up to?                              EXT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    Milo is making this up as he goes along:                                                                            62.                                                  MILO                    I'll tell you what I'm doing: I'm                    gonna crack this case first, and                    I'm gonna take all the credit. Who                    knows, maybe I'll even get my job                    back....                                        SID                    You are so full of shit. You don't                    want your job back. You just want                    to prove you're smarter than she                    is.                                        MILO                        (instantly heated)                    I am smarter than she is. I would                    have cracked that 13th Street case                    way before she did if she hadn't...                                        SID                    ...cheated, right, I know, you've                    told me a million times. Did it                    ever occur to you that a normal                    couple wouldn't compete the way you                    guys do in the first place?                    Sid spots what he is looking for. So does another last-minute          shopper. They both reach for the toy.                                        MILO                    This from the man currently trying                    to prove to his wife he can handle                    Xmas.                                        SID                        (instantly heated)                    I can handle Xmas!                    Sid WRENCHES the toy from the other shopper.                                        MILO                    Just..trust me, Ok?                                        SID                    Do I have a choice?                                        MILO                    Nope.                    Milo hangs up and gets in the car.                                                                           63.                              EXT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    The cadillac pulls a U-turn and HEADS BACK TOWARDS ATLANTIC          CITY.                    CHIRON: "6:00 PM. ROUTE 9 SOUTH. 39 HOURS TO GO."                                        MILO (O.S.)                    So. Atlantic City. Xmas Eve...                              EXT HOTDOG STAND- EVENING                    Milo buys a chili dog while talking to Cass who stands next          to him, handcuffed.                                        MILO                    ...so what exactly are these dirty                    cops supposed to be doing?                                        CASS                    Stealing evidence from property                    rooms. Then destroying it, for the                    right price.                    Milo stares.                                        CASS                    What?                                        MILO                    Nothing. It's just...it's a good                    idea. If it weren't, you know.                    Wrong. (continuing) So. Your plan                    is to catch them red-handed before                    they can destroy the evidence, then                    write an expose for the paper and                    win yourself another big award.                                        CASS                    Something like that.                                        MILO                    Only, you don't know what Sparrow                    is. (thinking) Could be a nickname.                    Or the place where the evidence is                    stashed. Or a code word of some                    kind. But the guy who knows has                    gone missing, and you think the                    dirty cops got a hold of him.                                                                            64.                                                  CASS                        (NODDING)                    When Jimmy called earlier, someone                    else was there. And they                    disconnected the call.                    Milo is staring at her.                                        MILO                    So we find your source, we find the                    dirty cops. Gimme your phone.                    She hands it to him. Milo checks the record of incoming calls          and smiles.                                          CASS                    What?                                        BOBBY (O.S.)                    Milo! Merry Xmas!                    SPLIT-SCREEN:                    EXT PADDY WAGON- EVENING                    Bobby talks into his cell phone while supervising a parade of          hookers being loaded into a van:                                        BOBBY                    Here's one: why did the snowman                    pull down his pants? Cause he heard                    the snowblower was coming!                                        MILO                    Funny. Listen, Bob, I need a favor.                                          BOBBY                    Anything.                                        MILO                    I need an address to go with a                    phone number. But I need it ASAP.                    Kinda got a guy on my tail...                              EXT GARAGE- EVENING                    A tow truck is pulling up, towing Mahler's car. The tow truck          driver turns to Mahler, who is in the passenger seat:                                        TOW TRUCK DRIVER                    The garage is closed for the night.                    Guess you'll have to wait til                    tomorrow.                                                                           65.                              Mahler thinks this over, then SMACKS THE DRIVER ACROSS THE          FACE WITH THE BUTT OF HIS GUN. The driver crumples in his          seat.                                           MAHLER                    Guess not.                    Mahler leans across him, opens the driver's side door, and          BOOTS him out of the cab.                              EXT HIGHWAY- EVENING                    The tow truck is driving away from the garage.                              INT CADILLAC- EVENING                    Milo climbs back into the car, holding a piece of paper with          the words "Trump Casino, room 2504" on it. He grins at Cass.                                        CASS                    Pretty proud of yourself, ey?                                        MILO                    Hey. You're a reporter. Great. But                    I used to be a cop. Let's face it:                    I'm naturally gonna be one step                    ahead of you.                                        CASS                        (under her breath)                    You weren't last time.                    Milo whips his head around:                                        MILO                    What did you say?                                        CASS                    I said you're doing a great job.                              EXT HIGHWAY- EVENING                    The Trump Casino on the strip, coming into view...                              EXT TRUMP CASINO- EVENING                    Milo pulls into the crowded parking lot and checks the          cartridge of his gun. Beside him, Cass is bubbling over with          excited energy:                                                                            66.                                                  CASS                    Ok, here's what I think we should                    do: I'll go up first, Jimmy knows                    me, so if anything's wrong I'm sure                    he'll give me a sign...                                        MILO                    Excellent plan. Oh, except you're                    staying in the car.                    Milo exits the car.                                        CASS                        (shouting after him)                    But...it's my story!                    But he is already headed for the casino entrance. He waves at          her and disappears inside.                                          CASS                    Asshole.                              INT TRUMP CASINO- EVENING                    Milo glides through the casino, past the blinking lights of          the slot machines, headed for the elevators. A DRUNK GUY in a          Hawaiian shirt is coming towards him and HE AND MILO          COLLIDE...                                        MILO                        (steadying the guy)                    You Ok? My bad.                                        DRUNK GUY                    Watch where you're going. (under                    his breath) Prick.                    The drunk guy continues past. Milo holds up THE ROOM CARD KEY          HE HAS JUST SWIPED FROM THE GUY:                                        MILO                        (calling after him)                    Merry Xmas to you, too!                              INT TRUMP CASINO 25TH FLOOR- EVENING                    The elevator dings and Milo exits. He turns a corner and          heads down the hall. Another elevator DINGS behind him.                    Milo continues down the hall. Suddenly, he STOPS and looks          behind him. No one is there.                                                                              67.                              He turns another corner and FINDS 2504. There is a "DO NOT          DISTURB" sign on the door. HE GOES PAST IT AND TAPS LIGHTLY          ON 2505.                                        MILO                    Room service.                    No answer. He glances down the hall and sees a slight          movement. SOMEONE IS WATCHING HIM. He moves away from the          door, continues down the hall, THEN SLIPS INTO THE ICE          MACHINE ROOM...                              INT ICE MACHINE ROOM- CONTINUOUS                    Milo hits the light switch off and waits just inside the          door. Someone steps in, and MILO GRABS THEM AND THROWS THEM          AGAINST THE WALL. The person SCREAMS. Milo slaps a hand          across the person's mouth and switches on the light. And          finds himself face to face with:                    CASS.                                        MILO                    What the...?                    He looks at the handcuff dangling from her wrist, STILL          ATTACHED TO THE CAR DOOR ARM REST.                                        MILO                        (loud whisper)                    What the hell are you doing?                                         CASS                        (SAME)                    It's my story, I don't break                    stories by staying in the car!                                        MILO                    Yeah, well, (re: the armrest)                    you're paying for that.                                        CASS                    Oh, ok. Here's a nickle.                    Suddenly, Milo goes still. THERE IS A CREAKING SOUND as          someone creeps down the hall. Milo puts a finger to Cass'          lips.                    Then he peeks out the door.                    MILO'S POV- THE CLEANING CART BEING SLOWLY WHEELED DOWN THE          HALL BY THE MAID. The maid stops by a room and enters.                                                                            68.                                                  MILO                    Perfect. (to Cass) Play along.                              INT HALLWAY- EVENING                    Milo passes the maid's cart, glancing at her ROOM RECORD          SHEET, then continues on to room 2505. He uses the CARD HE          SWIPED on the door. Of course, IT DOESN'T WORK.                                         MILO                        (LOUD)                    Godammit. Son of a bitch.                    The maid peeks out into the hall.                                        MILO                        (to Cass)                    This is like the third card they've                    given me...                                        CASS                        (playing along)                    Take it easy, honey...                                        MILO                    Don't tell me to take it easy, now                    we have to go all the way                    downstairs again...                    Cass looks pleadingly at the maid.                                        MAID                    What's the name?                                        MILO                    Davenport. Room 2505.                    The maid checks her chart, then crosses the hall and USES HER          PASS KEY TO OPEN THE DOOR.                                        MILO                    You're an angel.                    Milo and Cass go inside.                              INT ROOM 2505- EVENING                    Milo closes the door carefully behind them, then tiptoes          across the room to the connecting door, Cass close on his          heels. All is silent.                                                                              69.                                                  CASS                        (WHISPERING)                    Wait a second: where's my gun?                                         MILO                        (SAME)                    I don't know. Where is your gun?                                        CASS                    I don't have one.                                        MILO                    Then you've answered your own                    question.                    Milo tiptoes closer to the door. Cass pulls on his sleeve.                                        CASS                    Come on, give me something. You've                    got, like, a million weapons in the                    jacket.                    She reaches for his jacket, and Milo pulls away.                                        MILO                    Hey. These are not toys. You can't                    just give them to someone and have                    them know how to use them.                                        CASS                    I seem to remember doing just fine                    with your taser gun.                    They are at the door. Milo puts a finger to his lips and          tries the doorknob: LOCKED. He is about to work the lock when          THEY HEAR SCREAMS COMING FROM THE LOCKED ROOM.                    No time to do this quietly. MILO TAKES A STEP BACK, THEN          KICKS THE DOOR IN...                              INT HALLWAY- EVENING                    Halfway down the hallway, THE MAID HEARS THE DOOR BEING          KICKED IN. Nervous, she backs away, headed for the          elevators...                              INT ROOM 2504- CONTINUOUS                    Milo QUICKLY ENTERS THE ROOM, GUN RAISED. THE SCREAMING IS          COMING FROM THE TV. Milo clicks it off and checks the room.          The place appears to be deserted. He crosses to the bathroom          and peers in: EMPTY.                                                                           70.                              Meanwhile, Cass has cautiously entered the room and sees          spots on the rug:                                        CASS                    Oh, god, is that blood?                                        MILO                    Hey. Columbo. Wait by the door.                                        CASS                    I'm just trying to...                                        MILO                    This could be a crime scene. There                    are clues all over this room that                    only a trained eye can find. And as                    I seem to recall, you were the one                    who was unable to figure this out                    by herself.                    Oooh. Cass grits her teeth.                                        CASS                        (under her breath)                    He is unbelievable.                                        MILO                    Who are you talking to, your                    imaginary friend Leslie?                                        CASS                        (BLUSHING)                    Hey. Lots of kids have imaginary                    friends, despite what my mother                    believes.                                        MILO                    Whatever. You wait by the door. And                    I'll handle this.                                        CASS                        (PISSED)                    Fine.                    She moves back to the door. As she does, she notices a          matchbook on the floor: IT'S A GREEN MATCHBOOK WITH A BLACK          SILHOUETTE OF A HORSE.                                        CASS                    So you're saying you don't want my                    help.                                        MILO                    I'm saying I don't need your help.                                                                           71.                                                    CASS                          (SHRUGGING)                    Ok.                    As he turns away, SHE SLIPS THE MATCHBOOK INTO HER PURSE.          Milo catches this movement out of the corner of his eye and          glances back:                                        MILO                    What was that?                                        CASS                        (INNOCENTLY)                    What was what?                                        MILO                    Did you find something?                                        CASS                    How could I find anything? I'm not                    the detective.                                        MILO                    Lemme see your purse...                    Milo takes a step closer to her, but:                                          VOICE                    FREEZE!                    Cass and Milo turn to see A HOTEL SECURITY GUARD IN THE          DOORWAY, EXCITEDLY POINTING HIS GUN AT THEM. Milo rolls his          eyes.                                        GUARD                    Hotel security! Stay where you are!                                        MILO                    Ok, Ok, no problem. You're probably                    gonna want this.                    Milo holds up HIS GUN.                                        GUARD                        (PANICKED)                    DROP THE WEAPON, NOW!                                        MILO                    Take it easy. I'm just gonna unload                    it.                    Milo drops the cartridge, then TOSSES THE GUN RIGHT AT THE          GUARD'S FACE.                                                                             72.                              The guard instinctively raises his hands and Milo CHARGES          him, tackling him to the ground, then handcuffing him to the          table.                    Milo GRABS Cass hand and races from the room.                              INT HALLWAY- EVENING                    Cass and Milo run up to the elevators. ALL CARS ARE RISING:          BACK-UP IS ON THE WAY. Milo hits the fire alarm and pulls          Cass into the stairwell...                              INT STAIRWELL- EVENING                    Milo and Cass are almost to the bottom, WHEN SECURITY APPEARS          IN THE STAIRWELL BENEATH THEM. Milo looks up. SECURITY IS          COMING FROM ABOVE, AS WELL. Shit. Milo cracks the stairwell          window and peers out: THEY ARE 4 STORIES UP.                                        MILO                    You're gonna have to jump.                                           CASS                    I can't.                    Milo considers this, then picks her up and TOSSES HER OUT THE          WINDOW.                              EXT TRUMP CASINO- EVENING                    Cass screams as she falls. Milo falls next to her. They fall          and fall and BOOSH: THEY LAND IN A SNOW BANK AND TUMBLE TO          THE GROUND.                    Seconds later, they are on their feet, RUNNING FOR THE CAR.                                        BOBBY (O.S.)                    Ok, so some guy you're looking for                    has disappeared. You want me to put                    out an all-points on him?                              INT CADILLAC- EVENING                    Milo and Cass are speeding away from the Trump Casino.                                        MILO                        (into phone)                    The thing is, Bob: Cass thinks                    dirty cops might be involved.                                                                           73.                              SPLIT-SCREEN:                    INT POLICE STATION- EVENING                    Bobby is in his office. His door opens onto the squad room,          busy with police activity. Bobby sits up straighter in his          chair.                                        BOBBY                    Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're with                    Cassidy? Shit, Milo, you know when                    you're around her your brain turns                    to mush.                                        MILO                    Yeah, well, that doesn't change the                    fact that someone took a couple                    shots at us.                    Beat.                                        BOBBY                    You get a plate number?                                        MILO                    Happened too quick. But it was a                    dark 4-door Chevy, blue or grey,                    New Jersey plates, and the car was                    wrecked, I know that.                    Bobby thinks this over.                                        BOBBY                    Ok. Lemme look into it. See what I                    can find. Just hold tight, Ok?                    Milo checks his watch.                                        MILO                    Ok. But we're kinda on a clock                    here.                                        BOBBY                    Milo, don't fuck around with this.                    If there are dirty cops in the                    house, we all have a problem. So do                    me a favor: get off the strip, find                    somewhere to lie low and wait for                    my call.                                                                             74.                              EXT BACK OF TRUMP CASINO- EVENING                    The scene has calmed down a little. A DARK SEDAN appears and          RAY AND DWIGHT exit the car, looking like a an ugly,          dangerous Odd Couple.                    An employee slips out the back door and hands Ray a PHOTO          FROM SECURITY OF MILO AND CASS IN THE CASINO PARKING LOT.          Dwight snatches the photo from Ray.                                        DWIGHT                    Yeah, that's him.                                        RAY                    Who's the chick?                                        DWIGHT                    Who gives a fuck? Anyway, they                    can't be far.                    It's true. They aren't too far. They are:                              EXT OFF ROUTE 9- EVENING                    A LUXURIOUS, ROMANTIC B&B. Xmas lights winking on the trees,          "Come All Ye Faithful" gently wafting out the oak front door.                    CHIRON: "9:00 PM. ROUTE 9 SOUTH. 36 HOURS TO GO."                    The whole scene looks beautiful, peaceful, romantic...                                        CASS (O.S.)                    Ok. Kill me now.                    PULL BACK TO REVEAL MILO AND CASS, parked in front. REVEAL          THE SIGN NEXT TO THEM: "WELCOME TO CUPID'S CABIN". Yup. The          place Milo and Cass ran off to and got married 3 years ago.                                        MILO                    I'm sorry, it's the only place I                    know off the strip.                                        CASS                    I'm not going in. What if they                    remember us?                                        MILO                    They won't remember us. Why would                    they remember us? Just...try to act                    normal.                                                                              75.                              INT LUXURY B&B- EVENING                    A small, family-run, luxury bed and breakfast. The kind of          place that prides itself on its service. DAWN (long, graying          hair, glasses, moccasins) greets them with a smile:                                        DAWN                    Can I help you? (realizing) Wait,                    it can't be...                    She looks behind her at a bulletin board. At photos of all          the happy couples who have passed through her. And finds: A          PHOTO OF MILO AND CASS, ARMS AROUND EACH OTHER, DRINKING          CHAMPAGNE, CASS SHOWING OFF AN ENGAGEMENT RING.                                        DAWN                        (to the back room)                    Edmund, come quick!                    A balding man in flannel comes out, takes one look, and          clasps both hands to his chest.                                        EDMUND                    Be still my beating heart.                                        MILO                        (LOW)                    Looks like they remember us.                                           CASS                        (SAME)                    Ya think?                                        EDMUND                    What a lovely surprise. It's been,                    what, 3 years?                    Milo and Cass both try to downplay:                                           MILO                    Has it?                                        CASS                    I don't really remember...                                        DAWN                        (REALIZING)                    And you came back! To celebrate                    your anniversary!                                        CASS                    Oh, no. No, no...                                                                            76.                                                  EDMUND                    What an honor for us!                                        CASS                    Actually, we're not...                                         DAWN                    You know what? In light of this                    special special occasion: it's on                    the house!                    Before Cass can protest more, MILO GRABS HER ARM.                                        MILO                    Honey? Can I talk to you?                    He pulls her slightly aside.                                        MILO                        (LOW)                    You have any money?                                         CASS                        (SAME)                    No, as you recall, I gave you all                    my money at the blackjack table...                    (realizing) You blew all the money!                                        MILO                    Hey! I would have won it back if                    someone hadn't tasered me in the                    bathroom!                                        CASS                    So. Use a credit card.                                        MILO                    Mine's max'd. Lemme have yours.                                        CASS                    Mine's max'd too. (off his look)                    What, I like to shop.                    They give each other a horrified look as they both realize          what this means. Then they turn back to the couple, put their          arms around each other, and smile:                                        MILO/CASS                    It's our third anniversary!                                        DAWN/EDMUND                    Congratulations!                                                                            77.                                                     MILO/CASS                    Thanks!                    Milo and Cass snuggle closer. He surreptitiously squeezes her          ass. She surreptitiously STOMPS on his foot.                              INT LUXURY B&B DINING-ROOM- EVENING                    Full of couples in love. Young couples, old couples, gay          couples, straight couples. Even a dog couple snuggled up by          the fire.                    And then there's Milo and Cass, bruised and dishevelled,          being served an elaborate romantic meal. They smile          uncomfortably as Edmund arrives with a tray of oysters:                                        EDMUND                    To begin: a little aphrodisiac!                    He gives them both a broad wink.                                           MILO                           (GRIMLY)                    Wow.                                           CASS                        (SAME)                    Great.                                        EDMUND                    So tell me: how have you managed to                    keep the romance alive all this                    time?                                        MILO                    Well, I'll tell you, Edmund.                    The secret to our success is that                    the little woman here knows her                    place. She cleans for me, cooks for                    me, and every night when I come                    home she gets down on her knees and                    massages my feet.                    He beams at Cass. Cass grins through her teeth.                                        CASS                    Yes, Edmund, it's true. I massage                    his feet to help him feel like a                    man. It's important, especially                    when your husband has such a teeny                    tiny...                    Just then, Dawn hustles over, interrupting:                                                                           78.                                                  DAWN                    How is everything? Is it like that                    magical night 3 years ago?                                        CASS                    Uh-huh.                                        MILO                    Yup. You betcha.                                        DAWN                    This calls for a toast!                    She raises a glass, tapping it with a spoon. Milo and Cass          both groan under their breath.                                        DAWN                        (to the room)                    May I have your attention please?                    Edmund and I would like to share                    with you the most romantic moment                    we have ever seen. It was three                    years ago today, in this very                    restaurant, when this lovely young                    man here, right in the middle of                    the meal, threw down his napkin,                    got down on one knee, and said                    marry me, right now, right this                    second, I want to go to sleep                    tonight knowing you're my wife!                                        EDMUND                        (jumping in)                    And she said yes, with tears in her                    eyes and a tremble in her hand,                    let's get married, and they ran out                    to the all night chapel and came                    back an hour later, man and wife!                    The whole restaurant starts clapping. Milo turns to Edmund:                                        MILO                    Can I get a whiskey?                                        CASS                    Make that two.                              INT LUXURY B&B HALLWAY- NIGHT                    Milo and Cass stumble down the hall, laughing hysterically,          falling down drunk.                                                                            79.                                                  MILO                    After we broke up, I was so mad at                    you, I told everyone I know you                    have herpes.                                         CASS                    I told everyone you flunked out of                    3rd grade.                                         MILO                    I told everyone you have a                    moustache.                                        CASS                    I told everyone you like to wear my                    panties.                                        MILO                    Hey!                    This one is obviously true. Both laugh harder.                              INT LUXURY B&B HONEYMOON SUITE- NIGHT                    Milo and Cass stagger in, blinking hazily at their new          surroundings. A heart-shaped bed. Champagne. A bubble bath. A          fireplace. The works. Like Cupid threw up in here.                    The laughter slowly fades. Long beat. Then:                                        CASS                    Wow. This would be really awkward                    if we still had feelings for each                    other. Which we don't...                                        MILO                    That's right. Luckily, we're                    different people now. We don't feel                    the way we used to.                                        CASS                    Right. We've moved on.                                        MILO                    We have no feelings about each                    other whatsoever.                                        MILO                    Just two people who used to know                    each other.                                        CASS                    Two casual acquaintances.                                                                           80.                                                     MILO                       Feels good, doesn't it?                                           CASS                       Feels fantastic.                                           MILO                       A platonic relationship. Working                       together.                                           CASS                       Helping each other.                                           MILO                       Trusting each other.                    Which reminds them: THEY DON'T TRUST EACH OTHER. Awkward          pause. Then:                                           CASS                       Well. Mind if I shower?                                           MILO                       Ladies first.                    Cass disappears into the bathroom, closing the door behind          her. Beat. Then MILO HURRIES OVER TO THE DOOR AND LISTENS.                              INT LUXURY B&B BATHROOM- NIGHT                    CASS IS PRESSED ON HER SIDE OF THE DOOR, ALSO LISTENING. She          reaches over and turns on the shower.                              INT LUXURY B&B HONEYMOON SUITE- NIGHT                    As soon as Milo hears the water, HE HURRIES OVER TO THE BED          WHERE CASS LEFT HER PURSE. HE STARTS DIGGING THROUGH IT.                    MEANWHILE:                              INT LUXURY B&B BATHROOM- NIGHT                    Cass is seated on the toilet lid, HUNCHED OVER HER PHONE:                                           CASS                           (LOW)                       Hey. It's me.                                           MOM (O.S.)                       Sheryl?                                                                              81.                              SPLIT-SCREEN                    Mom is at a gay bar, having a cocktail.                                           CASS                       No, not Sheryl. Cass. (beat) Your                       daughter.                                           MOM                       Jesus Christ, where the hell are                       ya, Niagara Falls?                                           CASS                       No. You're not gonna believe this,                       but: I'm at Cupid's Cabin with                       Milo.                                           MOM                           (GASPING)                       Oh my god...                                           CASS                       Mom...                                           MOM                       I always knew you two would...                                           CASS                       Mom. We're not back together.                    Long beat.                                           MOM                       Why the hell not?                              INT LUXURY B&B HONEYMOON SUITE- NIGHT                    Milo is looking through Cass' purse. HE KNOWS SHE WAS HIDING          SOMETHING FROM HIM AT THE CASINO. While searching through her          wallet, he suddenly stumbles across A WEDDING PHOTO OF          HIMSELF AND CASS.                    Huh. He glances at the bathroom door. She carries their          wedding photo around?                              INT LUXURY B&B BATHROOM- NIGHT                    Cass listens while Mom rants:                                                                            82.                                                  MOM                    I mean, I just don't get it, you're                    in this romantic place, you have a                    perfect opportunity to win him                    back...                                        CASS                    Why should I have to win him back?                    He should have to win me back! And                    who says I want him back, anyway?                                        MOM                    I have never understood this                    competitive streak of yours...                                        CASS                        (losing her patience)                    Look, the reason I called: I                    remember you worked at this one                    place where they had these bright                    green matches with, like, this                    silhouette of a horse on them?                                        MOM                        (immediately defensive)                    That was a long time ago! And all I                    did was serve drinks...                                        CASS                    I just need to know the name of the                    place.                                        MOM                    Charley's. And Ok, I admit, maybe I                    did a little dancing, but how often                    do you make 200 an hour in tips?                                        CASS                    I gotta go.                                        MOM                    I want grandkids!                    Cass hangs up. She sits for a moment, staring at her phone.          Is her mother right? Is she making a mistake right now? She          looks around the bathroom. Candles, flowers, thick robes.                    A bottle of champagne chilling by the heart-shaped tub. She          slowly stands and checks herself out in the mirror, brushing          back her hair with her hands.                    Suddenly, on impulse, she grabs the bottle of champagne and          two glasses. WHAT THE HELL, WHY NOT?                                                                              83.                              They're here, maybe they should seize the moment. She peeks          out the bathroom door and sees...                              INT LUXURY B&B SUITE- NIGHT                    MILO, DIGGING THROUGH HER PURSE, FINDING THE MATCHES...                                        MILO                        (to himself)                    Sneaky bitch.                              INT BATHROOM- NIGHT                    Cass is disappointed and vindicated all at once. She puts the          champagne back.                                        CASS                        (to herself)                    Sneaky bastard.                              INT LUXURY B&B SUITE- NIGHT                    Milo hears the water go off. HE POCKETS THE MATCHES, tosses          the purse away and lies on the bed, striking a casual pose.                    Cass emerges.                                        MILO                    Good shower?                                          CASS                    The best.                                          MILO                    Great.                                        CASS                    You know what's great? Trusting                    each other.                                          MILO                    I agree.                    He holds up the handcuffs:                                        MILO                    Time for bed!                    MUSIC KICKS IN: "Silent Night".                                                                            84.                              INT LUXURY B&B SUITE- NIGHT                    SNOW IS FALLING OUTSIDE. PAN FROM THE WINDOW, ACROSS THE ROOM          TO THE BED, ACROSS A SNORING MILO TO CASS, EYES CLOSED, HAND          CUFFED TO THE HEADBOARD.                    Suddenly, CASS' EYES SNAP OPEN. She sits up a little and          glances over at MILO'S NIGHT TABLE WHERE HE LEFT THE KEYS AND          GUN IN PLAIN VIEW. She smiles...                              INT LUXURY B&B SUITE- TEN MINUTES LATER                    Cass is doing a slow, careful, ACROBATIC CLIMB ACROSS MILO'S          BODY in an attempt to reach the gun without waking Milo up.          She puts a hand on the headboard. She is lifting her knee          over him, when he stirs.                    She freezes, waiting for him to settle. It's like playing          Twister, only if the person you're playing with finds out,          HE'S GOING TO KILL YOU.                    She manages to get herself STRADDLING HIM, arms stretched,          THE GUN ALMOST WITHIN REACH, when:                                           MILO                    Excuse me.                    Cass FREEZES.                                        MILO                    What are you doing?                    She looks down. Milo is watching her, wide awake. Hmm. This          is going to be a tough one to explain.                                           CASS                    Um...                                        MILO                    Are you trying to seduce me?                                        CASS                        (SWALLOWING)                    Yes. Yes I am.                    She tries to reach for the gun while they talk.                                        MILO                        (INNOCENTLY)                    I didn't know you were still so                    attracted to me. I mean, I remember                    how you used to like to greet me at                    the door in nothing but a...                                                                              85.                                                  CASS                        (INTERRUPTING)                    Yes, it's true, I'm still attracted                    to you.                    Her hand is groping around blindly, where the fuck is it? She          stretches more, bringing her face even closer to Milo's.                                         MILO                    Really? Wow. That's great news. You                    know what would be really sexy                    right now?                    Uh-oh.                                        CASS                    If we both just went to sleep?                                        MILO                    No. If you talked dirty to me.                    The gun seems to be getting father away. THEIR LIPS ARE          ALMOST TOUCHING NOW...                                        CASS                    Ok. (in a sexy voice) Sewage. Mold.                    Rotting carcass...                                        MILO                    No, I mean, tell me about your                    attraction to me.                                        CASS                    Um...I can't stop thinking about                    you.                                        MILO                    Really? What part of me?                                        CASS                    Just...all of you.                                        MILO                    Be specific.                    Cass blushes fiercely. If she didn't want that gun so bad...                                        MILO                        (HELPFULLY)                    My great hair? My chest?                    Or...something lower like...                    He reaches down and WHIPS OUT:                                                                           86.                                                    MILO                    My gun?                    THE GUN IS IN HIS HAND. That's why she couldn't reach it. HE          KNEW WHAT SHE WAS UP TO THIS WHOLE TIME. She flips off him          and back onto her side. Milo sits up, flipping on the lights.                                        MILO                    I knew I couldn't trust you!                                        CASS                    I knew I couldn't trust you!                                        MILO                    When were you gonna tell me about                    the matches you found back there in                    the hotel room?                                        CASS                    When were you gonna tell me you                    have no intention of helping me                    with my story?                                        MILO                        (SHRUGGING)                    You're right. I'm not helping you.                    This is my story now. This time I                    get to come out on top! Karma,                    babe. K-a-r-m-a. Karma....                                        CASS                    Oh my god, would you get over it                    already! So I cracked the case                    before you did, it was 3 years ago,                    it happened, stop being such a baby                    and move on!                                         MILO                    Oh I'm moving on. You know how I'm                    moving on? By cracking this case                    before you, then taking you in so                    you can spend this Xmas in jail,                    all alone.                    He rolls over, turning his back to her. Cass stares at the          ceiling, fuming.                              EXT CHARLEY'S- DAWN                    A strip club on the boardwalk. MOVING IN ON THE BACK DOOR...                                                                             87.                              INT CHARLEY'S STORAGE ROOM- NIGHT                    Jimmy, tied to a chair, watches nervously as MAHLER TAKES          EVIDENCE BOXES THAT ARE STACKED ALONG THE WALLS AND MOVES          THEM ONTO A MOVER'S DOLLY.                                        JIMMY                    So this is your place, huh? Nice.                    Cozy. Probably more fun to sit                    where you can actually see the                    dancers, but...                    Mahler has all the boxes loaded up. He grabs a rag and          approaches Jimmy.                                        JIMMY                    Oh. Hey, listen, no need for that,                    I swear I'll be as quiet as a                    mouse.                    Mahler gags him, THEN PUNCHES HIM IN THE FACE. JIMMY SLUMPS          OVER.                                        MAHLER                    I know you will.                    Mahler grabs the dolly, flicks off the lights, and EXITS OUT          THE BACK DOOR.                              INT LUXURY B&B DINING ROOM- DAY                    CHIRON: "2:00PM. ROUTE 9 NORTH. 19 HOURS TO GO."                    Cass is in a booth, handcuffed, her mouth set, her face grim.          No more Mr Nice Guy. She is scheming her way out.                    RACK TO MILO, SEVERAL PACES AWAY, ON THE PHONE WITH TERESA,          keeping one eye on Cass:                                        MILO                    I'm just curious.                    SPLIT-SCREEN:                    Teresa at her desk, sipping eggnog.                                         TERESA                    No, I do not keep my ex's photo in                    my wallet.                    Sid passes through, kids in tow, and carrying A HUGE, TANGLED          BALL OF XMAS LIGHTS. Sid looks like he wants to put a bullet          through his brain.                                                                              88.                              Teresa mouths "Milo". Sid picks up the other extension.                                        SID                    What's the problem now?                                        MILO                    No problem...                                        TERESA                    She keeps their wedding photo in                    her wallet. He wants to know what                    that means.                                        SID                    It means she's madly in love with                    you.                                        MILO                    Really?                                        SID                    No, you idiot, it means she hasn't                    cleaned out her wallet in 3 years.                    I'm pretty sure I'm still carrying                    around a condom from 1987. (to one                    of the kids) Son of a bitch,                    Jeremy, don't eat things you find                    on the floor.                                        TERESA                    I think it means she loves him.                                        MILO                    Really? Cause it did make me                    wonder...                                        SID                    Why do you care? Listen to me: you                    hate this girl, remember? You drank                    yourself out of a job over this                    girl.                                        MILO                    I quit my job.                                        SID                    You were fired.                                        MILO                    I quit by getting myself fired.                                        TERESA                    Are you sleeping with her?                                                                            89.                                                  SID                    Teresa, get off the line. I knew I                    should have sent Doug. Milo, do me                    a favor. Don't call me again until                    you get her to jail.                    CLICK. Sid hangs up. Milo turns to see Cass CONFERRING WITH          DAWN.                                        MILO                        (to himself)                    Shit.                              INT BOOTH- LATE MORNING                    Milo joins Cass. Re: Dawn:                                        MILO                    What was that about?                                        CASS                    Nothing. I had her add mayo to your                    burger. I remember you like that.                    Milo glances at Dawn and she nods in confirmation.                                        MILO                    Oh. (surprised) Thanks.                    Milo takes a bite from his burger and considers Cass.                                        MILO                    Ok, look: I know you're probably                    upset that you're not gonna get the                    story. But a person can't win every                    time, right?                                        CASS                    Depends on the person.                                        MILO                    Whadya mean?                                        CASS                    Well, if the person you're                    referring to is you, I agree: you                    can't win every time.                    Suddenly, MILO GETS A FUNNY LOOK ON HIS FACE.                                        CASS                        (INNOCENTLY)                    What's wrong?                                                                              90.                                                  MILO                        (choking a little)                    This burger...                                        CASS                    One day stuff like that is gonna                    kill ya. (pause) Who knows? Maybe                    even today.                                        MILO                    My tug...is thwelling...(gasping)                    I tink dere might be sesame...                                        CASS                    Yeah, I had her add that with the                    mayo. Is that bad? Oh wait, you're                    violently allergic to sesame.                    Whoops. My bad.                    MILO'S FACE IS TURNING BRIGHT RED. HE GASPS FOR AIR. HE          SLOWLY SLIDES OFF HIS CHAIR ONTO THE FLOOR. Cass calmly          reaches across the table, taking his keys and unhandcuffing          herself.                    Car keys in hand, she bends down to whisper in his ear:                                        CASS                    You know what that is? "Karma". Oh,                    and, I'll get the story. Watch me.                    ...and heads for the door.                                        CASS                        (into her phone)                    911? Yeah, there's a guy here about                    to go into anaphylactic shock.                    Better hurry.                              INT CADILLAC- DAY                    Cass drives along, on the phone with 411:                                        CASS                    Yeah, "Charley's". (listening) On                    the boardwalk? Great. Thanks.                              INT LUXURY B&B PARKING LOT- DAY                    Next to an ambulance, Milo is unconscious on a stretcher. An          EMT prepares a HUGE SYRINGE, picks a spot on Milo's chest,          then PLUNGES THE NEEDLE INTO IT.                                                                            91.                              Milo JERKS up on a gurney, gasping for air.                                        EMT                    Relax. That was an adrenaline shot.                                        MILO                    I don't believe it. She tried to                    kill me.                    The EMT exchanges a look with the ambulance driver, then          helps Milo off the stretcher.                                        EMT                    No one tried to kill you, buddy.                    You just need to be more careful                    about what you eat.                                        MILO                    Thanks. Great tip.                    He checks his watch, then pulls out the GREEN MATCHBOOK:                                        MILO                    Know where this place is?                                        EMT                    Sure. Charley's, on the boardwalk.                    And just FYI: when they say "don't                    touch" the dancers, they mean with                    with any part of your body, not                    just your hands.                    The EMT folds the stretcher, loads it into the ambulance, and          THEY DRIVE AWAY, leaving Milo in the parking lot.                                        MILO                        (calling after them,                         SARCASTIC)                    Thanks for the ride, by the way.                    Milo starts trying handles of parked cars until he finds one          that's open and SLIPS INSIDE.                              EXT ATLANTIC CITY BOARDWALK- AFTERNOON                    Cass pulls up, parks in a lot, and instantly spots CHARLEY'S          GREEN SIGN WITH THE BLACK HORSE SILHOUETTE, squeezed between          a burger place and a souvenir shop. She slips out of the car,          takes a careful look around, then works her way towards the          club.                                                                               92.                              INT CHARLEY'S- AFTERNOON                    POV OF THE FRONT DOOR, OPENING A CRACK, CASS PEEKING IN.                    CASS' POV- WOMEN DANCING, MEN DRINKING. Seedy and cheesy at          the same time. Cass thinks this over, then slowly lets the          door swing closed.                              EXT BACK OF CHARLEY'S- AFTERNOON                    Cass finds the back entrance. THE DOOR IS BOLTED. She is          looking for a window to climb into, when she spots JIMMY'S          METS' HAT ON THE GROUND.                    Shit. Cass stares at the hat: JIMMY IS HERE SOMEWHERE. She          presses her ear up against the back door:                                        CASS                        (SOFTLY)                    Jimmy?                    Suddenly, SHE HEARS GROANING COMING FROM INSIDE. Or grunting.          LIKE SOMEONE TRYING TO CALL OUT THROUGH A GAG. She looks          around. There is a window higher up on the wall. Cass drags a          trash can beneath the window, stacks another one on top of          it, and cautiously climbs up.                    The window is locked and she can't see through it. Hmm. Fuck          it. She takes her purse and SMASHES a pane of glass.                    She wobbles on trash cans and GRABS THE WINDOWSILL JUST AS          THE CANS FALL AWAY, LEAVING HER DANGLING.                              INT CHARLEY'S STORAGE ROOM- AFTERNOON                    Jimmy is staring nervously up at the broken window. He can          see hands and can hear someone cursing under their breath.          The top of a head appears, then a face: IT'S CASS.                    Relieved, Jimmy starts gesturing excitedly for her to come          in. Cass climbs in, drops to the floor, hurries over to Jimmy          and ungags him.                                        JIMMY                    Untie me, quick, that psychopath is                    gonna be back here any second...                              EXT BACK OF CHARLEY'S- MOMENTS LATER                    Cass peeks out the door, then gestures for Jimmy to follow.                                                                               93.                              EXT ATLANTIC CITY BOARDWALK- AFTERNOON                    Cass and Jimmy are hurrying to the Cadillac...                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    Cass and Jimmy climb in...                                        CASS                    So what the hell is "Sparrow"?                    ...but before Jimmy can answer:                                        DWIGHT (O.S.)                    I have a better question...                    Cass looks in the rearview mirror. SHIT: DWIGHT AND RAY ARE          IN THE BACKSEAT, POINTING GUNS AT THE BACK OF THEIR HEADS.                                        DWIGHT                    Where the fuck is Milo?                    Jimmy almost bursts into tears.                                        JIMMY                    You know what? I think I'll get a                    real job. Work at Kinko's. Or                    Burger King. That doesn't sound so                    bad anymore...                                        RAY                        (INTERRUPTING)                    Hey. Who the fuck are you?                                        JIMMY                    Nobody.                                        RAY                    Right. So what the fuck are you                    doing in this car?                    Jimmy glances back at them. Do they mean he can just...?                                        DWIGHT                        (spelling it out)                    Run, you jackass.                    Jimmy gives Cass a quick look ("sorry"), then exits the car          and TAKES OFF RUNNING DOWN THE BOARDWALK. CASS CAN'T BELIEVE          IT. She drops her forehead into the steering wheel in          despair.                                                                            94.                              EXT HIGHWAY- AFTERNOON                    Milo is driving along in a stolen Volvo, cables hanging under          the steering wheel from where he hot-wired it. He is just          coming up on the boardwalk when his phone rings.                                        MILO                        (ANSWERING)                    What do you want, you crazy bitch?                              INT CHARLEY'S- AFTERNOON                    Cass is seated in a booth with Dwight and Ray. Into phone:                                        CASS                    What kind of asshole runs up a                    gambling debt with a bunch of                    Neanderthals...                                        RAY                    That's not what I told you to say.                    Ray grabs the phone away from her. Into phone:                                        RAY                    As you can see: we have your                    girlfriend.                                        CASS                        (LOUDLY)                    And I'm not his girlfriend.                                        MILO                    Oh, she's my girlfriend alright.                    But fair is fair: you guys can keep                    her.                    CLICK. Ray stares at the phone. In disbelief:                                        RAY                    I think he hung up.                                         CASS                    He what?                                        DWIGHT                        (grabbing the phone)                    Gimme that.                                                                              95.                              EXT ATLANTIC CITY BOARDWALK- AFTERNOON                    Milo is pulling up. Sees Charley's. Then SEES HIS OWN CAR. He          glances around: CASS MUST BE AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE.                    His phone rings again.                                        MILO                    Hello, Lucky's Libations!                              SPLIT-SCREEN:                    Dwight tries to explain:                                        DWIGHT                    Look, Milo, I don't think you                    understand: we're gonna hurt her.                    Milo hears MUSIC COMING FROM DWIGHT'S END. DANCE MUSIC.          SLEAZY MUSIC. UNMISTAKABLY STRIP-CLUB MUSIC.                    He heads for CHARLEY'S. Into phone:                                        MILO                    Oh, I understand, alright, and I                    don't blame ya. I want to hurt her                    all the time.                    Cass grabs the phone from Dwight. Into phone:                                        CASS                    Milo, listen, they're not kidding,                    Ok?                              INT CHARLEY'S- CONTINUOUS                    Milo slips inside and scans the room. HE SEES CASS IN A BOOTH          ACROSS THE ROOM WITH DWIGHT AND RAY. Into phone:                                        MILO                    Ok. Fine. Say you were wrong.                    Cass hesitates. Into phone:                                          CASS                    For what?                                        MILO                    For what? For poisoning me with                    sesame and almost killing me!                    Beat.                                                                         96.                                                  CASS                    Ok. Maybe that was not the best...                                        MILO                    Say you were wrong.                                        CASS                    I could have found a more mature...                                        MILO                    Say you were wrong.                                        CASS                    I was possibly out of line...                                        MILO                    Say you were wrong.                                        CASS                        (blurting out)                    Ok, ok, I was wrong!                                        MILO                    Ok. Now. Admit that the only reason                    you were able to crack that case                    three years ago was because you                    looked through my files.                    Long pause.                                          CASS                    What?                                        MILO                    I think I'll hang up now...                                        CASS                        (QUICKLY)                    Ok, Ok. I looked through your                    files. Are you happy?                                        MILO                    Thrilled. Now tell them I'll be                    there in 20 minutes. Meanwhile,                    stop shifting in your seat like                    that and just tell them you have to                    use the bathroom.                    Cass sits up straighter. Wait a second, he's here?                                        MILO                    Don't look around. Just do it.                    CLICK. He hangs up.                                                                              97.                              CLOSE ON- THE BOOTH.                                        CASS                    You boys mind if I use the ladies                    room?                              INT BATHROOM- MOMENTS LATER                    Cass enters. Milo is behind the door. He SLAMS the door          closed after she is in, and blocks her escape.                                        MILO                    You know what my mistake was? I                    never should have let you out of                    the trunk. I'm fine, by the way.                    The doctor said I may have been                    technically dead for a few seconds,                    but I'm fine now.                    Cass is not impressed. She stares at him coldly.                                        CASS                    So that's what you really think?                    That I stole information from you?                                        MILO                    It's not what I think, it's what I                    know. How else did you beat me?                                        CASS                        (as though to a 5 yr old)                    Did it ever occur to you that I                    just might be good at my job?                    Milo stares at her. Huh. It actually didn't occur to him...                                        CASS                    That's what I thought. You know                    what, Milo? You're an even bigger                    asshole than I previously                    suspected, and you deserve                    everything that's happened to you.                    (beat) And everything that's about                    to happen to you.                    "About to happen"? Milo is just starting to realize...                                        MILO                    You wouldn't...                                        CASS                        (SCREAMING)                    MILO BOYD IS IN HERE!                                                                            98.                              Son of a bitch. The bathroom door SHOOTS open and DWIGHT AND          RAY ENTER. They back Milo into a corner. Cass smiles at Milo,          waves, and exits.                              EXT CHARLEY'S- AFTERNOON                    Cass comes flying out of the club and runs right into:          MAHLER. HE TAKES ONE LOOKS AT HER AND PUSHES HER BACK INSIDE.                              INT BATHROOM- AFTERNOON                    Dwight and Ray are frisking Milo, taking away his array of          weapons.                                        DWIGHT                    Wow. You always carry this much                    gear?                                        MILO                    Only during the holidays.                              INT CHARLEY'S- CONTINUOUS                    Milo is pushed out of the bathroom, and comes face to face          with CASS. MAHLER APPEARS FROM BEHIND HER, TAKES ONE LOOK AT          MILO AND POINTS HIS GUN AT MILO'S HEAD.                                        MAHLER                    Remember me?                                        DWIGHT                    What the fuck?                    Dwight steps forward from behind Milo, AND POINTS HIS GUN AT          MAHLER. MAHLER REACTS, SHIFTING THE GUN TO DWIGHT. RAY STEPS          UP, GUN POINTED AT MAHLER.                    Momentary stand-off. Stuck between the bad guys, MILO AND          CASS GIVE EACH OTHER EVIL LOOKS.                    A half-naked dancer appears:                                          DANCER                    Lapdance?                    Everyone looks at her. She is just realizing...                                        DANCER                    Maybe I should come back later...                                                                              99.                              ...WHEN MILO AND CASS SIMULTANEOUSLY MAKE THEIR MOVES, CASS          STOMPING ON MAHLER'S FOOT, CAUSING HIM TO LOOSEN HIS HOLD ON          HER, MILO SLAMMING HIS ELBOW BACK ONTO RAY'S ABDOMEN.                    RAY'S GUN GOES OFF AS CASS AND MILO BOTH HIT THE FLOOR.          MAHLER REACTS, FIRING AT RAY. DWIGHT FIRES AT MAHLER...                    TOTAL PANDEMONIUM. Girls screaming, patrons running for the          exit.                    MAHLER AND DWIGHT BOTH GET HIT. Milo crawls over to a moaning          Dwight and recovers his gun. He looks up in time to see CASS          DISAPPEARING OUT THE FRONT DOOR.                              EXT BOARDWALK- AFTERNOON                    Milo comes out. THE BOARDWALK IS PACKED, CASS IS LOST IN THE          CROWD. Milo raises his gun in the air and FIRES. People duck          and scatter REVEALING CASS, climbing into the Cadillac.                    SIRENS...                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    Cass jumps into the car and hits the gas. She is pulling          away, victorious, WHEN THERE IS A SOUND ON THE ROOF.                    MILO'S FACE APPEARS, UPSIDE-DOWN, IN THE WINDSHIELD,          GRINNING.                                          CASS                      Get off the car, Milo.                    He gives her the finger.                                          CASS                      Get off the car, you psychopath.                                          MILO                      Oh, I am a psychopath, and you know                      why? Cause you made me that way.                      And if I'm going crazy, I'm taking                      you with me.                    He reaches a hand through the driver's window, grabbing at          her. Cass SCREAMS, squeezes her eyes shut and HITS THE GAS.                    MORE SIRENS, RAPIDLY APPROACHING...                                                                              100.                              EXT HIGHWAY- AFTERNOON                    THE CAR IS WEAVING CRAZILY, MILO SLIDING BACK AND FORTH          ACROSS THE ROOF...                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    Cass opens her eyes. MILO IS HALFWAY IN THE PASSENGER WINDOW.                                           CASS                     AAHHH!!                                           MILO                     AAHHH!!                    Milo falls into the car, grabbing at the wheel. They fight          for control of the car as it goes spinning off the road...                              EXT TREES- AFTERNOON                    The Cadillac skids wildly, COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL...                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    THEY WRESTLE FOR CONTROL...                                           MILO                     LET GO...                                         CASS                     NO, YOU LET GO...                              INT CADILLAC- AFTERNOON                    TREES...ROCKS...SNOWBANKS...DITCHES...FINALLY, MILO MANAGES          TO SLAM ON THE BRAKES AND THE CAR SKIDS TO A HALT JUST INCHES          FROM A CLIFF.                    Silence.                              EXT BOARDWALK- EARLY EVENING                    Cops everywhere, Dwight and Ray leaning over the hood of a          squad car, being handcuffed, MAHLER UNCONSCIOUS ON A          STRETCHER.                    A BYSTANDER IS TALKING TO A COP, DESCRIBING:                                                                             101.                                                  BYSTANDER                    It was an old Cadillac, this crazy                    girl driving, and the guy was like,                    on the roof...                              INT CADILLAC- EARLY EVENING                    CHIRON: "6:00 PM. ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 13 HOURS TO GO".                    Cass and Milo both just sit there breathing for a moment.          Then Milo turns and glares at Cass, and THE LOOK ON HER FACE          SAYS SHE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT'S COMING NEXT:                              EXT TRUNK- EARLY EVENING                    CASS IS BACK IN THE TRUNK. Milo waves goodbye and SLAMS shut          the lid.                    IMMEDIATELY, HIS CELL PHONE RINGS. Milo glances at it, then          reluctantly answers:                                        MILO                    Yeah?                              SPLIT-SCREEN:                    Bobby, ocean in the background, furious:                                        BOBBY                    What the fuck are you doing? I                    thought I told you to lie low.                                        MILO                    I was lying low...                                        BOBBY                    Yeah? Then how is it that a                    statewide all-points was just put                    out on the two of you?                                        MILO                        (SIGHING)                    It's a long story.                                        BOBBY                    Ok, look, you guys better come to                    me, I'll protect you til we figure                    this out. Can you get to Pier 19?                    Milo looks around. He can just make out Pier 19 in the          distance, a mile or two away.                                                                           102.                                                     MILO                       Yeah.                              EXT PIER 19- EVENING                    Milo and Cass drive up in the Cadillac and park out of sight.          They exit the car and look around. The pier seems to be          deserted. Then they hear a soft motor, and BOBBY APPEARS IN A          MOTORBOAT.                                           BOBBY                       Get in.                              EXT OCEAN- EARLY EVENING                    The sound of a motorboat chugging along.                              INT MOTORBOAT- EVENING                    Bobby is at the back of the boat, steering. Cass and Milo are          up front, explaining:                                           CASS                       So, these guys have a bunch of                       stolen evidence stashed somewhere                       in Atlantic City...                                           MILO                       And we think they're ditching it                       tonight.                    A SMALL YACHT APPEARS ON THE HORIZON. Bobby steers the          motorboat towards it. MILO AND CASS TURN TO LOOK AS THE YACHT          COMES INTO VIEW. AND AT THE SAME MOMENT, CASS AND MILO MAKE          OUT THE NAME ON THE SIDE OF THE BOAT:                    "SPARROW".                                           BOBBY                           (CASUALLY)                       You know, if I was them, I'd store                       the evidence on a boat, drive the                       boat about 30 miles out, and blow                       the whole thing up.                    Cass and Milo both slowly turn to find BOBBY POINTING A GUN          AT THE TWO OF THEM. Off Milo's disappointed look:                                           BOBBY                       Hey, man. I got mouths to feed.                                                                           103.                                                  MILO                    Aw. That's what all the dirty cops                    say.                    Bobby quickly frisks Cass, and frisks and disarms Milo. He          steers the boat one-handed up next to the yacht and cuts the          motorboats engine.                    Milo makes a sudden LUNGE for Bobby and BOBBY CRACKS HIM OVER          THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH THE BUTT OF THE GUN, SENDING MILO          SPRAWLING TO THE BACK OF THE BOAT, RIGHT ON TOP OF THE MOTOR.                    Milo struggles back up to a seated position.                                        BOBBY                    You've always been such a stubborn                    asshole, Milo. You just don't                    listen. All you had to do was stay                    where I told you and none of this                    would have happen. Now the two of                    you are gonna have to go down with                    the boat.                              INT HULL OF YACHT- EVENING                    CHIRON: "11:00 PM. ATLANTIC OCEAN. 10 HOURS TO GO".                    PAN PAST PILES OF EVIDENCE BOXES FULL OF EVERYTHING          IMAGINABLE: GUNS, VIDEOTAPES, DRUGS, ETC...                    PAN PAST A PILE OF EXPLOSIVES WRAPPED WITH CABLE AND ATTACHED          TO A TIMER, COUNTING DOWN: "1:59, 1:58, 1:57..."                    PAN TO MILO AND CASS SEATED ON THE FLOOR, TIED TOGETHER, BACK          TO BACK, ARMS STRAPPED TO THEIR SIDES.                    PAN TO THE DOORWAY, where Bobby stands, inspecting the room.                                        BOBBY                    Ok. Guess that's it. Gotta go.                    (checking them out) You know what?                    You guys make a great couple.                    Bobby exits and Cass and Milo are alone.                    Suddenly, CASS STARTS GIGGLING.                                        MILO                    What's so funny?                                        CASS                    My mom was worried I wouldn't have                    plans for Xmas Eve.                                                                              104.                              Cass is laughing harder and harder until MILO REALIZES:                                        MILO                    Hey, are you crying?                                        CASS                        (SOBBING)                    No. I'm not...                    Milo doesn't know what to do. His hands are trapped in front          of him, he can't even pat her on the shoulder.                                        MILO                    Ok, just don't...                                        CASS                    I'm not crying.                                        MILO                    I know you're not.                                        CASS                    I just...(miserable) I can't                    believe I going to die by being                    blown up and sinking to the bottom                    of the ocean with someone who                    thinks I'm a total liar.                                        MILO                    We're not gonna die.                                        CASS                    Oh yeah? What's the plan?                                        MILO                        (THINKING)                    Well...                    Milo looks around. There is a SMALL PORTHOLE IN ONE WALL.          Milo assumes a take-charge manner:                                        MILO                    Ok. Here's what we do. We're going                    to synchronize our efforts in order                    to cross the room and manipulate                    the bomb out of the room and into                    the water in order to diffuse the                    explosive impact.                    Beat.                                        CASS                    You mean we're going to throw the                    bomb out the window?                                                                          105.                                                  MILO                    Uh, yeah. Or we can just wait to                    get blown up.                    CLOSE ON- THE TIMER: "1:19, 1:18, 1:17..."                                        CASS                        (QUICKLY)                    I'm with you. Go, team, go.                                        MILO                    That's the spirit. Ok, first we're                    going sideways: to the left...                    Milo leans one way, Cass leans the other: THEY DON'T MOVE.                                        MILO                    Ok. My left this time...                    They both lean to the left and topple over. Milo is facing          the direction of the bomb.                                        MILO                    Now we're gonna work our way over                    to the bomb.                    They start moving like a sideways inchworm, creeping along.                                        MILO                    And I don't think you're a total                    liar, but in my own defense, I was                    one of the top detectives in my                    division, I had been working that                    case for months, and then you just                    waltzed in and solved it.                                        CASS                    I didn't just "waltz in". You know                    I had been working it for months,                    too. Isn't it possible that we're                    both good at our jobs, and I just                    happened to come out ahead?                    Beat.                                        MILO                        (FUMBLING)                    Oh. Well, I...(blurting out) Look,                    I was confused, I had never been in                    love before!                                        CASS                    Well, neither had I!                                                                              106.                              Milo seems surprised to hear this. But before he can respond,          THE BOAT ROCKS ON A WAVE AND THEY ARE SENT ROLLING IN CASS'          DIRECTION. AS THEY ROLL:                                          CASS                    Ow...                                          MILO                    Shit..                                          CASS                    Dammit...                    They are stopped when MILO'S FACE IS SLAMMED INTO THE SIDE OF          THE BOAT. Milo lets out a grunt. Beat.                                          CASS                    Milo?                                        MILO                        (MUFFLED)                    I'm Ok. Ok, we need to turn to the                    right, and wait for the next wave.                    They both start turning separate ways:                                          MILO                    My right.                    They turn to the right and wait. After a moment:                                        MILO                    So. You were in love with me?                                        CASS                    Of course I was in love with you,                    why do you think I married you?                    No response. Behind her back, Milo looks sheepish. Cass          REALIZES:                                        CASS                    Oh. My. God. You think I married                    you so I could get info on the                    case? Who am I, Mata Hari?                    Milo looks confused. He is trying to figure out...                                        CASS                    She's a spy, Milo.                    Aaah.                                                                           107.                                                  MILO                        (QUICKLY)                    I know that. Everybody knows that.                    Mata Hari the spy.                    Beat. Milo clears his throat.                                        MILO                    Well. It might be a little late for                    this. But...nice job on the                    article.                                        CASS                    You know, if I had something sharp                    right now, I would stab you.                                        MILO                    No, really, I mean, it was well-                    written and...                                        CASS                    Can you just get us out of here,                    please?                    Suddenly, A WAVE HITS THE BOAT, AND THEY GO ROLLING TOWARDS          THE BOMB. AS THEY ROLL:                                        CASS                    Umph...                                        MILO                    Ughh...                                        CASS                    Son of a...                                        MILO                    Ow...                    And they come to a stop, MILO'S FACE PRESSED RIGHT UP TO THE          BOMB. He watches the timer: "00:44, 00:43, 00:42..."                                        CASS                    Can you see the bomb?                                         MILO                    Uh, yeah. I can see the bomb. Now                    we get up.                    MILO GRABS THE BOMB AND HOLDS IT AGAINST HIS BELLY. Cass and          Milo push against each other, and struggle up to a standing          position.                    Great. So far, so good.                                                                           108.                              Only, MILO CAN'T RAISE HIS ARMS. AND THE PORTHOLE IS SIX FEET          ABOVE THE GROUND. NOW WHAT?                                        CASS                    Did you throw it?                                        MILO                    Not exactly.                                        CASS                    Well, what are you waiting for?                                        MILO                    I'm waiting for a pig to fly in                    here and grab it.                                        CASS                        (starting to panic again)                    Milo...                                        MILO                    Ok, Ok. Um, on 3, I need you to                    jump.                    Beat.                                        CASS                    What?                                        MILO                    You know: "jump, jump, jump around,                    jump."                                        CASS                    Are you serious?                                        MILO                    No. I'm fucking with you. For fun.                    Just for my own personal                    enjoyment...                                        CASS                    Ok, Ok.                                        MILO                    Ok: 1, 2, 3...                              EXT PORTHOLE- EVENING                    We see MILO'S HEAD POP INTO VIEW, THEN DISAPPEAR.                    CLOSE ON- THE TIMER "00:11, 00:10, 00:09..."                                                                           109.                              MILO'S HEAD POPS UP HIGHER...                    CLOSE ON- THE TIMER "00:06, 00:05, 00:04..."                    This time, MILO POPS UP HIGH ENOUGH THAT WE SEE HIS HANDS...                    CLOSE ON- THE TIMER "00:03, 00:02, 00:01..."                    And finally, MILO IS HIGH ENOUGH THAT HE CAN THRUST THE BOMB          OUT THE WINDOW...                    CLOSE ON THE BOMB AS IT CRASHES INTO THE WATER...                              INT HULL OF BOAT- EVENING                    Milo and Cass, both a little out of breath, stand still,          listening. Silence.                                        CASS                    Think the water defused it?                                        MILO                    Lemme ask you this? Has anything                    gone our way yet?                    SUDDENLY, A LOW ROAR FROM BENEATH GROWS AND RISES UP BENEATH          THE BOAT, ROCKING IT WILDLY AS WATER EXPLODES ON ALL SIDES.                    Cass and Milo get drenched, BUT ARE SAFE.                                          CASS                    Nice job.                                        MILO                    Hey. You, too.                                          CASS                    Thanks.                                        MILO                    Now lets find something to cut                    these ropes off...                                        CASS                    Think we can catch that cop?                                        MILO                    Trust me: we can definitely catch                    that cop.                    Because at this very moment...                                                                              110.                              INT MOTORBOAT- NIGHT                    ...Bobby is paddling frantically, pausing every once in a          while to curse the motor, WHICH FOR SOME REASON REFUSES TO          START. He see the lights of another boat coming up behind          him, and he paddles faster.                              EXT DECK OF YACHT- NIGHT                    Milo steers the yacht right up behind Bobby, dwarfing the          motorboat. Calling out:                                        MILO                    Hey, Bobby. I got one for ya...                    Bobby looks up to see MILO POINTING AN ASSAULT RIFLE HE          GRABBED FROM THE EVIDENCE BOXES:                                        MILO                    What's the difference between a                    snowman and a snowwoman? (holding                    something up) The spark plug.                    Bobby checks the motor: SO THAT'S WHY IT WON'T RUN. MILO          GRABBED THE SPARK PLUG. Milo and Cass grin down at Bobby          while he kicks the motor and swears.                              EXT PIER 19- DAWN                    CHIRON: "6:00 AM. PIER 19. 3 HOURS TO GO."                    Cops are everywhere. Cass and Milo are seated on a bench,          exhausted, watching as THE COPS UNLOAD BOXES OF STOLEN          EVIDENCE FROM THE YACHT. Bobby is cuffed in the back of a          squad car.                    After a moment:                                        MILO                    Merry Xmas. I got you this.                    Milo hands Cass some seaweed.                                        CASS                    You shouldn't have.                    Milo checks his watch.                                        MILO                    Hey. I've still got three hours to                    get you to jail. Looks like I'm                    gonna win that bet after all.                                                                            111.                              Cass' eyes go wide. Suddenly, she JUMPS UP and BOLTS.                                        MILO                        (to himself)                    You have got to be kidding me.                              EXT BEACH- DAWN                    Like an action sequence in slo-mo, Cass stumbles across the          sand, exhausted, Milo at her heels. Finally, he makes one          last effort, LUNGES for her, brings her down and SNAPS on the          cuffs.                                         CASS                        (muffled, face in the                         SAND)                    I'm not going without a fight.                                        MILO                    Yeah. I'm getting that.                    He pulls her to her feet.                    INT JERSEY CITY POLICE STATION- MORNING                    Milo leads Cass up to the clerk, both of them looking like a          mess. He checks his watch:                                        MILO                    9am. See? Easy as pie.(nudging                    Cass) Go on, say it.                                        CASS                        (to the clerk)                    I'd like to turn myself in. (can't                    resist) Though I didn't do anything                    wrong...                                        MILO                    Stop talking.                                        CASS                    ...and I was unjustly arrested...                    To shut her up, Milo GRABS HER AND KISSES HER. THEN SHE IS          KISSING HIM BACK. TIME STOPS FOR A MOMENT.                    Then Milo hands her over to the clerk.                                        MILO                        (to Cass)                    See ya.                                                                           112.                                                  CASS                        (a little disoriented)                    Oh. Ok.                    The clerk leads her into the jail.                              EXT POLICE STATION- MORNING                    Milo exits. He passes some cops on their way in. ONE GELMAN,          THE COP HE INSULTED IN THE BEGINNING.                                        GELMAN                    Hey. It's that jerk-off bounty                    hunter.                    Milo stops in his tracks. Mentally weighs the pros and cons.          DECIDES:                                        MILO                    Ah, what the hell.                    He turns around, walks back to Gelman, AND SMASHES HIM IN THE          FACE WITH HIS FIST.                              INT HOLDING CELL- MORNING                    Cass is trying to find a clean place to sit down, when MILO          GETS THROWN INTO THE HOLDING CELL NEXT TO HERS.                                        CASS                    Oh my god, what happened?                                        MILO                    Hey. I couldn't let you spend Xmas                    alone. Besides, I didn't really                    have any plans other than drinking                    some cheap whiskey and putting my                    fist through a wall.                                        CASS                    I'm touched that you would give                    that up for me.                                        MILO                    Hey. It's the kind of guy I am.                    Cass grins. WEDDING MUSIC KICKS IN:                                        SID (O.S.)                    Well, you were right.                                                                          113.                              INT WEDDING CHAPEL- DAY                    Sid and Lois are watching as MILO AND CASS GET REMARRIED.                                         LOIS                     Of course I was right. I knew                     they'd get back together if they                     were just stuck together long                     enough. And thank god. Better she                     drives him crazy than me.                                            SID                     I hear ya.                    CLOSE ON- MILO AND CASS, WHISPERING TO EACH OTHER UNDER THE          PRIEST'S BLESSING:                                         CASS                         (LOW)                     I love you.                                         MILO                     I love you more.                    Cass smiles. Beat. Then:                                         CASS                     Well, I doubt you love me more.                                         MILO                     I'm just saying I love you a lot.                                         CASS                     Right. I know. I love you a lot,                     too. Let's just say you love me and                     leave it at that.                                         MILO                     Fine. I love you.                                         CASS                     Fine. (beat) Cause I love you more.                                         MILO                     Oh yeah? (glancing at her) Wanna                     bet?                    BLACKOUT
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+                                  "THE BOURNE IDENTITY"                                            by                                       Tony Gilroy                                    Based on the novel                                            by                                      Robert Ludlum                                   PARIS DRAFT 9/20/00                               DARKNESS. THE SOUND OF WIND AND SPRAY.               MUSIC. TITLES.               EXT. OCEAN -- NIGHT               The darkness is actually water. A SEARCHLIGHT arcs across                heavy ocean swells. Half-a-dozen flashlights -- weaker beams --                racing along what we can see is the deck of an aging FISHING                TRAWLER.               FISHERMEN struggling with a gaff -- something in the water --               A HUMAN CORPSE.               EXT. FISHING BOAT DECK -- NIGHT               THE BODY sprawled there. The Sailors all talking at once --                three languages going -- brave chatter to mask the presence                of death --                                     SAILOR #1                         -- Jesus, look at him --                                     SAILOR #2                         -- what? -- you never saw a dead man                          before? --                                     SAILOR #3                         -- look, look he was shot --                              (nudging the body --)                                     SAILOR #1                         -- don't, don't do that --                                     SAILOR #2                         -- he's dead, you think he cares? --                                     SAILOR #1                         -- so have some respect -- it's a --                              (stopping as --)               THE BODY MOVES! -- convulsing -- coughing up sea water --                the Sailors -- freaked -- jumping back -- standing there, as --               THE MAN begins to breathe.               INT. FISHING BOAT BUNK ROOM -- NIGHT               A wreck. Too small for all the people in here right now --                SAILORS sweeping off the table -- rough hands laying THE MAN                down --               THE CAPTAIN -- brutal and impatient -- watching from the                door as --               GIANCARLO tears through the clutter -- searching for a medical                kit buried in the shambles. GIANCARLO is sixty. A bloodshot                soul.                                     GIANCARLO                         -- it's here -- hang on -- it's here                          somewhere -- give me a minute -- get                          some blankets -- get some blankets                          on him --                              (finding the kit --)                         -- here we go -- here it is --               GIANCARLO with an old trunk -- just getting it open, as --                                     THE CAPTAIN                         Giancarlo.                              (Giancarlo turns back --)                         We pick him up? Okay, we have to                          pick him up. But that's as far as it                          goes.                                     GIANCARLO                         He needs a doctor.                                     CAPTAIN                         Fuck that. He lives? He dies? I don't                          care. We've wasted two hours on this                          shit already. You do what you can,                          but we're not going back.                              (pure steel now)                         You understand me?                                     GIANCARLO                         Yes, sir.                                     CAPTAIN                              (to the rest of them)                         Let's get back to work!               GIANCARLO watching them run out. Snagging a quick pull on a                pint of rum he's got stashed and --               INT. FISHING BOAT BUNK ROOM -- DAWN -- TIME CUTS               Transformed into a makeshift operating room. A light swings                overhead. THE MAN layed out across the table. Sounds -- groans --                words -- snatches of them -- all in different languages.               GIANCARLO playing doctor in a greasy kitchen apron. Cutting                away the clothes. Turning THE MAN on his side. Two bullet                wounds in the back. Probing them, judging them.               Now -- GIANCARLO with a flashlight in his teeth -- TINK --                TINK -- TINK -- bullet fragments falling into a washed-out                olive jar.               Now -- something catching GIANCARLO'S EYE -- A SCAR ON THE                MAN'S HIP -- another fragment -- exacto knife cutting in --                tweezers extracting A SMALL PLASTIC TUBE, not a bullet at                all, and as it comes free --               THE MAN'S HAND SLAMS down onto GIANCARLO'S and we SMASH CUT                INTO A --               FIRST PERSON POV -- we are staring up at --                                     GIANCARLO                         You're awake. Can you hear me?                              (we're blinking --)                         You've been shot. I'm trying to help                          you.                              (we're trying to find                               our voice --)                         You were in the water. You've been                          shot. It's okay now.                                     THE MAN                         Where am I?                                     GIANCARLO                              (switching to English)                         You're American. I thought so. From                          your teeth -- the dental work --                                     THE MAN                         Where am I?                                     GIANCARLO                         You're on a boat. A fishing boat.                          Italian flag. We're out of Vietri.                              (he smiles)                         It's the cold that saved you. The                          water. The wounds are clean. I'm not                          a doctor, but the wounds, it looks                          okay. It's clean.                                     THE MAN                         How did I get here?                                     GIANCARLO                         You we're lost at sea. They pulled                          you out.                              (we say nothing)                         Who are you?                              (still nothing)                         You were shot -- two bullets -- in                          the back. You understand me?                              (we try to nod)                         Who are you?               Long dead pause.                                     THE MAN                         I don't know.               EXT. OCEAN -- DAY               The Trawler plows through heavy seas.               INT. FISHING BOAT BUNK ROOM -- DAY               GIANCARLO is hunched over a desk -- tweezers and flashlight --                busy working at that strange plastic tube that came out of                THE MAN's hip.               THE MAN is bandaged. He's sitting up, and it must hurt like                hell, but physical pain is not the thing troubling him right                now. He's staring around the room -- at his body -- at the                walls -- haunted --                                     THE MAN                         What if it doesn't come back?                                     GIANCARLO                              (still working that                               tube)                         I told you. You need to rest.               Silence. THE MAN can't rest. Too busy trying to make sense                of all this.                                     THE MAN                         I can read. I can read that sign on                          the door. I can count. I can talk...                              (focusing now --)                         What are you doing?               GIANCARLO rummaging around -- finding a magnifying glass --                                     THE MAN                         What is that?               INSERT -- MAGNIFIED POV -- a slip of plastic from the tube --                written there -- 000-7-17-12-0-14-26.  GEMEINSCHAFT BANK,                ZURICH.                                     GIANCARLO                         It came from your hip. Under the                          skin.                              (turning back --)                         You have a bank in Zurich.                              (waiting)                         You remember Zurich?                                     THE MAN                         No.               GIANCARLO staring at him now. Different suddenly. Suspicious.                                     GIANCARLO                         Look, I'm just on this boat, okay?                          I'm an engineer. Whatever this is,                          it's not for me to be involved, okay?                                     THE MAN                         I don't remember Zurich.               GIANCARLO pulls his pint. Takes a hit.                                     GIANCARLO                              (offering the bottle --)                         You drink rum?                                     THE MAN                         I don't know.               EXT. FISHING BOAT DECK -- NIGHT               THE MAN stands at the rail, staring out to sea. So lost. He                turns to head inside -- there, a surfcasting rod propped                against a locker.               THE MAN picks up the rod -- flips the bail -- traps the line --                now he's casting far out into the darkness. And for the first                time, he smiles.               INT. FISHING BOAT GALLEY -- NIGHT               A ratty old espresso machine. THE MAN standing there, staring                at the thing like it's a test. Then his hands begin to move --                trying to pack a grind -- trying to fit it in -- turning on                the steam and --               The whole thing explodes.               EXT. FISHING BOAT DECK -- DAY               THE MAN alone doing chin-ups on the deck rail. He's still                bandaged and the wounds must hurt like hell, but he's pushing                himself. Using the pain -- bathing in it -- maybe even hoping                that it will hold some answer for him.               INT. FISHING BOAT GALLEY -- NIGHT               A chess board. Wooden pieces jumbled in a box. THE MAN                hesitates -- takes a black knight from the box -- lingers                for a moment -- and then places it on the board. He's off                and running. He knows this. Placing pieces faster and faster --                still setting it up, as we --               INT. FISHING BOAT HEAD -- NIGHT               One of the ugliest bathrooms on the planet. THE MAN standing                before a pitted, tarnished, cataract of a mirror. Staring at                himself.               And then he speaks.                                     THE MAN                              (in perfect French)                         I don't know who I am. Do you know                          who I am? Do have any idea who I am?               And then he stops. Blinks. Wipes away the perspiration just                beading on his forehead.                                     THE MAN                              (in perfect Dutch)                         Tell me who I am. If you know who I                          am, please stop fucking around and                          tell me.               No answer. Just that face. His face. Who am I?               And what else is inside there?               EXT. FISHING BOAT -- DAY               SAILORS hauling in the nets. THE MAN -- still bandaged, but                healing -- working beside them. Earning his keep. Getting                healthy.               EXT. ITALIAN COASTLINE -- DAWN               A small, colorful fishing village. The trawler motoring in.               INT. THE FISHING BOAT BUNK ROOM -- SAME TIME               THE MAN buttoning up borrowed clothes. GIANCARLO pulling                some cash from his pocket --                                     GIANCARLO                              (offering the money)                         It's not much, but it should get you                          to Switzerland.                                     THE MAN                         I won't forget this.               GIANCARLO gives him a look. Shakes his head, and --               INT. POKEY ITALIAN TRAIN STATION -- DAY               The ticket window. THE MAN and a TICKET AGENT.                                     TICKET AGENT                         Una sola via?                                     THE MAN                         Si. One way. Una sola via.               EXT. TGV -- DAY               A HELICOPTER SHOT -- a bullet train speeds through snow-                capped Alps. We move in on a window -- and staring out is...               INT. TGV TRAIN -- DAY               ...THE MAN. People all around him -- families -- businessmen --                normal people going about their lives. THE MAN turns back to                the window, but he's not watching the scenery -- he's looking                at his reflection. So lost. His face suddenly plunged into                darkness as the train bombs into a tunnel...               EXT. TRAIN -- NIGHT               ...and out of the darkness into night and the HELICOPTER                SHOT, as the train races toward ZURICH.               INT. CIA HEADQUARTERS CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               A VIDEO MONITOR -- FULL FRAME -- meet WOMBOSI. He's an African                ex-dictator, think Idi Amin crossed with Mobutu. He's in                some sort of throne room. And he's angry. Bodyguards and a                translator hovering nervously around him. What this is, is                NEWS FOOTAGE -- an interview conducted by a German TV station.                                     WOMBOSI                              (he speaks english)                         ...no, no, no -- the time is not                          right, my enemies are too strong.                          I'm telling you to wait for this,                          you understand? I'm telling you this,                          and I'm making a warning to all those                          peoples out there that think that my                          powers have become so weak that they                          can play with me as they wish. You                          will see -- I will tell you when the                          evidence is clear. Then you will                          have a story. My old friends will                          hear about themselves.                              (stopping, freezing                               on that image, and --)               MARSHALL, a CIA bigwig has the remote control. And the floor.                                     MARSHALL                         That's Nykwana Wombosi speaking in                          Paris the day before yesterday. I'm                          sure most of you have a passing                          knowledge of Mr. Wombosi. Some of                          you on the African desks have worked                          with him over the years. Some of you                          very closely...               TWELVE CIA MANDARINS sitting around the table like kids in                detention. We will tour the faces as MARSHALL continues, but                the guy we're interested in is named WARD ABBOTT. Picture a                sawier, slicker John Poindexter.                                     MARSHALL                         ...He was an irritation before he                          took power. He was a problem when he                          was in power. And he's been a disaster                          for us in exile.                              (the tape --)                         Wombosi likes to send us messages                          through the European media. This is                          an interview we pulled down from a                          local German television station in                          Dresden. We've been getting these                          little broadsides every couple of                          months. He knows this -- he knows                          that -- he's writing a book about                          the Agency's history in Africa --                          he's going to name names. It's                          basically a shakedown...               ABBOTT'S FACE says this is news to him. HIS HANDS suggest                otherwise.                                     MARSHALL                         This interview -- and I'll make the                          tape available for anyone who wants                          it -- he goes on to claim that he                          has just survived an assassination                          attempt. He says it's us. He says                          he's got proof.                              (beat)                         The overwhelming negative                          ramifications of this should be                          obvious.                              (hard and dry)                         The Director wants to know if there                          is any possible shred of truth in                          this accusation.               Long pause. No hands go up.               INT. ZURICH TRAIN STATION -- NIGHT               THE MAN wandering through the terminal. Passing A PIZZA PLACE                closing up for the night.               THE MAN checks his funds. Just enough for one cold slice.               EXT. ZURICH STREETS -- NIGHT               THE MAN walking aimlessly.               EXT. ZURICH PARK -- NIGHT               THE MAN trying to get comfortable on a bench. It's chilly                but this will have to do until morning.               Just settling in, when --                                     ZURICH COP #1 (O.S.)                              (authority German)                         Can't you read the signs?               THE MAN turns. TWO ZURICH COPS coming toward him.                                     ZURICH COP #2                         On your feet. Let's go. Right now.               THE MAN makes his feet. They're on top of him now.                                     ZURICH COP #1                         The park is closed. There's no                          sleeping in the park.                                     ZURICH COP #2                         Let's see some identification.               THE MAN not sure what to do. Eyes moving. Mouth shut.                                     ZURICH COP #1                         Come on. Your papers. Let's go.                                     THE MAN                         I've lost them. I've...                              (German now)                         My papers. They are lost.                                     ZURICH COP #1                              (not sympathetic)                         Okay. Let's go. Put your hands up.                                     ZURICH COP #2                              (pulling his nightstick)                          -- come on -- hands up -- up --               THE MAN raising his hand slowly -- ZURICH COP #1 reaching up                to pat him down --                                     THE MAN                         -- look, I'm just trying to sleep                          okay? --                              (German again)                          -- I just need to sleep --               ZURICH COP #2 has heard enough -- giving a sharp poke with                the nightstick -- into THE MAN's back -- and that's the last                thing he'll remember because --               THE MAN is in motion.               A single turn -- spinning -- catching COP #2 completely off                guard -- the heel of his hand driving up into the guy's throat                and --               COP #1 -- behind him -- trying to reach for his pistol, but                THE MAN -- still turning -- all his weight moving in a single                fluid attack -- a sweeping kick and --               COP #1 -- he's falling -- catching the bench -- trying to                fight back but -- THE MAN -- like a machine -- just                unbelievably fast -- three jackhammer punches -- down-down-                down and -- COP #1 -- head slammed into the bench -- blood                spraying from his nose -- he's out cold and --               COP #2 -- writhing on the ground -- gasping for air --                struggling with his holster -- THE MAN -- his foot -- down --                like a vise -- onto COP #2's arm -- shattering the bone --                COP #2 starting to scream, and then silenced because --               THE MAN -- he's got the pistol -- so fucking fast -- he's                got it right up against COP #2's forehead -- right on the                edge of pulling the trigger -- he is, he's gonna shoot him --                                     ZURICH COP #2                              (gasping, pleading)                         -- no -- please God no -- please                          don't -- please no -- my Go               -- stopping as --               THE MAN slams the gun against his temple and --               This fight is over.               THE MAN standing there. In the silence. Two unconscious cops                at his feet. Blood on his pants. What just happened? How did                he do this? And there's THE GUN in his hand. And God, it                just feels so natural -- checking it -- stripping it down --                holding it -- aiming it -- like this is something he's done                a million times before...               This is something he definitely knows how to do.               And then he stops cold. Throwing down the gun. Running off                into the darkness --               INT. TREADSTONE -- DAY               A deep, inner office. An ops office. Operations. Unlabeled                and anonymous. A backwater project center hidden deep within                the Langley facility. Utilitarian. Several rooms linked like                a suite.               Small staff. SEVERAL TECHNICIANS. One or two for                communications. A couple for research. People are at their                posts. And it's all quiet. But they are busy. Quietly urgent.                This is a place under siege.               ZORN is the number two here. Brilliant bloodless lapdog.                He's coming through the suite. Coming through quickly. Heading                toward the boss's little office at the back --               TED CONKLIN. Ivy League Ollie North. Buttoned down. Square                jaw. Everything tucked away. But there's tension in the air.                Work on the desk. Cot in the corner.                                     CONKLIN                              (looking up)                         What?                                     ZORN                         Abbott wants to talk.                                     CONKLIN                         Tell him we're busy.                                     ZORN                         I tried.               INT. CIA COMMISSARY -- NIGHT               ABBOTT with coffee. CONKLIN not lingering.                                     ABBOTT                         Storm clouds are gathering, Ted. It                          looks like rain and I don't have a                          thing to wear.                                     CONKLIN                         I don't know what we're talking about.                                     ABBOTT                         We're talking about Marseille. We're                          talking about Nykwana Wombosi. And                          I'm asking you if this abortion in                          Marseille has anything to do with                          Treadstone.                              (silence)                         Was this Treadstone?                                     CONKLIN                         You're asking me a direct question?                                     ABBOTT                         Yes.                                     CONKLIN                         I thought you were never going to do                          that.               Silence. Pressure drop.                                     ABBOTT                         They're putting together an agency                          oversight committee. They're going                          to look through everyone's budgets.                          Treadstone is a rather sizable line                          item in my ledger.                              (beat)                         What am I going to do about that?                                     CONKLIN                         You'd want to make that go away.                          You'd want to remind them that                          Treadstone is a training organization.                          That it's all theoretical. You'd                          want to sign off on that.                                     ABBOTT                         And what if I couldn't do that?                                     CONKLIN                         Then I'd have to explain Treadstone.                          And you'd have to explain how you                          let me get this far.                              (silence)                         Doesn't sound like much of a Plan-B,                          does it?                              (Abbott staring)                         We'll clean up the field. You clean                          up your budgets.               EXT. ZURICH -- DAY               Morning in the financial district. Upscale. Uptight.               GEMEINSCHAFT BANK just one of many elegant fortresses on                this street. Everything just now opening for business. TWO                GUARDS unlocking the front door and --               THE MAN across the street. Tucked in the shadows. Checking                for cops and trouble. Looks clear. He's walking and --               INT. BANK RECEPTION AREA -- DAY               Ornate, formidable and tech at the same time.                                     RECEPTIONIST                         Can I help you?               THE MAN standing before her. Looking very out of place.                                     THE MAN                         I'm here about a numbered account.               THE RECEPTIONIST nods. Pulls a pen and bank card.                                     RECEPTIONIST                              (instant English)                         If you'll just enter your account                          number here I'll direct you to the                          appropriate officer.               THE MAN takes the pen, as we --               INT. BANK SECURITY CHECKPOINT -- DAY               A BIO-METRIC SCANNER. A piece of ultra-tech amidst the                Baroque. TWO SERIOUS BANK GUARDS manning the equipment.               THE MAN standing there, staring down at this machine.                Something ominously decisive about this. What if it's him?                What if it's not?                                     BANK GUARD #1                         They've been waiting your hand, sir...               THE MAN focuses. Here we go -- BANK GUARD #2 guiding his                open palm onto the mirrored scanning surface.               THE MAN catching his reflection for a moment before a wave                of white light passes beneath his hand and now --               INT. BANK HALLWAY -- DAY               THE MAN being led by A THIRD GUARD to a special elevator.               INT. DEEPER INSIDE THE BANK -- DAY               Elevator doors open. THE MAN steps out. MR. APFEL -- anal                Zurich banker -- waiting there.                                     APFEL                         Good morning, sir. I assume you're                          here about your box.                                     THE MAN                         ...yes...                              (what now?)                         The box.               APFEL nods. Gestures down the corridor --               INT. BANK SAFETY DEPOSIT VIEWING ROOM -- DAY               Sterile and kind of odd. But total privacy. THE MAN sitting                there, as A DEPOSIT GUARD places a large SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX                before him. THE GUARD leaves the room. Closing the door behind                him.               THE MAN is alone. And there it is, right in front of him.                This is it. Here are the answers. He lifts the lid.               THE BOX. There's a shallow tray on top. In this tray: a beat-               up passport in the name of Jason Bourne. A French driver's                license with a Parisian address. Credit cards for Jason                Bourne.               THE MAN. Holding these objects close -- as if by holding                them he might absorb their essence. Forcing himself to                believe. This is him. His picture. There it is. He's Jason                Bourne.                                     BOURNE                         My name is Jason Bourne.                              (sounds good)                         Hi, I'm Jason. Jason Bourne. Jason                          Bourne, nice to meet you.               BACK TO -- THE BOX -- the shallow tray on top. There's                Kleenex. Several sets of contact lenses. A knife. A comb.                Three sticks of gum. A ring. A pair of sunglasses. A Rolex.               BOURNE setting these things aside.  Lifting the top tray.                 Staring into THE DEEP BOTTOM TRAY and --               First of all...               MONEY. Lots of it. Ten thousand dollar stacks of hundreds.                Lots of them. Close to a million dollars. There's A GUN. A                very good gun. Several clips of ammo. And...               FIVE MORE PASSPORTS. All clean. Crisp. Brand new. All with                his photo inside. Five different names. Three different                Countries. Each one of these pristine passports clipped to a                piece of card stock that says:               NAME:                NATIONALITY:                PLACE OF ISSUE:                SIGNATURE SAMPLE:               And a bar code.                Two Dutch passports. A French. A South African. A Belgian.               And...               There's one piece of card stock still with the paper clip in                place. And no passport. This card reads:               NAME: John Michael Kane                NATIONALITY: U.S.A.                PLACE OF ISSUE: Paris, France                There's a signature sample.                And a bar code. But no passport. This one is missing.               BOURNE sitting there. Trying to push his confusion away.                                     BOURNE                         Bourne. My name is Jason Bourne. I                          live at 121, Rue de la Jardin, Paris.               But there's something hollow about this. He came looking for                one identity and now he's faced with six. The money... The                gun...               Suddenly, it's all fucked up.               BOURNE into gear. Looking around the room -- there -- there's                a pile of red canvas burn bags in the corner. BOURNE grabbing                one -- stuffing everything into it -- everything except...               The gun. He doesn't want the gun. No guns.               INT. BANK SAFETY DEPOSIT OUTER AREA -- DAY               BOURNE is done. Handing the box back to THE DEPOSIT GUARD --                                     BOURNE                         I'm trying to think how long it's                          been since I was here.                                     DEPOSIT GUARD                         I'm not sure. Must be three weeks.               EXT. STREETS OF ZURICH -- DAY -- VARIOUS SHOTS               BOURNE exits the bank. The red bag full to its limit. He's                walking briskly now. Looking for a taxi. Nothing in sight.               BOURNE crossing the street. Shit, there's A COP on the corner --                turn -- change pace -- make it look natural --               BOURNE around a corner. And it's looking good for a moment --                but only a moment -- TWO MORE COPS walking a beat -- walking                this way -- turn -- cut -- cross the street --               BOURNE heading down a boulevard. Trying to look small. Pulse                starting to race. Fighting the paranoia. Where the hell is a                cab? Turning back fast as A SIREN starts bleeding in from                behind him --               It's just an ambulance.               BOURNE turning back. Forcing himself to focus. And fuck --                there's A METER MAID, and she's stopped writing up a ticket --                she's staring at him and --               BOURNE trying not to panic -- don't run -- smile -- stay                small -- get to the corner -- scan the options -- but --               THE METER MAID -- she's watching him go and she's pulling                her radio and --               BOURNE hitting this next corner -- banging a right -- forcing                himself not to run -- glancing back and --               THERE'S ANOTHER COP -- but this one is jogging -- searching --                he's got his radio out and --               FINALLY TO --               BOURNE bailing on the street -- disappearing into --               EXT. U.S. EMBASSY COMPOUND -- DAY               Big gates. Speed barricades. SEVERAL U.S. MARINES standing                guard near a gate house. An American flag. Lots of people                coming and going. BOURNE playing it as normal as possible as                he heads for the entrance.               INT. U.S. CONSULATE ZURICH -- VISA ROOM -- DAY               The passport and visa office. Big room. No windows. Unpleasant                on purpose. Two lines: A short one for U.S.  Citizens, a                marathon for everyone else. CONSULATE CLERKS stationed in                open cubicles along the back wall. And it's a zoo. American                tourists who've lost their passports. Foreigners looking for                visas. Asylum seekers. Everyone here has a problem.               BOURNE on the U.S. line. Standing there trying to think.                What's he gonna say? What can he say? With the cops outside,                and the incident in the park, then the bank...                                     MARIE (O.S.)                         -- no, this is not my current address.                          It was my current address two days                          ago when I started standing in line                          outside --               A NEARBY CUBICLE. Meet MARIE KREUTZ. German. Big energy.                Real beauty hidden beneath the armor. And armor it is, because                this is a warrior in full, crisis battlemode.                                     MARIE                         -- and so now I lost my apartment, I                          have no address, and I have no visa,                          and you keep telling me how much                          help you cannot give me!               A CONSULATE CLERK caught in her headlights.                                     CLERK                         Miss Kreutz, please... I'm gonna                          have to ask you to keep your voice                          down.                                     MARIE                         All the papers -- all the papers                          they asked for -- I brought all the                          papers --                                     CLERK                         Miss Kreutz, excuse me, but you                          entered into a fraudulent marriage                          in an effort to circumvent the                          immigration laws of the United States --                                     MARIE                         You only know that because I told                          you!                              (she's incredulous)                         Ask the case officer -- find his                          name -- it's on the papers -- I told                          him all this myself! --                              (tearing through the                               papers now --)                                     CLERK                         -- it's not the source of the                          information that's important here --                                     MARIE                         -- I paid this fucking guy -- I paid                          him four thousand dollars -- my last                          four thousand dollars to marry me,                          okay? -- I told this to the case                          officer last week...                              (she's found it --)                         ...here -- Mr. Thomas. I told Mr.                           Thomas I didn't know this guy was                          already married -- I admitted this!                                     CLERK                         -- Miss Kreutz, please --                                     MARIE                         -- I'm the one that got ripped off! --                          not you -- not the United States                          government -- me -- I'm the one being                          ripped off!                                     CLERK                         So now you're asking for a student                          visa?               That shuts her up. Yes. Today she's a student.               INT. CIA OFFICE COMPLEX -- NIGHT (BUT SAME TIME)               Motion -- CONKLIN racing down a staircase -- ZORN chasing                after --                                     CONKLIN                         -- and they're sure it's him? --                                     ZORN                         -- he accessed the account --                                     CONKLIN                         -- but it was him --                                     ZORN                         -- yes, sir, it's confirmed --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE -- VISA ROOM -- DAY               BOURNE on line. Fear meter rising by the minute.               BOURNE'S POV               Scanning the room -- the perimeter -- the people -- A TURKISH                MAN almost in tears as he tries to explain his case to a                DESK CLERK -- TWO AMERICAN BACKPACKERS that have lost their                passports -- MARIE still in the midst of her madness -- A                SECURITY CAMERA high on the wall capturing everything --                lots of data -- too much going on and --                                     MAN ON LINE (O.S.)                              (from behind him)                         You're up.               BOURNE comes to. Shit. It's his turn.               A WOMAN CLERK waving him forward. BOURNE trying to think --                what the fuck is he doing? -- what's he gonna say? -- now                he's at the window, and if he was looking for a friendly                face, he came to the wrong place --                                     WOMAN CLERK                              (cold shit)                         You're a U.S. Citizen?                                     BOURNE                         Yes.                              (pause)                         I mean, I think so. Yes. Yes...                                     WOMAN CLERK                         Well, either you are, or you aren't.                                     BOURNE                         Right.                                     WOMAN CLERK                         You have your passport?                                     BOURNE                         I have a passport. I've got...                              (the bag there, but...)                         Actually, it's a little complicated.                                     WOMAN CLERK                         Do you have your passport, sir?                                     BOURNE                         Look, maybe I should just...                                     WOMAN CLERK                         Sir, you waited on line.                                     BOURNE                         Yeah, I know...               But he's already bailing, walking away from the woman, the                window, the room -- he's out of here --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE LOBBY -- DAY               BOURNE on the move -- hustling back toward the lobby -- trying                to snag a view out to the street -- there's a window just                ahead and --               BOURNE'S WINDOW POV -- ZURICH COPS -- outside -- on the street --                half-a-dozen of them lingering around the entry gate and --               BOURNE stalled for a moment -- options dwindling -- he can't                go back to the passport office -- he can't go out the front                and --               The lobby looks tough -- there are two other points of entry                into the main building, but they're both guarded by MARINES                and METAL DETECTORS --               As he gets closer -- it gets worse --               A ZURICH POLICE INSPECTOR near the door, in deep conversation                with TWO MARINES and THE EMBASSY SECURITY OFFICER and --               BOURNE trying to burrow through the human traffic -- trying                to get to THE LARGER OF THE TWO ENTRY GATES -- this one the                farthest from the front door and the passport office corridor,                and it's the most crowded -- A COUPLE PEOPLE lined up here --                waiting for one of THE THREE MARINES STAFFING THIS POST to                check their bags and pass them through a metal detector and --                                     SECURITY CHIEF (O.S.)                         -- stop! -- stop right there! --               BOURNE turns back -- as does everyone else in the lobby --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                              (from across the lobby)                         -- YOU -- red bag -- the red bag --                          stop right there! -- hands up! --               BOURNE glancing back -- ONE OF THE GATE MARINES BEHIND HIM --                the guy's raising his M-16 --                                     GUN MARINE                         -- you heard him -- let's move it! --                          down -- let's go! --               BOURNE nodding -- total compliance -- starting to drop --                but only starting, because now --               He's swinging the backpack and --               THE GUN MARINE -- nailed -- blind-sided -- no chance and --               BOURNE -- all motion -- all forward -- all perfect -- vaulting                the metal detector even as he pulls ONE OF THE PEOPLE ON                LINE around to shield his back and --               ANOTHER GATE MARINE -- right there -- trying to grab him --                making his move -- BOURNE -- almost an afterthought -- his                boot -- like a knife -- out of nowhere -- SNAP! -- the guy's                arm just shattered and --               THE SECURITY CHIEF -- freaking out -- TWO MARINES WITH HIM --                they're raising their weapons and there's people in the lobby                and --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                         -- no -- no -- hold your fire! --               BOURNE -- landing hard on THE GUN MARINE -- rolling away                from the gate -- into the building now -- coming up with the                backpack and --                                     SOMEONE SCREAMING                         -- he's got a gun! -- he's got a                          gun! --               And he does -- BOURNE with the M-16! -- coming up with it --                coming up on the move -- swinging it around as he searches                for an escape route and THE GUN -- it's like a magic wand of                hysteria --               PEOPLE IN THE LOBBY -- SCREAMING -- diving away -- everyone                dropping for cover and --               BOURNE -- bailing -- on the run -- sprinting down a hallway --                tossing away the M-16 as he sprints into the building --                                     THE SECURITY CHIEF                              (frantic on his radio                               now --)                         -- red! -- red! -- red! -- code red! --                          South side entrance! -- male -- five-                         ten, brown hair -- black jacket --                          red bag --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE OFFICE HALLWAY -- DAY               Quiet for a second -- offices on either side of a carpeted                hallway -- BUREAUCRAT-TYPES doing their thing, when suddenly --                                     BUREAUCRAT #1                         Excuse me?  Can I help you?                              (but backing up as he                               says it, because --)               Here comes BOURNE -- coming fast -- and he definitely does                not belong back here --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE LOBBY/SECURITY GATE -- DAY               Panic -- people fleeing the lobby -- MORE MARINES hustling                in from outside and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE FIRE STAIRWELL -- DAY               Door flies open -- BOURNE bombing in -- shit! -- it's a dead                end -- no way out but up the stairs --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE GROUND FLOOR CORRIDOR -- DAY               SECURITY CHIEF -- THREE MARINES -- sidearms drawn -- jogging                past the INNER OFFICES -- running beside them, a frantic guy                in a suit --                                     DEPUTY DCM                         -- what're you talking about? --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                         -- we're evacuating the building --                                     DEPUTY DCM                         -- we're in the middle of a trade                          meeting! --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                         -- call the code! -- I want everyone                          out! --                                     DEPUTY DCM                         -- you gotta give me more to go on --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                         -- he's running from the cops, he's                          got a bag filled with God knows what,                          he's in the building and I don't                          know where! --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE BACK STAIRWAY -- DAY               BOURNE climbing fast -- two -- three -- stairs at a time --                racing up as a SECURITY ALARM STARTS SCREAMING -- bleet --                bleet -- bleet --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE FIFTH-FLOOR GRAND HALLWAY -- DAY               THE ALARM ringing everywhere -- TRADE CONFERENCEES -- sixty                confused and frightened people -- spilling out into the                corridor --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE FIFTH FLOOR KITCHENETTE -- DAY               A NEW DOOR flying open -- it's BOURNE -- ready for anything,                but there's nothing -- he's in a butler's prep area off the                main conference room -- momentum stalled for a moment --               nothing in here but tablecloths and silverware and coffee                cups and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE BACK STAIRWAY -- DAY               THREE MARINES -- armed and stoked -- staring up the stairs --                leapfrogging -- point-to-point assault procedure --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE MAIN STAIRS -- DAY               Carpeted and grand -- SECURITY CHIEF with FIVE MARINES NOW --                charging up -- pushing past THE PEOPLE trying to come down                and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE FIFTH FLOOR GRAND HALLWAY -- DAY               Completely clogged now -- PANICKED TRADE PEOPLE all over --                EMBASSY TYPES -- trying to herd them toward the main stairs --                everyone talking at once -- THAT ALARM STILL BLARING and --                                     VOICE (O.S.)                         -- no! -- the other way! -- take the                          backstairs! -- the backstairs! --                          he's on the other side -- there's a                          bomb! --               And as the crowd reacts -- as they mob back away from the                main stairway -- we see -- holy shit, the guy yelling was                BOURNE --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE BACK STAIRWELL -- DAY               THE ASSAULT MARINES -- still climbing -- weapons out -- clean                and fast -- one more flight to go -- ready for anything --               completely freaking out as the door above them on the fifth                floor flies open and --                                     LEAD MARINE                         -- HALT! -- STOP WHERE YOU ARE! --               MARINE GUNS swinging up -- trigger fingers tense and --               IT'S TRADE PEOPLE! and now THEY'RE SCREAMING and this combined                with THE ALARM and THE MARINES YELLING FOR THEM TO GET DOWN                and ALL OF IT ECHOING THROUGH THE STAIRWELL and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               BOURNE -- he's CLOSING A DOOR behind him -- he's jamming A                CHAIR -- wedging it in tight so the door won't open and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE FIFTH FLOOR GRAND HALLWAY -- DAY               THE SECURITY CHIEF -- HIS MARINES -- coming from the main                stairs -- weapons drawn -- fighting their way through the                pandemonium and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               BOURNE scanning for options -- the room is huge -- empty now --                the massive conference table covered with the meeting papers                left behind -- windows along one wall and --               BOURNE rushes to the window staring down and --               BOURNE'S WINDOW POV               Fifty feet below there's a courtyard -- it's a sheer drop --                completely fucked and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE FIFTH FLOOR GRAND HALLWAY -- DAY               SECURITY CHIEF -- TWO MARINES -- just outside THE CONFERENCE                ROOM DOOR -- trying it -- it won't budge and --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                         -- blow it -- shoot it open! --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               THE DOOR -- shattering -- eaten up by GUNFIRE! -- TAT-TAT-                TAT-TATTAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! and --               WHAM! HERE THEY COME -- through the door -- guns -- eyes --                adrenaline -- everything ready and --               THE ROOM IS EMPTY!               EXT. U.S. CONSULATE BUILDING WALL -- DAY               BOURNE -- dangling fifty-feet above the stone courtyard! --                he's gone out the window! -- hanging there -- hanging with                one hand -- one hand clutching the corner of a ledge and --               INT. U.S. CONSULATE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               Utter confusion -- SECURITY CHIEF -- FIVE -- SIX -- SEVEN                ARMED MARINES all piling in -- ready to rock but there's no                one to shoot -- no target --                                     SECURITY CHIEF                         -- check the closets! -- get those                          back doors covered -- there's a                          kitchen back there -- go! -- go! --                          go!               TWO MARINES -- scanning the windows -- looking down and --               MARINE POV -- all clear -- no way he went down there and --               EXT. U.S. CONSULATE BUILDING WALL -- DAY               BOURNE still hanging there -- looking down -- up -- there's                no choice -- he has to go down --               BOURNE finding a toehold below him -- reaching -- touching                down -- it gives way -- crumbling and --               BOURNE hesitates. Does he know how to do this or not? Stalled                for a moment, then...               BOURNE starts climbing down. And this is all one shot. No                cutaway. No cheating.               We are watching a master at work...               Handhold to a drain pipe. Swinging to a better ledge.               Dropping to an air-conditioner. Grabbing a window frame just                before the air-conditioner gives way. Teetering there. Now                he's on the fourth floor.               Below, there's an open window on the third floor. Struggling                to keep his balance, he reaches behind him to shift the weight                of the bag, and as he does --               THE RED BAG falls. Thump. Into the courtyard. Forget the                open window. Now he's got to go all the way.               Timing his next move and --               He's pushing off -- reaching -- there's another drainpipe                and he's snagged it -- he's got a dragline now -- starting                to fall -- straining to hold the pipe -- slowing his descent --                the drainpipe pulling away from it's housing and --               BOURNE letting go -- just before he falls backward -- one                last grab -- catching a gutter -- holding it just long enough                to slow his fall and --               Letting go for the last fifteen feet and --               EXT. U.S. CONSULATE FIFTH FLOOR GRAND HALLWAY -- DAY               A DOZEN MARINES -- pumped-up and listening to --                                     SECURITY                         -- we're gonna go room by room until                          we find him -- so let's get teamed                          up --               EXT. AN ALLEYWAY NEAR THE U.S. CONSULATE -- DAY               MARIE storming away. Pissed-off -- broke -- illegal -- ruined                and --                                     MARIE                              (German)                         Motherfucking sonsofbitches!                              (a new problem --)               A LITTLE RED CAR. A beat-to-shit Euro car. A shitty little                red car angled in beside a dumpster with a big red Zurich                parking ticket on the windshield.               MARIE grabbing the ticket -- tearing it up -- tearing the                shit out of it -- blind with misfortune -- throwing the pieces                on the ground and stomping on them and then --                                     MARIE                              (looking up --)                         What are you looking at?               BOURNE standing across the car -- on the passenger side --                                     BOURNE                         I need a ride.                                     MARIE                         What?                                     BOURNE                         I need a ride out of here.                                     MARIE                         Oh, Jesus...                              (backing away and --)                                     BOURNE                         Please. I don't want to scare you.                                     MARIE                         It's a little late for that.                                     BOURNE                         I've got a situation here and --                                     MARIE                         Get the fuck away from my car.                                     BOURNE                         I'll give you ten thousand dollars                          to drive me to Paris.                                     MARIE                         Great. You know what? I'll give you                          ten gazillion dollars to get the                          fuck away from me before I start                          screaming my head off.                                     BOURNE                         You don't want the police any more                          than I do.               BOURNE tosses cash -- a stack of hundreds -- across the car                into her hands -- she catches it. Looks at it.                                     MARIE                         Jesus...                                     BOURNE                         Get me out of here. Please.               MARIE looking at him. At the money. Back at him, and --               INT. TREADSTONE COMMUNICATIONS DESK -- NIGHT               VIDEO PLAYBACK -- FULL FRAME -- fast forward -- a speeding                blur of images from a surveillance camera outside the Zurich                bank -- it's two days worth of footage -- they're scanning                for Bourne's arrival and --                                     CONKLIN                         go -- keep going -- go...wait --                          stop -- you went past it --               COM TECH #1 working the console. Freezing the image. Punching                it up. There it is -- BOURNE leaving the bank with the red                bag.                                     CONKLIN                              (staring at the monitor)                         It's him. My God, it's really him...               ZORN the phones across the room. COM TECH #2 at his console --                                     COM TECH #2                         -- we got a cross-ref ready to go                          here, sir, we're running hotel,                          airline, train, and medical variables,                          anything else you'd like?                                     CONKLIN                         No...                              (still staring at                               Bourne)                         Go ahead. Run it.                              (coming to --)                         Let's get a map, let's get a grid                          map on Zurich.                                     ZORN                              (holding the phone)                         Sir...               CONKLIN up from the console. ZORN waiting for him --                                     CONKLIN                         What?                                     ZORN                         Zurich police are looking for an                          American with a red bag. Apparently                          he put two cops in the hospital last                          night.               Silence. Like the floor just fell away. So heavy.                                     CONKLIN                         What the fuck is he doing?                                     ZORN                         Maybe it's a game. Maybe he's trying                          to send us a message.                                     CONKLIN                         It doesn't matter now. We've just                          got to be the first ones there.                              (decision time)                         Get everybody up. I want them all                          activated.                                     ZORN                         All of them?               A moment between them. CONKLIN all steel here now.                                     CONKLIN                         You heard me.                                     COM TECH #2                              (from the console --)                         Sir, the cross-ref is coming up                          cold...               CONKLIN breaks away -- back to the console and --               EXT. BARCELONA RESIDENTIAL BOULEVARD -- DAY               Establishing shot. A grand house. PIANO MUSIC over this --                someone butchering a piece by Haydn and --               INT. BARCELONA GRAND HOUSE MUSIC ROOM -- DAY               Meet THE PROFESSOR. He's a piano teacher. Late fifties.                Deceptively fit. He's sitting here, listening to a NINE-                YEAR-OLD STUDENT struggle through the music.               And then, HIS E-PHONE PAGER starts pulsing -- hum -- hum --               INT. HAMBURG CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               A boring, marathon business meeting. FIFTEEN MIDDLE MANAGERS                are trapped around a German sales presentation. Meet MANHEIM.                 Bald. Fifty. He looks dumb and piggy. Anything but. Sitting                here --               And then, HIS E-PHONE PAGER starts pulsing -- hum -- hum --               EXT. A ROMAN CAFE -- DAY               Meet CASTEL. He's thirty-five. Slender. Clean-cut. Easy to                miss. He's here alone. Reading the paper. Sipping espresso.               And then, HIS E-PHONE PAGER starts pulsing -- hum -- hum --               EXT. A ROAD ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF ZURICH -- DAY               The little red car parked. MARIE pacing around. BOURNE poring                over a map spread out over the hood.                                     MARIE                         So what's in Paris?                                     BOURNE                         I want to go home.                                     MARIE                         For twenty thousand dollars.               BOURNE looks back from the map.                                     BOURNE                         I said ten thousand.                                     MARIE                         You have blood on your pants.                                     BOURNE                         Okay.                              (beat)                         Twenty thousand. Ten now. Ten there.                                     MARIE                         No. No, that was too easy --                              (pacing away --)                                     BOURNE                         Wait up --                              (after her now --)                         -- just wait up --                                     MARIE                         -- get the fuck out of here -- all                          this money, this crazy offer, I mean                          give me a fucking break with this,                          this is --                              (stopping because--)               BOURNE just grabbed her. Both of them shocked that he's done                this. He immediately pulls back.                                     BOURNE                         Look, I want a ride to Paris.                              (wide open now)                         That's all I want. I swear.                                     MARIE                         You swear?                              (cold here)                         That's great. I feel so much better                          now.                                     BOURNE                         I don't want anything but a ride.                          All I want to do is go home.               Silence now. She looks back. Measuring him.                                     MARIE                         You could buy a car for twenty grand.                          You could buy this car.                                     BOURNE                         I don't want to go alone. I want you                          to drive me to Paris. Like we're a                          couple. Like we're a couple and we're                          travelling together. That's all we're                          doing.                                     MARIE                         And I don't get hurt. I get twenty                          thousand dollars and I don't get                          hurt.                                     BOURNE                         I won't hurt you.                                     MARIE                         What if I say no?                                     BOURNE                         Then I'll find another ride.               EXT. ROME STREET -- DAY               CASTEL through the streets on a motorcycle. Whipping to a                stop -- stepping off the bike in front of --               U-STORE-IT STORAGE WAREHOUSE.               INT. STORAGE WAREHOUSE ELEVATOR -- DAY               CASTEL and THE ELEVATOR OPERATOR -- rising slowly through                the dark warehouse and --               INT. CASTEL'S STORAGE UNIT -- DAY               Darkness -- a key turning -- door opening -- light goes on                to reveal CASTEL standing there and we're in --               CASTEL'S STORAGE UNIT. What's in here? Like nothing. Like a                stack of old newspapers in the corner. Some mildewed books                piled along one wall. Some shitty plastic chairs.               QUICK TIME CUTS               CASTEL working fast. Closing the door. Moving to the pile of                books. Taking the top book off. Opening it.               INSIDE THE BOX -- a timer. A small bomb. A booby-trap. An                LED light stops flashing as CASTEL'S HANDS code in his                password and --               CASTEL moving to the newspapers stacked in the corner.                 Pulling away the top pile and --               A METAL LOCK BOX. Hidden here. CASTLE pulling it out. Opening                it. An empty tray on top and --               CASTEL taking off his watch. Taking off his rings. Taking                out his wallet. His Spanish passport. Emptying his pockets.                All of this goes into the empty tray and --               CASTEL lifting away this top tray -- setting it aside and --               THE METAL LOCK BOX -- there's more -- a much larger bottom                compartment -- and it's deja-vu all over again -- we're                looking at the identical contents we saw Bourne find in the                Zurich safe-deposit box.               First of all...               MONEY. Lots of it. Ten thousand dollar stacks of hundreds.                Lots of them. A GUN. A very good gun. A dozen clips of ammo.                And FIVE MORE PASSPORTS. All clean. Brand new. All with his                photo. Five different names. Four different countries. Each                one of these pristine clipped to a piece of card stock that                says:               NAME:                NATIONALITY:                PLACE OF ISSUE:                SIGNATURE SAMPLE:                A BAR CODE:                Two Italian. Two Spanish. A Portuguese.               CASTEL going for the Portuguese passport and --               EXT. ALPS HELICOPTER SHOT -- DAY               The little red car driving through The Alps.               INT. THE RED CAR -- DUSK               BOURNE staring out the window. MARIE driving. Long silence                until --                                     MARIE                         Just so you know, if you're gonna                          burn me on the money, you might as                          well kill me.                              (Bourne looks over)                         I was supposed to have this car back                          three days ago. It's not my car.                                     BOURNE                         I know that.               MARIE staring at him -- glancing back to the road -- just in                time -- almost rear-ending a slow moving truck --                                     MARIE                         Shit --                              (trying to settle)                         Can I tell you how much you're                          freaking me out? Okay? Because you                          are -- you're completely freaking me                          out.                                     BOURNE                         I'm sorry. Really. What do you want                          me to do?                                     MARIE                         I don't know. Smile. Sneeze.                          Something. You've got a bag full of                          money and a ride to Paris. Fuck it,                          I don't know...                              (the radio)                         What kind of music do you like?                                     BOURNE                         I don't know.                                     MARIE                         What does that mean?                                     BOURNE                         Listen to what you want.                                     MARIE                              (out of nowhere)                         Who pays twenty thousand dollars for                          a ride to Paris?               There it is. And she wants an answer --                                     BOURNE                         I don't know. I don't know who I am.                                     MARIE                         Yeah, well, welcome to the club.                                     BOURNE                         No. No, I mean, I really don't know                          who I am. I can't remember anything                          earlier than two weeks ago.                              (it's not flying)                         I'm serious.                                     MARIE                         What? Like amnesia?                                     BOURNE                         Look, go ahead... put the radio on...                                     MARIE                         Amnesia?                              (total incredulity)                         You're saying you don't remember                          anything that happened before two                          weeks ago?                                     BOURNE                         That's what I'm saying.                                     MARIE                              (German)                         Give me a fucking break.               BOURNE staring at her. She's furious. She's downshifting --                she's accelerating -- pulling out to pass the truck on a                blind turn, as we --               EXT. ZURICH BANK -- DAY/DUSK               APFEL emerges from the bank. Leaving work. Turns the corner                into a quiet side street and --               Up ahead, here comes another guy in a suit. It's MANHEIM                walking toward us, deep into a cell phone conversation. Barely                noticing Apfel as they get closer and --               As they pass -- MANHEIM -- it's completely out of the blue --                he's jabbing the cellphone down into Apfel's shoulder and --               APFEL -- no clue -- already clutching at the coronary                exploding in his chest -- dead before his body hits the street                and --               MANHEIM -- still walking -- he's never broken stride -- and                as he goes he's fiddling with the cellphone and --               INSERT -- THE CELLPHONE -- MANHEIM'S HANDS working to retract                a syringe into the device and --               MANHEIM striding away. Disappearing into Zurich...               INT. PARIS MORGUE -- NIGHT               Not the best morgue in town. Cold tile. A wall of freezers.                Death lighting. Now add some color. Meet NYKWANA WOMBOSI in                the flesh.               Meet HIS ENTOURAGE -- eight or ten of his thirty children --                two of his wives -- three of his bodyguards -- the whole                crew spread out in this horrible basement room. THE WIVES                are chatting. THE KIDS are playing, fighting and eating candy.               THE BODYGUARDS -- three of them here -- are white. These                guys are French/Corsican mercs. Not quite the A-Team. The                guy in charge of this ugly little unit is named DEAUVAGE.                Into it. Too into it.               TWO MORGUE ATTENDANTS hanging back. THE MORGUE BOSS -- who's                clearly suffering this for a bribe -- moves to one of the                freezer lockers...                                     MORGUE BOSS                              (French)                         Okay, Monsieur Kane... number 121...               And he pulls open FREEZER #121. And thank God we can't see                it, because whatever's inside there is clearly horrible. THE                MORGUE BOSS barely takes a glance, standing back as quickly                as possible.               DEAUVAGE -- lead bodyguard -- moves to clear a zone for his                boss --                                     WOMBOSI                         Get the fuck out of my way --                              (pushing Deauvage                               aside --)               WOMBOSI moves to the freezer box. Stares down. As if it were                nothing. He's seen -- he's made -- much, much worse. And now                he reaches down into the box -- hands on -- literally feeling                around this dead, awful corpse with his bare hands -- feeling                around for something -- feeling and feeling and not finding --                                     WOMBOSI                              (turning to Deauvage --)                         It's not him.               DEAUVAGE looking pale as WOMBOSI slams shut the freezer.                                     WOMBOSI                              (quiet hard fury)                         So who's crazy now?               EXT. PARIS STREET -- NIGHT               A MINI-MOTORCADE driving towards Neuilly. Two security cars.                A van full of kids and mothers. And one big Mercedes stretch.               INT. THE MERCEDES STRETCH LIMO -- NIGHT               WOMBOSI alone in the back. Looking haunted.               INT. TRUCKSTOP CAFE -- NIGHT               It's a weird spot. Open all night. But Euro-style. Quiet                tonight. A few Alpen-truckers chowing down. A local or two                at the bar and --               BOURNE AND MARIE at a back table. Drinking coffee. He's got                the red bag open. All the passports -- the personal junk --                the money -- all the shit from the Zurich bank box -- he's                been showing it to her --               And he's got her attention now.                                     MARIE                         And you have no idea -- not a clue --                          what came before that?                                     BOURNE                         No.                                     MARIE                         When you think of it, before the                          ship -- before you wake up on the                          ship, what do you see?                                     BOURNE                         Nothing. It's just not there.                                     MARIE                         Well, this is great.                              (she sits back)                         I'm sick of myself and you have no                          idea who you are.                                     BOURNE                         I kept trying things, I thought if I                          could find all the things I could                          do, I could --                                     MARIE                         -- you could put it together --                                     BOURNE                         -- which was okay for a while, I was                          okay with it...                              (hesitating now)                         But then -- there's all these other                          things -- all these other things I                          know how to do -- and this -- this                          stuff from the bank and...                              (suddenly flat out --)                         I think something bad happened.                                     MARIE                         What are you talking about?                                     BOURNE                         I don't know.                                     MARIE                         Sounds like you were in an accident                          or something.                                     BOURNE                         I was shot twice in the back.                                     MARIE                         Okay, so you're a victim.                                     BOURNE                         There was a gun. Who has a safe                          deposit box with a gun and all this                          money and all these passports?                                     MARIE                         Lots of people have guns. You're                          American. Americans love guns.                                     BOURNE                         I fought my way out of an embassy.                           I climbed down a fifty-foot wall --                          I went out the window and I was doing                          it -- I just did it. I knew how to                          do it.                                     MARIE                         People do amazing things when they're                          scared.                                     BOURNE                         Why do I? -- I come in here --                          instinctively -- first thing I do --                          I'm looking for the exit -- I'm                          catching the sightlines -- I know I                          can't sit with my back to the door --                                     MARIE                         You're paranoid. You were shot. It's                          natural.               She's not listening. He leans in. Flat out now.                                     BOURNE                         I can tell you the license plate                          numbers of all three cars out front.                          I can tell you that the waitress is                          left-handed and the guy at the counter                          weighs two-hundred and fifteen pounds                          and knows how to handle himself. I                          know that the best, first place to                          look for a gun is the cab of that                          grey truck outside. I know that at                          this altitude I can run flat out for                          half a mile before I lose my edge. I                          knew that you were my first, best                          option out of Zurich? How do I know                          all that? How can I know all that                          and not know who I am? How is that                          possible?               Long dead pause.                                     MARIE                         God, you're not kidding, are you?               INT. TREADSTONE RESEARCH DESK -- DAY               BOURNE'S FACE -- a video image frozen on A COMPUTER SCREEN --                it's Bourne looking at the camera -- Bourne looking up at                the camera in the consulate passport office and --               PULL BACK TO REVEAL               HALF A DOZEN COMPUTER MONITORS -- and lots of shots of Bourne --                twenty angles -- twenty different locations -- twenty candid                perspectives of Bourne and his mad scramble through the                consulate --               CONKLIN and RESEARCH TECH #1 poring over these surveillance                tapes downloaded from Zurich --                                     CONKLIN                         And that's the best angle of the                          courtyard?                                     RESEARCH TECH #1                         That's the only angle.                                     CONKLIN                         What do they have on the streets?                          The area. They must have something.                                     RESEARCH TECH #1                         Hang on...                              (typing away --)               CONKLIN rubbing at the tension in his temples as ZORN enters --                                     CONKLIN                         What?                                     ZORN                         Abbott. He knows about the embassy.                          He's coming down for a show and tell.                                     CONKLIN                         That'll solve all our problems.                                     RESEARCH TECH #1                              (he's hit paydirt)                         Sir...                                     CONKLIN                              (turning back --)                         What's that?                                     RESEARCH TECH #1                         It's an angle of the street -- some                          sort of alleyway -- you can just...                                     CONKLIN                         Enhance it.               INSERT -- THE MONITOR -- as the image enlarges to fill the                screen. And there's Bourne. And the little red car. And Marie.                                     CONKLIN (O.S.)                         Who the hell is that?               EXT. ZURICH AIRPORT HOTEL -- NIGHT               A drone barn. Practically on the runway.               INT. ZURICH AIRPORT HOTEL ROOM -- NIGHT               One of those rooms. Just a plain functional box. MANHEIM                laying on the bed. Fully dressed. Suit and tie. Just laying                there, staring at the ceiling. Who knows how long he's been                like this.               Just waiting.               ON THE NIGHTSTAND -- A gun. A knife. His e-phone pager. His                fresh credentials. And a photo of Jason Bourne.               INT. WOMBOSI'S PARIS COMPOUND -- NIGHT               Quick orientation: Picture a heavily-walled palace just off                the Bois Du Boulogne. But once inside you could be back in                Brazzaville. It's just a buffet of oddness. Home to fifty                children and nine wives. The decor blends money and nouveau                riche materialism with a hard, back-home tribal esthetic.                It's a visual treat. Not condescending or stupid, but flat-               out strange and menacing.               It's late. And the palace is dark and sleepy now, but carry                all that through this next series of quick shots --               WOMBOSI HOUSE SECURITY STATION               Just inside the door. BODYGUARD #1 slouched before a bank of                SECURITY MONITORS.               WOMBOSI MAIN HALLWAY               Littered with toys. Children's crap everywhere. BODYGUARD                #3. Snoozing on a Louis Quatorze chair draped with African                cloth.               WOMBOSI THRONE ROOM DOORS               DEAUVAGE -- head bodyguard -- posted outside this imposing                set of doors. He's trying to stay awake. Reading a spy                thriller.               FINALLY TO               WOMBOSI'S THRONE ROOM               And there he is -- the emperor himself -- WOMBOSI on his                throne. Except the room is dark and empty. And he's sitting                there by himself. A king without a country.               Sitting there. With a gun in his lap. Drinking hard from a                bottle of Jack Daniels.               Stewing.               EXT. FRENCH ROADSIDE -- DAWN               Beautiful morning. The red car parked along the road. BOURNE                alone in the passenger seat. Deep asleep. Nestled there.               And then, he wakes suddenly. Starts. Freaked for a moment.                Instantly feeling for the red bag. There it is in his lap.                He looks around and --               MARIE sitting away from the car. She's got a loaf of bread.                A soda. Smoking a butt. Same clothes, but her make-up's been                washed away. Clean. Simple. Gorgeous.               BOURNE steps out. Morning legs.                                     MARIE                         I needed a break.                                     BOURNE                         Where are we?                                     MARIE                         We're about an hour away.                                     BOURNE                         I can't believe I slept.                                     MARIE                         You were tired. Here...                              (bread and soda --)                         For twenty-thousand I like to throw                          in breakfast.                              (he takes it)                         So what do you dream about?                                     BOURNE                         I dream I'm asleep. I dream that I'm                          asleep and I can't wake up.                              (he takes a hit from                               her smoke and coughs --)                         I don't think I smoke.               Another silence. She's watching him.                                     MARIE                         You ever think maybe you have a                          family?                                     BOURNE                         I thought about it. I don't know.               She looks away. Was she hoping for another answer?                                     MARIE                         I guess it's like Christmas every                          day for you, huh?               INT. TREADSTONE CONKLIN'S OFFICE -- DAY               MARIE'S FACE -- A PASSPORT PHOTO -- she's eighteen -- she's                smiling -- really alive and fresh and --               CONKLIN behind his desk. ABBOTT staring grimly at the picture --                                     ABBOTT                         Who is she?                                     ZORN                         Marie Helene Kreutz. She's twenty-                          six. Born outside Munich. Father was                          a welder. He died in '91. We don't                          have the mother. There might be a                          step-sister, we're trying to track                          that down.                              (apologetic)                         It's tough. She's a wanderer. She                          pops up on the grid here and there                          but... I mean, the last time she                          paid an electric bill in Europe was                          '94. No taxes. No steady employer.                          She's got three arrests. Two                          shoplifting cases, one in Spain, one                          in Germany. And she actually did                          three months in an Italian detention                          center for credit card fraud.                                     ABBOTT                         No political affiliations?                                     CONKLIN                         She's a gypsy. If it's a cover, it's                          a great one.                                     ABBOTT                         I'm assuming we're exploring that                          possibility.                                     CONKLIN                         We're exploring every possibility.                              (tighter by the moment)                         We are in pursuit. How much more do                          you want me to tell you?                                     ABBOTT                         Pursuit would indicate that you know                          exactly where he is.                                     CONKLIN                         No. Pursuit ends when we know exactly                          where he is.                                     ABBOTT                         Yes, well, I think we need some fresh                          eyes on this problem. I'm bringing                          in some people from upstairs.               CONKLIN hesitates. Inside he's screaming.                                     CONKLIN                         We've been down here for two weeks                          banging our heads against the wall.                          We've been sleeping down here. We                          just got our first lead fourteen                          hours ago, and now? -- now that we                          finally have something to work with --                          you want to bring planning personnel                          down here?                              (real steam)                         I'd rethink that.                                     ABBOTT                         I want a second opinion.                                     CONKLIN                         This is an operations desk.                                     ABBOTT                         I'm not asking.               EXT. PARIS STREET NEAR BOURNE'S APARTMENT -- DAY               THE LITTLE RED CAR cruising through town.               INT. THE LITTLE RED CAR -- DAY               MARIE driving. BOURNE checking building numbers as they pass --                                     BOURNE                         Slow down. No, don't stop. Just...                                     MARIE                              (looking over)                         That's it? Is that it?               AN APARTMENT BUILDING. Big building. Elegant but cold.                                     BOURNE                         Four-fifty. That's the address...                                     MARIE                         Looks familiar?                                     BOURNE                         No.                              (staring back as they                               pass --)                         No. Go around. Keep going...               MARIE pulling up -- turning a corner -- watching him as she                does. But he's pre-occupied -- eyes scanning -- taking it                all in --                                     MARIE                         Where?                                     BOURNE                         Yeah. Pull in here. Park it.               MARIE angles into an alleyway. Cuts the engine.                                     MARIE                         So this is it, right?                                     BOURNE                         I guess.               Dead pause. She's waiting. He's still scanning the street.                                     MARIE                         I should go.                                     BOURNE                         I don't remember any of this.                                     MARIE                         Jason...               He turns back. She's staring at him.                                     BOURNE                         Sorry. The money, right?               Before she can say anything, he's digging in the backpack.                He pulls out another stack of hundreds. Hands it over. She                takes it. It's not what she wanted, but she's used to being                disappointed. Fighting it.                                     MARIE                         Okay, so...                                     BOURNE                         Thanks for the ride.                                     MARIE                         Anytime.               Silence. That moment. He focuses. Getting it.                                     BOURNE                         Look, I don't know what's up there.                                     MARIE                         You got me pretty fucking curious.                                     BOURNE                         Look, you could come up. Or you could                          wait if you want. I could go check                          it out. You could wait.                                     MARIE                         Nah...                              (hide the pain)                         With you, I mean, you'd probably                          just forget about me, right?                                     BOURNE                         How could I forget about you?                              (he smiles)                         You're the only person I know.               MARIE smiles. We've never seen it before. Worth waiting for.               INT. PARIS APARTMENT BUILDING FOYER -- NIGHT               BOURNE and MARIE standing at the directory. Five apartments.                One per floor. Five names. A buzzer. An intercom. There it                is.               J. Bourne.               BOURNE presses the buzzer. After a moment, he presses again.                Nothing.                                     MARIE                         I guess you're not home.               BOURNE checking the door. How to pop it open? Just about to                get into it, when --                                     CONCIERGE (O.S.)                              (from the shadows                               inside --)                         Monsieur Bourne...I'm coming...               THE CONCIERGE is sixty. Plump and proper.                                     CONCIERGE                              (opening the door --)                         Mr. Bourne, there you are -- I was                          wondering -- I haven't seen you --                                     BOURNE                         Here I am.               THE CONCIERGE looking at BOURNE like maybe she's never seen                him look like this before. And she's looking at MARIE like                here's the reason her tenant looks like such shit.                                     BOURNE                              (he tries a smile)                          I seem to have lost my key.               THE CONCIERGE nods. Instant chilly disapproval.                                     CONCIERGE                         I've been ringing your bell. It's                          good you were away. We had some                          trouble with the hot water. It's                          been repaired.                                     BOURNE                         Great. We could use a shower.                              (they look like shit --)                         It was a long drive.               THE CONCIERGE steps aside and --               INT. PARIS APARTMENT FIFTH FLOOR LANDING -- DAY               BOURNE and MARIE at the apartment threshold. He has a key                now.               Turning it. And the door opens...               Nothing...               No bombs. No wife and kids. No one.               INT. PARIS APARTMENT -- DAY               A huge, rambling flat. Large entry hallway. Large rooms beyond                that. It's obviously expensive. But cold. Completely                impersonal. No photographs. No mementoes. No human history.               WE'RE MOVING NOW               THE LIVING ROOM               BOURNE and MARIE exploring.                                     MARIE                         It's big.               BOURNE silent. Struggling to get a feel for the place.                                     MARIE                         This is like a real apartment.                              (she likes it)                         This is really yours?                                     BOURNE                         I guess so.               MARIE taking it in fast. BOURNE seems paralyzed. Trying to                soak it all in. Willing himself home. Touching things as he                passes. As if a texture, a smell -- something will become                familiar. He's deep into this as we go to --               THE BEDROOM               MARIE in the doorway. Checking it out. It's so clean and                simple. But it's not the decor she's most interested in...               MARIE opening an armoire...               Nothing but men's clothes. No competition. She's feeling                better by the moment as we go to --               THE KITCHEN               Like a stage set. Lots of props and no sign of food. BOURNE                picking up a frying pan.                                     BOURNE                         This is my frying pan.                              (and then --)                         This is my spoon.                              (trying harder)                         I'm Jason Bourne and this is my                          kitchen.               THE MASTER BATHROOM               MARIE still on the prowl. Mirror city. Big tub. One                toothbrush.               AN OFFICE STUDY               There's a desk. Chair. Phone. Basic. BOURNE with a folder in                his hand. Staring at the bookshelves. Binders, reference                materials and hardbound volumes -- all of it about maritime                law. Ship schedules. Registry catalogs. All about boats.                                     MARIE                         This is your office?                              (from the doorway)                         God, you live like a monk...                                     BOURNE                         All this stuff -- it's all about                          boats.                              (looking up)                         I think I'm in the shipping business.                                     MARIE                         See. It's starting to come back,                          yeah?                              (he sort of nods)                         You mind if I take a bath?                                     BOURNE                         Go ahead.               MARIE backs out. BOURNE alone again. Standing there for a                moment. Dealing with it.               And then he sits down in a chair.               BOURNE sitting there. Staring. The room, the desk -- it's                all so devoid of personality. And then, something catches                his eye and --               INSERT -- THE DESK TOP -- a faint silhouette through the                dust and grime. Outlines of where a computer used to sit.               BOURNE reaching suddenly under the desk. Bingo. Pulling out                a retractable computer keyboard tray. But it's empty. No                keyboard. Now he's really confused and --               INSERT -- A PHONE/ANSWERING MACHINE -- BOURNE pressing the                playback button and --                                     PHONE MACHINE                         "You have no messages."               BOURNE leaving that for a moment -- about to anyway -- and                then he turns back -- new idea -- pressing for the speaker                phone -- and then hitting redial and --               THE PHONE stars dialing...               RINGING and...                                     OPERATOR/PHONE                         Bonjour, Hotel Marboeuf...               BOURNE quick grabbing the receiver. Taking it off speakerphone                and --                                     BOURNE                         ...yes -- oui -- uh...                                     OPERATOR/PHONE                         Yes, sir. Hotel Marboeuf, Paris.                           How can I direct your call?                                     BOURNE                         Paris?                                     OPERATOR/PHONE                         Yes, sir...                              (switching to English,                               thinking that's his                               problem --)                         How can I help you?                                     BOURNE                         Yes, I'm...I'm looking for Mr. Jason                          Bourne.                                     OPERATOR/PHONE                         One moment, please...                              (a long pause, and                               then --)                         I'm afraid, I have no one by that                          name registered, sir.                                     BOURNE                         D'accord... Merci.                              (about to hang up--)                         Un moment -- un moment --                                     OPERATOR/PHONE                         -- sir? --                                     BOURNE                         -- hang on -- I need you to check                          another name for me -- hang on -- un                          moment, s'il vous plait --               BOURNE grabbing the backpack -- tearing through it -- where                is it? -- where is it? -- shit and money falling out and --               There it is -- from the safe-deposit box -- that piece of                card stock -- the one with no passport attached to it --                                     BOURNE                              (reading it)                         Kane. Do you have Mr. John Michael                          Kane?                                     OPERATOR/PHONE                         One moment, sir.               BOURNE waiting. And then there's muzak -- holding music and --               THE MASTER BATHROOM               Water running in the tub. MARIE pulling off her boots.                Checking the temperature.               THE OFFICE STUDY               Bourne still on hold. And then --                                     MANAGER/PHONE                              (a new voice suddenly)                         Bonjour? Monsieur? Allo...                                     BOURNE                         Yes, I'm here...                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         You call about Monsieur Kane? John                          Michael Kane?                                     BOURNE                         Yes. Is he there?                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         You are a friend of his?                                     BOURNE                         Yes.                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         I have some very bad news for you,                          sir. I'm terrible sorry to have to                          tell you this, but Monsieur Kane has                          passed away almost two weeks ago...               Silence. BOURNE is rocked. But the Manager, it's natural, he                interprets the silence as grief...                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         There was an accident. On the                          motorway. Apparently, he was killed                          instantly. Really, I'm terrible sorry                          to be the one to tell you this...                                     BOURNE                         ...I understand...                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         ...we actually, we were unaware for                          several days that this had happened.                          When they came for his things, it                          was made known for us, you see?                                     BOURNE                         Who? Who came?                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         His brother. You know his brother?                                     BOURNE                         Right. Yes. Of course.                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         It's very bad this. Terrible sad.                          Such a young man.                                     BOURNE                         Do you -- his brother -- do you have                          a phone number?                                     MANAGER/PHONE                         I think not...                              (quick French to                               someone in the office                               there --)                         No, I'm sorry. It was very sudden.                          He was here very briefly.               BOURNE just hands up the phone. Just like that. Not even                goodbye. Standing there frozen. Stunned. John Michael Kane                is dead. And he had the passport.               Suddenly, everything's changed. They shouldn't be here. This                is bad. Danger.               THE MASTER BATHROOM               MARIE playing with her hair in the mirror. Checking the water --                                     MARIE                              (calling out to him --)                         She wasn't kidding about the water.                          It's freezing.               THE OFFICE               BOURNE frozen there. On alert. He forces a smile. Decoy mood.                                     BOURNE                         Hang on. I'll check the kitchen...                              (moving out of the                               office --)                         Maybe it takes a while to get all                          the way upstairs.               THE KITCHEN               BOURNE moving to the sink. He's smiling. Upbeat. But it's an                act. His eyes are everywhere. Turning on the water. But                ignoring it. What he's really doing is searching out a weapon.                Pulling A KNIFE very quietly from behind the stove. Holding                it. Feels pretty comfortable. Hiding it down by his side. On                the move again, now --                                     BOURNE                         Yeah, it's cold in here, too...                              (calling to her as he                               goes --)                         Let's give it another minute.               BOURNE like we've ever seen him. Like an animal. Every sound --                every breeze -- everything carries information.               Standing still. Taking it all in.               Real quick layout -- there's big windows along one wall that                face out to the street below. The hallway to the bedroom and                bath feeds into the living room from one side. There is a                large frosted airshaft window along that hallway wall. Simple                furniture.                                     MARIE                              (suddenly --)                         -- omigod! --                              (she's behind him --)                         -- what're you? -- no -- no --               MARIE backing away -- completely freaked -- BOURNE standing                there with the knife in his hand and --                                     BOURNE                         -- no -- Marie -- no! -- it's not                          like that --                                     MARIE                         -- please -- Jason -- omigod --                                     BOURNE                         -- quiet -- quiet --               MARIE -- frightened -- confused -- paralyzed for a moment --               BOURNE glancing back -- a curtain fluttering behind him --                motioning for MARIE to get down -- do it -- now -- down!               MARIE hesitating and --               BOURNE -- what's he doing? -- he's unscrewing a lightbulb                from a lamp beside him and --               MARIE about to say something -- he shakes her off --               BOURNE -- knife in one hand -- lightbulb in the other --                putting his foot on a chair in front of him and --                                     MARIE                         ...what are you doing?...               BOURNE waving her to shut up -- crawl -- now -- back up --                get under the window -- go! --               MARIE -- he seems so sure -- it's weird, but she's doing it --                she's under that frosted window -- down below the sill --                looking back -- what the fuck is he doing now? --               BOURNE -- the lightbulb -- he's tossing it across the room --                over her head -- into that frosted window and --               As she ducks down --               As it SHATTERS --               EVERYTHING STARTS HAPPENING AT ONCE               PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT! -- silenced automatic                weapons fire -- raking into the apartment and --               THE FROSTED WINDOW peppered with holes and --               MARIE on the floor as THE WINDOW SHATTERS above her and --               CASTEL -- he's in the airshaft! -- hanging from an abseil                rope -- but off guard -- FIRING BLIND -- strafing the                apartment and --               BOURNE kicking that chair across the room and --               CASTEL reacting -- instinct -- moving target --               THE CHAIR just strafed to shit and --               BOURNE rolling away and --               CASTEL -- he's coming in -- last pieces of window frame                CRASHING AWAY as he swings into the apartment and --               MARIE -- right below him -- shit raining down as he flies in                and --               BOURNE throwing the knife and --               CASTEL -- turning -- too late -- the knife catching him in                the neck and --               BOURNE -- in motion -- attacking and --               CASTEL -- knife impaled in his neck -- clawing for it with                one hand -- trying to get off a shot and --               APARTMENT WALL -- PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT!-PHFT! -- gunfire                tearing wildly around the room and --               BOURNE -- full-stop -- kicking the gun -- kicking it up --                ROUNDS TEARING ACROSS THE CEILING and --               MARIE -- SCREAMING NOW -- trying to crawl away and --               CASTEL -- no chance -- off balance -- BOURNE -- his open                palm driving up into CASTEL'S JAW -- the body wants to fall                backward, but BOURNE has the guy's arm in his free hand --                jerking it like rope -- tearing it from it's socket and --               THE GUN CLATTERING FREE across the floor and --               BOURNE -- his knee -- like a piston -- hard into CASTEL'S                GUT -- and then down -- his foot -- down into CASTEL'S KNEE,                shattering it and --               CASTEL is on the floor -- stunned -- wiped -- knife pouring                blood from his neck -- arm hanging like a rag doll -- bone                torn through his pant leg above the knee and --                                     MARIE                         omigod -- omigod -- what're you doing? --                          what're you doing? --                              (incoherent fear and                               confusion, German                               and English and--)                         -- what is he? -- what've you? --                          omigod -- what is this? --               BOURNE ignoring her -- grabbing the guy's backpack --                                     MARIE                         -- what're you doing? -- Jason,                          please, tell me what's happening!                                     BOURNE                         Open it --                              (tossing Castel's                               backpack behind him --)                         -- do it -- what's he got in there?               CASTEL -- eyes wild -- tries to make his feet --                                     BOURNE                         Who are you?                              (kicking him down--)                         -- who are you?               CASTEL -- crablike against a wall -- bloody hands leaving a                mess as he struggles to get to his feet --                                     BOURNE                         -- who are you? -- tell me who you                          are -- who sent you? --                              (bearing down)                         -- what is this about? -- YOU'VE GOT                          TO TELL ME WHAT THIS IS ABOUT! --               CASTEL -- staring back -- eyes wild -- mouth shut -- his                expression -- is it terror or pure steel? --                                     BOURNE                         WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?                                     MARIE                              (suddenly from behind)                         ...omigod, no...               MARIE -- the guy's backpack -- something in her hand -- and                as freaked out as she was a moment ago -- this is worse --                                     BOURNE                         What? -- what? --                              (attention split --)                         -- what is it?                                     MARIE                         ...this is my picture... he's got my                          picture --                              (holding it up, in                               horror --)                         -- this is me -- this is Zurich --                          this... this... this is yesterday --                                     BOURNE                         -- just --                                     MARIE                         -- where does this come from? --                              (to Castel)                         How do you have my picture?                                     BOURNE                         Marie, just --                              (waving her back --)                         -- just stay there! -- just --                                     MARIE                         -- he's got my picture! -- this is                          yesterday! -- this is me! --                              (out of control now --)                         -- where did you get my picture? --                                     BOURNE                         -- let me do this, okay? --                                     MARIE                         -- do what? -- what are you doing? --                          he's got my picture --                              (just apoplectic --)                         -- he's -- my God -- look at him --                          he's bleeding to death -- my picture --                          look! -- he was trying to kill us! --                          omigod --               Now there's KNOCKING AT THE DOOR and --                                     THE CONCIERGE                              (muffled but urgent)                         Mister Bourne! Mister Bourne! What's                          going on? Is everything all right in                          there?                              (-- and she keeps                               banging and --)               MARIE is past the point of rationality and CASTEL is bleeding                and shaking and BOURNE is trying to think and it's just                impossible and --               Suddenly -- CASTEL is moving! -- and fast -- it's superhuman --                unbelievable -- just enough spring in his good leg and --               BOURNE bracing himself but --               CASTEL isn't attacking! -- he's running away -- he's crossing                the living room -- but there's nowhere to go -- absolutely                nowhere -- except --               THE WINDOW               CASTEL hurling himself into the glass and --               EXT. THE PARIS APARTMENT BUILDING -- DAY               WINDOW SHATTERING! -- CASTEL -- in a cloud of broken glass --                sixty feet above the street --               Falling and falling and...               IMPACT! -- landing on the roof of a parked car and --               INT. THE PARIS APARTMENT -- DAY               THE APARTMENT -- BOURNE in motion -- five things at once --                checking the window -- kicking the gun away -- grabbing the                red bag -- grabbing what he can -- no time to spare and --                                     THE CONCIERGE                              (still outside the                               door--)                         --I'm calling the police, Mr.  Bourne --                          you give me no choice -- I'm calling                          them right away! --                                     BOURNE                         -- your shoes -- Marie! -- where? --                          where are your shoes? -- Marie --               MARIE standing there in utter shock -- paralyzed -- the                picture in her hand -- the broken glass -- all of what just                happened --                                     MARIE                         He's dead isn't he?                                     BOURNE                         Marie -- look at me -- there's no                          time for this --                                     MARIE                         He went out the window -- why? --                          why would someone do that?                                     BOURNE                         -- we can't stay here -- I can't                          stay here -- it's not safe here --                                     MARIE                         He came to kill us.                                     BOURNE                         -- we can go -- I can get us out of                          here -- but we have to go now --                                     MARIE                         You knew he was coming.                                     BOURNE                         No.                                     MARIE                         I trusted you.                                     BOURNE                         You're wrong. I didn't know.                                     MARIE                         I don't trust anybody and I trusted                          you!                                     BOURNE                         I didn't know this would happen.                                     MARIE                         He had my picture! He knew I was                          here! He came here to kill us!                                     BOURNE                         And where is he now?                              (that gets her quiet)                         You believe what you want, but I'm                          telling you the truth -- I never                          would have brought you here if I                          thought it was dangerous.                                     MARIE                              (totally overwhelmed)                         Oh, Jesus...                                     BOURNE                         You stay -- if you want, you stay --                          it's okay -- it's better -- maybe                          it's better -- I don't know --                              (starting to back                               away --)                         But I can't stay here. I can't.                                     MARIE                         But the police --                                     BOURNE                         -- there's no time --                                     MARIE                         -- we'll explain it --                                     BOURNE                         -- how? --                                     MARIE                         -- there's two of us -- we'll tell                          them -- we'll just --                                     BOURNE                         -- forget it --                                     MARIE                         -- we'll tell them what happened --                                     BOURNE                         I don't know what happened!                              (huge here)                         I don't know who he is! I don't know                          what he wants! I don't even know who                          I am! The only thing I know is that                          if I stay here, I'm never gonna find                          out!               BOURNE -- that's it -- grabbing the backpack -- pulling it                on -- just about to make his move --               She's standing there. Just utterly swamped. Lost.                                     BOURNE                         Come with me.                              (she turns back, he's                               waiting --)                         I can get us out of here. I know it.                          Then we can think. Then we can work                          it out. We'll explain it then.  Once                          we're safe.                              (rock solid)                         I can protect you.               EXT. THE PARIS APARTMENT BUILDING -- DAY               A CROWD is gathered around CASTEL'S BODY. Rubberneckers and                people pointing up to the broken window -- THE CONCIERGE                running out to the street and getting the news and THE SOUND                OF SIRENS bleeding in from the distance and --               THE CAMERA PULLS BACK TO FIND               THE LITTLE RED CAR pulling out of the alley. Turning away                from the scene. Disappearing into the streets of Paris --               INT. WOMBOSI COMPOUND MAIN HALLWAY -- DAY               THRONE ROOM DOORS flying open -- WOMBOSI exploding out into                the hallway --                                     WOMBOSI                         -- No! -- I say, no! -- they go this                          far -- out a body in the grave --                          another body! -- no! -- this isn't                          over -- these people are not finished --                          nothing will make them finish until                          they have Wombosi! -- the real Wombosi --                          until I'm the one in the box! --               SIX KIDS -- TWO WIVES -- THREE BODYGUARDS -- all startled by                this steamrolling mass of energy and paranoia --                                     WOMBOSI                         -- what are you doing? --                              (bearing down on                               Bodyguard #2 --)                         -- sleeping? --                              (to Deauvage --)                         -- he's sleeping! -- this man is                          sleeping at his post! --                              (kicking the chair                               out from under him --)                         -- I've had men killed for this! --                              (but he's still moving --)                         -- you think these people? -- these                          people who come for me -- you think                          they sleep? -- they never sleep! --                          they spend all the day -- all the                          night -- all time thinking about how                          to put Wombosi in that box! --                              (he's just gonna keep                               going, and we're                               into--)               A MASSIVE ONE-TAKE TRACKING SHOT               DEAUVAGE on his feet -- racing to follow -- KIDS scattering                out of the way -- THE WIVES completely unfazed and --                                     WOMBOSI                         -- there is no box for Wombosi! --                          they don't have a box that can hold                          me! -- I know these people -- I know                          they never sleep! -- I know they                          never stop! -- they never stop until                          the knife is at their throat! --                              (suddenly distracted --)                         -- what is the window? -- this window                          is open! -- who leaves this open! --                              (before Deauvage can                               possibly respond --)                         -- this is a war, you fool! -- you                          think these people are like you? --                          you think this is stupid people? --                          careless people? -- these people see                          an open window, they reach in with a                          big hand and grab your heart until                          you die! --                              (still rolling as--)               WE'RE HEADING DOWN TO THE POOL                                     WOMBOSI                         -- and it won't just be me! -- they                          don't just want Wombosi now! -- they                          want my babies -- they want my                          children! -- and I say no! --                              (grabbing Deauvage --)                         -- you leave that window open again,                          you better pray they kill me --                              (something's caught                               his ear in the                               distance and now                               he's trying to get                               there --)                         -- everything changes here now! --                          everyone is a soldier here now! --                          this is a fortress now! Are we clear                          with this?                                     DEAUVAGE                         Yes, sir. All clear.               WOMBOSI stops to look at DEAUVAGE. In the background, we can                hear A CHILD CRYING by the pool --                                     WOMBOSI                         This man is out there. Kane is out                          there. And they pretend he's dead.                          That means he's coming back.               WOMBOSI moving quickly now and WE'RE STILL TRACKING -- taking                him into --               THE POOL AREA               FORTY KIDS going nuts in the water. ONE KID crying. WOMBOSI                like a shot -- picking the kid up -- drying his tears --                making a funny face -- getting a smile as --               INT. GARE DU NORD -- DAY               BOURNE and MARIE stash the red bag in a locker.               INT. CIA PSYCHOACOUSTICS LAB -- DAY               AN ELECTRONICS CONSOLE. Super-tech. Meters -- LEDs -- wave-               form analyzers -- audio spectrum filters -- all of this gear                dancing and responding to every nuance of --               BOURNE'S VOICE -- OVER SPEAKERS -- we're listening to a                recording of the call he made from the apartment to the Hotel                Marbeouf Paris --                                     BOURNE/TAPE                         "Okay. Merci."                              (pause)                         "Un moment -- un moment --"                                     OPERATOR/TAPE                         "-- sir? --"                                     BOURNE/TAPE                         "-- hang on -- I need you to check                          another name for me -- hang on -- un                          moment, s'il vous plait --"               PULL BACK TO REVEAL               A secret studio buried deep in the Langley facility. Equipment                up the ass. Five people in this darkened room: AN ENGINEER                working the board. CONKLIN looking sour. ZORN in the shadows.                ABBOTT sitting there waiting for analysis from --               MRS. DOYLE. She's late sixties. A long-time spy shrink. An                eminence. A diamond-hard, seen-it-all intelligence.                                     BOURNE/TAPE                         "Kane. John Michael Kane."                                     OPERATOR/TAPE                         "One moment, sir."               MRS. DOYLE nods to THE ENGINEER. She's heard enough.                                     MRS. DOYLE                         He's not lying. He's very highly                          stressed, but he's not lying. He's                          confused. He's aggressively searching                          for a way out of the chaos. This                          conversation, the video from the                          consulate -- the body language, vocal                          pattern -- it's my sense he's really                          lost here.                              (beat)                         I think he snapped.                                     CONKLIN                         Is that a medical term?               She turns. Battle lines drawn.                                     MRS. DOYLE                         You want clinical terminology? It's                          called, "conversation hysteria."                              (to Abbott now --)                         I don't know exactly how you train                          these people. I'm not sure I want to                          know. I'll take a guess there's some                          extremely rigorous behavior                          modification going on here.               Silence. The idea dangling for a moment.                                     ABBOTT                         Let's assume that's true.                                     MRS. DOYLE                         You can only wind people so tight.                          Even machines break down.                                     CONKLIN                         This unit has an unblemished record                          of success.                                     MRS. DOYLE                         Then I guess I'm in the wrong meeting.               EXT. BELLVILLE CAR PARK -- DUSK               BOURNE and MARIE stashing the red car.               INT. CIA HALLWAY UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- DAY               ABBOTT and CONKLIN walk and talk. They want to get loud, but                they can't. Too many people passing by --                                     CONKLIN                         That was two hours -- two hours to                          get a second opinion -- and nothing                          changes. He's loose. He's out of                          control. It's very clear what needs                          to happen.                              (point blank)                         I have work to do.                                     ABBOTT                         What if he is working for someone                          else? What if he turned?                                     CONKLIN                         Turn? To who? Where does he turn?                          What does he have to offer? He's got                          nothing. He's a killer. He's a piece                          of equipment for crissake. Where's                          he gonna turn?               EXT. HOTEL DE LA PRIX -- NIGHT               Funky. Out of the way. Cash and carry. No-questions-asked                kind of flop. Our establishing shot somehow includes THE                PROPRIETOR and HIS DOG.               INT. THE HOTEL ROOM BATHROOM -- NIGHT               HAIR DYE washing down a rusted drain. It's MARIE alone in                this crappy little bathroom. Jeans and bra. All of it soaking                wet.               A new hair color.               A MIRROR. There she is. Her turn to stare at herself and                wonder.               And then she smells something. Smoke...               INT. THE HOTEL ROOM -- NIGHT               It's a shitty little room. BOURNE sitting on the bed. And                the smoke is coming from...               HIS PASSPORT -- the Jason Bourne passport -- on fire. BOURNE                holding it as it burns away. Bourne's face -- melting --                bubbling -- finally disappearing, -- BOURNE letting go just                before it burns his fingers and --               BOURNE sits back. And there's MARIE standing there. And she's                holding out her passport --               He looks at her. Big moment.                                     BOURNE                         No.                              (he won't do it)                         You know who you are. You know what                          that's worth? That's everything.                              (pause)                         I can't live like this. I can't do                          anything until I know who I am.                          Believe me, you don't want what I                          have.               He looks away. Silence. And then, she touches him. His                shoulder.               BOURNE almost recoils. Almost. He doesn't know what to do.                Doesn't know how to react.               MARIE in front of him now -- she's taking his hand -- and he                hesitates -- looking at her -- is this happening? -- she's                taking his hand -- moving it down her body -- staring at him --                both of them silent -- his hand -- her skin -- his mind racing --                he wants this -- wants it in every way -- but it's                overwhelming -- when was the last time something like this                happened? -- he can't remember -- he doesn't care -- he's                pulling her toward him -- and they're kissing -- and you                know the rest...               INT. CDG AIRPORT -- NIGHT               THE PROFESSOR arriving in Paris.  Coming through the terminal                as his pager goes off -- never even stopping as he reads and --                   ...................................................               HOTEL SEQUENCE -- SKETCHED ONLY               HOTEL MARBOEUF PARIS. This is the place that answered the                phone when Bourne hit redial in his apartment. This is the                place that John Michael Kane was staying when he "died."               And so begins, the investigation...               Now, since the presence of danger -- ie Wombosi's guys and/or                Treadstone -- is still up in the air, and since this scene                could either play very quickly or very long, and since we're                not exactly sure where we stand with page count -- this scene                is not finished.               The rules of the scene, however, seem to be thus: Bourne                would have to be very nervous about being recognized. If he                was Kane and Kane stayed here, he's not the guy to do whatever                "social engineering" needs doing.               Long version? Bourne sets the table and Marie gets the goods.                Somehow there's a threat from Treadstone or Wombosi.               Fast version? It's all results -- we see them execute a plan                rather than work it up. MARIE is already in the hotel. In a                hotel uniform? Posing as a guest? In any case, she looks                very much different than we've ever seen her before.               She gets close to the office. Hides. Waits. BOURNE calls the                desk from a pay phone. Asks for something. We see that some                sort of improvised booby-trap has been set inside the hotel                to start a fire. In the confusion -- MARIE -- very bravely --                gets into the office. We do a quick cut outside to Bourne                waiting and --                   ...................................................               EXT. STREET OUTSIDE THE HOTEL MARBOEUF -- DAY               Walk and talk. BOURNE and MARIE leaving the hotel fast. He's                on alert -- always on alert now -- making sure they're not                being watched. And she's excited and pumped -- she did it! --                she's got the hotel record in hand --                                     MARIE                         You stayed there five times in the                          past six months. But I didn't have                          time -- I could only get the bill                          from the last stay -- you were there                          for two days. Some room service --                          there's half a dozen phone calls                          here so that's someth--                                     BOURNE                              (cutting her off)                         Who paid the bill?                                     MARIE                         It's a company... MPG Capital.               INT. AN EMPTY OFFICE SUITE -- DAY               Vacancy wasteland. Dead phone lines hanging. Carpet pulled                up. Completely stripped out. BOURNE and MARIE standing there                staring.                                     MARIE                         This can't be it.               She turns around -- and what's he doing? -- BOURNE with a                piece of paper and pencil -- or something/anything resourceful                and handy -- maybe it's carpet lint -- maybe it's breaking                the glass on the door and holding it up to the light -- or a                rubbing -- anyway, he's doing something ingenious with the                glass door --               And as he's doing this, we're hearing --                                     TELEPHONE VOICE (OVER)                              (British, female)                         Destin Navigational, can I help you?                                     BOURNE'S VOICE (OVER)                         Hey, how are you. I'm trying to reach                          Richard? Is he there.               We're watching the MPG LOGO emerge and seeing BOURNE and                MARIE react, as we hear --                                     TELEPHONE VOICE                         I'm afraid there's no Richard here.                              (continuing into --)               INT./EXT. SHITBAG PARISIAN PHONE BOOTH -- NIGHT               BOURNE on the pay phone. MARIE behind him at the bar. He's                got a pad and paper. This is all business.                                     BOURNE                         Well, where are you? Where am I                          calling?                                     TELEPHONE VOICE                         This is an answering service, sir.                          The company's located in Southampton,                          but --                                     BOURNE                         -- this is a tire dealership, right?                                     TELEPHONE VOICE                         No sir, this is a navigational chart                          registry. I'm afraid you have the                          wrong number.               Dial tone. BOURNE making a note. And as he does --               TIME CUT -- one minute later -- call number two --                                     NEW VOICE (OVER)                              (French, male, hassled)                         Marseille-Tropez Marina, how can I                          help you?                                     BOURNE                         Hey, so this is the Marina, right?                                     NEW VOICE                         Yes, sir. Can I help you?                                     BOURNE                              (he's got the number)                         This is the one in Marseille, right?                                     NEW VOICE                              (Last time I looked.)               TIME CUT -- one minute later -- call number three --                                     OPERATOR RECORDING (OVER)                         The number you have dialed has been                          disconnected. If you think you've                          reached this message in error--               TIME CUT -- one minute later -- last call --                                     RECORDED VOICE (OVER)                         "You've reached the office of Simon                          Rawlins at Alliance Security Maritime                          Division. Paris office hours are                          from nine a.m. to six p.m. If this                          is an emergency, please call our                          twenty-four hour help line at..."               BOURNE hangs up. Scribbles down the number. Backing away and --               INT. TREADSTONE RESEARCH DESK -- NIGHT               CONKLIN and the RESEARCH TECHS jamming on the console --                                     CONKLIN                         -- let's check that Interpol window                          again --                                     RESEARCH TECH #1                         -- I'm on it --                                     CONKLIN                         -- I want that red car -- the girl --                          we gotta get lucky here --                                     RESEARCH TECH #2                         Sir.                              (Conklin turns --)                         I've got a code here from NSA --                          they're not gonna give us Keyhole                          satellite clearance unless we have                          sign-off from upstairs.               CONKLIN turns and --                                     ABBOTT                         No.                              (sitting there tensely)                         We can't risk it.                                     CONKLIN                         Our last sighting was forty-eight                          hours ago. Even if they stayed in                          the car, the grid is huge.                              (please)                         This is it. He's trained --                          conditioned -- they're built to                          disappear. You give him another day                          to run and we may never find him.                                     ABBOTT                         This doesn't go upstairs.               CONKLIN left hanging. ABBOTT clear on this one.               EXT. EST. SHOT -- LA DEFENSE -- DAY               Monolithic tech. Reflection city.               INT. ELEVATOR -- LA DEFENSE -- DAY               BOURNE dressed for success. Suit. Cleaned up good. Catching                his reflection in the elevator's mirrored ceiling. Nerves on                edge.               INT. OFFICE LOBBY -- DAY               ALLIANCE SECURITY MARITIME DIVISION. Glossy posters of yachts,                tankers and luxury sailboats. BOURNE standing there. Sucking                it up. God knows what he's walking into here and --               INT. ALLIANCE SECURITY -- DAY               A SECRETARY leading BOURNE through a suite of offices and                into --               INT. PETER RAWLINS' OFFICE -- DAY               Meet RAWLINS. He's a young, jolly Brit -- pink and overfed --                and quite shocked to see...                                     RAWLINS                         Mr. Kane...                              (hastily tidying up)                         Come right in... please... have a                          seat.                                     BOURNE                         Thanks.               BOURNE just trying to feel his way through this...                                     RAWLINS                         Well...                              (really thrown)                         I must admit, when my assistant told                          me you were here I was, really -- I                          was quite -- I was surprised.                                     BOURNE                         Really.                                     RAWLINS                         We thought you were gone for good.                                     BOURNE                         Did you?                                     RAWLINS                         Well, I mean it's a tough business,                          isn't it? Cutthroat.               A long awkward beat. Neither of them sure where to go.                                     RAWLINS                              (finally)                         Look, our bid -- it was competitive --                          but definitely at the high end of                          competitive -- when we didn't hear                          back from you, we did some re-analysis                          of the numbers, and honestly, we'd                          really like a chance to do a bit                          better.                              (pitching now)                         I'm assuming you're still in the                          market. It's the same vessel?                                     BOURNE                         Yes.                                     RAWLINS                         We just picked up a job quite like                          the one we were bidding for you.                          Gorgeous boat, hundred-and-seventy-                          five-foot pleasure cruiser. I think                          we learned a few things that might                          allow us to make our proposal for                          your job, as I said, a bit more                          competitive.                                     BOURNE                         Okay.               Another beat. Rawlins holding back until now...                                     RAWLINS                         Was it the break-in?                                     BOURNE                         Excuse me?                                     RAWLINS                         We also thought we hadn't heard from                          you -- we've had a bit of a publicity                          nightmare, people have been talking.                              (the meat)                         Our offices were broken into --                          vandalism mostly -- shortly after we                          last spoke.                                     BOURNE                         I hadn't heard.               RAWLINS smiles. Reset. Sales mode.                                     RAWLINS                         Let me get you a new copy of the                          proposal.                                     BOURNE                         That'd be great.               INT. A CAF… NEAR LA DEFENSE -- DAY               BOURNE entering. And there's MARIE in the back working a                payphone -- waving for him to sit -- she's onto something.               BOURNE sits. Pulls out the Alliance Security Brochures and                literature. Flipping through it. Boats. Water. He's getting                closer. Pictures of yachts and various security blurbs and a                list of references for huge yachts -- jobs they've done in                the past...                                     MARIE                         I found it.                              (standing there)                         It took six calls.                              (she's creeped out)                         I found Kane. I found the body.                                     BOURNE                         Let's go --                              (already standing --)                         We got to get away from this phone.               INT. PARIS MORGUE FRONT DESK -- NIGHT               THE TWO MORGUE ATTENDANTS watching BOURNE put down a hundred                dollar bill. MARIE standing a little off -- she will not be                comfortable in the morgue.                                     ATTENDANT #1                              (picking up the cash)                         What was the name again?                                     BOURNE                         Kane. John Michael Kane.                                     ATTENDANT #2                         It's number 121.                                     BOURNE                         I want to see the body.                                     ATTENDANT #1                         Our boss could come back. We're not                          supposed to.               BOURNE pulling out another hundred and --               MORGUE FREEZER ROOM               It's showtime. MARIE back by the door. BOURNE right on it.                ATTENDANT #1 pulling open the freezer and...               BOURNE sags. ATTENDANT #1 looking baffled.                                     MARIE                         What?               INSERT -- FREEZER #121 -- it's empty.                                     MORGUE BOSS (O.S.)                              (from behind them --)                         What the hell's going on here?               Here comes the boss back from his break -- a little drunk?                                     ATTENDANT #1                         This guy, he came to see the American,                          but the body, it's missing.                                     MORGUE BOSS                         They came last night.  His brother.                                     ATTENDANT #2                         It's not in the book.                                     MORGUE BOSS                         Who are these people?                              (now English to Bourne)                         Who are you? What's going on here?                                     BOURNE                         Where did this body go?                                     MORGUE BOSS                         I said, someone came last night --                              (big attitude now)                         Look, this isn't a carnival -- people                          call and they make an appointment                          and they follow the rules -- everyone                          signs in and out -- this is a serious                          place -- serious work -- it's not                          just to come in whenever you like --                                     BOURNE                              (like a shot)                         Shit, we didn't sign in.                                     MORGUE BOSS                         So get the hell out of here.                                     BOURNE                         Fine. But I'd like to sign in. In                          fact, I insist on it. Where's the                          book? I gotta sign in --                              (off and running now --)               Everybody following -- all of them confused -- and into --               FRONT DESK AREA               BOURNE there first -- all forward motion here -- balls out --                                     BOURNE                         Is this it? --                              (the book)                         -- this is it, right? --                                     MORGUE BOSS                         -- slow down -- you can't just take                          the book like that --                                     BOURNE                         -- don't sweat it, I have a pen --                          no problem -- just let me find the                          page --                              (then quick to Marie)                         -- honey, why don't you wait for me                          outside, okay? --               MARIE trying to take the hint, but she's curious what he's                doing --                                     MORGUE BOSS                         -- we have rules here, this is a                          very serious place -- I'm the one                          who decides who gets in here, okay? --                                     BOURNE                         -- what do I? -- I put the name of                          the person I came to see? --                                     MORGUE BOSS                         -- this is serious business down                          here and we cannot have people coming                          and going --                                     BOURNE                         -- here we go -- I found it --               But he's not writing -- he's ripping -- tearing the page out                of the book --                                     MORGUE BOSS                         -- what are you? -- what are you                          doing? -- you crazy fuck -- you ripped                          the book! -- you stupid fucki--                              (no chance to finish                               this, because --)               BOURNE just slammed him against the wall. Hard. Like a tractor                hit him. And fast.               And that shuts up the room.               THE TWO ATTENDANTS rushing to help their boss --               BOURNE grabbing MARIE and pulling her out the door --               EXT. PARIS STREET -- NIGHT               Moments after the morgue. BOURNE striding away. MARIE                struggling to keep up. And BOURNE is different now -- zoning                in -- he's close -- he's hardening --                                     MARIE                         What are you doing? --                              (he's scaring her)                         -- Jason -- stop -- talk to me...               BOURNE ignoring her -- ripping through the Alliance Security                brochures -- scanning them as he walks --                                     MARIE                         -- I don't know what you're doing                          and you're scaring me -- what are                          you looking for? -- what just happened                          in there? --                                     BOURNE                         Nykwana Wombosi.                              (he stops, holding up                               the brochure --)                                     MARIE                         What is that?                                     BOURNE                         It's a name. Mr. Wombosi owns a thirty                          million dollar yacht. He's the proud                          owner of an Alliance Security package.                              (handing her the                               brochure --)                         He also paid a visit to the morgue                          to see John Michael Kane.                              (the ripped-out page --)                                     MARIE                         What does that mean?                              (but he's walking                               again --)                         Jason, what does that mean?                              (she's trying to catch                               up, but he's walking                               really fast --)                         Jason, please... who is he?                                     BOURNE                         I don't know.                              (he's not turning                               back again --)                                     MARIE                         So what are we doing?                                     BOURNE                         Go back to the hotel.               MARIE just stops. Reeling.               BOURNE walking away. Into Paris night and --               INT. CONKLIN'S TREADSTONE OFFICE -- DAY/NIGHT?               ABBOTT alone here. On the phone. Looking up to see --                                     ZORN                         They found him. They found Bourne.               ABBOTT jumps off the call. Eyes never leaving ZORN.                                     ABBOTT                         Where?                                     ZORN                         You better come in.               EXT. L'ETOILE -- NIGHT               THE PROFESSOR -- A MOTORCYCLE -- screaming through traffic                and --               INT. WOMBOSI'S SECURITY ROOM -- NIGHT               VIDEO MONITOR -- there's BOURNE -- staring up and --                                     DEAUVAGE                         Jesus fuck, what is this?               INT. TREADSTONE RESEARCH DESK -- NIGHT               VIDEO MONITOR -- different angle -- more clandestine -- but                same deal -- there's BOURNE just standing there and --                                     ABBOTT                         Omigod.               EXT. WOMBOSI COMPOUND -- NIGHT               BOURNE live. On the street. Bathed in a streetlight. Staring                up at a security camera.               Total hero moment.               I'm here. I'm waiting. I know you're watching.               EXT. WOMBOSI COMPOUND -- NIGHT               Confusion to say the least -- WOMBOSI -- pistol in hand --                moving as fast as he can through the clutter -- KIDS                scattering as he follows DEAUVAGE -- racing for THE SECURITY                ROOM --               INT. TREADSTONE COMMUNICATIONS ROOM -- NIGHT               CONKLIN -- ZORN -- ABBOTT -- THE TECHS -- everyone plugged                into the tension here --                                     CONKLIN                         -- how long? --                                     COMM TECH #1                         -- minutes -- he's close --               EXT. NEUILLY STREETS -- NIGHT               THE PROFESSOR on the speeding cycle -- closing in fast and --               EXT. WOMBOSI'S COMPOUND -- NIGHT               BOURNE standing there as the FRONT GATE opens. The moment.                The big deep breath. He's walking in --               INT. TREADSTONE COMMUNICATIONS DESK -- NIGHT               Uglier by the second -- desperation madness --                                     ABBOTT                         -- he went inside! --                                     CONKLIN                              (to Abbott)                         -- if we can get a clean shot --                                     ABBOTT                         -- inside the house? --                                     CONKLIN                         -- that's what they're trained for --                          just a surgical strike.                                     ABBOTT                         Forget it.                                     CONKLIN                         What do you want to do?                                     ABBOTT                         We don't know what we're into!                                     CONKLIN                         We're in the shitter, man! Pick your                          poison. Maybe he's in there to finish                          the job. Maybe he's working for                          Wombosi. Maybe they want to go on TV                          together. Every possibility sucks --                          we've got to move!               INT. WOMBOSI COMPOUND MAIN HALLWAY -- NIGHT               DEAUVAGE and BODYGUARD #1 giving BOURNE a serious pat down.                                     BOURNE                         Is he here?               DEAUVAGE doesn't answer -- spinning BOURNE around -- they're                really going over him --               INT. TREADSTONE COMMUNICATIONS ROOM -- NIGHT               CONKLIN on his feet -- ABBOTT beet red -- this is getting                loud --                                     CONKLIN                         You don't have the stones for this.                          You people come down here and wink                          and whisper and we send these guys                          out and get it done. And you're clear.                          And the guys upstairs get what they                          want. And the whole bunch of you are                          so stuffed on deniability it's coming                          out of your ears.                              (gauntlet)                         Well, you know what? You're here                          now. What do you want to do?               ABBOTT just shaking his head no.               And CONKLIN snaps -- suddenly he's over the console -- there's                the button -- and he's pressing it and --               EXT. NEUILLY ROOFTOPS -- NIGHT               THE PROFESSOR in position -- roof of the house next door --                hum -- hum -- hum --               It's the E-PHONE PAGER -- he's just been activated and --               INT. WOMBOSI'S COMPOUND HALLWAY -- NIGHT               BOURNE being marched toward the throne room doors -- DEAUVAGE                and BODYGUARD #1 flanking him -- KIDS and WIVES staring as                he passes -- the way you'd look at a prisoner on the way to                the gallows --               THE BIG DOORS thrown open wide and --               WOMBOSI on the throne.                                     WOMBOSI                         Come in.                              (an imperial gesture)                         Please...               BOURNE steps up to the plate.                                     WOMBOSI                         Did you bring investment advice for                          me tonight? It was tax shelters,                          wasn't it? Swiss debenture-swaps.                                     BOURNE                         MPG Capital.                                     WOMBOSI                         I think investment advice from a                          dead man, it's a bad idea.                              (beat)                         How does it feel to be dead?                                     BOURNE                         It's a lot more stressful than I                          thought.               KIDS have started sneaking into the room -- DEAUVAGE is trying                to scoot them out but --                                     WOMBOSI                         -- no -- no, let them in! -- let                          them in.                              (to the kids)                         Come in -- on y va -- come in...                              (to Bourne)                         I think everyone wants to see the                          dead man.               BOURNE watching the kids -- they are all staring --                                     WOMBOSI                         What do you do?                              (on his feet now --)                         You get an appointment with me? You                          make sure it's on the boat? You come                          visit me -- you pitch me this bullshit                          investment package. You drink my                          water -- eat my bread -- play with                          my children -- and what? -- two nights                          later you come back and you put this                          death --                              (slamming something                               down onto the throne --)                         -- you put this in my engine room!               There is A BOMB on the throne now.                                     WOMBOSI                         So this is a different kind of                          meeting.                              (steam building)                         Maybe now we talk some truth, okay?                          One dead man to another.               BOURNE -- caught off guard as -- WOMBOSI suddenly rips away                his jacket -- so hard that he tears straight through to the                shirt --               BOURNE'S BACK -- bare -- two bullet scars -- still raw --                                     WOMBOSI                         You see this?                              (calling to Deauvage --)                         I told you my shot was better!                                     DEAUVAGE                         He went in the water -- how did he                          live?                                     WOMBOSI                         No, no no...                              (and he means this --)                         This is a strong killer. This is a                          crazy strong killer. Oh, yeah...                              (circling)                         To make a killer that looks like                          you? This young? This face?                              (he means this)                         It's bloody fucking amazing.               BOURNE imploding -- this news -- the kids staring at him --                the bomb -- it's all getting loud around him --                                     BOURNE                         Who do you think sent me?                                     WOMBOSI                         I know who sent you. I don't know                          why.                              (this could get                               physical at any moment                               now --)                         I learned many, many things from the                          CIA. Many things. I learned the way                          they think.                              (beat)                         Was the bomb on my boat supposed to                          go off or not?               BOURNE distracted by the kids -- these faces -- it's...                                     WOMBOSI                         You didn't set the bomb. Why?               BOURNE not sure -- about any of it --                                     WOMBOSI                         Was this a game or a fuck up?                                     BOURNE                         I don't know.                                     WOMBOSI                         Get the kids out!               He doesn't have to say it twice -- they know the drill --                they're gone.                                     WOMBOSI                         And the door.               DEAUVAGE closing the doors and as he does --               THE PROFESSOR ATTACKS...                   ...................................................               THIS SCENE HAS NOT BEEN WRITTEN               It's a shootout.               The Professor is infinitely more talented at this than the                bodyguards.               Bourne needs to get out of there -- without looking wimpy --               No children are harmed.               As the Professor rallies -- he will shoot Wombosi -- he will                find Bourne's jacket left on the floor (in which later he                will find a clue leading him to Belleville) and last but                hardly least, he will take a parting shot at the bomb still                sitting there on the throne.               There will be a huge, trailer-worthy explosion.               This might not want to be very long. There is an extensive                action sequence just around the corner.               So Bourne escapes. Physically he's just weary. Emotionally                he's fucked.               All of that happens and we cut to --                   ...................................................               INT. TREADSTONE COMMUNICATIONS DESK -- NIGHT               CONKLIN flipping out -- THE PROFESSOR is not responding --                                     CONKLIN                         -- code him again -- punch it in --                                     COM TECH #1                         -- he's not responding --                                     CONKLIN                         -- the paging unit must be damaged --                                     COM TECH #2                         -- we just ran a remote diagnostic,                          sir, it's not the unit --               ABBOTT looks like he might puke. ZORN watching his career                burn to the ground around him.                                     ABBOTT                         What are you doing?               CONKLIN grabbing shit -- like a madman --                                     CONKLIN                         I'm going to Paris.                                     ABBOTT                         No you're not. You're not going                          anywhere. I'm shutting this down.                                     CONKLIN                         You're not doing shit. You're so                          scared you can't even think.                                     ABBOTT                         You just blew up a house in Paris!                          This program is over. Call it off.                                     CONKLIN                         I can't call it off. He's not                          responding. Get out of my way.               CONKLIN splits and --               INT. THE HOTEL ROOM -- NIGHT               It's really late. BOURNE enters the room. MARIE in the corner.                Smoked out. Cried out. Lifed out.               Silence. Not a word.               His shirt is torn to shit. He scraped-up -- blood here and                there. He moves past her into --               THE BATHROOM               His hands shaking as he tries to wash them. He bags it.               THE ROOM               BOURNE comes out. And there's a long silence until --                                     MARIE                         It doesn't matter who you were before.                          It's who you want to be. That's all                          that matters.                              (is he listening?)                         We have this money. We have what we                          have. I had nothing before and now,                          I don't know, maybe I have more,                          maybe it's nothing, but...                              (he looks over)                         I say we leave here. We leave this                          place. We go until we can't go                          anymore.                                     BOURNE                         You could do that?                                     MARIE                         Yes. That's who I want to be.               BOURNE nods. Turns off the light. Takes her hand. And they                lay in bed. Just laying there.               INT. PARIS SOMEWHERE -- NIGHT               THE PROFESSOR cooping somewhere. Tending to his wounds.                Ignoring his pager. He's slipped off the grid.               INT. HOTEL ROOM -- DAWN               BOURNE and MARIE packing up to hit the road. Together.                   ...................................................               DOUG'S ROUGH DRAFT OF THE BIG ACTION SEQUENCE               INT. HOTEL DE LA PAIX -- LOBBY -- DAY               MARIE dropping off the key. Hope hangs in the air --                                     CLERK                         xxxxxx...                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx               BOURNE enters. He's got the black duffel. Car keys.                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx.                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx               And now they're headed for the door. Something doesn't feel                right for BOURNE -- and then he notices --                                     BOURNE                         Stop where you are.                                     MARIE                         What?               Bourne turns back to the CLERK.                                     BOURNE                         Where's the dog?                                     CLERK                         My husband's out looking for him.                                     BOURNE                         He run away often?                                     CLERK                         That old beast? Miss his breakfast?                          Not a chance.                              (returning to cleaning)                         It's always something, right?               Suddenly -- just like that -- everything's different --                                     BOURNE                         Get in the basement.                                     CLERK                         What?                                     BOURNE                              (to Marie)                         Get everyone down in the basement.               Now MARIE doesn't need a second warning --                                     CLERK                         What the hell're you talking about?                                     BOURNE                         You're in danger. All of you. I have                          no time to explain.                                     CLERK                         Wait a minute --                                     BOURNE                         I'm sorry.               -- those words -- the way he said it -- she's grabbing her                purse, clearing out of the room. Slamming the door behind                her -- click -- it's locked.                                     MARIE                         Jason...               No answer -- too busy -- reaching under the check-in desk,                coming up with -- A SHOT GUN, an old one, but nonetheless a                gun --                                     MARIE                         Who is it? Who's out there?               And now BOURNE is moving, pulling open a drawer.  A box of                shells. Filling his pockets.                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx                                     BOURNE                         I won't let that happen.               And he is moving down the small hallway.  Away from the front                door -- towards the back door under the stairs.               EXT. HOTEL DE LA PAIX -- COURTYARD -- DAY               THE HOTEL BACK DOOR -- kicked open -- BOURNE coming out of                the house -- coming hard -- and --               The small courtyard is empty -- but now the ALARM is going                off -- and BOURNE turns back to MARIE -- races to grab her                as --               RATATATAT -- The FRONT DOOR -- WINDOWS -- ARE SHREDDED and --                here comes the PROFESSOR.                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx               And now they are running, across this little courtyard. To a                wall -- BOURNE is up, on it -- reaching down for MARIE --                grabbing her -- swinging her over the wall as --               ABM!!! The PROFESSOR SHOOTS.                                     BOURNE                         Go!               MARIE takes off running. BOURNE leans over the wall, FIRES                BACK TWICE -- RATATAT -- The WALL IS SHREDDED. BOURNE takes                off running -- reloading on the fly.               Rounds a bend, is chambering two rounds when he sees -- a                WOMAN is in her kitchen -- staring at him -- no time to                explain -- he turns back --               The PROFESSOR is just vaulting over the wall. BOURNE FIRES                TWICE -- BAM! BAM! But the spray is too wide from this                distance. Windows are shattered to both sides of him but --                the PROFESSOR stumbles but keeps going -- blood on his face                now -- RATATAT --               BOURNE has to move. Reloading his almost useless gun. Reaching                MARIE -- facing a choice and they climb a wall -- FLOWER                POTS EXPLODE around them but they make it -- now --               RUNNING IN A LABYRINTH -- right -- then left -- through a                small staircase. LEAPING a wall -- landing on a STEEP ROOF --                sliding, falling, crashing to the ground in --               A SMALL COURTYARD -- steep walls on all sides. But there's a                large window -- and it's open. And they step through and                find themselves --               INT. CHINESE RESTAURANT -- BATHROOM -- DAY               They close the window behind them -- catch their breath --                                     MARIE                         Did we lose them?               BOURNE shakes his head. Tucks the gun under his coat.                                     MARIE                         Who is it?                                     BOURNE                         We have to keep moving.               And now he is opening the door -- they step into --               INT. CHINESE RESTAURANT -- DAY               STARTLED KITCHEN WORKERS stare as BOURNE and MARIE calmly                walk out of the bathroom and head towards the front door of                the empty restaurant. Quiet.               And then they open the door to the street and --               EXT. BELLEVILLE -- COMMERCIAL STREET -- DAY               The first thing we notice is noise. The street is burgeoning                with life. The second thing we notice are SIRENS. POLICE                CARS approaching. BOURNE and MARIE head down the street,                blending in.               Up ahead -- TWO POLICE CARS snaking through traffic. BOURNE                steers them off this crowded street.                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx               EXT. BELLEVILLE -- QUIET STREET -- DAY               And BOURNE and MARIE are hurrying down this street when --                BAM -- The PROFESSOR comes out of a building -- across and                down the street. No time to hide -- he's seen them -- he's                FIRING.               BOURNE tackles MARIE to the ground behind a car. RATATAT --                The PROFESSOR is literally shredding it. And now BOURNE is                moving --                                     MARIE                         What are you doing?               And BOURNE is on the offensive. BAM! BAM! Moving towards the                PROFESSOR who is ducking behind cars on the other side.               They are shredding the street -- FIRING ruthlessly at each                other and -- NOW THE POLICE ARE HERE -- BLOCKING both ends                of the street. GUNS are drawn -- BOURNE's vulnerable on two                flanks. The COPS are YELLING. And now --               THE PROFESSOR BLASTS the COPS -- And now things have changed.               THREE WAY FIREFIGHT and BOURNE grabs MARIE and they dive                into --               INT. SMALL EPICERIE -- DAY               And the PROFESSOR shreds the store as BOURNE attemps to fire                back. SHIT flying everywhere in here -- hard to see and --                The PROFESSOR is advancing on them -- cops are no match for                his fire power. They move to the back -- kick open a door --               INT. HIGHWALLED COURTYARD -- DAY               BOURNE and MARIE cross this small courtyard, the PROFESSOR                is right on their heels. CRASH through a door -- and now                they are in --               INT. SMALL SWEATSHOP -- DAY               COUPLE of ASIAN WOMEN sewing in here. One MAN in charge --                and BOURNE and MARIE charging through -- the MAN about to                say something -- but now the PROFESSOR is on their tail and --               INT. SMALL AFRICAN SHOP -- DAY               Making god knows what in here -- vats of something. Small                grouping of workers -- BOURNE shutting the door behind him --                it's shredded with BULLET HOLES. BOURNE and MARIE racing to                the next door as -- BAM -- the PROFESSOR kicks the door open --                BOURNE about to fire -- but there is a WOMAN right behind                the PROFESSOR! Can't do it -- turns to run as -- RATATATAT --               The PROFESSOR FIRES as BOURNE and MARIE dive into --               INT. LIVE POULTRY SHOP -- DAY               And now CHICKEN feathers are flying everywhere -- the glass                at the front of the door is shattering. BOURNE and MARIE                make it through the gauntlet.               EXT. BELLEVILLE -- STREET -- DAY               And BOURNE and MARIE are running. And he is reaching into                his pocket -- fishing around -- and just as he pulls out the                car keys -- we recognize this as the street they parked their                car on and --               BY MARIE'S CAR               BOURNE unlocks the door -- pops MARIE's open. And --               THERE'S A COP -- yelling at them and -- BOURNE hits the gas --                they fly out of their parking space -- BAM!! The COP fires,                shattering their windshield and there -- up ahead -- THE                PROFESSOR coming out -- about to FIRE -- BOURNE aims for him --                forces him to dive out of the way and -- ONE QUICK MOVE around                a TRUCK and they are free.               INT. THE LITTLE RED CAR               BOURNE and MARIE looking back nervously -- so far all over --               ON THE STREET               The PROFESSOR looking around. PEOPLE staring at him -- covered                in blood -- the COP racing up -- yelling -- not yelling for                long because the PROFESSOR is firing at him and --               Now the PROFESSOR is moving -- not running -- just a swift                walk and now he's past the truck -- and --               A MOTORCYCLIST comes flying down the street -- oblivious --                going way too fast for these streets and -- the PROFESSOR                swings his gun stock like a bat -- takes him out -- clean                and smooth -- bike crashing to the ground and --               The PROFESSOR grabs the bike and takes off -- SHOOTING at                TWO POLICE CARS just racing to the scene and we are into --               EXT. BELLEVILLE BLVD -- DAY               HIGH SPEED CAR CHASE. And BOURNE better do some fancy driving                because here comes the PROFESSOR -- and he's a lot faster --                much better armed.               INT. MARIE'S CAR               BOURNE driving. MARIE looking back -- seeing the PROFESSOR                gain on them --                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx               And -- THE PROFESSOR FIRES -- SHREDS the back off their car --                                     MARIE                         Give me the gun --               And now she's got his shotgun, leaning out the window.                                     BOURNE                         Wait 'till he's close.               BOURNE swerves, up on the sidewalk back onto the street --                slaloms through the traffic -- racing towards an intersection                and --               IN THE INTERSECTION               CARS coming the other way, BOURNE just makes it through --                the PROFESSOR tries to squeeze through -- skidding and --               CRACK! The PROFESSOR hits the front of a car sideways on his                bike -- he is THROWN clear through the intersection, right                into the windshield of an oncoming car and --               He gets up, grabs his gun and works his way towards his bike                and now we see --               EXT. VARIOUS SHOTS AROUND PARIS -- DAY               COPS are mobilizing -- swarming into this area and --               BACK TO THE CAR CHASE --               BOURNE and MARIE pick up a few cops on their tail -- shed                all of them -- the last car goes into an EXPLOSIVE FLIP --                the PROFESSOR is now right behind them. And now we are into --               CRAZY CAR CHASE WITH COPS RIGHT ON THEIR TAIL               BOURNE, MARIE and the PROFESSOR leave a trail of totaled                cars that the cops have to try and navigate through -- finally                saying fuck it and hitting a few cars themselves and now we                are into --               CAR CHASE THROUGH NARROW STREETS               MARIE'S CAR and the MOTORCYCLE can pass where the police                cars cannot. BOURNE may be able to shed the cops, but not                the PROFESSOR. And now one quick move and they are --               EXT. QUAI -- DAY               Racing against traffic up the Seine. Past the Louvre. COPS                pursuing on the other side of the river. BOURNE and the                PROFESSOR leaving behind a trail of carnage. And now --               The PROFESSOR is pulling up along side them -- one lane over.                 Both swerving to avoid oncoming cars and --               MARIE FIRES -- TWICE -- TAKES out a few windshields. The                PROFESSOR fires at the same time -- MARIE'S CAR DOOR -- GONE --                she's totally exposed but --               THE PROFESSOR -- his BIKE is SPOUTING GAS -- one of the                pellets nailed his tank.               BOURNE AND MARIE --                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx               THE PROFESSOR --               No problem -- he's unwrapping a piece of duct tape from the                barrel of his gun -- two seconds and the hole is patched and --                BOURNE AND MARIE -- the side of the car is completely gone --                the PROFESSOR is gaining -- across the river dozens of police                cars are racing alongside. Many more can be seen on their                side -- a road block ahead -- running out of options and --               BOURNE turns hard -- crashes over the sidewalk and flies                down a side street. A POLICE CAR pulls out behind them --                the PROFESSOR can't stop -- skidding hard, turning the bike                sideways, skidding out -- sliding across the ground and                BAMMM!!! SMASHING into a GLASS PHONE BOOTH which shatters.               And he's up -- lifting up his bike and --               BOURNE AND MARIE               SIX POLICE CARS on their tail -- more joining. Every street                they look down has POLICE CARS racing in parallel. Running                out of options and in the background --               THE PROFESSOR is back in the game -- passing the police cars                and up ahead --               THE ROAD IS BLOCKED. POLICE ROAD BLOCK -- cops with guns.                Gotta act quick and -- BOURNE turns hard left -- there's a                metro staircase -- only way out and --               THEY BOUNCE down the stairs. CRASH through the doors down                below.               THE FIRST POLICE CAR -- no way he's following. SLAMMING on                his brakes. SKIDDING to a halt -- SKIDDING sideways -- gonna                stop in time -- just at the edge of the steps and then --               THE SECOND POLICE CAR isn't braking -- T-BONES the first car --                BAM!!! -- sends it rolling sideways down the steps until it                crashes to a halt at the bottom -- upside down.               THE PROFESSOR -- he's turning -- heading for a different set                of stairs. BOURNE AND MARIE -- crashing through the turnstiles --                people diving out of their way and --               AT THE STAIRCASE -- THE WINDOW of the POLICE CAR is kicked                out and -- TWO VERY ANGRY COPS emerge -- pull their guns out --                head into the station. BOURNE and MARIE's world just got a                lot more dangerous and --               THE PROFESSOR is racing down the other staircase -- an up                escalator -- people diving out of the way as --               BOURNE and MARIE slalom through the station -- suddenly --                there's the PROFESSOR -- parallel corridor -- metal barricades                keep them separated. PROFESSOR FIRING.               UP AHEAD -- a horizon line -- BOURNE guns it -- a steep                staircase and -- THEY FLY down the steps -- landing on --               THE METRO PLATFORM               The PROFESSOR lands on the other side -- both racing down                the platform -- PROFESSOR tearing up the wall behind them                and -- HERE COMES A TRAIN -- on BOURNE and MARIE's side --                travelling the opposite way -- temporary refuge. Not for                long -- there's no way out on this end of the platform. They                skid to a halt -- just as --THE TRAIN DOORS OPEN -- STARTLED                STRAPHANGERS stare at BOURNE and MARIE as they stop onto the                platform -- take off running.               THE PROFESSOR has to turn his bike around. He's quick -- but                it gives BOURNE and MARIE a two second head start.               BOURNE AND MARIE almost at the other end of the platform --                gunfire ripping up the windows behind them. Gonna go for the                steps -- but here come --               THE ANGRY COPS -- remember them? -- the ones who took the                ride down the steps -- they're firing now and --               BOURNE AND MARIE turn back -- the PROFESSOR is firing and                there is only one option --               INT. METRO CAR -- DAY               BOURNE and MARIE into the conductor booth. People diving off                the train as BOURNE hits the YELLOW BUTTON and -- the TRAIN                STARTS ROLLING -- doors still open -- they disappear into                the protection of the tunnel walls -- then BOURNE hits the                button to close the doors and -- THE PROFESSOR -- watching                the trains accelerate out of the station -- and now he's                racing his bike down the platform -- opposite the motion of                the train and -- here comes the end of the train and --THE                PROFESSOR throws his bike into a skidding 180 and skids off                the platform all in one move -- landing hard on the tracks                but facing the right direction and now he's accelerating                towards the train -- just as an oncoming train is racing                into the station and -- HE LEAPS onto the back of the train                in the nick of time. His GUN CLATTERS to the tracks.               IN THE LAST METRO CAR               The window is shattered and the PROFESSOR lets himself in --                wind whipping through his hair from the shattered windows.                 And --               IN THE FIRST METRO CAR               BOURNE and MARIE finally getting a breather. BOURNE keeps                looking back -- nothing -- the train is deserted. Finally --                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx               And ahead -- daylight -- the train tracks go above ground                and as the train hits daylight -- we see the PROFESSOR                directly behind BOURNE on the other side of the glass and --               CRASH! The PROFESSOR grabs BOURNE through the glass, ramming                his head into the metal as --               BOURNE grabs the knob, swings the door open and CRUSHES the                PROFESSOR -- CRUSHES him again and now he is free and --               BOURNE turns, pulls up the shotgun and -- the PROFESSOR kicks                it out of his hands -- it clatters to the ground and now we                have a beat -- THE TRAIN CAR races across the Bir Hakeim                bridge -- all of Paris laid out behind them. BOURNE and the                PROFESSOR squaring off -- both looking at the gun -- realizing                there's no chance for either one of them to get it and --               A BRUTAL RUTHLESS FIGHT breaks out. BOURNE's motivated --                the PROFESSOR's crazy -- makes it a pretty even match. Looks                like it could go on for a little while when suddenly --               BAM!!! The PROFESSOR drops to the ground -- behind him --                MARIE wields the shot gun.                                     MARIE                         xxxxxx                                     BOURNE                         xxxxxx               And BOURNE takes the gun from her -- standing there --                reloading -- both barrels -- raising the gun -- aiming it --                   ...................................................               INT. MOVING METRO CAR -- DAY               THE PROFESSOR sitting there. Like a dummy. Like a puppet                that's been propped up. He's fucked -- his whole side ravaged                with shot -- his arm shredded -- hand barely there -- blood                flowing fast --                                     BOURNE                         Who else is coming?               THE PROFESSOR staring up at the gun. Stunned. Doomed. Mouth                dry. Eyes struggling to make sense of the chaos.                                     BOURNE                         I won't ask again.                                     PROFESSOR                         I work alone. Like you...                              (confused beat)                         ...we always work alone.                                     BOURNE                         What do you mean?                                     PROFESSOR                         Who are you? Rome? Paris?                              (Bourne is just staring --)                         Treadstone... both of us... I was                          warned but...                                     BOURNE                         Treadstone?                                     PROFESSOR                         ...which one are you?...               BOURNE lowering the weapon -- head swimming --                                     BOURNE                         Paris. I live in Paris...                                     PROFESSOR                         ...headaches... you have that... I                          get such bad headaches...                                     BOURNE                         Yes.                                     PROFESSOR                         ...it's a problem...               He's losing blood fast -- things inside him seizing up --                                     BOURNE                         Treadstone.                                     PROFESSOR                         ...or in a car... when it's dark...                          something with the headlights...                              (circuits exploding)                         ...pills, right? Treadstone had those                          pills...                                     BOURNE                         What is Treadstone?                                     PROFESSOR                         ...what did you do?... you must've                          really fucked up...                                     BOURNE                         I think so.                                     PROFESSOR                         ...someone said caffeine -- for a                          headache... doesn't seem...                                     BOURNE                         What do they want me to do?                                     PROFESSOR                         ...they won't let you go...                                     BOURNE                         Why?               THE PROFESSOR -- coughing -- a spasm -- helpless --                                     PROFESSOR                         Look at this...                              (all the blood --)                         ...least you have a woman....               And he's gone. Like that. Sitting there. And BOURNE looks                paralyzed too. Kneeling there. Stalled out.                                     MARIE                         Jason...               BOURNE doesn't answer -- can't, because there's this sound --                this pulsing hum -- BOURNE reaching into THE PROFESSOR'S                POCKET and --               INSERT -- THE E-PHONE PAGER -- covered in blood -- hum --                hum -- hum -- BOURNE'S HAND wiping at the blood that covers                the display --               BOURNE staring at it. Very familiar to him.                                     MARIE                         We've got to go.               INT. METRO CAR -- DAY               BOURNE and MARIE racing back through the cars -- away from                the scene of the crime and --               EXT. ABOVE-GROUND METRO PLATFORM -- DAY               THE SHATTERED TRAIN pulling into the station -- doors opening --                SCREAMS ECHOING through the station from up the platform and --               BOURNE and MARIE getting off the last car and --               EXT. STREET/ALLEY NEAR THE PLATFORM -- DAY               Two minutes later. BOURNE and MARIE -- exhausted -- beat --                Everything all at once --                                     BOURNE                         Take this.               She turns. He's holding the locker key.                                     BOURNE                         Take it.               But she doesn't move.                                     MARIE                         And that's it?                                     BOURNE                         If you're lucky.                              (it's hanging there)                         Take it.                              (beat)                         There's enough in there to make a                          life. Any life. Just get out now.                          Get low. Stay low.                              (beat)                         Take it.               She takes it. Staring at him. Simply refusing to cry.                                     MARIE                         What was I thinking, right?                                     BOURNE                         I can't protect you anymore.                                     MARIE                         What about you?                                     BOURNE                         I'm gonna find the end of this.                              (beat)                         I can't protect you.               MARIE takes one last look. And she's running --               BOURNE hangs there a moment -- listening to her go -- and                then he pulls out THE E-PHONE PAGER. And it's pulsing like                crazy.               BOURNE flips open the shell. There's a keypad in there.               Holding it. Like a missing organ.               INT. THE ZURICH AIRPORT MOTEL ROOM -- DAY               Remember MANHEIM? He's still there waiting. And his pager                goes off, and --               INT. TREADSTONE PARIS -- NIGHT               A safehouse -- CONKLIN filling a burn bag -- racing --                everything's going --               EXT. TREADSTONE PARIS -- NIGHT               CONKLIN done with the dirty work -- out into the street --               As he's about to leave -- he hears a sound -- a familiar                sound -- hum -- hum -- hum --               He cross the street -- looks down to the Quai below --               Holy shit -- there's one of his E-PHONE PAGERS --               He goes down -- picks it up --               And now --                                     BOURNE                         What did you do to me?               CONKLIN wheels around. There he is. Right behind him.                                     CONKLIN                         What did I do? What've you done? Do                          you have any idea? Any conception?                          What you've destroyed? Do you have                          any idea how much time and work --                          how many people have their lives                          wrapped up in this?               So now you know.                                     BOURNE                         Are you Treadstone?                                     CONKLIN                         Am I Treadstone? Me?                              (peering at him closely                               now --)                         What the hell're you talking about?               BOURNE showing nothing -- or is he trying too hard not to?                                     BOURNE                         What did you do to me?                                     CONKLIN                         What did I do? I spent thirty million                          dollars on you. I spent three years                          finding you -- four years training                          you --                              (incredulous)                         What did I do?                              (staring now)                         What in the name of God have you                          been doing, Jason?                                     BOURNE                         I don't know.                                     CONKLIN                         They're right about you, aren't they?                          You're fried.                              (on it now)                         You really don't know what's going                          on, do you?                                     BOURNE                         I know you've been trying to kill                          me.                                     CONKLIN                         Of course. We had to try. We didn't                          know what was wrong.                              (warming to this --)                         We didn't know you were in trouble.                                     BOURNE                         So now you know.                                     CONKLIN                         So it's time to go home.                                     BOURNE                         That's all I get?                                     CONKLIN                         We'll make you better. We can put                          the pieces back. We can do that.                                     BOURNE                         I don't think so.                                     CONKLIN                         We have to go home, Jason.                                     BOURNE                         Jason Bourne is dead.                                     CONKLIN                         There never was a Jason Bourne.                              (that gets him)                         You have to come with me. It's the                          only way. We can give it back to                          you...                                     BOURNE                         Keep it.                              (and he's walking --)                                     CONKLIN                         Jason...                              (trying to follow --)                         They can't let you go...                                     BOURNE                         That'll be their second worst mistake.               And with that, BOURNE scrambles up a wall -- like it's nothing --                CONKLIN just left there -- on the Quai -- in the dark --               EXT. BANKS OF THE SEINE -- NIGHT               BOURNE walking away -- faster and faster --               EXT. BANKS OF THE SEINE NEARBY -- NIGHT               MANHEIM -- A CAR PARKED IN THE DARKNESS -- sitting alone                with his briefcase. Opening it. There's his gun.               BOURNE -- walking -- deeper into the darkness and --               MANHEIM -- in the dark car -- loading the weapon -- calm --                steady -- methodical and --               BOURNE -- walking and --               MANHEIM -- stepping out of the car -- closing the door quietly --                deep in the shadows and --               BOURNE -- still coming -- the darkest part of the path just                ahead and --               MANHEIM -- raising the gun and --               THE CAMERA SPINS TO HIS TARGET AND --               IT'S CONKLIN! -- just climbing back up from the Quai --               MANHEIM -- the gun -- phftt -- phftt -- phftt --               CONKLIN -- three holes -- head -- heart -- gut -- his body                dropping like a stone beside his car.               MANHEIM walks over. Looks down. Point blank -- phftt -- that                makes it four and --               INT. TREADSTONE COMMUNICATIONS DESK -- NIGHT               ABBOTT and ZORN alone in the dark. As a red light begins                pulsing on the console.               That red light means Conklin's dead.               After a moment, ZORN moves to the console and shuts the light                off.               EXT. BANKS OF THE SEINE -- NIGHT               BOURNE still walking. And he's just gonna keep on going, as                we --                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. CIA OPERATIONS CONFERENCE ROOM -- DAY               MARSHALL at the head of the table. A cadre of INTEL HONCHOS.                                     ABBOTT (O.S.)                         The Treadstone project has actually                          already been terminated. It was                          designed primarily as a sort of                          advanced game program...               ABBOTT in the hot seat. ZORN right there beside him.                                     ABBOTT                         ...We'd hoped it might build into a                          good training platform, but quite                          honestly, for a strictly theoretical                          exercise, we thought it was far too                          expensive. The cost-benefit ratio                          was just too high. It's been all but                          decommissioned at this point.                                     MARSHALL                         All right, what's next?               ZORN handing ABBOTT the next hundred pages.                                     ABBOTT                         Okay, this is Blackbriar. Blackbriar                          is a joint, DOD, communications                          program that we really feel has good                          traction to it.               ABBOTT is just gonna go on and on and on.               EXT. MARTHA'S VINEYARD -- DAY               Gorgeous Summer day. A SCOOTER RENTAL SHACK near the beach.               SIX MONTHS LATER               MARIE coming out of the shack with two helmets. Handing them                to A HAPPY COUPLE waiting there on their scooters.               THE HAPPY COUPLE rides off.               MARIE turns back and --               There's BOURNE. A new look. A smile.                                     MARIE                         Can I help you?                                     BOURNE                         This your store?                                     MARIE                         Yes.                                     BOURNE                         Think I could rent a scooter?                                     MARIE                         You have ID?                                     BOURNE                         Not really.               Beat. He smiles.                                     MARIE                         It's not a problem.               Her turn to smile. And we...                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
\ No newline at end of file
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+++ b/unformated_scripts/Script_Bourne Supremacy, The.txt	
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+The Bourne Supremacy 
+Compiled from drafts 
+Dated 
+7/11/03 
+9/17/03 
+10/13/03 
+By 
+Tony Gilroy 
+
+Dated 
+11/14/03 
+11/19/03 
+By 
+Brian Helgeland 
+
+
+
+
+Based on the novel by Robert Ludlum and 
+The 2002 Universal Film "The Bourne Identity" 
+
+
+
+
+GREEN: 1/ 13/04 
+YELLOW: 12 /11/03 
+PINK: 11 /27/03 
+BLUE: 10 /13/03 
+WHITE: 9/ 17/03 
+
+
+
+
+FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY 
+
+1 EXT. MERCEDES WINDSHIELD -- DUSK 1 
+
+It's raining... 
+
+Light strobes across the wet glass at a rhythmic pace... 
+
+Suddenly -- through the window a face -- JASON BOURNE -- 
+riding in the backseat -- his gaze fixed. 
+
+
+A1 INT. MERCEDES -- NIGHT A1 
+
+On his knee -- a syringe and a gun -- 
+
+The eyes of the driver, JARDA, watching -- 
+
+BOURNE'S POV -- the passenger -- back of his HEAD -- cell 
+phone rings -- the HEAD turns -- it's CONKLIN -- 
+
+BOURNE returns his stare... 
+
+CUT TO -- 
+
+
+2 INT. COTTAGE BEDROOM -- NIGHT 2 
+
+BOURNE'S EYES OPEN! -- panicked -- gasping -- trying to 
+stay quiet -- MARIE sleeps. 
+
+
+A2 INT. COTTAGE LIVING AREA/BATHROOM -- NIGHT A2 
+
+BOURNE moving for the medicine cabinet. Digs through the 
+medicine cabinet. Downs something specific. 
+
+3 
+3 INT./EXT. COTTAGE LIVING ROOM/VERANDA -- NIGHT 
+One minute later. BOURNE moves out onto the veranda. 
+
+MARIE pads in. Watching him for a moment. Concerned. 
+Clearly it's not the first time this has happened. 
+
+The y both loo k differe nt than last we saw them; his hair is 
+lon ger. She' s a blond e. Hippie trav elers. Th eir cottage 
+is humble but sweet. The bedroom ope ns to a be ach and a 
+tow n just dow n the hil l. CLUB MUSIC from some all night 
+rav e wafting in from t he far distance . 
+
+MARIE 
+Where were you, Jason? 
+
+BOURNE 
+In the car. Conklin up front. 
+
+2. 
+
+
+MARIE 
+I'll get the book. 
+
+BOURNE 
+No. There's nothing new. 
+
+MARIE 
+You're sure? 
+(he nods) 
+We should still -- we should write it 
+down. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Two years we're scribbling in a notebook -- * 
+
+MARIE 
+-- it hasn't been two years -- * 
+
+BOURNE 
+-- it's alwa ys bad and it's never * 
+anything but bits and piece s anyway! * 
+(she's gone quiet) * 
+You ever thi nk that maybe i t's just * 
+making it wo rse? You don't wonder that? * 
+
+She lays her hands on his shoulders, steadies him. 
+
+MARIE 
+We write them down because sooner or * 
+later you're going to remember something * 
+good. * 
+
+BOURNE 
+(softens) 
+I do remember something good. All the 
+time. I remember you. 
+
+She smiles. Kisses him. Leads him back in. 
+
+4 
+4 INT. COTTAGE BEDROOM -- NIGHT 
+MARIE getting BOURNE into the bed. Turning down the light. 
+Getting him settled. Waiting for that pill to kick in. 
+What would he do without her? 
+
+BOURNE 
+I'm trying, Marie, Okay? 
+
+MARIE 
+I worry when you get like this. 
+
+3. 
+
+
+BOURNE 
+It's just a nightmare. 
+
+MARIE 
+I don't mean that. I worry when you try 
+to ignore it. 
+
+He hesitates. But that gets him. He knows she's right. 
+And with that opening, he's letting go. Resistance 
+fol ding. Almost childlike. She's gathering him in. 
+He' s letting her do it... 
+
+MARIE (CONT'D) 
+Sleep. Sleep now. 
+
+BOURNE 
+I should be better by now. 
+
+MARIE 
+You are better. And I think it's not 
+memories at all. It's just a dream you 
+keep having over and over. 
+
+BOURNE 
+But it ends up the same. 
+
+MARIE 
+One day it will be different. It just 
+takes time. 
+(beat) 
+We'll make new memories. You and me. 
+
+Silence. She strokes his face. He gives in to her 
+tenderness. He's fading. Two waifs in the dark. 
+
+DISSOLVE TO: 
+
+5 
+5 EXT. BEACH -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY 
+BOU RNE running in the sun. A punishing pace along the 
+san d. Moving strong. Effortless. Deep into it. Focused. 
+The stunning conjunction of sun and scenery are lost on 
+him . 
+
+
+6 EXT. OUTDOOR MARKET -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY 6 
+
+A busy market town. Fishing town. Hippie town. Lots of 
+young Western faces. Rundown and happening at the same 
+time. 
+
+MARIE shopping. Filling a bag with local produce. 
+
+4. 
+
+
+7 EXT. ROAD -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY 7 
+
+BOURNE still running, leaving the beach behind. 
+
+
+8 INT. COTTAGE KITCHEN -- DAY 8 
+
+MARIE back from the market, putting the groceries away. 
+Almost done, when she stops for a moment -- 
+
+A PHOTOGRAPH. There on the windowsill. A snapshot. Jason 
+and Marie on a beach. Her arms around him. As if she were 
+the protector. Big smiles. Young. Alive. In love. 
+
+MARIE smiles. 
+
+
+9 EXT. MAIN STREET -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY 9 
+
+Funky busy. Colonial facades in vivid, sub-continental 
+technicolor. Loud morning traffic. 
+
+CAMERA FINDS 
+
+BOURNE coming out of a store with a big bottle of water. 
+He's just finished his run. Standing there, chugging away, 
+checking the scene, when something catches his eye -- 
+
+HIS POV 
+
+THE STREET. A SILVER CAR -- something newish -- pulling 
+down the block -- can't quite see who's driving, but -- 
+
+BACK TO 
+
+BOURNE watching this silver car. So serious he's casual. 
+Nobody passing would notice, but we do: He's on alert. 
+MOVING WITH HIM AS 
+BOURNE follows THE SILVER CAR on foot -- natural -- 
+cruising the BUSY SIDEWALK -- blending into the mix -- 
+chugging on that water bottle and -- 
+
+UP AHEAD 
+
+THE SILVER CAR making the corner and turning now -- 
+
+BACK TO 
+BOURNE slowing as he reaches the corner -- 
+
+5. 
+
+
+HIS POV 
+
+THE SILVER CA R has par ked. There's a GUY -- well-dressed -- 
+cas ual -- phy sical -- sunglasses -- call him KIRILL -- he's 
+out of the ca r and hea ding across the street toward a 
+bui lding ther e. A TEL EGRAPH OFFICE. 
+
+BACK TO 
+
+BOURNE checking his watch. The car. The guy. Perimeter. 
+
+
+10 INT. TELEGRAPH OFFICE/GOA -- DAY 10 * 
+
+MR. MOHAN at his desk. He's a crisp, proper man of fifty. 
+He's just been handed something -- 
+
+A PHOTOGRAPH OF MARIE -- an old passport picture. 
+
+MR. MOHAN 
+And your question, sir? 
+
+KIRILL across the desk. 
+
+KIRILL 
+She's my sister. There's been a 
+death in the family. This is the 
+last place we know she called from. 
+
+
+11 INT. COTTAGE -- DAY 11 
+
+A NOTE ON THE TABLE: "I'M AT THE BEACH" 
+
+BOURNE has just come in -- just read the note -- balling it 
+quickly. In fact, everything is quickly now, because -- 
+
+BOURNE is bailing. 
+Fast. Calm. Methodical. Some exfil procedure that he's 
+honed and choreographed. Packing like a machine -- 
+
+RAPID TIME CUTS 
+-- BACKPACKS thrown open on the bed. -- HOUSE CASH pulled 
+from a lamp base. -- CREDIT CARDS taped under the counter. 
+
+
+12 EXT. MAIN STREET/BANK GOA/BEACH TOWN -- DAY 12 
+
+KIRILL coming out of the bank. Mission accomplished. 
+Heading back to the SILVER CAR. Getting in and -- 
+
+6. 
+
+
+13 INT. SILVER CAR -- DAY (CONT) 13 
+
+KIRILL starting it up. Glancing around nice and easy. 
+He's cool. Putting the car into gear, he makes a slow pass * 
+through the marketplace. Eyes everywhere. * 
+
+
+14 DELETED 14 * 
+
+
+15 INT. COTTAGE -- DAY 15 
+
+BOURNE -- done -- the place is stripped -- pulling on the 
+backpacks -- glancing around -- one last thing -- shit, he 
+almost missed it -- 
+
+THE PHOTOGRAPH -- the one of he and Marie on the beach -- 
+the one we saw her looking at earlier -- there it is on the 
+windowsill -- jamming it into his pocket and -- 
+
+
+A16 EXT. SIDE STREET/PARKING AREA -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY A16 * 
+
+KIRILL now parked and out of the car -- on the move -- on * 
+foot -- he begins a sweep of the beach. * 
+
+
+16 EXT. COTTAGE BACK DOOR -- YARD/ALLEY -- DAY (CONT) 16 
+
+BOURNE out the back -- jogging -- keeping low -- into the 
+neighborhood -- through the alleys -- nothing random about 
+it, this has all been worked out and -- 
+
+
+17 DELETED 17 * 
+
+18 * 
+18 EXT. BEACH -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY 
+Crowded with tourists -- sunbathers -- MARIE at her 
+favorite spot. Talking with TWO WOMEN, laughing with them - 
+- happy. 
+
+
+18A EXT. BEACH/PARKING AREA -- GOA -- DAY 18A * 
+
+A burly JEEP comes roaring up. BOURNE spots the SILVER * 
+CAR, parks at the other end -- takes off towards the beach. * 
+
+7. 
+
+
+19 EXT. BEACH -- GOA -- DAY 19 * 
+
+KIRILL methodically making his way up the beach -- * 
+checking every blue tent -- every towel. * 
+
+
+20 EXT. BEACH -- GOA -- DAY 20 * 
+
+BOURNE coming up the beach the opposite way -- one eye on * 
+KIRILL, one eye on MARIE. * 
+
+He arrives just as KIRILL looks up and sees them a * 
+hundred yards away -- a hard stare between them -- BOURNE * 
+bends down -- * 
+
+BOURNE 
+We gotta go, Marie. We gotta go, now. 
+
+Fro m the tone of his voice, she knows it's serious. * 
+Mar ie grabs h er bag. A quick goodbye to the friends. * 
+The y hurry of f. BOURNE uses the sunbathers as cover. * 
+KIR ILL retrea ts. * 
+
+
+21 EXT. BEACH/PARKING LOT -- GOA -- DAY 21 * 
+
+They reach the JEEP -- she knows the drill -- bag tossed in * 
+the back -- even as the Jeep pulls away and -- * 
+
+
+22 INT. JEEP -- DAY (CONT) 22 
+
+BOURNE driving. MARIE beside him -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+We're blown. 
+
+She hesitates. One minute ago everything was fine. 
+
+MARIE 
+No... How? 
+
+BOURNE 
+The Telegraph office. 
+
+MARIE 
+But we were so careful. 
+
+BOURNE 
+We pushed it. We got lazy. * 
+
+8. 
+
+
+23 EXT. BEACH/PARKING LOT -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY 23 * 
+
+KIRILL already back at the SILVER CAR -- following them * 
+out onto the MAIN STREET -- blocked by the local traffic -- * 
+pulling a HUGE AUTOMATIC PISTOL out from his travel bag. 
+
+
+24 EXT. BEACHTOWN ALLEY/OFF MAIN STREET -- DAY 24 
+
+THE JEEP pulling down this narrow little passageway and -- 
+
+BOURNE'S WINDSHIELD POV * 
+
+MAIN STREET packed with traffic and -- 
+
+BACK TO 
+
+BOURNE not liking this. Eyes all over -- trying to decide. 
+
+MARIE 
+But you're sure? 
+
+BOURNE 
+He was at the campground yesterday. 
+
+MARIE 
+So... * 
+
+BOURNE 
+It's wrong. Guy with a rental car and * 
+hundred dollar sneakers sleeps in a tent? 
+
+Trying to decide whether to pull out or back up -- 
+
+MARIE 
+That's crazy. * 
+
+BOURNE 
+No. Not thi s. This is real. * 
+(sudde nly) * 
+And he's rig ht there... * 
+(throw ing the car into 
+rever se) 
+
+MARIE 
+Where -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+Back there -- at the corner -- Hyundai -- * 
+silver -- * 
+
+9. 
+
+
+25 INT. HYUNDAI -- DAY (CONT) 25 * 
+
+KIRILL trapped in some Main Street gridlock. Glancing back 
+for a way out -- freezing suddenly, because there -- 
+
+HIS POV -- THE JEEP -- THE ALLEY -- right there -- twenty 
+yards back -- a good look at BOURNE and MARIE -- as they 
+disappear and -- 
+
+
+26 EXT. ALLEYWAY -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY (CONT) 26 
+
+THE JEEP backing up the way it came -- BLOWING ITS HORN 
+because an OLD VAN pulls in and blocks him from behind -- 
+
+
+27 INT. JEEP -- DAY (CONT) 27 
+
+BOURNE leaning on THE HORN -- shit, now they've got to 
+wait! 
+
+MARIE * 
+...but you're not -- you're not sure... * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+We can't wait to be sure. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+I don't want to move again...I like it * 
+here. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Loo k, we clear out, we get to the shack, * 
+we get safe. We hang there awhile. I'll * 
+com e back. I'll check it out. But right * 
+now we can't -- * 
+
+MARIE * 
+-- where's left to go? -- * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+-- there's places -- we can't afford to * 
+be wrong! * 
+
+
+28 INT. HYUNDAI -- DAY (CONT) 28 
+
+KIR ILL. Calm. Possessed of a familiar tactical patience. 
+He can't get the Hyundai to the alley from where he is and * 
+it doesn't make sense to go on foot. He checks his 
+rea rview. 
+
+10. 
+
+
+Fuck it -- there's an opening ahead and he's taking it -- * 
+even though it's away from them -- he'll find another way -- * 
+
+
+29 EXT. ALLEYWAY -- GOA/BEACHTOWN -- DAY -- (CONT) 29 
+
+BOURNE sees the HYUNDAI move forward into traffic. THE OLD * 
+VAN is still blocking them from behind -- * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+You drive. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+What? * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+(already squeezing over) * 
+Switch! You drive! * 
+
+MARIE * 
+-- where? -- * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+-- make the left -- toward the bridge -- * 
+
+MARIE scrambling over the seat. BOURNE, eyes everywhere, * 
+checks his watch. * 
+
+THE JEEP squirts back on the main street and -- 
+
+
+30 INT. JEEP -- DAY -- CONT 30 
+
+MARIE at the wheel -- adrenaline pumping -- clear running 
+for thirty yards ahead and -- 
+
+MARIE skidding them into the right turn -- clipping another 
+vehicle -- MIRROR SHATTERING! -- speeding up. 
+
+BOURNE scanning behind them -- MARIE moving out to pass -- 
+veering back! -- an ONCOMING BUS -- just in time and -- 
+MARIE 
+-- Jesus! -- 
+(glancing over) 
+-- is he back there? -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+-- not yet -- 
+
+MARIE 
+-- it's just him? -- 
+
+11. 
+
+
+BOURNE 
+-- yeah -- one guy -- I don't think 
+he was ready -- 
+
+MARIE 
+-- hang on -- 
+
+MARIE bearing down -- pulling out -- gives him a quick 
+smile -- BOURNE knowing he's got a good one here -- * 
+
+
+31 INT. HYUNDAI -- DAY/SUNSET 31 * 
+
+KIRILL stopping short on a rise. Bit of a view from here. * 
+Gets half out the car to look. * 
+
+BELOW -- the JEEP headed for A BRIDGE. He's gonna lose * 
+them. KIRILL'S mind racing. Grabs duffle from the back, * 
+abandons car. * 
+
+
+32 INT. JEEP -- BRIDGE -- DAY/SUNSET 32 
+
+MARIE driving. BOURNE preps his pistol. Eye out for * 
+KIRILL. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+You keep going to the shack. I'll meet * 
+you there in an hour. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+(concerned) * 
+Where are you going? * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+I'm going to bail on the other side and * 
+wait. This bridge is the only way he can * 
+follow. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+What if it's not who you think it is? * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+If he crosses the bridge, it is. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+There must be another way! * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+I warned them, Marie. I told them to * 
+leave us alone. * 
+
+12. 
+
+
+MARIE * 
+Jason, please don't do this...it won't * 
+ever be over like this. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+There's no choice. * 
+
+HER POV 
+
+The old CONCRETE BRIDGE ahead. Almost there. 
+
+
+33 EXT. LOW WALL -- DAY/SUNSET 33 
+
+KIRILL slams into it. Quick, precise grabs into the bag. 
+Only a moment and he's got a SNIPER RIFLE. 
+
+
+A34 INT. JEEP -- BRIDGE -- DAY A34 
+
+BOURNE -- pistol in hand -- spare clip in the other -- * 
+checks his watch. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+At the end make the left, when I roll out * 
+do not slow down. * 
+
+MARIE nods, got it. After a beat... * 
+
+MARIE * 
+I love you, too. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Tell me later. * 
+
+MARIE looks ahead. 
+
+B34 
+B34 EXT. LOW WALL -- DAY 
+KIRILL. Eye to the scope. * 
+
+SNIPER SCOPE POV 
+
+There! The JEEP rumbling across the bridge. No clear 
+target, just the back of the full DRIVER'S SIDE HEADREST. 
+
+KIRILL'S FINGER 
+
+Squeezing. Firing. 
+
+13. 
+
+
+34 EXT. WOODEN BRIDGE -- DAY (CONT) 34 
+
+The JEEP jerking. 
+
+FRONT FENDER tearing into and along the guard rail -- 
+cement shards fill the air -- 
+
+BOURNE reaching for the wheel -- Too late! 
+
+As the JEEP finally crashes through the flimsy guardrail -- 
+
+Plummets -- splashes hard -- begins to sink out of sight. 
+
+
+35 EXT. LOW WALL -- DAY (CONT) 35 
+
+KIR ILL lowers the scop e, takes a quick look around. He's 
+bas ically gon e unnotic ed in this little nook with his 
+sil enced rifl e. But p eople are already rushing toward the 
+bri dge. Then ... there ! 
+
+An OLD WOMAN looking directly at KIRILL from a doorway. 
+Not quite sure what. But an old Indian woman in Goa? So 
+what. 
+
+KIRILL drills her with a look. As she sinks back inside -- 
+
+
+36 INT. JEEP -- SINKING IN THE RIVER -- DAY/SUNSET 36 
+
+Swallowed up. BOURNE and MARIE gone. * 
+
+
+37 EXT. LOW WALL -- SUNSET 37 
+
+KIRILL scans the surface of the river under the bridge. 
+Waiting. 
+
+38 
+38 EXT. RIVER BOTTOM -- DAY 
+Mud plumes as the JEEP settles. BOURNE reaches over to * 
+MARIE, tries to urge her out. * 
+
+
+39 EXT. LOW WALL -- DAY 39 
+
+KIRILL with a killer's patience, waiting, almost done. 
+
+SCOPE POV 
+The surface of the water. Unbroken. 
+
+14. 
+
+
+KIRILL 
+
+Scans his perimeter. There's the old woman again. But 
+more people with her. People coming out of the woodwork. 
+
+KIRILL checks the surface one last time. Nothing. 
+
+He breaks down the rifle in moments -- goes. * 
+
+
+40 EXT. JEEP -- RIVER BOTTOM -- DAY 40 
+
+BOURNE -- up into an air pocket held by the jeep's canvas 
+top. A big gulp of air -- 
+
+And he's back to MARIE. Frantic. Trying to unclip her * 
+seatbelt. Pull her out. But it's all jammed up. * 
+
+
+41 EXT. KIRILL -- BY THE SILVER CAR 41 
+
+Bag chucked in the back. All he has left is the scope. * 
+One last look to the unbroken surface. Then it's time to 
+go. KIRILL -- drifting away -- disappears. 
+
+
+42 EXT. JEEP -- RIVER BOTTOM -- DAY 42 
+
+The red halo growing bigger. BLOOD. * 
+
+BOURNE pauses. MARIE'S face is blank. She's dead. * 
+
+BOURNE finally pulling back. Realizing this is * 
+goodbye... * 
+
+DISSOLVE TO: 
+
+43-68 
+43-68 DELETED 
+
+69 EXT. ZOOGARTEN SQUARE -- NIGHT 69 
+
+We pick up a MAN WITH A BRIEFCASE on a telephoto lens. 
+
+TEDDY/RADIO (V.O.) 
+The seller has arrived. 
+
+
+BERLIN 
+
+15. 
+
+
+As the man comes to a CHINESE RESTAURANT he stops. 
+Squarely. So he can be seen clearly. Then he enters a 
+STARK GLASS OFFICE BUILDING. 
+
+TEDDY/RADIO (V.O.) 
+(cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+He's inside. 
+
+
+70 EXT. ZOOGARTEN SQUARE -- NIGHT 70 
+
+TWO MEN cross the square to the Chinese Restaurant. VIC is 
+forty -- steel-ass intel operator -- he carries A LARGE 
+SAMPLES CASE. Beside him, MIKE, younger, ex-Navy-Seal. 
+
+
+71 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT 71 
+
+"Th e Hub". S ecure, an onymous office space somewhere in the 
+cit y. Shades drawn. Lots of gear cabled around. The 
+sta le, improv ised feel of a temporary outpost. Four 
+ser ious peopl e alone i n this room: 
+
+PAMELA LANDY is 46. A Senior C.I.A. Counterintelligence 
+Officer. Hovering over the communications console. 
+
+CRONIN -- Pamela's #2 -- early forties, stone-cold facade -- 
+quarterbacking the operation over the radio -- 
+
+KURT and KIM are the techs here. His and Her headphones. 
+Ruggedized laptops and comm gear spread around them. 
+
+CRONIN 
+What have you got, Survey One? 
+
+72 
+72 INT. NEARBY BERLIN OFFICE -- NIGHT (CONT) 
+Dark. TEDDY at the window. Another military face. Radio 
+rig. Night Scope. Watching VIC and MIKE pass below him -- 
+
+TEDDY/RADIO (OVER) 
+"Hub, this is Survey One. Mobile One is 
+in motion. Seller is inside and waiting." 
+
+
+73 EXT. MODERN BERLIN STREET -- NIGHT 73 
+
+VIC and MIKE slow as they come to the same STARK, GLASS 
+OFFICE BUILDING. 
+
+TEDDY/RADIO (OVER) 
+"We are ready to go." 
+
+16. 
+
+
+74 EXT. MODERN BERLIN STREET -- NIGHT 74 
+
+MIK E and VIC shake han ds; two tired c o-workers parting 
+way s. MIKE w ill keep walking. VIC e ntering the building 
+thr ough the b ig glass doors, smiling as he's approached by 
+AN IGHT SHIFT SECURITY GUARD. And we hear: 
+
+MIKE still walking, alone now, heading away from THE GLASS 
+OFFICE BUILDING toward A VAN parked up the block. 
+
+MIKE/RADIO 
+(sleeve mike, earpiece) 
+"This is Escort One. I'm clear." 
+
+
+75 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT 75 
+
+THE COMMAND POST. CRONIN works the communications * 
+board... * 
+
+CRONIN 
+"All teams -- listen up -- we are standing- 
+by for final green." 
+(turning now to--) 
+
+PAMELA, who has been listening. Just as she's about to give * 
+the final word, KIM raises a finger... * 
+
+KIM * 
+Langley... * 
+
+She hands PAMELA a phone that's patched into her board. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+(a bit surprised) * 
+Martin? * 
+
+76 
+76 INT. CIA SITUATION ROOM/LANGLEY, VIRGINIA -- DAY 
+THREE MEN -- CIA MANDARINS -- sit around a round table. 
+MARTIN MARSHALL, Deputy Vice-Director, he's in charge. * 
+All is tense. * 
+
+MARSHALL * 
+I'm here. So is Donnie and Jack Weller. * 
+We understand you're using the full * 
+allocation for this buy? * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+That's where we came out. * 
+
+17. 
+
+
+MARSHALL 
+It's a lot of money, Pam. 
+
+PAMELA 
+We're talking raw, unprocessed KGB files. * 
+It's not something we can go out and * 
+comparison shop. * 
+
+MARSHALL * 
+Still... * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+For a thief. A mole. I ve tted the * 
+sou rce, Marty. He's real. If it does * 
+not hing more than narrow th e list of * 
+sus pects, it's a bargain at ten times the * 
+pri ce. * 
+
+MANDARIN #1 * 
+Pamela, Jack Weller here. It's the * 
+quality that's at issue... * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Yes, sir. I 'm in total agr eement. If * 
+they're fake s, they're expe nsive. * 
+(furio us, impatient) * 
+Gentlemen, I 've got the sel ler on site and * 
+in play. Qu ite honestly, t here's not much * 
+more to talk about. * 
+
+MARSHALL looks to his MANDARIANS. Not convinced, but * 
+doesn't want to lose the opportunity. Time to wash his * 
+hands. * 
+
+MARSHALL * 
+All right Pam, your game, your call... * 
+
+77 * 
+77 DELETED 
+
+78 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT 78 
+
+All eyes on PAMELA as she puts down the phone to Langley. 
+Nodding to CRONIN. Yes. 
+
+CRONIN/RADIO 
+"Final Green. You are go. Repeat, you 
+are go for Final Green." 
+
+18. 
+
+
+79 INT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING LOBBY -- NIGHT 79 
+
+VIC has just passed muster with The Security Guard, he's 
+standing alone at AN ELEVATOR BANK. 
+
+VIC/RADIO 
+(sleeve mike, earpiece) 
+"On my way up." 
+
+VIC pulling his earpiece. Going dark. Waits for an 
+elevator. * 
+
+
+A80 INT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING ELECTRICAL CLOSET -- NIGHT A80 
+
+Dark. A small room full of wiring and infrastructure, lit 
+by the glare of someone's MAG-LIGHT. 
+
+GLOVED HANDS quickly pass over racks of gear and wiring and 
+then stopping at -- the main electrical risers. 
+
+They carefully place an EXPLOSIVE DEVICE -- no bigger than 
+a pack of cigarettes -- onto the main riser... 
+
+Done with that, here comes A SECOND SMALL EXPLOSIVE DEVICE - 
+- but this one's special, it's being taken from A 
+PLASTIC BAG and mounted down by the floor on a sub-panel -- 
+
+Done, the hands hold up what looks like a piece of tape. 
+It bears a FINGERPRINT. As the tape is pressed down, 
+transferring it onto the charge -- 
+
+
+80 INT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING ELEVATOR -- NIGHT 80 
+
+VIC alone wit h THE SAM PLES CASE. Pre ssing the button for 
+#9, the top f loor. Th e doors close. The car 
+ris es...2...3 ...4...5. ..6... And the n, it stops. VIC 
+bra cing himse lf, as th e door opens an d -- 
+
+IVAN -- Russian -- the guy we saw outside with the 
+briefcase -- standing in an empty, darkened hallway. 
+
+IVAN 
+Show me. 
+
+VIC 
+Here? 
+
+IVAN 
+(holding open the door) 
+Now. Show now. 
+
+19. 
+
+
+VIC flips open the case. CASH. Three million dollars. 
+
+
+81 INT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING CORRIDOR -- NIGHT 81 
+
+A GLASS DOOR. A suite of offices beyond. Clean. 
+Anonymous. One light on deep inside... 
+
+CASPIEX-PETROLEUM 
+Cherbourg -- Moscow -- Rome -- Tehran 
+
+82 INT. CASPIEX OFFICE -- NIGHT 82 
+
+Curtains drawn. Lights low. IVAN sitting with THE SAMPLES 
+CASE, counting the cash. VIC poring over -- 
+
+RUS SIAN DOCUM ENT FILES. Dozens of KGB files. Old and new. * 
+Spr ead sheets , financial data. Incomprehensibly Cyrillic. * 
+Mar ked up. B ut judging by the seals and clearance sign- * 
+off s, all top -secret. * 
+
+VIC 
+This is everything? 
+
+IVAN 
+Is there. Is all there. 
+
+Suddenly -- MUSIC -- a radio -- some tinny pop tune just 
+started playing from somewhere down the hall -- 
+
+VIC 
+-- what the hell is that? -- alone -- 
+you said alone -- 
+
+Both of them sure they're being double-crossed -- 
+
+VIC (CONT'D) (cont'd) 
+(reaching for his ankle) 
+-- who? -- who else is here? -- 
+IVAN 
+-- no! -- not me! -- no other people! -- 
+
+VIC 
+(coming up with a pistol) 
+-- shut up! -- just shut the -- 
+
+Freaked by the gun, IVAN to his feet -- VIC pushing him 
+back as he rushes past -- THE SAMPLE CASE spilling cash and 
+-- 
+
+20. 
+
+
+Wrong. 
+
+SNA PPH! -- SN APPH! -- SNAPPH! -- SNAP PH! -- SNA PPH! -- f ive 
+fas t, suppres sed small caliber shots -- VIC fal ls first -- 
+IVA N crashing back acr oss a desk as t he bullets tear int o 
+him -- both o f them de ad before they hit the fl oor and - - 
+
+REVERSE TO FIND 
+
+The GLOVED HA NDS unscr ewing a SILENCE R, tucking away the 
+wea pon. Alre ady in mo tion before we know what' s happened -- 
+pul ling a cli mbing duf fel out from hi s back pac k -- 
+stu ffing in T HE SAMPLE S CASE and IVAN 'S BRIEFCA SE -- all 
+the files -- all the m oney... 
+
+Exc ept, wait. .. He's left out ONE ol d KGB FILE COVER -- and 
+now he pulls A PLASTIC BAG from his b ackpack -- GLOVED 
+HAN DS careful ly remove A SINGLE SHEET OF PAPER from insi de 
+the bag. And this pap er looks exactl y like all the stuf f 
+he' s just tuc ked away; another page f ull of Cyr illic blu r. 
+
+He's putting this sheet of paper inside the file cover. 
+Now he's slipping them both underneath the desk, tossing 
+them there as if they fell in the struggle and -- 
+
+
+83 INT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING ELECTRICAL CLOSET -- NIGHT 83 
+
+The electrical risers -- as ONE OF THE TWO DETONATION 
+DECIVES BLOWS -- a single, tidy, self-contained explosion 
+and -- 
+
+
+84 EXT./INT. THE GLASS OFFICE BUILDING LOBBY -- NIGHT 84 
+
+As the lights flicker and fail and THE NIGHT SHIFT 
+SECURITY GUARD is suddenly cast into darkness and -- 
+
+85 
+85 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT 
+As they were. Waiting. But only a moment before -- 
+
+TEDDY/RADIO 
+(sudde n, urgent) 
+"Hub? -- we just -- we lost power -- 
+the building ! -- the whole place just 
+went dark! - -" 
+
+CRONIN looking at Pamela -- the first whiff of dread as -- 
+
+CRONIN 
+"-- repeat -- who is dark? -- the target 
+building or your location? --" 
+
+21. 
+
+
+RADIO VOICES piling up -- panicked, confusion cascading as - 
+- 
+
+
+86-87 DELETED 86-87 * 
+
+
+A87,B87 DELETED A87,B87 * 
+
+
+88 EXT. BERLIN NOVATEL/PARKING LOT -- NIGHT 88 * 
+
+Anonymous drone barn. KIRILL stepping out of a car. * 
+He's carrying the duffle. * 
+
+
+89 INT. BERLIN NOVATEL CORRIDOR -- NIGHT 89 * 
+
+KIRILL. Heading down the hall. * 
+
+
+90 INT. NOVATEL ROOM -- NIGHT 90 * 
+
+KIRILL enters. It's a small room. GRETKOV is waiting. * 
+He's forty. Professional. Trim and polished. Dominant. * 
+
+GRETKOV * 
+(Russian) * 
+(You're early) * 
+
+KIRILL 
+(You're complaining?) 
+
+GRETKOV * 
+(It's clean?) * 
+
+KIRILL * 
+(Would I bring it?) * 
+
+GRETKOV taking over now. Tosses some money on the bed, * 
+checks out the photocopy of the files. * 
+
+GRETKOV 
+(What are you doing?) 
+
+KIRILL stripping quickly -- * 
+
+KIRILL * 
+(I'm taking a shower, it's been a long * 
+day.) * 
+
+GRETKOV * 
+(Make it fast, my plane is waiting) * 
+
+22. 
+
+
+GRETKOV dumping three million dollars over the bed as * 
+KIRILL sheds his clothes, and we -- * 
+
+DISSOLVE TO: 
+
+
+A90 EXT. THE BRIDGE -- GOA -- DAY A90 
+
+WORKMEN cluster as a cable winches -- 
+
+The JEEP is raised from the river bottom. As water pours 
+off of it -- 
+
+BOURNE -- Watching -- From a distance -- Empty -- 
+
+CUT TO: 
+
+
+B90 EXT. BERLIN OFFICE BUILDING -- DAY B90 * 
+
+Crime scene. POLICE blocking OFFICE WORKERS from getting * 
+in the building. MEDIA vans clogging the street. 
+
+PAMELA and CRONIN, across the street, watching. 
+
+The mood is black. Ashes. 
+
+PAMELA 
+We need to get in there. 
+
+CRONIN 
+I'm working on it. 
+
+PAMELA stands there. Silent. Staring at the disaster 
+across the street. 
+
+91-92A 
+91-92A DELETED 
+
+A93 
+A93 INT. SHACK -- GOA -- DAY 
+BOURNE is bailing. 
+
+Exfil procedure, but this is a heartbroken exfil. 
+
+-- A FOOTLOCKER open. Bourne's main stash. 
+
+BOURNE going through the footlocker. Setting aside his 
+'work clothes' -- other things he needs. 
+
+But he also has to separate. 
+
+23. 
+
+
+A GROWING PILE of Marie memories: Bank cards. Phony 
+student IDs. Loose passport photos with a mix of looks and 
+hair-dos. Clothes -- vacuum-packed bags -- spare shoes. * 
+
+
+B93 EXT. NEAR THE SHACK -- DAY B93 
+
+Ag asoline-st oked FIRE burning in a r ock-lined pit. BOURNE 
+fee ding his p apers and all of Marie's belonging s into the 
+fir e. A pass port cove r crinkles back to reveal her photo. 
+Her face begi ns to bur n. Gas-soaked clothes to ssed in. 
+Not hing left except -- 
+
+The PHOTOGRAPH -- the picture of he and Marie at the beach. 
+The one from his desk. 
+
+BOURNE hesitates, holds the photo out to the flames. The 
+rules of exfil say drop it -- but he can't -- won't -- 
+
+He reaches to his bag, sticks the photo on top of his gear. 
+
+Then, hefting, the bag, BOURNE strides away. * 
+
+
+93 INT. BERLIN HQ COMMAND POST -- DAY 93 
+
+A folding table covered with XEROXED BERLIN POLICE * 
+PAPERWORK. PAMELA getting a show-and-tell from CRONIN * 
+and TEDDY. * 
+
+CRONIN 
+-- so there were two of the se explosive 
+charges plac ed on the power lines. One of * 
+them failed. The fingerpri nt... * 
+(Pamel a's got it) 
+That's from the one that di dn't go off. 
+
+PAMELA 
+And the Germans can't match it? 
+
+TEDDY 
+Nobody's got it. We checked every 
+database we could access. Nothing. 
+
+CRONIN 
+Show her the other thing. 
+
+TEDDY 
+This is a KG B file that must've fallen 
+somehow and then slipped under, I guess, a 
+desk there, or... 
+(handi ng it to her--) 
+
+24. 
+
+
+PAMELA 
+Do we know what this says? 
+
+TEDDY 
+Yup... 
+(a scrap of paper) 
+The main word there, the file heading, 
+translates as: Treadstone. 
+
+PAMELA 
+What the hell is a "Treadstone?" 
+
+CRONIN shaking his head. Nobody knows. 
+
+CUT TO: 
+
+
+C93 EXT. INDIA COUNTRYSIDE -- DAY C93 
+
+BOURNE bouncing around on an old Punjab BUS. Alone in a 
+crush of humanity. 
+
+Going only God knows where... 
+
+CUT TO: 
+
+
+94-96 DELETED 94-96 
+
+
+A97 EXT. CIA HEADQUARTERS -- LANGLEY, VIRGINIA A97 
+
+PAMELA'S POV as she drives toward the entrance. 
+
+C.I.A. HEADQUARTERS VIRGINIA * 
+
+97 
+97 INT. C.I.A. HEADQUARTERS -- DAY 
+A long, bright, sterile hallway. PAMELA and CRONIN walking 
+briskly alongside A UNIFORMED S.P.S. OFFICER. 
+
+
+98 INT. C.I.A. ELEVATOR -- DAY 98 
+
+PAMELA and CRONIN watching THE S.P.S. OFFICER unlock the 
+operation panel. Coding in. They begin to descend and -- 
+
+25. 
+
+
+99 INT. DIFFERENT C.I.A. CORRIDOR -- DAY 99 
+
+Drab and desolate. PAMELA and CRONIN come around a corner, * 
+walking with A NEW ESCORT OFFICER. Passing a sign that * 
+reads: * 
+
+Operations Library Center. 
+
+
+100-102 DELETED 100-102 
+
+
+103 INT. SECURED READING ROOM #63171 -- DAY 103 * 
+
+Sea led, tripl e-locked NUMBERED DOOR. It swings open. 
+Lig hts flicke r on. To ns of shit pack ed away in here. 
+She lves bulgi ng. Boxe s. Tapes. Bin ders. Har d drives. 
+PAM ELA steps in. A HU GE FILING CABIN ET labeled -- 
+
+TREADSTONE 
+PAMELA/PHONE (OVER) 
+Ward? 
+
+ABBOTT (OS) 
+Yes? 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+Pamela Landy. 
+
+
+103A-104 DELETED 103A-104 
+
+
+105 INT. ABBOTT'S OFFICE/C.I.A. HEADQUARTERS -- DAY 105 
+
+WARD ABBOTT at his desk. The cluttered clubhouse HQ of a 
+man who's spent the last thirty-five years in the spy game. * 
+A PICTURE WINDOW offers a commander's view of the BULLPEN. 
+
+ABBOTT/PHONE 
+What can I do for you, Pam? 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+I was hoping you had some time for me. 
+
+ABBOTT/PHONE 
+Time for what? 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+I'm free right now actually. 
+
+26. 
+
+
+ABBOTT/PHONE 
+That sounds ominous. Let me check my 
+schedule. 
+
+ABBOTT holds the phone. Eyes drifting out the window and -- 
+
+ABBOTT'S POV 
+
+THE BULLPEN. CRONIN i s standing with DANIEL ZO RN, one of 
+Abb ott's trus ted #2s. Clearly ZORN i s getting the less 
+pol ite versio n of Pame la's invitation . ZORN ma naging to 
+sho ot a quick , questio ning glance to Abbott as -- 
+
+
+106 INT. C.I.A. INTERVIEW ROOM -- DAY 106 
+
+A cold room. Desk. Two chairs. ABBOTT and PAMELA alone. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Treadstone. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Never heard of it. 
+
+PAMELA 
+That's not gonna fly. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+With all due respect, Pam, I think you 
+might've wandered a little past your pay- 
+grade. 
+
+She has a piece of paper. She slides it forward. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Tha t's a warrant from Director Marshall 
+gra nting me unrestricted access to all 
+per sonnel and materials associated with 
+Tre adstone. 
+
+ABBOTT rocked and trying to hide it. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+And what are we looking for? 
+
+PAMELA 
+I want to know about Treadstone. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+To know abou t it? 
+(almos t amused) 
+It was a kil l squad. Black on black. * 
+Closed down two years ago. * 
+(MORE) 
+
+27. 
+
+
+ABBOTT (CONT'D) 
+Nobody wants to know about Treadstone. * 
+Not around h ere. * 
+(the w arrant) 
+You better t ake this back to Marty and 
+make sure he knows what you're doing. 
+
+PAMELA 
+(trump card) 
+He does. I've been down to the archives. 
+I have the files, Ward. 
+
+
+107 DELETED 107 
+
+
+A107 EXT. BAY OF NAPLES -- LATE AFTERNOON A107 
+
+A hard working port. A big MEDITERRANEAN FERRY coming in. 
+
+NAPLES 
+FERRY -- BOURNE at the rail. Unchanged from India. 
+Staring ahead as Europe looms. 
+
+
+B107 EXT. FERRY DOCK -- LATE AFTERNOON B107 
+
+BOURNE disembarking to an immigration queue. Looking 
+unremarkable. Just one of many passing through. 
+
+
+108 INT. C.I.A. INTERVIEW ROOM -- DAY 108 
+
+As they were. ABBOTT watching PAMELA pull a photo from her 
+file. Sliding it over. CONKLIN'S FACE peering back. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Let's talk about Conklin. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+What are you after, Pam? You want to fry 
+me? You want my desk? Is that it? 
+
+PAMELA 
+I want to know what happened. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+d? Jason Bourn e happened. 
+What happene 
+(fury focusing) 
+You've got t he files? Then let's cut the * 
+crap. It we nt wrong. Conk lin had these * 
+guys wound s o tight they we re bound to 
+snap. 
+(MORE) 
+
+28. 
+
+
+ABBOTT (CONT'D) 
+Bou rne was h is number one - - guy went out 
+to work, scr ewed the op and never cam e 
+bac k. Conkl in couldn't fix it, could n't * 
+fin d Bourne, couldn't adjus t. It all went 
+sid eways. F inally there we re no opti ons * 
+lef t. 
+
+PAMELA 
+So you had Conklin killed. 
+(silence) 
+I mean, if we're cutting the crap... 
+
+ABBOTT 
+I've given t hirty years and two marri ages 
+to this agen cy. I've shove led shit o n * 
+four contine nts. I'm due t o retire n ext 
+year and bel ieve me, I need my pensio n, 
+but if you t hink I'm gonna sit here a nd 
+let you dang le me with this , you can go to 
+hell. Marsh all too. 
+(flat) 
+It had to be done. 
+
+PAMELA 
+And Bourne? Where's he now? 
+
+ABBOTT 
+(shrugs) 
+Dead in a ditch? Drunk in a bar in 
+Mogadishu? Who knows? 
+
+PAMELA 
+It hink I do . We had a dea l going down 
+in Berlin la st week. Durin g the buy, 
+both our Fie ld Agent and th e seller were 
+killed. We pulled a finger print from a * 
+timing charg e that didn't g o off. 
+(beat) 
+They were ki lled by Jason Bourne. 
+
+ABBOTT hesitates. Blindsided. What? 
+
+A courtesy knock at the door. 
+
+CRONIN 
+(appearing in the doorway) 
+They're ready for us upstairs. 
+
+109-114 
+109-114 DELETED 
+
+29. 
+
+
+A115 INT. FERRY BUILDING CUSTOMS HALL -- SUNSET A115 
+
+Now at the IMMIGRATION OFFICER booth, BOURNE hands over an 
+OLD BLUE PASSPORT. It reads, JASON BOURNE. What's he up 
+to? Is he giving up? 
+
+IMMIGRATION OFFICER 
+(Where you coming from, Mr. 
+Bourne?) 
+
+BOURNE 
+(Tangiers) 
+
+The OFFICER runs the CODE on the passport through the 
+SCANNER. 
+
+
+115 INT. INTERPOL MONITORING STATION -- MADRID -- SUNSET 115 
+
+A TECH turns as a COMPUTER ALARM begins an incessant 
+BEEPING. 
+
+THE SCREEN 
+
+As Jason Bourne's PASSPORT DATA begins scrolling through. 
+A sleeper waking up on the grid. Then his PHOTO. 
+
+WORK STATION 
+
+As an Interpol SUPERVISOR leans in over the TECH'S shoulder 
+to see what's up. After a beat... 
+
+As the TECH begins typing and hits send... 
+
+
+INT. C.I.A. RELAY STATION -- BETHESDA, MARYLAND -- DAY 116 
+116 
+CREWCUT turns from his monitor to his own SUPERIOR as, at 
+the same time... 
+
+117 
+117 INT. FERRY BUILDING CUSTOMS HALL -- SUNSET 
+Looking up from his computer, the IMMIGRATION OFFICER 
+gestures BOURNE to one side. 
+
+IMMIGRATION OFFICER 
+(Sir, would you be so kind as to step 
+over here, please?) * 
+
+30. 
+
+
+BOURNE 
+(Uh, sure.) 
+
+The IMMIGRATION OFFICER comes out of his booth as a 
+CARABINIERI joins him and they escort BOURNE to a small 
+room at the side of the CUSTOMS HALL. 
+
+IMMIGRATION OFFICER 
+(Please wait in here.) * 
+
+BOURNE scans the hall as he walks, enters room... 
+
+PAMELA'S (V.O.) 
+Seven years ago, twelve million dollars * 
+was stolen from a CIA account... * 
+
+BOURNE takes a seat. CARABINIERI guards the room. 
+
+
+118 INT. C.I.A. SITUATION ROOM -- DAY 118 
+
+Same table. More faces. MARSHALL back in the throne. * 
+ABBOTT, THREE C.I.A. MANDARINS plus THEIR #2'S, and -- * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+...in Warsaw. This is... * 
+
+CLICK -- A PHOTO of the man killed in Berlin fills the * 
+projection screen behind her -- CLICK -- crime scene photo * 
+of dead body -- CLICK -- "PECOS OIL" logo -- * 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+... Ivan Meve dev -- senior f inancial * 
+man ager -- w orked for one o f the new * 
+Rus sian petr oleum companies , Pecos Oil. * 
+He claimed t o know where th e money landed. * 
+We believe t his could have only happened * 
+wit h help fr om someone insi de the * 
+Age ncy... T his... * 
+
+CLICK -- CONKLIN'S PHOTO -- * 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+(placing it on the table) * 
+...this is Conklin's computer. * 
+
+CLICK -- A PHOTOCOPY OF A BANKING CONTRACT -- * 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+... At the ti me of his death, Conklin was 
+sit ting on a personal account in the 
+amo unt of se ven-hundred and sixty 
+tho usand dol lars. 
+
+31. 
+
+
+ABBOTT 
+Do you know what his budget was? * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Excuse me. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+We were throwing money at him. Throwing * 
+it at him and asking him to keep it dark. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+May I finish? * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Conklin migh t've been a nut , but he * 
+wasn't a mol e. You have me his calendar * 
+for a couple of days, I'll prove he * 
+killed Linco ln. * 
+(appea ling to Marshal l) 
+This is supp osed to be defi nitive? 
+
+PAMELA 
+What's definitive, is that I just lost 
+two people in Berlin! 
+
+ABBOTT 
+So what's yo ur theory? 
+(mocki ng her) 
+Conklin's re aching out from the grave to 
+protect his good name? 
+(incre dulous) 
+The man is d ead. 
+
+MARSHALL 
+(he's heard enough) 
+No one's disputing that, Ward. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+For crissake, Marty, you knew Conklin. 
+Does this scan? I mean, at all? 
+
+MARSHALL signals for quiet... 
+
+MARSHALL 
+Okay, cut to the chase, Pam. What are you 
+selling? 
+
+PAMELA 
+I think that Bourne and Conklin were in 
+business. That Bourne is still involved. * 
+(MORE) 
+
+32. 
+
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) 
+And that wha tever information I was going * 
+to buy in Be rlin, it was big enough to * 
+make Bourne come out from wherever he's * 
+been hiding to kill again. * 
+(to Ab bott) * 
+How's that s can? * 
+
+As the MANDARINS all start talking at once -- 
+
+ZORN enters. Stands at the head of the table. Tries to * 
+get their attention. * 
+
+ZORN * 
+Hey... * 
+(they look up) * 
+Look, you're not gonna believe this, but * 
+Jason Bourne 's passport just came on the * 
+grid in Napl es. 
+
+ABBOTT blinks. What? * 
+
+
+119-120 DELETED 119-120 * 
+
+
+121 EXT. FERRY BUILDING CUSTOMS HALL -- NIGHT 121 
+
+NEVINS. American. A junior, C.I.A. Field Officer. 
+Walking from the parking lot, talking on his cellphone. 
+
+NEVINS 
+...what can I do? I can't. I'll call you 
+when I know what I'm into... 
+(a has sled pause) 
+I don't know , some guy's name came up on 
+the computer . 
+(start ing toward the 
+build ing) 
+So start wit hout me, if I can get there, I 
+will. Later ... 
+
+NEVINS hangs up and pockets the phone. He hustles towards 
+the building. 
+
+
+122 INT. CIA SITUATION ROOM -- DAY 122 
+
+The room is jumping. Agents tracking, working the phones 
+and computers. PAMELA giving orders. ABBOTT watches. 
+
+33. 
+
+
+CRONIN * 
+(looks up from computer * 
+screen) * 
+Looks like he's been detained. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Who's going? Us? * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+There's only a Consulate, they sent a * 
+field officer out half an hour ago -- * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+(cuts him off) * 
+Then get a number, they need to know who * 
+they're dealing with. * 
+
+CRONIN already on it... * 
+
+
+123 INT. FERRY BUILDING HOLDING ROOM -- SUNSET 123 
+
+As NEVINS flashes his credentials to CARABINIERI at door, 
+who gives an unimpressed shrug and lets him in. 
+
+NEVINS takes his overcoat off, tosses it on the empty 
+chair. We see a big ass .45 for just a second under his 
+suit jacket. 
+
+NEVINS 
+Alright, Mr. Bourne, is that your name? 
+(BOURN E nods) 
+Name's Nevin s. I'm with the US Consulate. 
+Could I see your passport? 
+
+BOURNE, silent, hands over his passport. 
+
+NEVINS (CONT'D) 
+So, Mr. Bourne... 
+
+NEVINS studies Bourne's passport... 
+
+NEVINS (CONT'D) * 
+What are you doing in Tangiers? 
+
+Silence... * 
+
+NEVINS (CONT'D) 
+(faux friendly) 
+Are you travelling alone? * 
+
+34. 
+
+
+BOURNE stares straight ahead. NEVINS comes around the * 
+table and sits in front of BOURNE. * 
+
+NEVINS (CONT'D) * 
+(in his face) * 
+Look, I don't know what you've done. * 
+But, you're gonna need to play ball here. * 
+
+NEVINS cell starts to ring. He shrugs an apology, turns * 
+away and answers: * 
+
+NEVINS (cont'd) (CONT'D) * 
+Nevins... * 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE * 
+This is Pamela Landy, a CI Supervisor * 
+calling from Langley, Virginia. Are you * 
+with a Jason Bourne now? * 
+
+NEVINS 
+(listens; looks at Bourne) 
+Yes... 
+
+
+A123 INT. CIA SITUATION ROOM -- DAY A123 * 
+
+PAMELA on the phone. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Then use extreme caution. He can be very * 
+unpredictable and violent. Use whatever * 
+means necessary to... * 
+
+
+123 INT. FERRY BUILDING HOLDING ROOM -- SUNSET 123 
+
+Whatever Nevins is being told, it's concerning. BOURNE 
+watching him. Knows exactly what this is. 
+
+CLOSE ON NEVINS as he steps away, listening intently. His 
+hand just starting to move toward his shoulder holster. 
+
+NEVINS (cont'd) 
+Okay, I'll call you right back. 
+
+NEVINS flips shut his phone. He reaches for his gun, even 
+as he turns, and -- 
+
+BOURNE is right there in his face. WHUMP! Momentum and 
+gravity reaching mutual agreement as NEVINS hits the deck. 
+
+CARABINIERI barely clears his holster before -- CHOP -- 
+CHOP -- BOURNE has him down in a heap. 
+
+35. 
+
+
+BOURNE is back, silent and effective. 
+
+Fin ding NEVIN S cellpho ne, BOURNE reac hes into h is bag. He 
+hol ds the pho ne next t o a larger, dia gnostic MO BILE UNIT -- 
+the "confirm" light bl inks -- Nevins' phone has been 
+clo ned. BOUR NE puts t he phone back i n NEVINS c oat, takes 
+his gun and C ARABINIER I'S gun and rad io and put s them in 
+his duffle. We're sta rting to realiz e there's a plan at 
+wor k here. 
+
+FINALLY 
+
+BOURNE -- exits the door, wedging a desk under the handle 
+so it cannot be opened from the inside and calmly walks 
+away like nothing ever happened -- 
+
+
+124 EXT. NAPLES FERRY BUILDING -- NIGHT 124 
+
+And now we see the old BOURNE, in his long black coat, 
+purposely striding out of the building. He pauses long 
+enough for the security camera to get a good look at him. 
+
+THE RONIN returns. 
+
+
+125 EXT. NAPLES FERRY PARKING LOT -- NIGHT 125 
+
+BOURNE crosses the street and approaches a man putting his 
+suitcase in the trunk of a green Peugeot. BOURNE reaches 
+into his bag, pulls out some cash. 
+
+
+126 DELETED 126 * 
+
+127 
+127 INT. FERRY/SECURITY HOLDING ROOM -- NIGHT 
+NEVINS stirring, the CARABINIERI still out. A phone starts 
+to RING. Nevins' phone. Finally sitting up, he answers. 
+
+NEVINS 
+Hello? 
+
+
+128-129 DELETED 128-129 
+
+130 
+130 INT. C.I.A. SITUATION ROOM -- DAY 
+PAMELA at the other end of the line. 
+
+36. 
+
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+Mr. Nevins? 
+
+NEVINS/PHONE 
+Who's this? 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+Pamela Landy, again. Where do we stand? * 
+
+
+A130 INT. FERRY/SECURITY HOLDING ROOM -- NIGHT A130 
+
+Nevins barely knows where he is. 
+
+
+131 EXT. NAPLES STREET -- NIGHT 131 
+
+BOURNE sits in the dark car. Headphones. A nest of cool 
+gadgetry -- on the passenger seat. Listening in -- * 
+recording -- 
+
+He writes: Pamela Landy -- circles it. 
+
+NEVINS/PHONE 
+I think... I think he got away. * 
+
+PAMELA looks at the faces waiting around the table. Shakes 
+her head no... * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Have you locked down the area? * 
+
+NEVINS/PHONE 
+Ah, we're in Italy. They don't exactly * 
+"lock down" real quick... 
+
+INTERCUT -- BOURNE -- NEVINS -- PAMELA -- 
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+How long have you worked for the agency? 
+
+NEVINS/PHONE 
+Me? Four years. 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+If you ever want to make it to five, 
+you 're gonna listen to me r eal close. 
+Jas on Bourne is armed and e xtremely 
+dan gerous. A week ago, he assassinated 
+two men in B erlin, one of w hom was a * 
+hig hly-exper ienced field of ficer... * 
+(conti nuing as--) 
+
+37. 
+
+
+We' re TOTALLY ON BOURNE at this point -- sitting there in 
+the dark car, struggling to make sense of this -- what the 
+fuc k is she talking about? -- Berlin? -- He writes it, 
+cir cles it. 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE (CONT'D) 
+I want that area secured, I want any 
+evidence secured and I want it done now. 
+Is that clear?? * 
+
+NEVINS/PHONE 
+Yes, sir -- ma'am... 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+I'm getting on a plane to B erlin in 45 * 
+min utes, whi ch means you ar e going to call * 
+me back in 3 0, and when I a sk you where we * 
+sta nd, I had better be impr essed. My * 
+mob ile numbe r is... * 
+
+BOURNE already turning the key in the ignition -- THE 
+PEUGEOT ROARING TO LIFE, as he writes the number. * 
+
+Dropping the car into gear, BOURNE pulls briskly away from 
+the curb. 
+
+
+A131 INT. C.I.A. SITUATION ROOM -- DAY A131 
+
+PAMELA finishes, hangs up. 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+Berlin! * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+I've already got a team there. I doubt * 
+Bourne's in Naples to settle down and * 
+raise a family. * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+You don't know what you're getting into * 
+here. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+And you do? From the moment he left * 
+Treadstone, he has killed and eluded * 
+every person that you sent to find him... * 
+
+Before it can come to blows -- 
+
+MARSHALL 
+(riot act) 
+Enough. I want both of you on that plane. * 
+(MORE) 
+
+38. 
+
+
+MARSHALL (CONT' D) 
+And we are - - all of us -- going to d o * 
+what we were either too laz y or inept to * 
+do the last time around -- you're goi ng to * 
+find this so nofabitch and t ake him do wn 
+before he de stroys any more of this 
+agency. 
+(beat) 
+Is that defi nitive enough for you? 
+
+ABBOTT nods. Sharing a look with PAMELA as we -- 
+
+
+AA131 INT. CIA HEADQUARTERS HALLWAY -- DAY AA131 * 
+
+PAMELA and CRONIN come screaming around a corner and down * 
+a long corridor, ABBOTT and ZORN trying to keep up. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+-- Kurt's reopening all the wyfi and sat * 
+links -- * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+-- uplink al l relevant files to * 
+Kim -- * 
+(a loo k back at Zorn) * 
+-- and I wan t them to contact anyone who * 
+had anything to do with Treadstone -- * 
+
+ZORN looks to ABBOTT, as they disappear around a * 
+corner... * 
+
+
+B131 EXT. AUTOSTRADA -- NIGHT B131 
+
+THE PEUGEOT speeding North -- North towards Germany and -- 
+
+132 
+132 DELETED 
+
+133 INT. BOURNE'S PEUGEOT -- NIGHT (CONT) 133 
+
+BOURNE driving -- listening to playback of Pamela's 
+conversation with Nevins. 
+
+PAMELA/TAPE 
+"Jason Bourne is armed and extremely 
+dangerous..." 
+
+BOURNE'S FACE -- eyes -- tight -- looking weird -- 
+
+39. 
+
+
+PAMELA/TAPE (cont'd) 
+(CONT'D) 
+"...a week ago he assassinated two men in 
+Berlin, one a highly..." 
+
+A133 SUDDENLY A133 
+
+FLASHBACK! -- a shard -- pieces -- lightning flash of 
+images GETTING IN THE BACK SEAT OF THE CAR -- rolling 
+BRANDENBURG BERLIN -- A MIRROR -- THE TELEVISION TOWER -- 
+
+THE DRIVER looks back. We see him. (We'll know him later 
+as Jarda.) Then -- A STEEL CASE on the backseat. Inside a 
+SYRINGE, A DARK VIAL, PISTOL. As we lay hands on them -- 
+
+B133 BACK TO: B133 
+
+BOURNE out of it -- jolted! -- almost losing control of the 
+car for a second -- jerking back into his lane, -- 
+recognition -- toughing it out -- Steady as she goes -- 
+
+Catching his rhythm again. Accelerating and --- 
+
+
+134 EXT. BAKERY -- PORTOBELLO ROAD -- DAY 134 
+
+A BAKERY on the corner. NICKY emerging. Nicky from the 
+old days. Suddenly, she stops -- 
+
+ABBOTT stands there beside a parked car. The passenger 
+door open. Message clear. Get the fuck in. 
+
+
+135 INT. US AIR FORCE BASE, ENGLAND -- DAY 135 
+
+Inside a hanger. Inside an office. ABBOTT watching as 
+CRONIN questions NICKY. PAMELA sits on a window sill. 
+
+CRONIN 
+So your cover at the time was what? 
+
+NICKY 
+That I was an American student in Paris. 
+
+CRONIN 
+What exactly did your job with Treadstone 
+in Paris consist of? 
+
+Nicky looks to Abbott. He nods that it's okay to * 
+answer. Pamela bristles at the check-off. * 
+
+40. 
+
+
+NICKY 
+Ih ad two re sponsibilities. One was to 
+coo rdinate l ogistical operations. Th e 
+oth er was to monitor the health of th e 
+age nts, to m ake sure they were up to date 
+wit h their m edications. 
+
+CRONIN 
+Health, meaning what? 
+
+NICKY 
+Their mental health. Because of what 
+they'd been through. They were prone to a 
+variety of problems. 
+
+PAMELA 
+(losing patience) * 
+What kind of problems? 
+
+NICKY 
+Depression. Anger. Compulsive 
+behaviors. They had physical symptoms -- 
+headaches -- sensitivity to light -- 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Amnesia? * 
+
+NICKY 
+Before this? Before Bourne? No. 
+
+NICKY gets agitated. ABBOTT steps in, fatherly, good * 
+cop. * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Were you familiar with the training 
+program? 
+
+NICKY 
+The details? No. I mean, I was told it 
+was voluntary. I don't kno w if that's 
+true or not, but that's wha t I was told. 
+(a bit defensive) 
+Look, they took vulnerable subjects, 
+okay? You mix that with th e right 
+pharmacology and some serio us behavior 
+modification, and, I don't know, I mean, 
+I guess anything's possible . 
+
+ZORN arrives from outside. * 
+
+41. 
+
+
+ZORN * 
+The jet's ready. * 
+(points to Nicky) * 
+There's a car for you. * 
+
+Everybody moving. NICKY relieved. She's off the hook. * 
+She thinks. She becomes aware of PAMELA considering her. * 
+
+NICKY * 
+Good luck. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+You were his local contact. You were * 
+with him the night Conklin died. You're * 
+coming with us. * 
+
+
+136 EXT. PRIVATE JET -- DUSK 136 
+
+Streaks across the sky. 
+
+
+137 INT. PRIVATE JET -- NIGHT 137 
+
+Qui et in the cabin. ABBOTT gets up to use the bathroom. * 
+PAM ELA sits across from NICKY who stares out the window. * 
+As the bathroom door clicks shut, PAMELA seizes the * 
+pri vacy. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+I'm curious about Bourne. Your * 
+int erpretati on of his condi tion. * 
+You have spe cific training in the 
+ide ntificati on and diagnosi s of 
+psy chologica l conditions? 
+
+NICKY 
+Am I a doctor, no, but... 
+
+PAMELA 
+Are you an expert in amnesia? 
+
+NICKY 
+Look, what do you want me to say? 
+I was there. I believed him. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Believed what? 
+
+NICKY 
+I believed Jason Bourne had suffered 
+a severe traumatic breakdown. 
+
+42. 
+
+
+PAMELA 
+So he fooled you. 
+
+NICKY 
+(frustration building) 
+If you say so. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+(leans in; still low) * 
+Not good eno ugh. You're the person who * 
+flo ated this amnesia story. * 
+(shift s gears) * 
+Eve r feel so rry for him? For what he'd 
+bee n through ? 
+
+NICKY 
+You're making it out like we're friends 
+here or something. I met him alone twice. 
+
+PAMELA 
+You felt nothing? No spark? Two young 
+people in Paris? Dangerous missions? 
+Life and death? 
+
+NICKY 
+(incredulous) 
+You mean, did I want a date? 
+
+PAMELA 
+Did you? 
+
+NICKY 
+These were killers. Conklin had them all 
+jacked up. They were Dobermans. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Some women like Dobermans -- 
+
+NICKY 
+What do you want from me? I was 
+reassigned. I'm out. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+See , that's a problem for me, Nicky. * 
+Wha tever he's doing, we need to end it. * 
+Thi s isn't the kind of mess you walk away * 
+fro m. * 
+
+PAMELA leans away. NICKY looks back out the window. * 
+
+43. 
+
+
+138 EXT. TARMAC -- BERLIN AIRPORT -- NIGHT 138 
+
+Three in the morning as the GULF STREAM lurches to a stop. 
+TWO BLACK SEDANS here for the pickup. TEDDY the greeting 
+party as -- 
+
+PAMELA, CRONIN, ABBOTT, ZORN and NICKY disembark -- 
+
+
+A138 EXT. BERLIN STREET -- NIGHT A138 
+
+The SEDANS making their way, stopping at a non-descript 
+office building. 
+
+
+B138 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT B138 
+
+ELE VATOR opens into their 9th floor world. Emergency 
+act ivity. KIM ready to debrief, KURT work the computers. 
+Ene rgy up. PAMELA, ABBOTT and CRONIN bring NICKY into the 
+roo m. 
+
+KIM 
+-- so far Bourne's had no contact with * 
+any one on the list -- Langley pulled an * 
+ima ge out of Naples, it's uploading right 
+now . 
+
+KURT 
+Coming in now... 
+
+Everything stops, as THE PHOTO -- blurry, oblique -- begins 
+materializing on HALF-A-DOZEN MONITORS around the room. 
+Suddenly, they're surrounded by Bourne. 
+
+PAMELA 
+(to Nicky) 
+Is it him? 
+
+Looking closer -- she nods... 
+
+CRONIN 
+He's not hiding, that's for sure. 
+
+ZORN 
+Why Naples? Why now? 
+
+PAMELA has gone quiet, just staring at the picture, as -- 
+
+KURT 
+Could be random. 
+
+44. 
+
+
+CRONIN 
+Maybe he's running. 
+
+ABBOTT looks skeptical. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+On his own passport? 
+
+KIM 
+(the image) 
+What's he actually doing? 
+
+CRONIN 
+What's he doing? He's making his first 
+mistake... 
+
+And then, from behind them -- 
+
+NICKY 
+It's not a m istake. 
+(every one looks over) 
+They don't m ake mistakes. And they don't 
+do random. There's always an objective, * 
+always a tar get. * 
+(beat) * 
+If he's in N aples, on his own passport, * 
+there's a re ason. * 
+
+PAMELA turns to ABBOTT. A silent moment between them. 
+They're in it now and they know it. 
+
+
+C138 EXT. ITALIAN MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY -- NIGHT C138 
+
+THE PEUGEOT streaking through the Alps. Passing a sign for 
+the German border. Moonlit glacial peaks whipping past as 
+CLUB MUSIC STARTS PULSING LOUDER AND LOUDER and -- 
+
+D138 
+D138 INT. THE PEUGEOT -- NIGHT (CONT.) 
+BOURNE driving hard. Pushing the car through the night. 
+Mission Bourne. As the MUSIC KEEPS JUST BUILDING AND 
+BUILDING, taking us into -- 
+
+
+139 INT. MOSCOW NIGHTCLUB -- NIGHT 139 
+
+Packed and loud. Skin and smoke. A DOORMAN on the move, 
+taking us with him through THE CROWD. Faces -- voices -- 
+all the Moscow party people and -- 
+
+AT THE BACK 
+
+45. 
+
+
+AV IP BOOTH. KIRILL s imply shitfaced . But in a really 
+cre epy, numb kind of w ay. THREE WOME N, absolut ely 
+gor geous, are sitting around him, cha tting away as if he 
+wer en't even there. T he girls lookin g up to se e -- 
+
+THE DOORMAN 
+(standing there) 
+(Can he walk?) 
+
+KIRILL stirs. His stupor a futile attempt to escape. Eyes 
+still those of an exceptionally hard man. 
+
+A minute later. KIRILL can walk. The most graceful drunk 
+you've ever seen. Making his way through the club. Tuning 
+out everything but the need to get to THE DOOR and -- 
+
+
+140 EXT. MOSCOW NIGHTCLUB -- DAY (CONT) 140 
+
+Yes, day. It's nine a.m. KIRILL suddenly in the sunlight. 
+People going to work. Kids off to school and -- 
+
+GRETKOV sitting in his Mercedes, not happy. 
+
+FOLLOW CAR and SECURITY and ASSISTANT equally unhappy. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+(You told me Jason Bourne was dead.) 
+
+KIRILL blinking against the sunlight -- trying to process. 
+
+
+141 DELETED 141 
+
+142 
+142 EXT. ANONYMOUS MUNICH NEIGHBORHOOD -- DAY 
+Discreet and chilly. A car pulls up. A MAN gets out. 
+
+MUNICH 
+We don't see his face as he heads in. 
+
+
+143 INT. JARDA'S HOUSE FOYER/KITCHEN -- DAY 143 
+
+The man enter s. His a larm system -- beep...beep -- starts 
+onc e he comes through the door. There's A KEYPAD on the 
+wal l. He ent ers his c ode and the beeping stops. Just like 
+eve ryday. It 's a sad house. 
+
+He hangs his coat on the rack. Moving now -- 
+
+46. 
+
+
+INTO 
+
+THE KITCHEN. He drops his briefcase on the table, opens 
+the fridge for a drink. Except what he comes out with is -- 
+
+A GUN! 
+
+Wheeling around. The salaryman is JARDA. JARDA from 
+Bourne's dream. But as he turns -- 
+
+BOURNE behind him. Bigger gun. Waiting. So ready. 
+
+BOURNE 
+I emptied it. 
+
+JARDA 
+(a total pro) 
+Felt a little light. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Drop it. 
+
+JARDA lets the gun fall, looks his old comrade over a beat. 
+
+But Bourne's not interested in a reunion. 
+
+BOURNE (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+Here... 
+
+Bourne tosses him FLEXCUFFS -- JARDA puts his hands behind 
+his back, turns to let BOURNE cinch them. 
+
+BOURNE (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+Front. Use your teeth. 
+
+JARDA 
+(caught scamming) 
+Sorry. Old habits. 
+
+Sit. 
+BOURNE kicks over a chair. 
+JARDA (CONT'D) * 
+Word in the ether was you'd lost your 
+memory. 
+
+BOURNE checking JARDA'S briefcase -- tearing through it -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+You still should've moved. 
+
+JARDA 
+I like it here. 
+(a beat) 
+(MORE) 
+
+47. 
+
+
+JARDA (CONT'D) 
+Last time I saw you was Greece. You had a 
+good spot. 
+
+BOURNE reacts -- doesn't look over -- but realizes... 
+
+JARDA (CONT'D) * 
+I had the gi rl. I had her lined up that 
+whole aftern oon. Waiting for you, that 
+was the prob lem. 
+(defen sive) 
+You ever do two targets? It's tough. 
+
+BOURNE turns. Cold. 
+
+JARDA (CONT'D) * 
+(his real question) 
+So why didn't you kill me then? * 
+
+BOURNE 
+She wouldn't let me. 
+(beat) 
+She's the only reason you're alive. 
+
+Silence. JARDA down a peg. Or two. 
+
+JARDA 
+What do you want? 
+
+BOURNE 
+Conklin. 
+
+JARDA 
+He's dead. 
+
+BOURNE -- the gun -- right to Jarda's face -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+Try again. 
+
+JARDA 
+Shot dead in Paris. Dead the night you 
+walked out. 
+
+BOURNE/PHONE 
+Then who runs Treadstone? 
+
+JARDA 
+Nobody. They shut it down. We're the 
+last two. It's over... 
+(not finishing because--) 
+
+-- he's falling! -- landing hard -- BOURNE just kicked the 
+chair out from under him -- 
+
+48. 
+
+
+BOURNE 
+You're lying. If it's over, why are they 
+after me? 
+
+JARDA 
+I don't know. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Who sent you to Greece? 
+
+JARDA 
+A voice. A voice from the States. 
+Someone new. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Pamela Landy? 
+
+JARDA 
+I don't know who that is. 
+
+BOURNE 
+What's going on in Berlin? 
+
+JARDA 
+I don't know! Why would I lie? 
+
+Silence. BOURNE pulls back. Unsure. 
+
+JARDA makes it to his feet. 
+
+JARDA (CONT'D) * 
+What the hell did you do? You must have 
+really screwed up. 
+
+BOURNE doesn't know. He backs off. 
+
+JARDA (CONT'D) 
+She really d id that? Told you not to kill 
+me? 
+(beat) 
+I had a woma n once. But after a while, 
+what do you talk about? I mean, for us. 
+The work. Y ou can't tell them who you 
+are... 
+
+BOURNE 
+I did. 
+
+JARDA hesitates. It's really like Bourne just told him how 
+much he loved her. 
+
+JARDA 
+I thought you were here to kill me. 
+
+49. 
+
+
+Something in the way he said it. Plus Jarda just glanced 
+at his watch. 
+
+BOURNE 
+What did you do? 
+
+JARDA shrugs, almost embarrassed. BOURNE looks across to 
+the alarm pad Jarda hit on the way in. Voltage -- like a 
+switch. 
+
+BOURNE (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+You called it in? 
+
+JARDA 
+I'm sorry. 
+
+BOURNE 
+How long? How long do I have -- 
+(stopping because--) 
+
+THE PHONE JUST STARTED RINGING -- loud -- insistent -- 
+
+BOURNE (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+How long? 
+
+
+144 INT. DOD RAPID CAR -- DAY 144 
+
+Jam ming -- ri ght the f uck into it -- three guys -- JARHEADS 
+-- DOD Specia l Force d udes -- speeding through MUNICH -- 
+JAR #1 is the driver - - JAR #2 is prepping weapons like a 
+man iac in the backseat and -- 
+
+JAR #3 
+(on the phone) 
+-- it's a red flag file! -- so fix it, 
+call them back ASAP! -- 
+
+JAR #1 
+(the call) 
+What? What'd they do? 
+
+JAR #3 
+(bad news) 
+She called Munich local. 
+
+JAR #2 
+(slamming home another clip) 
+It's probably just a drill anyway. * 
+
+50. 
+
+
+145 INT. JARDA'S HOUSE KITCHEN -- DAY 145 
+
+PHONE RINGING -- JARDA in cuffs -- BOURNE scanning out the 
+windows -- everything fast -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+-- car keys? 
+
+JARDA 
+-- my coat -- but we should -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+-- what? -- 
+
+JARDA 
+-- take the back -- get another car -- 
+
+BOURNE hesitates -- just a moment -- 
+
+Wrong. 
+
+SLAM! -- out of nowhere -- JARDA swings -- two-hands -- 
+still cuffed -- like a mace -- catching BOURNE hard and -- 
+
+BOURNE stunned -- JARDA smashing the coffee table, slices 
+the flexcuffs through on a shard of glass -- Free! 
+
+JARDA follows up -- knee up in the ribs -- THE GUN KNOCKED 
+FREE FROM BOURNE'S HAND! -- skittering across the floor -- 
+BOURNE -- as JARDA starts to move -- backhanding him and -- 
+
+
+146 EXT. MUNICH STREET -- DAY 146 
+
+TWO MUNICH PATROL CARS rolling and -- 
+
+147 
+147 EXT./INT. JARDA'S KITCHEN -- DAY 
+Seen from inside, glimpsed through the glass outside. 
+
+It' s war -- a flat-out , close-quarter death match -- JARDA 
+old er and cuf fed, but strong and dete rmined -- BOURNE still 
+ham mered from that ope ning sucker-pun ch -- the two of them 
+bra ced there -- grappl ing -- falling -- 
+
+JARDA -- the cuffs -- he's got BOURNE in a choke-hold -- 
+but BOURNE driving his head back -- into JARDA'S FACE and -- 
+
+148 
+148 INT. DOD RAPID CAR -- DAY 
+
+51. 
+
+
+Jamming along through Munich -- 
+
+
+149 INT. JARDA'S KITCHEN -- DAY 149 
+
+JARDA -- BOURNE -- THE GUN on the floor -- struggling for 
+it -- JARDA there first -- BOURNE on him -- pinned there -- 
+four hands, one gun and -- 
+
+BLAMM!!! -- wild shot -- into the refrigerator -- 
+
+Still wrestling -- breaking JARDA's nose, until -- 
+
+The gun knocked away again. 
+
+Finally their hands locked into each other's throats. This 
+is as real and up close as it gets. Until, BOURNE finally 
+holds dead weight. Eyes fixed. Staring... 
+
+BOURNE jumping back. Blood all over his shirt -- BOURNE'S 
+first kill in a long time. A messy one -- Revulsion. 
+
+
+150 INT. DOD RAPID CAR -- DAY 150 
+
+JARHEADS getting close -- but up ahead -- ANOTHER MUNICH 
+PATROL CAR in motion -- the JARHEADS react -- don't need 
+or want the company. 
+
+
+151 INT. JARDA'S KITCHEN -- DAY 151 
+
+BOURNE -- all business now -- pulling THE STOVE away from 
+the wall -- there -- THE GAS LINE HOSE -- BOURNE ripping it 
+free -- gas running wide open into the room -- 
+
+Nex t -- A FOR K -- grab bing it -- jamm ing it dow n into th e 
+mec hanism on a TOASTER -- wedging it there -- a nd now he 's 
+gra bbing PAPE RS -- JAR DA's stuff on t he table - - jamming a 
+rol l of sales projecti ons into the to aster besi de the fo rk - 
+- 
+
+BOURNE coughing from the gas, turning the toaster on. 
+
+Checking his watch. 
+
+Taking one last look at JARDA dead on the floor and -- 
+
+152 * 
+152 DELETED 
+
+52. 
+
+
+153 INT. DOD RAPID CAR -- DAY 153 
+
+They're just turning into the street -- 
+
+
+154 EXT. JARDA'S STREET -- DAY 154 
+
+THE DOD CAR -- THREE DODS approaching the house, when -- * 
+
+BOOOOOMM!!! -- JARDA'S KITCHEN -- blown out! -- gone -- 
+
+
+155 EXT. JARDA'S BACK DOOR -- DAY 155 
+
+BOURNE -- same moment -- flying out the rear -- as planned 
+-- urban backyard exfil -- he's flying and -- Gone. 
+
+
+156 EXT. JARDA'S HOUSE -- DAY 156 
+
+Fire -- smoke -- it's all burning now -- MUNICH COPS blown 
+back -- they'll have a story to tell tonight -- 
+
+
+157 INT. BOURNE'S CAR -- DAY 157 * 
+
+Drives away past arriving police... * 
+
+
+158-163 DELETED 158-163 
+
+
+164 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT 164 
+
+The bullpen is cranking -- phones to Munich -- lines to 
+Lan gley -- ABBOTT watching from the sidelines -- KURT and 
+KIM at their work stations -- PAMELA on mobile, turns to 
+ABB OTT -- 
+
+PAMELA 
+So he beats a man within an inch of his * 
+life, strang les him, then blows the place * 
+up? * 
+(at Ni cky) 
+For someone with amnesia, he certainly 
+hasn't forgo tten how to kill, has he? 
+
+Across the room -- CRONIN and TEDDY suddenly excited about 
+what they're seeing on THEIR SCREEN -- 
+
+53. 
+
+
+CRONIN 
+-- hey! -- they've got him boxed in! -- 
+(new data coming up on the 
+monitor) 
+
+Everyone rushing to look. Excited, except -- 
+
+ZORN 
+Forget it. They lost him. 
+
+TEDDY 
+What're you talking about? They've got a 
+three block perimeter. 
+
+ZORN 
+You can't see him? He's not in front of 
+you? Forget it. He's gone. 
+
+CRONIN * 
+(fuck you, buzzkill) * 
+It's not gonna be like last time. * 
+
+ZORN 
+You better start listening to someone. * 
+Cause we've been there. * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+Okay, enough... * 
+(stepping in) * 
+Take a walk, Danny. Get some air. * 
+
+Zorn nods. Happy to. * 
+
+NICKY 
+(piping in) 
+I don't think we need to keep looking for 
+him anyway. 
+
+PAMELA 
+And why is that? 
+
+NICKY 
+Because he's doing just what he said he'd * 
+do. He's coming for us. 
+
+And for the first time they're all thinking the same thing. 
+
+165 
+165 EXT. HOTEL BRECKER -- BERLIN -- NIGHT -- RAIN 
+It is pouring rain. Seen from that Hellish car, A HUGE, 
+DISTINCTIVE, NEEDLE-LIKE TOWER dominates the skyline, 
+lights flashing through the dark and wet -- 
+
+54. 
+
+
+166 INT. THE AUDI/REST-STOP -- NIGHT 166 
+
+BOURNE'S EYES OPENING! -- heart pounding -- springing up -- 
+alone -- damn, his side hurts -- recoiling from that -- 
+where is he? -- he's in the car -- looking around and -- 
+
+HIS WINDSHIELD POV 
+
+AN AUTOBAHN REST-STOP. Gas station. Sleeping trucks. 
+
+BACK TO 
+
+BOURNE catching his breath -- shifting away from the pain 
+in his rib -- checking his watch -- but what the hell is 
+that on his sleeve? -- fuck, it's BLOOD -- JARDA's blood -- 
+
+
+167 EXT. AUTOBAHN REST-STOP -- NIGHT 167 
+
+BOURNE out of the car fast -- careless -- wrong -- not even 
+checking who's watching -- pulling off the shirt -- tearing 
+it off -- throwing it down and -- 
+
+Standing there. In the weird light. A big bruise ripening 
+on his side. Looking around. 
+
+It's okay. Nobody's watching. But, shit, man... 
+
+Get it together. 
+
+
+A167 INT. PEUGEOT -- AUTOBAHN -- NIGHT A167 
+
+Streaking along. BOURNE back to his mission. 
+
+B167 
+B167 EXT. AUTOBAHN -- NIGHT 
+Berlin 75 KM. 
+Roaring by a SIGN: 
+
+168 INT. MOSCOW AIRPORT -- NIGHT 168 
+
+KIRILL striding through the terminal. Moving quickly 
+toward a departure gate and -- 
+
+THE CAMERA FINDS 
+
+GRETKOV above. Watching him go. 
+
+55. 
+
+
+169 EXT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION -- DAWN 169 
+
+BOURNE drives up. 
+
+
+170-178 DELETED 170-178 
+
+
+179 INT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION -- DAWN 179 
+
+Quiet and forlorn this early. Just like BOURNE who's 
+taking A LOCKER. Stashing A BACKPACK. Prepping the evac. 
+Always ready. He heads outside, we hear: 
+
+HOTEL OPERATOR #1 (V.O.) 
+(front desk German) 
+(Berlin Hilton, how can I help you?) 
+
+BOURNE/PHONE (V.O.) 
+(I'm trying to reach a guest, Pamela 
+Landy, please.) 
+
+HOTEL OPERATOR #1 (V.O.) 
+(I'm sorry but I'm not showing that we 
+have a guest by that name.) 
+(continuing as--) 
+
+
+A179 INT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION PHONE KIOSK -- DAWN A179 
+
+BOURNE tucked in with a BERLIN GUIDE BOOK, a felt tip pen, 
+and a Fifty-Euro phonecard. Working it. 
+
+BOURNE/PHONE 
+(Pamela Landy, please) 
+
+HOTEL OPERATOR #2 
+(Sorry, I don't see it here.) 
+
+Crossing out another Hotel off the list -- four down, forty 
+to go -- as we start TIME CUTTING and... 
+
+HOTEL VOICES (V .O.) 
+(overl apping) 
+(-- no one h ere by that nam e --) 
+(-- no, sir, there's no Lan dy here --) 
+(-- how are you spelling th at, sir? --) 
+(-- sorry, b ut no --) 
+(-- I have n o Landy registe red, sir --) 
+(conti nuing, until--) 
+
+56. 
+
+
+B179 INT. PAMELA'S HILTON HOTEL SUITE -- DAWN B179 
+
+Clean and plain. A bed nobody's slept in. THE PHONE 
+begins ringing. PAMELA, fresh from the shower, rushing out 
+from the bathroom to answer it -- 
+
+PAMELA/PHONE 
+Hello -- 
+
+Dial tone. PAMELA hangs up. That was strange -- 
+
+
+C179 EXT. BERLIN STREETS/ALEXANDERPLATZ -- DAWN C179 
+
+A TAXI driving through the empty early streets and -- 
+
+
+D179 INT. BERLIN TAXI -- DAWN (CONT) D179 
+
+BOURNE in the backseat. Staring out the window and -- 
+
+HIS POV 
+
+THE FERNSEHTURM looming as they pass, the Berlin TV Tower. 
+That needle in the sky. From the flashback. And then -- 
+
+E179 SUDDENLY E179 
+
+FLA SHBACK! -- it's rai ning -- we're s till movin g -- still 
+in a car -- s till near Alexanderplatz , but sudd enly it's 
+pou ring outsi de -- tur ning back, we r ealize we' re not in 
+the cab anymo re -- the re's A DRIVER u p front, a nd beside 
+him ... 
+
+CONKLIN! -- yes, Conklin -- he's in the passenger seat -- 
+turning back to us -- handing us something -- A PHOTOGRAPH -- 
+a face -- some guy -- 
+
+CONKLIN 
+Neski. Vladimir Neski... 
+(the photo) 
+He's at the Hotel Brecker. Get the * 
+papers. * 
+(beat) 
+Say it. 
+
+BOURNE -- Treadstone Bourne -- alone in the back -- staring 
+at the photo -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+Neski. Hotel Brecker. Papers. * 
+
+57. 
+
+
+CONKLIN 
+This is not a drill, soldier. We're clear 
+on that? This is a live project and you 
+are go. Training is over. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Yes, sir. 
+
+CONKLIN 
+Good, then g imme the damn picture back. 
+(takin g it) 
+See you on t he other side. 
+(to th e driver) 
+Pull over, h e's getting out. 
+
+F179 BACK TO F179 
+
+BOURNE sitting in the back seat of the cab. Frozen there. 
+Rocked. What's happening to him? No chance to work it 
+out, because the taxi's stopped and -- 
+
+TAXI DRIVER 
+(waiting; irritated) 
+(The Hotel Brecker or the Grand?, make up 
+your mind.) 
+
+BOURNE 
+(What?) 
+
+TAXI DRIVER 
+(This is the Westin Grand. You just said 
+Brecker.) 
+
+BOURNE 
+(fishing for money) 
+(Yeah. Sorry. This is good.) 
+
+
+INT. BERLIN WESTIN GRAND HOTEL LOBBY -- EARLY MORNING G179 
+G179 
+Concentric rings looking down on each other. BOURNE 
+slipping in unnoticed, taking a quick look up before 
+moving along. 
+
+
+H179 INT. HEALTH CLUB -- GRAND HOTEL -- DAY H179 * 
+
+BOURNE stepping up to the GUY behind the desk. The gym * 
+mostly empty. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Hi. I think I left my backpack here * 
+yesterday. Black, Nike. * 
+
+58. 
+
+
+The guy disappears in back to check. * 
+
+BOURNE leans across the counter, scrolling the COMPUTER -- * 
+the guest list -- his finger stabbing down on... * 
+
+SCREEN: Landy, Pamela 413. 
+
+BOURNE clears the screen, walks away. 
+
+
+J179 INT. CONCENTRIC RINGS -- GRAND HOTEL -- DAY J179 
+
+Because of the set-up, Bourne, pretending to talk on a 
+house phone, has a view of ROOM 413 across the way. The 
+door opens, PAMELA exits, carrying an overnight bag -- * 
+
+BOURNE watches. 
+
+
+K179 INT. LOBBY -- THE GRAND -- DAY K179 
+
+ELEVATOR DOORS OPENING. PAMELA coming out into the lobby. 
+Heading toward the exit and -- 
+
+
+L179 EXT. GRAND HOTEL ENTRANCE -- EARLY MORNING L179 
+
+A BLACK SUBURBAN at the curb. CRONIN standing there * 
+waiting, as she emerges -- 
+
+PAMELA 
+Anything? 
+
+TEDDY 
+No. Munich's a bust. He's loose. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Are we locked up? * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+I told everyone they had an hour -- eat, * 
+sleep, shave, whatever they want, but * 
+once we're back, we're back for good. * 
+
+As they pile in, and -- * 
+
+THE CAMERA FINDS 
+
+BOURNE walking right past them -- he's got the whole thing 
+scoped -- heading quickly across the street and -- 
+
+59. 
+
+
+M179 EXT. HILTON HOTEL TAXI STAND -- EARLY MORNING M179 
+
+BOURNE jumps into the first cab in the rank and -- 
+
+
+N179 INT. BERLIN TAXI #2 -- EARLY MORNING (CONT) N179 
+
+THE DRIVER starting up the car, as -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+(That black SUV. Fifty Euros if you keep 
+me close.) 
+
+THE DRIVER smiles and -- 
+
+
+179I pt. INT. BERLIN AIRPORT HOTEL -- EARLY MORNING 179I pt. 
+
+KIRILL walks down the same hallway Gretkov came to meet him 
+last time. 
+
+A GUY carrying a briefcase toward him. Stopping for a 
+moment to light a smoke. Letting KIRILL take charge of the 
+briefcase. Smooth. Like it never happened -- 
+
+
+180 EXT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- DAY 180 
+
+The SUV rolling up. The CAB continuing past and stopping 
+at the corner. 
+
+
+A180 INT. CAB -- DAY A180 
+
+BOURNE looking back out the rear window. 
+
+HIS POV 
+As they pile out of the van, start inside. Acknowledged by 
+a SECURITY DETAIL pretending to loiter outside. As we 
+hear: 
+
+PAMELA (VO) 
+-- Munich to Berlin, check everything -- 
+flights -- t rains -- police reports -- 
+that'll be B ox #1, Teddy that's yours -- 
+(conti nuing as--) 
+
+60. 
+
+
+179I pt. INT. BERLIN HOTEL ROOM -- DAY 179I pt. 
+
+KIRILL opening the briefcase. TWO AUTOMATIC PISTOLS. 
+SILENCERS. AMMO. Care package. 
+
+
+181 EXT. BERLIN ROOFTOP -- DAY 181 
+
+A bulkhead opening. BOURNE stepping out among the 
+satellite dishes. Unpacks a bag: telescope, water, food, 
+and we hear: 
+
+PAMELA (VO) 
+-- Box #2, c all it Prior Ge rman 
+Con nections -- Nicky, I wan t to re-run all 
+Bou rne's Tre adstone materia l, every 
+foo tstep -- Kim, Box #3 -- let's call it 
+Mun ich Outbo und -- 
+(conti nuing as--) 
+
+
+182 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- DAY 182 
+
+We' ve been he aring it, now we're seei ng it: PAM ELA at the 
+cha lkboard -- ABBOTT b acking her up - - everyone else spread 
+aro und -- the y're re-g rouping -- urge ntly -- be hind them * 
+cot s are bein g set up -- food, water stacked up -- * 
+
+PAMELA 
+-- let's sta y on the local cops, we n eed 
+av ehicle -- parking ticket -- someth ing -- 
+Lan gley's of fered to upload any satel lite 
+ima ging we n eed, so let's f ind a targ et to 
+loo k for. 
+(to Zo rn) 
+Dan ny, Box # 4 -- I need fre sh eyes -- 
+rev iew the b uy where we los t the three 
+mil lion -- t imeline it with what we know 
+abo ut Bourne 's movements. Turn it upside 
+dow n and see how it looks - - 
+(conti nuing as--) 
+
+
+183 EXT. TELESCOPIC POV -- DAY 183 
+
+Ad ecent view into the Berlin HQ. Tw o windows. One offers 
+al ook at an empty kit chenette. The other, a n ice shot of 
+the bullpen a rea. It looks like they are in fo r the long * 
+hau l. There' s TEDDY p acing past...a glimpse of ZORN * 
+con ferring wi th ABBOTT ...now KIM talk ing on the phone. 
+
+61. 
+
+
+184 EXT. BERLIN ROOFTOP -- DAY 184 
+
+BOURNE -- eyes locked on the target. Scanning. Waiting. 
+
+And then, something changes. Suddenly, there's something 
+down there that's clearly a great deal more electric than 
+what he's seen so far -- 
+
+A184 TELESCOPIC POV A184 
+
+NICKY! -- she's just come into the kitchenette -- pouring 
+herself a cup of coffee. Nicky who he knows. And -- 
+
+BOURNE lowering the telescope. Yes. Now he's getting 
+somewhere. Thinking it through, as -- 
+
+
+185 DELETED 185 * 
+
+
+186 INT. KITCHENETTE -- BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- DAY 186 
+
+NICKY is joined by PAMELA who goes for the coffee. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Is it fresh? 
+
+NICKY 
+It's got caffeine in it. That's all I 
+know. 
+
+Before PAMELA can pour, her cell phone rings. She * 
+answers. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Pamela Landy. 
+
+BOURNE/PHONE 
+I was at the Westin this morning. I could * 
+have killed you. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Who is this? 
+
+INTERCUT WITH ROOFTOP 
+
+BOURNE * 
+It's me. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+(Holy Christ) 
+Bourne? 
+
+62. 
+
+
+NICKY reacts to the name. Runs to the other room to try 
+and start a trace. 
+
+PAMELA (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+What do you want? 
+
+BOURNE 
+I want to come in. 
+
+He wants to come in! -- it's like a bomb going off -- NICKY 
+back in with Conklin -- PAMELA waving for a pencil. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Okay, how do you want to do it? * 
+
+BOURNE 
+I want someone I know to take me in. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Who? 
+
+BOURNE 
+There was a girl in Paris. Part of the 
+program. She used to handle the 
+medication. 
+
+AND NOW WE STAY WITH 
+
+PAMELA -- her eyes flicker over to NICKY. 
+
+PAMELA 
+What if we can't find her? 
+
+BOURNE/PHONE 
+It's easy. She's standing right in front 
+of you. 
+
+Busted. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Okay, Jason, your move. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Alexanderplatz. 30 minutes. Under the * 
+World Clock. Alone. Give her your * 
+phone. * 
+
+Click. The line goes dead -- Pamela steps away from the * 
+window, realizing he's on one of the roofs out there! * 
+
+63. 
+
+
+A186 EXT. BERLIN ROOFTOP -- DAY A186 
+
+As the bulkhead door swings in the wind -- BOURNE is gone. 
+
+
+B186 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- DAY B186 
+
+Everyone gathered. A big, detailed MAP of ALEXANDERPLATZ * 
+spread on the table. 
+
+ZORN * 
+Here's the clock -- shit -- he's put her * 
+in the middle of everything. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+-- it's a nightmare -- we'll never get her * 
+covered. * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Call a Mayday into Berlin station. We 
+need snipers, DOD, whatever they got. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Snipers? Hold on -- he said he wants to * 
+come in. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+My ass he do es. You're pla ying with fire, 
+Pam ela. Mar shall said nail him to the * 
+wal l. I don 't know how you interpreted * 
+tha t, but I don't think he meant * 
+rep atriate h im. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Don't you want answers? 
+
+ABBOTT 
+There are no answers. Ther e's either 
+Jason Bourne alive or Jason Bourne dead. 
+And I for on e would prefer the latter. 
+And what abo ut her? 
+(point s to Nicky) 
+You just sen d her out to th is lunatic with 
+no protectio n? 
+
+PAMELA looks to NICKY. 
+
+PAMELA 
+What do you think? Is he coming in? 
+
+64. 
+
+
+NICKY 
+I don't know. He was sick. He wanted 
+out. I believed him. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Alright... 
+
+PAMELA gestures to ABBOTT, CRONIN, TEDDY. 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+...make the call. Get a wire on her. If * 
+it starts to go wrong, take him out. 
+
+
+187 DELETED 187 * 
+
+
+A187 EXT. BERLIN STATION/MOTORPOOL -- DAY A187 
+
+The rear of THE OFFICIAL BERLIN C.I.A. HQ -- and here they 
+come -- TEN DELTA DUDES in civvies, sprinting to A COUPLE 
+VEHICLES with DRIVERS ready and engines running and -- * 
+
+
+B187-C187 DELETED B187-C187 * 
+
+
+D187 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- DAY D187 
+
+NIC KY, her ha nds overh ead as -- ZORN tapes a TRANSMITTER 
+and BATTERY b etween he r shoulder blades -- TEDDY and CRONIN * 
+plo t the area with TWO MEN plainclothed DELTA TEAM -- KIM * 
+and KURT on t heir own lines. * 
+
+KIM * 
+(this just in) * 
+They got the number. Bourne's calls came * 
+from Nevins' phone. The field agent in * 
+Genoa. * 
+
+TEDDY * 
+Nevins is Bourne? * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+(losing it) * 
+Are you an idiot?! Bourne must've cloned * 
+his phone! * 
+
+An embarrassed silence. Abbott mad at himself for losing * 
+his temper -- looking up to find Pamela's eyes on his. * 
+
+ABBOTT (cont'd) (CONT'D) * 
+I hope you know what you're doing -- * 
+
+65. 
+
+
+E187-F187 DELETED E187-F187 * 
+
+
+G187 EXT. ALEXANDERPLATZ -- DAY G187 
+
+In all its vastness -- Alone -- there's the WORLD CLOCK -- * 
+NICKY waiting on the periphery, TWO PLAIN-CLOTHED DELTAS 
+nearby. 
+
+IN QUICK SUCCESSION -- NICKY -- BINOCULAR POV -- SNIPER 
+SCOPE POV -- on a VIDEO MONITOR. 
+
+
+H187 INT. BULLPEN -- COMMAND POST -- DAY H187 * 
+
+Everyone waiting. Holding their breath. Watching NICKY * 
+standing as... * 
+
+
+J187 EXT. ALEXANDERPLATZ -- WORLD CLOCK -- DAY J187 
+
+NICKY'S (Pamela's) PHONE rings. She answers as a yellow * 
+TRAM approaches... * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+See that tram coming around the corner? * 
+
+NICKY * 
+Yes. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Get on it. * 
+
+She turns and walks as the TRAM arrives. The DELTA DUDES * 
+start moving... * 
+
+K187 * 
+K187 EXT. ALEXANDERPLATZ -- DAY 
+The yellow TR AM arrive s. NICKY enter s. One of the DELT A * 
+DUD ES just ba rely join ing her. The T RAM begins moving. * 
+NIC KY looks a round ner vously. Nothin g happens. The TRA M * 
+mov es about 5 00 yards across the PLAT Z. Stops at the ne xt * 
+sto p. People get on a nd off. NICKY and DELTA DUDE rela x * 
+ab it. Doors begin to close. * 
+
+And just like that, BOURNE swoops in beside NICKY! Flashes * 
+a gun. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Walk. * 
+
+66. 
+
+
+BOURNE takes her arm and they just get off as the doors * 
+close leaving the DELTA DUDE behind. They disappear down * 
+into the PEDESTRIAN SUBWAY. * 
+
+
+L187-M187 DELETED L187-M187 * 
+
+
+N187 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN H.Q. -- DAY N187 * 
+
+A madhouse, a video feed on a monitor. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Where's Nicky? 
+
+As they realize she's gone -- 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Goddamn it -- I told you. 
+
+CRONIN 
+Listen! Listen! 
+
+He cranks the speaker. 
+
+BOURNE'S VOICE 
+What did I say? What did I tell you in 
+Paris? 
+
+
+O187 DELETED O187 * 
+
+
+P187 INT. PEDESTRIAN SUBWAY -- DAY P187 
+
+BOURNE 
+What were my words? 
+(but s he can't speak) 
+Leave me alo ne! Leave me out of it! 
+But you coul dn't do that, could you? 
+
+NICKY 
+I did...Jason, I swear, I did...I told 
+them... I told them I believed you... 
+
+BOURNE 
+Who is Pamela Landy? 
+
+NICKY 
+You hear me? I believed you. 
+
+BOURNE 
+IS SHE RUNNING TREADSTONE? * 
+
+67. 
+
+
+Q187 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN H.Q. -- DAY Q187 * 
+
+PAMELA all ears. 
+
+NICKY'S VOICE 
+She's CI. Counterintelligence. 
+She's a Deputy Director. 
+
+BOURNE'S VOICE 
+What the hell is she doing? 
+
+
+R187 INT. PEDESTRIAN SUBWAY -- DAY R187 
+
+NICKY 
+What's she doing? 
+
+Nicky looks at him like he's crazy. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Why is she trying to kill me? * 
+
+NICKY 
+They know! 
+(defia nt, reckless) 
+They know yo u were here. T hey know you 
+killed these two guys. The y know you and 
+Conklin had something on th e side. They 
+don't know w hat it is, but they know! 
+
+As BOURNE tries to process -- 
+
+
+S187 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN H.Q. -- DAY S187 * 
+
+Radio chatter going wild. Panic. 
+
+DELTA V.O. 
+(into radio) 
+Where are they? Anyone? 
+
+T187 
+T187 INT. PEDESTRIAN SUBWAY -- DAY 
+Still walking. BOURNE knowing he must be driving them * 
+nuts. 
+
+BOURNE 
+How do they know that? How can they know 
+any of that? 
+
+68. 
+
+
+NICKY 
+What is this, a game? 
+
+BOURNE 
+I want to hear it from you. 
+
+She looks at him. Is he crazy? What? 
+
+BOURNE (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+Say it. 
+
+NICKY 
+Last week an Agency field officer went to 
+make a buy from a Russian national. 
+
+BOURNE 
+A Russian? 
+
+NICKY 
+It was Pamela Landy's op. The guy was 
+goi ng to sell-out a mole or something. I 
+hav en't been debriefed on exactly what it 
+was . 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Last week? When? * 
+
+Is she supposed to answer? -- Nicky shrugs -- on quicksand. 
+
+NICKY 
+And you got to him before we could. 
+
+BOURNE 
+I killed him??? 
+
+NICKY 
+You left a p rint! There was Kel that 
+did n't go of f! There was a partial print, 
+the y tracked it back to Treadstone! They 
+kno w it's yo u! 
+
+BOURNE 
+I left a fingerprint! You fucking * 
+people. * 
+
+SUDDENLY -- 
+
+BOURNE'S jerking her down to a LOWER LEVEL -- 
+
+69. 
+
+
+U187 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN H.Q. -- DAY U187 * 
+
+Big static on the speakers. DELTA C.O. cooly checks the 
+map. 
+
+DELTA C.O. 
+She must be in one of the pedestrian 
+tunnels. 
+
+
+V187 EXT. ALEXANDERPLATZ -- DAY V187 
+
+As DELTA DUDES fan out, head for the subway entrances. 
+
+
+W187 INT. PEDESTRIAN SUBWAY -- SECTION TWO -- DAY W187 
+
+An INTERSECTION of THREE TUNNELS. 
+
+BOURNE leads NICKY far left. She looks really scared. 
+
+
+188 INT./EXT. BERLIN AIRPORT -- DAY 188 
+
+GRETKOV has landed. Just coming off the flight -- 
+
+
+189-A189 DELETED 189-A189 * 
+
+
+190 DELETED 190 * 
+
+
+191 INT. PEDESTRIAN SUBWAY -- SECTION FOUR -- DAY 191 
+
+BOURNE * 
+What was Lan dy buying? What kind of * 
+files? * 
+(when she doesn't answer * 
+insta ntly--) * 
+BUYING? * 
+WHAT WAS SHE 
+NICKY 
+Conklin! Stuff on Conklin! 
+(trying not to lose it) 
+
+Suddenly he rips the microphone out from under her shirt -- 
+he knew of course -- dropping it as he yanks her along. 
+
+70. 
+
+
+192 INT. BULLPEN -- BERLIN H.Q. -- DAY 192 * 
+
+As the transmission goes dead. Christ... ABOOTT drills a 
+look at PAMELA. Your fault! 
+
+PAMELA * 
+(ignoring Abbott) * 
+That phone has a locator on it. * 
+
+KURT and KIM work their stuff. * 
+
+
+193 INT. PARKING GARAGE -- DAY 193 
+
+Gloomy, deserted. A mausoleum. Here come NICKY and 
+BOURNE. She knows she's on her own now. BOURNE dead 
+serious. Looks at his watch. * 
+
+BOURNE 
+Why are you here, then? * 
+
+NICKY * 
+Please -- I'm only here because of Paris -- * 
+because they can't figure out what you're * 
+doing -- I'm here because of Abbott -- * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Abbott? * 
+
+NICKY * 
+He closed down Treadstone -- he took care * 
+of me after Paris... * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+So when was I here? * 
+
+NICKY * 
+What do you mean? * 
+
+BOURNE 
+For Treadstone. In Berlin. You know my 
+file. I did a job here. When? 
+
+NICKY 
+No. You never worked Berlin. 
+
+BOURNE 
+My first job. * 
+
+NICKY 
+Your first assignment was Geneva. 
+
+71. 
+
+
+BOURNE 
+That's a lie! 
+
+NICKY 
+(emphatic) 
+You never worked Berlin... 
+
+BOURNE raising the gun -- eyes gone dead -- oh, shit... 
+
+NICKY (CONT'D) 
+No...Jason...please... 
+
+BOURNE 
+I was here! 
+
+NICKY 
+... it's not in the file...I swear...I 
+kno w your file...your first job was * 
+Gen eva!...I swear to God you never worked * 
+her e!... * 
+
+He's so ready to kill her. NICKY starting to cry -- hands 
+over her face -- covering up -- bracing for the bullet she 
+knows is coming -- 
+
+BOURNE -- about to pull the trigger -- 
+
+SUDDENLY 
+
+A193 FLA SHBACK! -- a moment -- a shard -- A WOMAN'S FACE -- A193 
+bac king away -- beggin g -- begging us -- beggin g the camera 
+-- PLEADING F OR HER LI FE IN RUSSIAN - - this awf ul blur of 
+des peration a nd panic -- fear -- too fast -- to o panicked -- 
+
+B193 JAM BACK TO B193 
+
+BOURNE swamped -- thrown -- hesitating -- 
+
+CLOSE ON NICKY 
+
+Sobbing now -- when? -- finally looking out, and -- 
+
+BOURNE IS GONE! 
+
+
+C193 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT C193 
+
+An hour later. Whole new vibe. Siege mode. Curtains 
+drawn. 
+
+THREE DELTA DUDES parked around the room. KURT and KIM * 
+working the phones and screens. 
+
+72. 
+
+
+The mood is dark. PAMELA, ABBOTT, CRONIN all in here, 
+the "safe" zone, away from the windows -- 
+
+CRONIN 
+(on a cell phone) 
+Got it, yeah . Hang on... 
+(to th e room) 
+Oka y, they'v e got three guys out front * 
+and another two taking the back stairs. * 
+No word on N icky. * 
+
+KURT * 
+(looks up from screen) * 
+Even if she' s still got your phone, it * 
+might take a while -- signal's hard to * 
+trace down t here. * 
+
+PAMELA turns, looking at the photo of BOURNE in Naples. * 
+Introspective. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+So what's he doing? You believe him? * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+It's hard to swallow. * 
+(beat) * 
+The confusio n -- the amnesia -- but he * 
+keeps on kil ling? It's more calculated * 
+than sick. * 
+(real soft sell) * 
+What about N icky? She's the last one to * 
+see Bourne i n Paris. She's the one he * 
+asks for. T hey disappear... * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Well, whatev er he's doing, I've had * 
+enough -- th is is now a search and * 
+destroy miss ion. * 
+(turns to the room) * 
+I want the B erlin police fully briefed * 
+and -- * 
+(handi ng the photo to Cronin) * 
+-- get this out to all the agencies. * 
+
+ABBOTT agrees... 
+
+
+194 DELETED 194 * 
+
+195 
+195 EXT. BERLIN STREET -- NIGHT 
+A BMW parked in the shadows. 
+
+73. 
+
+
+196 INT. BMW -- NIGHT 196 
+
+KIRILL wearing headphones, listening to a BERLIN POLICE 
+FREQUENCY. There's an INTERPOL "WANTED" PICTURE OF JASON 
+BOURNE there on the seat. He's in play. 
+
+
+D193 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT D193 
+
+Quiet, intense activity. MILITARY RADIOS CHIRPING here 
+and there. 
+
+THE CAMERA FINDS 
+
+ZORN moving through the bullpen, carrying a cup of coffee, 
+heading back toward PAMELA'S OFFICE where -- 
+
+ABBOTT is leaning in the doorway. Past him, inside, we can 
+see PAMELA in the midst of a tough phone conversation. 
+CRONIN and THE DELTA BOSS sitting there with her. 
+
+ZORN 
+(the coffee) 
+Sir... 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Thanks. 
+
+ABBOTT nods. Takes a sip. Looking beat. 
+
+ZORN (cont'd) 
+I have that number you wanted... 
+
+ABBOTT hesitates -- but only a moment -- he never asked for 
+a number. But he's playing along. Looking satisfied as 
+ZORN hands him a slip of paper. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+(glancing at it) 
+She say what time I should call? 
+
+ZORN 
+The sooner the better. 
+
+ABBOTT nods. Pockets the paper. Turning back, as if it 
+were nothing and -- 
+
+E193 
+E193 INT. BERLIN CYBER CAFE -- NIGHT 
+Massive. Modern. Busy. BOURNE in the back. In a corner. 
+
+74. 
+
+
+Doing a search HOTEL BRECKER 1997-1999. Scrolling. And 
+then stopping. Freezing. Because... 
+
+ON THE MONITOR 
+
+A BERLIN NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE. There it is. Written large in 
+loud, tabloid German: 
+
+(OIL REFORMER MURDERED) * 
+
+The re's a pho tograph o f the Berlin Po lice carry ing two body 
+bag s out of t he Hotel Brecker. There 's a capti on 
+ide ntifying t he dead a s Vladimir and Sonya Nesk i. There's 
+eve n a long a rticle ac companying all this, but it's in 
+Ger man and we don't ne ed to read it a nyway, bec ause -- 
+
+BOURNE is reading it. 
+
+And we're reading in his face. That he is rocked. That he 
+has found another bottom to the abyss. 
+
+
+F193 INT./EXT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING -- NIGHT F193 
+
+Remember the building where Vic was killed? We're back. 
+
+ZORN and ABBOTT making their way in. Zorn steering them 
+away toward a stairwell at the back... 
+
+
+194 INT. GLASS OFFICE BUILDING ELECTRICAL CLOSET -- NIGHT 194 
+
+ZORN and ABBOTT have snuck in here. Work light. Signs 
+of repair on the wall. 
+
+ZORN 
+(nervo us) 
+Id id my box work, but I wa nted to sh ow 
+you before I showed Landy. I came ou t * 
+her e last ni ght because non e of this was 
+mak ing any s ense. I mean, I'm with y ou on 
+thi s, Conkli n was a nut, bu t a traito r? I 
+jus t can't g et there. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+What do you have, Danny? 
+
+ZORN 
+(the e lectrical riser ) 
+You put a fo ur-gam Kel on h ere and it's 
+gon na take o ut power to the building. You 
+kno w that. What you can't know, is if 
+it' s gonna b low the room wi th it. 
+
+75. 
+
+
+ABBOTT 
+And? 
+
+ZORN 
+The re were t wo charges, they were supposed 
+to go off si multaneously. The second one, 
+the one that didn't go off, was down 
+her e... 
+(point ing it out) 
+Fir st of all , this is nothi ng, it's a sub- 
+lin e for the breaker above. Second, why 
+put the char ge all the way down here? If 
+you 're good enough to get i n here and 
+han dle the g ear, you're goo d enough to 
+kno w you don 't need this. 
+(beat) 
+Bou rne would know. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+It was staged? 
+
+ZORN 
+Is it a slam dunk? No, but... 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Jesus... 
+
+ZORN 
+(spit- balling) 
+Oka y. What if someone decided to cover 
+the ir tracks by blaming Conklin and 
+Bou rne. Wha t if Bourne didn't have 
+any thing to do with this? 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Keep going... 
+
+ZORN 
+Something's been going on here in Europe. 
+And it's still going on. Post Conklin. 
+Who's been in Berlin? 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Lots of people... 
+
+ZORN 
+Including Landy... 
+(jumping off the cliff) 
+She had access to the archives. 
+
+ZORN hesitates. But it's out. It's in the room. 
+
+76. 
+
+
+ABBOTT 
+Who else knows about this? 
+
+ZORN 
+Nobody. You. 
+(he's scared) 
+I had to tell you, right? 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Show me again... 
+
+ZORN 
+Okay... 
+(turning away, when--) 
+
+ABB OTT -- out of nowhe re -- his hand jamming up into ZORN'S 
+RIB CAGE! -- m ore than his hand, becau se ZORN'S EYES barely 
+hav e a moment to regis ter shock befor e they bul ge. 
+Cle nching the younger man's body, pul ling him c lose, as he 
+tur ns the kni fe and -- 
+
+ZORN is dead. 
+
+ABBOTT without hesitation. Shifting away from the blood. 
+
+Letting the body fall. 
+
+ABBOTT standing there. Listening. Checking himself for 
+blood. He's clean. 
+
+Looking for a place to stash the body, as -- 
+
+
+A194 EXT. HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT A194 
+
+BOURNE across the street. Staring at the hotel. Haunted. 
+As a POLICE SIREN edges closer through the empty streets -- 
+
+AA194 FLASHBACK! AA194 
+
+We are a POV -- a stake-out -- watching the HOTEL across 
+the way -- 
+
+The POV checks its watch -- checks the perimeter, the 
+street deserted, foreboding -- 
+
+THE HOTEL 
+
+Our destiny waiting up there somehow -- 
+
+-- and suddenly a LIGHT COMES ON -- a terrible signal -- 
+and as the car suddenly lurches forward and around the 
+corner -- 
+
+77. 
+
+
+AB194 BACK TO: AB194 
+
+BOURNE muscling up his backpack. Heading toward the hotel. 
+
+
+B194 INT. HOTEL BRECKER LOBBY -- NIGHT B194 
+
+And hotel. Fusty but comfortable. And busy. GUESTS 
+and STAFF doing their thing. A CLERK behind the reception 
+desk. 
+
+CLERK 
+Guten Abend. 
+
+BOURNE 
+(playing it American) 
+Guten Abend. 
+
+CLERK 
+(switching to English) 
+Can I help you? 
+
+SUDDENLY 
+
+BA194 FLASHBACK! -- the lobby, but seven years ago -- BA194 
+across the room -- A MAN buttoning a raincoat as he 
+passes -- NESKI! -- 
+
+BB194 JAMMING BACK TO BB194 
+
+BOURNE stalled -- coming back, as -- 
+
+CLERK (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+Sir? 
+(smiling) 
+Do you have a reservation? 
+
+BOURNE 
+No. Sorry. I just got in... 
+(rally ing back) 
+I -- Is room 645 available? 
+(off t he Clerk's look) 
+I stayed the re before. My wife and I. 
+
+THE CLERK nods, checking the register. THE CONCIERGE just 
+down the desk glancing over at BOURNE. Nodding hello and -- 
+
+CLERK 
+I'm sorry, that room is occupied. Would 
+room 644 be okay, it's just across the 
+hall... 
+
+78. 
+
+
+BOURNE 
+Sure. That's fine. Danka. 
+
+
+194C-D DELETED 194C-D 
+
+
+195 SHOT 195 * 
+
+
+A196 INT. HOTEL BRECKER ELEVATOR -- NIGHT A196 
+
+BOURNE riding up. Alone. Dread mounting, and -- 
+
+
+197 INT. HOTEL BRECKER LOBBY -- NIGHT 197 
+
+THE CONCIERGE coming out of the office with a sheet of fax 
+paper. Placing it quietly down beside THE CLERK and -- 
+
+THE CAMERA FINDS 
+
+THE FAX -- BOURNE'S FACE -- the same "wanted" picture and -- 
+
+
+198 INT. SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY/HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 198 
+
+BOURNE off the elevator. He makes his way down -- 
+
+HIS POV 
+
+THE SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY. Suddenly scary. 
+
+
+A198 INT. BMW -- NIGHT A198 
+
+KIRILL sitting up as THE POLICE RADIO starts broadcoasting 
+an ALL-POINTS BULLETIN, the words "Hotel Brecker" in there -- 
+
+KIRILL dropping the car into gear and -- 
+
+B198/200 
+B198/200 INT. SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY/HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 
+BOURNE walking. There's his room, #618. But across the 
+hall and down one... 
+
+ROOM #645. BOURNE steps up. Listening a moment. Then he 
+knocks. Nothing. 
+
+He pulls A KNIFE from his pocket. 
+
+79. 
+
+
+Checks the hallway. He's clear. Wedges the blade in there 
+and -- one...two... Pop. 
+
+
+199 DELETED 199 
+
+
+201 INT. ROOM #645 HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 201 
+
+BOURNE enters a suite. Closing the door behind him. 
+
+-- And TREADSTONE BOURNE, seven years ago, does the same -- 
+
+BOURNE shakes off the flash, looks around. The lights are 
+on. An open suitcase on the bed. 
+
+
+202 INT. HOTEL BRECKER LOBBY -- NIGHT 202 
+
+THE CLERK, THE CONCIERGE and THE MANAGER are huddled in 
+conversation with THREE BERLIN COPS who've just arrived 
+and -- 
+
+Trying to be discreet, but... this is clearly serious. 
+
+
+203 INT. ROOM #645 HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 203 
+
+BOURNE just standing there. Breathing it in. 
+
+TREADSTONE BOURNE doing the same -- * 
+
+
+204 DELETED 204 
+
+205 
+205 INT. ROOM #645 HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 
+BOURNE with his hand on the wall. As if he can feel it. 
+Like it's all still here. Heart pounding and -- 
+
+206 
+206 INT. BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT 
+Chaos -- Bourne's been found -- everybody rushing out -- 
+
+CRONIN 
+(to Teddy) 
+-- go -- take the van! -- 
+
+PAMELA 
+-- the hotel -- how far? -- 
+
+80. 
+
+
+TEDDY 
+-- five, six minutes -- 
+
+CRONIN 
+-- Kurt -- you're here! -- keep the comm 
+line open! -- 
+
+
+207 INT. ROOM #645 -- NIGHT 207 
+
+BOURNE standing there. Looking out the window. The images 
+-- the Television Tower over the city. Everything but the 
+rain. 
+
+
+208 EXT. HOTEL BRECKER COURTYARD -- NIGHT 208 * 
+
+The BERLIN POLICE SWAT TEAM TRUCK arrives -- discreetly -- 
+by the back loading area. 
+
+
+209 INT. ROOM #645 BEDROOM -- NIGHT 209 
+
+BOURNE flat against the wall. Just as he was. Leaning 
+forward to see in THE MIRROR. Just so, and... There. 
+
+
+210 DELETED 210 
+
+
+211A INT. ROOM #645 -- FLASHBACK -- NIGHT 211A 
+
+A MAN in the mirror -- pacing into view -- NESKI -- on the 
+phone -- a talking in Russian -- it's raining -- 
+
+BOURNE standing there -- Treadstone Bourne, still wet from 
+the rain -- one eye on that mirror and the other on A 
+SYRINGE that he prepped -- a predator -- 
+
+THE MIRROR -- the doorbell rings -- NESKI gets off the phone 
+-- 
+
+BOURNE tensing -- new element -- factoring and -- 
+
+THE MIRROR -- as NESKI opens the door -- a new flood of 
+Russian -- happy -- it's MRS. NESKI -- a surprise! -- but 
+he's very happy to see her -- 
+
+BOURNE pocketing the syringe -- new weapon -- pistol -- 
+quiet -- methodical -- watching the lovers bill and coo and 
+-- 
+
+81. 
+
+
+THE MIRROR -- Mr. Neski kisses her -- takes her bag -- 
+she's hanging up her coat and moving now toward the 
+bathroom and -- 
+
+BOURNE checking the window -- the weapon -- his balance and 
+-- 
+
+THE MIRROR -- MRS. NESKI'S FACE right there -- seeing him -- 
+so freaked she can't even register it yet -- 
+
+BOU RNE with the pistol in her face -- finger to his lips -- 
+"sh hh..." -- but she knows -- backing away -- begging for 
+her life in Russian -- this awful blur of desperation and 
+fea r -- 
+
+MR. NESKI turning back to see his wife backing out of the 
+bathroom and BOURNE with the pistol -- with no hesitation -- 
+
+SNAP! -- one shot -- into Neski's heart -- he's down -- 
+
+MRS. NESKI -- what's just happened? -- 
+
+BOU RNE has her wrist in his hand -- raising it to her head - 
+-t o where he holds the pistol -- her fingers -- his 
+tri gger -- SNAP! -- letting the gun fall with her as she 
+dro ps and -- 
+
+BOURNE starts to move -- starts to prep his evac -- but 
+there's something on the dresser -- 
+
+A PHOTOGRAPH -- the Neski family -- father, mother and a 
+TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL -- arms around each other -- happy and 
+-- 
+
+BOURNE staring at the picture -- undone for a moment -- 
+
+HARD OUT FLASHBACK TO 
+
+212 
+212 INT. ROOM #645 -- NIGHT 
+BOURNE -- our Bourne -- standing where they fell. 
+
+Frozen there. Paralyzed by the shame of original sin. 
+
+
+212 pt DELETED 212 pt 
+
+213-214 
+213-214 DELETED 
+
+82. 
+
+
+215 INT. HOTEL BRECKER LOBBY -- NIGHT 215 
+
+A SWAT CAPTAIN conferring discreetly with the MANAGER. 
+
+MANAGER 
+He's in 618. 
+
+SWAT CAPTAIN 
+Cal l all the guests on the 6th floor. 
+Tel l them to remain in their rooms. Tell 
+the m it's a police order. Then start on 
+the 5th and 8th floors. 
+
+
+A215 INT. ROOM #645 -- NIGHT A215 
+
+BOURNE -- trying to stabilize -- to breathe -- 
+
+
+216 INT. STAIRWELL -- NIGHT 216 
+
+The SWAT team on their way up. 
+
+
+A216 INT. ROOM #645 -- NIGHT A216 
+
+RING! RING! BOURNE snaps back as the phone in his room 
+STARTS TO RING. Four times and it stops. 
+
+BOURNE freezes. Footsteps. Shadows under the door. He 
+leans into the peephole. 
+
+BOURNE'S POV 
+
+ROOM #644. GERMAN S.W.A.T. TEAM. Taking position. 
+
+B216 
+B216 INT. ROOM #645 -- NIGHT 
+BOURNE backs away -- surveys the room -- his watch -- his 
+balance and -- 
+
+
+C216 EXT. STREET OUTSIDE THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT C216 
+
+Qui ckly turni ng into a major event -- HALF-A-DOZEN POLICE 
+VEH ICLES alre ady parke d here -- MORE ARRIVING every minute - 
+-P ASSERSBY m ixing wit h the COPS and PEOPLE FROM THE HOTEL 
+who 've just c ome out a nd -- 
+
+THE CAMERA FINDS 
+
+83. 
+
+
+KIRILL jogging over from THE BMW he's just parked and -- 
+
+
+217 DELETED 217 * 
+
+
+218 DELETED 218 
+
+
+219 INT. ROOM #644 HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 219 
+
+WHAM! -- THE DOOR KICKED OFF ITS HINGES! -- SWAT TEAM 
+flooding into BOURNE'S EMPTY HOTEL ROOM and -- 
+
+
+A219 INT. ROOM #645 HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT A219 
+
+BOURNE -- in motion -- out the bathroom window and -- 
+
+
+220 INT. HOTEL BRECKER SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY -- NIGHT 220 
+
+BERLIN SWAT LEADER gives order to search other rooms and -- 
+
+
+221 EXT. HOTEL BRECKER FACADE -- NIGHT 221 
+
+BOU RNE up the water pi pe to the roof -- as he a rrives, a * 
+SWA T team mem ber turns -- BOURNE pull s him over the edge -- * 
+fir es point b lank into the 2nd SWAT m ember's ve st -- * 
+stu nning him. He's mo ving fast -- sc rambling a long the * 
+roo f and into the nigh t... * 
+
+
+222 INT. SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY ROOM #645 -- NIGHT 222 
+
+WHAM! The door caves in and the SWAT team moves enters # 
+645 -- rushing to the window -- Nobody -- No sign of him 
+and -- 
+
+223 
+223 EXT. STREET OUTSIDE THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 
+KIRILL heading for THE HOTEL ENTRANCE blocked by the * 
+exiting guests. * 
+
+
+225 INT. HOTEL BRECKER SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY -- NIGHT 225 
+
+Too many cops and radios -- 
+
+84. 
+
+
+SWAT TEAM BOSS 
+(trying to take charge) 
+(-- LISTEN UP! -- WE'RE CLEARING THE 
+BUILDING! -- ROOM BY ROOM! --) 
+
+
+226 EXT. STREET OUTSIDE THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 226 
+
+PAMELA jumping out of A VAN the moment it stops. Seeing 
+it all. The crowd. The army of cops. The searchlights 
+playing across THE HOTEL FACADE. It's another disaster. 
+
+
+227 INT. HOTEL BRECKER LOBBY -- NIGHT 227 
+
+KIRILL wants to get upstairs -- he can't -- TOO MANY GUESTS 
+coming down the stairwell -- BERLIN COPS trying keep it 
+moving and -- * 
+
+
+228-229 DELETED 228-229 * 
+
+
+230 INT. HOTEL BRECKER LOBBY -- NIGHT 230 * 
+
+KIRILL hears BOURNE is on the roof. * 
+
+
+231 DELETED 231 * 
+
+
+234 DELETED 234 * 
+
+
+232 INT. LOBBY/THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 232 * 
+
+PAMELA and CRONIN listening to TEDDY who just got the * 
+police update -- * 
+
+TEDDY 
+Black coat, possibly leather. Dark 
+slacks. Dar k t-shirt. 
+(point ing now--) 
+He says they 're gonna try and corral the 
+guests on th e street over there, and then 
+check them o ut, but... 
+
+PAMELA 
+(disgusted) 
+Yeah, that'll work...What the hell was he 
+doing here? 
+
+85. 
+
+
+CRONIN 
+Maybe he just needed a place to spend the 
+night? 
+
+PAMELA 
+I want to look at the room. * 
+(to TEDDY as she goes) * 
+Check it out. * 
+
+PAMELA'S in charge now. They enter the elevator. * 
+
+
+233 EXT. STREET BEHIND THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 233 
+
+BOURNE coming around the other side of the hotel -- 
+
+Stepping to the left before he spots the SWAT van -- 
+
+BOURNE about-faces -- heads the other way -- 
+
+A SIDEWALK COP looks over, checks the BOURNE PHOTO print- 
+out in his hand. 
+
+
+234 DELETED 234 * 
+
+
+244 EXT. STREET OUTSIDE THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 244 
+
+TEDDY huddled with the HOTEL MANAGER and A GROUP OF HIGH- 
+RANKING BERLIN COPS, turning back as -- 
+
+ABBOTT 
+(arriving breathless) 
+They missed him? 
+
+TEDDY * 
+So far. But they found Nicky. She's * 
+back at the Westin. Bourne let her go. * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+He let her go? Great. Where's Danny? * 
+He should head over there and debrief * 
+her. * 
+(the Hotel) * 
+What's here? What was he doing? * 
+
+TEDDY 
+We don't know. They're in a room 
+upstairs. I was told to wait down here. 
+
+ABBOTT accepting that. Because he has to. Only we see 
+the fear. Turns to leave... * 
+
+86. 
+
+
+ABBOTT 
+OK, if you see Danny tell him I went back * 
+to the hotel. * 
+
+ABBOTT steps out into the street as... 
+
+
+235 EXT. STREET NEAR THE HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 235 * 
+
+BOURNE striding away and -- Following -- * 
+
+SIDEWALK COP blowing a WHISTLE -- fumbling for his holster. 
+
+BOURNE running now, slowly at first, and -- 
+
+
+A235 EXT. SIDE-STREET NEAR THE HOTEL -- NIGHT A235 
+
+Now FASTER, as if he can gauge his speed and distance... 
+
+
+237 EXT. SIDE-STREET NEAR THE HOTEL -- NIGHT 237 
+
+MOTION -- BOURNE tearing away and -- 
+
+
+A237 EXT. BIGGER BERLIN STREET -- NIGHT A237 
+
+BOURNE slows to a walk -- TWO PATROL CARS heading his way -- 
+no choice -- there -- a narrow passageway between TWO 
+MOVING TROLLEY TRAINS and -- SPRINTING through -- 
+
+The PATROL CARS skidding into 180's. 
+
+B237 
+B237 EXT. BERLIN BRIDGE -- NIGHT 
+THE RIVER SPREE lit by THE TROLLEY that's rumbling past and 
+the running lights of a DOUBLE COAL BARGE up the river. 
+
+BOURNE runs across the bridge -- going as fast as he can -- 
+hearing THE POLICE SIRENS swirling behind him, when -- 
+
+A THIRD AND FOURTH POLICE CAR AHEAD! 
+
+BOURNE turns hard for a STAIRWELL, jumps the walkway curb, 
+leaps up the stairs, two at a time, as -- 
+
+All FOUR COP CARS SKID to a stop. As doors open -- 
+
+87. 
+
+
+238 EXT. TRAM PLATFORM -- BERLIN BRIDGE -- NIGHT 238 
+
+A TRAM waiting as the LAST FEW PASSENGERS get on. The 
+doors seem to stay open in slow motion as -- 
+
+BOURNE appears -- makes a mad last dash -- 
+
+And he's on! 
+
+And the doors don't close! It's not scheduled to go yet. 
+
+And here come the COPS! 
+
+BOURNE off the tram -- GUNS appear -- 
+
+BOURNE runs to his left -- stops short -- 
+
+The other cops are coming this way -- SCREAMING at him -- 
+
+Not a lot of options -- BOURNE looks over the rail -- 
+
+DOWN BELOW 
+
+A COAL BARGE passing, the prow just emerging -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+
+On the rail and JUMPING even as the FIRST SHOT is fired -- 
+
+
+239 EXT. DOUBLE COAL BARGE -- NIGHT 239 
+
+BOURNE lands hard -- stands -- voltage going up one leg -- 
+
+And they're SHOOTING at him. 
+
+He can worry about the leg later. He RUNS. 
+
+Back toward them! 
+
+The barge moving slow -- BOURNE disappears under the 
+bridge. 
+
+
+240 EXT. BERLIN BRIDGE -- NIGHT 240 
+
+Guns aimed, POLICE waiting for a clear shot. TWO OF THEM 
+DASH to watch over the other side. 
+
+88. 
+
+
+241 EXT. UNDER THE BRIDGE -- NIGHT 241 
+
+Countering -- the barge going one way -- BOURNE the other -- 
+dodging all the super-structure on deck -- all the while 
+keeping his cover overhead -- 
+
+And LEAPING to the second barge! 
+
+And more of the same, until -- 
+
+BOURNE running out of barge -- 
+
+LEAPING back onto the BRIDGE FOOTING and -- 
+
+
+242 EXT. BERLIN BRIDGE -- NIGHT 242 
+
+THE POLICE watching the barge fully emerge -- continuing 
+down river -- SHOUTING IN GERMAN that he's either "in the 
+water" or "hiding on the barge". 
+
+Off they go -- down the stairs -- 
+
+Leaving the PASSENGERS on the tram blinking out in shock -- 
+
+And BOURNE -- climbing back over the rail -- 
+
+Limping back on the tram just before -- 
+
+The DOORS CLOSE -- and off it goes -- 
+
+
+243 EXT. NEXT BRIDGE DOWN -- NIGHT 243 
+
+POL ICE converge from both ends -- Barge goes under as 
+KIR ILL arrives at the center of the bridge -- missed 
+aga in -- behind KIRILL, a train snakes off into the 
+nig ht... 
+
+245 pt 
+245 pt INT. ROOM #645 -- HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 
+PAMELA and CRONIN move into the living room. A couple of * 
+COPS in the hallway outside. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+The room he checked into was across the * 
+hall -- why, why would he come here? * 
+
+PAMELA glances around -- something bothering her about * 
+this space -- * 
+
+89. 
+
+
+PAMELA * 
+He must've had a reason. That's how they * 
+were trained. * 
+
+CRONIN moves around the bedroom, then into the bathroom * 
+and -- * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+He went out the window in here... * 
+
+246-247 DELETED 246-247 * 
+
+
+245 pt INT. ROOM #645 -- BATHROOM -- NIGHT 245 pt * 
+
+There on the mirror -- scrawled in soap on the glass... * 
+
+I KILLED NESKI * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+Pam, you need to see this. * 
+
+PAMELA moves in behind him. * 
+
+CRONIN (CONT'D) * 
+Who's Neski? * 
+
+Both of them staring. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+(thinking) * 
+Alright...take it down. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+What? * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+This stays between you and I. * 
+(sensing confusion) * 
+We finally have an edge. I don't want to * 
+lose it. * 
+
+
+253 EXT. CATHEDRAL PLAZA -- NIGHT 253 
+
+Very late -- ABBOTT waits on an isolated bridge -- a lone * 
+figure in the shadow of East Berlin. * 
+
+GRETKOV arrives by car. Walks through the darkness. * 
+ABBOTT barely glancing over. * 
+
+90. 
+
+
+ABBOTT 
+You told me Bourne was dead. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+There was a mistake. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+I'l l say. You killed his goddam * 
+gir lfriend instead. Now they're onto * 
+Nes ki. They're at the Brecker Hotel even * 
+as we speak. * 
+
+GRETKOV 
+Will it track back to us? * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+No. The files are spotless. Whatever * 
+they find, it's just going to make Conklin * 
+look worse. * 
+
+GRETKOV 
+And the Landy woman? * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+She's done everything I wanted. She bit * 
+on Conklin so fast it was laughable. She * 
+even found his bogus Swiss account... * 
+
+GRETKOV * 
+Anything else? * 
+
+ABBOTT shoves a piece of paper -- and ADDRESS -- into * 
+GRETKOV'S hand. * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+(the p aper) * 
+The re's a bo dy in the basem ent. Dann y 
+Zor n. He's got to disappea r. For go od. 
+Cle an and fa st. I'll put h im in bed with 
+Con klin and Bourne. Even t he girl, N icky. * 
+Giv e me twen ty-four hours, I'll think it 
+up. But get the goddamn bo dy out of 
+the re. 
+
+It's getting late. A taxi now and then... * 
+
+ABBOTT (CONT'D) 
+Neski was a roadblock. Without me, * 
+there's no company, no fortune. You owe * 
+me, Uri. One last push. * 
+
+GRETKOV 
+One last push. One. 
+
+91. 
+
+
+GRETKOV leaves. ABBOTT watches him go. * 
+
+
+254 EXT. MERCEDES -- NIGHT 254 
+
+Seconds later. GRETKOV getting in slowly. * 
+
+
+255 INT. MERCEDES -- NIGHT 255 
+
+KIRILL slouched in back. Waiting. Gretkov to the DRIVER. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+(Airport.) 
+(to Kirill) 
+(We're done here.) 
+
+KIRILL nods. As they pull away, ABBOTT turns and walks * 
+into the foggy night... * 
+
+
+A248 EXT. BERLIN STREET -- NIGHT A248 * 
+
+Late. ABBOTT walks. A lonely figure. Past someone in * 
+the shadows -- * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+Mr. Abbott? * 
+
+He turns to answer when BOURNE firmly guides him into a * 
+side street... * 
+
+
+***BOURNE/ABBOTT SCENE*** * 
+
+248 * 
+248 INT. LOBBY -- HOTEL BRECKER -- NIGHT 
+As PAMELA and CRONIN exit the elevator, they are met by * 
+TEDDY. * 
+
+TEDDY 
+Here's what I've got. 
+(reads ) 
+Remember Vla dimir Neski? R ussian * 
+politician? Seven years ag o, he was due * 
+to speak to a group of Euro pean Oil * 
+ministers he re at the hotel . He never * 
+did. He was murdered. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+By who? * 
+
+92. 
+
+
+TEDDY 
+His wife. In room 645. Then she shot * 
+herself. * 
+(Pamela and Cronin share a * 
+look) * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+(to Teddy) * 
+Alright...I want you, Kurt and Kim to stay on * 
+Bourne, track everything that's out * 
+there... * 
+
+TEDDY goes to get in the van. PAMELA follows with * 
+CRONIN. * 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+(confi dentially to Cronin) * 
+And I want y ou to go through and cross * 
+reference ou r buy that went bad, the * 
+Neskis, and Treadstone -- * 
+
+As they get in... * 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+-- they have to be related. * 
+
+
+249 EXT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION -- NIGHT 249 
+
+BOURNE'S ARRIVED. Limping. As he continues for the * 
+station -- * 
+
+
+250 INT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION LOCKER AREA -- NIGHT 250 
+
+BOURNE retrieving the exfil bag he stashed in the locker. 
+Changed his clothes. 
+
+251 
+251 INT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION MEN'S ROOM -- NIGHT 
+Bag slung -- limping out -- BOURNE has changed clothes. A 
+big overcoat, knit cap. 
+
+
+252 INT. BERLIN TRAIN STATION PLATFORM -- NIGHT 252 
+
+A busy midnight departure. Big train. BOURNE climbing 
+on the train, under the sign: 
+
+MOSCOW EXPRESS 
+
+93. 
+
+
+253-255 MOVED 253-255 * 
+
+
+A256 INT. NEW BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT A256 
+
+A BLUEPRINT spread across a table. NICKY, KURT & KIM all 
+gathered around. CRONIN works the TREADSTONE files on * 
+another table. TEDDY at center briefing PAMELA. * 
+
+TEDDY * 
+We' re lookin g at all Berlin outbound. * 
+Goo d news is , every train s tation in * 
+Ber lin has t hirty to forty fixed, digital * 
+sec urity cam eras. Common f eed. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Are we hacking or asking? 
+
+TEDDY * 
+Yes. In that order. 
+
+PAMELA 
+And what about you, anything? * 
+
+CRONIN 
+It's starting to link up -- the hijacked * 
+money -- the leak -- Pecos Oil -- one * 
+last bit is Treadstone. * 
+
+
+256 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN -- NIGHT 256 
+
+Crossing the border into Poland -- Cold, desolate, snow -- 
+
+257 
+257 INT. MOSCOW TRAIN/PASSENGER CAR -- NIGHT 
+CONDUCTORS moving quietly through the dark cars. Checking 
+tickets and visas and -- 
+
+BOURNE -- hands over his ticket and RUSSIAN PASSPORT -- off 
+the grid -- 
+
+
+258-259 DELETED 258-259 * 
+
+
+A260 INT. NEW BERLIN HQ/COMMAND POST -- NIGHT A260 * 
+
+4:00 am. KURT, KIM, and TEDDY spread around the room. * 
+They've been running laptop train station videos for * 
+hours. Just about ready to raise the white flag. * 
+
+94. 
+
+
+All they have so far is an isolated loop of BOURNE limping * 
+into the men's room. Cronin watches it stutter along. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+Does it look like he's faking? * 
+
+TEDDY * 
+On the way in? Forget it. * 
+
+KURT * 
+The leg's definitely hurt. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+(the b lueprint) * 
+Well, there' s no window in the men's room, * 
+folks, so le t's find somebody coming out * 
+with a bad l eft leg. * 
+
+KURT * 
+(worn out) * 
+Maybe he's still in there. * 
+
+TEDDY * 
+I've got a limping guy, but it's the right * 
+leg. * 
+
+KIM * 
+Walking away, or walking toward you? * 
+
+CRONIN jumping on that, right there, over TEDDY'S shoulder - * 
+- * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+That's him. It's the coat! What train is * 
+that? * 
+
+260 
+260 INT. MOSCOW TRAIN/PASSENGER CAR -- DAWN 
+BOURNE -- asleep in his chair -- rocked by the rhythm. But 
+something wakes him up. 
+
+Looks out the window -- something weird about the light out 
+there -- then up to see: 
+
+MARIE -- looking at him over the back of his chair in front 
+of him -- no big deal -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+Hey... 
+
+She smiles. A beat. She comes around, sits beside him. He * 
+looks away out the window. * 
+
+95. 
+
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) * 
+I wanted to kill him. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+But you found another choice. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+I did. * 
+
+MARIE * 
+It wouldn't have changed the way you * 
+feel. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+It might have. * 
+
+BOURNE looks back at her. She smiles. He accepts it, * 
+leans back, closes his eyes. * 
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) * 
+I know it's a dream. 
+
+MARIE 
+You do? 
+
+BOURNE 
+I only dream about people who are dead. 
+
+MARIE leans over, kisses his forehead. Whispers -- 
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) * 
+God, I miss you. I don't know what to do * 
+without you. * 
+
+MARIE 
+(softly, serenely) * 
+Jason. You know exactly what to do. That * 
+is your mission now. * 
+
+BOURNE opens his eyes. 
+
+And it's morning outside. 
+
+And Marie is gone. 
+
+A LITTLE GIRL smiles at him from over the back of the chair 
+in front. BOURNE can't meet her gaze for long. As he 
+looks back out the window -- 
+
+261-262 * 
+261-262 DELETED 
+
+96. 
+
+
+263 INT. MOSCOW TRAIN/PASSENGER CAR -- DAWN 263 
+
+BOURNE watching the birch trees rush past, not quite hiding 
+the smokestacks beyond. Eyes locked. Forging something 
+within, one final mission, as we -- 
+
+
+264 INT. BERLIN WESTIN HOTEL LOBBY -- EARLY MORNING 264 
+
+ABBOTT coming through. It's empty this early, but -- 
+
+Here's PAMELA, NICKY, CRONIN and the TEAM waiting to * 
+report. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Sorry to wake you. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+(waves off apology) 
+I wasn't sleeping. * 
+(to Nicky as he passes) * 
+You OK? * 
+
+NICKY * 
+Yeah, thanks. * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+What's up? * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Bunch of stuff. 
+
+PAMELA looks to CRONIN -- him first. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+We tied the room Bourne visited tonight to 
+a murder/suicide seven years ago. A 
+Russian couple, the Neskis. * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+(playing along) * 
+Neski. The reformer. I remember that. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+He champione d the equal dis tribution of * 
+oil leases i n the Caspian S ea. When he * 
+die d, they w ere all release d to one * 
+pet roleum co mpany, Pecos Oi l. Guess * 
+wha t? -- the CEO, Uri Gretk ov, is ex- * 
+KGB . * 
+
+* 
+
+97. 
+
+
+NICKY * 
+Someone was using Treadstone as a private * 
+cleaning service. * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+Conklin... * 
+(a beat) * 
+It's -- I'm sorry, Pamela. I guess you * 
+were right all along. * 
+* 
+
+Pamela waves him off, it's okay, but -- 
+
+PAMELA 
+There's something else. 
+
+Abbott can see by their faces: this hits closer to home. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+What? 
+
+PAMELA 
+They found Danny Zorn's body. Dead in the 
+basement at the building where my people 
+got hit the first time. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Oh, God... It must have been Bourne. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+Did he say anything to you? 
+
+ABBOTT 
+No... It must have been Bourne. 
+
+PAMELA, straight... 
+
+PAMELA 
+We'll know for sure when we get the * 
+security tapes. * 
+
+CRONIN * 
+But we can relax. We tracked him. He's * 
+on a train to Moscow. * 
+
+ABBOTT reeling, hiding it. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Moscow? What the Hell's he going to 
+Moscow for? 
+
+98. 
+
+
+PAMELA 
+(shrugs) 
+Don't know. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Jesus... I, Zorn... I have to call his 
+family. Tell them... 
+
+PAMELA 
+I'm sorry, Ward. 
+
+They watch as he goes. 
+
+
+265 INT. WESTIN ELEVATOR -- DAWN 265 * 
+
+ABBOTT in the rising elevator. Imploding. 
+
+
+266 INT. GRETKOV'S OFFICE -- MORNING 266 
+
+Palatial. But you can't buy taste. GRETKOV working his * 
+computer -- answers his PHONE. * 
+
+GRETKOV 
+Da... 
+
+ABBOTT/PHONE 
+You didn't stay, Uri. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+(matter of fact) 
+This is not a clean phone. 
+
+267 * 
+267 INT. WESTIN GRAND HOTEL LOBBY -- DAWN 
+Everyone still here. CRONIN answering his cell phone -- * 
+motioning to them, he's got news -- 
+
+CRONIN 
+(phone to his ear) 
+You're sure? 
+
+PAMELA 
+What? The tapes? * 
+
+CRONIN 
+(noddi ng but) 
+Hold on... 
+(holdi ng the phone) 
+Yep. And Ab bott just direct dialed Moscow * 
+from his roo m... 
+
+99. 
+
+
+Now we realize, she's set a trap and Abbott's walked in. 
+All the same, Pamela shakes her head, wishes it wasn't 
+true. 
+
+And they're moving -- 
+
+
+268 INT. ABBOTT'S WESTIN HOTEL ROOM -- DAWN 268 * 
+
+ABBOTT at his desk, still on the phone, pouring a vodka. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+Leaving was a business decision. We're 
+both rich, come enjoy it. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+What do you mean? 
+
+GRETKOV 
+Go to the airport. Get a plane. I'll 
+have a brass band waiting for you. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Save it for Bourne. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+What? 
+
+There's a KNOCKING AT HIS DOOR -- ABBOTT simply ignores it. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+He left yest erday on the night train. 
+He's probabl y just getting in now. 
+(he dr inks) 
+You'll have to hurry. 
+
+GRETKOV 
+Bourne comes here? Why? 
+
+More KNOCKING... 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Good luck. 
+
+
+A268 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN -- DAWN A268 * 
+
+Speeding East through the Russian countryside. The forest * 
+is gone, replaced by factories and refineries. A * 
+wasteland of rust and gray that seems to go on forever -- * 
+
+100. 
+
+
+269 INT. WESTIN HALLWAY OUTSIDE ABBOTT'S ROOM -- NIGHT 269 * 
+
+PAMELA knocking again. NICKY, TEDDY and CRONIN behind her. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Open it. 
+
+CRONIN with a pass key. TEDDY prepped and -- 
+
+
+A269 INT. ABBOTT'S WESTIN HOTEL ROOM -- NIGHT A269 * 
+
+PAMELA leading -- they enter -- stop short -- 
+
+ABBOTT at his desk, calmly pointing a PISTOL -- at Pamela. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+They go. You stay. 
+
+She looks back. CRONIN shakes his head 'no'. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Yes. Now... 
+
+They reluctantly obey. The door clicking shut behind them. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Sit down. 
+
+PAMELA 
+I'd rather stand if it's all the same to 
+you. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+I don't exactly know what to say -- I'm 
+sorry. 
+
+PAMELA 
+'Why' would be enough for me. 
+
+ABBOTT 
+I'm not a traitor. I've served my * 
+country. * 
+
+PAMELA 
+And pocketed a fair amount of change while * 
+doing it. * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Why not? It was just money. * 
+
+101. 
+
+
+PAMELA 
+And Danny Zorn, what was that? * 
+
+ABBOTT 
+Had to be done. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+No good options left? * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+(shrug s) * 
+In the end, honestly, it's hubris. * 
+Sim ple hubri s. You reach a point in this * 
+gam e when th e only satisfaction left is * 
+to see how c lever you are. * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+No. You lost your way. * 
+
+ABBOTT * 
+Well, you're probably right. I guess * 
+that's all that hubris is. * 
+
+He raises the gun. 
+
+PAMELA -- presses her lips together, closes her eyes. 
+BOOM! 
+
+She opens them. And as CRONIN flies back through the door -- 
+
+There's ABBOTT -- dead at the desk -- he's shot himself -- 
+also, in a way, with some help from Bourne. 
+
+
+270 INT. PLATFORM -- MOSCOW TRAIN STATION -- DAY 270 
+
+THE TRAIN easing to a stop. The platform busy with people 
+waiting and -- PASSENGERS disembarking. 
+
+BOURNE among them. Unremarkable in THE CROWD and -- * 
+
+271 
+271 INT. MOSCOW TRAIN STATION -- DAY 
+BOURNE on the move. Welcome to the whole mad Moscow scene. 
+A jumble of faces and voices. Travellers. Arrivals and 
+departures. Families. Beggars. Drunk war vets. Hawkers. 
+
+102. 
+
+
+272 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN STATION CAB STAND -- DAY 272 
+
+There, in the plaza. BOURNE hobbling across the street, 
+when suddenly -- A CAR HORN! -- he turns and -- 
+
+Look out! 
+
+A BIG BLACK BMW speeding past -- followed by TWO MORE -- 
+all three cars with BLUE LIGHTS STROBING on the dashboards - 
+- a convoy -- whipping by like they own the place and -- 
+
+TAXI DRIVER (OS) 
+(Gangster bastards don't care what they 
+do.) 
+
+BOURNE turns. A grizzled TAXI DRIVER right beside him. 
+
+BOURNE pulls a slip of paper from his pocket. 
+
+BOURNE 
+(his Russian is basic) 
+(You know this address?) 
+
+THE TAXI DRIVER squints, finally grunts affirmative. 
+
+He motions to his cab. As they get in and pull away -- 
+
+
+273 INT. MOSCOW GARAGE -- DAY 273 
+
+Lots of cars. No people. But someone running... It's 
+KIRILL pulling his keys as he sprints past and -- 
+
+
+274 DELETED 274 * 
+
+275 
+275 INT. MOSCOW TAXI -- DAY 
+BOURNE and THE TAXI DRIVER looking over as THREE MOSCOW 
+POLICE CARS speed by -- SIRENS WAILING -- 
+
+TAXI DRIVER 
+(It's always something, right?) 
+
+BOURNE just nods, as we -- 
+
+103. 
+
+
+276 INT./EXT. BLACK BMW -- DAY 276 
+
+KIRILL at the wheel. A guy in a hurry who knows what he's 
+doing. One more thing, on the passenger seat -- TWO BIG 
+AUTOMATIC PISTOLS -- 
+
+
+277 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN STATION -- DAY 277 
+
+MOSCOW COPS fanning through the crowd showing BOURNE'S 
+INTERPOL PICTURE. "Have you seen him?" 
+
+
+278 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN STATION CAB STAND -- DAY 278 
+
+MOSCOW COPS with the picture. Flashing it around, until -- 
+
+YOUNG CABBY 
+(the moment he sees it) 
+(He was just here. They just left.) 
+
+
+279 INT. MOSCOW TAXI -- DAY 279 
+
+They've stopped. BOURNE flashes a FIFTY DOLLAR BILL -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+You wait. You understand? Stay. 
+
+TAXI DRIVER 
+(happy to pocket the cash) 
+Sure. No problem. I sit. 
+
+
+280 EXT. OLD MOSCOW STREET -- DAY 280 
+
+Old Moscow. But not for long, there's new construction 
+metastasizing all around it. BOURNE crosses the street and 
+-- 
+
+HIS POV 
+
+AN ABANDONED WOODEN HOUSE. Windows shattered and boarded 
+up. Paint all but gone. Roof and gables all failing. 
+
+BACK TO 
+
+BOURNE crestfallen. Checking the address. This is it. 
+
+104. 
+
+
+281 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN STATION CAB STAND -- DAY 281 
+
+MORE COPS. Everything focused on ANOTHER TAXI DRIVER who's 
+making a call on a cell phone -- everybody waiting on it -- 
+
+
+282 EXT. ABANDONED WOODEN HOUSE -- DAY 282 
+
+BOURNE off the sidewalk now, peering around the side, 
+trying to see if there's anything around back and -- 
+
+OVER THERE 
+
+AN OLD WOMAN on the steps next door. Watching him. 
+
+BOURNE starts over. Finding the sweetest smile he's got -- 
+
+
+283 INT. MOSCOW TAXI -- DAY 283 
+
+THE TAXI DRIVER still parked there -- 
+
+HIS POV 
+
+BOURNE and the OLD LADY -- she's pointing like she's giving 
+directions -- when suddenly, the Driver's CELL PHONE RINGS - 
+- 
+
+TAXI DRIVER/PHONE 
+(Hello...?) 
+
+
+284 EXT. ABANDONED WOODEN HOUSE -- DAY 284 
+
+BOURNE and the OLD LADY. His Russian is limited, but she's 
+charmed nonetheless -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+(A pen...to write...one minute...) 
+(searching his pockets) 
+
+285 
+285 INT. MOSCOW TAXI -- DAY 
+THE TAXI DRIVER on the phone -- not so happy anymore -- 
+
+TAXI DRIVER 
+(-- I'm looking at him -- American -- he's 
+right here! --) 
+
+105. 
+
+
+286 EXT. ABANDONED WOODEN HOUSE -- DAY 286 
+
+THE OLD LADY scribbling on a piece of paper. BOURNE 
+reacting as the TAXI drops into gear. Pulls away. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Wait! Hey! 
+
+But THE TAXI only speeds up, and -- 
+
+
+287 EXT. MOSCOW TRAIN STATION -- DAY 287 
+
+MOSCOW POLICE CARS tearing away and -- 
+
+
+288 DELETED 288 
+
+
+289 INT. BLACK BMW -- DAY 289 
+
+KIRILL DRIVING. Reaching for his RINGING PHONE and -- 
+
+
+290 EXT. MOSCOW STREET -- DAY 290 
+
+THE BLACK BMW -- a moment later -- slamming on the brakes -- 
+fishtailing a U-TURN and -- 
+
+
+291 EXT. MOSCOW BUILDING PROJECT -- DAY 291 
+
+BOURNE hustling past all the new construction. Glancing 
+back as POLICE SIRENS start rising behind him and -- 
+
+292 
+292 INT. RED LEXUS -- DAY 
+KIRILL skidding around another corner and -- 
+
+293 
+293 EXT. ABANDONED WOODEN HOUSE -- DAY 
+TWO POLICE CARS just stopped there -- COPS -- the OLD LADY 
+pointing -- everyone turning as -- 
+
+THE RED LEXUS speeds past them and -- 
+
+
+294 
+294 DELETED 
+
+106. 
+
+
+295 EXT. CONCRETE STAIRS -- DAY 295 
+
+BOURNE coming down as fast as he can -- just ahead there's 
+A FOOTPATH BENEATH A FOUR LANE OVERPASS -- a neighborhood * 
+on the other side -- he could disappear there -- 
+
+
+296 INT. RED LEXUS -- DAY 296 
+
+KIRILL driving and scanning -- THERE! -- as he passes it -- 
+THE OVERPASS -- slamming on the brakes and -- 
+
+
+297 EXT. FOOTPATH -- DAY 297 
+
+BOURNE hobbling out in the open -- twenty yards to go -- 
+
+
+298 EXT. OVERPASS -- DAY 298 
+
+KIRILL jumping out of the Lexus with A PISTOL in hand and -- 
+
+
+299 EXT. FOOTPATH -- DAY 299 
+
+BOURNE -- no clue -- BANG! -- his shoulder! -- he's hit! -- 
+he throws himself forward and -- 
+
+
+300 EXT. OVERPASS -- DAY 300 
+
+KIRILL shifting for a better second shot and -- 
+
+
+301 EXT. FOOTPATH -- DAY 301 
+
+BOURNE -- he's diving! -- rolling! -- pure instinct -- back 
+under the embankment and -- 
+
+302 
+302 EXT. OVERPASS -- DAY 
+KIRILL with no shot suddenly -- leaning over the rail -- 
+just as the TWO MOSCOW POLICE CARS come screaming up -- 
+MOSCOW COPS jumping out with guns drawn and -- 
+
+
+303 EXT. FOOTPATH -- DAY 303 
+
+BOURNE -- he's up -- he's bleeding -- he's moving and -- 
+
+107. 
+
+
+304 EXT. OVERPASS -- DAY 304 
+
+CHAOS -- KIRILL with his hands in the air -- MOSCOW COPS 
+coming toward him -- everyone screaming -- 
+
+
+MOSCOW COPS MOCK-BO URNE 
+(-- UP! -- HANDS UP! -- KEEP (-- I'M KGB, ASS HOLES! -- 
+THEM UP! -- DROP THE GUN! -- WE'RE CHASING TH E SAME GUY! - * 
+DROP IT! --) - HE'S GETTING A WAY! --) 
+
+They let KIRILL go -- he looks back at the footpath -- * 
+BOURNE is gone -- as * 
+
+
+A304 EXT. MOSCOW CITY STREET -- DAY A304 * 
+
+GRETKOV strolls along, suddenly two black sedans pull up * 
+and he is arrested. * 
+
+
+A305 INT. PEDESTRIAN TUNNEL -- DAY A305 * 
+
+BOURNE hurriedly makes his way to the other end -- a few * 
+beats later -- KIRILL on the hunt -- * 
+
+
+305 EXT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 305 
+
+A labyrinth of stalls. Food. Hardware. Clothes. And 
+crowded. Even this hard-to-impress CROWD noticing -- 
+
+BOURNE hobbling through. Nothing like a limping madman 
+with a fresh gunshot wound to get attention -- 
+
+PEOPLE back off -- pull THEIR KIDS out of the way -- SOME 
+WOMAN STARTS SCREAMING and -- 
+
+306 
+306 INT. MOSCOW ENCLOSED MARKET -- DAY 
+A SECURITY GUARD -- hears the commotion -- jogs out and -- 
+
+
+307 DELETED 307 
+
+
+308 EXT. NEARBY MOSCOW STREET -- DAY 308 
+
+KIRILL running toward the market -- FIVE MOSCOW COPS behind 
+him, can't keep up and -- 
+
+108. 
+
+
+309 INT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 309 * 
+
+THE SECURITY GUARD coming up fast behind BOURNE -- 
+
+SECURITY GUARD 
+(-- hey! -- hey you! -- stop! --) 
+
+BOURNE turns. THE SECURITY GUARD right behind him and -- 
+
+BOURNE -- no warning -- his good arm -- SMASH!!! -- right 
+into THE SECURITY GUARD'S FACE and -- 
+
+BOURNE takes HIS PISTOL and -- 
+
+THE CROWD -- they jump -- holy shit! 
+
+
+310 INT. MOSCOW ENCLOSED MARKET -- DAY 310 
+
+Crazy -- KIRILL sprinting through -- where did Bourne go? -- 
+
+
+311 INT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 311 * 
+
+BOURNE back on the march, except now he's shopping! -- 
+
+Grabbing -- A BUNDLE OF TUBE SOCKS and -- 
+
+
+312 INT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 312 * 
+
+KIRILL sprinting out toward the stalls and -- 
+
+
+313-314 DELETED 313-314 
+
+315 * 
+315 INT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 
+BOURNE -- THERE! -- A ROLL OF DUCT TAPE and -- 
+
+-- A BOTTLE OF VODKA and -- 
+
+
+316 INT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 316 * 
+
+KIRILL fighting his way through THE FLEEING CROWD -- 
+
+317 * 
+317 DELETED 
+
+109. 
+
+
+318 pt 1 EXT. MOSCOW OUTDOOR MARKET -- DAY 318 pt 1 * 
+
+BOURNE -- leaving the market -- taking a swig of VODKA and -- * 
+
+Continues -- knows there are TWO NEW COPS on his ass. * 
+
+
+318 pt 2 EXT. MARKET PARKING LOT -- DAY 318 pt 2 * 
+
+Another CAB STAND. CABBIE by a YELLOW CAB, looks up to see * 
+-- * 
+
+BOURNE -- coming toward him -- and also -- * 
+
+The TWO COPS. As BOURNE nears, the CABBIE shakes his head. * 
+
+Bourne pivots -- casually -- like he doesn't know they're * 
+coming until -- HE SPITS! -- VODKA -- into one of the cop's * 
+face! -- blinded as BOURNE takes him and his PARTNER out. * 
+
+The CABBIE raises his hands in surrender, steps aside as * 
+BOURNE takes his car -- * 
+
+
+318 pt 3 INT./EXT. CAB -- DAY 318 pt 3 * 
+
+BOURNE IN THE YELLOW CAB -- starting THE ENGINE -- peeling * 
+away! -- careening into the street and -- * 
+
+KIRILL sprinting into the parking lot, just in time to see - * 
+- * 
+
+
+318 pt 4 INT. CAB -- DAY 318 pt 4 * 
+
+BOURNE concentrating away the pain -- trying to drive -- * 
+
+319 * 
+319 EXT. MARKET PARKING LOT -- DAY 
+TWO LADIES ducked behind a BIG BLACK G-WAGON -- freaked out * 
+as KIRILL grabs their keys and -- * 
+
+
+320-335 INT./EXT. MOSCOW STREETS/CARS/FACES -- DAY 320-335 * 
+
+THE CAB speeding across A BOULEVARD into an older * 
+neighborhood of rising narrow streets and -- * 
+
+TWO MOSCOW POLICE CARS PULLING U-TURNS on the BOULEVARD -- * 
+whipping around to give chase and -- * 
+
+110. 
+
+
+THE G-WAGON in full pursuit now and -- * 
+
+BOURNE DRIVING -- up this curving little hill and -- * 
+
+THE TWO MOSCOW POLICE CARS starting to climb and -- * 
+
+KIRILL DRIVING and he's on the hill now -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- bad hand on the wheel -- holding on -- trying to * 
+find something in passenger seat -- TUBE SOCKS? * 
+
+THE TWO MOSCOW POLICE CARS splitting up! -- one on Bourne's * 
+ass -- the other cutting hard into A SIDE STREET, flanking * 
+him and -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- topping the hill -- two choices -- right or left? * 
+
+RIGHT! -- No! -- wrong -- because down the hill there's A * 
+POLICE CAR just about to angle in from THE SIDE-STREET and - * 
+- * 
+
+BOURNE -- no choice -- FLOORING IT! -- * 
+
+THE CAB -- it's a whale -- SLAM! -- knifing the front end * 
+of THE POLICE CAR and -- * 
+
+THE POLICE CAR -- spun back! -- CRASHING AGAINST A BUILDING * 
+ON THE CORNER and -- * 
+
+KIRILL -- right behind that guy -- swerving -- onto the * 
+sidewalk -- SPARKS FROM THE WALL AS HE SCRAPES! -- hanging * 
+in -- skidding into a turn down the hill and -- * 
+
+JUST MISSING THE FIRST POLICE CAR bombing right past him! * 
+
+BOURNE -- in pain as he packs his shoulder wound with the * 
+socks -- Ahead -- the street banks downhill to left and -- * 
+
+THERE! -- A BOULEVARD -- wide ride -- lots of traffic and -- * 
+
+THE CAB rocketing into the flow and -- * 
+
+BEHIND HIM -- POLICE CAR #1 with THE G-WAGON right on his * 
+ass and -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- Wrists flicking the wheel. THE CAB screaming * 
+through the slower traffic and -- * 
+
+KIRILL -- totally on it -- pedal down -- passenger window * 
+open -- wind blowing -- he's got THE PISTOL in his hand -- * 
+closing the gap and -- * 
+
+THE BLACK G-WAGON -- blowing past POLICE CAR #1 and -- * 
+
+111. 
+
+
+BOURNE -- steering -- barely -- as he tears a few strips of * 
+DUCT TAPE to finish his triage -- * 
+
+BLAM! -- BLAM!! -- THE G-WAGON -- right beside him! -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- reacting -- what the fuck?! -- that's not a cop! - * 
+- but no time to clock Kirill because -- * 
+
+KIRILL -- shit! -- can't keep shooting -- into the oncoming * 
+lanes -- swinging wide -- A TRUCK! -- swerving again and -- * 
+
+THE CAB -- wavering again -- rallying and -- * 
+
+UP AHEAD -- THE BOULEVARD opens into THE RIVER BELTWAY -- * 
+big -- wide -- fast -- KREMLIN in the BG and -- * 
+
+FOUR NEW POLICE CARS screaming down from RED SQUARE and -- * 
+
+BOURNE skidding onto THE BELTWAY -- looking for room -- * 
+
+-- Finding it -- open road -- * 
+
+KIRILL back in the hunt and -- * 
+
+THE RIVER BELTWAY -- CAB SCREAMING PAST -- then ONE -- TWO - * 
+- THREE -- FOUR POLICE CARS -- now the BLACK G-WAGON and -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- Both hands on the wheel -- He's already forgotten * 
+about his shoulder -- * 
+
+THE BELTWAY -- up ahead -- ANOTHER CHOICE -- right takes * 
+you up to the city -- left is a TRANSIT TUNNEL and -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- checking his rearview -- starting right and -- * 
+
+THE TWO LEAD POLICE CARS right on his ass and -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- fake out -- veering left! -- last second -- into * 
+THE TUNNEL and -- * 
+
+RS -- wrong -- and worse, trying t o * 
+THE TWO LEAD POLICE CA 
+cha nge -- CRA SH!!!! -- SPINNING -- an d it's not just the m -- * 
+AT HIRD POLIC E CAR cau ght in the clut ter -- Not to menti on * 
+the COMMUTERS -- CRASH !!! The Police are out o f the rac e. * 
+
+KIRILL -- not fooled -- threading the needle -- through the * 
+carnage and into -- * 
+
+
+336-337 DELETED 336-337 
+
+112. 
+
+
+338 INT. THE TUNNEL -- DAY 338 
+
+FOUR LANES -- two way -- and long -- there's -- * 
+
+THE CAB -- squibbing past SLOWER CARS and -- * 
+
+KIRILL on him -- move for move -- follow the leader and -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- checks the rearview -- he's lost them all but the * 
+G-WAGON -- who the hell is that? -- * 
+
+The Heavyweights. World Championship Belt up for grabs. * 
+
+KIRILL -- gaining -- nearly pulling level. * 
+
+BOURNE -- nowhere to go -- that's never stopped him before - * 
+- he carves a path -- turns two lanes into three as * 
+sparks his way through a lane split -- * 
+
+THE G-WAGON -- roaring after him. 
+
+BOURNE -- checks the mirror -- closer -- who the Hell is 
+that guy? -- 
+
+KIRILL -- Gaining -- FIRING through his passenger window. 
+
+BOURNE -- BRAKES -- 
+
+TUNNEL -- As the two vehicles scrape along each other -- 
+
+KIRILL -- FIRING BACK -- odd angle -- 
+
+BOURNE -- ducking for meager cover as bullets stitch 
+through the roof -- 
+
+TUNNEL -- The G-WAGON crushes the CAB against the wall -- 
+sparks showering the windshield -- finally -- 
+
+THE CAB -- shoots ahead -- 
+
+KIRILL -- in a controlled fury -- 
+
+THE SUV -- jerking hard and right into the rear of the CAB -- 
+
+BOURNE -- trying to keep control -- spots a MAINTENANCE 
+TRUCK up ahead -- 
+
+KIRILL -- banging away as his quarry straightens -- 
+
+MAINTENANCE TRUCK -- looming -- 
+
+113. 
+
+
+BOURNE -- a hard left -- 
+
+TUNNEL -- the CAB wrapping around the front of the SUV -- 
+WHAM! -- pushing it to the right -- the cab continues -- 
+SPINNING around the G-WAGON -- 
+
+DETAILS -- front bumpers locking on rear fenders as -- 
+
+TUNNEL -- The G-WAGON hurtling forward -- the CAB ass end 
+first -- locked together -- 
+
+KIRILL -- firing into the CAB -- really unloading now -- 
+
+BOURNE -- down on the floor -- a tornado overhead -- 
+
+KIRILL -- slaps in a new clip -- intense -- 
+
+BOURNE -- gun against his door -- just below the window * 
+knob -- WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP -- * 
+
+SUV TIRE -- shredding. * 
+
+KIRILL -- fights the wheel -- * 
+
+ANOTHER TRUCK -- looming large -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- looking between the seats out the rear window -- * 
+a LANE DIVIDING PILLAR ahead -- * 
+
+CAB -- as BOURNE sits up -- jerks the wheel to the right -- * 
+
+TUNNEL -- the cars unlock -- spin away from each other -- * 
+
+KIRILL -- focused -- taking deadly aim -- * 
+
+BOURNE -- staring back at him -- calm -- "I know something * 
+you don't know." * 
+
+KIRILL -- frowns -- * 
+
+THE TRUCK -- swerves to reveal the PILLAR to Kirill's POV -- * 
+
+KIRILL -- eyes go wide -- * 
+
+WHALLOP! -- steel vs. concrete -- concrete victorious -- a * 
+bone compressing, truly horrendous impact! * 
+
+BOURNE -- whipping the wheel -- * 
+
+CAB -- spinning to a stop out of harm's way -- door opening * 
+-- * 
+
+114. 
+
+
+339 INT. TUNNEL -- DAY 339 
+
+Gun ready -- BOURNE heads over. 
+
+Ahead -- Spam in a can. BOURNE crouches down -- looks in. 
+
+KIRILL -- bloody, beat-to-crap -- barely alive -- but -- 
+trapped -- entombed alive by the metal crushed around him -- 
+
+BOURNE -- watches. Not here to help. 
+
+KIRILL -- looks over -- calms a moment as the two men 
+consider each other -- 
+
+BOURNE looks at him long and hard. 
+
+Kirill dies. 
+
+And BOURNE stands -- and just walks away -- 
+
+
+340-350 DELETED 340-350 * 
+
+
+A351 EXT. MOSCOW AIRPORT TARMAC -- DAY A351 * 
+
+Snow swirls. PAMELA disembarks from the G-5 (or US * 
+military plane). She is met by RUSSIAN OFFICIALS. * 
+
+
+351 EXT. MOSCOW HOUSING PROJECT -- TWILIGHT 351 
+
+Huge, awful Soviet-era housing towers fill the horizon. 
+
+A CITY BUS grinds to a stop. PEOPLE trundle off. Working 
+people at the end of their day. Tired. Cold. 
+
+THE CAMERA FOLLOWS 
+
+A GIRL. Trudging a man-made wasteland. Twenty. A proud 
+little waif. Sad eyes. Home from some job. IRENA. 
+
+
+352 EXT./INT. PROJECT BUILDING ENTRANCE -- EVENING 352 
+
+Grimmer up close. Rusted steel mesh over the windows. 
+DRUNK TEENAGERS. A haze of cigarette smoke. 
+
+IRENA pushing through. Doesn't want to talk to anyone -- 
+
+115. 
+
+
+353 INT. PROJECT BUILDING STAIRWELL -- EVENING 353 
+
+IRENA climbing. A JUNKIE here. Flickering light there. 
+
+
+354 INT. SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY -- EVENING 354 
+
+IRENA -- her key at the door. Domestic disturbance playing 
+across the hall. She opens up and -- 
+
+
+355 INT. IRENA'S APARTMENT -- EVENING 355 
+
+It's dark. And she's barely through the door when -- 
+
+IRENA jumps -- chokes back a CRY -- 
+
+BOURNE is standing there -- propped there actually -- 
+behind her -- gun in hand -- motioning for her to be quiet -- 
+
+BOURNE 
+(his shabby Russian) 
+(Quiet. Silence. Okay?) 
+
+IRENA nods. Scared. Gun in hand, BOURNE pushes the door 
+the last few inches so it's fully closed. 
+
+IRENA 
+(I have no money. No drugs. Is that what 
+you want?) 
+
+And now she can really see him. He's a disaster. 
+Shivering. Bloody. Eyes more hollow than hers are. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Sit. Can yo u... 
+(tryin g to conjure the 
+Russi an--) 
+(The chair. Have the chair.) 
+
+IRENA 
+(accented) 
+I speak English. 
+
+BOURNE staring at her. Nods. Gestures for her to sit. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Please... 
+
+So she does. And here they are. 
+
+116. 
+
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) (cont'd) 
+Of all the p eople in the world, you're the 
+only one I h ave anything to offer. 
+(hesit ating) 
+That's why I came here. 
+
+IRENA 
+(she's terrified) 
+Okay. 
+
+He' s got some thing bes ide him. Somet hing he's taken off 
+the wall. IT 'S THE PH OTOGRAPH. The Neski fami ly. Same as 
+the one that was in th e Hotel Brecker . Mom, Da d and Irena, 
+arm s around e ach other , in front of t he house. Before it 
+was abandoned . Happy. Smiling. Per fect. 
+
+BOURNE 
+It's nice. 
+(a beat) 
+Does this picture mean anything to you? * 
+(no answer) * 
+Hmm? * 
+
+IRENA 
+It's nothing. It's just a picture. 
+
+BOURNE 
+No. It's because you don't know how they 
+died. 
+
+IRENA 
+(he couldn't understand) 
+No, I do. * 
+
+A change in BOURNE as he studies her, measures her. Some 
+moment of truth is here. IRENA braces, unsure. 
+
+BOURNE 
+I would want to know. 
+(beat) 
+I would want to know that my mother didn't 
+kill my fath er. I would want 
+to know that she didn't kill herself. 
+
+IRENA 
+What? 
+
+She really looks at him now. Fear overwhelmed by 
+curiosity. 
+
+BOURNE 
+I would grow up thinking that they didn't 
+love me if they just left me like that. 
+
+117. 
+
+
+Irena making sure her eyes don't leave his. They don't. 
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) (cont'd) 
+It changes things. That knowledge. 
+Doesn't it? 
+
+IRENA 
+(wary) 
+Yes... 
+
+BOURNE 
+That's not what happened to your parents. 
+
+IRENA 
+Then what? 
+
+BOURNE 
+I killed them. 
+
+Body blows, but he has her attention. She wipes a tear. 
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) * 
+It was my jo b. My first time. Your 
+father was s upposed to be alone. But then 
+your mother, she came out of nowhere... 
+(a lit tle shrug) 
+I had to cha nge my plan. 
+(beat) 
+You understa nd me? 
+(does she?) 
+You don't ha ve to live like that anymore. 
+Thinking tha t. 
+
+IRENA 
+You killed them. 
+
+BOURNE nods, that's right. 
+
+BOURNE 
+They loved you. 
+(beat) 
+And I killed them. 
+
+IRENA * 
+How...how can...how can you be here and * 
+say this? * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+I don't want you to forgive me. * 
+
+She stands suddenly. Stands because if she doesn't she'll 
+burst into tears. Because she knows if she starts crying 
+she won't be able to make sense of this. 
+
+118. 
+
+
+IRENA 
+For who? * 
+(he doesn't answer) 
+KILLED FOR WHO? 
+
+BOURNE pushes himself to his feet. A real effort. 
+
+BOURNE 
+It doesn't matter. Your life is hard 
+enough. 
+
+IRENA 
+You're a liar. 
+
+BOURNE 
+You know I'm not. 
+
+IRENA 
+YOU'RE A LIAR! 
+
+BOURNE 
+Look at me. 
+
+There they are. Two people standing in a room. Squared 
+off. 
+
+And now she starts crying. Really crying. 
+
+And he's taking it. 
+
+IRENA 
+I should kill you...if it's true you 
+should die...I should kill you now! 
+
+BOURNE 
+I can't let you do that either. * 
+
+IRENA 
+Because you're afraid! 
+
+BOURNE 
+No. 
+(starting for the door) 
+Because you don't want to know how it 
+feels. 
+
+She hesitates. Stunned. He's leaving. He's opening the * 
+door. * 
+
+BOURNE (CONT'D) * 
+I have to go now. * 
+
+IRENA * 
+Is this really happening? * 
+
+119. 
+
+
+BOURNE * 
+(empty) 
+I'm sorry. 
+
+And she sags. Back into the chair, as -- * 
+
+THE CAMERA FINDS * 
+
+THE PHOTOGRAPH on the table. The sound of the door * 
+closing and Irena crying, as -- * 
+
+
+356 EXT. HOUSING PROJECT PLAYGROUND -- DAY 356 
+
+BOURNE trudging along. Across the snow. He's done it. 
+
+And he really can't take another step. 
+
+There's a bench. He sits down. Out of gas. 
+
+He just might die here. We slowly tilt up to the multi- * 
+colored Moscow tenements. * 
+
+FADE OUT: * 
+
+
+357 INT. HOSPITAL ROOM -- DAY 357 
+
+BOURNE waking up -- sitting up -- where is he? -- trying to 
+get his bearings -- but it's so bright -- white walls -- 
+sheets -- SUNSHINE through clean windows and -- 
+
+PAMELA (OS) 
+Hello, David. * 
+
+There she is. Standing at the foot of his bed. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Where am I? 
+
+PAMELA 
+Ramstein Air Base, Germany. * 
+(smile s) 
+Before the w all fell you would have woken 
+up in a Russ ian prison hospital. 
+
+He looks around -- tries to move -- hammered by pain. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Oh, shit... 
+
+PAMELA 
+Careful... * 
+
+120. 
+
+
+Long moment. He's taking it in. Trying to. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Why am I alive? 
+
+PAMELA 
+Are you disappointed? 
+
+They study each other a beat. 
+
+BOURNE 
+I know who you are. 
+
+PAMELA nods. Very calm here. No sudden movements. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Thank you for your gift. I'm sorry about Marie. * 
+
+BOURNE * 
+What's that? * 
+
+PAMELA * 
+Do you think you can read? Are you well * 
+enough? * 
+
+She has a folder. A PHOTOGRAPH -- Bourne's face -- stapled 
+to the cover. 
+
+PAMELA (CONT'D) * 
+It's all in here. Treadstone. A summary 
+of your life. All of it. 
+
+He waves it off. 
+
+BOURNE 
+Don't need it. I remember everything. 
+PAMELA 
+(smiles again) 
+Sounds like a threat. 
+
+BOURNE 
+You didn't answer my question. 
+
+PAMELA 
+Why you're a live? 
+(beat) 
+You're alive because you're special. 
+Because she kept you alive. 
+(she s miles) 
+Because we w ant you back on our side. 
+
+BOURNE silent. But hearing it. PAMELA leaves the file. 
+
+121. 
+
+
+PAMELA (cont'd) (CONT'D) 
+Take a look at it. We'll talk later. 
+
+BOURNE watching her back away. As she exits into -- 
+
+
+358 INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR -- DAY 358 
+
+Long, sterile hallway. CRONIN and NICKY standing there 
+with an AIR FORCE SENTRY assigned to guard the room. 
+
+CRONIN and NICKY trying to play it cool, but now, as they 
+get some distance down the hallway -- 
+
+PAMELA * 
+(to the sentry) * 
+Let's give him half an hour. * 
+
+NICKY 
+(quietly) 
+So? 
+
+PAMELA 
+Felt promising. It's a start. * 
+
+A chill in the air. Both of them going quiet because 
+there's A NURSE carrying a tray of food. She's coming 
+toward us. They're walking away. 
+
+THE CAMERA 
+
+Staying with THE NURSE now. Coming up the hall. 
+
+THE SENTRY smiles -- opens the door and she enters -- 
+
+359 
+359 INT. HOSPITAL ROOM -- DAY 
+Empty bed. Open window. Bourne is gone. 
+
+As THE MUSIC STARTS PUMPING, and we... 
+
+
+360 EXT. MUSEUM ISLAND BRIDGE -- BERLIN -- DAY 360 * 
+
+Off he goes. Disappearing into thin air... * 
+
+FADE OUT. * 
+
+
+THE END 
\ No newline at end of file
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+                                                      THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM                       Written by       Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns & George Nolfi                 Based on the novels by                      Robert Ludlum                                            FINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT                                                    June 20, 2007Notice:This material is the property of Beach City Productions LLC(A wholly owned subsidiary of Universal City Studios, Inc.)and is intended and restricted solely for studio use bystudio personnel. Distribution or disclosure of thematerial to unauthorized persons is prohibited. The sale,copying or reproduction of this material in any form isalso prohibited.                                                              11   EXT.   NIGHT.   HOUSING PROJECTS -- MOSCOW                    1    SMASH CUT    MOTION -- flat out -- it's us -- we're running -- stumbling    -- breathing rushed -- blood in the snow...    We are JASON BOURNE and we're running down an alley...    Supered below:   MOSCOW    BLUE LIGHTS -- from the distance -- strobing through the    night -- rushing toward us -- POLICE CARS -- three of them -    - SIRENS HOWLING as they bear down -- closer -- faster --    until they whip past the alley...    Up against the wall -- BOURNE is hidden in the shadows.    BOURNE is badly wounded -- shot through the shoulder --    bruises and broken bones from the final car chase in    SUPREMACY...    With a GROAN, he lifts himself up, staggers across a park    toward a PHARMACY...4   INT. NIGHT. PHARMACY -- MOSCOW                                4    ROWS of MEDICINE and FIRST AID supplies, and in the    background, a DOOR being jimmied...It's BOURNE...The ALARM    goes off...    MACRO ON -- MEDICINE BOTTLE    VICODIN, as BOURNE grabs it...Then PENICILLIN...    Then SURGICAL SUPPLIES:    Scalpel...Forceps...Sutures...Cotton gauze...Betadine...    BOURNE finds a large sink...Rests his gun there...Lays out    SURGICAL SUPPLIES...Checks out his back in the    mirror...Opens the capsules of penicillin and pours the    powder directly into the wound...Begins treating himself...5   EXT. NIGHT. PHARMACY -- MOSCOW                                5    A POLICE CAR pulls up to the curb, lights flashing. One    POLICEMAN goes to the jimmied DOOR. SECOND POLICEMAN sees    blood and footprints. He motions to his partner to    follow...6   INT. NIGHT. PHARMACY BATHROOM -- MOSCOW                       6    BOURNE finishing up -- splashes water on his face -- he    seems a man on a mission. He looks up --                                                                 2       A MIRROR.       His face...FB1    FLASHBACK -- JUMBLED STREAKY IMAGES:                           FB1       "415" written on a building.                             DISEMBODIED VOICE (HIRSCH)                   Welcome to the program...       POV Bourne walks down a corridor (corridor #1).6AA    INT. NIGHT PHARMACY -- MOSCOW                                  6AA       The cops approaching.FB1A   FLASHBACK -- JUMBLED STREAKY IMAGES:                       FB1A       Daniels leading Bourne down the corridor.                             DISEMBODIED VOICE (V.O.)                   You'll be saving American lives.       A black sack is thrown over Bourne's head, then:       (STOCK) A torrent of quick shots of Bourne's kills: the       Professor, Jarda, the blonde guy in Paris, Mr. And Mrs.       Neski...       And finally. BANG -- Marie hit in the head.      The car off       the bridge. She sinks away dead...6A     INT.   NIGHT   PHARMACY -- MOSCOW                              6A       The POLICE enter the back room, guns drawn.                             POLICEMAN #1                   Put your hands on your head and                   turn around slowly!       BOURNE snaps out of it, doesn't move. POLICEMAN #1 (older)       approaches him. When BOURNE doesn't respond to his       questions, the POLICEMAN starts forward. BOURNE turns and       in one motion grabs his gun from the sink and disables the       POLICEMAN.       BOURNE freezes POLICEMAN #2 with his gun and a look.                             BOURNE                        (in Russian)                   Give me your gun and radio.       POLICEMAN #2's gun and radio skittle across the floor.                                                              3                           BOURNE                     (in Russian)                 My argument is not with you.     BOURNE smashes the radio and takes the gun.     BOURNE exits...     BLACK SCREEN     A TITLE fades in --                     THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM     SUPER:    Six Weeks Later6B   OMITTED                                                      6B6C   OMITTED                                                      6C6D   OMITTED                                                      6D6E   OMITTED                                                      6E6F   OMITTED                                                      6F6G   OMITTED                                                      6G6F   OMITTED                                                      6F6G   OMITTED                                                      6G8B   EXT. DAY. LANGLEY, VA                                        8B     Establishing shot -- CIA Headquarters8C   INT. CIA -- DAY                                              8C     A workman installs a nameplate that reads:    Ezra Kramer,     Director, CIA.8C   INT. KRAMER'S OFFICE -- DAY                                  8C     Kramer listens to a recording with Landy and Cronin. There     are unhung pictures and a few other items that indicate he     has just moved into this job.                                                          4Two other senior CIA officials sit in on the meeting.Kramer looks at a file on Bourne and Abbott.                    BOURNE (V.O.)          So we got in the way?   Is that          why Neski died? Is that why you          killed Marie?Kramer glances at a photo of Marie in the file.                    ABBOTT (V.O.)          You killed Marie the minute you          climbed into her car.   The          minute you entered her life she          was dead!Kramer looks at Abbott's official photo.                    BOURNE (V.O.)          I told you people to leave me          alone! I fell off the grid. I          was half way around the world.                    ABBOTT (V.O.)          There's no place it won't catch          up to you. It's how every story          ends. It's what you are, Jason.          A killer! You always will be.THUMP!                    CRONIN          We think that's Bourne hitting          him on the head and then--He makes a gun with his hand, i.e. Bourne putting his gunto Abbott's head.                       ABBOTT (V.O.)          Go ahead!     Go on! Do it!                    BOURNE (V.O.)          She wouldn't want me to. That's          the only reason your alive.The tape clicks off.                    KRAMER          Who's "she?"CRONIN puts a picture of MARIE in front of KRAMER.                    LANDY          His girlfriend, Marie. She was          killed in India three weeks ago.Kramer looks down at another image.     Abbott dead after hissuicide.                                                        5                    KRAMER          A dirty section chief in league          with a corrupt Russian          Billionaire commits suicide when          confronted by Jason Bourne. You          couldn't make this stuff up.              (holds up the photo of               Abbot dead)          You watched this happen?Landy nods.   Kramer shakes his head in disgust at the wholesituation.                    KRAMER          Bourne's last confirmed location          is Moscow, three days ago?                       LANDY          Right.                    KRAMER          So what does he do now?                    LANDY          I think he's looking for          something he hasn't found.                       KRAMER          Like what?     What's he after?                     LANDY          I'm not sure. Maybe he hasn't          gotten his memory back yet.  Not          all of it.A look from Kramer...                    KRAMER          Pam, what I need to know is, what          kind of a threat is he to us?                    LANDY          If he just wanted to hurt us he          could have sent this tape to CNN.                    KRAMER          Maybe he still will. Maybe he          gave it to you because he wants          to throw you in the opposite          direction of his real plan. I          don't know. I just know my          number one rule is "the only way          to stay safe is to assume the          worst."   As far as I'm concerned          Bourne is a serious threat until          proven otherwise.                                                               68D     OMITTED                                                     8D8E     OMITTED                                                     8E8F     OMITTED                                                     8F8G     OMITTED                                                     8G14A    OMITTED                                                     14A14AA   EXT.   TURIN, ITALY - ESTABLISHING SHOT                 14AA       SUPER:    TURIN, ITALYR15    INT.   DAY.    ITALIAN CAFE BACKROOM -- TURIN               R15       ROSS interviews DANIELS, a TAPE RECORDER on the table       between them. ROSS shows DANIELS some of the evidence he's       assembled...WANTED POSTERS of JASON BOURNE.                                ROSS                         (with poster)                     ...This one's three years ago --                     had half of Interpol after him --                     disappeared...Turned up in Naples                     -- Berlin -- Moscow --                     disappeared again...                         (Daniels says nothing)                     The girl he was on he run with --                     Marie Kreutz -- she turned up                     dead halfway around the world,                     from a sniper's bullet...                         (beat)                     What connects the dots? Is it                     Treadstone?                               DANIELS                     Turn off that tape recorder.15A    OMITTED                                                     15A15B    OMITTED                                                     15B24     INT. DAY. MARTIN'S APARTMENT -- PARIS                       24       The charm of old Paris captured in the workings of an       elevator operating in a wrought-iron shaft...                                                          7A WORK TABLE, covered with sheet music, music paper,pencils. And, sitting on the upright piano against thewall, a framed PHOTO of MARIE...A KNOCK on a door beautifully, heavily lacquered withcenturies of paint...MARTIN KREUTZ, late 20s, opens the door and finds BOURNE. Along look between them -- like two lost brothers whorecognize each other -- each has been waiting for thismoment for a long time.INT. CONTINUOUS. MARTIN'S APARTMENTMartin looks out the window.                    MARTIN          Where is my sister?                    BOURNE          She's dead. She was killed.                    MARTIN          I knew it was going to end this          way. It was always going to end          this way...                    BOURNE          I didn't believe that.                    MARTIN          Why did she die?                    BOURNE          She was shot. A man came for me.                    MARTIN          And then you killed him.Bourne nods.                      MARTIN          Now what?                    BOURNE          Someone started all this...and          I'm going to find them.Bourne looks at him for a beat and leaves.EXT. SUBWAY -- DAYBourne climbs the stairs.Bourne rounds a corner and stops, sees a bodyguard at adoor up the street hail a car then go back inside.                                                            8     Bourne walks up to the door, the bodyguard comes out again.     Bourne knocks him aside. Grabs the man behind him,     ELLATRACHE.                          BOURNE                    (in French)                Who started Treadstone?     The bodyguard comes back, gun out--                           ELLATRACHE                    (in French, to                      bodyguard)                It's OK!                    (in French, to Bourne)                They're still looking for you.                You are taking a big risk coming                here.     Bourne shoves him against the wall, hard.                          BOURNE                    (in French)                Just tell me what I want to know!                          ELLATRACHE                    (in French)                I just provided them weapons.    I                don't know who started--                          BOURNE                    (in French)                You know something.   Tell me                where to start looking.                          ELLATRACHE                    (in French)                There's a journalist in London.                Simon Ross. He seems to know a                lot about you.   He has a source                inside the program. Someone                there from the beginning. What                should I tell them if they                contact me?                          BOURNE                    (in English)                They give me the name I want, or                I burn their entire house down to                get it.16   EXT.   DAY. HEATHROW AIRPORT -- LONDON                     16     ROSS hurries to catch a TAXI as he talks on his cell phone.                                                             9                               ROSS                    ...This is big -- a skein of lies                    -- you pull at it and it just                    keeps coming -- I'll fill you in                    when I get home. And it's not                    finished, either.                        (beat)                    They're calling it `Blackbriar'.      Follow this SEQUENCE as...17    INT. DAY.     CIA SUBSTATION -- LONDON                       17      A LISTENING STATION in England scoops up MILLIONS of CELL      PHONE CALLS...Sifts through BILLIONS of words...One word      EMERGES from the CHATTER...      BLACKBRIAR      A TECHNICIAN sends the data to NSA back in the      States...Where another COMPUTER gathers up the rest of the      phone call...As we listen...                              TECH#3                    "Blackbriar" echelon hit.                    NSA, please confirm receipt.R18   EXT. DAY. CIA HEADQUARTERS -- LANGLEY                       R18      And there in the CRI HUB, another TECHNICIAN receives the      DATA. Stops SUPERVISOR and reports.                              TECHNICIAN #1                    Sir, we intercepted a call from                    London, keyword "Blackbriar."                              SUPERVISOR                    Okay, send it to CRI right now.25D   EXT.   DAY.    THE SKYLINE   -- NEW YORK CITY               25D      NOAH VOSEN, deft and confident, arrives at CRI      Headquarters.25E   INT.   DAY. CRI OFFICES -- NEW YORK CITY                    25E      As VOSEN steps out of the elevator and into his office, he      is met by his #2, WILLS.                               WILLS                    We tracked the phone. Registered                    to a London reporter named Simon                    Ross. He works at the Guardian                    newspaper.                                                            10      They enter a hallway through double doors towards the HUB.                          VOSEN                You tracking him?      As they pass through, colleague hands WILLS a file.                          WILLS                Yeah, thanks Mike. We have a                survey team covering him at                work...and a sneak and peek's on                their way to his apartment.                          VOSEN                Well, who talked to him? How did                he find out about Blackbriar?                          WILLS                We don't know, we pulled his                background and ran a cross check                on any known anomalies, but we've                come up with nothing. But, I                think if we follow Ross, we are                going to be able...                         VOSEN                Right. Ross is easy. I want the                source.      They enter the HUB.26    EXT. DAY. GARE DU NORD -- PARIS                              26      BOURNE buys a newspaper, enters the station and gets on the      EUROSTAR.26A   INT. DAY. CRI DATA ROOM (was 25E)                          26A      VOSEN and WILLIS listen to the phone call.                          ROSS (VOICEOVER)                Have you heard of an Operation                Blackbriar? I'm going to try and                get my head around this, see you                first thing.      VOSEN turns.                          VOSEN                Is that all?                            WILLS                Yeah.                                                            11                            VOSEN                  I want rendition protocols and I                  want the asset put on standby,                  just in case.26B   INT.   DAY -- CRI HUB                                      26B      VOSEN steps out from DATA ROOM...addresses the HUB.                            VOSEN                  People, listen up, this is a full                  priority situation                             WILLS                  Jimmy, give me Ross's profile on                  one.                       (points at the big                        screen on the wall)      ROSS'S information come up on the center screen.                            VOSEN                  Our target is a British national,                  Simon Ross, a reporter. I want                  all his phones, his blackberry,                  his apartment, his car, bank                  accounts, credit cards, travel                  patterns...I want to know what                  he's going to think before he                  does. Every dirty little secret                  he has. And most of all, we want                  the name and real time location                  of his source.                  This is NSA priority level 4, any                  questions?      No response from the HUB.                            VOSEN (CONT'D)                  All right, let's get to it.26C   EXT. DAY. EUROSTAR -- ENGLAND                              26C      The EUROSTAR winds it's way to London.26D   INT. DAY.   EUROSTAR                                       26D      BOURNE reads The Guardian. He sees an article written by      Simon Ross.   Title: "RENEGADE ASSASSIN LOSE IN EUROPE".      It mentions BOURNE. There is a photo of Marie--FB2   FLASHBACK                                                  FB2                                                              12      Marie smiles at him. Marie shot. Marie fades into the      depths, dead. Bourne burns Marie's stuff26D   INT. DAY. EUROSTAR                                           26D      BOURNE comes out of the flashback.    He is still carrying      the pain of her loss      Bourne finds Ross's name on the masthead, then goes to the      name just below it in the news department.29    EXT.   DAY   GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER -- LONDON                    29      Ross crosses a busy London street -- heads to Guardian      office building. A CRI TEAM watches from a parked car.35H   INT. DAY -- CRI HUB                                          35H      TECH #1 watches the data arrive.                             TECH#1                   Copy that. Mr. Vosen, subject is                   entering his office.      VOSEN watches the feed.                             VOSEN                   Where's my picture please?                             TECH#2                   Coming online...Online...Now.      A surveillance picture flashes onscreen -- ROSS works in      his office. HUB chatter about ROSS phone.                             TECH#3                   Take an hour to get his phone...                             VOSEN                   That's too long.      Off VOSEN.R34   INT. DAY. GUARDIAN EDITOR OFFICE -- LONDON                   R34      ROSS reports to his EDITOR.                             EDITOR                   So how do we know he's not                   spinning for someone?                             ROSS                   There's more. He was scared.                                                     13                           EDITOR                 Scared of what?                           ROSS                 Blackbriar.      A REPORTER sticks her head in.                           REPORTER                 Sorry, a call for you.                              ROSS                 Who is it?                           REPORTER                 Won't give hie name.      ROSS leaves to pick up the call.35Y   INT. CONTINUOUS. GUARDIAN -- NEWSROOM               35Y      ROSS crosses the busy newsroom...                           REPORTER                 He's on my line...      ROSS picks up the phone.                           Ross (CONT'D)                 Simon Ross.35H   INT. DAY. CRI HUB -- NEW YORK CITY                  35H      VOSEN watches as ROSS takes phone call.                           VOSEN                 Why aren't we hearing this?                           WILLS                 That's a hard line, Jimmy, why                 don't we have it?                            JIMMY                 We have his line, sir, but he's                 not on it.      WILLS looks confused.35Y   INT. DAY   GUARDIAN -- NEWSROOM                     35Y      ROSS listens.                           BOURNE (V.O.)                 Waterloo Station, south entrance,                 thirty minutes.                                                            14                              ROSS                    Who is this?                              BOURNE (V.O.)                    This is Jason Bourne.35Z   INT.   DAY -- EUROSTAR TRAVELING                           35Z                              Bourne                    You want to talk to me. Come                    alone.      BOURNE hangs up.35Y   INT.   DAY.    GUARDIAN -- NEWSROOM                        35Y      ROSS looks bewildered -- hangs up the phone -- gathers his      stuff -- puts his notebook in his pocket and leaves.                              SURVEY ONE (V.O.)                    Are you getting an image?35H                           VOSEN                              35H                    Where's he going?                               WILLS                    Okay, he is on the move.   Target                    is mobile.      The HUB reacts. .                              WILLS                    Okay, people, look sharp, give me                    eyeballs on the street.36    INT. DAY. BUILDING -- ACROSS FROM GUARDIAN                   36      SURVEY ONE has panned down to the entrance of the GUARDIAN      building. Because ROSS is on the move...                              SURVEY ONE                    Subject is on the move. Go mobile                    One and Two.                              WILLS                    Where's that audio on the street?                    I want to know where he's                    going...36A   EXT. CONTINUOUS. LONDON STREET                             36A      ROSS hails a BLACK TAXI. The SILVER VAN pulls out behind      him...                                                                  1535H   INT. DAY. NEW YORK HUB                                           35H      VOSEN watches as the feed from the SILVER VAN comes      through.                              MOBILE 2                        (over radio)                    We have the subject confirmed.                              VOSEN                    Where is he heading?                              MOBILE 2                    Waterloo Station.37    EXT.   DAY.    WATERLOO STATION -- LONDON                        37      BOURNE arrives on the EUROSTAR.      Enters the station.38    EXT. CONTINUOUS. STREET                                          38      As the taxi moves away, the SILVER VAN pulls out behind it.      A CYCLE COURIER momentarily blocks its path. Looking in on      ROSS sifting through documents in the back seat.                              HUB (V.O.)                    Stand by at Waterloo...39    EXT. DAY. WATERLOO STATION -- LONDON                             39      BOURNE moving toward the rendezvous...63    INT/EXT. DAY. BLACK CAB -- YORK ROAD                             63      ROSS pays the DRIVER, exits. Checks his watch.      Looks      around. Isn't sure what his next move is--64H   INT. DAY. CRI HUB                                                64H      TECHNICIANS searching for ROSS on the busy street.                              TECHNICIAN #2                    Mobile One -- give us eyes on the                    subject.                                                               1663    EXT. DAY. YORK ROAD -- LONDON                                 63      MOBILE ONE-- two people from the van-- take up a position      in an open stairwell three floors up. They focus a camera      down on Ross.63A   EXT. DAY. ENTRANCE -- WATERLOO STATION                        63A      BOURNE buys a cell phone. Activates the SIM card on the new      phone. Dumps the pay-as-you-go package in a bin. Rounds a      corner. Out of sight.63B   OMITTED                                                       63B64H   INT. CONTINUOUS. CRI HUB -- NEW YORK CITY                     64H      Screens come alive with a POV of ROSS. VOSEN studies the      monitors. ROSS arrives at Waterloo, pays TAXI.                          TECHNICIAN #1                Sir, subject just arrived at the                south entrance to Waterloo                Station.63    INT. DAY. WATERLOO -- ENTRANCE                                63      ROSS moves to the entrance.      Behind him, inside the tube station portico, BOURNE      arrives.      Sees ROSS. Sees the two survey teams. MOBILE ONE up the      stair well and MOBILE TWO at street level.      Commuters coming up the escalators. BOURNE joins them -      moving towards Ross.      Closer.      Right on him.   ROSS oblivious.   Looking out onto the      street.      BOURNE brushes past him and PUTS THE PHONE IN HIS POCKET..      ROSS feels the contact. Checking himself -- he's okay.      But now a phone is ringing -- looks around, must be someone      else.      But the vibration's coming from his jacket pocket.      ROSS takes out the phone -- not his -- puzzled.      ROSS hits "answer."                                                            17                           ROSS                Hello?                          BOURNE (O.S.)                Don't ask questions. Just                listen...64H   INT. CONTINUOUS. NEW YORK HUB                               64H      VOSEN watching...                          VOSEN                What's he doing? I thought we                blocked his cell? Who the hell                is he talking to???                          WILLS                Jimmy, I need that phone!                           VOSEN                    (beat)                Activate the asset.                          WILLS                Sir, we haven't yet become                operational --                          VOSEN                I said activate the asset.   I                want options.      Wills keys in a CODE...64    EXT. DAY. BMW -- LONDON STREET                               64      PAZ, 20s, cool and predatory, drives and waits for      instructions...His PHONE buzzes...He reads the      code...Accelerates toward Waterloo Station...70    EXT. CONTINUOUS. FOOTBRIDGE                                  70      BOURNE reaches the top of the stairwell on the other side      of the road.      His POV to the left -- a LONDON BUS is approaching.      To the right -- a young man in a hooded top -- speaking on      his cell -- walking toward a BUS STOP...      A plan is forming.71    INT. CONTINUOUS. WHITE VAN                                   71      SURVEY TWO -- camera zooming in on ROSS.                                                               18                          SURVEY TWO                What's the ROE on this one?      PANNING TO REVEAL64H   INT. CONTINUOUS. NEW YORK HUB                                 64H      VOSEN thinking it over as he watches the image of ROSS.75    EXT. DAY. YORK ROAD -- TUBE -- BUS STOP                       75      ROSS looking around.    Then --                          BOURNE (O.S.)                To your left. Blue hooded top.                Walking towards the bus stop      ROSS has clocked him.      The HOODY walks to the bus stop. One hands-free EARBUD      swaying down by his side as he moves to a seat.      Sitting down. Checking his watch.      ROSS shifting nervously from one foot to another.                          BOURNE (o.s.) (CONT'D)                Go to the bus stop, sit next to                him. Head down...      The LONDON BUS approaching.      ROSS begins to move.64H   INT. DAY. CRI HUB -- NEW YORK                                 64H      Things are beginning to happen.                          TECHNICIAN #1                Target is on the move.                          WILLS                Okay, who's the guy in the blue                hood?      Screen POV. ROSS standing next to the HOODY -- head down.      Trying to play it cool -- ROSS in clear view of the      cameras. "Speaking" with the HOODY. Camera zooming in.                          VOSEN                Okay, there, he's talking to the                guy with the hood. Take them                down.      Just then --                                                             19      A BUS pulling up to the bus stop, blocking both SURVEYS'      views. Rifle mics picking up the bus chatter, instead of      ROSS.      VOSEN.   Annoyed now.                            VOSEN                  Watch that bus! The bus! --                  don't lose them! Stay triangular                  and don't get blocked.      The crackle of the survey teams as they try and reframe.      POV SCREEN -- SURVEY ONE seeing the bus clear.   The HOODY      has gone.      POV ANOTHER SCREEN -- SURVEY TWO -- camera finally catching      up, picking out the HOODY on the bus as it begins to pull      away.                            VOSEN?                  Grab Team B. Grab the hoody and                  stay with Ross...      TECH'S giving orders...77    EXT. ACROSS FROM YORK ROAD -- DAY                            77      SURVEY TWO -- three men racing across the road on foot.      Weaving through heavy traffic.78    EXT. DAY. FOOTBRIDGE AREA                                    78      BOURNE watching his plan unfold...Only a few seconds to get      ROSS out of there...                            BOURNE                  Take the footbridge. Go to the                  West Entrance. I'll meet you at                  the newsstand.79    EXT.   DAY. YORK ROAD -- CONTINUOUS                          79      ROSS rearing this -- Moving away --      The BUS moves up to the traffic light.   The AGENTS moving      across the street...64H   INT. DAY.   NEW YORK -- ENCRYPTED AREA -- CONTINUOUS         64H      VOSEN looking at the screens.   Pointing...                                                               20                              VOSEN                    No, no, look...Ross is not on the                    bus.   Split up the team -- get                    the guy on the bus and send                    someone to stay on Ross.R81   EXT    DAY.   YORK ROAD -- CONTINUOUS                         R81      One AGENT peeling off, to keep ROSS in check.      The other two AGENTS racing to the bus as it pulls away      from the lights. Kicking the doors open, leaping on.      GUNS drawn.     So quick.   Passengers screaming.                              AGENT ONE                        (to Hoody)                    You. On the floor. Down.      Pushing the HOODY to the floor.                              AGENT TWO                    Driver, stop the bus!      On the HOODY.      The HOOD is pulled back.      An innocent YOUNG MAN -- terrified, bewildered.83    EXT.   DAY.    FOOTBRIDGE AREA                                83      ROSS on the move across the walkway.84    INT. DAY. STAIRWELL                                           84      SURVEY ONE moving up the steps, only to meet-      BOURNE coming down. Three quick moves and he's down-      slumped against a wall- just another drunk to step over in      the rush hour.      Pulls the feed. Takes the earbud. Then back up and falls      into step behind ROSS.      Listening in to the chaos he has caused -- an ocean away.64H   INT. DAY. NEW YORK HUB                                        64H      TECHIES scrambling to restore the feed.     VOSEN staring.                              TECHNICIAN #2                    We've lost signal.                                                               21                          TECHNICIAN #1                What happened to Survey One?                          VOSEN                I don't like this. Patch me                through to Met surveillance.86    INT/EXT. DAY. CAR -- LONDON STREETS                           86      PAZ parked up -- gets the call -- pulls out into the      traffic.      Slicing through to the target area. Waterloo up ahead.87    EXT. DAY. WATERLOO                                            87      A SECOND SURVEY TEAM -- out of their vehicles.   Furtively      they lock and load their side arms.      Fanning out towards the station.R88   EXT. DAY. WEST ENTRANCE WATERLOO - NEWSTAND                   R88      Bourne stops Ross, surprising him.                          BOURNE                Why do you know so much about me?                           ROSS                What?                          BOURNE                The article. You talked to                someone from Treadstone. Someone                there at the beginning.  What's                his name?                          ROSS                I can't tell you that.... Who's                following me?                          BOURNE                Whoever they are it's trouble.                          ROSS                Are they Blackbriar?                          BOURNE                Blackbriar, what's Blackbriar?                          ROSS                I don't know. I heard the name                this morning for the first time.                Whatever it is, my source said it                started with you.                                                                22                          BOURNE                 What? What are you talking                 about?                           ROSS                 Look, just help me get away from                 these people...and we can talk                 more...we can--                           BOURNE                     (spotting approaching                      operatives)                 We have to move.       Bourne moves Ross toward the concourse.                           BOURNE                 Answer your phone.64H    INT. DAY. CRI HUB                                             64H       SCREENS coming alive again. They are through to MET       SURVEILLANCE -- the AREA around WATERLOO.                           TECHNICIAN #1                 Last sighted heading to the West                 entrance.                            VOSEN                 He's got to be close. Seal the                 entrances.90     EXT. DAY. WATERLOO                                            90       The new SURVEY team moves towards different entrances --       Ready to beat out the quarry.R88A   EXT. DAY. WEST ENTRANCE                                     R88A       CAMERAS suddenly alive.   Movement across the footbridge.       The net's been thrown.91     INT. CONTINUOUS. CONCOURSE -- WATERLOO                        91       Into the station concourse.       ROSS moving fast. Fighting through the crowds of faces.       Each one a killer in ROSS' tormented mind.       BOURNE on the periphery looking out across the throng,       picking out the inconsistencies.                                                              23      One AGENT, then another approaching.      He dials.                             BOURNE (O.C.)                  Three o'clock. Female. Blonde                  black top.                            ROSS                  Has she seen me?                            BOURNE                  Not yet. Dip left past the photo                  kiosk.      ROSS spinning round. Dipping left.   BLACK TOP passing in      the background missing him.      BOURNE crossing close behind - marshalling the pieces at      breakneck speed.                            BOURNE (CONT'D)                  Straight ahead. News kiosk.      ROSS turning.   Weaving through the commuters.      BOURNE seeing cameras turn.    ROSS heading into their path.                            BOURNE (CONT'D)                  Change of plan. Stop. Tie your                  shoelace.      BOURNE seeing ROSS dip out of view as a group of TOURISTS      block the CCTV's line of sight.64H   INT. DAY. CRI HUB                                            64H      That same scene -- scores of TOURISTS -- from VOSEN's point      of view. The TECHS try to get another angle...94    EXT. DAY. CONCOURSE -- WATERLOO                                94      ROSS looking through the sea of legs as he finishes tying      his laces. Cameras sweeping past.                            ROSS                  Are we clear?                            BOURNE                  Clear. News kiosk. Straight                  ahead.      ROSS on the move. Sweating. Paranoid.      Seeing a BIN MAN coming toward him -- reaching into his      trolley.                                                              24                          ROSS                Straight toward me.     Bin man?                            BOURNE                Negative.                          ROSS                He's got a gun.                            BOURNE                Negative.    Keep straight ahead.      But ROSS swerves out of his path as the BIN MAN pulls out --      a bunch of keys.      CCTV CAMERAS turn -- ZOOMING IN ON ROSS.64H   INT. DAY. CRI HUB -- NEW YORK                                64H      Ross' face on all screens.                           TECH#1                We got a hit. Middle of the                concourse.      VOSEN pacing.                          VOSEN                We're losing him! We cannot                afford to lose him!      Frenzied teching as they capture and transmit an image of      Ross to...96    EXT. DAY. TAXI RANK -- WATERLOO                              96      PAZ flipping open his phone. A voice crackling in his      earpiece.                          VOICE                Waterloo concourse. Subject                heading east.      Paz jamming the wheel hard right. Doing a high speed U-      turn.      Heading towards the east side of the station.94    EXT. DAY. CONCOURSE                                          94      BOURNE realizes ROSS has been seen. Sees the AGENTS      starting to form the box...                          BOURNE                Get into cover. Now!                                                               25      ROSS moving faster.                          VOSEN64H             What's the status of the asset?                     64H                          WILLS                In place in one minute.                          VOSEN                Alright, I want to take him now.                Get him out of there and have the                asset cover it.      WILLS gives orders...96    INT. CAR TRAVELLING-- MEPHAM STREET -- DAY.                   96      PAZ pulling into a side street. Out towards a series of      arches that lead underneath the terminal. In his ear...                          VOICE                Target moving towards the stores.                          ANOTHER VOICE                Asset in play. ETA thirty                seconds. All exits covered.      PAZ through the archway. Grabbing a station plan. Studying      it.98    Through a subterranean maze of corridors. Up steps.           98      Through doors.      On his way to the kill zone.99    EXT. CONCOURSE-- CONTINUOUS -- DAY                            99      ROSS moving through crowds around the departures board.      BOURNE hearing that last exchange in his earpiece too.      Asset in play?                          BOURNE                Keep moving...      BOURNE's POV: AGENTS closing the box. The departures board.      Platform 7. A train waiting.                             BOURNE (CONT'D)                Faster....      Commuters waiting for the platform                          BOURNE (CONT'D)                The front...                                                               26       Suddenly -- CLICK -- PLATFORM 7 displays.       A wave of commuters flooding away -- sweeping the AGENTS       back with them towards platform 7.                           BOURNE (CONT'D)                 GET IN THE STORE.       BOURNE'S bought them thirty seconds.100    INT. TUNNELS ABOVE THE CONCOURSE -- DAY                      100       PAZ on the move. Earpiece crackling. Through a door. Taking       a left down another tunnel.       Opens another security door and moves up some steps.       Towards a ladder.100A   EXT. CONCOURSE WATERLOO -- SIMULTANEOUSLY -- DAY           100A       The AGENTS regrouping. Speaking into their radios.                           Voice                 He's in the store -- still moving                 east.       ROSS out into the open again. In front of him another STORE       COMPLEX.                           BOURNE                 INSIDE!       BOURNE searching the concourse. Something bothering him.       The threat level clicking another notch.102A/B INT. MAINTENANCE AREA-- SIMULTANEOUSLY -- DAY           102A/B       PAZ heads up some stairs to a service platform.       Climbs a ladder.101    EXT. CONCOURSE -- CONTINUOUS -- DAY                          101       ROSS into the store complex. To one side is a service       doorway.       BOURNE sees the AGENTS approaching. Looks the other way --       up at the hoardings above.       Something's not right. Treadstone instinct.                           BOURNE                 Service doorway -- Now!                                                                2764H    INT. NEW YORK HUB -- SIMULTANEOUS -- DAY                      64H       An image of Ross as he enters the store complex appears on       the screen.                            TECHY 2                 Store.   Three means of egress.                           VOSEN                 Close him down...105    INT. STORE COMPLEX -- SIMULTANEOUSLY -- DAY                   105       ROSS through narrow store corridors. Sheer panic now.       Two of the AGENTS move in after him.       BOURNE behind them.       BANG - takes the first out silently.                           BOURNE                 Keep moving.       ROSS moving out to the light as another AGENT follows.                           BOURNE (CONT'D)                 Through the store room.       ROSS travelling through.   The second AGENT right behind as-       BOURNE steps out from behind the store room door. The dull       snap of bones as second AGENT falls to the floor.64H    INT. DAY -- CRI HUB                                           64H       On a screen VOSEN watches, transfixed, as BOURNE takes out       all his agents and then grabs ROBB...                           VOSEN                 Jesus Christ, that's Jason                 Bourne.                           WILLS                 Maybe he's the source?                           VOSEN                 It doesn't matter, the asset now                 has 2 targets. Take them both                 out.       WILLS taps in the order...102B   INT. MAINTENANCE AREA-- DAY                               102B       PAZ moves cross a narrow walkway.                                                                28       Now he's behind a mechanical 'tri-panel' hoarding. The kind       that displays a different advert every 15 seconds. He waits       for the change and then---       -- A huge field of vision across the concourse stretching       out down below him- a sniper's heaven.       PAZ pulling open the motor-casing from the side panel, goes       to work on it.       Slowing the rotation. Rearranging the large triangular       prisms to give him just the right time-gap to pull the       trigger- and just enough cover to disappear.       He takes out rifle parts from his rucksack. Starts to       assemble them.102C   INT. BEHIND THRESHERS (BEHIND THE SILVER METAL DOOR)        102C                              BOURNE                    I'm going to get you to safety                    but you have to stay calm do                    exactly what I say.                              ROSS                        (fear-induced autopilot)                    Sure, okay.                              BOURNE                    No, listen to me: Exactly what I                    say this time. Understand?       Ross snaps to focus.     Looks Bourne in the eye.                              ROSS                    Yes.                              BOURNE                    Stay here while I look for an                    escape.       Ross nods.102B   INT. MAINTENANCE AREA                                       102B       PAZ puts together the rifle.103    INT. WATERLOO STATION                                         103       BOURNE exits from the silver door behind Threshers.    He       stays on the phone with Ross.       Hidden from the view of the CCTV cameras by the thick       crowd, Bourne sees the approaching agents abruptly pulling       back.                                                                     29                            ROSS (PHONE V.O.) (CONT'D)                  I can see the entrance from here                  I can make it out--                            BOURNE                  No, stay behind that door.64H   INT. HUB                                                            64H      CCTV view of the silver door behind Threshers that ROSS is      behind (not Bourne). Wills is on phone.                            WILLS                  There. That silver door.                  Bourne's behind that door?                               TECH                  Confirmed.                            WILLS                  Okay, pull the agents back and                  give Bourne's location to the                  asset.107   INT. MAINTENANCE AREA                                               107      On his cell phone Paz receives a text indicating Bourne's      location. Paz finds the silver door and aims his rifle at      it.      SCOPE POV      A shape barely visible moving behind the window.           (It's      Ross but Paz and the Hub think it's Bourne.111   INT. BEHIND THRESHERS /         WATERLOO CONCOURSE-- DAY            111      INTERCUTTING BETWEEN ROSS AND BOURNE:      Bourne spots the agents pulling back per Wills' orders.                            ROSS (INTO PHONE)                  If I run now I can make it--                             BOURNE (INTO PHONE                  No.   Something's not right.107   INT. MAINTENANCE AREA                                               107      Paz awaiting his shot--                                                               30       SCOPE POV       The door comes open slightly, but from this angle Paz       doesn't have a clean shot at his target (who he thinks is       Bourne).111    INT. CONCOURSE -- WATERLOO                                   111       Bourne searches the rafters, looking for any threats from       above.                             ROSS (TEL. V.O.)                   I'm going to go for it, okay?                             BOURNE                   Don't move until I tell you.       Bourne is distracted by the last of the agents       disappearing. Something is definitely wrong--                             ROSS                   I'm going to go for it.                             BOURNE                   No, No not now.       Ross suddenly sprints out from behind the door--110A   SCOPE POV                                                110A       Paz sees the shape emerge--110A   INT. MAINTENANCE AREA -- DAY                             110A       PAZ fires--111    INT. WATERLOO -- SERIES OF ANGLES                            111       But it's Ross, not Bourne. Ross is hit by Paz's shot.    He       falls, inches from the silver door, dead. Blood has       splattered on the door.110A   INT. PAZ'S NEST                                          110A       Paz snaps his head back to the scope, realizing he's shot       the wrong person. Then he catches a glimpse of Bourne--       Bourne ducks behind the gathering crowd, out of Paz's line       of sight, and goes to the body.                                                              3164H    INT. HUB                                                    64H       Vosen and Wills stare at the screen. At the image of Ross,       dead on the concourse.   The room -- normally full of       chatter has gone dead silent...       Vosen puts his head in his hands. This is a monumental       screw up and everyone here knows it.  He just had the       wrong man killed....                            VOSEN                  Oh...shit...       Then suddenly Vosen snaps back to focus:                            VOSEN (CONT'D)                  Get the asset out of there ...                            WILLS                  What about Bourne?       On the HUB MONITORS we see Police moving in... Vosen       doesn't need to see anymore.                            VOSEN                  Get him out of there - NOW!111    INT. WATERLOO -- DAY                                        111       Bourne feels Ross' body for something.110A   OMITTED                                                  110A110A   PAZ'S   NEST                                             110A       Paz is frustrated by the order. He's itching to get another       shot off at Bourne, but after a beat, packs up quickly, as       ordered.111    INT. WATERLOO -- DAY                                        111       Back in Waterloo, Cops run in from all sides.111A   INT. DAY. WATERLOO STATION                               111A       On the screens and in real life, the aftermath of the hit.       PARAMEDICS try helplessly to deal with ROSS -- killed       instantly by the head shot meant for BOURNE...POLICE arrive       and seal off the crime scene...                                                                32113    EXT. CONCOURSE WATERLOO -- SIMULTANEOUSLY -- DAY              113       BOURNE on the move. Fast --       Past platforms. On his way up to the Tri Panel.       Up stairs. On to a walkway.   To his right he sees a figure       disappearing...       PAZ.       BOURNE hammers down the walk - way in pursuit.114    EXT. PLATFORM AREA -- DAY                                     114       BOURNE tailing PAZ down on to a parallel platform. PAZ       dipping down into the underground entrance.115/116 INT. TUBE STATION -- WATERLOO -- DAY                 115/116       PAZ moving deliberately through the evening rush hour--       blending in...       BOURNE in pursuit. Chasing on instinct.       There...A glimpse of PAZ at the bottom of an escalator.       BOURNE fights past people.       PAZ disappears into the crowd.       BOURNE rushes to catch him. Rounding a corner...       A long walkway -- at the end, two staircases lead to       different tube lines. BOURNE hesitates-- measures the       choice.       The sound of a train fills the station--       BOURNE -- Fast downstairs.       Watches-- just as PAZ gets onto the car at another door.       BOURNE lunges to get on the train...But the doors close...       BOURNE'S POV       Watching PAZ from the platform as he SAGS down onto a seat,       nauseated, his skin clammy, his head pounding...He takes       out the PILLS and dry-swallows them...Looks up...       CLOSE ON -- BOURNE       Watching PAZ...As if he's looking in the MIRROR at his old       self...The self before THE BOURNE IDENTITY...                                                                33       CLOSE ON -- PAZ       He looks straight ahead, just another commuter...       BACK ON -- BOURNE       Watching PAZ, as the train pulls away...Then BOURNE is       immediately in motion...119    INT. DAY. DIRECTOR'S OFFICE -- CIA -- LANGLEY, VA             119                            KRAMER                   Hello.                             VOSEN                   It's Vosen. We have a situation.119B   EXT. NIGHT.   DANIELS OFFICE -- MADRID                    119B       Establishing Sewell and Marbury.120    INT. NIGHT. DANIELS OFFICE                                    120       DANIELS watches news of ROSS murder on TV. DANIELS panics,       opens his safe, packs up papers, takes Blackbriar FILE.       Sets alarm. Leaves.120C   EXT. NIGHT. INTERNET CAFE -- LONDON.                      120C       BOURNE sits at a computer, the ROSS notebook open in front       of him. He pages through it, finding names, places, "HOW       DID THIS ALL START?" -- and Blackbriar.   He Googles       "Sewell and Marbury"-- finds Paris, Berlin, Madrid. BOURNE       continues to search and finds receipt from Madrid.       BOURNE leaves.123    EXT. DAY.   POSH HOTEL -- NEW YORK CITY                       123       LANDY steps out of a TAXI...123A   INT. DAY.   POSH HOTEL -- NEW YORK CITY                   123A       Vosen's sitting.                             VOSEN                       (to waiter)                   Sparkling. And a "Heart-Healthy"                   omelet with goat cheese and                   peppers.       Landy arrives.                                                     34                    VOSEN          You're late. Traffic?                    WAITER              (handing her the menu)          Ma'am?                    LANDY          Nothing for me.Vosen looks at her, surprised.                    VOSEN          I'm buying.She shakes her head, no. She sits, without taking her coatoff. She's not staying long.                    VOSEN          When the Director called, it was          suggested we bring you on--                     LANDY          Suggested?              (beat)          Are you sure it was just a          suggestion?                    VOSEN          Funny how different things look          depending on where you sit. I          look at this as doing a favor for          you. Giving you an opportunity          to complete some unfinished          business.                     LANDY          Meaning?                    VOSEN          Jason Bourne.                    LANDY          Bourne's finished.                     VOSEN          Really?                    LANDY          It was finished the moment I          realized I was chasing him for          something he didn't do.   The          case is closed.                                              35                     VOSEN          So what do you make of this?              (handing her               surveillance photos of               Bourne in Paris)          French intel picked up Bourne          meeting Pierre Elattrache on          Tuesday. He threatened to burn          our house down if you didn't tell          him who started Treadstone.          That's a big problem, wouldn't          you agree?                    LANDY          This doesn't feel like Bourne to          me.                    VOSEN          Why's it so hard for you to          believe?                     LANDY          Probably because it's coming from          you, Noah.                    VOSEN          Lets try and be adults okay? We          all thought he was done, off the          grid. But Bourne's back. Maybe          he's a threat. We both want the          same thing here.                    LANDY          So what happened at Waterloo?                    VOSEN          We have a leak. Bourne showed up          in our surveillance. We had very          little time to react.                    LANDY          And the reporter ended up dead?                    VOSEN          Bourne saw us coming.Landy looks at him, suspicious.                    LANDY          So what was he doing?                    VOSEN?          We don't know. But just the fact          that he was there means he's up          to something, don't you think?          Maybe he's the source?                                                                  36                               LANDY                     The real question is how you                     managed to get in a fire fight in                     the middle of a public train                     station.                               VOSEN                     Don't second guess an operation                     from an armchair, Pam. It's not                     fair.                               LANDY                     I'm going to the office now.                     I'll make my own introductions.       Off VOSEN...125    EXT.   DAY.    ATOCHA TRAIN STATION -- MADRID                    125       AN AVE train pulling into the vast station. BOURNE stepping       out, walking up the platform.       Moving out through the station...125A   INT. DAY -- CRI HUB                                          125A       TWO NEW TECHS plus the three we met before.       All watching       VOSEN lead LANDY and CRONIN into the room.                               WILLS                     This is Pamela Landy. She's                     gonna be quarterbacking our                     search effort. I think what we                     oughta do, just to get started,                     let's go around the room, say who                     you are and what your spec is.       LANDY stepping in before this gets going --                               LANDY                     Let's do names later.                     (she's got the floor)                     What's Bourne's last fixed                     position?                     (impatient)                     Anybody.                                TECH#3                     London.   Twelve hundred Zulu.                                LANDY                     Status?   Wounded?   Armed?                                 TECH#2                     Alive.    Mobile. Unknown.                                                              37                             LANDY                   Where are your grids coming from?                             TECH#1                   NSA Tactical.                             LANDY                   You have an Echelon package?                                TECH#1                   Yes.                             LANDY                   Why isn't it on?                             TECH#1                   We were waiting.                              LANDY                   For what?                       (no takers)                   You're nine hours behind the                   toughest target you've ever                   tracked. I want everyone to sit                   down, strap in, and turn on all                   you've got.                       (beat)                   That would mean now.       That lights it.    They're moving.                                LANDY (CONT'D)                   Thank you.       VOSEN watches...                             LANDY (CONT'D)                   I want everything you've got on                   Ross on screen one.       LANDY watches as the screen lights up with ROSS       information...125B   EXT. DAY.   SEWELL AND MARBURY -- MADRID                125B       Bourne arrives, begins to recon the area.       He goes to the front door finds "Sewell and Marbury" and       rings the bell. No answer. Two cops come around a corner.       Bourne sees them, notes the side of the building and       leaves.                                                       38125E   INT. DAY.   CRI HUB -- NEW YORK CITY             125E                              TECH#1                   Sir, we just hacked Ross's email                   account at the Guardian and found                   a round trip ticket to Turin,                   yesterday. 0800 arrival, 12:05                   departure.                             LANDY                   I think we can be pretty certain                   that Bourne's not your source                   then?                             VOSEN                   How?                             LANDY                   Ross's call to his editor, where                   he said he just met the source on                   Blackbriar, took place just after                   his flight landed. His met his                   source in Turin.                             VOSEN                   So?                             LANDY                   So, what, Bourne met Ross for                   breakfast and then, at noon the                   same day Bourne calls Ross to                   demand a meet at Waterloo?                             CRONIN                       (Needling Wills)                   Maybe they were even on the same                   flight?                             VOSEN                   Cross check the secure cell phone                   usage of everyone with Blackbriar                   SCI clearance against all calls                   in and out of Turin during the                   morning Ross was there       TECHNICIANS start pounding keyboards.                             LANDY                   The guy you're after is a CIA                   operative with clearance above                   Top Secret.   He was committing                   treason by talking to Ross.   Do                   you really think, while doing                   that, he used a cell phone he                   knows we can track?                             TECH 3 (JIMMY)                   Zero results on the cross check.                                                       39VOSEN stares daggers at her.                    WILLS          Do you have a better idea?                    LANDY          Yeah, I'd look at all the people          whose cell phones were switched          off the entire period Ross was in          Turin.                    WILLS          Do it Jimmy.TECHNICIANS start tapping.                    LANDY              (looks at Cronin)          I mean if your people use their          cell phones as much as mine do,          the list should be pretty small                    TECHNICIAN 3 JIMMY          Three names: Tom Brewster, Jack          Boulin, Neal Daniels.The names display on the screen:   Tom Brewster, Jack BoulinNeal Daniels.The HUB employees can't help but be impressed by LANDY.WILLS and VOSEN notice their response.                    LANDY          Now check everything in Ross's          apartment against those names.          Look for common patterns, look          for -                    CRONIN          Initials .....Bring that up on          main.LANDY turns.   CRONIN is leaning down in front of acomputer screen.   Point to something for the tech --- whoputs it on the big screen, blown up.In a set of handwritten notes by ROSS it says "perN.D."next to several scrawls.                    LANDY          Neal Daniels.   He's Station          Chief in Madrid now, isn't he?                    WILLS          Jesus Christ.                                                                40                            VOSEN                  Call the RSO at the Embassy and                  have them take Daniels into                  custody if he's there.   If he's                  not, get a grab team to the                  Calle Norte safe house. Send                  them in heavy and tell them we'll                  assist with entry.                            LANDY                  "Heavy?" Daniels isn't--                            VOSEN                  I'm worried about Bourne. If he's                  not Ross's source, then he must                  be after Ross's source -- just                  like us.       Off LANDY...125F   EXT.   MADRID STREETS -- NIGHT                             125F       BOURNE in a TAXI turning a corner into a narrow street.       The rain has slowed, but the streets are still quiet.       BOURNE gets out and walks past the SEWELL and MARBURY front       door, picks the lock and gains entry.126B   INT.   SEWELL AND MARBURY. -- NIGHT                        126B       BOURNE up the stairs.   Finds the office.    Jimmies the door.       Disables the alarm.       All the signs of a hurried exit. A half filled cup of       coffee -- cigarette burned down in an ashtray but not       snubbed out -- a light left on -- files and documents, some       shredded, some not.127H   INT. HUB                                                   127H       Vosen paces back and forth. The hub is MUCH quieter than       it was in the Waterloo scenes.                            TECH 1. (LUCY)                  Parque Vasquez is clean. No sign                  of subject.                            VOSEN                  Team two, ETA Callee Norte?                            FILTERED V.O. (KILEY)                  Three minutes.                                                              41127A   EXT.   MADRID STREETS -- NIGHT                           127A       A BLACK CAR moving briskly through traffic and --127A   INT.   MOVING BLACK CAR -- NIGHT                         127A       HAMMOND at the wheel.   KILEY with the map. Shutting off his       phone.127B   INT.   SEWELL AND MARBURY -- NIGHT                       127B       BOURNE checks the office.   Soon he finds a photo of       Daniels with Albert Hirsch.FB3    EXT. HOSPITAL ANNEX -- OVERCAST DAY -- FLASHBACK            FB3       Bourne arrives at a nondescript steel door with two CCTV       cameras covering it. He sees 415 written above the door.127B   INT. SEWELL AND MARBURY -- NIGHT                         127B       The flashback overwhelms Bourne.FB3A   INT. SRD CORRIDOR -- DAY -- FLASHBACK                    FB3A       POV shots of Bourne walking down the long corridor with       Daniels. Other shots revealing that Bourne is in Army dress       greens (without hat). Daniels knocks and leads Bourne into-       -127B   INT. SEWELL AND MARBURY -- NIGHT                         127B       Bourne is driven to his knees.FB3B   OMITTED                                                  FB3BFB3C   INT. TANK ROOM -- FLASHBACK                              FB3C       Bourne is dragged into a room with a large water tank. His       hands have been bound behind his back, the sack's       drawstring pulled tight, and he has been weighted down.       Bourne is shoved into the water.FB3D   UNDERWATER SHOT -- FLASHBACK                             FB3D       Bourne falls into the water. SPLASH. He starts to sink.       The wet sack allows us to see the outlines of his face.       Also POVs as Bourne sinks.                                                                  42FB3E   SERIES OF SHOTS FROM ABOVE AND BELOW WATER --FLASHBACK      FB3E       Bourne struggles wildly at first. Tries to get out of his       restraints. But to no avail. SRD men watch him from the       edge of the tank. Perhaps also on monitors.       Expressionless.FB3F   UNDERWATER SHOT - FLASHBACK                                 FB3F       Bourne fights every human instinct to draw a breath.    Also       shot from Bourne's POV:                           HIRSCH (FILTERED, EERIE)                 You're going to drown. There is                 nothing you can do to prevent                 this. Stop struggling and accept                 it.       Finally Bourne can't hold his breath for an instant longer.       His mouth opens. Water rushes in. He convulses, begins to       drown...FB3G   INT. TANK ROOM -- FLASHBACK                                 FB3G       Bourne's body goes limp.   SRD men watch.   No reaction.FB3H   UNDERWATER SHOT -- FLASHBACK                                FB3H       Bourne goes limp.   POV of him blacking out.127B   INT. SEWELL AND MARBURY -- NIGHT                            127B       BOURNE comes out of the FLASHBACK. As he staggers across       the room, he notices a car arriving on the monitor...127C   EXT. STREET                                                 127C       A car approaches.127B   INT. SEWELL AND MARBURY                                     127B       Bourne snaps out of it and sees the car on a security       monitor.127C   EXT. STREET.                                                127C       Agents get out of car and approach building.                                                             43127H   INT. DAY -- CRI HUB                                     127H                               TECH#3                     Sir, they're at the front door.       VOSEN watches...127C   EXT. NIGHT.     MADRID SAFEHOUSE                        127C       HAMMOND AND KILEY enter the building.127D   INT.   NIGHT.    SAFEHOUSE                              127D       BOURNE runs water into the TEA KETTLE -- sets the trap...128A   INT. NIGHT.     SAFEHOUSE                               128A       HAMMOND and KILEY enter.                                 HAMMOND                     We're in.       BOURNE listens from his hiding spot.127H   INT.   DAY.    CRI HUB                                  127H       LANDY paces.                               VOSEN                     Okay, put it live.129    INT.   NIGHT. SAFEHOUSE                                     129       HAMMOND moves quickly into the room -- gun raised.       HAMMOND at the alarm box.                               HAMMOND                     Alarm's down.127H   INT. DAY -- CRI HUB                                     127H                               VOSEN                     That has to be Bourne.       VOSEN already moving to the monitor.131    INT. NIGHT.     MADRID SAFEHOUSE                            131       HAMMOND and KILEY -- move cautiously from room to room --       they've done it before...                                                                  44                               HAMMOND                         (into mike)                     Safe's cleaned out.127H   INT. CRI/GRID ROOM                                             127H       VOSEN pacing impatiently around the speakerphone --                                 VOSEN                     Shit...    Track the passports.133    INT.   NIGHT/RAIN -- SAFEHOUSE                                  133       KILEY gestures to a light moving under a door.       Kiley crouching...leaning in...hand on the knob, and --       Pulls the closet DOOR OPEN --       Nothing. Sink, dishes. a small kitchen.         And... on the       stove...a tea kettle and a spoon...       Which is the last thing they'll remember, because...       BOURNE -- coming around the corner fast -- full stop and --       BOURNE lays out HAMMOND... KILEY turns to find BOURNE --       who takes him out too.       Then it stops.       BOURNE yanks the headsets.       Closes the PHONE.127H   INT.   DAY.    CRI HUB                                         127H       The SCREENS go black.       Silence...                               VOSEN                     Goddamn it! Get a back-up team                     in there!127D   INT.   MADRID SAFEHOUSE - NIGHT                                127D       TEA KETTLE payoff...127H   INT.   HUB                                                     127H                               VOSEN                     How long till back-up arrives?       The hub scrambles to answer that...       Landy paces in the       background. Suspicious of Vosen...                                                             45                              VOSEN                    How long?                        (beat, loud, to the                         entire hub)                    Stop! Hang on. I have an                    idea...136    INT. NIGHT.    MADRID SAFEHOUSE                             136       ON A SECURITY MONITOR -- BOURNE sees another figure moving       up the stairs...Checking his watch, reloading his gun.       Twisting into the path to shoot as the door opens,       hesitating because-       It's NICKY.       A beat -- long unbroken.                              BOURNE                    What are you doing here?                              NICKY                    I was posted here after Berlin.                              BOURNE                    Where's Daniels?       The office PHONE goes. Bourne waving her to it.   She picks       it up. He hits the speaker phone.127H   INT. HUB                                                127H                              NICKY (V.O.)                    Hello.                              VOSEN                    Who is this?                              NICKY (V.O.)                    This is Nicky Parsons. Who's                    this?       Landy reacts to her voice...       Both Vosen and Landy strongly suspect Bourne is there and       listening...       Vosen reads her "Duress Challenge" identity check off the       screen. It reads:       Challenge:    "Sparrow"       Response if Under Duress:       "Ruby"       Response if Normal:    "Everest"                                                      46                     VOSEN          Nicky, I need to do an ID          challenge first. Code in:          "Sparrow."Vosen looks at the screen to check her response...                    NICKY          Response: "Everest".                    VOSEN          Nicky, this is Noah Vosen. How          long have you been on site?                    NICKY (V.O.)          I just walked in.                    VOSEN          We have two officers on site.          Are you in contact with them?                    NICKY (V.O.)          They're down. Unconscious, but          alive.                    VOSEN          Is there any sign of Daniels?                    NICKY (V.O.)          No.                    LANDY          Nicky, this is Pam Landy. We          have reason to believe there is a          connection between Neal Daniels          and Jason Bourne.                    NICKY (V.O.)          Bourne, are you still looking for          Bourne? I thought the case was          closed.                    LANDY          No, some people are convinced          he's still a threat. I disagree          but to find out I need to talk to          him.VOSEN seething because LANDY has interrupted him...                    VOSEN          Hold on Nicky.Vosen hits the mute button.                    VOSEN          What are you doing? You know          Bourne's probably listening.                                                              47        Landy doesn't answer.    Vosen to Wills:                             VOSEN                   How long till back up arrives.        Wills holds up three fingers.      Vosen unmutes.                             VOSEN (CONT'D)                       (into microphone again)                   Listen, Nicky. I want you to                   stay put and secure the premises.                   It could be an hour until another                   team arrives.        LANDY piercing VOSEN with a look...138     INT. SAFEHOUSE - NIGHT                                     138        BOURNE continues to hold the gun in her face -- NICKY is        very calm considering the predicament she is in.                               NICKY                   Okay.        DIAL TONE as the line gets closed at the other end.                             NICKY                   They know you're here.                             BOURNE                   How long do I have?                             NICKY                   Three minutes...138A    EXT. NIGHT.     MADRID STREET                              138A        FLASH: TWO SEDANS squeal around a corner.      CRI        reinforcements.138AA   INT. NIGHT.     CRI SEDAN -- MADRID STREET             138AA                             DELTA DUDE                   2 minutes to safehouse.138B    INT.   NIGHT.   MADRID SAFEHOUSE                           138B                             NICKY                   My car's outside.    I know where                   Daniels is.        BOURNE lowers his gun, grabs the phone and dials "1-1-2"                                                             48                            SPANISH OPERATOR (SUBTITLE)                  Emergency operator. Where is                  your emergency?       BOURNE answers her in perfect Spanish with a perfect Madrid       accent, but worked up, like a civilian would be...                            BOURNE (SUBTITLE)                  334 Calle Norte. I hear gunfire.                  And men shouting. I think                  they're Americans --       BOURNE pushes the phone off the desk -- fires four shots       into the ceiling -- calmly moves Nicky towards the back       door...127H   INT. HUB                                                   127H                            VOSEN                  You "disagree" he's a threat? He                  just took out two more of my men.                  Not to mention his ultimatum to                  Ellatrache?                            LANDY                  The only way this has a happy                  ending, Noah, is if we find a way                  to bring Bourne in voluntarily.                            VOSEN                  He wants revenge, Pam. The only                  realistic way to deal with this                  is to eliminate the threat.139    INT. NIGHT.   BACKSTAIRS                                   139       BOURNE and NICKY rapidly descend.                            BOURNE                  Okay, where is Daniels headed?                            NICKY                  8 o'clock this morning, he wired                  $100,000. to a numbered bank                  account in Tangier.                            BOURNE                  Okay, Tangier is about 300 miles                  away, we can make the morning                  ferry.                            NICKY                  And then what?                                                                   49139A    EXT.   NIGHT -- MADRID SAFEHOUSE STREET                     139A        Bourne and Nicky exit on to the street.     Suddenly they hear        tires squealing nearby.                             NICKY                   They're coming.        They continue to walk down the street towards Nicky's car.127H    INT. HUB                                                    127H        Vosen and Landy are watching this live.        As they cross the street two MADRID POLICE CARS come around        the corner the wrong way and screech to a stop.        Vosen reacts...139A    EXT. MADRID -- NIGHT                                        139A        Four cops jump out and take aim at the AGENTS.                             SPANISH POLICE                   Manos Arriba! Manos Arriba!        More sirens closing in.      A third police car appears.        Then a fourth...127H    INT. HUB                                                    127H        Vosen can't believe it--139A    EXT. MADRID -- NIGHT                                        139A        The agents drop their guns and surrender.        BOURNE and NICKY continue around a corner -- they get in        her VW GOLF and drive away...127H    INT. HUB                                                    127H        Vosen stares at Landy.    A beat, then she walks out.                             VOSEN                   Issue a standing kill order on                   Jason Bourne, effective                   immediately.139AB   OMITTED                                                    139AB                                                               50139B-C INT. NIGHT -- VOSEN'S OFFICE -- CRI                     139B-C       VOSEN on the phone.                           VOSEN                 We lost Bourne.                           KRAMER                 You still think he's after                 Daniels?                           VOSEN                 Yeah. Nicky's just the means.                 But if we find Daniels, we'll                 find Bourne.                           KRAMER                 Daniels knows way too much.                 Daniels knows everything. We                 can't let them meet.                           VOSEN                 I'll take care of it.                            KRAMER                 Good.                     (beat)                 And fill Hirsch in.     Just in                 case.R145   INT. NIGHT. TRUCK STOP -- SPAIN                            R145       BOURNE and NICKY sit over coffee.    A long silence...then:                           NICKY                 What are you after, Jason?   Why                 are you looking for Daniels?                           BOURNE                 Do you know who this is?       Bourne puts the photo of Daniels and Hirsch on the table       between them.    She looks at the photo, points.                           NICKY                 That's Daniels.                     (points at Hirsch)                 I don't know who that is.                           BOURNE                 I have to get back to the                 beginning...or I'll never be free                 of this.                              NICKY                 Who is he?                                                                 51                              BOURNE                   I think he started Treadstone.    I                   remember meeting him.   I                   remember the first day...                       (beat)                   Daniels brought me to him.       Nicky looks back at him....not sure what to say.                             NICKY                   What happened?                             BOURNE                   An initiation...I guess...FB3B   FLASHBACK                                                     FB3B       QUICK FLASH: Bourne, head in sack, is held underwater,       struggling desperately for breath--R145   INT. NIGHT. TRUCK STOP -- SPAIN                               R145       Bourne comes out of the flashback.      Nicky is looking at       him....                             NICKY                   Jason...that wasn't some one-off                   initiation. Daniels said they                   did that to you over and over                   again.   That's how they...       She doesn't finish.    And Bourne doesn't ask her to.     Just       a long pause.                             BOURNE                   Why are you helping me?                             NICKY                   It was difficult for me...with                   you.       BOURNE looks up.    Another long pause...                             NICKY (CONT'D)                   You really don't remember                   anything?                             BOURNE                   No.       NICKY'S face.       Two SPANISH COPS enter the cafe.                             BOURNE (CONT'D)                   We should move.                                                            52       They get up and leave...145A   INT. VOSEN'S OFFICE -- DAY                             145A       Vosen goes to his safe.                              VOSEN                        (to voiceprint mic)                    Noah Vosen.       Then he puts his thumb into a print reader. The safe door       pops open. He pulls out a file marked "Top Secret."145B   INT. DAY.    LANDY'S OFFICE -- CRI                     145B       CRONIN makes his way down the hallway.       LANDY works at her desk.       CRONIN enters...                              CRONIN                    They tracked Daniels' passport to                    a hotel in Tangier. They're                    holding up a bank transfer he                    made to keep him in place while                    they move an asset in from                    Casablanca.       Off LANDY.    This just keeps getting worse...145C   INT. VOSEN'S OFFICE                                    145C       Landy enters without knocking.                              LANDY                    Since when do you have                    authorization for lethal action                    against Daniels?                              VOSEN                    Since he cleaned out a Blackbriar                    safe and fled to Morocco!                              LANDY                    So grab him--                              VOSEN                    I don't have the people on the                    ground to do that and I'm not                    going to risk that file falling                    into the wrong hands.                              LANDY                    What's going on?    What's Daniels                    got?                                                            53                          VOSEN                What's he got? He ran all of                Blackbriar's operations in                Southern Europe and North Africa.                          LANDY                I think the world's well aware we                have a rendition and lethal                action capability at this point,                Noah.                          VOSEN                For Christ's sake, Pam, he's got                our entire playbook. Names,                dates, ghost sites, how we train                our assets.....                          LANDY                You still don't have the                authority to kill him.                          VOSEN                Oh, yes I do, Pam.      Vosen holds up the file we saw him pull out of his safe.      It is labeled "Blackbriar: Lethal Action Protocol."                           VOSEN                That's what makes us special. No                red tape. No more getting                badguys in our sights and then                watching them escape while we                wait for some bureaucrat to issue                the order.      Landy opens up the file. Sees the words "instantaneous      lethal action is authorized when..."                          LANDY                You just decide? No oversight.                No checks and balances.                           VOSEN                Come on, Pam, you've seen the raw                intel. You know how real the                threat is.    We can't afford to                have our hands tied like that                anymore.148   EXT. DAY. FERRY -- ESTABLISHING                            148      BOURNE and NICKY ride the ferry from Gibraltar to      Morocco...                                                            54150     EXT. DAY.   TANGIER HARBOR                               150        They arrive and pass through CUSTOMS...150A    EXT. DAY. TANGIER                                    150A        DANIELS drives...148H    OMITTED                                              148H148A    EXT. DAY. TANGIER                                    148A        DESH arrives, grabs a TAXI...148B    INT. DAY. PENSIONE -- TANGIER                        148B        BOURNE and NICKY enter a shabby room. Turn on the        fluorescent lights...        BOURNE tosses his BACKPACK on the bed...        NICKY plugs her LAPTOP into the USB port...        ON THE SCREEN, as NICKY hacks into the system...        BLACKBRIAR...148C    OMITTED                                              148C148CA   INT. LANDY'S OFFICE -- DAY                          148CA        Landy on the phone.                              LANDY                    It's Pamela Landy for him.                    Would you tell him it's urgent?148CB   INT. KRAMER'S OFFICE -- DAY                         148CB        The phone buzzes.   Kramer picks it up.                              ASSISTANT (PHONE V.O.)                    It's Pam Landy. She says it's                    urgent.        On Kramer...the wheels turning....                              KRAMER                    Tell her I'm unreachable.        Kramer hangs up.                                                                  55148CA   INT. LANDY'S OFFICE -- DAY                                 148CA        Landy receives the news.... The wheels turning in her        head.... She hangs up.    A pensive moment, then she gets        up and heads for--148H    INT. DAY -- CRI HUB                                         148H        LANDY AND CRONIN enter the hub--        VOSEN is in the middle of giving the kill order.                               VOSEN                     Give me the subject's location.                               TECHNICIAN #2                     Subject is currently on foot and                     now entering Hotel Velazquez. 45                     Route Commerce, Tangier.                               VOSEN                     Get an elevation and a floor                     plan, tic-tac-toe. Locate the                     room. Give the asset Daniels's                     location and the route between                     Daniel's hotel and the bank.149B    INT. TAXI                                                   149B        DESH looks down at his beeping cellphone.      It has a MAP on        the screen.149C    INT. HOTEL                                                  149C        Nicky at her computer.        SHE LOGS IN WITH HER USER I.D.        Bourne looks on.        TIGHT ON MONITOR: 3-D IMAGE OF HOTEL WITH DANIEL'S ICON        PINPOINTED148H    INT. HUB                                                    148H        Vosen and Wills.    Landy still pacing                               VOSEN                     Do we have that room yet?                               TECH 2(ARKI)                     Yes sir Room 117.                                                               56                               VOSEN                    Get the hotel's trunk line. Run                    all calls through here with an                    iso on 117       TIGHT ON COMPUTER MONITOR: DESH'S ICON STOPS MOVING.       MEDIUM CLOSE UP ON TECH                               TECH                    Sir, the asset is acquiring the                    materials.154    INT. LOCK-UP GARAGE. DAY                                     154       DESH opens a lock-up and goes in. He comes out with a       scooter and drives off.149C   INT. HOTEL                                                  149C       Nicky types on computer.    Enters search parameter: NEAL       DANIELS. ACCESS DENIED.                              NICKY                    His location's being blocked.                              BOURNE                    Now they found Daniels, do you                    know where he is?                              NICKY                    They'll get one of the operatives                    to terminate him.                              BOURNE                    Find out who.154    INT. LOCK-UP GARAGE. DAY                                     154       Desh works on a bomb.                              NICKY (O.C.)                    Desh.149C   INT. HOTEL                                                  149C       DESH BOUKSANI's profile.                              BOURNE                    Tell him you're going to meet him                    and that you have a new phone for                    him.                                                             57                            NICKY                  If you stop Desh they'll just get                  someone else.                            BOURNE                  We're not going to stop him.                  We're going to follow him. He'll                  take us right to Daniels.154    INT. LOCK-UP GARAGE. DAY                                   154       CU DESH (AND INSERT PHONE) HE RECEIVES NEW ROUTING       INFORMATION FROM NICKY.       "Meet me Tangier Cafe Paris"       The bomb is finished on the Work table.154    EXT. LOCK-UP GARAGE. DAY                                   154       Desh takes the scooter out.154    EXT. TANGIER ESTABLISHING                                  154155    EXT. STREET.                                               155       Bourne and Nicky walk.       Desh rides his scooter.       TIGHT ON COMPUTER SCREEN: DESH'S ICON TURNS OFF COURSE.148H   INT. HUB                                                  148H                            TECH (LUCY)                  Sir, the asset is deviating.                            VOSEN                  Find out why.157    EXT. ACROSS FROM CAFE DE PARIS. DAY                        157       BOURNE, recalculating. Looking around him.       A scooter is pulling up and the driver walks toward BOURNE.       TIGHT ON COMPUTER SCREEN: DESH'S ICON IS NOW STATIONARY                                                               58148H   INT. HUB                                                     148H                            TECH (LUCY)                  Asset unscheduled stop.159    EXT. CAFE DE PARIS                                           159       NICKY SITS, Desh walks up and snatches the phone off of the       table.       A scooter is pulling up and the driver walks toward BOURNE.       He brushes past him, taking the key.       Keeping DESH in sight as he returns to his Vespa and pulls       out in to traffic.       TIGHT ON COMPUTER SCREEN: DESH'S ICON IS MOVING AGAIN                            TECH                  Sir, the asset is on the move, in                  route to subject.148H   INT. HUB - DAY                                               148H                            TECH #1                  Sir, the asset is back on course.       VOSEN looks up.                             WILLS                  Sir, we have an unauthorized                  breach. Someone with active                  system knowledge has penetrated                  out protocols. Information was                  passed to the asset at 14.11.                      (beat)                  The trace is confirmed and valid.                  It comes from a computer                  belonging to Nicky Parsons.       VOSEN looks over at Landy....his wheels turning.   A series       of cuts between them.                            VOSEN                  Where did the course deviation                  occur?                            TECH (LUCY)                  South to Rue Belgique.                  Stationery at Place de France.                            VOSEN                  That's where Parson's is.       He pauses, deciding what course to take.    Landy watches.                                                     59                    VOSEN          When we're finished with Daniels          send the asset after her. We          find Parsons, we find Bourne.                    LANDY (OVERLAPPING)              (going to Vosen, firm)          Noah, what are you doing?                     VOSEN          Not now.                     LANDY          Now.   I want to know what's going          on.                     VOSEN          Not now.                    LANDY          I'm asking on what basis you're          continuing this operation.                    VOSEN          On the basis that Nicky Parsons          has compromised a covert          operation. She is up to her neck          in it.                    LANDY          This is about Daniels, not Nicky!                    VOSEN          She has betrayed us!                    LANDY          You don't know the circumstances!                    VOSEN          She's in league with Jason Bourne          for Chrissake!                    LANDY          You don't have the authority to          kill her or Bourne!                    VOSEN          Yes, I do Pam, it's right here          and it's legal.VOSEN slams a document on the desk.   INSERT SHOT:"Blackbriar: Lethal Action Protocol."                    LANDY          She's one of our own.   You start          down this path...where does it          end?!                                                                  60                               VOSEN                     It ends when we've won.       LANDY turns and storms out...                               VOSEN                     Notify the asset of the                     additional target.                                 BRYAN                     Yes, sir.       BRYAN codes in a kill order on NICKY...164A   EXT. DAY. TANGIER                                              164A       As he rides his VESPA, DESH receives additional target       information..Pictures of BOURNE and NICKY.       DESH glances in his rearview mirror -- spots BOURNE.148H   INT.   DAY.    HUB -- MEDIUM CLOSE UP:                         148H                               VOSEN                     Have the bank release the funds.       A TECH calls DANIELS.167    INT. DAY. VELASQUEZ HOTEL                                       167       DANIELS answers phone.                               BANK OFFICER (FRENCH, SUBTITLED)                     Mr. Daniels, Bank of Tangier.                     Your funds are now available.       Daniels leaves.168    EXT. DAY.     TANGIER STREET                                    168       DESH parks the motorbike and walks around the corner,       BOURNE follows.       DANIELS' car coming down the street.     BOURNE stops and sees       the car -- realizes the danger.       BOURNE turns back to see DESH with the detonator in his       hand.       BOURNE locks eyes with DESH.      Before BOURNE can react --       DESH detonates.       BOOM! DANIELS is DEAD.                                                         61BOURNE is thrown across the street by the blast.     He laysMOTIONLESS.DESH POV. He looks back to see BOURNE not moving, lying inthe street.DESH gets on his motorbike and heads off to kill NICKY.EXT.   PETIT SOCCO -- CONTINUOUS                               *NICKY still at that cafÈ waiting. Taking out her phone-        *puzzled.                                                       *She answers. Looking around.                                   *                     NICKY                                     *           Code in?                                            *               (no reply)                                      *           Code in?                                            *Nothing. Just the noise of traffic.                            *EXT.   VESPA TRAVELLING                                        *DESH on the move towards Petit Socco. On the cell - making     *that 'silent call'.                                            *EXT.   AVENUE D'ESPAGNE -- THAT MOMENT                         *BOURNE'S too late- hearing the 'line busy' tone. Knows this    *tactic.                                                        *And those POLICEMEN are getting closer.                        *INT.   NEW YORK HUB -- ENCRYPED AREA -- CONTINUOUS             *Frenzied teching. A screen comes alive.                        *                     TECHY                                     *           We have a trace.                                    *                     TECHY 2                                   *           Target heading north. Rue des                       *           Chretiens. Intercept ETA six                        *           minutes.                                            *                     VOSEN                                     *           Okay, that's it.    Bar her cell.                   *           Tie it off.                                         *EXT.   RUE D'ESPAGNE -- CONTINUOUS                             *DESH is disappearing from view.                                *                                                        62And the POLICEMEN are surrounding BOURNE. Demanding to see   *his papers.                                                  *BOURNE speaking in Spanish - fishing for his papers.         *Looking back up the street. Forming a plan. Checking his     *watch.                                                       *More POLICE arriving now.                                    *And DESH has disappeared out of sight.                       *No time for this.                                            *BOURNE breaks away. Through the crowds into the traffic.     *Police whistles- shouting. Confusion.                        *The chase is on.                                             *Three policemen turning into his path. No choice. BOURNE     *taking them down. Sprinting out across the road.             *A KID and his moped. Caught up in the police dragnet.        *BOURNE leaping on the bike - kick-starting it.               *Away into traffic as two squad cars turn and make chase.     *BOURNE weaving through traffic. One hand on the bike the     *other on the cell, desperately trying to call NICKY.         *But now, at least he's got a dial tone.                      *EXT.   PETIT SOCCO -- CONTINUOUS                             *NICKY grabbing the cell. Answering.                          *                       NICKY                                 *           Bourne?                                           *                       BOURNE                                *           Nicky?    Listen to me.   You need                *           to -                                              *The line goes dead. Looking at the screen - 'SERVICE         *DENIED'                                                      *Really spooked now- looking around. Time to move.            *Dismantling the phone instinctively - scattering it's        *components.                                                  *She starts to make her way out of the square.                *EXT.   STREETS -- CONTINUOUS                                 *DESH through the streets-getting closer - heading towards    *the PETIT SOCCO.                                             *                                                         63EXT.   MOPED TRAVELLING                                       *BOURNE picking up the pace. Three more police cars out of a   *side road just missing him.                                   *BOURNE choosing his exit.                                     *Up ahead- a narrow alleyway - taking it.                      *The squad cars crunching to a halt, behind him.               *EXT.   PETIT SOCCO -- CONTINUOUS                              *DESH crossing the SQUARE weaving through a sea of push        *bikes.                                                        *Parking his Vespa at the corner of RUE DES CHRETIENS.         *Travelling on foot.                                           *EXT.   RUE DE CHRETIENS -- CONTINUOUS                         *NICKY - trying to keep calm. Checking each alley. Moving      *on.                                                           *EXT.   PETIT SOCCO -- CONTINUOUS                              *BOURNE arriving - seeing NICKY has left. Seeing DESH'S        *Vespa parked up.                                              *More police - on foot now.                                    *BOURNE parking up. Seeing the crowded streets. Looking up     *to the rooftops. He needs to get higher.                      *Starts running up steps.                                      *INT./EXT.   RIAD/ROOFTOPS -- CONTINUOUS                       *BOURNE into a riad. Through a courtyard - up more stairs -    *up a ladder. Out onto the rooftops. Scanning the skyline.     *A beat. Has he misjudged?                                     *No, there in the distance at the top of a narrow street-      *NICKY walking slowly and behind DESH. Moving quickly.         *BOURNE tailing him - trying to close the gap. Dipping down    *through another riad - through an alley. Up more stairs.      *Back up onto another roof. He's gained a few metres on        *DESH.                                                         *                                                           64Desh goes up to the rooftops now. Bourne has him in sight -      *DESH is prepping his gun with a silencer.                        *DESH speeding up. BOURNE sees NICKY down below amongst the       *crowds. In Desh's sights.                                        *BOURNE knows he has to gain more ground.                         *CABLE CAM shot - Two trained assassins leaping across the        *narrow streets - silently effortlessly -- the cops down          *below searching the alleyways, oblivious to the chase            *unfolding above them.                                            *BOURNE nearly on terms with him - then --                        *DESH dipping down again into the street below.       Avoiding    *the police -- he melts into the crowds.                          *STEADYCAM SHOT - following BOURNE as he heads downstairs.        *More stairs. Through a corridor then a courtyard -               *bursting out of a door into the street -                         *A police checkpoint. Right in his path.     Bourne forced to     *dog leg and take another route.                                  *BOURNE'S lost him- for the moment.                               *EXT.   RUE DE CHRETIENS -- CONTINUOUS                            *NICKY - walking fast up the Rue des Chretiens.       Wondering   *why there are so many police around.                             *Suddenly stopping - seeing DESH - knows instantly that he        *is coming for her.                                               *Now we see NICKY'S skills.    Has to think on her fee t-         *TREADSTONE MINDSET --                                            *Checking the alleyways.     Slipping out of sight.               *NICKY looking to the rooftops -- taking the advantage.      Up   *some steps -- into a riad.                                       *Desh tracking her.                                               *EXT.   RUE DE CHRETIENS -- CONTINUOUS                            *BOURNE seeing Desh again - further up the street.      Heading   *in that direction.                                               *INT.   RIAD -- CONTINUOUS                                        *NICKY through one hallway - then another.    Moving up all       *the time.                                                        *                                                         65EXT.   RIAD -- CONTINUOUS                                        *DESH arriving at the steps. Looks up to where Nicky is           *going. Takes the entrance to the next building.                  *Anticipates her next move. Aiming to cut her off.                *EXT.   RIAD ROOFTOP                                              *NICKY up steps.    Out onto the rooftops.   Looking for a path   *across them.                                                     *Scrabbling across the roof of this crumbling riad.    Knows      *she can't go back down.                                          *She makes it across to the next building.                        *Where Desh is...                                                 *EXT.   ANOTHER ROOFTOP -- CONTINUOUS                             *BOURNE up high.    Seeing NICKY on that other roof.              *He can't get across to her.    Moving fast now.                  *Down steps.   Into the riad courtyard.                           *INT. RIAD                                                        *BOURNE entering the hallway.                                     *Moving up the stairs.   Towards Nicky.                           *And towards Desh.                                                *Meanwhile NICKY moving down. Looking out into the                *courtyard below. The sound of POLICE getting nearer.             *BOURNE hearing the POLICE too as he moves up onto a              *landing.                                                         *                                                                 *BOURNE into a main room - something stirring on a couch - a      *girl and her little sister having a siesta.                      *In another room two small boys fast asleep.    TV playing.       *One wakes.                                                       *A noise on the stairs above. Quickly arranging a mirror -        *getting line of sight - Bourne dipping into a corner.            *It's NICKY.                                                      *She gives him a look -- DESH is in here somewhere.               *                                                         66The door goes below them.   The noise of Police entering the   *Riad.                                                          *NICKY signalling to BOURNE - this way.                         *They climb narrow stairs to the next floor.                    *Down below Police begin searching rooms. Waking the            *sleeping family. Shouting, crying. Commotion.                  *INT./EXT. -- NARROW STAIRWELL                                  *BOURNE and NICKY creeping up the steps.                        *Then - suddenly NICKY spinning round as two silenced           *bullets speed past her - And DESH bursting out of a landing    *toilet.                                                        *On to Bourne.                                                  *Full on Treadstone fighting in the narrow stairwell.           *Crashing into a tiny disused lift cage- silent constrained-    *vicious.                                                       *Downstairs a young POLICEMAN hears the noise- heading for      *the lift.                                                      *NICKY seeing the handle turn. Thinking quickly.   She sends    *the lift up to the next floor.                                 *The POLICEMAN stepping back from the door -- directing the     *other cops out to the courtyard.                               *People are spilling out into the atrium.   It's pandemonium.   *EXT.   ROOFTOP -- CONTINUOUS                                   *Bourne and Desh spill out of the elevator and onto the         *roof.                                                          *BOURNE kicking the gun - spinning across the floor - he and    *DESH facing each other.                                        *DESH with BOURNE - straight over the edge.                     *DESH still on top - just.                                      *A brutal exchange. Matching each other's moves like            *shadows.                                                       *Relentless. Rolling - falling onto another roof level.         *And another.                                                   *                                                                 67       The two men tiring now. DESH grabbing for the bag.     The            *       pills. BOURNE kicking them away.                                      *       BOURNE has the upper hand now.      DESH'S reaction's slowing.        *       No longer the match he was.                                           *       BOURNE drags him to the ground.     He's finished.   Bourne's         *       won.                                                                  *       DESH- shivering -- convulsing.                                        *       In the struggle, BOURNE strangles Desh.194    BOURNE and NICKY hide DESH's body.                              194                             BOURNE                   Alright, we need to be dead.    You                   need to code that in.       NICKY CODES into DESH'S PDA -- BOTH OBJECTIVES       ACHIEVED...In the CRI HUB the message comes up...VOSEN and       LANDY believe NICKY and BOURNE are both DEAD...196A   INT. DAY. HUB -- CRI -- NEW YORK                             196A       The code from DESH remains on screen -- BOTH OBJECTIVES       ACHIEVED -- like an EPITAPH for BOURNE and NICKY...VOSEN       packs his briefcase. Turns to WILLS.                             VOSEN                   I want to be sure. Have the                   station chief in Rabat confirm                   the deaths and do a sub-rosa                   check...And keep and eye on                   Landy.       Off WILLS...197A   INT. DAY.   LANDY'S OFFICE -- DAY                            197A       Cronin enters.                             CRONIN                   The hub just got word Bourne and                   Nicky are dead.       Landy looks at him.                                LANDY                   Confirmed?                                CRONIN                   Not yet.       Landy looks away...thinking.      Wheels turning.                                                                  68                             LANDY                   Get me a copy of Bourne's                   personnel file.195A    EXT. DUSK. PENSIONE                                        195A        Bourne and Nicky enter.198A    INT. DUSK PENSIONE -- WASHROOM -- TANGIER                  198A        BOURNE scrubs the blood from his hands.    REVEAL Nicky        watching him from the bedroom.197     INT. DUSK. LANDY'S OFFICE (LONELY LANDY)                       197        Landy sits at her desk reviewing files on Treadstone. Open        on her desk we see the file she will be looking at in the        Supremacy phone call.        The way she examines the papers we get the sense she thinks        something is missing, some piece, some file.198A    INT. DUSK. PENSIONE -- WASHROOM                            198A        Bourne scrubbing the blood from his hands. Nicky comes in,        touches his shoulder. There's a tenderness to it, a re-        assurance. For a moment it looks like Bourne might        react...but the moment passes....197     INT. DUSK. LANDY'S OFFICE (LONELY LANDY)                       197        Landy opens a new file.   Bourne's operations.198A    INT. DUSK. PENSIONE -- WASHROOM                            198A        Bourne is toweling off.                             BOURNE                   I can see all their faces. But I                   can't remember any names....197     INT. DUSK. LANDY'S OFFICE (LONELY LANDY)                       197        Landy looks at Bourne's kills. The faces Bourne remembers.        But there names are here, and who they were, why they were        killed.198AC   INT.   NIGHT.   PENSIONE -- BEDROOM/SITTING ROOM          198AC        Bourne and Nicky sitting together.                                                                  69                            BOURNE                  I was starting to remember who                  they were...in India...with                  Marie.       A beat.                             NICKY                  It's just going to lead to more                  killing, Jason. Are you sure you                  want that?       Bourne takes her words in.    But who he is is eating him       alive from the inside...                            BOURNE                  I've killed people and I've tried                  to apologize for what I've done,                  for what I am. None of it makes                  it better...       Another moment passes between them...then:                            BOURNE                  They're going to come for you                  again. You are going to have to                  run now.       She gets up.198    INT. BATHROOM                                                   198       Nicky dies her hair BLACK.    Starts cutting it shorter.199    EXT.   NIGHT.   TANGIER BUS STATION                             199       Bourne walks with a now dark-haired Nicky. They exchange       looks for a long beat. She turns towards the bus.                            BOURNE                  It gets easier.197    INT. LANDY'S OFFICE. NIGHT                                      197       Landy finds a denotation in Bourne's file that he was       "recruited to Treadstone by Neal Daniels."   Further down       the   page it says "Bourne was inducted into Treadstone at       the Special Research Department facility at 415 E 71st,       New York, NY."    Then "Facility closed by order of       Director, June 2002."198C   INT. TANGIER MORGUE                                         198C       Bourne looks at the tattered remains of Daniels' body and       belongings.                                                              70        He goes through his briefcase and finds a nearly destroyed        piece of paper with "Noah Vosen - Director of Operations -        CRI" written on it. Bourne slips the morgue attendant a        bribe.198DA   INT. VOSEN'S OFFICE -- DAY                                198DA        Vosen is shaving.                            WILLS                  Station chief in Rabat just                  called, they found a body.                  Bourne?                               VOSEN                  Desh.198DB   INT. AIRPLANE -- DAY                                      198DB        On final approach to JFK. Bourne looks out the window to        see the Verizano Narrows bridge.   And beyond it,        Manhattan.   Bourne is coming home.A202    EXT. NEW YORK                                             A202        Establishes skyline.200     INT. LANDY'S OFFICE. DAY                                   200                            CRONIN                  Pam, You need to see this.        Landy follows CRONIN into--201     INT. CRONIN'S OFFICE -- DAY                                201        BOURNE'S PASSPORT is displayed on the computer monitor.                            CRONIN (CONT'D)                  This passport just cleared                  Immigration at JFK ten minutes                  ago. It's an early Treadstone                  identity registered to Jason                  Bourne but he never used it and                  it never went to the grid.                  Bourne's alive.                            LANDY                  They don't know.                            CRONIN                  No, if they knew Vosen wouldn't                  be in his office right now.                                                             71202    INT. AIRPORT TERMINAL                                      202       Bourne moves through the airport.                           LANDY (O.S.)                 It's a hell of a risk.                           CRONIN (O.S.)                 Yeah. Maybe Bourne wants us to                 know, just like Naples, maybe                 he's communicating.201    INT. CRONIN'S OFFICE                                       201                           CRONIN                 Maybe he's trying to communicate                 with you.                           LANDY                 Maybe we should communicate back.                 Because I think I know what                 Bourne's looking for.202    SERIES OF SHOTS                                            202       Bourne over the 59th Street Bridge -- arrives at CRI --       goes into the adjacent building --202A   INT. OFFICE BUILDING ACROSS FROM CRI -- DAY               202A       Bourne uses his monocular to zoom in on a file Vosen is       looking at -- he sees the word "Blackbriar." Vosen puts       the file back in the safe.203    INT. DAY. LANDY'S OFFICE -- CRI -- NEW YORK                203       LANDY'S cell phone rings.   She answers it.                           LANDY                 Pamela Landy.204    INT. UNDEFINED SPACE                                       204                           BOURNE                 I hear you're still looking for                 me.203    INT. LANDY'S OFFICE                                        203       LANDY puts down her pencil.   CRONIN watches.                                                            72                             LANDY                Bourne?206   INT. VOSEN'S OFFICE                                        206      His phone rings.    He picks it up.                          WILLS (TEL. V.O.)                Get in here! Bourne called                Landy!      Vosen jumps up, sprints toward the hub--203   INT. LANDY'S OFFICE -- DAY                                 203                          LANDY                I guess I owe you an apology.207   INT. HUB -- BACK ROOM                                      207      Vosen rushes in--                          BOURNE (V.O.)                Is that official?                          VOSEN (OVERLAPPING)                Are we triangulating?!                           LANDY (V.O.)                No. Off the record. You know                how it is.                             BACK ROOM TECH (OVERLAPPING)                Trying--                             BOURNE (V.O.)                Good-bye.203   INT. LANDY'S OFFICE                                        203                             LANDY                Wait.     Wait.      She opens a file on her desk.204   INT. UNDEFINED SPACE                                       204      Bourne listening--                          LANDY                David Webb. That's your real                name.                                                    73207   INT. HUB -- BACK ROOM                              207                           VOSEN                 Why the hell did she give him                 that?                           LANDY (V.O.)                 You were born 4/15/71 in Nixa,                 Missouri.203   INT. LANDY'S OFFICE                                203                            LANDY                 Why don't you come in, and we'll                 talk about it?                     (beat)                 Bourne?204   INT. UNDEFINED SPACE                               204                           BOURNE                 Get some rest, Pam.207   INT. HUB -- BACK ROOM                              207                           BOURNE (V.O.)                 You look tired.      Vosen realizes--                           VOSEN                     (rushing out)                 He's got line of sight on us!203   INT. LANDY'S OFFICE                                203      She spins to look for Bourne--210   OMITTED                                            210207   INT. HUB                                           207      Vosen moving across the floor.                           VOSEN                 ...This is a national security                 emergency. We have an imminent                 threat.                                                             74212    INT. LANDY'S OFFICE -- DAY                                  212       Landy takes out her gun.   Checks it.207    INT. HUB                                                    207                            VOSEN                  Jason Bourne is alive and at                  large in New York City. We                  believe in one thousand yards of                  this building. I want an                  immediate twelve block lockdown                  of the area. Send a FLASH                  message to Langley, prep for                  local backup assistance.217    EXT. CRI -- DAY                                             217       HIGH ANGLE:   Landy leaves CRI.207    INT. HUB -- DAY                                             207       Wills walks over to Vosen. The look in his eye indicates       that he thinks there's something odd about this:                            WILLS                  Landy just left the building.       Vosen looks at Wills.... A beat, Vosen's suspicion       building, though he can't quite put his finger on what he       suspects...                            VOSEN                  Check Landy's phone.   Is she                  using it?217B   EXT. NYC STREETS -- DAY                                 217B       Landy receives a text message.207    INT. HUB -- DAY                                             207       Vosen leans in to the Hub's back monitoring room.                             VOSEN                  Nothing?   No calls since Bourne--                  ?                            BACK ROOM TECH                  Wait a minute. Wait. She just                  got a text.                                                                 75219    EXT. NYC STREETS -- DAY                                        219       Landy heads for someplace -- now with purpose.217A   INT.   DAY.    CRI HUB                                     217A       VOSEN confers with WILLS.                               VOSEN                     What the hell do you mean we                     can't read it?                               TECH                     Working on it--                               VOSEN                         (frustrated)                     How do you know a text came if                     you can't read it--                         (to Wills)                     Are we on Landy?                                TECH                     Six men.   More on the way.                               VOSEN                     I want that goddamn text.   We                     need to get out in front of her!                                  TECH                     Seconds...       VOSEN paces anxiously.                                  TECH (CONT'D)                     Got it!       TECH points at big screen: "Tudor City Pl & 42nd.   Ten       minutes. Come alone. Come on foot."                               VOSEN                     Surround it. Anyone not on Landy                     goes to Tudor City. Now!                         (to Wills)                     Get the trucks. We're going                     mobile.218A   OMITTED                                                    218A219    EXT. MANHATTAN -- DAY                                          219       LANDY walks east toward Tudor City.   She looks around her       for any signs of surveillance but finds nothing out of the       ordinary.                                                              76221    EXT. CRI BUILDING -- DAY                                    221       Vosen and AGENTS come running out of the front door.       Others leave through a side entrance.   They jump in       sedans.221A   OMITTED                                                 221A223    EXT. STREET.                                                223       Landy still being trailed by foot.222A   INT. VOSEN'S SUV                                        222A       Vosen and agents race to Tudor city.   An electronic map on       the dash.                           AGENT 3                 Copy, we're going to take a left                 at 41st. One block, settle at                 the corner.                           VOSEN                 Get the map up.                           AGENT 4                 It's a bad place to pick, it's                 too exposed.                           VOSEN                 He wouldn't have chosen it if he                 didn't have a reason.223    EXT. MANHATTAN                                              223       LANDY walks east through the crowded streets.224    EXT. MANHATTAN                                              224       BOURNE walks down the street, enters a building.225    OMITTED                                                     225225A   EXT. TUDOR CITY ROOFTOP                                 225A       Spotter on a rooftop.                                                              77226    EXT. MANHATTAN -- DAY                                       226       LANDY is on the east side now, walking toward Tudor City.       An agents trails her on foot.   Another parallels her from       across the street.227    EXT. TUTOR CITY OUTSKIRTS                                   227       SERIES OF SHOTS: CRI cars arrive, careful to stay several       blocks from the meet site. They jump out and try to set up       surreptitious surveillance posts.                           AGENT 3 (V.O.)                 Okay folks here we go, box at two                 hundred meters. Let's lock it                 down.226A   INT. STAIRWAY                                            226A       Bourne climbs stairs.226    EXT. TUDOR CITY                                             226       Landy walks, agents are everywhere looking for her.   Vosen       is still in car.226B   INT. VOSEN'S SUV                                         226B                           VOSEN                 As soon as you have eyes on                 Landy, I want to know.226    EXT. TUTOR CITY                                             226       She becomes clear to AGENT 3.                           AGENT 3                 Okay, here we go.226A   INT. STAIRWAY                                            226A       Bourne climbs stairs.   Walks down a dank hallway.229    INT. VOSEN'S SUV                                            229                           VOSEN                 Copy that, I see her.       Landy stands on a corner waiting for Bourne.                                                             78                           VOSEN (CONT'D)                 Any sign of Bourne?229A   INT. AMBIGUOUS SPACE                                      229A       TIGHT SHOT on Bourne's face. FAST TILT to TIGHT ON his       hands, pulling up what seems like a piece of clear tape.       We can't tell where we are or what he's doing.230    EXT. TUDOR CITY                                             230       Landy looks around.229A   INT. AMBIGUOUS SPACE                                      229A       TIGHT ON Bourne's hands placing the clear tape on a piece       of clear plastic. Again we can't tell what's going on.231    EXT. TUTOR CITY                                             231       Agents watch Landy.232    INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                     232       Vosen's cell phone rings.                           VOSEN                 Noah Vosen.                           BOURNE (V.O.)                 This is Jason Bourne.       VOSEN reels for a beat. Then quickly scans the streets,       trying to see if he can spot BOURNE.                           VOSEN                 How did you get this number?                           BOURNE (V.O.)                 You didn't actually think I was                 coming to Tudor City, did you?                           VOSEN                 No, I guess not. But if it's me                 you want to talk to maybe we can                 arrange a meet.                           BOURNE (V.O.)                 Where are you right now?                           VOSEN                 In my office.                                                                   79                               BOURNE (V.O.)                     I doubt that. If you were in                     your office--233    INT. VOSEN'S OFFICE -- DAY                                       233       REVEAL that BOURNE is inside VOSEN'S office.                               BOURNE                     We'd be having this conversation                     face-to-face.       BOURNE hangs up. Puts a portable dictaphone up to VOSEN'S       SAFE and his play:                               VOSEN (TAPE V.O.)                     Noah Vosen.       As he places the plastic slide we saw in the ECUs into the       fingerprint reader. The safe pops open--234    INT.   DAY.    VOSEN SUV                                         234       VOSEN stunned....     Is it possible?   Is it a trick?233    INT. DAY.     VOSEN'S OFFICE                                     233       From the safe, BOURNE scoops out the "TREADSTONE:       Blackbriar" folder Bourne saw Vosen putting into his safe."       He flips it open. He scans down the page.         His eye       stopping at the words "US Citizen."       He flips to another page -- another photo, and again "US       Citizen."       BOURNE shoves the folders in his backpack and leaves.234    INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                          234                               VOSEN                     This is a code ten abort, I want                     everybody back in the vehicles                     this is a code ten abort! Back to                     the vehicles immediately, back to                     CRI immediately.237    OMITTED                                                          237237B   INT. SERVICE STAIRS                                          237B       Bourne rushes down with his back pack.                                                             80237C   INT. VOSEN'S OFFICE                                        237C       Wills grabs the phone and hits a speed-dial:                           WILLS                 Bourne got into your safe!239    EXT. MANHATTAN                                             239       Bourne onto the street with back pack.234    OMITTED                                                    234238    EXT. MANHATTAN -- DAY                                      238       SERIES OF SHOTS -- VOSEN'S SUV races, lights and sirens,       across town. 2) Other CRI cars race back across town.239    EXT. MANHATTAN -- DAY                                      239       BOURNE walks out of a building, backpack over his shoulder.       CAMERA BEGINS TO CRANE UP...       BOURNE walks around a corner near CRI. He hears a siren       turn on a few blocks away. Then another.   He starts to       run.240    INT. CRONIN'S CAR -- DAY                                   240       A SEDAN pulls to a stop as a door comes open. CRONIN'S       inside.   REVEAL Landy on the sidewalk. She jumps in.                           LANDY                 What just happened?                           CRONIN                 Bourne got into Vosen's safe.                              LANDY                 What?!       Cronin pulls out.                              CRONIN                 Where to?                           LANDY                 415 East 71st Street.       Cronin puts it together.                              CRONIN                 4.15.71...     Jesus, Pam.                                                                81240A    EXT. MIDTOWN WEST -- DAY                                     240A        BOURNE walking away from CRI.        Agents leaving a building.    Getting into unmarked sedans        and peeling out.240AA   INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                   240AA        As Vosen races across town.                            VOSEN                  ...I want the entire building                  searched. Every room. Every                  hallway. Every closet. Every                  goddamm airduct. Do you                  understand? I want him found!240B    INT. CRI CAR -- DAY                                          240B        The passenger side agent sees BOURNE, points--        BOURNE cuts to the south side of the road so the passenger-        side agent doesn't have a shot, while controlling the car        makes it almost impossible for the driver to fire        accurately.240C    EXT. 41 STREET -- DAY                                        240C        The westbound car cuts sharply and drives up on the        sidewalk. But Bourne is too fast. He's already past them.        The passenger side agent jumps out. But he's still got to        get around the door and then move a few steps to get a bead        over the hood of his car on Bourne.        The other CRI car races the wrong way on the street but        gets immobilized and trapped by the onrushing tunnel        traffic.242A    INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                      242A        Vosen and Wills race West on 41st.242B    SERIES OF SHOTS                                              242B        CRI cars close in -- on 42nd, on 39th, on 10th Ave.242C    EXT. MIDTOWN WEST -- DAY                                     242C        Bourne races through the tunnel traffic and onto 40th        street.   He rushes east toward the spaghetti of concrete        ramps leading into and out of Port Authority.                                                             82       He runs across 10th Avenue as a third CRI car screams up       the street at him.243    INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                     243       Several radios blare.                           CRI AGENT (RADIO V.O.)                 He's heading for Port Authority!                 Subject up the ramp, eastbound                 into Port Authority.                           VOSEN                     (to Tac Team Leader)                 Lethal force is authorized.                             TACTICAL TEAM LEADER                 I told-                           VOSEN                 Tell them again!258    EXT. PORT AUTHORITY -- DAY                                  258       Bourne runs up a one lane outgoing ramp.258A   INT. CRI CAR -- DAY                                        258A       The driver pilots his car up the ramp behind Bourne. He       jams the accelerator down.   He'll be on top of Bourne --       running him over -- in seconds--260    EXT. PORT AUTHORITY -- DAY                                  260       A New Jersey-bound bus exits the complex and heads around       the corner of the ramp -- it skids to a stop when it sees       Bourne and the CRI car giving chase heading right at the       bus.260A   INT. CRI CAR -- DAY                                        260A       The driver has to skid to a stop to avoid hitting the bus.       Bourne slides between the side of the bus and concrete       guard rail.   The driver calls it in--261    SERIES OF SHOTS                                             261       Cops and CRI cars close in on Port Authority.   One agent       jumps out of his car on 8th Avenue and rushes for the       stairs.                                                               83                          TACTICAL TEAM LEADER (V.O.)                Block every exit. I want a full                perimeter on Port Authority--262   EXT. ROOFTOP PARKING LOT -- PORT AUTHORITY                    262      Bourne races up a set of stairs the rooftop parking lot.      He surveys every aspect of his environment on the fly      (which includes his taking a quick peak over the concrete      railing at the east end of the roof.      Next Bourne rushes toward the parked cars. Smashes the      window of one to set off its alarm.   Then a second and a      third, setting off their alarms.      The fourth window Bourne smashes in doesn't set off an      alarm. Bourne pulls the door open and climbs in.      Inside the car Bourne reaches under the dash and yanks      handful of wires off the steering column and starts to      expertly hotwire the car.263   INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                       263                          TACTICAL TEAM LEADER                    (into radio)                Box him in! Box him in!264   SERIES OF SHOTS                                               264      Agents race up stairwells.   Two CRI cars careen up the      ramp to the passenger parking (a separate ramp to the bus      ramp we saw Bourne on earlier.) A third CRI car races      through the parking level just below the roof and up the      circular ramp to the roof.      INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                          TACTICAL TEAM LEADER                    (to Vosen)                He's on the roof.   He's trapped.      EXT. ROOFTOP PARKING LOT -- PORT AUTHORITY      Bourne works to hotwire the car.      A CRI car gets to the roof.   Two agents come from the      elevator lobby.   The three car alarms distract them. They      search for Bourne, but can't find him at first...      Bourne gets the car engine on - but, given the wonders of      modern anti-theft technology his steering wheel is still      locked.                                                                84      A second CRI car arrives.      Bourne slams the car into low gear and backs up at high      speed.      He smashes into the car across the aisle from him. With a      sharp metallic snap the wheel in Bourne's car is suddenly      free, he jams the car into drive pulls out into lane and      stops.      Three CRI cars here now. Two head straight for him.   A      third blocks the exit ramp.      Bourne checks the rearview and sees two more agents pour      from the elevator lobby, one carrying the serious firepower      of an M-4 (an M-16 variant whose bullets can penetrate      metal and concrete). They move into position to get a bead      on him.      Bourne assesses. But he doesn't move. The agents swarm      toward him. What the hell is he doing? Why is he waiting?267   INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                        267                          TACTICAL TEAM LEADER                We've got him! He's got nowhere                to run!                          VOSEN                Take him out!268   EXT. ROOFTOP PARKING LOT -- PORT AUTHORITY                     268      The agents clear their obstructions and drop their barrels      toward Bourne--      But before they can get a bead--      Bourne slams the car into reverse again.   Petal to the      metal in reverse--      The agents open fire.      Bourne ducks the lead slugs ripping through the windshield.      But there's no dodging the shower of broken glass.      As Bourne disappears below the dashboard, the CRI agent      adjusts his fire into the car's grill.      Virtually blind, Bourne races the hard-pressed vehicle      backwards as the agent's fire decimates the car's      driveline.      Bourne slips the car into neutral and takes a quick peek      behind him.                                                            85      Steers still speeding but quickly dying car towards a small      gap between two parked cars at the edge of the parking      structure.      Bourne's car splits the gap between the parked cars, hits      the base of a low angled wall that slams the back of his      car up and over the wall.      Bourne is pounded as his car jounces onto the wall, a      second later the front end seesaws over the top, the sudden      angle change exposes for an instant the bottom of Bourne's      car, to the shooters.      Several rounds rip through the floorboard and tear past      Bourne's head just before his car drops upside down for 25      feet and slams onto a row of parked cars.      The impact rips Bourne from the seat and slams him hard      against the roof.      Bourne struggles out of the car, knowing he has only a      moment before the armed agents will fire down into his over-      turned car.                           CRI AGENT                 Ho-ly shit!269   INT.   VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                   269                           VOSEN                     (practically screaming                      into his handheld)                 He did what?!270   EXT. ROOFTOP PARKING LOT -- PORT AUTHORITY                  270      The CRI agents race to the spot where Bourne's car      disappeared over the railing and reflexively fire into      Bourne's car but they're too late! Bourne's already out.      He disappears from sight under the covered parking      structure.                           LEAD CRI AGENT                 Get down there! Get down!271   INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                     271      As it speeds toward the spaghetti of ramps leading in and      out of Port Authority -- two blocks away.                           TACTICAL TEAM LEADER                 Who has eyeball on him?! Who has                 eyeball?!                                                               86271A    EXT. ROOFTOP PARKING LOT -- PORT AUTHORITY                271A        One of the agents scrambles over the edge and starts to        climb down. Other agents race for the stairs.                            TACTICAL TEAM LEADER (V.O.)                  Don't tell me--274     INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                     274                            TACTICAL TEAM LEADER                  --you've lost him! Who's on                  street level?! Street level                  backup?!        Clearly there is no one down there. Bourne's car jump from        the roof has completely flat-footed them.                            VOSEN                      (to Wills)                  Get NYPD backup! And FBI, DEA,                  any other federal assets we can                  draft!A274A   OMITTED                                                   A274A274A    INT/EXT. CIRCULAR RAMP                                    274A        Two CRI cars race down from the roof to try to get to the        level Bourne's on.275     INT./EXT. PARKING GARAGE -- TWO LEVELS BELOW ROOFTOP        275        Bourne cuts off a guy cruising for a parking space and        pulls him from his car and races away as the agent from the        roof lands hard behind him.        Bourne's race to the exit is cut off as a 3rd CRI sedan        slides into view and it's occupants open fire on Bourne in        a head on charge.        The just stolen vehicle takes heavy fire as Bourne reacts        instantaneously; thumbing on the cruise control,        shouldering his door open, and slamming the gas pedal to        the floor as he dives out of the car.        The agents react as Bourne's sedan torpedoes them head on.        Hit hard they're taken out of the fight as metal collapses,        glass shatters, and airbags explode.        Bourne tumbles to a stop at the rear of a parked car as his        car implodes against the oncoming agents.                                                       87Instantly Bourne is on his feet, moving between the parkedcars to engage another CRI sedan traveling parallel to thecourse of the wrecked one.The agents in this sedan are distracted by the stillechoing crash and are caught off-guard as Bourne steps outand points his gun at the driver.The driver ducks and floors his gas pedal in a desperateeffort to save his own life. As the sedan suddenlyaccelerates, Bourne deliberately shifts his aim to thesedan's front tire and fires.The tire explodes and the car suddenly veers left and slamsinto a parked car, pitching the driver violently againstthe unyielding interior of the sedan.An instant later Bourne rips the radio off the dazeddrivers belt just before he cold cocks him with it.With the wreck still echoing through the garage Bourne hasto deal with the arrival of the first NYPD sedan.Bourne takes on the persona of an alarmed witness as the onedge cop climbs out of his car but Bourne's performance iscut short as the agent running from his drop from the roof,arrives and opens fire.The police officer goes down in the hail of gunfire asBourne turns and expertly drops the gunman with a singleshot.The increasing volume of squealing tires alerts Bourne to anew threat, he pulls the officer into some cover and grabsthe officer's radio.                   BOURNE          10-13. Shots fired. Officer          down. Port Authority parking          lot. Level four.Bourne rips a piece of his sweater off and ties a makeshifttourniquet for the officer.   Then he hands the cop hisradio back.                    BOURNE (CONT'D)          Stay out of sight until one of          your own arrive.Bourne disappears.We pick him up as he jumps into the cops car and guns theengine and heads for the exits.CRI agents are confused for a second -- until they pick upthe NYPD car exiting Port Authority on one of the ramps.But that's all the time Bourne needs--                                                               88276    OMITTED                                                      276277    EXT. CROSSTOWN STREET -- DAY                                 277       Bourne turns on his lights and siren and speeds east,       followed closely by a CRI sedan.       As cars yield to Bourne's siren a taxi tries to jump into       Bourne's wake but a CRI sedan punches the taxi back to the       right. It ricochets off several parked cars before       regaining control.277A   OMITTED                                                  277A280    OMITTED                                                      280281    EXT. CROSSTOWN STREET -- DAY                                 281       Bourne struggles to keep his over-matched vehicle ahead of       the more powerful CRI Sedan which tries to spin Bourne out       by hitting his bumper.       Bourne tacks right quickly and barely avoids a stopped car.       The CRI sedan flanking Bourne's slams into the rear of that       car, spinning it 180 degrees into the path of the trailing       CRI sedan which destroys itself in the resulting collision       and blocks the path of the other CRI sedan.282    INT. BOURNE'S CAR -- DAY                                     282       Bourne is home free. He looks around and spots a sign that       indicates a right turn and says "To Holland Tunnel / US       95." Bourne turns right--       Suddenly the window next to his head explodes as two more       shots rip through his door to tear a jagged wound into the       top of Bourne's leg.       REVEAL Paz, his SUV racing along the curb lane. As       Bourne's car crosses in front of a small car stopped at the       intersection Paz swerves his car into that car and punches       it into the side of Bourne's car.       Bourne's car is knocked spinning, Paz keeps charging       forward and slams into the back of Bourne's car. With his       front tires spinning wildly Bourne fights to straighten his       car as another CRI sedan appears and tries to box Bourne's       car by sliding into his path.283    OMITTED                                                      283                                                                89284    EXT. MANHATTAN STREET -- DAY                                  284       Bourne just manages to punch his car into the right rear of       the CRI Sedan and race down the Avenue with Paz and the       slightly damaged sedan in pursuit.       Paz gains on him and Bourne is forced to swerve violently       to deny Paz the kill shot he is all too capable of.       Just ahead of Bourne, two government SUVs slide into the       intersection completely blocking his path.       Bourne instantly spins his car 180 degrees and continues       on, barreling into the roadblock backwards.       As Bourne's car plows through the SUV's he whips the wheel       and his car spins through a reverse 180 as Paz and the       other sedan race through the wreckage in Bourne's wake.       Paz and the CRI sedan are all over Bourne as he slides a       right hand turn onto South St. as Paz and the CRI sedan       overwhelm Bourne's battered vehicle.284A   OMITTED                                                    284A287    INT. BOURNE'S CAR -- DAY                                      287       On his police radio, Bourne singles out an NYPD officer       (call sign Alpha-2503) racing toward the intersection just       ahead.       Bourne slows, then speeds up quickly to time it right:       The CRI car almost hits his bumper, then has to accelerate       through the upcoming intersection. As he does, the cop car       Bourne was listening to on the radio slams broadside into       the CRI sedan drafting the bumper of the mangled cop car.       Swerving wildly Paz avoids the pileup and slams his heavy       SUV into the back of Bourne's car, pushing him into the       oncoming traffic.       Several cars swerve left and right as Paz pushes Bourne       sideways onto the ramped end of a K-Rail dividing the       street ahead.       The nearly upended car grinds down the K-Rail until the       rear of Bourne's car strikes an obstruction which punches       it back into the lane as it slams against the front of       Paz's SUV, knocking the SUV sideways, into a row of parked       cars.       Bourne's car hits parked cars on the other side of the       road.       SMOKE and STEAM -- SIRENS -- CHAOS                                                               90        BOURNE kicks the window out of the police car.   Gun up...        Ready--        NEARBY287A    PAZ in the car. Still. Bloody from the crash, really 287A        fucked up. He comes to...and Bourne is there. Gun pointed        at his head...        The two assassins look at each other...then Bourne lowers        his gun...and disappears...        ON PAZ -- as the wheels start to turn...287B    INT. HUB                                                  287B                             WILLS                   The asset lost Bourne.   We lost                   him.        Vosen reacts--289     EXT. UPPER EAST SIDE -- LATE AFTERNOON                       289        Bourne exits from the subway.   Bourne walks north.A288A   INT. HUB                                                A288A        Wills pacing... Bourne's profile is up on Screen 2. It        says "David Webb (AKA Jason Bourne)" on the profile.  A        tech comes to Wills.                             TECH                   Sir, this may be nothing but,                   look at Bourne's birthday.        Wills looks at the profile.   Bourne's birthdate is listed        as 9/13/70.                             WILLS                   What about it?                             TECH                   Well, Landy told Bourne his                   birthday was 4/15/71 so...        Wills gets it instantly.                             WILLS                   Everything stops.                       (to the room now)                   EVERYTHING STOPS! LISTEN UP!                       (they're listening)                   New assignment. Numbers. Four.                             (MORE)                                                               91                             WILLS (cont'd)                  Fifteen. Seventy-one. What do                  they mean?       Wills grabs his headset--288A   EXT. CRASH SITE -- DAY                                   288A       A CRI agent approaches Vosen.                            CRI AGENT                  Landy gave Bourne a false                  birthday. Wills thinks it's a                  code.       It sinks in for Vosen...oh...shit...289    EXT. SEVENTH AVENUE -- DAY                                   289       BOURNE emerges into the crowed street, headed uptown.289A   INT. HUB                                                 289A       Wills watches the techs work.                            TECH #3                  -- if you plug them in as                  variants of latitude and                  longitude you get Cameroon --                  Peru -- Colombia --                            TECH #2                  -- San Francisco's got a four-one-                  five area code --                            TECH #1                  -- 41571 is the zip code for                  Varney, Kentucky --                            TECH #4                  -- there's no 415 West 71st                  Street, but there is a 415 East                  71st --                             TECH #1                  -- if it's a substitution code,                  we're way short on variables,                  which I --                      (no chance to finish as--                       )                            WILLS                  --hang on -- wait -- Seventy                  First Street? Like what? Like                  York and First?                                                                  92                           TECH #4                 That's correct.       Wills like he's been hit.   Like hard.   As we cut to --289B   INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- DAY                                     289B       They race uptown.                            WILLS                 She gave him the facility.     She                 gave him--                            VOSEN                     (into cell phone)                 I know.                     (to driver)                 Go! Go! Drive!                     (into cell phone)                 We're already on our way. Turn                 the teams around. Bring them in                 behind me.291    OMITTED                                                         291292    OMITTED                                                         292303    INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- LATE AFTERNOON                              303       Vosen steely eyed as they race uptown.    He dials a number--304    EXT. UPPER EAST SIDE -- LATE AFTERNOON                          304       Bourne reaches 71st street and 2nd Ave.    He looks up at the       sign...306    INT. HIRSCH'S OFFICE   (NEW BUILDING OF HOSPITAL) -- LATE 306       AFTERNOON       Hirsch's office is located in the SRD's "front office",       which is located covertly on a floor of the new building of       the hospital. He is the longtime head of SRD and a       powerful behind-the-scenes official at CIA.       THE CAMERA FINDS       DR. HIRSCH, 70, is, put simply, not a man to be trifled       with. He's a 45 year CIA veteran. One of the great brains       in the Agency's history, but also a man who knows how to       wield power silently, invisibly, and to tremendous effect.       His phone buzzes.                                                               93                               DR. HIRSCH (INTO PHONE)                   Hello.306A   INT.   VOSEN'S SUV -- LATE AFTERNOON                     306A       VOSEN at the other end of the line --                             VOSEN (INTO PHONE)                   Bourne knows everything. I think                   he's heading for you right now.       Dead pause.306    INT. HIRSCH'S OFFICE (NEW BUILDING OF HOSPITAL)-- DAY        306                             HIRSCH (INTO PHONE)                   He's coming home, Noah.       There's a wistfulness in the way he says it. But also the       sense that this was absolutely inevitable. And he's calm       about it, doesn't show any fear, doesn't reach for a gun.                             HIRSCH (INTO PHONE)                   How long do I have?                               VOSEN                   Not long.    Get out of there.                              HIRSCH                   No.   I'm going to stay.                             VOSEN                   Are you crazy, he'll--                             HIRSCH                   He'll come to the training wing.                   That's what he knows. I'll keep                   him in play until you arrive.309R   EXT.   NEW YORK -- HOSPITAL -- LATE AFTERNOON            309R       Bourne arrives at the "Johnston Medical Center."   He looks       up to see "415".FB5    FLASHBACK                                                    FB5       The image of "415" that has been haunting his dreams.309    EXT.   NEW YORK -- HOSPITAL -- LATE AFTERNOON                309       This is the place... When he looks down Landy steps out of       the lobby to meet him on the sidewalk.                                                                94                             BOURNE                   They'll kill you for giving me                   this place.                             LANDY                   4/15/71 isn't much of a code. My                   guess is Vosen's already on his                   way.                             BOURNE                   Why'd you do it?                             LANDY                   This isn't us, David. What they                   turned you into, what they're                   doing with Blackbriar... This                   has to stop.                             BOURNE                   Then stop it. Everything you                   need is in there.       Bourne hands her the black bag and enters the hospital.                             LANDY                   David... Come in with me. It's                   better if we do this together.                             BOURNE                       (shakes head)                   This is where it started for me,                   this is where it ends.       She watches the doors close behind him....     Landy lets him       go.323    EXT. NYC STREETS -- LATE AFTERNOON                            323       QUICK SHOTS of six different CRI sedans and SUVs rushing       toward the hospital.309R   EXT. HOSPITAL -- LATE AFTERNOON                            309R       Landy looks in the backpack.       JUMPCUTS:       --She unzips the backpack and looks in at the the       Blackbriar Operations File.       --A cover page inside: "utmost secrecy"... "potentially       explosive public reaction would jeopardize the program"...       --Another page: "Terminated" stamped across the photos of       victims. Next to the victim from the inciting incident,       the words: "US citizen"...                                                                95                           LANDY                 Oh, my God...       --A third page, more photos, no "terminated" on these.       Future victims. "US citizen" stamped next to each one...310    INT. HOSPITAL -- LATE AFERNOON                                310       Bourne uses the card reader he took from Vosen's safe to       enter a "restricted access elevator."   A guard comes.       Bourne aims his pistol at him as the elevator door closes.309R   EXT. FIRST AVENUE -- OUTSIDE HOSPITAL --    LATE AFTERNOON 309R       Landy walks down the street. She looks up to spot two       black sedans speeding east on 71st, turns south -- two SUVs       coming up York.   Shit--323    INT. VOSEN'S SUV -- LATE AFTERNOON                            323       A block south of the hospital, stuck in traffic, Vosen       points.                           VOSEN                 Landy! Right there!    She's got                 Bourne's backpack!310R   INT. 8TH FLOOR ELEVATOR LOBBY -- LATE AFTERNOON            310R       Bourne flips up the elevator stop button and uses the       access card to enter a secure corridor--323    INT. LOBBY -- LATE AFTERNOON                                  323       Landy runs across the lobby.323    EXT. FIRST AVENUE -- LATE AFTERNOON                           323       Vosen's SUV careens to a stop behind a bunch of traffic.       Still a half block from the entry door but it's close       enough--322    INT. CORRRIDOR                                                322       Bourne rushes down a nondescript corridor--325    INT. HOSPITAL LOBBY -- LATE AFTERNOON                         325       Vosen and CRI agents rush into the lobby.                                                                   96                             VOSEN                       (to a group of six                        agents)                   I'll find Landy. You get to the                   training wing and get Bourne!       A security guard comes over.                             VOSEN                   Do you know who I am?                       (the guard nods)                   Where's your security room?324    INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR                                           324       Landy looks around. Finds an open office. She pushes open       the door and runs to the fax machine. She starts faxing       the Blackbriar documents Bourne took from Vosen's safe.324A   INT. SECURITY ROOM -- LATE AFTERNOON                         324A       Vosen enters.                             VOSEN                   I want to see all your footage                   for the last three minutes.322    INT. SRD TRAINING WING (OLD BUILDING OF HOSPITAL) -- LATE 322       AFTERNOON       Bourne stares down the corridor from his dreams, the       corridor Daniels lead him down in his flashback.       We see Bourne go into--FBA3   FLASHBACK                                                    FBA3       That first day, Bourne's POV being led down this corridor       by Daniels.322    BACK TO SCENE                                                    322       Bourne moves down the corridor.322    INT. SRD TRAINING WING (OLD BUILDING OF HOSPITAL) -- LATE 322       AFTERNOON       Bourne reaches the end of the hall.       He looks around       "flashback style" --                                                                97FBB3   FLASHBACK                                                 FBB3       Bourne was standing at this door....331    INT. OFFICE -- LATE AFTERNOON                                 331       Vosen enters the room.    The last pages have been faxed...                             LANDY                   You better get a good lawyer.       She exits...322    BACK TO SCENE                                                 322       Then spins, gun up--       Hirsch is there, halfway down the corridor behind him.                             HIRSCH                   Put the gun down. I wouldn't be                   here if I didn't want to talk.                              BOURNE                   I've spent three years running.                   Three years trying to find out                   who I was.       Hirsch moves toward Bourne, completely unfazed by the gun.                             HIRSCH                   You still don't have it all back,                   do you? You haven't filled in                   all the pieces?                             BOURNE                   Let's start with the moment you                   found out I wouldn't execute                   Wombosi. The amnesia wasn't the                   issue, it was the fact that I                   didn't pull the trigger....                             HIRSCH                   One lapse meant your conditioning                   had failed.       Bourne grabs Hirsch and slams him against the wall                             BOURNE                   It was always you, behind                   Conklin, behind Abbott.... They                   were just following orders.       Bourne grabs Hirsch and pushes him to the wall.   Searches       him for weapons.                                                             98                             HIRSCH                       (completely calm)                   I'm unarmed, Jason.                             BOURNE                       (shoving Hirsch hard                        against the wall)                   "David." I'm David Webb.       CLOSE ON Bourne's face--                             HIRSCH                   You were David Webb, but not                   anymore.322    INT. SRD TRAINING WING CORRIDOR -- LATE AFERNOON           322       Bourne stands with Hirsch.                              BOURNE                   Why me?   Why did you pick me?       A beat...                               HIRSCH                   You really don't remember, do                   you?                        (beat)                   You picked us, Jason.                             BOURNE                   What does that mean?                             HIRSCH                   You volunteered.       Hirsch uses his free hand to hit the keypad on the wall.       The "room in use" sign lights up.       Bourne looks up "flashback style"--FBA1   FLASHBACK                                                  FBA1       Bourne remembers that keypad, that "room in use" sign from       the first day...322    INT. ROOM WHERE BOURNE FIRST MET HIRSCH                    322       Bourne and Hirsch enter...                             HIRSCH                   You volunteered right here....                   You didn't even blink, Jason.                   You just handed me these...                                                             99       Hirsch removes a pair of dog tags from his jacket pocket.       Holds them out to Bourne.       Bourne takes the dog tags.        Stares at them.       INSERT of the dog tags:       Webb, David       946610190       O Negative       CatholicFB9    FLASHBACK                                                   FB9       Bourne hands over his dog tags....                              HIRSCH (CONT'D)                    Has everything been explained to                    you.                                BOURNE                    Yes, sir.322    PRESENT DAY                                                 322                              HIRSCH                    You were a soldier ready to serve                    his country. Just like thousands                    of others, except you were a                    prodigy with languages...and a                    perfect shot.FBB3   FLASHBACK                                               FBB3                              HIRSCH (CONT'D)                    Your missions will save American                    lives.322    PRESENT DAY                                                 322                              BOURNE                    You said I'd be saving American                    lives. Instead you just turned me                    into a killer.       Bourne raises the gun to Hirsch.                              HIRSCH                    You could have left at any time.                    And you knew exactly what it                    meant for you if you chose to                    stay.                                                               100FB9    FLASHBACK                                                     FB9                              HIRSCH                    When we're finished with you,                    you'll no longer be David Webb.                              BOURNE                    I'll be whoever you need me to                    be, sir.322    PRESENT DAY                                                   322                              HIRSCH                    Stop running from the truth,                    Jason. You chose to come here!                    You chose to stay! And no matter                    how much you want to forget                    it...eventually you're going to                    have to face how you chose, right                    there, to become Jason Bourne!FB10   FLASHBACK:                                                 FB10       Bourne sitting in a chair, looking terrible.     Hirsch looks       at him from behind the desk...                              HIRSCH (CONT'D)                    You haven't slept for a long time                    have you David? Have you made a                    decision? This can't go on, you                    know. You have to decide.                                 BOURNE                    Who is he?                              HIRSCH                    We've been through that.                              BOURNE                    What did he do?                               HIRSCH                    It doesn't matter.                        (beat)                    You came to us. You volunteered.                    You said you'd do anything it                    takes to save American lives.                    You're not a liar are you? Or too                    weak to see this through? This is                    it. Let go of David Webb. Will                    you give yourself to this                    program?                                                             101      Bourne looks down, a gun in his hand. He gets to his feet      swiftly and fires the pistol several times into a hooded      figure. The man slumps over.      Bourne stares at what he's done.                          HIRSCH (CONT'D)                You're no longer David Webb.                From now on you'll be known as                Jason Bourne. Welcome to the                program.      Daniels pulls the hood off the figure to show that he is      dead.      Just then Kramer walks through the door.                          KRAMER                He's ready. Send him to                Operations.322   PRESENT                                                      322      And now, in real time, Bourne comes out of the flashback.      He stares back at Hirsch....                          HIRSCH                Do you remember now?      Bourne lowers the gun.                          BOURNE                I remember. I remember                everything.                          HIRSCH                You can't outrun what you did,                Jason. You made yourself into                who you are.                          BOURNE                I'm done running.  That's why                I'm here. To end you, to shut                this down. I'm no longer Jason                Bourne.                          HIRSCH                So now you're going to kill me?                          BOURNE                No. You don't deserve the star                they give you on the wall at                Langley.      Just then Bourne spins -- agents arrive at the door.    It's      locked.                                                            102322   INT. HALLWAY                                                322      The agents fire at the door handle to get it open.322   INT. ROOM WHERE BOURNE FIRST MET HIRSCH                     322      Bourne looks out a window.   Sees the layout of a roof      several stories below. Then he turns and shoots out the      room's mirrored observation window. Bourne dives through      it just as agents rush in and open fire at him.      SERIES OF SHOTS      Bourne races through corridors, loosing the CRI agents.352   EXT. ROOF -- NIGHT                                          352      Bourne runs out onto the roof. Rushes across it to look      over the edge.   It's a straight drop to the FDR -- 12      stories down.      He races to another ledge -- the East River below him. But      he has to clear a 10 foot supporting wall at the base of      the building to hit the water.   He backs up to get a      running leap.      As he does, he turns and sees Paz, who is holding a gun on      him.                             PAZ                   Why didn't you take the shot?      Bourne looks at him.                             BOURNE                   Do you even know why you're                   trying to kill me? Look at what                   they make you give.      Bourne turns and runs off the roof.      Paz fires into the air...      FOLLOW Bourne as he drops fourteen stories into the      freezing river--      MULTIPLE ANGLES -- Bourne goes into the river...352   UNDERWATER                                                  352      Bourne in a dead man's float...as his clothes soak through      he begins to sink....                                                            103      PULL BACK...farther and farther from Bourne's dead still      sinking....as OVERLAPPING, INTERWEAVING VOICE OVERS begin:                             ANCHOR 1 (V.O.)                   FBI agents arrested several                   senior CIA officials today in                   connection with the broadening                   scandal enveloping Washington                   today--                             ANCHOR 2 (V.O.)                   Assassination program code-named                   "Blackbriar" was exposed by a                   former assassin named David Webb--                   -                             ANCHOR 3 (V.O.)                   Program reportedly targeting US                   Citizens in some cases...                             ANCHOR 4 (V.O.)                   CIA Director Ezra Kramer produced                   explosive documents for the                   Senate Committee indicating                   "Blackbriar" was authorized at                   the highest levels of government.356   INT. BAR -- URUGUAY -- SUNSET                               356      Nicky goes to the bar of at a low end tourist bar with      several other customers.   She stands there, eyes fixed on      a TV behind the bar:                             ANCHOR 5 (V.O., CONT'D)                   Webb, who was known inside the                   intelligence community, as "Jason                   Bourne" jumped from the                   fourteenth floor of the CIA                   facility where he was trained in                   New York into the East River                   below.   While experts say it                   would be nearly impossible to                   survive the fall, despite two                   weeks of efforts, his body has                   still not been recovered.      PUSH in on the smile that develops on Nicky's face.   As we      CUE the Moby "Extreme Ways" sting---352   UNDERWATER                                                  352      Bourne's body sinking toward the bottom...when all of a      sudden it comes to life -- arms together, legs kick      powerfully--      And Bourne swims away...          104 THE END
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+                                      THE BOX                                    Written by                                   Richard Kelly                              Based on the short story                                  "BUTTON, BUTTON"                                         By                                  Richard Matheson                                                     Sep 30th, 2006                                                            OVER A BLACI: SCREEN:          Crickets chirp in the night.          A DOORBELL rings.          Sheets rustle...          A BEDSIDE LAMP is turned on.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- MASTER BEDROOM -- NIGHT          NORMA LEWIS ( 31) sits up in bed. The soft glow of the lamp           casts her in silhouette. Her husband, ARTHUR LEWIS (30), lies          next to her.                          NORMA          Did you hear something?                         ARTHUR          The doorbell.                         NORMA          Are you sure that was the doorbell?          From down below... the DOORBELL rings again.                         ARTHUR          Yep.          Norma retrieves her WATCH from the bedside table.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          What time is it?                         NORMA          Quarter 'til five.          Norma gets out of bed and throws on her bathrobe.          Arthur sits up, hair sticking up in every direction. He has          sideburns that run down the side of his face like daggers.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FOYER -- NEXT          Norma comes down the stairs and approaches the front door.          She looks through the PEEPHOLE.          Through the PEEPHOLE... she glimpses a BLACK SEDAN idling in          the street. It quickly drives off.          Norma unlatches the DEAD BOLT and opens the door. She notices          something at her feet.                                                                                                              2.          Someone has left a CARDBOARD BOX on the front step. It's          dimensions are 1' x 1' x 1'          She leans down and picks up the box, noticing that it has          been meticulously sealed with clear tape. There are no          markings on it whatsoever.          Norma looks down the quiet, empty street. She quickly closes          the door and turns inside and away from the cold air.          Arthur arrives at the bottom of the stairs.                         ARTHUR          What is it?                         NORMA          Someone left a box.                         ARTHUR          Who?                         NORMA          I don't know. There was a car          waiting... but they drove off.          Norma hands the box to Arthur. He examines it.          MALE VOICE (O.S.)          Is that one of my Christmas          presents?          Their young son, WALTER LEWIS ( 9), is standing at the top of          the stairs. He is dressed in his pajamas.          His parents just stare back at him in silence.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER          The Lewis family has now moved into the kitchen. WRAPPING          PAPER and CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS are scattered across the table.          Norma is pouring COFFEE. Arthur is cutting through the tape          that seals the box with a knife while Walter looks on          eagerly.                         WALTER          Should I close my eyes?                         ARTHUR          Maybe... it's up to you.          Arthur opens the lid and sees that there are FOAM PEANUTS          inside. He digs down and retrieves a WOODEN BOX. Its          dimensions are 8" x 8" x 8".                                                                                                              3.          The box is made of WHITE OAK with a clear varnish. Mounted on          top is a CLEAR GLASS DOME attached to a lid with a HINGE          MOUNT. Inside of the dome is a CYLINDRICAL METAL BUTTON.                         NORMA          Is there a note?          Arthur reaches inside the box and retrieves a small WHITE          ENVELOPE. Printed on the envelope in CALLIGRAPHY is the name:          MRS. LEWIS                         ARTHUR          It's for you, Norma.          Norma opens the envelope and removes a folded piece of white          stationary.          Printed in elegant calligraphy is a single sentence:          MR. STEWARD WILL CALL UPON YOU AT 5:00 PM.                         NORMA          Mr. Steward will call upon you at 5          PM.                         (TO HERSELF)          Do I know a Mr. Steward?          Arthur yawns.                         ARTHUR          I dunno. You tell us.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- LATER THAT MORNING          Arthur is now showered and shaven, dressed for work. He and          Walter sit at the kitchen table, waiting for Norma to deliver          breakfast.          The box sits on the table between them.          Arthur opens up the newspaper.                         INSERT SHOTS:          RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH... FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1976.                         BANNER HEADLINE:          OPEC SAID TO DECIDE ON SPLIT HIKE          Arthur turns the page.                                                                                                              4.                         ARTHUR          What kind of car was it?                         NORMA          I couldn't see. It was dark and 1          didn't have my contacts in.                         WALTER          Why would they just drive off?                         NORMA          I don't know. But the bus will be          here if five minutes... so eat.          EXT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FRONT WALK -- MOMENTS LATER          Norma and Walter emerge from the house onto the front porch.          She hands him his LUNCH BOX and a WINTER HAT. SNOW has begun          to fall from the sky.                         WALTER          Last day of school and now it          starts to snow?!                         NORMA          Put on your hat...          A young girl, DANA ( 13) is waiting at the end of the           sidewalk. She is wrapped head-to-toe in warm clothes...          EARMUFFS and SCARF around her neck.                         DANA          (muffled through scarf)          Hi Mrs. Lewis.                         NORMA          Good morning, Dana.                         (SHIVERING)          And please call me Norma. You're          making me feel old.                         WALTER          You are old!                         NORMA          I'm thirty-one!                         WALTER          To us that's old! You're a geezer!                         NORMA          Well you'll be a geezer one day          too, smarty-pants.                                                                                                              5.          Norma closes her eyes, taking in a breath of cold air.          Snowflakes land in her face and hair.          Walter sighs... looking at his watch.                         WALTER          Why does the bus stop have to be at          the end of our driveway?                         NORMA                         (HIGH-PITCHED)          So I can watch my little Walter get          on his bus... safe in one piece!          Down the street, A SCHOOL BUS begins to crest the hill...          fast approaching...                         WALTER          Please. Go. Inside. You're          embarrassing me.                         NORMA          My love embarrasses you?                         WALTER          Yes. Yes it does.          She begins to walk down the sidewalk... taunting him as the          bus approaches.                         NORMA          What if I give little Walter a          little kiss in front of all his          friends on the school bus?          Dana's eyes widen. A MISCHIEVOUS GRIN emerges from behind the          scarf that covers the lower part of her face.                         DANA          Do it!          The bus is fast approaching... brakes squealing as it slows          to a stop.                         WALTER          Don't come any closer!          Norma gives him a big HUG and a KISS right as the bus doors          open. A bunch of OLDER KIDS stare out the window... scowling          at him.          Walter pushes away from her and stomps up onto the bus...          mortified. Dana follows him.                                                                                                              6.                         NORMA          Dana... you're baby-sitting for us          tonight, right?                         DANA          Eight o'clock?                         NORMA          Eight o'clock.                         DANA          Okay.          Dana gets on the bus. BUD WALL (30s), the bus driver, smiles          at Norma. He is an enormous giant of a man with a shaved          head.                         NORMA          Bus-Driver Bud! Merry Christmas...                         BUD          Our last day!                         NORMAL          I know!                         BUD          It'll all be over soon, Norma.          He stares at her for a moment that is almost too long... then          shuts the doors to the bus.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur sits at the table... reading the morning paper.          The CAMERA zooms into the COMICS SECTION... revealing the          panels of the comic strip REX MORGAN, MD. Arthur begins          reading the voices of REX MORGAN and his girlfriend JUNE.                         ARTHUR          (as Rex Morgan)          Do you realize that this is the          first time in my life that I will          be taking more than a week's          vacation, June?          Norma arrives in the kitchen. She now has a slight limp.                         ARTHUR (CONT-D)          (as June, hi-pitched)          And enjoy it! Don't worry about the          office!                                                                                                              .4          7.                         NORMA          Rex Morgan... I need you back here          no later than seven. Rehearsal          dinner starts at eight.          Arthur grabs his BRIEFCASE and a BASKETBALL.                         ARTHUR          The Viking Squad has a game at          four.                         NORMA          Don't get stuck in Friday          traffic...                         ARTHUR          Okay June.          He starts bouncing the ball on the kitchen floor.          She grabs the ball in mid bounce... annoyed with him.                         NORMA          Not in the house!                         ARTHUR          How's your foot?                         NORMA          It's fine.          She pushes him toward into the FAMILY ROOM... opening the          door that leads out to the garage.          They exit the house and the CAMERA drifts back toward the          kitchen table... moving in toward the box.           EXT. LEWIS HOUSE -- DRIVEWAY -- MOMENTS LATER           The GARAGE DOOR opens and both of the LEWIS FAMILY CARS back           out at the same time, almost choreographed in perfect unison.           Arthur drives a SILVER 1975 PONTIAC TRANS-AM. Norma drives a          WHITE 1976 OLDSMOBILE STATION WAGON with WOOD WALLS.          They pull out onto MONUMENT AVENUE, cars pointing in opposite          directions. Arthur rolls down his window.                         ARTHUR          It's your Christmas present.                         NORMA          From you?                                                                                                              B.                         ARTHUR          From your secret lover.                         (BEAT)          Mr. Steward.          She furrows her brow.                         NORMA                         (SARCASTIC)          I hate you, Rex Morgan MD.                         ARTHUR                         (PLAYFUL)          I hate you, too.                         NORMA          Don't be late tonight.                         ARTHUR          I've got your present at work. It's          almost finished.          He smiles... then peels off down Monument Ave.          From Norma's REAR VIEW MIRROR... Arthur's car disappears down          the road. She reaches up to re-adjust... her eyes appear in          the mirror's reflection.          INSERT: Norma's VIRGINIA license plate.          The Oldsmobile drives down the street in the opposite          direction.          EXT. DOWNTOWN RICHMOND -- MORNING          HELICOPTER SHOT: The CAMERA crests over the barren WINTER          FOREST on the southeast side of the city... tipping up to          reveal DOWNTOWN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.          RADIO VOICE (V.0.)          It's twenty-three degrees on this          December morning here in          Richmond...          The CAMERA moves over the DOWNTOWN EXPRESSWAY... heavy          traffic moves in either direction.          The CAMERA approaches the side of ARTHUR'S TRANS-AM as it          crests around the INTERSTATE EXCHANGE onto ROUTE 64 at the          HISTORICAL CLOCK TOWER of MAIN STREET TRAIN STATION.                                                                                                              9.          RADIO VOICE (V.0.) (CONT - D)          The French government, in what was          seen here as a gesture to President-          elect Jimmy Carter, announced          Thursday a further tightening of          controls over the exportation of          nuclear technology.          The CAMERA swoops down alongside the driver's side of          Arthur's car... moving into the SIDE VIEW MIRROR. His face          reflected in the mirror... listening to the radio as he          begins his southbound commute to work.          EXT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- MORNING          The CAMERA pulls back from .a sign at the entrance to          COLLEGIATE... an exclusive PRIVATE SCHOOL. Norma's STATION          WAGON pulls into the school parking lot.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- HALLWAY -- MOMENTS LATER          The CAMERA tracks with Norma as makes her way through the          CROWDED HALLWAY... filled with LOUD TEENAGERS from the age of          9-18. Her limp. has gotten worse.          She WINKS at someone... then turns a corner and the CAMERA          whips around to reveal WALTER standing at his locker. He           closes the door, revealing Dana and another friend named          CHARLES ( 12) standing there.                         DANA          Why does your mom limp?                         CHARLES          Yeah... is something wrong with her          foot?                         WALTER          That's none of your business.                         CHARLES          Dana saw her take her shoe off in          the parking lot yesterday.                         DANA          There's definitely something wrong          with her foot. It looks mangled.                         CHARLES          You didn't say mangled... you said          it looked gross.          Walter lunges at Charles and pushes him up against the          locker... awkwardly trying to fight him.                                                                                                              10.          They continue to wrestle awkwardly for a moment against the          lockers and then Walter lets go... backing away.                         WALTER          If you ever make fun of my mom          again I'll kill you!          Walter storms off down the hall.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- OFFICE -- MOMENTS LATER          The CAMERA moves through the SCHOOL OFFICE as teachers and          RECEPTIONISTS move about in preparation for the last day,          approaching a FROSTED GLASS DOOR that reads:          DR. WILLIAM H. POATES          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE -- NEXT          Norma sits across from the desk of WILLIAM POATES (45), the          principal of the school.                         POATES          The uhhh... the board came to a          vote last week, so it's official.          They've officially cancelled the          faculty tuition discount.                         NORMA          So what does that mean for me?          P OATE S          You're going to have to start          paying full tuition for your son.                         NORMA          Starting when?                         POATES          Next semester.          Norma notices a SMALL DROP of BLOOD forming in his right          nostril.                         NORMA          Okay.                         POATES          I'm real sorry about this, Norma.                                                                                                              11.                         NORMA          Yeah, me too. I've got three weeks          to figure out how to tell my son we          can't afford to send him to          Collegiate any more.          The drop of blood has begun to flow down onto his upper lip.                         POATES          Like I said, I'm real sorry.                         NORMA          Yeah... your nose is bleeding.          Poates reaches for his HANDKERCHIEF and puts it to his face,          wiping off the blood. The MORNING BELL rings.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- HALLWAY -- MOMENTS LATER          Norma walks hurriedly down the empty hallway. Her limp has          gotten worse as the morning grind has now begun.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- SCIENCE LAB -- MOMENTS LATER          Norma comes into her CLASSROOM... a SCIENCE LAB with SINKS          and BUNSEN BURNERS mounted in MARBLE TOP DESKS. Kids are          moving about... loud and rambunctious.                         NORMA          Okay... everyone quiet down! Take          your seats!          Norma moves toward a stack of METAL TRAYS on her desk. Inside          of each tray is a BALL OF BLACK MUSH.                         NORMA (CONT-D)          Today is the day many of you have          been eagerly awaiting. You get to          dissect owl pellets.          A MALE STUDENT ( 13) pumps his fist...                         MALE STUDENT #1          Yes!          Norma sets an OWL PELLET down in front of a FEMALE STUDENT          ( 12). She looks at the owl pellet in disgust.                         FEMALE STUDENT #1          This is so gross.          Norma sets a tray down in front of Charles.                                                                                                              12.                         CHARLES          Why do they call it an owl pellet?          A MALE STUDENT ( 12) next to him takes his tray from Norma.                         MALE STUDENT #2          Because they shit out of their          mouths.                         NORMA          Hey... watch the language. You say          another cuss word I've gotta send          you to detention, okay?                         MALE STUDENT #2          Sorry, Mrs. Lewis.                         FEMALE STUDENT #1          Is it true?                         NORMA          Is what true?                         FEMALE STUDENT #1          That owls poo out of their mouths.                         NORMA          Yes... this is true.          The classroom gasps in disgust... others laugh.                         NORMA (CONT-D)          Grey forest owls feed upon field          mice, squirrels and small birds.          The owl will then regurgitate the          bones and waste matter in a ball of          black mucous. Inside this mucous          you will likely find the entire          skeleton of its prey.          Norma goes to the front of the room and lowers a SCREEN.                         NORMA (CONT-D)          I'm going to show you a film about          the digestive process of the owl,          and how the owl pellet is formed.          The classroom whispers with excitement.          EXT. NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER -- ENTRANCE GATE -- MORNING          Arthur pulls through the ENTRANCE GATE at the NASA LANGLEY          RESEARCH CENTER. He retrieves his BADGE from the dashboard          and shows it to the guard.                                                                                                              13.          EXT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- MAIN STREET -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur's car drives down MAIN STREET on the campus of the          research center. The buildings are predominately drab,          functional, one story brick structures.. surrounded by          various GLOBE STRUCTURES and PIPE NETWORKS on manicured green          lawns.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- CORRIDOR -- MOMENTS LATER          The CAMERA tracks with Arthur as he moves through the crowded          corridor of one of the research buildings. He says hello to          various colleagues along the way.          All of the men at the facility are dressed the same... with          white shirts and TIES and POCKET PROTECTOR BADGES. The place          resembles an all-male community college for young scientists.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- MEDIA ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur eases his way into the small, crowded AUDITORIUM that          serves as a MEDIA ROOM. A PRESS CONFERENCE is underway.          NORM CAHILL ( 40s), the VIKING PROJECT COORDINATOR, is           standing at the podium. Next to him is an OVERHEAD PROJECTOR          with maps and various schematics projected from it onto a          LARGE SCREEN.                         REPORTER #1          It's been five months since the          Viking lander touched down on the          surface of Mars. We've seen dozens          of photographs of the rock covered          surface... what can you now tell us          about the tests you've been          conducting? Is there any sign of          life on the red planet?          Arthur takes a seat in the back of the auditorium.                         CAHILL          Well... there are three separate          tests that we've been conducting...          Pyrolytic Release, Labeled Release          and Gas Exchange. The first two          tests, based on soil samples about          22 centimeters deep, came back          negative... and the third is...          still pending.          Cahill smiles. Laughter erupts from various parts of the          auditorium.                                                                                                              14.                         REPORTER #1          Can you elaborate on test number          three?          Cahill places a transparent MAP of the mars surface on the          overhead projector and begins to draw on it with a WAX          PENCIL.                         CAHILL          The gas exchange experiment          measures the production or uptake          of C02, nitrogen, methane,          hydrogen, and oxygen during the          incubation of the martian soil          sample.                         REPORTER #2          Are you showing us all of the          photos? Are there little green men          up there?          Laughter from the press.                         CAHILL          Well... there is a possibility that          the planet abounds with chemical          compounds produced by living          systems. Their chemical nature,          distribution and structural          uniqueness could be used to argue          the presence of microscopic living          organisms on Mars.          As Cahill moves on to the next question... Arthur taps the          reporter on the shoulder.                         ARTHUR          It all comes down to water.          Arthur points to an OVERHEAD SATELLITE PHOTO of Utopia          Planitia, a raised level of martian terrain in the vicinity          of the site where VIKING II landed.          There are dry river-bed formations in the soil.                         ARTHUR (CONT-D)          If we find water beneath the          surface... and the topographic maps          of Utopia Planitia indicate that          there were once rivers on the          surface of the planet, it's          possible that we'll eventually find          evidence of life.                                                                                                              15.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- SCIENCE LAB -- MOMENTS LATER          The OWL PELLET FILM is underway. Norma sits in the back of          the class next to the projector. She crosses her legs...          reaching for her foot... massaging it gently. She cringes...          clearly in intense pain.          Charles looks back at her... noticing this. They make eye          contact... and Charles turns back to the screen.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- CAHILL'S OFFICE -- MORNING          Arthur now sits across from Cahill in his office. Behind him          is a window that overlooks a huge laboratory.                         CAHILL          I'm sorry Arthur, but they've          denied your application to be          admitted into the astronaut          program.          Arthur looks crushed.                         ARTHUR          I see.                         (BEAT)          Can I ask why?                         CAHILL          I'm sorry, son... but they don't          tell us why.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- LATER ON          The CAMERA tracks through a LARGE LABORATORY in the heart of          one of the main buildings on the Langley campus.          Work tables assembled with LABORATORY EQUIPMENT and MACHINERY          extend out into infinity as DOZENS OF YOUNG MEN, all dressed          in similar white shirts with NASA ID BADGES move throughout,          engaged in various tasks.          Arthur is standing at a LABORATORY TABLE with a WHITE MASK          on. He is wearing a LAB COAT and GLASSES.          He pours PINK LIQUID onto the surface of a METAL PAN...          filling it to the edges.          A colleague named WENDELL JAMES ( 29) walks over to see what          he is doing.                                                                                                              16.                         ARTHUR          Are they really with-holding some          of the Mars photos?                         WENDELL          I don't know, man. Jesus... what's          that smell?                         ARTHUR          It's a salinic compound.                         WENDELL          What are you making?                         ARTHUR          Christmas present for Norma.          Arthur retrieves a WHITE CERAMIC MOLD. The mold has an          extrusion that is shaped like a WOMAN'S FOOT... only the end          of the foot is round and missing its toes, save for the PINKY          TOE.                         WENDELL          A new prosthesis for her foot?                         ARTHUR          Yep.          Arthur carefully impresses the MOLD of his wife's foot into          the pink goop... sealing the mold at the edges into the tray.                         WENDELL          What did you change up this time?                         ARTHUR          The compound they're developing for          the pilot chairs on the space          shuttle.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- SCIENCE LAB -- NEXT          INSERT: The BONES of a FIELD MOUSE have been re-assembled in          rough form within the tray... as the OWL PELLET has been          ripped apart.          The tray belongs to Charles, and he has grown tired of          dissecting the owl pellet.          He looks up to the head of the class and sees that Norma is          sitting up on her desk... filing her nails... waiting out the          last remaining minutes of the period.                         CHARLES          Mrs. Lewis?                                                                                                              17.          She raises her head.                         NORMA          Hmmm?                         CHARLES          What happened to your foot?          She just stares at him.                         NORMA          What happened... to my foot?                         CHARLES          Yeah.                         (BEAT)          My friend... she saw you take your          shoe off. She said... that there's          something wrong with it.          The whole class goes silent. Norma begins to blush. She looks          down at her right foot, hidden inside of a CLOSED-TOE SHOE.                         NORMA          Well... it's a long story.          She looks at her watch.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          We've got five minutes until second          period.          She looks back at her class and sees that their curiosity has          been piqued. She has no choice now but to tell them.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          Alright... I'll tell you what          happened to my foot.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- NEXT          Arthur sits at the table with Wendell... waiting for the MOLD          to dry. Arthur is dealing a deck of cards as they begin a          game of GIN RUMMY.                         ARTHUR          When she was seventeen... still          living in Texas, her brother          dropped a barbell on her foot...          broke three of her toes.                                                                                                              18.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- SCIENCE LAB -- NEXT          The CAMERA pans across the faces of STUDENTS as they listen          to her tell the story.                         NORMA          And so I go to see the doctor. He          goes to take an X-ray of my foot to          see if the bones are broken.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- NEXT          Arthur discards... then retrieves a replacement card from the          stack.                         ARTHUR          So this dumb-ass Richmond doctor          takes the x-ray... then he goes to          check on another patient down the          hall.          Arthur discards a king.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          This dumb--ass... he left the x-ray          machine on.                         WENDELL          Jesus. That's not good.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- SCIENCE LAB -- NEXT          Norma raises up her right shoe to show the class.                         NORMA          They found out that the tissue in          four of my toes had been completely                         I          destroyed by the radiation.          Norma swivels around on the desk and places her right foot          against her left inner thigh.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          So they have to amputate four of my          toes. And then they had to take a          bunch of skin from my inner thigh          to cover the front of my foot. This          is back in 1963... so they didn't          have the skin graft techniques they          do now.                                                                                                              19.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- NEXT          Arthur stands up and takes his RIGHT FOOT... pulls it up and          touches it to his LEFT INNER THIGH.                         ARTHUR          She had to sit there in a hospital          bed in the same position for six          months, waiting for it to heal.          Wendell stares at the mold on the laboratory table.                         WENDELL          Jesus. I hope she sued this idiot.                         ARTHUR          Oh yeah. Her family sued. They won.                         WENDELL          What was the settlement?                         ARTHUR          Forty thousand dollars.          Arthur pulls the ceramic mold out of the pink goop... and we          see the IMPRESSION of her disfigured foot inside the new          PROSTHESIS.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- SCIENCE LAB -- NEXT          Norma turns around and uncrosses her legs. They now dangle          over the edge of the lab desk.                         NORMA          You guys want to see it? Now that          the secret is out... I don't want          you spreading rumors about my          mangled foot.          The class responds enthusiastically.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          Come on... gather round... take a          look at the freak show.          As the kids gather around... Norma removes her right shoe and          reveals her disfigured foot... missing every toe but her          pinky. A rounded piece of SCAR TISSUE covers the rest of it.                                                                                                              20.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- NEXT          Arthur takes the trimmed PROSTHESIS and wraps it in tissue          paper, then places it in a CARDBOARD BOX with a red bow on          it.                         ARTHUR          If this sucker works... she can,          start jogging again.          INT. COLLEGIATE SCHOOL -- HALLWAY -- MIDDAY          Dana walks up to Walter as he stands in front of his locker.                         DANA          I'm sorry I said that her foot          looked gross.                         WALTER          It doesn't look gross... it looks          cool. And if you can't tell the          difference between gross and          cool... then I feel sorry for you,          Dana.          Walter walks off... leaving her alone.          EXT. LEWIS HOUSE -- AFTERNOON          Norma emerges from her car carrying GROCERY BAGS in both          arms. Walter comes out of the garage with his bike.                         NORMA          Hey honey.                         WALTER          Why do I need a baby-sitter?                         NORMA          Because you're nine years old.          You're not a geezer yet.                         WALTER          It's 1976, mom. Times are changing.          Nine years old isn't what it used          to be. I think I'm ready to get a          moped.                         NORMA          We're not buying you a moped,          Walter. Stick with the bike... and          be home before dark.                                                                                                              21.                         WALTER          Fine.          Walter rides off down the street.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FOYER -- NEXT          Norma comes into the foyer, groceries in hand. The PHONE is          ringing.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma comes into the kitchen, sets the groceries down on the          kitchen table. She grabs the phone off the wall and puts it          to her ear.                         NORMA          Hello?          There is silence on the other end of the line.                         NORMA (CONT-D)          Hello?          A MOMENT OF SILENCE... then the caller disconnects.          Norma hangs up the phone and starts unloading the groceries.          The box sits on the table... but she takes no notice of it.          EXT. GYMNASIUM -- EARLY EVENING          Arthur emerges from a NASA CAMPUS GYMNASIUM into the twilight          with Wendell. Both are covered in sweat, dressed in gym          clothes. Arthur is carrying his BASKETBALL and a gym bag.                         WENDELL          How's the commute back to Richmond?                         ARTHUR          Not too bad. Maybe an hour and          twenty minutes.                         WENDELL          Tell Norma I said hello.          Wendell watches him walk across the lawn to the parking          lot... approaching his car. He lights a cigarette and takes a          drag... then looks at his watch.          INSERT: His watch shows that it is 4:58 PM.                                                                                                              22.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FAMILY ROOM -- NEXT          Norma sits on the couch... smoking a CIGARETTE. On the          TELEVISION... the LOCAL NEWS is playing.          The DOORBELL rings.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FOYER -- NEXT          Norma opens the front door.          A man named ARLINGTON STEWARD (40) is standing there, his          body is turned in profile. He is wearing a crisp wool suit          and a BLACK HAT, with a BRIEFCASE in his right hand.                         ARLINGTON          Mrs. Lewis?                         NORMA          Yeah.                         ARLINGTON          My name is Arlington Steward.          Her eyes light up, as she remembers the name and the box.          Arlington then rotates his body... revealing the RIGHT SIDE          of his face. Norma's eyes widen in horror at what she sees.          Nearly all of the right side of his face from his cheekbone          to his lower jaw has been burned away. His rear MOLARS and          GUMS are exposed beneath the absence of tissue that is          supposed to conceal them.          Norma immediately feels a strange connection... a deep          sympathy for him and the pain he must have endured.                         ARLINGTON (CONT-D)          I assume you received the box that          I left on your doorstep.          His speech has a slight impediment from the burn that extends          to the right side of his mouth.                         NORMA          Oh, yes. Yes we did.                         ARLINGTON          And you retrieved the button unit          inside of the box.          Norma smiles. He smiles back at her.                                                                                                              23.                         NORMA          The button unit. That's what you          call it?                         ARLINGTON          Indeed. May I come in?                         NORMA          Sure.          Norma turns and leads him back into the kitchen. She          retrieves the button unit from the table.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          So what it this thing? I assume          you're trying to sell me something?                         ARLINGTON          Well... in a way, yes. I do have an          offer to make.                         NORMA          Yeah? What are you selling?                         ARLINGTON          A financial opportunity.          Arlington gestures toward the table with his briefcase.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          May I?          She nods. He places the briefcase down on the table.          He takes the button unit from her and sets it down on the          kitchen table. They both sit down.          He then withdraws a SMALL YELLOW ENVELOPE from his suit          jacket pocket.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          inside of this envelope is a key.          Arlington opens the envelope and withdraws a small METAL KEY.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          This is the key that opens the          glass dome of the button unit.          Arlington then inserts the key into a small HORIZONTAL SLOT          at the top edge. He turns the key, and the LID that houses          the GLASS DOME pops lose.          The METAL BUTTON is now exposed.                                                                                                              24.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          If you push the button, one of two          things will happen.                         (BEAT)          First, someone... somewhere in the          world... who you do not know...          will die.          Norma just stares at him.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Then, you will receive a payment of          two-hundred thousand dollars... tax          free.          Arlington opens the briefcase. Inside are neatly stacked rows          of ONE-HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          The money will be delivered to you          in cash.          Norma covers her mouth... shocked at the sight of so much          money.                         NORMA          Are you for real?          Arlington smiles back at her.                         ARLINGTON          Mrs. Lewis, I can assure you that          the offer is real.                         NORMA          Who do you work for?                         ARLINGTON          The guarantee of payment has          several restrictions. One... I am          not permitted to disclose any          information about to the identity          of my employers.                         (BEAT)          Two... if you discuss the details          of this financial opportunity with          anyone other than your husband, the          offer is null and void, and you          will not receive the money in          return for having pushed the          button.                         (BEAT)          Three... you have twenty four          hours.          Arlington glances at his watch.                                                                                                              25.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          You have until five o'clock          tomorrow evening to make your          decision whether or not to push the          button. At that time, I will return          to retrieve the button unit from          you. It will be re-programmed and          the offer will be made to someone          else.          Arlington places the key back into the envelope, seals it          with crisp precision, and hands it over to her.          He then closes the briefcase and stands up to leave.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Until then... a good day to you,          Mrs. Lewis.          He nods his head and turns toward the foyer.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FOYER -- NEXT          She follows him toward the front door.                         NORMA          Wait a minute... you're just going          to leave me with this thing.                         (BAFFLED)          Is this some kind of joke? Who are          you?          He opens the front door and turns back to her with a friendly          smile.                         ARLINGTON          My name is Arlington Steward, and I          can assure you that this is no          joke. The offer is real, but I am          not at liberty to disclose any more          information than I already have.          He withdraws a BUSINESS CARD and hands it to her.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Good day.          He heads down the walk toward his car.          She looks down at the card and sees that his name is printed          in an embossed BLACK FONT:                         ARLINGTON STEWARD                                                                                                              26.          She turns the card over and sees what looks like a PHONE          NUMBER printed on the back:                         8 0 4 7 9 4 1 7 7 9          She stands there in the doorway and watches him step into the          automobile, start the engine and drive off.          EXT. CARYTOWN SHOPPING CENTER -- AFTERNOON          Walter is sitting on a bench in front of a line of shops in          CARYTOWN. Dana approaches him.          He turns to face her.                         WALTER          What do you want?                         DANA          I'm sorry. I just wanted to tell          you... that I think your mom is          beautiful.          Walter just stares at her in silence... wanting to forgive          her.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma walks back into the kitchen, holding the key envelope          in one hand and the business card in the other.          She stares at them both, then down at the box. She then          retrieves the key from the envelope and inserts it into the          slot, opening the glass dome.          She stares at the button for a long moment... then closes the          dome. She closes her eyes... trying to make sense of what has          just transpired.          INT. BURNS HOUSE -- NEXT          The CAMERA zooms out from a RINGING PHONE that sits on a          KITCHEN COUNTER in a large suburban house. SUSAN BURNS (50s)          goes to answer the phone.                         SUSAN          Hello?                         NORMA (PHONE)          Hey mom.                         SUSAN          Hey honey. What's up?                                                                                                              27.                         NORMA (PHONE)          Nothing... I just...           The CAMERA continues to zoom out, revealing her husband, JIM          BURNS (50s) laid out in a recliner, watching television.                         SUSAN          Is something wrong?          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma stares at the business card.                         NORMA          No... something just happened          and...                         SUSAN (PHONE)          What?                         NORMA          Nothing. I don't want to talk about          it right now.          INT. BURNS HOUSE -- FAMILY ROOM -- NEXT          Susan carries the phone into the family room                         SUSAN          Alright.          (covering the phone)          Jim... you gotta get ready.                         JIM          Alright.          He sits up and moves toward the stairs.                         SUSAN          Wait until you see the spread          tonight.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma twirls the phone cord around her finger.                         NORMA          Hmmm. I think they're spending more          on their wedding than we did on our          house.                         SUSAN (PHONE)          Is your foot acting up again?                                                                                                              28.          Norma leans against the wall... lifting her right foot off          the floor to ease the pain.                         NORMA          A little, yeah. That damn bone. The          skin from my leg, it's not as tough          as it should be.                         SUSAN (PHONE)          You know he's gonna be there          tonight.                         NORMA          Who?                         SUSAN          Dr. Stupid.          Norma takes this in... remembering...                         NORMA          Well... it's been what... thirteen          years? Bound to run into each other          at some point, right?          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- MASTER BATHROOM -- LATER ON          Norma is now wearing only her BRA AND PANTIES, her hair and          make-up flawless. She finishes putting on a pair of DIAMOND          EARRINGS.          As she steps into an elegant COCKTAIL DRESS... we see the          deep square shaped SCARS on the inside of her LEFT THIGH.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- MASTER BEDROOM -- NEXT          Norma comes into the bedroom... and ARTHUR is there...          putting on his CUFF LINKS. He is dressed in a TUXEDO.          His jacket is laid out on the bed, and next to it is his          CHRISTMAS PRESENT. Norma sees it.                         NORMA          What's this?                         ARTHUR          A little gift from Dr. Rex Morgan.          She opens the present and retrieves the PROSTHESIS.                         NORMA          Oh my god!                                                                                                              29.          Norma removes an old, store-bought INSOLE from her right shoe          and inserts the new one.                         ARTHUR          It's a material they developed for          the new shuttle chairs. It'll          absorb the pressure of your foot          and re-distribute it across the          entire surface area.          She then slides her disfigured foot into the shoe... and          begins to walk around the room.                         NORMA          Oh my God, Rex... how'd you do it?                         ARTHUR          I just figured out a way to make it          better.          She crosses the room and gives him a hug and a kiss.                         NORMA          I don't know what I'd do without          you.                         ARTHUR          Merry Christmas, June.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FAMILY ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER          Norma and Arthur come into the family room, wearing their          winter coats. Walter is sitting across the coffee table with          Dana. They are playing CARDS.          The box is sitting between them.                         WALTER          Did Mr. Steward show up?          Norma sees the box sitting there and immediately grabs it off          the table.                         ARTHUR          Yeah... what's it all about. Did he          show up?                         NORMA          Yeah... I'll tell you about it in          the car. We're running late.          Norma leans down and kisses Walter on the cheek.                                                                                                              30.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          We'll be home late... your bedtime          is ten.          Dana watches them go... her eyes transfixed on the box in          Norma's hands.          EXT. RIVER ROAD -- NIGHT          The CAMERA tracks with Arthur's car as it drives south on          CARY STREET... approaching an intersection.          INT. ARTHUR'S CAR -- NEXT          Norma has the box sitting in her lap while Arthur drives.                         NORMA          And before I could ask him anything          else... he got in his car... and he          pulled off.                         ARTHUR          Did you get the license plate?                         NORMA          No.                         ARTHUR          Your dad is cop, Norma. Always get          the license plate number.                         NORMA          I was little overwhelmed, Arthur.                         ARTHUR          Somewhere in the world... someone          you do not know will die.                         NORMA          Those were his exact words.                         ARTHUR          Did he say how they would die?                         NORMA          No.                         ARTHUR          And he showed you the cash.                         NORMA          Yeah. He said it was two-hundred          thousand. It looked real to me.                                                                                                              31.                         ARTHUR          What did he look like?                         NORMA          You don't want to know. I think          he's a burn victim. Poor thing...          half of his face is gone.                         ARTHUR          Really?                         NORMA          I think maybe he's a life insurance          salesman. Maybe that's what it is.          It's some kind of survey. We push          the button and he offers us a          discount on a two-hundred thousand          dollar life insurance policy.          Joke's on us.          EXT. COUNTRY CLUB OF VIRGINIA -- NIGHT          The CAMERA descends upon the COUNTRY CLUB OF VIRGINIA. It is          a MASSIVE COLONIAL MANSION that sits upon a huge hill that is          littered with CHRISTMAS LUMINARIES that glow in the night.          EXT. C.C.V. -- PARKING LOT -- NIGHT          We approach Arthur's car as they pull into a PARKING SPACE in          front of the main entrance.          INT. ARTHUR'S CAR -- NEXT          Arthur grabs the box from off her lap.                         ARTHUR          Did you bring the key with you?          She hands it to him.          He takes the key and inserts it... opening the glass dome.          He then takes his INDEX FINGER and places it on the button.                         NORMA          What the hell are you doing?!                         ARTHUR                         (PLAYFUL)          I was gonna push the button.                         NORMA          No!                                                                                                              32.          Norma reaches over and snaps the dome closed.                         ARTHUR          You think it's for real.          She takes the box back from him.                         NORMA          I don't know. He was... he seemed          very sure of himself. If it's some          kind of survey... then... he's a          really good salesman because I          believe him. I believe that he          might give us that money.                         ARTHUR          Do then you think he's a maniac and          he might go kill someone?                         NORMA          I don't know.          Arthur takes the box back from her. He shakes it... then          flips it over. He sees that there is a SINGLE SCREW on the          bottom corner that holds it together.                         ARTHUR          Open the glove compartment. There's          a philips head screwdriver in          there.          She opens the GLOVE COMPARTMENT and retrieves a PHILLIPS HEAD          SCREWDRIVER for him.                         NORMA          What are you doing?          Arthur is now unscrewing the bottom of the box.                         ARTHUR          I'm gonna see what's inside of it.          He removes the screw... and sees that the wooden base rotates          on a ROD MOUNT on the opposite corner.          INSIDE... it is completely empty.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          Nothing... no transmitter... no          radio. If we pushed the button          right now... he'd have no way of          knowing.          She takes the box from him and closes the dome.                                                                                                              33.          EXT. C.C.V. -- PARI:ING LOT -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur pops open the trunk and Norma places the box inside.          He shuts the trunk and they begin to walk toward the entrance          to the COUNTRY CLUB. Arthur then holds out his hand to his          wife.                         ARTHUR          Let me hold the key.                         NORMA          Why do you get to hold it?                         ARTHUR          Because you'll lose it Norma. You          can't hold your liquor.                         NORMA          Neither can you.                         ARTHUR          What if someone takes your purse? I          have pockets. Let me hold it.                         NORMA          Fine.          Norma goes through her purse and hands the small envelope to          him. They move toward the entrance to the country club.          INT. C.C.V. -- GRAND BALLROOM -- MOMENTS LATER          The CAMERA follows Norma and Arthur into the GRAND BALLROOM          of the country club. There are several hundred people          there... all dressed in black tie. A MASSIVE CHRISTMAS TREE          sits in the center of the room, surrounded by tables.          A PIANO PLAYER plays CHRISTMAS CAROLS up on the stage.                         NORMA          Jesus. All this for a rehearsal          dinner... Deborah is so lucky.          Remember our rehearsal dinner?                         ARTHUR          Yeah. Keg party in our back yard.           Susan and Jim are standing with ARTHUR LEWIS, SR (50s) and          BEV LEWIS ( 50s). Arthur and Norma go over to greet them.           The CAMERA drifts over to a PLACARD that reads:           DEBORAH ANNE BURNS - EDWARD REED POWELL                                                                                                              34.          REHEARSAL DINNER RECEPTION          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FAMILY ROOM -- NEXT          Dana enters the family room and hands a package to Walter.                         DANA          Merry Christmas...          Walter takes the package and begins to remove the wrapping          paper.          Inside is a COMIC BOOK. He pulls it out of the wrapping...          and on the cover is an illustration of a DARK FIGURE walking          upon a RED DESERT SURFACE.          The title is: THE MAN FROM MARS          Walter looks at the cover in awe.                         WALTER          Thanks Dana. My dad is gonna love          this.          INT. C.C.V. -- GRAND BALLROOM -- LATER ON          Norma and Arthur are now seated around a table with both sets          of parents. Bev is running her hand through Arthur's long          hair.                         BEV          When are you gonna cut this hair?                         ARTHUR          Never.                         BEV                         (TO NORMA)          Are you still cutting his hair?                         NORMA          Uh-huh.          ARTHUR SR.          Are you Leonard or Skynard?                         BEV          Well honey... they're never gonna          let you into outer space with these          sideburns.                         SUSAN          They're all wearing them that way          now, Bev.                                                                                                              35.          NATHAN BURNS ( 26), Norma's wheelchair-bound younger brother,          comes rolling up.                         NATHAN          Outer space? Is someone planning on          departing the surface of the earth?                         ARTHUR          Nathan!          Arthur stands up and gives him a hug.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          It's been years. How have you been?                         NATHAN          I've been better... I mean, I used          to have legs...          The table goes silent... Susan looks as though she might          start to cry.                         NATHAN (CONT'D)          Sorry... morbid humor. What's this          talk about outer space?                         NORMA          Arthur has been working at Nasa.                         JIM          He helped design the camera that          photographed the Mars surface.          Arthur puts his hands on the back of Nathan's wheelchair.                         ARTHUR          Nathan and I are gonna go grab a          drink...          He begins to wheel Nathan toward the bar.                         NORMA          Arthur made me a new prosthesis for          my foot. Some space age formula...          it's incredible.                         JIM          Can he make Nathan a pair of          prosthetic legs?          INT. C.C.V. -- GRAND BALLROOM -- BAR -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur now sits with Nathan over by the bar.                                                                                                              36.                         NATHAN          Can you believe it? I survive          eighteen months crawlling through          the Vietnam jungle and not one          bullet so much as grazes my body.                         (BEAT)          And I come home, take a few tabs of          LSD at a Grateful Dead show and          wrap my car around a tree.          Arthur doesn't know how to respond.                         NATHAN (CONT'D)          Pretty damn sad... losing the legs          that way, but I always thought it          was Karmic retribution for what I          did to Norma.                         ARTHUR          What'd you ever do to Norma?                         NATHAN          I dropped that barbell on her foot          when we were kids. That's why she          went to get that x-ray. If it          wasn't for me... she'd still have          all her toes.                         ARTHUR          You can't think of it that way.                         NATHAN          Why not? It's the truth.                         ARTHUR          You didn't leave the x-ray machine          on, Dr. Stupid did.                         NATHAN          Yeah, but my mistake sent her to          Dr. Stupid... so that makes me          culpable in the eyes of Buddha.                         ARTHUR          You're no more culpable than the          company that manufactured the          barbell. Stop punishing yourself.          Nathan smiles in appreciation and takes a long swig of Jack          Daniels.                         NATHAN          You know he's here.                         ARTHUR          Who?                                                                                                              37.                         NATHAN          Dr. Stupid.          Nathan nods his head across the room... where DR. EARL STUPE          ( 50s) is seated at a table with his wife.                          NATHAN (CONT'D)          Dr. Earl Stupe. He's still got a          practice over on the west end.          Arthur looks over at him... for a moment they make brief eye          contact... and Stupe quickly looks away.          INT. C.C.V. -- GRAND BALLROOM -- NEXT          Susan is now staring at Dr. Stupe. They are joined by DEBORAH          BURNS (24), Norma's younger sister and bride-to-be.                         SUSAN          I wonder if he even recognizes us.                         JIM          I'm sure he does.                         DEBORAH          I can't believe they still let him          practice medicine.                         NORMA          You gotta let it go. You gotta          learn to forgive and forget.                         SUSAN          I'd be willing to forgive him if he          would've just admitted his          negligence under oath. The bastard          lied... said it was the x-ray          machine that malfunctioned.          SENATOR GRIFFITH POWELL (50s) and his son EDWARD POWELL          ( 20s), approach. Edward is the husband-to-be.                          SUSAN (CONT'D)          Well Senator! You look very spiffy          tonight!                         POWELL          Now that the mid-term elections are          over... the smile lines are          starting to fade.          Powell puts on a fake smile, grabs Jim's hand and they both          wave... poking fun at politician behavior.                                                                                                              38.                         SUSAN          Well... we all voted!          Powell looks over at Norma.                         POWELL          Norma... right?                         NORMA          That's right.          He shakes her hand... fascinated by her.                         POWELL          And you're married to the aspiring          astronaut.                         NORMA          That's right. There he is right          over there.          She points over to Arthur the bar. Powell looks over at          him... and they briefly make eye contact.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FAMILY ROOM -- NEXT          Dana and Walter are sitting on the floor, playing MONOPOLY.                         DANA          Walter?                         WALTER          Yeah?                         DANA          Will you take me down to the          basement? I want to see your dad's          darkroom.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- BASEMENT -- MOMENTS LATER          Dana and Walter come down the stairs into the BASEMENT of the          house. RED LIGHT envelops the room. There are two long wooden          WORK BENCHES running down the middle.          There are a series of BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS hanging          from a wire. Each one shows a different view of the surface          of MARS.                         DANA          Is that Mars?                         WALTER          Yep.                                                                                                              39.                         DANA          What did your dad have to do with          the Viking?                         WALTER          He helped design the camera.          Walter points to a PLASTIC PROTOTYPE MODEL of the VIKING          LANDER mounted on a third WORK BENCH at the end of the room.          A model of the MARS SURFACE has been re-created and painted          with exacting detail.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          He's making the model for the          science museum.          Walter points to one of TWO CAMERAS mounted on the front of          the SPIDER-SHAPED LANDING MODULE. The camera is cylindrical          and features a VERTICAL SLOT on the front.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          They designed the camera to          photograph in 360 degrees. It scans          in the image one line at a time...          and takes about five minutes to          complete one revolution.                         DANA          How do they get the images back to          earth?                         WALTER          Radio transmission. They figured          out a way to interpret the scan          lines and then print them onto          film.                         DANA          How long does it take to transmit          back to earth?                         WALTER          About ten hours.          Dana looks over at the wall and sees a NEW YORK TIMES FRONT          PAGE from September with a large image of MARS on it.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          They tested the camera in the          parking lot at Langley last year.          Walter points to another FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH on the wall. In          the black & white photograph, we see a group of FIFTY NASA          EMPLOYEES assembled in a long line in a PARKING LOT.          Walter points to his father standing in the group.                                                                                                              40.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          There's my dad.          He moves his finger across the line of smiling faces...          ARTHUR appears for a SECOND TIME in the row.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          And there he is again.          Walter then moves his finger down toward the right side of          the photo... ARTHUR LEWIS appears for a third time.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          And there he is again.          Dana looks close at the photo.                         DANA          How'd he do that?                         WALTER          Because the camera takes five          minutes to scan in 360 degrees, he          waited until the camera passed over          him then jumped ahead in the          circle.          The CAMERA moves in closer to the photograph... to the THIRD          VERSION of ARTHUR LEWIS.                         DANA          Your dad sounds pretty clever.                         WALTER          My dad is more than just clever,          Dana. My dad is the coolest man who          ever walked the face of the earth.          The CAMERA ZOOMS in close to Arthur's face... then tips down          to another MAN kneeling on the pavement directly below him.          It is ARLINGTON STEWARD... smiling at the camera. His face is          normal... no evidence of any burn visible...          INT. C.C.V. -- GRAND BALLROOM -- NIGHT          Norma and Arthur are now DANCING among a group of people in          front of the stage the stage, where a WOMAN SINGER is          performing WHITE CHRISTMAS.                         NORMA          Two-hundred thousand dollars is a          lot of money, Arthur.                                                                                                              41.                         ARTHUR          What would we do with that kind of          money?                         NORMA          We could get out of Richmond...          move to California.                         ARTHUR          Then we could cross the border into          Mexico if they ever came after us.                         NORMA          You can't arrest someone for          pushing a button, Arthur. It's not          a weapon. It's not a gun. We          wouldn't be culpable... not in a          court of law.                         ARTHUR          What if it's someone's baby?                         NORMA          What if it's some murderer on death          row in China?                         ARTHUR          What if it's our neighbor across          the street. Do you know our          neighbors across the street? Have          you ever met them?                         NORMA          Yeah. Doug and Donna.                         ARTHUR          Hmmm. I haven't met Doug or Donna.                         (BEAT)          What does it mean to officially          know someone, anyway? Do you know          me, Norma?                         NORMA          I know you better than you know          yourself.                         ARTHUR          Do you know Walter?                         NORMA          Even better than I know you.          They spin around on the dance floor.                         ARTHUR          It's just a stupid prank, Norma.                                                                                                              42.                         NORMA          Life insurance.          Arthur gazes across the ballroom toward the bar. Nathan sits          there alone... finishing his drink.          EXT. C.C.V. -- PARKING LOT --LATER THAT NIGHT          Arthur and Norma watch as Jim hoists Nathan up into their VAN          with a HYDRAULIC LIFT. He is passed out drunk.          Behind him... Dr. Stupe is waiting in line at the valet for          his car. He and Norma make eye contact. His eyes dart down to          the pavement as he steps into his car.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FAMILY ROOM -- LATER ON          Norma and Arthur come into the family room. Dana is asleep on          the couch. Norma sets the box down on the coffee table and          goes to wake Dana.                         NORMA          Dana...          Dana's eyes slowly open.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          Arthur will drive you home, okay?                         DANA          I have my bike... and my house          isn't far from here.                         NORMA          Where's Walter?                         DANA          He's asleep upstairs.          Arthur hands Dana a ten dollar bill.                         ARTHUR          Are you sure you don't need a ride?                         DANA          I'm sure.                         ARTHUR          Good night, Dana.          Dana exits through the front door. Norma stands up and moves          toward the foyer.                                                                                                              43.                         NORMA          Can you turn off the Christmas tree          lights?                         ARTHUR          I like leaving them on.                         NORMA          It's a fire hazard.                         ARTHUR          It keeps the Christmas spirit alive          while we sleep.                         NORMA          We could die.                         ARTHUR          Everyone dies eventually, Norma.          She stares at the tree.                         NORMA          Fine. Leave them on.          She goes upstairs... leaving him alone with the glowing tree.          Arthur looks down at the coffee table. The box sits there...          taunting him. He retrieves the KEY ENVELOPE from his pocket          and stares at it.          He then walks over to the wall and unplugs the Christmas tree          lights.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- MASTER BEDROOM -- LATER THAT NIGHT          Norma and Arthur lay in bed, facing in opposite directions.          Neither of them can sleep.          Arthur rolls over and wraps his arm around her.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- WALTER'S BEDROOM -- NEXT          The CAMERA approaches Walter's bed. He has made a TENT under          the covers. A light glows from inside.          UNDER THE COVERS... Walter has a flashlight and he is reading          the comic book.          INSERT: Various illustrations from the comic... a HUGE TEMPLE          with a massive flying beast flying above it. A METEOR          hurtling toward EARTH...                                                                                                              44.          ::WT. CARYTOWN E.kT-R S -LO1 -- EARLY MORNING          At the CARYTOWN HAIR SALON... the CAMERA zooms out from Norma          as she sits under a DOME, drying her hair. Next to her is her          sister Deborah and several other BRIDESMAIDS for the wedding.          The other women are gabbing... reading fashion magazines.          Norma seems lost in her own world.          EXT. CARYTOWN HAIR SALON -- LATER ON          Norma and Deborah emerge from the hair salon with the others          in tow. Lurking down at the end of the sidewalk is Bud Wall,          Walter's bus-driver.          The huge man watches them intensely.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma has Arlington's BUSINESS CARD out. She stares at the          number. Arthur comes in with the morning paper.          The box sits on the kitchen table. She retrieves the key and          inserts it into the slot... opening the glass dome. Arthur          comes into the kitchen.                         NORMA          We'll never see that much money.                         ARTHUR          Why do you say that?                         NORMA          Be realistic Arthur... you work for          the government.                         ARTHUR          Maybe not forever.                         NORMA          We'll never leave Richmond.                         ARTHUR          Do you want to move?                         NORMA          We have to put Walter in public          school.                         ARTHUR          Why?                                                                                                              45.                         NORMA          Collegiate withdrew the faculty          tuition discount.                         ARTHUR          No...                         NORMA          Yeah. They did.                         (BEAT)          Even if we sold my car and moved          into a smaller house, we couldn't          afford that school.                         ARTHUR          No...                         NORMA          We'd have to enroll him at          Hopewell. Unless...                         ARTHUR          Unless what, Norma?          She reaches out and holds her finger over the button...          thinking. She then picks up the business card with her other          hand, flips it over and stares at the number.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          Are you gonna call him?                         NORMA          Yeah.          Norma begins to dial the number on the card.          EXT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- NEXT          The CAMERA cranes down into the WILLOW LAWN MOTEL on the          north side of Richmond. The two-story building has a SWIMMING          POOL adjacent to south side.          INT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- ROOM 234 -- NEXT          The CAMERA zooms out from a RINGING TELEPHONE that sits on          the bedside table.          Arlington sits on the bed... staring silently at the wall. He          picks up the receiver and places it to his ear.                         ARLINGTON          Hello Mrs. Lewis.                                                                                                              46.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma pauses for a moment... wondering how he could have          known it was her.                         NORMA          Is this Mr. Steward?                         ARLINGTON (PHONE)          Of course it is.                         NORMA          How did you know it was me... are          you tracing this call?                         ARLINGTON (PHONE)          Time is running out... have you          made your decision?          Norma looks to Arthur... who paces around the kitchen.                         NORMA          If we push the button... are you          going to murder someone?          INT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- ROOM 234 -- NEXT          Arlington leans back on the motel room bed.                         ARLINGTON          When you push the button...          somewhere in this world... someone          you do not know... will die. I          never mentioned the word murder.                         NORMA (PHONE)          How will they die?                         ARLINGTON          I'm not at liberty to disclose that          information. Besides... it would          spoil the fun.                         NORMA (PHONE)          Are you selling life insurance?                         ARLINGTON          I am not at liberty to disclose any          information about my employers. I          can only remind you that the offer          is real...          (looking at his watch)          .and it expires in approximately          eight hours.                                                                                                              47.                         NORMA (PHONE)          Why do you do this? What do you get          out of this deal?                         ARLINGTON          Absolutely nothing. The reward is          for you.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma paces around with the phone.                         ARLINGTON (PHONE)          Is there anything else, Mrs. Lewis?          I have an appointment to make and I          don't want to be late.                         NORMA          Can we meet in person? I'd like to          see you... before we make our final          decision.                         ARLINGTON          Why... I'm looking at you right          now, Norma.                         NORMA          Excuse me?                         ARLINGTON          The grey spotted owl... in your          back yard.          Norma turns and looks out the large picture window in the          kitchen nook. Outside in the back yard, an OWL is perched on          a planter.          The large bird sits motionless... its large SAUCER EYES do          not blink.          Norma stares at it for a long moment... transfixed. Arthur          paces around the kitchen... facing in the other direction.          Outside... the owl flies away before Arthur notices it.                         NORMA          Hello?          There is no response.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          Mr. Steward? Are you still there?          Norma hangs up the phone. She stares at the box... then at          her husband, as he sits down across from her.                                                                                                              48.                         ARTHUR          What do you want to do Norma?                         NORMA          We're gonna have to pull Walter out          of that school.                         ARTHUR          Then push it.                         (TAUNTING)          Push the button, Norma... push the          button. I dare you. I double-dog          diddly dare you.                         NORMA          I'm scared to.                         ARTHUR          Well... if you don't push it...          then I will.                         (BEAT)          This is stupid.          Arthur reaches out to push the button... but she grabs his          wrist with her left hand, restraining him.                         NORMA          Ladies first.          She then reaches out and presses down on the button with her          index finger.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- 911 EMERGENCY -- NEXT          The CAMERA tracks along a series of CUBICLES at the POLICE          STATION in downtown Richmond. A FEMALE OPERATOR sits at each          cubicle...                         OPERATOR #1          911 emergency... how may I direct          your call?          The CAMERA moves in closer...                         OPERATOR #1 (CONT'D)          Excuse me? You need to slow down...          I can't understand what you're          saying.          She listens to the voice on the other end of the line.                         OPERATOR #1 (CONT'D)          So you heard loud screaming and          then a gun shot.                         (BEAT)                         (MORE)                                                                                                              49.                          OPERATOR #1 (CONT'D)           What is your address?                         (BEAT)          1500 Cary Street.          EXT. 1500 CARY STREET -- MOMENTS LATER          Two POLICE CARS pull up with their SIRENS blaring in front of          a TOWNHOUSE on Cary Street. TWO POLICE OFFICERS emerge from          each car and approach the front of the townhouse.          They begin to bang loudly on the door. A FEMALE NEIGHBOR          (20s) emerges from the townhouse next door.                         NEIGHBOR                         (DISTRAUGHT)          I heard a gunshot... then he ran          out the front door and got in his          car.          The POLICE OFFICER looks at his partner and then proceeds to          KICK DOWN the door.          INT. 1500 CARY STREET -- FOYER -- NEXT           The OFFICERS move through the townhouse with their GUNS           drawn. The SCREAMING of a YOUNG GIRL can be heard from          upstairs.          INT. 1500 CARY STREET -- KITCHEN -- NEXT           The OFFICERS enter the kitchen. A WOMAN (20s) named AMY           BEVILACQUA is slumped over on the kitchen floor in a pool of          blood.           The CAMERA moves in toward her face.          INT. 1500 CARY STREET -- UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NEXT           An OFFICER approaches the BATHROOM DOOR at the end of the          hall. The screaming girl from inside is bawling her eyes out.          The Officer sees a tiny HAND emerge from underneath the door.          She is reaching out for help. He goes to open the door, but          there is a LARGE DEAD BOLT LOCK mounted on the outside.                         OFFICER #1          Honey... I need you to back away          from the door... I'M GONNA HAVE TO          KICK IT DOWN?          The screaming begins to subside.                                                                                                              50.                         OFFICER #1 (CONT'D)          BACK AWAY FROM THE DOOR!                         FEMALE VOICE          okay...          The Officer then kicks the door down.          INT. 1500 CARY STREET -- UPSTAIRS BATHROOM -- NEXT           Inside the bathroom... a YOUNG GIRL (7) is cowering in the          bathtub... hyperventilating...          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma and Arthur are sitting across from one another in          silence. There is an empty BOTTLE OF WINE on the table.                         ARTHUR          There's no turning back now.          Seconds later... THE DOORBELL RINGS.          Both Norma and Arthur jump in their seats.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FOYER -- NEXT          Norma and Arthur move toward the front door. Norma puts her          eye to the PEEPHOLE. Arlington's disfigured face stares back          at her.          She opens the door. Arlington stands there smiling...          briefcase in hand.                         ARLINGTON          Hello, Mrs. Lewis.                         NORMA          Hi.                         ARLINGTON          Do you have the button unit?                         NORMA          Uhh... yeah... it's in the kitchen.          Norma goes to the kitchen to retrieve the box, leaving Arthur          alone with Arlington.                         ARLINGTON          And you must be Mr. Lewis.                                                                                                              51.          Arthur stares at him... transfixed. Does he recognize him          from somewhere?          Norma returns with the box and hands it over to him.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          And the key?                         NORMA          Oh... sorry...          Norma reaches into her pocket and retrieves the small          envelope and places it in his hand.                         ARLINGTON          Thank you.          Arlington then opens the BRIEFCASE and shows it to them.          Inside... the bills are stacked neatly in rows.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Two-hundred thousand. You can count          it if you like.          Arthur takes the briefcase from him and then closes.                         ARTHUR          Thanks... we trust your word.          Arlington offers him a broad smile.                         ARLINGTON          As you should.          He then turns to leave.          EXT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FRONT WALK -- NEXT          They follow Arlington out onto the front walk as he          approaches his car. The engine is idling... and someone else          is behind the wheel... but through the tinted windows it is          unclear who is driving.                         NORMA          You said before that the box is re-          programmed...                         ARLINGTON          Yes.                         NORMA          So now what? Are you gonna go and          make the offer to someone else?                                                                                                              52.                         ARLINGTON          Why yes. That-'s how it works, Mrs.          Lewis.                         (BEAT)          And I can promise you that the          offer will be made... to someone          you do not know.          He smiles... opens the door... and steps into the passenger          side. The driver hits the gas and the car speeds off.          Arthur moves out into the street... watching the car go...                         ARTHUR          I got his license plate.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur comes into the kitchen and goes to the desk and grabs          a PENCIL. He then scrawls the LICENSE PLATE NUMBER down on a          piece of scratch paper.                         AXV-4049                         ARTHUR          What are you thinking, Norma?                         NORMA          I don't know.          Arthur paces around... thinking. He then opens the briefcase          and starts counting through the money.                         ARTHUR          Did he mean that we're next? Is          that what he meant?                         NORMA          I don't know.          INT. POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- NEXT          Jim Burns sits behind his desk at the POLICE STATION. His          SECRETARY (20s) comes in to his office.                         SECRETARY          Your daughter is on line two.                         JIM          Alright.          He picks up the phone.                                                                                                              53.                         JIM (CONT'D)          Norma...          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma stares at the money in the briefcase.                         NORMA          Hey dad...                         JIM (PHONE)          What's going on...                         NORMA          I need a favor.                         JIM (PHONE)          Sure... what do you need?                         NORMA          I need you to run a license plate          for me. Someone just came by the          house... and we think he might...          (looking to Arthur)          He just seemed real suspicious and          Arthur got the license plate and I          need you to run it.                         JIM (PHONE)          Okay honey... you need me to send          someone over?                         NORMA          No... if you could just run the          plate and find out whose car it is.                         (BEAT)          AXV-4049 is the number.                          JIM (PHONE)          I'll call you back in ten minutes.          INT. POLICE STATION -- LATER          An OFFICER removes a document from a PRINTER and approaches          Burns's office.                         OFFICER #2          We ran those plates for you, sarge.          Jim takes the document from him. It is a blow-up of a          driver's license that belongs to ARLINGTON STEWARD. In the          photo... his face is not injured.                                                                                                              54.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma and Arthur are pacing around the kitchen... thinking.          The PHONE rings... Norma answers it.                         NORMA          Hello?                         JIM (PHONE)          The car is listed to an Arlington          J. Steward... do you want his          address and phone number?                         NORMA          Yeah.          Norma begins to write them down.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Norma is dialing a number with the phone in her lap.          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE)          Hello?                         NORMA          Hi... I'm trying to reach an          Arlington Steward.          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE)                         (LONG BEAT)          Mrs. Lewis, I presume?          Norma's eyes widen. She nods to Arthur and points to the          phone. He rushes into the family room to pick up the other          PHONE so he can listen in.                         NORMA          Yes.          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE)          I assume that you pushed the          button.                         NORMA          Yes.          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE)          There is the myth of Prometheus and          Pandora... Prometheus gave Pandora          a box... and warned her not to open          it. But she did not listen, and          when Pandora opened the box...                         (MORE)                                                                                                                             55          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE) (CONT'D)          she unleashed a torrent of sorrow          and misery.          Norma stares at Arthur... unable to speak.          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE) (CONT'D)          Your descent into oblivion has          begun. The question remains... what          will the cuckold of a husband do...          to prevent the death of his beloved          Pandora?          Arthur stares at Norma... unable to speak.          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE) (CONT'D)          Because really... Mr. Lewis... do          you really know your wife?                         ARTHUR          Who is this?          FEMALE VOICE (PHONE)          I am the mother of Prometheus...          and if you want to save yourself...          I suggest that you go to the          Richmond Public Library, and find          the book with the following call          number: F2988.34          Norma is writing the number out on a piece of paper.          She disconnects. Arthur steps into the kitchen.                         ARTHUR          Norma...                         NORMA          Arthur...                         ARTHUR          Tell me this isn't real. Tell me          this isn't happening.                         NORMA          This isn't real. This isn't          happening.                         ARTHUR          I don't think I believe you, Norma.          EXT. STEWARD RESIDENCE -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur backs his car out of the driveway and into the street.          Norma rides shotgun. Walter is circling around on his bike          with some friends in tow.                                                                                                              56.                         NORMA          We're off to run an errand. Be back          in a few hours, okay?                         WALTER          Okay.          He watches as they drive off.          INT. ARTHUR'S CAR -- NEXT          Arthur and Norma drive toward downtown.                         NORMA          There was owl... in our back yard.                         ARTHUR          An owl?                         NORMA          He said it was his owl.                         ARTHUR          Are you hiding anything else from          me, Norma?                         NORMA                         (DEFENSIVE)          No.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          The CAMERA tracks with Arthur and Norma as they move through          the vast space of the RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY. They arrive at          the ADULT FICTION section... and the CAMERA moves along the          spines of various books until it arrives at the one with the          call number: F2988.34          Norma removes a BOOK from the shelf and looks at the cover:                         NO EXIT                         JEAN-PAUL SARTRE          Norma shows it to Arthur.                         NORMA          No exit.                         ARTHUR                         (MIS-PRONOUNCES)          Sartre.                                                                                                              57.                         NORMA          it's pronounced Sartre. Jean-Paul          Sartre. The French existentialist.          She begins to thumb through the pages of the play.                         ARTHUR          Never read it.                         NORMA          It's a play... I read it in high          school. It's about three strangers          who find themselves trapped in a          room together for all of eternity.          They've quickly discover that          they've all been sent to hell.          Norma turns back to the inside cover of the book.          Someone has written in crisp penmanship:                         RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH          SEPTEMBER 3, 1976          Norma runs her hand down the list of names on the library          card. The name of the last person to check out the book is:                         STEWARD          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- CIRCULATION DESK -- NEXT           Arthur and Norma approach the circulation desk. A female          LIBRARIAN ( 70s) is standing there.                         NORMA          Hi... we're looking for an archival          Times-Dispatch from September of          this year.          She offers them a warm smile.                         LIBRARIAN          Microfiche.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur and Norma now sit in front of a MICROFICHE READER in a          long line of wooden desks in the RECORDS ROOM.          On the screen... HEADLINES from the year's newspapers scroll          by... stopping on the headline for SEPTEMBER 3, 1976:          MARS PHOTOS REVEALED                                                                                                              58.          VIKING LANDER SENDS FIRST IMAGES OF RED PLANET BACK TO EARTH                         ARTHUR          Arlington Steward... I remember the          name now. He used to work at          NASA...          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- [FLASHBACK]          Arthur and Wendell are standing among a large group of          SCIENTISTS in the laboratory.          Everyone is assembled... staring at a large BLANK SCREEN,          waiting in anticipation. Cahill stands at the front of the          group with a WALKIE-TALKIE to his ear.                         CAHILL          Alright... the first photo should          come down off the server in less          than a minute.          EXT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LUNAR LANDER MODULE -- NEXT          The CAMERA cranes up toward the GIGANTIC LUNAR LANDER MODULE.          Rain pours down from the night sky. Lightning flashes in the          distance... several miles away. Thunder rumbles.          The CAMERA approaches the UPPER TRESTLE BEAM... which crosses          the expanse of the structure. Mounted on top of the beam is a          MASSIVE ANTENNAE.          Standing on the trestle several yards away from the antennae          is ARLINGTON STEWARD. He is wearing a rain slicker and is          face appears normal. He carries a walkie-talkie in his right          hand.                         ARLINGTON                         (INTO WALKIE-TALKIE)          So place your bet... martians or no          martians?          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- NEXT          Arthur stares up at the screen... waiting on baited breath.          Moments later... a LARGE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO OF THE MARS          SURFACE appears on the screen.          The SCIENTISTS erupt in loud cheering and applause.                                                                                                              59.          EXT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- NEXT          Near the base of the LUNAR LANDER MODULE... a NASA EMPLOYEE          named ROBERT BEVILACQUA (31) is standing with two others.          They are huddled under UMBRELLAS..'. smoking cigarettes.          Bevilacqua has a WALKIE-TALKIE to his ear. He hears the          cheering from the walkie-talkie.                         BEVILACQUA          Touchdown.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Arthur scrolls down to the bottom of the front page. A                         SMALLER ARTICLE:          NASA EMPLOYEE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING                         ARTHUR          An engineer at the NASA Langley          research center was struck by          lightning yesterday evening...          EXT. NASA -- LUNAR LANDER MODULE -- (FLASHBACK]          Arlington looks at his watch... staring up at the sky...          nervous about the storm. RAIN pours down upon on the          module... water running down in sheets on either side of the          trestle.          He hears the cheering from the walkie-talkie. Thunder rumbles          in the distance.          Moments later... a MASSIVE LIGHTNING BOLT STRIKES THE TOP          TRESTLE BEAM.          THE TRESTLE EXPLODES IN A STORM OF SPARKS... ARLINGTON IS          THROWN ONTO HIS BACK... HIS BODY ENGULFED IN FLAMES.          Bevilacqua witnesses the FIRE on the lunar lander module.                         BEVILACQUA          Jesus Christ.          Bevilacqua and the others begin to sprint across the lawn          toward the base of the structure to the ELEVATOR DOOR at the          bottom of the elevator shaft on the south end of the module.                                                                                                              60.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBP.F.RY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NE t"T          Arthur continues to read from the article.                         ARTHUR          The man received third degree burns          over fifty percent of his body...          EXT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- [FLASHBACK]          Bevilacqua and the others emerge from the ELEVATOR at the top          of the trestle. They rush toward Arlington's body... as he          convulses on the trestle... smoke emanating from his charred          body.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Arthur turns to Norma.                         ARTHUR          He got struck by lightning on the          night we received the transmission          from Mars.          EXT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- (FLASHBACK)          Arthur and Wendell stand outside the main laboratory building          with a group of scientists, sipping champagne. They see an          AMBULANCE pass down the main street of the campus with its          sirens on.          Cahill emerges from inside the building and rushes out to the          parking lot. Bevilacqua and the others are approaching.                         CAHILL          What happened?                         BEVILACQUA          The module got hit!                         CAHILL          Lightning?                         BEVILACQUA          Yeah. Steward was up there on the          trestle. He got burned real bad!          The CAMERA moves in toward Bevilacqua's face... his eyes          filled with anguish and despair.                                                                                                              61.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- NEXT          Jim Burns stands in front of a group of POLICE OFFICERS in a          briefing room. He holds up a large FAMILY PHOTO of ROBERT          BEVILACQUA, posing with his WIFE and YOUNG DAUGHTER.                         JIM          Our fugitive is named Robert          Bevilacqua. He shot and killed his          wife at their residence on Cary          Street earlier today. We believe          that he escaped on foot... and          could be armed and dangerous.          The CAMERA moves across a line of POLICE OFFICERS...          listening...                         JIM (CONT'D)          Mr. Bevilacqua is an employee at          NASA... and he is a former Marine          who served in Vietnam. He may very          well be armed and dangerous...          INT. RICHMOND BAR -- NEXT          The CAMERA tracks through a dingy RICHMOND DIVE BAR.          Bevilacqua sits at the bar with a baseball cap pulled down          low to conceal his face. He is drinking whiskey.          Wendell James approaches... carrying a FILE under his arm.                         WENDELL          Bevilacqua...          Bevilacqua turns to face him.                         BEVILACQUA          Wendell.          They hug one another.          INT. RICHMOND BAR -- MOMENTS LATER          The two men are now sitting across from one another in a          BOOTH. Wendell has a NASA BLUE-PRINT laid out on the table.          The blue-print is of the button unit.                         BEVILACQUA          You designed it?                         WENDELL          Yeah. Cahill told me to...                                                                                                              62.          Bevilacaua notices a SMALL PURPLE STAIN on the blue-print.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- LABORATORY -- [FLASHBACK]          Cahill stands over Wendell's shoulder as he sits at a          DRAFTING TABLE in the laboratory.                         WENDELL          This what you were looking for,          sir?          Cahill looks stares at the blue-print... possessed. A DROP OF          BLOOD falls from his right nostril and lands on it.                         CAHILL          Yes. Thank you Wendell.          INT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- MAIN HANGAR -- DAY          The CAMERA moves through the MASSIVE MAIN HANGAR at Langley.          There are several planes parked inside. Wendell emerges from          behind one of the planes... watching from a hidden vantage          point...          Cahill stands at a work table with Arlington. There are THREE          BUTTON UNITS laid out on the table. Arlington begins to place          them inside a leather bag.          Cahill then hands Arlington a FILE.                         CAHILL          You're not gonna hurt these boys,          are you?                         ARLINGTON          Any harm that comes to them will be          their own doing.          Arlington takes the bag and moves toward the hangar entrance.          EXT. NASA LANGLEY FACILITY -- MAIN HANGAR -- NEXT          Outside... there is a MASSIVE CEMENT RUNWAY. Parked on the          runway is Arlington's car. BUD WALL steps out and opens the          door for his boss. Bus-Driver Bud is Steward's driver...          Arlington steps inside.          Wendell watches them drive off...                                                                                                              63.          INT. RICHMOND DIVE BAR -- EVENING          Wendell then hands a file to Bevilacqua. Inside there is a          dossier and photo of a ARTHUR LEWIS. He flips to another          dossier and photo of another NASA EMPLOYEE named KENNETH          WELLER.                         WENDELL          There's a list... and they've all          got a wife and one child.          Bevilacqua thumbs through the list of NASA dossiers. He sees          Arthur Lewis among them.                         WENDELL (CONT'D)          Did you kill your wife?          Bevilacqua just stares at him... on the verge of tears. He          slides an ENVELOPE across the table.                         BEVILACQUA          This is a confession letter that I          wrote... it explains everything          that happened with Steward and the          box. Keep it... cause if I don't          make it... this might clear my name          one day.          Bevilacqua looks at the KENNETH WELLER dossier.                         BEVILACQUA (CONT'D)          This guy Weller is gonna be next.          Did you get their phone number?                         WENDELL          No. They're not listed. Just an old          address south of Petersburg. What          are you gonna do?                         BEVILACQUA          I don't know. I need a car. I might          be able to save them... and this          guy Arthur Lewis...          Wendell thinks to himself... then retrieves a set of KEYS          from his pocket.                         WENDELL          These are the keys to my cousin's          pick-up truck. It's not registered.          It's parked in front of my house          over on Byrd street. Take it...                         BEVILACQUA          Thank you, Wendell.                                                                                                              64.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- LATER          Burns sits behind his desk... telephone to his ear.                         JIM                         (INTO PHONE)          Steward. First name Arlington...          middle name is James.          He begins to scrawl words down on a piece of paper:                         NASA          STRUCK BY LIGHTNING          Just then... his RECEPTIONIST opens the door to his office.                         RECEPTIONIST          Sir... there's a Mr. Steward here          to see you.                         JIM                         (INTO PHONE)          Thank you... that's all I need.          He hangs up the phone and looks through the glass window of          his office into the reception area.          Standing there through the glass... is a man who looks          identical to Arlington Steward.          He stands with the normal side of his face in profile. He          turns to face Jim... but his face now appears as it did          before he was burned. Is this the same person?          Jim turns to his receptionist... who waits in the doorway                         JIM (CONT'D)          Send him in.          EXT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          The library is closing down for the night.          A group of young CHILDREN come out of the front exit. One of          them turns and notices the OWL perched on the railing.          The owl stares at the children...                                                                                                              65.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          The real Arlington Steward is now standing in the periodicals          area. of the library... situated in front of the circulation          desk.          He stands in profile... then turns toward the CAMERA in the          same manner as his TWIN in the police station. His burned          face forms a deformed smile...          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- NEXT          The STEWARD TWIN steps into Jim's office. He reaches out and          shakes Jim's hand.                         STEWARD TWIN          Officer Burns... my name is Reston          Steward.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          Arlington... with his eyes closed... mimics his TWIN'S          movement exactly... reaching out his hand and shaking it with          nothing.                         ARLINGTON          Officer Burns... my name is Reston          Steward.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- NEXT          RESTON STEWARD (40) sits down in the chair across from his          desk.                         RESTON          I see you have made an inquiry          about my brother Arlington.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          Arlington is now seated in a library chair... eyes closed...          in the exact same manner as his brother. it is as though he          is controlling his twin brother's body via remote telepathy.                         ARLINGTON          . an inquiry about my brother          Arlington.                                                                                                              66.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- NEXT          Jim stares at him from across his desk.                         JIM          Yes. Apparently he made an          appearance at my daughter's house.          Your brother works for NASA?          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          Arlington nods his head.                         ARLINGTON          Yes. My brother works at the          Langley research facility.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- NEXT          Jim nods his head in return.                         JIM          With my son-in-law.                         RESTON          That's right.                         JIM          And may I ask... what do you do,          Mr. Steward?          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          With his eyes closed... Arlington reaches into his pocket and          retrieves something imaginary from his pocket. He raises          something that we cannot see up into the air.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- BURNS'S OFFICE -- NEXT          Reston is now holding out a GOVERNMENT BADGE with his right          hand.                         RESTON          I work for the CIA.                         JIM          I see.          He then hands Jim one of his cards. Jim looks at it.                                                                                                              67.          INSERT OF BUSINESS CARD WITH CIA INSIGNIA:          DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE                         RESTON STEWARD          Reston rises to his feet... putting his hat on his head.                         RESTON          I assure you my brother is of no          threat to your daughter. However,          the man you're looking for...          Robert Bevilacqua. He is very          dangerous... and he might try and          contact your son-in-law or your          daughter.                         JIM          Really.                          RESTON          Yes.                          RESTON (CONT'D)          Help us find Bevilacqua. If and          when you do... please call us.          Jim stares at the business card as Reston bids him good-bye.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- NEXT          Arlington is now standing. With his eyes still closed, he          nods his head and smiles, then turns and begins to walk          several steps. He then stops... takes a deep breath... and          opens his eyes.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- RECEPTION AREA -- NEXT          Reston opens his eyes... as if a spirit has suddenly left his          body. He takes a deep breath and smiles at the Receptionist,          trying to conceal his expression of horror.          He moves toward the exit.          EXT. RICHMOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY BUILDING -- MOMENTS LATER          Reston emerges from the General Assembly building. There is a          black town car waiting. A CIA AGENT stands next to it.          Reston withdraws a HANDKERCHIEF and wipes BLOOD from his          nose.                                                                                                              68.                         RESTON          General Nathan Teague at the          Pentagon. Get him on the phone          immediately.          The Agent opens the car door, and Reston steps inside.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Norma and Arthur are still sitting in front of the microfiche          machine. Norma looks like she is going to faint... her face          has gone white.                         ARTHUR          You alright, Norma?                         NORMA          I feel like I'm gonna faint...          She stands up to leave.                         ARTHUR          Where are you going?                         NORMA          Bathroom.          Norma moves.taward the main library... leaving Arthur alone.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- CIRCULATION DESK -- NEXT          Norma emerges from the records room and walks toward the          circulation desk. As she rounds the corner... Arlington          emerges from behind a row of book shelves.          Norma stops in her tracks... frozen. He stares her down.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Arthur stares at the microfiche reader... transfixed by the          newspaper articles.          A shadow passes across the wall... and Arthur senses someone          lurking over his shoulder. He turns to see that it is the          LIBRARIAN. Something about her is different... she seems          possessed.                         LIBRARIAN          The myth of Prometheus tells the          story of a God who created man.                         (BEAT)                         (MORE)                                                                                                              69.                         LIBRARIAN (CONT'D)          When Prometheus flew too close to          the sun... his wings caught fire...          and he fell to the earth.          Arthur remembers her voice from the phone call.                         ARTHUR          Was that you on the phone? You're          his mother...                         LIBRARIAN          He finds your wife fascinating...          Mr. Lewis.          Her name is ELIZABETH STEWARD.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- PERIODICALS SECTION -- NEXT          Norma remains frozen... her mind racing. Arlington smiles at          her... gesturing toward an empty chair.                         ARLINGTON          Have a seat... Mrs. Lewis.          She looks around... realizing that the library is now          completely empty.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Don't be afraid. I may look like a          monster... but-I can assure you          that I am... only human.          His face contorts into a broad smile.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Please... sit down.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Elizabeth sits down on the chair across from Arthur.                         ELIZABETH          My name is Clymene, mother of five.          Prometheus, Atlas, Menoetius,          Logan, and Epimetheus.          A drop of blood begins to ooze from her left eye as she          speaks.                         ELIZABETH (CONT'D)          Epimetheus is the twin brother of          Prometheus, but he has become his          brother's slave... the victim of          his cunning and deceit.                                                                                                              70.          IT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBP F,°_ -- PERIODICALS SECTION -- NEXT          Norma is now seated in a chair across from him. He stares          deep into her eyes... transfixed by her beauty.                         ARLINGTON          Tell me Norma... when was the exact          moment that you realized you loved          your husband?          There is something about him that now makes her feel safe...          willing to tell him anything.                         NORMA          About five seconds after I laid          eyes on him.                         ARLINGTON          And when was this?                         NORMA          In college. My sophomore year. He          was a year younger than me. We          dated for two weeks and then...          She stops herself.                         ARLINGTON          You became frightened about          something.                         NORMA          Then I thought... this is too good          to be true. When he sees my mangled          foot... he's gonna be out the door          in ten seconds and he's gonna go          tell all his friends.                         ARLINGTON          How did he respond when you showed          him?                         NORMA          We were at the drive-in... and he          caught a glimpse of the scars on my          thigh. He asked me what happened...          and I felt this sense of dread.                         ARLINGTON          Why?                                                                                                              71.                         NORMA          Because you can just see the glow          disappear in someone's eyes when          they discover something about you          that they just can't stomach.                         ARLINGTON          Did the glow disappear from his          eyes?                         NORMA          No. Not Arthur. He was different          than the others. He... said that...          my scars were cool.                         (BEAT)          He said that they made me more          attractive.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Arthur sits across from Elizabeth. His mind is racing...          trying to put the puzzle pieces together.          He looks at his watch. It is almost 5PM.                          ELIZABETH           I have worked at this library for          forty years. Since 1936, I have          read a book a day. 23455 books I          have read.                         ARTHUR          Wow.                         (BEAT)          Someone should nominate you for          librarian of the year.          She holds the copy of No Exit in her hands.                         ELIZABETH          Of all of the books I have read in          my lifetime... this is my son's          favorite.                         (BEAT)          Have you ever read No Exit?                         ARTHUR          No.          She reaches out with her hand.                         ELIZABETH          Take my hand... and I'll show you.                                                                                                              72.          He stares at the blood coagulating in the bag beneath her          left eye.                         ARTHUR          I'm not gonna touch you, lady.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- PERIODICALS SECTION -- NEXT          Arlington now stares directly into Norma's soul.          The scar tissue on the left side of his face does not move          when he smiles. It remains frozen... unable to express          emotion.                         ARLINGTON          And what emotion did you feel when          you first laid eyes upon me, Norma?          She thinks silently for a moment.                         NORMA          I felt.. .          She stops herself... afraid of how he might respond if she is          honest with him.                         ARLINGTON          You felt what?                         NORMA          I felt...                         ARLINGTON          Pity?                         NORMA          Love.                         ARLINGTON          You felt love for me?                         NORMA          Yes.                         ARLINGTON          Why?                         NORMA          Because of my foot. Because of my          disfigurement. I thought of all the          pain I've felt in my life because          of it... the physical pain... the          emotional pain.                         (BEAT)                         (MORE)                                                                                                              73.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          I thought about what it would be          like to have that pain magnified          and projected onto my face... onto          a part of my body that I can't hide          with a shoe.          There are tears welling in her eyes.          NORMA (CONT`D)          I saw all of that pain in your face          and I understood it... and I felt          an overwhelming feeling of love for          you because I knew I'd never feel          sorry for myself or my goddamn foot          ever again.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Elizabeth continues to hold her hand out toward Arthur.                         ELIZABETH          Take my hand, son.                         ARTHUR          You called me a cuckold. You made a          statement... made an implication to          me that my wife was going to be          killed.                         (BEAT)          So please understand why I might be          reluctant to take your hand.          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- PERIODICALS SECTION -- NEXT          Arlington reaches his hand out to Norma.                         ARLINGTON          Take my hand, Norma...          She stares at him, unable to move... then takes his hand...          INT. RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY -- RECORDS ROOM -- NEXT          Elizabeth reaches out and grabs Arthur's hand against his          will. His body convulses at her touch...          The CAMERA drifts in toward Arthur's face as his eyes slowly          close. Her spell has been cast upon him...          CUT TO BLACK:          SILENCE.                                                                                                              74.          INT. DREAM -- CORRIDOR -- NEXT          The CAMERA moves slowly down a CORRIDOR. The floor is shiny          white marble and the walls are framed by ornate molding and          RENAISSANCE ART.          Arlington stands at the end of the corridor. He is wearing a          TUXEDO, portraying the VALET character from Sartre's No Exit.          The CAMERA pans around to reveal Arthur... walking slowly          down the corridor.          Arlington opens a DOOR at the end of the corridor and leads          Arthur into a DRAWING ROOM... recreated from Sartre's play.          INT. DREAM -- DRAWING ROOM -- NEXT          Arlington leads Arthur inside and closes the door behind him.          Inside the DRAWING ROOM, there are THREE COUCHES made in the          style.: of the SECOND EMPIRE. The walls are covered in similar          Renaissance art and the floor is marble.          NORMA and WALTER have now been admitted to the drawing room.          Norma is dressed in an elegant BLACK GOWN. Walter wears a          tuxedo that looks to be nearly identical to the one his          father is wearing... and THERE IS A SILK BLINDFOLD WRAPPED          AROUND HIS HEAD. He wanders around the room... lost...          The dimensions of the room are equal in every way. It is a          perfect three-dimensional box.          Arthur then looks to his wife. He notices that her EYELIDS          are now gone. Arthur then turns to his son.          Walter reaches out into the air... seemingly unaware that          they are in, the room with him.          The CAMERA moves through the wall into another corridor...          BUD WALL... dressed as another VALET, passes by... and the          CAMERA moves into another DRAWING ROOM...          INT. DREAM -- SECOND DRAWING ROOM -- NEXT          Inside the SECOND DRAWING ROOM... the CAMERA finds ROBERT          BEVILACQUA and his WIFE. Their DAUGHTER is wearing a SILK          BLINDFOLD.          The CAMERA then drifts up and moves through the GLASS PANELS          at the top of the room...                                                                                                              75.          INT. DREAM -- UPPER LEVEL -- NEXT          The CAMERA pulls up higher... revealing the layout of a          massive network of CORRIDORS and DRAWING ROOMS that form a          larger box. Through the glass ceilings looking down into each          room... FAMILIES are assembled together... trapped          together... forever...          EXT. MARS SURFACE -- NEXT          The CAMERA flies over the edge of the SARTRE'S HOTEL of rooms          and corridors to reveal the plateau of UTOPIA PLANITIA on the          surface of mars...          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- MASTER BEDROOM -- LATER ON          Arthur's eyes pop open... he rolls over... and Norma is          asleep in bed next to him. They are both fully dressed in the          clothes they were wearing in the library.                         ARTHUR          Norma...          Her eyes open. She looks around... disoriented.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          Norma... what happened?                         NORMA          I don't know.          Norma notices Walter standing in the doorway.                         WALTER          You came home an hour ago.                         NORMA          We did?          She sits up in bed... looking at the clock radio. It is 6PM.                         WALTER          Neither of you said a word... you          just walked into the house like two          zombies. Went straight to bed.          Arthur and Norma stare at one another, trying to make sense          of what has just transpired.                         NORMA          The wedding. It starts in an hour.          We've got to get ready.                                                                                                              76.          Norma sees that the copy of No Exit is now sitting on --heir          bedside table.          EXT. WASHINGTON D.C. -- NIGHT          A U.S. ARMY JET flies over the nation's capital. The PENTAGON          and the WASHINGTON MONUMENT are visible below.          INT. U.S. ARMY JET -- NEXT           The CAMERA approaches US ARMY GENERAL NATHAN TEAGUE ( 50s),          seated just behind the cockpit.          In his lap is a file. He is thumbing through a series of          photographs of the MARS SURFACE. He then arrives at a stack          of paperwork. There is a photograph of ARTHUR LEWIS at the          top of the stack.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- MASTER BATHROOM -- LATER ON          Norma, now wearing her BRIDESMAID DRESS, puts a DIAMOND          EARRING in her right lobe. She turns to the mirror and jumps          in her skin... as the face staring back at her has no          eyelids.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- WALTER'S BEDROOM -- NEXT          Arthur sits on the end of Walter's bed. Walters stands in          front of him as his father ties his NECK TIE in front of a          standing mirror.                         WALTER          What's going on?                         ARTHUR          I don't know.                         WALTER          This is about the box... isn't it?                         ARTHUR          Yeah.                         WALTER          Did you push the button?                         ARTHUR          Your mother did.                         WALTER          What happens when you push the          button?                                                                                                              77.                         ARTHUR          I don't know.                         WALTER          Yes you do. You're just not telling          me.          Arthur finishes with his tie. He notices something on the          floor of his son's bedroom. It is the MARS COMIC BOOK.          He picks it up and stares at the dark figure looming on the          cover.                         ARTHUR          Where did you get this?                         WALTER          Dana. She gave it to me.          Arthur begins to page through the comic book.          EXT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- ROOF TOP -- NEXT          Arlington kneels at the edge of the MOTEL SWIMMING POOL. He          runs his hand through the water. Steam is rising from the          surface.          STROBES OF WHITE LIGHT begin flicker from beneath the          surface... as though some unseen SOURCE OF ENERGY is          emanating from down below.          Arlington slowly rises to his feet and turns to leave.          EXT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- DRIVEWAY -- MOMENTS LATER          Arlington approaches the BLACK SEDAN idling in the car port.          He gets inside... and Bud drives off.          INT. SCOPE INSERT -- NIGHT          The CAMERA looks through a TELESCOPE LENS of some sort from          high on a ROOFTOP in downtown Richmond.          It scans across several CARS passing down the street...          PEDESTRIANS on the sidewalk... landing on ARLINGTON and BUD          as they move toward the entrance of a STONE FRONT BUILDING.          EXT. RICHMOND ROOFTOP -- NIGHT          We see that a SNIPER, dressed in a dark suit, is perched on          the roof of an adjacent building. He has an earpiece in his          left ear.                                                                                                              78.                         SNIPER          Alright... they are entering the          building from the south entrance on          fourteenth street.          INT. RICHMOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY BUILDING -- MOMENTS LATER          Arlington and Bud move down the main corridor of the GENERAL          ASSEMBLY BUILDING, approaching a bank of ELEVATORS. A          SECURITY GUARD nods to them nervously.          Arlington nods back.          INT. RICHMOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY BUILDING -- MOMENTS LATER          Arlington and Bud emerge from the elevators on the THIRD          FLOOR and move down the hall. As they pass into a RECEPTION          AREA, the CAMERA moves toward a GLASS PARTITION with the          VIRGINIA STATE EMBLEM etched into the glass.          Below it is a name:          HOUSE OF DELEGATES          GRIFFITH POWELL - MAJORITY LEADER           INT. GRIFFITH POWELL'S OFFICE -- RECEPTION -- NEXT           As they approach the RECEPTION AREA... the FEMALE          RECEPTIONIST ( 30s) stands up anxiously behind her desk.                         RECEPTIONIST          Excuse me... may I help you?                         ARLINGTON          Where is he?                         RECEPTIONIST          Uhhh... he's in a meeting.                         ARLINGTON          I need to see him... now.          INT. GRIFFITH POWELL'S OFFICE -- NEXT          The RECEPTIONIST comes into the office. Griffith Powell          stands at the window behind his desk... smoking a cigarette.          He is dressed in a TUXEDO with his jacket hanging next to his          desk.                                                                                                              79.                         RECEPTIONIST          He's here... I don't know what to          do.          Powell turns to face her.                         POWELL          Let him in.          The Receptionist goes back out... and within moments...          Arlington and Bud enter the office. The Receptionist closes          the door and leaves them alone.                         ARLINGTON          Hello Senator.                         POWELL                         (TERRIFIED)          Mr. Steward... it's good to see          you.                         ARLINGTON          Call me Arlington.                         POWELL          Okay... Arlington.          Bud just stares at the Senator... showing no sign of emotion.                         ARLINGTON          Do you have my money?                         POWELL          I've given you four-hundred          thousand already. How much more are          you going to need?                         ARLINGTON          As much as it takes.          Powell sighs out loud... irritated.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          First the nose...          Powell turns around and there is now BLOOD GUSHING from his          nose...                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Then the ears...          BLOOD begins to ooze from both ears... as he covers his          face... feeling the warm fluid rush from every orifice...                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Then the eyes...                                                                                                              80.          Blood rushes from beneath his eyelids... his entire face          covered in BLOOD... his WHITE SHIRT DRENCHED...                         POWELL          Please! I've got it right here!          Powell reaches beneath his desk and retrieves a large          briefcase. He places it on the desk.                         POWELL (CONT'D)          It's all there! Two-hundred          thousand! You can count it if you          want!                         ARLINGTON          Bud...          Bud grabs the briefcase from the desk and pops it open. He          sees that it is filled with stacks of cash.                         ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          You tell that sniper you have          perched on that roof next door that          I can smell his cheap cologne.          EXT. RICHMOND ROOFTOP -- NEXT           The SNIPER hears Arlington's VOICE in his earpiece.                          ARLINGTON (EARPIECE)          I think it might be Old Spice.          The Sniper smells his shoulder.          INT. POWELL'S OFFICE -- RECEPTION -- NEXT          Arlington and Bud move through the reception area. The          Receptionist lurks behind her desk... frightened.          INT. FOREST LAWN BABTIST CHURCH -- NIGHT          Arthur and Norma are standing in a WAITING ROOM in the church          where her sister is about to be married. BRIDESMAIDS and          GROOMSMEN are chatting with one another in anticipation of          the ceremony.          Norma clutches the copy of No Exit.                         ARTHUR          You and Walter were there in the          room. You were wearing a black          dress, identical to the one you          have on now.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              81.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          Walter had a blindfold on.                         (BEAT)          And then your eyes...                         NORMA          They didn't have lids...                         ARTHUR          Yeah.                         NORMA          I had the same dream.          Arthur's mind is racing... he glances through the crowd          nervously, afraid that they are being watched.                         ARTHUR          What's the last thing you remember?                         NORMA          The library. He was asking me all          of these questions... about you...          about our marriage.                         (BEAT)          Then I took his hand...          Susan approaches...                         SUSAN          Alright girls... time to line up!          Susan hands Arthur the book and goes off with the other          BRIDESMAIDS.          INT. FOREST LAWN BABTIST CHURCH -- NIGHT          Norma stands next to Deborah as she is about to take her          vows.                         PREACHER          Do you, Deborah Burns, take Edward          Powell, to be your'-lawfully wedded          husband, 'til death do you part?                         DEBORAH          I do.          Norma looks over to Arthur, as he sits in the congregation.          He is not paying attention to the wedding. He is reading          Sartre's play...          The CAMERA zooms into a close-up of the page describing the          final scene in the play No Exit:          INSERT OF PAGE:                                                                                                              82.          ESTELLE: [with a peal of laughter]: Forever. My God, how          funny! Forever.          GARCIN: [looks over at the two women, and joins in the          laughter]: For ever, and ever, and ever.          INSERT: Arthur's eyes... reading...          INSERT OF PAGE:          [They slump onto their respective sofas. A long silence.          Their laughter dies away and they gaze at each other.]          GARCIN: Well, well, let's get on with it...                         CURTAIN          EXT. FOREST LAWN SQUARE -- NIGHT          The WEDDING PARTY comes pouring out of the church. There is a          massive LAWN south of the entrance. During the holidays it is          filled with CHRISTMAS TREES for sale, and dozens of ARTS &          CRAFTS BOOTHS assembled in rows.          The CAMERA moves through the crowd to find Norma posing for          photos with her fellow bridesmaids out in front of the          square.          ACROSS THE SQUARE... Bud Wall lurks within the rows of          Christmas Trees. He spies Arthur and Walter mingling with his          parents and Senator Powell, who has TWO SECRET SERVICEMEN          standing close by.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- LATER ON          The CAMERA approaches the driveway of the VIRGINIA HOUSE...          which is positioned at the south end of Forest Lawn square.          Wedding guests are arriving in droves.          The house is a large GOTHIC MANSION that is often rented out          for public events... and in this case... for the lavish          WEDDING RECEPTION of Deborah Burns and Edward Powell.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- BACK LAWN -- LATER ON          Arthur and Norma move through the courtyard into the wedding          reception area... which flows through several TENTS that have          been erected with HEAT LAMPS and tables covered in WHITE          TABLECLOTHS and FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS.          Arthur carries the copy of No Exit with him.                                                                                                              83.                         ARTHUR          The play tells the story of uhree          people, condemned to hell. They are          to remain in a second empire          drawing room for all of eternity.          He closes the book... his mind dissecting what he has just          read.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          They soon discover that their          eyelids are missing... and for all          eternity they will be unable to          sleep.          Norma remembers most of the play from high school.                         NORMA          There are no mirrors... so they          will never be able to see their own          reflection... but only the faces of          their tormentors.                         ARTHUR          This is Sartre's vision of hell.                         NORMA          Because Hell... is other people.          The look into one another's eyes... Norma sees a WAITER pass          by with a tray of CHAMPAGNE. They both take a glass.          Jim crosses the lawn to greet them.                         JIM          Arthur... can I speak with you          privately for a moment?                         ARTHUR          Sure.          Arthur walks away with Jim toward the edge of a PATIO that          overlooks the whole party.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- UPPER PATIO -- MOMENTS LATER          Jim and Arthur stand at a table. Jim has several PHOTOGRAPHS          laid out on the table. They are mostly family photos taken          from the house of Robert Bevilacqua.                         JIM          And do you know this fella? Robert          Bevilacqua?                                                                                                              84.                         ARTHUR          Yeah... I know him. He works at          NASA.                         JIM          Do you know his wife?                         ARTHUR          No...                         JIM          Well... he shot and killed his wife          yesterday morning.                         ARTHUR          No...                         JIM          Yeah... He shot her point blank in          the chest in his kitchen.          Arthur takes a deep breath. He isn't feeling well.                         JIM (CONT'D)          This Bevilacqua fella... if he          tries to contact you or Norma...          you have to call me immediately,          you understand?                         ARTHUR          Yeah. Of course.          Arthur looks down at the lawn. Norma is staring back at them.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- BACK LAWN -- LATER ON          Norma is now standing up on stage with a MICROPHONE in her          hand..,. giving her MAID OF HONOR speech.                         NORMA          My little sister once asked me...          what's the best thing about being          married?          Norma looks across the lawn to the table where Arthur is          seated, next to Walter and their parents.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          I told her that... it's knowing          that for the rest of your life          you'll never feel alone.                         (BEAT)          Not ever again.          She smiles at her husband.                                                                                                              85.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          That is... until you get divorced.          There is laughter from the crowd. Deborah blushes... leaning          her head on her new husband's shoulder.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          Or... until he decides to kill you.          More laughter.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- DANCE FLOOR -- LATER          Arthur and Norma are now slow dancing.                         ARTHUR          Why did you say that?                         NORMA          Say what?                         ARTHUR          In your speech. That joke about me          killing you.                         NORMA          I don't know... I thought it was          funny. Guess I've had too much          champagne.                         ARTHUR          Did your dad tell you about Robert          Bevilacqua?                         NORMA          No.                         ARTHUR          He shot his wife yesterday morning.          Did you know his wife?                         NORMA          No.          Norma is still searching for some other explanation.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          What if it's all a test for the          aspiring astronauts?                         ARTHUR          What do you mean?                                                                                                              86.                         NORMA          A psychological test. They want to          see how you'll respond to a moral          dilemma... the fate of a human          life... determined by the push of a          single button. Think of the men on          the Apollo thirteen mission...          sound familiar?          They turn slowly on the dance floor...          Arthur closes his eyes... his mind racing...          A VOICE breaks through the music...          VOICE (O.S.)          May I cut in?          Arthur and Norma turn to see a MAN standing there...          It is DR. EARL STUPE.                         STUPE          I would like to dance with your          wife. Do you mind?          Arthur glares at Dr. Stupe.                         NORMA          It's okay Arthur...          Arthur looks at him... then back at Norma. His face has gone          pale and he looks for a moment as though he might faint on          the dance floor.                         ARTHUR          I.. I.                         (SWALLOWS HARD)          Will you please excuse me?          Arthur moves toward the stairs that lead up to the palatial          estate. Walter is there... waiting.                         WALTER          Dad! What's going on?                         ARTHUR          I.. I'm gonna be sick Walter...          He places his hand on his son's head for a brief moment and          then stumbles up the stairs.          ON THE DANCE FLOOR... Norma is now slow dancing with Dr.          Stupe.                                                                                                              87.                         STUPE          I know what they call me. Dr.          Stupid. My patients... the ones who          will still see me... they find out          what I did and they stop calling.                         NORMA          I'm sorry for that. I can't control          what people say.                         STUPE          I am Dr. Stupid now. Someone wrote          it on my windshield with soap once.          I figure it must have been a          relative... a friend of yours.                         (BEAT)          Oh... how they love you, Norma          Lewis. And they love your          husband... the one who saved you.          Did he save your life? Did he          rescue you from the oblivion that I          manufactured?                         NORMA          Yes. You have my forgiveness, Earl.          People make mistakes... and if they          seek forgiveness... they should be          forgiven.                         (BEAT)          That's the rule of my lord.          INT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- MEN'S BATHROOM -- NEXT          Arthur comes into the MEN'S BATHROOM and rushes into one of          the stalls. He falls to his knees... leaning over the toilet.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- DANCE FLOOR -- LATER          ON THE DANCE FLOOR... Norma notices her brother NATHAN...          sitting alone at his table in his wheelchair. He is drunk...          lost in his own sadness. He smiles at her...                         STUPE          There is that old cliche... that          the lord works in mysterious ways.          Well... I have met the lord. I have          spoken to him in my dreams. And it          brought me back to that day in my          office when you arrived with a          fractured foot... some thirteen          years ago.                         (BEAT)          He told me that it was essential...                         (MORE)                                                                                                              88.                         STUPE (CONT'D)          an essential event in the cycle of          purgatory and its inevitable          conclusion.          Norma pulls away from him. Blood drains out of his nose...                         STUPE (CONT'D)          For when the cycle of purgatory          concludes... there is nothing left          but a barren wasteland of rock and          sand... a deafening wind and a          cold, dry winter.          ABOVE... on the MARBLE RAILING... the OWL is perched on the          ledge... watching...          ON THE DANCE FLOOR... Stupe retrieves a PISTOL from his          pocket... and raises his eyes to meet those of his dance          partner.                         STUPE (CONT'D)          I am sorry my dear...          Stupe takes the pistol... places it against his temple... and          pulls the trigger.          BLOOD SPRAYS across the dance floor... some of it on Norma's          face. PEOPLE BEGIN TO SCREAM AND THE ENTIRE WEDDING ERUPTS          INTO CHAOS...          INT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- MEN'S BATHROOM -- NEXT          Arthur is now standing at the urinal. He begins to hear          commotion outside. He turns his head to the left... when          something COLD and METAL locks itself around his wrist.          Arthur turns back to the right and sees that it is Robert          Bevilacqua. He is standing at the urinal next to him and they          are now HAND-CUFFED TOGETHER at the wrists.          Bevilacqua retrieves a GUN from his pocket at points it at          Arthur. He has dark circles under his eyes.                         BEVILACQUA          You can still save yourself. It's          too late for me... but you can          still save yourself.                         ARTHUR          Bevilacqua...                         BEVILACQUA          Follow me out through the kitchen.          I have a truck waiting...                                                                                                              89.          INT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- BACK CORRIDOR -- NEXT          Arthur and Bevilacqua emerge from the men's bathroom into a          hallway that leads into the kitchen. Beyond them... in th.e          PARLOR... there is commotion among the members of the wedding          party in response to the gunshot.          INT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Arthur and Bevilacqua move through the kitchen. The WAITERS          and WAITRESSES are all distracted by the commotion and barely          take notice of them as they pass through...          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER          Walter walks down the driveway as several POLICE OFFICERS          rush past him, moving toward the entrance of the house. The          whole place is being evacuated...          He looks toward the square... and begins to move in that          direction.          The CAMERA drifts back toward the ROCK PILLAR that stands at          the entrance to the house. Arlington is standing there in          front of it. He is wearing his black hat... pulled down low.          He begins to follow Walter toward the square...          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- BACK DRIVEWAY -- NEXT          Arthur and Bevilacqua come out the back entrance into the          driveway. There is a WHITE PICKUP TRUCK parked there.          Bevilacqua opens the passenger side door and the two of them          slide across the seat, Bevilacqua behind the wheel.          EXT. FOREST LAWN SQUARE -- MOMENTS LATER          Walter wanders through a group of CHRISTMAS CAROLERS...          moving toward the maze of CHRISTMAS TREES. He looks over his          shoulder... where Arlington emerges from a crowd... staring          him down like a monster.          Walter's face is ghost white with terror. He begins to walk          faster through the maze.                                                                                                              90.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- DRIVEWAY -- MOMENTS LATER          Norma comes down the driveway with her mother and sister...          overcome with shock... searching the crowd...                         NORMA          Walter?          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- BACK DRIVEWAY -- NEXT          Bevilacqua puts the truck into drive and speeds out of the          driveway onto the street.          Jim stands across the lawn, manning the chaos. He recognizes          the two men as the pass him by... and he raises his WALKIE-          TALKIE to his mouth.                         JIM          I just spotted Bevilacqua... he's          in a white pick-up truck. Potential          hostage situation.          EXT. FOREST LAWN SQUARE -- MOMENTS LATER          Walter winds his way through the maze of Christmas trees...          rounding a corner... where he runs into DANA.                         DANA          Walter...                         WALTER          Hey.          Bud arrives next to her.                         DANA          Is everything alright?                         WALTER          No.                         DANA          Come with us.          She takes his hand and they move north back toward the          church.          EXT. 1-95 -- NIGHT          The WHITE PICK-UP drives south down 1-95.                                                                                                              91.          INT. WHITE PICK-UP TRUCK -- NEXT          Bevilacqua has his hands on the steering wheel... Arthur's          left arm extended due to the hand-cuffing.                         BEVILACQUA                         (DELIRIOUS)          Did you push the button... or was          it your wife?                         ARTHUR          My wife.                         BEVILACQUA          Yeah... me too. I wasn't even home.          She decided to push it when I          wasn't around to stop her.                         ARTHUR          And now she's dead. Did you kill          her?                         BEVILACQUA          I don't want to talk about it.                         ARTHUR          Where are you taking me?          Bevilacqua retrieves a NASA DOSSIER from the dashboard and          hands it to Arthur.                         BEVILACQUA          Kenneth Weller. You know him?                         ARTHUR          Name sounds familiar. Does he work          at Langley too?                         BEVILACQUA          Yep. He's next. Him and his wife...          they've got the box now.          Suddenly... BLUE AND RED LIGHTS appear behind them...          followed by the sound of a SIREN.          EXT. 1-95 -- NIGHT          TWO POLICE CRUISERS are now tailing the pick-up truck.          INT. WHITE PICK-UP TRUCK -- NEXT          Bevilacqua steps on the gas... accelerating to outrun them.                                                                                                              92.                         ARTHUR          What are you doing?                         BEVILACQUA          I'm not gonna let them get me...          Arthur... we've got to get to          Kenneth Weller. We've got to break          the chain... or your wife is gonna          die!                         ARTHUR          How is she going to die?                         BEVILACQUA          You're going to kill her!          Bevilacqua swerves into the ONCOMING TRAFFIC LANE to pass a          car in front of them. A LARGE 18-WHEELER TRUCK is barreling          toward them.          Bevilacqua pulls the truck back into the right lane.          EXT. 1-95 -- NEXT          The 18 WHEELER slams on the brakes... then jack-knives to          the left... blocking both lanes...          One of the POLICE CRUISERS pulls off into the ditch... while          the second CRUISER swerves and SMASHES head on into the side          of the truck bed... sheering the top of the sedan into two          pieces...          INT. WHITE PICK-UP TRUCK -- NEXT          Arthur looks back over his shoulder... seeing the cars smash          together.                         ARTHUR          Jesus! You're gonna get us killed!                         BEVILACQUA          Did Steward take you to the          library? Did you meet his mother...          the librarian?                         ARTHUR          Yeah.                         BEVILACQUA          Did she tell you about Prometheus?                         ARTHUR          Yeah...                                                                                                              93.                         BEVILACQUA          Steward has a twin brother... and          he works for the CIA.          UP AHEAD... Arthur sees FOUR MORE POLICE CRUISERS with their          lights flashing. They have formed a ROADBLOCK.          Bevilacqua lowers his foot onto the accelerator... refusing          to back down.                         BEVILACQUA (CONT'D)          This is purgatory... we're living          in purgatory...          EXT. 1-95 -- NIGHT          The WHITE TRUCK smashes through the line of POLICE CRUISERS          as POLICE OFFICERS dive for cover.          An officer raises his GUN and fires off several rounds toward          the truck.          A BULLET explodes the right front tire...          The truck swerves and FLIPS OVER onto one side... tumbling          over and over along the interstate in a horrific crash.          ONCOMING CARS swerve into ditches... and the white truck          comes sliding to a stop on the wet pavement.          The CAMERA slowly approaches the smoking wreckage... catching          a glimpse of Bevilacqua... his face covered in blood. Arthur          remains hidden from sight.          EXT. VIRGINIA HOUSE -- DRIVEWAY -- MOMENTS LATER          Norma rushes down the sidewalk on the perimeter of the          square... searching for her son.                         NORMA          Walter?          A BLACK SEDAN pulls up next to her... and Reston steps out of          the car.          Norma locks eyes with him... recognizing his face...                         RESTON          Mrs. Lewis? Norma Lewis?                         NORMA          Yes.                                                                                                              94.                         RESTON          My name is Reston Steward. I work          for the CIA.                         NORMA          Yeah? Where is my son? Where is my          husband?                         RESTON          Please... get into the car.          Norma stares at him in disbelief... as he opens the back door          and gestures inside.                         RESTON (CONT'D)                         (GENTLE)          Please... there isn't much time.          EXT. 1-95 -- NIGHT -- LATER ON          Jim Burns walks through the aftermath of the crash site.          There are now several FIRE TRUCKS, AMBULANCES and other          EMERGENCY VEHICLES scattered on either side of the          interstate.          Robert Bevilacqua's DEAD BODY is now on a stretcher. Jim          looks down at him briefly... then turns to another OFFICER on          the scene.                         JIM          Where's Arthur?                         OFFICER #1          They took him away in an ambulance.          INT. AMBULANCE -- NEXT          Arthur sits up in the back of the ambulance. He has a small          scrape on his cheekbone... but otherwise appears unharmed.          An EMS TECHNICIAN is in there with him. He hands Arthur an          ICE PACK.                         EMS TECHNICIAN          Here... hold this against your          forehead. It'll keep your head from          swelling.          Arthur takes the ice pack and places it against his head.                         ARTHUR          Thanks.                                                                                                              95.                         EMS TECHNICIAN          I think it might have been a          miracle.          The EMS Technician shakes his head in disbelief.                         ARTHUR          What?                         EMS TECHNICIAN          That car accident. I've never seen          someone walk away from an accident          like that.                         (BEAT)          Somebody upstairs is looking out          for you, buddy.          The door to the ambulance opens. A US ARMY OFFICER appears.          He steps away from the doors and General Teague emerges from          the darkness.                         TEAGUE          Are you able to walk, son?                         ARTHUR          Yes, sir.                         TEAGUE          Please step out of the ambulance.          EXT. HOWARD JOHNSON -- PARKING LOT -- NEXT          Arthur steps out of the ambulance and sees that it is parked          in front of a HOWARD JOHNSON HOTEL on an exit of 1-95. The          hotel has a DINER attached to it.          There are more than a dozen POLICE CARS parked in front,          along with..several BLACK SEDANS and MILITARY VEHICLES.          Arthur hears the rumble of a HELICOPTER circling the sky          above them. Its SEARCHLIGHT sweeps through the forest.          In front of the diner entrance... more than a DOZEN MEN          operate VIDEO CAMERAS and STILL CAMERAS mounted on tripods,          all pointed toward the front window of the diner.          Teague is standing with Cahill and Reston, along with several          other MILITARY PERSONNEL.          Arthur notices Norma as she emerges from a BLACK SEDAN... she          looks exhausted... delirious.                         NORMA          Arthur!                                                                                                              96.                         ARTHUR          Norma!          She hugs him... neither has slept in two days.                         NORMA          Where's Walter?                         ARTHUR          I don't know.          Reston steps forward.                         RESTON          My brother has taken your son...          but he assures me that he is alive          and well.          Reston tries to comfort them with a smile.                         RESTON (CONT'D)          Take a walk with us.          Norma and Arthur begin to walk with Reston, Teague and Cahill          toward the diner entrance.                         RESTON (CONT'D)          Are you familiar with the myth of          Prometheus?                         ARTHUR          Yeah.                         RESTON          In the 1940s... when NASA was          formed, we began developing, in          secret, a project that we dubbed          the Prometheus Effect.                         TEAGUE          Projecting fictional scenarios          about how we would respond, if and          when we came into contact with an          alien intelligence.                         RESTON          If the intelligence had hostile          intent... or if it began to somehow          display proof of its ability to          destroy us, we would have a system          in place to begin negotiating with          it in secret.                                                                                                              97.                         TEAGUE          The goal of Prometheus is to          maintain coexistence with this life-          form, and eventually achieve peace          with it, so that its power can be          harnessed, developed and applied in          such a manner that will benefit the          human race.          Arthur notices that Cahill is holding a folder in his right          hand.                         CAHILL          On the night of September 3rd, as          the server was downloading images          from the Viking camera system that          you helped design... we experienced          an electrical surge from a bolt of          lightning.          As they arrive at the entrance to the diner, Cahill shows          Arthur a blurry black and white photograph.                         CAHILL (CONT'D)          An anomaly in the series of Viking          images produced this photograph of          the Mars surface.          The photo appears to be a ghost-like TRAIL OF WHITE LIGHT          streaking across the martian landscape.          Teague nods toward the diner window.                         TEAGUE          According to... it... and whatever          it is...          Arthur notices Arlington sitting alone in a booth inside the          diner... waiting...                         TEAGUE (CONT'D)          A ghost... an apparition... a          methane compound imbedded in pulse          of electricity...                         CAHILL          If the human spirit is assigned a          specific bandwidth upon          conception... twins... would          provide it with a dual bandwidth          carrier...                         RESTON                         (INTERRUPTING)          It claims to be more than six          billion years old.                                                                                                              98.                         J          Arthur stares at the streak of white light in the photo.                         ARTHUR          My camera... took this photo...                         CAHILL          We've run the data sequence off the          server more than a thousand times.          Each time... this one photo in the          sequence comes out of the dark room          just like this. We can't explain          why.          Arthur hands the photo back to Cahill.                         NORMA          What does it want?          Cahill glances at Teague... who looks to Cahill.                         CAHILL          I think the same thing that it          wanted from Bevilacqua... except          that poor boy is no longer around          to tell us why he shot his wife.                         NORMA          What did he say to you when you          were in the car with him?                         ARTHUR          Something about breaking the chain.          He wanted to find the next test          subject... and prevent them from          pushing the button.          Cahill is writing diligently on his NOTE PAD.          Reston can now feel something taking control of him... he          looks to Teague... terrified.          He closes his eyes... his body begins to twitch.          Teague stares at his friend... realizing what is happening.          Reston opens his eyes... now possessed... blood draining from          his ears.                         RESTON          General Teague... it's a pleasure          to meet you.                         (BEAT)          I would like to continue with my          experiment... if you don't mind.          Reston smiles at the General.                                                                                                              99.                         RESTON (CONT'D)          Please do not interfere... as I          assure you that if you do... there          will be dire consequences...          Reston then turns to face Arthur and Norma.                         RESTON (CONT'D)          Time is of the essence... and I'd          like to invite my guests inside.          Reston opens the door to the diner and gestures to Arthur and          Norma for them to come inside.          INT. HOWARD JOHNSON -- DINER -- NEXT          Arthur, Norma and Reston make their way down the long aisle          of the diner, flanked by a row of booths, across from a long          LUNCH COUNTER with a metal surface.          Arlington sits alone in a booth. He pivots his head around to          face them.                         ARLINGTON          Please have a seat.          Reston sits down next to his twin brother... Arthur and Norma          sit down across from the twins.          Arlington has now locked completely into his brother's          spirit...          The movement of the two men is in now in PERFECT          SYNCHRONICITY, staggered by exactly one second... Reston          following Arlington.          Arlington's eyes remain closed in deep concentration...          Arlington's lips move silently... and Reston repeats them out          loud. Reston's demeanor is now kind... gentle... almost          apologetic for his past behavior.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          Don't be frightened by my manner of          communication... but it is becoming          more difficult for me to speak,          given my body's... condition.                         NORMA          What have you done with our son?                                                                                                              100.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          We'll get to him in a moment... but          first I want you to know that I          have a deep respect and admiration          you both, and I am very sorry...          that you pushed the button.          EXT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- POOL -- NEXT          Bud now has Walter laid out on the cement next the edge of          the SWIMMING POOL at the shallow end. The boy is          unconscious... still dressed in his suit from the wedding.          From across the pool... Dana is squatting on the end of the          DIVING BOARD... watching them.          Bud then removes Walter's right shoe and sock... exposing his          bare foot. He then retrieves a SERRATED HUNTING KNIFE... and          cuts in the flesh from his BIG TOE across the ball of his          foot... drawing blood.          INT. HOWARD JOHNSON -- DINER -- NEXT          Reston closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them...          tears have begun to form, as though he cannot bear the news          that his brother is forcing him to deliver.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          I will now give you a chance to          save yourselves... an opportunity          for redemption and salvation.          EXT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- POOL -- NEXT          Bud is now carrying the unconscious Walter in his arms. He          steps into the shallow end of the heated pool... and dunks          the boy under the surface.          BLOOD from the cut on the bottom of his foot drains out into          the water like red ink...          INT. HOWARD JOHNSON -- DINER -- NEXT          Norma closes her eyes... the impending sense of dread          building inside of her.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          Two of your son's five functional          senses have been permanently          impaired.                                                                                                              101.          EXT. WILLOW LAWN MOTEL -- POOL -- NEXT          UNDERWATER... Walter floats with his arms spread wide...          WHITE STROBES OF LIGHT FLICKER AROUND HIM. The light streaks          bear a close resemblance to the image in the -Mars photo.          Blood streams out from his foot into the water.          INT. HOWARD JOHNSON -- DINER -- NEXT          Blood is now flowing out of Reston's left nostril. Both          Arthur and Norma recoil in horror.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          He is now blind and deaf.                         (BEAT)          For the rest of his life, he will          never hear your voice... or see          your face.                         ARTHUR          (under his breath)          Why...                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          You are now presented with two          options.                         (BEAT)          Option one... you enjoy the rest of          your lives with the money you have          been given, and you learn to live          with your son's disability.          Reston then reaches into his pocket and retrieves a PISTOL.          He places it on the table next to the box.          RESTON/ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          And then there is option number          two.                         (BEAT)          There is one bullet in the chamber          of this gun.          Reston slides the gun across the table in Arthur's direction.          RESTON/ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          You can fire this bullet into your          wife's heart... killing her.                         (BEAT)          At the exact moment that her spirit          departs the earth, this curse upon          your son will be reversed, and both          of his impaired senses will          instantaneously return to normal.                                                                                                              102.          Arthur looks over at Norma in disbelief... then back at the          twins. He cannot fathom how it has now come to this.          RESTON/ARLINGTON (CONT'D)          Arthur, you will then be arrested          and charged with the murder of your          wife... and the money will be          placed in an interest bearing trust          for your son to receive upon his          eighteenth birthday.                         NORMA          That's not fair.                         (BEAT)          Let me do it. I, pushed your stupid          button. If I deserve to be punished          for it... then let me kill myself.          Arthur has nothing to do with this.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          I'm sorry, but the offer is not          negotiable.                         (TO ARTHUR)          And if Norma's fingers so much as          touch the weapon at any point from          this moment on... the restoration          of Walter's sight and sound will be          denied.                         NORMA          If Arthur has to do it... then I          want you to make it look like a          suicide. Arthur shouldn't be          punished for something that I did.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          I'm sorry... but the terms of the          offer are not negotiable.          Arthur faces has gone completely white.                         ARTHUR          Is there an afterlife?          The twins smile cryptically in response to Arthur's question.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          Because this is purgatory, right?          The earth is purgatory... and          you're here to start shutting          things down... right?          The twins appear impressed with his foresight.                                                                                                              103.                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          I find your theory to be quite          fascinating. But I must remind you          that I am unable to disclose the          identity of my employers.          Arthur glances out the window at all of the cameras.                         ARTHUR          Right. I get it.          Reston then turns to the window...                         RESTON/ARLINGTON          Can someone please bring up the          car?          EXT. HOWARD JOHNSON -- DINER -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur and Norma emerge from the diner in a state of          delirium. A SOLDIER pulls up in Arthur's TRANS-AM. He steps          out of the car and holds the door open.          Teague and Cahill approach... as MEN in dark suits snap          hundreds of photographs of the couple.          Cahill puts his hand on Arthur's shoulder... searching for          words.          Teague glances inside the diner... then back at Arthur.          Arthur nods his head slowly... his mind lost... and he limps          toward the car with Norma at his side.          INT. ARTHUR'S CAR -- NEXT          Norma sits behind the wheel... allowing Arthur to ride          shotgun. He looks weakened by the whole ordeal, and she is          afraid he might pass out.                         ARTHUR          Tell me this isn't happening,          Norma.                         NORMA          This isn't happening...          She starts the engine... and they drive off.          Arthur watches the parking lot full of MEN reflected back at          them in the side-view mirror.                                                                                                              104.          EXT. INTERSTATE 95 -- SUNRISE           HELICOPTER SHOT: The CAMERA flies over 1-95 as Arthur's car          travels north toward Richmond. A MILITARY HELICOPTER flies          overhead... escorting them on their journey home.          INT. ARTHUR'S CAR -- NEXT          Arthur sits shotgun as Norma drives them home. They have been          riding in silence for quite some time now, having reached a          level of complete mental and physical exhaustion.                         NORMA          All these years... I've given you          the impression that Walter was an          accident.                         ARTHUR          Yeah... and?                         NORMA          And... it wasn't exactly an          accident.                         (BEAT)          I stopped taking the pill when I          met you...                         ARTHUR          Why?                         NORMA          Because I was so afraid of losing          you to someone prettier than me.          Arthur just stares at her... unsure how to respond.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          For that alone... I deserve a          bullet in the heart... don't you          think?                         ARTHUR          No... I don't.          She manages a smile. A tear rolls down her cheek as she          stares out at the pavement and the endless trees lining          either side of the interstate.          EXT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FOYER -- EARLY MORNING          Arthur pulls the car up into the driveway. The street is          quiet and empty.                                                                                                              105.          They step out of the car. Dana is sitting on the front porch,          waiting for them.          She rises to her feet as they approach.                         DANA          Did my dad tell you why he loves          you, Norma?          Norma realizes that she has been involved all along. Blood          drains from her nose.                         NORMA          No.                         DANA          Because you're an amputee. He says          that the soul of an amputee leaks          out into the wind... searching for          the place where there is no longer          flesh and bone.                         (BEAT)          It says that the soul that leaks is          the soul that endures. It is the          kindest and bravest soul of them          all.                         NORMA          Where is our son?                         DANA          He's locked in the upstairs          bathroom. I think he just woke up.          Dana turns away... and begins to walk down the sidewalk in          the opposite direction.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- UPSTAIRS BATHROOM -- NEXT          Walter lays inside the bathtub, soaking wet. He is still          wearing his suit from the wedding. He is shivering... looking          around... disoriented...          His EYE-BALLS are now COMPLETELY WHITE... pupils no longer          visible.                         WALTER          Is anyone-there?!          He begins clawing at the walls... trying to figure out where          he is.                         WALTER (CONT'D)          I can't see!                                                                                                              106.          He climbs out of the bathtub and begins to crawl across the          tile floor. He runs into the door... and then reaches up and          finds the DOORKNOB. It is locked.          He begins to bang on the door relentlessly.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NEXT          Norma and Arthur come up the stairs and round the corner of          the hallway. Walter's HAND reaches out through the crack          beneath the door.          Norma tries to open the door but there is a MASSIVE LOCK          installed on it.                         NORMA          Walter!          Norma reaches down and takes her son's hand.                         WALTER          Who's there?! Who's there?!                         NORMA          Walter! It's mom! Can you hear me?!                         WALTER          WHO'S THERE?!!                         NORMA          CAN YOU HEAR ME!!?          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- UPSTAIRS BATHROOM -- NEXT          He does not respond... and begins banging his head against          the door... harder and harder...          Thump... thump...          NORMA (O.S.)          CAN YOU HEAR ME?!!!          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NEXT          No response... just his head... slamming against the door          repeatedly.                         ARTHUR          We need to kick the door down.                         NORMA          He could get hurt...                                                                                                              107.          Norma begins to pound back on the door with her fist... and          eventually the thumping stops. She begins to hear quiet sobs          from inside the bathroom.                         WALTER          Who's there? Who's there?          Norma rises to her feet.                         NORMA          Come downstairs, Arthur.          She takes his left hand... as he clutches Walter's hand in          his right.                         NORMA (CONT'D)          Arthur...                         (BEAT)          I need you to come downstairs with          me... right now.          INT. WELLER HOUSE -- BEDROOM -- NEXT          SUZANNE WELLER (30s) sits on her bed. Her husband KENNETH          WELLER (30s) stands at the window. Neither looks like they          have slept in a while.          Suzanne has the box sitting on the mattress in front of          her... the glass dome is open.                         SUZANNE          I'm gonna push it.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Arthur and Norma stand across from one another in the          kitchen. Arthur holds the GUN in his right hand... and he          slowly limps over to his wife and takes her into his arms.                         ARTHUR          Norma...                         NORMA          Arthur... I love you, and I'm so          sorry... I'm so sorry that I did          this to us...                         ARTHUR          I'm the one who told you to push          the button... so don't apologize.          He looks out through the window at his back yard... likely          for the last time.                                                                                                              108.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          I love you too... and please          know... that I regret nothing in          this life we've lived together.                         NORMA          I'll be waiting... counting the          days until my Arthur comes to see          me.          INT. WELLER HOUSE -- BEDROOM -- NEXT          Suzanne Weller smiles at her husband... reaches her finger          out and places it on the button.          She then presses down.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          FROM UPSTAIRS... thump... thump... their son's head banging          against the door...                         NORMA          It's going to be harder for you to          live than for me to die.          Arthur closes his eyes... the noise is excruciating. There is          no time to wait any longer.                         ARTHUR          Well then.                         (BEAT)          Let's get on with it.          Arthur kisses her... then steps back... still clutching her          hand... raises the gun... and fires off a round into her          heart.          Norma collapses... Arthur falls with her... breaking her fall          with his arms as they collapse into a heap onto the linoleum          floor.          INT. WELLER HOUSE -- BEDROOM -- NEXT          Suzanne looks over at her husband and lets out a deranged          giggle. He smiles back.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Arthur looks down into his wife's eyes as the life drains          from her body. Seconds later... Norma is dead.                                                                                                              109.          BLOOD begins to flow from the exit wound in her back across          the linoleum. Arthur is now covered in it.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Walter crawls across the blood-soaked kitchen floor and          reaches up to the PHONE that is mounted on the wall. He takes          his finger and places it in the cradle... dials 911.          INT. RICHMOND POLICE STATION -- 911 EMERGENCY -- NEXT          The CAMERA tracks along a series of CUBICLES at the POLICE          STATION in downtown Richmond. An OPERATOR sits at each          cubicle... each one female.                         OPERATOR #1          911 emergency... how may I direct          your call?          The CAMERA moves in closer...          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Arthur has the phone to his ear... imprints of his wife's          blood are smeared on the phone's receiver.                         ARTHUR          Yes. This is Arthur Lewis at 1560          Monument Avenue. I've just shot my          wife... can you please send an          ambulance?          The Operator begins to ask more questions... but Arthur does          not listen. He hangs up the phone.          The thumping from upstairs has now subsided.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)          WALTER!!!          He pulls himself to his feet and heads into the foyer.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- NEXT          Arthur rounds the corner at the base of the stairs...                         ARTHUR          WALTER!!!                                                                                                              110.          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- UPSTAIRS HALLWAY -- NEXT          Arthur rounds the corner of the upstairs hallway... rushes          toward the bathroom door.          Walter's hand comes sliding out from beneath the crack in the          door. Arthur grabs it.                         ARTHUR          WALTER!!!                         WALTER          Dad?                         ARTHUR          Yes... can you hear me?                         WALTER          Yeah.                         ARTHUR          What do you see? Where are you          Walter?                         WALTER          I'm in the bathroom...                         ARTHUR          Can you see clearly?                         WALTER          Yeah... I can see... everything is          bright... but I can see.                         ARTHUR          Everything is bright. Everything is          bright Walter... you're gonna be          okay, buddy.                         WALTER          What's going on?                         ARTHUR          You're gonna be okay, buddy. That's          all that matters.                         (BEAT)          That's all that matters, now.          Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur notices something at the          top of the stairs. It is a POLICE OFFICER. He has his gun          aimed at Arthur.                         POLICE OFFICER          BACK AWAY FROM THE DOOR AND PUT          YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!!                                                                                                              Arthur stares at the officer... frozen... the repercussions          of his decision now stare him in the face with a loaded gun.          POLICE OFFICER (CONT'D)          I SAID BACK AWAY FROM THE DOOR AND          PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!!          Arthur obeys... and the cop rushes over and pushes him over          onto his stomach... handcuffing his wrists together.          INT. WELLER HOUSE -- FOYER -- NEXT          The DOORBELL rings.          Suzanne Weller opens the door. Arlington is standing there          with his briefcase... smiling.                         ARLINGTON          Mrs. Weller... do you have the          button unit?          INT. LEWIS HOUSE -- KITCHEN -- LATER THAT MORNING          A CORONER places a BLANKET over Norma's face as the house is          sealed off by various CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS and other          police.          EXT. LEWIS HOUSE -- FRONT WALK -- MOMENTS LATER          Arthur is now being escorted by two POLICE OFFICERS to a          waiting CRUISER that is parked in front of the house.          Jim Burns is standing there with the door open.                         ARTHUR          I'm sorry, Jim.          He stares Arthur down as he is put into the back seat of the          cruiser. Jim closes the door and goes around to the front of          the car.          Jim gets behind the wheel and starts the engine.          Arthur looks back through the window, toward his house.          Upstairs in the MASTER BEDROOM WINDOW... Walter is watching,          tears streaming down his face.          Arthur reaches up with his hands... cuffed together... and          tries his best to wave at his son.                                                                                                              112.                         ARTHUR (CONT'D)                         (MOUTHING SILENTLY)          I`m sorry...          From the window... Walter watches the car pull away from the          curb.          He places his hand on the glass... waving back.          CUT TO BLACK:
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+                                       "BRAVEHEART"                                            by                                     Randall Wallace                                       Early Draft                               FADE IN:               EXT. THE SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE - DAY               Epic beauty: cobalt mountains beneath a glowering purple sky                fringed with pink, as if the clouds were a lid too small for                the earth; a cascading landscape of boulders shrouded in                deep green grass; and the blue lochs, reflecting the sky. We                hear a voice, husky, Scottish...                                     VOICE OVER                         I will tell you of William Wallace.               EXT. MACANDREWS FARM - DAY               A farmhouse and a large barn lie nestled in a Scottish valley.                Riding down the roads that lead in from opposite sides are                Scottish noblemen in full regalia: eye-popping tartans,                sparkling chestplates. Even the horses are draped in scarlet.                Behind each nobleman rides a single page boy.                                     VOICE OVER                         Historians from England will say I                          am a liar. But history is written by                          those who have hung heroes.               Another noble rides in from the opposite side. Two more appear                down the road, converging on the barn.                                     VOICE OVER                         The King of Scotland had died without                          a son, and the king of England, a                          cruel pagan known as Edward the                          Longshanks, claimed the throne for                          himself. Scotlandís nobles fought                          him, and fought each other, over the                          crown. So Longshanks invited them to                          talks of truce. No weapons, one page                          only.               The nobles eye each other cautiously, but the truce holds.               They enter the barn, with their pages...               EXT. SCOTTISH FARM - DAY               Nestled in emerald hills are the thatched roof house and                barn and outbuildings of a well-run farm. The farmer, MALCOLM                WALLACE, and his nineteen-year-old son JOHN, both strong,                tough men, are riding away from the farm. They hear hooves                behind them and turn to see a boy riding after them.                                     VOICE OVER                         Among the farmers of that shire was                          Malcolm Wallace, a commoner, with                          his own lands and two sons: John...               We FAVOR JOHN WALLACE, the nineteen-year-old sitting easily                on his horse, beside his father...                                     VOICE OVER                         ...and William.               WILLIAM, a skinny eight-year-old riding bareback, catches up                to his father and older brother.                                     FATHER                         Told ya to stay.                                     WILLIAM                         I finished my chores. Where we goin'?                                     FATHER                         MacAndrews'. He was supposed to visit                          when the truce was over.               They ride on, over the lush hills.               EXT. THE MACANDREWS FARM - DAY               The horses are all gone; the place looks deserted. UP ON THE                HILL we see the three Wallaces, looking down.                                     FATHER                         Stay here.               He means William. He and his elder son spur their horses.               AT THE BARN - DAY               The Wallaces ride up, looking around.                                     FATHER                         MacAndrews!... MacAndrews!?               Malcolm finds a pitchfork, John the woodpile axe...               INT. THE BARN               POV from within as the door opens and a widening block of                sunlight illuminates the dusty shadows. Malcolm and John                Wallace step in, and are shocked to see...               POV THE WALLACES               Hanging from the rafters of the barn are thirty Scottish                noblemen and thirty pages, their faces purple and contorted                by the strangulation hanging, their tongues protruding.               Malcolm stabs the pitchfork into the ground in useless anger;                John still grips the axe as he follows his father through                the hanging bodies of the noblemen to the back row, to see                the one man in commoner's dress, like theirs...                                     FATHER                         MacAndrews.               A SHUFFLE; John spins; William has entered the back door.                                     JOHN                         William! Get out of here!                                     WILLIAM                         Why would MacAndrews make so many                          scarecrows?               Before his father and brother can think of anything to say,                William, with a boy's curiosity, touches the spurred foot of                the hanged noblemen we first saw riding in. It's too solid;                he takes a real look at the face, and suddenly --                                     WILLIAM                         R -- real!!!... Ahhhhhgggg!...               He turns to run, but knocks back into the feet of the hanged                man behind him! In blind panic he darts in another direction,                and runs into another corpse, and another; the hanged men                begin to swing, making it harder for William's father and                older brother to fight their way to him.                                     FATHER                         William! William!               Then, worst of all, William sees the pages, boys like himself,                hanged in a row behind their masters!               Finally his father and brother reach William and hug him                tight. There in the barn, among the swinging bodies of the                hanged nobles, Malcolm Wallace grips his sons.                                     FATHER                         Murderin' English bastards.                                                                    CUT TO:               EXT. WALLACE FARMHOUSE - NIGHT               The cottage looks peaceful, the windows glowing yellow into                the night. From outside the house we see John rise and close                the shutters of the kitchen, where men are gathered. We PAN                UP to the upper bedroom window...               INSIDE THAT BEDROOM               Young William is in nightmarish sleep. He mumbles in smothered                terror; he twitches. We see               HIS NIGHTMARE               In the blue-grays of his dream, William stands at the door                of the barn, gazing at the hanged knights. We WHIP PAN to                their faces, garish, horrible... Then one of the heads moves                and its eyes open! William wants to run, but he can't get                his body to respond... and the hanging nobleman, his bloated                tongue still bursting through his lips, moans...                                     GHOUL                         Will--iam...!               WILLIAM tears himself from sleep; looking around, swallowing                back his tears and panic.               IN THE KITCHEN               A dozen strong, tough farmers have huddled. Red-headed                CAMPBELL, scarred and missing fingers, is stirred up, while                his friend MacCLANNOUGH is reluctant.                                     CAMPBELL                         Wallace is right! We fight 'em!                                     MACCLANNOUGH                         Every nobleman who had any will to                          fight was at that meeting.                                     MALCOLM WALLACE                         So it's up to us! We show them we                          won't lie down to be their slaves!                                     MACCLANNOUGH                         We can't beat an army, not with the                          fifty farmers we can raise!                                     MALCOLM WALLACE                         We don't have to beat 'em, just fight                          'em. To show 'em we're not dogs, but                          men.               Young Wallace has snuck down and is eavesdropping from the                stairs. He sees his father drip his finger into a jug of                whiskey and use the wet finger to draw on the tabletop.                                     MALCOLM WALLACE                         They have a camp here. We attack                          them at sunset tomorrow. Give us all                          night to run home.               EXT. WALLACE FARM - DAY               Malcolm and John have saddled horses; they are checking the                short swords they've tucked into grain sacks when William                comes out of the barn with his own horse.                                     MALCOLM                         William, you're staying here.                                     WILLIAM                         I can fight.               These words from his youngest son make Malcolm pause, and                kneel, to look into William's eyes.                                     MALCOLM                         Aye. But it's our wits that make us                          men. I love ya, boy. You stay.               Malcolm and John mount their horses and ride away, leaving                William looking forlorn. They wave; he waves back.               EXT SCOTTISH HILLS, NEAR THE WALLACE FARM - DAY               It's strangely quiet, until William and his friend HAMISH                CAMPBELL, a red-headed like his father, race up the hillside                and duck in among a grove of trees. Breathless, gasping,                they press their backs to the tree bark. William peers around                a tree, then shrinks back and whispers...                                     WILLIAM                         They're coming!                                     HAMISH                         How many?                                     WILLIAM                         Three, maybe more!                                     HAMISH                         Armed?                                     WILLIAM                         They're English soldiers, ain't they?                                     HAMISH                         With your father and brother gone,                          they'll kill us and burn the farm!                                     WILLIAM                         It's up to us, Hamish!               Hamish leans forward for a look, but William pulls him back.                                     WILLIAM                         Not yet! Here he comes, be ready!               They wait; heavy FOOTSTEPS. Then from around the edge of the                grove three enormous, ugly hogs appear. The boys hurling                rotten eggs. The eggs slap the snouts of the pigs, who scatter                as the boys charge, howling. We PULL BACK... as the sun goes                down on their play.               EXT. THE WALLACE HOUSE - SUNDOWN               The boys walk toward the house, beneath a lavender sky.                                     HAMISH                         Wanna stay with me tonight?                                     WILLIAM                         I wanna have supper waitin'.                                     HAMISH                         We'll get those English pigs tomorrow.                                     WILLIAM                         Aye, we'll get 'em.               EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT               William's face appears at the window, looking toward               THE DISTANT HILLS               of trees and heather, where there is no sign of life.               INT. THE HOUSE - NIGHT               William has cooked stew in a pot, and now spoons up two                steaming bowls full and sets them out on the table. But he                is only hoping. He looks out the window again; he is still                all alone. So he leaves a candle burning on the table beside                the stew, and moves up the stairs.               EXT. FARMHOUSE - DAWN               The house is silent, fog rolling around it in the dawn.               INT. FARMHOUSE - DAWN               William has been awake all night, afraid to sleep. He rises,                and in QUICK CUTS: he dresses; he moves down the hall, stops                at the door of his father's bedroom and sees the undisturbed                bed. He moves on, passing the door of his brother's room,                also unrumpled.               IN THE KITCHEN               He finds the two cold bowls of stew, beside the exhausted                candle. He spoons up his own cold porridge, and eats alone.               EXT. HOUSE - DAY               William is in the barn loft, shoveling corn down to feed the                hogs, while he glimpses something coming.               THE BOY'S POV               An ox cart is coming down the curving lane. Its driver is                Campbell, with MacClannough walking behind it. The farmers                glance up at William, their faces grim...               From his perch in the loft, William sees that the neighbors                have brought: the bodies of his father and brother. The cart                stops; Campbell, with a bandage around his left hand where                more of his fingers are now missing, studies the back of the                ox, as if it could tell him how to break such news. The butt                of the ox seems to tell him to be matter-of-fact.                                     CAMPBELL                         William... Come down here, lad.               William looks away, he takes quick breaths, he looks back...                but the bodies are still there.               EXT. HOUSE - DAY               It's now surrounded by horses, wagons, and neighbors. The                undertaker arrives in his hearse.               INT. THE SHED - DAY               On a table the undertaker has laid out the bodies and is                preparing them. Cloths around the lower jaw and top of the                head bind their mouths shut; pennies cover their eyes.               Softly, William enters the shed, drawn to his father and                brother. Campbell follows him in, wanting to stop him -- but                what can he say now? The undertaker goes on with his work.               William approaches the table; the bodies don't look real to                him. He sees the wounds. The dried blood.               The undertake pours water from a bowl and scrubs off the                blood. But the wounds remain.               EXT. GRAVESIDE - DAY               CLOSE on a grave, with a headstone marked ANNE WALLACE. We                INCLUDE the two new graves freshly dug beside it, and see                the mourners gathered before them. The sight of the boy,                standing alone in front of the graves of his dead mother, as                the bodies of his father and brother are lowered with ropes                into the ground beside her, has all of the neighbors shaken.               The local parish PRIEST drones mechanically in Latin.               The farmers who were secretly gathered in Malcolm Wallace's                kitchen the previous night are now glancing at William; but                no one is anxious to adopt a grieving, a rebellious boy.               Behind MacClannough are his wife and two daughters; his                youngest is barely four, not half William's age; she's a                beautiful girl with long auburn hair, and she clings to her                own mother's hand, as if the open graves are the mouths of                death and might suck her parents in too.                                     PRIEST                         ...Restare in pacem eternis, Amen.               With the final Amen, the neighbors drift from the graveside,                pulling their Children along, to give William a last moment                of private grief before the grave diggers cover the bodies.               The boy stands alone over the open graves, his heart so                shattered that he can scarcely cry; a single tear makes its                way down his face. And the tiny girl feels for William in a                way that the adults cannot. From the ground she pulls a                Scottish thistle, moves to the softly weeping William and                places the beautiful wild blossom in his hand.               William looks up and their young eyes meet; her sad blue                eyes hold William's as the grave diggers cover the bodies.               Then a lone, mounted figure appears at the crest of the hill                above them. Tall, thin and angular, in black clerical garb,                he looks like the grim reaper.               The girl hurries back to her mother's side; everyone watches                in silence as the figure rides down to them. He is ARGYLE                WALLACE. He looks like a human buzzard, his face craggy,                permanently furious.                                     PRIEST                         You must be the relative of the                          deceased... William, this is your                          Uncle Argyle.               Argyle glowers at the man, dismounts, and glares at William.               William stares up at this frightening figure. They are                interrupted by the ominous sound of approaching horses; a                dozen mounted English soldiers, armed with lances, are                approaching. Argyle rattles to the priest...                                     ARGYLE                         You were wise to hurry.               The soldiers ride right in among the mourners and stare down                from their saddles, haughty, menacing, their LEADER brusque.                                     LEADER                         Someone dead from this household?                                     ARGYLE                         We just had a funeral, isn't that                          what it means in England as well?                                     LEADER                         What it means in England -- and in                          Scotland too -- is that rebels have                          forfeited their lands. We were                          ambushed last night. But the Scots                          dragged their dead away.                                     ARGYLE                         My brother and nephew perished two                          days ago, when their hay cart turned                          over.                                     LEADER                         Then we'll just have a peek at the                          wounds.                              (to his men)                         Dig 'em up!                                     ARGYLE                         They've been sanctified and buried                          in the holy rites of God's church,                          and any hand that disturbs them now                          takes on eternal damnation. So please --                          do it.               Outmaneuvered, the leader reins his horse away. Several of                the farmers spit on the ground. Argyle glares at them.                                     ARGYLE                         Funeral's over. Go home.               INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT               William and Argyle are sitting at the table, eating. Argyle                has laid out a proper meal, with exact place settings.                                     ARGYLE                         Not that spoon, that one's for soup.                          Dip away from you. And don't slurp.               Argyle sits down and begins to dine with the boy.                                     ARGYLE                         We'll sleep here tonight. You'll                          come home with me. We'll let the                          house, and the lands too; plenty of                          willing neighbors.                                     WILLIAM                         I don't want to leave.                                     ARGYLE                         Didn't want your father to die either,                          did ya? But it happened.               Argyle pushes his food away; he has no appetite now.                                     ARGYLE                         Did the priest say anything about                          the Resurrection? Or was it all about                          Judgment?                                     WILLIAM                         It was in Latin, sir.                                     ARGYLE                         Non loquis Latinum? You don't speak                          Latin? We have to fix that, won't                          we?                              (beat)                         Did he give the poetic benediction?                          The Lord bless thee and keep thee?                          Patris Benefactum et --                              (beat)                         ...It was Malcolm's favorite.               INT. WILLIAM'S BEDROOM - NIGHT               Argyle knows nothing about tucking a boy in bed; he stands                awkwardly idle as William scrubs his face at the washstand                and crawls into bed.                                     WILLIAM                         Good night, Uncle.               Argyle grunts and starts out. Then he stops, turns back,                leans down over William... and with great tenderness the                grizzled old uncle kisses his nephew on his hair.               INT. THE KITCHEN - NIGHT               Argyle sits by the hearth, staring at the embers. He holds                the huge broadsword that belonged to his brother. He looks                at the handle, like a cross. He whispers...                                     ARGYLE                         "The Lord bless thee and keep thee..."               Tears of grief spill down the old man's cheeks.               INT. THE HANGING BARN - IN WILLIAM'S DREAM               Once again the boy stands in the doorway of the barn, looking                at the garish, hanged faces in his nightmare. Then a mangled                hand comes from behind him and grasps his shoulder, William                gasps, but the hand holds him gently. He turns to see his                father, and his brother! They are wounded, bloody, but they                smile at him; they're alive! Weeping in joy, William reaches                to hug them, but his father stretches forth a forbidding                hand.               William keeps reaching out helplessly. His father and brother                move past him to the hanged knights. Two empty nooses are                there. Before the boy's weeping eyes they put their heads                into the nooses, and hoist themselves up.               William's grief explodes; his tears erupt and               HE WAKES IN HIS BEDROOM               tears flooding down his face. A dream! Still upset, still                grieving, he gets up and goes looking for his uncle.               INT. HOUSE - NIGHT               William moves down to the room where his uncle would be                sleeping. He opens the door. The bed has been slept in --                but his uncle is not there. He moves downstairs to               THE KITCHEN               But his uncle is not there either. Then William hears a                strange, haunting sound-distant, carried by the wind. He                moves to the window and sees only moonlight. He opens the                window and hears it more clearly: bagpipes. William lights a                candle and throws open the door. Wind rushes in, blowing out                his candle. But he hears the pipes, louder in the wind.               EXT. WALLACE HOUSE - NIGHT               William is barefoot and in only his nightshirt; but the sound                of the pipes is growing louder. He moves through the                moonlight, drawn toward -- the graveyard! He stops as he                realizes this, then forces himself on.               EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT               William moves to the top of the hill where his ancestors are                buried, and discovers a haunting scene: two dozen men, the                farmer/warriors of his neighborhood, are gathered in kilts --                and among them, a core of bagpipers. The pipes wail an ancient                Scottish dirge, a tune of grief and redemption, a melody                known to us as "Amazing Grace." Uncle Argyle has heard them                and walked out too; he stands at the fringes of the                torchlight, still holding the massive broadsword. He glances                down, noticing William as the boy moves up beside him. William                whispers...                                     WILLIAM                         What are they doing?                                     ARGYLE                         Saying goodbye in their own way --                          in outlawed tartans, with outlawed                          pipes, playing outlawed tunes.               The farmers file by the graveside, crossing themselves, each                whispering his own private prayer. Argyle whispers, half to                William, and half to himself...                                     ARGYLE                         Your Daddy and I, we saw our own                          father buried like this, dead from                          fighting the English.               William takes the sword from his uncle, and tries to lift                it.               Slowly, Argyle takes the sword back.                                     ARGYLE                         First learn to use this.               He taps William on the temple with the tip of his finger.                                     ARGYLE                         Then I will teach you to use this.               With an expert's easy fluidity, he lifts the huge sword. It                glistens in the torchlight. The music plays, the notes hanging                in the air, swirling in the Scottish breeze as if rising                towards the stars...               EXT. WALLACE FARM - DAY               William and his uncle ride off in a farm wagon. William has                a bundle of clothes in his lap, and glances at his uncle as                if afraid of his disapproval if he looks back. But he does                glance back just once, to see the deserted farmhouse.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. WESTMINSTER ABBEY - ROYAL WEDDING - DAY               Amid the scarlet and ermine robes of officiating lords, with                gemstones sparkling everywhere, we hear...                                     VOICE OVER                         Twelve years later, Longshanks                          supervised the wedding of his eldest                          son, also named Edward, who would                          succeed him to the throne.               LONGSHANKS, King of England, stands in the jeweled light of                the ancient Abbey. Known as Longshanks because of the spindly                legs that make him almost seven feet tall, he has a hawk's                nose and a snake's eyes, punctuating a face of distinct                cruelty. Historians of his day considered him and the line                of Plantagenets from which he came to be devil worshipers.                                     VOICE OVER                         As bride for his son, Longshanks had                          chosen a relative of his rival, the                          king of France.               GENEVIEVE, a nineteen-year-old virgin of stupendous beauty                moves down the aisle, the light in her face outshining her                blindingly white wedding gown. As she reaches the altar her                hands tremble, but she maintains her poise and control.               She looks toward EDWARD, Prince of Wales. Pampered young men                surround him as his retinue. He takes her hand coldly and                goes through the ceremony under his father's stare.                                     VOICE OVER                         It was widely whispered that for the                          Princess to conceive, Longshanks                          would have to do the honors himself.                          That may have been what he had in                          mind all along.               The ceremony concluding, attendants lift back the bride's                veil. Her wedding day, the ultimate moment -- and Prince                Edward ignores her, to turn back to his friends. But prompted                by one of the sour lords, he leans over and pecks his new                Princess on the cheek. For an instant, we see in her eyes                that her heart is dying. But she keeps her poise.                                     VOICE OVER                         Having seen to his obligations to                          provide for a successor, Longshanks                          set about his fondest business -- to                          crush Scotland, and turn his power                          against France...               CLOSE - A MAP OF THE BRITISH ISLES               Longshanks' narrow finger jabs Scotland.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Scotland! Scot-land!               We are in the --               INT. ROYAL ENGLISH PALACE - DAY               Longshanks is being listened to by his advisors, all in the                outrageous splendor of royal military dress, and all deathly                afraid of him.                                     LONGSHANKS                         The French will grovel to anyone                          with strength! But how will they                          credit our strength when we cannot                          rule the whole of our own island?!               He punches the map, then sees the Princess enter softly.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Where is my son?                                     PRINCESS                         Your pardon, M'lord, he asked me to                          come in his stead.               Longshanks' eyes expand in fury; it is frightening to see.                                     LONGSHANKS                         I sent for him -- and the little                          coward send you?!                                     PRINCESS                         Shall I leave, M'lord?                                     LONGSHANKS                         If he wants his queen to rule, then                          you stay and learn how! I will deal                          with him.               He spins back toward his generals. Ignored, the princess                settles silently onto the cushions of the window seat.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Nobles are the key to the Scottish                          door. Grant their nobles land here                          in England. Give our own nobles                          estates in the north. Make them too                          greedy to oppose us.               One OLD ADVISOR speaks up hesitantly.                                     OLD ADVISOR                         Sire... Our nobles will be reluctant                          to relocate. New lands mean new taxes,                          and they are taxed already for our                          war in France.               Longshanks glares at him, but takes the point. The wheels                grind in his brain; his dark eyes falling on the Princess,                he is inspired.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Perhaps it's time to reinstitute an                          old custom. Grant them prima noctes,                          "First night." When any common girl                          inhabiting their lands is married,                          our lords shall have sexual rights                          to her on the night of her wedding.                          That should fetch just the kind of                          lords we want in Scotland.               INT. PRINCE EDWARD'S ROYAL APARTMENTS - DAY               The prince and a muscular young friend, PHILLIP, are stripped                to the waist and fencing. They pay no attention to the               KNOCK, or to the Princess as she enters. She watches them --                they are dancing more than fencing. Edward loses his sword;                it clatters to the polished floor. He looks up at his wife,                as if angry at her for having seen his clumsiness.                                     EDWARD                         What is it?!                                     PRINCESS                         You directed me to report to you the                          moment the king's conference was                          ended.                                     EDWARD                         So I did! And what was so important                          about it?                                     PRINCESS                         Scotland. He intends --               But Edward and his friend are fencing again, the clanging of                their blunted swords so loud that she can't hear herself.                                     PRINCESS                         He intends to grant --               Edward loses his weapon again, and whirls on her.                                     EDWARD                         Shut up, would you! How can I                          concentrate?!                                     PRINCESS                         ...His majesty was quite keen that                          you should understand --                                     EDWARD                         All so very boring! He wants me to                          learn to fight too, so let me do it!               For an instant, anger flares into her eyes. She glances at                Edward, and at the young man with him, then lowers her eyes                and starts to back out. But Edward has noticed.                                     EDWARD                         Stop there.               She stops, but does not raise her eyes.                                     EDWARD                         Do you disapprove of Phillip?               He lifts his hand and draws his friend Phillip to his side.               Still the Princess does not lift her eyes.                                     PRINCESS                              (barely audible)                         No, M'lord.                                     EDWARD                         Look at me. I said LOOK AT ME!               She lifts her eyes. But she could not brace herself enough                for what she sees: Edward nuzzling Phillip, the prince's                bare chest to his muscular friend's bare back, both men                glistening with sweat and sexual excitement.               The Princess's eyes quiver... but she does not look away.                                     EDWARD                         Now, my flower, do you understand?                                     PRINCESS                         Yes. I had thought that... I was                          loathsome to you. Perhaps I am. If I                          may be excused, M'lord.                                     EDWARD                         You may.               She starts to leave, as quietly as she came. But her husband                calls after her.                                     EDWARD                         Don't worry, m'Lady, it is my royal                          responsibility to breed. And I assure                          you, when the time comes, I shall...                          manage.               She closes the door softly, on her husband and his lover.                                     VOICE OVER                         Now in Edinburgh were gathered the                          council of Scottish nobles...               ESTABLISHING COUNCIL - DAY               The picturesque heart of Scotland, with its CASTLE on a fairy                tale plateau above the Firth of Forth.               INT. EDINBURGH CASTLE - DAY               The nobles are gathered around a huge table. They rise at                the entrance of young ROBERT THE BRUCE, a handsome young                man, full of intelligence and power.                                     VOICE OVER                         Among these was Robert, the 17th                          Earl of Bruce, a leading contender                          for the crown of Scotland.               Robert strides to his seat in the center of the table, and                the others settle in respectfully. MORNAY, another young                warrior, gives him a bow, as does CRAIG, a grizzled noble.                                     CRAIG                         Young Robert, we are honored --                                     ROBERT                         My father hears that Longshanks has                          granted prima noctes.                                     CRAIG                         Clearly meant to draw more of his                          supporters here.                                     MORNAY                         The Balliol clan has endorsed the                          right, licking Longshanks' boots so                          he will support their claim to the                          throne. If we make a show of                          opposition, the commoners will favor                          us.                                     ROBERT                         It is too soon to step out alone. My                          father believes we must lull                          Longshanks into confidence, by neither                          supporting his decree nor opposing                          it.                                     CRAIG                         A wise plan. And how is your father?                          We have missed him at the council.                                     ROBERT                         He strained his leg so that it pains                          him to ride. But he sends his                          greetings -- and says that I speak                          for all the Bruces. And for Scotland.               EXT. SCOTTISH VILLAGE, AT THE EDGE OF TOWN - DAY               Flutes and dancing; laughter and garlands; village families                have gathered for a wedding celebration -- we see the happy                bride and groom. Farmers cart in fresh bread and hoops of                cheese; villagers arrive with casks of beer or strings of                smoked fish.               And watching the people are ubiquitous English soldiers,                battlescarred veterans with missing eyes and ears.               Riding along the road comes William Wallace. Grown now, a                man. He sits his horse as if born there, his back straight,                his hands relaxed on the reins. He has a look of lean, rippled                power. He looks dangerous.               And the soldiers notice him, nudging each other as he passes.               He carries a dead wild goose hanging across his saddle; he                stops his horse at the edge of the clearing and surveys the                scene. Farmers are roasting a pig; women are comparing                handiwork; young men are tossing huge stones in the                traditional Highland games -- and everyone is noticing                William's arrival, especially the farm women with daughters                of marriageable age.               Among those watching William arrive is Campbell, grown older                now; and with his old rebel friend, MacClannough. William                dismounts and ties his horse to a willow. One of the English                SOLDIERS shoves William from behind.                                     SOLDIER                         Hey boy! You hunt this bird?               William's eyes fix themselves on the soldier.                                     SOLDIER                         It's against the law for Scots to                          own bows. You shot this bird?               His buddies, enjoying their role as intimidators, grab the                bird and begin to search it for evidence.                                     WILLIAM                         I hit it in the head. With a rock.               They don't believe that -- but they can't find any puncture                wound on the bird. William reaches his hand out for the return                of the bird. The soldiers drop it onto the ground.               Slowly, William picks it up, and heads into the clearing.               The farmers watch him come.               Among those noticing William's arrival, but pretending not                to, is MARION MacCLANNOUGH, grown now into a stunning young                woman; her long auburn hair reminds us of those years long                ago; she wears it the same way, straight and full down her                back. Her dress is plain, like the grass that surrounds a                wildflower. She's the most beautiful girl in the village,                maybe in all of Scotland, and the soldiers who hassled William                notice her too.               William reaches the food table and contributes his goose to                the feast. FARM WOMEN eye him; he nodes to one.                                     WILLIAM                         Miz MacDougal. You look well.                                     FARM WOMAN                         ...William? It's William Wallace,                          back home! -- Have you met my                          daughter?               The daughter mentioned is missing teeth. William nods to                her. It's impossible for him to giver her a smile as bright                as her hopes, and she lowers her head in disappointment. But                then raises her face in surprise as William takes her hand                and gives her a respectful bow.               He moves away from the table, passing through the crowd like                a stranger. Then he glances toward the knot of girls. He                sees Marion. She sees him, then looks away. Do they remember                each other? He moves toward her; she is shy, her eyes                downcast, but then she raises them and looks at him.               They move closer and closer together. Just as they are about                to reach each other, a huge round stone THUMPS to the earth                at Williams' feet.               He looks up to see one of Marion's suitors -- the broad,                muscled young man who has just tossed the stone in William's                way. Now everybody's looking to see how William will handle                the challenge. He tries to move around, but the guy cuts him                off. Then William thinks he recognizes the big red-head.                                     WILLIAM                         Hamish?               It is his old friend, but Hamish won't admit it, or be put                off from the challenge. He points to the huge stone.                                     HAMISH                         Test of manhood.                                     WILLIAM                         You win.                                     HAMISH                              (blocks him)                         Call it a test of soldiery, then.                          The English won't let us train with                          weapons, so we train with stones.                                     WILLIAM                         The test of a soldier is not in his                          arm. It's here.               He taps his temple. Hamish stretches out his hand, as if to                show William something in his palm.                                     HAMISH                         No. It's here.               With a sudden movement, he slams his fist into William's                jaw, dropping him. A few men move to interfere, but Campbell,                MacClannough, and the other farmers who are the true leaders                here, stop their neighbors from interrupting. Hamish stands                over William, waiting for him to get up.                                     WILLIAM                         A contest, then.               William stands and hoists the huge stone, eighteen inches in                diameter. Straining with the effort, he lugs the stone to                the line scratched in the rocky field. Beyond the line are                the muddy dents from previous tosses. William takes a run                and heaves the stone. It flies past the other marks in the                field; people are impressed. William looks at Hamish.                                     WILLIAM                         I still say this is no test. A                          catapult can throw a stone farther                          than a man can.                                     HAMISH                         That depends on the man.               Hamish walks out, lifts the stone, and lugs it back to the                line. He takes a run and heaves with a great groan! The stone                flies, passing William's mark by a couple of feet.               People laugh and whistle. William nods, impressed.                                     WILLIAM                         Can you do it when it matters? As it                          matters in battle? Could you crush a                          man with that throw?                                     HAMISH                         I could crush you like a roach.               William walks to the dent made by Hamish's throw.                                     WILLIAM                         Then do it. Come, do it.               Hamish scowls at William, at everybody watching. He lifts                the stone and carries it back to the line. William stands                calmly. Hamish backs up for his run. William yawns.                                     HAMISH                         You'll move                                     WILLIAM                         I will not.               Hamish backs up a few more feet, for a longer run.                                     FARMER STEWART                         That's not fair!                                     CAMPBELL                         He's tired, he should get a longer                          run.               William seems completely unafraid. He leans down, picks up a                small smooth stone and tosses it up in the air casually.               Stung by this show of calm, Hamish takes furious run, and                heaves! The stone flies through the air, just misses William's                head, and buries itself halfway into the earth behind him.                William never flinches. The people cheer.                                     CAMPBELL                         Brave show!               Hamish is miffed; it's like William won.                                     HAMISH                         I threw longer than last time!                                     CAMPBELL                         An ox is strong, but not clever.                                     HAMISH                         An ox is stupid enough to just stand                          in one place.                                     WILLIAM                         That's not the point.               William turns, walks double the distance Hamish threw, and                turns and hurls the rock he holds! It whistles through the                air, hits Hamish in the forehead, and drops him like a shot.                                     WILLIAM                         That is.               Everybody cheers and laughs! They surround William.                                     CAMPBELL                         A fine display, young Wallace!               William takes a tankard of ale from a farmer, walks over and                tosses the cold liquid into Hamish's face; he wakes, and,                his eyes uncrossing, accepts William's hand, pulling him up.                                     WILLIAM                         Good to see you again.                                     HAMISH                         I should'a remembered the eggs.               Grinning, they embrace. MUSIC plays, the dancing begins.               William walks to the knot of young ladies... but passes                Marion, and moves to the girl with the missing teeth.                                     WILLIAM                         Would you honor me with a dance?               She's thrilled to accept; they begin to dance.                                     GIRL                         You've taken over your father's farm?                              (beat)                         They say he died long ago. Fighting                          the English.                                     WILLIAM                         He died in an accident, with my                          brother. Their cart turned over.               The musicians interrupt their playing; a group of heavily                armed horsemen, with banners and flying colors, ride up,                reining their horses into the middle of the celebration. In                the middle of the group is an English NOBLEMAN; he is gray,                in his fifties, and stops in front of the BRIDE and groom.                                     NOBLEMAN                         I have come to claim the right of                          prima noctes. As the lord of these                          lands, I will bless this marriage by                          taking the bride into my bed on the                          first night of her union.               Stewart, father of the BRIDE, lunges forward.                                     STEWART                         No, by God!               The horsemen point their lances at the unarmed Scots -- who                see that the English soldiers from the village have moved to                the edge of the gathering, as if to dare any resistance.                                     NOBLEMAN                         It is my noble right.               Even unarmed, Stewart is about to attack -- but the bride                intervenes. She grabs her father and whispers to him. She                moves to her husband and does the same. Holding back tears,                she allows herself to be pulled up behind one of the horsemen.                Marion MacClannough is looking on, sobered by her friend's                courage and sickened by her fate -- and Marion is even more                unsettled as she notices that one of the soldiers, a                particularly nasty looking brute with a scarred face, is                leering at her. William Wallace sees this too.               The noble and his escorts ride away, and as they do it begins                to rain. The celebration destroyed, the Scots gather the                food and disperse to their homes. But Wallace remains,                standing in the downpour, keeping his thoughts to himself.               EXT. THE WALLACE FARMHOUSE - MAGIC HOUR               The farmhouse looks lonely and forlorn. William stands at                the open door, and gazes out at the rain; it leaks on him,                through his roof; he doesn't seem to notice.               EXT. THE MACCLANNOUGH HOUSE - MAGIC HOUR               A thatched cottage, lit with a cozy fire, beneath the rain.               A hand KNOCKS on the door, and MacClannough opens it to find                William, on a horse! MacClannough frowns.                                     WILLIAM                         Good evening, sir. May I speak with                          your daughter?               Mrs. MacClannough shoulders up beside her husband, and Marion                appears behind her scowling parents.                                     WILLIAM                         Marion... Would you like to go for a                          ride on this fine evening?                                     MOTHER                         The boy's insane!                                     WILLIAM                         It's good Scottish weather, Madam,                          the rain is fallin' straight down.                                     MOTHER                         She absolutely may not, she'll --                          Marion!               Marion has grabbed a cloak off the back of the door; she                runs out to hop up behind William, and they gallop away.               THE RIDE - MAGIC HOUR               William and Marion race along the heather, up and down hills,                through swollen streams. The rain stops, as the sun sets;                the Scottish mists lift, revealing stunning natural beauty.               William stops the horse and they look out over it all                together. He speaks, without turning to face her.                                     WILLIAM                         Your father doesn't like me, does                          he?                                     MARION                         It's not you. He dislikes that you're                          a Wallace. He just says... the                          Wallaces don't seem to live for very                          long.                                     WILLIAM                         Thank you for accepting.                                     MARION                         Thank you for inviting.                                     WILLIAM                         I'll invite you again, but your mother                          thinks I'm crazy.                                     MARION                         You are. And I'll come again.               He lingers; he wants to say something, or maybe he just                doesn't want the moment to end. Finally he spurs the horse.               EXT. THE MACCLANNOUGH HOUSE - NIGHT               They reach the door. William hops off the horse and reaches                up to help her down the moment she touches the ground, they                look into each other's eyes... but the door is snatched open                so quickly by her mother that there is not time for a kiss.                                     MOTHER                         Marion, come in!               He walks her closer to the door. They turn and look at each                other again. She waits for him to kiss her...                                     MOTHER                         Marion, come in!               She still hesitates; he isn't going to kiss her. She starts                in, but he grabs her hand. And into it he puts something he                has taken from his pocket; it is wrapped in flannel. He hops                on his horse, glances at her, and gallops away.               She stands in the open doorway; she looks down at what he                left her. She unwraps the flannel; it is a dried thistle,                the one she gave him years before.               EXT. WALLACE FARM - DAY               William is re-thatching the roof of his barn, when he hears                riders approaching, and looks down to see that it is                MacClannough, backed by Campbell and Hamish. Uh-oh.                                     MACCLANNOUGH                         Young Wallace --                                     WILLIAM                         Sir, I know it was strange of me to                          invite Marion to ride last night. I                          assure you, I --                                     CAMPBELL                         MacClannough's daughter is another                          matter. We come to fetch you to a                          meeting.                                     WILLIAM                         What kind of meeting?                                     CAMPBELL                         The secret kind.               William goes back to repairing his roof.                                     CAMPBELL                         Your father was a fighter. And a                          patriot.                                     WILLIAM                         I know who my father was. I came                          back home to raise crops. And, God                          willing, a family. If I can live in                          peace, I will.               Campbell shakes his head and reins his horse away, with                Hamish. MacClannough lingers.                                     MACCLANNOUGH                         If you can keep your intention to                          stay out of the troubles, you may                          court my daughter. If you break your                          intention, I'll kill you.               MacClannough rides away. William sits down on the roof, and                looks out at the graves of his father and brother.               EXT. MACCLANNOUGH HOUSE - NIGHT               Outside the half-timbered house, William stands in the shadows                of moonlight and tosses a pebble against the wooden upper                window. Marion opens the shutters and slips out onto the                vines, dropping into William's arms.               Giggling, suppressing laughter, they run to the trees...               SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS - NIGHT               Hand in hand through the heather they run, silhouettes along                a ridge, their breath blowing silver clouds in the moonlight,                the Scottish wind whipping through their hair.               They stop at a grove at the edge of a precipice, overlooking                a loch gleaming in the moonlight. So beautiful it's sacred.                                     MARION                         You've been here before?                                     WILLIAM                         Some nights. I have dreams. Mostly                          dreams I don't want. I started riding                          at night to fill up my mind so that                          when I did sleep I'd dream only of                          the ride and the adventure.                                     MARION                         Did it work?                                     WILLIAM                         No. You don't choose your dreams.                          Your dreams choose you.               He looks at her. They kiss suddenly, so long and hard that                they tumble into the heather, rolling, devouring each other.               Through their passion...                                     WILLIAM                         I want... to marry you!                                     MARION                         I... accept your proposal!                                     WILLIAM                         I'm not just saying it!                                     MARION                         Nor I!                                     WILLIAM                         But I won't give you up to any                          nobleman.                                     MARION                              (stopping)                         You scare me.                                     WILLIAM                         I don't want to scare you. I want to                          be yours, and you mine. Every night                          like this one.                                     MARION                         This night is too beautiful to have                          again.                                     WILLIAM                         I will be with you, like this.                          Forever.               They kiss again...               EXT. LANARK VILLAGE - DAY               Marion moves through the market. English soldiers admire her                as she walks. She stops, looking at white lace and cloth.               William casually passes, poking a note in her basket. Subtly                she withdraws his note, and reads:               INSERT - HIS NOTE               Tonight. By the trees.               EXT. MARION'S HOUSE - NIGHT               Marion slips out of the house and runs to the trees, where                William waits with horses. She fetches a bundle she's stashed                in the crook of a tree, and they mount and ride off.               EXT. RUINS OF AN ANCIENT CHURCH - NIGHT               The church is at the base of the precipice, beside the loch.               INT. THE CHURCH - NIGHT               This ancient Gaelic place of worship has been destroyed by                the occupying army, and yet it looks devoutly holy this way,                lit only by candles and moonlight through the open roof. The                village PRIEST whom we saw at the wedding celebration is                waiting at the altar. Marion steps into the confessional, as                William moves to the altar and kneels in prayer.               Marion emerges; she's changed into the wedding dress she                made from the cloth she bought. William stands and watches                her float down the aisle; his whole life was worth this                moment.               Together, the two lovers turn to the priest.                                     PRIEST                         You have come to pledge, each to the                          other, before Almighty God.               From within his shirt, William withdraws a strip of cloth                woven in his family tartan. He and Marion each lift a hand                to the priest, and he binds their wrists with the cloth.                                     WILLIAM                         I will love you my whole life. You                          and no other.               From her dress she takes a handmade handkerchief, embroidered                with a thistle to look like the one she first gave him those                years ago.                                     MARION                         And I you. You and no other. Forever.               The Priest waits for them to go on, but neither can; they're                too taken with emotion, looking at each other. The Priest                intones holy phrases...                                     PRIEST                         Agus bhayd lauch... The Lord bless                          and keep thy love, now and forever.               The lovers kiss. As they break their embrace, a figure                carrying something dark and spiky appears at the broken door                of the church, and William spins as if to attack, but the                Priest catches his arm; they see the man carries bagpipes.                                     PRIEST                         I trust him -- or I'd'a killed him                          me'self. A weddin' needs pipes.               The piper begins to play, and the tune from his primitive                chanter is wispy, ethereal, beautiful. The lovers look into                each other's eyes, as the single melody of the pipes merges                into a swell of music, UNDERSCORING MONTAGE               William and Marion ride the path to the top of the precipice,                where, in the shelter of the grove, they spend their                honeymoon. The MUSIC CONTINUES as, still sweaty from their                love-making, he returns her to her house just before dawn.               She waves from her window, as William rides away, as we                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               EXT. VILLAGE OF LANARK - DAY               It's Market Day in the village, busy with Highlanders,                merchants of all kinds, and a few special attractions like                jugglers and fortune tellers. Marion moves along a table                full of flowers and fruit... William, concealed behind hanging                baskets, watches her unseen, savoring the beauty of his                beloved, bathing his soul in the sight of her. Then she looks                up and spots him, her smile sudden and luminous, before she                remembers to conceal it. He moves up beside her.                                     WILLIAM                         I've missed you.                                     MARION                         Shush. It's only been a day.                              (beat)                         And it's seemed like forever.                                     WILLIAM                         Tonight then.                                     MARION                         My parents are growing suspicious! I                          can't keep meeting you every night!               Playfully he pokes his finger under the collar of her dress,                pulling up the strip of checked cloth he gave her at their                wedding, which she now wears hidden around her neck.                                     WILLIAM                         Then when?                                     MARION                         ...Tonight!               Tucking in the cloth strip, she hurries away, smiling.               ANGLE - DRUNKEN ENGLISH SOLDIERS - BY AN ALE CASK - DAY               They spot Marion moving through the fair, glowing, beautiful.               The soldiers smirk at each other; as Marion passes, one of                them grabs her wrist. It's the soldier with the scar, the                one who's been staring at her.                                     SOLDIER                         Where are you going... lass?                                     MARION                         Let go.               A second drunken SOLDIER pipes up.                                     SOLDIER #2                         Why don't you marry my friend here?                          Then I'll take the first night!               The scarred soldier pulls Marion into his big arms; she shoves                him away with surprising strength, and he staggers back, to                the laughter of his friends. Then he snatches her again and                kisses her hard on the lips.               She breaks free and SLAPS him fiercely, hard enough to draw                blood from his mouth. Tasting the trickle, he slings her                down against sacks of grain, and the soldiers are all over                her, pinning her down, ripping her clothes, a full scale                public gang rape. As the townspeople try to move in the three                soldiers waiting their turn at Marion pull their knives,                keep them townspeople back.                                     SOLDIER #1                         Bitch, who do you think you are?               He slams his mouth down against hers for a long, awful time,                comes up clawing at her dress to rip it from her body... and                is hit in the face by a rock thrown at great speed!               It takes a moment for the other soldiers to realize what                just happened, and in that instant William is on them. He                wrenches one soldier's arm in a direction it was never meant                to go, breaking the elbow, separating the shoulder, and                slinging the howling soldier into his comrades.               Two of the soldiers leap at William, swinging their short                swords; William ducks, knocking their ale cask into their                knees; William lifts the whole table where they were sitting                and slams it into the faces of two more attackers.                                     MARION                         William!               She shouts to warn him that the scarred soldier, now                bloodyfaced, has recovered from the rock and is behind William                with a knife. William sidesteps the first thrust, snatches a                leg from the shattered table and crushes the man's skull.                                     MARKET WOMEN                         Wallace Wallace! William Wallace!               But there's no time for celebration. There's blood and ale                everywhere, and the fallen soldiers are yelling...                                     FALLEN SOLDIER                         Rebels! Help!               MORE SOLDIERS hear the call and come running, reinforcements                converging from all over the village.                                     VILLAGE FOLKS                         Run, William! Run!               Will sees the horse that pulled the flower cart and throws                Marion up onto its back. He slaps the horse's rump and it                plunges with Marion into the twisting village lanes. William                darts off through the crowd, as the MAGISTRATE and more of                his soldiers arrive -- dozens of them!               William pauses out in the central street of the village,                just long enough to be sure they've spotted him, and darts                into a side lane in the opposite direction Marion went;                William weaves through the narrow streets of the medieval                town, knocking over baskets, jumping carts.               As the soldiers stumble after him, the Magistrate looks down                at his mangled soldiers. The one with the ruptured arm is                lying in agony.                                     MAGISTRATE                         What happened?                                     SOLDIER                         ...girl.                                     MAGISTRATE                         What girl?!                                     SOLDIER                         ...on horse.                                     MAGISTRATE                         The girl on the horse! Stop her!               The shout rings through the village; Marion hears it, and                when she sees more soldiers at the far end of the lane she's                trying to take out of town, she urges the horse into an even                narrower back alley. She sees a clear route to freedom...               But the flock of pigeons pecking on the scraps thrown there                behind the shops rise into the horse's face with a sudden                thrashing of wings, and the horse shies against a wall.               Marion controls him, but a flap of her ripped dress has caught                on a crude nail, and as the frightened horse lunges forward                again, she is pulled off its bare back, her dress catching                and ripping at the same time, dropping her hard.               WILLIAM               reaches the edge of the town and slips into the trees by the                river; the soldiers are running every which way, but they've                lost him. Thinking Marion's made it too, William heads deeper                into the trees.               IN THE TOWN, MARION               recovers; her dress has torn free! She starts to get up; but                the soldiers' pikes appear over her, and the magistrate leers.                                     MAGISTRATE                         So this is the little whore he was                          fighting for.               EXT. THE GROVE AT THE PRECIPICE - DAY               William moves into the shelters of the trees, expecting to                see Marion. He doesn't. He listens; only the rustling of the                wind through the treetops.                                     WILLIAM                         Marion!               Nothing, except the wind.               INT. ROYAL MAGISTRATE'S HEADQUARTERS - DAY               Marion is thrown into a chair and her arms are bound with an                oak staff behind her elbows. She and two dozen soldiers are                in the tavern the English have commandeered.               The Magistrate is a battlescarred veteran, a brutal pragmatist                angry with his CORPORAL.                                     MAGISTRATE                         One Scot buggers six of us? Hell to                          pay when that gets round.                                     CORPORAL                         Burn the village.                                     MAGISTRATE                         But he is free. You never catch 'em                          in the Highlands.               He studies Marion, her mouth now stuffed with burlap. He                notices the strip of cloth around her neck, and touches the                weave curiously.                                     CORPORAL                         Clans weave that cloth in their own                          patterns.                                     MAGISTRATE                         So why is this strip concealed?                              (beat)                         He fought for you, eh?               EXT. TOWN SQUARE - DAY               The Magistrate and his men bring Marion into the village                center, and tie her to a post of the well. The townspeople                don't want to be near the soldiers, but they hang on the                fringes of the square, too curious to pull away.                                     MAGISTRATE                         An assault on the king's soldiers is                          the same as assaulting the king!               He looks down at Marion, her mouth bound, her eyes defiant.               He jerks out his dagger and slices Marion's throat!               Her eyes spring open like a doe's; then she sags, dead. The                townspeople are speechless; even some of the soldiers are                shocked. The Magistrate turns calmly to his men.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Now. Let this scrapper come to me.               LONG SHOT - EXT. THE GROVE AT THE PRECIPICE - DAY               From a distance, we see Hamish approaching the grove, the                same one where he and William played as boys. Hamish moves                reluctantly, forcing himself forward; as he reaches the grove,                William appears, hurrying out to him.               We STAY IN THE LONG SHOT, seeing William asking anxiously                for any news, and seeing Hamish's great shoulders as he tells                him something that makes William step backwards...               EXT. LANARK VILLAGE - DAY               At a barrier across the main road into the center of the                village are twenty professional soldiers, entrenched, fully                armed -- bows, pikes, swords. They hear A HORSE'S SNORT...               THE ENGLISH SOLDIERS' POV - WALLACE, ON HIS HORSE               He has stopped, rock still. The soldiers hush; there is                something unsettling about this man alone, staring at the                twenty of them, as if to steel himself for the butchery.               Wallace raises his sword, screams... and charges!               EXT. VARIOUS ANGLES - LANARK VILLAGE - DAY - THE FIGHT               We FAVOR WALLACE'S SUBJECTIVE POV: the barrier as his horse                pounds toward it, the faces of the enemy soldiers with their                eyes white with fear... They stand to shoot at him with their                bows; the arrows WHISH toward the lens, fly past...               The arrows tear through Wallace's clothes, but don't catch                his flesh. He charges on; his horse LEAPS the barrier as                Wallace simultaneously swings the broadsword -- and he's                more than an expert: the tip, at the end of a huge arc, nearly                breaks the sound barrier and the blade bites through the                corporal's helmet, taking off the upper half of his head!               The soldiers try to rally, to shoot him in the back as his                horse leaps over them. One of them has sighted William's                back... But Hamish and his father crash into them! It's a                wild fight; old Campbell takes an arrow through the shoulder                but keeps hacking with his sword; Hamish batters down two                men -- and more Scots arrive! They overwhelm the soldiers.               WALLACE RACES THROUGH THE VILLAGE - FAVORING HIS POV               He dodges obstacles in the narrow streets -- chickens, carts,                barrels. Soldiers pop up; the first he gallops straight over;                the next he whacks forehand, like a polo player; the next                chops down on his left side; every time he swings the                broadsword, a man dies.               Wallace gallops on; his farmer neighbors, and people from                the village, follow in his wake.               EXT. IN THE VILLAGE - DAY               The Magistrate hears the APPROACHING SHOUTS. He and thirty                more of his men are barricaded around the village square.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Don't look surprised! We knew he'd                          bring friends!               The see Wallace gallop into sight; but he stops, then heads                down a side street.               The Magistrate and his men don't like this; where did he go?               Which way will he come from? And then they hear the horses,                and see the other Scots, at the head of the main street. The                soldiers unleash a volley of arrows at them.               They are loading to fire again when Wallace runs in -- on                foot! -- and cuts down two soldiers! The other Scots charge!               The startled soldiers break and run in every direction.               The Magistrate, abandoned, runs too. Wallace pursues.               Not far along a twisting lane, the bulky Magistrate falters.               He turns to fight, and Wallace slashes away his sword.                                     MAGISTRATE                         No! I beg you... mercy!               IN THE TOWN SQUARE               As the Scots see Wallace, they break off pursuing the English                soldiers and stop to watch; dragging the Magistrate by his                hair, Wallace hauls him back into the village square, slams                him against the well, and stands over him with heaving lungs                and wild eyes, staring at Marion's murderer.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Please. Mercy!               Wallace's eyes shift, falling on               THE STAIN OF BLOOD               Marion's blood, in a dark dry splash by the wall of the well,                the stain dripping down onto the dirt of the street. Wallace                spins, jerks back the Magistrate's head, and cuts his throat                with the sword.               ON THE OTHER SCOTS               Silenced by what they've just seen and done. On old Campbell's                face is a look of reverence, and awe.                                     CAMPBELL                         Say Grace to God, lads. We've just                          seen the coming of the Messiah.               William staggers a few steps, and collapses to his knees.               And then not just the Scottish farmers but the townspeople                too begin a strange, Hi-Lo chant.                                     CROWD                         AHHHHHHH-UHHHHHH! AHHHHHH-UHHHHHH!               William's wild eyes slowly regain their focus. And there in                the dirt beside the well, he sees the severed cloth strip he                gave to Marion, now stained with her blood. He lifts it,                crushes it in his hand, as the Highlanders chant for war.               EXT. LANARK VILLAGE - NIGHT               The villagers are still excited by what just happened; at                the blacksmith's forge, men tend to Campbell's wound...                                     CAMPBELL                         Pour it straight into the wound. I                          know it seems a waste of good whiskey,                          but indulge me.               They obey, then take a glowing poker from the fire and run                it through Campbell's shoulder, where the arrow went. There                is a terrible SIZZLE, and Campbell reacts to the pain.                                     CAMPBELL                         Ah. Now that'll clear your sinuses,                          lads.               Campbell looks down at his left hand. His thumb is missing!                                     CAMPBELL                         Well bloody Hell, look at this! Now                          it's nothing but a fly swatter.               Wallace is sitting alone nearby, staring at nothing. Hamish                moves over and puts a hand on his shoulder. Wallace looks at                his friend, and looks away; killing the Magistrate did not                bring Marion back.               SHOUTS of alarm: ARMED MEN are coming! The farmers scramble                for their weapons, ready to fight; even Campbell jumps up;                but what they see coming out of the darkness are twenty more                farmers, with hayhooks, knives, axes, anything they could                find for weapons. Their leader is MacGREGOR.                                     CAMPBELL                         MacGregor -- from the next valley!               MacGregor leads his men into the circle of rebels.                                     MACGREGOR                         We heard about what was happenin'.                          And we don't want ya thinkin' ya can                          have your fun without us.                                     WALLACE                         Go home. Some of us are in this, I                          can't help that now. But you can                          help yourselves. Go home.                                     MACGREGOR                         We'll have no homes left when the                          English garrison at the castle comes                          through to burn us out.               They all look at Wallace.               EXT. ENGLISH MILITARY STRONGHOLD - NIGHT               Furious preparations: armorers pound breastplates, hone                spears, grind swords in a shower of sparks. The garrison is                led by BOTTOMS, the English lord who claimed the right of                prima noctes. Now he shouts to his scurrying soldiers.                                     LORD BOTTOMS                         Gather the horses! Align the infantry!                              (grabs a man)                         Ride to the Lord Governor in Stirling.               Tell him that I will hang five rebels for every good                Englishman killed! FORM FOR MARCH!               The troops begin to scramble into the courtyard. At the same                time, the messenger gallops to the gate and nods for the                keepers to open it. They pull up the chains and the heavy                gate rises. The messenger spurs his horse to gallop through --                and is hit in the chest with an axe!               The Scots, hidden just outside the gate, come pouring through,                led by Wallace! Arrows pick soldiers from their perches,                Scots drop over the wall; the surprise is so complete that                it's over almost without a fight. Lord Bottoms looks around                in confusion...                                     LORD BOTTOMS                         Stop them... Don't let... Align...               Scots drag Lord Bottoms off his horse; an arrow in a flexed                bow jabs right up to his eye, the archer ready to drive the                shaft through Bottom's eye socket and into his brain; but                Wallace's hand closes on the archer's fingers -- and Bottoms                sees that the archer at the other end of the arrow shaft is                none other than the Highland farmgirl he forced into his bed                on her wedding night. Beside her is her husband, holding a                scythe, red with English blood.                                     WALLACE                         On your way somewhere, M'lord?                                     LORD BOTTOMS                         Murdering bloody bandit!               The point of Wallace's sword jumps beneath the Lord's chin.                                     WALLACE                         My name is William Wallace. I am no                          bandit who hides his face... Find                          this man a horse.               The green eyes of the defiled highland bride flash fire.               William takes his hand from her bow and looks at her, grief                for Marion in his eyes; for the sake of that she does not                release the string.                                     WALLACE                         Give him a horse.               Hamish extends the reins of the Lord's thoroughbred.                                     WALLACE                         Not this horse. That one.               He nods to a bony nag hitched next to a glue pot.                                     WALLACE                         Today we will spare you, and every                          man who has yielded. Go back to                          England. Tell them Scotland's                          daughters and her sons are yours no                          more. Tell them Scotland is free.               As the Scots cheer, Wallace throws Lord Bottoms onto the                nag's back and slaps the horse's rear. IT shambles away,                followed by the English survivors, as the Scots chant...                                     SCOTS                         Wal-lace, Wal-lace, Wal-lace!...               CLOSE - A GRAVESTONE - EXT. HIGHLANDS - DAY               The marker is carved with the name MARION MacCLANNOUGH, and                beneath her name A THISTLE is chiseled into the stone.               Bagpipes wail like banshees and the Priest who married Marion                and William now mutters ancient prayers as her body, wrapped                in burial canvas, is lowered into the earth, under the sad                eyes of those who just fought in the battle.               Opposite William stands old MacClannough; he stares across                the open hole that accepts the body of his daughter, his                eyes full of pain, and then staggers away.               Wallace kneels at the graveside in unspeakable grief. From                within his shirt he withdraws the embroidered handkerchief                she gave him, and the bloodstained strip of cloth he gave                her. He places the strip over her heart, and as the                gravediggers fill the hole her returns the handkerchief to                its spot over his own heart.               EXT. LONDON PALACE - DAY               Prince Edward is in his garden, playing the medieval version                of croquet with his friend. The Princess, ignored, sits                watching. Longshanks marches through the game, furious.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Scottish rebels have routed Lord                          Bottoms!                                     EDWARD                         I hear. This Wallace is a bandit,                          nothing more.               Longshanks slaps his son, knocking him down among the colored                balls and wickets. Everyone gasps, stunned.                                     LONGSHANKS                         You weak little coward! Stand up!               Longshanks jerks him to his feet.                                     LONGSHANKS                         I go to France to press our rights                          there! I leave you to handle this                          little rebellion, do you understand?                          DO YOU?!               Longshanks grabs his son by the throat.                                     LONGSHANKS                         And turn yourself into a man.               The king leaves. The friends of the humiliated Prince hurry                to him and lift him; as the Princess moves to him too...                                     EDWARD                         Get away from me!               He slaps her! Her personal guards, Frenchmen in distinctive                uniforms, jump from their seats at the edge of the garden,                but the Princess raises a hand to show she needs no                assistance, and curtseys to Edward, who shouts --                                     EDWARD                         Convene my military council!               As Edward marches off with his entourage, NICOLETTE, a                beautiful raven-haired Handmaiden, rushes to the Princess,                who is wobbly, hurt more than she let show. Nicolette whispers                to her in French, with subtitles...                                     NICOLETTE                         They say this Wallace killed thirty                          men to avenge the death of his woman.                          I hope your husband goes to Scotland.                          Then you'll be a widow.               INT. BRUCE'S CASTLE - BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT               Robert the Bruce is in bed with a young Nordic beauty with                vacant blue eyes. She drowses; but the lovemaking has not                defused the restlessness of Robert's spirit. He lies on his                stomach, turned away from her on the bed. Stirring, she kisses                his neck; but he doesn't respond.                                     WOMAN                         I wanted to please you.                                     ROBERT                         You did.               But he is numb as she nuzzles him again. She sags back, and                he still stares away, lost in thought. Realizing her hurt,                he explains...                                     ROBERT                         In Lanark village, the king's soldiers                          killed a girl. Her lover fought his                          way through the soldiers and killed                          the magistrate.               She looks at him blankly.                                     ROBERT                         He rebelled. He rebelled. He acted.                          He fought! Was it rage? Pride? Love?                          Whatever it was, he has more of it                          than I.                                     WOMAN                              (hurt)                         You might have lied.                                     ROBERT                         I'm too arrogant to lie.               CLOSE - ROBERT THE BRUCE               On his FACE as he moves grimly up a dark castle staircase.               He follows a servant who carries a candle against the gloom.               They reach a door, which the servant unlocks. Young Robert                takes the candle, and enters --               A DARKENED ROOM               Robert wills himself forward, and places the candle on a                table in the center of the room. A SHUFFLE in the dark; then                moving into the light is a LEPER whose once-noble features                are decaying with the disease. Isolated in his disfiguration,                he looks at his visitor -- his son -- with the eyes of the                condemned. Young Robert forces himself not to look away.                                     ROBERT THE BRUCE                         Father. A rebellion has begun.                                     THE LEPER                         Under whom?                                     ROBERT                         A commoner named William Wallace.                                     THE LEPER                         A commoner? So no one leads Scotland?               The old man thinks, and points a half finger at his son.                                     THE LEPER                         You will embrace this rebellion.                          Support it, from our lands in the                          north. I will gain English favor by                          condemning it and ordering it opposed                          from our lands in the south. Whichever                          way the tide runs, we will rise.                                     ROBERT                         This Wallace. He doesn't even have a                          knighthood. But he fights with                          passion, and he is clever. He inspires                          men.                                     THE LEPER                         You admire him. Uncompromising men                          are easy to admire. He has courage.                          So does a dog. But you must understand                          this: Edward Longshanks is the most                          ruthless king ever to sit on the                          throne of England, and none of us,                          and nothing of Scotland, will survive                          unless we are as ruthless, more                          ruthless, than he.               Young Bruce rises heavily, and moves to the door.                                     THE LEPER                         Press your case to the nobles. They                          will choose who rules Scotland.               With a last long look at his father, Robert leaves.               EXT. SCOTLAND - MONTAGE - DAY               -- Troops ride through the countryside, intimidating and                questioning civilians; all refuse to talk.               -- Wallace's house burns, as soldiers dig up the graves of                his father and brother, and scatter their bones to dogs.               -- The English search through the woods, finding nothing.               EXT. WALLACE LANDS - NIGHT               William and Hamish ride, to see the damage. They find the                smoking ruins, and the defiled family graves.                                     HAMISH                         Ah, William... I am so sorry.               William is struck by an awful, urgent thought...               EXT. UNDERBRUSH NEAR MARION'S GRAVE - DUSK               We open on Marion's grave, with the thistle-carved marker,                looking peaceful; but up the hill in the underbrush, English                soldiers wait in ambush. Edgy, they perk up at the sound of                muffled hoofbeats -- then their eyes bug as a cloaked figure --                Wallace -- suddenly looms up behind them, galloping and                swirling fire! He hurls burning torches into the clustered                soldiers, setting some of them on fire!               MEANWHILE, HAMISH has crawled to Marion's grave and is digging                frantically. The new dirt parts easily and he pulls the                shrouded body out, cringing with the effort.               MORE SOLDIERS rush from behind the rocks at the far side of                the graveyard. Wallace charges them, driving them back. He                grabs the reins of Hamish's horse, hidden among trees, and                gallops to him.               Hamish hands the shrouded body up to William and bounds into                the saddle of his own horse. They spur the horses and ride                away, William clutching Marion's shrouded body to his chest.               EXT. SECRET GROVE ON THE PRECIPICE - NIGHT               William dismounts, stretching the body gently on the ground.               Hamish dismounts too, with the spade he used to dig up the                old grave. He sees the emotion on William's face.                                     HAMISH                         I'll wait... back there.                                     WALLACE                         Hamish, I... thank...               Hamish puts a hand on his friend's shoulder, then quietly                leads the horses away. William starts to dig...               LATER IN THE GROVE               William sits looking at the new grave, covered with leaves --                completely hidden. He touches his hand to the earth.               EXT. WOODS - BY THE STREAM - NIGHT               Hamish is waiting as William comes out of the grove. There                is nothing to say. They mount their horses and ride away, as                the MUSIC of William and Marion's love haunts us...               EXT. WOODS - ENCAMPMENT - NIGHT               Wallace and his inner circle hare huddled around a small                fire. Other highlanders guard the perimeters. Old Campbell                is lovingly honing the broadswords to razor edges and sharing                a whiskey jug with Hamish, who stares at the fire. Wallace                is using a stick to draw diagrams in the dirt.                                     CAMPBELL                         What're ya doin'?                                     WALLACE                         Thinking.                                     CAMPBELL                         Does it hurt?                                     WALLACE                         What do we do when Longshanks sends                          his whole northern army against us?                          They have heavy cavalry. Armored                          horses, that shake the very ground.                          They'll ride right over us.               At a loss, Wallace looks up at the sky. HE SEES: the trees                stretching into the night like spikes to skewer the stars.                                     WALLACE                         We make spears. A hundred spears.                          Fourteen feet long.                                     HAMISH                         Fourteen? --                                     SENTRY (O.S.)                         Volunteers coming in!               They look to see a half dozen new volunteers being led in,                blindfolded. When the guides remove the blindfolds, the new                recruits see Wallace and rush to him, bowing.                                     RECRUIT (FAUDRON)                         William Wallace? We have come to                          fight and die for you!                                     WALLACE                         Stand up, man, I'm not the Pope.                                     FAUDRON                         I am Faudron! My sword is yours! And                          I brought you this tarta --               As he reaches into his cloak, both Hamish and Campbell                instantly draw their swords and put the points to his neck.                                     SENTRY                         We checked them for arms.               Carefully, Faudron pulls out a beautiful tartan scarf, and                replaces Wallace's tattered old one.                                     FAUDRON                         It's your family tartan! My wife                          wove it with her own hands.                                     WALLACE                         Thank her for me.               A loud voice interrupts...                                     VOICE                         Him? That can't be William Wallace!                          I'm prettier than this man!               They all look at a slender, handsome young man, STEPHEN, who                is talking to himself -- or more accurately, seems to listen                to some unheard voice, then answer it...                                     STEPHEN                         All right, Father, I'll ask him!                              (to William)                         If I risk my neck for you, will I                          get a chance to kill Englishmen?                                     HAMISH                         Is your Poppa a ghost -- or do you                          converse with God Almighty?                                     STEPHEN                         In order to find his equal, and                          Irishman is forced to talk to God.                              (quickly)                         Yes, Father!...                              (to Wallace)                         The Almighty says don't change the                          subject, just answer the fookin'                          question.                                     CAMPBELL                         Insane Irish --               Stephen whips a dagger from his sleeve and puts it at                Campbell's throat.                                     STEPHEN                         Smart enough to get a dagger past                          your guards, old man.               Wallace jerks his sword to the Irishman's throat, and grins.                                     WALLACE                         That's my friend, Irishman. And the                          answer's yes. You fight for me, you                          kill the English.               Stephen grins, and happily tucks away the dagger.                                     STEPHEN                         Excellent! Stephen is my name. I'm                          the most wanted man on the Emerald                          Isle. Except I'm not on the Emerald                          Isle of course, more's the pity.                                     HAMISH                         A common thief.                                     STEPHEN                         A patriot!               Wallace shakes his head and moves back to the fire, as the                sentries take the newcomers to find their own spaces.               EXT. SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE - DAY               A column of English light cavalry -- a hundred riders --                moves through the picturesque beauty of the Highlands.               English LORD DOLECROFT is in command, wearing a hat with a                pompous white plume. UP AHEAD, the English SCOUT sees five                Scots, including Hamish, walking out of the forest. The Scots                run; the Scout rides back to Dolecroft.                                     SCOUT                         Scotsmen, Sire! Headed west!                                     DOLECROFT                         They've blundered at last! After                          them!               The English force charges off. Hamish and his men changed                direction but the English spot them crossing a hilltop and                ride after them. The Scots run for their lives; the English                horses gallop. The Scots run down one slope, up another; the                English follow, find their horses stumbling, and see...                                     SCOUT                         We're in a bog!                                     DOLECROFT                         Here, it's firm this way --               But as they move toward the firm ground, fifty Scots appear                on the crest of the hill. Hamish leads them, smiling.               Dolecroft wheels and looks to his rear; Wallace appears there,                with fifty more, and more Scots appear to the left and right                of the English, who are surrounded in the bog. Too late,                Dolecroft realizes his blunder. Wallace lifts his broadsword,                screams, and leads the charge...               EXT. SCOTTISH WOODS - DAY               The Scots are moving through deep woods; they are laden with                the booty they took from the English cavalry: extra weapons,                clothing, food -- and one man even wears the late Dolecroft's                plumed hat. Wallace is leading them, traveling with his heavy                sheathed broadsword across his shoulders.                                     WALLACE                         Stop here and rest.               They collapse to the leaves and loam, greedily squeezing                water from sheep belly canteens.               INT. STIRLING CASTLE - DAY               LORD PICKERING, English commander, is handed news of the                disaster. He reads the message, and pales.                                     PICKERING                         Another ambush! My God! ...What about                          our infiltrator?                                     ASSISTANT                         He has already joined them, M'lord.               EXT. SCOTTISH WOODS - NIGHT               The moon is high above the Scots, encamped for the night.               Most everyone is sleeping, but William sits leaning against                a tree, lost in lonely thoughts. Suddenly William freezes; a                shaft of moonlight illuminates a cloaked woman standing twenty                feet ahead of him. Something about her is familiar -- and                then she pulls off the hood, revealing her auburn hair,                cascading in the moonlight... It is Marion!                                     WALLACE                         Marion! Is... is it you?               Joy explodes on his face, and he runs to her, but stops before                he touches her, as if she might evaporate.                                     WALLACE                         I'm dreaming.                                     MARION                         Yes, you are. And you must wake.                                     WALLACE                         I don't want to wake. I want to stay                          with you.                                     MARION                         And I with you. But you must wake.                                     WALLACE                         I need you so much! I love you!                                     MARION                         Wake up, William. Wake up!                                     HAMISH'S VOICE                         Wake up, William!...                                     MARION/HAMISH                         Wake up!...               William clutches at Marion, but his arms can't enclose her.               HE WAKES               lying on his new tartan, in camp, with Hamish shaking him,                William's arms clutched empty to his chest.                                     HAMISH                         William! Hounds!               Wallace jumps up, hearing the DISTANT BARKING that alarmed                Hamish. Stephen, the new Irish recruit, races up.                                     STEPHEN                         We must run in different directions!                                     HAMISH                         We don't split up!                                     STEPHEN                         They used hounds on us in Ireland,                          it's the only way!                                     WALLACE                         He's right, Hamish! Campbell! Divide                          them and run!               Shoving groups of men in different directions, Wallace then                takes off. His group is about a dozen; they race through the                woods, dodging trees, running aimlessly. They stop and listen.                The BARKS are getting closer.                                     WALLACE                         Split again!               Again they divide, and race in different directions.               But no matter how they run and dodge, the BARKS grow nearer.               We INTERCUT with the approaching of the dogs -- a large PACK                OF HOUNDS, with keepers like on a fox hunt, and behind the                dogs, Lord Pickering, with his soldiers, prepared for a long                chase, cloaked against the wet darkness, carrying torches.               Wallace and others pause, hear the dogs, and run again, in a                new direction. The hounds are relentless. Wallace's group is                down to Hamish, Stephen, and Faudron.                                     WALLACE                         No matter how we go, they follow.                          They have our scent. My scent.                                     FAUDRON                         Run! You must not be caught!               Faster now, faster. The barks are getting very close.               Wallace and his friends are starting to panic. The blood                beats in their ears, their breath scalds their lungs. And we                MOVE IN on Wallace's eyes. He stops, gasping.                                     STEPHEN                         We can't stop!                                     WALLACE                         They've tricked us.                                     STEPHEN                         What's the crazy man saying, Lord?                                     WALLACE                         The dogs have a scent. My scent.                          Someone must have given it to them.                                     STEPHEN                         Who would do such a thing?                                     WALLACE                         Exactly.               Wallace pulls out his dagger...               THE DOGS               bark frantically now; they smell a kill; they tug so hard at                their leashes that the handlers are almost dragged along.                                     HANDLER                         Be ready! We have them!               The soldiers grip their weapons, ready to take their                prisoners. They burst into the little clearing; the dogs                find a body, stabbed, his throat cut; the dogs plunge their                snouts into the gore, yipping wildly. The handlers must fight                furiously to tear the dogs from the body.               Lord Pickering approaches the body and looks down. It is                Faudron, mangled now but clearly identifiable -- with the                scarf he gave William, in place of William's own, tucked                into his shirt.                                     LORD PICKERING                         Damnation! Damnation!               As Pickering rants, his men look at the darkness all around.                                     LORD PICKERING                         After him! Get them going again!                                     HANDLER                         Their noses are drowned in new blood,                          they'll follow nothing now!               And just as the realization hits Pickering that he can't                pursue Wallace any further, a cloaked figure mixed in among                his men leans in from behind him to whisper...                                     STEPHEN OF IRELAND                         The Almighty says for you to give                          His regards to the Devil.               Pickering's eyes go wide, then roll back as Stephen's dagger                slides expertly through his back ribs and into his heart. As                Pickering falls and his men realize what has happened, Stephen                has already run back into the trees.               Pickering's men freeze at this sudden turn of events. Even                the dogs whimper, picking up the rising fear of the men around                them. Then from the darkness all around them comes a chorus                of demonic, bloodcurdling yells --                                     WALLACE/HAMISH/STEPHEN                         ARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!               Three wild men tear out of the darkness from different                directions, their swords slashing. Pickering's men panic and                run, their dogs yelping, and the other soldiers, evident by                their torches, fell with them in all directions.               Wallace, Hamish and Stephen are left alone in the heart of                the woods, howling, barking like dogs, snarling like wolves --                and then laughing like hyenas!                                     STEPHEN                         I thought I was dead when ya pulled                          that dagger!                                     WALLACE                         No English lord would trust an                          Irishman!                                     HAMISH                         Let's kill him anyway.               They laugh again; then Wallace's laughter leaks away, and he                stares into the trees, where he saw Marion in his dream.               VARIOUS SHOTS - THE STORY SPREADS THROUGH SCOTLAND...               Two men are talking in A VILLAGE...                                     VILLAGER                         ...and William Wallace killed fifty                          men! Fifty, if it was one!               The same tale is exchanged by two farmers AT A CROSSROADS...                                     FARMER                         A hundred men! With his own sword!                          He cut a through the English like --               The tale is repeated IN A TAVERN...                                     DRINKER                         -- Moses through the Red Sea! Hacked                          off two hundred heads!                                     DRINKER #2                         Two hundred?!                                     DRINKER                         Saw it with my own eyes.               And the rumors are discussed even INSIDE THE PALACE GROUNDS                IN LONDON, where the Prince and his friends are trying on                elaborate attire presented them by fawning tailors, and the                Princess, ignored by her husband, strolls and chats with her                Handmaiden, Nicolette (in subtitled French).                                     NICOLETTE                         When the king returns he will bury                          them in those new clothes. Scotland                          is in chaos. Your husband is secretly                          sending an army north.                                     PRINCESS                         How do you know this?                                     NICOLETTE                         Last night I slept with a member of                          the War Council.                                     PRINCESS                         He shouldn't be telling secrets in                          bed.                                     NICOLETTE                         Ah, Oui! Englishmen don't know what                          a tongue is for.               The Princess blushes, whacks her with her fan, and smiles.                                     PRINCESS                         This Scottish rebel... Wallace? He                          fights to avenge a woman?                                     NICOLETTE                         A magistrate wished to capture him,                          and found he had a secret lover, so                          he cut the girl's throat to tempt                          Wallace to fight -- and fight he                          did.               The Princess is pained at such cruelty; Nicolette warms to                share the juicy gossip...                                     NICOLETTE                         Knowing his passion for his lost                          love, they next plotted to take him                          by desecrating the graves of his                          father and brother and setting an                          ambush at the grave of his wife. He                          fought his way through the trap and                          carried her body to a secret place!                          Now that is romance, Oui?                                     PRINCESS                         ...I wouldn't know.               EXT. SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS - DAY               A Highlander, a RUNNER, slips like a shadow up the hillside,                to a circle of ancient monoliths. There, hidden among the                stone pillars, he finds Wallace and his band resting.                                     RUNNER                         The English are advancing an army                          toward Stirling!                                     WALLACE                         Do the nobles rally?                                     RUNNER                         Robert the Bruce and most of the                          others will not commit to war! But                          word has spread and Highlanders are                          coming down on their own, by the                          hundreds -- by the thousands!               EXT. ROAD - DAY               Wallace rides down the road, followed by his band. As they                pass people on the road, the women, the children, all cheer.                                     PEOPLE                         Wallace! It's William Wallace! God                          bless Wallace and Scotland!               At a crossroads, more of Wallace's men join them, in clusters.                One group carries something long, encased in wool covers.                Farmers in the field, blacksmiths at their forges, leave                their work and uncover their inevitable weapons and run after                the riders. They put on their forbidden tartans, kiss their                wives and head off to fight.               EXT. STIRLING FIELD - DAY               Stirling Castle perches on a hill high above a grassy field,                cut in half by a river, spanned by an old wooden bridge.               SCOTTISH NOBLES have gathered on a smaller hill overlooking                the field; they wear gleaming armor, with plumes, sashes and                banners, and are attended by squires and grooms.               The mists of morning shroud most of the field. But from the                opposite side of the bridge they hear the CLATTERING of a                huge army moving forward. LOCHLAN, a noble, gallops to Mornay.                                     LOCHLAN                         It sounds like twenty thousand!                                     MORNAY                         The scouts say it is ten.                                     LOCHLAN                         And we have but two!               THE COMMON SCOTTISH SOLDIERS               are wearing padded leather shirts, and carry pikes and                daggers. As through the mists they see the numbers arrayed                against them, a YOUNG SOLDIER tugs at a grizzled VETERAN.                                     YOUNG SOLDIER                         So many!                                     SCOTTISH VETERAN                         The nobles will negotiate. If they                          deal, they send us home. If not, we                          charge. When we are all dead and                          they can call themselves brave, they                          withdraw.                                     YOUNG SOLDIER                         I didn't come to fight so they could                          own more lands that I could work for                          them!                                     VETERAN                         Nor did I. Not against these odds!               He lowers his pike and starts to desert. At first one-by-one                and then in clumps, more highlanders follow.               THE NOBLES see the desertion.                                     LOCHLAN                         Stop! Men! Do not flee! Not now!                          Wait until we have negotiated!                                     MORNAY                         They won't stop -- and who could                          blame them?               Then, riding into the mob of men, comes Wallace, followed by                his friends. He's striking, charismatic, his powerful arms                bare, his chest covered not in armor but a commoner's leather                shirt, and unlike the heavy knights on their armored horses,                Wallace rides a swift horse, like he was born on it.               The entire Scottish army watches in fascination as Wallace                and his men ride through them, toward the command hill. The                soldiers whisper among themselves...                                     YOUNG SOLDIER                         William Wallace?                                     VETERAN                         Couldn't be.               The common soldiers, already having broken ranks, cluster up                the hill to see the confrontation. As Wallace and his captains                reach the nobles, Stephen laughs.                                     STEPHEN                         The Almighty says this must be a                          fashionable fight, it's drawn the                          finest people.                                     LOCHLAN                         Where is thy salute?                                     WALLACE                         For presenting yourselves on this                          battlefield, I give you thanks.                                     LOCHLAN                         This is our army. To join it, you                          give homage.                                     WALLACE                         I give homage to Scotland. And if                          this is your army, why does it go?               Wallace reins his horse around to face the mob of sullen                men, now frightened, ready to desert. We play this picture,                Wallace sitting his horse, looking down in awe at this thing                that has grown beyond anyone's imagination.               He glances at his friends: Campbell, Hamish, Stephen.               They've got no suggestions, they're just as awed as he is.                                     SCOTTISH VETERAN                         We didn't come to fight for them!                                     SHOUTS FROM MOB                         Home! The English are too many!               Wallace raises his hand, and the army falls silent.                                     WALLACE                         Sons of Scotland!... I am William                          Wallace!                                     SOLDIER                         William Wallace is seven feet tall!                                     WALLACE                         Yes, I have heard! He kills men by                          the hundreds! And if he were here,                          he would consume the English with                          fireballs from his eyes, and bolts                          of lightning from his ass!               Many laugh -- all get the point.                                     WALLACE                         I am William Wallace. And my enemies                          do not go away. I saw our good nobles                          hanged. My wife... I am William                          Wallace. And I see a whole army of                          my countrymen, here in defiance of                          tyranny. You have come to fight as                          free men. And free men you are! What                          will you do with freedom? Will you                          fight?                                     VETERAN                         Two thousand, against ten? We will                          run -- and live!                                     WALLACE                         Yes. Fight and you may die. Run and                          you will live, at least awhile. And                          dying in your bed many years from                          now, would you be willing to trade                          all the days from this day to that,                          for one chance to come back here as                          young men, and tell our enemies that                          they make take our lives, but they                          will never take our freedom?               Down on the plain, English emissaries in all their regal                finery gallop over the bridge, under a banner of truce.                                     VETERAN                         Look! The English comes to barter                          with our nobles for castles and                          titles. And our nobles will not be                          in the front of the battle!                                     WALLACE                         No! They will not!               He dismounts, and draws his sword.                                     WALLACE                         And I will.               Slowly, the chant begins, and builds...                                     SCOTS                         Wal-lace! Wal-lace! WAL-LACE!               BAGPIPERS play, pulling the mob back into companies. But                through the lifting mists they see the overwhelming enemy                army. Hamish, Campbell and Stephen move up beside William.                                     STEPHEN                         Fine speech. Now what do we do?                                     WALLACE                         Bring out our spearmen and set them                          in the field.               Campbell, Hamish and Stephen ride off. Mornay reins his horse                over, lifts the reins of Wallace's horse, and extends them                to him: an invitation to join the pre-battle talks.               Wallace mounts up and rides out with the Scottish nobles to                meet the English contingent.               OUT ON THE FIELD, THE TWO GROUPS OF RIDERS               meet like the captains of football teams before the kickoff.                CHELTHAM, head of the English contingent, glares at Wallace.                                     CHELTHAM                         Mornay. Lochlan. Inverness.                                     MORNAY                         Cheltham. This is William Wallace                                     CHELTHAM                         Here are the King's terms. Lead this                          army off the field, and he will give                          you each estates in Yorkshire,                          including hereditary title, from                          which you will pay him an annual --                                     WALLACE                         I have an offer for you.                                     CHELTHAM                         ...From which you will pay the King                          an annual duty...               Wallace pulls his broadsword and snaps it at Cheltham, whose                eyes flash in disbelief at the bad manners.                                     LOCHLAN                         You disrespect a banner of truce?!                                     WALLACE                         From his king? Absolutely. Here are                          Scotland's terms. Lower your flags                          and march straight to England,                          stopping at every Scottish home you                          pass to beg forgiveness for a hundred                          years of theft, rape, and murder. Do                          that, and your men shall live. Do it                          not, and every one of you will die                          today.               Cheltham barks at the Scottish nobles...                                     CHELTHAM                         You are outmatched! You haven't even                          any cavalry! In two centuries no                          army has won without it!                                     WALLACE                         I'm not finished. Before we let you                          leave, your commander must cross                          that bridge, stand before this army,                          put his head between his legs, and                          kiss his own ass.               The outraged Englishman gallops back to his lines.                                     MORNAY                         I'd say that was rather less cordial                          that he was used to.                                     WALLACE                         Be ready, and do exactly as I say.               They return to the Scottish lines. Wallace dismounts where                his men are breaking out new 14-foot spears. Hamish, eyebrows                raised, looks expectantly at Wallace; Wallace nods.                                     HAMISH                         Wish I could see the noble lord's                          face when he tells him.               LORD TALMADGE, AT HIS COMMAND POST               The husky English commander's blood boils from Cheltham's                report. Before he can respond, they see WALLACE'S SPEARMEN                taking up a position on the far side of the bridge. Suddenly                the Scots turn and lift their kilts and moon the English!                                     TALMADGE                         Insolent bastard! Full attack! Give                          no quarter! And I want this Wallace's                          heart brought to me on a plate!               Cheltham spurs his horse to form up the attack...               EXT. THE FIELD BELOW STIRLING CASTLE - DAY               The English army moves forward toward the bridge. It's so                narrow that only a single file of riders can move across it                at any one time. The English heavy cavalry, two hundred                knights, cross uncontested, and form up on the other side.               WITH WALLACE AND THE SCOTS               Things look terrible. Stephen turns to William.                                     STEPHEN                         The Lord tell me He can get me out                          of this mess. But He's pretty sure                          you're fooked.               ON THE ENGLISH SIDE               Talmadge sees the Scots doing nothing.                                     TALMADGE                         Amateurs! They do not even contest                          us! Send across the infantry.                                     GENERAL                         M'lord, the bridge is so narrow --                                     TALMADGE                         The Scots just stand in their                          formations!               Our cavalry will ride them down like grass. Get the infantry                across so they can finish the slaughter!               The English leaders shout orders and keep their men moving                across the bridge. Talmadge gestures for the attack flag.               THE CAVALRY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE               The English knights see the signal banners, telling them to                attack. They take the lances from their squires, and lower                the visors of their helmets. Proud, plumed, glimmering; they                look invincible. Their huge horses, themselves draped in                scarlet and purple, look like tanks. The knights charge!               Their hooves THUNDER; the horses are so heavy the ground                literally shakes with the charge.               The Scots stand and watch them come on. It's difficult to                imagine the courage this takes; from the POV OF THE SCOTTISH                LINES we see the massive horses boring in... we feel the                RISING THUNDER of the charge, closer, closer...               Wallace moves to the front of the lead group of Scots.                                     WALLACE                         Steady! Hold... hold... NOW!               The Scots snap their 14-foot spears straight up in unison.                                     WALLACE                         FORM!               Now the spearmen snap the spears forward in ranks, the first                line of men bracing their spears at an angle three feet above                the ground, the men behind them bracing theirs at a five                foot level, the men behind that bracing at seven feet.               The English knights have never seen such a formation. Their                lances are useless and it's too late to stop! The momentum                that was to carry the horses smashing through the men on                foot now becomes suicidal force; knights and horses impale                themselves on the long spears like beef on skewers.               TALMADGE               can see it; but worse is the SOUND, the SCREAMS OF DYING MEN                AND HORSES, carried to him across the battlefield.               WALLACE AND HIS MEN               are protected, behind a literal wall of fallen chargers and                knights. Wallace draws his broadsword and leads his swordsmen                out onto the field, attacking the knights that are still                alive. Most are off their horses; a few have managed to pull                up their mounts. Wallace and his men are so much more mobile                than the knights; the field runs with blood.               Wallace faces Talmadge in the distance.                                     WALLACE                         Here I am, English coward! Come get                          me!!               TALMADGE is even more enraged -- and his judgment is gone.                                     TALMADGE                         Press the men across!                                     CHELTHAM                         But M'lord!               Talmadge himself gallops forward.                                     TALMADGE                         PRESS THEM!               WALLACE smiles. He grabs Hamish.                                     WALLACE                         Tell Mornay to ride to the flank and                          cross upstream. Wait! Tell him to be                          sure the English see him ride away!               Hamish hurries off with the message.               The English infantry keeps moving across the little bridge.               The Scottish nobles watch from their positions on horseback.               They have a few dozen mounted riders, none heavily armored.                                     LOCHLAN                         If he waits much longer --               Hamish hurries up.                                     HAMISH                         Ride around and ford behind them!                                     MORNAY                         We should not divide our forces!                                     HAMISH                         Wallace says do it! And he says for                          you to let the English see you!                                     MORNAY                              (understanding)                         They shall think we run away.               Mornay leads his riders away.               LORD TALMADGE               sees the Scottish nobles ride off, and shouts to Cheltham...                                     TALMADGE                         See! Every Scot with a horse is                          fleeing! Hurry! Hurry!               He drives half his army across the river.               WALLACE               lifts his sword.                                     WALLACE                         For Scotland!               He charges down the hill...               THE FIGHT AT STIRLING BRIDGE - VARIOUS SHOTS               The Scots follow Wallace on foot, charging into the English.               The English leaders are stunned by the ferocious attack.                                     TALMADGE                         Press reinforcements across!               The English leaders try to herd more of their footsoldiers                onto the bridge, which only hams them up. Meanwhile, on the                other side of the bridge, Wallace and his charging men slam                into the English infantry with wild fury. The English fall                back on each other, further blocking the bridge.               UP ON THE HILLTOP               The nobles look back with grudging admiration.                                     MORNAY                         He's taking the bloody bridge! The                          English can't get across! He's evened                          the odds at one stroke!               With rising desire to join the bandwagon, the nobles spur...               DOWN ON THE PLAIN, Wallace and the attacking men drive the                English back, killing as they go. The Scots reach the bridge                itself. The waters below it run red with blood.               Talmadge has begun to panic.                                     TALMADGE                         Use the archers!                                     GENERAL                         They're too close, we'll shoot out                          own men!               ON THE BRIDGE               the Scots are carving their way through the English soldiers;                nothing can stop them. Wallace is relentless; each time he                swings, a head flies, or an arm. Hamish and Stephen fight                beside him, swinging the broadsword with both hands. Old                Campbell loses his shield in the grappling; an English                swordsman whacks at him and takes off his left hand, but                Campbell batters him to the ground with his right, and stabs                him. Reaching the English side of the bridge, the Scots begin                to build a barrier with the dead bodies.               The English are not without courage. Cheltham leads a                desperate counterattack. The Scots make an impenetrable                barrier of slashing blades. Still Cheltham keeps coming;                Wallace hits him with a vertical slash that parts his helmet,                his hair, and his brain.               TALMADGE has seen enough; he gallops away. The remaining                English General tries to save the army.                                     GENERAL                         We are still five thousand! Rally!               The English try to form up; but the Scottish horsemen, fording                the river high upstream, come crashing into the English flank                and ride over the surprised English infantry.               AT THE BRIDGE, WALLACE               sees the Scottish nobles attacking. The English soldiers are                in utter panic, running and being cut down on all sides.               And the Scottish soldiers taste something Scots have not                tasted for a hundred years: victory. Even while finishing                off the last of the English soldiers, they begin their highlow                chant... Even the noblemen take up the chant!               Wallace looks around at the aftermath of the battle: bodies                on the field; soldiers lying impaled; stacks of bodies on                the bridge; the bridge slick with blood.               Before it can all sink in, William is lifted on the shoulders                of his men.                                     SCOTTISH SOLDIERS                         Wal-lace! Wal-lace! Wal-lace!               INT. CASTLE - GREAT HALL - DAY               William kneels before one of Scotland's ancient elders, who                lifts a silver sword and dubs William's shoulders.                                     ELDER                         I knight thee Sir William Wallace.               William rises and faces the Great Hall, crowded with hundreds                of new admirers, as well as his old friends in their new                clothes and armor. The crowd chants --                                     CROWD                         Wal-lace, Wal-lace!!               Wallace lifts his eyes, taking it all in. At the rear of the                hall is a balcony, backed by a magnificent sunlit stained                glass window, and in the center of its rainbow corona he                sees a familiar form: Marion, so real to him in this moment                of triumph that he can see her, glowing like an angel, in a                gown worthy of the occasion. But the illusion won't last; in                the blink of an eye she is gone, and Wallace hears the chant,                and fingers the cloth she gave him.               INT. SCOTTISH COUNCIL - DAY               The nobles of Scotland are gathered in the huge chamber; a                massive table runs across the far end of the room, and aligned                on either side are the two rival factions of nobles, glaring                at each other. Old Craig is in the center, with young Robert                the Bruce on his right. There is a general MURMUR along the                nobles, and Robert whispers to Craig...                                     ROBERT                         Does anyone know his politics?                                     CRAIG                         No. But his weight with the commoners                          could unbalance everything. The                          Balliols will kiss his ass, so we                          must.               A court STEWARDS steps in and formally announces...                                     STEWARD                         Lords of Scotland: Sir William                          Wallace!               The nobles on each side of the table try to outdo each other                in their acclamation as Wallace strides in, flanked by Hamish,                Campbell, and Stephen, splendid in their tartans.               Old Craig rises.                                     CRAIG                         Sir William. In the name of God, we                          declare and appoint thee High                          Protector of Scotland! And thy                          captains as aides decamp!               The nobles rise; court attendants hurry to Wallace and drape                a golden chain of office around his neck. Wallace takes the                three smaller chains they bring and drapes them around the                necks of his friends, as once again the nobles applaud.               Almost before the applause dies, a member of the BALLIOL                clan, who has kept an open seat beside him, speaks up...                                     BALLIOL                         Sir William!! Inasmuch as you and                          your captains hail from a region                          long known to support the Balliol                          clan, may we invite you to join us?               But Wallace's gaze has locked onto Robert the Bruce, who                stares back, the two young lions instantly recognizing the                leadership power of each other.                                     WALLACE                         You are Robert the Bruce.                                     ROBERT THE BRUCE                         I am.                                     WALLACE                         My father fought in support of yours.               The Balliols shrivel. The nobles on the Bruce side can barely                keep from grinning. Suddenly the men on the other end of the                table change their attack.                                     BALLIOL                         With this new success, the result of                          all of Scotland's efforts, now is                          the time to declare a king!                                     MORNAY                         Then you are prepared to recognize                          our legitimate succession!                                     BALLIOL                         You're the ones who won't support                          the true claim! I demand consideration                          of these documents!               Wallace glances again at the Bruce, who suddenly feels ashamed                of the bickering.                                     MORNAY                         Those were lies when they were                          written! Our documents prove                          absolutely that --               Suddenly Wallace turns his back and walks toward the door.                                     CRAIG                         Sir William! Where are you going?                                     WILLIAM                         We have beaten the English! But                          they'll come back, because you won't                          stand together. There is one clan in                          this country -- Scotsmen. One class --                          free. One price -- courage.               He turns again and strides toward the door.                                     CRAIG                         But... what will you do?                                     WALLACE                         I will invade England. And defeat                          the English on their own ground.                                     CRAIG                         Invade?! That's impossible, it --               Wallace slings out his broadsword and moves down the length                of the table, bashing the succession documents into the laps                of the nobles.                                     WALLACE                         LISTEN TO ME! Longshanks understands                          this! This!               He brandishes the broadsword.                                     WALLACE                         There is a difference between us.                          You think the people of this country                          exist to provide you with position.                          I think your position exists to                          provide the people with freedom. And                          I go to make sure they have it.               Wallace bangs through the door. Suppressing smiles, his                friends file out behind him.               INT. EDINBURGH CORRIDOR - DAY               Wallace and his men are marching away, as Robert the Bruce                runs out after them.                                     ROBERT                         Wait! ...I respect what you said.                          But remember, these men have lands,                          castles. Much to risk.                                     WALLACE                         And the common man who bleeds on the                          battlefield, does he risk less?                                     ROBERT                         No. But from top to bottom this                          country has no sense of itself. Its                          nobles share allegiance with England                          and its clans war with each other.                          If you make enemies on both sides of                          the border, you'll end up dead.                                     WALLACE                         We all end up dead. It's only a                          question of how. And why.               Wallace walks; Robert catches up and speaks to him in an                urgent half whisper, so that no one else can hear.                                     ROBERT                         I'm no coward! I want what you want!                          But we need the nobles.                                     WALLACE                         Nobles? What does that mean -- to be                          noble? Your title gives you claim to                          the throne of our country. But men                          don't follow titles, they follow                          courage! Your arm speaks louder than                          your tongue. Our people know you.                          Noble and common, they respect you.                          If you would lead them toward freedom,                          they would follow you. And so would                          I.               Wallace walks away, leaving Robert the Bruce alone.               THE SCOTTISH ARMY - DAY               Wallace rides at the head of his army, moving through the                countryside of northern England. It is autumn, the foliage                is beautiful, the wheat fields gold with harvest.               EXT. ESTABLISHING YORK CITY - DAY               A medieval city guarded by a fortress.               INT. THE FORTRESS - MAP ROOM - DAY               The ROYAL GOVERNOR is a spoiled young man, Longshanks' nephew.                He is studying maps and written appeals for help; his CAPTAIN                of defenses strides in with another note.                                     CAPTAIN                         Message from your cousin, the Prince.                          He says London has no more troops to                          send.                                     GOVERNOR                         Every town in Northern England is                          begging for help! Where will Wallace                          strike first?                                     CAPTAIN                         I should think these smaller                          settlements along the border...               They hear shouts as a rider arrives and dismounts. They look                out to see a panicked RIDER, who shouts up...                                     RIDER                         He advances!                                     GOVERNOR                         To what town?                                     RIDER                         He comes here!                                                                  SMASH TO:               CARTS, RUMBLING IN PANIC DOWN A ROAD               as civilians flee the walled city in the distance.               THE SCOTTISH ARMY               has cut a huge tree and placed it on wheels. It rumbles                ominously TOWARD CAMERA...               THE CIVILIAN PANIC CONTINUES as more people join the swell                of those leaving York.               THE SCOTTISH ARMY keeps coming on.               INSIDE THE WALLS OF THE CITY - DAY               The governor is furious and confused.                                     GOVERNOR                         We will not allow a bandit to panic                          the greatest city in Northern England!                          Close off the escapes! Let no one                          leave!                                     CAPTAIN                         The city has emptied already, Sire.                          Only the Scottish civilians remain.               The Governor turns to his captain with a look worthy of his                uncle, Longshanks the King.               ON THE BATTERING RAM               as it picks up speed and SLAMS into the wooden gate of the                city. With the collision, THE BATTLE IS ON. It's a night                battle: torches, flaming arrows, pots of boiling oil being                splashed down at the attackers, who swarm the gate.               The oil beats the first wave of Scots back, but Wallace rushes                forward, grabbing the ram cart with his own hands; the                attackers rally to him, helping him slam the gate again and                again. It breaks; but behind it is an awful tangle of carts,                broken sheds, impenetrable rubbish. Wallace grabs a torch,                throws it into the wooden tangle, and shouts --                                     WALLACE                         Back! Wait for it to burn!               INSIDE THE CITY               The Captain hurries into the tower room.                                     CAPTAIN                         They've breached the wall!                                     GOVERNOR                         Then do as I ordered.               OUTSIDE THE WALLS               The Scots wait, biding their time as the barrier burns.               Suddenly they look up in horror; the English are throwing                the bodies of hanged Scots over the wall.               They stare at this in mute shock. Wallace is frozen, his                eyes reflecting his boyhood reaction. His men rush forward.                                     WALLACE                         STOP! NOT YET! LISTEN TO ME!                              (beat)                         They wish to frighten us! Or goad us                          into attacking too soon! Don't look                          away! LOOK!               The Scots look at the hanging bodies.                                     WALLACE                         Behold the enemy we fight! We will                          be more merciful than they have been.                          We will spare women, children, and                          priests. For all else, no mercy.               Wallace draws his broadsword. The burning debris inside the                gate collapses, leaving a tunnel through the fire. Wallace                screams, and leads the charge through the burning barrier.               INT. THE PALACE IN LONDON - DAY               Prince Edward and Phillip, his fencing friend and lover,                hear a contingent of horsemen clatter into the courtyard                below; they look out the window and see the arrival of                Longshanks.               They lean back into the room and Edward begins to pace                nervously.                                     PHILLIP                         It is not your fault! Stand up to                          him.               Edward shows Phillip the dagger he has concealed in his belt                behind his back.                                     EDWARD                         I will stand up to him, and more.               Longshanks bangs the door open and stalks in angrily. First                he glares at Phillip with obvious loathing, then turns his                piercing stare to his own son.                                     LONGSHANKS                         What news of the north?                                     EDWARD                         Nothing new, Majesty. We have sent                          riders to speed any word.                                     LONGSHANKS                         While I am in France fighting to                          expand your future kingdom I learn                          that Stirling castle is lost, our                          entire northern army wiped out! And                          you have done nothing?!                                     EDWARD                         I have ordered conscriptions...               A messenger enters and hands the prince a message. Edward                reads it and nearly loses his balance.                                     EDWARD                         Wallace has sacked York!                                     LONGSHANKS                         Impossible.                              (to messenger)                         How dare you bring a panicky lie.               The messenger has also brought a basket. He approaches the                central table with great dread and places the basket on it,                uncovering its contents. Prince Edward is closest; he looks                in, then staggers back, stunned. Longshanks moves to the                sack coldly, looks in, and withdraws the severed head of his                nephew, York's (former) Governor.                                     PHILLIP                         Sire! Thy own nephew! What beast                          could do such a thing?!               The king drops the head back into the sack, unmoved.                                     LONGSHANKS                         If he can sack York, he can invade                          lower England.                                     PHILLIP                         We would stop him!                                     LONGSHANKS                         Edward, who is this shitpoker who                          speaks to me as if I needed his                          advice?                                     EDWARD                         I have declared Phillip my High                          Counselor.               Longshanks nods as if impressed. He moves to Phillip and                examines the gold chain of office that the young man wears.               Then Longshanks grabs him and throws him out the window, the                same one Edward and Phillip were looking out, six stories                above the courtyard. We hear Phillip's SCREAM as he falls.               Edward rushes toward the window in horror. He looks out at                the result, turns back toward his father in shock and hatred,                and only then remembers the dagger and goes for it.               He stabs at Longshanks; the old king smiles at the attack,                parrying, letting his arms be cut.                                     LONGSHANKS                         You fight back at last!               Then Longshanks unleashes his own hateful fury; he grapples                with Edward, knocking the dagger away and hurling him to the                floor; then Longshanks kicks his son, again and again. He                exhausts his fury on him.               Edward is a bloody mess; Longshanks coughs up a bit of blood.               He ignores it and his son's wreckage, and goes back to the                discussion, as if this fight was normal business.                                     LONGSHANKS                         We must sue for a truce, and buy him                          off. But who will go to him? Not I.                          If I came under the sword of this                          murderer, I would end up like my                          nephew. And not you, the sight of my                          faggot son would only encourage an                          enemy to take over this country. So                          whom do I send?               Longshanks calculates.               EXT. WALLACE ARMY CAMP - DAY               A full encampment, across an English field; campfires chase                the dawn chill. Soldiers sharpen swords and spear points.               Wallace is huddled with his inner circle, all except Campbell,                who receives a report from a scout.                                     CAMPBELL                         A royal entourage comes, flying                          banners of truce, and the standards                          of Longshanks himself!               Wallace buckles on his sword.               AN ENGLISH PAVILION TENT - YORKSHIRE - DAY               Set up for a meeting in a sunny meadow. Wallace and his men                ride in, wary, ready for ambush. They surround the tent.               There are two dozen royal soldiers there, but they make no                threatening moves.               No sound from the tent. Wallace rests his hand on the handle                of his broadsword, ready.                                     WALLACE                         Longshanks! I have come.               Servants pull back the sides of the tent door, and a tall,                slender, shapely female figure appears there. There in the                shadows, she looks just like Marion! William is not the only                one who notices the resemblance; he glances at Hamish and                Campbell and sees them haunted by it too. Is this another                dream? He pales, as she steps into the morning sun. She moves                toward him, her face lowered. It is Marion!               She reaches him, lifts her face... and he sees the Princess!               William is relieved -- and yet as he sees the Princess more                closely he is still shaken by the resemblance in the way she                carries herself, her shape, the fall of her hair.               The Princess is struck with Wallace, too -- tall, powerful,                and commanding. Wallace dismounts, and moves to face her.               Their eyes hang on each other. She sees something that she                has not seen in the face of a man in her whole life.               She surprises him by bending at the knee, in a half-submissive                yet proud curtsey.                                     PRINCESS                         I am the Princess of Wales.                                     WALLACE                         Wife of Edward, the king's son?               She nods; somehow she is already ashamed.                                     PRINCESS                         I come as the king's servant, and                          with his authority.                                     WALLACE                         It's battle I want, not talk.                                     PRINCESS                         But now that I am here, will you                          speak with a woman?               She leads him under the pavilion, a purple canopy shading                rich carpets laid on the bare ground. Watching the gorgeous                walk, Stephen lies back on his saddle and twitches his leg                like a horny dog. Hamish backhands him; Campbell, Hamish and                Stephen quickly dismount and follow the procession,                shouldering their way in beside the Princess's French guards,                so they can watch Wallace's back. The rest of the Scots                surround the tent, ready for ambush.               Nicolette is among the royal attendants there; seeing Wallace,                she shoots a glance at the Princess that says Ooo-La-La! The                servants have brought a throne for the Princess, a lower                chair for Wallace. She sits; he refuses the chair.               She studies him, taking in his anger and his pride.                                     PRINCESS                         I understand that you have recently                          been given the rank of knight.                                     WALLACE                         I have been given nothing. God makes                          men what they are.                                     PRINCESS                         Did God make you the sacker of                          peaceful cities? The executioner of                          the king's nephew, my husband's own                          cousin?                                     WALLACE                         York was the staging point for every                          invasion of my country. And that                          royal cousin hanged a hundred Scots,                          even women and children, from the                          city walls.                                     PRINCESS                         That is not possible.               But knowing Longshanks' family, she glances at a richly                dressed Advisor, a CRONY of the king, who averts his eyes.                                     WALLACE                         Longshanks did far worse, the last                          time he took a Scottish city.               The Crony mumbles to her in LATIN, WITH SUBTITLES...                                     CRONY                              (Latin)                         He is a murdering bandit, he lies.                                     WALLACE                              (Latin!)                         I am no bandit. And I do not lie.               They are startled at Wallace's fluency in Latin.                                     WALLACE                         Or in French if you prefer that:                          Certainmous et ver! Ask your king to                          his face, and see if his eyes can                          convince you of the truth.               She stares for a long moment at Wallace's eyes.                                     PRINCESS                         Hamilton, leave us.                                     CRONY (HAMILTON)                         M'lady --                                     PRINCESS                         Leave us now.               He reluctantly obeys. Seeing that she wants the exchange to                be private, Wallace turns and nods for his men to leave.               Stephen, who has been admiring the lady's beauty non-stop,                leans in and whispers to William...                                     STEPHEN                         Her husband's more of a queen than                          she is. Did you know that?               Stephen moves off with Hamish and Campbell. Wallace and the                princess are left alone.                                     PRINCESS                         Let us talk plainly. You invade                          England. But you cannot complete the                          conquest, so far from your shelter                          and supply. The King proposes that                          you withdraw your attack. In return                          he grants you title, estates, and                          this chest with a thousand pounds of                          gold, which I am to pay to you                          personally.                                     WALLACE                         A Lordship. And gold. That I should                          become Judas.                                     PRINCESS                         Peace is made is such ways.                                     WALLACE                         SLAVES ARE MADE IN SUCH WAYS!               The outburst startles even those watching from a distance.               The Princess is mesmerized by Wallace's passion.                                     PRINCESS                         I understand you have suffered. I                          know... about your woman.                                     WALLACE                         She was my wife. We married in secret                          because I would not share her with                          an English lord. They killed her to                          get to me. And she was pregnant.               The Princess is stunned; Wallace is dead still.                                     WALLACE                         I've never told anyone. I don't know                          why I tell you -- except because you                          look... much like her. And someday                          you will be a queen, and you must                          open your eyes!                              (beat)                         Tell your king that William Wallace                          will not be ruled. Nor will any Scot,                          while I live.               The Princess rises slowly from her chair, moves in front of                him, and lowers herself to her knees. The Crony and her other                attendants, seeing this from a distance, are shocked.                                     PRINCESS                         Sir. I leave this money, as a gift.                          Not from the king, but from myself.                          And not to you, but to the orphans                          of your country.               She lifts her face. Their eyes hold a moment too long.               LATER, EXT. FIELD - DAY               Wallace and his captains sit on horseback at the head of                their company and watch as the Princess' procession leaves.               Hamish studies Wallace's face; Wallace notices and gives him                a non-committal shrug. As the carriage rolls away, its window                curtains lift back slightly. All they see are the Princess'                fingers, but they know she looked back. Wallace reins his                horse away, to ride back to camp.               INT. EDWARD'S PALACE - DAY               The doors open; the Princess enters Longshanks' war council;                Prince Edward is there, among a dozen others.                                     LONGSHANKS                         My son's loyal wife returns, unkilled                          by the heathen. So he accepted our                          bribe.                                     PRINCESS                         No. He did not.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Then why does he stay? My scouts say                          he has not advanced.                                     PRINCESS                         He waits. For you. He says he will                          attack no more towns -- if you are                          man enough to come fight him.                                     LONGSHANKS                         You spoke with this Wallace in                          private. What kind of man is he?                                     PRINCESS                         ...A mindless barbarian. Not a king                          like you, M'lord.                                     LONGSHANKS                         The Scottish nobles have sent him no                          support. His army starves. Our stall                          has worked, he must withdraw. You                          may return to your embroidery.                                     PRINCESS                         Humbly, M'lord.               She barely curtseys, and starts out.                                     EDWARD                         You brought back the money, of course?               He already knows she didn't; Hamilton is standing near him.                                     PRINCESS                         No. I have it to ease the suffering                          of the children of this war.                                     LONGSHANKS                              (glances at son)                         This is what happens when you must                          send a woman. And a fool.                                     PRINCESS                         Forgive me, Sire. I thought that                          generosity might demonstrate your                          greatness to those you mean to rule.                                     LONGSHANKS                         My greatness is better demonstrated                          with this.               From a box at his feet the king withdraws a crossbow and                throws it onto the table. Most of those there are shocked.                                     EDWARD                         The weapon has been outlawed by the                          Pope himself!                                     LONGSHANKS                         So the Scots will have none of them,                          will they? My armorers have already                          made a thousand.               Longshanks smiles. No one notices that the Princess is deadly                pale.               EXT. WALLACE ARMY CAMP - DAY               The Scots are lining up to leave their encampment. Wallace                is about to give the signal to start the march when Hamish,                beside him, comes alert; a small group of riders in                distinctive attire are coming toward them; what can this be?                                     HAMISH                         William -- French guards?               The riders stop at a distance, and out from their ranks comes                a single rider, sitting sidesaddle. It is Nicolette.               Wallace and Hamish recognize her from the Princess's visit.               She trots her horse the rest of the way, while the French                guards stay back. Hamish helps her from her horse. She moves                to Wallace, and opens the heavy folds of her heavy riding                cape.               Secreted there, hung from a rope at her neck, is a crossbow.               EXT. A FIELD IN SCOTLAND - DAY               Wallace has gathered the nobles, among them Robert the Bruce,                Mornay, and old Craig, for a demonstration. Hamish and Stephen                have placed a spearman's chestplate against a bale of hay.                As William cranks the crossbow to its full cocked position                and places a bolt in its slot, Stephen tucks a melon behind                the armor.               William aims... and fires. The bolt slashes through the air                and punches through the armor and the melon, leaving no doubt                what it would do to a man's heart. The nobles pale.                                     CRAIG                         That is why the Pope outlawed the                          weapon! It makes war too terrible.                                     MORNAY                         How many does Longshanks have?                                     WALLACE                         A thousand.                              (beat)                         You have made me Guardian of Scotland.                          So I tell you this is what we face.                                     CRAIG                         We must sue for peace.                                     WALLACE                         Peace?!                                     CRAIG                         We cannot defeat this --                                     WALLACE                         With cavalry -- not heavy, like the                          English, but light, fast horsemen,                          like you nobles employ -- we could                          outmaneuver their bowmen!                                     CRAIG                         It is suicide.                                     ROBERT                         Sir William --               The Bruce sees Wallace about to explode, and tries to                intervene -- but Wallace's anger is too great.                                     WALLACE                         We won at Stirling and still you                          quibbled! We won at York and you                          would not support us! Then I said                          nothing! Now I say you are cowards!               The nobles grip their weapons; Wallace, Hamish and Stephen                are ready to finish this quarrel right here. Robert the Bruce,                backed by Mornay, steps between the two sides.                                     ROBERT                         Please, Sir William! Speak with me                          alone! I beg you!               The nobles stalk away, and Robert draws Wallace away, to the                target Wallace shot, so they are alone.                                     ROBERT                         You have achieved more than anyone                          dreamed. But fighting these odds                          looks like rage, not courage. Peace                          offers its rewards! Has war become a                          habit you cannot break?               The question strikes deep.                                     WALLACE                         War finds me willing. I know it won't                          bring back all I have lost. But it                          can bring what none of us have ever                          had -- a country of our own. For                          that we need a king. We need you.                                     ROBERT                         I am trying.                                     WALLACE                         Then tell me what a king is! Is he a                          man who believes only what others                          believe? Is he one who calculates                          the numbers for and against him but                          never weighs the strength in your                          own heart? There is strength in you.                          I see it. I know it.                                     ROBERT                         I must... consult with my father.                                     WALLACE                         And I will consult with mine.               Robert the Bruce walks off the field, heading the way the                other nobles went. Wallace rejoins Hamish and Stephen. They                look to him; what do we do now?                                     WALLACE                         Remember when the English turned                          their hounds on us? Maybe we should                          introduce them to our dogs.               INT. THE DARKENED ROOM OF BRUCE THE ELDER, THE LEPER               In the faint nimbus of the single candle, young Robert sits                across from his leper father. The son grips his own head, as                if stunned by a blow.                                     ROBERT                         This... cannot be the way.                                     THE LEPER                         You have said yourself that the nobles                          will not support Wallace, so how                          does it help us to join the side                          that is slaughtered?               Heartsick, the father reaches across the table, then stays                his arm, unwilling to touch his son with his leprous hand.                                     THE LEPER                         My son. Look at me. I cannot be king.                          You, and you alone, can rule Scotland.                          What I tell you, you must do -- for                          yourself, and for your country.               Young Robert holds his father with his eyes, and does not                look away.               EXT. THE BATTLE OF FALKIRK - DAY               The Scottish army moves out onto the hilly plain, covered in                the gray mists. They see glimpses of the enemy in the                distance. Wallace deploys the Scots: Campbell with the                schiltrons (spear formations), Stephen with the infantry,                the noble Mornay leading the cavalry, and with Wallace and                Hamish on horseback, looking over the field. Hamish sees                gazing up at an empty hill above the field.                                     HAMISH                         The Bruce is not coming, William.                                     WALLACE                         Mornay has come. So will the Bruce.               He'd better, the odds look long. And it's nasty ground; one                side of the field is ankle deep in water, and the English                are covering it with a layer of burning oil, releasing thick                smoke to hide their movements.                                     WALLACE                         Stephen ready?                                     HAMISH                         Aye.               The Priest from their home village is moving through the                Scottish ranks, dispensing absolution. He reaches the two                friends, who accept the Host, say their own last prayers,                and give each other a look of goodbye. Hamish rides off to                join the schiltrons.               LONGSHANKS AND HIS GENERALS               on the opposite side of the field, send their army forward.               WALLACE AND THE SCOTS               see them through the smoke; Wallace spots what he's looking                for: there they are, the ranks of crossbowmen!               And as they draw nearer, Wallace hears a haunting noise. He                sees the bowmen more clearly, and the English infantry. Some                are wearing kilts and marching to bagpipes.                                     WALLACE                         Irish troops!               STEPHEN OF IRELAND, WITH THE SCOTTISH INFANTRY               He stares at the approach of his countrymen. Wallace appears                beside him. Stephen sees him, and is ashamed.                                     STEPHEN                         So that's where Longshanks got his                          soldiers. Irishmen, willing to kill                          Scottish cousins for the English.                                     WILLIAM                         Their families are starving, they'll                          feed them however they can. If you                          don't want to fight them --                                     STEPHEN                         No. I'll stand with you.               Loyal to the end. Wallace signals to Hamish and Campbell,                among the schiltrons. The formations, bristling with spears,                move forward. Hamish looks back at Wallace; both men know                the spearmen are the bait here. Wallace and Stephen see the                English heavy cavalry advancing.                                     STEPHEN                         They can't be that stupid to attack                          the schiltrons again.               Wallace is scanning the battlefield. He sees the English                cavalry charge, but before they reach the bristling spears,                they pull up, and crossbowmen, moving up behind the knights.                                     WALLACE                         It's only a faint to shield the                          crossbows!               The crossbowmen fire a volley, too hurriedly. We see the                hailstorm of bolts slash through the air in unison -- you                can actually see them coming. The bows fall short of the                front ranks of the schiltrons.                                     WALLACE                         Now! Give 'em the dogs!               Stephen signals, and up the slope behind them come handlers                with ten war dogs.               Huge mastiffs, they wear steel collars, with razor sharp                protrusions. Their handlers hold them at the end of long                catch poles. The crossbowmen are distracted from their                reloading by the appearance of the mastiffs; now, as the                Scottish handlers run toward the English ranks and unleash                the dogs, fear races through the English line.               The dogs tear into them. It is chaos; the bowmen can't flee,                and as the dogs mix among them, the bowmen fire frantically,                mostly hitting each other. The dogs' collars slash legs;                their jaws crush bones; even when their back legs are hacked                off, the frenzied dogs keep killing.               Wallace signals to Mornay with the Scottish cavalry. Mornay                does nothing. The crossbowmen, though taking great punishment,                are beginning to overwhelm the dogs by sheer numbers, and                are regrouping.                                     WALLACE                         Now! Charge! Charge them!               Mornay tugs his reins and leads his cavalry away.               AT THE ENGLISH COMMAND               Longshanks and his officers see Mornay and his cavalry melt                away. The English general looks knowingly at Longshanks.                                     GENERAL                         Mornay?                                     LONGSHANKS                         For double his lands in Scotland,                          and matching estates in England.               WALLACE, WITH STEPHEN               They see the Scottish army abandoned.                                     STEPHEN                         Betrayed!               Wallace glances to the other hilltop; still no sign of Bruce.               He looks on in agony as the crossbowmen unleash another                volley. The Scottish spearmen, bunched in a tight group, are                helpless. The bolts fall, cutting through their helmets and                breastplates like paper. Wallace has no cavalry -- and his                men are being slaughtered! He spurs his horse, and Stephen                and the infantrymen race behind him.               The English heavy cavalry surge to meet them, but Wallace                weaves through them, dodging with his horse, slashing with                the broadsword, cutting down on knight, another, another...               The Scottish infantry claws in, dragging down the horses,                hacking the knights as they run by.               The English bowmen are about to fire again, but they see the                Scottish charge bearing down on them and adjust their aim;                the bolts cut into the infantrymen; one bolt tears off the                armor of Wallace's left shoulder. He wobbles on his horse,                regains his balance, and keeps up the charge.               AT THE ENGLISH COMMAND               Longshanks and his generals are watching the action.                                     GENERAL                         My God, and still they come!                                     LONGSHANKS                         Use the reinforcements! But take                          Wallace alive!               The General signals and the English reinforcements surge                into the battle.               IN THE THICK OF THE BATTLE               On horseback, Wallace fights his way into the watery edge of                the field, where English infantry is now overrunning the                schiltron. He hacks men down left and right, reaches the                Scottish center, and finds Hamish bending over another                soldier. Wallace dismounts.                                     WALLACE                         Hamish! Ham --               And Wallace sees that Hamish is holding his father, fallen                in battle. Wallace has no time to react; he cuts down and                English swordsman moving in to hack Hamish's back. Wallace                lifts Campbell across the saddle, and shouts at Hamish...                                     WALLACE                         Get him away!               Hamish obeys, jumping onto the horse and galloping back toward                the rear. Wallace fights with new vengeance, swinging the                double-edged broadsword with deadly accuracy.               Rallied by Wallace's presence, the Scots surge back. Then                Wallace sees the English reinforcement cavalry coming.                                     WALLACE                         A charge! Form up! Form up!               The Scots pull up spears and hastily form another schiltron.               The spears bristle out, ready... the English horsemen thunder                in. But before the spears impale the horses, another flight                of crossbow bolts cuts down half the Scots still fighting.               Hamish reaches the rear of the battle and lowers the limp                body of his father to the Scottish monks who are attending                to the wounded and giving absolution to the dying...               Still Wallace fights back, meeting the English charge. The                Scots hold their own. An English knight tries to ride over                William; he knocks the lance aside, and tough the horse slams                into him, William also unseats the rider.               The rider rolls to his feet. William struggles up to meet                him -- and comes face to face with Robert the Bruce.               The shock and recognition stun Wallace; in that moment,                looking at Robert the Bruce's guilt-ridden face, he                understands everything: the betrayal, the hopelessness of                Scotland. As he stands there frozen, a bolt punches into the                muscle of his neck, and Wallace doesn't react to it.               Bruce is horrified at the sight of Wallace this way. He                batters at Wallace's sword, as if its use would give him                absolution.                                     ROBERT                         Fight me! Fight me!               But Wallace can only stagger back. Bruce's voice grows ragged                as he screams.                                     ROBERT                         FIGHT ME!               All around, the battle has decayed; the Scots are being                slaughtered. Another bolt glances off Wallace's helmet; a                third rips into his thigh plate, making his legs collapse.               Suddenly Stephen comes through the melee, on Robert's horse!               He hits Robert from behind, knocking him down, and jumps to                the ground to try and lift William onto the horse!               Robert sees a knot of crossbowmen moving up, sighting out                Wallace, taking careful aim! Bruce leaps up and helps Stephen                sling Wallace onto the back of the horse, even covers him                with his shield, deflecting another bolt fired at Wallace,                as Stephen mounts too.               As the horse plunges away into the smoke, Robert falls to                the water. His own troops reach him, realize who he is, see                the horrible expression on his face, and race on after the                Scots.               Robert is left alone, on his knees in the water, the fire                and noise of battle now dim to him, as if his senses have                died along with his heart.               LONGSHANKS               Looks over the battlefield, strewn with the bodies of the                Scottish dead. For now, he is satisfied.               EXT. ROAD - SUNSET               Remnants of the defeated army straggle past. Wallace and                Stephen are trying to help Hamish carry his father, but now                old Campbell says...                                     CAMPBELL                         Son... I want to die on the ground.               But as they tilt old Campbell onto the ground, he grabs at                something that starts to fall from the wound in his stomach.                                     CAMPBELL                         Whew. That'll clear your sinuses.                          Goodbye, boys.                                     HAMISH                         No. You're going to live.                                     CAMPBELL                         I don't think I can do without one                          of those... whatever it is...               Hamish is too grief-stricken to speak.                                     WALLACE                         You... were like my father...               Old Campbell rallies one more time for this.                                     CAMPBELL                         ...And glad to die, like him... So                          you could be the men you are. All of                          ya.               The last three words to Hamish, telling him he's a hero too.                                     CAMPBELL                         I'm a happy man.               Hamish is weeping. When he looks up again, his father has                died. We PULL BACK from them in tableaux, with the army, the                people of Scotland, the whole gray world in defeat.               INT. EDINBURGH CASTLE - DAY               Wallace, still bloody and in his battered armor, removes the                chain of office from beneath his breastplate, lays it onto                the table in front of Craig and the other nobles, and walks                from the room. Hamish and Stephen see the satisfaction on                the nobles' face, and follow William out.               INT. CASTLE CORRIDOR - DAY               Hamish and Stephen move out into the hallway after Wallace --                but he is gone.               EXT. WOODS - NIGHT               Wallace is in the woods, in the grove of trees, looking at                Marion's hidden grave. The rain falls on his face, like tears.                But he has no tears of his own. The cold, the icy rain, the                wounds, nothing seems to touch him.               With his fingertips he carefully draws her embroidered cloth                from beneath his breastplate; hanging in his trembling hands,                filthy with the grime and gore of battle, it looks impossibly                white, something from a better, purer world.                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               INT. PALACE IN LONDON - NIGHT               Thunder, the sound of driving rain. Snug by a massive fire                are Longshanks, his son Edward, and other advisors. On the                far side of the room, away from the fire, the Princess stands                at the window and watches the rain against the panes.                                     ADVISOR                         Their nobles have sworn allegiance,                          M'lord. Every last one.               Longshanks savors the victory -- and gloats to his son.                                     LONGSHANKS                         Now we kill two birds at one stroke.                          We recruit from Scotland for our                          armies in France.                                     EDWARD                         The Scots will fight for us?                                     LONGSHANKS                         What choice do they have? Now they                          must serve us or starve.                                     EDWARD                         But if we have not caught Wallace --                                     LONGSHANKS                              (exploding)                         He is gone! Finished! Dead! If he                          has not yet bled to death or had his                          throat cut for him, he will not                          survive the winter. It is very cold --                          is it not, our flower?               From the other side of the window, we see the Princess as                she hears him, but doesn't turn around. She looks at the                window, we snow swirling among the raindrops outside. Her                eyes glisten, and her breath fogs the glass.               INT. BRUCE'S DARKENED CHAMBER               The elder Bruce, his decaying features sagging from his face,                stares across the table at his son.                                     LEPER                         I am the one who is rotting. But I                          think your face looks graver than                          mine.                                     ROBERT                         He was so brave. With courage alone                          he nearly won.                                     LEPER                         So more men were slaughtered                          uselessly!                                     ROBERT                         He broke because of me. I saw it. He                          lost all will to fight.                                     LEPER                         We must have alliance with England                          to prevail here. You achieved that!                          You saved your family, increased                          your lands! In time you will have                          all the power in Scotland!... Yet                          you grieve.                                     ROBERT                         In my heart I had begun to hope that                          he would never break.                                     LEPER                         All men lose heart. All betray. It                          is exactly why we must make the                          choices we make.               INT. MORNAY'S CASTLE - NIGHT               Mornay, in an opulent bedchamber hung with tapestries and                carpeted with eastern rugs, lies in bed, tossing in the                restless sleep of a tortured soul.               He thinks he hears galloping. In SUBLIMINAL FLASHES he DREAMS                of Wallace riding toward him.               He wakes, and listens to a strange noise. It is hoofbeats!               Coming closer. He hears shouts too, screams from below --                and those strange, approaching hoofbeats...               WALLACE, ON HORSEBACK               rides up the circular stairs inside Mornay's castle! His                horse bounds up the stone -- Mornay's guards are behind him,                on foot, pursuing.               At a landing, Wallace cuts down a guard, and gallops higher.               IN HIS BED, MORNAY               sits up gawking as the door explodes inward and Wallace rides                through! Mornay is frozen. Wallace slashes him down.               Out in the corridor, the guards gather; they have Wallace                trapped. He covers the horse's eyes with a cloth and spurs                his flanks. The blind animal runs through the window!               EXT. CASTLE - NIGHT - SLOW MOTION               The horse and rider plunge past the sheer walls of the                castle... and into the loch! Mornay's guards and the castle                servants cluster at the windows to see Wallace and the horse                surface, and swim to the shore, escaping!               EXT. SCOTTISH VILLAGE - DAY               The news has spread through the countryside. In the town                square, drunken Scotsmen chant...                                     PEOPLE                         Wal-lace! Wal-lace! Wal-lace!               Old Craig rides past them, heading toward the Bruce's castle                on the hill above the town.               INT. BRUCE CASTLE - DAY               Robert is in his central room; he hears the chanting from                far below. Old Craig enters.                                     ROBERT                         Is it true about Mornay?               Craig hands him the bloody nightshirt Mornay was wearing.                                     ROBERT                         And he rode through the window? My                          God.               He can't hide his admiration. From below, he still hears the                people CHANTING...               EXT. LONDON - GARDENS - DAY               Longshanks and Edward are in the royal gardens, resplendent                with spring. Longshanks pulls a new flower, and crushes it.                                     LONGSHANKS                         His legend grows! It will be worse                          than before!                                     EDWARD                         You let Wallace escape your whole                          army. You cannot blame me for this.               Longshanks glowers at his son; the Princess arrives.                                     PRINCESS                         Good day to you, M'Lords.                                     EDWARD                         You mock us with a smile?                                     PRINCESS                         I am cheerful with a plan to soothe                          your miseries. All of England shudders                          with the news of renewed rebellion.                                     EDWARD                         Wallace's followers.                                     PRINCESS                         Wallace himself. If you wish to                          pretend a ghost rallies new volunteers                          in every Scottish town, I leave you                          to your hauntings. If you wish to                          take him, I know a way.               Edward snickers in derision -- but his wife is steel.                                     PRINCESS                         I have faced him. Have you?                                     LONGSHANKS                         Let her speak.                                     PRINCESS                         He will fight you forever. But what                          does he fight for? Freedom first,                          and peace. So grant them.                                     EDWARD                         The little cow is insane --                                     PRINCESS                         Grant, as you do everything else,                          with treachery. Offer him a truce to                          discuss terms, and send me to my                          castle at Locharmbie as your emissary.                          He trusts me. Pick thirty of your                          finest assassins for me to take along.                          And I will set the meeting, and the                          ambush.                                     LONGSHANKS                         You see, my delicate son? I have                          picked you a Queen.               EXT. THE PRINCESS' SCOTTISH CASTLE - DAY               Locharmbie is a small, picturesque castle on a hillside. As                the queen's entourage moves through the gates, they close                behind her. She steps out of the carriage and moves into               INT. CASTLE - THE GREAT HALL - DAY               Inside the great hall are thirty killers, led by their CHIEF                ASSASSIN, a cutthroat with a mangled eye.                                     CHIEF ASSASSIN                         We came in small groups, so the rebels                          would not suspect.                                     PRINCESS                         And you have reached Wallace's men?                                     CHIEF ASSASSIN                         We tell the villagers, and the                          traitors pass it on. All that's left                          is for you to say where.               EXT. MARION'S GROVE - NIGHT               Wallace is in the grove of trees where Marion is buried.               Drinking in the silence, his own isolation. He hears a RUSTLE                behind him, and spins, drawing the broadsword. Then his face                registers... it's Hamish and Stephen.               Hamish is unsure if he did the right thing in coming here --                unsure, until Wallace moves to them, and hugs them.               INT. CAVE - NIGHT               They are in the old secret cave; rain is falling, but it's                dry inside, with a campfire smoldering at the entrance.                                     WALLACE                         Thanks for the food and drink. And                          for bringing 'em yourselves.                                     HAMISH                         We're here to stay. We don't care to                          live, if we can't fight beside ya.               Stephen pulls a jug of whiskey from his pocket. He swigs,                hands it to Hamish for a chug, then to Wallace, who declines,                but smiles for the first time in many weeks.                                     HAMISH                         There is... one thing, William.                          Longshanks is offering a truce. He                          has dispatched his daughter-in-law                          as his emissary, and she has sent                          word that she wishes to meet you --                          in a barn.               Wallace frowns; a barn?               EXT. A BARN IN THE SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE - DAY               Hauntingly similar to the one in Wallace's childhood. As he                sits on his horse and looks at the place, surmounted by a                white flag of truce, it gives him a chill. But in full view                of the barn, he hands Hamish his sword and rides forward.               INSIDE THE BARN               are the assassins, killing knives ready.                                     CHIEF ASSASSIN                         It's William Wallace, sure! And...                          he's given up his sword! Be ready!               They position themselves at every entrance.               OUTSIDE THE BARN               Wallace reaches the barn, dismounts, and moves toward the                door. But suddenly, instead of entering, he grabs the heavy                bar and seals the door! At this motion, Scots spring from                the woods in all directions. The assassins inside realize                the ambush is being turned on them, but it's too late; they                hear the entrance being sealed from the outside.               More Scots, led by Stephen, scramble up from hiding, place                tinder-dry brush and pitch against the barn, and set it on                fire. In moments the entire barn is blazing. The Scots stand                back and watch the barn burn, their faces lit by the flames.                After awhile, there are no more screams from inside.               EXT. CASTLE - NIGHT               The Princess sees the burning off in the distance, like a                bonfire. She stands on the wall, looking out at it. And then                she sees, on a hillside, silhouetted against the night and                the fire, a rider, just sitting there on his horse, looking                at the castle. She runs into the castle, up the stairs, and                stands on the pinnacle of the castle, so that she too is                silhouetted, and he can see her.               The lone rider is William Wallace.               CLOSE - A CANDLE               being placed in a window of the stable cottage, built into                the outer wall of the castle. AT A DISTANCE, the candle burns                like a tiny beacon. And William sees it.               INSIDE THE STABLE COTTAGE, THE PRINCESS               sits alone, wondering if her signal is going to work.               OUTSIDE THE CASTLE               Wallace climbs the castle wall, hand over hand up the mortared                stones, to the window twenty feet above the ground.               He reaches the safety of the window cove and kneels on the                ledge. He looks through the window, and sees her inside.               INSIDE THE ROOM, she looks up, and sees him there. The first                glance frightens her, and yet she expected him, prayed for                him to come. Now, for a long, long moment the two of them                look at each other through the glass, each realizing the                implications of this moment.               She moves to the window and opens it. The wind rushing through                extinguishes the candle, and he slips inside. They face each                other in the darkness. Then she strikes a match and relights                the candle, and they look at each other.                                     WALLACE                         A meeting in a barn. It had to be a                          trap. And only you would know I would                          be aware of it.                                     PRINCESS                         It does me good to see you.                                     WILLIAM                         I am much diminished since we met.               She wants to say something -- but instead she says something                else.                                     PRINCESS                         There will be a new shipment of                          supplies coming north next month.                          Food and weapons. They will trav --                                     WILLIAM                         No. Stop. I didn't come here for                          that.                                     PRINCESS                         Then why did you come?                                     WALLACE                         Why did you?                                     PRINCESS                         Because of the way you're looking at                          me now. The same way... as when we                          met.               He turns his face away. Gently, she pulls it back.                                     PRINCESS                         I know. You looked at me... and saw                          her.               He twists back toward the window.                                     PRINCESS                         You must forgive me what I feel. No                          man has ever looked at me as you                          did.               Surprised, he looks at her now.                                     WALLACE                         You have... you have a husband.                                     PRINCESS                         I have taken vows. More than one.                          I've vowed faithfulness to my husband,                          and sworn to give him a son. And I                          cannot keep both promises.               Slowly, it starts to dawn on him what she's asking, and an                unexpected smile plays at his lips. Her smile lights too.                                     PRINCESS                         You understand. Consider, before you                          laugh and say no. You will never own                          a throne, though you deserve one.                          But just as the sun will rise                          tomorrow, some man will rule England.                          And what if his veins ran not with                          the blood of Longshanks, but with                          that of a true king?                                     WALLACE                         I cannot love you for the sake of                          revenge.                                     PRINCESS                         No. But can you love me for the sake                          of all you loved and lost? Or simply                          love me... because I love you?               Slowly, he reaches to the candle flame, and pinches it out.               IN THE SHADOWS OF THE COTTAGE BED               we see the surging, pent-up passion... and                                                               DISSOLVE TO:               THE LOVERS               Their bodies limp, they lie asleep, entwined. The first rays                of morning spread yellow light through the room and across                their faces.               Wallace wakes suddenly; sunlight! He grabs for his clothes,                as she wakes, covers herself in the blanket and jumps out of                bed, rushing to the window to look out.                                     PRINCESS                         No one! Hurry!               He reaches her, throws the window open, and sees a clear                path down the wall to safety. He stops and looks at her, and                touches her face in gratitude. She has to ask...                                     PRINCESS                         When we... did you think of her?               Pausing to look straight into her eyes, he kisses her --                her, not Marion -- and climbs out. She watches him go.               EXT. GROVE OF TREES - NIGHT               Wallace stands alone in the grove where Marion lies.               MONTAGE               -- Wallace and fifty men gallop through a village on the way                to an English fortress; the villagers drop what they're doing                and run to follow them; we see Wallace's face, relentless,                as he hacks men down in the attack; with the fortress sacked                and smoking in the background, we see Wallace lead his men                away, the people cheering him...               EXT. FOREST ENCAMPMENT - NIGHT               Once again, Wallace stares at the fire, beside his friends.                                     HAMISH                         Rest, William.                                     WALLACE                         I rest.                                     HAMISH                         Your rest is making me exhausted.               Stephen offers the jug; Wallace declines.                                     STEPHEN                         Come, it'll help you sleep.                                     WALLACE                         Aye. But it won't let me dream.               Pulling a tattered tartan around himself, he lies down.               LONGSHANKS, INT. HIS PALACE - NIGHT               He sits by a palace hearth, where a huge blaze burns; still                he's huddled beneath a blanket, and coughing blood. But he                ignores the ice in his lungs; his mind is plotting.               THE PRINCESS, EXT. THE WALLS OF HER CASTLE - NIGHT               she walks the parapets alone, lost in her own thoughts.               ROBERT THE BRUCE, IN A STONE ROOM OF HIS CASTLE               sits staring at... the stone coffin of his father. The coffin                is closed; on its top is a lifesize stone carving of his                father as a knight in final repose. Ranks of candles light                the scene, and Robert's face, cold as the stone. A SHUFFLE...                Robert looks up to see old Craig.                                     CRAIG                         May he rest in peace... You have                          already sealed the coffin?                                     ROBERT                         He was a modest man.                                     CRAIG                         It will not be long before Longshanks                          too is encased in stone, and his                          crowns divided for others to wear.               Craig sits next to Robert, and keeps his voice low.                                     CRAIG                         Our nobles are frightened and                          confused... Wallace has the commoners                          stirred up again, from the Highland                          clans to the lowland villages. In                          another six months Christ and the                          Apostles could not govern this                          country.               Robert only stares at his father's stone coffin.                                     CRAIG                         Longshanks knows his son will scarcely                          be able to rule England, much less                          half of France. He needs Scotland                          settled, and he trusts you, after                          Falkirk. If you pay him homage, he                          will recognize you as king of                          Scotland. Our nobles have agreed to                          this as well.               He shows Robert a parchment bearing the noblest names in                Scotland. The Bruce barely glances at it.                                     ROBERT                         If I pay homage to another's throne,                          then how am I a king?                                     CRAIG                         Homage is nothing. It is the crown                          that matters!                                     ROBERT                         The crown is that of Scotland. And                          Scotland is William Wallace.                                     CRAIG                         That is another matter. There is a                          price to all this, required both by                          Longshanks and our nobles. Pay it,                          and you will be our king. And we                          will have peace.               Robert turns from his father's coffin, to look at Craig.               EXT. FOREST ENCAMPMENT - NIGHT               A commotion; the nobles, their heads hooded, are led in on                horseback by guerrillas from the village. The nobles stop,                feel their hoods pulled off, and see Wallace.                                     CRAIG                         Sir William. We come to seek a                          meeting.                                     WALLACE                         You've all sworn to Longshanks.                                     CRAIG                         An oath to a liar is no oath at all.                          An oath to a patriot is a vow indeed.                          Every man of us is ready to swear                          loyalty to you.                                     WALLACE                         So let the council swear publicly.                                     CRAIG                         We cannot. Some scarcely believe you                          are alive. Other think you'll pay                          them Mornay's wages. We bid you to                          Edinburgh. Meet us at the city gates,                          two days from now, at sunset. Pledge                          us your pardon and we will unite                          behind you. Scotland will be one.               Wallace glances at Hamish and Stephen, who can barely hide                their contempt. Wallace looks at the nobles.                                     WALLACE                         I will meet you, but only one way --                          if Robert the Bruce is there, and                          puts his hand on my Bible, and swears                          his loyalty to Scotland.                                     CRAIG                         He has already agreed to come.               EXT. FOREST - NIGHT               Wallace stands alone, looking at the moon and stars. Hamish                moves up and sits down beside him.                                     HAMISH                         You know it's a trap.                                     WALLACE                         Probably. But we can't win alone. We                          know that. This is the only way.                                     HAMISH                         I don't want to be a martyr.                                     WALLACE                         Nor I! I want to live! I want a home                          and children and peace. I've asked                          god for those things. But He's brought                          me this sword. And if He wills that                          I must lay it down to have what He                          wants for my country, then I'll do                          that too.                                     HAMISH                         That's just a dream, William!                                     WALLACE                         We've lived a dream together. A dream                          of freedom!                                     HAMISH                         Your dreams aren't about freedom!                          They're about Marion! You have to be                          a hero, because you think she sees                          you! Is that it?                                     WALLACE                         My dreams of Marion are gone. I killed                          them myself. If I knew I could live                          with her on the other side of death,                          I'd welcome it.               EXT. ROAD INTO EDINBURGH - SUNSET               William, Hamish, and Stephen are on their horses, looking                down at the road leading into the city. Wallace hands his                dagger to Stephen, and unbuckles his broadsword and gives it                to Hamish.                                     HAMISH                         Keep these. We're going too.                                     WALLACE                         No. One of us is enough.               Wallace hugs them, first Stephen, then Hamish. Tears roll                down Hamish's cheeks. With one last look at his friends,                Wallace rides away.               EXT. LARGE ESTATE HOUSE - SUNSET               The house looks quiet as Wallace rides toward it.               INT. ESTATE HOUSE - DAY               Robert the Bruce and Craig stand at the hearth, tense.                                     CRAIG                         He won't come.                                     ROBERT                         He will. I know he will.               They hear the approach of a single horse. The Bruce looks                out to see Wallace arriving.                                     ROBERT                         Here. And unarmed. My God, he has a                          brave heart.               OUTSIDE THE HOUSE               Wallace dismounts and enters.               INT. THE HOUSE               Wallace appears at the doorway into the main room, and stops.               Bruce faces him. The eyes of BOTH MEN meet, saying everything.                Wallace steps into the room. He sees something flicker onto                Bruce's face -- shame -- just as henchmen in the rafters                drop a weighted net and it envelopes Wallace.               English soldiers spring from the closets, run down the stairs,                and tumble over him, ripping at his clothes, searching as if                broadswords might spring from his boots.               They bind Wallace hand and foot. He stares at Robert the                Bruce, who averts his eyes. The soldiers hurry Wallace out                the back, where others are bringing up horses. Robert grabs                the English Captain of the soldiers.                                     ROBERT                         He is not to be harmed. I have your                          king's absolute promise that he will                          be imprisoned only!               The Captain looks at Bruce the way the High Priest must have                looked at Judas, and leaves.                                     CRAIG                         Now we will have peace.               Robert the Bruce spots something on the floor that must have                fallen from Wallace's clothes as they grabbed him; Bruce                lifts the white handkerchief, and sees the familiar thistle                embroidered on it.               EXT. ROAD - NORTHERN ENGLAND - DAY               A procession of heavily armed English soldiers winds its way                toward London, Wallace strapped to an unsaddled horse, his                head bare to the sun. Country people come out to jeer...                                     PEOPLE                         Don't look so fearsome, does he?!               A thrown rock careens off Wallace's check; rotten fruit slaps                his shirt. His lips are so parched they bleed.               INT. ROYAL PALACE - LONGSHANKS' BEDROOM - DAY               Edward inspects his father, who lies semiconscious in bed,                breath rattling ominously in his chest. Edward approves.               INT. THE PALACE HALLWAY - DAY               The Princess hurries up to her husband as he leaves the king's                bedroom, and follows him down the hall to his own.                                     PRINCESS                         Is it true? Wallace is captured?                                     EDWARD                         Simply because he eluded your trap,                          do you think he is more than a man?                          My father is dying. Perhaps you should                          think of our coronation.                                     PRINCESS                         When will his trial be?                                     EDWARD                         Wallace's? For treason there is no                          trial. Tomorrow he will be charged,                          then executed.               With a faint smile, he shuts his bedroom door in her face.               INT. ROBERT THE BRUCE'S CASTLE - DAY               The Bruce is incredulous, yelling at Craig.                                     ROBERT                         Longshanks promised!                                     CRAIG                         You are surprised he would lie?                          Balliol was murdered in a church                          yesterday. You are Longshanks' new                          designate. You will be king.               INT. TOWER DUNGEON               Wallace stands in medieval restraints worthy of Hannibal                Lecter. Before him are six scarlet-robed royal magistrates.                                     ROYAL MAGISTRATE                         William Wallace! You stand in taint                          of high treason.               We PUSH IN on the iron mask that binds his face. We can only                see his eyes -- but they are bright.                                     WALLACE                         Treason. Against whom?                                     MAGISTRATE                         Against thy king, thou vile fool!                          Hast thou anything to say?                                     WALLACE                         Never, in my whole life, did I swear                          allegiance to your king --                                     MAGISTRATE                         It matters not, he is thy king!                                     WALLACE                         -- while many who serve him have                          taken and broken his oath many times.                          I cannot commit treason, if I have                          never been his subject!                                     MAGISTRATE                         Confess, and you may receive a quick                          death. Deny, and you must be purified                          by pain. Do you confess? ...DO YOU                          CONFESS?!                                     WALLACE                         I do not confess.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Then on the morrow, thou shalt receive                          they purification... And in the end,                          I promise you'll beg for the axe.               EXT. ESTABLISHING - THE TOWER               The stone prison, and the wretched stone section known to                this day as the Wallace Tower.               INT. PRISON - NIGHT               Wallace is alone in his cell, still in the garish restraints.               We can only see his eyes, as he prays.                                     WALLACE                         I am so afraid... Give me strength.               OUTSIDE THE CELL DOOR               The jailers jump to their feet as the Princess enters.                                     JAILER                         Your Highness!                                     PRINCESS                         I will see the prisoner.                                     JAILER                         We've orders from the king --                                     PRINCESS                         The king will be dead in a month!                          And his son is a weakling! Who do                          you think will rule this kingdom?                          Now OPEN THIS DOOR!               The jailer obeys. The Princess can barely contain her shock                at the sight of Wallace; the jailers snatch him upright.                                     JAILER                         On your feet, you filth!                                     PRINCESS                         Stop! Leave me!                              (they hesitate)                         There is no way out of this hell!                          Leave me with him!               Reluctantly the jailers shuffle out of the cell, but they                can still see her back and hear her. Looking at Wallace's                eyes through the mask, she can't quite hold back her tears --                dangerous tears, that threaten to say too much. Wallace tries                to distract her.                                     WALLACE                         M'lady... what kindness of you to                          visit a stranger.                                     PRINCESS                         Sir, I... come to beg you to confess                          all, and swear allegiance to the                          king, that he might show you mercy.                                     WALLACE                         Will he show mercy to my country?                          Will he take back his soldiers, and                          let us rule ourselves?                                     PRINCESS                         Mercy... is to die quickly. Perhaps                          even live in the Tower. In time, who                          knows what can happen, if you can                          only live.                                     WALLACE                         If I swear to him, then everything I                          am is dead already.               She wants to plead, she wants to scream. She can't stop the                tears. And the jailers are watching.                                     WALLACE                         Your people are lucky to have a                          princess so kind that she can grieve                          at the death of a stranger.               She almost goes too far now, pulling closer to him -- but                she doesn't care. She whispers, pleading...                                     PRINCESS                         You will die! It will be awful!                                     WALLACE                         Every man dies. Not every man really                          lives.               She pulls out a hidden vial, and whispers...                                     PRINCESS                         Drink this! It will dull your pain.                                     WALLACE                         It will numb my wits, and I must                          have them all. If I'm senseless, or                          if I wail, then Longshanks will have                          broken me.                                     PRINCESS                         I can't bear the thought of your                          torture. Take it!               On the verge of hysteria, she presses the vial to the air                hole at his mouth and pours in the drug. The jailers, seeing                suspicious movement, shift inside the cell; she backs up,                her eyes wide, full of love and goodbye. From inside the                mask, he watches her go. When the door CLANGS shut, he spits                the purple drug out through the mouth hole.               INT. LONGSHANKS' BEDCHAMBER - NIGHT               Longshanks lies helpless, his body racked with consumption.               Edward sits against the wall, watching him die, glee in his                eyes. The Princess enters, and marches to the bedside.                                     PRINCESS                         I have come to beg for the life of                          William Wallace.                                     EDWARD                         You fancy him.                                     PRINCESS                         I respect him. At worst he was a                          worthy enemy. Show mercy... Oh thou                          great king... and win the respect of                          your own people.               Longshanks shakes his head.                                     PRINCESS                         Even now, you are incapable of mercy?               The king can't speak. But hatred still glows in his eyes.               The princess looks at her husband.                                     PRINCESS                         Nor you. To you that word is as                          unfamiliar as love.                                     EDWARD                         Before he lost his powers of speech,                          he told me his one comfort was that                          he would live to know Wallace was                          dead.               She leans down and grabs the dying king by the hair. The                guards flanking the door start forward but the Princess's                eyes flare at them with more fire than even Longshanks once                showed -- and the guards back off. She leans down and hisses                to Longshanks, so softly that even Edward can't hear...                                     PRINCESS                         You see? Death comes to us all. And                          it comes to William Wallace. But                          before death comes to you, know this:                          your blood dies with you. A child                          who is not of your line grows in my                          belly. Your son will not sit long on                          the throne. I swear it.               She lets go of the old king. He sags like an empty sack back                onto his satin pillows. Without even a look at her husband                she strides out of the room, with the rattling breath of the                dying king rasping the air like a saw.               EXT. LONDON TOWN SQUARE - EXECUTION DAY               The crowd is festive; hawkers sell roast chickens, and beer                from barrels. Royal horsemen arrive, dragging Wallace strapped                to a wooden litter. As they cut him loose and lead him through                the crowd, the people begin to jeer and throw things at him:                chicken bones, rocks, empty tankards.               We see a former English soldier, one of those who fled in                terror at the battle of Stirling, lift a stone from the street                and hurl it; it cracks against Wallace's cheek.               Wallace's eyes capture the soldier, and hold him, piercing                his soul. The soldier looks away in shame, even as the rest                of the crowd jeers more.               Grim magistrates prod Wallace and he climbs the execution                platform. On the platform are a noose, a dissection table                with knives in plain view, and a chopping block with an                enormous axe. Wallace sees it all.                                     MAGISTRATE                         We will use it all before this is                          over. Or fall to your knees now,                          declare yourself the king's loyal                          subject, and beg his mercy, and you                          shall have it.               He emphasizes "mercy" by pointing to the axe. Wallace is                pale, and trebles -- but he shakes his head. The CROWD grows                noisier as they put the noose around Wallace's neck...               WE INTERCUT:               -- THE PRINCESS, in helpless agony, hearing the DISTANT NOISE                from her room in the palace...               -- Hamish and Stephen, disguised as peasants among the crowd,                helpless too, but there, as if to shoulder some of the pain.               -- Longshanks, rattling, coughing blood, as Edward watches.               -- Robert the Bruce paces along the walls of his castle in                Scotland. His eyes are haunted; he grips the embroidered                handkerchief that belonged to Wallace.               ON THE EXECUTION STAND               a trio of burly hooded executioners cinch a rope around                Wallace's neck and hoist him up a pole.                                     CROWD                         That's it! Stretch him!               In the SCORE, AMAZING GRACE, wailed on bagpipes, carries                through all that happens now... Ties hand and foot, Wallace                is strangling. The Magistrate watches coldly; even when the                executioner gives him a look that says they're about to go                too far, he prolongs the moment; then the Magistrate nods                and the executioner cuts the rope. Wallace slams to the                platform; the Magistrate leans to him.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Pleasant, yes? Rise to your knees,                          kiss the royal emblem on my cloak,                          and you will feel no more.               With great effort, Wallace rises to his knees. The Magistrate                assumes a formal posture and offers the cloak.               Wallace struggles all the way to his feet.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Very well then. Rack him.               The executioners slam Wallace onto his back on the table,                spread his arms and legs, and tie each to a crank. Goaded by                the crowd, they pull the ropes taut. They crowd grows quiet                enough to hear the groaning of Wallace's limbs. Hamish and                Stephen feel it in their own bodies.                                     MAGISTRATE                         Wonderful, isn't it, that a man                          remains conscious through such pain.                          Enough?               Wallace shakes his head. The executioners cut off his clothes,                take hot irons from a fire box. The crowd grows silent; we                see them, not Wallace, as the irons are touched to his body,                but we hear the burning of flesh. Then the Magistrate signals;                Wallace wants to say something.                                     WALLACE                         That... will... clear your sinuses.               Everyone hears; Hamish smiles, even through his tears.               Rebuffed, the Magistrate nods to the executioners, who lift                the terrible instruments of dissection.               We are spared seeing the cutting: we are ON WALLACE'S FACE                as the disembowelment begins. The Magistrate leans in beside                him.                                     MAGISTRATE                         It can all end. Right now! Bliss.                          Peace. Just say it. Cry out. "Mercy!"                          Yes?... Yes?               The crowd can't hear the magistrate but they know the                procedure, and they goad Wallace, chanting...                                     CROWD                         Mer-cy! Mer-cy! Mer-cy!               Wallace's eyes roll to the magistrate, who signals QUIET!                                     MAGISTRATE                              (booming)                         The prisoner wishes to say a word!               SILENCE. Hamish and Stephen weep, whisper, pray...                                     HAMISH AND STEPHEN                         Mercy, William... Say Mercy...               Wallace's eyes flutter, and clear. He fights through the                pain, struggles for one last deep breath, and screams...                                     WALLACE                         FREEEEE-DOMMMMMM!               The shout RINGS through the town. Hamish hears it. The                Princess hears it, at her open window, and touches her tummy,                just showing the first signs of her pregnancy. Longshanks                and his son seem to hear; the cry STILL ECHOES as if the                wind could carry it through the ends of Scotland; and Robert                the Bruce, on the walls of his castle, looks up sharply, as                if he has heard...               IN THE LONDON SQUARE               the crowd has never seen courage like this; even English                strangers begin to weep. The angry, defeated magistrate gives                a signal. They cut the ropes, drag Wallace over and put his                head on the block. The executioner lifts his huge axe -- and                Wallace looks toward the crowd.               THE CROWD, WALLACE'S POV               He sees Hamish, eyes brimming, face glowing...               SLOW MOTION - THE AXE               begins to drop.               WALLACE'S POV               In the last half-moment of his life, when he has already                stepped into the world beyond this one, he glimpses someone                standing at Hamish's shoulder. She is beautiful, smiling,                serene.               She is Marion.                                                              CUT TO BLACK:               ROBERT THE BRUCE               His face has changed. He is standing AT THE OPEN GRAVE WHERE                MARION LAY, the headstone carved with the thistle still there.                He holds the handkerchief. As he tucks it into his own pocket,                and we MOVE IN on his eyes, we realize the VOICE OVER belongs                to him.                                     ROBERT (V.O.)                         After the beheading, William Wallace's                          body was torn to pieces. His head                          was set on London bridge, where                          passerby were invited to jeer at the                          man who had caused so much fear in                          England.                              (beat)                         His arms and legs were sent to the                          four corners of Britain as warning.               EXT. SCOTTISH TOWNS - VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY               We see the people, as the remains of William Wallace are                displayed in a box. The faces of the young men are fiery.                                     ROBERT (V.O.)                         It did not have the effect that                          Longshanks planned.               More young men put on tartans, take up their weapons, and                gather into fighting units. Among them is Hamish, carrying a                shield emblazoned with a cocked arm holding a broadsword,                and the words "For Freedom."               EXT. SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS - DAY               Robert the Bruce, flanked by the noblemen and the banners of                the Scottish throne, and backed by a ragtag army of Scots,                sits on his horse and looks down at the English generals in                their martial finery. The English are haughty, victorious,                at the head of their colorful, polished army, awaiting the                ceremony of submission from Scotland's new king.                                     ROBERT (V.O.)                         And I, Robert the Bruce, backed by a                          body of Scottish veterans, rode out                          to pay homage to the armies of the                          English king, and accept his                          endorsement of my crown.               FROM BELOW, ON THE OPEN PLAIN - DAY               The Scots -- the remains of William Wallace's army -- look                so ragged and defeated that it hardly seems worth the wait.                One ENGLISH COMMANDER turns and jokes with another...                                     ENGLISH COMMANDER                         I hope you washed your ass this mornin --                          it's never been kissed by a king                          before.               UP ON THE HILL, Robert the Bruce sits on his horse, and waits.                He looks down at the English generals, at their banners,                their army. He looks down the ranks at his own.               He sees Hamish. Stephen. Old MacClannough is there, his eyes                watery, his weapon sharp. The Scottish bride Lord Bottoms                took is there, among the ragtag archers, her husband beside                her. Robert knows none of them -- yet he knows them all.               Old Craig, among the other Scottish nobles mounted beside                the Bruce, grows impatient.                                     CRAIG                         Come, let's get it over with.               But Robert holds something -- uncurling his fist, he looks                at the thistle handkerchief that belonged to Wallace. The                nobles start to rein their horses toward the English.                                     ROBERT                         Stop.               Robert the Bruce tucks the handkerchief safely behind his                breastplate, and turns to the Highlanders who line the hilltop                with him. He takes a long breath, and shouts --                                     ROBERT THE BRUCE                         You have bled with Wallace! Now bleed                          with me!               Bruce's broadsword slides from its scabbard. A cry rises                from Highlanders, as from a tomb, rising --                                     SCOTS                         Wal-lace! Wal-lace! Wal-lace!               The chant builds to a frenzy; it shakes the earth. The                Scottish nobles can scarcely believe it; the English are                shocked even more. Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland, spurs                his horse into full gallop toward the English, and the                Highlanders hurl their bodies down the hill, ready to run                through hell itself. In SLOW MOTION we see their faces...               And OVER THIS, we hear the voice of William Wallace...                                     WALLACE'S VOICE                         In the year of our Lord 1314, patriots                          of Scotland, starving and outnumbered,                          charged the fields of Bannockburn.                          They fought like warrior poets. They                          fought like Scotsmen. And won their                          freedom. Forever.               On Wallace's army behind Robert the Bruce, charging down the                hill to victory and glory, we slow to FREEZE FRAME and hear                their chant, huge, echoing...                                     SCOTS                         Wal-lace! Wal-lace! Wal-lace!                                                                  FADE OUT:                                         THE END
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+                            Brazil                      Screenplay (Draft) 1   EXT.   CITYSCAPE                         SUNSET           1    A beautiful golden sun is setting. The sky is on fire. The    CAMERA starts to move downwards. A large neon sign rises    into shot. It rests on top of a skyscraper and fills the    frame. The building is neither past nor future in design    but a bit of both.        Slowly we pan downwards revealing the city that spreads    below ... A glittering conglomeration of elevated    transport tubes, smaller square buildings which are merely    huge, with, here and there, the comparatively minuscule    relics of previous ages of architecture, pavement level    awnings suggesting restaurants and shops ... Transparent    tubes carry whizzing transport cages past us ... an    elevated highway carrying traffic composed primarily of    large transport lorries passes thru frame. As we descend,    the sunlight is blocked out and street lights & neon signs    take over as illumination. Eventually we reach the upper    levels of a plush shopping precinct.2   INT.   SHOPPING PRECINT                  NIGHT            2        Xmas decorations are everywhere. PEOPLE are busy buying,    ogling, discussing, choosing wisely from the goodies on    display. SHOPPERS are going by laden with superbly    packaged goods ... the shop windows are full of    elaborately boxed and be-ribboned who-knows-what. In one    window is a bank of TV sets - on the great majority of the    screens is the face of MR. HELPMANN - the Deputy Minister    of Information. He is being interviewed. No-one bothers to    listen to HELPMANN.                          INTERVIEWER               Deputy minister, what do you believe               is behind this recent increase in               terrorist bombings?                           HELPMANN               Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless               minority of people seems to have               forgotten certain good old fashioned               virtues. They just can't stand seeing               the other fellow win. If these people               would just play the game, instead of               standing on the touch line heckling -                          INTERVIEWER               In fact, killing people -                           HELPMANN               - In fact, killing people - they'd               get a lot more out of life.    We PULL AWAY from the shop to concentrate on the shoppers.    HELPMANN's voice carries over the rest of the scene.                          INTERVIEWER               Mr. HELPMANN, what would you say to               those critics who maintain that the               Ministry Of Information has become               too large and unwieldy ...?                           HELPMANN               David ... in a free society               information is the name of the game.               You can't win the game if you're a               man short.    Fur bedecked shoppers pass in front of what appears to be    banks of snow but as we pan along with them the "snow"    turns out to be fire-fighting foam. It oozes out of a shop    front that is a charred twisted mass of metal frames.    WORKMEN are busily sealing the opening with plywood    sheets, SHOPPERS pay no attention to this. Xmas carols are    being played by a Salvation Army style band calling    themselves Consumers For Christ. Santa Claus's grotto is    busy, all is well with the world.                          INTERVIEWER               And the cost of it all, Deputy               Minister? Seven percent of the gross               national produce ...                           HELPMANN               I understand this concern on behalf               of the tax-payers. People want value               for money and a cost-effective               service.3   INT.   OFFICE                            NIGHT            3    CUT TO TV screen with HELPMANN still talking.                           HELPMANN               That is why we always insist on the               principle of Information Retrieval               Charges. These terrorists are not               pulling their weight, and it's               absolutely right and fair that those               found guilty should pay for their               periods of detention and the               Information Retrieval Procedures used               in their interrogation.    PULL BACK to reveal a rather clinical office. The TV rests    on a desk. A WHITE COATED TECHNICIAN is sorting out his in-    tray. Several Christmas cards are amongst he paperwork. He    comes upon a Christmassy package which he rips open, to    discover a shiny, metal "executive toy".    CUT TO the BEETLE droning up near the ceiling.    The TECHNICIAN is disturbed by the buzz of the BEETLE as    it whirrs around the fluorescent light. He rolls up some    paper and forms and gets up to swat the insect.Scenes 4-12 Deleted.                              4-12 Deleted.13  INT.   OFFICE                            NIGHT           13        The TECHNICIAN gets up and balances a chair on top of his    desk. He climbs up onto it attempting to swat the BEETLE    still buzzing about the room just out of reach. Beneath    him an automatic type-writing machine rattles away    compiling a typed list of names under the heading    "Information Retrieval, Subjects For Detention &    Interview". The machine is being fed from a spool of paper    which is being rhythmically chopped by an automatic    guillotine which neatly leaves each name on a separate    sheet, with the title above each name, each sheet    following its predecessor into a holding basket. In CLOSE-    UP we see the names on the sheets of paper building up in    the holding basket: TONSTED, Simon ... TOPPER, Martin F.    ... TROLLOPE, Benjamin G. ... TURB, William K. ... TURNER,    John D. ... Every name begins with T.                          INTERVIEWER               Do you think that the government is               winning the battle against               terrorists?                           HELPMANN               On yes. Our morale is much higher               than theirs, we're fielding all their               strokes, running a lot of them out,               and pretty consistently knocking them               for six. I'd say they're nearly out               of the game.                   The TECHNICIAN is tottering on one leg on the chair on the    desk as he strains to swat the BEETLE. Swish, swash, oops,    WHAP! Gottcha!!                          INTERVIEWER               But the bombing campaign is now in               its thirteenth year ...                           HELPMANN               Beginner's luck.    The BEETLE's career comes to a halt ... squashed flat on    the brilliantly clean ceiling ... or has it? As the    TECHNICIAN clambers down from the rickety heights, the    BEETLE's carcass comes unstuck from the ceiling and drops    silently into the typewriting machine which hiccoughs,    hesitates and then types the letter "B" and hesitates and    then continues so that the next name is BUTTLE, Archibald.    The TECHNICIAN fails to notice this and the machine    continues smoothly TUTWOOD, Thomas T. ... TUZCZLOW,    Peter...                          INTERVIEWER               Thank you very much, Deputy Minister.                           HELPMANN               Thank you, David ... and a very merry               Christmas to you all.14  EXT.   HOUSING TOWERS                    NIGHT           14        ZOOMING past foreground outdoor Xmas decorations we    TIGHTEN in on one of several massive residential tower    blocks that loom over what appears to be a poorer part of    the city15  INT.   BUTTLE FLAT                       NIGHT           15        HELPMANN and INTERVIEWER are on the TV, the end credits    rolling over them to the beat of a Mozart theme tune.    PULLING BACK we reveal that the TV is in a conventional    sitting room, conventionally decorated for Christmas; out    the room is oddly encumbered by huge metal conduits that    snake unpleasantly across and through the walls. Smaller    conduits radiate from the main one connecting the various    services that Central Services (the name emblazoned on the    metal) supply to this household. A conventionally poor but    proud family occupies the room. MRS BUTTLE is reading    Dickens' Christmas Carol to GIRL BUTTLE who is about six.    BOY BUTTLE plays quietly with a toy machine gun and some    action men dressed in security gear. MR. BUTTLE is putting    the final touches to a neatly wrapped Christmas present    which looks identical to the "executive toy" we have just    seen in he TECHNICIAN'S office.    Faintly from outside comes a burst of laughter. A tilt of    the CAMERA indicates that the laughter is coming from the    floor above.16  INT.   JILL'S FLAT                       NIGHT           16    The flat is very bare and basic. The laughter is coming    from a cheap portable television showing "Sgt. Bilko. From    BILKO'S POV we look through an open door of a bathroom    straight at a mirror propped up by the bath, to enable the    person in the bath to watch the TV. The person in the bath    is JILL LAYTON, washing the grime off herself while she    watches Bilko in the mirror. From her POV in the mirror,    the T.V. screen is suddenly obscured by part of the body    of a MAN in uniform.                             JILL                    (scared)               Who's there?17  INT.   BUTTLE'S FLAT                     NIGHT           17        The BUTTLE FAMILY as before. MRS BUTTLE is closing the    book.                          MRS BUTTLE               There, that's enough for tonight. He               won't come Xmas Eve if you don't get               plenty of sleep.                          GIRL BUTTLE               Father Christmas can't come if we               haven't got a chimney.                          MRS BUTTLE               You'll see.    The GIRL exchanges goodnight kisses with her parents and    leaves the room.                          GIRL BUTTLE               How will he get down from upstairs?                          BOY BUTTLE               It's a secret.    We follow GIRL BUTTLE out of the sitting room into ...18  INT.   HALLWAY AND CHILDREN'S BEDROOM    NIGHT           18    GIRL BUTTLE enters her bedroom. There is little or no    light there, and she sees a bulky figure apparently    lowering himself into the room from the direction of the    ceiling.                          GIRL BUTTLE                    (unalarmed)               You've come ...    As she moves, the light from the hallway shows us the    figure of what looks like a commando on a night raid,    slowly sliding down a pole in he middle of the room. The    pole at the top end disappears through a hole in the    ceiling. Things become immediately clearer19  INT.   BUTTLE SITTING-ROOM               NIGHT           19    Crash! It's a raid! Battle-dressed SECURITY TROOPS smash    trough the door. Another ONE, swings from a rope, kicks in    the window from the outside and enters that way. Most    alarmingly of all, a shower of plaster comes down from the    ceiling in which a fairly neat round hole appears and    through the hole comes a fireman's pole down which slide    TWO MORE SECURITY TROOPS. The whole thing is short, brutal    and violent.        BUTTLE is grabbed violently and stuffed into a baglike    canvas device that covers him from head to waist. A metal    clamp goes round his neck, a metal bar slides up the back    of the bag. His hands are handcuffed to the metal bar. In    seconds he has become a canvas parcel. Meanwhile, GIRL    BUTTLE has been carried out of her bedroom and dumped into    the lap of her screaming mother. BOY BUTTLE has his toy    machine gun knocked out of his hands by a TROOPER who we    see is identical in dress to the action men BOY BUTTLE has    been playing with. He rushes to his mother as guns are    viciously trained on them. TROOPS are kicking open the    doors of other rooms and generally doing a good job. An    OFFICIAL, wearing plain clothes, now enters from the front    door and during the turmoil is reading aloud from an    official document. It goes something like this:                           OFFICIAL               I hereby inform you under powers               entrusted to me under Section 47,               Paragraph 7 of Council Order Number               438476, that Mr Buttle, Archibald,               residing at 412 North Tower, Shangri               La Towers, has been invited to assist               the Ministry of Information with               certain enquiries, the nature of               which may be ascertained on               completion of application form               BZ/ST/486/C fourteen days within this               date, and that he is liable to               certain obligations as specified in               Council Order 173497, including               financial restitutions which may or               may not be incurred if Information               Retrieval procedures beyond those               incorporated in Article 7 subsections               8, 10 & 32 are required to elicit               information leading to permanent               arrest - notification of which will               he served with the time period of 5               working days as stipulated by law. In               that instance the detainee will be               debited without further notice               through central banking procedures               without prejudice until and unless at               such a time when re-imbursement               procedures may be instituted by you               or third parties on completion of a               re-imbursement form RB/CZ/907/X ...    ... and more of the same, most of which is part of the    audible wall paper while the chaos reigns. As the front    door slams behind the captive relative peace returns,    broken by MRS BUTTLE's anguished sobbing.                               OFFICIAL                    (proffering a pen and a                    thick book of pink receipts                    to Mrs Buttle)               Sign here please.                                         MRS BUTTLE                    (dazed. She signs weakly)               What? where have you taken him?                           OFFICIAL                    (taking the book)               thank you.                    (he hands her another book,                    this one of blue receipts)                    (indicating place to sign)               Same again please. Just there.                    (checking first book of                    receipts)               Press harder his time. Good.                          MRS BUTTLE                    (signing again)               What is this all about?                           OFFICIAL                    (tearing out sheet from                    pink book)               That's your receipt for your husband.                    (taking blue book from her)               Thank you. And this is my receipt for               your receipt.                    (he turns to leave along                    with troopers)    JILL's shocked face appears looking down through the hole    in the ceiling. The faces of the workmen BILL and CHARLIE    also appear, above and behind her.                             JILL               Mrs Buttle, are you alright?    The helmeted SECURITY TROOPS in Buttle's flat drop to    defensive positions and swing their machine guns up    towards the hole in the ceiling. All three faces retreat.        20  INT.   JILL'S FLAT                       NIGHT           20                                CHARLIE                    (starting back from the                    hole with Bill and Jill)               Eh! Eh! Eh! We're Department of               Works! Department of Works up here!               Careful with those bloody things!        JILL, CHARLIE and BILL are hustled aside by a SECURITY MAN    who clears the fireman's pole from the hole. We can see    the TROOPS in the room below leaving. A SECOND SECURITY    man has untied a rope hanging out of the open window. He    coils the rope up neatly and the TWO SECURITY MEN leave    the flat.                                 BILL                    (to Jill as they watch this                    highly efficient operation)               Don't take any notice, love, it's               their training makes them like               animals. Best in the world, though.                                 JILL               Who are you?                                CHARLIE               Don't you worry love, we'll have               everything shipshape in a jiffy.                                 BILL               That's it. Nothing to worry about.                                CHARLIE               It's Buttle downstairs who can worry,               eh?                                 JILL               There must be some mistake ... Mr               Buttle's harmless...                                 BILL               We don't make mistakes.        So saying, he drops the manhole cover, which is faced with    same material as the floor, over the hole in the floor. To    his surprise it drops neatly through the floor into the    flat below.                            CHARLIE               Bloody typical, they've gone back to               metric without telling us               20a INT.   BUTTLES' FLAT                     NIGHT          20a        MRS BUTTLE stands stunned in the middle of her decimated    flat. The KIDS wail. Slowly MRS BUTTLE collapses -    slumping to the floor with the receipt in her hand: we    tighten into CLOSE UP of "Receipt".                       JILL (off CAMERA)               Mrs Buttle? Mrs Buttle?21  INT.   RECORD CLERK'S POOL                               21        We come in on a CLOSE UP of a pink version of the RECEIPT    being stamped and impaled on desk spike as we PULL OUT to    reveal an infinite expanse of regularly arranged metal    desks, each desk with a built-in T.V. console, and each    (except one) occupied by a CLERK. Every desk is snowed    under with pieces of paper much like the receipts seen in    the previous scene. More pacers are delivered to each desk    intermittently by way of pneumatic tube. OFFICE BOYS    bustle about with even more paperwork. From the back of    the room we get a view of the screens which show graphs,    tabulations, figures ... All of this activity is    supervised from an elevated walkway by MR KURTZMAN.    Satisfied that all is well with his clerks he turns and    walks towards his glass enclosed private office at the top    of the room, his name lettered on the opaque glass door.    MR KURTZMAN goes through this door and as he closes it    behind him, all activity in the CLERKS pool ceases. each    CLERK adjusts his T.V. screen with the flick of a switch,    and all the screens change to something which looks very    like "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly".22  INT.   MR KURTZMAN'S OFFICE              DAY             22        MR KURTZMAN also has a T.V. console. He sits behind his    desk, reaches for his In-tray, and without looking at the    console he turns his screen on. He looks through a number    of files in his In-tray. He is surprised to hear a VOICE    say, "Turn around real slow, amigo". MR KURTZMAN turns    around real slow, his expression relaxes, he thumps his    T.V. console with a large fist, and the screen obediently    flicks to a display of figures. He picks up a file which    we see as marked "Buttle, Archibald". He opens the file    and starts punching the keyboard of the console. The T.V.    starts bleeping in an alarmed way. MR KURTZMAN is puzzled.    He punches more figures. The screen starts to flash    "Error, error, error". MR KURTZMAN sighs with frustration.    He presses an intercom.                          MR KURTZMAN                    (into intercom)               Mr Lowry, will you step in here               please?                   He returns his attention, puzzled to the file. Nobody    comes into the office. MR KURTZMAN gets up and walks over    to his door and opens it. Beyond the door the room full of    CLERKS is obediently concentrating on the bleeping and    whirring consoles. From MR KURTZMAN'S POV we see that in    the centre of the room is an unoccupied desk.                          MR KURTZMAN               Does anyone know where Lowry is?    Nobody knows. MR KURTZMAN closes his door again. A moment    later it seems to him, and to us, that he has heard the    crash of six guns blazing away at each other. He re-opens    the door. The only sound again. He goes back to his desk.    He punches a few keys. The machine starts emitting even    more alarming beeps, then horse whinnies, then "Admit    you're whupped, you drygulching scum". KURTZMAN explodes    with anger, and presses the intercom again.                          MR KURTZMAN                    (Shouting into intercom)               Where the hell is Sam Lowry?!23  EXT.   SKY                               DAY             23        CUT TO brilliantly clear sky. From on high an odd bird-    like figure swoops down on the CAMERA. As it comes closer    we can see that it is, in fact, a MAN wearing strange wood    and metal bird wings. In the bright sunshine their    flapping movements create a brilliant, flashing effect.    Along with the wings, SAM LOWRY (for this is he) wears an    outfit that combines the best of Flash Gordon and a WWI    fighter pilot. He sweeps past the CAMERA and then,    banking, rises BACK INTO SHOT IN MCU. An ethereal voice    can be heard calling "Sam ... Sam ... Sam". He hovers,    looking beyond the CAMERA to something wonderful. CUT TO    face of stunningly beautiful GIRL, she is the idealised    twin of JILL LAYTON ... Her long hair swirls across her    face partially obscuring it and making her appear slightly    mysterious. The CAMERA PULLS AWAY from her as soft    billowing material sinuously undulates about her. It rises    and falls like waves carried on the wind. As the CAMERA    GLIDES BACK through this sea of gossamer we can see that    the GIRL is being held aloft by and in it. A vast    landscape stretches below her. The sun frames her in the    sky. She and SAM are engaged in a beautiful sensual aerial    ballet.        Romantic music fills the soundtrack.        SAM swoops up and away. The GIRL floats in the distance as    SAM. rises in the foreground. She beckons to him. SAM    begins to flap back towards her. But then the dreamy    quality of this scene is interrupted by threatening    rumble. SAM looks down.        The ground far below him suddenly erupts as a massive,    monolithic stone skyscraper bursts through the surface and    soars upwards with a mighty rush.        CUT to the GIRL in LONG SHOT. The monolith rises up into    FRAME partially cutting her off from view.        Before SAM can do anything, another stone skyscraper    breaks through the ground and rushes upwards. Then another    and another. There is nothing SAM can do. The GIRL is    being cut of from him by these gigantic faceless    structures. And then she is finally lost from view    somewhere in the depths of this strange stone metropolis.    SAM lies closer. The stone skyscrapers appear to be solid.    No windows. No doors. Nothing whatsoever to interfere with    their clean, harsh, rectilinear design. As he flies among    these towering blocks he sees no sign of the GIRL, only    sheer walls rising high above him. Below him the walls    plummet vertiginously into the darkish streets. No sound    but the creaking flapping of his wings can he heard in    this dead place. Coming round a corner he sees something    in the distance. far below him a dark procession is    wending its way through the narrow passages... away from    him.        CUT TO LOW ANGLE SHOT of the procession making its way    past the CAMERA. Black-robed and cowled, the sinister    figures look like heavily armed monks. These are the    FORCES OF DARKNESS. Together they are straining at several    heavy hawsers that rise in long arcs up to a huge metal    cage floating above and behind the procession. Binding the    cage are metal straps to which ropes are attached. Inside    is the GIRL - still enveloped in gossamer which billows as    if there were a breeze in constant attendance.        CUT TO SAM as He dives out of shot.        CUT to the FORCES OF DARKNESS suddenly stopping in their    tracks. They've seen something.        CUT to their POV. There at the end of the passage between    two stone skyscrapers stands SAM ... barring the way.        CUT to swords being unsheathed. Cowls being thrown back.    Underneath are rotting, broken dolls' faces. All the faces    are the same except for the manner in which they have    decayed. They smile - slobbering, sickeningly. Suddenly    the robed bodies change shape - some rising up to become    long, others expanding sideways to become bulbous, others    shrinking. From the folds of cloth come evil weapons. The    FORCES are massed ready to charge.    CUT to long shot of SAM. He removes his arms from his    wings and folds the wings behind him. He is ready.        Cut to the FORCES. Nothing moves ... except for the    constant dribble from their cracked mouths.    CUT back to SAM. Stillness. The tension is unbearable.    Suddenly SAM unleashes a terrifying scream and charges the    fearsome horde. Unarmed!    CUT to the FORCES thundering down to SAM. Weapons flailing    madly.    SAM skillfully dodges the swordthrust of the leading    field, and karate chops him senseless - at the same time    catching his sword as he falls. Spinning around he parries    a spearthrust and skewers a third attacker. Slash! Hack!    Stab! He lays waste to the FORCES. Nothing can stop this    boy. The pile of black-robed bodies grows with each swing    of SAM's sword. Wham! Bam! Smash! SAM carves his way    through the mob with nary a scratch. And then, suddenly,    they are all dead, but a heap of blackness to commemorate    SAM's prowess. The GIRL is beaming as SAM makes his way    toward the hawsers holding the cage. But then a noise    behind him makes him turn. There, behind him the pile of    black shapes begin to rise. The ropes become a mass of    flapping black cloth. This evil churning cloud coalesces    and lifts off the ground. The horrible flapping apparition    emits a terrifying maniacal laughter as it flies away. SAM    is about to rush after it to halt its escape but is    stopped by the sound of a telephone ringing. He looks    around - confused.24  INT.   SAM'S BEDROOM                     MORNING         24    TIGHT SHOT of telephone. The ringing continues. A hand    grapples with the receiver. SAM is in bed in a darkened    room. Sleepily he drags receiver to his ear.                              SAM               Hello ... What ... what? Oh ... Mr               Kurtzman! ... You're up late. Oh, is               it?    There is an electronic box of tricks by his bed,    incorporating an alarm. SAM thumps it. The alarm goes off.    This sets of a series of other things ... The window    shutters roll up letting in the morning light. Both taps    turn on in the bathroom ...                              SAM                    (into phone)               The electronics here are up the               spout. Yours too, sir? Don't worry               sir - I'll be there.    SAM puts down the phone and gets into his suit which is    moving towards him. Noticing one of his film posters is    loose he pushes the pin in firmly.        In the kitchen a coffee maker starts up. In the sitting    room the television switches on. Back in the bedroom a    cupboard door springs open and a rack slides out with    SAM's clothes neatly hanging - ready to be put on. SAM    comes out of the bathroom, having turned off the bath    taps, and starts to get dressed. In the kitchen the coffee-    maker has finished making s small pot of coffee. SAM pours    a quick cup and is gone at the door. Throughout all this    we have had a chance to get a glimpse of SAM's flat. It is    functional, soulless and, though neat, has not been    assembled with a loving hand. Most of the furnishings are    built in. The walls are divided into two-foot square metal    panels painted a non-committal colour. Certain of the wall    panels have Central Services logos on them with the    admonition "Do not obstruct or remove" below. SAM has    livened his bedroom up with large and colorful film    posters. The sitting room sports several framed pictures    of wide beautiful vistas.25  INT.   MINISTRY OF INFORMATION LOBBY     DAY             25    This is a gigantic, vaguely 30's monumental-style    building. The lobby is a vast impressive space containing    reception desks, fountains, statues etc. Prominent are the    security measures, which include automatic mobile cameras,    video screens and groups of SECURITY MEN who search all    who enter. SAM is finishing going through Security when he    meets JACK who is on his way out of the building.                             JACK               Sam!                              SAM               Jack!                             JACK               Long time no see!                              SAM               Well, since you disappeared up the               ladder of Information Retrieval ... I               don't expect to see you slumming in               Records - what's the problem?                             JACK               Problem? - No problem - yes,               everything's going fantastically               well, wonderful, marvelous, great               career prospects, Alison in great               shape, kids fine, beautiful home, I'm               on Security Level Five now, and Mr               Helpmann relies on me more and more,               yes, couldn't be better, I feel               terrifically motivated and job-               rewarded -                                             SAM               You sound worried.                             JACK               Me? - if I'm worried about anyone,               it's you. What happened to you, Sam?               You were the brightest of us -    As they have been talking, a nearby bank of closed circuit    TV screens has been displaying shots of people entering    the lobby. As each one enters the CAMERA ZOOMS IN TIGHT on    their faces for a frozen CLOSE-UP. JILL has just entered    and the CAMERA ZOOMS IN and freezes on her face. SAM    happens to glance up at this moment. He is startled - the    over-exposed TV image is the face of the GIRL FROM THE    DREAM. The face is only there a few seconds before being    replaced by another picture. SAM looks about to see where    the GIRL is, but JILL, in overalls, has her back to him as    she stands in the queue for the Information desk and so    there is no-one even vaguely reminiscent of the DREAM    GIRL. SAM decides he must have imagined it. Over this JACK    has been talking.                             JACK               What's the matter?                                                             SAM               Sorry. Nothing.                    (snapping out of it)               See you - I'm going to be late.                             JACK                    (looking at his watch)               You are late.                              SAM               Even later.                             JACK               Sam, your life is going wrong - let               your friends tell you - Records is a               dead end department, no Security               Level worth a damn, it's impossible               to get noticed -                              SAM               Yes, I know, fantastic, marvellous,               wonderful - remember me to Alison -               and the - er - twins.                             JACK               Triplets.                                  SAM               Really? - God, how time flies!        As SAM heads off to the lift, he passes a group of MEN    standing around a temporary TV monitor. Several of them    are dressed in white lab coats. They are being explained    the benefits of a new surveillance system by a salesman    type. His assistant is operating the controls. On the    monitor we can see JILL standing in the queue for the    Information desk. The CAMERA appears to he tracking in on    her.        CUT TO JILL at top of queue with several forms in her    hand. A strange prototype radio controlled camera on a    wheeled base is whirring and clicking as it approaches    her. Throughout the next sequence it pokes around JILL in    an annoying manner - thrusting itself at her face, trying    to see what is written on the forms, peering over her    shoulder. JILL hands a form to the Information Porter.                                 JILL               I want to report a wrongful arrest.                                PORTER                    (looking at form)               You want Information Adjustments.               Different department.                                 JILL                    (exasperated but                    controlled)               I've been to Information Adjustments.               They sent me here. They told me you               had a form I had to fill in.                                PORTER               Have you got an Arrest Receipt?                                 JILL               Yes.                                PORTER               Is it stamped?                                 JILL                    (producing Buttle receipt)               Stamped?                                PORTER                    (examining receipt)               No, there's no stamp on it. You see!               I can't give you the form until it's               stamped.                                 JILL               Where do I get it stamped?                                PORTER               Information Adjustments.        The radio-controlled camera noses right up to JILL's face    as she turns. She swats the annoying thing with her stack    of forms as she storms off. The camera overbalances and    crashes into the desk - sparking and spluttering.        CUTTING BACK to the GROUP around the monitor we see a    deeply hurt SALESMAN and several sceptical white-coated    TECHNICIANS.        26  INT.   MR KURTZMAN'S OFFICE              DAY             26        SAM is busily working at the console, unraveling a problem    while KURTZMAN looks on anxiously and ineffectually.                               KURTZMAN               Perhaps the machine's on the blink!               It keeps picking up old films. That               can't he right, can it?                                  SAM               It's not the machine. There's a               mismatch on the personnel code               numbers... Ah there we go! That's a               B58/732 when it should be a T47/215               ... Tuttle ... he should have £31.06,               debited against his account for               electrical procedures, not Buttle.                               KURTZMAN               Oh my God, a mistake!                                  SAM               It's not our mistake!                               KURTZMAN                    (eagerly)               Isn't it? Whose is it?                                  SAM               Information Retrieval.                               KURTZMAN               Oh, good!                                  SAM               Expediting has put in for electrical               procedures in respect of Buttle,               Archibald, shoe repair operative, but               Security has invoiced Admin for               Tuttle, Archibald, heating engineer        SAM is still punching keys.                               KURTZMAN               What a relief! I don't know what I'd               do if you ever got promoted.                                  SAM               Don't worry.                               KURTZMAN               But if they did promote you                                  SAM               I've told you before. I'd turn it               down.                               KURTZMAN               Would you really, Sam?                                  SAM               Really.                               KURTZMAN                    (churned up)               You've been promoted.        KURTZMAN hands SAM a sheet of printed paper. SAM takes the    paper, not pleased, and glances at it.        CLOSE UP of paper: "LOWRY, S. (RECORDS. MIN OF INF.)    TRANSFER TO INFORMATION RETRIEVAL - (Expediting, Security    Level 3).                               KURTZMAN               It's your mother isn't it? Pulling               strings again.                                  SAM                    (explodes)               What a BITCH!        27  INT.   DOCTOR'S OFFICE                   DAY             27        CUT TO an old WOMAN's face reflected in triplicate in a    three-panelled mirror. A pair of MAN's hands have a grip    on her flabby cheeks, pulling them out several inches on    either side of her face. When I say several inches that's    just what I mean. Not only are her jowls being stretched    like silly putty but they are also being wrapped around to    the back of her neck to demonstrate how tight and smooth    her face can be made by DOCTOR who is prattling on over    this freak show.                                DOCTOR               Now, when you come in tomorrow, Mrs               Lowry, we'll make a little tuck here               ... and there ...        CUT TO WIDE SHOT of DOCTOR's surgery. It looks a bit like    a cross between an operating theatre and a boudoir. The    cold steel, glass and plastic surfaces are badly disguised    with pastel coloured chintz and satin. At the dressing    table sits the old WOMAN, SAM'S MOTHER. Behind her stands    the DOCTOR. He is much like his surgery. He has tailored    his surgical garments like a gigolo's dressing gown. It    seems that he has done a bit of tuck-taking on himself.    There is a certain plastic smoothness to his skin, but all    in all he has been fairly successful. SAM is pacing    around, raving.                                  SAM                    (angrily)               I just wish you would stop               interfering, mother! I don't want               promotion. I'm happy where I am.                                MOTHER               No you're not. Jack Lint is a lesson               to you - he never had your brains but               he's got the ambition. You haven't               got the ambition but luckily you've               got me. And Mr Helpmann. Mr Helpmann               was very close -                                DOCTOR               Now, Mrs Lowry, don't get upset                    (so SAM)               Please wait in reception, Mr Lowry,               you're giving her wrinkles.                                MOTHER               You see!                                  SAM                    (groans)                                DOCTOR               Now Mrs Lowry, try to relax. You must               trust me. I'll make you twenty years               younger ...                                                             SAM               Huh!                                                           DOCTOR                    (giving Sam a dirty look)               ... twenty-five if we just drain the               excess fluid from the pouches ...                                MOTHER               Dr Jaffe, you're a genius. Would you               like to be Surgeon General? Four               Star. I know everybody.                                                           DOCTOR               Well they won't know you when I've               finished with you.                   The DOCTOR reaches into his smock pocket for a coloured    marker. He starts colouring up her face with strokes of    different coloured markers.                                DOCTOR               First we must eliminate the excess               derma ... so! ... Then the flaccid               tissues under the eyes ... And now               the forehead ... Zip! I lift the               wrinkles and worry lines right up               into the wi- into the hairline, comme               ca ...        SAM looks disgusted.                                DOCTOR               And now the template ... There ...               there ... there ... Now a bit of               sticky ... There we go!                    (triumphantly)               Already she is twice as beautiful as               she was before - voila!        The DOCTOR moves his body aside, revealing MRS LOWRY's    face, covered with coloured lines and wrapped in    cellophane held in shape by cellotape. SAM stares at her.                                  SAM               My God, it works.        28  INT.   POSH RESTAURANT (ENTRANCE)        DAY             28        The conversation between SAM and his MOTHER takes place    while they are going through the sort of security checks    familiar at airports. They are, however, just outside the    velvet rope of the posh restaurant.                                MOTHER                    (in full flow)               Mr Helpmann was very close to your               poor father. He was very close to me.               Still is. He'll take you under his               wing at Information Retrieval. You'll               like it when you get there.                                  SAM               You're not listening, mother.        A warning buzzer goes off as MOTHER's handbag goes thru    security check. It turns out to have been activated by a    gaily wrapped package. A SECURITY GUARD relieves her of it    and unwraps the package which contains the same kind of    executive toy which we have seen twice before.                                MOTHER               It's a present for my son.        She takes the toy back and hands it to SAM.                                MOTHER               I hope you like it. It's very               exclusive.                                  SAM               What is it?                                MOTHER               It's something for executives.        At this point the MAITRE D arrives on the scene.                               MAITRE D               Madam Lowry, how exquisite to see you               again. Merry Christmas.        He pulls aside he velvet rope with a grand flourish. He    looks disdainfully at SAM's unfashionable clerk's suite                                MOTHER               Hello, Spiro. Merry Christmas.                                 SPIRO                    (blocking Sam's way)               I'm sorry but ...                                MOTHER               You remember Samuel, my son.                                 SPIRO                    {suddenly unctious)               Oh, but of course ...                                MOTHER               We're meeting Mrs Terrain.                                  SAM               Are we?                                 SPIRO               Ah yes, the lady is waiting.        SPIRO leads the way. SAM and his MOTHER follow, across the    restaurant which is much like the Palm Court at the Plaza    New York. Trellises, marble columns, antique mirroring,    potted palms combine to impress us with their    sophistication and taste. A string quartet can just be    made out against the far wall. Except for the unfortunate    intrusion of metal tubing and ducting brutally thrusting    across areas of the ceiling, occasionally penetrating    right through the middle of a particularly valuable-    looking mirror, the general effect is one of confident    wealth and breeding. SAM, MOTHER and MAITRE D make their    way across the room. The waltzing strains of the string    quartet accompanying them.        CUT to group of tables with diners. At one of them sits a    wealthy-looking OLDER WOMAN with a rather plain-looking    DAUGHTER in her 20s. The OLDER WOMAN is easily    distinguished from the other clientele by a large bandage    that covers a goodish part of her head. The two of them    (the MOTHER and DAUGHTER, not the MOTHER and bandage) are    perusing the menus. SAM notes the DAUGHTER, unpleased.                                  SAM               Mother, I thought we were going to be               able to talk .... Oh God, she's got               what's he name with her.        SAM and his MOTHER arrive at the table.                              MRS TERRAIN               Ida! Sam!                                MOTHER               Alma, how are you? You're looking               wonderful! Hello, Shirley.                                SHIRLEY                    (shy to Sam)               Salt?                              MRS TERRAIN                    (to Shirley)               Not yet.                    (to Sam and Mother)               Happy Christmas, Sam.        She hands SAM a gaily wrapped package which obviously    contains the same executive toy.                                MOTHER               Sorry we're late. Shall we order? Get               it out of the way. What are you going               to have Alma?        She starts to hunt through the huge menu the MAITRE D has    just handed her with full colour photos of the splendid    dishes available.                              MRS TERRAIN               I can't make up my mind whether to               have a number one or a number two.               What do you recommend, Spiro?                                                            SPIRO                    (conspiratorially)               Between you and me, Madam, today the               number two.                              MRS TERRAIN               Thank you, Spiro. Shirley, what are               you going to have?                                SHIRLEY                    (panics quietly)                                 SPIRO                    (conspiratorially)               Between you and me, Mademoiselle,               today the number one. Madam Lowry?                                MOTHER               Oh, to hell with the diet, a number               eight, please.                                 SPIRO               A most perceptive choice, Madam, if I               may say so.                    (to Sam)               Monsieur?                                  SAM                    (brusquely)               A steak, please. Rare.                    (to his mother)               Mother, I need to ...                                 SPIRO                    (piqued)               Monsieur. Quel numero.                                  SAM                    (handing back menu)               I don't know which numero.                                 SPIRO                    (writing on pad)               Numero, trois.            EVERYONE is a bit embarrassed here. MOTHER gives SAM a    withering look. SPIRO stalks away.                                MOTHER                    (trying to restart things)               Alma, you wicked thing ...                    (indicating bandages)               you've started your treatment.                              MRS TERRAIN               You noticed.                    (enthusiastically)               I must tell you all about it.                                  SAM                    (to his mother)               Mother, will you listen to        At this moment the food arrives. SPIRO elaborately lifts    off the silver covers and with a flourish distributes the    plates of food. Each order looks identical - a big splodge    of brown lumpy stuff. The only differences between the    lumps are the Identifying photographs on sticks stuck in    each. The beautiful colour photos match the photos which    were on the menus.                                 SPIRO                    (showing off that he                    remembers who's ordered                    what)               Numero huit, braised veal in wine               sauce.                    (he sets it in front of                    Sam's Mother)                        MRS TERRAIN               It's too exciting. I've left Dr Jaffe               and gone to Dr. Chapman.                                 SPIRO               Numero deux, duck a l'orange.                    (he sets it in front of Mrs                    Terrain)                                MOTHER               The acid man?                              MRS TERRAIN               Really, Ida, just because his               techniques are revolutionary ... I               don't go around calling Dr Jaffe the               knife man.                                 SPIRO               Numero une, crevettes à la               mayonaaise.                    (he sets it in front of                    Shirley)                            MOTHER               I'm sorry Alma, I didn't mean to               sound so ...                          MRS TERRAIN               That's all right Ida ... it's just               that he's such an artist. To him,               cutting is so crude ... so primitive.                             SPIRO               Numero trois, steak.                    (He sets this in front of                    Sam)               Monsieur, Mesdames, Bon appetit.                          ALL BUT SAM               Merci.                          MRS TERRAIN               Acid on the other hand, can be used               for such wonderfully subtle shading,               such delicate nuances - just like a               Rembrant etching ... and it's so much               quicker. Why, if it weren't for a               teensy-weensy complication - the               doctor said it could have happened to               anyone - I would have had these               bandages off yesterday.                            SHIRLEY                    (to Sam, after attracting                    her mother's attention and                    receiving a nod)               Salt?        They are just about to dip into their respective splodges    when there is a terrific explosion - a huge hole is    blasted out of the wall to the kitchen. Chaos erupts    around the carnage as WAITERS try putting out the flames    with extinguishers. PEOPLE, bloody and dying, are moaning.    The DINERS not actually affected by the blast look up for    a moment and then, with a few raised eyebrows, go back to    their meals.        IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE EXPLOSION.                            MOTHER               What were we saying?                                  SAM                    (picking bomb debris out of                    his brown lump)               This isn't rare!                                MOTHER               By the way, I saw a wonderful idea               for Christmas presents at the               chemists. Gift tokens. Medical gift               tokens.                              MRS TERRAIN               Oh, that sounds marvellous.                                MOTHER               Yes, they're good at any doctor's and               at many of the major hospitals - and               they're accepted for gynecological               complications including Caesarian               section.        SAM, in the act of taking in another forkful of his    unappetising meal, drops his form in disgust                                  SAM               Look - please - I'm sorry - but               honestly, mother, this is -                                MOTHER.               I quite agree! - It's impossible!        MOTHER raises her arm to gain the attention of the MAITRE    D who is frantically trying to deal with the emergency.    The activity in the background has increased throughout    the conversation. The fire-brigade has arrived with sirens    blaring. Ministry TROOPS have charged in and are arresting    WAITERS. Stretchers have been bought in for the injured    and these are being rushed past our little GROUP's table.    The MAITRE D comes to the table, his DJ now blood-    spattered.                               MAITRE D               I am sorry, Madam ... I don't know               what to say ... this very rarely               happens to us - I'll do what I can               straight away        He hurries away.                              MRS TERRAIN               Really, Sam - when are you going to               do something about these terrorists?                                  SAM               What? Now? It's my lunch hour.                            MOTHER               Actually, Alma, that's one of the               little things I was dying to tell you               ... Sam's been promoted to               Information Retrieval.                              SAM                    (angry and surprised)               Mother!                          MRS TERRAIN               Oh that's wonderful! Congratulations               Sam...                            SHIRLEY               You can show those fucking murderous               bastards a thing or two.                          MRS TERRAIN                    (shocked and embarrassed)               Shirley!                                  SAM               Stop this!                    (leaping to his feet)               I'm not being promoted. I'm not going               to Information Retrieval!                    (he scrumples promotion                    notification which he has                    been holding and throws it                    on the floor)               If I want you to stick your oar in,               mother, I'll tell you where to stick               it!        EVERYBODY is shocked. He recovers his composure slightly.    Embarrassed, he bends, and picks up the ball of paper    which he starts smoothing back into Its flat state.                                SHIRLEY                    (back to her uncertain                    form)               Pepper...?                                  SAM               Look - I've got to get back -        As SAM goes, MAITRE D reappears with a group of WAITERS -    those remaining unarrested - whom he has organised to gut    up a folding screen around the table. This cuts of the    sight if not the noise of the VICTIMS of the explosion.                                MOTHER               Sam ... you haven't had dessert.                                  SAM               I'm sorry. I don' t want dessert. I               don't want promotion. I don't want               anything.                                MOTHER               Don't be childish, Samuel. Of course               you want something. You must have               hopes, wishes, dreams.        Their voices have been rising towards a shout in order to    rise above the volume of the growing chaos around them.                                  SAM                    (shouts loud)               NO, NOTHING. NOT EVEN DREAMS!    29  EXT.   BRILLIANT SKY                     DAY             29        SAM as his dream-self rises INTO SHOT, his wings straining    as he tows the floating cage imprisoning the GIRL. They    are rising up and away from the monolithic stone    skyscrapers that stretch away below them.                                  SAM               I'm taking you to a safe place. A               place where they will never be able               to get at us ... ever.        An eyeball is scanning the sky. PULLING BACK we see it is    but one of thousands, tightly packed side by side forming    a landscape that extends as far as we can see. As SAM and    the GIRL in her cage come into view it becomes apparent    just how big these eyeballs are - they are gigantic -    about 10 feet in diameter. All of them follow SAM as he    comes to rest on a platform high atop a column that rises    from the centre of this bizarre place.                                  SAM               There's no way they can approach us               without being seen. You're safe here.        He anchors the hawser holding the cage and takes off his    wings. Just as he starts climbing up to the cage a    terrific cracking noise is heard. SAM freezes.        A dead straight crack is bisecting the sky from somewhere    beyond the horizon - running right up the sky and over the    camera. SAM follows it as it continues over the GIRL and    down to the opposite horizon. Another crackling noise is    heard. Another crack appears. Then another. And another.    All these cracks are emanating from a vanishing point over    the horizon. Soon the sky is covered with these cracks    from horizon to foreground. Then cracks begin appearing at    right angles to them. Very quickly the sky is covered with    a mammoth grid. Once it is complete, another noise is    heard. Something like massive blocks of stone sliding    against one another. One of the squares formed by the grid    pattern begins to slide upwards as if being pulled out    from the back side of the sky. A square hole is left in    its place. We can see the sides of the hole as it extends    upwards into blackness. As soon as this first block of sky    is withdrawn, another begins to slide up and away. SAM is    frozen in position as this terrifying spectacle goes on    above him. The eyeballs are madly looking this way and    that. The grinding noises are deafening as block after    block of sky is removed. With each successive loss the    light decreases. The GIRL is crying out for SAM to save    her. Frantically SAM tries to haul the cage down to the    platform but it's too late.        Where the sky was is now pitch black. Only one block of    sky remains. Slowly that final bit of sky is pulled up and    out of shot. Total blackness. A maniacal laughter can be    heard. A beam of light is switched on. SAM has a    searchlight in his hand and is searching the darkness. The    laughter continues. Suddenly the beam catches something    black and moving. it's the same black, flapping cloth that    appeared at the end of the previous dream. The horrible    flapping thing comes thundering down on SAM.        He is engulfed in the black awfulness.    30  INT. SAM'S BEDROOM                       NIGHT           30        SAM is in bed, grappling with the bedclothes. He is    dripping with sweat and screaming. The room is    oppressively hot. He gets up and looks at the thermostat.    It reads 99. He fumbles with it, but to no avail. It's    stuck.        CUT to SAM coming into the sitting room. He rushes over to    the window and tries to open it. But it wasn't designed to    be opened. Screws hold it firmly shut. SAM heads to the    kitchen He finds a knife which he uses to unscrew the    window. He swings the window open and takes a deep breath.    GAG! COUGH! HACK! A terrible greeny-brown smog pours in    through the window. Desperately SAM shuts the window and    madly tightens up the screws. Swinging a newspaper, he    tries clearing a path through the clouded atmosphere. He    makes it to the front door and staggers out into the hall    gasping for air.    CUT to telephone being lifted from its cradle. Pull back    as SAM with opened telephone directory in front of him    dials. He is seated in his kitchen. In front of his open    refrigerator. The phone rings at the other end.                                  SAM                    (into phone)               Hello - Central Services - I'm at               579B Block l9, Northwestern Section D               - that's exit 1 on Green Pastures               Highway at the Orange Blossom Flyover               - and I've got trouble with the air-               conditioning                              PHONE VOICE               Thank you or calling Central               Services. am sorry, due to temporary               staff shortage, Central Services               cannot take service calls centrally               between 2300 and 0900 hours - have a               nice day - this has not been a               recording, incident-                                  SAM               This is an emergency!                                                         PHONE VOICE               Thank you for calling Central               Services. I am sorry, due -                                  SAM               Yes, but. I've got to have a heating               engineer                              PHONE VOICE               Thank you for calling Cen -        SAM slams the phone down.        CUT to SAM sitting in front of the refrigerator. The door    is open and he has wedged a chair into the gap in a    desperate bid to keep cool. He is nodding off. As his head    slumps against one of the shelves, a jar of pickled onions    falls to the floor. The onions scattering everywhere.    31  EXT.   DARKNESS                          NIGHT           31        The milky white spheres tumble everywhere. But they are    not onions, they are the giant eyeballs burtling through    space. SAM is clinging desperately to one. He grabs the    pupil for a better handhold and it opens like a hatch    cover. SAM manages to pull himself inside. Once out of the    intergalactic maelstrom, SAM turns to survey the cramped    and dark space inside the eyeball. It seems to be bisected    by a dividing wall, from which a thin sliver of light is    escaping. Pushing on the wall in the area of the slit, SAM    is able to move a section. More light shaftes into the    tiny space from around the edges of what appears to be a    small hatch. SAM scrunches down and really puts his    shoulder to the hatch. with a metallic rasp it gives way    and SAM crashes through.        CUT to other side of opening as SAM topples through. He    catches himself in the nick of time as the camera zooms    back revealing his close call with disaster. He is high on    a vast wall of what looks like filing cabinets. The hatch    he came through was the front of one of the millions of    files-drawers composing this wall. As he scrambles back    into the opening we can see that the wall drops away for    hundreds of feet, disappear into a steaming mist. Other    walls of files enclose this vast space. From where SAM is    it looks like the view from the 50th storey of the Time    Life building in NYC. These millions of files are being    tended by MEN arising themselves up and down, as well as    sideways, on modern skyscraper window-cleaners' platforms.    The attendants are seen putting PEOPLE in different period    costumes into drawers. SAM's attention is distracted by a    sound overhead. Looking up he sees a window washer    platform being lowered in his direction. Leaning over the    side is a JOLLY GENT, who happens to look like MR HELPMANN    (as seen on TV).                                 GENT               Ah ha ... there you are, Sam.                                  SAM               What? How do you know my name?                                 GENT               We know everything here. This is the               Storeroom of Knowledge.                                  SAM                    (climbing onto the                    platform)               Then perhaps you can help me. I've               lost someone who ...                                 GENT                    (interrupting)               We know that too. You've come to the               right place.        The platform carries them along the files.                                 GENT               Oh, yes. We've got everything here.               Every bit of knowledge, wisdom,               learning ... every experience, every               thought neatly filed away.                                  SAM                    (incredulous)               What? You mean you've got ...                                 GENT               Well not exactly. But, if you help us               we'll help you. The Forces Of               Darkness have won the day ... but,               tomorrow is another one                                  SAM               What do I have to do.                                 GENT               You must save the day.        The platform has stopped. The GENT pulls out a drawer. He    reaches inside.        The GENT pulls out a wonderful sword and helmet.                                 GENT               This is the Sword Of Truth ... and               this the Helmet Of Justice.        As SAM begins to strap on the weapon the GENT brings out a    cape.                                 GENT               And this. completes the outfit.        He puts the cape around SAM's shoulders and helps him step    into the drawer. A moment's hesitation and then SAM outs    the helmet on and lies down in the drawer. It fits just    like a coffin.. As he lies back the GENT pushes the drawer    in.                                 GENT               It won't be pleasant but, trust me.        As the drawer is pushed in SAM suffers a sudden bout of    claustrophobia. Looking up at the diministing opening he    is surprised to see - not the face of the JOLLY GENT - but    a terrifying SAMURAI WARRIOR's masked helmet. SAM    struggles to prevent the drawer being closed.    32  INT.   SAM'S FLAT                        NIGHT           32        SAM is grabbing the walls of the fridge. Water from the    defrosted freezer compartment drips on his head. He wakes    up. Before he can really take in where he is the phone    rings. He staggers over to it.                                  SAM               Hello ... hello ...                              PHONE VOICE               Hello. Mr Lowry?                                  SAM               Who's that?                    (pause)        A sound at the kitchen door turns SAM's head - and ours -    just in time to half see a quick blurred movement, but    then a rapid voice in his ear-piece brings his head back.                              PHONE VOICE               Put the phone down and your hands up.                                  SAM                    (into the phone)               What? Who is this?        SAM realises that the voice is also in the room behind    him. He turns round and sees TUTTLE. TUTTLE is middle-    aged, a short tough figure dressed in dark clothes    suggesting a cross between a cat burglar and a night-raid    commando. In one hand he holds a gun pointed at SAM. The    other hand is holding a telephone receiver which TUTTLE is    in the act of placing in the large capacious bag at his    feet. SAM puts down his phone, and his hands up.                                TUTTLE               Nice and easy now. Keep your hands               where I can see them.                                  SAM               What is this?                    (indignantly)               Who the hell are you?        TUTTLE, keeping the gun on SAM, goes to different doors,    leaning backwards into bedroom, bathroom and closet.        TUTTLE suddenly relaxes and pockets his gun.                                TUTTLE               Harry Tuttle. Heating engineer. At               your service.                                  SAM               Tuttle! Are you from Central               Services?                                TUTTLE               Ha!!                                  SAM               But ... I called Central Services.                                TUTTLE               They're a bit overworked these days.               Luckily I intercepted your call.                                  SAM               What?        By now, BOTH are pouring with sweat.    TUTTLE heads across the room and swiftly begins to undo a    wall panel.                                  SAM               Wait a minute, what was that business               with the gun?        TUTTLE hands SAM the panel and plunges his arm into the    space behind it.                                TUTTLE               A little precaution, sir. I've had               traps set for me before now. There               are people in Central Services who'd               love to get their hands on Harry               Tuttle.                                  SAM               Are you saying this is illegal?        By now TUTTLE has managed to pull out some sections of    flexible ducting from the welter of mechanical offal    behind the removed panel. It is all very complicated and    greasy and it looks as though there is a lot more where    that came from. TUTTLE is amazingly neat and deft as he    works. A real pro. As he works he hums a wee tune ... yes    ... BRAZIL!!                                TUTTLE               Well, yes ... and no. Officially,               only Central Service operatives are               supposed to touch this stuff ...               Could you hold these.                                TUTTLE                    (he hands Sam a bunch of                    wires that he has detached)               ... but, with all the new rules and               regulations ... unncgh, c'mon, c'mon               ... they can't get decent staff any               more ... so ... they tend to turn a               blind eye ... as long as I'm careful.                    (he hands Sam a torch)               ... Mind you, if ever they could               prove I'd been working on their               equipment ... well, that's a               different matter ... up a bit with               the torch, sir.                                  SAM               Sorry. wouldn't it be easier just to               work for Central Services?                                TUTTLE               Couldn't stand the pa - ah - we're               getting warm -                                  SAM               The pace?                                TUTTLE               The paperwork, couldn't stand the               paperwork.                    (indicating the torch)               Over to the left please, if you don't               mind sir. Hold it there. Yes, there's               more bits of paper in Central               Services than bits of pipe - read               this, fill in that, hand in the other               - listen, this old system of yours               could be on fire and I couldn't even               turn on the kitchen tap without               filling in a 27B/6.... Bloody               paperwork.                                  SAM                    (mildly)               Well I suppose one has to expect a               certain amount                                TUTTLE               Why? I came into this game for               adventure - go anywhere, travel               light, get in, get out, wherever               there's trouble, a man alone. Now               they've got the whole country               sectioned of and you can't move               without a form. I'm the last of a               breed. Ah ha! Found it!                    (he holds up a small                    charred gadget)               There's your problem.                                  SAM               Can you fix it?                                TUTTLE               No. But I can bypass it with one of               these        He pulls another gadget from his bag.                                  SAM               Fine.        The door bell. TUTTLE grabs for his gun.                                TUTTLE               Are you expecting anyone?                                  SAM               No. Wait here.        He goes out closing the immediate door and goes to the    front door which he opens. He is confronted by two    officious little men in boiler suits who are standing    outside his door. Their names are SPOOR and DOWSER. DOWSER    is SPOOR's echo.                                  SAM               Yes?                                 SPOOR               Central Services.                                DOWSER               ...ervices.                                  SAM               Uh - what? - I ...                                 SPOOR               You telephone, sir.                                DOWSER               ...elephoned sir.                                 SPOOR               Trouble with your air-conditioning.                                DOWSER               ...ditioning.                                  SAM                    (gulps)               No, not at all. I mean, it's all               right. It's fixed.                                 SPOOR               Fixed?                                DOWSER               Fixed?        They don't like that.                                  SAM               I mean it fixed itself.                                 SPOOR               Fixed itself.                                DOWSER               ...ixed itself.                                 SPOOR               Machines don't fix themselves.                                DOWSER               ... fix themselves.                                 SPOOR               He's tampered with it, Dowser.                                DOWSER               ...ampered. with it, Spoor.                                  SAM               Look, I'm sorry about your wasted               journey        SAM tries to close the door but SPOOR prevents this.                                 SPOOR                    (to Dowser)               I think we'd better have a look.                                DOWSER               ... have a look.                                  SAM               No you can't.        He is pushed aside. SPOOR followed by DOWSER, heads for    the door behind which is MR TUTTLE. SAM is paralysed.    SPOOR approaches the door as if it is dangerous. He turns    the handle quietly and gives the door a little nudge. The    door begins to swing slowly open. SAM suddenly finds    inspiration.                                  SAM               Just a minute!        SPOOR and DOWSER turn round as the door continues to swing    open. When the door is open, behind their backs TUTTLE is    seen holding his pistol in a two-handed grip, his knees    slightly bent. TUTTLE freezes like that, pointing his    pistol through the open door.                              SAM               Have you got a 27B/6?        DOWSER looks very angry. Veins stand out on his forehead    and he goes into what looks like some sort of fit. SPOOR    knocks him to the ground.                                 SPOOR                    (to Sam)               Now look what you've done to him.                                  SAM               Have you got one or haven't you?                                 SPOOR               Not ... as such ...        DOWSER moans and begins to get back on his feet.                                 SPOOR               But we can get one.                                 SPOOR                    (worried about Dowser)               It's all right, Terry, it's all               right, everything's all right.                                  SAM                    (ushering them to the door)               I'm sorry, but I'm a bit of a               stickler for paper work. Where would               we be if we didn't follow the correct               procedures?                                 SPOOR               We'll be back.                                DOWSER               ...Be back.                                  SAM                    (Closing the door on them)               Thank you.        SAM turns back to TUTTLE who is coming forward pocketing    his gun.                                TUTTLE               Thanks, Lowry, you're a good man in a               tight corner.    TUTTLE returns to work, fitting in the new by-pass gadget    and tightening the nuts, and happily humming "BRAZIL".                                  SAM               Listen .. um ... I don't want to get               involved in any of this. But I work               at the Ministry of Information, and I               happen to know that Information               Retrieval have been looking for an               Archibald Tuttle, Heating Engineer.               You wouldn't by any chance be -                                TUTTLE                    (pleased)               My friends call me Harry. Information               Retrieval, eh? Interesting!                                  SAM               What do they want you or?                                TUTTLE               Time to go.        TUTTLE finishes the job and throws his tools into the bag.                                  SAM               Thank you very much. How much will               it...?                                TUTTLE               On the house. You did me a favor.               Check the corridor.        SAM goes to the front door, opens it and looks out.                                  SAM               All clear.        TUTTLE slips out and heads off down the balcony corridor.                                  SAM               Hey that's a dead end.        But TUTTLE merely undoes a pre-arranged rope and swings    Tarzan-like off the end of the balcony and across a multi-    story void to a neighboring block. SAM is amazed - not to    say - stunned.    33  INT.   RECORDS POOL                      DAY             33        SAM is at his desk among all the desks. Documents are    being delivered right, left and centre through the vacuum    tubes. All the CLERKS are busy. The screens are devoted to    their proper use. All this activity is explained by the    fact the MR KURTZMAN's door is wide open. At the next desk    is another CLERK much like SAM, his NEIGHBOUR.                               NEIGHBOUR               I think Kurtzman getting is               suspicious.                                  SAM               What have we got on today?                               NEIGHBOUR               Casablanca.        KURTZMAN appears in his doorway.                               KURTZMAN                    (calls out)               Mr Lowry! Would you step in here a               moment please.        We go with KURTZMAN as he closes the office door behind    him, we are now in ...        34  INT.   KURTZMAN'S OFFICE                 DAY             34        KURTZMAN is pacing anxiously. SAM walks into the office.    During the brief opening and closing of the door we just    manage to hear the piano player in "Casablanca" singing,    "... a kiss is just a kiss ...". KURTZMAN is too worried    to notice. He is holding a piece of paper gingerly as if    it were contagious. He waves it frantically as SAM enters.                               KURTZMAN                    (hysterically)               Thank God you're here! We're in               terrible trouble! Look at this! Look               at this!        He thrusts the piece of paper at Sam.                                  SAM                    (taking the paper)               A cheque.                               KURTZMAN               The refund for Tuttle!                                  SAM                    (startled)               Tuttle?                               KURTZMAN               I mean, Buttle! It's been confusion               from the word go! He's been wrongly               charged for Electromemorytherapy and               someone somewhere is trying to make               us carry the can!                                  SAM               I've never seen a Ministry cheque               before.                               KURTZMAN               We've got to get rid of it! There's               been a balls-up somewhere, and when               the music stops they'll jump on               whoever's holding the cheque!                                  SAM               Send it to somebody else. Send it to               Buttle. It's his cheque.                               KURTZMAN               I've tried that! Population Census               have got him down as dormanted, the               Central Collective Storehouse               computer has got him down as deleted,               and the Information Retrieval have               got him down as inoperative ...               Security has him down as excised.,               Admin have him down as completed                                  SAM               Hang on.        SAM sits down at the console and punches keys. He does    this very efficiently, muttering to himself and generally    demonstrating an expertise which obviously leaves KURTZMAN    way out of his depth, until -                                  SAM               He is dead.                               KURTZMAN               Dead! Oh no! That's terrible! We'll               never get rid of the damned thing!               What are we going to do?                                  SAM               Try next of kin.                               KURTZMAN                    (a revelation)               Next of kin!        SAM punches more keys.                                  SAM               There we go. Mrs. Veronica Buttle.               What's the number on the cheque?                               KURTZMAN                    (reading it)               27156789/074328/K.        SAM has been efficiently punching this in.                                  SAM               Into memory. Now ... Central Banking               ... Buttle, Veronica ... Deposit        SAM rips off a print out, rapidly stuffs it and the cheque    into a cannister and then into a vacuum tube. A job well    done.                               KURTZMAN                    (fervently)               Please don't come back! Please don't               come back!        Unfortunately KURTZMAN's prayers are not answered and the.    vacuum tube returns almost immediately. SAM opens it up.    From the computer screen comes a voice "Play it again,    Sam" - SAM and KURTZMAN look at the screen. We get a quick    glimpse of Humphrey Bogart before the screen reverts to    numbers.                                  SAM               Problem. She doesn't have a bank               account.                               KURTZMAN                    (hysterically)               Well, that's it! I may as well go and               hang myself! This sort of thing               couldn't have happened before the               stupid seventh tier reorganization!               That was Simmons doing! And he and               Jeffries always sit together at               lunch! The bastards!                    (he thumps his hand hard on                    the desk top)               Ow!                    (He picks up the offending                    cheque)               Perhaps we can lose it ... behind the               filing cabinet ... or destroy it ...               burn it ... eat it ...        Under this tirade SAM has begun to hum "BRAZIL" - not    entirely sure what inspired him.                                  SAM               You'd never get away with it.               Besides, you can't do that to               somebody's refund. It's Christmas.               There is one more option.                               KURTZMAN                    (depressed. Not really                    believing it)               What?                                  SAM               Drive out to Mrs Buttle, give her the               cheque, tell her to sign her name on               the back, cash it at the corner sweet               shop.        KURTZMAN is dumbfounded by the audacity of this.                               KURTZMAN               That's brilliant!        SAM takes over. In no time at all he has battered away at    the keyboard, slammed a cannister into a vacuum tube and    received almost immediately a cannister containing a sheaf    of different coloured papers.                                  SAM               I'll do it for you. Authorise the               cheque. What's the address?        KURTZMAN scribbles it down for him.                               KURTZMAN               Here. What do I do next?                                  SAM               Call the motor pool and authorise               personal transport.                               KURTZMAN               Of course, of course. Leave it to me.               How do I authorize a cheque?                                  SAM                    (separating the and blue                    sheets)               Here we are. Pink and blue receipts.               All you've got to do is sign these               and the back of the cheque.        KURTZMAN takes out his pen and tries to sign the papers    but his hand is giving him trouble.                               KURTZMAN                    (exhausted after all the                    emotion)               Oh God! I think I've broken a bone.               What a pathetic thing I am.                              SAM               (taking the pen from him)               Here.    SAM signs the cheque and receipts. A big CLOSE UP shows    that he is scribbling KURTZMAN's signature. SAM pockets    the papers and the pen.                              SAM               That's it.                           KURTZMAN               You are good to me Sam.                              SAM                    (leaving)               Don't mention it. See you later.35  EXT.   MOTORWAY TUNNEL                   DAY             35    CUT to SAM at the wheel of the little car, beetling along    in a seemingly endless, tube-like tunnel, menaced fore and    aft by huge buses, lorries and other carriers which    literally lift the little three-wheeler from the road    surface and shake it by the scruff of its tiny neck.        CUT to SAM in interior of the Messerschmidt. He is singing    along to an obscure arrangement of "BRAZIL".                                 RADIO                    (plays music for a moment                    which then fades out)               ... We interrupt this programme to               bring you news of a terrorist bombing               at the ...                    (Sam switches off)        36  EXT.   MOTORWAY TUNNEL                   DAY             36        CUT to exterior view of Messerschmidt still merrily    progressing in arterial tunnel. CUT to very tiny exit    sign: Exit 49.        CUT to SAM peering at sign.        CUT to Messerschmidt taking the exit just as a huge lorry    roars by.        37  EXT.   BUTTLE FLATS                      DAY             37        Beautiful utopian block of high-rise flats gleam in the    sunlight. Pulling back we reveal it to be an architect's    model in a protective perspex case standing in the centre    of a decorative fountain that has long ceased to work -    graffiti and junk are now the only decorations. In the    background is the grim reality of the massive housing    tower. SAM's Messerschmidt is just puling up in the shadow    of the building which is grey, decrepid, vandalised. Huge    conduits, pipes, and tubing frame the scene. SAM gets out    of the car under the cool and none-too-friendly gaze of a    few LOCALS. Self-consciously, SAM looks around him, then    at the paper in his hand. A little group of KIDS sit    pitching pennies against a wall. SAM goes over to them.                                  SAM                    (super polite)               Excuse me. Can you tell me ...        But before he can finish, the smallest, tiny KID looks up.                                  KID               Eff off.        SAM, uncomfortably, effs off.        He is watched, at some distance, imapassively by the    little GIRL BUTTTLE. As SAM enters the buildings one of    the kids gets out a can of something and approaches the    car. Another is fiddling, with a box of matches.        38  INT.   BUTTLE FLATS                      DAY             38        CUT to SAM hesitantly walking into the semi-derelict lobby    of the big block of flats. Graffiti, vandalism are in    evidence everywhere. He walks up to the lift. Pushes the    button. Nothing happens. He pushes again. This time the    lift door shudders and sparks. SAM tries to pull the doors    apart. They jam open with a three-inch gap between them -    still shuddering and grinding. In the sparking light, SAM    can make out an interior crammed with garbage, junk, old    furniture, dead cats. Yechhhh. Resignedly, he turns    towards the stairs.        39  INT.   CORRIDOR                          DAY             39    CUT to SAM coming breathlessly out of the stairwell. On    the wall next to it is the number 37. Walking down the    corridor he looks at the number and starts to knock, but    then notices that the door is cracked open. SAM tries to    knock on the door, but it keeps edging open and he settles    for knocking on the door frame a bit feebly.                   SAM               Mrs Buttle                    (silence)               Uh, Mrs Buttle?                    (silence)        SAM stands not knowing what to do.    SAM pushes the door a bit more open gingerly and puts    about 65 per cent of his body into the hall of the flat.    CUT to SAM's POV of darkish hall.                                  SAM               Mrs Buttle ...    40  INT.   BUTTLE SITTING ROOM               DAY             40        CUT to SAM entering extremely tacky sitting-room shrouded    in half-darkness. This is the same flat from which the    FATHER was taken at the beginning of the film: the hole is    still in the ceiling. SAM becomes aware of a woman sitting    absolutely still at a small table by the only (still    broken) window in the room.                                  SAM               Are you Mrs Buttle?        The WOMAN nods very slightly without looking at him.                                  SAM               My name is Lowry - Sam Lowry. I'm               from the Ministry of Information.                    (no response)               I've come to give you a cheque.        SAM takes the cheque out of his pocket and puts it on the    table to tempt MRS BUTTLE into a flicker of interest but    she fails to notice it - or him for that matter. SAM    pushes the cheque a little way towards MRS BUTTLE but she    does not respond.                                  SAM                    (indicting cheque)               It's a refund ... I'm afraid there               was a mistake.                              MRS BUTTLE               Mistake?                                  SAM                    (encouraged)               Yes. Not my department ... I'm only               records. It seems that Mr Buttle was               overcharged by Information Retrieval.               I don't think they usually make               mistakes ... but, er ... I suppose               we're all human.        SAM looks around and sees the hole in the ceiling.                   Oh ... what happened to the ...?        He gets nothing back.                   Actually, my bringing this here is               rather unorthodox ... Usually any               payments are made through the central               computer ... but, er ... there were               certain difficulties, and rather than               cause delay, we thought you might               appreciate this now ... it being               Christmas.                              MRS BUTTLE               My husband's dead, isn't he?                                  SAM               Er ... I assure you Mrs Buttle, the               Ministry is always very scrupulous               about following up and eradicating               error. If you have any complaints               which you'd like to make, I'd be more               than happy to send you the               appropriate forms.                              MRS BUTTLE               What have you done with his body?                                  SAM               Um ...        MRS BUTTLE starts to cry.                                  SAM               Look, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid               I don't know anything about it ...               I'm really just delivering the               cheque. Er ... If you wouldn't mind               signing these receipts                    (producing blue and pink                    receipts)               I'll go and leave you in peace.        SAM picks up the cheque and gives it to MRS BUTTLE    together with the receipts. MRS BUTTLE tears them up and    throws them in his face.                                  SAM               Uh ...                              MRS BUTTLE               He hadn't done anything ... He was               good ... What have you done with his               body?        SAM looks around for an escape and sees a YOUNG BUTTLE    standing in the doorway. The BOY is looking at him with a    blank tearful face. Suddenly the BOY launches himself at    SAM with terrible ferocity. SAM is knocked against the    wall. A mirror falls off the wall and smashes on the    floor. The BOY is all over SAM kicking and pulling his    hair. MRS BUTTLE's reaction, however, is to try and pull    the BOY away from SAM. By the time she succeeds, SAM is on    his hands and knees, in pain. The BOY is crying and    shouting, and MRS BUTTLE is loudly trying to quieten the    BOY.        From SAM'S POV, a piece of broken mirror lying on the    floor reflects the hole in the ceiling ... with JILL's    head and shoulders framed in the hole. The moment is    unreal for SAM in his dazed condition. The vision seems    unreal too. JILL is staring at SAM out of the piece of    mirror and. she's very much the GIRL from his dream now.                                 JILL               Are you alright?                                  SAM                    (mumbles)               It's you ... it's you ...                                 JILL               Mrs Buttle, are you alright?        SAM grabs at the image, i.e. at the mirror, shifting the    angle so that the vision disappears. He looks for the    vision on the floor but can't find it. Then he begins to    realise the reality of what he has seen. He stands up,    dazed and battered. MRS BUTTLE has been looking up at the    ceiling. SAM looks up at the ceiling but there is now only    the empty space of the hole.                                  SAM               Wait! Stop! Come back!!        MRS BUTTLE is shouting. SAM rushes out of the flat.        41  INT.   BUTTLE'S CORRIDOR                 DAY             41        SAM looks both ways and heads for the stairs.        42  INT.   BUTTLE'S STAIRCASE                DAY             42        SAM runs up the stairs to the floor above and finds    himself in -        43  EXT.   SIMILAR CORRIDOR                  DAY             43        He runs along the corridor but has omitted to count the    doors downstairs and now doesn't know which door to knock    at. He hesitates. He rings the bell on what he hopes is    the right door. The bell doesn't work. He bangs on the    door. The door opens a crack. A malevolent eye looks at    him.                                  SAM               Girl ... fair hair ...        The door shuts firmly. SAM rushes to the next door.        44  INT.   JILL'S FLAT                       DAY             44        SAM bursts into JILL's flat. He sees the hole in the    floor. The place looks derelict. He hears an explosion and    looks out of a window to see his car in flames. JILL is    apparently retreating from it across the forecourt. She is    carrying a suitcase and bundles.        45  INT.   STAIRCASE                         DAY             45        SAM rushes down the stairs.        46  EXT.   BLOCK OF FLATS                    DAY             46        SAM charges out into the open air. JILL has disappeared.    The Messerchmidt, however, is in flames. SAM doesn't know    which way to turn. Spotting an old mattress lying by the    building he grabs it and throws it over the car in an    attempt to smother the flames. The group of CHILDREN watch    him silently. Suddenly with a great roar, JILL's lorry    comes round the corner at speed. SAM sees that JILL is at    the wheel. SAM runs after the lorry.                                  SAM                    (shouting)               Wait! It was nothing to do with me!        The lorry roars away. SAM dashes back to his smoldering    three-wheeler. He flings himself into it and starts it up.    He also roars away, except that he doesn't move... all    three wheels have been removed. He turns round in despair    and sees the group of CHILDREN regarding him    expressionlessly.        They include the little GIRL BUTTLE.        Defeated, he slumps down against his charred vehicle. A    shadow passes across his face. Looking up he sees GIRL    BUTTLE standing over him.                                  SAM               Go away.                              GIRL BUTTLE               Her name is Jill.                                  SAM               What? ...Jill? Jill who? Jill who?                              GIRL BUTTLE               Layton.                                  SAM               Jill Layton ...                    (getting up)               You're a very good little girl. What               are you doing here?                              GIRL BUTTLE               I'm waiting for my daddy.                                  SAM                    (uncomprehending)               He will be pleased when he comes               home.        GIRL BUTTLE doesn't answer and SAM starts to walk away.    After a few yards, the thought strikes him: he turns back    to look at the little GIRL BUTTLE who stands alone    patiently in the vandalised wilderness.        47  INT.   RECORD CLERKS POOL                DAY             47        It is the end of the work day. The CLERKS are busily    getting their coats and leaving the office. As the last    one goes MR. KURTZMAN comes out of his private office with    his hat and coat on. He turns out the office light. He    sees SAM isolated in the empty room, still working at his    computer console. Totally absorbed in what he is doing.                               KURTZMAN               Oh ... Sam. I've had the transport               pool onto me ... You don't know               anything about a personnel               transporter gone missing do you?        SAM doesn't seem to hear him. On the computer screen is a    front and side view picture of JILL. Her name and code    number is at the top of the screen. SAM is punching up    personal dossier information like "age", "height",    "weight", "colour of hair", "colour of eyes",    "distinguishing marks" etc.                                  SAM                    (preoccupied)               A "personnel" transporter? They've               got it wrong. I had a personal               transporter. I'll do the paperwork               tomorrow -        SAM punches up a few more categories for JILL's dossier.                               KURTZMAN               Is it all right about Mrs Buttle's               cheque?                                  SAM               I delivered it.                               KURTZMAN               Can I forget it?                                  SAM               Yes.        SAM punches a few more buttons on the computer.                               KURTZMAN               What a relief!                    (on reflection)               I shall probably have nightmares.        At this point the word "Classified" superimposes itself    over most of the screen and "IRQ/3" starts agitating at    the bottom                                  SAM               Damn! Blast!                               KURTZMAN               What's the matter?                                  SAM               You don't happen to know how I can               get around an IRQ/3 do you?                               KURTZMAN               All information on 3rd Level Suspects               is classified.                                  SAM               I know that.                               KURTZMAN               All enquiries to Information               Retrieval. Which is hopeless, of               course. They never tell you anything.               But come the time they want something               from us ...        Throughout this verbal wallpaper SAM has been punching    keys cancelling the CLASSIFIED overprint. He then punches    in the code for a hard-copy print-out. JILL's two-view    computer portrait rolls out as SAM ponders his options.                                  SAM                    (cutting off Kurtzman)               I've go to accept that promotion to               get behind this, haven't I?                               KURTZMAN               Yes.                    (realising what he's                    suggesting)               NO! You can't! You've only just               turned it down!                    (thinking Sam is joking)                                  SAM               I never signed the form.                               KURTZMAN               I did it for you.                                  SAM               What! Shit!                                          KURTZMAN               It's what you wanted isn't it?                                  SAM               Yes ... No ... I don't, know.        KURTZMAN picks up JILL's print-out and glances at it. He    grimaces and drops it back on the desk with a shudder.                               KURTZMAN               Come on, before they turn the lights               out.        SAM nods. He turns off the machine. He stands up and    follows KURTZMAN towards the door. The door is some    distance away, and before they get there all the lights go    out. KURTZMAN bumps into a desk and curses.        48  INT.   TRANSPORT CAGE                    EVENING         48        Packed tightly between other passengers SAM is busy    drawing long flowing hair with a pencil on the computer    print-out of JILL turning her into the DREAM GIRL. The    transport cage rattles through its elevated tube towards a    tower block.        49  INT.   SAM'S CORRIDOR                    EVENING         49        The transport cage arrives at the platform forming the end    of SAM's corridor. Passengers disembark and head for    various doors along the corridor. SAM almost fails to get    off in time - so concentrated on JILL's picture is he.    Looking as if he's trying to make up his mind about    something he heads for his own front door.        50  INT.   SAM'S FLAT                        EVENING         50        SAM enters. The place is in a state of turmoil. Servicing    panels are off the walls. Conduit, ducting, pipes, unknown    mechanical horrors spew from the wall as if the place was    disemboweled. SPOOR stands in the middle of it all trying    to direct two other WORKMEN who are poring over wiring    plans which seem to make little sense to them. DOWSER is    not visible but there is a great deal of clunking and    banging going on somewhere behind the wall.                                  SAM               What the - ? How did you - ?                                 SPOOR               Emergency procedures.                             DOWSER (O.S.)                    (muffled)               ...ergency procedures.                                  SAM                    (angrily)               I haven't got an emergency. Get out               of here.        For reply SPOOR whips a small tape-recorder out of his bag    and plays back SAM's original phone call to Central    Services, claiming "an emergency". SPOOR shuts off his    machine, puts back into his bag and comes out with what    looks like a quite thin phone hook with carbon paper    between each page. SPOOR indicates the bottom of page 1.                                 SPOOR               Sign here please.                                  SAM               What is it?                                 SPOOR                    (surprised)               It's a 27B/6, what did you think it               was?        SAM takes out KURTZMAN's old-fashioned fountain pen from    his pocket, signs where indicated. SPOOR registers that    SAM's signature has hardly penetrated through he first    carbon let alone the other 43                                 SPOOR                    (sourly)               Haven't you got a ballpoint?        SAM resignedly starts signing all the other pages one by    one. SPOOR realises that DOWSER's echo has gone missing.                                 SPOOR               Now where's he got to?                    (shouts)               Dowser!        DOWSER bursts through a panel in the wall. This is the    panel which TUTTLE had removed and replaced. A few of the    flat's intestines have come out with DOWSER. DOWSER has    made a find - TUTTLE's spare part.                                 SPOOR               What have you got there?                                DOWSER                    (highly excited)               Got there!        DOWSER points to TUTTLE's spare part which is hanging out    of the wall attached to rubber tube. SPOOR examines this    closely. SAM watches alarmed. The TWO MEN go into a    mumbling huddle.                                 SPOOR               Mumble ... mumble ... mumble ...               Tuttle                                DOWSER               Mumble ... Tuttle ...                                 SPOOR               Tuttle! ... mumble!                    (to Sam)               You've had that scab Tuttle here,               haven't you?                                DOWSER               ...aven't you?                                  SAM               What?                                 SPOOR               Who fixed your ducts?                                DOWSER               ...your ducts?                                  SAM               I fixed it myself.                                 SPOOR               Oh yeh? Where'd you get this from eh                    (he holds up Tuttle's spare                    part)               out yer nostril?                                DOWSER               ...Yer nostril?                                 SPOOR               Central Services don't take kindly to               sabotage!                                DOWSER               ...sabotage!        SPOOR and DOWSER and the other workmen gather up their    tools - put them in the bag, grab everything else that    belongs to them and are leaving. SPOOR grabs the form-book    out of SAM's hands, rips out the last page, thrusts that    page at SAM, shoves the book into his bag. The WORKMEN    begin leaving the flat.                                  SAM               Hang on! Wait a minute! You can't               just go and leave it like this!                                 SPOOR                    (mock innocent)               Why not? All you've got to do is blow               yer nose and fix it, haven't you?                                DOWSER               ...ven't you?                                 SPOOR                    (leaving)               You're putting your talents to very               odd use Mr Lowry - yes, odd use - to               pit wits against Central Services -                                DOWSER               ...sod you, stupid twit.        They go, slamming the door behind hem, leaving SAM in the    ruins of his flat.        SAM stands in the maimed sitting-room. Wall panels are    off. Tubes, ducting wires etc. spill out into the room    like greasy intestines. SAM more or less collapses onto a    couch. He stares at the ceiling. The room is gently    hiccoughing and belching around him. He stares at the    print-out of JILL's face. Slowly it dissolves into the    DREAM GIRL.        51  EXT.   CONDUIT FOREST                    NIGHT           51        DREAM GIRL's face fills screen. The camera pulls back to    reveal that she is separated from us by a tangled forest    of conduit/ducting-like vines. SAM is struggling through    the vines, which grab at him, entwine and entangle him.    Finally bursting free he reaches out for the GIRL hovering    before him, But as he embraces her she dissolves in smoke    and he plummet into a void beneath his feet.        52  EXT.   CLOUDS                            NIGHT           52        CUT to SAM plummeting down through dense clouds, his cape    twisting around him. Somehow he manages to wrestle it    clear of his body. Gripping the corners he whips the cape    up and over his head. The wind catches it and fills it out    until it acts as a parachute slowing SAM's descent.    Suddenly the clouds thin out and SAM can see below him.        53  EXT.   STRANGE LANDSCAPE                 ANTI-DAY        53        SAM is heading down towards a barren landscape. Strange    mounds dot the barrenness - they ooze smoke and the    occasional flame. Near one of the mounds are two long    lines of shrouded FIGURES being forced into two giant    cages, suspended beneath two great misshapen balloons. The    black-robed FORCES OF DARKNESS (FOD) surround the    PRISONERS, relentlessly herding them towards the cages.    The entire scene is strangely coloured by unearthly light.    The sky is blood red and where the sun should be is a    black disc. SAM descends on his cape-parachute.        CUT to PRISONERS in their grey shrouds, shuffling towards    the jaws of the brutal cages. They are defeated,    destroyed, without hope. The FOD prod and whip them    forward. One of the FOD raises his spear to force a    stumbling PRISONER to his feet but stops with the spear    raised above his head. He has seen something. Other FODS    turn to see what it is. CUT to SAM landing on the beach -    a short distance away. The PRISONERS stop and look up. We    see their faces clearly for the first time. One of them is    MRS BUTTLE. Others are PEOPLE SAM saw in the flats, and    the KIDS. SAM recognises them. He is slightly taken aback.    A look of determination crosses his face. He draws the    sword. EVERYONE is frozen in place. SAM starts forward.    But he is stopped by a violent tremor as the earth begins    to tremble and shake. EVERYONE looks terrified. With a    mighty roar a crack opens up in the ground between SAM and    the OTHERS. Brilliant rays of light shaft upwards from the    opening. And then, with a maniacal shriek, the large black    flapping thing shoots out of the crevasse and streaks high    into the sky. SAM hesitates and turns to look down into    the light. There, under several meters of the earth's    crust are fluffy white clouds darting about in a beautiful    blue sky. SAM is delighted but as he looks up he is frozen    in his tracks by an enormous FIGURE that straddles the    crevasse. This terrifying CREATURE stands over 12 feet    high. He is encased in a frightening concoction of ancient    Japanese armour which seems on closer examination to he    made of computer parts. His face is hidden behind a    horrific steel mask. It is the GIANT SAMURAI WARRIOR that    was pushing the drawer closed in the Storeroom Of    Knowledge. In his hand is an evil-looking spear. SAM is    unsure which way to turn. The GREY PRISONERS are being    loaded into the cages with more speed. He turns to face    the GIANT WARRIOR. As SAM steps forward the GIANT stands    ominously still. Then very slowly he raises his spear in    an almost religious gesture. POOF! He vanishes. As he does    the light from the day is cut off. Looking down, SAM sees    that he crevasse has vanished as well. Maniacal laughter    from the flapping black thing makes SAM look up to see the    ballooned cage packed with GREY PRISONERS rise up from the    ground and begin to float away escorted by the Black    flapping Thing. SAM rushes after it grabbing one of the    trailing ropes. But as he is hoisted into the air it is    severed by the FODS. He tumbles to the ground. Looking    around he sees that, for some reason, the second ballooned    cage is still tethered nearby. SAM rushes over to it and    begins chopping the tethers away.    The cage bobbles ungainlily as SAM cuts the last    restraining rope. Grabbing hold he is pulled upwards, but    before he can reach the cage something clutches his leg    halting his progress. As he struggles his other leg is    caught. He is being pulled back by two giant hands.    Looking down he can see that from the top of one of the    smoking mounds a head and two giant arms protrude. The    face looks like MR KURTZMAN. SAM desperately clings on to    the rope as he struggles with the restraining hands.                       MR KURTZMAN OF THE MOUND               Don't go! It's a trap! She's not what               she seems.        SAM kicks and strains but the hands hold firm.        54  INT.   SAM'S FLAT                        NIGHT           54        SAM wakes up. His feet are entangled in some wiring and    ducting. He is still in his devastated sitting room. As he    untangles himself the door bell rings. It takes a moment    for SAM to recognise it as the door bell. Annoyed and    still disturbed by the dream he gets up and goes to the    door. He opens it. In bursts a GIRL dressed in a silly    bell-boy costume with lots of glitter, net stockings and    big-bowed tap dancing shoes. She launches into a terrible    song and dance routine.                            GIRL (singing)               Mrs Ida Lowry requests the pleasure                 of your companyyyy                 at her apartment tonight,               from eight thirtyyyy                 midnight               to celebrate the completion                 of her recent cosmetic surgeryyyy               The guest of honour will be                 Mr Conrad Helpmann,               Dep. Under Minister of State                 for Public Information,               R.S.V.P. by singing telegram.        SAM and the GIRL stand looking at each other uneasily for    a moment.                                  SAM               Er ... Thanks ...                                 GIRL               It's reply paid.                                  SAM               Oh ...                    (he sings uncertainly)               Thank you very much, mother, but               actually -                                 GIRL               You don't have to sing it.                                  SAM               Oh, right ...        The GIRL begins to dance again - but this time in a rather    strange strangled fashion.                                  SAM                    (he looks at his watch)               Aren't you a bit late? - the party               started half an hour ago.                                 GIRL               Yes, I know. It's the backlog,               everybody complains. Was it all right               otherwise?                                  SAM               Yes, it was ... very nice ... thank               you.                                 GIRL               Do you mind if I use your bathroom?        55  INT.   MOTHER' S CORRIDOR                NIGHT           55        SAM rings the doorbell to his mother's flat. He is    wearing. an unstylish tuxedo and bow tie - obviously his    only dress outfit. The door is opened by a LIVERIED FLUNKY    who's about to speak when an attractive 40-year old    woman's face appears over his shoulder and addresses SAM    over the threshold.                                 WOMAN               Sam, I'm so glad you came. Do come               in.        56  INT.   MOTHER'S FLAT                     NIGHT           56        SAM steps inside, where the flunky proceeds to search him.    The place is full of sleek people - smartly but less    formally dresses than SAM. It is an elegant baroque room -    lavishly appointed but still violated by the ubiquitous    Central Service ducts that thrust through antique    tapestries and gilt mirrors with little regard for    aesthetics or the interior decorator's feelings.                                  SAM                    (bewildered)               Mother? Is that you?                                MOTHER                    (taking his arm - looking                    slightly askance at his                    clothes)               Of course. Isn't it wonderful? The               bandages came of this afternoon. Come               and join the fun. Everybody's here.                                  SAM               Is Mr Helpmann here?                                MOTHER               Yes he is - he wants to talk to you.                                  SAM               I want to talk to him.        SAM pushes away the FLUNKY who is by now passing a metal    detector over him.                                MOTHER               It seems you're the first person ever               to turn down a promotion. He thinks               you should see a doctor.                                  SAM               Actually, I've decided ...        DR JAFFE hoves into view.                                MOTHER               Oh, Louis! You know Sam.        DR JAFFE is no longer suave. He has been transformed by    drink and success. Mostly by drink.                               DR JAFFE                    (as high as a kite)               Can you believe it?! Just me and my               little knife! Snip - snip - slice -               slice - Can you believe it?                                  SAM                    (repelled)               Congratulations ...                               DR JAFFE               And this is just the beginning!!                                  SAM               Really?                               DR JAFFE               Chirst yes, you've seen her with her               clothes off. Faces are a doddle               compared to tits and arse.                    (explains)               No hairline.                                MOTHER                    (primly)               Really, Louis.        A handsome young piece of BEEFCAKE delivers a drink to    MOTHER.                               BEEFCAKE               I've been looking everywhere for you,               Ida.        The BEEFCAKE takes MOTHER away.                               DR JAFFE               Ah, dear boy ... And what do you               think of your mother now?                          VOICE (off camera)               It will never last.        SAM and DR JAFFE turn to see who is speaking. It is DR    CHAPMAN a tall, pipe-smoking, professional-looking gent.                               DR JAFFE                    (a trifle haughtily)               Excuse me, Dr Chapman, did you say               something?                              DR CHAPMAN               That technique ... I've tried it. A               nice effect. But highly unstable. In               six months she'll look like Grandma               Moses.        SAM wishing to escape from this bitchery turns away but    suddenly freezes - the reflection in the large wall mirror    next to him is not that of the party guests - but of the    GREY PRISONERS in his dream - they are massed in the room    looking pleadingly towards him.                               DR JAFFE                    (unsuave again)               Now see here, Chapman. At least mine               don't look like they've been mugged.        Through the GREY PRISONERS pushes MRS TERRAIN.                              MRS TERRAIN                    (calls)               Sam!        SAM turns around to see her pushing through the party    guests.        MRS TERRAIN is limping and is even more heavily swathed in    bandages than the last time.        DR CHAPMAN hastily moves away as MRS TERRAIN comes up. She    claims SAM, taking his arm.                                  SAM                    (looking at her worriedly)               Whatever happened to you?                              MRS TERRAIN               There was a slight complication. Dr.               Chapman says it often happens with a               delicate skin like mine. Nothing to               worry about. He's promised me I'll               have these bandages off in a ...                                                             SAM                    (trying to disengage)               Actually, there's someone I want to               meet ...                              MRS TERRAIN                    (roguishly)               I know, I know ...!                   She drags SAM through the party and we arrive at her    daughter, SHIRLEY, who is, of course, a wallflower.                              MRS TERRAIN               Here we are! I'm going to leave you               two lovebirds in peace.                                  SAM               I ... uh ...        But he is alone with SHIRLEY, standing at the entrance to    his MOTHER's embarrassingly rampant boudoir style bedroom.    In amongst the diaphanous curtains enclosing the bed    MOTHER is playing hide and seek with a YOUNG STUD.                                  SAM               Can I get you a drink, Shirley?        SHIRLEY looks at him terrified.                                  SAM               Look ... Shirley ... your mother ...               and my mother ... they seem to have               got the idea ... I mean, I'm terribly               flattered, of course, but, um, the               thing is, I don't want you to be               under any false ...                                                           SHIRLEY                    {struggling into speech                    shyly)               It's ... it's ... all right ... I               don't like you either ...        This isn't what SAM expected. He smiles weakly at her.                          VOICE (off camera)               Sam!        SAM turns round, to see JACK LINT a few paces away.                                  SAM               Hello, Jack!                                 JACK               You remember Alison?        He indicates his cute blonde perfect junior executive's    WIFE                                  SAM               Hello, Alison. You look different.                                ALISON               Well, I'm two years older.                                 JACK               And she's been to Dr. Jaffe!        ALISON locks displeased.                                 JACK                    {winking at Sam)               She doesn't like me telling anyone               but she's pleased as anything really.                                  SAM               Er, I knew you looked different.                                                            JACK               Remember how they used to stick out?                                  SAM               What? - Oh, yes - vividly. I used to               wonder if they were real.                                ALISON               What, my ears?                                  SAM               Your ears?                                 JACK               Dr. Jaffe has pinned her ears back.                                  SAM                    (covering up hopelessly)               Quite, absolutely - I always thought               they were false.                                 JACK                    (looking past Sam)               Mr Helpmann!        SAM spins round and sees a very pleasant-looking    distinguished OLD MAN moving in their direction. He is in    a wheelchair.                               HELPMANN               Hello, Jack.                                 JACK               You remember my wife ... Alis -                               HELPMANN               Of course. Barbara isn't it? How are               you?                            ALISON               Um ...                                 JACK                    (instantly. Conveying to                    Alison that she mustn't                    object)               Barbara's very well, thank you, sir.               How are you?                               HELPMANN               Fine, thank you. Hello, Sam. Ida said               you might be here. Have you got a               minute?                    (to Jack)               Would you excuse us?        JACK is taken aback, envious and eager to please.                                 JACK               Of course .... of course ... Come on               Alison - Barbara        JACK propels his WIFE away.        HELPMANN I need your help, Sam.        57  INT.   BATHROOM                          NIGHT           57        It's the sort of bathroom you would expect of MOTHER, an    adjunct to her boudoir. The pink or purple lavatory is in    the process of flushing, while SAM holds MR HELPMANN    vertical, grasping him under the armpits, while MR    HELPMANN is zipping his fly.                               HELPMANN               Thanks very much Sam.                                  SAM               That's all right Mr Helpmann. Glad to               help.        He is lowering HELPMANN into the wheelchair.                               HELPMANN               If I can help you ...                                  SAM                    (broaching the subject)               Well, I ...        In maneuvering HELPMANN SAM clumsily knocks over one of    the pretty pots which fussily decorate MOTHER's bathroom    shelf. A thin layer of powder is spread over the wash-    stand.                                  SAM               Sorry ...                               HELPMANN               Your father and I were very close. Of               course Jeremiah was senior to me but               we were close friends ... especially               after the bombing                    (he indicates his legs)               and I                    (chuckles)               keep his name alive at the office               every day.        With his finger HELPMANN is tracing letters in the    powdered surface.                               HELPMANN               It's as though he's there speaking to               me - "'ere I am, J.H.!" The ghost in               the machine.        We see that HELPMANN has traced the letters EREIAMJH in    the powder.                               HELPMANN               I know he would have wanted me to               help you ... And I promised your               mother I'd take you onto the team at               information Retrieval. But I gather               that ...                                  SAM               Mr Helpmann. I've changed my mind.               I'd like to accept the transfer - am               I too late?                               HELPMANN               Too late? That's for me to say.                                                             SAM               Well ... well, I ...        HELPMANN puts out his hand. SAM takes it.                               HELPMANN               Welcome to Information Retrieval!        HELPMANN blows away the spilled powder and EREIAMJH with    it.    Scene 58 deleted                               Scene 58 deleted59  INT. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LOBBY         DAY             59        CUT to WIDE SHOT of massive imposing lobby - much like the    Records lobby - but this one is very austere. No crowds.    No statues. No decoration. Not even the ever-present    security checks. Impressive. And a bit unnerving. Framed    in the doorway is a lone TINY FIGURE. CUT to CLOSE UP.    It's SAM. He hesitates and then enters. CUT to video    screen. The video camera follows SAM across the lobby -    til he stops in tight profile at Reception Desk. We tilt    up revealing SAM standing facing us just beyond the    monitor which is on the desk.                                  SAM                    (diffidently to the porter)               My name is Sam Lowry. I have to               report to Mr Warren.                                PORTER                    (looking down his nose at                    Sam's unsleek clerk's suit                    and then handing him an                    I.D. badge)               Thirtieth floor, sir. You're               expected.                                  SAM               Er, don't you want to search me?                                PORTER               No, sir.                                  SAM                    (taken aback. Reaching into                    his pocket)               My I.D. cards.                                PORTER               No need, sir                                  SAM                    (nonplussed)               But I could be anybody.                                PORTER               No you couldn't, sir. This is               Information Retrieval.                    (indicating to the right)               the lift's arrived, sir.        60  INT.   30TH FLOOR CORRIDOR               DAY             60        SAM steps out of the lift.The lift doors close. SAM looks    up and down the corridor hearing nothing. Silence. Then    he, and we, begin to hear a sound. It is a curious    whirring murmuring tummeling sound, and it seems to be    growing closer. Suddenly a scrum of PEOPLE swings into    view around a corner at the far end of the rather long    corridor. At the centre of the scrum is a TALL MAN with a    magisterial expression and an air of eternal bustle. This    is MR WARREN. He is surrounded by the EXPEDITERS who are    competing for his attention with bits of paper and bits of    sentences. MR WARREN is snapping out decisions. Satisfied    EXPEDITERS drop out of the scrum at intervals,    disappearing one at a time through one of the many doors    which line both sides of the corridor.The scrum doesn't    get any smaller because new EXPEDITERS dart out of other    doors and join the milling MOB. The whole circus is coming    by SAM at the rate of knots. The sound it makes breaks    down into something like this.                              EXPEDITER 1                    (waving pager)               Mr Warren, this order ...                              EXPEDITER 2                    (waving same)               Mr Warren ...                              EXPEDITER 3                    (ditto)               About this invoice ... Victim's list               ...                                WARREN                    (dealing on all sides)               Yes ... No ... send that back ...               wrong department ... of course ... of               course not ... yes ... no ... maybe.        CUT to SAM watching this caravanserai with awe as it    starts pass him.                              EXPEDITER 4               ... about these requisitions ...                              EXPEDITER 5               Mr Warren ... EX/27 has 15 suspects               still outstanding.                              EXPEDITER 6               ... a decision, Mr Warren ...                                WARREN               ... cancel that ... okay ... put half               as terrorists, the rest as victims               ... yes ... yes ... no ... definitely               no ...        SAM doesn't have the nerve to jump into this. The scrum    sweeps by and fades away along the corridor, and finally    disappearing around the corner at the other end. SAM    follows. Silence has descended again.        61  INT.   CORRIDOR                          DAY             61        SAM gets to the corner of the corridor and finds a similar    corridor at right angles. He hesitates and continues. Then    he starts to hear the sound again. It is coming up from    behind. MR WARREN has circumnavigated the building. The    same sort of business is being enacted at the same pace.    As the scrum reaches SAM he gathers his nerve and jumps    right in beside WARREN, and keeps going.                                  SAM                    (in a hurry)               I'm Lowry, Mr Warren ... Sam Lowry.                                WARREN                    (putting arm around Sam)               Ah. Lowry ... yes.                    (still dealing with                    Expediters)               ... no, cancel that ... glad to have               you aboard ... yes ... no ... don't               be ridiculous Jenkins ... Yes, yes,               yes ... you'll like it up here ...               send that back ... we've got a crack               team of ... are they kidding? ...               decision makers ... No, in triplicate               ... I'm expecting big things ... two               copies to Finance ... of you ... send               that to Security ... uh, uh, uh.                    (poring over forms)               Uh, don't let Progress see this ...               between you and me, Lowry, this ...               no, no ... department ... tell               Records to get stuffed ... is about               to be upgraded and ...        WARREN suddenly pivots around, swinging SAM 240 degrees in    the direction they came from plus a bit.                                WARREN               Ah, here we are!                    (they are standing facing a                    door - one of the hundreds                    of identical doors lining                    these corridors)               What do you think?        The door says: OFFICER DZ/015.        SAM has no idea what he ought to say.                                WARREN                    (solemnly)               Your very own number... on your very               own door ... and behind that door                    (he turns the knob and                    opens the door)               ... your very own office.               Congratulations, DZ/015, welcome to               the team.        WARREN whirls off in a flurry of paperwork and EXPEDITERS    leaving SAM standing dumfounded at the entrance to his    office.        CUT to SAM's POV of the office. It is about four feet    wide. A small blacked-out window high on the far wall is    bisected by what looks like a recently constructed side    wall. The room is bare except for a chair and a desk which    is also bisected by the new wall. Pneumatic tubes hang    from the ceiling. SAM slowly enters the room.        62  INT.   SAM'S OFFICE                      DAY             62        SAM looks lost ... disoriented. He doesn't know where to    begin because there's nothing to begin with. He squeezes    in behind his desk and for want of anything else to do    starts arranging his "in" and "out" baskets. There in his    "in" basket is one of the ubiquitous executive toys -    gaily wrapped with a card from HELPMANN - Merry Xmas &    Welcome. SAM can't quite believe. He returns to lining up    his pencils, placing a couple of bocks (phone books)    against the wall on the left extreme of his desk. SAM    turns his attention away from the books when suddenly they    both fall over with a "plop". Puzzled, he stands the books    up again, turns his eyes away and "plop". Same result.    Intrigued, a bit exasperated, SAM carefully, and before    his very eyes, the desk begins to disappear into the wall,    and "plop", the books topple over. Puzzled, SAM grabs hold    of the desk and begins to try to pull it back through the    wall. The desk moves back an inch or so, but then stops,    somehow held stubbornly. SAM grits his teeth, reallllly    pulls, grimacing a bit, but the desk won't budge.    Intrigued, SAM gets up, goes around his desk and heads for    the door.        63  INT.   CORRIDOR                          DAY             63        Cut to SAM coming out of his office, turning right and    walking to the next door, the nameplate of which reads:    OFFICER DV/048.        As is his custom, SAM opens the door without knocking.        63a INT.   LIME'S OFFICE                     DAY            63a        CUT to SAM'S POV. Here is an office much like his. It's    the other half of his room bisected by the partition wall.    The other half of his desk is occupied by a slimy looking,    round-headed little JUNIOR EXECUTIVE wholly occupied with    trying to drag a bit more of the desk into his office. He    is unaware of SAM.                                  SAM               Hello.        LIME startled, lets go of his desk and vents his    irritation on SAM whom he mistakes for someone else.                                 LIME               No, you can't have any more chairs!               There's only one left in here now,               and I need that to sit on!                    (realizing his mistake)               Oh ... er, sorry. Who are you?                                  SAM               Sam Lowry.                                 LIME                    (becoming unctuous)               Ah, yes, you're the new boy from next               door, ha ha!                    (he advances toward Sam                    with hand out to shake.                    Shaking hands)               My name's Lime. Harvey Lime. Welcome               to Expediting.                                  SAM               Ah.                    (he pauses - looking                    around)               Would you mind if I borrowed your               computer console?                                 LIME               What?                                  SAM               I'll bring it back in ten minutes.                                 LIME               You want to take my console into your               office?                                  SAM               Yes.                                 LIME                    (after a moment's                    consideration)               I'll tell you what .... You tell me               what and I'll do it for. I'm a bit of               a whizz on this thing.                    (indicates computer                    console)        SAM hesitates, but sees that there's no other way.                                  SAM                    (taking print-out on Jill                    from his pocket)               Alright. There's someone I want to               check out. A woman called Gillian               Layton.                                 LIME                    (leering)               A woman eh? I see.                                  SAM                    (trying to ignore this)               I know her age and distinguishing               marks. But I need an address or a               place of work or something                                 LIME                    (continuing to leer)               This is your dream girl, is it?                                  SAM                    (taken aback)               What?                    (recovering)               Look, let me use the console for a               few minutes.                                 LIME                    (trying to be jocular)               You must be joking -                    (entirely unconvincing)               When there's a woman involved -               there's no stopping me. Now, let me               have that sheet.        He takes Jill's print-out sheet from SAM and begins to    punch the keys laboriously with one finger. Nothing    happens.                                 LIME               Sod it, it's broken!                                  SAM               You haven't switched it on.                                 LIME               Oh - yes. Look you're putting me off,               standing there! Go back to your               office and I'll give you a knock when               I've finished.        SAM hesitates, but goes.                                 LIME               Go on. I'm not going to elope with               her.        SAM exits.        64  INT.   SAM'S OFFICE                      DAY             64        SAM is sitting in his office listening to the protracted    one finger exercise which is going on next door. He stares    dumbly at the shining, absolutely useless, executive toy.        65  EXT.   ICY SEA                           ANTI-DAY        65        The CAMERA skims along over an icy sea. This is SAM'S POV    as he wings his way over the water with his new gleaming    wings. In the distance rises a strange massive ship.        As he gets closer we can see that the snip is listing    heavily to one side. In fact it is barely afloat. Closer    still, it becomes apparent that the ship is made of stone.    Dark, evil, grey blocks of granite form not only the hull,    but the super-structures and smokestacks. It looks like a    massive medieval fortress gone to sea. The screen is    engulfed in stone. The CAMERA heads up the side of the    ship. Higher and higher we climb - past course after    course of mammoth stones. Reaching the first deck, we    continue upwards. There appears to be no entrance. SAM is    looking frustrated and angry. But then he spots an    opening. A few stones have come loose - one of them juts    out forming a ledge. As the cage passes, SAM jumps and    managed to gain a foothold on the outcropping. Squeezing    thru the gap in the rocks, he makes his way thru a dark    passage. Emerging from the opening he finds himself    teetering over an enormous abyss formed by the outer hull    and the inner stone core of the ship. Great stone ribs    curve downwards thru the darkness broken only by narrow    shafts of brilliant light streaming from occasional cracks    and fissures in the stone core. For a brief moment SAM    gets a glimpse of blue sky thru one of the openings but    his attention is distracted by a distant moan. Huddled far    below him at the bottom of the dark abyss are hundreds of    grey shrouded PRISONERS. Their moan blends with the creaks    and groans of the stones as the ship slowly wallows back    and forth. Suddenly a great boom resounds throughout the    ship. SAM is unsure where it comes from. And then another    boom reverberates about him. He has to steady himself as    the ship quivers from the noise. Another book. He clutches    at the wall.        66  INT.   SAM'S OFFICE                      DAY            66        SAM's head is leaning against the wall of his office. The    boom repeats. LIME is knocking on the other side. SAM    leaps up. As he leaves his office he looks back to see the    desk creep through to LIME's office a little bit more.    67  INT.   LIME'S OFFICE                     DAY             67    SAM enters. LIME is standing, proudly holding out a sheet    of paper.                                 LIME               Computers are my forte.                                  SAM                    (reading)               Gillian Layton, age twenty three,               eyes, blue, hair, black, weight, one               hundred and twenty-one pounds,               distinguishing marks, blemish on               right shoulder, scar on left elbow        He stops, having come to the end. He looks at the other    side of the paper but there's nothing there.        Is this all you got?                                 LIME               It's a start isn't it.                              SAM                    (disbelieving)               But I already knew this!                                            LIME               Best to take it slowly where some               women are concerned.        SAM sits on LIME's chair and deftly punches the computer    keys.                                 LIME               Hey - that's my desk!                                  SAM                    (working quickly)               Gillian Layton - Suspect S/5173.               Truck driver! All enquiries,               reference officer 412/L - Room 5001.                    (switching off the machine                    and getting up)               That's what I wanted to know. Thank               you very much.        68  INT.   CORRIDOR                          DAY            68        SAM heads off down corridor. WARREN & CO. appear.                                WARREN               Ah, Lowry, glad I caught you ...                    (he continues to deal with                    expediters in between                    dealing with Sam)               No, send it back for ... Are you               settling down? ... I want this order               rescinded ... There's a query on a               personnel transporter you took out               from the pool ... Tell them no, tell               them yes, ... or was it a personnel               carrier you took out from               transportation ... Send that up to               Security ... Some kind of eight-wheel-               half-track, was it? ... Tell him I               want to see him ... Send round the               paperwork, Lowry ... Arrange a               conference on that one ... Anyway,               tidy it up, Lowry, there's a good               chap - get a new suit. Did you want               the lift?        The cavalcade is passing the lifts. SAM backs away into    the open lift. The cavalcade passes on out of sight. The    lift contains a CHARLADY with a bucket and mop. She    remains in the lift as SAM joins her.        69  INT.   THE LIFT                          69        SAM presses the button for the 50th floor. The lift doors    close on him and the CHARLADY. From somewhere far away    there is the groaning shriek of a man in pain. SAM glances    around the lift. There appears to be an air conditioning    vent in the ceiling.        SAM glances enquiringly at the CHARLADY who merely smiles    at him. Another scream is heard.                                  SAM               What's that?        The CHARLADY smiles again.                   Doesn't that disturb you?        The CHARLADY fiddles with something in her ears and pulls    out a pair of wax earplugs.                               CHARLADY               Beg your pardon?        The lift arrives.        70  INT.   50TH FLOOR CORRIDOR               DAY             70        The lift arrives. SAM steps out. The CHARLADY remains in    the lift. The doors close. SAM heads down surgically clean    white-tiled corridor.        Passing a white-coated TECHNICIAN monitoring what appears    to be electric meters, SAM comes to a door with 5001.    Above the door a red light is glowing. SAM knocks. The red    light goes out and a green light comes on. SAM enters.        71  INT.   ROOM 500l                         DAY             71        Inside there is a connecting door to he next door room but    the only person in the immediate room is a pleasant-    looking FEMALE typist, wearing headphones, chewing gum and    typing with great facility. SAM approaches the TYPIST who,    busily typing, twinkles a greeting (mimed) and silently    mouths the words ...                                TYPIST               It won't be long now.                    (she carries on typing)                        SAM nods, and stands quietly by her. He can hear tiny    sounds coming through her headphones. He looks down at the    piece of paper in the typewriter. He reacts a bit    strangely, perhaps even winces. We see he close up of the    words being struck crisply on paper.                             ON TYPEWRITER               AHHHH, Oh God ... No, don't ... UHH,               please ... I ... STOP!! I can't stand               ... AIIEEEE.                                TYPIST                    (quietly, still typing)               Can I help you?        She is looking at SAM helpfully, holding one of the    earphones away from her ear. From this earphone we can    just hear quietly ...                               EARPHONE               Oooooooh ... aaaaaahhh ... please ...               arrrrrghhhh no ... please ... Oh God,               No ... No, stop, I don't know ...                                  SAM               I'm looking for Officer 412/L.        The TYPIST nods smiling. She puts back the earphone and    carries on typing.                                TYPIST               I'm sure he won't be long now.        She types a little more but suddenly stops.                             I thought so!        She takes off the earphones and takes the paper and    carbonums out of her typewriter and starts collating all    the different copies.        Through the frosted glass door leading into the next area,    SAM can see a FIGURE come through a double door and turn    left, making a silly 'hi' sign to the TYPIST as he exits    from sight. She is charmed. Almost immediately after them,    a white-coated TECHNICIAN exits, but to the left.                                TYPIST               You can go in now.        72  INT.   JACK'S OFFICE                     DAY            72        SAM goes through the glass door and is about to push open    the double doors in front of him. He is halted by a noise    from the TYPIST - she indicates that he is to go to the    left. He does so and enters an office. An antique desk    with a large collection of executive toys and other    tastefully reassuring furniture fill the room which is a    rather oddly shaped ... distorted as it by the curved wall    of the much larger room that SAM was stopped from    entering. Nevertheless the feel of the room is confidently    successful. A buzzing noise draws SAM's attention to the    wash basin in the far corner. The Information Retrieval    TECHNICIAN is standing by a sink massing his temples with    old-fashioned scalp vibrators. His back to us.                                  SAM               Excuse me. Are you officer 412/L?        The TECHNICIAN makes no sign of having heard this. He    continues vibrating his temples.                                  SAM                    (a bit louder)               Er, excuse me!        Getting no response SAM walks over to the TECHNICIAN. As    he passes the desk he notices a strange mask lying face    down on the desk top. It seems strangely familiar - but as    it is a negative concave image SAM isn't sure. He    continues over to the TECHNICIAN.                                  SAM                    (louder)               Excuse me.        He touches the TECHNICIAN on the shoulder, who jumps with    a start. He spins around and turns out to be none other    than JACK LINT. He is amazed to see SAM.                                  SAM                    (surprised)               Jack!!                                 JACK                    (recovering slightly)               SAM! What a surprise!                                  SAM                    (even more surprised)               Are you officer 412/L?        JACK looks confused. He pauses, and then removes ear    plugs.                                 JACK                    (shaking Sam's hand)               Sorry about that ... Mr Helpmann told               me you were coming aboard -               congratulations!                                  SAM               Thanks. Are you officer 412/L?                                 JACK               For my sins. Are you settling in               alright?                                  SAM               Yes, thanks.                                 JACK               Terrific. I'm really glad you dropped               by. Unfortunately, I don't have any               time right now I've got a queue of               customers to deal with - er, why               don't we have a drink tonight?                                  SAM                     (diffidently)               Ah ...                                 JACK               What?                                  SAM               I don't want to take up your time               now, but I was hoping you could give               me some information on somebody. It's               a security level three matter and               Information Retrieval records says to               refer to you.                                 JACK               OK. Come back this afternoon, about               four o'clock. If you give me the               number of the case, I'll have the               dossier here waiting.                    (he pulls card from his                    pocket - pushes it towards                    Sam)               My tailor,... well worth the               investment.                                  SAM                    (taking print-out sheets                    from his pocket)               I've got numbers all over these - I'm               not sure which is the one you want.                                 JACK                    (looking at the print-out                    picture of Jill over Sam's                    shoulder)               Layton! Oh shit!                                  SAM               What is it?                                 JACK               You clever bastard! I might have               guessed. You only moved in today and               you're already hot on the bloody               trail.                                  SAM    Am I?                                 JACK    Please, Sam, we're going to have to be open to each other    on this one. If you make a reputation with this case,    it'll be at my expense.                                  SAM               How do you mean?                                 JACK               How much do you know?                                  SAM               Not much.                                 JACK               Enough though, eh?                                  SAM                    (getting sucked into this                    exchange)               Not really, no.        JACK goes over to the sink and turns on the taps full    blast, splashing the water noisily into the basin.                                 JACK               OK. OK. Let's not fence around ...               This is the situation. Some idiot               somewhere in the building, some               insect, confused two of our clients,               B58/732 and T47/215.                                  SAM               B58/732, that's A. Buttle isn't it?                                 JACK               Christ! You do know it all!                                  SAM               No, no, I don't. I'm just beginning               Honestly. Sorry, carry on.                                 JACK               Well, your A. Buttle has been               confused with T47/215, an A. Tuttle.               I mean, it's a joke! Somebody should               be shot for that. So B58/732 was               pulled in by mistake.                                  SAM               You got the wrong man.                                 JACK                    (a little heated)               I did not get the wrong man. I got               the right man. The wrong man was               delivered to me as the right man! I               accepted him, on trust, as the right               man. Was I wrong? Anyway, to add to               the confusion, he died on us. Which,               had he been the right man, he               wouldn't have done.                                  SAM               You killed him?                                 JACK                    (annoyed)               Sam, there are very rigid parameters               laid down to avoid that event but               Buttle's heart condition did not               appear on Tuttle's file. Don't think               I'm dismissing this business, Sam.               I've lost a week's sleep over it               already.                                                             SAM               I'm sure you have                                 JACK               There are some real bastards in this               department who don't mind breaking a               few eggs to make an omelette, but               thank God there are the new boys like               me who want to maintain decent               civilized standards of terrorist               eradication. We've got the upper hand               for the moment, but they're waiting               for us to slip up, and a little slip-               up like this is just the chance               they're looking for.                                  SAM               So how ...?                                 JACK               What I've got to do now is pick up               Tuttle, interrogate him at the same               voltage as Buttle, to the same meter               reading to the last penny, and juggle               the books in electrical banking.                                  SAM               What has Tuttle done?                                 JACK               We suspect him of freelance               subversion.                                  SAM                    (dumbly)               He's a freelance subversive?                                 JACK               He's a compulsive heating engineer. A               maverick ex-Central Service repair               man with a grudge against society.               Now, fortunately, we're nearly out of               the wood, I think. At least we will               be when I get this Layton woman under               arrest.        JACK turns off taps and goes behind screen.                                  SAM                    (agitated)               What's she done?                                 JACK               You didn't know as much about this               business as you pretended to, did               you?                                  SAM               Er ... no.                                 JACK               Very smart.                                  SAM               Er ... but I would've found out               anyway.                                 JACK               Yes. I'm impressed.                                  SAM                    (playing the game)               Tell me about Layton.                                 JACK               She witnessed the Tuttle arrest - the               Buttle arrest - and since then she's               been making wild allegations,               obviously trying to exploit the               situation - she's working for               somebody, and she's not working for               us.                                  SAM               A terrorist?        JACK comes from behind the screen with a look confirming    just what SAM fears, and hands him a suit.                                  SAM               Ah ... thanks.        SAM begins to put the suit on.                                  SAM                    (hesitantly)               But surely, I mean, perhaps she just               happened to live above the Buttles,               and ...                                 JACK                    (picking up photograph of                    wife and kids from his                    desk)               Look after that suit, eh. Barbara               chose it for me.                                  SAM               Right. Er, you're not going to keep               calling her Barbara, are you?                                 JACK               Barbara's a perfectly good name,               isn't it?                                  SAM                    (preferring to let his                    drop)               Look, about the Layton woman - maybe               she's just trying to help the Buttle               family.                                 JACK               Why?                                  SAM               Why? Hell, not for any reason ...                                 JACK                    {baffled)               I don't follow you.                                  SAM               Out of kindness.                                 JACK                    (utterly baffled)               Kindness? What's the purpose behind               this line of enquiry?                                  SAM                    (deciding to abandon this                    line of country)               So what are you going to do about               her?                                 JACK               Get her out of circulation - I've put               her on the detention list.                                  SAM                    (thinking fast)               You mean you're going to invite her               in so that she can spill the beans               inside the department?                                 JACK                    (taken aback)               Well, I ... Good point. What do you               suggest?                                  SAM               Let me try to get to her. I'll               deactivate her.                                 JACK               What does that mean? I don't want to               be involved in anything unsavoury.                                  SAM               Trust me. You do trust me, don't you?                                 JACK               Of course. We went to school               together. You're my oldest friend.                                  SAM               And you're mine.                                 JACK               You're the only person I can trust.                                  SAM               Then we'd better keep this business               just between the two of us.                                 JACK               Right! Just between as and the               Security Forces.                                  SAM               They weren't at school with us.                                 JACK               But, I've already put her on the               search and detain list.                                  SAM               Take her off the list.                                 JACK               There's no procedure for that until               she's been arrested.                                  SAM               Say it was a mistake.                                 JACK               We don't make mistakes.                                  SAM               Well, I'd better get out there and               try to get to her before security               does. Let me borrow her dossier for a               while.                                 JACK               Er ... alright. For Christ's sake               don't lose it. Here, you'd better               sign for it.        JACK presents SAM with something to sign. He then gives    him the dossier.                                  SAM               Thanks, Jack. I'll be in touch.                                 JACK               Do you know what you're doing.                                  SAM                    (about to say no, then                    pauses)               Trust me.                                 JACK                    (admiring Sam's new look)               Sam ... we're proud to have you at               Information Retrieval. Merry Xmas.                    (he hands Sam another                    executive package)        73  INT.   CORRIDOR                          DAY            73        SAM steps out of Room 5001, newly suited with old suit    over arm. TWO GUARDS are guiding a BAGGEE down the    corridor ahead of him. Suddenly, the BAGGEE breaks away    from his GUARDS and begins to cannonball down the corridor    directly at SAM. SAM is flattened against the wall as the    BAGGEE rockets by.        CUT to GUARDS strolling past SAM.    CUT to BAGGEE running full tilt to the end of the    corridor, smashing into the wall, bouncing back, getting    up (now cross-ways in the corridor), bouncing off that    wall, then the wall behind him, then ...        74  INT.   LIFT                              DAY            74        Slightly unnerved, SAM gets in the lift, pushes the button    for his floor - the 30th - and immediately begins perusing    JILL's dossier. The lift descends. But unnoticed by SAM    continued past his floor without stopping. It stops at the    Lobby Mezzanine. SAM looks up and realizes he is on the    wrong floor. Angrily he pushes the correct floor number    but before the doors close he hears an angry woman's voice    echoing through the massive lobby. He looks in the    direction of the porters desk. There stands JILL arguing    with the PORTER.                                 JILL               But you've stamped this form before!               Why won't you stamp it now?                                PORTER               You've just said yourself, Miss,               we've already stamped it. Why should               we stamp it twice?        SAM is frozen. He can't believe what he sees. The lift    doors close. SAM is too slow to stop them. Madly he pushes    the buttons - to no effect. The lift descends. (At this    point we had better describe the lift. It is a cross    between the old metal grille lifts with accordion grille    doors and the super-sleek modern lifts that rise and fall    in glass tubes so that one can have panoramic views of    dramatic architectural spaces such as the lobbies of the    Ministry.)        SAM can see JILL and if JILL were to look up she could see    SAM descending. He is shouting and rattling the bars of    the lift cage but no sound escapes to catch her attention.    SAM sinks below the floor of the lobby desperately trying    to stop the demon lift. From his POV we see JILL    disappearing from view still arguing with the PORTER.        75  INT.   BASEMENT                          DAY            75        The lift comes to rest. SAM is still trying to get it to    respond and return him to the lobby. TWO TECHNICIANS are    waiting as the doors open. From SAM's POV he sees them    hang a sign on the door and walk away. He bangs the    buttons for another moment with no result. He looks out of    the lift and is able to read the sign - "LIFT OUT OF    ORDER". Frantically he looks around for another lift. All    the others are on distant floors - then he spots one off    to one side, its doors standing open. Rushing over to it    he leaps inside and reaches to push the floor number - but    there are no numbers on the buttons, only letters. Before    he can sort this out a voice shouts at him.                                 VOICE               Hey, you - get out of there.        A GUARD approaches looking tough and mean.                                 GUARD               What do you think you're doing ...               that's the Deputy Minister's lift.                                  SAM               Sorry, I'm in a hurry.                                 GUARD               Hold on, sonny ... let's see your               I.D.        SAM fumbles through his pockets desperate to get back to    the lobby before JILL leaves. He has forgotten he is    wearing his new I.D. badge. The GUARD can't see it because    JILL's dossier is covering it.                                  SAM               Shit ... it's here somewhere. My               name's Lowry, Sam Lowry - Expediting               ... can't this wait?                                 GUARD               No, sir ...                    (getting out book of forms)               I'm going to have to file a report on               this. Now ... what date is it               today?...        SAM gives up trying to find his I.D. card.                                  SAM                    (frantic)               Sorry, it'll have to wait.        He runs off - dropping suit - towards some stairs he has    spotted.                                 GUARD               Stop!! Come back!        He starts to run after SAM. TWO OTHER GUARDS also give    chase.        75a INT.   STAIRS                            DAY           75a        SAM scrambles up the stairs. GUARDS in pursuit.        76  INT.   BASEMENT                          DAY            76        The original GUARD rushes over to a guard desk and inserts    key into cover of what is clearly an alarm button.        77  INT.   STAIRS                            DAY             77        SAM still running.        78  INT.   LOBBY                             DAY             78        JILL is still arguing with PORTER.                                 JILL                    (sweetly)               You're a stupid, fat arsed,               obstructive, fascist moron aren't               you?                                PORTER               If you say so.                                 JILL               You think these are tits don't you?                                PORTER               Ah.                                 JILL               I bet you'd like to touch them?                                PORTER               Oh.                                 JILL               Well don't. You're looking at twenty               pounds of high explosive! And if you               don't stamp this form I'm going to               blow the place up!        JILL thumps the desk with her fist.        79  INT.   BASEMENT                          DAY             79        The GUARD throws the alarm switch.        80  INT.   LOBBY                             DAY            80        Alarm bells start ringing and from secret doors heavily    armed GUARDS leap out, their guns trained on JILL as she    appears to be the only person around.                                 GUARD                    (shouting)               DROP IT!!        JILL has only the form in her hand - which she dutifully    drops. She is terrified by the suddenness and size of the    response to her hitting the desk. The GUARDS close in.        SAM rushes out of the door leading to the stairs. He can't    believe the sight that greets him. He responds    instinctively,                                  SAM               STOP! Let her go!        He rushes over to the Porter's desk just as the GUARDS    behind him come through the door. He doesn't have a clue    what he is going to do but, as he reaches the group of    GUARDS they snap attention. Confused he looks around and    then realizes his I.D. badge, is on his lapel and the    GUARDS are responding as trained. The GUARDS chasing him    screech to a halt when they see the others snapping to    attention. Everyone looks confused, embarrassed, hesitant    to make the next move. SAM breaks the silence.                                  SAM               Well done ... uh ... excellent work               ... quick thinking. I'll take charge               of her now ...        Realising he has JILL's dossier, he shows it to everyone -    her print-out pictures are on the front page.    It's a classified matter ... I'll include your fine    handling of the situation in my report        SAM is suddenly aware he is still holding the executive    toy present - he hands it to the PORTER.                                  SAM                    (grabbing Jill)               Come with me, please.        He hustles her towards the door.        81  EXT.   INFORMATION RETRIEVAL BUILDING    DAY             81        SAM marches JILL out of the main door and down the front    steps of the Information Retrieval building. As he    struggles with her some of the papers in the dossier slip    out unbeknownst to SAM and leave a trail of litter behind    them.                                 JILL               Who are you? Let go!                                  SAM               Don't look back! Act naturally!                                 JILL               How can I act naturally, when you've               trying to break my arm?        CUT to the POV of the Ministry of Information front door    GUARDS. They are looking down the steps at the retreating    backs of SAM and JILL who are jostling each other. The    GUARDS see JILL elbow SAM in the ribs.                                  SAM                    (wincing)               Ow! That hurt!                                 JILL               Good!                           VOICE FROM BEHIND               STOP! Come back here!                                  SAM               Oh, God ... no!        He turns around, knowing that the game is up. But instead    of one of the GUARDS shouting - it's an OLD LADY angrily    glaring at him and pointing to a "Keep your city tidy"    sign above a litter bin.                               OLD LADY                    (screaming)               Can't you read english? You               illiterate foreign pig! You come here               from your own filthy country and               think you can mess our streets up!               You should be fried alive, you dirty               verminous ... etc. etc.        SAM sees the trail of dossier litter blowing about the    pavement. He lets go of JILL for a moment to grab at the    papers. The LADY continues screaming at him, her little    Pekinese dog (who incidentally wears a plaster over his    bum hole) yaps at his ankles, ripping SAM's new trousers.    SAM is torn between trying to regain the pages of the    dossier and following JILL who has disappeared round the    corner. He gives up retrieving the paper and rushes after    JILL.        CUTTING back to the TWO GUARDS, who have been observing    all this bizarre activity, we see one of them reading one    of the pieces of paper.                              OTHER GUARD               Hey, you shouldn't be reading that               it's classified.        82  EXT.   JUST AROUND THE CORNER            DAY             82        JILL is behind the steering wheel of her lorry which is    just starting to move off. SAM frantically runs towards    the lorry, leaps on the running board and pulls himself up    into the cab.        83  INT.   LORRY CAB                         DAY            83                                  SAM                    (climbing in)               Well done, that's it ... Let's go!               Vrmmm. Vrmmm.        SAM looks up and down his side of the street anxiously    before realizing that JILL has switched off the engine and    is sitting glaring at him. They are stopped, right in    front of the Ministry building.                                  SAM                    (frantic)               What are you doing? For Christ's               sake! Get moving!                                 JILL               Who are you?        Desperately SAM pulls roller blind down over window.                                  SAM                    (hurriedly)               Sam Lowry. Hello. This sounds insane,               I know, but I've been dreaming about               you. Even before I saw you you were               in my dreams. Weird isn't it. I mean               ... I don't know what it means ...               but it might mean something ...               mightn't it? I hope so. Anyway you're               in danger and I think we should get               out of here, now, quick! Come on!        Still JILL does nothing. SAM pulls down roller blind over.    window.                                  SAM                    (desperate)               Bloody hell! Do as I say!                                 JILL                    (hard, icy cool)               No.                                  SAM                    (beginning to lose his                    bottle)               Please!        JILL continues to sit, glaring.        SAM delves into his pockets and drags out a handful of    I.D. cards and papers, most of which fall onto the floor.    He then remembers that the badge he's looking for is    pinned to his jacket. He thrusts it forward at JILL.                                  SAM                    (beside himself with panic)               Alright! Alright! Alright! I'm               Information Retrieval Officer -                    (he checks the number                    somewhere. On the badge?)               DZ/015, and I'm arresting you for -               your own good! Now start up and get               moving before I hand you back to               them!                    (indicating M.I. building)                                 JILL               Them?                                  SAM               Us. Them. I don't know ... just get               going.        JILL starts up and moves off, very cool, in her own time.    By now SAM has got the shakes.                                 JILL                    (indicting the papers that                    Sam has dropped)               Don't litter my cab!                                  SAM                    (picking them up)               Oh, sorry.        84  EXT.   CITY FREEWAY                      DAY            84        A high shot of the lorry, moving through the city among    traffic.        85  INT.   TRAVELLING LORRY                  DAY            85        JILL is preoccupied with driving. She is smoking a    cigarette. SAM occasionally glances at her.                                  SAM               ... This is amazing ... for me ...               being here with you. I mean, in my               dreams you ...                                 JILL               I don't want to hear about your               fucking dreams!                                  SAM               Oh. But ... Look, I'm sorry I shouted               at you.                                 JILL                    (mainly to herself)               Why are they all pigs at Information               Retrieval?                                  SAM               I don't know.                    (realizing that this                    includes him)               Hey, that's not a very nice thing to               say.        JILL blows smoke in SAM's direction.                                  SAM                    (waving the smoke away)               You know, smoking's bad for you.                                 JILL               It's my fucking life.                                  SAM                    (winding down the window)               Yes, of course. Sorry.                                 JILL                    (lighting up another                    cigarette)               I know you. I saw you through the               floor, didn't I?                                  SAM               Yes. Ceiling. Why did you run away?                                 JILL               I didn't run away. I left the flat.                                  SAM               Why?                                 JILL               I didn't like it.                                  SAM               Why not?                                 JILL               It had a hole in the floor. Where are               we going?                                 JILL               Where are you taking me?                                  SAM               What?                                 JILL               Where are you taking me?                                  SAM               Ah ... Er ... It looks as if you're               taking me.                                 JILL               It does doesn't it?                                  SAM                    (slightly worried)               Where are you taking me?        86  EXT.   TRAVELLING LORRY                  86        We PULL BACK and lift off to see that the beautiful    countryside through which we've been travelling is in fact    a solid wall of giant bill-boards, advertising all sorts    of wonders like pine scented lavatory paper, sea spray    flavored cigarettes - you name it - These advertisements    form an unbroken corridor down which the road travels.    From a bird's eye POV we see that the land behind the    hoardings is blasted and blighted with garbage etc.        87  EXT.   POWER PLANT            DAY (LATE AFTERNOON)      87        The power plant is an extensive, brutal, Dante's Inferno    of a landscape made mainly of steel ... towers, chimneys,    huge pipes, buildings which look like bomb shelters ... It    is still daylight but the whole scene is murky and    forbidding because of the swirling steam and smoke. In the    murk can be seen sinister-looking FIGURES in protective    clothing and hard hats.        This is the world which is now entered by JILL's lorry ...    The lorry halts at a despatching hut near the crane and    JILL jumps down from the cab. SAM stays inside, looking    around. Something catches his eye.        CUT to facade of house. Window boxes with flowers and    shrubbery surrounded by a white picket fence provide    domestic charm, however, in the doorway stands a MAN with    protective clothing and something like a gas-mask over his    face. He is waving to someone. Slowly the house rises out    of frame.        In a WIDER SHOT we can see the house is suspended from and    a giant crane that swings it through the air - air filled    with stead, smoke, evil-smelling fumes. It is lowered onto    the back of a lorry and we can see that the house is one    of many prefabricated houses used in the construction of    the power plant.        88  INT.   LORRY CAB                         DAY             88        SAM watches JILL walk away from the lorry and enter the    despatcher's hut. He looks around uneasily and then he    start examining the inside of the lorry and opens a    compartment which seems to be full of maps, rags, etc. He    gets grease on sleeve of his suit. In the space behind the    seats he finds the pieces of luggage which JILL had    carried away from the flat. He starts to examine this    cautiously and is startled by the sudden opening of the    cab door.                                 JILL               Don't act guilty. Act like me. I'm               just getting on with my job. Or, are               you just getting on with yours?        JILL gets into the cab and closes the door and drives to a    forward looking position.                                  SAM               What's going on here?                                 JILL               What does it look like ... I'm               collecting empties.                   The lorry stops and JILL gets out. From SAM'S P.O.V., the    house suspended from the crane starts moving through the    sky towards the lorry. He glances back to see JILL slip a    package out from behind the seat. She glances    surreptitiously over her shoulder and slipping the parcel    inside her jacket she walks away.        89  EXT.   LORRY                             LATE AFTERNOON 89        SAM climbs down from the cab trying to keep an eye on    JILL. He ends up standing next to a rusty Kodak Photospot    standard. The picture on it - though faded by pollution -    is of the beautiful valley that has now been replaced by    the murk and mess of the power plant. JILL has made her    way over to a rather SHADOWY FIGURE lurking around the    corner of one of the metal structures. They appear to be    exchanging parcels. SAM is worried by this suspicious    behaviour - reinforced as it is by a Ministry poster on    the side of the building that illustrates, almost    identically, the action we have just seen along with the    warning: "MIND THAT PARCEL. EAGLE EYES CAN SAVE A LIFE".        CUT to the house being lowered and secured onto the lorry.        90  INT.   LORRY CAB                         LATE AFTERNOON 90        JILL is starting up the lorry. SAM is glancing over her    shoulder at the suspicious parcel which is tucked behind    her. They move off. The last view of the power plant is of    a group of MEN all in protective clothing and masks    happily playing a game of volleyball.        91  INT.   TRAVELLING LORRY                  LATER AFTERNOON91                                  SAM               OK. What's in the parcel?                                 JILL               What parcel?        SAM nods knowingly in the direction of the parcel.    JILL I don't know. Christmas present.    SAM picks it up.                                  SAM               It's heavy.                                 JILL               A heavy Christmas present.        He glances at her suspiciously.                                 JILL               Open it if you don't trust me.        SAM hesitates and puts the parcel down.                                  SAM               I'd rather trust you.            JILL gives him a quizzical look and smiles slightly, in    spite of herself. She turns away so that he won't notice.        92  INT.   TRAVELLING LORRY IN CITY TRAFFIC  DUSK           92                                 JILL               What are you doing in Information               Retrieval?                                  SAM               Looking for you.                                 JILL               No, really.                                  SAM               Really.                                 JILL               I mean, it doesn't suit you.                                  SAM                    (looking at his jacket)               Suit me?                                 JILL               Don't you know the sort of thing that               Information Retrieval does?                                  SAM               What do you mean? Would you rather               have terrorists?                                 JILL               We've got both.                                  SAM               Things would be worse without               Information Retrieval.                                 JILL               They couldn't be worse for the               Buttles.        SAM is at a loss.                                 JILL               Why don't you say, no system is               perfect.                                  SAM               Well, no system is.                                 JILL               Say, all wars have innocent victims.                                  SAM               Well, all wars do -                                 JILL               Who is this war against, Sam?                                  SAM               Well, terrorists of course.                                 JILL               How many terrorists have you met?               Actual terrorists?                                  SAM               Actual. terrorists? Well ... it's               only my first day.        JILL bursts out laughing. SAM joins in. They are both    laughing hysterically as they approach the Central    Supplies depot.        93  EXT.   CENTRAL SUPPLIES                  DUSK            93        The impression is that the place could be an abandoned    airfield out to the use of a vast open air warehouse whose    contents is arranged in a grid pattern of "streets", all    the streets being lined by stacks, piles, ranks, jumbles    of goods and objects which seem at first to be arbitrarily    grouped, some of them (like the stacks of prefabricated    houses) standing in the open others protected under simple    areas of roofing. Each group of Assorted Supplies lies    inside the squares of the grid of streets. The streets are    eerily lit by lights just being switched on, and each    square is also lit by harsh localized lighting. The effect    is a nightmarish gigantic Aladdin's cave of black shadows    and garishly lit mountains of stuff.        94  INT.   LORRY                             DUSK           94        JILL's lorry starts down one of the "streets".                                 JILL                    (as they pass a clock in                    "C"s)               Look at that - right on time.                                  SAM               What? I thought you were free to come               and go as you please.                                 JILL               Well, almost ... unfortunately I do               have to punch in by 5.00 every day.                                  SAM                    (slightly surprised)               Every day?                                  SAM               Turn around!                                 JILL               What?                                  SAM               They'll be there waiting.                                 JILL               Who will?                                  SAM               Security.                                 JILL               You're joking.                                  SAM               No. Please. They're going to arrest               you.                                 JILL               I thought you arrested me.                                  SAM               Yes ... but, this is real. Now, stop!                    (he grabs for the emergency                    brake)                                 JILL                    (pushing his hand away)               Cut it out, Sam.                                  SAM                    (grabbing at the steering                    wheel)               Will you please turn back.                                 JILL                    (shoving him back)               Get away!                                  SAM                    (lunging for the steering                    wheel)               Turn!                                 JILL                    (unable to control him)               Stop it ... damn you!        SAM throws the lorry into a gut-sucking skid.        95  EXT.   CENTRAL SUPPLIES                  DUSK           95        The lorry skids around a corner and roars down a side    street of containers.        96  INT.   LORRY                             DUSK            96        SAM and JILL are fighting for control of the lorry.                                 JILL               You're mad! You're out of your mind!        At that moment the air is split apart by the wail of    sirens. SAM and JILL look back.        97  EXT.   CENTRAL SUPPLIES                  DUSK           97        From inside two strategically placed wooden containers    stacked amongst the piles of containers marked    "AUTOMOBILES" burst forth two Security vehicles. Wood    flying, lights flashing, wheels smoking - they squeal away    in pursuit.        98  INT.   LORRY                             DUSK           98                                  SAM               I was right! Step on it!                                 JILL               Let go! We've got to stop!                                  SAM               Now you're the one that's out of your               mind.                                 JILL               Sam ... we can't outrace them. You'll               kill us!        They struggle for control of the lorry.        99  EXT.   CENTRAL SUPPLIES                  DUSK           99        The lorry rumbles down the street of containers lurching    from side to side as the battle in the cab wages back and    forth. Containers are smashed open and their contents    spill out only to be further damaged as the pursuing    Security vehicles crash through them. The lorry escapes    from the streets of containers and cannons through the    main gate and out on to the streets of the city.        100 INT.   LORRY CAB                         DUSK          100        SAM and JILL are still struggling violently for control of    the lorry. SAM is terribly inexpert as a driver but he    behaves like someone possessed. Through the rear view    mirrors he can see the Security vehicles catching up with    them. He starts fumbling with he multiple gear levers.                                 JILL               Don't touch those!        101 EXT.   DOMESTIC STREETS                  DUSK           101        The lorry roars down a street of terraced houses and then    screeches around a corner.        102 INT.   LORRY                             DUSK          102        SAM pushes JILL's hand back and grabs for the lever that    he thinks is overdrive. But rather than gaining speed    there is a terrible lurch as the house and trailer    disconnect from the cab.        103 EXT.   DOMESTIC STREET                   DUSK          103        The house slides off the trailer which is skidding    sideways and crunches to the ground just as the Security    vehicles round the corner.        104 INT.   SECURITY VEHICLE                  DUSK          104        From behind the DRIVER we can see that the house has    settled across the roadway at right-angle to the other    houses, making it appear to be a normal dead end street.    So shocked is the DRIVER that he fails to stop in time and    KABLOW!! the car smashes into the house.        105 EXT.   DOMESTIC STREET                   DUSK          105        Hot on the heels of the 1st car, the 2nd vehicle skids and    then smashes into the house which collapses and then    explodes in flames.        106 INT.   JILL'S LORRY                      DUSK          106        SAM sits paralysed with shock. The lorry has come to a    halt. JILL is desperately trying to get him to move.                                 JILL               Come on, let's go! Let's get out of               here!                                  SAM               Oh God! What have we done?                                 JILL               We? Don't blame me!                                  SAM               It wasn't supposed to happen like               this.                                 JILL                    (looking behind)               Shit! The house is on fire!                                  SAM               "And your children all gone."                                 JILL               What?                                  SAM               "Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home,               your house is on fire and your               children all gone" ... Do you think               anyone's hurt?                                 JILL               Yes.                    (tapping him on the                    forehead)               Come out, I know you're in there        107 EXT.   DOMESTIC STREET                   DUSK          107        A Security vehicle in full banshee howl roars through the    streets. We roar along with it as it rounds a corner and    skids to a halt at a safe but striking distance from    JILL's lorry. Heavily armed SECURITY POLICE pour out and    take up firing positions behind parked cars or whatever    other cover is available. Searchlights are played on the    lorry. The OFFICER IN CHARGE appears with a loud-hailer.                           OFFICER IN CHARGE               Come out, we know you're in there!               You cannot possibly escape. Throw               your weapons from your vehicle and               come out slowly with your hands on               your heads. Obey my instructions and               no harm will come to you. But if you               force us to shoot we'll shoot to               kill.        During the above speech a SMALL BOY on a tricycle "roars"    around a corner behind the SECURITY POLICE. He rides into    a gap between them, rolls his tricycle over and "takes    cover" behind it. He points his toy rifle at JILL's lorry    and takes shot. In reaction to the noise made by the kid's    rifle the OFFICER IN CHARGE dives for cover and the    SECURITY TROOPS open fire and pepper JILL's lorry cab with    holes. A few of the SECURITY TROOPS then rush forward and    fling open the cab door. The cab is empty. The OFFICER IN    CHARGE gets to his feet and looks about. His uniform is    covered with dust, oil and shit from the street. He just    misses seeing the back of the BOY as he disappears round    the corner on his tricycle.        108 INT.   LINGERIE DEPARTMENT/SHOPPING CENTRE              108        To the lush sound of musak we glide through the glittering    sensuous, supportive world of ladies undergarments. As we    slip past girdles, bras, panti-hose for a variety of    exotic occasions we come upon SAM and JILL pushing a    shopping trolley. In the trolley is the "suspicious"    parcel which JILL was given at the power plant.                                  SAM               This is a hell of a time to buy a               nightie.                                 JILL               Are you still following me?                                  SAM               Please, Jill ... I love you.                                 JILL               Go away.                                  SAM               There are plenty of other safe               places. Why don't we go back to my               flat?                                 JILL               Leave me alone!                                  SAM               You've got to trust me. It sounds               silly but I know we were meant to               meet.                                 JILL               You mean you were meant to hijack my               truck, make me crash it, and have               every security man in town looking               for me?                                  SAM               I vas just trying to help. I decided               to trust you. Maybe I was wrong.               Whose side are you on really? Who are               your friends? Who was the man who               gave you the parcel? What's in it?               It's the only thing you saved from               the lorry .... It must he something               very special.                                 JILL               I saved you from the lorry and you're               not very special.                                  SAM               ........... It's a bomb isn't it?                                 JILL                    (exasperated)               Oh ... Jesus!        SAM grabs the parcel from the trolley and tries to start    tearing it open.                                  SAM               I'm going to open it!                                 JILL                    (grabbing parcel and trying                    to take it from him)               No you're not!        They start an ugly little struggle for the parcel. SAM's    suit gets slightly ripped. Their tug-of-war is interrupted    by a voice off camera.                                 VOICE               SAM!!        SAM turns to see MRS TERRAIN and SHIRLEY a short distance    away. MRS TERRAIN is heavily bandaged and sitting in a    wheelchair which SHIRLEY is pushing.                              MRS TERRAIN               It's me and Shirley!        From the TERRAINS' POV SAM looks as if he is wrestling    with a dummy, or with himself if he is beside a full    length mirror. The mirror or something obscures JILL. MRS    TERRAIN and SHIRLEY exchange puzzled looks and proceed    toward SAM.                                  SAM               Ah ... hello, Mrs Terrain. SAM lets               go of the parcel and pushes JILL               away. She moves off.                                  SAM                    (after Jill for Mrs                    Terrain's benefit)               I think that'll hold it.                    (to Shirley)               Hello Shirley. Just helping someone               tie up a Christmas present. How are               you?                              MRS TERRAIN               My complication had a complication,               but Dr Chapman says I'll soon be up               and bouncing about like a young               gazelle. Are you buying a Christmas               present for your mother?                                  SAM                    (Trying to keep an eye on                    Jill who is disappearing                    from sight)               Er, yes ...                              MRS TERRAIN               Shirley and I come here regularly. I               love romantic lingerie.        She unwraps a set of red and black, fur trimmed things    with strategic holes in them.                              MRS TERRAIN                    (coyly)               Picture me in these.        At this moment there is an almighty explosion from the far    corner of the store. It is the corner that we last saw    JILL moving towards. SAM races towards the smoke, dust    covering his suit. He finds bras, knickers, broken shop    dummies, bleeding CUSTOMERS and SHOP ASSISTANTS all over    the place. On the edge of this devastated area he sees    JILL struggling out from under a pile of negligees and    plaster dust. He rushes over to her.                                  SAM                           (frantic)               Are you alright?                             JILL               Yes.                                  SAM                    (anxiety giving way to                    anger)               You don't deserve to be! You should               be dead, or maimed like them .... How               could you ...?                    (indicating the wounded)               What a bloody stupid thing ... I               should. have made you open it in the               lorry        She has dug the parcel out of the debris and has ripped it    open. Under the brown paper are a dozen brightly coloured.    Christmas packages - yes you guessed it - executive toys.    She throws the parcel and its contents hard into SAM's    chest. He topples back-wards - tangling himself up with    the severed limbs of a shop dummy.                                 JILL               There's your bomb! Our annual bribes               for official ass-holes like you!        SAM sits in the debris - ashamed and relieved. Liquor    oozes from the broken bottle all over SAM's suit. He is at    a loss for words.        JILL's attention is attracted by moans coming from the    badly hurt BOMB VICTIMS. She goes to help them.                                 JILL                    (to Sam)               Come on, make yourself useful, there               are people hurt!                   JILL goes around trying to make the INJURED comfortable.    SAM follows her. He takes off his jacket with his    Information Retrieval badge on the lapel and uses it to    make a pillow for one of these VICTIMS. By now sirens are    wailing, water sprinklers are functioning, and there is    general pandemonium. SECURITY GUARDS run into the area and    begin arresting everyone, including the DEAD and INJURED.    ONE OF THE GUARDS tries to drag off the WOMAN whom JILL is    attending.                                 JILL               Hey stop ... she's hurt!        The GUARD gives JILL a thump in the side of the face with    his gloved hand. SAM sees red.                                  SAM               DON'T TOUCH HER!!        The GUARD looks up and as he does so he is transformed    into the GIANT WARRIOR from SAM's dream. He towers over    the WOUNDED, the DYING and the debris of the blasted    lingerie department. SAM grabs for a weapon and comes up    with one of the arms (now detached) of the shop dummy. It    makes a passable club.                                 JILL               SAM .... don't!!        The TWO COMBATANTS square off ... looking for an opening    ... a chink in the other's defences - at which point SAM    is flattened from behind by a TROOPER's gun butt.        108a       INT.                              STONE SHIPANTI-DAY108a        SAM is falling down the inner wall of the stone ship. He    tumbles end over end - unable to stop his crashing    descent. With a thud he hits the bottom. Stunned, bruised    and battered he tries to get up. Standing over him are the    GREY PRISONERS. They press forward.                                  SAM                    (feebly)               Where is she? Is she here?        The GREY PRISONERS dissolve into what looks like several    BAGGEES.        109 INT.   BLACK MARIA                       EVENING       109        The BAGGEES hang from a track on the ceiling of the Black    Maria. SAM is lying on the floor, covered by his jacket,    with his badge prominently displayed. He is dazed and    mumbling ... the only BAGGEE in the wagon apart from TWO    GUARDS who have removed their helmets and are relaxing    while travelling back to base.                                GUARD A                    (scratching his head)               These helmets don't half make your               scalp itch.                                GUARD B               Ooh, don't mention it.                    (beginning to scratch his                    head)               And they make you sweat. Half the               time I can't see where I'm going -               there's a great Niagara of               perspiration coming down.                                GUARD A               I'm lucky, I've got thick eyebrows.               That keeps it up and channels it out               to my ears.        SAM stirs and groans                                GUARD B               Who's he?                                GUARD A               Someone from Information Retrieval               they're always hanging about in               lingerie.        SAM is coming to his senses. He takes in the situation,    sees all the BAGGEES and staggers to his knees.                                  SAM               Jill! Jill! Are you there?!        He begins rummaging through the BAGGEES. ONE of which is    dressed as FATHER CHRISTMAS. SAM opens the "face vent" of    the BAGGEE'S' hoods. A pair of strange eyes look out.                                GUARD A               Excuse me, sir - that's government               property.                                  SAM               Is here a girl here? Tall, fair hair,               blue eyes?                                GUARD A               Dunno sir. They check all that at the               depot.        SAM continues fumbling about the BAGGEES.                                GUARD 3                      (pulling Sam back)               We can't allow you to do that sir,               it's more than our job's worth.                                  SAM                    (shaking Guard off)               I've got to find her! Jill! Jill!                                GUARD A               You can always fill in an application               form, if you're a relative, sir.               Please stop, sir.        SAM takes no notice.                                  SAM               Jill! Jill!        GUARD A hits SAM, knocking him out again.                                GUARD A               Sorry about that sir. Regulations.               We'll have you safely back in your               office in no time.        Scenes 110 & 111 deleted.            Scenes 110 & 111 deleted.        112 INT.   SAM'S OFFICE                      EVENING       112        SAM recovers consciousness to find himself sitting at his    desk in his office. He is bruised and battered and has a    black eye. His suit is torn and bloody. MR WARREN is    gripping him by the throat and giving him a lecture.    Behind WARREN, crowding the doorway, are the PEOPLE who    circulate around him and are the cast of the WARREN high    energy circus. LIME is with them.                                WARREN               This is a black eye for the               department, Lowry! ... And I don't               care how you behaved when you were at               Records! Information Retrieval is an               executive branch! We're proud of our               reputation and we protect it!        One of his ACCOLYTES thrusts a paper into his hand - he    glances at it.                   Damn it, Lowry, that convoy of troop               carriers is still not accounted for               ... I thought I told you to deal with               it.        He slams the form down onto the desk which is covered with    other forms.                   And what the hell is this mess? An               empty desk is an efficient desk.        He has picked up some of the forms.                   Good God! ... queries from Security,               searches from Central Banking about a               cheque, clarification notices from               Accounting concerning unreturned               receipts, another demand from the               Motor Pool.                                  SAM               Mr Warren ... I have to find out               about ...                                                           WARREN               Shut up! I don't know what's going on               here, Lowry, but don't think you can               intimidate us with your friends and               relatives in high places! Now shape               up!        He dumps the papers and folders onto SAM's desk and storms    off with his ENTOURAGE, leaving a gleeful LIME in the    doorway.                                  SAM                    (grabbing Lime as he starts                    to slip away)               Lime, I need to use your computer                                 LIME               Sorry, a bit busy at the moment.                    (he indicates Sam's                    smothered desk)               You seem to have quite a lot to do               yourself.                    (he disappears into his                    office)        112a       INT.                              30TH FLOORCORRIDOR   DAY                               112a        SAM rushes out of his office after LIME. But, LIME has    locked his door. SAM bangs on the door.                                  SAM               Shit!        112b       INT.                              SAM'S OFFICE   DAY112b        SAM storms back into his office. Reaching a peak of    frustration, he stuffs all his paperwork into the    pneumatic tube and sends it off into oblivion. Within    seconds it returns. SAM sends it off a second time. It    doesn't return a second time, periodically something    passes through the tubes causing them to move. SAM's    pneumatic tubes continue to pulsate, pressure building up.    At this point SAM's desk begins, as before, to creep    through the wall. He grabs it violently. He pulls it.    There is a scream from the other side of the wall. SAM    smiles. Th pneumatic tubes give a final convulsion and    then there appears to be a muffled explosion outside SAM's    office door. It shakes the whole building. SAM goes to his    door and opens it.        113 INT.   SAM'S CORRIDOR                    CONTINUATION  113        Every door in the corridor has been opened by the    occupants of the room. All the occupants stick their heads    into the corridor, all gazing with SAM at the variously    coloured blizzard of paper which has errupted through the    whole length of the corridor ceiling, from which protrudes    the intestines of the pneumatic system.        114 INT.   JACK'S OFFICE CORRIDOR & INFORMATION         EVENING114           RETRIEVAL CORRIDORS        It is the end of the working day. JACK is leaving for    home. He is putting on his executive-styled bullet-proof    vest and packing his "Secret Connection" briefcase. As the    scene progresses SAM and JACK proceed out of the door and    down he corridor, passing other I.R. OFFICIALS. SAM is    dishevelled and causing acute sartorial embarrassment to    JACK to is trying to distance himself from him.                                  SAM               Come off it, Jack! Of course you can               check to see if she's been arrested.                                 JACK               I'm sorry, Sam, I'm afraid this whole               case has become much more complicated               since last we talked.                                  SAM                    (exasperated)               She's innocent, Jack --- she's done               nothing wrong.                                 JACK               Tell that to the wives of the               Security men she blew up this               afternoon. Listen, we've also had a               report just in from Central Services               that Tuttle has wrecked an entire               flat and sabotaged adjacent Central               Services systems - as a matter of               fact, in your block. I'd keep my eyes               open if I were you, Sam. Bye.                                  SAM                    (catching up with Jack)               You don't really think Tuttle and the               girl are in league?                                 JACK               I do. Goodbye.                    (steps into lift)        115 INT.   LIFT                              EVENING       115                                  SAM               It could all be coincidental.                                 JACK               There are no coincidences, Sam.               Everything's connected, all along the               line. Cause and effect. That's the               beauty of it. Our job is to trace the               connections and reveal them.                    (whispers)               This whole Buttle/Tuttle confusion               was obviously planned from the               inside. Bye bye.        116 INT. INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LOBBY         EVENING        116        JACK and SAM have just emerged from the lift. The lift    doors close. SAM agitatedly speaks.                                  SAM               Jack, she's innocent!                                 JACK               Sam - we've always been close,               haven't we?                                  SAM                    (eagerly)               Yes we have, Jack!                                 JACK               Well, could you stay away from me               until this thing blows over.        117 EXT.   MINISTRY OF INFORMATION RETRIEVAL       NIGHT    117                       BUILDING        SAM is leaving the Ministry of Information Retrieval. The    lights in the foyer are blazing behind him, the street    lamps are lit. He is exhausted and depressed and anxious    about the safety and whereabouts of Jill. He begins to    retrace their first journey together, down the Ministry    front steps and around the corner to where Jill's truck    was parked.        117a       EXT.                              JUST AROUND THECORNER     NIGHT                             117a        SAM stands in the passageway where JILL's lorry was first    parked. The only hint of its once-upon-a-time presence is    a small splodge of oil by the kerb. SAM stands lost and    beaten under a street light. He slumps down to the    pavement unsure his next move. The street light is    reflected in the pool of oil. As he stares at the    reflected light it expands and becomes a patch of blue    cloud-filled sky. SAM turns to look at the actual street    light. It has become a crack of blazing light coming thru    the inner wall of the great stone ship.        117b       INT.                              STONE SHIPANTI-DAY117b                        DREAM GIRL'S VOICE               I'm here Sam. Don't give up.        SAM is pushing thru the GREY PRISONERS. The light from the    crack shafts across the space in which they find    themselves imprisoned, striking the opposite wall. There    in the bright pool of light are SAM's wings - beautiful,    shimmering silver... But, nailed to a large stone    cruciform - like a crucified eagle. SAM rushes towards    them and begins to pull them loose, But before he can, a    great cracking noise reverberates thru the ship and a    black shadow falls across SAM and the wings. Looking round    he saees the inner wall has split open to the level of the    floor - but, blocking the opening is the GIANT SAMURAI    WARRIOR. SAM draws his sword and rushes toward the GIANT.    The GIANT stands ominously still. Then very slowly he    raises his spear in front of himself in an almost    religious gesture. Poof! He vanishes! SAM is confused.    Suddenly a PRISONER shouts a warning and SAM spins round    just in time to avoid a slash of the spear by the gigantic    WARRIOR who is now standing directly behind him. SAM    parries a couple more thrusts of the spear and then    strikes with his sword. At thin air! The GIANT has    vanished again. SAM can't figure it out. But he hears    something whoosh and instinctively dodges as the GIANT who    is once again behind him brings the spear crashing down.    Again SAM manages a few parries as he is forced backwards.    He trips and falls to the ground. The spear goes into the    ground.        Before the GIANT can wrench the spear loose, SAM slashes    at him with his sword. But again the GIANT disappears. SAM    spins around. The GIANT is a short distance from him. SAM    rushes him. Again he vanishes. This time he reappears next    to the spear and tries to free it. But SAM attacks again    and the GIANT is forced to do his vanishing act before he    can recover the spear. SAM is becoming exasperated with    his behaviour, and as the GIANT reappears he shouts at him    to hold still, at the same time throwing his sword at the    big fellow. The sword pins the GIANT's foot to the ground    before he can disappear. Instead of blood pouring from the    wound, fire issues forth. SAM takes advantage of the    situation and manages to wrench the spear from the ground.    The GIANT is unable to escape as SAM charges, but manages    to dodge a bit. However the spear catches his arm and    opens a gash. Again fire pours out. As the big GUY tries    to stop the fire, SAM charges again. This time he succeeds    in striking dead centre. The GIANT gasps as fire gushes    from his chest. He staggers and crashes to the ground. The    wounds continue to bleed fire.        SAM gets his breath back and approaches the fallen    WARRIOR. Reaching down he removed the GIANT's mask. Fire    rushes forth from all the facial orifices. But the thing    that makes him catch his breath is the face itself. It's    his ... SAM's! While he stares in amazement the fire    begins to melt the face. In a moment it is unrecognizable.    SAM stands there stunned. Somewhere in the distance a bell    tolls.        118 EXT.   JUST AROUND THE CORNER            NIGHT         118        SAM's face is reflected in the puddle of oil. He is    staring wide-eyed. A church bell tolls in the distance.    SAM is definitely spooked. He scrambles to his feet. He's    got to get out of here. He heads off down the passageway    but is brought quickly to a halt. There, in the shadows,    is SOMEONE smoking a cigarette. He hesitates and reverses    direction but, before he manages 2 paces a familiar voice    comes from behind him.                                 JILL               You're late.        SAM spins around. Stepping out from the shadows is JILL -    cigarette in her mouth.                                  SAM                    (stunned)               Jill! What are you do ... I mean ...               how did you ... Are you alright?                                 JILL               Yes.                                  SAM               What happened to you after ...                                 JILL               Your face ... are you hurt?                                  SAM               No. No. I'm fine. I was worried sick               about you ... I thought ...        A patrol car approaches. Quickly SAM grabs JILL and goes    into a kiss to explain their presence. The car hesitates    for a moment and drives on.                                 JILL                    (through kiss)               They're gone.                                  SAM                    (through kiss)               Are you sure?                                 JILL                    (through kiss)               Yes.        They resume passionate kiss. After a moment                                  SAM                    (urgently)               C'mon, we've got to get you off the               streets.        They head off clutching one another.        119 INT.   SAM'S CORRIDOR                    NIGHT          119        The Elysian Fields train arrives clattering. SAM and JILL    are the only passengers to emerge. They can't keep their    hands off one another. This is young love at its freshest    and most exciting. SAM looks up and down the platform    cautiously but there is no-one in sight as the train    clatters off again into the darkness. SAM and JILL    approach SAM's front door. He puts a key in the door and    tries to open the door but has some difficulty. Something    creaks. He gives the door a heavy shove and the door opens    and a shower of white powdery ice falls on his head..        120 INT.   SAM'S FLAT                        NIGHT         120        SAM enters, followed by JILL. His breath immediately    starts come out of his mouth like clouds of steam. The    flat looks as though it has been disembowelled and then    deep frozen. Icicles are hanging down from everywhere. The    flat looks like a scrap dump. Every wall has spilled out    its disgusting steel and rubber entrails, filling most of    the available space and making progress through the flat    difficult. Half a dozen MEN are at work. They are    impossible to identify because they wear arctic clothing    and look more like spacemen. Their voices however belong    to SPOOR and DOWSER.                                  SAM               For God's sake, what's happened?                                 SPOOR               Thermostat's gone. And then some.                                DOWSER               ... And then some.                                  SAM               What have you done to my flat?                                 SPOOR               Sign here, please.                                DOWSER               ... ere please.        SPOOR offers a clipboard and pencil. He bangs the    clipboard against the furniture to knock the ice off it.                                  SAM               What is it?                                 SPOOR               It's a 27B/6 of course.                                DOWSER               ...B/6 of course.                                 JILL                    (to Dowser)               Do you repeat everying?                                DOWSER                    (nods)               ... Everything.                                 SPOOR                    (indicating the mess)               This is what you get when you have               cowboys round yer ducts.                                DOWSER               ... yer ducts.                                 SPOOR               I think you've got your T41 crystal               inductor wired up to a reverse bobbin-               threaded-solenoid-control. It's               either that or a new washer.                                DOWSER               ... new washer.                                 SPOOR               Sign the form so we can get to it.                                DOWSER               ... get to it.        SAM grabs the clipboard and smashes it over SPOOR's head.    The board is so cold that it snaps in two. The paper on it    also snaps in two.        121 INT.   SAM'S CORRIDOR                    NIGHT         121        SAM pulls JILL out into the corridor.                                 JILL               Don't you like parties?                                  SAM               C'mon. We've got to get out of here.        As SAM and JILL begin to move down the corridor they see a    cigarette glow brightly in a dark recess.                                 JILL                    (seeing cigarette light)               TOO LATE!        They ere about to run when TUTTLE steps out of the    shadows.                                TUTTLE               I'll fix the damage when they've               gone. I'll be ready for you tomorrow.        122 INT.   MOTHER'S CORRIDOR                 NIGHT         122        A venerable PORTER carrying a single key on a large ring    is preceding SAM and JILL along the corridor which we have    seen before. The PORTER's name is MATTHEWS.                                  SAM               My mother said it would be all right.                               MATTHEWS               She didn't say anything about it to               me.                                  SAM               Well, she's my mother, not yours.                               MATTHEWS               I won't be held responsible.                                  SAM               How long will she he away?                               MATTHEWS                    (darkly)               There are some who go to Dr. Jaffe's               clinic who never come back at all.        MATTHEWS unlocks MOTHER's door.                               MATTHEWS                    (to Jill)               You're not a professional, are you?                                 JILL               No, amateur.                                  SAM                    (firmly)               Thank you, Matthews.        With which he ushers JILL through the door and closes the    door in MATTHEWS' face.        123 INT.   MOTHER'S FLAT                     NIGHT          123                                  SAM               Make yourself at home. Don't answer               the phone or open he door to anyone.               I won't be long.                                 JILL               Where are you going?                                  SAM               I'm going to pull some strings. It's               our only hope.                                 JILL               Don't do anything silly.                                  SAM               Thanks for the vote of confidence.                                 JILL               Take care.        SAM goes.        124 INT.   INFORMATION RETRIEVAL FOYER       NIGHT          124        SAM arrives at the Ministry of Information Retrieval    reception It's late. GROUPS OF CLEANERS are operating    cleaning machinery. SAM approaches the DESK PORTER who is    playing with the executive toy SAM gave him.                                  SAM               Excuse me, Dawson, can you put me               through to Mr Helpmann's office?                                PORTER               I'm afraid I can't, sir. You have to               go through the proper channels.                                  SAM               And you can't tell me what the proper               channels are, because that's               classified information?                                PORTER               I'm glad to see the Ministry's               continuing its tradition of               recruiting the brightest and best,               sir.                                  SAM               Thank you, Dawson.        SAM crosses the foyer, checks to see that Dawson is no    longer watching him engrossed as he is with the executive    toy, and slips past the lift which, at that moment,    disgorges a leg-bandaged, be-crutched LIME who hobbles    across the lobby without seeing SAM, who slips down the    stairs which he knows lead to Helpmann's private lift.        125 INT.   BASEMENT                          NIGHT         125        SAM creeps along the corridor to the lift door - avoiding    a GROUP OF SECURITY MEN who are singing carols in close    harmony. ONE GUARD is conducting and giving instruction.    They are all incredibly big and brutal looking.                             CHOIR MASTER                    (stopping them)               No, no, no, Arthur, you're going flat               on that G. It's your breathing. Take               a breath on the end. of the previous               line, after Noel. Right, one, two,               three.        The CHOIR begins singing again. SAM reaches the lift and    looks at the small panel of letters set into the wall.    CLOSE UP of SAM's face concentrating. He hears, we hear, a    reprise of MR HELPMANN talking to SAM in MOTHER's    bathroom.                            HELPMANN (V/O)               Of course, Jeremiah was senior to me,               but we were close friends, and I keep               his name alive at the office every               day. It's as though he's there               speaking to me. "'ere I am, J.H."        SAM is already typing the letters EREIAMJH into the    keyboard. The lift judders and star s to ascend.        126 INT.   MR HELPMANN'S OFFICE              NIGHT         126        SAM steps out of lift into an ante-room. No-one is there.    Tentatively he knocks on the connecting door into the    office. No reply. He slowly opens door.                                      SAM               Mr Helpmann? Are you there? Hello?        The office is empty. SAM looks around - not sure what he    wants to do. He notices his MOTHER's picture on HELPMANN's    desk. He is just about to leave when his eye is caught by    an elaborate computer console in a side room. It    occasionally chatters away. Paper print-outs fill a large    bin. Hesitantly SAM approaches it. Looking around to make    sure the room is still empty he punches the On key and the    machine lights up.        He cautiously pushes a couple more keys. The teleprinter    machines have paused but one starts chattering now. He    looks at the one which is busy. A CLOSE UP shows us the    message coming through: TOTAL - TOTAL -TOTAL - CAR 15    REQUEST FEEDBACK STATUS ON SUBJECT BENJAMIN GEORGE    TROLLOPE - VAGRANT - DETAINED TERRORIST/SUSPECT/ASSOCIATE.    This is followed by a code number. The teleprinter falls    silent.        SAM returns to the keyboard and switches it off. He turns    to leave.    The teleprinter starts chattering again. SAM stops and    goes back to it and looks at the page again. A CLOSE UP    shows us: UPDATE - SUBJECT TROLLOPE DECEASED - CAUSE OF    DEATH GUNSHOT RESISTING ARREST. PLEASE DELETE FROM SPECIAL    CATEGORY. The computer spool revolves back and forth for    two or three seconds and then stops. SAM ponders this for    a moment and then heads back to the keyboard and swtiches    on the machine. He has he answer.        127 INT.   MOTHER'S FLAT                     NIGHT          127        SAM enters the flat. JILL is nowhere to be seen. The    lights are out but, from the partially opened bedroom door    beams a shaft of bright light. Music pours forth ... it is    "BRAZIL".                                  SAM                    (cautiously)               Jill?        Getting no answer he goes to the door and peers through.    There is JILL but, transformed. She is wearing one of    SAM's MOTHER's wigs which billows in the air blown by a    fan. She is also wearing a diaphanous nightdress borrowed    from the extensive wardrobe and is dancing slowly. She    looks like the DREAM GIRL. SAM stands open-mouthed. JILL    notices him and smiles.                                 JILL               What do you think? ... is it me?                                  SAM                    (still stunned)               You don't exist any more. I've killed               you. Jill Layton is dead.        He holds out a print-out. She reads it and slowly looks    up.                                 JILL               Care for a bit of necrophilia?        They rush together.        128 INT.   STONE SHIP                        ANTI-DAY      128        The screen is filled with brilliant white clouds rushing    about a beautiful blue sky. They course this way and that.    Pulling back we reveal that this patch of sky is inside a    mammoth glass-like cube held aloft by four stone columns.    The absolutely amazing scale of this cube is revealed as    SAM sweeps up into shot - his wings gleaming in the light.    He is a tiny speck but, overjoyed -he has found the day.    far below him the GREY PRISONERS gather beaming with    happiness. Diving back to the ground - SAM unsheaths his    sword and holding it aloft rushes to the base of one of    the great columns. The FORCES OF DARKNESS who have been    lurking in the shadows slink back. SAM, with one mighty    swing, strikes the column - the noise reverberates as    cracks begin to race up and through the column. It is    disintegrating. As it crumbles the mammoth cube begins to    topple. Everyone steps back. Down it plummets. And smashes    into a million pieces. The bright blue sky escapes in all    directions. The GREY PRISONERS' iron collars and chains    fall from their necks as they stand, surrounded by a    beautiful blue sky. They look up to the sun. SAM is    exultant.        129 INT.   MOTHER'S BEDROOM                  DAWN          129        Pull back from the sun through a window. The light falls    on SAM's smiling sleeping face. Showly he wakes. He little    by little remembers where he is and reaches over for JILL.    She isn't there. Sam panics.                                 JILL               Merry Xmas.        She is sitting at the foot of the bed grinning at him. She    crawls over to him - they start to embrace.                                  SAM               Everything is going to be all right.        But crash !!! it's a raid! Like a giant drill a whirling    cylinder has plunged through the ornate moulded ceiling of    Mother's bedroom, and we now see what made the neat hole    in the BUTTLE ceiling ... CUTS show doors being burst open    by SECURITY TROOPS. JILL and SAM are frozen in panic.    SECURITY TROOPS are sliding down a fireman's pole" from    the hole in the ceiling.                                  SAM                    (shouts)               She's dead. Check the list!        But it is SAM they have come for. He is being dragged out    of the bed.                                GUARDS                    (as they struggle with him)               You Turncoat Bastard! JUDAS!!               TRAITOR!!        A canvas bag is plunged over his head. All goes black.                                  SAM                    (muffled)               JILL!!!        A shot rings out. JILL screams. It echoes through the    blackness.        130 INT.   PROCESSING AREA                                 130        In absolute inky darkness, SAM and the CAMERA move through    space and time marked only by voices and sounds    encountered on the way. This sound-sequence fades in and    out a few times, indicating that the journey is longer    than the real-time period of the blacked-out sequence. We    hear:        Footsteps of SAM and GUARDS.        Distant howl of pain.        Muzak.        Iron gate.        Footsteps again.        Lift doors opening and closing.        Muzak.        Typing pool.                             FEMALE VOICE               a wonderful gift, I changed it at the               chemist for some antibiotics and               bathroom scales and there's enough               left on the voucher for a               tonsilectomy if I want to treat               myself ...        Office door opens and closes.                             GUARD'S VOICE               Christmas Parcel for you, sir ...               sign here please ...        What looks like a rectangular hatch in the blackness    opens. It is the eyeslit on the front of SAM's bag being    opened by a SECURITY GUARD.        The SECURITY GUARD peers in for a moment and then steps    back to reveal two SMART OFFICIALS sitting at a desk. They    are looking up at SAM/us.                              OFFICIAL A               93/HKS/608, you are charged with the               following:               Passing confidential documents to               unauthorized personnel - viz IR               dossier/Gillian Layton. Destroying               Government property - viz an               indeterminate number of personnel               carriers. Taking possession under               false pretences of said personnel               carriers. Forging the signature of               the Head of Records, Third               Department. Attempting to misdirect               Ministry funds, in the form of a               cheque to A. Buttle, through               unauthorized channels. Tampering with               Central Services supply ducts.               Employing unqualified suspected               persons for this purpose. Attempting               to conceal a fugitive from justice.               Obstructing the forces of law and               order in the exercise of their duty.               Giving aid and comfort to the enemies               of society.               Bringing into disrepute the good name               of the Government, and the standing               within the community of the               Department of Information Retrieval.               Attempting to disrupt the Ministry of               Information Retrieval's internal               communicating systems. Wasting               Ministry time and paper.                              OFFICIAL B               We would advise you that a plea of               guilty will save you and the tax               payer money, and will always be               looked upon more favourably than a               plea of not guilty. All you are               requested to do at this stage is to               sign this form.        OFFICIAL B waves a sheet of paper. We hear SAM's voice.                                  SAM               Where's Jill?                              OFFICIAL A               Not interested?                                  SAM               What have you done with Jill?                              OFFICIAL A               Right. Next!        The SECURITY GUARD appears briefly and zips up the hood    again plunging us back into darkness. We get more muffled    shouts, heavy breathing and subterranean son et lumiere.        Another SECURITY GUARD opens the flap on SAM's hood. We    see another TWO OFFICIALS.                                  SAM                    (more hysterical)               Where's Jill? What's happened to               Jill?                              OFFICIAL C               93/HKS/608, you've got quite a list               of misdemeanours here, haven't you?               All this is going to take time and               money, and I'm afraid, according to               your bank statement and credit rating               here, you're likely to be in deep               financial trouble by the end of it.               Now, either you plead guilty to say,               seven or eight of these charges,               which'll bring the costs down to               within your reach, or you can borrow               a sum to be negotiated, from us, at               very competitive rates. We can offer               you something at say, eleven and a               half per cent, over thirty years. But               you will have to buy insurance to               qualify for his scheme.                              OFFICIAL D               All you have to do is to agree to               sign the appropriate boxes on these               forms. Yes or no?                                  SAM               I'm not guilty! Not guilty you stupid               bastar...        THE GUARD closes the flap. Once again darkness and    confusion. until another SECURITY GUARD opens the flap    again to reveal another TWO OFFICIALS.                              OFFICIAL E                    (examining forms)               Now, since you've elected to plead               not guilty on all these charges,               you'd be well advised to take some               sort of insurance cover. Preferably               comprehensive, or if you'd prefer,               something more specific - say,               against electrical charges over               f70.00. And for food and               accommodation costs of say, £800.00.               Detention can be a very expensive               business.                              OFFICIAL F               Now, before we bore you with the               small print perhaps you'd like to               tell us whether you'd like to sign               this insurance acceptance form or               not. Think carefully before you               decide. Thinking ahead in financial               matters is always the wise course.        The flap is closed and opened again very quickly - NEW    OFFICIALS are revealed. This process repeats again and    again - getting faster and faster. The OFFICIALS' faces    seem to become a changing blur. Their voices overlap in a    growing cacophony. The desk and the other items in the    room remain static. To add to this disturbing effect the    FORCES OF DARKNESS begin to gather in the room behind the    OFFICIALS. As they increase in number they begin to press    forward unseen by the OFFICIALS. Soon they fill the view    through the flap.                               OFFICIAL               We're here to save you and the tax               payer money.                               OFFICIAL               Would you like to pay the premium for               a single room with a shower and a               soft bed?                               OFFICIAL               For a small charge we can keep visits               from friends and relatives down to to               a minimum.                               OFFICIAL               Plead guilty, it's easier, quicker,               and cheaper for everyone.                               OFFICIAL               We're doing a survey ... Aimed at               providing a better service.                               OFFICIAL               Do you think the present system is A.               efficient, B. inefficient?                               OFFICIAL               As a taxpayer are you A. impressed,               B. unimpressed        131 INT.   STONE SHIP                        TIMELESS      131        CUT to SAM struggling with the FORCES OF DARKNESS. He is    overwhelmed by the black hordes. They fill the screen. SAM    disappears under their onslaught. A pause. Then SAM is    raised, spread-eagled, above the black sea of the FORCES.    Strong hands hold him. The maniacal laughter starts up.    SAM is turned in its direction.        CUT to a shot over the top of the mass of robed FIGURES.    Rising from the ruins of the stone columns, the black    cloth thing flaps menacingly towards camera. We can see    the towering filing cabinet skyscrapers of the Storeroom    of Knowledge in the background.        SAM looks terrified. As the thing hovers above SAM in all    its huge twisting awfulness, it slowly begine to unfold    like some deadly flower blooming in stop motion.        SAM freezes as the interior becomes invisible. There in    the billowing blackness is the GIRL. She is beckoning.                                 GIRL               Sam.        But the VOICE is no longer the mysterious feminine voice    of before - it is the voice of the maniacal laughter.        SAM struggles with the restraining hands. He twists and    turns, but to no avail. From the darkness above him    descends the JOLLY GENT looking just like MR HELPMANN) on    his window washer's platform. However he is now dressed as    Father Christmas.                                 GENT               Sam, what are we going to do with               you?                                 GIRL               Ha ha ha ha ha.        132 INT.   CELL                              DAY/NIGHT     132        The filing cabinets of the Storeroom of Knowledge dissolve    squares of padding that form the walls of a cell. The    laughter echoes round the cell. SAM sees that MR HELPMANN,    in his wheelchair is watching him. He is dressed as Father    Christmas. They are alone in the cell. SAM scrunches up    into the corner.                               HELPMANN               Sam, what are we going to do with               you? Can you hear me, Sam?                                  SAM                    (in a hoarse urgent                    whisper)               Where's Jill? What have you done to               her? Where is she?!                               HELPMANN               Gillian Layton?                                  SAM               Yes, you've got to get me out of               here. I've got to find her.                               HELPMANN               I understand, Sam, I know exactly how               you feel. So I brought you a bottle               of barley water.                   HELPMANN holds up a bottle of barley water.                                  SAM                    (desperately)               Help me!                               HELPMANN               I assure you, Sam, I'm doing               everything within my power. But the               rules of the game are laid down, and               we all have to play by them - even               me.                                  SAM               This is all a mistake! Don't you               understand?!                               HELPMANN               Yes, well, from the Department's               point of view you're certainly a bit               of an own goal, but ...                                  SAM               I'm not a terrorist! You must know               that! I'm not guilty! Get me out of               here!                               HELPMANN               Sam, if you've been going out there               and playing a straight bat, all the               way down the line, you've got               absolutely nothing to worry about.                                  SAM               Please, I've got to find Jill.                               HELPMANN               Sam, I think I ought to tell you ...               I'm afraid she's upped stumps and               retired to the pavilion.                           SAM looks blank.                   Thrown in the towel.                                  SAM                    (takes a moment to work                    this out)               Dead?        HELPMANN nods.                               HELPMANN               Yes, it's all a bit confusing but, it               seems she was killed resisting               arrest.                                  SAM                    (relieved)               No, no ... I did that...        HELPMANN looks surprised. SAM shuts up.                               HELPMANN               The odd thing is it appears to have               happened twice ... a bit of a               disputed call, I'm afraid.        SAM has gone catatonic.                               HELPMANN                    (starting to go)               So, there you are. All I can say is,               don't fall at the last fence. The               finishing post's in sight. See you in               the paddock. Good luck. Keep your eye               on the ball. Got to go .... Can't               keep the orphans waiting.        HELPMANN goes. A GUARD helps him out and then returns with    ANOTHER to help put the restraining bag over SAM.                                 GUARD               Don't fight it, son .... confess               quickly ... Before they get into the               expensive procedures. If you hold out               too long you could jeopardise your               credit rating.        The bag blacks everything out.        133 INT.   INFORMATION RETRIEVAL ROOM                      133        The bag comes off. SAM finds himself strapped into an    Information Retrieval chair. The CAMERA tracks back    frighteningly fast revealing that he chair stands in an    unbelievably vast room. The walls curve up and out of    sight.        The floor doesn't seem to be a floor at all - strange    light undulates beneath. The whole effect is one of total    disorientation and overwhelming size. SAM is desperately    trying to take it in. Next to the chair is a porcelain    tray of evil and frighteningly ambiguous instruments.    Worrysome electrical connections and meters are near at    hand. As the GUARDS leave SAM to take up their positions    near the distant door they hand over documents to the    white-coated INFORMATION RETRIEVAL OFFICER.                                 GUARD               11/AFT/607, sir.        They all sign the document which the I.R. OFFICER retains    after giving carbon copies to the GUARDS. The GUARDS then    proceed to the door and take up positions on either side    of it. The I.R. OFFICER heads toward SAM. We can now see    he wears a mask. It is the face of the FORCES OF DARKNESS.    A smiling baby doll face. SAM sits, mesmerized, watching    him approach. Within fifteen or twenty yards of SAM the    I.R. OFFICER comes to an abrupt halt. He seems to sway.    After a moment he turns slightly, hesitantly, giving the    impression that he may return to the door. He looks at the    GUARDS, pauses, straightens himself up, takes a deep    breath and continues again towards SAM, rather more    briskly than before. SAM watches, terrified and    fascinated. The I.R. OFFICER goes to the table which is    covered with evil-looking surgical-type instruments - he    blunders clumsily into it, knocking a couple of them onto    the floor. He picks then up quickly and replaces them.                                  SAM               Jack?        The I.R. OFFICER reacts to this as if he's been hit in the    solar plexus, and he tries to disguise it by simulating a    coughing fit. He then picks up a nasty looking implement    and advances on SAM.                                  SAM               Jack?... Jack?                                 JACK                    (hysterically from behind                    mask)               Shut up!                                  SAM               Jack, I'm innocent! Help me.                                 JACK               Bastard!!!                                  SAM               This is all a mistake. Jack, please               take that mask off.        JACK is very close to SAM, he is shaking. He lifts up his    mask to reveal sweaty face, contorted with fear and anger.                                 JACK               You stupid bastard!                                  SAM               What?                                 JACK               How could you do this to me?                                  SAM               Help me, Jack! I'm frightened!                                 JACK               How do you think I feel? You shit!                                  SAM               Jack ...                                 JACK                    (pulling down mask)               Shut up! This is a professional               relationship!        JACK comes at SAM with the horrifying implement.                                  SAM               JACK!! ... You can't ... No, don't!        SAM's eyes widen in terror. From his POV we look up at    JACK approaching. The ceiling above and behind JACK is    suddenly and. loudly penetrated by the Ceiling Hole    Machine, and in an instant without benefit of "fireman's    pole", the commando-like figure of MR TUTTLE gun in hand,    leaps through the hole.    TUTTLE is immediately followed by similar looking MEN with    balaclavas, guerilla-type clothing, and very efficient    guns. JACK is cut down. So are the TWO GUARDS who have    opened the door from the corridor and are shooting into    the room.        TUTTLE raps out into a walkie-talkie                                TUTTLE               Detonate!        From somewhere near at hand there is a large explosion    which rocks the room. TUTTLE is already unstrapping SAM.                                TUTTLE               Let's go!        134 INT.   CORRIDORS                         NIGHT         134        CUT to RESCUERS, with SAM in the middle, fighting their    way in the terrific battle with GUARDS, until they get to    a door leading to the stairs.        135 INT.   ENDLESS STAIRWAYS                 NIGHT         135        CUT to RESCUERS, their members thinning, and SAM, fighting    down flight after flight of stairs with lots of neat-oh    violence and blood and, gunshots and ... falling and    bleeding and -        136 INT.   INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LOBBY       NIGHT          136        CUT to the RESCUERS fighting their way to the entrance.    Another group of RESCUERS at the door are providing cover    fire The PORTER sits behind his desk watching the battle    on his bank of monitors.                               2ND GROUP                   Quick! We've only got thirty seconds               to get clear!        TUTTLE tosses SAM a dark overcoat to cover his light grey    detainee outfit. Together, the TWO GROUPS burst out    through the door into the large empty forecourt.        137 EXT.   FORECOURT                         NIGHT          137        The forecourt is suddenly illuminated by huge arc lights.    Machine gun installations open fire. The RESCUERS are    totally exposed.        They are cut down left and right.    Desperately they battle their way across the open space.    Time running out. SAM, knowing the way, leads TUTTLE    towards a shielded spot. Will they make it? As the last    RESCUER is cut down SAM and TUTTLE dive for cover.    KOWBLAMMPOW! A massive explosion. Then another. And    another. SECURITY TROOPS caught unprotected are decimated.    SAM looks up. Christ! The building is being blown to bits.    Certain windows are lit. They spell out MERRY XMAS. With a    final massive haemorrhage the building erupts in a geyser    of masonry, steel, paper and dozens of T.V. consoles and    visual aid apparatus including, in large chunks, MR    HELPMANN's masterpiece. But also tons and tons of paper.        Every file in the building has burst its seams and ejected    its load skywards. The night sky is full of white    rectangular wisps. Ashlike they flutter down over the    city. SAM looks around and can't see TUTTLE anywhere. He    shouts for him. But the remaining TROOPS have spotted SAM    and SAM runs.        138 EXT.   CITY PASSAGES                     NIGHT         138        SAM runs madly through paper-littered passages        139 EXT.   SHOPPING                          PRECINCT     NIGHT139        Eluding his pursuers, SAM dives into a crowded, garishly    lit, shopping centre. Once among the protective company of    he mindlessly shopping MOB, SAM slows down and proceeds    casually. The SHOPPERS go about their programmed business    paying no attention to the paperwork swirling about them.    Searching the CROWD, SAM spots TUTTLE making his way    towards him. TUTTLE is having a bit of trouble walking    against the steadily increasing wind. As he proceeds    across an open area a blown piece of paper. catches on his    foot. He tries shaking it off.        It remains firmly stuck. While he is struggling with the    piece of paper another, larger piece catches his other    leg. He begins to lose his temper trying to dislodge the    flying debris. Another hits him and twists around his arm.    Still more paper blows against him. He is having    difficulty staying upright. Twisting this way and that he    tries to free himself, but more and more paper covers him.    He is practically obscured from view. SAM can't believe    what he is seeing. SHOPPERS continue about their business,    apparently unaware of TUTTLE'S terrible plight. Apart from    ONE SHOPPER who loses control of her shopping trolley -    and watches it career down the steps of the shopping    precinct. By now TUTTLE is totally encased in this cocoon    of litter. He is now just a ball of paper writhing about    on the ground. SAM has to do something. He rushes out from    his hiding place and tries to pull the litter off TUTTLE.    The pieces come loose with surprising ease. The wind    carries them away as SAM frantically tears at the pile.    But there is no sign of TUTTLE. Nothing. The last few    pieces of paper flutter away leaving SAM standing there    with a couple of posters in his hands. He realises that he    is suddenly very visible. All the shopping bustle has    stopped. They are all staring at him. SAM spots TROOPS    shouldering their way towards him. He turns tail and    dashes off.        140 INT.   MOTHER'S FLAT                     NIGHT         140        The drawing room door burst open as SAM dashes in. SAM    goes straight through and into the bedroom. The room is    empty of all terrestrial human life forms. A hollow wind    blows the curtains.        141 INT.   MOTHER'S BEDROOM                  NIGHT         141        The room is in chaos (and there is a hole in the ceiling).    SAM turns and sees a silhouette in the doorway. He rushes    forwards.        142 INT. MOTHER'S FRONT DOOR NIGHT 142        But it's MATTHEWS the porter who is at the door watching    SAM running towards him.                               MATTHEWS                    (piously)               A sad loss. Your mother was with her               at the end. The doctor said there was               no pain.        SAM grabs MATTHEWS round the neck and shakes him.                                  SAM               Where is she?        143 EXT    A CORNER                          NIGHT         143        SAM comes running around corner. He is suddenly bathed in    a strange blue light. He halts and looks up. There    opposite him is a large blue neon cross above the entrance    to a chapel of dully modernistic design. Holy music from    an electric organ can be heard. SAM rushes up the stops    and through the door.        144 INT. CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF THE CHECK-OUT COUNTER NIGHT 144        CUT to SAM slipping into the chapel (in tight spot) and    suddenly being confronted by SPIRO the Maitre D.                                 SPIRO               Ah, yes, Mr Lowry. It's so good you               could make it. Right this way.        SAM, dumbfounded, follows.        CUT to SAM being lead into the middle of the cold, modern    chapel which, possibly for the occasion, has been tarted    up with some red velvet curtains that help make it a bit    theatrical. A large flower-smothered coffin rests on some    sort of raised stand in front of the altar, a VICAR stands    in the pulpit, and a fair sprinkling of PEOPLE sit in    stepped seats on three sides of the room.        The coffin is closed, but a length of bandage has escaped    the lid. Standing amidst the floral tributes is a large,    rather idealized, colour portrait of MRS TERRAIN looking    not so much young as beautiful. Among the MOURNERS are DRS    JAFFE and CHAPMAN and others in their operating gowns.            To enlarge on the scene, we see SHIRLEY T snuffling in her    hanky and a few others chatting amongst themselves, the    VICAR standing in his pulpit waiting to get on with it,    etc. CUT to SAM trying to take all this in, stopping in    the middle of the room. Don't forget DR CHAPMAN sobbing.                                 SPIRO                    (stopping and looking back                    at Sam)               Mrs Lowry? Mrs Lowry is ...        In the background the VICAR begins speaking, and we hear    his voice throughout the following action. CUT TO SAM'S    POV ....                         VICAR (in background)               At these times of giving and               receiving let's remember the greatest               gift of all: not a gift to be               spurned, not a gift to be opened and               carelessly set on one side, not a               gift to be taken back and changed,               but the gift of eternal life. Mrs               Terrain has just received that most               wonderful of all gifts. She came to               us physically new, she goes hence               from us not so physically new. But               the spirit never grows old. And in               the domain of the Eternal Giver, Mrs               Terrain shall dwell in bountiful joy               forever.        ..... (CUT to SAM's POV) ... past SPIRO to a section in    the bleachers directly across from the coffin and the    VICAR where a WOMAN (her back to SAM) is surrounded by a    buzzing flock of very handsome and well-dressed YOUNG MEN.                                  SAM                    (trying to take in scene)               what? ... Oh ...                    (starts to follow Spiro)                                 SPIRO                    (coming up to back of                    woman)               Madam ...    CUT to WOMAN turning, half in flirtatious conversation. It    is SAM's MOTHER, but miraculously another twenty years    younger and ... a parody of SAM's Dream Girl.                                MOTHER               Sam!!!                    (uncertainty in her                    expression)                                  SAM                    (staring dumbly, not                    knowing what to say)               Mother? ... What ... what's ...               you've got to help me ...                                MOTHER                    (embarrassed, unsure)               Not now ... please                             YOUNG GALLANT                    (belligerently)               Ida, is this fellow bothering you?                    (getting up)               I'll -        But before we can find out what he'll:                                 SFX:               TERRIFIC CRASH.        CUT to entrance to Chapel as a squad of TROOPS come    crashing in. PEOPLE begin to scatter, screaming. The    TROOPS spot SAM who dashes away from his MOTHER and heads    for a door behind the altar. In his panic he crashes    against the coffin which topples over spilling its    contents ... a hundredweight of offal. SAM covers his    mouth and dashes through the door.        145 EXT.   MAZE-LIKE DARK PASSAGES           NIGHT          145        CUT to SAM, really dashing madly, tripping over things,    hurting himself, getting up running.    He is in a maze of machinery. Every way he turns his path    seems blocked by either TROOPS or FIGURES from his dreams.    The walls of the maze become more simplified as he goes    deeper into it. More rectangular, higher. We see a top    shot of the maze with SAM separate from the pursuing    FORCES but they are closing in on him from all sides. The    maze extends as far as we can see. SAM turns left and    right through it, always there is a chance of turnings.    Until ... he rounds a corner and for the first time there    is nowhere to go. The maze leads straight ahead to a dead    end.    At the end of the maze is a great pile of detritus from    the consumer society. Televisions, washing machines, hair    dryers, junk. SAM can do nothing but try to dig through    this pile.            Maybe he can defend himself with something here. He    scrabbles away. Looking back he sees the massed AGENTS,    TROOPS, FORCES OF DARKNESS heading toward him. No escape.    He digs, harder, faster. Junk flies everywhere. He    actually reaches the end wall. Back to it, he turns to    face the foe. But as he moves against the wall his hand    touches something. A door knob. He turns. It's a door. The    knob turns easily. The door swings open. SAM dives through    it.        146 INT.   HABITATION UNIT                   NIGHT         146        SAM finds himself in a strange little house empty of    furniture except a few fitted cupboards and a fitted bed    frame. He tries to lock the door behind him but there is    no key. He puts his weight against the door to keep it    shut. From outside there is the general noise of pursuit    but this fades and resolves itself into a fairly quiet    uniform engine-sound. SAM lets go of the door carefully.    He looks around but there is only one window and it is    shuttered. He carefully opens the door a crack and he sees-        SAM'S POV: A rapidly receding street.        147 EXT.   CITY                              NIGHT         147        JILL's truck, with the house on its back, is driving    dangerously through he streets. It lurches round the    corner.        148 INT.   HABITATION UNIT                   NIGHT          148        - The lurch throws SAM to one side. He picks himself up,    and, fighting the centrifugal force, works his way to the    shuttered window which is at the front end of the house,    in the wall opposite the door. SAM undoes the shutters and    finds himself looking at the rear window of JILL's cab. He    sees the back of the DRIVER's head. The DRIVER is wearing    JILL's cap. He sees the back of the DRIVER's cab. He bangs    on the glass of the cab. The DRIVER raises her head so    that the face is visible to SAM in the driving mirror. He    sees that it is JILL, in a flat cap. She smiles at him.    SAM sobs with relief and love.        149 EXT.   THE ROAD                          NIGHT         149        The lorry, travelling slowly now, approaches then breasts    the rise beyond which lies ... looking more than ever ...    JILL'S VALLEY. We ZOOM towards it through a MIX ...        150 INT.   TRAVELLING LORRY                  NIGHT         150        Through the windscreen we see the dawn coming up ahead.    The reverse shot shows us JILL driving and SAM next to    her. They glance at each other.        151 EXT.   SMALL ROAD                        EARLY MORNING 151        The lorry, travelling slowly now, approaches and then    breasts the rise beyond which lies ... A STUNNINGLY    BEAUTIFUL UNTOUCHED VALLEY. We ZOOM towards it through a    MIX ...        152 EXT.   BEAUTIFUL VALLEY                  DAY           152        Half hidden in the heart of the valley is the truck with    the house on its back. Creepers and wild roses have grown    up over the truck and some of the house. A curl of smoke    rises from a makeshift chimney which has been attached to    one of the walls. A small piece of ground around the truck    has been cleared and made into a pretty garden with a    vegetable plat. There is also a pretty cow, and some    chickens. JILL appears locking like CRUSOE carrying a    basket of eggs.        153 INT.   HOUSE                             MORNING       153        SAM is in the bed, just waking up. He opens his eyes,    locking calm. Off screen we hear the door opening.                           JILL (off screen)               Morning. Sleep well?        SAM nods his head slightly, on the pillow.                                  SAM                    (quietly)               I don't dream anymore.                    (he embraces her)        154 EXT.   HOUSE AND GARDEN                  MORNING       154        A high shot. Everything in the garden is definitely    lovely. The music tells us. The music swells and the    camera slowly pulls back, and back. It's a happy ending.    And then, in the foreground, TWO HUGE HEADS appear looking    straight at the camera. It is MR HELPMANN and JACK. They    both shake their heads.                              MR HELPMANN               He's got away from us, Jack.        CUT to their POV.    155 INT.   INFORMATION RETRIEVAL ROOM        DAY            155        Sam is sitting in the IR chair. He is strapped in. His    eyes are open but miles away. His face is wreathed in a    benign and very happy smile.                                 JACK               I'm afraid you're right, Mr.               Helpmann. He's gone.        A wide shot of the room shows us HELPMANN and LINT turn    away and leave. SAM is left alone. He is humming.. The    camera pulls back and back. The Information Retrieval room    with SAM in it floats away into the most beautiful    glorious sky ever.        SAM's humming into a full orchestra, and we hear ......                       "Brazil, where hearts were entertained in June,               We stood beneath an amber moon,               And softly murmured 'Some day soon'               We kissed and clung together,               Then, tomorrow was another day.               The morning found me miles away,               With still a million things to say,               Now, when twilight beams the sky above,               Recalling thrills of our love,               There's one thing I'm certain of,               Return, I will,               To old Brazil."    THE END
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+   BREAK   OLIVER   STONECopyright @ 1969Anthony's trip through three moods/locations:1.   The City -- Speed and Fear2.   The Forest --Decreasing Speed Fading Into Dream3.   Prison -- Silence (The Death of Words)               Freedom (End of Movie)1.          Small, student's     French-type    garret    decoratedin deep-red, suitcase on bed.         Anthony to his desk,hurriedly examining his thick papers and books, andthrowing them on the floor.          Takes a book (closeupphotograph of Genet, book's author, a photo from early50's,   in his burglar's T-shirt, his name in large, Visibleletters at base of photo) off night table, puts it insuitcase, locks suitcase, opens door, suitcase outdoor.   A. back into the room, wine bottle from mantelpiece,pouring red gasoline over books and manuscripts piled onfloor, spreading the gasoline around the small room.Looks it all over, bends, lights match, tosses on fire,backing up, an instant later sound of wind popping a tent                                                         Shot of A.and red flames shooting up. A. forced hack.through the jumping flames, sweating with the heat andwatching.                             Shot of closing door through             Opening the door.fire.   A's fleeing footsteps down the gothic stairs,trotting.    Fire.                               cut.                     Footsteps     (running).2.          Voice Off:                         So you ran away from school.                                (Pause)                         Yes.Shot of father and son, son in jeans, boots and vest,long hair, early     twenties, his hair getting longer withthe progress of the movie, his features, icily handsome,becoming more and more expressive and tender.                         You quit.          A :* :                (Inwardly)                        Yea.(A.'s small pocket knife is out, playing the edge with hisnail, shot close of his hands slightly quivering withinner tension.)                        I can see you're on acid,             Father:                                              Probably on                        you're on pot.                        pills.     God knows what else!                                (Laughing    'at   himself)             A .-.                                                      sex . . .                        Dancing.        Mushrooms.                        my mind is blown.(Gently out of tension rubs the inside of his upper leg)                                (Looking at him as he             Father:                               does this)                        I think you're sick.                                (Puts knife away)             A*:        tun                                    I love you, you're                        Anthony,             P. :                        my boy*A. striking match, watches it burn.            Telephone      rings.Father picks up phone.         Pause.Strange voice hissing over the phone:                        sssssss.Hanging up.Father, bothered, hanging up.            The match in A.'s handburns out.      Father sees it go out.A; rising, not looking at his Father, walking to elevatorwhich opens directly on the luxurious apartment.                                                              3                      I think your fire is out          A:                                              I think                      Dad . . . I'm sorry.                      I need a woman, Dad. I'm                      going out and find a woman, Dad-F. startled, very distant, slowly wondering aloud:                      You really are sick . . . You                     have no idea      really of what                      reality is.A, turning around at entrance to elevator which opensas he talks.                                 Then softer:                Looking at Father hard.                                           Right here.                      Reality I have.                            (Gesturing with his                           hand to his genitals)                      Right here.                            (Head)                      Right here.                            (Heart)                      So man . . .                            (Softly)                      Dad . . . don't ever tell                      me I'm sick.Shot: footsteps into elevator.        Hand pushing elevatorbutton.   Elevator drifting across Father's face,disappearing,3.                                                Anthony's           Elevator opening another floor.mother with Siamese cat on her arm getting into elevator                                                                                          4first,     group        of   friends        following       dressed    in    fancy    threadsready    to      go someplace.ITother, looking at                 in elevator, at first unable                               A.                                                    torecognize him:                       Anthony?                                Yes,        Mom.                 A:                                    How are you?                 Marina:Elarina, who says this, is                    Russian       looking,    is   tall     with                                                                 She locks down closelya husky voice and long black hair.at A., who is leaning up against a side of the elevator.                 Mother from distance:                                    Come with us.                                    Where     you     going?                 A .:Looking at Iilarina, who is looking at him.Mother turning bored to her son, looking at :him, blowingsmoke out of her mouth:                                    To Hell! What difference                 A .:                                    does    it      make?                                                    A Dylan-type, freaky hair4.                              opening.                 Elevatorand corduroys and knee-high boots (seen later as Lerner)is leaning up against the side of the elevator in samepose as A's as elevator opens.                          Looks at the party ofpeople     wth        cold   blue     eyes.      Goes       in    elevator   after    lasthas     left.                              A. combing his hair in the reflection5.                                                                                     Marinaof the glass doors, with a large light-blue                                  comb.standing        behind       him.     To the side.                                                             5           A .:        No.           !I. :       Why not:           A .:        No.           14. :       why not?           A .:        No.           Anthony returns             to pocket of his jeans.                                comb6.         Faces of party going out the glass door, motherfirst, son the last.7.         Anthony at front of door, waving to them as thedoors of the limousine close.           A. (off in low whisper):                       Ciaou,8.         A. gloved hands in pocket not wearing jeansbut fancier, better clothes, walking down a city sidewalkin the damp night.     A young, cautious, slightly tense walk.                                                         PassesA belted raincoat on, drawn up around his neck.a tall black standing in the shadows of a doorway, verywell dressed, a silk scarf about his neck, a distantgreen light blinking on and off.          To the negro's rightthere is a fence with a manifesto tacked on.          A. stopping,looking at the black, at the manifesto, approaching, readsit.   Camera follows down the manifesto, line by line withhis eye.                       Hen Wanted                       Are You a Man                       Can you Kill                        Are         A Realist.                              You                        Can You Rape.                        Can You Steal.                        Can You Die!                        Assure Yourself.                        Go East.                        Go To War                        Today.Shot of spade treading past A.'s back, as he reads.9.        Camera follows spade from side walking down                                                             Readingstreet.   Stopping at lighted newspaper stand.a Glamour magazine.      Pull of white models.                                                    Marina, inFleeting full-screen shots of the model:Russian leather and Egyptian outfits.A, looking,   Pan his eyes to newstand           where thespade is casually walking away with magazine.           Voice off (low), ALEXANDER's           soft           cultivated    voice:                        I fled moral courage. I                        read Vogue magazines and                        Comic Books . . . and suffered                        as I looked across the abyss                        at Beauty, such      complacent                        Beauty . . .Quick full-screen blowup ?.larina;       then the Silver Surfer(a comic-book hero).&walking down another street.            It is starting to rain.                                                             7Cut to A. as he is trying to close a window in the middleof the night, the cold air blowing on his naked.body.            Hefinds the window stuck. It will not close.          Voice off:... but then I was a                     soldier . . . a soldier is a                     soldier . . . and a soldier                     never cries . . .Close, A. wearing a horrible white face mask, a cigarettestuck in the mouth hole of the mask, smoke blowing out.          Voice off:... he dies.          A. walking faster, hands in pocket of raincoat.10.          Voices off, reeling by fast:                     I know exactly how you                     feel, man.                     I know exactly what you went                     through over there darling.                     I'm hip man, you're emerging                     from a cosmos of insanity.Full screen blowup: Eisenhower, smiling, in a golf cap-                         REAK               H To The Other Side.Drums starting up.   B          ON THROUGDrums fade.          Voices off:                     Cool it man, cool it.          Another voice:                     See        Alexander.                                                                            8          Voices    off:                         It's a fcDl man, who plays                         it cool.                                  (Pause)          A-'s voice, off:                         . . . on the loneliness tri?                         they     all    split.        Dad's face                         I leave behind in the elevator.Shot.          A's   voice,     off:                         My     mother's       voice    dies    on                         the telephone.            She . . .Shot of Marina in the hall behind A. combing his hair.          A's   voice,     off:                                splits.         I split.                         ...Shot of A. in student room at fire, his fleeing footsteps.          A's   voice,     off:                         We all split . . . We all                         fade.                                  (Pause)                         My mouth feels dry.A. passes camera, his back to it,11.       Anthony   in     coffee       shop    next    to     movie   theatre,standing, eating,   what        he's     eating.       Beautiful blonde girlwaiting at the counter for her change, catch each other'seye, the voice on the radio saying:                         Drive slowly, don't gamble                         with your life, remember . . .                         the stakes are too high.                                                            9                                      A. following her.Shot of her moving out the door.Superimposed images of the two walking separately.          Voice off (Alexander's):                      . . . the streets are full of                               The City is the fear.                      fear.                                           The sfi>dOWS                      The wind is fear.                      off the buildings are fear.                      The plastic people are fear . . .                      the silence is fear.Blonde girl arrives outside her doorway, sees shadow ofA. coming up to her silently, his hands on her neck,                       Kissing her cheek, lightly kissingsoftly kissing her.her on the mouth again, his finger gently under her chin-                                     She responds gently.Her fear melts into tenderness.Cut to Blowup (full screen) of Joanna (seen later) inthe woods with a thin Egyptian band shaped as a snake onher head, her face painted green, not a model but amember of a strange tribe living in the forests.12.       Voice off, (A.'s):                      I wanted to sleep with you                      as soon as I saw you.                              She is a painter, her comfortableSet: Diana's apartment.pad full of large unframed colorful paintings on the wall.She has long silken white hair, a pale face, green eyes,is in her late twenties, speaks with an arrogant Britishtone.   Together they are lying on a rug next to the fire,                                                                        10a lion's head telling us what sort of rug.                  She is                                                 Her Doberman Pincerwarming A's cold feet in her lap.is quietly resting on the couch above them, surveying.Sound of fire crackling.                 D-. (answering):                            Oh we will eventually. It                            takes time.     Right now you're                            perfectly dreadful . . .                                                   You don't know                            you're    uptight.                                                               Look                           what to do with yourself.                                                  They're   beautiful                            at your hands.                            long creative hands,Shot of hands.                 D .:       but they're tense, quivering                            as if you'd had malaria in the                            East.Smells him, a bit of disgust in her face.                 D .:       You're giving off no scent.                                          You're cold . . .                            No smell.                            You're clammy.Shot:            painting of black man with large red flaming        D'   Seyeballs,                           black on red background, an edge                 semi-abstract,     insanity to it.of                 A: (off): Wow like some oyster in                            his shell on a seashore.                 D, (off): No, an oyster is wet,                                      It isn't at all                            damp.                            the same thing.                                                            11Pause, looking at A's e'yes closely. A. not relaxingwith her,            A .:        Wow what do I say.                        Don't say Wow, it doesn't            D .:                        mean anything to me.            A           But baby,                l   :                               (bqoving his head                               with emphasis)                        wow means a lot to me.                                           -Shot of A. at Temple in the Forest, with black brothers,                                                   A. saying with                                    Slow motion.in their primitive clothes.great feeling and adoration WOW (no sound).            D.'s voice, off, the camera returning to her            apartment as she talks (petulantly):                        Hide Hide Hide1 Why do you                                         You don't have                        Hide   things?                        to perform with me . . . if   YOU                                                      ...                        want me . . . be yourself                        don't be honest either . . .                        there's no such thing as honesty                        . . . those who try it inevitably                        come off smelling stained.Cut: Coming closer together on the rug.Shot his fingers kneading the inside of her mouth,Shot D. playing with his zipper.Shot A. taking his brown leather pants off.Shot dog watching,                                                           12Shot D.'s face examining his naked body from above,              judging,observing,Shot Anthony on his back, his eyes wander to the painting                            semi-abstract, examining a butterflyof a naked woman, also                                             This painting,cupped in her hands between her knees.unframed I grows almost to full screen as camera zooms inslowly.             D.,off:     Now your bones are getting                         softer.   You have a lot of                         bones and very little flesh.                         Didpu know that?                              (Pause)             A ., off:   No, what does that mean?             D *, off:   You're not a fish anyway.Camera has panned across wall to closeup of painting ofblack man.      The voices Off;                         Now you're tasting good.             D.:                         You're being yourself.             A .:        The fire's out.             D .:        Let's go into the bedroom.             A .:        Let's stay out here,             Voices, off, trailing into the bedroom:             A .:        Maybe I'll go in the back.             D .:        No, you may attack me from the                         rear, but you will enter at the                         front.                                                        13Shot: door closing on dog who attentive to his mistress,is circling at the door.Shot (sharp tense freeze) of D. upthrust on bed, archingherself, a green scarf clinging by its tip to her mouth.Ai's left hand, with a leather wrist band on it, on the                                In her face, eyes open,side of her head, framing it.a sudden and surprising fear -- fear of A., fear ofrelease, fear of sex.Shot close on A's face, looking at her under him, curious,not passionate.cut.   D. naked combing her long hair with a brush in themirror above her boudoir, wearing small black readingspectacles on the tip of her long nose. In the mirror, wesee the big dog lying warily on the bed with A.                     You've got a nice body.           D.                     You've got nice hands.                                               But                     You've got nice hair.                     I can get a thousand nice                     bodies and nice hands in this                             Therefore, if you're                     city.                     going to come back, produce.                                        But a little                     Not just a tool.                     more of everything: guts, talent,                     intelligence . . . and then                     together . . . we'll work.                                              Is hurt, notA* on bed, hands behind head, listening.to show it, gets up, going towards bathroom.                                                                     14                                  Oui, mama.            A. (bored):D. sees him in mirrur, turning, coming towards him aslantas he moves, black spectacles on her nose, green scarftied around her neck, putting herself up against him,                                                            Dog raising          histapping         buttock    with   brush   reassuringly.his head, looking at them quietly.            D .:           If you are what I think                           you are . . . it'll work . . .                           we'll run away . . . we'll                           get out of the City -..            A-     (deadpan):                           Oui, mama.As he says this, earlier picture of Genet full-screenBlowup, passes on screen through his mind.A. goes to bowl.Shot of solitary red rose floating in the toilet bowl.Shot A. curious about it.            D ., off:      I want to watch you                           pee.Shot of rose being destroyed by the urine.            A ., off:      why?            D ., off:      I'm curious.                                  (Pause)                           What do you want from me?            A ., off:                                                                A. inShot, the dog on bed looking at them both naked.                                                          Growling    lowly,                         at the door watching him.the bathroom.       D.menacingly.cut.                                                                1513.                      The sound of jazz now, as an increasing              Clash.                                                We go faster.senseof unreality envelopes the city.                                                 It's cold, heAnthony     walking the dark night streets.                           briskly, driving on in spite of hishugs himself. Walksgrowing     fear.    Pliles-Davis-type jazz playing off.Shot of cat (Alexander's cat seen later) from the top,his striped back undulating, gliding, jumping up, sitting.Shot of A.'s other cat, the Siamese, sitting, watching thestriped cat.                                                        The formerShot of the street, a homosexual is digging A.wearing a fur overcoat festooned with flower patterns andXoroccan     lace.Shot of A. through the homosexual's orange-colored shades(jazz growing intense, into the drums, mimicing         his                          Orange shades melting into red stoplight.fantasy-passion).A. crossing the street at the red light, in the drizzle,quick image shot ofa speed limit sign marked with thetwin      zeroes    representing   infinity.Pan across thevine covered abandoned Temple in the Forest-(used later for second set).Pan into the cat's eyes, cat's eyes fusing into the eyesof spade in super-threads sitting at a small table in the                                                  A. is only whitemiddle of a jazz club, decorated in red.at the table, with the spade and a couple of heads, each                                     One brother with goatee veryisolated from one another.lightly sleeping on his muscles, another softly shakinghis head like a snake riffing on the music, the third, the                                                                                             16spade    with        an      African     head    sitting       there       perfectly      stonedwithin himself, eyes open, looking ahead, almost not evenpaying    attention           to   the    beat.Shot     of    candle.Shot of jazz group leader, close, a slight sweat on his                              himself, starting          to    grow        more     intense,face,     carryingplaying the same jazz that began the scene.                    Voice,     off:                                   Betray: Explode . . . I:                                   Negative . . . Betray:                                   ExplodefQuick shot candle.Shot:     terrifying          explosion     of    a     mine    in     a    tree     (seen     later).A. rising from table quickly, sweating, flushed, treading                                                 Freaking       on     the        jazz,   needingshakily towards men's room                                       Heavy     soul               James     Brown,       comingsomething           stronger.                             music,UP fast on the jazz score, beginning                           at     the     moment      of      theexplosion in the tree . . . Brown moaning "I got the feeling".Shots quicker in rhythm with new music.Shots: Sweating jazz leader's face              The blacks at his table, individually              A's burning room back at the university                      feet running              His              A. shakily gliding through club to men's room.Goes     in.        White walls of john momentarily break his mood.Shots     Two cats locked in the toilet, their feet visible                                                                                  Snorting.under     the        door.     Sounds      of     strong       sniffing.                                                                                          17Bumping up against the door of the toilet as they hear A.coming    in.     One of them saying in husky drugged voice                                Yea . . . well a . . .Shot:     A. combing his long hair in the mirror with thelight blue comb. Closer.Shot: A's calmer face.Shot: A. in his forest threads, his hair longer, in theforest,    combing       his    hair        with    a     small     jagged    pocket    mirror.His face reflected on a jagged screen.Long shot from side of                      in woods combing his hair.                                       A.Shot:     same     explosion.       James Brown beginning all                    overagain *..        I got the feeling!Shot: A. dancing to the music with a colored chick, alonein his apartment, working it                       out.     Both     dance    well,    fastslow, never        strenuously.Superimposed       images:        A. back in the jazz club                                   Candle                                   Jazz man swinging                                   His books and papers in flames                                   Smashing          his     photograph       (seen     later)                                   Cat, moving, watching14.              These superimposed images fading, A. and the girldancing    to     the    music.     I Got The Feeling peaks.cut.      No sound but that of the rain falling on the streets.                                                                       Still night.A. getting out of the car at the corner.One of the brothers, with the goatee, driving in the front,the spade next to him, in the back in the shadows the third                                                   The     window    wipers     rubbing    thehead,     very    high    and     silent.windshield.                                                                     18                              open, talking to brother in back.A.   keeping     the   door                              Listen man       think we're               A .t                        I                              on two different trips                              tonight and wow . . . it's like                              we're still circling each other.Brother in back, shy smilk-ng, not quite looking at A.                              Well you kfiow how it is . . .               3rother:                              we all got our secrets --                              the man at the wheel's got                              his.   I got mine.                                                               TheShot of driver looking out at the rain, bored.spade next to him adjusting his scarf.A. looking at brother in back.               A .:           Would you like to come up                                                We'll get so                              to my place?                              high, we'll have to unite.               Brother (still shy, elusive):                              . . . Well it's getting late                              and we gotta be at the Man's                                                   Fe got your                              in the morning.                              number.    FTe.11 give you a ring.                                     (Pause)               A .*0          Okay, man, have it your way.               Brother:       Keep it cool.A. closing door to car.Shot of two in front looking ahead through the wetwindshield.Car driving off.                                                                                              19A. walking through a cloud of steam rising from the sewer.15.                 A girl in motorcycle gear (same girl who lateras member of the tribe is killed by Bunny; somedistinguishing             feature       so    as    to    be      recognizable)      lookingclosely at Rodinls sculpture The Kiss.                    Voice, off:                                     I    never     knew    why    before,                                                                                  There's                                     why it was so beautiful.                                     no sex.         follows her gloved fingers as they probe the areaCameraof     the     male's       missing       parts.16.                                                                               On a wall                    A. coming through the steam cloud.                                                                                         A copbehind him is painted "Freedom For Italy's Young!"in a blue overcoat with a stick is leaning up like aprostitute against a building down the street, trying tokeep out of the rain.                          walking past him.                                          A.Shot: A. trying to close the window in the night. Itwon't        close.       turning his face -on Anthony, coming                           out    of    the   shadows,Coptaking       his     cap     off, long white hair tumbles down from thecap.      A.       sees     Diana,       dressed    in     blue.     NO look of surprisein A.* s face, rather an acquiescence to the fear.                                       He seeswhat happens to him, not as unreality or dream, but asobjects        of    fear.      Only later, does this Fear fade intoDream.                                                                              2017,          Voice      off,    Ibther's      regalvoice,       previous    scenedissolving   into    bedroom     of   Mother's     who    is    in   bed    lookinglike a fiery wreck.             Mother,       I just don't know I have                           pains all over my ears, my                           eyes, my spine . . . I can't                                           tonight I thought I                           move -*.                           was going to die.                           Oh I'm suffering Anthony since                                                               the East,                           you've been back from                           you leave this apartment in such                           a mess, you're a pig!                I can't                           have it . . . I'm going to . . . Oh                           IRm in pain it doesn't matter.                                want my place impeccable all the                           I                                   do you understand that?                           time,A * I distracted, flicking his cigarette in the waste basketat his mother's bedside.              Fire erupts immediately as ifgasoline had been soaking the trash.                     Mother shrieking asthe red flames jump up and block her off from A.                           Throughthe fire, her voice:             I4OTHER:      Oh you fool, you've put the                           place           fire.                               1'11 go and tell father.                    A.:18.          Shot of father sitting cross-legged on a divanin an afghan-type robe, smoking               long Turkish hashish pipe.                                                               21             Father's voice, off:                       My son, blessed be the stars                       that bring f7ou to me.                                          -             Cut to A. picking up his young boy's face,19.encased in a photograph frame and throwing it out the                                      Father in robe behind him,picture window onto the street,looking off distracted somewhere else.                                                 sound of breakage,Long shot from above of it dropping.        NOHis face in the street, the rain pouring down On it.20.          Cut to shot of telephone.             Telephone voice, off (soft):                                        Keep it cool.                       Cool it man.Slow fade.21.          This scene done in deadpan semi-documentary style,mostly medium and long shots,         Anthony    treading   lightlyinto the subway, no longer wearing raincoat, but lookingmore like a cat, wrapped in a light beige wool overcoatdown to his knees with hood which he has over his head andlight-blue sunglasses over his eyes, tan warm tight pants                              It's about two in the morningand heavy warm moccasins.and the underground station is deserted save for a coloredcat well dressed in a silk scarf and wearing light-pinkshades over his eyes, leaning up against a tier on the otherside of the tracks.Long shot of them across the tracks from one another,                                                                       22glancing through their shades at each other, unconcerned.An utter silence,,            A. casually strolling back and forth.Advertisements on walls for soups, intermixed with posters                                                 Dean.      Dette Davis.of   people's   faces,blownup.         Brando.                                     Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman-Edward G. Robinson, etc.A. stops at Blowup of The Silver Surfer.             Walks on.          Shot of him through colored cat'slight pink lens across the tracks.               A. reading a Poster:                              Believe That Love is the Greatest Thing                      w   Iin The world; that It Alone Can Overcome Hate, That RightCan and Will Triumph over Might. " --John D. Rockefeller Jr.             As A. reads the poster, a whistle down the tunnel.An express train whistles by, shot of moving people's                                                        Express    disappears.zombie faces shooting by in the night.Utter silence returns; whistle from down pedestriancorridor.     Ri'ch       croesus-rockefeller    type    emerging    dressed                                                        He's old with greyin rich furs, a red flower in his fur.                                 Walking back and forth near thehair,   distinguished.tracks, a bit nervously but detached and rich.Puts a pair of light yellow shades on, looks atA, on his side of the track and the brother acrossthe track,      Sees them both looking at him with theirvariously colored shades (shot of them through his yellow-                                                                  He doesn'tshades).                                 Puts them away.             He takes ihem off.like them.             shot of rich man pacing through A.'s blue shades                                                               23(if in black and white, a frontal view of A. looking isgood enough) and then through the brother's pink shades.             Suddenly train whistles down tunnel, coming downA.'s track.                                  Then brother's. -Train                Shot through A-Is eyes.approaching,    screaming.    Shot through rich man's eyes.Nervously pacing at the very edge of the track.         Roar oftrain.     Rich man jumping head on into the tracks.        Roar astrain goes by, pulls to a stop.        Long shot A. casuallygetting into subway.                      Shot of brother, left                         Pulls away.alone. on subway platform.      Watching the train pull out.Train through his pink shades.         Looking at the bloodiedtracks.     Do not see what he sees.      Camera on his unsurprisedeyes.     Greys can kill greys.22.                                    seated, a white wall behind             Solitary shot.    Womanher.     First shot, her beautiful legs.                     The                                              Tilting up.face and body of an old woman.         Staring at the camera.23.          Blow Wp Pull Screen of Mureyev.      Momentary.                               (Nureyev the ballet dancer)24.          Shot A., narcissistically examining his own facein the mirror , proud that it is icy.        Trying suddenly to putexpression into it.     Not satisfied.2s.          Cut to Anthony throwing his photograph into thestreet (seen earlier).        Slow motion as it descends ontosidewalk, shot from above.        Shot Nureyev's face smashed inthe street.                                                                                                         2426.                 Anthony in a stark white walled toilet, a violin                                                                                                  Anthonysoftly       playing        off      screen       a     classic          Mozart    melody.writing       with        pencil     on     wall        in     large      capitals:                             To Be Real!                             To     Feel!                             FREE!                                      (semi-documentary                effect      to     this      scene)                    Camera dwells on Free.                                      cut    to27.                 Some stock footage                   out of the          great fencing          scenein     The     Sea        Hawk     (1940)     with       Errol      Flynn     battling       his     adver-sary     in     the       castle, their           two        huge     silhouettes         leaping        upon     the     stone        wall     behind       them.Its     effect        camping        the     seriousness            of     A.'s     feelings        perhaps                                                                                                  Thisimplying        his        own     ability        to     see       himself      comically.ability being what makes him go on and not give up,                                                thedifference           between        him      and        Alexander.Violin        is     still        playing     through          this       scene.    Footage         iscut     at     the        moment     Flynn     kills         his     adversary.Violin        continues.28.                 Camera        panning     a        park,     discovering        Man     in     theCold,     in       the     day,     not     raining,         his    head     in    his     hands,looking        at     a    small     fire     burning          in         wired    trash     barrel.                                                                     aDwells on him.,                                               A       dime      mister?                    Voices        off:                    A:                If     you       need     bread      man,    steal     it                                                  (pause)                                                                   25           A: (cont'd):        Can I steal it from you?                                (pause)                       Here, take this key . . .                        (low mumbling follows and fades)29.        Shot   of father    in business    suit,   speaking                                                                 Sceneon telephone, his arms gesturing, angry, disgusted,done in silence except for violin which is still playing.           Pan from father's gesturing arm across to hislooted apartment, drawers on floor, food eaten in kitchen,liquor bottles open, the mirrors stolen from their frames.           Pan across his library full of rich leather boundbooks, left untouched,        Panning across this, camera comesto a young boy with long hair (Anthony) in a Cardin-typesuit playing the piano (the same child is seen later asAnthony's own child).         The off screen violin fading, andAnthony picking UD the same gentle melody on the piano.Camera not stopping long at him, keeps panning to hisyoung ITother, much younger, virginal, in a long dressreaching to her ankles as in the early 50's, looking inprofile out the window at the garden, an afternoon sunshining.                                      (soft, a boy's tiny voice)           Voice off:                        The world is sorrow, nothing more,                        and in its bosom I play . . . the                        practice of my heart.Camera panning out to the garden.            Dissolve very slow.                                                                                                                             26                       (off 130.                                        There        are       no        Truths          outside         the     gates                                           of     Eden.                                                                                                                   Shot       of                      Shot:         unframed         blowup            of        Dylan         on     wall.ALEXANDER'S            back        on      side,        looking             at        pester,         hating        justspoken        this.           Turns        around:                                           I was what you are . . . I am what you're                                           going       to        be.                      Alexander,            handsome             all         in        voluptuous            black,          walking                                                                                                                              Thisaway     from         poster,          down      a     few        steps,          into         his     apartment.scene, as                                                                             very       important          to       the                       well       as      the     apartment,            aretheme        of       the     movie,        Alexander             being           a       throw-back          to       the                                                                                                                  A blow upfeelings           expressed              through         Words,             through             Poetry,Of     Dylan          in     his       apartment        and        a        romantic            unframed          portrait         of                                                                                                                   Anthony,Rimbaud,              the     young        French       poet           he     identifies              with.in     the        apartment         with        him,        is     more          modern,            more     uncertain            Ofhis     symbols             (so     far     Genet,          Movie           Actors,            Vogue        and    GlamourModels       being          his     only        glow        ups;        he        makes         Alexander's            trip       herein     the    Apartment             and     later         again        one        last         time,        in Prison,where        Alexander's               destiny       is       unfolded                along         with     Anthony's*Two      different                roads, but           sprung          from           a     similar         source.                      Alexander's               dark      brooding                clothes           accentuate            theidea     of       a     modern         bewildered           Hamlet          lost          in    a     sea    of     words         ina     world        where          Words     are      dying.                      During        the       course         of        his        monologues,              the     camera         Willpass     through            his        Apartment,           picking          up           objects      such        as     histwo     cats, one               striped,          one       Siamese,              the          paintings,          the       blow-ups     of        Comic-Book            characters           Alexander                has       but    on        his     VJall~                                                                                                               27a poster of Jim Morrison of the Doors,                                        and several largeplants        (optional)        --     and      flowers.          The         Apartment's           colorscould    be      plain       white     and      black,          either        black        walls     andceilings        and     bright        white     furnishings             or      vice-versa,           but        a                                                                                                         Plasticstark     contrast          between      two        schemes,          old      and        modern.white    chairs,        bubble        tables        with        neons       glowing         on     them,abstract         portraits, that               of       Rimbaud         could         be     semi-abstractred     and     green, contrasted              to        this     single         classic           furnishing          --Alexander        -- all         in     black,           pacing    through            his     large       one-roomapartment        studio.         A      picture          window       looking         out     on     thedark     city     way       below.      Also        a     fireplace         above         which     hangs        atorch.         Not     an     Apartment         stressing          Wealth,           as     Alexander           isbeyond        it, almost         mythic        to        Anthony.                 As      written, the camerats                        effect is to circle theroom     time     and       again 1     panning          the     objects        as     the       spoken        wordsthemselves            encircle        themselves.                 The        Siamese     sits        in     a     white        plastic        chair,        looking.The striped cat is on the move.                 Alexander           gliding        past        his     objects,            finding        acigarette,                                                         Anthony           is      sitting          across                      lighting        it,      standing.from him in a chair, dressed in a light motif -- contrastingto      Alexander's          black.         Looking        at     Alexander,              Anthony        in     hisclothes       looks      like    he's         burned       his        lar;t     candle.                 Alexander            looking        at        him,     understanding::                                      (softly)            What's        happened,            Anthony?           Tell                                      me.                 A,      pausing,       shrugging,             saying         "Oh"        like     the        Frenchsay it.         Lighting         cigarette.               Camera        wandering           away     from        him-                                                                                                                        28His    voice       off,      soft, almost               an     interior              monologue:             Strange        things         happen       to     me         .--                 feel      like           a                                                                                     Ilittle      boy      inside       a     crazy      crazy       city,         trying            to     close        awindow . . . and the window's jammed . . . (Pause) .-.                                                      I keephaving        accidents,                   Camera        moving      around          room       takes            in     another        Anthonysitting        there, in              another      outfit, spilling                       champagne            onhimself,       camera        continuing           past        him       as      if        nothing        has           happen-ed.     Quick        cut     to       A.    flicking         the        cigarette              into     his        Mother'swastebasket          but     before        fire     can       erupt,         cut          to     sight        pf       auto-mobile       accident, an anonymous body lying in the street . . .Cut     to A.'s            face    close,         worried:                                       I met a girl yesterday in the park . . .I     was    walking        my     Mother's        dog.                   Shot     of     A.      in     the    park        walking             his        Mother's           little         Diana       walking          her        Doberman.          The       Doberman                swarming             overdog.A.'s     dog.                                                                                                      Talking                     Diana        berating        her        dog.        Leashing              him     in.                                                                                               A. talking               toto A,       who holds the little dog in his arms.her.        Both     talking.                                       I: didn't know it then . . . but she wasthe    law.                   Shot of Diana, her long white hair, in the bluepoliceman*s            overcoat,            her    voice        off:                                       You may attack me from the rear but Youwill     enter       by     the       front,                   Fading         into      her    freeze          in     bed,           the        green     scarfclinging        to    her        teeth      by    its        edge,      draped           on     her     bosom,             the                                                                                                               29fear     of     release      written         in     her          eyes:                                      . . . so I was the thief (&net B~CJW UP)                                       explanations, in                   contrast         to Alexander=,                 Anthony'sare     mostly       made    in       images:                                      ...         cop        a     cigarette        case      from      her.                                             I                 Shot       A.    leaving          her       apartment,          taking       a      gold      cigar-ette     case.                                      . . . she sees me . . . (D. sees him) . . . shepretends       she     hasngt.                 Shot       Diana      acting           as       normal,      the      dog     still        growlingat A., soundlessly.                                      . . . says goodbye . . . says call me soon . . .knows I won't . . . I stole . . . I'm caught . . . I don't return . .(pause) . . . she adores it . . . I do what she wants . . . she'sa thief . . . doesn't                 know       it.         (camera       dwelling          on      Alexander'sportrait of Rimbaud)              . . . she paints . . . she steals . . .                 Shot       of    full       screen          of       Diana's     painting         of    thewoman      and       the     butterfly.           Shot           A.    photograph,           similar        to                                                                                                             ShotGenet's,         in    a     t-shirt,        looking             sensitive       and     a    thief.A.     close,        talking, blowing              cigarette             smoke       out      mouth.                                      . . . but she doesn't admit it . . . stays aCOP . . . loves . . . like a cop.                 Shot       Diana      in        bed,        freeze,       green       scarf,        etc.,fading        into    shot       of   red        rose     sitting        in     the      toilet       bowl,slow     fade.                 Alexander:              But      you're           not   a      thief,       are     you?                 Anthony,         looking           up        at      Alexander.             (Pause)                 Alexander:              Any       others?            A.               mood, starting                 changing                           to     smile:                          Oh . . . I met this crazy chick at an auto-mobile wreck ..,        (shot of same wreck, seen previously) . . .she takes me home to her place ,.. we talk . . . she's incredi-bly warm .-. we go to bed . . . then very suddenly ehe says,do you like to dominate or be dominated? . . . I say it doesn'tmake any difference . . . I don't think about it . . . she says, Iwant to beat you . . . okay ..*         she weighs about a hundredpounds . . . it's passionless . . . I feel foolish . . . she says,man, you're so square . . . beat it .-. beat what? ..- get Outof here! . . . she throws a boot at me (shot of boot hitting thewall next to A.)            Closeup; A's face:                          We just couldn't get together . . . (pause)(A. reflecting) . . . You walk around and you meet so manysquares you begin to think you're              square ,.. then sometimes            just everybody's out of his head . . . then YOUyou think                                                                            meetthe freaky obsessed ones like that chick . . . snake people,cat people, dog people .,. (pause; closeup A.'s                  face) . . .and YOU just don't know where you're at.                                                               punish yourself-            Alexander:        (a tender look)            YOU            A:                                                 this   crazy    chick                            Yeah,   that's   just    whatsaid, Why do you punish yourself,              That's what they alwayssay when you want to find something and you're looking veryhard.   You'll                                           it)    anything      just    to                  try    anything    (emphasizingfind out, and if nothing is available, you go out and force                              A, in street, walking) and because YOUyourself to look (shot                                                                         31force yourself, these crazy people pin a label on it --Masochist, why do you punish yourself?            Alexander:                     So now what?                              (pause)            A:           (shrugging,        shifting mood)                              (Camera dwelling on timbaud, shiftingto the Comics)     ...I'm sick of sitting in movies . . . there'ssome kind of real war in the East . . . they need men . . . Ineed new faces . . . It11 enlist.            Alexander and Anthony, looking at each other. A.going on almost in apology:                         .e. the money's good, you keep what YOUtake . . . you find out . . . if you can kill . . . if you can't                                                    (shrugs at his own morbid.-. (pause) . . . do you get killed?thought),                                                                        A soft                                        Alexander picking it up-            Telephone    rings.feminine voice, husky, saying over the phone:                         Is    Diana      there?            Alex&tier:        She's gone,                         Is she coming back?         Alexander:       No.                         This is Luna.             How are you, Alex?            Alexander looking at wall, reflecting, hesitantabout something.    The voice continues:                                                            I have a partin a                         I'm going to the East,                                                      Will you still benew movie of Godard's,          I'll be back.here?            Alexander,    looking        puzzled:                         I don't know.                                                                        32             Alexander hanging up, pacing to front of abstract                                                       Able.to be read:lettering hanging on a canvas on the wall,"Painters paint, Writers write, Poets sing, Killers kill (readby camera going down from line to line).             Alexander turning away from tableaux, asking A:                             Are you a killer who kills,     Anthony?(going on)        You have never . . . ever ,., betrayed yourself tome .., ever, it's sad that you're this way . . . you insistreally on being your own hero in your own little tragedy.             Shot:            face.     His offscreen voice:                       A,`s                             Words             The images begin.          Four quick images from Anthony'smind tumble on screen, each image running through his mindwith a click, as from a slide viewer:             1.     A. killing the anake with his knife (seen later).                                                             Shot from A.'s             2.     A. as sole survivor of massacre.shoulder, of desolate stream bed in the forest (seen later).                                                                In profile.                    A. being decorated in dark shadows.             3.A dark hand in a greta garbo glove putting an orchid on hisafghan-type       uniform.                    The silver bird (airplane) flying across the             4.sky (seen later).        Silver bird on airfield runway, stopped,                                                             Alexander,the door opening.                                 Parents,                         The hero returned.Diana, others there.           Four strong black brothers in fursbearing a pink marble coffin strewn with yellow and blackflowers from the plane.              Shot of horror on Parents' faces-                                                                     looking                                                             DianaAlexander bowing his head, tears on his cheek,hard, offended by this heroic act.                                                                      33                  Images end.                  Alexander:     . . . I don't think you know yet whetheryou want to live or die.                  Close shot A's face.     Pause,                               (becoming hard] . . . I see before me with                  A:my eyes.          I see a Siamese sitting pn a chair (camera followsthese objects he mentions) . ..I seeposters of Dylan---Morrison`Superman . . . people with secret identitie             . . . I see a libraryfull of exalted expectations -written by people who've beeneaten by worms .-. I see a portrait of Rimbaud . . . young,tender, bold . . . (camera dwelling on portrait) who after allhis travels and adventures was delivered back to the beginning                                                       dying of syphilis            into his mothergs arms . . . (bitterly)l   .   .. . . and I see one writer (camera directly on Alexander,humbling him, beginning to reveal his identity) - Hewrote a poetic book at the tender age ofeighteen.                                        He's lived inside these                   He's done nothing since.four walls for more than a year now wrizing to all hours, dream-ing thinking imagining having his women around him like littleinsects, and without knowing it himself, becoming an ultra-sensitive, very tender plant,                                                              An interior                  This wounds Alexander.     A long pause.monologue delivered offscreen between the two of them, inurgent,         intimate   whispers, something they might have said toeach other before somewhere in the past:                               (soft, said quickly) . . . when I die will                  A:                                                    Will you let me in?I see your face at the Gates of Eden?                               I don't think I'd let myself in.                  Alx:                                                                                                                     34                Camera          which          has        been    panning          the        room      during         thisshort        interior          dialogue, returns                  to       Alx.        who     is     talking          moreto    himself       in     a       wistful       vein:                                                                                                                     It's                                         We     really        live         like        plants        though.the    wordless          part       of        ourselves          where       things          just       happen       tous .., we're             hard       on    our        animal       selves,         so     hard,          and    we      travelsuch a long way,                    looking at Dylan blow Up "it's                                    so      hard to                                                      very few of us young ones everget    on" . . . and so few,                    SOreally       make     it,          (Turning to A. After a long                                pause) I've beenhere tco long--.                    like yousay..                My mindistooloose,                           my legs.areinstagnantwaters- Last night...1                                         took mylasttrip,...,                      Iasked        my -.,"insect                woman",--to              leave me-.-She                   did-                 Shot         of     A.       listening          to       Alx's        conversational               story,imagining        it.          Alx        on     floor       in    lotus        position,            Diana,        hisDiana,       painting          ~1~'s          face        with        long     snaky          luminescent            colors                                                                                                                     Alxsprouting       from        the      eyes,        the       nose,          about        the       forehead.                                                                                                                     Shelooking       very       Indian,          very        intense,            about     to       be      brutal.is    finishing.                     stands, looks                in        the     mirror,          says      something                              Heto her, looks             at        her       tenderly.           She        leaves,                 A:                       . . . as soon as she left, I set my Poemsand    my     books, everything                  on       fire     (shot          of     flames         seen      insame 1) . . . it was everything I had done #is last year we-                                                           I took a bag -- writing -- andbut     it    made       no        difference.went to the end of it, as far as                                           could go, and you know                                                                      I                                                                                                  All      else      hadwhat I found . . . I                     found        nothing         but     myself.fallen --           Truth       Illusion,            whatever          it     is,       and       The      Dream       hadvery     suddenly          come          down        to     an     inescapable               almost        implacable                                                                       35unmerciful factor, factor-inanition One. Me! . . . I, like somepoor poet would say, had punctured by beautiful beautifulquintessence.     Quintessence is a lung. Bang SSSSS.              He hisses.   Walking to a flat table designed asa chess board, with the pieces on it, all of them white, A~xpicks up a castle in his hand, rolling it over, saying a bitmore gayly:           Alx:        So I started playing a game of chess withmyself today (turns to A.)         it makes sense . . . (camera onthe all white chess pieces, A~X replacing the castle) . . . andI shall play until I've completely lost track of which piecebelongs to which, of what belongs to what, of who belongs towho . . and then when the game is over (he pauses) . . .                       You'll   what?           A:           Camera on Superman Blow Up, shifting to one ofTarzan.           Alx:        You know, Anthony, what the most beautifuldream in the world is . . . it's the iris of a glistening greenserpent snowfloating on a film of mosspink           water,      perforating pupil gazes at your naked back, it slicesitsthrough the fluid brim . . . it goes on and on, fingers of thedawn.           A.indifferent    to any meaning Alexander attachesto it:                                                                       words.                                                  These   are   just           A:          I   don't    understand.                                                      Words fall out of           Alx:        But words are thoughts.the sky like this rain.      They glide from street corner to                                                                                                                               36street        corner *..                 (Camera     dwelling            on           cat,       the        striped          one,moving,       the        Siamese          looking        at    him,          the        cats          play        a     littlegame    as        the       monologue        continues)         .        .       .     thinking,             there'salways       one       more       word*      one        more        thought              nonetheless,                   isn'tthere?            Train       of         thought.                                                            On the last                                                         On    the       next           corner,corner.            I     pass.                                                                  What was it?                                         I go.      I passed it by.                                                            YOUsearch,            You        fail,        You     wish       perfection               in        the      mind,         YOUare     close,              closer ,       yesterday          but    one,             tomorrow              but       one,     SOclose     you          are      almost       there.           Tomorrow!                 It           collapses           andwhere         are        you?        Thinking,          dimly        thinking.                  On        and         on,      througha     threnody           of streets, through words made of rain. (A.looking       at        the       Rimbaud          portrait).                       Interior           monologue.                hollow distant boy's                                                                A                                                           <mice,Rimbaud's,              about        16-17,       speaking          in       a        clipped             almost        docu-mentary           style.            Camera       dwelling       on       painting                of         the       poet.                       Voice        off:      I     wrote       silences,                        wrote           the     night.                                                                                            II     wrote           the     inexpressible,              I     fixed             frenzies             in        their       flight.I   purged             my mind of all human hope.                                      strangled joy. 1                                                                                  Ipounced       with          the      stealth       of     a    wild          beast.                    called to the                                                                                                 Iexecutioners.                   I    gnawed        their       rifle         butts              as    I     died.                                           Oh!     the     banner            of       raw        meat       against thesilk     of       seas       and     artic         flowers.                             veerings                 of     chasms!                                                                     Music,and     the       clash        of        icicles     against         the             stars           (pause)           I*11     re-turn     with          limbs        of     iron,     dark       skin          and       furious              eyes;          peoplewill think to look at me that I am of a strong race made-of              I       will     cover        myself       with       gashes,             tattoo              my     body,       asgold.                                                                    I'11          howl          through           the       streets.ugly     as       a     Mongol,          you'll     see,                                                                     37    1 will be raving mad and never work and never show my jewels-    . . . and one night (pause) the demon will seize me. and embrace    me and we will wrestle on the floor and one night I will lose    and come to regard as sacred the disorder of my mind1                Shot of Anthony's face, closer up, closer, his face    dissolving into the trees blowing in the forest right after    the explosion (seen later),                Shot of Alexander, looking out the window down at    the city.    Goes on talking.    As he talks, camera      casually    panning Anthony as he rises, puts his coat on, and leaves,                                                              He has be-    to go back outside (to the street) which calls.                                                               Alexander    come really just another object in the apartment.                                                           His back is    accepts his leaving without saying anything.                                                    The camera alter-    turned.     He is speaking as if to himself.    nating between the Apartment and the rainy street Anthony is    walking down,                                                 Last night I was alone                 Alexander:    (his voice off)    . . . at the musicend of death .,. staring flatfaced into a    pond . . . the sea, the ghosts of the lungs . . . the promise of    things to be . . . A bony damp cavern where women grow like                                                           in the night,    seaweed from the sea, they owl iboo iboo.        cry    her hand like an edge on my isolated shoulder -- so sweet as    I rest, in her breath in her breast my head on her shoulder    and weep.     Weep Weep!    (shot of Comic Book Blow Up fading to    shot of Anthony chasing Joanna through the woods, seen later)    . . . the fingers of the dawn they weep . . . all is seen through    an eyeccave of bonepillars that redound . . . percussive 0-m                                                                  38. . . porous . . . stumbling towards spectrum . . . slipping onsound ,.t eating air.       I tell myself, reminding myself, itis wet in my shell, in my strong, strong shell, it is wet and0 now I feel . . . I feel the days melting into years and light-years liquidating the years and time itself crumbling . . .through the lungs the ghosts sing, their songs carry into theair, air atmmsphere, air all about (shot Al%% face, quickCut to A. emerging in the street, sniffing gratefully the wetair) . . . air air, fixed and silent, how silent . . . longsilences inhabit this air, the drip drop of it in my ear, inthe air perched, sounds, tedium's sweat, like the movies, aforgetive imago, in black and white and chevied with chiaro-                                                                  Yes --scuro . . . and in the zoo it takes two days to say Yes.the only word that matters in the language . . . it's in Eden. . . Yes.              A. walking down a street hooded with construction                                 On the wall painted in red aretimber, the walls in blue.the words, Freedcm for Greece!               Alx:      (concluding) Out on the ocean (slow shotof ocean late just before the sunset) when it is green anddesolate and cold, and the big waves come up (slow shot of                                                      Seagreen bluewaves rising and falling) out of the emotion.water,       Thrashing on the skull . . . I dip my face inwards(Camera panning to an anonymous youth floating by himself inthe water) and float my starved eyes on the wide window ofthe sea.       And lull my eyesockets to a wide-eyed sleep . . .strange sample of the sea, transfusing the spark of ingenuity                                                                                                                 39(shifting, asking)                 there       is     no        ingenuity          in    the     sea       is    there?... I        wonder:        what     sharks          are        poised       between        here        and      there,what    fish        lie    lonely        under       the        waves.                    Shot      A.     walking, back                                                Cut to Alx.                                                                  to     the       camera.looking       in     a    mirror ,           puzzled,       perhaps          realizing          A.      has      leftand he is alone, his words are much slower now:                                     A       face . . . is a face . . . nothing more?The end of Truth . . . is this face? . . . (pleading, his voiceoff) flee the fugitive dream . . . it glistens in the moon . . .it     dances       on     slithery          serpents           (shot       of     slithering           snake       in                                                                                                           (ShottheTemple                                     . . . by           rushing           waterfalls.                      (seenlater)                                                                              Squeezed           inwards         bythe     stream       in     the     forest,          seen       later)flesh-fed            pythons        that        coil slimes             of eternity about my eyes(Shot Anthony being bitten by the snake, seen later) and . . .                                                                                           To die . . . toforgive, forget . . . free                      to        finish       my     hope.be - . . . no more . . . Dead!   me                                                     (both        question           and     exclamation).                    Shot:      Francis          at        the     stream,          dying,        seen       later.Cut     to        Alexander's       sad        face.        Alexander              approaching          the         end,which     is       played     out       later        in     Prison.                                                       street, these                words        following            him,                    Anthony,            on     the                                                                     He's          tired,        exhausted,           wornleans        up     against       the        blue    fence.out.      His        offscreen          voice        whispering,             fighting           off        thedesire to give it all up:                                        Words . . . just                Words           wrapped       aroundWords.                                                                                        Anthony       in      the                    Dissolve        to       Previous           Scene        26.                          bathrobe, scrawling                   on     the       wall     with       the    pencil:bleak        white                                                             40          To Be Real!          To Feel!          FREE!           (But instead of the previous semi-documentarystyle, this scene is shot again with a closer, realer camera,catching the strong desire in Anthony to achieve what hewrites.          Dissolve                  Forest - Stream - Temple                                                      The City          Time and place and worlds have changed.has been unreal, frightening.     Here a much more relaxedprimitive world -- that of snakes, slow quiet, but suddenly                                                 Anthony movesvery fast, very violent, and very dangerous.from the Fear of the Cat into the Dream of the Snake. He                                               And never for-will be bitten by it, and he will kill it.getting it, will journey on into the final, deep-sea worldof silence.    Then Freedom.          A, has gone to the East to fight with the mercenary                                                    He's partsoldiers against the wild tribes of the Forest.of a small detachment of fifteen-twenty men resting deep .in the jungle-forest of a small old abandoned Buddhisttemple.   The relics are broken, the statues on the floor,mixed with the mercenaries' light individual equipment --                                                                41rifles, small    knapsacks,   grenade    belts.     In this templeBuddha still stands , some stray unknown forest people stillcoming to worship here,       There are fresh joss sticks burn-ing.   Several   mercenaries, mostly black in their earlytwenties r are inside the temple, sprawled on the floor ontheir ponchos, a small fire going.         One is sleeping,another reheating a piece of meat; they have killed a wilddeer and his half-eaten corpse is still slowly roasting ona stick built over the fire.       Several of the blacks aresmoking the Forest Hash which they are passing sound in                                                        They wear antwo pipes which are very long and beautiful.individual mixture of uniforms although their pants are all                                                     If they wearthe same -- light    tight-fitting      breeches.shirts -- several are bare-chested with medallions (Bud-dhist, Christian, sharks' tooth, other designs) and tattoos-- the shirts are loose, some of them ruffled, and mixingwith the camouflage of the jungle -- green and tan gold,                                     Some wear head bands aroundblack and white striped, etc.their long hair, silver bracelets, beads, one wears sun-glasses, another brother with a thin hawklike nose wearsa black bandanna tightly wrapped on his head, as if, likethe other brothers, he was just off the city block taking                          This is to be kept in mind for thea trip in the Jungle.Fate that befalls this outfit results from the fact thatthey are not really part of The Forest.                                                     Very few of themspite of their disguises, from The City.will be able to survive the primitive ordeal of this world,                                                          42Though th@ outfit has been several weeks in the Forest,the blacks have no beards.     A small transistor.radio   playsinside the Temple and two of the Brothers are dancingsoftly to the sound of soul music.            The white world is for the most part outside theTemple, sprawled about it in the thick grass, relaxing.Some have beards, others have shaved, but their faces arehard and dirty, dust and dirt is deeply ingrained in thecracks of skin,    Anthony is an exception, he has kept him-self clean, his beard barely visible, although there aresmall lines of fatigue under his eyes and a small scarunder his left eye, the result of a previous wound, notserious.    He tends to rub it occasionally.    Ironically,    inthe war, he has become even softer. Time has crumbled:he is spacing himself.            The contrast is made then, by camera CloseuPs,of the black and white features,     The Blacks are tenderer,softer.     The Whites are tired, cruel.   The blacks Sing-Dance.     Although inside they are as blue as the sky, andscared.             Opening Shot (set to Music, contrasting to theWorld of Words Anthony has just left behind in the City.31.          A black soldier with rifle and grenades, but hat-less like all the rest, is striding through thick elephantgrass and thicket, the camera with him as he walks, catch-ing the effect of the green elephant grass splitting apart                                                                   43as he walks, the sun gleaming through the trees, almostmoving with him, seen and then not seen and seen again.From a distance, inside the temple, on the radio, SamCooke's song "Cupid" is playing loud, and sort of sad likeall Cooke's songs , giving a texture of music and sunlightto his walk.             He breaks through the thicket into the crystalclear sun shining over the tiny clearing around theTemple.     The Whites sprawled about.             As he breaks through the thicket, Anthony, wear-ing silver bracelets and a Buddhist medallion around hisneck and a ruffled dirty shirt, his hair unkempt, longerthan before, is taking his picture from a distance througha telephoto-lensed        camera, which for the first time, he                                                               A. snap-'carries with him,         Radio still playing "Cupid".       the shutter      again.     Photographic freeze of Robinsonping                               and Anthony's first use of his eyes(the soldier),       XUS~Care themes inherent to The Forest.             Camera on A. as he moves about the clearing,          pictures of    the     White   soldiers.   Their   photographictakingfreezes.     Introducing their hard faces.             A. shooting Lee, who is at the head of the out-fit (later described).             A. shooting Bunny, the youngest soldier, who ishandsome and tender looking, though             later   his actionsdescribe him as stupid and cruel.             A. pausing, walking a little bit further away                                                                                                   44from    the           temple.             *                                                                Isaac,      a                      A.     approaching         from       a   distance                        moder-                                                                       with     sharp         attractiveately    tall,              slender,      muscled       Indian,features, no beard whatever, his long black hair curlingdown over his forehead, could look like a little boy buthe stands there away from the rest, sharpening his longglistening hunting knife.                            His chest is without hair andhe wears a thin loose-fitting vest of black cloth hanging                      from                broad                          The way he sharpensunbuttoned                      hLs                  shoulders.his knife, with stone and cloth, it is obvious this is hismost    important              possession.                      A. raising the camera to his eye to take his                                                            , sees Isaac raise his headpicture.              Through the lens,                 A                                                                                               Shakesas he feels the camera on him.                                  Looks at camera.his head.              Turns away from the camera-                      A. walking back into the Temple after his trip32.                                               the scene in the Temple as describedinto the white world.                            Two Brothers.dancing                     to the music- Hepreviously,stops     at          the      threshold        of      sunlight,       thinks        about     taking                                                                                in here cannot                                                can't, this wrlda     picture          but     knows      he                                            goes and sits by Francis, a brotherbe     photographed,                 He                                                                     has tender features-                                                                Hewho     is       very        close     to      Anthony.                       A.     listening, smoking                 the    bowls     as    they     come                                       directions. around,          from        both                              They    are     all    feeling    -very nice.           On    the      radio, Smokey                Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears"                                                              45is playing, and as the two brothers dance, Francis, whohas a very high singing voice, though not as good asSmokey's whom most people mistake for a woman he sings so'tenderly,   starts to sing with the radio:             People say I'm the life of the party                  cause I tell a joke or two             Although I may be able to laugh loud and hardy                  deep inside I'm blue             So take a good look at my face             You'll see my smile looks out of place                                If you look closer                  It's easy to trace                                The tracks of my Tears                  I need you . . . Need you             Since you left me, if you've seen me with                  another girl                                Seeming like I'm having fun             although she may be cute                                 She's just a substitute                  because you're the permanent one             So take a good look at my face             You'll see my smile looks out of place                  Look a little bit closer             It's easy to trace the Tracks of My Tears                  etc.                           song, his brand of blues, the cameraAs Francis singscloses on him; in        the   backdrop,   Buddha   sits.                                                           46             As he sings, the rest do not look at him sing,they know he can sing, they've heard this song a hundredtimes, they know it too.      They lie where they are, look atwhat they do, and deep inside, where it's blue, they listen.            The two brothers, on their feet, dance slowly, a      gestures with their hands about shoulder level, andfewtheir feet moving in a tiny circle of tenderness,            The pipes continue to circulate, Francis eveninterrupting his singing momentarily to smoke, hold, ex-                                He is not performing, he ishale, and then sing again.just singing along.      The smoking of the Hash naturally hassome relationship to the surrounding dream world of TheForest, but isn*t really significant and like the singing,is very casual , going almost unnoticed by the camera.                       The song ends.33.          Camera dwells on Buddha at peace, another long                                           The camera moving toafternoon in The Forest drifting by.Adams who is very high, off by himself in a corner of thetemple.     He is one of the whites, wandering through hishead, his low interior monologue . . . The monologues hereare done swiftly, voices following quickly on other voices.             Adams:     {off) There's no entertainment outhere.     There's no movies, no shows . . . no girls . . . I livein a beautiful world .., where things don't make any dif-ference.     It will take them a long time to come where I amat . . . maybe they think I'm crazy . . . but I'm not . . . Ihave friends.                                                          47            Camera moving from Adams to the ones he calls hisfriends.    To King, who is the biggest brother, very black,with big white cotton picker*s    nails.   His large pink hand-some tongue, as he says:           Adams:      The King has a pink tongue es. He sayshe eats a lot of chicken *.. there ain't no chicken here.a. in the forest.            King's voice off following quickly on Adams@:            King:      Cotton is easiest to pick, it's tall,I could pick 600 pounds in a day.            Camera on Francis who's talking to Anthony,                                            bCamera moving to King,            Francis:   (voice off) There's nothing harder thana hard Mexican, ain't that right man, Anthony says thereain't nothing harder than a hard Mexican ..-            Another Voice: (off) How old are you Anthony?                       Ageless,            A.            Francis:   As old as water hunh?            All these voices are off.            Adams:     Francis got soul . . . he got it in hisvoice . . . he got it just all over the place.                       (off - following quickly on Adams') Z:            Voice:      myself to sleep at night wondering what it's all about.cry            Voice:     Candy,            Voice:     Is that what she calls herself.            Voice:     No.            Voice:     What she call herself then?                                                           48          Voice:     Louise.          Voice:     Louise?          Her real name's Daisy filae.          Daisy     Mae?     Daisy Mae what?          Another     voice:     Daisy Mae Highway.          Shot of Manny chuckling, wearing sunglasses,very skinny and nervous.          Manny:       Louise . . . Almond Joy. (chuckling)          The rest picking it up, (chuckling) off:                       Veronica . . . Big valley                       Lili *.. Jazzfingers                       Patsy     Pinkbottoms                       Irma     Greasepit                       Olive Oil                           tit fades)          Camera to Adams examinging a photograph of hisgirl at home, who is fat, his voice off:                       I miss you baby .., I miss you so                       much . . .                            Hey man, put your woman away .-. we          Voice off:got a long walk ahead of us.          Camera on A. who is smiling having just takenpart in the name game.         Scratches his scar.                           (off) I used to think he was crazy .*.          Adams:he was always taking pictures with that camera . . . reallyhe's very kind of smart and is good at it too . . . once he                                                              49told me when I asked him why he took allthcse pictures, hesaid he'd never used his eyes before . . . he says thiswasteland is beautiful . . . that's what makes him crazy . . .talking like that . . . those kind of people never seem toget killed though . . . he got grazed below the eye . . . wethought he was dead . . . somebody somewhere looks out forhim 0.. me I'd never used my ears before I came to theforest . . . I'd like to write when I get out, I'd like towrite down what I hear.        First I'd go back and get someschooling and catch up on my spelling . . . there're       a lotof questions I have but they'll probably never get answered. . . like how high is the sky, how many flies there are inthe world . . . how do they know people don't live in thestars?             As Adams is wandering around in his head, cameramoves from A. to Jeremiah (called Rhah)       who is struttingup very confidently, his walk snake-like, all waves, un-dulating.     He looks older than the rest, his Origins seem                                         He speaks with a slightobscure, probably from the South.Southern twang.        He's white.                     arriving, standing above the relaxing group,34.          Rhah                    over, a slight malicious smile on his face.looking     them             Francis looking up, smiling                          What's happening Rhah?                      pausing, fixing the whole circle in his             Rhah,eye,     settling    on Buddha for his address, smiling:                                                           50              Rhah:     I'm what's happening and if you don'tdig me, Your shit is hanging in the wind, that gentleman,is what       say ..- Baaaaaa (he delivers this last like a          Igrowl, a neigh, implying I am what I am).              Lerner, the only other white with Anthony andAdams in the Temple, a Jewish looking boy from the City,young and freaky with curly hair, thin (he was the boy atthe elevator in scene 3) looks back at &ah, his tonguehanging out like an alcoholic grotesquerie.                        And Baaaaaaaal back on you (delivers itwith all the contempt and venom he can, shaking his head,a stuporific look in his eye, making a grotesquerie Out Ofwhat Rhah delivered with a certain style).              Rhah looking at Lerner hard with distaste.              Rhah:     If you're going to do it, do it right.(Rhah winds himself up and with a dramatic downsweep of hisfist, at the same time taking a step with his foot, de-livers a huge convincing Baaaaaaaaaa! his head shaking,staring wide-eyed at Lerner.)                                  The group laughing. aah              Draws himself up.smiling and proud of himself.              Laughing dies.              Lerner looking at Shah with half-closed eyes.                        I didn't like it.              Rhah coming right back,                                            You're a child. I                        Screw   yourself.don't waste time talking to a child.                                                                     51            Lerner taking his head into his hands, shakinghis hair, pretending to     weep:                       I'm a child.       I'm a child.            aah looking away in disgust.               Shot of A. looking.            Francis to Lerner:                       Wow man don't take it so bad,            Werner, raising his head:                       Oh it doesn't bother me what Rhah says.He can't even begin to bother me.                    see I know what he                                           YOUis and (his eyes looking at phah, malicious and gleaminglike he was going out of his head too here in The Forest)he's just a tangled up screwed up scared up little man ..*getting old.            Pause.   Shah his back to Lerner, getting annoyed,turning back on him, suddenly serious:                                                                    And I'm                                                     I'm little.                       Dig it.      I'm old.scared, and I done the crimes of stealing and killing, 1                                    I been in the United Statesbeen in the Foreign Legion.         I been to Africa, China, Vietnam and countries YouArmy.never    heard,                         been a truck driver, a                  I been a cook,    I                                                    picked cotton tillparachutist, an officer, a scout,              I                                                            Then I pickedthere weren't no more cotton to be picked,                                                           smoked more shitrocks and sold those.      I done my time.             I                                                   been busted four fivethan you`ll smoke in a lifetime.           Itimes.    Ask King (looking at King who is lying on his cl-bows, his eyes closed, almost ready to crash) we been thesame way in life, we smoked our brains out together, we                                                                 52=li-&ed the walls, we balled ourselves ask a King youngma, ask him if in all the time we been together he everOnce. (waving his finger) once saw me lose my cool . . .Hever!   Right King?             King, barely able to speak:                        Yea, F?hah and me been the same way,done the same things.             Rhah:      (looking hard at Lerner, who is lookingat the floor, bored)      And dig it baby I got silver stars,bronze stars, Croix de guerres, all kinds of silver andmaybe a hundred and sixty stitches says I made the scene.(Stopping)    Whatch   you got?        (Shot A. looking up atRhah's face, forced to pay his respecgs, because Shah             isreally telling the Truth) Rkrah going on, concluding, draw-ing himself back up; more humorously:                        So put it this way, if I want topretend I'm Superman,                 if       want to let my hair grow                          I                I                              will,as long as Thor's, I will, and if anybody points his little                              be in his shit so fast he'll thinkpink finger at me, 1'11speed was going out of style . . . he'll be hanging out there,in the wind, wondering (Shah wagging his head) Who wasthat.    That was Rhah!                        pause             Lerner, head bowed, saying: Whew.             Anthony has listened.             On the radio, which had temporarily broken downduring Rhah's appearance, starts up again, Manny playing                                                                                      53with it.      As when Francis was singing, most of the brothershave not seemed to listen to F&&I make his scene,                               Theyhear but they don't look, as if their ears, eyes, and mindwere all separate senses.              Manny toying with the radio, gets it playingagain    but some crazy station and Lili                      Marlene   is    beingsung by Marlene Dietrich, about ten seconds before Nanny,slightly embarrassed behind his black shades, turns tothe soul station, saying:                                  that's some old time sides they're                            WOWthrowing at us.                                                       1s     smoking    like     an       old              F&ah has seated himself.bull.              Outside,                            Camera moving to the                            Commotion.35.windowless sunlight hole on the side of the temple (several                                                                                Shotsuch holes around the walls, about 3                    by 4 feet.)                                                                                 Cries.through this frame of some whites chasing around."Get the snake!"          "Food!"         etc.              Camera outside closer, shot of a large yellowblack and red snake, moving very fast over the                            ground,                                                                       The snake movesfluttering white hands trying to catch it.with great twists of its body, making you wonder how it can                                                                          Cameramove    so   fast.    Knowing these hands are Death.dwelling     on    this   snake, moving          at   about     five    miles    anhour,    sliding     through,     over,    under,      but     unable    to     get        Outof the large circle the whites have made around it. We                                                                   54almost sympathize      with the poor snake, fighting wildly,                        through the circle and they .are runningSuddenly   it breaksafter it again.       They cannot catch it, but the powerfulsnake, making one mistake and unable to pick out Isaac,the Indian, who is standing perfectly still watching,slithers   unknowingly through Isaac's spread silent legs.           We haven't seen Isaac yet.            First shot of hislegs and the snake sliding through. His hand speedingdownandpinning it by the neck.              Tilt up, medium shot, tohis face as he scoops it up.          A grimace of pleasure on hisface, snake dangling by its neck, its tongue flickering                                                                Sees ithelplessly.                                  Lets it dangle,               Isaac    hisses   at   it.                                              Wraps it around hisis   non-poisonous.     Stops    hissing.wrist; on the other wrist, coincidentally, he has a replicaof a snake done in silver, smaller, three or four coils                                  The snake crawls up his armwrapped around his wrist,towards his neck.       This scene with Isaac and the snake isshot fairly fast, not too dramatically.           Long shot of Isaac and snake through the Temple's                                                               Taking asunlight hole.    A. focusing his telephoto lens-picture.    Freeze of picture.            Isaac seeing A. take the picture (close shot ofIsaac's eyes) a virile smile on his face, and wordlessly,because it is his snake, walking out of the small throngof whites who are around him, admiring the snake,walking in his soft tread towards the temple, the snakenow wrapped around his neck (by now it should be obvious                                                         55that it is not poisonous) its tongue and head swaying overIsaac's chest.     On his bicep, Isaac has a small gracefultatoo Born To Kill,           Long shot of him approaching Temple.           Francis:    [off) Crazy people dig snakes, crazypeople.           A.         Violence is like snakes.           We hear the snap of his shutter as he takesanother picture of Isaac approaching . . . very quick ,o,Veq unexpected ,,., Click.           Quick freeze of snake's head swaying.           Side shot of Isaac moving, from the waist up.           The camera zooming out slowly on Isaac, till itbrings Francis and Anthony into view looking through thesunlight hole at the moving Isaac.                                        He scares me man, he's           Francis:    (off at first)                             He plays his knife like she waswild, crazy in the head.a woman.                       (taking another picture) He moves nice           A.man 0.0 it's funny it's tender, it's soft ..O it's SO allalone.                                                   Nothing.           Shot out to front of what they see.Isaac has already glided in around them, in the tiackdoorof their Temple.36.        As the camera is focused out through the lighthole, there is a slight rustling behind them, the sound a                                                                  56snake makes when it sways.                                Frontal                                     They turn swiftly.shot of Isaac standing right behind them the snake wrappedaround his arm, its head swaying out in front of Francis.Francis doesn't move, but his face muscles tighten and hiseyes dilate a little.             Francis:        Don't fool with me man, don't foolwith me,             Isaac    smiling.     Behind him, still   sprawledaround, the radio Flaying, are the brothers and Shah andLerner and Adams, but things are quieter and without look-ing they listen.                                                             Isaac             Anthony is also repulsed by the snake.sees this.     Smiling a bit, says slowly,             Isaac:          You been staying a long time in theshade Anthony.              fixing to get a tan? . . . Like his                      YOU(nodding at Francis) or red like mine? (he smiles)             Isaac coiling the snake in the cup of his hand,           it up to A.Offering             A. hesitating a moment, putting the camera away,looking at Isaac, takes the snake, not looking at it asits wet living body winds through the fingers of his hands,                                                       The snakeIsaac smiling.        A. looking directly at him.                                    A look of comprehensix    and re-winding up Anthony's arm.                                         Isaac sees it,laxation coming into his face.             Isaac:          It's alive, isn't it?                            nodding, taking the snake in his hands,             Anthonypassing him around his neck, his waist, beginning to feel                                                             57a tremendous joy in this living wet damp creature, hisfear of it disappearing.     The snake responding P beginningto calm down on Anthony'sbody. At this point, Isaac says:                      Give it to me.          Anthony    hesitating.   Attracted by the power inIsaac's eyes.          He gives the snake back.       Isaac cups it in hispalm.          Isaac:      (to   Anthony)    Come,          They go down together, down the three stepswhich separate the raised floor around the inner wall of                                                Isaac leads Anthonythe Temple from the worshipping floor.up to the Buddha,          As they walk, we pick up from the radio thehollow voice of Sam Cooke again, singing "Let's Twist TheNight Away' -- almost a four o'clock in the afternoonvoice, at the dead end of the day, this accent on Twist,Twist, Twisting the Night Away.                                       Isaac places the snake on          Buddha has many arms.                                                           Theone of these arms.    Anthony to his side watching.snake, in the arms of this new almost golden object,starts glistening and sliding wildly through its many arms*Isaac drawing his long hunting knife with his right handfrom his left hip, his features dedicated, as a priestbefore the blood-letting.          Isaac:       (not looking at A.) We sacrifice.          Quickly he pins the snake's speeding head With                                                                 58 his left hand and without hesitating violently slices its head off, a cruel look of brutality on his face.            With his left hand, Isaac whips the snake's *im?iw head in the air, as if it were a scalp. His arm is quivering.    His head is down, the gesture not deing that solemn, but more spontaneous, quick, contemporary, the gesture has already faded, he pulls in his arm. Puts the head to his lips.     Drinks.                                                       A. looking            Turns to A.    Offers him the head. at Isaac, powerfully attracted by the look of strength in                                             Drinks. Isaac's eyes.    Takes the snake head.                                                     it goes down            Tastes the blood in his mouth. strong.    A smear of it on his lips making them corral-                                          Close shot of Isaac's colored.    Close shot of his lips. wide strong mouth.             A shot, a single rifle shot is heard from out- side.             Its echo dies.                                                       They look at             Anthony and Isaac haven't moved.                 Isaac's eyes alight with anticipation at the each other.                                         Anthony's    eyes   completely- rifle shot, the call of danger. lost in Isaac's animal eyes, feeling a powerful attraction to this almost human fire.             Shot of fire.    Scene 1.                                                 Anthony     under-                     close, of Isaac's face.             Shot, standing the fire is in people and between them-                                               The other soldiers             The rifle shot is repeated.                                                                 59are hurrying out of the temple now, not having beenalarmed by the first shot.      The radio going with them.          Shot of Isaac and Anthony standing in front ofBuddha.          Solitary shot of the rifle that fired beingraised by an arm into the air.          Resting in the sky, flat,in Indian style.     A cry is heard.       (Explained later, thecry is "Freedom" but in a strange language).          Dissolve37.       The screen is in blackness for several seconds.Then a chant begins in the blackness, a Dionysl'an             chantor something similar.          What is the name of the father          What is the name of the son          What is the name of the father          What is the name of the son                       . . . Dionysos    Dionysos                            God of Joy                             God of Love                       . . . Dionysos    Dionysos   Dionysos                       (example taken from "Dionysos in                       '69" off-Bdway play)          The chant is repetitive, accompanied by a tarn-bourine, but in this repetitiveness, in this lack of desireto search for new interpretations, there is a real feelingfor love, which is really a source without words.                                                                                     60               The screen slowly comes to light and we see ayoung tribe, maybe a dozen, dancing freely in the forest bya stream.        Perhaps they are the enemy, it is not made clearyet.     They are a mixture of young men and women and theirchildren, white and black.                  They dance hugging each other,their long hair jumping, in all sorts of love contortionsthat display their freedom.                     They are all in love with eachother, with                                                         And easy as it iS                                                   forest.                     their     god, with    theto make fun or laugh at, this scene at first must be donewith the camera truly involved in their spirit of joy andfreedom.                                                                             The hair               Some are blondes, some black haired.long; the players young and contemporary looking and above        to preserve the spirit of the scene, they must moveall,well, in some sort of time to the tambourine, throwingtheir bodies into it.               Ideally, they are naked, and some                                    But    barring       that,      they   wear    fiasyof     them   body    painted.                             threads, hand made, of beautiful colors,primitive       tribal                                                     A few wear colorful head-exposing their handsome bodies.bands, all of them some kind of ornament -- bracelets,beads, native jewels, clasps, etc.                        The colored tribesmendo     not    exactly    wear    the    same    clothes,       as   I    think    they    wouldlook sort of silly.               Their threads suit them and nobodyelse and there is no need,to                    establish any equality/similarity as far as clothes go, saying that Freedom has                                        If they're not naked, then let themno respect for clothes.                                                                           What    theylook     beautiful      with    their     own    motif    in     mind,                                                        61want to be is left up to them,     In his mind, the writerforms the image of the black panther -- a sort of ineradic-able wariness at the root of their Freedom, unlike theWhite who when he loses his mind, really proceeds to loseit, and to embrace the new.    Whether the blacks actuallydance is left up to them.     They could be sentinels in thewoods, they could be on the stream watching the others dotheir dance.38,        Camera paning up slope from the tribe into the.                                                    Long shotwoods.   Their singing carrying with the camera.of soldiers moving slowly in single file through the woods,in the same combination of clothes as at the Temple, carry-ing rifles, small knapsacks on their backs, hatless.Having   cautiously,           Camera zooming slowly into the point man, who isBunny,   the youngest one, set out to prove he's as good asany man, his features assuming a distorted hardness.Camera now encompassing Lee who is second in the file,                                                   He is smallcarrying a map in his hand, a young sergeant.with a heavily repaired face indicated by the seam of scartissue running from his ear along his jaw to his chin. Hewears a red bandanna around his neck.           Bunny still in the camera's eye, turning back                                               Lee gives himto Lee as he hears the sound of the music.a tight look, squinting; he frequently squints, nervouslyassuring himself of which part of his face is really his.                                                                 62             Comes up on Bunny.     Puts binoculars over hiseyes.     Do not know what he sees.     Brings binoculars down.Looks at his map.     Is puzzled.                           around.                                      Squints.     TurnsMotions to the men with his arm to sweep out downslope,slowly.    Finger to his lips to indicate silence, althoughthe men know what they are doing anyway and can hardly seehis gestures.                                                           Frontal    shot             The men disappearing in the forest.of them inching down the slope to the stream.              Then side                                                              There areview of them approaching.        Music growing louder.no sentinels around, oddly.             They approach the stream and quietly crouch downbehind rocks, trees, dead logs.        Take off their knapsacks.What they see at first does not really excite them, theyare much too wary and as a group have up to now functionedas soldiers.             Shot of A's face.     A. moving up further, veryinterested.     They have been watching for a while and Un-                                                           Francis andcontrollably,    they start inching further up.                                                               They passanother brother joining A. from different sides.                                  Anthony, putting his rifle andeach other a puzzled look.knapsack down, taking his camera out and shooting thetribesmen.                                         Others.             Shots of Adams, Lerner.             Shot of Lee, his tight body on the ground, his39.binoculars to his eyes , propped on his elbows looking.                                                            63Puts the binoculars down.       Picks his rifle up, puts it tohis shoulder, his eye squinting, medium to close shot, heis an expert marksman, his legs loosely spread and thestock of his rifle deeply imbedded in the shoulder, therifle slightly twisted inward, his rear elbow coming upoff the ground as he sights in; for a little man, heshoots high off the body, very confident, very precise.            Camera dwells on him as he is about to shoot.But he hears footsteps behind him.       Takes his eye from thestock, squinting, not looking around.       The footstepsgetting closer.                                      On the feet                   Shot of the feet next to Lee,are moccasins, they are Isaac's,       Lee looking up at Isaac,who has a small French submachine gun cradled in his arms,and is looking down at the stream bed.       Isaac giving Leea look and proceeding down to the stream, his action fore-stalling a massacre.     Lee with hate in his eye, staring atIsaac's back.     He squints.40,         As Isaac walks down to the stream in the Openl                                      The tambourine stops.a female in the tribe sees him.                       Shot of one of the tribe's blacksThey stop dancing.standing up from where he was watching and warily lookingat Lsaac,                                        Proud, but            who walks on down to the stream.                                              He stops a littlepuzzled for the first time in his life.dis tame away.            The leader of the small roving tribe, no olderthan his early thirties calls to him.                                                         64                                        (Making with his hand                      Peace and Joy1a small sincere gesture, something like this:      9x1 the wordPeace, showing the back of his hand, Joy:      the front ofhis hand, implying an empty hand, stretching it, saying:)                      Join us.            Isaac pausing, puzzled.                      J&O are you? What tribe?            The leader, smiling, turning around to give thesign for more singing, dancing.                                 Find out.                      Join us.            The tambourine resumes playing and the tribes'people resume their dancing and singing as if nothing hashappened.    The few blacks are still wary but the whitesfall to it and soon are becoming more intense than ever,perhaps thrilled that they are dancing the Passion Dancein the eyes of the cobra with the gun.       They carry noweapons.41.          Shots of individual soldiers seeing what has            They start creeping slowly down to the stream.passed.                                                    Isaac putsSpreading out on the logs and rocks watching.his weapon away and sits watching by himself. The blacksin the tribe have become more wary seeing these othersoldiers but they cool it although they rightly feel                                 Lee remains up in the wood.there's going to be trouble.                                      The black soldiers more        is the last to leave him.Bunnyor less assemble together on a huge fallen log and watch.                                                                  65Anthony with them.     The            whites                             other             more   thinly   spread.A shot of Shah looking.            The dancers growing increasingly erotic, theirlimbs interlaced, men on the ground, women passing theirbodies closely over them, feeling everywhere with theirhands.     Shots of the soldier's faces growing more and moredesirous.     Isaac, perhaps feeling this desire, wantingsuddenly to be alone and think, retreats into the woods byhimself, without a rifle, pensive looking. His disappear-ance is fatal as he was the only force that could have                                                         Suddenly,prevented what occurs.       The dancers writhe.with a yell, Lerner rips off most of his clothes and jumpsin with them and starts to writhe and join in the spirit offreedom.     The tribe accepts him but with no display. Hemixes well,     Hs belongs, but his action only agitatesfurther the other white soldiers.             Shot Rhah's face.       A hatred for Lerner's       fool-ishness on it.     Shakes his head slightly, saying quietly:                       You child -.. You fool.                                                                       Not             The dancers almost copulating to the music.even singing anymore.             Shot: one of the males on his knees his headburied in a woman's    belly, her arms around his head,writhing against his head.             cut             Bunny heaving the same girl up on his chest,42.                                                                 66hugging her.     She is so far gone into the ecstasy shedoesn't notice really who it is.          He grins madly and                                                    The otherstarts making off into the woods with her.whites with shouts following him, hugging the women likesatyrs at the rape, kicking the almost unconscious, help-less men away with their boots, some knocking them awaywith their rifles.       Lerner fighting for the women but                          The women begin to realize what isbeing knocked aside.                                                           One                                         A few screams.happening and start struggling.heavily bearded white chasing a girl, no more than sixteen,                                              Shah wading out tointo the stream, thrashing with her.help her, struggling with the big soldier who throws himoff.     Shot of Lee in the woods raising his rifle andexpertly firing into the water around Rhah, warning himoff.                                                  A black         Rhah looking wildly up into the woods.tribesman jumping on him.       They scramble in the water-             Shot of Lee, putting the rifle away,                                                            Doesn't                                             He squints,looking down at the chaos, pleased.move.             Shot of Isaac deep in the woods hearing the           Turning around slowly, his face muscles hard,          butshots.                                                           He    doesn'this eyes already resigned to what has happened.move.             Shot of the Rape from behind the brothers who                                         Anthony is no longer there.are still on the log watching.Camera moving to their side, shooting them in profile,watching,    resigned,    indifferent.                                                           67          Robinson, the soldier who was coming through thebush at the beginning to the sound of "Cupid";    rises.                      I might as well cut myself a piece too.                                                One starts          He looks back.    They look at him.eating the food he has carried.     Robinson shrugs, movesoff.43.       Cut to Anthony.     He's way out in the woods, onthe far bank of the stream, opposite his companions, with                                                                Thehis rifle looking intently for something he has seen.music is still playing in the distance but fades as heruns after Joanna.    He is not aware of what will happenat the stream.    It is before Runny began the Rape, whichwill be simultaneous with his.          Cut to Joanna leaning, her hands behind her, upagainst a tree.     Her naked body painted green like a sn*e-Her face as well.                          She is a stunning                     Her hair is blonde.sight.          Anthony at last finds her, approaches hesitantly,looking at her as if she were unbelievable, but naturally                                He stops, p uts his rifle downcdrawn to her primitiveness.takes his magazine belt off, not taking his eyes from her.          A snake is hanging from the tree above her head.A long pause.                       You're not scared of snakes are You?          Joanna:          Anthony: No, not any more.                       you're not scared of me are you?          J*                                                              68          A:           (hesitating) No.          She smiles.          Camera on Anthony, as Joanna says:          Joanna:     Take your clothes off then.          The snake in the tree rustles,         Anthony   takeshis clothes off.     Stands there naked in front of her.          Joanna:     Vho are you?          Anthony:     (hesitating)   Anthony,          J:          01 .*. Anthony.          Here she either takes the snake down off thetree and she wraps it around her neck, its head swayingover her breast or, more easily done, puts her hand upinto the tree and the snake glides around her hand and arm,or she just simply slides off the tree, saying:                       I am called Joanna .., but Anthony          Joanna:(looking at him smilingly with her eyes and shaking herhead) will never have Joanna because he is scared of herarEI he will never catch her . . . (she laughs and startsmoving away).                                      Snake rustles and dry          Anthony watching her.bird calls out of the trees.     The distant sound of thetambourine.     Anthony who has never really pursued before,                                                           He hears                          The bird calls increase.begins to follow her.the dry dangerous clicking rustle of snakes, which seem to                                            She walks faster,inhabit the forest.     He walks faster.                                                 They move fromnot bothering to look over her shoulder.                                                      The chasetree to tree, both naked in the green forest.                                                          69begins, a long sequence.       Their movement is deeper intothe forest away from the fast-fading music. They increasetheir speed until they are running as fast as they canthrough the trees.       Joanna is as swift as a deer and al-                                                           Butways seems to elude Anthony, who is also very swift.rather than lose him, she hides, and he finds her or shelets him see her, and the chase begins again, the onlysound their speeding naked feet on the forest floor- AsAnthony runs, he sees the snakes in the trees and at theirfoot, and in his path too but the chase has made a youngsavage out of him and he runs by these hissing snakeswithout thought or concern.       Just to take her, like hiscompanions are taking back at the stream.            The chase is long.     He catches her at the baseof a tree, perhaps the same tree where they began, thesame snake hissing in the tree.       They entwine, taking longdeep breaths (shot in slow motion) they are falling togeth-er onto the forest floor, their eyes closed, Anthony SOhappy f so out of breath, his breathing her breathing, his                                                         (Shot      animal moan the only sound now in the forest .lowas they fall together of a snake biting Anthony in thearm (seen later), #is shot in slow motion so that itmelts into their fall, also in slow motion, possibly asuperimposed   image).     The camera on them as they writhe ineach other's grasp like two snakes, feeling, touching, inthe wild freedom seen at the dance, all over each other,Anthony's face in close up, a picture of pleasure and pain                                                                  70 and breaking through that to freedom, a great expressive- ness in both their faces.           The camera leaving them alone, panning slowly back to the stream, passing the trees, the snakes.     The pan dissolving, putting the screen in dark-                          reluctantly, we come back to The Rape at ness.     Slowly, the stream.                                                    Bunny's boyish                 The screen still in darkness. 44. angry voice off:                              F?hat's the matter do I smell bad? Am  I dirty?                       (Sound of hitting her) Hunh, Don't                 Am I ugly? you people believe in sex or do you just dance, hunh.  (hits   her)                                                           You people                 Her voicetYou    coudln't   understand!  could never understand.                 Bunny:       What do I got to understand? Hu.nh.  (hits her)                              How to feel!   she screams very loud,  like a bird dying.                                                    The dull monotonous                 He hits her again and again,                                                    The echo fading-  echo of slaughter on the black screen.                 On the screen, a shot of the girl lying beaten  45.                                                         shot emphasizingto death, draped on a broken tree limb.              A  horror. She is already very white and looking stuffed.  She is the same girl seen earlier in the motorcycle suit,                                         Fossibly a silent shot Of  looking at Rodin's         The Kiss.                                             Camera dwells on this  this previous scene, cut short.                                                                71dead girl.                                                        Trying to kill46.           Cut.        Anthony springing on Bunny.Bunny, Butit'san even match and they go on fighting use-lessly and camera, losing interest in them, pans to tribepeople running off into the woods on the other side of thestream like fauns.            Some soldiers are standing around thedead girl, some of them amazed that the rape should end inmurder.   Anthony and Bunny, both exhausted, are strugglingoff to the side, out of breath.             The Leader of the Tribestriding up to the girl, picking her up, she dangles waxwhite in his strong arms, a lifeless puppet.             He speaks tothe soldiers, clearly, slowly:          .                   All of you will pay for this, black aswell as white            . . (shouts) you are animalsi you are beasts1                     l47.           Cut to Leader moving away in the rain across thestream from them, the girl lifeless in his arms, moving               upthe other slope (it has begun to rain but we did not see itbegin, it is already in progress in this shot; the rainwill continue till the very last scene in the Forest, whenit suddenly breaks).            On the opposite bank, Joanna (clothednow) waits at the woodline for the Leader in the same poseof waiting that she uses later when she waits for Isaac atthe edge of another woodline           overlooking this same stream.AnthonYceases to struggle with the exhausted Bunny and onhis knees, dirt all over his face, he looks up and sees her.She sees him.            Then vanishes in the wood, following The                                                                                 72Leader.       Anthony     still      looking     after   her.                Shot: Anthony running through the woods afterJoanna.                Shot: Anthony entwining and falling on the floor                                              The camera doing the same Panof the forest with Joanna.as before across the trees back to the stream.                His voice: You'll             have our child.                                I'll have the child of many fathers.                Her:                                Pause                                1'11 go.                Him:                                         Go and Kill,                                Yes.                Her:                                I'll come back.                Him:                Her:            No,                The camera pans right into the rain as it heads48.downstream (the above voices do not begin until the camerais     into   the    rain)     and    picks    the   mercenaries   up    later   ontheir march.            Long shot through the woods of them walkingright down the stream itself, which comes up around theirknees.        The bush on both sides of the stream is now to0                                        They are walking in a staggered thick to walk through. double file, one on the right side of the stream, another further        back on the left, another further back on the                       Occasionally, crack6 of thunder come out                       Of right,       etc. the sky.                                            Cries   of    the   deepening                 The    rain    grows     worse. forest.                                                         Lee, at the front with 49.             The men are soaking wet.                                                                    73                                                      They squat on     Bunny, motions for them to take a break.     the rocks on the edge of the stream, pulling their ponchos     out and covering themselves up completely, looking like     great sad useless tents, hardly paying attention to the     surrounding    forest.               Shot: whiskered old looking Rhah pulling his     poncho out, getting into it, his tired lined face peering                                                               Thinking.     out from under the hood.      Squatting on a rock.                                                          Pilling the     Pulling out a bowl and a small plastic bag.     bowl with the last of his Forest Nash. Throws the bag in                                                           Wearing his     the stream.     Anthony slowly comes up on him.     poncho which he drapes over Rhah's head as Rhah strikes a                                                                Smoke     match and lights the bowl.          A crack of thunder.                                                               Rhah*s face     rising from the poncho.       Coming off his face.     glowing with contentment as the thunder peals again.     Offers the bowl up to Anthony who, taking it, seats him-     self next to Rhah and smokes.          They both look out into the                                                                     Camera     hard rain thinking.      Shot of Rhah's exhausted face.     to Anthony who is staring into the woods on the side of the     stream, the rain beating in his face.          The camera going       to     what he sees -- a tangle of forest, and leaves falling off     the trees, and rare cries.:,                 Diana's petulant voice off:                                                  why do you hide things?                              Hide Hide Hide.                                                       He answers in a                   His eyes slowly pan the trees.     tired voice, off:                              Because.                                                            74                                                      His voice,          Shot: A's face, his eyes cast down.off:                                                    Without you                        Joanna .*. I loved you.. . . it is darkness.                                Shot of the woods.           His eyes rising.                                              Thinking. Even tu-           Shot: F&ah's face in profile.ally, he says in passing:                        Isaac didn't come back.           During this scene of thought on the rocks betweenRhah and Anthony, Francis and a few other brothers, includ-ing the white smoker, Adams, make a slow individual pro-                                                             Theycessional by Rhah and A. to take a pass on the pipe.come by in ones and leave again to go back to their ownrocks; the effect is almost of a ceremony celebrated forthe last time.50.        Lee (at the front) semi-shielded from the rain,sniffs the weed in the wind.       Looks hostilely towardsNmh and Anthony.        His hand goes out to move out and re-luctantly Bunny the point man, moves out, the others takingtheir time rising.           Shot from side fading into shot from front ofmercenaries moving down stream, Bunny way out in front.                                                            It is           The battle that now erupts is not heavy.like the snake, very quick and deadly, and violent, it isover fast, brutally, it is achieved                in silence, and                                          almostthe revenge is almost entire.                                                                 75                                       Bunny, still way out front,              Thunder peals again.passes a water snake reclining on a rock, the snake notbothering to move at the sight of these heavy waterloggedtired objects inching by.                                                   toward the snake*              Camera, passing Bunny,     ZOOIIISOff-screen, the trickles of stream water and a fast rus-tling, like a snake.       But the rustling is heavier now,like bodies moving very quickly on both sides of the stream                                             He wades out to inves-              Bunny's face as he hears.                                                       The stream istigate.      The men behind him haven't heard.deeper where he wades and the gurgling water rises to hiswaist.                          He advances down the stream.            The noise stops.                                                   His eyes, almostShot        the bush he sees.    He pans it.       ofnaturally, come to settle on a pair of bare feet paintedgreen like the bush.       He goes by it almost, comes back.His eyes tilt up and he sees Isaac standing there next toa tree, looking down at him proudly, knowingly, his facepainted with brilliant colors, his whole body, nearly                                       The paint ingrained in thenaked, striped like a snake's,skin, not dripping off in the rain.              Zoom to closeup of Isaac, his submachine gunstill cradled in his arms.              Cut.   Closeup: Bunny's amazed frightened face-              Several cracks of a rifle.              Closeup of the blood spreading on his young face.He falls into the stream.                           Closeup: a huge mine set in a tree.              Quick Cut.                                                              76It explodes.     Same shot repeated three times, in quicksuccession.                                          shot of the trees             Silence.   A bird crying.blowing with the force of the explosion (the same shotAnthony saw in his mind, back at Alexander's), leaves andbranches flying through the air, noiselessly.             Quick black out.              In the silence, the screen opens again With a                                                           Francisfull screen Blow Up of Francis' face as he is hit.                                  Panning to a bandanna floatingcollapsing     into the stream.                                                           Theby itself in the stream.        A body tumbling onto it.heavy machine gun the body was carrying crashing on therocks next to him.      Camera zooming out slowly, catching theliving trying to fish the dead and woulded out of thestream, Manny, one of the wounded still gesturing to hisradio which is sinking in the stream.        A brother reachingfor it.   He jerks back, shot in the head.              Camera still zooming out on the chaos, still thesilence, catches the brother, Robinson,       coming out on thebank Opposite     to the one on which the dead machine gunnerlies, and sprinting closely past the camera into the bush.                                            Sound returninqWe see his white eyes, full of fear.momentarily.      Sound of firing and cries of the wounded,and from the opposite bank the cries of the attackers,all painted, man and woman, black and white charging downto the stream.      Camera swivelling around as Robinson hurlsa grenade.     On one knee, trembling, pulling another grenade                                                                 TheOut from his belt.      Sound of first grenade exploding-last sound.     Back to silence.    Robinson pulling the pinfrom the grenade across his body, it's a faulty device,the grenade blows right in his face.             Sound.   The same explosion that killed Robinson.Shot: a poisonous snake slithering through the rocks tryin9to escape this madness,        Anthony being hurled by the closeexplosion down over the snake,       The snake in reaction                             Anthony jerks, g rimacing with thebiting him in the arm.pain.                                    Anthony on his knees         The snake slithering off.                                                 Pins the hissingin quick reaction pulling his knife out.snake.    (Fleeting third-of-a-second images of 1. Isaacslicing the snake's      head off in the temple, fading swiftlyinto 2. Anthony and Joanna in the woods, falling togetherentwined. cut.        A's knife slicing the poisonous snake'shead off.     He recoils from his action samgely, a bitstunned, his eyes glazed with savagery. The butt of a                                             One of the tribes-rifle no sooner crashes on his head.men straddles him as he lies on the ground, his head bleed-ing, about to scalp him, a brutal look of revenge on hisface.    It is the former leader of The Tribe.         His knifein the air.                                             The   tribes-                A hand grips it hard.      Stays it.man turning to Isaac.       Hesitates.    RUGS off to kill again.Isaac looking at the unconscious Anthony.         His smashedcamera lies next to him.       Seeing the dead snake, takingit all in with a little gleam of the eyes, perhaps amused                                                           78by the irony, and as Joanna runs up on him, carrying arifle, Isaac bends to quickly cut the poison out of A'Sarm.   Joanna feeling Anthony's brow and the would on hishead, her savage look of revenge melting into tenderness,looking at Isaac who nods quickly to indicate he'll bealright, she runs her hand over his forehend quickly onelast time, and runs off to fight.            This whole scene could be ridiculousif it isn't done brusquely, swiftly, like a dream inPLqthonyts head.                                         The battle coming to an             The sound is off again.                                                    The attackersend.     The next scenes speeding by dreamlike.pouring down in mass onto the Stream, even little children,             Fade into:             A black tribesman on top of a young blacksoldier, both of them straining, the tribesman's knife isback in his hand pressing against the soldier's belly, thelatter's hand gripping his wrist.        They are both lookingeach other in the face, straining.        The soldier's handslips.                                     He cries out and dies           The knife enters his belly.in his black enemy's arms.        Fade into:                                                         One of             Adams,   wounded, crawling on his belly.the women picking up a heavy rock and hurling it down Onhis head.     Fade into:             Lerner, glazed, drugged, running crazily out ofthe woods.     Rhah who is slightly wounded, clubbing himwith his rifle.       Lerner   on the ground, crying in pain.                                                                       79         Rhah above him, breaking the silence, saying quickly:                                   You fool, you crazy fool!                      Then clubbing him again so he won't crY- Rhah                                                 Rutting Lerner's    headband         quickly ripping his clothes off.         on, taking his old rifle and despite the lad of           Warpdlt,         runklg off into i?.~ woods, hollering like mad.                      Fade into:                                                                      Raising                      King (closeup) stumbling into a thicket.         his e:+- Y              _ IL     Sis large face spreading with fear, as Joanna         stands there with a rife.        Shooting him.                      Fade into:                      Isaac dragging Bunny's corpse out of the stream         onto the bank and taking his scalp.                      Dissolve.                      The battle is over.                              Lee                                              The rain has broken.         is           bloodied on the stream bank on his back, still              lying         barely breathing, his eyes closed, he is squinting madly         like a fish on land trying to breathe.           His bloody red         bandanna is loosely draped around his neck on his belly.         Medium shot.                                                  Sees                           A passing female member of the tribe.         him,                                                        The                 Shoots him.      Long shot of her shooting him.    ,'         hollow clack of her rifle.        Still the long shot as she runsit:         into the woods with the rest of the tribe.           In the distance                                                                The stream iS         we hear the drone of a helicopter       coming up.                                                                    Same long         deserted but for the bodies littered around it.                                                             80         Camera turning to catch Isaac, at medium range,shot.                                                      Thelooking down at the stream, the last to leave.                                             The trees concealhelicopter     approaching. Helooks    up.the stream from the sky.       The wind from the hoveringhelicopter's    blades is blowing the trees wildly back andforth.     Standing on the slope looking down at the stream,he raises his rifle in the classic Indian fashion, flatin the air (the same shot seen earlier at the Templeexcept we only saw his arm) and shouts a word in astrange language.        A subtitle flashes on the screen:FREZDUM!             Isaac runs off into the woods, the wind in thetrees blowing wildly.        Joanna waits for him at the edgeof the woodline, -J'ust as she waited for the Old Leader.                                    She follows.He disappears in The Forest.             Dissolve.                                                              81                        Prison                                 Anthony awakes as from a            The story goes on.dream, at first isn't sure of what he is anymorel fallsback on his distrust of Life, is arrested, put in Prison-Here in endless silence, the Silence of the Fish, he cutshis final tie to the world of Alexander and regains his                                                  .sense of feelings in the person of Jonah, who is a briefer       of Isaac,   At the same time, Alexander, his Ownformprisoner, wrapping his words about himself, severs hisevery link to the World.     Anthony's relationship to Jonah                                       From it he accepts thatis brief, dreamlike, beautiful.                                                        Feelings are                                           A Movie.Love, Life itself, is just a Dream.Dreams, Dreams are Feelings.                              Dream is                                    Freedom is Dream.Freedom.    Anthony dreams on, makes movies, and in his                                            He's free.dream/in his life, he leaves Prison.51.         Anthony's eyes looking up, opening from a darkscreen onto light, a kind face looming above him, askingjust as he opens his eyes:                       Would you like me 40 say a prayer foryour. my son?                                     fading into darkness as                           ScreenAnthony closes his eyes.                                The Father's                             Opening them again.questioning   eyes,   The camera moving a little higher as A-begins to rise up, look around, make sure he is not dying-                                    He is in a hospital, allHe is slowly looking around.blazing white,     The patients, including A. are in black                                                                    82      pyjamas with pink hospital monograms on their breast. fn      bed next to him one of the patients has died and the white              is spread over his face but his hand is stiffly      sheet      hanging out from the sheet.                               (as he looks around the hospital)                 A:      Cigarettes'11   do.                 Father:      0 . . . any particular brand                 A.           Menthols if you have any?                 F:            (smiling, producing two separate      brands, one pack full, one almost empty) Take your choice                 A. taking the last cigarette from the empty pack.      The Priest striking a match, lighting his cigarette. A      sucking in on it, looking over at the dead patient's      outstretched    hand,                  The Priest seeing this, looking at hand, saying:                              We couldn't preserve him . . . I think      the boy was Protestant.       (Walks to the bed, puts the hand      back under the sheet, lifting the sheet as he does this,      Anthony sees the puffed white face of Adams.           He is jolted.)                  Rhah is strutting down the aisle to visit A.,      wearing his dress uniform.       His coat is afghan with a lot      of sheep's fur.       Taking it off as he comes up on A., the      same thief's smile on his face.       Under the coat, wearingf `.      a pink Cossack shirt with black vest and black leggings      and a large Macedonian belt with a snake's head on it.             His      boots   are laced to his knees, and from outside the cossack      shirt, on a looping thick necklace hanging from his neck, a                                                           83black skull and ivory white cross hang side by side. Helooks like he just came out of the forest -- wild, crazy.                    Vhat's happening Father . . . IS Our SOn          F&ah:going to get well? or did the snake put the evil seed intohim.          Father:    (surprised by this visitor) No, Ithink Our Father's son is in . . . good hands          Shah, kissing Anthony on both cheeks, rising,turning to face the Father:                     He both must be . . . because (smiling                                                  (As he sayscrazily) dig it, Father . . . I'm still here.this, the dead patient's hand casually drops down from thesheet once again, and the Father sees I&ah's strange neck-                                            Feeling   uncomfortablelace, his eyes growing a little wider.in his presence.)          Shah turning back to Anthony taking some comicbooks out of his coat.          Rhah:      Look here, I brought you some books tokill the time.          Anthony examining the covers.      Enemy Ace (a longthin ghastly looking drawing), Spider Plan, and another one (Doctor Strange) with a cover drawing of an immense creatureof evil with huge green eyes and hair hanging to hisshoulders and immensely long fingernails.       Opening the book,he finds a few thinly rolled cigarettes taped to one of thepages.                                        F&ah points to         Looks up at Rhah who is smiling.the huge creature on the cover. says both to the Father and                                                                 84Anthony, wiggling his shoulders a       little:                                   that huge ugly creature's got                        Actually           IRhah:a soul.    It blew my mind when he said to himself, "C'mon                                           If         keep up this nutty                                                  Inow, Beast, get a hold of yourself.                    1'11 be a candidate for the funny farm."soul-searching,            Rhah    snickering           Anthony doesn't join in.            The Father, more uncomfortable than ever, Producesa pocket Bible , giving it to Anthony:                                                                   Here                        Yes . . . well I must be on my way.is a small Bible for you Anthony .,. it will pass the time. . . I will return.     (Leaves, ignoring Rhah.)            Rhah bending over Anthony's face, and sneering atthe departing Priest.       His fist goes out in a gesture Oftriumph.    He is laughing now.            Anthony, unable yet to attach himself to Shah,saying in a monotone:                        Wow, I think you blew his mind, man.            Rhah:        (interrupting his laughter) Yea            Putting his fist out again.         A returning thefist, tapping Rhah's fist from the top, Rhah coming overand tapping A's fist with his fist,         Rhah sneering andlaughing again, stopping again.                        Yea            Pause (Rhah scratching his nose, fingering hisskull and cross.       A. scratching the scar below the eye)                                                                              85            II:               Listen    man,whereyou        headed   for    whenyou get out of here?            F=             ..               California                                                                           Then             I?:              Wow I'm going that way myself.back to Mississippi.             A:               I'll miss you man                              Yea man, and I'm going to miss You.             R:                                                        never passed up aYou were boss.          You   and      Francis.   YOUsmoke, you'd stay up all night with me if I asked you ..=poor Francis (Shot: Francis dying at the stream) ... he wasa prince and you were a prince . . . pant (shaking his headwith admiration)             A not looking at Rhah.             Rhah:-..         (rearing up a bit) Take care of yourself                                                                           Theyman, you hear.          The forest made beasts out of                US.        cut us no slack in the World . . . and CaliforniaWon't                                                                         isthe worst man ,..         It's a bummer police state (Shot: thebarricade    of     twenty-five motorcycle policemen, seen later)I can go back to Mississippi and plant all the seeds I wantin all the swamps and become the new Johnny Appleseed ofthe South.         But you (pointing his finger) No! (his fingerWaving) There's going to be an earthquake in California.The farms and prisons are full of the young, and there'sgoing to be hell to pay for. (Shot: the fire scene 1)             A:                (thinking) I was going to take someForest Hash back with me.             R:               Where?                                                          86                     On my back           A:                      (thinking) Do it. It'll work. You got           R:border police and informers all over the place, but wear aheavy coat and they won't shake you, they're too busybusting brothers . . . (taking his coat) here man, take thiscoat, it'll wrap you up like an iceberg           A:         What you going to wear man?                                                Take it. (Puts                      Hell, me, I stay warm.           R:it next to A)           A:         (feeling the warm coat) You nevermentioned the others.           R:         (shrugging his head) None of them madeit man.    I was lucky to split . . . I didn't know how youfelt,           A:         (pausing) I don't know. Like it wasall just a dream.   (Turning a page in the comic book, almosttalking to himself) It was all just like a dream.(Coincidentally, in the comic, there is a large finalPicture Of a villain behind bars,      Camera catches this)            Rhah:                                              You                      You got to be strong man, to live.got to be strong to smoke.          got to be strong to do what                              YOUyou did.    You got to be strong to survive.          A, not really hearing him, reflecting, puttingthe comic down, not looking at him, in a weak wonderingvoice :                    I wonder what prison is like . . . ISthat a dream too? (,Blow Up of Genet, A. turning to Rhah,directly) Tell me about prison, shah.                                                                   87                          Rhah, not liking Anthony'sattitude, not really understanding, frowning, he hesitates,shrugs, says:                          Prison? . . . it's a fish world . . . silent. . . you take it slow and easy (Shot: tropical fish slowlyswarming in an aquarium) . . . it's a whole trip, you dedicateyour life to it. (Same Blow Up full screen: Genet -- veryquick)            Anthony looking up at him, dreamily, as if he isenvisioning the fish swimming around in eternity                          You know . . . prisons and palaces . . . are            Rhah:the two trips I never made (spoken wistfully)            Anthony looking at him            Phah:          (a little water in his eyes) Well man                               , you're a tough cat to lose . . . takeI'm going to        miss you                                                            . . . swim,care of yourself . . . and if you do go to jailand don't give too much if you ain't getting anything back. . . see you.            He kisses Anthony affectionately on both cheeks-Anthony kissing him also, his eyes a little bit watery as heloses another friend.            Shah strutting back down the aisle in his Cossackand vest.    Anthony turning to the dead soldier lying in the                        On the sound track, a short riff of thebed next to him.Spanish guitar, very           sharp, dangerous, mellowing, endingsoftly.                                                                 88                  Shot: The silver bird (airplane) flying in the     52,     c&ouds.                  Shot inside: Anthony and Flash sitting together.     Anthony loosely wearing the afghan coat Rhah gave him8     underneath wearing a green shirt with large ruffles and     brown leather breeches and the tightly laced boots of his                  Flash is very black, wearing Polaroid     shades     uniform.                                                             He has     which conceal his eyes and reflect what he sees.     shiny red beads around his neck and wears a green ma0 shirt.     very quiet and silent, he is blown out of his head and his           four front fangs are framed in gold; the two outside     top     teeth have green rubies mounted on them, the inner two     teeth have heart-shaped red diamonds mounted, so on the     rare occasions that he smiles, his teeth glisten in red     and green.                  -Anthony bored, reading a comic, putting it away:                            Let's go get stoned                  Fullscreen Blow Up of Dylan (seen at Alexander's)                                                         They walk down                  Flash rising.   Anthony   following.     the aisle.     They check the stewardess out as they meet in     the aisle.     She smiles, sees Flash's fangs, which we also     see for the first time, is horrified.        Anthony smiles at6.   her, maliciously.     She fades on him too.                            Don't smoke in the aisle please.                  A rat-faced stewardess very tiny (close up as she     speaks) confronts them.      Flash and Anthony running up     against her, they lightly bump into each other.         Getting                                                                        89           Putting                       sticks     out.by her.               their   smoking                                                                 A stewardess                                                        rear.            They   approach    the    john   in   the                                              Lights her cigarette withis sitting relaxing in the back.                                                                    Looks up                      Puts the pack and lighter down,a gold lighter.                                              She stares at him.at them.                Flash smiles.            Smiles.                                                                      ShotAnthony meanwhile looking at the pack and lighter.close.     The lighter is shaped in the form of a fish.             They go into the lavatory together.             They come out of the lavatory together, both very                                                                       Lighthigh.     Anthony now, like Flash, wearing his shades.blue glasses.        Blue like soft water.             Shot of them in the back talking with the seatedstewardess.                                                                 Giving them             The   rat-faced     stewardess       returning.a disapproving look.                                                  Wonder   Woman             Blow Up from the comics.             Shot: They are sitting back down in their seats,the airplane droning on.             A taking a cigarette from his gold case (the onehe stole from Diana ages ago) and lighting it with the fish-shaped lighter he just copped from the stewardess. Hesmokes, shot close of his face.               He has a reverie which isnoiseless except for the music.                                                                      Long             Shot: He is in black leather and boots.hair.                                                           A black thin          Looking like a rock and roll singer.                                                                Putting thesuitcase in his gloves.              Inside his weapon.blood money in the pocket of his tight leather pants. A                                                                90                                                    Picking thefew hippies hanging from statues watching.                Walking slowly like High fqoon down thesuitcase up.little sidestreet.          Shot: Twenty-five California cops in motorcycleboots and plastic helmets with Brando goggles and gun belts                                                        Pan of theirand sticks and badges gleaming like diamonds.bodies and faces, the camera going down the barridade           theyhave set up.     The faces, all white, are strong, their thighshusky.                                                  Music off, starting          Shot: A walking towards them.very lowly: When I wake up,          put on my makeup . . . and I                                 I                                                         A small                                     Aretha Franklin.say a little prayer for you.portion of the song.                          A   approaching                         Cut to silence.closer, zooming out from him to catch him with machine gunin his gloves.                                Rlow Up of Joanna on                   Stopping.   Close up.the cover of a magazine, the title of the magaiine in largeletters CINEPTA.          Sound returns, but an echoing semi-documentarytype clatter.      Side view of the cops crashing all over thetrash barrels violently.       Shot: One dedd..oop in the middleof the street, all alone, sprawled on his back, his helmetoff his head, hand flung out, his yellow goggles haveslipped down over his eyes, looking like an anonymous fishwith blood trickling out of his mouth,          The cops firing back with their popguns, andA. sprinting behind a trash barrel leading into a side-street,   Firing like a daredevil, like a French gangster                                                           91                                                        Explosionpicture.   A. throwing his huge pineapple grenade.(top view) causing general silence from the cops. Anthonystanding excited and panting at the street corner, trying                               Suddenly a girl in a blackto decide where to escape.vampire costume with a black hood on her head appears on                                            of Joanna on thethe side street.    Blow up, momentary,cinema magazine.    The vampire girl waving her hand for A-to come fast.   He pauses, runs wildly down the street afterher.   They take hands and tear down the street together-On the sound track the Beatles' Revolution starting up- Fade           Anthony in airplane, lighting another cigarette.Offering one to Flash, who takes it.        As A. lights hiscigarette with the lighter, he asks:           A:          What are you going to do now?           Flash:      (deadpan, from behind the shades.Anthony's face reflected in them)     I'm going back toFlorida and be a cop.                                              Flash glancing at           A clicking the lighter shut.it, smiling, saying:                       It works out nice.     The law pays memy bread, and 1 roam free in their backdoor.           A:          (his face reflected in the shades)You were a cop man?           Flash:      I was a cop before I went on thisEastern trip.           Pause.   Drone of the airplane           A:          A soul cop hunh?                                                                 92                     cut to : stock footage from Godard's Pierrot    lie Fou.    Belmondo leaning up against the wall, mimicking    Americans, saying several times:                           Yea, Yea . . . Okay . . . Yea                                            posters    advertising    53.          The California airport.                 Anthony, his shades on, in his afghan coat having    THE SUN.    his bags examined.      Flash is one counter down, also being    examined.     They are both very stoned: at least Anthony is    and everything he sees is through a detached fish-eyed    lens, slightly colored blue.       They look up, catch each    other's eye.                 A looking around through his fish-eye at the    roving officials who circle outside the baggage line, their    hands behind their backs, watching the examiners and the    examined.                 Shots of exiting passengers/soldiers, in forms    of eastern dress, contrasting with the square neckties the    Officials all in black with badges wear.          As these    passengers leave the building, a few are intercepted by    the roving officials and pointed towards a side door --    the physical examining room.       The majority however walking    out the door to freedom,      Anthony sees this -- first a(    passenger    being   intercepted, then his eyes moving to the                                                           Looking    door where there's fresh air and sun waiting.    down at the official who is repacking his suitcase full Of    rich clothes -- purple shirts, etc. a large flamboyant hat-                                                            93            He looks up and sees Flash, baggage in hand,moving towards the doors, walking slowly and ultra-steadily.    He is stopped by one of the old grey-haired                    Flash talking to him slowly, turning hisjowly officials.                                                       Anthony'sback to Anthony, the -official   turning with him.                        Flash seems in command of theeyes taking this in.situation and as the loudspeaker announces a departure,Flash, with the official following, turns back aroundslowly, his dark mirror-like shades panning slowly downthe baggage line, panning past Anthony, as he continuesto move his lips,                                                 Starts a slow              Anthony picks his baggage up.slightly stiff walk towards the doors.         Sound of his foot-steps.     Flash, ahead of him, exiting through the doors, agleam of sunlight shining into the airport as he opens thedoor.    Anthony's eyes feeling dizzy.       The camera swirlingaround the Airport quickly one time,         A large ad for TheSun, and a big red fireball with an airplane gliding pastit.     TO his side, Anthony carefully watching one of theofficials, hands behind his back, bouncing up and down onhis heels.                               Anthony walking past               Camera dwelling on him.him.     Shot of a hand lightly touching his shoulder.                       Just a moment please.                                               Face hardening.             A. stopping.   Looking ahead.Turning.     Looking at this old decrepit looking official.who says:                       Will you step into our examing room                                                             94          This way.please.           Long shot of the official pointing to it.                                                     Looking           Anthony walking stiffly to the door.                                    His voice off:one last time to the exit doors.                      Run!                                                          The54.        Shot: Anthony at the examining room door.official from behind, opening it.                                          Stepping inside.           Anthony scratching his scar.           Officials behind a large police station type desk.One brother in front of it, putting his things back in hispockets, smiling at A. giving him the fist of triumph sign.           Heavyset official looking up at A. disinterestedly:                      Well, you know the procedure.           Pause           A:         No                                                    Take every-           Official: We run a bodysearch here.                              Put it on the desk.thing out of your pockets.           Shot: desk           A. slowly, resignedly but still hoping, taking                                                       Theitems out of his overcoat.     Taking his coat off.contraband tightly laced to his back under his green,ruffled shirt.     The official running through the items Onthe desk, holding a pistol slug in the air, a couple ofteeth, a small black skull (a present from Rhah), glancingcritically at A.           Official: Okay (comes around the counter) Armsout please.     Stretch the legs.                                                                                                             95               He      feels       under         the        arms,       down    the    chest,          intothe    crotch,      the      legs,       straightens                back      up,    looking          A.     inthe    eye, circles          his       back           with    his       arms.               Close         shot      of        his       hands       tapping       very     lightly            andjust    once     the    plastic          bulge          under        his shirt-             A'        facial                                                                                                 Smuscles      tightening.                official             straightens,             lookingtriumphant.                                    Okay take the shirt off                            SlowlY.               Anthony,            a    distant              smile      on     his     face,          unbuttoninghis     shirt, taking          it       off.           The     flat      p3astic         knapsack           isrevealed,               Anthony         unhooks            the         two       shoulder       straps.             Takesit off in one hand.                     Tosses          it     on      the     counter.                The       second         official             at       the     counter       immediatelydipping      into      it.               Anthony:                                                                                Burn       me.                                       Take it, burn it . . . Take me-                Second        official,               at     the       counter,       leaning                 it,                                                                                                      onthe weed in hand.                   Says         off, the           camera      on    A's        face:                               We have the evidence here to run you inon a federal government smuggling charge . . . voll'll                                                  be                          you'll         be       behind               ba r s for five years,found     guilty.                             Thcr-e         is        no     lighter         sentence.       ?qe      have allprobably       more.the evidence we need . . . If                              you      cooperate        however          and     yougive    us     information             leading          to       the     apprehension            of     any                              contraband ,                  your       sentence       could          possiblyperson       carryingbe reduced to as little as two years.                 Camera        still             on        Anthony's         face.     He        doesn't          speak.                                                                  96            Shot of Flash leaving the airport (seen previously)Rhah's low voice off:        They won't shake you. They're too                             busy busting brothers ---Official:    Okay, search him.         (Turning to desk man) Get the FI55.         Shot: A, leaning forward on a speaker's podium                                                  He is totallyin another room, warmthless and white.                                                        shot fromnaked,    His body is hard and tight and cold.the rear of his buttocks squeezed together in a noose-                                                   The second Off      first 6fficial    standing behind him.Theto the side, watching.            First:        (off) Now spread the cheeks.                                                               He is            Shot from side, A's hard facial muscles.coming to understand the reality of his situation, theignominy of it.        His hands go back to his buttocks.            First:        (off) Wider . . . F!ider! Okay, handsback on the desk.            Side shot of A. putting his hands back, leaningforward, the moment he does this, the first official kicksA'S legs from under him,            Anthony's face orashing          into the podium as hefalls.                           On the floor, wiping his mouth          Sound of falling.where it hit the podium,        It's slightly bleeding.                                                        The FBI is            Second official: Okay that's all.here.    Get your clothes on.            Into the hall.                  men in black suits with                                TWO   FBInarrow lapels, and hatless, waiting, the one in chargegiving A. an amused look of disgust.             A in his furry afghan                                                                        97    coat.    The FBI man, nodding his flat crewcut head as if    to say 'I like it'.                An attractive, rich-looking            in   her    thirties                                               woman    is handcuffed to a chair in the hall, looking as if she is    about to cry, lines of fatigue under her eyes, as if this    was her first narcotics arrest.                                                                    The                The FBI man unlocking her from the chair.    handcuffs are shiny and big and silver.         His key very    small.                                                  He smiles and               She is hassled and twists her wrist.    says to her:                            The more you move, the tighter they get.                                                    She hardly looks at                He handcuffs her to Anthony.    him, she is so distracted.                              The blood                                    He looks at her.    smeared on his mouth.                FBI:        Let's go,    56.          Shot: Getting into their black sedan, the FBI men    in the front, the assistant driving, the one in charge    seated with his back to the road not taking his eyes from    the two prisoners in the rear.      The windows are sealed up.                                                               The woman,    The sunlight outside is sparkling,        They drive.    distracted, looking out the window nervously at the passing    streets.    Anthony looking at her, beginning to fullyi    understand what is going to happen to him now.            He is no    longer stoned.                                                The                       Looking out the window with her.    streets assume a fish-eyed aspect.        cut    57.           Prison.   Shot of an electronic door sliding shut.                                                             98Sound of other electric doors opening and closing.        Gratingmetal on metal, followed by this underwater hollow silence.A momentary sound of bubbling water in a fish tank.        A shot           tropical fish swimming in the aquarium.    Fading intoOf   thea shot of a strong muscled black standing, gripping thebars, looking out blankly, his t-shirt off, muscled armsand his powerful chest exposed.                        A sardine-                                     A black beard.                                            Fading into shot ofshaped ring hanging from his left ear.Anthony in shabby light beige prison pyjamas. the topremoved, revealing a sleeveless t-shirt, exposing his under-arms.      He is sleeping on a mattress on the floor of hiscell.      Blankets lying messily about, a few prison books.                                     His long hair is completelyHis sleep is simple, childlike.unkempt.     He sleeps with his mouth closed, on his belly, onearm loosely wrapped around his neck, the other flung Out.             Camera dwelling on him, fading again into theaquarium full of tropical fish, fading from there to theprison block; about ten cells to the block and one dayroom,                                                     The shot isfive-six prisoners in each overcrowded cell.of the prisoners, in singles, walking about pointlessly,just to move, not more than six or seven treading.                The prisoners are all young except for one ortwo old lifers; they are mostly smugglers, hard types, outof motorcycle gangs, repair shops, broken families and inCalifornia style, very hip.      young, they have smiles thatsay they know the score.      Quite a few have beards andtattoos,   but no external ornaments, which is not allowed,                                                             99S* as distinguishing      marks, they use their threads.Each walks differently from theother, like different types of fish in an aquarium.         Thereis also a large minority of old 'hippy' types, Youngr notso tough, a fatalistic young romantic look about them,Society was unchangeably lame and it was inevitable theyshould end up behind bars.      tr3hen they get out, they PJillprobably split into the hills, to llexico, South America,                                        Their hair is very long,islands unheard, and never return,a lot of golden brown beards and once-suntanned faces, veryquiet, keeping to themselves, not even talking, each sits                               They look very primitive in theirby himself and meditates.shabby pyjama pants and t-shirts.                                                     Voice off:58.          Camera panning through the block.                                      Getting into the car.                        Over there,            Camera fading to catch three of the prisoners,swarming high up near the ceiling on the barsI like fishrather than monkeys, looking out the small slit of a windowlooking down into the parking lot.            VOICE :      The yellow chick in blue.            Side Shot (close) of their faces, catching thesunlight.    One of them sucking in his breath.            Shot:     Blonde getting into the car in the Sun-light, slamming the door.       In the background we see thesealed prison building, modern, small windows, in theheart of the city.                                                                         100                Shot: their faces looking out through the bars,wide eyed, exaggerated          effect.       Fading into               Shot of the head trustee (also a prisoner)bearded, coming up behind the prisoners.                   Pointing.                            Get down.59.            Camera following trustee as he walks on down theblock.                                                         Stops at a             He is a powerful looking young man.cell.    Looking     inside.        Anthony lying on the mattress,still sleeping, though he has changed positions and issleeping childlike on his side, his arm still about hisneck, the other arm outflung.                  toilet bowl and               in                                          A                          basin                                                           Trustee   glancingthe   cell.     One bunk bed.        Very cramped.to see everything is in order.                                                              Passes two               Walks further on down the block.60.brothers with pompadours sparring with each other in the                                                      Passes by themspace between the cells and the bars.unconcernedly and passes out of the camera's eyes8 as the                                                            They move well,camera remains to dwell on the brothers.taking it easy, equally sized.                 They start slapping alittle harder, noses bristle, sweat starts up: a few othersgather round, coming from separate directions, alone,digging the action.           The camera observing their faces asthe fighters pass out of the camera's eye; the mixture ofhard types and nomadic types.                                                                             One               The fighters come back into view, dancing,of    them                                                  with a   brother              is   now   Anthony,   jabbing,    sparring                                                                101who is probably an amateur boxer and is getting the betterof A, slapping him harder and harder with his open palm,his own nose starting to open and close, his mouth workingsmall cries, as if he were taking a black vengeance on thewhite boy.       The hard unsympathetic faces of the gatheredcrowd.     A'S    blurring vision; his opponent's face fades intothat Of Francis hitting him harder and harder, his facefading into the Blow Up at the stream -- his dying facecrying61.          Voice:        (off very-loud) Ulysses1 Albert0Ulysses!             Camera panning to one of the guards walking down                                                              Thethe corridor outside the bars, calling this name.fight breaks up.         The two brothers (not Anthony) who wereoriginally sparring calmly quickly walk off in separatedirections.             Ulysses walking past them towards the sliding                                                              The doordoor at the far end of the block.           v?aiting there.slides open,                          Camera catching him walking                    Another   door.                                                        The guarddown the corridor with the guard behind him.stopping at a box tied to the bars and taking the Slipsfull of special requests, following Ulysses out thecorridor.        They   disappear.             Fade.62.          A. waking up from his sleep, his hair verydishevelled,       lines under his eyes (he has slept most of the                                                                  102days and nights away) Looking around in a daze at theblankets.    The little shelves on the wall are neat, withsmall personal possessions on them.        A young prisonerlying on the top bunk.            A:           Can I get some cigarettes?            The young cat reading a Reader's Digest, turningthe page, his voice distant:                         Sunday                                                    I haven't had            A:           Can I get one from you.a smoke in days.            Long pause                         (Turning the page of his magazine) No            Fade                                                      The water63.         The sparring brother in the shower.                                                                  The                                        He pushes a button.squirting out like a fire hose.shower stops.       Comes out.    Dries himself, humming, thensinging.             Fade64.          Anthony on the mattress trying to read a prison-book.                                      Rutting himself in the          Putting it down in boredom.                                                          Dislikingyoga position.       Breathing in deep like a fish.it.     Getting up, walking, in his singular tread, towardsthe dayroom, passing the brother drying himself outside the                                         Going to the small stoveshower, which is in the dayroom.                                                            The                                         Looking at it.where the coffee pot is brewing.brother coming over in his towel, taking the lid off thecoffee.                                                                103                               smelling just nice.                        Urn,            A:         Yea, all I need is a coffee cup            Brother, heading back towards the shower to pickup his soap and slippers.         Looking back over his shoulder?                        It's hard to get a coffee cup in here.Walking on) Ain't no sugar either            A:          (to himself) No, ain't no writingpaper,    Ain't no pens.                        Ain't no telephone                               Ain't no beds.calls.                                               Ain't   nothing          Ain't no lawyers.       Ain't no women.is there?             Brother from distance, going back to his cell:                       No, ain't nothing            Fade             Close shot: an old lifer crying "Chow"65.             Low anin\al mumbles, following his cry, down theblock.    Prisoners heading back to their individual cells.It is late afternoon, but the clock on the wall is broken                                     The corridor outside the cells      it doesn't really matter.SOis now empty.      A silver dinner tray, glistening chrome, thecenter of attraction, wheels past the electric door intothe cell.     The trustee, by himself, rolls it down the cellsinto the dayroom, some of the men's faces looking at it asit passes their cell.             The Trustee: (calling out) Four Five Six!             The men from these cells eagerly pour out, heading                                                 Two pieces of whitefor the dayroom.      They eat voraciously.                                                                  104bread, no butter, ravioli and a small sticky piece of cake,Nothing to drink but coffee.        Anthony eating with them, hisundershirt still on, his hair a mess.           There is little talk.The sparring bro.ther, the same one who was in the shower, issitting with another brother across from A.           Looking at A.curiously.        Asks:                          Whatcha ya in for man?             A:           (tired of the whole gig) Crime             The Brother: (smiling, persisting) You look likeone of them cats gets stuck for the first time on a grassrap.             A shrugging, eating             Brother,     finished, lighting a cigarette, offersone to A.                             Brother smiles at his friend.              He shakes his head.             Brother:                                This is my                          Don't get uptight man.ninth trip.        James Brown here (indicating his friend) isfacing life.        Whatcha you facing.     Five years.             A. has finished eating.        Doesn't know why he ishanging    around.             Brother:                                              It's                          Shit, you might pull a probation.all depending on the Plan.       Federal?             A. nodding             Brother:                            Judge Lowery'll                          Then you're SO-SO.he'll hang five on you.                      Brown: (interrupting) They call him The             JamesVulture.     He's black (laughing) yea he's as black as mydaddy.                                                               105          Brother:      Monroe.     He's soft on kids.   He'll rapto you an hour about Justice till you think he's gonna putyou away for ten lifetimes.         Then he'll hand you a probation,saying, "Stay Clean"                  Brown:: Yea, but your riff in court better          Jamesbe nice . . . just nice          A. rising, going to the sink in the dayroom,drinking water out of the tap, turning around, taking a longdeep breath, wondering what he's going to do next          Fade66,       Anthony, later at night, is looking out the bars.He has pulled himself together, has combed his hair,showered, removed his t-shirt, stands barechested, haswashed his face; he is thinking.           Fade; into his thoughts           He sees the faces of Joanna, Isaac, Francis, and                                       Joanna standing painted green-*ah, each of them separately.                                               Francis singing hisunder the tree where he first saw her.                                                               Rhahblues.   Isaac offering him the snake's head to drink.giving him the coat in the hospital.           They fade.     On the other side of the bars, lookingin, he sees Alexander,      The camera panning past him casually;no element of magic in it.                                  around, walking back to his Cell.           Anthony   turning           Alexander's voice (off, low as an interiormonologue):                                                                 106                          Once I spoke to you of long silences    where we stare, just stare at air.     Once        spoke to you and                                                   I    said life was but a dream, it's been said, I said, I was    what you are.   I am what you're going to be               Closeup Anthony's face.               He enters the cell.               Anthony's voice off as in interior monologue:                          Don't the winds ever change?    67.        He sees Sonah huddled up in a blanket, on the    floor, slightly trembling as if this prison were too cold    for him.   He's rubbing himself slightly under the blanket.    His hair is black, Indian, long and wavy, hanging to his    shoulders, the reincarnation almost of Isaac but younger,    about seventeen, eighteen.     He has a beautiful face,      much    warmer features than Isaac, his two eyes bright and looking    straight straight ahead as if he were on a permanent high.    His voice is soft and when he talks he smiles tenderly                                                  He has a slight    with his   eyes and   sometimes his mouth,    accent -- sounding almost Israeli or European.               Anthony sits down next to him on the floor, not    feeling any need to explain why he sits down next to him.    He is simply attracted by him, by his warmth and by thei    sensitivity that makes him tremble in the cold prison.               Jonah looks at Anthony with his wide eyes. He                                                 Anthony is forced    smiles, trembles, but doesn't speak.    to ask:                                                                 107                         What did you do?            Jonah, smiling, wrapping his hands around hisshoulders under the blanket:                         They call it White Slavery            Anthony looking at him puzzled            Jonah:       The little girl told the Judge she wasraped steadily for half a year . . . and she was so beautifulin a pink dress in the court the Judge he believed her . . .(laughing a little) so they take me to the big prisontomorrow,            A:           For how long            J:            (looking ahead, trembling: For fiveyears                                                        Jonah   seeing            Pause.     Sorrow on Anthony's face.his face.     Changes the subject:            J:           Where do you come from?            A:            From the East             J:           I was over there (smiling) Yhen I wasjust a boy.                                        They call me Jonah.                  I fought with the Tribes.             A:           I fought with the soldiers. I'mAnthony.             Jonah looking straight into A's eyes:                                           glad you came and talked to                                     I'm                          Good.me.     I needed somebody to talk to ma. (Turning away) I'mscared     tonight.    (Trembling)             Anthony almost touching his shaking shoulderwith his hand.                         pulling it back in.                      Hesitating.                                                                    108            Jonah:        (not            him do this, a slight                                 seeingsmile on his face) I was twelve when               first killed. I                                               Ilay in a tree all day.                               The soldiers came                               Xtd set a snare.by late in the afternoon, and they tripped it.             It wasan old-fashioned bow and arrow, but it killed.             And I wasso happy?    Have you killed?            Anthony:      (pause) No            Isaac:        (smiling) did you rape the women?            A:            (pausing) No            Isaac:        (smiling) You didn't steal anything?            A. shakes his head            Isaac:       Are you proud?            A:            (at a bit of a loss) Sometimes            Isaac:       Who is your woman?            Anthony puckers his smile, shrugs            Isaac         (Also smiling) It doesn't matter anymore, does it?            Anthony :    i40            Isaac:        (smiling) HOW old are you;                                                          I don't            Anthony:      (smiles a little, shrugs)think I remember.                                                           His interest            Pause.      Jonah has stopped trembling.in Anthony has brought him out of his fear of the future.            Jonah-,       (looking at A. tenderly) I- remember.I'm eighteen.       Xy mother and father were killed by thesoldiers.    I was taken from the Forest, imprisoned here.                                                           The CityThey set me free and I wandered into the City.                                                                                109    was cold and hard and I was lost but there were people like    YOU Anthony in the City.               There are a lot of them. We    shared together.                              r've loved more beautiful                             We made love.    things than there are stars and I'm only eighteen and    You're    older but Anthony (looking straight into his eyes)    believe me, believe me you never . . . good god you never    lose track of your heat . . . (taking his hand from the    blanket) Take my hand *.* Feel it                 Anthony feeling it                 Jonah:                               Mine are warm.                               Yours are cold.                 Shot, short: Anthony chasing Joanna through the    woods.     His voice off in a whisper:                               I remember.                               You have to kill Anthony (Shot, very                 JOnali :                                                                              You    short: Ant.bony      killing the sneke)        You have to love.             to be free (Shot: Anthony chasing Joanna               through    the    have    woods.     His voice off: I pemember)          . . . and you have to be    warm     (Shot: Anthony catching Joanna in the WOOLS               (no    sound)                            toppling over on the ground, their bodies    in si~w     motion    entwining.      His voice off in a whisper: I remember)                 Pause,      Anthony feeling the warmth coming off    Jonah.     Jcnah's eyes smiling encouragement and tendernessi    at him,                 Jonah:                  you're warm. (lithely moving over                                     ,                               NOW    closer to Anthony) you've been warm before . . . I Can tell.                                                              It isn't solemn,    (He kisses Anthony lightly on the cheek)                                                              the    kiss)     His    it's light, joyous, easy. (Anthony              returns                                                           110voice off: I remember.     Anthony slowly takes Jonah's headin his hands, brings it together with his.      Anthonyreleases his breath.     Jonah's hand feels his cheek, gropesalong on it.   They kiss each other's mouth, tenderly, theireyes closed.   Fade, past the faces of Joanna, Francis,Isaac, Rhah, in that order back to the face of Alexander,who sits all in black by himself in his apartment, slumpedin a chair, his hands between his knees, looking very sad,his head hanging off his left shoulder.       His voice off,very low:                                                      We dreamt68.                    Your mind was mine Anthony.together.   We discovered reality and it died with the dream                                               We grew anotherand what we dreamt, we could never have.mind,   We emancipated our souls, and the cost . . . was thatour feeli:;gs died.    We buried ourselves in the security Ofthought and not knowing it, we fell prey to our own minds.                            If ir. cannot eat other minds andOur thought was hungry.other minds cannot eat it, then like some horrible plant,which yc~ accused me of being, the mind will curl in andeat its own self.                                                Fading into            Alexander rises from the chair.Anthony and Jonah together fading into69.         Alexander's face returning, painted in vivid                                                              Histribal colors -- yellow, black, red, blazing colors.books and papers are strewn on the floor in fl-c)nt of him.He is pouring gasoline through his apartment,        The posters                                                                  111and paintings are ripped off the walls, except for theRimbaud which he now stops to look at.             His voice:        (off) Big explosions pockmark ourskies,                                              Joyce . . .           Aristotle.                Shakespeare.                          Aquinas.Rimbaud . . . ending like literature, in death and disease,             Rimbaud's    hollow boy's voice off:                          and one night I will lose and cometo regard as sacred the disorder of my mind!             Alexander taking the Rimbaud      off the wall andthrowing it with the rest on the floor.             Alexander, his voice off, kneeling to examinewhat he has devoted his life to:                          For this? . . . descend sin by sin intoa maelstrom, full of false dreams arising like twilight,false words tilxt dance by the moon and mirror themselves                                                           God! Iat the bottom of the ocean's floor . . . for this?                                               swallowed sleepingdid my very best.        I opened moons.   Iforms.                                                  Sighs too           I sang songs that sighed with effort.deep for words and prayers from the deepest pit of thebrain 0 God!                                             Emerging                    I was in you and you were in me.from               Leaping up, like winter-spring ardor, to         mists.light sodden coals of creativity, it was patience and itwas passion, it yearned in the horrifying silence Ofinfinity     . . . Does appetite grow again? . . . and I a god amI reborn?         Did Zeus swallow his own flesh in order topreserve it, do I not swallow my own self in order to liveagain?                                                                                                          112                Alexander          rising        on        camera.       His      voice        stilloff, in parody of what he has just said:                                    I    was     conceived         by     my    father,        born       ofmy     mother, suffered            under       both,        was     crucified          for        this(pointing       at     papers), died              and      soundly       buried        but     the       thirdday I rose again from Hell,                        and       ascended          unto    Heaven           whereI sit on the right hand of God The Father Fiction, fromwhence I shall come to judge . . . all painters, all poets,all creators . . . you                  . . . amen                Walking       towards           his       fireplace,        taking          the     oldmedieval       torch   off         the    hall,           shifting      moods,        his     voice       off:                                                                                      Must     smash          the                                               sin, must          rise     up.                                    Xust                                                                                             Fire.         Flew.barrier of my selfish Ego. Must                            free . . . Free.I go.                                              Through the Ego he . . . Malked           Walking     to         and    fro.thrcagh     the Eg;-.             To and fro he walked .-.                        Through the Ego-Through     the      garden        of    Ego.                                                           I&     holds it next to him,                Lighting           the     torch.burning        brilliantly, casting                   a    weird        surreal       light       on     hispainted        face.       His voice, mocking: .                                    In     many       centuries         from     now     .--       when       thefuturians dig up theageold crusts of our earth . . . theywill    discover       a     bronzed       likeness          of    a     human     being        from      theTwentieth         Century, and they will marvel at this figurepiece,and     they    will       hang    it     in    their       lighted       museums        for       all    thesurvivors       to     see, and          they     will       flock       about     it,       and       theywill    celebrate       it,       and     they     will         never     again       commit       it     toearth, for . . . and . . . it . . . wrll                                be Me. (laughs.             Checkshimself)                                                             113                       What, who is this laughing at who?Which Alexander laughs at which Alexander? . . . WhichAlexander shall inherit the Earth? . . . - shall inherit                                         Yethe Earth.   (Shifting, a mock puzzled look on his face)The voice is gone. (Shifting again, theatrical) but alas!                                                    A face is athe birth of faith follows.     Faith and face.face.   For have I not functioned on, samefaced everydayforever, believing,    having to believe in as simpk a thing. . e as divine good, divine aid, all the divinities my fearurges me to snatch at ..* at any time, at any 5pace, I camecracking   downward, creativeness I thought forever purloined. * . how shall I function on, miracle of miracles -- sprungfrom the Holy Ghost loins of the Virgin llary,        Alexandermade flesh in it ball of fire, come to cleanse the Earth,turn water to   b lood . . . (Tausing,   shifting again) O=. turnlife to death .*. turn death back again . . . To Life!           (Taking a random sheet and setting it to fire,As he does this, his voice, businesslike:)                       The world, it was writ, shall becleansed this time, not by water, but by fire.         (The sheet                                                          Alexanderwith his large looping handwriting on it burning.looking at his two cats who are circling uncomfortably undera table) It burns . . . like cats slinking away, slowly       atfirst, it grows.                          It is a - wind,                                                  high                      It flies higher.                               The long romantic loops of mybowelbound and visionary.hand, scratched by the she pen, she knows everything I knowand am about to know (Flame has engulf&d       the sheet, Alexander                                                                     114still holding it in his hand, tasting             the    fire)   disappearsin an insanity of flame,                        The fire in my     eye.                                   La   Lune.(The Siamese hissing           at Alexander, Alexander smiling) SSSSSS,go! gargoyle, sit on my mind no more, petulant and fed withboiling seething creatiousness          . . . like a succubus! likea sea! like a vast Cinerama leech!             Alexander putting the torch to the books and                                                                     Thenpapers.     It starts up just as in the opening scene.                                                        The cats, the      hairit quiets and starts to spread and burn.on their hacks, retreating up against the wall, hissing.              Al*:         (off) The fire rumbles like a pig in                   frightened, so very frightened still of itsthe     slough,fate,    its awareness that I am real, not unreal, not false.Mow in the hot heart of hell this real I burns the she outof it (indicating the papers} stealing the light out of mylove, stealing stealing killing killing. 0 fantasticinsanity.         My eyes are pearls of religious light, lit witha lustre of wrath, spiking the skulls of dead demons lyingin the burning slough of hell, o Fantastic, these insanewords and words and words marching over my mind an army ofcannibals icccold        sinfraught moistness of these words Gushpond Foam!         Livid skins.    Of enemy kings cast in viper pitsto wheeze themselves out in celestial slowities of Death,the little pigs grunt the sizzling snakes stand on the walland black butterflies sail up into the air and there inthe air die, asphyxiated.           Spineless reptiles,     as swift asdoom-ridden        windswept    poetry, snow floating in blood washed                                                                   115                                 Gush pond . . . foam, roll over andby ice, alerted.       Alert1over, rise and roll, rise and roll (he pauses)               (The flames spreading wildly through the apartment.                                                            The cats,Shot of Anthony's fleeing footsteps (scene 1).screaming.       Alexander backing off from the heat, his eyesalight with madness, sounds of breaking and tearing and theroar of the flames)              Sound fades.      His voice off, calmer, more lucid,bringing to an end:                           In the garden when I was young the                                   They are beasts of a fabuloussmall graceful lions run.elegance they sniff flowers and crack open pink parasols,when I was young, in the aethiopian gloom, in the shaded         of   afternoons   splendid   with   ambitious   odors   andmemoryprimitive yearnings and I embraced it all, sing! that once1 stood in front of the dawn and bathed my sandals in thesea, that once on freezing frontiers my armies roamed, thatI kissed the hands of fantasy queens and bade my timepausing on flowers, these and arabia too where the windsshrive, in the sapphire waters off moorish Spain, fieldsOf flanders and wheat so golden it devoured the sun, songsOf Swedish castles and sonqs of spiders, groans of feelingfrom dungeon corners and keening organ music in germantowns and nights in the forest and days so black widow'stears ran with the Ehine . . . The Christ was long distantand light so far ahead and I lay my cheek down on the sideof an alp, and ran my toes through the wows of afghanistan.                                                          116In the north was the nothing, towards the south the void,and over it an old God had hung an invisible mantle he                                                   (Veaningless-called Life .*. it's so sad, so meaningless.ness in his voice)      In its bosom we play the practice ofour hearts . . . our hearts expire, puff adders vex the desertsand . . . we titter . . . we stop . . . without warning, we seethe genesis and the genius . . . and harmonies collide . . . andthe eye is lost in puzzles of fire           (Alexander is now a negative)          His voice.-        (off) My throat above the fire.Fire . . . my throat in the fire floating backwards *.. thelast secret to madness . . . the core the rot .-. beinglessness,embrace the steel .*. spit .O. clog . . . choke on the semi-circles of the moon . . . fantasy blood, purple flamed . . .then gut and sink ..+ into the wealth of fire at the musicend of Death.          Alexander's negative engulfed in the fire.           Slow fade on the fire, engulfing everything.69.        Fading into -Anthony and Jonah embraced, butAnthony's face, as if he knows what has happened, is lookingup, looking at nothing.      There is sadness in his face.Fading into mirth; the realization of dream.           His voice:        (off) Feelings are dreams, dreams                                                           It'sare feelings.                         Dream is Freedom,                Freedom is Dream.all nothing but a Dream.                                They embrace.           He kisses Isaac.                                                               117.:               Fade.               The movie camera begins to purr offscreen,     coming to the end, fading from the characters, implying     that Life is just a Movie.               From the death of Words, we start a sweep Up                                   Beginning by making a Movie of     into Anthony's Future.     what has passed.               First still photographs come on the screen,                                                               The     freezes of the faces and things Anthony has known.     purr of the movie camera is heard offscreen until the End.               Photographs, Blow Ups                       1) The Fire                       2) Father                       3) Vother..                       4) Diana                       5) Rimbaud                       6)   Alexander                       7) Francis                       8) Rhah                       9) Isaac                       10) Buddha                       11) Joanna                       12) Flash                       13) Genet                       14) Jonah                       15) Anthony                  These shots fade very quickly into one another.                                                          118They could be closeups, distant shots, shots in action,shots mixed in time, but an effect of passing speed anddream,              1) A shot of Alexander as a young boy, writingpoetry. 2) Then a shot of him in his apartment withAnthony. 3) Lastly a shot of him as a negative.              1. F&ah at the hospital              2. Rhah clubbing Lerner in the woods              3. F&ah rapping in the Temple              [Reversing Time)              The stills starting to move with the purr ofthe camera              1) Isaac at the Temple in front of Buddha slicingthe snake's head off, fading into              2) Buddha with the living snake crawling throughhis arms, fading into              3) the candle at the jazz club Anthony rising fromthe table sweating, fading into              4) Isaac with the machine gun in his arms                the leader of the Tribe at the streamCOnfrOnting              5) Isaac in his classic pose at the stream afterthe battle              6) a comic strip Blow Up of The Silver Surfer              7) Joanna following Isaac into the woods              8) Anthony coming on screen-chasing her              9) Anthony drinking the snake blood          10) Anthony and Joanna entwining                                                                    119          11) Francis singing       his    blues                                                      the r&ream.          12)     Francis crying   for    help   in          13) Anthony dancing to the James Brown with thecolored chick, the sound of the song breaking the silenceof the movie camera's purr.          14) Anthony and Jonah touching each other forthe first time          15) Anthony in a cardin           double-breasted suit andturtleneck, wide brimmed hat, expensive gators, floweryhandkerchief,    looking very strange and out of characterpassing between two chicks (their off screen whisper, in awe:Where does he come from? Where is he going?           161 Footage from the Errol Flynn swordfight inthe Seahawk          An offscreen voice, loud and distant, the guardcalling "Darnell! .., Anthony        Darnell!           17) The guard walking down the corridor, calling,fading into           An off-screen voice (the guard's):                        Tell him he's wanted           18) Joanna and Isaac bendingoverAnthony              at thestream, nursing him           19) Anthony kissing the snake                 The snake biting Anthony           20)           21)    Anthony embracing Isaac after Alexander's Death           22) Frontal shot, medium range, taken from the                                                                Anthonyeye level, of two horses riding with the camera.                                                           120his hair blowing in the wind on the first horse, a chestnutstallion.    Almost abreast of him, his young (future) son(seen earlier playing the piano) his long hair- blowing inthe wind also.    They gallop.            Sound of hooves beating,    Camera holds on them.            Side shot as they pass the camera, riding off.            A slow Spanish guitar melody starting up, moviecamera's purr fading into the music            23) Son and father on street, the father a littlebit ahead, both hands in his pocket, his shoulders hunched,back to camera.    The son, younger than the one in theprevious shot, like his father wears a sweater, and leatherpants.   The guitar riffing.                                       The purr of the camera.            24) The guitar fading.The son, now a baby, is building a sandcastle on the beach.His father approaching him.      Baby waving him awayr as if tosay Don't play with my sandcastle.      Father opening his face,like a little boy his eyes wide, showing his son he is hurt.The son looking, beginning to smile.       The guitar starts upagain,   Father   laughing.   Going to son and lifting him upon his shoulders where he rests,       Walking down to the sea.His left arm going out and Joanna running across the camera,under his arm, they laugh, turn their backs on the cameraand baby on shoulder, wife under arm, walking off down thebeach, fading into            25) The big muscled black with the gleaming earring, seen at the beginning of The Prison sequence, his hands                                                                 121on the bars (the purr of the                camera), now his hands                                    moviewrapped around the guard's neck, who is ninncc?               against                                                         up                          The black making cold .Eaces ofthe bars, struggling.exertion, bringing the guard lower and lower, finishing                                                  Look of intensehim on the floor.   Back up to the bars.                                  He takes the bars in hand andconcentration on his face.                                               He just about makeslike Steve Reeves, bends them apart.a circle out of the two bars, bending them inwards, giving                                                          The rest                         Going through the breach.them a concave look.of the prisoners following, caution and excitement on theirfaces, emerging three or four at a time.                                              In a double-breasted           Anthony through the bars.                                    Little gangster gun in hissuit, a flower in the lapel.hand, an ultra-broad brimmed hat on his head.           The prisoners moving fast down the corridor.Anthony way behind them banging a guard on the head withthe gun.   Standing there over the guard, turning one way                                                                   The                                                 Shooting him.                 Can't          up his mind.then another.            makehollow clack breaking into the purr of the camera. A.looking around, he hasn't moved, sees a vase full of flowers                                                         Shoots it.                                               Pauses.sitting on a table in this corridor.                                                 A still hasn'tVase and flowers breaking and falling.                                              Sees himself filtingmoved, looks off down the corridor.himself on camera, his double in looser threads, without a                                                                  Shothat.   Pauses.   Aims his little gun his double's way,                           The hollow echo breaks the silence.of it (close) firing,Anthony picking a strawberry out of a strawberry bowl.                                                              122            Fade,   The prisoners running much faster throughthe corridors of green and blue and pink sudr!enly breaking                                                     Cra.syout into an open green field full of flowers.Prisoners running like wild through the field some rollingin the grass, some hugging each other, some pissing, somepicking flowers, the rest running very fast in separate                The last shot of the black Bar Bender tearingdirections.through the grass (eye level shot) lively music playing offthe guitar.                                    The purr of the camera            This abruptly stops.                                    Anthony as some kind of            Blow Up Comic strip.caped crusader, very fast.70.         Fading into Anthony kissing Jonah goodbye, fadinginto Anthony at the electric door waiting for it to open.It opens.                          Anthony disappearing in his              Going through it.                          Sound of another electric door opening.light beige pyjamas.Anthony, in a cardin suit and turtleneck, no hat walking dowrthe corridor on the other side of the bars (camera behindbars) e   Side view as he walks on down the corridor anddisappears.              The purr stops              The screen dissolves into colors shaped likemolecules, perhaps a theme to it of three separate worldsmerging (cat: white, snake: green red yellow black etc. and                                                    3Ielt .fish: stripes, dots)                     Collide,                          They merge.                          End of Movie
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+BREAKDOWN         by  Jonathan Mostow     March 1996 Revised First DraftFOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLYFADE IN:EXTREMELY TIGHT ON ELECTRONIC GUTSof a video camera. The screwdriver blade of a Swiss Armyknife ENTERS FRAME, methodically tightening a row ofscrews.PULL BACK to reveal:EXT. BOMBARDED NEIGHBORHOOD (WAR-TORN COUNTRY) - DAYOn the backslope of a mound of rubble, a three-man TVcrew (field producer, reporter, and cameraman, allwearing flak jackets) waits while the cameraman, JEFFREYTAYLOR, works to repair his malfunctioning minicam.Throughout this sequence, ROD, the reporter, types on alaptop computer, oblivious to what is happening aroundhim.HOWARD, the field producer, lies on his stomach, peeringcautiously over the crest of the rubble throughbinoculars.Beyond him we see an empty street. It is lined withbuildings blasted by shells: a sawtooth wall in thef.g., a ruined high-rise at the end of the street,billboards in an unrecognizable foreign language.                         HOWARD           How about it, Jeff?Jeff finishes his repair job, snaps the minicam closed.                           JEFF           Done.Jeff slips the knife back in his pocket, scrambles overthe loose bricks and stones to a position next to Howard.EXT. SAWTOOTH WALL - DAYA frightened woman lurks nervously in the shelter of thewall. She is young, in her early twenties, with shiningdark hair down to her shoulders. She's carrying anarmload of books.EXT. MOUND OF RUBBLE - DAYJeff focuses the minicam.                                                        2.MINICAM POVFRAMED in the viewfinder we see the frightened woman.                           HOWARD (O.S.)          Nice legs.Jeff ignores Howard, PANS the minicam DOWN the street.In the viewfinder we see the flash of sun on metal.EXT. RUINED HIGH-RISE - DAYA row of blasted windows. In one of the windows, asniper crouches. Sunlight glitters on his rifle barrel.EXT. MOUND OF RUBBLE                           JEFF                    (matter-of-fact)          Sniper.                           HOWARD          Where?                       JEFF          High-rise. Top floor.        Window in          the middle.                        HOWARD                 (looking through                  his binoculars)          Stay on him. Stay on him.        Now go          back to the woman. Now!Jeff swings the minicam and --EXT. SAWTOOTH WALL - MINICAM POV-- the image blurs, then holds steady on the frightenedwoman. Nervously, she peeks around the corner.                        HOWARD (O.S.)          Back to the sniper.EXT. MOUND OF RUBBLE                        HOWARD          Stay tight on the sniper.          Jesus -- look at him! He's about          fourteen! Don't lose this!Jeff kneels on the ridge, minicam on his shoulder.                                                      3.EXT. RUINED HIGH-RISE - POV THROUGH VIEWFINDERJeff's minicam ZOOMS IN ON the sniper. The sniper seesthe woman peeking and gets his rifle in firing position.                          JEFF          He sees her.EXT. MOUND OF RUBBLE                        HOWARD          Stay on her. If she runs, widen          and try to get her and sniper in          the same frame.Jeff turns his head away from the camera and stares atHoward.                        JEFF          I said he sees her.                          HOWARD          I heard you.    Stay on her.Jeff looks to Rod for support but he's busy typing,oblivious.Jeff hesitates, then lifts the minicam to his eye again.EXT. RUINED HIGH-RISEThe sniper, taking aim.EXT. SAWTOOTH WALLThe frightened woman decides to make a dash for it.   Shetakes off her high-heeled shoes, inhales deeply,gathering herself to run.EXT. MOUND OF RUBBLEJeff watches through his viewfinder:                        JEFF                 (under his breath)          No... no...EXT. STREETThe frightened woman bolts, sprinting barefoot across thecobblestones, skirt lifted, slender legs flashing.                                                       4.EXT. MOUND OF RUBBLEJeff jumps to his feet, waves the minicam, shouting:                         JEFF          Sniper!   Sniper! Sni--STREETThe woman looks up in Jeff's direction, confused,breaking stride --We hear a burst of automatic gunfire --RUINED HIGH-RISEIn the window, the winking muzzle-flash of the sniper'sAK-47.STREETThe woman's body jolts from the impact of the bullets.The books go flying from her hand. She spins to thepavement, her hair billowing.JEFFjust stands there, a shattered expression. The camerahangs at his side. He stares at the dead woman as a poolof dark blood expands around her body.                                           CUT TO:EXT. LOGAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (BOSTON) - RUNWAY -NIGHTA 747 touches down on the tarmac.                                           CUT TO:EXT. INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL - NIGHTA late-model Jeep Cherokee is parked at the arrival curb.AMY TAYLOR, Jeff's wife, peers out from behind the wheel,scanning the crowd.HER POVJeff, carrying a single bag slung over his shoulder,emerges from the terminal.                                                           5.BACK TO SCENEAmy gets out of the car, grinning. Jeff sees her andhurries over. He drops his bag and they fall into eachother's arms, kissing hungrily. These are two peoplepassionately in love with each other.                        AMY          God, I missed you.                           JEFF          Me too.                        AMY          Let's get out of here. Where's          your equipment? Don't tell me you          checked it?                        JEFF                 (holds up his bag)          This is it.                           AMY          No camera?Jeff shakes his head no.                           AMY          No nothing?Again Jeff shakes his head.       Amy arches an eyebrow.                           AMY          Ah ha.                                                CUT TO:INT. JEFF AND AMY'S APARTMENT - NIGHTA modest apartment in the Back Bay neighborhood. Notmuch furniture, but lots of books and CD's. On thewalls, blow-ups of arty photographs -- Amy in modelingposes, plus many black-and-white scenery stills.Jeff's bag is unopened on the floor. We see two nearlyfull wine glasses on a table. The CAMERA TRACKS DOWN ahallway TO the open bedroom door.INT. BEDROOM - NIGHTMore framed photographs.Amy lies in bed, curled up against a pillow. The sheetsare tangled in post-coital disarray, the only sign ofdisorder in this neatly arranged room.                                                         6.CLOSERAmy stirs, reaching her hand out toward the other side ofthe bed, which is empty. She opens her eyes, surprisedto find herself alone.                              AMY             Jeff?No reply.Something catches her attention from across the room.She rises, pulls a loose robe around herself and padsover to a closed door. She knocks softly.                              AMY             Can I come in?                              JEFF (O.S.)             Sure.INT. DARKROOM - NIGHTA walk-in closet has been converted into a smallphotographic darkroom. Moist 8 X 10 prints hang from aclothesline, bathed in a warm red glow. The images aremoody black and white landscapes.Jeff stands over the developer, timing a print. Amyenters through a thick black curtain behind him. Hedoesn't look up.                           AMY             Couldn't sleep?Jeff shakes his head. Amy looks over his shoulder at alandscape photograph in the developing tray.                           AMY             I remember when you took that. We             had fun on that trip, didn't we?Jeff nods.    Amy looks at him.     After a beat:                           AMY             You want to talk about it?                           JEFF             There's nothing to talk about.                            AMY             C'mon, Jeff.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                       7.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             I told you. I quit.   Walked out.             end of story.                            AMY             That's   it?Jeff nods.                        AMY          Whatever happened back there          wasn't your responsibility. You          can't keep beating yourself up          over it.He says nothing.                        AMY          What do you think? You could have          stopped that girl from getting          killed?                        JEFF          You don't understand...He stops, lifts his eyes.                        JEFF          It was different this time.He breaks off and pushes through the curtain.    Shewatches him go.                                             CUT TO:INT. LIVING ROOM - KITCHEN AREA - NIGHTJeff pours himself a glass of milk. Amy enters, standson the other side of the counter. Jeff doesn't meet hereyes. After a beat:                       JEFF         I talked to Reynolds.                (a beat)         He thinks I could still get the         job at the San Diego station.                       AMY         Oh, Jeff, you didn't...                                             (CONTINUED)                                                           8.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             Think of it. Low pressure, a             steady paycheck. So I shoot city             council meetings -- how bad could             it be?She looks at him, concerned.                           AMY             Is that what you really want -- or             are you just running away?                       JEFF         Who's running? It's good money,         full benefits. I'm tired of         freelance. We could finally put         some money in the bank.                       AMY         You know I'll never stand in your         way. But you've worked so hard.         Are you sure you want to throw it         away?                       JEFF         Throw what away? Don't you get         it? I don't do anything. I sit,         I watch, I film -- I let it         happen.                           AMY             You're supposed to let it happen.             It's your job.                            JEFF             No, Amy.   It's my excuse.She looks at him, not understanding.       He hesitates.                        JEFF          That girl... it's like I was          paralyzed. I wanted to do          something, but I didn't. I just          stood there and watched her get          killed.He looks at her, emotional.                           JEFF             Please, babe, I need this.     Say             yes and we'll take as long    as you             want -- drive cross-country    and             make a vacation out of it.     What             do you say?                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                        9.CONTINUED:Amy looks at him, considering. We hear a faint RUSH OFWIND. Then it gets LOUDER... LOUDER... and --                                              CUT TO:EXT. CREDIT MONTAGE - VARIOUS LOCATIONS - LOW ANGLE -DAY AND NIGHTThe metallic grill of the Cherokee explodes INTO FRAME asthe car whooshes over us, hurtling down the MassachusettsTurnpike.In a SERIES OF SHOTS, with CREDITS OVER, we see landmarksform the cross-country trip: a Pennsylvania Dutchfarmhouse, a smoke-spewing factory in Ohio, theMississippi River, Kansas wheat fields, Loveland Pass andthe Continental Divide.                                              DISSOLVE TO:EXT. OPEN DESERT - DAYThe middle of nowhere. Sand, weeds and sagebrush. Atwo-lane highway stretches to the horizon like a ribbonof asphalt.The Cherokee cruises along the road. Its Massachusettsplates seem out of place in this stark landscape.There are no other vehicles.MOVING CLOSER, we see that Jeff is driving.    Amy is soundasleep in the reclined passenger seat.In back, luggage, moving boxes, camera cases.INT. JEEP CHEROKEE - DAYThe AIR CONDITIONING WHISPERS. On the console are twoempty Styrofoam McDonald's coffee cups and a state-of-the-art Nikon Camera.Jeff stretches in the driver's seat. He forces his eyesopen, fighting sleep. He reaches for the coffee cup...it's empty. He glances into the back of the Jeep. Thereis a thermos of coffee on the back seat.Keeping one hand on the wheel, he reaches for the thermosand fumbles it to the floor. He strains to reach it. Hedoesn't notice...                                                     10.EXT. HIGHWAY - 200 YARDS AHEADA slow-moving Dodge Ram pickup truck is approaching thehighway along a small road that cuts across the desertfloor.The pickup, equipped with oversized tires, roll bar, anda CB whip antenna, bounces over the uneven terrain andturns onto the highway, stopping just before enteringJeff's lane.INT. CHEROKEE - DAYJeff glances up just in time to see the Ram lurch intothe road in front of him. Jeff drops the thermos andspins the wheel!Amy's eyes fly open --EXT. HIGHWAY - DAYThe Cherokee goes into a wild looping skid. The Ramjerks to a halt as the Cherokee whips past, averting acollision by inches.INT. CHEROKEE - DAYJeff expels a breath. Amy turns to see the pickupstopped in the road. She looks at him, concerned.                           AMY          Jesus, Jeff...                           JEFF          Sorry.     I took my eyes off the          road.                        AMY                 (seeing thermos                  on floor)          Maybe it's time we took a break,          you know?Jeff nods, looks in the rearview mirror.HIS POV - PICKUPhalted in the middle of the road. Inside, dimly-visiblethrough tinted windows, are two figures in cowboy hats.The driver leans out the window and gives Jeff thefinger.                                                        11.BACK TO JEFFangry at himself.    He looks over at Amy.                        JEFF          I'll pull over next chance we get.                 (a beat)          Sorry...He glances in the rearview again, still a bit shaken.                                              CUT TO:EXT. GAS STATION - DAYA small desert gas station/mini-mart just off thehighway. A sign over the building: "Last Gas For 30Miles." The Cherokee is parked at the pumps, hoodraised.Jeff comes out of the mini-mart, carrying a   plastic quartof oil. He unscrews the cap and starts to    fill thecrankcase, careful not to spill on the new   engine. Inthe b.g., Amy is visible inside the store,   browsing amagazine rack.INT. CONVENIENCE MART - SAME TIMEAmy thumbs through a cheap tourist guide, The DesertSouthwest. A TRUCK DRIVER stands nearby, perusing themagazines. He glances in Amy's direction, notices whatshe's reading.                          TRUCKER          On vacation?Amy looks up at him. He's 50ish, plain-looking,friendly, wearing a "U.S.A." logo baseball cap.                          AMY          Sort of.    We're moving, actually.                         TRUCKER          Whereabouts?Amy hesitates. She's not used to talking with strangers,but the guy seems harmless enough.                        AMY          California. We thought we'd take          the scenic route.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                       12.CONTINUED:                         TRUCKER           Huh. In that case, you oughta try           the Pass Road, 'bout thirty miles           west. Real pretty, makes a loop           through the hills, then hooks back           up with the highway.Amy smiles politely, moves toward the cash register.                        AMY           Thanks. I'll mention it to my           husband.The Trucker tips his cap.                         TRUCKER           Okay, then. Good luck.   Enjoy the           rest of your trip.EXT. GAS STATION - DAYAs Jeff continues pouring the oil, he doesn't notice themud-streaked Dodge Ram pickup pulling up to the pumpsbehind him. The driver, EARL, climbs out. The other manremains in the cab with the smoked windows rolled up.Earl is a beefy man about Jeff's age. He wears a sweat-stained Western hat, cowboy boots and a T-shirt with thesleeves cut out to display his tattooed biceps. Hesaunters over to the Cherokee, stands there a beat,looking over Jeff's shoulder.Jeff senses something behind him, turns. His eyes widenas he sees Earl, recognizes the pickup as the one henearly hit a few minutes before. Earl stares at him,unsmiling.                         EARL                  (flatly)           Nice car.Jeff is in an awkward position. He's got a half-fullupside-down bottle of oil in his hands. If he lifts itnow, he'll spill on the engine. He turns his gaze backto the engine, decides to keep pouring.                         JEFF           Thanks.Earl steps around to the open passenger window, peers in.Jeff watches him, wary.                                           (CONTINUED)                                                         13.CONTINUED:                           EARL             Air, C.D., leather -- I guess you             sprung for the whole nine yards.                              JEFF             I guess.                           EARL             Then again, out here, what you             really need's a C.B. radio.                              JEFF             Is that right?The oil bottle empties    out. Relieved, Jeff pulls it awayand screws back on the    crankcase cap. He shuts the hoodwith a thunk and moves    around to the side of the car toremove the gas nozzle    from the tank. Earl blocks hispath.                           EARL             'Course, if you use a C.B., you             gotta have a handle.Jeff says nothing.      This is not a friendly conversation.                           EARL             How about Shit-for-Brains?                    (beat)             You damn near killed us back             there, boy.                       JEFF         Look, I'm sorry, I didn't see you.         You pulled out in front of me.                       EARL         The hell I did. I saw what         happened.Looking past Earl, Jeff sees Amy come out of the mini-mart with a bag of groceries. He speaks carefully,anxious to avoid a confrontation.                       JEFF         How about if we just forget it,         okay? I'm sorry it happened. I         don't want any trouble.                          EARL                   (snorting)         Yeah.     I bet you don't.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                       14.CONTINUED:Earl glares at Jeff before turning away.    He passes Amy,gives her a broad smile.                           EARL             Howdy, ma'am. Caught this fellow             tryin' to steal your Cherokee.Amy takes in the situation. She nods politely. Earlcontinues into the mini-mart. She approaches Jeff,puzzled.                           AMY             What was that about?                           JEFF             Nothing. Guy in the truck.             Thinks I tried to hit him.Jeff glances apprehensively at the man in the pickup, whohas not moved during the scene. He looks back at themini-mart.                           JEFF             C'mon, let's go.                           AMY             You want me to drive?                            JEFF             Later.   Just get in.                           AMY             Is something wrong?                           JEFF             No, let's just go.Jeff climbs in behind the wheel. Amy glances at him andgets in the car. Jeff keys the IGNITION and pulls away.INT. CHEROKEE - DRIVING - DAYAs Jeff steers back onto the highway, he glances in therear-view mirror, sees --MIRROR POVEarl coming out of the mini-mart, staring after thedisappearing Jeep.                                            (CONTINUED)                                                        15.CONTINUED:Jeff shifts in his seat, relieved to be getting away fromthere. Amy watches the speedometer as it climbs to 75,then 80, then 85.                           AMY             This isn't the Grand Prix, you             know.Jeff releases his foot from the accelerator.     The needlesinks back down to 65.She gives him a long contemplative look.                           AMY             What's bothering you?                         JEFF          I told you. Nothing.                 (pause)          The guy was an asshole.Keeping an eye on the rear-view mirror, Jeff nods towardthe grocery bag, trying to change the subject.                        JEFF          What'd you get?Amy pulls out an assortment of candy bars and junk food.                        AMY          Junk food fiesta. Sno Balls, Yoo          Hoo, Moon pies... can you believe          they still make this stuff?                        JEFF          You kidding. It's probably          gourmet cuisine around here.                                              CUT TO:EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY - AERIAL - DAYFar below us, the Cherokee traces the empty highway.There are no buildings, no houses, no other vehicles.                                              DISSOLVE TO:INT. CHEROKEE - DRIVING - FEW MINUTES LATERJeff drives in silence. Amy stares out the window,bored. Looking for a distraction, she picks up acellophane package of doughnuts and peruses the label.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                          16.CONTINUED:                           AMY                    (trying to brighten                     the mood)             This is crazy. Look at this.             Says if you win this mail-in             contest, you can choose either             ninety thousand dollars or ninety             thousand doughnuts.She gives him a playful glance.                           AMY             What would you do with ninety             thousand doughnuts?Jeff shrugs, disinterested.                           JEFF             I dunno... Sell 'em for thirty             cents each and pay off this car.                           AMY             Very funny.                    (beat)             Alright, what about ninety             thousand dollars? What would you             do with that?Jeff stares out the window.       He's not into this.                          JEFF          I don't know.    Look, Amy, I'm          not --Suddenly his eyes drop to the console between them --                        JEFF          Sonofabitch!! My camera!        He          stole my camera!                          AMY                   (startled)          Who?                        JEFF          The redneck at the gas station!          He lifted it right under my nose!          My brand new Nikon.                 (pounds wheel                  in frustration)          Goddammit.                           AMY             Should we go back?                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                        17.CONTINUED:                        JEFF          What's the use. He's probably          halfway to Bumblefuck now, the          bastard.                        AMY          Look, maybe if we call the cops --Jeff is about to reply when suddenly the car bucks.                            JEFF          What the hell?The car gives another jolt.                        AMY          What'd you do?                            JEFF          Nothing.   I --A warning light flashes on the instrument panel. Thebrakes and steering lose power. The engine quits cold.                        JEFF          Hang on -- I can't steer!The CAR bucks and SCREECHES. After a few HICCUPS, itjerks to a halt, just beyond a crest in the road.For a moment, they sit there dazed, staring ahead at theempty road. Then Amy notices an object on the floor --the Nikon. She picks it up.                        AMY                 (deadpan)          Found your camera.He rolls his eyes.   He yanks the hood release and getsout.EXT. HIGHWAY - DAYSteam pours from under the    hood of the Cherokee. Amygets out and looks around    at the scorched wasteland.Jeff goes to the front of    the car, gropes under the hoodfor the release latch. He     yanks his hand away, burned bythe hot metal.                         JEFF          Ow!                                              (CONTINUED)                                                           18.CONTINUED:                             AMY             Are you okay?                             JEFF             I'm fine.Amy moves to Jeff to examine the burn.     She reaches out.                        JEFF                 (annoyed)          I said I'm fine, okay?Jeff lifts the hood, examines the engine. He tugs on acable, checks the battery connection and radiator.He goes to the passenger's side and takes a hand-heldcellular phone from the glove box. He dials zero andhits "send." The PHONE BEEPS.                             AMY          Out of range?Jeff grunts, tosses the phone on the seat. It bouncesand lands on the floor. Amy watches as he returns to theengine and begins unscrewing the radiator cap.                        AMY          What's going on, Jeff?                        JEFF          What's it look like?      I'm trying          to fix the car.                             AMY          Not the car.                             JEFF          What?                        AMY          What's going on with you?Jeff busies himself with the engine, not answering.                         AMY          It's been a month since you got          back. You can't keep shutting me          out like this.Jeff says nothing.                        AMY          Jeff, I'm talking to you.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                     19.CONTINUED:                           JEFF                    (flaring)             Look, I really don't want to go             into this right now. I'm changing             jobs, our finances are fucked, and             we're stuck in the middle of             nowhere. So could we maybe just             fix the --He stops in mid-sentence. There is a RUMBLE in thedistance. They look down the road.                           JEFF             Christ, not these guys...JEFF'S POV - DODGE RAM PICKUPapproaching fast on the road. As it streaks past, Earlyells and launches a beer bottle from the window. TheBOTTLE SHATTERS on the asphalt.BACK TO JEFFwatching the Ram speed away.                           JEFF          Asshole...                           AMY                    (looking down                     the road)          Jeff --A quarter-mile away, the pickup is slowing. It pulls aU-turn and stops, facing the Cherokee. It just sitsthere, ENGINE IDLING.                           JEFF          What the hell?                        AMY          What's he doing?                          JEFF         I don't know.Jeff watches the pickup, frowning. Then, from theopposite direction, they hear a LOW RUMBLE. They turnand stare at --                                                         20.MASSIVE TRACTOR-TRAILERcoming over a crest in the road.It's a huge eighteen-wheeler. A white 1988 Peterbilt.It grinds into low gear and slows, BRAKES CREAKING.The TRUCK comes to a halt with a HISS of compressed air.DOWN HIGHWAYthe PICKUP STARTS UP again. It pulls another U-turn anddrives away, melting into the desert.AMYbreathes a sigh of relief.The driver dismounts from the cab, leaving the ENGINEIDLING. We recognize him as the Trucker in the mini-mart. He removes his cap, revealing a shock ofprematurely white hair. He is well-shaven, his clothesimmaculate. His name is Red.                        RED (TRUCKER)          You folks all right?                         JEFF          Yeah.   Our car broke down.                        RED                 (chuckling)          I figured that much. You want a          hand pushing it off the road?                        JEFF          Thanks, I'd appreciate it.    Amy,          you want to steer?Amy gets behind the wheel and puts the shift in neutral.Jeff and Red push the car to the shoulder. As they push,Jeff glances at the CB antenna on Red's cab.                        JEFF          Think you could radio a tow truck          for us?                       RED         I sure would if I could, mister,         but my C.B. blew a fuse this         morning. I'm waiting till I hit         the truck stop on I-40 to get it         fixed.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                        21.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             How far is that?                           RED             About 60 miles.                            JEFF                     (disappointed)             Oh.Red walks around to the front of the car and peers downat the exposed engine.                        RED          I'd offer to take a look, but it's          hard to say with these new          engines. Used to be, you could          give 'em a kick and a holler and          they'd start right up. Now it's          all computers and chips.                        JEFF          It's a new car.                        RED          That could be the problem. You          been running it pretty fast?Amy gives Jeff a reprimanding look.     It's subtle, but Rednotices.                        RED          Tell you what. If you want a          ride, there's a little diner up          the road. Belle's. They got a          pay phone. You could call a tow          truck from there.Jeff considers this, glances back to where the Dodge Ramwas last seen.                            JEFF          Nice     of you to offer. But we've          got a     lot of stuff in the car. I          think     we're better off waiting for          a cop     to come along.Amy rolls her eyes. Red sees the look, trying not tosmile. He glances up at a small plane flying overhead.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                            22.CONTINUED:                              RED                       (casually)             Suit    yourself. Not many cops on             this    road, that's why the truckers             use    it. Maybe you'll get lucky.                       (tipping his cap)             Good    luck.He turns and heads back toward his truck. Amy looks atJeff. She waits till the trucker is out of earshot.                             AMY             Are you nuts?                           JEFF             We don't know this guy.                        AMY          He's offering to help. It       could          be hours before anyone else      comes          along. It's 100 degrees.        You          really want to be stuck out      here?                        JEFF          Amy, I've got my equipment in the          car. All our stuff. What if          those guys come back and we're not          here?                 (turns away,                  quietly to                  himself)          Jesus... don't be stupid...Amy hears this.       She's had enough.   Flares.                        AMY          Stupid is sitting out here waiting          for a cop when we already have a          ride.In the b.g., the TRUCK is THROTTLING UP.       Then, mad andcareless:                           AMY             Stupid was letting you talk me             into leaving Boston.She turns away. The truck starts to pull out. She bitesher lip, thinking, then steps into the road and flags thetruck down. Red brakes.                           AMY             Excuse me? Do you think you could             drop me at that diner?                                                   (CONTINUED)                                                       23.CONTINUED:                           RED                    (surprised)             Sure thing. How about you,             mister? I could take you both             just as easy.                        AMY          That's okay. My husband wants to          stay with the car. I'll just get          my purse.She goes to the passenger side of the Jeep for her purse.Jeff follows, lowering his voice.                        JEFF          What do you think you're doing?                        AMY          I'm going to the diner. I'm going          to call a tow truck. Then I'm          going to order an iced tea and          wait. Good-bye, Jeff.                        JEFF                 (firm)          You're not riding with that guy.          End of story.                        AMY          You wanted to be alone. Well...          you're alone. Why don't you take          the time to get your head          together?She walks to the truck. Jeff stands there. She climbsinto the cab. Red moves some papers out of the way.                        RED          Watch your step, ma'am.She pulls the door shut. The TRUCK THROTTLES UP andpulls away. Jeff watches the truck dwindle in thedistance, flashers blinking. After a beat, the flasherscease.                                        SLOW DISSOLVE TO:EXT. ROADSIDE - TWENTY MINUTES LATERBeneath a blazing sun, Jeff paces restlessly in front ofthe Cherokee, checking his watch, wiping beads of sweatfrom his face. He looks down the highway.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                         24.CONTINUED:Nothing in sight. Extremely bored, he wanders over tothe raised hood and studies the engine again.After a few moments, something catches his eye. Curious,he kneels down and peers under the chassis. He frowns.JEFF'S POV - LOOSE WIREdangling under the engine.BACK TO JEFF                          JEFF            Oh for Christ's sake...He pulls his Swiss Army knife  from his pocket and slidesunder the car. Working with   the screwdriver blade of theknife, he reconnects the plug  to its socket. In theprocess, his hands and shirt  become stained with grease.Jeff slides out from under the car, brushes himself offand gets behind the wheel. He tosses the Swiss Armyknife on the center console and keys the ignition. TheENGINE ROARS to life.                                               CUT TO:EXT. DESERT ROAD - MINUTES LATERThe Cherokee speeds down the empty highway.INT. CHEROKEE - SAME TIMEJeff drives, a determined expression.EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY - DAYThe Jeep blows past.                                               DISSOLVE TO:EXT. BELLE'S DINER - DAYA weather-beaten structure with a gravel parking lot.     Apeeling sign on the roof: "Belle's: Beer & Food."There is a phone booth outside.The Cherokee pulls in and parks.      Jeff CHIRPS the ALARM,heads for the entrance.                                                       25.INT. BELLE'S - DAYDark and dingy. Formica tables, a bar. Chunky customersin K-Mart clothes sit at the bar, nursing beers andwatching a football game on a big MUTED TV.Jeff enters and all conversation stops. The otherpatrons turn and stare. After a moment, they return totheir beers.Jeff glances around.   No sign of Amy.   No sign of Red.A bored-looking BARTENDER stands behind the counter,preparing a sandwich. Behind him, a blackboard menu.Jeff approaches.                         JEFF          Excuse me.The Bartender looks up, a cutting knife in his hand.                        JEFF          I was supposed to meet my wife          here.The Bartender shrugs, gives him a look:    Yeah, so?                        JEFF          Dark hair, slender, about five-          five. Wearing a pale blue          Benetton shirt.                        BARTENDER          A pale blue what?                        JEFF          Benetton shirt.The Bartender plops the sandwich on a plate, tears off anorder slip.                        BARTENDER          Hank!  Your order's ready.                 (to Jeff)          I been busy. They come and go.                       JEFF         It would've been within the last         half hour. She might've been with         a trucker?                        BARTENDER         A trucker.                                            (CONTINUED)                                                          26.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             Guy with a baseball cap.   Driving             an eighteen wheeler.The Bartender thinks a moment, shakes his head.                           BARTENDER             Don't ring a bell.                           JEFF             You sure?The Bartender leans over the counter, calls out:                           BARTENDER             Hey! Man here's looking for his             wife, dark hair, button-on shirt,             travelin' with a guy in a baseball             cap. Anybody see 'em?Jeff looks up and down the counter. Blank faces, a fewdisinterested shrugs, a few headshakes no.A disheveled female barfly, FLO, grins up at him.                           FLO             Looks like she got away from ya,             cowboy.A few of the regulars chuckle at this.     Jeff ignoresthem, turns back to the Bartender.                           JEFF             Could she have left a message with             another one of your employees?                        BARTENDER          Don't see how. I'm the only one          who works here.Jeff scratches his head.    This doesn't make any sense.                        JEFF          I don't understand. Is there          another Belle's Diner?                        BARTENDER                 (chuckles)          No siree. Definitely not.Jeff clenches his jaw, takes another look around.      Anelderly couple sit at a rear table, watching him.      Theywhisper to each other.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                         27.CONTINUED:                            JEFF                     (under his breath)             Shit.He turns and goes outside...EXT. BELLE'S - DAYJeff squints in the bright sunlight.Maybe he got this place confused with a different diner.He peers up at the sign. It says "Belle's," all right.He walks to the phone booth, looks inside.   The phonebook is missing.He picks up the receiver, listens for the dial tone...Phone works okay. He hangs up.He stands there for a moment, scanning the horizon in alldirections. There is nothing else out here, nowhere elseshe could have gone.Jeff marches back into the diner...INT. DINER - DAYJeff goes to the Bartender.                        JEFF          Excuse me, how far is the next          town?                        BARTENDER          About twenty miles.                        JEFF          Look, if my wife comes in -- her          name is Amy -- tell her I was          here. Tell her to stay put till I          get back, not to move. Would you          do that, please?                            BARTENDER                     (shrugs, bored)             Okay.Jeff regards the Bartender skeptically.    He takes onelast look around, then heads out.                                                        28.EXT. BELLE'S - DAYJeff marches briskly to his car and opens the door,forgetting to deactivate the alarm. The SIREN WAILS.Jeff fumbles for the remote and shuts if OFF.HIGH ANGLE - MOMENTS LATERThe Cherokee pulls out of the parking lot, kicking upgravel.                                             CUT TO:INT. CHEROKEE - DAYThe stereo is off, the windows rolled up.   Jeff drives,his jaw set tightly.The speedometer reads 88 mph.                                             DISSOLVE TO:EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY - MINUTES LATERThe Cherokee crests a rise...INT. CHEROKEE - DAY... and then across the desert plain, traveling onanother road, he sees it...PETERBILTThe 18-wheeler that picked up Amy.    Cruising leisurely.Jeff presses the accelerator...EXT. FORK IN ROAD - DAYThe Cherokee turns sharply onto the other road.EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY - AERIAL VIEW - DAYThe Cherokee speeds down the road, gaining on thePeterbilt. It comes up behind.                                                            29.INT. CHEROKEE - DAYJeff HONKS his HORN, flashes his lights.                         JEFF           C'mon, you fat-ass.    Pull over.Either the driver doesn't notice, or he's ignoring Jeff,but the truck does not slow down.Jeff shifts into the oncoming lane and pulls alongsidethe cab. He HONKS again and waves, gesturing for thetruck to pull over. But the Peterbilt maintains itsspeed.Jeff cranes his neck to get a glimpse of the driver...POV SHOTIt's Red, alright. But he's wearing a different cap.FROM this ANGLE, we can't see into the passenger side ofthe cab.Red peers down at Jeff, puzzled.      Jeff shouts at him,waves:                           JEFF           Pull over!    Pull over!Red suddenly notices something ahead in the road, BLAREShis HORN.Jeff looks up, sees --An RV camper approaching in the oncoming lane!HIGHWAYJeff swerves onto the far shoulder as the RV whooshespast in the opposite direction, HORN BLARING.CHEROKEEJeff is rattled, catching his breath.      He swings backonto the road.HIGHWAYJeff slips in ahead of the Peterbilt, then starts weavingand braking, forcing the truck to slow.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                          30.CONTINUED:Both vehicles pull to the side of the road and stop.Jeff leaps out of the Cherokee and runs over as Redclimbs down from the empty cab.(NOTE: Throughout this scene, various cars and truckspass in either direction.)                           RED             Jesus, pal, what the hell you             doing?                           JEFF             I was signaling you to stop.             Didn't you see me?                          RED          No.Jeff reacts.    How thick can this guy be?                        JEFF          Where's my wife?                          RED          Huh?                          JEFF          My wife.     Where is she?Red gives him a puzzled look.                        RED          How should I know where your wife          is?                         JEFF          I checked at the diner.      No one          saw her there.                         RED          Mister, I don't know what you're          talking about.Jeff stares -- is this guy nuts?                        JEFF          You gave her a ride. You were          supposed to drop her at Belle's          diner.Red searches his memory, trying to be as helpful aspossible. He shakes his head.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                            31.CONTINUED:                              RED             Nope.   Sorry.                           JEFF             How can you not remember? It was             just half an hour ago, for             chrissakes!Red gives him a peculiar look.                           RED             Mister, I never seen you before in             my life.Suddenly, there is a loud SQUAWK from inside the cab --the CB RADIO.                           CB VOICE (V.O.)                    (filtered)             Breaker, breaker -- Iron Man, you             copy?                           JEFF                    (reacts)             Your radio works --                    (locks eyes with Red)             What the hell are you doing -- ?Jeff freaks out, circling the truck, calling loudly:                              JEFF             Amy?    Amy?!   You in there?Red shrinks back, unnerved.                           RED             Look, mister, I don't know what             you want, but --                           JEFF             I want my fucking wife, is what I             want! What have you done to her?!Red's eyes dart to something in the distance.        Jeffcatches this, turns...SHERIFF'S PATROL CARCruising toward them.Jeff runs into the middle of the road and wavesfrantically. The patrol car switches on its flash barand speeds up, pulling to a stop behind the Peterbilt.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                       32.CONTINUED:SHERIFF BOYD, 50ish, climbs out, sizing up the situation.Jeff runs over.                           JEFF             Officer, I need your help!                           SHERIFF BOYD             What's your problem?                        JEFF          I don't know, this guy has my          wife!                        SHERIFF BOYD          Calm down, sir. Tell me what's          going on.Jeff catches his breath.                        JEFF          I don't know what the hell's going          on. Last time I saw her she was          with this guy in his truck. Now          he's saying he's never seen her!                        RED          Officer, he's crazy -- I don't          know what he's talking about.                        JEFF          Don't lie, you son of a bitch!The Sheriff unsnaps the safety strap on his holster...just a precaution.                        SHERIFF BOYD          All right -- everybody just calm          down.                 (to Jeff)          Sir, you want to tell me what          happened?                        JEFF          Our car broke down. This guy          stopped to help us, said he'd          drive my wife to a pay phone.    But          she never showed up.                          SHERIFF BOYD                   (turning to Red)          Sir?                                             (CONTINUED)                                                        33.CONTINUED:                        RED          I don't know, officer. I'm          driving along, suddenly this fella          runs me off the road and starts          hollering about his wife. I          swear, I never seen the guy          before.                        SHERIFF BOYD          And you didn't give his wife a          ride?                           RED          No, sir.                           JEFF          He's lying!The Sheriff takes a long look at both of them, unsurewhat to think. He turns back to Red.                        SHERIFF BOYD          Sir, all right with you if I          search your truck?                        RED          Hell yes, officer. Go right          ahead. Name's Red, by the way.          Red Barr.                 (pulls out his                  wallet)          My permits are all current. You          can check 'em out.                        SHERIFF BOYD          That won't be necessary yet. Just          stand back behind the line. Both          of you.As Red closes his wallet, several credit cards fall tothe ground. He bends to scoop them up. Jeff eyes thissuspiciously.The Sheriff climbs up into the truck.INT. PETERBILT CAB - DAYThe Sheriff pokes his head inside, looks around.Pretty much what you'd expect in a long-haul big rig:a CB radio, a plastic Jesus, a map of the U.S. taped tothe ceiling with hundreds of magic marker X's showingwhere the truck has been.                                            (CONTINUED)                                                       34.CONTINUED:The Sheriff looks into the sleeping area behind. Ablanket is folded over a foam mattress. A stained pillowrests on top.EXT. PETERBILT - DAYJeff and Red keep a careful eye on each other as theSheriff climbs down from the cab, wiping his hands.                       SHERIFF BOYD                (to both of them)         All right, let's see your license         and registration.Jeff and Red fish into their wallets and hand overI.D.'s. The Sheriff examines them, comparing faces topictures and writing down names.                       SHERIFF BOYD         What are you hauling today, Mr.         Barr?                       RED         Nothing, empty load. I'm heading         to Fresno for a pick up -- ball         bearings or something.                       SHERIFF BOYD                (eyeing him)         Long way to go empty.                       RED         Tell me about it. Too much         competition nowadays. One horse         guys like me gotta drive halfway         'cross the country just to get a         payin' job.                       JEFF                (to Sheriff,                 impatient)         Are we gonna keep looking or what?The Sheriff hands back the I.D.'s.                       SHERIFF BOYD         Yes, we are.                (to Red)         Sir, I'm gonna have to see         everything.                        RED         No problem.   I understand.                                                        35.EXT. REAR OF PETERBILT - DAYJeff and the Sheriff observe as Red unlatches two heavypadlocks. Grunting, he raises the slatted METAL DOOR.It retracts along the ceiling with a noisy RATTLE.INSIDEThe cavernous interior is mostly empty, except for a fewrandomly strewn cardboard boxes, too small to contain aperson.                       SHERIFF BOYD                 (re: boxes)          Those yours?                       RED          Yeah. Personal stuff. Clothes          and whatnot. You want to take a          look?The Sheriff considers it, shakes his head.                       SHERIFF BOYD          No. I think we're pretty much          done here. You're free to go.                        JEFF                 (reacts)          Whoa, whoa -- wait a sec. That's          it? You're not going to question          him anymore?                        SHERIFF BOYD          Sir, I searched the truck.          There's no evidence of suspicious          activity, no sign of struggle.Red has been looking on.   He chimes in, trying to behelpful:                        RED          Look, I don't mean to butt in, but          maybe you got my truck confused          with someone else's.                        JEFF                 (lunges)          Go to hell, you sonofabitch --The Sheriff grabs Jeff, holds him back.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                         36.CONTINUED:                            SHERIFF BOYD             Hey! Hey! You want to get             arrested? Now the man has a             point. This is a plain-looking,             John Doe truck. Maybe you did get             them mixed up.Jeff stares at the Sheriff a beat, then bolts suddenlyfor the front of the truck. He yanks open the door andleaps up into the cab.                           SHERIFF BOYD             Hey!The Sheriff jogs after him.      Red walks to the cab,unconcerned.INT. PETERBILT CAB - DAYJeff searches the cab for signs of Amy. He tosses asidea jacket, rifles papers on the floor. There is nothing.EXT. CAB - DAYSheriff Boyd looks up sternly as Jeff continues searchingthe cab. Red watches calmly.                        SHERIFF BOYD          Mr. Taylor, either you come down          from there or I'm going to have to          arrest you.Jeff gives up reluctantly. He looks lame and desperateand he knows it. He steps down from the cab, grittinghis teeth.                          JEFF          It was him.    It was this truck.                        SHERIFF BOYD          Uh-huh, I can see that. Did you          get a license plate?Jeff stares at him, knows where this is going.                          JEFF          No.                        SHERIFF BOYD          What about the information on the          door panel. You recall any of          that?                                              (CONTINUED)                                                            37.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             I wasn't paying attention.The Sheriff studies him a beat, nods.                           SHERIFF BOYD             Mr. Taylor, did you by any chance             have a beef with your wife today?                           JEFF             What does that have to do with             anything?                           SHERIFF BOYD             Well, for starters, maybe she left             you.                           JEFF             I don't believe this...                        SHERIFF BOYD          I've seen it a hundred times.          Lovers, married couples, gay guys.          You put two people in a car long          enough, they'll go at it. Hell,          I've even seen men dump their          women on the side of the road, and          vice versa.Jeff stares at the cop.    Emphatic:                        JEFF          My wife did not leave me.                       RED                (cuts in)         Officer, I'm sorry, I'd like to         stay and help, but I really got to         make it to Fresno...                       SHERIFF BOYD         I understand. Go ahead, sir.         I         appreciate your cooperation.                        JEFF         This is insane. You're just going         to let him go?                        SHERIFF BOYD         I've got his information. If we         need to find him later, we'll know         where to look.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                        38.CONTINUED:                        RED          Much obliged.                 (to Jeff)          Good luck findin' your wife,          mister. No hard feelings.Red climbs into the cab. Jeff watches helplessly,resigned to the fact there's nothing more he can do.        TheSheriff goes to the cruiser and speaks on the radio.        Asthe truck drives off, Jeff goes over to the cruiser.                        SHERIFF BOYD          Sir, I believe you that your wife          is missing. Maybe you got          confused about what truck she got          into, maybe you had a fight -- you          don't have to tell me. The point          is I'm trying to help.He hands Jeff a card with an address printed on it.                        SHERIFF BOYD          The town of Brackett's 31 miles          that way. My deputy's name is Len          Carver. He's a good man. He'll          help you fill out the necessary          forms if you want to report your          wife missing.Jeff clenches his jaw as the words sink in.    The Sheriffsoftens, his tone sympathetic.                        SHERIFF BOYD          If you want my opinion, your wife          is probably around here. Lost or          plenty pissed off and giving you a          scare. Either way, she'll turn          up.As Jeff stares at the Sheriff, the police RADIO SQUAWKS.                        DISPATCHER (V.O.)                 (filtered)          Sheriff, this is dispatch. Mrs.          Gilbert's locked out of her          trailer again. Can you respond?                         SHERIFF BOYD                  (into mike)          10-4, dispatch. Tell her I'm on          my way.He racks the mike.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                        39.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             I want your name and badge number.The Sheriff looks up at Jeff, sighs.                           SHERIFF BOYD             Sheriff Arthur Boyd. 226-93.             This really isn't necessary --                        JEFF          Don't tell me what's necessary,          goddamnit. I'm noting the exact          time of this conversation. 10:52          A.M.                        SHERIFF BOYD                 (exhaling)          Suit yourself, Mr. Taylor.The Sheriff shifts into gear and drives away. Jeff isleft standing on the side of the road, desert in alldirections.                                              CUT TO:INT. POLICE STATION - DAYA wall is covered with missing persons' notices.Photographs of men, women and children stare back at us.Names and dates are printed across the bottom of thenotices.PULL BACK to reveal Jeff staring at the gallery of faces.It's a creepy feeling. Several yards away, DEPUTY LENCARVER, a young puffy-faced lawman, sits at a deskfilling out a form. Jeff looks shaken.                        DEPUTY CARVER          Is this a recent picture?Jeff glances over. Deputy Carver is holding up a wallet-sized photograph of Amy.                        JEFF          Two months old.                        DEPUTY CARVER          She still wear her hair like that?                          JEFF          Yes.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                       40.CONTINUED:The Deputy resumes filling out the form.   He clicks histongue sympathetically.                        DEPUTY CARVER          We'll certainly do our best, Mr.          Taylor. There's over a hundred          thousand people go missing in this          country every year. Runaways,          deadbeat dads, dropouts, folks          hiding from the I.R.S. -- all          vanishing without a trace.Jeff stares at the faces.                        DEPUTY CARVER          Now I'm not saying she's one of          them. I sure hope not. But          unless there's a ransom demand or          evidence of forced abduction,          believe me, the F.B.I. won't even          look at your case till it's been          24 hours.Deputy Carver finishes the paperwork and staples thephotograph to the form. He looks up at Jeff.                        DEPUTY CARVER          Nevertheless, we'll sure keep our          eyes peeled. How's that sound?Jeff clenches his jaw.                                           CUT TO:EXT. ROOF OF BELLE'S DINER - DAYFrom this high vantage point, we see Jeff's carapproaching.EXT. PARKING LOT - DAYThe Cherokee pulls up to the side of the building.   Jeffgets out and walks inside.INT. BELLE'S DINER - DAYJeff enters, looks around. It's the same scene asbefore: same Bartender, a slightly different cast ofcharacters.No sign of Amy.                                           (CONTINUED)                                                       41.CONTINUED:Jeff advances to the Bartender, who stands at a sinkrinsing beer mugs.                           JEFF             Did she come in?                           BARTENDER                    (looks up, uninterested)             Didn't see her.                        JEFF          You didn't see her, or she didn't          come in?                        BARTENDER          Buddy, I told you the last time.          I'm busy. Maybe she came in,          maybe she didn't. All I know is,          I didn't see her.Jeff looks around, not particularly trusting theBartender's skills of observation. He grinds his jaw.The other customers at the bar have been watching allthis. One of them, an older grizzled BARFLY, looks up atJeff.                        BARFLY                 (confidentially)          None of my business, mister. But          if I was you I'd take a look in          the ladies room.The Barfly gives Jeff a wink and turns back to his beer.Snickers from some of his bar mates, who avert their eyeswhen Jeff glances at them. Jeff knows this is almostcertainly a put-on, but he can't take a chance.While the Barflies watch, poker-faced, Jeff walks to thedoor of the ladies room, hesitates, then knocks. Hisknock is answered by a wordless sound, HALF-GROAN, HALF-GASP.                          JEFF          Amy?Silence. Jeff tries the door. It's locked. He rattlesit. Another GROAN. Jeff puts his shoulder against thedoor, heaves inward. The door swings open, revealing --                                                       42.INSIDE BATHROOMFlo, bent over the toilet, vomiting. She whirls around,a strand of spittle dangling from her lip.                        FLO          Hey -- what the hell you doing?!Jeff backs away, yanks the door shut.   The barflieschuckle among themselves.Jeff strides angrily for the exit. He stops at the door,takes one last look around. No one seems to be payinghim much attention. He turns to leave...... but something stops him. He can't put his finger onit. There's something wrong here...He stares at the other customers. Why do they avoid eyecontact? Are they hiding something?He scrutinizes more closely...There is the gruff trucker, sitting at a nearby tableshoveling food in his mouth. He's been averting his gazeever since Jeff walked in.And then there's the traveling salesman. Overweight,sweaty. Popping vitamins along with his coffee.Or what about the shirtless biker, reading a comic bookat the bar? Probably an ex-con.While Jeff is running these suspicions through his mind,a trucker approaches the counter to place an order. TheBartender jots it down on a pad, then tears off thecarbon slip. He places one copy above the grill andanother in a pile by the cash register.Jeff stares, an idea forming...He approaches the bar.                        JEFF          I want to see your order slips.                         BARTENDER          What?                        JEFF          You write down the names.   I want          to see them.                       BARTENDER         What are you, nuts? I don't have         to show you jack shit.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                       43.CONTINUED:Jeff leans in his face.                           JEFF             If my wife came in here, then her             name's in that pile.The Bartender stiffens, stares him straight in the eye:                        BARTENDER          You calling me a liar?A tense beat.Possessed by a sudden impulse, Jeff makes a grab for thereceipts. Before he can reach them, the Bartender's handclamps onto his.                        BARTENDER          Mister, I've had just about enough          of you.                        JEFF          Let me see the fucking slips.In one swift motion, Jeff overpowers the man and extractsthe receipts. He starts going through them, fast,looking at names. TULLY, MARK, FLO, ANDY and...Jeff raises his eyes to face the unpleasant end of aSmith & Wesson revolver.                        BARTENDER          Now, mister, you're going to have          to leave.Jeff takes a step back. Everyone in the diner isstaring. He stumbles backwards, heads for the exit.EXT. BELLE'S DINER - DAYJeff exits, breathing hard, and runs to the phone booth.PHONE BOOTHis occupied by a YOUNG MAN with an awkward oversizedframe, ill-fitting clothes. Jeff raps on the glassanxiously.                        JEFF          Please, I need the phone -- I have          to call the police!                                             (CONTINUED)                                                        44.CONTINUED:The Man looks up, dull and glassy-eyed. His sluggishdemeanor suggests mental retardation. He hangs up andslowly opens the door.                        SLUGGISH MAN                 (drawls)          My name's Billy. You the feller          lookin' for his wife?                        JEFF          How'd you know? Did you see her?The Sluggish Man hesitates. There's something holdinghim back. Jeff senses this.                        JEFF          Please, if you know something,          anything, tell me.                        BILLY (SLUGGISH MAN)                 (a beat)          I seen her... maybe.                           JEFF          What?    When?Billy is about to answer. In b.g., the Bartender stickshis head out of the diner. Billy backs away, spooked.                       BILLY          Oh man. Never shoulda opened my          damn mouth. Now I'm gonna git it.Billy breaks into a loping run through the parking lot.Jeff hurries after him and catches up, cornering Billybetween two cars, trying to calm him.                        JEFF          No one's going to hurt you, Billy.          Just tell me what you saw.Billy glances around nervously, swallowing.                        BILLY          She came in on a truck.   A big          white one.                           JEFF          Yes...                        BILLY          Then she... she got in another          truck.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                            45.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             Another truck? With who?                        BILLY          Dunno. Some men. Bad men. They          say I'm a dummy, but I ain't. I          see things.Jeff reels, struggles to stay focused.                        JEFF          Do you know where they went?                          BILLY          Uh-huh.    Route seven.   Up by the          river.                        JEFF          Where by the river?                         BILLY          Dunno. They don't tell me that          kind of stuff.                        JEFF          Who doesn't? The bartender?      The          men in the truck?Billy's expression darkens.     He starts backing away.                        BILLY          I ain't talking to you no more.                        JEFF          Billy, I need you to come to the          police. If you tell them what you          saw, they'll be able to help me.Billy laughs.                        BILLY          Man, you're the dummy.Jeff looks at him, confused.                        BILLY          Don't you git it? The police is          the ones in on it!Billy turns and runs back into the diner.       ON Jeff'ssickened reaction, we --                                                CUT TO:                                                          46.INT. CHEROKEE - DAYJeff drives flat-out, his face grim.    The speedometerreads 100 mph.Keeping his eye on the road, he thumbs through the pagesof a pocket address book. He picks up the handheldcellular phone and dials.                        JEFF          C'mon... work, goddammit...The "NO SERVICE" INDICATOR BEEPS.                        JEFF          Fuck.EXT. CROSSROADS - DAYThe highway intersects Route 7. The Cherokee slows justenough to take the corner without tipping over.It flies past a sign:   "Route 7 - North."                                             CUT TO:EXT. ROUTE 7 - DAYThe road ascends into the rocky hills above the desertplain. The route is narrow and windy, forcing Jeff toreduce his speed.INT. CHEROKEE - DAYJeff drives, desperately searching for any sign of atruck. There are no other vehicles on the road.He keeps pressing the "REDIAL" button.    The "NO SERVICE"INDICATOR BEEPS over and over.EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAYThe road curves through a tunnel, then climbs higher,past sharp cliffs and drop-offs. Jeff follows the signsfor "Route 7."INT. CHEROKEE - DAYSomething catches Jeff's eye on the cell phone. For thefirst time, the "SERVICE" indicator blinks green. Jeffimmediately grabs the phone again and presses "REDIAL."                                             (CONTINUED)                                                          47.CONTINUED:There is a burst of STATIC, then we hear a SCRATCHYRINGING. The call is going through.                           JEFF                    (thank God)             Yes.He waits for an answer.                        JEFF          Hello, Steve? It's Jeff Taylor...          Listen, I -- don't put me on hold!          I need a favor... I've gotta talk          to that friend of yours at the          F.B.I... No, it's about Amy, she's          missing --There is a burst of STATIC.       The reception is very poor.                        JEFF          I said Amy's been --More STATIC.                          JEFF          Fuck!Jeff holds the phone tight to his ear.                        JEFF          Yes, I'm still here.       No -- don't          call back -- Steve?!       Steve?!The SIGNAL CUTS OFF.    Jeff slams the phone against thedash, furious.                          JEFF          Goddammit!He punches redial, gets the "NO SERVICE" BEEPING, thenglances up, sees a --CHAINLINK FENCEcovered with high-visibility markers stretched across theroad. The sign: "ROAD CLOSED."BACK TO JEFFHe mashes the brakes. The CHEROKEE SKIDS to a halt justshort of the fence. Jeff stares at it.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                      48.CONTINUED:                         JEFF             Shit!He grinds his teeth. Beyond the padlocked gate, thehighway continues as an unpaved dirt road.He deliberates, then throws the Cherokee in reverse anddoes a three-point turn so he's facing back in theopposite direction.He looks up, sees --DODGE RAM PICKUP TRUCKhas been hiding in the bushes off the road. It lurchesforward and stops in the middle of the road, blockingJeff's escape. Jeff's eyes widen in fear as herecognizes the vehicle and its driver: Earl.Earl gets out of the cab with a hunting rifle.   He raisesit to his shoulder.                         EARL                  (calling out)           Out of the car! Put your hands           where I can see 'em!JEFFswears, panicking.                         EARL           I said get out, dammit!   Now!Jeff stares into the rifle, deliberating.   His hand movesto the gearshift.He jerks it into reverse and floors the gas!CHEROKEEpeels out in reverse, snaking wildly side to side, aimingfor the chainlink fence.It BURSTS the FENCE!   Poles and chain mesh go flying!JEFFcranks the wheel and brakes hard. The rear end of theCherokee swings wide to the edge of the road.He throws the shift into drive and punches the throttle.                                                        49.EARLjumps in the Ram and takes off in pursuit.JEFFGUNS the ENGINE. The Cherokee bounces wildly on therutted, storm-damaged road. He yanks the four-wheel-drive lever.DIRT ROADThe huge pickup streaks after the Cherokee, its 7.5-LITERV10 ROARING, oversized tires devouring the terrain.JEFFGUNS the ENGINE on the washboard road surface, thevibration nearly shaking the suspension apart while --RAMkeeps pace in the dust from its wake. Inside the cab,Earl can be seen speaking on a CB transmitter.JEFFthrows the Cherokee into a sharp turn in the road. Asthe car rounds the bend, he looks up, reacting, as --IDLED BULLDOZERblocks the road at a construction site. More unattendedearthmoving equipment fills the road beyond.JEFFbrakes wildly. To his right, a cliff goes straight up;on the left, a guardrail protects a steep ravine.He cuts the wheel left, CRASHES through the GUARDRAIL andplunges into the ravine!CHEROKEEbounces wildly as it hurtles down the slope, CRASHINGthrough sagebrush and manzanita.                                                        50.JEFFclings to the wheel, tossed about violently, as suitcasesand packing boxes go everywhere.The Cherokee hits a bump on the steep slope and CRASHESthrough the upper branches of a willow grove.As the leaves part, we see... a river.CHEROKEElands on the passenger side with a SPLASH and comes torest half-submerged in the RUSHING WATER.EARLjerks the Ram to a halt, leaps out and runs to the edgeof the road to look down on the Cherokee in the river.                             EARL            Sonofabitch...He grabs the rifle and begins making his way down theslope.INSIDE CHEROKEEThe world is sideways. Water rushes into the car. Jeffis strapped into the driver's seat by the seatbelt. TheAIRBAG DEFLATES with a HISS.Jeff grimaces in pain. He looks around, blinking.   Theriver is flowing right through the Cherokee!Luggage, styrofoam hamburger clamshells and empty Cokecans bob on the surface of the water.Jeff fumbles with the seatbelt release. The belt comesfree and he drops suddenly into the water on thepassenger side.He gets to his feet, reaches overhead to unlatch thedriver's side door and pushes it open.He hoists himself through the door.RIVERBANKEarl sees Jeff emerging from the half-submerged Cherokee,levels the RIFLE and FIRES!                                                      51.JEFFducks back inside the Cherokee, freaking.The passenger side is on the river-bottom and if he triesto get out through the driver's side, he's a sittingduck!Jeff swears and looks around, seeing a metal camera caseunderwater in the back seat.He grabs the case and swings it at the windshield.   Thefirst three blows bounce off harmlessly.Then the WINDSHIELD SHATTERS with a CRASH!He takes a deep breath, submerges and swims underwaterthrough the broken windshield.ON BANKEarl stiffens as he sees movement in the water. Severalitems of debris from the car are floating on the current.                            EARL             Fuck!He begins moving downstream along the bank, eyeing theriver.UNDERWATERJeff breaststrokes for all he's worth. Sand swirls inthe swift current. He pushes away from a boulder in hispath.He swims until his lungs are bursting, then surfaces forair.ON BANKEarl sees Jeff break the surface. He aims the RIFLE andFIRES! A BULLET SMACKS the WATER near Jeff's head.Then Jeff is under again.                            EARL             Goddammit...UNDERWATERJeff struggles to stay in control. The current isturning swifter. His shoulder glances painfully off aboulder.                                                        52.ON BANKEarl works his way through the brush at the river's edge.His foot lands between two rocks. He pulls it out,swearing.BEHIND ROCKJeff surfaces and gulps in air, staying out of sight ofEarl on the bank. Then he is down again.ON BANKEarl works his way along the shore. Up ahead, the riverruns over rapids before passing around a bend.Earl hears an ENGINE and turns. A huge moving van hasarrived on the dirt road overlooking the ravine.He shouts to the DRIVER, pointing downriver.                          EARL            He's getting away!The Driver shouts something inaudible. Earl runs alongthe bank, ducking under low-hanging branches.IN RAPIDSJeff is carried over the rocks by the fast-movingcurrent. He slams into a boulder, letting out a cry andswallowing a mouthful of water.A downed tree hangs over the river. Jeff grabsdesperately and takes hold of a branch. He's got it!Hanging on to the branch, he notices a familiar objectfloating past in the water: the "90,000 Donuts" pack.Jeff tries to haul himself from the river. The BRANCHbends under his weight. Then it comes free with a CRACK!Jeff is carried downstream on the rushing water.ON BANKEarl works his way along the shore.    The unseen Driver ofthe van shouts to him from upriver.                           DRIVER OF VAN (O.S.)            Where is he?                                              (CONTINUED)                                                         53.CONTINUED:                           EARL             He's in the water!   I just saw             him!BELOW RAPIDSThe river has turned slow again.Jeff fights to his feet in the shallows and staggers tothe bank. He drops to his knees, retching.Clutching his ribs, he raises his head and looks upriver.For the moment, there is no sign of Earl. But he couldappear anytime.Jeff gets to his feet, wincing. He looks up at the rockycanyon wall bordering the river. It's steep butscalable.He begins climbing.                                               DISSOLVE TO:EXT. ROCK OUTCROPPING - MINUTES LATERJeff has climbed to higher ground. He lies flat on hisbelly and peers THROUGH a gap in the rocks at the rivervalley below.JEFF'S POV - RIVERThe men have given up their pursuit.The moving van, a jumbo three-axle GMC, has turned aroundand backed up to the edge of the ravine.A stocky man, AL (whom we recognize as Earl's passengerat the minimart), operates a gas-powered winch in thecargo door of the van.A cable runs from the winch down to the Cherokee in theriver.Standing knee-deep in the current, Earl signals to Alwhile the winch slowly tugs the Cherokee onto its wheels,then backwards out of the river.                                                        54.BACK TO JEFFwatching in amazement.   He can hear only snatches oftheir conversation.                        AL          ... can't believe you let him get          away...                        EARL          You try chasing... through this          shit...                        AL          Fuck... this is what happens when          you get one without the other...Jeff can't believe it. The Cherokee is being pulledbackwards up the slope toward the road.He belly-crawls back from the outcropping, gets to hisfeet and climbs higher.                                              CUT TO:EXT. ANOTHER PART OF CLIFF - LATERJeff has moved to higher ground. He crouches behind astand of manzanita and looks down at the activity below.JEFF'S POV - ROADThe Cherokee is now back on the road.Operating the winch with precision efficiency, Earl andAl drag the Cherokee up a ramp into the rear of themoving van.Once the vehicle is aboard, they stow the ramp and closethe van doors.BACK TO JEFFwatching in amazement, straining to hear what Earl and Alare saying. Behind Jeff, a PEBBLE SKITTERS on the rock.He turns, reacts.It's Billy -- the halfwit from the diner! Wielding ashotgun like a club, he swings the butt at Jeff's skull!Jeff drops to the ground, unconscious.                                            CUT TO BLACK.                                                     55.FADE IN:INT. CAR TRUNK - DAYThere is a CREAK as the TRUNK opens. Jeff lies inside,dazed and disoriented, blinking into the sun. His eyeswon't focus. Earl and Billy stand over the trunk insilhouette. He can hear their voices:                         EARL           He coming around?                         BILLY           Should be... I clocked him pretty           good...A gun barrel jabs Jeff in the ribs.                         BILLY           Rise and shine, dad.Jeff blinks. A face slowly comes INTO FOCUS. Is itreally Billy? The halfwit from the diner? Only he isn'ta halfwit anymore.                         BILLY           C'mon, shake a leg.Jeff looks at Billy. Nothing makes sense anymore. Butone thing is clear: Billy's mental retardation was allan act.                           JEFF                  (weak)           Where is she?                         BILLY           Give us some answers and you might           find out. According to her,           you've got a pretty good pile of           ready cash sitting in the bank.           Is that true?                         JEFF           There's some... yeah...                         BILLY           Uh-huh... well, 'some' doesn't cut           it. Your wife gave us a dollar           figure. I want the same exact           from you.                                           (CONTINUED)                                                       56.CONTINUED:                        JEFF                 (coming around;                  stalling)          I don't -- there's different          accounts... the balance          fluctuates...                        BILLY          Fluctuates, my ass. If a hotshot          like you ain't tracking his bottom          line, it'd be the first time in          history.                 (turning)          What do you think, Earl?                        EARL          We been fucked with, is what I          think. Little slut lied to us.          Put 'em on the spot, they'll say          anything to stay alive.Billy nods, disappointed.                        BILLY          Yeah, I suppose. Too bad.                 (peers down at Jeff)          Guess you're not the donut magnate          after all.                 (to Earl)          Waste of time. Plug him.Earl raises a pistol.   Jeff's eyes flash.                        JEFF                 (blurting out)          Ninety thousand.Earl stops, glances at Billy.   They both eye Jeffcarefully.                        BILLY          Say again.                        JEFF                 (emphatic)          Ninety thousand dollars.A faint smile plays on Billy's lips.     He slams the trunk.INT. CAR TRUNK - DAYIt's nearly pitch black. A beam of sunlight shinesthrough a rusted hole. It illuminates Jeff's eyes.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                          57.CONTINUED:The car shifts into gear and sets off across the desert.Jeff grunts as the car bounces on the uneven terrain.He braces against the confines of the trunk. The ENGINENOISE is deafening. The car hits a depression andjounces wildly. Jeff is thrown about violently.                                                CUT TO:EXT. MESA OVERLOOK - DAYThere is a CREAK and the TRUNK opens. Jeff squints intothe sun. Earl and Billy stand over the trunk.                            EARL             Get out.   Don't try anything             stupid.Jeff gets out, grimacing.     His clothes are stained withgrease and tire grime. He     sets his feet unsteadily onthe ground, looks around.     We see that he has beenconfined in the trunk of a    Pontiac Firebird.The Firebird and Dodge Ram are parked on a bluff. Redstands on the highest point, peering through binocularsat the desert below. He glances at Jeff.                           RED             You're a tough man to get a hold             of, Jeffrey.Jeff stares, a mix of emotions -- anger, fear, confusion.                           JEFF                    (barely able to                     control himself)             What do you want?                           RED             It's not me we're talking about.             Question is what you want.Jeff looks at him with loathing.                       RED         See, I've got something you might         want to buy. Can't show you the         merchandise right now, but I can         describe it for you. About five-         five, hundred and fifteen pounds.         I'd say three, maybe four of that         is tits. Black curly hair         upstairs and down. Interested?                                                (CONTINUED)                                                        58.CONTINUED:Jeff's anger bubbles over...                       JEFF         You sonofabitch --He advances toward Red. Billy and Earl grab him frombehind and tackle him to the ground. Billy drives a fistinto his kidney. Jeff gasps in pain.Red nods impassively.                           RED             Bring him up here.Earl and Billy hoist Jeff to his feet and propel him upthe mound closer to Red.From here, Jeff can see a small desert town spread outbelow, as well as the highway leading through it. Redgestures.                           RED             Welcome to Brackett, Jeff. If             ever there was a two-bit shithole             in the middle of nowhere, this is             it. One gas station, a half-dozen             stores and a V.F.W. hall.                    (pointing)             See that building?Jeff follows his gaze.                           RED             That's the bank. Brackett             Commerce Bank. You with me?Jeff nods tightly.                           RED             Then here's the drill. You're             gonna walk in there and tell the             manager you want an express wire             in the amount of $90,000 from your             account in Boston. Got your             wallet?Jeff nods.                           RED             You ask for the money in cash.             Small bills.                           (MORE)                                              (CONTINUED)                                                         59.CONTINUED:                        RED (CONT'D)          Today's payday at the copper mine,          so don't take any horsecock about          how they haven't got it. If the          manager gives you a hard time,          that's your problem. It's your          wife who's counting on you.                        JEFF          How do I know she's still alive?Billy slugs him in the gut again.   Jeff doubles over.                          BILLY          Shut up.                        RED          She's tucked away someplace safe.          You get her back as soon as we get          the money. Simple as that.Jeff compresses his lips.                        RED          Now a smart guy like you, you're          already thinking about calling the          cops, right?Jeff says nothing. Red raises a hand-held CB to hismouth. He keys the transmitter.                        RED                 (into mike)          Iron Man to Blacktop, let's open          the gate.                        AL (V.O.)                 (filtered)          Copy that, Iron Man.Red turns back to Jeff.                         RED          Like I said, Jeff, if you want to          call the cops, there's nothing I          can do. Hell, with the fire          you've got in your eyes right now,          I figure you're fixing on calling          the F.B.I., C.I.A. -- even the          82nd Airborne.Jeff stares back.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                     60.CONTINUED:                        RED          Problem is, you can see this town          for miles around. So ask          yourself: How's the law gonna get          here? They gonna fly in? Drive          in? Either way, we'll see 'em.          So let me be very clear: if we see          one unmarked car, one plane, one          human being who even smells like a          cop -- this deal is dead.He tosses Jeff the binoculars.                        RED          Now take a look at the building          with the flagpole.Jeff hesitates, then raises the binoculars.THROUGH BINOCULARSThe IMAGE SHIFTS, then STEADIES and FOCUSES ON a smallbuilding with a police cruiser out front and a barelylegible sign: "BRACKETT SHERIFF." It's the policestation where Jeff filed the missing persons' formearlier.                        RED (O.S.)          There's exactly two cops in this          town. One of them's inside          pulling ass duty; the other's on          patrol in the foothills. Now a          minute ago one of my men called in          a non-injury accident on the I-40          connector.Deputy Carver comes out of the building gulping down asandwich. He gets in the cruiser and pulls away, lightsflashing.                        RED (O.S.)          It'll take that good ol' boy 20          minutes to get to the connector,          another 10 to see there's no          accident, and another 20 or so to          tool his way back. 50 minutes all          in.The cruiser pulls away down the highway.                                                          61.JEFFlowers the binoculars and looks at Red.                         RED          That's your deadline. If for any          reason one of those cops pulls          into town before I'm looking at a          bag of money, your wife is dead,          you're shit out of luck and we're          gone for good.He smiles at Jeff.                        RED          See, that's why there's no risk to          us in this thing. You do the          legwork. We sit back, we watch,          we listen to our scanners, we          monitor you every step of the way.          If at any moment we don't like          something, we split. Period.                 (beat)          Helluva lot safer than sticking up          7-11s, wouldn't you say?They lock eyes.   Red tosses Jeff a Windbreaker.                        RED          Put this on. You can't go into          the bank like that.Jeff puts on the jacket.    It covers his filthy shirt.Red checks his watch.                        RED          How about it, Jeff? Time to get          the show on the road?ON Jeff's expression...                                            CUT TO:EXT. BOTTOM OF MESA - DAYJeff stumbles and nearly falls as he descends   the looserock at the foot of the mesa. He looks up at    the ridge,but Red and his crew have pulled back out of   view. Jeffstarts across an open field toward the town,   firstjogging, then running.                                                        62.EXT. STREET - DAYJeff hurries toward the bank. He looks back at the mesaagain. The gang has disappeared.Up ahead, a mud-streaked pickup cruises the main street.Jeff eyes it warily. Is it one of theirs? The truckpulls around a corner.INT. BANK - DAYJeff pushes through the main doors. It's a typical smalltown operation. A guard stands near the entrance.Several customers wait in line for the woman teller.Jeff looks at the slow-moving line and swears softly. Hedoesn't have time to wait. He glances around, sees anolder man sitting at a desk in the rear of the bank, thenameplate on the desk identifying him as Roger Calhoun.Jeff approaches.                        JEFF          I need to see the manager. I need          a wire transfer from my bank in          Boston.CALHOUN looks up from his paperwork, hesitates at Jeff'sappearance.                        CALHOUN          Yes... sir. I'm the manager.          Would you like to have a seat?Jeff remains standing.    He eyes the other customersnervously.                           CALHOUN          Sir?                           JEFF                    (turning; preoccupied)          What?                        CALHOUN          I said you can have a seat if you          want.                           JEFF          Right.He takes a seat across the desk from the manager, reachesinto his wallet and brings out several forms ofidentification.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                      63.CONTINUED:                        JEFF          Here's my driver's license, credit          card if you need it, my account          number in Boston... How long is          this going to take?Calhoun looks at him curiously.                        CALHOUN          Are you all right?                        JEFF                 (quickly)          Yes, I'm fine. Look, that account          only has $5,000 in it. How much          can you advance me on my credit          card?                           CALHOUN          Excuse me?                        JEFF                 (impatient)          My credit card. I've got a $6,000          limit. Can you advance me the          whole $6,000?Calhoun looks mystified.                        CALHOUN          No, I can't. For non-customers          the limit is $500 a day. Sir, are          you sure you're all right?                        JEFF          Yes, I'm fine. Just... transfer          the money, okay?Calhoun raises an eyebrow and begins filling out thetransfer form. Jeff eyes him, decides he has to risk it.He leans toward the desk.                       JEFF         Look, I'm going to tell you         something. Whatever happens, just         keep filling out that form, okay?                       CALHOUN                (looking up;                 baffled)         Sir?                       JEFF         There are people watching --                                            (CONTINUED)                                                         64.CONTINUED:                           COWBOY (O.S.)             Excuse me, you the manager?Jeff turns. A GUY wearing cowboy boots and a feed capstands behind him.                           CALHOUN             Yes, I am.                           COWBOY             Lady over there said to see you             about a car loan.                           CALHOUN                    (indicating                     waiting area)             Certainly, sir. Would you like to             have a seat?The guy takes a seat ten feet away. Jeff looks at him,paranoid. Their eyes meet. Jeff looks away quickly.                           CALHOUN                    (turning back                     to Jeff)             You were saying, Mr. Taylor?                           JEFF             Just... transfer the money.                                               CUT TO:INT. BANK REST ROOM - DAYJeff enters and locks the door.He startles at his reflection in the mirror.     He issunburned, dirty, lacerated.He opens a cabinet and rifles through the supplies,looking for anything that could be used as a weapon.     Hetosses aside detergents and air fresheners.He picks up   the toilet plunger, pulls the wooden rod fromthe rubber   base. He swings it into his palm a few times,testing it   as a club. It's too bulky. He won't be ableto conceal   it.He checks his watch. Time is running out.      He takes onelast look around the bathroom, then exits.                                                        65.INT. BANK - DAYJeff comes out of the rest room. The manager is behindthe teller's counter. The cowboy is gone. In his placesits a middle-aged blue collar worker. He looks at Jeff.Jeff takes a seat, glances at Calhoun's empty desk.There is a letter opener on the desk, several paper bandsfor wrapping currency.Positioning his body so no one can see, Jeff takes theletter opener and slips it into his sleeve. He scoops upa handful of currency wrappers.Jeff goes to the teller's window, scribbles something onthe back of a deposit slip and hands it to the teller.                        JEFF          Would you tell the manager I want          the money in these denominations?The teller looks at him oddly.                                              CUT TO:EXT. STREET - DAYJeff comes out of the bank with a manila envelope,glancing up and down the street. There's no sign of themen. He squints toward the mesa. No sign of them thereeither.He stands there. What's he supposed to do now? Hechecks his watch, growing anxious. Finally he is aboutto jog back in the direction he came, when... a PHONERINGS.Jeff turns. There's a pay PHONE down the street. ItRINGS again. He approaches quickly, lifts the receiver.                       JEFF         I'm here.                       RED (V.O.)                (filtered)         No shit. I can SEE that.   How         much you got?Jeff looks up and down the street, trying to figure outwhere they're watching from. He looks toward the bank,glimpses the manager peering through the window.                        JEFF          The whole thing. Ninety thousand.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                        66.CONTINUED:                           RED (V.O.)                    (filtered)             Good. Turn left and start walking             toward the main road. Get in the             first car that stops.                           JEFF             When do I see my wife?                           RED (V.O.)                    (filtered)             When I say so. Now walk.The LINE CLICKS.    Jeff hangs up and starts walking.                                             CUT TO:INT. BANK - DAYCalhoun speaks on the phone.                        CALHOUN          Marie, this is Roger Calhoun down          at the bank. Is the Sheriff          there?                 (a beat)          Well, maybe it's nothing, but you          might tell him we just had a          fellow in here acting kind of          strange...                                             CUT TO:EXT. HIGHWAY - OUTSKIRTS OF TOWN - DAYJeff walks along the road, carrying the envelope.Various cars pass in either direction, but none slowdown.Jeff stiffens as an 18-wheeler approaches. But the TRUCKTHUNDERS past, blowing a cloud of dust and sand in hisface.Jeff continues walking, anxiously checking over hisshoulder every few moments. His eyes narrow.The Dodge Ram pickup is cruising toward him. It slows,then brakes to a halt. The passenger door opens. Earlsits behind the wheel, aiming an automatic pistol.                        EARL          Toss the envelope on the seat.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                           67.CONTINUED:Jeff stands firm.                            JEFF             No.   First you tell me where she             is.                        EARL          Wrong, asshole. First you give me          the money, then you find out.          Unless you want me to shoot you          dead right here on the highway.Jeff looks around, wonders if Earl would risk shootinghim in view of passing traffic.Jeff hesitates, then tosses the envelope on the      seat.Earl opens it, reaches in and pulls out several      packetsof currency. They are wrapped with paper bands       andappear to be stacks of fifties and hundreds. He       replacesthem and gestures at Jeff with the gun.                        EARL          Now lift your shirt and jacket and          turn around.Jeff complies. Earl sees that he isn't carrying a gun.He beckons Jeff toward the truck with the automatic.                        EARL          Turn around, hands behind your          back, and step toward the truck.Jeff takes two backwards steps toward the passenger sidedoor. Earl grabs his arms, yanks roughly and wraps themwith several layers of duct tape.                        EARL          Now get up in the truck, knees on          the floor. Do it now!Jeff struggles into an awkward kneeling position on thefloor, facing the rear of the pickup, his belly pressedagainst the seat.Earl reaches over and pulls the door shut. He throws thetruck in gear and starts driving. Jeff grimaces, lookingup at him.                        JEFF          I gave you the money.     Now let her          go.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                        68.CONTINUED:                          EARL          'Let her go.'    Do I look like I          have her?                        JEFF          What the hell --Earl backhands Jeff against the passenger door. There isa RINGING sound and Earl pulls a CELL PHONE from hispocket. He presses a button and raises it to his face.                         EARL                  (on phone)          It's done. I'm heading in.                  (a beat;                   listening)          Gotcha.He ends the call and tosses the cell phone on the dash.                        EARL          You gotta be the dumbest          motherfuck yet. You think we          picked you out of the blue? New          car, Massachusetts plates --          probably be days before anyone          misses you. Hell, you shoulda got          the bumper sticker that goes with          it: 'Rich Assholes Looking for          Trouble!'He tucks the pistol in his belt.   Jeff looks at him,seething.Jeff tries to squirm free. Earl sees it and belts himacross the temple. Jeff slams into the passenger door,wincing.                        EARL          I'd have loved to see the look on          your face when that car seized up.                 (mimicking panicked                  driver)          Help, help, I ain't got no power!Earl laughs. Jeff has come to rest with his back againstthe door. By contorting his arms, he is able to draw theletter opener from his pocket.He manipulates the letter opener into position and beginscutting the duct tape that binds his wrists.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                        69.CONTINUED:Steering with one hand, Earl reaches into the envelope,pulls out a packet of bills and waves it in Jeff's face.Jeff saws faster at the duct tape.                        EARL          You know what I'm gonna do first          with your money, boy? Well, do          you?Jeff glares at him.                       EARL                (fluttering bills                 under his nose)         I'll give you a hint. Only one         thing smells better than money.         You wanta guess what?Earl laughs obscenely. He riffles the bills under hisnose again, then stops abruptly, frowning. He looks downat the bills.                          EARL         What the hell?Earl stares at the bills. Jeff works feverishly behindhis back. Earl pulls out another packet, then another,examining the bills.                       EARL         These are... it's nothing but         singles...                (erupting)         You lyin' sonofabitch!There is a RIPPING SOUND. Jeff wrests his hands free andlunges across the cab. He plants the letter opener inEarl's shoulder!                           EARL          Aaagghh!EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - DAYThe pickup veers across the center line on the narrowmountain road. It swerves back, over-correcting wildly,and drifts for the opposite shoulder.INT. PICKUP - DAYJeff seizes the pistol from Earl's waistband.    Earlflails and knocks the pistol from his grasp.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                           70.CONTINUED:The pistol flies onto the floor.Earl uncorks a vicious backhand. Jeff's head snapssideways. He grabs Earl by the arm and twists sharply.Earl howls!EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - DAYThe pickup careens back and forth across the treacherousroadway.INT. PICKUP - DAYJeff gropes on the floor. His hand closes around thepistol and he swings it at Earl -- crack! Earl's noseerupts! Jeff reaches across and jams his foot on thebrake.EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - DAYThe PICKUP SCREECHES and comes to a halt straddling theroad.INT. PICKUP - DAYJeff swings the pistol into Earl's face -- crack! Earltries to fend off the blows. Jeff creams him again --crack!INT. TOW TRUCK - DAYA TOW TRUCK DRIVER traveling in the opposite directionpulls to a stop. He gawks at the two men struggling inthe pickup.INT. PICKUP - DAYJeff aims the pistol at point blank range.     Earl is abloody wreck. His head lolls groggily.                        JEFF          Where is she, goddammit?   What'd          you do with her?Earl sneers. Jeff is about to slug him again when henotices the two truck parked across the road, the driverstaring out.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                            71.CONTINUED:Jeff swears and wrestles Earl into the passenger seat.He seizes the roll of duct tape and binds Earl's wrists,then passes the tape under his legs so Earl iseffectively hog-tied.He then slams Earl back in the seat, circles his necktwice with tape and wraps the free end around the base ofthe passenger side headrest. Earl begins to gasp forair.The Tow Truck Driver gets out and approaches.                            TOW TRUCK DRIVER             Hey!   You there!Jeff gets behind the wheel and throws the pickup intogear.EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - DAYThe Two Truck Driver leaps out of the way as the pickupsurges forward, tires smoking. He stares open-mouthedafter the departing vehicle.INT. PICKUP - DAYJeff drives, one hand on the wheel, the other brandishingthe pistol at Earl.                              JEFF             Where is she?!                           EARL                    (barely able                     to breathe)             Fuck you!Jeff swings the pistol. There is a crack of explodingteeth! Earl's mouth erupts with frothy blood!                              JEFF             You like that?     How about this?Jeff hits the brakes. Earl is thrown forward, lettingout a strangled cry as the duct tape chokes off hiswindpipe.                           JEFF             Four wheel anti-lock brakes, you             sonofabitch! You want to try 'em             again?                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                           72.CONTINUED:He hits the brakes again, harder.       Earl's tongueprotrudes from his lips, choking.       His face is red.                           JEFF             How about an emergency stop? You             want to try that, Earl? Where is             she?                             EARL             I don't know!                       JEFF         Fuck you, you don't!He slams the brakes again. Earl's eyes bulgesickeningly. He is being choked to death.                             EARL         Stop!                       JEFF         Is that what you want? You really         want me to stop? 'Cause I bet         this baby stops on a dime!                                               CUT TO:INT. POLICE CRUISER - DAYTraveling in the opposite direction, Sheriff Boyd isreturning toward town. As he rounds a bend in the road,he sees --EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD - DAYThe Ram driving erratically and weaving back and forthacross the road.INT. POLICE CRUISER - DAYThe sheriff reacts.                             SHERIFF BOYD          What the hell?EXT. HIGHWAY - DAYAs the Ram passes, Sheriff Boyd throws the cruiser into aSCREECHING 180-degree turn. He flicks on the SIREN andtakes off in pursuit.                                                        73.INT. DODGE RAM - DAYJeff glances in the rearview mirror. The cruiser is ontheir tail, SIREN WAILING, lights flashing. He swearsand pumps the brakes in a series of rapid bursts.                        JEFF          End of the line, Earl! How about          it? You gonna tell me?                        EARL          She's with Billy.                           JEFF          Yeah?     Where's that?                          EARL          I don't know!    Driving around!Jeff hits the brakes again.INT. CRUISER - DAYSheriff Boyd jerks the wheel to avoid a collision withthe pickup as it slows and accelerates in rapid spurts.                        SHERIFF BOYD                 (on radio)          Repeat, I am in pursuit of a Dodge          Ram pickup. Request back-up,          repeat, request back-up!EXT. HIGHWAY - DAYThe cruiser pulls up alongside the pickup...INT. CRUISER - DAYBoyd reacts in amazement to what he sees --                        SHERIFF BOYD          Jesus Christ --                 (on radio)          Dispatch! Suspect identified as          one Jeffrey Taylor, repeat,          Jeffrey Taylor!Boyd taps his brakes, falling back behind the pickup.INT. PICKUP - DAYJeff is wild-eyed.                                              (CONTINUED)                                                           74.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             Where were you taking the money?                           EARL                    (losing it)             To the truck stop...                           JEFF             Where?                           EARL             Main highway... Texaco...Jeff has the information he needs.       He slams on thebrakes!INT. CRUISER - DAYSheriff Boyd swerves to avoid a crash as the RAMSCREECHES to a halt in front of him!EXT. HIGHWAY - DAYThe cruiser skids to a stop. Jeff leaps from the pickupwith the pistol in his hand. He rushes toward thecruiser. Sheriff Boyd hops out, levels his servicerevolver.                           JEFF             I know where she is!   My wife!                           SHERIFF BOYD                    (ignoring him)             Drop the gun!Jeff pitches the gun away and it skitters down anembankment. He raises his hands.                        JEFF          You don't understand!      She's been          kidnapped!                        SHERIFF BOYD          I understand plenty. Now get down          on the ground or I'll shoot!He means it.                                                        75.INT. PICKUP - DAYEarl struggles for breath. The duct tape is still tightaround his neck. He strains against the tape binding hislimbs.He glances in the side view mirror to see the Sheriffordering Jeff down on the ground.By wriggling and contorting his wrists, Earl is able totear one hand free. Then he pulls away the rest of theduct tape from his knees.The tape is still wrapped tightly around    his neck,pinning him to the backrest. Earl claws     at the tape, butit won't come free. Finally, with both     hands, he reachesbehind his head and yanks the read rest    from the seat.He reaches into his boot for something...EXT. HIGHWAY - DAYJeff is spread-eagled on the ground. Sheriff Boyd callsout to Earl in the cab. He keeps his gun leveled.                        SHERIFF BOYD          You there -- in the pickup! You          all right? Can you get out?                       EARL          Yeah! Just don't shoot me,          officer! He's crazy, I tell you!                        SHERIFF BOYD          Well, get out dammit!                        JEFF          Officer, please. You gotta listen          to me --                         SHERIFF BOYD                 (glances down                   at Jeff)          Shut up.                 (to Earl)          C'mon out, sir. It's safe --Earl sets one foot on the road. The headrest danglesagainst his back, still taped to his neck. Suddenly Earlwhirls, holding a .22 snub-nose REVOLVER and FIRES!The sheriff stumbles away, blood spurting from hisshoulder, the gun flying from his hand.Jeff looks up in horror as the sheriff falls.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                        76.CONTINUED:Earl comes around the pickup after Jeff, raising the gunto fire. Jeff scrambles to his feet and dives down theembankment.Earl runs to the edge of the embankment. Down below,Jeff is reaching for the automatic pistol the sheriffordered him to drop.He finds it... too late...Earl is aiming at point-blank range from the top of theembankment. He is already squeezing the trigger when...BLAM! Earl's chest erupts outward as a bullet passesthrough his body from behind!Earl staggers and flops down the embankment. He comes torest near Jeff, blood gurgling from a massive chestwound.Jeff climbs the embankment. The sheriff is lying on theroad, critically injured, gun lying nearby and stillsmoking from the shot that killed Earl.The sheriff is struggling to speak into a remotetransmitter strapped to his uniform.                        SHERIFF BOYD                 (weak)          Shots fired... Officer down...          Suspect...                        DISPATCHER (V.O.)          Help is on the way, Sheriff. Just          hang on. I have units and an          ambulance en route.Jeff bends over the Sheriff and examines his wound with agrimace. He is verging on unconsciousness. Jeffdeliberates, torn. There is nothing he can do here.Making up his mind, Jeff runs to the pickup. The hand-held cellular phone has spilled into the road. He scoopsit up, jumps behind the wheel and LAYS RUBBER.                                           CUT TO:EXT. BLUFF - DAYJeff stands on a ridge overlooking a Texaco truck stop.Behind him, the Dodge Ram pickup lies hidden in a growthof scrub oak and tumbleweeds.Jeff looks overwhelmed by what he sees spread out below.                                                         77.JEFF'S POV - TEXACO TRUCK STOPIt's a giant truck stop. There are hundreds of big rigsparked in rows like silvery sardines.A sign towers over the main building:    "DIESEL $.99 GAL."BACK TO JEFFHe looks shaken. How will he ever find Red here?    Itseems impossible.He descends the bluff to the truck stop.EXT. TRUCK STOP - DAYJeff skids on his heels down the loose hillside andreaches the edge of the parking lot. There are truckseverywhere. Diesel MOTORS RUMBLE. Exhaust fills theair.He reaches the end of a row of big rigs, starts searchingthe grounds for the markings of Red's 18-wheeler.It's nowhere in sight.A high-pitched FEMININE SQUEAL from an adjacent truck'ssleeping compartment startles Jeff.                        TRUCKER (O.S.)                 (muffled)          C'mon, baby, give it up!The woman GIGGLES, O.S. Jeff ignores it, scanning thetruck stop. He stiffens.A police car is arriving at the truck stop.Staying out of sight, Jeff passes quickly to the rear ofa tractor trailer.EXT. TRUCK WASH - DAYJeff peers out from behind a parked mini-van as trucksemerge wet and dripping from an immense truck wash.Across the way, trucks are filling up on diesel at thegas islands. Jeff's eyes narrow. Is that Red'sPeterbilt among them?He quickens his pace, then falls back, slumping. Therig's black driver is getting in the cab. Jeff glancesto the side, frowns.                                            (CONTINUED)                                                      78.CONTINUED:An older vacationing couple is eyeing Jeff warily.Jeff looks down, cops to it instantly. His clothes areripped, caked with blood. He ducks between two parkedcars, using a side-view mirror as he hastily wipes bloodoff his face. He checks to be sure no one is watching.Something catches his eye.EXT. BLUFF - JEFF'S POVA highway patrol car with flashing lights is parked nearthe place where Jeff ditched the pickup. Beside it, astate trooper surveys the truck stop with binoculars.EXT. TRUCK WASH - DAYJeff's jaw tightens. He glances toward the road, seestwo more highway patrol cars cruising the perimeter ofthe truck stop.Swearing, Jeff turns on his heels and walks away in theopposite direction, shielding his face.EXT. TRUCK STOP PARKING LOT - DAYJeff emerges from between two vehicles, glancing over hisshoulder nervously. He keeps his head down, moving fast.He scans the truck stop in all directions. The patrolcar is still parked on the ridge, the patrolman peeringthrough binoculars.Jeff quickens his pace alongside the truck stop building,passing a row of pay phones. He looks up, stops dead.Red is talking on a pay phone six feet away.Jeff stares. Red is facing away, unaware of hispresence. Jeff darts into an adjacent pay phone.He shields his face with the receiver and listens.                       RED                (on phone)         I don't know, dammit, he was         supposed to be here a half hour         ago. There's reports on the         police band about a cop down and         this place is crawling with         uniforms...                                            (CONTINUED)                                                        79.CONTINUED:Red waits, listens.                        RED          Look, I'm getting out of here.          Stay off the airwaves. Bring the          girl and meet me at the barn...          You got that?He hangs up.   Jeff presses the phone against his face andturns away.When he looks up, Red is walking toward his Peterbilttruck, parked in a row of big rigs. Jeff starts tofollow, then freezes.Several cops are fanning out on foot, questioningeveryone they encounter.Jeff sees Red getting into his truck. The ENGINE KICKSOVER. The BRAKES HISS and the truck begins pulling out.Jeff whips around. The older vacationing couple aretalking to a cop fifty yards away. The husband pointstoward the pay phones.Jeff makes a sudden decision, doubles back behind arolling farm truck.COPthanks the couple, calls out something to his fellowofficers.JEFFruns alongside the farm truck, using it as a shield. Heovertakes the truck, cuts across its path. The farmerBLARES his HORN.Jeff glances left. Red's tractor trailer is travelingacross the crowded parking area, slowly gaining speed.Jeff sprints in front of a moving car.The driver jerks to a halt and HONKS, catching theattention of a nearby cop. Jeff quickly turns away,avoiding being seen.Red's 18-wheeler turns toward the access road. Jefflooks around, panicked. More cops are spreading out onfoot. They'll notice him any second.                                           (CONTINUED)                                                      80.CONTINUED:Jeff crouches low and scurries underneath a slow-movingpostal truck. The truck speeds up, nearly crushing himunder the rear wheel assembly.Jeff rolls out of the path of the giant wheels, gets tohis feet on the other side and finds himself...... in the path of another huge truck!A cop is standing only 20 feet away! Jeff goesunderneath another trailer, crawling between the movingwheels. He springs to his feet.Red's Peterbilt is pulling away!Jeff runs for all he's worth. His arms and legs pumpfuriously. He runs abreast of the truck...... and seizes the spare tire mount!EXT. INTERSTATE - UNDER TRUCK - DAYJeff hangs on for dear life. His legs drag over theasphalt. He lets out a cry of pain.The truck is joining the highway, accelerating.Grimacing, Jeff swings his legs over the universal jointas the roadway races past below. The huge TIRES are aHOWLING blur.Suddenly his grip falters on the grease. His backscrapes the rushing asphalt. Jeff gasps, makes a graband holds firm.As he hangs on, a station wagon overtakes the Peterbiltin the passing lane. A three-year-old boy sits in therear compartment, staring out at Jeff, a puzzledexpression on his face.Jeff stares back. It's an odd moment between the two.The station wagon continues forward and EXITS FRAME.EXT. INTERSTATE - DAYThe PETERBILT THUNDERS over a patch of highway that isbeing graded for paving.                                                          81.EXT. UNDER TRUCK - DAYThe tires kick up a hail storm of loose gravel and dirt,pelting Jeff all over his body.He realizes he can't stay where he is. Grunting witheffort, he works his way hand over hand along theunderside rigging toward the cab.He seizes the trailer hitch and hoists himself up.EXT. BETWEEN CAB AND TRAILER - DAYStanding on the coupler, Jeff clutches his ribs andcatches his breath. He's in pain. The road whips bybelow his feet.The truck hits an uneven stretch of road and bouncesviolently. Jeff grabs the coiled brake line for support.The truck is doing 70 mph, exhaust racketing.Jeff pulls the cell phone from his pocket and dials 911.He holds it tightly to his ear, shouting above the wind.                          JEFF                   (on phone)            Hello? Can you hear me? This is            Jeff Taylor. I need to talk to            the deputy.He strains to hear the reply.                          JEFF            The name is Jeffrey Taylor. I            just witnessed your sheriff being            shot. Now put someone on,            goddammit!He waits.INT. TRUCK CAB - DAYRed glances in the side mirror at the road behind him ashe drives, unaware of Jeff's presence.EXT. TRUCK COUPLER - DAYJeff clutches the cell phone to his ear, waiting.    Hereacts suddenly as the call is put through.                           JEFF            Hello?INTERCUT WITH:                                                         82.INT. POLICE STATION - DAYDeputy Carver speaks on a phone extension while theDISPATCHER sits nearby.                        DEPUTY CARVER          It's no good. He's not talking.          You better mobilize your boys.The troopers stare back.    They look like they have ascore to settle.                                             CUT TO:EXT. RED'S PETERBILT - DAYThe truck streaks along the interstate.   Sitting on thecoupler, Jeff is a picture of despair.                                             DISSOLVE TO:EXT. RED'S PETERBILT - DUSKHours later.The truck races toward the bloated lowering sun, with nosign of slowing down. Jeff lies curled under thewindfoil on the roof of the cab. He hugs himself,shivering in the cold draft.                                             DISSOLVE TO:EXT. RED'S PETERBILT - NIGHTThe TRACTOR TRAILER RUMBLES in low gear along a sparselypopulated two-lane road. A neighborhood DOG YAPS.EXT. ROOF OF TRUCK CAB - NIGHTFrom his hiding place under the windfoil, Jeff peers outinto the darkness, unable to figure out where he is.He catches his balance as the truck turns a corner andslows, driving past a tract of undeveloped land, beforeturning into the driveway of a...EXT. RESIDENTIAL LOT - NIGHTand braking to a halt under the broad overhanging eave ofan old dilapidated barn.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                       83.CONTINUED:Behind the two-story farm house, a rusted Volkswagen busand satellite dish hunker in the weeds. A newer car, a1981 Cadillac Deville, is parked to the side.Red kills the engine and climbs out of the cab. As hewalks toward the house, a screen DOOR SLAPS. DEKE, 9,squirts across the lawn in his pajamas.                           DEKE             Daddy, you're home!Red scoops him up.                        RED          Hey, Deke, you miss me?ARLEEN, 35, comes out of the house in a bathrobe.                        ARLEEN          Deke, get back to bed! I said          now!                 (to Red)          Warren? I thought you were coming          back next week.She comes out into the yard.EXT. TRUCK CAB - NIGHTJeff flattens against the sleeper. He can see Redgreeting his wife, their words carrying faintly acrossthe lawn. Jeff is baffled by this domestic scene.EXT. YARD - NIGHTArleen reacts with disappointment to something Red's toldher.                        ARLEEN          ... but it's four in the morning.          Why can't Al and Billy come some          other time?                        RED                 (reasoning)          I told you, we've got some stuff          to take care of. Won't be more          than a couple of hours -- I          promise.Red turns to his son, extends a key.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                          84.CONTINUED:                        RED          Say, Deke, how 'bout opening up          the barn for your daddy?Deke takes the key and sprints for the barn while Redreturns to the cab, passing within several feet of Jeff'shiding place.He reaches into the cab, brings out a duffel bag andunzips it. Jeff keeps his breathing shallow, squeezesagainst the windfoil.                        RED          Deke, c'mon over here, I got          something for you.Deke runs up, breathless. Red holds two hands behind hisback. Red and Deke are just six feet from Jeff.                        RED          Guess which hand.                        DEKE                 (pointing to                  right hand)          This one.Red opens his right hand.    Empty.                          RED          Nope.    Try again.                        DEKE                 (pointing to left)          This hand.Red opens his left.    Empty.                          RED          Nope.                          DEKE                   (he's been                    tricked)          Dad...                           RED                    (laughing)             Okay, okay, I'll give it to you.He opens his hand, revealing Jeff's Swiss Army knife.                          DEKE          Cool!                                                (CONTINUED)                                                        85.CONTINUED:Deke takes the knife and runs off. Red goes to the rearof the trailer, unlocks it and raises the slatted door.He hops up inside. His FOOTSTEPS ECHO in the metaltrailer. We hear him SHIFTING BOXES.EXT. BARN - NIGHTJeff seizes his chance. He crawls out from under thewindfoil and hoists himself onto the overhanging eave.The STRUCTURE CREAKS under his weight.INSIDE TRAILERRed sticks his head out of the trailer, puzzled.                            RED             Deke?   Deke, you back there?EXT. ROOF OF BARN - NIGHTJeff crouches in the shadows. He can see Red poking hishead out from the trailer, peering up at the roof.INSIDE TRAILERRed shrugs, lets it go. He resumes unloading boxes,tosses down a full set of Louis Vuitton luggage. He lugsthe items into the barn.EXT. ROOF OF BARN - NIGHTJeff goes to a second-story window. A board has beennailed over the window. He pulls it away, steps into...INT. BARN HAYLOFT - NIGHTand looks around, amazed.     Everywhere around him thereare stolen goods.Matching luggage sets... a rack of women's coats... atable piled with cameras... a crate filled with carphones...A stack of windshields... two sets of golf clubs... threechild safety seats... a ten-speed bicycle...                                             (CONTINUED)                                                         86.CONTINUED:Several dozen "COMMERCIAL VEHICLE" license plates arescattered about -- Arkansas, Oregon, Texas, Iowa, SouthDakota...As Jeff stares, reeling, there is a RUMBLE outside.EXT. BARN - NIGHTRed looks up from toting a box of car stereos and snarledwiring as the moving van and Pontiac Firebird arrive atthe barn.He beckons for the vehicles to pull forward into...INT. BARN - NIGHTAl dismounts from the moving truck. Billy climbs out ofthe Firebird. They are travel-sore, stretching. Redshuts the door behind them.                           AL             Man, if I never see another couple             from Massachusetts it'll be too             soon.                           RED             Tell me about it.   You get any             word on Earl?                           BILLY                    (shakes head)             There's reports of an accident up             Five Mile, but that's about it.Red grunts, unlatches the door to the moving van, lowersa ramp. The three men begin unloading boxes.INT. BARN HAYLOFT - NIGHTJeff lies on his belly peering through a knothole.JEFF'S POV THROUGH KNOTHOLEThe men unload Jeff and Amy's belongings -- luggage,photography equipment, miscellaneous items. Inside themoving van, the battered Jeep Cherokee is visible,partially covered with a tarp.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                        87.CONTINUED:                           BILLY             I told you we shoulda gotten rid             of 'em like that couple up in             Utah. Nice and clean.                           RED             So it got a little fucked up -- so             what? We stay out of the area for             a while, things will cool off.There is a HAMMERING noise, O.S.    Red looks over,irritated.                           RED             Dammit, Al, what the hell you             doing?Al sits at a workbench hammering precious stones out ofAmy's jewelry. He looks over at Red.                           AL             Figured I'd get started on the             jewelry.                           RED             Fuck that, you can work on it             later. Help us with the girl.INT. BARN HAYLOFT - NIGHTJeff breathes in sharply, presses his eye against theknothole.INT. BARN GROUND FLOOR - NIGHTRed unlatches a hidden compartment under the chassis ofthe moving truck. He and Billy slide out a long metalbox, similar to a drawer in a morgue.They lift the metal lid, revealing --CANVAS SACKThe sack is stained and ripped.    Red pokes at it.   Thesack doesn't move. Red shrugs.                       RED         Must've died from the exhaust.                                                      88.INT. BARN HAYLOFT KNOTHOLE - NIGHTJeff stares, paralyzed, his universe exploded.   Moistureforms in his eyes.INT. BARN GROUND FLOOR - NIGHTBilly and Al reach into the compartment, start to liftout the sack.                        RED          I'll get some plastic. We'll bury          her before it gets light out.Suddenly the sack drives its legs into Al's belly.                         AL                  (startled)          Aagh!Al falls backward, drops the sack on the floor. It tearsopen revealing Amy -- gagged with duct tape, her wristsand ankles taped. She squirms and kicks wildly, herscreams muffled.INT. BARN HAYLOFT KNOTHOLE - NIGHTWe see Jeff's eye in the knothole. It's all we need tosee to gauge the effect on him of seeing Amy alive.INT. BARN GROUND FLOOR - NIGHTAl gets to his feet, furious.                         AL          Goddamn.   Scared me half to death.                        BILLY                 (chuckles)          Gotcha good, huh, Al? Oughta be          more careful next time.                        AL          Shut up.                 (glaring at Amy)          Lemme do her, Red. I'll cut her          head off right now.                        ARLEEN (O.S.)                 (muffled)          Warren? You in there?Red reacts.                                            (CONTINUED)                                                         89.CONTINUED:                           RED             Shit, it's my wife. Help me get             her in the freezer.                    (calling out)             Just a second, Arleen.Red walks to a corner, moves aside a section of falseflooring. He pulls up a hidden trap door, revealing aroot cellar.AMYsquirms on the hay-strewn floor. Her clothes are ripped,face bruised. She looks up, reacting: Jeff's eye isvisible in the knothole.Their gaze meets... and holds...REDreturns and takes Amy by the legs. Al and Billy lift herby the arms. As they carry her to the root cellar, Redpeers into her terrified face.                          RED          Don't   worry, honey. It's not as          bad as   it sounds. It'll take you          about   10 minutes to suck the air          out.    Probably won't even feel it.Amy reacts, writhing even more violently, but she's nomatch for the three men.BARN HAYLOFTJeff watches helplessly as...BARN GROUND FLOORThe men disappear with Amy into the cellar. We hear aMETALLIC THUD, then a few moments later, the men reappearwithout her. Red closes the trap door, secures it with aheavy padlock, then slides the panel of false flooringover it.                        RED          C'mon, let's go.They turn, walk toward the door. Red opens it. Arleenis standing there. Al and Billy greet her politely:                                               (CONTINUED)                                                           90.CONTINUED:          AL                             BILLY  Howdy, Arleen.                     Hey, Missus C.                           ARLEEN             Well finally. Are you coming to             breakfast? I've been calling you.                           RED             Sure thing, honey.The barn goes dark as the men leave.        The barn door rollsshut. A LOCK CLICKS.INT. BARN HAYLOFT - NIGHTJeff quickly climbs down a ladder in the pitch darkness.He crosses the room, bumping into a workbench. Heswears, makes his way toward the...INT. REAR OF BARN - NIGHTJeff drops to his hands and knees, feeling for thepadlocked trap door. He finds it, speaks in an urgentwhisper.                            JEFF             Amy?   Amy, can you hear me?No reply.     Jeff cups his hands, presses his mouth to thefloor.                            JEFF                     (louder)             Amy?Still no reply.Jeff swears, glances around the dark room.       There is atool bench across the room.                           JEFF             Hang on, baby. They're in the             house; I can't use the lights.             I'm gonna get you out.He goes to   the tool bench, fumbling in the darkness. Heknocks over   a cardboard box -- a pile of car keys spillacross the   table. His hands run over an assortment oftools.  He   locates a hammer, takes it.Returning to the trap door, Jeff inserts the claw in thepadlock and tries to pry it open. The lock won't give.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                         91.CONTINUED:He strains, using all his strength.     Suddenly the handlesnaps! Jeff flies backwards.                          JEFF             Fuck!He gets up, goes to the tool bench. His hands feel overand reject an assortment of small tools. He finds acrowbar, returns to the trap door and inserts it into theshackle, twisting with all his might. After severalfailed attempts, he swears.                           JEFF             It's not working. If I make any             more noise, they'll hear.Jeff mulls his options.    He sets his jaw, exhales.                        JEFF          I'm going to get you out of there,          Amy.He swallows, emotional, clearly torn.                        JEFF          I love you.                 (under his breath)          Please, God, let her still be          alive.INT. BARN - MOVING VAN CAB - NIGHTJeff opens the door. A weak dome light flickers on. Heclimbs up into the cab and tries turning on the CB radio,but no luck -- the keys are gone.He opens the glove compartment. There are maps, triplogs, truck stop receipts. He rifles through themquickly.Jeff frowns, gets on the floor of the cab and gropesunder the driver's seat. His eyes register a discovery.He brings out a big black semi-automatic pistol.Jeff studies the base of the grip, clearly unfamiliarwith guns. He fumbles with the clip, ejects it. Theclip is full of bullets.He snaps the clip back in place.                                               (CONTINUED)                                                       92.CONTINUED:                           JEFF                    (under his breath)             Fuck you, asshole.                                             CUT TO:EXT. BARN - NIGHTJeff climbs out of the window onto the broad overhangingeave. He steps to the edge of the roof and lowershimself onto the Peterbilt cab, then drops to the ground.He looks around. Red's is the only house visible. Alight flickers in the trees a mile away. It could beanything.Jeff moves toward the house.EXT. RED'S HOUSE - BACK PORCH - NIGHTJeff holds the gun ready as he eases open the screendoor. The DOOR CREAKS on its hinges. Jeff steps into...INT. RED'S HOUSE - REAR ENTRYWAY - NIGHTJeff lets the door close silently. There are VOICEScoming from a distant room. He passes a washing machine,a hamper full of dirty clothes, and moves silentlydown...HALLWAYtoward the voices. VIDEO GAME sound effects emanate froma room off the hall. Jeff flattens against the wall,peers into the living room.Seated on the floor with his back   to Jeff, Deke isplaying Nintendo on a wide-screen   television.  Variousitems are scattered about: stereo    speakers, a jukebox, abrand new Nordic Track. There is    a rifle rack across theroom.Stepping past the doorway, Jeff continues down the halltoward...INT. RED'S KITCHEN - NIGHTRed is in the middle of telling a story.    Arleen, Billyand Al sit around the table.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                             93.CONTINUED:The plates are cleared away.       They are drinking beer.                           RED             ... So there I am, it's a howling             snow storm, I've got 2000 live             chickens that are supposed to be             in Denver days ago, and this cop             is busting my balls because I             haven't got chains...Arleen and the men laugh heartily.                           RED             So what happens but   this big old             rooster, damn thing   must've             weighed ten pounds,   he reaches out             toward that highway   patrolman...Al glances toward the door, stops laughing.         Billy andArleen follow his gaze, go silent.                           RED             ... just reaches out with his             beak, see, and...Red notices his audience is no longer paying attention.He turns in his chair, sees --REVERSE ANGLE - JEFFStanding in the doorway. Aiming the pistol. His clothescaked with blood and dirt. He sways slightly.Nobody else moves.                           JEFF             Give me the key.                           RED                    (placating)             Now hold on, mister. I don't know             who you are or what you want --                           JEFF             Give me the fucking key!There is silence.                           RED                    (a beat)             Mister --                                                (CONTINUED)                                                            94.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             Don't mister me, you sonofabitch!             My wife is locked in a hole in             your fucking barn! You don't give             me the key, I'll blow your fucking             head off!Arleen glances at Red, frightened.                        ARLEEN                 (clueless)          Warren? What's going on?                       RED         I don't know, honey.        Just stay         calm --                       JEFF                (to Arleen)         Your husband's a kidnapper and a         murderer is what's going on! Did         you know that about him? Huh?                (gestures)         Ever wonder where all this stuff         comes from?Arleen looks up at Jeff, scared.      She starts to open hermouth, when --                             DEKE (O.S.)             Stick 'em up.Jeff turns. Nine-year-old Deke is aiming a rifle at Jefffrom the hallway. The rifle looks enormous in his hands.The boy's lip quivers.The room is silent. No one moves. Jeff keeps the pistolaimed at Red. He swallows, speaks slowly:                       JEFF         You don't want to do that, kid.         Just put the gun down.                       RED                (firm)         Don't listen to him, Deke.        Keep         the gun on him.                       JEFF         Put the gun down.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                           95.CONTINUED:                           DEKE                    (voice quavering)             My daddy keeps his rifle loaded             all the time. He showed me in             case I needed to protect Mommy             when he's away.                        JEFF          I understand that, Deke. I'm not          gonna hurt Mommy. But if you pull          that trigger, there's a chance          I'll still kill your father.                        RED          He's lying, Deke. He can't get          me. Just pull the trigger.                        JEFF          No, Deke, don't listen to him.          He's wrong.                           RED          Plug him, boy!     Do what I tell          you!Deke looks at his father, fights back tears.        His fingertightens on the trigger.                        RED          That's right, boy.       Do it.   Don't          worry about me.Deke whimpers, squeezes the trigger...                          JEFF          Deke, no -- !Suddenly, Billy bolts from the table. The RIFLE FIRES!The recoil knocks Deke off his feet. The bullet ripsinto Al's shoulder!                        AL          Oww -- goddammit, you little shit!Red is out of his chair. Jeff dives first and seizes therifle. He whirls, aims the pistol at Red.                           JEFF             Don't fucking move!Everyone freezes.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                            96.CONTINUED:Jeff sidesteps to the window. Billy is running acrossthe yard. Is he headed for the barn? Jeff swears, turnsback.                             JEFF             Deke?   Deke?   Get on your feet!Deke rises, tears streaming down his face.                           JEFF             It's okay, kid. Go over there,             stand next to your mother. Hurry             up.Deke obeys. Clutching his shoulder wound, Al glares atthe child as he passes.Jeff deliberates. Where the hell was Billy going?          Hegnaws his lip, decides.                           JEFF             Okay... on your feet.   Now,             everybody!Red, Arleen and Al get to their feet. Deke stays at hismother's side. Jeff aims the pistol at Red, holds therifle with his other hand.                            JEFF          Let's go.      Out.He herds them to the door.      Arleen looks to Rednervously.                        RED          Do like he says, Arleen.      He's          crazy.                                                 CUT TO:EXT. BARN - NIGHTJeff trains the pistol as his captives stand at theentrance to the barn. He glances around, keeping an eyeout for Billy.                        JEFF                 (to Red)          Okay. Reach into your pocket and          hand the key to your wife.                        RED          This ain't gonna work, boy.                                                 (CONTINUED)                                                          97.CONTINUED:                             JEFF                      (jams pistol                       at him)             Do it.Red fishes a key ring out of his pocket and extends it toArleen. She just stands there.                           RED             It's okay, Arleen.      Take it.She takes the keys.                           JEFF                    (indicating                     barn door)             Okay, now unlock it.Arleen inserts a key, opens the padlock.                           JEFF             Good.  Now give me the keys.                    (turning to Deke)             Deke, push the door open.             Quickly.Deke looks at his father. Red nods.         Deke goes to thedoor, begins wheeling it open.                        JEFF          That's enough, Deke.                 (gesturing them                  inside with gun)          Let's go. Move it.Jeff herds all four into --INT. BARN - NIGHTJeff leads the group through the barn at gun-point.He glances right and left, wired. The rifle is strappedto his back. He keeps the handgun ready. He peers underthe tractor-trailer, looking for any sign of Billy.They reach the trap door. Jeff circles it, constantlykeeping an eye on Red and Al. He hands the keys to Deke.                        JEFF          Deke, I need you to open this.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                       98.CONTINUED:Deke looks at his father. He kneels, unlocks the padlockand heaves open the trap door, revealing a narrowstaircase slanting into the cellar.Deke looks down into the darkness and swallows.                           JEFF             It's okay, Deke. There's a             freezer down there with a woman in             it. I need you to let her out.Deke descends the steps, frightened.                           DEKE (O.S.)                    (voice quavering)             I can't see.Jeff jabs the pistol at Red:    Tell him where the lightis.                        RED                 (a beat, to Deke)          The switch is on the right.There's a CLICK and the light goes on in the cellar.Deke lets out a yip of fear.                          DEKE (O.S.)          Dad...                        RED          It's all right, son.     Just ignore          that stuff.Jeff crouches to peer into the cellar.JEFF'S POV - CELLARRoots and mildew hang in strings from the ceiling. Thelight is a bare bulb. There are several distressingly-shaped garbage bags against the wall.BACK TO JEFFHis gaze shifts back to Red.                          JEFF                   (to Deke)          Deke!    You at the freezer?                          DEKE (O.S.)          Yeah.                                             (CONTINUED)                                                          99.CONTINUED:                           JEFF             Okay. You're almost done. Just             open it up, let the woman out.We hear a FREEZER BEING OPENED.                           DEKE             She's all tied up with tape.                           JEFF             You got that Swiss Army knife your             dad gave you?                           DEKE (O.S.)             Uh-huh.                           JEFF             Good man. Use that.   Make sure             you don't hurt her.They wait tensely while Deke works downstairs.                        JEFF                 (to Red)          You better pray she's all right.                          DEKE (O.S.)          I got her --                          AMY (O.S.)          Jeff!!??                          JEFF          Amy!!!                        AMY (O.S.)          I'm almost free!!!                        JEFF          Amy, come up here!Amy climbs the stairs quickly. Scraps of duct tape clingto her wrists. She throws her arm around Jeff.                        AMY          They were going to kill me.                        JEFF          I know, baby. It's okay.       They          can't hurt you now.While Amy embraces him, Jeff keeps the gun on Red and theothers. He gestures toward the cellar.                                                (CONTINUED)                                                            100.CONTINUED:                             JEFF                      (to Red, Arleen, and Al)             Okay.    Everybody in the cellar.Nobody moves.                             JEFF             Do it!Arleen and Al descend the steps.        Red follows, thenstops, halfway down.                           RED             Remember this moment, pretty boy.             'Cause whatever happens, no matter             how far you run, I will hunt you             down and kill you like a dog.Jeff stares back.       A beat, then:                             JEFF             Go to hell.He boots Red in the chest, sending him backward down thesteps. He slams the trap door shut and locks thepadlock.He looks around, sees a massive tool chest.         He tips itonto the trap door -- crash!Then he takes Amy's hand, still keeping an eye out forBilly.                           JEFF             Let's get out of here.They run from the barn.EXT. BARN - DAWNThe first rays of sunlight are beginning to poke over thehorizon.Jeff wheels the barn door shut and locks it.         He sees Amyrunning toward Red's house.                             JEFF             Amy, no!    It's not safe --                       AMY                (turning)         But there's a phone inside.         We         have to call the police.                                                  (CONTINUED)                                                        101.CONTINUED:                        JEFF          One of them's still loose.      C'mon          -- this way!It's too much to explain. Jeff grabs her arm. As theytake off running toward the light flickering in thedistance.REVEAL BILLYlurking in the shadows at the corner of the barn,watching.EXT. FIELD - LONG SHOT - DAWNJeff and Amy are tiny figures sprinting across the flatterrain, illuminated by the red glow of a rising sun.                                              CUT TO:EXT. TRAILER HOME - DAWN (MINUTES LATER)The morning sky is lighter now.A rickety trailer surrounded by a chicken coop, junkedappliances and a clothesline. There's an old utilitypickup truck parked in front. Jeff and Amy arrive out ofbreath. Jeff pounds on the door.                            JEFF          Hello?   Hello?     Anybody home?There's no answer. Jeff puts his shoulder to the doorand rams it open. The flimsy door gives way easily.INT. TRAILER - DAWNJeff enters. The place is ramshackle -- torn vinylfurniture, empty beer bottles scattered about. Atattered flag hangs on the wall. There's no one around.                        JEFF                 (shouting)          Hello? Anyone home?Amy follows him inside, looks around. Jeff crosses theroom, snatches up a phone and dials 911.                        JEFF          C'mon, c'mon...                                              (CONTINUED)                                                      102.CONTINUED:While he waits for an answer, Amy leans the rifle againstthe wall. She notices a set of car keys hanging by thedoor.                         JEFF                 (re: keys)          Take it. We may need to get out          of here --                 (into phone,                  suddenly)          Hello! This is Jeff Taylor. I'm          reporting an emergency... I don't          know the address, the house          belongs to a Red Barr -- I mean,          Warren something... No, I don't          know his name!                            AMY                     (suddenly hearing                      something)          Jeff --A DEEP RUMBLE is approaching, GETTING LOUDER by thesecond...                        JEFF          No -- he kidnapped my wife, he's          locked in a barn... Jeffrey          Taylor. If you contact the police          in --Amy pulls a curtain aside, reacts to what she sees --                            AMY                     (panicked)             Jeff!Suddenly, the ROAR is DEAFENING --The PETERBILT EXPLODES through the wall of the trailerhome!JEFF AND AMYdive out of the way.INT. RED'S PETERBILT - DAYInside the truck cab, we catch a glimpse of Red behindthe wheel, shouting something inaudible. Fragments ofdebris cling to the grille.                                                       103.INT. TRAILER HOME - DAYThe rickety structure spins 360 degrees!Jeff goes flying. A TELEVISION somersaults across theroom and EXPLODES. Amy slams into a wall.The speeding Peterbilt shears away a section of thetrailer home with a horrible RIPPING sound!The trailer home is suddenly open to the sky.INT. TRUCK CAB - DAYRed puts the truck into a hard turn, circling for anotherrun at the devastated trailer.INT. TRAILER HOME - DAYJeff struggles to his knees.                             JEFF          Amy?!Amy is crawling over the debris. Jeff pulls her to herfeet. He grabs the rifle and car keys.                             JEFF          C'mon!They stagger through the gaping hole in the trailer.INT. TRUCK CAB - DAYRed sees Amy and Jeff flee the trailer and head for theutility pickup. He throws the Peterbilt into a turn.YARDAmy and Jeff run for the Ford F100 utility truck -- anaging blue-collar workhorse equipped with side-mountedtoolboxes and a lumber rack bearing a ladder.IN FORDJeff keys the ignition. The ENGINE SPUTTERS. Amy whipsaround to see the Peterbilt bearing down from the side.                             AMY          Jeff, go!    Go!                                           (CONTINUED)                                                        104.CONTINUED:Jeff turns the key. The ENGINE CATCHES!   He throws theFord in gear and floors the gas.The Ford shoots out of the Peterbilt's path!HIGHWAYThe FORD PEELS OUT of the driveway and joins the road,spewing exhaust. It's an old vehicle that doesn'tmaneuver well.IN FORDJeff mashes the gas pedal. The ENGINE STRAINS,BACKFIRING. Amy looks back, sees the Peterbilt joiningthe road.                         AMY           Can't this thing go any faster?!A SHOTGUN BLAST SHATTERS the passenger WINDOW! Amyscreams as glass showers the cab. Jeff swerves wildly.                         JEFF           What the fuck?!He swivels his head right, sees --FIREBIRDkicking up a cloud of dust as it pulls alongside the Fordon the right-hand shoulder.The driver, Billy, is levelling a shotgun through thewindow.JEFFcranks the wheel.                          JEFF           Get down!IN FIREBIRDBilly triggers a BLAST!                                                       105.AMYyelps as the passenger-side MIRROR DISINTEGRATES!    Shewhips around, sees --CADILLAC DEVILLEpulling even with them on Jeff's side. The drive, Al,leers as he spins the wheel and creases the Ford --CRUNCH!JEFFraises the PISTOL and FIRES!HIGHWAYThe Ford is sandwiched between the Cadillac and Firebirdas they race down the highway with the Peterbilt in therear.JEFFlets out a cry as they carom off the Cadillac. Bloodflows in a trickle down his neck. Amy sees it,panicking.                        AMY          Jeff!                         JEFF          It's glass!   Use the rifle!Amy raises the rifle, thrusts the barrel awkwardly outthe window and aims at Billy. She FIRES wildly -- BANG!BILLYgrins as the SHOT WHISTLES past harmlessly. He reloadsthe SHOTGUN, snaps it shut and RETURNS FIRE -- BLAM!HIGHWAYThe BLAST hits the Ford's side-mounted toolbox.     The doorflies open. Tools scatter on the road!                                                      106.BILLYveers away, swearing, as hammers and chisels and powertools hit the asphalt and bounce up into his path.The front end of the extension ladder comes free from thelumber rack and hinges into his path, SMASHING theWINDSHIELD!                         BILLY          Sonofabitch!Billy swears and jerks the wheel, steering away. Heglances up suddenly, sees Jeff aiming the pistol.The PISTOL FIRES!Billy slams backward against the headrest, hit in theface. There's blood everywhere. The car careens towardthe shoulder.HIGHWAYThe Firebird hits a mound of earth, flies through the airand lands with a CRASH!IN PETERBILTRed sees the crash, scowling. He presses the gas andpulls closer, taking Billy's place alongside the Ford.IN FORDAmy sees the Peterbilt advancing. Whipping her head tothe other side, she sees Al raising a pistol.                         AMY          Look out!Al jacks the trigger -- BLAM!    BLAM!ON PETERBILTa STRAY BULLET SLICES the hydraulic brake line running tothe trailer. The HOSE HISSES and whips through the air!IN PETERBILTRed swears and lets the truck fall back, swearing. Upahead is a long, curving downgrade. He taps the brakes.There is a jolt as the trailer bumps the tractor.                                           (CONTINUED)                                                     107.CONTINUED:                              RED             Sonofabitch --He realizes:    The trailer's got no brakes.HIGHWAYThe Peterbilt descends the grade, letting out a RAPID-FIRE BLAT of BACKFIRES. It's gaining speed, bearing downon the Ford.IN FORDAmy turns in the seat, terrified. The truck loomscloser. Jeff keeps the gas pedal on the floor.                              JEFF             Hang on!They are flying into a hairy curve.IN PETERBILTRed struggles to stay in control. Every time he appliesthe brakes, the unchecked trailer jars the cab forward.The Peterbilt races into the curve.Red has no choice. He has to pump the brakes and riskjackknifing or the truck will fly off the roadaltogether.He hits the brakes!HIGHWAYThe huge TRUCK SCREECHES on the asphalt, tires smoking,cab and trailer folding at right angles!Then, unexpectedly, the trailer disconnects from the cab!IN CADILLACFlanking the Peterbilt, Al glances to the side and seesthe trailer come untethered from the cab.Now the trailer is an unguided missile, weaving drunkenlyback and forth across the blacktop.Al tries to swerve away. The trailer streaks toward him.Al SLAMS on the BRAKES, screaming!                                                        108.HIGHWAYThe trailer piles into the Cadillac. There is a hugeIMPACT as trailer and Cadillac are reduced to scrapmetal!And just as this is happening...PETERBILTblasts into the rear of the Ford, jarring it forward witha CRUNCH of METAL and taillights!JEFFslams against the wheel. Amy is thrown against thedashboard. The Ford is being propelled downhill by thePeterbilt.HIGHWAYThe two vehicles are now locked together, gaining speedas they hurtle down the grade.JEFFjams the pistol through the rear pass-through window andFIRES at Red in the truck. BULLETS PING off the grille.The GUN CLICKS empty.IN PETERBILTRed hits the brakes, but it's no use. The bumpers aremeshed. The two vehicles plunge downhill, skiddingsideways.Up ahead, a concrete bridge spans a deep gorge.HIGHWAYThe Peterbilt and Ford fly onto the bridge. The bigtruck glances off a railing. The vehicles suddenly comeunlocked.The FORD plows into the concrete railing with a CRASH!The PETERBILT creams it from behind and caroms away,SKIDDING the length of the bridge before SMACKING theopposite railing!                                                        109.INSIDE ROADJeff grimaces. In front of them, the concrete railinghas broken away. Debris falls 300 feet to the bottom ofthe gorge. The Ford's right front tire hangs in the air.Jeff looks at Amy.   She looks wildly adrenalated, eyeswide.                           JEFF          You all right?Amy looks back at him.   She expels a long breath andnods.Jeff forces his upper body through the driver's windowand looks over the Ford's roof at the Peterbilt.JEFF'S POV - PETERBILTIt's facing them, 50 yards away on the bridge. Theengine is dead. STEAM HISSES from the crumpled radiator.One tire is shredded.There is blood on the broken windshield.BACK TO JEFFsitting in the driver's window. He squints toward thetruck, searching for any sign of Red. There is none.                         AMY (O.S.)          Jeff...                         JEFF          Yeah?                        AMY (O.S.)          Jeff... I can't get out...Jeff drops back into the cab. The dashboard is crushedagainst Amy's legs. She tries to wriggle free.                         JEFF          What is it?                        AMY                 (wriggling)          It's just... I can't get out...                       JEFF         What do you mean?                                            (CONTINUED)                                                        110.CONTINUED:                           AMY             I mean I can't get out!Jeff blinks. He climbs out of the Ford, runs around toAmy's side and yanks the door. It comes open with aCREAK of METAL.Behind Jeff on the bridge, a MOTOR KICKS OVER.   Hewhirls.JEFF'S POV - PETERBILTEXHAUST BELCHES from the smokestacks. Red is behind thewheel. His face is covered with blood. He stareshatefully.With a RASP of GEARS, the Peterbilt lurches forward.BACK TO JEFFHe pushes against the dashboard with life-or-deathurgency.                          JEFF            C'mon, Amy, push!Amy struggles and struggles to free her legs.                          JEFF            Push, goddammit!Amy glances toward the Peterbilt, terrified.PETERBILTcreeps toward the Ford. The truck's grille is smashed.One wheel RIM SCRAPES the asphalt. It gains speed.IN FORDJeff crawls over Amy and tries pushing with his legs.She winces as the metal cuts into her skin. Jeffstrains.                           AMY                    (turning, reacting)            Jeff!                                                       111.PETERBILTrams the rear of the FORD -- CRASH! It jars the pickupfarther through broken concrete guardrail.IN FORDJeff and Amy are thrown forward by the impact. ThePeterbilt's ENGINE ROARS. It's pushing them over theedge!IN PETERBILTRed's eyes burn as he presses the accelerator and forcesthe pickup farther through the broken railing.FORDlurches through the widening gap in the railing.Concrete sails into the canyon. The front tires hangover the void.IN FORDJeff strains against the dashboard. It won't give.     Hewhips around, swearing, and leaps from the Ford.                           AMY                    (panicked)            Jeff?ON BRIDGEJeff runs to the Peterbilt and jumps on the driver's siderunning board, grasping the door handle.Red heaves the door open suddenly. It strikes Jeff'shead with a crack! He falls backward to the ground.IN PETERBILTRed presses the gas, yelling over the ENGINE ROAR. Therailing is giving way. He sees Jeff struggling to hisfeet.                          RED            You think you can come into my            life and fuck with me? Nobody            fucks with me!                                             (CONTINUED)                                                       112.CONTINUED:He looks down.   Jeff is no longer visible.   Red frowns.Suddenly the passenger side door flies open and Jeffsurges into the cab, landing on Red, clawing at his eyes!They grapple in the cab. Red swings an elbow into Jeff'sface -- crack. Jeff drives a fist to his jaw!The steering wheel drifts counter-clockwise as the truckinches forward, ramming the Ford closer to the precipice.Red gets his hands around Jeff's neck as the steeringwheel continues to move counter-clockwise...ON BRIDGEThe truck is no longer hitting the Ford squarely.Instead, the Peterbilt's right front tire is riding upand over the cargo bed, crushing the left side of theFord under its massive weight.IN PETERBILTRed has both hands around Jeff's windpipe.    He glances upfor a second, reacts, but it's too late.ON BRIDGEThe Peterbilt is surging up the driver's side of theFord, using the pickup like a ramp!IN FORDAmy screams as the left side of the cab is flattenedunder the Peterbilt's weight!ON BRIDGEFor an instant, the Peterbilt's front tires seem to hangin the air... then the truck is falling!IN PETERBILTRed and Jeff are thrown forward in the cab, stillflailing at each other, as the truck plunges nose-firstinto the gorge.Then it jerks to a halt in mid-air!                                                       113.ON BRIDGEThe left rear set of wheels on the trailer is snagged onthe thick rebar reinforcement in the crumbled concreterailing.The Peterbilt is dangling nose-down from the bridge!IN PETERBILTJeff slams into the windshield. Red lands on top of him.Loose objects from the cab rain against the windshield.They grapple. Red grabs Jeff's arm and twists sharply,forcing it at an impossible angle. Their faces areinches apart.                          RED            You think you can fuck with me?!He headbutts Jeff viciously -- crack! Blood erupts fromJeff's nose and mouth. Red is about to deliver anotherblow when...... the windshield falls away! The loose items in thecab plummet 300 feet to the canyon floor below.Jeff drops through the windshield opening. He clings tothe center support column. His legs dangle over thehood.Red slips through the opening, his hand locking on thesteering wheel at the last instant.The windshield sails away into the gorge.ON BRIDGEThe iron REBAR GROANS. It's beginning to give way underthe weight of the truck. The truck slips slightly.ON PETERBILTJeff feels the truck shifting. He grabs the windshieldwiper blade with his free hand. The blade snaps away.Red is clinging to the steering wheel. He flails at Jeffwith his feet, swearing. Jeff is barely out of reach.Jeff looks to the side. There is a grabhandle on thecorner of the cab. He reaches with his free hand andseizes the handle.                                                      114.ON BRIDGEThe REBAR GROANS. The truck is wedged against the Ford.As the truck slips, it forces the Ford closer to theedge.ON PETERBILTJeff clings to the handle. He reaches for the passengerside door handle, working his way up toward the bridge.REBARgives away once more and --JEFFscales the cab, finding more handholds.   He climbs pastthe passenger door.Behind him, Red is working his way higher in the samemanner. He grabs Jeff's foot, trying to pull him off thecab.Jeff kicks free and climbs past the sleeping compartment.Red grabs the door handle. Jeff boots the door releasebutton.The passenger door flies open!Red falls away as the door opens. He's clinging to theopen passenger door, suspended over the gorge.IN FORDAmy breathes in sharply, feeling the Ford move closer tothe edge. She struggles to free her legs from thedashboard.                          AMY            Oh God... Jeff...JEFFclimbs higher. The Peterbilt slips again.    Below, Redloses his grip and almost falls.Jeff hauls himself onto the bridge with a final gasp ofexertion. He runs to the passenger side of the Ford.                                            (CONTINUED)                                                        115.CONTINUED:The Ford teeters precariously. Any move could send itover the edge. Jeff can only extend his hand to Amy overthe void.                          JEFF            C'mon, Amy, it's all you now...            you can do it...With a huge effort, Amy frees herself from the dashboardand reaches for Jeff's outstretched hand just as --PETERBILTcomes free from the rebar!AMYtakes hold of Jeff's hand.PETERBILTplummets into the canyon!REDscreams!PETERBILTseems to fall forever... before landing with a hugeEXPLOSION!ON BRIDGEJeff and Amy fall backward on the road. Down below,secondary EXPLOSIONS rock the canyon. Jeff takes Amy inhis arms.                          AMY            Don't let me go, Jeff...                          JEFF            I won't, baby... I won't ever let            you go...He looks into her eyes.   Their lips meet in a kiss andwe --                                              DISSOLVE TO:                                                       116.EXT. RED'S HOUSE - DAYPolice cars and official vehicles are parked outside thehouse. RADIOS CHATTER. Yellow crime tape holds backonlookers and news reporters.Cops and evidence technicians work the scene. Acriminalist photographs stolen property as it's carriedout of the barn.A plainclothes FBI AGENT closes a cellphone and walksover to where Jeff and Amy are sitting at a picnic table.They are battered and bandaged.                        JEFF          How's the sheriff?                        FBI AGENT          Out of surgery. It looks like          he's gonna make it. As for the          wife and kid, she's not talking,          he's being turned over to          Protective Services.Jeff nods soberly.                        FBI AGENT          We've got I.D. on the dead          suspects. Turns out they were all          licensed truckers. One of 'em had          a rap for check kiting. Otherwise          they could've been model citizens.                        JEFF          What about the leader?                        FBI AGENT          Same thing. His real name's          Warren Claney. Three speeding          tickets in five years -- apart          from that, he's clean as a          whistle.Amy watches as cops stack windshields outside the barn.                         AMY                 (dazed)          How could they do it? How could          they treat it like a... business?                       FBI AGENT                (shaking his head)         I don't know. I've been doing         this 15 years, I've never seen         anything like it.                       (MORE)                                             (CONTINUED)                                                         117.CONTINUED:                           FBI AGENT (CONT'D)             It was simple, efficient and             organized. They stayed on the             move, spread it over a dozen             states. As long as no witnesses             survived, it's an untraceable             crime.                    (looking at them)             You were just a couple of the             lucky ones.Up ahead, a television news helicopter is landing on theroad. A cameraman, reporter and producer hurry over.Jeff watches the news crew, a bemused expression.   Itseems like a million years ago...The FBI Agent shakes his head, disdainful.                       FBI                (re: media)         C'mon -- let's get you folks out         of here before things really get         hairy.He escorts them to a waiting sedan. As they climb in,Jeff looks back over his shoulder, surveying the sceneone last time.He gets in and the car pulls away just as the frenziednews crew arrives, mikes and cameras at the ready,running alongside the departing sedan, shoutingquestions.Through the rear window, we see Jeff putting his armaround Amy, pulling her close as we hear:                        AMY          Promise me one thing...                          JEFF          Name it.                        AMY          Next time... we fly.EXT. HOUSE - AERIAL - DAYOver this last line, the sedan drives away, and we CLIMBHIGHER and HIGHER AWAY FROM the bristling crime sceneuntil the ranch house is just one in a town of modesthouses and the pink desert floor spreads out endlessly inevery direction.                                           FADE OUT.                         THE END
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+                             "BAMBINO"                  [ PRODUCED AS "BREAKING AWAY" ]                            Written by                           Steve Tesich                                                       June 9, 1978                                                  FADE IN          EXT. QUARRY OUTSKIRTS - DAY 1          A narrow dirt road totally surrounded by thick vegetation.          Here and there we see a huge block of stone blocking the          road. The sun is shining but it has a hard time making it          through the foliage. In the distance we see four guys          walking TOWARD the CAMERA. There is a swagger to their          walk. MIIÔøΩ is singing. The others are humming along. The          melody of the song of "0 Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie"          but it's a loose version.                         MIME          AND WHEN I DIE...WON'T YOU BURY ME          ON THE"PARKING LOT OF THE A AND P          BLOW OUT THE CANDLES AND BLOW OUT TIE LAMPS          AND LIGHT MY PYRE WITH MY TRADING STAMPS          I HAD TWO BOOKS BUT I NEEDED THREE R          TO DELIVER ME FROM THE A AND P.          I HAD THREE BOOKS BUT I NEEDED FOUR          TO GO TO HEAVEN AND REDEEM MY SOUL.          By this time the four are in front of the CAMERA. Mike is          handsome and well built. CYRIL is tall and skinny. MOOCHER          is very short. DAVE, hanging back a little, is carrying a          large trophy.                         DAVE          Bravo, Mike! Bravo! Bellisimot                         CYRIL          Did you really make all that up?          They pass.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          The presence of the quarry is felt much stronger now. More          and more blocks of cut stone appear. The guys are dwarfed          by them. They have to climb over some.                         MIKE          I sent away for this stuff from          Wyoming. It'll tell you everything.          Since you don't believe me maybe          you'll believe it when you see it.                         CYRIL          And we'd work on the same ranch          and sleep in the bunkhouse          together, eh?          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED '"BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 2                         X          1 Cont.                         MOOCHER          That's the whole point.                         CYRIL          I always miss the whole point.                         MOOCHER          It'd be nice to have a paying          Job again, that's for sure.                         DAVE          Niente laborare. Niente mangare.                         MIKE          What's that mean?                         DAVE          You don't work. You don't eat.                         CYRIL          That's a terrible thing to say.          MED. SHOT          The quarries are felt even more now. Walls of stone rise          up around the guys.                         CYRIL          Are you really going to shave          your legs?                         DAVE          Certo. All the Italians do it.                         MIKE          That's some country. The women          don't shave theirs.                         CYRIL          STOP!          (pauses as if                         THUNDERSTRUCK;          hand on heart)          It was somewhere along here that          I lost all interest in life. Ah,          right over there. I.saw          Dolores Reineke and fat Marvin.          Why? Why Dolores?                         MOOCHER          They're married now.          Coat.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 3                         X          1 Cont.1                         MIRE          You see what I saved you from,          Cyril. Had I not told you about          the two of them you never would          have followed them out here.                         CYRIL-          Thank you, Mike. You made me          lose all interest in life and          I'm grateful.                         MIKE          My brother says he saw you and          Nancy. Moocher.                         MOOCHER          When?                         MIKE          Last Friday?                         MOOCHER          Wasn't me. I'm not seeing her          anymore.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          They are now standing above a huge pool of water with sheer          cliffs on three sides. Abandoned derricks loom in the          distance. Dave is now humming softly a Neapolitan song.          They begin the descent.                         CYRIL          I kind of miss school. You know.          This will be the first time nobody's          going to ask us to write a theme          about how we spent our summer.                         MIKE          Remember the Tomb of the          Unknown Substitute Teacher.                         MOOCHER          She believed us too.                         MIKE                         (TEACHER'S VOICE)          Sex spelled backwards x-es.                         CYRIL          When you're sixteen they call it          sweet sixteen. When you're eighteen          you get to drink, see dirty movies          and vote. But what the hell do you          do when you're nineteen.                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 3-A                         X          1 Cont.2                         MIKE          You leave home.                         CYRIL          My dad says Jesus never went          further than fifty miles from          his home.          Mike is skipping down the rocks toward the water, taking          clothes off as he does. The rest follow.                         MIKE          And look what happened to him.          Mike jumps into the water. Moocher and Cyril follow. Dave          looks on.          FADE THROUGH TO:          DAVE'S P.O.V. 1-A          The guys are swimming. Dave is holding his trophy casually,          enjoying the beautiful day. He pulls out a little          Italian Phrase Book. Finds what he wants.                         DAVE          Oggi fa bello,-non e vero?                         MIKE          Sure thing, partner.                         MOOCHER          C'mon in.                         DAVE          I read where this Italian coach          said you should never swim after          a race.                         CYRIL          Who's swimming? I'm taking a          leak.          Moocher and Mike splash water at him and swim away.          FADE THROUGH TO:                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 4          ROCKS BY THE WATER 1-B          All four guys are sunbathing looking at the water. Deep X          down, at the bottom of the quarry hole we see an old icebox.          Mike is staring at it. The mood is one of total relaxation.                         MIRE          Aren't you glad we got fired from          The A and P. Right now we'd be X          working.                         MOOCHER          We didn't get fired. You got-          fired. We quit.                         MIKE          One for all and all for one.                         MOOCHER          There aren't many places, you          know, that'll hire all four of                         USE                         CYRIL          You know what I'd like to be?                         MIKE          Smart.                         CYRIL          A cartoon of some kind. Man, X          that'd be great. Like when they          get hit on their head with a          frying pan and their head looks          like a frying pan-with a handle          and everything. And then they go          b-r-r-r.          (shakes his head)          And their head comes back to          normal. That'd be great..                         MIKE          How come you're so stupid, Cyril.                         CYRIL          I don't know. I think I have          a dumb heredity. What's your          excuse, Mike?          Mike hits him hard on the arm. Cyril winces. Mike stands up.          He makes sure they're all watching and dives in. The guys          talk as they follow his progress.                         DAVE          You hear from your folks, Moocher?          567 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 5           1-B Coat.          MOOCHER ..          Yeah, my Dad called. He says          there's a lot more jobs in'Chicago.          He hasn't got anything yet.          Mike has reached the icebox. He opens the door. Goes in.          Shuts the door.                         MOOCHER          He wanted to know if the house          was sold. They could use the          money.                         DAVE          You can come and live with me          when it's sold. In Italy          everybody lives together.          All three of them are getting concerned about Mike.                         MOOCHER          Ever since you won that Italian X          bike you've been acting weird. You          really think you are Italian.                         CYRIL          I .wouldn't mind thinking I was          s omebody myself.          All three of them stand up.                         MOOCHER          Maybe the door is stuck. God          dammit!          Moocher dives in. Dave and Cyril follow. Moocher swims          down to the icebox, forces the door open. They surface.          As soon as they hit the surface we hear:                         MIKE          ÔøΩo.s.}          Yoo--hoo .          THE GUYS' P.O.V.          They see Mike standing on top of the rock above them.                         MIKE          It's got no back on it!          He laughs triumphantly. He's ready to dive in again when he          pauses and looks. High above where he stands on the other          side of the quarry hole, we see several figures. The guys          are swimming toward the rocks and looking at the figures too.          5667 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 6          1-B Cont.l          CLOSEUP - MIKE          His face has hardened as he looks at the figures.                         MIKE          What the hell are they doing here? X                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Dave, Moocher and Cyril are standing on the rocks below Mike.          Mike is still on top of the rock. High above him are the          College Kids. Three guys and three girls. One of the guys          is standing on the ledge above the water. Our guys are          looking at the College Kid on the ledge. He seems intent          on diving into the water. It's a distance of at least eighty          feet. He pushes off and dives in executing a beautiful          somersault into a swan dive.          CLOSEUP - OUR GUYS          They are stunned.          CLOSEUP - MIKE          He's obviously envious.. He looks from the diver toward the          guys and seems to feel his position undermined.                         CYRIL          I've never seen anyone dive          off from there.                         MIS                         BASTARDS[                         (CLIMBING DOWN                         THE ROCK)          They've got indoor pools and          outdoor pools on the campus          but they got to come here.          (Joins the guys)          It's my goddamn quarry.          Cyril assumes a very dramatic posture. Sings to the theme          from Exodus.                         CYRIL          This hole! This quarry hole          is mine!                         MIKE          Hey, screw you, Cyril. Let's          get out of here.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6 6. 8 7          EXT. QUARRY - DAY 1-C           They are retracing their steps out of the quarry. Mike is          leading. -Moocher is behind him. Dave is at the end. He's          carrying a huge trophy casually. X                         MIKE          ÔøΩo.s.)          If they re going to come here          then we'll go on‚Ä¢.the campus.          MED. SHOT - MIKE'S CAR 1-D          A racing bicycle is on top of the car. The guys are in the          car and the car is moving fast through the dirt road leading          out of the quarries.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 2           Mike is speeding through the town. A huge billboard with the          Marlboro Man whizzes past us..          INT. MIKE'S CAR          - Mike looks angry. He's got an unlit cigarette in his mouth.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 3          A car lot is on the right. "CAMPUS CARS.",                         MOOCHER          Isn't your dad working today?                         DAVE          (o.s.)          No, the doctor told him to take          it easy. He's taking Sunday's off.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - CITY HALL - DAY 4          City Hall is on the left.                         CYRIL                         (O¬Ä¢S¬Ä¢)          That's where you go to get a          marriage license, Mooch.                         MOOCHER          (o.s.)          Yeah, so what?          Cyril laughs and then howls as he's hit.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" ; 6/16/78 8                         OUT 5 X          EXT. CAMPUS - DAY 6          Huge modern structures are looming in the distance in stark          contrast to the town we just passed through. Mike's car-is          speeding toward them. X          EXT. CAMPUS - DAY 7          Mike's car turns into a street called Fraternity Row.- Most          of the fraternities and sororities-are located along this          stretch. Neat lawns line the area. The houses are enormous:          an architectural mixture of old manor house and modern motel.          The college kids are outside on the lawns. Some are reading.          Girls in bikinis sunbathing. Guys washing their cars. Some          other guys passing the football around. Transistor radios          playing. Mike drives slowly.          INT. MIKE'S CAR          All the guys are looking out of the windows as if they were          in a museum. Mike looks at the expensive cars along the way.          Cyril looks at the Girls in bikinis. Moocher looks at the          huge well-built guys. Dave just looks.                         CYRIL          Going to college must do'something          'to girls' tits. Just look at them.          Campussies and sororititties.          (sticks head out;          shouts to a couple          of Girls) -          Hi, there. What's your major?          The Girls look up and kind of sneer.                         MOOCHER          They sure look like they've          got it made.                         MIKE          That's because they're rich.                         DAVE          Italians are all poor but they're          happy.                         MIKE          Maybe in Italy.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             9          7 Cont.                         CYRIL          I wonder what it's like to kiss          a coed. I wonder about it a lot.          Ahead of Mike's car we see two Guys and two Girls playing          Frisbee. They are standing on the lawns and throwing the          Frisbee to each other across the street. Mike's car is          moving slowly forward when an ill-thrown Frisbee lands on          the street. Mike sees it and speeds up. A Girl is running          to get it but Mike gets there first and runs over it. Dave          gets a quick look at the Girl as she stops"suddenly to keep          from getting hit. The two college Guys run out and give'          Mike the finger. He sees them in the rearview mirror.                         MIKE          Hey, those bastards are giving          us the finger.          He slams on the brakes.                         MOOCHER          Hey, c'mon, Mike. We're on          their turf.          Dave is looking back at the Girl. The two Guys are          challenging Mike, motioning to him to come back. The two          Girls are trying to talk them out of it. Mike-is gunning          the car.                         MIKE          They think they own the place.                         MOOCHER          They do.                         CYRIL          Besides, you've humiliated them          enough. In ancient Japan when          you ran over a samurai's Frisbee          he had to commit suicide.          Just as he laughs Mike shifts the car in reverse. The          two Guys and Girls are standing in the middle of the road.          The Guys are coming forward thinking Mike's going to stop,          but Mike has no intention of stopping. The Girls and the          Guys split as Mike's car roars between them. Once again          Dave catches a fleeting glimpse of the Girl. Having          scattered them, Mike makes a U-turn and drives away in          the direction he came from.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" 8/12/78 10          7 Cont.1          CLOSEUP - THE COLLEGE KIDS          The girl Dave saw, KATHERINE, is looking after the car          holding a cracked Frisbee in her hand. The tall well-built          guy next to her, ROD, her boyfriend, looks real upset.          He is wearing a Little 500 T-shirt.                         ROD          Dumbass cutters. Goddamn          redneck retards.                         OUT 8                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - DAVE 9          riding. A Neapolitan melody plays as Dave rides holding his          trophy:. a romantic song of the south and not southern          Indiana. The small houses could be Italian houses to          Dave. The people sitting on porches and steps could be          Italians. Dave waves like a returning hero.                         DAVE          Buon giornol Buon giornol                         (SPOTS SOME                         SMALL CHILDREN)          Hey, bambino.          The people and the kids look at him like he's an oddball,          but Dave does not notice. A woman is shaking a rug ahead          of him, and she looks so Italian that he can't help but          smile. A big blonde GIRL is coming out of the house          dressed in a waitress outfit. She sees Dave.                         G=          Dave...is Moocher home?          But Dave just rides past her in a daydream.          CLOSEUP - A COUPLE ON A PORCH          They're older PEOPLE. The Man is drinking a beer.                         WOMAN          Tsk. Tsk. He was as normal          as pumpkin pie and'now look x          at him.          The Man lets out a long beer belch.                         WOMAN          His poor parents.                         5 67                                                                                                               REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 11                          _ X          l f T. BLASE HOUSE - DAY 10          MR. BLASE is sitting at a kitchen table. MRS. BLASE is          boiling water. Mr. Blase does not look happy. He's got          a flyswatter in his hand. He sees a fly. Whack. He hits          it. He misses.          MR. BLASE          It's that cologne he wears.          MRS. BLASE          Neapolitan Sunset, it's called.          MR. BLASE          Well, it smells like fruit          punch to me and it attracts          flies.          Mrs. Blase comes over and pours some hot water into his cup.          She takes a package of Sanka from her apron pocket and puts          it in the saucer.          MRS. BLASE          There.          Mrs. Blase looks at the table.          MR. BLASE          This is itl          MRS. BLASE          You have to watch your diet.          MR. BLASE          Diet, if anybody found out I          was on the diet they'd laugh          me out of town. A diet.          MRS. BLASE          You know what the doctor said.          At your age...          MR. BLASE          At my agel What the hell do you          mean at my age.          MRS. BLASE          He says you have a bad heart.          MR. BLASE          Yeah, but it's got nothing to do          with my age. It's our son that's          ruining my heart, Evelyn. What's          he going to do? He wanted a year          with those bums so I gave him a year.                         CONT                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 12                         X          10 Cont.          MRS. BLASE          It hasn't been a year yet.          MR. BLASE          But, Evelyn. Look whatts happened          to him. He's turned into a ity;          It was funny at first but it's not          funny anymore. Ciao, Papa. Ciao,          Mama. Arrivaderchit That's ity          talk.          MRS. BLASE          It's just hero worship. He says          the Italians are the best bike          racers in'the world and he...          MR. BLASE          This is America, Evelyn. Only          paper boys ride bikes and they          earn money doing it.          MRS. BLASE          Re did win his bicycle and he          was quite sickly 'til he started          racing around and in three years          ._          ne's...          MR. BLASE                         (INTERRUPTS)          So now his body's fine but his          mind is gone. He used to be a          smart kid. I thought he was          going to goy to college.          MRS. BLASE          I thought you didn't want him          to go to college.          MR. BLASE          Why should he go to college?          I didn't go to college. When I          was nineteen I was working in the          quarries ten hours a day.          MRS. BLASE          But most of the quarries have          shut down.          MR. BLASE          Let him find another job.          MRS. BLASE          But there aren't any jobs.          567 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/15/78 13          10 Cont.1          MR. BLASE          Let him look at least. Let him          come home tired from looking.          He's never tired.          MRS. BLASE          He's young.          MR. BLASE          When I was young I was tired.          I had my own place at seventeen.          MRS. BLASE          He says Italian families stay          together,          MR. BLASE          BUT WE ARE NOT ITALIANI          MRS. BLASE          I know. It's just that I come          from a big family myself. . .and          it really was kind of nice...          (smiles, half                         EMBARRASSED)          He thinks we should have another          kid.          MR. BLASE          What?t          Dave enters carrying his trophy.                         DAVE          Ah, buon giorno, Papa.          MR. BLASE          I'm your goddamned father, not          papa.                         DAVE          Buon giorno, Mama.          MR. BLASE          She's your goddamn mother.          Whatcha do -- win again?          Dave opens the fridge and takes out a hunk of cheese and a          hunk of salami and starts eating. Mr. Blase looks at him          like a wolf and then he looks at half a grapefruit in front          of him. He finds it unbearable to watch him chew.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "B.ANBINO" - 8/15/78 14          10 Cont.2                         DAVE          Yes, the victory ...she was easy.          But the promoter...'fondatore'          ...He says the Italian team...it          will come maybe soon...and I will          race with the best...ITALIANO. X          Like the nightingale they sing,          like the eagles they fly.          Mr. Blase can't bear to watch him eat. He's starved.          MR. BLASE          Speaking of flies...there's a          helluva lot of flies following          you into the house.                         DAVE          Fly in Italian is 'mosca.'          MR. BLASE          Well in English it's a pest.          And speaking of pests...          Mrs. Blase senses an argument.          MRS .. BLASE          It's a nice trophy isn't it,          dear?          MR. BLASE          Yeah, so what. I've lived fifty          years without ever getting a          trophy.                         DAVE          You never got trophy, Papa?          MR. BLASE          No, never, and what's more...          Dave interrupts.                         DAVE          Here, Papa. I give you. You          are 'Numero Uno.' King Papa.          Dave hands him the trophy. Mr. Blase is stunned. He'takes          it. Before he can even think to give it back Dave kisses          him on both cheeks.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/15/78          MR. BLASE          Don't do thatl How many times...                         DAVE          Now I'have to go and take          a shower.          (starts to leave                         AND PAUSES)          Such a big house and so few          people. I wish I had plenty          of fratelly and sorelly to greet          me when I come home and to wave          when I go.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 15          10 Cont.3          Dave leaves. Mrs. Blase sighs. She too would like a big          family. Mr. Blase is holding the trophy and looking at it.          Neapolitan music is heard coming from Dave's room. Mr. Blase          has had it.          MR. BLASE          There'-s that ity music again. X          I'm going to have it out with          him now.          He goes to Dave's room carrying the trophy with him.          Mrs. Blase follows him a few steps and stops. She waits...          listening. She is apprehensive. She wants to follow and          help Dave out but she stays behind wringing her hands.          Mr. Blase reappears looking quite stunned. He's holding the          trophy in one hand along his side.          MRS. BLASE          What's the matter?          MR. BLASE                         HE'S SHAVINGL          MRS. BLASE          Well, so what?          MR. BLASE          His legs, Evelyn. He's shaving X          his legs. I saw him. His legs.          MT. DAVE' S BATHROOM 11          Huamoing along with the record player Dave is shaving away at          his overly-lathered legs.                         OUT 12                         CUT TO:          INT. DAVE'S ROOM - CLOSEUP - THE STEREO - DAY 13          A record is turning. On top of the dust cover we see an          album cover: ENRICO GIMDNDI SINGS NEAPOLITAN FAVORITES. X          The CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY AROUND his room. There are bicycle          trophies everywhere. Posters of Italian racers. Posters of          Italian movies. Magazine covers and newspaper clippings          from Italian racing magazines. Bicycle parts: Spare          wheels...cranks...pedals. Several bicycle jerseys hanging          on the doorknob.. ENRICO GINSONDI sings during.this tour          of Dave's room. Dave comes out of the shower humming along.          A cat comes to greet him, meowing.                         DAVE          Ah, there you are Fellini...          Hungry, eh?          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 16          13 Cont.          He goes to a drawer and takes out a can of "Chef Boy-ar-dee"          spaghetti and meatballs. Still humming, he opens the can          and dumps the food into a deep ashtray with "CINZANO" written          on the sides.                         DAVE          Mangiare...mangiare...          Be looks at the posters of the bicycle riders. He looks in          the mirror. He takes a comb and combs his hair back in the          "continental" style. Then he smiles. He picks up a book:          "ITALIAN PEASE BOOK" and lies down on the bed to read it.          EXT. MR. BLASE'S USED CAR LOT - DAY 14          A big sign: "CAMPUS CARS."          The car lot is nowhere near the campus but the sign is          considered good business. All around the car lot are other          signs: BEST DEAL IN TOWN. CARS WITH A COLLEGE EDUCATION.          The cars themselves have signs on them: "GRAD SCHOOL          SPECIAL." "ENGLISH MAJOR" PhD" "HOMECOMING QUEEN" "CUM          LAUDE" "MAGNA CUM LAUDE."          CLOSEUP - MR. BLASE AND CUSTOMER          The CUSTOMER is a young college kid. Mr. Blase is showing          him the "HOMECOMING QUEEN."          MR. BLASE          It gets thirty miles to a gallon, X          of course the mileage you get may          vary. It's a beaut, right? Right.          You sure know how to pick them.          Frankly this is the best car on          the lot. Quality product.                         DAVE          (o.s. )          Ciao, Papal          Mr. Blase cringes. Looks up.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's on his bike across the street. He's waving.          DAVE'S P.O.V.          Mr. Blase is looking at his Customer pretending he has no          idea who Dave is. He shrugs and turns his back and quickly          glances over his shoulder as Dave rides away.                         567                                                                                                                             17          EXT. CAMPUS - DAY 15          Students are everywhere and so are classroom buildings. Tall,          new, limestone structures resembling office buildings.          Students sit on the steps outside the buildings. They are          lying around on the grass and walking to and from classes.          All of them have books in hand. The wind is blowing.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's sitting next to his bike on the grass and looking around          at all of them. In his hands he has his Italian Phrase Book:          the book being his admission ticket into this world. It's          obvious he's feeling a little out of place, but he enjoys          looking at the campus world. A campus Police Car drives by          and Dave quickly hides his face in the book. Waits for it          to pass and when he looks up he is struck by something.          MED. SHOT - KATHERINE - DAVE'S P.0.V.          She's coming out of a classroom building with a bunch of books          and papers in her hands. The wind is blowing her hair back.          The CAMERA ZOOMS IN ON her face, isolating her from all the          others, just as Dave is doing.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          His mouth is open. He blinks once. He swallows.                         DAVE          Mama mia I                         CUT TO:          MED. SHOT - KATHERINE          As she's walking, she transfers her books from one hand to          the other. A piece of paper escapes her and flies away in          the wind.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He sees the paper fly away and jumps up.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON KATHERINE          She tries to go after the paper but the traffic keeps her from          crossing the street. The paper's flying away. She gives up,          and turns toward the parking lot just as we see Dave on his          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             18          15 Cont.          bicycle chasing after the paper. He cuts through the cars,          he cuts in front of them. The horns blow. The brakes          screech. All Dave sees is the paper. He's on a mission.          He cuts through the pedestrians crossing the street          maneuvering brilliantly.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - A COLLEGE GUY          He's just walking. He sees the piece of paper flying around          and grabs it casually. Just as he's ready to read it a hand          appears in the FRAME and snatches it away from him. It's          Dave, riding away with the piece of paper in his hand. The          College Guy just stands and looks after him.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON KATHERINE - ON A MOTOR SCOOTER 16          She's driving home. In her rearview mirror she spots          something. A bicycle rider. He seems to be gaining on her.          She speeds up almost instinctively.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - ON THE BIKE          He's. got the paper in his mouth and he speeds up too. He          shifts his gear.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON KATHERINE          She's riding along. She glances in the rearview mirror and          sees Dave quite close behind her with the paper in his mouth.          She shifts her gears too. She smiles a little.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's close enough to shout. He opens his mouth to shout.          The paper flies out but he quickly catches it in mid-air.                         DAVE          Signorina...          He has momentarily lost ground on her but he sticks the          paper in his mouth and pours it on.                         CUT TO:          Cont.                         5 67                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO"_ 8/12/78 19          16 Cont.          ANGLE ON KATHERINE          She's crossing the street just as the light changes. Dave          crosses on the red light. Once again he's nearly hit by          several cars. He follows Katherine up the hill leading to          Fraternity Row. He overtakes her just as. she's about to          turn into the drive leading to her sorority. But Dave is          there on her right preventing her-from turning. She too          almost hits him. She slams on her brakes. Dave slams on          his. They come to a dead stop.                         DAVE          Signorina...You...          He's handing her the paper but then he pauses and pulls it          back just as she's about to take it. He wipes the saliva          off the paper on his jersey, and then gives it to her.                         DAVE          It is yours...no?          She takes the paper and smiles. Then she laughs.                         KATHERINE          You mean you've been chasing          me with this? Well, that's          redly something. Thank you          very much. Talk about chivalry.          Dave is just looking at her. She's never seen anyone look          at her quite like that. She's a bit confused.                         KATHERINE          Well, thanks again.                         DAVE          Is nothing...niente...signorina.                         KATHERINE          What're you...an exchange student          or something?                         - DAVE          Si. I am Italian. My name          is ENRICO GIMONDI. X                         KATHERINE          And mine is Katherine Maxwell.                         DAVE          Ah, Katherinal           Cont.                         367                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 20                         X          16 Cont.l          She likes the sound of this. But the way Dave looks at her          is unsettling.                         KATHERINE          Well, thanks again, again.                         'BYE                         DAVE          Ciao,. Katherina.          Dave'rides away. She looks after him.                         OUT 17-                         19          EXT. MOOCHER'S HOUSE - DAY 20          There's a big CAMPUS REALTY sign outside the house with a          FOR-SALE tacked over it. NANCY is walking up to the screen          door. She knocks. Moocher appears holding a huge barbell          at shoulder height. They smile nervously at each other.                         MOOCHER                         NANCYL                         NANCY          I was just on my way to work...          Come in.          He pushes the door open with one end of the barbell and lets          her in checking the street to make sure nobody saw her. She          goes in. Moocher shuts the other door too.          INT. MOOCHER'S HOUSE - DAY 20-A          The two room house is empty except for a sleeping bag and a          wooden foot locker -- Moocher resumes working with the          barbells.                         NANCY          You know what?                         MOOCHER          No, what?                         NANCY          I'm leaving home that's what.                         MOOCHER          Whatl Where're you going?          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              AiEVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 w 21                         X          20-A Cont.                         NANCY          About five blocks south. I found          a nice little house to rent. It's          so cute I could scream. My folks          said I could have some'of their          furniture from the basement. Maybe          you could give me a hand...moving.                         MOOCHER          Sure...if...If I'm not busy. You          know. How's the Job?                         NANCY          You know what! Frank said if I          keep up the good work it'll just          be a matter of time before I          become a head cashier. I should          go now.                         MOOCHER          Maybe...eh...Maybe I'll walk you          to work. I have to go that way          anyway.          She smiles, happy at the prospect of a nice walk together.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 21          Dave and Cyril are going through the outskirts of the campus.          Dave is riding his bike slowly. Cyril is jogging along.          They go past the Campus Arts Cinema. Dave looks at the          marquee: FELLINI'S AMARCORD. He looks away and then looks          back at it.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 22          Some kids are playing basketball outside a garage. As Cyril          and Dave are ready to go past them Cyril Jumps into the game.          He steals the ball. He dribbles, fades away and shoots a long          jump shot. It goes in. He rejoins Dave but he looks back at          the game. It's clear he misses basketball.          EXT.ÔøΩBLOOMINGTON - DAY 23          Dave is riding his bike. Cyril runs.                         CYRIL          Are your parents asking you          'what you're going to do?                         DAVE          I think they're getting curious.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 21-A                          X           23 Cont.                         CYRIL          I sure miss playing basketball.          I got depressed as hell when my          athlete's foot and jock itch          went away. I was sure I'd get          a basketball scholarship. My          dad was sure I wouldn't. And          when I didn't he was real          understanding. He loves to do          that. Be understanding when I          fail. 'That's all right, Cyril,          I understand.' He even bought          me a guitar because he was sure          I'd never learn to play it.                         DAVE          I'm supposed to take this college          entrance exam.                         CYRIL          You going to go to college?                         DAVE          Hell no. I'm Just curious to          see if I can pass.                         CYRIL          Maybe I'll take it too and flunk          it. My dad's birthday is coming                         UP 0          They part. Dave rides off. Cyril looks after him.          EXT. ROAD - CLOSEUP - KATHERINE - DAY 24          She's driving Rod's Mercedes convertible. She seems          nervous and is constantly looking from the road to the          rearview mirror.                         ROD          Just keep it steady.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             22          24 Cont.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Rod and five of his Fraternity Brothers are riding their          bicycles behind the car.                         ROD          Keep your elbows bent. That's          right. PICK IT UP KATHY!          Thirty an hourl          EXT. FURTHER UP THE ROAD - DAY          Dave is riding his bicycle. A sudden explosive noise of a          tire going flat.                         DAVE                         AHL STROONZI          He puts the brakes on.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Dave is taking the front wheel off. He's peeling the tire off          the rim ready to put on a spare. Katherine is driving toward          him. He sees her. She sees him. As she goes past him she          slows down a little but enough to.make Rod almost run into          her.                         ROD          What the hell you doing,                         KATHY I          She speeds up and she and the bike riders go past Dave.          On the back of the riders' jerseys we see: Little 500.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He looks after them pumping up his spare.                         OUT 25-                         31          INT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT                         32          Mr. Blase is sitting at a table. Mrs. Blase is at the stove          putting food on a plate.          MR. BLASE          Those college kids aren't so smart.          I sold one of my worst cars to one          of them today. They're not so          smart. It's a good thing that          Dave didn't...          Cont.                         5 67                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 23           32 Cont.          Mrs. Blase puts the plate of food in front of him. He looks          at it.          MR. BLASE          What's this?          MRS. BLASE          It's sauteed zucchini.          That does it. It reminds him of Dave. It reminds him of the          kid at'the lot and his contradictory emotions about Dave's          future.          MR. BLASE          That's ity food! I don't want no X          ity food!          MRS. BLASE          No it's not. I got it at the          A and P. It's like squash.          MR. BLASE          I know ity food when I hear it. X          All those -- ini foods. Zucchini          ...Fettuccini...I want some American          food. I want French. fries, da=it.          The cat jumps up on the table.          MRS. BLASE          Get off, Fellini.          MR. BLASE          THAT'S MY CAT! AND HIS NAME'S          JAKE, NOT FELT- NI. I won't have          any -- ini in this house.          (to the cat)          YOUR NAME IS JAKE. DO YOU          UNDERSTAND?          EXT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT 32-A          All the lights are turned off. Dave is sneaking home.          Dave has his bicycle with him. X          INT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT 32-B X          Mr. and Mrs. Blase in bed.          MR. BLASE          He's back. X                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO - 8/12/78 24          EXT. BLASE HOUSE - DAY 33          Dave is putting free oil on his bike. Barking is heard o.s.          A Mailman appears. He hands Dave the mail and continues x          on his way, the dogs barking and snapping at his heels. Dave          picks his 'SPORTS ILLUSTRATED" magazine out of the packet          and walks slowly to the house, leafing through it. He stops          suddenly. He drops the other mail as he.zeroes in on-some          article in the magazine.                         DAVE          MAMAI MAMA I THE ITALIANS ARE          COMING!          He runs in the house just as Mrs. Blase runs out of the house.          They run into each other. Dave picks her up and spins her.          MRS. BLASE          What's the matter?                         DAVE          The Italians are coming to a          race in Indianapolis. The team                         CINZANOI          (lets her go                         AND CROSSES                         HIM ELF)          Grazia tante, Santa Maria.          MRS. BLASE          Oh, Dave, try not to become          Catholic on us. Your father's          quite Protestant.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 34          Dave is on his bike beaming with happiness, zooming down the          street. He hears the dogs barking. He sees the Mailman.          He speeds toward him. Jumps the curb with his bike, and          comes to a dead stop in front of the Mailman. Jumps off the          bike and hugs the Mailman, kissing him on both cheeks.                         DAVE          Grazia, signor, molte.grazia!          The stunned Mailman has no time to reply. Dave Jumps back          on his bike and rides away.                         DAVE                         AVANTIL AVANTIL          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 35          Dave is riding his bike. He's filled with joy and wants to          share it with somebody. He spots a flower shop. He smiles          and heads for. it.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 25                          X          INT. FLOWER SHOP - DAY 36          The clerk behind the counter is SUZY. She was one of the          girls playing Frisbee on page 9.                         SUZY          You want the flowers sent to          Katherine Maxwell.                         DAVE          Yes.                         SUZY          What's the address?                         DAVE          Ah...She's in a sorority...on          Third Street.                         SUZY          There's a lot of sororities there:          Pi Beta Phi, Kappa Kappa Gamma,          Alpha Phi.          Dave is very intimidated by all this.                         DAVE          It said on the front of the          house...it had...X triangle,          triangle.                         SUZY          The CHI-DELT house, eh?                         - DAVE          Ah, yes! CHI-DELT, CHI-DELT.          He is listening to the words.          EXT. FLOWER SHOP - DAY 36-A          Dave-is coming out. Mike's car drives past at that moment.          Mike stops. Cyril and Moocher are in the car.                         MIKE          What were.you-doing in there?                         DAVE          Eli...I...1 sent some flowers to          the CHI-DELT...my mother. Guess          what! The Italians are coming.                         MIKE          Guess what? Moocher's going.                         CYRIL          Talk to him Dave!                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 26          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 37          Mike's car with Dave riding his bike along as they go x          through town.                         DAVE          Where you going, Mooch?                         CYRIL          He's getting a job! Yes, a          job!          EXT. CAMPUS CAR WASH - DAY 38          Moocher is standing outside Mike's car. The guys are inside.          Cyril is-holding onto Moocher's arm. Moocher is trying to          free himself.                         MIRE          'Campus' Car Wash. It's          campus everything. I feel like          some reservation Indian          surrounded by Disneyland. I          thought we were going to.stick          together.                         MOOCHER          I need a job, Mike.          He frees himself from Cyril and goes.                         CYRIL          Don't go, Mooch! They only let          you out on weekends and national          holidays!                         MIFF          Don't forget to write!          INT. CAMPUS STREET CAR WASH - DAY 39 x          A bunch of College Kids are washing cars. The OWNER, a very          hefty, tall man, is talking to Moocher.                         OWNER          You're a little late, but I          guess you won't let it happen          again. Here's your sponge and          here's your rag and there's          your place.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6 16 78 27          39 Cont.          Moocher takes the sponge and the rag and heads for the          car wash. He goes past the punch clock. -                         OWNER          Don't forget to punch the          clock, shorty.                         NEW ANGLE          We see Moocher from the back. He stops suddenly when he          hears the word "shorty." He turns around slowly. He looks          at the Owner. He wraps the rag around his fist. And then,          with a sudden explosive movement, he punches the clock with          his fist, knocking it off the wall.                         MOOCHER          How's that?          He tosses the sponge aside and walks out shaking the pain          from his fist.          E=. CAR WASH          Moocher walks out. Mike and the guys are gone. He puts his          bands in his pockets and starts home. Mike's car suddenly          appears.          Everyone is cheering. Mike's blowing his horn.          Moocher gets in the car.                         OUT 40-                         41          INT. STUDENT UNION - EVENING 42          Jukebox is playing. Some kids are dancing. The place is          packed. Here and there we see T-shirts with "Little 500"          on them. The CAMERA PANS SLOWLY as we hear voices above the          din.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINQ" - 8/12/78 28           42 Cont.                         VOICE ONE          (o.s.)          The S.A.E.'s have their whole          team back. They're all swimmers.          See that guy there. That's          Rod Sommers. He rode.seventy          laps last year in the Little 5.                         VOICE TWO          (o.s.) -          We had Mark Spitz in our fraternity          but he wouldn't ride. -Who's the          girl with him?          CLOSEUP - ROD AND KATHERINE                         ROD          Suzy says this guy's sent you X          flowers.                         KATHERINE          So what? You never sent me          flowers.                         ROD          Who is he, Kathy?                         KATHERINE          Just some crazy guy I met. God,          I don't know what's gotten into          you.                         ROD          And what I want to know is has          he gotten into you, Bath?          She slaps him. Rod looks around to see if anyone saw that he          got hit.- A SHOT of Katherine's girl friend, Suzy. She saw.          She smiles at Rod. He looks away from her.                         X          She gets up. Leaves a quarter for the coffee and leaves.          Rod looks around once again, and once again he sees Suzy          smiling at him. He looks away. A new loud song begins on          the jukebox.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 29-31                         X                          OUT 43-          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 45          Dave is riding in his church clothes. His trousers, as          before, are rolled up to avoid getting dirty from the chain.          He's feeling great. It's a nice day. He's been to church.          He hears the music of Italy in his soul. As he's crossing          an intersection, he sees Moocher and Nancy going down the          street. He pauses...as if wondering whether to join them.          Decides not to. He rides away in his direction. The CAMERA          STAYS ON Moocher and the girl. They are stopping in front          of her house.                         OUT                         9                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/15/78 32          INT. BLASE KITCHEN - DAY 49          Mrs. Blase is making some French fries. Mr. Blase is looking          very neurotic. He's listening to the music filtering in from          Dave's room.          MR. BLASE          I want an answer, Evelyn.          What're we going to do with          him?          MRS. BLASE          I don't know, dear. I suppose          we could strangle him while          he's asleep.          MR. BLASE          That's not funny, Evelyn.          MRS. BLASE          Why don't you talk to him.          MR. BLASE          I'm afraid to talk to him. I'm          afraid to look at him. I'm          afraid if I did, I'd see his          eyes twirling like pinwheels.          Mrs. Blase brings the fries.          MRS. BLASE          The only reason I'm giving you          these French fries is because          you promised to calm down.          Don't expect to get them          again.          Mr. Blase is still annoyed by Dave's music.          MR. BLASE          I can't eat while that noise          is on.          He gets up and heads toward Dave's room. Dave appears          dressed for riding. They cross paths. Mrs. Blase goes to          wash the pan in the sink. Dave sees the French fries on - X          the table. He sits down and starts eating them. The          music stops. Mrs. Blase turns around and sees Dave eating          the French fries. She wants to say something. Mr. Blase          reappears and sees Dave eating his fries.          MR. BLASE          STOPI THEM'S MY FRENCH FRIES.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/15/78 33          49 Cont.          But the French fries are gone. Dave looks at his father x          and mother. He suddenly clutches his heart.                         DAVE          Oh, Mama...          Mrs. Blase is frightened.          MRS. BLASE          Oh, my God. What's the matter?                         DAVE          My heart, Mama. Mio cuorol          MRS. BLASE          It's his heart. It's those damn          French fries he ate.          MR. BLASE          THEY WERE MY FRENCH FRIES.                         DAVE          I am in love, mama, Papa.          (gets up and          hugs his father;          then walks toward                         DOOR)          I have such a pain in my heart.          He walks out. Mr. Blase goes to the empty plate.          Mrs. Blase opens the 'fridge and starts putting all kinds of          food into a bag: cheeses, sausage, the rest of the eggs in          the carton...bacon. Mr. Blase looks at her.          MR. BLASE          What are you doing? Evelyn.          MRS. BLASE          I won't have any heart attack          food in my house. That was          God's warning to us. If anybody          dies around here it won't be on          my conscience.          MR. BLASE          What are you doing, Evelyn?          MRS. BLASE          These are all the food the          doctor said you can't have...          and they're all going out.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 34                         X          49 Cont.l          She is in fact piling them into the trash can. Mr. Blase          looks"on trying to keep his composure.          MR. BLASE          I'm having a nightmare.                          OUT 50          EXT. COUNTRY-ROAD - DAY 51          Dave is combing back his hair in the Italian "style" while          riding. In his other hand, he has his Italian Phrase Book.          He's not''riding very hard. To the right of him,-in the          fields, we see a few cows and horses. Above him, on the          electrical wires, birds are perched like musical notes. He's          riding and humming.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          The CAMERA SWINGS UP PICKING UP the birds on the wires and          Dave seems to be humming a motif created by'their pattern.          The utility poles whiz by faster and faster.          EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY          Dave is facing the opposite way from the way he came. He's          at.a standstill. He puts the phrase book away. His face          changes. He's hyperventilating. A hard competitor's look          is in his eyes. He looks at his wristwatch.                         OUT 52-                         53                         567                                                                                                              35.          EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY 5L          Dave is at a junction of a country road and a highway. He's          about to ride onto the highway. He looks at his watch as he          does. We see a truck behind him making the same turn. As          Dave gets on the highway we see a sign: BLOOMINGTON - 50          miles. The truck follows him..                         CUT TO:          EXT. THE HIGHWAY          Dave is building up speed when the truck passes him.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          Big smile.          CLOSEUP - THE TRUCK          We see a big sign on the back: "CINZANO."                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Dave speeds up and gets behind the truck to use it as a          windbreak.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE TRUCK DRIVER          He sees Dave behind him and speeds up, shifting gears.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He shifts gears.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE TRUCK DRIVER          He looks at his speedometer. He's going forty. He looks in          the side mirror. He sees Dave. He sticks out four fingers.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON THE TRUCK DRIVER 55          He looks at the' speedometer. He's going fifty. He sticks          out five fingers. He can't believe Dave is still there. He          shifts again.                         CUT TO:          567 Cont.                                                                                                                             36          55 Cont.          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's going all out now.. He's in.his highest gear.          ‚Ä¢ CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE TRUCK DRIVER          He looks at the speedometer. He's going sixty, He looks at          the side mirror and still sees Dave. Suddenly he also sees          a red flashing light and hears the siren of a State Trooper.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's still going hard only now there's no truck in front of          him. He looks back over his shoulder and sees the truck and          the State Trooper at the side of the road. Dave continues.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          Sweat is dripping down his chin. Pain is beginning to distort          his face. But his legs move in the same rhythmical motion.          A LONG SHOT          We see Dave and his bicycle disappear down one. of the rolling          hills and then reappear again on the incline.          A LONGER SHOT          Dave is now a dot on the horizon.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He shifts gears and starts to sprint. His face is agony now.          CLOSEUP - A HIGHWAY SIGN          "WELCOME TO BLOOMINGTON: HOME OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY."                         ANOTHER ANGLE          As Dave goes past the sign, he quickly looks at his watch.          He's elated. A huge grin breaks in his salt-covered face,          and he reaches for his water bottle and sprays his head with          it as if it were victory champagne. Ahead of him we see          the Marlboro Man billboard.          CLOSEUP - THE BILLBOARD          We ZERO IN ON a phrase: COME TO WHERE THE FLAVOR IS.          567 FADE THROUGH TO:                                                                                                                             37          EXT. BLOOMINGTON CAPE - DAY 56          Mike,‚Ä¢Cyril and Moocher are sitting on the sidewalk. Mike          is looking at a magazine with the Marlboro Man on the back          cover,                         MIKE          That's the place to be...Wyoming.          Look at that ...praires and          mountains and nobody around. All          you need is a bedroll and a good          horse.                         CYRIL          Don't forget your toothbrush.          You're still in your cavity-prone          years.          A Campus Police Car pulls up.                         MOOCHER          Here comes your brother.          Mike puts a cigarette in his mouth as his brother, a          Campus COP in his late twenties comes out.                         COP          I hear you've been hot-rodding          through the campus again.          I was Just...                         COP          I'll take the car back if you          keep it up.                         MISS          All right, all right.          The Cop is heading toward the cafe.                         COP          How're you doing, guys?                         CYRIL          We're a little disturbed by the          developments in the Middle East          ...but other than that...          The Cop goes into the cafe, As soon as he does Mike acts          tough again.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - 'BAAINO1 - ¬ßZ12/78 38          56 Cont.                         MISS          Camp-pussie cop. Hey, I know          what. Letts all drive to          Terre Haute tomorrow. There's          supposed to be a whorehouse          there.                         'MOOCHER          I'm eh...I'm busy tomorrow.                         CYRIL          That's funny. Me too.          Both of them feel a little guilty. Mike pretends he doesn't          care.                         MIGE          Ah. I never pay for it anyway.          EXT MR. BLASE'S CAA LOT - DAY 57          But it's dark enough to be evening. The sky is black and          it's raining. Mr. Blase stands in the doorway of his office.          He's looking out. For once he's a little relaxed. Nobody          will come in this weather. gets thinking. Maybe he's          thinking about his youth. His eyes fall on his potbelly.          He sucks it in. But he can't hold it in. Lets it out and          goes back to thinking.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - NANCY'S CARAVAN.- DAY 58 X          It's still raining. Moocher is helping the Waitress, NANCY,          carry in a huge chest of drawers. Moocher is carrying it          solo. Nancy.seems worried.                         MOOCHER          I'm fine. I'm fine.                         NANCY          You're so strong.          One of the drawers falls out of the chest. Nancy's X          clothes scatter on the sidewalk. Moocher pauses. Nancy          puts the clothes back in the drawer and then she, too,          pauses as she picks up a long nightgown. She. holds it          against her'body as she folds it slowly looking at Moocher          and he at her, still holding the chest of drawers.                          NANCY X           You know what?           MOOCHER ÔøΩX           No, what?           Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 39                         X          58 Cont.                         NANCY          I'm thinking of getting my          hair done'.          She puts the nightgown in the drawer. Then she demonstrates.,          pushing her hair back.                         NANCY          I thought maybe, something like          this. What do you think?          MOOCHER'S P.O.V.:          He's looking at Nancy. The new hairdo she's suggesting makes          her look lovely.                         MOOCHER          Not bad.          EXT. OUTSKIRTS OF BLOOMINGTON - DAY 58-A          Mr. Blase is driving one of the "fanciest" cars off his lot.          (NOTE: AN OLD LINCOLN OR A CADDY WOULD BE JUST FINE.)          INT. CAR          Mr: Blase is dressed neatly. He's wearing a jacket and & .tie          although it's hot and he's sweating.          EXT. WOOLRIDGE QUARRY SHOP - DAY 58-B          Mr. Blase pulls into the parking lot and gets out. He looks          at the shop. The NOISE of MACHINERY is HEARD from the huge          building. The NOISE gets LOUDER as Mr. Blase walks toward          it, trying to avoid stepping into the Limestone dust with his          polished shoes, but the dust is everywhere.          EXT. SHOP ENTRANCE 58-C          Several CUTTERS are having lunch. They are eating heartily          right outside the shop. The NOISE is EVEN LOUDER but they          don't seem to be bothered by it. One of them looks.                         CUTTER ONE          Well, look who's back.          He has to shout to be heard. The others look.          ANGLE ON MR. BLASE          He's glad to be back but he's also trying to keep a little          distance as if proud of how far he had come in life. He          smiles and waves grandly, his suit and tie sticking out in          this surrounding.          567 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 40                          X           58-c Cont.                          CUTTER ONE          Damn it you don't look like          one of them          Government Safety Inspectors.                         CUTTER TWO          No, a Union Organizer.          They all laugh and get up to greet him. All except one          younger man who continues sitting and eating. The Cutters          slap Mr. Blase on the back, their dusty hands leaving dusty          imprints on his jacket.                         CVITER THREE          We'll start you as an          apprentice again.          MR. BLASE          Like hell you will. I'm j us t          visiting. But if I wanted to          come back I could pick up where          I left off.          The entrance to the shop draws him forward. A couple of the          Cutters accompany him. He takes half of a sandwich from one          of them. It's lunch hour at the shop and the old instincts          are coming back.                         YOUNG CUTTER          Who's he?          Mr. Blase looks back over his shoulder hurt by this remark.          I . SHOP DAY          The NOISE is now DEAFENING. Dust is everywhere and slowly          through the dust we see men working, pausing only long enough          to smile and wave at Mr. Blase. Mr. Blase is finishing off          his sandwich just like the Cutter next to him who walks to          his place leaving Mr. Blase, who has no place here, to wonder.                         CUT TO:                         TM MACHINERY          Huge blocks of stone are being cut by saws...moving back and          forth and back and forth in an almost hypnotic motion ...water          falling down to cool the blades.                         CUT TO:          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 41                         X_          58-C Cont.1          A HUGE WOODEN CHAIR          Mr. Blase's coat is draped over it.                         CUT TO:          Mkt. BLASE          He's driving in wooden wedges into the cut block of limestone.          Water is falling on him.. A toothless old-timer is.grinning          at him. It's hard to tell which is sweat and which is water          on Mr. Blase's body.                         CUT TO:                         THE MACHINERY          Cranes are moving overhead. Huge blades are spinning huge          columns of limestone, chisels indenting grooves.                         CUT TO:          MR. BLASE          He's borrowing a cigarette from a Cutter, lighting it. He's          tired and out of breath. The man moves on to do his work.          Mr, Blase smokes his cigarette looking on...in,love with this          place and yet out of place. A Man is shouting at him. He          can't hear. He finally hears him.                         CURTER ONE          YOUR SON. HOW'S YOUR SON          DOING.          MR. BLASE          FINE. JUST FINE.                         CUTTER ONE          THAT'S MINE OVER THERE.          A SHOT of the Cutter who didn't know Mr. Blase. Mr. Blase          sits down in the chair where his coat is draped. He has sat          in this chair before in the younger days. He feels the          notches in the armrest. He picks up a piece of limestone.          lying along the side of the chair and then he looks the place          over one more time.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 42                         X                         CLOSEUP DAVE 59          He's on a bike. We don't know where he is. It's raining          hard around him. The CAMERA PULLS BACK and we SEE that he's          riding the "rollers", a stationary device on which his bike          is placed. He's outside his house on the porch. He sees          Cyril running through the rain towards him. Cyril is wearing          a yellow,.. rubber rain cape and carrying a guitar.          FADE Tffi3OUGH TO:                         60          INTO BLASE HOUSE - DAY          Mrs. Blase is mopping the kitchen floor. ENRICO GIMONDI          is singing in Dave's room. Cyril's GUITAR is HEARD.          Mrs. Blase pauses in her mopping. There is a look of romantic          yearning in her eyes.          INT.. DAVE' S ROOM - DAY 61          The phonograph is off. It's silent. Cyril, his tongue          between his teeth, is PLAYING a simple melody of one of          ENRICO GINIONDI'S songs. He's gloomy at the start, but gets          happier as he continues.          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's smiling too. He's wearing a hairnet.                         DAVE          That's itt That's the song,          Cyril I recognize it.                         CYRIL          Yeah. Damn right.                         DAVE          Only you'll have to make it          louder. Real loud.                         CYRIL          Don't you worry. I'll make          this catgut meow.          ANGLE ON THE CAT          It gets up and leaves.          EXT. BLASE HOUSE - EVENING 62          Mr. Blase has pulled in and is getting out of his car. It's          still raining, although not as hard. He runs to the house.          Opens the door and the cat runs out startling him a bit.          INT. BLASE HOUSE - CLOSEUP MR. BLASE - EVEMZING 63          He has stopped in his tracks and looks on stunned.                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/1&/78 43          63 Cont.          ANGLE ON MRS. BLASE          She has prettied herself up. A different hairdo. A nice          dress. Some nice makeup.          MR. BLASE          You...eh...you waxed the floor,          eh? Looks nice,          EXT. CAMPUS - EVENING 64          Dave and Cyril are riding double on the bike. Cyril carries          his guitar.                         CUT TO:          INT. BLASE HOUSE - EVENING 65          Candles are lit on the kitchen table. Mr. and Mrs. Blase          are sitting facing each other. Mr. Blase picks up a carrot          stick and chomps on it. Mrs. Blase.chomps on hers.          Mr. Blase is so unsettled by the way his wife looks that he          almost seems to be enjoying the carrot stick.          MRS. BLASE          How about a little mus,.c?                          CUT TO:          EXT. CHI-DELT SORORITY - NIGHT 66          Cyril is standing next to the building. He starts PLAYING          on his GUITAR. Dave is further out, standing in the parking          lot looking up at the windows,                         DAVE                         KA-TIE-RI-NA I          A few lights go on upstairs.                          CUT TO:          INT. DAVE'S ROOM - NIGHT , 67          Mrs. Blase is putting on the Enrico Gimonde album. A SHOT X          of the ALBUM COVER. Enrico looks out at us, smiling. SINGS.                         CUT TO:          EXT. CHI DELT SORORITY - NIGHT 68 X          Cyril is playing the same song that Enrico is SINGING in X          Davets room. We see several Girls ;.n the window upstairs.          One of them is Katherine. Other girls are coming, crowding          behind her. Down below Dave is SINGING.                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAmBiNO" - 8/12/78 144          68 Cont.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's using every gesture of a Neapolitan serenader. Only          they don't seem artificial. He's in the spirit of the          moment.          CLOSEUP - EAT SE=INE          She feels obliged because of her girl friends to look upon          Dave's performance as something corny and silly, but slowly          her face is changing as she is charmed by the song. Her          girl friends hush behind her and they too look on as if          sorry they weren't the ones being serenaded. In the back          Suzy looks on too,          CLOSEUP - CYRIL                         CYRIL          Play it, Cyril!                         CUT TO:          INT. BLASE HOUSE 69          Mrs. Blase is standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She's          looking at Mr‚Ä¢. Blase. Enrico Gimonde is SINGING. X          Mr. Blase is holding a carrot in his hand. He seems ready          to bite it, but some other instinct moves within him and          despite himself, he gets up.          INTa, CHI-DELT SORORITY 70 X          Suzy is on a phone. We HEAR DAVE SINGING o.s.                         SUZY-          Oh, his Rod. I was just          wondering if you knew that          there was a guy here with a          guitar serenading Bath.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - DAVE 7o-A          He's SINGING.          CLOSEUP - SATMMINE          She's 'completely won over. Behind her we once again see Suzy.                         CUT TO:                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78. 44-A          INT. R. BLASE'S BEDROOM 71          Mrs. Blase is in bed. She takes the flower out of her hair          and places it on the other side of her. Mr. Blase is pulling          off his T-shirt. Enrico is SINGING. X          EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT 72          Dave's cat is MEOWING.                          CUT TO:          EXT. ANOTHER PART OF CAMPUS - NIGHT 73          Rod and several of his Frat Brothers are rushing out toward          Rod's Mercedes convertible.                         CUT TO:          EXT. CHI-DELI SORORITY - CLOSEUP OF TEE WINDOW 74 x          The Girls are applauding. Katherine is not there.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Katherine is riding away on Dave's bike. Cyril looks on.          EXT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT 75          The last light goes-out as Enrico Gimonde begins another x          SONG.          EXT. CHI-DELI SORORITY - NIGHT 76 x          Cyril is walking away out of the parking lot still strumming          his guitar. A car is coming up the street.          INT. CAR - NIGHT                         ROD          That must be him. The          bastard.          He slams on the brakes.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Cyril stops strummming. He sees a bunch of guys rushing out          of the car toward him.                         CYRIL          0oops. If I were a cartoon,          I'd go: HELP. And you'd see          my tonsils wiggling in the back.          He starts to run. Rod and his friends run after him.          567 FADE THROUGH TO:                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 44-B -          EXT. CHI-DELT SORORITY - NIGHT 77 X          Dave and Katherine have returned. She's just getting off          the bike,                         KATHERINE          I have to go in.                         DAVE          Buono notte, Katherina.                         KATHERINE          I haven't ridden double since          I was a small girl and I've          never been serenaded. So, it          was a lovely evening.          'Molte grazia.'          She's a little embarrassed by her Italian and Dave, the pro,          gestures that it wasn't so bad. She leans over. They kiss.                          OUT 78          EXx. BLOOMINGTON - CLOSEUP C.IL - DAY 79          His face is all bruised. He's drinking a bottle of Coke'          and walking. Mike, Cyril and Dave are with him. They are          crossing the railroad tracks.                         MISS          He won't tell me who. did it.                         CYRIL          It wax dark. All I can tell          you for sure is that they all          wore Brut aftershave and smelled          of Lavoris. X                         MIKE          What were you doing there by          yourself.          Cyril and Dave exchange looks.                         CYRIL          Just walking.                         MIKE          h T at kind of car did they          drive?                          CYRIL           It was this Mercedes convertible.           Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 44-c          79 Cont.                         MIS          I've seen that car. All right.          They want to fight...wetll give          them a fight.                         CYRIL          Chief Mike plenty brave...but          I say this: We rednecks are          few. Paleface college students          are many. I counsel peace.          Mike grabs him.                         MT          C'mon. Let's find the bastard.          Cyril sees a trash can. He hooks shoots with the coke bottle.          It goes right in, and breaks. He smiles. X          EXT. CAMPUS - DAY 80          Mike's car is moving through the campus. They're all looking          at the cars going by.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANOTHER PART OF THE CAMPUS 83.          Mike's car is parked next to a grassy field. They're all          watching cars going by. Cyril shakes his head. On the field          a bunch of College Kids are gathering for a game of football.          FAME THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON ME FOOTBALL GAME          The College Kids are laughing and playing.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - MIS          He's not looking at cars anymore.. He-'s looking at the game.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON THE FOOTBALL GAME          The game is over. It's getting dark. The College Kids are          splitting up into little groups and going home.          FADE THROUGH TO:                         56 7                                                                                                                             45          INT. MI IS CAR - DUSK 82                         MIKE          I really thought I was a great          quarterback in high school. I          still think so. I can't even          bring myself to light a cigarette          'cause I keep thinking I should-          stay in shape. And you know what          gets me. Living here and reading          in the papers how some hotshot kid          is the new star on the college team.          Every year there'll be a new one and          it's never going to be me. I'll          just be Mike. Twenty-year-old Mike.          Thirty-year-old Mike. Old mean old          man Mike. But the college kids will          never get old...out of shape...'cause          new ones come every year. And they'll          keep calling us 'cutters.' To them          it's a dirty word but to me it'll          just be something else I never got          a chance to be.          He falls silent and sticks a cigarette in his mouth. His          genuine confession has caught everybody,. including himself,          off guard. The guys look at him with sympathy and under-          standing but Mike doesn't like that. He starts the car up.                         DAVE          I...I have to go somewhere.                         OUT 9-                         E          EXT. CAMPUS - DUSK 87          Dave and Katherine are walking together.                         KATHERINE          I've never been to Naples, but          it sounds lovely.                         DAVE          Oh, Napoli. Si, signorina. So          beautiful. We live by the sea.          My Papa, he has a boat...a fisherman.          -_My Mama, she has ten bambini...and          I am eleven. And when I left for          America, they all cry big tears...          tears big like figs...          Ka4:herine takes out a little book from her bag.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             46          87 Cont.                         KATHBRIPIE          Look what I bought. I figured          I might as well learn a little.          She's holding the exact Italian Phrase Book that Dave has.          Dave gestures that the book is no good. '                         DAVE          You never learn Italian from          book. I know that book. No          good.          , They head toward the Union.           INT. ROD'S MERCEDES - DUSK 88          Rod is with a different GIRL. They are driving through the          campus.                         ROD          You haven't pledged any          sorority yet?                         GIRL          No.                         ROD          You should. Most frat guys          won't go out with dormies.          I'm the exception.                         GIRL          You're on the swimming team,          eh?                         ROD          Yep. Breaststroke.          He gives her his cool, full of hints, smile.          EXT. CAMPUS - DUSK 89          Rod's car is going one way. Approaching him from the other          direction we see Mike's car.          INT. MIKE'S CAR - DUSK          Mike spots the Mercedes. As it's about to go past him Mike          shifts his car in reverse and winds up going backwards          parallel to Rod's car. Rod is looking at him. Mike is          looking at him.          Is that him?                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISEn - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 47          89 Cont.                         CYRIL          I guess.          Mike shifts the car into first and waits for an opening to          make a U-turn.          INT. ROD'S CAR - DUSK                         GIRL          Who were they?                         ROD          A bunch of cutters.                         GIRL          What are cutters? X                         ROD X          Townies.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON MITTS CAR 89-A          He finds a gap in the traffic and makes a U-turn.          EXT. STUDENT UNION - DUSK          Rod pulling in. Stops. Reaches over casually but          deliberately and opens the door for the Girl.          INT. STUDENT UNION - NIGHT 91          The Student Union is a large L-shaped affair. Music is          playing.- A few people are dancing. The-rest are seated          at tables. The place is packed -- at least In the long          part - of the L. In the short part of the L, away from-all-          this., and'-out of view of the hordes, are a few other people.          There we see Dave and Katherine. A WAITER is coming up to          them.          CLOSEUP - DAVE AND KATMRXNE                         DAVE          Due capuccino, por favors. x          The Waiter grunts.                         X          EXT. STUDENT UNION - NIGHT 92           Mike's car is parked next to the Mercedes. The guys are           looking at the car and then looking at the forbidding entrance          to the Student Union.          567 Cont.                                                                                                                             R W           92 Cont.                         CYRIL          We can't go in there.                         MIE          Oh yeah! Watch this.          All three of them start up the long stairway leading to the          fortress-like Union.          INT. STUDENT UNION - NIGHT 93          Rod and his Girl are looking for a place to sit. Seeing no          empty spots in the area they head toward the area where Dave          and Katherine are sitting. Just as they're about to turn the          corner and probably see them somebody gets up and Rod takes          the table.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE AND KAT HEBINE 93-A          They are drinking their coffee.                         KATHERINE          It's kind of nice to hear of          somebody who misses his parents.                         DAVE ¬Ä¢          Certo, I miss. Just like you          miss your Mama and Papa.          I hardly miss them. I went as          far as I could to get away from          them.                         DAVE          Ah, but they miss you, eh? At          home they sit and look at your.          picture: Ah, they are saying,          how we miss our Katherina, our          bambina...          Katherine is near tears. The homelife Dave's describing is          obviously not hers. Not wanting to cry she takes out a          cigarette and a lighter and Dave, being a continental          gentleman, takes the lighter from her. He doesn't know what          to make of it. He fiddles with it and then strikes and a          huge jet of flame shoots out. Dave-is frightened. He lets          go of the button, but the lighter is stuck and the flame is          still burning., He blows'on it. He shakes it. Katherine          starts laughing. Finally, in desperation Dave pours coffee          on the lighter and it goes out.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             49          93-A Cont.                         DAVE          You shouldn't smoke.. I go          bring more coffee.          He takes the cups toward the self-service cafeteria line.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON MIKE, MOOCHER AND CYRIL 94          They are standing in the Uhion wondering where to go. They          look lost and intimidated but trying to look tough. Dave          appears in their field of vision at the end of the cafeteria          line but they are looking elsewhere.. Just as they seem to          turn and see him Mike spots a tall BLOND GUY, very much          like Rod, going into the bowling alley.          There he is.          Our trio heads for the bowling alley.                          CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE CAFETERIA LINE 95          Dave is standing directly behind Rod. In front of Rod are          several hero-worshipping Guys listening to Rod.                         ROD          The only way to train for          bike racing is what we do in          swi g : Interval training.                         DAVE          The Germans... . they use interval          training and the Italians... they          don't. The Italians... they beat          the pants off Germans.          Dave thinks this is funny and laughs. Rod turns around and          gives him a scornful look. Dave recognizes-him. Rod doesn't          recognize Dave.                         CUT TO:          INT. THE BOWLING ALLEY 96          Mike, Cyril and Moocher are standing behind the Blond Guy          they followed. Cyril is goofing around with a bowling ball.          He sticks his finger in the hole. The Blond Guy turns          around. He sees the three guys staring at him.                         BLOND                         (VERY GAY)          567 Hi there, want to roll some balls?                         CUT TO:                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8 12/78 50                          OUT 97 X          INT. STUDENT UNION CORRIDOR 98          Mike, Moocher and Cyril are leaving the bowling alley.          Cyril is trying to hide the ball he's carrying. His finger          is stuck in the hole.                         CYRIL          I can't get it out.          College rids are looking at them. It's obvious who they are.          Mike is leading. the way but even he's feeling out of place.                         CYRIL          My finger can't breathe[          As some busty Coeds go past him:                         CYRIL          Hi, what's your major?          They enter the long part of the L-shaped room.                         MIRE          Looks like he left.          The trio starts heading toward the revolving door. They pass          Rod's GIRL. She's sitting alone. Cyril stops.                         CYRIL          And what's your major?                         GIRL          Sash.          Rod shows up carring a tray of drinks. Cyril looks up.          Mike sees him. It's clear he wishes he didn't. Moocher          resigns himself to the inevitable. Starts wrapping a          handkerchief around his fist. Cyril is cringing.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             51          98 Cont.                         CYRIL          That's a nice major...Sosh.                         ROD          What're you cutters doing here?          Did you get lost.          No.                         ROD          Then why don't you get lost now.                         CYRIL          Oops. I feel like that cartoon          again.          A bunch of Rod's cronies sitting nearby-laughs. They crowd          in around the cutters. Cyril and Moocher look at Mike for          guidance. Mike is on the spot. It's not that he's afraid          of a fight, it's just that he's on a foreign turf.                         MIIE          Is,..is that him, Cyril?          Cyril gets the cue.-                         CYRIL          I...I don't think so.                         MOOCHER          Let's get out of here.                         ROD          Smart move, shorty.          This is all Moocher needs. He hits Rod right in the tray          Spilling the drinks all over him. Rod falls back knocking          the table down. His friends jump up to his aid. Our guys          are surrounded. The only opening is the cafeteria line.          Mike is hit and falls back knocking down a tail row of plates,          saucers, cups. Cyril is swinging the bowling ball around          himself for protection. More rows of plates fall as the          ball hits-them. The College Guys, led by Rod are trying to          advance but our guys are throwing plates and maybe even food          at them. The College Guys are throwing back what they can.          Cyril's ball flies off and hits somebody in the stomach.          By now its a free-for-all.                         CUT TO:          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             52          98 Cont.1          ANGLE ON DAVE AND KATHERINE          They are all alone now. Everybody on their side has left          to see the fight. They get up too to have a look.                         CUT TO:          DAVE'S P.O.V.          He sees his friends surrounded and battling back. He wants          to help but Katherine is right there.          KATHERINE'S P.O.V.          She sees Rod.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          The fight is going at full blast.                         KATHERINE          What's going on.                         GIRL          Just some cutters making trouble.,          Dave'-is stung by this remark. He plows into the fight.          Katherine grabs rim and tries to pull him away. She can          not tell which side he is on. Through the revolving doors          the Campus Police arrive'led by Mike's brother.                         KATHERINE          We go now.          Katherine takes Dave by the Arm.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE CAMPUS POLICE          They are breaking up the fight. Mike's brother looks          angrily at Mike and the guys as he pulls Rod away.                         ROD          The cutters started itt          CLOSEUP - MIKE'S BROTHER          His anger changes direction as he looks back at Rod.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 53          ESTABLISHING SHOT - THE DOOR OF THE PRESIDENT OF 99                         THE UNIVERSITY          INT. PRESIDENT'S OFFICE - CLOSEUP - ROD - DAY          He's well-dressed. Jacket and tie. The CAMERA PULLS BACK.          A dozen other student "leaders" are there. One of them is          black. The PRESIDENT is at his desk. On his far right we          see Mike's brother sitting alone.                         PRESIDENT          Most of you will only spend four          years here but to a lot of us          Bloomington is our home and .1          don't like the way you are behaving          in my home. These needless          hostilities have happened before.          They will not happen again. If          you feel compelled to compete with          the kids from the town then you          will do it in a different arena.          I am looking at a plan to open          our intramural program to them.          And as a starting point, in          consultation with Mr. Armstrong,          we have decided to expand the          field of this year's Little 500          to include a team from the town.          A loud protest is heard from everybody.                         ROD -          But, sir, they're not good enough...          Having them in the race...                         BLACK GUY                         (INTERRUPTS)          The whole thing reeks of          tokenism.          Everybody, even Rod, looks at him. It's sort of like: What          are you talking about.          EXT. DAVE'S HOUSE - DAY 100          Dave is on the bike. Cyril is walking.                         CYRIL          The funniest part is that          tough-guy Mike didn't get a          punch in. You should've          been there.                         DAVE          I have to go. x          567 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 54                         X          100 Cont.                         CYRIL          Are you going to see Katherine.,                         DAVE          I...I have to go train. The          Italians will be here soon. CtA.o,          Cyril'. -          He rides away.          EXT. COURTHOUSE - DAY - 101          Moocher and Nancy are standing outside. Moocher is fishing          through his pockets for money.                         NANCY          I'll pay for it.                         MOOCHER          What do you mean...I've got money.                         NANCY          We can go Dutch.                         MOOCHER          On a-marriage licenses                         NANCY          You know what?          What?                         NANCY          I'm scared.                         (GIGGLES)          But I like it.          Dave rides past them.          DAVE!S P.O.V.:          He looks at them just as they goinside.          EXT. INTERSECTION - DAY - 102          Dave is riding. The light is turning yellow. He speeds up          to make the light. A car going at a right angle to him has          to come'to a screeching halt to avoid hitting him. It's          Mr. Blase with a CUSTOMER and his Family. The car stalls.          Dave looks back over his shoulder. Sees his father and waves.          Cont.                         5 67                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 55          102 Cont.          INT. MR. BLASE'S CAR          He's beginning to cringe, but tries to be confident. He          tries to start the car up. He's blocking traffic and horns          are blowing. The car won't start.          MR. BLASE          Oh, damn. You know what? I put          premium gas in this baby by          mistake. It hates expensive.gas.          He tries to laugh about this, but nobody in the car is          .buying the story.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - CLOSE UP - A CAMPUS TOWING 103          TRUCK - DAY          The CAMERA MOVES BACK and we SEE Mr. Blase and the Family          sitting in the car getting towed.          INT. MR. BIASE'S CAR          Mr. Blase is draped over the wheel, his head down. The kids          are crying.          MR. YORK          Will you please stop crying. The          car didn't really die. It's just          an expression.          INT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT 104          Mr. Blase is shaking with hostility. He's trying to drink          a glass of milk but it's spilling.          MR. BLASE          I should have hit him when I had          my chance.' He'd be dead now. No          more worries.          MRS. BLASE          I'll talk to him, dear. I'll tell          him he'll either have to get a job          or go to college.          MR. BLASE          Collegel So he can thumb his          diploma at me.          INT. DAVE'S ROOM - NIGHT 105          He's lying on the bed exhausted but listening.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" 8/12/78 56           105 Cont.           MRS. BLASE          (o.s.)           Dave's never thumbed anything at          anybody.           MR. BLASE          (o.s.)          That's because he hasn't been to          collegeI Besides he's probably          too stupid to get in.          MRS. BLASE          (o.s .)          Don't say that. He'll hear you.          MR. BLASE          I don't care. It's my house. He' X          doesn't understand English anyway.          MRS. BLASE          I'm sure he'll find a job somewhere. x          R M . . -BLASE          He couldn't get a job to save'his x          life. He's worthless, Evelyn.          I could die of shame everytime I'          see him, goddamn lazy freeloader..                         OUT 106-                         LOG          EXT. QUARRIES - DAY 110          Similar SHOT as the opening of the film. Voices and laughter          O.s.          MED. SHOT          Rod, Katherine, Rod's teammates and their Girls are walking          through-the quarries.                         ROD          I discovered this place. It's          really something. Wait 'til you          see it.                         X          EXT. QUARRY HOLE - DAY 111          Mike, Cyril, Moocher and Dave are sitting on the rocks above          the water. The mood is quite different from the last time          they were here. There is physical and emotional distance          between them.          And why not?                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 57                          X           Ill Cont.          DAVE,          I Just...eh...don 't want to be in          the Little 500.                         MIKE          Christ, I thought youtd Jump at          the chance.                         DAVE          Well, I Just...          He'looks at Cyril. Cyril knows why he doesn't want to be in          it.                         DAVE          Don't want to be seen with all          those College Kids.                         MIKE          That's the whole point.. They all          be there we can beat those          shitheads in front of everybody.                         MOOT;8ER          It takes four guys to have a team.                         MIRE          We-got four. We all enter just to          get in and Dave rides the whole          thing and we win.                         DAVE          Sure...it's just that...eh...I'll          be working that day.                         WORKING I          Dave has said it and now feels he has to stick with it.                          DAVE           Yes, I'm getting a job.                          MIKE          By yourself.                          DAVE          Yeah, I need the money.                         MIKE          Oh, that's just great. You're a          real pal, Dave.                         MOOCHER          567 Look, the time comes when we all...          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBIRO" 8/12/78 57-A                         X           111 Cont.l                          MIKE          - '(interrupts) ,          I wasn't talking to you.                         MOOCHER          I don't give a damn. You're not,          a quarterback here, you know.                         MIKE          At least I was once( Which is one          helluva lot. better' than being a          midget all my life.          Moocher is stung by the remark. But he controls his normal          reaction with difficulty.                         DAVE          Hey, c'mon.          Cyril is very upset by all this. He's starting to cry.                         DAVE          Hey, bambini, the Cosa, eh?                         MIKE          Just drop that Italian shit, eh?          I'm so sick of that shit.          A pall falls over the group. Moocher and Cyril feel bad'for          Dave.. Dave's smile vanishes. He feels a little foolish          himelf. Mike is almost sorry he said what he did but having          said it he feels compelled to continue.                         MIKE          Driving you to bike races. What the          hell am I your private chauffeur or          something. I don't ever remember-          you paying.for the gas. Sure, it's          fun to win. Get all the glory for          yourself but when it comes time to          do something for the rest of us...          Shit. I think you're just afraid          of those college guys.          And you're not?                         MIKE          The only thing I'm afraid of is          wasting the rest of my life with          you guys.                         CYRIL                         (THROUGH TEARS)          I thought that was the plan. We'd          waste the rest of our lives          together.                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              QED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16 ,_ 58                         X          111 Cont.l          Mike stands up. He's ready to walk away. He pauses          suddenly... On the other side of the quarry he sees Rod          and his group. Dave sees Katherine and without making it          obvious to the others leans back behind a rock.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Mike is looking at Rod. Rod sees him and just stands there.          His friends, Katherine included, seem to be trying to get          him to leave. But he doesn't. Mike feels the eyes of his          gang on him. He gestures to Rod to come in the water. Mike          runs up his rock and dives in. Rod dives off his side.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          The two of them are swimming toward each other.          CLOSEUP - THE CUTTERS                         CYRIL          They're going to race.                         DAVE          What the hell's he doing.          That guy...          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             59          'Ill Cont.1          CLOSEUP - ROD AND MI1          They are side-by-side. Rod is smiling. Mike takes off          toward one end of the quarry swimming as fast as he can.          Rod lets him go. Looks up at his friends and takes off          after hiu. Mike is splashing clumsily but going as hard          as he can. Rod is smooth and powerful. He catches up to          Mike. He changes from breaststroke to backstroke. It's          all so easy for him.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's staying out of sight of Katherine. He's feeling quite          badly for having to hide.          CLOSEUP - THE RACE          Rod has reached the "all of the quarry and is waiting. Mike          reaches the wal?...a:rhausted and starts back again. Rod          seems amused. He thc,3ght the race was over. He takes off          after Mike imitating the way Mike is swimming. His friends          laugh.          CZ,OSEUP - THE Cb i-x S          All three of our guys are feeling badly for Mike.          CLOSEUP - THE RACE          Once again Rod is waiting by the wall. Mike shows up. He          can't see the edge. He hits .t with his head and starts          bleeding. But he pushes off and starts going back again.          Even Rod is getting to feel a little bad.          CLOSEUP - THE CUTTERS                         OCHER          How long is he going to keep          going?                         CYRIL          Not much longer. There won't          be an water left the way he's          splashing.          ON THE RACE          Mike seems to be half-drowning. He can't see where he's          going. He's no longer swimming in a straight line. His head          is bleeding and he's running into the edges of the quarry.          Hitting them with his hands. His hands are bleeding too.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" $ 2 60          111 Cont.2          But he continues, splashing pathetically and yet defiantly          through the water.          CLOSEUP - ROD          He's no longer swimming. He's quite perplexed that Mike          keeps going. Isn't it clear he lost?          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON ROD AND HIS GROUP          They are leaving the quarry.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He watches Katherine disappear. He's angry with himself.          He jumps out of his hiding place into the water.          CLOSEUP - MIS          He's swimming in a total daze. Blood is dripping down his          face. Dave is swimming toward him. Moocher and Cyril are          behind Dave.          Mike's arms go around Dave's neck. He's smiling a little          through his pain. As he relaxes he lets his weight-sink          on Dave and Dave sinks under water.                         OUT 112-                         114          INT. NICK'S BAR AND GRILL - NIGHT 115          Mr. Blase is sitting at the bar.          MR. BLASE          One, more. And make it a double.                         NANCY          Haven't you had enough, Mr. Blase?          MR. BLASE          I've had enough'of your lips          that's for sure. I said I want          a double and I want a double          'on the double.'          Nancy looks at the OWNER of the place. He nods to her to do           as he says. Nancy then goes and picks up the phone. X           Dials.           Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMNO" - 8/25/78                         NANCY          Mrs. Stohler. This is Nancy          down at Nick's. I think you          better come down.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON MRS. BLASE          She is rushing in through the door of the Bar and-Grill.          Mr. Blase is still at the counter. Nancy greets her as          she comes in.          MRS. BLASE          Now much did he have?                         NANCY          Well, he started off with a          single order of French fries.          Then he had some onion rings.          And then he ordered a double          order of each. Right now he's          on a cheeseburger deluxe.          She's heard-enough. She rushes to Mr. Blase.          MRS. BLASE          C'mon dear. You've had enough.          Mr. Blase has a mouthful. He speaks through it.          MR. BLASE          Leave me alone.          MRS. BLASE          Oh, you've got catsup all over          your shirt. C'mon. Let's go          home .          EST. BL OMINGTON - NIGHT 116          Mr. and Mrs. Blase are walk.          MR. BLASE          I'm just tired of it, Evelyn.          It= tired of worrying about him.          Who'd hire a guy like that? He'll          wind up a bum.. An Italian bum.          MRS. BLASE          You could use some help. What          if you gave 'him a job?          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED -"BAMBINO" -_8112/78 62                         S          116 Cont.          MR. BLASE          I don't want him selling used          cars.          MRS. BLASE          Why not? If it's good enough          for you...          MR. BLASE          Who says it's good enough for me?          MRS. BLASE          You do.          MR. BLASE          Damn right it's good enough for          me. But...I don't need help.          Besides...he'd ruin me if I hired          him. A weirdo like that...          It's clear that Mr. Blase has higher hopes for Dave which he          has difficulty admitting even to himself.          INT. DAVE'S ROOM - NIGHT 117          Dave is sitting in his room and looking around.' The room          looks empty and lonely. 'Dave is looking at-his          SPORTS ILLUSTRATED magazine.          CLOSEUP - THE PICTURE OF THE ITALIAN TEAM          We see four smiling riders with their arms around each other.          There's a caption underneath the picture: TEAM CINZANO TO RACE          INDIANAPOLIS.          A car is heard pulling up into the drive. Dave looks up.          INT.- BLAU KITCHEN - NIGHT 118          Mr. and Mrs. Blase are walking in. Dave is waiting for          them.          MR. BLASE          I want to talk to youl                         DAVE          Yes, Papa. I want to talk to you too.          MR. BLASE          You know what you're going to dol                         DAVE          I'm going to get a job.          567 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" --8112/78 63                         X          118 Cont.‚Ä¢          This was the very thing that Mr. Blase wanted to say. He          feels robbed of not getting'a chance to say it.          MRS . ,BLASE          You see.          MR. BLASE          I see nothing. Where're you          going to get a job.                         DAVE          This-car-.wash place is still          hiring.          MR. BLASE          Car wash! Car washl You should've          died when you had the German Measles.          No son of mine is going to wash cars.          EIS. MR. BLA.SE'S CAR LOT - DAY 119          Dave is washing one of Mr. Blase's cars on the lot. He's          whistling a Neapolitan song as he does. Mr. Blase looks on.          He's unhappy to see Dave there. And he's unhappy because          Dave seems happy.          MR. BLASE          ,Hey, no whistling. You're a          shag boy, so- shag. If I wanted          whistling, I'd get a bird.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's washing cars. He stops whistling and washes eagerly.          The-sun's reflected in the car's windows.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON, DAVE 119-A          washing another car., In the windows we see a reflection of          Mr. Blase's neon signs. It's evening. Mr. Blase shuts the          sign off.          M R . BLASE          How're you feeling?                         DAVE          Tired, Papa.          Cant.                         56 7                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12t78 64                         X          119-A Cont.          MR. BLASE          Exhausted?                         DAVE          Yes.          MR. BLASE          Good. You might as well get used          to it. From now on it's more of the          same. Let's go home.                         DAVE          I have to train.          EXT. BLOOMINGTON - NIGHT 120          Dave is riding his bike. A car comes toward him with its          headlights on and as they go past him:                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE AT WORK 121          He's scrubbing a hubcap. We see his face reflected in it.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE TRAINING - NIGHT 122          Once again as the approaching car lights go past him we:                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE AT WORK 123          He's waxing a car. He sees Mike, Cyril and Moocher driving          past in theirs, waving at him. He waves back. We FOLLOW the          car as it disappears and then:                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE AT WORK          He's hc3ing down a car. A group of Fraternity Guys go past          the lot on their bikes. Rod's at the head. They're all          wearing Little 500'T-shirts. Dave looks after them.                         CUT TO:          EXT. BLASE CAR LOT - DAY 124          It's raining. Mr. Blase is standing in the doorway of his          office looking out. Dave is riding the "rollers" and eating          his lunch. There's nowhere to hide from the rain so he's          getting wet. He looks tired. He's thinking of the Italians.          As he turns his legs we see: THE PICTURE OF THE ITALIANS          FROM THE COMPETITIVE CYCLING MAGAZINE: FOUR OF THEM, ARMS          AROUND EACH OTHER, SMILING. Then we see another picture,          Dave is in the middle of the Italians. He has his arms          around them. He's smiling just like they are.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             65          124 Cont.          CLOSEUP - DAVE ON.TEE ROLLERS          He's smiling at the image he sees. His eyes are closing.          He loses his balance and falls off the rollers on the ground.          (The above sequences should be accompanied by music from          Dave's Italian recordings. The music stops when he falls          off.)          T. CAMPUS CAFE - NIGHT 125          Dave and Katherine are having coffee. Dave looks exhausted.          He's ready to fall asleep.                         KATHERINE          Are you all right?                         DAVE          Si...T. just study too hard.          I have big exam tomorrow.                         KATHERINE          Are you going back to Italy          in the sunmter ?                         DAVE          Si,..My papa needs help.                         KATHERINE          Well, I called up my parents.          I'm getting a graduation present.          We can go to Italy together.          Dave suddenly seems to wake up.                         DAVE ¬Ä¢          Maybe I have to go to summer          school.          EXT. MR. BLASE 'S CAR LOT - DAY 126                         DAVE          Papa...can I have this Saturday          off?          MR. BLASE          Hell no.                         DAVE          Just this once. You see the          Italians are coming Saturday.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             66          126 Cont.          MR. BLASE          I don't care if the second          coming's coming.                         DAVE          But I've waited so long.          MR. BLASE          No. N-double 'o' NO-0.                         (LOOKS)          Oh.          MR. BLASE'S P.O.V.          We see one of Mr. Blase1s cars. The Homecoming Queen. A          bunch of College Kids are pushing it into the lot.          MR. BLASE          You stay out of this.                         OUT 2 -                          1 7 7                          1 2 8          FADE TEROUGH TO:          EXT. MR. BLASE CAR LOT - DAY 129          Mr. Blase is standing in front of the Homecoming Queen.- He's          got his hands on the hood and is pushing. The KID who          bought it is at the other end with his friends. They are          pushing the other way.          MR. BLASE          What guarantee?                         SZD          You gave me your word.          MR. BLASE          On paper? Can I see it on          paper?                         KID          There was no paper. You gave          me your word.          MR. BLASE          I don't remember giving my word.          (pushes on the car)          Now get this car out of here.          Dave appears next to him.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             67          129 Cont.                         DAVE          You did, Papa. You gave him          your word. I heard you. We          are poor, but we're honest.          Mr. Blase is stunned.          MR. BLASE          What? Who're you?          He starts to push real hard.                         KID          All I want is a refund.          MR. BLASE                         REFUNDI REFUNDL                         (REALLY STARTS                         PUSHING HARD)          Are you crazy? Refundl          He's getting very red in the face. Hess pushing for all he's          worth. The Kids are pushing the other way. Mr. Blase          becomes a fanatic. His veins are swelling on his neck. The          world becomes'all blurred through his eyes, but he pushes.          MR. BLASE                         RE-FUNDL RE-FUNDL          Suddenly the world starts to spin for him. He clutches his          chest. He's ready to fall backwards, but with the last gasp          of willpower, he gets himself to collapse forward on top of          the hood.          INT. MR'. BLASE' S BEDROOM - DAY 130          A DOCTOR is listening to his heart with a stethoscope.          Mr. Blase is in a coma of sorts. He's muttering something.          It sounds very much like "Refund...no refund." The Doctor          prepares an injection.                         CUT TO:          INT. THE KITCHEN 131          Mrs. Blase and Dave are sitting at the table. The Doctor          comes out of the bedroom. Dave and Mrs. Blase stand up.                         DOCTOR          Well, it's not a stroke, and          he won't croak, as we say.          Cont.                         56 7                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 68                         X          131 Cont.          DOCTOR (Cont.)          (laughs at his own          epigram, and lights                         A CIGARETTE)          Seriously, Evelyn. He's in          terrible shape. He's a Mack          truck with Rabbit engine.          Once he's up on his feet he          better start using them...          walking... exercising... something.          Otherwise it's taps city for          him. Well, I got to go.          He exits. Dave looks guilty.                         DAVE          I ruined everything.          MRS. BLASE          No, you didn't. He needed a          rest and now he's getting one.                         DAVE          I don't think I'll go to the          race. I should be here when          Papa wakes up.          1 RS . BLASE          No, I don't think you should.          Here, did I ever show you this.          She takes a passport out of her purse on the table.                         DAVE          It's a passport.          MRS. BLASE          They're quite cheap, you know.          A real bargain. I eep carrying          it with me. One of these days          there'll be a new girl at the          IGA and when I want to cash a          check she'll ask me for some          Indentification and I'll take          out my passport and say: Here.          Won't that be something.          Dave is moved by this gesture: By the spirit of yearning for          travel that it implies and by the knowledge that she will          probably not go anywhere.                         DAVE          Oh, Mama...          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED "BAMBINO" - 8/12 68-A                         %          131 Cont.l          But she will not let him give her any sympathy.          MRS. BLASE          So,"I think you should go. You          should come 'home singing with a          trophy. You should do all that.          while you can.                         DAVE          I win this one for you, Mama.          MRS. BLASE          Now that would be nice.          EXT. ROAD - DAY 132          We see Mike's car with Dave's bike on top.          EXT. STARTING LINE - CLOSEUP - THE ITALIAN TEAM 133                         DAY          They'are posing Just like in the picture. People are taking          pictures of them. They smile and wave making sure not to          obscure the "Cinzano" on their jersies as they do.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             69          133 Cont.                         ANNOUNCER          We are proud to have with us          today the famous Team Cinzano          from Italy. They are touring          America and so far are undefeated.          Later on they have been kind          enough to agree to hold a racing          clinic which none of you should          miss.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's in the crowd of other racers and like all of them, his          eyes are glued on the Italians.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Dave is putting a banana and an apple in the back pocket of          his Jersey. Other riders are doing likewise. Almost all          of them are taking bananas.                         ANNOUNCER          (o.s. )          Everybody please move to the          starting Line.          A MONTAGE OF LEGS          We see all kinds of legs. Some are milky white. Others are          tanned. Some are long and skinny. Others short and bulging          with muscles.          MONTAGE OF POSTERIORS          One after another, we see, the riders' rears meet the saddles          of their bicycles.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's in the middle of the pack. He looks over his shoulder          and waves to Mike, Cyril and Moocher on the sideline.          CLOSEUP - THE ITALIANS          They are in the front. They are looking straight ahead.                         ANNOUNCER          (o.s. )          Riders ready[ Timers ready!          A gun is fired. The Italians take off.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             70          133 Cont.1                         ANOTHER ANGLE          We see the pack from the back as it moves forward slowly and          then faster, and faster, the riders in the back working their          way up.                         LONG SHOT          The huge pack of riders is now disappearing around a bend in          the road.                         TRUCKING SHOT 134          We PICK UP the last rider in the field and MOVE PAST him.          There are stragglers already: individuals and little groups,          and then a large group. We MOVE PAST them TOWARD:          ANGLE ON THE LEAD GROUP          The Italians, Dave and half a dozen other riders are in the          lead group. They are separated from the rest by about half          a mile. Some riders in the group are eating their bananas.          Others are drinking water. They are approaching a hill. The          Italians shift their gears and like clockwork the rest of the          riders do the same. The Italians start sprinting up the hill          The others pursue. Strain is showing on everybody.                         LONG SHOT          We see the pack climbing the hill.          ANGLE ON CREST OF THE HILL          The Italians appear first.. They look back over their          shoulders and see nobody there. They nod to each other and          continue over the crest, shifting into a higher gear for the          descent. Dave and three riders appear over the crest. Dave          is in the lead. As he goes over the crest, he shifts gears          and starts to sprint. The other riders cannot match him.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON ITALIANS          They are bent over their frames in their descent positions.          Their knees and elbows are tucked in and they are coasting          down the hill.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's in the similar position only he's not coasting. He's          pumping as hard as he can.                         567 CUT TO:          Cont.                                                                                                                             71          134 Cont.          ANGLE ON THE ITALIANS          They are still in their descent. The hill is steep and they          are going very fast. Suddenly, Dave, bent over and breathing          hard appears in the FRAME. He tries to appear that he's not          tired. He smiles.                         DAVE          Buon giorno. Come sta?          The Italians look stunned. The 1ST ITALIAN is annoyed. The          ZTH ITALIAN seems amused.                         CUT TO:          FRONT SHOT - THE FLATS 135          The Italians are riding hard. The effort is showing on their          faces. Dave is behind them. He too is tired. But when the          1st Italian looks back to see how Dave is doing Dave manages          to smile. This seems to "psyche" the lst Italian out. He          gestures angrily to Dave to take his turn up front. Dave is          thrilled at the command. He moves to the front. The          following conversations will have to be subtitled.                         DAVE          Oggi fa caldo, none vero?          (It's hot today isn't it?)                         1ST ITALIAN          Roba da chiodi]          (You don't say])          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE "PULLING"          He's up front breaking wind for the others. He's working          hard and he's tired. The Italians behind him are likewise.          Dave swings off to let another rider pull in front. As he          does Dave once again smiles. He doesn't do this to fool          them. He's just thrilled to be in their company.                         DAVE          'Cho tempo Para piovera?          (Do you think it'll rain?)                         1ST ITALIAN                         FILAREI                         (SCRAM] )          The nth Italian tries to calm him down.          Cant.                         567                                                                                                                             72          135 Cont.                         4TH ITALIAN          Not to la prenderel          (Don't get yourself worked up!)          But the lst Italian is upset. He wants to drop Dave. But          he doesn't want to kill himself doing it. He's thinking.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON THE HILL 136          The Italians are switching off as they begin another ascent.          It's Dave's turn to take the lead. As he goes up front the          1st Italian reaches in and pushes Dave's lever all the way          forward. This suddenly shifts Dave into a very high gear.          He can hardly turn the cranks. The 1st Italian smiles at him.                         1ST ITALIAN                         MI SCUSII          (Excuse me!)          He takes off. The other three follow him while Dave fumbles          around to get back in the right gear.          FADE THROUGH TO:          CLOSEUP - THE 1ST ITALIAN          He does not look happy. The CAMERA MOVES BACK and we SEE          Dave at the front again.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's getting a little more serious. He sees a huge pothole          in front of him. He rides right toward it and then at the          last second he jerks his bike aside. The 1st Italian goes          right over the pothole. He's jarred and angry. Dave looks          back. Smiles.                         DAVE          Mi scusi!          The 4th Italian appreciates this little reversal. The          lst Italian is getting a brutal look in his face.                         OUT 137          FADE THROUGH TO:                         567                                                                                                                             73                         138          ANGLE ON THE FLATS          All five of them are continually taking turns being up front.          They are approaching a small hill. The lst Italian points          to the hill. Dave is too exhausted now to fake any smiles.          The pace is as hard as it's been.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON THE CREST OF THE HILL 139          Dave is up front.          Behind him we see the 2ND ITALIAN taking out his pump. Dave          pulls off to let him take the lead but as he does the          lst Italian pulls up behind him to block his way back. The          3RD ITALIAN sprints up front to block his way forward. Dave          is trapped. The 3rd Italian puts on his brakes. Dave puts          on his to avoid running into him. As his speed slows down          the 2nd Italian sticks his pump into Dave's rear wheel. Dave          sees all this. In the split second that it takes, he sees          it all. His wheel collapses and Dave tumbles off the road          falling down the steep grade. The Italians ride off. The          4th Italian slows down a little to look at Dave. He seems          genuinely sorry about what happened but he too continues.          He shouts after his teammates. He's a little angry.                         4TH ITALIAN          ..Bravo[ Bravo[ Bella robal          (Congratulations[ Nice work[)          CLOSEUP - DAVE          His left leg is hurt but more than that his dream seems          shattered.          EXT. RACE FINISH 140          The tour Italians are sprinting toward the finish line. A          large "FINISH" sign flutters in the breeze. The 4th Italian          wins and as he does he turns and fives the "Italian finger"          to his three buddies. He's still angry at them. Cyril,          Mike and Moocher look for Dave. The crowd is cheering.          EXT. ROAD - DAY 140-A          All the guys are riding in silence. Dave is crushed by his          shattered Italian dream. Mendelsohn's Italian Symphony is          playing: the second movement. They drive past the finish          line of the race. The big cloth sign "FINISH" is still up          fluttering in the wind. A man is taking it down. Everybody          else is gone. Dave looks on heartbroken.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 74                         X          140-A Cant.                         CYRIL          I feel like one of those dwarfs          ...you know...when they think          that Snow White's dead.          Mike turns to Dave.                         MISS          So I guess you're just a cutter          .again like the rest of us.                         DAVE          I guess.          EXT. MOOCHER'S HOUSE - DAY 141          Mike's car stops and lets Moocher out. Car.drives o.a.          Moocher is walking toward his house. He stops.          MOOCHER'S P.O.Y.          He sees a.big "SOLD" sign tacked over the FOR SALE sign.          INT. BLASE HOUSE - DAY 142          Mr. and Mrs. Blase are sitting in the kitchen.          MR. BLASE          No, I don't feel lucky to be          alive. I feel lucky I'm not          dead. There's a difference.          The door opens and Dave limps inside. He looks terrible.          Blood is still caked up on his left leg.          MRS. BLASE          What happened to you?          It's nothing. How''re you          feeling, Dad?          Mr. Blase can't believe he's being called "Dad."          MR. BLASE          Dad. I'll tell you how I'm feeling.          I've had nightmares all night that          everybody I ever sold a car to is          going to come in and ask for a          refund. And you'll be there          handing out the checks. One for          you...and one for you...          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 75          142 Cont.                         DAVE ¬Ä¢          I'm sorry I gave him back his          money. I really am. Everybody          cheats, Dad. I just didn't know.          Mr. Blase is a little taken aback by this..' He doesn't feel          quite right about it. Re's a tiny bit ashamed.          MR. BLASE          Well, now you know. So, where's          the trophy?                         DAVE          Oh, Dad...          He can't help himself anymore. He bursts into tears and hugs          his father. Mr. Blase doesn't know what to do. His arms          are out as if he doesn't know how to embrace.          MR. BLASE          What? What is this? Look ...you          don't have to be this miserable.          A little is all I asked for.                         (FINALLY EMBRACES                         HIM)          What're you crying for? You'd          think you lost your wallet or          something.          (even strokes his          hair a bit)          Talk to him, Evelyn. %.          He looks up at her and she's so touched by this show of          affections that she too is crying.          MR. BLASE          And. what're you doing?          Mrs. Blase shakes her head, but she shakes it in a certain          way that makes Mr. Blase a little troubled. He looks at her          again.          CLOSEUP - MRS. BLASE          Through her tea's there's a little trace of a smile appearing.          FADE THROUGH TO:          INT. DAVE'S ROOM - NIGHT 143          He's taking down the last Italian poster and crumpling it up.          The cat meows.                         DAVE          You; hungry, Jake, is that it?                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 76          143 Cont.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          We SEE Mr. Blase standing in the doorway looking at him.          MR. BLASE          Dave.                         DAVE          Yes, Dad.                         OUT 144-                         I          EXT. MR. BLASE'S CAR - NIGHT 146          Mr. Blase is driving. Dave is next to him. X          EXT. CAMPUS - NIGHT 146-A          The campus is deserted. Dave and Mr. Blase are walking          slowly outside a huge classroom building. Mr. Blase lights          a cigarette.          MR. BLASE          Just one.. Don't tell mother.          (looking at the                         BUILDING)          You know, I do.this every now          and then. Come here at night          and...I cut the stone for that          building over there-...                         DAVE          Yes,. I know, Dad.          MR. BLASE          I was one fine stonecutter...          Mike's dad...Moocher's, Cyrii's          ...we all were. Well, Cyril's          dad...Ah, never mind. The thing          is. I loved it. I was young,          slim and strong and damn proud          of my work. ‚Ä¢ .and the buildings          went up...and when they were          finished...damnest thing happened.          It was like the buildings were X          too good for us. Nobody told us          that. But we just felt uncomfortable.          Even now. I'd like to be able          to stroll through the campus and          look at the limestone but I feel          out of place. I suppose you          guys still go swimming in the          quarries.          567 Cant.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAZ INO" - 6/16/78 77                         X          146-A Cont.                         DAVE          Sure.          MR. BLASE          So, all you get from my twenty          years of work is the holes we          left behind.                         DAVE          I don't mind.          MR. BLASE          I didn't either when 'I was your          age. But...Eh, Cyril's Dad          says he took that college exam.                         DAVE          Yeah, both of us did.          MR. BLASE '          So, how did...how did both of          you do?                         DAVE          Well, I think, eh, one of us          did all right. But neither          of us...eh...I won't go, Dad.          The hell with them. I'm not          ashamed of being a cutter. I          don't want you feeling bad.          MR. BLASE          Don't do me any favors, eh.          What, you afraid.                         DAVE          Yeah, a little. And then, there's          the rest of the guys.          MR. BLASE          Well, you took the exam. You          did all right, eh?                         DAVE          Yeah.          MR. BLASE          Well, that's...that's good.          Your mom...          (pauses, wants to          say something,                         CAN'T)          She's a"fine woman.          Coat..                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BA1 INO - 8.,(12.78 77-A          146-A Cont. 1          Both of them smile. Both are a little confused. Mr. Blase          puts out'the cigarette. Puts arm around Dave and heads back          to the car.          INT. DAVE'S ROOM -- NIGHT 147          Dave is on the telephone.                         DAVE          Yes, can I speak to Ka...          Eathy, please.          A doorbell is heard.                         MOOCHER          (o.s.)          They sold any house and Dave          said I could stay here for a          bit.          Dave hangs up the phone as Cyril and Moocher enter carrying          Moocher's barbell set and a suitcase.                         CYRIL          Can I sleep over too.                         MOOCHER          THE UNIVERSITY bought my dad's X          house.          MR. BLASE          (o.s.)          There goes the neighborhood.          FADE THROUGH TO:          EXT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT 148          Mike is sitting in the car looking at Dave's room. He's got          an unlit cigarette in his mouth and seems to be debating          whether he should join the rest of the guys.          INT. DAVE'S ROOM - NIGHT 149          All three guys are sleeping on the floor. Cyril is in the          middle. All are awake and silent.                         CYRIL          Our year's almost up...and...          well...if anybody's got plans          that don't include me...that's          all right. I've got plans          myself that don't include me.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAbIBINO" - 8/12/78 78                         X          14+9 Cant.          He tries to laugh but doesn't. Puts one arm around Moocher          another one around Dave and closes his eyes.                          OUT 150          ECT. BLOOMINGTON - DAY 151          Dave and Moocher are walking.                         DAVE          I tried-calling her on the          phone to tell her but- 3:...l          Just couldn't.                         MOOCHER          When she sees you in the race          she'll find out. Maybe if she          really likes you she won't care.          You know Nancy and I...                         DAVE                         (CUTTING IN)          What a mess. You're a Catholic,          Moocher. You ever go to          confession?          ‚Ä¢ b400CEER          Twice.                         DAVE          Did it make you feel any better?          Once.                          OUT 152          INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - DAY 153          Dave is in a confession booth.                         DAVE          Forgive me, Father, for I have          sinned.          INT. PRIEST'S BOOTH                          PRIEST           What have you done, my son?           Cant.                         567                                                                                                                             79          153 Cont.                         DAVE          I have lied and cheated. I          told this real nice girl that          I'm Italian.                         PRIEST          Why did you do that?                         DAVE          I guess... well...I wanted to          be Italian. I guess I still          do.                         PRIEST          Me too. Ah, Romal Believe me,          son, it's hard as hell to make          it up the ladder of the church          hierarchy if you're not Italian.          You ever hear of an Irish Pope?          You take St. Mary, now. In Italian          it's Santa Maria. Ah, 'Santa Maria.'          Do you know Silent Night in Italian?          Fan-tastic. Even secular words like          watermelon. 'Concomero.'                         DAVE          What should I do‚Ä¢, Father?                         PRIEST          Call me Padre, per favore. You          see the difference? 'Padre.'          EXT. CAMPUS - DAY 154          Dave is waiting outside a classroom building. His hair is          combed in an American style now. Students are coming out.          Katherine among them. She sees him and is stunned.                         KATMMINE          God. What did you do to your          hair?                         DAVE          I...wel1...I just...                         KATHERINE          I liked it better before. You          look like everybody else now.          She starts to mess it up with her hands in order to comb it          back into its original shape. The results are not flattering.                         DAVE          I am everybody else. I mean...          567 Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAI4BINO" - 811278 80           154 Cant.          She laughs.          You look funny.                         DAVE          You see, Katherine...          A K THERINE          Katherina!                         DAVE          I feel terrible.          His Italian accent is no longer in use and it makes Katherine          ,just a tiny bit nervous.                         KATHERINE          You sound real funny tonight.          Che Cosa, Franco?                         DAVE          My name is Dave Blase.                         KATHERINE:          What's that supposed to mean?                         DAVE          Nothing. It's just a name. I made          it all up. I was born in Bloomington.          I went to Bloomington High. I was          the treasurer of the Latin Club and          head of the Ushers for our assembly          programs...I...                         KATHERINE          Stop kidding around.                         DAVE          I'm what you call 'a cutter.' F          Only I'm not really a cutter          either, so I don't know what I          am.                         KATHERINE          And Napoli...and the big family...          Dave just nods that they were all lies.                         KAT IE          Well, it was a good act. You          certainly fooled me.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             81          RrVISED - '"BAMBOO" - 9/13/78                         X          154 Cont.1                         DAVE          I just didn't know how else...                         KATHERINE          Do you know what you are?                         DAVE          No, I haven't a clue.                         KATEINE          I'll tell you what you are.                         (STARTS CRYING)          I'll tell you. You...You...          But she's too upset to tell him anything. She runs inside          the classroom. The doors close. Dave stands still. The          door opens. Dave smiles as Katherine reappears. She runs          up to him and slaps him on the face and then runs back inside.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          His face changes from a guilt-ridden sinner to one of almost          anger. Not quite. But there is a hint there of: The hell          with her thenI          EXT. DAVE' s HOUSE - DAY 155          Mike is holding the Little 500 bike. It's heavy and ungainly          in comparison to Dave's Italian racer. Dave looks at the          bike. Mike, Cyril and Moocher look at him.                         DAVE          Can't I even add some toe-clips?                         MIKE          No, it's official issue. They          said you can't add or change a          thing.                         DAVE          It's a piece of junkl                         CYRIL          But it's got a nice personality.          And it's had its rabies shots          already.                         MOOCHER          I don't think it looks so bad.                         DAVE          That's because you don't have to          ride it.          Cont.                         56 7                                                                                                                             81-A          REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 9/13/78                         X          155 Cont.                         MOOCHER          You don't have to either, Dave.          We're not going to beg you.                         CYRIL          Plead perhaps, but beg...never.          We have our pride.                         MISS          The hell with it. At least we          got invited. That's something.          I'll take it back.          He starts to take the bike away.                         DAVE          You actually seem relieved, Mike.          Mike pauses.                         DAVE          You don't think we can win          more, do you?          Mike is silent.                         DAVE          Why not?                         KIKE          Well, maybe they are better.                         DAVE          I've never heard you say that          before.                         MIBE          Thatts because I ,never felt it          before.                         CYRIL          My dad would be proud of you.          Our family motto is: It can't          be done.                         DAVE          We'll see about that.          He takes the bike from Mike and starts wheeling it away.          He gets on it and rides it into the garage. The guys look          at each other. NOISE is HEARD coming from the garage.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/15/18 82          INT. MR. BLASE'S GARAGE - DAY 156          The entire bike is dismantled. The wheels are off. The          bearings on the wheels are out. The cranks are off and the          crankshaft has been removed. Dave is holding the saddle in          his hand. He's pushing down on it. It's very hard.          ‚Ä¢ CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - KITCHEN          pouring olive oil into a large pan. The pan is on a hotplate.          He puts the saddle into the pan and covers it. Mrs. Blase in          the kitchen.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - GARAGE          truing one of the wheels. It's in the truing stand and he's          tightening the spokes with a spoke wrench. He spins the wheel.          It spins fine.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - GARAGE x          reassembling the rear wheel. Putting grease on the ball          bearings.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - KITCHEN X          taking the saddle out of pot of olive oil. He feels the          saddle.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - GARAGE          assembling the crankshaft and putting on the cranks. He spins          the cranks. They spin rapidly on their own.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - GARAGE          taking the. chain out of a kerosene bath.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE - GARAGE          oiling the chain.                          CUT TO:          567 Cont.                                                                                                              RE ISID r IIBAMBI17O" - 6/16/78                         83                         X          156 Cont.          ANGLE ON ENTIRE BIKE          assembled. Dave is finishing the job by putting on handlebar tape.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's all dirty. The bike is clean. He looks at it. It's          much better now but his face suggests that it's still what          it is.                         OUT 157          EXT.          -BLOOMINGTON - DAY 158          Dave is riding his Little 500 bike. He's testing the bike          as well as himself and trying to get used to the new machine.          He tries sprinting and in mid-spring he stops pedaling. His          hand grasps his left leg. He's in pain. He drops his foot          off the pedal and shakes his leg as-if trying to shake out          a cramp.          EXT. DOWTOWN BLOOMINGTON - DUSK 158-A          Katherine is walking slowly through the deserted town. She          turns the corner and sees Dave sitting on the curb. His          Little 500 bike is leaning against the parking meter. She          looks at him. Wonders whether to say anything.          Hello.          Dave looks. He stands up quickly. He's stunned to see her          here.                         DAVE          What're you doing here?          Katherine shrugs. They both half smile at each other.                         SATAEAINE          Guess what?          Now Dave shrugs.                         DAVE          I don't know..                          KATD1E          I got a job in Chicago.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - 'BAMBINO" - 8/12 8 83-A-83-B          158-A Cont.          DAVE.          Moocher's dad in Chicago.          He's...          He waves this remark away.                         KATHERINE          And I'm going to Italy after all.          With my parents.          Dave almost slips into an Italian gesture.                         DAVE          I wish...I wish you a nice trip.                         KATHERINE          You too.                         DAVE          I'm not going anywhere.                         KATHERINE          I don't know about that. X                         X          She walks away.          INT. BLASE HOUSE - NIGHT 159          It's dinnertime. Dave and Moocher are having meat and          potatoes. Mr.. Blase is comtemplating halt a head of lettuce          and some crackers. Mrs. Blase is at the stove.          MR. BLASE          If you eat so much, Moocher, how          come you're so damn small?                         MOOCHER          It's my metabolism, Mr. Blase.          I eat three times a day, but my          metabolism eats five times a day.          MR. BLASE          Well, I go back to work tomorrow.                         DAVE          Aren't you going to come and see us          race, Dad?          MRS. BLASE          He's afraid he'll bring you bad          luck if he comes.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED -"BAMBINO" 8/12/78 84                         X          159 Cont.          MR. BLASE          I've got work to do. That's all.          Besides,-there might be another          metabolism feed around here.                         DAVE          You mean you might be a father.          MR. BLASE          Yes, I might, and your mom might be-          a mother and you might be a brother.          That way I keep it all in the family.                         MOOCHER          I didn't think people your age...          Mr. Blase interrupts.          MR. BLASE          The'next. word might be your last,          kid.          Dave looks at him. Then he looks at his mother. She smiles.          Dave looks back at his father.          Dave jumps up and hugs his mother.                         MOOCHER          You must be very happy, Mr. Blase.          MR. BLASE          Of course I must. You think I have          any choice?          MRS. BLASE          You said you were going to give them          a pep talk.          MR. BLASE          They don't need pep.. I need pep.          Go ahead...Give it to them.          Mrs. Blase opens a kitchen drawer and takes out some folded          T-shirts.          MRS. BLASE          We thought...          MR. BLASE                         (INTERRUPTS)          Since you're going to be out there          you.might as well tell them who          you are.                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 85                          X           159 Cont.1          He looks at Dave.                          OUT 160          INT. LITTLE 500 STADIUM 161          The crowd is cheering as various teams enter to take their          designated pit areas. A triumphal march is playing.          CLOSEUP - OUR GUYS          They are entering the stadium. Dave is pushing his bike          along.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          We see them from the back. The word "CUTTERS" is stamped on          the back of their T-shirts. There is something comical about          this team. They are so uneven. Cyril is very tall. Moocher          is very short. They are walking out of step. All the other          teams are matched in height to accommodate the use of a bike          w.th a set saddle position.          CLOSEUP - OUR GUYS          They seem very nervous. The roar of the crowd. The other          teams. The foreign turf once again. Mike seems the most          nervous of all. They walk past Rod's team. Rod is smiling          and staring at Mike. Mike looks away. Cyril doesn't.          FADE THROUGH TO:          CLOSEUP - TEE STARTER 162          The crowd is hushed.                         STARTER          Gentlemen, mount your bicycles!          A great roar is heard.          M E D. SHOT          A pace car is leading the field around the track for one lap.          Dignitaries from the campus sit in the pace car:          Mr. Armstrong.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          The pace car is going faster.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          The starter waves the flag as they go past him. The car          speeds up and gets off the track. The race is on.                         567                         CUT TO:          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8 8 86          162 Cont.          CLOSEUP - .THE RACE          The riders begin their mad scramble for positions. The entire          width of the track is taken up by them. Rod is in first          place. Dave is dead last but trying to move up.          CLOSEUP..- DAVE          He's riding and looking for openings. Whenever. a little          space offers itself, he shoots through it and moves up. As          everyone goes wide on the first turn, he takes it on the          inside and moves up some more.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 34          Cyril, Moocher and Mike are beating on each other in their          excitement.                         CYRIL          He's moving up. Look at that                         DAGO GOT                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON LAP CEiART          A big board with flip numbers shows: 200 laps to go. A man          is reaching out to change the number. As the riders come          around, he flips it to: 199 laps to go.          EXT. MR. BLASE CAR LOT - DAY 163          Mr. Blase is sitting inside a car. The radio is on. The          local station is announcing the race.          INT. Int. BLASE' S CAR          Mr. Blase has a huge NOBLE ROMAN bag stuffed with French X          fries and pizza.. He's stuffing himself and listening.                         ANNOUNCER          (o.s.; on radio)          And so after twenty-five laps,          the perennial favorites are up          front. Sigma Nu, Phi Kappa Psi,          Sigma Alpha Epsilon ...and here          comes...It's'the Cutters.          Mr. Blase hits the car horn.                         CUT TO:                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12 8 87          IND. SHOT - THE RACE 164          Dave is moving up'to-catch the leaders. Behind him is a          black rider. They catch the leaders and there are now five          teams'up front. As-they come around to the pit areas, we          see three riders from the fraternities swinging off for an          exchange. As they enter their pit area, they slam on their          brakes, and while the-bike is still moving, they jump off          while-a fresh rider jumps on.': Dave'is in the lead for a          while, but the fresh riders catch up.          CUT TO:'          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 1          Rod is sitting and resting. He's breathing hard. His fellow          riders are slightly out of breath too.                         ROD          He won't last.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 34                         MIRE          He-Ill last. Won't he? He'll last.                         CYRLL          Stop saying 'last '1                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON KATHERINE          Almost despite herself, she's getting caught up in Dave's          progress. She's trying not to.                         CUT TO:          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He's beginning to hurt. His left leg is bothering him. As          he goes around the' turn,. his left foot slips off the pedal.          He almost loses his balance, but recovers.                         ANNOUNCER          (o.s.; on radio)          It's amazing. After twenty-five          miles, that's one hundred laps,          folks...                          OUT 165 X                          CUT TO:                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAmBiNO" - 8/12/78          INT. MR. BLASE IS CAR CAR LOT          .ANNOUNCER          (a.s.;-on radio)          The lead rider for the Cutter          team is still on his bike without          an"exchange. His name is          Dave Blase...          MR. BLASE          Thassa my boy!          His car is running and he floors it while it idles and hits          the horn again, grabbing the wheel as if he were in a race          himself.                         ANNOUNCER          (o.s.; on radio)          And he's pulling ahead. He's...          He's actually pulling ahead. There x                         HE GOEST                         O 167 X                         CUT TO:          INT. THE STADIUM - ANGLE ON KATSER_ E 168          She. Jumps to. her feet. Wants to yell., but can't bring          herself to do it. Sits down.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's going all out. He's in terrible pain, but he's about          fifty yards ahead of his pursuers. As he approaches his pit          area, he waves for help and raises a. single finger.                         CUT TO          Cant.                         567                                                                                                                             89          168 cont.          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 34                         MIKE          We're number onel                         MOOCHER          No, he wants off. That's the          signal. He's going to go one          more lap.                         CYRIL                         OOOOPSL                         MIKE          You mean one of as...                         CYRIL          Once again I say oopsl          Mike looks frightened.                          CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          Het s. really pouring it on now.                          CUT TO:          ANGLE ON REVIEWING STAND          The president of the university is looking through          binoculars.                         PRESIDENT          Well, I had no idea.                          CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 4                         BLACK RIDER          That's the fastest white boy          I've ever seen.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He's coming around the turn and he swings off and heads to          his pit area.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                                             9O          168 Cont.].          DAVE'S P.O.V. - PIT AREA NUMBER 34          We see Moocher, Cyril and Mike. All of them are panicking.          They seem to be pushing each other forward. Nobody wants          to be the one to get on the bike. Into this panic Dave roars          in with his bike. He slams on the brakes. Jumps off. His          left leg gives way and he falls. Moocher and Cyril run to          help him up. Mike is left holding the bike.                         DAVE          Go, Mike!          Mike is frozen.                         MOOCHER          We've got a lead, dammit. Get          going.          But the crowd, the other riders staring at him, the pressure          of the moment is too much for Mike. He just stands there.          The lead that they had is evaporating. The other riders are          catching up. They are coming around the curve. Moocher runs          up to Mike, pushes him away and gets on the bike. His          intentions are great, but his legs are short. He can't sit          in the saddle and reach the pedals. So he stands and rides          just as the other teams come around.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 1          Rod is smiling.toward Dave.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON MOOCHER          He's standing up and going for all he's got. But the other          teams are pulling away.          INT. MR. BLASE'S CAR                         169          He's driving at full speed and listening to the radio.                         ANNOUNCER          (o.s.; on radio)          It's Sigma Nu, Phi Kappa Psi,          Sigma Alpha Epsilon...the Cutters          are fading, but it was some try.          Dave Blase seems to be hurt.          The first aid team has reached          him...                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 8/12/78 91                         X          EXT.-MR. BLASE'S HOUSE 170          Mr. Blase drives past the house. He slows down as if          wondering whether to pick up his wife but then he speeds          up again.          EXT. LIT=ZE 500 STADIUM 170-A          Mr. Blase is entering the stadium through a turnstile.          Mrs. Blase is standing not far away looking at-him. He          doesn't see her right away. As he turns: They look at          each other. He is surprised to see her there.          MR. BLASE          Ev...He sure tried. Even the          announcer said so.          He is genuinely proud.          MRS. BLASE          Too bad he...          He interrupts..          MR. BLASE          Too bad. nothing.          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 34 171          The lead r iders pass. Lagging behind them Moocher comes          in for an exchange. Cyril takes the bike. His legs are          so long his knees just about hit his chin but he takes off          in pursuit. Moocher is exhausted. Mike looks on. '          ÔøΩVl Kole) : 134;          Where's. Dave.          Mike points across the track. Dave is-in the center of the          field applying medication from a first-aid station.          It's all over.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON CRYIL          Bent over his bike like some human stork he's doing the          best he can. He goes past Pit Area 34.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMB330" - 8/12/78 91-A                         X          171 Cont.                         HEI I          Some of the people in the crowd laugh.          ANO TSER ANGLE          Dave is with Mike and Moocher now. He's got adhesive tape          in his hands and-is contemplating bandaging up his leg.          Rod rides past them in the lead. Mike looks at him. Rod          looks at Mike.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "THE BAMBINO" 6/16/78 92                         X          171 Cont.          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 4          Three black guys are planning strategy. They see Rod getting          off the bike.                         1ST-BLACK RIDER          Looks like they're going to save          Rod for the sprint. You get on          when he does. Stay behind him          until the last turn...                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA 34          Moocher is exhausted. Dave is depressed as hell. He"s got          adhesive tape in his hand but he doesn't feel like putting          it on his. Leg. The-race seems lost. Cyril-comes in for an          exchange.- Mike is the only one who can take the bike. He          grabs it. Hesitates. Jumps on. Cyril collapses near Dave.          Cyril seems quite happy.                         CYRIL          We're doing better than I thought          we would.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON MIKE          Re's riding like a bull. He goes too hard and drifts out in          the turns. He almost runs into pit ONE where Rod is resting          and watching him. He gets back in the groove.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA 34          Moocher and Cyril are sitting together looking quite          satisfied. Dave looks at them.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON MIKE'S BROTHER 172          He's standing on the infield and waving his cap at Mike as he          goes by.                         MIKE'S BROTRER          C'mon, you cutter!                         CUT TO:                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 93                         X          DAVE'S P.O.V. - PIT AREA 34 172 -A          He, sees his parents on the infield opposite their pit-area.          They are waving to him, proud of what he's done. -Nancy has          come into the pit area and is, congratulating them.                         NANCY          I've never seen anyone try so          hard. I'm so proud of you.                         CYRIL          We showed them, huh?          Dave Jumps up. His frustration almost makes biSm look angry.                         DAVE          Anybody can tryl          ANGLE ON MIKE                         172-B          is P.O.V.          He sees Dave waving to him to come in. Mike looks nearly          spent.          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 34                         173          Dave is waving at Mike to come in. Mike is coming in too          fast but manages to break. He is totally spent as he gets          off the bike. Dave gets on the bike. Moocher runs up and          holds Dave in place. Cyril starts putting the adhesive tape          around his feet, taping them to the pedal.          ,MIKE          What's going on.                         CYRIL          It's like Charlton Heston in.El Cid.                         MIKE          They're going to lap us.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 4          The black riders look up astonished.. Dave rides past their          pit.          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 1          Rod sees Dave go past him. The rider for his team is not far          behind him.                         ROD          C'monl C'monl You got him!                         5 67          CUT TO:,                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" - 6/16/78 93-A          ANGLE ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE TRACK 174          Mr. Blase and Mrs. Blase are standing on the track. Both          look stunned to see him back on the bike. X          MRS. BLASE          Go, son, go damn youl          Mr. Blase looks at her surprised by her outburst. Dave X          rides past them.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 34 175          Moocher, Cyril and Mike are jumping up and down.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          Nets coming around. He is gaining and making up lost ground.                         CUT TO:          DAVE'S P.O.V. - HIS PARENTS 176          They, too are shouting something, but Dave no longer hears          -hem. The Italian music is playing through his head. It's          irresistable and he gives himself over to it for one last          time. He no longer hears the crowd shouting, nor anything          else except the music, and music seems to be carrying him          forward. His face registers the emotion of hearing it...of          giving himself over to it...and of a kind of farewell to'it.                         CUT TO:                         567                                                                                                                             9          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 4 177          The three black riders look at each other.. They need a new          plan, they seem to be thinking.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 1          Rod and his teammates are watching Dave's progress. They          shake their heads. He can't possibly catch up.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE LAP CHART          It shows 5 laps to go.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE LEAD PACK          Now all three riders are looking back over their shoulders.          They see Dave coming on.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON PIT AREA NUMBER 1          Rod is getting ready to take an exchange for his final sprint.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          We see the black sprinter in Pit area 4 getting ready to take          an exchange too. He and Rod look at each other.          MED. SHOT          Rod and. the black sprinter get their bikes at the same time          and start to accelerate.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE-          He passes the third rider from the lead group. Ahead of him          he sees Rod and the black rider.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON THE LAP CHART          It shows one lap to go. A man is waving a flag signaling the          last lap. Rod and the black guy go past him. Dave is behind          them and gaining.                         CUT TO:                         5 67          Cont.                                                                                                                             95          177 Cont.          ANGLE ON THE BACKSTRETCH          Rod and the black rider are riding abreast now.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE          He sees them right in front of him. The Italian music is          still playing as he catches up to them and pulls up behind          Rod who's riding on the inside. They are going around the          curve. Rod drifts out a bit and that's all the room that          Dave needs. He takes the inside edge as they come around          for the final stretch. All three of them stand up and begin          their final sprint. It looks dead even as they're          approaching the finish line. A man is waving the checkered          flag. Then, with about forty yards to go, Dave suddenly          explodes ahead and wins by an inch or so. He raises his arms          in the air.                         CUT TO:                         NEW ANGLE          Cyril, Moocher and Mike are running toward Dave. They are          Jubilant. They jump on Dave knocking him down. Mike's'          brother runs up and...          CLOSEUP - THE BROTHERS          There's a look of family pride as they embrace.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Nancy runs up to Moocher. She's still wearing her waitress          uniform. She practically lifts him off the ground. Dave's          parents rush past them. Everybody is shouting. The crowd          is cheering. Confetti is falling.          CLOSEUP - CYRIL          He's happy but he feels left out. Everybody is hugging and          'getting hugged except for him.                         ANOTHER ANGLE          Katherine is watching the celebration. She looks at Dave and          then she looks at Rod not far away. Then she turns slowly          and leaves-bidding a farewell, in a way, to a portion of her          life.          Cont.                         567                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAMBINO" -6/16/78 96                         X          177 Cont.1          CLOSEUP - THE CUTTERS          Dave and his parents are walking off. Mike and his brother          are arm in arm. Moocher and Nancy are holding hands and          going their way.          CLOSEUP - CYRIL          He's-holding the four trophies they won. He is trying to          swagger but he doesn't know where to go. The guys seem to          be going-in separate directions and he doesn't know whom to          follow. The CAMERA PULLS BACK FROM him. Confetti is falling          everywhere. Wind is blowing it around the stadium.          FADE THROUGH TO:          ANGLE ON TREES 178          The branches are swaying in the wind. Leaves are golden          yellow and falling off, swirling through the air, falling          on the road. Mike's car goes through.the leaves as he drives          up an entrance ramp onto a throughway.          INT. MIL'S CAR - DAY 178-A          He's wearing.a cowboy hat. Cigarette is in his. mouth. He          looks back at a sign: "YOU ARE NOW LEAVING BLOOMINGTON."          He lights his cigarette. A highway stretches in front of him.          EXT. MR. BLASE' S CAR LOT - DAY          It's been retitled "CUTTER CARS LTD." Mrs. Blase, quite          pregnant now, is sweeping the leaves. Mr. Blase is getting          on the bike ready to leave.          EXT. CAMPUS - DAY 179          ,The leaves are falling off here too and blowing in the wind.          Students are going to and from classes. We see Dave among          them pushing his bike along. He's wearing a Phi Kappa Psi          jacket.          CLOSEUP - DAVE          He looks quite collegiate and he seems to know it. But it's          fall and fall makes you think of other days and Dave seems          to be doing just that. A GIRL walks up to him. She seems          quite lost. She speaks with a definite French accent.                         GIRL          Pardon...do you know where is          the office of the Pursar.          Dave looks at her. Some of his collegiate exterior fades as          he smiles at her.                         567          Cont.                                                                                                              REVISED - "BAI4BINO" - 6/16/78 96-A          179 Cont.:          He's struck. French music begins to play.                         DAVE          Pursar? Oh, you mean the          Bursar's office.                         GIRL          Oui, Bursar.                         DAVE          You're...eh...you're French, eh?                         CUT TO:                         567                                                                                                                             97          ANGLE ON MR. BLASE ON A BICYCLE 180          He's riding through the campus, looking around. His son goes          to school and he looks and feels that he has a right to be          there.                         CUT TO:          ANGLE ON DAVE AND THE GIRL          They're riding double on Dave's bicycle. She's carrying his          books. The book on top is Beginning French.                         DAVE          French is my major. It's just my          first year, of course. Have you          ever seen Le Tour de France?          He gives it his best French accent.                         GIRL          No.                         DAVE          Not Oh, mon Dieu. But the          French riders... they are the          bestl Pouladoirl Anquetill          Not only his accent, but his gestures are becoming French.          Riding toward him on his bike is Mr. Blase. He sees Dave          and waves.          MR. BLASE          Hello there, big shot.                         DAVE          Bon jour, Papa.          They pass.          Mr. Blase turns and looks back. His face registers mixed          emotions, but the overriding one is one of acceptance. Dave          turns to the girl.                         DAVE          Je m'appelle...          We FREEZE ON his French gesture.                         FINIS                         567
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+                                        BRICK                                      Written by                                               Rian Johnson                                                                                                 1                                            SUPER MAIN TITLES                        Over a grimy concrete wall creeping by. We emerge from...                        EXT. RUNOFF TUNNEL - EARLY MORNING                        A gaping hole in the concrete side of a freeway. On the              embankment beside the hole BRENDAN FRYE squats, shoulders              hunched. His dark eyes behind thin glasses watch the              shallow stream of water which flows into the tunnel.                        THE WATER                        not more than six inches deep. Just beneath the surface a              young woman's pale blue arm in gaudy bracelets bats against              the edge of her body like a docked boat. A pebble plinks              into the water beside it.1                        TITLE CARD OVER BLACK:         "2 DAYS PREVIOUS"              INT. LOCKER CAGE - DAY                        A single locker. That same arm, bracelets and all, slips a              note through the slats, then leaves quickly.                        As the cage empties a lone figure slumps to the locker.              Opens it. The note falls to his feet.                        The figure is Brendan. He unfolds the note (folded in a              triangle) -- "12:30 PICO & ALEXANDER".                        A STREET SIGN                        Pico and Alexander.2                        A WRIST WATCH              12:43.   Brendan looks up from the watch.                        EXT. STREET CORNER - DAY                        He sits on the curb of a wide suburban street, eats lunch              from a brown bag and watches a phone booth on the corner. He              shows no surprise when it begins to ring. Brendan goes to              the phone and puts the receiver to his ear. Silence for a              moment, then a thin female voice from the phone.                              1           Originally Dode was later revealed to have been hiding above the tunnel.          2            The street names were changed in production to match existing streets (we couldn't          afford to create custom street signs.)                                                                                 2                                                  VOICE                        (over phone)                    Brendan?                                          BRENDAN                    Emily?                                        EMILY                        (weakly)                    Yeah. How's things?                                        BRENDAN                        (slow, deliberate)                    Status quo.                                          EMILY                    Yeah?                                          BRENDAN                    Uh huh.                                        EMILY                    That's good.                    Her voice thins to a high, strained breath. She is crying.                                        BRENDAN                    What's going on, Em?                                        EMILY                        (through strained crying)                    It's good to see you, Brendan.                    Brendan's eyes glance around the surrounding street. Emily          is crying again.                                        EMILY (CONT'D) (cont'd)                    It's been some time.                                        BRENDAN                    Two months.                                        EMILY                    Yeah. I didn't even know your locker. I                    had to ask Brain.                    More crying noises.                                        BRENDAN                    Em, why don't we meet somewhere?                                          EMILY                    I can't.                                                                                                               3                                                             BRENDAN                           Why not?                                               EMILY                           I screwed up real bad. I really screwed                           up.                                               BRENDAN                           Screwed up how?                                               EMILY                               (blubbering, fast and                                incoherent)                           I did what she said with the brick, I                           didn't know it was bad, but the pin's on                           it now for poor Frisco and they're                           playing it all on me-                                               BRENDAN                           Slow down now, what?                                               EMILY                           You gotta help me Brendan I think tug-                           Oh!                        With a sharp breath the line clicks dead just as a black              mustang roars by. Brendan drops the receiver and spins out              of the booth.                        There, another pay phone up the hill -- empty.                        Brendan turns to the black mustang, far down the street. A              man's hand drops a cigarette butt from the driver side              window.1                        The mustang turns the corner, gone.                        Brendan walks after it, finds the cigarette butt on the              street. Still smoking.              A pale blue arrow is printed on the filter.                        In the distance the class bell rings.                        EXT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY                        The high school is open air - the hallways are alleyways              between buildings. A short kid with eyeglasses the size of                    1           Because of the orientation of the street, this was all flipped when we shot it, and the          hand came from the passenger window. The dialogue in the ending field scene was          changed to match, causing mass confusion for about half an hour on set.                                                                                   4                              Volkswagen headlights sits against the wall. Brendan enters,          leans on the wall beside him.                                        BRENDAN                    Brain.                                        THE BRAIN                    Hey Brendan. It's been awhile. Where you                    been eating?                                        BRENDAN                    Back of school.                                        THE BRAIN                    Huh. Yeah, no one's seen you. What's it                    been, a couple months?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah, it's been awhile. You gave Emily                    my locker number?                                        THE BRAIN                    A few days ago. Was I wrong?                                        BRENDAN                    What?                                        THE BRAIN                    To give it?                                        BRENDAN                    No.                                        THE BRAIN                    It's been so long, I don't know you                    two's stats.                                        BRENDAN                    It has been awhile.   Who's she been                    eating with?                              THE BRAIN                        (uncomfortable)                    I dunno. It's hard to keep track.                                        BRENDAN                    Is it?                                        THE BRAIN                        (shrugs)                    Can be.                    The Brain avoids Brendan's gaze.                                                                                  5                                                    BRENDAN                    Uh huh.                    A beat.                                        THE BRAIN                    She hasn't been doing too good.                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah well. I'm not looking for a patch                    up. Em's life is her own. But she                    asked for my help.                                        THE BRAIN                    Help with what?                                        BRENDAN                    I don't know. I don't even care, it's                    not my business. I just want to know                    she's ok, so I've got to find her.                    That's all this is.                                        THE BRAIN                    Well. I know she was poking in with the                    Ivy-bound cheerleading elite. Laura                    Dannon's crowd.                    Across the parking lot a beautiful girl with dark long hair          kisses an football player.                                        BRENDAN                    Laura Dannon there with the Rabbit?                                        THE BRAIN                    Yeah. Brad Bramish with her. Cream on                    the upper crust.                    Brad laughs heartily.                                        BRENDAN                        (softly)                    He's a sap.                                          THE BRAIN                    Know him?                                          BRENDAN                    By sight.                                        THE BRAIN                    I won't argue then. Anyway Em tagged                    after them for a bit, but it didn't                    work. So she picked her way down the                    food chain. Last I seen she was with                    whasshername, that drama vamp. Small                    time dealer, augh, the evil one, the one                    you dated-                                        BRENDAN                    Kara.                                        THE BRAIN                    That's my bus.                                        BRENDAN                    You know her locker number?                                        THE BRAIN                    Kara's?                                        BRENDAN                    Em's.                                        THE BRAIN                    239.                                        BRENDAN                    Thanks Brain. Keep your specs on, find                    me if she shows.                                        THE BRAIN                    Sure.                    The Brain trots off. In the distance Brad and Laura laugh,          and he kisses her. Her hair blows in the wind.                    EXT. LOCKER CAGE - DAY                    Empty. Locker 239 is open, its door swinging gently in the          wind.                    EXT. BACK OF GYM - DAY                    Brendan sits against the massive building, flipping through          loose papers. He finds two photographs, one of Emily hugging          him, the other of Emily with a beautiful sharp-eyed girl at          a party, drinks in hand.                    Sorting more papers, he finds a red card with a sequined          mask on the front. The bottom edge has been torn off.                    EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY          Sixth period has broke. Masses of students pile into busses.                                                                                  7                              EXT. SCHOOL THEATER - DAY                    A huge chunk of brown building. Brendan strides towards it.                    INT. SCHOOL THEATER - CONTINUOUS                    Drama people sit on the floor facing the stage. Brendan          steps behind one, the sharp-eyed girl from the picture. She          holds a freshman boy's head in her lap. Pets it like a dog.                    She looks back at Brendan, her face in shadow.                                        GIRL                        (through a mocking smile)                    Hello, Brendan.                                        BRENDAN                    Kara.                                        KARA                    Come to see the show?          Kisses the freshman's forehead, purring.                                        BRENDAN                    No, I didn't.                        (nudges the freshman with his                         toe)                    Lapdog, blow.                    The freshman sits up, looks to Kara like a spooked puppy.                                        KARA                        (to the lapdog)                    Stay.                        (to Brendan)                    Don't be mean.                                        BRENDAN                    I'm all friendly.                        (to the lapdog)                    Watch your head, kid - that thing bites.                    The dog pops up again. Kara pulls him down and nuzzles his          ear.                                        BRENDAN (CONT'D) (cont'd)                    I need words.                              KARA                    I'm listening.                                                                                                            8                                                         BRENDAN                           About Emily Kostich.                        She stops nuzzling a little too quickly.                                               KARA                               (to the dog)                           Get me my purse.                               (he goes)                           Hurry!                        He breaks into a trot. Kara smiles at Brendan.                                               BRENDAN                           Still picking your teeth with freshmen?                                               KARA                           You were a freshman once.                        She slides her fingers up his arm. He growls and pushes them              away.                                               BRENDAN                           Way once, sister. You and Em were tight                           for a bit. Who's she eating with now?                                               KARA                           Eating with?                                               BRENDAN                           Eating with. Lunch.           Who.                                               KARA                           You're a cutie.                                               BRENDAN                           You gonna tell me?                                               KARA                           Guess you're up from the underneath                           then. The whole Jerr thing blown over.                           Lucky strikes, you and your partner get                           bulled, you come up clean. But I guess                           you were always the brains of the                           outfit.1                    1            One of many instances of an allusion to the Jerr backstory, most of which were          trimmed back in the editing process for clarity. The author has threatened to write it as          a stand alone short story, but probably never will, so in a nutshell: when Brendan and          Emily were still an item she started hanging out with Jerr, a small time dealer. Brendan          didn't approve, so he partnered up with Jerr then ratted him out to Trueman. Emily          found out, and that led to their breakup on the field, which we see in a flashback.                                                                                   9                                                  BRENDAN                    Where's Emily?                                        KARA                    Sometimes I wonder why I dumped you.                                           BRENDAN                           (standing to go)                    God.                                        KARA                    I don't know where she's at, Brendan.                                        BRENDAN                    I know you do, so why don't you want me                    to find her?                                        KARA                    Maybe I'm looking out for you.                                        BRENDAN                        (going)                    Well I appreciate that.                                        KARA                    Brendan... you looking to get back into                    things? I could use you.                    He is gone.   Behind Kara, the play goes on.                    INT. BACKSTAGE OF THEATER - CONTINUOUS                    The play is seen in shadow-play through the backdrop.                    Brendan slips in through an exit door, crosses the backstage          area and enters the dressing rooms.                    INT. DRESSING ROOM - CONTINUOUS                    Cramped and empty. Pictures of Kara with friends are stuck          in the mirror. Brendan roughly searches drawers, bags,          pockets... nothing. He stops. A red edge behind one of the          photos - the same red card with a mask on it, but whole.          Across the bottom in small print: "Halloween in January -          Call for DETAILS - 555-2394"                    INT. BRENDAN'S ROOM - NIGHT                    Brendan pulls a phone across his desk and dials the number          on the flyer.                                                                         10                                                  WOMAN'S VOICE                        (over phone)                    Hello?                    Brendan hesitates.                                        BRENDAN                    Hello, ma'am, this is Tom, I'm a friend                    from school. Could I speak to...                    He trails off.                                        WOMAN'S VOICE                        (over phone)                    Oh, hi Tom. Laura's here, hold on.                                           LAURA'S VOICE                           (over phone)                    Yes?                                        BRENDAN                    I'm calling for details.                                          LAURA'S VOICE                    For what?                                        BRENDAN                    Details about the party.                                        LAURA'S VOICE                    Who is this?                                        BRENDAN                    I don't think we've met.                                         LAURA'S VOICE                    Well then I don't think you're invited                    to my party. It's a rather exclusive                    gathering.                              BRENDAN                    I can imagine.                        (she starts to speak, he cuts                         her off)                    You should really work on your invite                    management. That might be a personal                    'room for improvement' area in your                    life. But discretion of your invite                    sending aside, I have procured a certain                    someone's invitation, and would like                    details.          A beat of silence.                                                                                      11                                                  LAURA'S VOICE                    You think you're cute, whoever you are.                                         BRENDAN                    Wait'll you get a load of my felt fedora                    and spats.                                        LAURA'S VOICE                    Who are you? Or I'll hang up.                                        BRENDAN                    You don't know me - I'll save you some                    time.                                        LAURA'S VOICE                    I know everyone and I've got all the                    time in the world.                                        BRENDAN                    Folly of youth. Ask whose invitation                    I've got.                                        LAURA'S VOICE                        (slightly)                    What you said.                                        BRENDAN                    Emily Kostich.                    A beat.                                        LAURA'S VOICE                    15 Bush street, up in Stockton Cove.                    Buzz 42 at the gate. Nine o'clock. But                    who-                    Brendan hangs up. He folds his hands under his chin and          stares at the phone, perfectly still. The clock on his desk          says 4:53.                                                             DISSOLVE TO:                    7:37                    Brendan at his desk, tapping away at Tetris.                                                                       DISSOLVE TO:                    8:30          The desk is empty, Tetris paused. A shower runs behind an          ajar door in the background.                                                                                                          12                                  EXT. STOCKTON COVE GATE - NIGHT                        An imposing private community gate. Brendan coasts up on his              bike and ditches it in the bushes. He checks the call box              directory: "42 -- DANNON"                        Using the call box as a hand hold he hops the gate and walks              briskly up the street.                        EXT. STOCKTON COVE STREET - NIGHT                        Shiny cars line the curb. Party noises come from an upscale              two story house. Brendan takes a short breath, then strides              up to the front door.                        INT. LIVING ROOM                        Large and clean, with a two story ceiling and a railed              staircase at one end. Fifteen or twenty clean people, some              in costumes, mill about in cliques. Brendan comes in as if              he doesn't mind who sees him coming in. He gets a couple odd              stares, but no one stops him.                        With non obtrusive confidence he cuts through the crowd to              the beer keg in back and draws half a cup.                        INT. PARLOUR - SAME                        Richly adorned, crowded, lit with bright pools of light.              Brendan drifts in and stands in the back, deep in shadow.                        The music comes from a baby grand piano set against one              wall. Laura Dannon leans against it. She wears a red              kimono, and is striking against the velvet black piano.              Laura's kid sister, 11 years old with glasses, sits at the              piano playing "All I do is Dream of You".                        Laura sings, lovely and soft but with strength.1                        Brendan watches from the back, his face obscured in shadow,              but his eyes gleam. Through the darkened window behind him              a match flares up, and someone standing outside lights a              cigarette.                        Laura finishes the song. The room applauds, and she ruffles              her kid sister's hair.                        Brendan ducks out, and into                    1           By the time we got around to production this had changed to "Someone to Watch Over          Me," but the publishing rights proved too expensive (i.e. not free.) We chose the Gilbert          & Sullivan song, which besides being lovely was also in the public domain (i.e. free.)                                                                                   13                              INT. LIVING ROOM - SAME                    Brad Bramish, the jock who was kissing Laura in the parking          lot, sits slouched on the couch in a dense crowd. He holds a          cup and speaks much too loudly to a guy named Biff at his          elbow.                                        BRAD                    If the coach wants to play me I'll play,                    but I can't put my best game in if I've                    got to worry about whether I'm going to                    be in there. Halftime last game, coach                    is pissed I ran it on a pass play, out                    on the field he says to me 'you gotta                    think about the team and you gotta' you                    know and 'if you run that ball again                    you're out', and I said to him you gotta                    let me play! I'm out there, let me play,                    and he's saying 'no you're out' and I                    kept saying 'Let me play! Let me play!                    Let me play!', just right in his face-                                        BIFF                    He was!                                        BRAD                    Just 'Let me play! Let me play! Let me                    play!' 'No you gotta' 'No, let me play!                    Let me play! Let me play!'                    Brad hunches forward, his face swollen purple, yelling that          over and over. Tom steps in front of Brendan, blocking his          line of sight.                    Brendan scans the rest of the room. His eyes catch on Laura,          leaning against a divan. Her bright, sharp eyes cut through          the room, straight into Brendan.          He wags his eyebrows at her.                    She looks away quickly. Brendan turns back to Brad, still          shouting 'let me play'. Tom stands between them.                                        BRENDAN                    Tom!                    Brad falls silent. Most of the room follows suit. Tom turns          around. Brendan smiles good naturedly.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    Could you step aside, please? I'm                    trying to follow Brad's story, and it's                    difficult when I can't see his face.                                                                                   14                              The room watches Brendan. Tom mumbles something and steps          aside. Brad stares at Brendan stupidly. Brendan flashes a          dopey grin and tips his glass.                                        BRAD                        (stumbles)                    He doesn't give me a play to make, what                    can I do, you know?                    He falls into awkward silence. Biff starts babbling.                    Brendan looks at Brad, who is staring back at him.                    Brendan then slowly drags his gaze over to Laura, staring at          him too, her eyes slightly amused. Brendan cocks an eyebrow.          The slightest hint of a smile takes the corner of her mouth,          and she wags her eyebrows once at him.                    Brendan glances back at Brad, looking at Laura now, not          amused at all.                    Brendan stands to go. Biff chatters on. Brad cuts him off.                                        BRAD (cont'd)                    Hey. Hey! What are you doing here?                                         BRENDAN                    Leaving.                                         BRAD                    Oh yeah?                                        BRENDAN                    Uh huh. Unless your anecdote's got a 2nd                    act.                                        BRAD                    Why don't you leave?                                        BRENDAN                        (leaving)                    That's what I was doing.                    INT. DARK ROOM                    With a lit wet bar at one end. Brendan goes to the bar, puts          ice in a glass and cracks it with liquor.                                        LAURA                        (O.S.)                    Whiskey?                    Brendan pauses, glass touching his lips.                                                                                   15                                                     BRENDAN                    Jameson.                    He downs half of it.                                        LAURA                    I like a man who knows what he's                    drinking.                                        BRENDAN                    That's a pretty sick thing to be                    attracted to.                                        LAURA                    Brad's not a good guy to get on the                    wrong side of.                                           BRENDAN                    Uh huh.                    They stare at each other in silence. She studies his face.          The broken light of the bar makes her features seem liquid.                                        LAURA                    Fearless flyer. Quit your yappin and fix                    me one.                    and slips out a sliding glass door.                    He fills another glass with whiskey and cuts his with water.                    EXT. BACK PATIO - NIGHT                    Brendan joins Laura, hands her a drink. Suburban lights fill          the valley below. Laura sips her drink.                                        LAURA                    I'll never get through all this.                                           BRENDAN                    Uh huh.                    She sips more.                                         LAURA                    I knew your old partner Jerr since grade                    school. Tough break. How long were you                    two joined up before your operation got                    the sting?                                                               16                                        BRENDAN          A few months. Could have helped himself          out by turning me in, but he took the          heat. He was a good guy. Solid.                              LAURA          Was he?                              BRENDAN          You knew him.                              LAURA          Yeah I did. So why are you here tonight?                              BRENDAN          I'm looking for Emily.                              LAURA          She wasn't invited.                              BRENDAN          She had an invitation.                              LAURA          Well like you said, I've got to work on          that. Em's been AWOL for a good month,          nobody's seen her.                              BRENDAN          I saw her yesterday.                              LAURA          Nearly nobody's seen her. So what did          she tell you?                              BRENDAN              (winces)          Score 0 for finesse.                              LAURA          Listen, you're scratching at the wrong          door. I wasn't with Emily enough to know          details of what she was in, I just got          wind of the downfall, and I didn't get          any details of that, except that it was          bad. So now that we're showing some          cards...                              BRENDAN          If you haven't got a finger in Em's          troubles, why'd her name get me into          your rather exclusive party?                                                                                  17                                                  LAURA                    Keep up with me now. I don't know, but                    it sounded like you did, and a body's                    got a right to be curious. Now I'm not                    so sure.                                        BRENDAN                    Well I'll put that body to bed. I don't                    know a damn thing about whatever                    troubles, and that works for me. I just                    want to find her.                    A long beat. Laura studies Brendan's face, then seems to          come to a decision.                                        LAURA                    Coffee and pie.                    The words hang in the air a moment. A look of recognition          from Brendan.                                        BRENDAN                    Coffee and pie oh my?                                        LAURA                    And you didn't hear it from me.                    He sips his drink. A voice calls from the glass door.          Another girl. Laura flashes Brendan a look and goes to her.          They have quick, quiet words and the girl leaves. Laura          turns back to Brendan.                                        LAURA (CONT'D) (cont'd)                    Will you wait here for me?                                         BRENDAN                    Sure.                                        LAURA                    You'll stay right here and wait -- I'll                    be five minutes.                                         BRENDAN                    Yes.                    The moment she leaves Brendan runs across the lawn and hops          the fence, into the neighbor's yard.                    EXT. SIDE OF HOUSE                    Brendan runs to the edge of the neighboring house and peeks          around. Laura comes out the front door, cuts across the          lawn and sidewalk and trots out into the street. Brendan                                                                                   18                              begins to follow, but a noise from behind the fence stops          him - a match being struck.                    Brendan creeps towards the fence and peers through a          splintered hole.                    BRENDAN'S POV - THROUGH THE FENCE                    A brightly lit window in the side of Brad's house, and          through the window the party.                    A dark figure wearing a long coat and broad rimmed hat, all          inky black. The figure smokes a cigarette and watches the          party, absently stroking his cheek.                    Brendan steps back - SNAP!   A twig.                    The figure freezes. Then, making no noise at all, it spins          to face Brendan, a towering black form against the window.                    The glowing cigarette falls to the grass.          A metallic glint, and a clicking sound not unlike a gun.                    Brendan throws himself backwards onto the grass. A beat.                    Through the hole the black of the figure's cloak whips away.                    Brendan hesitates, then hops the fence.                    EXT. SIDE OF BRAD'S HOUSE - SAME                    Brendan lands on his feet. No black figure to be found.                    The cigarette still smolders on the ground. Hand rolled,          plain paper.                    Brendan gazes through the window, catching his breath. Then          he breaks the trance and creeps towards the street.                    EXT. FRONT LAWN - NIGHT                    Peeking around the house, Brendan sees Laura cut across the          lawn and trot into the street. Using parked cars as cover,          Brendan follows.                    EXT. STREET                    Between cars, Brendan sees a lanky kid in baggy jeans and          engineer boots with a clean shaven head leaning against a          black Mustang. Laura goes to him and speaks quickly.                                                                                   19                              The dark figure in the hat emerges from the shadows. Laura          says something to him. Grunting something angrily, he gets          in the car with the bald kid and peels off.                    Laura turns and slowly walks towards the house.                    When she is gone Brendan stands, throws a look back at the          house and walks off down the street, towards the guard gate.                    EXT. BACK PATIO                    The two drinks, where Brendan left them. Laura takes hers          and drains it. The suburban lights twinkle like stars.                    EXT. CARROWS PARKING LOT - DAY                    The sun rises over Carrows family restaurant, a squat          structure backed against the weedy edge of the runoff tunnel          ravine.                    A banner from 1973 in the window - "Coffee and Pie oh my!"          A pack of six pale stoners slump against the rear dumpster.          Their beady eyes follow Brendan in sync as he approaches.                    He goes to the nearest one.                                        BRENDAN                    Where's Dode?                                        STONER 1                    Dunno, bra.                    Silence and blank stares. Brendan calmly moves to the next          stoner.                                        BRENDAN                    Dode?                                        STONER 2                    Uh uh.                    Brendan moves to the next one.                    A thin head pokes from around the dumpster.                                        DODE                    Hey Brendan. Maybe you shouldn't be                    here.                    Brendan steps around the dumpster. Dode slumps against the          wall, thin and delicate in dusty black. Slivery eyes, pale          lips, muffled intelligence.                                                                                   20                                                  BRENDAN                    Kara told me you know where Em's at.                                         DODE                    Uh huh.   And why are you looking for Em?                                        BRENDAN                    She asked for my help.                                         DODE                    Uh huh. Listen man, I've got plenty on                    my plate without dealing with some                    jilted ex.                                        BRENDAN                    It's not about that.                                        DODE                    Whatever it's about, act smarter than                    you look and drop it.                                        BRENDAN                    Where is she?                                        DODE                    She's with me, and right now that's the                    best place for her. Leave the low life                    to the low lifers and dangle.                                        BRENDAN                    You're on the bright side of dim, Dode,                    but if I thought you had this half-                    handled I'd be eating lunch. Where's                    she at?                                        DODE                    Better get while it's good.                    Brendan doesn't.                              DODE (cont'd)                    Heel it now, dig?                    The 5 big stoners appear behind Brendan, threatening.   Dode          turns his head away to light a joint.                    Brendan's fist slams into his face, sending the joint          spinning. Brendan slams Dode's frail frame against the          dumpster.                    The 5 stoners stand in the exact same position, deer in the          headlights. One makes a half hearted motion to intervene.                                                                               21                                                     BIG STONER                    Back off.                                        BRENDAN                    Throw one at me if you want, hash head.                    I've got all five senses and I slept                    last night, that puts me six up on the                    lot of you.                                           BIG STONER                    Just easy-                    Brendan slams Dode into the wall.                                        BRENDAN                        (to Dode)                    Where's Em?                                        DODE                        (deliberate)                    She's with me. She was tight when she                    called you, man. Came to and freaked.                    She told me to shake you if you came by.                    Said you'd only make things worse.                    Brendan covers how shaken he is by this statement fairly          well. He drops Dode.                                        STONER 1 (O.S.)                    Put him down, man!                                        DODE                    Deal with whatever this ain't about and                    drop it.                                        BIG STONER                        (to Brendan)                    Nothing more here, bra.                                        BRENDAN                    Tell Emily I want to see her. Tell her                    if she still wants my help or not that's                    her business, but I want to hear it                    straight from her.                                        DODE                    She don't -                    Brendan walks away.                                        BRENDAN                    Today. She knows where I eat lunch.                                                                                      22                              When Brendan is a safe distance away the biggest stoner          shouts with conviction                                        BIG STONER                    And stay out, punk!                    EXT. SIDEWALK - CONTINUOUS                    Brendan hides behind a tall clump of bushes.                    A moment later Dode hustles away from Carrows. Brendan          follows.                    EXT. STREET - EARLY MORNING                    The sun is rising as Brendan tails Dode through the twisty          suburban streets.                    Brendan takes cover as Dode stops by a white hatchback.                    A girl gets out of the car and embraces Dode. Her wrist is          adorned with the same cheap plastic bracelets as the dead          girl's arm. Dode speaks quickly to her, she nods and speaks          back. He hands her a slip of paper, which she tucks into a          brightly colored address book and slips in her jacket          pocket. They embrace again, Dode walks off and the girl gets          in her car.                    Brendan stumbles after the car, but it is quickly gone. He          watches it go, then follows Dode back towards school.                    EXT. SCHOOL THEATER - MORNING                    Dode slumps into the front door of the brown building.          Brendan watches him from a distance, eyes thoughtful. After          a beat he turns and walks off into the thickening crowds of          students.                                                                       FADE OUT:                    FADE UP                    EXT. BACK OF SCHOOL - MIDDAY                    Brendan eats lunch alone on a concrete wall beside a long,          empty utility road behind the school.                                                                              LATER                    Reclining on the wall, reading "Lord of the Flies". He          raises his eyes, and sits up suddenly.                                                                                     23                              Off in the distance on the utility road a tiny figure          approaches, stumbling. Brendan jumps and hits the ground          running towards the figure.                    Meet the girl with cheap bracelets, the girl Dode spoke to,          the dead girl, Emily. He catches her just as she stumbles          and falls and carries her into the shade of a covered          hallway.                    EXT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS                    Emily and Brendan sit in silence. She is very pretty, but          she looks bad. Too much makeup, not enough sleep. She          sniffles, speaks to her shoes.                                        EMILY                    I must have sounded pretty crazy on the                    phone. Yesterday.                    She taps her shoes together lightly, eyes fixed on them.                                        EMILY (cont'd)                    It was dumb, I got paranoid over a                    really stupid thing. I was high, I went                    crazy for a little bit, but now you have                    to forget about it. Please. That's how                    you can help me now, forget about it.                    She turns her weak eyes to Brendan for the first time.     His          stare is unwavering, searching. She pushes on.                                        EMILY (cont'd)                    Brendan, I know you're mad at all these                    people, cause you think I went away from                    you and went to them. But you've got to                    start seeing it as my decision, stop                    being angry because where I want to be                    at's different from where you wanna be                    at.                                        BRENDAN                        (angry)                    Who fed you that line, Em?                    She looks back at her shoes.                                        EMILY                    And stop picking on Dode. He's a good                    guy.                                        BRENDAN                    The Carrows rat?                                                                                  24                                                  EMILY                    He's a good friend.                                        BRENDAN                    So what am I?                                        EMILY                        (strained anger)                    Yeah, what are you? Eating back here,                    not liking anybody, how are you judging                    anyone? I loved you alot but I couldn't                    stand it, I had to get with people. I                    couldn't heckle life with you, I had to                    see what was what.                    A beat. She taps her clogs. One has a hole worn through the          sole. Her face contorts, seizes up, and she is sobbing.                                        EMILY (cont'd)                    I'm sorry Brendan.                    She buries her face in his shoulder. He has a hard time          speaking.                                        BRENDAN                    You've got to come back to me, Em.                                        EMILY                    No. No. Never. I'm sorry. Never. I can't                    love on your terms, Brendan. I can't do                    that, I'm not like you.                                        BRENDAN                    You're in a spot, I can get you out of                    it. Come back to me, and whatever heat                    follows you I'll deal with.                                        EMILY                    No. You're not hearing me, no. I don't                    want to be put away and protected. No.                                        EMILY (cont'd)                    No.                                        BRENDAN                    Tell me about the trouble, the brick and                    the pin -                                        EMILY                    You gonna fix things like you did with                    Jerr? No. I came to say goodbye, for                    good. Whatever you have to do to let me                    go, do it. I'm gonna let you go, I've                                                                                                       25                                              decided that. Make sure that, you've got                          to, promise you won't torture yourself,                          that you'll let me go.                        She embraces him, enveloping him in her jacket. His face is              a frozen mask.                                                 EMILY (cont'd)                          Let me go.                        As she pulls away he mechanically slips an address book from              her jacket pocket.                        He watches her as she walks away.                        INT. CLASSROOM                        Brendan sits in the back, flipping through the address book.              The teacher drones on about the significance of the pig's              head in "Lord of the Flies".1              THE ADDRESS BOOK                        Illegible scribbles, names, numbers, nothing that stops his              search - then the note Dode gave her, a corner of loose-leaf              paper which looks like this:                                                      Brendan studies the paper intently.                        EXT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY                        The Brain studies the paper. Busses pull into the parking              lot behind them. Brendan is distant, lost in thought.                                              THE BRAIN                          Hm. Do you know anything else about                          this?                                                  1           Our one and only scene in a classroom was moved to Brendan's lunch spot to save us          a location change. The degree to which the lack of classroom time in the film has been          commented on has always bemused the author, who cannot for the life of him          remember a single interesting thing that happened in a classroom in high school.                                                                         26                                                    BRENDAN                          (shakes his head)                    Mm.                                        THE BRAIN                    Slim pickings. Why'd you let Dode fly                    when he came back to whose-her-name, at                    the theater?                                        BRENDAN                        (shrugs dismissively)                    Kara. It's their turf, I couldn't hear                    them without being seen, and that would                    only biff their play. Best to know it's                    there, let it ride and see what comes of                    it.                        (touches the paper)                    But anyway.                                        THE BRAIN                    Hm. Well, if this is what I think it is,                    it didn't come straight from Dode, less                    he's playing out of his league.                        (beat)                    I can only give you my best guess.                                         BRENDAN                    Yeah.                                        THE BRAIN                    When the upper crust does shady deeds                    they do them in different spots around                    town. I know under the pier's one, down                    by the bike trails in the state park's                    another. There's alot of them. The pitch                    is they've got little symbols for each                    one, and that's how they tell each other                    the place, so word won't get around. So                    this might be that.                                        BRENDAN                    But Dode wouldn't know it?                                        THE BRAIN                    This is upper crust. Dode's pie pan                    grease.                    Brendan studies the symbol.                                        BRENDAN                    Call anything up?                                                                                    27                                                     THE BRAIN                       How many places start with 'A'? Or if                       it's a shape, or just a random symbol.                       Anyway, even if you figured it out, what                       good could you do? She's smart, she                       knows the play, she's gunning to square                       things.                                           BRENDAN                       Yeah.                                           THE BRAIN                       You said her business was none of yours,                       so she's alright, forget it now. Go                       home, sleep.                    INT. BRENDAN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                    Sparsely furnished. Brendan plays Tetris on his computer,          staring off into space. His mom's voice calls "Good night"          and the hallway light turns off.                                                                            LATER                    10:30 by the clock radio on Brendan's nightstand. The slip          of paper rests beside it. Brendan lies in bed, staring at          the symbol on the paper. His eyes tense.                    THE SYMBOL                    Growing larger, burning with a searing intensity, then          folding into darkness. Water rushes overhead, over concrete,          concrete with a hole in it -- the runoff tunnel, just for an          instant, then back underwater, screaming. Brendan choking,          screaming, plunging upwards. A woman with no face falls from          the darkness and kisses him, her long hair sweeping around          him then pulling away. As the last strands slide off his          face he wakes up with a start.                    The clock says 3:46. Brendan drips with sweat, breathing          raggedly. He takes the paper and a pencil from the          nightstand and shades the symbol to look like this:                                                  FLASH CUT - The runoff tunnel, lining up perfectly with the          now shaded symbol.                    BACK TO BRENDAN                                                                                  28                              His eyes turn uneasy as he removes his glasses and clicks          off the light.                    EXT. BRENDAN'S HOUSE - DAWN                    Brendan walks off into the hazy pre-dawn light.                    EXT. EDGE OF RAVINE                    Brendan stops at a high wall of weeds, listening to the low          gurgle of moving water. Slowly, robotically he pushes          through.                    EMILY'S BODY                    Face down, bobbing gently in shallow water. Bluish white.          Red foam clings to her.                    EXT. RUNOFF TUNNEL                    Silently, as if lowered by a string Brendan sinks down,          squatting in the mud. His lungs empty in one choppy breath.          He pulls his glasses off sluggishly.                    EMILY'S ARM                    Lifeless, pale.                    BRENDAN'S FACE                    A contorted, frozen mask, eyes wet.                    EMILY'S HAIR                    Stringy, flowing gently in the water.                    BRENDAN'S EYES                    Dazed, drifting... then suddenly snapping to attention.                    A noise. From the tunnel.                    Brendan freezes. The inky blackness of the tunnel mouth          opens like a vacuum... silent, but then -                    The scrape of a shoe against concrete, then echoing          footsteps running away.                    Brendan springs like a cat, sprinting into the tunnel.                                                                                   29                              INT. TUNNEL                    Nearly pitch black. 2 sets of running footfalls. Brendan is          chasing, running full speed into the blackness, heart          pounding - we almost don't notice that Brendan's are now the          only footfalls.                    Brendan notices. He stops. Silence in the darkness, except          for Brendan's breath... and someone near...                    SLAM! Brendan takes a fist in the cheek and goes down. An          inky black figure steps from the shadows and kicks him in          the stomach. Brendan curls on the ground, the figure over          him.                                        FIGURE                        (low whisper)                    Your little Em.                    The figure runs off. Brendan raises his head painfully - the          figure is silhouetted briefly against the distant bright end          of the tunnel, then is gone.                    EXT. RUNOFF TUNNEL - EARLY MORNING                    Emily's body is still there. Brendan crawls out of the          tunnel and collapses in the shallow water, beside the body.          He rests his head on his arm, eyes on Em's hair.                    EXT. CAMPUS - EARLY MORNING                    Cold and barren, nearly empty. Brendan limps across the          barren lawns.                    EXT. PHONE BOOTHS                    A line of phone booths on campus. Brendan nearly collapses          against one. He dials, still in a stupor.                                        VOICE ON PHONE                    Saint Clement police.                    Brendan stares into space, eyes burning                                        VOICE ON PHONE (cont'd)                    Saint Clement police, hello? Hello?                    Brendan hangs up.          EXT. LIBRARY - CONTINUOUS                    Early morning mist below a squat brick building.                                                                                30                              INT. LIBRARY                    Warmly lit, sheltering the few souls scattered here and          there at tables. The Brain sits at one of them reading an          impossibly large book. He watches curiously as Brendan          approaches him.                                        THE BRAIN                    Hey, Brendan.                    Brendan falls into a chair. The Brain looks him over.                                        THE BRAIN (cont'd)                    You're up early.                                        BRENDAN                        (thick, distant)                    I couldn't sleep.                                        THE BRAIN                        (nods, back to his book)                    Find Emily?                    Brendan breathes out softly.                                        THE BRAIN (cont'd)                    You alright?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah. What, are you here for zero?                                        THE BRAIN                    Nah, I gotta take the early bus, cause                    the others don't run by my street.                                           BRENDAN                    Bad break.                                        THE BRAIN                    Eh. Time to read's nice. So what's the                    word with Em?                                        BRENDAN                    She's gone.                                        THE BRAIN                    Can't raise her?                                        BRENDAN                    No, I can't.                                        THE BRAIN                    So what now?                                                                                  31                                                  BRENDAN                    Now. I don't know. I guess it's... I                    don't know.                    Brendan takes a long moment. He stares down at his glasses,          wet with condensation.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    Brain, I can't let her go. I was set to                    but I can't. I don't think I can.                                        THE BRAIN                    You think you can help her?                                          BRENDAN                    No.                                        THE BRAIN                    You think you can get the straight,                    maybe break some deserving teeth?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah. I think I could.                                          THE BRAIN                    Well.                    Brendan rubs his forehead.                                        BRENDAN                    Kara tried to rope me. She came right                    out and asked. She was scared. Tell me                    to walk from this, Brain. Tell me to                    drop it.                                        THE BRAIN                    Walk from it. Drop it.                        (grins)                    You're thick as what-all, Brendan.                                BRENDAN                    Yes I am.                    Brendan cleans his glasses. He looks Brain in the eye, and          his mannerisms come back into focus.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    I'd need you to Op. Like on Jerr, but                    that was cake to this. And unlike Jerr,                    there's not much chance we'll come out                    clean. Twenty four seven on this one.                    You okay to op for me again?                                                                                                        32                                  The Brain barely smiles.                                              THE BRAIN                          What first, tip the bulls?                        Brendan puts on his glasses, stands to go.                                              BRENDAN                          No, bulls would gum it. They'd flash                          their dusty standards at the wide-eyes                          and probably find some yegg to pin,                          probably even the right one. But they'd                          trample the real tracks and scare the                          real players back into their holes, and                          if we're doing this I want the whole                          story. No cops, not for a bit.                                              THE BRAIN                          So what first?                                              BRENDAN                          I don't know. Your mom still have the                          cell?                                              THE BRAIN                          In her car.                                              BRENDAN                          Borrow it for a few days, get me the                          number.                              (stands to go)                          Wait for my word, and cover for me first                          period. I'm going to be a little late.                        EXT. BASKETBALL FIELD - DAY                        A vast field of asphalt segmented by a dozen basketball              courts outlined in cracked paint.1 Brendan trudges across              it, his steps heavy. He stops and stands very still, staring              at the ground for a beat then raising his eyes to                        THE HORIZON                        Flat, gray, pin straight. Brendan's voice starts speaking              rapidly, confident and clear.                                        1           This describes the location at my school that the "showdown" scenes were originally          written for. Between when I wrote the script and when we shot it, however, the school          expanded and built portable classrooms on the basketball field, and so we reluctantly          moved these scenes to the football field.                                                                                        33                                                          BRENDAN (O.S.)                            Yeah it was personal. Jerr spooked some                            decent gees and ran around some what was                            straight with him, but I'm nobody's bull                            runner. This wasn't a business sit. But                            yeah. I bulled him. Got in tight,                            partnered up and sent him over.                         PAN AROUND to reveal BRENDAN. He looks different, edgier,               more alive, wearing different clothes and a thin goatee1. He               keeps talking directly at us.                                                BRENDAN (cont'd)                            I'd bull the lot of them, Em, I'd burn                            down the whole party if they tried to                            play you again. Jerr and whoever's next.                            I want to keep you safe.                         An ARM swings into frame, wearing cheap plastic bracelets               and pale blue fingernail polish. It slaps Brendan hard in               the face. He catches it. Emily wrenches her arm away and               stumbles backwards onto the pavement.                         Brendan grabs her sleeve. She twists away. He grabs her               shoulder, grabs her waist, she resists, and suddenly they               are struggling with violent pent up intensity until with a               shout she breaks away and falls to the ground.                         A beat.     Gulls cry in the distance.                                                EMILY                            You can't keep me safe, Brendan. I'm in                            a bigger world now, and you can't hide                            me from it, and you can't beat it. Not                            if I don't want you to.                         Brendan's face looks lumpish, while Emily's is strong. She               stands and walks off into the distance across the barren               field.                         BRENDAN'S FACE                         Watching her go. It is back to present day, pale, clean               shaven, sullen. His eyes are cold with resolve.                         EXT. RUNOFF TUNNEL - EARLY MORNING                         Brendan sloshes down into the water. Without delicacy he               lifts Emily's body and pulls her back into the tunnel.                         INT. RUNOFF TUNNEL                    1              Which Joe would not even consider, thank god.                                                                                                       34                                  Pitch back. Brendan lays the body down. Two beady eyes peer              at him from the darkness - he freezes. The eyes hop forward              - a gull. The two watch each other for a moment, then the              gull squawks and flutters out the bright mouth of the              tunnel. Brendan follows it without looking back at the              body.1                        EXT. CROWDED HALLWAY - DAY                        Brendan and the Brain lean against a wall. The Brain slips              him a piece of paper.                                              THE BRAIN                          There's the cell number.                                              BRENDAN                          Keep it on vibrate.                                              THE BRAIN                              (pats his jacket pocket)                          Yeah.                                              BRENDAN                          Better stop meeting me in the open too.                          I'm going to start getting visible, and                          I need you on the underneath. I'll call.                                              THE BRAIN                          Trueman asked for you. Wants words in                          his office.                                              BRENDAN                          I bet. Keep him off me - stonewall him,                          he won't bite, just keep him away from                          me.                                              THE BRAIN                          I'll try. So what's first?                                              BRENDAN                          Make Em's troubles mine. I'm going to                          throw a few words at you, tell me if                          they catch. Brick.                                                 THE BRAIN                          No.                                        1           A very early draft held on the tunnel after Brendan left, and revealed a dark figure          (Dode) creeping away from the top of the tunnel, causing the pebble described on page          1 to plink into the water.                                                                                                             35                                                         BRENDAN                           Or bad brick.                                                  THE BRAIN                           No.                                                  BRENDAN                           Tug.                                               THE BRAIN                           Tug... that might be a drink.                                                  BRENDAN                           Drink?                                               THE BRAIN                           Vodka and milk or something, or maybe                           not.                                               BRENDAN                           Poor Frisco.                                               THE BRAIN                           Frisco. Frisco Farr1 was a sophomore                           last year, I think. Real trash, maybe                           hit a class a week. Didn't know him                           then, and haven't seen him around.                                                  BRENDAN                           Pin.                                               THE BRAIN                           Pin... the Pin?                                               BRENDAN                           The Pin, yeah.                                               THE BRAIN                           The Pin's kind of a local spook story.                           You know the Kingpin?                                     BRENDAN                           I've heard it.                                               THE BRAIN                           Same thing. Supposed to be old, like 26,                           lives in town.                              1           All apologies to Frisco Farr, who the author did actually go to school with, and who          was neither a druggie nor `real trash', but was a great guy who simply had a very cool          sounding name. He is now (the author was horrified to learn) practicing law.                                                                                                           36                                                         BRENDAN                           Jake1 runner, right?                                               THE BRAIN                           Big time... maybe. Ask any dope rat                           where their junk sprang they'll say they                           scraped it from that who scored it from                           this who bought it off so, and after                           four or five connections the list'll                           always end with the Pin. But I'll becha                           you got every rat in town together and                           said 'show your hands' if any of them've                           actually seen the Pin, you'd get a crowd                           of full pockets.                                               BRENDAN                           You think the Pin's just a tale to take                           whatever heat?                                               THE BRAIN                               (shrugs. Beat)                           But what's first?                                               BRENDAN                           A show of hands.                        INT. BACKSTAGE OF THEATER                        Brendan strides past forest scenery and drama geeks, through              another door and into sunlight.                        EXT. BACK OF THEATER - DAY                        Kara smokes a cigarette. Brendan leans beside her.                                               KARA                               (annoyed)                           Hey Brendan. Here for the show?                                                   BRENDAN                           No.                                               KARA                           Would you go then, honey, cause I've got                           this headache.                                               BRENDAN                           Try smoking like a chimney, I've heard                           that helps.                              1           In an admittedly paltry concession to clarity, this was changed to `Dope runner' in post          production.                                                                             37                              Brendan grabs the pack of cigarettes.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    Isn't this Dode's brand?                    Kara snaps her head towards him, a flash of anger. She          catches herself and smiles cooly.                                        KARA                    You don't know Dode's brand.                                        BRENDAN                    Oh I do now.                    Angry again, Kara snatches the pack from him.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    I'm going to start shaking things up.                    Give me the story and you might miss the                    bite.                              KARA                    The story about what?                                         BRENDAN                    Alright.                    He turns and walks away.                                        KARA                    The story about what?                                        BRENDAN                    I don't want to play games if you've got                    a headache. Get me if you want to spill                    it, but I can't guarantee safe passage                    after tonight.                                        KARA                    I don't know what-          At the stage door, not slowing.                                        BRENDAN                    Tell the Pin that Brad was my calling                    card, and I need words.                                        KARA                    Brad Bramish?          Through the door and into the theater.                                                                                   38                              INT. BACKSTAGE OF THEATER - CONTINUOUS                    He spins to see Kara's face just before the door closes.          She's worried.                    EXT. CROWDED SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY                    The Brain walks out of a classroom and Brendan swings behind          him.                                        BRENDAN                        (fast and low)                    Tail Kara through lunch. She's got                    rehearsal but she'll blow early. She                    goes home, drop her, else wait for my                    call.                    The Brain turns and Brendan's gone.                    EXT. PARKING LOT - LUNCH          Brendan wanders through the thick lunchtime crowd towards a          cluster of 3 or 4 flashy luxury cars set aside at the far          end of the lot.                    Brad Bramish sits slouched in the front seat of his          convertible, front door open. A small crowd hangs about          Brad, his crony Biff at his elbow.                                        BRAD                    That's all I'm saying, is put me in the                    game and I'll do what needs to be done,                    but they don't put me in, what needs                    doing don't get done and don't come                    crying to me, man. Get off my grill man,                    you didn't put me in, don't come to me                    if you didn't let me play.                                        BIFF                    They didn't!                    Brendan scans the rest of the cars. His eyes catch on Laura          Dannon sitting in another convertible, off to the side. Her          bright eyes cut through the crowd, straight into Brendan.                    He wags his eyebrows at her. She looks away. Brendan walks          into Brad's direct line of view and obviously leans against          one of the cars.                                        BRAD                    Hey! What are you doing here?                                                                              39                                                     BRENDAN                    Listening.                                           BRAD                    Uh huh.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright, you got me. I'm a scout for the                    Gophers.                                        BRAD                        (not amused)                    Oh yeah?                                        BRENDAN                    Of all things, yeah. Been watching your                    game for a month, but that story just                    now clenched it. You've got heart, kid.                    How soon can you move to Minneapolis?                    A few snickers around the crowd, but nowhere near Brad.                                        BRAD                        (flat with anger)                    Yeah?                                        BRENDAN                    Cold winters, but they've got a great                    public transit system.                                           BRAD                    Yeah?                                           BRENDAN                    Yeah.                                           BRAD                    Oh yeah?                                        BRENDAN                    There's a thesaurus in the library.                    'Yeah's under 'Y'. Go ahead, I'll wait.                                        BRAD                    Who invited you?                                        BRENDAN                    To the parking lot? Well gee I kind of                    invited myself.                                        BRAD                    I think you'd better leave then.                                                                                   40                                                  BRENDAN                    No, I'm having too good a time.                                        BRAD                    Just the same.                    Brendan smiles slightly, and very deliberately crosses his          legs. Brad's face tenses.                                        BRAD (cont'd)                    Maybe you want to go someplace more                    private.                                          BRENDAN                    With you?                    Brad says 'who else?' by lifting his arms.                                         BRENDAN (cont'd)                        (as if he's been asked to the                          movies)                    Sure.                    Brendan stands and walks off. Brad follows and the rest of          the crowd trails after him.                    He leads them behind a parked VW van and turns to face Brad.          People gather around in a wide circle.                    Brendan pulls his jacket off as Brad hangs back, mumbling.                                        BRAD                    You know what's good for you you'll just                    beat it. Beating a small frye won't win                    me anything and it's not going to do you                    any good-                    Laura pulls up in her convertible, behind Brad, watching.                    In the next moment Brendan cuts Brad off by putting his fist          in his face.                    Brad grunts but doesn't lose ground. Brendan throws his          short stocky frame into Brad's larger one and tenderizes his          midsection with jabs.                    Brad tags Brendan in the ribs, then smacks the palm of his          hand into Brendan's face, shoving him back onto the          pavement.                    He comes at Brendan with his big fists clenched.                    Brendan kicks Brad full force in the shins.                                                                                   41                              Brad tumbles, and Brendan comes up fast, connecting hard          with the point of Brad's chin. Brad gets his balance fast,          and before Brendan can throw another he throws one himself,          then another, both into Brendan's stomach. Brendan pulls          back and kicks Brad's shin where he had kicked it before.          Brad roars and hits Brendan very hard in the face.                    Brendan bounces back like a rubber ball and throws his          weight into a square punch right into Brad's nose.                    The sound of eggs breaking, and Brad falls backwards like a          board.                    He stays down, holding his face.                    Brendan staggers back, breathing hard, and looks up at the          small crowd. Some stare at Brendan, some at Brad, but nobody          seems about to do anything. Brendan runs his sleeve over his          face and walks unsteadily off, pushing past the last few          people rushing over.                                        STRAGGLER                    Hey, is there a fight?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah.                    He throws a last look at Laura, who meets his gaze and          drives off.                    EXT. SCHOOL PARKING LOT SIDEWALK - CONTINUOUS                    Brendan walks away from the lot, towards the school. Laura          pulls up beside him in her car.                                        LAURA                    Hey.                    Brendan ignores her and b-lines for the school. Laura brakes          hard, parking by the curb.          EXT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS                    Brendan limps down the hallway.    Laura appears behind him,          trotting to catch up.                                        LAURA                    You're quite a pill.                              BRENDAN                    Uh huh.                                                                             42                                                  LAURA                    Where are you going?                                         BRENDAN                    Home.                                        LAURA                    Why did you take a powder the other                    night?                                        BRENDAN                    Same reason I'm taking one now.                                        LAURA                    Hold it.                        (he keeps walking)                    I don't get you. That's a chilly heel to                    be giving a girl who's where you want to                    know about.                                        BRENDAN                    I'll get where I'm going just fine.                                        LAURA                    I want to help you.                                         BRENDAN                    Go away.                    Silence behind him. He stops, turns wearily. She looks          genuinely hurt.                                        BRENDAN (CONT'D) (cont'd)                    Look, I can't trust you. You ought to be                    smart enough to know that. I didn't                    shake the party up to get your                    attention, and I'm not heeling you to                    hook you. Your connections could help                    me, but the bad baggage they bring could                    make it zero sum game or even hurt me,                    so I'm better off coming at it clean.                                        LAURA                    I wouldn't have to lead you in by the                    hand-                                        BRENDAN                    I can't trust you. Brad was a sap, you                    weren't, you were with him and so you                    were playing him, so you're a player.                    With you behind me I'd have to tie one                    eye up watching both your hands, and I                    can't spare it.                                                                                43                                                  LAURA                    You're not Brad.                                        BRENDAN                    No, I'm not.                    He turns and walks away. She doesn't follow.                    EXT. SCHOOL PAYPHONE - AFTERNOON                    Brendan slumps against it, receiver to his ear, licking a          bruised lip. He wears dark glasses.                                        THE BRAIN                        (on the phone)                    You didn't call.                                        BRENDAN                    Sorry. Kara went home though, didn't                    she?                              THE BRAIN                    Yeah, but she stopped at a payphone and                    made two calls that she didn't want on                    her phone bill.                                        BRENDAN                    Get the numbers?                                           THE BRAIN                    No. Sorry.                                        BRENDAN                    S'alright. Are me and Brad front page                    news?                                        THE BRAIN                    All the buzz. You really do that?                                           BRENDAN                    Yeah.                                        THE BRAIN                    Why? Is Brad the Pin?                                        BRENDAN                    Brad's a sap. I downed him on his field                    and his crew didn't bite. So now I know                    he's a sap and anyone who acts like he                    isn't is profiting by it. That's not why                    I roughed him, though.                                                                                     44                                                     BRAIN                    For kicks?                                        BRENDAN                    Economics. Brad's the school's biggest                    jake buyer, so if this Pin is behind all                    the selling, I just got his attention.                    Anyway, now's just shaking things out.                    Look, you know a kid around the burgh,                    lanky, short, shaved head, turns a black                    tang?                                        THE BRAIN                    I told you before I don't know the car.                    Those types are a nickel a pound, but                    nobody I know that you don't. And                    Trueman again-                                        BRENDAN                    Keep him off. And keep your specs on - I                    need to find that kid.                                           THE BRAIN                    Okay.                    Brendan hangs up and turns sluggishly.                    A lanky kid with a short shaved head and engineer boots          punches him in the face.                    Brendan hits the pavement. The lanky kid is over him in a          split second, beating his face and body with short, heavy          blows.                    Flashes of the lanky kid - a shiny scar shaped like a thin          triangle runs down the side of his face.                    After a brief silent thrashing the kid walks off with          several other blurry figures. A car peels out and roars off          O.S.                    Brendan lies still. The class bell rings, very distant. Legs          criss cross before his eyes, each blurring the world a bit          more until it is completely smeared.                                                                         FADE OUT.                                                                          FADE IN:                    INT. OFFICE          Brendan sits with an ice pack against his head in a tiny          office. A man in his early thirties behind a wood colored                                                                            45                              desk and name plate, "GARY TRUEMAN, ASSISTANT VICE          PRINCIPAL" plays with a pencil.                                        TRUEMAN                    You didn't know this boy?                                        BRENDAN                    No sir, never seen him.                                        TRUEMAN                    And he just hit you?                                        BRENDAN                    Like I said, he asked for my lunch money                    first. Good thing I brown bagged it.                    Trueman trains a good natured dubious eye on Brendan.                                        TRUEMAN                    Alright Brendan. I've been looking to                    talk to you.                    Brendan doesn't react.                                        TRUEMAN (cont'd)                    You've helped this office out before.                                        BRENDAN                    No. I gave you Jerr to see him eaten,                    not to see you fed.                                        TRUEMAN                    Fine, and well put.                                        BRENDAN                    Accelerated English, Mrs. Kasprzyk.                                        TRUEMAN                    Tough teacher?                                        BRENDAN                    Tough but fair.                                        TRUEMAN                    Mm. Anyway then, we know you're clean,                    and you've, despite your motives, you've                    been an asset to us. I think you're a                    good kid.                              BRENDAN                    Uh huh.                                                                         46                                                  TRUEMAN                    I want to run a couple names by you.                    Brendan stands to go.                                        TRUEMAN (cont'd)                    We're not done here.                                        BRENDAN                        (angry)                    I was done here three months ago. I told                    you then I'd give you Jerr and that was                    that, I'm not your inside line and I'm                    not your boy.                                        TRUEMAN                    That's not a very helpful-                                        BRENDAN                        (anger builds)                    You know what I'm in if the wrong yeg                    saw me pulled in here?                                        TRUEMAN                    What are you in?                                        BRENDAN                    No. And no more of these informal chats                    - if you've got a discipline issue with                    me write me up or suspend me and I'll                    see you at the parent conference.                                        TRUEMAN                    Hold it, I could - hold it - could write                    you up for talking back to a VP. For                    looking at me in a threatening way. I'd                    exercise a little more tact, Mr. Frye.                    You can't pull a play like that unless I                    need you for something. So do I?                                        BRENDAN                    Maybe.                                        TRUEMAN                    So maybe you're gonna need me too.                                        BRENDAN                    Maybe. Alright, I need you off my back                    completely for a few weeks. There might                    be some heat soon.                                                                         47                                                  TRUEMAN                        (interested)                    If it's something I can't cover, I won't                    go to bat for you.                                        BRENDAN                    If I get caught like that it's curtains                    anyway - I couldn't have brass cutting                    me favors in public. I'm just saying now                    so you don't come kicking in my homeroom                    door once trouble starts.                    Trueman bites a thumbnail.                                        TRUEMAN                    Okay, here's what I can do. I won't pin                    you for anything you aren't caught at.                    I'll ride it a little while, as long as                    it doesn't get too rough. But if                    anything comes up with your fingerprints                    on it, I can't help you. Also, if I get                    to the end of whatever this is and it                    gets hot and you don't deliver, The Veep                    will need someone to hand over, police-                    wise. And I'll have you. There better be                    some meat at the end of this like you                    say, or at least a fall guy, or you're                    it.                                        BRENDAN                    Sure I am. Got one more favor to ask.                    EXT. ADMINISTRATION BUILDING - AFTERNOON                    Gary Trueman throws Brendan out.                                        TRUEMAN                    Get the hell off my campus, punk!          Brendan glances around, and limps off.                    EXT. CARROWS PARKING LOT - AFTERNOON                    No stoners, no Dode. Brendan breathes uneasily.                    EXT. PAYPHONE BY CARROWS - AFTERNOON                    Brendan leans against it.                                        THE BRAIN                    No, Dode's MIA all around.                                                                                   48                                                  BRENDAN                    I'm 9 of 10 that Kara's got him, but who                    knows where. I shook but she's not                    spilling.                                        THE BRAIN                    No more job offers? So she's got a play.                                        BRENDAN                    And I know enough about Kara to let that                    worry me. Alright, keep your specs on                    for him. Any other news?                                        THE BRAIN                    Some. Laura Dannon came to me looking                    for you.                                        BRENDAN                        (considers this)                    She did, huh?                                        THE BRAIN                    Fourth period, nearly shook me upside                    down. Can't say I didn't enjoy it, but                    why'd she come to me?                                        BRENDAN                    She's tapping Kara, and Kara knows you                    know me.                                        THE BRAIN                    Yeah, well. She's some piece of work. If                    I had known where you were I might have                    told her.                                        BRENDAN                    That's the spirit. Ask around for Dode,                    tail Kara again at lunch. I got knives                    in my eyes, I'm going home sick. I'll                    call you tonight.                    EXT. SIDEWALK - LATE AFTERNOON                    Bordering a supermarket. Brendan trudges along. Suddenly he          stops. Parked in the supermarket parking lot is a black          mustang.                    EXT. PARKING LOT - LATE AFTERNOON                    The sun hangs low. Brendan approaches the car and walks          around it slowly. He peers inside. A tuft of paper pokes out          from under the seat. He pulls the door handle, locked.                                                                                   49                              Brendan picks up a broken chunk of concrete from the ground,          waddles over to the car and holds the chunk above his head,          ready to drop it through the window.                    He stops. His eyes catch something in the distance.                    The lanky shaved-head kid, whose name is Tugger.   Coming          towards him fast.                    Brendan stands there for a moment, then lets the chunk fall          to the ground. He casually leans against the car, removes          his glasses, puts them in a hard case and puts the hard case          in his pocket.                    Tugger hits him like a train and throws him across the          pavement. Tug turns back to the car and takes out his keys.                    Brendan gets up and comes towards Tug, his face stiff. Tug          turns and pops him once squarely in the mouth. Brendan falls          to his knees.                    While Tug unlocks the door Brendan stands up woozily.          Grunting, Tug spins and grabs Brendan's jacket, pushing him          back while he slaps him hard in the face, back and forth,          three times. When Tug lets go Brendan drops like a stone,          catching himself on his hands and knees. The car door slams.                    The mustang drives about a hundred yards out into the          parking lot, spins around and stops, facing Brendan. Its          motor purrs deeply. Brendan begins to limp towards it          doggedly, head up, eyes fixed.                    A crackling roar and short squeal of tires spit the mustang          forward. It comes straight at Brendan, rumbling like a tank.                    Brendan stops walking and stands very still, eyes steady.          The gap between him and the car closes in no time at all.                    It speeds past him not six inches to his left, brushing the          edge of his jacket. Brakes squeal behind him. Brendan turns          and lopes towards the mustang, idling about fifty feet away.                    He stops at the window.   Tugger eyes him curiously, with          some respect.                                        BRENDAN                    I want to see the Pin.                                        TUGGER                        (nods slightly)                    Yeah, I guess you do.                                                                                                                50                                    EXT. STREETS                          Twisty and narrow. The black mustang flies through them at                impossible speeds, roaring past like a bullet.                          DARKNESS                          Loud engine noise, jostling, grunting. Then a metallic                jangle, some scraping, and a CLINK!                          EXT. REAR OF FAST MOVING MUSTANG - LATE AFTERNOON                          The trunk pops open, revealing Brendan holding a jack rod.                          INT. MOVING MUSTANG - CONTINUOUS                          Tug is putting a tape in the deck, eyes down. Behind him                the trunk pops open, then pulls down out of sight just as he                looks back up.                          INT. TRUNK OF MOVING MUSTANG                Brendan holds the trunk about three inches open, just enough                to see which street signs pass by. Loud music plays from the                car -- "Sweet Baby James" by James Taylor.1                          The car zooms on.                          BRENDAN'S POV                          Through the ajar trunk. The mustang slides to a stop beside                an elaborate wooden mailbox carved as an eagle's head.                Brendan closes the trunk.                          EXT. FRONT OF HOUSE - LATE AFTERNOON                          A small one story house, slightly run down. Tugger opens the                trunk and drags Brendan out, covering his eyes with a palm,                slams the trunk and goes inside.                          When they are gone the broken trunk drifts open.                          INT. BASEMENT HALLWAY                          A very dim narrow hall with a steep stairway at one end,                dark doors down the length of it and a lit door at the other                end. Tugger drags Brendan down the stairway, drops him and                goes into the lit room.                                                  1              Unfortunately Mr. Taylor flatly refused, which, given the context, was probably wise.                                                                                  51                              Brendan lifts his head painfully. Surrounding him in the          darkened doorways are dozens of boys, some dressed like          Tugger, others dressed in black.                    Tug pokes his head out.                                         TUGGER                    Alright.                    Arms pop out of the darkness and drag Brendan towards the          lit room.                    INT. KINGPIN'S DEN                    A small room, amazingly messy. Clothes strewn about, groves          of empty bottles, precarious piles of books. The overall          impression though is not of jumbled chaos, but of a nest,          comfortably woven and very worn in.                    A slim figure with wispy hair sits facing the wall at a          small desk, writing under a green bookkeeper's lamp.                    Brendan is shoved into the center of the room. Tug and his          clones slump against the surrounding walls. Brendan watches          the thin figure's back. For a beat the only noise is the          scratching of the thin man's pencil. Then he sighs and          swivels around.                    Mid to late twenties. Sallow features, tired eyes. His          clothes are so richly black it is difficult to make out          specific items -- he is just one inky black mass from the          neck down and eyebrows up.                                        BRENDAN                    You the Pin?                                        PIN                    Yeah.                        (beat of silence)                    So now I'm very very curious what you're                    going to say next.                                        BRENDAN                    Maybe I'll just sit and bleed at you.                    The Pin shifts in his seat, bored.                                        PIN                    Helled if you're gonna go breaking my                    best clients' noses and expect me to                    play sandbag. Anyway you've been                    sniffing me out before then, sniffing                    for me like a vampire bat for a horse                                                                                  52                                        with a nick on its ear he can suck on.                    They do that.                        (Brendan blinks)                    So now you got Tugger to bring you here,                    which he never does, and you got me                    listening, so I'm curious what you've                    got to say that better be really, really                    good.                                        BRENDAN                    Call Ms. Dannon in from the hall first;                    she oughta hear this.                                        PIN                        (amused)                    No dice, soldier. Would have been a neat                    trick, though.                                        BRENDAN                        (shrugs, then slowly)                    I was going to make up some bit of                    information or set up some phony deal,                    anything so you'd let me walk. Then I                    was going to go to the vice principal                    and spill him the street address of the                    biggest dope port in the burgh.                    The Pin's eyes shoot to Tugger, who doesn't flinch.                                        TUGGER                    He knows zippo.                                        BRENDAN                    1250 Vista Blanca, the ink blotter at                    the desk in the den in the basement of                    the house with the tacky mailbox.                    The world turns on its side as Tugger pushes Brendan's head          down into the carpet.                                        TUGGER                    You gonna do what now?!                    The Pin walks towards them. One of his shoes is twice the          size of the other.                                        PIN                    No good, soldier.                    The cronies around the room begin cackling. Tug's face is a          mask of rage. Brendan can't breath. His face swells.                                                                                   53                                                  PIN (cont'd)                    Alright, let up.                    But Tug doesn't let up. Brendan's world grows hazy, the          cackling laughter reverberates, then a clean voice pierces          the din.                                           LAURA                        (OS)                    Tug, stop.                    Tug's face breaks for a moment, and he lets go. Brendan's          head lolls to the side. Laura stands in the dark doorway.                    Brendan sees Tug's knuckles and a flash of white for a split          moment as Tug hits him in the face. The Pin's black body          spills out across the frame, leaving us in black.                    FADE UP                    SMALL DARK ROOM                    Brendan wakes up curled on a mattress on the floor. A bare          light bulb hangs from the ceiling. Tugger sits five feet          away, watching him like a hungry dog. Brendan stares back at          him through thick, glazed eyes.                                        BRENDAN                    Where are my glasses?                        (Tugger grins)                    Hell with ya then. Which wall's the door                    in?                    Tug points, amused. Brendan heaves himself up, and Tug          shoves him back down.                    Brendan winks at him, stands and lurches towards the door          again.                    Tugger grabs his shirt and slams him into the wall, but          freezes when he hears a door latch click. Sneering, he drops          Brendan back onto the mattress and sits against the opposite          wall.                    Sounds of a door opening and closing come from the darkness.          Light footsteps clack on the cement floor. Suddenly Tug          vanishes -- the room's darkness just seems to swallow him.                    The thin whispery voice of the Pin speaks softly.                                        PIN                    Sorry about this kid, but what the hell                    with what you said before.                                                                                   54                              His disembodied face appears a few feet about where Tug had          sat.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    Where you were at, with all of us and                    the Tug a fist away, you've got to use                    your nut. Allay the situation, So yeah,                    you're not scared of me, I got it, but                    I'm also thinking you're a little nuts                    now, so you've got that trade off with                    your standing. But nuts isn't all bad,                    so maybe it was a good play. I don't                    know.                    He is standing in front of Tug. His black clothes and broad          rimmed black hat blend perfectly with the dark room, such          that his face seems to bob about in space. Brendan stifles a          cough.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    So, Laura talked me down. Let's get you                    upstairs, back with the living.                    INT. KITCHEN - DAY                    Brendan sits at a breakfast table eating cornflakes. The          kitchen is on the first floor of the Pin's house, or rather          the Pin's mother's house. She is a soft old lady in a pastel          cotton dress, currently bent over the fridge mumbling.                                        MOTHER                    I thought we had orange juice, Brendan,                    I'm sorry. How about Tang, or that's                    more like soda isn't it, or not soda but                    it hasn't got any juice in it, it can't                    be very fortifying.                                        BRENDAN                    Water's fine, ma'am, thanks.                                        MOTHER                    Now just a moment, we have apple juice                    here, if you'd like that, or milk,                    though you've got that in your                    cornflakes, I don't know if drinking it                    as well might be too much.                                        BRENDAN                    Apple juice sounds terrific.                                        MOTHER                    It's country style.                                                                                 55                                                  BRENDAN                    That's perfect.                    She shuts the fridge. Tugger and the Pin sit behind her,          looking comfortably bored. The Pin, a sharp black hole          against the soft yellow kitchen, eats oatmeal cookies with          small delicate bites.                                        MOTHER                    I'll even give it to you in a country                    glass, how'd that be? Boys?                                        TUGGER                    I'm fine, Mrs. M.                                        PIN                    Thanks, mom.                    The Pin kisses her on the cheek.                                        MOTHER                    Okay, well I'm going to go, um, do                    something in the other room now...                    She shuffles out.                                        PIN                        (to Brendan)                    So hows bout we take another snap at                    hearing your tale?                                        BRENDAN                    I don't know. It starts out same as                    before, and this floor ain't carpeted.                                        PIN                    We're cooled off.                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah well, your muscle seemed plenty                    cool putting his fist in my head. I want                    him out.                    The Pin grins thinly, uncomfortable.                                        PIN                    Looky, soldier-                                        BRENDAN                    The ape blows or I clam.                                                                                 56                                                  TUGGER                        (stands violently)                    So clam! What've you got I can't beat                    out of you back in the basement?                    The Pin and Brendan are perfectly still, watching each          other.                                        PIN                    Give us a few minutes, Tug.                    Tug turns to him, but Pin keeps his eyes on Brendan.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    I'll call you if whatever.                    Beat. Tug stomps off, slamming the narrow door hard behind          him. The Pin goes back to gnawing his cookie.                                          PIN (cont'd)                    So?                    Brendan sets down his spoon.                                        BRENDAN                    About a year ago I had a small time                    dealing partnership with Jerr Madison.                    Know him?                                        PIN                    Till he took the fall for you.                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah well. I didn't ask him to, but he                    was a straight player. I got out clean -                    almost. Nothing on my official record,                    but the VPs play it like I owe them one.                    When I made it clear I wasn't playing                    their hound dog, well they didn't like                    it. They keep calling me in, badgering                    me.                                        PIN                    Gee that's tough.                                        BRENDAN                    I don't like being told whose side I'm                    on. So now they think I'm on your trail,                    I'm in a nice spot to know their                    movements and feed them yours.                                          PIN                    I gotcha.                                                                                   57                                                  BRENDAN                    You haven't got me yet.                                        PIN                    What, price?                                        BRENDAN                    Considering the benefits my services                    could yield, I don't think that's                    unreasonable.                                        PIN                    And what are your services exactly, just                    so I can be specific on the invoice?                                        BRENDAN                        (shrugs)                    Whatever serves your interests.                    The Pin stands.                                        PIN                    Fair enough. I'll have my boys check                    your tale, and seeing how it stretches                    we'll either rub or hire you. You'll                    know which by end of the day tomorrow.                    Brendan stands but doesn't follow as the Pin opens the          narrow door Tugger went through and descends the dark stairs          behind.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    We're done.                    The moment the Pin vanishes into the basement's murk Laura          comes up out of it. She takes Brendan's hand.                                        LAURA                    I'll drive you back.          INT. LAURA'S CONVERTIBLE MOVING - SUNSET                    They zig zag though the twisty suburban streets. Brendan          stares sullenly into space.                                        BRENDAN                    Just drop me at school.                        (they take a hard turn)                    How long was I out?                                        LAURA                    Half an hour. It took all of it for me                    to cool the Pin down.                                                                                                             58                                                         BRENDAN                               (flatly, but sincerely)                           Thanks.                        They drive on in silence.                        EXT. SCHOOL PARKING LOT - DUSK                        Laura's convertible stops, and Brendan climbs out painfully.              He studies her face for a moment.                                               LAURA                           You trust me now?                                               BRENDAN                           Less than when I didn't trust you                           before. If you can tell me your angle in                           this, maybe I can.                                               LAURA                           Come here.1                        Brendan leans on the car, his face close to hers.                                               LAURA (CONT'D) (cont'd)                           I'm on the in, top level of the tower                           and I know everyone, but I don't know                           all what goes on. I knew Em when she                           tried to get with me and Brad, and I                           liked her. She was smart. But she wasn't                           us, and it didn't work. When she left                           she took some souvenirs, dirty habits                           she wasn't strong enough to control and                           a connection to the Pin to keep them                           going. With me?                                                    BRENDAN                           So far.                                               LAURA                           A few months go by, and the next I hear                           the Pin's raging over a situation with                           some certain junk Em was partial to, and                           the downfall's coming on Em's head.                                               BRENDAN                           You think Em scraped the junk off the                           Pin?                                        1           Not to weasel in a plug, but the original version of this scene (shot as written) is on the          deleted scenes section of the DVD. Available at fine retailers everywhere.                                                                                   59                                                  LAURA                    I don't know, but whether she scraped or                    copped or just ran her tab around the                    world and into her own back, it must                    have been grand. I've never seen the Pin                    so hot.                                        BRENDAN                    This all helps but it's not what I                    asked. What's your angle in all this?                                        LAURA                    I don't know. I'm usually pretty sharp,                    but... maybe I see what you're doing for                    Emily, trying to help her. And I don't                    know anyone who would do that for me.                                        BRENDAN                    Now you are dangerous.                    Throwing the car in gear, she peels out and leaves him          standing alone in the fading evening light.                    INT. BACKSTAGE                    Brendan pushes through the gloom, past forest scenery,          deeper and deeper until he comes to a door.                    INT. WOMAN'S DRESSING ROOM                    Hazy and cramped. Everything blends into the color of flesh.          No walls are visible; it is all billowy piles of costumes.          Brendan pushes in. Kara sits at the mirror, putting on          eyeliner.                                        KARA                        (sing song)                    Brendan Brendan Brendan!                                        BRENDAN                    Where's Dode flopped?                        (she makes a face)                    I know you two are cozed up, so you'll                    tell me or you won't.                                        KARA                    Oooh, getting feisty.                        (giggles)                    Last time we talked you were giving                    ultimate-tims.                                                                         60                                                  BRENDAN                    It worked. You went to Laura, didn't                    you? Told her my tale.                                        KARA                    All part of your plan?                                        BRENDAN                    Turned out to be.                                        KARA                    I feel so cheap and used.                                        BRENDAN                    Gol, I must seem a real cad. Sometimes I                    just hate myself.                    Kara grins dreamily.                                        KARA                    Whatever happened to us, Brendan?                                        BRENDAN                    Where's Dode flopped?                    She turns to face him.                                        KARA                    We were a pair and a half for a few                    months, weren't we? Sometimes I miss                    having someone I can talk to. You ever                    miss having someone? I guess you must.                    Brendan's face is a mask.                                        BRENDAN                    I need to hear Dode's tale about Emily.                    It's important.                                        KARA                        (darkly)                    You better be sure you wanna know                    whatcha wanna know.                    Brendan stands, coughing.                                        BRENDAN                    Uh huh. Laura's working with me now, and                    I'll have the Pin and Tug in my corner                    soon. The sooner I get the truth from                    Dode or the truth about Dode from you,                    the safer you'll both be. No? Pass it on                    to Dode anyway. Maybe he'll have the                                                                                  61                                        sense to get out from under you before                    he gets hurt.                                        KARA                    You didn't, did you?                    Brendan leaves without looking back.                    INT. BRENDAN'S ROOM - NIGHT                    Brendan's at his desk, on the phone.                                        THE BRAIN                        (on the phone)                    So what happens now?                                        BRENDAN                    Now we wait for the Pin's answer. Unless                    his crew spotted VP Truman's social call                    this morning, it'll be yes. I'd give us                    70/30. If we're in I get under his skin                    and see what's what. You stick to Kara,                    keep your specs peeled for Dode and stay                    away from Laura.                    The Brain is quiet for a beat.                                        THE BRAIN                    I think she's with us, Brendan.                                        BRENDAN                        (too sharp)                    I'll let you know when she is.                    A beat of silence.                                         THE BRAIN                    Okay.                    Brendan gently replaces the receiver and sits for a moment          in silence.                    EXT. LOCKER CAGE - MORNING                    The class bell rings, and the cage quickly empties. Brendan          limps in, opens his locker. A note falls to his feet. It is          folded into a star. He pulls it open. "TWELVE THIRTY PICO &          ALEXANDER".          He fishes the old note out and compares them - different          handwriting.                                                                                   62                              The locker cage is now empty and silent, except for the          steady sound of heavy footfalls. Brendan looks up from the          notes.                    A lug with a lumpish face is coming towards him. He wears a          black trenchcoat over bulbous shoulders, and his black hair          comes down over his eyes like a sheepdog's.                                        BRENDAN                    You the Pin's?                    No answer. The lug keeps coming.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    So what's his answer?                    Closer, not slowing. Brendan tightens his hand into a fist.          Then CLICK! and a long slender switchblade gleams in the          lug's right paw.                    Brendan jumps back as the lug swipes the blade at his torso.          Before the lug winds up for another slash Brendan is          running.                    EXT. CAMPUS SQUARE - DAY                    Brendan runs through the empty campus square, the lug          follows.                    EXT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY                    Wind rushing, sweating, the lug very close. Their footsteps          clatter on the cement. Brendan swings around a corner,          doubles back and stops with his back to a wall - he's lost          sight of him.                    Brendan sweats, listening. The lug's footsteps echo through          the hallways, coming from all directions at once. Then it          seems clear - he's down the hall on Brendan's right.          Brendan dashes left. Wrong. The lug looms over him, his          knife hand flashing. Brendan's jacket shoulder tears open,          and the white filling inside turns red. He stumbles back          blindly, gets his footing and scrambles out of reach.                    Brendan sprints away, down the hall, gaining about thirty          feet on the lug before turning the corner.                    Brendan drops to a sitting position.                    THE LUG AROUND THE CORNER                    Running fast.                                                                                   63                              BRENDAN                    Kicks his shoes off and clambers to his feet. The lug's          footsteps are impossibly loud.                    THE LUG                    Just about to round the corner.                    BRENDAN                    On his socked feet running silently back towards the corner.          The lug's footsteps crash like symbols as they both come          around the same corner in opposite directions at full speed.                    Brendan slides like a baseball player, tangling his legs          into the lug's. The lug pitches forward with frightening          momentum. He hits the hall's metal handrail with his arms          and head. A hollow gong reverberates through the hallway,          and the lug falls like a puppet with his strings cut.          A wallet with a couple of twenties and a student ID (CHUCK          BURNS), three hash pipes, fifteen joints, a baggie of weed          and a large brownie in another baggie.                    Brendan leaves it all on him and staggers off.                    EXT. CAMPUS PAYPHONE - DAY                    Brendan breathes heavily into the phone.                                        BRENDAN                    Chuck Burns, big lug with hair like a                    sheepdog.                                        THE BRAIN                        (on the phone)                    Yeah I know him, I just can't pin him to                    any crowd. He's definitely not muscle                    for anyone. He taps the Carrows crowd                    but doesn't hang with them. If you've                    got a guess I could check it out-                                         BRENDAN                    The Pin. If he's with the Pin                    everything's kablooie and I gotta blow                    the burgh.                                        THE BRAIN                    I'll check it. I'm in third now-          Brendan spots the Pin's Cady pulling into the parking lot.                                                                                   64                                                  BRENDAN                    Never mind. If I don't call by three                    call in the bulls.                    Brendan hangs up and begins walking at a normal pace along          the sidewalk.                    The cady pulls up beside him, and he stops walking. The door          swings open and a voice comes from inside.                                         VOICE                    Get in.                    With no perceivable hesitation, he does.                    INT. CADILAC - DAY                    Brendan sits beside the Pin. The windows are tinted and the          car is very dark. The seats are pink vinyl. The car lurches          forward.          Brendan and the Pin are silent for a beat, not looking at          each other.                                         BRENDAN                    So?                                        PIN                    So. Tangles.                    A stocky kid in the front seat turns, and reaches into his          jacket. For a moment he stays like that, hand in his jacket,          eyes on Brendan. Brendan's face is placid.                    Tangles pulls out an envelope and drops it in Brendan's lap.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    That's what you'll get every week for                    your services. Less of course there's a                    specific job involved, in where you get                    sliced in with my crew. Square?                                         BRENDAN                    Yeah.                    Silence. The Pin holds his hat in his hands, fingering the          rim.                                        PIN                    We're doing a thing down at the Hole                    tonight. Know it?                                                                                                          65                                                        BRENDAN                          South of T Street, yeah.                                              PIN                          It's sort of a welcome you in thing.                          Eight o'clock.                        The car stops.                        EXT. CAMPUS PAYPHONE - DAY                        Brendan climbs out of the car on the exact spot they picked              him up. The Cady drives off. Brendan checks his watch.                        BRENDAN'S WATCH                        12:32. A phone begins to ring.                        EXT. PICO & ALEXANDER - DAY                        Brendan looks up from his watch and answers the payphone,              holding the receiver to his ear in silence.                                              VOICE                              (on the phone)                          I know what you did. I saw what you                          did.1                        The voice is low and garbled, filtered through something.                                                  BRENDAN                          So?                                              VOICE                          Anyone I tell, it would ruin you some                          way. And I'm going to tell someone.                                              BRENDAN                          Are you making an offer?                                              VOICE                          Maybe. Or maybe I'll just do you in.                                              BRENDAN                          Hire another hash head to blade me?                                                  1           Originally the source of this call was supposed to be a mystery, but during post          production we decided it was one layer too many, and identified the caller as Dode.          Brendan's first line was overdubbed in post to say `Dode?" instead of "So?"                                                                                  66                                                  VOICE                    Don't need no blades, shamus. I just                    gotta squawk.                                        BRENDAN                    What do you want?                                        VOICE                    Just to see you sweat.                    CLICK. Brendan replaces the receiver and stands still for a          moment. Then he inserts a coin and dials.                                        THE BRAIN                        (on the phone)                    Brendan?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah.                                        THE BRAIN                    You alright?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah, I'm fine. Keep digging on the                    Burns lug, but the main thing is to find                    Dode. He set up whatever Emily walked                    into, it's getting more and more urgent                    we talk.                                        THE BRAIN                    Alright. Trueman was looking for you.                                        BRENDAN                    Trueman and the VP?                                        THE BRAIN                    No, just Trueman.                                        BRENDAN                    Asked for me?                                        THE BRAIN                    No, but looked.                                        BRENDAN                    That's not good. Alright, keep me                    posted.                    Brendan hangs up.                                                                                                           67                                  EXT. BEACH - NIGHT1                        A bonfire burns about a hundred feet off. Figures jump              through the blaze to thrash music. The Pin and Brendan              wander towards us on the dark beach.                                               PIN                           So I'm going to start you on the dope                           circles, cleaning up the Turkish dues,                           pulling in the strags.                                               BRENDAN                           Small fries.                                               PIN                           Yeah, well. Just to see how you handle.                           Anyway there isn't much else doing. I'm                           tailing out this big deal, but that's                           almost done.                                               BRENDAN                           Oh yeah? What was it?                                               PIN                           Big time. Biggest I ever done, and there                           was a snag in it, but it's almost done                           now.                                               BRENDAN                           What was it?                                                   PIN                           It's over.                                               BRENDAN                           Almost, you said.                                               PIN                           It's over enough. You're gonna make me                           curious, being so curious.                        They sit in the sand, facing the breakers.                                               PIN (cont'd)                           I gotta lay something out. You're coming                           into a certain situation, and I'm                           bringing you in sort of because of it.                    1            If ever you want to witness a look of pure horror, shoot a micro budget feature film and          tell your cinematographer that there will be an extended scene on a beach at night.          Turns out it's difficult to light up a beach without very large and expensive equipment.          Who knew. Shooting at sunset proved a fortunate and less horror inducing solution.                                                                           68                                              (beat)                      I didn't tell Tugger to hit you for the                      Brad Bramish thing. Laura and I, I                      decided I oughta hear what you were                      gunning for before I made an enemy. Tug                      just did it, though. He was hot, and he                      just hit you. He's been doing that.                                           BRENDAN                      Yeah?                                          PIN                      He's got my best interests, I know, he's                      loyal, he just gets hot.                                          BRENDAN                      Muscle you can't control's no good at                      that.                                          PIN                      You're working for me, not Tug, that's                      all.                                           BRENDAN                      Alright.                              A moment of silence. The breakers crash.                                          PIN                      Things can get, you know, it's tough                      sometimes. Twisted, complicated,                      watching all the, I don't know.                      Everyone's got their thing.                          (silence)                      You read Tolkien?                                           BRENDAN                      What?                                          PIN                      Tolkien, the Hobbit books?                                           BRENDAN                      Yeah.                                          PIN                      His descriptions of things are really                      good.                                           BRENDAN                      Oh yeah?                                                                                  69                                                                      PIN                    He makes you want to be there.                    The waves crash. Behind them, with no warning at all, a          train shoots by. Tug stands with his hands jammed in his          pockets, flashing lights and gleaming metal streaking and          squealing behind him.                    INT. BRENDAN'S ROOM - EARLY MORNING                    The clock radio blinks 5:34. The phone is ringing. Brendan          half wakes and puts it to his ear.                                        THE BRAIN                        (on the phone)                    Don't go to class.                                        BRENDAN                    What?                                        THE BRAIN                    Fifth period Trueman and the VP come in                    asking for you.                                        BRENDAN                    Agh.                                        THE BRAIN                    Did they call your mom?                                        BRENDAN                    Probably. I got home late.                                        THE BRAIN                    Get out of there too, then. Meet me                    behind the library. I've got some stuff.                    EXT. BACK OF LIBRARY - EARLY MORNING          A cold gray morning. The Brain hands Brendan a photocopy of          a newspaper clipping, "LOCAL YOUTH HOSPITALIZED"                                        THE BRAIN                    Frisco Farr was found on a sidewalk                    outside Pinkerton's Deli three weeks                    ago. He was in a coma, his stomach                    contained a sausage sandwich, a horse                    dose of Heroin and traces of Choleric                    Tricemate, a poisonous chemical found in                    laundry detergent. Frisco's still under                                                                                  70                                        and nobody's talking, so nothing's come                    of it.                                        BRENDAN                    OD?                                        THE BRAIN                    No, the chem the junk must have been cut                    with put him down.                                        BRENDAN                    Huh. Bad junk. Bad brick... could that                    form of Heroin be called 'Brick'?                                        THE BRAIN                    No -- it was a concentrated powder, its                    street handle's 'whip' or 'rock' or                    'brock'.                        (fishes a note from his                         pocket)                    Here. From Laura.                                        BRENDAN                    I told you to stay clear of Laura.                                        THE BRAIN                    You tell her to stay clear of me?                    He gives the note to Brendan, who unfolds it roughly.                                        BRENDAN                        (mutters)                    I gotta get voicemail.                    The note reads "Meet me at the southeast corner of the          school at 9:30." Brendan crumples it into a ball.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    No. Tell her I'll be at the Pin's at                    one. Any luck with the lug?                                        THE BRAIN                    No.                    The Brain lays out a local newspaper with Emily's picture -          "LOCAL GIRL MISSING". Uncomfortable silence.                                        BRENDAN                    This isn't good.                    The Brain looks hard at him. Brendan stares off into space          for a beat, then takes the Brain's cell phone and dials.                                                                                  71                                                  BRENDAN (cont'd)                        (into phone)                    Mr. Trueman please.                    Brendan compares the two notes from his pocket with Laura's          - distinct handwriting on each.                                        TRUEMAN                        (on the phone)                    This is Trueman.                                        BRENDAN                    What the hell are you doing asking for                    me in class?                                        TRUEMAN                    What the hell are you doing out of                    class?                                        BRENDAN                    What?                                        TRUEMAN                        (very deliberate)                    The VP and I needed to ask you a few                    questions about Emily Kostich, who you                    might have heard is missing. It's a very                    serious thing. The police are involved.                    The VP and I knew you two were close, so                    the VP and I came to ask you questions,                    but you were truant. If you don't have a                    valid excuse-                    Brendan hangs up.                                        THE BRAIN                    What?                                        BRENDAN                    I've been cut loose. I'm not safe here.                    We shouldn't have met in the open.                    Alright, lay low, but ask on the                    underneath for Dode. That's all that                    matters now, find Dode, but do it on the                    underneath, got it?                                        THE BRAIN                    What are you going to do?                                        BRENDAN                    I'd like to have played it safe, but                    there's no time. The Pin's not letting                                                                                   72                                        anything drop, so I gotta push things a                    bit.                                          THE BRAIN                    How?                                        BRENDAN                    I don't know. Just find Dode.                    EXT. THE PIN'S HOUSE - DAY                    The bird of prey mailbox looms ominously. Brendan knocks on          the front door. No answer. He presses lightly on the screen          door, and it gives.                    INT. KITCHEN - SAME                    Empty. Brendan crosses the warped linoleum and gently opens          the narrow basement door. He descends into inky gloom.                    INT. BASEMENT HALLWAY - SAME          Deathly still and silent. Barely breathing, Brendan goes to          the lit doorway at the end of the hall.                    INT. PIN'S DEN - SAME                    Empty. Brendan floats through the room like a ghost, to the          Pin's desk.                    Slowly, then with greater confidence he rifles through it -          papers and trinkets, meaningless.                    He reaches beneath the desk, knocking it gently with his          knuckles. Quickly he removes the top drawer and reaches down          into the desk frame.                    Brendan draws out a stack of hundred dollar bills two inches          thick. He pulls out another. Another. Another. Thumbing the          stacks -- pure hundreds.                    Something creaks in the hallway.                    Brendan freezes. Silently he replaces the money and drawer,          his eyes on the doorway. He creeps towards the door on the          balls of his feet.                    INT. BASEMENT HALLWAY - SAME                    Still empty. Brendan creeps towards the stairs, passing          other doorways, all open but for one. He stops for a moment,          listening - silence.                                                                                   73                              INT. STORAGE ROOM - SAME                    Brendan enters the room - pitch black but for a small high          window. Brendan pulls the curtains aside. A beam of sunlight          spills just enough light to reveal a figure in the dark.          Brendan jumps back, and his reflection in the large mirror          jumps as well.                    A white bird nesting in the window flutters into the dark          room.                    Brendan walks the large mirror into the beam of light,          reflecting it around the room like a flashlight. More junk,          a mattress, then a strangely bare corner with a single white          lump in it. The white bird stands behind the lump, its dark          eyes caught in the bare light.                    The bird flies out the window.                    Brendan goes to the white lump, a small brick of white          powder. White chalky residue patterns the floor -- there          were other bricks there before.                    Behind Brendan, in the mirror, something moves. Someone          else, in the room.                    Tugger. He throws Brendan across the room, then heaves him          into a wall.                                        TUGGER                    What with the poking, genius?! Maybe                    you're poking for your bull friends!                                        BRENDAN                    Don't be a sap. I can't even face up at                    school, the VP's so hot for me.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah well. Maybe you're looking to make                    good.                                        BRENDAN                    I'm looking to find this big game the                    Pin's played, not to gum it, but just so                    when its tail jams in my back I'll know                    who to bill for the embalming.                                        TUGGER                    You oughta ask him what you wanna know.                                        BRENDAN                    I did. He didn't tell me.                                                                           74                              Tug loosens his grip. Brendan gasps for air.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    When a gee I'm paid to side with won't                    give me the straight that makes me                    nervous. Makes me angry.                    Tug draws back a bit.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, well. That's understandable.                    INT. KITCHEN - DAY                    Tug sets a country glass of orange juice in front of          Brendan. He paces.                                        TUGGER                    There was ten of them. I don't know                    where he picked them, he didn't tell me.                                 BRENDAN                           (sympathetic)                    Huh.                                        TUGGER                    So we get ten kils of brock, there aint                    enough marks in the whole burgh to eat                    that. So he unloads eight of em up way                    north, even up to the docks. I don't                    know who.                                        BRENDAN                    Didn't tell you.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah. That was eight. So that's the                    tenth in there. We gotta break it into                    doses, sell em off round the high, maybe                    some by Shorecliffs.                                        BRENDAN                    What about the ninth brick?                                        TUGGER                    Ah yeah. There were problems with that.                                          BRENDAN                    Yeah?                                          TUGGER                    It, uh...                                                                            75                              He stops, thinking harder than he's used to. His scar          reddens slightly, then he jerks out of his trance.                                        TUGGER (cont'd)                        (quickly)                    It disappeared. Someone skimmed it. We                    started raising hell with all the likely                    suspects, and whatayaknow, it came back.                    But it came back bad. One of ours took a                    dose off the top, and it laid him out.                                           BRENDAN                    Frisco.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, poor Frisco. You heard about that.                    We'll track down the rat. Just takes                    time.                                        BRENDAN                    I heard something fell with Emily                    Kostich.                                           TUGGER                    Emily who?                                           BRENDAN                    Kostich.                                        TUGGER                    Don't know her.                                           BRENDAN                    Huh.                    A quiet pause. Tug's scar reddens a bit more.                                        TUGGER                    Has the Pin talked about her?                                 BRENDAN                    Not to me.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, he might know something. Ask him.                    Tell me what he says, cause if you heard                    something, you know, I wanna check.                                           BRENDAN                    Sure.          The screen door swings open -- enter the Pin. If he's          surprised he doesn't show it.                                                                               76                                                  PIN                    Pow wowing?                                        BRENDAN                    Just shooting the shat.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, just shooting it.                                        PIN                    Good.                    His big foot clunks on the linoleum. He eyes a very sick          looking Brendan.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    You alright, soldier?                    Brendan moves a hand dismissively, sniffling.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    So, Tug, I got a call. Someone who says                    they know something about Emily.                                        TUGGER                    Emily?                                        PIN                    Emily Kostich. Where she's at now. Says                    we'd want to know. Wants to meet.                                        TUGGER                        (uncomfortable)                    Yeah?                                        PIN                    So we'll meet him. Four o'clock.                        (to Brendan)                    Emily was Tug's girl for awhile. You                    know Emily, didn't you?                              BRENDAN                    A while back.                                        PIN                    You've heard she's missing?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah, I heard that.                                        PIN                    So maybe you want to come along too.                                                                                 77                                                  BRENDAN                    What has Emily got to do with you?                                        PIN                        (looks at Tugger)                    Show, maybe we'll find out.                    He gives a slip of paper to Tugger.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    Four o'clock.                    Tugger glances at the slip, then slides it to Brendan. It          has the symbol drawn in pencil:                                                  A horn honks outside.                                        BRENDAN                    That's my ride.                    The Pin calls after him as he leaves.                                        PIN                    Four o'clock.                    EXT. FRONT OF PIN'S HOUSE - SAME                    Brendan falls into Laura's idling car.                                        BRENDAN                        (roughly)                    A payphone, anywhere.                                        LAURA                    What-                    Brendan throws the car into drive, and they jerk forward.                    EXT. STREET CORNER - DAY                                        PAYPHONE                    The mobile customer you have called is                    away from the phone-                    Brendan slams the phone down violently and walks back          towards the car. His legs quiver, and a coughing fit hits.                                                                                  78                              Hacking and spluttering he falls to his knees. Laura's arms          wrap around him, except it isn't Laura, it's Emily. Brendan          spins backwards into                    DARKNESS                    Emily kissing his mouth, her hair around him, but it isn't          her hair, it's Laura's. Brendan shoots upwards                    INT. LAURA'S CAR STATIONARY - DAY                    and sits up with a jolt. Laid out in the back seat, Laura          dabbing his head with a wet napkin.                                         BRENDAN                         (barks shakily)                     What time is it?                                         LAURA                     Lie down, Brendan-                                  BRENDAN                     What time-                                         LAURA                     You've got a fever, you've got to go to                     the hospital or-                                         BRENDAN                     What time is it?                                         LAURA                     Three forty. You've got to rest, you're                     feverish.                    He throws himself out of the car.                    EXT. SCHOOL PARKING LOT - SAME                    Brendan falls to his knees, coughing. Laura follows.                                         LAURA                     Get back in the car, I'm taking you                     home, you're sick, you need-                                         BRENDAN                     Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!                    He keeps yelling that until she does. His head spins.                               BRENDAN (cont'd)                     Okay, you've got to, what you've got to                     do is drive around to the Carrows lot.                                                                                   79                                        I'll be up on the, the blacktop, the                    basketball field. So you've got to go by                    you or me to get down there. If you see                    anyone but the Pin or Tugger or their                    crew go down into the ravine, honk four                    times, long short long short. But don't                    be seen.                                        LAURA                    Get back in the car.                                        BRENDAN                    Do it! Will you do it? I need you to do                    this. I need you, here. Please.                    He holds her shoulders. A beat, then her face registers          resignation.                    EXT. BASKETBALL FIELD - DAY                    A flat plane of pebbly asphalt with a dozen basketball          courts faintly outlined across its surface. Brendan stands          crooked, watching the barren horizon. The wind blows          bitterly, and the sky is dark.                    Then, a speck. Coming towards Brendan, across the field.          Brendan slumps towards it. Closer. Still a dark dot. Closer.                    Brendan's face snaps into recognition.                                        BRENDAN                    What are you doing, Dode?                    Dode grins. He holds a newspaper.                                        DODE                    You gonna stop me?                                        BRENDAN                    What do you think you're doing, Dode?                              DODE                    I saw you. I saw what you did.                                        BRENDAN                    What'd you see?                                           DODE                    I saw you.                                        BRENDAN                    What'd you see me?                                                                               80                                                  DODE                    You were with her, dead, and you took                    the body.                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah, I did. That's all you saw? What                    about before?                                        DODE                    Before what?                                        BRENDAN                    Did you see who killed her before I got                    there?                                        DODE                        (face ashen)                    You killed her.                                        BRENDAN                    I found the body, Dode.                                        DODE                    You, I thought you didn't, but we                    figured out, I got the news on ya, cause                    you hid the body, why wouldn't-                                        BRENDAN                    Who's 'we'?                                        DODE                    Shut up! You're always talking, always                    this and that smartso, you're gonna shut                    up now!                                        BRENDAN                    I didn't kill her, Dode.                                        DODE                    You're not going to talk this!                                        BRENDAN                    Dode, I know you're thinking of Em, I                    know you tried to help her-                                        DODE                    Shut up! You're gonna shut your                    Brendan staggers, the world blurs out for a moment, then          snaps back.                              DODE (cont'd)                    put it over real nice-                                                                                  81                                                                      BRENDAN                    -so I'm telling you now you're in over                    your head, you don't want to put your                    hand in this-                    Dode shakes the newspaper at him.                                        DODE                    Shut up! She's dead, you-                                        BRENDAN                    Why was she scared, Dode? She came to                    me, who was she scared of? I think I                    know why, I just gotta know who!                    Dode throws the paper, which scatters in the wind.                              DODE                    You're trying to confuse me.                                        BRENDAN                    Dode.                                        DODE                    You couldn't stand it. Your little Em.                    She was gonna keep it, it was mine, and                    you couldn't stand that.                                        BRENDAN                    What was yours?                                        DODE                    I had you pegged.                                        BRENDAN                    What was yours?                              DODE                    I loved her. And I woulda loved the kid.                    I'm gonna bury you.                    Brendan's face is empty. Dode walks stiffly away. Brendan          puts a hand on his shoulder, but shrinks back in a coughing          spasm. Dode grabs Brendan's wrist and hits him in the face.          Brendan hits the pavement.                                                                                   82                              EXT. HEAVEN - DAY                    Bright clouds, sharp light. Emily flies towards us, glowing,          then dimmer, her wings splutter out, the clouds turn gray,          and we are looking at Emily's picture in the newspaper          article.                    EXT. BASKETBALL FIELD - DAY                    Brendan pulls the newspaper off his face, lying in a fetal          position. Dode is nowhere to be seen.                    Slowly, painfully, Brendan hoists himself up. He coughs and          splutters, barely able to keep his footing.                    He limps across the field. Every step is agony. The wind          blows against him. The black field seems impossibly long,          still he keeps limping forward, towards the ravine.                    EXT. RUNOFF TUNNEL - DAY          Brendan slides down the embankment, landing on his feet.                    Gathered around the drain tunnel entrance are Tugger, the          Pin, five of Tugger's flunkies and Dode in the middle.          Everyone looks at Brendan.                    A long silence. Brendan clears his throat.                                        BRENDAN                    What'd I miss?                    More silence.                                        PIN                    Dode here says Emily Kostich is dead.                    Nobody reacts to that. Brendan's face is placid.                                         BRENDAN                    Oh yeah?                                        PIN                    Yeah. He says he knows who did it. He                    says he knows where the body's at.                        (beat of silence)                    And he says he wants more money than I                    think the information's worth.                              BRENDAN                    That so, Dode?                        (to the Pin)                                                                                  83                                        So walk. What's the info have to do with                    you anyways?                                        DODE                    Plenty.                                        PIN                    Plenty, he says.                                        BRENDAN                    Uh huh. And he wants cash on the nail.                    He's a pot skulled reef worm with more                    hop in his head than blood. Why pay for                    dirt you can't believe?                                        DODE                    You'll believe this.                                        BRENDAN                        (shrugs)                    Maybe you will.                                        DODE                    You'll believe it, cause it's someone                    close to you. Real close.                    The Pin looks up at Brendan, whose face is loose and          nonchalant.                                        BRENDAN                    Maybe it's hot, but it's Dode, you can't                    trust it.                                        DODE                    Real close.                    Tugger's eyes are locked on Dode, his scar the color of raw          liver. Brendan laughs and turns away.                                        BRENDAN                    I'm getting my shoes wet for this. Let                    him milk you if you want.                                        PIN                        (to Brendan)                    Stay.                        (to Dode)                    It's still too much.                                        DODE                    No it's not. You won't complain when you                    hear it.                                                                                    84                              Tugger twists a stick in his hands. Brendan watches him,          curious.                                        BRENDAN                        (murmurs)                    So maybe you should.                                        DODE                    You had her against the wall with the                    brick -                                        PIN                    I know my business. It's still too much.                                        DODE                        (with growing confidence)                    It's not, cause that's not why she was                    killed, and it's real important to you,                    cause the person who killed her's real                    close, and cause he's got a lot to lose,                    and he knows if I don't bury him by                    spilling to you I spill to the bulls and                    bury him for real, and he's really                    really scared - she had a kid in her and                    he couldn't stand -                    Tugger springs like a cat.     He grabs Dode's hair and knees          his face.                    Brendan stumbles towards them.                                        BRENDAN                    Tug, it's alright!                    Tug has Dode on the ground, kicking his stomach and chest.                                           PIN                    Tug, stop.                    Tug backs off. Dode raises his head.                    Tug pulls the gun from his jacket.                    Brendan yells, slips and falls into the shallow water.                    Tug levels the gun at Dode's head and fires one shot. The          back of Dode's skull comes off.                    The rapport reverberates through the black tunnel behind          them, and birds fly out. Dode remains upright for a moment,          then falls limp into the water.                                                                                    85                              The Pin's face is stupid, lifeless. Tug turns to him, gun in          hand.                                        PIN (cont'd)                        (thickly)                    Tug...                    Tugger fires - dirt kicks up, and the Pin scrambles back.          Brendan crawls towards Tug, yelling for him to stop.                    Tug fires twice more, both misses, and the Pin is away.                    Distant sirens.                    Brendan's vision blurs.   He stumbles and falls into the          shallow water.                                                                         FADE OUT                                                                         FADE IN:          A CEILING FAN                    Spinning gently. Brendan's eyes open, watch it sleepily,          then sharpen.                    INT. TUGGER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                    Brendan sits up in the bed. Tugger sits in a chair bedside,          smoking. Brendan watches him for a long moment in the room's          dim light.                                        TUGGER                    She sprung it on me, just. That's a hell                    of a thing to spring on a guy. I don't                    remember much. Laura talked me down                    after, said whatever, she knew her, said                    it wasn't true, but I still think                    sometimes. I think bout it being true.                    Bout it being mine. And maybe I did it                    cause I thought it was true. A hell of a                    thing.                    Brendan stares at him through cold, empty eyes.                                        TUGGER (cont'd)                    You up? You weren't doing too good there                    for awhile. Laura said take you, you                    know, hospital, but I couldn't.                                        BRENDAN                    What's the stats?                                                                                  86                                                  TUGGER                    Everyone's just laying low. You're here                    with us, at my folks place. They're                    gone. The bulls got Dode fore the tide                    took his body.                                                            BRENDAN                    Tide?                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, strong tide, would've taken the                    body, like out to sea. It can do that.                    But the fuzz got there first.                    Brendan nods.                                        TUGGER (cont'd)                    So everyone's assuming it's war, but no                    one's said it yet. Everyone's lying low.                                        BRENDAN                    War?                                        TUGGER                    You're with us.                                        BRENDAN                    The hell I am.                    Brendan swings his legs over the bed. Tug steps in front of          him, staring him down.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    Alright, I'm with you.                                        TUGGER                    So just lie low. Sleep some more. Laura,                    she said you should sleep.          Tugger exits. Brendan runs his fingers through his hair,          steps into his shoes and hobbles out of the room.                    INT. TUGGER'S LIVING ROOM - SAME                    About ten more kids dressed like Tug are cleaning guns.          Brendan nods to them.                              BRENDAN                    Hey.                                                                                   87                              They nod back, not paying much attention as he goes out the          front door.                    EXT. STREET - NIGHT                    On a lamplit street corner Brendan leans against a payphone.                                                            THE BRAIN                        (on phone)                    Brendan?                                          BRENDAN                    Yeah.                                        THE BRAIN                    Are you - what, man, have you heard                    about Dode-                                        BRENDAN                    I was there.                                          THE BRAIN                    You-                                        BRENDAN                    Where were you yesterday? I called.                                        THE BRAIN                    Kasprzyk took my phone, turned it off. I                    just now got it back.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright, listen-                                        THE BRAIN                    Are you okay?                                        BRENDAN                    Just listen. Is my name in the papers                    with the story?                                          THE BRAIN                    No.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright. Is it just Dode in the papers?                              THE BRAIN                    Yeah. What do you mean?                                                                                  88                                                   BRENDAN                    Listen, I'm going to be calling you                    tonight, probably late. Sleep with your                    phone on. Could you get a car if you                    needed to?                                        THE BRAIN                    If it's late enough I could take my                    mom's-                                        BRENDAN                    Be ready then. I'll call.                                         THE BRAIN                    Alright.                    INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT                    Brendan kicks in the door. Kara sits in front of the mirror          in a soft pink robe, a boy on the floor beside her. She          gasps.                                        KARA                    Brendan. Did you hear about Dode?                                        BRENDAN                    You scheming tramp. You set that poor                    kid up, you hid him, fed him your tale.                    You got info from Laura and held Dode                    like a card till you could play him. For                    money!                    Brendan throws a chair. The boy stands.                                        KARA                    I don't know what you're talking about.                                         BRENDAN                    You'd bury me at the same time, but it                    was mostly for the money. You got Dode                    thinking Em had his kid, thinking I did                    it, and that was enough for him, but he                    stuck to the money cause you had your                    claws in him, cause he couldn't come                    away from the deal without it and make                    you happy.                                        KARA                    Sit down, you're a mess. Russ, go get my                    shoes from the wardrobe locker, would                    you sweetie?                                                                                        89                                   He goes, trying to look mean at Brendan. Brendan and Kara               watch each other like caged rats.                                                 KARA (cont'd)                             Still wish you knew what you wanted to                             know? If it's any consolation, it                             probably wasn't Dode's kid. It might                             have been Tug's, but frankly I wouldn't                             bet a horse - it was a crowded field                             there at the end.                         Brendan grabs a clock and throws it. Kara's mirror shatters,               revealing a grimy dark wall behind.                                                 KARA (cont'd)                             Meany. You want my tale, Brendan? I                             still know what Dode was selling, but                             I'd play it smart. A quick call from a                             payphone to copland, they drag the                             tunnel and you're through.                         She comes very close to him. Her robe falls open slightly.                                                 KARA (cont'd)                             Five thousand. Cash. I know you can get                             it from the Pin, but even if you can't I                             want it by first period tomorrow, or I                             play my hand and bury you.                         She turns away, lets her robe fall.1                                                 KARA (cont'd)                             Now get out.                         Brendan's eyes burn. He lunges at her.                         EXT. BACKSTAGE - SAME                         Drama geeks sit in groups. The dressing room door flies open               and Kara flies out, stark naked. Brendan flies out after               her.                                                 KARA                             What are you doing?                                                 BRENDAN                             Showing your ace.                         Brendan storms out.                                        1              Also on the DVD. Fine retailers everywhere.                                                                                90                              EXT. PIN'S HOUSE - NIGHT                    Brendan walks past the bird of prey mailbox. A voice from          the screen door -                                         VOICE                     Far enough.                    The Pin.                                         PIN                     Everyone's paying social calls.                                         BRENDAN                     Laura here?                    Beat of silence.                                         PIN                     So?                               BRENDAN                     So what are the stats?                                         PIN                     The stats are war, soon as the press                     heat dies. And if you're with him,                     you're with him.                                         BRENDAN                     Tug got hot. He panicked.                                         PIN                     Tug's been after my digs from the get                     go.                                         BRENDAN                     No. He's been anxious cause he thought                     if you found out he killed Emily you'd                     turn him over.                               PIN                     He was right.                                         BRENDAN                     Yeah, well.                                         PIN                     I told him to get the straight, no                     roughing. I wasn't even there.                                                                          91                                                  BRENDAN                    Alright. So he's a hot head. So you                    don't want him on your side, at least                    let's have a pow wow fore we start                    digging trenches. Maybe we can all walk                    away amiable enemies. What would it                    take?                                        PIN                    I don't know. We'd have to square                    everything between us. He owes me some                    money.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright, but we can talk.                                        PIN                    Yeah, alright.                                        BRENDAN                    Four o'clock.                                          PIN                    Tomorrow?                                        BRENDAN                    Tonight. Let's clear it all before it                    boils up again.                                        PIN                    Four tonight. You'll be here?                                          BRENDAN                    Yeah.                    Brendan turns away.                                          LAURA (OS)                    Wait!          She comes out of the house with her purse.                                        LAURA (cont'd)                    I'll drive you back.                    INT. LAURA'S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT                    Laura drives, Brendan stares at the passing lights.                              LAURA                    What's going to happen?                    Brendan coughs.                                                                                 92                                                  LAURA (cont'd)                    Do you feel better?                                        BRENDAN                        (weak)                    I don't know.                    INT. TUGGER'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                    Brendan stumbles in. Tug's hands grab him roughly.                                        TUGGER                    For a smart guy you aint too smart. I                    said lay low.                    Laura enters.                                        LAURA                    Tug.                    He drops Brendan. Laura kneels beside Brendan, feeling his          forehead.                                        BRENDAN                    She was at the Pin's.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, she's our go-between.                                        BRENDAN                    Uh huh. So here's the sit. You and the                    Pin are going to pow wow, four o'clock                    tonight, his place. Take all the muscle                    you want, you won't need it. He wants to                    talk straight, and you're going to work                    with him for whatever he needs, cause                    you don't want war.                                        TUGGER                    Hell I don't.                              BRENDAN                    The Pin's sitting on the brick profits -                    hitting him now would be post. Make                    peace and wait for your chance.                                        LAURA                    He's right, Tug. Smooth it out.                                                                                   93                                                  BRENDAN                        (between coughs)                    Besides, he's got you on the Dode thing.                    War'll mean you vs. him and every bull                    in the burgh.                    Tugger turns away, thinking.                                        TUGGER                    Yeah, we'll talk.                                         LAURA                        (to Brendan)                    You going?                                        BRENDAN                    Yeah.                    She nods. Brendan stumbles into the bedroom.                    INT. TUGGER'S BEDROOM - NIGHT                    Brendan lies on his back. Sweat stands on his forehead.                    THE FAN                    Spinning dizzily from Brendan's POV. Then the fan is still          and the room is spinning, then the fan, then the room.          Brendan clamps his eyes shut. A door creaks open.                                        BRENDAN                        (croaks)                    Go away.                    Laura floats across the room to him. Her hair falls around          him. Brendan shrinks back. She puts a pale hand on his          clammy forehead. Brendan tries to speak, but cannot.                    He fingers slide over his face. She pulls off his glasses.                    Her hands all over his face. Brendan's throat contorts in a          hard swallow. His eyes are wet.                    Her hair, her hands all warm and gentle, touching him.                                        LAURA                    I'm sorry Brendan.                    Brendan breaks. In silent sobs first, then shivering with an          almighty release he cries like a baby in her arms.                    THE FAN                                                                                  94                              Spinning above them.                    Laura lights a cigarette. They lie beside each other.                                        LAURA                    Don't go tonight.                                        BRENDAN                    I've got to make sure it plays out                    smooth.                                        LAURA                    It'll play however it plays without you                    there.                                        BRENDAN                    I've got to make sure.                                           LAURA                    Why?                              BRENDAN                    Cause if there's war, I'm in it too.                                        LAURA                    Well let's just, I mean why not just run                    away. Go somewhere. I've got a car.                        (Brendan gives a wry look)                    I've got an aunt in New Orleans, she                    wouldn't care.                        (Brendan grins)                    Yeah, it's a stupid thing, but think                    about it, why not? What, school? C'mon.                    Family?                                        BRENDAN                    Alright, stop.                    Her smoke drifts into the fan.                              LAURA                    I wasn't serious, but we could go for                    awhile. Just until everything clears.                    Brendan watches the smoke. She stubs the butt out in an ash          tray on the table and curls against his chest.                    Stretching his arm across the table, he nonchalantly spins          the ash tray around with his finger.                    His glasses lay on the table. Through the left lens the          cigarette is magnified. Pale blue arrow on the filter.                                                                                   95                              Laura's arm stretches across his chest. He looks at it, then          up at the fan, spinning.                    LATER                    Brendan slips out of bed. A glowing clock radio reads          "3:16".                    INT. TUGGER'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT                    A swarm of silent activity. Tug's flunkies prepare various          weapons. Brendan goes to Tug.                                        BRENDAN                    Tell your boys no knuckle business.                                        TUGGER                    They're just ready.                                        BRENDAN                    Your folks left a car here?                                TUGGER                    Yeah.                                        BRENDAN                    Take it and Laura's.                        (Brendan tosses Tug the keys)                    I'll go first in yours.                                          TUGGER                    The hell-                                        BRENDAN                    I'll take the scenic route to draw off                    any tailers. They'll think it's you,                    they might even radio back that you're                    alone. Get it?                                        TUGGER                    Mr. Smarts.                    He tosses Brendan his keys.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright. Got a cigarette?                                        TUGGER                    No. I don't smoke.                              BRENDAN                    I've seen you smoke.                                                                                   96                                                  TUGGER                    I don't smoke cigarettes.                                        BRENDAN                    Give me fifteen minutes, then go.                    EXT. TUGGER'S HOUSE - NIGHT                    Brendan slides into the black mustang and gutters off into          the night.                    EXT. STREET - NIGHT                    Overlooking a twinkling valley of suburban lights. Brendan          talks at a payphone beside the curbed mustang.                                        THE BRAIN                        (on phone)                    Yeah.                                                  BRENDAN                    Alright, I warned you. Can you get the                    car?                                          THE BRAIN                    Yeah.                                        BRENDAN                    Go to 2014 Clancy, off Pico west of La                    Grange. Park outside and wait. Laura's                    inside. She hasn't got a car, but if she                    blows on foot or gets a pick, tail her.                    Alright?                        (silence)                    Alright?                                          THE BRAIN                    Okay.                              BRENDAN                    I'll call you when it gets light.                        (silence)                    Thanks, Brain.                    CLICK, Brain hangs up.                    EXT. FRONT OF PIN'S HOUSE - NIGHT                    Brendan pulls the mustang into the driveway, limps up to the          front door and knocks. One of the Pin's boys lets him in.                                                                                   97                              INT. KITCHEN - SAME                    Crowded with tense looking punks, half dressed like the Pin          and half like Tugger. The Pin's mom is shuffling about,          pouring them milk.                    INT. BASEMENT HALLWAY - SAME                    Several more punks from both camps crowd the hall, and more          lean in the darkened doorways. Brendan passes through          quickly.                    INT. PIN'S DEN - SAME                    The Pin at his desk, flanked by two of his boys. Tug sits in          the center of the room, two of his punks beside him. Brendan          saunters between them and leans against the dresser.                                          BRENDAN                    Talk.                              PIN                    I want full assurance that any heat from                    Emily and Dode is gonna be on just you.                    I don't even want my name pulled in the                    shindig. Second, you owe me six Cs, no                    rush, but I want your shake that it'll                    come home in not too much time.                    Tug's eyes burn, his scar reddens.                                        BRENDAN                        (to Tug)                    That's square. You did them after all.                    Lay low it'll blow over. Stick on this,                    one of you'll dish it to bury the other                    and you'll both get the rap. As to the                    six, did you borrow it?                                          TUGGER                    Yeah.                                        BRENDAN                    Then you owe it. Shouldn't need a shake                    on that.                    Tug looks at the Pin.                                        TUGGER                    Alright to both.                                                                         98                                                  BRENDAN                    Good. Let's seal it up and blow for                    keeps.                                        PIN                    Third thing. The last brick.                    Brendan looks up sharply, taken off guard.                                        BRENDAN                    It's yours.                                        PIN                    That aint the point. I'm gonna start                    selling it. How do I know it aint bad?                                        BRENDAN                    Why would it be?                                        PIN                    Why was the last one? Cause someone got                    greedy. Tug here's had the means to                    swipe half and cut it bad for a long                    time. Now we're splits my loss of                    trust's retroactive.                                        BRENDAN                    Did you, Tug?                                          TUGGER                          (eyes hot on the Pin)                    No.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright, so let's shake and blow.                                        PIN                    Not good enough.                    Tug shoots to his feet, kicking away his chair.                              BRENDAN                    What would be good enough?                                        PIN                    I wanna see him dose it. Just to prove                    it. Then we're square.                                         TUGGER                    Hell for that! I didn't touch your junk,                    that's it.                                                                                   99                                                   PIN                     I wanna see it.                                          TUGGER                     To hell!                                         PIN                     Your not wanting to dose it's telling me                     something right here.                                         TUGGER                     Yeah, it better be! It's telling that                     I'm out from your thumb, that I aint                     playing lapdog to no gothed up cripple                     no more!                    Everyone in the room is on their feet.   Brendan steps          forward.                                         BRENDAN                     I'll dose it.                    All eyes to him, unbelieving.                                          PIN                     What?                                         BRENDAN                     If it'll shut you two apes up I'll   take                     the dose, and if I don't die we're   all                     right as rain, and if I do die you   two                     have your war, so long as you keep   it                     off my grave. Deal?                                          PIN                     Fine.   Tangles.                                         BRENDAN                     Johnny, go with him.          They go.                    Tug just stares at Brendan, then tosses his hands up          slightly and turns away.                    They all wait.                    CRASH! from the next room. Everyone freezes. More breaking,          then scuffling and shouting.                    The two punks look at their bosses, then run out. Tug starts          to follow, but Brendan holds him back.                                                                                  100                              The noise through the wall grows tremendous, a full brawl.          The ceiling pounds and shudders with footfalls and bodies          hitting the ground.                    Then, from not too far away, a gunshot.                    The Pin stands and goes towards the door, but Brendan shouts                                         BRENDAN (cont'd)                    No!                    and slams it shut. A few tense seconds.                    Another gunshot. Footfalls, then Tangles falls through the          door, his chest red. The Pin bends over him.                                        TANGLES                        (gasping)                    The brick, it's gone. The brick's gone.                    Tangles stops gasping.          The Pin stands, eyes blazing at Tug.                                        PIN                    Make peace, huh? Talk it out? Get your                    boys in my den soes you could snag it                    under my nose?                    Tug's scar is fiery red. He coils his body, snarling.                                         TUGGER                    Alright!                                        BRENDAN                    No, that's not-                                        PIN                    Was it bad, Tug? Snag it so I don't                    know, or sell it off to flat the war                    odds?                                        BRENDAN                        (shouts)                    Pin, think about it-                                        TUGGER                    Alright, I did all that!          Tug blows past Brendan like a train and slams the Pin into          the ground with his fist. He punctuates his words with hard          straight blows into the Pin's face.                                                                                    101                                                  TUGGER (cont'd)                    I cut the brick, I stole the money, I                    faked a peace, I snagged your junk, I                    did it all!                    He pulls the gun.                    Brendan shouts and throws himself on Tug's arm, wrenching it          sideways. The gun clunks onto the carpet.                    The Pin flips Tug   over and for a moment Brendan is caught          between them, hit   and torn, rolling over the gun. Tug grabs          it, Brendan grabs   his wrist and the gun goes off, firing          into the ceiling.   Plaster sprays.                    Brendan screams, thrashing wildly, and manages to slip out          of his bloodied jacket and out from between the two.                    The Pin is on top, pinning Tug's gun hand to the carpet,          straining to keep it there.                    Brendan leaps to his feet, staggers, then winds up and kicks          Tug in the wrist with all his strength.                    A terrible crunching popping sound. Tug roars. Brendan takes          the gun from his limp hand.                                          PIN                    Do him!                    Brendan backs off a few steps. The Pin strains to keep Tug          down.                                        PIN (cont'd)                    Do him now!                    Brendan stumbles back. Tug roars, flips the Pin over and          beats his face mercilessly.                    Brendan stumbles out into the hall.          INT. BASEMENT HALLWAY - SAME                    Empty. From the darkened doorways and the thin ceiling          relentless sounds of fighting.                    Brendan walks backwards as if in a trance, eyes glued to the          Pin's door. Inside wild shadows splay across the walls, and          the Pin shouts Brendan's name.          Light flashes from another darkened doorway and the wall          beside Brendan splinters. Brendan spins on his heel and          fires three shots into the darkness, which falls silent.                                                                                  102                              He turns the gun back on the Pin's doorway.                    With a spray of sparks the doorway turns dark. They broke          the lamp.                    The dark doorway looms up before Brendan, inky black.          Horrible sounds come from it, blows, breaking bone, screams.          The Pin screams Brendan's name over and over, calling for          help. Pleading. Brendan steps back.                    Time slows down. Brendan drops the gun.                    It thunks on the carpet.                    In one motion Brendan kicks the gun down the hall into the          Pin's doorway, turns and runs into the room where he found          the brick.                    INT. STORAGE ROOM                    Dark. Brendan runs through, clawing past dark fighting          shapes, running like a man possessed. He breaks through the          darkness and heaves himself up through the small window.                    EXT. FRONT OF PIN'S HOUSE - NIGHT                    Brendan scrambles out, slips on the grass and hits the          ground hard.                    Two sharp gunshots come from the house.                    Everything is suddenly still. Brendan stands slowly.                    He notices a light from the Mustang - the trunk has drifted          open.                    Inside, a pale blue arm lies tangled in black plastic. Blue          fingernails. Cheap plastic bracelets.                    Brendan shuts the trunk solidly, then walks off down the          street and vanishes into the inky night.                    A moment later police cars pull up, sirens blaring, lights          turning the dark streets bright as day.                                                                           FADE OUT                                                                           FADE IN:                    EXT. SCHOOL PAYPHONE - EARLY MORNING                    The morning is cold and clammy. Brendan slumps against the          payphone.                                                                                  103                                                  BRENDAN                    Hey. Where are you?                                        THE BRAIN                        (on phone)                    Library. Where are you?                                        BRENDAN                    Did she blow last night?                                        THE BRAIN                    No. Stayed there till six thirty, then                    walked to school.                                        BRENDAN                    You didn't give her a ride, did you?                                         THE BRAIN                    No.                                        BRENDAN                    But she came straight to school from                    Tug's?                                         THE BRAIN                    Yeah.                                        BRENDAN                    She there now?                                        THE BRAIN                    Yeah. Not with me, but here.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright. Tell her I wanna meet up on the                    basketball field in half an hour, then                    go home and get some sleep.                                         THE BRAIN                    Alright.          Brendan hangs up, then pauses, lost in thought.                    EXT. SIDE OF GYM - LATER                    Brendan sits against the massive gym building, writing on a          piece of looseleaf paper.                    EXT. ADMINISTRATION BUILDING - LATER          Brendan slips the paper under a door stenciled "VP Offices".                                                                               104                              EXT. BASKETBALL FIELD - LATER                    Cold, barren. Wind whistles softly and jangles the metal          mesh basketball nets like windchimes.                    Brendan stands crookedly, hands in pockets, eyes trained on          the cold black horizon. A speck appears. Brendan waits for          it, bracing himself against the wind.                    Laura. She puts her arms around him, a warm embrace. Brendan          draws back.                                         LAURA                         (softly)                    Did you see it all? With Tug and the                    Pin?                    Brendan looks at her a moment.                                        BRENDAN                    No. I took your advice and didn't go.                                           LAURA                           (confused)                    No?                                        BRENDAN                    What happened?                    Laura looks at him strangely, a little uneasy.                                        LAURA                    The papers say six dead, three around                    the house, one girl in the trunk of                    Tug's car, and the Pin and Tug.                    Brendan's face is frozen in an ambiguous frown.                                          BRENDAN                    Yeah?                              LAURA                    Tug tried to shoot his way out when the                    police got there. They tied him to Dode,                    too. Same gun. And the girl.                                          BRENDAN                    Huh.                              LAURA                    Well good thing you weren't there.                                                                         105                                                    BRENDAN                    Yeah.                    Laura's face softens a bit.                                        LAURA                    You think the girl was Emily?                                          BRENDAN                    Probably.                    Laura embraces him again, and doesn't let go.                                        LAURA                    You loved her.                                        BRENDAN                        (distant)                    Yeah I did.                                        LAURA                    You did all this cause you loved her.                    And now it's finished.                        (tightens her embrace)                    I love you.                                          BRENDAN                    No.                    Laura pulls back, looks at his face. It is a mask.                                          LAURA                    What?                                        BRENDAN                    No, it's not finished. Tug pulled the                    trigger on Em and he got the fall, but                    the bulls coulda found that out without                    me.          Laura pulls back more.                                        BRENDAN (cont'd)                    I set out to know who put her in the                    spot, who put her in front of the gun.                    That was you, angel.                                        LAURA                        (drifting back further)                    What are you talking about?                                                                         106                                                  BRENDAN                    It was you. What, you want the whole                    tale? You want me to tell it to you?                                        LAURA                        (bewildered)                    Tell it to me.                                        BRENDAN                    Alright, from the top. You had your                    fingers in Brad Bramish for appearances                    and to keep him buying from the Pin, who                    you were hooked with. Emily came to you                    and Brad, you saw her for what she was,                    an insecure little girl trying to get                    in. She goes on the backburner.                    Meanwhile maybe you're getting bored,                    maybe just greedy, so when the Pin                    scores big with the bricks you take your                    shot. You hook one, take half, and cut                    it back to size, but you cut it bad.                    Maybe accidentally, maybe to down the                    Pin's operation, doesn't matter. You put                    it back, but poor Frisco doses off it                    and lands in a coma.                        (voice strengthening)                    So now the Pin's fuming, maybe he's                    jealous of Brad, so he comes to Brad's                    crowd looking for blood, or at least a                    scape. You know trouble. There's going                    to be a war over this. And there's                    Emily. She trusts you. She wants in.                    It's duck soup.                                          LAURA                          (murmurs)                    No.                                        BRENDAN                    You frame her for the bad brick, then                    you cut her loose. You turn on your heel                    and bite her in the throat. Last week on                    the payphone, Pico and Alexander, she                    saw something she was scared of. Tug's                    car driving by, the Pin driving, but she                    wouldn't have seen the Pin. No, she was                    across the street, angel. She saw the                    passenger side. She saw you. She saw you                    and ran like she saw some devil.                    Laura's face is very still, quivering.                                                                                  107                                                  LAURA                    Brendan, why are you-                                        BRENDAN                    And she took the hit. Dode hid her away,                    but the Pin was on to her, tracked her                    down, told her to meet him, that they                    would make good. Gave her a time, and a                    place. And sent Tug. Just to get the                    straight. But maybe you had talked Tug                    up, or maybe he just blew a fuse, but Em                    sprung it on him that she had her kid,                    and he did what anyone could count on                    Tug doing - he hit her. She took the hit                    for you. You let her take it.                                          LAURA                    Stop it!                                        BRENDAN                    That's the tale.                                          LAURA                    Stop it!                                        BRENDAN                    You're going to tell me it's not?                                                              LAURA                    It's not!                                        BRENDAN                    Look at me.                    She crumples against him, looking him straight in the eye.                                        LAURA                    You know me. I've only helped you. How                    can you - It isn't true!                    She sobs through a tensed, straight face. Brendan holds her          stare, but his eyes are distant.                                        BRENDAN                    I hope it isn't. I want you to have been                    on my side all along, not just trying to                    get me under your thumb like Brad and                    the Pin and Tug.                                          LAURA                    No-                                                                                 108                                                  BRENDAN                    But I think you knew that meeting was                    going to blow up. I think that was your                    final play. But I hope I'm wrong. I hope                    everything I wrote in the note I dropped                    at Gary Trueman's office this morning is                    wrong. About your and Brad's involvement                    in the Pin's runnings. I hope you didn't                    steal the brick last night. In your                    purse.                                        LAURA                        (breathes)                    I didn't.                                        BRENDAN                    That's good. That means you didn't let                    me walk into a slaughterhouse. You                    didn't lead Tug and the Pin and their                    crews to the slaughter. And when Trueman                    reads the note, takes my cue and                    searches your locker, he won't find a                    damn thing.                    Something changes in Laura's eyes.                    EXT. LOCKER CAGE - INSERT                    Trueman and several other men force Laura's locker open.          From its dark interior the chalky white brick falls out,          spins through the air, and shatters silently on the locker          cage floor.                    EXT. BASKETBALL FIELD - SAME                    A moment of silence between them. The basketball nets          jangle.                    Laura steps back. She looks as if she has been punched in          the face.                                        LAURA                        (murmurs)                    Brendan... don't...                                         BRENDAN                        (gently)                    It's done.                    Her face does strange things, subtle contortions.          She watches his eyes. He doesn't look at her. Her voice          shakes.                                                                                  109                                                  LAURA                    Done. Well. That's most of it. 9 out of                    10. I told Em to tell Tug it was his.                    Told her it would soften him up. She                    said she wished she could keep it, but                    she didn't love the father. I was going                    to drive her down the next day, we'd                    found a doctor. Most wouldn't. She was                    starting to show. 3 months. You know                    whose kid that makes it, or have you                    known all along?                    Slowly, steadily, she straightens up. Her figure takes back          some dignity. She steps towards him deliberately. Closer.          Right up against him.                    She brings her head to his, puts her lips to his ear,          breathes warm breath, and says two words. The first is                                           LAURA (cont'd)                    Mother-                    the second is low, guttural and lost to the whistling wind.                    She turns and walks briskly away.                    Brendan watches her go across the dark, barren field of          asphalt.                    Metal jangles. Brendan turns to see the Brain hopping a          chain link fence. Brendan turns his eyes back on Laura.                                        BRENDAN                    You get your straight?                                        THE BRAIN                    Yeah. I wouldn't have-                                           BRENDAN                    S'alright.                                        THE BRAIN                    Yeah, well. Chuck Burns came to. The                    knife guy. Spilled it all to the bulls,                    guess Brad Bramish hired him. On his                    own, just a grudge thing.                                        BRENDAN                        (nods slightly)                    Fits. You did good, Brain. Go sleep.                                        THE BRAIN                    Yeah, you too.                                                                                 110                              The Brain starts to walk away, but turns back.                                        THE BRAIN (cont'd)                    What'd she whisper to you?                                        BRENDAN                    She called me a dirty word.                                                  THE BRAIN                    Alright, you don't have to tell me.                    Thick.                                        BRENDAN                    As what-all.                               Brendan stands alone on the asphalt field, watching           Laura until she reaches the end of the field and walks           off behind a twisted chain linked fence.                               The first period bell rings, and Brendan walks back           towards campus.                                                                     FADE OUT.           
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+                                  BRIDESMAIDS                                 Written by                                Annie Mumolo                                                           8/12/09                                                                                                              INT. CLEAN, UPSCALE. MODERN BATHROOM.          Annie is in nice lingerie, happily getting ready for the          day. She puts a lot of effort into her appearance.          Products everywhere, too many hair-flips, eye-cream, no          hair out of place.          She walks into the bedroom, where TED, a gorgeous man          sleeps. She sneaks back into the bed, carefully          positioning herself and moving the sheets to show her          good parts.          She coughs and nudges Ted to wake him up then pretend          sleeps.                         TED          Good morning.          Annie pretends to wake up.                         TED (CONT'D)          Wow, you look beautiful.                         ANNIE                         (ACTING EMBARRASSED)          What? No. I don't. Oh my God its the          morning. I look terrible. I just woke up.                         TED          Last night was fun.                         ANNIE          Yeah, I had the best time. I have't had          that much fun on a first date in years,          ever...          She brushes the hair off his forehead as if he were her          long time lover.                         TED          So listen Annie, I like you. So, I want          to be up front with you. I'm not really          looking for a relationship right now.          Annie's eyes grow large. She uncomfortably smiles at him,          nodding.                         ANNIE          Oooooo. Oops. I mean, yeah. What?                         TED          I just want to be honest right off the          bat.                                                                                                              2.                         ANNIE          Yeah, yeah. Ok. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.          Annie struggles to maintain her composure.                         TED          I'm just so busy and I don't have time          for another person...I...                         ANNIE          Yeah, me too, I'm soo busy--                         TED          And summer's coming--                         ANNIE          Yeah, summer, exactly. It's a crazy          season. So you just wanna give me a call          in the fall or--?                         TED          Yeah, I'm not gonna be in town much even          in the fall--                         ANNIE          You shouldn't be! Yeah, Halloween--                         TED          I'm gonna be travelling a lot for work.                         ANNIE          Me too, I'm just- so many business trips          to places that are just far away‚Äòcause          I'm doing really well at work.                         TED          And honestly, (sits up) I don't even know          how I feel about the whole monogamy          thing, is one person really enough for          anyone? I mean, I like to be with a lot          of different people.                         ANNIE          It is sooo refreshing to hear you say          that, because isn't that what everyone          thinks but is afraid to say? I mean, i's          science. I'm-I don't want a relationship          either. Let's just say that. And I          wouldn't even care whatever you do or I          do, I just wanna have tons of fun, like          no strings attached at all. I'm just          different from other girls.                                                                                                              3.                         TED          Yeah. Well anyway, I really should get          going. I was gonna get a haircut today.                         ANNIE          Yeah, they say that every couple months          it's good to trim the ends, you know, get          all the dead stuff. So, cool. Cool. 've          cut hair before.          He waits, but Annie doesn't budge.                         TED          Well, like I said I got stuff to do.          Annie notices a picture of a sailboat above the bed.                         ANNIE          Yeah, me too. Gonna try to get some          sailing in before the weather gets          crazy...                         TED HOLLY          Cool, well I don't wanna be Get up the jib..          late.          Ted gets up. Awkward moment leading into...          EXT. HOUSE. FRONT DOOR. MOMENTS LATER.                         TED          Oh, and thanks for the lemon bars.                         ANNIE          Oh, no problem. Made from scratch.          EXT. DRIVEWAY          Annie stands at the closed driveway gate waiting as Ted          repeatedly presses the button. She smiles at a neighbor.                         TED          Sometimes it sticks!                         ANNIE          No, I love it!          The gate starts to open. Annie exits.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Byyyyee!                                                                                                              4.          EXT. STREET. OUTSIDE THE GATE          Annie sits in her old shitty car. She lets out an          exasperated sigh, then sees the clock.                         ANNIE          Oh, shit.          The brakes squeak as she very slowly drives away.          INT. ANNIE'S CAR IN TRAFFIC. CONTINUOUS.          Annie gets out her phone and speed dials LILLIAN.          INT. LILLIAN'S BEDROOM.          Lillian is getting dressed. Upscale, professional          clothes.                         LILLIAN          It's summer?! What the hell does that          mean? He can't date anyone in the summer?                         ANNIE          I guess? I don't know. I feel so stupid          now.                         LILLIAN          No he's stupid Ann, not you.                         ANNIE          I think I might be a little bit stupid.                         LILLIAN          Ew. Did you have sex with him?                         ANNIE          No! But I gave him a blow job.                         LILLIAN          What?!                         ANNIE          Well, he kept putting it in my face.          Lillian's boyfriend DOUGIE enters the bedroom eating a          Luna Bar in his sweats. He's stretching and flexing his          muscles trying to make her laugh.                                                                                                              5.                         LILLIAN          Well, at least he was honest with you so          you don't waste your time with him.                         DOUGIE          Baby, look how hard I worked out. Look at          all this sweat.                         LILLIAN          Can you see that I'm on the phone? I'm          talking to Annie.                         DOUGIE          Hey Annie.                         LILLIAN          Are you eating my Luna Bar? Those are for          women you know?                         DOUGIE          Shit. Really?!                         LILLIAN          It's not gonna do anything to you.                         DOUGIE          Oh my God. My breasts are getting bigger.          He tries to rub up against Lillian.                         LILLIAN          Ew, go take a shower.          Dougie leaves.          DOUGIE (O.S.)          I'm gonna play with my new boobs in          there.                         LILLIAN          I swear I cannot handle him right now. He          has been driving me crazy. Sometimes it          feels like I'm kissing my brother. I          don't know what do.          Annie pulls into an alleyway behind HARRINGTO'S JEWELRY          STORE and starts changing into her work uniform in the          car. A white blouse and navy skirt.                         ANNIE          At least you have someone. God, wha's          wrong with me?                                                                                                              6.                         LILLIAN          There's nothing wrong with you. But I          think maybe, and don't get mad at me,          I've said this to you before, you need to          stop trying so hard.                         ANNIE          I still don't think I do that.                         LILLIAN          OK, so you had a first date last night.          Did you bring him a present?          Annie is silent.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Ann, what did I tell you?                         ANNIE          I brought him lemon-bars because I was          making them anyway, as a friend. Yo're          right, that's weird.          DOUGIE (O.S.)          Shit!                         LILLIAN          What?!          DOUGIE (O.S)          I just chipped a nail!                         LILLIAN          Ok, I don't know if it's because I'm          tired or what, but I wanna kill him.                         ANNIE          Ok, just take a deep breath, look in the          mirror and remember when I was getting my          braces off and farted at the          orthodontist.          Lillian laughs.                         LILLIAN          Oh my God. We need to hang out. 'm          coming to Milwaukee this weekend.                         ANNIE          Are you serious?                                                                                                              7.                         LILLIAN          We'll go to Joni's and pig out and I'll          bring some shitty magazines, and I'm          gonna spend the night.                         ANNIE          God, I haven't seen you in months!                         LILLIAN          I'll call you tomorrow. Bye.          They hang up. Dougie is in the doorway wearing her          nightie stretched over his body.                         DOUGIE          Baby, I'm going through some changes...                         LILLIAN          (laughing) You're an idiot.          We see she gets a kick out of him.          INT. HARRINGTON'S JEWELRY STORE.          Annie enters hurriedly pulling her hair into a bun.                         ANNIE          Hi. Sorry, sorry! I'm here. I'm here.                         DONNA          (quickly) Annie! Thank God. OK people!          Gather around me please, in a tight          semicircle.          Annie and six other employees gather around DONNA.          DONNA (CONT'D)          (slightly overdramatic) Something          terrible has happened. Donald will not          be coming in to work today. He stepped          on a wasp and there is some uncomfortable          swelling.          Employees mumble.          DONNA (CONT'D)          Annie? Where's your tie?          Everyone looks at Annie. She holds it up and starts to          put it on.                                                                                                              8.          DONNA (CONT'D)          Now, I have an eye doctor's appointment          that I can't change or they'll will          charge me. So someone will have to cover          for Donald in engagement rings. Now I--          Annie and SANDY, a male co-worker, shoot their hands the          air eagerly.          DONNA (CONT'D)          Sandy? Today's your day.                         SANDY          Ooh, my horoscope said I would be          presented with an opportunity at work          today. That is eerie. That is eerie.                         DONNA          Annie, that means you'll be alone in          keepsakes. You think you can handle it?                         EMPLOYEE (SOTTO)          Yeah, look out. There might be a bum-          rush for letter openers...          The employees snicker.                         ANNIE          Sometimes there is, so....there have          been. At times, there has been.                         DONNA          Alright everybody, let's get to work!          Saneel?!...OPEN SESAME!          SANEEL, the security guard, rolls his eyes and unlocks          the doors. Everyone goes to work. Donna gathers her          things and starts walking towards the exit with Annie          tailing behind her.                         ANNIE          Donna, can I talk to you for a second? I          feel like if you gave me a shot at          engagement rings sometime, I could really-                         DONNA          Annie, what is the calibration of a 2          carat diamond in a standard English          setting?                         ANNIE          Five?                                                                                                              9.                         DONNA          I just made all of that up. None of that          was real. I just put words together.          You're not ready for the big leagues.          Understand?                         ANNIE          It's so hard to make commission over          there.                         DONNA          Sweetheart...did I ever tell you the          story of the little paralyzed Chinese          girl who wanted to be dancer?                         ANNIE          Many times.                         DONNA          She was paralyzed Annie, had no feeling          in her legs, and then one day after years          of believing in herself, she stood up out          of that chair and tap-danced for the          king. On his birthday! My point is, Sandy          makes a real effort around here. He          connects with the customer. And when he          wants to make a sale, he goes for it.                         ANNIE          Okay. (beat) I do want it.                         DONNA          (smiling) Good. Showing up on time is a          wonderful place to start.          Donna talks to herself and gathers her things.          DONNA (CONT'D)          Uhh! A wasp! Who walks around even their          own backyard without at least a thin          sandal. It's reckless!          Donna exits. A customer passes Anni's section.                         ANNIE          Hello, can I interest you in a sterling          silver money clip that will create          memories for you and your family? No?          We cut to a HOME IMPROVEMENT SHOW on T.V.                                                                                                              10.          T.V. HOST          When Dave and Rhonda bought this house,          it was a medical clinic. I've never seen          so many cupboards!          INT. ANNIE AND STEVE'S APT. THAT NIGHT.          STEVE, Annie's mid-thirties roommate, sits on the couch          shirtless and is enthralled by the show.                         STEVE          Noooo. That's, that's sooo smart.          Annie enters the apartment, tired. She throws her keys          down and sifts through her mail. Steve presses mute.          STEVE (CONT'D)          There you are, you stayer-out-all-          nighter. Did you make out? Sleep over?          As Annie heads for her bedroom, he walks towards her          room.          STEVE (CONT'D)          Don't go in the bathroom. Are you going          to bed?                         ANNIE          Yes. I'm beat.                         STEVE          Your ex-boyfriend got more mail, I did          what you said and just threw it away.                         ANNIE          Thanks. Goodnight Steve!          She shuts the door behind her.                         STEVE          That credit lady called! She wants to          talk to you, Annie! She's gonna find you.          Steve sits back on the couch, un-mutes the T.V..          ALLEN (ON SHOW)          This is where they bagged the animals          that didn't make it through the testing.          We turned it into a cozy Moroccan reading          room.                                                                                                              11.                         STEVE          Gross/Amazing.          INT. ANNIE'S BEDROOM.          She sits on her bed grabs a ‚ÄúSounds to Relax‚Äù CD with a          post-it that reads, ‚ÄúLove, Mom‚Äù. She plays it and lies          down. We hear a loud Tibetan woma's voice wailing. NOT          relaxing. She turns it off and curls up on top of her          bed.          INT. JONI'S RESTAURANT. THAT FRIDAY NIGHT.          Annie and Lillian read magazines.                         ANNIE          You're right. God, she's getting really          skinny.                         LILLIAN          Ann.                         ANNIE          What?                         LILLIAN          (quietly) Your boyfriend just walked in.          REVEAL: An orange-skinned BODY BUILDER with HUGE arms and          legs in a tiny muscle tank and shorts.                         ANNIE          Oh my God! Look, he showed up with your          mom.          It's a short grey-haired OUTDOORSEY WOMAN in hiking          boots. They laugh to themselves. Annie keeps reading.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Cool! They're making a WKRP movie.                         LILLIAN          Here Annie, let me turn the page for you.                         ANNIE          What?          Lillian splays her hand over the magazine showing off a          sparkling DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING.                                                                                                              12.                         LILLIAN          (playfully) I just want to help you turn          the page of your magazine for you...                         ANNIE          Lillian! What is that?!                         LILLIAN          I'm engaged.                         ANNIE          What?!!                         LILLIAN          He proposed at dinner last night. I          wanted to tell you in person and show you          this rock!                         ANNIE          It's beautiful. Lillian. Oh my God, this          is...this is crazy!                         LILLIAN          I know Dougie and I have been fighting a          lot, but I've been so stressed out with                         WORK--                         ANNIE          That's not I mean. I mean, I remember          when we met him at Lake Mills. You lost          your virginity to him right in front of          me on the dock, remember?                         LILLIAN          Oh you want to get into who's done what          down at the lake?                         ANNIE          No, I don't. It's just making me realize          how long we've known each other.                         LILLIAN          Well then, who better to be my Maid of          Honor?                         ANNIE          Oh my God! I don't know what to say!                         LILLIAN          Annie, you're my best friend. Honestly I          didn't even have to think about it.                                                                                                              13.                         ANNIE          Uh, wow. Yes! Of course! Yes! My God.          I've never been in a wedding.                         LILLIAN          It's no big deal, and I don't want to          make it one. It's not gonna be a big          crazy thing. I wanna keep it simple.          (beat) What dessert are you gonna get?                         ANNIE          I know what you're doing. Don't downplay          this. I'm happy for you. And someday when          hell freezes over and I get married, you          can be my Maid of Honor. But for right          now, this is about you. OK? This is          you're day, and it is a big deal.                         LILLIAN          Ok, but I still don't want this to be a          huge production. I just want to have all          my friends meet each other, have fun,          dance, drink, whatever.                         ANNIE          Then that's what it'll be. Did you guys          set a date?                         LILLIAN          Oh God, not yet. I don't want a super          long engagement, but there's a lot to do.                         ANNIE          Well you are very fortunate because you          happen have the best maid of honor in the          whole wide world, and--          Lillian's cell phone rings, she looks at it and smiles.                         LILLIAN          (mocking) Can you hold that thought. I's          my fiancee calling.          Lillian gets up laughing. Annie laughs along with her.                         ANNIE          Ooo, haha...          Annie continues laughing alone. She looks around the room          as her smile disappears. She remembers...                                                                                                              14.          FLASHBACK. EXT. LILLIAN'S COTTAGE. LAKE MILLS.- 1980 -          DAY.          Annie and Lillian at 7 years old standing outside eating          popsicles, smiling.                         YOUNG ANNIE          Lillian Marie Donovan. Do you take your          husband, forever, to be your husband?          Lillian stands by a poster of Eric Estrada in his          C.H.I.P.s uniform that is taped to a tree.                         YOUNG LILLIAN          I do. Do you Annie Lucille Walker, take          your husband, forever?          Reveal Annie standing next to a poster of John Baker from          Chips.                         ANNIE          I do.                         LILLIAN          And now we will leave on our honeymoon          to...                         LILLIAN/ANNIE          SEA WORLD!!          The girls rip the posters off of the trees.          An old station wagon sits in the dirt driveway. They get          in the back seat, look straight ahead and just sit there.          END FLASHBACK - BACK TO RESTAURANT.                         'S          thought.                         LILLIAN          The madness has begun. Dougie's parents          are having an engagement party for us          next Friday.                         ANNIE          Awesome!...                                                                                                              15.          EXT. STREET/NEWSSTAND. NEXT MORNING.          Annie, in her jogging clothes, reaches for a wedding          magazine, but a woman's magazine catches her eye. It                         ¬Äù                         ANNIE          (looking around) Ooh, what's this...          She finds the article. ‚ÄúHurry, before he gets away! Top          five ways to reel him in.‚Äù          MAN (O.S)          Excuse me.          A HOT ATHLETIC GUY with his golden retriever is reaching          for a magazine. She can't thing of what to say. She          remembers the magazine! It reads ‚Äú#1. A simple, flirty                         ¬Äù                         'S          working! Her cell phone rings, she tries to ignore it,          but it keeps ringing...                         ANNIE          Hello?          HELEN (ON PHONE)          Annie!?                         ANNIE          Yes?          It's HELEN (early 30's) Lillian's bridesmaid and friend          from the tennis Club. She's a tall leggy blond, all          smiles. East coast pretty with a lot of cream cashmere          turtleneck sweaters in her closet. She is sitting in a          cream colored living room on a huge cream couch with lots          of candles glowing.                         INTERCUT:                         HELEN          Hi.                         ANNIE          Hi.                         HELEN          Hiiii! This is Helen. I'm one of          Lillian's bridesmaids.                                                                                                              16.                         ANNIE          Of course, Helen. Hi!                         HELEN          Congratulations on being selected.                         ANNIE          Oh, thank you.          Annie, reads ‚Äú#2. Expose your best asset. ASAP‚Äù She          panics, starts to elongate her right leg, points her toe,          flexes her leg, flips her hair. He seems confused but          politely smiles and goes back to his magazine.                         HELEN          Annie?                         ANNIE          Sorry, yes. Hi!                         HELEN          Maid of Honor!!                         ANNIE          Yeah. It is quite an honor.                         HELEN          It's the number one spot. So how many          times have you been in the B.P?                         ANNIE          I'm sorry, the what?                         HELEN          Bridal Party?                         ANNIE          I've never even been in a wedding before.                         HELEN          What!? I've never even heard of that.                         ANNIE          Um, well, it should be fun.          Annie sees that the hot guy is leaving to pay for his          magazine! She reads‚Äú#5. Make a funny observational joke          that pertains to HIM. (ya know, LIKE SEINFELD!!] Men LOVE                         ¬Äù SHE          and the golden retriever meet eyes.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Um Helen, can you hold on for a second?                                                                                                              17.                         HELEN                         OH--          Annie covers the phone and approaches the hot guy.                         ANNIE          Hey, you're dog's really cute.                         MAN          Oh thanks.                         ANNIE          It's kinda funny right? That when girls          are ugly, they're called dogs, but dogs          are cute.          Annie laughs. He half smiles but does not respond.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          (beat) Well, some dogs are ugly. Some          girls are ugly. I know a lot of ugly          girls. But I'm not friends with them.          I've seen a lot of ugly dogs too. But          some people I know who are considered          dogs, you know, they have a good          personality, and are better looking to          people cuz of that. And people who are          not nice...that's ugly to me. And female          dogs are called bitches, that's weird.          I'm just kidding. It's a joke. I have          better ones.          The guy leaves. She hears a voice coming from her phone.          HELEN'S VOICE          Hello?!                         ANNIE          Helen! Sorry. Yeah um, I'm really excited          for all the wedding stuff and--                         HELEN          YAY! OK, I will get your e-mail from          Lilly with all of the other girls'          information, and when you respond to any          wedding related e-mails from now on, just          remember to hit ‚ÄúREPLY ALL‚Äù. Did you know          there are six of us?                         ANNIE          Yeah, Lillian told me last night.          Awkward silence.                                                                                                              18.                         HELEN          Well, can't wait to meet you and hear          what your planning for the bachelorette.          Any ideas?                         ANNIE          Not yet. But they are coming, and I will          fill you in--                         HELEN          Oop! There goes my other line. See you          Friday!          She realizes there might some research to do for this          ‚Äòbridal party' thing. She instead grabs two wedding          magazines.                         ANNIE          Just these.          Noticing a magazine by the register that reads ‚Äù(some bad                         MESSAGE)¬Äù          ANNIE (CONT'D)          And this.          INT. ANNIE'S APARTMENT. LATER.          Annie at her desk reading the wedding magazines. She          Googles ‚ÄúMaid-of-Honor duties‚Äù. She clicks on a web-site          '.          She presses ‚Äòprint', then notices it's 120 pages long.                         ANNIE          Whoa.          Email DING. She checks her inbox. 48 NEW MESSAGES.          ‚ÄúBridesmaids!‚Äù, ‚ÄúSo excited to meet you!‚Äù, ‚ÄúWedding          Bells!‚Äù,‚ÄúSuper fun!‚Äù,‚ÄùEngagement party!‚Äù ‚ÄúHotel          Rates‚Äù,‚ÄúShoes‚Äù,‚ÄúShower themes‚Äú ‚ÄúDoes anyone          have...‚Äù,‚ÄúCute Favor Ideas‚Äù,‚ÄúFitness program‚Äù,‚ÄúLingerie?‚Äù          ‚ÄúSpecial thoughts‚Äù ‚ÄúPoem suggestions?‚Äù ‚ÄúInvite list for          shower‚Äù ‚ÄúContact list for bachelorette‚Äù ‚ÄúMaking memories‚Äù          ‚ÄúFrench manicures?‚Äù etc.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Oh my God.                                                                                                              19.          INT. ANNIE'S BATHROOM. DAY OF ENGAGEMENT PARTY.          Annie gets ready as she talks on speaker phone.                         ANNIE          He probably didn't see you, Mom.                         INTERCUT:          INT. SCREENED IN PORCH. JUDY'S HOUSE          Annie's mom, JUDY, (50's) is on the phone while painting          a very lifelike portrait of Wynona Judd from a photograph          that's pinned to it's corner.                         JUDY          Oh, he saw me alright. He was married to          me for fourteen years, he knows what I          look like. I'm sure it was because BARB          was there. You know how jealous she gets.                         ANNIE          Yeah, I'm sure that's it mom.                         JUDY          Am I on speaker phone?                         ANNIE          Yeah.                         JUDY          I don't know how to talk this way.                         ANNIE          Mom I'm running a little late so--                         JUDY          Oh, the engagement party. Lillia's          getting married, I can't believe how time          flies. You're day will come dear.          Give Lillian a kiss for me please, and          tell Laurie and Ed I just could't afford          the plane ticket, but I will be at the          shower.                         ANNIE          I already told them, they understand.                                                                                                              20.                         JUDY          BARB could afford to come. Did you know          what kind of car she drives now? A 2007          P.T. Cruiser. She looks ridiculous          parading all around Fort Myers in that          thing.                         ANNIE          Ok, Mom--                         JUDY          I don't know how she gets in and out of          that little car with those big legs.                         ANNIE          I should get going. I have long drive.                         JUDY          Oh and honey, I picked you up a couple of          things when I was at the Steinmart with          Janice so look for a package in the mail.                         ANNIE          Mom I told you you don't have to send me--                         JUDY          Oh stop. I love doing it. Ok? I love you          sweetie.                         ANNIE          I love you too Mom. Bye.          They hang up. Annie walks to the kitchen.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Ok, how do I look?                         STEVE          Ooooh. You tryin to hook up tonight? A          lot of people do at these wedding things          you know so you have a good chance.                         ANNIE          Nevermind...                         STEVE          I like the black tights with the black          shoes, it's very elongating.                         ANNIE          Oh. Well, thank you.                                                                                                              21.                         STEVE          But I think you need more dark up top to          balance it out, do have any black beads?                         ANNIE          (looking at herself] That's actually a          good idea.          She starts to leave but sees a guilty look and some          frosting on Steve's face. She looks over at her saran-          's.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          How many moonpies have you eaten? Tell me          the truth.                         STEVE          Um......two.                         ANNIE          Ok, now really tell me the truth. How          many did you eat?                         STEVE          Four. Nine.          They stare at each other.          EXT. HIGHWAY. LATER.          Annie is finally driving along. she hears sirens.                         ANNIE          Shit!          She pulls over. OFFICER RHODES approaches, chewing gum.                         RHODES          Good afternoon ma'am, You in a hurry to          get out of the city?                         ANNIE          No. Was I speeding?                         RHODES          Is that even possible in this rig?          He finds this funny, Annie does't.          RHODES (CONT'D)          You know funny thing about brake lights,          you're supposed to have ‚Äòem.                                                                                                              22.                         ANNIE          Ooooh. Yeah. Mine are out.                         RHODES          Yeah, and you're headin' up Witches          Curve. That's a risky move.                         ANNIE          I'm sorry. I usually only drive in the          city and they've never pulled me over. To          tell you the truth, those lights have          been out for like a year.                         RHODES          Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy hot-dogger. That          is not something you wanna go          broadcasting to a police officer. I might          feel obligated to give you a yea's worth          of tickets now.                         ANNIE          What? No.. I-                         RHODES          You just admitted it.                         ANNIE          Can you do that?                         RHODES          You admitted it. (beat) Yeah, I can't do          that though.                         ANNIE          Look, I'm really sorry. I promise I will          get the lights fixed tomorrow morning.          I'm kind of in a hurry. I'm going to my          best friend's engagement party, I'm the          Maid of honor and so I really -                         RHODES          Oh, yeah. My little sister was just in a          wedding. She lost some of her hair from          the stress.          Again, not funny.                         ANNIE          Am I getting a ticket?          He searches for words. She's cute and he wants to keep          her there. He keeps smiling. Awkward silence.                                                                                                              23.                         RHODES          Uh, yeah. That's what happens when you          break the law. Um...license and          registration.                         ANNIE          Here.          He writes a ticket.                         RHODES          (searching for words) Ooo, I like that          air freshener. Did you get that at the          gas station?                         ANNIE          I don't remember.                         RHODES          Smells like Christmas. (sniff) Yeah, it          smells like Christmas.          He rips the ticket off.                         RHODES (CONT'D)          Well, here you go. And just so you know          it's a just a fix-it ticket. So if you          get those lights repaired, you wo't have          to pay anything.                         ANNIE          Oh, Okay.                         RHODES          Whoa, are those moon-pies?                         ANNIE          Oh yeah.                         RHODES          (mumbling) Oh, those are my favorite.                         ANNIE          What?                         RHODES          Nothing. (mumbling) Those are my          favorite.                         ANNIE          Do you want one?                                                                                                              24.                         RHODES          No. It's too much trouble, they look all          wrapped up.          She doesn't get the hint. He really wants one.                         RHODES (CONT'D)          Well, have fun at your party.          Annie drives off. He watches.          EXT -THE HUNT CLUB. CHICAGO SUBURB.          Annie, a little embarrassed, hands her keys to the valet          and grabs the moon-pies. She walks into an elegant          country club dining room, lively cocktail party. Music,          happy people, etc. She is greeted by Lillia's mom,          LAURIE.                         LAURIE          Annie, sweetheart!                         ANNIE          Hi Mrs. Donovan!          They hug.                         LAURIE          Oh! And you brought your famous moonpies!          Laurie takes the tray.          LAURIE (CONT'D)          Can you believe our Lillian?                         ANNIE          I know, I'm so happy for her.                         LAURIE          Well, clue me in. Is there anyone          special in your life?                         ANNIE          Nope.                         LAURIE          That's my girl. (whisper) Sleep around.          I'm serious. Travel the world and try all          the cuisine you can. You know what I mean          by that, right?          MARY, Laurie's friend, approaches.                                                                                                              25.                         MARY          Laurie, where did you get that sweater?          It is one-hundred percent out-of-sight!                         LAURIE          Shhh, I got it at Glory Gay's.                         MARY          Ooooh. I can't even walk in there. The          blouses alone make my wallet open.                         LAURIE          It's worth it, though huh? Mary, I want          you to meet Lillian's Maid of Honor.                         MARY          Oh, very special job.                         LAURIE          This is Annie Walker. She lived next door          to us in Milwaukee until the girls          graduated from high school.                         ANNIE          Hi.          LILLIAN (O.S.)          Ann!                         ANNIE          Lil! It was nice meeting you Mary.          Annie leaves.          LAURIE (TO MARY)          Her father ran off to Florida with a          younger woman who was working at a          Chrysler dealership.                         MARY          Oh my.                         LAURIE          Poor Judy, never quite got over it. She          also ended up moving to Florida to take          care of her parents.                         MARY          Oh, that is tough. Well it's nice Annie          and Lillian have stayed friends.                         LAURIE          They're like sisters.                                                                                                              26.          They continue gabbing as Annie rushes to Lillian. They          hug.                         LILLIAN          Hey!                         ANNIE          Hey! What's up? Where's Dougie?                         LILLIAN          Smoking a cigar with my dad. Le's go          get a drink.          They weave towards the bar.                         DOUGIE          Annie!!!                         LILLIAN          Hold on Dougie, we're getting drinks!          They get to the bar and grab glasses of wine.                         ANNIE          This place is so fancy. Dougie's parents          belong here?                         LILLIAN          Yeah. So does Dougie. This is the tennis          club I've been playing at.                         ANNIE          Oh. Wow. I guess it's not what I          pictured. Lucky you.                         LILLIAN          Tennis courts are tennis courts if you          ask me. But I have met a lot of really          cool people here. I can't wait for you to          meet the girls.                         ANNIE          Oh! So where's this guy you were telling          me about?          LILLIAN.          Oh shoot, Matt's not coming. I guess he          got back together with his ex or          something. Anyway, Dougie just told me.          Sorry.                         ANNIE          That's ok.                                                                                                              27.                         DOUGIE          There she is!          Dougie picks Annie up and swings her around.                         LILLIAN          Dougie, be careful. God, you reek!          He puts her down.                         DOUGIE          Annie, make sure when my fiance gets cold          feet you tell her what a great guy I am.          He grabs Lillian and kisses her on the cheek.                         LILLIAN          (waving the cigar scent away) Ugh. Wash          your face.          She gives in and kisses him. Then says to Annie..          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Come on. Let's go say hi to the rest of          the bridal party.          They approach LESLIE, Lillian's cousin, late 30's,          standing with her husband PAUL.                         ANNIE          Leslie, hi! How are you guys?                         LESLIE          Well, I just squeezed my third kid out          last month and I feel like I'm walking          around in a fat suit.          She swigs beer out of a bottle.                         PAUL          I keep telling her she looks great.          (beat) Oh, I'm sorry. Is this your          boyfriend?          A 30 YEAR OLD AVERAGE GUY with a neckbrace stands behind          Annie. Paul goes to shake his hand. She stops him.                         ANNIE          No, no. (to the guy) Hi. (to them) No.          Annie meets DANA who is with her husband Ernie.                                                                                                              28.                         LILLIAN          Annie this is Dana, we met here in my          tennis class. Dana, Annie.                         DANA          Hi! Dana Shig. Its so nice to finally          meet you Annie. I've heard so much about          you. This is my husband Ernie.          ERNIE has just put food in his mouth.                         DANA (CONT'D)          Don't you just love weddings? I mean,          (she starts to cry) I just love like the          feeling and...everyone comes together you          know? And it's forever! It's a journey,          and WE get to go on it too!                         ANNIE          Wow, that's beautiful. I never thought of          it that way.                         DANA          This is all so amazing. I'm going to make          a scrap book for Lillian.          Dana takes her camera out then reaches out her hand.          DANA (CONT'D)          Hi. I'm Dana and this is my husband          Ernie. So...how did you two meet?          She refers to a bald man who looks like a chemistry          teacher, who is slowly walking by looking for someone.                         ANNIE          No, I don't know him. He's not with me.          He's just passing by. I'm not here with          anyone.          BECCA stands very close to her husband KEVIN, a good          looking stockbroker type.                         BECCA          Lil! Is this Annie?!          Annie and Lillian walk over.          BECCA (CONT'D)          Hi Annie! I'm Becca. I've heard so much          about you. This is my husband Kevin.                                                                                                              29.                         LILLIAN          Dougie's partner.                         BECCA          So, are you so excited?! All of this          reminds me so much of my wedding.                         ANNIE                         OH--                         BECCA          Two months now! It was the best day of my          life. I'm married now! It's like...I'm          just better now! It might sound weird          but... I feel legit. Just like, feminine.          Look at my nails!          Two beautifully french manicured hands with a HUGE 3          carat diamond ring.          BECCA (CONT'D)          Ooooops, where are my manners. Hi! I'm          Becca Whitman.          REVEAL a very smart looking, older African-American MAN          standing next to Annie. He is wearing an ascot and          smoking a pipe.                         MAN          The name's Captain Arnold Dubois.          MEGAN is Dougie's sister. An ODDBALL. She looks like she          might be at the wrong party. She is single and lovin' it!                         MEGAN          Annie! Hey! What's up?                         ANNIE          Megan! How are you?                         MEGAN          I just got pins in my leg! I fell off a          cruise ship.                         ANNIE          Oh shit!                         MEGAN          Yeah. I was on a singles cruise. It was          nighttime.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              30.                         MEGAN (CONT'D)          I was port-side, having a drink with a          gentlemen and old Megan here decided to          show off and I tried to climb into one of          the lifeboats with my clogs on. I saw a          dolphin.                         ANNIE          Wow. Well, I'm glad you're OK.                         MEGAN          Listen Annie. You're single right? You          and I are gonna scam on guys this whole          time. You and I are gonna party and get          naked with guys. This whole time Annie,          no bailing.          Lillian re-appears, grabs Annie.                         LILLIAN          Ann, there you are!                         MEGAN          Think about what I said Annie!                         LILLIAN          (to Annie) I'm saving you. Now I really          want to introduce you to Helen. looking          around) There she is.          In slow motion, a tall and gorgeous HELEN turns to us.          She wears a tight, cream-colored, floor-length evening          gown. Annie straightens her plastic beads.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Helen, this is Annie.                         HELEN          Hiii.                         ANNIE          Hi.                         HELEN          Hiii. This is my husband Perry.                         LILLIAN          Perry owns Atmospheria candles.                         ANNIE          Oh, the Starbuck's of the candle world?          Those are popping up on every corner.          Which one do you own?                                                                                                              31.                         HELEN          All of them. It's the family business,          his father started it.                         ANNIE          Oh, wow, that's pretty cule.                         PERRY          Yeah, yeah. Currently we dominate the          U.S. home illumination sector as a whole          and six out of seven homes in upscale          neighborhoods have one of our products,          including the club.                         ANNIE          That is a lot.                         HELEN          Perry donated a few for tonight.          The room is all aflame.          HELEN (CONT'D)          So how do you like our club?                         ANNIE          Yeah, I was just telling Lillian i's          very elegant.                         HELEN          So you live in Milwaukee?                         ANNIE          Yeah in the nice part. I work at          Harrington's Jeweler's. I love it.                         HELEN          I think I've heard of them.                         ANNIE          It's pretty well-known in the jewelry          world. It's got like the biggest market          for all the jewelry they sell and 'm          actually gonna be getting a promotion                         PRETTY SOON--                         LILLIAN          You are?                         ANNIE          Yeah, so I'm pretty excited about it.          It's gonna be...pretty big. So, if you          ever need a discount--                                                                                                              32.                         HELEN          You're funny. Listen Annie,I know you          said you've never been in a wedding          before so I just want you to know that we          all have, especially me, so if you need          any help, don't hesitate to ask.                         ANNIE          Thank you.          LIVING ROOM - MOMENTS LATER.          Groomsman DEAN finishes a speech. They are now in the          dining room.                         DEAN          So cheers to you two, our last single          friends finally crossing over into the          world of marital bliss, welcome to the          other side!          Dana snaps a photo, crying. Helen approaches the podium.                         HELEN          Hello everyone. My name is Helen Harris          the Third, an honored member of the          bridal party. In honor of Lillian and          Dougie, I'd like to take this opportunity          to read a poem that I penned last summer          while I was sitting on a swing at an          exclusive resort in Santorini.          Annie whispers to the person next to her.                         ANNIE          Am I supposed to give a speech?          As Helen reads, Annie looks around the room and sees          everyone in awe. Dana starts to cry. She reads from a          fancy sheet of stationary.                         HELEN          With every blink of an eye, every kiss of          a lip, every stroke of a lovers hand,          every...scent of a woman, every breath          you take, every move you make. Love          conquers all.          Annie sees that Lillian is touched. Helen gets emotional.                                                                                                              33.                         HELEN (CONT'D)          They say when you choose a mate, yo're          choosing a best friend. Dougie, yo're a          lucky man. Lillian, I know you're going          to make a wonderful wife, because you          have been the best friend that I could          ever ask for.          Annie's face goes blank.          HELEN (CONT'D)          I have never had a friendship like this.          I'm so happy you two are finally taking          this big step together and I ca't wait          for all of the adventures that await us.          People are moved, sniffling. Including Lillian.          HELEN (CONT'D)          Now ‚ÄúDougly‚Äù, sorry, inside joke. You          better not keep my Lil on a leash. I          still need my drunken nights at Rockin          Sushi! TO DOUGIE AND LILLIAN!!!          The crowd erupts with laughter and applause. People are          crying, hugging, and standing.          HELEN (CONT'D)          Thank you. Thank you! Now wher's Annie?          Annie? Stand up Annie.          The room looks around. Annie slowly rises.          HELEN (CONT'D)          There she is. Annie is our Maid of Honor          everyone. And I'm sure she'd like to          take this time to say a few words. Annie?          Annie stands up to the applause. The room falls silent as          she walks to the podium.                         ANNIE          Um, hello everybody. Hi everyone. 'm          Annie. Wow, it really smells like vanilla          in here.                         MEGAN          It's the candles Annie.                         ANNIE          Thanks Megan. Lillian this is gonna be          awesome. Um, uh, God, oh, oh, oh, what's          that saying?                         (MORE)                                                                                                              34.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Ayay, um, God, um, what is it? It's a          good one, a good saying, it's Irish. It's          like a-like a toast. Is it Irish?          Something about a road...Oh God, 'm          blanking. So I'll just say I'm so happy          to be a part of this whole celebration          and happiness. You two are so happy          together and hope you have a happy          lifetime of happiness and celebrating.          And I love you and....Lillian, w've been          best friends since we were like 5...'ve          never been to Greece...          't know          if she's done. Annie sees Helen has moved over to sit          next to Lillian.          ANNIE (SINGING) (CONT'D)          ‚ÄúDid you ever know that you're my          hero...You're everything I wish I could          be..‚Äù C'mon you guys know the words.          Some people reluctantly sing along.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          ‚ÄúI could fly higher then an eagle. For          you are the wind beneath my wings. Flyyy,          flyyyyy, so fly into the sky, so fly          until we touch up high--‚Äù          EXT-COUNTRY CLUB. LATER.          Lillian and Annie are at the valet.                         ANNIE          Oh my God, tell me I didn't sing.                         LILLIAN          No, you sang.          They both laugh.                         ANNIE          God, I don't know, I was just maybe a          little out of my element, and after          Helen's speech--                         LILLIAN          Ann, stop.                                                                                                              35.                         ANNIE          I'm so embarrassed. What did you think of          your engagement party?                         LILLIAN          Besides the impromptu concert from Bette          Midler, it was perfect.          They laugh and hug.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          I gotta go say bye to some people I do't          know. Drive safe.          Lillian goes back inside. Helen appears out of thin air.                         HELEN          Annie! Great job tonight..                         ANNIE          I'm feeling slightly mortified.                         HELEN          No, nononono. Not at all. Everyone gets a          little nervous and carried away during          those kind of things. So listen, 've          been brainstorming some theme ideas for          Lillian's shower. I was thinking          somewhere along the lines of Alice in          Wonderland meets...are you ready?          Hollywood. And for the bachelorette?          Vegas.                         ANNIE          Aren't I supposed to be planning some of          these things?                         HELEN          Oh, well, I hadn't heard from you and--                         ANNIE          She just got engaged two weeks ago.                         HELEN          Well, I figured since you don't have any          experience that you might get overwhelmed          by events of this caliber.                         ANNIE          Helen, I'm pretty capable. I think I can          handle it.          A guest walks by and taps Helen.                                                                                                              36.                         GUEST          Excuse me, you left your poem inside. You          have beautiful cursive.                         HELEN          Thank you.          The guest says nothing to Annie and walks away.          HELEN (CONT'D)          Annie, I didn't mean I didn't think you          couldn't do it. I'm sure you are aware of          all your duties. We'll see--we'll see you          soon.          Helen walks away. A OLD LADY passes by her.                         WOMAN          You're very pretty.          MEGAN (O.S.)          Annie!          Megan is running towards her with a piece of paper.          MEGAN (CONT'D)          Annie wait! I wanna give you my numbers.          A place just opened up near my house.          From 4-7 every weekday, Karaoke, two          dollar wings and all you can eat MAN          sandwiches if you know what I mean.          Annie is nervous, starts biting her nails.          INT. ‚ÄòSEXY NAIL' NAIL SALON. NEXT DAY.                         NAIL TECHNICIAN          Your nail too short for french manicure.                         ANNIE          (disappointed) Oh well...                         NAIL TECHNICIAN          That's Ok. I fix for you. Make you sexy.                         ANNIE          Oh, great!          INT. HARRINTON'S. DONNA'S OFFICE. LUNCHTIME.          Donna and Annie are eating lunch in the break-room.                                                                                                              37.                         DONNA          And then they put a solution in my eyes          to dilate them, which caused temporary          blindness and with the loss of my sight,          my hearing became bionic. Do you need          some help dear?          Annie struggles to open a bag of chips but her new ULTRA          LONG, french-manicured nail-tips are making it very hard.                         ANNIE          No, I got it.          DONNA'S OFFICE. CONTINUOUS          Annie and Donna are doing inventory. Annie gets text.                         ANNIE          Sorry... Well, it's official. Lillian set          a date. October tenth. Why did I just get          a stomach ache.                         DONNA          Don't be nervous. It's not all on your          shoulders. Doesnt she have other          bridesmaids?                         ANNIE          Yeah and they've all done this before so          I'm feeling a little pressure. I have to          make this really nice for Lillian.                         DONNA          I wish I could help. Weddings are a lot          different now then they were in my day.          They look at Donna's wedding picture on her desk.                         ANNIE          That dress is beautiful.                         DONNA          I still have it. I was hoping my daughter          Elizabeth would wear it but when she and          Alice had their ‚Äúceremony‚Äù they both          wanted to wear suits. (beat) Ok, we need          two Shannisburg tennis bracelets.          Annie struggles to write with her nails.                         ANNIE          Oops. Hold on a sec, hard to write...                                                                                                              38.                         DONNA          They're very long.          INT. SEXY NAIL. THAT NIGHT.                         ANNIE          Hi. I need to make these shorter.                         NAIL TECHNICIAN          No, not sexy!                         ANNIE          I know, it's... I can't work with them so          long.                         NAIL TECHNICIAN          Okay. 7 dollar for file. No more sexy          though.                         ANNIE          Ok.                         NAIL TECHNICIAN          Short nail is ugly.                         ANNIE          Alright.          INT. ANNIE'S BEDROOM.          Annie looks up different bridesmaid dress shops          EXT. ‚ÄòOCCASIONZ' BRIDAL SHOP. DAYTIME.                         ANNIE          Here it is!                         HELEN          Ooh, Occasionz. I'm impressed.                         ANNIE          Everyone this is Occasionz, supposedly          it's you know, one of the best bridal          shops in town, so, that's cool. Oh and          also, there's a restaurant inside, so um,          I figured, we could maybe have lunch          after. So, let's go!          She goes to the door. It is locked. She sees a buzzer.                                                                                                              39.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Oh, I didn't see that.          She presses the buzzer.          VOICE FROM INSIDE          Hello?                         ANNIE          Hi, we're hear to see some bridesmaids          dresses.          VOICE FROM INSIDE          What's your name?                         ANNIE          Oh, Annie.          VOICE FROM INSIDE          (snotty) What's the reservation name?                         ANNIE          (to the girls) Oh, she must be talking          about the restaurant. (back into the          intercom) No, we're here to look at          dresses.          VOICE FROM INSIDE          I heard you the first time. So I take it          you don't have a reservation for the          dress shop?                         BECCA          (whispers) You didn't make a reservation?                         ANNIE          Um, no, I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to          make a reservation for that. Sorry!          Anyway, we're all out here now and--          VOICE FROM INSIDE          The next available appointment for          bridesmaid fittings is in seven weeks and          we don't take reservations over the          intercom so you'll have to call.                         ANNIE          Seven weeks?!          VOICE FROM INSIDE          I'm sorry maybe you can't hear me. I just          said a few seconds ago that we do't have          a reservation for the next seven weeks.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              40.          VOICE FROM INSIDE (CONT'D)          And when you make your reservation do't          forget you'll also need to make an          appointment.                         ANNIE          What?                         DANA          (whispers) You didn't make an          appointment?          VOICE FROM INSIDE                         I SAID--                         ANNIE          No, I can hear you. Would it be possible          for you to make an exception for us          because we drove all the way out here and          I didn't know about the reservation/          appointment thing so...          VOICE FROM INSIDE          Hold on.                         LILLIAN          Annie, we can go somewhere else.                         ANNIE          No, no. I'll work it out. Don't worry.                         BECCA          This really is the best place though,          that's the thing.                         HELEN          Listen, I know the--                         WHITNEY          (intercom] Hello, this is the manager?                         ANNIE          Yes, hello!                         WHITNEY          We can fit you in seven weeks, that is          all we have available. We only take          parties that have a reservation and that          have made an appointment over the phone.          I'm going to ask you to not buzz in          again. Thank you. Byyyyyyye.          Helen approaches the intercom.                                                                                                              41.                         HELEN          Whitney?                         WHITNEY          (irritated) Yes? Who is this?                         HELEN          Whit, it's Helen.                         WHITNEY          Helen?! Hiiii!                         HELEN          Hiiii!                         WHITNEY          Hi!                         HELEN          Hi! Listen, I'm out here with a whole          bunch of girls and we had a little          miscommunication and our reservation-          appointment wasn't made. Is there any way          to fit us in?                         WHITNEY          Say no more.          Buzzzzzzzz. The girls happily enter.                         LILLIAN          (sotto} Wow, thanks Helen.          INT. ‚ÄòOCCASIONZ' BRIDAL SHOP. DAYTIME.          Whitney and Helen are leading the girls down the hall.          Lillian and Annie tail the group.                         LILLIAN          Ann, don't worry about it. We got in.          Annie sees racks of wedding dresses.                         ANNIE          Hey, you want to sneak off and look at          the wedding dresses?                         LILLIAN          Oh my God. Annie, I didn't tell you?          Guess who Helen is friends with? Lady          Lavonia Jean St. Petsois JuJu.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              42.                         LILLIAN (CONT'D)          That famous wedding dress designer tha's          in all those wedding magazines? As a          favor to Helen she's going to design my          dress for almost nothing. Normally          they're like twenty grand. She's French.                         ANNIE          Wow. That's amazing.                         LILLIAN                         (GIDDY)          I have to send my measurements to France.          Annie is a little disappointed.          INT. BRIDESMAIDS DRESS ROOM.          They all stand in a room stuffed bridesmaids dresses.          Lillian's cell phone rings.                         LILLIAN          Surprise, surprise. It's my Mom. Mom? Can          you hold on a second?          She covers the phone and talks to the girls.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Start looking at dresses. I'll be right          back. I think maybe you guys should          decide anyway and pick out something you          like since you're the ones wearing it.          Cool? (nodding) Have fun! What's up Mom?          Ugh! They're booked?          Lillian leaves talking to her Mom.                         HELEN          Ok ladies, start your (french) engines!          Shots of dresses being pulled off of the racks. Fighting          for the same dress, shirts coming off, dresses zipped up          the back and dresses not fitting, etc.          INT. ANNIE'S DRESSING ROOM          Annie loves the dress she has on. She talks to herself in          the mirror.                         ANNIE          Hi I'm Annie. Can I get a martini? What          you mean you need to see I.D.? (giggling)                                                                                                              43.          FANTASY. UPSCALE PARTY. LIKE AN OVERDRAMATIC PERFUME AD.          Annie, in the dress, is talking to the bartender.                         BARTENDER          Well, with that dress on you look          about... .eleven.                         ANNIE          Thank you.          Annie laughs. And turns away right into, a GORGEOUS male          model in a tuxedo.          HOT MAN IN TUX          Excuse me, you dropped an earring.          An UNDERWEAR MODEL appears, in his underwear.                         UNDERWEAR MODEL          I'll get it for her.          MAN IN SURGEONS SCRUBS          No I will!          MAN IN RED BATHING SUIT          I'll get it! I'm a lifeguard.          Tons of men begin to yell and fight over her. The chaos          forces Annie to make a DRAMATIC EXIT from the CASTLE. She          runs down the stairs like Cinderella into the forest.          They men begin to chase her.          She runs through the trees out of breath, she is face to          face with a sexy, sweaty, lumberjack, wh's chopping          wood. It's CHRISTIAN BALE.                         ANNIE          Hi.                         CHRISTIAN BALE          Hi. I'm Christian Bale. I'm just chopping          some wood, I like to do that between          movies.                         ANNIE          Hello Christian.          They hear the voices of the men from the party screaming          for her.                                                                                                              44.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Oh, Christian! I need a place to hide.                         CHRISTIAN BALE          Quick, get inside my muscles.          They embrace.          CHRISTIAN BALE (CONT'D)          I love this sash.          They look into each others' eyes, just about to kiss and--                         HELEN          Hi Annie!          INT. ANNIE'S DRESSING ROOM.          Helen has flung open Annie's dressing room curtain,          putting an abrupt end to her fantasy.          She is wearing cream colored lingerie, showing off her          TOTALLY amazing body. Annie is uncomfortable.                         HELEN          Look at your cute little boobies. Ooh,          is that the dress you like?                         ANNIE          Yeah. I think it will look good on          everybody, it has a sash--                         HELEN          A sash? Annie, this isn't the Sound of          Music tryouts.                         ANNIE          Huh?          DANA (O.S.)          I told you Becca I can't wear strapless!          BECCA (O.S.)          Why not?!          Annie and Helen come out to see all the bridesmaids          arguing.                         DANA          Because, I--                                                                                                              45.                         LESLIE          Why don't you two shut your traps? No          one's going to be looking at us. Le's          just get the one with the shawl, 'm          always freezing at these things anyway.                         MEGAN          I gotta say I'm still leaning towards the          one that I found.          It is a very ugly.                         LESLIE          Absolutely not.                         ANNIE          Well, what about this one?          Everybody stops and looks at Annie.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          I think it would be flattering on          everyone and we could totally wear it          again. The sash comes in different colors          not just this one.                         HELEN          Everyone! We can't all have the dress          that we want. I've been in a lot of          weddings and when choosing a bridesmaid          dress, you must ask yourself, ‚ÄúIf          invited, would I wear this a dress          to...The ACADEMY AWARDS!‚Äù                         DANA          Ooo, I never thought of it that way.          All the girls agree.                         HELEN          With that in mind, I say we wear this          one.          Helen holds up a dress. The girls like it.                         ANNIE          Or this one! People wear sashes to the          Academy Awards all the time.                         HELEN          Only if they're nominated for the Sound          of Music.                                                                                                              46.                         ANNIE          I think Lillian would like this one.                         HELEN          Well, I think Lillian would like THIS          one.          Lillian walks in.                         LILLIAN          Hey! I'm hearing lots of excitement in          here.          She touches Helen's dress.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Oooo, I like this one. What about you          guys?                         HELEN          I love it. Right guys?          The girls all agree. Except Annie.                         LILLIAN          Cool. Let's eat!          Helen dumps the dress in Annie's arms and follows          Lillian.                         HELEN          I think it might look best in cream.                         LILLIAN          Ooh, good idea.          They exit.                         LESLIE          Well, that was easy.          The girls head back to change.                         ANNIE          This dress is almost $500!                         DANA/BECCA          That's not too bad/that sounds about          right.                         ANNIE          No, that's what I'm saying. That's a          great price.                                                                                                              47.          EXT. ‚ÄòOCCASIONZ RESTAURANT' BRIDAL-THEMED CAFE. PATIO.          Andrea Bocceli music playing. Waiters in tuxes etc. The          girls sit at a beautiful table looking at men's.                         LILLIAN          This place is kind of amazing. I did't          even know it existed.                         BECCA          The southwestern cobb is really good. I          come here and eat sometimes.                         MEGAN          Great, there's a fly that really likes          me.                         ANNIE          They only have salads.                         DANA          So Annie, what's your deal? Are you          dating anyone?                         ANNIE          No, no. Not right now. I had a boyfriend          for three years but we broke up like six          months ago.                         BECCA          Oh, I hate to hear stuff like that! What          happened?                         ANNIE          It just didn't work out.                         HELEN          Is that the guy who stole a bunch of          money from you and gave you an STD?          Everyone freezes.          HELEN (CONT'D)          Lillian told me.          Annie shoots Lillian a look.                         LILLIAN          I'm sorry, I was just talking about you          cause I was worried about you and--                                                                                                              48.                         ANNIE          No it's fine. But he didn't steal the          money, I loaned it to him. And HPV is          really common right now.          Everyone looks around.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Around fifty percent of sexually active          men and women acquire HPV at some point          in their lives and by age fifty, eighty          percent of women will be infected with a          genital HPV infection.                         LESLIE          Really?                         ANNIE          About 6.2 million new cases of HPV affect          Americans each year.                         MEGAN          Ew, it's on the butter you guys. The          fly's on the butter.                         HELEN          Well, I don't have it.                         ANNIE          Very few HPV infections show any signs or          symptoms. Therefore a lot of infected          people don't even know they have it, yet          they transmit the virus to their sexual          partner.          Silent. Everyone is a little grossed out..          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Anyway, it's fine, the past is the past.          We weren't meant to be. My last pap-smear          came back normal so that's cule. But you          know, I'm dating, here and there...                         HELEN          Do you have anyone in mind to bring to          the wedding?                         ANNIE          Oh, I didn't even think about that.                         LESLIE          Who needs a date? Just go stag and make          out with someone there.                                                                                                              49.                         DANA          If you wanna meet a nice man, Annie, you          should come to karaoke night at my          church. We sing hymns to rock beats!                         BECCA          Wait. I have the perfect guy for you          Annie. Mike Donahue. He went to school          with Kevin.                         LILLIAN          Mike from the fourth of July last year?          Ooh, I've seen him Ann. He's hot.                         ANNIE          Really?                         BECCA          And Kevin said he just sold his company          for an embarrassing amount of money. But          he's totally down to earth. You guys have          to meet. I'm texting Kevin right now.                         HELEN          I know Mike too.          Megan is digging a dead fly out of the butter.                         MEGAN          The fly just committed suicide. Death by          butter.                         DANA          Oh my gosh, if you guys got married you          could live out here and see us all the          time!                         LESLIE          Yeah, and then pop out a couple kids, sit          around and talk about nothing while your          vagina flaps in the wind like a wet paper          towel.                         HELEN          (sotto) Oooh, I didn't know we were going          to hear that word at lunch today.                         DANA          I was set up with Ernie. As soon as I met          him, I knew.                         LILLIAN          Yeah Annie, you never know.                                                                                                              50.                         ANNIE          Yes.          EXT. HIGHWAY. ANNIE DRIVING BACK          Annie is lost in thought. She hears. Sirens.                         ANNIE          What?! Come on!          She pulls over. Officer Rhodes approaches.                         RHODES          Well, look who it is.                         ANNIE          Oh hi.                         RHODES          I see your still driving around with          busted tail lights.                         ANNIE          I'm sorry, money's been tight and...I          forgot(laughing). You're not gonna give          me another ticket for that are you?                         RHODES          Nah... The reason I pulled you over          today, is that--(searching) you were          driving too slow. Backing up traffic.                         ANNIE          I was?                         RHODES          Yep. You were going ten miles under the          speed limit. That's a moving violation.          It's...underdriving. It's in the books.          But, I'm just going to give you a warning          this time, but I do have to um...write          some stuff down on a piece of paper.          He begins to write. Beat.          RHODES (CONT'D)          Man I'm hungry. I'm doing the Master          Cleanse. You ever heard of it?                         ANNIE          Yeah.                                                                                                              51.                         RHODES          Cayenne pepper water for three days now.          It's supposed to clean you out, make you          feel lighter. It's working. The only          problem is I get so hungry. I just want a          big slab of ribs. You ever crave that          kind of stuff?                         ANNIE          Don't talk about cravings right now. I am          PMS'ing like crazy. It's taking          everything in me not to stop and the          store and get like three kit-kats and a          bottle of wine. I'm so irritable right          now.          They stare at each other out of awkwardness.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Sorry.                         RHODES          No, it's OK, I've got three sisters. We          had tampons in the pencil drawer.          Sometimes my friends and I would say they          were cigars and smoke'em. (beat) Okay. I          have finished writing down the things I          need to write, on this paper. OH!          He hands her a business card.          RHODES (CONT'D)          This is a buddy of mine. Owns a body shop          in Milwaukee. Might be able to help you          out for a good price with those          taillights. I'll write my name on here          so you can tell him who referred you.                         ANNIE          Thanks.                         RHODES          That's my name right there. In case you          forgot it from last time. It's Nathan          Rhodes.                         ANNIE          Thanks. Annie. I'll get those fixed. I          get paid next week. Bye!          She drives off. Rhodes wishes he had been more suave.                                                                                                              52.          INT. HARRINGTON'S JEWELRY STORE. DAYTIME.                         ANNIE          Trust me, I've been in the jewelry          business for a long time. Nothing says          ‚ÄúI'm sorry for your loss' like a sterling          silver money clip.          An OLD WOMAN CUSTOMER looks at her stone-faced.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          We also have yo-yos you can engrave. In          memory of...um, what's your friend's          name?          The old woman walks away as Sandy approaches.                         SANDY          Paychecks. Here you go Annie.          She and Sandy open their checks.          SANDY (CONT'D)          Oh my God, I scored this week. 'm gonna          buy Sharita a new Panasonic telephone.          It's cordless and has intercom. What          about you Annie?                         ANNIE          I'm gonna pay for a cream-colored gown          that I'll never wear again.          INT. ANNIE'S BEDROOM          Annie is on the phone as she gets ready for her date with          Mike.                         ANNIE          Help me! I can't find anything to wear          for my date with Mike tonight.                         LILLIAN          I don't know. Shoot, I can't talk now.          I'm with Helen and we have a conference          call with Lady Lavonia Jean St. Petsois          JuJu about my dress. Ugh. I'm so sorry.          She's calling! I gotta go. Have fun!          Lillian hangs up. Steve walks in.                                                                                                              53.                         STEVE          That credit lady called you again. I told          her you were at the tailors.                         ANNIE          Listen, I'm going on a date. This? (holds          up a dress) or this? (what she's wearing)                         STEVE          I don't like those pants.                         ANNIE          What's wrong with'em?                         STEVE          They give you four corners.          Annie's not following.          STEVE (CONT'D)          It's when a girls butt looks like it has          four corners. It's not a good thing.                         ANNIE          Shit. These are my only clean pants.                         STEVE          Do you have a tube skirt?                         ANNIE          Thanks Steve.                         STEVE          Wait. If you stand like you are right now          facing that angle, it looks good.          She looks in the mirror again, grabs her bag and leaves.          INT. THAI RESTAURANT. THAT NIGHT. BAR AREA.          Annie sits next to Mike Donahue. He is tall, dark and          handsome. They have cocktails.                         ANNIE          I'm not an expert in corporate real-          estate but I've always been interested in          it. So, yeah I totally agree.          Mike smiles, he is cute!                                                                                                              54.                         MIKE          I have to admit, I told Becca 'm not          really keen on set-ups. I know i's          early, but so far so good.                         ANNIE          Me too.                         MIKE          And thanks again for coming from          Milwaukee, I know it's quite a drive.                         ANNIE          I can do that drive in my sleep these          days.                         MIKE          Next time maybe I'll come to you.          Annie smiles.                         MIKE (CONT'D)          You have got great teeth.                         ANNIE          Thank you. I brush'em every day.          She flashes her teeth. The hostess comes up.                         HOSTESS          Your tables ready.                         MIKE          Finally!          Mike guzzles down his cocktail as they read their menus.                         MIKE (CONT'D)          Well, I don't know about you but since          we're at a Thai restaurant, I'm gonna try          the dog.          Mike laughs at his own joke and continues drinking.                         ANNIE          So, Becca tells me you play a lot of          tennis.                         MIKE          I try to squeeze in a game now and then.          We should play sometime.                                                                                                              55.                         ANNIE          Oh, yeah I haven't rea--                         MIKE                         (GETTING LOUDER)          Yeah, my game's pretty solid. I did win a          couple tournaments at the club. I tend to-          Jesus Christ! (whispers) It smells like          B.O. in here huh? I think it's the          people.          A very effeminate waiter brings them their drinks.                         WAITER          Here ya go. I'll be back to take your          order in two secs. I'm swamped!                         ANNIE          No problem.                         MIKE          Whoa, get a load of our waiter. 'm          surprised he didn't put pink umbrellas in          our drinks...          Annie laughs, but is a little uncomfortable.                         MIKE (CONT'D)          Or AIDS.          Mike laughs. Annie is HORRIFIED. Mike swigs from his          drink.                         MIKE (CONT'D)          Seriously, AIDS is crazy. You do't have          it do you?                         ANNIE          No.                         MIKE          (singing) Neither do I...          He raises his eyebrows up and down at her.          LATER.          Annie hasn't touched her food. He's eating with his hands          and drunk. Other patrons are beginning to stare.                                                                                                              56.                         MIKE                         (LAUGHING)          So I started to get a little chub, you          know what that is. How could I not with          those huge canteloupes waving in my face.          Anyway, I looovee massages, am I right?          As he's laughing he lets out a huge burp.                         MIKE (CONT'D)          (still laughing) Whoa-ho! Excyuuuuse me!          I got that from Steve Martin.          Still laughing, he pats his pockets.                         MIKE (CONT'D)          Oh shit. I forgot my wallet.          EXT. MINI-MART. LATER THAT NIGHT.          Annie's car pulls up.          INT. MINI MART          Annie is on the phone, looking at the herbal drinks.          ‚ÄúCalm‚Äù ‚ÄúFocus‚Äù ‚ÄúSex Appeal‚Äù ‚ÄúLean‚Äù. She finally picks          ‚ÄúCalm‚Äù. RHODES appears holding a bag of mini carrots.                         ANNIE          Hey, it's me, I just had to tell you          about my night. Oh my God. Call me.                         RHODES          Annie Walker. I thought I heard your car          out there.                         ANNIE          Very funny, Officer...Jones?                         RHODES          Jones? Oh boy. Guess somebody thought he          was a little more memorable than he was.                         ANNIE          No. Sorry. I'm a little out of it. I'm          not drunk.                         RHODES          That's ok. Call me Rhodes. (notices her          drink) Trying to get ‚Äúcalm‚Äù?                                                                                                              57.                         ANNIE          Yeah. Recovering from a date.                         RHODES          Oh.                         ANNIE          Finish your cleanse?                         RHODES          Yeah, trying to wean myself back to the          really bad foods I like eating.          EXT - MINIMART. CONTINOUS.                         ANNIE          Thanks for the drink. (beat) So are you          one of those cops that sits in that same          spot everyday and sneaks up on people?                         RHODES          A lot of people get up to high speeds on          this road. I tell people its better to          pay for a ticket than have your family          pay for a funeral.                         ANNIE          That's a very good point.                         OFFICER RHODES          Want a carrot?                         ANNIE          Yes. I'm starving.                         CONTINUOUS:          They are leaning on the back of his car eating carrots.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Ew! What is this?          Annie pulls out a very dry, warped discolored carrot.                         RHODES          Oh, you got the ugly carrot.                         ANNIE          The what?                                                                                                              58.                         RHODES          There's one in every bag. You should eat          it.                         ANNIE          No. I think you should eat it. The're          your carrots.          He goes to eat it. She grabs it out of his hands.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          No, no! Don't eat it! EW!!!          She throws it on the ground.                         RHODES          Don't litter.          He picks it up.          INT. RHODES' POLICE CAR.                         ANNIE          I don't think I've ever wanted to get of          out a restaurant faster in my life.                         RHODES          Yeah, I don't go on blind dates. It seems          unnatural.                         ANNIE          I have no idea what am I going to tell my          friends who set us up.                         RHODES          Just tell her the truth.                         ANNIE          Yeah. You're probably right.          Now Rhodes and Annie are driving in his police car.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          It's an ok job. It's commission, so it's          unpredictable. I don't know, I always          wanted to finish my bachelor's but that's          kind of financially impossible right now.          Plus I'd feel like ninety around all          those college students.                                                                                                              59.                         RHODES          You know my dad used to say that life is          like a hallway of doors. You can stand at          the same door forever if you want. Or you          can open a different door. And that one          may not be the right door, but i'll open          up a whole new hallway of doors. Anyway,          it worked for me. I was kinda lost and I          opened a door and the next thing I knew I          was a cop. And I love my job.                         ANNIE          Hmm. I think I get it?                         RHODES          Or you can always sell moon-pies by the          side of the road.                         ANNIE          Moonpies. What?                         RHODES          It's a joke. You had moon-pies in your          car the first time I pulled you over.                         ANNIE          Oh yeah.          INT. FAST FOOD RESTAURANT COUNTER. LATER          They are waiting in line.                         OFFICER RHODES          When I get married I don't want the kind          of wedding people have these days. I want          it to be like a carnival. You know dunk          tanks? People win prizes...                         ANNIE          Yeah, and you can have elephants, trapeze          artists and a big scale to guess the          bride's weight.                         OFFICER RHODES          Ok, first of all that's a circus wedding          and I'm talking about a carnival wedding.                                                                                                              60.                         ANNIE          Sorry. (to clerk) Yeah I'll have the          number four, and can you make that Super          Biggie?                         DISSOLVE TO:          They are sitting in the restaurant, mouths full of                         BURGERS                         OFFICER RHODES          And then she moved to Hawaii and now          lives with a guy who sells shaved ice.          And supposedly she has really long armpit          hair now. That's pretty much the last          girlfriend I had.                         ANNIE          Well, lets just say my last boyfriend          that I lived with broke up with me over          the phone. Then come to find out, he had          borrowed $30,000 in my name without          telling me, putting me in horrible debt          that I'm still paying off. Because I          can't find him.                         OFFICER RHODES          Wow. You win.          ANNIE'S CAR. CONTINUOUS.          Annie in her car, engine running.                         ANNIE          Oh my gosh. It's twelve thirty! I should          probably...                         RHODES          Oh, before you go. There is something I          want to give you. I was gonna wait but, I          think you'll want this now.          He jokingly gives her the ugly carrot.                         ANNIE          For me?!                         OFFICER RHODES          Well I know you've had a terrible night.          He gives it to her. Her phone rings.                                                                                                              61.                         ANNIE          Sorry, one sec. Hello? Ted!? Hey! Oh my          gosh! No,no. Can you hold on a sec?          She waves at Rhodes and mouths...          ANNIE (CONT'D)          I guess I'll see you around?                         RHODES          Yeah. Don't forget about those          taillights. They're really starting to          bug me.                         ANNIE          K. Bye.(to Ted) So, you're in town?          EXT - TED'S HOUSE. NEXT MORNING.          He opens the front door, leading Annie out again.                         TED          Next time I won't call so late.                         ANNIE          No, it was fine. Like I said, I mean I          was just driving.                         TED          Awesome. It's cool that we can just          hookup and whatever. No strings.                         ANNIE          Me too. I love it. I feel good right now.                         TED          Cool. Bye.          EXT. GAS STATION. CONTINUOUS.          Annie pulls in, her tank is way passed empty. She looks          in her purse frantically.                         ANNIE          Shit!! No! No! I left my fucking credit          card at the restaurant! Shit!          She picks up her phone and dials.                                                                                                              62.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Hi, Donna, it's Annie. Um, sorry but I          just ran out of gas and I'm gonna be a          little bit late. Yes, I know, 'm really          sorry. I will get there as soon as I          can. I promise, I'm so sor---hello?          INT. HARRINGTON'S JEWELRY STORE.          Annie comes running onto the floor putting her tie on.                         HELEN          Annie, hi! I almost left, but they said          that you were coming and that you were          late.          Helen is standing there looking gorgeous.          HELEN (CONT'D)          I had to come into Milwaukee for a          charity luncheon right down the street          and I thought I'd come in and say hi.                         ANNIE          Hi!                         HELEN          And as the leader of the bridesmaids, I          thought it'd be fun to pick up some          little gifts for all the girls.                         ANNIE          Leader of the bridesmaids? Um, wouldn't          that technically be me? Honor?                         HELEN          Well, no, sweetie, you're the Maid of          Honor, and we're all bridesmaids, and out          of all of us, I'm the leader. Anyway, it          doesn't matter. Um, I wanted to get          something that we could wear to the          rehearsal dinner or something. That would          be fun. Where are the diamonds?                         ANNIE          Oh, well, what about a nice pen..or a          tortoise-shell handled sterling silver          letter opener? No? Ok, let me get Sandy.                         HELEN          Oh! And Annie we really need to start          planning the bachelorette.                                                                                                              63.                         ANNIE          Yes. Yes. I'm on it. Got some ideas. So          I'll let you know.                         HELEN          Can't wait.          INT. ANNIE'S APT. THAT NIGHT.          Annie arrives home from work frazzled to find Steve on          the couch watching the same Home Improvement show.                         TV HOST          Wow, well I have never seen a          transformation like this. This old tour          bus is stunning.          GIRL ON SHOW          Thanks.                         STEVE          Unbelievable. (to Annie) You got another          package from your mom.                         ANNIE          Hey thanks for saving my butt today. Like          I said I'll pay you back as soon as I          can.          She opens the package. And pulls out a red blazer.                         STEVE          No problem. But you should always put gas          in when it gets to a quarter tank.          Especially cause you have such a shitty          car.                         ANNIE          Thanks. Can I ask you a question? What do          you think of Vegas?                         STEVE          Ooo. Let me turn this off. Vegas is a          black hole but I must have it in my life.          Does that make sense?                         ANNIE          I'm just asking because some of the girls          are talking about going for Lillia's          bachelorette party and I've never been.                                                                                                              64.                         STEVE          Oh no. Now I don't know about weddings.          When you go on a bachelorette, does the          bride pay?                         ANNIE          No, everyone pays for themselves. And you          pay for the bride.                         STEVE          Ok, I'm gonna say no. You cannot afford          that. Vegas is not cheap. Airfare,          hotels, food, cars, drinks, clubs, show          tickets. Remember this morning? You          cannot afford Vegas.                         ANNIE          Well, I could save up for it.                         STEVE          No, you need to win a contest to go to          Vegas/You had gum for lunch yesterday.          Ooh, ‚ÄúNight Moves.‚Äù Can I have this?          A lightbulb goes off in Annie's head. Steve holds the          blazer out and reads the tag.                         ANNIE          Told you I'd pay you back!          Annie runs into her room. She sits down at the computer          and begins typing feverishly.          We see these words: ‚ÄúDear bridal party‚Äù, ‚Äúgreat idea‚Äù,          ‚Äúbachelorette party‚Äù, ‚ÄúFlorida‚Äù, ‚ÄúSea World!‚Äù, ‚ÄúFree          place to stay!‚Äù. She presses send, and is very pleased.          The phone immediately rings.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Hello?                         HELEN          Hi.                         ANNIE          Hi.                         HELEN          Hiiiii.                                                                                                              65.                         ANNIE          Hi Helen.          Helen is dressed in cream under a cream blanket. All          around her is a ridiculous amount of white glowing          candles. There are too many flames.                         HELEN          I just got your e-mail. Um...Sea World?                         ANNIE          Well it's not just Sea World. It's a          weekend in Florida. See, when Lillian and          I were kids we went there and she loved          it and has always talked about going          back. Ask Dougie. I think it would really          mean a lot to her. We could stay at my          Dad's house, he won't even be there. Then          we could go out at night and got to the          beach and then Sea World on one of the          days.                         HELEN          But a bachelorette at Sea World?                         ANNIE          Like I said, Sea World would just be a          part of it.                         HELEN          Well, I have been talking to the other          girls, and I was thinking we should go to          Las Vegas!          Annie's other line rings.                         ANNIE          Oh, can you hold on? That's my other          line.          She clicks over.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Hello?                         BECCA          Hi, Annie. It's Becca.          Becca, in her shabby-chic home office paints a front          porch sign that says ‚ÄúThe Whitman's‚Äù                                                                                                              66.                         BECCA (CONT'D)          I was just looking at your e-mail, yo're          so cute. Sea World. What about Turkey?          That's where we went for for MY          bachelorette.                         ANNIE          Oh well, Turkey's really far away.                         BECCA          It's super old though! They have awesome          restaurants. It's very exotic. Have you          ever seen Aladdin? It totally looks like          that.                         ANNIE          Hang on...          Annie clicks back over to Helen.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Helen, I'm sorry can I call you back?                         HELEN          When?                         ANNIE          Just a few minutes. I'll call you back.          Annie clicks over.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Becca?                         BECCA          Hi. You know, if you wanna go some place          closer than Turkey. Helen JUST e-mailed          me about going to Vegas.                         ANNIE          Oh, I don't know. Everybody always goes          to Vegas. It seems just cliche to me.                         BECCA          I never get sick of it. I love blackjack.          I have a system.          Annie's other line.                         ANNIE          Oh, my other line's ringing. Can I call          you back?                                                                                                              67.                         BECCA          When?                         ANNIE          Soon.          Annie clicks over.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Hello?                         DANA          Annie, it's Dana!                         ANNIE          Of course it is..          Dana is on her porch swing drinking lemonade.                         DANA          I love your idea about Sea World.                         ANNIE          Really?                         DANA          Yeah, but then Helen just called me and          said we should go to Vegas.                         ANNIE          But Vegas is so hot, don't you think?          It's like, hot and dry. People get sick          there all the time.                         DANA          I haven't had that experience. My skin          always clears up there.                         ANNIE          Yeah, I just think it's probably not--          Hold on. (clicks over) Hello?                         MEGAN          Annie, it's Megan.          Megan is at work, in front of a wall of computer and          television screens. It is a technical haven, looks like          NASA.                                                                                                              68.                         MEGAN (CONT'D)          I can't talk right now, but I was          thinking for the bachelorette, something          more along the lines of a personal          challenge weekend. Have you ever heard of          the Nevada Project?                         ANNIE          (defeated) No.          Leslie in her Sopranos style living room on a treadmill.          Her kids run around.                         LESLIE          I gotta be honest. I've been married for          nine years, this may be the last          bachelorette party of my career and I          want the sweaty nuggets of a gay man          pounding me in the face at some point          during this trip. I'll pay whatever I          have to pay. (to the kids) Tyler stop it,          put that back! Paul!          QUICK CUTS BETWEEN:                         BECCA          Vegas has these party busses that have          flat screens in them and dance floors--                         DANA          Or we could take hummer limos around          everywhere.                         ANNIE          That sounds really expensive.                         HELEN          Oh but it's gonna be so much fun! Besides          money shouldn't be a problem if Lillian's          our friend.                         ANNIE          Oh no, no, I was just thinking about          everyone else. That's all I'm saying.                         MEGAN          What I'm saying is, they drop you off in          the middle of the desert. You have to          kill your own food and find your way          back. Not everyone makes it. Seriously.                                                                                                              69.                         LESLIE          Seriously. I want balls in my face.                         BECCA          So I think Vegas is a good idea.                         DANA          I agree with Helen. Vegas.                         MEGAN          Oh, you know what else is in Nevada?          Vegas!                         LESLIE          Balls. Vegas.                         HELEN          Vegas it is.                         LILLIAN          (on the phone) Holy Shit Annie! We're          goin' to Vegas!          INT - JEWELRY STORE. DAY.                         SANDY          (eating a cookie)          No can do, I need all my shifts. 'm          trying to save up and take my lady to          Maui.                         ANNIE          Please, one day a week, just for a little          while. I've already asked everybody else.          I really need the money.                         SANDY          Sorry. My hands are tied. Sharita's got          my dick in a chip-clip.                         ANNIE          That's alright. I understand.                         SANDY          Mmm. Mm. These are the best peanut butter          titties you ever made.                         ANNIE          They're called peanut butter kisses.                         SANDY          That's not what they look like.                                                                                                              70.          INT. AIRPLANE.          The bridesmaids sit in first class. In the distance,          Annie's head pops up from her seat in row 3O of coach.          EXT. AIRPORT. LAS VEGAS.          The girls wait by the curb with their luggage. Megan          appears next to Annie.                         MEGAN          Here we are. The city of lust. Annie, do          you know how many men are looking for          trouble in this town right now? We are          gonna nail it down. We should tell          everybody we're twins cause guys looking          up with twins!                         ANNIE          Yeah, I've heard that. Ok everybody! You          guys, hey we're here, we're in Vegas!          Woo!          Lillian walks up.                         LILLIAN          Annie, come here. Why didn't you tell me          you weren't sitting with us?                         ANNIE          Oh, it's no big deal. I didn't want to          blow all my money on a first class          ticket. I'm here though, right?!                         LILLIAN          I'm so excited!                         ANNIE          Ok, you guys, gather around. Welcome to          Lillian's bachelorette party! We should          probably get a bunch of cabs and head to          our beautiful hotel, The New Marquis          Royal Suites...          As Annie's talking, a limo pulls up behind her. ‚ÄúThe New          Marquis Royal Suites.‚Äù                         HELEN          Lillian, look what's happening.                                                                                                              71.                         LILLIAN          Oh my God. You guys, is this for us?!                         HELEN          I got a limo from the hotel.          We're in Vegas! Yaaaay!!          They all pile into the limo, excitedly talking.                         ANNIE          Ok, everyone just get in the car. Got a          ride to the hotel. It's taken care of.                         MEGAN          (from inside the limo) Sit by me, Annie!          EXT. THE NEW MARQUIS ROYAL SUITES. LATER          The girls' excited talking continues into the lobby.                         LILLIAN          This hotel is amazing! You guys!                         HELEN          Come on Lillian, you're staying with me          in the master suite. It's all set.                         LILLIAN          Oh! Okay! Then party in room 812 in one          hour! (waving her key)          UPSTAIRS. HOTEL HALLWAY. CONTINUOUS.          Girls get off the elevator, giddy with excitement. Annie          gets back into the elevator.                         ANNIE          Uh! Shoot! I left my sunglasses          downstairs. Ugh! Where's my head?          EXT. HOTEL. CONTINUOUS.          Annie sneaks out, rolling her bag. She catches a cab.          EXT. HOTEL RICK. LATER.          Cab pulls up to a tiny broken down building. A sign reads          ‚ÄúHotel Rick. Vacancy. Some T.V.s.‚Äù An old man rides a          bicycle in circles in the parking lot, smiling.                                                                                                              72.          INT. HOTEL RICK. CHECK-IN DESK.          Lobby is very outdated. Wood panel walls etc., The hotel          brochure is on the desk. It is probably the picture she          saw online, it does NOT look the same. The clerk enters.                         ANNIE          Hi, I have a reservation for Walker.          RICK, an East Indian man, stands behind the desk in front          of a large portrait of himself, posed exactly as he is          now, with the same outfit. He holds the pose, smiling.                         RICK          Okay, two nights?                         ANNIE          Yes.          Rick waits for her to notice the painting, but she never          does.                         RICK          Do you want towels?                         ANNIE          Yes.                         RICK          Do you need sheets?                         ANNIE          Yes.                         RICK          No pillow though, ok?          Annie just stares at him.          INT. THE NEW MARQUIS ROYAL SUITES          The door opens to reveal a gorgeous huge feminine suite.          HELEN AND LILLIAN          (gasp) OH MY GOD!          INT. HOTEL RICK. ANNIE'S ROOM          Annie opens her door holding unfolded sheets and towels.          The room is very ugly, bare mattress, lots of brown.                                                                                                              73.                         ANNIE          Oh my God.          INT. THE NEW MARQUIS ROYAL SUITES          Megan and Leslie stand in their grande bathroom. Hot tub,          plush towels, flat screen T.V. Candles burning.                         MEGAN          Oh my gosh, I can't believe this.                         LESLIE          He-llo Vegas!          INT. HOTEL RICK. ANNIE'S BATHROOM          There's an old toothbrush and comb by the dirty sink, a          pair of athletic socks hanging over the shower rod where          a curtain should be. There is a cat staring at her.                         ANNIE          Hello cat.          INT. THE NEW MARQUIS ROYAL SUITES          Dana and Becca open their curtains revealing a          spectacular view. They scream and jump up and down.          INT. HOTEL RICK.          Annie opens up her curtains to a back lot. Something is          on fire! Rick tries to put it out. The old man rides by.                         ANNIE          (screams in shock)          INT. THE NEW MARQUIS ROYAL SUITES. THAT NIGHT.          Annie stands outside room 312. She is dressed more          preppy than she's ever looked. She knocks on the door.          Becca opens it. We see disco lights and hear rap music.          There are shirtless male waiters, penis balloons and a          slide show of naked men. The room looks like a sex club.          The girls are dressed like borderline prostitutes.                         BECCA          Oooh, Annie's here!                                                                                                              74.                         BRIDESMAIDS          Wooooooh!                         BECCA          Isn't this amazing?          Lillian runs over and hugs Annie, wearing a condom veil          and drinking out of a penis straw.                         LILLIAN          Annie! I wanna see a drink in your hand          in one minute!          Lillian pulls Annie into the room. Helen is getting off          of the phone.                         HELEN          Ok you guys, change of plans. The Velour          Cobra had an opening at 9 so I got us a          dinner reservation. Isn't that radical?                         EVERYONE          Woohooo/Ooooh/Alright!                         ANNIE          Oh. Yeah. Cool. Alright          Everyone raises their glasses. The night has begun.          INT. THE VELOUR COBRA. CLUB RESTAURANT -LATER THAT NIGHT          Annie is concentrating on the bill.                         ANNIE          Okay, mine was...great, got it.          Becca scoots in next to her.                         BECCA          Annie, I didn't get a chance to ask you,          how was your date with Mike? Give me all          the details.                         ANNIE          Oh, um, we had dinner.                         BECCA          Do you think you'll go out with him          again? He told Kevin he thought you were          really great and hot.                                                                                                              75.                         LESLIE          (from her end of the table) Hey wha's          the damage down there?                         ANNIE          Oh, I got it right here, I figured out          what I owe so, should I just pass it          around?          LESLIE(TO ANNIE)          Why don't we just all split it? It's so          much easier.          BECCA,DANA,HELEN,MEGAN          Yeah/Just split it/Who cares?                         ANNIE          Yeah, it's probably just easier...just          split it.                         MEGAN          Here, let me see it. Ok.. .It's a hundred          each plus tip.                         ANNIE          (sotto) I had soup and ice water.                         MEGAN          Plus we're paying for Lillian...everyone          just put $125.                         ANNIE          (sotto) No alcohol...or any real food.                         BECCA          It'll all even out by the end of the          night.                         ANNIE          How does it even out? How does that          happen?          Everyone, including Annie, puts in their money. Helen          moves over to Annie.                         LILLIAN          Thank you everybody!!                         HELEN          Annie, don't tell Lillian, it's a          surprise.                         (MORE)                                                                                                              76.                         HELEN (CONT'D)          My friend Sean Michael works for a          promotional company and they're having          this big event tonight at Tara Rei's          stepbrother's Club, Sacrifice.                         ANNIE          Really?!                         HELEN          I think it should be our first stop. H's          reserving seats for us in the VIP          section. It's a $150 cover and there's a          one bottle champagne minimum of $750 per          table, he said people from the Real World          go in there all the time.                         ANNIE          I thought we were going to the Jungle          Lounge after this.                         HELEN          We are. After that.                         ANNIE          Oh...um...wow. Awesome. Here's the thing          I was going to stop by the hotel, the          Marquis Suites. I think I ate something          weird on the plane probably, my stomac's          not right.                         HELEN          Oh, well we're only gonna be there for an          hour or so, you can just meet up with us          after.                         ANNIE          Okay. Perfect.                         HELEN          I'll just text you when we're getting          ready to leave. I hope you feel better.          Lillian comes up already a little tipsy.                         LILLIAN          Ok, Leslie spilled the beans. Le's get          our asses over to Sacrifice.          What are we waiting for? Wooooooo!          Lillian looks at Helen's legs.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Whoa whoa. Helen, turn around. Are those          those Ransom Jeans?                                                                                                              77.                         HELEN          Don't tell Perry I bought them,I ordered          them from New York. They're insanely          expensive. But I gotta tell you guys the          compliments I get on my ass make them          worth every penny.          She sticks her butt out. Lillian slaps it and all the          girls laugh. She is the life of the party.          EXT. RESTAURANT. CONTINUOUS          A party bus pulls up. As the doors open, dry ice pours          out. Inside there's a disco ball, dance poles, crazy          lights. The girls all scream and run onto the bus. With          the commotion, no one notices that Annie stays behind.          INT. CASINO. LATER.          Annie enters casino alone, sadly weaves through the slot          machines.          INT. PARTY BUS          ‚ÄúMy Prerogative‚Äù by Bobby Brown comes on VERY LOUD making          conversation difficult. Lillian looks around for Annie.                         LILLIAN          Oh my God, Annie our song! Wher's Annie?                         DANA          What?!                         LILLIAN          Where's Annie?!                         MEGAN          I don't know!(to Helen) Where's Annie!                         HELEN          What?!!                         DANA          Where's Annie!                         HELEN          She's meeting us later!!!                         DANA          (to Lillian) Oh. She's meeting us there!                                                                                                              78.                         LILLIAN          Why!?                         BECCA          I don't know! Why?                         HELEN          Annie HAS DIARRHEA!!                         LILLIAN          Is she okay?! Should I call her!?                         HELEN          She's fine! She's gonna meet us in an          hour, it's all set! (to the other girls]          ANNIE HAD REALLY BAD DIARHEA!          They continue partying, drinking, dancing.          INT. CASINO.          Annie passes four fun college age party guys at a craps          table.                         DAVE          No, no, no wait. Wait. (to Annie) Hey,          will you roll for me? Can she roll for          me?                         CRAPS GUY          Only if she's playing.                         ANNIE          Me? What do I have to roll?                         DAVE          Anything but a seven or eleven, as many          times as you can. What's your name?                         ANNIE          Annie.                         DAVE          I'm Dave. This is Brian, Brian and Mark.          Ok Annie, do your thing.          Annie rolls a four. The guys all cheer.                         GUYS          Yeah! Four!          Annie rolls again, another four. She laughs.                                                                                                              79.                         GUYS (CONT'D)          Yeah, four! Holy shit, two fours. One          more time, third time's a charm!          Annie rolls again. Another four. She ca't believe it!                         ANNIE          Four! Ahhhhhhhhh! (giddy laughing)                         GUYS          Annie! Annie! Annie!          Annie gets a text message.                         ANNIE          Oh, hold on. You guys, my phone.                         CRAPS GUY          No cell phones at the tables m'am.          Its a casino rule.                         ANNIE          I'll go outside then.                         CRAPS GUY          No, you gotta play the game out. You have          to finish your roll.          She continues to roll all fours. The guys scream.          EXT. CASINO. A HALF HOUR LATER.          The guys are carrying Annie on their shoulders, cheering          for her. She is laughing..                         ANNIE          Ok, guys put me down, put me down. Whoa,          that's my breast.                         BRIAN #1          Sorry.          She reads a text message from Helen. ‚ÄúWe're leaving          Sacrifice. It's boring. Meet us at the Jungle Lounge‚Äù                         ANNIE          It was nice meeting you guys. I gotta go.                         DAVE          What do you mean? Where are you going?                                                                                                              80.                         ANNIE          I'm here with a bunch of friends and 'm          supposed to meet them at this club.                         MARK          We love clubs! We'll come with you.                         DAVE          Come on, we'll get your cab.                         ANNIE          Oh, Ok.          As the cab drives away, we hear:          BRIAN 1 (O.S.)          Dude, we gotta get Brian some food asap.          I've seen that look before.          INT. CAB. PARKING LOT IN FAST FOOD RESTAURANT. LATER          Everyone eats huge burgers including the driver (not          Annie, she is annoyed!)                         ANNIE          You guys almost done?                         BRIAN 2          Sorry we haven't eaten all day.                         MATT          I have NEVER seen a drive-thru line like          that dude.                         CAB DRIVER          It's because of the concert.          They continue eating.                         CONTINUOUS:          The cab is pulled over, all the guys are outside, peeing.          Annie gets a text from Lillian. ‚ÄúThe Jungle Lounge is          awesome! We need to dance. P.S. It's RAINING in here!          WHERE ARE YOU? Xoxo Lil‚Äù          She texts back, ‚ÄúOn my way!‚Äù                                                                                                              81.                         CONTINUOUS:          A huge fist fight is going on in the car, yelling etc.                         CONTINUOUS:          Traffic has stopped.                         ANNIE          How much further?                         CAB DRIVER          Do you think I know? How do you think I          know?          EXT. JUNGLE LOUNGE.          Annie and the guys get out of the cab.                         DAVE          Oh, shit. We can't go into this place. We          got kicked out last night.                         BOUNCER          Hey, what'd I tell you guys?!!!                         GUYS          Whoa, it's ok, we're just goin next door!                         DAVE          Oh, Annie, here's your cut of the craps          money. Eight hundred bones.                         ANNIE          For me?                         DAVE          You won big for us tonight. Buy your          friends a round of drinks and come next          door after.                         BRIAN 2          Yeah, bring your friends.                         ANNIE          Bye guys.                         DAVE          The Roller!!!                                                                                                              82.                         GUYS          Woohoo/Yeah/ The Roller!/Annie!          They all high five. Annie turns to bouncer.                         ANNIE          Hi. One please?                         BOUNCER          60 bucks.                         ANNIE          Here ya go.          INT. JUNGLE LOUNGE.          Annie walks through the club. She calls Lillian. No          answer. She gets a a drink. Time passes. Her phone rings!                         LILLIAN          Annie!                         ANNIE          Hello!?                         LILLIAN          Are you ok?                         ANNIE          Yeah, I'm fine. I'm here! Where are you?!                         LILLIAN          What do you mean here, where?                         ANNIE          I'm at the Jungle Lounge, where are you          guys? This place is huge!                         LILLIAN          You're where?                         ANNIE          The club!                         LILLIAN          Listen I can't hear you! We had to leave          the Jungle Lounge, Becca--                         ANNIE          What?!                                                                                                              83.                         LILLIAN          Meet us at the--                         ANNIE          Hello?!!          INT. PARTY BUS.          Loud music. Lillian tries to call Annie back. Annie tries          to call Lillian back. They both get voice-mails. Annie          gives up. It starts pouring rain on her inside the club.          Everyone jumps up and screams with excitement. Thunder!          CLUB D.J.          Me Tarzan, you Jane. It's time for the          dance spotlight. If it lands on you, you          gotta shake it!          The spotlight immediately lands on a soaking wet Annie.          She dances very angrily. Jungle dancers dance very close          to her and put vines around her neck.          INT. BAR NEXT DOOR          Annie walks in.                         GUYS          Yeah, she's back/ the Roller!/ Yeah!                         DAVE          What happened to you?                         ANNIE          I don't even know.                         DAVE          Roller, I can't stand seeing you like          this. (to bartender] Get this fine lady a          shot!                         ANNIE          I'll have two lemon drops.          INT BAR. HALF HOUR LATER.          Annie and Dave are wasted.                                                                                                              84.                         ANNIE          That's what I'm saying. Some people have          everything and others have just little          bits of things. It's not fair. I don't          get it.....I mean I think I hate Helen.                         DAVE          I hate Helen.                         ANNIE          That is the sexiest think anyon's ever          said.          INT. ANNIE'S ROOM. HOTEL RICK.          In the dark, Annie and Dave are passionately making out.          Knocking things over, etc.                         DAVE          I hate Helen.          NEXT MORNING. ANNIE'S HOTEL ROOM          The cat jumps on the bed and meows. Annie opens her eyes          to see Dave sleeping. She notices his college tattoo on          his arm (tasmanian devil with a lacrosse stick?).                         DAVE          Hey.                         ANNIE          Hi. Sorry I fell asleep while we were          making out. I guess I was pretty tired.                         DAVE          Its ok. Sorry I gave you a hickey.                         ANNIE          Oh shit.          There's a knock at the door. Annie opens it to reveal          NICOLE, (20), pretty and sweet.                         NICOLE          Is Dave here?                         DAVE          Nicole!? Hey, Nic.                         NICOLE          This is a surprise.                                                                                                              85.          Brian 1, Brian 2 and Mark appear in the doorway as well.                         BRIAN 1          Dude, I'm sorry. She made us bring her          here.                         MARK          She said you have her fake I.D..                         NICOLE          Yeah and I couldn't go anywhere last          night. I tried calling you fifty fucking          times. And YOU? You were what, hooking up          with this fossil?!                         ANNIE          First of all-                         NICOLE          Shut the fuck up or I will kick your ass          bitch.                         ANNIE          Ok, that is not nice.                         NICOLE          And what are you forty?                         ANNIE          No, I'm in my low thirties...(under her          breath) and you could never kick my ass.                         NICOLE          What did you say?!                         ANNIE          (timid) You heard me.          Annie immediately gets punched in the face. Annie is          shocked and swings back, hitting Nicole in the face.          She's proud of herself. Nicole's two friends enter and          jump on Annie. HUGE GIRL FIGHT.          EXT. HOTEL RICK. FIVE MINUTES LATER.          Annie is outside of the hotel. Guys are pulling the girls          off of Annie.                         NICOLE          Baker Community College bitch!                                                                                                              86.          The girls leave in victory. Dave turns and mouths to          Annie ‚ÄúI'm sorry.‚Äù          INT. ANNIE'S HOTEL BATHROOM.          She frantically tries to cover up her HUGE hickey and          evidence of the fight, with make-up. She remembers a          small cowboy print tablecloth from the other room and          wraps it around her neck like a scarf.          INT. THE NEW MARQUIS ROYAL SUITES. BUFFET TABLE          All the girls are hung over and eating. Annie arrives.                         MEGAN          Annie!                         LILLIAN          Whoa. What are you, going to a rodeo?                         ANNIE          That's hilarious.                         MEGAN          Annie, you missed it. I scammed all night          last night. I met this guy named Darwin.          He works for Cingular. He had a friend.                         LESLIE          What happened to your face?                         LILLIAN          Yeah, why are you wearing all that          makeup?                         ANNIE          It's covering up bruises, cuts and a          hickey. I got into fight with a community          college student and her friends because I          spent the night with her boyfriend after          spending the entire night trying to find          you.                         LILLIAN          What?!                         ANNIE          Forget it.                                                                                                              87.                         LILLIAN          I was trying to find YOU. I tried to call          you all night!                         ANNIE          Well, I-(to Lil} Can I talk to you for a          minute?          Annie takes Lillian away.                         LILLIAN          What is going on? You told Helen you were          sick.                         ANNIE          I wasn't sick. Helen told you that          because... I couldn't afford to go with          you guys.                         LILLIAN          Why didn't you say something?--          HELEN (O.S.)          Lillian, we're going to be late for our          honey facials.                         ANNIE          Helen, can you just give us a minute?                         HELEN          I'm just saying, we're gonna be late. I          don't wanna be rude.                         ANNIE          That's funny. You know what? As the Maid          of honor, which is what I am and what you          are not, I am asking you to just give us          a minute.                         HELEN          Excuse me Annie.                         ANNIE          No, excuse me!                         LILLIAN          Annie take it easy.                         ANNIE          I need to take it easy?                                                                                                              88.                         DANA          Annie, if it makes you feel any better          (getting emotional] I got slapped last          night.                         LESLIE          Here we go...                         DANA          By this huge girl. She was a working in          the bathroom. I just... I didn't cut in          line. I didn't! She chased me!                         BECCA          Becca it's over.                         MEGAN          Annie, she looked like Popeye.                         BECCA          She lives here! She lives in Vegas.                         HELEN          You're not going to run into her. Just          shut-up about it.                         LILLIAN          Guys stop! Please! Annie, I'm so sorry          about last night. I feel horrible. I want          to hear everything that happened.          Tonight, you're not leaving my side.          We're hittin' the strip club all of us          and we're going to put this shit behind          us. Okay?!          The girls agree. Dana rubs her arm.                         LESLIE          Oh your arm does not still hurt.          INT. FANCY CASINO SHOPPING MALL. LATER.          Bridesmaids window shop. Something in a fancy boutique          catches Annie's eye, she smiles. Ransom jeans.          INT. STRIP CLUB. THAT NIGHT          The ladies sit at the front row tables.                         COCKTAILER          What can I get you ladies?                                                                                                              89.                         ANNIE          First of all , we're gonna need some ones          over here. Here's a hundred. Keep twenty          for yourself.                         LILLIAN          Oooh, Ann!          A siren goes off.          V.O.          Good evening ladies, and welcome to          Thunderbird. Our first male entertainer          has been roaming the prairie for many,          many lonely nights...          A horse winnies. Ladies scream.          V.O. (CONT'D)          Here he is...looking for a sweet lady to          keep him company under the stars...say          hello to Cowboy Ron!          A male stripper comes out on a cardboard horse, humping                         'S          looking for someone. The room goes wild.          V.O. (CONT'D)          There he is ladies looking for that          special woman, looking for his          briiide...And I believe the person he's          looking for is Lillian Donovan!          The girls scream. Lillian mouths to Annie ‚ÄúI'm gonna kill          you.‚Äù Cowboy Ron takes her up on stage. He puts her in a          chair and humps her face. Everyone is cracking up.                         MEGAN          Leslie, your missing it.                         LESLIE          Don't talk to me. Nobody talk to me.          Leslie has her hands on the bare ass of a stripper who is          dancing in her face.          Stripper #2 appears.          V.O.          Wow, looks like Cowboy Ron has a friend          on the prairie and he's lookin' for a          lady too.                                                                                                              90.                         LILLIAN          (pointing to Annie) Get her! Get her!!                         ANNIE          NO! NO!          Stripper #2 pulls Annie up to the stage, lays her on the          ground and simulates sex with her. Standing above her,          pulls his chaps off. We see that his balls are not all          the way tucked into his g-string. The girls cringe. As he          stands above her, in slow motion, we see a bead of sweat          leave his balls and fly into Anni's open laughing mouth.          She dry heaves. The stripper is oblivious, goes to          another girl.          Lillian and Annie roll around on the ground laughing.          EXT. STRIP CLUB.          Everyone's laughing as they exit the club.                         ANNIE          I need some gum.                         BECCA          That was disgusting! I'm so glad I'm          married.                         MEGAN          It was awesome!                         DANA          I got a picture of the balls. I got it!                         LESLIE          (puts her arm around Annie). You lucky          bitch.                         LILLIAN          Only you Annie. Hands down, best moment          of the weekend.          Annie finally feels a part of the group.          INT. AIRPLANE. DAY.          Annie walks to first class, everyon's sleeping. She          hears Lillian laughing really hard, pointing at pictures          in a magazine.                                                                                                              91.                         LILLIAN          Oh look, there's your boyfriend.                         HELEN          Ew, he's like 65. Ok, look Lillian that's          you.                         LILLIAN          Oh my God. You know who that actually          looks like? Remember when we went to          Miami and we had to rent towels--                         HELEN          Ew, at that beach, that weird beach!                         LILLIAN          And that lady came up to us wearing that          mesh top!                         HELEN          She was crazy.          Annie sinks. A flight attendant appears.                         FLIGHT ATTENDANT          Excuse me. Hi.                         ANNIE          Hi.                         FLIGHT ATTENDANT          I'm sorry, you can't be up here. You have          to go back to coach.                         ANNIE          I was just stretching my legs.                         FLIGHT ATTENDANT          That's not true.          Annie stares at her. The flight attendant holds out her          hand for Annie to grab.          FLIGHT ATTENDANT (CONT'D)          Come on...it's ok, c'mon. C'mon.          EXT - AIRPORT PARKING. PAYBOOTH                         ATTENDANT          Ok, that's going to be seventy -five          dollars.                                                                                                              92.                         ANNIE          What?                         ATTENDANT          Twenty-five dollars a day. Three days.          Seventy -five dollars.                         ANNIE          I thought it was seven.                         ATTENDANT          Oh, hmm mm. That's for this lot, you          parked in this lot.          The lots are exactly the same, separated by a white line.          Annie empties her wallet, her poker winnings are gone.          EXT - HIGHWAY          Annie is driving. She sees Rhodes, and stops.          EXT. HIGHWAY. LATER.                         RHODES          Oh, I know what's going on. You're          jealous of that Helen girl.                         ANNIE          Excuse me? No, I'm not.                         RHODES          If you say so.                         ANNIE          I'm telling you I am not jealous of          Helen, okay? She's tall and thin and rich          and pretty.          They both laugh.                         RHODES          Oh come on, you know you got it goin'          on...                         ANNIE          Oh yeah, I got it goin' on...                         RHODES          You're right, you don't.                                                                                                              93.                         ANNIE          (laughing) Thanks a lot.          They nudge each other. He accidentally nudges her off the          car.                         RHODES          Sorry!          Now Annie is back in her running car.                         ANNIE          Have a good rest of your shift.                         RHODES          Actually, I'm heading home. Got my sister          staying with me for a few days. Sh's          been thinking of divorcing of her          husband.                         ANNIE          Oh. Sorry.                         RHODES          He had an affair and they've got kids so          it's complicated.                         ANNIE          Hmm. Sounds familiar.                         RHODES          My sister is a hell of a woman, you know?          And her husband is- you know what I think          cheating is? It's weak. It's a weak          person that cheats.          Something clicks with Annie, she sees him in a new light.                         ANNIE          No, no. Um, I feel the same way. Um,          anyway um, maybe I'll drive by you next          week. I have to make this drive          again...so...          She tries to flirt a little, pulls her hair back. He sees          her hickey!!!! She starts itching her arm, still flirting          and laughing.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Ugh, great, I think I was allergic to the          soap at the hotel. Ahhhhh.                                                                                                              94.                         RHODES          Yeah. I should go..now. Don't forget to          call my friend about those tail lights.          They're really starting to bug me.                         ANNIE          I promise. Ok, well, have a good weekend.                         RHODES          You too.          He abruptly walks back to his car. She drives away          confused.          INT. ANNIE'S APT. LATER THAT EVENING.          Annie arrives home to another ‚Äúmom‚Äù package. She pulls          out some cheap cosmetics. She pulls out a bottle of White          Diamonds perfume by Elizabeth Taylor, low calorie mints,          some pepper spray, a book titled ‚Äú100 Survival tips For          the Independent Woman.‚Äù A check for $25.          She opens the book, sees chapters entitled ‚ÄúYou Don't          Have to Work for AAA to Change a Tire.‚Äù ‚Äú How to Jack a          CarJacker.‚Äù ‚ÄúAnyone with Arms Can Skin a Deer‚Äù etc. She          tries to read but the itching is driving her crazy.          INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE. NEXT DAY          Annie's on the table while the DOCTOR examines her skin.                         DOCTOR          Well, I've got good news for you. You're          going to live. Hahahah. It's not an          allergic reaction though.                         ANNIE          Oh, that's good.                         DOCTOR          You've got body lice.                         ANNIE          Oh.                         DOCTOR          Have you recently come in contact with or          slept anywhere that you think you might                         HAVE--                                                                                                              95.                         ANNIE          I know where I got it.                         DOCTOR          You're gonna have to wash every fabric in          your apartment and I'll give you a          topical cream that should knock it out          pretty quick. I've got some samples.          EXT - LILLIAN'S APT. DAY          Annie sits on the doorstep. Lillian runs up with a bunch          of stuff in her arms and opens the door. They enter the          apartment.                         LILLIAN          I'm so sorry. I was at our travel agen's          trying to figure out how to get my da's          family out here, they all have to fly at          different times, uggh. What's that on          your arms?          She sees some of Annie's lice medicine motion.                         ANNIE          Huh? Oh...I did a face mask. I must have          gotten some on me and didn't rinse it.                         LILLIAN          Oh shit, I'm sorry, I have to check one          thing really quick. When is my hair          consultation?          Lillian frantically looks through her calender.                         ANNIE          Listen, I want to talk to you about--                         LILLIAN          Oh no. (starts to cry)                         ANNIE          What's wrong?                         LILLIAN          I knew it. I'm going to have my period on          my wedding day...and my honeymoon!                         ANNIE          It's ok. I mean it's not like it's your          first time doing it.                                                                                                              96.                         LILLIAN          It's our wedding night though!                         ANNIE          You can still have sex, just put a towel          down in the bed.                         LILLIAN          I can't believe this. This sucks. (beat)          Oh, Annie I wanted to ask you. Do you          think for the cocktail party before the          reception we should have a string trio or          a horn trio?                         ANNIE'          Can you just realize what you just asked          me right now?                         LILLIAN          What?                         ANNIE          You just said a string trio or horn trio.          I thought you didn't want anything fancy,          you know, just ‚Äúkeep it simple.‚Äù ‚ÄúNot a          big deal.‚Äù                         LILLIAN          I know but now that I'm planning          everything it's just...I wanna do it          right. It's once in a life time. It's my          wedding.          Lillian's phone rings.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Ugh! It's Dougie's Mom. She's mad at me          because I won't let her invite everyone          from her work. Oh! That reminds me. If          you're not going to bring anybody, will          you let me know? I gotta free up some          spots. (into phone] Hello?          Lillian walks away with the phone. Annie is speechless.          INT. ANNIE'S LAUNDRY ROOM.          Dryer is going. Annie is sorting a huge pile of sheets,          towels, etc. Her cell phone rings.                         ANNIE          Helen.                                                                                                              97.          INT. HELEN'S LIVING ROOM. CREAM COUCH                         HELEN          Annie? Where are you? Inside a truck?                         ANNIE          No, I'm doing laundry, what's up?                         HELEN          Annie, the shower needs to happen soon.          We haven't heard from you and everyone is-                         ANNIE          I know. I know. I'm trying to--                         HELEN          Annie can I dialog openly with you? I          know you're having some financial trouble          and I think it would be best if I did the          shower. Now before you say anything, let          me say that showers can be very expensive          and I think what's important here is          what's best for Lillian.                         ANNIE          Wow.                         HELEN          You don't have to give me an answer now                         BUT--                         ANNIE          You should have it. You should have it.                         HELEN          Great. Well, I'll definitely need some          help.                         ANNIE          Ok?                         HELEN          Could you bring the cookies?          Annie hangs up, looks at her laundry piles. Pissed.          INT. HARRINGTONS. LATER          Annie behind her counter.                                                                                                              98.                         GIRL          Excuse me!!          A snotty thirteen year old, valley-type, rich girl stands          at Annie's counter with an iced coffee chewing gum.          GIRL (CONT'D)          I'm looking for a birthday gift for my          best friend.                         ANNIE          Your best friend?                         GIRL          Yeah.                         ANNIE          For now.                         GIRL          (sip] What do you mean?                         ANNIE          Well, what's gonna happen when you get          older? Did you ever think of that? What          about when she makes new friends and          they're more successful than you are?          Girl stares annoyingly, chewing and sipping.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Huh? And they buy her facials and          designer dresses for cheap and yo're          stuck selling jewelry to teenagers wh's          outfit cost more than your rent?                         GIRL          Ummm....you're weird.                         ANNIE          You're stupid.                         GIRL          You have no chin.                         ANNIE          You're gonna be a slut in high school.                         GIRL          You are an old, single loser who has no          friends, works in a jewelry store, colors          her own hair, and will never know the          feeling of owning a luxury car.                                                                                                              99.          She sips in victory, slurps up the last drop noisily.                         ANNIE          (quietly] You. Little. Cunt.          The girls eyes widen. The camera pans to show that the          girl's dad and Donna have been there the whole time.          INT. DONNA'S OFFICE          Donna stands across from Annie wh's cleaning out her          locker. She sadly starts to leave.                         ANNIE          Bye.                         DONNA          You know, I knew a girl once. Karen          Stippleton. She was really something. The          life of the party, a concert pianist, she          had naturally curly hair, and skin black          as night. But one evening at a dinner          party I walked in on her in the bathroom          putting a vile of cocaine up her buttocks          and last I heard, she was playing the          saxophone outside of a drug store. And          I'm gonna say something to you I should          have told her. Don't waste your life.          Find out what your gifts are and use          them.          Donna hugs Annie, then leaves her in the break room.          INT. ANNIE'S APARTMENT. LATER THAT DAY.          Annie arrives completely depressed. Outside her doorstep          is yet another package. Annie takes it inside.          INT. ANNIE'S APT.                         STEVE          Ooh, another package from your mom?                         ANNIE          Yep.          It is a beautiful pink and white striped box with her          name and address in calligraphy. When Annie opens the          lid, ‚ÄúCanon in D‚Äù plays and a real butterfly flies out.                                                                                                              100.          She reads, ‚ÄúA Shower for Lillian.‚Äù Steve comes over to          see.          On one side of the box, there is a beautiful sculpture of          Lillian and Dougie as Bride and Groom, a candle with          Lillian's face printed on it and some chocolates. Annie          takes the invitation out, opens it quickly.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Are you kidding me?          The invitation reads:          HELEN (V.O.)          Please join us for a Parisian Brunch at          the home of Helen Harris III to celebrate          the marriage of Lillian Donovan and          Douglas Price. Let us ‚Äúshower‚Äù Lillian          with gifts and love. Date: Sunday the          20th. Time: 2:00 post meridian. Address          and phone number below. Responde S'il          Vous Plait. Yay!          Annie picks up the phone, calls the R.S.V.P. number.          Canon in D. plays. and a recorded message begins.          HELEN (V.O.) (CONT'D)          Hello. This is Helen. You have reached          the Responde S'il Vous Plait line for          Lillian's shower.                         ANNIE          You have got to be kidding me.          HELEN (V.O.)          Please listen to all of the following          menu options before making your          selection. If you would like to reply          ‚Äúoui‚Äù, press one. To reply ‚Äúno‚Äù, press          two. For where the bride and groom are          registered, press three. If you require a          vegetarian meal. Press 4. If you are          vegan, press 5. A dairy free meal, press          6. Kosher meals will not be available.          For the Lillian and Dougie story,          narrated by me, please press 7. To hear a          twenty-four hour wedding music mix, press          8, put your phone on speaker, light the          Atmospheria candle you've just received          and think about the eternal union that is          marriage. I'm Helen Harris IV, and this          is me saying au revoir! But before I do,          here's a message from SUSAN SARANDON!                                                                                                              101.          SUSAN SARANDON (V.O.)          Hello, I'm Susan Sarandon, the movie          star. I just wanted to say          congratulations to Lillian and Dougie.          Even though I don't believe in marriage,          I do ‚Äúbelieve in the church of basebal‚Äù.          Just kidding. That's a line from my movie          Bull Durham. I-          Annie hangs up quickly.          INT. ANNIE'S APARTMENT. DAYTIME.          Annie's relaxation CD is playing as she lies talking on          the phone to her Mom, who is painting a very life-like          picture of Enrique Iglesias in concert.                         JUDY          Is there an animal over there?                         ANNIE          No, it's a C.D.          She rolls over and turns it off.                         JUDY          So, I'm flying straight to O'Hare the day          of the shower cause I wanna get my hair          done. Did you see that invitation? I          didn't get the significance of the dead          butterfly, but it looks like w're gonna          have fun.                         ANNIE          I'm not.                         JUDY          Oh, c'mon.                         ANNIE          I already know what it's gonna be like.          It's gonna be uncomfortable and weird...I          don't wanna go.                         JUDY          Sweetie, listen to yourself. You ca't          let her new friends get in the way of          your being a part of one of the best days          of Lil's life. NO way. You have a history          with her that no one else has. So you          walk into that party knowing that.                                                                                                              102.          INT. ANNIE'S CAR.          Annie drives to Helen's. She sees a pink and white          highway sign (that looks like a traditional highway exit          sign) ‚ÄúLillian's Shower Rue. This exit‚Äù                         ANNIE          Oh my God.          She turns into the gates of ‚ÄúWhitewater Estates.‚Äù There          is, a life-size sculpture of a bride and groom. As she          gets closer, she sees they are real life models. They          smile at Annie, wink at her and wave her by.          At the next stop sign, a butler appears with a tray.                         BUTLER          Are you a guest of Helen Harris?                         ANNIE          Yes.                         BUTLER          The shower is one mile away.          He hands her a pink lemonade.                         ANNIE          I don't have a cup-holder.          As she's driving, little pink things start to fly beside          her car.          ANNIE (CONT'D)                         WHAT THE-          One flies in her car. They're Rose petals!          Annie's shitty car drives down a road covered with Rose          petals. At the driveway, she is greeted by a valet in a          pink bow-tie and beret. As she reaches for her gift from          the passenger seat, another valet opens that door and          take it.                         VALET          This will be placed in the gift room for          you madame.          He reaches for the cookies she made, and she stops him.                         ANNIE          I'll take those.                                                                                                              103.          Annie watches the valet drives her car away. When she          turns back around, there is a man with a white horse          holding out his hand to her.                         HORSEMAN          Would you like an assisted ride to the          main house?                         ANNIE          Do I have to?          An annoyed Annie arrives at the house on the horse with          the man leading her on foot, holding the cookies. She          dismounts.          The front door is swung open by two attendants. As she          enters the mansion, groups of girls pass by her...                         SHOWER GIRLS          This is the most amazing shower 've ever          been to/Can you believe this?/What a          lucky bride/What a good friend...          Helen's house is ALL cream and white with gold. Couches          are puffy, etc. Annie walks to the backyard. We hear          French standards. Beautiful tables are set. Swans and          bunnies milling about. Attendants ready to serve. In the          middle of everything stands an eight foot tall round          ‚Äúsign‚Äù that says ‚ÄúLillian and Dougie‚Äù in puffy pink          cursive. A waiter offers Annie champagne. She takes it.          BECCA AND LESLIE(O.S.)          Annie!          They walk to her.                         LESLIE          Do you believe this shit?          Annie is still staring at the sign.                         BECCA          That's a big cookie huh.                         ANNIE          Where?          They point to the ‚Äúsign‚Äù. Annie walks closer to see it is          indeed a huge cookie.                         LESLIE          See. Sugar cookie.                                                                                                              104.          Leslie takes a piece off, eats it.                         LESLIE (CONT'D)          It's even better if you dip it in the          chocolate.          REVEAL a glorious four tiered chocolate fountain. Girls          are around it dipping strawberries and pieces of the big          cookie, laughing. Helen is there taking their praise.          Annie is pissed and plops her tupperware of cookies on a          nearby table.                         LILLIAN          Annieee!!!          Lillian runs to her.          LILLIAN (CONT'D)          (under her breath) Can you believe this?          LAURIE (O.S.)          Lillian!                         LILLIAN          Coming Mom! I gotta go say hi to my          aunts.          She leaves and Helen appears out of nowhere again.                         HELEN          Hi Annie!                         ANNIE          Beautiful party.                         HELEN          Oh, it's nothing....so...Just make          yourself at home. Enjoy!                         ANNIE          Thanks. (under her breath) Asshole.                         HELEN          What did you say?                         ANNIE          I said I love this shower, and i's          amazing. I said all that.          Annie leaves. Two hip hop dancers wearing pink berets          approach Helen and jam out in her face.                                                                                                              105.                         HELEN          OK, not me, NOT ME! The GUESTS. Hip hop          dance with the GUESTS!                         'S          looking.          INT-HELENS POWDER ROOM          Annie puts lotion her hands. She sees a magazine photo of                         'S          face super imposed over them. On the counter is a framed          photo of Helen, soft lit, posed with her hand gently                         'S          face. She also sees a photo of Helen and Lillian from          Vegas on the plane. Happy.          As Annie leaves, she runs into her Mom, wh's new          hairstyle is a bit overdone.                         ANNIE          Mom. Hi!          They hug.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Wow! You look great.                         JUDY          Thank you sweetheart. (to herself) I wish          Barb could see me now.                         ANNIE          Not today Mom.                         JUDY          You're right. Well I'm happy to see you!          I'll see you out there. I need to wash          the horse off my hands.          Mom goes into the bathroom. Megan approaches.                         MEGAN          Annie, did you see the party favors?                         ANNIE          I'm sure they're perfect and amazing.                         MEGAN          They're dogs!                                                                                                              106.                         ANNIE          What?                         MEGAN          Yeah. And they're wrapped up like          presents. They said we have to wait until          we leave but I cant stop thinking about          them. I gotta go tell Lillian.          EXT- HELEN'S BACK YARD- MOMENTS LATER          Annie now stands next to the chocolate fountain. She          looks around, drops her glass in it and unplugs it with          her foot. It stops flowing. She looks around and throws          some leaves in it and walks away.                         CONTINUOUS                         'S          attention by microphone.                         HELEN          Hello ladies. Bonjour. (french          sentence)Yay! Welcome. I am your host          Helen, a bridesmaid in Lillian's wedding.          I want you all to have a wonderful time.          Eat, drink, please have some cookie!          She laughs and then becomes very serious.                         HELEN (CONT'D)          Lillian. Today's your day. I'd like to          make a beautiful toast, ‚ÄúYou are pretty,          fun, sweet, look at all of your friends.          Girlpower!‚Äù Everyone enjoy your lunch,          served along with the musical stylings          of...The LILLIANETTE'S!!!          A quartet, all in pink and white and harmonize. ‚ÄòLillian,          Lillian, Lillian, Lillian! When Lillian was a little          girl...‚Äù          Judy claps and enjoys the music. She leans over to Annie.                         JUDY          I don't know what's going on honey.          The shower is a hit.                                                                                                              107.          INT. HELEN'S GREAT ROOM. LATER.          Everyone sits surrounded by decorations, pictures of          Dougie and Lillian as babies, flowers, fire in the          fireplace.                         DANA          Everyone it's game time! Please take your          piece of paper, put it on top of your          head, and with your other hand try to          draw what Lillian and Dougie's first baby          is going to look like!!! Ready? GO!          Everyone draws, giggles, looks at their stupid drawings,          laughing. Annie cheats and draws it on her lap.                         CONTINUOUS:          DANA (CONT'D)          And the winner is...Annie?          Dana holds up a perfectly realistic drawing of a baby.                         ANNIE          Yeah, that's mine. Thank you.                         CONTINUOUS:          Girls spin a blind-folded 86 year old ELLIE around 3          times, Then they swing her holding her hands and feet.                         SHOWER GIRLS          One... two...three!          Annie looks confused. They throw Ellie onto a huge pile          of pillows. This is a terrible game.          SHOWER GIRLS (CONT'D)          Find the veil! C'mon Ellie! Come on Look!          You can do it! It's right there!          Ellie feels around in the huge pile of pillows. She finds          the veil, holds it up in victory and then falls down from          dizziness.          SHOWER GIRLS (CONT'D)          YAAAAY! YOU DID IT! WoooHoo!                         CONTINUOUS:                                                                                                              108.                         HELEN          #9. What is Lillian's favorite ice cream          flavor? Write it down...quickly.                         ANNIE          (under her breath, to the woman next to          her) Ew. Kinda smells funny in here.          Doesn't it? Smells bad. This house has a          weird smell.                         HELEN          OK, last one. For the big prize. #10.          What is the craziest place Lillian and          Dougie....?          Helen strongly hints with a weird smile instead of          saying, ‚Äú...had sex?‚Äù Shower Girls Ooooh and Ahhhh.                         ANNIE          (under her breath) Wow, looks like          someone's a pervert. It's none of my          business. She's gross.                         CONTINUOUS:                         GIRL 1          (very emotional) I'm putting a blue bead          on this ‚Äúadvice necklace‚Äù to represent          the ocean. It may not always be smooth          sailing but you can ride the waves          together.          Dana cries and takes a picture. Everyone applauds,                         ANNIE          (to person near her) The ocean's are          really polluted right now. Its not          something to joke about.          INT-HELEN'S GREAT ROOM - HALF HOUR LATER          Lillian opens presents in front of huge photograph of          herself.                         LILLIAN          Oh! My towels! Thank you Dana.                         DANA          I just wanted to get you something you          could use everyday and something pretty.          Dana takes a picture, Lillian grabs another box, giddy.                                                                                                              109.                         LILLIAN          Annie. (opens it) Oh, our mugs! Thank you          Annie.                         ANNIE          Well, you registered for 'em so thank          yourself, you picked them out. I did't          do anything...                         HELEN          This one's from me.          Helen hands Lillian her gift. Lil opens it and holds up          beautiful lingerie.                         SHOWER GIRLS          Oooo/Ahhhhh etc.                         MEGAN          Ooh, brothel gear...                         ANNIE          (sotto] It's disgusting. Here Mom's here.                         LILLIAN          Wait, what's this?          Lillian pulls out an envelope.                         ANNIE          (sotto) Wow, cash. Kinda tacky.          Lillian opens the envelope.                         LILLIAN          Oh my God. Helen.          Lillian holds up the tickets.                         LAURIE          Honey what are they?                         LILLIAN          Two first class tickets to Sea World.          How did you--                         ANNIE          Are you fucking kidding me?                         JUDY          Annie!                                                                                                              110.                         ANNIE          ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!                         LILLIAN          Annie! What is going on with you?                         ANNIE          Nothing have fun at Sea World.                         HELEN          Why don't we go in the other room and--                         ANNIE          Shut up you ridiculous person, you a          sneaky little cream and white cashmere--.                         HELEN          Annie. Everyone I am so sorry, I really          don't know what you mean.                         ANNIE          I think you do.(laughs) Horses?          Sculptures? Posters? Look at this stupid          house! This stupid marshmallow puffy          furniture! (pointing outside) And look at          that cookie! Would you please everyone!          Speaking of that cookie. I never got a          piece!          Annie marches into the back yard.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          (shouting, we see her through the large                         WINDOWS)          Did you honestly think 30 women were          gonna finish this?! You know what!? 'll          help you out!          She tries to take down the cookie and struggles with it.          We watch her from the house. Fall over with the cookie,          she runs over to the chocolate fountain and tries to tip          it over, it's obviously too heavy. She tries to empty it          with her hands onto the ground.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          Mmmmm. Nothing says friendship like a          thousand gallons of hot unsanitary          chocolate! Hello swan, are you having          fun? Did you enjoy the hip-hop dancers?                                                                                                              111.          Everyone is watching Annie. She is fighting and punching          the air like a crazy person, chasing a swan. A little          girl starts crying.          Annie walks back through the house, through the crowd          holding her chocolate covered hands in the air.                         ANNIE (CONT'D)          I actually thought I wanted to be like          you...and you and YOU, to be a part of          this world. That's not who I am. I make          bad choices. I'm broke, I lost my stupid          job, I'm thirty two years old and I still          answer booty calls. I don't like Mike          Donahue cause he () on our date. I have          a single black hair that grows out of my          chin and I can't wear white t-shirts          cause something about my sweat turns the          pits yellow! AND you know when we were in          Vegas? When you were all staying at your          luxury hotel? I was staying at Hotel RICK          where got BODY LICE! So Helen, you can          have the coveted Maid of Honor title. You          can have it all wrapped up in a big pink          obnoxious musical box! Because all its          brought me is a big pain in my ass.          Congratulations!          Annie leaves and Lillian runs after her.                         LILLIAN          Annie stop! I don't know what's going on.                         ANNIE          Well let me fill you in. Ever since you          got engaged, my life has turned to shit.                         LILLIAN          I'm sorry the the happiest time in my          life has brought you so much misery. Do          you know how selfish that sounds?                         ANNIE          I'm selfish? You're the one that's been          so wrapped up in all this. Designer          dressed, extravagant hotels, this shower,          this is not you!                         LILLIAN          This is my wedding and you've made it all          about you.                                                                                                              112.                         ANNIE          Well at least my friendship's not for          sale.          This hangs in the air. Annie storms off. Lillian storms          back inside.                         HELEN          Do you think she still has body lice?                         LILLIAN          Anyone else?! Anyone else have something          they wanna say to me?!          Dana can't contain herself.                         DANA          I got my chin done!          Becca stands up.                         BECCA          Kevin smokes pot!          Leslie stands up.                         LESLIE          I'm pregnant!          Megan stands up.                         MEGAN          I took two dogs already. There in the          back of my van!          INT. ANNIE'S CAR. MOMENTS LATER- HIGHWAY.          Annie is pissed. She sees a squirrel in the road (close          up of squirrels big eyes). She tries to avoid it, slams          on her breaks and BOOM! Annie is rear-ended! The driver          behind her backs up, peels out and drives away.                         ANNIE          Thank you!          Her car won't start. Trying to keep it together, she          grabs her running shoes from the back seat and storms          down the highway, trying not to cry.          A cop car pulls next to her. I's Rhodes.                         DISSOLVE TO:                                                                                                              113.          Rhodes is looking under her hood.                         RHODES          Well, I can't say I'm surprised.                         ANNIE          Yes. Taillights. I know!                         RHODES          You should've taken it to my friend-                         ANNIE          I KNOW! Yes, you're friend! But I didn't          ok?! I didn't get them fixed! I don't--                         RHODES          Whoa. Don't take it out on me. This is          your fault.                         ANNIE          HE hit ME!                         RHODES          You had no taillights! You did't get          them fixed! You don't get to blame anyoe          else. It's your fault.          Annie starts to walk away.          RHODES (CONT'D)          Where you going?!          Annie keeps walking.                         RHODES (CONT'D)          Oh, you're going to walk fifteen miles?!          Another WISE decision!                         ANNIE                         (TURNING AROUND)          What do you know?!!                         RHODES          I know that you not taking responsibility          is why we're standing out here! YOU did          not make an effort to fix that problem.          This hits Annie. Rhodes is physically worked up.                                                                                                              114.                         RHODES (CONT'D)          DO YOU KNOW HOW CRAZY THAT DRIVES ME?!          SEEING YOU ALL THE TIME, AND YOU STILL          HAVEN'T GOTTEN THOSE FIXED?! DO YOU KNOW          HOW FRUSTRATING THAT IS?!                         ANNIE          Why are you yelling at me?!                         RHODES          It's dangerous! You're putting your life,          and others in danger!                         ANNIE          I'm! Sorry!          He calms down.                         RHODES          Look, all I know, is that you're kinda          crazy. You're always stressed out or          late, complaining about something, and          now you're yelling at me! And for some          reason, all I've ever wanted to do is ask          you on a date.                         ANNIE          Well save yourself the trouble, and          don't.                         RHODES          Yeah, I'm not much of a hickey guy          anyway.          Annie remembers her hickey. He saw it?!                         ANNIE          Well, I have said ‚Äúno‚Äù anyway.                         RHODES          Well, then you have yourself a good night          ma'am.          Annie regrets that. He drives away leaving her there. She          is alone.          EXT. BILL COZBI'S AUTO ELECTRIC.          Annie's car gets towed into the shop.                                                                                                              115.          INT - BILL COZBI'S AUTO ELECTRIC          BILL enters with a clip board. He is a stocky Milwaukee          good guy.                         BILL          Rhodes told me a while back you might be          stopping in. I'm Bill Cozbi.                         ANNIE          Oh, hi.                         BILL          I was beginning to think we'd never see          ya.                         ANNIE          Yeah, I know. I'm irresponsible.                         BILL          Nah, no one likes taking care of that          stuff. But you are going to have to leave          your car here for a week or so.                         ANNIE          A week?          INT. STEVE'S CAR. CONTINUOUS.                         STEVE          So you kind of had a bad time at the          wedding shower?                         ANNIE          Yes I did. Everything's just...          She starts crying. Steve hands her a tissue from the          middle console.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          I'm sorry, I just--this has been a really          shitty day.                         STEVE          Yeah. Ok, don't get mad at me, but it          seems like you have a lot of those.                         ANNIE          Yes I do! Right? Thank you.                                                                                                              116.                         STEVE          Have you considered the idea that maybe,          possibly, perhaps, it's you that makes          them shitty?          Annie stares at him.          STEVE (CONT'D)          I'm just saying, maybe it's your          attitude.                         ANNIE          This is not about attitude. It's just the          facts! My life hasn't turned it out the          way I expected. I don't have any of          those things that gives a person points          in the world.                         STEVE          I think that might be your problem. I          think you read too many of those          magazines. You don't need things to be          someone. Tyra said that. Tyra Banks.          INT. ANNIE AND STEVE'S APT.          Annie sits on the couch with Steve in a daze, watching                         'S          Lillian. She doesn't even know what to say, so she          doesn't answer.                         CUT TO:          INT. JONI'S          Annie reads a shitty magazine at the counter. She turns          to see the gray-haired, outdoorsy WOMAN that she and          Lillian pointed out.                         WOMAN          Is anyone sitting here?                         ANNIE          No.          The lady sits next to Annie and smiles at her.                         CUT TO:                                                                                                              117.          INT. COFFEE SHOP. DAY.          Annie looks in the classifieds. A lot say ‚Äúcollege          degree required.‚Äù She looks up and sees TED has walked          in.                         TED          Hey Annie.                         ANNIE          Oh, hey Ted. You're in town.                         TED          Yeah, yeah. Listen I'm going out tonight          but I should be home around 11, you wanna          come over?                         ANNIE          Really? Ok, sure.          Ted smiles at her. Annie stops herself.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Wait no. No. No. I don't think I do.          Because answering your booty calls and          having you kick me out after a night of          no-strings-attached sex doesn't feel          good. NO girls feel good after that and          if they say they do they're LYING. But          it's not your fault. Its me. It's me.          Have a great life. And you can keep the          plant.          Annie grabs her stuff and leaves.          INT. ANNIE'S BEDROOM THAT NIGHT          She lies on her bed staring at the ceiling. She picks up          the phone.          INT. LILLIAN'S PARENTS HOUSE          Lillian's phone lights up, it's on silent. She is                         'S          names cut out and being placed at different tables. Her          mom, Laurie, Helen, and two women argue about the seating          chart. Lillian looks distraught.                                                                                                              118.          BACK TO ANNIE'S BEDROOM          Annie sadly hangs up.          INT. QUAINT BAKERY. DAY          TIM, the owner is sitting with Annie.                         TIM          Well, I can't think of anything else to          tell you. Did you have any questions?                         ANNIE          No, I think we've covered everything. I'm          really excited and thank you.          Annie gathers her things.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          I'll see you next Monday. What time do I          start?                         TIM          Four a.m.          Annie is a little surprised. Ti's smiling.          TIM (CONT'D)          You'll get used to it.          Annie smiles back.                         ANNIE          I won't be late.                         TIM          Oh and I wanna try one of those moonpies.                         ANNIE          (smiling] Yeah. Ok.          INT. COLLEGE CAMPUS.          Annie weaves through the crowded hallway, approaches a          window.                                                                                                              119.                         ANNIE          Hi, I'm here to inquire about financial          aid.          Her cell phone rings.                         ADMINISTRATION LADY          Take these to the second window.                         ANNIE          I'm sorry?          Annie's trying to find her phone.                         ADMINISTRATION LADY          The second window.                         ANNIE          Thanks.          It's too late, she looks at her phone. It was Lillian. No          message. She doesn't call her back.          EXT. BILL COZBI'S. EVENING          Annie gets out of Steve's car.          INT. BILL COZBI'S.                         BILL          Parts and labor, we're lookin' at eight          hundred dollars. But with your          discount...                         ANNIE          Discount?                         RHODES          Yeah. Rhodes and I worked out a deal way          back when, so, this one's on the house.                         ANNIE          Are you serious?                         BILL          Yep. I owe him big time. He runs          background checks on all the guys my          daughter dates. There's been a lot of          'em.                                                                                                              120.                         ANNIE          You're kidding! If you see him, would          you thank him for me and tell him that          I'm crazy and I'm sorry. He'll know what          you mean.          EXT. HIGHWAY.          Annie drives past Rhodes' at his post, flicking her brand          new taillights. He sees her, but does't respond.                         'T          pull her over. She drives by him again and swerves all          over the road. He really wants to pull her over, but he          doesn't. She goes back one more time, throws a bunch of          trash and diet coke cans out of the window. He still          ignores her. She gives up and goes home.          't get          to this point until this morning. wanted to see if we're          going in the right direction with annie uniting          bridesmaids and saving the day.          INT. ANNIE'S APT. NIGHTTIME.          Annie and Steve are in the kitchen, sh's cooking. Steve          reads out of the college brochure.                         STEVE          Ok, you can take Women's Studies or          Spanish...oooh The History of Wine.          The phone rings.                         ANNIE          Hello?                         MEGAN          Annie. It's Megan, Becca Leslie, Dana and          Helen.                         ANNIE          Oh. Hi--          INT. HELEN'S ESCALADE                         MEGAN          Lillian's missing!                                                                                                              121.                         ANNIE          What do you mean she's missing?                         MEGAN          We were all supposed to get spray-tans          today and she never showed up. No on's          heard from her. She could be anywhere,          doing anything! She could be ANYWHERE--                         LESLIE          Jesus Christ, give me the God damn phone.          Leslie grabs the phone from Megan.          LESLIE (CONT'D)          Annie, it's Leslie. Look, I'm sure it's          nothing to worry about. The weddin's the          day after tomorrow, she's been really          stressed, so she just probably freaked          out and went somewhere. We just want to          find her and probably talk her off a          ledge. Any ideas?                         ANNIE          Um, gosh I..I don't know. Um, I'll come          to you guys. I'll be there in an hour and          45 minutes. I wanna help.          Annie hangs up, grabs her keys. She stops, comes back and          grabs a small paper bag, and runs out the door.                         STEVE          What about the Science of Jazz?          EXT. HIGHWAY. CONTINUOUS          Annie pulls over. She puts the piece of paper in the          small paper bag. She gets out of the car, leaving it          running. A few seconds later she comes back without the          bag. Takes a deep breath and drives away.          INT. HELEN'S ESCALADE. 2 HOURS LATER.                         DANA          Maybe she's at the park.                         HELEN          The park? Don't be stupid Dana.                         LESLIE          Jeez, take it easy.                                                                                                              122.                         HELEN          Well, it's closed is all I'm just saying.                         MEGAN          Maybe she flew somewhere. Everyone always          hides in Mexico.                         BECCA          I don't think she'd leave the country.          Maybe she went to the reservoir.                         HELEN          Why would she go to the reservoir? Its          just a big tank of water.                         DANA          Ernie and I sometimes go for our morning          walk there. It's the next best thing to a          lake.                         ANNIE          Oh my God! I think I know where she is.          INT. HELEN'S ESCALADE.          The girls drive on a dark road.                         LESLIE          How much further?                         ANNIE          We're almost there.                         BECCA          I'm think I'm getting carsick.                         HELEN          Is that supposed to be a dig on my          driving?                         DANA          Well you do speed up and slow down a lot.                         HELEN          Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't take a stunt          driving course in Renegade missions.                         BECCA          Why do you always have to be so          condescending?                                                                                                              123.                         LESLIE          Yeah, its getting really old.                         HELEN          I was being funny!                         DANA          Well it came out a little mean Helen.                         HELEN          Dana who's side are you on?          All the girls start yelling. Helen loses control of the          car for a split second and drives off the road hitting          something. BOOM! The girls scream!!! She pulls over. All          the girls are wide eyed and speechless.                         BECCA          What was that?                         DANA          Did we hit something!?                         HELEN          Was it a person?                         ANNIE          Guys it's just a flat. I've gotten tons          of them.          Annie goes to get out of the car.                         BECCA/DANA          No!/ Annie don't get out!/ It's pitch          dark out.                         HELEN          Everybody calm down. I'm calling 911.                         LESLIE          You don't call 911 for a flat tire!          A huge truck drives by moving their car a little bit.          The girls SCREAM!                         ANNIE          Guys! We're fine. Helen, put the hazards          on.          Helen puts them on.                                                                                                              124.                         LESLIE          I'm calling AAA.                         BECCA          I'm calling Kevin!                         ANNIE          Helen, do you have a jack?                         HELEN          Probably?!                         DANA          What if we get hit just sitting here? Or          kidnapped or chased by an animal?                         ANNIE          Dana calm down.                         LESLIE          Shit! I don't have any service.                         BECCA          Me neither!                         DANA          Oh my God! We're gonna die...          Annie has had enough and gets out.          The tire is definitely flat. She opens Hele's trunk,          lifts the bottom (wherever the jack is in an Escalade]          She goes up to the window.          INT. HELEN'S ESCALADE. CONTINUOUS.                         ANNIE          Everyone's gotta get out, if you want me          to fix this.          They complain that its dangerous, i's cold, but they do.          Annie puts the jack under car.                         LESLIE          So, how can I help?                         ANNIE          Hold the flashlight.          Leslie and Megan watch as Annie pumps the jack. She          really does know what she's doing! The car is raising.                                                                                                              125.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Megan hand me the wrench.          Megan hands it to her. Annie starts to unscrew the lug          nuts handing them to Megan, with Leslie by her side.          Dana and Becca stand with Helen.                         DANA          That's pretty cool she knows how to do          change a tire.                         BECCA          I know. I can't believe she's doing it.          Dana and Becca move over to Annie. Helen waits alone.                         HELEN          Just don't scratch anything.          The girls are all crouched down to watch Annie in awe.                         DANA          So what are you doing now?                         ANNIE          I'm removing the lug nuts so we can take          the tire off.                         BECCA          How does that little thing lift the whole          car?                         MEGAN          It uses hydraulic power. It gives a human          being the lifting capacity of 1.5 to          three tons.                         LESLIE          How do you know this stuff?                         MEGAN          I like cars. There's a real artistry to          them.                         HELEN          Are you guys working or talking? We do't          have all night.                         DANA          (quickly) Annie is doing the best she can          Helen. So why don't you just stand over          there and be quiet and wait.                                                                                                              126.          Everyone's speechless.                         HELEN          Excuse me?!          Dana stands. She has had it with Helen.                         DANA          I said, will you, for once, shut the fuck          up!!!??          Dana approaches Helen. The other girls are standing now.          DANA (CONT'D)          Lillian probably left because of you          anyway.                         HELEN          What!?                         DANA          You're so- bossy! You've been acting like          you're in charge this whole time! Do't          you realize how much pressure sh's          under? You know, Lillian did not want to          leave her reception in a unicorn-drawn          carriage?! She said ‚ÄúThat's not me.‚Äù And          you ordered it anyway! You've been          pushing her this whole time! Annie was          right.                         MEGAN          Yeah!          Helen glares at Megan.                         HELEN          What are you talking about? The only          reason you're even in this wedding is          because you're the groom's sister.          Weirdo.                         MEGAN          I'd rather be the groom's sister than          have cameltoe from my $600 pants.          We see that Helen has cameltoe. Megan has surprised them.                         HELEN          Why is everyone attacking me? I wasn't          the one who caused a huge scene at          Lillian's bridal shower and made her cry.                                                                                                              127.          Everyone looks at Annie.                         LESLIE          I hate to interrupt this riveting          discussion but a really creepy guy in a          Trans Am just pulled over.          The guy gets out of the car. He is thirty-ish, wears at-          shirt with a cat on it and camouflage shorts.          TRANS AM MAN          Hey it's pretty late. What are you ladies          doing?          Becca and Dana scramble into the woods. Leslie gets          behind the car.                         ANNIE          Just changing the tire.          TRANS AM MAN          You guys need some man hands for that?                         ANNIE          Nope I think we got it. But thank you.          He doesn't leave, the girls worriedly look at each other.          TRANS AM MAN          Look, if you guys get tired, I live right          up that hill. You ladies can just leave          your car here, come on up and let us all          lay down together.          He starts to walk toward them. The girls are scared.          Annie gives Megan a look. Megan tries to distract him.                         MEGAN          Hey! Are those snowflake rims?          The guy looks at Megan.          TRANS AM MAN          Yeah, found ‚Äòem in a junk yard. Restored          ‚Äòem myself.                         MEGAN          I bet you got a formula 4OO under there?          TRANS AM MAN          Well, well. Someone knows her cars.                                                                                                              128.                         MEGAN          I'm in the Firebird club.          TRANS AM MAN          You don't say. I never met a lady in the          FBC before.          He walks over to Megan, she gives Annie a nod. Annie          rushes to the tire and quickly continues changing it.                         MEGAN          You ever make it up to the Trans Am          Nationals in Dayton?          Becca, Dana, Leslie and Helen are huddled together. They          talk in a loud whisper.                         BECCA          What's happening? What's happening?                         DANA          I can hear animals.                         BECCA          Be quiet!          The guy is moving closer to Megan.                         MEGAN          Remember Smokey and the Bandit?          TRANS AM MAN          It's my favorite movie. ‚ÄúGive me a Diablo          sandwich and a Dr. Pepper and make it          quick . I'm in a goddamn hurry.‚Äù          He leans into her.                         MEGAN          Why don't you show me what's under the          hood?          Back at Helen's car. Leslie sneaks over to Annie.                         LESLIE          How's it comin'?                         ANNIE          Almost there.          The guy has lifted up his hood and Mega's looking. He          puts his hands on her ass.                                                                                                              129.          TRANS AM MAN          You wanna get in the backseat?                         MEGAN          Uh...          He is really getting aggressive, pushing against her.          MEGAN (CONT'D)          Hey take it easy!          HELEN (O.S.)          Hey what about me?          He turns around to be hit with a huge piece of wood by          Helen. He falls.                         DANA          Oh my God!!          Annie is frantically releasing the jack.                         ANNIE          OK, everybody in the car! Get in! Megan,          Helen let's go!          All the girls scramble in the car, Helen starts it. Annie          is finishing.          TRANS AM MAN          Hey you!                         HELEN          Annie get in!          TRANS AM MAN          I'm gonna get you bitches!!          He is coming towards Annie! She turns towards him with          the jack.                         ANNIE          Back away! Or I will shove this Jack so          far down your throat you will shit          out...your fucking..face!          TRANS AM MAN          Whoa, whoa. Alright. Alright. I'm          leaving.                         ANNIE          Get out!                                                                                                              130.          TRANS AM MAN          I am! I live up the hill though if you          change your mind.          Annie backs up and jumps in the car. Helen peels away.          The girls drive away fast.                         CONTINUOUS          The girls still driving. Megan's eating chips.                         LESLIE          Megan I was freaked out when he leaned up          against you. That was a pretty gutsy          move.                         MEGAN          Annie's the one who tried to make him eat          a car jack.                         ANNIE          Helen hit him over the head with a tree.          They all continue talking, Helen and Annie smile.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          There it is, turn left up here. Go down          the little hill. Ok, that's the driveway.          It's dark and very rustic. It's LILLIAN'S LAKE HOUSE FROM          THE FLASHBACK. Where Lillian and Dougie met.                         LESLIE          God I haven't been here in forever.                         ANNIE          The house is right up here.          They pull up to a small cottage and get out of the car.                         HELEN          Her car's not here.                         DANA          Doesn't look like any lights are on.                         BECCA          She's not here.          Annie is sitting on the front step, defeated.                                                                                                              131.                         ANNIE          I thought she'd be here. I really thought          she'd be here. I'm sorry.                         DANA          Annie, it's ok.                         ANNIE          No, it's not. I don't know what happened.          I messed everything up. Lillia's not          even talking to me. I think I'm so afraid          to see what's really happening.          Lillian's moving on to this great life          and I feel left behind. And know matter          how hard I try, I don't fit in to her          life now.          Everyone is silent.                         HELEN          Annie, Lillian loves you. (beat] I know I          haven't made things easy for you.. I          don't have a life and I am bored. Perry          is always away and I'm constantly alone          and she's been there. And I've been a          bridesmaid nine times and although I may          have implied it, I....I've never been a          Maid of Honor. I wanted to make          everything special for Lillian because...          I don't have a lot of friends. I wanted          her to like me better and to impress her,          and everyone else. And I'm just good at          throwing parties. I always have been. In          fact sometimes I think people only ask me          to be in their wedding's because of that.                         ANNIE          Lillian wouldn't do that. If she asked          you to be in her wedding it's because you          are her friend. Trust me.          Dana is crying and takes a picture. The're both startled          by the flash.                         HELEN          I'm sorry about the Sea World tickets.                         ANNIE          I'm sorry that when I left the shower I          told your neighbors you were shooting a          porn.                                                                                                              132.                         HELEN          Oh, I didn't know that you did that.                         ANNIE          Oh, well, sorry.                         HELEN          I deserved it.                         ANNIE          I must say you do put on some pretty          spectacular events.                         HELEN          Well, I'm really rich.          They smile.                         ANNIE          It is getting pretty late.                         DANA          What should we do about Lillian?                         ANNIE          She'll come home when she's ready.          INT. ANNIE HALLWAY. LATE THAT NIGHT (EARLY AM]          Annie enters exhausted to find Lillian sitting against          her door. Annie walks up and slides down to sit next to          her. After a minute.                         ANNIE          You okay?                         LILLIAN          Yeah. Didn't mean to make anyone worry.                         ANNIE          It's okay. I really am sorry.                         LILLIAN          I'm sorry too. I didnt want things to          turn out like this. I got so caught up in          the frenzy of everything, wanting this          one day to be perfect.                         ANNIE          Well its easy to get caught up.                                                                                                              133.                         LILLIAN          And it doesnt help that all my friends          hate eachother.                         ANNIE          I'm sorry. But it's all good now. We all          talked and everythings cool.                         HELEN          Really?!                         ANNIE          Yup, Helen and I are best friends now.          We're going shopping for cream sweaters          tomorrow.                         LILLIAN          She's really not so bad.                         ANNIE          I know.                         LILLIAN          I just wish the wedding hadnt become          about everything and everyone else but me          and Dougie. And now, it's become this          thing I never wanted. I did want simple.          I wanted colored lanterns, twinkly lights          and food everywhere. I wanted a DJ to          play all those stupid wedding songs.                         ANNIE          It's not too late to have those things.                         LILLIAN          I'm sorry I didn't know all the stuff you          were going through too.          Annie is clearly sad.                         ANNIE          It's fine. I just feel really lost right                         NOW AND--          Lillian hugs her.                         LILLIAN          Nothing's going to change.                         ANNIE          Oh God dont say that.                                                                                                              134.                         LILLIAN          I mean between you and me.                         ANNIE          You want to come in? Steve's home. This          could be your last chance as a single          woman.                         LILLIAN          Ooooo...          EXT HIGHWAY. VERY EARLY NEXT MORNING          The small paper bag sits on the side of the road. Cop car          pulls up. This is Rhodes' spot, we've seen before. He          gets out and walks over to it, confused. He picks it up          and it says, ‚ÄúOfficer Rhodes‚Äù. He's a little weary but          opens it and pulls out a note. ‚ÄúI hear you like          moonpies.‚Äù He looks in the bag and smiles.          EXT. WEDDING RECEPTION. BELMONT CLUB. DUSK.          Becca and Kevin are slow dancing happily very much in          love.          Leslie and Paul dancing with two boys trying to join in.          They are all happy, he rubs her stomach.          Perry and Helen are dancing. They look like they are          talking and working things out. He hugs her and kisses          her.          Lillian and Dougie dance into frame. They are very close.          Smiling and kissing. They've never looked happier. She          smiles at someone. It's Annie.          Annie is watching everyone from the side, smiling also.          Steve approaches.                         STEVE          Thanks a lot for bringing me.                         ANNIE          Thanks for coming with me.          Megan appears on her other side.                         MEGAN          Yeah, thanks for bringing him.                                                                                                              135.          Megan winks at Steve, he grabs her hand and they go to          dance.          Annie is alone, watching everybody. We see the wedding as          a whole. It's a beautiful event. Colored lanterns,          twinkly lights, food everywhere. Simple, fun...very          Lillian.          EXT. RECEPTION. LATER          Annie and Lillian walking out of the reception.                         LILLIAN          So when does school start?                         ANNIE          A week. I'm scared. I'm gonna be the          oldest one there.                         LILLIAN          So what? Now you can have an affair with          your teacher and it won't be gross.          They walk down the steps.                         LILLIAN (CONT'D)          Thanks for everything today. Yo've been          the best Maid of Honor ever.                         ANNIE          Really?                         LILLIAN          (kidding) MMM. No. That's not true at          all. You were pretty terrible. Today you          were good.          Annie sees the hotel shuttle.                         ANNIE          Oh, I want to catch this shuttle back to          the hotel.                         LILLIAN          You're always gonna be my best friend.          They hug goodbye. She runs down the stairs.                         ANNIE          I will see YOU in a couple weeks Mrs.          Price!                                                                                                              136.          Lillian waves goodbye and turns to go back inside. Annie          runs towards the shuttle.          She's too late. The shuttle drives away without her. She          JUST missed it.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          Wait! Wait! Stop! Great. Of course.          The shuttle is gone, but there's something that was on          the other side of it.          RHODES (O.C.)          Need a ride ma'am?          It's Rhodes, leaning against his car like Jake in sixteen          candles. Annie is all smiles and walks up to him.                         ANNIE          How did you know I was here?                         RHODES          It was really complicated. I remembered          the name of this place, I called them up,          told them I was a cop calling on official          police business, doing a very big          investigation and uh, made them tell me          all the weddings they had planned for the          next two months with a bride named          Lillian. [ALT: I'm a cop]          Annie smiles.                         ANNIE          Wow.          They're looking at each other, not knowing what to do.          ANNIE (CONT'D)          So, did you get the moonpies?                         RHODES          Yes I did.                         ANNIE          Did you like' em?                         RHODES          Yeah. No. I couldn't eat them. They were          completely covered in ants.                         ANNIE          Ooo, I didn't think about that.                                                                                                              137.                         RHODES          You probably should have put it in a          plastic wrap or maybe a foil or          something. Tupperware would've worked but          then I'd have to get it back to you-I'm          gonna kiss you right now so...          He walks to her and takes her in his arms. They are about          to kiss.          Rhodes stops.          RHODES (CONT'D (CONT'D)          I didn't want to miss my chance again.                         ANNIE                         (SMILING)          Me neither.          They MAKE OUT.          The end.                         ALT ENDING          Annie is walking back to her hotel. A cop car pulls up          next to her.          RHODES (O.C.)          Need a ride ma'am?          She turns to see Rhodes driving slowly next to her.                         ANNIE          How did you know I was here?                         RHODES          I'm a cop.          They're looking at each other, not knowing what to do.                         ANNIE          So, did you get the moonpies?                         RHODES          Yes I did.                         ANNIE          Did you like' em?                         RHODES          Yeah. No. I couldn't eat them. They were          completely covered in ants.                                                                                                              138.                         ANNIE          Ooo, I didn't think about that.                         RHODES          The real reason I came here today is that          I have something that belongs to you.          He opens his hand to reveal the ugly carrot. She smiles.          He stops the car and unlocks the passenger door. She gets          in. They drive off into the sunset.                                                                                                                              
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+BRINGING OUT THE DEAD First draft (11/7/97) Paul Schrader From the novel by Joseph Connelly After World War One it was called Shell Shock. After World War Two it was called Battle Fatigue. After Vietnam it was called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Frank Pierce, 28, drives an EMS vehicle for Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, New York City. He has been a paramedic for five years. EXT. NEW YORK STREETS--NIGHT An EMS "bus" careens around a corner, tires squealing, lights flashing, siren whoop-whooping, swooping through Stygian canyons of New York. FRANK PIERCE, 28, drives. He wears dark cargo pants, black boots, a white shirt with the paramedic badge, "EMS" gold logo on one collar, "OLM" on the other. "Our Lady of Mercy Paramedic" is inscribed in white across the back of his navy jacket. On his belt: two-way radio, leather gloves, beeper, drug kit, multi-purpose tool kit, mini-flashlight, collapsible baton. LARRY, 35, overweight, his partner for the night, rides techie (shotgun), both hands clutching the dash. Frank scans the blurring cityscape for hidden danger. He is a young man of slight frame and open face--his life, his possible futures, still before him: behind those open eyes, beneath those dark shadows: hollowness beckons. Dispatcher's voice crackles through the cab static: "Ladder 4, respond to a 10-22, four flight residential, 417 East 32. 13 Boy, men's room Grand Central, man set his pants on fire. Bad burns. 17 David, at 177 East 24, there's a woman who says a roach crawled in her ear. Can't get it out, says she's going into cardiac arrest ..." Frank's detached voice speaks over the urban landscape: FRANK (V.O.) Thursday started out with a bang: a gunshot to the chest on a drug deal gone bad. Heat, humidity, moonlight-- all the elements in place for a long weekend. I was good at my job: there were periods when my hands moved with a speed and skill beyond me and my mind worked with a cool authority I had never known. But in the last year I had started to lose that control. Things had turned bad. I hadn't saved anyone for months. I just needed a few slow nights, a week without tragedy followed by a couple of days off. The radio continues: "Zebra, 13Z, 524 East 17--" LARRY (on radio) We're there. The ambulance breaks to a halt in front of a row of vintage walk-ups. Frank and Larry jump out: Frank lugs the EKG monitor and airway bag, Larry the drug box, yellow oxygen pack slung over his shoulder. Neighbors crowd around. OLD WOMAN Which apartment? Which apartment? FRANK Move back. Where's the stairs? 5A. OLD WOMAN Oh Jesus, it's Mr. Burke. The front door opens, a young boy holding it. Author's note: in emergency situations, either on the street or in the hospital, it is assumed there is continual background noise--voices, sirens, cries, questions, etc. CUT TO: INT. TENEMENT STAIRWELL--NIGHT Four flights up: Frank and Larry climbing rotting steps, gray-yellow painted walls, red doors with three locks each, Larry, out of breath, his stomach rolling around like a bowling ball in a bag. CUT TO: INT. BURKE APARTMENT--NIGHT They enter 5A. MRS. BURKE, 55, her eyes run dry, standing in the center of the room, surrounded by neighbors. Someone leads them to the BEDROOM where Mr. Burke, 60, lies unmoving, stretched on the bed. A young woman, MARY BURKE, 24, kneels over the old man, pressing her lips to his flaccid mouth. JOHN BURKE, 30, grabs Franks arm: JOHN We were just watching TV and Dad yelled out and started punching his chest, next thing he locked himself in the bathroom. I said we were gonna call you guys and he said not to. He was crying, I never heard him crying before, then he sorta stopped. We pulled him out and put him on the bed. Frank and Larry moving the body to the floor: FRANK How long ago did he stop breathing? JOHN Maybe ten minutes. Woman on the phone tried to tell us how to do CPR. Please, you gotta do something. FRANK We'll do all we can. Larry ripping open Mr. Burke's shirt, prepping electrode patches, hooking wires, Frank opening Burke's mouth, feeling a puff of gas escape; Larry calling for backup. Burke's EKG rhythm on the monitor a flat green line. Frank's training takes over: he injects the long steel laryngoscope down Burke's throat, he finds a vein, injects epinephrine, followed by atrophine, followed by another epi: no response on the monitor. Larry pulls out the paddles: FRANK (CONT'D) Clear! Clear! Larry activates defibrillator, shock--Burke's body heaves. Sweat drips from Larry's nose onto Burke's chest. MARY No more, please don't! They shock him again. This time the body moves less. Frank glances up: Mr. and Mrs. Burke's wedding photo sits on the nightstand. Other pictures: a day at the beach, a young serviceman, happy parents. Frank's mind drifts: FRANK (V.O.) In the last year I had come to believe in such things as spirits leaving the body and not wanting to be put back, spirits angry at the awkward places death had left them. I understood how crazy it was to think this way, but I was convinced if I turned around, I'd see Old Man Burke standing at the window, watching, waiting for us to finish. Frank feels Burke's heart beneath cracked ribs. The EEG remains flat. He's dead. It's time to quit. FRANK (CONT'D) (to Larry) I'll take over. Call ER and ask for an eighty-three. (to Mrs. Burke) Sorry. Larry stands, breathing heavy, looks for a phone. Frank turns to notice relatives and neighbors standing around. FRANK (CONT'D) Do you have any music? MARY What? FRANK Music. I think it helps if you play something he liked. MARY John, play the Sinatra. John enters crying. Mary repeats softly: MARY Play the Sinatra. John exits. Frank notices Mary for the first time: blond hair dyed black, cut short, loose fitting tank dress, black makeup running down her cheeks. He notices her prom picture, glances back to Mary: it seems she hasn't smiled since that day eight years before. Something special about her, that something that hits you right away. "September of My Years" plays from the other room. Frank continues massaging Mr. Burke's chest (now to Sinatra beat), even though it's hopeless. Larry returns: LARRY It's OK, Frank. We can call it. Eighty- three. Frank feels something strange, looks into Burke's pupils, checks his neck pulse, wrist pulse. His eyes go to Larry: FRANK No we can't. He's got a pulse. LARRY No shit. Larry checks the monitor: the green line up and down. Mary senses a change in status: MARY Is he going to be alright? FRANK (not encouraging) His heart's beating. A distant siren signals the arrival of backup. Frank turns to Larry: FRANK (CONT'D) Have 'em bring up a stretcher. He looks from Mary back to Mr. Burke--breathing but comatose. CUT TO: INT. AMBULANCE--NIGHT Larry climbing through the back doors, sitting in the jumpseat at the stretcher's head as Frank hangs IV bags, replugs EKG wires that have come loose. Frank looks up, sees Mary entering; he takes her arm, turns her toward the rear doors: FRANK Help your family. Ride with your mother and brother. (she hesitates) Help your family. They need you more. Help yourself. Mary steps out, stands in the red flashing light as Larry closes the door, Frank climbs in the driver's seat. CUT TO: EXT. SECOND AVENUE--NIGHT The EMS bus cruises up Second. Frank checks the side mirror: John, Mary and Mrs. Burke pull behind in a black Ford. Seeing their faces, Frank flips the lights and siren on. It's too late to help Mr. Burke, but it's important to the family that it look urgent. Frank watches passing lights, cars, faces: FRANK (V.O.) I needed to concentrate because my mind tended to wander on these short trips. It was the neighborhood I grew up in and where I had worked most as a paramedic, and it held more ghosts per square foot than any other. CUT TO: EXT. OUR LADY OF MERCY--NIGHT Larry and Frank's 13 Zebra ambulance lined up beside two others outside a blazing "Emergency" sign on the crowded side street. CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT Every large city has a hospital Emergency Room so replete with trauma, violence and suffering it picks up the sobriquet "Knife and Gun Club." On Manhattan's Lower East Side it's our Lady Of Mercy, aka, Our Lady of Misery. ER: a white-lit cement box painted yellow and decorated with old framed Playbills. Four rows of six plastic chairs face a TV bolted and chained to the ceiling. The seats are filled with backed-up drunks, assault victims and "regulars," bleeding and spilling over against the walls and the floor, getting up to ask their status or going out to throw up and have a smoke. Larry and Frank wheeling Burke in, two IV lines, each connected to an elbow, tangled in EKG cables. Two LACERATED RUSSIANS scramble out of their way as they approach GRISS, the large black sunglassed security guard. He looks up from his television guide: GRISS Hey partner. Your man does not look well. They're not gonna appreciate you inside. FRANK (pumping Ambu-bag) Griss, let us in. GRISS Things are backing up. Griss pushes a button, activating the automatic door, striking the bandaged leg of a man lying down on a stretcher in the hall. Larry and Frank wheel Burke inside. A pleading family tries to follow. Griss stretches out his hand: GRISS (CONT'D) You can't go in there, folks. Mary, John and Mrs. Burke rush in from the street, hoping some miracle has occurred during the drive to the hospital, approach the sign-in desk. Frank and Larry pass four stretchers lined against the wall-- a passage nicknamed "Skid Row" leading past triage NURSE CONSTANCE's station. NURSE CONSTANCE Just keep moving. Don't even slow down. Nurse Constance turns back to the nervous man seated beside her: NURSE CONSTANCE (CONT'D) Sir, you say you've been snorting cocaine for three days and now you feel your heart is beating too fast and you would like us to help you. To tell the truth, I don't see why I should. If I'm mistaken, correct me. Did we sell you the cocaine? Did we push it up your nose? Larry and Frank slow at the last Skid Row stretchers. On one, NOEL, a young dark-skinned man with chaotic mess of dreadlocks, pulls feverishly at his restraints: NOEL For God's sake, give me some water. From the next stretcher a man with feet swollen purple like prize eggplants replies: BIG FEET Shut up! Goddamn civilians. NOEL Give me some water! NURSE CRUPP stops Frank and Larry as they approach the Critical care room. inside, the staff appears as if under siege by a battalion of shriveled men and women lying on a field of white sheets. NURSE CRUPP Don't take another step. We're on diversion. Can't accept any more patients. Your dispatcher should have told you. FRANK We got him at Eighteen and Second. You're closest. NURSE CRUPP Where will I put him, Frank? Look. Tell me. FRANK He wanted to come here. Said the nurses at Misery were the best. NURSE CRUPP (acquiesces) All right, give me a minute. I'll kick someone out of slot three. Larry unravels himself from the IV lines as nurse walks over, takes Burke's pulse. NOEL (to Frank) Excuse me. You are a very kind man. I can see that. A man like you could not refuse a poor sick dying helpless man a small cup of water. FRANK I can't. I have to stay with my patient. BIG FEET Shut the fuck up! If it wasn't for these dun feet I'd get up and kick your ass! DR. HAZMAT, 30, steps over. HAZMAT Godammit, guys, what are you doing to me? We're all backed up in here. Christ, would you look at him? He's gonna need the works. What's wrong with him? LARRY You should know. You pronounced him. HAZMAT You told me he was dead. Flatline. FRANK He got better. HAZMAT I hate pronouncing people dead over the phone. (flashes light in Burke's eyes) Better, huh? They're fixed and dilated. He's plant food. NURSE CRUPP (returning) We stole a stretcher from X-ray. No pad on it, but I don't think he'll mind. Put him in three, next to the overdose. HAZMAT He's our lowest priority now. He shouldn't even be here. All this technology. What a waste. Back at SECURITY, the Burkes confront Griss. GRISS Please folks, step back. (they hesitate) Don't make me take off my sunglasses. In CRITICAL CARE, Larry wheels Burke into unit three as Dr. Hazmat turns Frank to face the room, explaining: HAZMAT First-time heart attack, age 45. Should have gone to the CCU ten hours ago. There's three bodies up there Mike the one you just brought in. over there, two AIDS patients, one in twelve filling up with liquid. I'm gonna hafta intubate because the kid's mother won't sign the Do Not Resuscitate. Mercy killing doesn't translate well in Spanish. It's a sin to tube this kid. Three more ODs from some new killer junk. They call it Red Death. Hazmat pulls out a vial marked with a red skull and crossbones, shows it to Frank. NOEL Water, water, water, doctor man, water. HAZMAT A mix of heroin and I don't know what else, some kind of amino acid maybe. Stuff so strong they're drinking it with grain alcohol. You have to use ten times the usual amount of Narcan and watch out when they wake up, liable to go nuts on you. FRANK (about Noel) He one of them? HAZMAT No, that's Noel. Used to be a regular off and on, hasn't been in in a while. He seized and almost coded--I gave him a hypertonic solution. He drank so much the kidneys were taking out salt. One for the textbooks. NOEL Oh doctor, you are the greatest. You must help me. BIG FEET For God's sake, give him a drink of water. HAZMAT I am helping you, Noel. You could die if you drink more water. Nurse Crupp pulls on Hazmat's arm. HAZMAT (CONT'D) What is it? She points to Burke. His monitor is ringing like a fire alarm. Hazmat and Crupp rush over, wave to others: HAZMAT (CONT'D) Crupp, start CPR. Milagros, get me an epi. Odette wake up Dr. Stark. Tell him I need a blood gas, stat. As the staff crowds around Burke, pulling the paddles from off the monitor, Frank, pushing his stretcher away, notices Big Feet climb onto his infected feet, hobble over, work to untie Noel. NOEL Bless you sir, bless you. BIG FEET Shut up. Frank heads down Skid Row pushing the stretcher, passing Nurse Constance speaking with a man with a gash over his eye: NURSE CONSTANCE ... so you get drunk every day and you fall down. Tell me why we should help you when you're going to get drunk tomorrow and fall down again? Frank pushes the automatic door button--and is suddenly hit from behind by Noel. The stretcher spins sideways. Noel dives out the doors for the water fountain, snorting up water like a bull. Mary Burke, standing with her family, looks at Frank. FRANK (stock reply) He's very very sick. MARY I know him. That's Noel. FRANK We'd better go outside. Quickly. Frank and Mary step out into the humid night. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT Checking behind then, Frank stops. Mary pauses before she speaks: MARY Is there any chance? FRANK (shakes head) I guess there's always a chance. The doors break open. Noel comes flying out, bounces on the sidewalk. Griss, in the doorway, closes the doors. Mary goes over to Noel: MARY Noel, Noel, it's me, Mary. From 17th Street. NOEL Mary, Mary, Mary. I'm so thirsty. They won't give me anything to drink. Please, Mary. MARY (heading inside) I'll get you some. Frank watches: Mary returns with a cup of water, gives it to a grateful Noel. FRANK I wouldn't do that. (Noel drinks) The doctor seems to think he's suffering from some rare disorder. MARY It's not so rare. He grew up on our street. He's had a rough life and he's a little crazy from it, but that's no excuse for not giving someone a lousy cup of water. Mary starts to cry. Frank fumbles in his pocket, finds a tissue, gives it to her. MARY (CONT'D) My father's dying, Noel. NOEL Oh Mary, Mary, Mary. Noel hugs her clumsily, his shoulders bobbing. Frank watches, realizing this is what he should have done for her. CUT TO: EXT. EAST SIDE STREETS--NIGHT 13 Zebra cruising down Avenue C, Frank at the wheel, Larry shotgun. LARRY The Chinese close in five minutes. Beef lo mein. It's been on my mind since I woke. Whatjathink? FRANK I think the moment that food hits your mouth we'll get a job. LARRY Turn here. You missed it. The Chink is on 3rd. Franks turns, gets jammed up behind a pimp car at Second and Avenue B, a corner populated by pushers and hookers. TWO WHORES stand in front of an abandoned building. Frank turns to look. WHORE #1 Hey ambulance man. What you looking at? The second whore, wearing a yellow vinyl coat, turns. She has a face that instantly freezes Frank: the Rose face. Pregnant, she gestures to her belly: WHORE #2 Pretty soon you'll be coming for me. LARRY Some partner you are Frank. I coulda walked there faster. I'm starving and you stop to talk to hookers. You're making me nuts. Is that what you're trying to do, drag me down with you to nutsville? Frank hits the whoop-whoop siren. The pimps in the black BMW jump, look back, realize its only an ambulance, and pull away. LARRY (CONT'D) (slams dashboard) Oh no!--I just remembered. FRANK What? LARRY I'm so stupid. I had beef lo mein last night. I can't eat the same thing two nights in a row. It's almost two o'clock, what the hell am I gonna do? What you getting? FRANK I'm not hungry. LARRY Oh yeah, you don't eat food. FRANK I eat. I just haven't had coffee yet. LARRY Coffee and whiskey, lucky you ain't dead with that diet. Wait, I've got it. Half fried chicken with fries. Let's go, hurry up. Come on. Frank speeds up Avenue B. Noel, wearing generic homeless combat fatigues, muttering to his friends in Hell, passes on the sidewalk. Frank notices another hooker, catches her face: the same face as the pregnant Whore #2. The Rose face. His mind drifts: FRANK (V.O.) Rose was getting closer. Ever since the call a month before, when I'd lost her, she seemed like all the girls in the neighborhood. One of the first things you learn is to avoid bad memories. I used to be an expert, but lately I'd found some holes. Anything could trigger it. The last month belonged to Rose, but there were a hundred more ready to come out. CUT TO: EXT. CHICKEN TAKE-OUT--NIGHT The EMS vehicle is stopped at a fast food joint. Larry orders, waits. FRANK (V.O.) These spirits were part of the job. It was impossible to pass a building that didn't bold the spirit of something: the eyes of a corpse, the screams of a loved one. All bodies leave their mark. You cannot be near the new dead without feeling it. Larry gets his chicken, chats with counter clerk, returns. FRANK (V.O.) (CONT'D) I could handle that. What haunted me now was more savage: spirits born half-finished, homicides, suicides, overdoses, innocent or not, accusing me of being there, witnessing a humiliation which they could never forgive. Larry climbs in, sets his take-out on the dash, hands Frank a coffee. A police walkie-talkie is in the front tray. LARRY Turn it off. FRANK What? LARRY You know what. The radio. POLICE DISPATCH Ladder Four, respond to a 10-22 four flight residential, 317 East 32nd. LARRY Let's do it. It might be a good one. FRANK You wanted it turned off. There's no such thing as a good fire. People get burned up. They can't breathe. LARRY That's what we're here for. Come on, Frank. FRANK Don't push it, Larry. LARRY You're burned out. RADIO DISPATCHER One-three Zebra. Zebra three, I need you. LARRY You see, he's giving it to us anyway. RADIO DISPATCHER Zebra, are you there? I'm holding an unconscious at First and St. Marks. LARRY (screams) No! It's three o'clock. That can only mean one thing. FRANK Mr. Oh. LARRY It's Mr. Oh. I'm not answering it. RADIO DISPATCHER Answer the radio Zebra. You know it's that time. LARRY Four times this week I've had him. Aren't there any other units out there? Don't answer the radio. They'll give it to someone else. RADIO DISPATCHER Thirteen Zebra. One-Three Zebra. You're going out of service in two seconds. Pause. Neither moves. LARRY Look, Frank, when I say don't answer it, that means answer it. (picks up the mike) You can do that for me at least. (keys mike) Three Zebra. RADIO DISPATCHER Yes, Zebra. You'll be driving to the man who needs no introduction, chronic caller of the year three straight and shooting for number four. The duke of drunk, the king of stink, our most frequent flier, Mr. Oh. LARRY Ten-four. (Frank starts the engine) Don't go. Not this time. FRANK (driving off) Relax, it's a street job, easy except for the smell. We'll just throw him in back and zip over to Mercy--no blood, no dying, that's how I look at it. He's just a drunk. LARRY It's not our job to taxi drunks around. FRANK They'll just keep calling. LARRY Someone's gonna die someday causa that bum, going to have a cardiac and the only medics will be taking care of Mr. Oh. CUT TO: EXT. FIRST & ST. MARKS--NIGHT Frank and Larry standing over Mr. Oh, 40, surrounded by street people. Oh lays curled up beside his wheelchair, wearing a black garbage bag with holes cut out for his arms, his pants around his knees. MALE STREET PERSON #1 He's bad mister. He ain't eaten nuthin all day, he's seizing and throwing up. LARRY (hand over nose) So what's different? MALE STREET PERSON #1 He says his feet hurt. FRANK Well why didn't you say so? LARRY He's drunk. MALE STREET PERSON #2 He's sick. You gotta help him. LARRY He's fine. He can walk to the hospital. FEMALE STREET PERSON Walk? You crazy? He's in a wheelchair. LARRY Don't start that. I've seen him walk. He walks better than me. Frank crouches over Oh, tries to pull Oh's pants over his white, dirt-stained ass. Oh moans: MR. OH Oh, oh, oh. LARRY That's him, Mr. Oh. (pulls at his arm) Get up. Larry and Frank get Oh to his feet only to have him stumble over his lowered trousers. This time Frank lifts him, sets his white ass cheeks into the wheelchair. They push him toward the ambulance. CROWD Good luck! Get better! CUT TO: EXT. FIRST AVE--NIGHT 13 Zebra heads up First, double Caduceus symbols shining from the back of the van. Inside the cab, Larry and Frank lean out the front windows to avoid the king of stink: LARRY Faster! God! FRANK (flips on top lights) Faster! CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT Griss holding up his hand: GRISS Get that stinky-assed motherfucking bug-ridden skell out of my face. Frank and Larry stand beside Oh slumped in his wheelchair. Fellow drunks welcome their comrade from plastic chairs. Nurse Constance escorts a young man from the triage area: NURSE CONSTANCE I would have to register you to give you something to eat and my conscience just will not allow that. Griss, the gentleman wants to leave. (looks at Oh) He looks pale. You're not eating enough. You need more fiber. Griss shows young man the door. LARRY (holds up his report) He's wasted. That's my diagnosis: shit-faced. NURSE CONSTANCE He just needs a bath and some food. Take him in back and see if you can find a stretcher. LARRY (to Frank) She's nuts. That's why he comes here. She encourages him. Griss returns as Crupp calls from critical care area: NURSE CRUPP Don't you dare! That's my last stretcher. This is not a homeless shelter. He'll have to wait in the lobby. GRISS No way man. Not even in the corner. Griss cannot abide the funk tonight. Larry and Frank turn, secretly pleased, and wheel Mr. Oh outside. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT Larry setting Oh outside the entrance, heading towards the all night deli. Frank takes out a cigarette. Mary Burke walks up the drive opening a pack of cigs. Frank offers her a light. She inhales, exhales: MARY It's my first cigarette in over a year. FRANK The first is always the best. MARY It's the waiting that's killing me, not knowing, you know? It's really hard on my mother. The doctor doesn't think my father'll make it. He says he was dead too long, after six minutes the brain starts to die and once that goes, close the door. FRANK You never know. MARY I mean if he was dead, I could handle that. FRANK At least he's got people around him. MARY I'm not so sure. My father and I haven't spoken in three years. When my brother called to say my father was having a heart attack, that he'd locked himself in the bathroom, all the way going over I was thinking how I was gonna tell him what a bastard he was. Then when I got up the stairs and we moved him onto the bed, I thought of all these other things I wanted to say. FRANK Even when you say the things, there's always more things. MARY Right now, I'm more worried about my mother than anything. They won't let her see my father. FRANK Go home. Take her home. Get some rest. Not going to find anything out now. MARY That's what I told her. If she could just see him a second, then I could take her home. Larry walks back with a coffee for himself and a brown bag beer for Frank. LARRY Time to switch. I wheel, you heal. CUT TO: EXT. LOWER EAST SIDE--NIGHT 4:00am. The EMS vehicle drives downtown. The city has transformed: a deserted city, inhabited by the hardcore: hardcore night-shift employees, hardcore party-goers, hardcore druggies, hardcore homeless, people with something special to do or nowhere to go. RADIO DISPATCHER 12 David on the corner of Thirty- eight and Two you'll find a three- car accident, two taxis and a taxi. One-two Henry, 427 East Two-two, report of a very bad smell. No further information ... Larry driving at a good clip, riding both the gas and the break pedals, enjoying the newfound freedom of movement. FRANK Larry, swing over on Eighth. We're gonna hafta run one of these calls. LARRY Relax, will you. Frank places both hands on the dash as Larry squeals around a corner. FRANK (V.O.) The biggest problem with not driving is that whenever there's a patient in back you're also in the back. The doors close, you're trapped. Four in the morning is always the worst time for me, just before dawn, just when you've been lulled into thinking it might be safe to close your eyes for one minute. That's when I first found Rose ... Larry slows down on a side street. Frank turns to watch a homeless man. The man looks back: it's Rose. The Rose face. FRANK (V.O.) (CONT'D) She was on the sidewalk, not breathing. Frank turns to Larry: FRANK (CONT'D) I'm not feeling very well, Larry. I say we go back to the hospital and call it a night. LARRY You have no sick time, Frank. No time of any kind. Everyone knows that. FRANK Take me back, put me to bed; I surrender. We've done enough damage tonight. LARRY You take things too seriously. Look at us, we're cruising around, talking, taking some quiet time, getting paid for it. We've got a good job here. FRANK Yeah, you're right. Larry pulls into the Jacob Riis projects by the river, slows to a stop. Larry cuts the lights, not bothering to inform his partner what his partner already knows: they're taking a rest. CUT TO: EXT. RIIS PROJECTS--NIGHT 13 Zebra sits in the quiet dark. Larry puffs a cigarette. FRANK Tell me, you ever think of doing anything else? LARRY Sure, I'm taking the captain's exam next year. After the kids are in school, Louise can go back to the post office and, I thought, what the hell, I'll start my own medic service. Out on the Island the volunteers are becoming salaried municipal. It's just a matter of time and who you know. Someday it's going to be Chief Larry calling the shots. Larry tosses the cigarette out the window, leans against the door jab, closes his eyes. In a second he's asleep. Frank turns down the radio volume: the calls are fewer and further between now. Frank leans back, tries to rest: FRANK (V.O.) I'd always had nightmares, but now the ghosts didn't wait for me to sleep. I drank every day. Help others and you help yourself, that was my motto, but I hadn't saved anyone in months. It seemed all my patients were dying. I'd waited, sure the sickness would break, tomorrow night, the next call, the feeling would drop away. More than anything else I wanted to sleep like that, close my eyes and drift away ... TIMECUT: radio wakes Frank from his reverie. RADIO DISPATCHER Zebra. One-three Zebra. (Frank opens eyes) Zebra, answer the radio. Come on, I've got one for you. Pick up the radio and push the button on the side and speak into the front. FRANK (answering call) Zebra. RADIO DISPATCHER Male bleeding, corner of Houston and One. No further information. FRANK Ten-four. Frank hangs up, bangs Larry's steering wheel: FRANK (CONT'D) We have a call Chief. Somebody's bleeding, Houston and First. Larry instinctively reaches for the ignition key, starts the engine, drops the ambulance into gear, hits lights, jerks the EMS bus away, still half asleep. CUT TO: EXT. HOUSTON & FIRST--NIGHT 13 Zebra coming to a bone jarring stop at the corner. Getting out of the techie seat, Frank sees Noel, his face bloody, charging at him. NOEL Kill me! Noel has sliced up a tire and fastened the pieces with string over his shoulders. Tin cans circle his wrists and ankles. One hand carries a broken bottle, the other a stringless violin. Frank jumps back inside as Noel rams the window, leaving stains from his blood-matted dreadlocks. Larry calls for backup: medics, police, firemen, anybody. The side window glass bends as Noel rams his head against it. Frank reaches for the short club between the seats; Noel holds the jagged bottle to his neck. FRANK Noel, don't! Noel drops the bottle. Frank rolls down the window. LARRY He's crazy. FRANK You really think so? NOEL See, I can't do it. I came out of the desert. FRANK You came out of the hospital. You were tied down and hallucinating. You got some bad chemicals in your head, Noel. There's some medicine at the hospital that will fix that. NOEL No, no medicine! Noel swings his bloody dreadlocks: Frank ducking, getting splattered anyway, rolling up the window. LARRY He got you. A BLACK PUNK calls from the crowd: BLACK PUNK Do it! Man wants to die. Take him out! I know how to kill that mother. (points a finger) Pop, pop. Noel, spraying blood, chases the Punk. The crowd scatters. Noel trips, falls to the sidewalk. Frank, carrying the short bat, gets out, walks over, hunches beside Noel: FRANK Noel, you didn't let me finish. We have rules against killing people on the street. Looks bad, but there's a special room at the hospital for terminating. A nice quiet room with a big bed. NOEL Oh man, do you mean that? (smiles) Thank you man, thank you. How? FRANK Well, you have your choice: pills, injection, gas. A siren draws closer, Noel gets to his feet as Larry opens the rear doors. NOEL I think pills. Yes, pills, definitely. A second ambulance skids to a stop. TOM WALLS, 35, a 220 pound bald-headed bruiser, gets out. LARRY Jesus, Tom Walls, that crazy motherfucker. FRANK Used to be my partner. WALLS Frank, this the guy you called about? I know him. (pushes Noel) You give my friend here any trouble and I'll kill you. NOEL Yes, at the hospital. WALLS This looks like a very bad man I took in a couple weeks ago, a man who'd been holding two priests hostage with a screwdriver. I told him if I ever caught him making trouble again I'd kick the murdering life outta him. FRANK It's not worth it, Tom. He's surrendering. WALLS No prisoners. Don't worry, Frank, just a little psychological first aid. Walls hauls back, swings at Noel; Noel ducks. WALLS (CONT'D) Stay still, dammit! Walls throws Noel against the bus, knocks him down, sets to kicking him. FRANK Don't do it, Tom! Noel moans. Larry sticks his head out the back of the bus: LARRY There's a double shooting three blocks- up. First and Third. confirmed. WALLS (looking up) We'll do it. Walls releasing Noel as Noel scrambles into the bus, Frank stepping over him, Larry climbing into the driver's seat, Frank closing the doors. Noel trembles: NOEL At the hospital. You told me at the hospital. Larry squeals off full gun, all sirens blaring: the Wah, the Yelp, the Super Yelp. Strobe bar, side strobes, quarter panel strobes. Rock n' roll. CUT TO: EXT. FIRST & THIRD--NIGHT Both EMS buses breaking to a stop at the crime scene, cops holding the crowd back; Walls, Frank, Larry, Walls' partner moving through the crowd. FRANK & WALLS EMS. Move it! BYSTANDER Man just walked up and shot 'em. Not a word. Man, that was cold. Two boys, DRUG DEALERS, lie bleeding on the sidewalk. Frank drops to his knees beside one, Walls the other. Larry wheels out the stretcher. FRANK (to Drug Dealer) Where you hit? VOICE IN CROWD Outlaw did this. He works for Cy. Two white vials roll out of the Drug Dealer's shirt: marked with red skull and crossbones. Frank looks over--they're gone, swiped by eager hands. Listening for a heartbeat, Frank calls to Walls: FRANK Major Tom, I'm going to Misery. You take yours to Bellvue. CUT TO: INT. 13 ZEBRA EMS VEHICLE--NIGHT Larry charging through the night while, in back, Frank, stethoscope in his ears, wrapping a tourniquet around the Drug Dealer's arm: he's dying fast. FRANK You're gonna feel a stick in your arm. Don't move. DRUG DEALER I don't want to die. NOEL I want to die. I'm the one. DRUG DEALER Oh Jesus, I don't want to die. FRANK You're not going to die. NOEL What did you say? FRANK (to Noel) Shut up. You're going to die and he's not. Got it. DRUG DEALER (weak) Hold my hand. FRANK I can't. I got to do the other arm. DRUG DEALER Please. FRANK (to Noel) Hold this--right there. If you let go, I swear, I won't kill you. Noel holds IV bag as Frank searches for a vein, inserts second IV needle. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT Larry pulls into Our Lady of Mercy Emergency. Frank says to the boy: FRANK It's all right. We're here. No answer. Frank feels for a pulse, listens with the stethoscope: nothing. Larry opens the doors. LARRY Noel, let's go. Frank turns to his partner: FRANK He's not breathing. Call a code. Larry and Frank pull the dead boy out of the bus. CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT Frank finishes his report, hands a copy to the clerk, looks around the now almost empty waiting area. John Burke sleeps slumped in one of the chairs. Griss stands at his post. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes, Frank steps outside. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT Frank exits, lights up. The sky is going blue. Inside the open rear doors of 13 Zebra, Larry mops up bloody floor. Mary Burke, weary, steps beside Frank. MARY Hello again. He offers a cigarette. She accepts: MARY (CONT'D) You shouldn't smoke. FRANK It's okay. They're prescription. (beat) Works better with a little whiskey. MARY That's my brother's problem. He's passed out inside. Larry jumps theatrically out of the ambulance, swings the mop wildly over his head: LARRY That's it! I can't do it anymore! Mary laughs once, less than a second. She notices blood stains on Frank's shirt: MARY That boy you brought in, he was shot, wasn't he? FRANK Yes. MARY He's dead, huh? FRANK Yes. MARY (pause) I think this place stinks. FRANK Our Lady of Misery. MARY Did you see my father? FRANK No. MARY It's crazy in there. What's wrong with that doctor? He keeps mumbling, poking himself in the eye when he talks to me. FRANK He's working a double shift. MARY Thing is, I'm supposed to be the fuckup. The one on the stretcher in there--that's supposed to be me. With my parents crying out here. I got a lot of guilt, you know what I mean? He does. MARY (CONT'D) My father's in a coma, now my mother's going crazy. It's like she's in a trance. FRANK She should go home. MARY I'd take her, but then who would stay here? Frank looks at her, trying to say the right thing. He notices Mrs. Burke coming from inside. FRANK Here she is. Mrs. Burke, dazed, steps out. They join her. MRS. BURKE It wasn't him. MARY You saw him? MRS. BURKE They showed me someone. It wasn't him. It wasn't my husband. FRANK Mrs. Burke, please, they'll take care of him. You should go home now. MRS. BURKE I should know my own husband. They wouldn't let me see him. She drifts away. Frank speaks to Mary: FRANK Larry and I'll drop her back home. Help me get her to the ambulance. MRS. BURKE You want some coffee? I have some apple sauce cake too. They walk Mrs. Burke to 13 Zebra. MARY Thank you. Mary watches as Larry backs up the EMS vehicle, Frank sitting in the back with her mother, pulls into first light. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. 12TH STREET--EARLY MORNING Larry dropping Frank off at the corner of First and Sixteenth, driving on. It is as if the sun has risen on a different city, different from the one which Frank drove through the night before: a city of crumbling neighborhoods laid bare by sunlight; a city of day people, getting up, having breakfast, going to work. CUT TO: INT. FRANK'S APARTMENT--DAY Frank's studio apartment betrays a minimal existence: single bed, table, fridge and stove, loveseat, bookshelf, television. The bookshelf contains a CD player, medical texts, old schoolbooks ("Romantic Poetry"), paperback novels and, incongruously, a picture book of women's fashion. A framed commendation from the New York Fire Department hangs beside and open closet of work clothes, corduroy jacket, two ties on a hook. Remnants of a fast food breakfast on the table. Aluminum foil covers the windows, blocking out the sunlight. Frank stands bareback at the single open window, smoking, drinking from a glass of whiskey, looking across the gray cityscape of high rises and water tanks: winding down from the night's work: FRANK (V.O.) Saving someone's life is like falling in love, the best drug in the world. For days, sometimes weeks afterwards, you walk the street making infinite whatever you see. Once, for weeks I couldn't feel the earth. Everything I touched became light. Horns played in my shoes; flowers fell from my pockets ... TIME DISSOLVES: Frank paces the room. Pours himself another drink. FRANK (V.O.) (CONT'D) You wonder if you've become immortal, as if you saved your own life as well. What was once criminal and happenstance suddenly makes sense. God has passed through you, why deny it, that for a moment there, God was you. TIME DISSOLVE: window is closed. Frank tosses in his sleep. Nightstand alarm buzzes. Frank sits up, looks at the clock. Stretching his neck, he walks over to the sink, runs water on his hands and face. CUT TO: EXT. EMS GARAGE--NIGHT The maintenance garage and dispatch office adjacent to our Lady of Mercy. CUT TO: INT. EMS GARAGE OFFICE--NIGHT Frank standing on one foot before the desk of CAPTAIN BARNEY, 50, ex-paramedic and lifetime civil servant. FRANK Good morning, Captain. Capt. Barney looks over to MISS WILLIAMS, his secretary, seated at a desk perpendicular to his: CAPT. BARNEY What am I going to to do with this guy? (to Frank) Pierce, I was just on the phone with Borough Command. Out of twelve shifts this month, you've been late for nine, sick four and that includes the shift where you came late and went home early. FRANK I'm sick. That's what I've been telling you. CAPT. BARNEY You're killing me, you know that? You got no sick time according to Command. I've been told to terminate. FRANK It's okay. I'll just get my things out of the locker. CAPT. BARNEY I've never fired anyone in my life. FRANK I'm sorry Captain. Don't take it too hard. CAPT. BARNEY Nobody tells me to fire anyone. I told them: shove it up the big one. (looks at Miss Williams) Sorry. (back to Frank) I said, you want to fire him, come over and do it yourself. FRANK You know they won't do it. It's up to you. You gotta be strong. CAPT. BARNEY I feel for you, but we got an emergency here. It's a weekend of full moons. Everyone's called in sick. Larry, Veeber, Stanley too. We need bodies out there. I had to put Marcus on Twelve Young. You know he's not supposed to work two nights in a row. FRANK You swore you'd fire me if I came in late again. CAPT. BARNEY I'll fire you tomorrow. Hell, better than that, I'll forward you some sick time. A week, two weeks off-- how about that? FRANK I don't think a week's gonna do it. CAPT. BARNEY I'm sorry, Pierce. (hands Frank keys) You're going out with Marcus. Duty calls. The City needs you. CUT TO: EXT. SECOND AVENUE--NIGHT 12 Young heading downtown, lights off, slowing down for cross streets. At the wheel: MARCUS, 45, black, reserved, chin erect, seeming too old for the job. Frank rides techie. MARCUS My Lord mother man, you look like hell. What were you drinking? FRANK The captain almost fired me tonight. I'm on my way out. Anytime now. MARCUS Nobody gets fired. Look at me. Only thing they might do is transfer you to the Bronx. You look like you aged ten years since I rode with you last. FRANK The ghosts-- MARCUS You ever notice people who see shit always, are crazy? FRANK I think the worst is over. MARCUS It can always get worse. You can't change what's out there, only where you're coming from. You got to let the Lord take over, in here. (points to Frank's chest) LOVE, a black, tough-talking female dispatcher, comes on the radio: DISPATCHER LOVE Twelve Young. (beat) Let's go, Twelve Young. Answer the radio. FRANK Hey, Marcus, it's Love. I haven't heard her in months. MARCUS She only works when I'm on. I make her wait and it drives her crazy. FRANK Is it true that you and Love went on a blind date? (Marcus looks away) She hit you with a bottle? MARCUS She loves me the way no woman ever has. DISPATCHER LOVE Twelve Young, I don't have time for your games. Now answer me or do I have to come out there myself? MARCUS I usually don't do calls before coffee. But I think it might do you some good. (picks up mike) Twelve Young is here and I'm gonna take care of you, baby. Don't you worry about a thing, yahear, cause Marcus is alive and on arrival. DISPATCHER LOVE I'm not your baby, Young, I'm not your mother either. You're going to a cardiac arrest, Avenue C and Ninth, northeast corner. It's a club. Take the side entrance. MARCUS Ten-four, hon. (to Frank) This is for you. Marcus flips on the lights and siren. CUT TO: EXT. NINTH & AVENUE C--NIGHT Marcus grabs the yellow airway bag, leaving Frank to lug the three heavier pieces as they push their way through the crowd toward a black jacketed DOORMAN holding a walkie-talkie: MARCUS (to crowd) I hope we're not late from you guys holding us up here. CUT TO: INT. CLUB BACKSTAGE--NIGHT The Doorman leads Frank and Marcus through the smoky graffiti- covered backstage ante-rooms to a cubicle where a knot of club types and band members hover around IB BANGIN, 18 year- old white rapper, face up, blank-eyed and breathless on dirt- impacted carpet. Hip-hop music echoes from the club PA. Frank kneels beside IB Bangin, taking a pulse, realizing it's the gray and black stage makeup making him seem DOA. He pulls up IB Bangin's eyelid, shines a light into the pupil. MARCUS Okay, what happened? DRUMMER He's going to be all right, right? MARCUS No. He's dead. DRUMMER No way, man. MARCUS He's dead and there's nothing we can do. Come on, Frank, that's it. FRANK (whispers) He's not dead. It's a heroin overdose. Break out the Narcon. MARCUS (announcing) He's dead unless you folks want to stop bullshitting me and tell it straight. Then, Lord willing, we'll try to bring him back. BYSTANDER He broke up with his old lady. GIRLFRIEND We didn't break up. We were just seeing other people. MARCUS I'm still waiting and this young man is still dead. BYSTANDER She broke his heart. The Girlfriend shoots a look at the Bystander. Marcus just stands, hands on hips, silent. Frank opens the drug box. The Drummer relents: DRUMMER All right, all right, he's been snorting that Red Death stuff. Been going for four days. MARCUS (brings hands together) What's his name? DRUMMER IB Bangin. MARCUS What'd you mean IB Bangin? What kind of name is IB Bangin? GIRLFRIEND (Hesitant) It's Frederick. Frederick Smith. MARCUS (to body) Okay, Freddy. GIRLFRIEND It's Frederick. MARCUS Okay, IB Bangin, we're gonna bring you back. Every person here grab the hand of the person next to you. Marcus assists them as Frank breaks the cellophane off a syringe, locates a vial of Narcon. Frank gives Marcus the high sign--Marcus raises his hands: MARCUS (CONT'D) Oh Lord, here I am again to ask one more chance for a sinner. Bring back IB Bangin, Lord. You have the power, the might, the super light, to spare this worthless man. Frank injects IB Bangin: he responds to the Narcon with a jolt, opening his eyes, raising his hands. GIRLFRIEND (kneeling) Frederick! BYSTANDER Oh wow, man. Oh wow. IB BANGIN (sick) What happened? GIRLFRIEND You died, you stupid bastard. I warned you. DRUMMER You guys are awesome. FRANK (to IB Bangin) C'mon. Frank and the Girlfriend guide IB Bangin to the door as Marcus collects the gear. MARCUS Not us. The first step is Love. The second is Mercy. He follows Frank, IB Bangin and Girlfriend out, calling for the crowd to clear. CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT IB Bangin sitting with Nurse Constance in triage. Past Griss, Frank talks with Dr. Hazmat: FRANK That guy I brought in yesterday, post-cardiac arrest. He's gone. HAZMAT Burke. You won't believe it. He's showing cognitive signs. He started with spontaneous respiration, now he's fighting to pull out the tube. Had to sedate him. He's in a CAT scan. I'm giving him every test I can: thromboytics, steroids, nitrodrips, heparin. FRANK What do you think? HAZMAT Who knows? It's all lower-brain-stem- activity. The heart refuses to stabilize--he's coded eleven times since he got here. This guy's a fighter. Every time the Valium wears off he starts yanking those restraints. FRANK The family know? HAZMAT I wanted to bring them in, to see if he'd respond to voices, but they weren't in the waiting room. The guy's daughter was in my face all last night and when I finally have something positive to tell her, she's gone. Frank nods, walks down Skid Row, passing Nurse Constance lecturing IB Bangin: NURSE CONSTANCE ... you put poison in your veins and now that you're breathing again you can't wait to say thank you and go back to poison shopping. Well, since we saved your life, maybe you could do us a favor and stop breathing in another city next time ... CUT TO: EXT. FIRST AVE--NIGHT 12 Young heading up the avenue. MARCUS I ever tell you about the time years ago I was on this ledge uptown, trying to talk this psycho inside? FRANK Where the guy jumped and you almost fell. No, you never told me that story. MARCUS No, you never listened. I was going, man, if someone on high hadn't pulled me in. I had put all I had into saving this dumbass lowlife suicidal that when he went down, there was a part of me that wanted to go with him. FRANK Make a left here. I want to stop. CUT TO: EXT. BURKE APT. BUILDING--NIGHT Marcus stops the ambulance on 17th Street. FRANK I'll be right back. Frank gets out, walks over to the intercom, pushes the button for 5A. Mary answers: MARY (V.O.) Yes? FRANK Hello, I'm Frank Pierce, from the ambulance last night. I brought your father into the hospital and I just learned some news. MARY (V.O.) I'll be right down. Mary appears in a white sweater and simple gray skirt like schoolgirls wear. The dark makeup is gone. She looks happy. MARY (CONT'D) He's better, isn't he? FRANK Well, the doctor says he's showing some movement. It's still early, it might mean nothing, but I thought you'd want to know. MARY I knew. I sensed it when I heard your voice. FRANK You look so different. MARY I know. It's awful, isn't it? Night of the Living Cheerleaders. FRANK I think it looks good. MARY I was going nuts in that waiting room so I came back to check on my mom. FRANK How is she? MARY Sleeping. FRANK I was just going to get some food. Pizza. Maybe we could. MARY You can't kill my father that easy. He'll fight forever. Like with me: hasn't talked to me in three years. But it's okay. Sometimes you have to put things behind you. Mary steps to the curb, raises her hand for a taxi. None in sight. FRANK Be tough to get a taxi here. We can give you a ride if you like. MARY (looks at him) Okay. Frank opens the back doors of the bus, climbs in behind Mary. They sit on the bench opposite the stretcher. MARCUS Who's that? FRANK She's the daughter of a cardiac arrest I brought in last night. I told her we'd give her a ride back to Misery. Her father's showing signs of improving. MARCUS Oh, Frank, you've got it bad, so much worse than I thought. FRANK I'm hungry too. We gotta get some food after this. MARCUS God help us, he's hungry too. Marcus turns on the radio, an old song from the sixties, as they head uptown. CUT TO: INT. MERCY CRITICAL CARE--NIGHT Frank and Mary walking past the triage station toward the curtained corner where her father lies. Next to Burke, Dr. Hazmat assists an AIDS patient amid a forest of IV tubing. Mr. Burke lies prone, two IV lines hung from poles, intubated by a hose running to the ventilator, a NG tube covering his nose. His eyes are permanently half open. Burke's hands and feet are tied by white nylon restraints. Mary takes her father's hand as Frank pulls the curtain. MARY Dad, can you hear me? (beat) Open your eyes if you can hear me. A nearby patient SCREAMS. Mary Burke SCREAMS too: MARY (CONT'D) He squeezed my hand! Dr. Hazmat and MILAGROS, an intern, walk over. MARY (CONT'D) He's moving, Doctor. He grabbed my hand. Move your hand, Dad, one more time. (Burke's hand twitches)) See. See. HAZMAT I'll be damned. (check's Burke's pupils) It's movement, but I'm not sure how voluntary. MARY He hears me. Open your eyes, Dad. Burke's eyes fully open. His cheeks ripple and his lips smack against the tube between them. His back arches, his body shakes, his arms yank at their restraints as if reaching to pull out the wires and tubes. Green lights dance across the EKG screen, ALARMS sound: first the cardiac monitor, next the ventilator. HAZMAT Nurse Crupp, I need ten milligrams of Valium. Hazmat and Milagros hold down Burke's arms as Crupp prepares the Valium. Mary backs away. FRANK Why don't we go outside for a little while, wait until this passes. They step away. CUT TO: INT. LOCKER ROOM--NIGHT Passing Griss (reading anti-white agitprop) and waiting room regulars, Frank leads Mary to a small rectangular paramedic locker area: sofa, desk, two banks of gray lockers, walls decorated with hospital rules and regulations. FRANK He wants to pull that tube out. It's pretty painful--that's why they keep him sedated--but it's a good sign. MARY You sure? I know my father would hate to be tied down. He wouldn't even go to the dentist. He sits across from her, wishing he could be in three seats at once, each to watch her from a different angle. FRANK That's how it's done. You have to keep the body going until the brain and heart recover enough to go on their own. MARY He's better, though, right? FRANK (reluctant) He's better. MARY Look, I'm sorry, but it's important to me. I mean, a week ago I was wishing he was dead. And now I want hear his voice again, just once more-- you know what I mean? Marcus enters with a small pizza and two cokes. MARCUS Went over to Sal's got this. There must be some place in Hell for a guy who sells a dollar-fifty a slice. I call you if anything comes up. FRANK Thanks. Marcus exits. MARY I'm not really hungry. She says as she picks up a slice of cheese pizza. MARY (CONT'D) My father was a great man, you know. There was nobody he wouldn't help. You know that crazy guy Noel who I gave water to last night? He lived in our house for almost a year. A total stranger he'd do anything for, his own family though ... FRANK It's best not to ... (off her look) It's good pizza, huh? MARY Not as good as Nino's. FRANK You remember that pizza place, Joe's on Tenth Street maybe fifteen years ago? When you ordered a pie it came with a little plastic madonna in the middle? MARY Yeah, or Saint Anthony. You from the neighborhood? FRANK I grew up on Elizabeth. I went to Blessed Sacrament. MARY On yeah? I went to Holy Name. Where'd you go to high school? FRANK We moved out after that. Upstate. MARY Like everybody else--except us. Always standing on the sidewalk waving goodbye to moving trucks. Your parents ... ? FRANK They're fine. My old man was a bus driver, mom a nurse--I was sort of born to it, I guess. MARY You married? FRANK Ah, no. I was. (beat) It's hard to explain. She had a hard time adjusting to, well, maybe it was my fault too. Pause. This thought hangs in the air. From outside: a BELLICOSE DRUNK is escorted into the ER. DRUNK (O.S.) White cocksuckers! Get your--Ow! MARY Is it always this bad in here? I mean, how does anyone survive? FRANK It's been bad lately, but it's always bad. MARY How long you been doing this? FRANK Five years. MARY Wow, you musta seen some things, huh? What's the worst thing you ever seen? FRANK You learn to sort of block it out, you know, like cops fence off a crime scene. But then something good will happen and everything will just glow. MARY You must get a lot of overdoses. I bet you picked me up a couple of times. FRANK I think I'd remember that. MARY Maybe not. I was a different person then. Does everybody you meet spill their problems on you like this? FRANK Mostly. It must be my face. My mother always said I looked like a priest. MARY (wipes her mouth) I better go check on my father. Thanks for the pizza. I owe you one. Maybe when he gets better, you know, when we're done with all this. FRANK Sure. Frank puts his hand out but she's already on her feet. He grabs the last slice of pizza, hands it to Griss as she heads back to Critical Care. FRANK (CONT'D) Look after her, Griss, okay? Griss nods. CUT TO: EXT. CANAL STREET--NIGHT 12 Young back on the job, moving with traffic. MARCUS Rule number one: Don't get involved with patients. Rule number two: Don't get involved with patient's daughters. You understand? FRANK What about rule number three: Don't get involved with dispatchers named Love. MARCUS You don't know the first thing about rule number three, cannot begin to understand the complexities of that rule. Come on, let's go look at some hookers. The Kit Kat will be letting out. (relevant to nothing) Don't ever call a junkie whore a crackhead. They get real mad. Marcus swings up First Ave: MARCUS (CONT'D) Look at these women. You can't even tell who's a hooker anymore. Whatever happened to go-go boots and hot pants? They wear anything now, walk outta the house with whatever they got on ... Frank watches night tableaus (police cars flashing, lovers kissing, woman crying hysterically, drunken slugfest) as his mind wanders: FRANK (V.O.) The street is so much more unpredictable than the ER and to prepare for the unexpected I was taught to act without thinking, like an army private who can take apart and reassemble a gun blindfolded ... Frank notices another EMS bus: Tom Walls wheeling a stretcher-- Noel, face bloodied, lies restrained as Walls' partner opens the rear doors. FRANK (V.O.) (CONT'D) I realized that my training was useful in less than ten percent of the calls and saving someone's life was rarer than that. As the years went by I grew to understand that my role was less about saving lives than about bearing witness. I was a grief mop and much of my job was to remove, if even for a short time, the grief starter or the grief product. It was enough I simply showed up. Marcus continues as if uninterrupted: MARCUS ... look at her. Leaves you no idea what's underneath, not even a suggestion. Could be a skeleton for all you know. They pass a working girl in a rain slicker who pulls off her hood to look at them: a familiar face. MARCUS (CONT'D) Nice though, pulling back her hood as we drive by. There's a mystery to it, then she shows you. FRANK She's no whore, Marcus. MARCUS We're all whores, Frank. You know what I'm talking about, the way she looked at me. FRANK She wasn't looking at you, man, she was looking at me. Frank, looking back at the Rose face, hears her faintly say: "ROSE" Why did you kill me, Frank? FRANK I didn't kill you. Marcus, not hearing "Rose's" voice, replies: MARCUS No, you didn't, Frank, thank you. But there's still a couple hours left on the shift. FRANK I need a drink, that's all. Dispatcher Love's voice cuts through: DISPATCHER LOVE Twelve Young, answer the radio. I have a call for you. MARCUS She said to me, I love the way you talk on the radio. DISPATCHER LOVE I can't wait all night, Young. I'm holding a priority and if you don't answer I'm going to knock you out of service. MARCUS (keys radio) Don't worry, hon. Young is here and he's gonna help out--just remember, you owe me. DISPATCHER LOVE You're going to three-four Avenue C, 17 year-old female cardiac arrest, no further information. MARCUS Ten-four, hon. Marcus hits the siren. CUT TO: INT. RUNDOWN TENEMENT--NIGHT Frank and Marcus standing in a no-income apartment with their cardiac equipment. MARIA, a 17 year-old Hispanic girl, lies moaning and breathing shallow on a ratty sofa. CARLOS, her equally young boyfriend, watches anxiously, holding a candle for light. MARCUS Look at that. A fat junkie. That's a first. FRANK (to Maria) What's wrong. Carlos speaks broken English: CARLOS No English. She has terrible pain in her belly. FRANK (hands on stomach) Pregnant. CARLOS No, no, that's impossible. FRANK Are you pregnant? Estas embarazada? Maria shakes her head, looks away. FRANK (CONT'D) Can you walk? Puedes caminar? CARLOS She say she in great pain. FRANK Thanks for the translation. (to Maria) What's your name? Nombre? MARIA Maria. FRANK Let's have a look. MARCUS (to Carlos) You know each other a long time? CARLOS Two years. Ever since we left island. MARCUS In that time, you ever have sex? CARLOS Never. No cigarettes, no drugs, no booze. MARCUS No underwear? CARLOS We are virgins. FRANK (inspecting Maria) Oh Jesus, we'd better go. Call for backup. Marcus radioing for assistance. FRANK (CONT'D) It's coming. (to Carlos) Hold her down. MARCUS What's that, Frank? FRANK Three legs. MARCUS That's too many. FRANK Backup? MARCUS It's coming. CARLOS Is she dying? FRANK She's having a baby. Twins. CARLOS Es impossible. FRANK You can trust me on this one. CARLOS It's a miracle. Maria SCREAMS. Marcus kneels beside Frank as a distant EMS siren grows louder. FRANK You take the first one. Frank looks up at the screaming mother: it's not her face. It's Rose. The Rose face. CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT Frank rushing past Nurse Constance, carrying a newborn in thermal wrap, passing Noel restrained on a gurney: FRANK She had a pulse. NURSE CONSTANCE Code! Code Blue! Hazmat rushing over: HAZMAT Oh Jesus, put her on the monitor. Where's the pediatric code cart? (Odette arriving with cart) Odette give me that tube. All right, flatline--let's do CPR. step back, Frank. How many months? FRANK Can't tell. It was a breech, twins. The other one seems okay, though. Marcus is taking him and the mother to Maternity. Across the room an obscenity-spouting FEMALE CRACKHEAD being restrained by a patrolman and hospital security--adding to the sense of emergency and chaos. DR. MISHRA, 50, Pediatric MD, and nurses squeeze toward newborn edging Frank back. Mishra takes an osteocatheter out of the cart, forces it into the now obscured baby as Nurse Constance massages the infant's chest. Hazmat steps over to the now restrained Crackhead. CRACKHEAD I'm a mother! I got a daughter! I got rights! HAZMAT (to nurse) 10 mil Valium, stat. Mishra, worried, checks with Nurse Constance--they're losing the newborn: MISHRA Status. NURSE CONSTANCE I think there's a pulse. I think. Frank looking at the EKG monitor--a green flatline--backs away. MISHRA Fuck. NURSE CONSTANCE Nothing. Frank walking away, not looking where he's going, backs into Noel's gurney. NOEL Excuse me, sir, excuse me, I would please trouble you for one cup of water. The smallest thing in the world to ask for, water. A man is dying and that is me. Noel, his face battered from his encounter with Walls, pulls at his restraints, howls: NOEL (CONT'D) For days I've eaten nothing but sand, O Lord, I waited so long. Hazmat looks over: HAZMAT Christ. Who the hell woke him up? CUT TO: EXT. CANAL STREET--NIGHT 12 Young on the road again, sky turning blue. FRANK Don't give me that look. MARCUS What look? FRANK You know what I'm talking about. It's all over your face. That I-just- saved-a-little-baby-boy look. MARCUS We just saved a little baby boy. Think of it that way. FRANK I don't want to hear about it, okay? That's three jobs for the night. It's over. Three jobs and time for a drink. Six am, the cocktail hour. Pass the bottle; I know you're holding. Marcus reaches under the seat, pulls a pint of vodka, a quart of orange juice and two cups out of an old gym bag, passes them to Frank. MARCUS The bar is now open. Frank mixes a screwdriver for Marcus, straight vodka for himself. FRANK I hate vodka. MARCUS Please, a little decorum if you will. What I was going to say is, is that holding that baby in my arms, I felt like I was twenty-one again. A call like that makes me think of going back to three nights a week, not two, start running again, cut down on the drinking. FRANK (pours drink) I'll drink to that. MARCUS (raises cup) Here's to the greatest job in the world. FRANK (knocks vodka back) Greatest job in the world. DISPATCHER LOVE Twelve Young, I have priorities holding. Pick up the radio. FRANK Don't do it, Marcus. Tell her the bus died, our radio's not working, our backs are out. Tell her we're too drunk to take any more calls. MARCUS Let's do it! (keys mike) It's Marcus, Love, only for you. DISPATCHER LOVE Male diff breather, approximately 30, Houston and A. MARCUS Ten-four. Marcus hits the sirens and lights, accelerates to full speed. The vodka spills; Frank grabs the dash. MARCUS (CONT'D) I'm coming, Love! I'm coming! Marcus swings the bus wildly to avoid a cab, SKIDS into a turn--and smack toward a parked truck. Frank covers his face and screams. CRASH! The back of the ambulance rams into the truck, the rear windows shatter. MARCUS (CONT'D) Shit. Frank looks around, realizes no one is hurt. He climbs out: MARCUS (CONT'D) Where you going? FRANK I quit! I'm through! MARCUS You can't leave me now. Frank walks up Avenue A, leaving Marcus and the disabled vehicle. The first rays of sun strike the buildings ahead. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--DAYBREAK Frank turning the corner, checking his watch, about to enter the Dark Bar across the corner from the hospital, watching Noel run past him and away, skipping from one foot to the other. FRANK So long, Noel. The Emergency doors open: Mary Burke, head down, looking neither direction, walks away from Frank. Griss steps out after her. Frank joins him: FRANK (CONT'D) What's going on, Griss? GRISS Your friend there just untied the water beggar. Griss was coming out to thank her. Probably saved Griss a murder charge. (about Mary) Having a tough time of it. Mary starts to run. Frank follows. She pushes her way through a group of high schoolers; Frank does likewise, keeping his distance. Five blocks later, Mary hesitates at a plaza outside the Stuyvesant Town projects, CUT TO: EXT. STUYVESANT TOWN--MORNING Frank stops a few steps away from Mary; Mary turns. FRANK Excuse me. You seemed like you were in trouble. MARY (steps over) I'm all right. I just can't stand to see people tied up. I'm in the waiting room for hours, listening to Noel screaming. The only reason he's screaming is 'cause he's tied up. FRANK Don't seem so bad to me. MARY Don't say that. I wanted to cut my father loose too. They told me he almost died and five minutes later they say he's better and I go in. It's killing me seeing him fighting like that. (gazes up building) Look, since you're here, maybe you could do me a favor. I need you to wait for me outside this building, okay? I have to visit a friend who's sick. FRANK Okay. Mary takes a few steps, turns back. MARY I'm only asking because it's a dangerous building. There's been some robberies, a woman was raped not long ago. This woman I'm seeing, she'll want to talk to me all day, but if I can point to you out the window and say you're waiting, I can be out quick. if anything happens, I'll be in apartment 16M. FRANK Maybe I should come up with you. MARY If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, hit the buzzer. That way she'll let me go. FRANK Nothing's going to happen. I'll come with you. MARY No, I'll be fine. I'm just visiting a sick friend. She walks into the building. He follows. CUT TO: INT. ELEVATOR--DAY The dinged metal doors shudder shut as Frank follows Mary into the graffittied elevator. It jumps three feet upwards, stops, then continues, metal scraping concrete at each passing floor. MARY I shouldn't have asked you to come. FRANK You asked me not to come. MARY Promise you won't go inside. FRANK Fifteen minutes. MARY I just have to relax a little. Not feel so guilty all the time. FRANK We can still go back. I'll walk you home. You sleep a couple of hours, watch some TV, take a bath. MARY Don't be a cop. If you have any doubts about this, it's my fault. The elevator jerks to a stop; the doors open. CUT TO: INT. SIXTEENTH FLOOR--MORNING Mary turns to Frank: MARY You go on home, okay. I'm fine, really. I don't need you. Thanks. Mary pushes the bell at 16M. KANITA, 25, wearing a paisley robe, opens the doors and says: KANITA Hey Cy, guess who's here? COATES (O.S.) Mary ... The elevator doors close on Frank. CUT TO: INT. LOBBY--MORNING Frank paces past the sleeping security guard, checks his watch. He presses the elevator button. CUT TO: INT. THE OASIS--MORNING The door to 16M opens: KANITA Can I help you? FRANK Mary Burke. She's a friend. KANITA She's not here. Frank pushes past her. KANITA (CONT'D) Wait a minute. You can't go in. CY COATES, 45, light-skinned black, stands in the smoky room. Dark curtained windows block the sunlight; a dirty fish tank casts a green glow across the beat-up furniture. A large framed photo of a volcano hangs over the couch. COATES It's okay, Kanita. Come on in. KANITA He looks like a cop. COATES He's not a cop, he's a medic. (extends hand) I'm CY Coates. FRANK Frank Pierce. COATES Mary said you might be coming. FRANK Where is she? COATES Sleeping in the back. FRANK She asked me to pick her up. COATES I know, but she told me to tell you she wants to crash here a few hours. Terrible about her father, isn't it? FRANK I better just go in and see her. Kanita sits on the sofa next to an unshaven sleeping man. Coates gestures: COATES I call this the Oasis. Refuge from the world out there. Did you know two people were shot in this building last week? Frank heads down the hall toward the rear of the apartment; Coates follows. They pass an open door where inside TIGER, a fat man with dried blood running down the corner of his mouth, sits punching computer keys at a desk. COATES (CONT'D) Careful. That's the Tiger. The lady's down the hall. Welcome to Sunrise Enterprises, Frank, the stress-free factory. In the NEXT ROOM Mary lies on a mattress on the floor, yellow sheet pulled up to her neck. Frank leans over her: FRANK Mary. Mary, we've got to get going. MARY (groggy) No, no. COATES She wanted something to help her sleep. FRANK Mary, we really have to go. Mary blindly swings her fist at him, collapses unconscious back to the mattress. COATES Frank, she's suffered enough. She's okay, I promise. (puts hand on Frank's shoulder) C'mon, Frank. Coates escorts Frank back to the LIVING ROOM. COATES (CONT'D) I'm always interested in people in stressful occupations and being a paramedic is about as stressful as I can imagine. Here, sit down. What's it like? Tell me some war stories. FRANK (sits) Got a beer? Cy sits across from him, pulls out a pin-sized joint, lights it: COATES That shit is poison, Frank. We don't drink alcohol here. What you need is one of these. FRANK Did you give Mary something called Red Death? COATES Red Death? (passes joint to Kanita) Tell me something, Frank--does killing your clients make good business sense to you? The kids selling that shit have no sense. They'll be taken care of, don't worry about that. FRANK I should be going. I just quit. COATES Sleep is all stress reduction. Here. (offers white pill) You take one of these, sleep two hours, that's all you need. (Frank hesitates) Why do you think I'm telling you this, Frank--for my health? You ought to look at yourself in the mirror, man. Kanita, get him a glass of water. Frank watches as Kanita gets up, walks to the kitchen. Coates places the pill in his hand. FRANK Is this what you gave Mary? COATES That's the stuff. I call it the Red Lion. Very king-of-the-jungle. No language, only brute power. You can't believe how relaxing it is. Kanita returns with a glass of water, gives it to Frank; Coates stands, feeds the fish. COATES (CONT'D) Frank, I'm trying to help you. Drink up. Frank swallows the white pill, drinks the water. He places his arms on the chair: FRANK I guess I'll be going. COATES Just take it easy. Frank looks around the smoke-filled room. Kanita walks over, extends her hand. KANITA Take my pulse. (he does) It's good, isn't it? FRANK Perfect. KANITA I knew it. I was wrong about you. You're not so bad. Kanita runs her hand across his shoulders. Frank starts to nod. The room getting warm and dark. His eyelids lower: sleep, precious sleep. CUT TO: FRANK'S ROSE DREAM Voices and sounds echo through the purple haze as Frank's mind drifts in time and space. Action and sounds slow, speed up, distort--intermix with the Oasis--as Frank goes back: This is how it begins: the last time, the first time ... Larry exits 13 Zebra as Rose, 18, wearing a yellow rain slicker, falls to her knees in the miasmic dream stank, onto the sidewalk, then onto her back. From forty feet away Frank, seeing her reach for a parking meter, grabbing the tube kit, running. Rose gasping for breath, Frank falling to his knees, lifting her tongue, prying her teeth apart, slipping the blade between her lips--Rose not breathing: waiting for her to inhale, shooting the tube down her vocal cords. Larry listening to lung sounds, belly sounds: LARRY You're in the stomach! FRANK You sure? ROSE Rose! FRANK Huh? ROSE My name. Rose. LARRY You're in the stomach, man. Frank pulling the tube out, trying again. Somewhere: CY Coates laughs. LARRY (CONT'D) You're in the stomach! Let me try. FRANK One more time! Rose going blue, pulse rate dropping, EKG Slowing: Jim Morrison singing. LARRY Stomach again. FRANK No way! Larry ripping the tube from Frank's hands, taking over, pushing Frank aside, trying CPR, intubating Rose, air moving into her lungs--it doesn't matter. Rose is gone. Frank hears a SCREAM: it's his own voice. CUT TO: INT. THE OASIS--DAY Frank standing screaming in the living room. CY walking over, Kanita standing, the sleeping man awaking. COATES Frank, take it easy. what happened? KANITA He flipped out. Frank bends over in pain. COATES Be cool, man. You're having a paradoxical reaction. It can happen. (to Kanita) Didn't I tell you this guy was stressed out? KANITA Stressed? He's psycho. Frank heads to where Mary sleeps. COATES Frank, where you going? In the BACK BEDROOM, Frank picks up Mary, hoists her over his shoulder fireman-style and heads out. COATES (CONT'D) You're making a mistake. Sit down and relax a minute. Frank opens the front door--no one stops him--exits. COATES (CONT'D) (calling) She'll be back. And, by the way, you owe me ten bucks. CUT TO: INT. STUYVESANT LOBBY--DAY The elevator doors open. Frank sets Mary on her feet. MARY I can walk. She says weaving out of the front doors. CUT TO: EXT. STUYVESANT TOWN--DAY Mary walks a Few steps into the plaza, stumbles; Frank catches her. MARY Let go of me. (he relaxes) You shouldn't have come up. I told you not to. You could have gotten us both killed. Mary heads up the avenue: past baby strollers, postal workers, deliverymen. MARY (CONT'D) You and CY have a nice talk? He tell you about Sunrise Enterprises, helping people? Well, I've seen him hurt people. Why are you following me? FRANK Because you can barely walk. Frank walking slightly beside and behind, lights a cigarette. MARY You remember Noel, from the other night, how Noel is now? He wasn't always like that. He was my brother's best friend. Cy or Tiger or one of those other goons put a bullet in Noel's head. He was in a coma three months. Crazy ever since. They stop at a three-story brick apartment building. MARY (CONT'D) This is my place. She unlocks the door. He follows her in. CUT TO: INT. MARY'S APT. BUILDING--DAY Mary grabs the railing, heads up the stairs. MARY What is it? You want to help me, you feel sorry for me? Keep it to yourself. FRANK I need to sit down a minute. MARY Or maybe you wanna fuck me? Everyone else has. Mary opens the door to her first floor apartment; Frank follows. The room is clean and feminine. Unframed water colors stacked against the wall atop a desk. A black lab greets Mary, she pets him. Frank slumps on the sofa. MARY (CONT'D) I've been clean two years now. I got a job. I paint when I'm home. Don't bother anybody. Then all this shit happens. Frank keels over onto his side, his head hitting a cushion, eyes closed, dog licking his cheek. MARY (CONT'D) Oh no you don't. You can't stay here. He's asleep, the sound of her crying fading in his head. FADE OUT: INT. MARY'S APT.--NIGHT FADE IN: a passing siren wakes Frank. He thinks back, looking around the darkened room, realizes where he is. The dog comes over, licks his hand. FRANK Hello, I'm Frank. Mary's friend. A very close friend who loves animals. He removes the blanket Mary has laid over him, stands: FRANK (CONT'D) Hello? Frank walks cautiously through the dark, finds a bathroom lit by a glowing Mickey Mouse switch. He flips on the switch: a string of green and red Christmas lights glow. Three types of soap sit on the sink. He turns on the faucet: FRANK (V.O.) (CONT'D) I washed my face with three kinds of soap, each smelling like a different season. It felt good to be in a woman's room again, especially a woman who wasn't comatose or severely disabled. I felt that perhaps I had turned a corner, like I saved someone, though I didn't know who. CUT TO: INT. EMS GARAGE OFFICE--NIGHT Frank standing at Captain Barney's desk. CAPT. BARNEY You're late, Pierce. I know, but I can't fire you. I've got nobody to work sixteen XRay with Walls. FRANK No ... CAPT. BARNEY I got some forms here to fill out about that accident when you get the time. (hands him keys) I'll fire you tomorrow. I promise. FRANK What if there is no tomorrow? CAPT. BARNEY Go on, get outta here, Pierce, before I give you a big hug. (to Miss Williams) I love this guy. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT Frank walks toward Sixteen XRay as Walls gets out of the front seat. The EMS vehicle is dented and rusted, a relic of wars and a hodgepodge of parts. WALLS Frank, what do you know. It's you and me again tonight, the Rough Riders, tearing up the streets just like old times. (kicks the front tire) This old bus is a warrior, Frank, just like us. I have tried to kill him and he will not die. I have a great respect for that. Frank makes a "be right back" gesture, walks into ER. CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT Saturday night at the Knife and Gun Club: the joint is hopping, the sound system blaring. Frank passing Griss holding back an angry Hispanic man with a bleeding arm: GRISS Don't make me take off my sunglasses. FRANK Morning, Griss. NURSE CONSTANCE We're full up tonight, Frank. Frank walks over to unit three, Mr. Burke's cubicle, pulls back the curtain. Burke lies sedated, wired and tubed. Frank leans over, feels Burke's pulse. Frank's expression changes--he looks at the EKG monitor: green lines seem to be at war, normal beats marching in formation against wild-looking rhythms, the heart working hard and not getting much done. Burke's face twitches. Burke's voice speaks in Frank's head: BURKE'S VOICE Go to the bank, boy, take out everything you can. Frank turns up the EKG amplitude: FRANK Mr. Burke? BURKE'S VOICE I'm going. I've had enough. The alarms start to ring: EKG first, followed by the bells off the oxygen saturation monitor and low drone of ventilator. Intern Milagros pulling open the curtain behind Frank, shaking her head, reaching for the defribilator paddles, handing them to Frank. He steps back: FRANK You do it. MILAGROS Can't reach. You're taller. BURKE'S VOICE Don't do it. FRANK I thought he was getting better. MILAGROS Technically, yeah. I suppose. It doesn't matter. FRANK Why not? MILAGROS Tha family wants us to do everything to save him--so, that's it. They want to keep him alive, they want to believe in miracles, we keep him alive. Shock him, Frank. He'll come back. He always comes back. FRANK (takes paddles) Clear! Frank shocks Burke: his body convulses. BURKE'S VOICE Ow! The heartbeats on monitor return to regular formation. BURKE'S VOICE (CONT'D) You son of a bitch. MILAGROS Should I increase the lidocaine? Frank, despondent, not listening, walks away. CUT TO: EXT. AVENUE A--NIGHT 16 XRay driving past a strip of night clubs and restaurants: the sidewalks full of young people laughing, jostling, embracing. Walls driving. In addition to the EMS two-way and AM radio, Walls keeps a police band walkie-talkie open. He looks into the back of the bus: WALLS Frank, what you doing back there? Frank places an open drug box on the stretcher, pulls out an IV set, wraps a tourniquet around his left bicep. FRANK I'm sick, Tom. I need a cure. (injects himself) Vitamin B cocktail, followed by an amp of glucose and a drop of adrenaline. Not as good as beer, but all I got. WALLS Come on, Frank. There's blood spilling in the streets. Frank crawls back in front carrying the IV bag, puts on the oxygen mask, turns on the main tanks, takes a deep hit. FRANK (pulls off mask) These are hard times, Tom. WALLS Yeah. Great, isn't it? FRANK Great to be drunk. Sobriety's killing me. WALLS Look up, Frank. Full moon. The blood's gonna run tonight. I can feel it. Our mission: to save lives. FRANK Our mission is coffee, Tom. A shot of the bull, Puerto Rican espresso. WALLS Ten-four. El Toro de Oro. Blast off. Walls hits the sirens, accelerates. FRANK The cure's not working, Tom. Maybe we should go back to the hospital. WALLS Don't worry, kid. Tom'll take care of you. Put your head out the window, get some of that summer air. Listen to the music. El Toro de Oro. Andale. Pronto. Walls turns up the radio, drums his hands against the wheel. DISPATCHER Okay, units, it's suicide hour. Fourteen Boy, I show you in the hospital sixty minutes but I know you're in the diner on 14th. Put down the burger, I got a call for you around the corner, 14 and 3rd, a man with a noose around his neck and nothing to hang it on. Sixteen XRay, don't even think about getting coffee, I have a call for you too. WALLS (on radio) Sixteen XTerminator here. We like our coffee bloody. Make it good--my partner's dying to help someone. DISPATCHER You're in luck, X: your patient awaits you with bleeding wrists on Avenue C and Fourth. Frank pulls the IV needle out of his arm, searches the glove compartment: FRANK Tom, where are the Band-aids? This is an ambulance, isn't it? WALLS (hitting the gas) Look out! 16 XRay lurches forward. CUT TO: EXT. AVENUE C AND 4TH--NIGHT 16 XRay brakes to a stop before a duster of derelicts, junkies and night people. Two DRUNKS are trying to help a friend with CUT WRISTS. WALLS What the hell's going on? DRUNK #1 You've gotta take him to the hospital. He tried to kill himself. Show him your wrist. Show A. Cut Wrists gets up, leans against the ambulance, shaking. DRUNK #1 (CONT'D) See, he ain't right. WALLS Hold it. I will not take anyone anywhere against his will. This is America. People have rights. DRUNK #2 He was bleeding before. He kept spilling his beer. I gave him mouth- to-mouth. WALLS You're lucky you didn't kill him. (to Cut Wrists) We're going to hear it straight from the loony's mouth. Are you crazy? Did you try to bump yourself off? CUT WRISTS (salivatory) Yesssss. WALLS Why didn't you say so. Walls escorts Cut Wrists into the back of the bus, pulls a plastic electric patch off the EKG monitor. Frank joins them. WALLS (CONT'D) Sir, I am going to give you some medicine that is still very experimental. It's from NASA, and although the astronauts have been using it for years, we are the first service to try it. I will put this patch on your forehead like this, and in about a minute you will have to relax. (places patch) You will forget all your suicidal feelings. It's very important that you wear this for a least twenty- four hours and keep checking the mirror. If the patch turns green you have to see the doctor immediately. The side effects could be fatal. Cut Wrists nods. FRANK This is the worst suicide attempt I've ever seen. You feel the pulse? Here. That's where you cut, and it's not across, it's down like so. (takes out his knife) Here take it. CUT WRISTS (shaking) I can't. FRANK With all the poor people of this city who wanted only to live and were viciously murdered, you have the nerve to sit here waiting to die and not go through with it. You make me sick. Take it. Cut Wrists bolts out of the back of the bus, trips as he hits the ground, runs down the street, turning the corner still holding the patch to his forehead. WALLS We cured him, Frank. When we work together there's nothing we can't fix. CUT TO: EXT. EL TORO DE ORO--NIGHT 16 XRay parked outside a fluorescent chrome and plastic coffee shop. CUT TO: INT. EL TORO DE ORO--NIGHT Frank smoking at a formica table, his walkie-talkie upright next to an ashtray. Walls returns with two espressos as the Dispatcher rattles on. WALLS (sits) Sounds like they're trying to clean up the bus terminal tonight, Frank doesn't answer. Tom shines his mini-flashlight in Frank's eyes: WALLS (CONT'D) Hello, hello. Major Tom to Frank, time to come home. Frank watches a hooker on the sidewalk. Two street punks dripping gold and attitude head the opposite direction: one turns his head, looks at Frank--it's Rose. The Rose face. Frank getting up, grabbing his walkie and coffee, heading out. WALLS (CONT'D) Where you going? FRANK C'mon, Tom. The city's burning. CUT TO: EXT. HOUSTON--NIGHT Frank at the wheel, driving high speed: radio full volume. WALLS Whatja doing? FRANK I feel the need, the need for speed. I'm driving out of myself. WALLS The brakes are shot. FRANK I've taken that into consideration. WALLS You okay? FRANK I never felt better in my life. DISPATCHER Sixteen XRay, XRay. FRANK (keys radio) X. DISPATCHER First of all, I want you to know how sorry I am about this. I've always liked you two. A unit above none, a legend in its own lunchtime, so it hurts me deeply to do this but I have no choice. You must go to Second and St. Marks. In front of a liquor store you'll find a forty year-old male, unconscious, lying next to his wheelchair. Do I have to say more? FRANK (to radio) You've said too much already. WALLS Mr. Oh. FRANK It's early for him. WALLS That's all right, we're not meant to do Oh tonight. Something is going to happen. I can feel it. Tom hears something on the police band: a call for units to Stuyvesant Town. WALLS (CONT'D) Bingo. (keys police walkie) EMS to Central. What was that call? POLICE DISPATCH A jumper. Stuyvesant Town. WALLS Ten-four. One minute out. DISPATCHER Sixteen, Sixteen XRay. Level One Emergency. But they're not listening--Frank's off to Stuyvesant Town. CUT TO: EXT. STUYVESANT TOWN--NIGHT Police cars, fire engines, a massive Emergency Service rescue truck all flashing dome lights on the street, on the plaza surrounding Cy Coates' building: cops, Swat team, spotlights, onlookers. Frank and Tom, getting out, looking up: the spotlit figure of Cy Coates, thirteen floors above, suspended on a railing, legs dangling. WALLS Whadda we bring? FRANK Better bring it all. CUT TO: INT. LOBBY--NIGHT Frank and Tom, lugging their equipment, meet up with cops, firemen and their rescue equipment. FRANK The elevator's fucked. We'd never all fit anyway. Let's go. FIREMAN That's thirteen flights. WALLS The news guys just pulled up. POLICE SERGEANT The stairs, men, the stairs. The Sergeant leads a half dozen cops and firemen up the stairs as the elevator doors open. Tom, Frank and two COPS squeeze inside. WALLS This guy a jumper? COP We got a call for shots fired on the sixteenth floor. The jumper called right after. FRANK (to Walls) I'm going to sixteen. As the elevator doors close. CUT TO: INT. THE OASIS--NIGHT Frank steps out with the officers. The door to 16M is open: Kanita lies half in, half out the door, a perfectly round hole above her eye, splinters of bone and blood down the side of her nose. The carpet is soaked with water; shards of glass lie amid dying fish. A cop returns from the rear hall of the apartment, stands before photo of volcano: COP That's it, nobody else home. Frank, looking over the balcony, sees Cy three floors below. FRANK I'm going to thirteen. Frank heads clown the stairs. CUT TO: INT. THIRTEENTH FLOOR--NIGHT Frank emerges on thirteen: Walls, the panting Police Sergeant and team have overturned the furniture in 13M: the absent owners would have trouble recognizing it. The floor is covered with gas-powered metal cutters, acetylene torches, ropes, harnesses. A trail of blood leads to where Walls stands, Tiger's prone body behind him: WALLS Get this, Frank--we got two patients. Number one, the scarecrow outside. Number two misses the railing but breaks both legs on the balcony, then throws himself through a glass window, heads to the bedroom, where he's now passed out. FRANK (about Coates) Well, he's the steakhead of the night, then. WALLS I don't think the fire people can touch him out there. FRANK How's he doing? WALLS I haven't had a chance to see him yet. I'm going to take care of sleeping beauty. Frank goes over to Coates as two cops strap on harnesses. CY hangs impaled on the railing, a steel spike passing through his hip. Glowing in spotlights from thirteen floors below, Frank takes Coates' vital signs, gently presses his abdomen: FRANK Does that hurt? COATES (screams) No! Frank, IV bag in his teeth, putting an oxygen mask on Coates: FRANK I don't think you've hurt any major organs. (sets IV line) We got to get you off this thing without setting off bleeding. Cops behind click on harnesses ("You in?" "Yeah" "You in?") attach straps to pitons they've hammered into the brick wall, bring out metal cutters and torches. FRANK (CONT'D) They're gonna torch the fence. You're gonna feel the metal getting warm, maybe very warm. COATES I can't hold up my head anymore. Frank passes the IV bag to one of the cops, holds Coates, head. CY relaxes his neck as SPARKS splay like fireworks beneath him, fall to the concrete. COATES (CONT'D) So, Frank, am I going to live? FRANK You're going to live. COATES I've been thinking about things. Meditating on my financial future. You guys gave me plenty of time to meditate on the future. Whatja do, stop for Chinese on the way over? There's plenty of food in my place. FRANK I was tired. I needed a coffee. COATES What about Kanita? FRANK Dead. COATES That's too bad. Get some money, a nice looking girl on your arm, and everyone wants to take a piece. Some kid I wouldn't let wash my Mercedes is in my house, shooting at me. Damn, I thought I could make it onto the balcony like Tiger. He's fat, that's why, falls faster. I'm trying to watch my weight, and look what happens. Am I shot, Frank? FRANK No. COATES Boy can't shoot for shit, either. Goddamn that's hot. Frank looks: the spike in Coates' hip starting to glow red. CY stretches his hand toward the skyline, his face backlit by raining acetylene sparks: COATES (CONT'D) Isn't it beautiful? When the fires start to fall, then the strongest rule it all. I love this city. The torch breaks the spike free: Frank and Coates FREE FALL three feet, jerk to a stop. Cy yelps. The crowd cheers from below. Frank now grabbing, holding Coates tightly--Frank's hands the only thing keeping Coates from falling--as the cops hoist them up. COP (to Frank) Good thing we buckled you in, huh? COATES What about me? Who's supposed to buckle me? COP (to 2nd cop) I thought you did. 2ND COP I thought you did. COP (to Coates) I'm so sorry, sir. The cops lift Frank and Coates onto the balcony. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT 16 XRay parked in front. CUT TO: INT. MERCY CRITICAL CARE--NIGHT Frank walking out of the restroom wiping water off his face, looking at the gurney where Coates lies on his side, metal spike still sticking through his hip, IV line running to his arm, eyes closed. Nurses walk past Coates: he's stabilized, waiting his turn. CY, take a number. Frank spots Hazmat at Burke's cubicle, walks over. HAZMAT Nurse Crupp, we're going to need some Valium here. He's waking up again. The ventilator alarm goes off as Burke pulls at his restraints. HAZMAT (CONT'D) (urgent) Where's that Valium? Nurse Crupp walks briskly over, injects needle into one of Burke's IV bags. Burke's voice speaks in Frank's head: BURKE'S VOICE Don't. Don't do it. HAZMAT Give me a hand, Frank. I've got to get something between those teeth. Frank helps Hazmat force in a bite stick. The monitor alarm cuts off, the ventilator starts up again, pumping air in, pulling air out. HAZMAT (CONT'D) You can't believe how much he's improved. FRANK How many times have you shocked him tonight? HAZMAT Fourteen. We finally got him a room upstairs. Should be up there in a couple of hours. FRANK What do you do, just have someone follow him around with a defribilator? HAZMAT (laughs) That's good, Frank. No, but they might surgically implant one, about the size of my thumb. It goes near the shoulder here, with two electrodes connected to the heart. It sends a shock whenever it senses a drop in blood flow. Amazing, isn't it? FRANK A medical miracle. CUT TO: INT. MERCY WAITING ROOM--NIGHT Frank notices Mary Burke in waiting area with her brother, mother and several others. Gone is the lost daughter, the scared junkie. Tonight she's dressed for strength: leather jacket, blue jeans, black work boots. MARY Everyone, this is the medic who brought my father in. Frank, these are some of my father's friends. Frank greets them. FAMILY FRIEND We live out an the Island now, but we used to live right down the block from Pat. He was like a saint to us. Came as soon as we heard. FRANK (to Mary) I'm going out for a smoke. Mary whispers something to her mother, joins him. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT Frank offers her a cigarette. Walls waits in 16 XRay, now parked at the curb. MARY I heard CY Coates was brought in. He looked pretty bad. FRANK He'll be all right. MARY Too bad. He called me up today, can you believe that? I don't know how he got my number. He asks me do I want to come over and see him, I tell him I'd rather go to a leper colony. He says there's a new gang that wants to kill him, take over the business. I told him I hope he's right. That they kill him. That's what I told him. FRANK It'll be a while before he's up and running again. MARY OK, last night I was weak. it won't happen again. And all that shit I said--it was just because I was stoned. Forget it. FRANK No problem. Thanks for letting me crash. It was the best sleep I've had in months. I used some of your soap. MARY I wish these people would leave already. I can't listen to another story. Did you see him? (Frank doesn't answer) That doctor says the brain is coming around. They're waiting for the heart to stabilize. I don't know who to believe. He says they still have to keep him tied up. FRANK Can I bring you something back to eat--a falafal, some pizza? MARY No, we just ate. I only remember how tough my father was. Now I know he had to be like that, to make us tough. This city'll kill you if you aren't strong enough. FRANK No, the city doesn't discriminate. It gets everybody. Walls flashes 16 XRay's headlights, hits the horns. FRANK (CONT'D) I gotta go. Another call. Frank, his heart pounding, steps closer to her. FRANK (CONT'D) We're all dying, Mary Burke. He leans as if to kiss her. MARY This is not a good time. FRANK There's no time. He places his hand on her shoulder, kisses her lightly, walks toward Walls and the waiting ambulance. CUT TO: EXT. FIRST AVE--NIGHT 16 XRay is cooking now--Walls at the wheel, Frank shotgun, passing a pint of whiskey back and forth: radio blasting-- INXS: "The Devil Inside." WALLS Get ready, Frank. Missed a drug shooting while you were dicking around in there. There's gonna be trauma tonight! FRANK As long as we keep moving. No standing still. WALLS (keys mike) C'mon, look at your screen. Give up some blood! DISPATCHER Sixteen XRay, a man at the bus terminal shot three years ago says his arm hurts. Frank looks at a group of girls exiting an after-hours club: every one a Rose. Rose faces. FRANK C'mon, Tom, pick up a job. WALLS You want some bum in the bus terminal? We'll wait for a real call. FRANK Let's get in a fight, then. WALLS Who with? FRANK That's your job. Just keep driving, keep moving. No stopping. We're sharks. We stop too long, we die. Walls hits the accelerator: the old bus jerks forward: FRANK (CONT'D) Let's break something, Tom. Let's bust something, bomb something. WALLS What do you want to break? FRANK (taking a drink) I don't know--let's break some windows. WALLS Why? FRANK Destruction, distraction. I feel the need. WALLS You need a reason, Frank. You don't just go around breaking people's windows. That's anarchy. FRANK What's the reason? Give me a reason, Tom. WALLS Let me think. Tom hits the siren as he swings wildly around a stopped cab and its turban-headed driver: WALLS (CONT'D) Classic cabbie move. (to driver) Hey, swammy, that's called a crosswalk. You stop before it, not on it! Walls turns onto a cross street, spots Noel standing by a Mustang, baseball bat on his shoulder. He wears yesterday's blood-stained clothes, cut tires tied to his shoulders and elbows, chest and belly wrapped with steel wire. WALLS (CONT'D) I know who to work over. Him. Walls slows as Noel lifts the bat, swings it into the Mustang's front window, shattering it, puts the bat down, using it like a cane as he walks to the next parked car. WALLS (CONT'D) This guy's been terrorizing the neighborhood for weeks, ever since he got outta jail, wreaking general havoc, contributing to the bad name of the place. The term "menace to society" was made up for him. FRANK He's crazy. He can't help it. WALLS (stops ambulance) Well, why don't they put him away? Prisons don't want him. I took him to the hospital yesterday and here he is again. Noel reaches the next car, a Bronco, carefully hefts the bat, smashes it through the windshield. WALLS (CONT'D) Look at that. Tell me that's a crazy person. Every move is calculated. He knows exactly what he's doing. This is the guy. I've been after him for weeks. He's quick, runs like a rat, tough for one person, but with two of us-- FRANK Okay, whatta I do? WALLS If he sees me, he'll run, so I'll get out here. You start talking to him about baseball or something while I sneak around behind and get down and you push him. When he falls we get him. FRANK That's ridiculous. WALLS Believe me, it always works. The simpler, the better. FRANK You learn that in the army? FRANK (CONT'D) Flatbush. Walls slips out, crouches beside the bus. Frank, stepping out, walks over to Noel as he whacks the bat through the hatch of a Pinto. FRANK (CONT'D) That's a hell of a swing you got there, Noel. I'm thinking Strawberry in his prime. NOEL Strawberry ain't shit. Drug pussy. (heads for the next car) Me. I swing like Reggie. Mr. October. Number three, game six, World Series. Noel hauls back, lays into a Volvo: glass shatters. Noel holds the bat out, extends handle towards Frank: NOEL (CONT'D) Here, you try. FRANK No, I'd better not. NOEL Sure, sure, give go. FRANK Yeah? Frank, intrigued by Noel's suggestion, has forgotten Walls' plan. He takes the bat as Tom sneaks behind Noel, crouching. FRANK (CONT'D) What the hell. (spits into hands) The next year, tiebreaker for the division, in Boston, Yanks down two to nothing, Bucky Dent steps to the plate. NOEL Oh man, Bucky. FRANK The pitch, high heater. Bucky knows what's coming. He steps in, smash, over the green monster. Frank cocks the baseball bat, relishing every moment, swings into the Volvo's side window. Shattered glass flies on his hands and clothes. Walls, fed up with this, stands: WALLS Frank, what the hell are you doing? Noel, seeing Walls, grabs the bat, flees down an alley. WALLS (CONT'D) You go down those stairs there. Meet me back here if you can't find him in ten minutes. Call out if you see him. Get with the program, Frank. Walls takes off after Noel. Frank, taking out his flashlight, enters second alley, walks down dark stairs which hopefully circle around to Noel. CUT TO: INT. ALLEY--NIGHT Mini-flashlight leading the way, Frank steps gingerly down the refuse-strewn alley. Ahead: footsteps. He kicks something, thinking it's trash, looks down; a body rustles, pair of sleeping eyes look up. Suddenly everything seems silent. He passes a row of glowing red doors. Shadows flash in the distance. He hears a woman crying, shoots his flashlight her direction: nothing. Frank hears the voice again: Rose's voice: ROSE'S VOICE Why did you kill me, Frank? FRANK I didn't mean to. ROSE'S VOICE You should have helped me. FRANK I tried to help. I wanted to. Shadows like hands extend against the wall ahead. ROSE'S VOICE Don't you love me? Frank moves toward the reaching arms. The shadows swing like baseball bats. Noel SCREAMS. Suddenly, before him, a blurry mass of bloody dreadlocks-- Noel goes flying to the ground, Walls standing over him swinging the bat, hitting him, killing him. WALLS I got him, Frank! Frank stands back, watching Walls and Noel like some static black and white TV screen from his childhood. Noel, trying to protect himself, cries out. WALLS (CONT'D) (swinging bat) To the moon, Alice! You little motherfucker! Frank charges forward into Walls, sending Tom, the baseball bat flying. Walls on the ground. Frank bends over Noel: Noel's face covered with blood, gasping for air, blowing red bubbles, convulsing. FRANK (to Walls) Get the kit! We're gonna tube him! WALLS Frank! FRANK Do it! WALLS (standing) Frank! FRANK (to Noel) We're gonna save you, Noel. You're gonna be all right. (to Walls) Do it, Tom! I'll call for fucking backup, I swear! WALLS You're crazy. Noel unconscious: Tom hurries down the alley toward the ambulance as Frank opens Noel's mouth. FRANK You're going to make it! You're going to make it! Pressing Noel's chest, Frank lowers his mouth, starts CPR. His mouth to Noel's. In the distance: Walls' footsteps returning. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--NIGHT 16 XRay parked out front: the sky is going blue. CUT TO: INT. MERCY ER--NIGHT Frank and Tom, their shirts blood-stained, pushing Noel down Skid Row, past Griss, past Nurse Constance. Tom wheels, Frank carries the IV bag. NURSE CONSTANCE Take him straight through. GRISS Who got that funky motherfucker this time? FRANK (to Nurse Constance) Last show of the night. HAZMAT (arriving) Jesus Christ. Nurse Crupp! (to Frank) Anybody else hurt? FRANK No. HAZMAT Crazy fucker. Walls pushes Noel into unit one. Frank looks over to unit three--Burke's cubicle is empty. FRANK Where's Burke? HAZMAT Upstairs. 212. Had to shock him twice more. Frank nods, walks out. Behind, Walls helps Hazmat and Crupp place Noel on a bed. CUT TO: INT. ROOM 212--NIGHT Frank Pierce walks down the hospital corridor, steps into room 212. Burke lies, tubed, wired and tied to life support. Blue light comes through the window. On the EKG monitor: a slow steady green endless line: up, down. Frank takes a moment, exhales. One by one, Frank flips off the machines. The clanging EKG ALARM is followed by the bass honking of the respirator alarm and two tweetering IV-drip alarms. Frank, holding Burke's pulse, watches the life go out of him. Hearing commotion outside, Frank flips the machines back on: the EKG monitor is flatline. A FLOOR NURSE rushes in, feels for Burke's pulse. FLOOR NURSE What happened? (calling out) Code! Frank steps back as the Nurse hits the emergency switch. FLOOR NURSE (CONT'D) Are we doing CPR? Dr. Hazmat, out of breath, enters: FLOOR NURSE (CONT'D) He coded. HAZMAT Christ, what a way to start the day. He's in V-fib. Shock him. Frank pulls out the paddles, applies them to Burke's chest: FLOOR NURSE Clear! Frank, knowing it's futile, shocks Burke: no result. HAZMAT Zap him again. Frank goes through the motions, pretending to shock Burke. The flatline doesn't waver. HAZMAT (CONT'D) Nothing. Get the cart, start compressions, get an epinephrine in. Frank backs out the door as a nurse and intern enter. In the corridor Frank listens as the activity becomes less urgent. Hazmat steps out: HAZMAT (CONT'D) That's enough. I called it. Let's get some coffee. (to Frank) You gonna tell the family? Frank nods. CUT TO: EXT. MERCY EMERGENCY--DAYBREAK Frank walks out of Our Lady of Mercy, heads down the side street. He passes Tom Walls wielding a giant flashlight, smashing Sixteen XRay's headlights, denting the hood and side windows. WALLS Die! CUT TO: EXT. MARY'S APT. BUILDING--DAY Frank rings the buzzer. Mary, sleepy-voiced, answers: MARY (O.S.) Who is it? FRANK Frank. MARY (O.S.) Come on up. CUT TO: INT. FIRST FLOOR--DAY Mary, wearing a burgundy robe, opens the door. Frank says nothing. Her expression darkens. Frank looks at her again: it's not Mary, it's Rose. Mary has Rose's face. FRANK He's dead, Rose. Your father passed. ROSE/MARY How can that be? He was getting better. FRANK He coded. They shocked him one too many times. I'm sorry. ROSE/MARY He was tough. You did all you could. FRANK I'm sorry. ROSE/MARY You have to keep the body going until the brain and heart recover enough to go on their own. Frank nods. ROSE/MARY (CONT'D) Would you like to come in? FRANK Yes. Rose/Mary opens the door wider, closes it behind Frank. CUT TO: INT. MARY'S BEDROOM--DAY Rose is Mary again: she and Frank lie clothed on her bed. He leans his head against her breast as she holds him. His eyes close: sleep. THE END 
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+Broadcast Newsby James L. Brooks.
+
+
+
+FADE IN EXT. CITY STREET - DAY A restaurant supply truck is curbside, near a small restaurant. GERALD GRUNICK, forty-one, is closing the back door of his truck, feeling good about the world, a common state for him. He moves towards the cab of the truck and gets inside as we SUPER: KANSAS CITY, MO. - 1963 INT. TRUCK - DAY As he sits down beaming over his recent good fortune... now we REVEAL his twelve-year-old son, TOM, seated quietly beside him. He seems a bit down. Gerald glances at his son. GERALD I don't know a recent Saturday I've sold more. You didn't think I'd sell that health restaurant, did you? TOM No. Not even you. GERALD Why so glum? TOM I don't know. GERALD (a beat) Go ahead. TOM No, nothing. I've got a problem, I guess. GERALD Were you bothering by those waitresses making a fuss? TOM No. But, honest. What are you supposed to say when they keep talking about your looks? I don't even know what they mean -- "Beat them off with a stick." Gerald stiffs a grin. GERALD You know, Tom, I feel a little proud when people comment on your looks. Maybe you should feel that way. TOM Proud? I'm just embarrassed that I like when they say those things. GERALD As long as that's your only problem you're... TOM It's not. He looks directly at his father and talks quietly, and sincerely. TOM I got my report card. Three Cs, two Ds and an incomplete. GERALD Oh my. I see you studying so hard, Tom. What do you think the problem is? TOM I'll just have to try harder. I don't know. I will. (talking himself into it) I will. I will. I will. He shakes his head for emphasis, glad he's received this pep talk from himself -- he hands the card to his father. TOM Thanks, Dad, this talk helped. Will you sign it, please? GERALD (as he signs) Would it help if I got you a tutor? TOM (suddenly hopeful) That would be great. (worried) It better help. What can you do with yourself if all you do is look good? SUPER THE LEGEND -- "FUTURE NETWORK ANCHORMAN" FADE OUT FADE IN BOSTON, MASS. - 1965 INT. HIGH SCHOOL - AUDITORIUM - DAY AARON ALTMAN, looking almost preposterously young in his graduation gown -- is delivering his valedictory. He is a rare bread -- a battle-scarred innocent. AARON ...and finally to the teachers of Whitman High School, I don't have the words to express my gratitude which may have more to say about the quality of the English Department here than my own limitations... He awaits a laugh and gets only the weird sound of collective discomfort. AARON ...that was, of course, not meant to be taken seriously. A personal note. I am frequently asked what the special difficulties are in being graduated from High School two months shy of my fifteenth birthday. I sometimes think it was the difficulties themselves which enabled me to do it. If I'd been appreciated or even tolerated I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to graduate. I hope the next student who comes along and is able to excel isn't made to feel so much an outcast. But I'm looking forward to college; this is the happiest day I've had in a long time. I thank you and I forgive you. This is very little applause. ANGLE ON TEACHERS MALE TEACHER I'm always so confused by Aaron. Is he brave and earnest or just a conceited little dick-head? BACK TO AARON AS WE SUPER: "FUTURE NETWORK NEWS REPORTER" ANGLE ON STAGE As Aaron walks to his seat past three full grown tough looking semi-literate high school graduates. YOUTH #1 Later, Aaron. EXT. SCHOOL YARD - DAY Clusters of graduates at the fence bordering the sunken school yard looking down as the tough cap and gowners seen earlier cuff Aaron around. CLOSER IN Aaron feeling from a blow -- his lip bleeding -- his teeth covered with blood...as he gets to his feet. He is livid -- something primal triggered by this brutality. AARON Go ahead, Stephen -- take your last licks. (points at his face) But this will heal -- what I'm going to say to you will scar you forever. Ready? Here it is. He dodges as they come after him. They catch him by the hair and hurl him to the ground. As he gets up he hurls his devastating verbal blow. AARON You'll never make more than nineteen thousand dollars a year. Ha ha ha. They twist his arm and grip him -- his face scraped on the concrete. AARON Okay, take this: You'll never leave South Boston and I'm going to see the whole damn world. You'll never know the pleasure of writing a graceful sentence or having an original thought. Think about it. He's punched in the stomach and sinks to the ground. As the Young Toughs walk off Aaron catches a phrase of their conversation. YOUTH TOUGH Nineteen thousand dollars... Not bad. FADE IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA - 1968 INT. SUBURBAN HOME - NIGHT JANE CRAIG, ten years old, is in her room typing. Above the desk where she works is a bulletin board with letters and pictures tacked to each one. Her desk has several file racks which contain bulging but neat stacks of air mail envelopes -- a roll of stamps in a dispenser is to one side. Jane types very well in the glare of her desk lamp. JANE (voice over; as she types) Dear Felatzia, it's truly amazing to me that we live a world apart and yet have the same favorite music. I loved the picture you sent and have it up on my bulletin board. You're growing so much faster than I am that I... OTHER ANGLE SHOWING Jane's FATHER standing near the door. JANE (voice over) ...am starting to get jealous. I read in the newspapers about the Italian strike and riots in Milan. I hope you weren't... FATHER (softly) Honey?... Jane SCREAMS, and grabs her heart, breathing heavily, babbles nervously at her Dad. JANE Oh God -- Daddy -- don't...don't... don't ever scare me like that -- please. We SUPER: "FUTURE NETWORK NEWS PRODUCER" Her father is himself taken aback with the shock of her reaction. Falling back towards the door: FATHER Jane -- For God's sake... (recovering) Look, it's time for you to go to sleep. JANE I just have two more pen pals and then I'm done. FATHER You don't have to finish tonight. JANE (he doesn't get in) Nooo. This way the rotation stays the same. FATHER Finish quickly. I don't want you getting obsessive about these things. Good night. We REMAIN WITH Jane who has obviously become disconcerted and troubled. INT. HOUSE - NIGHT As Jane moves to room at the other end of the hall -- a family room where her Father reads the latest Rolling Stone of the mid-60's -- Hunter Thompson, the New Journalism, the slim Jann Wenner -- Jane bursts into the room. JANE Dad, you want me to choose my words so carefully and then you just throw a word like 'obsessive' at me. Now, unless I'm wrong and... (enunciating) ...please correct me if I am, 'obsession' is practically a psychiatric term... concerning people who don't have anything else but the object of their obsession -- who can't stop and do anything else. Well, Here I am stopping to tell you this. Okay? So would you please try and be a little more precise instead of calling a person something like 'obsessive.' She advances furiously on her Father since even this strung out, even with two additional pen pal letters to get off, she had enough sense of duty to kiss him good night before storming from the room. She exits the room INTO BLACK. Stay on BLACK as we begin MAIN TITLES: OVER EXT. SMALL MID-WESTERN CITY - DAY Emerging from the blackness -- Jane Craig -- now a twenty-eight-year-old woman -- a long speed walker wearing a jacket to which reflecting stripes have been glued -- the kind of gear only possessed by someone who runs at off-hours. The Jacket itself is a wish-I-had-it souvenir from some important news assignment, the sort of treasure you love about all else yet never mention. She stops running as she feeds quarters into the first of a phalanx of newspaper machines -- getting seven different papers before moving on. INT. MOTEL ROOM - DAY As she enters from the bathroom, having showered and dressed. The sun is jus now rising. She sits next to her phone. INSERT: JANE'S ROOM The Filofax book is almost an additional character -- a crucial hand-fashioned tool of Jane's trade. She flicks at a page -- takes down a typewritten sheet scotch-taped to it showing the room number of her crew and reporter. ON JANE As she dials one room number. JANE (into phone) Hi...It's me... INT. DUPLICATE MOTEL ROOM - DAY ANGLE ON CAMERAMAN -- his equipment in evidence though essentially asleep holding his bedmate's hand, as he listens to Jane. JANE'S VOICE (voice over) It's thirty minutes before you have to meet me in the lobby -- nudge your wife. BACK TO SCENE JANE There's probably no time to eat... but there's a cafeteria at the bus depot once we get down there. I love working with you two...It saves me a call. She dales. INT. DUPLICATE MOTEL ROOM Where Aaron is switching his TV from station to station, monitoring the early morning news. His PHONE RINGS. AARON Hi. Turn on your TV... Good Morning America, the Morning News and Today are all about to talk to Arnold Schwarzenegger and I think he's live on at least two of them. BACK TO SCENE JANE At six o'clock on the wake-up news they used the wrong missile graphic. AARON (Austrian accent) Now listen, Arnold just said that he's been making three million a movie now. But he's not ever gonna change. He's still the same person when he was making two million dollars a movie. He feels no different. He also bought a brand- new condo with Maria, they gonna furnish tastefully. JANE A half hour in the lobby. AARON (Austrian accent) Okay, I'll see you in the lobbies [sic]. She hangs up -- takes the phone off the hook and lays it on the bed for a moment's solitude. She sits stiffly, palms on top of her legs. It looks like someone with unusually good posture, waiting for something, and now we BEGIN TO SEE the first signs redden and she begins to cry. Now she sobs -- then miraculously shakes it off and exits quickly to the bathroom. This crying episode is clearly part of her morning routine. INT. BUS STATION - DAY Jane standing behind her husband-wife - camera-sound team as they train their attention on Aaron; who is getting ready to do a stand-up. There is a DERELICT off to one side. Aaron holds his microphone at the ready. AARON Ready. CAMERAMAN Your hair's a little funny. AARON It's an ethnic curl, I can't do anything about it. CAMERAMAN In front of a little -- it's a bit... You want a mirror? AARON No -- Don't worry about it. Let's do this. Jane nods her assent. CAMERAMAN Okay. AARON SEEN THROUGH CAMERA AARON In other times, for other purposes, there might be a band and bunting here at the bus depot for J.D. Singer's return from war. He... JANE (interrupting) I'm sorry. But look at how wonderful his face is. She points to the derelict. AARON Oh, you mean use him...That's nice. Okay. CAMERAMAN I'll put him in the low corner of the frame -- good. AARON In other times, with other purposes, there might be a band and bunting here at the bus depot for J.D. Singer's return from war. Last week he was decorated by a president for heroism in a war. But it was the civil war -- in Angola -- and he was in it for the money. He puts the microphone down. AARON Thanks. He passes a vending machine and checks the stray hair. INT. GATE AREA - DAY Jane in the distant b.g. on the phone. Aaron and crew shooting as the bus pulls up, hisses to a stop and tired, rumpled passengers exit the bus. J.D. SINGER, strong, 9'6" figure emerges and is displeased to find a camera trained on him. He reacts with all the grace of a short mercenary. J.D. Go 'way. J.D. gets his luggage from the compartment under the bus. The crew shooting. AARON Just a few questions? J.D. No. He starts walking -- the four person newsteam staying with him. AARON We came from Washington. J.D. Move away from me. AARON (holding out microphone) How long has it been since you've been home. J.D. (moving) Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckes. Snot... Fuckee. You want to use that? AARON It depends on how big a news day it is. They reach Jane. She calls to him. JANE J.D. I'm Jane Craig. I spoke to you in Angola. I gave you some sugarless gum and Handi-Wipes. As he reacts to her: INT. JANE'S ROOM - NIGHT Jane sitting next to Aaron making detailed timing notes as she screens the material shot that day on a portable monitor unit. AARON Where's where I asked him about being scared? (then) You should work on your speech. JANE No. It makes me nervous to think about it. Let's do this. She consults her notes and goes back to the exact spot. AARON (on tape) All this business of war -- do you get scared? J.D. (on tape; he smiles) Uh-uh. (then) I'm a little freaked right now about seeing my father though. He laughs self-consciously and turns briefly away. JANE I love that turn away. INT. AUDITORIUM - DAY Jane is at the lectern in the darkened auditorium as two large monitors display some taped news pieces she has assembled. On the lectern is a sign telling us we are at the Conference of Local Television News Broadcasters. JANE (in darkness) There's a point I'm trying to make about these pieces coming up. A WOMAN'S OUTLINE blacked out from behind -- her VOICE ELECTRICALLY DISGUISED. WOMAN (o.s.; angrily) I don't think any client of mine makes less than fifty thousand dollars a year which means they can afford the best and you're damn right I feel good that that includes me. CUT TO: ANOTHER ANGLE - ANOTHER WOMAN in blackness, her VOICE DISGUISED. WOMAN TWO (o.s.) No. You'd be surprised at who a working girl meets. I've been a working girl for what? -- over a year anyway and that must be a thousand men and I don't think there's an age or type that hasn't been in there. INTERVIEWER'S VOICE (voice over) Policemen? -- Doctor? -- Lawyer...? WOMAN TWO (o.s.) Oh, sure. Television reporters. A laugh from the audience. There is a: CUT TO: ANOTHER ANGLE - FULL FIGURE A WOMAN in blackness. WOMAN THREE (o.s.) I'm seventeen now and I've been working the streets for two years and I guess to be honest -- I stopped thinking of it as temporary. The lights come up on the room. The two screens go black... there is general APPLAUSE. Jane blinks nervously. JANE Please don't applaud. ON AUDIENCE Sitting in groups of three -- NEWS TEAM from around the country, remarkably similar in comparison...a great looking woman, good looking man (either young or attractively avuncular) and a Black or Hispanic. They still APPLAUD -- not yet having grasped the sincerity of Jane's plea which she presses with more urgency. JANE Please. Don't!! (she yells) I gathered these pieces as an example of what's WRONG with local television news. The applause stops. JANE The excerpts from THREE SEPARATE SERIES on prostitution were SIMULTANEOUSLY broadcast by all stations in one city during sweeps week. By what bend of either or suspension of duty is that broadcast news? She pauses half a beat for possible applause -- hearing none, she continues. An anchorman sneezes -- four people shout "gesundheit" simultaneously -- they laugh. JANE The legacy of Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, William Shirer, David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite is being squandered in a desperate popularity contest. Our profession is in danger: TRACKING SHOT As Jane continues, REVEALING that the news team now have even more in common. They do not like Jane. JANE Yesterday's compliment has somehow managed to become today's kiss of death. To be considered a serious journalist is no longer flattering. It presents the risk of being labeled ponderous, or worse yet, elitest, right? SHOT CONTINUES Women playing with their hair, young man bored...one middle-aged anchorman fusses with a spot on his tie... ON JANE Briefly departing from text. JANE All of you know what I'm talking about. We're all trying to act together than we are. But we care. So, we're all secretly terrified, aren't we? Not a peep -- she is thrown but doggedly presses on with her prepared speech though her throat constricts a bit, her voice begins to rasp. JANE We are being increasingly influenced by the star system. The network anchormen are so powerful they compromise our last best hope. The current group is clearly qualified, tied still to our best traditions, but who follows these men? TRACKING SHOT MOVES TO TOM GRUNICK Seated with other members of his news team, a young blonde woman whose hand is resting on his inner leg, a good looking Hispanic. Tom feels a growing excitement -- Jane is not just a speaker, she seems a savior. TOM Wow. His female colleague looks at him. FEMALE COLLEAGUE Oh, I've known so many women like that. They don't like their looks so they're angry. BACK TO JANE Fumbling with her cards, sunk but game -- gamer than she would wish. JANE I was going to talk about other trends but... (mumbling) ...the magazine shows, news at profit, influence of Entertainment Tonight, the danger, the hope, the dream, the question...Oh, I was going to show you a tape -- a story that was carried by all networks on the same night -- the same night -- not one network noted a major policy change in Salt Two nuclear disarmament talks... Here's what they ran instead...Go ahead. Show the tape. ON MONITORS Showing the Japanese Domino Championships as broadcast by all networks in the Spring of 1985. It is quite spectacular -- the dominoes falling into one another provoking waves, crossing tiny bridges, setting off little fireworks. JANE'S AUDIENCE applauds loudly and squeals with delight. ON SCENE Jane between the two monitors. She begins to speak loudly OVER the AUDIENCE NOISES of approval. JANE (loudly) I know it's good film. I know it's fun. I like fun. It's just not news. (as they continue to applaud) Well, you're lucky you love it -- you're going to get a lot more just like it. STRAY VOICE - SHOUT "GOOD" OTHER ANGLE Jane sitting rocked into momentary catatonia, by the event. Dazed as an animal stung by a tranquilizer dart. She takes some irregular breaths waiting for normal life to return. WIDER Tom the last person remaining in the room. He approaches her -- she is totally unaware of his presence, even when he casually mounts the stage with an athletic leap. It takes courage for Tom to fully intrude himself, which he now does: TOM Hello. She looks up at him. ANGLE ON TOM Earnest, nervous -- handsome...Just when she needed a mirage there it is. JANE Hi. TOM I just wanted to tell you how great you were. My name's Tom Grunick. JANE (dumbly) Thank you. (then) They hated me. I don't hate them. TOM Well, they say if you can reach even one person, it means something... And you did that. Jane looks up at his smile -- a beat then: JANE Would you like to have dinner with me? INT. HOTEL RESTAURANT - NIGHT Jane arrives at the maitre d' stand. She has attempted to dress up to the extent that packing for a short-day trip allows. She looks for Tom. Tom rises from a table and is immediately at her side. JANE Hi. I was worried I was early. TOM I was a lot earlier. They are lead to a table and sit down. TOM I kept thinking what a great break it was for me to get to see you tonight. More than a great break, maybe just what I needed...just when I needed it...Angel of mercy -- godsend...lifesaver...what? JANE (picking one) I like "godsend." TOM I haven't been in news that long. I've just been looking for the right person to talk to. I have about two thousand questions for you. He notices that her head has gone into her hands where it continues to rest. He looks at her a beat. TOM It's possible now's not the right time. She lifts her head. JANE If we could just eat first. TOM Totally understood. Totally wrong of me to talk shop after the day you've had. Totally sorry. JANE Nooo. If I could just have a roll, I'd be okay. She takes a roll from the roll plate. He smiles at her. She takes a bite. JANE Thank you. EXT. CONVENTION HOTEL - NIGHT As they walk along -- dumping occasionally and self-consciously. Jane is feeling a version of being turned on -- that is, a little adrift and temporarily free of obligations. She is open to making a memorable mistake. JANE Another thing I can't stand -- Is this dull? Tom shakes his head almost violently. TOM No, no, no, no... Jane looks at him curiously -- then: JANE (broadly) Another thing I can't stand is ...when White House reporters bullshit with each other after a briefing and then one of them has a theory and the other quotes it in his story as "White House" sources say... TOM That actually goes on... JANE Yes. My room is down here -- I'm not tired. Do you want to keep talking? TOM Yes, sure. INT. JANE'S ROOM - NIGHT A small good room -- her working paraphernalia very much in evidence...the quality briefcase...the reams of well organized notes...the thick contact book -- Jane is sitting on the bed -- Tom, not far away in the room's only chair. One lamp is on and it serves to place Jane in the shadows and cast Tom in an enormously flattering light. MUSIC comes from her miniature portable STEREO system. JANE Come on...Even I'm not that hard on myself. TOM No, I really got this job on a fluke and wait till you hear where it ends up. Jane smiles a calming smile. JANE I was doing sports at the station. The newspaper ran this untrue story that I was leaving and they got all these tons of protest mail. So they made me anchor. JANE So great -- right? TOM Except I'm no good at what I'm being a success at. JANE How are you at back rubs? Jane shifts her position so that her back is to Tom... He is immobilized by the sudden turn. Jane waits, just a bit longer than it would take a man to run from the chair to her side before experiencing the ghost-like clutch of rejection. She moves briskly past the moment -- grabbing a "good night" chocolate from the pillow and munching it as she return to his agenda. JANE It's sort of normal -- the way you feel. In graduate school everyone thought the only mistake the admission committee made was letting them in. He moves to the bed. TOM Listen to me. You keep on thinking I'm somebody ho lacks...confidence. That's not it. I know I can talk well enough and I'm not bad at making contact with people, but I don't like the feeling that I'm pretending to be a reporter. (cont'd) And half the time I don't really get the news I'm talking about. It isn't that I'm down on myself. Trust me, I stink. JANE (levelly) I trust you. TOM I didn't even have the chance to get really good at sports. I wasn't bad. I thought I was starting to do interesting features but hockey is big at the station and... JANE (interrupting) What about the obvious remedy? Reversing things. Maybe getting a job on a newspaper. TOM I don't write. Jane laughs or, more accurately, scoffs as Tom Continues. TOM But that didn't stop me from sending out audition tapes to bigger stations and the networks. JANE Well, come on -- it is your life. Nobody is tying you to the fast track. Did you go to college? TOM One year...almost one year. JANE So, you're not well educated and you have almost no experience and you can't write. He nods agreement. TOM And I'm making a fortune. Jane laughs very briefly -- then rubs her face vigorously with her hands... He's making her feel a little crazy. She gets off the bed. JANE It's hard for me to advise you since you personify something that I truly think is dangerous. TOM Uh-huh. JANE (holding it in) I agree with you -- you're not qualified. (letting it out) So get qualified. You can insist on being better prepared. You don't have to just leave it as... (mimicking him) 'I don't write. I'm not schooled. I don't understand the news I'm reading. But at least I'm upset about it, folks.' A beat, then he mumbles softly to himself. TOM Whoa, this was a mistake. JANE Just what do you want from me, anyway? Permission to be a fake? Stop whining and do something about it. He gets up to leave. She follows him. JANE Well, you don't have to start right now. He turns to her. TOM I hated the way you talked to me just now...and it wasn't just because you were right. He exits. INT. JANE'S HOTEL - NIGHT She is on the phone. JANE (into phone) No. It wasn't just the speech -- the same thing happened with this guy. I have passed some line some place. I am beginning to repel people I'm trying to seduce. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - NIGHT As he talks with Jane. AARON (agreeably) He must have been great-looking, right? JANE Why do you say that? AARON Because nobody invites a bad- looking idiot to their bedroom. She smiles. AARON Okay. Let's do me. JANE Sure. AARON Okay. I feel like I'm slipping but do people who are actually slipping feel that way or is it always the really good people who are moving up who invariably think they're slipping because their standards are so high? JANE This conversation is not worthy of you. AARON I'd give anything if that were true. JANE (laughing) Good night. AARON Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If needy were a turn-on? JANE Call if you get weird. INT. JANE'S HOTEL - NIGHT She hangs up -- pulls back the bedspread on the double bed -- on the other half are papers, schedules -- tapes. She doesn't clear them off so that she is literally sleeping with her work. The PHONE RINGS. JANE (answering) I was just thinking it was the shortest phone conversation we ever had. EXT. PHONE BOOTH A deserted well-lit area. Tom on the phone. TOM I never told you the reason I was telling you everything for. JANE (pleasantly surprised it's him) Hey? INTERCUT: ON TOM TOM Those audition tapes I sent out... I've been hired by your network for the Washington bureau. So I'll probably see you at work. Sorry. Jane is rocked and soured. JANE What??? EXT. WASHINGTON D.C. STREET - MORNING Jane and Aaron walking to work -- agitated. AARON They didn't hire Peter Stiller from the Times and he had a great audition tape. JANE You want to start going over who they could have gotten? They can't take on people like this for network news. For God's sake. What's going on? INT. NEWS BUILDING LOBBY - DAY Tom arrives for first day of work. INT. ERNIE MERRIMAN'S OFFICE ERNIE MERRIMAN is the network's Washington Bureau Chief. He is in his early 60's, has worked for the network about 40 years -- part of the golden age -- a family man, an honorable man, a good guy. Right now he is welcoming Tom to the network thereby good-naturedly helping with the destruction of all he holds dear. As he hands Tom his credentials: ERNIE Any particular area you feel strongest in? TOM To be honest, I was best at anchor. Ernie gives him a long look -- is he kidding? ERNIE Why don't you take a few days observing the system? Then we'll put you on general assignment. EDITING ROOM - NIGHT Two small TV monitors -- a smallish room. Jane goes over her timing notes which correspond to the time code SUPERED on the monitors. BOBBIE -- an extraordinarily silent man -- is doing Jane's bidding. On the monitor we SEE the mercenary piece which Jane is editing against a tightening deadline. The PHONE RINGS periodically -- Jane conducting abrupt conversations which continuing to edit. The pressure is palpable to begin with but builds and builds; almost like a family fight getting out of hand and threatening to bend lives. Through it all, Jane remains remarkable calm. Her focus is amazing; her command sexy. JANE (consulting notes) Go back to 316, Bobbie. The sound bite in the cab -- it starts, 'I don't know how I'll feel...' BOBBIE We could... JANE (interrupting) Please, Bobbie, we're pushing. As Bobbie expertly reverses the tape, Tom's face appears in the glass doorway and then he enters the already crowded room -- Jane's eyes click to him briefly. She makes not a move to welcome him. He pauses, but is committed and tries to find a piece for himself against the wall. TOM They said I should observe the... Jane is distracted by the noise... Tom leaning over towards her. TOM They said it would be okay if... JANE (incredulous) We're working here!! You can stand over in the uh, uh, uh... She momentarily can't think of the word 'corner.' Then back to Bobbie: JANE Play back the last line... BOBBIE He said something about... JANE (sharply) Let me hear it! Bobbie, taking the sharp commands with ever increasing, yet still repressed resentment. The Assistant Director, BLAIR LITTON, enters the editing room. She is about 26 and every night since she got her job as Assistant Director she has been the first to crack under pressure. BLAIR We'll need it in ten minutes. We're putting it directly into... Jane holds up a finger of warning to Blair as she picks up a ringing phone and talks to Bobbie at the same time. JANE (into phone) Craig, just a second -- (to Bobbie) Let me hear it! Through much of this chaos we focus on: TOM Wedged into an uncomfortable position between two tape racks -- He is wide-eyed at this circus of tension and fear. His eyes dart around constantly -- trying to take in as much as he can, always returning with wonder to focus on Jane. MERCENARY (voice over) It's been a long time since I've seen my folks and all but...I don't expect any big-deal homecoming. JANE Stop there. (into phone she's been holding) I want to shoot a picture from a book I have in the office. BLAIR You don't have time. Not a chance. JANE (into phone) I'll be right down. It's right tight. She crosses out. BLAIR I've got to tell Ernie...because there isn't enough time. JANE Yes, there is. Blair leaves, as Jane gathers up her notes. She charges out leaving Tom awkwardly along with Bobbie. TOM I'm Tom Grunick. I started on General Assignment today. Bobbie stops the machine, turns in his chair and shakes hands. Then he smiles secretly and speaks his first full sentence. BOBBIE I don't think she's going to make it. Tom exits. INT. BUREAU NEWSROOM Aaron is having a theoretical discussion with Ernie and JENNIFER MACK, a correspondent in her early 40's, a pioneer beauties in news. She is well-schooled, bred, trained and known... GEORGE WEIN, a black correspondent in his 40s, and MARTIN KLEIN, formerly with the Johnson administration -- State Department correspondent for the network. KLEIN Okay, what about this? Here's a tough ethical one. Would you tell a source that you loved them just to get some information? AARON Yes. GEORGE Yes. ERNIE Me too. JENNIFER Sure. AARON Jennifer didn't know there was an alternative. Jennifer laughs that laugh one always hopes beautiful women will laugh when one says something funny. Aaron smiles at her. AARON Here's one. They allow us to have cameras at an execution in Florida. Do you broadcast tape of the guy in the chair when they turn on the voltage? KLEIN Sure. JENNIFER Why not? ERNIE Absolutely. GEORGE You bet. AARON Nothing like wrestling with a moral dilemma is there? Blair enters the scene, Tom trailing several feet behind, continuing to monitor the budding deadline crises. BLAIR Excuse me, Ernie, we're several minutes to air and Jane's shooting an insert still for tonight's piece. ERNIE She knows how much time she has. Blair flashes a tortured smile -- panic is growing. BLAIR Okay. I just wanted you to know. AARON What is she shooting? BLAIR Norman Rockwell's 'Homecoming.' AARON (thinks then) Oh, that's nice... (walking away) We'll need some new lines. INT. EDITING ROOM - NIGHT Jane up against it now -- but still seemingly calm. Tom watching, keeps on glancing at the clock fascinated, impressed. JANE Okay, Bobbie, just a two-second dissolve to the Rockwell. BOBBIE Should I... JANE (interrupting) Just a two-second dissolve. BLAIR (hurting) Oh, Jesus, we have three minutes... Why do you do this to me. Is it because I won an award? INT. RECORDING BOOTH - NIGHT Where Aaron is writing his last line on a folded over piece of paper even as he gets ready to record. He times it with a stop watch. AARON Norman Rockwell's enduring portrait of a Homecoming The return of a fighting man has always been one of the more moving ceremonies of war... Tearful women, proud men, excited children. But J.D. Singer was right -- his homecoming was no big deal. INT. EDITING ROOM - NIGHT BLAIR We have a minute and a half. It's my responsibility to tell them we won't be ready. JANE Uh-uh. We're be ready. Blair glances frantically at her watch. BLAIR In 84 seconds? ON CLOCK Sweeping from 28 minutes to -- 84 seconds from deadline. Aaron walks in, Jane looks up. JANE (hopefully) Nine seconds. AARON Eleven and a half. JANE Oh, God. Back it, Bobbie -- Bobbie? ALMOST SIMULTANEOUS DIALOGUE FOLLOWS. IT BUILDS UNTIL IT DUPLICATE THE SOUND OF LOUD AND BAWDY SEX. BLAIR You're saying 'Oh, God..." They are going to go to up and the screen will be black -- they're going to go to black because we're not there. How about careers, huh? How about careers? ON CLOCK 42 seconds away. BLAIR We're not going to make it. Bobbie makes a small bobble -- Jane giving the merest evidence of the strain, scratching her face repeatedly. BOBBIE Whoops. BLAIR (unravelling) Whoops?!? Whoops?!? No, please... no, ooh, ahhh, ohhh. AARON Shit, shit, shit... TOM (caught up) You're almost there, you can do it -- can do -- can do. And as the pitch reaches its zenith, 27 seconds left. Bobbie hands the tape to Blair. BOBBIE Ready. INT. NEWSROOM - NIGHT Blair hikes up her skirt and takes off. VARIOUS SHOTS Our "chase scene" as Blair soars through the newsroom, leaping a chair smoothly, smashing her leg against a table in full flight, the adrenaline deadening the pain -- she arrives at a waiting elevator -- uses a key dangling from her neck to unlock it... jumps nervously during the ride and now, in FULL EXTENDED FLIGHT, barrels down the long corridor heading to the control room where she arrives; slamming the tape into a technician's hand even as it is introduced on the air. INT. NEWSROOM - NIGHT Aaron, Jane, the others looking at the end of the piece on the air -- Tom in the b.g. as Blair enters -- relaxed, almost jaunty. BLAIR I was a little nervous there for a minute. AARON Oh, come on -- tell us another. ON MONITOR The end of the piece -- the Rockwell painting giving way to the mercenary's actual homecoming which matches the portrait. The irony works nicely. The network anchorman comes up for his close. BILL RORISH, 50 years old and able to flutter much younger pulses. He is able and experienced -- a reporter who has become a journalistic king. BILL (on monitor, smiling) Bill Rorish...Thank you...Good night. JENNIFER Look at that smile. Oh, that was good and oh my, Bill smiled -- he liked it. AARON He loved it. Big smile. He gives Jane a congratulatory sock in the shoulder which she returns -- Tom in the b.g. of the SHOT. BLAIR I haven't seen Bill smile like that in weeks. Ernie has walked a few steps to the office. BLAIR Ernie, you missed his close... He smiled. (mimicking) Thank you...Good night. She smiles. ERNIE I saw the smile -- good piece. AARON I'm gonna go look at it again. They leave -- Aaron waving to Tom who stands in the b.g. The others leave. Tom approaches Jane. TOM I'm sorry if I was in the way. It was totally impressive. Great piece. JANE (somewhat formal) You weren't. Thanks. How does it feel being here? TOM I can't believe I'm really here. No kidding. If you're through work now -- JANE No. Aaron and I go to Central America on Wednesday -- so I'm cramming. TOM I thought you were incredible in there. I know how much I have to learn. I'd really -- a lot -- appreciate it...if... JANE 'Really a lot appreciate it...' TOM You make me nervous. Anyway if I can pick your brain -- Jane grimaces at "pick your brain." JANE I can't help you, sorry. I'm not here to teach remedial reporting. TOM And it has nothing to do with the fact I left your room instead of staying there? Jane looks at him. JANE Oh, please. (then, almost gently) You're gonna have to understand something. This isn't personal. She exits. EXT. CENTRAL AMERICAN JUNGLE - MORNING As Aaron, Jane and their CREW march along with a CONTRA SQUAD deep in their own conversation. Except for the DIN of TROPICAL BIRDS they seem almost like a cranky married couple on their way to work. AARON I didn't sleep. They're giving me less and less air time. They don't think I'm at all anchor material. JANE If we don't get to their camp soon, we won't be able to tape the supplies coming in. AARON Last time Paul was sick they gave Connie the weekend news instead of me. JANE You spend too much time -- much too much worrying about that crap... (suddenly reacting) Oh good. They have entered a clearing where supplies have been dropped, the Guerrillas already tearing apart boxes with army boots inside. ANGLE ON A guerrilla soldier rubbing his shoeless foot. A pair of new boots sit alongside him. Jane's Cameraman prepares to shoot, saying in Spanish, then English: CAMERAMAN Put on the boot. Jane rushes into the scene incensed. JANE Stop! We are not here to stage the news. Wait and see what he does. Then to the totally confused soldier. JANE (cont'd) Sir, you do whatever you want. It's your choice. By now there is a fair-sized cluster of armed men as well as the news team staring at the guerrilla, who is at loss as to what is expected. He looks to Jane, who can offer no help save her own determination not to interfere. Finally he puts on the boot. JANE (to Cameraman) Okay. He shoots the scene. INT. HAY ADAMS HOTEL Tom, in shirt and tie, is on the phone. This is a big day. TOM Okay, I'll meet the crew there then. Could you give me that address again? Great. Yes, it's good to finally be getting to work. Okay that's 17204? 1-7-2-0-4. Thanks. INT. HOTEL LOBBY - DAY As Tom gets directions from the CONCIERGE. CONCIERGE It's only ten minutes if you prefer to walk... (as he walks away) I'll look for you on the news tonight. EXT. HOTEL - DAY Tom has a real sense of the moment -- of having arrived. The strange bubble of pleasure rises to the surface as he walks off to cover his first story. He laughs out loud, loving his lot. EXT. CENTRAL AMERICAN JUNGLE - LATER AFTERNOON Jane in the f.g. with her crew while Aaron talks in rapid Spanish to the GUERRILLA LEADERS. AARON (in Spanish) Are you guys kidding or do you really think you'll run into something...? I mean, do you feel that every time and it never happens? Or is it the first time it felt that way and it's going to happen?... I mean, how bad can it be?... Are you nervous...? What's the chances on a scale of one to ten -- that we're going to be in a war within the next few hours?... Really? He starts to walk towards Jane -- one of the men he was talking with calling after him with an added thought. AARON Thanks, you speak English very well too. (to Jane) Great news. He says they've been engaging the Sandinistas pretty regularly and that he'd be really surprised if we didn't take fire tonight. Jane reacts -- a flash of exhilaration. Aaron is amazed at her attitude. AARON Look at her. (to Jane) If anything happens to me tell every woman I've ever dated I was talking about them at the end. That way they'll have to reevaluate me. Jane laughs out loud, attracting the Guerrillas' attention. Aaron repeats his speech in Spanish. The Guerrillas laugh. EXT. JUNGLE - NIGHT Aaron and Jane in line behind the Guerrillas. They HEAR A SHOT. The head of the patrol gestures -- deploying his men. Aaron grabs Jane and heads for some cover to the left. As they run -- more SHOTS. Jane in work mode. As soon as they settle. JANE Let's tape. CAMERAMAN (Spanish accent) Much too dark. Black. JANE That's okay. ON AARON BARELY DISCERNIBLE As they start taping he is breathless with the nervousness of the nearly gunfire. AARON The first shots were fired not thirty seconds ago. The Contras feel they must be outnumbered this is so small a unit: that's a given. Still they hold their ground despite the fact that their weapons have been acting up -- misfiring or jamming. A new shipment of rifles is expected tomorrow -- all they got today were the shoes. There is the SOUND OF GUNFIRE. JANE (to Cameraman) Okay. (to Aaron) Great line at the end. AARON Did you shoot their boots? JANE Of course. AARON We can cut back at the end. JANE To the pan of the supplies boxes -- AARON Can you believe it? I just risked my life for a network that tests my face with focus groups. EXT. GOVERNMENT BLDG - AFTERNOON Tom, squashed in amidst a small mob of reporters... behind a police line. He HEARS a reporter next to him say: REPORTER I think he's coming out now. TOM (to his crew) They say he's coming out now. A surge. TOM (to Reporter) Is that him? TOM'S CAMERAMAN Yes. Tom checks his notes. INSERT - TOM'S BLACK BOOK The same model we've seen Jane use. A list of questions written in big color highlighted letters. As he looks down to study them, everyone else moves suddenly off. TOM'S P.O.V. The mass of journalists and technicians shouting questions. "Will you dispatch troops?" after the Ambassador they've been awaiting -- clumping on his limo and then being shaken by the movement of the vehicle. ON TOM Standing alone and forlorn as his crew trots back. CAMERAMAN (observing Tom) What's wrong? TOM I had a lot of questions here. I missed the story. CAMERAMAN Don't worry, it's okay. I got a piece of his face. EXT. GUERRILLAS CAMP - MORNING Jane is standing -- talking to her crew. Others asleep in b.g. -- a drowsy, morning-after feeling. JANE Are you all packed and ready? CAMERAMAN The stuff in the dark is not good. Nobody wants news lit like that. JANE Will you just get packed? She waves him off -- then she walks several yards away, holding a knapsack in her hand. She takes off a brush and runs it through her hair -- opens a plastic case and takes out a travel toothbrush, brushes her teeth and rinses her mouth with water from her canteen. She puts everything back in place, then looks about, sobs for several beats. One of the Guerrillas hears her sobbing and enters the scene -- he stands a respectful distance away. Jane finishes, notices him, makes a face by way of explanation, and exits the scene feeling measurably better. INT. WASHINGTON CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT The Washington Control Room. Jennifer, Jane, Aaron, Blair stand watching the intro to the Central American piece. Tom stands in the distant b.g. There are over a dozen monitors -- including one which is constantly on the anchor man, Bill Rorish. ON TELEVISION MONITORS Bill Rorish on camera -- an INSERT behind showing Aaron in blackness planted into a Central American map bordered by rifles. A separate monitor shows the INSERT alone. BILL (voice over) A fire fight along the Nicaraguan border...in one minute. The INSERT MOVES OUT AT US TO FILL THE SCREEN -- WE SEE Aaron's dim outline and HEAR him say: AARON (voice over; on camera) The first shots were fired not thirty seconds ago. The MUSICAL "EVENING NEWS" SIGNATURE COMES IN ever-so-briefly. The SCREEN GOES TO A COMMERCIAL -- as Blair screams enthusiastically. BLAIR Great graphic, great graphic. Ernie ENTERS THE SCENE... He kisses Jane in greeting -- pats Aaron on the back. ERNIE You finally got a piece in a few minutes early and I hear Bill loved it. Jennifer gives Jane a mock pat on the back. ERNIE (continuing) I have somebody downstairs who one of the clerks brought in and vouches for. He says he has something to say about gays getting promotions at State... It can't hurt to tape him. ON JANE As she feels Tom staring at her -- turns and notices him for the first time. TOM Hi. JANE How's it going? TOM Can I buy you dinner sometime soon? JANE (thrown) I just got back -- I don't know which end is up. TOM Okay. In the b.g. WE MAY HAVE NOTICED Bill Rorish on one monitor as he picks up the phone at his anchor desk, during the commercial break. BLAIR Jane! Bill Rorish wants to speak to you at the break. (as she hands it to her) I never heard of him handing over compliments in the middle of the show. There is a stillness in the Control Room as Jane speaks to the anchor man in New York who WE CAN VIEW on a monitor. ON MONITOR We see Bill Rorish. BILL (into phone) Jane? JANE (into phone) Yes. BILL (into phone) Well, darling, if it gets any better than that, I'm going to have to bring you up here to New York. JANE (into phone) Thanks. I just wish you'd kept the first twenty seconds. Blair cringes at Jane's blunt reply. JANE (into phone) But thanks. BILL (over phone) Well, the visual with the boots at the end was just perfect. Jane covers the mouthpiece and turns to Aaron. JANE God, he loved the boots. Aaron reaches happily for the phone. JANE (into phone) Aaron should be hearing this so I have an extra witness. BILL (over phone) Well, you always want to give the credit away, do you? JANE (into phone) No, I don't. He happens to deserve the credit. He's right here. BILL (over phone) I'll speak to you soon We see Rorish over the monitor. He hangs up. JANE (to Aaron) He had to read over some new copy. We see on the monitor that this is not so. It's a very eggy moment Aaron. Tom breaks the silence. TOM (to the rescue) Okay if I watch you tape that interview downstairs? AARON Yeah. As he passes Jane he leans next to her and WE HEAR him WHISPER. AARON Please laugh so they think I'm not dying inside but have so much style I just said something funny. Jane does her part enormously well -- laughing with amusement... but her eyes blaze -- her friend has been needlessly humiliated. Blair wants desperately to be inside Aaron's joke. BLAIR What did he say? JANE (as if still amused) I'll never tell. INT. SMALL TELEVISION STUDIO - NIGHT BUDDY FELTON waits alone. A CAMERA CREW watches him. He is well dressed, exceedingly nervous. He summons the courage to ask a question. BUDDY Could I see how I photograph? CAMERAWOMAN Huh? Sorry? BUDDY 'Cause for the interview they're going to use a screen and disguise me to protect my anonymity so could I see myself before that? CAMERAWOMAN Sure. The Camerawoman punches a button and immediately Buddy's image comes up on a standing monitor on the studio floor. He's not happy with the image -- but works at concealing his reaction -- gasping a bit of air -- trying to touch it. Aaron enters. Tom smiles a friendly smile which flusters Buddy momentarily. But again he almost manages to conceal his private rush. Buddy's internal drama is such he invariably finds himself covering up, fearful roomfuls of people will simultaneously guess his thoughts. Aaron directs him behind a screen and looks at his notes. AARON It's Mr. Buddy Felton? BUDDY Yes. AARON That's your full name? BUDDY Yes. AARON I might as well ask you the questions on tape. Is that all right? BUDDY Yes. AARON You worked at one time as Foreign Service Trainee in the State Department. BUDDY I was there two years and was promoted on merit nine times. AARON Eventually rising to... BUDDY Office Bimbo. (curbing his amusement) No, I'm sorry. Aaron is having a hard enough day, He is visibly annoyed. AARON You're saying the fact that you're gay had something directly to do with your promotions? AARON Eventually rising to? BUDDY G.S. I don't know. (scratches his head) I don't know numbers. Tom laughs. Aaron shoots him a look. AARON You're saying the fact that you're gay had something directly to do with your promotions? BUDDY I don't like the word gay. AARON Which would you prefer? BUDDY Ravenous homosexual. AARON Stop the tape, okay. Forget it, Ellen. Let's call security and get him out. As Aaron walks out -- Tom is momentarily fixed on the sight of Buddy walking in small circles giving himself a talking to. BUDDY (self flagellating) Great time to act out, Buddy. You won't be happy until you turn the whole world off. He notices Tom. BUDDY They're not really going to call security are they? TOM No, I don't think so. BUDDY How do I get out of here? TOM Follow me. BUDDY (dazzled) You talked me into it. INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT Tom distracted -- his day has been a bit of a bummer. Buddy self conscious -- the proximity creating an almost unbearable tension of romance and adventure. INT. BUILDING LOBBY - NIGHT A Guard on duty -- a BLACK WOMAN. She sees Buddy. GUARD Oh, you're the gay guy. I was just coming to find you. BUDDY I'm leaving. TOM (to Guard) It's okay. EXT. STREET - NIGHT Walking. Buddy in step with him. BUDDY Sir? Tom turns. Buddy talks rather quickly -- He cares very much about leaving Tom with the right impression. The last words of his speech he hadn't expected to say. BUDDY (cont'd) Thank you for not shunning me and all. (more) I really did have all that information but I thought I might just be being vindictive to get a little hunk of the ol' spotlight. I know, horrible -- but I didn't do it, so okay? And thanks again and would you like to have a drink -- at a regular bar? TOM Oh, sure. Okay. His heart racing, Buddy attempts casual matter-of-factness. BUDDY Is there a regular bar around here? INT./ENT. REGULAR BAR - NIGHT Tom and Buddy on adjoining stools. For Tom, the last weeks have been humbling, antagonistic. He's enjoying Buddy who listens attentively and wholeheartedly endorses every word Tom speaks. TOM I've been doing some morning show stuff, but mostly radio -- that doesn't bother me. I'm in no rush for anything. It's just the snotty attitude, even if I have it coming, it's still... BUDDY Bad manners. TOM Yes. That's right. BUDDY I know...I mean you didn't do anything special for me tonight. You just had what I think are good manners, decency. And it really makes me want to be nice back and it has nothing to do with any homosexual thing. (looks right at him) Honestly. (then away) Because I don't know if you've homosexual or not and -- you're not, are you? TOM No...no. BUDDY One's enough. Tom signals for the check. BUDDY (cont'd) I wasn't doing anything. TOM I really have to go. BUDDY Okay. At least let me show my appreciation. The Secretary of Labor is going to be indicted on Wednesday. For the graft thing he supposedly did before he was appointed. TOM What? BUDDY Yes, it's true. They're going to make it public Wednesday but isn't it a big deal for you to have it a day and a half early? TOM Yes. How do you know? BUDDY (shrugs) My roommate's very social -- somebody from Justice was over and...I always hear things before they happen. Hey, and from now on, so do you. INT. ERNIE'S OFFICE - DAY George Weln, the black correspondent and Tom are seated in the office with Ernie -- they are in mid-meeting. GEORGE I'm virtually certain it's not true. He may be indicted eventually, but I don't think it will be this month. ERNIE (to Tom) You want to be alone with me -- tell me your source? TOM If I told you I'm not sure it would totally convince you, but I totally believe the guy. GEORGE (insufferable) Labor is my Department -- I can't conform it and my contacts go very deep. TOM So if it's true -- I'm terrific, right? ERNIE It's not even a close call. Of course we can't go with it. INT. EDITING ROOM - FOLLOWING DAY Jane is working with Bobbie the editor... Snatches of the tape make it obvious that the Labor Secretary has been indicted -- George Weln stands behind Jane, who is dialing a number. BOBBIE Do you want him all the way to the car? JANE No stop where he's all besieged. BOBBIE Because... JANE (to Bobbie) Right there, Bobbie. Tom enters. TOM So he was indicted? JANE Yes. GEORGE We were right not to go with it. TOM But I was right -- just somebody give it to me. I had a good story. JANE (to George) Give it to him -- so we can concentrate. TOM Ah, I don't want any credit. Bobbie and I serve anonymously. He pats Bobbie on the back... and exits. BOBBIE (pausing in his work) You know, I like Tom, because hi... JANE Bobbie, please. INT. METRO BUS - DAY Crowded rush hour... Buddy and Tom stand next to each other. BUDDY ...and the White House is hoping to keep a lid on it for a few days till they figure out what to do. TOM Thanks a lot, Buddy. BUDDY (brushing it off) Oh, please. So they were really impressed with you at work. TOM Not impressed exactly -- but a break in the clouds. BUDDY I see the change in you -- I see it. INT. WHITE HOUSE PRESS ROOM - DAY The 10 A.M. briefing just breaking up -- Jennifer leaves her network seat in the front row, only to be grabbed by Tom who steers her outside. EXT. WHITE HOUSE EAST WING - DAY In the near distance a circular driveway and a silent armed MARINE GUARD, standing at attention. TOM (to Jennifer) So he bought this Peugeot sedan at a greatly reduced price while he was there in charge of the White House Advance Team. JENNIFER How come you're not chasing it down yourself? TOM Look, I'm junior man -- and it's your beat. JENNIFER Boy, that's nice...I wish we could all deal with each other like this. I'll check it. Anything I can do for you? TOM This is my first time at the White House. Is there any chance to look at where he works and the rest of it? JENNIFER I didn't have the guts to ask when I first came up. I'll get you a great tour. INT. BAR - EARLY EVENING Buddy and Tom watching the Evening News as Jennifer finishes her story. JENNIFER (voice over; on TV set) The President says it's not a violation but nonetheless White House sources say the full price will be paid for the Peugeot and new rules will put future bargain hunting off limits for Presidential Aides. This is Jennifer Mack at the White House. Tom and Buddy smile at each other... energized -- up. BUDDY Forgive me, but it really is intoxicating being a news source. TOM Nobody else had it. BUDDY I wish it were you giving the story. TOM That's okay. BUDDY What if we just don't tell them anything anymore unless they let you do the story? TOM No. Really...don't worry about it. BUDDY Okay. And look, in the future I can call you when I have news for you. Don't feel you have to spend time with me just to get the information. (a breath; then to himself) Well, that wasn't as hard to say as you thought, was it, Buddy? TOM What do you mean? You're one of the few people in this town I can talk to. Buddy puts his hand to his heart and makes a LOUD SOUND OF RAPTURE. BUDDY Hoooo. The BARTENDER and some nearby patrons turn and look. Tom shifts with discomfort. TOM Hey, Buddy, don't do that anymore. BUDDY (simply) Okay. INT. WASHINGTON BUREAU - NIGHT Jane waiting for an elevator... It comes and she steps on just as Tom clearly excited comes around the bend from Ernie's office calling for her. He goes to the stairs. INT. WALKWAY - NIGHT He runs out and sees Jane in the lobby below, then takes off after her. INT. LOBBY - NIGHT As he enters and runs outside, looking in both directions then running off to the right. A BEAT -- REVEALING Jane has stopped to talk with Blair -- now she exits. EXT. WASHINGTON STREET - NIGHT Tom on the street, ahead of her, thinking he's behind her... He runs another half a block and stops dejected... Turns to walk back to the office. He keeps looking back to see if he missed her, so that his head is turned as Jane reaches him, says a fairly social: JANE Hi, how are you? She keeps moving -- Tom spinning after her. TOM Wait -- I need you. She stops. TOM I've got another story. JANE Some public official skipped a week on his Christmas Club? TOM The House Armed Service Committee has a secret report which says that the General Stillwell tank the Army has dumped a fortune into plain won't work. I have it cold, confirmed. They have five million dollars in this thing already. JANE Billion. TOM Okay, billion...right, of course. They told me I could have any producer I wanted -- and I want you. As Tom savors the moment. INT. TELEVISION STUDIO - EVENING Various bureau personnel standing at their desks watching Tom's piece being broadcast. We SEE a TANK MISFIRING. TOM (voice over) One source referred to it as a five billion dollar metal sculpture to ugly to look at and too big to bury. AARON (to Jane) You write this? JANE I write for you sometimes. AARON Not because you have to. ON MONITOR We SEE a General walking away from Tom. TOM (voice over) General Elton McGuire is in charge of the weapon system. ON MONITOR - TWO SHOT GENERAL I've been in the Army twenty-seven years -- so I'll let the Army ask the questions, not you. TOM General, I don't want to bother you anymore or your family. But tomorrow there will be a mob of me back here -- so, if you have anything to say, why not say it now, sir, the way you want? ON TOM He is a study. Looking at himself -- and though it's far from his first time on television -- it's the first time he's seen himself doing serious work and, by all appearances, doing it well. As the General answers in the b.g. -- BLAIR I think it's great of us to have left in what you said -- just great of us. Tom smiles modestly. AARON Yeah, let's never forget. We're the real story. Not them. Tom and Jane look over -- then Tom looks to Jane for a verdict. In the b.g., the news goes to a commercial. JANE Yeah, I know, I went back and forth on it. BLAIR I liked it. He's not afraid to be human. Ernie ENTERS THE SCENE with his fourteen-year-old DAUGHTER in tow... He approaches Tom. ERNIE My youngest wanted to meet you. This is Ellie. TOM Hi, Ellie. ERNIE You should be honored -- she never cares about meeting anyone here. But she liked you on television just now. AARON (entering scene) Hi, Ellie -- remember me? ELLIE I'm sorry -- from where? AARON I've been to your house a lot... ERNIE (helping) And Aaron went on that fourteen day raft trip with us last year. ELLIE (vaguely) Oh yes -- hi. INT. NEWSROOM - NIGHT (LATE) Tom is on the phone. TOM (into phone) Hi, Dad...Did you see it? Great -- I'll send you a tape...I'm sorry I haven't called. Things were a little bumpy for a while. It's not important... I'm fine now. (what he's been wanting to say aloud) Hey, Dad -- I just may be able to do this job...Well, I'm glad you were sure. INT. ERNIE MARRIMAN'S VIRGINIA HOME - DAY Ernie is hosting the news staff for Sunday brunch -- they stand around drinking in small groups... Aaron is standing with Blair and a MAN in his fifties we have not seen before. BLAIR I don't know why we have to feel defensive about it. Newspapers are in business to make money -- why not us? Aaron looks at her in amazement. BLAIR They criticize us for supposedly pandering while they run WINGO Games. GREY HAIRED MAN (amused) Exactly right. Excuse me. I'm paid to mix. Blair and Aaron laugh appreciatively as he walks off to another group. BLAIR Goodbye, Paul. AARON Take care, Paul. (back to Blair) It takes a certain kind of courage for you to say that in front of the President of the News Division. BLAIR You think anyone who's proud of the work we do is an ass kisser. AARON No. I think anyone who puckers their lips and presses it against his boss' buttocks and then smooches is an ass kisser. BLAIR My gosh, and for a while there, I was attracted to you. She walks off. AARON Wait a minute -- that changes everything. ON JANE At the bar getting a drink. Jennifer ENTERS THE SCENE... and leads Jane down the hall until they are standing alone. JENNIFER This is very awkward. JANE Go ahead -- what? JENNIFER Ummm -- it's dumb dorm stuff but I see Tom around you a lot and this is such a small office and I'd like to see him outside of work, unless there's some reason for you to mind... in which case I just won't do anything. JANE God Almighty -- Whew. Do I mind? Why do I mind? I do mind. What a shock -- I don't have a right to... I don't think I like him. I know I don't respect him...So what am I talking about -- what am I saying to you? JENNIFER You're saying stay away from him. JANE (stupefied) I can't be. She blinks in wonder. JENNIFER We don't have to settle this definitively right now. Jennifer moves toward the drinking table -- Jane, unsteadied by the dose of self-revelation, moves towards Aaron's circle and scratches his back in friendship... Tom approaches an she moves off -- not wanting to deal with him. She takes a few breaths as she keeps walking. We HEAR snatches of PARTY CONVERSATIONS, i.e: GEORGE WELN Tell me one person who ever left television news to work on a newspaper. She moves on; Tom still following. ERNIE'S WIFE (holding Paul's arm) I felt so proud when he turned down News Vice President so we could stay here. Suddenly, after all these years, we have a life. Jane turns -- sees that Tom is still looking at her from a few feet away. JANE (badly) Hi, Tom. She stands there, genuinely frightened. She must deal with him now. He crosses to her. TOM It's the firs time I've seen you dressed like this. You look so clean and pretty. JANE What do you mean clean? TOM At work there's always this sort of film over you. JANE Well, thumps like me leave appearance to guys like you. TOM You're great at taking the edge off a good time. Jane starts twitching. She pauses -- holds a hand lightly on his arm to steady herself. TOM You okay? JANE Yes. Just don't say anything mean for a while. Thanks. She meets his gaze for an instant -- and, in that instant, loses control for the first time in her memory. She looks strange as she retreats from this glimpse of upheaval. JANE I've got to find someone. It's important. Excuse me. She walks away. ON AARON AND ERNIE ERNIE I had the strangest thing happen yesterday. Anne and I have been married what? -- Thirty-six years... Everything fine -- two days after the promotion came through, I was checking myself in the mirror and she was making a face at me behind my back. So yesterday I looked in the mirror and she was doing it again. AARON You didn't say anything to her? He shakes his head. ERNIE My instincts tell me not to. Annie comes up. ANNE The office is phoning, honey. He EXITS SCENE as Anne watches him go. ANNE I hope he moves that fast when it's me on the line. ON JANE As she passes a chair with an afghan shawl on the back -- she picks it up and wraps it around herself, a bit chilled. She sees Jennifer on the stairs and moves toward her calling in a too loud, anxiety-ridden voice as she goes. JANE Jennifer. Hey, Jennifer. ON STAIRCASE Jennifer turning as Jane whips up the stairs. JANE Forget what I said -- you do whatever you want to with him. She pushes at Jennifer a little. JENNIFER Well, there's nothing I'm going to do right this second. Jane pushes her again. JENNIFER But it's a party, right? Jane smiles back feigning female bonding -- Jennifer goes back down the steps and crosses to Tom. FULL SCENE Aaron takes in Jane, who is taking in Jennifer and Tom -- then Aaron begins to sense a new dynamic in the room as Ernie re-enters and huddles briefly with Paul... The News President is intent... The two of them walk over to Tom and Jennifer. We PICK UP just a few words: ERNIE This would be a good time to tap that source of yours. He could have an angle or something. AARON'S P.O.V. Tom is startled but cool -- nods his head -- Jennifer is amazed looking at Tom with new and even prettier eyes... Paul and Ernie now move toward Jane, a whole flow of movement creating a new energy in the area. Jane sheds her Afghan as she rises to meet them. ERNIE (to Jane) We want you to exec produce a Special Report... JANE What? Aaron has come over to join them now in time to HEAR. ERNIE A Libyan plane shot up one of our bases in Egypt. It's all still happening. JANE Let's figure out the field. ERNIE Unfortunately, since Paul's here, he's made out the assignments... Jennifer at the White House... George at the Pentagon...Martin at State...and we need an anchor since Rorish is in his boat, so we're gonna do the whole report this afternoon from here...with Tom. AARON That's it. I resign as of now. ERNIE (to Aaron) Stop it. AARON I'll tell you what. I'll stay if Tom knows how to spell Gaddafi. JANE Ernie, as much as I like you, I think I have to tell Paul what I think, because this is really sort of obscenely stupid. ERNIE Jane, if you want to, go ahead. I don't disagree with you. Jane moves quickly off, awed at the prospect of taking on the big boss. ON JANE As she moves past Tom who is talking on the phone, eventually catching up with Paul. In the b.g. Tom has just HEARD the "BEEP" of an ANSWERING MACHINE. TOM Hello, Buddy. It's 1:35 -- and this is Tom. You can reach me at the office. It's important. I can use a little help. Jane, because of the proximity to Tom is speaking in whispered intensity. JANE Tom isn't ready for the job you're about to hand him. Not near ready. Not by the longest shot. Aaron's spent six weeks in Tripoli, he's interviewed Gaddafi -- he reported on the Eight-one story. I think he's essential to do the job we're capable of and I think it's my responsibility to tell you that. PAUL Okay, that's your opinion. I don't agree. JANE It's not opinion. PAUL You're just absolutely right and I'm absolutely wrong? She nods. PAUL It must be nice to always believe you know better. To think you're always the smartest person in the room. JANE (from her depths) No, it's awful. Oh my, it's awful. JANE (turning to leave) We'd better get moving. As they move out... Jane goes to Aaron... He moves with her towards the door. AARON What happened? JANE I'll tell you later -- where you going to watch from? AARON Watch? -- JANE I'll come by your place, right after...drink, take pills... Love you. She runs out the door. Aaron turns mean and mocks Jane's last words -- screwing up his face in a savage burlesque. AARON Yeah, love you, too. EXT. DRIVEWAY - DAY As Jane briefly pauses to see which war has room. Tom opens the passenger seat of his car -- she gets in. It moves off. INT. TOM'S CAR - DAY As it moves off. JANE Nervous? TOM Excited. Jane looks over at him -- there's no question he's just told the truth. INT. TOM'S OFFICE - DAY In the b.g. we SEE the Bureau Newsroom beginning to pulse with activity. Tom closes the door. He sits down behind his desk and opens a bottom drawer -- a clean whit shirt lies there. He opens the center drawer -- two ties are inside. He picks one. He reaches for a package of new red suspenders. He takes off the shirt and puts on the new one -- all of this the work of an expert craftsman. By the time he finishes he looks like the authority figure we know he's now. INT. BUREAU NEWSROOM - JANE AND BLAIR Jane is NOT hyper. She is purposeful -- organized -- even calming Blair with a little physical contact -- a touch on the arm, to still her colleague's hysterical demons. JANE Tell George and Jessica to try and cover everything without Tom having to ask additional questions. BLAIR And Bobbie says... JANE Did you hear what I just said -- do you have that? Take a breath. BLAIR (a breath, then) Yes. In the b.g. Tom has exited his office and looks about -- waiting for some indication as to what to do next. JANE And the most important thing make sure his earpiece works, have back-ups ready. That's never been more vital. He must be able to hear me at every second and clearly. Jane sees him. She moves across the room -- takes Tom by the arm. JANE We have twenty minutes -- you can wait in the studio. Tom coughs nervously into his hand and takes a pen from a nearby desk, clips it into his inside pocket and walks off. GRAPHICS ROOM - DAY Jane is screening and asking corrections in a graphic representation of an F-14 shooting down a Libyan Air Force Mirage Fighter. JANE Put in the radar plane that spotted them to begin with. GRAPHIC ARTIST We have no pictures on file. JANE I can't draw -- but this is a rough idea. She uses the stylus from the ELECTRONIC PAINT MACHINE to outline an American Air Force E-2C Hawkeyes Radar Plane. Her work is stunning. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - DAY He has a glass in hand -- some chips on the table with a bottle of wine as he selects a Cassette Desk to play. He picks a French song -- looks at some of his books. He might even read. He is feigning disinterest for an audience of no one. He SINGS ALONG with the RECORD in perfect French. INT. STUDIO HALLWAY - DAY Tom checking copy in the long hallway leading to the studio -- there is the merest of hubbubs causing him to look up. Buddy is being stopped at the other end of the hallway. ON BUDDY AND SECURITY GUARD GUARD I have to check first. BUDDY (a bit frantic) Well, then check -- but hurry -- There he is!!! Buddy runs the length of the hallway to Tom's aide despite Tom's gestures to slow down. BUDDY Is everything all right? TOM Yes. You didn't have to come here. It's just that I'm going to anchor this special report on this Libyan thing... BUDDY (delighted) Anchor? TOM (amused despite situation) Yes, stop! I wondered if you could find out anything about what's happening. (on Buddy's reaction) What's wrong? BUDDY I broke up with my roommate -- He was really the magnet for everyone who knew anything. TOM Oh. BUDDY Look, I can start up with him again if you really... TOM No. I'm doing fine...Look. Tom stands there -- a man at home in this media castle. BUDDY Good. He's on the world's longest ego trip, let him take it alone. TOM Hey, okay. Look Buddy -- I've got to go to work. BUDDY (to Tom) ...good-bye then. TOM I'll speak to you. BUDDY Well, who knows. Just let m tell you what my favorite teacher ever, told me -- 'Don't be afraid to be wonderful.' He leans forward, gives Tom a quick embrace, a small kiss on the cheek. Tom turns and walks off down the hallway to meet his immediate destiny as Buddy looks on. INT. CONTROL ROOM - DAY Jane mounts some steps in the control room -- she moves past the DIRECTOR and TECHNICAL CREW up to the next level where the two news execs, Ernie and Paul stand with their backs to the wall, and then up one more step slightly above the desk and table occupied by Blair. Now she slips into the large well paddled throne-like seat -- as WE BEGIN MUSIC CUE. Literally at her fingertips is the row of buttons which provide immediate access to the field reporters at the Pentagon, State and the White House. In front of her the bank of monitors, the Technical Team and past them the studio where Tom is seated at Anchor, a FLOOR PRODUCER and WRITER feeding him copy. ANGLE FAVORING BLAIR As she looks at Jane, poised to control the complicated apparatus of minds and machines comprising the big time network news. And Jane Craig is at the helm. Blair experiences a flash of emotion which transcends envy and verbalizes it. BLAIR (sotto to Jane) Executive Producer -- wow. Jane looks at her and, in a moment of atypical merriment, does a choking gesture at her own throat as the monitors flash a graphic reading: SPECIAL REPORT... We HEAR an ANNOUNCER'S VOICE say, "This is a Special Report from..." INSERT: JANE'S CONTROL PANEL Each of four buttons labeled so that the microphone can connect her to Tom and the Field Reporters. She presses the button marked "Tom." JANE You hear me, Tom? Tom? Tom? Damn it...He can't hear me... (to Blair) I told you if there was one thing... Tom's VOICE on speakers. TOM (voice over; relaxed) I can hear you. I was just teasing. Gulping the air in relief, she slumps nonetheless impressed by the macho cool as: Tom smiles towards her then -- poises himself just as the Announcer's last words clear. ANNOUNCER'S VOICE (voice over) ...in Washington, Tom Grunick. He begins his report. He seems authoritative, compelling, even in a low key way. We trust him. TOM Good afternoon. A Libyan fighter plane attacked a United States Military Installation early this morning and was, itself, shot down by American F-14 Interceptors. Another monitor shows the Graphic running. In the b.g. two men approaches Paul. They look out of place, decidedly non-business like. MAN ONE Mr. Moore, I'm Marvin Usher and this is my brother, Stuart. PAUL Not now!!! (gesturing) Look. TOM The Libyan Missile destroyed an Army Warehouse which, just thirty minutes earlier, had been crowded with servicemen. No one was injured. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - DAY Aaron is seated, feet up, drinking, listening to MUSIC -- reading a book, two remote controls are on the cushion next to him. He SINGS OUT LOUD with the record as he reads -- at one point providing his own lyric line OVER THE MUSIC. AARON (SINGING LOUDLY) And I can read while I sing. He picks up the television remote-control device an puts the television on, the SOUND OFF. ON TV We SEE the graphic of the Libyan plane's flight route, its missile firing -- the U.S. planes taking off and the shooting down of the Mirage jet... At one point Aaron lowering the MUSIC and raising the TV SOUND hearing Tom. TOM'S VOICE (voice over) The heat seeking missile virtually disintegrated the plane on... Aaron turns down the TV SOUND and turns up the MUSIC. INT. BOOTH Jane's hand flicks at the button marked "PENTAGON." JANE George, you're ready. ON PENTAGON MONITOR We SEE George and HEAR him through Jane's voice box. GEORGE (voice over) Should I cover everything or should I save something for Tom to ask about? JANE Cover everything! George nods. JANE (hitting Tom's button) We're going to George. Say 'the Joint Chiefs are meeting -- we have George Weln at the Pentagon'. ON TOM TOM George Weln is at the Pentagon where the attack launched by the lone Libyan pilot has resulted in a massive movement of military might. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - DAY Where he still balances STEREO and TV SOUND. AARON A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts. He picks up the phone. INT. CONTROL ROOM - DAY As Blair hands it to Jane. BLAIR It's Aaron. JANE Yes? AARON I think the pilot that shot down the Libyan in 1981 is stationed right here. Maybe you could get him -- and maybe Tom should say that our F-14 is one of the hardest planes to fly. They're nicknamed 'Tomcats'. JANE Thanks. (to Tom) The F-14 is one of the most difficult planes to master. (remembering) Oh, you call them 'Tomcats' and in the 70's the first crop had a number of crashes. TOM George, isn't the F-14 Tomcat one of the most difficult machines for a pilot to master? GEORGE I think you're right -- it's certainly one of our hottest planes. INT. AARON'S ROOM - DAY AARON I say it here -- it comes out there. He giggles. TOM (voice over) There was trouble with them in the early days -- back in the 70's. Aaron dials again... As we SEE Jennifer standing at the White House. AARON (into phone) Me again. Hi. Listen Gaddafi doesn't foam at the mouth or anything. When you speak to him he's not at all nuts. He seems like a leader -- very impressive, self-control...that's what's so strange. ON JANE JANE Right and we have the '81 pilot on the way in -- Nobody else will have him. AARON (voice over) You're welcome. Sow how does it feel to...I know you gotta go -- Me too. We're very busy here. He hangs up -- LONG SHOT... Aaron with his remote controls. The picture switches back to Tom. He turns UP the VOLUME. TOM (voice over) ...outlaw nation but strangely those who have interviewed Gaddafi find him, in a phrase we like to use in this country, very 'presidential'. AARON Nice, Jane. INT. CONTROL ROOM - DAY Jane is on the phone. The atmosphere buckling with strain. JANE (into phone) Just a minute. Her finger hits the "Tom" button. JANE (to Tom) To State for the message from Libya, then you'll have the carrier pilot from the Sidra in time to... (a sudden shriek) What? No! ON TOM Jolted by the shriek in his earpiece but nonetheless continuing. BACK TO JANE As she SCREAMS INTO the phone -- this is more than volume, she is over-the-top livid, her face red, neck cords popping. JANE We only have ten minutes left -- how can you talk to me about parking problems? No, not you'll try...you'll do it -- do it or I'll fry your fat ass, Estelle. Good-bye. As she BANGS the PHONE down. Paul comments sotto to Ernie. PAUL (sotto) I had no idea she was this good. JANE (hitting Tom's button) Fill for a second. TOM (fluidly) The latest message seems to indicate that the Libyan pilot was acting on his own without authority from anyone else. (into camera directly) In other words, I think we're okay. INT. STUDIO - EIGHT MINUTES LATER MOVING CAMERA FROM Tom's left profile TOWARDS HIS RIGHT PROFILE, TAKING IN THE Production Assistant who madly shuffles pages, even as Tom talks on camera, the monitor through which he sees the subject of his interview at the Pentagon, the clusters of a assistants on the floor and now WE CONTINUE TO CIRCLE BEHIND him, beginning to SEE the Control Room in the b.g. and as we MOVE IN TOWARDS HIS EAR, the white ear piece firmly in place, we BEGIN TO HEAR, the barely audible crackle of Jane's VOICE as she tells him roughly what to say and how long he has to say it. TOM ...So, Commander, it must have been a bit tougher today -- shooting down the French-made Mirage Jet. The one you got was a SU-22...etc... And NOW ALL IS OBSCURED EXCEPT THE ANCHOR'S EARS, the ear piece and the RED LIGHT on the CAMERA and beyond... almost an abstract vision. INT. CONTROL ROOM - DAY TOM'S VOICE ...Once again: The Libyan Government has disavowed any prior knowledge of the flight. This has been Tom Grunick reporting from Washington. The special report ended, Jane breathes a breath -- she and Blair momentarily grasp hands. The first talk concerns Tom. PAUL He was brilliant. I've never been as proud of one of my decisions. ERNIE (calls back to Jane) Great work, Jane, really -- You know? Really. She nods... totally depleted. JANE Well, there were no major gaffs anyway. Ernie scoffs in her direction. JANE Thanks, everybody. She exits the scene. PAUL (to the Usher brothers) This was important for Tom -- there's that bonding thing that happens with the public and an anchorman during a crisis. It's not the conventions anymore; it's this kind of moment. Tom enters. He is exuberant. PAUL (to Tom) What a baptismal. Congratulations. TOM Thanks. With all the help you get, it's sure easier than local. Paul and Ernie exchange a glance. TOM (cont'd) Where's Jane? I'm still juiced. Ernie points off... as Tom exits. The Usher brothers hover. ERNIE (to the Usher brothers) Can I help you? MARVIN We're here to play the new news theme. ERNIE New theme? You don't need me for this. PAUL Stay. Why should I be the only one to feel silly? MAN ONE We need a synthesizer -- but this will give you an idea. PAUL Go ahead. (to Ernie) Wasn't he great? ERNIE It worked. Man Two has the keyboard out and begins playing the prospective news theme: a suite meant to have majesty and drive, a towering composition -- the effect of it somewhat lessened by the fact that the two men VOCALIZE OTHER INSTRUMENTS over the keyboard. INT. NEWSROOM - DAY As Tom makes his way across it -- crews are drifting in... He enters Jane's cubby, flushed with the electricity of the "win" the most noteworthy moment of his working life. INT. JANE'S CUBBY - DAY TOM You're an amazing woman. What a feeling having you inside my head. JANE (a bit thrown) Yeah. It was an unusual place to be. TOM Indescribable -- you knew just when to feed me the next thing, just a split second before I needed it. There was a rhythm we got into, like great sex. Jane looks at him and nods slightly -- an unconscious spasm of truthfulness. TOM You have to celebrate with me, don't you? Everybody's going to that bar on the corner, 'Caps.' JANE I'm going over to Aaron's. Maybe I'll hoop up with all of you later. How long do you think you'll be there? Tom indicates that it's an impossible question to answer. They enters the elevator. EXT. NEWS BUILDING - NIGHT As several people cross the street towards the bar. Tom has been holding back on one question. TOM It's tempting to ask you how you think I did. (she starts to reply) No. I'm enjoying myself. Take it easy. He starts across the street. JANE (trying to be casual) Maybe I'll see you over there. Indicates Bar. TOM You'll never show up. He starts across the street -- then turns and calls to her. TOM Jane? JANE Yeah? TOM I'll wait for you till seven. JANE (shouting back) Okay. Tom races to catch up with the others -- Jane in the distant b.g. pauses a beat before walking off in the opposite direction. Jane moving quickly along. SOUND OF MEN VOCALIZING NEWS THEME comes UP AND continues through: EXT. AARON'S APARTMENT - EARLY EVENING As Jane approaches and is surprised to find him sitting on the stoop outside. ON AARON Happy to see her, rising fairly soberly to his feet. He APPLAUDS as she comes toward him. JANE Really? It was good. He nods and APPLAUDS some more. JANE Your calling in that information -- you're the classiest guy I know. He waves her off... And sits down on the stoop. AARON It was strange to watch him. What's the next step? Lip synching? She sits a step or two above him, waiting to gauge his mood. AARON I've been doing some of the most important thinking of my life. I wonder if this is the right time to tell you about it. She steals a glance at her watch. JANE Well, whatever you think. AARON I figured out exactly why it is I'm so hung up on getting a chance at weekend anchor...It's because if I do that well, they'll pay me more, treat me great and my life will be better. That's why. JANE Sounds like you may be on to something. AARON Which means I'm at their mercy and who wants that?...I'm not going to tell you where this thought led me... Anyway, well, why not tell you? -- it's a happy thing. In the middle of all this I start to think about something that does nothing but make me feel good and makes immediate sense and that's you ...And I'll stop here but, Jane, I'd give anything if you were two people so I could call up the one who's my friend and tell her about the one I'm in I...I don't think I should go any further. Come on -- I'll walk you to the corner. He tales her by the arm and leads her to the corner. JANE You know you've had a strange day... I'd sleep on all these things you've been thinking. AARON Absolutely...You go have a good time... You have some place to go? JANE Yes. AARON Good. He grabs her and hugs her exuberantly -- takes her face in his hands and kisses her full on the lips. AARON Well, I felt something. He leaves her on the corner and walks back. ON JANE As the SOUND OF NEWS THEME VOCALIZING PICKS UP ONE MORE... Jane moving quickly, hailing a cab. INT. CAB - EVENING JANE We're going to Caps Bar at Seventeenth and Vermont; Connecticut is clear on Sunday... take that over to Fifteenth, then around Vermont and we'll bypass the circle that way...if you don't go over forty we should catch mostly green lights. ON the DRIVER'S annoyed look. JANE Come on -- don't take it the wrong way. I just know about things. He hits the meter. EXT. CAPS BAR - EVENING As the cab pulls up, Jane gets out and pays him. DRIVER Great route. I never made anywhere near that fast before. JANE Thanks -- good driving -- DRIVER Thanks. Coming from you I appreciate it. JANE Thanks. As she turns to enter the restaurant -- Tom and Jennifer exit. As they confront each other: TOM I didn't think you'd make it. JANE Well, I thought I'd check if all of you were still here. I'll just go in and join the gang and you two go on. TOM There's no gang in there -- We were the last ones. JANE Well, I'll go in and have a bite. TOM (to Jennifer) Jennifer, you want to have another drink? JANE Hey, I know how to have a burger by myself. I feel like a little solitude. JENNIFER (as they move off) I sure know that feeling. Terrific work today. JANE (too jock-like) Right back to you. TOM Thanks for getting me through. He puts his hand behind her neck in an awkward gesture of camaraderie. She awkwardly disengages... waves and steps inside the door to the restaurant... standing there between the two sets of doors watching Tom and Jennifer walk away. ON TOM AND JENNIFER As they walk to his car, first exchanging a look of reflection over Jane... then bumping accidentally, then bumping back, a look, then kissing with passion, wrapped around each other. INT. JENNIFER'S APT - NIGHT As Tom and Jennifer rush in locked in an embrace, shedding clothes even as they enter. INT. JENNIFER'S APT - NIGHT We are aware of MOVING FORMS. JENNIFER (intense shout) Damn all you sons-of-bitches. Oh shit, you bastards... They finish. A beat, then: JENNIFER Sorry. ON TOM AND JENNIFER Tom taken aback by the outburst from this woman he's just made love to. TOM No, it's okay...People say different things. They do...the plural threw me. She laughs. JENNIFER The last time I was with someone we went through this awful mutual disease questionnaire but I guess it beats getting paranoid the next day. Okay, I'll go first. I haven't... TOM (stopping her) It would never occur to me to worry at all about you. Jennifer is touched... JENNIFER You know something? I'm deeply complimented. Isn't it strange to be deeply complimented because the man you're with doesn't think you have a venereal disease?... Tom slides out of bed naked -- she moves quickly across the bed one outstretched hand reaching for his ass, a free -- even lusty sort of motion punctuated by her comment: JENNIFER Give me some of that. He dances away -- out of range -- liking the action, a stupid grin on his face. TOM Where's the bathroom? JENNIFER Through the closet. He opens the door and turns on the light in the closet. INT. CLOSET - NIGHT It is a converted room -- given over the racks of clothes and shoes extraordinarily well organized. Tom stands there agape. Various rain coats -- clothes for all climates -- lots of luggage. She joins him in the closet -- holding out a sheet in front of her. JENNIFER I converted a bedroom -- this stuff builds up. Wait till you've been doing this sixteen years. TOM I'm not knocking it. It's a great solution. Not only the storage but you can see everything you have. Jennifer laughs -- he follows her gaze and sees himself in silhouette against the door -- his penis prominent in outline. JENNIFER Do you do bunny rabbits? Tom is enjoying himself immensely. TOM Isn't this a great date? We HEAR the SOUND OF SCRATCHING as we: INT. JANE'S EDITING CUBICLE - MORNING Jane feeds another tape in -- she is taking editing notes alone and SCRATCHING her arm. She looks worn out -- STOCK FOOTAGE OF STATESMEN move across the small screen. She sighs and, without realizing, implores the heavens to help cure a malady she's yet to recognize in herself. JANE (to herself) God help me. People have begun to filter into the newsroom in the b.g. AARON Jesus, Jane. How long have you been here? JANE A long time. I was restless. Will you crack my neck? He starts massaging her neck as the phone rings. she lets it ring for a beat as Aaron works on her. As she picks up the receiver we HEAR a CRACK. She reacts to it at the same time she utters a greeting. JANE Aaah -- (into phone) -- ello. You sure they said the management meeting? (hangs up; then to Aaron) They want me to be at the management meeting. AARON They're not that dumb, after all. He pats her on the back. INT. WALKWAY - DAY BLAIR Do you know you're the second woman in network news history to produce? JANE (though distracted) No, I'm not. I'm the fourth. Joan Richmond. Pauline Fredericks got that credit once on a U.N. special and there's Susan Zirinsky. INT. MANAGEMENT MEETING - DAY Paul is running the meeting from behind Ernie's desk. TWO OTHER NON-EDITORIAL MEN are in attendance. As Paul discusses the more pressing problems of the network news division, Jane sits near the window strangely unmoved by her first moment at the seat of power. She has the blues. PAUL Anyway, they seem to be very serious about making me out eight million from the budget and that means massive firings. I'm doing everything I can... It's too early to make up a 'death list' but I just wanted you to be aware of the situation... We're also going to cover the Alaskan serial killer trial on a continuing basis. I'd like it done out of Washington which means we've got to get somebody on a plane for Anchorage. We can't fool around anymore...Jane... She looks up at him -- a bit sleepy-eyed. PAUL (cont'd) This is going to be high-profile on the Evening News -- who do you think? George Weln or Jennifer? JANE (much, much too quickly) Jennifer. The men look at her curiously. She repeats herself more rationally. JANE (cont'd) Jennifer. INT. TOM'S OFFICE - LATE AFTERNOON He has been reading from a respectable stack of mail -- Jane appears in his doorway. For the first time, we notice that she is woefully ba at at least one endeavor -- flirting. JANE Come on, I'll buy you a drink. There's a big thing over at the Italian embassy. TOM I'm not sure I'd be good company tonight. JANE (self-conscious joke) I'll be the judge of that. INT. ITALIAN EMBASSY - NIGHT As they walk in -- one MAN looks at Tom with a glint of recognition. Then another -- a handshake -- A WOMAN introduces herself. A small knot of people form. JANE It's much too soon for you to have this kind of buzz around you. TOM Do I have to stand here in the middle and meet them all? JANE I'll get you through. Move and smile. (she pushes him a little) And smile and move... They start crossing the room -- he is moving now, making progress. But an EGYPTIAN BUSINESSMAN stops him. EGYPTIAN BUSINESSMAN Is it safe for me to fly home? TOM Yes. We're fine now. JANE AND SMILE. He smiles -- people smile back. JANE AND MOVE. ANGLE ON STAIR LANDING Where Aaron (Pimm's Cut in hand -- a cucumber sticking out) stands with Martin Klein. Martin is eating from a huge platter of appetizers. MARTIN KLEIN The Italians serve the second best things right after the Chinese...I could do an article comparing Embassy food...Gourmet free-loading...sell it anyplace. I'm sure not getting the assignments. AARON Who the heck could that be? AARON'S P.O.V. From the excited group of people blocking his view, it's clear there is some personage in attendance. ON AARON And now he sees that it's Tom. AARON Is God testing me or something? MARTIN KLEIN Paul loves him. I heard him give him the most poetic compliment in his command. 'He's hot.' Sometimes groups of executives get together just to say that work back and forth...'He's hot, oh, she's hot. Oh, he's really hot.' Hot-hot-hot-hot-hot-hot-hot... (looking at Aaron) And here we are. AARON Martin, you're not allowed to use the word 'we' or I'm moving. MARTIN KLEIN (sudden thought) Maybe Jane would like my food idea as a spot...Try the one in the middle. He moves off to intercept Jane -- as he stops her... Tom is stranded -- then sees Aaron and moves over to his side. TOM Hi, Aaron...What's doing? AARON Same old stuff. I'm watching a man who won three Overseas Press Awards pitch an hors d'oeuvre idea. A MAN stops and introduces himself to Tom -- shaking his hand: TOM You want to go out there -- (indicating balcony) get out of this for a second? AARON Why don't you lead? I'll just follow the flurry you cause. Tom turns -- the sharpness of the tone unsettles him. TOM What did I do to you? AARON You've made my dreams silly. Tom decides not to deal with the remark. He's jolted by the hostility. He leads the way out French Doors to a ground floor terrace, where Aaron joins him, closes the door and the two men stare at the party. TOM (gesturing at the party) Heavy hitters. Aaron nods. They look inside. AARON (several beats; then) How you doing? TOM (warming) Great. Network news, Washington... I love it. What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams? AARON Keep it to yourself. TOM You know the other day I really wanted your reaction to how we did with the Libyan report -- I was going to ask but I guess I feel a little intimidated with you. AARON Oh, stop it. On Tom's reaction. AARON You can't talk about feeling intimidated when you're on top of the world. It's unseemly. TOM I'm not buying into any of that. I have a load to learn. I'm not going to act as if... AARON (finishing for him) You have the job you have... The sudden debate is important to Tom -- but it's moving too fast for him. TOM Shut up a second... AARON (amiably) Okay. Pretty petty party, isn't it, pal? TOM (picking his words) I made one rule for myself when this started and I realized I was going to take a lot from you people because of being from sports... AARON And the rule was... TOM Never to pretend to know more than I did. AARON Can you name all the members of the Cabinet? TOM (flustered) Okay, let's drop it. I didn't mean I'd take a test for you -- I mean if that came up in conversation I'd... AARON We're conversing...Oh my, the names of the entire Cabinet has slipped my mind. What are they? Tom is getting pissed. AARON (compromising) Don't name them. Just tell me if you know. TOM Yes, Aaron. I know the names of the Cabinet. AARON Okay. A beat. AARON (cont'd) All twelve? TOM Yes. AARON There are only ten. Aaron's suddenly a good deal happier -- damned if it isn't a little infectious. TOM You're feeling good, aren't you? AARON (sincerely) I'm starting to... We may do the capitols of the states. TOM (dry) Fifty, right? Aaron almost smiles. Tom enters the party leaving the door open. LONG SHOT Aaron in the f.g. -- his BACK TO CAMERA... Beyond him Tom being approached... then joining Jane. EXT. JANE'S STREET - NIGHT As Tom's car comes to a stop. INT. TOM'S CAR - NIGHT TOM I'm so exhausted. Punchy. Sick tired. I can't think and I can't move. I'm just a dead lump of poured out flesh. (then) Would you like to come up? Tom thinks -- then: TOM Maybe we could just sit here -- talk a little? JANE Okay. You didn't like the party, huh? TOM Too many smart people in one room -- it's not healthy... Jane's confused by this. She looks at him. TOM I'm going to have to do a story from beginning to end on my own. JANE Eventually. Does it have to be right now? TOM (nodding) Believe me, I wouldn't be doing this unless it was absolutely necessary. I have an idea for something. JANE What? TOM I just read about it in a magazine and it affected me. JANE Well, what is it? TOM If I tell you, can you manage not to put it down or tell me why it won't work or is in bad journalistic taste or anything like that? JANE (broadly) Yes, Tom -- I think I can manage. He turns towards her -- about to stick his chin out. Hesitates. JANE (cont'd) I promise. TOM It's about women who are attacked by someone they know on a date... 'Date-rape,' that's the piece... Well? Jane clamps a hand over her own mouth. TOM Okay -- good move. Keep it there. She continues to clamp her mouth shut as he exits the car, opens her door and then begins to half carry, half pull her out. She keeps her hand clamped over her mouth. Laughing from behind her door and runs for it. ON TOM His spirits lifted. ON JANE Behind the door, trying to hide the glow in her eyes. INT. JANE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT The phone rings... Jane's hand bounces off her nightstand to turn on the light knocking over and breaking the clock radio instead. Three alarm clocks stand next to the clock radio... Finally the light comes on. Jane's voice is so thick with sleep the words she utters are just barely distinguishable. JANE Hello. TO (uncertain) Hello? JANE Hello...Who is it? INTERCUT: INT. TOM'S APARTMENT - NIGHT TOM I'm not sure I dialed right -- Jane? JANE Jane, yes. Tom? Tom, is that you? Is this Tom? TOM Yes. JANE I had to sleep fast so I took two allergy pills to help me...I'm sorry...Hey, you called me. TOM It's not important. JANE Says who? Not important -- ha-ha-ha. I was dreaming -- Oh, no -- can't tell -- how embarrassing for me. Gosh. TOM What pills did you take? You sound more like someone on a general anesthetic. Maybe I'd better speak to you tomorrow. JANE Nooo. Is it your story? TOM No. Are you going to the Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday? JANE Why, you need me for the story? TOM No. Were you going to you? JANE Uh-huh. TOM Maybe I'll get off work. I'd like to go. JANE Oh, good. TOM We can go together. JANE So you like me, huh? TOM I like you as much as I can like anyone who thinks I'm an asshole. INT. JANE'S EDITING ROOM - DAY Tom editing a piece with Bobby -- He also has a little typewriter table set up. He is reading from the page in the typewriter as he looks at the piece he has written. TOM (reading) But cops on the street continue to view it as... Shit -- too long. But street cops say...that fits. That last cut work for you, Bobbie? BOBBIE Yes, and thanks for asking. INT. NEWSROOM - NIGHT As the regulars watch the Evening News, in particular the Date Rape piece which is now in progress. Tom anxiously eyeing Jane out of the corner of his eye as she watches the monitor. Her face impossible to read as she studies the screen. ON MONITOR UNIFORMED COP What can you do? If a woman invites a man in and he says they uh, had sex and she says he raped her and then you find out they've been out together two, three times...how can you prove a crime? NEW SHOT ON MONITOR Tom and a woman of about thirty -- dignified but fragile -- she looks like someone who might be cast for a church production of "Glass Menagerie." YOUNG WOMAN It will be a year next month since it happened...I never thought I'd talk about it outside of counseling... ON NEWSROOM As Aaron enters the scene. AARON Hi. He is shushed by every woman in the room, accepts this and takes up a position near Tom and Jane to watch them. ON MONITOR YOUNG WOMAN We'd gone out twice and I hadn't enjoyed myself that much but it gets to a point -- I don't know if you can appreciate this but where you don't want to sit home or be with your girlfriends and people had always been telling me that I was 'too picky.' I'm not. It's just you want to meet a nice guy...So anyways, it was that 'give-him-a-chance' thing. No, it wasn't. I was lonely. So we went to a movie and when he brought me home he said could he just come up and have one beer and then he'd go. How do you say 'no', to that? So first it was this wrestling match which was awful enough because it got to be really a fight...because I'm a modest person... then he ripped my clothes and he forced me to...make love. He stayed in my apartment and forced me more times -- he didn't leave until... (she has started to cry) I promised myself I wouldn't cry... It's just hard not to -- (ruefully) You sure have a sympathetic face. (she cries a bit more) ...I was so sure I wouldn't do this -- but the whole thing messed me up -- maybe more than it should... ON MONITOR As the news piece cut to: Tom's face -- he turns clearing a tear from his eyes. ON NEWSROOM These watching struck -- perhaps embarrassed but riveted. Aaron is aghast. Aaron approaches the set. AARON Can I turn on the news for a second? ...Oh, wait a minute. Sex -- Tears -- This must be the news. Tom stares daggers at him as a public official appears on the monitor. ON MONITOR PUBLIC OFFICIAL I don't think you can overestimate it -- on any given Saturday night tens of thousands of women are being attacked and there isn't much they or we can do about it... TOM (on monitor) The victims often remain too terrified to talk -- the police powerless and all the social welfare groups can finally do is monitor this epidemic of crime without punishment. This is Tom Grunick in Annandale, Virginia. As his piece concludes. NEWSROOM Tom continues to glare at Aaron. AARON I'm in a pissy mood. I'm sorry. TOM What's wrong with it? AARON Nothing. I think you really blew the lid off nookie. Blair moans with displeasure. Aaron exits scene. Others start to congratulate Tom on the piece -- in the b.g. on the: MONITOR We SEE frozen wilderness -- men digging in the ground -- clumps of people watching them work. ON JANE Probing her own ambivalence -- or, to be more accurate, working towards a positive stance. JANE (to Tom) Nice work... (checks watch) I've got to get a crew off the clock. She starts off -- Tom stopping her. ON TOM AND JANE Now off a bit by themselves. TOM So what did you think? JANE It moved me. I did relate to it -- I really did. It was unusual for you to cut to yourself when you tear up -- and that might not have been my choice...but it's real and it got me...and I think a lot of the time I'm too conservative about that kind of stuff. Okay? TOM (enormously pleased) Yeah. He walks back towards the area of the monitor. ON MONITOR JENNIFER Tomorrow the jury returns to this site as each day brings more revelations of horror, four more bodies now taken from the frozen earth...This is Jennifer Mack in Wota Hamlet, Alaska. INT. NEWSROOM - TWO WEEKS LATER (SPRING) - DAY BLAIR Ernie's been looking for you. As Aaron walks to his office. INT. AARON'S OFFICE - DAY As he enters and finds Ernie bent over his desk. ERNIE Oh, I was just writing you a note. What do you say we take a walk? AARON (puzzled) Outside? ERNIE Yeah -- EXT. WASHINGTON STREET - DAY Ernie is silent... He's having difficulty. Aaron is feeling knots form. Finally Ernie breaks his silence. ERNIE I don't know if we have any younger man more respected in our operation than you. AARON Just tell me what's really going on. I think we know each other well enough for me to expect that. ERNIE (agitated) We know each other well enough for me to care how I put something to you which could wipe you out. So I will phrase things the way I think they should be phrased. All right? AARON Wipe me out? Ernie sits on a bench. ERNIE Anyway. I want you to think of this as... AARON Just blunt talk, okay? I'd really appreciate bluntness. ERNIE Upper management thinks you're dull. Aaron deflates. ERNIE Aaron, I've never seen them like this -- I think Paul's nervous about his own job and for some reason he thinks you only appeal to... AARON Wait. Bullshit me a little...I'm beginning to appreciate it. ERNIE I'm no suggesting the worst will happen...but someone with your brilliance gets nibbles about other jobs and maybe, the next time that happens, down the road -- you should look into it. AARON (emotional) Ah, damn -- the fucking jerks -- My, God. They want to fire me. ERNIE All I know is that they've got to fire a large number of people... and they're not going by seniority. There's a recklessness in the air. They... AARON (interrupting) Do one thing to me? Get me one shot at anchoring the Weekend News -- they've never seen me do it. I think it could turn them around. ERNIE I could do it this Saturday -- everyone wants off for the Correspondents' Dinner. Aaron turns -- his spirit lifted by the unexpected ray of hope. AARON Do it then. ERNIE Please prepare carefully. This couldn't come at a better time. AARON Prepare what? You have Saturday's news handy? ERNIE It's been a while since you read the news -- I'll have somebody work with you. Just on superficial performance things. Several beats. ERNIE (cont'd) Please. AARON Okay. I think I'd better be alone for a while. ERNIE I understand. I'll go with you. AARON Thanks. INT. SMALL TELEVISION STUDIO - NIGHT Aaron is seated behind a desk -- some old news copy in his hand. An unmanned camera is pointing at him. Tom is standing a few feet further back studying him. AARON This is uncomfortable for me -- because, well, I don't mean it as a knock, but we approach this differently. TOM We sure do. I don't mean it as a knock either. (he smiles) Go ahead. I'll just say what I think and you can disregard it if you want. AARON It just might not work for me because of our different approaches. Tom nods and gestures that he proceed. Aaron begins reading the news. Barely a sentence in, he is interrupted. TOM Wait. AARON What? TOM Your coat jacket is rising up in back. Aaron ignores the tip. TOM When you sit down -- sit on your jacket a little -- that gives you a good line. Look at yourself in the monitor. Aaron looks but is unimpressed and resumes reading the news. Tom, not about to be ignored when he knows it's important, moves behind Aaron and begins to force his jacket down. AARON (very uncomfortable) I don't like being handled. TOM Sit on it! Now look. AARON Just don't physically... (he sees himself in the monitor and is suddenly enthusiastic) Fantastic tip -- fantastic. He starts to read again. TOM No. That's not going to tell us anything. Let's get this prompter going. AARON It's not loaded. TOM I'll find some copy. Be right back. Tom exits -- Aaron looking after him, clearly taken with the genuine camaraderie... the unmistakable joy Tom derives from helping out. Several beats and Tom comes back with a CAMERAMAN in tow. TOM I got copy, I got Ellen to heat up the camera and I got Master Control taping so you can study it later. He puts the roll of copy in the prompter. AARON Hey, Tom... Tom turns. AARON I'm very appreciative. SAME SCENE - LATER Tom totally focused on him down one knee checking him from various angles. He interrupts. Aaron reading from the prompter. TOM No. No. AARON No? TOM Don't let your eyes go from the beginning of the sentence to the end like that. You don't want to look shifty, do you? AARON Oh, God, no! TOM And the left side of your face is the good one. Go again. And try to punch one word or phrase in every sentence -- punch one idea a story. Punch -- come on -- Aaron does same with the story he is reading... TOM Good...very nice. Aaron acknowledges the compliment in news mode. Punching the first words. AARON Thank you for the compliment, Tom. He draws a laugh from the Cameraman as he goes right into the next story. TOM Try not to move your head or wrinkle your forehead...this is good, very good... EXT. NEWS BUREAU - NIGHT Aaron, tape in head, is saying his farewell to Tom. He is facing his left side as he will do for the rest of his life on earth. TOM You were smokin' toward the end there. AARON The pointers were great. I'll study the tape. Tom is into helping Aaron he finds himself delivering a locker room pep talk: TOM And remember -- you're not just reading the news or narrating. Everybody has to sell a little. You're selling them this idea of you. You know, what you're sort of saying is, 'trust me. I'm, uh, credible.' So whenever you catch yourself just reading...stop and start selling a little. So long. He moves off -- Aaron watching him go, feeling decidedly uncomfortable by this last piece of advice and vaguely corrupted. INT. JANE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT Jane FLIES INTO FRAME, carrying her dress, two large shoulder pads clipped to her bra-straps. She is obviously running a little late. Now she slips on the dress -- her pace so quickened that it momentarily dulls the effect of seeing her in a pretty formal gown; the kind good girls wear on special nights. The DOORBELL RINGS... She opens the door while trying to put on her necklace... Aaron enters carrying four bulging garment bags and a fistful of neckties. AARON I spilled some rum on the outfit you picked out. Let me show you the alternates. She eyes the amount of clothing, goes to the phone and dials. JANE (into phone) Tom...why don't I meet you there? I've got some last minute stuff I've got to take care of...Hey, how did you resolve your dilemma -- did you rent the tux or buy it...I knew it. How much? Wow...Okay...See you there... AARON I didn't know you were going with him. JANE Did you bring your grey suit? AARON Yes...I was thinking that way too... Which tie? She holds them in her hand -- indicates with the necklace that she wants him to help her... he fastens her necklace while looking over her bare right shoulder as she riffles through his tie collection. JANE (the clasp in place) Thanks. Try this one. She hands him the tie and he extracts his grey jacket from a bag -- puts it on and ties the tie... She reaches into a white paper bag full of fresh purchases and takes out a vial of perfume with a built-in atomizer and sprays the air in front of hr and walks into the mist. ON Aaron's reaction: JANE I read about it -- that's how you can make sure you don't put on too much perfume... AARON Could you at least pretend that this is an awkward situation for you -- me showing up while you're getting ready for a date. JANE (flaring) It's not a date. It's co-workers going to a professional conclave. Jane, unnoticed, reaches into the paper bag, takes a small box of condoms and drops it into her evening bag. EXT. WASHINGTON STREET - NIGHT Jane on a public phone, Aaron standing nearby within sight of a taxi stand. JANE (on phone) How long will it tale you to send one?... She hangs up... paces... Then looks at Aaron, relaxes. JANE You look terrific. Aaron poses a question which he feels in his deepest core: AARON Really? Jane nods. AARON Because this is important -- so don't just be polite. I'd really like to look...what's the word I'm looking for?... JANE As good as humanly possible. AARON Yes. JANE Well, the line of the jacket -- No really....just very nice...just right. I wish I could be there. AARON Me too...Hey...if it gets dull a little before 11:00, drop by the studio. JANE I'm not sure I'll be able to...I... AARON If...if not, I'll have the tape...I'll wait for you at my apartment. JANE Okay, great -- good luck. Before she can deal with that, a cab arrives. AARON Thanks, Jane. Have a good time tonight. JANE You too. Aaron takes her in -- she looks lovely. AARON I'd hug you, but why risk mussing either of us? She half-laughs... kisses him, wipes the slight lipstick mark from his cheek and, in a sudden decision, takes each of her shoulder pads from her jacket and puts them in his -- improving his look while diminishing her own. She gets in the cab. AARON'S P.O.V. Jane, leaning all the way over the front seat, giving detailed instructions to the DRIVER as the cab pulls away... As Aaron turns and walks off. INT. CAB - NIGHT Jane, in her formal, sitting back -- anticipating her date. EXT. WASHINGTON HOTEL - NIGHT A hefty percentage of the Washington journalism industry's men and women dressed formally for one of those evenings where they can finally assert their own glamour. Jane ENTERS THE SCENE. INT. WASHINGTON HOTEL - ATRIUM - NIGHT As Jane enters, lost momentarily in the lobby -- greenhouse, the majority of the throng passing through in formal clothes. A bit of DIALOGUE OVERHEAD from TWO MEN in dinner jackets. MAN ONE The L.A. times is a great outfit. Best severance pay in the business. Jane keeps looking for Tom -- passing another MAN, talking to his SHARP-LOOKING DATE. MAN THREE He was lecturing me and finally I just said -- I'm sorry, I refuse to look at it as a negative that I'm young and my news appeals to people my age. WOMAN And it's not like he just didn't hire a twenty-six-year-old producer himself. MAN No kidding, twenty-six. Jane moves to the steps and starts up, greeting several people nervously. More bits of DIALOGUE, leaking from conversations of both substance and expedience. ANONYMOUS OLDER MAN Remember Brinkley's great line -- "It's as irrevocable as a haircut." Now, on the second level, she scans the crowd. JANE'S P.O.V. The floor below. Tom in the world's best-fitting tux... Clusters of people from around him but he works his way easily through them as he looks for Jane and grins his greetings, men are buoyed, women's pulses throb. ON JANE As she silently mouths the words -- "smile and move and smile and move." Which is exactly what he's doing. Then a contract with the gods. JANE (to herself) If he doesn't see me soon, we're not supposed to be together. ON TOM Seeing her. -- He does a tap step -- a brief giddy burst, the meaning of which is not lost on Jane. He is acting like her boyfriend. ON JANE Anxiety stripped away revealing a first glimpse of Jane as a joyous pretty young woman. ON TOM Moving quickly up the stairs -- as she walks toward him. TOM (excitedly) It's incredible who's here. JANE Who? TOM Me! She laughs. Almost completes an affectionate gesture -- takes his arm instead. INT. NEWSROOM - NIGHT Aaron seated in the main newsroom in shirt-sleeves, writing. He takes the just-completed page out of the typewriter and walks over to the weekend news PRODUCER. (W.N.P.) AARON Want to look at this? W.N.P. Sure. George Weln appears... GEORGE (to Aaron) What are you doing here? AARON (feigning casualness) The weekend news...anchoring... anchoring the weekend news. GEORGE Way to go. Aaron nods, as the Producer finishes the copy. W.N.P. This is terrific news, Aaron. It's a pleasure to read. AARON Thanks. Oh, there's water on the set, isn't there, in case I get an attack of cotton mouth. W.N.P. Sure. You'll be fine. AARON (feeling patronized and repelling) I'll be fine! Yes!! I know!!! INT. BALLROOM - NIGHT Bomb sniffing dogs, SECRET SERVICE MEN and D.C. POLICE monitoring the members of Washington's most trustworthy elite as they pass through the metal detector. The line moves slowly -- Jane and Tom several couples back. OFF-CAMERA VOICE (o.s.) Can I have your autograph for my wife? Tom and Jane turn to see a grinning Paul. TOM How you doing, Paul? PAUL So this is why you wouldn't do the Weekend New, you can't turn down a free meal. TOM Yes, born to party. Paul enjoys the riposte, looks at Jane who is shrinking within herself. PAUL I'll see you two inside -- I think we're all at the same table. (sotto to Jane) You're finally learning to be flexible. Glad you changed your mind about Tom. He passes through the detector... Tom starts to step through it -- she pulls him back. JANE I'm sorry. I don't want to go in there and sit with everybody. (imagining it) I can't...why don't you go? He considers this option as she waits. TOM Suppose I go in for a little while and you wait in the lobby-bar. How's that? JANE Good. That's it...See you. She walks off. He runs a few steps to stop her. TOM Jane. She turns. TOM You're not going to take off on me, are you? JANE Uh-uh. She steps on the escalator... Riding upwards, concern deepens, anxiety flows. ON TOM Watching her to up the escalator, he finds himself doing simplest thing, stepping onto a moving step. FULL SHOT Jane four steps ahead of him -- not yet aware of him. He moves past one other man until he is standing directly behind her. TOM I just want you to know that my giving up the Correspondents' Dinner puts tremendous pressure on you. Jane turns and is a bit blown away by his gesture -- life threatens to be good. And now Jane bumps a bit at the top of the escalator, regaining her balance by grabbing Tom's offered hand. As they walk they continue to deliberately hold hands. INT. NEWS STUDIO - NIGHT WE are on the studio floor, FOCUSING on the activity around the Anchor Desk and three cameras... The FLOOR MANAGER stands ready to cue Aaron, the script is ready to roll on the prompter machine. FLOOR MANAGER Twenty seconds. ON AARON Making sure he is seated on his jacket -- taking one last look at the hand mirror being held by the MAKEUP WOMAN. She starts off -- but Aaron regrabs the mirror almost making her lose her footing -- a check -- then another check -- he points to a spot on his forehead which she dabs with the makeup sponge... Both of them fuss enormously with his hair -- four busy hands. FLOOR MANAGER Ten seconds. AARON How many? FLOOR MANAGER Ten. AARON Okay. He watches the Makeup Woman scurry underneath a camera lens, resits on his jacket and finally has the moment the system has been denying him for years. We can HEAR the END OF HIS CUE in a barely AUDIBLE CRACKLE from the Floor Manager's earphones... "...with Aaron Altman." AARON (on TV) Good Evening...In mood and language better suited to an espionage novel than the delicate world of the Western Alliance, the British Foreign Secretary today pounced on what he termed, 'The nest of profession spies and amateur traitors who were turning NATO Headquarters into an instrument whose only true function is folly.' We begin our coverage with Edward Towne in London. Aaron looks up -- takes a breath. He's done well -- he's punched his words and his one thought for the story. His gaze has been steady, his voice firm but he has begun to perspire. He dabs with his finger at the first trickles from his brow -- brushes some more prominent sweat from his upper lip... He beckons nervously to the Makeup Woman -- who comes in and dabs -- then dabs again as Aaron feels himself under his arms... MAKEUP WOMAN Gee whiz. FLOOR MANAGER Five seconds. She scurries away, Aaron reaching for another Kleenex from her box and missing it... A graphic illustrating his next scripted section appears behind him. AARON ...the sub-bases referred to are located in five countries... And now the moisture on his face is clearly discernible -- the Floor Manager and Makeup Woman grimacing at the growing specter as they look at a large monitor. AARON France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain as... And now so much moisture sprouts from his upper lip that he pushes his lower lip out to slurp away the sweat... The Makeup Woman laughs briefly out loud before catching herself... Aaron's eyes dart angrily in her direction. AARON We well as Great Britain...Our own State Department was rocked not only by the revelation but from the highly unusual persistence from the State Press Corps. Martin Klein reports on the ruckus at Foggy Bottom. Half-beat until he's sure that he's off -- his shirt now showing distinct sweat stains... AARON Help me. The Makeup Woman picks up her Kleenex box -- then thinks better of it... MAKEUP WOMAN Someone finds me some big towels. ON AARON He blots his face -- some makeup streaked -- by the towel. FLOOR MANAGER Five seconds. ON MAKEUP WOMAN As she scurries away, this time entering the control room trotting up one stair to look at the monitor... the Director talking to his Camera Operators. DIRECTOR I'd go looser but we wouldn't see the graphic. TECHNICIAN (to other Technician) No -- this is more than Nixon ever sweated. The Makeup Woman now looks at the bank of monitors. MAKEUP WOMAN Can't you just die for him? ON MONITOR Aaron's makeup-streaked face. EXT. WASHINGTON STREET - NIGHT Tom and Jane walking drinks in hand, her arm around his waist. They stop -- he rests a drink on a ledge and boosts her up and then sits next to her. TOM You okay? JANE Great. FULL SHOT REVEALING that they are sitting on an anti-terrorist concrete abutment protecting a major government building on a beautiful night in our capitol. He is still holding her hand -- and now he notes this. TOM (loudly to himself) Why can't I let go of this woman? JANE Well... He interrupts her with the smallest of kisses -- so mall and swift a kiss that she is left doing her return kisses to mid- air. And then he does something he's thought about many times before -- he briefly caresses her breasts -- while continuing to look at her. JANE At least kiss me when you do that. TOM (a grin) You just can't stop editing me. Huh? JANE This is hysterical. She laughs a little -- then kisses him. They break -- surprised and aroused and look at each other... JANE I was half hoping I wouldn't have a good time tonight. You know why? TOM Because you're nuts. JANE Right, right -- Isn't she fun to tease? He leans forward and speaks softly and truly. TOM More and more lately when I've watched you in action -- seen all your energy -- I've been wondering what it would be like to be inside all that energy. She takes a gulp of her drink -- puts a hand to feel the heat on her own cheek. Then turns to him. JANE Right back at you. Several beats. TOM I don't remember saying anything like that -- exactly...I don't know why I just did. JANE (immediately at work) Oh let's see -- wait a minute, well, I can think of two reasons. TOM What? JANE Three...I just thought of a third... If you talk about it, you don't have to do it. TOM That's not it. JANE Good...Another is you're trying to make it all about sex and heat and nothing else. She looks at him -- he's thinking. JANE Or it's that great feeling that you don't want to hold anything back. You know, intimacy. She elbows him. Tom takes in the choices -- then: JANE (suddenly) Oh, shit. I'm a creep. She moves off the concrete wall. JANE I forgot all about Aaron. I promised to stop by and see how he did. TOM I'd like to know. I'll go along. JANE No. I'll see you at your apartment as soon as I can. She starts to flurry with activity -- moves to the curb when out of nowhere Tom barks a sharp command, the first time any of his actions has been tinged with fury. TOM JANE! Thrown, she stops and turns. He walks to her. JANE What happened? TOM Don't run off -- like everything's settled the minute you make up your mind. JANE He might be weird -- he can talk more freely if I go alone -- why's that so hard to understand? TOM It's not that it's hard. I just want you to give me a minute to catch up. JANE Okay. (she hugs him) Sorry. (another beat) Don't yell at me like that again, you scared the life out of me. EXT. AARON'S HOUSE - NIGHT As Jane exits a cab and moves up the steps. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - HALLWAY - NIGHT It is at the top of a flight of steps. She KNOCKS on the DOOR. RINGS. KNOCKS. Aaron opens it. He is wearing a sweatshirt and cords. AARON I was in the shower. She enters. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - NIGHT JANE How'd it go? AARON You didn't see it or speak to anybody? JANE No. AARON Then it went well. JANE Did it really go well? AARON Define your terms. JANE Do you feel good about it? AARON No. JANE Do others feel that you did well? AARON No. JANE Then what was good about it? AARON I lost six pounds... JANE Aaron, will you tell me? AARON It was great...writing my little first rate copy, sitting on my jacket, punching my one thought. But I had this historic attack of flop sweat so they'll never let me another again. Oh, I lost one of your shoulder pads -- how was your evening anyway? JANE What do you mean, flop sweat? -- you're making too much out of it...I'll bet you were the only one aware of it... AARON People phoned in. JANE Stop kidding. I want to know what happened. AARON I'm not kidding. JANE There were complaining phone calls because you were sweating? AARON No, nice ones worried that I was having a heart attack. JANE If all that happened, how come you're so chipper? AARON I don't know. At a certain point it was so off the chart bad -- it got funny. My central nervous system was telling me something. Jane -- sweat running down my face -- makeup falling into my eyes -- people turning this fusillade of blow dryers on me -- all so I could read introductions to other people who were covering stories which is what I like to do anyway. And I'm chipper because you finally showed up. I thought I'd cook for us. Tequila and eggs sound good? JANE I have to be somewhere. He looks at a clock reading 1:15 in the morning. JANE I told what's his name -- Tom -- that I'd meet him. AARON Call him -- I mean it can wait, right? JANE (now the plunge) I don't know. I may be in love with him. AARON (as if he just burned his hand) No!!!!! She starts for the door. AARON Don't go. JANE This is important to me. AARON Yeah. Well...I think it is important for you too. Sit down. She sits. He walks to a desk and looks at her briefly... Silence. JANE What? AARON (looking at her) Let me think a second. It's tough. A remarkably long silence -- her mind wanders, she takes stock... it is evident that he is straining to get it right, reaching into himself. AARON Aaach...Jane... (glancing at note) Let's take the part that has nothing to do with me. Let's let me be your most trusted friend, the one that gets to say awful things to you. You know? JANE (testy and wary but fair) Yes, I guess. Yes. AARON You can't end up with Tom because it goes totally against everything you're about. JANE Yeah -- being a basket case. AARON I know you care about him. I've never seen you like this about anyone, so please don't take it wrong when I tell you that I believe that Tom, while a very nice guy, is the Devil. JANE (quickly) This isn't friendship. AARON What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing...he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. (seeing he's not reaching her) And he'll get all the great women. She is getting pissed. JANE I think you're the Devil. AARON No. You know that I'm not. JANE How? AARON Because we have the kind of relationship where if I were the Devil, you'd be the only one I told. She's briefly impressed. He has a point. JANE You were quick enough to get Tom's help when... AARON Yes, yes. I know. Right. And if it had gone well for me tonight, maybe I'd be keeping quiet about all this...I grant you everything but give me this...he does personify everything you've been fighting against...And I'm in love with you. (realizing) How do you like that? -- I buried the lead. He pauses to catch his breath -- breathing deeply through his nose. AARON (an aside) I've got to not say that aloud; it takes too much out of me. JANE (thawing) Sit down, stop. Aaron slumps down -- it's been a long round. AARON I've never fought for anyone before. Does anybody win one of these things? INT. TOM'S APARTMENT - NIGHT A CAR DOOR SLAMS in the street below -- he goes towards the window which is blocked by his sofa -- puts his knees in and looks out. TOM'S P.O.V. A woman walking from a car. ON TOM Momentarily thinking it's Jane. Elated. TOM'S P.O.V. It is not Jane. The PHONE RINGS. INTERCUT: BACK TO SCENE As he answers and we have the following conversation between Jane, who is using the phone, with Aaron seen just a few feet away. Tom in his apartment. JANE Hi. It's me. TOM Where are you? JANE I can't get away just yet. I'm at Aaron's. TOM Well, when? JANE I'm not sure. It seems like he had sort of a mishap on the news. TOM I know. I taped it. JANE It wasn't as bad as he think, was it? -- it wasn't unprecedented or anything? TOM Not if you count 'Singing in the Rain.' Do him a favor and don't treat it like a tragedy. You want me to talk to him? Her eyes meet Aaron's. JANE Uh-uh. (to Aaron) He says you could hardly notice it. Aaron beckons for the phone. Jane hands it to him, as she does so: JANE Don't say anything about anything. AARON Hi. Will I ever sing again? TOM Everybody has one like that. I thought it was great when you started to laugh at the end. AARON Yeah -- well, I'm sorry I'm tying up Jane, I didn't realize you two would be going this late. Sorry. TOM No. Don't worry about it. AARON I'll put her on. She takes the phone. JANE Hi, again. Sorry about... TOM No. That sounds more important. Let's forget about tonight. JANE I don't know if that's absolutely necessary. TOM I've got my father coming through tomorrow anyway. I should get some sleep. JANE (hampered by Aaron's presence) Uh-huh. TOM I'll see you at the office. Good night. Several beats of silence. Finally: TOM (finally) Hello? JANE Yes. TOM Okay. Good night. JANE (aghast) Good night??! TOM Jane, I'm not some chore you have to finish so you can stay on schedule. JANE Okay, great, Grunick -- Easy shots now -- huh? Good night. She puts the phone down. A beat -- she looks stricken. Aaron looks at her. JANE He just cancelled. He had a chance to think and he cancelled. She bows her head. JANE I can't breathe. (aghast) Over a guy?!? (then) But I can't -- I can't breathe. Damn it! She gulps a breath. Her hands on her knees, leaning over -- another deep breath. Aaron takes in the specter. AARON Well, Jane, it was nice of you to drop by. INT. JANE'S APARTMENT - NIGHT As she enters -- goes immediately to the phone. ON PHONE... Cradled in an answering machine -- indexes for sixteen one-button calls, mostly people from work -- "Parents" etc. Jane plays her answering tape. It is silent -- no messages... She fast forwards to double-check. Just the SOUND of blank tape. She pushes the button next to the "Tom Grunick." We HEAR a busy signal. ON JANE She hangs up the phone. Then compulsively hits the "Tom" button again. Busy. And again. Busy. She considers for a moment hitting the button next to Aaron's name. JANE (stopping herself) Be fair. She presses the button next to Tom's name. Busy. And again. Busy. EXT. ERNIE MERRIMAN'S HOUSE - MONDAY MORNING As he picks up for newspapers dotting his lawn and opens the door of his car -- just as his wife calls from the door. WIFE Ernie, they're calling from work. ERNIE Tell me I'm on the way in. WIFE It's Paul. Ernie, just a bit concerned, walks back to his house -- the four newspapers thick enough to be an awkward carry. INT. ERNIE'S HOUSE A phone in the immaculate living room. ERNIE (into phone) Hello. Yes... He holds the phone down at his side for a beat, composing himself in the face of a sudden and horrible turn of events. ERNIE Would there be any point to my going to New York and talking to them? Would there be any point in going over it with you? No, I'm still coming in. He hangs up. WIFE What? ERNIE They fired me. She takes his hand and kisses it -- then hugs him. WIFE (weeping) How horrible. We'll be fine. You'll be fine. Stay here with me -- we'll go for a drive, have some drinks, make happy plans. ERNIE No. They're firing even more people than they said. Some will want to talk. It could help. WIFE (timidly) I could use somebody to talk to on a day like this. (on his reaction) Sorry. Go ahead. He kisses her sad face. ERNIE Bye, sweetie. WIFE Okay, sweetie. He walks towards the door -- picks up his newspapers on the tray beneath the hall mirror and does a start. HIS P.O.V. In the mirror he SEES his wife making faces at him behind his back. He EXITS his home without comment. INT. EDITING ROOM - DAY Jane is sitting in her editing cubby -- it is past noon. She rises and stands in her doorway looking toward Tom's office -- the door is open, the room is empty. Blair ENTERS carrying an armload of tapes. She looks extraordinary. BLAIR I've got four hours of French demonstrations -- Jane waves it off. BLAIR Some of it they use water cannons. Jane takes the tape. JANE What are you dressed up for? Oh, that's right -- because the Evening News is here this week. BLAIR I spent a fortune on this. Blair EXITS... Jane pops the tape in, automatically making timing notes, then standing -- looking again towards Tom's door. JANE'S P.O.V. The door now closed. JANE She stops the tape -- summons herself. She walks towards Tom's office and opens the door. Tom is seated behind his desk. JANE (without passion) I kept trying to call you -- you never called me. Were you just diddling me? Is that it--? I'm great if I'm helping your career. (mimicking) But when I'm a woman for a second, I get immediately fucked around by you. She is obviously in pain but still alert enough to catch Tom's answer. INT. TOM'S OFFICE - DAY TOM Jane, this is my Dad. And, now OPENING the door a bit more -- Tom's father is REVEALED seated across from him. JANE (that quickly) Please forgive what I said. (to Tom) Sorry. As she retreats: TOM You just light up a room and leave, huh? She laughs nervously as she exits. TOM AND HIS DAD DAD You want my opinion? TOM The thing that's easy to miss about Jane is... DAD You want my opinion? And it's okay if you don't. Tom thinks a beat. TOM Yes, I would. DAD The way she just acted is not the way an affectionate person acts. Tom finds the comment off-the-wall enough to be thought provoking. INT. NEWSROOM - DAY Paul arriving with Bill Rorish. The first time we have seen the multi-millionaire anchorman in the flesh. He has the grace and dignity of a man who spends every waking moment working on grace and dignity, He and Paul are in the midst of an important conversation -- muted and ominous. BILL Just when do you start, telling people? PAUL Almost immediately. BILL I'd like to take everyone out after the show. PAUL Bill...This is hard on all of us and it's no time for compliments. But I think it's extraordinary of you to come down here for this. BILL If we're not here for each other during the tough time, we're not a news organization. Blair ENTERS scene. The smallest flicker of interest from Bill, but more than enough to justify her going into hock for the outfit. BLAIR Welcome back to Washington. BILL Thanks. A self-conscious look of greeting to Paul and she's gone. BILL I've forgotten. Was she on the list? Paul nods "yes." BILL This is a brutal layoff...And all because they couldn't program Wednesdays. PAUL (can't resist) You can make it a little less brutal by knocking a million dollars or so off your salary. AS Bill turns: PAUL Just a bad joke. I'm sorry. Awful. It's a miserable day and that was some kind of totally sick-joke defense mechanism which does not indicate any of my feelings -- not one -- but just shows the kind of stress this represents for all of us. Tom and his Father ENTER the scene from Tom's office. Bill walks to Tom. BILL Hi. It's about time. TOM Good to see you, Bill. AS they shake: INSERT A great handshake. ON MR. GRUNICK'S FACE touched, as he watches the networks' most prominent journalist greet his son. TOM This is my father. BILL Good to meet you, sir. ON TOM Equally touched as he watches the world's most prominent journalist greet his Dad, who turns goofy with excitement. MR. GRUNICK Good-bye, Tom. He puts a big hand on his son's cheek -- a farewell pat. Then whispers in his ear. MR. GRUNICK I'm going to go back home and tell all your old teachers. Tom watches his father walk off and moves immediately to Jane's editing room. INT. JANE'S EDITING ROOM - DAY AS Tom enters... JANE I feel terrible about what happened. What did he say? TOM He -- uh -- said he liked you because you looked like you had -- fire and honesty. JANE (enormously pleased) No. Did he really? TOM Yes. Then he said a really weird thing... JANE (so softly) What? TOM (he means this) That it would be a treat to make someone like you feel better... He gets like that sometimes. JANE That's so perfectly...It really makes me feel a little faint... (actually woozy) Whooo. Blair enters wildly into the scene. BLAIR They canned me. Well, my brother will feel great -- now he's not the only screw-up. JANE It's started. Bobbie sticks his head out of his office... BOBBIE Tom -- Paul wants to see you. AS Tom focuses and moves off: INT. NEWSROOM AND HALLWAYS - DAY Moving with Tom. Nervousness growing, confidence gone, he proceeds down the hallway. INT. ERNIE'S OUTER OFFICE - DAY SECRETARY He'll just be a minute. Tom sits down -- pats his tie in place... A beat and the door opens. Paul leads out Martin Klein. They shake hands. MARTIN KLEIN You know I'm just old enough to be flattered by the term, 'early retirement.' PAUL That's wonderful...what a lovely line. If there's anything I can do. They shake. MARTIN KLEIN (evenly) I certainly hope you die soon. A little smile to Tom and he's off. PAUL Tom. Tom enters the room. A nervous cough in evidence as he crosses to a seat. PAUL We're having a severe cutback, Tom -- 17 people in this bureau including technical personnel and we're going to reorganize at the same time. We're going to take you out of Washington for a while and assign you to London. INT. NEWSROOM - LATE AFTERNOON Aaron and Ernie are off to the side in the newsroom -- People are packing their belongings -- as secretaries cry and embrace -- from an office rumbles a shouted denunciation: ANONYMOUS VOICE No. I won't keep my voice down. Those sons-of-bitches...They are worse than accountants -- they are bad accountants. Tom enters scene. TOM Have you guys seen Jane? ERNIE She's in there becoming the first woman bureau chief we've had here. Tom takes this in. AARON What did they do with you? TOM They booted me out of Washington. AARON Impossible. There's no system that wouldn't value one of us. TOM Why? What did they do to you? ERNIE (pointing at Aaron) It's what he did. I'm proud of him. AARON They told me they'd keep me because they could plug me into any story and my salary was in line. ERNIE The cost-efficient reporter. AARON So I quit. A weeping woman bursts into their circle and sweeps Ernie away. Tom and Aaron stand there -- comrades at last -- victims of the same sword. TOM You packing up tonight? AARON Yes. And I'm sorry that they're sending you down for a while, but you'll make it back...Where they sending you? TOM London. AARON (incensed) London. That's a promotion! TOM (defensively) I don't think so. AARON It is. Yes -- that's where they had Rorish, for God's sake, before they made him anchor. I can't stand it -- they're grooming you for it all and you don't even know it. TOM Hold it down, okay? AARON Can I ask you something? You only had one crew on the date rape piece, right? He extends his hand. TOM Yes. You're not going to stick around for the farewell party? AARON No. I don't know how much fun it will be when Martin Klein and Ernie have to drop off their credentials with the security guard. Aaron looks at people packing their belongings in boxes -- a few pockets of conversation... Ernie reading some copy. AARON This story they won't cover. And if the network doesn't cover it -- it must not be important so why worry. TOM (eyeing him) I'm going to miss you -- you're a prick in a great way... Aaron taken by surprise -- laughs. TOM You know what I... AARON No, I liked the way it made me sound. Okay. Be good. So long. He exits. INT. TOM'S OFFICE - DAY AS he picks up a clean wastebasket and deposits his belongings. A scheduled book, clean shirt, two ties, cuff-links, a travel mirror, cassettes of his Washington reporting. His desk clear -- he writes on a clean piece of copy paper. He centers it on his desk. INSERT - PAPER "Good luck, you'll love the bureau chief... Previous Occupants." INT. NEWSROOM - DAY AS Tom enters from his office, a wake is slowly igniting. Tom moves along the edge of the room, carrying his wastebasket full of belongings, not really a part of the mournful festivities. TOM'S P.O.V. Jane across the room hugging one person after another. ON JANE AS she embraces an older secretary. OLDER SECRETARY You know what I always wanted to tell you -- that... JANE Shhh. This isn't the last time we'll see each other. It's not. A two-armed tight embrace of Martin Klein. JANE We'll get them back -- it's going to change. Blair is at hand as they embrace. BLAIR Except for socially, you're my role model. And now she sees Tom -- he mouths one word at her -- "London." She nods that she already knows and then lets her body sag a little. He gestures her towards her editing room, so they can rendezvous. INT. EDITING ROOM - DAY AS Tom enters and waits for Jane. When she enters he closes the door. JANE These people -- it's all so awful. It just hurts physically, doesn't it? Like something's wrong with your bones, like your organs are shifting inside your body. She looks at him expectantly. It's not what he's feeling. TOM Maybe I haven't been here long enough. (great) But, hey, congratulations on the promotion. JANE How can you say that to me? TOM Sorry. (a beat) I can't stand here feeing bad that I don't feel worse. This has happened at every station I ever worked for. Look, I think it's crazy for you to come in here tomorrow and start a new job. I have a week to get to my job. Let's get the hell away to some island fast and find out how we are together away from this. A beat -- Jane takes it in. JANE Well, I just think that' an extraordinary proposal. TOM That's yes? JANE That's more than 'yes' -- that's 'you bet.' They kiss. INT. AARON'S APARTMENT - NIGHT The phone rings. He answers. AARON Hello. INT. JANE'S OFFICE - NIGHT Jane -- still at the office -- it is quite late. JANE Bastard, sneak, quitter. AARON Speaking. JANE I just found out. You didn't say anything to me? You just resign? Will you meet me now? -- No, now! I'm going away tomorrow. Please. INT. SIDEWALK - RESTAURANT - NIGHT Across the street from the bureau's building. Aaron and Jane are having a beer. They are in mid-conversation. JANE Why not try it for a few weeks? AARON Stop. Ernie thought I was good too -- he couldn't help. My agent has a hot prospect -- the number two station in Portland. The general manager says he wants to be every bit as good as the networks. Personally, I think he should aim higher. JANE Tell me the God's honest truth -- are you leaving because of me? Because if you are... AARON Ernie told this story. How he used to write obits and when the people in town called him up with death notices, he cried. He was till that way when they promoted him out of obits. He says you're lucky if you can get out while you could still cry. (a beat) I should have quit this place three years ago. JANE You're just trying to say all great stuff so I'll feel even worse that you're not around. He laughs. AARON Let's go... JANE I just want to sit here longer, I mean the feeling is powerful -- why's that? AARON Maybe the best part of your life is over and you don't want to get up and start the bad part. Jane looks at him levelly. JANE You are now required to sit here with me. (a beat; then) Come on...be smart for a second -- what do you think will happen to us? AARON Okay, that's very easy. Five, six years from now I'll be in town to collect an award representing the surge in foreign coverage by local stations. JANE (smile, it's like old times) Yes. AARON I'll be walking with my wife and two children -- we'll bump into you on the street, my youngest son will say something and I'll tell him... (deliberately) ...it's not nice to make fun of single, fat ladies. JANE You won't be able to stay mad at me, right? AARON I hope so... (on her look he relents) No. I'm not really mad. (nodding head as if reciting a catechism) I'll miss you, we'll talk, we'll always be friends...we'll get hot for each other every few years at dinner and never act on it, okay? Jane smiles -- Aaron has grown suddenly angry. He rises, walks away, then turns. AARON Jane, you know how Tom had tears in the piece the other night? Ask yourself how we were able to see them when he only had one camera and that was pointing at the girl during the interview. (on her reaction) I'm fairly sure I was right to tell you. EXT. OFFICE - NIGHT We LOOK THROUGH THE WINDOW as Jane enters -- in a frenzy -- searching the stacks. INT. TAPE LIBRARY - NIGHT As she locates the cassette labelled "DATE-RAPE - 9/26 - EVENING NEWS - OUTTAKES." INT. TAPE CUBBY - NIGHT As she inserts the tape into the player. ANGLE ON JANE... AND MONITOR As she watches... this is what she sees... YOUNG WOMAN ...but the whole thing messed me up more than it should. She cries. We HEAR Tom. TOM'S VOICE Okay, that will do it. You okay? The tape is rocky now -- the Sound Woman and Cameraman continue to roll as they move towards their next shot -- at times the camera pointing towards the carpet -- but the sound continues. The crew chatting -- mentioning that the tape is still rolling. TOM That's enough. That's enough. YOUNG WOMAN I'm sorry. TOM Are you okay? YOUNG WOMAN Yes, I'm sorry. TOM Don't be silly. What are you sorry about? YOUNG WOMAN The way you were looking at me, I just went. Tom moves through the SHOT. TOM I just need you for another minute now, so we can shoot from behind towards me, and, um... YOUNG WOMAN Uh-huh. TOM ...that way we have someplace to go when we cut. And I just sit here, I nod my head and look nerdy. Young Woman chuckles. Jane chuckles. SOUNDWOMAN'S VOICE Tom TOM Yeah. SOUNDWOMAN'S VOICE It kills me we didn't have a second camera. It was so powerful seeing your reaction. TOM Really? YOUNG WOMAN'S VOICE Yes, it is. SOUND WOMAN'S VOICE For a second there, I thought you were gonna cry yourself. That would have been something. TOM (considering, then) Then give me a minute... JANE (fully realizing) You fucking... As Jane watches we SEE Tom work up the tears we saw in the Evening News piece -- as he does so: YOUNG WOMAN'S VOICE Oh, that's amazing. ON Jane's shocked reaction: EXT. BWI AIRPORT - DAY Jane's cab pulls up to the curb. She gets out -- she is carrying no luggage. She sees Tom who hurriedly walks up to her. Jane is fighting to maintain a calm. TOM Look who's the organized one. I've got everything. He briefly opens a paper gift shop bag he is holding and shows her he has bought them each a bathing suit. JANE I'm not going. He looks at her with anticipatory distaste evident on his face. TOM Why? JANE I saw the taped outtakes of the interview with the girl. I know you 'acted' your reaction after the interview. Tom half turns from her and moves back toward the bench. Jane close behind, stalking him. TOM I felt funny about it afterwards. It's verboten, huh? I thought since I did it for real the first time -- but I get you. That's not the reason you're not coming? JANE (raising her voice) Of course it's the reason. It's terrible what you did. TOM We disagree on how God-awful it was. Why don't you come with me and we can disagree and get a tan at the same time? JANE (livid) Jesus, if you're glib about this I'm going to lose it. I was up all night and... TOM (calmly) Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane... JANE It made me ill. You could get fired for things like that. TOM I got promoted for things like that. JANE Working up tears for a new piece cutaway...You totally crossed the line between... TOM It's hard not to cross it; they keep moving the little sucker, don't they? JANE (distaste) It just proves that the difference we have are... TOM This is a one-way argument. We've got six days; if you go and we fight and we hate it -- we'll come home. If you don't go? Well, that's a much bigger deal. I go to London right after that. So, it'd be very big deal if you stay here. The plane's boarding. You're good at deadline. Here's your ticket. JANE (taking ticket) It's amazing. You commit this incredible breach of ethics and you act as if I'm nitpicking. Try and get this. When you edited that... TOM (deliberately) I'm leaving now. Gate 43. He simply turns and walks away -- looking back once as Jane stands there mucked up by his sudden departure -- the lack of resolution to their confrontation is palpable. INT. TERMINAL - DAY On Tom moving past the metal detector. He too is frustrated -- pissed off at her. INT. OTHER TERMINAL AREA Jane moving quickly along towards the metal detectors. INT. METAL DETECTOR As Jane passes through and sets off the buzzer. She stands there -- the heel of her hand pressed to her brow trying to stem the tears. As others look on, she takes a huge key ring from her pocket -- deposits it in the box -- walks through without a buzzer and moves on. INT. BOARDING RAMP - DAY Tom waiting while in the b.g. "People Eater" busses ferry passengers to the plane. As one full "People Eater" pulls away and another empty one arrives. TICKET AGENT (to Tom) This is the last one. Others start to board. He sees Jane moving towards him. He walks to her, she gestures back towards the street. JANE That's not going to be the way we say good-bye. Even though I think what you did was rotten -- it's not all impersonal. You mean something to me. TOM (interrupting) You keep coming after me and looking down on me. It's starting to make me batty. She looks at him. TOM (cont'd) I can't help it that they like me. And I like that they like me. And I think there's a lot of this job that I do well. What do you think it takes to do this job -- the way they have it now? JANE I don't wan to discuss work. TOM Well, let's do a special report on that...I mean that's news. JANE I knew what you meant. TOM What I don't know, I can learn and what I know, nobody can teach. Excuse me for saying it about myself, but I think it's true. (old habit) What do you think? (catching himself) Never mind what you think. They look at each other. JANE You're lucky I came after you so you got that off your... TOM Yes, I am. Thanks. I mean it. JANE It's okay. TICKET AGENT Sir? The pressure begins to bend Jane's resolve. JANE So you have an extra bathing suit, huh? TOM (wary but hopeful) You want to come? JANE (totally open) It's just that one of the few things I'm not confused about is what I was saying downstairs, that... TOM (giving up -- sadly, finally) Then you should stay here. JANE (softly) It's better when you let me say it. He hugs her. Now that it's over, they can each openly care for each other. While in the embrace: TOM Take it easy. JANE Why did I have to do this to myself? Watch you take off. (then) Call me if you need anything. He kisses her lightly -- looking at her... Then heartfelt: TOM Oh, honey. He walks to the People Eater and gets on, still holding his paper bags of bathing suits. The bus pulls away. ON JANE Watching him go. JANE'S P.O.V. Tom standing at the front window of the bus -- framed very much as he is when on television. INT. AIRPORT TAXICAB - DAY Jane gets quickly into cab. CABBIE Good morning. JANE Good morning. (after collecting herself) Dupont Circle, please. The cab pulls away. JANE Don't take the beltway, because at this time of day there's gonna be a lot... (stops herself, then) ...Go any way you want. She sits back in the seat (containing herself) before finally and quietly adding what she knows to be true: JANE But New York Avenue's faster. FADE OUT: FADE IN: EXT. CONVENTION CENTER - DAY Much the same place where Jane and Tom first met. The words "SEVEN YEAS LATER" appears on the screen. A sign off to one side tells us it's the annual meeting of the Local Television Broadcasters... and that at 2 P.M. Tom Grunick will be speaking on "Responsibilities of Broadcast Journalism for the '90s." INT. AUDITORIUM - DAY Much the same audience, though two members of the audience may strike particular interest -- curly haired man seen from behind holding a similarly curly haired five-year-old. Tom is in mid-speech. TOM ... when they told me Bill had decided to retire and offered me the Evening News, I thought it was the same kind of joke we used to pull back at the station -- turning off somebody's prompter in the middle of a show. Some good-natured laughter. TOM (cont'd) And then when they heard my reaction -- they thought I was kidding. I told them I'd be their anchor but I didn't want to be the Managing Editor -- that there were people better qualified than I to control the content and if there weren't we were all in trouble. The audience really enjoys this: SAME SCENE -- SOME MINUTES LATER MOVING SHOT... The anchor teams -- leaning forward. They love this man, a humble specialist refusing the generalist trap. Imagine the feeling -- you see, on the top of the mountain, a man not unlike yourself. TOM And now to something more important... I'd like to introduce my bride. (gestures to a woman in the front row) Lila? A svelte, classic, warm beauty gets to her feet. ON CURLY HAIRED MAN AND BOY... Aaron and his son as Aaron cranes for a look at Mrs. Grunick. INT. AUDITORIUM - STAGE AREA - MOMENTS LATER Tom and Lila shaking hand. Aaron, his son in his arms, wait. ON TOM As he sees Aaron... he is clearly delighted. TOM Holy shit, Aaron. He claps him on the back... Aaron is as pleased as he is uncomfortable with the attention. TOM Lila -- this is Aaron Altman. LILA (high British accent) Oh, yes -- you're one of Tom's 50 or so role models. AARON Hi. TOM Well, this kid couldn't possibly belong to anyone else. What's your name? BOY Clifford... AARON (indicating Tom) Do you know who this is, Cliff? BOY The big joke? Tom looks at him -- Aaron gives his son a disciplinary nudge. AARON I'm just bringing him over to give Jane a look at him -- TOM I thought she'd be here. I'll go with you. AARON Okay. TOM (to Lila) I'll see you back at the hotel. LILA (cool) All right. He starts off. She pulls him back for an urgent communication. LILA Tom, the speech was magnificent. AARON Oh, I didn't say anything about your speech. TOM I appreciate it. INT. WALKWAY - DAY Tom, Aaron and the boy walking along. Tom plays with Cliff as they move. The boy is delighted. Jane is in a park -- a blanket spread out -- she is wearing shorts and a top -- she has some wine and a small picnic -- a toy for Clifford. She HEARS her name being called. ON JANE Shielding her eyes from the sun -- now making out Tom. As they reach her. JANE (to herself) Well, why not? (as they arrive) Hey, what is this? My life's rushing in front of my eyes. TOM A picnic? JANE I thought for ol' Cliff here -- Look at you? You're more adorable than your pictures. Look what I got for you. She hands him a toy. AARON What do you say, Cliff? The boy kisses Jane's hand. AARON He excels at gratitude. TOM (to Jane) Are you any closer to a decision? JANE I think so...They've been talking to me about being Tom's Managing Editor. AARON Really? JANE (to Tom) I'm going to take it. TOM What a great surprise. I didn't think we had a chance. I heard you wanted to stay in Washington. JANE Well, there's a guy, but he says he'll fly up a lot. TOM Well, we should talk. You going to have time for dinner? I'd like you to meet Lila. JANE I'm sorry because I was looking forward to that, but I' m going back in a few hours. TOM Okay...It's so good to see you. She gives him a quick kiss. He shakes hands with Aaron. TOM (to Aaron) It's nice to see you. AARON Congratulations on history's longest winning streak. TOM If you ever get restless in Portland, let me know. AARON Why? Tom shuffles uncomfortably. ON JANE Smiling, appreciating Aaron's attitude toward a blandishment of the powerful. TOM (to Jane as he leaves) Bye...boss. Tom walks away. He's a good twenty yards away when Aaron looks up to see his son running after Tom. AARON (calling) Hey! Cliff! Cliff! Tom now notices the boy, leans down and pats him. TOM (to Clifford) Go back to your daddy. The boy starts back. AARON Come on, Cliff. Come on. As Clifford runs back to his father, Aaron sits next to Jane. AARON (to Jane) So who's the guy? JANE Well, we met about three months ago. He works at the surgeon general office. He loves boating. So, he's been getting me into water skiing. Aaron laughs at the very notion of Jane finding water sports a lure. Jane deliberately moves past this moment. JANE I like it! So, doll, what about you lately? AARON Well -- my wife got this new job... He continues to talk. As the two former colleagues catch up, their ease returns, if not their intimacy, as the frame locks and the scene slowly recedes into a black b.g. and we... FADE OUT.
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